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Mark remembered being little and peeking into his mother's office while she was working. The big draft table always seemed like some precious artifact or alchemist's lab, and the large rolls of sketches and blueprints were like spells. Those pictures became real buildings he could walk through one day.
Sometimes she would gesture for him to come in, even though he could have sworn he hadn't made a sound, and let him sit on her lap while she worked. If it was early enough in a project, she would even give him his own pencil and let him draw in the corner of the same page. Everything she made was so orderly. It was difficult for his uncoordinated hands to match her lines, though he tried.
Mostly his dad scooped him up before he got noticed and distracted him with a story in the living room. A lot of his stories were about a beautiful wizard saving a prince from a tall, lonely tower. His dad had a whole series of adventures they went on once the prince was rescued. Though he still seemed to get into plenty of trouble, the wizard always helped the prince escape. Finding out the stories were true had been thrilling. His mother did save his father when they first met, but she hadn't used spells. She was an alien. She was a superhero.
And one day, Mark would be too.
It was a little weird to think about, but Mark had been born in the house he lived in. In the bathroom that now served as his bathroom, point in fact. As his father told it, one evening his mom had run a bath, and when he had gone upstairs to ask her what she wanted for dinner, he realized halfway through their conversation that she was in labor. Her being so calm had kept him from freaking out too much. Making sure Mark had gotten his birth certificate had apparently been the harder process.
She had also eaten her placenta after he was born, which, judging by the somewhat traumatized look on his dad's face when he shared that, was a mental image both of them could have lived without. Like raw, Mark had almost asked, but he had known better than to want clarification. His dad typically left that part of the home birth story out when he told it.
It was weird that people wanted to know how other people were born, Mark decided. Like, was that really a mental image you wanted in your head? What were you really thinking about when you asked? Didn’t they all realize where they were from, when you stopped and really thought about it? Not that he wanted to think about it. He mostly ignored the fact the tub he stood in while he showered was where he was born. Kids who were born in hospitals were lucky, he decided.
His mother's version of the story was a lot shorter. I was ready, and so were you.
She was always so certain about things. He wanted her confidence.
"Mark, you're going to have to hit me." Her arms were crossed as she floated in front of him. Her dark braid was caught up in the wind, waving like a ribbon.
Finally getting his powers had been the best damn day of his life. He was flying. He was flying. He wasn't landing, but they were working on that. Punching his mom felt weird, though. This was what he had been waiting for though, wasn't it? Training to be a hero alongside her? He brought up his hands, awkwardly shadow boxing the air and never getting close enough to actually hit her.
She raised an eyebrow.
He didn't have time to blink before she was driving her fist into his chest. Landing was easy after that because he just fell out of the sky. He was still gaping like a fish on the ground when she landed next to him.
She knelt down and put a hand on his shoulder. "I'm sorry sweetie, I didn't mean to do that, but... you have to realize your opponent won't hold back. And you can't either. No matter what they look like."
He wheezed in response.
Nolan had a physique that most people found intimidating. That was not his intent, but at least it meant the effort he put in was noticeable.
It was a bit difficult to admit to himself, but fear was a strong factor for keeping in shape. Debbie had been so strange about physical touch when they first met. Equal parts unashamed and closed off. Holding on to multiple people, or having them cling to her, while escaping danger was no problem. On the ground after an early date she would look at him like he was trying to stab her if he held her hand.
Now, it was about impossible for them to be near without touching. Sex was its own tangled journey of intimacy, and sex with her was amazing. Hence why his home office was practically a gym. Nolan worried that come the next twenty years, he wasn't going to be enough. Hell, he was worried about it in his twenties, she was a superpowered being for fuck's sake, but now, in his forties?
So he did what he could to keep himself fit. It was wonderful being able to wrap her in his arms and sweep her off her feet, but she was the one who could balance him on the tip of her pinky and not break a sweat.
He had dyed his hair when the first white strands started popping up in his thirties, but she had called it handsome, and so he had eventually convinced himself to stop. The beard had to go though, it made him look older. When he had been shaving it he had briefly kept the mustache and asked Debbie if he looked like Tom Selleck- he was pretty sure she knew who that was- but she had just looked at him so strangely he hurried onwards to clean shaven.
