tw: talks of death, war
XVIII: Into Darkness, Part 3
Out of all the things that could bother him, what gets Oliver the most is the smell. He doesn't know why. He works in a hospital. Despite Bree's opinion of his and Kaz's qualification, he'd also seen and experienced the worst things this job has to offer.
He's been puked on, bled on, peed on. He hasn't had any patient die on him (thankfully), but at Horace's behest he and Kaz had visited a morgue briefly.
Death. He's smelled death too.
He guesses that's why the scent wafting about the abandoned church bothers him so: there's no certainty to it. He picks up the subtle but still obnoxious smell of mildew and mold; brief hints of aging religious relics; dying weed that had been lost in the forest growing inside.
It's dead and alive at the same time – and that makes him extremely confused and uncomfortable.
Beads of sweat roll down the side of his forehead and neck as he watches The Incapacitator light another candle. Wind does blow from time to time, but since its only way in is through the opening in the ceiling nearly fifty feet up, it doesn't bring him much relief.
He steals a glance at Chase. He's on the other end of the makeshift altar, at the foot, curled around it. Like him, his hands are bound.
Unlike him, though, they're bound behind him.
They've been there for nearly half an hour, and Chase hasn't woken up yet. He doesn't know if that's a good thing. "I have to see if he's okay," he ventures.
The Incapacitator pauses. He turns his whole body to look at him, spins to look at Chase. Then, he rotates back to the huddle of candles lining the ornate fence. "He's okay, don't worry."
"No, you don't understand. Chase, he's – he's not a hundred percent healed yet."
The Incapacitator says nothing, only takes a high tech wristwatch from his right boot and places it by the candles.
"You can keep me here, but we have to send him back to the Davenports," he pleads. "Leaving him here in this condition could get us all killed. His chip—"
"Are you afraid, Oliver?"
Oliver. The sound of his name stills him. Rarely any villain bothers to learn his or Kaz's names.
The Incapacitator turns to face him, a smile on his face. "Are you?" he asks again.
"A – afraid of what?"
"Dying," says he, the shadow of the candlelight dancing on the side of his face. "Are you afraid?"
It makes Oliver pause. Is this it for him? Is that why he's asking?
Seeing the fear on his face, The Incapacitator chuckles. "It's normal, you know. To be afraid. Especially since you're young. There are still so many things you haven't done."
"What about you?" Oliver musters the courage to ask as the villain gets up on his feet. He swallows. "Aren't you afraid?"
The Incapacitator crosses his arms and leans on the steel fence. "That's a good question," he notes.
But he doesn't say anymore.
Oliver takes that time to look around. He takes a cautious glance at Incapacitator before commenting, "So, you're not, like, planning on telling me your plans while we're waiting, are you?"
The Incapacitator laughs. He shakes his head. "What's the use? You don't really care. All you care about is getting him out of here and probably getting rescued yourself."
Oliver shifts, glancing at Chase. The superheroes were right: The Incapacitator is smart. He doesn't know what got in the bionics' head to think that they can do this on their own. "Does Leo know you're here?"
The grin on the villain's face easily shrinks into a smile. "Why would he?"
"I don't know. I just figured you might've told him."
The Incapacitator only stares, measuring what he knows. "He was just a hostage."
"He's also your son."
The smirk on his face remains there, leading Oliver to wonder how much self-control it takes him to pretend everything's still going according to plan. "Is that what he said?"
Oliver shakes his head. "The league found out, even before he was rescued."
The Incapacitator says nothing. He leans farther onto the steel fence, takes a really deep breath, and sighs. His eyes wander to the architecture that is the windows above.
A moment later, he clicks his tongue in dismay. "That's unfortunate."
It's a reach, the appeal coalescing in his head. But with the uncertainty hanging about him and Chase, he decides that it's worth the risk. "Leo's worried about you," he starts. "He's doing all he can to protect you. He told Tecton he didn't want you to get hurt."
The Incapacitator grins in silence for a long moment. Then, he chuckles. "Trainee or a doctor." He looks at Oliver, his eyes bright with victory. "My first guess was right. You are a doctor at Mighty Med."
The fear strikes Oliver like a sucker punch to the chest. He knew his name. He knows his profession. He's been watching me?
