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Sometimes Marco loses control. It’s not that often and it’s not that bad - not like the first few days after their little genetic rescheduling, when a cold breeze could paralyze him in fear and the crack of thunder meant soul-demolishing rage - but he has his days. Whenever the Rogues are out on a mission he knows he’s up for emotional floods in all possible senses of the expression.
When Marco is not okay, nobody else is, either. Some havoc and some wreckage are a given on their style of doing business, but Central City is a desert town - it’s not really prepared to deal with the monsoon his last brush with depression left in its wake, for instance.
He takes his medicine and it works, most of the time - not so much when Marco purposefully screws his psyche as he plays with the rain and wind and lightning, but they’re all taking one for the team in one way or another. Lisa reminds him of his pills when it looks like he’ll forget them, while Len forces them down his throat when he’s so miserable and confused that a hurricane warning rings outside. “You gotta pull yourself together,” Cold says as Marco’s rainwater tears freeze down his arms, shaking his shoulders as if it would pull their broken parts back together. Marco is so spent he doesn't bother with the blame games any longer - he nods, he slinks back to his bed and he hopes for dreams that won’t become storms. Sometimes they don’t.
It’s the beginning of a bad day, since Marco has blackened the skies for cover and shocked every light and security camera within the industrial district to a short-circuiting crisp. Right then he’s concentrated on this raid to a medical research facility that Len has been preparing for weeks - perhaps Lisa has a chance, and if she does, they all might - but he knows exactly how bad he’ll feel once the fury he summons to conjure lightning fades away. The weather forecast for the Central City area is bleak at best for the weekend.
Except, that is, for the rainbow cutting through his cumulonimbus in a splash of neon paint against dark canvas. It’s gorgeous, vibrant like summer heat and impossible like warm snow running down his spine. It shouldn't be there.
“Mardon, that is not in the plan,” Sam hisses from the reflexive windows on the neighbor building to the rooftop where Marco stands. The plan was for Heatwave to remain as the only light source in the area. The crew would go inside and grab whatever they needed, while Marco stayed on support duty and Sam minded the escape routes, all in a reasonable time frame for a blackout due to a natural lightning storm. It’s a decent enough plan. It’s not going to work with a glittering rainbow pointing their precise location, though.
“That’s not me,” and if he can’t control the weather he really can’t control anything anymore.
Outrage turns out to be a marvelous conductor to Marco’s talents - he aims at the ever-nearer tip of the flowing rainbow and with a gesture of his staff the winds are howling, air devils of his spite and his anger that knock whatever guides that colorful streak right to the ground, then shoot it up in a tornado all the way up to Marco’s feet.
The crumpled form slowly disentangles itself into a man, not much taller than him and wearing something not unfit to the Pride Parade. It looks like he’s going to say something - even raise his hand, yes, you bloody idiot, put up a threatening gesture when you’re on the floor, congratulations - but Marco very effortlessly strikes him on the head with his staff. The colorful catastrophe is out cold, if still breathing slowly.
“ We've got company,” Sam snarls, and Marco kicks the fallen idiot for good measure before starting to conjure a much bigger tornado. Of course they’ve got company - with a warning sign in all the colors of the spectrum trailing right up to their heads, it’s a miracle the Flash isn't closing the gates of Iron Heights on their noses by this time.
“Take care of the others, make them hurry. I’ll mind the small fry, but if the Flash shows up I’m pushing him into your game,” and Marco can feel it, the slow drag of agony and suffering curling up inside him even as he opens his arms wide, embracing the furious wind like a bad lover and letting the rain pour.
The approaching policemen have no chance, because uprooting trees is a matter of a few more sleepless hours, and flooding avenues is equivalent to a few more pills to take. It takes him very little to isolate the whole block - his mental health, at worst.
He just wants to curl onto himself to try and contain this vacuum that putrefies every feeling he’s ever had and makes breathing too hard as he chokes back his sobs. Marco is screaming at the sky in tandem with the thunder when the most wanted vigilante in Central City zooms up the fire escape.
Marco chuckles, and each laugh feels like a punch to the guts. ”It’s not a good time now, Red”.
“Yeah, it shows. How about I just take you to the PD, where it’s not so wet and windy, huh?” he even tries to sound friendly, the fucker. Lightning strikes the exact spot where he’s standing - except he’s not there anymore. “I guess not, then,” he grabs at Marco’s arm’s from behind, and then they’re squabbling like bloody children in the dirt.
