Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

When Mark Grayson was twelve, his parents gave him The Talk. They'd ambushed him one boring afternoon when he was playing video games just after school. He'd been absolutely mortified, cheeks burning as his mom explained the kind of changes he would expect to see happening to his body — growing taller (nice!), a deeper voice, hair in weird and wonderful places — and... other things, things he'd rather not hear about from his mom, of all people. Or really, anyone. At all.

Then, his dad had taken him aside to tell him about his Viltrumite side. Mark knew the basics of course, and he was excited. He'd been expecting his powers any day now, eager to leave behind the moments he'd spent grounded and heavy and useless, watching with unbridled glee and helpless longing as Nolan burst lightning-quick into the sky with a flurry of his cape, off to do good and fight evil. One day, Mark imagined, he'd be flying right beside him. It was precisely this childish excitement that made him stop listening to what Nolan had actually said that day, something about men not necessarily being male and women not necessarily being female, something about how Viltrumite biology wasn't as straightforward as it was here on Earth. Now, his dad was long gone, off to the far reaches of the galaxy, and the time for him to ask any questions about embarrassing changes to his body had passed.

It happened shortly after Chicago.

His mood was still tumultuous. Restless, he'd sought villain after villain in the early mornings, day after day, until he finally caved and asked Cecil for more official responsibilities himself.

Then Cecil called him. The Guardians were fighting a growing infestation of some kind of monstrous poison ivy in downtown Seattle, cooked up by a government scientist gone rogue and intent on reversing climate change through her own radical way. The Immortal and Dupli-Kate were incapacitated, the rest were barely holding up.

"I know it hasn't been long. But the Guardians need you, Invincible. If you could - "

"I'll do it." Anything to not think about what Nolan had done was great right now.

Mark arrived on the scene to a giant sentient plant stabbing its deadly tendrils at him, the mad scientist commanding it from below. He swerved out of the way and dove to the ground to see Rex-Splode throwing explosives at a bright tropical flower the size of a small car. Several darts shot out from its centre towards Rex. Mark lunged just in time to push him out of their trajectory. Pressed up against him, it was hard not to cringe from the smell of Rex's terrible deodorant. Mark felt like pinching his nose.

Rex rolled over and coughed. "It's about time you showed up!"

Mark shrugged. As much as Rex hated needing to be rescued, he sure was a harsh critic when it happened. Maybe he should do his own rescuing. Rex gave him the low-down as the same flower spat a wad of acid at them, dissolving the tarmac like sugar. Robot was bioengineering a potent weed killer a couple blocks away. Monster Girl, Rex-Splode and Shrinking Rae were to destroy the plant monster's seed pods to prevent its spread and buy time for Robot. Civilians had already been evacuated from the area. Contrary to how Cecil painted the picture, things were looking pretty well-controlled. What was Mark here for, then?

"Immortal and Dupli-Kate are over there, uhh, busy, and you need to go get them." He pointed at one of the numerous egg-like structures surrounding the base of the main plant.

"Busy?"

"You know, busy!" Rex waggled his eyebrows.

"What?"

"They're doing the dirty? Getting in each other's nasties?"

Mark stared. Rex groaned, like he was being obtuse.

"Dupli-Kate and the Immortal are engaging in sexual intercourse," Robot monotoned over the comms.

Mark blanched. "What? How is that — Why would they — Here? "

"Well Invincible, when mommy and daddy love each other very much — "

"Shut up! Why do you need me for this?"

"Immortal got hit by a staminate flower, and Kate got hit by a pistillate flower, and turns out that's a bad mix when you got someone you got the hots for nearby, or maybe that's a good thing, I don't know, true love or whatever — "

Mark was so confused. Rex noticed. "What? I can't have hidden depths? Botany's a fascinating field!"

"That's not the point! Why do you need me to go in and get them?"

"Oh. Well the pheromones affect humans. Even Monster Girl's not immune, and all of Robot's drones got destroyed. I could go, but then you'd have a horny me, and oooh boy, would you not wanna see that..."

"Cecil must have imagined you'd be a good fit, Invincible, being half-Viltrumite. Did he not inform you?"

Mark looked away. "I guess I wasn't really listening."

Rex cackled. "Poor communication? Now that's a real relationship killer!"

The egg structures were easy enough to punch through, but the sticky purple goo inside was a real pain in the ass. It got onto his goggles and clung to his suit, slowing his movements to a tentative, marshy plod. He could have just flown through, but he didn't know where Dupli-Kate and the Immortal were exactly, and he didn't wanna risk it. Mark waded through until the goo thinned and he reached an air pocket. A cloying, floral scent sidled its way under his nostrils and pulled. It tasted sweet and enticing, like it was asking him very nicely to fall, darkly and deliberately down to where slow heat was beginning to pool his groin. Mark shook himself and covered his nose. He kept going until he saw them.

The Immortal and Dupli-Kate were...wrapped up in each other. Or, more accurately, the Immortal was wrapped in up in a horde of Dupli-Kates, and keeping up well, and he seemed to be enjoying himself. Mark tried his best not to look as he dragged them out. (Just one of Kate). They barely seemed to notice him at all, eyes locked on each other, skin to skin and heavy with lust. He'd been with Amber, so he knew the logistics, but it was something else altogether to see his co-workers like this, this was definitely crossing some sort of professional line. If the GDA had a HR department, they'd be hearing from him.

Mark handed the happy couple off to the GDA agents on the scene, glad to be done with all that nonsense. Cecil's men were forming a perimeter for Robot's turbo weed killer. "Bombs away," said Robot on the comms, and the monster poison ivy melted and sizzled and sprayed its remains all over the street. It died with a beastly hiss that sent a shriek of feedback into his earpiece.

The mad scientist fell to her knees wailing, her hands cuffed behind her back. "You'll pay for this!"

A hail of pointed barbs rained down, the poison ivy releasing all of them at once from its remaining flowers. Everyone else took cover under anything they could find - broken buildings, upturned cars, each other. Mark just raised a hand to shield his eyes. A barb bounced harmlessly off his shoulder.

He heard Rex mutter 'show-off' somewhere in the background.

Mark kept his mouth and nose covered the whole flight home. That poison ivy's weird goo must have gotten further up his nostrils than he'd initially thought, because his sense of smell was going absolutely haywire. Even 30,000 feet up, an altitude flown by commercial airplanes, he could still smell traces of people and animals and food on the ground. Someone's cheap aftershave, exhaust from a vintage car, old blood on an inner city sidewalk.

When Mark got home, he started burning up. He dismissed it at first, thinking it was nothing, but the heat in his bones only deepened the more he tried to ignore it. It delved beneath his skin, sending shivers down his spine and to his toes and pooled into his groin, where he felt a very strange sensation of opening up.

Debbie was still at work. Oddly, he went into his parents' his mom's room first, throwing open the cupboards and drawers until he found what he was looking for, an old, well-loved dressing gown his mom owned. The smell of it seemed to soothe him, smoothened out the hard edges of his brow and gentled his thoughts. He continued digging, but he couldn't find anything of his dad's, the feeling dredging a ripple of frustration to the surface, before he remembered that everything Nolan used to own had been moved to the attic.

Mark flew into his room, knocking over paintings and furniture, too burdened by warmth to care about the mess he was leaving for Debbie to pick up later. His supersuit stuck to him like a second skin, soaked in sweat and God knows what else down below. He peeled it off halfway and inspected himself in the mirror. Flushed cheeks, the fine sheen of bodily fluids, one side of his neck was starting to swell an angry red. Was he having an allergic reaction?

A sharp stab of pain in his abdomen knocked the wind out of him. Mark doubled over and shed the rest of his suit as the pain radiated downwards and changed into a cramping sensation. He felt a wetness coating his thighs, the heat consuming his body turning inside itself. It made him want to kneel. Before he even saw, he knew. Slowly, still in denial, dread mounting in his throat, Mark turned his gaze to his dick. Or lack of thereof. Because his dick was gone. 

"What the fuck? What the fuck, what the fuck..."

In its place was a new organ, softer, with more folds and wetness within. Mark reached down, half-horrified, half-curious, and ran his fingers over his new entrance experimentally. Was this because of those plant hormones?

Panic rose in his chest. He braced himself against his bedroom wall and accidentally made a hole in the drywall. He should have called Cecil, first thing, soon as he thought something was wrong, but an older, more unshakeable impulse told him to retreat into his den of safety, into his home.

A solid wave of want pulsed through him and sent him to his knees. He could feel the rational part of his brain slipping away, defeated by the instinctive need to spread his legs and let someone powerful claim him. The swelling on his neck hurt, it was so painful he grabbed it with his hand and squeezed hard just to get some relief. Mark sighed when his pain lessened, he did it again, then again, and whatever he was doing seemed to be working, as soon he was breathing a little bit easier. He didn't realise as it was happening but his other hand had wandered towards his new entrance, fingers coaxing themselves in. This was all new to him, he'd never once penetrated himself before, even though Amber had joked about it. Instinct compelled Mark to push a little deeper, to roll his hips just so, to curl his fingers at that spongy spot where the texture inside himself changed. He found himself thrusting down on his own fingers, chasing that precious high, faster and faster and faster until his whole body pulsed with a scorching pleasure so intense it brought a desperate whine past his lips. (This was unalike to how it felt before, when he still had his cock, the feeling white-hot euphoric, expelling itself outward and over in a few short seconds).

It wasn't enough. He went again. This time he pressed against the hard nub just outside his entrance at the same time. The pleasure it brought him was different, a combined experience, but again it did him no good. The feeling didn't subside. Mark had just brought himself over his fourth peak when his bedroom door opened.

"Mark?"

"Mom!" He tried to cover himself with his hands.

"Oh! Sorry!" Debbie hastily shut the door.

Instantly, teenage embarrassment and shame overtook his arousal. The fire remained, but a cold tarp was thrown over it, dampening the heat. He quickly went to grab a pair of shorts to make himself decent. "Wait!"

"I can come back!"

"Mom, I — "

"I'm not mad at all honey, it's perfectly normal for a teenage boy to — "

He threw the door open and caught a glimpse of Debbie's sheepish discomfort melting into motherly concern.

"Mark, what happened?"

"Mom," Mark said tiredly. He sounded very small. "Please, call Cecil."

Chapter Text

"Uh, sir? We have a situation."

Cecil was having a bad day.

Every day was a bad day, when you were the director of the Global Defence Agency, Earth's most secretive and exorbitant multinational superhero babysitting scheme. It all just became a matter of where it fell on the spectrum, and how he dealt with it. The day the Guardians died — the original Guardians — sat very firmly on the devastating side, the knowledge that whatever or whoever that managed to murder them all (and without too much fuss) was undoubtedly an existential threat to planet Earth resting uneasily in his stomach. The fact that he'd actually been fond of the old Guardians too had just been the icing on the pig-shit cake. They were good people, made a well-oiled team. They'd never let the fame and glory get to their heads, never let arrogance and power blind them to a superhero's oldest and truest objective: saving lives. The world was a darker place without them.

The day he'd been proven right about Omni-Man sat on the same end of the sliding scale. Cecil was a paranoid bastard and an excellent liar by trade, had the best team of scientists and body language analysts working for him. He'd known the moment Nolan touched down on the planet that he'd been hiding something important. He should have planned better. Considered things more laterally. Quizzed Nolan more on Viltrum and what being part of that culture meant. If Nolan's superpowers were passed down genetically, maybe he should have recruited Mark earlier, given him better tools for the day he crossed hands with his father. He was painfully conscious that Invincible had been the only thing strong enough to keep his father occupied and he'd still been beaten to a bloody pulp, helpless against the onslaught of his father's bare fists. His father. Nolan's own son.

Invincible was an important asset in Earth's arsenal, and it was vital to know your assets. Know their strengths and weaknesses, physical and mental challenges. What made them tick. What corners of a person's psyche he could pull to get them to do exactly what he needed, when he needed, with just enough restraint so they always went away believing it was their own idea. It was important to know an asset's priorities.

And, even more crucially than the rest, to understand when a good asset had been compromised.

"So let me get this straight, Donald — you're telling me that the most powerful superhero on Earth is in a state of horny delirium so strong he's bulldozing millions of dollars of high-tech equipment in the deepest layers of the Pentagon, right where we keep our most valuable holdings."

"That's right, sir."

Cecil swallowed a groan. Then, with carefully hidden apprehension, "Casualties?"

"Two minor injuries," Donald said quickly. "No deaths."

That was a surprise.

He'd been out in the field when he got the call from Donald. Debbie had tried first, but the facility he'd been working from blocked incoming calls from civilian numbers. The fact that Debbie was personally asking for him immediately set him on edge. Things were still sour between them and would likely stay that way, maybe forever; he couldn't blame her for not trusting him. Guess that's what happens when you don't tell someone you know their husband's a mass-murdering sociopath and continue letting him live with them and their son for another eight months, completely oblivious.

Speaking of Debbie's son...

"We've tried sedating him, sir, but our standard brews aren't having any effect. The pharmacology team is working on a reversal agent derived from Dr Yelsi's creation as we speak."

"Where is he now?"

Donald gave him a report. Mark Grayson had been given a room in the Pentagon's medical wing when he'd arrived showing signs of a fever and a...change in normal behaviour, Debbie in tow. She'd been unwilling to leave her son's side at first, but over the course of a few hours, Mark had grown steadily more aroused, prompting her departure from the kid's room like any sane parent. The team had been content to run some tests and leave Mark to his own devices, thinking he'd just been hit by Plantzilla the same way Dupli-Kate and the Immortal had been and would regain lucidity in twenty-four hours or so. They'd just been about to give him a physical examination when Mark's delirium spiked.

Footage from earlier today showed Mark getting out of bed bleary-eyed and unsteady on his feet. He tilted his head this way and that and seemed to give the room a good sniff. While superhuman hearing was on file for a Viltrumite's abilities, Cecil hadn't heard anything about an enhanced sense of smell. Whatever scents Mark picked up had clearly upset him, his features bunching up in distress, vocal cords drawing a high-pitched whine that messed with the sound. A moment later he was aggressively rearranging the room's furniture - moving the bed, ripping out wires and plug sockets, tearing the sink clean off the wall and half-flooding the place. Medical staff tried engaging verbally, but Mark had whipped round and growled at them, fierce and feral. He didn't seem to hear them at all, and as he grew more restless, security was called in.

Not even the tungsten tranquilizer darts were piercing Mark's invulnerable skin, at best giving him a good tickle. He wasn't accepting food off them, but Cecil was willing to bet his entire pension that their strongest hypnotics wouldn't even make him yawn. Cecil winced internally as Mark grabbed one of the soldiers by the neck and threw him out the door, crunching the wall behind him. The kid cut a mean figure and there was no point saying who exactly he resembled with a move like that. Cecil suppressed the urge to rub at his own neck.

Mark made light work of the rest of the squad: hissing at them, breaking their guns with a flick of his wrist, shoving each and every soldier out the hall and away from him. He did it all one-handed, the other clenched tightly around the left side of his neck. The blaring emergency alarm seemed to worsen his mood, prompting him to start tearing at the walls to kill the noise. Danger radiated from every line of Mark's body, from the strong set of his jaw to the wild way he bared his teeth.

The medical wing looked like the aftermath of a tornado. The floor was littered with rubble — chunks of reinforced concrete, twisted portions of carbon-fibre steel, glass shards strewn haphazardly. Ceiling panels hung loosely and some of the clean-up crew was managing a small flood. Mark left a trail of destruction that was easy to follow: he'd started out a side room and made his way East in a single-minded fashion, aggressively redecorating each space he walked into. Furniture lay broken and upturned, expensive medical equipment destroyed. It was clear that when Mark encountered a locked door in his way, he pulled it clean off its hinges, and when there hadn't been a door, he simply demolished part of the wall and stepped through. A crash sounded off far in the distance: the kid was still rampaging. Back-up was already on its way: another elite team of soldiers, salvaged and remodelled from the fallen, and in a few minutes, the Guardians of the Globe would be here as well.

"We weren't able to stop or redirect Invincible, but we did manage to predict where he was going. I had the crew remove the most valuable items before he could get there." 

"Good work, Donald." Cecil turned away, considering. There didn't seem to be a specific pattern to Mark's movements or behaviour, he acted like he was being steered by something else entirely. It was never good news when superheroes lost control of themselves — one wrong move, and the average Joe would be pink mist before he could say 'ouch'. He'd put heroes away for that before, for being too careless with their own strength - some took their sentences gracefully, regret heavy on their shoulders, and some, well. Some didn't make it easy on anyone. But Cecil knew they didn't have facilities robust enough to neutralise Invincible. Not right now.

"Cecil!" Debbie Grayson came blazing through the wreckage like she had superpowers herself, several agents trailing behind and trying in vain to stop her. "You need to call your men off."

"Ma'am, you can't be here — "

Cecil waved the guards down.

"Mark isn't himself — "

"That's why I have a team coming down here to subdue him, Debbie," he said, turning to face her. "We know he's not in his right mind. And we're keeping you away for your own protection."

"You didn't let me finish," Debbie said sharply. She drew herself up fully and pinned him with a hot glare. "Mark's not himself, he's addled with — with a hormone concoction that supervillain doused him in, and it's making him go crazy, but he hasn't. Hurt. Anyone!" She jabbed a finger right into his sternum, harsh and demanding. "Your soldiers burst in, guns akimbo, and scared him! He didn't start fighting back until after your men fired bullets at him."

"Actually Debbie, they're tranquilizers — " Donald hazarded.

"Don't start. You people don't know what you're doing. My son is alone and afraid, he's being attacked for no good reason, he's drugged to high hell and here you are trying to pump more into him — "

" — to calm him down," Cecil finished evenly. Debbie wasn't impressed.

"Let me see him," she said fiercely. Her eyes had turned flinty-black with rage, a curse hot on her breath. "You're not the only one who gets to have a say."

Deborah Grayson was a civilian real estate agent with no superpowers. She was middle-aged with bad joints, knees creaking on rainy days. She had no towering frame, no combat experience, her hands soft and untrained and totally unremarkable. Cecil wasn't intimidated. Though he had no evidence, in the wake of Chicago he'd sometimes wondered if Nolan had ever laid his hands on her, if he had missed yet another important thing, that little paranoid voice in his head chittering on about abuse statistics and the troubling tendencies of powerful men. He wondered if he would have pulled Debbie out of there if the situation had been that dire, or if he would have left her there to suffer her husband, like one in every three American women, the threat of raising Nolan's suspicions too high, too early on posing an unacceptable risk to the wider mission. Cecil didn't have an answer. He wondered what kind of man that made him.

But as Debbie leaned into his space, brown eyes seething, toe-to-toe with one of the most influential men on Earth, words razor-sharp and cutting, he realised that his fears of Omni-Man, Viltrumite invader and Earth's strongest ever superhero on record, ever hurting her were entirely unfounded. Nolan didn't hold a candle to her. Couldn't.

No deaths, he thought. The phrase pinballed around his head for a second. And then he started walking.

"Sir," Donald said hesitantly, doubling his pace to keep up. "Back-up will be here in four minutes, thirty-seven seconds — "

Cecil angled his body just right, dropped his voice low so Debbie couldn't hear. "Which Guardians did you call?"

"All of them, sir."

"That won't be necessary. Get me the Immortal. Bulletproof, too. The rest can go." He considered. "And call off the Reanimen."

"Sir, the situation could be dangerous — "

"Don't argue with me, Donald."

He stood at the top now, but Cecil had started his career as a newbie fetching the coffee, then as a field agent doing the grunt work no one wanted. He'd never been interested in pencil pushing, having refused multiple promotions in the time before Radcliffe personally headhunted him. He did his best work up close and personal and would likely always prefer the unpredictable chaos of the field, the split-second decision-making and the deadly weight of a heavy firearm. The satisfaction of knowing his actions made a direct impact. He imagined Donald's frustration, the maddening mix of loyalty and dread he felt every time he saw his superior taking yet another reckless risk way beneath his paygrade. Protocol might have insisted they wait until one of their heroes arrived, but Cecil was the goddamn director of the GDA. He was protocol.

"And get the eggheads to hurry up on that antidote," he snapped, louder.

Cecil followed Mark's warpath the entire way through, Donald and Debbie both hot on his heels. He didn't try to stop either of them.

"Debbie," Cecil said. "When we find Mark, let me and Donald go in first."

"Absolutely not, I'm his mother. You can't just expect me to — "

"Exactly," he said, stepping over a nest of live wires Mark had inadvertently exposed when he was ripping more taxpayer-funded machinery off the walls. "You're his mom. And like you said, he's agitated. We don't know how he'll react to three of us coming in at once, even friendly faces." He softened his tone, let the edge in his usual expression bleed away. (Donald bristled in the background. Cecil ignored him). He stepped sideways into a slightly different role, channeled feelings like care and concern into his next words: "Think of how Mark would feel, if he accidentally hurt you. You know him better than anyone. You know he'd only blame himself." He turned towards her then, met her eyes properly, and struck the killing blow. "He loves you, Debbie. Don't let him destroy himself."

Deborah Grayson was a shrewd woman, sharp and witty and of impeccable moral character, weathered enough to see through most ruses. She would have made a first-rate agent in a different life, one of his best, perfectly suited for long-term undercover missions and honeypot work, twisting the loyalties of foreign marks so sweetly and subtly that they'd only recognise their transformations long after they'd taken permanent root. She'd force state secrets out of their lips and make targets thank her for it, relief coating every sensitive data point like toxic honey. She would have been a force of nature.

But the Deborah Grayson in this life was a civilian real estate agent, with soft hands and a softer heart. She was the kind of woman who loved her family first and foremost and would do anything for her son, and Cecil was a highly trained manipulator who'd been in the business longer than he could remember. Cecil's deep-rooted instincts had correctly identified Debbie as an obstacle on his mission to best utilise Earth's greatest superpowered asset, and his conditioning made him act accordingly. 

"I'm going in with you," she said adamantly, and pushed past him. "I'm not taking no for an answer."

Cecil pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed.

They found Mark curled up in the laundry room of all places, clothing and linen and pillows randomly scattered on every part of the floor. He'd stacked six washing machines on top of each other and crushed all the dryers. Half the wall panelling had been peeled off, because what did being made of military grade steel matter when you could bicep curl seven elephants without breaking a sweat. Mark had his knees drawn up to his chest, hiding in a corner like someone half his age. He spotted them as they drew closer. Without missing a beat, he pulled his lips back in a vicious snarl and stood and — oh, the kid was buck naked. Absently, Cecil noted he was missing certain anatomy.

"Mark!" Debbie rushed forward.

Cecil held out an arm and barked, "Are you trying to get yourself killed?"

She didn't get a chance to retort. Mark growled again. There was no recognition in his eyes, pupils blown wide with something primal. His skin glistened with a fine layer of sweat.

He clenched his fists and shifted his form for a fight. But this wasn't the textbook, evenly weighted footing from martial arts practice, nor did it have the playfully irresponsible Devil-may-care bearing the kid got when he was taking down a scrappy street villain. No, his form reminded Cecil of the GDA's more beastial containments, all cornered animal and no higher thought. Cecil made a gesture to Donald to remain vigilant.

"Debbie, stay behind me," Donald said. He reached inside his jacket, hands ready.

"Invincible," Cecil called. "I need you to stand down."

Nothing. The kid was unmoored.

So give him an anchor.

"Mark," he tried instead. Gentler: "Do you know who I am?"

Mark ground his teeth together and screwed his eyes shut. He slammed the side of his fist into the nearest wall, sending shockwaves through the ceiling. "Cecil. Stedman," he bit out shakily. The kid was mustering every ounce of strength to produce intelligent speech.

"Good, Mark," Cecil murmured, projecting calm and safe. "That's very good. And do you know where you are?"

"Pen-ta-gon," Mark managed. Then he doubled over with a shiver, tremors running head to toe like electric current. He was clawing at the left side of his neck again. Sank back to his knees. With a gasp, he whimpered, "What's happening to me?"

"You've been drugged by a supervillain," Cecil told him. "It's making you act out." Then, more firmly: "Mark. Listen to me. We know you're suffering. But this isn't like you. Whatever's clawing at your head, you have to fight it."

"Trying," Mark ground out.

"Try harder," Cecil pushed. He caught himself before he got too impatient. "You've been rampaging through half the facility. You need to stop before you bring the whole building down on us. Can you do this for me?"

Debbie shot past him and reached her son before he or Donald could react. "Mark!" She knelt beside him. "I'm here. Are you alright?" She made to put a hand over his shoulder but the kid flinched away violently. Surprise flashed across Debbie's face.

"Mom?" His eyes widened, then narrowed into a dangerous, bewildered glare. "You brought my mom here? What were you thinking?"

"She wanted to see you," Cecil replied. "She was worried."

"I can feel another hit coming. This one's worse." Mark's voice shook. With anger or fear or sheer dread, he wasn't too sure. "You all need to get out of here before I snap."

"Are you saying you're gonna do something to us if we don't leave?"

"Stop it, Cecil!" spat Debbie.

"I'm just trying to clarify. Talk to me, kid. What do you mean?"

"Just fucking go!" he roared, so loudly it sent a sharp burst of feedback shrieking in Cecil's earpiece. Mark slammed his hands into the floor with such force it sent the foundation rocking beneath their feet and sent them all stumbling. At that moment, exactly four minutes and thirty-seven seconds had passed.

An explosion blew the wall inwards and hit Mark sideways, spraying down a hail of dust and debris. Before he could blink, the Guardians of the Globe were moving. True to form, the Immortal struck first and asked questions later, knuckles catching Mark's face in a mean right hook. He followed through with a solid uppercut that sent the kid flying into the ceiling with a hard grunt. Bulletproof came speeding in next like a human battering ram and landed a hard blow to Mark's solar plexus, knocking the wind from him. The Immortal took the opening, unleashing a flurry of quick, vicious attacks that left Mark bloody and gasping for breath. Neither of them were intent on granting Mark any reprieve, launching storm after storm of merciless blows. The fight's momentum shifted the three flyers towards the floor above.

"Mark!" Debbie exclaimed. "Cecil, make them stop!"

"I don't think I can," he said honestly.

When superhumans started fighting, it wasn't smart to linger. One careless manoeuvre and it was all over for Cecil and his fragile human bones. They only had seconds to get to safety. Mark and the Immortal came crashing through the ceiling, as if on cue, limbs tangled in a violent frenzy, Bulletproof not far behind. Cecil teleported out of the way just in time to narrowly avoid being crushed by a chunk of falling concrete. The Immortal launched a barrage of punches at Mark's face as they dropped, Mark unable to defend himself on account of the stranglehold Bulletproof had him in. Cecil saw the moment Mark lost himself to another wave. The child-like terror, familial concern and helpless uncertainty evaporated from his eyes instantly. What came next was a barbaric mix of practiced lethality and something Cecil could only conclude as a Viltrumite's bloodthirsty instinct.

Mark sank his teeth into Bulletproof's arm with a vicious snarl. He bit down, hard, and shook his head violently like a rabid dog. Bulletproof yelped, loosened his hold only just slightly, but that was all Mark needed. He twisted himself forward, the momentum sending Bulletproof careening right into the Immortal's next powerful swing and knocking a few teeth out. Mark took advantage of the Immortal's shock by delivering an elbow strike to the man's nose, then a wild haymaker to his orbit. A sickening crack rang out. But the kid wasn't done. Mark delivered two devastating open-handed strikes to the Immortal's temples, stunning him and breaking both eardrums. With an animal's savage strength, he clasped his hands together and brought them down hard on the back of the Immortal's head, right where his neck met his skull, the impact burying his head into the ground.

Bulletproof flew in at an angle and aimed a powerful kick at Mark's head, but Mark caught the movement and snatched him by the ankle in a bone-crushing grip. He flung him into the ground face-first, shattering his goggles, then pivoted and brutally repeated the motion. He hurled Bulletproof's dead weight into the Immortal just as he managed to free himself and toppled them both like bowling pins. Mark quickly closed the distance. He hauled them up by their necks and crashed their heads together with a wet squelch, teeth bared chillingly and dripping a grim red. He kept ahold of them, ignoring their attempts to break free and slammed them into each other again, so violently the impact sent shockwaves rippling out and rattling the building. He did it again and again until they both stopped moving.

The impact from Mark's onslaught loosened and cracked the already fragile support beams above them. One collapsed and came arcing towards Debbie.

"Donald, grab her!"

But Donald was too far away.

Cecil acted fast. The teleportation neuralink was already whizzing furiously; he swiftly recalibrated the settings to accommodate two people. He dove and caught her by the waist, flickering his thoughts to precisely alter their position.

It wasn't enough. They caught the edge of the buckling beam and went down together, their scalps split open and gushing crimson. Debbie let out a sharp, pained cry.

Mark's head snapped round in alarm. In the billowing dust, his eyes took awhile to find them. When they did, he flew towards them, landing a foot away. Cecil climbed to his feet, shifted so he was in between Mark and Debbie, but Mark wasn't looking at him. The kid's eyes were zeroing in on the woman sprawled on the ground in front of him, pupils dilating and constricting, fists clenching and unclenching.

"Get me a medic!" Cecil yelled into his earpiece and pressed firmly on his head wound to stem the flow. He checked Debbie over, taking care not to jostle her neck. She was unconscious and bleeding, but alive. Then, he said to Mark: "Kid. You need to get a grip. Look at what you've done."

Mark whimpered, low and then high in pitch. "Mom," he wailed. He crumpled inward, reached close to his mother, hands trembling, and stopped himself just short of touching her. There was a larger commotion gathering by the entrance to the room, more armed guards and reinforcements.

Donald rushed in beside Cecil, handed him a small vial. "The antidote."

Cecil rolled it around in his palm, considered his next approach. "Mark," he said. "Look at me."

The kid obeyed, though it seemed like a Herculean effort. "Please, help her," he begged.

"We will," Cecil reassured. "But first, you need to do something for me." He held up the vial, uncapped it.

Despite his slowly resurfacing higher function, something in Mark still compelled him to refuse food and fluids. He curled into a tight shape and shook his head furiously, teeth gritted.

"Kid," Cecil said warningly. "Look around you. You've destroyed millions of dollars in government property. Bulletproof and the Immortal are barely conscious." He paused. "And worst of all — you've hurt someone who loves you more than life itself."

The medics slipped through the chaos, gave Debbie a swift assessment. Cecil let his eyes follow her as she was taken out on a stretcher.

Mark started to cry, messy tears streaking down his cheeks and mixing into the blood caking his lips. He buried his face in his hands to stifle the sound, but heaving, gaspy sobs were already wracking his body, making his next words hard to catch. "I didn't mean to," he said desperately. "I love my m-mom, I-I didn't mean to."

"I know," Cecil agreed. "But this stops here."

"Let me fix this," Mark sobbed. "Please, tell me how to fix this."

Mark folded in on himself, body trembling. He looked so young. The blood and bruises that made him look monstrous before now clung to him like childish shame. He imagined Mark in the same vulnerable position, ten years younger and pleading with his parents to just make the problem go away.

Cecil held out the vial.

"Drink."

Chapter Text

In the director's brief absence, Donald had been the first man on the scene when Mark and Debbie Grayson came to the GDA. It wasn't unusual for heroes to get injured or fall sick in the line of duty, but any substance strong enough to incapacitate Invincible definitely warranted special attention.

Debbie's reaction to him...had been unusual.

"Donald? I-Is that you?"

He took in the soft color of shock on her face, saw Invincible in civilian clothing, breathing ragged and uncomfortable. Worry for her son eclipsed her surprise at seeing him.

"Mark's sick," Debbie said anxiously, wiped the sweat from her son's brow. "Can you help him?"

Donald spared the boy another glance. It must've been bad if he hadn't even worn his costume.

"I'll bring you two to medical."

Things only escalated from there. Strike teams were dispatched. Debbie got hurt. Bulletproof and the Immortal took a brutal beating and were still demonstrating neurological deficits. Invincible's rampage cost them an estimated three hundred million dollars in damages at least, with more still yet to be budgeted for. The paperwork was going to be hard to manage. The optics of the situation, even more so.

Omni-Man's half-Viltrumite son, spreading carnage at the Pentagon a mere month after his father's hasty departure from their atmosphere.

Most seasoned superheroes encountered mind-altering substances sooner or later in their careers; a smaller proportion could even attest to being put under once or twice. Knowing that, Bulletproof was unlikely to take his injuries personally. 

The Immortal, on the other hand...

Well. He had faith in the man's professionalism. With as long as he had lived, this surely wasn't his first rodeo.

The strangest part of Director Stedman's office was the framed photograph of Donald he kept tucked on one of the bookshelves. On public display. Donald had asked him about it, once. Why him?

"Why not?" The director said, and that had been the end of that.

Donald found Director Stedman poring over the incident reports, squinting despite the good lighting. He was wearing a new suit. The split laceration he had suffered to the head was gone, courtesy of the GDA's highly advanced medical care and first aid equipment. While the aftereffects of his concussion were less easily fixable, most of the physical damage was mitigated. Even if it hadn't been, Cecil couldn't take a break to save his own life.

The man didn't look up from his work. "Donald. Some good news, please."

"The antidote has been titrated to maximum dosage, sir." In other words, they used all of it and needed to make more, fast, if they wanted any chance of determining the drug's minimum effective dose. "Its effects on Invincible's physiology are marginal at best..."

"Jesus, Donald, I said good news."

"...however, Invincible remains lucid. Emotionally distraught, but still. No feral episodes since the initial intervention."

Not that the director didn't already know. He kept a direct visual on Mark through cameras stationed in the boy's room.

Room. It was a glorified holding cell on one of the Pentagon's lowest levels, foam-lined and hastily reinforced by the emergency repair team with materials designed to contain rogue superhumans. The director had personally escorted him down, flanked by a host of guards, Invincible in a fugue-like state of blank compliance. If Donald glimpsed at the video feed now, he'd see Mark sat on the cheap cot, eyes vacant and arms shivering around his knees just like how they found him a few hours ago. There had been no need to restrain him. The boy hadn't moved a muscle.

Donald felt a twinge of sympathy.

"Kid's had a rough one." Cecil let out a sigh, old and tired. "I shouldn't have sent him out..."

"You weren't to know, sir. It was a sound decision at the time."

A long, thick silence filled the space between them. Seconds passed. The clock on the wall ticked.

Cecil finally looked up. "What, Donald?"

"I'll have the teleporter reconditioned. Sir."

Cecil frowned. "You wanna add another couple billion dollars to our bill for unnecessary maintenance work?"

"Yes, sir. The machine is perfectly configured to your impulses. It has to be, to circumvent quantum dislocation. The fact yourself and Debbie still sustained a blow each suggests a delay in the circuitry — either the conduction or signal output. Sir."

Donald could see Cecil resisting an eyeroll. He leaned back in his chair, annoyed and indignant. "For God's sake, it's not the teleporter. I'm just getting old. My reflexes aren't what they used to be. You gonna come after me for that?"

Behind his glasses, Donald blinked very slowly. Once. Twice; let judgement fall with every drop of his eyelids.

The truth lay between them.

Just over four weeks ago, Cecil Stedman had successfully evaded the consecutive attacks of Omni-Man, a superpowered alien invader capable of breaking the sound barrier. Probably fast enough to shatter mountains and level cities in his wake, if their simulations were correct. Had successfully thwarted every throat grab, speeding charge, flying boulder, kinetic clap; every deadly attempt on his life.

Five times in a row.

Donald didn't bother raising a brow. He let his blunt non-response do the talking.

"I'm not perfect, alright?" Cecil grumbled. "Sue me."

Donald inclined his head. "I trust you have everything under tight control." He let the pause stretch. "Sir."

The director's frown only deepened. He went back to his work with a huff, eyes now scanning the pages with more agitation than before.

Donald lingered. His feet were uncertain. When he didn't leave, Cecil barked, "What else?"

Donald hesitated. Felt a lead ball in form in his chest. Not big enough to weigh him down, but big enough to notice. He tried to shove it down his gullet and failed. "Debbie was surprised to see me."

"Okay?"

Donald straightened, pushed the words out. "Let me rephrase. She seemed distressed."

"She's a distressed person. After everything Nolan did, what Mark was going through, who wouldn't be?"

"This was different."

Cecil shifted in his chair. "Different, how?" he asked impatiently.

A feeling inside him flattened, sprang back up, and flattened again. Donald meant to say something, but the air left him. Left his lips flapping uselessly, before he remembered to put them back on his face.

"...nevermind, sir. It's probably nothing."

It was impossible to pinpoint when, exactly, it ended.

But Mark felt his fever break, finally putting an end to the hellish heat coiled under his skin. His head cleared, the red was gone. It felt like coming back to reality. He'd never done drugs in his life, but he imagined that a comedown would feel a lot like this. He sat up in bed, still sluggish, rubbed the back of his neck. These weren't his own clothes. He breathed evenly for a few minutes, in and out, focussing on the rise and fall of his chest. Mark felt absolutely drained, wrung out like a cloth twisted dry.

And then it hit him.

What had he done?

Hot shame rapidly enveloped his body and threatened to consume him. Mark groaned, buried his head in his hands, starting to panic. It froze his body, sat tightly in his bones.

He inhaled sharply.

"It's okay, you can do this," Mark muttered to himself. "Just try to remember what happened."

He fought a supervillain — some evil botanist. Went home. Got sick. Got horny.

Mark's cheeks flushed pink. He stuck a hand under his thin blanket, felt searchingly between his legs, and didn't find what he was looking for. So that hadn't been a fever dream. Was this permanent, now?

Dread pooled in his stomach; flowed down to his groin and past his knees.

"Not gonna think about it," he whispered, borderline hysterical.

Anyways: he flew to the Pentagon, seeking help. That must be where he was now.

Although...it wasn't like any medical bay he'd ever seen before. There was no hospital equipment, for one. None of the usual EKG machines or drip stands beside his bed. The walls were soft. No windows looking into the hallway either.

It was an instinct all natural flyers eventually developed, something dad someone told him once about the intricate workings of the inner ear. An in-built safety mechanism to stop him plummeting to the ground like a stone or soaring past the moon by accident: the ability to always guesstimate how far up or down he was, in relation to the planet's crust.

Mark got the feeling of being very deep underground.

That in of itself wasn't unusual, given the GDA's location, but this felt like...more. The shadows hung in layers, chasms echoed lower. The air was very still.

And.

The door was bolted shut.

From the outside.

Mark sat up straighter, tried to piece his memories together. His mind was a blur - a whirlwind of shrieking sounds and flashing lights. Fire burning through him, demanding an assault to fill the void. Nothing around him able to provide. Things in his way. People. Unfamiliar faces. Baring his teeth. Blood. (He had to suppress a full-body shudder at how the thought made his heart sing, a dark, hardwired response).

An offensive, sterile smell — saline and disinfectant and gunfire where there should have been comfort and security, his mom's favourite perfume and his dad's pine-scented aftershave.

Mom!

Mark was flying before he knew it. He was just about to bust down the door when a sharp, electrical buzz penetrated the air. Mark's nostrils registered freshly ironed cotton and the bitter tang of nicotine.

"Good to see you better, kid."

"Cecil! Where's my mom?"

"Hold your horses," Cecil raised a hand. "You'll need a full medical, first."

"I'm fine," Mark insisted, panic flaring. He stamped it down. "Just tell me where she is. What happened to her?"

Cecil narrowed his eyes. "You don't remember?"

"No? Sort of? My head's kinda patchy..." he trailed off. His pupils flitted around the room. "Where even are we? This isn't the hospital wing."

Mark felt Cecil's eyes linger on him for a beat. Then he sighed. "It's a long story. She's gone back to work, against our best doctors' advice. Said she was feeling better."

"Better?" Mark asked worriedly. His stomach turned, itching to fly out of there. "Better from what?"

"...you're gonna wanna sit down for this, Mark."

"No! Just tell me!"

He hadn't meant to shout. He hadn't meant to ball his hands into fists, either, but both those things just happened, and the force of him swinging his arm into the wall shook the whole room. Rage, hot and unbidden, coursed through him. It scared him. Just as quickly as it came, it vanished, leaving him empty and embarrassed. The wordless voice inside his head purred at the brief flash of apprehension on Cecil's face, Mark shoved it down and told it to shut up.

"Oh for fuck's sake, kid. Calm down. She's okay." Cecil rolled his shoulders. "And will you get down from there? You're giving me my neck a crick."

Mark hunched in on himself, levitated to ground level. "Sorry."

Cecil rubbed his temples. "You got a little rowdy, alright? Gave us some trouble. Nothing we couldn't handle."

"Then what happened to my mom?" Mark pressed. There was a small, dark pit growing inside him. "I came here with her, I-I think. I remember her voice."

Cecil hesitated. "You were delirious. You did some damage to the facility."

Cecil was just stalling. The pit expanded. Stretched its tendrils high and yawned, dragged Mark down to meet its doldrums and swallowed his voice. Cruel jolts of memory shot through his skull: Violence. Multiple impacts. Blast-resistant concrete. Steel beams.

He suddenly felt very, very, small. "I hurt her, didn't I."

"Mark — "

"I lost control. Oh god, I hurt people. I hurt mom." His breathing came out in gasps, harsh and uneven. There was a deafening rush in his ears, not at all like flying and everything like a freefall. "I'm turning into him."

Cecil gripped him by the shoulders. "Stop it. Just — just calm down," he said firmly. "Don't say that about yourself. You were under mind control. You're not your father."

Mark slapped his hands away, bared his teeth. "What would you know!" Mark wanted to throw up. There was that rage again, striking swift and deadly like a pit viper. Red clouded his vision, bled madness into his limbs. He stepped into Cecil's space, close enough to feel his breath, fists clenching and unclenching, ready. "You have no idea what's going through my head! You're just a human!"

A grim silence fell, hung low and heavy in the room.

Nothing moved. Even the shadows had gone very.

Very.

Still.

This close, Mark could hear the quick, uneven flutter of Cecil's heartbeat. A tiny swallow. The hitch in his breath. Faint acidity in his sweat. Even the most practiced liars had tells they couldn't hide. Indistinct chatter resonated from the man's hidden earpiece, annoying and tinny like an overexcited fly.

"Are you scared?" Mark asked wildly. "You gonna call for help?"

Something inside him preened at the thought. How many men did Cecil have on hand? What would they use? Guns, bombs, lasers? Would they charge him all at once, weak and desperate, or use a smart tactical maneuver Mark didn't know about? Was the building rigged to explode?

Either way, it'd probably be futile. He'd fly out of here unharmed, Cecil and his people rotting in the dust.

How many superheroes did the man have on standby, right now? How many would actually stand a chance? Which of them would provide the biggest challenge, the most pleasing thrill?

Would Cecil teleport out of here? Try to follow him, if he fled?

He was desperate to find out.

For a microsecond, Cecil's facial muscles quivered in place very minutely before settling into a deep frown.

Cecil leaned backwards. Mark expected fear, terror. Maybe even disappointment, hurt.

New, untested power was thrumming in his limbs. It wanted to claw its way out and strip the skin off the man in front of him inch by inch. Pin him down and break every bone in his hands. He'd start with the thumb and work his way out, taking his time. Maybe he'd pluck all his teeth out too, one by one. Humans couldn't regrow them. Giddy amusement overtook him at the thought of Cecil needing a full set of dentures like an eighty-year-old, he nearly giggled. It would be so easy. Like peeling an orange. Mark was almost terrified for him.

Another, saner part of Mark, was definitely terrified for him.

Cecil met his gaze evenly, expression unreadable and cold. What was the man gonna do? What could he do? Threaten him? Mark wanted to scoff. Pathetic. This entire planet was nothing but pathetic. Unworthy.

Mark eagerly braced himself for an ultimatum, another warning, the sweet promise of punishment and hellfire. He wanted to twist the man's false bravado around his neck and choke him with it.

But Cecil exhaled through his nose and said:

"What's your favorite color?"

What?

"Don't play games with me!"

"I'm not. This is important. Just answer the question. Please."

Cecil waited. Seconds ticked by.

Mark felt his brain rerouting a little at the absurdity. "Blue," he replied dubiously.

"Good. What shade?"

The anger was still simmering, threatening to boil over. "Shade?"

"Light, dark. That kinda thing. What shade?"

"...light," Mark said. "Like the sky."

"Good," Cecil said approvingly. There was a short pause where Mark's bewilderment got the better of him.

Then, world-weary: "You're right. I am just a human." Cecil let the words hang there; Mark tilted his head, considering. He couldn't deny that. Cecil turned away and huffed. "And so is your mom."

Mark blinked. Did he just — ?

"And I've got no idea what's spinning around in that noggin of yours. It's hard for me to muddle through."

Huh?

Cecil spun around and shot him a sarcastic glower. "What do you have that look on your face for? This is what you wanted, wasn't it?" He crossed his arms. "You got the adult in the room to tell you you're right. You happy now?"

Confusion overtook the fury. Was he meant to say yes or no to that. Bafflement and uncertainty danced intermingled in his head, round and round the slowly fading thought of, This wasn't supposed to happen. Mark wasn't sure why he thought that, had no idea what his head believed was actually meant to play out, but that was all he managed to ponder before the words disappeared into his subconscious completely, taking the aggression with it.

Now he just felt stupid.

"I... Uh, well — "

"Have a seat, Mark."

Mark hesitated. There weren't any chairs. Did he mean on the bed? But then where was Cecil meant to —

"Sit down, kid."

Mark dropped to his feet, unaware he'd been flying. He settled dumbly on the floor and looked up.

Cecil raised an eyebrow. Gave him a weird look. "I'll say this again. I need you to work with me, here. Comply with a full medical."

"I feel fine."

"No, you don't. Look at yourself. You're all over the place. You went from depressed to murder-happy to depressed again all in the span of a minute. You were gonna turn me into a bloody spot on the floor."

Shame and guilt turned Mark's gaze downward, made his nails press sharp crescents into his hands. Cecil's blunt assessment bore into him like a drill. Fear gripped him, built in his throat. Getting his powers had been freeing, brought him closer to his dad and superhero life. He'd never been scared of his own strength before, never felt his body and emotions betray him like this. His mom would be so ashamed.

"Right now, we're running blind," Cecil explained. "We have no idea what's got you in such bad mood swings. You were never like this before. Not even after Chicago."

Mark fell silent. Kept his gaze on Cecil's shoes.

"Talk to me, Mark." Cecil put a hand on his shoulder, made him look up. "I can't read minds."

Cecil spread his hands. Gave an honest shrug. "Just a human."

Mark pulled at the fabric of his shirt. Rubbed absently at the tendons in his neck. Wrung his hands, pressed over each of his wrists. Right, left, right again. Squeezed.

"Let me see my mom," he said quietly.

"Of course," Cecil agreed. "She's probably on her way already. We couldn't keep her from you if we tried. But you do as I say, and let our doctors take some bloods. Run some tests. Find out what's wrong."

An indignant wave rose sharp and furious.

"I won't hurt her."

"But you did, Mark."

Mark flinched violently. The wave went away.

"Look, I'm just trying to help. Trying to make sure this doesn't happen again. You understand me, kid?"

Cecil put his hands in his pockets. "I need to know if this is gonna be a long-term problem. Physical or mental. There's a lot at stake." He seemed to brace himself. "Because if this does happen again, I need to be prepared. Need to know what's coming. Because next time, your mom might not be so lucky."

Mark's heart sank with Cecil's words. Guilt and dread kept his head hung low.

"Give me an answer, kid."

Cecil knelt down, met him eye to eye. Mark couldn't blink.

Something electric passed between them. Jolted through his neurons one axon at a time and into his hindbrain, shifted in a way that didn't exactly feel right, but quieted his thoughts all the same. He wasn't sure if Cecil felt the adjustment too, but Mark did, though he didn't know what it was, didn't have the words for it.

A second later, he nodded weakly. "Okay."

Cecil snapped to the side then, fingers on his earpiece. "Uh-huh? Well, bring her in."

He turned back to Mark. "Right on time," he announced. "You've got a visitor."

Mark sprang to his feet. Emotions roiled and curdled in his gut, but key among them was longing. Trepidation and nervous excitement overlapped each other in pulses too, making his heart beat faster.

"Come on," Cecil said. He rapped his knuckles on the steel door. It swung open. He took a step out.

"Wait," Mark called, suddenly uncertain. "Can you — can I — "

Cecil threw a glance his way. "Spit it out, kid."

Mark swallowed. His throat had gone very dry. He approached Cecil with slow, wary steps, inched so close their noses were practically touching. The man stiffened.

"What are you doing, Mark."

Mark could see Cecil's discomfort growing. He had to make this quick.

He grabbed Cecil's wrist. Leaned in and tipped his nose into the hollow of the man's throat, inhaling deeply. Black coffee and metallic fight-or-flight rose to meet him. Cecil braced a palm against his forehead to push him off but Mark ignored his protests and pressed deeper, shifting so he could lightly brush the side of his neck against Cecil's. He sighed and felt something in him settle nicely with a low rumble, content for now.

Safe wasn't the right word. Appropriate wasn't either. Nonetheless, he felt a little calmer.

" — the fuck, Mark, get the fuck off me — "

Mark backed away instantly.

Cecil straightened, irritation and disgust plain on his face. 

Mark felt like dirt.

Cecil adjusted his tie and gathered his bearings, smoothened out his features so any displeasure was quickly washed away. He fiddled with the cuffs of his jacket, rubbed furiously at his neck where Mark had touched him. When he was done, he looked like his usual self — annoyed, unimpressed, and devastatingly matter-of-fact.

"Let's go."

Chapter Text

It took everything Mark had in him not to just fly ahead.

Cecil kept a placid, even pace that had Mark rippling with barely-contained impatience. They trudged through hallway after hallway, Mark trailing two steps behind, each one guarded by several heavy sets of imposing double doors — layers of solid steel requiring biometric access to open; the structures swallowing sound as they shut behind him, mechanisms groaning as if reluctant to let him pass. Each step of the journey blurred into the next: another sterile path, more cold metal, the incessant hum of fluorescent lights. Cameras everywhere, hidden or otherwise; sleek metal spheres that tracked his every movement with cold scrutiny. The air was low and stifling, made him fidget like a mouse.

Cecil must have noticed his discomfort.

"We're taking the long way up," he explained.

What for, Mark wondered. This was absolutely ridiculous, they were wasting time — the man could teleport, Mark could fly.

Still, they walked a little further. The hallways stretched on: long, monotonous things, turning one way and then the next like the world's most boring and needlessly complicated maze. The only sounds were their echoing footsteps — or, Cecil's at least, when Mark wasn't floating along. He kept reminding himself to have his feet planted on the ground; Debbie had raised him with the notion that it was rude to be flying when someone else was not.

The air soured. Cecil's hackles seemed to rise. Suddenly, they stopped. The man spun around.

"What is it, Mark?" he snapped.

Mark staggered. "I haven't done anything!"

"You keep staring at me. Got something to get off your chest?"

"No?"

Mark scrambled, tried to find something intelligent to say.

"Then why do you have your eyes glued to my — " The man shook his head and scowled. "Nevermind."

The moment gave way to an uneasy, awkward silence.

As they passed through another line of armed security and ascended via a polished, high-speed elevator, the distant drone of construction work became obvious. Every harsh jackhammer, crash, and buzz was a rude jolt to his hearing. As the noise built into a crescendo, Mark grew more and more aware of what he'd done, every mechanical whir and bitter clang jabbing into him, each one a harsh accusation.

"Sorry," he muttered, not meeting Cecil's eyes.

The man slid a glance his way. "I don't need to tell you what you're capable of, Mark. There's enough evidence on my side."

Mark nodded glumly.

"You gotta remember that the rest of us can't do what you do. We can't take the same punches and just walk it off, okay? Whatever's going on, you've gotta get a lid on it. With or without the GDA."

They stood outside the door to Cecil's office; the thick, dark wood his final obstacle. Mark found it very hard to move. Tension roiled in his gut, made his knuckles whiten. His breathing came in shallow waves. Suddenly, he didn't want to go in. He shook himself, hissing. Mom was right behind that door, and here he was, freezing up, trying to avoid responsibility. He was such a coward. He hadn't thought this through. How would he word his apology? Would mom even accept it? What would he do, if she didn't?

"Cecil," Mark said, eyes flitting about nervously. His voice nearly a whisper. 

Do you think my mom hates me, he wanted to ask.

But just before he could, the door swung open. A thin rectangle of light followed its arc and caught his eyes.

"Mark!"

Familiar comfort enveloped him, gently wrapped itself around his body and held tight. Her scent, fresh chamomile tea and candied ginger, bled soft affection into his bones, the spicy-sweetness sending him back to a place he loved but couldn't name. He had to muster every ounce of strength just to keep standing. Only his mother's arms, pressing spots of warm, critical reassurance into the small of his back, kept him from falling to the floor. That, and the brush of her hair against his cheek. She whispered to him in soft Korean, little syllables of love and affection and relief that made Mark's breath catch. He felt a weight in his chest build, ease, build again; the crazy momentum driving the edges of his vision blurry with tears.

Slowly, paying shaky, painstaking attention to every little movement, he lifted his trembling arms from his sides and returned the hug.

"I'll give you two a minute."

Cecil's office wasn't designed for touching family reunions. The place was a study of controlled power: a heavy oak desk dominating the room, a neat wall of books lining the shelves, their spines uncracked and immaculate. Frames bearing medals, certificates and various other accolades lined the desk and walls, projecting power and unchallenged authority. The chairs Mark and Debbie occupied seemed like high-quality things, glossy black leather and expertly waxed steel. Nonetheless, Mark got the feeling they weren't meant to be sat in for longer than a few minutes, the pieces digging into him and forcing his back straight.

"I'm so glad you're okay," Debbie said, clutching his hands.

Mark nodded. "I'm glad you're okay too, Mom."

She had no signs of injury — no scars, no bruises. Her hair was neatly pinned. The clean image of Debbie in front of him warred with the vague flashes he had of her sprawled on the floor, frail and unconscious and bleeding. His doing. It hurt to look at her — so Mark didn't.

They fell silent. It stretched long and uncomfortable, melded with the low din of the air conditioning. Mark's fingers twitched in his mother's gentle grip.

"Mom, I — "

"I was told you — "

They started at the same time. Both stared at each other.

"You first," Debbie said, smiling.

"No, no," Mark replied. "I wanna hear what you have to say."

"Oh, alright," she said, gathering herself. "I had the house repainted. The outside was looking a little worn."

"That's nice," he said awkwardly.

"Trimmed the trees in our backyard, too. And I did it without needing to fly," Debbie joked. Mark tried to smile. She paused then, looking away. When she turned back, she was apprehensive, nearly biting her lip. "I got a call from one of your teachers."

"Yeah?"

"You missed graduation."

Mark's heart sank. In all of the chaos, the promise he'd made to Amber had just slipped away. Another milestone missed. He'd wanted to meet his friends and girlfriend one last time before the long summer break, William and Eve and Amber. They were busy people. They'd all have different plans, who knows when they'd be free next to hang out? 

Wait.

"Graduation?" Mark said disbelievingly. "That isn't till Wednesday! How long have I been out?"

"It's Friday, today," Debbie said gently. "Your friends have been blowing up your phone."

Five days?!

"I'm sorry, honey. I know how much you wanted to go."

"...Yeah."

"W-We could still go out and celebrate? Have our own ceremony. What do you think?"

"It won't be the same."

Another silence fell.

Mark thought of the time he'd lost. Five days. How many people had died during that time, because he wasn't around to save them? How much did he owe now? He grimaced. Then again, what good was he, anyway. He'd tried to help the Guardians five days ago, and ended up causing more trouble than it was worth.

Debbie looked uncomfortable. Mark wanted to comfort her.

But he was a bad person and a worse son. Apology after apology should have come tumbling out from his lips by now. 

Frustration screamed loud and ugly inside him, made it hard to speak.

Guilt washed it down. He bit the bullet.

"Mom," Mark said very quietly. "I'm sorry."

"Mark — "

"I-I hurt you. I lost control. There's no excuse."

"Sweetheart, it was an accident — "

"That doesn't mean it didn't happen!" He snatched his hands away from her, afraid suddenly. "I-I've been off lately. I can't explain it. It's like, I keep doing these things and I don't know why."

"Is it from your mission? Are you still getting side effects?"

"I don't know." He ran his fingers through his hair. "Somehow, this feels like more than that."

Things weren't adding up. It was rare enough to find a substance capable of producing an effect on him, let alone one that could keep him down for so long. While it couldn't be completely ruled out, a run-of-the-mill supervillain was a very unlikely source.

A question bubbled unbidden in his throat, deep from the void of his subconscious.

"Mom," he said uncertainly. "Did dad ever do anything...weird?"

"Weird, how?"

"Did it ever feel like you weren't really living with him?"

"Plenty of times," Debbie confessed. "Sometimes I felt more like an accessory than I did his wife."

Her admission was a revelation in of itself, but...

"...That's not really what I mean."

She waited for him to clarify. When he didn't:

"Mark, what's brought this on?"

"I don't know. Just...recently, it's like my mind isn't my own. Like I'm fighting something, and I can't see it. My head's not right. It's scaring the shit out of me."

"Come here," Debbie said, extending her arms. He obeyed, and she pulled his head into her chest, kept him there. He could hear her heartbeat, solid and steady. This was them, talking before he went to bed every night when he was a kid, unloading his childish problems, her preparing dakjuk and hot chocolate on rainy days. "I know it feels like you're unravelling. You're exhausted. Overworked. But you're still you. You haven't lost yourself."

She brushed the hair out of his eyes. "And if you do get lost, you'll find yourself again. You're strong. The strongest person I know." Before he could disagree, Debbie placed a soothing kiss on his brow. "And you'll always have me. Your normal, boring, non-superpowered mom to pick up the slack."

They both chuckled and held each other tighter, their overlapping arms a cocoon of warmth and belonging. Nothing more needed to be said. It was nice.

A heavy weight eased off his chest, his breathing evening out. The underlying tension simmering in his nerves hadn't completely disappeared, but it was quieter now, thoughts calmer and easier to process.

Mark smiled and closed his eyes.

"Thanks, mom."

Bitter nicotine caught in his throat. Mark sensed him before he spoke.

"As sweet as this is, we have things to discuss."

Cecil's presence sent Debbie's temper flaring. "Were you listening in on us?"

Mark withdrew from his mother and saw Cecil push off the wall he'd been leaning on. His scent was stormy. Debbie rose to meet him.

"Mark's agreed to let us run some tests on him. Our scientists are dying to have a look."

"No. Absolutely not."

"Debbie — "

"No, Cecil," Debbie said firmly. "I know how this works. First it's 'just blood tests', then it's experiments, then before any of us know it you've got Mark living here under your thumb like a lab rat. People like you do not stop pushing."

"I never said anything about him staying here."

Mark's nostrils twitched.

"Don't give me that shit," she said viciously. "I saw it coming from a mile away. You want to keep him here."

"What Mark told you is true. Jesus, ask the kid himself. He's been unstable — "

"Unstable? Mark was only unstable because you and Donald started firing guns at him!"

" - and I cannot have him tearing up a civilian neighborhood. You want that kinda blood on your hands, Debbie?"

"You think he's some kind of rabid animal, like he's gonna start going crazy — "

"He tore up the entire facility! Kid's an emotional wreck — "

" — and now you care about his feelings? Where was that when you were sending him out in the first place?"

"Mark came to me, Debbie, he said he was ready — "

"Then you should have known better! He's still only seventeen!"

"An unstable seventeen-year-old who could level a small city — "

"There is that word again. Stop acting like you have his best interests at heart. If you really wanted him to get better, you'd let him come home with me!"

"Oh I'm sorry, is your family home equipped with anything strong enough to keep this kid's temper tantrums in check? Do the sprinklers shoot high-grade propofol? Is that something I missed in my intel?"

"Enough!"

Mark had risen from his chair, one hand covering his mouth and nose. Jesus, it smelled terrible in here. The stench had built with their bickering, easy to ignore at first but now hitting him heavy and acrid like a physical blow. Debbie's scent was burning coals; if she could manifest them literally she'd be raking Cecil over them. Cecil was the opposite: cold steel and the frigid intensity of a glacial quake. They were glaring daggers at each other, the air thick with outrage on both sides.

He got in between them, lowered his hand, and regretted it instantly. "I already said I'd do the tests, Mom. I can't back out now. It wouldn't be right."

"Honey, you can change your mind about anything, anytime — "

Mark turned to Cecil. "But I don't wanna stay here. I wanna go home. Please. My mom's right. I shouldn't be here."

Cecil stared at him, hard and disapproving.

Something acidic tickled Mark's nose again. He grimaced and lowered his gaze, wanting to pinch his nostrils closed. He didn't. He grit his teeth and bore the pain. Think, Mark. How could he convince the man?

"I'm feeling a lot better," he said truthfully, voice a little softer, sweeter. "I'll recover best with my mom. And if you really care, you'll let me go."

"Kid, it's too soon — "

"I wanna see my friends, okay? My girlfriend too. And I need to start prepping for college, assuming I even got in. I can fly here and back for the tests."

Cecil's eyes, steady and unblinking, were like a knife cutting into him. His jaw was tight, arms crossed prohibitively. His lack of response was heavy and accusing. Mark stood his ground, though his stomach was slowly knotting. How long would he be kept here, anyway, if he chose to stay? The man never said.

An eon seemed to stretch, an invisible push and pull between authority and teenage willfulness.

(Something darker stirred inside him. The thought of resisting against Cecil's full might was very appealing. Just a little push, one slight nudge, and Mark would be free to test the mettle of every unfortunate tool Cecil was willing to throw his way).

Then, Cecil sighed. The tide of words that might've come faded away. "Fine. You can go."

Mark brightened. The air got a bit cleaner.

"But," he cut in, "I need you to be in very regular contact. You'll tell me everything, and you'll be honest about it. I can't take any risks. I'm serious."

Mark was already nodding.

"I can't have you running around without a clear head. The slightest shift in your mood, the littlest change, and you'll be back here. Do you understand?"

"Oh come on, Cecil," Debbie said in his defense. "What teenager doesn't have mood swings."

Cecil spared her a look. "He knows what I mean."

But Mark wasn't listening anymore. He was going home.

With barely contained excitement, he let his head dip gently into the juncture of Debbie's head and neck, closed his eyes and breathed in happily at the scent. He felt her shift slightly beneath him. He was about to do the same to Cecil, but the man stabbed him with a glare so hot and deadly that Mark shrank back and nearly wilted on the spot.

The drive home was pleasant and uneventful. The sun was shining bright, trees verdant green and birds singing with the advent of warmer days. Mountains and hills rolled in the distance. Mark sat shotgun, back in his own clothes and admiring the scenery with his chin propped on his knuckles. They were taking the long way.

Debbie was glad to have her son back.

He looked tired. Bags under his eyes. Tiny, fidgeting motions. Wind from the open window swept his hair back in waves, sunlight casting on his cheeks highlighting the baby fat and making him look so, so young.

She'd been opposed to him going on missions again. It was too soon. Unease gnawed at her every time she watched him jet off into the sky to fight criminals and world-destroying threats, dread clawed her heart out every time he returned bloody and bruised. Though Debbie knew intellectually that Mark was blessed with magnificent gifts, abilities he was morally obligated to use for the greater good, she was his mother. He was her son. She couldn't help it.

On some days, she wanted to wrap him in her arms and hold him to the ground, chain him in place with the overbearing might of burdensome maternal love. He would hate her, he would fight her. But he would be safe.

Debbie couldn't do it.

Taking on the bad guys was Mark's decision. She had raised him to be good and moral, to champion empathy and help the less fortunate. She couldn't then fault him for following through with her teachings. She was proud of him for making his own choice and standing by it, even if she disagreed. She was so, so, proud of him for standing up to his father.

And yet...

This time, Debbie had been particularly anxious, distress peeling off her in droves, then unrelenting fury when the GDA had refused to let her see him. She never should have left his room to begin with.

When she'd woken up from her injury, it was Donald who helped her stop spiralling, promised her that if anything happened to Mark, she would be the first to know. She went back to work, the mundane chatter of real estate an easy distraction from the growing, impotent worry for her son.

"Mark, honey," Debbie called. "You're flying."

"Oh!" Surprise flashed over him briefly before he dropped three inches into his seat again. "Sorry."

"It's okay." She hummed a little lullaby, slow and melodic from her childhood. "You can go to sleep, if you want."

"'M not sleepy," Mark murmured, already nodding off.

Love bloomed like spring flowers in Debbie's chest, little snowdrops of contentment and proud yellow daffodils of joy. Mark had her eyes. Her laugh. Her inability to truly lie. This was her boy. More beautiful than the stars, more precious than gold. Her boy. Mark was lightly snoring. He turned over in his sleep, mouth dropped open and beginning to drool over the plush, leather seats.

Still. In the wisps of his hair, in the stern set of his jaw, there was Nolan. Nolan, who had fooled them all for twenty years. Nolan, the mass murderer, scourge of Chicago and enemy of the entire world. Nolan, whom Debbie felt like a ghost in their family home, from the looming gap created by his absence to the light brush of his neck against hers. He used to do that, albeit very rarely, whenever emotions ran too high. A quirk he had. Once, in their first real argument. Another, in her third trimester with Mark, the day her obstetrician told them of a problem with their baby's placenta. To have her son do the same without even realising was as much uncanny as it was exquisitely painful.

A sharp stab of pain jerked into her skull just as they rounded a blind corner. It wasn't enough to make her let go of the wheel, but it did distract her; she yelped and scrambled to regain control of the car as it swerved. An oncoming vehicle released a loud honk as she narrowly maneuvered back into her lane.

"Mom!"

Mark was sat up, arm on her shoulder. "Are you okay?"

The pain was already easing.

"Sorry, sweetie," Debbie said with a smile. "I wasn't paying attention. Not used to these roads."

The pain was gone.

"I can fly us home," Mark said, already reaching for his seatbelt. "It would be easy."

"No, don't worry," Debbie replied. "You've had a rough week. Besides, I think I need a long drive."

Debbie smiled again, warm and reassuring to her kind, enduring, soft-spirited son. "Go back to sleep, Mark. It'll all be okay. You can get through anything. You're — "

Chapter Text

Despite Cecil's big talk about taking him off active duty, the GDA was still sorely understaffed in the superhero department, so Mark was sent on the odd mission here and there, lower-level street thugs and search and rescue operations. Though he knew he was doing good work, it frustrated him to be delegated to a support role when he was capable of so much more. His body was teeming with the sheer potential of how many people he could help, his mind no better. Sometimes, despite what he'd been taught — that whether it was a single tear dried or a thousand lives saved, kindness carried weight — it made him seethe.

But.

He listened to Cecil, followed his orders. Gave him reports on his mood whenever he was asked, however vague and ill-worded, never really knowing what to say, unsure of how much the man was even listening. He flew back and forth to the Pentagon for his check-ups.

Mark had agreed to this, in exchange for his freedom, as a gesture of good will, to make up for the trouble he had caused them all. Out of guilt. Out of responsibility. At times, he felt like chucking away the earpiece Cecil had given him, wanted to throw it like a dart right into the Atlantic, nevermind the innocent turtles who would mistake it for a jellyfish or something. Nevermind the oceanic microplastics that Amber had told him about. He wanted to tell the man to go kick rocks, to go fly a kite, to go find some other superhero he could badger with stupid questions on how he was feeling .

Because he was fine.

There hadn't been any crazy mood swings since he went home with his mom. He had been ecstatic, jumping out of the car and racing inside, Debbie laughing behind him. Rich bergamot and roasted barley swam eagerly to meet his nostrils, scents from Debbie’s favorite diffusers; he inhaled them like old friends. That night, Mom made Mark his favourite meatloaf and mashed potatoes, green beans sitting ornamentally on the side. He devoured it all in barely a second as she watched, pride and amusement painted on her features. It was a simple, childish meal, just salt and pepper and ground beef with a splash of ketchup, but it rested warm in his belly and gave him a comfort he hadn't realised he had been missing.

He'd fallen asleep in his old, familiar bedsheets, sweat-stained and threadbare but fundamentally his .

So, yeah. Mark was fine. He didn't need this level of scrutiny.

But he understood the reasons behind it. Allowing him out of the Pentagon and back into the suburbs had been a huge risk on Cecil's part, the man had explained. A massive show of trust that Mark would be an idiot to break.

In his troubled sleep, though he wouldn't remember the particulars, Mark pictured tearing through the walls of his family home like tissue paper, swiping heavy furniture around the living room like errant flies. Doing the same to people on the street and enjoying it. Wandering from home to home in his neighborhood wreaking havoc like a demon, the fire burning through his veins driving him to shed blood by any means necessary. He imagined his mother's broken husk lying before his bare feet, hands curled menacingly in uncontrollable rage. As he dreamt, the image would multiply, fracture, reform; the lifeless corpses of everyone he had ever cared about joining her in a sea of misery and death, one body piled on top of the other: Amber, Eve, William. The Guardians of the Globe. Cecil, Donald.

Roiling with featureless, ever-present anguish: the faces of every innocent man, woman, and child he had allowed to die in Chicago. On the cruise ship. In the avalanche.

Cities burned. Oceans boiled. The Earth suffered and bent.

And clawing its way up unwanted, a half-formed terror rang clear in his father's voice, dark and true and inescapable:

You are a Viltrumite. This is inevitable.

Mark's dreams left him gasping and sweaty, heart hammering out of his chest. His memory produced few details and fewer answers. He was never able to describe exactly what he dreamed of. But he was given many strong, bitter impressions; curling around his spine like smoke and lingering like thunderous echoes in a storm too wild for him to fly through.

So yes.

Mark had agreed to Cecil's demands, though he didn't always understand why.

Still, he hadn't realised just how much time everything would take. How tedious it would be.

"You said there'd be blood tests, Cecil. This is an interrogation."

"It's a medical history," the man clarified. "Just answer the goddamn questions."

Frustration rose like bile. These people wanted to know everything . It wasn't like the GDA didn't already know . Mark tried his best to answer at first, but he wasn't used to giving out so much personal information like this to begin with, let alone with what he felt was the cold judgement of Cecil Stedman weighing down on his neck like a guillotine. He hadn't asked the man to come. But the instant Mark had started hesitating with some of his words, Cecil buzzed in completely uninvited like a shark smelling blood.

The clinic room was detached and sparse. It smelled like cough syrup and alcohol wipes. If it weren't for the armored guards and secret agents Mark could sense skulking about, he could almost pretend he was in a regular doctor’s office. It didn't look much different – a plain desk, a sink, an examination bed, even a sad, wilting orchid sitting desperately in the corner, languishing in the absence of natural sunlight.

“He doesn't have to answer anything he's uncomfortable with, Director,” said the doctor, looking a mix of gentle and vaguely offended.

“Like hell he doesn't,” Cecil shot back. “I need you to squeeze every bit of information out of this kid." He jabbed a finger at Mark. "Leave nothing out.” Before Mark could retort he snapped to the side, fingers on his earpiece. “ Again ? Do they think I have nothing better to do with my time?”

Cecil was already walking out the door.

“Why does she need to know how many people I've had sex with?”

The man ignored him.

"Are you even listening?"

“I’ll be back,” Cecil said without looking up. “Do as you're fucking told.” 

A buzz of electricity, and Cecil vanished.

For a second, Mark seethed.

“He does that all the goddamn time!”

What was the point of dropping in and out like that? Why bother showing up at all?

The doctor cleared her throat. She was a kindly woman in her mid-fifties, greying and dark-eyed and speaking with the hint of a South African accent. She smelled like lavender and old books. “Invincible,” she began, “I understand that you're reticent to answer some of the more intimate questions.”

Mark felt his irritation ebb away.

“Sorry,” he mumbled. “I didn't mean to make your job harder. I'll try again.”

“No, no,” she insisted politely. “It’s perfectly fine to be embarrassed. These are embarrassing things, and I understand that we have only just met. Rapport takes time to build. But to be honest, I was brought in to ask you the more…normal questions first, to ease you in. If these are still making you uncomfortable, we can proceed to another part of the diagnostic process and circle back.”

“Uh, okay.” Mark honestly appreciated the courtesy and hoped it was showing on his face. “Thanks.”

She smiled. “Perfect. I'll take your bloods, and after, you can speak to one of my colleagues. I can remain in the room with you, if you like. He’s the GDA’s top xenobiologist. You'll be in good hands.” 

“...Xenobiologist?”

(Mark ended up drawing his own blood, under the careful instruction of Dr Zuma. The GDA’s mechanized needles, though crafted for superhuman use, were no match for a Viltrumite’s sturdy physique. They wouldn't pierce his skin without him creating his own wound first).

The questions did not get easier.

“And you're saying you had a penis and scrotum before, yes? Normal human male anatomy, yes?”

Why did he think the questions would get easier?

“Yes,” Mark muttered, face reddening.

“Fascinating,” the GDA’s top xenobiologist breathed; sophisticated, British, loopy . “And now, you are in possession of what you know as typical human female anatomy?”

“...Yes.”

Mark wanted to die.

Was the man gonna ask if he had to sit down to pee now? 

(The answer to that question was yes).

“Absolutely fascinating!” The man’s bug eyes were boggling, and boggling even wider under his thick-rimmed glasses.

“What my esteemed colleague Dr Sutherland means is, that your case is the first of its kind.” Dr Zuma cut in smoothly. “The only other Viltrumite we have ever treated was Omni-Man, and we have nothing on record to show any similarities, neither in your initial presentation nor in its longer-lasting consequences.”

"Would you consent to a bimanual pelvic examination?” Dr Sutherland asked eagerly. “Dr Zuma is perfectly qualified for such a task. I can act as chaperone."

"What?"

Dr Zuma told him what it was.

Mark blanched. "No."

No one was touching him. Not there. He hadn't even looked himself, not properly, not beyond practical necessity. The very idea made him squirm, made embarrassment and shame bubble in his gut.

“Omni-Man never wanted to let us study him,” Dr Sutherland said mournfully. He looked almost tearful before swinging back into mania and snatching both of Mark’s hands in a frenzied grip. “But you are doing us a great service, Invincible! The entire field of xenobiology will owe you for decades, nay, centuries to come!” 

Mark was too stunned to pull away. Gears turned in his head. “I take it…the Immortal and Dupli-Kate didn't go through what I did?”

“Not at all!” Dr Sutherland said cheerily. “They experienced just under twenty-four hours of heightened arousal before returning to physiological homeostasis.”

“Uhh…”

Suddenly, a beep sounded from the tablet Dr Sutherland kept at his side. He dove for the device like a wolf starving. The man eagerly swiped through until he found what he was looking for, eyes glittering with mad, professional interest.

“Fascinating! It's as I theorized!”

Mark’s heart sank.

“Why, I dare say the entire team owes me a pint and an apology! A mere auxin synthesized in a black market laboratory, casually crossing the interplanetary species border, honestly." He scoffed. "I never outright discount the ideas of my juniors but you know, experience is best…”

“What do the results say, Dr Sutherland?” Dr Zuma asked, before the man could go even more off-track.

“I only had a cursory look – we’ll need to run the more complicated tests after, of course – but we compared your samples to those of animals native to Earth – cats, dogs, deer, anything really – and I do feel, Invincible, that the resemblance is uncanny!”

“What do you mean,” Mark said, already dreading the answer. “And why animals? I'm a human, not a dog.”

“Your hormonal profile is too far removed from humans for it to be of any use beyond initial rudimentary comparison.” 

“Uh-huh.”

“Your biology,” Dr Sutherland said gleefully, “appears strongly analogous (but not identical) to the estrous cycles of multiple common species found right here on Earth! A true marvel of convergent evolution!”

Mark’s mind was racing, going everywhere and nowhere fast .

Estrous. He catalogued the word, let it branch out into terms he had more familiarity with.

"It's all in-keeping with the behavior observed, as well. The heightened arousal, affectionate mannerisms, even the aggression."

"I have no idea what you're trying to tell me," Mark said, sinking into his chair. Arousal and aggression? Sure. Affectionate mannerisms, though? Wasn't it normal for him to be affectionate towards his mom?

"Oh, my apologies! I neglected to clarify. Tell me, Invincible, when you were so radically redecorating the confines of this fine establishment, what, exactly, was going through your mind?"

Mark wavered, uncertain. "It's all still pretty hazy," he admitted. There had been that aching, fleeting impression, the recognition that his surroundings were wrong, and the overwhelming urge to reconstruct it as he saw fit. He wanted to say he felt threatened, cornered. And towards the end, maybe he did feel that way. "But I was mostly...annoyed?"

That was a terrible excuse for his actions. He felt guilty the instant he said it. How could he justify being fine, when that was the answer he came up with? Something as banal as annoyance as a reason for all this destruction?

Certain things had been screwing with his head that day, all of his senses all at once. Dr Sutherland's questions, jarring and uncaring of social boundaries as they were, were making him think. Why did he wander through the whole facility, ripping up anything he could find? Had it really just been mindless aggression, a desire to escape Cecil's soldiers, or was there something else?

"Please, tell me more," Dr Sutherland implored.

Mark looked away, trying to explain. Part of him wanted to be difficult, to refuse. But another part of him wanted just as desperately to find out what was wrong with him. "I just felt like...the place had to look different. Better." Less sounds. Less light. Rage, indignance. "Like, if the GDA didn't want me moving their shit around, why wasn't any of it bolted to the floor?"

"It was."

Cecil stood in the corner, arms crossed and oozing nicotine like he'd never left. Mark rolled his eyes at him. "All of it was. With bolts made from an experimental titanium alloy." He narrowed his eyes. "A very expensive titanium alloy."

Mark flushed. "That's your money well spent then, isn't it?”

He felt a tightness rising in his chest, the urge to push and keep pushing. He rubbed the back of his neck to keep the feeling down but it rose again twice as strong. He grit his teeth against the force, knowing that it probably made him look quite angry.

Estrous, his mind said again.

“Seriously, you have access to the economies of every major superpower on Earth, and that's the best your engineers can do?”

Cecil frowned. “When the hell did you get so mouthy?”

“Why won't you just knock before entering like a normal person?”

“My colleague has not yet finished explaining himself,” said Dr Zuma delicately.

“Ah! Yes!” Dr Sutherland spluttered. The man shrank under the hot glares Mark and Cecil levelled his way, exuberance dampened. “I…uhhh…”

“Get on with it,” Mark and Cecil said at the same time, then glowered at each other.

“M-My running theory at the moment,” Dr Sutherland said nervously, “is that Invincible's condition is entirely benign.” He smiled then, as if trying to dispel the tension in the room.

It didn't work.

Cecil raised a brow.

Dr Sutherland bristled. He continued hastily: “One could say, given Invincible’s biochemistry, that he has simply reached his majority, by Viltrumite standards.”

Cecil paused. “You're saying that this is the kid's new normal.”

Mark was reeling. Normal? He was stuck like this? He had held out hope, however small, that his condition was a fluke, that like everything else, he would bounce back from it unscathed. He had never considered his Viltrumite heritage to be an influential factor – if anything, it usually anchored him to a fixed point in his body’s status quo.

Mark’s thoughts switched to Nolan, the mask he had worn, the long list of truths he had never revealed. Now, this was just one more. Between being a lying, world-conquering monster or neglecting to explain certain developmental aspects of Viltrumite biology, this should have been nothing. It shouldn't have hurt as much as it did.

He curled his arms around his middle and hunched forward.

“I cannot be one hundred percent certain,” Dr Sutherland said. “But it’s very likely.”

Dr Sutherland took one look at Mark’s face and scrambled to reassure him, “The GDA has the finest technology available. With a little observation and some perseverance, we’ll be able to monitor your mating cycle with utmost precision! Perhaps even down to the minute!”

Why did dad hide this from me, Mark wondered. What was the point. 

When that didn't help, Dr Sutherland frantically turned to Dr Zuma as if to say, What now ?

Cecil was pinching the bridge of his nose. “You used that word, ‘cycle’,” he said tightly. “Are you telling me this nonsense could be a regular occurrence?”

Mark’s gaze shot to Dr Sutherland’s jittery form, pinned him with something dark and deadly. In another situation, the man’s wide-eyed panic and fluttering hands would have been comical.

“Uhh, well, in c-certain species, c-cats for example, reproductive cycles can occur several times in one breeding season.”

“How. Many. Times.” Cecil bit out.

“At most,” Dr Sutherland said with rapidly draining confidence, ending nearly in a squeak, “every six to eight weeks?”

Cecil swore. Very colorfully.

Mark did not. Cold horror was rushing through his ears, the sound deafening out the room. He was paralyzed by the weighted stone in his stomach.

“Over ninety-five percent of known migratory interplanetary species adapt swiftly to the rotation of their host planet around its star,” Dr Sutherland explained. “With careful measurements, we should be able to reliably predict the onset of Invincible’s hormonal shifts.”

“His moods could also lend us a clue,” Dr Zuma added.

It was a new feeling entirely.

Mark had never been blessed with a stunning intellect, coasting by with low Cs or the occasional B in high school, his meagre efforts made more useless by the constant academic interruptions being a superhero brought. It could have been a deficit in natural ability, or focus, or interest. That was irrelevant. Though he hardly knew it, instinct had always carried him further than formal instruction. It showed beautifully in how he fought, showed even better in how he improved.

In another, simpler universe, Mark would never need to understand this. His instincts, less acute and much more human, would lurk beneath the surface, remaining his most loyal, unacknowledged shadow. He would never have to feel the low burning heat of bloodlust and arousal that compelled him to seek out others of his own kind.

The gift of a Viltrumite’s invulnerable form had been invaluable in teaching him how to first throw a punch, a kick, how to dodge, block, take a hit. It gave him the privilege of being able to experiment where others would have simply died, their brittle bodies unable to withstand the bitter onslaught of a world-ending battle, or barring that impossibility, the brutal, gritty nature of a nighttime street fight. A minuscule lapse in judgement was all it took for the average fighter to be painting the sidewalk red with their intestines, any hopes and dreams they might have had rotting away in the shattered remains of their skull. The average fighter had to be careful. Skilled. Disciplined. Lucky.

Mark had escaped death numerous times thanks to the mortal immunity brought by his genetics. So he was reckless. Poorly trained. Chaotic.

And he was never, ever, lucky.

Mark’s subconscious understood this all and then some. It held his most precious memories, his deepest desires and his worst impulses, kept them tightly woven in an intimately complex web. Unbeknownst to him, his subconscious kept him warm. Kept him fed. Gripped the delicate truth of him in its gentle, fearsome maw and bit down, applying just enough pressure to keep the threads of his psyche from unravelling like an old tapestry. Sometimes, it swallowed, and Mark would feel himself slipping further and further away from reality and towards the dark promise of power and sex, the primal hunger drawing him deep and granting him spirited, indomitable strength, safe in the refuge of his own unthinking violence. This was happening with greater frequency as of late.

(Mark didn't know this yet. But in other worlds, his instincts would consume him totally, and no amount of human begging or reason would ever bring him back. He would hate himself. He would love the feeling. He would do as he pleased).

Rarer still was when his subconscious would opt to directly deliver him something useful. Something he would otherwise think new and unfamiliar, when in actuality the information was there all along, written in a code he didn't know he could read. Perhaps it was carved into the crude bases of his nucleic acid, millions of years of shared evolutionary history teaching him the fundamentals in a way he least expected, perhaps they were wisps stolen from the touches of a long-forgotten paternal memory. It didn't matter.

Estrous rang clear and foreboding like a war bell.

The information materialized unbidden, gave him the correct words, fought its way up his gullet with startling ferocity. When Mark spoke, it was to interrupt Dr Sutherland’s frenzied rambling on the mechanisms of a proposed hormonal antagonist.

“My body follows Viltrum’s trajectory. It would take hundreds of years for me to adapt to Earth.” 

Everyone turned to stare at him. The room was dead silent.

“And Viltrum has an unstable orbit.” Mark smiled ruefully, grimaced with too many teeth. “You won't be able to predict my heats.”

The questions continued. The scientists talked. Cecil left halfway to attend another emergency, expression tight and mood dark. No doubt, contingency plans were already being made to deal with him. Mark wondered what they would do.

When he got home, he found Debbie crouched over her laptop on the kitchen counter, a half-eaten lunch turning cold by the side. The TV was on. The place was a mess — a pile of dirty laundry on the couch, cabinets askew, two empty bottles of red wine.

“Mark, you're just in time,” she said excitedly. “I was thinking – you and I have been so stressed recently, we could really use a break. I've been looking at hotels, and – what do you think of the Bahamas? We could go – just the two of us.”

When she caught his face, she faltered. “What's wrong, honey?”

Mark told her. Haltingly, stuttering, words still dipped lightly in the black ink of denial.

Debbie listened patiently and without judgement, only stopping him at odd sections to ask a stray question. At one point, when his voice tipped over into hysteria, she smoothened the creases on his brow and planted a small kiss on his forehead.

"They wanna talk to you," Mark said softly. “Cecil’s scientists. I know you don't like the GDA. You don't have to.”

“I’ll do it,” she replied immediately. “If it helps you, I'll talk to them. I'll tell them all I know.”

The weight of her love was like a warm blanket resting easy on his skin. He mumbled a thanks and took a deep breath, afraid to ask the next question.

“Did dad ever get…aggressive, at any point? Like I did at the Pentagon?”

Debbie shook her head. “No, never. He was…human in every way that mattered, up until he wasn’t.”

Mark felt the tension leave his shoulders. Despite the atrocities Nolan had committed, Mark felt a tiny well of relief knowing his father hadn't been that particular kind of monster after all.

Mark looked at his mother. Dr Sutherland had recovered from his meekness when Cecil left. Though he'd lost most of his overly chipper attitude, the man finally managing to read the room, his enthusiasm for the subject matter was uncowed. He’d wanted to know if Mark had any knowledge on Viltrumite courtship displays. How they mated, how they raised their young.

If it was even natural for them to do so, or if his parents’ marriage had been one long concession from Nolan to a mate he found favorable.

Or a pet , Mark thought bitterly.

Many species didn't bother with the whole affair, the man explained. Childrearing was inherently heavy on expenses, and in the field of life sciences, it was vital to avoid anthropomorphic bias and the assumption of human morality as the only morality. But Omni-Man had found a human mate, stayed with her for twenty years, adhering to every traditional Earthly custom. Produced one healthy offspring and raised him immersed in the native culture instead of as a Viltrumite. And by Mark’s begrudging, painfully bittersweet account, Nolan had given him a very happy, almost idyllic childhood.

Seventeen years was a blip for a Viltrumite. Dad said so himself. He had put more stock into Mark getting his powers than he had in the human concept of adulthood at eighteen. In that strange, academic voice, Dr Sutherland mused that Omni-Man had perhaps recognized his son’s developmental maturity and judged his parental responsibilities over, duties to an alien empire notwithstanding. In the animal kingdom, the idea of parents maintaining contact with their adult children was more of a rarity than Mark had realized.

The grief of Nolan’s departure should have been softened. Described with such detached, clinical interest, it should have been easy for Mark to compartmentalize, to pretend he was just another student at school again, learning about a brand new species in science class.But over and over, his thoughts tumbled and turned, struck senseless by the selfish, childish question of if Mark could ever have convinced his father to stay. If natural behavior was forever destined to trump higher function and useless, reproductively inefficient emotional sentimentality. If his father was always, always , going to leave.

Chapter Text

The GDA's bioengineering department was working overtime. Cecil saw to it.

Day and night, they ran their experiments, innovated fresh algorithms, produced cutting-edge prototypes and broke new ground with their developments. In the civilian world, this would have earned them a dozen Nobel prizes. But in the GDA, all they got was more secrecy, another gag order. This was the status quo, and it was usually fine. Secret government activity tended to attract either socially inept geniuses or ex-criminals. And between those two categories, there was often statistically significant overlap. It made Cecil's staff very suited for shadow work.

The special terms of their employment contracts probably didn't even cover the hours he was making them do. Cecil was definitely breaking a few labor laws, and he hoped none of them had good attorneys, hoped no one in the team was in a particularly litigious mood. And god, he hoped they didn't start unionizing.

Not right now, anyway. He had enough on his plate.

After Sutherland's shocking revelations, Cecil's blood pressure had skyrocketed. Six to eight weeks. Not terrible, but definitely not good. That was how long they had, possibly less, to come up with an adequate solution.

And then Mark had told them something even worse — said it in that cold, silky voice, half a warning, and half a very unsettling threat. He'd grinned at them, the expression so uncharacteristic and out of place. Taunted them with it. The bane of Cecil's life.

Unpredictability.

He set the stargazers on the case, gave them as many fancy toys and as much money as they wanted. They'd been ecstatic. He needed results. He needed them yesterday. And though Earth's tools were basic, practically Stone Age compared to the Martians or other space-exploring civilizations in their neck of the woods, his astronomers were able to confirm it.

Mark was right.

Viltrum was so far away. Millions and millions of light years in the distance, it was just a tiny speck on his screen, a quarter of a quarter of a pixel. They had nearly missed it. They would have missed it, their systems too slow and cumbersome and barely foundational, if not for the striking dynamic forms of three celestial objects orbiting in a harsh, chaotic, patternless momentum. Weaving in and out of each other's paths, nearly colliding, accelerating and decelerating with godly, incomprehensible velocities, Cecil's team had tracked the alien star system's trajectory as best they could and projected it onto his display, explained it in a way his astrophysics-devoid brain could easily understand.

It was a problem modern physicists were still hung up on. A classical mechanics problem with no closed-form solution, no easy way to predict the outcome. One small deviation, and all the calculations in the world wouldn't be able to reliably tell you where you'd end up. Cecil looked at the simulation, three stars and a planet circling and slingshotting each other through space-time with reckless abandon, turbulent and dramatic and wild.

A pale blurry dot on his screen. An entire civilization of subjugators.

Fuck.

Cecil had been in the game for a long time. He knew himself well, had to, in order to keep his head above the water. Knew his strengths and weaknesses inside and out. Contrary to what some might have believed, he didn't consider himself above the others in his charge. No. He, too, was an asset of the Global Defense Agency, another tool to use in the great game of protecting the Earth. If keeping his planet safe meant his death, meant he had to snort glass or kill puppies with his bare hands for the rest of his life, he would do it. No question. One life was not worth the many.

Similarly, an overly headstrong leader, stubbornly blind to their own faults and biases would spell doom for the planet. He knew this, and kept himself in check. He had seen scenarios play out exactly as described in miniature from his time in the field, though usually he had been the one pulling the strings, orchestrating his target's downfall from the shadows.

A deep, critical level of cognitive clarity was necessary for someone in his position.

To keep order. To keep everyone alive.

Cecil was a consummate professional.

Which is why he was able to admit, at least in the private confines of his mind palace, that Omni-Man had triggered the ever-loving fuck out of him.

The strongest man on Earth. An unstoppable force, unable to be brought to heel by the GDA's primitive technology or too-green superheroes. Unable to be controlled or contained by any physical means.

And too enigmatic to manipulate.

The man had lied to them all for twenty years, keeping his true motivations close to his chest. Cecil knew something was fishy about him the moment he landed on Earth's shores, but he never had any proof beyond a vague, sinking feeling in his gut, and they couldn't go around antagonizing superhumans just based on that. So they let him stay, they started a file on him, like with any potential threat, thought up countermeasures, and waited. Nothing happened.

Then Nolan had met Debbie, got married, started a family, and Cecil had stupidly assumed that whatever ulterior motives he had come to Earth with had been put aside. Making connections like that, it was supposed to change you. Cecil made a mistake. Trapped himself in wishful, stubborn denial, and thousands died as a result. Billions more could have followed, if it weren't for one thing.

It wasn't that he hadn't seen Nolan coming. This was spycraft — you wouldn't last long if you couldn't learn to roll with the occasional sucker punch. No, the real issue was understanding the threat, the sheer betrayal, and being forced to sit on his hands for eight months. Waiting. Buying time. Knowing deep down with earth-shaking certainty that all the world's forces would not be enough and having to take a gamble on it anyway, trying desperately to deny, deflect, delay the inevitable, all while convincing everyone else that he had it perfectly under control and yes they should still do as he fucking said.

Never again.

And so, it was with a brutal, ruthless clarity, that Cecil recognized the importance of keeping Mark on his side.

The kid's heart was in the right place. He was naive, idealistic. Sheltered. It made him easy to read, easier still to manipulate. All he had to do was tailor his mannerisms to whatever Mark needed at the time: a kind voice of reason, an adult to rebel against, a stern, no-nonsense authority. It was a rudimentary play. And it had been working fine, up until now.

When Mark had cornered him dark and dangerous, down in the depths of the GDA's superhuman containment unit, Cecil had felt a flicker of real fear, heart leaping into his throat. Not because he could have lost his own life, though his lizard brain would always consider that a factor, the need for self-preservation being one of the last crude impulses he had yet to conquer.

More because in that single, terrifying moment, Mark had never looked more like his father.

And in his mind, the Earth was crumbling beneath his feet.

There were differences of course. Nolan had never expressed the same level of manic rage or bloodlust. Nolan had the bearings of an elite, disciplined soldier, no wasted movements or words. Being ex-military himself, Cecil had clocked it his first day in.

Mark, on the other hand, had been itching for a fight. Not in that charming way superheroes got when they wanted to let off some steam. More in the way a bored kid got gleeful when he was pulling off the legs of an ant one by one. He'd seen it before in some prisons, hell, in his own unit back in the day, a disgusting low-life who'd gotten himself jail time and a dishonorable discharge for being a cruel, sadistic, prick. If the MPs hadn't done their jobs that day, Cecil would have taken him round the back of the shed and shot him himself.

He doubted he could do that to Mark, if it came down to it.

The room he'd been put in was lined with kinetic shock absorbers. Hitting the walls was meant to be as productive as punching a sturdy marshmallow, the specialized lining transforming the force into slow, harmless, momentum. It was meant to minimize structural damage and act as a self-administered physical pacifier for the detainee.

But one careless little backhand from Mark, and the entire building shook.

Cecil sighed, his fingers tapping a steady, nervous rhythm on his laptop.

In his calls with the kid, he'd pulled some of his old tricks, stuff he learned over the years and from his own three-year prison stint, subtly poking and prodding to get a view of Mark's general day-to-day moods, his state of mind. The flow and coherence of his thoughts, his perception, level of self-awareness and the soundness of his judgement. Without Mark knowing, he'd analyzed him for any delusions, obsessions, derealizations, overvalued ideas and suicidal ideation.

He'd found nothing. Sure, Mark was grumpy, self-centered, and arrogant, but that was true for almost every frustrating seventeen-year-old this side of Nagasaki. He could ask every parent from here to Alabama about their adolescent kids and receive a million affirmative answers. And the kid had been through a shit ton of trauma. Some emotional instability was expected. It did not a budding sociopath make.