She had never at any point in their relationship told him she was unhappy with his appearance, or his performance, but that didn't mean he wasn't going to put the work in. He was getting older while she seemed to be standing still. He wanted to be able to hold her for as long as he could.
Debbie had come home late last night, and he had wrapped an arm around her and gone back to sleep as she settled next to him. In the morning she had woken him with soft kisses, until he was on his back with her straddling him. He would have thought she would have less energy now that she had started training Mark on top of everything else. He should have known better than to assume anything could slow her down. It had felt like she was avoiding him a bit, lately, and this was a nice acknowledgement that she realized he was still there.
Despite having just woken up, it was difficult to keep his eyes open when she was through with him. She laid on his chest, looking down at him as she stroked the side of his face with her fingers
"We could stay here all day," she sounded quite serious.
Nolan smiled at her, though confusion at her sudden intensity crept up on him. "We could."
She leaned down and kissed him, slow, insistent, both hands capturing the side of his face. He tightened his arms around her, pushing aside his worry.
How was he supposed to-? No, no he could do this.
Mark went inside.
His dad looked up briefly from where he was in the kitchen, making dinner. "Hey kiddo. How was patrol?"
His heart hammered in his chest. "I- um.. we-" How was this so difficult to get out? It happened so fast, it shouldn't take so long to say. "The Flaxans. We fought them off, but mom... she ended up going through one of their portals."
His dad didn't even look up at that. "Alright."
"...alright?"
"Mark, your mother has done some amazing things over the years. Portal diving into another dimension isn't even in the top five."
"Right." He finally approached the counter, almost taking a seat when his dad looked at him.
"Hey, no suits at meal time, it's-"
"-family time," Mark finished for him. He dashed upstairs, some of his nerves trailing off of him as he did so. His dad was right. Mom was going to be fine. He couldn’t get caught up in it. He was going to be the one portal diving to other dimensions fighting off invaders soon. Did he want people worried sick about him every time he did it? No. They should be content with the knowledge that he would return victorious.
He was back downstairs a minute later, tugging his shirt to make sure it was in place. His dad was staring at his phone, frowning.
“What is it? Dad?”
“Turn on the TV.”
Mark frowned, but complied. He hadn’t even specified a channel or anything. He hadn’t needed to, a special report was interrupting whatever the broadcast had been. The Guardians of the Globe were dead. Mark blinked at the screen, remote still in his hand.
“I mean-” he stared at the TV, not hearing anything else the reporter was saying, barely able to recognize the text on the screen as words. “-she’s fine. Mom’s fine.” Mom wasn’t a Guardian. He had just been with her less than an hour ago. She was in an alien dimension, not dead. No way the news would even be aware of that, right then. She was fine.
“Yeah,” his dad said, caught up in staring at the news like it was hypnotizing him, same as Mark.
The Guardians were dead. How did something like that even happen?
The front door opened. “Mm. Dinner smells amazing, but I need to shower-”
“Mom.” Mark dashed towards her, fugue on his psyche broken, and gave her a hug. The braid down her back looked a bit longer, but other than that, she didn’t look any different than she had earlier.
“What is it?” She wrapped her arms around him, nearly laughing.
Mark felt his dad’s arms go around both of them a moment later. He knew he was clutching them both with all his might, but it felt so gentle compared to the steady grip of his mother’s arms.
“What’s going on?” Her voice was teasing. “Was I gone that long?”
“Not even half a day,” his dad said, voice soft. “But honey, the news…”
She got really quiet after that.
Debbie had been incredibly irritated that they hadn’t asked her to be the key speaker at the Guardians’ memorial. All I do for this planet, and Cecil says he wants someone people can look at and feel protected by?
They had just lost their friends. Nolan was glad of the chance for them to mourn, and not have her be a political figure. He could understand her feeling insulted that they chose to showcase a hero who simply looked impressive rather than one who had a more notable track record of world saving, but he would have thought grief would have won over anger. Not that he had actually seen her grieve yet.