He’s in for being beaten to a pulp, but he’ll fight while the Flash doesn't run him out of choices. The hero is going for immobilization, so Marco does his best to just get the staff in the way of his grip, and the rain on his eyes, and the wind is very nearly lifting them off the rooftop so less ground for him to make a stand. All he wants is to roll closer to the windows, throw the blasted nuisance in Sam’s little private world, get lost in his own.
He doesn't want to fight anymore - it empties him, strips him of character like bare hills under the storm. But he fights, if anything, because he knows little else.
A headlock is never a pleasant position to find oneself in, thus Marco is absolutely convinced of his own irredeemable ridiculousness. Marco tries to laugh, or sob, he’s not sure which - it doesn't matter, because the Flash’s choke around his throat makes either one stillborn. “It’s over, Mardon. Just tell me what’s going on. I know you’re not alone.”
“You’re right he’s not,” blue light surrounds them, a bone-chilling shade of melancholy and stasis, and suddenly the fastest man alive is immobile at Marco’s back. A couple of steps splash up to them, and Marco sees a rainbow-striped boot be raised. Bone cracks as the Flash is kicked away from him, rolling on the wet concrete like a used mannequin. Then a gloved hand is extended to Marco, even though the colorful stranger is still looking at the fallen speedster, blue beam of light coming straight out of his goggles. “I guess we started this at the wrong foot. Glad to meet you, I’m the Rainbow Raider”.
One more to their lot. Marco thinks that, if he could, he would find it funny. However, it’s too much that he’s not throwing himself from the edge of the building as it is, therefore it should be considered a victory that he manages to pull himself upright by holding onto the newcomer’s arm. “Weather Wizard. Can you hold him like that for long?”
By the way that Old Red is managing to stretch under the light, it’s probably a no. Good thing, then, that Sam reappears on the neighboring window.”We’re done here. Retreat,” Sam doesn’t seem all that pleased by the fact that he’s pulling Rainbow Raider along, but Marco is past the point of caring. They sink through the reflexive windowpane - the blue light is cut off - the Flash makes it to their direction in a wink - Sam closes the portal.
Once they are transported back into the base, Marco lets go - no looking back, no thinking forward. Rainbow Raider screwed them in general but he saved his ass, so as far as Marco understands things, it’s up to Len to decide whether the colorful guy deserves the Rogues’ cold shoulder or not.
Marco just wants to sleep. He wants to cry. He wants to scream until the offense of the elements at his interference stops making his blood curl and his feelings rot. He wants all of this to stop.
He lies down on the couch on his soaked clothes, deadly quiet, and not even Lisa dares remind him of his medicine.
*
Sometimes Marco loses control. Every time the wind blows colder he’s miserable and wounded and just wishes for the world to disappear so he might have a chance to reach oblivion alongside it, and his staff reacts to it. He hasn’t conjured the great deluge back yet, but he suspects that Len knocking him out during his worst crisis may have something to do with it. Marco’s mood fluctuates with the weather and it worsens or brightens accordingly, forming a cycle of self-fueling instability. He doesn’t mean it and doesn’t wish for any of it.
Other times, however, Marco knows exactly what he’s doing and consequences be damned. “Stand back,” is all the warning he dispenses to Rainbow Raider before sinking the staff on the ground. It’s madness, sheer undiluted insanity that screeches inside his head as the twister takes shape around him, growing taller and faster as Marco wills his emotions to bend the elements, then become one with them.
If the local dealers think they can take the Mardon family out of the game just because there’s very little of it left besides himself, they've got another thing coming. The sniper perched high on the warehouse was dumb enough to think he’d be intimidated by a warning shot when the negotiation with his leader proved to be fruitless - he should have erased Marco when he could.
Roy stands at his back, holding the thugs that make it for the door with his blue beams. He’s a bit over the top, but that just makes him fit just right with them. It’s been a couple of weeks since he joined the Rogues and their fighting styles have mashed well enough - for one, Roy can sense emotions just like he can’t see colors, so he knows what to expect from Marco. That’s why they’re safe as they stand at the eye of the storm, dirt and furniture and debris and bodies rising in the air and being ripped to shreds. Blood sprays in the howling air in lieu of rain, the concentrated twister screams louder than all of the dying criminals, and Marco’s laughter is blown away from his mouth as soon as it leaves his chest.
He is the Weather Wizard and no street trash will underestimate him and live to see the sun again.
