[fic] origin; pete/patrick, g
title: Origin (1/2)
pairing: Pete Wentz/Patrick Stump (FOB)
rating: G
genre: lakesides & rooftops
summary: Pete Wentz has got the basics of superhero-dom down - he’s a master of day-saving, of keeping his real life and his hero life separate, and his powers are pretty much bad-ass. But there’s that one thing he’s missing, and that’s a decent origin, some sort of raison d’etre.
warnings: Pete is a superhero. tricksterquinn is to blame (happy latelatelate birthday!).
Pete Wentz has got the basics of superhero-dom down - he’s a master of day-saving, of keeping his real life and his hero life separate, and his powers are pretty much bad-ass. But there’s that one thing he’s missing, and that’s a decent origin, some sort of raison d’etre.
There’s media speculation about it, sure - there’s people who like to reinterpret Fall Out Boy, break it down to FOB and come out the other side with Fresh Off the Boat and claim he chose that name because of the initials, because he trained under some old mystic somewhere in the Orient, or maybe the Old Country. Which Old Country varies from reporter to reporter, from fan to fan; the funniest he ever heard was Amsterdam, because there’s just so many things wrong with that guess.
They figure he was abandoned as a child, left in the care of some wise monk and trained in the ways of heroism and zen calm. Where they get the zen thing from, Pete has no idea. He’s pretty much the anti-zen, most of the time. Some of their theories are almost funny.
Interviews would be so much easier if any of that was true.
When he saves the day, there’s almost invariably a news crew or twelve on the scene and underfoot, and as soon as he’s beaten the monster of the day or stopped the meteor or whatever they start hounding him with questions. They ask how he feels (sad and wrong) and where he thinks the next threat is (inside himself, maybe) and then the inevitable “so, how did you get your powers?”
His answers are never worth much - always either a resigned, “Oh, it’s not that interesting,” or a toothy grin and a “Hey, a guy’s got to have his secrets.” That doesn’t stop them from asking.
One time, one of them asks, “So, your name, Fall Out Boy - where exactly does that come from? Is it true that you were brought up on Bikini Atoll?”
“I - what? No, seriously, I just needed a name. It’s not a TV reference, either, by the way. It’s totally random.”
The reason he never tells them anything is, he doesn’t know.
What he does know - he hasn’t always had his powers. He didn’t learn them anywhere. There was, so far as he knows, no radioactive bug bite, no toxic waste, no extraterrestrial parents.
What he does know - he met Patrick before it happened. So maybe that’s got something to do with it. He met Patrick, Patrick his best friend (now), Patrick with the many hats and the shy smiles and the beautiful voice, and he knew - he’s not sure what he knew. Just that he knows, and that at the time it was a revelation.
What Pete does know, yeah, is when he figured out he had powers. Or at least, when he started to figure out. Kind of. More like when Patrick started to figure it out for him.
---
It was fall, the first time, and in a fit of neediness he’d called Patrick and dragged the kid out of school (faking a doctor’s appointment) to wander the shores of Lake Michigan. Neither of them had said much of anything, and Pete had walked along the line where lake met sand, toes splishing at the water’s shallow edge.
The tide was maybe going out, because after a while Pete’s feet weren’t hitting water anymore, but he was too lazy to change course. “You,” he said, turning to look at Patrick, “you’re going to be the one who takes us all into forever. Don’t worry, it’ll be easy. You just have to be you. Don’t worry about disappointing anybody.”
“Pete,” Patrick had said, “Pete, since when were you Jesus?”
“What?” Pete said, one eye going half closed as he frowned and tried to think, trying to remember what he’d just said. “I don’t, huh?”
“You,” Patrick said, and he’d gestured vaguely toward the ground. “Look.”
Pete looked. What he saw was: sand, water, his shadow. An inch of space between his feet and the ground. “Uhm?” He was in mid-stride when he realized just what that distance between him and the ground meant, and he lost his balance, pinwheeled his arms and ended up on his ass in the sand. “Waugh!”
“I - were you just floating?”
“No. I tripped. I, see, the ground’s uneven there, and the light’s weird, so it looked funny. The ground and the sky were communing a bit more than usual. Something like that. But I wasn’t. Because people don’t - yeah, no.”
“Oh,” Patrick said, and looked out away from the lake, to the west, and the sun was at a weird angle. “Oh, yeah. I don’t, you’re right.”
---
Another time, they were down at the lake again. It was the end of autumn, trees stripped near to bare, and this time they’d actually been talking, on and on about nothing until the sun had gone down and there was ice on the wind. Patrick had one of Pete’s hoodies on, and was snuggled into it against the cold.
Pete was - he’d broken up with a girl. She’d broken up with him. Something like that; nowadays he can’t remember, exactly, what the situation was. That’s not the important part; the important part is that he’d been feeling desperate and alone and, at some point, had decided that wading out waist-deep into the lake was a good idea.