Cecil trying to corner her after the private ceremony had been a stupid move though, Nolan was with his wife on that.
I have this planet and my family to worry about Cecil, I’m not going to be a nanny to your figureheads. Whatever new Guardians he was hoping to establish, she wanted no part of it, same as the original group.
Two funeral ceremonies, a highly tetchy wife, and a son who had never really lost anyone before? Nolan just wanted to go home. Make sure his family had time to process everything that was happening. But Olga had no one with her, so he was going to do his best to get her home before doing that himself. Debbie hadn’t even flinched when she had thrown herself to the ground, crying after Josef. Nolan didn’t like to see her like this. Someone or something had killed their friends. She wasn’t going to do anything foolish, was she? He would never describe his wife as reckless, but he worried.
Olga was stumbling, but at least she was consistently moving. Nolan looked over his shoulder, checking that Mark was still with him. His son was walking with Eve, not far behind, but he could still see Debbie back at the grave sites. She was standing across from a figure in a trench coat, hat casting their face in deep shadow. Their large, red tail was still visible though. He didn’t recognize them from either ceremony.
Olga clutched the front of his shirt, and he turned back to look at her. Her makeup was smudged from rain and tears, and some dirt had managed to streak across her cheek. “Don’t let them take her from you.”
“I…” Did she think the GDA had something to do with this? When Nolan looked back over his shoulder, the figure in the trench coat was gone, but Debbie was still standing over the graves.
Someone knocked, and Mark frowned, sitting up on his bed. He kept hold of the Mars rock, hiding it in his hand. It was a stupid gift? Right? It wasn’t like he had anything else he could bring back. “Yeah?”
The door opened, and he refrained from pointing out that he hadn’t said come in. His dad stood in the door looking in on him. He raised his eyebrow and crossed his arms, leaning on the doorway.
“What?” Mark kept frowning. “Look, if this is about when I came home-”
“Uh no,” his dad coughed, looking away for a moment, embarrassed. They had already had a birds and bees talk when he was fifteen. Mark definitely didn’t like getting unintentional hands on demonstrations. Thank god his mom had superspeed. “Just thought you might want to talk.”
“About what?”
“The girl.”
“What girl,” he said quickly.
“Mark, you told us about the date you went on before you left.”
“Oh. Right.” He flopped back on to his bed, staring at his ceiling. “Amber’s great.” What else was there to talk about?
“What’s great about her?”
“She does all this cool stuff, and helps people, and we like a lot of the same music- she’s amazing and perfect and I just-” he looked at the rock in his hand. “I just have this stupid rock.”
His dad hummed. “Weren’t you hauling a giant chest around right before you left?”
“I mean, yeah.” What was his point?
“Do you think she’s only with you because you give her things?”
“Um, no? I don’t think so.” Did Mark have to worry about that now? Hadn’t she given him her number?
“Then try not to overthink the gift too much. She’ll be happy that you thought of her.”
“You think?” He spun the rock in his hand, trying to let the calm his dad was instilling wash over him.
“Who wouldn’t be happy to know you?”
Mark rolled his eyes. “You’re my dad, you have to say that.”
“It is a clause of good parenting to love your child-”
“Dad come on-”
“-but you’re doing amazing things, Mark.” His tone got more steady, more certain. “Not just because you’re strong, or you're fast. You make a decision every day to keep getting up and help people. I’m proud of you for that.”
He smiled, keeping his eyes on the ceiling in case he started crying. “Thanks. Um. I like, love you too, and stuff.”
“Wonderful to hear,” he teased. “But I also came up here for another reason.”
“Yeah?” Mark’s brow pinched.
“You’re going to be late for school if you don’t get a move on.”
“Oh shit!”
They had argued, loudly, when Debbie was pregnant with Mark. In the early months, before anything was noticeable, she had still gone out there. Flown through chemical fires. Been shot at, thrown around. Gone off into space being exposed to who knew what.