“I think that’s enough,” Roy shouts right at his ear, holding onto Marco’s shoulders a bit too tightly, “you’ll bring the whole place down on our heads.”
“Would that really be so bad?” stopping is not really an option, not when the turmoil is so nice and destructive when it’s outside, damaging the building structures but not Marco’s sanity. He could destroy the warehouse, then the block, then the whole goddamn district - anything not to feel the backlash of this one power demonstration, but it’s already coming and he wonders if taking that bullet wouldn't have been a better option.
“Kinda, so I promise this will hurt less.”
The wind halts as Marco’s world is painted blue. For a second he can’t breathe, can’t move, can barely even exist with the sudden absence of suffering. Jagged pieces of wood and limbs drop to the ground around them as all that Marco feels is calm - a boundless, ageless sense of serenity takes him from within, emptying his overloaded senses to leave only tranquility in its wake.
For once since that blasted experiment Marco is at peace.
He’s almost dizzy with clarity as he turns to face Roy, blinking at the other Rogue owlishly. “That’s not the blue you use to stop people.”
“Obviously. My paralytic is a bright blue-green hue, since I strip the targets of their willpower,” Roy’s sigh is long-suffering, akin to an impatient teacher’s to a particularly slow student. He’s no doubt rolling his eyes behind the goggles that have finally quieted Marco’s disturbance. “This shade is darker, meant for deeper internal effects. I needed to stop your mental processes, not your movement. It’s also closer to violet than green, ‘cause I don’t need you falling to your knees and giving up on life right now. By the way, I think it’s time we left the scene, don’t you agree? All this blood must be a rather unpleasant sight.”
It is. Marco is no stranger to violence, but this carnage is uncommon even to the Rogues’ combined efforts. He’s losing his grip. “I don’t think leaving by rainbow is a good idea right now.”
“After that ruckus? No, we’d better finish on a quieter note,” Roy steps up to one of the bosses’ carcasses and pats the inside of his suit. His grin is brilliant as he produces a set of car keys from the body. “I think that’s the guy with the Porsche. What color do you want it to be?”
Without the light shining straight on him, Marco feels slightly less blissful, a little more real - it’s still infinitely better than the undertow of his powers taking its course. He’d be screeching like a wounded animal any other day. “You choose. It’s your call today,” and perhaps he shouldn't be – perhaps he should be mad at Roy for subjecting him to his powers like just another piece of sentient cannon fodder, but Marco is enjoying his newfound emotional balance too much to be concerned for his right to self-determination.
They make it to the back alley while Roy spins the keys on his finger. They approach the black sports car, which becomes fire-engine red with bright yellow stripes with one touch of Roy’s light goggles. Marco starts laughing, and for once it’s not a maniac reflex. “It looks like the Flash turned into a car.”
“Let’s see if it can go that fast?” they hop onto their respective seats and Roy speeds off toward their hideout. Marco feels the wind hitting his face and this time it’s wonderful.
*
Sometimes Marco loses control. The weather and his feelings flow as one and there’s no getting used to that - the damage to his psyche is cumulative, like rainstorms upon a city that has barely overcome floods. There’s a point when all basic systems fail because the rage of nature is far too great for a mere human to stand it. Happiness should be more than a sunny day - sadness is so much more than a rainy night.
These days, though, he can cheat out of the destructive loop in a beam of colorful light. Blue is calm when he is almost drowning past his broken floodgates, green is willpower to roll away from the couch when he is numb beyond himself, orange is drive to go ahead and embrace the storm and its gains even when he knows their side effects. Roy is always by his side, standing as the escape valve to the misery and pain, the handy bottle of miracle medicine.
Of course it’s not perfect, and it’s certainly not permanent - Marco’s chromatic emotions are artificial overrides that are meant to perish as soon as a new feeling, born from his own psyche, takes shape. But when the wave of restrained loathing and loss and anger rises so high he feels like throwing up or tearing at his own flesh, Roy is always there to soothe him back into functioning.
Marco has known enough junkies to know he’s addicted - he surely hopes the Rogues’ code doesn't apply by analogy, because he’s not going to rehab for this one vice.
“What are you working on?” Marco stretches on the long divan at his penthouse balcony, soaking as many sun rays as possible. Being a mafia boss has one or two basic requirements, and a majestic view from the Central City skyline fulfills the living standards decently. The railing is high, so jumping down during one of his lows would be difficult. The apartment is a keeper.
