title: Making Peace
author: newtypeshadow
fandom: Sky High
notes: this is my interpretation of the Peace family, or at least, one of them. i wanted to write about how Warren could love a villain enough to silence an entire school; the kind of father who could inspire such loyalty. i almost didn't post this--i read another excellent story with a similar father already on ffnet (My Summer Vacation by SeraphStar -- you should all definitely hop over and read!) and wasn't sure of this fic's reception.
Mike Peace only wants a free world for his son. He wants his son to grow up in a place where he can go to whatever school he chooses and learn to use his powers at a special center after school. He wants not to lie on his son's applications and on his taxes. He wants to be able to buy superhero uniforms in the open and not to hide his identity. He wants freedom in the land of the free, not just for himself, but for the boy watching cartoons in the den, toys scattered around him, some with charred ears and some with burnt edges. Is that so much to ask?
He will only have to remove a few key people. He can make it look accidental—he used to be military. He never went to Sky High, he went to West Point and learned to torch on his own. A few little fires and it will all be over. No one will be the wiser, and the anti-Super dissenters in congress will be dead and silent.
Now if only he didn't feel so damned guilty.
"Dinner's ready!" his wife calls. It smells like mac-and-cheese, Warren's favorite of the month. Mike's stomach wars with the thought of the cheesy dinner yet again, but seeing his son shoot up and into the kitchen, leaving the TV on in his excitement, is enough to carry him to the dinner table—after turning off the TV, of course—with a smile on his face.
This is his family and he loves them more than anything. He is willing to die for them, so how different could taking lives for them be?
The body is charred, smoking. It smells of burned cloth and cooked meat. Mike Peace, dressed as his superhero alter ego, Baron Battle, is ashamed that the smell makes his mouth water.
It is enough to bring bile to the back of his throat and that morning's breakfast roiling to the surface. He throws up in the fireplace and torches it just in case the blaze he will make of the house doesn't eliminate it. The governor lies on the floor, pieces of his body becoming ash and falling to the plush Oriental rug even as the vomit burns in the fireplace. Mike Peace takes a deep breath, pulls his hair out of his face, and adjusts his black eye mask. "I look like Zorro in this outfit," he remembers telling his wife. She pulled on his black shirt and said it looked sexy. He never went on rounds that night, he recalls, but it was worth it. He's just glad she let him stop using the cape, fireproof though it was.
Mike straightens and takes a deep breath. When bile threatens to choke him, he holds his breath and swallows it back down. It burns, but at least he doesn't throw up. He hasn't thrown up since before Warren was born. It is embarrassing—like he's a rookie again. Mike closes his eyes a moment, blocking out the smell of meat and burnt leather shoes and rug and vomit. He blocks out the sound of the grandfather clock in the lavish front hall and the barking dogs outside. He blocks out everything but his hero persona. Finally, when he opens his eyes, he is Baron Battle.
He torches the mansion. He doesn't stick around to find out if it burns completely, but he does make sure the security video room is nothing but a mass of plastic and glass.
When he gets home he hurriedly takes a shower, changes into clean clothes, and stuffs his dirty uniform into the wash with the rest of his laundry. He's the one who does laundry anyway, so it won't seem out of place. When his wife and son arrive home, he has dinner ready, the laundry done, and his next article for the Supers newspaper he co-edits written and e-mailed to the office.
That night they watch the news in bed. When the story of the governor's death comes on, his wife's jaw goes slack. "They'll think we did it," she says when Mike asks her what is wrong.
"We? What, us?" She gives him an exasperated look, and his rapidly beating heart slowly leaves his throat. "Supers?" he asks. She nods. "Well, I'm glad he's dead." At her disappointed chide, he sighs and turns off the TV. She switches off the lamp on her side of the bed, and he his, and both settle into their pillows. "What I meant," he says into the darkness, "is that at least one dissenter is gone. He wanted to segregate Supers in schools."
"What do we do? We have Sky High—non-Supers aren't allowed in."
"What about that boy with the two hero parents? He went to Sky High. He was a freshman when we were seniors, remember?"
"Yes, he drives the bus now, I know who he is. But now that the governor's dead, people will blame Supers and support his ideas. He wasn't murdered, he was martyred."
Mike Peace pauses. Has he turned the governor into a martyr? Only time will tell. If there is no backlash though, he has to keep going. He'd decided—he will make the world a better place in the way only he can. His son will be able to go to college with non-Supers and not have to hide his powers. He won't be shunned or looked upon as an oddity. He'll be respected.