She told him she was fine, and their boy had been born healthy, but no matter what she was, Nolan still worried. It wasn't just the baby he had been scared for, it had been her too, but he hadn't been brave enough to place all his fears out in the open. He hadn't wanted her to think he didn't think she was capable, but surely she had to know the worry came from care. He loved her. The idea of her being hurt was amorphous because it never happened, but it still haunted him. The idea of losing her one day. Having her home those few months had been wonderful, though he knew they made her restless.
She has gone back earlier than he would have liked. By that point it was less worry about safety, and more the general terror of suddenly being a father. There was so much more joy than fear, though. He wondered how she could stand to be away from Mark for most of the day. They had made this tiny, perfect person, how had she not wanted to marvel at him? One day while more than a little sleep deprived, he had even asked her.
She had told him that humanity was making it real damn difficult not to want to leave them alone, to just spend her days with them, but she had to keep trying. For him. For Mark.
It took him a while to realize where that pessimistic answer had come from. The magazines had just released articles on her return to the public eye debating if her breasts had gotten bigger while she was gone, or if they simply hadn't seen them in awhile and had forgotten how good they looked in her suit. Sometimes, it didn't take that much to make him wonder about why she was bothering with humans as a species to begin with. He was glad she did, so glad to have met her, but sometimes, yeah, humans were sleazy assholes.
She had wanted to keep trying, for all of them, though.
Her refusal to assist Mark with Titan and Machine Head had felt like a sudden smack in the face. One more way she was pulling away from him. He had thought their talk while Mark had gone to Mars had been the beginning of things getting back to normal. Of them fixing the breaks.
I just feel like with everything that’s been happening lately, we’re all slipping away from each other. It’s like I barely see you or Mark anymore, and now he’s in space-
I’m not going anywhere, Nolan.
How often did the Guardians promise that to the people they cared about?
That’s not just some promise, nothing can keep me away from you or Mark. I’m here. We’re going to get through this.
Their son had almost died, and all she could say was that Mark shouldn’t have tried? That there were people out there who didn’t deserve their help? Nolan wouldn’t even be able to argue if he opened his mouth, he would just yell. So he stayed silent. He watched over Mark as he got out of surgery. She came in and out of his room, never lingering long. He wasn’t certain if the anger radiating off of him was keeping her at bay, or if she just wanted to leave but didn’t want him to know it. If nothing could truly stop her, how had she allowed this to happen?
Mark was up and moving again, though a part of him still felt like he was walking on eggshells. He had barely gotten things patched up with Amber, and it felt like he still had so much he was supposed to talk about with his mom. His dad just wanted him to stay in bed and recover, but honestly, Mark needed to move. It helped him feel better.
He crept out onto the roof, deciding a little midnight flying wouldn’t hurt anyone, only to find his mom looking up at the stars. He froze. Just because he needed to talk to her didn’t mean he felt ready to talk to her.
She patted the roof tiles next to her without turning back to look at him. Mark still didn’t get how she did that, it wasn’t like they had super hearing or anything. He joined her, wrapping his arms around his legs, trying not to let his nerves show.
“It’s so hard to see the stars here,” she said.
“We could go up.” The first time he had gone up and truly seen the sky, the galaxy, clear and present and shining, it had stolen his breath. Plus y’know, the lack of atmosphere had helped that along a bit too, but it had been stunning.
“Not tonight. Your father is worried enough as it is.”
“I’m feeling great,” Mark insisted, not thinking about the persistent aches around the still bruised parts of his body.
“I know.”
He looked back at his hands, not certain if she had caught the lie. “Mom, about everything that happened with Machine Head, I just- I’m s-”
She leaned against his side, still looking up at the sky rather at him. “You’re my son. You’re perfect. Don’t apologize.”
He closed his eyes, leaning back against her. Her shoulder seemed to press right into one of his bruised bones, but he ignored it so he could stay close to her.
Nolan went downstairs, made coffee, resisted the urge to text Mark and double check when he would be back today (he was doing his best not to hover since the near death experience) and kissed Debbie on the cheek before she went out on patrol. He would have preferred it if she stayed home so they could talk a bit more, but he was trying to take things slow on that front. He didn’t want to push her into a confrontation.