“You know,” he’d said, “I don’t think I know everything anymore,” and just like that he’d pushed himself to his feet and walked out into the water. “And this lake, this city, they’re both so much bigger than me - and what does any of it matter, Patrick?” he’d said, and maybe he’d been drowned out by the sound of the water hitting the shore. Maybe not.
Way up above, the moon - bright and half-full and surrounded by stars - had a halo of ice and mist, and it spread its thin wet glow down across the lake.
Patrick hadn’t hesitated, had waded out after Pete and put his arms around him from behind and said, “Pete, come on. Don’t do this now. It’s cold. You’re, we’re gonna get hypothermia like this. I think I’m going to get frostbite. Come on.”
Pete hadn’t said anything, but he hadn’t put up a fight when Patrick dragged him back to shore.
“I’m serious, Pete, don’t even think about - I don’t know what you were thinking. But don’t. Please?” By then, Patrick’s teeth had started chattering and his pants were soaked and he was cold.
“I - sorry,” Pete had said, and he’d sat down and pulled Patrick with him. “But look, look, it’s so amazing. Where does the sky end? The lake just goes on into the stars.”
“Pete.”
“Okay, yeah.” Pete had taken Patrick’s hands in his, rubbed his fingers over Patrick’s knuckles. “Wow, you are cold.”
“Maybe because the water gets cold in the middle of winter some … times,” Patrick began, trailing off. “I, huh.”
Pete looked repentant, sort of; focused, definitely. And Patrick’s hands were warming up. All of him was, actually, and not in a fevered way. More in a sitting next to a space heater way, which, well, didn’t make sense. The sand was still cold under him, but his clothes were getting drier despite it all. “Huh.”
“Sorry,” Pete said again, still mostly just staring at their hands. “I didn’t, I don’t. You know.”
“Pete?” Pete didn’t answer, and Patrick said, “Pete? Stop it.” Patrick said, “I think, no. I don’t know.” Patrick pulled his hands away, looking down at them before brushing at his jeans.
“Sorry, I just,” Pete said. “I wasn’t, yeah, I wasn’t hitting on you or anything, you know. I just figured. I was trying to warm you up. Body heat. You know. Sorry. Please don’t - yeah, I’m so sorry, I’m not worth your time, am I, and I shouldn’t have dragged you out here and got you cold in the first place. I fucked up.”
“No.” Patrick said, “No, that’s not it at all, my pants are dry. Even though I was just in the lake like five minutes ago. They’re dry. And I’m - well, I’m getting cold again, but I wasn’t. Pete? That - does that make any sense?”
“What? Oh, you’re, I’m not groping you, just,” and Pete reached down to feel Patrick’s pants too. “Huh. They are dry. That’s weird. How - what?”
“I think you did it.”
“What?”
“You. Wanted me to be warm. And. Your hands. And then I was.”
“So? That’s not the way the world works. I wish it was, but it’s not. I can’t, I can’t, I’m never going to be enough. I’m sorry.”
“No, seriously, Pete? Shut up and listen.” Patrick took the chance to take Pete’s hands, this time, clasped them in his own. “Look. Look, think about it again, no, don’t worry about me. You’re shivering. Come on. See? You’re so warm.” He pressed the back of one hand against Pete’s forehead, just in case, then tangled their fingers together. “You’re not sick. You’re just - huh. I don’t know.”
“I didn’t. ‘Tricky,” and Pete sounded like a little kid just then, looked scared and a little lost. “This doesn’t make sense.”
“Does it have to?”
---
The band toured, and Pete managed to forget, and things were - well, not fine, exactly, because the tour meant stress and broken relationships, meant people Pete said he’d call who he didn’t recognize anymore after time spent away. Maybe there were a few times when Pete’s food had gone cold but wasn’t cold when he ate it, and maybe sometimes jumping to the stage was a bit too easy, but no one other than Patrick seemed to much notice.
The tour was a good enough distraction, but once it was over it had been nice to be home for a while, because home meant time to himself, time to think and write and try to make sense of life again.
Being home again also meant more time for Patrick. Being home again meant staying up into the late hours, just the two of them up on Pete’s roof, watching the stars and being alone together talking, meant occasionally feeling safe.
Patrick looked up at the sky, and Pete looked at Patrick. “You know,” Pete said, squinting and making faces, “no matter how I look at you, you’re awesome.”
“What?”
“Yeah, exactly.” Maybe, just maybe, one corner of Pete’s mouth curved up.
“You know what,” Patrick said, clamoring to his feet. “I trust you.”
“Okay, it’s my turn now - what?”
“You keep - there’s, you can do things, I think. Like - the only comparison I can make is to a superhero, but you know.”
“What are you talking about?”
Patrick shrugged and smiled, and took one two three steps back. He held out his hand, and the fourth step took him over the edge of the roof, and he said again - “I trust you.”