The villain looks at their surrounding with a bit of awe. "What do you think? I don't know what your stance is as far as religion, but what do you think? Of this place?"
Oliver hesitates at first, but when he sees him waiting for a response, he takes a reluctant assessment of the church one more time. Seeing the candles and the tall shadows it casts on the walls somehow makes it feel warmer in there. "It's absolutely trashed," he says.
"Well, you're not wrong. From what I read, this place used to attract a lot of people – parishioners, I think they called them. But then war came. Bullets flew, grenades flew, people died. People left."
Oliver imagines it all happening in this building. It makes sense, the abandonment and wreckage that speak in every corner. He wants to think that the death toll was minimal, that there weren't any families or children present when all that horror took place.
But he knows better. He'd seen pictures from both World Wars at school.
Death doesn't discriminate.
His skin crawls. People. Death. "What did you do to Bree and Adam?"
A smirk pulls at Incapacitator's lips.
It makes Oliver more uneasy the longer he maintains silence. "You can't hurt them. They're Leo's siblings!"
"Siblings? As far as I'm concerned, I only have one child."
"But they're important to him."
"He's not important to them," The Incapacitator says. He takes another deep breath. Unlike the one from earlier, though, this one betrays his exhaustion and sadness. "Leo – he's not like me. He doesn't like to see people for who they really are. He likes to think there's good in everyone."
"What's so wrong about that?"
"Everything. Because selfish people like to take advantage of people like that." He smiles. "You know, this church? It doesn't just tell the story of the people who used to go here. It also says something about humans in general, gifted or not."
"What do you mean?"
"Humans don't respect what's good. They like to think that they love good things, but they don't. They only love it if it suits them. If it makes them feel good. But when good becomes difficult to do?" He looks at Oliver in the eye. "They destroy it. Then they leave it behind, like this church, and they just find something else and call that good.
"So you see, kid, humans? Nearly all of us are villains. Most people just like to pretend they're not to make themselves feel better."
"You said Leo's not like you."
"Yeah. That's why I said most," The Incapacitator points out, smiling. "Leo's just like my mom. They're different. Good is difficult, but they try it anyway."
"Is - is there no more good left in you?" Oliver ventures, hopes.
The Incapacitator only chuckles. He looks at him, sizing his intentions again. "Why? Does it make you feel worse for Leo?" He shakes his head. "Don't. He's not the only one with a super villain parent here."
It confuses him, that declaration. His first instinct is to look at Chase. He only knows as much as the public knows. Even after they met, he didn't know much about the bionic trio and their family.
It's possible that Incapacitator meant him, but…
But he wasn't talking to Chase. Chase is passed out, miles away into something akin to oblivion. Plus, it didn't seem like Incapacitator hinted at him.
It sounded like he was talking about me, Oliver concludes. But how can that be possible? He rarely sees his father, and though he has his own opinion of him, he doesn't think that qualifies him for being a villain.
His mother…There's nothing much to her. He even kind of wishes she'd have her own friends, her own life apart from his.
Mr. Terror is a woman, he remembers hearing Leo.
That thought suddenly brings back the countless times his mother would leave the dinner table because of a 'phone call from the office,' as well as the notes he would find around the house where she would tell him that she left early or had to work overtime because of a due date.
It had seem so innocuous and normal then. But now...
No, he tells himself. It can't be. She can't be.
He doesn't notice the smile that grows on The Incapacitator's face. "I used to be like that, too, you know."
Oliver eyes him suspiciously. "Like what?"
"Believe that people will be good if I am good." He pushes off the fence and strolls towards him. "I was the firstborn of two kids, so I've always felt responsibility on my shoulders. When I discovered I had powers, gifts, my immediate thought is to use it for the good of all. I wanted to be a superhero."
He stops then grins bitterly. "Even when things were tough, even when people told me that I don't belong, I still thought that they will change their minds once they see how good I can be to them." He laughs. "But I guess that's what fairy tales and comic books have in common: they're both just works of fiction."
Oliver's heart squeezes in dread as The Incapacitator squats down to meet his eyes. "I see it in you," The Incapacitator tells him, his voice so quiet now that it seems as if they're the only two people in the world. "So much control. I bet, from the time you wake up to the time you go to sleep, you think about everything: what you did, what you'd do. 'How could I have done better?' 'How could I do better?'