He finished his coffee, news on low in the background so he could look up occasionally and try to catch a glimpse of his wife while she was working. There were dedicated hero chaser networks, but he preferred less reality-TV based sources.
So it was a bit surprising to look up and see her already plastered on the screen less than an hour after she left. The news anchor warned viewers that the images may be graphic.
Debbie hovered over a shoreline somewhere, looking down at some great tentacled beast collapsed in the sand. Immortal burst across the screen, slamming into her.
Murderer. Betrayer.
She kicked off his chest, separating them. They weren’t apart for long. She dove right at him- right through him- practically bursting him in two in a spray of viscera and bone. She wiped her hand across her face like the blood there was a particularly annoying bit of rain. She vanished up into the clouds and out of the view of the phone camera that had caught everything.
Nolan stared forward, mind not processing what he had just seen.
Immortal was dead. That couldn’t have been Immortal.
Debbie wouldn’t-
Debbie didn’t-
Murderer.
No.
That wasn’t his wife. Why would-
He jumped as his front door was kicked in. He just stared wide eyed at the gunmen who surrounded him. Donald appeared behind them all, standing in his now broken doorway.
“Nolan, I’m afraid you need to come with us.”
“I-” his eyes darted around his living room, drawn back to the TV. There were just talking heads now, and bold accusations scrolling across the bottom of the screen. KILLER? POSSIBLE CONNECTION TO GUARDIANS’ DEATHS “I-” He looked back at Donald. “I need to call Mark.” His son wasn’t supposed to be home until later today. What if he saw the news? Of course he was going to see the news. He had to talk to him. He needed to talk to him. Was he okay?
“You can try and reach him in the car.”
Try? “Has something happened to Mark?”
Donald gestured, and someone dragged Nolan towards the door. He was a little surprised he didn’t fall over, it took him a moment to realize his legs worked. He needed to call his son. He needed to call Debbie- he- fuck. What was happening?
He was going to be sick. He got into the car without puking, but it was a close thing. He held his phone in his hand for several minutes before he remembered he had to dial.
Mark wasn’t answering his phone.
Why wasn’t Mark answering his phone?
His sweaty hands left streaks across his phone screen. What if he called Debbie? Would she even answer? Did he want her to? Wouldn’t it be better to know for sure? His eyes darted up to where Donald was driving, then back down to his phone.
Nolan called his wife.
At least it was ringing, unlike when he called his son. What if it just rang forever and-
“Nolan? ”
He bent double in his seat, hand over his face, tears in his eyes. She sounded so normal. She sounded fine. What if it was just some doppelganger on the news? Someone who had stolen her face? She was alright, she hadn’t done this. Someone was just trying to hurt her. “Debbie,” he gasped out in relief.
“I know things are… confusing right now, but you’ll understand. Once I get Mark home, you’ll understand.”
Knowing both of them were alright would do a lot to help calm him down right then. “He’s not answering his phone.”
“I’ll find him.”
“Who is doing this?” He knew she had enemies, but this was insane.
“Just wait. You’ll both understand soon.”
Nolan slowly sat back up, noticing Donald’s nervous expression darting to him through the rearview mirror. “Debbie,” he stopped reacting and started listening. “Tell me you didn’t do this.”
“You’ll understand,” she insisted.
What could there possibly be to understand that would make this alright? He couldn’t make his throat cooperate. He couldn’t speak. He just heard wind and static. She had to be flying while she was talking.
The call ended.
Nolan let his phone drop into his lap and didn’t try and call anyone else.
He got coaxed out of the car much more gently than he had been put into it. Cecil looked uncharacteristically apologetic when he was brought before him.
“Debbie, she,” the words tried to stick in Nolan’s throat, not wanting to come out, “she killed the Guardians.” Saying it out loud was like casting some spell, the world got a little sharper. Or maybe that was just an adrenaline burst of terror hitting his system.
Cecil sighed. “We suspected she might have been involved, if Immortal had come to us rather than running off on a revenge mission, this spectacle could have been avoided.”