There was an instant where Pete was frozen, couldn’t move, then he lunged, made a grab for Patrick because damn it, if either one of them was allowed to die then it was Pete, because Patrick mattered too much for that.
Pete lunged. He was on his feet and in motion before he knew what was going on, grabbed at Patrick with both hands and lost his footing and tripped and they were going down, and in that moment all he could think was Patrick’s gonna die and it’s all my fault and he put more faith in me than I ever-ever-ever could deserve and if he dies I had better die too and --
And he had way too much time to think. More time than reaching the ground would entail. He had his arms around Patrick, and they weren’t either of them on the roof anymore and there wasn’t ground underfoot. They should have hit the ground six-seven-eight seconds ago, and the time just kept stretching on.
“Pete,” Patrick was saying, “Pete, Pete, look. Look.”
Pete opened his eyes (eleven-twelve-thirteen) and looked. What he saw was - his window. The edge of the roof. The ground, a good twenty feet below, and not getting any closer. “Holy shit,” he said, “holy shit,” and pulled Patrick tighter. “Wow. You’re not dead. Patrick? Did you notice that part where neither of us got dead? There’s a lack of injury here that is truly impressive for two guys who just fell off a roof. Walked off a roof. Whatever. What the fuck were you thinking?”
“I knew, is all,” Patrick said vaguely. That sound was like an anchor, something for Pete to focus on, something that made sense in a world where physics suddenly didn’t apply as well as it used to. “It made sense. I mean, before. I mean.”
“Patrick, don’t you ever walk off my roof again, or I swear to god I will, I don’t know, I’ll cut your arms off. I won’t kill you, because then you wouldn’t be able to sing anymore, but. But. What the fuck is going on?”
Patrick laughed, and Pete latched onto that sound too. “I wasn’t really sure, but I trust you. I mean, seriously, man, look! - you can fly. If that’s not awesome, I don’t know what is.” His words were muffled against the soft fabric of Pete’s hoodie, the two of them still clinging way too close, but Pete heard every sound. If he listened hard enough, he could hear the sound of boats on Lake Michigan, the city at night, and the sound (unsteady, too-fast but evening out) of Patrick’s heart.
“Stump, you shouldn’t just,” Pete began, then trailed off. Looked down again. “Dude, I can fucking fly. Holy shit.” Pete grinned, suddenly, the expression halfway genuine, and spun in a midair circle, still holding onto Patrick way too tight. “I don’t know how that makes sense, but I can fly! I defy physics. I am better than science.”
Patrick made a muffled little squeak when they spun, and Pete took that as a cue that maybe it was time to land.
“Sugar,” Pete said, deadpan and serious as he could manage, “we’re going down.”
“Oh my god,” Patrick laughed, and if he hadn’t still been holding on to Pete probably would have hit him. Pete bent his legs ever-so-slightly before they touched ground, and the grass was wet with early-early-early-morning dew under his feet. Socks had, when he’d crawled out to the rooftop, seemed like enough.
“I,” Pete said, “I really can, can’t I. What am I - dude, how is this possible? It’s not possible. Oh god.” Pete had been thinking of letting Patrick go, but decided he really, really needed the contact, and buried his head against Patrick’s shoulder, nuzzling at his neck. “Oh, oh man.”
“Pete, Pete, it’s alright, it’s alright. What are you - this is awesome. There is no way this is anything but awesome, do you hear me?”
“Haha, wow, wow, I just.” Pete let go of Patrick, finally, stumbled back a little. “Can I really,” he mumbled vaguely, standing on his tiptoes. He said, “oh, I can,” as he drifted skywards, just a few inches.
“Patrick Stump,” he said gravely, “You do not tell anyone. You understand? This is ours. This is yours.” He held out his hand, and Patrick shook it (took a little long to let go) and nodded, and that was that.
What Pete does know is, even though that’s when he figured out he had … superpowers, or whatever - it’s still not really an origin. It was one part realization, two parts revelation, mixed well and left to simmer for a couple of months where all he did was dork around and annoy Patrick with the flying thing, dragging the poor kid out late at night just to sightsee, because Chicago from above was awesome (and maybe he really liked the excuse to hold Patrick).
The thing with flying is, Pete doesn’t have super-strength or anything, so dragging Patrick along is more of a work-out than he likes to let on. The frequent stops, he likes to say those are for sight-seeing. If he maybe sometimes sort-of kisses Patrick when they land, well, he can’t be blamed for that.
If sometimes Patrick kisses back, well, it’s not like Pete’s going to tell anyone; it’s just another puzzle piece slotted neatly into place. Pete tries not to think too much about it, and when he does, he mostly manages to convince himself that that’s what friends do. Patrick’s lips are nice, Patrick is nice, so - so why not, that’s what Pete figures.
Springtime comes, though the air is still cool at night. The city is stretched out under them, cars painting ribbons of light across city streets. Patrick starts out saying, “Why don’t you ever,” and he trails off and doesn’t finish the thought until summer.
