Secrets and Things (MxM)

Chapter 60 - What are the pros and cons?

When Mr. guard-now-turned-robber was far enough, Nero leaned closer towards Leo and whispered under his breath with a worried undertone, "Are you ok?"

Leo blinked at the question and returned a puzzled expression. "Yeah? Why wouldn't I be?" He whispered back.

"Oh, I don't know? Maybe because we have really shitty luck which put us in a hostage slash heist situation out of the blue? You also didn't even look up at the dude who took our phone, opting to hide away instead. My boss sure as hell does not hide away from my knowledge."

Leo looked offended. "I did not hideaway," he aggressively whispered out, "I was playing smart, you wanker. If you haven't realised already, I'm quite famous around here which means everyone knows that I possess an Oddity. If I were to be recognised, I'd immediately be put in lanthanum handcuffs and be rendered useless. At least like this, I can jump in when they drop guard and I don't know, save the day?"

Nero scoffed quietly at the absurd idea. "Like hell you can."

"Excuse me?" Leo looked beyond offended now.

"I'm being realistic here. You have almost zero chance of saving everyone here without any complications, even with that cool elemental power of yours."

"And why on bloody earth do you say that?"

"There are too many people here for you to protect and there are too many enemies you have to fight against. You could say your power is large enough to create a shield around them or something but keep in mind, you handle fucking flames, not ice nor water. Humans and fire do not mix well usually. They only do in your case and only yours. This could lead to harm among the hostages not due to the robbers but due to you. I'm not saying you don't have control over your power but fire is wild and can't be that easily tamed. A second of distraction can be detrimental," Leo wanted to interrupt but I put my hand up to let him know I'm not done. 

"The more importantly, however, is that you're not trained for playing hero or saving the day. Going out and doing... something is fucking reckless and bloody stupid because, after that point, you don't know what's coming next. At least with people who do this on a daily, they find a certain pattern that they can follow and reduce the amount of damage. You're going to get hurt and you're getting to get the people around you hurt as well. But you're mainly going to get hurt and that would really... suck..."

Nero got shy towards the end and promptly looked away to reanalyse the situation to distract his thumping heart. Hostages were all huddled up with their associates and the guards were firmly positioned in one spot, with a couple moving up and down but they were on the other side.

"You seem to be quite knowledgeable on how to be Superman... do you read a guide the daily?" Leo's voice did a good job of startling the other man.

Nero looks at him with a blank expression and met his eyes momentarily, before looking back out and responded with a simple, "Yeah, something like that."

Out of the corner of his eyes, Nero could see that Leo wasn't convinced nor satisfied with the answer but he made no moves to prod him further and for that, Nero was grateful. The latter notices that they're conveniently placed next to a pillar that was not only a blind spot among cameras (the bank should follow up with that) but the guards as well.

With a new goal in mind, the glasses man slowly raised himself (just a bit) from the carpet and waddled towards the pillar, grabbing his boss's hand on the way. Leo immediately tailed carefully after him without question. On the way, both would sit down and pretend nothing was happening if a single one of the human hawk eyes glanced in their direction but eventually, both successfully reached behind the pillar. Nero's back was against the marble cylinder whereas his boss was right in front of him, facing him with minimal distance and their hands were still grasped together.

The position probably would've gotten Nero as a blushing mess, especially since neither of them had yet to let go but he had other pressing matters to attend to. Like what the fuck he should do. He was also blaming his physiological responses on the adrenaline running through his veins from the sneaking but even he knew that was not the case.

"Do you think the police have been somehow notified?" Leo whispered under his breath as he looked around the room. He seemed completely unfazed by the minimal space they had together and it bothered Nero a tad bit but managed to not let it show.

"Most likely. The staff probably pressed the red emergency button under the front desk as soon as they realised that there was a threat. However, I highly doubt they can do anything. The armed have hundreds of hostages right now and any reckless moves such as entering the place would have detrimental effects such as a loss of life. The only thing they could probably do is surround the building and negotiate with them from outside."

The CEO looked at his employee in shock before blurting out, "how do you know about the button under the desks?"

"Because the movies said so." Nero was completely serious and it visibly startled the other man into utter disbelief.

"T-The movies?"

"Yeah?"

Leo blinked a couple of times. "Riiigghhhttttt...."

Putting them back into silence, Nero went back to wracking his head over the robbery. He's absolutely distraught about what he should do. Did he continue pretending to be helpless or should hehe finally expose himself in front of the world after years of keeping it under wraps? Did he finally have to unleash the devil under the scorching light? He never thought he'd be in a situation where he'd have to make this kind of decision and now that he has to, he was completely drawing a blank.

Let's go through the pros and cons of doing either (A/N: at this point, I don't know how I'm writing this story lmao. Told you it's going to be all over the place)

Continue being a helpless, normal civilian

Pros:

- Nero got to keep his identity a secret and avoid all attention (MAJOR PRO)

- If the police managed to do something right and save everyone without any consequences, it looked good on them and maybe, Nero + Aiden would respect them a bit. Plus, it proved that they're not completely useless and might even lessen the workload for Nero

- Nero got to continue huddling up with his boss without it looking suspicious

Cons:

- Everyone was at risk of being shot for a long period of time

- The police aren't actually the smartest of the bunch and there's a 90% chance they'd fuck up and get someone killed by the end of it (MAJOR CON)

- A lot of time would go by and the robbers would most likely get away with their crime (bad for the economy). The extensive time would also drive certain people crazy and do something that could also get them killed.

- Very selfish

- Aiden would be disappointed probably

Expose the existence of the Devil's powers

Pros:

- Everyone was guaranteed to be saved because Nero was just that good at what he does and he's OP as fuck (SUPERPRO)

- The money would also be saved and enemies would be defeated (the economy was saved!)

- Might get a medal out of it?

- Very selfless

- Aiden would be proud?

Cons:

- He's exposed to everyone, including the government and reinforcements (SUPER DUPER CON)

- Leo finds out who he was and figured out he's been lying to him the whole time

o Consequences: Nero is hated, despised, fired and/or killed (SUPER CON)

- Aiden might be really pissed

- Just very bad long term consequences

...

Yeah, we all knew what Nero wanted to choose but we all knew which one was the better option and what he was going to ultimately choose.