Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

"You need your own place. For when Mark visits you. No. You can't just 'use the house', it's my fucking house. The whole point of you moving out was that you don't live here anymore."

Mark ate his sandwich. His mom had left the room to talk on the phone, at first her voice had been quiet enough he couldn't make out the words, but she had been getting louder. He decided he was going to tell her that he had heard a bad word, but not that he knew it was her who said it.

When he tried to pick up his cup, he knocked it on to his plate. He was not going to eat a damp sandwich. "Mooooooooooooooommm. "

Sometimes he had to yell really loud before she would walk into a room. Particularly if she was on the phone. She didn’t used to spend so much time walking out of rooms he was in. He didn’t like the phone anymore, even the game where he used to pretend to call her and they would talk with books pressed up against their ears. When they were done talking she would take the book from his ear and read it to him.

Now the phone interrupted food time, and book time.

Mark's dad was crouching down next to him, one of Mark's toys in his hand. Mark had handed it to him when he came into the room, but he hadn't done anything with it. Sometimes it took dad so long to realize he was supposed to be playing.

"Your mom said something to me the other day that I don't think is true."

"What?" Had mom told a lie? That would be so bad.

"She said you don't notice when I'm not here."

Mark laughed. "That's silly."

His dad smiled. "I thought so too."

"You're really big. You're so big sometimes it's like you're the biggest thing in the room!" A less happy thought suddenly came to Mark. "You must be so big you've forgotten I'm in the room. I don't want you to do that."

"I- no. I haven't. I just meant, I'm not around for when we eat all the time anymore."

"Mommy and I eat together alone all the time." Mark didn't know what his dad meant. Meal time had almost always been mommy time. Before the phone calls, at least.

"Well," his dad said. "The other times. When we’re just at the house together."

"When I'm not at school?" Kindergarten was alright most days, but getting to leave was still a pretty big highlight. Mom wrapping him in a hug and asking about his day was pretty great. He supposed if he didn't go he wouldn't be able to tell her about it.

"Yeah, then."

Mark put his hand on the toy his dad was holding. "You're supposed to be playing with that."

He wiggled it in the air above Mark's head.

Mark sighed. "I'm not a baby."

His dad stilled. "No. You're not. Which is why I know you know when I'm not here."

"Of course. I'd know if you weren't here. You're so big," Mark reminded him.

His dad was just staring at him. He did not have to explain play time to mommy the way he did to dad. "Right."

Mark and his dad used to go on little trips together. Sometimes with mom, sometimes without. There was generally so much to look at the places they went together. Lately though, they had just been going to a really boring place. Normally they didn't go to the same place again and again, but they kept going back there. It was just a living room that didn't have any of his toys in it. The bathroom was boring too. He had to use a bar of soap, instead of the fuzzy kind that squirt into his hand that he could make a beard with if mom wasn't watching. Though sometimes she would put some on her hands and give him a beard herself, and then he would be allowed to give her one in turn. He liked that more than the times he got told to be mindful of the amount of soap he was using. Didn’t more soap mean he would be more clean anyway?

When he asked to go home, or got bored, his dad didn't seem to know what to do. Typically if he complained enough, his dad would eventually take him somewhere interesting, but they always went back to the boring place. Sometimes Mark was even expected to sleep there, in a bed that felt too big, which was when he realized that boring place had somehow become his dad's place.

His dad had a house and his mom had a house. He didn't get why they couldn't just share anymore. He had a special bag his mom helped him pack before she brought him over to his dad’s. Sometimes Mark hid it, figuring if he didn’t have his stuff, he wouldn’t have to go. Mom always found it though. He didn’t get why dad couldn’t just come to him where his stuff was, because sometimes his things got left at mom’s or dad’s when he wasn’t with them, and they just told him he had to wait to see his missing things again. It was easier to forget stuff at his dad’s. When he was with his mom she always checked his bag with him and told him when they were leaving. When he was with dad, generally he would just scoop Mark up and tell him they had to head out. One time Mark hadn’t even been able to grab his bag, and mom had gotten really mad at dad.

Sometimes when his dad dropped him off late at night back at mom's house he was still there in the morning and had breakfast with them. His mom didn’t talk a lot those mornings, but dad would let him put extra syrup on his pancakes.

Mark didn’t remember ever hearing the word divorced, but he knew now that’s what his parents were. Some of the kids in his class also had divorced parents. Apparently, sometimes when your parents got divorced, it meant you got other parents after. Mark didn’t know what he would do with another set of parents. Would he have to split his time between all of them? Mostly he was with his mom, only spending certain weekends with his dad. Would they come up with entire new weeks for him to have to spend with a new mom and dad in?

When he asked his mom about it, she told him if he was ever going to get a new parent, he would get to meet them first and decide whether or not he wanted them. That was good to know. He had thought they were just going to show up one day, but it was nice to know he would get some warning.

He tried to explain this parent gaining process to his dad on their next weekend together, so that he could know that Mark already knew all about it. His dad seemed to think it was really cool when Mark already knew things. Except his dad told him he was always going to be his dad, because he was special and couldn’t be replaced. This meant Mark was special too.