He needed to move. He needed to run. He had to do something. His feet stayed planted where they were. “You… suspected?”
“We got a tip from Damien Darkblood, not that we didn’t have our own investigation going.”
Who? “This doesn’t make any sense. Why would she do this?”
“That’s what we were trying to find out. Thanks to Immortal, we’ve run out of time to get those answers. Donald says you had her on the phone for a minute.”
“She didn’t-” he squeezed his eyes shut. “-she just said I would understand.”
“Do you?”
“What?”
“Do you think you understand why she’s doing this?”
What kind of fucking ridiculous question was that? “Cecil, I had no idea that this was even a possibility, and now-” his heart jolted in his chest. “She’s going after Mark. She said she wanted to bring him home. I don’t know what she’s going to do.”
“We’re trying to find your son.”
“He was supposed to be visiting a college, how hard can he be to find. He’s with his friends.”
“We’ll find him,” Cecil tried to assure him. “Right now our priority should be slowing down Debbie.”
“You can track her?”
“She’s moving fast enough our satellites have picked her up.”
“What do you- what do you mean by slow down?”
Apparently he meant dropping an orbital laser on his wife. Not that it seemed to do anything more than irritate her. She destroyed the satellite and threw the debris at several neighboring relays, briefly cutting out their video feed as she effortlessly disrupted communications across the entire planet by essentially tossing rocks.
Cecil decided to take a more personal approach, after that. Watching them on the monitor was like watching the news report with Debbie and Immortal all over again. It didn’t make sense. How was that his wife?
"What about Nolan huh, doesn’t he deserve to know why this is happening?"
"Don't bring up my husband."
She sounded so cold. So indifferent.
“And what about Mark? Does he know his mother-”
Nolan instinctively stepped forward as the teleporter flashed. He had thought she caught him, he had thought he was done for, but he’d made it back. An arterial spray of blood splattered across the technicians as Cecil finished materializing. Nolan froze before reaching him.
"Just bring in a fucking clamp," Cecil shouted from where he crumpled on the floor.
A team burst in from the hallway. They must have been on call the moment he began teleporting out to bait her into slowing down.
"Just get me back up," his voice had already lost most of its volume.
"We'll let you stay conscious, director, but you're going into surgery."
Cecil grimaced, eyes looking over the people clamping his torn artery and fussing over his missing limb, towards where the large monitor displayed Debbie, already on the move. There was a pulpy mess on the earth beneath her, shown by a separate drone. She had crushed the arm she had taken from him, guaranteeing it could not be reattached. Cecil tilted his head to the side and vomited on his remaining arm.
Nolan looked away, pressing his hand to his mouth to stop himself from puking and to try and block the smell of blood.
The news was supposed to be wrong. They were ridiculous. They fucked up. His mother had told him about all the times they had misreported on stories about her. This was just another one.
Except the story she was telling him was somehow so much worse.
“You’ll live for thousands of years.” She reached out, gently cradling the side of his face. “You can’t spend them here.”
He shook his head, eyes blurry with tears, pulling away from her touch. "But you were happy here.” Couldn’t he have that too? What did Viltrum matter? Earth was his home.
“Happy?” She spat, gentle expression cracking into a snarl. “I spent twenty years being demeaned by ants who could barely stomach the thought of their own salvation being brought to them on a silver platter. I would rather see this planet burn than live another moment here.”
Her sudden fury nearly choked him. He had never heard his mother hate something so profoundly before. "No. No you can't believe that,” Mark insisted. There was good, she fought for it. “You save people. I've seen you. You risked your life to save them."
"This is how I save them.” She held out her arms. “By bringing them into the empire. These animals hardly have any idea how not to kill themselves. They're actively destroying their own lives, their own planet. They will be better for this."
“No- no, I’m going to stop you.”
“Mark,” there was a warning edge to her voice, nothing like the exasperation which she used to use to send him to his room. “You can’t even hit me.”