“My art,” Roy replies tetchily, one paintbrush between his teeth and another in hand. His canvas is turned away from Marco, and the other divan is covered in a myriad of acrylic paint. His goggles are on, being constantly poked to different functions by deft fingers even though Roy’s sight doesn't leave the canvas.
The other Rogues can be very unpleasant company under certain conditions - Marco still wonders how Lisa ever stood them at all when she could be figure skating people’s jaws to the floor. Genetic recompilation or not, they aren't more than a bunch of really lucky and overconfident criminals who have little to no refinement to spare. Roy’s artistic side could be a target of… uninformed or childish behavior at the base, so Marco doesn't mind lending him the balcony as a makeshift studio since the police busted his last hideout the week before.
“Can I see it? Once it’s done, of course,” Roy doesn't seem like the kind of guy who’d let anyone see a work in progress. He does his best or nothing at all, and Marco can respect that sort of fiber.
“I’ll think about it,” the tone is distracted but a small smile brushes his lips, so Marco is satisfied.
The afternoon rolls by as slowly as the sparse white clouds on the clear sky - Marco reads the news online, monitors some of the cargo that is arriving from Guatemala that week, unbuttons his shirt to the chest and just enjoys the blissful effect of the sun rays upon his feelings. If this is the only way he can be happy now, he’s going to appreciate every single clear day he’s not forced to spoil rotten.
He’s fast asleep when Roy calls him. “It’s as done as it’s going to be. Take a look,” he says, shrugging with a nonchalant air that looks fake against the dusky horizon dotted by avant-garde stars. Marco loses no time to circle the easel, but it does take him a bit longer to understand what he sees. When he does, he’s amazed.
It’s a bird’s eye portrait of the view – it’s Central as Roy sees it and there’s not one droplet of grey on that picture. The streets are blue rivers of hope, the corporate skyscrapers rise as orange pillars of greed, the family homes are little green struggling masses under the furiously red desert sky. And the people, the tiny little dots of people seen through windows and roaming the yellow sidewalks of fear – they are every possible color, violet love and saffron cowardice and pink affection and cyan indifference and burgundy passion, they are every emotion that has ever shown through Roy’s every-loyal goggles.
“This device allows me to recognize the different frequencies that correspond to each emotion,” Roy tells him firmly, facing the city below. “One could say those are Central’s true colors.”
“It’s gorgeous,” and it’s the truth. Marco feels honored at being allowed to see such a private representation to Roy’s world view, of his limitations, of his sensibilities – and it is a wonder on itself to feel something other than weather-based instability. The landscape painting stirs the abused, smothered side of Marco’s psyche that knows how to appreciate good things when they come his way. “Do you think we ruin it? The city, I mean. “
Roy laughs while setting his materials aside, then squeezes Marco’s shoulder lightly at arm’s length. Marco inspects his fingers – not too long, blunt, almost square-tipped, with bitten nails and paint streaks across the knuckles. If he looks closely enough he’ll see the shadow of stolen property and spilled blood – it’s a perfect match to his own and it makes him smile. “What we do is a form of art on itself, Marco. We force people in this city to get out of their boring little lives, if anything, to complain about us. We give contrast to their dull colors. “
“You’re too used to being a misunderstood artist, ” he steps closer, enough to see Roy’s eyes clearly even through his shades, but also to step back awkwardly though safely if he’s getting this all wrong. Their mayhem makes those streets vibrant, their action makes Central show its best, worst and everything in between. The Rogues keep the score with the city so no-one settles quietly, and Marco loves that Roy can see it too. It’s the only reason that has kept him going despite depression and rage for so long. “Would it frustrate you if I said I get your point? “
Roy snorts before grabbing Marco by his half-buttoned shirt and pulling him to his face. “No, but you’d sound like a pretentious douchebag. Welcome to the club, ” the smile is swallowed into the kiss – a stumbled mash of pressed lips at first, then a sloppy clash of open mouths, stretching into a slow negotiation of curious tongues.
It’s been awhile that Marco was last left panting from a kiss alone – when they fall apart he doesn't need clear weather or green lights to give him power to be glad.
*
Sometimes Marco loses control. While his anger means lightning and storms, his pleasure means heat, nearly uncomfortable hot waves of a long summer when wearing any kind of clothes feels like overdoing things. There’s this one night when Roy learns some inspired tactics from less-than-artistic movies to give better uses to his big mouth when Marco causes mass failure to air conditioners all over the neighborhood.
Sometimes Marco doesn't care for control at all.