It’s still spring, still night, when Pete says “Why don’t I ever what? Fight crime? Man, that’s so cliché.”
“Yeah.” Patrick says, and he flops down on his stomach to look over the edge of the building. “Yeah, sure, that, why not.”
“I mean, I could totally do it, is what I’m saying.”
“You need a secret identity.”
“What, and be even more cliché? No, Patrick, you do not understand. I’ve gotta rock it old school.” Pete crouches down next to Patrick, and pulls his hat off. “Rock it old school.”
“What are you even - Pete, you’re gonna end up like Aquaman. He didn’t have a secret identity, and look how stupid he turned out. Give me my hat back.”
“I was thinking more Human Torch. I’ve got panache. Style.” Pete hops up on his tiptoes, floats just above the rooftop garden. “Uh-huh.”
“Aquaman,” Patrick says, and he clambers to his feet, manages to grab his hat back and pulls it down over his eyes, far enough that he can hardly see, and Pete laughs and picks him up again and the wind is enough that it nearly takes his hat off again anyway.
---
The first time Pete saves the day for real, he fights off a dinosaur. Mostly, the big lizard was wandering around, looking lost and out of place on the streets of Chicago. It caused a few traffic jams, and the news media loved it, but otherwise it wasn’t causing trouble.
Pete feels sort of sorry for it.
Then it eats a tourist, and that pretty much dries Pete’s well of sympathy for the thing. As it turns out, grilled dinosaur tastes pretty delicious. Probably Pete should have left the thing to science, but it had sort of freaked out after eating the tourist and started flailing around and damaging cars and shit, and that just wasn’t on, so he’d fried it from the inside out.
What really makes the incident, in Pete’s book, is the way that no one seems to care where the hell a dinosaur had come from, or what the thing had been doing in the Loop. Mostly they seem to care about the fact that he can fly, which he’s pretty sure isn’t as important as the sudden reappearance of a lizard that should’ve been dead 70 million years ago. Not that Pete’s one to talk, but their priorities seem pretty skewed.
After that, Pete sort of loses count. As it stands now, he’s taken care of at least six more dinosaurs - five of which went to science and one to a Fourth of July barbecue - and three giant robots, not to mention the day-to-day dealings with mad scientists and violent criminals. Not only is it absurd, it’s fucking nonsensical - giant robots don’t attack any other cities. Not unless Pete happens to be on vacation.
“Pete,” Patrick’s saying, leaning forward. His hand’s warm on Pete’s forearm. “Pete, you know,” Patrick’s saying, and his hat’s casting a shadow on his eyes, and his eyes are soft and gentle and god damn are his lips close, curved up in the ghost of a smile - and something blows up.
Something blows the fuck up not a block away, and Pete rolls his eyes. “God damn,” he says, sitting back. “This is so not the time. You think I can let it slide?”
“Er.” Patrick sighs, sounding resigned. “Nah, it’s a Monday. The police aren’t gonna be paying attention.”
“So what were you saying just now?” Pete says. He stands up, stretching a bit, rolling his shoulders. Most of the people in the little diner have left the building, either to run around flailing or to stare at whatever evil’s attacking the city this time. “Seriously.”
“Never mind.” Patrick says, “I’ll tell you later. Go save the day.”
Pete does as he’s told, and ends up with burnt fingertips - one of the big downsides of having to touch stuff to fry it, especially when said “stuff” is heat-conducting metal. He's going to have to come up with an excuse for the show they've got Friday night. After taking down the genocidal robot of the day, Pete’s stuck facing more reporters. He thinks about flying off, but there’s a crowd, and that seems like a cop-out. Plus, Patrick’s got to be around somewhere.
"Fall Out Boy!" one particularly eager young reporter calls out. She's from Channel 4, but Pete doesn't recognise her; must be new on the job. "Excuse me, excuse me, would you mind answering a few questions?"
“I don't feel like - you want to know how I got my powers?” Pete sighs and shakes his head, and the reporter nods her head eagerly.
There’s a police barricade set up, with a bit of a crowd gathered staring at him. He waves at a few little kids before noticing, hey, there’s Patrick, hands in pockets and hat pulled down, looking sullen. Pete grins at him, then turns back to the reporter. “You always ask this, every time. You wanna know? I don’t know. I have no idea, only right before I got ‘em I met someone amazing, this kid who totally makes it all worth it. That person is, you know, in a way is the source of it all, ‘coz he believes in me and I believe in him and it just works. Happy now?”
There's only four reporters on the scene today, but they're all trying to ask questions at once, talking over each other in hopes of getting the break on this story. Right now, Pete's tired, and he's given the reporters as much of an answer as he's going to give; what he's said should be enough for the next few weeks. Instead, he struts through the crowd like a diva, grabs Patrick, kisses the top of his head, and flies off.
He can deal with the media later. Right now, he just wants to hang out with Patrick.
