Sanders Supers [Sanders Sides AU]

Sixteen

Roman

Chicago, Illinois

TW: mentions of death, minor swearing

His apartment was burning again. Flames surrounded Roman, choking him, burning his skin. Roman remembered this moment; the fear of being burned away by fire until there was nothing left of him except for some charred bones in the ash.

Roman remembered calling out for someone, anyone to help him. He remembered the soot staining his face and stinging his eyes, the tears cleaning rivers through the ash stuck on him.

Roman remembered the walls crumbling down around him, filling the already-dangerous room with more dust.

"Mom! Dad!" he had cried out. Roman watched his younger self try to run from the flames, but the fire always caught up to him.

Roman remembered that this was the start of his superhero journey. He also remembered that this was what caused his best friend to abandon and turn on him. They were jealous of Roman, of how he got so much fame from being a superhero. He knew they were never coming back. They changed so much that Roman didn't even recognize them anymore. Roman tried to forget that it was still the best friend he grew up together.

"It must hurt to lose a friend you've had so long." A voice in Roman's head said, although Roman was not sure if it was his own head saying that.

"You might know me by now. The others have described me to you, Phoenix. Or should I say Roman Valent?" Deceit chuckled.

"How do you know all of this information?" Roman asked Deceit.

Deceit laughed and said, "We were expecting you, Roman. Well, one of us at least. And spoiler alert: it's not me." Deceit smirked.

"Look, I barely even know you. I didn't do anything to you. Why are you coming for me then?" Roman said.

"You are working with Thomas to capture me, right?" Deceit questioned Roman.

"Who is 'we'?" Roman said, changing the subject.

"Your friend Patton is waiting for you and your crew to rescue him. I must say, he has a very good endurance and pain tolerance." Deceit answered. Roman's eyes widened and he tried to escape the illusion he was trapped in. He tried pinching, forcing his eyes to open and keep reiterating that this wasn't real.

He felt a slap to the face, reality hitting him. He jolted up and his head collided with Virgil's.

"Oh I'm sorry about that." Roman said while rubbing his forehead. Virgil just nodded while rubbing his own head.

"Roman, start a fire. We need light, and Patton isn't sa-." Logan was interrupted by Virgil.

"We know. Logan, Thomas and Valerie are working on it." Virgil interrupted him. They sat in silence, trying to formulate a plan, the room light by only Roman's small flame the size of a candle.

"Hey, you don't have to answer this, but what did you see in your illusions?" Roman asked Virgil.

Virgil was quiet before he responded.

"Well, it started off with me floating in a galaxy. After I found out that it wasn't real, he changed the setting to my therapist's office. He pretended to be my therapist, trying to get answers from me. When I said that I wasn't scared of him, he..." Virgil stopped, struggling to find the words to describe it. Roman waited patiently for Virgil's response.

"He showed me the day it happened." Virgil sighed.

"The day what happened?" Roman asked.

"The day...I discovered my powers." Virgil said.

"Well that's not so bad, right?" Roman responded.

"I killed people, Roman! I tried to save them, but I couldn't! I destroyed the dam! And Deceit was the young me. He said that I was the one who caused it..." Virgil trailed off.

Roman felt bad. He wanted to say something to Virgil to make him feel better, but what could he possibly do to make Virgil feel better? He couldn't change what happened.

Instead, Roman put one hand on Virgil's back. It wasn't much, but the least Roman could do was comfort Virgil. Virgil understood everything that Roman wanted to say through that one gesture.

"What was your illusion?" Virgil asked.

"Let's just say that it wasn't as bad as yours." Roman smiled weakly. Virgil nodded for him to continue.

"I was a little kid again. I saw my mom and dad in the lab that they used to work in. It was messy, but it was like a second home to us. But when I saw what day it was, Deceit transported me to the moment my powers activated. I burned down a whole apartment building and my parents were safe, but I was still stuck. When I got out, my mom explained that when she was pregnant with me, she was experimenting with alien tech and my powers were conveniently activated on that day. He showed me how I rose to fame by being a superhero. But he also showed some stuff I wanted to forget." Roman said.

"Oh, I'm sorry." Virgil mumbled. He wasn't used to comforting others but, like Roman, he couldn't change what happened. "You can't change the past," Virgil began. "But you can forget it."

Roman looked up at Virgil and smiled.

"Yeah, I guess so." Roman responded.

"But what do we do now? How do we find Patton? And most importantly, how do we make sure we're not in an illusion right now?" Valerie asked. She made a good point. How did Virgil know that he wasn't in something like The Matrix right now?

"That's a great question. The only thing we know is that pain usually gets you out of it." Thomas answered. "So, I guess anyone has permission to slap someone."

Virgil smirked and hit Roman.

"Hey! What was that for!?" Roman whined, rubbing his face where Vigil had hit him. It was already turning red, Virgil noticed with a laugh.

"I dunno. Just felt like it." Virgil shrugged. "You were being annoying earlier."

"Okay, okay. You have permission to slap someone only if they're in an illusion." Thomas sighed. "Now we need a plan to find Deceit and Patton."

"Hold on," Logan said. "Deceit kept saying 'we' in my illusion. Was that true for anyone else? This leads me to believe that he is not working alone."

"Yeah. He said there was someone who wanted to see me, and it wasn't him." Roman agreed.

"Alright. We know he's not working alone, and we know pain stops the illusion," Thomas stated. "That's two things we didn't know before, so we're making some progress."

"Yeah, but there's still a million things we don't know." Virgil commented. "Like, who's Deceit working with? What are their powers? And more importantly, who the hell are they!?"

"Well, that's the part we don't know, but intend to find out." Valerie added.

"We can't stall much longer. We have to find Patton and Deceit." Logan said, worried. Roman thought it was kind of cute how Logan was worried for him.

"Aww, you two are so cute!" Roman whispered to Logan, causing Logan's face to go red and him to mutter, "Shut up, Roman," to him.

"Come on, guys. Keep going. We need to find them." Thomas told them. "Roman, we need to keep it dark so he can't track us. Put out the fire, and don't use it unless absolutely necessary."

Roman did as told and put out the only light, leaving the group in pitch blackness, searching for Patton with no light to see him by.