Mostly, Mark was worried that if a parent could be replaced, that meant you could lose one. He hadn’t thought about losing anyone before. Dad hadn’t said anything about mom not always going to be his mom. What if she disappeared?

“Mark. It’s important you understand why we’re different.”

“I’m different?”

“You will be, one day. You'll get flight just like me, strength and speed."

"Flight?"

Mark went up into the sky all the time with his dad. He didn't get dizzy up there, even when the world went all slanty. Maybe his stomach felt funny because his feet were still on the ground. Well. The roof.

"Mark?" His mom's voice came from the open window behind him. He had told her he was going upstairs to his room, and he had, it was just he had gone to the window right after. Why was it that when he left his room, even without announcing it, she seemed to know.

He bit his lip and tried to stay real quiet.

"Mark?"

He crouched down, figuring he could hide underneath the windowsill.  He wrapped his arms around his knees, and tipped sideways. Mark shouted as his ear smashed into the roof tiles, beginning to roll down. It felt different than rolling down a hill. The world stopped spinning and he felt like he was choking. He reached up to pull his shirt away from his neck, when he realized he was being held up. He looked over his shoulder to see his mom hanging out of the window, clutching on to his shirt.

When she pulled him back inside she shouted a lot of words, but mostly she just clung to him. He tried to explain he was just trying to fly, but she told him he had to stay in his room and got real quiet. Mark knew he wasn’t supposed to argue. His stomach still felt like it was flipping around and his scratched ear hurt, so he decided not to complain.

"Fucking Christ Nolan what did you say to him, he almost jumped off the roof-"

"He gets to know about his heritage-"

"We said we would wait-"

"We said a lot of things that clearly didn't mean anything."

"Fuck you."

Mark laid on his bed and kicked his heels against his mattress. If he kicked hard enough he could almost drown out the sound of his parents yelling at each other.

Mark woke up and called out for his dad. When he heard nothing, he slid off his bed and crept out into the hallway. He needed to pee, but he didn’t like going to the bathroom at night here. It was dark at dad’s house. He didn’t have the little lights that went along the floor. Whenever he told his dad the dark was scary, he would just take Mark to the window and point to the stars and tell him the dark wasn’t anything to be scared of.

There weren’t any stars inside the house, though.

“Dad?” His voice didn’t seem to reach out into the dark. Mark turned back towards his bed, heartbeat picking up. His bed looked so much farther away than it should be. The dark strip of shadows underneath it seemed to be pushing the blankets up higher, away from him. If he wanted to get back to bed he had to get past that.

He sprinted forward and jumped as high as he could, belly flopping onto his bed. Nothing had managed to grab him, though his ankles itched like monsters were still reaching for him. He tugged at his blankets, wrapping them around himself and burrowing his face against his pillow.

Had the dark eaten up his dad? Why hadn’t he heard him? He whined against his pillow and tried not to cry. Then he heard a door open in the house and his breath froze in his mouth.

Something was moving through the house! It knew dad was gone and was coming to get him. He opened his mouth to cry out again, but only a croak made it out. He just had to try and stay still, and maybe it wouldn’t see him.

The door to his room opened and he squeezed his eyes shut. They tried to be quiet as they kept closer, but he could still hear them. He whimpered.

"Mark?"

"Mom?" His eyes burst open and he almost leapt out of the bed.

"Oh, honey." She wrapped her arms around him.

He whined and buried his face against her, clinging to her as tight as he could. She held him, hand soothing his back, murmuring to him softly. She rocked him back and forth, and eventually it felt like his eyes had fallen shut rather than were squeezed. When she laid him back against the bed, she stayed curled up with him, and he forgot that it was still dark.

Mom was better than the stars. Mark couldn’t hug the stars.

When Mark woke up he was still at his dad’s. He didn’t see his mom, which was disappointing, but not surprising. Dad was sometimes at mom’s, but mom wasn’t ever at dad’s. He slid off the bed, and walked towards the door. With the sun up, going out into the hall and going to the bathroom didn’t seem so scary.

He was halfway down the hallway when he heard his parents’ voices.

"You can't just fucking leave him alone, Nolan, he's a child."

"He was asleep. I was supposed to ignore a kaiju alert?"

"You said you could handle this."

"He's fine. I am."

"I can get here, but what about when you're out with him? Are you just going to leave him in a god damn park while you go punch something?"

"You want me to take him with me?"

"Of course not. I want you to be able to make him a fucking priority. I'm not going to leave him with you if you aren't going to be here."

"You’re the one who wanted to try split custody."

“Clearly that was a mistake.”

“I can still come see him.”

“Can you? I'm not dropping him off anymore. You actually want to see your son? Then fucking put aside the time."

Mark was almost done with second grade. After kindergarten, school seemed not as fun. Sitting still for so long was so boring. The teacher was talking, and he knew he was supposed to be listening, but most of the time it wasn’t even interesting. They talked about all kinds of things he couldn’t do. He just had to hear about them. Sometimes he was supposed to talk to people about other things, which was at least something to do, though it wasn’t as fun as running around in the grass.