But for that troubling demeanour to rise so quickly and suddenly, taking firm, unyielding grasp and disappearing just as instantly as it came...

It didn't bode well.

It was going to be hard, going forward, for Cecil to distinguish between one of Mark's regular, normal mood swings, and those where the kid looked like he was gonna make a trampoline out of their tendons. Cecil wasn't sure if his standard de-escalation techniques, distraction and redirection, would work as well as they did last time, or for how long they'd work for.

There were the other aspects of Mark's behavior, as well. How he'd accosted an unwilling Cecil and sniffed him, breath hot against his skin. How he kept staring at his neck after, Cecil unable to really deduce his motives. Had Mark been zeroing in on his throat, locking in on a weak point like a jaguar?

Cecil exhaled sharply.

Still, there had to be solutions. They couldn't preempt the kid's...heats, as he'd called it, but maybe they could stop them from happening. What Sutherland had droned on about, when Cecil had prompted him for any sort of remedy at all. They'd work just like birth control on a human woman.

On the twelfth day of Christmas, Cecil had asked Santa very nicely for a definitive answer to the Viltrumite question. He'd been a little late, a little too old, but he'd been sincere, and he swore he'd been a very good boy all year long. He had enough good karma, surely. Enough to have a god-given right to a nice day at the beach and a fucking strawberry daiquiri. Cecil had wanted a premier, professional strike team, a collection of strong, reality-warping superheroes fiercely loyal to the Earth, powerful weapons so high-tech and effective they might as well have been science fiction.

And very, very, privately, he'd wanted the old Guardians back.

What he got instead, a late New Year's gift for all his hard work, was a dysfunctional powder keg of a replacement team, and one emotionally volatile teenaged demigod.

"This is it?" Cecil said. Sutherland avoided his gaze, nodding. The man was always so skittish around him, and he had no goddamn clue why. The lab was a flurry of activity, scientists scurrying about from one task to the next. A few of them had crowded around them, watching with bated breath.

Cecil looked at the GDA's newest patents: small, innocuous white squares resting in his palm. He felt a twinge where a similar looking patch rested, stuck on his chest. He'd been trying to quit for years. Lung cancer was another bitch he was too emotionally unavailable to deal with.

"Will they work?" Cecil asked, hoping against hope that the answer was yes.

The Mauler Twins were at it again. Seriously, you'd think the GDA would up the defense on those guys, given how many times they'd broken out of jail. It was starting to feel like a running gag. Was government money really too thin on the ground to cover a few more guards for the night shift? Did the taxpayers not suffer enough humiliation? Mark would offer to chip in, but he was too busy answering Cecil's calls to work minimum wage at Burger Mart anymore, and the man didn't even pay him a salary.

Maybe he could start a fundraiser online. That would earn him a day off or two, wouldn't it?

Cecil hadn't been very impressed with Mark when he'd voiced those thoughts. He very graciously did not point out the expenses Mark had recently incurred.

"This is technically only the second time they've broken out," Cecil said over Mark's earpiece.

"Yeah, but once was a happy accident. Twice is just showing off."

Mark found the warehouse in record time. "At this point, they're making you look bad." As he flew towards it, ready for action, he added, "Hey, aren't they meant to be super-geniuses or something? Maybe prison's boring them. Not much to tinker."

"I'll be sure to divert more funding to arts and crafts next week."

"Oooh, make sure you order the good knitting needles."

Mark made his grand entrance by bursting through the roof. It was a superhero cliche, but hey, the move had stuck around this long for a reason. It was badass. The rush of wind, the concrete dust, the shock on the bad guys' faces. It made him feel alive.

"Uhh..."

"Spit it out, kid."

"Okay, there's like a giant mechanical Christmas tree, with like a... bunch of the same guy sitting in it, and some portals, and the Maulers...?"

It was altogether confusing as hell. The Maulers with their identical twin-clone-whatever getup were bad enough, but there were at least a hundred copies of the same scent coming from the guys sitting in what looked like a bootleg carnival ride. There were slight differences, sure, they were all wearing different clothes and smelled like they'd been in different places and had all eaten different foods, but the underlying biochemical texture was exactly the same.

It was really, really, weird.

This guy probably had a massive cloning operation going on, judging by the whiffs he was getting from those green portals. Maybe a one-man army type thing? A supervillain too narcissistic or paranoid or both to ever consider working with anyone else, so he just decided to take over the world all by himselves?

Mark had it all figured out.

Though, the guy(s) didn't look all that tough. Maybe they could pull off scary, in that rugged, gaunt type of way if they really tried, like a scheming evil advisor. But to be honest, most of them looked pretty thin, malnourished even. Some of them were angry, knuckles whitening in rage like they wanted to break out of their freaky little restraints and strangle him. But all of them, all he could see, were afraid.

Of him.

It was a perfectly normal reaction, Mark reassured himself. He was a superhero. These were bad guys. Of course they were scared of him, scared he was gonna foil their evil plots, give them a good beatdown before throwing them in jail and tossing away the key.

Mark swallowed. Saw the scathing hate in the whites of their eyes and felt a legion of sour helplessness clinging like rats to his nose.

Of course that was why they were afraid.

...Right?

Mark tried not to think about it. And maybe he tried too hard, in the way that you couldn't not think of a pink elephant, the extra mental effort proving a terrible distraction in the heat of battle.

He got his ass beat again. There was punching, and shouting, more portals, and then a horde of Maulers were pinning his arms back and beating the shit out of him. Everything hurt. If he had been capable of thinking through the pain, Mark would have strongly considered changing his callsign to something a little less overly optimistic. He was about to pass out.

And then a giant explosion rocked the warehouse and levelled the entire harbor.

Mark rose from the ashes like a drunken, bloodied fawn, the only survivor, just as the Guardians of the Globe arrived on the scene.

When the Immortal and Bulletproof came into view, he froze. He had never apologized, and he couldn't do it now. His hands were bloody. Guilt was a heaviness he couldn't shake. He had failed, yet again, and he was a monster. He hadn't saved anyone. He couldn't prove himself.

"No, no, no, not again..."

Rex tried to talk him down. Cecil did too.

Mark barely heard the order to go home, but he was able to parse out the meaning.

He was just about to fly away when he caught it. Subtle, almost drowned out by the rubble and electric smoke and the ash of numerous vaporized bodies, it floated to him on the wind.

That guy. Guys!

He raced in its direction, single-minded and desperate, ignoring Cecil's chatter. Mark flared his nostrils and tried to concentrate.

"Invincible! You were ordered to leave!"

Mark sniffed the air. Burning rubber. Saltwater. The Immortal behind him, shouting, the rest of the Guardians catching up. If he closed his eyes, he could almost picture it: each individual scent stretching out before him, some in long, thin tendrils, others billowing like clouds. All with their own unique colors, all leading somewhere.

"Dude, I thought you were an alien, not a K-9. But I guess this explains why you like Seance Dog so much."

Mark ignored him.

It was a new ability. His control and understanding was still poor. Most likely another product of his Viltrumite heritage, as Dr Sutherland had said — the timing of its acquisition had just been too close to be coincidental.

It was a curse on some days, overwhelming him and making irritation spike high in his chest. Especially when a lot of street fights took place in less-than-sanitary locations, erosive poverty and the city's shoddy waste disposal system working together to give him one big olfactory bitch slap. He was tempted to write a letter to the mayor about it.

Mark tilted his head, let the heady smell of blood lead him where he was needed. Followed his ears for any purposeful scratching, tapping. To the left. Six paces ahead. A bit more.

There!

He beelined for a large pile of rubble, shattered bricks and twisted rebar sticking out like a beacon. He flipped over a huge concrete slab and started digging. Things were getting intense. Where before, he'd smelled the uncanny repetition of the same man in easily defined, separate points, now it had concentrated like thick molasses, focussed itself with haphazard interlocking layers into a dense point of singularity.

When Mark finally pulled the bloodied man free, it was the first piece of the puzzle. He wouldn't immediately understand why exactly the guy(s) smelled the way (t)he(y) did, but seeing his mangled, mutated form, brain tissue swollen and running the entire length of the guy's spine, it would point him in the right direction, however subtly.

"Urgh, what happened to him?" said Rex.

Lush relief grew when Mark saw the shallow rise and fall of the man's chest. Here was one, at the very least. One, where there had been none before. Mark smiled.

Breathlessly: "He's alive! Cecil, I found someone!"

"Good job, kid."

"He needs a medic!" barked the Immortal.

Robot was coming through, a drone performing a scan and taking the man's vitals.

Mark shouldn't have made it about himself. It wasn't supposed to be about him, goddammit. This was someone's life. But as Robot's monotone voice judged the man's condition stable, promising a full, if slow recovery, Mark felt a surging mixture of gratefulness and gradually alleviating tension, this one life saved a small consolation for the argument of his self-worth.

He should probably thank Cecil for sending him on all those search and rescue operations. It was good experience.

"Neural tissue has fused in a non-uniform distribution encompassing the entire posterior midline. He may have extensive cognitive deficits. Surgery will not be an option."

"I can fly him to the nearest hospital," said Bulletproof.

Suddenly, the man lurched awake with a blood-curdling scream. He flailed his limbs wildly, lashing out with such force that he knocked Rex and Dupli-Kate over when they tried to help him. The Immortal held his arms back.

"Robot, sedate him!"

"Understood."

But that never came to pass. The man's eyes snapped open with manic clarity and he nailed Mark with a glare so filled with homicidal rage that he stumbled a step back.

"You fucking monster! You did this to me! Turned me into a freak!" He lunged at Mark and started laying into him, heavy blows raining down on his face in a mad, frenzied rush. They tumbled over into the dirt like children, the man sitting on him, punches vicious enough to actually hurt. Mark was gonna shove the guy off, but the man's next words, infused with pure, unadulterated hate, made him go completely rigid. "You murdered my entire fucking family!"

In the dead silence of the obliterated harbor, his statement cracked like the harshest whip. Mark opened his eyes. He saw. He hadn't wanted to acknowledge it before, but this close, he had no choice. Woven into the black of the man's blown pupils, curling in the snarl of his lips, written in every frenetic line of his body — recognition.

This guy knew who he was. And he believed wholeheartedly that Mark was responsible for killing everyone he had ever loved.

His brain fired on all cylinders, trying to figure out what he had done and when.

One of Rex's bombs exploded over the man's head and knocked him off balance. Before he knew it, Shrinking Rae and Dupli-Kate were trying to subdue him. Black Samson and Bulletproof had pinned an arm each, but the guy was still struggling.

"Get off me! Stop defending him! Do you have any idea what he's done?"

"Yeah, he saved your life, stupid!" Rex shouted.

"I wouldn't have bothered," Shrinking Rae said, wiping her mouth.

"Neither," Dupli-Kate added.

"Come on, team," Black Samson said placatingly. "The guy's just confused. He needs help."

The man was dripping so much blood. He had broken his knuckles into unnatural angles trying to punch Mark into oblivion. Mark ran fingers numbly over his face. A black eye, some bruising, small red rivulets, visceral splatter. The man's, his own, the Maulers'. Some of it had gotten into his mouth. Mark clasped the side of his neck in a vice grip and started squeezing.

"You people want to be in league with him? Fine!"

With a deafening roar, the man broke free from his restraints. He flicked his twisted fingers and a swirling, sickly green portal opened beneath his feet. The others jumped away, but one of the Dupli-Kates accidentally fell in.

"Shit!"

The man was already sinking through into god knows where. He levelled his hateful gaze at Mark. "I will have my revenge, Mark Grayson. Wait for me."

Mark's features stretched into frozen, wide-eyed horror, the expression enticing a cruel smirk to play on the man's lips.

It was the last thing Mark saw before he vanished.

Things somehow got even more chaotic. Everyone started speaking at once: Cecil, the Immortal, Robot, Rex, in particular.

"Mark, I'm gonna need you on-site, now. How the fuck does some rando know your secret identity?"

"I don't know," Mark breathed. His heart rate was doubling, he needed to leave.

"Well that was just fucking insane," Rex said.

"I am performing an analysis on the energy signatures left at this site. With luck, we should be able to locate the target and neutralize him."

"We don't know where those portals went or where they can go. They could lead to a spiritual dimension for all we know, one impervious to your analytics. Whether through carelessness or sheer bad luck, Invincible's identity is compromised. We should be arranging next steps."

"That being?"

"Relocation. The provision of new identities for any civilian contacts."

This was meant to be an easy mission. It was just the Maulers, for god's sake.

"Mark, are you listening to me? Earth to boy wonder?"

His breath was coming in shallower and shallower. Darkness crept on the edges of his vision. There was more buzzing in his ear, more unwelcome chatter. Mark brought both hands up and clenched down hard around his neck, shook himself for a second.

More problems. More trouble for his mom. Could he do anything right?

He hunched over and kept his gaze low, thoughts spiralling.

A hand landed on his shoulder. Someone plucked his earpiece out and was speaking into it.

"Cecil, my guy," Rex said. "Mark's gonna call you back. We'll take him to Guardians HQ with us. He'll be there if you need him."

"No. He and Debbie need to be at the Pentagon. Now."

Rex ended the call. "Man, fuck that guy."

Rex cracked his neck and directed Mark away from the others. His shoulders were trembling.

"He was probably from Chicago," Mark murmured absently.

"Yeah, and I was probably an accident. Parents, am I right?"

"...Yeah."

They reached Robot's vehicle. "Alright, get on. No need to worry about me, I'll hail a cab."

Mark blinked. "What?"

"I mean, if you wanna fly to HQ looking like that, you can be my guest. You look ready to keel over."

"I'm fine," Mark bit out.

"And I'm a frilly pink unicorn," Rex quipped. "We just gonna say bullshit now? I got another one — I love Downton Abbey."

"...You do?" Mark said, taking the bait. He had no idea why Rex was putting on this charade, but for now, Mark just wanted to play along. Rex pressed down on his shoulders, ushered him into one of the empty seats.

"Hell no. All the storylines are overblown. It's a glorified soap opera, with Maggie Smith as the only saving grace."

Mark shook his head. "My mom," he said, getting back up. "I have to go get her."

"Cecil's on it, don't worry," Rex replied. "Guy's a massive control freak. You think he'll let that slip? Nah."

Mark swallowed. He was so drained. He registered, with some embarrassment, that he was occupying Rex's seat. "What about you?"

"I'll fly back cradled in the Immortal's strong, muscular arms! I'll never be safer with him protecting me." Rex swooned mockingly, hands framing his face with over-exaggerated girliness. He puckered his lips for a moment then gagged. "Christ, I sound like Kate."

Mark chuckled lightly. "They're an item now?"

"Oh yeah. See I thought that sex pollen business was just a weird fluke. Got kinda offended she didn't go for me, you know? But nope, they were sneaking around behind our backs for weeks!"

There had been so much excitement. Everyone had been distracted, the prospect of a new, interdimensional(?) threat taking over the minds of every superhero on the scene.

No one noticed one of the Mauler Twins, a Mauler Only Child for the time being, slipping away into the night.

Some things always stayed the same.

Chapter Text

It was probably a good thing that Mark relented when Rex told him to take his spot on the car-bike-scooter-thing he'd dubbed the Guardianmobile. If he was gonna end up at HQ anyway, it was better that he wasn't flying there alongside the Immortal and Bulletproof, even if the journey was a lot more cumbersome via the land route.

They vacated their urban setting quickly, the powerful propulsion of Robot's vehicle providing them large, bounding strides, clearing state borders and moving with the near-complete silence of an extremely energy efficient machine. Beautiful scenery passed without Mark taking much notice, lush rural cornfields and vast green forests. It was getting dark anyway, and night-vision wasn't included in his range of abilities. As they ventured into more secluded parts, most things became cloaked in shadow, Robot's headlights a lonely nuisance to the evening air.

Mark took his mask off to feel the wind on his face. He hoped the blood would dry out.

The heroes he was riding back with weren't really talkers. At any other time, Mark would have found the circumstances extremely awkward. These were the Guardians of the Globe — and sure, he might be Invincible, and he did know most of them when they were still the Teen Team, but the Guardians commanded a level of public respect and heavy responsibility in a way he just didn't, not even after dad's Omni-Man's rampage. They might not have held the gravitas of the first team, and yeah, the majority were still pretty new, but they were always in the public eye, well-liked and known globally as Earth's greatest protectors. He didn't measure up to that.

At school, though he thought he acted pretty friendly, smiling and making conversation, Mark had been a major dork. He was a nerdy comic book fanatic who fumbled most social situations, nervousness and a doggish desire to please making words stumble like a lumbering giant on his tongue. He had never been cool. He'd dug himself into so many embarrassing holes, catwalked through faux pas after faux pas like the world's most oblivious and poorly dressed model, cooked himself in the cringiest adolescent affairs that still kept him up on some difficult nights. Forget calling his teacher 'Mom' by accident or leaving his fly down, one time he'd slipped on an honest-to-god banana peel in the cafeteria, cartoon-style, crashed into four people and landed face-first in the compost, food scraps slipping off his chin. People laughed about it for weeks.

He was dumb, clumsy, and unpopular, and in his twelve years of standardized education, Mark had only ever managed to make and keep one good friend.

He winced.

Could he even call himself William's friend anymore? Let alone his best friend?

Mark's phone sat accusingly on his desk back home, inbox brimming with unanswered text messages and voicemails, a string of missed calls. He hadn't seen anyone in weeks. There had been so much going on. At first, he had just wanted a break. He'd sought out missions from Cecil as a pleasant distraction from the realities of his predicament: a turncoat father, academic disappointment (it was a miracle he managed to graduate at all), picking up the pieces of his mom on days she couldn't stand to be sober. But he'd let it stretch for far too long, procrastinating every intended correspondence; one day, then two, then three and so on. Now, his friendships were festering, rotting away because of his inaction and paralyzing anxiety, and don't even get him started on how terrible of a boyfriend he was to Amber.

(Even if he'd been the best boyfriend in the world to Amber, would she still wanna be with him? His mind lingered on the changes to his anatomy, the rift he knew it would cause. He hadn't told her anything yet, and he wasn't sure if he could.

Could he still call himself a man?)

Mark owed them all a million apologies, but doubted it would be enough. How inconsistent and flaky could he get before they all decided to just stop trying? Before he was deemed as just not worth the effort? He couldn't even hide behind the pretense of being a superhero, Eve was one too, both William and Amber knew that, and she'd still managed to keep her social circle intact. He followed her on Instagram, and he'd seen during several fits of doomscrolling that she was out there, making connections, eating good food, and enjoying herself. It would've been fair play on their parts to just cut him off completely.

Maybe a clean break was better. For everyone.

If it came down to it, would Mark even want to be his own friend?

He groaned, knowing the answer, and let the tired sound get lost in the wind. That was a good thing. If no one heard him, no one on the Guardianmobile would turn to look at him. This was bad. The longer journey gave him too much time to think, too much leeway to ruminate and feel sorry for himself when he didn't deserve the pity. Maybe not flying had been a mistake after all. Rex should have been sat here instead. Mark should have flown in with the Immortal and Bulletproof; the cold silence and the damning weights of their scorn were the least of what he deserved.

Robot's voice jerked him from his thoughts.

"Invincible! We're here."

Mark looked up. Everyone else was already standing. They were all staring at him, waiting for him to pay attention.

It was hard not to be impressed with the place, despite the less-than-stellar circumstances for his visit. Guardians HQ was tucked deep under the ribs of an extensive mountain range in Utah. They entered through a door hidden at the mountain's base and walked through a long hallway, motion-activated lights flaring to life one panel at a time. The walls were abuzz with built-in circuitry, security drones and high-tech surveillance watching his every move. The air was cool, clean, and perfectly filtered. Mark couldn't help the trickle of awe spilling over his face as they funnelled into the main atrium, its high ceiling reminding Mark of a grand cathedral he'd once visited in Italy when he was ten. The place was fitted with a complicated-looking console attached to a giant screen, no doubt for Cecil to contact them during emergencies.

Wow. Though he was trying to be stoic, he still got a little flutter in his chest, a throwback to earlier days when all he'd dreamed about was being a part of something bigger than himself.

A few of the others noticed. Dupli-Kate and Shrinking Rae gave him a small smirk each, a weird mixture of smugness and pride. Black Samson clapped a hand on his shoulder. A tentative smile found its way to Mark's face, no words needed to describe how he felt. These guys were the pinnacle of superheroing, and they'd worked so hard to get here.

Robot addressed them. "I will be in my lab, studying the wave frequencies the mutated man was emitting. No doubt, such research will be important." He turned to Mark. "Rest assured. We will solve the matter."

Mark grimaced, feeling awfully singled out. "Thanks."

Robot jetted away to his work station, down another hall and into an elevator. With a sharp whoosh, he was gone.

"Well, well, well, if it isn't the slow pokes from earlier. Seriously, I could have run a marathon and baked a cake before you guys got here! Two cakes!"

"Do you really gotta start every greeting with an insult?" asked Shrinking Rae.

Rex-Splode came sauntering in, limbs light and breezy. He was already in his civvies, hair half-damp from a shower. "The Immortal can be so gentle. The rate we were going, I mean, I was almost scared he was gonna let go of me. I thought he'd hold me too tight to compensate, crush me in his arms, but nope! The guy really knows his way around a human body!" He grinned then, one eyebrow raised in mocking delight. "Awww, am I making you jealous, Kate?"

"Urgh," Dupli-Kate groaned. "Shut up, Rex. You need to grow the hell up."

"I mean, I'm not a teenager dating a guy so old he farts dust. Did he hit you with the 'you're sooo mature for your age' bullshit? That a standard Immortal pick-up line?"

Mark couldn't tell if they were just bantering or not.

"Fuck you! You're so pathetic you got nothing else going on in your life, so you just wanna start shit with me!"

"I'd rather start shit than start a relationship with the Immortal — oh wait, they're the same thing! He's a million fucking years old! What the hell does he have in common with you?"

"Guys, can we please not do this right now," said Black Samson.

They ignored him. 

"Does seeing me happy trigger something in you? Is it because no one loved you growing up? I'd say you were dropped on the head as an infant but your parents never held you to begin with!"

"I was very happy holding myself, thank you very much. And that's big talk coming from someone who drove their own dad into a fucking mental hospital."

"I'll fucking kill you!" Dupli-Kate roared. "Son of a bitch!"

Okay, they were not bantering.

Dupli-Kate made three clones of herself and they all descended on Rex like angry lions, landing jabs into his ribs and a flying kick to the back of his head which made him stumble. He ducked under the next backfist and used the opening to nail Dupli-Kate Two with a mean uppercut before swinging around just in time to grab Dupli-Kate Four by her arm and throw her over his shoulder, Judo-style. She went sailing into Dupli-Kate Three and they both doubled over.

"You couldn't kill me," Rex taunted, though he was clutching his head. "You need four of you to even make me look twice. One-on-one, you're nothing."

Shrinking Rae snickered, and then caught herself.

"Fuck you, Rae! I could take you both with one arm behind my back, and it wouldn't even be a challenge! Shrinking freak!"

"What did you call me?" Shrinking Rae stalked towards Dupli-Kate One. "You wanna say that again?"

"You're a disgusting pervert whose entire superhero gig is just crawling into people's assholes."

Shrinking Rae was beet red. "At least I get the job done! All you ever do in a fight is die." She grabbed Dupli-Kate One by the collar. "Let me prove it to you."

Dupli-Kate One grabbed both of Shrinking Rae's thumbs and twisted, making her lose her grip and cry out. She used the opportunity to sock the other hero in the jaw, a left and then a right hook. Before she could get a third punch in, Shrinking Rae closed the distance and elbowed Dupli-Kate One in the face, cracking her nose. She followed up with a knee to the gut and a masterful spinning jump kick.

Rex and two Dupli-Kates continued duking it out in the background, Rex somersaulting all over the place and the Dupli-Kates weaving in and out of his path for an opening. Black Samson was dealing with the last one, trying and failing to convince her to stop making more clones.

"Can it, Samson!" Rex shouted as he dodged a kick, returning the motion with a well-aimed punch. "We're lucky you weren't made leader our first week in, we'd all be six feet under! You're so decrepit it takes you a week to string together one sentence!"

"Shut up, Rex!"

This was bad. This was so bad, and it was only getting worse. Mark tried for a gentle approach. "Guys, I know I'm kinda an outsider, but this is getting out of hand."

"Stay out of it!" yelled Shrinking Rae, midway pummelling a Dupli-Kate. A few other Dupli-Kates had shouted the same thing in unison.

"Dammit, Kate!" said Black Samson. "If the only way to get you to listen is beating you, then you'd better brace yourself!"

Black Samson roared and slammed his fist into the nearest Dupli-Kate. The force of his superhuman strength sent her spinning, and the sheer number of bodies crammed into one space meant it caused a small human tsunami. Mark stayed standing as it hit him and the wave rolled over him harmlessly.

"What is the meaning of this?"

Robot barrelled through the crowd and landed in the centre of the atrium. A hatch on his chest opened and out walked a...smaller version of Rex?

Huh. He thought Robot was...y'know, a Robot. Were him and Rex cousins or something? If so, they couldn't be more different, even if they shared a face.

"Don't come at us with that 'what is the meaning of this' uppity bullshit," Rex growled. His previously clean sweatshirt and pants were now covered in blood and he was sporting two black eyes. He was holding himself around the middle, stooping over slightly.

"I was merely trying to clarify. The noise and shaking was interfering with my tests," Robot said. His voice, no longer coated in that machine-like twang, was young and awkward. The tones were off, like the guy was still getting used to speaking. "I have done nothing beyond that."

Mark sighed with relief. Finally, a voice of reason.

"Nothing?" Rex snarled. He pulled himself up fully and limped over. He jabbed an accusing finger into Robot's sternum. "You stole my DNA without my consent, broke the Maulers out of prison, and made a fucking clone-body of me to sleep with a fourteen-year-old! What fucking nothing!"

Oh god, they were all doomed.

The room devolved into further chaos. Rex had finally gotten agitated enough to start blowing things up with his powers. He ripped small, sensitive objects out of the giant console — buttons and levers, probably — and used his abilities to turn them into tiny explosives that he lobbed at anything and everything. It looked like he was taking his anger out on the Dupli-Kates like cannon fodder. More blood got on Mark's suit, hot and dirty. He hoped it wouldn't stain. The room smelled like gunpowder and sweat. Robot had hopped back into his metal suit and was calling more drones for back-up. Shrinking Rae was now throwing punches and kicks at Black Samson for some reason, probably more petty name-calling that Mark had tuned out, and Dupli-Kate just kept. Making. More. Clones.

There were several trains of thought speeding through Mark's head.

First in the station was that he hadn't imagined the night going like this. Stupidly, selfishly, when Rex had invited Mark back to Guardians HQ with them, Mark had thought he would get a short break. He knew vaguely what Rex had been trying to do, even if it had been somewhat out-of-character for him, and he had appreciated the gesture. After everything that had happened, Mark had just wanted a night to spend time with people who weren't Debbie, Cecil, Donald, or Drs Sutherland and Zuma. As much as he liked or loved them all on various points of a sliding scale (Mom the most, of course, and Cecil, that annoying bastard, the least), the revolving door of repeating characters had been getting a little stale lately, and he had fancied a small change.

(He tried not to think about how he was opting to ignore Eve, Amber, and William in favor of them, because he was a bad person and he knew this already).

The second train that came bulleting through was that this was all his fault. If Mark hadn't accepted Rex's offer, if he had just sucked it up and flown back with the Immortal and Bulletproof, Rex would have never made that comment to Dupli-Kate, and a fight wouldn't have broken out. Going back further, if he had just listened to Cecil and gone to the Pentagon instead of spacing out like a loon, this wouldn't have happened either. Going even further, if he hadn't tried to find that brainy guy by himself, if he hadn't freaked out like a damn child, all of this could have been avoided. He could have just communicated his thoughts to the team and returned home like he was ordered to. They may not have been fighting because of anything he'd said, but it was undeniable that his presence was a catalyst for their strife.

The third train was slow, carrying freight and heavy cargo. It rolled along sluggishly and rumbled lowly as it did so, and it never quite stopped. It was easier than the rest to ignore, blending into the night, but no less present. This was a waste of time. Mom was in danger right now, and here he was, in the middle of another petty, boring, fight, all the combatants tiny insects too stupid to realize that the entire arena was one giant, deadly fly trap. The constant shuffle of bodies against his own was uncomfortably warm and very irritating, he had no desire to even consider the smells, and why didn't he just levitate above this nonsense? The blood wasn't even good, and perhaps he should make them pay for forcing him to suffer through it at all. It was beneath him to stay here; Mark should leave the little animals to squabble over the droppings. He had every means to just go. He had better people to talk to.

The fourth and final train was what tipped the scales: Mark should do something. He had the power. He had the skills. He had no connection to any of the bickering and so had the clearest head and the biggest responsibility. If he sat back, there was a real chance someone could actually get hurt. That would be on him. He needed to get their attention — and he was always amazing at causing a scene.

"Everybody, stop!"

Mark slammed his fists down on the floor and caused a shockwave to run through it like a wave, upending the tiles and denting the metal reinforcements ugly and twisted beneath him. The force reverberated through to the ceiling and shook the lights, causing them to flicker. A hail of debris filtered down, some mere pebbles and others boulders. The might of his blow echoed like rolling thunder, carrying through the additional rooms of the hidden mountain base and far into the land's physical geography.

Each of the Guardians had tumbled over and were now staring at him in shock. Strewn all around the atrium were the mangled, bloody bodies of several Dupli-Kates. Some of her were intact and whole. She absorbed the good ones and strode through the mess, shouldering Rex and Shrinking Rae along the way. She faced Rex.

"I bet your parents really enjoyed that steak dinner."

Dupli-Kate's eyes were suspiciously misty and her lips were wobbling as she left.

Shrinking Rae and Black Samson had called a truce. She gave him a hand off the floor with her good arm, he winced as he stood fully. Robot was already deploying drones to clean up and was checking over his suit. Rex had opted to crouch into a squat by a large chunk of concrete, a dark expression on his face.

"I...would like to say, Invincible," Robot started, "that we are usually more...functional than this."

"It's okay, I get it," Mark said. "We all have our days."

"And boy, do we know about yours."

There was one person in the room who still hadn't calmed down.

"Yours are the worst of all, and you get special treatment for it. Seriously, I could never get away with even a fraction of the damage you cause. No one would ever let it go."

Mark's heart sank.

"What, you think we all don't know? You demolished half the Pentagon in a horny hissy fit. You beat up the Immortal and Bulletproof."

His fists clenched. Like he wasn't reminded of that, all the time.

"Your dick upped and flew away!"

"Rex-Splode, stop this instant!"

Mark closed his eyes, tried to even out his breathing. He didn't hear the others around him, telling Rex to shut his mouth.

"You got so fucking crazy, you started getting freaky with Cecil. Talk about desperate, man. Don't you have a girlfriend?"

His nails were drawing blood.

"And you almost fucking killed your own mom!"

There was one ability he used the least — just because of how tiring it was. He didn't have the stamina necessary to blitz through space like his dad (and presumably every other Viltrumite) did, so when he needed to get somewhere quick, Mark usually just flew faster, put more juice into every aerial motion, broke the sound barrier ten times over. That was much easier, and very distinct from super speed. While flying was a physical act, akin to walking or running, super speed was more like...simultaneously flickering every molecule in your body, taking your entire essence and willing it somewhere else. It was the closest he would ever get to teleportation, unless Cecil decided to give him a turn on the machine.

And there was a big aspect of this superpower that he found unpleasant, one the comic books he read didn't much expand on:

Time dilation.

Every second he spent using this ability was an eternity for him. He knew, objectively, that it probably wasn't very long at all, was probably more like a few extra seconds. And maybe, if his primary ability had been super speed — like Red Rush — this wouldn't be a problem at all. But these things were all about perception, how the mind coped with defying natural laws most beings were never meant to break. Normally, he hated how his brain felt like slush for that little bit during, groaned as his senses struggled to right the world, however small the recovery time.

But now?

Right now, Mark was relishing the slow look of horror creeping onto Rex's face. It happened at such glacial speed, the minuscule turns in his facial muscles and the widening of his eyes. The tiny gasp and the nervous bob of his Adam's apple. Within the first second, Mark had crossed the distance between them, placed both his hands on either side of Rex's beautiful, fragile head, framing his features perfectly. And in the next, he pressed his thumbs lovingly into the hollow of Rex's cheekbones, right where it dipped into the soft flesh of his eyes. Mark spoke low, clearly, in the most simple language he knew so Rex's little brain could understand.

"Shut. The fuck. Up."

Mark bared his teeth. Tiny rivulets of blood ran down his palms, droplets staining the floor.

"Immortal, it's not what it looks like!" Robot exclaimed.

A heavy fist cracked itself into the side of Mark's head and sent him reeling across the atrium. He shook himself, stunned, and that little moment cost him his footing. The Immortal was raining down blow after blow onto his face, screaming bloody murder and burning with desperate, protective fury.

"How dare you!" The Immortal raged, eyes seeing and not seeing him at the same time. Mark shuddered out a breath. He pinned Mark to the ground by the neck and continued his bombardment without hesitation or mercy. "We trusted you!"

Mark let it go on for another few seconds. Something in him made him lie there and take it. When he had enough, he caught the Immortal's fist inches from his face and twisted the man's wrist inwards, making him scream and fall aside. He used his other hand to hit the back of the Immortal's elbow so it hyperextended painfully. Mark righted himself by kicking both feet off the man's chest and flew into a neutral position, the movement perfunctory and near-textbook.

The Immortal was readying himself for another charge. Mark nearly rolled his eyes.

(How cruel he was, to even consider that).

"I'll stop you, you animal!" he screamed. "You won't get away with this!"

"Wait! Immortal!"

The man whipped around in alarm, hope and disbelief coloring his features.

"...Kate?"

He sounded so breathlessly small. This man, great defender of the Earth, the world's first ever superhero. Thousands of years lived, a wealth of experience and knowledge melded in the architecture of his old, unageing bones.

She came running into the atrium like a woman possessed, love and the desire to comfort one precious to her carrying her feet at super speeds. Dupli-Kate wrapped her lean arms around the Immortal and squeezed with her soul.

"Get back! It's too dangerous!"

He meant to shove her away, but she held on and rested her cheek against his collarbone, unyielding even without super strength.

"It's okay, Immortal. I'm here. I'm alive. This was all a big misunderstanding, and I'm sorry. It's my fault. I'm so, so sorry for putting you through this."

He still hadn't returned the embrace.

"I thought — I thought — " The Immortal gasped, curling in on himself. "I saw all this, and — "

Kate shushed him, kissed him on the brow in between phrases. "It's okay, it's all okay. Everyone is still here. No one's attacking. We're all safe, look."

The Immortal's eyes flitted between each of his teammates like a mother hen frantically counting her chicks.

"Where's Monster Girl? And Bulletproof?"

"They're not here. But they'll be back soon, okay?"

Mark looked away. A lump had built in his throat. It felt wrong to be here. This felt so intensely private, so raw.

He couldn't even blame the man. Without context, he'd felt the foundations of the base shaking, seen the battered bodies of his girlfriend littering the field, heard the shouting of the injured Guardians. Saw the son of the man who killed all his old friends cradling the skull of a vulnerable, bleeding teammate.

Kate led the Immortal away, one arm holding him by the waist and the other interlocking their fingers, their hands caught in an intimate embrace. Head to toe, every line of the man's body was quaking as he walked out, and he had started to sob.

"I thought I lost you, I thought I lost you..."

The silence that followed was dense enough to drown them — full of past aches.

"We'll head to the infirmary," Black Samson said, leaning on Shrinking Rae and vice versa.

"That would be wise," Robot replied. "And you, Rex?"

Rex pulled himself off the ground. His fresh clothes were ruined from the fighting, damp locks holding onto a thick layer of dust. He clutched one side of his head, still clearly in shock. His fingers smeared blood when he traced them down the contour of his cheekbones and to his jaw.

"I-I," Rex stammered. "I didn't mean for all that to happen."

Despite the anger still simmering inside him, Mark couldn't help but sympathize with the painful familiarity showing in the knot of Rex's face.

"We know," Robot intoned. "Why don't you go clean yourself up?"

It was incredibly odd to hear such gentle, experienced authority coming from the mouth of an early teenager. Stranger still for Rex to respond to it.

"I just had a shower," he said nonsensically. "I'm...good for now."

Robot turned to Mark.

"There is no requirement for you to remain here," he said. "I would understand your reluctance, given recent events. If there is somewhere else you would rather be, I can inform Cecil."

"Honestly?" Mark paused, let the words wash over him. He was so tired, and he wasn't in a good position to be making important decisions. "I could really use a shower right now. I'll figure the rest out later."

"I'll take him," came a voice.

"Monster Girl," Robot greeted. "Welcome back."

"Yeah, some welcome party," she replied, giving the atrium a sardonic once-over. "I leave you guys for a day to do my own thing, and this is what happens? Practically blackmail to get me to stay."

She looked up at him, dressed in casual clothes.

"Hey."

"Hey," Mark said awkwardly. "Sorry about the mess."

"Don't worry about it," she said with some mischief. "Rudy'll sort it out."

Robot spluttered in the background about the limits of his ability and the team's tendency to over-rely on him for cleanup.

"That is not my primary function, Amanda," Robot protested.

"Yeah, yeah," she laughed. She eyed Mark, took in his ripped costume, the cuts and purpling bruises on his face, the blood. "So, you wanted a shower?"

Mark nodded.

Monster Girl led the way.

Mark didn't know her very well. Hell, he barely knew most of the Guardians — they were more like co-workers than friends. Though they teamed up from time to time, most of his missions nowadays were solo affairs.

He'd taken a punch from Monster Girl before and knew she was strong. She was part of the team, saw them every day. The others knew her. She would probably have been a better person to break up the fight. Would've definitely caused less trouble.

"I missed most of that flaming mess, thank god," she began, "but I heard what Rex said to you."

Mark stiffened.

"He's such a dick. Even after all the crap we've been through together. You get why I punted him the first time we met, don'tcha?"

Mark snorted. "...Yeah."

It was jarring. To think Rex had been trying to be so nice before.

"That part about your junk...is it true?"

Mark's ears were burning. Why was everyone so hung up on this?

"Hello?"

He shook himself. "Sorry. What was the question?"

"Your junk," Monster Girl repeated. "You don't have to confirm or deny anything, but I was curious."

Mark folded in slightly.

"...Yeah."

Mark expected surprise, bewilderment. Shock, scorn, mockery. She'd made a joke about Rex's dick before.

But Monster Girl pressed her lips together and nodded, expression completely nonchalant. "Yeah, I figured. Weird, huh?"

Mark could only nod.

"Viltrumite biology," he supplied distantly.

"It's not a big deal," she said quickly, keeping her eyes straight ahead. "I mean, if you really wanna get into it...my dick does the same thing every time I transform."

The words caught up to him very slowly.

"What?" Mark paused, mind filtering. "You have a dick?"

"Not right now, idiot," Monster Girl snapped.

"I'm sorry," Mark said quietly.

She sighed, bringing a hand to her face. "No, I'm sorry. For being a bitch about it. I guess I'm still touchy around the subject, even though I don't really care."

"Uh-huh..."

"Look, my monster form is male, okay?" She stopped walking to look him at him, trying to spear meaning into his brain with her eyes alone. "So when I'm transformed, I've got all the...guy parts. And when I turn back, it's different. Like what I was born with."

Mark's thoughts were swirling about in a jumbled heap. This felt like an unwanted conversation with a parent trying to give him important but ultimately excruciating information.

"It took me awhile to get used to it. I thought about it a lot. But...dick or no dick, vagina or what, it doesn't change who I am, y'know? I'm still me. I'm still Monster Girl."

He didn't quite understand. God, he was such a fucking child.

A question arose: "Does...Robot mind?"

Monster Girl's face twisted.

"I'm sorry for bringing it up," Mark said hurriedly. "I just knew you guys were together. Kinda."

Rex hadn't said specifically who the fourteen-year-old in question was, but it did make a lot of sense. From what he knew, Robot didn't get out a lot, and he'd shown a heavy preference for Monster Girl during her times of need over the last few months. His actions had revealed himself better than any outright admission ever could. It did kinda make it better that he grew a baby Rex-clone to get closer to her, rather than being a presumed adult(?) collection of ones and zeroes attracted to a young teen. Maybe being physically younger meant he was mentally younger too.

But Monster Girl was way older than she looked, wasn't she? Was she older than him, or younger? But then how old was Robot chronologically, then? Didn't he lead the Teen Team?

Did it make it better?

What about Dupli-Kate and the Immortal? Sure, they were both adults, but the Immortal was so much older, and he was in charge of the team. That had to factor in somewhere.

God, it would be like if he got with —

Urgh.

Rex had done more damage than he'd thought.

At least Kate and the Immortal seemed good for each other.

Mark was going completely off-track. Trying to decode the grey legal and moral areas surrounding the Guardians' dating dynamics was physically hurting him, and it was way above his pay grade.

"That loudmouth. Urgh. Rudy and I aren't like that, alright?" Despite her words, Monster Girl was pink in the cheeks. She steadied herself. "And, well, even if we were. If he did mind, then that's no loss for me."

For the first time in their conversation, her face shuttered in the shadow of an old hurt. "Dating's not really an option for me. Not when I age backwards every time I transform. I could stop going monster, but then I'd be leaving people to die."

Okay, this, Mark understood, even if their circumstances didn't all line up.

"But anyway. If Rudy and I were dating, which we're not, and he didn't like my monster parts, then I guess I'd stay in girl mode, for him. Like I said, I'm still me, and I don't really mind. This is my default anyway. I don't exactly go to the grocery store green and shirtless."

Another question: "But you can switch. Back and forth. What if you couldn't?" And here Mark hoped he didn't sound too desperate. "What if you had to be a monster, all the time, and Rudy didn't like it?"

Monster Girl looked at him critically. "Well, if that was the case — if I lost my ability to turn back to normal, and was going out with someone who didn't like me as I was, we'd break up, and that would still be okay."

Mark swallowed against the tide. "Oh."

"I'd find someone else eventually. There's eight billion people on Earth, one of them is bound to be alright with who I am. Different people have different preferences and all that, it happens. There's someone for everyone."

Oh. That...

Mark needed time to think.

"Someone out there's gonna love the shit outta ya, kiddo. Don't stress it. And ya don't have to rush. You've got your whole life ahead of you. Why, when I was your age..."

Absently, Mark stole a glance at Monster Girl, who'd wandered a little ahead. She was at least two full feet shorter than he was. Her wrists were thin, her voice was high, and the label of her blouse was hanging out. It said 'Ages 11-12'.

A short but unspecified amount of time from now, Cecil Stedman and his security detail would teleport into the main atrium of Guardians HQ looking for someone in particular, sharply aware of a small, automatic alert having sounded from the base.

Every nerve would be on edge.

The man would sink one of his pristine dress shoes in a small pool of gore and debris, and take in the burning circus show of a scene around him. He would not be impressed.

And before Robot could adequately explain, he would angrily shout:

"What the fuck happened here?"

Chapter Text

Mark only began to really process the day's events when he felt the water hitting his face. He'd peeled off his ruined supersuit and carelessly tossed it somewhere outside the stall, letting it stew in the dull stink of dirt and the bodily fluids of multiple different people, their opposing feelings and intentions clashing to form an odor that seemed jaggedly physical. The hot water was a balm. If he'd been fully human, it would have burnt his skin. 

Mark was glad he could enjoy this now. When he'd been lying in the hospital awhile back, he was advised to keep his casts and dressings from getting wet. He had listened even as he weaved in and out of confusion, Mom made him, but it had still been another unwieldy restriction he was keen to shake off, another case of someone superior to him asserting themselves over his body. That they were acting in his best interests did not matter — in fact, it made it worse. Poor little Invincible, who knew nothing and couldn't look after himself. The feeling had been totally ridiculous, Mark even thought so himself, and yet it remained, so he learnt to ignore it and fulfilled his doctor's orders.

Two weeks passed until he was allowed a fully unencumbered shower. His healing factor had progressed, body repairing itself with a quiet, ruthless efficiency — by all measures, he was whole again, and Cecil's doctors had seen fit to release him. Mark had sighed deeply in the soothing arms of his childhood home, let the warm water fall in steady droplets, rolling off his cheeks and running into his mouth.

His breathing immediately seized. A phantom clutched him by the skull and metallic air ripped through his ears. His entire body went rigid, caught in the sense-memory of a hundred and forty-eight men, women, and children meeting their gruesome demise by way of his face on the Chicago L.

When the tide finally released him, Mark had knelt down and let the water erase the weakness from his eyes.

It had taken some time to reclaim this old joy. His own stubborn efforts, and help from Debbie, when she'd learned — deep breathing exercises and crude self-led therapeutic techniques to re-write the trauma over with something neutral, maybe one day making room for something good again.

As the steam rose, Mark felt a small amount of physical tension trickle away down the drain with the soap suds, his shoulders relaxing in the process. His mind cleared for a brief moment and he allowed himself to bask in the pure heat, grime and gore leaving his bones and rightful humanity rushing back in its place like an errant moon tethered to its endlessly forbearing, life-giving planet. For one, blissful second, Mark felt liberation in the vacuum of his hard-earned solitude.

And then reality hit him like a meteor strike.

Someone knew Mark's secret identity. Someone he couldn't identify upon first glance and still had no name for. Someone had sworn revenge on him and meant it, most likely knew where he lived, and was still out there, posing a huge risk to the one loving family member he still had left. To his friends, too.

The man had called him Invincible, at first, when the warehouse had still been standing, his mysterious machine whirring in the background. Not 'Mark'. So had he been hiding what he knew? Obscuring his hand, playing the long game?

There was no shampoo for his greasy hair. He scrubbed his scalp raw anyway and groaned heavy with teeth-clenching anxiety and aggravation, the sound carrying unevenly in the wet acoustics of the shower room. Self-loathing lurked once again on the fringes of his psyche and threatened to tip him into another meltdown. The GDA was going to swoop in like vultures and uproot the leftovers of his mom's life, just as the puzzle pieces were starting to settle into something vaguely comprehensible for the both of them. Two plates at dinner, where there had been three — the bitter, angry grief of their betrayal held at bay in part by the comfortable familiarity of their home. Even when the voids had stretched too wide with uncanny loss, the sense of wrongness brought on by the flagrant lies told in the mundanity of their living room, it was still theirs, dammit. Their dysfunction to unpack, their decision to stay, not the GDA's. Not Cecil's. What divine right did they have to move them?

New identities, the Immortal had said. A new house. Mom would have to leave her job.

Debbie had spent the better part of two decades working on her career, never content to just be a housewife. Though Nolan was a good writer, the unstable nature of the profession meant most of the household's financial contributions came from her. She was so proud of herself, for being able to provide for her family, her husband and son and all their little indulgences, their suburban wealth. She had friends at work. The satisfaction of knowing she was not just good at something, but an expert in it.

She was gonna have to give that all up, just because of him.

God, Mark was so fucking useless. Such a fucking burden. Everyone was just better off without him.

The towel bar dented beneath his hands where he'd held on for support. He was tempted to take the damage further and see where it would lead him. It would be easy. He could shatter the shower door. Twist the water pipes into coarse balloon animals. Rip off the reinforced panelling and fold the metal sheets like origami cranes. He could tear through Guardians HQ seeking his thrills and show everyone again just how much of a monster he could be. He'd seen the looks on their faces, when he had stopped their stupid fight. His altruism had been met with tension and unease. Scorn where there should have been gratitude. Fear. What they really thought of him. Of what he could do. At this point, it surely wouldn't even be his fault. This was what they wanted.

Why shouldn't he indulge them?

A palm on the back of his neck.

No.

Stop.

Focus.

Mom's life was at stake here. The only person in the world who still loved him.

Think, Mark.

Think back to that guy. Try to piece things together so you're not caught empty-handed. Knives to gunfights and all that.

He didn't use knives or guns in a fight.

How, exactly, was that relevant?

It was a stupid idiom.

Anyway. The man had called him Invincible, before. Just the one man who had spoken. Mark had dismissed him as just another maniacal villain at first, but looking back, the man hadn't been erratic at all. He'd been solemn, self-righteous, sure of himself and his plan.

Many villains were. It didn't make them any less wrong.

Yes, but it remained that he had been different before. Calmer. Saner.

Yeah, turns out getting caught in a massive, ground-levelling explosion tends to cause people to get upset. Didn't take a genius to solve that one. What else was new?

No. You're not listening. The man was deformed when he emerged from the ground. When Mark had pulled him free. He was different. Physically. He'd seen the before, witnessed the after. There had been a process in between. Something crucial caught in the middle. Something he rather unfortunately didn't get to watch.

Mark's mind absurdly turned to a thought experiment he'd heard about once in the past. During physics class, when his kooky teacher had gone off on another ill-conceived tangent, one of his classmates asking an off-color question to waste tutorial time and avoid the provision of more homework. The famous European cat that was simultaneously alive and dead, until you bothered to observe it. The interpretation of an idea concerning the final culmination of quantum superposition, the question of when reality would take itself by the reins to decide its own fate. A measurement problem. A false duality. Was light a particle, or a wave?

Woah. How on Earth did you remember all that?

Maybe public school wasn't that shitty after all. The American education system had its own merits, rampant unchecked bullying and needless standardized testing aside. Back on topic, please.

Was he killing cats now? Is that what made a good physicist? 

No, he was not killing cats, Jesus. Fucking sociopath. It was a thought experiment. Meaning, not literally.

He wasn't the one who got them off topic in the first place. He wasn't apologizing.

Urgh. Fine.

The man had been at least, like, fifty percent brain tissue when he'd come out. Robot had confirmed it. Where did all that extra brain come from?

From his other selves.

No way. What kind of explosion could possibly cause that?

Mark didn't know the answer. But he knew his protest was a weak one.

It made sense.

Except it didn't. If he was suggesting that the man and all his other selves had fused together, surely the product shouldn't have come out looking as grotesque as it did. The Maulers cloned themselves all the time, and they didn't look like that.

They also didn't commonly blow themselves and a million of their clones up in substances of dubious origin.

Hear him out. He wasn't a cloning expert, but something just seemed off. The way they smelled, remember?

Like multiple interlocking layers of the same person.

Exactly, but he was still missing something.

...They had still smelled slightly differently to each other. Identical, and yet not.

Stale clones. Tiny imperfections stacking on top of each other.

No, something more.

Another lesson from school, this time biology: a class William had forced him to take good notes for, since he wanted to go down the pre-med route at college and he'd just had a cavity filled in and was still woozy from the painkillers. The double helix. DNA. An elegant, dependable structure, the blueprint of life for an uncountable number of species in the universe. Its intricate form.

What about it?

Yes, there was the sugar-phosphate backbone. Yes, there were four chemical bases — adenine, thymine, guanine, cytosine. Complementary base pairs. The chemical bonds that glued them all together, creating that twisting ladder of life — covalent, hydrogen. Electronegativity and the fascinating mechanics of dipole-dipole interaction.

Mark was slowly losing the plot.

Hang on, not yet. They were finally reaching somewhere.

Get on with it, nerd.

He really should have done better in school.

He could ask Eve about it, she would know. She would understand in a way he never could. It was in her name — her godly birthright. What she saw behind her eyelids every night.

But he wasn't speaking to her right now, was he? He wasn't speaking to anyone.

Stupid, friendless boy.

Above the double helix, a series of crafty biochemical puppeteers, subtly controlling the position and shape of histones and thus the expression of genes. Acetylation and methylation, two opposing forces working in tandem towards an ineffable goal.

This was ringing a bell, but where was it going? It'd been awhile since he studied.

He knew. It showed.

Look above that. He had to look above that. What caused the activation of those last two processes?

...The environment!

Exactly.

Diet, exercise, exposure to stress and toxins forming the first part of an unstoppable cascade. The study of how specific traits could be passed down beyond the control of an immutable genetic framework. The base sequence would be unaffected, and yet the spread of selected characteristics would be transgenerational. The ability to cope with famine, the development of addictive personalities that doomed bloodlines. Humans would soften the field and use the information gained to surprisingly logic their way into understanding how certain things did not just start with you.

Most of those men seemed malnourished. 

Yes, but not all. That made each one of them different. Each one of them had a different set of life experiences, different triggers and stressors that made them each smell so varied, even when they were fundamentally the same. Cellular differentiation — the first foundational change, and then others had followed in its wake.

An army of clones, set loose in every possible direction?

Maybe. 

But maybe bigger.

The portals.

Teleportation. Like Cecil, like that Isotope guy.

Maybe, but not quite.

Bigger picture rang out in his father's voice.

Mark's last lesson, from a source he didn't actually find boring for once. An umpteenth issue of Seance Dog. Not an issue most of the fan base looked on favorably, citing poor character writing and rushed story progression. A literary cop-out that cheapened the development of many established characters, sucked the emotional impact out of their deaths and forced the reader base to care about identical but ultimately new and unfamiliar people. The tenuous connections made between other franchises. Mark hadn't been swept up in the mass vitriol, of course, childhood loyalty to the comic series compelling him to over-explain gaping plot holes and strange stylistic choices on the writer's behalf when even they had seemingly given up, content to let the hate wash over their social media. Eventually, the whole thing had been retconned by another shiny issue, and Mark had eaten that up, too.

Other dimensions.

Bingo.

Good job, Mark, you've cracked the case! What a clever boy, you deserve a special treat, just for you!

What would you like, a gold star? A scoop of chocolate chip ice cream?

Someone strong and savage enough to wrap their hands around your neck and squeeze?

Mark gasped. Water travelled up his nose.

A boy could dream. It made the heart flutter to even think about. How nice it would be, to meet someone who could match his raving lunacy, tame and surpass it with their greater strength. What would it be like, to bend to someone else's will? To feel them dragging him beneath their depths and holding him there until the last breath left his lungs? He yearned to be shot down and demolished by another mad star, carved anew by hands worthy enough to hold him. Remade and brought low by the brutality of someone else's grand, subjugating vision. He would fall into a pretty kneel if they so much as breathed it, batting his eyelids and exposing the pale flesh of his wrists. Tipping his neck back in the sweetest show of submission.

Look at me, see me.

Eat me.

Unwelcome heat pooled low in his groin and made him wet with more than just water.

For the first time since The Incident, Mark felt his hands exploring himself with more than just clinical necessity and cursory grace. His fingers lingered near his entrance, brushing themselves with the fluids gathering there and savoring the feeling for a second. With a sharp gasp, they slipped inside and he was feeling himself once more. He only had vague abstractions, but he imagined something bigger moving inside him as he thrusted his fingers in and out, imagined the hands against his hips as he was breached and sent reeling under the waves. He pressed against that spot again, the one he knew would grant him reprieve.

A spike of pleasure shot up his spine. He did it again, and the pleasure doubled. More fingers found their way inside him, he spread them to feel the burn, the low ache of an experience his new body had yet to blaze through. In and out, in and out. He pressed the spot and imagined someone crueler than himself biting into his neck and taking his soul with it. Would he go willingly? Gentle, into that good night? Would they care for what he thought?

Mark wanted to laugh. There would be blood either way.

He continued his ministrations with one hand as the other moved up to his chest. It found his nipples, sensitive little peaks that he twisted and squeezed in time with himself. His knees shook. A fine tremor was building inside him. He increased his pace, went harder, and pictured the musk of a wicked champion descending upon him as he came. His body clenched tight around his fingers as his orgasm swept over his body in unrelenting waves. Before it could taper he went again, and then again, went higher and curved, and found a new texture within himself that had him purring in low delight. Another gland to play with.

When it was over, Mark bent over panting, skin damp and hot and not from the water.

He shook himself and shuddered.

What the fuck was that?

It came out of nowhere, left him just as quickly, sticky and reeling and confused. His thoughts reached for another tangent...

Focus! Problem, remember?

Right, problem. He gathered himself, stood to his full height. Thoughts. A triumph, he'd figured something out. Mark should have been proud.

He had never imagined his head having any other use beyond that of an inhuman battering ram.

Oh, he was being so dramatic. That was one time.

One time in the waking world, a thousand times in his sleep. All those people gone.

Boo-fucking-hoo. He really had to let that go. Especially if he wanted to survive the coming years, full of complicated pain and fathomless grief. The pictures growing ever bigger and the stars burning out before he could save them. A sea of blood and ruin, millions dead.

What would happen in the coming years?

Nevermind.

Turns out Mark had a brain after all. One he could use for thinking. Maybe his teachers were right, and he just never applied himself. Maybe he really could do anything.

Robot would have figured all this out and then some in three seconds tops.

Three milliseconds.

Hush now. Let him have this. He worked so hard for it, the poor, dim-witted boy, those rusty little gears turning over sideways in an unused machine.

Unused machine?! Robot was a genius! How could he possibly hope to compare?

So let's cap a conclusion on, before this spiralled into nonsense again. The same person, spread across different dimensions. A multiverse of possibilities.

You don't get to just ignore —

Correct.

All of them coming together in this one, through physical and metaphysical routes. Through portals, and an untimely biological explosion.

Uh-huh.

Each with their own different knowledge sets, life experiences and emotions and intents.

Yeah, get to the point. This was going on long enough. People would start to think he was crazy.

And they would be right.

Hey!

Maybe, in some of those other dimensions, one of the men had known his secret identity, and that knowledge merged when he did. Maybe that version of Mark had told him. Maybe they'd been allies there, and Mark had trusted him.

Mark grimaced.

Unlikely.

He saw how much the man hated him. Saw it repeated in every face. Tasted the sweet buffet of acrid fear-scent.

Maybe they were enemies in those other dimensions too.

Getting warmer.

Warmer?

Hush. You'll have your chance.

Maybe there, the man had worked tirelessly to spy on Invincible, had followed his flight home, discovered the peaceful lives of Mark and Debbie Grayson in their two-storey suburban house. A masterful work of espionage driven by an unshakeable grudge. 

It's an idea.

But why did he have a grudge?

And maybe in some realities, he didn't have to do any spying. Maybe for some reason, Mark's secret identity was public knowledge. Or a secret so poorly kept, it might as well be.

Yeah, right. Like he'd ever take that risk.

Hey, maybe he was a celebrity. Had his face plastered on every screen and billboard and his name on a star on the Hollywood walk of fame. His voice would be ubiquitous, his influence profound, and people would hang onto his every word. He would be famous, and every being in the galaxy would know (fear) his name.

Hah. Sure. Tell another one.

So all that knowledge had come coalescing into the neural tissue of the same body, synaptic junction after synaptic junction splitting and blocking in the most terrible traffic jam. Maybe that caused the mutation, or vice versa. It explained the instability. One man was never meant to hold the minds of a thousand.

Mark paused.

There was still the possibility that he had been careless somewhere, in a problem contained just to this world. Other than his mother, there were two civilians who knew Mark's secret identity: William, Amber. Both of them were good with secrets. But there emerged the chance of blackmail, coercion. Trickery and mind control.

Maybe. He could file that away. Bring up the idea to someone who could help. Someone with a lot of investigative power...

No. There was no reason to get him involved. Not with his friends. He would leverage them against him. What was he thinking?

Or maybe he'd taken off his mask somewhere public? And someone had seen him?

Mark almost never did that. It was superhero rule number one: keep your cowl on if you're someone who wears a cowl. Like Eve had said — commit to the look, and mass psychology would do the heavy lifting to keep his identity hidden.

Wasn't superhero rule number one was to defend truth, justice and the American way?

Well that sounded incredibly white. Mark may have been an American citizen, but he was mixed raced too (if dad could have been considered white), and that had to play a role somewhere in the intersectional dynamics of his inner beliefs.

That sounded complicated.

Mark would have to do some extra reading, then. He couldn't carry the weight of every important discussion they needed to have. He wasn't a goddamn mule.

No one ever said he was a mule. He was looking for slights were there weren't any.

Why did he have a grudge, Mark?

This entire psychic back-and-forth happened without his knowing volition. The true number of players was unknown, and like dawn calling off the night, they would slip away with nary a trace as the light of his conscious thought came into its full zenith. If anyone asked how Mark Grayson, C-student and certified blockhead whose modus operandi in a fight was always to hit first and ask questions later, came to such borderline intelligent conclusions, he would never be able to articulate himself. He was the master of self-unawareness, the expert at missing the point. He would stutter, and use the wrong words, and nearly talk himself into another boiling pot of water or accidentally volunteer himself for more weekly lectures on the importance of thinking before he spoke. They would dismiss his ideas as a fluke, and he wouldn't be able to argue against it.

A voice muffled by his musings and the steady shower stream:

"Hey! Is someone in there? Not that it's a problem, there's loads of showers, so you can have all the time you need, just you've been in there for like, thirty minutes! Is everything okay?"

Shit. Had it really been that long?

"Sorry! I'm coming out now!"

Mark shut off the water. Luckily for him, the drainage system at Guardians HQ was sturdy enough to not start flooding the stall despite the mindless deluge he'd been introducing down their pipes. He wrapped a fluffy white towel around his hips and stepped out to face the world again.

It was Bulletproof, because of course it was. Mark's day was just getting better and better.

He was still in his supersuit, that yellow and orange outfit Mark was sure he'd seen in Art's collection before. Had he tried it on himself? Old stock, the man had said. Art was probably ecstatic that it'd finally found a loving wearer.

For a good long moment, Mark stood on the threshold of the door connecting the shower rooms and the lockers, towel braced around his body and dripping puddles onto the tiles. He was barefoot, and he didn't blink. He swallowed roughly, the movement causing a line of lukewarm water to flow down into the dip of his collarbones and collect there. He didn't know what to say.

Bulletproof stared back, eyes unreadable through his opaque yellow goggles. His lips were carefully neutral. The man kept his hands loose by his sides, but Mark was certain that the instant he showed any sudden movements, they'd be balled into deadly blows. The tension in his body was subtle but undeniable.

The silence stretched on.

Mark was such a dick. He owed this man an apology. How long was he gonna put this off? He should just do it already. Like peeling off a band-aid. Mom had raised him better than this.

He ignored the rising heat within him and braced himself. Opened his useless lips to say something —

"This your first time here?"

Mark's feeble mind faltered. He let himself flap about for too long.

Bulletproof raised an eyebrow.

"...Yeah," Mark confirmed after a beat. "It's my first time." He added stupidly, "Nice place you got here," and winced at how cringey it sounded.

Bulletproof hummed. "I can't believe you've never been to HQ before. It's funny how I got to see it before you did. You're in the big leagues, y'know? Just seemed like an oversight somewhere."

"Uhhh, well..." He rubbed the back of his head, spraying more water on the floor. "I guess I never found the time."

"Uh-huh. Too busy saving the world."

Mark nodded, because what else was he meant to do? Contradict him? Downplay it?

The rules of polite conversation were ever-changing, and Mark was too dumb to keep up.

Before they could fall back into another awkward silence, he tried again.

"Listen, Bulletproof, about what happened, I'm — "

"I don't wanna hear it," the man cut him off, raising a hand. "It's done, alright? I know you feel bad. What's the point in lettin' this charade go on?"

"I still owe you an apology. It can't have been nice needing to be in the hospital because of me."

Bulletproof let out a sardonic huff. "You're telling me. You hit hard, man. I got headaches for days, and I don't get headaches. I manipulate kinetic energy, for Christ's sake! And I don't even think you were really going for it."

Mark flinched as the guilt shot through him. Stamped down on the dark satisfaction Bulletproof's words brought forth.

"I'm sorry."

"Dude, let it go," Bulletproof insisted. "It's fine."

"It's not."

Bulletproof scoffed. "Look, Invincible. This kinda crazy shit — it happens. I've done this longer than you have. Line of work we're in, okay? People fall off the wayside without meaning to all the time. Mind control, telepathic nonsense, voodoo shenanigans, everything else. I'm not sayin' I regularly get the crap kicked outta me by angry naked teenagers. Damn, that sounds bad. But the wackiness is somethin' I'm used to. I'm not taking it personally. It's fine."

"I'm still sorry."

And now, Bulletproof actually looked annoyed. "And I am the aggrieved party! You oughta listen to me!" He crossed his arms. "If I tell you it's chill, and that you should drop it, you drop it, alright? If you can't shake the guilt, at least listen to the guy you supposedly hurt."

Mark's mouth was very dry. He couldn't argue with that, could he?

"You understand me?"

Mark nodded. "Yeah." Another I'm sorry was attempting to slip out, but he caught it by the nape and tossed it back.

Bulletproof nodded in return. "Great. Glad we're clear. We good, now."

There was another beat of silence, where Mark's brain was trying to get up to speed, and Bulletproof's was noticing something else completely.

"You have something to wear?"

"Uhhh, yeah," Mark said intelligently. 

"Your old suit?"

He nodded. 

That was the wrong thing to do.

"You can't put that nasty thing back on, it's got like a thousand people's hot guts all over it. What's the point of even taking a shower?"

Indignation. "It's not that bad." It wasn't like he was new to the feeling.

"No, I bet it's worse. You got anything fresh?"

Mark hesitated. In all honesty, he hadn't thought this far ahead. Monster Girl had handed him a towel and shown him the toiletries before heading off to go do her own thing.

"No."

Bulletproof let out a tired sigh. "Jesus, kids these days. Runnin' around with no brains and no underwear. My parents would have strung me up for that." He muttered lowly to himself. "That and a bunch of other things."

Mark flushed. Before he could retort, Bulletproof was already stepping away.

He fiddled with the combination of one locker and swung the door open and started rummaging around.

"You're lucky I got these in. I took a trip to the city, see. Had some business to attend to."

He came to Mark with the items in his hands: a pair of joggers and a clean T-shirt. Socks.

Mark was taken aback. "What, Bulletproof, no, I can't — "

"Take the damn clothes. Aggrieved party, remember? Restorative justice and all that jazz. You do as I say. Your guilt compels you."

Mark stuck his hands out. The collection of items landed there with grim finality. They itched on his skin.

"T-Thank you," Mark said.

"I'm not giving them to you," Bulletproof clarified. "You wash and iron 'em before you return 'em, got it?"

Mark nodded quickly.

Bulletproof smiled. "Great! Anyways, I gotta go. See ya round."

Mark held out an arm. "Wait!"

The man looked back, eyes still unreadable behind his goggles.

"Why," Mark asked, "Why are you being so nice to me? After what I've done. I hurt you."

Bulletproof's face broke into a wide grin, friendly and open. "I'm a hero, aren't I? I help people in need. And you sir, naked as you are, are in need."

Mark's thoughts were spinning. He tried to argue, "Rex is a hero too. And he was a dick."

Bulletproof sighed. "He say something to you?"

"You don't know?"

"I was out, had things to catch up on. The Immortal flew him back alone. I barely know him, but I can guess. Was he being nasty and rude?"

Mark looked away. "...Yeah." Even if it had all been true.

Bulletproof sucked in a breath. "Rex is...a work in progress. A long work in progress. I'll talk to him."

He hadn't meant to put Bulletproof up to something. "You don't have to. You weren't involved."

"No, I want to." Quietly, he added: "He reminds me a lot of myself."

This had gone way better than Mark had ever dreamed, and he had barely done anything. He best not ruin it by saying something stupid.

"Somehow, I don't think the Immortal's gonna be as forgiving as you," Mark said.

Bulletproof laughed. The sound bounced off the walls like a ricochet. "Yeah, you got your work cut out for you on that one, Invincible. Guy's got thousands of years worth of mental issues to unpack." He started walking away. "Good luck with that."

Mark looked down at the clothes in his hands. Then at the floor. He would have to get a mop.

Chapter Text

Mark tried with the clothes, he really did. They were high-end things, clearly expensive but not overly flashy, the grey sweatpants made of a soft cotton blend and the white T-shirt simple and stylish. He was perplexed, again, as to why Bulletproof lent these pieces to him — they were just too nice to give to a stranger. He was still uncomfortable with the gesture, but he was caught in between trying to appease his own sense of doomed martyrdom and the call of victim-offender mediation Bulletproof had put forth earlier. He decided to at least try and fulfil Bulletproof's wishes by accepting his kindness.

But they itched him. Constantly.

Mark found himself walking down the hall back to the main atrium and fidgeting incessantly with the fabric, tugging at the collar and every hem, hyper-aware of each jutting seam. Even on the socks. It made no sense. The clothes were clean and well-made. Laundered with a gentle soap and softened with something fragrant. Clearly owned by a guy who knew his style and appreciated a dapper wardrobe. It wasn't hard to imagine himself wearing an outfit like this around his own neighborhood, Mark and Bulletproof were the same size. He squirmed, stiff and self-conscious as he felt his irritation flare.

Fuck it. He would just have to apologize again.

Mark stalked back into the locker room and immediately started stripping. Guilt flared in every hasty movement but it was overshadowed quickly by the hot desire to just stop itching. He threw off the T-shirt and sweatpants, peeled each sock off his foot and scowled. Sweat beaded on his skin. His breathing turned shallow.

He looked back at the mess he made and groaned. Bulletproof had been so nice to him, much more than Mark deserved, and he'd just thrown the man's expensive garments all over the floor. Mark picked everything up. He folded the sweatpants along the inseam and turned the socks inside out. Rolled the latter into a neat ball and tried to get the T-shirt looking pristine and devoid of creases.

Which one was Bulletproof's locker again?

Mark found the one he thought he saw the man rummaging around in. Upper row, third one from the left. Reached a shaky hand out to open it and accidentally pulled the door off its hinges. Some of Bulletproof's personal effects poured out; a tube of smoky deodorant, more toiletries, a couple notebooks, a digital watch, a wrinkled photograph of two kids both looking a lot like each other, arm-in-arm in matching clothes and beaming with big, gap-toothed grins.

"Shit!"

Mark shoved the items back in frantically, dropping more things and picking them back up as he went. He took extra care with the photograph, old and worn but undeniably loved and well looked after. He tried to right the door, making larger  dents with his clumsy fingers the more he labored. Only when he pulled back to survey the damage did he notice the combination lock sitting uselessly on the metal face. Bulletproof was gonna kill him. Mark would hand him the noose. Fuckkk.

(Dimly, he became aware of a familiar scent dropping in quick and sudden into the main atrium, accompanied by a larger group).

His temperature spiked. Where was his suit? Did he really just leave it somewhere on the floor, hoping someone would pick it up and hand it back to him? Where did he think he was? His thoughts turned sluggish and his mind swam. He gasped as another wave hit him hard and merciless, arching his neck and spine. A splitting headache was growing between his eyes and he felt his lids going heavy. He tried to banish the spell. A coiled flame burned in his groin. He reached down between his thighs and his fingers came back wet and slippery.

Back in the shower. It had to be in there. Ripped and ruined, covered in blood and dust, but he needed it. Fuck.

He shoved three fingers inside himself and hoped it would sate the hunger. Felt himself clench down on them greedily and pull him in further, ravenous and tempting. He moved, added pressure to the nub on the outside with his thumb and felt a new textured roughness open inside him and yield under the pads of his fingers. The first curl of pleasure hit him like a whip, running electrically up and down his spine and into his toes. The second spread from his groin in a low, pulsing wave that overtook his body and sent him to his knees, panting and clutching onto one of the benches for dear life. He ran one of his hands up his neck and onto his scalp, cradled himself gently and yanked, hard at the bases of his locks as a pained whimper escaped like a secret from his lips.

If Mark had any interest in astronomy, if he had an advanced, state-of-the-art telescope and the decades of experience and study required to use and understand it, he would have seen it — the pale blue dot of Viltrum and its thin planetary ring moving in a devoted three-dimensional waltz around one of its trio of host stars, whipping and weaving gently in what his ancient ancestors would have hailed a stable era, free of famine and uncertainty and ripe for new, unfettered life-growth. They would have cast their weapons aside, heralded the time with a grand, indulgent feast, and sown precious seed into the soil and their delicate child-bearers alike. Mark would have been one of them, spread open and claimed by one or more of his betters. He would have fought them, ferocious and without mercy, would have gouged out the eyes of any suitor who dared look upon him with anything less than worship, and when their might inevitably wore him down, he would sink beneath the waves of their dominance with a satisfied purr.

When the planet would swing back into chaos, leaping between celestial bodies and plunging deep into the cold depths of space or rushing with frenetic energy into the dangerous heat-filled pull of their temperamental suns, Mark's ancestors would have curled their lips back and culled their weak, sick, and young. Natural behavior brought on by a radical need for survival that would influence their people for millennia to come — they would embrace it, enforce it, dogmatize it, twist and scrub and intellectualize it into a hungry, galaxy-spanning empire, and few, if any, would ever come close to challenging it.

Thaedus would be a notable first, though not the first in history, merely the first to survive and record it. He would be adopted by a federation painfully and intimately familiar with his people's savagery and work with them tirelessly to demolish it. On lonely days he would weep at the drastic actions he was forced to undertake against his own kind, the night driving him to madness — but he would soldier on with the cold steel forged by years of cruel military service, determined to erase the Viltrumite evil. The Empire, he resolved, would fall by its own bloody hand.

Mark would be another — softened by a human mother's touch, the smiles of his friends and allies and all-encompassing empathy. His father's denial and willful neglect would be his saving grace, making him luckier than most. With time and training, he would emerge as the strongest of them all, in body and in spirit — Invincible in character, though he would not know this yet and never believe it if told.

And far, far away —

On a planet populated by billions of blue bug-like creatures and tinged in a soft magenta hue, Nolan would feel the heavy chains of the Empire's conditioning slowly melting away. He would grasp at them desperately and he would fight for their return, but when they would finally, finally, leave him, several months from now, twitching and unmoored and subtle tension in every strong line of muscle in his body, he would let out the oldest, most painful breath (and celebrate privately with overwhelming shame and empty relief both).

Mark would come to know and understand this all in good time. The complexities of multiple different and opposing moral frameworks would provide an excellent intellectual and emotional meal, and he would derive his own answer from the loving scraps.

But right now, Mark was seventeen years old, fighting and savoring a reaction from his own body that he still didn't fully understand, deprived of the instruction of his elders. He was writhing in a mess of his own making, body hot and semi-conscious, filled with a voracious sexual appetite driving him to evolutionarily-inspired violence. He brought himself to another climax and released a whine, tipping his neck back in surrender.

A moment of reprieve. He looked around and saw where he was. And he didn't like it. Mark punched into the fluorescent lights above him, continued the motion and took out a line of them to plunge a section of the locker room into a calming semi-darkness. He stepped over the broken glass and felt it crunch satisfyingly beneath his toes. The extractor fan was still whirring annoyingly in the background, he destroyed that too to scratch an itch.

Next. The space was too open. Stay here, or move to bloodier fields? His nostrils flared. Several dull scents, little ants scurrying about and licking their wounds. Scattered across the base in their individual rooms, a couple lingering in a sweat-filled box that was probably the gym. Three in the main atrium, mixed in with the same familiar but ultimately boring scents. A cloud of new smells too. He paused. That one was here. He tapped his foot lightly, the movement kicking up small shards. The clinking was the only sound for a great distance.

He was so lonely. Should he pay them all a visit?

Mark tilted his head. No. Why be wasteful? He'd already started here. He should at least try to get the place in order before changing his mind and moving on. Make an effort and all that. And it was nice and peaceful here as well, he could make the space his own. He had plenty of options and even more time. He could move if he had to. And if he really wanted to see them he only had to change his mind, power enacting his will before conscious thought could catch up. And if they wanted to see him...

Well. He would provide. Pointless and disappointing though it would be. Though, one of them might be able to offer a little bit of entertainment, before Mark snapped his stupid neck.

Anyway. He'd better get going. The space was too open. He remodelled the room as he saw fit, peeling off tiles and metalwork like the skin of an apple. Moved heavy things just an inch to the right. No, the other right. No, back again. Another inch forward. Perfect.

Where there was resistance, there suddenly wasn't. The place changed to suit him — in the same way a rabbit might die for its betters and nourish their young. This was his design. He winced. His terrible design.

He groaned, buried his head in his hands. It wasn't perfect, he had a long way to go and very little to work with, but he was trying. That counted for something, didn't it?

Urgh. This was all wrong. The twisted metal formed was like an ugly rose, he barely wanted to stand near it let alone sit or lie down in it. Mark hovered in the air, fists clenching. He looked up, imagined bursting through the spine of the mountain and jetting into the cold night sky, going supersonic and leaving this festering dump behind. This was such a sorry place to be. No one was coming. Why stay here? He knew the way home. He could smell it, saw its straight path if he closed his eyes. He could go, surround himself with better things, seek out his mother —

Don't you fucking dare.

What? What was wrong with that? She gave birth to him, had seen him in all stages of his development. She would know what to do, despite her brittle weakness, or maybe because of it. Even now, already past the cusp of adulthood, he longed for her. There was a soothing quality about her scent, the herbal teas she drank and the fragrant candies she adored, relics from her childhood that she shared openly with him. All her little quirks and hard-earned luxuries that made their house a home, her laughter carrying through the walls. The paintings she put up. The Mandarin ducks. The wisp of her perfume on the sheets and her clothes and in every room. She would know what to do. She would help him.

No.

And the sensation descending on him was bleak and malevolent, falling like a heavy shroud and veiling him in dismal, forbidding power. He gasped against the tide of it, caught himself before he doubled over. It lurked behind his eyes and ears and nose, pulled down with its tendrils and forced him to listen and obey. Mark gritted his teeth and seethed.

Why? She was soft and she was useful. His father had chosen her for a reason. And while he was loathe to admit anything good of the man right now, on this count, Nolan had been right. She was suitable. This entire volley was counterproductive. He wasn't going to hurt her.

But you did.

Mark's entire mind shook with the ferocity of an earthquake. Pain clawed behind his eyes as he coughed and dry heaved and nearly vomited in the process. The sensation wielded an unknowable magnitude, rocked his core, threatened to unspool his psyche in a move that could only be described as mutually assured destruction. He could leave, could take to the skies and drink in the freedom and hubris in a mad, rebellious rush, but it would be his final flight. The last thing he ever saw before he came plummeting down to the cold, hard earth of his own undoing. 

Stay. Here. Or I'll m̵̢̹̣͇̣̯͙̓̔̀a̸͕̥̹̫̍̿̍͋́͂̈́́̋͂͝ͅķ̶̗͖̝͍͖̱̲̲̇̊͆ë̵͚̬̥̺͉̞́͊ you.

Mark clutched at his head and grunted in pain, the sound travelling like a curse. He tasted blood in his mouth. Pressure was unfolding without form inside his head, crushing his thoughts and dragging him down with it. Meaning bloomed like rot in his mind, folded time and did it all in a vile language that spoke in his bones. Fuck. He settled back onto the ground with a huff and breathed out, let the unearthly feeling pass through his head, down his spine and exit through his toes. A sinister figure settled with a low rumble, lurked on the edges before ebbing away with a dark promise. He rose to his full height, still breathing heavily, and rubbed at his temples.

"Jeez..." he muttered.

Urgh, fine.

Drama queen.

He would stay here and play nice with the little ants instead.

An odd sensation was spearing two points of pain in his mouth. He grimaced, tried pressing on his Cupid's bow where it was most intense. The pain grew gradually, then spiked, and he felt a twin popping sensation, and then his mouth was gurgling two loose teeth. Ouch. Ew. He spat them out. They were white and bloody in his palm. Flew to a mirror and pulled his lips back. In their place was a small replacement canine each. He tested a finger on the edges. Late. Sharp, but not remarkably so. A human could have teeth like this.

Mark rolled his eyes. He supposed he had no choice but to make do. In more ways than one.

He settled himself in his sad excuse for a nest and waited for the next wave. Though he was expecting it, his heat struck hard all the same, pummelling him to the floor and leaving him scrambling for purchase. Honestly, he thought as he worked himself open, who would even come for him? He frowned. All his fantasies of strong, brutal conquerors were just that — fantasies. The closest Viltrumites were light years away, and there was no one on this planet capable of closing in on even his weakest moments. He could go looking for them...

A harsh tug on one of the threads of his identity.

Mark sighed. Conflict aside, where would he even go? Directions were never his strong suit. He'd probably run out of air in a forgotten sector of space before he found anyone willing and able to take him in. He'd probably suffocate...

Mark kept his thoughts on that as he came, breathing ragged and shaky. Slick pooled between his thighs, gathered on the floor beneath him, though his mind was slowly clearing up, another dip before the next crest. He was still going when a sharp, electrical buzz pierced the air.

"Where the hell have you been? You've not been answering."

"Fuck!" Mark hurriedly moved his hands to cover his shame, even as his nose twitched in recognition. "Fucking knock!"

"It's a communal locker room," Cecil said dryly, and then the man stopped. "What the hell are you doing."

"Get out!" And fuck it, Mark rose to his feet. Dignity be damned. Guy had probably seen everything before anyway. "Leave me alone! I don't want you here!"

Cecil's eyes widened imperceptibly. Had Mark been paying more attention, he would have spotted the man's pupils dart between himself, the wreckage surrounding him, and back to Mark in record time. Would have seen the man notice his flushed skin and the dark ring of his dilated pupils, the tiny sharp points in his mouth.

A small tense of his jaw, before Cecil's face curved into something caught between sharp irritation and disbelief. "Oh for fuck's sake, Mark — " He deftly reached into the inner pocket of his suit jacket and withdrew a small box, sounding about as exhausted and enthusiastic as someone finding a dead rat in their coffee.

"What," Mark exclaimed, resentment building. "What're you coming after me for? The fuck did I do?"

" — not fucking doing this shit again — "

The man's unearned rebukes were drilling a hole into his skull.

"Talk to me!" And then he moved, uncaring of the rush and the coming fatigue, barrelling through his haphazard nest and into Cecil's space.

Or tried to, anyway, the man vanishing and reappearing on the opposite end of the room. Mark whipped his head around with a snarl. Cecil was tapping a curious finger on the lump of crooked building materials Mark had dragged together.

"Don't touch it! You'll fucking ruin it!"

Cecil scoffed. "Don't speak so highly of yourself. There isn't much here to ruin." Mark flushed, hot embarrassment coloring his features. He continued, "Seriously, what the fuck is this shit? This meant to be some kind of abstract art installation?" Cecil kicked lightly at one of the wires braided through the structure, it flopped out of place and looked downright sad as it swayed. "I don't see the vision, the drive — I'm sorry, but a creative mastermind, you are not. The GDA could offer you some lessons if you're interested. All you'd have to do is ask, kid."

"I'll fucking kill you!" Mark lunged, vision reddening as he imagined tearing through Cecil's flesh. His hand swiped at nothing. A static vibration behind him.

"Slow," Cecil said disapprovingly. "Very slow."

He crossed his arms and leaned against the wall casually, calm as you please. "You going easy on me, kid? Your dad was ten times faster than this. Maybe we need to get you on a training regimen. Could do you wonders."

The mention of Nolan had Mark gritting his teeth. "Don't talk about him."

"Oooh, daddy issues," Cecil smirked. "Haven't heard that one before."

Mark roared and went for it. The disrespect —

"Stay! Fucking! Still!"

Three mad swings, three sorry misses. Mark was boiling with rage. This was meant to be easy. Where did Cecil get the nerve, to play with him like this? He was meant to be keeping the man on his toes, not the other way round. But Cecil was running circles around him.

"No," Cecil said. "Absolutely not. I'm not stupid enough to think you wouldn't rip my head clean off my shoulders first chance you get. Yeesh. You're fucking terrifying, y'know that?"

"Yeah," Mark agreed. This, he couldn't fight Cecil on. He had enough of his own evidence. "Everyone's scared of me."

"You want them to be scared of you?"

A twinge of something.

Mark growled. "I don't care what they think. They're just bugs."

Cecil sighed. "Don't lie to me, Mark. We both know that's not true."

"You're scared of me too," Mark said accusingly. His heart was racing, rage and frustration striking him both and sharpening his next words. "I can smell it."

"Woof woof."

This fucking guy —

"Stop making fun of me!"

Mark landed a punch where Cecil's head had been and made a hole in the wall. The man seemed kinda disturbed when Mark turned around to look at him, eyes widened and jaw clenched.

"Stop trying to dismember me," Cecil shot back. The scolding did a number on Mark's brain, made his anger shrink back a little at the reproach in the man's words. "Jesus Christ. It doesn't exactly make for pleasant conversation."

"I'm not!" Mark shouted. "I'm not trying to dismember you!"

A disbelieving scoff. "Then what are you doing, Mark? Because from my perspective I've just showed up to HQ to bail you out again, by the way, and you're throwing yourself at me like a flying brick."

"You told the Guardians about me!" Mark yelled. He actually threw a piece of cinder block then, just to make a point.

It missed Cecil by a country mile and embedded itself in the wall behind him.

"Can you be any more specific?"

"Rex knew about the incident back at the Pentagon. A lot about it."

An unreadable look passed over Cecil's face. He seemed to consider something. "Huh. Thanks for the heads up." Then Cecil snapped, "Stop tossing shit at me. It's about as welcome as a razor blade up my ass. And you're making another huge goddamn mess."

"I'm just trying to talk to you," Mark said. His next jab didn't have much heart in it. Even he had to admit that, his fist sailing by Cecil's skull with such a wide margin he might as well have just sat still to avoid it.

"Then let's talk." To his surprise, Cecil plopped down on one of the unbroken benches, one that was still lying right side up. "Sit down, and we can have a discussion. Right here." He tapped at the spot beside him.

Mark was struggling.

"About what?"

"I don't know, you said you wanted to talk." Cecil spread his hands. "Ball's in your court. Say the words."

Uncertainty.

"I don't really wanna talk to you at all."

"Right, now you're just being difficult," Cecil said irritably. "Tell me, or don't. I don't care, it doesn't change my job. But I'll ask you again, because I'm being nice. What's on your mind?"

A pause. How to respond?

Firstly, he couldn't believe this was Cecil's idea of being nice. The man had to have like, no friends.

But... It did feel good, more than a little validating, to be asked what he thought.

Mark settled on the floor a few feet in front of Cecil. He didn't trust himself to be within arm's reach of the man, though a nagging feeling told him he should have done as he was told. He pulled his knees to his chest and rested his chin on top of them. He faltered, mind blanking suddenly, pupils defocussing.

"I think," he said, voice tentative. "I think I'm having another...episode. Like before."

Cecil allowed his eyes to flit around the room, at the wreckage, the broken glass, dust and debris, one of the lights flickering in the corner, an open circuit spraying sparks. Back at Mark on the floor, naked as the day he was born. Again.

"You don't say," Cecil said dryly. When Mark made a face, he continued, "You seem a lot more...lucid, than last time."

"Yeah," Mark replied, tracing a finger in eights around his kneecap. "I don't know why though. I wanted to go home, but..."

His entire being shook.

"...I didn't. I'm confused. I don't wanna be here, but I am. I just want it to stop."

Mark stared at a spot on the wall. He didn't notice Cecil reaching into his jacket again to retrieve that same small metal box.

"I might have something that could help you," Cecil said, opening it.

Mark looked up. In the man's palm was a white patch lying top side down, adhesive on the edges, and in the middle, a metal oblong with a thin needle sticking out of it. Something inside him curled at the sight.

"What is it?"

"Latest medical device courtesy of the GDA," Cecil explained. "Cost a lot of money — you don't wanna know how much. Not for human consumption. Made for a Viltrumite. Congratulations, kid. You're special."

"That didn't answer my question. What does it do?"

"Sutherland knows all the nitty-gritty. I just got the basics. But in short, it's like birth control — hormone pump built in. It's meant to stop all this destructive monkey business. Mellow you the fuck out." Cecil pointed at the needle. It was tipped in diamond. "This bit's meant to go in your neck. He said there was a gland there, said you knew where it was."

It was the wrong thing to tell him.

"No. Absolutely not." Mark's gut did a wide sweeping movement and he felt danger flare to life. "You're not sticking anything in my neck."

"Mark — "

"No!" He slammed a fist down and felt the ground shatter. "It's my body, you can't tell me what to do with it! That's the real reason you came here. So you could get another way to control me. You're always trying to control me."

"Mark, you just said you wanted it to stop."

"Not like that!" Mark hissed. Here was another storm incoming, the indignation, the raging fury. How dare he. It was so wrong. He had scented the man out of his own weakness and this was the price Mark paid for it. What a stupid move. He'd given him entirely the wrong idea.

Fine.

If Cecil wanted his submission, he would have to earn it.

Mark lunged. He reached out a hand and made a grab, and the man teleported away, though not before Mark seized his tie and yanked. It came clean off Cecil's dress shirt, the silky material resting nicely in his fingers as the man turned to spare him an exasperated look. Mark paused, and looked at the thing in his hand.

To his own surprise, Mark felt a giggle bubbling out.

"You wear clip-ons?" His shoulders slowly shook with barely restrained mirth, gradually rising in volume. "What, do you not know how to tie a tie? They don't teach you that at secret government agent school?"

The ridiculousness was catching up to him faster than the rage. He laughed, even though it wasn't that funny, because it was stupid, and because he wanted to. It felt good to ride the high of not being the butt of the joke for once.

"I wear clip-ons because a traditional tie would be a liability," Cecil said matter-of-factly. He only sounded a little bit defensive, in Mark's opinion, and that made it even funnier. "Case in point, yourself. Too easy to grab."

"Too easy to tie!" Mark doubled over again in another humorous fit, god this was so fucking stupid. "I didn't think anyone wore these past middle school!" He choked out in between gasps, "It's okay, Cecil, I can teach you. You don't have to feel embarrassed. Not everyone can pull off a double Windsor. We don't have to go that far."

And just because he could, Mark added, "Don't let your employees find out about this. It really undercuts the whole 'intimidating non-nonsense boss' angle." He guffawed again and waved the tie around, "Clip-on king."

Cecil was still rolling his eyes when he pressed two fingers to his earpiece and started speaking lowly. Without so much as a glance at Mark, he was making his way out of the room.

Mark stopped laughing, deflating slightly.

The man didn't even bother teleporting past him. He just walked.

"Where you going?"

"Despite what you might think, my job is more than just babysitting you."

"Is this because I laughed?" Mark asked, floating along. "Hey, I'm talking to you!"

Cecil was getting away. Mark couldn't follow him. He couldn't even go past this room, at least for now. He reached out and grabbed the man's elbow, and to his astonishment Cecil let him. This wasn't the usual play. The shock of it was so much that Mark dropped his hand when Cecil turned to fix him with a level stare.

"You can't just ignore me," Mark asserted. It did not sound childish. It did not. "You can't just put me away when you're done with me."

"As a matter of fact I can, Mark," Cecil replied. "And I'm doing that right now."

Humiliation rose in his cheeks. He ground his teeth together and stoked the flames instead. They rose eagerly to meet him like grasping hands. This was familiar. This, surely, would work.

"I threatened you," Mark said softly. "I said I'd kill you. I even tried."

"And here I am," Cecil returned, voice flat. "Still resident and begrudging taxpayer in the land of the living. You're not great at following through."

"You must have a fucking death wish."

"Uh-huh." Cecil sounded so disinterested. He was already checking his smartwatch and reading the reports that had come flying in. His index finger even swiped a couple replies. He smelled like mint gum and stale coffee — utterly bored. Mark felt his control slipping away; he rubbed the tie's silk between his fingers. One last thing. One last, desperate, thing.

"Aren't you gonna call the Guardians on me for what I did?"

It would at least be something to do.

There was a short breath of silence, where Mark waited and Cecil decided.

"I don't reward bad behavior."

Mark felt his mouth flapping uselessly in response to that.

He felt like a child caught lying — humiliated and utterly seen through. This was a completely foreign beast. Before, he might have made more of an impression. (He probably still could, if he pushed himself, but couldn't find the will). He pulled a strand of red silk out, an inch and then another. But where was his credibility now?

Before he could retort, Cecil snapped, "Now if you're done wasting my time, we're done here. I have other fires to put out."

Mark hovered on the threshold of the door. "Wait," he called, hoping he didn't too strained. "Just — just wait."

"Mark, I came here to do a very specific job, and you've so far shown no willingness to cooperate with me. This isn't working. You've dragged this out long enough."

"I'll do it!" Mark conceded, even as his mind screamed. "I'll wear the stupid patches."

That got an eyebrow raise. Cecil turned to him slightly, face still impassive. Slipped one of the devices out of his pockets. He hadn't bothered putting it back in the box. "Okay."

"Okay," Mark parroted, mind spinning. "But..."

Cecil's eyes narrowed.

Mark flinched, but bulldozed on. Quick, before he lost his nerve. He should have something, too. It was only fair. The tie didn't count. His mind pushed him to bargain for something bigger.

"I want your jacket," he said nearly inaudibly.

"What? Speak up."

"Gimme your jacket!" Mark yelled. The sound ricocheted off the walls.

Cecil's eyebrows rose higher. Then, he snorted.

"No."

"Oh, come on!" Mark groaned. "Why not!"

"It's mine," Cecil said simply.

"But you have a million of the same one!"

Cecil shrugged, nonchalant. "It's still mine."

Mark caught himself before he could spiral again. He dug his nails into his arms. Bit his lip and sucked it up.

"Please."

The word hung significantly in the air, a guillotine for Mark and an offering for Cecil.

The man seemed to consider it, calculation flickering behind his inscrutable eyes. Mark's heart pounded like a drum. He held his breath tightly. Twisted soft material round his thumb and waited in quiet supplication.

"Okay."

Mark brightened. A weight lifted off his chest. Before he could get carried away, Cecil added pointedly, "After you put the patch on. Successfully. And keep it on."

Mark nodded quickly.

They settled back on the bench from earlier, this time actually sitting side-by-side. Mark put the tie down. He took one of the devices Cecil handed to him, felt along his throat for the right area. On his left side, deep under the layers of his skin. Dr Sutherland and Dr Zuma hadn't managed to feel it very well, owing to his invulnerability, but Mark had known exactly where it was. Less so, what it did. He'd agreed to a CT and an MRI just to sate their curiosity.

Well, here goes.

Mark jabbed the needle into his neck. It splintered with a sharp metallic twang. He and Cecil looked at each other for a moment, Mark expectant and Cecil exasperated. Then the man took out another patch and made him try again.

It took four more attempts. Twice the needle bent, once it snapped, and the last time Mark crushed the actual mechanics of the device in his palm by accident. He bet Cecil was glad he brought so many back-ups.

It probably looked quite comical, the Director of the Global Defense Agency supervising and wishing for an early retirement as a naked Viltrumite teenager tried and failed to stab himself in the neck repeatedly amidst the ruins of the Guardians' damp locker room. Neither of them thought this was funny at the time, though Mark would come to understand the humor eventually, when he learnt to take himself less seriously, age and maturity allowing past humiliations to rub themselves harmlessly on his psyche without upending his ego.