( part two)
pairing: Pete Wentz/Patrick Stump (FOB)
rating: G
genre: lakesides & rooftops
summary: Pete Wentz has got the basics of superhero-dom down - he’s a master of day-saving, of keeping his real life and his hero life separate, and his powers are pretty much bad-ass. But there’s that one thing he’s missing, and that’s a decent origin, some sort of raison d’etre.
warnings: Pete is a superhero. tricksterquinn is to blame (happy latelatelate birthday!).
Pete Wentz has got the basics of superhero-dom down - he’s a master of day-saving, of keeping his real life and his hero life separate, and his powers are pretty much bad-ass. But there’s that one thing he’s missing, and that’s a decent origin, some sort of raison d’etre.
There’s media speculation about it, sure - there’s people who like to reinterpret Fall Out Boy, break it down to FOB and come out the other side with Fresh Off the Boat and claim he chose that name because of the initials, because he trained under some old mystic somewhere in the Orient, or maybe the Old Country. Which Old Country varies from reporter to reporter, from fan to fan; the funniest he ever heard was Amsterdam, because there’s just so many things wrong with that guess.
They figure he was abandoned as a child, left in the care of some wise monk and trained in the ways of heroism and zen calm. Where they get the zen thing from, Pete has no idea. He’s pretty much the anti-zen, most of the time. Some of their theories are almost funny.
Interviews would be so much easier if any of that was true.
When he saves the day, there’s almost invariably a news crew or twelve on the scene and underfoot, and as soon as he’s beaten the monster of the day or stopped the meteor or whatever they start hounding him with questions. They ask how he feels (sad and wrong) and where he thinks the next threat is (inside himself, maybe) and then the inevitable “so, how did you get your powers?”
His answers are never worth much - always either a resigned, “Oh, it’s not that interesting,” or a toothy grin and a “Hey, a guy’s got to have his secrets.” That doesn’t stop them from asking.
One time, one of them asks, “So, your name, Fall Out Boy - where exactly does that come from? Is it true that you were brought up on Bikini Atoll?”
“I - what? No, seriously, I just needed a name. It’s not a TV reference, either, by the way. It’s totally random.”
The reason he never tells them anything is, he doesn’t know.
What he does know - he hasn’t always had his powers. He didn’t learn them anywhere. There was, so far as he knows, no radioactive bug bite, no toxic waste, no extraterrestrial parents.
What he does know - he met Patrick before it happened. So maybe that’s got something to do with it. He met Patrick, Patrick his best friend (now), Patrick with the many hats and the shy smiles and the beautiful voice, and he knew - he’s not sure what he knew. Just that he knows, and that at the time it was a revelation.
What Pete does know, yeah, is when he figured out he had powers. Or at least, when he started to figure out. Kind of. More like when Patrick started to figure it out for him.
---
It was fall, the first time, and in a fit of neediness he’d called Patrick and dragged the kid out of school (faking a doctor’s appointment) to wander the shores of Lake Michigan. Neither of them had said much of anything, and Pete had walked along the line where lake met sand, toes splishing at the water’s shallow edge.
The tide was maybe going out, because after a while Pete’s feet weren’t hitting water anymore, but he was too lazy to change course. “You,” he said, turning to look at Patrick, “you’re going to be the one who takes us all into forever. Don’t worry, it’ll be easy. You just have to be you. Don’t worry about disappointing anybody.”
“Pete,” Patrick had said, “Pete, since when were you Jesus?”
“What?” Pete said, one eye going half closed as he frowned and tried to think, trying to remember what he’d just said. “I don’t, huh?”
“You,” Patrick said, and he’d gestured vaguely toward the ground. “Look.”
Pete looked. What he saw was: sand, water, his shadow. An inch of space between his feet and the ground. “Uhm?” He was in mid-stride when he realized just what that distance between him and the ground meant, and he lost his balance, pinwheeled his arms and ended up on his ass in the sand. “Waugh!”
“I - were you just floating?”
“No. I tripped. I, see, the ground’s uneven there, and the light’s weird, so it looked funny. The ground and the sky were communing a bit more than usual. Something like that. But I wasn’t. Because people don’t - yeah, no.”
“Oh,” Patrick said, and looked out away from the lake, to the west, and the sun was at a weird angle. “Oh, yeah. I don’t, you’re right.”
---
Another time, they were down at the lake again. It was the end of autumn, trees stripped near to bare, and this time they’d actually been talking, on and on about nothing until the sun had gone down and there was ice on the wind. Patrick had one of Pete’s hoodies on, and was snuggled into it against the cold.
Pete was - he’d broken up with a girl. She’d broken up with him. Something like that; nowadays he can’t remember, exactly, what the situation was. That’s not the important part; the important part is that he’d been feeling desperate and alone and, at some point, had decided that wading out waist-deep into the lake was a good idea.