"You feel like you should always be good, even when people tell you you're less than. You have to be good, because that's the only way people will continue to care about you."
Oliver blinks – a physical reaction to being hit somewhere deep.
"Everyone expects so much from you lately, don't they, Oliver? They want you to look after them, to not complain even when things have gotten so hard for you. They want you to clean up their messes, take the consequences of their actions. Smile even when you – when you feel like you're dying inside. They want you to be their superhero."
The Incapacitator smiles at him warmly, and for a moment Oliver thinks he's speaking to a father who understands the way he feels.
"But it's exhausting, isn't it? All these expectations. Doing so much for everyone, but somehow ending up feeling so lonely at the end of the day. You're young. All you want is to be a kid, just like everyone else."
Yeah, Oliver almost says, but the last of his self-control prevents him from saying it.
"Do you wonder, too? How it would be like to just let go?" The Incapacitator asks. "How it would feel like to just let everyone deal with their own problems? To tell them that you're done being their emotional punching bag? To tell them that you're done giving them what they never would give back to you? Do you ever wonder about that?"
Wonder? He's dreamed of doing it. On his darker days, he'd imagined telling Kaz how exhausting it can be to be his best friend. He cleans so much – so much – of his messes, and even afterwards the consequences always fall on his shoulders rather than his.
On his darker days he'd even thought about telling Alan off, to scream at him and tell him that his powers don't null the fact that no one has ever wanted to be his friend. Some days he got that close to telling him that he's a horrible person, and that Horace might be better off without him there at the hospital.
And on certain days of the year, when things are so bleak and hopeless and stifling, he'd thought of telling his mother that she needs to be a better mom. She relies so much on him that he's exhausted.
I know what Dad did was wrong, and I'm sorry, he's told her in his head so many times already, but suffocating me like this, expecting so much from me and holding so tightly onto me, is not going to make him love you again!
It scares Oliver, the realization that he holds that much anger and animosity against important people in his life. It scares him to realize he holds that much darkness.
Most of all, it terrifies him that The Incapacitator have brought it out with ease.
"You have," The Incapacitator says in realization. He smirks. "Then what are you waiting for?"
Oliver swallows. "What...What are you asking me to do?" he asks, following the villain with his eyes as he gets up.
The Incapacitator goes back to the row of candles then peers over at the wristwatch.
He smiles at what he sees.
He then walks back to the altar, removes one of the green attachments from his belt, and the sets it in between the two boys. "When the time comes," he tells Oliver, "you'll know what to do."
Immediately, a neon green dome encases the side where Chase lies.
Oliver's eyes widen. "Hey—"
"You'll be safe." The Incapacitator looks at Chase then smirks. "I'll be back for you." Then, he vanishes in a green cloud.
The Incapacitator's presence rings loud even after he's gone. His words and his questions replay over and over again until it fills the whole church: It's exhausting, isn't it? All these expectations? Do you wonder, too? How it's like to just let go?
So you see, kid, humans? Nearly all of us are villains.
Oliver looks at Chase, how helpless he is despite the credentials Bree bragged about. It kicks up some of the resentment he felt towards them earlier.
Then what are you waiting for?
Oliver shakes his head fervently, ridding his mind of that question. "Chase," he calls to the other teenager. "Chase, wake up. Wake up – we gotta get out of here."
Chase shifts slightly, in much discomfort. However, he doesn't wake up.
Oliver tries to wriggle his wrists out of their bind but fails. If they're going to get out, it's going to be up to him. So, he looks around for anything The Incapacitator may have accidentally left, something he can use to escape.
Which, he finds too soon, there's none. Only the watch, and the candles.
His brows furrow. The watch. It looks so expensive, so advanced. So familiar. He's seen it before, but where?
Then it comes to him: Adam was showing it to him and Kaz when they were on the island earlier. He gave a long and winded explanation of how he could keep it concealed under his suit.
From this distance, Oliver notices that it's shattered.
Chills crawl up his skin. They heard Bree screaming, more than likely plummeting down from great heights, then her voice got cut abruptly.
Chase is currently enveloped in a bubble that could very well have cut him off from getting air.
Now, Adam's shattered watch.
You'll be safe, The Incapacitator assured him.
For the first time, Oliver wonders how many people exactly won't be by the end of the night.