He was supposed to ask his parents what they did for work and present it to the class. Mark didn’t really think about what his parents did when he wasn’t with them, though he knew work was probably it. Work was also why his dad didn’t always spend the entire weekend with him. Work and dad were why mom was on the phone a lot. Mark still didn’t like it when either of his parents answered the phone while he was in the room.

Mark was actually supposed to see his dad this weekend, so he would get to ask him what he did. His mom always told him when it was time for his dad to show up, but he didn’t always do it. Mark would just sit in his room when he didn’t show up. Sometimes, he wondered if his mom was lying to him, but he didn’t tell her that.

He asked mom about her work while they waited for dad. Mark already had his bag and everything. Mom helped him spell some words, but he wasn’t writing that much down. He wanted to know what dad did. If he spent so much time away, he had to have a big job. A job as big as him. It had to be more interesting than houses, since it was apparently more interesting than Mark.

His dad showed up, and Mark ran to the door so fast he left behind his bag and his paper with his writing about mom.

Dad had told him they were going to have dinner before he would answer any questions. His dad moved really fast, Mark still couldn’t do that, so it wasn’t as long of a wait like when mom said they had to wait for food. He still bounced on his seat from the anticipation. Once Mark got his powers he was going to make both his parents move faster.

When dad did start answering Mark’s questions, it was really confusing. He also wasn’t helping Mark spell anything. He gave up trying to write things down pretty quickly. He also didn’t know why his dad had brought up superheroes. How did some people have two jobs? Where did they get the time? The jobs his parents had already seemed to take up so much of their time.

"Mom's a superhero?"

"What? No. Why would you think that?"

"She always has so many meetings and she runs around a lot."

"That's not what being a superhero is."

"But you said special people do two things sometimes, one thing everyone knows about and one thing they don't." He knew she was his mom, was the other job with the houses a superhero thing?

"I'm a superhero."

"Really?"

"Yes."

"Are all dads superheroes?"

"No."

“What hero are you?” Mom didn’t always let him watch the news when heroes were on it. She said some of the stuff they did was scary, and he didn’t need to see it until he was older. He just watched it when he was at a friend’s house. A lot of the time the videos were of heroes waving before flying or running off, but other times, they were zooming around so fast you couldn’t tell who they were, and everything around them was grainy. His friend told him that was because everything was covered in blood and the news could only show so much blood in one day. His friend also knew how to find pictures that showed all the blood so it wasn’t covered up by the news.

Mark didn’t think blood was scary, he didn’t know why his mom did.

“You don’t recognize me?” His dad raised an eyebrow.

“Daad ,” Mark tugged on his arm. “You have to tell me. It’s for school.”

“Well, if it’s for school.” His dad used his tone of voice that meant he wasn’t really interested in what Mark had just said.

Mark let go of his dad and sat back down at the table. He knew how to get his dad to tell him. “I guess I’ll just tell the class about mom. No one thinks I have a dad anyway.”

His dad went completely still, and Mark knew he had won.

After Mark gave his report that his dad was Omni-Man, the teacher made him stay after school while she talked to his mom. It was stupid. Everyone had laughed at him and called him a liar. None of them were in trouble even though Mark had been telling the truth. He had explained all this to mom, and while she hadn’t looked happy, she hadn’t accused him of lying either. Had she always known dad was Omni-Man?

Mom was quiet when they drove back to her house. The car was so much slower than when his dad flew him places. She helped him take his shoes off once they got inside, even though he didn’t need her too.

“I’m not a liar,” Mark said.

“I know that.” She didn’t look at him, still staring at his shoes. “You still have to apologize to the class.”

“Why? They were making fun of me!”

“I know they were being very mean. They shouldn’t have done that.”

“Are they going to apologize?”

Her lips pressed into a thin line for a moment. “No.”

“Then I’m not going to!”

“Mark… Sometimes… sometimes it’s important that people don’t know some things. You know how you aren’t supposed to talk to strangers?”

“I’ve known my friends and my teacher since forever.” School felt like forever. Like his parents being divorced. There was a time before, but he didn’t really remember it.

“I know that, sweetie. It’s just, your dad shouldn’t have talked to you about being Omni-Man.”

“He knows who I am! Dad’s not a stranger!” Mark could feel panic beginning to squeeze his body. He felt too hot. He was so mad. “You can’t keep him away. He has to know who I am.” He ran for the stairs to get to his room. He and his dad weren’t strangers. They got to talk to each other. He didn’t want to not talk to his dad.

Normally Mark had warning before his dad showed up, so when he came home after little league and he was at mom’s house, he gave his leg a big hug and didn't want to let go. The mom of the friend who was dropping him off also seemed surprised to see him. She didn’t seem to know what to do, even when Mark explained that this was his dad.

“Debbie’s in the shower, thanks for dropping Mark off.”

She smiled thinly and eventually left.

“What are you doing here?” Mark liked it when his dad picked him up, even though he wasn’t a little baby anymore. Mom always crouched down to look him in the eye, but his dad just picked him up.

“I had to talk to your mom, and it made me realize I have to say a few things to you, too.”

“About what?”

“You know how I talked about being a superhero?”