“You know,” he’d said, “I don’t think I know everything anymore,” and just like that he’d pushed himself to his feet and walked out into the water. “And this lake, this city, they’re both so much bigger than me - and what does any of it matter, Patrick?” he’d said, and maybe he’d been drowned out by the sound of the water hitting the shore. Maybe not.
Way up above, the moon - bright and half-full and surrounded by stars - had a halo of ice and mist, and it spread its thin wet glow down across the lake.
Patrick hadn’t hesitated, had waded out after Pete and put his arms around him from behind and said, “Pete, come on. Don’t do this now. It’s cold. You’re, we’re gonna get hypothermia like this. I think I’m going to get frostbite. Come on.”
Pete hadn’t said anything, but he hadn’t put up a fight when Patrick dragged him back to shore.
“I’m serious, Pete, don’t even think about - I don’t know what you were thinking. But don’t. Please?” By then, Patrick’s teeth had started chattering and his pants were soaked and he was cold.
“I - sorry,” Pete had said, and he’d sat down and pulled Patrick with him. “But look, look, it’s so amazing. Where does the sky end? The lake just goes on into the stars.”
“Pete.”
“Okay, yeah.” Pete had taken Patrick’s hands in his, rubbed his fingers over Patrick’s knuckles. “Wow, you are cold.”
“Maybe because the water gets cold in the middle of winter some … times,” Patrick began, trailing off. “I, huh.”
Pete looked repentant, sort of; focused, definitely. And Patrick’s hands were warming up. All of him was, actually, and not in a fevered way. More in a sitting next to a space heater way, which, well, didn’t make sense. The sand was still cold under him, but his clothes were getting drier despite it all. “Huh.”
“Sorry,” Pete said again, still mostly just staring at their hands. “I didn’t, I don’t. You know.”
“Pete?” Pete didn’t answer, and Patrick said, “Pete? Stop it.” Patrick said, “I think, no. I don’t know.” Patrick pulled his hands away, looking down at them before brushing at his jeans.
“Sorry, I just,” Pete said. “I wasn’t, yeah, I wasn’t hitting on you or anything, you know. I just figured. I was trying to warm you up. Body heat. You know. Sorry. Please don’t - yeah, I’m so sorry, I’m not worth your time, am I, and I shouldn’t have dragged you out here and got you cold in the first place. I fucked up.”
“No.” Patrick said, “No, that’s not it at all, my pants are dry. Even though I was just in the lake like five minutes ago. They’re dry. And I’m - well, I’m getting cold again, but I wasn’t. Pete? That - does that make any sense?”
“What? Oh, you’re, I’m not groping you, just,” and Pete reached down to feel Patrick’s pants too. “Huh. They are dry. That’s weird. How - what?”
“I think you did it.”
“What?”
“You. Wanted me to be warm. And. Your hands. And then I was.”
“So? That’s not the way the world works. I wish it was, but it’s not. I can’t, I can’t, I’m never going to be enough. I’m sorry.”
“No, seriously, Pete? Shut up and listen.” Patrick took the chance to take Pete’s hands, this time, clasped them in his own. “Look. Look, think about it again, no, don’t worry about me. You’re shivering. Come on. See? You’re so warm.” He pressed the back of one hand against Pete’s forehead, just in case, then tangled their fingers together. “You’re not sick. You’re just - huh. I don’t know.”
“I didn’t. ‘Tricky,” and Pete sounded like a little kid just then, looked scared and a little lost. “This doesn’t make sense.”
“Does it have to?”
---
The band toured, and Pete managed to forget, and things were - well, not fine, exactly, because the tour meant stress and broken relationships, meant people Pete said he’d call who he didn’t recognize anymore after time spent away. Maybe there were a few times when Pete’s food had gone cold but wasn’t cold when he ate it, and maybe sometimes jumping to the stage was a bit too easy, but no one other than Patrick seemed to much notice.
The tour was a good enough distraction, but once it was over it had been nice to be home for a while, because home meant time to himself, time to think and write and try to make sense of life again.
Being home again also meant more time for Patrick. Being home again meant staying up into the late hours, just the two of them up on Pete’s roof, watching the stars and being alone together talking, meant occasionally feeling safe.
Patrick looked up at the sky, and Pete looked at Patrick. “You know,” Pete said, squinting and making faces, “no matter how I look at you, you’re awesome.”
“What?”
“Yeah, exactly.” Maybe, just maybe, one corner of Pete’s mouth curved up.
“You know what,” Patrick said, clamoring to his feet. “I trust you.”
“Okay, it’s my turn now - what?”
“You keep - there’s, you can do things, I think. Like - the only comparison I can make is to a superhero, but you know.”
“What are you talking about?”
Patrick shrugged and smiled, and took one two three steps back. He held out his hand, and the fourth step took him over the edge of the roof, and he said again - “I trust you.”