When the gadget was finally in, Mark struggled with the adhesive. It was strong as hell. It stuck to his thumb, and then his finger when he tried to lay it flat, and then he was pulling the needle out again and bleeding down his collarbone.

"Christ on a bike, I have to do everything around here — "

"I can handle it myself," Mark hurried to say.

Cecil snatched the device and shoved the needle back into the wound Mark made. His entire body went rigid under the gesture, the jostling movement an uncomfortable shock to his system. The man smoothened out the adhesive with a perfunctory flick of his thumb and patted Mark lightly on the shoulder. His skin tingled where Cecil touched him. An odd sense of calm washed over Mark's head, the fire smouldering low into coals.

"Good boy," Cecil said mockingly.

Mark flushed. "Fuck you."

"Now on to other pressing matters — someone knows your secret identity."

Mark flinched. "I haven't been careless. Anyone who already knows, they wouldn't tell."

Cecil hummed. "I figured, not unless they were tricked or blackmailed. I got the guys on the case anyway, we'll see what they can find."

A flash: protective fire. "I don't want your people spying on my friends."

"We're gonna have to get to the bottom of this one way or another, Mark. I can't afford to leave stones unturned. Best case scenario is William got tipsy at a house party."

Mark said nothing for awhile, thoughts turning. Quietly: "Leak could've come from you."

"God, I hope not. That'd be a fucking nightmare and a half. I can't have state secrets flying out my pockets like loose change. People would lose their heads."

Mark had one more idea, didn't he? Something he considered earlier.

It sounded ridiculous, but it was worth a shot. Surely.

Mark tried, swallowed roughly. "Cecil. This is gonna sound strange, but..."

A touch of annoyance. "Quit stalling, kid. I haven't got all day."

Mark hurried on. "Do you think that guy might be from another dimension?"

Cecil tilted his head. His brow was pinched.

Mark felt his eyes slipping to the side as he spoke.

"I-I mean, there were so many of him, before — before he blew up. I thought they were all clones at first, but something about the whole setup just wasn't right. It felt so weird. There were portals, loads of them. A-And, that guy, he disappeared into one too."

Mark sounded so stupid. Why couldn't he articulate himself better? Sound a bit more like Robot, and less like himself?

"You're probably right."

What?

Mark craned his neck over to look at Cecil properly. The man had a contemplative expression on his face, though it was hidden under a very old layer of tired irritation.

"Robot came to me with a theory — took him a good three seconds to cook it up, so it must've been a tough cookie. It fits with the report from the others, and with your testimony just now, well, the puzzle pieces are all coming together."

"I'm not sure what to do about it." Mark hunched over.

"You listen to me, that's what you do about it," Cecil said firmly. "We've got your mom at the Pentagon with us right now. We're negotiating a new identity for her just until this blows over, something that fits. I use the word negotiating because your mom drives a very hard bargain. I see why her houses sell. Speaking of which, we'll get her a new place, too."

"You'd better give her something nice."

"Only the best for the mother of my most valuable asset."

Despite his sour mood, something inside him preened to hear that.

But then he remembered. "Does this mean I can't go to college?"

Cecil actually looked kinda sympathetic. "Sorry, kid."

Mark sank further into his seat.

Cecil put a hand on his shoulder. Mark's eyes snapped to it nervously before he relaxed.

"We're doing all we can. It won't be easy, but you and your mom are more than capable of handling this for a little bit. Things'll cool off before you know. We'll catch the guy, shake him down, toss him in the slammer. Business as usual. Keep your chin up, okay?"

Mark nodded, though he didn't quite believe it.

Cecil gave a small half-smile.

"You coming to see your mom?"

"No. I can't leave. Not right now."

Cecil dipped his head in a silent question.

Mark didn't know how to explain, so he said nothing, and kept his gaze low.

Unbeknownst to Mark, the man's features shifted into carefully hidden appraisal. He considered Mark for another brief moment before gathering himself to leave.

"Anyways. We'll talk more soon."

The man rose, dusted off his knees. Made his way nearer to the exit and spotted something in the distance.

"Huh. You've got company. Better make yourself decent."

A jolt through his spine.

"Wait!" Mark flew after him. Hovered with uncertainty at the man's side before plucking up the courage to stand in front of him. The pins and needles sensation was running up the back of his neck. "My end of the deal."

Cecil clicked his tongue. "I was hoping you'd forget about it."

Mark held his gaze, though inwardly he heard distant howling, ascending and descending in sharp primal melodies. One voice telling him fervently to lower his eyes and the other imploring him to hold out just a bit longer, because the pay-off would be worth it.

He held on.

Cecil sighed, long and tired. He begrudgingly shrugged off his blazer, removed a couple pins from it and his other effects. Held it out with an outstretched arm. Mark took it, held it against his chest. It was still warm.

"You're a weird fucking kid, Mark."

The man was walking away.

Mark barely listened. He brushed the pads of his fingers over the material. This was nice.

A new smell. Cecil inclined his head at someone by the threshold.

"Atom Eve."

"Mark?"

That jolted Mark back to reality. He used his super speed to dash back to his tattered suit, slipped it on, and nonchalantly sat down on one of the non-ruined benches, cross-legged and inspecting his nails as if nothing had ever happened. Time dilation be damned.

What a fucking shit show.

Away from the chaos, Cecil would finally release the breath he was holding. Years of intense undercover training would prevent him from shuddering it out, or from letting his heart hammer madly with relief in his chest. Instead, the specialized deep meditative exercises he knew would immediately take over his autonomics and smoothen out his vitals, just like they had down in the locker room with Mark.

If he had a nickel for every time...

Well, he'd have two nickels.

The first time the kid had caught him off-guard, he hadn't been prepared. He'd been sloppy, let him get too much of the upper hand. But this time, he'd let his near-perfect conditioning do its job so he didn't have to. A heart rate of exactly sixty beats per minute at rest, seventy when he was teleporting. A respiratory rate of twelve. The rest followed on from that: the absence of fidgety movements, his nervous system re-regulating itself into a light parasympathetic stroll, the clarity of his mind. At the heart of it, the human brain was still just meat and electricity.

Show no weakness in front of a predator.

Find ways to neutralize it.

Still, there was one thing he couldn't quite pin down...

Cecil tried to get a whiff of his own scent, ridiculous as it looked. He got nothing.

It had never been a problem before.

Cecil's mind flashed to his armed security detail, the other men and women making up the various strike teams in the GDA. All with very human flesh, though protected by heavy black kevlar and high-spec firearms. He'd take this up to the boys and girls at R&D. Maybe they'd have a thing or two to add to their cloaking technology.

And there was the matter of Rex knowing. Cecil considered the possibilities.

Rex didn't have the capacity or know-how to go hacking into the cutting-edge IT system at the GDA. Neither was he on friendly enough terms with any of his employees to have an inside source. And anyway, he didn't think any of his workers were stupid enough to say something to Rex and not expect it to leak. An internal betrayal was still on the table, but it was highly unlikely. Cecil would have had a lot more shit hitting the fan if that was the case. Someone would be dead by now.

So someone else must have told Rex. Which left one likely suspect who did have the capacity and the know-how, and a penchant for taking things into his own hands when presented with a problem he didn't like.

Cecil scowled.

How to deal with Rudolph Conners. A guy with that much means and intent who wasn't afraid of capitalizing on his abilities, who knowingly or not had been crossing moral and social lines back and forth like he was doing the goddamn tango on a tightrope.

Contrary to what he'd said to Mark, Cecil did occasionally reward bad behavior. It came in handy. Sometimes the reward was something tangible, sometimes he just did nothing. But he'd been lax with Rudy. That had to change.

So when Cecil returned to the main atrium, now looking much closer to its original, pre-trashed state, thanks to the drones and some help from the others, he looked for Robot. Out of his suit, and chatting quietly to Monster Girl. He waved her away.

"Jeez, what happened to you?" she asked, gesturing at him.

"That's classified."

She left with an eye roll and a huff.

Cecil considered his approach.

"Rudy. The next time you hack into the GDA's IT systems, you're off the team and in a cell. Got that?"

"Cecil, I was careful to not overstep the limits of my initial inquiry. I was merely trying to ascertain Invincible's status — "

"And I'd already told you, we had it under control. It was none of your business."

"We were concerned. Invincible was uncontactable for a number of days, and the Immortal and Bulletproof were unfit for duty. It was impacting our missions. The Global Defense Agency was providing no pertinent information. I drew my conclusions. If there existed a substance potent enough to incapacitate a Viltrumite — "

"It still doesn't give you the right to go breaking into a government institution. That's a felony, by the way. You might even be looking at treason here."

Rudy paused at that. Cecil scanned his face for signs of remorse. For himself, or for his actions.

Cecil softened his voice. "I get that the team was worried. Really, I do. But needless to say you can't just write your own rules whenever it suits you. I haven't forgotten about the Maulers."

Rudy winced. The expression was awkward on him. "That was a special circumstance — "

"Every circumstance is special to a dictator."

" — that you would never have agreed to."

Well the kid was goddamn right on that. But still. Throw him a bone, get him off the trail. "Experts are saying Plantzilla didn't really have much to do with it. The rest of the information isn't up for grabs, but I can tell you that much. You can be at ease knowing the substance isn't some kinda mind control super-poison."

That seemed to settle the furrow in Rudy's brow a little. Cecil thanked his goddamn stars that Robot still had a semblance of morality. That the kid was still well-meaning.

"Were you ever going to tell me that you knew? Or Mark?"

Rudy at least had the decency to look a little sheepish. "I...anticipated a less-than-positive reaction."

Yeah, no shit.

"How much did you find out?"

"I started with your toxins database and went from there. It led to me examining your security footage."

Another question. Cecil sighed, "How difficult was it to hack into our system?"

Rudy had the look of someone trying very hard and failing to be diplomatic. "The system only possessed rudimentary levels of post-quantum cryptography. It makes the security algorithms weak. I only had the briefest of glimpses, but the entire cyber infrastructure is clearly still in its experimental stage."

The entire cyber infrastructure was not in its experimental stage.

Cecil had to swallow his frustration.

Think. How to wrangle the super-genius to his favor? Keep Rudy close or tell him to fuck off?

Either way it was a gamble. A short leash meant enabling misconduct, potentially feeding his ego. Might make him believe he was too important to get rid of. Cutting him loose meant Cecil couldn't monitor him. Shit, could they really keep tabs on Rudy anyway? If he really decided to go off the grid?

Cecil's team hadn't informed him of a breach. If Mark hadn't had his outburst...

And he was too valuable to toss in jail. He'd probably stay there (Cecil hoped), but wouldn't put it past the guy to break himself out if he saw the need. Cecil would likely need to take him out on loan every now and again even if he did put him away, the guy's expertise was just too useful, too vast and reliable. The Guardians were short staffed as it were, and the Earth was never running out of world-ending threats.

The GDA valued three things: muscle, tech, and intel. Mark provided the first in spades. Rudy, the second — and it was clear he could use his skills to get the third.

Pragmatism won out.

"Would you like us to help us with that, then? Be a white hat for the GDA."

Rudy's eyes widened, mouth agape. He was speechless.

"That a no?"

Rudy formed the words carefully. "This is simply quite sudden, Cecil. And unexpected. I was not foreseeing an invitation onto your cybersecurity development team when you first arrived. How would I balance this with my Guardian duties?"

"As-and-when basis. Just if we call. Think of it as being on probation, for your past transgressions."

Rudy gave a light hum behind a closed fist propped to his lips. "I suppose," he said lightly, "this is essentially a slap on the figurative wrist for my crimes."

Cecil wanted to close his eyes. He didn't, because it would have made him look very, very old.

"Indentured servitude, if you will. Until you pay your debt off."

A debt that Cecil would feel free to increase or decrease according to his needs.

Rudy considered his words. Cecil could see the calculations running in the kid's head, so fast and advanced they might as well have been an alien language.

"Very well," Rudy said at last. "I will assist the GDA. If not to offer my knowledge, then as a show of good will. I understand that my actions were an infringement on your authority."

Cecil nodded. "We'll be in touch."

A draft blew in out of nowhere. Cecil did not shiver, but he felt the cold air nip.

Chapter Text

Eve Wilkins was good at fixing things.

This was an objective fact — her powers made it effortlessly easy. In her day-to-day, she observed physical faults and followed invisible instructions to right the issue: a demolished building, a shattered mirror, an empty fridge. A strong moral compass swung her into a life of crime-fighting within her first year of middle school, the elemental scale of her strength and a sharply-honed wit carried her safely into adulthood. The thrill of the game, though, was what kept her blood pumping.

Like many heroes, Eve was driven to help, though she was careful never to force it on anyone unless strictly necessary. She understood that some people just wanted to work things out for themselves as a personal test of character — having that difficult conversation, or leaving a dead relationship. Hell, sometimes, pulling yourself out of the literal burning building. People were complex, illogical, not always acting in their best interests, and she was intelligent enough to get that, even from a pretty young age.

But it still frustrated her to no end when people refused her services for reasons she found mind-numbingly stupid.

Case in point: her parents.

Adam Wilkins: a stubborn, sexist old man, too set in his idea of 'a man's pride' to accept the damn food she literally willed into existence; Betsy Wilkins, the meek, enabling doe-eyed thing he kept under his thumb, her independence deliberately curtailed. She felt sorry for her mom. Sorrier than she did for her dad, who was too idiotic to understand that maybe they wouldn't be struggling for money so much if he a) accepted the twenty-four carat gold apple she made them and b) let (and the word made her want to throw up every time) her mom get a damn job already. It didn't take a genius to know two incomes was better than one! This wasn't the fifties! Shit was expensive now, and she had rights!

Eve had tried to help them both innumerable times as part of the life-long ordeal that encompassed being their daughter. Tentatively proposing therapy and marriage counselling and discrete financial resources. Sometimes, she didn't know why she still bothered. It used to frustrate her, day in and day out, made her question every night before she slept: how, how on Earth were these people her parents. They'd raised her, fed and clothed her, and yet she was nothing like them. They didn't understand her. Didn't bother to try. Barely loved her, she felt. Heck, on some days she wondered if they even liked her at all.

She got her answer to that question one fine Wednesday afternoon during an argument with her dad, a rising dispute over a science competition Eve entered herself in, thinking she could earn parental approval instead of scorn. Tensions had thickened and solidified and to this day she couldn't exactly remember how or why but Eve did remember what her father said, his round face puffing red with careless, masculine anger.

Just because you're our kid doesn't mean we have to like you.

It hurt. It really hurt. There was no reason to ever say anything remotely close to that to your daughter who you supposedly loved. The casual cruelty over something so childishly trivial drove her to hot tears, sent her scurrying back to her room in shame. She refused dinner that night, called Rex for a few pointless minutes and cried herself to sleep. No apology ever made its way to her.

But, like Adam so helpfully reminded her, a lot of kids out there had it a hell of a lot worse. Abuse, mistreatment, neglect. Some of them were starving, with no roof over their heads and a dad that beat them blue and black every time his team lost on the football, and here Eve was, complaining over a few insignificant words like the lazy, weak-minded child she was. So Eve sucked it up and moved forward, carried on as normal and kept loving her parents, even if it was a really stupid idea, because who would she have left anyway, if she stopped? They were her only parents. Resent, love, resent. It was a vicious cycle, one that would eat her alive some dark day, but she didn't know how else to be. For all her fundamental chemical knowledge, this was the one thing she couldn't seamlessly imagine.

When Eve found out the truth, everything just slotted into place. Another molecular structure revealing itself to her in a delicate bloom.

It made so much sense.

The grief had been unbearable, the first few days in the aftermath. The happy family she'd dreamed of every night snatched away before she could blink. Squaring off against her poor, wretched siblings, their bodies disintegrating as they cried. Guilt at the vicious satisfaction she felt at having bested them. Her mother — her beautiful, biological mother, kept sickly and used in the sterile suspension chamber, five painful pregnancies and no children at all to show for it. The bullet holes in kindly old Dr Brandyworth's body. People she didn't even know she loved, until it was too late.

As much as she sometimes wished to, Eve could never have (pardon the pun) gone nuclear with the information. There would have been no point telling her parents about Polly and Dr Brandyworth, cussing them out, wishing them ill, running away. First off, they wouldn't have ever believed her, evidence or no, content to live their static suburban lives in ignorant, bigoted bliss. And second, she would've had to go home to them eventually, because she loved them with so little power, and they, for all their ugly, gaping flaws, loved her in the paltry ways they managed. Mutually bound by the heavy chains of obligation and biological proximity, the years of chemical imprinting that had taken a stranger's baby and made her their own. Like it or not, she was theirs.

Then there was the government. Who could Eve have told? Most of the bigwig superheroes who could've actually helped were either working with the feds already or well on their way to doing so. They'd never listen, not when they were themselves weapons for hire. The Immortal, War Woman, Green Ghost, hah! She knew what they stood for, and it wasn't change. Her origins had immunized her to the literal hero worship plaguing most newbies. And she couldn't go to a civilian organization either, or she'd blow her cover, put her undeserving family in real danger that she didn't reasonably think she could protect them from.

Steven Erickson had been feared, respected by those both above and under his control. His vile actions sanctioned by the United States government itself, a country of which Eve was a hapless citizen. Erickson had no superpowers, but he'd been a grown man — older, bigger, trusted — and sometimes, that was enough, thinking back to her dad. For all her abilities, Eve was still just one little girl in a pink costume spouting a fanciful story, and who would ever, ever believe her? What safe haven was there for her to flee to, if push came to shove?

They would doubt her. They would say she misunderstood. They would say she was melodramatic or over-exaggerating her circumstances, telling her it didn't happen in one breath and that it wasn't that bad in the next. They would attempt to justify themselves to her, use their twisted logic and doublespeak to get her worn down enough to cry and discredit her with that, citing emotional volatility as a reason to disbelieve her, as if a few rightful tears could dismantle and erase the wealth of wrongdoing committed against her and her family. Eve would've been silenced, locked up or disappeared, like so many vulnerable others and the brave individuals who tried to speak up for them.

It was this same selfish fear that subconsciously prevented her from getting too creative with her powers. She called herself Atom Eve, gave her interviews and focussed on constructing energy barriers to help the public on a street or city level, but let them draw their own conclusions and kept the mechanics close to her chest. Only recently had she started extending herself again, the world distracted by Omni-Man and his genocidal intentions.

If the powers that be ever saw her attempting to truly unravel the Earth's greatest problems, world hunger and socioeconomic inequality and climate change, they would shoot her down in half a heartbeat. Whether through an elite conspiracy or sheer human stubbornness, the people of Earth could perfectly conceive of paranormal threats, eldritch beings and inter-dimensional creatures, but not an end to their own self-made misery. Crabs in a bucket. The valence quarks might individually change between red, blue, and green, but the atom would always remain colorless.

Worse still, they might demand her to do more than she was capable of — make matter out of nothing, force her hand to commit unspeakable acts. Keep her prisoner, wear her out, drain her of every good intention and then chop her up to see what made her powers tick when they were finally done with her. Use the grim findings to create another unfortunate too-young problem solver.

So she made the decision to move on.

Picked herself back up, shook the dust off and counted her lucky stars, like Betsy instructed. She was alive. She was well. She was largely free from societal discrimination. She had a school life and club activities and food on the table and two somewhat loving un-divorced parents. A nice grassy lawn and cute dresses and a boyfriend who only cheated on her sometimes.

Eve decided to try out for the Guardians when the time came, years down the line. To work with Cecil, the very face of shady government politics and black site operations, this time on a global scale she couldn't even begin to imagine. All those projects escaping legal and social accountability. All those child weapons, disposable underaged conscripts, forced into a life of violence before they could even learn to ride a bike or lose their first milk tooth. More than once she had thought of Kate during their tenure at Teen Team, aching to say something but sharply rebuffed by the cold wall behind the other girl's eyes. Kate had been in the business far longer than her, knew the bowels of publicly-justified underground work better than she ever could. They all found ways to cope.

Eve swallowed her pride and her old hurts, smoothed out the cracks in her mental landscape with a fresh layer of paint and sunshine. She occupied herself with other things, exams and homework and school trips and other petty normalities. Thought of her birth family less and less as her mind stitched itself back together and her heart began to heal. She did it for herself, and the greater good, and because the entire world would soon forget, if they hadn't already.

And to be quite literal — she'd erased Rodger's and Erickson's memories, so no one was ever coming after her again.

(They'd only been two people. Of course the government knew).

The problem was solved.

Though, sometimes she wondered if she could have done something more — something more drastic. Spoken up. Gone to the press. Kicked up a stir within the superhero community, gathered voices and signatures and attention like a Californian wildfire. Something to prevent an incident like this from ever happening to anyone ever again. Though she was proud of the person she'd raised from the ashes, there should never be another Atom Eve, let alone a Phase Two to Five.

The first time Eve killed another human being, it had been on her own terms. She'd made the decision, and gave herself time to process the consequences. Others weren't so lucky. She wondered what kind of person she would have grown up to be if Dr Brandyworth had been one sliver less morally upright, or her mother slightly more apathetic. Deep in the government's sinister clutches, she might not have emerged as a person at all.

With her silence, the truth was buried a little deeper, another opportunity to prevent tragedy lost. Her memories blurred; the question of why she never reported anything as it happened remained unanswered. Personal justice fell further away along with her credibility. It made her feel complicit. The festering guilt still ate at her heart from time to time.

And then there was Rex.

Eve's relationship with him had been a product of their youth. The thrill of a first love, the rush of a first kiss, amplified under the red-hot laser of a superhero life and mutual trauma. He was bad for her, but he made her feel certain fluttery things in her chest, and so Eve took the same emotional resilience gained from years of living in the Wilkins household and used it to suffer through her romance with Rex. She forgave every slight, every infidelity, every infringement upon her person and all the indignities that followed every social interaction with him. Invited Rex into her home for a year and shared her story with him, found that they had so much more in common than either of them had ever thought possible.

Another government lab rat with an absent or dysfunctional family. Where Eve tethered herself like a beaten dog, Rex ran free and wild, and she admired and envied him for it as much as she recognized the inherent danger of his choices. She'd used herself to steady him when he needed it, content to be an emotional anchor for the ongoing shipwreck that was his life. She had never minded, until she suddenly did, the cumulative weight of his blunders breaking her patience in one fell swoop.

And then she broke up with him, finally, and thought she would never have to hear from him again, occasional superhero team-up aside.

And then Eve's phone rang. She picked it up, not answering yet.

Unknown number.

A deep, world-weary sigh, travelling like a sine wave and disappearing into the forest around her. It could have been a scam call, but she knew better than that.

For a second, she just stared at it, fighting with herself, which was ridiculous, because it should've been a no-brainer.

Shitty ex-boyfriend. Better off without him. No contact.

But.

She bit her lip, thinking back to all those quiet nights. The shameful secrets he had spilled like black ink from his chapped lips, the anger and disappointment and hurt, the desire to let it all go and release himself with one final, deadly bang. He had shown her, one dire evening, as the sun slipped below the horizon. The rough anniversary of when he was taken, never the exact date because he just didn't know. How easy it would have been to light his skeleton like the sun and go out in a blaze of glory, one big beautiful fuck you, a closing hoorah, the ultimate rebellion against his damningly nebulous purpose.

He had stood there, on the precipice of a fall, a sharp drop overlooking the choppy sea, warning and taunting her both. Knowing with absolute certainty that he couldn't fly, and that she could, and what was Eve going to do about it? Stand by and let her boyfriend plummet to his death? Holding her hostage better than any supervillain ever could; she'd had to call someone else to take him away. On that night, whether Rex lived or died, he would've won, and Eve had never quite forgiven him for playing that horrid game with her in the first place. Why that hadn't been the last straw, she didn't know.

Thankfully, it wasn't a feeling she was familiar with herself, but one whose hideous notes she had listened to countless times throughout her line of work. From him, from several other desperate men and women caught on the edge of towering, indifferent bridges and glittering skyscrapers.

It was very late. Teeth ground down hard on her lower lip.

He might need her.

"Hello?"

"Eve! You picked up! You actually picked up! And on the first try, too!"

Rex's voice immediately set her on edge, she moved to hang up on reflex before he could use this against her.

"Wait! Please don't hang up, please don't hang up!"

She let out a disgusted noise and waited. A tight coil of annoyance had already built in her gut at how well he knew her.

"What, Rex? You have ten seconds."

"That's what she sa — ow!"

An angry headache was forming in Eve's temples, when would he ever grow up? She pressed down and bit out a terse response.

"Urgh. Goodbye."

"Wait, Eve! Please! I need your help!"

Something made her pause. The tone in his voice. Desperation?

A hero's weakness: to be needed. The gluons cementing her together.

Whether or not Rex knew it, it was a trigger word.

"Whatever it is, it can't be that bad. I'm sure you can sort it out yourself."

Eve hadn't gotten a call from anyone. Not from Robot, not from Cecil. She checked, flicked through the news too, just in case. Nothing out of the ordinary. If the problem wasn't a supervillain, she wasn't sure what she would do, what was even appropriate for them at this stage. Send him away with a hotline number and a couple pamphlets?

"Can you please come over to HQ? Please?"

God, why did he think that would still work on her? Using please a couple times like it was a literal magic word, and she a mere thrall with no choice but to fall by his feet?

"I'm not your booty call, Rex!" she hissed. "I'm not gonna suck your dick. You don't get to phone me up just because you're tired of your right hand."

"It's not — it's not that! I swear! I swear on my left hand, which is my preferred hand, actually — "

"Then what is it?" Eve growled. "So help me, if this is more dumb, stupid shit — "

"It's Mark."

"Mark?" A stone was forming in her stomach. "What's wrong with him?"

"I...might have said a few things."

She was already putting on her costume.

The night air was cool, the trees passing by quickly in long, dark shadows. Worry and anxiety whirled and leapt in her throat, biting at each other like ferocious wolves. It had been weeks. She needed to be there for him. She had to do something. She leapt to action, as she was prone to do, drawn by another helpless cry and a deep-rooted need for belonging. The problem was on the other side of the country, but she would move faster than a tachyon with barely a flutter of her pulsing wings.

Eve Wilkins might have been a superhero, but she had started off using her powers to fix things first.

Eve chose one of HQ's many side entrances to make her way in discretely, not caring to run into anyone she didn't strictly have to see. She wasn't in the mood for small talk. Though she wasn't an official Guardians of the Globe member, her former relationship with Teen Team, stellar reputation amongst civilians, and sheer utility of her superpowers had prompted Cecil to give her most of the access codes. He thought she was trustworthy; Eve appreciated the gesture. Though, if he didn't do it, Robot probably would've instead.

"What the fuck did you do, Rex? Where's Mark? And why couldn't you just explain on the phone?"

Eve came storming into the gym with tightly-wound fury, cape billowing from the windrush and orange hair blazing like a halo. She found Rex sitting by the dumbells on a flat bench press with a bottle of water in his hand. Bulletproof, she noted with mild curiosity, sat opposite him on another bench. This was an odd time to be exercising.

"Eve!" Rex jumped to his feet. "Oh. You seem angry."

Yeah, no shit Sherlock.

"What happened to you? You're a total mess."

Rex's hair was askew, and his clothes were dirty. Droplets of water left on his face like a hasty wash. It didn't look like the usual gym pump.

Bulletproof was giving her a long, appraising look.

"Oh I'm so glad you're here. You won't believe what's happened, or — well, I actually think you'd totally believe it, but — "

"Rex."

"I didn't wanna tell you on the phone in case you wouldn't come, alright? I needed to keep some cards close to the chest, or I'd lose all my usual mystique — "

"Rex, stop. Come on, man. Try again." 

Surprisingly, it didn't come from her. She lifted an eyebrow at Bulletproof, who had reached out a hand and rested it firmly on Rex's shoulder. He was watching him with a calmness Eve currently envied, full of practiced patience and devoid of stinging judgement. It made irritation twitch low in her gut.

"Sorry," Rex bit out, not angry or begrudging. Just with great difficulty.

Eve's mind was boggling. She wanted to glare but her brain was still stuck on the loading screen. The nucleophiles and electrophiles not reaching each other yet.

"I need you to go check on Mark for me."

The grating sound of screeching metal pierced through the air, accompanied by a muffled bang and clatter, steel dragging on concrete. From below. Everyone stopped to listen, and then the noise tapered off. Rex grimaced. Bulletproof looked thoughtful.

That brought her back down.

"What did you say to him?"

"What didn't I say. Uhh, so, basically he had a hard time with the Maulers because they exploded and that wasn't on me and I invited him back here and I ran my mouth and then I blew up on him and that was on me, so yeah I brought up everything that happened at the — "

Bulletproof cleared his throat.

" — but I think it might be better for him to tell you himself. I only know 'cus I was bored and snooped through Rudy's laptop when he went for a bathroom break."

That...told her everything and nothing.

Which was a very Rex response.

"Where is he?"

"I...don't know, I haven't looked for him." Rex winced. "I'm probably the last person on Earth he wants to see right now anyway. But he's probably still in the base."

"You don't even know if he's still here?"

God, what an idiot! What did she see in this boy, all those years?

"I left him in the locker room. Could start there," supplied Bulletproof.

Eve scoffed, the irritation burning exothermic heat in her eyes. Calling her in for a pro bono with absolutely nothing solid to use. She wasn't a miracle worker. And this Bulletproof guy, sitting around acting like he was being helpful. What was he even doing here, anyway?

"I still haven't agreed, Rex. If you said something shitty to Mark you should be apologizing to him yourself, not sitting here moping on your ass. I'm not cleaning up your messes again. That's over."

"I don't want you to apologize for me," Rex said, voice rising. It made him sound younger than he was. "I know I'm a dickhead. Really, I do! And you do too — you especially, in fact! I just — !"

Rex brought his palms to his cheeks like a grounding technique. Stared at a far point on the wall.

"I fucked up, okay?" he said quietly. "I fucked around, and I nearly found out. And I'll probably fuck up again sometime before this is over. It's just what I do. But I'm trying to make it right. You're his friend, aren't you? You went to the same high school? Will you please go talk to him?"

Eve gritted her teeth.

"Not for me. But for him. Please, Eve."

A frustrated growl tore out her throat. All the past please, Eve's rang like curses through her head, round and round and round like the standing wave of an electron cloud, asking for help and forgiveness and reassurance and rescue. All those precious things coming free of cost from the girl who could turn water into wine. Eve spat the words out before she could lose her nerve.

"Fine," she said tightly. "For Mark. Just him. Never, ever, for you."

Rex's eyes widened.

"Thank you," Rex said like a prayer. "Thank you so much, Eve."

Eve whipped around before she had to spend another second looking at Rex's sorry face. She moved at a breakneck speed towards the locker room like Bulletproof had so helpfully signposted, fire ionizing every step. She'd start there and work her way into the common areas to look for Mark.

Before she could clear the gym she heard Bulletproof whistle lowly and say something to Rex, playful charm and honest astonishment coloring his tone.

"Damn! That's the girl you fumbled so badly? She's way outta your league! No wonder you're so miserable all the time."

Eve took the elevator down and heard voices coming from the locker room as she exited. Cecil Stedman was walking out, no jacket and no tie, top button of his dress shirt undone. He paused on the threshold as he saw her. Inclined his head ever so slightly.

"Atom Eve."

She tossed him a brief quizzical look before moving past him.

"Mark?"

A blur of activity too fast for her eyes to catch, further into the room and then back out again.

Mark sat on one of the benches, his supersuit soaking in old blood and dust. He was trying to seem very nonchalant.

"Eve!" Mark smiled. He seemed nervous. "F-Fancy seeing you here. H-How'd you get in?"

Eve surveyed the scene as she walked towards him.

It looked like a disaster zone. Heavy lockers were thrown haphazardly onto their sides, or piled on top of each other like Lego, or crushed and peeled apart like layers of wallpaper. The back half of the room was plunged into darkness, aside from the odd crackle and hiss of electrical sparks. Holes punched into the walls intermittently — one was made by what looked like a chunk of cinder block, another by a twisted length of iron rebar. Various personal items littered the ground.

In the center was a monument to the destruction itself, metal and concrete bent and maneuvered into a rough cocoon-like sculpture with an opening that looked like it'd been broken open from the inside, beads and shards of glass coating the area around it like a harsh, jagged carpet.

"Came in through the East sky lock," she said, sitting down beside him. It was very subtle, but he tensed. "Rex called me."

"Oh." Mark's eyebrows knitted together. "Are you guys back together?"

Eve nearly hurled.

"No," she said adamantly. "God no, don't even joke about that. He called me because..."

Mark tilted his head.

"...because he was worried about you."

Mark's lip curled.

"Urgh, that's rich, coming from him."

"That's exactly how I felt!"

They both chuckled warmly, the sound bouncing happily off the walls, this small joy from the same offending force bringing them together just for the moment. She couldn't help but smile at him, even as she said:

"I gotta ask, Mark, what's going on with you lately? We haven't seen each other in weeks, you missed graduation! Are you doing okay?"

"Yeah, yeah, I've been fine," Mark said too casually. A flash of hurt. "Sorry about graduation. I've just been...busy, lately. Lots of hero work. Cecil's really got me on the ropes."

Eve pressed her lips together.

"You can ask him for a break, y'know. You don't have to do everything that old man says."

Mark twitched like the statement hurt him. He pulled down the collar of his costume and itched a point on his neck. Was that a bandage?

"Hey, are you hurt?"

Eve's fingers reached out towards him, but Mark flinched violently. Alarm bells rang in her head.

"Mark?"

"Don't touch me," he said quickly, posture tight and defensive.

Eve froze in shock.

Mark's eyes blinked rapidly and he swallowed. "I'm sorry, that was rude." He faced her properly, inched forward and angled his head to the side. "Here, you can touch me if you want — feel like everyone's been getting a turn lately anyway. What's one more? Go for it."

This time, Eve was the one reeling back.

"No! I'm not touching you if you don't want me to!" she said, outraged. Her mind was firing off with beams of energy. "Mark, what's going on? You're acting really weird."

"...You don't know?"

Eve shook her head. "Rex didn't tell me anything. He said it should come from you. But you don't have to say anything if you don't want to."

Which had been so out-of-character that Eve wanted to rip off his face then, expecting it to be a life-like mask hiding someone else inside. Like Scooby Doo. Who are you, and what have you done with Rex Sloan? My childish, abrasive, emotionally unintelligent ex-boyfriend?

"Oh," Mark breathed, with childlike wonder. "I get to choose?"

"Yes, Mark," she said with rising concern. "You get to choose."

His behavior was so off. It'd been off since Chicago, that was to be expected, but this was different. Something had clearly gone down in the few weeks since she'd seen him, and Eve felt the great stirrings of regret that she hadn't been there to help him through it.

He hesitated for a second. Brushed his thumb over — was that a suit jacket? Mark noticed her staring and shifted a couple items behind him. Her curiosity only grew, but she shoved it away for now.

"Then." Mark bit his lip. "Can I tell you later? When I'm ready?"

"Of course. As long as you're okay, though."

Mark nodded. "I'm okay."

Eve didn't quite believe him.

"It's just. Everything's been flying by me so quickly lately, I can't keep up."

Eve chuckled lightly, still a little tense. "Been there before. If it makes you feel any better, I nearly missed graduation myself. Had to take out Doc Seismic on the way to school. Guess retirement doesn't count for anything when a national treasure's at stake."

"No way! What was he like this time?"

His familiar enthusiasm relaxed her, let her go off on a longer tangent.

"Annoying as hell, he got some new upgrades. Magma creatures — tough, but not that tough. Probably some new brain damage, too, judging by the rant he was going on — the evils of modern buildings and how my costume was clearly objectifying and a sign of my own internalized misogyny — which, come on! I told him last time that I designed it myself! For me! A man trying to tell a woman how to dress, ugh. Full circle, I swear."

Mark was nodding politely.

Eve growled. "Anyway. He was trying to destroy the Washington Monument this time."

"What is with that guy and historical monuments?"

"I don't speak crazy, but he was saying it was some kinda phallic structure stolen from the Earth or something."

Mark grimaced slightly. Eve didn't miss it.

"Bet that was a pain."

"Oh yeah, but it was a fun story to tell William and Amber after. They laughed their heads off."

"Oh." Mark sounded very unsure. "How is Amber, anyway?"

"You haven't seen her?"

"Isn't she still saving turtles in Costa Rica?"

As if he couldn't jet around the world in less than five minutes if he tried.

"Mark, she got back like, three days ago! Haven't you called? You're her boyfriend!"

And, okay, Eve's tone did sharpen a little towards the end. She told herself she was standing up for Amber instead of re-enacting past bitterness.

"...Yeah? I am?" Mark shrank under Eve's glare. "We've not talked about it. She's still nice to me over text but — I...I've left it too long, alright? With Amber, with William...I've never been great at keeping friends."

"That's not a good enough reason to give up. If you don't wanna be with her anymore, you've gotta give it to her straight. Break up with her, so she can find someone else."

"It's not that!" Mark waved a hand frantically. Then he fought another emotion off his face. "I do. Wanna be with her, I mean. I just — I just don't know if she'd still wanna be with me. A lot's changed recently."

"So you thought you'd just let it fizzle out? Leave William hanging like that, too?"

"No! I wouldn't do that to her, I swear! Not to either of them!"

"Then?" Eve could feel a vein about to pop in her forehead. She was trying so hard to be patient, too.

Mark faltered again. Ran his hand up and down his neck in what she assumed was a nervous gesture. It was new.

"I hate to say it, Mark, but you're acting kinda selfish right now. It's one thing to be anxious, it's another to ignore the problem and hope it goes away without taking any responsibility."

Mark dipped his head. "Yeah, I know."

"I'm sorry if it sounds I'm like I'm wailing on you. I swear that's not what I'm meaning to do. Just...you're deciding the fate of your relationship completely unilaterally. You've given up, and it's stupid! You don't know if Amber would still wanna be with you because you haven't talked to her. It's not fair! She should get to decide if she still wants to be your girlfriend, too! Every second you sit here and do nothing, you're depriving Amber of that choice."

Mark nodded glumly. Then he buried his head in his hands and groaned.

"I know I have to stop being so much of a jerk. Socially. Romantically. I just don't know where to start."

Eve gave him a warm smile. "You could start by asking for help. Talking to your friends. We don't hate you, I promise."

When Mark lifted his head, his eyes were suspiciously misty.

"You really mean that?"

"Yes! Obviously!"

God, she wanted to shake him. She settled for a loving eye roll instead.

"If you're having trouble reaching out, I can help. I could invite you and William and Amber back to mine for a summer get-together before you guys go to college. It'd be totally chill. You can talk to her then, go from there."

Mark's eyes were as wide as saucers.

"You'd do that for me?"

"Yeah, dude. I care about you. It'd be better if you could, y'know, talk to your own girlfriend yourself, but I can see you need a helping hand. A little catalyst to get the reaction going. Everyone does, from time to time."

"Thank you so much, Eve! I really appreciate it!"

His earnest smile was such a joy to see, it lit sparks in her chest, made a small flush rise to her cheeks.

Eve twirled a strand of hair between her fingers.

Mark's nostrils flared very delicately.

"Yeah, whatever. Here anytime."

She looked around. Addressed the elephant in the room before she got too flustered.

"What happened here, anyway?"

Mark curled in on himself and coughed.

"Uhh, it's a pretty long story. But to uh, simplify things — I got kinda mad."

The man walking out.

"At Cecil?"

Mark nodded.

A thread of protective heat flared to life. Emotional outbursts were one thing, but physical eruptions weren't really Mark's style. Okay, maybe Eve could see him punching a rock in the desert or hurling an asteroid back into space to blow off some steam, but those were isolated events, justified in that they took place in remote areas and hurt no one. This? This was Guardians HQ — home of the world's top superheroes. Throwing a temper tantrum here was tantamount to an attack.

As for Cecil — Eve wanted to believe he had good intentions. He'd defended the planet for years, threw everything he could at Omni-Man (Mark), checked in with the heroes under his watch pretty regularly. He was better than Radcliffe for sure. And she did trust him, but only so much. He garnered a very mixed reputation within the wider superhero community, especially among the more fringe heroes. Some admired him for his leadership, others abhorred his underhanded tendencies. Most tellingly however, was that a large proportion of heroes around the world were reticent to work directly with him. The man was sneaky, controlling, and a certified asshole.

Mark was ordinarily too cautious with his power, which, in Eve's opinion, probably formed a large part in why he got beat up and hospitalized so much by supervillains way below his calibre. He was too scared of hurting people or coming across the wrong way. Especially recently.

He'd had to be really worked up to cause this much damage.

"Why? What did he do?"

"I-I just feel like he's been breathing down my neck a lot these days. Making me do loads of things."

Eve picked up on the subtle inflection in his voice.

"Mark, you know you can say no to him anytime. He doesn't own you."

He was clutching at his neck again. Eve was half-afraid he was gonna start strangling himself.

"I don't really think I can say no. He's helping my mom. It wouldn't be right."

Mark sighed, looked up at her from beneath dark lashes. The exhaustion in his voice took Eve down with him.

"Besides, it's not like he's being completely unjustified either. Way I've been lately, I've practically been asking for it." 

There were so many things wrong with what he was saying, but Eve couldn't filter through them all at once. Tightness gathering in her chest, she decanted the least volatile topic from the selection and spoke carefully.

"What's he helping your mom with?"

Mark smiled ruefully. "Supervillain knows my secret identity."

Eve gasped. Her mind was orbiting with all the grim possibilities, all the nightmares she'd once had too. Her mom and dad, bleeding from unsalvageable wounds, lying dead in their family home because a villain with a grudge had followed her back from a day of crime-fighting or hacked into a database and tracked her down. Dysfunctional family dynamic aside, it had been one of her main reasons for moving out.

"Oh Mark, I'm so sorry. That must be terrifying. For you, for Debbie."

"Yeah. It's why I can't exactly tell Cecil to fuck off right now. I need the GDA to help keep her safe." He looked to the side then, regretful and longing. "Can't go to college either."

Eve wanted to shake herself for bringing that up earlier, even unwittingly.

"Do we know the guy?"

"Nope. He's probably from another dimension. Disappeared without a trace — fancy green portal."

"Woah."

An impossible situation. There wasn't much anyone could do with so little information at hand, not Mark, not her, not even Cecil. It would take time for the experts and analysts like Robot to make any headway on the guy's movements or abilities. All they could do was wait and try to prepare.

Mark had to be feeling terrible — the kind of helpless fear that followed you everywhere and seeped into every corner, the heavy guilt that came with being the unwitting cause of his family's misfortune in the first place. His body language only confirmed it — posture withdrawn, eyes half-lidded with exhaustion, tone clipped and devoid of even outrage.

Empty platitudes wouldn't cut it.

So Eve settled back into an old equilibrium, used her persuasive charm and good-natured temperament to do what she did on a regular basis. Asking about a new pet when pulling a bleeding woman out of a disaster zone, keeping a kid busy with questions on his homework while his parents were loaded onto a medical gurney, imploring Rex to tell her about his favorite flower arrangements and interior aesthetics before he could burst into bitter tears. Nine years old and fixing herself a small plate of apple slices and peanut butter after another horrendous argument with her parents, where her father raved and lectured, her mom tittered and sighed, and Eve sat there silently, taking it all on the chin.

"Do you want some help cleaning this up?"

Mark looked at her oddly.

"What?"

"Cleaning up. This mess?"

She gestured all around her.

Mark eyed her with something a little too close to dismissal.

"It'd take you too long."

Eve's pride smarted.

"Jeez, I'm retired, not out of practice. This would barely take me a minute to put back together. You seriously underestimating me right now? I manipulate matter like play dough, in case you've forgotten."

Mark stared at her. For far longer than was strictly necessary. It was unnerving. He suddenly whipped his head to the side, sighing and muttering gibberish under his breath. Embarrassment, tiredness, and resignation danced like particle collisions across his face. His expression settled finally on a plaque of detached boredom.

"Yeah, probably a good idea. Would give Cecil one less thing to hold over my head, that's for sure."

"Okay," she said, jumping to action. "I'll get started."

Eve lifted her hands, felt her power reaching past her fingertips like an extended sense of touch. Focussed her vision to see the molecular blueprints unveiling from the physical objects surrounding her. She hummed. All the pieces were still here. This would be a simple job.

Concrete was an old friend. A composite material of water, cement, sand and gravel, it rose to meet her nicely and slotted back into place, into the walls and cracks and floor. Her face twisted in concentration as she mended the steel fibre reinforcements and fumed silica into something resembling its original compressive strength. Next, the metal. It was definitely a higher grade than what she was used to, made to withstand earthquakes and blasts and other superpowered disasters. A remarkable work of engineering resting within the skeleton of Guardians HQ, concocted with such precision to paradoxically possess both a high yield and tensile strength without compromising either chemical property. The other bits were much easier: thin boxes of stainless steel for the lockers, stone and ceramic tiles, polished wood for the benches, cinder blocks for the non-load bearing walls, silicon dioxide glittering like jewels as she glued glass lighting back together and snaked copper wiring into their homes.

When Eve was done, Mark was staring at her with something like quiet interest in his eyes, mouth gently agape. He surveyed the scene with pleasant bewilderment and a mild sort of analysis as if examining for flaws or embellishments. It was weirdly critical, and maybe she should have been offended, but she wasn't. He'd seen her use her powers before, but this time it felt like Mark was seeing her abilities in a fresh, different light.

It was strange, but not unwanted.

Another blush rose to her cheeks. She fought it down. The guy had a girlfriend, for Christ's sake!

"There." Eve cleared her throat. "You're welcome."

In her embarrassment, Eve would miss the way Mark lingered on her for just a moment with a faint sort of fascinated amusement. It slipped away with a blink.

"I wonder what Cecil's gonna think about this."

When Eve was paying attention again, she saw a flicker in Mark's eyes that she found very foreign. It made him seem quite twitchy and wild. Was he that scared of Cecil?

Eve was getting a really bad feeling.

"You don't need to care about what that guy thinks."

Mark hummed. "I probably shouldn't piss him off anymore than I already have."

Eve snorted. "I'm sure he'll manage. He pisses everyone off, so it's only fair."

Eve fixed her gaze on the exit.

"Anyways, do you wanna get outta here? Locker room isn't exactly the best place to hang out."

Mark fell silent. He got a very distant look in his eyes, like he was seeing things that weren't there.

Eve snapped her fingers a couple times in front of him.

"Hello?"

Mark blinked, slowly floating back to Earth.

"Oh. Sure. Let's go."

Eve smiled, worry and puzzlement niggling at her gut.

"Okay."

Mark stood and quickly swiped the couple belongings he'd hastily hidden from her view earlier. She was right. It was a suit jacket. And a tie. Recognition stirred.

"Is that...?"

"Payback," Mark said shortly. He offered no other explanation. But he was jittery, and he kept pulling at his collar. Gathered the red fabric of the tie and was twisting it around one of his fingers.

Eve decided not to push any further. He looked about ready to combust.

They made their way through, Eve leading the charge. Just as Mark was about to pass the threshold, he paused. That distant look swept across his face again.

Eve stared as Mark took a cautious step forward and jolted suddenly before relaxing when seemingly nothing horrible happened to him. He looked around warily and trudged forward with some reluctance, like he was being pulled unwillingly on a short leash. He doubled over abruptly.

"Mark!"

Mark let out a shaky breath and turned to her with a flushed face.

"Can we head to the main atrium?"

Chapter Text

Mark zipped ahead of Eve so quickly she started flying just to keep up. He rounded a corner and disappeared from her view, ignoring the shouting to wait. He followed his nose to find Cecil finishing up his survey of HQ, stance showing he was nearly about to teleport away.

It was wrong.

The gland in Mark's neck was pulsing a faint but steady one-two. He tried to steady his breathing, wiped the sweat from his brow. The haze was coming back, clouding his thoughts and making humans seem more like concepts than people.

"Were you gonna leave without me?"

The man was unfazed. "Thought you said you couldn't leave that room. What changed?"

"Dunno," Mark said, walking closer to him. "It was a surprise to me too."

Something had seen fit to let him go — no unshakeable pressure, no rot forming on his tongue. Perhaps knowing he was on the path to stability. As long as he stayed there...

Mark pointed at Cecil's wrist. "Take me with you."

"Suddenly lose your ability to fly? Would've been great before, when you were trying to murder me."

Indignation rose to his cheeks.

"That was different and you know it!"

The man turned around fully, put his hands on his hips. "How."

His protests stuttered to a halt.

"I. Well. I-I don't know," Mark finished lamely. "It just was."

Cecil huffed. "Glad you could be so articulate. Anyways, I gotta run. See you at the Pentagon."

Panic.

"Wait!"

Cecil paused. It must've been something in his voice.

Mark felt desperation tugging at him. "Teleport me there, too."

Cecil waved his wrist around. "I only got one of these."

"Bullshit! I know you keep a spare!"

He didn't actually know that, but it was a good enough guess.

Cecil's tone was sharp.

"Mark. We're not doing this. Fly yourself there. It'd take you two minutes."

Mark felt a tendril of unease unfurling in his gut, felt it snaking its way round the dull ache brought on by Cecil's reprimand. He couldn't let the man get away. He stopped to think.

Brute force wouldn't work. The man was poised to teleport.

And Cecil had been right. Mark was slow. Soft. Deliberately so, no thanks to someone.

You're welcome.

So barrelling straight ahead wasn't going to work.

Consider Cecil's priorities. The things he favored.

Talk, like the man always wanted, even if it leaned more towards vitriol than diplomacy. Say something significant...

No, do not say that. Are you insane?

Why, was it overkill?

Yes.You'd be public enemy number one. Everyone would be right about you.

Is that so bad?

Yes.Try again. Catch flies with honey and all that, if you really have to.

" — you hearing anything I'm saying? Hello — ?"

"Cecil," Mark said in a tone he hoped came off as sweet. "Take me with you. Please?"

He let his breathing fall into a shallower rhythm, displayed Cecil's tokens and tilted his neck this way and that, tried to inject meaning into the man's calculating eyes. Fought the psychic pull telling him to lower his gaze and rolled his back and shoulders, slowly savoring every subtle ripple in his well-developed musculature.

Realization dawned on Cecil's face. The pulse in his neck jumped.

"Did you take it off?"

"No," Mark said breezily. "Why would I do that?"

"I'm not playing games, kid."

Mark felt a lopsided smile splitting his face.

"I've done as you asked, and if you don't believe me you're welcome to check yourself."

Whizzing air currents, an approaching figure. Timing was everything.

Cecil tapped a nervous finger on his arm. "Show me."

Mark pulled on the neckline of his suit, barely a quarter of an inch down.

Cecil seized Mark by the collar and pulled it aside.

Mark couldn't help the pleasant rush surging up his neck and into his cheeks as Cecil's scrutiny swept over him. A slow shiver of something hot curled down his spine and he released a contented sigh, leaning into the man's touch. Something leisurely switched places in his brain.

He was so caught up in the feeling he missed Cecil speaking low but urgently into his earpiece, barely registered when he was roughly shoved away. Before he could chase the thrill —

"Hey! What's going on here?"

"This doesn't concern you," Cecil said dismissively.

Mark allowed himself to flinch when Cecil clasped a ring of metal around his wrist. Showed the whites of his eyes and parted his lips in a delicate gasp.

"Sorry Eve, I guess I gotta go..."

The last thing Mark saw before the particles forming his existence disassembled was Eve's pretty features twisting into a mask of concern.

Mark blew back into existence with a disorienting whirl. He blinked and turned his hands over to check they were still there. Did the same to his face. Did he just die? He wasn't dizzy or nauseous, but the feeling of being torn apart and put back together on an atomic level was still something new and uncanny. He wondered how long it would take to get used to it.

They were in some sort of lab, all white tiles and clean surfaces and chemical scents. The place was huge, clearly industrial in scale, but absent of people. Workbenches lined with glassware, microscopes, several high-tech machines lining the walls. The whir of a centrifuge. A pungent smell penetrated his senses, Mark turned and spotted a stack of petri dishes cooking in what seemed to be an incubator.

The sleek band around his wrist was a pleasant burn. He tested the weight of it, found it lacking, and scolded himself for being so ungrateful. Three tokens. More than he ever thought he'd get, though, Mark doubted he'd be able to keep this one. He ran a finger over the smooth metal, tracing around the intricate grooves and buttons and released a low, satisfied purr.

Cecil cut through the fog.

"Your drugs don't do shit."

A familiar yelp. "D-Director! T-To what do I owe the pleasure? Oh, excellent weather outside?"

Mark blinked slowly. Hurriedly shooting up from a microscope, thick glasses and a chemical aroma. Coffee stains on his lab coat, the only one still working in the small hours of the morning...

"Dr Sutherland?"

"Invincible!" Dr Sutherland beamed. He spun around in his chair. "How goes you, lad? No troubles lately, I hope?"

Mark tilted his head. Flitted his eyes to Cecil. "I met Eve — she's doing good."

"How wonderful to hear! Socialization is key to developing a well-rounded psyche, though it's a case of do as I say, not as I do — "

"Cut the chit chat," Cecil snapped. "The kid's not right. Fix him."

"O-Of course, Director," Dr Sutherland spluttered. "Now Invincible, what seems to be the problem...?"

Cecil's scent was sharp with anxiety. It spiked when Mark took a step nearer and flared his nostrils, the chemicals rubbing against his nose like sandpaper. He frowned. With deliberate tenderness, Mark lifted a hand and brushed his fingers over Cecil's wrist.

The man went rigid, but didn't pull away. Unease simmering under his skin. Maybe press further?

Cecil stumbled back just as Mark was about to scent him again.

"This." Cecil jabbed a fingertip into Mark's cheek, pushed him away. Mark followed the motion through, felt like he was floating. "This is the problem. He's not aggressive like before, but he's goddamn loopy."

Confusion tore at his head. What was the right move?

He ran his fingernails over Cecil's tie, pulled a few more threads loose and pursed his lips.

"Kid threw another tantrum. Stole my clothes. Started whining about not wanting to fly back here — "

"I didn't steal them," Mark said petulantly. "We had a deal."

" — when he was perfectly capable of flying earlier. Keeps spacing out, too."

"I see," Dr Sutherland said thoughtfully. "I assume Invincible has maintained the integrity of his hormone pump?"

Mark's neck throbbed.

"Far as I can tell," Cecil bit out.

"Is the behavior consistent with his previous presentation?"

"He's still destructive, violent, and moody, if that's what you're asking."

Mark let out a displeased sound.

"You said I was better this time!"

Mark pawed at his neck and blinked furiously, features contorted with hurt.

"Stop that," Cecil barked.

The command shot through his spine. Mark dropped his hands and stared at Cecil before bowing his head and turning both palms up on his thighs. Cecil's tokens tumbled to the floor. Mark chanced a glance up.

The man was scowling at him. Mark hurriedly picked the items up and folded them neatly before placing them carefully on Dr Sutherland's workbench. He returned to his previous position and waited. When nothing happened, Mark raised his head, clasped his hands, and furrowed his brows.

Interest sparkled in Dr Sutherland's eyes. He scribbled something on a used napkin and underlined it twice.

"Allow me to examine my data."

Dr Sutherland whipped out a laptop and started typing furiously. A graph flashed onto the screen, then another quite like it, before three diagrams were minimized to fit the corners of the man's display. Dr Sutherland studied one with a pen tracing a jagged black line, muttering to himself.

"...perhaps the enantiomer? No, it can't be, it was perfectly isolated..."

Something caught his eye. Mark knew he should probably be quiet, given Cecil's obvious irritation, but he was always great at pushing his luck...

"Hey, Dr Sutherland," Mark called. "That one says 'cat' on it. 'M not a cat."

"Taking an interest in non-human endocrinology, are we? You see that one, it's as we said before — merely a reference."

Dr Sutherland pointed to the graph in the top left corner. 

"This, on the other hand, is a reading of your hormones from the samples you gave us this year — well done on the blood draws, by the way, phlebotomy was never my strong suit..."

Mark stepped closer, sat on the stool next to the man and peered at his screen. Ran a finger over the jacket he'd placed on the countertop, cataloging every stitch. Cecil remained standing, tense and stony-faced.

Dr Sutherland tossed him a small grin. "A budding scientist yourself, eh? Do inform me if you're ever in need of an internship, I'd be happy to take a student on, it's been a long while since I've had one, and it's not like we'd have to worry about getting you clearance..."

The graph measured multiple variables, used a series of complex functions Mark didn't have the words for — way beyond anything he'd ever learned in high school. As Dr Sutherland moved his cursor, timestamps and the names of various hormones appeared in labels. Looking at all this information related to himself probably should have freaked him out, maybe should've sent him spiralling like the first time he'd met Dr Sutherland, but the panic was so muted now, and the diagrams, though confusing, were being described in so much loving detail Mark couldn't help but be enamored.

"The one right next to it is our predictive model — we did struggle with the lack of long-term data, but our bioinformatics team worked tirelessly on its development. That being said, I was hoping for more practical accuracy — though I trust you won't spread that comment around."

"Uhh, sure."

Dr Sutherland chewed on his pen.

"...the pathways are biochemically sound...first principles dictate...an absorption issue? No...bypassing first-pass metabolism..."

Mark could feel Cecil resisting the urge to tap his foot.

Every instinct said do something.

He reached towards Cecil's hand but the man snatched it away.

At a loss, Mark draped Cecil's suit jacket over his shoulders. He looked up at the man to gauge a response but Cecil shot him an unimpressed glare.

Mark turned back to the laptop, trying to wrack his brain. A tremor swept over his body, making his breath catch.

Dr Sutherland dragged his cursor towards one end of Mark's hormone graph, right where the x and y-axes started. One data point was much lower in value than the others.

"What's up with that one?" Mark asked hazily.

"Ah, well-spotted! I can assure you it's not anomalous, this was taken from a sample obtained before you came into your majority. Observe the exponential increase in figures, an absolute indication that your gonadal axis was immediately activated. The rise is astonishing, really, nothing quite like the gradual transformation found in humans, not to mention we mere mortals in our adulthood lack the bipotentiality necessary for expressing the sequential hermaphroditism found in your species — "

Cecil slammed a hand down on the workbench.

Both Mark and Dr Sutherland jumped.

"I hate to interrupt your untimely TED talk, but get your ass in gear, Sutherland. I need a solution. Now."

"D-Director, while I appreciate the urgency of the situation, this sort of physiological manipulation requires care and focus. It would be utterly remiss of myself to forgo the precision necessary for circumventing unwanted effects."

"What's wrong with what Dr Sutherland's saying?" Mark asked with an airy smile. "I don't understand any of it, but I like listening to smart people talk."

Cecil shot him a hot glare.

Mark crumpled in on himself.

Sulked, and drew nonsense on his lap with a finger.

Cecil was so unhappy. His voice was tense and rising. The acidity in his scent, too, mounted rapidly, even as Mark's body loosened and grew pliant. He shuddered out a gasp and hoped his shrinking posture was sending the right message, though he still couldn't tell what he was doing wrong. He'd sat so Cecil was above him, kept his tokens near, and tried for appeasement every time.

Was this because he made eye contact before?

Mark worried at his lower lip. Closed his eyes and tried to deepen his breathing through the waves of heat rolling off his skin. Sweat made his supersuit cling like a shadow, hunger gnawed at his insides and threatened to consume him. Slick was already pooling around his groin.

How to fix this?

How else to show his subordinacy? 

An idea came to mind, Mark dismissed it immediately. Cecil refused to even touch him.

Of course he won't. No one wants you.

This wasn't the right time.

It's been twice now and no one's come for you.

The observable universe was a vast place: ninety-three billion light years in diameter, existence spreading out in all three dimensions, more if he were to ask some very intelligent individuals — a concept incomprehensible to most. Oceans and oceans of stars and planets and nebulae and other unknowable celestial entities stood as cosmic mountains and uncrossable rivers between them. People were just too far away. Maybe they didn't know he existed. Or, they were busy.

Or maybe they don't want a weak half-breed like you.

No, that was ridiculous. Dad said he was nearly full-blooded. It rang true — that little detail had saved his life countless times, most of all against his own maker.

Then you must be a soft, repulsive thing.

Soft. So much venom for such a nice word.

It's the root of your troubles.

Bullshit. He was still half-human. More than that, really, in spirit. How was it a crime to be soft? To be kind, empathetic? To treasure his attachments, just like mom taught him?

You drove dad away.

No, stop. Dad left on his own. He made his bed and refused to lie in it like the coward he was.

Your weakness disgusted him. He went soaring out of the galaxy just to get away from you. And he's not coming back.

Shut up.

He wouldn't have left if you'd been less of a spineless half-grip and more of a Viltrumite.

Shut up!

You should accept the truth.

You were never meant to live amongst these worthless insects.

They've poisoned you.

Turned you into this whimpering, maladapted aberration.

Prone to emotional excess.

Left you crippled and deviant at their undeserving feet.

Your mind feeble and desperate for superior guardianship.

You are eons away from the reality of yourself, child.

How dare you question your mandate.

Shut the fuck up!

Mark's mind shook with undisguised menace, the power of a never-ending storm. Round and round the actors took their turns, talking and screaming and reciting and sermonizing nonsense and logic and nonsense again, each of them vying for the spotlight, the simultaneous audition laying itself bare in his global workspace. The disharmonic orchestra with its fragmented chambers, all its instruments dreadfully out of tune.

He couldn't keep up.

It was a trial by fire.

So fight fire with fire?

Burn it all down.

Let the flames lick lovingly at the corners of his being and close in towards the center, send all the rats crawling beneath the smoke for blessed oxygen and absent mercy. Engulf his mind-forest with the all-consuming inferno of undoing. Dig them out kicking and screaming. Throw them into his blazing maw. The mad feller of pines and broadleaves alike. If there were no trees in the forest, there would be no sound when the logs started falling.

Then how would the logs fall?

Huh?

Think about it.

How would the logs fall, if there were no trees to begin with?

Well, shit. That took the wind out of sails, left him listless at sea. Maybe he should calm down.

A dark curtain fell over his thoughts. Like throwing wool over a thousand hellish songbirds. 

He'd never asked for any of this.

He'd been tossed into the deep end by the ankles, no warning, no instruction, and certainly no rescue.

He had to pull himself together.

Work with what he was given. What he could understand. Try his best.

Emerge, slowly, out of the depths of his mental oblivion, like the transitional fish onto solid, tangible land. Gently, so he didn't fall back in. Dine on sweet grasses and the succulent flesh of his lowers. Raise himself higher, up the neural tree, back to endless interconnectivity, a million logic gates and branching paths and sensory experiences. Focus the light to the narrowest slit and gaze straight into the pupil of the issue at hand.

Back to reality.

Mark's eyes flickered open.

Cecil called Mark his 'most valuable asset' earlier. Mark was a superhero, Cecil commanded superheroes. Cecil wanted a solution to whatever the problem was, whatever was making him shout so much, and Dr Sutherland was impeding that process with his dilly-dallying. Mark was normally content to let idle chatter wash over him — he was dumb, so he enjoyed it when intelligent people let him pick their brains and ask stupid questions. They were usually happy to oblige, too. It was a familiar routine.

Hunger stirred inside, violence lurked on the edges, not charged and ready but not completely unprimed either. He shoved it away and twisted a length of red silk around his fingers, brought it to his nostrils and inhaled deeply.

" — after effects can take a fucking backseat! If we don't do something now, there won't be an after — "

Sharp anger, frustration mixed in with panic and threatening to boil over.

Cecil was upset.

Mark grimaced. It was unconventional, but if it got the job done...

This is beneath you.

He laid a hand on Dr Sutherland's hand and squeezed. Just enough pressure to get the man's attention.

"Hey."

Dr Sutherland squeaked and nearly fell out of his chair.

Mark leaned forward. Dazzled Dr Sutherland with a close-up of his canines.

"Do as he says."

Somehow, this made the problem worse.

Dr Sutherland pulled against him and spluttered even harder, rapidly staining the armpits of his lab coat dark with sweat. Cecil's heart was hammering when it hadn't been before, scent jolting with sour panic and distress. Their voices grew louder, then muffled as his attention drifted. Mark was vaguely aware of more presences congregating outside, heavy footfalls brushing the tiles with eerie silence and the clang of metallic...joints?

Huh. That was weird...

"Mark, let him go!"

Cecil's hand on his shoulder.

He loosened his grip immediately.

Dr Sutherland snatched his hand back and cradled it against his chest with a half-hidden whimper. His skin was purpling in streaks where Mark's fingers had pressed down.

Mark paled.

He hadn't — 

He hadn't meant — 

"I'm sorry — " he started, but it was lost in the chaos.

Dr Sutherland was standing and rushing away.

"I'll administer everything we have, including the freshly synthesized batch — "

He came back with several vials of clear liquid, keeping his distance this time.

"It should take no longer than a few minutes," Dr Sutherland explained, setting up some equipment. Syringes, pipettes, other delicate instruments Mark couldn't name. His right hand struggled with some of the fine motions and the man hissed through the pain.

"You said the drug would work instantly."

"The g-gland exhibits a lower response to neural feedback than we thought, given imaging. It might be more reliant on haematogenous spread, which takes time. Or maybe we just buggered the dosage, I-I don't know."

Dr Sutherland took a deep breath.

"Invincible, lad," he said with a watery smile. Like Mark was a dangerous thing he was trying to appease. "I'll need to fiddle with the device on your neck for a bit. I hope that's not a concern for you?"

Mark nodded tightly, even through the voices screaming no no no .

Dr Sutherland approached with nervous steps. Came round Mark's side and pulled on his collar with shaky, hesitating fingers.

Mark fought hard to keep still as the man lifted the patch and the adhesive dragged off his skin. There was a lot of jittering as he struggled with the intricate mechanics of the pump before letting out a frustrated noise.

"I am right-handed," he said in a strained voice. "I-I don't have the dexterity. Director, if you would — "

"Show me."

Cecil's cool touch descended on his skin like a balm. A pleasant shiver wracked his body and Mark exhaled sharply through his nose. When Cecil removed the needle from his neck, Mark nearly whined in protest. He closed his eyes and imagined chasing the feeling.

"Shit, it's bent — the wound's nearly closed over."

"Do we have any spare?"

"Last one. Others broke."

"Give it here — I'll make the adjustments."

Mark was sailing away. Further and further away from Earth, up into the stars and dancing in the free cosmos with the dusty comets. His body's sensations were the only things keeping him grounded. Wood under his fingers, hot breath on his skin. The gland in his neck throbbed and need burned low, igniting his nerves with primal heat. This was all taking too long, they should be on the next stage by now. But he didn't dare move.

You're pathetic.

There was that tone again. How, exactly, was he being pathetic? He was feeling so nice. Was it pathetic to enjoy nice things?

Cecil clicked his fingers in front of Mark's nose.

"Hey, I need you."

Mark snapped back to attention.

Cecil showed him one of the patches from earlier — this one with some modifications added.

"Put this on," he barked.

Mark scrambled to obey, though his hands shook. He fumbled with the device and readied the needle to pierce his skin again.

"And kid?"

Mark looked up. Cecil pinned him with a cold glare. His eyes were very blue. Mark couldn't avert his gaze — an electric force was rearing its ugly head, paralyzing him with its might, shooting into his hindbrain like that time down in the GDA's bunker. Casting his thoughts aside like cheap trinkets with the long arm of an ancient neural imprint.

Mark's breath caught, and the world stood still.

"Don't fuck it up."

He did as he was told.

The needle penetrated Mark's skin with a grim finality. He shoved it in deep and gave a rough twist, eyes unblinking all the while. Cecil found it incredibly disconcerting. The kid paused. In an eerily controlled movement, Mark lowered his hands and clasped them in his lap before turning to stare at Cecil expectantly.

Right. The adhesive. He thought about telling Mark to do it himself, but the kid totally screwed that up last time, and he'd been a lot more clear-headed then. This was their last shot.

Cecil leaned forward and fixed it with steady hands.

His pinky brushed against the small hairs on Mark's nape.

The drugs worked fast.

Mark collapsed from his stool and landed on his knees with a whimper.

For a moment he swayed, then steadied himself with an arm flung out, the movement upending the seats and sending the remaining lab equipment flying off the workbench and splintering on the tiles. Sutherland caught his laptop one-handed with a precious yelp just before it tumbled off the countertop and broke.

Mark stayed on the ground, the harsh lines of his body breaking out into another spell of fine tremors. His fingers dug little trenches into the tile where he dragged them. He didn't look at Cecil again.

The seconds ticked by.

Cecil detected the exact moment Mark came crashing down to Earth. The kid's pupils regained focus and he jolted himself airborne, nearly punching a hole through the ceiling with his head. Cecil's jacket cascaded off his shoulders and fell to the ground forgotten.

"What — where — ?"

Sutherland was cringing away. Cecil stepped in front of him and squared his shoulders as Mark floated to the ground.

Cecil glanced back. "Infirmary. Go. Now."

Sutherland didn't need to be told twice.

Mark shot out an arm.

"Hey! Wait!"

"Let him leave, Mark."

"But I — "

"Stop it. You've done enough. Get a fucking hold of yourself before you do any more damage."

Mark dropped his head. His face tightened with guilt and his hands clenched into fists.

The exit was just behind him, maddeningly out of reach.

Cecil had to talk himself out of blowing it all up.

The kid was calmer now, but that could flip in a millisecond and send them all back to square one. And from their latest tango it was pretty clear Mark specifically relished getting a rise out of him when he was in the midst of one of his episodes. Getting too hot under the collar right now was guaranteed to act as a catalyst to an unsalvageable disaster, their festering agitation and rival tempers setting each other off on a chain reaction that would shoot the entire situation to absolute hell.

Cecil shoved his hands into his pockets, evened out his breathing manually and counted down from five.

Five feet between him and Mark.

Cecil followed Sutherland's escape out the corner of his eye. He relaxed very marginally when the man was gone, hurried footsteps echoing like taunts down the hallway. Cecil wanted to run after him and leave this ticking time bomb behind.

Four teams of Reanimen ready to go at a moment's notice.

A new and improved batch, thanks to one D.A. Sinclair. The old ones only managed to annoy Nolan, but they might give Mark more trouble, maybe slow him down enough to give people a chance to run and the Guardians time to arrive. He'd handle the fallout later...

Three seconds tops for him to react.

Cecil hadn't been lying when he called Mark slow earlier. The kid was messy, imprecise, sluggish. He'd always lacked discipline in a fight, but maybe his alien biology was holding him back now for some reason? Then again, Nolan had never been slow. Was it because Mark was younger and still developing?

Gah, another mystery. Not his job to find out. Mark's speed would be a problem in the field, assuming he ever let the kid back on active duty again, but Cecil counted his blessings for now. He'd take every advantage he could get.

Aw, who was he kidding?

Even without the looming threat of the Viltrum Empire, Mark's abilities were priceless. The kid could move mountains, defeat enemies in seconds where others would take crucial minutes, tank the most devastating blows. Hell, reports showed he was even great at playing support — his flight let him spot victims and transport medical supplies, his super strength pulled countless from the rubble. And his sharp sense of smell — troublesome as it was — made locating survivors possible in the first place. Keeping him idle would be a hell of a waste.

Despite all the contingencies Cecil had in place, he hoped he'd never have to use any of them.

Mark twitched suddenly. Cecil shifted his stance.

Yeah, right.

Anyway, he could probably manage a maneuver or two before Mark gored him with his fingertips, assuming he didn't use his super speed — which, like everything else, wasn't a guarantee, but the kid's analytics demonstrated a clear reticence towards the ability. Maybe he could use that...

Two teleportation bracelets in the room.

One on him, the other around Mark's wrist — he could send the kid back to his cell with a word to Donald. The man likely already had his finger set on the switch. Whether the cell would be able to hold him was another matter, though it would buy them time, maybe disorient the kid for a minute or two. Load a squad of Reanimen into the cell, ready to jump him?

A frustrated growl tore its way out Mark's throat. He twisted and yanked fistfuls of hair, pressed the back of his neck like it was the key to the universe.

Cecil resisted the urge to fidget. He made himself blink once, twice, denying his nerves a freeze response.

One deadly Viltrumite, prowling around the room like a caged tiger.

Enough to give the combined forces of every superhero on Earth a run for their money.

Enough to keep the entire GDA on their toes, stumbling, scrambling to catch up and contain.

Enough to effortlessly kill thousands, millions of people, and all without a reliable way of bringing him down.

Fuckkk.

He needed to defuse the situation. There would be no use jumping the non-existent gun.

A buzz sounded from his earpiece.

"Sir. Is everything alright? You've been silent for awhile."

Cecil sighed. "Yeah, Donald, everything's just peachy."

"You don't need to sound so sarcastic."

Cecil turned back to the problem at hand.

"Mark..."

"I know I'm a fuck-up, okay? I don't need a reminder."

Mark paced the room. Cecil's blood pressure was just glad he was doing it side-to-side instead of up and down.

"I'm supposed to be helping people, but I keep losing control," Mark growled. "I'm not supposed to do that! People expect me to be good!"

People expected more from Mark than 'good'. After Omni-Man, people expected Mark to be better . It was almost unfair — carrying the weight of moral saintliness was barely expected from the Pope, let alone some seventeen-year-old. And he was better, for the most part — Cecil still wanted to believe that. But the wounds were too fresh. Like it or not, Mark had to be held to a higher standard.

Just under two months ago, Nolan took home the gold medal as the biggest threat to the planet's existence. The world was lucky he'd been more focussed on giving his son a personal tour of Chicago's infrastructure and lecturing him on 'responsibility' than taking out any major cities, or blowing up their nuclear stockpile. And while he wasn't in the same league as Nolan, Earth's primitive defenses meant Mark had the very real chance of being one unpredictable violent episode away from dethroning his dad.

Cecil couldn't say that.

"It's not entirely your fault."

"But it's my responsibility, isn't it?!" Mark snarled. "I can't just go flying off the handle like this! People could die!"

With the proud exception of himself, no one had actually come close to dying from Mark's rampages. A lucky miracle, if anything.

Mark's chest heaved with rage as he stalked back and forth.

"I'm scared I'm gonna hurt someone, Cecil. Like, really hurt someone. I don't want to. God, I don't want to. But it's like there's this voice in my head telling me how easy it would be. How much fun I'd have doing it. It sounds a bit like dad — keeps feeding me bullshit on how worthless human lives are. It tells me other shit too."

Well if that wasn't the single most terrifying thing he'd ever heard. A schizophrenic Viltrumite?

What kinda meds could they even produce for that? Their current supply didn't even work all that well on fellow humans, and from what Cecil gathered the drugs Sutherland made largely operated by taking advantage of niche hormonal analogues, that tenuous thread of convergent evolution keeping two vastly different species connected. Cecil almost wanted to tell Mark to shut up, if only so he didn't have to listen to yet another slowly brewing horror story.

Cecil exhaled in one long breath.

Still, it was good to keep Mark talking. The kid was tight-lipped enough as it was. And Cecil needed every bit of insight he could get.

Keep it together, Stedman.

"You're not your dad, Mark."

The kid's head snapped to him. "That's actually the problem," he said worryingly. It made Cecil's fingers twitch. Mark laughed high and brittle, like glass about to shatter. "Dad held it together for twenty years. He never lost his mind like this! He was normal! How the hell did he do it?" Mark clawed at his face, frustration and anger making the movements sharp and savage. "I can't believe I'm saying this, but I wish I was more like him."

Cecil considered the idea. A Mark who could rein in his destructive impulses, keep things under wraps with the same military efficiency Nolan possessed. A Mark with an increased capacity for self-control, who could keep his motives equally as cryptic. A Mark who, under the right circumstances, would unleash the same merciless brutality with cruel, meticulous precision.

Mark's whetted bloodthirst and Nolan's cold calculation combined.

Right, enough catastrophizing.

"Maybe you could ask your old man for some tips next time you see him. But we like you just the way you are, kid."

"No, you don't!" he yelled. "You wish I was different! Who wouldn't? Rex was right about me! My mom, the Guardians, now Dr Sutherland. It's too many close calls. I can't be around people. I should be at the bottom of the ocean, or in a volcano somewhere. I wish I'd never gotten my powers, it's too much. I can't do anything right — it's all wasted on me."

Self-hatred could only drive a conversation so far. Cecil knew that personally. Time for praise.

"You've been good recently. For all the lip I've gotten, you've still listened to everything I've said. Done all I've asked of you. I'm happy with that."

It wasn't even a complete lie.

Mark was silent for a beat. He hunched in and his hackles rose suddenly. Cecil tensed, the neuralink whirring to life in his temple. Was that the wrong thing to say? Positive reinforcement often yielded great results, the kid was no exception. He normally took well to compliments. Had Cecil sounded too patronizing?

When Mark lifted his head, there was faint color on his cheeks. "I don't exactly see how I could say no. But. Thanks, I guess."

Odd. Very odd.

But he was glad Mark took the bait.

"And look, kid, it's tough. The GDA's been with you from the start, so boy do we know just how tough. But locking you up isn't the way to go. That's just sweeping dirt under the rug."

Even if it would be very nice to do just that at the moment.

"You need to be around people to keep you grounded. To remind you who you're meant to be saving."

History told them again and again that the only true antidote to hatred and fear was mutual connection. It was easy to think yourself superior and the others defective and dirty if you'd never seen or interacted with them, if you'd never broken bread together or shared the same salt. The lies and bigotry would write themselves.

Human psychology was pretty simple at the core of it. Most reasonably intelligent people wouldn't be able to maintain their dogma when consistently and unrelentingly presented with challenges to its logical structure, the erosive force uncovering ugly contradictions and cruel doublethink like stormwater revealing a mass grave. While denial was a hell of a drug, barring the most willfully stupid or malicious ends of the bell curve, a majority of folks genuinely wanted to do good and/or be in the right. So when faced with the unvarnished truth of their prejudice and provided the convenient existence of an open door, most humans would find themselves jumping ship and straight into the arms of the nearest welcoming embrace, leaving conflict, segregation, biological determinism behind.

And maybe it rarely, if ever, led to true peace and acceptance. But sometimes, tolerance and mutual co-existence was enough. People would always find stupid reasons to kill each other.

But longing for some sort of resolution was just human nature.

'Human' being the operative word.

The planet needed a Mark willing to fight for them as much as they needed him not to turn. There was still the possibility Nolan or another one of his psychotic people would come hurtling back into their atmosphere to either conquer Earth outright or convince Mark to join their cause, or both.

Only half the kid's genetics really kept him tethered here, less if what the brainiacs said was true and he wanted to get technical about it. And it was only natural to want to be with your own kind. Mark was still young, but how long before he tore free from Earth's gravity and went soaring into the great beyond, looking for people just like him? How long before he decided to leave the nest?

For Nolan, two decades had been a drop in the chronological ocean. How long did a guy have to live for time to start feeling that way? How long did they have before Mark started feeling that way too, before time compression and an alien neurochemistry made his happy childhood and human friendships feel like a grain of sand in the grand desert of his long lifespan? How long before he really, truly, became one of them?

Cecil was getting ahead of himself. While it was clear from Mark's recent behavior that violence and aggression ran hot in his blood, the kid wasn't actually an animal. And despite what he thought about the bastard, Nolan wasn't either. The Viltrumites, he presumed, rose from the same primordial soup as everyone else in the Universe. They whipped chaos into order and clawed themselves up the technological ladder to establish a galaxy-spanning empire. That implied reason and rationale. Advanced cognition. Clarified ambition on a societal scale, brutalized into a war-mongering philosophy. They were sapient creatures, not just puppets of their instincts.

Mark wasn't just going to up and leave the planet defenseless or start wreaking havoc just because these random aliens rocked up vaguely smelling like him or whatever. He was an intelligent, thinking being.

Right?

Then again if the choice was between Mark staying and siding with the Empire, or him leaving, Cecil would rather he go. The Earth would take its chances. But if he left, they'd have no eyes on him.

Cecil reminded himself: Mark had proven his loyalty the day he fought Nolan. He'd refused his father's call to enslave the human race. He was born and raised here. He called Earth his home. 

It was imperative to their collective survival that Mark continued to feel this way.

"Spend some time with your mom. Go meet your friends. Eve, William. That girl you're seeing — Amber, wasn't it?"

Mark pinned him with a look. "You'd let me do that?"

Cecil raised a brow. "You don't need my permission to spend time with your loved ones."

Of course, given Mark's cover was blown, there would be extra precautions he'd have to take, mostly so he didn't lead their person of interest back to Debbie. But it didn't preclude the kid's social visits entirely.

Mark was staring at him oddly. He shrugged. The movement was too fluid.

"You control literally every other aspect of my life. Why should this be any different?"

"Kid, if I really cared enough to control everything you'd stop destroying shit and eat a vegetable every once in awhile. Don't flatter yourself."

Mark would also stop giving him so much attitude, but Cecil felt that bit was a given.

Mark hadn't blinked at all. "You're doing that thing again."

"What are you talking about?"

"That thing where I point something out, and you don't address it. Why do you do that? You could just be direct."

Mark took a step closer.

Cecil was suddenly aware of his own pulse.

"Stay where you are."

Mark paused. His eyes shot to the teleportation bracelet on his wrist before he unclasped the thing with staccato movements, like he was fighting himself. He turned it over in his hands and studied it with unnatural focus.

Well, shit. That was one idea out.

"Though, if I had to guess, Cecil..." Mark mused disquietingly. He ran a thumb over the grooves of the bracelet and cocked his head to the side in one smooth motion. "You're scared of losing your footing with me."

Mark looked at Cecil. Eyes becoming very blank. "But I already knew that, didn't I?"

No amount of training could stop Cecil's heart from pounding through his chest.

The door split open with a hydraulic hiss and Donald stepped in, his timing perfectly spot-on.

"Sir, the preparations for Project 1C are complete. We only need the green light. If you would come with me — "

He stopped. He made it look natural. "Oh. Mark. It's good you're here. Your mother was asking after you."

Cecil watched in real time as the light crept back into Mark's eyes.

"She's here?"

"In our residences, yes. A temporary arrangement."

Donald spared Cecil a glance.

"Donald will take you," Cecil announced, feeling a thread of control slipping back into place. Thin as it was. "I'll make my way to the operations base."

Donald nodded. "Come along, Mark. She isn't far."

Mark wasted no time. He hovered in the air, looking ready to race through the GDA's hallways. Cecil imagined a blur of motion cutting a streak through his building, upending furniture, tearing through the air with enough ferocity to send people reeling, frightening his employees. Sutherland's raw panic flashed in his mind alongside the incident reports from Mark's first rampage several weeks ago.

Cecil's teeth ground against each other and a vein in his temple popped.

"No," he bit out. "Walk."

The kid obeyed. Dropped to his feet and had the decency to look a little sheepish. With jerky, half-hesitant movements, he scooped up Cecil's fallen blazer and held it out to him

"Just leave it on the side," Cecil said tiredly. Along with his ruined tie.

That entire ordeal had been the most bizarre powerplay he'd ever had the misfortune of being caught up in. He didn't get it. Why the fixation with his clothes?

Cecil kept his eyes trained on the vectors of Mark's body as the kid moved past him.

"Bracelet."

Mark stopped walking. Toyed with the loop of metal in his hands for a second, then held it in the air, balanced between two fingers like an offering.

Cecil plucked it out of his grip with a sigh. He leaned against a workbench and felt some tension drain away.

Donald led him towards the door. It opened with another hiss.

"One last thing, kid," Cecil called out, against his best judgement.

Mark and Donald both turned to look at him.

Tempered fury sharpened his tongue and steeled his tone. He caught Mark's eyes with a glare hot enough to melt iron.

"Don't you ever. Ever. Touch my staff again."

A razor glint flickered to life in Mark's pupils, devilish and challenging. The muscles in his back rippled once with defiance and the kid parted his lips to flash a hint of teeth.

Donald saved his ass again before the catastrophic fucking gas leak Cecil managed to cause ignited and blew them all to smithereens.

He placed a friendly hand on Mark's shoulder.

"Let's go, Mark. Debbie's waiting."

The madness melted from Mark's eyes. He followed along, as compliant and docile as a newborn puppy.

Cecil waited until their footsteps faded away before slumping down into one of the seats.

He was getting too old for this.

Having to wrangle multiple sapient nukes into doing what he wanted for the last twenty years had virtually irradiated his hairline. The entire Omni-Man fiasco probably took off another inch or two at least. And now his dual-minded son seemed dead set on eliminating what was left of his poor follicles, razing his scalp and salting the goddamn fields. Maybe he should just man up and shave it all off before the rest of it started ejecting from his pores in sad, miserable clumps.

Cecil sighed, ran a hand over his face in contemplation.

Just a little bit longer.

One more moment of weakness, and then he was done.

Everything slotted into their neat little compartments.

He'd be back on the job like nothing happened.

Cecil scowled.

After all this bullshit, he'd probably have at least a dozen new wrinkles carving themselves into his ugly mug too. He wasn't vain by nature, but it annoyed him all the same. His skin was synthetic . How was that even possible?

He was just about to make his way to the operations room when something caught his eye.

A messy chicken scrawl on a used napkin, ink overlaying the remains of a pungent orange curry.

Sutherland's notes.

Two words circled in black pen and underlined twice.

Submissive behavior.

It was like falling upwards. The phrase landed hard on his psyche with a confusing, graceless thwack. The implications flashed like darkened gunfire, lumbering and crude and wilfully incomplete like a drunken elephant piloting the Hindenburg.

What the fuck?

Chapter Text

Donald shifted his hand to the small of Mark's back. He only dropped it when they left the bioengineering sub-department completely and funnelled into the wider engineering wing. The place drew from the same design philosophy as the rest of the Pentagon — endless identical corridors and cryptically earmarked paths. Sparse, sleek furnishings and the cold drone of fluorescent lighting. No maps. Employees were expected to know where they were going.

Biometrics at every checkpoint. The signage kept deliberately enigmatic, scrubbed free of descriptors. Alphanumeric codes took their place, phrases like 'LAB 42B' and 'AREA 21' plastered vaguely over doors and around low-visibility corners. In some cases the signs were electronic panels proclaiming ominous-sounding warnings — KEEP OUT and LIVE TESTING IN PROGRESS. They'd change depending on an employee's clearance or if there was a time-sensitive project taking place.

Mark fidgeted as he walked. For him, the twisting maze of the Pentagon must've come across as confusing and uncomfortable. That was by design.

For anyone else, even the most senior government officials, traversing this area would've warranted an armed security detail and a blindfold. Maybe even noise-cancelling devices and other sensory deprivation tools to prevent infiltrators from counting their steps or echolocating and mapping the place that way. Everything here was strictly need-to-know.

Mark gave a wide, gaping yawn.

The director had a lot of faith in Mark's teenaged apathy and poor sense of direction.

Nonetheless, Donald still tried to guide Mark along their most public-friendly pathways, bypassing as many restricted zones and testing sites as possible. They followed a streak of yellow running along the wall — towards their residences.

Mark paused. He angled his head to the left and then turned to face the wall fully. Concentrating hard on something.

"Is everything alright?"

A hint of wonder flashed across Mark's face.

"It's quiet."

Donald hesitated. He deliberated reaching for his earpiece. Was this another mental episode?

He stopped himself.

Best not to jump to conclusions. Gather information, first.

"What do you mean?"

"In this direction," Mark said, pointing a finger. "It's quieter than the rest. What kinda insulation did you guys put up? I could use some for my room."

He was pointing South-West. Angling his finger slightly downwards.

The black path (specifically, black-red-blue-black and multiple retinal scanners). A deeper subterranean testing facility.

The quantum experimental chamber.

The Global Defense Agency was well-stocked enough to have their own particle accelerator. Only eight miles in circumference and much more efficient than the civilian facility in Geneva, though they still borrowed that one from time to time for their lower-priority ventures.

The collider utilized ultra-high vacuum pipes to shoot protons, and sound didn't travel in a vacuum. Its superconductors were cooled with the highest grade of superfluid helium available on the market, down to a temperature of 1.9 Kelvin. So close to absolute zero, intuitive thought would convince the average person there was no movement, no energy at all.

There would be other devices in that sub-department as well: quantum computers, an Elitzur-Vaidman machine, experimental dark energy emitters, technical schematics for prototype antimatter bombs. The Earth was still far behind other civilizations on this side of the Milky Way — not even achieving a full point on the Kardashev scale. But it certainly wasn't for lack of trying.

The walls of the quantum chamber would be soundproofed anyway, but Mark likely wasn't referring to that. The rest of the machinery within the wider engineering wing produced its own low-frequency din, ignorable for most, but for someone with superhuman hearing? It was probably much more of a nuisance.

Therefore, the absence of that drone would be noticable. A pool of silence in the noisy backdrop of the Pentagon.

Donald made a note to inform the engineering team about that.

"It's not something Debbie could afford."

Mark made a face. "Jeez, Donald, way to call us poor."

The equipment cost hundreds of billions of dollars.

"Poverty isn't inherently a bad thing."

It certainly didn't denote moral character.

Mark scoffed. "Yeah, sure. But who wants to be poor?"

Fair play.

They continued walking. Mark seemed fascinated by the silence only he could hear.

"What have you guys got down there anyway?"

Donald moved them along quickly. "Nothing special."

"Suuure," Mark singsonged. "Totallyyy believe you."

They were about to reach a central junction in the engineering building, a confluence where various hallways met and branched out like spokes on a wheel. Donald would switch them to the blue path.

Not that he needed the colors to guide him. He knew this place like the back of his hand.

"Do you still have your mask?"

"Uh, somewhere. Why?"

That was adolescent for no, and I have no idea where it is.

Donald may not have children of his own, but he'd spent enough time around Teen Team. He was proficient in the language.

"Pardon me. Wait here."

Donald took a few turns and found the appropriate room. He emerged shortly with Invincible's iconic yellow cowl and goggles. It was clean.

"Here. Put this on."

Most staff in the engineering wing weren't here anymore, owed to the late hour. Aside from the scientists helming projects requiring a rapid turnaround or the unfortunates working the graveyard shift, only the most obsessive, like Dr Sutherland, remained — ordinarily he would get a reprimand, but this time the man's overzealousness had come in clutch. And luckily for the remains of Mark's secret identity, a majority of Dr Sutherland's ilk were sooner likely to spontaneously combust than willingly put themselves in the firing line of social interaction.

Suffice to say, they were quite safe here. Beyond this area, it was anyone's guess.

"Uhh, did you just have that lying around?"

"It's important to be well-prepared."

Despite his tone, Mark followed Donald's instructions.

"That's kinda creepy."

The GDA was a clandestine paramilitary organization specializing in superhero resource management and the procurement of advanced peace-keeping technologies. They had agents planted firmly in the intelligence divisions of every military on Earth alongside informants (of varying reliability) tucked away in the sordid cracks of every governmental body, democratic or otherwise. They had black sites. Detention centers. They utilized enhanced interrogation techniques on relevant supervillains and supported at least two or three coups d'état in Latin America during the last century in order to secure more funding. Officially speaking, the CIA, KGB, PLA, MI6, Mossad, and multiple other national-level intelligence agencies didn't know they existed. They had oversight over multiple jurisdictions, both within the United States and internationally. Access to the mass surveillance infrastructure already established by national leaders and politicians.

Countless tiny cameras and microphones, nested away in every nook and cranny of Mark's own home.

(Extremely ethically dubious, with mixed results. Though, Donald supposed that was a moot point now, given recent events).

And of course, within the Pentagon's own residences.

With yet more surveillance to follow, in the GDA-sanctioned city apartment Mark and Debbie would soon share.

Of course they were creepy.

"It's not the weirdest thing we've ever done. Not by far."

The darker points of the GDA's ongoing portfolio weren't something Donald liked to dwell on. One person could only handle the ramifications of so much shadow work. It was much easier to focus on how they managed to stop a supervillain in the Philippines from killing the president rather than thinking too hard about how they managed to find the guy in the first place, considering South-East Asia was on the other side of the globe, the supervillain was a nobody who built his weapons deep in the slums of Manilla, and had been all but digitally invisible up until that point, owing to a system of deeply entrenched structural poverty.

Nevermind that a shocking majority of the most powerful people within the GDA still comprised of white Americans or people from other wealthy Western countries despite recent efforts to change the demographics. Money and power were simply too resiliently self-perpetuating for any meaningful reform to take root. The grim truth was such: the chances of a lesser nation, capable only of providing a meagre economic tribute, having a proper say at the table were slim to none. Those in power asserted their will, and those without did what they could to survive — accepting the reprimand, the alterations, the invasive procedures and violations. All for their proposed benefit.

Paternalistic was a light way of putting it.

Donald could justify the layout all he wanted — it was for the greater good, it couldn't be helped, they were saving lives — but such moral quandaries were more Cecil's domain.

As much as it shamed him to admit it, Donald preferred the coward's way out.

Heavy compartmentalization.

Donald focussed on the people he could see around him, civilian or otherwise, and took pride in the simple act of saving lives. It kept the threads of his moral fibre intact, his sanity unspoiled. He played the good cop. Spoke to the families and provided reassurances, help and options and additional resources. And if it made him a weak man, well, Donald had no choice but to accept that.

They all had sacrifices to make.

Donald would never admit to fully comprehending just how far down the roots of the GDA's espionage went, how much metadata they mined from civilians, the extent of their facial recognition software, how many shell companies they owned and operated. How many dubious governments they aided and abetted in the name of maintaining order. He doubted even Cecil knew completely.

In one of his more cerebral moments, Donald had once theorized that the entire organization was one giant Ouroboros — with the director as the head, the rank-and-file employees, the tail. The eternal stalemate, the snake unable to eat or be eaten, forbidden from committing the sin of autocannibalism — the ultimate self-destruction. Think about it: Cecil issued an order, everyone else rushed to follow. On the surface, simple.

But look deeper into the practicalities of such a wide-reaching organization, and logic soon started to break down.

Bear with him here.

The GDA's web of influence stretched far and wide across the globe; countless spies, informants, handlers, suppliers, contacts. The visible work they performed — the jobs involving flashy supervillains and world-ending plots — only formed the tip of the iceberg, only having come into such a heavy spotlight over the past thirty years or so. As things stood, close to ninety percent of what they accomplished involved pre-emptive strikes, digging the roots up before the seed could touch soil: stopping a supervillain before they could become one. And for that, the GDA was heavily reliant on its human agents: inconspicuous, faceless, crucial to the entire operation, but ultimately expendable.

Each agent had a birth name and a codename. Those undercover had that, and then at least one false copy, depending on the job. Duplicity was their bread and butter — they would guard their names and knowledge with their lives or die trying, or in the event of failure, risk forty years to life in an offshore prison. And due to the nature of compartmentation, it was entirely conceivable that two or more agents could operate right next door to each other, on the same tiny sliver of the same project for decades, and never identify or even meet one another, even in passing.

