Heroes Wear Capes

“But, when you spend every day with Captain Fantastic, he becomes a little less fantastic.”

~ April Watson

April Watson woke up with her arms hanging above her head, tied to the ceiling of a dark room. Oddly enough, this was a normal experience for her.

No, she was not a BDSM artist, nor was she a stunt woman. April was just a regular girl.

(Regular being a relative term.)

You see, April Watson was what you might call a damsel in distress. Not by choice, mind you, but by circumstance. If April had it her way, she’d be at home with no connection whatsoever to Kingdom City’s favorite hero, White Knight.

White Knight was the reason she was hanging to the ceiling of a dark room, and part of the reason why she couldn’t live a normal life. You see, super villains and superheroes didn’t really like each other that much. And, to get back at the hero for ever trying to arrest them, the villain usually tried to hurt someone close to the hero. It’s a common trope. And, for White Knight, that meant April.

She had been kidnapped, hogtied, thrown off of buildings, and poisoned more times than she could count. And she’d been saved, released, rescued, and recovered just as many times by White Knight.

At this point she was surprised that the media hadn’t gotten tired of her, or of White Knight always having to save her from some villain or another. She for one was sick of it, was no one else?

Being tied up for long periods of time hurt. April was pretty sure she still had rope burns from the last time Black Knight kidnapped her. At least that time he had the curtesy to tie her to a chair instead of hanging her from the ceiling above a shark tank.

Yeah, that was a new one.

April wondered for a moment if Black Knight had tried to install laser eyes into the sharks, like she’d seen in a movie once. He was already crazy, so she wouldn’t put it past him.

April let out a big sigh and Black Knight turned around from his stance in the front of the room. He grinned widely, but his scarred face made it look more like a grimace. “Miss Watson, how lovely to see that you’re awake.”

April knew this performance by heart. She blew a piece of her hair out of her face and gave him the most condescending look she could muster. “You might as well call me April, Black Knight.” She reasoned. “I mean – it’s not like we haven’t been in these kinds of positions before.”

He grinned wider and she flinched. He did really look horrifying when he did that.

“Aren’t you right, Miss Watson? We’ve had such fun together over the years, haven’t we?”

“Yes,” she deadpanned, “I’ve had such fun being tied to subway tracks and almost drowning in a tanks of water.”

He chuckled. “I believe you have, Miss Watson.”

Did April mention that he was a bit off of his rocker?

Black Knight was his super villain name, which was very fitting because White Knight and he were sworn enemies. Whenever she asked who came first, they both claimed it was themselves and that the other one was the copier of the name.

His real name was Anakin McPhail (kid you not), and he didn’t make it a public thing, for obvious reasons. His father was Lex McPhail, better known as Doctor Destruction, legendary nemesis to April’s father, Captain Fantastic.

Now, let her stop there, just in case you’re confused.

Yes, her dad is a super famous superhero.

Yes, she was just kidnapped by the son of her dad’s arch nemesis.

And, no, she did not have super powers.

(Like, just because her dad is the Captain Fantastic doesn’t mean she has to follow in his footsteps and be a crime fighting badass. April does just fine on her own, thank you very much.)

(And, by just fine she means currently hanging with her arms above her head over a shark tank.)

(Yeah, April lived a weird life.)

But, with a superhero dad, it’s probably surprising that villains didn’t kidnap her and hold her for ransom just for that fact. Though her dad is retired, mostly. He says he’s retired, but he still does publicity saves and magazine shoots and things. Things to show the public that he was still around, but nothing too crazy.

His main job is, or was, training White Knight. Her dad considered White Knight to be the perfect son that he never had, which was kind of frustrating since he got all of her father’s attention and he wasn’t even an actual kid of his.

“Tsk. You’re hero should be here by now, April.” Anakin noted, shaking his head.

April sighed as loudly as she possibly could. “Maybe Brandon’s busy with having a real life, Anakin.”

He turned faster than a dog who spotted someone touching his treat. “April, we’ve talked about this!” he whined.

She would’ve knocked her head against the wall if it was an option. “We’re literally alone right now. We all know each other’s real names and identities, so what’s the point of calling you Black Knight behind closed doors? No one is here to keep up appearances for.”

He scoffed. “You calling me by my real name is like, not right. It’s like calling Lady Gaga by Stefani, or calling Marilyn Monroe by Norma Jean. It just feels weird.”

April reeled back and narrowed her eyes at him. “Did you just compare yourself to Lady Gaga and Marilyn Monroe? Is there something you aren’t telling me, Anakin?”

It was his turn to be annoyed. “Very funny, April. Just you wait until White Knight shows up. I’ll beat him so bad that you won’t recognize him one bit. I’ll beat him into a pulp.”

“Just like every other time.” She mumbled under her breath.

You see, there’s a reason the McPhail family was both the most successful crime family and the least successful. For one, they literally have the word ‘fail’ in their name (if you count the ph as an f). And, they never managed to destroy their enemies in life. April’s father was still standing after years of fighting Doctor Destruction, and Black Knight always failed to seriously hurt anything other than White Knight’s pride. Not to mention that they had serious competition with the Rossi family. The McPhails were actual super villains, but the Rossis had corporate power with Rossi Corp.

It was normal for the two to banter like this whenever he kidnapped her. It might sound strange, but April had been put into so many death-defying situations that she’d become desensitized to them. Besides, living like her you tend not to make many real friends who don’t just like you because of the fame of basically being a superhero’s girlfriend. Anakin was a bit loopy in the head and a bit evil, but he was one of the closest things she could call a friend.