“Yeah.” Mark still hated that he had to apologize to the whole class for that. Standing in front of everyone was scary enough, but after they had laughed at him he really didn’t like it. Especially when his teacher and his mom were making him lie when he hadn’t done anything wrong.

“Well I forgot to mention how important secret identities are.”

“But I don’t know what your other job is!” Mark insisted. That was the important thing, right? Not knowing what the second job was?

His dad stared at him a moment. “Right. See, being Omni-Man is something you and your mom get to know. Being a writer is what you tell everyone else.”

“You’re a writer?”

“Yes.”

“Can you read me one of your books?”

“Maybe another time, kiddo.”

The next time Mark went to his house, he was going to make sure his dad read him one of his books. Or maybe Mark could read to his dad. Mom was saying he was getting really good at reading. “Are you going to come to my game?”

“Hm?”

“I’ve been practicing.” Mark tugged at the shirt of his uniform. He had been so excited to see his dad he had forgotten to change.

“Oh. Well. Maybe, I’ll have your mom tell me when it is.”

Mark ended up not making it to the game, so he had no idea if his dad showed up or not. Some people at school who had already known dad was Omni-Man had come and talked to him, and because his dad had such an important job, they had told Mark that he also had a very important job. It wasn’t like Mark had told them anything, they had already known. That was fine, right? They weren’t lying.

He had been excited for the job until he realized it was just sitting in a boring room while people talked on the phone.

Mark’s nose really itched, but he didn’t want to scratch it. He had been taken to a hospital even though he wasn’t hurt and all he had been allowed to do was sleep. And scratch his nose. If he didn’t scratch it right then and kept his eyes closed, he would have something to do later.

"There's positions here. Analysts."

"You expect me to want to be your goddamn secretary?"

"Secretary is a different position, but if you think you can manage my calendar I'm sure Donald would appreciate it."

"I- no, I'm... sorry. I just- this isn't what..."

"If you prefer a new identity, we can do that."

"I don't want to do that to Mark."

"He's young, he might forget more than you think."

"I think you're forgetting who Nolan is."

Mark's really nose itched, and he scratched it before he could stop himself. Now he wouldn’t have anything to do later. His mom got quiet, and he felt her fingers move through his hair. It was nice. He opened his eyes, and she smiled at him. He didn’t see whoever she had been talking to.

Mom called the new place 'home' but everyone around them called it a barracks. There weren't any windows, but there was a tv that looked like one that Mark could turn on and off. Changing the channels made the seasons change.

It was cool, but there was no backyard and he wasn't supposed to run around as much as he wanted to. There wasn’t an upstairs like there had been at the house. His room was in the same hallway as his mom’s, and not all of his stuff from home fit in it.

It was almost as boring as dad’s had been, before Mark got enough stuff for it. There were a lot of people Mark didn’t know there, and he mostly stayed with his mom. When he asked if he could leave to see his friends or play baseball, she told him he would be going to a new school and making new friends. Some of them would hopefully play baseball with him. He told her he didn’t want new friends, and even when he cried she didn’t tell him he could have even one of his old friends over. Mark didn’t like crying, but there wasn’t anyone around to see it and call him a baby, so it wasn’t that bad.

He didn’t want to eat dinner and just laid in bed. He wasn’t really sleeping, so it wasn’t difficult to wake up when he heard the door open. All the sounds in the barracks were so new. It made them loud.

He heard his mom slowly move across the room. The bed dipped as she got up behind him, wrapping him in her arms. When she kissed the top of his head he tried not to scrunch up his face at the sour smell on her breath.

"Why don't I stay with you anymore?" Mark had thought his dad's place was boring until he had barracks rules.

“Your mom thinks it’s safer here.”

“Wouldn’t it be safer to be with you?” His dad was Omni-Man, didn’t that count for something?

“It is, but I have to keep an eye on a lot of people. No one will get you here.”

Mark didn’t remember too much about when he had been grabbed. They had been pretty nice to him, for people who had been apparently threatening the planet. Mostly he remembered just asking where his parents were and then the Guardians showing up. It had been cool to meet the Guardians, and they had all known who he was. He really was special, if that many superheroes knew who he was.

“You could take me somewhere anyway,” Mark said. School here was even more strict than before. Half the teachers wore uniforms. There weren’t a lot of kids, and all of them were different ages. The only people near his age were Kate and Paul, and they mostly kept to themselves.

“Later, alright kiddo?” His dad ruffled his hair.

Mark didn’t get why his dad was at the barracks at all if he wasn’t here to see him.

Mark didn't spend a lot of time going through all the cabinets and cupboards in their new place. He knew where all his stuff was, in his room, so it wasn't like he really needed anything out here. He wasn't even sure if he was looking for anything in particular when he found it.

A photo album. All the pictures in frames that were out were either of him, or him and his mom, so opening the cover and being confronted with his dad's smiling face was a shock. It was wedding photos. His dad looked the same, except you know, happy. His mom looked different. Young. She was older because she was mom, but he never thought of her as old before. She was definitely just younger in the photos. She was happy too.

Mark flipped through the faces, spotting a few of the Guardians. Mostly it was people he didn't recognize. He didn't see Cecil anywhere. Cecil and his mom talked all the time since they had moved here, but they got quiet when they noticed Mark was in the room.