Though there existed specific methods for undercover agents to identify each other out in the field, the cultural layers of paranoia and self-policing had built so thick and deep to petrify into something almost geological. With a veil of secrecy this dense and a grasp so all-encompassing over the black world, who's to say all the GDA's spies, their double and triple agents and moles and reverse moles weren't simply reporting on each other?

A casual remark he'd let slip to Cecil had soon turned into a heated discussion, a rare moment of reprieve — two small glasses of liquor and a cigar shared between them after a mission gone wrong. Both of them many years younger. A floating memory he couldn't quite place. Had he been in Cecil's office? That didn't seem right. The mental images were bathed in this warm, orange glow, almost like a bonfire casting long shadows. But then where else could they have talked?

In his mind's eye, Cecil's hair hadn't yet lost its color. The deep canyons of stress, too, had yet to make their home on the man's face, and his pupils held that half-hidden spark of fondness. Donald stared into his drink, reflection in the glass a perfect mirror. He looked exactly the same as he did now —

Anyway.

The snake was locked in an eternal stalemate with itself — the cycle of neither life nor death, brought on by its own hubris and need for meticulous control. What if, Donald had said, they did something about it? Slice through one end, through the dark glistening scales and soft pink flesh, until bone met blade and then clean air. It would be painful, yes, but all new growth was, and performing a sweep like this could cut their workload in half, filter out the redundancies, the false reports, the confusion. The system, streamlined and optimized for maximum efficiency, to keep as many people as safe and alive as possible.

Cecil had taken one long swig of his whiskey and said that Donald had just inadvertently proposed they turn their own counterintelligence teams in on themselves. Moles to catch moles to catch moles. An internal purge.

The snake eating its own tail.

The discussion died very quickly after that. He'd never brought it up again.

Optimism still formed the core of Donald's being. The system worked as it was, and where it didn't, improvements could soon follow. The GDA's staff were loyal to a fault — unusually so, for an organization so covert, militaristic, and silently influential.

It came down to several factors. The work was purposeful. The pay and additional benefits, generous. Staff were a complex medley of professional actors too straightlaced for deviance and unbalanced social misfits too brilliant for normalcy. Somehow, those contradictory forces combined to form an unlikely series of pairings serving to make the GDA the most effective global intelligence and law enforcement agency the world had ever seen. Yin and Yang, striving for perfect balance. Furthermore, unlike the US military itself, their personnel were almost exclusively direct employees rather than private contractors. It made a significant impact — increased accountability, better oversight, economically much more efficient.

Then there was the head of the serpent himself.

Over twenty years ago, with the director fresh out of prison, it had been hard for him to establish his authority. Most saw him as another dirty criminal, bewildered with the wildcard Radcliffe had chosen, wondering if an element of nepotism was at play. (The answer to that was yes — but it didn't preclude Cecil's own natural competence and suitability).

Cecil had accelerated the reforms introduced by Radcliffe at a breakneck speed, aided along by the dawn of the new millennium and the shifting window of social acceptability. Improved pay and working conditions. A hefty benefits package for the families of fallen agents. Better training and psychological outreach. He'd accepted a union. Diversified the lower and middle workforce in a way that went beyond performative quotas. Handpicked key assets from all over the world and made them his own, for once allowing the organization to truly start living up to the global in Global Defense Agency. They still had a long way to go, but it was a hell of a head start.

The old guard hadn't been happy. Many warned him about ruffling too many feathers, being too careless and losing his keys to power. They'd talked about replacing him. Cecil spat in their faces — not literally, though he had definitely wanted to. Instead, he'd pulled statistics. A higher rate of mission success than ever before. Employee satisfaction. Threw stuff in their faces that just made too much sense to be argued against — who better to lead operations in Marrakesh than a born and bred Moroccan, natively fluent in Arabic, French, and most importantly, the myriad Berber languages? An unassuming local, able to blend in amongst the raucous market traders or quiet goatherds in the Atlas mountains alike. The native population, elevated from disposable informants to autonomous agents, actively participating in their own country's fight against supervillainy. 

And crucially, Cecil fired back with their financial reports — how much money they'd saved, how much money they stood to make from their current investments, how much would flow into their pockets in the years to come. Depressingly for a multinational governmental organization supposedly committed to grander schemes such as the greater good, saving lives, and human protection, petty economics had been the key tipping point in the debate, as it was in many other important discussions around the world.

Cecil's abrasive nature hadn't earned him many good opinions amongst the organization's benefactors. He was quick to temper, rarely diplomatic, and at times, devastatingly single-minded.

Many at the time doubted his ability to lead. Many today still did.

But none could deny that Cecil's tendency to dive head-first into volatile landscapes and highly combustible playing fields at the drop of a hat had earned him the admiration of many a rank-and-file employee. For example, not long ago — there had been no need to confront Omni-Man directly to parse his motives or buy time. Cecil could've easily thrown a number of nameless agents at the rogue superhuman, men and women committed long ago to sacrificing their lives for the Earth. Similarly, there had been zero obligation on the director's part to personally deliver the perceived antidote to Mark all those weeks ago in the wreckage of what used to be the medical wing. It was far beneath his pay grade; the man had no successor appointed, and Cecil was simply far too important. He did it anyway.

And then there was his self-imposed role as a handler.

Liaising with any asset utilized the same basic principles, whether human or superhuman. Keep communication clear and brief. Maintain amicable but strictly professional relations. Show no vulnerabilities. Any agent worth their badge could tell you that.

But managing superhumans came with its own unique challenges. Most superhumans powerful enough to make the cut were, sadly to say, not stable individuals in the slightest. An estimated eighty percent comfortably qualified for at least one diagnosis from the DSM-5. Depression, anxiety, and self-destructive habits remained the norm, though not for long, because the average hero retired at twenty-five and died ten years later, often by their own hand.

Human genetics were not so mosaic as to grant the species a significant number of individuals with inborn powers (for which the GDA was simultaneously cursing and extremely grateful for). Neither were magic nor paranormal forces as commonplace as one might have thought. No, most superhumans on Earth acquired their abilities through deliberate testing, freak industrial accidents, and peculiar, often alien technology.

Which meant that the frequency of superhumans multiplied over tenfold after the dust settled from World War Two, possibly spurred along by the GDA's own inception, the organization rising out of the ashes of the Manhattan Project like a phoenix. With the rise of the Iron Curtain and the advent of new technologies, governments around the globe participated in an accelerated arms race running in parallel to nuclear proliferation. Each nation vying for control, seeking to create the strongest supersoldier, the smartest super-genius, the most irresponsibly equipped post-human fighter. Private organizations and underground dealings soon followed, seeking to capitalize on the gap in the market. Kidnappings. Trafficking. Forced birth camps. The human cost was high.

Results were estimated as such — viable subjects, emotionally stable and well-socialized, willing to take orders (1%), failures to launch (80%), and mentally volatile child soldiers, easily exploitable in the wrong hands and worryingly hard to kill (19%).

So, yes.

Couple poor anger management with the ability to create fireballs out of thin air, and you'd have a dead agent on your hands faster than you could say 'therapy'. Put bluntly, agents within the GDA were much less enthusiastic about working directly with superpowered individuals than the public might've liked to believe. Handling superhumans required its own specialized training program. It was a long-term operation in of itself, necessitating years to build trust and rapport, at times being akin to that of a highly crisis-tested social worker. Relationships were almost exclusively one-to-one.

So for the director to personally manage Invincible, current strongest superhero on Earth, alongside the entire second iteration of the Guardians of the Globe?

It was a testament to the man's mulish stubbornness, suicidality, and to quote one seasoned handler's crude wording, 'Director Stedman's massive mountain-sized balls of fucking steel'.

The Guardians, most could justify. The director was essentially their commanding officer after all. Donald was also convinced assigning them each their own handlers would be largely pointless and terribly inefficient — why bother going through a grunt for your petty demands when you could have direct access to the big boss himself? The troubling practice of bypassing standard procedure had unfortunately already been established as a consequence of the original Guardians' untimely departure. It was unlikely any of the current Guardians would accept a reversion to more professional norms. Chances were they'd take it as a slight, and who wouldn't? (Though Donald also had to highlight the average superhuman's statistical tendency towards a large, fragile ego).

Mark Grayson, though, was far more contentious. On one hand, it was important to keep the boy under close personal observation, as it was for any ridiculously important asset. Now, more so than ever, due to his newfound instability. Handing the boy off to a different member of the team may not have been possible at all for the same reason as his peers — a bad precedent of blatantly disregarding official channels and the desire for instant gratification when it came to his demands. Donald had to admit, it made a lot of sense for Mark to be under Cecil's direct supervision. It streamlined the chain of command. Mark was the strongest superhuman on Earth and their best shot at resisting the Viltrum Empire. And rapport, however begrudging, had already been built between him and the director.

But Donald still couldn't shake the feeling of...trepidation. It was incredibly subtle, but he knew Cecil long and well enough to recognize the signs of an emotional trigger close to being pulled. Repeatedly. It didn't matter which Grayson he spoke to, they all did it — Nolan unaware or uncaring, Mark and Debbie similarly none the wiser, and the director likely deep in the trenches of his own denial. Or perhaps he was perfectly aware, and just wilfully ignoring it. Either way.

Donald just hoped the man knew what he was doing — a lot rode on his shoulders.

Because whether Cecil realized or not, his sheer inability to delegate and near-pathological need for personal control had bought him extremely good optics and a blazing pillar of fierce loyalty from his staff. Big man in a fancy suit, doing the little guy's job, putting his life on the line. How could that not go down well with the crowd?

They were passing through the electrical engineering sub-department. Almost there. Donald made them round a corner.

Someone stumbled with a cut-off gasp, the swish of crumpled paper and the splash of spilled liquid.

Mark's head whipped around.

"Oh, sorry," Mark said sheepishly. "Did we scare you?"

A man with blonde hair and dark rings under his eyes clutched the wall behind him with both hands, white-knuckled and afraid. The documents he was carrying spread out like fallen leaves, his paper cup rolled in a sad arc as it bled coffee onto the tiles. A little of it had spattered onto his white lab coat and brown shoes when it clattered to the floor.

Mark bent down and scooped all the papers together into a messy pile. He extended them up to the man, who sank further down the wall with every passing second, eyes never leaving Mark's face.

"Here," Mark offered with a smile. Donald made a mental note to remind the boy not to show so many teeth.

When the man didn't accept them, Mark attempted to neaten the stack a bit better and held them out again. His shoulders dropped and his smile slackened when the man remained motionless, tension apparent in every line of his body. "Is something wrong?"

Donald slid a glance at the man's ID.

Ah. Of course.

"I wasn't aware you'd returned from administrative leave, Dr Duvall."

Scott Duvall snapped out of his helpless stupor.

"I-I just got back today, s-sir," he stammered, eyes flitting like wasps between Mark and Donald.

Donald took the documents from Mark's hand. He noted the incorrect privacy screens the man had used for his papers.

"One day back, and already on the graveyard shift? That sounds like a hell of a work schedule." He stepped in between them and gave the documents back. Dr Duvall accepted them with shaking hands. He was still swallowing hard. "Would you like me to have a look into that for you?"

Fear flickered in his eyes.

"N-No sir, it's fine. I prefer working at night anyway."

Donald slipped a subtle look at Mark.

"Fewer distractions?"

Dr Duvall nodded tightly, finally managing to face Donald.

The man's eyes were dry kindling, his entire body unlit dynamite. Instability writ large in the tremors wracking his body. He was one wrong move away from a catastrophic mental breakdown.

Donald turned to Mark. "Invincible, why don't you head down the hall for a bit. I'll catch up."

"I don't know where I'm going."

Dr Duvall flinched when Mark spoke.

Donald shifted his body to hide him better from Mark's view.

"You don't have to wander too far. Keep going straight until you see a red chair in one of the offices on your left. Just give me a minute for Dr Duvall and I to catch up."

"Okay."

The boy, thankfully, listened.

Donald waited until his footsteps faded before turning back to Dr Duvall.

"You have a wife and son, don't you?"

The man looked ready to vomit. Air fought to escape his trembling lips in vicious bursts. His eyes kept darting back in the direction where Mark had disappeared.

"A newborn, if I recall," Donald tried to make his voice soothing. "It wouldn't do for him to be without his father so early on, and I'm sure Becky could use your help around the house. The team will manage fine without you for another eight weeks. Think of it as paternity leave."

Dr Duvall nodded furiously, one hand gripped tightly on his documents, the other scrabbling for purchase on the wall.

"Good man." Donald placed a hand on the man's shoulder. He immediately regretted it when he felt Dr Duvall's body curl in a badly suppressed flinch.

Donald spared him a sympathetic look. He pointed at the papers. "Deliver those back to the team. Then take the rest of the night off."

Dr Duvall swallowed thickly. His voice came out as a rasp. "Yes, sir."

Donald watched the man scuttle back to his lab with barely concealed panic. He caught up to Mark in a few long strides. Mark had somehow managed to overshoot the red chair completely.

"What was up with that scientist guy?"

Donald sighed. "Dr Duvall has been under a lot of stress recently."

It was a shame, the man produced some of his department's best outputs. He'd be a professor at an Ivy League institution in a few years if he didn't work for the GDA.

Mark bit his lip, hesitating. "He was scared of me."

Plenty of GDA staff were wary after Omni-Man's betrayal and Mark's subsequent rampage. Though, rarely did it ever translate to such bone-shaking fear. Most employees, with the notable exception of their research and development teams, were military in some capacity. They were highly trained to deal with dangerous individuals.

Donald considered his next words. He could deflect, since it involved volatile subject matter, or he could tell Mark the truth.

The former was safe. Standard procedure for an uncomfortable question.

But the latter was necessary.

In a softened tone, he said, "Dr Duvall lost his sister and young niece in Chicago. He still hasn't recovered fully."

Grief clung to the man like a lead blanket. Pain oozed from his pores. His file stated Jessica had raised her two-year-old stepbrother when she herself was a mere pre-teen, covering up their parents' alcoholic dysfunction and stemming their financial woes however she could to avoid them being whisked away into foster care and possibly separated, their already broken family fractured just a little bit wider. His niece had been an unexpected but welcome addition — the product of a one night stand on Jessica's part.

For several years, it had just been the three of them, an unlikely but happy family maintaining their small island of joy. Then Scott Duvall met Rebecca Waller, another broken soul, fell in love and married her, and before they knew it a baby was on its way. Scott could finally give Gretchen and his own son what he and Jessica never had growing up — a loving extended family, friendly and good-spirited, not completely apathetic to their plights, to their desperate 3AM phone calls and helpless longing.

And then Omni-Man went bad.

Jessica and Gretchen perished in the rubble with not even a full body to bury between them, and Jack Duvall would never come to know his beloved aunt or cousin.

Their family would never be the same.

"Oh." Mark seemed at a loss. Guilt tore at his face. "I should apologize — "

"No," Donald cut in. "Let the man grieve on his own. People like him are...delicate. Besides, you did nothing wrong. Chicago was not your fault."

Mark's voice was nearly a whisper. "I could have done more."

Donald injected warmth and pride into his tone, levelled Mark with a firm look. "You did all you could."

A deep silence fell as Mark submerged himself in his own thoughts.

They approached their destination.

There was no obvious indication that people were meant to live here — no signs, no warm furnishings, no easy, welcoming approach from the official working areas of the Pentagon. Access was through one of many secondary pathways splitting off from various main halls, doors concealed into other architectural features; biometric security measures, heavy surveillance, monitored entry points. All to ensure absolute privacy — no one was meant to know who lived here or why, in fact only the necessary few were aware that anyone lived here at all.

The embedded apartments were designed for housing long-term personnel, key witnesses, and other relevant persons of interest. The director himself had a unit tucked away somewhere in the wing, not that he ever used it.

Donald delivered Mark to the entrance of his assigned housing unit. A fully-fitted apartment complex — sparse and devoid of character, but livable. Almost normal, except for being entirely underground, virtually unlocatable, and heavily policed.

"Your key cards are already inside. You'll have a lot more clearance than your mom — try not to abuse it, please."

Mark nodded.

"The two of you should be here no longer than a few days at most. The team will deliver any groceries your mom needs."

Donald inclined his head. "I'll take my leave, then. You know how to find me if you need anything."

He was already planning his next objective.

"Was that you outside, earlier?" Mark asked suddenly, breaking his sterile silence.

Donald stopped.

"I'm sorry?"

"Hanging in the hallway when me and Cecil were talking," Mark clarified. "Was that you?"

Donald kept his face blank.

Had Mark heard the Reanimen?

"What makes you say that?"

The boy took a deep breath.

An enhanced sense of smell. Of course.

Donald was almost offended. If Mark thought he smelled anything like a battalion of electrified corpses, he would have to consider implementing rigorous changes to his personal hygiene routine.

"You must be really good with a gun," Mark said thoughtfully. 

Donald raised a brow.

Well, that was a non-sequitur.

Mark took his response the right way.

"You must spend a lot of time in a firing range," he said by way of explanation. Mark leaned a little closer to Donald, twitched his nose half a foot away from his shoulder. "Lot of metal on you."

Donald's stomach made a wide, sweeping motion.

"M-Metal?"

The door opened. Debbie's soft voice rang out. Mark was already stepping through.

"Wait, Mark — "

"See you later, Donald!"

It slammed shut.

Donald stood there for a precious two seconds, heart beating a harsh rhythm in his chest. That instinctive stab of discomfort. The gaps in his memory. Debbie's reaction. It was all coalescing in a way he knew he wasn't going to like.

Chapter Text

Life after Nolan was a series of closing doors.

It shouldn't have felt that way. God, it shouldn't have felt that way. She felt ashamed for even thinking it.

Nolan was a mass murderer. He lied to her. He killed thousands in Chicago. He killed their friends, the Guardians. He nearly killed Mark .

His absence should've been a relief.

Debbie Grayson had been the main breadwinner in their household for as long as they'd been married. And contrary to popular belief, Nolan had taken her last name. While his contributions had been far from meagre, she'd often been Mark's primary parent, in a way that wasn't disrespectful because it was simply true. The life of a superhero frequently meant civilian norms and niceties took a backseat — tryouts, school plays, sick days. The weight of childcare often fell to her during peak hero hours, and if that meant she and Nolan fit into certain gendered stereotypes, then, well. Nolan hadn't fully understood, but she'd already been hyperaware of embodying an uncomfortable cultural cliché when it came to an outsider's perception of their supposed racial identities, anyway.

Like mother, like daughter. Water off a duck's back.

The true difficulties came with the day-to-day.

The great Omni-Man, jetting off to save the world from another megalomaniacal supervillain mid-conversation while his wife and son ate dinner without him again. She never faulted him for it, neither did she hold a particular grudge against herowork — Nolan could've been a human emergency worker, a trauma surgeon or EMT — the outcome would've been the same. Besides, Debbie would've never married him, had Nolan been the type to sit back and let others die when he could've done something about it, considering the remarkable set of abilities he possessed.

Little did she know.

Quite frankly, his absence shouldn't have left her feeling this...empty.

Anger gripped her between its savage teeth and shook her like a rag doll. Grief hung heavy like an iron halo. The warm swell of wine welcomed Debbie into its tender arms, doted on her with sweet kisses of thoughtlessness and blessed numbness, free from the judgement of a thousand wailing bouquets laid at the foot of a somber city memorial. It was starting to affect her job.

A couple attending a house viewing not too long ago. The woman, happy and eager, the man, rude and overcritical. The way he'd grabbed her arm, dragged her about, gotten into her face and yelled. Like scolding a dog.

"She's not your pet," she'd said a little too loudly. It nearly turned into a screaming match and a threat to call the police.

Paul, thankfully, had stepped in before that could happen. A disarming smile and expert redirection, he'd talked the man down while sliding reassuring glances to the woman till the tension melted away and the couple left. Debbie would at most get a complaint sent to the agency, something trivial enough to ignore.

She'd still been furious after.

"It's not that I'm not worried about her," Paul said to her, concern lining his face, gentle empathy growing in his eyes as he took in her distress. "Of course I am. But confronting her husband publically like that might mean she gets it worse at home. I'm still filing a report. I hope she makes it outta there okay."

In her blind rage, she hadn't even considered that.

Debbie owed him a big one.

Not that she would get to repay him anytime soon.

The safehouse she'd been squirreled away into was 'decorated' with a mix of bland neutrals. Plain white walls and grey surfaces. Navy bed sheets and a dull brown carpet probably as old as she was. There were no windows, no personal touches. Donald had shown her the various exit points she could use in the event of an emergency evacuation. The panic buttons. How the lighting would dim and the hidden grooves on the walls would become much more apparent if she needed a hasty escape.

It was all so scary.

Now, she laid in her pyjamas across the grey couch in the GDA apartment's open-plan living room, barefoot and oh so tired, wishing she had a bottle of Merlot with her. She couldn't go back to sleep, not alone in this foreign place. Her nerves frayed at the edges.

They came for her like thieves in the night.

She'd only managed to grab enough clothing and toiletries to last a couple days before being swiftly ushered from her own home under armed guard. No identifying objects allowed. An unmarked black vehicle. A blindfold as she was led through the government labyrinth. She would've been a lot more frightened if Donald hadn't been there in person to talk her through it all. It wasn't as if she'd never been to the Pentagon before. It wasn't as if she hadn't ever imagined the possibility of something like this happening, either. She'd knowingly married a superhero, after all.

But normalcy was a fragile little bird in her hands, and Debbie was just one woman trying to keep it alive. She'd hoped for more time to nurse the poor thing back to health before she was ready to send it fluttering into the night sky again. (And very privately, she admitted to never truly seeing herself in this situation at all. Nolan had always kept their family safe).

The door beeped and its mechanisms rattled.

"Hello? Who is it?"

Debbie felt stupid even asking. Donald would knock. Cecil would just teleport in.

"See you later, Donald!"

Mark came careening through the doorway at such a speed it made her heart jump. The feeling in her chest composed itself into deep fondness when Mark tossed a gentle smile at her, pulling off his cowl. Small mellow patches of dilute yellow and sickly green smeared across his face, echoes of recent violence spread watercolor-thin, almost too subtle to notice.

But she was his mom. Swaddled in white cloth or drowned in the carnage of herowork, she would always know his face.

"Hey, mom."

The tension in his shoulders. The way he held himself. His voice soft, reluctant almost. She could already tell what he was thinking.

Debbie smiled.

"Come here," she beckoned, opening her arms.

Relief flowed like warm ambrosia over her son's young face. He settled into Debbie's embrace with a world-weary sigh, head buried in the crook of her neck, knees on the floor at the edge of the couch. He took deep breaths as his shoulders shook.

He hadn't returned the hug, per se. Mark kept his arms to himself around her nowadays, and though it hurt, Debbie didn't feel comfortable pushing him on that yet.

She sat up so the position wasn't so awkward on them both. Debbie squeezed him as hard as her human strength permitted, hoping the stress would come surging out his bones like poison from a gaping wound. All the pain, anguish, sorrow flooding their fields like monsoon rain, uprooting crops and drowning the hearth. She would gladly swallow it all if it meant Mark could get a moment's peace.

Under the superficial layer of skin, his body was all solid muscle. Mark could've been made of stone.

Debbie pulled back to look at her son. To see his eyes glimmer in a wet mixture of love and shame. To watch his chest rise and fall as he put himself back together. To reassure herself, once again, her hands on his, that Mark was very much alive.

Thank god.

"Mom," he began, lower lip quivering. "I'm sorry. For causing you so much trouble."

"Don't," she said immediately. "Donald filled me in. It's not your fault. This could've happened at any point, to any number of heroes. I know you've been careful."

Mark swallowed. "Still...it can't be easy. For you, I mean. I'm sorry."

Debbie felt a bolt shoot through her heart.

To the world, he might've been Invincible, unstoppable superhero and savior of the Earth. But to her, with his slumped shoulders and contrite expression, kneeling on the floor by her feet, he couldn't have looked more like a child.

He was too young for this.

Cecil's contractors hadn't properly fixed one of the cabinet doors in her kitchen. She'd fixated on the shoddy craftsmanship for weeks. A convenient distraction from the emotional hurricane beating her senseless, its imperfection taunted her mercilessly until one drunken evening she'd ripped it off its hinges and sank to the floor, tears and snot drenching her work clothes and tasting too much like shame. Mark, hundreds of miles away in the depths of the Pentagon's superhuman containment cell, hadn't been around to witness her meltdown. For that, she was grateful.

"I'll tell you what's not gonna be easy," she said, trying to lighten the mood. "Having to deal with this eyesore of an apartment for the next few days. Let's hope the next place isn't so ugly."

"Really?" Mark scratched a point on his cheek. "I thought it looked okay."

Debbie scoffed. "Are you kidding? This place gives me the creeps. It's like it was purposefully designed to be unwelcoming."

Mark looked around. "What's bad about it?"

Debbie made a gesture, feeling a playful easiness settle over her words. Complaining was rarely attractive, but it was a fun pastime for her, and Mark was used to her silly rants. "It's scrubbed clean of any personality. Neutrals aren't bad to have at all, but just having neutrals reads IKEA showroom, not a home. The place needs accents — a spot of unexpected red somewhere — and no, the fire blanket in the corner doesn't count."

She pointed over to the kitchen-dining area. "Why would you have that long a table, when this place only has two rooms? And why a rectangular one, at that? The shape is totally incongruent with the quote-unquote 'aesthetics' of the apartment. I'd have a round one, make it a dark cherry wood with a white marble top instead of that hideous laminate. And the cabinets, urgh! They were probably installed before I was born. That's so not how you do retro."

In hindsight, the table was probably rectangular so a soldier could tip it over and use it as cover in a firefight. And the cabinets likely persisted despite refuting all design sensibilities because the GDA relied on taxpayer funding.

Mark's continued silence prompted Debbie to continue her one-woman show. She delighted in the drama of it all, and used every bit of her major in interior design. Money well spent! "There's no windows at all — so no natural light. That would be a hard sell to even our most eccentric buyers."

Because they were miles underground.

Neither was there a clock anywhere she could see.

"It wouldn't look great in photos. I'd tell the seller to redo this place from the ground up — rip up the carpet, repaint, new furniture. Add some artwork on the walls somewhere, too — there's too much negative space. It's like they're making room for a ghost in here."

Every home, no matter how seemingly ugly, had a unique selling point. Something she could highlight and market to the right demographic — sleek modernity to a young individual in a high-powered career, classic warmth to a family of four, gaudy extravagance and wasteful housing gimmicks to the frivolously wealthy. The grand entryway of a Georgian home, with its fluted Neoclassical pillars. The catchment area and idyllic peace of a modern, two-storey semi-detached. A mezzanine in a studio apartment. Original woodwork, a private dock, an in-law suite, the stunning view from the balcony of a high-end city condominium.

"How would I even photograph this place? The wall placement is so off-putting, it defies a good camera angle."

The walls were arranged so a shooter unfamiliar with the layout would never have a clear line of sight. They doubled as barriers for her, or a strike team, to hide behind. The place was full of contradictions — on one hand, it was definitely big enough to house more than two people, but it only had two rooms she could see. Why be so wasteful, when underground structures required such deliberate design? Despite being open plan, it had messy zoning, meaning the functionality of each sub-area was poorly demarcated. The furniture was disproportionately small for all the empty space she felt around her, the placement of the bathroom denied privacy. In fact, if you stood at just the right position, had eyes at just the right angle, you'd be able to observe the comings and goings of every space in the apartment.

Debbie wondered if the place was actually even designed for guests at all.

Though 'guest' might have different connotations for a shady government agency...

Debbie sighed. "At least it's quiet in here. It has great soundproofing."

So no one could hear her scream.

"Anyway, I guess I could market this place somehow. I'd go for a client with fat stacks of cash and a tendency to believe everything they see on YouTube. Or, I'd call it a deluxe suite and emphasize its privacy, sell it to a rich artist — one of those types that goes on crazy, weeks-long drug and alcohol binges to finish writing a psychedelic book or a European arthouse movie."

Debbie crossed her arms, leaned back in her seat and pursed her lips. She wracked her brain. "But if I owned this place and really, really, had to sell it to an ordinary person, I'd have some major work cut out for me. I'd knock down that wall over there — assuming it isn't structural. Put a sideboard by the door so the entrance feels a little more welcoming. Get some warmer tones for the upholstery, change that godawful lighting. Make a cozy nook in that corner with a rug and some clever room composition. Buy a few plants. And most of all, I'd redo the entire bathroom!"

She straightened and threw her hands up in exasperation. "How is it that the only place in this apartment with any semblance of stylistic direction is a bathroom that looks like a fever dream from the eighties?"

Debbie was all for creative expression and personal choice, but even she had her limits.

"That tile! There's bold, and then there's obscene. Is the GDA that strapped for cash, or is Cecil just desperate to relive his twenties?"

Debbie finished her rant with a satisfied huff before clearing her throat, a little embarrassment rising to her cheeks. Her mouth had gone dry. She'd gotten a little carried away.

"Sorry, honey. I'm sure that was a really..."

Mark's eyes were glued to her, paying rapt attention.

"...boring lecture."

The intensity was gone before she could blink.

"It's chill, mom," he said slowly. "I like hearing you express yourself. And if you really don't like anything about the place, I'm sure I could get Cecil to change it."

"No, no," she insisted. "I was just joking around. It's fine. We're only here for a few days at most, anyway. If I really need a view that badly, I'll hang a picture up."

Mark chuckled lightly. The sound was a balm to her soul.

"Would Cecil even hear you out, anyway? That guy's a real jerk."

Debbie only felt slightly bad for saying that. Her feelings regarding Cecil were a complicated mess, as they'd always been. Gratitude, for saving Mark's life. Anger and betrayal, for never telling them about Nolan. Frustration, for being so reliant on him now, in a way that went far beyond the supplemental income brought by Nolan's book money. New identities, a new home, money to support her and Mark, at least until she was settled enough to get herself a new job — something inconspicuous, so as to not blow her cover.

Maybe she was being too harsh. Debbie had to admit — over the years, she'd often directed more vitriol than was strictly necessary towards the man, his frustrating calm and smug duplicity working in perfect tandem to get under her skin. In a different life, they might've been friends — she recognized his drive, his intelligence, saw his stubbornness reflected in herself and even admired him for it in some fleeting moments. But in this life, their goals and circumstances were simply far too at odds with each other for them to ever go beyond begrudging civility.

Debbie was under no illusions. The GDA was directing most of its efforts towards keeping her safe and comfortable. Mark on his own would've realistically needed far less caution. They would justify themselves: say they cared about her, say they were just trying to preserve some measure of normalcy for her and her son. But that in itself was dual-purposed.

Because the more they gave her, the safer they kept her, the deeper they sank into Cecil's pocket.

The more leverage Cecil held over Mark.

Guilt threatened to drown her. Helplessness rose like bile in Debbie's throat. Cold fury settled in her bones at the thought of being used as a pawn in the man’s game.

Debbie had never considered herself inadequate solely on the balance of not having superpowers before. If she had, she never would've married Nolan. It would've been too big a hurdle for any relationship to get over.

But now, she couldn't help but think — if she'd had super strength too, or invulnerability, or if she'd been a Viltrumite herself...

No, this was stupid. No more pointless what-ifs.

Debbie just hoped this all blew over as soon as possible.

Mark's words toyed between playful and flippant. "I'm sure I could get him to listen to me somehow…”

He inched closer with a yawn, folded his arms and rested them onto her knees. Laid his head down and closed his eyes. Not even a minute later, Mark's breathing evened out and he was drifting away.

Debbie’s mouth dropped open.

Mark was filthy. Dirt and debris coated his supersuit, dried blood flaked off his skin like cheap paint. Debbie felt a sweaty stickiness settling over her bare knees where Mark dozed. Not ten minutes from now, the arthritis plaguing her since early adulthood would soon force an ache into her joints.

But Debbie was too grateful to care. Mark was cagey recently in a way that reminded her very painfully of Nolan in their early days. Afraid of his own strength, reluctant to touch her, worrying she would shatter into tiny bits and pieces if he so much as looked at her too hard. Debbie cherished the warmth radiating off his skin, the gentle puffs of breath tickling her knees as his chest rose and fell.

Mark's strength didn't scare her. Neither had Nolan's, not truly, not even when she found out. Debbie saw the same silent question reflected in everyone's eyes all the time: Cecil, Donald, every member of the GDA she'd ever had the misfortune of meeting over the years, with perhaps the exception of that eccentric xenobiologist, who probably didn't have much of a self-preservation instinct himself.

How was she not afraid?

Intellectually, Debbie knew she should've been terrified. Though the imagery was unthinkable, Mark could crush her head like a grape. He wouldn't ever do it, nor would he want to — but it was just a solid fact. A primal part of her would always be aware of that power differential.

But she'd grown him in her belly. Felt that seed of life sprout and blossom in her womb, cherished his every kick and sensed beyond words when his precious little soul slipped from the aether and settled into his unborn body. Felt mortal terror clench her heart when she’d nearly lost him so close to his becoming. She'd given birth to him: painfully, joyfully, as her muscles tore and sundered. Raised him with all the love Debbie could muster, pushed past her personal demons to give Mark a childhood devoid of all the needless complexity that burdened her earliest memories. And what a fine young man he'd grown into — bold, compassionate, unapologetically defiant.

Besides, the strength Mark carried now was simply a natural, if exponential continuation of the power he'd wielded over her since he'd first hit puberty. Debbie stopped being able to outrun him when he was ten. He towered over her at thirteen. At fourteen, he was opening the pickle jars, carrying the heaviest grocery bags, fetching items from the top shelf, that is, when Nolan hadn't been around to do it for her himself. A million, million mothers all around the world went through a version of what she did. It was a simple byproduct of being mother to a teenage boy.

Extrapolating further, it was the reality of growing old. Her knees would continue to weaken, her vision and mind would grow feeble. And soon, she would have to trust someone else to do everything for her, everything she'd once taken for granted in her youth. Everything she'd done for dear Oliver Grayson, when the man's hair grew white, his faculties faded, and his time ultimately came, everything she'd never gotten to do for Oh Mi-sook, whom Debbie loved as a pink hibiscus turning towards the sun — compelled by nature, chained by filial duty, scorched and blinded and perishingly cold when she died with a whisper one fine summer morning. Small hands grasping at her long skirts, those same hands larger, balled into fists and waved like curses when adolescent rage grew Debbie's voice to a volume her mother had no choice but to finally hear.

She ran her fingers through Mark's hair, carding through powdered debris and the faint oiliness of sweat.

Then she froze, hardly daring to breathe.

The sound built slowly, first like a soft, distant motor, then rising to a gentle vibration that Debbie felt in her lap.

It was coming from Mark.

He was purring like a cat, still fast asleep.

Debbie didn't know what to make of it. So many things had changed for them in just two months, and for Mark, this had to be the starkest of them yet. An alien biology. A second puberty. A different sex?

Rage stabbed her again, at Nolan, for leaving Mark so in the dark about yet another thing.

He'd told her in such a small voice, about the changes happening to his body, when he'd first learned, and updated her later, when his appointments continued. Light on the details, but she could fill in the blanks. Debbie tried asking for more, but Mark barely wanted to say anything in the first place, let alone have a full-blown discussion with her. For Mark's own sake, Debbie hoped he was meeting his friends soon — maybe talking to someone his own age would be easier.

Locked in place by her son’s warmth and the deep exhaustion making a home in her bones, Debbie felt her eyelids growing heavy.

Awash with fresh revelations, one windy evening a couple weeks back. A freak storm setting in so quickly there wasn't even a weather warning to tip anyone off. Heavy rain clouds stirred the heavens and thunder rolled in the distance like a tiger's growl. Streetlamps swayed and wind howled through the trees, fallen leaves and other debris buffeted their windows. Debbie rushed outside before the incoming torrent could drench the clothes hanging on the washing line, silky work tops and lace underwear and Mark's wool sweater. In her haste, she'd forgotten her slippers.

Debbie gathered a basket and unclipped the garments with quick, hurried movements as water struck her head like bullets and seeped cold into her core. She sneezed and worked her arms faster, yelping when a strong gale jerked her sideways and knocked her hair loose. One of her favorite blouses went fluttering in the wind and sailing over the fence.

A sudden snap of motion followed by a gust blasting by her, and all the clean washing appeared in her basket. Debbie's blouse was snatched out of the air before it could cross into their neighbor's yard. She'd barely blinked.

"Come on, mom," Mark urged, tugging her along by a sleeve.

Her bare feet trudged mud onto their back porch.

Mark slipped his cowl off and wrung it dry over Debbie's prized flower beds. Removed his earpiece and placed it on the wooden boards. Droplets flung out in arcs over her zinnias, the delicate stems of her alliums bent low with rain. She sighed. Soon, the entire backyard would flood over and drown her summer efforts.

Mark was completely soaked — not just with water but also a strange orange goo covering his supersuit.

"Giant amoeba terrorizing one of the Great Lakes," he explained at her questioning look. "This isn't even the worst part. I think I swallowed like a gallon of this stuff when I flew through it. Didn't taste great."

Debbie blanched.

Mark sat down beside her on the steps as Debbie washed the mud off her soles with rainwater.

"Thanks for the help, sweetie."

Mark cracked a smile. "Don't mention — "

Lightning split the sky in two, casting long shadows across the garden. Debbie winced when a deafening crash of thunder sounded above their heads. She heard the click of a switch before the entire neighborhood plunged into darkness.

Debbie scrambled upright. "Help me unplug the TV. I'll go get the flashlights. I'm sure they've got working batteries, but if they don't we've got loads of candles, I — Mark?"

Her son stared upwards. He took careful steps into the center of their lawn, uncaring of the wind and deluge surging around him. He stopped. Kept his knees and spine bent in a tight crouch, fingers curled into claws. Air tore at Mark's face with violent urgency, whipping his hair into wild tangles. He craned his head to the side and kept his dark eyes trained on a far point in the distance, never blinking once.

"Honey, get inside!"

Another bolt of lightning ruptured the sky.

Mark broke from the Earth in one vicious stab of motion too quick for Debbie to catch, shattering the ground beneath his feet. He was skyborne in an instant, shooting into the storm with nary a glance back, raw power propelling his limbs forward and something else completely stealing the reason from his eyes.

"Mark!" Debbie yelled, the sound lost to the wind.

She ran to the far end of the garden, through the unrelenting sheets of rain, trying to see where he was going.

He was moving so fast, barely a blur as he weaved in and out of the thunderstorm. Jagged white lines erupted in arcs around him and thunder boomed again. Debbie screamed as a savage vein of lightning jolted through the clouds and struck home on the closest moving target.

Her eyelids shut of their own volition and terror slammed into her bones. When she opened them again, Mark was already fast at work, circling the chaos in a lawless, eccentric orbit. He cut through the middle with increasing frequency, in and out of her view. Then he dove into the tempest one final time and didn't emerge for a dreadful thirty seconds.

Debbie's hands cupped her open mouth, holding the fear inside. She tried talking herself down. Mark was a Viltrumite, like his dad, and Nolan used to shrug off lightning all the time. Lots of flyers felt a deep affinity with the sky, loving its clear days and uncontrollable rage alike. Many sought the adrenaline rush — she'd heard stories of heroes taking a casual spin through tornadoes after civilian evacuations like the extreme version of a high-speed rollercoaster.

Lightning had already struck Mark once, and he was fine. He would survive.

Deep in the maw of divine wrath made manifest, Mark Grayson felt the cold fire crackle and dance across his skin. It speared him first with a flash of blinding light, followed by a delicious, ionizing heat, leaving behind the cloying scent of ozone. He took a second to savor the feeling as it travelled from the top of his head and down his spine, searing his core. Mark's muscles spasmed once, then again before he went sailing over the peak and the fury stole itself away. The aftereffect was a faint buzz in the superficial veins of his fingers and the red hiss of skin.

Lightning rarely struck the same place twice, so Mark expanded the reach of his senses, connected with the electromagnetism inherent to the turbulence stirring his blood and focussed . Concentrated hard on the air currents, feeling for the icy swish of an updraft, the tempting pull of a downdraft. Felt positive and negative charges gather and segregate, up into the anvil and down the base.

There!

Mark pivoted on several points of his body in quick succession — his left shoulder, right knee, then the tip of his big toe. Viltrumites created their own lift, and while it was initially much more intuitive to use his hips and feet as turning points, time had turned a set of seemingly perplexing physical maneuvers into natural inclination. He still had a long way to go, but soon Mark would learn to use the potential energy stored in his cells to cut sharper angles, create greater thrust, ignite more power than he ever thought himself capable of. And while the larger joints in his body still held sway over Mark's aerial dexterity, that would not last.

Flight was a demanding lover, a dance that called for his entire substance — it would tolerate indolence as hellfire coddled a sinner. For him to truly come into his own, Mark would learn to balance air pressure on his pinky finger, amputate drag from his physical lexicon, wield torque like a mace and centripetal force a heavenly discus. He would master the art of generating spontaneous angular momentum and blinding acceleration from the thin filaments making up his most obscure sarcomeres and use the kinetic energy to propel himself towards oblivion.

But he was far from a master today.

Lightning streaked past him before he could catch it, forking into threes and hitting the ground with deadly precision.

Mark swore.

Breaking the sound barrier was one thing, but hoping for the white eruptive fire or pinpoint accuracy of a mature Viltrumite to reach him so soon was a fool's errand. Imagine expecting a clumsy toddler to pirouette on their cheekbone and blast off the floor with a flick of their eyebrow to catch a lone bee moving at light speed. Impossible, right?

It didn't make his frustration any easier to deal with. 

Gravity remained a worthy adversary. It didn't own him like it did before, but Mark still played within its sandbox, bound through existence by one of the four fundamental forces of the universe. His body's limitations were ultimately justifiable — youth, poor skill, poorer instruction. And physical reality itself would always remain the true glass ceiling, though he would push against it. (Unless...)

The mental restrictions, though, were far less acceptable, even if well-explained.

Firstly — to some extent, Mark's imagination still abided by the conventions of a grounded species, a consequence of spending the first seventeen years of his life bound by a mere two spatial dimensions. The rigidity kept up and down as concepts he still had to consciously enact, even if on the surface he showed no hesitation, and he was nowhere near to comprehending the relativistic movement integral to true deep space travel. What was direction, without gravity as a reference point? How could he possibly reason his location when all celestial bodies were moving apart in relation to each other?

The second reason was far more infuriating. Mark was haplessly descended from a long line of mammals native to Earth, cursing him with an old, particular instinct. An innate aversion buried deep in his amygdala. One key to the survival of innumerable terrestrial species — himself included, before his powers kicked in. But now, it was another maddening obstacle, one he would have to pull out by the root. Irritating as all hell.

A fear of falling.

It was very, very subtle. Only another Viltrumite would be able to identify it for what it was.

Imperceivable to the naked eye. On a high-speed camera, it would barely appear at all — a clenched jaw lasting a fraction of a millisecond, the slight widening of eyes behind his goggles. He'd only lost control and crashed into the ground during the first couple weeks of him getting his powers. He outpaced and outmaneuvered virtually every flyer on Earth. His abilities were more than good enough for a human.

But for this?

Mark growled as another bolt of lightning swung past before he could make a dive for it.

So, catching the cloud-to-ground wasn't going to be likely, at least not while midair. Up and down were still too new on his utility belt to be used against the juggernaut he was playing with.

Mark worked with what he had. Lightning mostly lurked within the clouds. He spread his senses across the two-dimensional plane and waited for the charges to polarize again. Wind battered his face and excitement grew when he felt soft hail rising to the top.

He was ready this time.

Mark flung himself forward — the bolt crashed into him and lit up the entire stormcloud. Unrelenting electrical energy rippled over his skin, seeped into his muscles and heated his blood. He drank in the shock, felt a phantom rise in his stomach and reach the tips of his ears as the current disrupted his action potentials and left him gasping from the thrill. He nearly dropped out of the sky, but held on due to sheer greed.

He chased the next one like a mad dog, tearing through the clouds ten miles at a time. Away and away he went, cold cutting his cheeks, graupel nesting in his hair as a powdery crown. The invisible flow of electrons acting as a guiding light, anticipation driving his reflexes to spring faster. Caught in a cycle — wetness gathered on his forehead and between his thighs, lightning struck and vaporized the moisture, the combined torrent of the storm and his own bodily fluids drenched him again.

Back on the ground, panic hammered Debbie sideways. She narrowly missed being taken off her feet by a plastic lawn chair, then by the patio umbrella that came flying after it. Wind whipped her hickory trees into a frenzy, rain flattened her rose bushes, roof tiles from neighboring houses threatened to slip off and hurtle towards her skull.

Debbie shielded her eyes when the sky whitened with a blinding flash. A familiar explosion rang out, then another, and Debbie's eyes snapped open just in time to see Mark jetting off into the distance, in hot pursuit of the storm.

She ran inside and fumbled for her phone, praying the communication lines were still up.

He picked up instantly.

"Cecil, it's Debbie. Mark's gone flying into the storm — "

"I know."

How did he know so fast, it'd barely been a minute —

"I-It was so sudden," she blurted stupidly. "He didn't even hear me. Just took off, a-and,” A swallow. “I can't follow. Please, I know you have — have drones on him somewhere, just please let me know he's okay."

Debbie hated asking Cecil for anything, but she loved Mark more than she did her pride. Thankfully, the man made no snide remarks.

"We're tracking his movements as we speak. Luckily for us, he's on a predictable course. I'll keep you updated. Just stay inside and hunker down. You got a working flashlight?"

It wasn't enough.

He wasn't enough.

The first time had been luck. The second was earned, if barely. The rest after that?

Who could even say.

He knew his wins weren't much to write home about. His speed was inadequate, his skin was too soft, his muscles lacked the density to generate enough tension or push.

Still, he tried.

Mark forced himself to work harder — accelerated his synapses on the neural highway, coerced the chains making up his muscle fibres to bind and unbind with greater power and frequency, catalyzed energy from his slumbering atoms. The sordid mix of pain-pleasure was a strong motivator, but connection remained the true goal.

Lightning surged into him once again, spreading out in a wide sheet and disappearing in an instant. Smoke rose from the fabric of his suit, his hair buzzed with static. It should've felt great.

Mark scanned the sky and saw nothing. Spun around in an easy backflip and hovered on the tip of his nose.

It felt like...less, this time.

Physically invigorating, emotionally...empty.

How many was that now, six?

Mark flew into the eye of the storm. Past the punishing wall of wind and ice and water, the cool air held him still, took his hand and pulled him into the oasis with a wet kiss on his palm and a tender ruffle of his hair. He floated into the center of the lull and watched the heavenly comings and goings with placid eyes. Held his breath, waiting.

For what?

For someone. Anyone.

Expecting praise, encouragement, disdain, critique, competitive score-keeping, interest, courtship — platonic or otherwise. All to come circling around him like the lively ribbons of a Maypole, like the death throes of an ant mill, full of color and ruinous passion. He longed for a challenge, a fight, a hellish dance, the most excruciating paternal admonishment.

But the hurricane was dead. There would be no communion here. No confluence of ideas, no exchanges of tribute, no shared sweetmeats between them.

Seas of howling wind battered his thoughts like pebbles, gravelly ice smoothed the edges, and monumental pressure — invented, because none of such magnitude existed on Earth, save for the expectation resting on his shoulders — crystalized Mark's feelings into a single glittering lattice of mental diamond. 

I am so lonely.

Welcome, something said, followed by I’m sorry, from its cousin.

One last desperate stab for kinship.

Rising from his throat, thready and ghostlike — a mournful siren’s wail, equal parts invitation and command. A hopeful question, a trembling plea. In the right crowd, the insistence would’ve spread like wildfire even without him being in season, puncturing logic and bending sense to his will; the need would’ve brought suitors to supplication, each offering hymns and precious gems and savage bounty at his bare feet.

No response came.

A pillar of silence rose to meet him instead, flaming and radiant, without start or end.

Unexplainable sorrow hung his shoulders low with weight, clouded his head and forced his fingernails to dig jagged lines into his palms.

Was this how dad felt? Was this why he chose Viltrum over everything he’d built here?

A glimmer of metal caught his eye, swirling round and round in the walls of the wind tunnel. To Mark’s unfocussed vision, the object elongated and smeared across the moment, coiling around him like a thin, silver serpent.

Mark narrowed his eyes. Then recognition hit him like a brick, and he groaned.

Oh, come on. Seriously? Now?

The little thing seemed to make a daring move, maneuvering a delicate wing and swerving inwards. But before it could, one of its rudders snapped and it went hurtling off on a tangent.

Or it was meant to, anyway.

Mark directed a sharp stream of air from his lips in a piercing whistle. The burst caught the drone at just the right angle and it spun towards him like a curved bullet. Mark plucked it out of the air one-handed before it could go bowling out the other end of the vortex, stared into the camera, and rolled his eyes.

Urgh, why did he do that? Out of pity?

Pity was a dangerous thing for a Viltrumite to foster.

It blinked red once and unfurled its secondary wings. Mark snatched his hand away as soon as the drone righted itself into a hover.

Mark levelled the camera with a glare.

“What are you doing here, Cecil? I just got back from a mission, like hell am I going on another! Can’t you see I’m in the middle of something?”

The middle of what? Moping around? Feeling sorry for himself?

Urgh.

(Distantly, Mark reminded himself. He was the one who asked Cecil to put him back on the job. To prove himself, to show the world he wasn't like his dad. Refusing a mission when summoned ran counterintuitive to that goal. If Cecil told him to go on a mission, he would have to do it, lest the world turned its opinion against him.

So why this pointless back and forth?)

Cecil’s voice rang metallic and tinny over the drone’s speaker.

“I could ask you the exact same thing, kid. This ain’t a rodeo. Get the hell out of this storm and go the hell home.”

Mark threw his hands up. “It’s not that bad. The wind’s barely a hundred miles an hour.”

The silence on the other end felt like a scolding. It could’ve just been a poor connection, but Mark wanted to argue. His hackles rose — Cecil had been hounding him like hell lately.

“Get off my case! Plenty of heroes fly into storms, it’s not a big deal!”

He couldn’t actually name anyone besides his dad who might’ve done it on the regular, but he’d heard stories.

“Plenty of heroes top themselves by thirty, too. You wanna tell me why you’ve been chasing lightning like a dog trying to catch the mailman? Wanna get something off your chest?”

A complicated feeling stirred in Mark’s gut.

At his non-response, Cecil said, “Kid, if you need to talk to someone…”

“It’s not like that,” he said quickly. Life had yet to drag him so low. (Yet). “It’s nothing.”

“So you let yourself get struck by lightning six times. For nothing.”

God, when Cecil phrased it like that, he made Mark sound even more pathetic. Was six not enough? Did he have to go find a high point in a forest somewhere?

Would that be cheating?

“...Yeah?”

Did that make him sound crazy?

Cecil grumbled on the end of the line. “Next time, just ask — I’ll have the boys hook you up to a car battery. You can stay home and lick that instead.”

Heat rose to his cheeks.

“Plenty of heroes get struck by lightning,” Mark refuted, just making it up now. “It happens all the time.”

“Really? Name one person.”

Mark fumbled for an intelligent response.

“Well...I…”

Cecil scoffed. “Thought so.”

Mark’s temper flared. “Jesus, leave me alone, alright? I’m fine . Just because I couldn’t cite a case study doesn’t mean I’m the first person to ever get fried by a lightning bolt. Quit acting like it’s a special circumstance.”

“You’re right,” Cecil conceded. “It does happen, usually on very specific missions involving a weather manipulator.”

Mark’s ears perked up. He almost made a gesture as if to say, see?

“But none of my heroes — not even the most unhinged bastards on my roster — go out hunting for multiple intimate run-ins with Thor’s hammer just because they’re bored . Seriously, even Throwbolt would be dead ten times over by now, and the Immortal would be in a coma.”

Oh.

“Only you could pick a fight with a thunderstorm and win.” There was a sigh. “Are you even in pain right now?”

Mark wiggled his fingers. “My thumb’s a little tingly.”

It would be back to normal in a few minutes.

He studied his forearms.

“And I think I’ve got a sunburn. Some blisters, too.”

The rain stung his wounds.

Mark could practically feel Cecil’s eye-roll. “You really are something special, kid.”

Mark said nothing. He still got the sense that he was missing something important, but the ache in his chest did ease slightly.

“Now will you please go home? You took off without saying a word. Your mom’s worried sick.”

Mark gritted his teeth as guilt poked holes in his skin.

“Fine.”

He readied himself to shoot through the tempest.

“Hey!”

Mark turned his head.

“You mind taking this thing back with you? It cost a hell of a lotta money.”

The drone whirred in place and flickered a red light, expectant.

For a second, Mark just stared. He considered swatting the thing away and letting the storm decide its fate, he thought about leaving it where it hovered until it ran out of charge or whatever and plummeted to the ground. After all, what was a few thousand dollars more, compared to the damage he’d already wrought?

The stupid little thing widened the aperture of its camera and buzzed a tune. It didn’t need to look so…cute.

Mark extended a hand, not looking at it.

The drone settled in his palm like a spherical metal bird.

“Thanks, kid.”

It smelled like industrial copper and foolish persistence. Mark cradled the drone against his chest, coiled his body like a spring, and set his sights forward.

“Whatever.”

He cut through the blistering wind like a hot knife through butter. The intricate circuitry of the drone made it shiver with fine vibrations, the subtle heat it generated was a small comfort to his solitude. He wondered how the thing managed to even get so close to him in the first place without getting annihilated by the storm; he wondered if the remains of its fallen siblings were scattered somewhere below his feet.

When Mark reached the other side, the sky was still mid-tantrum. A massive tree branch shot towards him, he tilted his body to shield the drone and it bounced off his back harmlessly.

Huh.

He hadn’t realized he’d flown this far.

All around him, a sea of conifers blanketed the hills, pines and hemlocks and towering redwood spires rolling up and down with the land. No houses in sight, no tarmac roads. Ugly bald patches littered the terrain where trees were uprooted by the wind, spilling red soil over the moss carpets like blood. A huge white-capped mountain lumbered in the distance, its visage mirrored blurrily in a weather-disturbed lake sitting prettily by its feet. 

Mark picked a direction and started flying.

The drone slipped from his grip and glided swiftly to his ear.

“Do you have any idea where you’re going?”

It was harder to hear Cecil now, but he got the gist.

“Of course I know where I’m going!”

Mark had no idea where he was going. He didn’t even know where he was.

“What state do you think we’re in?”

“...Arkansas?”

There was a beat of silence.

“How did you manage to graduate high school, again?”

Before Mark could fire back, Cecil gave a disbelieving sigh.

“Just shut up and follow.”

The drone blinked red and zipped ahead, keeping low to the ground. It flew steadily without the gale force battering it like before. Mark’s hindbrain couldn’t decide if this was conventional or not, but the rest of him was honestly too tired to care.

Because as condescending as this whole routine was, Mark was secretly grateful. Following Cecil directly would definitely shave the fat off his journey, get him back while the hour was still decent. So Mark trailed behind as Cecil led him home, soul burned raw and heart aching, ten miles at a time.

Not too long from now, in the damp locker room of Guardians HQ, half of Mark’s instincts would recognize Cecil as the man who answered his call and delivered him back to the warm safety of his mother’s arms. Mark would tentatively accept his unknowing courtship, even as the other half of his baser inclinations screamed in protest at the sheer wrongness of the match and the blatant deceit buried deep in the essence of Cecil’s character.

Higher function would play a beleaguered mediator from the small crevices from which it was allowed to take root.

And many, many years later, even past the death and renewal of countless vainglorious civilizations and pale, transient ecosystems, Mark would picture the journey home clear as day. Darkened skies and a pulsing red beacon. Polar charges dancing on his fingertips and not a star in sight for miles. Cecil’s half-fond sarcasm streaming in the wind, Mark, arguing every step of the way, young and naive and entirely too trusting of the crudely forged solace blooming hot under his ribs.

Debbie counted the minutes. Checked her phone. Took a sip of wine. Lit a few more candles around the kitchen and checked her phone again.

This was ridiculous. She’d been the wife of Omni-Man; she was the mother of Invincible. Sudden goodbyes were hardly anything new. It was the name of the game.

But this felt like something else.

Debbie counted the minutes. Checked her phone. Took a sip of wine. Ran out of candles to light. Checked her phone —

A single ring.

She answered immediately.

“Mark’s inbound. Don’t rush out to meet him, it’s too — “

Debbie flung the back door open and sprinted through the gale as Mark came back to her. He landed on the steps of their back porch, descent tranquil and undisturbed, even as the wind lashed his locks into a riot and houses trembled around her. His supersuit was in tatters — blackened and ashen, exposing large swathes of reddened skin across his chest and back. A spherical drone whizzed past them, Mark tracked its movements until it flew out of sight.

He stepped into her space and placed his hands on her shoulders, solid against the storm.

“I’m sorry for leaving!” he shouted. “I love you!”

Debbie threw her arms around him, pulse hammering wildly.

“I love you too! I’m so glad you’re okay, now let’s get inside!”

Mark twitched.

The danger was too quick for her to catch. In a split second, Debbie was sent flying by a rough shove on the sternum from Mark. A great flash of light scoured the area and the heavens shot an arrow of lightning straight through her son’s skull with a snap and a boom like a close-range gunshot , whitening her vision and deafening her ears. For the second time that evening, Debbie screamed, even though she should’ve known better than to doubt — the shrill noise spearing through the air with sick, maternal anguish. 

Not long after, Debbie would come to process this moment with sobering clarity — she’d evaded death by a mere hair’s breadth. Spared from injury by virtue of being airborne as the cruel ground current surged beneath her, and that Mark had been the one to save her life.

Debbie’s back slammed against the patio door with enough force to rattle it on its hinges. It was a miracle it didn't shatter. When she opened her eyes, Mark had his arms wrapped around himself, one hand covering his mouth. His lids were jammed shut and tremors ran through his hunched body.

Concern dug its claws in. She fought through the pain and tried to sit up.

“Honey, are you oka — “

A sound escaped from Mark’s lips.

She froze.

Did Mark just —

The sound stretched with obscene gall, low and gasping and needy.

— moan?

Bewilderment overtook her, then alien confusion, then sympathy for the inevitable embarrassment to come.

True to form, Mark’s eyes snapped open and spun to her, wide and terrified. The whites of his eyes drowned his blown pupils. For a moment, the two of them just stared at one another, each trying to think of what to say.

Then the tempest dragged them back to reality.

A lightning bolt speared her white oak with ill-concealed contempt and split it down the middle.

Debbie flared her hands up with a panicked yelp. Mark scooped her up in his arms and flew them to safety before another thought could pass.

“Are you okay?” he asked, laying her on the couch.

“Yeah,” she replied in a long exhale.

Dull pain pressed thumbs into her lower spine and she hissed.

A blur of motion.

Two Tylenols landed in her palm. Mark held out a glass of water.

She accepted it with a small smile.

“Thank you, sweetie.”

“I’m going upstairs.”

Tone clipped. Eyes flickered aside. Shame dripped from his tone.

“Let me know if you need anything else.”

He was moving too fast for her to catch up.

“Mark, wait, we can talk about it — “

His door slammed shut.

Well past the hours of decency, Debbie would find her son sitting on the same patio steps in fresh clothes. She'd been sleeping lightly, when something pulled on her consciousness and told her to wake up. The wind still blew, but the larger storm was pacified, its fangs blunted and temper cooled. The clouds parted like the pages of a well-worn book to reveal an enigmatic half-moon.

Mark had his head angled upwards. He stared at it, serene detachment veiling his eyes like spirit-water.

Debbie shifted to the glass screen overlooking their yard, heart with no motion at all.

She studied him closer, plotting the direction of his gaze with motherly intuition and a growing pit in her stomach. A white cotton shirt hung over the slope of his shoulders. Hands clasped loosely over his knees, spine arched forward as his eyes held quiet and steady.

The realization struck her like a drop from a great height.

Mark wasn’t looking at the moon.

He was looking past it.

Debbie swung the sliding glass door open so hard it bounced off its hinges and nearly smacked her in the face. Her son turned sharply to look at her.

A wall of eerie blankness rose behind his eyes.

Debbie steeled herself.

“Mark, please come in,” she said softly. “It’s late, and you need to go to bed.”

“I’m not sleepy,” he said in a velvety tone, turning away from her again. “I’ll be fine.”

“No, honey.” She approached him with even steps, placing a palm on his shoulder. “I need you back in the house. Let me take a look at those burns of yours.”

“I’m not going,” he said stubbornly, shaking his head. Unblinking eyes trained on the dark space between the stars. “I like it here. I don’t wanna leave.”

Desperate fury struck Debbie like a pit viper. It sank its teeth into her veins, drove its venom deep, possessed her to say words she’d thought buried long ago with the small woman who’d uttered them first.

“I am your mother and you’ll listen to me. Get in the house, now! ”

Mark went very still.

Then slowly, building like the tide, he rose to his full height, face cloaked in shadow. Mark took one step, then another, till they were on even ground.

At six feet tall, he towered over her. As a Viltrumite, he could snap her bones like twigs.

Mark spread his hands, palms up, looking down at her with cold challenge.

“Make me.”

But as her son, all he managed was to break her heart.

Tears welled in Debbie’s eyes. A conversation just like this, under the same night sky, several months prior. She’d felt so in control then, so sure of herself, so certain that Mark would ultimately heed her words, even if he protested to start.

But things had changed since then. Nolan left. Mark was different .

His abilities. His behavior. Subtle little alterations here and there; things Debbie wasn’t sure Mark was even aware of.

She’d been in hopeless denial, arms crossed as she answered question after question posited by Cecil’s scientists. That yes, Nolan, for all that she could see, had been almost indistinguishable from human, save for his world-ending strength and ability to fly. A man prone at times to brooding and sullen silences, reluctant to talk about his feelings and worse still about his past. Early on in their relationship, he’d disappeared for an entire week once without any warning, leading them to their first real fight. Had Nolan’s odd behavior been an obstacle in their relationship? Of course.

But Debbie had suffered the same ills from the war-torn psyche of Oliver Grayson, a man with whom she shared no common interests but loved anyway till the day he died. She’d endured him, as he her, and when she’d grown old enough to find her own life partner Debbie took all the lessons he taught her and carried them over the marriage threshold with Eomma’ s gold and the hahm gifted to her on Nolan’s behalf by the then-living Guardians of the Globe.

So Debbie never minded Nolan’s strange moods, or his unfamiliarity with the local culture, or his strong aversion towards talking about where he really came from . Not when she’d seen the first from both her fathers, the second from her mother, and the third from herself. She’d seen the earnestness with which Nolan tried for her sake, and it had melted her heart as snow was meant to do under summer rays. She’d loved him so much, and Debbie thought he loved her — so when her husband saw fit to kill that rotten dream with his own two hands, choosing imperial duty over goodness and grace, a small part of her withered up and died along with it.

Still, she picked up the pieces of her soul, slowly, carefully, those tiny little beads of glass, because she couldn’t afford to not pull herself back together.

Because she still had Mark.

Mark, whom Debbie loved like the end of a rainbow. Mark, whom Nolan saw fit to abuse. Mark, who fought back against the love for his father to champion justice and the sanctity of human life. Her only son. Her precious boy.

And he needed her.

But Debbie didn’t know how to help him.

He stood right in front of her now, close enough to feel the heat radiating off his burnt skin, but he couldn’t have felt further away.

Tears spilled down Debbie’s cheeks; she’d had a talk like this with him before, but this wasn’t that, not really — the both of them hadn’t been so raw then, so split apart by lies and murder. This crawled down her gullet and ate her from the inside, digging up the most delicate of insecurities.

“I can’t make you,” she told him honestly. “I’m not strong enough.”

Too weak to tie him down, too weak to let him go.

Mark stiffened. Hands dropped to his sides.

“I can’t make you come with me,” Debbie admitted through the terrible pain. “You have to choose.”

Mark reeled back as she cried, blinking rapidly. Was he truly so repulsed by her?

Debbie wiped her nose with a sleeve and covered her face with both hands. How did she let herself become this way? Parental clinginess had been the bane of her independence, the main source of ire between her and Oh Mi-sook. She couldn’t let the same poison take her wine now. Debbie, fourteen years old and talking back for the first time. Eomma 's tearful face and the wild cut of her moving arms as she screamed in harsh Korean, You'll know when you have children of your own.

Of all the things for her mother to be correct about, why did it have to be this?

Then, gentle as a water lily, his neck against hers. Nose nuzzled into her hair, hands braced awkwardly on her elbows. An alien half-comfort, but Debbie didn’t care.

She flung herself that last desperate inch forward and snapped her human arms around the unstoppable force of her son, trying to hold him there with the immovable object of her love. Debbie allowed herself one small weakness, one whisper of please don’t go hidden in the confines of her mind.

“I didn’t mean to make you cry,” Mark rasped, sounding a bit more like himself. Uncertain, with slowly brewing horror. “I thought I was — “ He hesitated. “I don’t know what came over me. I’m sorry. I love you.”

Debbie dragged him inside without another word, throat too choked with tears to speak. He went willingly, a dandelion seed caught in a breeze.

“I love you too,” Debbie replied, when her vocal cords allowed it. “I love you so, so, much.”

Mark seemed taken aback. Her heart ached to see it.

The power was still out. It wouldn’t be back until noon. She rifled through her kitchen cabinets, looking for supplies, orange candlelight flickering and head throbbing as she searched. The layout of her own home was familiar to her, but in the darkness everything looked different — and one cabinet stared back at her with no door, gaping like an unfilled grave.

Debbie found gauze and aloe vera gel and disinfectant. She placed them on the breakfast bar, made Mark sit by it, and went to work on his wounds.

He held her phone’s flashlight up. First and second-degree burns covered him, redness and fluid-filled blisters and the odd white patch. An intricate pattern of electricity itself traced morbid beauty over the unruined tracks of his skin.

“Don’t pop the blisters,” she reminded him. “It’ll only make it harder to heal. And make sure you drink lots of fluids.”

“Okay,” he said, as if they wouldn’t be gone in less than a day.

In the morning — the proper morning, the one filled with light and love instead of dark spirals and bitter regrets — Debbie would bend down in the flooded remains of her back garden. Garbage, debris, and lost property littered the grass. The middle of her lawn like a cracked spider’s web where Mark had pushed off his feet and into the sky. Her trees, bent and split. All the flowers, buried alive, stems broken, petals in tatters.

Debbie gathered the trash first: she organized some of the larger items in a pile, picked up the garbage can from where it’d fallen over. Mark came out to meet her with a kiss on her temple, bearing a black bag. He stopped her from picking up the broken glass, fingers clutching the sleeve of her top.

“I can be done in a minute,” he offered, already vibrating with energy. “None of the neighbors are watching.”

Debbie laid a hand over his knuckles.

“Let’s take our time,” she said instead. “We have all day.”

Debbie had no way of knowing that. At any moment, Mark could be called away again to save the world. He could’ve been summoned forth by a power deeper than she could ever know. But she wanted to believe.

Mark listened. He tidied the yard, walking from item to item, one step at a time.

Debbie dug through the remains of her marigolds, pruned the struggling branches of her rhododendrons, fought to save the last of her sunflowers. She pulled four cigarette butts from the soil beds and tossed them in Mark’s trash bag.

A little later from now, Debbie would spot new sprouts dotted around the yard, seeds blown in from the storm several days before. She would take note of the hardiest plants to survive the ill weather, look up a list of species native to the land, and get an idea of how to move forward. 

And Mark would be there. He would help her stir the soil, move the pots, and sink the fresh roots deep. 

When Debbie woke up, it was to the clatter of kitchen cabinets and a delicious smell. She didn’t remember falling asleep. Her throat was dry, her back stiff. Still groggy, she tried to stand, but true to form, her knees were already launching a fervent protest. She landed back on the couch with a grunt. Her head was spinning, had she not drank enough?

There was a blanket draped over her.

“ — ark?” she croaked.

A glass of water was in her hands instantly.

“Sorry I didn’t put you to bed. I didn’t wanna move you.”

Debbie gulped down greedily and rubbed the sleep from her eyes. 

When her vision finally focussed, Mark was zipping around the kitchen in clean clothes, putting groceries in the cabinets and fridge. A kettle sat on the induction stove. He’d fished out a bowl and piled it high with fruit, yellow bananas and sweet golden pears and ripe pomegranates and shiny, red apples.

A blur of motion, and he was beside her, then kneeling by her feet again. Mark balanced a plate of cut fruit in Debbie’s lap with a smile.

Debbie wasn’t hungry in the slightest. But she lifted a slice of apple to her lips and bit down, the crisp tartness giving her one final welcome to the waking world.

“Oh,” she said, with pleasant surprise. “You got the good ones.”

They might’ve been well-off now, but old habits died hard. Though she enjoyed her small luxuries, Debbie still mostly shopped at the cheaper grocery stores and bought in bulk. She’d focussed on storing money away for Mark’s college fund, a fund he would now not be able to use. When dinner called for more niche ingredients, Nolan would fly around the world to pick them up fresh from the source, where they would usually cost less anyway. Italian pasta, German bratwurst, galangal from Thailand and lotus root from a muddy farm deep in the heart of the Korean peninsula. He dealt in cash, because leaving a string of bank transactions from all over the world in the span of twenty minutes was a surefire way to blow his cover, and because he never wanted to accept a credit card from the GDA.

Debbie now understood why, in more ways than one.

Mark whipped out a sleek bank card, silver with minimal design. In small raised letters, her new alias — Sandra Park.

“It’s on Cecil. Might as well make good use of it.”

They would have no choice but to.

Debbie squashed the dread down. She was tired of brooding. 

An idea came to mind. She leaned forward, braced her hands on the couch and flashed her son a devious smile.

“Let’s rack up a huge bill.”

Something twinkled in his eyes, and Mark grinned right back. There were two sharp points in his mouth.

“I’ll buy a toilet seat made of twenty-four karat gold.”

“ — and encrusted with diamonds,” she made sure to add. “I want a fridge-freezer by Dolce and Gabbana and designer ice cubes to put in it, crystal-cut and perfectly refined to bring aesthetic to any drink,” Debbie finished in a put-on voice.

“I could get a giant trampoline,” Mark said with boyish whimsy.

“Go big or go home, sweetie. I’m getting my own private island in the shape of my face to house my collection of invisible art, and a yacht studded in emeralds to take me there.”

Mirth played games in the peals of laughter spilling out of their bellies.

Debbie reached up to Mark’s face and peeled back his top lip. His eyebrows shot up but he allowed the intrusion.

“These are new,” she observed. They weren’t so large to make him look like an animal, but up close, or to someone who knew him, they were noticeable.

Mark pulled back from her hand.

“They just came through,” he muttered. “Last night.”

Debbie hummed. Nolan didn't have fangs. His canines had been prominent, yes, but in a healthy way that would make a dentist swoon.

“How do they feel?”

Four different emotions flashed across Mark’s face — unease, apprehension, curiosity, resignation.

“Weird. A little random,” he said with wandering eyes. “But…it can’t be helped.”

There was a white square on Mark’s neck.

A line of alarm coursed through her.

“Are you hurt?”

Debbie leaned forward to inspect it.

Mark swung back like a pendulum before her hands could come anywhere near.

“Let’s not jostle it,” he said with some trepidation. “I’m not hurt, I promise. Cecil gave this to me. It’s a hormone pump. It’s meant to…” He hesitated. “...iron out the crazy. Prevent what happened last time from happening again.”

“You’re not crazy, sweetie,” Debbie argued. “You’re just facing some new changes to your body, is all.”

Mark gave her a look that said, Sure, whatever you say .

“I mean it,” Debbie said. “This is new to everyone, most of all you. You’ve gotta give yourself time to figure it out. How are you feeling, though? Do you think the hormone pump agrees with you?”

God knew that kind of medication could do a number on anyone.

“A little,” Mark said with a wince. “But it might be too early to say for sure.”

“I hope it helps you.”

Mark grimaced. “Me too.”

Debbie dug around a little more.

“I didn’t get a chance to ask you before I passed out. How was yesterday for you, aside from that villain?”

Mark averted his eyes. “Eventful.”

The kettle let out a high-pitched whistle.

Mark moved to it with the aerial equivalent of a brisk walk.

Debbie held out a hand. “Mark, no fl — “

Then she stopped herself.

Debbie had implemented the no-flying rule as a measure to stop him from knocking things over, back when Mark was new at it. And before Mark, it’d been unspoken with Nolan — he’d still flown around the house, but usually not when she could’ve seen, save for when they were in a rush. It had come off as a form of courtesy at the time, one the both of them had carried over in how they’d raised Mark.

But Mark was far from an amateur flyer now. He’d grown in leaps and bounds, and since his second puberty, he flew with greater and greater frequency. Simple things, like getting something across the room, or picking a pen off the floor, innocuous actions performed with mounting grace and fluidity. It was like his body was getting increasingly used to manipulating itself in a three-dimensional space.

If everyone on Viltrum could fly, what would their houses look like? Debbie imagined the high-ceilinged properties she’d sold, the old Victorian houses she’d studied back in college. Sure, high ceilings accentuated natural light and were historically necessary to ventilate smoky fireplaces, but nowadays they were more about grandeur — the ability of a wealthy owner to dwarf his guest. As a matter of personal taste, she’d often thought some of the structures to have an unnecessary amount of dead space. But would any of that be dead space to a race of flyers?

Debbie imagined every house having large windows, able to open from both sides, and an unroofed courtyard, like a Moroccan riad. And perhaps spacious stairwell atriums were the norm, if they still bothered with stairs at all?

They’d surely still need them alongside elevators for practicality’s sake, and according to Nolan, Viltrumite infants were at no risk of floating into the atmosphere — so they’d need a physical channel for their children to traverse along, at least.

But for how many years? Nolan had been near-convinced that at seventeen, Mark would never get his powers. He’d been vague on the details, but he gave an estimate that most Viltrumite children obtained flight before the age of five. So would their parents just carry them around until then? Would certain buildings be cordoned off for children specifically?

What about their sick? Their elderly?

Then Debbie remembered what Nolan told Mark about the Viltrum Empire, and she cut the thought short immediately.

By imposing such a restriction on Mark, was she stifling him? Coercing him to be more like her, against his disposition? Did she coerce Nolan?

Was she forcing Mark to shed parts of himself just to fit in?

Mark’s home should be a safe space. He shouldn't have to mask just for her.

Debbie clicked her jaw shut.

She stood up on her creaking knees and stumbled to the kitchen. A bouquet of flowers sat in a tall glass; Mark had improvised in the absence of an actual vase. White lilies, yellow chrysanthemums and red roses with smatterings of baby’s breath filling out the spaces between. His phone and earpiece sat next to it.

Mark poured her a cup of coffee and laid out the breakfast he’d made on the dining table. Bacon, sausages, fried eggs, buttered toast. A fruit salad of strawberries, bananas, and orange slices, doused with a generous helping of honey.

Debbie’s stomach growled. She was helping herself to a plate before she knew it.

“This is really good, Mark,” she said between bites. “Thanks so much for making breakfast. Wait, what time is it anyway?”

Mark smiled and checked his phone. “It’s about seven.”

If it weren’t for the fact that herowork was so taxing on a normal sleep schedule, Debbie would’ve never believed Mark capable of being awake anytime before 11 AM of his own volition.

“What time did you go out for groceries?”

“Around five?”

“What kinda grocery store opens at five in the morning?”

“One that isn’t in this timezone.”

Mark tilted his head in a gesture that said, duh .

Debbie wasn’t nearly awake enough to start taking sass from her own son.

She hadn't gotten her phone back yet. With Mark’s status as a semi-regular visitor at the Pentagon, his device had long since been cleared as a matter of standard precaution. And though she’d stayed here before when Nolan was hospitalized, having handed over her phone then as well, the GDA had still seen it necessary to take it away for a second time. Hopefully she’d get it back today.

Debbie scanned the kitchen. Beyond the cookware and utensils Mark had used, there were random stacks of cups and crockery strewn around; multiple open drawers and half-closed cabinets.

“I hope you’re not planning on leaving the kitchen like this.”

Mark muttered under his breath. “Sorry. I just had to rearrange a few things.”

Where the GDA kept their utensils seemed like an odd thing to get so worked up over.

“What was wrong before?”

Mark sighed. “I dunno. It was just stupid.”

A buzz sounded from her son’s phone. He picked it up.

“Huh.” Mark looked surprised. “That’s funny.”

“What is it?”

“Monster Girl added me on Instagram,” he said, showing her the follow request.

Debbie squinted at the small text.

“I thought you already added all the Guardians online.”

Each of the old Guardians had an official collection of social media accounts that posted live updates like promotional tie-ins, costume changes, and non-graphic clips from their fights, intended to boost public support and engagement. One of Darkwing’s associates used to manage them. Mark had followed each one with childish yearning, chattering about their activities like a twenty-four hour livestream.

Those profiles were now memorialized, and Mark now followed each of the new Guardians’ professional feeds from his personal account.

Omni-Man’s had been deleted entirely.

“Yeah, but look,” he gestured to a message in an open chat log. “This is her personal account.”

The message said: Hey dork! It’s MG AKA Amanda. Follow me back!

Debbie smiled. “I’m glad to see you’re making new friends.”

Mark scooped an egg into his mouth and followed it up with a whole slice of toast, a clear sign that he was flustered and didn’t want to talk more about it. There wasn’t any fruit salad left, so he grabbed a pomegranate from the fruit bowl and split it apart with his bare hands. Red juice dripped from his lips and fingers as Mark bit into the ruby flesh and devoured it in four perfunctory bites.

“For goodness sake, use a napkin!”

He accepted it with a muffled thanks.

Debbie cleared the dirty plates and started washing up. Then she looked through the pantry to see what Mark bought. Fruit, vegetables, meat, pasta, rice, cereals…All things they would’ve had at home, but it was a lot for a couple days.

The words went flying out of her mouth faster than wisdom could stop them.

“You didn’t get me any wine?”

Mark paused half-way between shovelling another rash of bacon into his mouth.

“No, mom.”

His tone was very neutral. Like a full glass of water balanced perfectly still.

Irritation spiked high. “I don’t need you to judge me.”

Mark faltered. It irritated her even more.

“I’m not judging you. I’m just saying I didn’t get you any wine.”

A dull pain built in her temple. He was looking at her with a forced calm, like she was a string about to snap.

“Could’ve fooled me. You don’t get to police how much I drink.”

Debbie was a smart woman. She could make her own decisions. She knew what she was doing. And she could stop at any time.

Mark let out a frustrated hiss. “Mom, I’m not doing that either. All I did was answer your question.”

She turned around to face him fully.

“If you have something to say, just say it.”

Mark leaned back in his chair, food forgotten. “I don’t have anything to say.”

He sounded so tired; cold disengagement set in the stern cut of his jaw. It rankled her nerves. Did he just think he could sit there on his high horse looking down at her?

“Oh, really? You’re practically writing paragraphs with the way you’re looking at me.”

Mark stood and threw the rest of his meal away, movements clean and efficient. “I’m not doing this. I just wanted to have a nice morning with you, that’s all.”

Pressure doubled behind her eyes. So now she was ruining things?

“Just spit it out! You think I drink too much. Well, I don’t!”

Mark didn’t look at her. A voice in her head whispered, You brought it up, not me.

“I just think you could ease off a little, okay? You’ve been going through like, three bottles a week. It’s not healthy.”

So much for not passing judgement. What would he know? He could drink all he wanted and not feel a thing. He could face bomb blasts and falling boulders and firestorms and suffer no scars. What would he know about what she was going through?

“You’re exaggerating. It’s not that bad. God forbid I get to cut loose and enjoy myself for once.”

Or twice. Or thrice. Or every day of the week.

God, Debbie was so pathetic.

Mark approached her with careful steps. He kept his head ducked as he lifted his palms up, gathering her hands in his.

“Nobody’s saying you have to stop doing the things you like. I’m just worried. I care about you.”

Except he didn’t hold her hands, not really. Mark kept his grip open, because he was afraid to touch her. It shouldn’t have hurt as much as it did. Undignified anger built in her spine, ridiculous feelings defied logic and sense and made her want to pull away from him and shout hurtful things, offended by his caution.

Debbie curled her fingers around his and squeezed once.

“I know.” Raised a hand to fight the shame crawling up her face. “I’m sorry for snapping. I know you’re trying to make me feel better about this whole mess. I love you. I think I just…”

Mark waited patiently.

The words caught in her throat; thoughts spiralled in her head. Debbie’s life, worthless in the grand scheme of things, was a shrouded wood. Loved ones passed as she walked the unmarked path. First her grandmother, old and frail, gesturing with her walking stick as she told Debbie which plants were good to eat, which ones helped her survive the war and occupation, when their menfolk were slaughtered and her sisters whisked away to comfort the enemy. The minty deulkkae , with its white flowers like tiny minarets, then the hardy minari , growing by the river. She snatched the leaves bare-handed and shoved them into her greedy mouth as halmanggu watched her go with sharp mischief in her eyes.

Her birth father came next, stumbling drunk and shouting abuse with a machete in hand. He swung at her, she ducked. He hit a stone and dropped the blade, rolling into an unwakeable stupor before he could make good use of it against the thick bamboo coming up in front of them. Debbie picked it up and started hacking a way through. She was small and wore thin sandals, a young girl with no masculine strength. She tried anyway, mustering all the courage she had until the day grew dim, the clouds rolled in, and she couldn’t see two feet in front of her.

A light shone from the darkness, and her mother emerged, bruised and bearing a lantern. She led Debbie the right way, one hand clutched tightly around hers, voice hot with fond love-anger, then with soft affection as she hummed jajang, jajang, uri aga . Study hard, study hard. As they reached the foot of a limestone mountain, a new man joined them. A foreigner with white skin and blue eyes and an old rifle at his side. He exchanged a kiss with Eomma and she faded away, pale arms reaching out for them both. He collapsed into heavy sobs and Debbie hesitated once before wrapping her arms around him. He returned the embrace and they sat there for awhile.

When the clouds broke, his hair was white and she was grown. He pointed up the mountain, and Debbie knew she had to leave him. She dug her fingers into the unforgiving rock, held herself flush against it as she traversed thin, dangerous ledges. She summited the mountain, heart beating out of her chest, just in time to watch the sun rising from the horizon.

And then the ground gave way, and all her hard work was for naught.

Strong arms caught her under the knees and around her back, carried her higher and higher through the clouds. Nolan looked at her like she was art itself. She wanted to hang a garland of roses around his neck, but she didn’t have one, so she used the loop of her arms and kissed him deeply, painting pictures on his lips. He took her away to see things she’d never imagined ever seeing in her life — the North Pole, the Caucasus Mountains, the grand tapestry of the entire Milky Way with all its starry dreams. The galaxy displayed in stark relief as observed from the dunes of the Gobi desert, their bodies equally naked as they made love in the arms of a green oasis below.

Debbie mourned them all, but she’d be lying to herself if she said Nolan was anything less than the deepest cut.

“...miss how we used to be.”

Mark digested her words slowly. Myriad emotions flickered over his face — uncertainty, sorrow, grief — before settling on the one Debbie never wanted to see spoiling her son’s youth.

Guilt.

The old, looping whisper, rising like smoke to loom large and choke the life from him.

She regretted letting the words fly loose; she thought he’d been ready to hear them, further along in the program than he was. But Mark had always been a late bloomer.

“You wish dad was here instead. You think he would’ve handled this better. You think I drove him away.”

Angry. Accusing. Hurt.

“Honey, listen — “

“How could you?” Mark cried, tearing away from her. “After everything he’s done! After all the people he’s killed! How could you possibly want him back?!”

This was spiraling out of Debbie’s control.

Mark’s disgust was a dagger to her ribs, but she had to work around it, because it was just a mask, and he was hurting too.

“That’s not what I meant, Mark. I don’t want him back, not after what he did to y — ”

“Could’ve fooled me!” he parroted, and Debbie realized just how much she’d fucked up.

A buzz sounded from Mark’s earpiece.

“Thank god,” he breathed. He grabbed it and zipped to his room and back in a quick burst, already in full costume. “Yeah, I’m coming.”

He was turning away from her, heading to the door.

“Mark, please,” Debbie said desperately. “Don’t go like this. We can talk about it.”

“I don’t have anything to say.”

He was moving so fast. She struggled to reach him.

“I love you!” Debbie cried, but the door already slammed shut.

Debbie stood there for a good minute or two, head very blank, listening to the empty nothing of the government-issued apartment. Then she continued washing the dishes and putting items away; wrote down a few things on a small slip of paper. Toothpaste, a hairbrush, aspirin. Donald told her someone would be round to fetch them stuff from the store. They’d have a much lighter load now, thanks to Mark.

She felt her eyes water, and pain swelled across her head, filling it with the great heaviness of all her mistakes. Debbie fell back on the couch and had a good cry.

Chapter Text

Night Boy was such an unfortunate name.

Was he truly the only one to think so?

Wayne West, better known as Darkwing — had been an admirable man. A cunning tactician and expert martial artist drawn into the life of crimefighting from the cocoon of comfort and wealth by personal tragedy. A man with precisely no superpowers at all, but armed with inhuman levels of mental strength and boundless courage that made him stand toe-to-toe with giants. He’d started his superhero career patrolling the streets of Detroit as an early twenty-something, but when the Midnight Magician cursed an area of Northern Flint into eternal night in ‘02, he’d packed up and moved shop to bleaker corners, going where he was needed as heroes were prone to do. Undeterred by the rougher streets, lead-contaminated water, sickening levels of corruption within the city’s governing bodies, and the tendency of its remaining inhabitants towards vivid hallucinations, cult-like behavior, and not uncommonly, spontaneous zombification.

Perhaps Darkwing hadn’t quite been so normal after all, given how well he’d seemed to fit in with the crowd.

Midnight City, as it had come to be known, was misfortune wrapped in tragedy. While a good proportion of the city’s original inhabitants had quite wisely vacated the premises soon after the curse took effect, many simply hadn’t had the resources to up and move of their own volition. Rapid deindustrialization and a lack of subsequent economic diversity meant deprivation was rife to the area, and help from the U.S. government was thin on the ground — especially for a region with Flint’s demographics.

Donald exhaled. It wasn’t the GDA’s place to interfere in local affairs. They had to keep their heads above the water and eyes glued on the big picture. Besides, it was no doubt far more complicated than how he was presenting it.

But Donald couldn’t help but wonder what would’ve happened if the Midnight Magician had chosen to attack a predominantly white city instead. With silent critique, Donald noted that El Paso, Texas had suffered from a giant sandworm attack in the year before, displacing far more people than the crisis in Flint ever had. News coverage had been extensive and aid, ubiquitous. While one could argue that it was a mere numbers game, and that the federal government was seeing fit to prioritize cities with the highest number of disaster-struck people, surely one could also argue that the inhabitants of Flint were lower in number and therefore a more straightforward case to solve — fewer people, less money to spend on them. An easy way to score points with voters. Surely politicians loved easy wins?

But the ridiculousness of the whole debacle only multiplied from there.

Because ‘Midnight Magician’ wasn’t even the supervillain’s actual name.

It was Midnight Magi.

As in, Grand Magi.

As in, Ku Klux Klan.

How the GDA had managed to let the White House Press Secretary get out a rebrand before they could respond was still a major unknown.

Donald still remembered Cecil’s unbridled fury. The man hadn’t even been in the director’s seat for a full eight months at the time; his power not yet consolidated in totality. The ground had still been uneven, and loyalties were shifting like sand. Donald liked to think he would’ve stood for the truth on this one had the leak not gone out and solidified before they could react.

Everyone had suspected a mole. A disgruntled employee, upset with the new changes Cecil was bringing in. That could’ve been true. They’d had plenty of hangers-on. 

But Donald and Cecil had both exchanged a glance and agreed without words that it couldn’t possibly have been as simple as that. The knee-jerk reaction from the White House had simply been too telling. Donald hadn’t gone digging, but he highly suspected that someone in the Executive Office had friends or relations involved in the whole sordid affair and wanted everything scrubbed clean. Perhaps their hypothetical disgruntled employee had been offered a tempting bribe by an existing mole from one of the lower agencies, FBI or CIA or even IRS, and perhaps that mole had been very cognisant of their benefactor’s far-right political leanings. And perhaps that benefactor had rather carelessly maintained some form of very exploitable connection with the Midnight Magician (Midnight Magi), one the racist bastard would sooner reveal to save his own skin. And maybe that would have set off a chain reaction throughout the entire federal government, because you don’t get that far and far up without having someone bigger covering for you the entire way.

Suffice to say, openly naming the supervillain as a Klan member would’ve invited a level of scrutiny none of the three branches of government would’ve ever wanted or been prepared for.

But a full sanitization wasn’t possible, of course, because a near-perfect hemisphere of Flint, Michigan measuring ten miles in diameter had been plunged into eternal darkness, and the Midnight Magician (Midnight Magi) had been screaming racist drivel the entire time as he cursed the city — something about how dark skin was the mark of Cain, and he was therefore sending them ‘back to the abyss through the shadow of the valley of death from whence they came’. He'd been so loud, and explicit, and vulgar.

And then there was his outfit .

How could anyone have missed that?!

The citizens of Flint hadn’t been quiet about the supervillain’s motivations. They’d written letters, staged protests, spoken to the press, and with good justification. It had been nothing less than a city-wide hate crime.

But none of that went anywhere. 

And when the Midnight Magician (Midnight Magi!) turned up mysteriously dead in a GDA cell not long after, the entire matter had been swept away.

What else was there to talk about? The supervillain was gone, wasn't he? Talking about it was just prolonging the agony. Stop protesting. Just let people move on with their lives.

And renaming the villain had been a subtle but effective way of leading the whole affair to a quiet, unresisting death.

And speaking of death?

The villain’s was ruled a suicide.

That part was true, as far as they could tell. Donald and Cecil witnessed it first-hand. Donald had never seen a person literally swallow themselves before. If he hadn't been quite so horrified at the time, it would've been interesting to study.

The villain uttered an incantation, something vaguely Latin and very impolite to translate. For a while, nothing happened, as his magic was burnt out, and they’d taken careful precautions to suppress any lingering spellcraft with the help of several anti-occult artifacts, with their on-call (non-crazy, non-white supremacist!) magician on standby.

Then the ground started shaking and the villain screamed as his own body ejected his stomach (yes, his whole stomach) onto the floor of the cell just as Cecil was interrogating him. It split open like a flower and grew teeth before starting to consume the villain from the feet up. It seemed to take its time, nibbling off the toes one by one before growing more ravenous and snapping the man’s tibias and femurs in half. It slurped up his intestines like spaghetti and moved onto the villain’s heart and liver like a diner eagerly making way on a main course.

Magic was truly something extraordinary. Because somehow, despite having no physical lungs, larynx, trachea or esophagus, the Midnight Magi still managed to scream until his eyes were the only bits left of him — pupils darting around wildly as their frantic magician tried desperately to halt the evil forces taking away their one solid source of intel. They’d popped like cherries when his stomach finally decided to dig in, and stained Donald’s dress shirt an unpleasant red.

And then , after folding itself into an infinitely dense point of singularity, it warped space-time around it and disappeared with a bone-chilling shudder.

“I’m so sorry!” cried their magician, clutching her wand like a security blanket. Looking much more nervous at the idea of a reprimand than at the horrifying display she’d just witnessed, like this was something she saw every other Tuesday. “I tried to reverse the mana current, but my magic can't interfere with a deal already struck.”

Donald hadn't heard her very much at all. His jaw was still firmly on the floor, eyes wide behind his lenses.

Cecil, on the other hand, hadn't been so perturbed, well-used to dealing with otherworldly beings and eldritch abominations from his time in the field.

“God fucking dammit!” he shouted, and kicked over the metal table they'd been talking over. The fact that it’d been bolted to the ground didn't stop him, he was that angry.

Looking back at the tapes, they'd suspected the Midnight Magi had been preconditioned to self-destruct as an automatic response to hearing a specific trigger word or phrase. And that had sent the director on a warpath that threatened to upend the entire organization and beyond, because How dare you commit an extrajudicial killing on my premises without prior authorization.

The man was like a dog with a bone. Any attempt to get him to calm down had only aggravated him further, made him sink his teeth in and twist twice as hard.

(Donald didn't know this part in full. As much as he tried to humanize himself and maintain good graces with employees lower down on the pecking order, Donald was ultimately still the assistant director of the GDA, and little mice were inclined to take small, quiet steps when in the presence of lions).

Much of the lower and middle staff, and even those in the upper echelons previously thinking themselves untouchable — had been terrified of an oncoming purge. Many had held their breaths, kept their backs to the door, and plotted their escapes. New identities. Personal safe houses. Alibis and dead drops and false trails.

The lower-ranking employees were the least likely to survive and most likely to suffer the greatest losses in terms of sheer numbers. They had few resources at their disposal and were easy to scapegoat and replace. The middle-ranking staff were no better, though they might have thought themselves so, blessed with greater education and expertise. In a real purge, middle management would've been eradicated, and only the scientists researching areas deemed favorable to the regime would've been allowed to live.

But it was the higher-ups who had the most to lose. Money, status, power. They wrung their hands and chewed their fingers down to the bone as they considered the possibilities. Nightmares flashed behind their closed lids — show trials, public humiliations, torture, imprisonment — not just for themselves, but for their friends, families, and associates.

This new, upstart director — not young by the standards of the GDA, but certainly the youngest ever director to date — was keen on razing the fields and salting the earth, and it was evident that they’d all clearly underestimated the scope and volume, the ferocity and incandescence of his rage and power. They’d spent nearly a decade disrespecting Radcliffe and grew fat and lazy from their own mocking laughter; they’d watched eight months go past with no radical rearrangements and assumed no purge was coming at all, owing to a soft-spined leader.

They'd seen Cecil’s prison sentence and assumed squalor and incompetence instead of an intricate network of informants within the carceral system, connections to multiple factions within the criminal underground, and exceptional problem-solving ability. They'd scoffed at his predecessor who’d served a mere eight years as director of the GDA — the shortest term in the organization’s history — and assumed him weak by default, the rotten fruit from the struggling tree, when perhaps they ought to have feared revenge, reprisal, and retaliation on behalf of his scorned mentor. And lastly, the stupidest thing of all — they’d belittled Cecil’s time in the field. They’d seen a lengthy service record and multiple promotions refused and assumed a lack of ambition and political acumen, when they really should have opened their eyes to the director’s wide and quiet international network, his amicable relations with multiple powerful superheroes and experienced fellow agents, and his personal dealings with the literal forces of Hell.

The whole place had been rigged to explode, and even Donald, fond of this new director and implaccable by nature though he was, had been ultimately unsure of where he would fall, whether by choice or circumstance. He liked to think himself loyal and highly principled, but Donald wasn’t naive enough to believe his hand entirely unforceable.