He didn’t want to hurt her. They didn’t have to fight. Why couldn’t they just figure this out? There had to be another answer. “We can stop this- you can stop this- you don’t have to-”
She hit him. For a moment, Mark thought that what had happened to Immortal was going to happen to him. That she would go right through him, that he would be hollowed out, but the world spun, he spun, and the sky and the horizon rushed by as he flew, though not as he normally did. It was so hard to breathe. She had hit him. It was so much worse than before.
The buildings barely slowed him down, he had to drag his hands into the street to fully stop. His heart pounded like a drum and the ringing in his ears was like crashing cymbals. He took a deep breath choked with rubble and dust, then the wave of screams washed over him. The sobbing. The confusion. So many people. How were there so many people who needed help? He had to start somewhere. His hands seemed to sink through the brick building like mud as he tried to stop it.
He tried to stop it.
He tried.
His mother hovered above him. “Why are you wasting your time? You could give them something better. Do you think they’ll care about surviving today if they can’t pay their mortgage tomorrow?”
It was so hard to bring his arms back up. So hard to regain his feet. He had tried. “You can’t… enslave people. I’m going… to stop you.”
“Every decision they made has led them here. We would be stopping them from making it worse.”
“How can you call this better? ” He nearly screamed. You have to realize your opponent won't hold back. And you can't either. No matter what they look like.
Mark swung at her. A full bodied swing, bringing all of his momentum up from his toes into his fist. She caught his hand like it was nothing, though there was a flash of what might have been a smile on her face. She grabbed the front of his shirt with her other hand and threw him. Color and light and warmth and the world faded away below him. He was almost out among the stars when she caught up to him.
“Look at what’s out there, Mark. Look.” It was empty and dark and so fucking cold. “You have the right to seize it. You’re my son.”
Hers, hers. A Viltrumite. Wasn’t he human too? “What about dad?" There wasn’t enough atmosphere here, he hadn’t been able to breathe in before she brought him up. The edges of his vision were going dark.
"Your father..." she closed her eyes, turning her head away for a moment. When she looked back at him, she just seemed to pity him. "What was I to him but something that made him feel better about himself? The people here are just going to use you, Mark. You're better than that. Better than them."
“So… I should… destroy them?”
“They’re already doing that to themselves.” She kicked him, sending his body hurtling back towards Earth. It had only been a few months ago when she taught him how to divert an asteroid. Would he do as much damage as one as he impacted?
He wasn’t sure where he hit. The roar that rose up to meet him this time wasn’t people shrieking in terror. The mountain smothered him in rock and snow. It was almost… quiet for a moment, with just tears and blood nearly freezing against his skin. Did his blood even freeze now? Would it keep him warm while he suffocated? What was the better outcome here?
A hand fished him out of his natural tomb and dragged him to a freshly exposed cliff face. His mother dropped him, stepping away a moment so all his blurry eyes could see was her back.
“Think about what you could truly accomplish here. If these ‘people’ weren’t holding you back.” Her hands were on her hips as she looked out at something Mark couldn’t see. She slowly turned back around towards him. The red of her uniform stood out so sharply. It was the only thing he could see clearly. She came back to his side, crouching down and running her fingers through his hair. “We could have built something perfect here.”
Mark wanted to drift away to that touch. To the comfort of sitting in her lap as a child while she let him doodle all over her papers. To his father telling him such wonderful, fantastical stories that were true, they were all true. “...already… was.”
She grabbed his face and slammed his head back against the mountain. Not being able to draw breath for a moment probably kept him from sucking down more of his own blood. Even through the ringing in his ears, and the pain desperate to make him drift away, he could hear her scream of frustration.
The ground seemed to shake for a moment, had she started another avalanche? But no blanket of cold darkness came.
"Mom?" He wheezed out. He couldn't hear anything. A bubble of blood across his lips kept him from crying out again. He wasn’t sure if it was dark because his eyes refused to open or not. Mom, he wanted to scream. Like he was a kid and there was a monster under his bed and she had to scare it away before it got him. She had gotten to him. She’d gotten him.
There was no more worry about the cold when he was numb.
Mark woke up. That was supposed to be a good thing, right?