Most of the photos were of his parents. Dancing. Standing with their hands clasped in front of a big crowd of people. Seated at some banquet table. Kissing. They just... they looked so happy.

Mark slid one of the photos out of the album, turning it over in his hands, half expecting to see the back of heads and the indication they were posing. Facing some audience they were pretending for. It was just the white back of the photo. He turned it back over, staring at his parents' smiling faces. They weren't looking at the camera, just each other.

Wasn't super hard to figure out where things changed for them. He wasn't in any of these photos after all.

Mark's fingers itched, and once he started, he didn't stop. He took each picture out of its sleeve, one at a time, methodical, and tore them to bits.

He didn't hear the front door, just eventually looked up and saw his mother standing in the living room with him. He pushed the almost empty photo album off his lap and fled to his room, heart racing. She was going to yell at him. She was going to tell him to fix it somehow. He didn't know if you could put physical photos back together. She was going to ground him. She was going to call him awful. He felt awful, then he felt angry. Why had she kept a book around that showed her so happy? To rub it in his face? That he wasn't enough? That he'd messed everything up?

The mess was gone in the morning. It took a week for him to check the cabinet for the album, but it was gone too.

His mother never talked about it.

Chapter Text

"Who're you?"

Mark looked up from his book. The girl was wearing bright pink and had red hair. Her mask didn’t really cover her face. Mark decided he liked her face.

"Are you a hero too?" There was a touch of eagerness to her voice.

He hunched his shoulders up to his ears, turning his eyes back to his book. "My mom just works here." He couldn't really convince himself to keep reading.

“Oh. Is she a superhero?”

“No.” His dad used the phrase ‘GDA stooge’, but Mark knew his dad also worked with the GDA. His mom had rather gleefully pointed that out after a couple of glasses of wine at dinner when Mark had mentioned dad didn’t seem to like her working for them.

“Oh.” She stared at him, frowning. “They just let you walk around?”

There were places he wasn’t supposed to go, and his keycard only got him through so many doors. He mostly was in the barracks, the school, or the lobby where he waited for mom. He could go into the room where she worked when the door wasn’t locked, but that wasn’t often. He shrugged for the girl. “Yeah, it’s no big deal.”

“So you’re like… a spy in training?”

A spy? Mark didn’t think anything he did at the school here counted as spy training. He didn’t have powers like some of the other kids did, so he didn’t get to go to those special classes. He shrugged again for the girl, not wanting to say no but hoping she would take it as a yes.

“Well, uh- I’ll see you around, I guess?”

“Yeah. Definitely.” He lowered his book and hastily added, “I’m Mark,” before she could walk away.

She hesitated a moment as she looked back at him. “Eve.” She smiled then walked away, escorted by one of the many silent suits that wandered around the GDA.

Mark hoped he did see her again. He thought about telling Kate there was someone new, but wasn’t sure he should. Kate had only really started talking to him after her brother stopped coming to classes. He didn’t want to lose his only friend. Kate could make it so that there were enough people for them to play baseball together. No one else in their tiny class even bothered to pretend to play.

Mark wasn’t used to anyone but him and his mom coming in and out of their barracks. So when he saw The Immortal, he froze. He walked out the door and down the hallway, and when he noticed Mark he smiled and waved. Mark just stared at him, not sure how to respond. He didn’t stop to say anything, so Mark just went into his room.

When he asked his mom about it over dinner, she just said they worked together sometimes and didn’t even look up from her plate. Superheroes really stopped being interesting once you lived on GDA property. Plus like, his dad and all. Not that he saw his dad all that regularly anymore. Sometimes Mark was certain he saw him walking through the hallway in his Omni-Man uniform more than he saw him as his dad just visiting. There wasn’t really much of a difference, since his dad never said all that much to him either way.

Mark got to see Eve again, though unfortunately she wasn’t alone.

"He's just some kid."

My dad's Omni-Man. Mark clenched his teeth. He knew better than to say that. "We're the same age." Close enough, anyway. Rex seemed a little older, like Kate.

"Uh, no, don't think so. You are baby, I am superhero. That make sense? Or have you not learned math yet?"

"I know how to do math. I also know how to speak, which you clearly never learned." Why would anyone spend any time with this guy?

"Stop it Rex!” Eve rolled her eyes. “He's going to show us around."

Mark had wanted to show her around, but somehow now he had to do it for both of them. He should have invited Kate, she would have helped him make fun of this guy. She could do good pranks, what with the whole duplicating thing.

“What can he show us?” Rex crossed his arms.

Mark had wanted to take the elevator out and show off the small fenced in field where he and Kate played baseball, try and see if Eve also would like to play. Now though, now he knew he needed to show off something bigger.

His mom had taken him into the gun range a few times, to explain to him firearm safety. She had talked a lot about how important it was to understand how dangerous things worked, so you didn’t mishandle them. Mark didn’t understand why his mom talked about guns like she used them when she spent most of her time in a locked room looking at screens.

Mark wasn’t sure why he would need to learn about guns anyway. He was going to have powers. Strength and speed and flight. Guns weren’t going to be dangerous.