Is that too much to ask?
The second death is easier, and the third after that is easier still. He doesn't think of the families he is robbing of mothers, fathers. He doesn't kill children, and so doesn't feel he is hurting anyone but those with no redeeming value. He's only hurting people who would hurt his son without remorse. He is making the world safer for Warren.
After snapping the fourth neck and torching the first car (it smells of burned rubber and melting paint before it explodes), he arrives home in time to clean up and pick up Warren from elementary school. "We had a spelling test today," Warren says, head bobbing in the front seat to the kiddie music in the tape player. His black hair flops into his eyes. It's getting long, but Warren doesn't want it cut, he wants it long like his daddy's. It warms Mike Peace's heart.
"How did it go?" he asks.
His son kicks the red backpack at his feet. Flames adorn the sides, drawn on by Mrs. Peace with the skills she learned in Art School. "I spelled 'get' with an 'i'."
"Did you know in England g-i-t is a word?"
"What does it mean?" Warren's dark eyes are hopeful. He hates messing up. Mike hopes he doesn't become a perfectionist; he knows how hard that can be.
"It's a mean thing to call someone."
"Like 'stupid'?"
Mike frowns. "Something like that. It's a mean way of saying someone else is being mean."
"Oh." Warren chews on this and then forgets about it as his favorite song comes on. He sings in his young soprano and Mike Peace sings along with him. For a little while, at least, Mike forgets that his peaceful life is now bathed in blood and fire.
The Commander and Jetstream are sent out after the mysterious Torcher. That's what they're calling him on the news. He prefers his superhero name. He's doing the right thing, after all, and Torcher is so cliché.
"I'm really worried about Warren walking outside by himself," his wife tells him while they clean up the kitchen. That night's dinner was creamed chicken on rice, Warren's new favorite of the month. Mike wonders why it's not a Chinese dish this month, as it usually alternates.
"Why would you be worried?" He is drying the dishes. "It's not like this guy is killing kids. He's killing Super-dissenters." He grins at the strange wording and his wife nudges him with her hip.
"It's serious, Michael. This could really look bad for the Super community. People are starting to connect political agenda to the people killed."
"Yeah, and they think it's an anti-abortion arsonist."
"Whoever it is, we Supers know it's one of us, and there are only so many pyrokinetics. Sweetie, doesn't it bother you that it's probably a super with your powers that's committing these horrible crimes?"
He frowns, seeming to consider. In truth, he hadn't thought about how obviously he was eliminating people. He considers using a gun or simply snapping necks and not using fire, but then realizes he should stick to his…his M.O. Because he has a modus operandi now. He is a criminal.
He stops, towel going slack in his hand. He almost drops the plate. His wife looks at him with sympathy. "He's giving good men like you a bad name. Or she," she adds. "I don't know what this Torcher thinks he's proving, but he's doing more harm than good. Just give me five minutes with him—I'd straighten him out." The glass she is washing cracks; it is frozen. Mike Peace reaches for it and examines it for breaks. There is a jagged line in it when he warms it in his palm. He throws it in the trash.
That night his wife curls her arm around him and down. She is giggling softly. "Warren's been asleep for an hour—it's ok."
But he can't. He can't have sex with her when she hates him enough to spontaneously power up. She doesn't know she hates him, and that is the only reason her arm is around him now, her hand is cupping his sex. He takes that hand in his and presses it to his chest, his lips, his chest. "It's been a long day," he says, "let's just go to sleep."
The Commander punches him in the stomach and it's over. The senator is saved and so is the day. Baron Battle has been revealed to be the mysterious Torcher, and no one else will die.
His name is cast in shadow, shame. They won't let him see his son.
His wife won't see him at all for the first month he's in jail, but finally she comes in. Her eyes are red. She's been crying in her car, he knows. She always waits until she's in the car to cry. "Where's Warren?" he asks.
"He's with my mother," his wife replies. Her voice breaks and a tear slides down her cheek. She sniffles and withdraws a wrinkled tissue from her artsy brown and pink purse. Her eyes are on his blue prison uniform, on the cuffs around his wrist, on the collar around his neck that nullifies his powers.
He smiles hesitantly and she returns it. "I've missed you," she says softly.
"I've missed you too. Both of you."
She pushes a hand to the center of the table and he meets it with his own. He cups her hand in both of his. They sit silently this way until their five minutes are up.