The hospital room at the GDA was almost familiar by now. It looked like his dad hadn't shaved in awhile, salt and pepper scruff darkening his chin. There were heavy bags under his eyes, and they were bloodshot, making their blue color stand out even more intensely than usual. He smiled softly, reaching out to gently brush back Mark's hair. "Hey, kiddo. You did amazing, out there."
Mark tried to shake his head, and just ended up squeezing his eyes shut. He still felt the tears burning his cheeks. At least they were warm.
It took a moment for his father's hand to fall away.
"I'll get you some water," his voice was hoarse.
He heard him step out into the hall. Mark wasn’t sure which of them started sobbing first.
Nolan had come into this room for coffee, he was pretty sure. At some point he had sat down and was now just staring at a wall. It took him a moment to realize he was no longer alone. He was too tired to flinch at the sight of Cecil, still missing an arm but walking around as if everything was business as usual. He was pretty sure he had heard someone mention he was getting a mechanical replacement fitted on once he was more healed.
"We've been reviewing her old building sites," Cecil spoke as he took the seat next to him.
On top of the relief efforts? How did they even have the resources? Were they that worried about ticking time bombs? Did they really think she had been able to construct weapons into the buildings she had designed? Nolan supposed they couldn't be too sure of anything, these days. "Yeah?" He mustered in response, letting Cecil know he was listening.
"Do you recognize these?"
He set a photo down. Nolan scrubbed at his eyes to try and wipe the grit from them and blinked down at the image. He picked it up, breath catching in his throat. "Where was this?"
"We did deep scans of all the buildings. This was in the foundation of one."
What the fuck? What was he supposed to do with this? He couldn't take his eyes off the picture. "Did you find anything else? In the other buildings?"
"Nolan-"
"Show me."
Cecil had the pictures with him. At least he respected that he had been likely to ask. He took in the odd little collection desperately. An imprint of Mark's foot when he was a baby- Jesus, she had probably taken him out to the construction site in the middle of the night and done it while Nolan was sleeping. A photo of them as a family at some fast food spot when Mark was still small, they were way overdressed for the location. They had been at an awards ceremony and left early because he had gotten fussy. She had won something that night, if he was remembering correctly, but apparently this was the moment she wanted to hold on to, not the award. Pieces of broken plates with her and Nolan's names still clumsily carved into the bottom. He had tried every stupid romantic cliche and indulgence he could with her, claimed to want to give her the full breadth of the human experience, but mostly he’d been too poor to be able to afford to do anything fancy for her. The pottery class had just been a local course he signed them up for. When one of the plates had broken he had been sad, but it wasn't well constructed enough for him to want to try and put it back together. She had broken the other one so they could still match. Had she fished them out of the trash, or had he not noticed her taking the bits and pieces? An award Nolan had gotten for the YA novel he wrote based off of the stories he used to tell Mark, about the wizard and the prince. He had been genuinely upset when he hadn't been able to find it, and apparently she had stolen it and put it in the foundation of some fucking building.
And the first photo that Cecil had needed clarification on, "our engagement rings. We thought- I thought we lost them when... we went swimming. She took us somewhere warm, I don't remember, we were just celebrating- I... fuck." He finally looked away. What the fuck was this? Her keepsake vault? He pressed his face into his hands and felt his tears leaking out under his palms. "Fuck," he said again.
"Do you want anything we recovered?"
He dropped his hands from his face. "No." Yes. Not the things, just the idea that his wife didn't hate him. Had actually enjoyed her life here. He quickly stacked the photos, giving his hands something to do, turning them towards the table so he wouldn't be able to look at them anymore. "No, Cecil. I don't want any of it." He stood up, looking for the coffee cup he had brought in with him. "I need to get back to Mark."
Cecil didn’t try to stop him. Nolan made it back to his son’s room on autopilot. His feet had the route between him and the coffee maker ingrained in them by now. He didn’t sit. He tried to forget, he wanted to forget everything Cecil had just showed him.
That’s not just some promise, nothing can keep me away from you or Mark.
God, Nolan hoped that wasn’t true.