(Donald didn’t know this part in full either, on account of several blips in his neural programming. But when disaster had been on the horizon for the GDA, he’d dug his heels in and stuck by Cecil’s side even through multiple thinly-veiled threats — because he’d believed in the good work the director was setting out to do). 

But then — just as the organization was about to tear at the seams — Cecil’s temper had cooled.

The ground settled. The wax house remained unlit.

Sensing the shift like birds after a storm, agents quietly flocked back to their posts, buried their contingency plans, kept their heads down, and acted like nothing ever happened.

Because nothing did happen.

Except: the director had seemingly dropped the issue (because local matters like the KKK weren’t part of their remit), and less than twenty-four hours later, four GDA accountants suffered a deadly combination of ischaemic strokes and myocardial infarctions, collapsing in a crumpled heap by the shared coffee machine in their break room.

Okay, that last one was made up.

But it was nearly true.

Because forty billion dollars had been added to the GDA’s annual budget overnight, and no one would give them any information on where it came from or why, and of course, no one was stupid enough to ask.

Donald had a better idea than most.

Cecil was a man jealously protective over his domain. Money alone wouldn’t have swayed his wrath. The director would’ve neither solicited nor accepted it. Neither would the temptation of personal wealth or pleasure have been a deciding factor for a man so used to austerity. And to expect him to simply forgive and forget, let bygones be bygones?

Pfftt.

Fat chance. The Earth would sooner spin backwards.

No, Cecil was a dog with a bone, and he would not let go. The insult to his authority had simply been too grave, and he’d been younger then, with much more hydrogen to burn.

Which meant something, or someone, must’ve changed his mind.

There were other factors as well of course. At the time, 80% of their funding was derived from the banks of the U.S. government, and even now, it remained the primary sponsor of the Global Defense Agency, though the proportion of its contributions had gradually decreased since then. It was likely, therefore, that Cecil had uncovered those complicit, discovered the true depth of the rot, and decided against gutting the entirety of the GDA’s major support networks. The opposing parties were speculated by Donald to have recognized the director’s unflinching audacity and opted to resolve their differences through monetary means to escape the mutually assured destruction they found themselves in.

But in truth, whether the money had been a bribe, deterrent, or humble offering was anyone’s guess.

And so the bonds between the organization and its benefactors remained standing, Midnight City fell out of their purview, and the GDA acquired enough funds to hire more crucial staff, increase wages, and commission the research and development of an experimental teleportation device.

It was almost funny how the entire debacle that was Midnight City oscillated so rapidly from being the GDA’s problem to not the GDA’s problem and back to being their problem again.

Because when the dust had settled from the drama of shadow politics, it became very clear that the inhabitants unlucky enough to stay were in for something far worse than eternal night (though that in itself caused a whole host of issues — higher rates of depression, endocrinological disorders, visual degeneration). 

The miasma in the air provided residents with vivid audiovisual hallucinations, made them sick with a strange molting disease, and most disturbingly, according to accounts — let them see the shadow monsters. And to the most affected, the curse barely allowed them to leave the dark zone at all, when it didn’t turn them into zombies outright.

So in summary, Midnight City’s demographics comprised of four prominent groups: the original hapless inhabitants, driven to varying levels of insanity, the even unluckier children of those citizens, born and kept there against their will, the walking undead, and the droves of criminals from all around the country looking to evade capture or make a quick buck there.

Darkwing had been a small blessing upon the city. Using the wealth from his parents’ pharmaceutical empire, he’d established clinics and offered medicine at a highly subsidized cost, fixed the corroded pipes, hired priests knowledgeable in the art of putting the disturbed to rest, and fought to erase the criminals trying to use Midnight City as their base of operations.

He’d been doing good work. The crime rate was dropping, more kids stayed in school, and there’d been much fewer reports of vengeful shades terrorizing the populace. Not to mention all the other weird and terrifying things Midnight City had to offer.

And then he was murdered.

Donald wanted to sigh.

While the GDA had successfully commandeered Guardians HQ from Darkwing’s and War Woman’s estates, the rest of the former's charitable activities weren't within their scope of practice. That fell into the hands of the federal and state governments, and the less said about their efforts, the better.

Reports of Darkwing returning from the dead were concerning. No one had been able to exactly map out the rules or inner workings of the curse itself — such was the nature of magic. But it was important to investigate any possibility of ectoplasmic leakage, spiritual amplification, or astral spread. So while Darkwing’s corpse was undeniably lying six feet under on an unlisted plot of land owned by the GDA (they’d checked), they still needed to assess the likelihood of a ghostly apparition starring Wayne West himself and call in their mediums as necessary.

The spirit of Darkwing remained undisturbed.

No, the serial killer running loose in Midnight City was none other than Night Boy, Darkwing’s former assistant. Unofficially adopted and trained from a young age by the deceased hero, capable of opening portals to a dark dimension. The origin of the ability was unknown. A schizophrenic, from what their psychiatrists could tell, though the miasma of Midnight City always made it hard to distinguish between organic mental illness and magic-driven insanity.

But the GDA already knew that.

Night Boy was such an unfortunate name.

Who let him choose that? What was Darkwing thinking? It certainly did nothing to dispel the rumors, not that any of them had been true.

He desperately hoped so, anyway. Dying was one thing, but a blow like that to the hero’s legacy would be no short of devastating both to those who knew him personally and to the wider public sphere. Not to mention the obvious implications and cleanup they’d have to do.

Cleanup? Was that what he called victims now? What was wrong with him?

Maybe he’d been in the job too long…

But also.

Seriously, was it just him?

That couldn’t possibly be the case. Staff within the GDA must’ve simply been too professional, too well-trained for such improper notions whilst on the clock. None of them so much as let loose a sharp burst of air from their lips or even raised an eyebrow when they’d heard who was behind the murders. (Though, he’d heard his fair share of raunchy humor, tall tales, and ludicrous drama from many a cafeteria table and watercooler when no one thought he was listening. Despite his position, Donald was easy to ignore and easier to miss when no one was actively looking for him).

And the only one with a mordant enough sense of humor to openly point out Night Boy’s unfortunate moniker was missing.

Very conspicuously so.

Donald tried to rein in his irritation, but it probably still showed in the slight downward curve of his lips and the fact that he hadn’t raised his brow at Ramirez’s usual early-morning humor. He’d wanted to speak to the man himself, to discuss a personal matter.

But why was the director not here?

What could he possibly be doing?

Why did he suddenly pass this job along to Donald?

When it came to Invincible, micromanagement was spelled into every wrinkle on the man’s skin, control in every deliberation he made. This was sorely out of character.

It wasn’t that Donald was incapable or unsuitable. That was far from the case. He’d played handler and mission control to a great number of superheroes over the years (how many years?), and had served the GDA for decades (how many decades?). The mission itself, though layered, was unremarkable. A simple observe and report from Mark’s point of view with the possibility of a live capture, and much the same for them, though with the concealed intention of discerning the effects of…Night Boy’s… abilities on a Viltrumite.

Could Donald just call him by his civilian name, Benjamin Taylor? ‘Darkwing’ was surely too soon. Or: what about Darkwing II?

Cecil would give him no points for creativity.

No points at all, because he wasn’t here to award them, despite the importance of the mission’s outcome.

The mission in truth, which was designed to answer one question:

Could a Viltrumite be contained by the Shadow-Verse?

It was time for them to find out.

Midnight City was so cool.

Okay, sure — the air was really bad, the water had lead in it, the place had this whole eternal night thing going on, and obviously the people here weren’t doing too hot — but you wouldn’t last long as a superhero if you stopped to ponder every single horrific implication of every mission. You had to find something interesting, or nothing ever would be, and you’d just go crazy from having to deal with it all.

Mark swung his head back and forth between the border of Flint and Midnight City.

Light. Dark. Light. Dark.

Normal in one moment: dust streaming in the sun’s rays, birdsong decorating the air like icing on a freshly baked cake.

Then — 

Wet whispers of alien dreams, that same dust gathering as night terrors on his skin, sorrow clinging and clawing at the edges of his mind. Birdsong transfigured into the deafening silence of his own helpless inaction in the face of threats he would never be able to defeat. Eternal loneliness as his curse as ties and connections frayed. A thousand fatherly betrayals wrapped in the facade of love and a weepy mother who didn’t want him — 

Daylight bouncing off his goggles, a smile on his face, and a light chuckle at the novelty, once the weirdness wore off.

“Woah.”

Mark heard Donald clear his throat over the comms.

“Are we alright to proceed with the mission?”

“Oh, sorry. Where is he, again?”

“Approximately ten blocks ahead of you, according to the report. Keep going, you’re on the right path.”

Mark flew along at an even pace as he cut through the darkness.

The city was quiet. The usual nighttime urban hustle and bustle wasn’t a thing here — no crowds of people swarming bars and restaurants, no cars and buses and taxis piling the streets for the evening rush, not even the usual type of street crime was afoot — no flashing blue lights, no drunken brawls, no maniacal laughter, no flamboyant supervillains emerging from the alleyways to shoot laser guns at cats or anything.

He passed by a high-rise. It was weird — according to what he’d heard about the place, most of the city was empty, but all the lights were still on.

A woman in ragged clothes spotted him through her window, looking tired and worn. Two men were behind her. One slumped over himself and bent in half, unresponsive but still somehow standing, while the other reached out to caress her along the neck and collarbone, lips parted in hunger and eyes sunken and unseeing.

Mark looked away.

He accidentally caught the eyes of a little girl in the building opposite. She jumped back in fright and hastily pulled the curtains shut, though not very successfully, because she didn’t look tall or strong or old enough to get the grip and reach she needed. She also looked like she lived alone, judging by the emptiness of the apartment Mark glimpsed through the window.

Everyone he bumped into on his flight to quote-unquote Darkwing’s location acted the same. Downcast eyes, furtive looks, and twitching movements, when they weren’t running with their mouths open in naked terror. They all looked like civilians. He was starting to wonder where the actual criminals were — maybe they were all hiding away?

For the first time in awhile, Mark was pretty sure that people weren’t being skittish because they were specifically afraid of him. It gave him some relief.

And then he felt bad for feeling relieved, because they’d obviously gone through a hell of a lotta shit to be this wary of any outsiders they saw in the first place.

Two people on a rooftop were completely dazed, one staring at his own hands as the other hugged him around the middle, frozen like a video on pause. They wore very little, and the clothing they did wear was in tatters, exposing a rich pattern of red-purple markings on their dark skin, raised as boils and spiralling like a snail’s shell and sounding — which was weird, because Mark was certain that skin couldn’t talk — like an old, forgotten language.

The smells he managed to capture were also strange, but not unpleasant. Objectively, there was definitely a higher than healthy level of soot and sulfur in the air (not that it would affect him). He was also pretty sure the red-brown tint coating the buildings was the result of industrial pollution rather than dark occult bullshit, judging by the biting odor, heavy with physicality where other bits of the place simply weren’t. And yeah, that was annoying to deal with.

But the otherworldly haze settling over the city, (the miasma, as Donald termed it) was something else entirely. If Mark had to describe the shape of it, it would be a figure-eight. The darkness launched forward, curved and crossed itself once before looping back round to meet his nostrils, bringing him rust, disease, and cold smoke as gifts. Mark inhaled them one by one because it seemed like the polite thing to do, feeling something like familiarity stirring his senses into a leisurely stroll. Bare feet in the olfactory garden of macabre blooms.

The miasma wasn’t an elegant dancer. It jerked as it moved, starting and stopping with sharp pulsations like a puppet on strings, layered itself like rot, and heralded rebellion against the natural order.

With equal parts trepidation and eagerness, it said, hello, and, are you here to stay?

And despite his best judgement, Mark replied, hi, and no, sorry, got a job to do.

The miasma gave a low wail, like a child about to cry.

Mark panicked. 

There, there, he thought to say, but stopped himself.

What the hell was he doing? Who was he even talking to?

He sped further along before the nonsense could start again, holding his breath this time.

A stone kicked up by his air currents bounced off a rooftop and fell into the alley below where it promptly vanished with no sound. He furrowed his brow.

Weird.

Then a projectile shot out from behind him, the trajectory of it curved at an unnatural angle like a bullet under psychic control. Mark caught the object in his palm.

It was the same stone.

A shrill sound like gleeful laughter rang between his ears.

Then just out of curiosity, he threw it down another alley as he flew by, and the same thing happened. The stone came spinning into his hand with more affection this time.

Huh.

The whole schtick was pretty cool, but Mark didn’t have time to play games right now. He dropped the stone back on a random rooftop and made sure it stayed there.

Donald’s voice jumped from his earpiece.

“The perp should be somewhere around here, keep an eye out.”

Mark tried to ignore it. But a low stab gave in his chest where pressure had been building, like the pointy end of a safety pin. He kept his tone casual.

“Where’s Cecil, by the way?”

Donald didn’t reply.

A small coil of tension built in his chest as Mark’s annoyance grew.

“It’s not that I don’t appreciate you being here,” Mark hastened to add. He floated to a rooftop and scanned the area for ‘Darkwing’, tilting his head this way and that to catch any stray sounds. “He’s just usually the one who does my missions, is all.”

There was a short silence.

“The director is busy.”

The safety pin became the sharp end of a stick.

“Busy?” Mark said, before he could help it. “Busy with what?”

What could possibly be more important?

“I’m not at liberty to say, Mark.”

“Come onnn, Donald.” Mark walked to the edge of the roof and peered down, in case the villain was lurking in an overhang. “You gotta gimme something, here. Where is he?”

Donald’s tone was unreadable.

“He’s indisposed. Something else came up.”

The sharp stick turned into a spear.

“What’s so important?” Mark paused mid-inspection, considering. “Is he okay?”

Mark’s heart added a beat.

It would be terribly rude if he wasn’t, in fact, okay. Mark hadn’t detected any outside threats, neither had he been duly informed of any, and he also hadn’t given Cecil the green light to go away and not be okay. Those of Cecil’s ilk were prone to injury and easy spoilage. If the man had a personal matter he couldn't handle on his own, he should've called Mark. So why hadn't he?

Then another thought struck him, and the speartip turned into a large, jagged knife, diving under his ribs and making a vicious stab into his diaphragm.

Mark gritted his teeth.

“Is he with another hero?” he asked, trying to sound very neutral.

The gland in his neck throbbed.

Cold anger gathered in his nerves and spiked him with pain. He told himself to calm down, but that only made it worse, like fighting for peace with a grenade. The fury twisted like barbed wire, round his fingers and up his arms and flared like hooded snakes out his mouth. Though he tried for a stoic expression, Mark felt a snarl gain life in his throat, eager to unspool and meld like slow poison with the miasma around him.

(A friend, a friend, it cried).

The absolute nerve! 

Prancing around with another superhuman while Mark was out here doing his dirty work? Did Cecil really think he had nothing better to do?

How dare he.

For him to shirk his responsibilities like this, like Mark was a mere footnote in their contract instead of the dark promise forming its core.

It simply wasn’t done .

Mark hovered a foot in the air, moments away from flying off to demonstrate precisely why.

“No, he’s not,” Donald said. Then there was that telltale half-mute the comms usually got when there was something going on in the background he wasn’t supposed to hear.

Mark paused, ever the patient monk.

“Because he’s here in the control room. Right next to me, in fact.”

Mark blinked.

“Oh.”

An ease washed over him like spring rain.

He swallowed his snarl. The heat escaped him like matter streaming out an airlock.

The miasma released a disappointed whine.

There, there, Mark actually said this time, though he still felt weird doing it. Like petting the head of a creature he wasn't sure was meant to have a head. It’s okay.

Mark flew to another rooftop and peered around. Jeez, where was that guy?

Tilting his head, Mark spoke into his earpiece.

“Tell Cecil I said hi.”

There was shouting just ahead of him, breaking the eerie silence of Midnight City like a cymbal crashing on black ink. Mark went to investigate.

Cecil had this look on his face that said, Why did you let the kid know I was here?

And that was because Donald had watched him blink twice in simple code, a negative that roughly translated to, Do not let the kid know I’m here.

But Donald was in a petty mood this morning.

He turned to face the latecomer.

“Mark says ‘hi’.”

The director could only scowl.

Several people in the room breathed in.

Donald considered Mark’s newfound fixation on Cecil.

Perhaps he’d let his spite get the best of him. The clinginess and boundary pushing weren’t in of themselves unusual as part of a standard working relationship between superhumans and their handlers. Most of the former experienced some type of trauma or abuse during early childhood, often resulting in emotional dysregulation, personality disorders, and separation anxiety, among other misfortunes. The latter, meanwhile, were specifically trained to exploit those vulnerabilities in any way they could, which often varied drastically between individuals.

Take one of their classic case studies used to educate agents brand new to handlerhood: 

The adoption of the Bucharest Butcher AKA the Skull Crusher, AKA Maria Balan, known euphemistically as Asset M23. 

Maria Balan, born in 1977, was an ill-begotten product of then Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu’s pro-natalist policies which declared motherhood a state duty, outlawed abortion and contraception, and penalized childlessness. Like many others, she was given to a local orphanage when her parents could no longer afford to feed her, owing to their poverty and four already-existing children.

Maria Balan was never destined for a life of ease or greatness. She was an unwanted child in a land of countless more unwanted children growing up in a cold, unfeeling institution. Starved, abused, and mistreated by untrained nursery staff, with a Romani background not helping in the slightest. If the orphanage hadn’t been a cover for a den of rogue scientists eagerly bent on world domination, she likely would’ve emerged as a very broken adult, one prone to nightmares and addiction, if she had emerged at all.

Alas, she fell prey to childhood experimentation and forced genetic modifications, granting her with the ability to manipulate bone matter at will. By the tender age of eight, she was already committing crimes that would make most of their prison population blush.

Maria Ionescu, real name [REDACTED], had been the agent assigned to turn her. A meticulous woman known for her severity, she’d deliberately chosen the cover name of Maria in order to first entice the girl.

Your name is Maria? So is mine. We have something in common, isn’t that nice?

Ridiculously simple, yet effective for a child so deprived of social connection. She’d first appeared to her during the Bucharest–Brasov train bombing of 1986 where Maria played a key role, asking after her and offering sweets. Ionescu would appear over and over again throughout Maria’s various missions doing the same thing over the course of several months, eventually inserting herself as a mother figure in the girl’s life.

Maria had taken to the paltry kindness like a starving wolf. Ionescu drove a wedge between her and the men controlling her, and soon, the girl was a fighting force for the GDA — powerful, vicious, and hopelessly attached to her ‘mother’.

But that didn’t last.

Because in the winter of 1990, a deadly flesh-mutating virus spread throughout a region of Western Russia, and Maria, with her ability to produce and increase the strength and density of bone to near-diamond levels of hardness, was the perfect counter to the ensuing abominations. Ionescu sent her forth to contain the spread, plying her with promises of maternal affection to come.

One more job, little one. Just one more, and we can be together. You'll come live with me in our cottage by the sea.

For ten days, this drove Maria to battle tooth and nail through the harsh blizzard, until she and their other operatives pushed the last of the diseased into a small town in Vologda Oblast.

She was effective. She was efficient.

But she was also starving, exhausted, and thirteen years old.

Asset M23 did her job well. Lying wounded in a cold, abandoned house, the last words she ever spoke before the horde overtook her — straight into an encrypted radio, because her earpiece had been destroyed: I’m sorry, Mamă. I love you.

And then the entire population of Kirillov was vaporized by the very first iteration of a giant space laser that would later come to colloquially be known as The Hammer.

Ionescu’s methods were brilliant. A liquid smooth integration with the intended asset followed by a strategic trickle-feed of carefully-placed affection, and lastly a quick release once it outlived its usefulness. Ionescu had gotten five good years out of a girl most had considered a lost cause. The adoption of the Bucharest Butcher was thus regarded as one of the most successful case studies in superhuman turning and recruitment in GDA history, alongside laying much of the guidance and groundwork for handlers that was still relevant to this day.

For her efforts, Ionescu was thoroughly rewarded with as much fanfare as her covert position would allow, and the agent quietly shuffled herself off to a peaceful early retirement a few years later.

The parental approach was their gold standard, given the typical age of their recruits, but other methods were equally as valid — a doting friend, a stern mentor, any number of other roles intending to feign connection as necessary. Anything, as long as it got the job done.

Even on the cusp of adulthood, Mark wasn’t too old for the director to simulate a paternal role, especially given the large shadow cast by Omni-Man’s betrayal and subsequent departure. It should’ve been an easy position for him to slip into. Reinforcing the existing archetype of disgruntled mentor should also have been no problem.

But that was before all the recent behavioral changes.

Between the main branches of the natural sciences, Donald admittedly liked biology the least. It was too fluid, too dynamic, with every single supposed rule possessing at least three different exceptions. Case in point: Mark’s puberty was over, and yet now, he was being forced to undergo another.

It was worth noting that even when superheroes weren't literal children, they often behaved like they were. Outrageous ego-driven demands. Temper tantrums. Rigid, overly idealistic thinking. A tendency to rebel against the systems in place, thinking they knew better. A strong desire to please. Poor communication skills. And most were very sensitive to change when they found a handler they’d truly bonded to.

It would explain why Mark had sounded so touchy.

And also, rather concerningly, why he looked like he was ready to burst into the sky in search of the director, according to their cameras.

Like he said before, Mark’s current conduct wasn’t unusual by the standards of his peers. 

But Donald just found it very strange coming from him at all.

The boy had never fit into any of the GDA’s typical classifications, even back when the director had been unsure of his loyalties. He was half-alien, for one, which immediately made him peculiar — the scarce few aliens they had on file did not mate with humans, and if they did, produced no viable offspring. And the even tinier minority that did weren’t imbued with superhuman abilities of such scale and power as Mark Grayson.

Abilities which he’d acquired relatively late in life for a superhuman, both for a Viltrumite, according to his testimony, and the GDA’s own records. It was viewed positively at the time of his stability assessment, a secret evaluation all superheroes underwent unbeknownst to them, one Mark would likewise never come to know about. A more mature mind was less likely to suffer the consequences of the poor personal development plaguing younger heroes, even if it did take longer for him to reach mastery. He was also far better integrated with the local population — he had friends, even if they were few in number, and a normal, non-pathological level of social awkwardness.

Mark’s healthy upbringing, too, was unusual, though definitely a good omen for the kind of hero he would choose to become. A dual-income household where both parents were happy. A gentle mother and a seemingly doting father.

For all the bumps in the road, the general consensus among their experts had been that Invincible was safely, luckily, within their coveted 1% of superhumans.

Now, though?

Donald snuck a glance at Cecil, who had his eyes glued to the control screen.

He wondered if the director had a plan. It wouldn’t do for him to become a negative case study.

“Night Boy,” Cecil scoffed. “What kinda dumbass name is that?”

Several people in the room breathed out.

“...Helping make sure scum like you never hurt another innocent person again.”

Mark slammed his knee into the villain’s nose and felt it crack. Oops. He hadn’t meant to do it that hard. The man grunted and flared a cape with curved edges like a bat’s wing as he leapt away, dripping blood as he went.

A pink-haired punk crawled away with a whimper as they faced each other. He bled from his nose and mouth, clothes askew, and dotting his exposed skin were the same eerie spirals Mark saw before. Nearby, two injured men laid on their backs, haggard and broken and similarly diseased. Mark edged closer and breathed a sigh of relief when he saw they were still breathing.

A deadly shuriken flew out towards the punk’s jugular; Mark caught it and crushed it in his hand, buying time for the man to escape.

“You let him get away!”

Mark turned to face the assailant and tossed the ruined shuriken aside.

“Uh, duh. That’s the point.”

The Darkwing imposter had a pretty convincing copy of the suit on. He also really looked the part. He was tall, muscular, and dark-skinned, like the original, and the way he skulked was just so in-character, like wow! He must've really studied Darkwing’s combat footage or something. Not even Mark had been that obsessed.

And most importantly, the imposter sported the same iconic brooding look on his face (along with a nose smushed to the right from the force of his blow) — one that said, I am a tortured crusader of the night and no one understands me.

“Come on, man. Darkwing was at my twelfth birthday party, so I'm pretty sure he doesn't kill people.”

He'd been a nice guy. He hadn't been invited, that would've been weird (but also cool). The guy was just swinging by to drop something off for his dad (which was strange in hindsight, surely flying to Midnight City would’ve been way easier than having Darkwing make the trek out). But that didn't stop Darkwing from taking the time to entertain Mark’s childish fascination when he cornered the man on their stair landing, far from the eyes and ears of their mundane party guests. He'd answered every inane question Mark had, including Does your hair stink when you leave the mask on too long (At times), and If you’re so rich, why don't you just buy a giant flashlight and shine it on Midnight City? Wouldn't that solve the problem? (I tried, but it ran out of charge and they don’t make batteries that big anymore. I’ll shine light on the city another way).

Mark heard a low hiss at that.

Mom hadn't been impressed with his line of questioning. Dad was a lot more amused. William just wondered why Mark was gone for so long from his own birthday party, like was he fighting for his life on the toilet or something?

“Also, pretty sure he’s dead.”

The words came out as flippant and unfeeling as he could make them. Mark really didn't need to ruminate any more on the why and how —

“Killed by your father, Invincible.”

Oh for fuck’s sake.

“Which is why I carry on his work. I was Night Boy, his assistant.”

The low-hanging fruit was there, but Mark was trying to be better than that. He’d never heard of Darkwing having a sidekick before, though.

Night Boy adjusted his nose so it sat straight again. It didn’t quite make it there. Mark had to suppress a wince, he really hadn’t meant to knock him that hard.

Off to the side, one of the men groaned. His fluid-filled boils glinted in the pale streetlights.

“Did Darkwing beat up the sick? I don’t remember watching that in the promos.”

“Sick? These people are dangerous, ” Night Boy snarled. “A burden to the rest of the city that already struggles on the scraps it can find. I’m doing everyone a favor.”

“Jesus Christ,” Mark said, appalled, even as another part of him nodded in mild agreement at the valiant attempt at resource management. He squashed that part down, because what the fuck. “These people need doctors, not an extermination.”

“There’s not a doctor on Earth who can help these people. They’re tainted. Only the shadows can cleanse them.”

“So you decided to walk them through the shadow of death?”

Night Boy’s expression turned steely and his voice dropped to a dangerous whisper. There was a metallic click from his utility belt.

“You don't say things like that around here.”

Puzzlement graced Mark’s features. He thought that’d been a pretty good quip; he was almost proud of himself for being so eloquent.

Donald’s voice: “Bring him in, Mark. And make it quick. He’s psychologically disturbed.”

“You think?” Mark replied, looking away.

“You hear them too?”

“Huh?”

Mark turned back to Night Boy. His stern-faced expression hadn’t changed per se, but in place of the cold deadliness was a hint of something else. Lips slightly parted and eyes holding a glimmer of hope and surprise.

“The voices.”

Mark wanted to say no. But between the freaky shit native to Midnight City and the recent deranged scribblings over his mental blueprint, he really couldn't find it in himself to lie. The big dose of drugs from earlier might’ve brought him down to reality, but to say Mark didn't still have to manually ground himself would've been dishonest. It was maddening — the constant push and pull against his psyche. The moon and the tide. Friction and inertia. 

Flight and gravity.

Mark swallowed his unease.

And then there was the way Night Boy looked at him. Like he was shouting out from the bottom of a buried well, treading water with weights tied to his arms. Fighting and losing an important battle no one even knew existed, smelling like the last ember of a forgotten hearth — sad, desperate, strange.

Mark stamped down the sympathy bubbling out of him. The guy was a serial killer, for fuck’s sake.

Was that so wrong?

Oh, not this shit again.

It was just a question.

One Mark had already answered. (When?) Yes, it was wrong to kill.

Why?

What the hell did he mean, why?

Why was it wrong to kill?

It was wrong to kill because it caused pain to others, and pain was unpleasant to deal with. People naturally avoided pain and suffering — pulling themselves out of dangerous situations, reflexively removing a hand from a hot stove, delaying the advent of emotionally-charged conversations. Averting eyes from his mother’s stupor and leaning away from his father’s fists —

The memory of a needle piercing skin flashed through his mind. He was five years old and getting a vaccine at the doctor’s office, jaw agape and swallowing his own snot as he cried like hell. Debbie soothed him with a kiss while Nolan explained in simple terms why exactly he had to have it done. A little jab was worth the pain to avoid getting sick with something worse in the future.

A more recent recollection flickered to life: the sharp point of another needle piercing the invulnerable skin of his neck —

Mark swatted the feeling away.

The images faded.

Pain wasn't inherently bad. It could be a necessary trial. And if pain was a key component of killing, surely one could come to justify the action through finding reason for such momentary discomfort.

Look at Night Boy.

What about him?

The city was in clear ruin — crime, addiction, social upheaval. No help was coming for the desolates living here. They were left to struggle and die slowly, with poor food and poisoned water and absolutely no sympathy from the outside world. And in times of hardship, sacrifices had to be made. Night Boy, in the absence of his (weak) mentor, had clearly accepted the mantle of leadership over his cohort. And now he was making a decision to cull the unworthy, so that others may thrive.

Could the pain he caused not be justified within the context of greater gains? 

The question rippled out in his mind like a single drop of water rolling off a stalactite. It caught the sweet half-moon as it glistened, trailed moral weight as it fell, and in the deep silence of the ancient cave, rang very, very loud.

No.

Why?

Because Night Boy had no right to take any lives, let alone innocent ones. Life was sacred, and precious, and if seized could never be given back. That last bit was important. Whether granted through godly will or the boon of the wider universe, human life held inherent dignity and value, and no one had the authority to simply override that key principle. Several institutions stood with Mark on this one — various religions, cultural beliefs, systems of law. And down on the ground, too, even when the sky dripped blood and it seemed like all societal order was lost, the notion persisted. Strangers pulling strangers out of the rubble, shielding them from blasts and carrying each other out of burning buildings. He saw it on every mission. He saw it in Chicago, in the brief glimpses he managed. And even if he didn't, Mark only had to look through a history book to see how people have always defended each other, even when there was no gain to be found for them personally.

Stories he’d heard over the years surfaced from the waves like a school of flying fish:

A Swedish diplomat shoving papers and passports through a train door, uncaring of the bullets flying overhead. A brave woman diving back into the jaws of slave-owning Maryland time and time again to save her kin. Two scientists refusing to patent a life-saving medication because it belonged not to them, but to the world.

And there were countless more tales of course, more grains of courage and kindness outnumbering all the pitiless stars the universe had to offer.

Call it duty, or virtue, or inherent goodness or empathy, it didn't matter. Human beings understood this on a fundamental level, and Mark was no different.

It was the basis of herowork.

It was what made him Invincible.

Mark felt the air around him tremble with encroaching chaos, like an atom about to split. Teasing through the cracks were a hundred thousand different egos ready and willing to tear his arguments limb from limb. But before the cacophony could break through and derail his moral paradigms into a number of irrelevant and increasingly complex tangents, Mark shut the lid on the casket and sent it flying into the dark lake of his subconscious, because it wouldn’t do to engage in a complicated ethical debate when in the presence of a dangerous supervillain.

(Dangerous? Hah. Tell another one).

“It doesn’t matter what I hear.”

“That wasn’t a no,” Night Boy said, picking up on his wording. “You’ve heard them too, admit it! So you must understand what I’m trying to accomplish! The good I’m doing!”

Mark wasn’t gonna admit to shit. And neither did he understand, because Night Boy was absolutely crazy.

“We’re not having this conversation. You’re coming with me.”

Night Boy dropped into a fighting stance.

“I’m not going anywhere with the son of a psychopath.”

Mark bared his teeth.

Why the fuck did people have to act like he’d been murdering the Guardians side-by-side with his dad?

“Hey! I’m being nice. So watch it.”

Mark made a grab for Night Boy but the man spun into a double backflip before vanishing without sound.

Just like before…

So, behind?

Mark blocked the first punch to his gut but not the spinning jump kick to his jaw.

“Ow. I felt that.”

“My predecessor developed this exoskeleton to help even the field against those like you. But that’s not what you should be worried about.”

Those like him would never be impressed with this pathetic display. Besides, it seemed either Darkwing hadn’t worn the suit when he was fighting (being murdered by) his dad, which made him stupid/arrogant/both, or he had, and it did nothing, which made his engineering shoddy/inefficient/both, because Nolan had survived and Darkwing was very, very dead.

But judging by the power (or lack of thereof) behind that blow, Mark guessed it didn’t matter either way.

“Hey, man. I said I felt that punch. I didn’t say it hurt.”

Something told him to blitz through the air and rip Night Boy’s throat out with his teeth; Mark did the first and not the second because firstly it was fucking insane, and secondly he’d been told to capture the villain alive. He fell into the familiar rhythm of hand-to-hand combat and tried not to use his nails like a damn alley cat. With some effort, Mark bunched his hands into fists to fight like a normal person.

Night Boy took advantage of his distraction to toss him overhead into a deep, velvety —

— darkness.

“Welcome to the Shadow-Verse! There are dark things here…”

It took a second for Mark’s eyes to adjust.

“...hungry things. Even I don’t dare to stay too long.”

Wet growls emanated from the distance; Mark sealed his lips shut to stop himself from growling back. Multiple hiss-tones slithered into his ears and gave impressions of sharp, spinelike scales overlapping each other like the lines of an optical illusion. Though the sound travelled with ease, Mark felt like the hungry things were quite far away.

Mark looked around.

Viltrumites didn’t have night vision. But their eyes were still more sensitive to light.

And like other sighted beings, though he didn’t have the words for it, Mark understood this next bit on an intuitive level.

Vision worked logarithmically.

It was an evolutionary mechanism. Primitive life needed to recognize a wolf in the night-covered bushes just as much as it needed to evade a bird of prey set against the backdrop of the sun’s rays. Brains needed to process magnitudes of stimuli — on both ends of the spectrum of great and small. And vision was part of that.

If it worked linearly, sighted beings would either have to cope with complete night blindness or total day blindness. Neither was conducive to survival.

To illustrate further, you’d notice a candle burning in the dark with ease, but it wouldn’t stand out as much in broad daylight. So for Mark, the difference between Flint and Midnight City had been like…day and night.

Ha-ha-ha.

The same principles carried over for a number of other things. Weight, for one. Emotions were another. For example: up until he got his powers, Mark had been blessed with a pretty cushy life. Loving parents, a good school, a nice house in the suburbs, and yeah, maybe his grades weren’t too great, but everyone had always thought he’d make it through somehow into doing something he enjoyed. At the time, that was herowork.

But then dad decided to kill all the Guardians and try taking over the planet, nearly killing him in the process.

A logarithmic change, see?

Very easy to notice.

Very easy to judge the rising intensity of his pain.

Everything that came after that should’ve been far less of an issue. With a baseline level of upheaval that high, Mark should’ve developed some measure of tolerance for unfair, miserable bullshit — he should’ve needed a lot more to go wrong for him to notice the change. And maybe he had reached that imaginary threshold and just hadn’t realized it. But if Mark had to truly quantify his grief, had to sit down and add up all the sorrow and rage and resentment that had built since he first felt the odd changes affecting his body, it objectively wouldn’t have amounted anywhere close to the sum of that awful day in Chicago — no, fate was saving the breaking wheel for something else. 

Going from dark to darker shouldn’t, therefore, have been quite so jarring. 

But Viltrumites were more sensitive to these types of changes.

And this was a different sort of darkness completely.

There were little particles floating around in the air. They reminded Mark of the black mold spores he’d once found growing on an old piece of bread at the bottom of the bag. When Mark looked closer he saw the little hairy filaments split into smaller and smaller branches, all identical and infinite in their progression. They clung to him with a million tiny hands, all bent one way in a spiral. Mark shook his head and turned away before he could get too distracted with the endless pattern.

The place smelled…interesting. If Midnight City’s miasma was a figure eight, the darkness felt like…a knot with the ends joined. A closed three-dimensional loop with three symmetrical clover leaves and three crossings to match. At each one, Mark felt the ghost of a memory slide over his tongue with a suggestive purr.

Rust.

A sea of greatswords and spears stabbing a barren field with imperial ruin, each imposition on the soil a warrior’s grave.

Disease.

A conjured blight spreading far and wide, burdening implaccable titans with decay and slow rot.

Cold smoke.

Divinations spoken in unknowable tongues, a starless void devouring civilizations whole.

“I hope you like it here,” came Night Boy’s echoing voice. His disembodied head stuck out in the pitch black. “Because you are never! Leaving!”

Mark felt hunger stir like worms in his belly, greed and gluttony sharpening his teeth. Night Boy was the farthest thing from his mind. When had he last eaten? He couldn't remember. He was so hungry. He wanted to know. He wanted more.

The knowledge sat on his tongue like a rough thumb, heavy with pressure and promise. All he had to do was give in. Let his muscles go loose and his mind go blank. Surrender himself to this primordial entity, let it crawl down his throat and take what it wanted. He could already feel its cool fingers reaching round his jaw and tilting his head back in submission as something else wrapped vice-like around his waist and parted his knees, ready and eager to subsume his being into something larger than himself. His body sang in half-agreement and his wrists tingled, outraged at being suppressed, at being heat-smothered by lower beings.

No one would mourn him, if he left. Not his father, who thought him inadequate, nor his mother, who thought the same. Not any of his human friends, who could never understand him like this, or his human obligation, whom he felt increasingly distant from, despite her patience and continued kindness. Not the entire superhero community, who now saw his instability laid bare, and certainly not the world, who thought him the son of his father and nothing beyond it, who trusted him as fingers loved frostbite and orphans loved fire.

Absolutely no one would miss him.

This is what the darkness whispered, and what Mark hazily confirmed with a purr.

And even if they did, who’s to say he would be gone forever?

He might one day be returned to the world of solid lines, whole and hearty with dark enlightenment reflecting off the angles of his body; a flaming ring of clarity about his brow. And think of all the people he could help then, all the poor souls he could lift from the dirt and bring to ascension. Those like him would tremble before his power; his grand, unifying vision.

The darkness gave a low chuckle at that.

All he had to do was open his mouth and take a deep breath. Lie back and let the void drag him under its ravenous form, full of jagged teeth and adversarial intent. There, he would curve and twist within the machinations of another’s umbral vision, temptations tasting belladonna-sweet and desires conferring reality. He could already feel something solid pressing against his lips, immovable and insistent. It would be so easy… 

A shrill whine pierced the space, full of outrage and indignation and childish jealousy. Shamelessly screaming something like, you stole my idea! which was weird, because Mark was pretty sure it had no mouth with which to speak.

Then something was stabbing his neck with a screwdriver, and that was all he needed to snap out of it.

Mark peeled his lips back and sank his fangs into the abyss. Viscous not-blood pooled in his mouth and streamed down his chin; warm not-flesh tore off a stiff not-body as he shook his head wildly side-to-side.

The darkness yelped, the world shifted, and Night Boy screamed.

Mark spat out the not-flesh.

The man toppled over himself into the void, clutching his head and writhing in pain as he spun in free, weightless somersaults.

“What did you do?! ” he cried, voice a garbled mess.

Mark felt fine vibrations trailing up his arms and down his body in all directions. He shook himself once from head to toe and they fell off him like droplets of water.

He flew over to Night Boy and took him by the shoulders.

Far away, the deep rumblings of nether creatures curdled and shot towards them. Space didn’t seem to follow the same rules here, but Mark was pretty sure the hungry things would reach them in no time if they didn’t hurry, startled though they might’ve been.

“Get us out of here!”

Mark felt the space pressurize oddly and fizzle out before a portal could form.

“I can’t! You broke something, you monster!”

“I didn’t do anything!”

Mark definitely did something, but he had no idea what.

Night Boy started screaming again and curled his body into a fetal position, shaking with undiscernible anguish. He didn’t look injured.

Mark whipped his head around, heart racing. Tried to find an exit, a solution, anything.

What the fuck did he do now? How was he gonna get out?

Look at Night Boy.

What about him? How was this the right time?

He was different.

How? Mark couldn’t see anything wrong. He wasn’t bleeding anymore, or bruised, he had four whole limbs still attached to his torso and he was moving them all just fine.

Look closer.

With a little uncertainty, Mark did exactly that. It wasn’t like he had any other ideas, and judging by the encroaching sounds, he didn’t have time to argue.

It was hard to tell what was wrong with Night Boy exactly, not counting the screaming and the odd smell. His costume was the same. His body, whole and unbroken. Well, all except for his nose —

Wait.

Night Boy’s nose.

He’d flown into Night Boy from the villain’s left, so his nose had been forced to the right of his face when the cartilage broke.

But now his nose was twisted towards the left.

What was going on?

Maybe Mark mixed up his rights and lefts?

Unlikely. He hadn’t done that since he was like, seven.

He held up both hands, stuck out his thumbs and pointer fingers in two ‘L’s. Yup, still the right way round. All the atoms in all the right positions.

But not for Night Boy.

Mark dropped his hands and scanned the area. He noticed those black not-mold spores again. Plucking one out of the air, he brought it up close and examined it. Still the same tiny filaments curling towards an unfindable center, smaller and smaller and smaller…

Except!

Now they were all spiraling the other way round. Clockwise was now counter-clockwise. Right was now left. And vice versa.

He didn’t dare breathe too deeply. But Mark got the feeling that if he scented the darkness again, traced its shape with his nose, he would see the three-fold knot mirrored in totality. 

True understanding was far beyond Mark’s current capabilities. He hadn’t read the books or taken the tests. He didn’t have a fancy degree, and he had no time or means to go out and get one. The knowledge required to unravel the mystery was buried in layers of physical principles he hadn’t learned, taught in introductory college classes he couldn’t attend.

But if he could’ve organized the ideas and watered his comprehension, this is what Mark Grayson would’ve seen.

The familiar double helix. The glittering ladder of life. Right-handed, usually, with grooves just the right size and a base tilt at just the right angle to enable all the necessary processes for functional existence. And floating along beside it, around it, part of it — all the amino acids and natural sugars in their directionally specific configurations. Light bouncing off the enantiomers with pinpoint accuracy. And in macro, the axial twist in all vertebrates on Earth. The heart on the left and the liver on the right. Preferential dexterity in people’s hands, though Mark felt that to a lesser extent than most.

Picturesque. Purposeful. Sublime.

Looking further, Mark might’ve seen the left-handed spin of the fermions making up his body, or observed the complex inner workings of all the other subatomic particles governed by the standard model, all moving with single-minded direction.

And if he threw his cognition deeper into the black hole of knowledge-seeking, he might’ve stumbled on this: for some inexplicable reason, Mark’s defiance had shocked the eldritch forces making up the darkness into grabbing the realm by its nape and twisting it through a fourth spatial dimension, flipping everything into a mirror image in a movement of pure, unadulterated shock.

Everything, but him.

Mark didn’t know the specifics of this bit either. But Night Boy would die if he was left like this, even if they found their way back to Midnight City. All his biological machinery was rotated into the opposite chirality, which made each cell, transporter, and cascade just about as useful as a glass hammer when it actually came to processing the macromolecules necessary to sustain life — proteins, sugars, fats, adenosine triphosphate. Night Boy would starve on a full belly.

Mark tried to simplify things. Navigation had never been his strong suit, but that didn’t matter right now. All he knew was that whatever he did really managed to piss off whoever was living here (or what ever this place was), Night Boy was wrong, and he had to find a way out for them both.

The image of a figure eight flashed into his mind, unaltered by the mess he’d caused.

A low sound like a grouse carried on the not-wind saying, oh, now you care?

Everything shook like an earthquake. The force jolted through the non-existent walls, ground, particles, making Mark’s teeth rattle in his skull.

Mark grimaced and rubbed the back of his neck.

“Aw, man…”

Look, he really hadn’t meant to pass over the miasma’s gifts. He knew it thought of those three things first. Credit where credit was due.

His own face stared back at him, flushed and willing with his eyes rolled back —

Mark winced and reddened at the imagery.

Then contrasted with how restrained he’d been before, smelling each object with polite formality.

But you liked them better coming from —

“Hey now, that’s not true.”

He coughed and waved a hand about.

Then his face twisted. The darkness had honestly come on way too strong.

There was a swishing motion.

…Really?

“I mean, yeah? Going for a nice walk and smelling the flowers is way more up my street.”

Way more chill than being consumed body, mind, and soul on their very first meeting. He liked taking things slow.

The miasma made a considering noise. Then it groaned like bones about to snap. It showed Mark its form again — flat, two-dimensional, with only one crossing point. Juxtaposed it with the darkness’s volumetric layout, with its elegant trio of petals and far more robust inhabitants prowling in the distance. Showed how it was only able to visit like this because of cracks in the plane caused by the darkness’s own laxity. 

“You’ve got nothing to be self-conscious about,” Mark said with emphasis. He got the impression that the miasma was still pretty young, anyway.

Mark was in a coral reef. It was bleached white and starving, the water too salty and warm. Emerging from a nest of polyps was a black starfish writhing in the ocean currents, kicking up sand as it struggled. One of its appendages was severed off and wiggling independently.

Ah, so he was right.

Mark conjured up the miasma’s form again and rephrased himself. Imagined jetting off into the sky in a straight line, then leaving the atmosphere, then the solar system entirely. Split up his path into multiple equal and progressively smaller segments as he continued flying into the great beyond, unstoppable and unending. Rotated the figure eight by ninety degrees.

The miasma released a delighted squeal.

Mark smiled.

See? These things were all about how you looked at them.

Mark pictured wine and drugs. The former quite easily and the latter to the best of his imagination since he had no direct experience. In his mind, he stumbled and swayed, eyes heavy with the fog. He was nearly about to fall off a cliff —

Then Mark pushed air through his vocal cords, imitating the shriek he’d heard the miasma make earlier. The sound came more easily than he thought it would.

It was the only noise for several shadow-miles, because Night Boy had finally tired himself out screaming.

Mark caught himself before he fell. He lifted his palms up and bent his head low. Imagined boxes of expensive teas and red ribboned baskets piled high with fresh fruit, just like the ones his mom made him gift to older relatives in Korea.

“Thanks. I really owe you one.”

The miasma made a motion like puffing out its cheeks and looking away.

Mark smiled again, using all his teeth.

Then he turned back to Night Boy, shivering with wide, unseeing eyes, arms wrapped around his shoulders and knees tucked up to his chin. Totally unresponsive to the hand Mark waved in front of his face, or to the clicking of his fingers.

Worry grew barbed wire in Mark’s chest. He really hadn’t meant to cause this. He’d imagined flying in, knocking the bad guy out, and then flying away. Clean. Simple. Physical. He’d imagined a light beating at most, not a mental breakdown. Or whatever kinda breakdown Night Boy was having.

The image of a door came to mind.

“Can you help?”

He might’ve been pushing his luck, but it was the only shot they had at escaping.

The miasma shook its not-head. Mark’s heart sank. It offered an explanation in rapid flashes of innumerable complex equations with more letters than numbers in them, some of them Greek, a lot of them Hebrew. A flat piece of paper came up, then a ball, then a saddle.

Mark shook his real-head. He didn’t understand any of that.

More incomprehensible mathematics sprang up; Mark pushed it away before he ended up like Night Boy trying to make sense of it.

“How about this instead?”

Lessons from ninth grade math. Mark pictured the miasma’s shape again. Visualized one of the infinite loops flipping over forwards to double itself into a teardrop.

A sting of sourness crept under his nose and stabbed him right up the sinus, nearly piercing his skull.

“Sorry, sorry. How could I forget?”

Mark made an alteration. This time, one of the loops rotated itself at a right angle, and then again. Back to the teardrop. He smoothed its sharp corner to form an even circle and imagined shooting out the other end with Night Boy dragged behind him.

The miasma paused.

Mark’s gut twisted. They had to try something. They really couldn’t afford to get stuck here. Night Boy needed to go to prison, and Mark needed to get back to the Pentagon and apologize to his mom. And he was pretty sure the hungry things would be more than enough to take him out once they found their way here.

Then the miasma made a movement like a shrug.

Why not?

Mark braced himself.

It was all at once very quick and very slow. Space-time warped itself into an incomprehensible blur, colors beyond Mark’s imagination danced bullet-quick under his lids. Night Boy was lucky he’d been curled up so close to Mark when it happened, and that Mark managed to blitz through those precious two inches with his super speed to grab him by the collar. As he was lobbed through the wormhole, angles and shapes swirled, kaleidoscope-like with brilliance and symmetry, fractured and fleeting like love and longing. He was pretty sure triangles were meant to add up to a hundred and eighty degrees, but that wasn’t happening, and weren’t parallel lines not meant to meet?

Shooting out the other end was a head high sitting like a thorny crown and a black bubble behind his eyes; half-thrill, half-nausea.

Mark and Night Boy tumbled over each other like bowling pins; Mark, loose-limbed and shouting with no dignity at all, Night Boy, still completely dazed and incredibly lucky to be wearing that exoskeleton, judging by the impact crater they made in the wall they crashed into.

Mark stood up slowly. They were back on the same roof. He grinned, and black tar dribbled between his teeth and down his chin, cold as a vacuum and fluid like quicksilver. He wiped it away with the back of his hand.

“Man, I can’t thank you enough! You really saved my ass back there!”

The miasma twisted around a fixed point like the blades of a windmill. Its jerky movements made a sound like broken windchimes.

He reached for his earpiece.

“Hello? Donald?”

Grey static.

Mark considered Night Boy’s shuddering figure, his sunken eyes and open-mouthed absence. He bit his lip.

“Do you think you can change him back?”

The miasma balked. It flashed its flat form again. More letters and numbers followed, then shapes and fancy curled brackets that Mark brushed away.

I can’t do that, it seemed to say.

“Well, I don’t believe you,” Mark said evenly. “You thought you couldn’t get us out before, and you did. You’re capable of way more than you think.”

A pool of numbers manifested in a ring around him, all of them big, except one figure, which was a negative number.

“Like hell was that a fluke. You really need to start believing in yourself more.”

Mark gathered all the numbers and added them up, including the negative one. The answer was wrong, because he sucked at math, but it didn’t matter. He made a show of giving the sum back to the miasma’s infinity.

Mark sighed. If anything, he was the fluke. He might’ve thought of a solution before, however crude, but he hadn’t been the one to think of the logistics and he hadn’t the means to carry it out. And now, he’d reached his quota — that was Mark’s one good idea for the month gone. He just hoped the miasma was more creative than he was. It had to be, it was so smart.

For a while, it didn’t say anything. 

Mark wandered over to the two diseased men still passed out off to the side. His first aid was decent, but limited, so Mark was glad these guys seemed okay-ish anyway. Mark looked at their gaunt cheeks, their undress, the spirals on their skin. A horrible stench clung to his nose. The stirrings of a growl were forming in his throat, he tore himself away before his thoughts started veering off into unpleasant scenarios — asking him questions like, what would you do, if you had to do something? and what if there wasn’t enough food to go around?  

Triangles took shape in his head. First a big one, then several smaller ones inside it, and again and again and again.

“Uhhh…”

Mark raised his brows. It was pretty, but he had no idea where that train of thought was going.

Then the triangles became cubes. The images slowed down, like the miasma was trying to explain itself. First a big cube, then it was split into nine smaller cubes, and the middle one removed. Then the process repeated with the remaining eight cubes and so on. The miasma flashed a decimal number between two and three and threw its not-palm to its not-forehead, like the solution had been so obvious and it was so silly for not realizing earlier.

Right…

Of course Mark understood.

(He didn’t understand in the slightest).

The miasma chittered excitedly and readied itself again like it was firing up a cannon. Mark jumped out of the way.

It was like before. It all must’ve happened in a fraction of a second but it also took an eternity to be over. Geometry boiled and condensed, angles folded and filled. He was shown six triangles tiling a flat surface, then three, then a million, then a series of numbers he was sure were just made up, then an endless pattern of progression that looked a lot like the paisley print he’d once seen on his mom’s work laptop and on a woman’s shawl on a family trip to India. Then something flipped , and oh —

Mark straightened from the crouch he dropped into.

He walked over to Night Boy, who still smelled odd but seemed better somehow, and examined his nose, which was broken the right way now.

Mark brightened. He turned to the miasma —

— who seemed sullen and sad, negative numbers growing and growing by the second.

Mark’s expression softened. “What’s wrong?”

The image he’d conjured up before: Mark jetting off into the air, past the atmosphere and out the solar system. Then: the injured black starfish with four remaining appendages, swimming away while its pitiful maimed limb was left behind.

Guilt sat heavy on Mark’s chest, despite himself.

“Was Night Boy the one keeping you company all this time?”

The miasma scoffed a resounding, no.

It showed him a child, a human one. A gap-toothed smile and a wild afro, nine years old and somersaulting through the air, laughter free and fearless despite the bruises dotting his arms and face. Another figure — older, wiser, swinging past him from a grappling hook with light admonishment for his recklessness.

Night Boy, raised from squalor and orphanhood by a rich benefactor into a crimefighting machine. Voice shrill and muscles weak, burdened with poor psychological makeup and prone to anger. But tenacious, kind-hearted, light on his feet and heavy with his humor. Troubled but trying.

Thirteen years old, with teenaged arrogance. Trying to find a way to reverse the eternal night.

A mysterious tome written in the black speech, propped open on a music stand. A half-drank soda on the side. Whispered incantations and glowing white eyes, and the path to the Shadow-Verse opened, sucking Night Boy in and leaving Darkwing sick with worry and helplessness for three terrible days.

Then he emerged. Changed, but not broken. Maturity warred with boyish triumph as he was swept into the loving embrace of his mentor. Night Boy waved a hand, and a portal sprang open. He stepped through, and Darkwing nearly burst into tears again.

Night Boy appeared on the other end of the room with a grin. Darkwing gripped him by the shoulders, face open with shock, then a cascade of emotions others would never be allowed to see — warmth, grief, pride. Hugged him again, and learned to accept his ward’s strange new ability, despite the brief stopping motion his heart would make every time the child used it.

Many years later.

A beautiful winter’s day. Night Boy, tall and grown, hunched over in a chair, elbows on his knees. Far away, in a place not Midnight City. Books and papers around him, a dissertation due. Urban studies and public policy. Salt water stained his hard work, wails echoed through the empty space. Night Boy was all alone again. Madness swirled at the edges of his mind, crucial pills stayed unswallowed.

Two newspaper clippings. The headlines: ‘Darkwing Saves Midnight City from Killer Clown Mafia!’ and ‘Darkwing Offers Vital Medicine to the Poor!’

Night Boy folded them away, went home to Midnight City, and put on his mentor’s cowl.

Mark blinked. His heart felt heavy, his stomach clenched with guilt. He looked over to Night Boy, still lying on his side in recovery, unresponsive.

He shook himself. Sure, Night Boy was a kid once too, but it didn’t excuse the murders he’d committed. Every sad feeling he felt now was outpaced by his victims’ cries, then again by the magnitude of grief stirred by their families. Sorrow upon sorrow upon sorrow.

The miasma couldn’t care less about any of that.

It waged spears of jealousy towards the darkness, for obtaining a keeper so determined, so focussed, so bold of character. A partner with purpose, no matter what that purpose was, who treated it with respect.

“Come on, you don’t want Night Boy,” Mark protested. “There’s way better out there — ”

Midnight City, when it was still just Northern Flint. The dark dome of the miasma descended upon the city in a wave. Civilians screamed below, men and women and children ran from the otherworldly monsters rising from the tarmac to savage them. And the one summoning all the chaos forth —

Mark blanched. “Wait, is that — ?”

A new perspective dawned. 

The Midnight Magician shouted abuse as he terrorized the city from above, floating on a disc of dark energy.

He’d been born into a dynasty of Klan members, raised and shaped by their hate. He was the hero of his own story, defending his nation against an invented evil. And though some patient souls would try to dissuade him, try to urge him towards better wisdom, he would choose cold enmity and the comfortable veil of ignorance every time.

The miasma didn’t understand American racial dynamics or the petty politics of pigment. It was a force beyond human emotion, and arbitrary tribalism, and reality itself. Directed by pure impulse, it was egotistical, childish of whim, innocently malicious, and unashamed of all those things. It quite frankly did not much care for the reason for its summon; it just wanted to be entertained.

But it did understand pain and cruel words.

The Midnight Magician chanted in the black speech and shot them at the miasma, forcing it to do his bidding.

The miasma had no mouth.

And yet it screamed.

And it did as it was told over the course of several nasty minutes, which for a creature so surreal and magnitudinous must’ve indicated great unrelenting pain from a force much larger and crueler than itself. It showed Mark more incidents then, wielders across time and space who’d done the same thing and cursed it away with powerful magic when it was no longer useful.

A small show of defiance. A tiny alteration of continuous derivatives. Just a little nudge, and the Midnight Magician lost his footing. He fell forty feet from the safety of his dark dais into the jaws of the angry citizens below, armed with long-held resentment and spiked baseball bats.

The memory faded.

For a long moment, Mark said nothing. He took a deep breath in. Traced infinity on his arm. And let the air fall out of his lungs.

The miasma didn’t ask to come here. It didn’t ask for its nature. And it certainly didn’t ask to be hated for it.

Quietly: “I’m sorry that happened to you.”

Something stirred nearby and gasped sharply.

Night Boy leapt to his feet. He felt up and down his chest and arms with wide eyes, then fell back into a fighting stance when he caught sight of Mark.

Mark dropped his shoulders. “Look, can we just cut this part out? I’m not gonna lose, and you’re not gonna win. Why not make this easy on us both?”

“I don’t know what you did to me, but I’m putting a stop to your evil today!” Night Boy roared, then charged. “I’m the hero here! I’m saving the world from Omni-Man’s son!”

Mark’s temper flared. He grabbed Night Boy’s wrist as the villain swung at him and added pressure. He gave a yelp of pain.

“Don’t call me that.”

Then, because he should give credit where credit was due: “And again. I didn’t do anything. Someone else saved our lives, and you should be thanking them!”

But Night Boy wasn’t listening to him. His eyes were wide with terror, looking at a far point past Mark’s shoulder.

Annoyed, Mark turned.

A black void stood blazing behind him, bleeding inky and irrational. It had no outline, but it was undeniably present, and if Mark looked closely, he would’ve seen the rings of being making it up like the striking bands of dark agate. It was small, and it was spidery, and floating on it was a crescent of pearly white teeth stretched into a grin.

They looked like his teeth.

Recognition hit him, and Mark smiled back, because it was the polite thing to do.

Night Boy’s eyes darted between them.

“You’re in league with it?!”

He pulled against Mark.

“Hey, this little dude brought us back here when it really didn’t have to. It can't be that bad.”

Night Boy’s eyes were bulging out of his skull.

“And now I owe it?!”

“Well, yeah.” Mark tilted his head, trying to drop a hint. “So maybe you should say thank you.”

Night Boy looked like he wanted to do anything but that. He closed his desperate eyes and grimaced, body stiffening with stress and hastily gathered fortitude. He muttered a prayer to himself. Then with new determination, he snapped his eyes open and started chanting in a dark, nameless language.

“What are you doing?” Mark asked, with growing alarm.

The miasma shrieked and its void form wavered.

“Stop! You’re hurting it!”

Night Boy smirked.

Mark saw red.

He snatched Night Boy up by the throat and squeezed, cutting off the sound into gasps. Then he snarled and shook him hard, just because he could.

“Mark, are you there? We lost you for a few minutes. Where did you go?”

The man’s neck was soft under his grip, the little twitches beneath his fingertips like an insect’s delicate legs. His pulse a frantic flutter. Flap flap flap — a butterfly’s pretty wings. How many hurricanes would come of it? Would people visit him then?

Bone and cartilage would splinter if he curled his fingers. Blood would flow fountain-rich. This would not be a bad first.

He could do it, if he wanted to. Night Boy’s exoskeleton was not so tough, and his terror would not be missed. After all, how many victims felt exactly this way when he had them in his midst? How naked was the fear on their faces? Did it look like this? They’d done nothing wrong.

Night Boy’s wet gurgling was such an ugly sound.

“Mark, stop! Let him go! We need him alive!”

And so was that buzzing in his ear.

Everywhere, all the time, people demanded things of him. Be this, be that. Not this, not that. It was sandpaper on his eyes, hot needles under his skin. He was so overwhelmed, and no one was coming to help him. He had to figure this out on his own.

Shuffling in the background. A swap.

So. Right now, there were two vulgar noises, and one of them had to go.

Mark tightened his grip.

“Get your fucking hands off him before I teleport over there and tear you a new goddamn asshole myself.”

Mark dropped Night Boy instantly.

“Fucking try it, old man!”

“The fuck did you just say to me?”

Aw, shit. He hadn’t meant to say that part out loud. He’d just been so angry. And now he was in even more trouble.

Trouble? That was his main concern? A fucking scolding?

Night Boy heaved oxygen through his lungs, the shuddering movement interspersed with several hacking coughs.

Mark knocked him out with a nerve pinch. He’d had enough of the guy’s nonsense; he needed the silence to think and calm down. Blood was still rushing through his ears, making his heart hammer thump-thump-thump against his ribs . He paced the length of the rooftop with sharp, deliberate steps, hands clenching and unclenching.

Night Boy wasn’t one of Cecil’s. So Mark had broken no rules there.

But he had nearly messed up. He got that much. And he almost —

Mark swallowed. He looked around for the miasma’s intangible sort-of form, but he didn’t see anything.

Focus, focus.

Fight down the shame. Bury the guilt.

Think sweet. Be sweet.

“...Sorry.”

“Sorry, ” Cecil spat. Mark shrank at his tone. “You were given direct orders: capture the perp alive. Simple enough job. But what do you do? Nearly crush his windpipe and ignore every command telling you to stop. And all you have to say for yourself is sorry. ”

Mark hunched his shoulders. Gritted his teeth.

Think harder. Be sweeter.

“I’m very sorry.”

“Do you think this is a fucking joke?”

Shit, shit, shit.

“You don’t get to shirk authority whenever it suits you — this isn’t some game you play on your own terms. You nearly cost us an irreplaceable source of intel because you were too busy throwing another temper tantrum to listen. You got so worked up before over losing control and hurting someone. What happened to that, hero?”

Stab stab stab hurt hurt hurt nails in his skull —

Sweeter sweeter.

Sweeter still, like dalgona and honeysuckle. Sugar in black coffee.

Think of how mom made him apologize, back when he was a kid and still learning how.

“I’m sorry for not listening,” he said with slow deliberation. “I wasn’t thinking. I got — ” Red red red. “ — mad. But that’s not an excuse. I almost — ” Flutter flutter. “ — hurt someone. And I nearly compromised the mission. It won’t — ” Liar liar liar. “ — happen again.”

A silence fell over the comms.

“I know you’re trying, kid. And I know that whatever the hell’s going on with you, isn’t you. I know that.”

Mark rubbed his wrists and braced himself.

“But you still ignored orders, and I can’t let that slide. It makes you too much of a risk — something that’ll have three different high commands from three different countries breathing down my neck, demanding answers.” Cecil huffed. “Maybe we oughta let you cool off. Bench you. Give you some time to decide if you still wanna be a hero or not.”

Mark’s stomach dropped. A small sound escaped his lips.

“You don’t have to do that. I’ll listen.”

Ants were crawling up his skin and into his mouth. Cold was taking his fingers.

Something screamed at him to stop being so pathetic. Something else screamed at it to sit the fuck down and shut the fuck up.

Cecil sighed. “I need to know I can trust you, kid. So do me a favor and don’t turn this into another disaster.”

Mark nodded. Then he remembered that Cecil couldn’t see him, so he said, “You can trust me. I’ll keep a lid on it. The drugs — they’re working.”

“Are they?”

Mark looked at his hands. “It’s still pretty early on, but I don’t feel as — ” Crazy horny manic. “ — weird as I did before. It’s like they’ve brought me down to — ” Mud squalor weakness. “ — Earth, when before I was — ” Above above above “ — somewhere way past that. I just need to keep myself here. And I can do it, I swear.”

It got hard when he was mad. So he just needed to not get mad.

The line went dead for a second.

Then: “Why the hell didn’t you listen to Donald? He was your mission control. Do you not respect him? After all he’s done for you and your mom?”

“I-It’s not that — ”

He respected Donald plenty. It was just —

“ — then what?”

Mark’s lips flapped uselessly. He didn’t have an answer. He was just sorry, and he wished Cecil was here so he could show him.

Cecil’s tone was clipped. 

“No more playing favorites, Mark. This isn’t high school politics. You don’t get to pick and choose who calls the shots on your missions. So let me spell this out for you loud and clear: it doesn’t matter who holds your leash. If they so much as whistle, you fall into fucking heel. Do you understand me?”

It wasn’t done it wasn’t done it wasn’t done it didn’t make any fucking sense —

“Yeah,” Mark murmured. “I understand.”

Things were a blur after that. There was a click in his ear and another order. Trying not to shatter them, Mark gathered his senses one by one like glass marbles and swung Night Boy over his shoulder.

A trio of smells coiled under his nose, timid and mournful. He was shown a line with two dots capping the ends, then a parabola stretching high into nothing, then a small square.

“I’m sorry,” Mark said softly. “I gotta go.”

A low, forlorn wail — glass shards ground to dust.

Mark bit his lip.

“I gotta get back to — ” He doubted the miasma would understand the concept of herowork. He pulled the word from school memories. “ — my function.” Then, envisioning each person clearly, he said, “I’ve got my mom and my friends. They’ll want me back.” Worms crawled in his belly, but Mark threw insecticide on them.

The miasma made a noise: high-pitched, panicked, submissive. Mark cringed.

It was his voice.

It showed him a figure-eight flipped onto its side. Then the subtle addition of a few continuous values, deleting friction to create a perfectly smooth surface.

Then a fall.

Terror caught in Mark’s throat. “No, no. I can’t do that. It would be wrong. And it’s not like that, okay?” He said with emphasis, “What you did was justified. He was hurting people — you included. It was self-defense.”

Zero flashed in his mind. Then slowly, it transitioned to one.

Discomfort prickled at his skin. He needed to go.

“I can’t stay. I’m sorry.”

The wooden floorboards of a dead house creaked, resigned and melancholy.

Mark licked his lips.

“But I’ll come back to visit sometime. I promise. I owe you, remember?”

The miasma perked up. With tendrils of charcoal, it wrapped itself around Mark’s waist and squeezed once, leaving behind a smoky residue on his supersuit.

A flash of white, and his own teeth were lunging for the space between his neck and shoulder.

Mark tore away from the ground with a little laugh. 

“Better luck next time!”

The crescent of borrowed teeth faded away.

When he crossed through the dark dome separating Midnight City from the outside world, his thoughts started to blur, and a buzz sounded in his ear.

“Kid, who the hell were you talking to?”

Trying to think of how to explain, Mark took Night Boy where he needed to go.

Back on the rooftop, two men groaned and sat up, rubbing their scalps with exhaustion. They checked themselves over, then each other, bodies awake with surprise and unexpected health. Caught on the edge of the miasma’s newest trick, the sinister molting disease found itself incompatible with the molecules making up their bodies.

The taller one stood first, head pounding and feet like loose teeth, then helped his companion up with an outstretched hand. They clasped each other’s arms and shared a smile of strange relief. Soon, the GDA’s clean-up crew would be there to see to them.

The spirals on their skin were turned the other way.

Chapter Text

Things were not going well for Cecil Stedman.

When were they ever going well for Cecil Stedman?

He rubbed the bridge of his nose and tried not to burst an aneurysm on the clean tiles of the GDA’s best control room.

Sending Mark out so soon had been a risky gamble. On one hand, he could’ve waited the kid out longer, got the medical team to order more blood tests and scans and whatever the fuck else they needed to make sure everything was working. That would’ve been smart. Ideal. And after Mark’s stunt back in the lab, god knew Cecil had every reason to take extra precautions with him — on top of every other red flag he was eagerly waving in Cecil’s face. 

But he knew that wouldn’t have given him shit.

It was like laying cement down and expecting it to harden in three seconds. Cecil wasn’t an expert of any sort, but he knew these things took time — which they just didn’t have.

He needed a rapid assessment on Mark’s behavior and stability — pronto — and unfortunately, the best way to do that was still to deploy him onto the field. While analytics could provide quantitative measurements on things like muscle and bone density, the truth was that lab metrics, psych evals, and simulations were still a far cry from being directly stress-tested on the field. Decision-making, tendency to escalate, moral boundaries, teamwork ability — the truth only came out when the stakes were real.

Put simply: numbers and paperwork couldn’t tell you jack shit about what a hero would actually do when a bus full of kids was speeding towards disaster while a supervillain threatened to blow a hospital sky-high. 

Or in Mark’s case, what he would do when a mentally unwell supervillain started throwing punches and emotional triggers like confetti at a clown’s funeral. Cecil wanted to see what he would do when he thought no one was watching — he’d known they were listening through his earpiece, of course, but not that they’d have eyes on him the entire time.

The opening knee to the nose got them off to an immediate bad start. It wasn’t the move itself — that was pretty ordinary.

It was the fact that Mark drew first blood.

Mark never drew first blood.

And up to that point, he’d had no idea whether the supervillain was squishy or not.

Despite his line of work, the kid wasn’t naturally inclined towards violence. When he first started out, he’d been chasing the rush, the glory, the fatherly approval — not, thankfully, the thrill of bones breaking under his knuckles or the warm spray of blood on his face.

Maybe it was innate knowledge of his invulnerability, or some misplaced sense of chivalry — but Mark tended to mirror the energy of his opponents. He didn’t strike first, he wasn’t disproportionate with his strength, and he was careful to make sure his villains were tough enough to take it before he started beating them into next Sunday.

Many of their heavy hitters were the same — it was a good thing, generally. As much as it sometimes skirted the edge of inefficiency, Cecil would always take a cautious hero over one who was overzealous with his might. Promoting no-talk brutality as a first step during confrontations was a guaranteed way to encourage ego trips and god complexes among the walking insurance liabilities who were often already halfway there.

The curve usually went like this: a new superhuman on the higher end of the power scale would start off overusing their strength, crushing faces when they didn’t mean to and vaporizing buildings by accident. Monster Girl, for example, had rolled out that way to begin with. They’d get a scathing review from him for the collateral and a sharp order to get their shit together. Then time, experience, and (ideally) a moral compass would iron out the kinks. By the time they were settled, a high-calibre superhuman was likely to start their fights off on a low-medium level of strength, and only amped it up when the supervillains started doing the same.

Ironically, the heroes most inclined towards ruthlessness were those on the weaker end of the spectrum. They embodied brutality partly because they could afford to, and partly because they had to. When you were forced to play a rigged game, rules of honor had to go. It was the psychology of the hypervigilant, the constantly menaced, the cornered animal trying to keep its head above the water. 

Have you ever seen a happy chihuahua?

Those with diamond skin had the luxury of being able to tank a few bombs and laser beams before they got their bearings about them. Those with very human skin on the other hand, with soft bones and softer bellies, were likely to gouge out eyes and snap a villain’s neck before they could even squeal ‘mommy’. It was something they’d had to train Dupli-Kate out of once they’d plucked her out of the weapons division of the DoD, and it was the quality that continued to make her brother one of the GDA’s deadliest non-augmented containments, that is, when they managed to contain him at all.

A broken nose was a minor thing. And from the footage, Mark showed a brief hesitation in the moment directly after — remorse, like he hadn’t meant to hit Night Boy (why didn’t Darkwing just call him Catamite? Catanight?) that hard. Their silver lining.

But Cecil still didn’t know if this was a bad omen or just an anomaly. Did Mark lose control because of his mental state, his newly developing physique? Was this an early sign of sociopathy, desensitization? Deadly alien instincts? Or was Mark acting this way because he thought he was…weak?

Cecil straightened. They simply didn’t know the upper and lower limits of a Viltrumite’s capabilities. But Nolan had been a trusted officer, so he had to be high up on the ladder.

Mark was the strongest superhuman on the planet right now, without a doubt. And if he was instinctively fighting like one of their low-tiers…

Fuckkk, could Cecil get any good news? Was it mathematically possible? Who the fuck did he piss off in a past life to deserve this?

A shadow skimmed the edge of his periphery.

“Sir, are you alright?”

Cecil spoke lowly, angling his head away so no one could read his lips. Staff averted their eyes very graciously once they saw. Some typed louder to distract themselves.

“You ever had to deal with a wounded dog, Donald?”

Donald raised a brow. “My family wasn’t one for keeping pets.”

“Let me explain,” Cecil said, watching the comms team start their post-operation procedures with hawkish eyes. “Dupli-Kate is a Yorkie. Shrinking Rae’s more of a…springer spaniel.”

He levelled Donald with a look.

“Mark’s a goddamn grizzly bear, and if he starts acting like a rabid chihuahua — ”

“Are you suggesting he’s not domesticated?”

“We’d better fucking hope he is.”

But since when had hope ever beaten the odds?

Domestic pigs had this troubling tendency to revert to ferity when left to their own devices out in the wild. The need for survival grew coarse hair, lengthened tusks, drove them to behave erratically. It turned them into razorbacks — dangerous, territorial, and known to attack humans with no provocation.

Sometimes fatally. 

“We need the xenobiologists back for an all-nighter. Several all-nighters. Give ‘em as much money as they want.”

He took a step away to regroup.

Then there was Mark’s reaction when Night Boy asked if he could hear voices too. Cecil knew he was hearing things, but to see him deflect like that instead of straight out denying it wasn’t exactly a vacation for his nerves. He was half-afraid the fight would turn into a scene you’d sooner expect from two patients in a mental hospital. He had his lucky stars to thank that they didn’t start encouraging each other — Cecil didn’t need Night Boy to make Mark worse.

The kid was hesitant when he fought. There was this delay in between punches, this staccato motion where his fingers would curl and uncurl. It was messy as hell. Would he need retraining?

And then there was everything else.

Cecil pivoted back to Donald, who looked like he had a lot more to say.

He said, loud enough for the room:

“I want a team of occultists and magicians out to Midnight City. Have them liaise with Darkwing’s sidekick once he’s reprogrammed, I wanna know what the hell Mark was talking to, how it works and what it wants.”

The miasma, he’d said. The cloud over the city. Nice guy. Creature. Thing.

And not much more than that. Cecil had his fair share of encounters with ineffable entities not of this world, and unfortunately he was educated enough to know that they all made and followed their own rules. The GDA needed to check in on the kid soon, or he might forget the entire encounter before they could extract any intel. So far, no one but Night Boy was reported to have full on conversations with the dark forces infecting Midnight City, and no one could believe what he said half the time. So why Mark?

Cecil didn’t pull at his face like a seven-year-old, but he desperately wanted to.

“And I wanna know how the fuck he managed to get out of the Shadow-Verse without Night Boy being awake to open a portal.”

I bit it, Mark said ridiculously. And then there was a circle, and I flew through it.

They needed more countermeasures. He hadn’t been lying to Mark about the military chiefs hounding his ass for solutions. He could bullshit them, sure, but the best lies had a sprinkling of the truth in them.

“And have them check the kid over for any magical residues once he’s back.”

The Earth did not need a Viltrumite well-versed in the eldritch arts.

Everyone in the control room went to work.

Cecil relished the sanctity of his office. Free from the usual surveillance covering the Pentagon, it was an executive-level SCIF — soundproofed, tightly monitored access points, shielded with a high-calibre Faraday cage to prevent electronic leakage, and fitted with a new, heavily armored door. Recording, whether passive or active, was at his own discretion. No one had the direct authority to tell him to turn it on or off, and anyone with the balls to ask would have to endure an insanely complicated legal endeavour, a Kafkaesque nightmare of exceptional protocols and clerical labyrinths so obfuscatory and illogical that it probably counted as an eldritch entity itself.

The number of barriers made sense. A security leak would be disastrous. Sensitive information flowed through here every second of every day — data so valuable it’d have bad actors foaming at the mouth for even a glimpse of a couple words. Powerful men around the world would kill for a space like this — a fortress guarded by layers of security and clearance codes. With clean lines, integrated tech, and a muted color palette, it was sleek, modern, and carefully constructed to project unquestioned power.

But for Cecil, it was also one of the few places he could actually breathe.

Away from the scrutiny of his staff, Cecil sank behind his desk and plotted his next move.

Donald cleared his throat.

Cecil looked up. He hadn’t realized he’d been staring off.

He also hadn’t noticed Donald walk in, completely uninvited.

Cecil briefly considered changing all his access codes.

“What is it, Donald?”

“Sir, Mark has been demonstrating signs of operational drift. I’m sure you’re aware.”

Uncomfortably so. ‘Operational drift’ was a sugarcoated way of saying that Invincible wasn’t doing as he was told. It also meant a lot of other things, because everything was always some kinda double or triple entendre when it came to his job.

“I’ve got it under control,” Cecil said, straightening his tie. “He won’t undermine your authority again.”

Donald had an unreadable look on his face, the one he got when he wasn’t convinced.

“I’m more concerned by the potential emotional overlap on Invincible’s part.”

Yeah, Cecil was too. The pattern he’d picked up earlier — Mark’s propensity towards seeking a reaction from him — combined with his begrudging deference to Cecil’s authority. The push and pull behavior wasn’t exactly anything new, he’d worked with enough teenagers (and wasn’t that sad to say) to know that, it was just strange as hell to see this level of emotional dysregulation coming from the kid at all.

And if Mark had a specific fixation on him…

Two words lurked on the edges of his mind.

It made a bizarre kind of sense.

A few hours ago, in Sutherland’s lab, Cecil spent a precious few minutes running the phrase through his head — processing speed slower than usual, firstly because the notion was absolutely ridiculous, and secondly because it turned out leftover adrenaline from Mark’s recent murder attempts made for incredibly piss-poor brain food. 

Ducking his head. Averting his eyes. Exposing his hands — to show he was unarmed? Angling his head to display his…neck? A show of vulnerability? Trust?

It was animalistic. Primal. In-keeping with the feral behavior Mark demonstrated before, though he hadn’t acted exactly like this. Cecil’s scientists just needed to find out what kind of Earth-native species Mark most closely resembled, and maybe then they’d have a working matrix to interpret the kid’s antics.

Cecil sat with the thought and all its implications.

If Sutherland's assessment was accurate, this was surely Cecil’s dream come true. A powerful asset, the most powerful superhuman on the planet, loyal to him, and by extension, the GDA in particular? 

It was definitely the fantasy of many a power-hungry maniac he knew personally, men and women in high places who fancied ruling the world with their destructive toys and standing armies and political influence. Dictators, generals, criminal underbosses, seemingly mild-mannered politicians, other spymasters — the list was endless.

Unbeknownst to Mark, there was a constant stream of low-level hijacking directed towards him — attempts to contact and turn him through his Invincible persona which had all failed miserably because they’d been unable to bypass the GDA’s superior encryption. Those were a piece of cake to deal with, easy to intercept and swat away. It was standard procedure to keep their high-value operatives blissfully unaware of these things, lest they be tempted by potential interlopers trying to lure them away with promises of something sweet and hopeful. It was also for their safety — many governments around the world were simply too prone to kidnapping and threatening behaviour — of which Mark was at no particular risk, but someone like say, Atom Eve, was. Over the years, she’d been the top focus of the GDA’s physical diversions and preemptions, not to mention the countless digital attempts at interference. Several staff members in SIGINT owed their paychecks directly to her.

Cecil could understand, perhaps too well, why hostile actors were so drawn to Atom Eve. If he’d been that way inclined at all, he would've tried the same thing. It was smart. A calculated risk with a good return on investments, if you played your cards right. If he was a man after wealth, he could've forced her to sit in a dark room and make gold all day long. Rare minerals, for experimental weapons. Drugs, to control the masses.

But human beings were drawn to grand displays and unnecessary spectacle, and so recently, the narrative had shifted.

Mark was on the verge of being tossed into play. The center of a silently escalating war; the primary focus of multiple different agencies’ attempts at cross-recruitment.

And Cecil could already think of a few powerful people in particular seeking to court Invincible as their personal attack dog. People he couldn't turn away quite as easily as the rest.

Omni-Man’s rampage last year hadn't just been a beatdown for Mark or a call to alien warfare. To the powers that be — to those in the petty mortal realm — it was a direct display of what the kid was capable of. What he could withstand, the number of cities he could level, and what, if conditioned, molded, cultivated — he could become were he ever given the chance.

Nolan had never been at risk of being manipulated the way Mark was. He was older, wiser, an alien with little in the way of worldly temptations. And also serving under completely different orders.

Mark, though? 

While he doubted the kid would be remotely interested, Cecil didn't enjoy playing with uncertainty. He took countermeasures. He made contingencies. And this was just another problem he would have to watch out for, no matter how seemingly distant. 

But that was all the annoying mundane bullshit Cecil had to put up with as director of a global intelligence agency that didn't exist. The unnecessary distractions from the main event — the oncoming alien invasion everyone was too wrapped up in their own stupid bickering and blissful ignorance to see.

Maybe he was looking at this all wrong. The potent mixture of Omni-Man’s abuse and Mark’s recent biological uncertainties created a perfect opportunity to solidify Cecil’s influence, to tie the kid to Earth by giving him another emotional anchor to focus on. It was logical. Pragmatic as hell. Such a maneuver did no direct harm, even accounting for its layered intent. There was plenty of plausible deniability to be claimed too, if it all went tits up. And on a personal level, Mark could use the guidance — especially since the last adult male figure in his life was a genocidal monster with house keys.

But did it really have to be Cecil?

He drummed a finger on his desk, knowing how it must’ve made him look.

It should’ve been a no-brainer. Emotional manipulation was second nature to him. He knew how to coerce, how to play egos, how to exploit ideological rifts and financial woes. And he’d done far worse before — blackmail, manufactured crises, withholding vital information, controlled betrayals. Hell, he guilt-tripped Mark on the regular. This, surely, was not that bad. This surely was something better. Even if the whole thing was a sham, the facade would surely still be sweet enough to taste. And it made complete sense that Mark latched onto him — he was a consistent authority in the kid’s life.

Cecil could entertain Mark’s behavior. Or give off the impression of it, anyway. A couple carefully placed leaks was all he needed, and the intelligence community’s rumor mill would do the rest. It’d cement his control over the kid, at least in the eyes of the black world. Power begetted power and sent opportunists running. Such a blatant display would do well to keep everyone else in line — maybe stop them from barking up his tree so goddamn much, giving him the peace of mind to get back to more pressing concerns.

And the kid was loose with his feelings. Earnest. Open. Cecil could use that. Despite his personal misgivings with some of the Guardians, Mark’s reputation among the wider superhero community was an untapped gold mine.

Potentially.

None besides the Guardians knew him on a personal level. Even as a novice, the magnitude of his abilities kept Mark delegated to their highest priority missions last year — Mount Rushmore, the Mars mission. And even those were carefully engineered with additional purpose. The first, to test the kid’s commitment to herowork, given he’d been on a date with Amber Bennett at the time. The second, to determine Mark’s physical metrics and ethical boundaries. Independent excursions aside, he hadn’t been called on to deal with many street and city-level threats until fairly recently. Which also meant he had little in the way of contact with the average superhero aside from chance meetings.

Cecil could change that. Integrate him into the broader sphere — forge a public image that was less celebrity and more down-to-earth. It’d give Mark connections, more colleagues, maybe even more friends.

But it could also make him more difficult to control.

Cecil’s reputation wasn’t exactly amazing amongst the wider superhero community. It would be easy for someone to exploit that, use the kid’s naivety to gain his trust. They could emphasize the GDA’s shadiness and turn Mark against them.

And what if he got too popular and started rebelling against him? The GDA could lose all their superheroes if people ended up liking Mark too much. Human beings were fickle like that. And there was no easy way to influence who Mark started socializing with if the ball really got rolling. They’d have to implement higher levels of interference; it was just too risky to let the kid run wild.

And too many moving parts made room for unwanted surprises.

But say that didn’t happen. If Cecil cultivated Mark’s favor, and the kid expressed that openly — it’d be excellent PR for the GDA. The strongest superhero on Earth working side by side with the Global Defense Agency, and liking it? More heroes might wanna work for them then, and Cecil could always use that. Independent heroes — the ones who managed to pull themselves up without the GDA’s help — usually made great operatives.

Cecil could craft the perfect narrative. The average superhero, even affiliated with the GDA, was unaware of the true nature of Omni-Man’s betrayal. Most simply knew that Omni-Man and Invincible duked it out on the streets of Chicago after the former turned for unspecified reasons. News articles lended Invincible an obviously positive slant. 

Portions of Omni-Man’s fight with the Immortal and subsequent conversation with Mark were available in an extremely sanitized format, but the audio was scrubbed. Civilian livestreams had been cut soon after the two Viltrumites touched down on the city, and any independent videos depicting the disaster found themselves mercilessly buried by dubious internet algorithms in the coming days to weeks.

The suppression was intentional and necessary. There was no need to cause mass panic about an army of Viltrumites descending on the Earth. And it bought Cecil time. There’d just been too many factors at play for him to make an immediate decision regarding Mark’s place in the world of superheroes.

He could leak something. Very little doctoring would be needed.

They could market the kid as a shining paragon to the rest of the world on what a superhero should be. They could hook him up with one of their public affairs teams to clean him up. Cecil could use the kid’s youthful charm to promote herowork to the masses, drumming up their recruitment stats that way.

Cecil could utilize Mark in so many different ways. They were already well-acquainted. He was more than capable. It wouldn’t be a big deal. 

And sure, handler fixation tended to ruffle a few feathers, but it wasn’t exactly uncommon — hence the GDA’s well-worn protocols. Things were still manageable. Contained. Under control. 

It really should’ve been quite easy to just let things run their course.

But discomfort prickled the back of Cecil’s throat.

The unease sat there, festering. A nagging feeling lingered at the back of his mind, quiet and urgent and frustratingly intangible, trying to tell him something important. Something he couldn’t quite put his finger on.

What, was he concerned for his moral purity now? After all the shit he’d pulled over the years? After everything he’d forced his staff to do?

Cecil was no better than anyone else. He didn’t get to sit in his ivory tower shouting bloody orders while keeping his own hands clean.

Cecil had to man the fuck up.

“I've got that covered. Mark’s in flux right now; we’ll reshuffle to set him straight. Hope you don’t mind if I reroute him your way for the time being. Just for the next few missions or so.”

As much as he bristled at handing over the reins, Donald was the only person he trusted enough to be Mark’s temporary minder.

“Sir…Mark lost control,” Donald said with barely constrained worry. “Is it really wise to continue sending him out? If you hadn’t been there today…”

“I know.”

Elbows planted squarely on his desk, Cecil clasped his hands, rested his chin on top.

“We’re playing with fire. And we can’t afford to get burned.”

Fire. He wanted to scoff. Mark had more in common with a primed nuke.

Cecil exhaled.

“But we don’t have much of a choice. The Guardians are a shitshow, the Viltrumites could attack at any time. People are dying every day. I can’t justify benching him.”

Despite being so green, Mark’s statistics were some of the best the GDA had on record. On a very quiet day, he responded to around ten low-level threats — petty crime, bank robberies, burning buildings — each one wrapped up in an impressive half hour or so, saving around a hundred people for every twenty-four hours. That number grew easily when he stuck around to help with search and rescue.

And on a day heavy with disaster, Mark could save thousands — whether through direct neutralization and rescue, quick containment, evacuation, preemptive intervention, or support. The list of threats was endless. A supervillain planting bombs all over a heavily populated city. Ecoterrorists threatening to turn seas into desert. Earthquakes, tornadoes, flash floods and firestorms.

Alien invasions.

Cecil’s analysts had been bouncing off the walls when they’d shown him their predictions. With time and experience, Mark’s statistics would only improve — faster responses, more efficient takedowns, less collateral damage — assuming they kept him on a full-time basis.

“Kid’s rescue tally hits triple digits on an average day, let alone when there’s a major incident. Hell, he saved ten thousand people just last week when he stopped the Gorilla King from demolishing Shanghai Tower.”

And counterfactual reasoning said there were always more victims hidden within secondary fallouts. How many would’ve died, not from the direct attack itself, but in the following weeks and months and years, if say, the building’s collapse damaged major electrical grids or water mains — depriving hospitals of power and leaking raw sewage into the water supply. Not to mention all the toxic dust and debris that would float around for ages, sure to give thousands of people all sorts of colorful cancers in the years to come. And then there was the cost of rebuilding, the lost economic output.

Truth be told, Mark was pretty close to paying his debt to the GDA off, not even counting the fact that he’d held off his father.

Not that he needed to tell the kid that.

(China was already asking if they could have Invincible on loan for next year’s Spring Festival. They reasoned that supervillains loved attacking during the holiday season, which was true, but Cecil said no — seven times. It wasn’t how the GDA operated. And Cecil didn’t make commitments that far down the line when he didn’t have to.

Besides, even if he did agree, Cecil couldn’t guarantee a worse disaster wouldn’t come crashing through the door somewhere else in the world, requiring him to pull Mark out to go deal with that instead. Which would just piss the Chinese off at a time when Cecil really didn’t need any more unnecessary enemies and stupid distractions).

“Sir, he doesn’t need to be completely off the job. Mark could be kept on reserve for national or global-level emergencies while he normalizes.”

“If the kid can’t be trusted to deal with a couple street thugs, what makes you think he’d be stable enough to handle a compound disaster? It’s a gamble either way. Keeping him off the field could dull his senses — make him less effective when it really counts.”

Donald’s face gave a little twitch, like he saw Cecil’s point but didn’t want to voice it.

(This Donald was so different from the last one, and even the one before that. Colder. More reserved. It was a marginal variation where cognitive nuance straddled happenstance, a deviation of decimal points with values so small they inched near zero. But Cecil had known his assistant for over twenty years, so he noticed each change every time).

“We put Mark on controlled deployments like before — search and rescue, aid delivery. If we need him to punch something, we send him on remote missions far from civilian settlements.” 

Cecil kept his tone casual. “And if we really need him to punch something, we sick him on the villains we don’t need long-term.”

Mark’s psychological profile predicted distress, guilt, and emotional volatility to follow his first kill. All perfectly ordinary emotions within normal limits for a boy his age. Before all this xenobiological funny business — even when Cecil hadn’t been sure of the kid’s loyalties — he’d been prepared to follow standard procedure: pep talk, psych input, and a kick up the ass to get Mark back out there, if herowork was still what he wanted to do.

Cecil had a feeling that wouldn’t cut it now.

And frankly, the concern wasn’t that Mark might kill someone. It happened to most heroes one way or another; he’d have plenty of folks to commiserate with.

No, the concern was that Mark might kill someone and end up liking it.

And then he might do it again.

And again.

And again.

Hedonistically chasing his next quick fix like a whetted bloodhound, spurred on by that voice in his head and an increasingly hair-trigger temper. The threshold for violence would get lower and lower.

And it never just stopped at one. In the wrong person, the full-body high was simply too intoxicating to the senses, too powerful a temptation to truly resist. It clung like honey and sighed like a sick lover — sweet, hungry, destructive — gathering as a buggy itch under the skin, growing hot thorns as morals eroded until the feeling ultimately became too strong to ignore.

Cecil worked with violent psychopaths before, both in and out of prison, and boy was it not fun. Especially when they were smart.

God forbid Mark ever became one of them.

“I still have my reservations.”

“He’ll settle down with a good routine. If we let him go idle the kid might start kicking up shit just to get some attention. The GDA gives him purpose. It’s not like he’s got much going on anyway, with his cover blown. He’ll be isolated. Grateful. And we can always use that.”

Donald shifted slightly. “Sir, if I may…I know Mark…unsettles you.”

Cecil felt a stab of irritation. “Show me someone he hasn’t unsettled and I’ll show you a liar.”

Donald continued smoothly, “Your input would still be vital for a safe decoupling. Mark won’t take kindly to going completely cold turkey.”

Cecil needed Donald to get to the damn point.

“What I’m saying is — you don’t have to go back to being his regular point of contact. After. If not me, we can find someone else. That’s what the team’s for.”

Cecil highly doubted anyone was lining up to take his place.

“We don’t need to complicate things. It’s a simple de-escalation. That’s all.”

“But sir — ”

“Enough ,” Cecil snapped, patience spent. “Keeping Nolan at arm’s length was what caused this mess in the first place. I’m not taking that chance again. The kid and I already have a working relationship. It’d be a waste to squander it. I know what I’m doing, and I don’t need you second guessing me on this.”

There was a short silence.

“Of course, sir.”

Cecil reached for his latest reports.

“If that’s all, you’re dismissed.”

He turned back to his work. The GDA’s budget balance, details on their shareholders (gratuitous geopolitics, shamelessly sycophantic). A briefing on the latest round of Reanimen testing (promising but expensive). The newest abominations put into cold storage (useful). Their annual ethics review (a joke).

A bold new piece of legislation calling for the disclosure of the chemicals used in one of their engineering projects three decades ago.

Cecil huffed. It didn’t lessen the load on his chest. Yeah, he’d have to kill that one. He made a note to call Lenny about it later, see if they could channel some cash to the remaining widows if they still wanted to make noise about it. Now, who’d make the best proxy? A senator? The House speaker?

There was a sharp intake of breath.

Donald was still there.

Cecil looked up.

The man’s shoulders held a fine tremor and there was a twist of strong emotion on his face. He fidgeted with the hem of his sleeve.

Cecil scowled. What now?

Jesus, everyone was always up his ass about something. Could he ever catch a —

“After Omin-Man went bad last year, we blew up his surveillance house to stop him.”

Oh.

Cecil smoothed his expression down and recited his lines perfectly. “You triggered it after getting everyone to safety. You barely made it out alive yourself.”

“So why don’t I remember it?”

The rest came easy.

Chapter Text

The further he flew, the heavier he felt.

It didn’t make any sense — Night Boy didn’t weigh all that much, and Mark had super strength for goodness sake. He could play marbles with boulders, use ferris wheels as frisbees. Hold entire buildings up and drag cruise ships to shore.

So why were his limbs turning to lead?

It’s the Earth’s paltry gravity, whispered a voice that sounded too much like his dad. It’s coddling you. Sapping the strength from your bones. Making you weak.

No, it wasn’t that.

It’s the thin atmosphere, hissed something else. A pale shadow of the titan pressures meant to lift you. Bland and biteless winds making you feel denser than you are.

No, it wasn’t that either!

Blood rushed in his ears. Wild air currents whipped his hair into a frenzy. Mark tore through the sky, desperate and frantic despite the limp cargo slung over his shoulders — getting back quickly was all that mattered.

As soon as he touched down at the Pentagon, he was ambushed by a group of stonefaced agents and several skittish figures cloaked in colorful robes. He’d almost mistaken them for cosplayers at first, but the lightness accompanying their scents tipped him off to something greater. Cedar, but not quite. A single orange slice. Half a loaf of bread. Cut off in a way the others simply weren’t — not unpleasant, but weird nonetheless.

