Have No Fear

   Travis wasn’t winded at all despite the abysmal failure of a night he had been a part of, aiding his father in a dingy, industrial part of town-- attempting a fairly daring drug bust of some big name pushers within the city. He knew exactly what would happen, and yet he wanted a different outcome anyway. Node was good at hiding his intentions, but wasn’t good enough to fool a ghost. His own damn dad set him up for failure, just to reap in the dough, not any better than the people he usually threw off to jail. Node played for both sides and Travis didn’t want any part of it, now that he knew.

And who knew how long Node had been pulling this shit! Travis scowled as he took two steps at a time, wanting an excuse to wear himself out on the way up to a rooftop, a lonely place where no one wanted to live nearby. At least the moonlight seemed to cut through the general smog of the area, Travis thought glumly. He should’ve brought his camera to get a quick shot of the vantage point, here.

His soft-soled boots barely left a sound normally, for work’s sake, but the gritty withered cement of the roof gave him more volume as he stepped to the ledge, overlooking the yellowed lights of work entrances and garages below, then far beyond the gravel roads in this work area, bushy trees, giving way to a gorgeous downtown city nightscape at the horizon. Somewhere in those bright dots was the apartment his dad let him crash at, the place they shared together after a grueling day of civilian work, then superhero work.

The last van full of lord-knows-what had already left the warehouse, leaving behind no trace. Even Node had zipped off, no other doppelgangers of himself staying behind to tie up loose ends in their usual fashion. Then again, this wasn’t a normal night. Travis remembered when he and his father would be thorough in their clean up, when Node would chastise him for not thinking of the cops that attempted (and failed) to run the city, that their job as superheroes were to make things easier for everyone, but mostly for those that dedicated their lives to servicing the people.

Travis sat down at the ledge, letting his legs kick idly at the nothingness below, and was half tempted to peel away his eye-mask then and there, give his skin some of that chilly air around him, make things worse than they were by having a good moody think all alone in the middle of nowhere while freezing to death.
His fingers hesitated along the rim of the roof, and decided to stay in place. Travis frowned at himself for thinking so pathetically. He wasn’t in dire straits by any means… Just disappointed in how quickly life could flip around, when things were already sort of low for a goofy, somewhat useless sidekick like him.

“Well, well, well,” a purr sounded out behind Travis. He turned so quickly his stomach flipped in response. Or maybe it was seeing the man that showed up.

“Yoto!”

Yoto put a gloved finger up to his lips, smirking like Travis had fallen into a trap. “No real names, Travis.”

Travis gave a half-hearted smile, then turned back to his vantage point, shoulders slumping. He forgot what had transpired earlier, just for a second. “Right.”

“That’s it?” Yoto’s long coat made a tempered crinkling sound as if his arms were out in a dramatic shrug, if Travis had to guess by sound. “You’re not gonna get up and ‘get me’? Where’s your fighting spirit?”

“It’s okay. It doesn’t really matter,” Travis said. “I never wanted to fight you anyway.”

Yoto didn’t even snort at that, something Travis would’ve normally bet on. Maybe he’d even say something like, you never wanted to fight me because I’d win, or whatever.
He approached, more silent than even Travis had been, and enveloped the kid in his coat, warmth overloading Travis’s senses, then the scent of Yoto, making him even warmer. His wan smile came back for it, and he watched Yoto kneel, then sit beside him through his peripherals.

Yoto nudged his boot against Travis’s, which got Travis to lean into Yoto’s side, just a bit. Yoto pulled out a pack of cigarettes from one of the many pockets in the jacket he just lent to Travis, tapping at the pack while he spoke. “What’s your problem? Looks like you just got done with a clear out.”

“No,” Travis said, both in response to Yoto’s gestural offer of a cigarette, then to his assumption. “No, we didn’t.”

“You sure about that? I saw your old man on the way here.”

Travis didn’t bother to glance back at Yoto this time. “He was part of the problem. We didn’t bust anything. We helped them, Yoto. I… I didn’t…”

Yoto’s firm grip came to Travis’s shoulder within the second he trailed off, holding steadfast, sturdier than anything Travis had felt from his dad when the going was getting tough.
Yoto was one of the bad guys, but he held so much conviction and passion that Travis could never resist it. It was one of the things that gave him pause when dealing with Yoto, like maybe he could be turned, if Travis really tried. But they were both low-ranking power holders, nothing like the leaders they worked for and with. It was any wonder they found each other, even if Yoto would deny every single bit of what they had being legitimate, and maybe even a bit pure.

“So your dad’s a piece of shit,” Yoto supposed, facing the twinkling city skyline instead of Travis. “That’s not your fault. Or your problem. You only got yourself out here.”

Travis gave Yoto a weary glance, and thought about saying the obvious, that Yoto was there for him, but decided against it. It wasn’t necessarily true, anyway. Just something Travis wanted. He nudged at Yoto’s boot in return for earlier, instead, and got a responding nudge once more.

“I came to find you ‘cause I thought you’d want a quickie. How about it?”

That got a laugh out of Travis, but his smile grew weary again. “Hah. N-not tonight, sorry.”

“Okay,” Yoto said with a teasing tone. His grip had gotten tighter, until he pulled Travis straight against his wide chest, his villainous suit rigid against Travis’s shoulder. 

He brought a soft-gloved hand up to Yoto’s chest, testing their embrace, as if he was debating whether or not to phase through the hold, unsure of whatever intention Yoto had. His heart fluttered over what could possibly happen in the span of the microsecond like this, like he’d never be ready despite getting what he wanted, in the end.

“You’ll still work with him, huh?” Yoto asked around his cigarette, still looking out, instead of down at Travis. “With your old man?”

Travis flexed his fingers, ready to phase through, then decided against it. He let Yoto awkwardly hold him tight and close. “Yeah. I will… Not like I have a choice, or whatever.”

“I think you do, Travis. I know you do. You’re just too much of a good guy to stop.”

“Mm,” Travis noncommittally responded, a little insulted at being seen so easily. He still let Yoto hold him, finally resting his head against Yoto’s collarbone, or where it would be if Yoto hadn’t been wearing his suit.

“That’s why I can’t get enough of you, baby-- I wanna fuck all that stuck up goodness out of you.”

Travis let out another soft laugh, nudging Yoto’s boot again. “Don’t you have work to do, or something? Jeez.”

Yoto flicked the almost-finished cigarette out past their hanging legs, then ruffled Travis’s immaculately-gelled hair. He didn’t feel the need to let Travis know he had helped the last van out of here, his work for the night done.