He could get them into the range, though he knew you needed special keys to open the cabinets with weapons and the ammo. Neither of them looked particularly impressed with the long stalls and the empty targets, making Mark realize this place was probably only interesting if you were actually shooting something. He walked over to an ammo cabinet and hoped to god he could remember the code his mom had used to open it. There had to be something cool in there to show off.

“Hey, we supposed to be in here?” Rex asked casually.

“Why?” Mark didn’t look away from the lock, hands feeling sweaty.

“Because someone’s coming.”

His head snapped up, and Eve caught the panicked look on his face. She quickly walked over to him, holding out her hand and making the lock spring open in a burst of pink light. “C’mon Rex,” she snapped.

They piled themselves into the ammo cabinet and held the door closed.

It was more than the sound of approaching footsteps that made Mark's heart pound in his chest while his hands started shaking. He recognized the voices.

"-over it."

"You really complaining about Nolan when you trip onto him at least once a year?"

"Excuse me?"

"He's not going to have a reason to go elsewhere if you spread your legs every Christmas after a bottle of wine."

"Go fuck yourself."

"Debbie, is he-"

She laughed. "Only you could call me a whore then ask if I'm getting raped in the same breath. No Cecil, it is all me, thank you for the reminder I'm a wanton little slut. Now, if you’re through bothering me?"

She was going to open their cabinet and find them they were so screwed-

There was the sound of an electronic lock. Mark had no idea what she was storing, but eventually he heard a click and then the sound of her steps retreating.

The three of them tumbled out of the cabinet the moment it was clear.

"Are you a wanton little slut?" Rex poked Eve in the side.

"Ow," she smacked his hand. "No. Wonder who that was, I didn't think Cecil let people snap at him."

"Who cares?" Rex said.

"No idea," Mark said, mouth dry.

After his failure with the gun range, Mark knew he had to do better. He asked Kate for her help, and while she tried to be mad for him not telling her about new people, he knew she wouldn’t abandon him.

She got radios and kevlar vests, and when Mark asked her where she had been hiding those, she told him he had to make it to the advanced classes first. Mark knew ‘advanced’ was code for ‘have superpowers’. Still, Kate never made fun of him for being non-powered. Aside from her ability to duplicate, her body was totally normal. If she kicked ass while normal, Mark could too.

Not that he would be that way forever, or anything. It would just mean he would be more of a badass when he finally got his powers.

They met up with Rex and Eve in the city. Kate introduced herself with just the right touch of chilly authority that Mark felt helped cement Rex and Eve were lucky to have him and her to hang out with. She really was a good friend. Eve used her powers to make sure the vests fit everyone, and when Rex tried to refuse to put his on, she just turned his shirt into one. Eve made hers pink, Kate’s purple at her request, and Rex’s red only after he said please. Mark asked for blue.

Once the radios were distributed, they could all stay in touch as they scouted around for something to do.

Mark could still taste a little blood in his mouth from his split lip, and some bile in the back of his throat from when he puked. Still, all in all, once the shake of adrenalin had faded, he had felt amazing. Going out had been awesome. Then his mom came home. It didn’t take her long to figure out what had happened. Which meant it was even quicker than usual that she ended up with a drink in her hand.

“You can’t go out into danger like that.”

“Why not? Rex and Eve do it all the time! It’s the whole reason Kate is here!” They were helping people. Why wasn’t he allowed to do it too?

“They have powers. And I don’t know what their parents have to say about it, but I’m telling you no.”

“Darkwing doesn’t have powers.” He was also an orphan, which Mark had the misfortune of not being.

“He is an adult with training and equipment.”

“This is training! I brought equipment!”

“I said no, Mark.”

“This is fucking stupid.”

“Language.”

“Bitch,” he muttered under his breath.

“What was that?”

He glared at her, suddenly shouting. "You want me to be like you. You don't want me to be special!” Why wasn’t he allowed to help people? Dad helped people. She just sat around the GDA all fucking day. “You're holding me back! I probably haven't got my powers because of you!"

His mom's eyes were shining with unshed tears, though the thin line of her mouth made him think of imminent groundings. Markus Sebastion Grayson, you explain yourself now.

"I want to live with dad."

"...what?"

He read the word from the shape of her mouth more than he heard it. "I want to live with dad." He sounded more nervous as he repeated himself. He didn't want to watch her cry, but he definitely didn't want to say he was sorry, either.

There was a long stretch of silence where Mark was too scared to move before she finally answered.

"I'll call him."

The apartment was nice, but it reminded Mark of a showroom. Impersonal, a little too clean. He went to the kitchen while his dad dropped his stuff in his new room. The fridge was empty.

"Do you have any food?"

"We can go get some. What do you feel like? Italian? Thai? Indian?"

Mark shrugged. "Whatever." He went over to the couch and flopped onto it.

"'Whatever' isn't an answer."

"So what? You're not gunna feed me?"

His dad sighed. "It's late, we can grab something local tonight. I'll do a bigger run later."

Did his dad not eat? He remembered him eating when he was younger.

"Going to need your coat?"

Mark burrowed deeper into the couch. "I'll just wait here. Unpack some stuff."