They didn’t seem like bad people; they were probably here on Cecil’s orders.

Mark shoved Night Boy into the arms of the closest agent and took off at a brisk pace, eager to be gone. He couldn’t bring himself to look at the man any closer. Lest he see evidence of his savage work — of his momentary slippage. Pressure built in his chest, his vision blurred and narrowed. His skin burned where Night Boy laid over him. A tidal wave of emotions threatened to spill over, but he couldn’t let that happen here. It was too exposed. There were too many prying eyes. He needed somewhere safe.

A person ran after him.

“Invincible, wait! We need to begin decontamination!”

Mark didn’t look back.

“Later.”

“This is urgent,” the agent said stubbornly. Though he seemed like the ringleader, his face looked like all the others — impassive, inconspicuous, engineered. He smelled like a textbook. “You need a brush down with our specialists. Please, it won’t take long.”

Mark walked faster, trying not to channel lift into the balls of his feet, even though every muscle in his body was telling him to do just that. It wasn’t polite to fly with non-flyers.

“I need a minute to cool off, okay? Come get me later.”

More people followed after him, more demanding nameless ghosts who all looked and acted the exact same way. There was that muffled pitter-patter of their standard issue footwear, like they were trying to be discreet, but the obnoxious click-clack of several hidden firearms betrayed their clumsy presence. Mark’s eyes darted around, trying to find the right landmark that would lead him back to the apartment. He was meant to make a left turn somewhere, wasn’t he?

“We can’t let you leave, sir. This is a priority one procedure — ”

The agent cut himself off as several people passed in the opposite direction. The low buzz of conversation died as Mark blazed through. The passerbys’ mismatched gazes — moving like one unified creature — flickered to the growing commotion with cool assessment before everyone hastily lengthened their strides. Mark bristled at their caution, the careful distance they deliberately invoked. Looking at him like he was some kind of monster.

Mark flinched, putting a hitch in his step.

The agent took the opportunity to slip in front of him like a well-trained shadow.

“ — and magical remnants could be extremely dangerous,” he continued smoothly. The man shifted on his feet. “It’s a huge uncertainty, and people could get hurt. You’re a hero, sir. You’ve done all this before. I’m sure you understand why it’s important for the team to look you over.” 

The man’s speech softened into this false, pacifying tone. Gracelessly jabbing his grubby fingers into whatever mental divots he could find to get Mark to do whatever he wanted.

Mark hated it. He could hear every lumbering calculation, see every precise microjudgement. Everybody, please turn to page 47 on how to irritate the ever-loving shit out of Mark Grayson, destructive teenaged superhero and bane of hard-working taxpayers everywhere. And remember to take notes!

It was artless. Amateurish. These people weren’t being subtle about it, either. Despite what they wanted to make him believe.

Mark ground his teeth together.

There was a flash of uncertainty in the agent’s brown eyes before it shuttered away. With mechanical movements, he tried for a comforting hand on Mark’s shoulder. What was that, chapter 6, page 3?

Mark weaved out of the motion and glared with stinging heat. 

“Don’t touch me.”

A sourness rose to Mark’s nose.

He had to stop himself from shaking. Was this really all he was worth?

The agent dropped his arm immediately. His lips parted with indecision, his wide eyes flicked away and back to Mark’s goggles. Finally, he settled on: 

“Please come with us, Invincible,” the man implored, a hint of real emotion coming out.

Mark stilled his turbulence. He liked that tone better — raw, genuine, open.

“I know it’s not what you want to do right now — and believe me, we would let you go if we could. But these are strict orders from the director himself.”

Oh, wasn’t that just fucking rich.

Mark’s temper cracked a whip, bright and blinding, making his eyes shine with menace. Venom gathered on his tongue and lashed as he spoke.

“If they’re so damn important, why is he going through you to get them to me? Cecil knows where I am. If he has orders for me, he can deliver them in person.”

The agent reverted to his practiced mask. Every trace of feeling buried and his lips stretched into a flat, neutral line.

Fuck, Mark was being so rude. Black lurked on his periphery, red misted the center. He stamped it down, tried to dissipate the heat. He couldn’t afford to lose it and become the out of control animal everyone thought he was.

Neither could he be here, leading this obvious trail of people through these stupidly confusing halls. Four (five?) ugly ducklings following their demented mother as she fumbled her way back to the nest. Every door an intimidating barrier, every corner looking exactly like the last. The colored stripes on the wall bled layers of condescension like a kindergarten’s saccharine mural. It made him seethe.

Dammit, why were there no signs anywhere?

Not that they would help much anyway. Words blurred despite efforts to focus his vision, numbers and letters swirling together like cheap watercolor. It made his head spin off its axis.

Maybe he could close his eyes?

Black, like the cover of night. Red, like the roses he’d brought to his mom. Purple, like the bruises around Night Boy’s —

Mark snapped his lids open.

White walls, white tiles, white lights. 

Mark swallowed down bile. Footsteps coming nearer — from behind. He hadn’t realized he’d been walking quite so fast. Neither had he felt himself stopping.

“Invincible, at least tell us! Where are you going?”

He tossed back an answer — maybe then they’d be happy.

“I’m looking for someone.”

“W-Who? I’m sure I’d be able to help!”

He couldn’t very well say he was looking for Debbie Grayson, mother of Invincible, could he? Her presence here was meant to be secret, and gathering around him, like leeches to bare skin, was this silent wave of personnel, eerie and unwelcome. More and more footsteps, and though they tried to hide, their ballpoint ink and gunpowder scents gave them away. With every step, he felt their presence grow, and not just in the physical number of people hounding him — other members of staff turned as he passed, or they actively looked away. Cameras swivelled to focus on him; he could tell even when their movements were obscured by opaque black coverings.

Still, maybe he could ask. After all, this guy was offering and Mark was only after directions. Why not use all the options available to him? That agent seemed nice enough.

That agent wanted him sniffed down by those half-scented idiots in robes. It’d be a waste of time, they wouldn’t find anything on him anyway.

Mark pivoted on the heel of his foot and faced the man directly, who staggered back in surprise.

“Tell the others to go.” Nothing happened per se, but he could feel how everyone paused at his words. Mark tilted his head. “If they don’t get outta earshot, I won't talk to you. Your choice.”

The man hesitated. Then he made a sharp gesture and about ten people fell back ten feet from their positions around him.

“A little further, please?”

The man made another gesture and the rest of his team moved back again.

Mark relaxed. He approached the agent until they were within arm’s reach of each other. The man’s jaw tightened.

“Where are the apartments?” Mark asked quietly. “I know they’ve gotta be around here somewhere.”

The agent’s face gave a minute twitch. He looked like he was trying hard not to cringe.

“Y-You’ll have to be a bit more specific. There are plenty of domiciles under the GDA’s purview. Which ones are you referring to?”

Irritation spiked high. He smothered it before it could rise any further. What kinda non-answer was that?

“The ones here . In the Pentagon?”

“Sir, assuming such a place even exists — and I’m not saying it does — I wouldn’t be cleared to know about it, let alone be given a map determining its location.”

Mark groaned and clawed at his face. He couldn’t help rising an inch into the air. “You said you’d be able to help!”

The agent ducked his head.

See how pointless that was?

Mark wrenched himself away before the man could reel him back in with more useless, time-wasting endeavors. As soon as he did, the blundering crowd of agents was back in force, closing in on Mark, no doubt to observe and report. When he moved, so did they.

Mark gnashed his teeth. “Stop following me!”

He had to go. Quickly, before this got ugly. Before his temper got the best of him and he —

Somewhere behind Mark, in a hushed voice:

“Crowley-1 to Control, come in. Blue Visitor Alpha is off-pattern and agitated. Unable to quantify exact vector, though he’s in pursuit of someone important that he claims lives here. Awaiting guidance from Zero Command. Over.”

Did he really think he was being quiet about that?

Mark whipped his head around. “I can hear every word you’re saying!”

The agent gave a full-body flinch.

There was a brief silence. The man’s throat bobbed and his pulse took an upturn. Just as Mark turned a corner and left everyone else in the dust, he heard the agent mutter, “Received. Proceeding with routine protocol. Out.”

Finally alone, Mark flared his nostrils, closed his eyes for half a millisecond to picture the way back. Searched for the honey and ginger of his mother.

To the left, then the right. Straight, then right again.

He hit a dead end and nearly growled. This was the way, it had to be!

Mark was on the right floor, but the physical layout made no sense. If there was a door here, or maybe twenty paces behind, he’d be right on the money.

But of course there wouldn’t be a door. No one was meant to know he and his mom were living at the Pentagon. That was the point. His cover was blown. The whole thing was a secret to keep her safe. Of course there’d be no identifying features.

So the apartment was hidden. Or at least, its entrance was.

How did Donald do it?

Mark tried to remember. To visualize the path. He flicked through his memories like a film reel, but each image was muddied. There had to have been minute details in the architecture that would’ve tipped Donald off amidst the branching corridors and intricate combination access and subtly camouflaged alcoves. A hidden groove. The red chair. Somewhere. Mark grimaced, then cursed himself for his stupidity. Why hadn’t he paid more attention?

Mark doubled back on himself and tried a different route. He wound up further away than before, in a hallway with several closed doors lining each side, all marked with contradictory signs. He retraced his steps again and found himself in another loop. His original retinue was practically miles away now, thanks to him running around in circles like a headless chicken.

Frustration made his hands clench. Getting out had been so easy. Intuitive. But getting back in?

Mark swallowed around the lump in his throat. While his nose could map out the straightest path home, the Pentagon’s interior was an ever-shifting labyrinth, a monster with endless devouring stomachs and long, twisting bowels. It wanted to swallow him, of that he was sure. It ached to bind him and strip him and melt him down into his constituent parts, tag him and process him and tame him into something he wasn’t. 

And it was poised to do all that with earthly metals and fluorescent lights and cheap, ugly furniture. Hardly the right offerings, with hardly any finesse. Barely conscious blips with the gall to bastardize impossible objects into soulless impossible architecture; ceaseless stairs that never rose or fell despite how long Mark was forced to climb them, unimaginative rules and unexplainable social codes endeavoring to jumble and befog his senses until he was docile and obedient and happy to be that way.

Inelegant, convoluted, offensive.

Mark hissed out a breath and looked at the walls. Pressed a hand against the concrete and felt it groan under the pressure. He could do it. He’d done it before, in this very building. It wouldn’t be hard. He could be back in a second. It was a straight line. And if that didn’t work, he could take to the skies — tear the roof off with his bare hands and peer downwards, watching the little ants scurry through their tunnels from above. He’d definitely find the apartment that way. And it would be good practice, too.

Mark ripped his hand away with a snarl.

What was he, crazy?

He couldn’t pull that shit again. He’d never hear the end of it.

And he couldn’t carve a path directly to his mom! That was just asking for trouble!

The stupid paper mache walls surrounded him, taunting with their monotony. He wanted them gone.

Mark’s breath hitched. When had they started closing in?

He closed his eyes. Fought through the bloody imagery threatening to undo him, the rapidly constricting band around his chest. The coil of violence under his skin, the shame building in the galloping crescendo of his heart at what he’d almost done. At the life he’d nearly taken.

Unprincipled swine. Disobedient dog. Lost little unwanted half-breed with no courage or gumption to practice the drivel he preached. Thick as a brick with a snake for a spine and defiant of duty with no morals at all to show for it.

Did you like holding that helpless little human captive?

Did it make you feel strong?

Is that what you need?

No, he wasn’t like that. He’d been taught well. He was better than that —

Get off your high horse. You’re a murderous little psychopath and you don’t deserve to be a hero. Fucking hypocrite.

Shed the cowl. Burn the costume. Turn yourself in.

You give everyone else a bad name.

Who’s next, huh? Who’s safe from you?

No one.

Look at yourself. Look at all you can do. And look at all the nothing you’ve accomplished.

Did you like the look on his face? When he was struggling to breathe? 

Stop, stop.

But that’s not all, is it? There’s more to it than that. Of course there’s more, because you’re not smart enough to solve any of your own problems — you’re a selfish coward and you’re sick in the head and you have no goddamn self-respect.

You hated the look on his face. That sick satisfaction.

You’re a jealous, petty, vindictive little shit who’s still trying to hide behind a moral code you don’t even have.

Can’t stand to see anyone else happy, can you?

Hypocrite.

Hypocrite.

Hypocrite hypocrite hypocrite hypocrite hypocrite hypocrite hypocrite hypocrite —

You’re just like dad —

Mark gasped and snapped his eyelids open, nails digging into his temples and dragging down his cheeks.

There had to be somewhere else.

He expanded the reach of his senses, nose picking out the subtle hints of people and places permeating the air. Little molecules floated around, trying to shepherd him somewhere sheltered, secure, and not too far from here. Somewhere familiar and easy to get to.

Mark felt a tug in one direction.

Oh. Duh. That made so much sense. Why hadn’t he thought of that before?

Because he was stupid.

Stop.

Please.

Mark followed the scent, body moving before thought could intervene, finally, finally kicking off his feet and into the air, stale though it was. He was pulled down sweeping corridors and twisting corners by a single red string looping round his neck and over his chest and tangling gently with his fingers. Here, something said, pressure bubbling at his back like the friendly chill of the North wind, urging him forward. He grew denser as he sank through the haze, reeled in like an errant kite.

It was easier this time. Even without his nose — even with all the noise and shouting and the guilty pounding in his head, the journey was far less complicated. This place, though well-fortified, was meant to be found.

“Let me know if there’s anything else you want from me.”

Donald sat with wide eyes, utterly transfixed by the video playing on the screen. He wasn’t viewing them in order this time. Termination 17 — a drowning, slow and painful. The Puzzlemaster rigged a cell full of civilians to flood then promised to let them all go if one of their agents stepped up to take their place. Donald didn’t hesitate.

Alone in the cell, he breathed deeply in an effort to stay calm and conserve energy. Shrugged off his shoes and jacket and signature aviators and prepped himself to survive long enough for a rescue that would never come. First to his knees, then past his waist, then he was treading water with practiced, circular motions. The water rose further and further, and soon Donald was gasping for breath in an air pocket thinner than a pencil.

Pressing through the speakers, in a strangled gasp:

“It’s been an honor, sir.”

The whole cell was submerged, and though the video didn’t show it, so was the wider structure. Water surged into Donald’s nostrils and down his lungs, and he sank like a stone to the cell’s cold, unfeeling floor, friendless and unmoving and eyes half-open with terror.

Cecil looked away.

An alert pinged on his watch.

Code red.

Cold apprehension curled its talons in Cecil’s throat, mind already running through all the possibilities — supervillains, natural disasters, aggressive megafauna. Then to his next steps — countermeasures, collateral, damage control. He raised two fingers to call in on his earpiece.

“S-Sir,” Donald said, swivelling round in a slow circle. Shoulders still trembling. “What’s going on?”

Cecil waved him down. “Nothing you need to worry about.”

“Do you want me to — ”

“No,” Cecil said, already halfway across the room. Donald never allowed himself to be selfish, so it was Cecil’s job to grant him that luxury.

“Take all the time you need.”

Outside the archive, Cecil buzzed the comms team.

“Sitrep. Now.”

Frantically: “Sir, Invincible is off-script. He refused decontamination from Crowley Squad and is wandering outside the sanctioned perimeter.”

Oh for fuck’s sake.

“Where?” Cecil snapped, taking off towards the control room and hating the stupid coded lingo everyone was forced to use.

There was a pause.

“Goddammit, Emily! Where is he?”

In an uneasy tone: “...He’s on your doorstep, sir.”

Cecil swore and felt a headache build between his eyes.

“We’re dispatching a team as we speak — ”

In a blink of unreality, he was gone.

Everything Mark did was wrong.

“Invincible, you can’t be here!”

It didn’t matter where he went or what he did or how he did it. Every move, action, decision —

“You don’t have the clearance to proceed! Stay where you are!”

— thought, breath, beat of his soft, fragile heart — was wrong, wrong, wrong.

He’d taken to walking again, like an underdeveloped child, heavy and grounded and uncaring of the sneers, because suddenly there were people around him again, and it wasn’t nice to fly with non-flyers. Vision reduced to a pinhole, hearing dimmed on all sides. They could shout all they wanted, wave as many arms and signs and gestures in his face as they liked. It wouldn’t do them any good.

No one bothered getting in his way. What could they even do? He was unstoppable, if sluggish, a great beast parting the stubborn ocean currents — sending the rest of the reef spiralling away, buffeted by the vortex of his intent. Outwardly unshaken (he couldn’t let them see ) even as every atom in his body trembled with undoing and heat gathered behind his eyes.

Mark remembered his manners — tried to follow the rules, even as panic bloomed thorns in his chest. Where there were doors, he used his keycard, hands shaky but compliant, and when that didn't work, he turned to his shadows, who shrank no matter how sweetly he smiled.

They weren't being very helpful.

What were they even here for?

Metal wailed and split under his fingers, sparks flew from unseen circuitry. He stepped through, then again and again, repeating the perfunctory motion as many times as it needed to happen.

“We need to contain him! Get me a response team, now!”

This wasn’t the right moment to shatter. This wasn’t the right place to show weakness.

Mark raised an arm.

A familiar bitterness curled under Mark’s nostrils. It gripped him by the chin, fingers rough and assertive, before patting his cheek with controlled physicality. It felt like admonishment. Shame shot down his spine and made him worry at his lower lip.

Mark lowered his arm. Tapped his keycard on the sensors. Nothing happened.

Several metallic clicks fired off in sequence behind him, each one louder than the last, followed by the tinny feedback of numerous scattered earpieces and radio signals.

The door wouldn’t open, which was definitely a slight, and shadows were folding his vision. A tingling jolt thrummed beneath his skin. Let go, it said, stirring his blood into a frenzy. They’d leave you alone if you let go.

Something teetered on the edge.

No, no, no, he was so close, it was right there —  

“Everybody stand down! Do not shoot under any circumstance!”

“Sir! Invincible hasn’t responded to any of our communication attempts, so we initiated security protocol three — ”

Quickly, quickly!

“You so much as touch that trigger and I’ll have you court-marshalled before your damn balls can drop.”

Mark reeled his fist back —

“Kid, don’t you dare — ”

— and drove it through the last barrier in his way.

“God fucking dammit!”

Cecil didn’t teleport himself right into the fray. First off, it was an extremely stupid idea to jump straight into a disaster zone without a visual (“He teleported into my fist, I swear!”) and secondly, the brief span it took him to trek down the hallway gave him three precious seconds to think, assess, and strategize.

He directed his pupils in a short, snappy motion and the relevant surveillance footage flickered to life onto his contacts at an accelerated speed. A second later, he was muttering curses under his breath and stalking down to his office with gritted teeth, dread building like a fog thick enough to drown in, heart beating in time to a meticulously controlled march.

Cecil caught up to the chaos just in time to stop shit hitting the fan.

“Everybody stand down! Do not shoot under any circumstance!”

Most of the men responded immediately, lowering their weapons and falling back a couple steps. The heavy arms specialists were slower to react, but that was expected, because it was always difficult to withdraw and unprime a large particle beam cannon when it weighed roughly seventy pounds and needed three highly trained personnel to man it.

Cecil spotted Mark immediately. The kid wasn’t exhibiting outward aggression, but that could change if he started feeling threatened. He walked ahead slowly, immune to the commotion around him as if in a trance.

Cecil envied his calm.

With quick, flitting movements, Cecil swept his eyes over the assembled soldiers to make sure his order went through.

When they weren’t socially ambivalent freaks of nature or purportedly reformed career criminals, Cecil’s human staff were consummate professionals — synchronized, quietly ambitious, emotionally reserved, and obedient to a fault. Many were groomed specifically to work within The Establishment from a young age — hard power institutions like the military, government, law enforcement — even intelligence, in rare cases, when families either had Very Good connections to cash in on or Very Bad debts to pay off. Others were plucked from the gleaming graduation halls of prestigious private schools and crisp military academies, more still were deliberately headhunted from political youth groups, think tanks, and tech startups, their talents and aspirations to be carefully nurtured or ruthlessly dismantled based on the needs of the business.

The legacy kids stood out from a mile away — like heads above a parapet. Well-educated, armed with engineered cunning, and long-necked, because the moneyed morons were always lifting their chins to look down their noses at all the dead weight. No one was safe from that — not fellow classmates, trainees, instructors, COs, hell, even Cecil had been on the receiving end of the condescension once or twice in his current position. Only from his contemporaries, but still — it was fucking ballsy, considering what he could do — how many seemingly idyllic marriages he could ruin with a phone call, how many dubiously legal sex scandals he could dig up with their own silver spoons. That sorta lip-curling disdain had to be some kinda ancient, blueblooded tradition, like fox-hunting, or starting weird cults, or marrying your uncle — judging by how strongly the privileged parasites seemed to cling onto it.

But Cecil was being unfair. Discrimination never only stemmed from a single demographic, even if it was only advantageous to be perpetuated and maintained by one small group of assholes in particular. In a building with rotten foundations, it didn’t matter where you stood. Sooner or later, the bad air would infect you, the concrete would shift, and then you’d be cannibalizing the architecture just to build another flimsy floor in an attempt to save yourself from becoming part of the rubble. Like the world’s most fucked-up Jenga tower. Even their most cautious profiles — poached agents, who (when not ridiculously useful and made to feel warmly welcome) were generally expected to make like real-life poached animals and stay dead/silent until they were ground up for parts — had a go at the game.

Still, the main target of all the unearned prejudice was reserved for the lowest of the low — the GDA’s charity cases. Troubled teens, ghetto trash, slum scum. Turncoats and public burdens and walking sob stories, raised from the dark pits of desperate welfare checks and trafficking rings and bloody warzones and dank juvies and dilapidated group homes.

Those recruits — the ones with huge, festering chips on their shoulders, with nothing to lose and everything to prove — made the most potent assets, when they didn’t willingly take a short ride in a fast machine. Endlessly driven, fire-eyed, hungry. For money, power, approval, recognition — such naked ambition was a dangerous double-edged sword for everyone involved. Some in his retinue could tap into those long years of resentment like dark fuel, some blew up when smarter enemies identified the leak and lit the match. But the most skilled amongst the GDA’s rescues, the ones who lived the longest and rose the highest — learned to ration their resources, manage their expectations, weaponize their pain, and read the room very, very well. They were scalpels in human form, deceptive brutality made human flesh.

In other words, like the rest of the staff populating this thrice be damned spy organization, they were really fucking good liars — the best of the best.

And while Cecil would never publicly admit to being the best at anything — he had enough targets on his back, thanks — he was still a pretty damn good liar himself, to say the least.

Which was how he knew everyone standing around him was scared shitless.

Of the Viltrumite carving his way into Cecil’s office.

Cecil’s pristine, carefully curated office, which contained extremely sensitive documentation, key insights into decoding nuclear launch codes, and the personal details of some of the most politically influential figures in the world.

Cecil prayed Mark wasn’t in the mood for prank calls.

All the men and women in the hall outside his office, despite their grim, professional stances and flat, emotionless faces, were absolutely terrified. He could smell it in the air even without Mark’s super senses. 

Some people thought the Apollo moon landings were faked — they thought the computers were too primitive to handle the journey, they thought Stanley Kubrick filmed the scenes in a studio here on Earth, they thought NASA lied and covered the whole thing up.

Those people were idiots. 

Rebuttals to the conspiracy came in many forms: photographic evidence, independent verification from multiple sources at political odds with each other, the sheer number of people that would’ve had to be silenced to keep the operation a secret. The first two points held some weight.

The third?

The assessment of a naive civilian. The truth was, it was entirely possible to keep an operation with so many moving parts entirely under wraps, when you had money, influence, and the ability to hold defectors in a remote detention center indefinitely and without trial.

Compartmentation was a wonderful thing, too, so no one, save for the medical and response teams directly involved in Mark’s treatment and rampage several weeks ago, would know that Invincible was the cause of all that destruction, and even then they’d had the whole picture scrubbed since. Repairs and construction were simply told something was broken and not why. Containment knew they had a superhuman in their cell, but not who. Those in surveillance who weren’t watching unlabelled feeds did their black magic and chopped the clips up, moved the reel to a secure server, and put a shit ton of new security codes on it, which Cecil had the misfortune of having to memorize.

But as luck would have it, this was probably the exact same set of people who’d responded to Mark’s terrifying walk of shame the last time, plus or minus a couple fresh faces.

“Sir! Invincible hasn’t responded to any of our communication attempts, so we initiated security protocol three — ”

Fuck the report.

Cecil waved his hand and the response lead fell silent.

This was all just security theatre and everyone knew it. The guns, the armor, the heavy weapons. Just another pointless farce to make everyone feel better about an unsolvable problem.

Omni-Man and Invincible’s familial relationship wasn’t common knowledge, but a smart agent would be able to put the pieces together. They’d see two god-like aliens — one, a genocidal turncoat, and the other, a mindlessly destructive wildcard — and not like the picture. A smart agent would see the casual destruction wrought on Chicago, and extrapolate Invincible’s abilities from there, then slap on any info on the kid’s recent behavior for good measure and start panicking. A smarter agent would see all that and keep their damn mouth shut.

A wide-eyed young man with peach fuzz on his chin still hadn’t lowered his gun. Newbie. Probably part of their summer intake. His fingers twitched a frenzy and a coarse tremor rolled off his shoulders, refusing to be hidden by the heavy body armor covering his lean form. Despite the close fit of the kevlar, he looked like he was wearing his dad’s clothes.

One time, back in the day — when Cecil had still been a field agent, and working under a different name — he’d saved this bus full of civilians from plunging into the sea. This rightfully hysterical woman, with bright red lipstick — and he swore this was relevant — had taken his head in both hands and planted several wet kisses all over his face in her gratitude. It wasn’t an unusual response, and it hadn’t been that unpleasant, so Cecil accepted the overzealous affections with nothing more than a shrug and a quiet thanks when he was given a clean handkerchief by an onlooker.

But that hadn’t been the weird part.

For some reason, this crazy woman wanted him to also kiss her infant son, who’d slept through the entire life-threatening event and had no awareness at all of the fact that he and thirty other people had nearly ended up on the menu as a kaiju’s sad appetizer.

And she wouldn’t let him leave until he’d done it.

So he’d agreed, if only to avoid another bout of tears, because people were always looking for connection in the aftermath of a stressful event.

And while his current situation could hardly be called the ‘aftermath’ of anything, Cecil could definitely feel the cloying ghost of a shared human understanding — the need for interrelation.

Which was why Cecil was itching to shake this petrified greenhorn’s hand and give him a medal for his candor.

Because this was the only honest fucker under Cecil’s paid employ within the Pentagon’s entire six hundred thousand square meter superstructure.

Everybody else acted like they had their shit together, but this guy — this guy got it . He knew, without a shred of doubt, that if Mark decided to turn around and start painting the walls red with their guts that there wasn't a damn thing anyone could physically do to stop it. This untested twenty-something said the quiet part out loud.

But as it stood, this inexperienced young man was also still pointing his gun at Mark, which was technically insubordination, and definitely a disaster waiting to happen. Cecil traced the alignment of his rifle’s barrel and suppressed the urge to roll his eyes. From what Cecil could see, if he let a round loose, it was perfectly poised to bounce off the back of Mark’s invulnerable head and ricochet directly into this newbie’s family jewels.

Cecil decided to spare him the humiliation.

“You so much as touch that trigger and I’ll have you court-marshalled before your damn balls can drop.”

The newbie squeaked and dropped his gun.

Cecil’s eyes caught a quick movement.

“Kid, don’t you dare — ”

A heavy crunch, then warping, and a high-pitched screech. Metal bolts sheared off the hinges and hit the floor with sharp pings, hydraulic lines split and burst. An arc of oil splattered the wall and then Mark was stepping through the opening he’d made.

“God fucking dammit!”

There was a couch in Cecil’s office.

There were other things too, chairs and medals and shelves and flags and TV screens and rows of books and his ridiculously large desk, but the couch drew Mark’s attention the most. Why was it here? How many people were meant to fill this room, anyway? It was spacious to an almost absurd degree.

It looked nice, in that cold, clinical way. Powerful. Detached. Unknowable. Great for pictures — those official kinds with people smiling perfectly at the camera while they shook hands and exchanged accolades, the kind Mark imagined posing in himself at his high school graduation, then again at college.

Mark’s eyes stung. He was such a freak. A man with all the wrong parts. A mind not his own. What good was super strength without the ability to control it? Flight, when he couldn’t leave? Invulnerability — the ultimate joke, because he was affected by everything around him and impervious to precisely none of it.

At least the noise was dying down.

Mark switched the lights off. Maybe that was kinda rude, since this wasn’t exactly his space, but it was easily reversible, and surely Cecil wouldn’t mind?

Seconds ticked by. Each one took eternity to pass.

Mark’s gut churned with multiple different emotions. He couldn’t help but remember this one time, when he was four. Crawling into a dark closet while playing hide-and-seek with his dad, snatching shirts off the hangers to conceal himself well. He’d waited there, fist in mouth to stop himself giggling, for five minutes, then five more. Then ten, then twenty. And no one came to find him.

With quivering lips and a snotty nose, Mark pushed the door open and crawled out, much to the shock and relief of his mother, who’d been wondering where he was. She told him, then, that Nolan had left while he was hiding — called away to save a distant city from impending doom.

Mark understood, even as a pre-schooler, that his dad’s job was important. It was clearly explained, and made a lot of sense. Dad went around helping people, and that was a good thing. Something bright and powerful that had sunshine bursting out of Mark’s chest at the mere thought.

But he’d still only been four, without the faculties to rationalize the lump in his throat at being left behind, the fury in his bones at being forgotten. So with all the childish wrath he could muster, Mark scrunched up his face and wailed, beat his fists against the floor and threw a grand tantrum that had the entire neighborhood reeling and wishing for better earplugs.

He maintained his sulk with great diligence, too, until dad got home, and then for a bit after, denying Nolan his usual affections despite the profuse apologies. Mark only let up when Nolan whipped out a giant tooth nearly as big as Mark, some of the fleshy gum still attached — a trophy from his fight. It was so cool, and Mark’s anger tapered out, replaced with a rush of glowing admiration and the foolish intensity of his love.

In the years to come, Mark and Nolan would remember that incident and laugh with nostalgic amusement, though Debbie would roll her eyes and toss in a wry remark each time. It seemed inconsequential back then — a silly misadventure for him, and for Nolan, the harmless mistake of a new parent. Because for all the close calls, all the missed dinners and the half-finished conversations — Mark had never, for a second, believed that his dad would ever truly leave him. His dad: stronger than all evil and faster than thought. His dad — who would always, always come home. 

The memory hit different now.

Mark swallowed a sob. He wasn’t built for this. He wasn’t strong enough.

And things were so confusing nowadays.

Mark closed his eyes.

Nicotine was outside the door. Now nicotine was in the room.

Behave, the bitterness seemed to say, adding pressure to his sternum. Play nice.

Footsteps drew near. Mark curled in tighter. It didn’t stop the pain.

“Invincible,” he called, from six paces away.

Mark should’ve gone to him — should’ve knelt by his feet and scented his wrists with gentle apology. Bared his neck and waited for judgement. Asked for forgiveness and sued for peace with rueful croon-calls. It was the right thing to do. It would at least buy him time.

But Mark was too scared to move.

Because those like him were violent by deed, and ruthless by intention. Quick-tempered and domineering; cosmic brutality made flesh.

And those like Cecil were easily rattled and easier to break.

Mark was better off here in his corner, where he could come undone and harm no one.

He came closer, footsteps measured and anchored, his heart an even one-two . 

Mark tuned in on it and let the other sounds melt away.

One-two, one-two, despite the obvious tension floating thick in the air — sour enough to taste, sharp enough to ruin. One-two, one-two, pulse steady and unflappable, and so unlike Mark’s own: triplet, galloping, frantic.

Mark let his lids fall open.

The cut of his figure was striking even in the low light. Dark against darker, entirely self-possessed. Hands tucked into pockets with a practiced bearing of calm, gathered and honed from years of dealing with calamities like him.

One-two, one-two, precise and regular. Twin beats the uncompromising rhythm of a heavy white star from far, far away. Strong of character, potent of will. Certain of himself, steady as the season’s rise.

One-two, one-two, one-two, one-two.

Mark unshackled one trembling arm and pressed a hand to his chest.

Viltrumites, like humans, were vocal learners. They ascribed meaning to sound, vocalized freely, and imitated as they liked. To identify, to attract, to connect.

Mark took a deep breath and willed his heart to mimic the sound.

One-two, one-two, one-two, one-two.

Felt the vessels surge with blood, the chambers fill with pressure.

One-two-three-one-two-three-one-two-three-one-two-three-one-two-three —

Felt the valves snap-snap , his frustration a close boom —

A low growl slipped from his throat.

Cecil paused.

Mark swallowed the rest of it, overrode the sound with a pitiful whimper. Turned his head to bury the shame.

Sorry, he meant to say, but no sound would come out.

One-two, one-two — he just couldn’t get it right. So simple, so easy, but of course, beyond anything he could do.

Cecil’s pointed dress shoes were right in front of him. His tone was soft when he spoke, voice pitched to a low, soothing cadence.

“Kid, are you okay?”

Mark, functionally, was not a good liar. He couldn’t keep his cool, he fumbled when he spoke, and even when he managed not to stutter, the real truth was always obvious in his numerous other tells. Aside glances and the nervous twitch of his lips. The pause between sentences. The self-conscious way he rubbed the back of his head.

Still, in recent times, he lied plenty. First about his herowork, then about his recovery. Yes, I’m fine and no, nothing’s wrong, deflection and downplaying and lying by omission. All to cover up how he really felt, to distract himself from the dark feelings looming large.

The effort of it weighed him down. The mental concentration it took to manually hold every individual thread holding him together was enormous, and right now, he just needed to let go. 

So when Cecil asked his obvious question, more out of courtesy than anything, Mark gave him an honest answer.

“No.”

There was a Viltrumite having a meltdown in Cecil’s office.

Huddled in a corner far from the door, with some of Cecil’s furniture as a barricade — a deceptively small silhouette. Only visible due to the night vision in Cecil’s contacts. Knees drawn up to his chest, arms wrapped around them like a shield. And though he was trying to be quiet about it, in the dead silence of the room, Mark’s breaths — shallow, rapid, shaky — were very, very loud.

He stepped around the makeshift barriers, movements even and deliberate. This was just another day. Just another situation.

Mark shifted one of his arms.

A low warning growl shot through the darkness, cornered and feral. A line of tension ignited right down Cecil’s spine.

Cecil froze. His mind raced with possibilities and he got ready to teleport.

Then the sound choked off with a high-pitched whimper, and Mark buried his head in his arms.

The rules of superhuman containment demanded Cecil keep his distance. Self-preservation demanded the same.

Cecil willed his body to keep moving. Reminded himself of the basics. Remembered Ali, from ‘94. Lucas, ten years before that. Radcliffe, throughout the 70s, over and over and over again.

This was a kid in crisis.

He wasn’t any different from the next shaken teen.

Cecil straightened his posture and projected the right things.

Calm, in his loose stance. Safety, in the sturdy line of his shoulders. Trust, in his voice, and the clean exit he kept open between Mark and the door.

“Kid, are you okay?”

Mark gave a rueful little laugh.

“No.”

Cecil sighed, and knelt down on one knee to meet him eye-to-eye. “You wanna gimme the rundown on why?”

Mark wasn’t looking at him.

“Mind if I sit down?

Mark hesitated. “You don’t need to ask. It’s your office.”

Yeah, his office — which Mark had already seen fit to restyle and shape to his liking. Cecil spread his hands. “Humor me.”

Mark looked uncertain — at what, Cecil couldn’t tell.

A quick swallow. Then he nodded.

“Thank god, my joints are killing me.”

In all honesty, parking his bony ass on the floor wasn’t gonna be any easier on his body, but facing distressed people head-on was often unnecessarily confrontational. Cecil settled at a diagonal from Mark and kept his posture open and casual: one leg stretched out, the other flexed with his arm draped over it. He leaned back against the varnished surface of his desk and directed his gaze sidelong at Mark, keeping the kid’s profile in full view.

Just in case.

“Take the mask off,” he said, voice lower than usual. “You don’t need it here.”

Cecil needed to track his eyes — they weren’t always a guarantee, but watching his pupils was better than nothing when it came to predicting sudden movements. 

When Mark didn’t respond:

“It’s okay. There’s no cameras, I don't keep 'em in the office. No one’s gonna come barging in either — we’re alone. Just you and me.”

Mark swung his head towards Cecil in one smooth motion. The words were meant to soothe, but the kid just stared — breath held, face uncharacteristically inscrutable, intentions hidden behind the opaque lenses of his goggles. It was like looking at a statue.

Too clean. Too still.

Back in the 70s, this Japanese robotics professor wrote an article detailing how people reacted when robots started looking increasingly human-like. The more similar they looked, the better the feedback, but only up to a certain point. After that, positive responses took a sharp nosedive. He coined a term to describe this uncomfortable dip; this primitive sinkhole of discomfort, revulsion, fear.

The uncanny valley.

Scientists after him came up with a bunch of good theories to explain the gut feeling. Some cited the push for survival — humans were biologically programmed to avoid corpses and disease, and this evolutionary quirk in psychology was the helpful reason why. Others cited flowery abstractions — argued the simulacra made people confront their innate fears of death, gave them a deep existential anxiety so instinctive and ingrained, they could dig all the way down to the bone and never scratch the itch.

But one idea stood out to Cecil, just for how unsettling it was. He’d read it in some obscure psych journal, the kind that got dismissed as pseudoscience until it got proven too right, too late. 

It went like this: 

Long, long ago — in the shades of a dusky savannah, or beneath the canopy of a dark forest — humanity were once prey. Stalked by something that evolved to hold its likeness — not close enough to pass real scrutiny, but close enough to slip between its defenses. A mimic. A predator in human skin. Perfectly adapted to exploit mankind’s mortal weakness — its yearning for affinity.

Imagine that. Something that walked like you. Talked like you. Smiled the same, seduced you from safety with sweet promises of warmth.

So people evolved right back. Developed their own early warning systems; learned to distrust what looked human but wasn’t. A scanner might never pick up the signs, but the gut would always know.

Sweat gathered on the back of Cecil’s neck.

“Come on, kid,” Cecil pressed, cold tingling his chest. “You’ve never been shy about stripping off before.”

Mark recoiled. The movement looked a lot more normal.

Cecil’s words were a low blow, a careless jackhammer to the kid’s crumbling self-esteem. But in the absence of better options, cutting humor was his ol’ reliable when it came to dispelling tension.

Mark did as he was told.

His eyes were wet, gaze tossed into the wall he leaned on.

Cecil waited. Then:

“I make a big point to myself about," he choked, "trying to be better – better than dad, but the truth is, I’m worse. If you hadn’t been there — ”

“But I was,” Cecil cut in. Not unkindly. “And nothing happened. You let him go. You stopped yourself before you could cross that line.”

“I shouldn’t have been that close to begin with! I’m supposed to be better than that!” 

“It was a lapse in judgement. A fleeting thing. You didn't mean to — ”

“I nearly killed someone!”

The confession split the stale air and echoed with the wrath of a gale.

Cecil's heart dropped with knowing dread. The implications hung low in his gut, roiling and unpleasant.

Before he could say anything, a flood of words tumbled out, tangled and ungainly.

“Cut the bullshit. I’m not an idiot. It doesn't matter how much I didn't – didn't mean to do it,” Mark rasped, voice tight. “If I’d followed through — he would’ve died. End of story. I would’ve snapped his neck clean in half and it wouldn’t fucking matter how much I didn’t mean to do it .”

Mark’s breathing skipped to a double-time.

“And if it happens again? If I actually do kill someone next time? What the hell would I do with myself? What would I even say? Sorry I crushed your husband’s skull, ma’am, but it’s okay, because I didn’t mean to do it?”

“There’s not gonna be a next time — ”

“What the fuck would you know!” Mark snarled, rage tearing out hot and venomous, eyes pure accusation. He’d flung his arms back and hunched his shoulders like he was raring to lunge. “You never lose control of anything! You’re not the one with voices in your head! You’ve never had to stop yourself from murdering people on a whim!”

Mark’s shouting slammed into the walls, each word driven fast with self-loathing. Jagged syllables hurtled into Cecil’s eardrums and made him wince ever-so-slightly. Jesus, he had to get this under control before the team got antsy and barged in guns blazing.

Cecil held out his hands. “Kid, stop.”

Mark bulldozed ahead, voice verging hysterical, gasping each word. “I can’t control myself, I can’t do anything right. I don’t deserve to be a hero.”

Then Mark’s face twisted into something grim and dismal.

“He looked so damn pleased with himself. Because he got to hurt my friend. Like it was a game to him. Like it didn’t matter. I hated the look on his face, Cecil. I hated it I hated it I hated it — ”

“Mark, breathe. Slowly.” Cecil’s eyes flitted around the darkened room and settled back on the kid. “Just — just listen to my voice, okay? Come on, kid. You can do it — in and out.”

It didn’t work.

Hands cratered the ground beneath him, fingers dug gullies into the concrete. Cecil braced for the walls to come crashing down, for rubble to fly, for Mark to let loose his turmoil again.

A series of movements too fast to catch — were it not for the sensors in Cecil’s contacts. Mark seized his own hair and tore a clump out. Gripped his own throat and squeezed with harsh vengeance as black strands scattered over his knees. Parted lips in silent fury as he dragged nails harder than diamond over impervious skin, cutting and cutting with the hate of white lightning, rending flesh from his body and blood from his veins and desperate to cast his whole being away.

Cecil moved. 

His reflexes would never come close to Mark’s. In a race of synapses, the kid would always win. But Cecil hadn’t spent this long playing with superhumans without learning a few tricks. Tech filled in the cracks, guile summoned his power. He could never be where Mark was, but Cecil could trace where the kid would be.

So he lurched forward into that clouded frenzy, gambling again with the only thing he owned. Leaned far too close to that livid self-ire and prayed for his fake skin to weather the heat.

“Stop,” he ordered, with mortal conviction. Like his vain command could soothe force incarnate.

Mark’s blown pupils flickered back and forth, between the two points where Cecil scorned good sense — where his thumbs folded bays into Mark’s gloved palms, where his fingers curved ring-like round the broad stalks of his wrists — catching his harm with a mirror of the gesture Cecil had seen Mark use on himself.

There was a brief yield under Cecil’s pressure before Mark defied him again. Blood dripped from the kid’s fingertips and stained Cecil’s sleeves.

“Let go of me!”

But he didn’t throw him off.

“You’re wrong,” Cecil hissed, and that put still the kid’s thrashing. He tightened his grip and forced truth past his teeth, acrid and shameful. “I’ve pulled myself from the brink more times than I could count. Do you know how many pieces of shit I deal with on a regular basis? Murderers, traffickers, torturers, rapists — the lowest of the low. The worst kinda scum. Every goddamn day, I wanna lay ‘em all out. Line ‘em up one by one and blow out their brains. You think you’re the only one who’s ever been ugly, kid?”

Cecil made a choice. Measured out his ingredients and mixed them well.

“Back in the day, when I was still a field agent — I was investigating reports of a planned terrorist attack. Found two supervillains using a shop as a front. Real crazies, bare-knuckle savages. They got the drop on me, beat the shit outta me.”

Steady, steady. Keep the beats even.

“But they blinked — their first mistake. Forgot who they were dealing with. I wasn’t the best at hand-to-hand, but I was an agent of the fucking GDA, and we don’t break easy. We don’t make it easy. They were expecting a slap — and I brought a hammer. I clocked who they were the moment I walked in. Called for backup and sat tight.”

Cecil exhaled, let the moment lie still.

Mark was locked in place — breathing still uneasy, but there was no resistance in his arms. 

“They moved their schedule up,” Cecil said bitterly. “Released a flesh-eating gas into the city. I tried to contain it. But I wasn’t good enough. Seventeen people died. Seventeen innocent people, dead because of me.”

Nikki Chang, aged 47. Florist, mother of two. On vacation with her family. John Mitchell, aged 33 — fresh out of rehab. He was waiting for the bus to go home to his brother.

“That gas fucked me up good. Melted all my skin off. Everywhere but here.”

Vanessa Hernandez, twenty-one. She’d just bought her first beer. 

Cecil tempted fate again — pulled on the rage he kept shackled down below, past the serpent and hound and through sulfurous smoke. Pulled Mark’s hand to his face, to that ruin of skin, the nexus between unrelenting lies and the foul vault of his soul.

“This is the only real part of me.”

Samuel Miller, born premature. He was only six months old.

He maneuvered the kid’s thumb to press light on the craggy hollow of his face, where feeling went dead and deceit grew wings. Wished Mark would see the movement through — would find purchase on his mandible, and cleave it from his skull.

“The GDA put me back together. Gave me a fresh suit of skin. But I kept this bit here, to remind myself what’s at stake. What happens when I’m not good enough.”

Mark’s hands were trembling.

“What happened to them?” he choked, voice growing an undercurrent of something much darker. “The people who did this to you.”

Cecil pushed against Mark’s thumb. It stayed where it was.

Cecil blinked. Added more emphasis to his attempt and pried the digit off with a scowl. Released Mark’s other hand and studied him closely, recreating their original distance.

“Does knowing what they did upset you? Does it make you feel mad?”

There was a fine tremor to the kid’s shoulders, the veiled threat of a torrent within. Cecil’s chest tightened.

Shit, had he gone too far?

“Well imagine how I felt barely a year later, when I found those scumbags working for the GDA.”

Wrap it up, wrap it up.

“The Lizard League attacked — and believe it or not, they were a big deal way back when. Broke through the Pentagon’s defenses, had us cornered. I thought we were done for. Then outta nowhere — guess who I see swooping in to save us.”

Cecil’s fingers itched for a cigarette. He imagined taking a slow drag. Felt tar bloom on his tongue, settle hot in his lungs. Pictured grey plumes granting gospel to his words — snaking and curling and spreading his contagion, the ugliness inside him given visible form.

“They shoulda been in prison. Rotting away for the rest of their lives. But there they were, gallivanting around, breaking faces like it was their day job. Doing the very thing that made them criminals in the first place, and earning medals for it. Getting called heroes. ”

Cecil spat the last word. He didn’t need to act.

“You wouldn’t believe how mad I was. All I could see was red. Ever since the attack, I felt the flesh peeling off my bones every morning. Heard the names of those seventeen civilians playing on repeat every night. I had my sights on ‘em. My finger on the trigger. Two easy shots to the backs of their heads. So, so, easy . I wanted ‘em dead. It was the least of what they deserved.”

“Did you do it?”

Mark sounded so small. Garbled and distant, like he was underwater.

Cecil thought for a moment. 

Here was a fork in the road. A chance to shape the narrative.

He could tell the truth. Admit to what he’d done. Lay it all out for the kid to see, jagged and unseemly. Center the moral on a cautionary tale, with him as the fool and prison the ironic punishment — he’d been free as a bird to act on his impulses, right until he wasn’t.

Yeah, Cecil would say, tone clipped and uncomfortable. I told myself I did it because I had to. For justice. For the seventeen gone. Then he’d turn a little softer, make Mark lean in to listen. Color his words with regret, give it that raw edge of vulnerability. But the truth was, I was angry. Angry they were free. Angry they were alive.

It was perfect. Humanizing. A lesson disguised as honesty.

And when you’re angry, the worst things are easy to justify. Right until they aren’t.

It would lay a great foundation. Teach the kid complexity. Drive home the moral with a personal flourish. It was necessary.

Because if he was honest with himself, and Cecil rarely got the opportunity, it fucking scared him. If this superpowered teenager got it in his head he was the arbiter of who got to live or die — and that had happened before — then they'd have orphans before lunch.

Mark was attached to him, wasn’t he? Cecil could soften the blow. Demonstrate with his confession that he was as flawed as anybody else. The remorse in his tone would make him sound authentic, strengthen Mark’s loyalty. And it was a foothold — one that could lead, softly, into the next stash of emotional dynamite.

Sinclair was never gonna be an easy one to explain.

Cecil opened his mouth:

“No.”

Wait, what?

“I clawed my way back. Threw it outta my mind. The whole world was collapsing around us, and these guys were holding the current assholes at bay. We needed all the help we could get. My personal satisfaction wasn’t worth damning everyone else.”

What the hell was he doing?

“And later, I asked about it. I wasn’t supposed to — but I had ties to the old case, so they humored me. Turns out those two villains underwent some serious psychological reprogramming. They felt guilty. Wanted to make up for their mistakes. So I let it go.”

Why did he lie?

“What, you just forgave them?”

Cecil barked a short laugh. It stuck in his throat. “Hell, no.”

“But they got off scot-free! How was that fair to their victims, to the families?”

“It probably wasn’t,” Cecil conceded. “Nothing could ever make that right. But they put in the work. And they were far more useful out on the field than rotting in prison. You can’t forget the bottom line, kid. It’s not about punishing criminals or stroking egos — it’s about saving lives. That’s what separates us from the pack.”

Was he concerned for his vanity? His petty self-mythology? That didn’t sound right.

Fuck, why did he do that?

“But that’s not why I told you that story.”

The pause he took gave weight to his words, gave him time to reflect. Redirect if need be.

“Killing’s a tool — a powerful one. You can’t do it on a whim. It has to be a conscious choice. Those assholes were personal for me. But if I’d killed them, we would’ve lost two good fighters. Maybe more than that, since they ended up saving lives I couldn’t. Not on my own.”

Cecil couldn’t afford to waste time panicking. He could still use this.

This little lie preserved his image, kept the moral clean and simple. Those stuck better than messy truths. And Mark had enough ghosts to deal with. Why confuse the kid any further?

Since when did he give a fuck about his image?

“That’s the thing no one tells you about this job. Sometimes the worst screw-ups are the ones who end up doing the most good — if you give them the room to try. But you only get to find out if you don’t shoot first.”

It wasn’t a secret that he’d done a few years in the big house. Mark would only have to eavesdrop on the right gossiping employee for him to start asking questions. This was a disaster. The Earth was at stake, how could he be so stupid?

“They’re dead now, anyway. Something else got ‘em.”

Mark seemed to relax at that. Relief, or…disappointment?

Fuck, it would’ve been perfect. The right amount of truth and lie — in fact, very little lie at all. He could’ve spared himself another burden. It would’ve gotten the kid’s trust, made him different from his dad, brought them closer toge —

Mark wrinkled his nose. His breathing had evened out.

Cecil’s eyes flitted to the gore on Mark’s fingers, the deep ravines in his skin.

No — thinking like that was defeatist. Useless. And it wasn’t just his image. What if he told Mark the truth, and it wound up undermining his authority? The kid still had his morals colored black and white. Mark could reject him. This lie cemented Cecil as a model of good behavior — whether it was real or not was purely secondary.

“Look kid, I know you think you messed up. But you didn’t lose control — not really. You chose to stop. You could’ve ignored me. Killed him anyway. You didn’t.”

“That anger I felt.” Mark looked at his hands, nibbled on his lip. “It scares me.”

“Being scared is a good thing — it shows you care. Means your heart’s still working as it should. And that tells me everything I need to know about what kinda man you are.”

“But what if this is who I am now? Angry and impulsive and out of control?”

Yeah, what if.

“You’re not your worst moment. That anger — it’s part of you. It’s part of all of us. But you care about the fallout. You care about how your decisions affect everyone else. That means something. So hang in there, okay? We need you. Now more than ever.”

Mark sat on his words for a couple minutes. A tentative peace settled between them, heavy like lead. Cecil let the lull linger, and studied his office while the kid put himself back together.

The door was a lost cause, metal warped and twisted, then twisted again when Mark tried to ‘close’ it. The same went for his monitors. And neither his desk nor his couch were meant to be flipped around like that and used as barriers.

But there was surprisingly little destruction to behold.

Cecil didn’t have the full breakdown of the damages, but the formal report — yet to be completed, but already underway by an extremely meticulous auditor — would confirm his suspicions, reinforce his rationale.

Footage would show Mark keeping destruction to a minimum. Holes just big enough for him to step through, avoiding wires and circuitry and expensive machinery where he could. With the exception of Cecil’s door (and wasn’t he just so special), hydraulic mechanisms remained untouched. The kid hadn’t even torn through a single wall.

Though he was terrifying by default, Mark hadn’t demonstrated any untoward aggression. Not to Cecil’s staff, not even to the numerous inanimate objects that no doubt looked tempting to demolish. Especially since Mark seemed to utterly detest the GDA’s design sensibilities, judging by his last hormone-fuelled rampage.

Mark had superpowers, sure. He was worryingly bloodthirsty; he bore a streak of madness in the dark pits of his eyes. Three short days and he’d have the world split in half.

But the silent panic, the deflection, all his pitiful attempts to stall and evade —

The darkened room, the irregular breathing, the cowering in the corner —

None of it pointed to an imminent threat.

It pointed to a kid — overwhelmed, scared, and in over his head.

“Why did you come here?” Cecil asked, when Mark seemed settled enough.

“What?”

“Why,” Cecil repeated flatly, “did you break into my office?”

Mark jerked. “I-I’m sorry. I-I can leave if you want — ”

To Cecil’s great bafflement, Mark looked at him with a measure of real fear, stuttering like he expected violence for the intrusion. A memory buried deep in the layers of Cecil’s bones reared its ugly head, flickered a nauseating mix of blood and booze under his nostrils, spreading a lake beneath his feet. For a very brief second, he felt dusty wooden floorboards creaking under his palms, quivered like a mouse in a small body he’d long since outgrown.

Cecil held out a hand. “No, stay. It’s fine.”

The response team was still outside. The last thing they needed was a repeat of their wild goose chase if Mark got loose again.

When Mark lowered himself back to the floor, the memory sank with him, seeping into the cold prison of Cecil’s being like slow rot. Just as it was about to disappear, it lurched a gnarled hand from the benthic depths and caught him round the ankle. Pulled itself up on its elbows and stared up at him with a face far too young, vision too glossy and dull.

The weight of the look had Cecil jolting instinctively — had him threading a sliver of steel into his tone to collect himself, had him veiling his eyes with a thin sheet of ice. 

“Answer the question.”

The kid flinched.

The grip on Cecil’s ankle grew tighter. He felt himself sink.

“I needed a place to calm down,” Mark mumbled, not looking at him. “After the mission. After I — after. Somewhere no one would bother me.”

So Mark decided to come here, after running himself in circles. The head honcho’s office — exclusive, austere, deliberately intimidating. A place the average rank-and-file agent would sooner avoid out of sheer statistical probability, knowing they’d only ever be called in for something either Very Good or Very Bad. A place the Guardians avoided too, out of the same principle.

Something prickled at Cecil’s skin. Was it the kid’s audacity? For having the gall to think of Cecil’s office as his own personal panic room?

“Couldn’t find your way back?”

Mark shook his head. “This place is so confusing. None of the doors lead where you’d expect them to go. And why are there so many bathrooms?”

Oh, that.

“It’s not a very nice story.”

Mark tilted his head.

Cecil’s breath nearly caught. 

The kid’s eyes were wide and earnest and open.

“Tell me anyway.” There was a faint curl to his lips. “It’s always better to know.”

The walk back to the apartment was slow and gentle, the halls blessedly empty, the shadows mercifully absent. Mark felt the tension coiled in his chest slowly unfurl with every soft step, nose twitching in relief with every tender instruction. With Cecil as his guide, the journey was not so winding or treacherous. The labyrinth opened its walls and revealed its secrets, allowed them through the dark vale without asking for his sanity in return.

Cecil moved with such ease. Grace in his step, confidence emanating like rays from his shoulders. No hesitation, no second glances. He traversed through the daunting terrain like he’d built it with his own two hands, and always seemed to know exactly where he was going.

Watching him, it was hard not to feel smaller. Slower. Swallowed by the man’s very presence, stumbling over his feet to catch up. Trying too hard to not look like Mark was giving chase.

One-two, one-two, one-two, one-two.

The door peeled open. Mark flared his nostrils, felt a thin tendril of panic. Mom wasn’t home.

As if sensing his thoughts, Cecil lifted his wrist and checked his watch.

“She’s still with her visitor.”

Mark whipped his head around. “Visitor?”

Cecil looked exasperated. “Olga. You know her. Very persistent woman.”

Something must’ve shown on his face.

“What, did you expect her to just wait around for you to get home?”

“N-No!” Mark spluttered, the words cutting deep. “I just…didn’t think we’d be allowed visitors is all.”

“Olga’s a little different. Given who she was married to.”

Right, Red Rush. Before dad —

“Besides, woman like her? We’d be wasting more time trying to keep her away than just letting her see your mom. Saves us all trouble, keeps everyone happy. Low risk, medium-high reward.” 

“Right, right.”

Mark was suddenly nervous again. Words formed and evaporated on his tongue, mouth very dry. He fiddled with the hem of his sleeve.

“Something wrong?”

His neck was tingling.

“D-Do you wanna come in?” Mark blurted.

He’d been in Cecil’s — place — and it was only fair. Everything was probably a mess, though not in the strictest sense — he’d hardly had any time to really get anything together. Mark felt a flustered heat building in his stomach, unwelcome and confusing. He should go in and clean, or put on some coffee, or get his room in ord —

“I got a lot of things to do.”

All his thoughts burst like bubbles. He stood there with his mouth flapping, stunned.

Cecil wasn’t expecting anything?

“Take the rest of the day off. I’ll send someone in for a once-over this evening. Listen to them this time.”

Mark rubbed the back of his head. “O-Okay.”

Cecil gave him a nod. “See you around.”

“Wait!”

Mark darted forward. Cecil jerked back.

He was lucky. He was so, so, lucky, what did he ever do to deserve this luck? Because in the swell of his arms, under his nose, against his cheek — was someone willing to endure his lunacy, his unreined chaos. Someone who so easily made straight his path.

One-two, one-two, one-two, one-two.

Here was a tempo sacred in nature, second only to zero-to-one. Here was mitosis, here was fission. Here were two stars in mutual orbit.

Something brushed against his waist.

Mark blinked. Stepped back quickly, embarrassed at his display. At the sharp burst of emotion.

“Sorry,” he said, clearing his throat. And, “Thanks. For bringing me back here.”

Cecil made a quick motion with his eyes.

“Don’t mention it.”

Mark stepped into the apartment. Cecil teleported back to his office.

Examined his fingers, coated in that black tarry residue from Mark’s suit. From whatever eldritch monstrosity that decided to take to Earth’s resident Viltrumite. Their magicians needed to test this. Just in case.

Staff were already surveying the damage. Repairs would be swift.

Cecil spoke into his earpiece. “Get analytics to review the footage. Loop in xenobiology. I want a report in an hour.”

Donald trailed in like a ghost.

Cecil couldn’t look at him.

His chest burned with cold heat. His throat stung with the words he should’ve said.

That reaction — it was almost unconscious. Reflex. Why?

He wasn’t a rookie. These mistakes were beneath him. He was putting everyone at risk. 

Goddammit!

Cecil thought of Mark’s dark eyes — how they shifted so quickly from that predator’s stare to the naive innocence of a new moon shadow.

Weighed his heart against the feather.

As always, it sank.

Chapter Text

The night was slow to rise in the summer months. Sunlight clung to the horizon with sharp orange hooks, slowly bleeding red into the sky’s broad basin. In the distance, the Cairngorms stretched its long spine in lazy arches, gathered Caledonian pines and grim junipers with greedy hands near its base. Further up its back, shrub willows and stunted birches dotted the montane scrub before the landscape tapered off into a collage of alpine mosses and wild grass. Twenty miles West lay Balmoral Castle, thirty miles East perched grey Aberdeen.

Red deer watched from the treeline. Hares scurried in the underbrush. Short bilberry bushes formed the perimeter of his yard, purple heather spilled over from the woodland the house found itself nestled in. A healthy rose plant unfurled its deep green leaves against weathered stone walls, spread a litany of fragrant blush-pink blooms. Cecil spotted the beginnings of a bonsai garden taking shape in one well-lit corner, a clear sign someone had gotten too carried away with their work. That would have to go — it was far too identifying.

Mark glided down and dragged the sky with him. Pulled the velvet black across his broad shoulders, carried heat on his breath and hunger simmering underneath. He stepped up the wooden patio looking savage enough to snuff out the stars with a flick of his thumb, keeping his dark eyes trained on Cecil the entire time.

Cecil took a deep breath.

Lightly dressed. Flushed skin. A slight tremor running through his frame.

“How long?”

Mark dove for his lips. The world seemed to stop.

Cecil turned away and scowled. He made a sharp gesture and Mark fell back a few steps with a wounded look. The kid gave a low whine.

“Don’t try that with me. Use your words.”

A chorus of vocalizations dipped in and out of the range of human hearing.

“English words. How long?”

“Cecil, please. Can’t we just — ”

He poised a finger on the teleportation bracelet.

“Three days,” Mark said quickly.

Shorter than last time.

“Urges?”

“Under control.”

That didn’t mean absent.

“Voices?”

Mark looked dazed. He was doing that Thing again. A breath shuddered through his parted lips, his scent reached for Cecil’s nostrils with sticky hands. It was strong. Lilac-sweet, with a hint of clouded metal, roiling and sharp. Enticement and danger braided together — eat me, lest I eat you. Take me with all you dare. The kind of raw beauty that got good men killed — that turned priests to poets and poets to princes and princes to paupers, and damned them all the same to bottomless perdition.

Cecil patted the kid’s cheek twice, quick and rhythmic. Mark jumped at his touch and tried to chase after it. His tongue darted out, pink and glistening in the moonlight.

Cecil pulled his hand back. It came away sweaty.

“I’ll ask again. Voices?”

Mark bobbed his head up and down.

There was a stillness in Mark’s shoulders that belied his arousal. A heated concentration in his half-lidded eyes. The kid tilted his neck in open invitation, let loose a whimper that slithered to the stars and called for much more. The languid movement shifted the thin fabric of his top, exposing a hint of sun-kissed collarbone. Clearly on offer. Aching to be known.

It was a shame, really, Cecil thought distantly. He was sure that particular display would’ve driven a Viltrumite mad with lust — would’ve sent their best warriors splitting moons in two and setting order aflame, heavy arms alight with scorching, crimson conquest. Bleeding the world dry just to make Mark watch. Just for a taste of that supple skin.

But Cecil was a human man with a very important job to do, and he wasn’t one for easy distraction, no matter how pleasant the sight might be. The kid’s efforts were wasted on him.

“How many?”

Mark stalked forward with slow, measured steps. The night moved with him and threatened to swallow them both. He fixed his gaze on Cecil, unwavering yet distant, like he was half in a dream, and stopped barely an inch away.

Cecil stood his ground, reminded himself that Mark wasn’t a threat. At least not now. Not when Cecil had something he wanted, not when he could easily take that away.

“One,” Mark breathed, hot against his lips.

The kid made another sound, high-pitched and broken, eyes a quiet plea. He gave a full-body shudder and threw his strong arms round Cecil’s neck, nose nuzzled into his cheek. Right into that cracked spider’s web.

“Just one.”

Cecil angled his hand to cup the base of Mark’s skull. Carded his fingers through the kid’s dark locks. They were soft, well-conditioned. Thick with health, clean with anticipation. This close, Mark smelled strong enough to taste; a lead weight on the tongue.

“Mark…”

A cool breeze swept past and stirred the roses climbing high on the trellis. A scatter of petals whipped by their feet and spilled away, whispering wisdom Cecil was too fool to take. The kid melted against his body; left pulses of warmth where they touched, clothing be damned. He let Cecil’s hands guide him where he wanted — loose-limbed, trusting, pliant. Slackened muscles, ragged breathing — matching the slow-moving world around them. There was a subtle shift to Mark’s body, like the kid was aiming them towards the house. Prompting them to go further.

“Yeah?”

How do you want me, the kid said with the tilt of his hips. Tell me what to do.

Cecil watched Mark’s eyes.

Dilated pupils. Brown drawn to blue. No fear in them this time, no quick darting flickers or crumbling gaze — just craving and audacity shuttering away as his heavy lids fell closed. 

Cecil leaned in and felt Mark shiver. He lowered his voice, gave it teeth and a dark color. Spoke directly into the shell of Mark’s ear.

“When did I say you could get close to me?”

Mark stiffened under his hands.

Cecil gathered a fistful of Mark’s hair and yanked.

The kid whimpered, eyes flying wide open. They fluttered shut again as his neck and spine curved in a delicate arch, face flushing pink. Fuck, he didn’t have to look so pleased about it.

Cecil yanked again, forcing Mark’s head into an uncomfortable angle. He was messy about it this time, disapproval evident in the violent arc of the motion and the cry wrenched from Mark’s throat. He adjusted his grip to cradle the side of the kid’s skull and bowed Mark to the Earth as a cold heat fluttered fast and unbidden in Cecil’s frail chest.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry!”

Then a series of pained mewls.

Mark Grayson was a Viltrumite, a child of high planets. And Cecil a mere human — Promethean in endeavour, finite of nature. Just as Cecil was bound in service to terra firma, the Universe conjured a strange missive tethering Mark to far skies, gifted him strength to outclass Greek heroes of old and a life long enough to make the stars call him kin.

But every Achilles had his unwashed heel, and every man of the sun could lose his locks.

Cecil kept his grip iron. He watched with calculated satisfaction as Mark lifted trembling hands to paw at Cecil’s wrist, gentle and cloying, voice thick with alien apology.

Cecil shot him a hot glare and Mark dropped his hands to his lap, palms spread.

“When will you learn, kid? This isn’t on your terms. You don’t do anything without my say so.”

He stepped away and made a note of how Mark jolted forward on instinct before catching himself.

“I’m sorry. I won’t do it again.”

Cecil raised a brow. “I don’t believe you.”

Silence fell. Cecil waited. Cogs turned in Mark’s head.

There was a cruel delight in watching power gasp, in clipping the wings of a great soaring beast. Cecil told himself it was a natural thing to feel.

Mark swayed and faltered and looked absolutely pathetic in the clutches of the deep night. He wrung his hands and darted eyes up and down. Bit his lips red and spread his knees wider. Millions of years of cutthroat evolution, proclamations unrelenting of superior alien genes — all to produce a single gullible youth who ached with desire for an old human man.

“Can I come to you?” Mark whispered, color high on his cheeks.

The peace of the Highlands held Cecil aloft, soothing even through its stoic indifference. He let the mountain air slide smooth in his lungs, called to the Earth and felt it answer in turn. It gave him the strength to nod, and the composure to only do it once.

Those under his command numbered in the thousands. His outreach was global and immune from oversight. He stripped influence from Earth’s self-proclaimed kings with the acid of secrecy; he could burn three governments with a single phone call. In the set of his broad shoulders was a highly trained killer. Nerve agents in one hand, silken rope in the other. A broken code of honor laid in splinters between them. And more than all that was the scalpel of his mind — cold arithmetic outlined acceptable losses, words harbored fatality in history’s dreadful turning points.

Cecil was by no means a stranger to power.

But it was no less fascinating to watch a titan fall. To bear humble witness to the breaking of a predator, to feel twisted exhilaration surging through his spine as Mark bent low and pressed a wet kiss to the tip of Cecil’s boot, panting through his heat with torture on his tongue.

Looking up from his knees with eyes like open wounds, begging for mercy and pain intertwined.

Fuck.

Cecil snatched Mark by the nape and dragged him indoors.

“What happened to your hair?”

Mark fought down the urge to smooth it over again. He’d spent half an hour that morning trying to get it into some measure of order before coming to terms with the truth — no amount of hair gel was gonna save his look. He’d given up. Washed it all out and let the wind dry his hair.

Mark lowered his phone. Settled on an unconvincing smile and thought about what to say.

Eve’s abode sat open and airy and sturdy in the arms of the biggest chestnut tree Mark had ever seen. Sunbeams warmed the wooden deck in thin slanted columns, motes of dust swirled in lazy circles in the light. Long saw-toothed leaves crept in, their natural green a sharp contrast to the colorful string of bright paper lanterns hanging in arcs on the balcony. Multiple notes of pollen coaxed the air alive, some from the pale yellow catkins nearby, others from summer blooms further afield — wild orchids, forked asters, proud goldenrods by the river.

Mark’s little incident hadn’t gotten him much confidence from Cecil. He really should’ve kept his cool better. And his mouth shut — because between the property damage and the panic and the voices and what he’d done to his body, it was no surprise to hear he’d earned another visit to the shrink.

At least Dr Zuma was nice.

Eve stared at him, expectant. Her scent should’ve been easy to discern, but the pollen in the air made things hard to pick out.

The truth died on his tongue. Embarrassment took over. When she looked at him like that — patient, encouraging, with genuine curiosity — the world narrowed to a slit, and all he could hear was his own galloping heartbeat.

What would Eve think? If he told her about his meltdown?

She’d probably say something kind. Something helpful and profound. And that, for some reason, scared the living shit out of him.

“Supervillain got me,” Mark said sheepishly.

Eve looked skeptical. “Uh-huh, which one? I haven’t seen you on the news lately.”

Dammit, why did she have to ask?

“...Cryo Girl.”

Eve scoffed. “Really? She managed to get the drop on you? You must be kidding. Or getting super rusty.”

That last comment needled him more than it should’ve. Mark toughed it out.

“Yup, that’s what she did. She got the drop on me. Got up real close and just dropped on me. Froze my hair right off a couple days ago.”

Why did he have to keep talking?

“Got close?”

Mark nodded, because his mouth was a leaky faucet someone forgot to turn off.

“That’s real interesting,” Eve hummed. “Considering Cryo Girl’s pretty skittish for a villain. And a long-range fighter.”

Ah, shit.

“She’s branching out. And building confidence. Maybe she went to a seminar.”

“Plus, she’s in prison.”

“...Because I put her there.”

Eve whipped around, lips in a scowl. “She’s been in prison for three months, Mark! I brought her in! And I know she’s not broken out because she’s a Grade-A threat and there’s been no news reports, I’ve gotten no alerts, and there’s not been a single whisper on the grapevine! And believe me, heroes know how to talk.”

Why did Eve have to be so well-connected? And well-reasoned?

Before he could come up with another half-baked explanation —

“Mark, stop.” She gave him a withering look. “If you don’t wanna talk about it, just say so. You don’t have to lie, okay? Jeez, I thought you’d learn that by now.”

A stab of guilt at the thought of how he’d treated Amber last year. Mark winced.

“I know, I know.”

Eve softened at his tone. “Do you, though? If there’s a reason why you don’t feel comfortable telling me the truth, it’d be good for me to know. I can handle the criticism, I promise. I don’t wanna be the kinda friend you feel you can’t talk to — what would be the point? You know you can come to me for anything, don’t you?”

“You’ve done nothing wrong.” Mark rubbed the back of his head. “It’s just me being weird.”

Eve gave him a look, long and searching. Her pretty features in a twist that matched the one in his gut. “What are we going to do with you, Mark Grayson?”

Mark gave a wry smile. “Hang me up in a museum?”

He’d be quite the specimen — the only one of his kind. They could dry him and pin him and mount him on the wall. Clip a tag on his ear, put a plaque by his feet, and cut pieces off his body for far-flung study. What would they find? He dreaded to know.

Mark’s heart picked up the pace.

“What’s this about a museum?”

Her voice really shouldn’t have made him jump like that.

“Hey, stranger.”

Mark pivoted towards her. He couldn’t help but dart his eyes back at Eve just once. She hadn’t told him Amber was here already, and to be fair he hadn’t asked. He’d assumed they would convene here to touch base before he could pluck up the courage to go pick his own girlfriend up. The pollen must’ve masked her scent.

And he hadn’t heard her rustling about Eve’s treehouse.

Rusty, rusty. Poorly trained.

Thump-thump-thump.

Mark smiled. And did his best not to freeze.

“Hey, Amber. I didn’t know Eve picked you up already.”

She looked good. She always did, and that made it impossible to turn away. Hair up in a ponytail, ears adorned with those gold dangly earrings she liked so much. They glinted in the light as she moved towards him, brushed gently against his cheek when she leaned in for a hug.

Mark mirrored the motion and tried not to think of how small she felt in his arms. How defenseless, how fragile. He was grateful for the proximity and the fact of their relationship — it gave him a good excuse to angle his nose into the side of her neck without seeming weird. Her scent washed over him, citrus and sandalwood. Her favorite perfume. Friendly. Earnest. By no means unpleasant. When she pulled back to look at him, her smile was tentative.

Eve flashed her hands pink.

“Where are you going?” Mark said suddenly.

Eve tossed him a strange look. He saw her eyes dart towards Amber. “To pick William up. I’ll see you guys in a bit.”

Right, right, right. This place was difficult to get to if you couldn’t fly.

Amber waved, the action small and hesitant. “See ya soon.”

“Don’t have too much fun without me.”

We won’t, Mark almost said.

There was a swift rush of air and then Eve was gone.

Mark was glad for the river bubbling nearby. It gave him something to focus on while he gathered his bearings and sifted through the right words.

He’d been a terrible boyfriend. He always had been, with Amber. Weeks had gone by since they’d seen each other face-to-face. He’d kept up with her over the phone, trying to act normal, but he’d fallen back to his old habits and wound up blowing her off and making more excuses. Why she was still with him, he had no idea.

Then again, he hadn’t exactly been easy to pin down. And it wasn’t like Amber to end things over the phone. At least not given recent events.

“So…” Amber began, because Mark was a coward who couldn’t even start a conversation. “We haven’t seen each other in a while.”

Oh god, was that why Amber was here with Eve? Had they been talking about him? Not that he didn’t deserve some shit-talk, but the thought made him sweat all the same.

“I…” Mark’s mouth went dry. “I’ve had a lot of things going down recently.”

The wind blew a harsh gale and knocked a strand of Amber’s hair loose. He wanted to reach out and tuck it behind her ear.

His hand stayed by his side.

“Are you gonna tell me about it?” Amber asked, tone light but eyes sharp. “Or are we just gonna stand here awkwardly till Eve gets back and pretend everything’s fine?”

Come on, Mark. Spit it out. Talk to your girlfriend. What could go wrong?

Plenty of things. First of all, assuming he even managed to articulate himself, there was the whole Viltrumite puberty and all the nastiness that came with it. Like the mood swings, the temper tantrums, the wanton destruction…

The uncertainty, the mystery supervillain, the fallout at HQ…

Fingers ghosted on his bare scalp.

“What happened to your hair?”

Mark twitched violently. “Nothing!”

Amber withdrew sharply. “You don’t have to shout, jeez! Mark, what’s wrong? You’re seriously starting to freak me out.”

“Everything is totally fine.”

Everything was not totally fine. He was so stupid. Why didn’t he plan what to say before coming here?

Amber was staring at him, concern in her eyes. Then her expression folded inward and took his heart with it.

“Amber, I…”

She held out a hand. “Look, Mark…it’s okay if things fizzle out between us. It’s not that deep. We’re young. It happens.” But there was disappointment in the lines of her face at odds with her casual tone. “And I know you’ve got a lot going on. Really, I do. But what I don’t appreciate is you lying to me about it. Again.”

“I’ve just been…out of the country a lot, and I haven’t had the time to catch up. But things should be easing off now. I’ll be able to give you the attention you deserve.”

Amber’s eyes flashed. “You're still doing it!”

Mark nearly stumbled. What was it about the way he spoke that made him so transparent? 

She gathered a fistful of hair and sighed harshly. “Why on Earth did I think you'd actually listen to me? It's fine if you don't wanna be with me, Mark, but you have to come out and say it!”

Amber was right, he had to say something.

“It’s okay if it’s too much! Heck, I’m up to my eyeballs with work and volunteering, so it’s not like I don’t get it to some degree — ”

But spoken language was failing and his tongue refused to right itself into producing anything resembling acceptability.

“ — and it’s okay if you don’t like me anymore. I just need the truth from you.”

Come on, Mark. Tell her.

Amber waited for a response.

Tell her something.

Anything.

Amber’s brows drew together and her lips twisted with conviction.

“Fine! If you’re too scared to break up with me, I’ll do it for you. We’re — ”

Mark took a deep breath.

“A few weeks ago Cecil sent me on a mission and I got in this disgusting goop and it made me feel really — weird — ” 

And horny and wasn’t there more to this story?

“ — and not like myself and I started burning up so I flew to the Pentagon with my mom for help and I — ”

This part was hazy, like radio static —

“ — got mad at everyone coming in — ”

— to his space, and Jesus the place was ugly, and boy, was the layout wrong —

“ — to shoot me, so I — ”

“Shoot you?” Amber exclaimed.

“ — tore up the whole floor and cost the GDA millions if not billions of dollars in damages — ”

They were lucky he’d stopped at just the one floor. Really, the whole place could’ve used a turnaround…

“ — and I got put in a cell deep underground, like deep underground, and I blacked out for five days and that’s why I missed graduation and I have no idea what happened but Cecil let me watch the feed and apparently I just switched between sitting there and sleeping the whole time — ”

“Mark, slow down!”

“ — and I thought it was just a one-off thing but it turns out Viltrumites get this — ”

Awakening.

Consummation.

A ripening root to crown.

“ — second puberty, which dad never told me anything about, so I have no idea what’s going on more than half the time, and that’s what this whole mess is all about, so if I suddenly start acting crazy, that’ll be why, I’m either not myself — ”

Lies.

“ — or too much of myself, and it’s been really hard these few days especially ‘cus – well, ‘cus — ”

Because of the heat stirring his blood.

“ — I’ve been struggling, lately, to act normal and my mom and I are in a new place because a supervillain knows who I am and so I’m sorry but I can’t go to Upstate with you, and my temper’s out of control, my powers feel like I just got them again and everything smells and I feel like I’m being pulled in four different directions — ”

First as Mark Grayson, human of Earth, then as Invincible, the half-alien walking a fine line. Then again as Mark Grayson, recently flowered, and finally something hungry, and stalking, and dangerous, something that called for a bit and a bridle and a collar and a leash, and all the interventions Cecil made him submit to.

The whites of Amber’s eyes were very visible.

“ — but Cecil gave me this — ” Mark said quickly, pulling down his upturned collar. “ — and it chills me out — ” Dulls his fangs. “ — by counteracting the hormones, and I’m safe to be around, Amber, I promise.”

Mark licked his lips and felt his pulse hammer.

He needed to tell the truth, no matter how ugly or twisted or painful to speak of, Mark thought, feeling the brush of weathered skin ghosting under his thumb. Amber was his girlfriend, and beyond that, someone he valued immensely, and she deserved to know.

And a lie wasn’t a lie if he believed it was true, right? So what did it matter if that last bit sounded less like a fact and more like a plea?

He wasn’t his worst moment. He wasn’t his worst moment. And even if Mark couldn’t believe it himself, Cecil surely wouldn’t bear false witness against him. He was not that kind of man. Cecil, who was confident, and smart, and dependable.

Cecil, who hadn’t called on him in awhile…

Amber opened her mouth.

Oh! There was one more thing, wasn’t there?

Mark felt his entire face heat up.

Sweat gathered on his brow. The words burned unsaid.

Shame crawled up his chest and gripped the side of his face. It had sticky fingers, Mark found. And chipped, dry nails, sharp at the edges.

He’d blunted them last time with the warmth of his own blood.

“Mark?”

Mark lifted his head. When had he lowered it?

The worried sincerity in Amber’s dark eyes was enough to make him flinch; stumble back a step when he realized her hand was on his shoulder.

A choked-off growl slipped past Mark’s lips before he could help it, and then Amber was flinching back too, lips parted in soft surprise.

“I’m sorry,” he said immediately, expecting the fear. “I didn’t mean it that way. I was surprised.”

“It’s okay,” Amber said, with some trepidation. But to Mark’s relief, there was no sourness to her scent. “I just couldn’t hear you. You were muttering to yourself. Was there something else you wanted to tell me?”

“Oh. Yeah.”

He just had to throw it out there. Hurl with all his might. Keep his elbow up and his stance square, power drawn from the legs and core.

Deep breath.

“AndalsoIdon’thaveadickanymore…”

Amber tilted her head.

“I’m sorry, what?”

A little more power, maybe?

“I said, I don’thaveadickanymore.”

“Come again?”

Frustration tore a hole in his gut. Just rip off the Band-Aid already! It was only the two of them, anyway!

“I don’t have a dick anymore!”

There! It was out there, and Amber’s eyes were wide and shocked and very confused, and before he could trip over his own tongue trying to provide a half-assed explanation he didn’t even know was true —

“Well, that’s one way to start a conversation.”

He nearly launched himself airborne. Mark whipped around and he knew from the heat of his face that he was blushing bright red.

They were still windswept from the journey. Trees rustled behind them, glass bottles clanked in the plastic bag William carried. Eve stared at Mark with utter bewilderment, William had his lip curled in a great show of mischief.

“So,” William drawled, adding a smirk to his face. “What did we miss?”

Explaining it the second time was easier than the first. Mark didn’t have to force himself to do it all in one breath or at such a high speed as to nearly make himself throw up. With some helpful questioning, he ended up fleshing out the more important points of the story.

“Wait, so it just kinda — pfftsh’ed?”

William made a gesture that would’ve been obscene had he been in public.

Not that this was one of them.

Everyone sat in a loose circle on the ground, propped up against Eve’s soft, colorful bean bags. Drinks abound, snacks galore — popcorn and peanuts and candy and chips.

Eve and Amber both groaned, Mark simply bore with it. He more or less knew where this was going anyway.

William followed the motion through and perfectly mimed another extremely pornographic action with just the use of his fingers.

The girls made another disgusted noise, but Mark was pretty impressed. He couldn’t help the small smile climbing up his face. Eve and Amber had only gotten to know William recently, but for Mark, his best friend’s gross-out humor had been nothing short of a high school staple.

It made him think of simpler times.

“Yup.”

And god, it was still so embarrassing, this was never the way he wanted anyone to find out, he thought, glancing at Eve, but when William was being so irreverent with his humor…

“And then a supervillain rocked up and blew everyone up — ”

…it made things easier to deal with, in a weird kinda way.

“Well, not immediately after.”

“ — and then he blew your cover — ”

Mark winced. “Yeah…”

“ — and then you trashed Guardians HQ?”

“Hey! They did most of that just fine on their own — ”

“Stop interrupting, Mark.” William threw out an imperious hand, all five fingers spread, the other one poised dramatically to clutch at his forehead. “It’s incredibly rude.”

Eve burst into laughter, Amber tried and failed to hide a giggle.

Mark shut his mouth and felt his heart lighten, though the nervousness hadn’t left him yet.

“So you’re a sniffer dog now?” William pressed. He picked up his drink and shoved it under Mark’s nose. “Tell me, what’s in this?”

“Beer,” he said, utterly deadpan. Sliding back into a familiar role. “It says so on the label.”

“You’re taking the fun out of it!” Eve interjected. “You’ve got super smell, you gotta be able to pick out the notes. Earthy, bready, citrusy, whatever!”

“Eve’s onto something, Mark!” William gestured with his drink. “You could be a sommelier if superheroing doesn’t work out.”

If superheroing didn’t work out, would Cecil let him go to college?

The letter from Upstate sat in the bottom of his drawer back home, crisp and unopened. He never bothered finding out if he’d been accepted, because what was the point?

“I’m pretty sure those pretentious dorks just make stuff up anyway,” Amber said with an easy smile. She gave Mark a playful bump on the elbow. “If you ever took the bus, you’d be in major trouble. You wouldn’t believe just how many people reek on public transport. And I don’t mean, ‘sweating through a shirt on a hot day’, I mean, ‘probably hasn’t had running water in months’ type thing.”

“If it’s near where you volunteer, maybe that is the case,” Mark said without thinking, and watched as Amber considered the idea and rapidly interrogated her unconscious biases.

Maybe it was kinda mean, but Mark loved watching her do it. It was always beautiful to witness someone trying hard to improve themselves. Especially for the sake of another.

Though, maybe he shouldn’t have said that. Who was he, to make her feel guilty? Amber was a better person than he ever would be — she was intelligent, and brave, and so put-together — and Mark didn’t deserve her. They sat next to each other, fingers interlocked, and maybe that was a mistake too. She felt warm, and so brittle.

Mark’s hand twitched.

“Has anyone ever smelled super interesting?”

“Most people just smell like whatever they’ve eaten. Or whatever deodorant they’ve got on.”

“What do I smell like?” William asked eagerly.

“Okay, I guess?” 

“Come on! You can’t tell me I’ve been spending all this cash on fancy cologne just to smell okay.”

“You’ll have to come closer. There’s too much pollen around.”

William scooted a couple feet forward.

“A little closer.”

And okay, maybe Mark was being a little selfish, and a lot reckless — because if he concentrated hard enough he could’ve picked out William’s scent from where he originally was, but a part of Mark that felt very needy wanted to dip his nose into the junction of where William’s neck met his shoulder. And so he did.

Mark took care not to make direct contact, but he still felt William give a light shiver at the proximity and then promptly cover it up.

“Well?” William said, voice thick with mock urgency. “What’s the verdict, chief?”

William smelled like gangly limbs and late-night sleepovers. Like friendship and safety and all the awkward years between six and sixteen made so much lighter by virtue of his company.

“Cocoa butter.”

Mark noticed Eve staring.

Something tingled in his gut and made his nose twitch.

“I can smell you too, Eve, if you’re curious.”

Eve’s eyes darted around and back again. Then she shrugged with a small smile, though the movement looked mechanical.

“Sure.”

Apple blossoms at the top, baby pink and milky white — a good sign of warm weather. Fireweed beneath, the first flowers to gladden bad lands. And going beyond that, the salt of the ocean, forming crystals on his lashes. And then even further, a pungent kind of smell — raw chemicals mixing in an ungainly swirl, warmth and light and all-causal matter. Hydrogen and helium and carbon and ammonia, methane and nitrogen and iron and —

Eve cleared her throat.

Mark’s head spun; quickly withdrew before things could get any weirder.

“You’re pretty complex.” He blinked hard. “But the first thing I get is flowers.”

“Not to bring him up,” Eve said tactfully. “But how come your dad never had a heightened sense of smell? Or the teeth?”

“I don’t know,” Mark replied. Why, indeed. “He could’ve been hiding them.” Which didn’t make much sense, given Nolan had never been shy about his other abilities, but they’d floated the idea around. “Though Dr Sutherland — the xenobiologist — said it might be. Because.” Mark swallowed. “Because I’m not like my dad.”

“Because you’re half-human?”

“Because I’m…” His throat felt so dry. “...the female…of the species. As the scientists put it.”

Mark felt his entire body grow still.

No one even knew that bit for sure. Mark was the only Viltrumite they had available to study, and for all they knew, he could still be an anomaly.

A freak.

“Hey, you okay?”

Amber gave his hand a squeeze.

“Yeah,” Mark said automatically. “Just…”

She spoke in a lowered tone, her voice gentle as a soft breeze.

Sensing the shift, Eve and William pretended to busy themselves with a suddenly very interesting corner of Eve’s striped rug.

“We’ll talk about it later. This doesn’t change anything, okay? You’re still you.” She gave him an earnest smile and seemed to read his thoughts. “None of this makes you any less of a man.”

Mark nearly choked, and his heart galloped one-two-three.

“Things would be different between us,” Mark said very quietly. “Things could get weird. You’d be okay with that?”

“The situation South of the border is the least weird thing about you,” Amber said dryly.

Mark did choke.

“Eve, can you get your projector up and running?” William called loudly, in what was clearly a self-rescue. “It’s time we got this PowerPoint party fired up!”

Eve’s fingertips flashed pink but her cheeks were a deep shade of red.

Amber turned back to the commotion and looked very natural about it. She tossed Mark a sly wink.

“You guys better watch out, my animations are to die for. They’re custom made.”

“Ah shit,” Mark cursed, and whipped out his phone. He hadn’t made one! Hopefully there was enough signal out here to get it all done before it was his turn…

Amber saw him trying in vain to download the app and laughed. The fondness in the sound carried over and then he was biting his lips together, trying not to laugh back.

Eve’s projector flared to life, and William’s riveting presentation, ‘Bitches and the Bard: A Shakespearean Reading of Rupaul’s Drag Race’s Most Infamous Feuds’ began.

His fingers flew fast over the keys. Mark might’ve graduated, but he was still working behind the clock, and for all his improvements, he’d never stopped doing his homework in class.

When it was all over, Eve and Amber retreated to the kitchen area while Mark and William sat next to each other, letting their legs dangle over the forest below.

Mark looked over the edge.

Eve could fly, so there were no railings, but a fall from this height would hurt William pretty badly. Or Amber, if she slipped. He looked over at the girls, lingering by the fridge in animated conversation. Amber had her back to the ledge.

They could break their heels, or shins, or shatter their spines…

This wasn’t his space; he couldn’t tell Eve to change it.

Mark forced himself to speak. “Bet you’re happy about winning.”

William leaned back and the movement sent a few dry leaves flying off the platform. “Happy? I’m ecstatic! You don’t even wanna know how many hours I put into that talk. That’s the condensed version, the original was forty-five minutes long. I thought, if I have to give a ten-minute pseudo-academic presentation about a niche pop culture topic of my choice, I’d at least try and make it good.”

Despite all the flamboyant bravado William commanded on the daily, he also had a penchant for being overly modest. At least in private.

“It was fantastic,” Mark said earnestly. “I’d never thought of Honey Maroon as a stand-in for Tybalt. But it makes so much sense.”

“And there’s more!” William threw his hands up. “I have zero proof, but I’m a hundred percent certain one of the editors has a hard-on for bad Shakespeare adaptations. One of the lines they make Lady Lulu sing in the Rusical is outright ripped off from freaking Gnomeo and Juliet!”

With ‘Weird and Wonderful’ as an enticing theme, the possibilities were endless. William wasn’t big on Shakespeare, but they’d learned about some of the bard’s works in school, which he’d clearly used to his advantage. Their English teacher was devastated when she’d learned William had no extended interest in the field, despite his clear talent and namesake. Combining the idea with Drag Race was genius — everyone present had watched the show, at least in part, even Mark — he understood the drama William regaled via selected episodes William made them watch together, and a lot more knowledge gained through a crude form of cultural osmosis.

Mark glanced at his phone briefly.

Amber’s presentation had been visually stunning, concise, and illuminating in the most unexpected way. Mark had never before stopped to ponder the philosophical reasoning exploring why, exactly, the chicken crossed the street, or where it was going. Nor had he ever given thought to the implications of socioeconomic ruin and poor public transport links that necessitated the weary chicken making a ten-mile trek just to get to the grocery store. Amber really milked it with that cartoon drawing of four starving chicks.

The fact that she’d credited it to a local artist was just the cherry on top.

It’d been a tough call choosing who to vote for in the end. William or Amber, his best friend or his girlfriend?

Both their talks had so much depth.

While Eve had been no slouch, with her detailed showcase of architectural monstrosities from all around the world, when it came to PowerPoint, William and Amber were simply in a league of their own. Top-notch public speaking skills, attractive design...

Mark’s presentation, on the other hand…

“And, without sounding like a total bitch, I’m also glad I beat Amber. It’s a hell of an accomplishment, she’s no joke!”

Eve had gone to a school for gifted kids. She carried herself with confidence, and a genuine sort of casualness that downplayed the sheer scope of power. She was really easygoing when it came to school, and scored well without much study. It explained her grades — good, really good, but nothing exceptional, save in the realms of chemistry and physics.

William and Amber, meanwhile, were nothing short of academic weapons — salutatorian and valedictorian, respectively, ambitious and driven, with miles-long competitive streaks — though they’d sooner eat their own boots than ever admit to it. Harvard or Yale would’ve taken them both. But they chose Upstate.

Mark wished he could’ve been there to watch them give their speeches.

“Thanks for earlier, man,” Mark said, turning to William. “For lightening the mood. Bringing in your energy. It really helped.”

Some days it felt like he forgot how to laugh. Other days it felt like he’d forgotten how to smile.  And some days Mark’s disquiet was a never-ending rain, thundering down until the ocean, too, was drowning in his sorrow.

William laid a hand on his shoulder. The gesture felt very normal.

It was such a relief, seeing William act as flippantly as he did. That for all the time they’d spent apart, things could go back to the way they were so easily.

“Any time, dude. We’re best friends for life!”

Yeah. For the rest of William’s life.

Mark slapped the thought away.

William gave him a look. “You’re cagey about touch, now.”

“I’m cagey about lots of things,” Mark said evasively. “Doesn’t make it special.”

William held his hands up in surrender. “Hey, no judgement. I just noticed, okay? You turn to stone the instant one of us brushes up against you. You didn’t hug me back. It’s like you’re scared.” He shifted a little. “What’s up with that?”

“I’m not scared,” Mark snapped, then wilted when William lifted a brow.

Mark drew his knees up to his chest. Rested his chin on them. “Okay, maybe a little.”

He chose a far point in the distance to focus on.

“It’s like I said. It feels like I got my powers brand new all over again.”

But this time, there was no pride, no joy. No big milestone reached.

“And I haven’t told you guys everything.”

A cluster of junipers stood in a gully, their branches heavy with dusky grey berries.

If he kept looking at the foliage, Mark could pretend this was just like the good old days, well before he’d ever gotten his powers. It was a quiet Saturday evening, and he was in William’s backyard, cooking a smore over the firepit. Commiserating over something trivial. Smoke from the woodfire curled over his head and deepened the flavor of the charred marshmallows.

“When I was raging out in the Pentagon,” Mark began, “I shook up the foundation.”

Mark snuck a hasty peek in William’s direction; snapped his eyes back to the trees when he saw his friend looking directly at him, gaze steady and sure.

He could only count the trees so many times. Mark switched to the clouds. White, wavy things, thin and rippling.

“A piece of debris fell. It hit my mom on the head. Knocked her clean out.”

“Oh god,” William gasped. “Is Debbie okay?”

There wouldn’t be rain for a while. Not with the clouds flying so high.

“Yeah,” Mark said, voice very far away. Up, up, up, with the clouds. “She got lucky.”

Mark didn’t blink. In each brief flash of darkness, his mother fell again. Debbie’s skin was pale and her cheeks were sunken pits. Crack went her skull, and she wasn’t waking up.

“But luck always runs out. And I can’t let that happen again. She got hurt because I lost control. And because I had the opportunity.”

Rose-orange crept from the horizon, slowly beating away the blue.

“I was on a mission, and things got hairy. I got mad.”

So mad, with all the care of a firestorm.

“I nearly — ” It should’ve been easier the second time; to admit the horrible truth. It wasn’t. “I nearly did something I shouldn’t have. Something really bad.”

Mark swallowed. “The drugs suppress the weird urges. And I’ve been talking to a shrink. To learn how to cope. So I won’t lose control again.”