Anakin just about hated everyone in existence, except for April. He hated White Knight with all of his being, so April believed he thought he was sort of saving her from him every time he caught her. They both knew he was never really going to hurt her, seeing as he has had a sort of reverse Stockholm syndrome thing with April since the beginning. He was a bit obsessed at times.

“So,” April offered, “While we wait, how was your day, Anakin?”

He looked more than slightly peeved that she used his real name, but it was masked by the shock of being asked a considerate question. “Well, it was actually quite a good one. How about you?”

April sighed. “You know, until now it was going pretty great. I was almost done with my Psychology 101 paper when I blacked out and woke up here.”

“That’s good.” Anakin sounded genuinely happy for his victim. “Are you faring well in your other classes?”

She nodded, “Yeah, but math is still a bitch, like always.”

There was a crash and a boom as a part of the wall in front of them collapsed. Out walked White Knight from the dust and ashes circling the air, in all of his spandexed glory.

“You know, you could’ve used the door.” Anakin complained, gesturing towards the perfectly fine door next to the roughly human sized hole White Knight had created.

“Oh, sorry about that, Black Knight. Usually you don’t leave me a door to walk through. That was quit thoughtful,” White Knight apologized, casually side-stepping away from the chunks of plastered wall at his feet. “Besides, running in through the wall really helps to make me look more like a hero, don’t you think?” he added, looking in April’s direction.

She groaned. Of course Brandon Charleston would be more concerned with how much of a hero he looked like than how much of a hero he actually was.

“Don’t fear, my dear, April.” Brandon replied chivalrously to her voice of annoyance. “I will rescue you yet from the clutches of Black Knight.”

And, just like that, they fell into the same character roles they’d been playing since they were practically in diapers.

“White Knight,” Anakin started in a darker and deeper voice than he was using before, “I have captured your dear damsel. In ten minutes the gears holding her ropes in the air will break, causing her to drop into shark infested waters. To get to her, you have to get through me.”

April huffed at the dramatic show off. They all knew how today was going to end.

“Then I will gladly fight you.” Brandon replied, flying at Anakin.

They both had the powerhouse powers of flight and strength. It was yet another similarity between the two boys that they hated to admit.

The big red digital clock behind April counted down in big red numbers while they flew around the room, punching and throwing each other into walls. They were both too busy fighting each other to notice the time slowly ticking down on the clock.

Fine. Sometimes a lady does have to do everything herself.

April was the baby of the house, even though she was six years older than her annoying little brother. It was because she didn’t have powers that she was regarded like the youngest. April was powerless, and therefore was defenseless. They didn’t want their darling breakable daughter messing around with things that could hurt her. They said she had her father and Brandon if she was ever in trouble to save her, and in the future she’d have Peter once he became a superhero himself. There was no need for poor April to potentially hurt herself playing with things they thought she couldn’t handle.

April reached up and grabbed the rope with one hand, wrapping her fingers around it. She pulled herself up until her other hand was level with her head and plucked a bobby pin from her hair. She let her body fall down again, the rope straining against her wrists at the weight change. April’s limbs were on fire, but she’d gotten the material she needed to break her out of this mess.

April nudged the pin into the knot holding her hands together. Anakin tied the same knot every time. She knew if she could just loosen it enough . . .

And then she was falling. Of course, the last time April had done this, she was tied to a chair with something solid under her feet. This time the only thing to fall on was a tank full of sharks that may or may not have laser vision depending on how evil Anakin was feeling today.

A projectile collided with her and instead of landing in the shark tank below her, April was crushed to the wall behind her and then fell to the ground. She could feel a couple of bruises and possible broken ribs from that fall.

Brandon peered up at her through his mask with a smile on his face. “See, I told you I would save you from Black Knight.”

Like she thought he’d try to do anything else.

“Now, wait here while I defeat him.”

He jumped up and immediately met Anakin in the air. They were both so evenly matched that their fights could last for days if they let it get that far.

April didn’t really get the point of them in their costumes either. They weren’t in public and there were no cameras. They all knew White Knight was Brandon Charleston and Black Knight was Anakin McPhail. Maybe it had become too much of a habit by this point.

“Hey!” April yelled out. The two boys stopped, Anakin mid-punch and Brandon mid-kick, both mid-air. “Can we stop the fighting? Brandon has already saved me. As you can see, I am no longer in danger of being eaten by possibly laser-eyed sharks.”

Anakin’s eyebrows furrowed and he tilted his head. “Laser eyes? That would’ve been a good idea.”

Brandon turned to face her with a hand on his hip. “April, we’ve talked about this. Call me by my superhero name when I’m saving you from super villains. We can’t have the world finding out my identity.”

Well, there was one thing the two agreed about.

“Brandon, there’s only one other person here and he already knows your identity.” She scolded, gesturing towards Anakin. “You’ve both known about the other one since you started out. I’ve known about the both of your for about just as long.”

They were both stumped.

“Fine, I don’t care anymore. Can I just go home?”

They recovered quickly.

“Not until Black Knight is in custody and pays for his crimes against humanity.” Brandon announced proudly.

She put her hands on her hips and stared him down, narrowing her eyes at him. “Yeah, and how are you going to do that when he’s disappeared?”

April was right. Anakin had disappeared all of a sudden through a trap door a couple feet behind them.

Brandon did a full circle and narrowed his eyes at April when he realized his arch nemesis was gone. “Why didn’t you alert me when you saw him escaping?”

She shrugged, “I did, but you were too slow. Now, can you please take me home? I am really craving some ice cream and a date with Netflix.”

He was about to say something, but then stopped. Of course, he couldn’t blame poor defenseless April Watson for not being able to help in a super battle.

She was only a damsel in distress after all. She couldn’t fight her own battles as far as the rest of the world was concerned.