There was an instant where Pete was frozen, couldn’t move, then he lunged, made a grab for Patrick because damn it, if either one of them was allowed to die then it was Pete, because Patrick mattered too much for that.
Pete lunged. He was on his feet and in motion before he knew what was going on, grabbed at Patrick with both hands and lost his footing and tripped and they were going down, and in that moment all he could think was Patrick’s gonna die and it’s all my fault and he put more faith in me than I ever-ever-ever could deserve and if he dies I had better die too and --
And he had way too much time to think. More time than reaching the ground would entail. He had his arms around Patrick, and they weren’t either of them on the roof anymore and there wasn’t ground underfoot. They should have hit the ground six-seven-eight seconds ago, and the time just kept stretching on.
“Pete,” Patrick was saying, “Pete, Pete, look. Look.”
Pete opened his eyes (eleven-twelve-thirteen) and looked. What he saw was - his window. The edge of the roof. The ground, a good twenty feet below, and not getting any closer. “Holy shit,” he said, “holy shit,” and pulled Patrick tighter. “Wow. You’re not dead. Patrick? Did you notice that part where neither of us got dead? There’s a lack of injury here that is truly impressive for two guys who just fell off a roof. Walked off a roof. Whatever. What the fuck were you thinking?”
“I knew, is all,” Patrick said vaguely. That sound was like an anchor, something for Pete to focus on, something that made sense in a world where physics suddenly didn’t apply as well as it used to. “It made sense. I mean, before. I mean.”
“Patrick, don’t you ever walk off my roof again, or I swear to god I will, I don’t know, I’ll cut your arms off. I won’t kill you, because then you wouldn’t be able to sing anymore, but. But. What the fuck is going on?”
Patrick laughed, and Pete latched onto that sound too. “I wasn’t really sure, but I trust you. I mean, seriously, man, look! - you can fly. If that’s not awesome, I don’t know what is.” His words were muffled against the soft fabric of Pete’s hoodie, the two of them still clinging way too close, but Pete heard every sound. If he listened hard enough, he could hear the sound of boats on Lake Michigan, the city at night, and the sound (unsteady, too-fast but evening out) of Patrick’s heart.
“Stump, you shouldn’t just,” Pete began, then trailed off. Looked down again. “Dude, I can fucking fly. Holy shit.” Pete grinned, suddenly, the expression halfway genuine, and spun in a midair circle, still holding onto Patrick way too tight. “I don’t know how that makes sense, but I can fly! I defy physics. I am better than science.”
Patrick made a muffled little squeak when they spun, and Pete took that as a cue that maybe it was time to land.
“Sugar,” Pete said, deadpan and serious as he could manage, “we’re going down.”
“Oh my god,” Patrick laughed, and if he hadn’t still been holding on to Pete probably would have hit him. Pete bent his legs ever-so-slightly before they touched ground, and the grass was wet with early-early-early-morning dew under his feet. Socks had, when he’d crawled out to the rooftop, seemed like enough.
“I,” Pete said, “I really can, can’t I. What am I - dude, how is this possible? It’s not possible. Oh god.” Pete had been thinking of letting Patrick go, but decided he really, really needed the contact, and buried his head against Patrick’s shoulder, nuzzling at his neck. “Oh, oh man.”
“Pete, Pete, it’s alright, it’s alright. What are you - this is awesome. There is no way this is anything but awesome, do you hear me?”
“Haha, wow, wow, I just.” Pete let go of Patrick, finally, stumbled back a little. “Can I really,” he mumbled vaguely, standing on his tiptoes. He said, “oh, I can,” as he drifted skywards, just a few inches.
“Patrick Stump,” he said gravely, “You do not tell anyone. You understand? This is ours. This is yours.” He held out his hand, and Patrick shook it (took a little long to let go) and nodded, and that was that.
What Pete does know is, even though that’s when he figured out he had … superpowers, or whatever - it’s still not really an origin. It was one part realization, two parts revelation, mixed well and left to simmer for a couple of months where all he did was dork around and annoy Patrick with the flying thing, dragging the poor kid out late at night just to sightsee, because Chicago from above was awesome (and maybe he really liked the excuse to hold Patrick).
The thing with flying is, Pete doesn’t have super-strength or anything, so dragging Patrick along is more of a work-out than he likes to let on. The frequent stops, he likes to say those are for sight-seeing. If he maybe sometimes sort-of kisses Patrick when they land, well, he can’t be blamed for that.
If sometimes Patrick kisses back, well, it’s not like Pete’s going to tell anyone; it’s just another puzzle piece slotted neatly into place. Pete tries not to think too much about it, and when he does, he mostly manages to convince himself that that’s what friends do. Patrick’s lips are nice, Patrick is nice, so - so why not, that’s what Pete figures.
Springtime comes, though the air is still cool at night. The city is stretched out under them, cars painting ribbons of light across city streets. Patrick starts out saying, “Why don’t you ever,” and he trails off and doesn’t finish the thought until summer.