How to sublimate dark thoughts, and redirect his anger. How to stop his appetite from taking over completely.

Mark wet his lips. “I can’t take any chances. Dr Zuma’s techniques strengthen my control, but it's up to me to remove myself from situations where I could slip up and hurt someone. So. No touching. Not unless I have to.”

Or unless the other party initiated. Things felt safer that way.

A flock of birds flew over the treetops, looking for somewhere warm to spend the night. Mark wished he could follow them.

William crossed his arms and sat on Mark’s words.

Then:

“That’s really fucked up.”

Mark flinched and then nodded. What else could he expect?

“Are you telling me we’ve all been pressuring you into accepting physical contact?”

William sounded mad, Mark looked up to find his eyes narrowed, seething. Internal fury — at himself.

At Mark’s questioning look, he explained, “Not unless I have to — that’s what you said. Have you been feeling like you have to?”

“No,” Mark said quickly. “I’m scared, sure.” And sometimes he had to do things to keep up appearances. “But if anything, I — ” The words stuck in his throat. “ — I miss it. Being able to just…hug someone without freaking out about it.”

There were times, too, when he’d been selfish. With his mom, primarily, by accepting her affections, despite knowing she was much better off far away from him. Then — that time with Cecil — though that was a different case.

“Then why are you being so dense about this?” William groaned. “If you want a hug, just ask!”

“I shouldn’t,” Mark tried to explain, “I can’t just – it’s dangerous — ”

“No, no, stop. This just reeks of self-torture. You’re still meant to be saving people, right?”

“Yeah — ”

Not so much recently, but he was still technically on call.

“And the people you save, they’re squishy, right? No superpowers, nothing — normal people? Accountants, and waitresses, and uh, professional oboe players?”

None that he knew of specifically, but: “Yeah?”

“Then in what world would it make sense for you to cut yourself off like that? Stop yourself from interacting with the people you’re meant to save? You shouldn’t be avoiding us, you gotta get used to it again! Start from scratch! You’ve done it before!”

“It’s not that easy!” Mark snarled, feeling himself sink. “Things are different now!”

A flare of red, a jolt through his spine.

“How?” William spat, refusing to be cowed. “Far as I can see, you’re still Mark Grayson. You’re a comic book geek and you’re terrible at small talk and you’re human like the rest of us!”

“I’m not like you!”

A quickening pulse and rapidly numbing hands.

“I’m not like any of you!”

William was moving, and Mark flashed his fangs. He had to get away, he had to get away.

“I’m — !”

A Viltrumite, his mind supplied bitterly. Scourge of the land and a terror on all people.

A monster who belonged in the cold vacuum of space.

There was a warmth pressed to his chest.

Mark opened his eyes. He hadn’t felt himself squeezing them shut.

William had his arms wrapped around Mark’s shoulders.

“Shut up,” he said tightly, before Mark could speak. “Just shut up and take the hug, jerk.”

Mark couldn’t move. His heart was still racing.

It hurt for him to know. For William to know.

Everyone else had found out one way or another. Cecil, his mom, the Guardians of the Globe. Out of necessity, or circumstance, or by snooping around. Those who didn’t know, suspected in some way.

Mark didn’t owe him an explanation, not in the way he did for Amber, and he wasn’t intimately connected to the superhero world, like Eve. William was probably the last normal person in his life.

“Adulthood’s scary, man,” William said, a touch of vulnerability creeping into his tone. “Even if you didn’t have powers, we’d still grow up, get jobs, get married, maybe move across the world from each other. But that’s okay. Even if we don’t see each other as often, you’ll still be my best friend.”

Mark made a sound.

“Remember when I first came out? Way back in seventh grade?”

William hadn’t exactly come out. He’d blown the doors off the closet with a sawn-off shotgun and strutted into the limelight, leaving pink glitter in his wake.

“Remember how scared I was? How my mom reacted? What my dad said?”

Mark nodded. Things were good now between William and his parents, but it hadn’t always been pretty.

“It felt like the whole world was on fire around me. Everyone started treating me differently. But not you. For us, it was just another day. You kept things chill for me, and I’ll never forget that.”

He hadn’t realized he’d ever done anything. William being gay had little bearing on their friendship so there’d been no reason for Mark to act any different.

“We don’t have to talk every day, but jeez, I’d like to know you’re alive sometime, okay?”

“Okay,” Mark croaked.

“Hug me back, dipshit!”

William tightened his arms.

Mark rushed to comply.

…It felt good.

“Thanks, man,” Mark said through a difficult emotion. “I love you.”

William released him and groaned with all the put-on drama of a bad Latin soap.

“Why’d you have to make everything so gay?”

And Mark couldn’t help it, he laughed. Full and happy and with his whole belly, and William followed.

The girls came by.

“I’m telling you, Amber, brutalism gets a bad rap! Concrete is cheap and easy to use! Not every grey building deserves a demolition.”

“I’m not ripping into brutalism, Eve. I’m just wondering why you included the building downtown over that pyramid in Alicante.”

“The people living there say they love it. The rooms are big, yellow’s a great color, and it brings tourist money in. The shiny building downtown isn’t just ugly — it’s basically a giant laser, ‘cus of the way the windows reflect sunlight. Concave mirror. It melted a guy’s wing mirrors clean off! I’d fix it myself as Atom Eve, but I just got in trouble for not fixing buildings ‘up to code’. I’ll need official permission to get the ball rolling.”

“Huh,” Amber hummed. “I didn’t know that. That sounds pretty dangerous. I’ve got an internship lined up with one of the city councillors. She’ll know someone in housing. I’ll bring it up when I see her.”

“...Will you really?”

They noticed the mirth clinging to Mark and William’s faces.

“What’s so funny?” Amber asked, sitting down beside him. “Oh! Isn’t that beautiful?”

Mark looked, and oh — it was.

The sun was a gold disc inching towards the horizon. The fading light cast a soft pumpkin blaze over the curving clouds; spilled over joyful in pink, purple, and indigo.

Amber’s features were painted high with delight.

Emboldened by something fierce, Mark reached out and cupped a palm against her cheek. Amber’s skin was smooth and unweathered, and when he dipped his thumb into the corner of her lips, a light shiver travelled down her entire body.

He closed his eyes and concentrated on the subtle texture of her skin.

She felt different, somehow. Not what he expected.

Mark’s eyes slid open.

“Urgh,” William gagged, sticking out his tongue. “Get a freaking room.”

Amber pulled away and cleared her throat.

The boldness left Mark’s body in a rush, and he found himself glancing away, a flush to his cheeks.

He should’ve kissed her.

The thought lingered in his mind with a quiet ache.

Mark felt a prickle on the back of his head. He knew Eve was staring at him, but not exactly why. 

Or what to do with the reason, once he found it.

Wait a minute.

Of course!

“Thank you for having us over, Eve,” Mark said, stretching till the tendons of his neck stood out, shadowed by the sunset. How rude of him, to neglect his host. A low heat flickered just below his jawline and he smiled just-so, open and honest. “I really appreciate it.”

Eve tucked a strand of her away from her face. “Always happy to have company round.”

Mark took Amber home. It was only proper. He landed in an empty park just under a half mile away from her house so they’d have more time to talk. And as an extra precaution, given recent events.

They walked hand-in-hand on the asphalt path, under the yellow glow of several park lights. Dew shimmered in the grass, and somewhere in the distance, a dog was barking.

“Where are you living now?”

“Just outside D.C.”

Pentagon City, to be exact, but he wasn’t allowed to say much more than that.

“Need help moving in?”

“Actually, no. We only have a few boxes.”

One of the silver linings to having your secret identity exposed was that there wasn’t much luggage to worry about when you got forcibly relocated. The old house — and it made his heart lurch to call it that — was meant to look like it’d been discreetly sold off by a private law firm, quickly and quietly, so the Portal Guy wouldn’t be able to link their old home with their new identities. All of their stuff had been boxed up by Cecil’s agents and sent into storage.

They weren’t allowed any identifying items, after all, and to Mark’s surprise that category included a lot more than he’d originally thought.

“But it’s okay. Mom was looking to downsize anyway. What with dad gone.”

Mom was coping how she could.

Some kids had etched a hopscotch grid onto the path, stark against the black asphalt in white and blue chalk.

“I’m sorry for springing everything onto you like that. I just felt like I wouldn’t have been able to say anything otherwise. And I’m sorry for not keeping you in the loop in the first place.”

There were plenty of other things he should’ve apologized for, but those were probably top of the list.

“Cecil’s been quiet on the mission front lately.”

Almost too quiet. The guy usually had the worst timing known to man — always calling on Mark when he was in the middle of something important. Like work, or dinner.

Or a date.

It was almost an expectation nowadays that he’d be rudely interrupted from whatever he was doing to see to the man’s whims. Whether it was a check-in, or a mission, or just another barked order.

“And it’s not like I’ve got much else going on — so I’ll be able to hang out more often. Make up for lost time?”

Hope tinged the end of his words.

“Oh, Mark, you know I’d never say no to a fancy date.”

Mark lowered his voice. “Ah — when we’re in public, you’ll have to call me Seb.”

“Seb?”

Mark scratched the back of his head. “Short for Sebastian. My middle name.”

Amber huffed out a little laugh. “Sebastian? Really? You don’t look like a Sebastian.”

“It was easier than a full name change,” he said weakly.

Alias training simply hadn’t took.

“And Sebastian’s a mouthful. So Seb it is.”

There were others, of course. Another moniker starting with ‘M’. His Korean name, but that was hard to pronounce. Harder for some to remember. And it made him stand out.

“Alright.” Amber leaned against him, let go of his hand to loop their arms together. The line of her body was warm. “Seb.”

It was just one syllable. Barely a word. But the tone of her voice was playful mockery.

“What, you don’t have a middle name?”

Amber stiffened. “...I might.”

Mark went on the hunt. “What is it?”

Amber grimaced with all her teeth. “Wow, nice weather we’re having, aren’t we?”

“Come onnn,” he cajoled, giving her a grin. “Promise I won’t laugh.”

Amber exhaled harshly through her nose. Pinched the bridge of it.

“...Justine.”

He broke his promise.

“Justine? You don’t look like a Justine.”

Trees lined the path on either side of them; awkward little saplings with too-slender necks. Maybe one day they’d be sturdy and strong — thick-based oaks with gnarled roots marching beneath, branches spreading wide into a canopy of green. Fingers dripping with acorns and warmth in the fall. A home for smaller things. A bread basket for others.

But right now they were thin enough to snap from a rogue gale.

“You won’t be able to come to the new place. I’m sorry about that too. It’s meant to be a secret. But I can still come to yours, just — not when your parents are around. I can’t be seen by too many people.”

Other heroes were fine, but civilians who might’ve known him from before had to be carefully filtered down. Essential people only.

Mark was a little surprised Cecil hadn’t insisted he cut his civilian friends out completely, given how controlling the guy was. If anything, last time they’d spoken — over forty-eight hours ago — he’d seemed very insistent that Mark spend some quality time with Eve, Amber, and William. Maybe that was why he hadn’t gotten any missions lately. Cecil was pushing him to socialize.

Pushing him away…

What?

Amber was shaking him. 

“Hey, you zoned out there. Everything alright?”

That was stupid of him. What if someone had tried sneaking up on them? This was a pretty good area, but crime didn't always follow a predictable pattern, and Amber could’ve gotten hurt…

“Y-Yeah.” He ran a hand through his hair. “Just…thinking. It’s been happening a lot lately.”

“God forbid!”

“I know,” Mark chuckled. “It’s been giving me grief. More than I need. Is this why all those philosophers in your presentation had serious drinking problems?”

“Some of them definitely thought the truth was too heavy to bear sober. Lots of them drank to cope.”

Mark very deliberately did not think of Debbie.

“Nietzche thought alcohol dulled you — got you too numb and dumb to actually think and improve. Sartre couldn’t get enough of it. That, and plenty of other things. He’d take uppers to wake up and write, then downers to fall asleep.”

Amber snorted with amusement. “I know way too much about that guy’s life now. All for a ten-minute presentation! Trust me to turn a fun activity into homework. I’ll shut up now.”

“No, keep talking. I wanna hear it.” Mark laughed and gave her hand a squeeze. “Tell me all about that guy who slept in a barrel again. He had something to do with chickens, right?”

Amber told him.

Twenty minutes later, they neared her house. Light spilled out the bay window, but Mark couldn’t hear Amber’s parents milling about inside. A couple of pre-teens walked by them carrying skateboards under their arms.

“...So Diogenes thought unruliness was a tool to defy society.”

Mark thought of a drunk man he’d saved from getting hit by a bus once, then about a group of kids he often saw doing graffiti under a nearby bridge.

Then about himself, running rampant in the Pentagon.

Mark shook the imagery away.

“Interesting,” he said instead, as he delivered Amber to her doorstep. Safe and sound, with all four limbs attached and moving. “You’ll have to tell me more next time we meet. We’ll get to know each other again.”

“You got somewhere to be?”

“Not particularly.”

Amber unlocked the front door. Stood at the threshold, and gave him a look.

“My parents aren’t home,” she said in a slight sing-song. “Why don’t you come inside?”

Amber took a step towards him; walked her fingers up his chest, and lowered her voice to a murmur that made Mark’s breath catch.

“Why don’t we…get to know each other again?”

Mark flushed red root to tip.

“Only if you’re open to that, for the record.” Amber dropped the flirty tone. “It’s okay if you aren’t. We can watch TV instead.”

“N-No, I-I’m open,” Mark said elegantly, heart taking off in a stutter. “It won’t be strange for you?”

He’d never touched himself that way outside of his…episodes.

His smile trembled, crooked with uncertainty. Gentle interest buzzed in his chest, warring with tight knots of anxiety. He wanted to, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t, but he wanted to.

“It’s not something I’ve done before,” Amber admitted. “But I like you enough to try. It’s okay. We can figure things out as a team.”

Amber wove their fingers together.

The world swirled at the edges. For a split second, Mark froze. Then like a bird startled to flight, something snapped him to take action.

Screw it.

Mark leaned down, and Amber rose to meet him.

Their lips crashed against each other, hesitant at first, before building in hunger. Amber tilted her head and deepened the kiss, pushing past his lips with her tongue and giving them a light nibble.

Mark made a sound; her hands came up to stroke his back.

The gland in his neck seized. Mark nearly hissed from the pain. Completely unwarranted, every hair on his body suddenly stood on end, and he was once again reminded that Cecil hadn’t called on him at all.

What was up with that?

“Maybe we should go to your room?” Mark ventured, breaking the kiss. He whipped his head around.

It was far too open here. At any moment, Mark could be spotted. She could get hurt. 

From Amber’s quiet suburban porch, it was impossible to see the stars. Glare from the nearby city drowned the brilliance of the cosmos, forcing the night to stretch hollow and empty. Like a greyed-out canvas. It was wrong. Unnatural.

It was better for them to —

“Maybe we should,” Amber agreed, and pulled him upstairs.

A thin breeze threaded through the gap in the window, scented with heather and tainted in vast dark. The bedsheets laid in soft disarray. Linens gathered into a loose circle, a walled crater of comfort and subtle opulence. Egyptian cotton. Chinese silk. Fine pillows stuffed to the brim with natural goose down. A sanctuary of high delights.

But there was an earthiness to the mess too. Cecil’s worn sleeping shirt and the traces of his woodsy cologne, rarely used until of late. The damp in the creases — sweat and spit and spent desire, unerasable evidence of the heat that undid them.

And Mark’s natural musk. The sheen on his smooth skin. The gentle rise and fall of the kid’s bare chest as sleep finally claimed him in its pleasant dwelling.

Fatigue called deep from the marrow of Cecil’s bones.

Viltrumite physiology was terrifying, and extraordinary, and frustratingly enigmatic — but it was also exhausting. His lungs were still burning with phantom ache.

The lunar light deepened shadows on the valleys of Mark’s body, the peaks of his form gleaming with the stars’ soft glow. The wildfire had come and gone; but a hush of embers remained, made known by the heat whispering like a secret across Mark’s skin. The kid could lay all night naked with no need for covering in the cold.

There was a dark patch on the sheets and glistening between Mark’s thighs where a thousand tiny deaths met their end by his bloom. He looked like the aftermath of a great bloody sin.

Cecil reached over. Raised the covers high to cover his shame. Mark didn’t stir.

He padded to the window and gazed into the night. 

Cecil lit up a cigarette; the smoldering tip an orange glow in the dark — the only bright thing he truly cared for. He felt something settle as smoke curdled in his lungs and drifted upwards, filling the room with a faint bitter haze.

A long time ago — long before man ever blundered onto stage — these mountains were connected to a familiar chain back home. A place where he’d hollered and hated and healed all his hurts; where he’d gnawed on corn pone and freshly caught game and picked sprouted chestnuts clean off the forest floor. A place riddled with bent spines and coal-smeared faces, run-down schools and empty seats and the lure of hard drugs. A place that took him in when it, too, had nothing to give.

Cecil looked at the vestiges of a once majestic mountain range; at the munros and the gullies running low between them. He couldn’t see the resemblance.

He slid his eyes upwards. Lifted his chin and cast his dust-born gaze to the heavens, bidding it to judge his Babelian hubris. Daring those most high to do him one better.

No response came. No fire and brimstone, no lightning to strike him down.

No response ever came.

He’d learned that bit early.

Man would bear his own salvation. He would make his own rules. He would forge his own path and build his own battlements. With mud and stone and straw, and the bones of his betters.

And if this was a breach, it would not be unveiled. The Earth would open its jaws and swallow it whole with a snap of his fingers.

Just like Mark did barely ten minutes ago.

The bed bore its proof, but the sky was their single witness.

And it would not testify.

Cecil had foregone the cameras this time.

A light flutter of movement caught his attention. Mark muttered nonsense in his sleep, kicked his legs out. A section of the ringed bedclothes spilled to the floor, pulled the sheet covering him loose with its weight as it fell.

“Cecil…” Mark murmured, still lost to sleep.

The kid tilted his head to the side. Stretched that naked column of breath with innocent obscenity and shuddered out a ragged noise, voice thick with need. His nostrils gave a delicate flare.

“Please,” he mouthed, and shifted his legs open.

It had to be a sign, Cecil thought, going to him, that all of God’s creatures felt it incumbent to sleep. That even the most powerful men were beset with such weakness. Reduced to mere mortals unguarded in slumber, flat on their backs or curled fetal in helpless surrender.

Cecil approached Mark’s writhing form with a distant sort of interest.

He normally detested nature’s call to rest. Thought it a great menace dogging his hurried steps. A fog ensnaring him from his life’s greatest work.

But he was grateful for it now.

Cecil settled into the cradle of Mark’s thighs and reached for his folds. Felt the pink flesh quiver and yield under his thumb. Saw his fingers disappear with a wet, easy glide; watched with morbid fascination as a thin river of white leaked freely from Mark’s cunt and trickled down, ruining the fine sheets further.

Despite everything, a hunger rose.

His fingers delved deeper — into that cloying heat to press against a spot that compelled Mark’s spine to twist and arch like a willow’s supple branches.

And arch it did.

Cecil added another finger just as Mark gasped awake.

“...Cecil?” Mark tried to say.  

He added a rough twist; the syllables died with a moan. It rose wispy like smoke and lent him its fire, filled him with a haze that stripped him bare of sense.

“Don’t speak,” he said roughly, flicking away ash with his other hand. Some of it landed on Mark’s taut stomach, made a grey home in the muscled grooves lying there.

“H-Harder,” Mark cried out, parting his knees wider.

Cecil seized Mark’s chin with a grip that would’ve bruised had the kid been human. A perfectly calculated play. The cigarette hung from his fingers precariously, a hair’s breadth away from catching the silk.

“What did I just say?”

Cecil pulled his fingers out with a perfunctory ease, even as Mark fluttered wildly around him, pleading him to remain.

The kid choked out a whine and made to sit up on his elbows.

“Down,” Cecil grunted, and Mark went completely still.

Cecil released his hold and straightened his spine. Took a long drag from his right hand; savored the burn. Watched with cool eyes as Mark righted himself — relaxed into the mattress and lidded his gaze, brought his knees to his chest and asked Cecil nicely.

It wasn’t right to agree.

But it would be cruel to refuse.

The kid’s nostrils gave another delicate twitch.

Cecil leaned over. Smoothed a thumb to Mark’s jaw and trailed it to his lips, parted his mouth with no resistance at all. A flicker of the kid’s tongue teased out to meet him; lapped up the slick coating the digit with a needy sound that nearly forced Cecil’s mind to go blank, tasting the intermingled fruits of their wicked labor.

Cecil released a plume of smoke; felt the kid’s tongue curl at the smell.

Mark was the tall poppy; the pheasant's golden tail. 

Because for all Cecil’s training, his lifetime of control — this wanton kid, full of spirit and airless bluster — still managed to bleed the viciousness from his old bones. Drew it like quicksilver to hiss round his neck, wore his degradation gleaming like a string of black pearls.

Midnight rose high and whispered dark things; quelled the goodness protesting impropriety inside him. Cecil brought his other hand down to the wide expanse of Mark’s wet tongue. Imagined the world resting peaceful on that sinful pink flesh.

And stubbed out his cigarette with barely a blink.

Chapter Text

Mark changed his patches every day. He stood in the mirror each morning and rolled his neck in slow arcs, relieving the peculiar tension that built there overnight — a physical soreness and the lurking anxiety, the fear of his body slipping back into violence. When he felt loose enough, he craned his head to the side, feeling the vertebrae shift, and pulled the muscles of his throat taut.

The adhesive came off easily. But the needle was a tougher battle. Strictly speaking, it was an uncomplicated task. There weren’t any fancy mechanisms at play for him to screw with. No magnetic locks or unintuitive controls. The device was meant to be idiot-proof.

But the needle seemed to challenge him every time he withdrew it. It would scrape against the tissue as if covered in hot stingers, leaving him with a prickling ache — free to surge along his raw nerves like fire and into that mutinous gland deep to his skin. Viltrumites were invulnerable, sure — but only to a point. Mark figured his insides weren’t given the same level of durability.

A trickle of blood followed. Mark smeared it away with a fingertip and reached for a fresh patch. He had to work quickly, or the wound would close up and the insanity would return. Some days, in that brief stretch of silence between suppressions, the gland in his neck would throb in protest, and a heat would pool unbidden in his groin. It bidded Mark to see himself soaring high and free.

He ignored the call. There was too much for him to do, he was happy where he was, and distantly, Mark felt like he already had his orders.

As the new needle slid home, a sense of calm washed over, a pleasant little high he could stretch to his delight. The wave rolled to Mark’s knees and cradled his spine, floated up and added a warm pressure to his crown that made his mind go empty. It lasted just a moment, this strange whisper of blue intensity. A shape with no lines. An idea with no thought. Something he couldn’t quite name.

“And all ye shall bow before me, the Cholesterol Ki — ahhh!”

The villain’s monologue cut off with a yelp as Mark snatched him up by the ankle and dashed into the sky, feeling a pleasant buzz running through his veins.

“So how’s your evil scheme supposed to work, again?”

“Invincible!” the man squawked, his yellow mask twisting in horror as he dangled two hundred feet in the air. “No one told me you were on patrol! I would’ve rescheduled!"

“Answer the question,” Mark said. With casual ease, he loosened a pinky, doing it slowly enough that the Cholesterol King would notice. “Before gravity schedules your face with the street.”

He wasn’t gonna drop the guy. And even if he did, Mark would catch him.

“My grand vision,” the villain said with emphasis, “is to block the city’s sewage system with fat, oils, and grease! Thus precipitating a plumbing catastrophe that would plague the city long enough for its inhabitants to examine their dietary choices!”

“What? That’s so stupid.”

“No it’s not! It would bring humanity together! To conquer the adversity of adiposity! The pipes are arteries, and the grease is the — ”

“All it would do is make the city stink!” Mark yelled, gesticulating wildly. The Cholesterol King rose and fell with his arms. “Worse than it does already! Have you been smoking something? How do you people even come up with this shit?”

Mark scanned the ground quickly. A-ha! There they were. He took off in their direction.

“You couldn’t have just started a wellness campaign?”

The Cholesterol King crossed his arms petulantly, face beet red from the blood rushing down. “No one listens to those!”

Mark rolled his eyes.

He dropped out of the sky with a snap and a sudden rush of cold air that had the GDA agents he was angling for jumping in pure fright.

“Here you go,” he said, exasperated. “He’s your problem now. He wants to block the sewage system. God knows why.”

“It’s a metaphooorrr!” the Cholesterol King wailed, as he was cuffed and dragged away.

Mark was just about to resume his patrol when a faint bitterness came to him on the wind; a racing heart and heavy judgment. He smoothed down his hair and looked around, feeling the sudden urge to look presentable. Caught sight of his target and zipped ahead, chasing that steady one-two.

“Hey, Cecil,” Mark said casually, floating alongside the man as he walked.

The roads were blocked off with cop cars and black government vehicles. Agents swarmed the area, moving in sync like cogs in a well-oiled machine.

“How can I help you, Invincible?”

The man’s tone was flat. Someone in a hazmat suit ran up to him with a clipboard; Cecil scanned it quickly before signing the document with a flourish.

“Watcha doin’?”

“Facilitating cleanup. Lifting evacuation orders. Doing my job.”

Mark tried not to squirm. “Need any help?” He drifted in front of the man, spread his hands in an easy gesture he hoped was more, I’m cool, I don’t really care if you need me or not, and less, please. “I’m here. Might as well use me.”

Cecil stopped walking. He raised a brow. “Do you have the authority to coordinate cross-agency mobilization?”

“Uh, no.”

“You got the know-how to provide an infrastructure assessment?”

“Well — ”

“Can you lead medical triage?”

Mark was sinking. “I — ”

“Can you give me a sanitation report, at least?”

“No,” he said, deflated. But he needed to at least stab back. “Can you?”

“No,” Cecil said simply. “Which is why I need to go speak to the people who can. So get outta my way.”

Cecil was already leaving. Mark fiddled with his gloves, rubbed his wrists one-two. Multiple agents stopped to look at them both before quickly resuming their duties.

“I can help with search-and-rescue!” he tried, trailing behind Cecil. The man pivoted briskly on his heel; Mark nearly bumped into him. Flustered by their proximity, he scrambled a step back; lifted his chin. “I’m good at it. You know I am.”

Cecil’s eyes softened. Mark felt a shred of hope flare to life —

The man shook his head.

— and die just as quickly.

“Casualties are minimal. We’ve got all the personnel we need. You’re better off as a deterrent in other parts of the country.”

“But — ”

“Go, kid. This place isn’t even on your assigned route.” Cecil turned away, pinched the bridge of his nose. “Complete your patrol. That’s an order.”

What did I do wrong, Mark thought to say. But the rejection stung his lips shut.

Cecil reached a hand towards his earpiece. “Yeah? What now?”

He walked further away and then another hero approached, dressed in a tacky green and purple costume. Not someone Mark had ever seen before. As Cecil and the newcomer exchanged a few words, something tight and raw took hold of Mark fiercely. Then Cecil clasped the other hero on the shoulder and for a single mad second, Mark felt danger oozing from his pores.

It didn’t make any sense. He couldn't tear his eyes away, but his ears found nothing unusual, and blood didn’t seep the air. That other hero didn't look all that tough, no aggression in his movements, no agitation in his limbs. There was no reason for the high alert.

Though maybe his instincts were onto something, because quite a few agents had their heads turned, tension in their stances, hands poised for action.

Cecil looked back at him. Their eyes met, brown upon blue.

And then he was gone in a flash of light.

Donald came out of nowhere to put a hand on Mark’s shoulder. He had no idea why, but his ears were ringing.

“Invincible, your patrol’s waiting. You still have the North-West region to cover.”

“Is something the matter, Invincible? You seem distracted.”

Mark blinked hard and turned back to Dr Zuma.

“What else is new?” he deflected, fidgeting a little with the fabric of his chair.

Dr Zuma’s new office was crisp and clean and still deceptively normal. The walls were a calming sage green and the furniture was comfortable, and a desktop computer sat on a desk in the corner. Mark slumped into one plush armchair while Dr Zuma sat opposite, a small round table in between them. A notebook and a box of tissues sat on top. She’d kept the sad orchid, Mark observed, though it was faring better now. Glossier leaves. A few new buds sprouting.

The place was missing a few things, though. The sink in the corner, the examination bed. On one of the walls was a painting of a sandy beach. A spot of plants grew just above the tide line, and a flat-topped mountain stood in the distance, looking almost like a table.  

This new setup was warmer. More inviting. Unlike the last room, which smelled like cough syrup and alcohol wipes, and didn’t seem to suit Dr Zuma at all. He’d said as much when he’d first walked in, and asked why she hadn’t been given a place like this before. Were the budget cuts that bad?

He’d gotten a non-committal hum in response. And then she’d jumped straight to business.

“Do you find the topic boring?” she asked gently.

“No,” Mark said quickly. Then at her look: “...Maybe a little.” He shrugged his shoulders apologetically. “I just don’t get how these techniques are meant to work.”

Dr Zuma tilted her head. “Help me understand.”

“I lost control when I got mad,” he started, “and if I’m gonna get mad anywhere, it’s in a fight.”

“Do heroes only fight when enraged?”

“Of course not,” Mark answered. “I get that. But things move quickly in a fight. Faster than the eye can see.” Faster than her eyes could see. “How can I identify the trigger, ground myself, and reframe the fight without getting all my teeth knocked out in the time it takes me to stop and think?”

Mark’s pulse was in his throat. “I’m slow enough as it is. Someone could get hurt if I hesitate.”

Dr Zuma’s eyes were patient. “How did you first learn to fight?”

“By throwing myself in headfirst and hoping for the best.”

He could see her fighting the urge to roll her eyes.

“And how did you get better?”

By taking enough beatings to finally get sick of it.

“Practice.”

Dr Zuma nodded. “The very same.” She leaned forward in her chair, and the scent of wisdom bent with her. “You won’t get it right the first time. No one does. But it’s important that you try, and keep trying. Or else you’ll never know. Think of this as training, but for the mind. Just as you drill punches and kicks, you will do the same for these techniques — until they are second nature.”

Mark nodded gravely, feeling overwhelmed.

“There is another thing. Often, it’s useful to share a code word or signal with your team. As another failsafe. If they see you losing control, they pull you back. And you trust their judgment.”

Mark felt his hackles rise. “I don’t have a team.”

“Collaborations are common. Missions frequently require a varied skillset. You might play support to another, or them to you.”

He got there before she did. “I can’t work with the Guardians.”

Dr Zuma trudged on, entirely nonplussed. “Why ever not?”

“We don’t get along.”

Imagine if the Immortal knew in detail that Earth’s resident half-Viltrumite was a violent, unstable mess. He thought of Rex using the information against him, Dupli-Kate’s silent scorn, and Robot…meddling with him.

“I find it hard to believe that you’ve irreparably clashed with all seven members. Case in point — are you not friendly with Monster Girl?”

Mark’s frustration rose like the tide. “Friendly’s one thing. But I don’t really know her. Or any of the others. So how could I possibly trust them?”

Dr Zuma’s words were ripples in a pond. “Perhaps you could learn to trust them…if you got to know them. You don’t have to become friends. But they’re the best superhero team the world has to offer, and you have abilities that easily put you within their calibre. It would make sense to cultivate a professional relationship.”

The Guardians? Professional? It might be pot and kettle, but pot still had a point.

Mark gritted his teeth and used his words.

“I’d like to change the subject now.”

Dr Zuma nodded. The movement seemed indulgent. “Very well. We’ll move back a step. Is there anyone you do trust?”

“To do what?”

“To help you. To pull you back. To anchor you in hard times.”

Mark’s throat was very dry. Trust was the vertigo muddying his balance. A compulsory clipping of his wings to seem normal. It was the blind terror in his bones as he hurled headlong flaming, praying for a hand to catch him as he fell.

It wasn’t something he had complete faith in anymore, but he had no choice but to try.

“I trust my mom to be there for me.”

Having someone to go home to was a steadying thing.

“And I trust William and Amber to call me out on my bullshit.”

Even if they didn’t quite understand.

But civilians weren’t really what Dr Zuma was after.

“There’s Eve, too.”

Though her scrutiny was hard to parse sometimes. And harder still to withstand.

“And…” He wet his lips; felt a strange feeling needle in his chest. “There’s Cecil.”

“Ah, yes — the director. Let’s speak of him.”

Mark tried for a casual shrug, but there was tension in his spine. “What do you want to know?”

“What is your relationship like?”

“Pretty normal, I guess? He’s in charge of me. He calls, I answer. I beat the bad guys and go home.”

“A working professional relationship,” Dr Zuma summarized.

Mark nodded, feeling something amiss. He stamped it out before it could grow.

“And he’s earned your trust this way?”

“Yeah,” Mark answered, tapping his foot. “He’s been there for me and my mom since dad turned. And since my cover got blown he’s given us money and a new place to stay. He’s done a lot more than he’s had to.”

The mere thought of it made something warm unfurl in his chest…even as confusion crawled unwanted at the edges. Followed by more than a little hurt.

“You’re grateful.”

“Of course I am,” Mark said earnestly. “I do everything he says. But I don’t think he sees it. Haven’t I been obvious enough?” 

“I’m positive he notices, Invincible, and is thankful for your services in turn.”

“Then why — ” And here Mark felt his annoyance spike, “ — isn’t he around as much? It doesn’t make any sense. It’s like he’s been avoiding me.”

“The director sees to the world. It can make him hard to pin down.”

That sounded like a challenge.

“If he’s so busy all the time, why bother with me at all? I’m not a thing. I’m not a pet. He can’t just put me away when he’s done with me.”

As a matter of fact I can, Mark, he heard Cecil say. Just like in Guardians HQ. The memory, baffling as it was, only made him madder.

“Do you think he’s ignoring you?”

“I don’t think so. I know so.” Mark swallowed around a lump in his throat. “He can’t just leave like that. Not after everything.” He was crumpled on his back as the ground shook under him, gurgling his own blood and gasping for someone who was never coming home. “He can’t.”

Dr Zuma reached for her notebook. “I have your missions logged here, Invincible,” she said slowly, like he was a spooked horse. “And according to the records, the director has been your mission control over ninety percent of the time. Despite your official status as an independent hero, these statistics put you on par with the Guardians of the Globe. I don’t believe he’s being inattentive.”

“But he’s been different lately,” Mark insisted. “Sterner. More curt.”

“More professional?”

“More distant,” he argued. “I don’t know what I’ve done wrong.” The possibilities flashed through his mind. Maybe he hadn’t wrangled that mega crocodile fast enough. Maybe he’d caused too much damage with that kaiju. “Maybe it’s because I made him — ”

The words stuttered to a halt.

Dr Zuma shifted in her chair. “What do you think you made the director do?”

Mark felt her focus like a microscope.

“I made him open up to me,” he said. “When I broke into his office. I was upset, and he told me something personal to make me feel better. About a mission he’d been on.”

Mark straightened at the realization.

“Maybe it was too much for him.”

Maybe Cecil was like him, and the vulnerability had rubbed him raw. Made him relieve too much of the memory and left him reeling on reflex, rejecting the person who’d witnessed the truth of him. Mark felt sympathy grow, then guilt that he’d made the issue all about himself.

Dr Zuma gave him a long look. “Physical intrusions possess an inherent intimidation factor. Especially coming from one with such gifts.”

Mark flinched. To him, the world had been a muted blur of tangled instincts and emotions, the stress narrowing his vision to little more than a pinprick. But to the others, his detached demeanour must’ve seemed unnegotiable, implaccable, and nothing short of chilling. And like the selfish idiot he was, he hadn’t considered how Cecil might feel. The man had catered to Mark’s volatility, willingly uncovered his secrets, and Mark hadn’t bothered to check in on him at all. He hadn’t made his gratitude clear enough. He was being a bad —

“But rest assured, the director is seasoned enough to make his own judgments. He shares detail at his leisure. The consequences to his mental well-being are not your responsibility.”

“Of course they are,” Mark said instantly. Her assertion set something inside him on the prowl, shaking its head and flicking its tail in short, snappy arcs.

“What makes you believe that?”

Mark didn’t have a concise answer. If he’s happy, I’m happy, was what came to mind first. And it was important that Cecil was happy — with him. And in general. It was better for everyone that way.

“Because I’m the one who got him talking in the first place. We’re meant to be a team, aren’t we?” Thoughts whirred through his head. “Teammates look after each other.”

“And what if the director was unhappy? How would that make you feel?”

“What kinda question is that?” he asked, utterly bewildered. “It’s obvious, isn’t it? Or am I supposed to say I’d feel thrilled?”

Dr Zuma leaned back in her chair, calm as a clear day. “Would you feel thrilled?”

“No! Of course not!” Mark’s jaw clenched with indignation, his composure unravelling with every word. “I’d feel terrible if he was upset!” He would feel like the whole world was ending. “Why would you even ask me that?” Even now, the very idea of Cecil’s displeasure set his teeth on edge. All his muscles tensed, all his nerves electrified towards a single task: Fix it.

“I am gathering information to help you long-term.”

“But I don’t see the point of that question,” Mark spat. “What, you think – you think I don’t have empathy?” The outrage grew thunderous but it didn’t stop his voice from cracking. “You think I’m some kinda sociopath?”

“Invincible.”

“I can’t believe you! How could you think I wouldn’t care?”

The room seemed to shrink as heat bloomed from Mark’s core and the implications of her words filled his mind like the burst of a stormcloud, sudden and engulfing. Would he feel thrilled, to see Cecil dismayed, the lines of his face drawn tight with anger. Inscrutability erased. To watch white panic consume him as he was thrown down and torn asunder, Mark looming large and considering his mettle. It would be a novel thing to disentomb from a man so ordinarily unperturbed — a special sort of shock, reserved just for him.

“Invincible.”

Two sharp knocks on the table; Mark snapped his attention to the source.

“What?” he bit out.

Dr Zuma looked up at him with dark, assessing eyes, her lips set in a hard, neutral line. One hand clasped loosely over the other.

“If you would kindly re-take your seat.”

He hadn’t felt himself stand up. A cold shame washed over him, immediately dowsing the heat. Mark leapt back into his chair and tried to make himself look as small as possible. He thought about Dr Sutherland suddenly, and debated asking after him. Decided firmly against it.

“I’m sorry for yelling,” he said, guilt shrinking his voice. “And for being rude.”

His eyes darted around the room nervously, quietly cataloging its effects. The old place really hadn’t suited her.

“All is well,” Dr Zuma said evenly, like the bang of a gavel.

Mark searched her gaze. There was wariness lurking, but no outright fear. It gave him a small measure of hope.

“I would make it a priority to implement your grounding techniques.”

Mark nodded numbly.

“And from my assessment — cursory though it may be — you don’t fit the criteria for a diagnosis of any kind of personality disorder, let alone ‘sociopathy’, as you term it. The condition is characterized by a lack of remorse, among other features. It is far from your situation.” Mark saw sympathy in her eyes, and for a moment wondered just how many patients she’d looked at over the years with that same worried comprehension. It made something ugly fester inside him. “You show great reflection over your actions and feel deeply, for better or for worse. I wouldn’t worry. And even if that were the case — ”

A notification pinged on his phone. Mark dived for his pocket, a jolt of anticipation firing hard in his stomach.

It was an event reminder, Mark read, because of course it was — he had his earpiece on him, and that didn’t go off either. The frantic energy left his body in a slump of disappointment. It was just a reminder. A reminder for —

“Ah, shit! I double booked! I gotta go, sorry!”

He was out of his chair in a flash.

“We have twenty minutes left,” she said matter-of-factly.

“I’llmakeituptoyounextsessionIpromisebyeee!”

Dr Zuma could only blink after him as he absconded from her care.

Rachel blinked as Invincible shot out of her office, the sudden rush stirring the air into a mild frenzy. The pages of her notebook fluttered open, the orchid on her desk shook lightly in its pot. She walked over to her computer and took a seat. Honestly. Countless Americans would kill for a chance to speak with a bespoke psychiatrist — regular sessions, with no upfront fee — and Invincible brushed her off with the ease of a man batting away a stray thought. Oh, to be young. And insured by the GDA.

Eh, it wasn’t her problem anyway, Rachel sighed, as her desktop flared to life and she began typing up the session notes. Running away mid-appointment didn’t draw her approval, but it wasn’t her that Invincible would be answering to.

The man in question made his appearance exactly three minutes after Invincible’s departure. He didn’t use the door.

“Dammit, the kid left early again?”

“Good afternoon, director.”

Judging by the man’s scowl, he looked like he wanted to say, you didn’t even try and stop him?

Rachel was glad he kept the thought to himself. She wouldn’t have been able to stop herself from laughing.

“There is good news and bad news. Which would you like to hear first?”

“I don’t give a rat’s ass.”

Rachel raised a brow.

“Just gimme the report.” The director snuck a glance to his watch and then back at her, looking thoroughly unimpressed. He added, as an afterthought: “Please.”

Well. She supposed she didn’t need an apology, strictly speaking.

Fine. Good news first. Perhaps that would make the director a smidgeon less cranky, though that hope was thinner than the man’s wispy hair. Stress could make a fool of even the most expensive conditioner. Rachel turned and answered the director’s unspoken question.

What are the odds of the kid going full psycho and killing us all on a whim?

She could almost hear his every inflection.

“The boy is not presently psychotic. He remains with us in reality.”

There were three key characteristics of psychosis — hallucinations, delusions, and disordered thought. Hallucinations were simply perceptions occurring in the absence of corresponding sensory stimuli. Invincible ticked this box, that was true. The fact that the hallucinations were auditory was certainly notable and potentially concerning; they were ego-dystonic, multiple, and caused him great distress. Schizophrenia was certainly important to rule out.

“The character of the voices Invincible describes does not fit a schizophrenic picture.” If one could be adequately defined in the first place. “They aren’t pervasive — I would’ve expected the hallucinations to be far more persistent in a case of ‘true’ psychosis. Furthermore, the voices are internally located. The opposite is often typical in schizophrenia and psychosis.” Though that was less of a rule and more of a fairly recognisable pattern.

And thirdly was the simple matter that hallucinations were common. Anywhere between fifteen and thirty percent of the general population experienced them, depending on the study, (there were none currently specific to the superhuman community, and that did give her a brilliant idea…) and triggers were mundane and ubiquitous — stress, sleep deprivation, sudden and traumatic changes to life circumstances. All three of which Invincible easily met.

Rachel scanned the man’s features to see if he had taken comfort in her words.

He had. Very minutely.

It was good to know that her communication skills were still sharp. A dip in intonation here, a smoothened syllable there.

Next: “Invincible holds no delusions.”

That she knew about — getting teenaged boys to talk freely was often much like pulling teeth. (She would know. She’d extracted many a stubborn tooth in her day). It was easy to cross out.

“And his thoughts are not disordered.”

Invincible displayed no thought disorder in matters of content — no phobias, preoccupation, or homicidal ideation. (Provided he wasn’t lying). His thoughts did not broadcast, there was no running commentary, illogicality, tangentiality, the list went on. 

Though the way Invincible had described them…

“Do you recall that young ferrokinetic from over a decade ago?” she blurted, and immediately regretted it.

The director blinked at her non-sequitor. “Kinzoku Kid? That C-tier from Kyoto?”

Rachel nodded, looked off to the side as she thought. She had no clinical basis for saying this, so she kept it to herself — but she found Invincible’s mannerisms fairly similar to that of Kinzoku Kid, judging from the brief meetings she’d had with them both. Kinzoku Kid had displayed behavioural oddities, physical tics, cognitive lapses…Always after an encounter with his scheming telepath for an arch-nemesis. Esper, was it?

But again, the shoe did not fit. Invincible had no contact with psychics — the last significant one on file had eaten her own bullet three years ago in an effort to rejoin her ‘angelic calling’. And Rachel couldn’t speak to either Kinzoku Kid or Esper to compare notes, because they had both long since passed, their bodies incinerated by a violently erupting Sakurajima.

No new psychics had been recorded so far. At least, she hadn’t been informed of any, her clearance being what it was. She let the thought go.

The director was looking at her strangely. “They remind you of each other, don’t they.”

She pulled the thought back. Intelligence types and their mind-reading. “Many of their shared features are incongruent with each other,” she said with a tick of professional annoyance, unable to fully connect the dots.

“I’ll have him looked over, but the kid doesn’t read that way. Sensors haven’t picked up on anything. He’s a mess, but he’s not that kind of disturbed.”

“Neither is he anti-social,” she agreed, tapping a finger on her desk. The director would find this next bit positive. “If anything, Invincible has empathy in overabundance.” Rachel smiled; the boy’s care for his loved ones was genuinely endearing.

Anti-social personality disorder was an interesting one to work within the realm of superhumans. It did not automatically make one a villain, though it was prevalent in that population, and it was almost always a result of extensive childhood abuse. Heroes with this condition often required an extra layer of wariness on the part of staff alongside practical checks and balances. Sociopathic traits (and she used the term neutrally) made such heroes unmotivated by altruism or empathy. Securing their cooperation required access to tangible and self-serving incentives, and if saving lives happened to align with their personal gain, the morally ‘good’ act would be carried out, regardless of underlying intention. After all, did a scalpel need affection to excise a tumor?

“Any absence of empathy on his part is of the sort every person on Earth faces — through physical distance and the moral disengagement that follows. Perfectly normal.”

And he was not weathered enough to warrant the soldier’s apathy. He was not raised into warfare like the young Congolese heroes Rachel dealt with semi-regularly; disposable pieces in the warlords’ games — forced to raid and kill and rape before the GDA’s intervention. Nor was he overly entrenched in a dehumanising system (this was of course, subjective, but she couldn’t very well sit around and nitpick sociological theory all day), be it cult or military or extremist group, prison or corporation or religious order. Appetitive aggression was also conspicuously absent, despite reports to the contrary during one of the boy’s episodes.

What an impossible situation — to ensure the greatest accuracy of her assessment, Rachel would have to interview the boy when he was off his medication. But if he was off his medication, she would not be within a five-mile radius of him.

A pity.

(A video call? Would the response team allow that? How lucid would Invincible be?)

Oh, what she would have given to interview Invincible’s father. An alien soldier from a far-off land; who knows what secrets his psyche would’ve held? Why did he not bear his son’s bloodthirst and loss of mental clarity? Was Omni-Man truly the ‘male’ of the species? Did Viltrum’s military training foster the same situational ethics integral to human war psychology? Propaganda, group think, bureaucratic distancing? Morality was inherently relative (in her humble opinion), so where did the two species stand in regards to one another?

Pfft, a distraction. Invincible was her patient, not his errant father.

Rachel chewed on her pen. Childish as it was, it helped her concentrate.

“I hesitate to label him with a psychiatric affliction. Diagnoses in this field occur as a matter of exclusion. And it is clear from Invincible’s situation that his mood disturbances are rooted in alien endocrinology. I will have to liaise with James to capture a more holistic picture.”

That…and, well, if the boy were psychotic, or experiencing a sudden moral divorce, Rachel was certain she would know — along with everyone else. Such an episode would be acute, and florid, and guaranteed to reach ridiculous levels of global destruction and mayhem. 

The director kept his scowl. He did not look much relieved by her diagnostic uncertainty. What a dour man.

Though, she supposed it came with the mantle. Rachel certainly didn’t envy his position.

A thought occurred. How foolish of her!

“And the boy has no desire to harm himself or others.” A risk assessment was vital to include. She made sure to say, “Provided he is being truthful. His actions are drawn from impulse. There is no plan to cause death or injury either for personal gratification or in that…” Rachel waved a hand around vaguely. “...megalomaniacal way that befits a budding world dominator. Quite frankly, at times he doesn’t regard the world very much at all.”

Even that was quite normal. Invincible was, after all, only seventeen.

“You think he’s safe to use?” the director said.

“For now.”

The director made no effort to hide his displeasure. He’d wanted a definitive yes but Rachel could only work with what she was given, and a teenaged superhuman’s mood was simply too fickle to predict. Add in alien hormones, and it was anybody’s game.

The man grimaced then, as if remembering something distasteful. “So what’s the bad news?”

Rachel normally would’ve paused, but the director was a man pressed for time. “Invincible feels bonded to you.”

“Yeah, no shit.” The man rubbed at his temples. “How rough are we talking?”

“Approximately a moderate-high level of handler fixation. On a background of existing trauma.”

“That official?”

She shook her head. “I doubt a formal attempt to use the Handler Fixation Index would go well. Let alone an additional violence screening.”

The first was a self-assessment tool, and the questions were quite on the nose. Particularly the ones in the exclusivity domain. Rate how you feel from zero to five, with zero being not at all true, and five being completely true  — If my handler was assigned to another operative, I would feel betrayed. If my handler was removed, I would seek them out. If my handler betrayed me, I would intentionally cause them harm.

Who in their right mind would score that last one anything but a zero?

If he weren’t already dead, Rachel would be having strong words with the idiot who designed the questionnaire. She’d thought about just striking off that bit of nonsense, but realized a full revamp was likely in order. The entire project would send her down yet another rabbit hole at a time when her hands were full enough as it was.

Case in point: the second tool meanwhile required much more extensive work from her.

The director muttered, “It’s safer for everyone to have the kid tested unaware.”

Rachel couldn’t help but agree. The director was such a touchy subject for him. Rachel liked to believe she’d never need to press her panic button on Invincible’s account, but she also wasn’t an idiot, and she fancied herself a realist.

How go the decoupling attempts, she wanted to say, but Rachel had been employed by the GDA for over twenty years now (goodness, how did that happen?), so she knew that directly asking for information from intelligence types would get her precisely nowhere.

Talking around the issue it is.

“Invincible has noticed a recent change in his dynamic with you.”

The director gave nothing away. “Has he.”

Rachel did not groan. “He is feeling undervalued.”

That could be a problem, she heard herself say internally, enunciating every syllable. In her mind, the words were etched on a chalkboard and she was pointing to each one with a ruler, going very slowly. But all the director would see was one deliberate blink.

“Well, he shouldn’t be,” the director said, annoyed. He gave a huff. “When I’m not cleaning up the kid’s messes I’m housing him, feeding him, spending billions of dollars on custom medication, and talking in his ear like a budget GPS. I’m his full-time babysitter, but somehow I’m the one spending money on him. Talk about a shitty deal.”

Yes, the director must be so underpaid. It would’ve explained his lack of manners, but she knew those to be free. Another mystery for the ages.

Rachel took a moment to dispel her irritation. She reminded herself that the man was deflecting on purpose because like many of her patients, he had poor insight, didn’t want to talk about his feelings, and despised being challenged.

“The boy feels as he feels,” she said neutrally. “And he may start to feel worse if the approach isn’t duly softened. It could render him non-operational.” She gave a short pause. “The psychiatric department has developed a new treatment algorithm specific to handler fixation. It is quite thorough.”

She’d devised most of it herself. Not to toot her own horn, but she thought it was pretty good. It provided a detailed de-escalation plan to handlers — how to speak, where and when, a bank of suitable key phrases to use when communicating. There weren’t many physician-scientists qualified enough to check her work, and such evaluation did not automatically debar academic dishonesty or secure empirical validity — but it was still peer reviewed, for god’s sake. 

“I’ll be sure to toss the team a medal.” The director glanced at his watch and threw her a two-fingered salute. “Thanks for the brief.”

There was a flicker of blue light, and then he disappeared.

Rachel breathed in through her nose and out of her mouth. The first ever time she’d consulted with Invincible, the boy had been so irate by the director’s abrupt arrival and departure as to swear in the man’s absence. Perhaps he’d had a point.

It wasn’t her problem, she told herself, if Invincible were to suddenly snap and turn the director into a negative case study. A new leader would emerge within the hour, someone just as evasive but hopefully not as stubborn. It wasn’t even her problem if the boy were to render half the city’s population into a grotesque sort of ground beef. The director was his commanding officer, and Rachel had done all she could.

At least he’d said thank you.

She took a short moment to consider her new office. The orchid she’d adopted was doing so much better. The other room had been merely temporary while she waited for this one to be rebuilt in the wake of Invincible’s rampage; he’d torn through her old space and flattened the whole ward with the casual indifference of a cat breaking glassware (a comparison derived from repeated personal experience). Her painting of the Kalahari had been utterly destroyed. Hopefully Invincible liked Table Mountain a great deal more — though Rachel supposed she would only find out for sure the next time he completely lost his mind. She was just glad once again that she kept no personal keepsakes of any value at work.

This new place was much nicer. More spacious. Better lighting, better ventilation. Maybe she should thank the boy — many members of her team had long petitioned for an updated working environment, and Invincible had paved the way for them with the cleansing brutality of an outback inferno. Who could’ve ever guessed that one day, terrible decor and a feral half-alien boy would be their saving grace.

Rachel continued typing up her notes. Bored, perfunctory. She had plenty more patients to see in clinic today, and tomorrow morning she was due to teach. After that, she would see to James’s requests. Work truly didn’t ever end. Ten more years of this, and then she’d be retired. A little over ten more, and hopefully she’d be dead.

A buzz sounded from her pocket.

Ntozake, my dear, the text read. What would you like for dinner tonight?

Aishah was always so sweet.

Anything you have the energy for.

How Rachel had acquired this woman was another great enigma. One moment she’d been alone, trudging through her uncomfortably repetitious life in Oxford (beautiful architecture, abysmal weather, ridiculously overpriced everything), and then suddenly this riddle of a person was following her around, and asking after her hobbies, and smiling at her with the rich delight of a peach tree in full bloom, and Rachel had no idea why. She’d asked James what he thought of the situation at the time, but the man had been absolutely no help at all. A Cantabrigian spy, he’d hissed, here to pilfer their academic fruit.

A few interactions later they’d dined together, and then they’d kissed, and that had been the end of that.

(Though to be fair to James, some days Rachel still half-believed Aishah was a principal agent of some long-term psychological operation, albeit one of indeterminate purpose. The timing could very well fit — she'd met Aishah at thirty-four, fallen deeply in favour, and nearly bore an agonising separation in part due to Aishah's procurement of a once-in-a-lifetime career opportunity in the States. But Lady Luck had been merciful and quite a good personal ally, and so one drunken night of intellectual debauchery later a strange woman in black nondescript clothing had appeared in her office to recruit her with James in tow, looking equally as oblivious and more than a little afraid. In less than a fortnight, all three of them were crossing the pond on the back of the GDA's generous relocation fund).

The reply was quick: I’ll make my special, then.

Rachel turned back to her desktop and typed faster. Went through her list of patients and devoured their notes. Foresta, three-monthly review, assess for EPSEs. Meteor Man, six-weekly meeting, PTSD. The Hunk, first consultation, query: orthorexia.

Work would end at exactly five o’clock today, because Aishah was making her signature lamb tagine. She reached for her phone.

I’ll be home soon.

Chapter Text

The sun was warm. The wind was still. Mark flew over the patchwork of gleaming high rises and manicured parks to the other end of the city where Amber did her volunteering. Clean streets turned dirty, the air gained a musty smell, abandoned buildings became more common — the cracked walls and graffiti and boarded-up windows a clear sign of urban decay.

Amber was waiting on a street corner and startled when Mark landed heavily in the alley behind her, upending a trashcan. A loose colony of stray cats scattered at the noise and abandoned their half-eaten meal.

“S-Sorry I’m late,” Mark panted, doubled over at the knees. “I had an appointment.”

Amber looked at her phone and raised her brows. She was dressed in a practical set of clothes, makeup kept to a minimum. And still too beautiful for the grime and ruin around her. “You’re actually on time,” she said with a wry smile. “Congratulations.”

“Thanks.” Mark grinned. He ran a hand through his hair in an attempt to straighten it out. The ugly bald patch had nearly fixed itself. “You ready to go? Do we need to stop by your place on the way?”

She winked. “It’s a bit early in the day for that, isn’t it? Wine and dine me first, at least.”

“Uhhh…”

Mark flushed. He knew he had to look ridiculous. 

“I’m joking,” Amber laughed, taking pity on him. “I brought a change of clothes.”

Mark cleared his throat and reached into his pocket. “Put this on.”

Amber gave him a quizzical look. “A blindfold? Why, Mark.”

“Seb,” he said instantly.

Amber slapped a hand to her mouth. “Seb,” she corrected. She dropped the joke and took the object off his hands. “What’s this for?”

“It’s a surprise,” he said, a playful heat in his chest. “I’m taking you somewhere nice.”

Gusts of wind tore and tugged at his clothes, bringing salt and metal in its bite. A gang of seagulls flew over the bay, the still grace of their flight broken by undignified squawks as they swooped at each other. Mark’s heart pounded with excitement as he put Amber down, her body wrapped in a thick coat to ward off the cold that accompanied their journey high in the clouds.

“Flying is so much fun,” Amber chuckled, gripping him by the shoulder as she steadied herself. The hem of her blue sundress billowed in the wind. “A pity I couldn’t see the sights along the way.”

“We’re here,” Mark said, fighting and losing against the grin creeping up his face. “You can take it off now.”

Amber removed the blindfold. And gasped.

Below, the waters of New York Harbor glimmered silver-blue in the light, and the city’s steely skyline rose to meet them as equals. Mark caught sight of some of its tallest inhabitants, the Empire State Building and the Brooklyn Tower and a collection of other skyscrapers he wasn’t knowledgeable enough to name. Ferries bearing wide-eyed tourists with cameras hanging off their necks cut their way across the water; a group of partiers on a private yacht pierced the air with their laughter, the vessel’s colorful decorations and the stylish ensembles of its passengers carrying far, such that Mark could see them even from so high up.

Directly in front of them, Ellis Island’s red-roofed buildings stood out against the bay, and Liberty State Park’s wide promenade carved a bustling path along the shoreline, full of joggers and families and plucky street performers. Governors Island lay green and pleasant to the East, and above their heads, past the terns and the herons grasping fish and pilfered sandwiches in their orange beaks, soared airplanes taking off from LaGuardia Airport, billowing straight plumes of white as they climbed.

And then there was more.

She was green, and iconic, and a hundred and fifty feet tall. That height doubled, no, tripled — when you took in her foundation. All the quiet principles she was built on. The myriad people she stood for, troubled and virtuous alike — the drifters crossing the sea, the homeless seeking new warmth, the hopeful carrying their hearts heavy-full of wishful dreams.

“Those spikes!” Amber exclaimed, almost disbelievingly.

She wore a crown with seven palisades for each of the seven seas, and held a tablet with great meaning, and her sandalled feet triumphed over a rightfully broken chain.

Amber looked down, upper body leaning over the lettuce-hemmed railing. “The pedestal! That face!”

A stab of fear struck Mark at her recklessness. “Be careful!”

Amber whipped around to meet him with an ear-splitting grin. Then she drank in the structure behind him, a copper flame covered in twenty-four karat gold leaf, bold against the blue sky.

“We’re on the Statue of Liberty!” Amber said breathlessly, joy and disbelief painting her features bright. “This is amazing!”

“We’re not supposed to be up here,” Mark said sheepishly. Amber was already snapping pictures with her phone. He pulled her closer to the flame’s middle, away from the prying eyes of tourists looking out of the viewpoint embedded in the statue’s crown. “But you shouldn’t be dating a superhero without at least getting some of the perks.”

“We’re going down to see it from below, too, right? The top of her head is cool and all, but I could really use a normal picture to show other people.”

“Yeah, we could head down if you want — ”

“No, not yet!” She slapped his hands away playfully. “This is so cool. I’ve never been to New York before. Let alone stood on the Statue of Liberty!”

Amber squealed again; Mark’s heart softened. He’d been to New York several times. First in elementary school, with his mom and dad, and multiple times since he’d turned seventeen. A rampaging centipede, a woman made of mud, four turtle monsters proficient in martial arts. All his trips here, to answer Cecil’s calls.

His chest gave a harsh tug.

It was Amber pulling on the fabric of Mark’s sweater. Pulling him closer down to her level as she extended an arm and nudged at him to smile, phone balanced in one hand while she worked for the right angle. It had to be Amber. It couldn’t be anything else. Mark felt the sun warm his dark hair; felt the softness of her cardigan tickle against his neck, the texture bugging him more than it should.

“Say cheese!” Amber beamed, putting all of her teeth on display.

Mark smiled against her cheek and hid all of his.

Neither of them had eaten lunch yet. They ended up getting hot dogs — Amber’s with extra mustard, Mark’s topped with caramelized onions. He paid, because it wasn’t his money anyway, and because Amber was saving up for a new car. Mark was still hungry after that; he bought a cup of clam chowder to go and they went to one of the parks close by. He drank his soup leisurely, admiring the elms and the sparrows sitting primly in the branches. Amber took one tiny sip to try the soup and wasn’t a huge fan, her face scrunching up in distaste. When he was done, they went for ice cream at a nearby parlor, storefront dressed in a lively red and white — chocolate chip for him, mint for her.

“How was volunteering?” Mark asked, taking a bite out of his cone.

Amber hummed. “Megan’s baby’s sick, so we were short staffed. It was busy, but hey, what can you do? We worked it out.”

Another question was bubbling inside him. “You spend a lotta time with the people on the ground. Unless I’m digging people outta the rubble, I don’t get to do that very much anymore.”

And in Chicago, sometimes he hardly wanted to be around. As selfish as it was. The streets still held pain he wasn’t quite ready to confront yet.

It wasn’t fair. Mark shouldn't have had to fear an entire city, it was all dad’s f —

“How’s everyone holding up?” Mark made himself say. “As a community?”

Amber gave him a look full of sympathy. “Eve’s been a big help, I’m sure you know. She’s been making waves. Especially in the city center.”

Mark nodded. He’d heard from her. She’d accelerated the repair of at least a half dozen buildings with the use of her powers, returning hundreds of people to their homes months before the city would’ve managed on its own.

“I wish I could be like her,” he confessed. The scent of creation embraced Eve like a mother; her beauty and wit made people look and listen instead of run and cower.

Amber laughed. The sunlight danced across her cheeks. “Me too. What I’d give to be able to turn apples into gold.” She blinked. “Not that I’d wanna crash the economy.” She blinked again. “Not that economic output is the only real thing of substance.”

Mark steered her back on course. “What about the place you volunteer? It’s pretty hard up. Are people okay there?”

“Better than you think,” she said thoughtfully. “People in Englewood are used to that sorta thing.” She paused. “Well, not specifically, uhm — ”

Amber tried and failed to find a way to say ‘superpowered father-son deathmatches’ delicately.

“ — y’know, but when a villain hits that part of town, repairs are slow-going anyway. The city doesn’t care as much if you’re not...producing, I guess. It’s sad. So everyone’s used to it. They cope pretty well, all things considered. Hell, one of the residents — Louise — started a fundraiser for the folks living uptown. And she hasn’t got much to spare herself. It’s brought people together, in a weird sorta way.” Amber shrugged. “Though not everyone feels that way. Ken — another local — says it’s just karma. That now the city’ll finally look even.”

“That’s an awful thing to say.”

Amber had a long-suffering look on her face. Her ice cream was melting in the sun. “That’s Ken. You can try talking to him, but he’s his own warning.”

Mark nodded. Finished the last of his cone, though he wasn’t very hungry anymore. They walked along a path that snaked the edges of an artificial lake, teeming with ducks. Mark caught the scent of light soap leading him in one direction…

…towards a man in a jean jacket.

“I’m also campaigning for Katy Giles.”

Mark pulled himself back. “Who?”

“Katy Giles — she’s running for state comptroller. She’s the real deal.” At Mark’s look, Amber said, “A state comptroller oversees budgets and audits expenses… ”

Amber proceeded to intricately explain the country’s entire fiscal infrastructure with all its bells and whistles — revenue, distribution, economy stability, optics, political will. Unfortunately, his understanding only got worse with every additional clarification. It all seemed so needlessly convoluted, the bureaucracy and the red tape.

So petty.

“ — but I’ve been having trouble getting people to actually give me the time of day, they mostly just hang up. Folks don’t seem to get it — Giles is huge on financial transparency. She could do a lot of good if people would only give her a chance.”

It was like undoing a knot by cutting through the string.

“You need to make people listen to you so they’ll vote for her.”

“Exactly! But it’s so frustrating, trying to convince people who don’t think they’ve got any power, or don’t care enough to exercise it — ”

Amber didn’t seem to understand.

“Convince?” Mark spat. “What do you need to convince anyone for? Just make them vote for her, if that’s what you really want.”

Amber looked up, startled. “What? That’s not how this works. I can’t push someone into voting the way I want. People get to make their own choices.”

Mark pressed on, a restless energy sparking his words. “But you said it yourself — people don’t get it. They don’t wanna get it. They don’t have the perspective you do. If you left them to their own devices, they’d only end up hurting themselves.”

“What are you trying to say? That we should do away with our democracy?”

There was still a questioning lilt to her tone, like she was entertaining an academic curiosity. But it was fraying.

“You want change, don’t you? You want some kind of progression? How many election cycles has it been since Chicago had a decent hold on its budget?”

Amber let out an incredulous laugh. “Alright, mister, say I don’t care about free will. Say I’m happy trampling all over it like dirt. What could I even do? You’re demanding the impossible. I’m great at talking to people, sure, but I’m one girl with a phone. You think I can just wave a magic wand and everyone’ll automatically fall in line? According to you, am I meant to lie to folks? Make threats? Blackmail?”

Mark’s hackles rose. “Why’re you asking me?”

Amber stared. “Because we’re having a conversation? And I wanna know?”

She should already know.

“What’s that look for?” Amber asked. “You went down this road in the first place. Now you wanna go all quiet on me?”

Tension built around his temples. “I just think you — we — have a responsibility to protect vulnerable people. And to help those who can’t help themselves.”

“No duh.”

More, more. She could be doing more. Mark’s voice came out as a mutter. “But I don’t think any of this really matters to you.”

“Excuse me?”

The words sat there on his tongue, coiled and ready to spring. 

If you really wanted this, it wouldn’t be so hard. You’d do what needed to be done for the good of everyone else.

Maybe you don’t want this as much as you think you do.

Mark opened his mouth:

A baseball smacked into the side of his face, breaking the spell. It bounced and rolled a few feet away, trajectory cushioned by the grass.

“Billy! Watch how you swing that thing!”

Mark blinked. Amber sealed her outrage and plastered on a smile.

A frizzy-haired kid came running up to them, grinning wildly, a Band-Aid on his right cheek, one hand clutching a baseball bat. A man with slumped shoulders and shoes too nice for the park came panting after him, looking shocked and deeply apologetic.

“I’m so sorry, did that hit you?”

The boy scooped up the baseball and released a triumphant whoop. “Did you see how far I hit it that time, dad? Did you see?”

There wasn’t a pain in his chest.

“Oh no, don’t worry about it, it’s okay — ” Mark and Amber said at the same time.

“It did, didn’t it? I keep telling him to be careful, but — Billy! Leave those alone! Get over here!” 

Billy promptly dropped the slugs he’d been collecting.

“Apologize to this young man right this instant!”

Billy swirled the tip of his foot in the grass and kept his eyes low, contrite. “I’m sorry for hitting you with my baseball, sir.”

“It’s okay,” Mark said awkwardly. Throat going a little tight. “It was nothing.”

Amber stood a little closer to him.

Billy brightened. His father spluttered, “It’s definitely not okay, Billy, you could’ve hurt him — ”

But Billy got distracted again. He took off in a sprint towards the other end of the park, chasing something shiny and interesting, laughing all the way.

“I wasn’t done speaking!” His father called in vain, fruitlessly trying to catch up with his son’s hyperactive antics. His shouting tapered off as he ran, tripping over his own feet and too-polished shoes. “Billy! Your mom won’t be happy!”

Mark closed his eyes against the vertigo. When he opened them again, the world had stopped spinning, Amber had their fingers linked, and he was completely fine.

“You okay?” she asked.

Mark nodded. He gave her a soft smile, hoping it reached his eyes.

“Where would you like to go next?”

To Mark, Amber’s bedroom had been an odd mixture of familiar and foreign. She kept several posters on the walls, her favorite bands and artists. Many of them local and indie. Two plants by hanging the window, thin vines rolling off the pots’ edge. A bold collection of books on a rickety bookshelf close to bursting — Naomi Klein, Margaret Atwood, Ta-Nehisi Coates. Amber was a voracious reader with an irrepressible appetite for justice, growth, and knowledge; and one day she would use the passion burning through her to carve her mark on the world. She wanted reform and transparency, clean air and thriving oceans, living wages and equal treatment. She wanted hungry children fed, the freedom to speak and protest, accountability for the rich and powerful, and for no one to be left behind.

And most bafflingly of all, Amber wanted Mark.

He remembered the ghost of her fingers on his skin, tracing the lean lines of muscle up and down his back and over his flank, across his thighs and between his legs. They’d gone slow with each other that night as they’d rekindled their connection, kissing and nipping and drawing warmth with their teeth. Peeling off their clothes and letting them fall into a heap by the foot of Amber’s bed. She’d straddled his hips and cupped his face and leaned down to kiss him with confident movements and spirited eyes, like she was desperate to reclaim something long lost to her.

Neither Mark nor Amber had intended to work themselves to completion. It hadn’t been a goal — it just happened. There’d been a kind understanding of unpressured touch as they’d explored each other’s bodies, movements sensual and curious like it was the first time they’d ever been with each other. In a sense, it had been.

The soft swell of her breasts and thighs, the shadows cast onto her bare back and shoulders as she let her hair loose. His body, moving against her undulations, reacting to her touch as she ground down and cupped him very gently between his legs once he’d nodded his consent. The way he’d reached out to touch her too, her waist and her hips, afraid and desperate all at once, as if she might disappear. He’d felt the functional wet warmth of a new addition and the ache of an old absence, and when his chest and neck seized from the loss she’d taken his lips with a swift and gentle fury.

Do you like that, and how does this feel, and what can I do better?

Yes, he’d said, and good, he’d panted, and I don’t know, he’d admitted, with a rush in his belly that spread to his toes. What can I do for you?

It’d been easier, then, to let her rub against the ball of nerves an inch above his new entrance with gentle swirls and the pressure of a thumb. Easier to let her gather his slickness to coax him further into pleasure. Mark had mirrored Amber’s gesture and felt a responding wetness, her enthusiasm made clear in the moans she let loose against his jaw, finding that motion, at least, something familiar to him. And as they both climbed their peaks and came down together, panting into each other’s mouths and rolling their hips together, he’d wondered if Amber felt a new kinship with him blooming in some way.

And after, they laid in each other’s arms — naked and sweaty and legs intertwined under Amber’s thick blankets, unpacking the act with love and patience and honesty.

Talking with her forced him to reflect. He’d not touched himself like that outside of his episodes (heats). It felt different now, when he came. Less like a sudden pop and more like a slow burn, building and rolling and rising (rising) like the tide. He didn’t know how to feel about that. But maybe he could get used to it.

He would have no choice but to.

Surgery had been mentioned very briefly and then never again. The GDA just didn’t have the tools to restore what he’d had, and there was no guarantee his body wouldn’t just revert to its current state anyway.

“I’m sorry, y’know, for how I acted,” Amber said out of the blue in that quiet moment, forty minutes before Mark would leave. The candle she’d lit was scented with oolong and mandarins, and as the flame wavered in the draft, a quick flash of light colored her irises darker and highlighted her beauty — every soft crescent of her tight curls deepened by the waving shadows.

“Huh?” Mark had replied eloquently, caught off-guard. “For what?”

“For what I said to you. How I said it to you. When you told me about your secret identity.”

“Amber, you don’t need to apologize for anything — ”

She gave his hand a squeeze. “Yes, I do.” She had a small, uncertain smile on her face. “I was mad about the lying, sure. But it was your secret to share, not something I was entitled to.”

Mark sat up, let the covers fall off him and pulled his bare knees to his chest.

“You figured it out anyway — you had every right to be mad and break up with me.” A sudden insight came to him, and the next words were dipped in irony. “Lying and secret-keeping are big dealbreakers. I’m not surprised you were done.” In hindsight. Once he’d gotten his ego in check and his head out of his ass.

“I could’ve handled that a million times better,” Amber insisted, sitting up with him. “I didn’t express myself well enough and I let my anger get a hold of me. That was wrong.” She looked off to the side then, considering one of the posters. “I had other thoughts going on that I just didn’t say for some stupid reason. Call it a failure of communication.” She winced. “Villains target family members and girlfriends all the time; I was mad that you didn’t tell me because it could’ve put me and my family in danger, and in theory I wouldn’t even know why.”

It made sense. “Then…” And Mark was afraid to ask the question; his lips had gone dry. “Why are you with me? Surely it’s even more dangerous now that there’s confirmation of my cover getting blown.”

“It’s a real threat,” she agreed, meeting his eyes head on. “But after Chicago, I guess I got a new outlook.” Her words were punched with courage and self-belief. “I like you. I wanna be with you. Life’s too short for me to worry about all the things I can’t control. There’s a chance I could die just walking down the street for any random reason — ”

Mark’s heart gave a violent lurch.

“ — another villain, or an extradimensional bug, or a piano falling on my head…” Amber huffed lightly. “What a way to go that would be. The obituary would be hilarious.”

Mark didn’t share her amusement.

She nudged him with an elbow. “Hey! Don’t look so glum, what, are you offended that my doom could be totally distinct from you?” Amber tossed him a look of mock outrage. “It’s 2021, Mark  — women get to die for reasons completely unrelated to their husbands and fathers and hot, worried boyfriends. I reserve the right to a dumb death on my own terms.”

He swallowed around the lump in his throat. Forced the words out, trying to play to the tone. “Is this the new feminism? Guess I need to catch up on my literature."

Amber cackled; gripped his arm as she did so. “It’s part of the fifth wave.” She smiled up at him, caught his eyes with her affection. “But seriously, okay? I wanna be by your side. You risk your life every day for people you don’t even know. How could I not stand by you?”

That stopped his thoughts faster than any villain’s stun gun. Mark looked at her with quiet surprise and a rising (rising) flutter, not knowing what to say. Not feeling deserving of her loyalty.

“I’ll still be busy, even without school and a job. Quite possibly busier than ever — criminals are bolder without my dad around to scare ‘em off.”

“We’ll work it out.” Amber gave him a wry smile. “I’m always gonna be here for you, Mark. No matter what. You’d have to do something pretty drastic to change that.”

Her next words hit him like a punch.

“I love you.”

Three little syllables, each a hammer to his head. So loud in the intimate silence of her bedroom. A terrifying first for them both, scarier than most villains, scarier than it had any right to be. Mark jerked his head away from her, heart racing, mind going panic-blank. He’d never had a girlfriend before, not a serious one like Amber. Two-week relationships in first grade didn’t count. She had to know it was reckless to be so bold like that. They hadn’t seen each other in weeks.

Mark risked a look at her face.

Amber knew what she wanted and wasn’t ashamed of it. Her eyes were fierce and determined.

But they were nervous, too. There was tension in the slight way she held her breath, a stillness to her shoulders, just like when she’d apologized earlier. Not because she was clinging to a rigid sense of pride. Not out of stern expectation.

But because she was afraid he might reject her.

Amber was afraid.

That Mark would reject her.

“You don’t have to say it back,” Amber said quickly. “I’m just telling you how I — ”

“I love you too.”

The confession came out in a rush, and he surged towards her. Gathered both her hands in his, her smooth palms and delicate fingers sending a tingle down his spine. He ignored the low churning in his gut, the traitorous thing.

Amber’s mouth had fallen open in surprise. He felt the heat of her breath against his nose, and then she was claiming his lips again, the smoothness of her palms cradling his face and jaw. Mark’s eyes slid closed, and he took in the citrus of her scent, the smokiness underpinning her sandalwood tones.

This is nice, Mark thought, wrapping his hands around her waist. He broke the kiss and inhaled deeper into the crook of her neck, growled before he could catch himself; inhaled deeper again, chasing an extra dimension of alkaloids and tannins. It was just his greed for her, driving Mark to seek more of something that wasn’t strictly there. It had to be.

Amber shivered lightly at the rumble in his chest. Mark zipped the noise back into himself.

“Sorry,” Mark muttered. He had the urge to cover his fangs.

He felt her smile against him. “It’s cool,” she said with a laugh. She was moving her hands again. “Kinda hot, actually.”

Mark sputtered, pleased and embarrassed all at once —

“No!” he gasped suddenly, pulling away with a shudder, deep and violent.

“What’s wrong?” Amber said, alarmed.

Her fingers had danced down, skated across the throbbing gland in his neck. Even over the patch, it was achingly sensitive. Demanding and insistent and screaming a vengeful pressure round his throat like a heavy, weighted collar. The imagery split him in two — one part of him recoiled, commanded him to bare his fangs and hiss. To fight the bind with everything he had and damn all the rest to fire and rot and grim, salted earth. The other part of him longed to purr and sigh and expose his neck further, called for a primal strength to take him if it could. To set the rules of engagement.

But conflicting as they were, they shared something in common: both alien urges hungered for him to go.

It was time. Amber was safe now. She was home. He heard nothing unusual outside her window; smelled no ill intent.

A ravenous craving speared him: Fly away.

What was he still doing here?

Up against the inky night, Mark could melt away. He had many friends in those parts, the wind from all corners to give him fond whispers and the moon to watch his back. The thin air would sharpen his breath, and the stars would guide his steps. But to where?

To where?

Mark took a deep breath. Tapped twice on his sternum. And let the feeling pass. Reassessed as it left.

He had no need of the sky. Of course he didn’t.

Mark only wished for a breeze to pull the heat away.

“Not there,” Mark murmured, not able to give her a reason. “Anywhere else is fine. Just…not there.”

“Okay,” Amber agreed, slow and patient. “I’m sorry.”

Mark’s body lanced him with another shudder. The pain rolled down his spine, swirled into his stomach like a whirlwind, surged through his toes like nails and bounced back to strike him right between the eyes. It hurt to keep them open — so he let his lids fall shut. As he savored the dark, a bitter comfort rose like cold smoke, and he heard the whisper of a hundred buried voices. It eased him; he hated himself for it.

“I know,” Mark said, trying to steady his tone. It still came out half-broken. “I’m sorry too.”

“...What did you mean by that, earlier?” Amber asked after they left the park. A mother and daughter strolled past on the sidewalk, the child chittering excitedly.

Irritation rose unbidden; Mark swallowed it down. “What are you talking about?”

“When you said, ‘I don’t think any of this really matters to you’.”

Something was causing an itch in his ear. “Does everything have to have a deeper meaning with you?”

“Don’t brush me off!” Amber hissed indignantly. “You know exactly what I mean.”

Jesus, he wished she would just drop it. “I was just being a jerk, okay?” he said, exasperated. “You asked a lot of good questions and it backed me into a corner. I just wanted to win the argument. It wasn’t nice. I’m sorry.”

He took a split second to scent the area and found nothing. Listened as well, and found the same.

Amber’s brows pulled together. “Do you really think all my volunteering is just for show? Because it’s not. I’ve got plans that go way beyond summer vacation — I want a career in social policy. I wanna help people. For real.”

“I know how seriously you take your work, and I’m sorry.” Mark took a deep breath. “I don’t know why I said that,” he admitted.

Amber gave him a long look. “Just don’t do it again.”

Mark wasn’t facing her. “Understood.”

They reached the entrance to a beautiful museum set into a steep hill for privacy, built in the style of a French monastery — complete with chapels, cloisters, peaceful medieval gardens. Its walls were mottled granite and limestone, centuries old, the ghosts of Europe carried far across the ocean to hum beneath the buzz of New York. After paying, they entered an arched doorway carved with lions and boars and acanthus leaves, and explored the place at their leisure.

Amber was absolutely taken with the art. She wandered the exhibit with quiet awe, leaning into each piece with wide eyes. She stopped by the open page of a fourteenth-century manuscript depicting a key scene from the Bible — the serpent descending from the branches of an apple tree, Eve turning curiously to speak with it.

“You really undersold this place,” Amber told him under her breath. “The way you described it, I thought it’d be all dust and disappointment.”

To say that the tension between them had faded was to lie. Amber clearly had more to tell him, but for the purposes of not wasting their precious time together she’d seemingly decided to let it go.

Mark studied a white plaque; Jonah swallowed by a whale, spat back out three days later. He shrugged. “Well, I was a lot younger the last time I came here. I was bored outta my mind. Medieval history wasn’t really my thing.”

It still wasn’t — but Amber had been curious, her interests far more wide-ranging than his, and she’d taken an interest in his childhood adventures in New York.

Show me where you’ve been, she’d said.

Mark had once spent over two hours down in New York’s overtaxed sewer system tracking down and fighting off an overgrown rat, which hadn’t gone down as easily as the mutant turtles. The stench had been awful. (He doubted Amber actually wanted him to take her there — so the museum it was).

They kept their voices low and footsteps light as they entered one of the chapels, lit by a cascade of primary colors pouring through the lancet windows and filtered by stained glass. A blue-winged angel knelt by the Virgin Mary, the ring around her head a cast of molten gold as she took in the good news. As they turned, the scene changed and progressed — Mary and Joseph and a donkey, baby Jesus in the manger, a host of fiery angels manifesting in the night sky to a group of frightened shepherds, the three wise men unfurling their kingly gifts.

There were four separate quadrangles set to the pastiche of medieval gardens, each painting their own summer picture. Dainty yellow cowslips and proud bearded irises and sweet forget-me-nots nestled among the basket of green lining the arched walkways, each pillar intricately carved with more scenes from myth and legend. Giving shade to the courtyard in the Southern-most garden was a small collection of apple trees with the odd fig tree in their company, each branch hanging heavy with slowly-ripening fruit.

Another section of the building was devoted to tapestries. Heroes of old sat solemn on their thrones, heads heavy with weighted crowns. Others bore swords and shields and led grand armies, fought lions on horseback and speared dragons through the neck.

Mark rubbed his eyes. “I’m gonna get some air.”

“Everything alright?”

“There’s just a lot to look at.” Truth be told, he’d seen it all before and quite a bit better in Europe proper. And with his abilities, he could come back and look at these any time he liked. Mark blinked a few times. “Will you still be in this room when I get back?”

“Yeah,” Amber said. She gave him a wink. “There’s a lot to look at.”

Mark grinned. It felt good to flirt and be flirted with, surrounded by religious iconography or not.

He was about to make a turn when he passed by a room with huge hangings on every wall; lavish tapestries woven in wool and silk. Something about them made him stop and pay sharp attention.

Recognition lit up; he’d seen these before. Striking enough for him to remember well, unlike the rest of the museum’s holdings.

Metallic threads of gold and silver evoked sunlight, shining bright against the rich reds and marking the midnight blues and giving the deep green foliage an element of dimensionality. There was no landscape or sky, just a dense backdrop of blooms and herbs and trees hemming the bold figures, dressed in luscious silks and velvets and heavy brocades. A thousand flowers, the technique was called, the information retrieved from a locked vault deep in Mark’s memory. A guided tour from years ago.

In the first tapestry, a group of wealthy hunters were called to action. In the next one, an ivory unicorn purified a fountain with the tip of its spiralling horn. Roses and bluebells and strawberries sprouted with joy, pheasants and leopards and stags partook of the clean water. All the hunters gathered round to watch, natural enemies in a temporary truce.

The rest of the hangings continued the story. Dogs gave chase to the unicorn, men lanced it with spears, it kicked and bled and died. Mark felt sorry for it as it was carried away on horseback, gored and bitten, scarlet wounds vivid against its cirrus coat, face frozen in agony. But then the narrative shifted.

A sense of foreboding built heavy in Mark’s chest, crashing like distant thunder.

In the last piece, the slain unicorn was whole again. It rested calmly against a pomegranate tree, caged by a fence and looking much more tame. Mark’s heart hammered under his ribs; his breath nearly caught.

There was a collar round its neck.

Something tugged on Mark’s nostrils as he made his way back to Amber. Something out of place. He honed in on the oddity, lended sharpness to his nose and precision to his ears.

There — a youngish man in a jean jacket that smelled like light soap and skin scrubbed too clean. Steel-toed boots, judging by the sound. Mark had seen him before at the park.

Another tourist? A coincidence?

Mark gave another sniff. Narrowed his eyes and shifted behind a pillar to watch his movements.

No. Not another tourist. There was feigned interest in his brown eyes, and beneath that a layer of boredom, and beneath that a thick coating of operative focus — controlled, alert.

What was he locked onto?

Sometimes, Mark bumped into the odd undercover cop or private investigator. It was usually a little awkward before he figured out why someone was acting so shifty in public. But no harm done. Mark treated it like a game now, his newly enhanced senses prompting him to vigilance and then to play — find the man’s target, deduce his motivations. Maybe there was a cheating spouse the man was paid to keep tabs on.

He was ambling towards the other chapel — where Mark was heading anyway — trying to make it look casual. He wasn’t interested in the young couple mooning over each other. Nor was he keen on the older woman resting in the corner. He kept a good distance, and he looked plain enough, but his gaze was trained steady on —

Amber.

Every instinct flared to life.

Mark moved too quickly for anyone to see. In one flash he’d grabbed the guy around the collar, and in the next he dragged him into one of the walled gardens, away from everyone else. The man made no sound at all as he was whipped off his feet and dropped flat on his back into a patch of wild grasses and shrubs, tall and dense enough to hide them both. That, and the clack-clack of metal only confirmed Mark’s suspicions — he wasn’t a civilian.

Red was in season. In the dahlias, in the roses, in the shine of unripe plums sitting staunchly in their branches.

And in the blood skimming the man’s chapped lips, a leak from where he’d bitten down — the secret to his silence.

The man tried to sit up on his elbows but Mark planted a foot on either side of his ribcage and released a sharp snarl, lunging into his space as he did it. A frightened yelp struck the air.

“Quiet,” he hissed, though he felt satisfaction at drawing the noise out. “Who are you? And why are you stalking my girlfriend?”

A tiny swallow, a brief calculation. “I-I…I’m an agent of the GDA.”

The statement should’ve given him pause; Mark only felt a flare of irritation. “Really.”

The alleged-agent nodded tightly. “I was ordered to shadow Amber Bennett for her protection. That’s why I’m here.”

“Anyone could say that,” Mark challenged coolly. “How do I know you’re not lying?”

Sweat gathered thick on the man’s brow. “I can put you in touch with my handler. She’ll be able to confirm who I am. She could send a message up the ladder — ”

“That’ll take ages,” Mark said lazily, not counting on the GDA’s efficiency — if the man even was GDA. “Sun's out today, and I’m on a nice date. It’d be a shame to waste the good weather.”

(Distantly, Mark knew there was an easy fix to this problem. But he wasn’t going to be the one to call. He wasn’t that desperate).

“Invincible, please. You’re a reasonable man. You have to believe me.”

It was his callsign, it was just Mark’s goddamn callsign, but the tone in it must’ve set him off. The prickle of blatant manipulation grating hard against his nerves.

The flash of Mark’s fangs had the so-called agent balking. “Just think about it!” he said quickly. “The longer we argue, the bigger the opening on Miss Bennett. There’s no one watching her right now.”

Mark straightened. That was a good point.

“You left earlier,” the man continued, emboldened, mouth running recklessly. “I could’ve done something then — ”

A strangled gasp, the click of teeth on something hard.

“What did you just say?”

The man’s pulse rattled against his thumb.

There came a sharp buzz. Mark reached down into the stranger’s pocket; retrieved a ringing phone.

He crushed it in his palm.

The ringing continued. It was coming from Mark’s earpiece, tucked away in one of his pockets.

About time, Mark thought bitterly. He answered it.

“I thought I made it clear — I don’t want your people stalking my friends.”

Cecil’s irritation was tangible through Mark’s earpiece. “For Christ’s sake kid, my agents are not ‘stalking’ your friends. They’re keeping them safe — so stop throwing them around.” There was a short pause. “Get your goddamn hands off my guy. Now.”

Mark released him as if burned. The agent relaxed into the grass with a shudder.

He looked around for a camera, fingers still tingling from the reprimand. “You’re watching me?”

“Am I watching you? Am I watching you, the single biggest walking migraine I have on my roster? My full-time stress position blessed with human form? Yes, I’m watching you. I’m always watching you. So behave.”

Lightning streaked down Mark’s spine. 

“You think I can’t protect my own — ” the proper word evaporated on his tongue, “ — friends? I don’t need your help. I can do this on my own, I’m strong!”

“No one is doubting that.” Cecil sighed. The line crackled with noise — distant interference, other voices muffled as if underwater. “But there’s a psycho on the loose, and you can’t be everywhere at once. Jesus, I thought you’d be smarter. And more grateful.”

The implication that he’d been unappreciative stung.

“You don’t get to insert yourself into something I’ve been handling just fine,” Mark snapped back. “Amber isn’t even yours, so what would you know? You haven’t been around — ”

A loud bang echoed over the line, followed by the heavy concussion of several more explosions. Terrified voices pierced through the static, the compressed roar of a laser gun rang out, and multiple car alarms blared.

Mark’s entire body went rigid. “Hey, is everything okay?” He tapped his earpiece to banish the static, feeling the start of an upwards pull. “Cecil? Hello?”

“What the hell was that, Rex?” Cecil shouted, so startled he hadn’t muted himself. “When I said neutralize the targets, I didn’t mean demolish a whole city block!”

Cecil was with Rex?

“Man, quit complaining! I got the job done, didn’t I?”

“A celebration at this time would be highly premature,” intoned another voice. Robot?

“A celebration at this time would be highly premature,” Rex mocked. “Guess who I am!”

“How did you develop a personality entirely made of noise?” groaned Dupli-Kate.

“Daddy issues,” Monster Girl replied.

“And mommy issues,” added Shrinking Rae.

“Jesus, will you all shut up? You’re clogging up the comms with your dumb nonsense.”

Cecil was with the Guardians…during an active mission?

In person?

Mark never got Cecil in person.

“Do you need any help?” Mark croaked.

The line cleared up. “No, we’re good. You enjoy your date. New York’s a great place when it’s not stinking of piss or blowing the hell up.”

“Are you sure?” Mark pressed.

“I said we’re good.”

“I can be there in — ”

“Mark, I don’t need you. Go back to your girlfriend, go back to having fun. I’m up to my goddamn eyeballs with this shitshow and the last thing I need is you nagging in my ear and questioning my orders.” Before he hung up, Cecil snapped, “Stay outta trouble.”

Mark didn’t know how long he remained frozen for.

The wind blew a sharp gale; stirred the grass and the trees. Knocked a hard plum loose from its branch to bounce off his head.

Huh. He hadn’t felt himself standing up. Not a moment ago he’d still been crouched over the terrified agent, rustling in the grass as he tried to inch away.

I don’t need you.

Someone was making a high-pitched whine. 

“S-Sir?” the man said, still laid between Mark’s feet. “A-Are you alright? Can I do anything to help?”

What was the point then? Of all the gestures and decorum? Had it all been for nothing?

He rubbed both his wrists in a sorry attempt to self-soothe, trailed fingers up his collarbone, stopped just shy of the gland on his neck — uncharacteristically silent. Blood rushed through his ears. What the hell was going on?

There was an incoming flux of tourists eager to explore the garden; he could hear them trudging along in a low drone. Mark held a hand to his mouth and breathed in and out until the tight feelings in his chest passed. He turned to the agent, who’d tentatively sat up.

“What’s your name?”

“Liam Gomez.”

The discordant smell-tones of a lie.

“No it’s not. Try again.”

The agent’s throat bobbed. He grimaced. “...Alexander Flores. Alex for short.”

“Thank you. Alex — ” The agent flinched. “I don’t want you coming anywhere near me and Amber for the rest of the day. I’ll protect her. She doesn’t need anyone else.”

The agent’s brows furrowed. “Sir, you’re very capable, but I’m here for redundancy. I’ll be unobtrusive. You won’t know I’m — ”

Mark cut him off with a growl.

“I-I have orders,” the agent tried futilely.

“To hell with your orders,” Mark snapped. “You’ve got new ones: Cecil says you’re off the job.”

“...Cecil?”

“Cecil Stedman,” Mark supplied, tipping his head over his shoulder, already walking away. There was slow-growing recognition in the man’s eyes, poorly hidden and half-horrified. It solidified when he added, “The director of the GDA.”

“I’ll…have to phone in and check,” the agent said lamely.

“You wanna question his orders? Knock yourself out.” Mark gave him a cold stare. “He won’t be happy.” He let the implication hang.

The agent blanched hard, nodded very quickly, and promptly fucked off.

Mark made his way back to Amber.

“Well, you were gone a long — woah!”

He threw his arms around her waist, leaned his nose into the junction of her neck and shoulder and breathed in her scent like it was his last day alive.

“Hey, people are watching.” Amber blushed, squirming in his grip. “Leave room for Jesus, y'know?"

Mark didn’t care. He muttered into her hair, “You’re not where you said you’d be.”

“Huh?”

Mark huffed. “Are you done now?” 

“Uh, no, there’s still a few rooms — ”

“Those don’t matter,” Mark cut in. “We’re leaving.”

Then he took Amber by the hand and made a beeline for the exit, practically dragging her along.

“Did something happen? Mark?”

He didn’t even bother to correct her; gave no mind to the people staring as they raced past, Amber panting slightly at the speed of their escape. Destination? Mark didn’t know. He didn’t particularly care. Just as long as it was away.

They wove through the crowded chaos of the late afternoon rush, contended with the midtown glare and the slow-rising stink of an overtaxed sewage system. The dense motion of the streets was no obstacle to him — Mark sidestepped tourists and suits and annoying street vendors, Amber’s body pulled to his velocity like a leaf caught in a current. Blood rushed through his ears the entire time.

But he was forced to stop when Amber dug her heels in and tried to tug loose. “Hey! Talk to me!”

“What do you want me to say?” Mark asked almost helplessly.

Amber seemed utterly bewildered with him. “I want you to tell me why you’re acting so weird. What the hell happened?”

Mark rubbed his temples in a vain attempt to banish the pain. He wrapped his arms around her again, gentler this time, and felt her return the gesture, confused but sincere.

“You said you’d be in the last room. You weren’t.” He tightened his hold, chased the allure deep to Amber’s skin. Whispered lowly, madly: “Why did you lie to me?”

“Lie to you? I didn’t lie to you.” Amber said incredulously. “I was just getting bored. I wanted to finish viewing the rest of the exhi — ”

The temptation to simply pull Amber off her feet and burst into the sky was strong.

Mark let her go.

“You just admitted to it!” he growled. “You said you were gonna be somewhere, but you weren’t. How is that not a lie?”

Amber’s brows had risen to the top of her forehead. “Did you take something in the bathroom when I wasn’t looking?” Her face scrunched up with indignation. “Yeah, I wasn’t in the exact room, but big deal. You found me, didn’t you?”

“That’s not the point!”

“Well no point even exists! You’re acting crazy!”