"Fine."

"This really your place?" Rex finished hauling himself through the window, even though Eve could have easily had one of her constructs lift him through.

"Yeah." Mark shrugged. "I mean, it's my dad's, but he's never home. Want some Thai food?" Straight from Thailand, but he would only say that if they asked where they could get some. He had never had people over before, but he was determined to do better at this than he had as a tour guide at the GDA.

They had taken pretty much everything out of the fridge to poke at and examine by the time Kate arrived. She said Cecil had been keeping a close eye on her since their little outing, so Mark was just glad she had made it at all. Plus, spending time with Rex and Eve alone was pretty annoying because he didn’t have anyone to roll eyes with him if they decided to start kissing each other. He asked if they wanted to go out once they were done eating, but Rex didn’t want to have to climb back through the window on a full stomach and Kate said the GDA might swarm them if they got caught on the news.

Since his dad was gone all the time, Mark’s things had spilled out of his room and across the whole apartment. Mostly centered around the couch and the tv, so that was where they ended up. He only had one controller for the console he had set up, and even though Eve could make another one, he didn’t actually have any two player games.

They passed the controller around when they died and yelled at each other and tossed snacks and laughed and Mark couldn’t remember the last time he ever did anything like it. Even when he and Kate hung out or played baseball there was always the feeling they were being watched, and someone might appear if they did anything out of line. He supposed at the GDA they probably were being watched.

It finally got late enough that Eve said she had to go or her parents would wonder where she was. It was weird to think she had a house with people in it where she stayed. Mark couldn’t think of any excuses he could get to make them stay longer, and eventually gave up trying to convince them. Eve and Rex left through the window same as they arrived. Kate stayed and asked if he wanted help cleaning up, but he waved off the offer. His dad had never complained about his stuff being out before. It wasn’t like his dad had decorated anything.

They ate more of the food and sat on the balcony, staring out at the city. They pointed out the lights of billboards and made up neon constellations because even at ten o’clock at night it was too bright to see the stars clearly.

“Think you’ll stay here?” Mark asked.

“Mm?” Kate stuffed another piece of falafel into her mouth.

“When you go out to be a proper hero. Think you’ll stay here?”

“I don’t know. I mean, you go where people need you, right?” She broke off a bit of falafel, but just crumbled it between her fingers.

He didn’t want her to leave. “I mean the whole planet needs you, you get to pick then, right?”

“If you’re a Guardian maybe.”

“You can’t let them pack you off to nowhere.”

She leaned back on her hands, not looking at him. “I mean, I could always leave a clone here.”

Mark scrubbed his hand with a paper napkin and watched the wind pick it up and take it off the balcony. “I might not be here.”

“Where are you going?”

“Once I can fly, I’ll go anywhere.”

“I’ll hitch a ride with you, then. Anywhere sounds pretty good.”

“Anywhere is better than the GDA.”

Kate just hummed. He told her to take the rest of the falafel with her when she left. He threw out most of the takeout containers, even if there was just a bit of food left in them. He wondered if his dad would wonder how Mark had managed to go through so much food. He didn’t even ask Mark what he might want to eat anymore, stuff was just in the fridge.

Mark dusted some crumbs off the cushion and dropped back on to the couch. He slept out here more than in his own room, since the room didn’t have a tv. He flipped it on and looked for something to watch, which was when he finally noticed.

The console was gone. Someone had stolen it.

When his dad came home in the middle of the night, he didn’t seem to notice anything had changed.

Srry abt Rex. I'll make him return the game.

it's fine. Keep it. ill get another one.

Mark tossed aside his phone and buried his face in his pillow, trying not to cry. They had fought together. Hadn’t they been a fucking team? Assholes.

The kitchen was only illuminated by the light of the open fridge, so it took Mark a moment to notice his dad through the window. He was just floating outside the building, in his Omni-Man uniform, staring into the apartment. Mark stared back at him. Fucking weirdo. Sometimes he came in off the balcony, but he was just, quite literally, hovering.

After thirty seconds of unnerving staring, he darted off in a blur.

Mark pulled some takeout from the fridge and went back to the couch. He flopped down, reaching for his phone before a fork. Mark texted Kate, trying to brush off the unease his dad’s random appearance had given him. U should come over tmrw

Maybe. Going over some intense stuff in classes rn

boring! be here

Maybe ill send a clone. ill let you kno

That was so stupid. Kate was basically already a superhero, she didn’t need them to teach her anything else. Mark was definitely not going to bother once his powers came in. He would be able to figure it out all on his own, or with his friends. If only his stupid friends would spend time with him and not steal his stuff. He had thought not staying at the GDA would make going out to do stuff easier.

He was passed out on the couch when his dad woke him up at four AM to say his mom was in the hospital.

"What happened?"

"She only gets this drunk after talking to you. Figured you would know better than me."

"We haven't really spoken since Mark came to live with me."

"Of course."

"What happened to my mom," Mark demanded.

Cecil and his dad glared at one another. His dad's cheek twitched, but it was Cecil who broke first to look at him.

"Your mom was attacked, but she's fine."

"By what?" Mark demanded.