It’s still spring, still night, when Pete says “Why don’t I ever what? Fight crime? Man, that’s so cliché.”
“Yeah.” Patrick says, and he flops down on his stomach to look over the edge of the building. “Yeah, sure, that, why not.”
“I mean, I could totally do it, is what I’m saying.”
“You need a secret identity.”
“What, and be even more cliché? No, Patrick, you do not understand. I’ve gotta rock it old school.” Pete crouches down next to Patrick, and pulls his hat off. “Rock it old school.”
“What are you even - Pete, you’re gonna end up like Aquaman. He didn’t have a secret identity, and look how stupid he turned out. Give me my hat back.”
“I was thinking more Human Torch. I’ve got panache. Style.” Pete hops up on his tiptoes, floats just above the rooftop garden. “Uh-huh.”
“Aquaman,” Patrick says, and he clambers to his feet, manages to grab his hat back and pulls it down over his eyes, far enough that he can hardly see, and Pete laughs and picks him up again and the wind is enough that it nearly takes his hat off again anyway.
---
The first time Pete saves the day for real, he fights off a dinosaur. Mostly, the big lizard was wandering around, looking lost and out of place on the streets of Chicago. It caused a few traffic jams, and the news media loved it, but otherwise it wasn’t causing trouble.
Pete feels sort of sorry for it.
Then it eats a tourist, and that pretty much dries Pete’s well of sympathy for the thing. As it turns out, grilled dinosaur tastes pretty delicious. Probably Pete should have left the thing to science, but it had sort of freaked out after eating the tourist and started flailing around and damaging cars and shit, and that just wasn’t on, so he’d fried it from the inside out.
What really makes the incident, in Pete’s book, is the way that no one seems to care where the hell a dinosaur had come from, or what the thing had been doing in the Loop. Mostly they seem to care about the fact that he can fly, which he’s pretty sure isn’t as important as the sudden reappearance of a lizard that should’ve been dead 70 million years ago. Not that Pete’s one to talk, but their priorities seem pretty skewed.
After that, Pete sort of loses count. As it stands now, he’s taken care of at least six more dinosaurs - five of which went to science and one to a Fourth of July barbecue - and three giant robots, not to mention the day-to-day dealings with mad scientists and violent criminals. Not only is it absurd, it’s fucking nonsensical - giant robots don’t attack any other cities. Not unless Pete happens to be on vacation.
“Pete,” Patrick’s saying, leaning forward. His hand’s warm on Pete’s forearm. “Pete, you know,” Patrick’s saying, and his hat’s casting a shadow on his eyes, and his eyes are soft and gentle and god damn are his lips close, curved up in the ghost of a smile - and something blows up.
Something blows the fuck up not a block away, and Pete rolls his eyes. “God damn,” he says, sitting back. “This is so not the time. You think I can let it slide?”
“Er.” Patrick sighs, sounding resigned. “Nah, it’s a Monday. The police aren’t gonna be paying attention.”
“So what were you saying just now?” Pete says. He stands up, stretching a bit, rolling his shoulders. Most of the people in the little diner have left the building, either to run around flailing or to stare at whatever evil’s attacking the city this time. “Seriously.”
“Never mind.” Patrick says, “I’ll tell you later. Go save the day.”
Pete does as he’s told, and ends up with burnt fingertips - one of the big downsides of having to touch stuff to fry it, especially when said “stuff” is heat-conducting metal. He's going to have to come up with an excuse for the show they've got Friday night. After taking down the genocidal robot of the day, Pete’s stuck facing more reporters. He thinks about flying off, but there’s a crowd, and that seems like a cop-out. Plus, Patrick’s got to be around somewhere.
"Fall Out Boy!" one particularly eager young reporter calls out. She's from Channel 4, but Pete doesn't recognise her; must be new on the job. "Excuse me, excuse me, would you mind answering a few questions?"
“I don't feel like - you want to know how I got my powers?” Pete sighs and shakes his head, and the reporter nods her head eagerly.
There’s a police barricade set up, with a bit of a crowd gathered staring at him. He waves at a few little kids before noticing, hey, there’s Patrick, hands in pockets and hat pulled down, looking sullen. Pete grins at him, then turns back to the reporter. “You always ask this, every time. You wanna know? I don’t know. I have no idea, only right before I got ‘em I met someone amazing, this kid who totally makes it all worth it. That person is, you know, in a way is the source of it all, ‘coz he believes in me and I believe in him and it just works. Happy now?”
There's only four reporters on the scene today, but they're all trying to ask questions at once, talking over each other in hopes of getting the break on this story. Right now, Pete's tired, and he's given the reporters as much of an answer as he's going to give; what he's said should be enough for the next few weeks. Instead, he struts through the crowd like a diva, grabs Patrick, kisses the top of his head, and flies off.
He can deal with the media later. Right now, he just wants to hang out with Patrick.
( part two)