Mark flinched hard.

“Don’t call me that.”

Had Mark been of sound mind, he would’ve noticed a shift in their environment — the way pigeons flew off and refused to settle. Dogs barking on the street. Sourness permeating the air.

The sound of distant gunshots knocked his senses back into gear.

Mark blinked.

“ — act that way! First it was the park, now you’re flying off the handle over absolutely nothing — ”

“You can’t be here,” Mark interjected, mind snapping to action. “You have to go.”

“Stop cutting me off!” Amber hissed, frustrated. “You don’t get to drag me around, or snap at me, or be the sole arbiter of when the conversation is or isn’t over. And you definitely don’t get to be such a huge jerk without even telling me why!”

Then it came — the signature tri-sequence of an incoming attack.

Mark’s enhanced senses let him hear it first.

The initial crash and bang of a supervillain’s grand entrance — the rumble of broken asphalt like they’d dug out of the ground. Cars tossed on their side, alarms layering on top of each other.

Then the brief shocked silence of a city holding its breath — the lost chatter of cafes and the absent flow of traffic.

And finally the cacophony: metal tearing, glass breaking, sirens blaring.

People screaming.

Mark was already in costume by the time everyone else caught up. Amber’s cry of surprise had barely left her throat before Mark shoved her into cover — made her duck into an old church with thick walls and heavy masonry. Heads turned as the doors blew open, the priest paused his sermon. A service was still ongoing.

“Hey! W-What’s going on?”

A rumble shook the ground, lights overhead flickered. The congregation all made noises of surprise.

“Don’t move.”

And if his tone was too sharp, it was only for her safety.

He lifted off the ground and sped in the direction of the mayhem.

It was a classic bank robbery. Police cars swarmed a pretty Art Deco building, flashing the granite facade in shades of jumpy red and blue.

A man with glowing white eyes and hundreds of silken tendrils pouring from his fingertips stood sedate in the central hall, admiring the vaulted ceiling and painted murals. Terrified civilians formed a loose shield around him, threads spearing into their crowns as they quivered and cried. Quite a few of them locked into artistic poses.

“Someone please help us!”

“Mommy, I’m scared!”

There was a gaping hole in the marble floor from where he’d emerged, too big for a single man.

And a sea of corpses blanketing the area. Bones and viscera and blood staining his polished dress shoes. Mangled, broken, crushed — most of them barely recognizable.

Most of them red mush.

Mark landed with a snarl. “Let these people go!”

“Invincible, thank god!”

“Please, please, he has my baby!”

“Oh, do be quiet.”

The villain pinched his fingers together and a wave of silence fell, panicked and unnatural. Thin glowing filaments kept his victims’ lips sealed, pleas unwillingly muffled.

“Invincible! The GDA's newest attraction,” the villain said, turning to Mark with a crooked grin. Something in his tone made Mark's skin prickle. There was a streak of blood on the man's face and gore on his white garments and a wholly unnerving quality to him. “I don’t believe we’ve met.” The villain gave him a little bow. “Stringmaster, at your service.”

Mark wasted no time. He darted for Stringmaster, aiming for his throat —

Only for a civilian to lunge into his path, movements jerky and disjointed. Though she had no will of her own, her wide eyes gave away the imprisoned horror.

Mark skidded to a halt. The woman wasn’t superhuman, but the speed of the reaction was.

The threads.

Stringmaster tutted. “Careful, now. Wouldn’t want to make a mess, would you?”

The villain gestured to the carnage around him and chuckled.

Mark’s hackles rose.

“I wouldn’t try that again,” Stringmaster cautioned. He made a fluid motion with his fingers. “One wrong move…” Several civilians braced their firm hands on their heads, poised just so. The sicko was threatening to make his victims snap their own necks. A few small metal snicks — police officers caught in the villain’s grasp, the safety on their guns going off. “And all these people die.”

“Woah, woah, take it easy.” Mark’s eyes darted around. A hundred-odd people. A lot for a bank, had he pulled people in from outside? “What do you want, man? Money? Bank woulda just let you walk off with the cash — store policy. You don’t need these folks.”

“Oh, but I do,” Stringmaster purred. “What’s an artist without his tools?”

The villain executed a gesture and one of his victims spun into his arms in a mockery of a dip. Stringmaster cradled the woman’s head with one spindly hand, gaze heavy with warped affection. “I’ve always been fascinated by the human body and all its little quirks. Even from before. Especially from before.”

“Before what?” It was always good policy to keep a villain talking. “Before you took a left into crazy town?”

Stringmaster ignored the jab, still lost in his musings. “But I became…bored. Day in and day out, it was always the same. Job after job. So much work for so little recognition. I wanted more. Was that so wrong?”

Mark tilted his head. At just that angle, there was a clear path between him and Stringmaster. And the villain was distracted, wasn’t he? His attention was split. 

“Yeah, yeah, I get it — the starving artist phase is rough. But most people just go on Etsy instead of making murder collages!”

Power channelled into his limbs and then Mark was airborne, arrowing towards the villain with deadly precision.

Stringmaster jerked his hands and the crowd obeyed.

Mark’s gut dropped.

The civilians flung themselves as if thrown by unseen hands, crashed so hard against each other that bones shattered and skin split. Mark lashed out to cleave the threads — but his fingers simply passed through like empty air. He could only watch in horror as the mass writhing of bodies formed a towering titan of fear and flesh, swallowing light as it rose to full height — Stringmaster at its head.

“What. The. Fuck.”

There was a horrible crunch and squelch as the people forming the feet and legs died from the sheer weight on top of them, crushed and compacted and locked into disfigurement when they hadn’t lost all shape.

“Don’t interrupt me!” Stringmaster hollered. The air seemed to shake with him. “Don’t you ever interrupt me!”

He used his human armor to stomp, and four people died on impact. Blood and bone erupted from the ground, 

Everyone was shrieking.

Mark shot towards Stringmaster with a roar, fist raised.

A wall of terrified people spiralled round to protect him, each helplessly pinned against one other. With each movement, a chorus of wails struck the air.

Mark froze an inch away from making contact.

“No, no please!” One man shouted, breath tickling Mark’s knuckles. “Please don’t hurt us!”

Another man was crying uncontrollably — femur sticking out of his leg.

“My baby, where’s my baby? Oh god, oh god!”

A buzz in his ear.

“We gotta stop meeting like this, kid. Status report while I wait on a visual.”

Mad as he was at Cecil, Mark couldn’t help the relief coloring his reply. “Uh, some guy playing dolls with human bodies, uhm, he seems to know you guys...”

"Plenty of people do."

Mark trailed off, a wave of vertigo hitting him. All that blood. On his face, in his mouth. “Uhh, it’s…”

“You’re gonna have to be a bit more – oh Jesus Christ, that’s nasty.”

“Yeah,” Mark said, an edge to his tone. “I can’t cut through his strings. I’m being careful, I don’t wanna get snared either — ”

Mark swerved out of the way as the meat-titan threw a punch. 

Not fast enough — someone’s arm broke against his invulnerable body and more screams erupted. Mark lifted a hand to palm his chest. Tried and failed to ground himself with the usual double-tap.

“Doubt his powers could work on someone like you, kid. He probably knows it too. Kid? Hello?”

Blood-metal in his mouth, adrenaline in his veins. It was hard to keep upright. What was up and down, anyway? To someone like him…

Stringmaster’s voice slithered out like a snake. “Well done for dodging, hero. Bravo.” The figure raised its hands, each finger a terrified human —

Mark’s heart stuttered. “No!”

“Daddy! Daddy! Help me!” shouted the pinky.

— and clapped. Hard.

“…Billy?” moaned a male voice.

The titan ground its palms together, and a terrible silence followed, punctuated by pained moans. The child stopped screaming for his father.

“Stop it!” Mark snarled, something small dying inside him. “Let them go! What the fuck do you even want?”

Stringmaster’s voice came out garbled and multiple as he used his victims to speak for him. “Such a shame,” he lamented, looking at the rivers of blood running down his palms. “Human bodies are so delicate. They crumble under the slightest pressure. I’ll have to replace these soon.”

Cecil’s voice: “Right, kid — you’re gonna have to end this quickly.”

“But you’d know, wouldn’t you?” Stringmaster drawled, still in that stolen legion-speak. “I saw your big fight on the internet before the GDA scrubbed everything clean. In Chicago. On the subway.”

Mark’s entire body went cold.

“Breathe, Mark. Come on, get it together.”

He tapped on his sternum twice.

He was here, he was here. He was solid against the storm, steady as the season’s rise.

“It must’ve felt exhilarating. To feel those petty specimens breaking around you. You must’ve felt like a god.”

Stringmaster ran towards him, each step a horrific crunch leaving more red.

“You make me so jealous. I can only imagine what it’s like to be you!”

Mark dragged in a breath. What to do, what to do?

He had to keep Stringmaster distracted. He couldn’t throw anything, because the villain’s armor was made of people, and he couldn’t touch them either, because they would all die —

Mark weaved between Stringmaster’s punches, dove under his kicks. Gore flew in arcs with every motion.

“The hell are you doing, kid? Go for his head! You take him down, everyone goes free!”

The command lanced through him like white fire, but Mark’s body wouldn’t do it.

“I can’t!” he sobbed. “I’ll hurt them!”

Stringmaster paused to assess the damage to his meat armor. He hummed idly. There was no mouth on the titan, but Stringmaster’s tone gave the impression of a mad grin. “Time for a reformation.”

He punted Mark to the side with a backhand and stepped onto the street.

A hundred more glowing tendrils erupted from Stringmaster’s form. The villain cackled, clearly having the time of his life. People ran for their lives — or at least they tried. Too many were swept up by the villain’s spindly power, limbs flailing as they were sucked into his vortex and forced to build his armor. As Stringmaster grew in size, the cacophony of torment doubled to a dizzying degree.

All those people, all those heartbeats, pummelling against their ribcages, beating out of sync.

“Civilians are dying! The longer you drag this out, the more people he kills.”

Mark’s head spun. “You think I don’t know that?!”

Some people were still in their cars when the Stringmaster called for them; the force of his pull launched them through the metal roofs head-first and broke their skulls.

“Stop acting like a newbie! You just gotta go for it!”

Mark breathed ragged into his earpiece. “I know, I know…” He dragged himself up on unsteady feet, swallowed the bile. “I should’ve. I should’ve been faster…” A single moment’s hesitation, and the villain had used it to birth that fleshy nightmare. That was on Mark. That was all on Mark.

Cecil gentled his voice. “Kid, listen to me. You gotta pull yourself together, okay? Backup’ll be there soon.” The man scoffed. It sounded fond. “Not that you’ll need it. Look at this buffoon, really look at him.”

Mark looked. Stringmaster used thirty people to give himself a new knee.

I don’t need you.

“He should be a piece of cake.”

Cecil was right. Cecil was an asshole, but he was always somehow right.

“Okay,” Mark rasped. “Okay, I’m going.”

“Attaboy.”

Mark scanned Stringmaster quickly, looking for any weak spots. The villain was making his way around the block.

“Talk to me. What’s your plan?”

Mark tried to make his voice sound even. Rolled his shoulders like shaking off a chill. “A quick dive and retrieve. Should be easy.”

He told himself that he’d done this before. Or something like it, anyway. The sensations wouldn’t be totally unfamiliar — there was cold comfort to take in that.

Mark hovered on his toes and braced himself for action, hands still frustratingly shaky.

“That’s more like it,” Cecil said. The approval made something in Mark’s chest flutter.

Cecil’s next words spurred him to action: “Give ‘em hell.”

Mark sundered the air around him as he flew to meet Stringmaster head-on. He gave the villain no time to react. Weathered the shock like a storm as Stringmaster struck hard and heavy and mutilated innocents against his body and Mark kept his lips sealed this time so none of it would stain his tongue because he was learning and oh, he really needed to get used to this, didn’t he, if it was just gonna keep happening…

Focus.

The worst of it happened slowly. All those naked bodies writhing like worms, screaming themselves hoarse as Mark carved his way to Stringmaster directly. Colliding against him desperate and unwilling, fear-scent thick enough to drown in. Blood and sweat and piss and tears flaying his sense of smell. Stringmaster manipulating their bodies to push harder and press tighter to stall Mark’s advance as if human anatomy and all its brittle weakness could ever come close to withstanding the likes of him.

How many was that now?

Pulses thundered against his skull, clashing and tangling in the clamor, straining to survive, silencing with failure. Neither of them noticed how the fight carried from one street to the next, city blurring from the momentum. The ground rolled. Trees split. And Stringmaster kept drawing more to die against Mark’s skin.

It was nothing. It was nothing, it was nothing.

Voices emerged unbidden from the misery.

Learn, boy, and learn it fast, one admonished, sharp as a whip.

This was his fate in microcosm. He who was unbound by the mortal modes plaguing the feebled half of his genome, whose semblance could only be matched by those of his father’s mettle. If faces flickered, if they blurred, if they lost their tailored vibrancy, that was only fate’s logic. These people were going to die anyway.

Now, or in fifty years, what difference would it make?

“You can’t stop me!” Stringmaster howled, grasping for control. “I’m not going back!” He looked around wildly. “You think being the GDA's good little attack dog will save you? Hmm? Your owners will put you down when you're no longer useful. You’ll end up like me!”

"I have no idea what you're talking about." Mark closed in with a snarl. "No one owns me."

The villain made one desperate motion, power flaring from his fingertips, but Mark got there first. Stringmaster screamed like a little girl when Mark finally grabbed him — one hand seizing him by the neck, the other trapping the villain’s wrist.

“That’s enough!” Mark growled.

Concentration broken, most of the glowing threads faded away.

A scream tore through the air. He knew that voice, he knew that voice —

Amber.

With a single white tendril speared into her crown.

Why was she here, Mark thought, as Stringmaster’s hand came clean off his body with a creak and a crunch. She was meant to be five blocks away. Mark had hidden her somewhere safe. And he’d been so obvious about it too — his scent slathered over her skin like thick, clinging oil.

Amber belonged to him. No one else was allowed to have her, to watch over her, to hurt her, lest they face his wrath. Amber belonged to him. Like Eve, like William, like Debbie, like Ce — 

Oh. Not like Cecil, though.

I don’t need you.

Mark launched his bloodied fist into Stringmaster’s jaw — ah, so he was superhuman, after all. A layer of invulnerability in his pale skin, bones denser than usual. Half the villain’s teeth scattered across the asphalt, landing like shrapnel. Bone buckled against the blow and threads fell away.

“Alright, kid,” buzzed Cecil’s voice. He sounded very distant. “Knock this guy out and hand him over to one of my agents.”

Mark continued punching. Stringmaster started to whimper.

Good.

“Mark, listen to me. He’s had enough, stand down!”

What did Cecil know? As much as the man liked butting into Mark's affairs, Amber still wasn't his. Of course he didn't understand. Letting Stringmaster get away with this would set a bad precedent. People would only grow bolder. He didn’t want to, god, he didn’t want to, but he had no choice.

Pathetic noises came from the villain’s mouth. A different face, a different city, the same strangled moan. Mark swatted the association away.

Soldiers in black body armor were closing in — Cecil's men, here to interfere. Mark paid them no mind. They were annoyances at best.

He had to go and take Stringmaster with him. Up, up, up, into the upper atmosphere and leave his body there. Maybe cut it into pieces and spread it round the Earth’s orbit in a lurid ring. A warning to the rest.

“Don't tell me what to do,” Mark snapped, madness banging in his skull, threatening to pour out. He ached to let it fly, to let his mind sink stone-dense into pure, black nothing. “Don't act like you care.”

It was so much easier to be angry than it was to be in pain.

Off to the side, Amber Bennett regained her bearings. Fought against the cloudiness settling over her vision, pushed herself to sit up. Steadied herself against the vertigo, searched for the defibrillator she'd propped by her side and the unconscious woman she'd wanted to use it on. Both were gone from her sight.

A sickening crack rent the air, then another and another. Amber turned to look.

And for the second time today, Mark would make her gasp.

Mark was soaked to the bone in blood and guts and gore. His teeth were bared, fangs gleaming dangerously. The entire line of his body trembled with rage. And in his grasp was a man with half a face — jaw broken, features mutilated, breath clawing out of his throat in harsh, stridulent whines. One hand missing; it laid twitching three feet away.

It had to be the villain. There was no other good explanation. A monster in human flesh, look at all the people he'd killed.

(Amber didn't know this — but to many a Viltrumite, Mark would've seemed quite beautiful).

Crack.

Crack.

Crack.

Corpses strewn everywhere. Blood soaking her sneakers, the blue dress of a woman lying ten feet away. Death in the air.

She'd seen his fights on TV before, and they'd never been this violent. He'd never been this violent.

(To her knowledge — despite being more exposed to herowork than the average civilian, there was still a lot she wasn't allowed to see).

Legs tangled together, soft touches between them. A night shared together not too long ago.

There's this rage inside me, Mark admitted, voice thick with something like shame. Thirty minutes before he would pry her window open and escape into the night — Romeo, gone before the Capulets could find him. A shock of wind would roll through her room in the wake of his ascent, rattling her furniture and whipping her loose hair wild. His playful little laugh would linger in her room for hours after, as physical as any touch. She would wrap it around her shoulders for warmth as she drifted off to sleep.

It feels hungry all the time. Like a starving wolf.

Then feed it, Amber had said easily, armed with the cocky faith of a girl deeply in love. Anger isn't evil. It's your heart’s way of telling you that something isn't right.

I can't do that. Mark had sounded absolutely appalled. It'll take over. I'm scared of that. Of what it could make me do.

And what would that be?

At the time, the notion that Mark's righteous anger could rot into bloodlust had been ridiculous. Mark, who balked at the thought of killing. Mark, her boyfriend, reluctant to touch her for fear of causing harm — even as she coaxed his hands to run firm over her hips.

I don't know, Mark said quietly, clipped at the end.

Amber had thought he'd been nervous. With the gift of hindsight, she would recognize the rough edge of a truth itching to escape. He'd known, of course he'd known. How could he not, when his father led so well by example? He just hadn't wanted to admit it — to himself, to her. It was possible he hadn't even realized he was lying.

Mark had told her plenty of lies. Most of them poorly thought. But this one, wrapped in cotton and scented with vulnerability, had managed to slip through, his denial passing as uncertainty. And Amber, who should've been smarter, sharper, had taken the warped truth and pressed her cheek against its welcoming form.

Self-delusion was a powerful thing.

The blows continued, heavy and final.

Amber snapped back to reality.

Mark was going to kill that man.

And when the haze finally lifted, and Mark saw what he'd done, he would never forgive himself.

Crack.

Crack.

Crack.

Amber flinched with every hit.

“S-Stop,” Amber said, barely a murmur, straining from the vertigo. She raised her voice, desperate to drown out the dull crunching, the strangled moans. Everyone else was dead around her, which made this horrible noise all she could hear. “Stop! M-Invincible! You don’t want to do this!”

Mark didn't spare her a glance.

In another, far less complicated universe, Mark loved Amber more, and he stopped when she told him to. She'd ran to him as a force in motion, strides long and determined. Wrapped her arms around his waist and stilled his swirling chaos with a whisper of her breath. And Mark smelled her sunlit skin and imagined the home they would build together, the hushed comforts they would share beneath the sweetened canopy of a dozen orange-and-sandalwood trees. And he would've stopped. Held her, gone home with her. In that universe, Mark was true — he outlined every worry, every little hope and dream, unearthed parts of himself only she was allowed to see. In that universe, Mark spoke to her first and was the last to let her go.

This was not that universe.

(Mark, caught in his fury, had no avenue to listen. But he really should've, even if something inside him scoffed at an absent point. Their relationship was doomed anyway, in the grand scheme of things, though he didn’t know this yet — torn apart by irreconcilable obligations, and biological incompatibility, and the tendency of herowork to pull hapless innocents into its raging sphere of danger.

But heeding her words might’ve softened the blow. It could’ve deferred the pain. Had Mark turned his head to look at her, he could’ve mitigated his savagery, earned her approval by exhibiting self-restraint, gone home and talked through his feelings like a semi-normal person, with the help of multiple experts. He could've kept Amber in the loop. Basked in her warmth just that bit longer. And maybe in the long run, the memory of her love would’ve cooled his roiling temper, soothed his nighttime terrors, even if just a little. It could’ve given him one fleeting sliver of solace, solid as a song, to fill the silence in his worst moments — something he could cling to, long past her death, long past the sickening moment when she would wisely come to fear him.

Maybe it was best for everyone that he ignored her. She deserved to know the truth of what he was really like. The sooner the better — he owed her an early warning).

Amber took a deep breath.

There were three cardinal rules when it came to surviving as a powerless girl in a world of superhumans.

Rule number one: Avoid streets.

Amber was meant to stay indoors and away from glass windows. To find a sturdy building — civic offices, public libraries, designated schools. She was meant to stay put.

But an old lady had collapsed in front of her, and someone else's artery was slashed open by a piece of flying shrapnel. Amber knew first aid — she couldn't have left them if she wanted to. And slowly but surely, she'd followed the trail of human suffering to the epicenter of the attack, stemming the flow while she waited on first responders.

Rule number two: Listen to law enforcement.

Technically, that included Mark, in the absence of police. But law enforcement weren't always right, and see rule number one: how could Amber sit still when she knew she could help? (And Mark had been a jerk earlier — so if Amber took satisfaction in ignoring his instructions, that was only for her to know).

Rule number three: Do not interfere.

See power? Seek cover. Civilian efforts complicated rescue. Civilian efforts delayed neutralization. And in ninety-percent of cases, civilian intervention resulted in severe injury or death.

Amber had already broken two out of three rules. Could she break the third?

Her body seemed to say no. Her knees stuck to the asphalt, shoulders shaky as breathed. She wasn’t used to this, safety drills could only take her so far. Amber braced her hands on the ground and cut herself bloody on a piece of broken glass.

Amber yelped as she was yanked to her feet by a soldier in tactical gear. More armored bodies filled the area. A helicopter landed nearby, its harsh blades stirring street debris airborne. Ambulance crews loaded people on stretchers.

Where is she, Amber thought numbly, mind flashing to that unconscious body. The woman in the green blouse. I hope she's okay.

Blue light flashed, and Amber slipped a glance behind her. An older man in a navy suit spoke in low tones to Mark, hand poised on his bloodied fist. Mark shook him off angrily. The supervillain's face just...wasn't, anymore.

A glint of metal flew into the villain's neck, and Mark snarled like a beast, the sound thick with violence. Every soldier tensed around her.

The man didn't flinch.

“It's time to move, ma'am.” The woman's helmet covered her entire face, but Amber got the impression of a grimace. “You don't wanna be around for this.”

She and another soldier grabbed Amber under the arms and marched her away. Amber's jelly-legs struggled to keep pace, flew off the ground for a second or two. She felt too dizzy to protest. “It's okay,” said the woman gently, seeing Amber's wariness. “You can trust us. We're with the government, and we're bringing you to a safe place. We know who you are.” The soldier lifted a hand to press a button on her helmet. “Command, this is Sentinel-04 — package is secure. Out.”

A thin metal bracelet was slapped around her wrist.

“What's this?” Amber croaked.

“Where are you taking her?!”

“Kid, no!”

“Ah, fuck!”

“Go go go!”

A strange feeling rose from her stomach, and then New York fell away with a blue crackle. The last thing she saw was Mark blurring towards her, teeth bared in a snarl. One eye exposed from a broken goggle lens, the other still hidden by the tint.

Sometimes I don't feel like myself anymore, Mark had said that night, voice trailing off like the tail-end of a comet. I feel so...

It was painted void-black.

...inhuman.

“Don't tell me what to do. Don't act like you care.”

A split-second before Mark would land his final blow, Cecil teleported to New York from the other side of the world. A training drill-cum-mission with the Guardians of the Globe designed to test the team’s capabilities in asymmetrical combat. What if you were outnumbered a million to one? How do you survive and keep civilian losses to a minimum?

How do you defeat an opponent a thousand times stronger, faster, more durable?

All thoughts he’d had before Cecil got the alert from Mark’s end.

Speak of the devil, and he shall appear.

This Grayson kid was going to be the death of him. 

And of many others, a jaded voice added, as he took in the savage scene. Mark, poised for bloody murder on the ruin of Fifth Avenue. Bodies littering the ground, the usual urban chatter silenced. High rises looming in judgement on either side, trees maimed where victims were propelled through the branches. Cars and buses and yellow taxis in the aftermath of panicked collisions, overturned, windows broken, doors open where drivers and passengers had tried to escape.

Sunbeams gave the horror no room to hide. Each shadow gained a razor-edge, adding gravity to the remains smeared over street signs, public displays, luxury shop fronts, brick and sandstone facades. Light glinted over glassy eyes and frozen faces, over the compacted massacre spoiling the city, gifted Cecil with the sight of Mark drenched in gore as blood dribbled, dripped, drooled down the sculpted lines of his muscles, all drawn in perfect detail. The sky blue and vibrant yellow of Invincible’s striking costume, lost to the red.

Heat made the stench of death rise to a dizzying peak. As a younger man, Cecil would’ve balked, gagged, emptied his stomach and added to the mess.

A thought stabbed into his head. Cecil dismissed it sharply.

Mark didn’t do this.

Stringmaster was a high-tier threat with a previous history of similar massacres, though none quite so public due to his former...affiliation.

But for a heartbeat, the notion came anyway.

How easily Mark took center stage in the carnage around him, the sun lighting his features like the flames of a funeral pyre. How he wore human blood like rubies on broken skin; how ruin framed his features like a lion's flowing mane. It came to Cecil then, as Mark turned to stare at him, dark locks wild, upper lip curled, and vision tight with rage: if desolation had a form, it would wear Mark's face.

“I've had enough of your stupid temper tantrums,” Cecil snapped with the audacity of a madman. He forced himself to settle. If Mark heard his heart hammering, if Mark smelled weakness, it would all be over. “Hand him over right now or there'll be hell to pay.”

The kid looked on the verge of turning them all into pink mist.

“He touched her. He touched her.” Mark tightened his grip. The wet gurgles continued. “He doesn't deserve to live.”

Protective fury? Cecil could work with that.

“He doesn't, no,” Cecil agreed. “But that doesn't mean you get to decide.” He lowered his tone, added a touch of persuasion, honey for a feral bear. Covered Mark's fist with his palm and felt the tremble in it, the hot blood and dark intent. “Is this really how you want this to go? Could you live with the guilt?”

Could Cecil handle the aftermath? If Mark decided he liked to kill?

“'Cus I don't think so. Not even for this piece of shit. It would eat you alive. Believe me, Mark. He'll get what's coming for him. He'll do his time.”

An extended stay in one of their extraction labs over in Montana was ideal, given Stringmaster's unique abilities and the recent categorization of his face as an abstract concept. But a quiet execution would do just as well if he proved too much trouble.

“You said killing was a tool, same as any other.”

“And I’m asking you not to use it now. This guy ain’t worth it.”

Mark didn't look convinced.

Cecil's jaw twitched.

“Drop him, kid. That's an order.”

Mark jerked like he'd been struck. For a moment Cecil thought he'd won. But then Mark flashed his teeth and shook off Cecil's touch.

“No! He's mine! You don't get to swoop in and steal him like you own the fucking place!”

Mark getting possessive over his quarry was not a good sign. The psychological shift from person to object was a giant red flag, even if it was about a villain. Left unchecked, Cecil would have another little psychopath on his hands, competing for kills instead of collaborating for rescue. Shit, what he'd give to be able to just lob the kid into deep space —

“You don't get to ignore me every mission and just waltz back in like nothing's happened! Who do you think you are?!”

Cecil's mind reeled.

Stopped. Rebooted.

And then the anger, the incredulity, the sheer fucking irritation — started trickling in.

“Jesus, that's what this is about?” He nearly groaned. Handler fixation or no, this was fucking ridiculous. “You needing to be babied every damn second of the day?”

“Fuck you.”

Just for that, Cecil flicked a finger, and one of his snipers fired one of their reaper rounds. A high-density bullet — specially made for low to mid tier superhumans — lodged itself into Stringmaster's jugular, and the villain finally fell silent. Eh, the eggheads could still use his corpse. Weirdos might even like him better dead.

“You killed him!” Mark raged, visible eye widening. Cecil imagined the other one matching its twin behind Mark’s goggles. “What did you do that for?”

“That was what you wanted, wasn't it?”

Mark dropped the corpse to the ground. It landed with a wet squelch. “No, no! Not like that!” 

And dammit, it was unprofessional as hell — but a vicious part of Cecil felt smug at taking the satisfaction away from him. Like baiting a mad dog. And maybe the kid sensed that, because he pierced the air with a vicious snarl, thick with hatred. Lunged into Cecil's space, crowded him nose-to-nose. Close enough to catch the kid’s dilated pupils, the stink of adrenaline oozing from his pores. Mark kicked up a wave of blood from the ample pool gathered on the asphalt, spraying a thin arc over Cecil’s polished dress shoes.

Cecil didn't let it faze him.

“Kid, listen here. You don't own kills. You don't even own victories. You do the goddamned job and I decide if it was worth the mess. So don't you ever disobey me again.”

With another gesture, Stringmaster's body was dragged away by a pair of burly soldiers.

Mark screwed his eyes shut, lifted a hand to his neck, aborted the gesture. He curled into himself and muttered something under his breath.

“What was that? Speak up.”

“Why are you doing this?” Mark asked raggedly, still bent over.

Cecil scoffed. “Why? It's my job, in case you forgot — ”

Mark barrelled on as if Cecil hadn't replied: “You're so confusing.”

The kid snapped his eyes open. 

Cecil nearly stumbled back.

The most basic human instinct was to survive. Evolution got mankind this far, from primitive hunter-gatherers to men on the moon to the ruling class of morons poisoning the world just to make a quick buck. Sophisticated decision-making skills, a fine-tuned autonomic nervous system. Fight or flight? Freeze or fawn?

“Are you doing this on purpose?”

The first three would get Cecil murdered for sure. Which just left the fourth.

He needed to get Mark under control. Cecil flicked through his mental catalogue of appropriate things to say — he could deflect, he could fling a joke, he could soften his edges and make one last stab at the kid’s higher functions.

“Well?”

Deep-seated instinct told Cecil to divert that hunter’s gaze. Decades of experience barked at him to stand his ground, to inoculate his stress. Reminded Cecil that he was an agent and a soldier and the director of the GDA, and that little David had felled the mighty Goliath armed with nothing but a sling.

Something dark and hungry prowled the landscape of Mark's soul with predatory grace. His voice was soft, but the words were burning, loaded, deadly:

“Do you want me or not?”

The witty edge of Cecil's tongue died in an instant. “...What?”

(Cecil would only come to process this second of pure terror much, much later — lying stiff as a board in his feathered bed, well past the hour of midnight. The vast darkness of his solitude spilling worries like a well-oiled knife even as Mark slumbered sated and mollified beside him.

It was an uncharacteristic lapse in his usual fastidious nature to realize so late. Too late. Maybe his mind had been trying to protect him.

A chill would race down his spine as the words echoed in his head. Dread would pool low in his gut. He would blame the icy wind. But the window would be closed.

And Mark’s breath would be very warm as it whispered against his neck.

Cecil would be tired as hell, exhaustion buried deep in his bones from the usual earthly disasters longing to tear him down. But he wouldn’t fall asleep. He’d rise with the sun and save the world again and do everything in his power to ignore what he already knew. But the feeling would linger, grow with every waking second. Until he would have no choice but to look, lest he lose his mind. Cecil would remember — the burning edge of Mark’s words, the curl of his tongue. The aching look in his eyes and the slow, steady hunger lacing the want, siren-sweet and acid-sharp.

And he would realize he’d been fucked over right from the start).

Someone yelped behind him.

Mark’s eyes darted to the side.

And focussed.

And then Cecil had no time to think at all, pulse jumping into his throat, as Mark launched into the air and sped towards the source of that sound, blood leaping off the ground from the backdraft of his flight.

“Kid, no!”

“Where are you taking her?!”

“Ah, shit!”

“Go go go!”

Cecil flung an arm out, hoping to — oh, he didn’t know, it was just a reaction — bring Mark back to him, to capture his attention, to give Cecil’s personnel a chance to escape certain death.

He wasn’t fast enough, of course he wasn’t, he was an ordinary man, and he was lucky to have been slow anyway because the force of Mark’s movement may have torn his arm clean off if he’d been holding on.

But the tips of his fingers brushed the nape of Mark’s neck as the kid blurred passed him.

Something clicked, but Cecil shoved it aside.

The girl and her escorts disappeared.

And Mark came to a stop with a blinding roar that shook the world around him.

The kid whipped around, face twisted in a snarl. A curve of crimson flew off the tips of his locks as he darted towards Cecil. “Give her back! She’s mine! How fucking dare you!”

“How dare I?” Cecil had let this circus go on long enough. Cold and flat: “I expected better from you.”

Like taking an axe to a tree. “...What?”

“You came to me, Mark. You wanted to jump back into being a hero. You said you were ready. You said you wanted to be better than your dad.” Cecil’s voice rose half an octave. He was loath to do this here, but Cecil was not about to lose face in front of an audience and Mark needed discipline now and Cecil trusted this batch of agents enough to lower their gazes and dull their hearing. “But no. You disobey me. You don’t listen to reason. And you act like a fucking lunatic, flying after my men. ‘She’s mine’? She’s your girlfriend, not your property.”

Mark shrank under his gaze. “Cecil, I — ”

“Shut up.”

Mark flinched.

Good.

Oh, what Cecil would’ve done to this kid if he’d only gotten his hands on him sooner. Maybe he should’ve taken a page outta Radclliffe’s book and spirited this half-alien menace away as an infant. That rebellious streak, extinguished. The complacency, the entitlement, lasered off the face of the planet. Picture that: Cecil’s perfect little Viltrumite soldier, free to use against any imaginable threat, global or intimate. Cecil would’ve had him begging — grateful for food, company, a lock on his door, and the privilege of human fucking speech. This kid, with the power of a hundred nuclear warheads?

Cecil would’ve never taught him to refuse.

“Just shut up and listen. I’ve had enough of your bellyaching. I put my people on the ground to look after your loved ones. I make up for your distraction. I clean up after every mess you make. Your mother would be cowering in her own home from a supervillain attack if it weren’t for me. You’d both be on the streets. I feed you, I house you, hell, I fucking paid for the pretty little date you just went on. I keep your world turning. And this is how you repay me?”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Mark sobbed, splaying his hands open, bending his spine to make himself smaller. “I’ll make it up to you. I’ll be better.” The kid lifted his chin, stretched to display the long column of his neck, hidden by the cowl. That animalistic gesture he’d made before. “I promise, I promise. Just don’t – don’t…”

“I don’t believe you.” Mark’s cries devolved into a high-pitched whine. Was that meant to garner sympathy? “Don’t wanna listen to my orders? Fine. I won’t call on you.”

Cecil steeled himself.

“Effective immediately, you’re off my roster.”

“No,” Mark said, desperate. The word grated on Cecil’s nerves. Even now, the kid defied him. “Please, no. I don’t have anything left.”

“You were always begging for more time off before. Well, here comes an opportunity. Take it.”

“You don’t understand,” Mark said. “What am I supposed to do now?”

“I don’t know, Mark.” Could this kid be trusted to make any of his own decisions? “Hang out with your mom. Spend time with your friends. Do origami, write a novel, learn Swedish.” Cecil pinched the bridge of his nose. “Cool off. Figure it out.”

Mark paused. Stopped showing Cecil his neck. The kid’s next words, soft and foreboding, were an ugly reminder. As he spoke, Cecil caught the glint of white fangs.

“You’ll need me. Something’ll come up, and you’ll need me. You won’t get rid of me forever.”

“Maybe,” Cecil conceded, hands in his pockets so they wouldn’t fidget. He levelled Mark coolly — casual, nonchalant. The sharply dressed director squaring up to the blood-soaked beast. “But humans are resilient, and you only got your powers a year ago, kid. The world was fine before you came along.” Cecil pressed on, ignoring the statistics — the rescues, projected losses, the haunting gap in their superabled manpower, and lied through his teeth: “Something tells me we’ll be fine long after you’re gone.”

Silence fell.

Mark kept his eyes on the ground. Cecil kept his trained on Mark. He wondered what the kid found so fascinating, what he was thinking of. Cecil’s warm blood, mixed in with the others? Cecil’s human skull, cracked open along its sutures?

Maybe.

The kid was a walking collection of bright red flags. Having him on missions right now could only be a liability. They’d been scraping by so far, but how many would pay the price when their luck finally ran out?

Cecil’s hand was sticky where he’d made contact with Mark. The blood of others drying quick on his fake skin. He forced himself to stop paying attention to it.

“Go home, Mark. Please.”

What was the point?

He'd never be able to wash it off.

Debbie wiped her brow with the edge of a sleeve. Maybe she should’ve cracked a window open, she thought, as hot steam rose and curled into plumes, drawn up by the powerful extractor fan. This was a good kitchen. Marble countertops, top-notch equipment — the gas stove burned with a strong, even flame, and the oven hadn’t taken much time to heat up at all. Solid cabinets of dark wood, a kitchen island, deep drawers, a stylish modern design. Very effortless. Very sleek.

The rest of the home was the same. Dining and coffee tables of solid acacia wood, a comfortable charcoal-colored couch, a plush cream rug, a large flatscreen TV, four spacious bedrooms (What was the point? They’d never been a big family), all set to neutral tones — soft greys, stone blues, the occasional earthy brown. A healthy Monstera in a large pot, lounging by a set of double-panelled French doors opening into the back porch.

The house itself was a gray, two-storied colonial with a dark slate roof and a curved driveway. A trim, well-kept lawn maintained the image of normalcy, while the backyard, set against a densely wooded area, hinted at the home’s true purpose: protection and privacy. With the greenery as cover, Mark could leap in and out of the sky with nary a sideways look.

Donald had talked about an apartment before, a place closer to the Pentagon. But in between seeing him and Mark’s mission to Midnight City, something had happened (something Debbie was infuriatingly not kept fully in the loop for), and it was decided that Mark would benefit much more from a quieter home with fewer nearby distractions. And packed, however unsubtly, with very comfortable things.

Cecil had really outdone himself trying to get on Debbie’s good side.

Next to her, a series of ingredients waited for use. The enormous napa cabbage she’d purchased, juicy, green, and fresh, chopped up and soaking in salt water. The paste she’d made from scratch — white onion, garlic, ginger, red peppers, apple and pear, fermented shrimp and fish sauce, blended and mixed in with a generous portion of gochugaru. She’d drain the cabbage well once the broth was done.

Dried anchovies and herring combined with the kelp to create the rich umami flavor she aimed for, beckoning her mind to slip decades into the past. Watching Eomma assemble the kimchi on the kitchen floor, squatting flat-footed because she’d given the lone stool to her daughter. One of their quiet moments, mother and child attempting to familiarize themselves with each other before the move to America. Debbie hadn’t realized it at the time, but her mother had been telling her not to forget.

Debbie snorted. Her balance wasn’t as good as Eomma’s. She’d be mixing the cabbage at the dining table.

The scent rose to a delicious peak. Nearly done, now where was the flour? She’d had it in her hands just a second ago!

The patio door opened with a click. 

“Welcome home!” Debbie called with a smile. “How was your date with Amber? Did she like her surprise?”

No response. She put her stirring spoon down, set the broth to a low boil. Washed her hands and went to search for her son.

“Sweetie?”

Mark looked like hell. He stood in the front of the patio door as if very far away, and jerked when she said his name. But for the cowl, he wore his full costume. The clear glass gave Debbie a direct view to the outside. A slowly dimming sky, a flock of birds flying off, the dark thicket of trees — dogwoods, birches, maples, pines. With his broad back to the forested mass, his harrowed look and wild hair, the woods could’ve swallowed him, chewed him to bits, hurled him back up.

“Oh! Did you get a call out?” Debbie walked over and reached for Mark’s face, smoothed the edges of his brow, sticky with sweat. Debbie’s pulse quickened, she hadn’t looked at the news. Mark could’ve been in danger, fighting for his life again, and she’d be none the wiser.

A nasty voice in her head spat, What a bad mother. Debbie couldn’t disagree.

Mark kept his eyes low. 

Concern tugged her brows into a furrow. Gently: “Did something go wrong?”

Mark slumped over Debbie with his full weight, making her stagger. All the life seemed to drain out of him. A sharp, electric scent clung to his suit, layered over a deeper metallic tang. It absolutely stank of salt and iron and reminded Debbie, rather painfully, of Nolan. Had Mark been to the upper atmosphere recently? 

Wetness smeared her neck and shoulder where Mark had leaned in, and his entire body trembled like a leaf. “Mom…I messed up…”

The despair in his voice broke her heart into pieces.

“He doesn’t need me, he doesn’t need me…”

“Oh, baby,” she soothed, stroking his back. He sucked in a shuddering breath and motherly instinct clawed out of her chest, all other thoughts cast to the wind in the face of Mark’s distress. It didn’t matter how big he got. When he cried, she always flashed back to the infant in her arms, born blue and premature and so very small. “Shhh. It’s okay. Everything's gonna be okay.” 

Cecil replayed the footage. Paused. Rewinded. Played it again, just to be sure.

A less astute man would’ve missed it.

Though, Cecil supposed that was unfair. It was almost impossible to spot with the naked eye, without the use of fancy analytical tools. 

But Cecil had been there in person. Had witnessed the cause and effect. He’d spent years and years playing with the superhumanly fast, and uniquely, he’d poured over every millisecond of Mark’s combat footage. He knew the kid’s mannerisms — his preferred range (close-quarters), dominant limb (none — ambidextrous), movement style (coiled, aggressive, heavy), strategic mindset (notably poor), temperament (extremely variable), and most importantly, his tells.

Cecil was well-seasoned in the art of observation, and as his old handlers had often lamented, extremely overqualified to still be working the field.

Some days, Cecil wished he could go back to it.

He replayed the footage again.

Sat back in his chair, thoughts gathering like silk, as the door to his office slid open with a hiss. 

Cecil made himself look up. “Report?”

“The Guardians made four major blunders last mission.” Donald said, reading off a tablet. “Two of them — Rex and Black Samson — sustained minor injuries. They were lucky to get away with just that.” Donald frowned. “They’re nowhere near ready, they’re far too uncoordinated.”

And far too much of a flaming clusterfuck.

There went that idea.

“Get ‘em to rerun the drills. As many times as it takes, goddammit! We cannot afford to be defenseless when Viltrum comes knocking.” Cecil exhaled sharply. “That kid, Flores. How long before he was detected?”

“Almost instantly.”

“And the other one? McGhee?”

Donald paused. “She…wasn’t, sir.”

Finally, some good news. “You know what to do. Get the team to extend the range and potency on those blockers. I want them produced en masse.” Scent disruptors were a simple enough device to make, but producing one strong enough to fool a Viltrumite’s nose had been a real challenge.

Good thing they’d had help.

“Give Wolfman a pat on the back for me next time you see him, would you? He’s been good for us lately. Maybe good enough to earn a visit from his daughter.” He paused. Added, “Thank you, Donald. You’re free to go.”

Cecil wound the footage back by a second.

“...Sir?”

Donald must’ve noticed his distraction. Damn hypercompetent assistants.

“Yes?”

“About Invincible…”

“What about him?” Cecil said impatiently.

Donald hesitated. “Do you really think it was wise to suspend him like that?”

“Gimme a break,” Cecil grumbled. “You saw how he was acting. He undermined my authority, started tossing his weight around. That shit doesn’t fly. You can’t expect me to mollycoddle him, alien or no.”

“Of course not,” Donald agreed. “But it pays to leave things on good terms.”

Cecil knew exactly what he was doing and he didn’t need Donald policing his every move. “I’ll snap him back up once he’s ready. I go over there too soon and he’ll bite my head off.” Perhaps literally. “Kid could use some time alone to wallow in his self-pity. By the end of it all he’ll be good as new and fighting fit.”

Donald tossed him one of his signature looks, where he said precisely nothing and everything at once. Any other day, it was a mild annoyance. Today, it rankled hard on his nerves.

“My decision is final,” Cecil said flatly. He made a gesture. “That’ll be all, Donald. You’re dismissed.”

Donald nodded. And because he was in a pissy mood, Donald added, just as he was leaving:

“I trust you’ve considered the risks.”

It took everything in Cecil’s power not to say something clever in return.

Cecil went back to the tape. Pressed the play button.

There. He’d been right. That split-second of hesitation. The waver in Mark’s flight, however slight, when Cecil had reached out to grab him. When his fingers had…grazed the kid’s nape.

Interesting.

Chapter Text

An hour after Mark stormed off to Midnight City and Debbie had cried herself silly on the GDA’s sterile gray couch, a knock came on the government-issued door.

Debbie scrambled to the nearest mirror, wiped away the last remnants of her meltdown. Splashed her face clean to clear the tear tracks and banish the redness of her nose, just in case. Slapped her cheeks lightly to put herself back together.

The knock came again.

“Gimme a second!”

When Debbie finally answered, she was met with a mousy-haired woman dressed in a sharp suit. Dark sunglasses covered her eyes, despite being indoors. Surely the Pentagon wasn’t that well-lit. The woman sounded vaguely Eastern European when she spoke.

“Good morning, madam. My name is Agent Morozov.”

“Okay,” Debbie said. The strands of hair framing her face were damp from her hasty wash. “How can I help you?”

The agent showed her an image on a small tablet. “This woman, Olga Lokshina. She has come demanding to see you. Do you permit it?”

Debbie took the device off her. It was Olga, alright, though Debbie knew she’d probably hate this photo. Too much light on her bad side. “Permit it?” A strange turn of phrase. “She’s here?”

Agent Morozov nodded, lips set in a flat line. What an odd woman.

Oh god, this was about Nolan, wasn’t it? There was no way Olga would’ve come all the way to the Pentagon just to see her. Tension built in her gut at the idea. Debbie licked her lips nervously as anxiety took hold of her head, caused it to pound.

Olga would be here looking for someone to blame, tongue lashing and face bright with rage. She’d give Debbie a piece of her mind. They hadn’t talked since Nolan’s departure, because what was there to say? Nothing would’ve made the truth taste any sweeter.

The temptation was there to say no. To run away, to hide herself in the stuffy little burrow Cecil had gifted her with.

Olga had every right to hate her. It wasn’t Mark’s fault that his father was a killer, but the blame lay heavy on her shoulders for not noticing the signs earlier. She could’ve saved Mark the pain of a near-death experience had she been wiser, sharper, smarter. Less trusting. She could’ve saved Josef, and spared Olga the anguish of losing a life partner.

The thought sent daggers into Debbie’s heart, but she gritted her teeth through the pain.

The agent tilted her head, waiting on Debbie’s answer. “Madam?”

“Yeah,” Debbie said, a little breathless, heart beating like a sparrow’s wings. It was wrong to run from a mistake. Nolan might be forever lost to the far reaches of space, but Debbie was still here, and if Olga needed to take her anger out on her to get even a modicum of closure, Debbie was happy enough to bear it. Anything for her friend. “I permit it. Please bring her in.”

An old instinct flared to life, the need to clean the house before a guest arrived even though she’d barely been in it. Would Olga want a hot drink? She didn’t like coffee, did Mark buy any tea?

The agent shook her head. “Visitors' area only.”

The visitors' area, which Debbie never anticipated even existing, was another sterile little box of a room set in neutral tones. Four chairs and a small round table, a kitchenette to make drinks. She had no real way of knowing where it was in relation to the apartment because she’d been blindfolded the entire journey through. It was on the surface, though, that she was sure of.

The sunrays pouring in from the lightwell felt like a blessing as they warmed her scalp. She hadn’t spent a long time underground, but it felt like an eternity. She wondered how all those agents managed it on a day-to-day basis, crawling around the Pentagon’s tunnels and sniffing after secrets like mole people. 

Debbie drummed a finger on her bracelet, watched the light bounce off the metal, dance as she moved her wrist.

And made herself stop. She was acting like a fidgety child.

A voice echoed from down the hall, getting louder with every step.

“ — this time-consuming pomp for nothing! It’s far from intimidating, though I’m guessing that’s what it’s meant to be. Pah! Don’t you people ever get tired of this fake nonsense? Hmm?”

“Ma’am, I’m just following procedure.”

“Oh! It speaks, at last! Good to know Cecil hasn’t given me another android as an escort, I’m very flattered. Tell that to your master next time you see him, won’t you? It should earn you a treat, and if you bark very nicely he might even rub your belly like the good little dog you are.”

Despite the tension swirling in her gut, Debbie had to bite her knuckles to contain a snort. 

The metal door split open.

Debbie stood up, body feeling cold and hollow. Tentatively: “Hey, Olga. It’s nice to — ”

“Debbie!”

Olga pulled her into a fierce hug. It was just what Debbie needed. Loving, firm, warm like a good meal. A reinforcement against the slow unspooling of her foundations, a brace to keep her upright. Tears prickled at her eyes; Debbie quickly wiped them away before anyone could see and let out a soft sigh of relief.

Olga’s hands ran up her back, down again, brushed against her hips.

(Debbie would only find it later when the adrenaline wore off — a compact cube of hard bread and dried fruit wrapped in rough cloth in one of her pockets — where Olga had patted her down. Easy to conceal, slow to spoil. It seemed her friend had worried that Debbie was caught in a very ominous type of detention indeed).

She looked as beautiful as ever — standing several inches taller on high heels and carrying a small bag. Chestnut hair perfectly curled, lips a bright, intimidating red. Eyes as cutting as her tongue. She’d taken extra effort to look styled on her visit — she wore a high-quality perfume, scented with peppermint, a tailored black dress, and her nailbeds were clean, Debbie saw, as she took her hands in hers.

Olga turned to the agent behind her, a large, bald man also clad in dark sunglasses. “Now be off!” She pointed at Agent Morozov, lurking by the wall. “And take that one with you!”

Both agents remained. Agent Morozov stood with her hands clasped in front of her. “One must stay in the room.”

“Ma’am, please be reasonable.”

“Reasonable? You people spy on us daily,” Olga spat. “Be a dear and at least give us the illusion of privacy.”

“Olga, it’s fine,” Debbie said quickly, waving her hands. “Agent Morozov is just doing her job. I mean, it would be nice if you could leave…” The agent shook her head, “...but it’s small fry, Olga. I’m just glad to see you. Thank you for coming.”

“Absolutely not,” Olga insisted haughtily. “You will leave. I will speak to my friend in private. You are here for security, yes? Ridiculous. What paltry threat does the mighty Pentagon fear? Here, deep in the heart of your territory? The answer is none. You are here to spy, and it is ridiculous that you remain when you could do your job just as well from outside this room. Unless you happen to be so deficient in your capabilities that you cannot even manage that with all these tools at your disposal?”

“With respect, I will stay.”

Olga’s fox-eyes narrowed shrewdly. Quick as a whip, she cast out a string of foreign words in a hiss aimed at Agent Morozov. 

And for the first time since Debbie met her, the woman broke composure. Her whole body jerked before she caught herself, and the male agent standing by the entrance stiffened. Debbie couldn’t see the agent’s eyes, but she was certain they were set in a stinging glare.

“Morozov, was it? You hide it well, but not well enough. You are not from Moscow, as that fake accent would want us to believe. You are Chechen. Like me.” Olga’s smile was entirely teeth. “But unlike me, you are a traitor. When Israilov’s men came hunting for you, little princess, how much did you grovel at the GDA’s feet? Did you kiss their shoes so they would take you in?” Olga scoffed. “Not that the gesture would’ve been strange to you. You and your ilk had plenty of practice licking Aliyev’s feet when he was in power.”

Debbie wasn’t very good with politics, but she knew Israilov was a superpowered freedom fighter from the Caucasus region. And Aliyev, a puppet ruler, had been deposed some decades ago in an uprising Israilov had led.

“You are one to talk,” Agent Morozov ground out. “Your late husband worked closely with the GDA.”

“The original Guardians were an independent body, you uneducated girl!”

Agent Morozov bared her teeth. “That you know of.”

Olga’s eyes flashed.

“Right!” The man stepped in, hands spread in a calming gesture. A sheen of sweat covered his dark skin. He grasped Agent Morozov’s shoulder. “That’s enough, everyone. Ma’ams, we’re very happy to leave. We’ll keep an eye out from the office. You ladies enjoy.” He nodded at Debbie. “Agent Miller, at your service. May we meet again on better terms.”

The door opened and slid shut.

“...I thought you were Russian,” Debbie said lamely, once that fiasco was over.

“I have roots in Chechnya,” Olga said dismissively, like she wasn’t the one to bring it up and use the fact as a weapon against a highly trained soldier. 

“You never told me that.”

Olga snorted. “It’s rarely relevant. But enough. Tell me how you are.”

“I…uh,” Debbie said, as Olga went around the room, checking every corner. “What are you doing?”

“Cameras.” She whipped out a shawl and threw it over a painting. Grabbed one of the decorative sculptures — an innocent looking cat — in her hands, shook it, and put it back upside down, facing the wall. Olga looked so serious as she waved her phone over every surface in the room — the walls, the table, the white goods in the kitchenette. Then she took off a stiletto and tossed it into the ceiling, listening hard for the noise it made.

One absolutely ridiculous series of actions later, and Debbie was covering her face and heaving out a long, deep-bellied laugh.

“What?” Olga asked, completely oblivious. “What’s so funny? Why did you stop talking? I’m still listening.”

“It’s, it’s nothing,” Debbie said through another bout of laughs. “And I know you’re listening. Thank you.”

Olga finally sat down at the table and found Debbie’s hands again.

“How did you know I was here?”

“I didn’t. No one told me. I went to your house, found it empty, and started digging. No good could’ve come out of such a rapid relocation.”

“You were coming to visit?” Debbie’s heart melted. “That’s so nice. I’m glad you weren’t put off. That you went looking. You’ve given us this chance to catch up anyway, even if it’s in here.”

Olga’s expression faltered. “Being in government custody…can be difficult.” The shroud of past woe seemed to slip over her eyes. Olga shook it off. “Tell me how they’re treating you. Why are you even here?”

“They’re treating me well,” Debbie reassured. “As best as they can, given the circumstances.” She lowered her voice. “Someone knows Mark’s secret identity. A villain.”

Olga’s brows shot to the top of her forehead. Softly: “I’m sorry to hear that.”

“It’s okay,” Debbie said around the lump in her throat. “Occupational hazard, I guess. Comes with being the family of a superhero.”

Olga would know better than most. Her husband Josef hadn’t been popular back in Russia. At least not with the ruling class. In one of his attempts to clean up the streets of St Petersburg, he’d unearthed a major weapons smuggling ring and linked it to a top official — which turned into many more top officials with a little more digging. Olga, an investigative journalist, had been hot on the trail too, and tipped Josef off before the authorities could close in on him. That was how they’d met. Years later, when Darkwing reached across the Atlantic to recruit Red Rush, it was decided that they’d both be safer in America — Olga more than Josef given her lack of superpowers. The rest was history.

“But I’m only here for a little while. They’re putting us in a new place, which is good,” she added, at Olga’s look of concern. “I was thinking about moving anyway. Too many memories in the old place. You’ll be able to come visit once I’m settled in. It’ll be fun.”

Exciting, even, despite the looming threat. Debbie was sure Olga would be allowed on her guest list — she was here right now, after all. It wouldn’t be too much of a stretch. 

Despite her dramatic flare, Olga was a deeply private woman. Slow to open up, notably difficult to please. In the wake of Josef’s death, she’d let her wrath fly with great ease — but Debbie knew her outbursts had merely hidden the grim truth of how she’d felt. She’d known that her friend, fiery-tongued and fiercely independent, would seek only herself as company as she explored the depths of her grief, the length of her sorrow. And so Debbie had given her the space she needed.

But Olga was better now. And they’d seen each other far too rarely as of late.

Debbie imagined a new house with lots of natural light to read and lounge in. Somewhere well-connected so she wouldn’t have to drive, with friendly neighbours and kids playing soccer on her lawn. She thought of Olga coming over for tea and freshly baked cake, dinner and late-night drinks, when work and worries kept the both of them up.

Olga’s lips parted. “That…was actually what I came to talk to you about.” She softened her expression, squeezed Debbie’s hands. Released the words all at once in that way Olga did when she was about to say something sure to cause pain: “I’m leaving.”

Debbie’s heart clenched. “What? Where…where are you going?”

Olga inhaled sharply. “Back to Moscow.”

“What? You…you came to the U.S. because of the heat in Russia! Why would you go back?”

Olga gave her a long look. “I know it’s dangerous,” she said, after a short pause. “And this country, for all its flaws, has been very kind to me. But it’s not my home anymore. Ultimately, I came here for Josef — I never wanted to leave my homeland in the first place. He insisted, for my sake. Now that he’s gone?” Olga shook her head. “This land is vast, and its people keep such big hearts. But it could never contain my sorrow. Nor could it ever grow me a new love.”

Debbie felt like the Earth was falling away. “Oh.” All those hopes — timid and preliminary, slipped through her fingers, got swallowed by the ground. “I understand.”

“I tried. I really tried.”

Of course she did. The fact that she’d stayed in America so long after her husband’s murder was testament enough. It must’ve felt terrible — to wander the same streets he did, to sit in the same house and sleep in the same bed.

Debbie wondered if her friend, too, wasn’t entirely human. If there was a lioness living inside her, roaring when she spoke. It would've explained why she was so strong.

In another universe, Olga Lokshina had moved back to her family in Moscow exactly eighty-two days after Josef Zaitsev died, and Debbie had been the one to sell her house.

But in this one, she stayed. In this one, Olga Lokshina waited — tried to nurture the seeds of the life she’d built in America, tried to see if she could dodge the blows without her quick-footed husband. In this one, Olga was estranged from her parents, who had never liked Josef to begin with — this mild-mannered chemist whose eyes lit up when Olga spoke her mind. Who encouraged her work and her passion and knew she’d be bored as a good little housewife, who only ever raised his voice to her once — when the jackals were at her door, and they needed to leave, now!

In this universe, someone else sold Olga’s house, someone far less skilled than Debbie, and she would fly across the Atlantic with a much lighter purse.

Debbie’s chest felt hollow. Olga was right there, but she missed her already.

“I’m sorry to leave you, solnyshko.”

Little sun, she remembered. That was what it meant.

“It’s okay. Grief is a force of its own.”

The nickname didn’t hold up. Nowadays, it was hard for Debbie to imagine being the source of anyone’s light.

“It’s not just that,” Olga said. “There are people back in Russia who need me. I’ve been getting call after call begging me to come back and help. Activists are disappearing again, Debbie. Especially those working in superhuman affairs. People are being taken off the streets, from their homes, for god knows what. I cannot ignore that.”

“Of course not,” Debbie replied. “And I know you’re smart enough not to get caught. But I can’t help but worry. You hear so many stories…”

Olga scoffed. “I’m not afraid to die.”

“Olga! Don’t say that.”

“Why?” Her lip curled upwards. “It’s the truth. You Americans are so afraid of it. I knew going into this job that there would be risks. I chose this life as much as it chose me. There’s no use running from that fact.” She gave Debbie a wry smile. “I’ve always said it’s my dream to end up dead on the news.”

“I still can’t understand why,” Debbie said helplessly.

“Because it means someone would know!” Olga exclaimed, like Debbie was being dim. “So many people die, and everyone forgets. Psshh. Gone. Like dust. But I report on problems. Problems the rich and powerful don’t like being acknowledged.” Her eyes shone with promise. “When I die, it will be gruesome. You won’t ever find a body. No one will be able to prove who did it, but everyone will know the culprit. Everyone will know that I was working on something important. And that will spur the next investigator to action.”

The intensity of Olga’s speech had Debbie’s eyes spinning, head throbbing from the pressure. She rubbed her temples, closed her eyes. Shifted to chuckle ruefully into her hands.

All throughout their friendship, Debbie had thought Olga to be just like her. A fellow normal person, married to a superhero. How stupid and blind she’d been. Olga — with her tenacity, resilience, and technical knowledge — was anything but normal.

“Wanna know something crazy? When I heard you were here…” Debbie shook her head. “God, I thought you’d be furious with me. I thought you’d hate me for what Nolan did. For not seeing how much of a monster he was. For…” Her throat felt very dry. “...for being stupid enough to marry him in the first place.”

Nolan, Nolan, with his salt-and-pepper hairs gathering on their bedsheets — little lines of memory, proof of where he’d been. With his eyes like a blue jay and the way his ears used to prickle with interest every morning as she dragged herself down the stairs, barely conscious and hair askew, humming new tunes while she sipped coffee at the dining table — pop and jazz and blues and the occasional heavy metal, whatever Debbie picked up from the radio. 

You have a beautiful voice, he’d said early on.

Her face turned cherry-red; she went silent immediately. She’d been so much younger, and much more self-conscious.

Don’t stop, he’d said, and given her a smile. The corners of his eyes had crinkled with fondness and Debbie’s stomach had swooped very low. I love to hear it.

“Never,” Olga hissed, grabbing Debbie’s arm. “You were hurt as badly as I was.” Her expression flickered, softened, melted into understanding. Her next words were a whisper. “Both our husbands died that night.”

And then Olga stood and wrapped her in her arms.

Oh.

The tears came before Debbie could stop them, dropping fat and heavy down her cheeks. That simple touch of kindness breaking down all the tough walls she’d built.

“You can be sad and angry at the same time. That’s how I felt after burying Josef.” Olga spoke into her hair. “How dare you, I thought. How dare you die after telling me that everything would be fine.” Her breath hitched. “He was so sweet — my stupid, clever husband. The other half of my soul. He’d made us a picnic, put us up on a hill overlooking the city. But we never got to enjoy it.”

Guilt ate Debbie up from the inside.

Olga’s pain must’ve felt unbearable.

She must’ve searched for him in her own way — communicating with his spirit in a language known only to them, pain squeezing her heart from the toll of being its sole surviving speaker. She must’ve sifted through crowds, catching doppelgangers from the corners of her eyes, cruel ghosts wearing his face and the slope of his back. She must’ve sat listless in her empty home, staring at the places he used to linger. Missing the spread of his arm along the back of the couch, cradling the curve of her spine. She must’ve gone to their favorite cafe — a quirky little hole-in-the-wall with real wood panelling — and forgot not to order for two. She must’ve stood there, holding up the line with blood roaring through her ears as the dead-eyed barista prompted her to pay, counting the days he’d been gone. Fainting from the stress, and being caught by a stranger.

Oh, oh, oh.

A fresh wave of tears spilled down her cheeks, drowning her voice.

Nolan, Nolan, the monster in Debbie’s bed.

Nolan, Nolan, who’d stepped into marriage the way others stepped into sunlight — gratefully, greedily, without hesitation. For her.

“I’m so sorry,” she mumbled, struggling to get the words out, trying to bury the shame. The love and longing aching to breathe underwater. Mourning the man she never knew. Oh, Mark would never forgive her. “I’m so sorry for everything.”

Olga hushed her. “None of this is your fault.”

“Nolan killed so many people,” Debbie gasped. “He almost killed Mark. Said I didn’t matter. That I was a pet. Twenty years. Twenty years and I was a goddamn fucking pet!”

She should’ve known. She should’ve known. But she hadn’t, and Mark had nearly paid the price.

“He was a bastard. The worst kind,” Olga breathed into her hair. “But he’s gone now.”

Remorse, relief, guilt. Remorse, relief, guilt.

“I-I’m sorry. I’m fine,” she sniffled. More firmly: “I’m fine.”

Olga released her.

“I just…ugh, I needed that. I don’t have anyone to talk to, so I keep it all inside, and it’s – it’s like acid eating me away until I’m hollow.”

Olga’s eyes softened. “I leave for Moscow in a few days, but…” She reached into her purse and slipped Debbie a card. Black-and-red, with three dots and three dashes and three more dots.

S-O-S.

“What’s this?”

“Something that helped me. And…” Olga pulled a plastic bag out, two tupperwares inside it. “Stroganoff, for you and your son. My own mother’s recipe.”

Debbie wiped her eyes. “Thank you.”

Suddenly, the lightwell shuttered. Metal panels closed over the reinforced glass and the fluorescent lighting in the room brightened to compensate. The thick door forming their exit sealed itself with a magnetic click.

Debbie’s heart leapt into her throat. “What’s going on?”

Olga snapped to action. She banged on the door with a snarl. “Hey! Little rats! Explain yourselves!”

Overhead, a light flickered amber.

The door burst open.

Agent Miller came striding in, expression tight. Agent Morozov lurked just outside with her weapon drawn. Both of them tense and on high alert.

Debbie caught a glimpse of other agents running in one direction, movements hurried and urgent. Despite the sheer number of people, their footsteps were light. The thick door had insulated them from the blare of multiple alarms cutting through the air.

Agent Miller placed a hand on the small of her back. “Ma’am, you’re coming with us.” He turned to Olga. “Ms. Lokshina, you’re to remain here. Another agent is on their way to provide you with an escort.”

Debbie shook off the man’s hand. “I’m not going anywhere until you tell me what’s going on!”

“We’re going into lockdown. I can’t say much more than that.”

Debbie and Olga yelled, “Bullshit!” at the same time.

Agent Miller looked like he’d been force fed a lemon. “Bullshit or not, I’m gonna have to do my job — ”

Debbie dug her heels in. “Why can’t Olga come with me?”

“She is not a priority,” said Agent Morozov, from outside the room. The woman kept her gun raised, eyes scanning for threats. “Only you, Ms. Grayson. You are to relocate to a designated saferoom.”

“I’m not leaving without her,” Debbie said firmly. “If this threat’s big enough to have everyone running around like headless chickens, I’m not taking any chances. Why doesn’t Olga get the same level of protection? She pays taxes too! Why does she have to go without?”

“Protocol is protocol.”

A stampede of heavily armed soldiers sped towards their mission, footfalls thundering in the halls, guns and lasers and other deadly devices on full display. One of them barked into his device: “Get B-team on-route to Blue Visitor Alpha! Prepare to engage. Out.” 

Agent Morozov centered herself in the doorway a little more to block Debbie’s view.

Debbie raised her chin. “You won’t separate us.”

Olga spoke: “The Pentagon is equipped with a high-energy force field that protects it from aerial attacks. It is designed to slow the movements of a flyer or incoming ballistic. It also produces a very distinct sound when switched on to full capacity, so we know the threat is not airborne.” She had an app opened on her phone — it looked like it tracked electromagnetic spikes. “The compression plates and sonic flood devices beneath our feet also create their own disturbances. My device detects no such distortion. So the threat is not subterranean, either.”

Both agents looked very distinctly annoyed with Olga.

She crossed her arms. “My Josef worked very closely with Darkwing to create this technology. And then you people came and stole it from the Guardians’ estate when they died to upgrade your shoddy defenses.” Her lips curled into a sneer. “Vultures.”

So the threat was already in the building? Oh god…

A muscle in Agent Morozov’s forehead twitched.

“Something to say, Morozov?”

It twitched again.

Soon enough, Olga and Agent Morozov devolved into another sharp exchange, this one lasting much longer owing to Agent Miller’s vain attempt at brokering peace, where he’d promptly been verbally attacked by both angry women. Their voices grew with heat and vitriol as they changed from English to Russian to another language Debbie wasn’t familiar with, though she guessed it was Chechen.

The argument ceased when a buzz sounded from Agent Miller’s earpiece. Agent Morozov paused what Debbie could only assume was mid-insult as her co-worker lifted a finger to his device.

“Yes, sir, received. Out.” Agent Miller threw his hands up. “Good news! There’s been a change of plans. We’re not moving. You ladies get to stay together.”

“What, it was that easy?”

“...Ms. Grayson, are you really gonna complain about that, too?”

Olga had retaken her seat. “The threat’s been neutralized, Debbie.” She flicked a strand of hair away from her face. “Now the GDA will be free to chop it up, or pickle it, or blow it to pieces in one of their sketchy laboratories out West.” She lifted a brow. “Had to be at least a tier three to cause this much hullabaloo, yes?”

Tier three? Debbie didn’t keep track of how superhuman power levels were scaled, but she knew that Nolan’s had been higher. It had given him some measure of pride (he had preened), though he’d tried to play it off.

Now, what did she learn in those safety drills, again?

Tier one was a street-level threat, just above a regular human in strength. Tier two meant a villain could take out multiple targets at once, though not necessarily superhuman ones.

“Oh?” came Olga’s voice. “Is it higher?”

“I can’t confirm or deny anything.”

She couldn’t remember what tiers three and four stood for exactly — there was more than one way to categorize superhumans, and most systems were pretty fluid. Lots of overlap between levels, too, because something as simple as a scale of destruction couldn’t necessarily tell anyone how dangerous someone was — Darkwing had just been an ordinary man, but Debbie was pretty sure he’d have been considered a major threat if he’d ever gone rogue.

Something chewed on the edges of her mind.

The GDA had given Nolan their own codename for when they wanted to talk about him without him knowing. Something he wasn’t meant to be privy to. But he’d gleaned the information using his enhanced hearing, and with some input from Darkwing, they’d learned that the GDA had their own monikers for each of the Guardians in addition to every other superhuman they dealt with. Some members had found them more pleasing than others.

“It is, isn’t it? That’s very interesting. Who did the great GDA manage to antagonize this time?”

Debbie’s temples throbbed with pressure. She nibbled on a finger to distract herself.

Aquarius’s codename hadn’t earned him much respect — Golden Splash. Golden, because he was royalty. Splash, for his powers. Nolan said he’d been devastated. And to be fair, the name did sound pretty unfortunate.

War Woman’s had been Heavy Hammer. According to Nolan, she’d nitpicked it for weeks.

Nolan’s was Visitor Alpha. Alpha, because he was important. Visitor, because he was an alien — so he’d shared that part of the codename with Martian Man.

“Whoever it is, I suppose we’re never hearing from them again? Do your scientists still cut them open before they have a chance to stop breathing? How barbaric.”

The realization struck like a clap of thunder — heavy and devastating, to the back of her head.

Get B-team on-route to Blue Visitor Alpha, barked the soldier.

Blue Visitor Alpha.

Blue Visitor Alpha!

All the blood drained from Debbie’s face.

“Mark,” Debbie rasped, vision tunnelling. The agents both went still, and Olga’s eyes went very wide. The threat had been neutralized. “My son! What have you done to my son?!”

Blue, for his suit. Visitor Alpha, because they couldn’t-wouldn’t distinguish him from Nolan, and because Mark would always be an alien to them, nevermind that he’d been born here, nevermind that he’d saved the world.

She made a mad dash for the exit, but Agent Miller caught her around the shoulders, pulled her back easily. Agent Morozov pressed a button at her waist, and the door slid shut. Debbie threw herself against the man, pummelled him with her fists. He caught both her wrists in one large hand while Olga shrieked in protest. 

“Ma’am, please calm down!”

“Let her go!”

“Sit down, Ms. Lokshina.”

“Mark’s done nothing wrong!” Debbie shouted, cries bouncing off the walls. Punching and kicking and squirming in this man’s grip, humiliation burning a hole in her gut. Oh, Nolan would’ve had his head. Nolan would’ve burned this stupid place to the ground for Mark. “Don’t you hurt him!”

Nevermind that he could move mountains, nevermind that he was a Viltrumite. This was Debbie’s son, and she wasn’t going to let anyone lay a finger on him, not if she could help it.

But…this had happened before, hadn’t it?

“Stop struggling, and I’ll let you go!”

“Let her go and she’ll stop struggling!”

They’d fired guns at Mark. Scared him away when they’d both thought he’d just been sick. When he wasn’t acting like himself. And she hadn’t been able to do anything then.

Olga moved, but Agent Morozov manhandled her into a restraint, arms braced behind her. She looked like she’d just been waiting for the opportunity. In one controlled motion, she tightened her grip, and Olga’s thrashing slowed before she finally went limp.

Debbie screamed, the sound thick with panic. “What did you do!”

“It’s okay, it’s okay! She’s just out cold!”

“Stop it, just stop it!”

Fear spiked high into her blood, filled her eyes to the brim with stress-tears. Fatigue saturated her muscles, her limbs flailed and fought with less and less energy. Why couldn’t she do anything? Why couldn’t she ever do anything?

Debbie had no powers, no flight or super strength, not even Olga’s searing wit. If she hadn’t been so persistent last time, Cecil’s agents would’ve swatted her aside like she’d been nothing at all.

Wait.

“Let me speak to him,” Debbie said breathlessly, pausing her fight. “Dammit, let me speak to him!”

Agent Miller’s expression faltered, but he didn’t release her. “We’ve not received any word on how yet to proceed. Please, ma’am, be patient with us. The danger could still be present.”

“Not with Mark,” Debbie clarified. “With Cecil. Now.”

Both agents looked ready to argue.

But they were spared the ordeal by a knock on the door.

The agents looked at each other. Dread seemed to pour onto their faces.

The door split open — and the very man Debbie was looking for walked in, cool as a lake and steady as a stone.

“Cecil!”

Agent Miller let her go immediately. “Sir, I can explain — ”

Cecil made a gesture. “At ease.” Then he seemed to pause, and really consider the room — Debbie, hair wild and raging like a feral cat. Agent Miller, fidgeting in the situation he’d thoroughly lost control of, looking like a mouse for all of his stature. Agent Morozov, utterly frozen mid-grapple. Olga, passed out on the floor.

He looked like he wanted to be anywhere but here.

Too fucking bad, Debbie thought, as she fought to stop panting.

Cecil’s upper lip curled. “You incompetent morons! Get her to medical!” The rage in his voice snapped the agents to action, made them quiver in their boots. The agents picked Olga up by her legs and shoulders. Her beautiful hair was completely mussed up and distantly, Debbie realized that she’d seen that black dress before — at Josef’s burial.

Just before Agent Morozov could leave, Cecil placed a heavy hand on her shoulder. His tone was ice cold. “I’ll be having words with you later.”

The woman tried and failed to hide a huge grimace.

When everyone left, Debbie struck out. “What the fuck, Cecil.”

Cecil softened his voice. “Debbie, I’m so sorry you had to see that. I assure you that Olga will be absolutely fine — ”

“What’s happened to Mark?” she demanded. “I saw – I saw your men — ” She speared a finger into the man’s chest. “I swear to god, Cecil, if you’ve hurt him — ”

Cecil spread his hands. “Calm down, Debbie. It’s nothing to worry about.”

“Don’t you lie to me!”

The man made a low, frustrated noise. “I’m not lying.”

“What did you do to him? Why did you send soldiers after him, again?”

“‘What did I do to him’? I walked him home, Debbie. Your son had a panic attack and made it everyone else’s problem like the out-of-control animal he is. He’s got a shitty sense of direction and a fuse shorter than a paper clip, did he get that from you?” Cecil seemed to regret the words as soon as they left his lips. He grimaced. “Debbie, I didn’t mean — ”

“How dare you,” Debbie spat. “My son is not an animal. Even if you seem dead-set on treating him like one.”

“He tore up my facility. He cost us billions of dollars, injured my men. And he nearly did it again this time because he couldn’t control his feelings.”

There was that word again.

“That’s what this is about, isn’t it? You wanna control him. That’s why you wanted him to stay here that first time. That’s why you didn’t say no when Mark came asking to work for you. That’s why both of us are trapped here.”

Cecil’s jaw tightened. “Mark’s a walking firestorm of a person and you’re a free woman. No one’s keeping you two here. If you wanna walk away, you be my guest. Just remember to close the door on your way out.”

“That’s another thing you do,” Debbie said harshly. “You give us choices, but they’re anything but. You know what you want us to do and you’ll stop at nothing till we give in. Don’t pretend you’re sheltering us out of the goodness of your own heart.”

“I don’t know where you get all these baseless accusations. I’ve been nothing but good to you and Mark all this while.”

“So if we left, there’d be no cameras? You wouldn’t secretly spy on us? Video us every second of the day without our consent?” There was a demon in Debbie’s stomach, in her throat, in her mouth, lashing its tongue in sync with hers — the anger a second grief. “Why was I the last to know about Nolan? I was his wife. He lived in my home, with my son, h-he could’ve killed him at any time, oh god…” 

The house they’d moved into since the start of their marriage, years of laughter drifting through the walls, withering into horror. What if Mark had been younger when he got his powers? Weaker, more impressionable, more vulnerable? How young did they start them on Viltrum? Would his body have had the strength in it to withstand his father’s brutality when it inevitably came? Would Debbie have been caught on the sidelines, waiting for both their deaths? For Nolan to poison Mark against everything he knew?

Had they ever been safe at all?

A sob stood on the edge of release, but she’d be damned if she let Cecil watch her cry again. Debbie bit her lip hard to stem the tide, to slow her heart rate. Sat down before the dizziness could overwhelm her, covered her eyes, and pretended that her breath didn’t hitch.

Neither of them said anything for a while.

Then, softly: “I don’t wanna argue with you, Debbie. It won’t do us any good. You know just as well as I do that we’ll never see eye-to-eye on everything.”

Debbie noted how Cecil very much avoided any insinuation that he’d merely been doing his job.

“And you weren’t the last to know about Nolan — Mark was.”

Debbie failed to hide a flinch. She tried to recover. Sniffed, cleared her throat. “What did Mark have a panic attack about?”

Cecil inhaled through his teeth. “It’s best you find out from him. It’s not my secret to tell.”

“I’m his mother, Cecil. I have a right to know.”

“And Mark’s a fully-fledged superhero. If he’s old enough to be on my roster, he’s old enough to make his own choices on what he says and who he says it to.”

Oh, so now Mark was a rational human being? Not an out-of-control animal?

“He’s only seventeen.”

Cecil gave her a long, sober look. “I’ve had younger.” There was a hooded edge to his eyes, a hint of deep shadow over that cold demeanour. “Much, much younger.”

Well if that wasn’t the most disconcerting thing Debbie had ever heard.

Cecil sighed. He sprawled into the other chair, one elbow braced on the table, body angled away despite sitting directly opposite her. Still trying to seem casual?

“His immaturity’s a real problem,” Cecil said. He raised a hand to stall her protest. “Just hear me out. It’s part of the reason why I kept tabs on him, barring the other thing. Kid’s gotta lotta power, but he’s so naive. He needs a guiding hand. He needs help.”

“So loop me in, dammit. Let me help.”

“No offense — ” which was what people usually said right before they spewed the most outrageously offensive things, “ — but you wouldn’t get it, Debbie. You’re not a combatant. Even if you knew, you wouldn’t know. It’s why I’ve thought about folding him into the Guardians. Not now, but when he’s more settled. He’d have people to talk to.” Cecil drummed his fingers on the armrest. “Most of the Guardians aren’t much older than him. Rex, Kate, Rae. A couple are younger…depending on how you count it.”

Debbie wondered what the hell that was supposed to mean.

“I don’t want punching things to be his life. Before, I thought he’d be okay. He’d have his dad to guide him through it. Now?”

“Mark’s gonna keep doing what he wants with or without your input. It’s just how kids are. But I see no reason to make it harder than it already is.” Cecil paused. “Think about it. If Mark was with the Guardians, he’d have a salary, healthcare, benefits — all in his name. He’d have a full ride to college, high-value internships, training opportunities. And he’d have indemnity, too.”

“Indemnity?”

The man dipped his chin. “The GDA’s been protecting supes from lawsuits for as long as it’s been up and running. But we can’t always kill every case. Especially the more…public ones.”

Chicago.

Debbie pitched her voice low. “What are you saying?”

“Most people came outta that shitstorm blaming Nolan. But not everyone. If Mark joined the Guardians, it would be a lot easier to legally class his actions as attempted rescue or self-defense under the operational necessity clause. And I know you won’t like this — but if he works for me on an official basis? His actions would be protected under chain-of-command transference. Anything happens, I take the fall for it. It would save him from being sued or prosecuted for split-second decision making.” Cecil tilted his head. “But as it stands, as an independent hero? He could be looking at negligence at best. Manslaughter, at worst.”

Outrage made her teeth clench. “Is that a threat?”

Cecil threw his hands up. “It’s the truth! Goddammit, not everything I say has some ominous double meaning attached.”

Debbie very much doubted that.

“You’d really toss Mark in jail for the actions of his father?”

“I don’t make the rules. I just follow them.”

Debbie laughed bitterly. “Like four walls of concrete could contain Mark if he really didn’t wanna be there.”

“Are you implying that your son wouldn’t obey the law?”

“Fuck you.”

Debbie glared acid. He was just trying to bait her, she knew that, but god, was he good at it.

“You said Mark would get all these benefits — ”

“Which is also the truth, yes.”

“ — but in what world would he actually get a chance to enjoy them with you working him to the bone? He barely had any time to rest before you sent him away again this morning.”

“Mark’s a Viltrumite. He doesn’t need the same amount of rest as you or me.”

“That doesn’t mean he doesn’t hurt, Cecil,” Debbie snapped. “It doesn’t mean he doesn’t bleed, or get tired, or break like the rest of us. He’s not actually invincible.”

Cecil closed his eyes. “I know.”

“No, you don’t.” Debbie pressed her knuckles to her temples. “You’re selling this as some kind of stellar career opportunity for Mark when I know you don’t see him that way. You don’t see him as a person. You just think he’s another weapon you can lob at the next kaiju, or interdimensional worm, or — ” 

Viltrumite.

“ — whatever else you need him to clean up for you. Who’s to say he’ll even wanna stay a hero? Mark’s had such a hard debut. I might not be a fighter but I know it’s not normal to nearly die twice in the span of a year, with one of those times being at the hands of your own father.”

Nolan, Nolan, who’d read fairy tales to Mark in an effort to make him sleep — Sinbad The Sailor and The Cowherd and The Weaver Girl and The Ugly Duckling and Pinocchio. Nolan, Nolan, who’d learned these alien tales by heart so he could be a better storyteller, acting out the roles with Mark just before bedtime and using his hands as shadow puppets. Nolan, Nolan, who’d failed his task spectacularly by being so engaging a chronicler that on those nights, Mark never got to sleep at all — her son, grinning in bed and clutching his teddy bear, kept up by the excitement.

Nolan, Nolan, who’d left Mark for dead on the side of a mountain.

“So you can save your efforts trying to recruit my son — he might just hang up his costume in a couple months anyway. This is a formative period for him. It’s so important that he has time to breathe and heal. You have plenty of other heroes to deploy.”

“Even if he quits, he could always change his mind.”

“With the way you treat him?”

“What, well?”

“Mark’ll grow up. He’ll see you for what you are and he won’t like it. He’ll be busy with school, and work, and kids — ”

“How long do Viltrumites live for, again?”

Debbie froze.

“Thousands of years, according to your ex-husband. Can’t believe he kept that from you too.” Cecil huffed casually, but Debbie read malice beneath the gesture. This viper of a man. “He’s got his entire life ahead of him. Plenty of time for Mark to come crawling back.”

Rage slithered into her bones and made her taste fire.

“You’re such an asshole, Cecil,” Debbie spat. “One day, you’re going to wake up and realize you have absolutely no one in your corner, and that it’s all your fault.”

“Interesting theory. If that ever happens, you’ll be the first person I’ll call.”

“Let me outta here.” She stood. “I’m done talking to you.”

The door remained shut.

“You’re projecting your own wants onto Mark’s choices.”

“All I want is for him to be safe, is that really such a bad thing?” Debbie cried. “You’re not his mentor or – or his friend, and you’re certainly not his mother. Hell, you were ready to let him die! You have no idea what it felt like to climb out of that helicopter not knowing if he’d be alive or not.”

Debbie doubted Cecil had ever loved anyone that much, cold bastard that he was.

She looked down at her hands — lotion-soft, smooth and unscarred. “I swear to god, Cecil, if you ever give him back to me in pieces again…” Her fists clenched. “I’ll ruin you. Believe me, I’ll find a way.”

It was never a good idea to bite the hand keeping you alive. But drawing boundaries was survival too, and men like Cecil only recognized the line when it was carved out with a knife. 

Cecil lowered his voice. “Debbie, I’m gonna level with you. I don’t have a lotta options.”

“That’s not my problem. Or Mark’s.”

“Just. Listen.”

Debbie opened her mouth to rage.

“Please.”

Something in Cecil’s tone made her pause. A touch of vulnerability, some real honesty curling the ends of those syllables.

“Everyone, and I mean everyone, seems to think this Viltrumite fiasco is over. Part of that’s on me — I didn’t wanna cause a panic. But this is just the beginning.” When Cecil exhaled, it made him look very old. “Mark sent one Viltrumite packing, and that was his dad. But there’s an entire intergalactic civilization out there with its sights set on Earth! They could have ships, weapons, and armies, hell, not that they’d need ‘em, when just one of their guys managed to give us a masterclass in collective terror.”

“And you think my son is the answer to that?” Debbie’s heart pounded, threatening to leap out her chest. She imagined it roaring, lunging, taking a vicious swipe at Cecil. “To an entire intergalactic civilization?”

Silence.

Cecil sighed. Long and deep, like the drag of a cigarette long yearned-for. Pushed off his chair. Stood and smoothed down his jacket, looking very weary.

“The Earth needs him, Debbie.”

“Far more than it should.”

Cecil made a point of looking into her eyes. Debbie stared straight back — burning, blazing, resolute. Here were two forces of nature at odds with each other — oil and water, the wave and the shore. Never one to concede. In another world, they might’ve been friends. (In yet another, they were something more. And Debbie didn’t know this, but she might’ve even been his top agent). But in this one, Cecil led global security, made bitter sacrifices, and served the greater good. In this one, Cecil’s entire world was his sacred purpose — the protection of planet Earth.

And Debbie’s world was Mark.

Debbie insisted on seeing Olga before she left, but the goodbye was brief. Her friend sat up in the cot she’d been given, thin white sheets pooling at her ankles. Still looking quite dazed. The instant she regained enough lucidity, she’d been carted off by another pair of agents. Debbie made sure to hug her long and tight before she left.

“I’ll see you soon,” Olga said. “And you can talk to me any time. I’m only a phone call away.”

Debbie tucked a strand of hair behind Olga’s ear. She smiled. “I know.”

Though she hadn’t quite believed her.

Mark was already in by the time Debbie got back, dressed in normal clothes and sporting an odd bald patch on his scalp. He came out of his room and greeted her with a tentative, “Hi, mom.”

The anxiety in his voice made her heart ache. She wanted to scoop him up in her arms, but her own apprehension kept her rooted to the floor.

“Hi, sweetie.”

Both of them stared at each other.

“I’m sorry — ”

“I wanted to apologize — ”

They both stopped.

“You first,” they said at the same time. They’d even made the same hand gesture, beckoning the other to speak.

She couldn’t help but smile.

“How was your mission?” Debbie asked, breaking their stalemate. What happened, was what she really wanted to say, but she tucked the question behind her teeth.

Mark’s eyes flickered. “I went to Midnight City. I…yeah.” His face closed off, only for the emotion to seep back in a second later. Uncertainty.

Shame.

Then it was gone again.

“I met Darkwing’s old assistant.”

A name pressed on her thoughts. “Night Boy?”

Mark nodded. “He…wasn’t exactly thrilled to see me.”

“Oh.” She took a deep breath. “Mark, you’re not responsible for anything your dad — ”

“I know.”

Debbie winced before she could help it. His retort had cut through the air like a knife.

“I’m sorry,” Mark blurted hurriedly, eyes widening in immediate regret. “I didn’t mean to sound so harsh. And…I’m sorry for how I acted before. I was being a huge jerk. I guess…I guess dad left more of a mark than I thought.”

Yes, he had.

“I’m sorry too,” Debbie said. Her heart raced with apprehension — the stagger before the jump. Too bad she couldn’t fly. “You were right. I’ve been drinking too much and it’s not good for me. Starting today, I’m giving it up for good.”

It would be hard. It would be so hard. But…

All the money in the world couldn’t buy the relief unspooling from Mark’s face, rich and golden.

“T-That’s, that’s great, mom,” Mark breathed. “I mean, uh…” He rubbed the back of his head. No doubt, Mark was trying to find a way to congratulate her on the epiphany without coming across as condescending. “Yeah. That’s great.” He smiled, and the world got a little brighter. “I love you. I’ll be here to help however I can.”

“Thank you, sweetie. I love you too.” 

She went in for a hug.

Mark stiffened, but returned it. Very slowly.

“What happened to your hair?”

“N-Nothing.”

Suspicion clung like a shadow.

“What do you mean, nothing? It looks like someone’s pulled it right out — ”

“Night Boy got me,” Mark said flatly. “It was pretty embarrassing.”

Debbie nodded, but the uneasiness remained. Her son was no Red Rush, but he was plenty fast. How could Darkwing's assistant get that close to him without a timely reaction?

“Honey, if Cecil’s giving you missions that are too hard for you — ”

“Jeez, mom, relax,” Mark snapped. It seemed like her remark had rubbed on his pride. “It’s just hair. It’ll grow back.”

The tone of his voice made her stop pushing, but a knot tightened in her stomach. Debbie didn’t want to pry, but she simply had to know. She leaned back to look at him, hands on his shoulders.

“I heard you had a rough moment today. Do you wanna talk about it?”

Mark flinched. His entire body went rigid, and he stepped out of her grip. Wrapped his hands around his elbows and drew himself inwards. “W-What did you hear?”

Seeing Mark act so guarded pricked a sharp sting of hurt into her chest. Why didn’t he trust her? 

“I heard you had a panic attack. Are you okay?”

Some of the tension eased out, but a tight, uneasy pressure seemed to remain. “I…yeah, I’m okay.”

“What happened?” At the pained look on his face, she added, “I won’t be upset. I just wanna know so I can help you feel safe.”

Mark’s eyes flitted back and forth like a cornered mouse. Debbie had a feeling that if he weren’t literally holding himself together right now, he’d be shaking. “You don’t know? Didn’t Cecil tell you?”

“He didn’t tell me much,” Debbie said quickly. It took a gargantuan effort to stop the bitterness from creeping into her tone. “He said it wasn’t his secret to tell.”

A hint of emotion blossomed on Mark’s face like a violet. Surprise? More feelings seemed to flood out, but Mark turned away before she could catch them.

“Oh.”

(Debbie didn’t know this. But later, in a quiet moment during one of Mark’s missions, her son would cup a fluttering ember close to his chest, stoking the flame with a feeling unknown. Dawn would bloom like a scarlet rose, and Mark’s veneration would loop along the horizon like calligraphy under the knowing gaze of Venus.

Thanks for not telling my mom, he would say into his earpiece, that little fire pulsing courage into his veins. In time, it would sweeten into gratitude, fill him with the powered head rush of someone truly seen for the first time.

Cecil trusted him to make his own decisions. Respected his privacy. Thought him an equal.

Don’t mention it, Cecil would reply, tone deliberately casual. If you want, we can keep this between us. He would look at his screen and watch the sun rise in time with Mark’s graceful flight, light glinting off his goggles as the wind curled the kid’s black hair. Cecil would imagine that warmth resting on his own skin before casting the hope away. 

No one else has to know).

“I…I don’t wanna talk about it.” Mark rubbed his temples. The shadows over his cheekbones made his eyes look like valleys, but there was an evenness to his gaze. “Is that alright?”

Debbie’s heart sank.

“Of course it is, honey,” she said, smiling to hide the disappointment. Debbie reminded herself that Mark would come to her when he was ready, and that she’d been the one to teach him boundaries in the first place. “You must be tired. You can talk to me about it when you’re feeling more up to scratch.”

Still, the ache lingered — Mark, six years old, rushing home from school to tell her every single thing. What he did, who he played with, things that hurt him.

Mark shook his head. “I’ll be okay. I’ve already talked it through.”

“Who with?” Debbie asked, a flutter in her gut. A flip-flop before nausea, her body knowing before she did. Danger sat like a gargoyle on her shoulders, heavy with premonition.

Mark smiled — and something in Debbie’s chest cracked. Jealousy and exclusion twisted around her heart, vines sharp as any blade. It made it so hard to breathe.

“Cecil.”

“Shhh, it’s okay. Everything’s gonna be okay.”

Small, small, small.

Everything about Mark’s form, his demeanour, the weight of his being.

Small, small, small.

Debbie rubbed slow circles into Mark’s sticky costume. She maneuvered them onto the couch and held him as he wept, barely able to form words between the sharp sobs. Tears ran hot against her skin and soaked her blouse through.

Outside, the sky began a thin drizzle. Soon, a fine mist of rain had settled over the landscape.

“Something happened on your mission, didn’t it,” she said, running her hands down his shoulders, his back — making sure he was in one piece.

It was unusual for Mark to cry so soon after a job. Like many boys his age, her son had a tendency to bottle his feelings up and pour them out later in one congealed mess, if he ever let them out at all. He’d been fine this morning, more than fine — he’d been happy. Something awful must’ve happened since then to reduce him to tears.

Mark nodded tightly.

“Did someone get hurt?”

He muttered something against her neck.

“Hmm? I didn’t catch that.”

Mark’s voice crawled out of his mouth with a waver.

“Why does he do that?”

“Who, Mark?” she asked, frowning before she knew why.

A strong gust knifed into the living room through the crack in the patio door, sending a shiver down her spine and tousling Mark’s hair. His voice came as a heated whisper.

“Cecil.”

Her mouth went dry. The world stopped. “...What has he done?”

A switch flipped and suddenly Mark was standing, running fingers through his hair, pacing up and down like a caged tiger, footsteps charged and heavy on the soft rug beneath his feet. The very air seemed to leap into motion beside him like a zealous supporter, and outside, a gang of harsh gales battered the trees.

Mark spoke in short, staccato bursts — each word clipped with anger.

“He took her from me. He took her from me. Why?”

“Who?”

“Amber,” Mark hissed, hands still pressing into his temples. “I was just doing my job. A villain attacked us and I took him out. That goddamn sicko.” A soft whine slithered out of his throat. “I thought I was doing well. I thought he’d be happy.”

Debbie’s eyes widened. A memory from years past. Mark, demonstrating a move he’d learned in Karate to his dad, smiling brightly. Nolan, Nolan, eyes cast aside, unable to hide his dimming interest. Mark, picking up on that and crying to her about it later. At the time, Debbie had thought Nolan’s response as simply inattention. In hindsight, it was probably deep disappointment — that his human son was still so weak and powerless.

“But no. I try my best, and he’s madder than ever! He took her away from me like I was some sorta threat. I was protecting her!”

Debbie sat up straighter. “Are…are you saying that Cecil kidnapped Amber?”

“His soldiers grabbed her and teleported her away.”

Concern lit her nerves. Mark had to be kidding. Amber was just a civilian, and Cecil, while ruthless, was a meticulous man who wasted no actions. He wouldn’t remove her without good reason. Loath as she was to jump to his defense, Cecil still protected the average citizen. This had to be a misunderstanding.