"By who, kid. This wasn't a superhero thing. She was just in the wrong place at the wrong time."

"Mark, go sit with your mother."

A part of him wanted to tell his dad to go fuck himself, he could tell he wanted him gone so he could keep talking to Cecil, but he also really wanted to see his mom. He glared at both of them before spinning around and shoving through the door to go to her room.

She was laying still on the bed, and that freaked him out a little bit, and he froze. Which ended up being a good thing, because he could still hear his dad and Cecil behind him.

"You have who did this detained?"

"This isn't your jurisdiction, Nolan. Human with a knife getting into a bar fight is a little overkill for your skillset."

"What bar?"

"What part of not your jurisdiction do I need to repeat?"

His dad had said Mark was safe when he moved here all those years ago. What about his mom?

“Has anyone else been to see her?”

“Am I a camp counselor for teenage dickheads now? You and Immortal want to beat the shit out of each other again, do it where the news cameras can’t see you. I have actual work to do.”

Cecil walked away, so Mark finally approached the bed, in case his dad came in and saw him still lingering by the door. He could actually tell his mom was breathing now that he was closer. It made some of the anxiety ease from his chest. His dad only came in for a few minutes before leaving. Mark made a blanket nest on one of the chairs and passed out next to her.

"I can help." Mark grabbed the cup from the side table his mom had been reaching for.

"Thanks, sweetie."

Her face was pale, making the mark on her cheek and the cut on her lip stand out. He helped her hold the cup while she took a drink.

"Need anything else?"

"No, it's fine. Sit. Please." She held out her hand and he forced himself to stand still and hold it. Her knuckles were scratched. "Is your dad going to be here soon?"

"I'm staying here."

"They're changing my bandages."

Mark scrunched up his face. "Well the other stuff. What about back at the barracks?"

"I'm going to be here for a while. Are things going alright with your dad?"

"It's fine."

"Mark..."

"It's boring. He's never home." And all his friends were dicks.

"I'm sorry."

He hated it when she said that. He was never sure whether to believe her or not, especially where his dad was concerned. "It doesn't matter. I'm moving back in with you."

"I... I can't watch you right now-"

"I don't need you to watch me! I don't need a babysitter. I'm fourteen."

"I know. I just meant, I'm going to be stuck on this bed for a bit. It would probably be best if you stayed with your dad until they at least discharged me."

Even his fucking mom didn’t want him around. He wasn’t incompetent, he could help. "...fine."

Mark made sure to wake up early enough to catch his dad before he left for patrol. He had a bag ready and everything.

"C'mon."

"Where are you off to?" His dad looked amused.

Mark wasn’t a fucking little kid anymore. People needed to stop looking at him like that. "You're dropping me off at the GDA."

"Am I?"

"I want to sit with mom."

"She's back in surgery."

What had happened? Hadn’t they already fixed her? No one had actually told Mark how exactly she had been injured. "What? Why didn't anyone tell me? Let's go-"

"Mark," his dad sighed.

"Why aren't we going?" He dropped his bag and slammed his hands against his dad. “Do you want her to be alone?”

“Don’t hit me.”

“Fuck you-”

His dad grabbed the front of his shirt and lifted him off the floor. “You’re acting like a toddler. Stop.”

As a kid, Mark remembered he loved it when his dad picked him up. He felt weightless, as tall as his father. Supported in the crook of the arm that effortlessly held him. This was absolutely nothing like that. Every instinct in his body screamed that he was falling, hanging off the edge of something. He could feel gravity tugging at his feet, daring him to get dropped. He would be if not for the poor vice of his shirt around his chest somehow keeping him up.

Mark punched and slapped at his dad’s wrist. The back of his arm. His hand. “Put me down. Fuck you. Fuc- put me down. Dad. Dad.” Tears streamed down his face. Mark hated that he had started crying, but he couldn’t stop. He flailed out with his legs. Even when his feet collided, he knew he wasn’t doing anything. Eventually he stopped screaming and started begging. His vision was too blurry to clearly see his dad’s face, and he was glad for that small mercy. “Put me down. Dad. Dad, please. Put me down.” His face was burning from tears and snot. When Mark went limp his dad finally set him down on his feet.

“Go clean your face up. Then we’ll go see your mother.”

“Sorry about your mom.”

Mark shrugged. “She’s gunna be fine.”

“Still,” Kate said. “Must suck to see her hurt.”

She had always been a little fascinated and annoyed that he had parents. Mark had never really asked her what happened to hers because he never really wanted to talk about his. Mark just shrugged again.

“C’mon,” she smacked his arm and stood up. “You’ve been gone awhile, you missed some stuff.”

He’d been gone? She was the one who wouldn’t come over! He still got up to follow her. “Like what?”

“They’re teaching me how to kill people with my thighs.”

“You’re doing gymnastics, not assassin training.”

“Um, I don’t assassinate. I’m a hero. When you kill people, that’s assassination.”

Because he was a pointless non-powered person. How had his powers still not come in? He rolled his eyes. “Good thing I don’t kill people with my thighs then.”

“I could show you how.”

They didn’t really let him do any of the training classes, he didn’t get why not. Had his mom told them not to? It would be cool to learn something that was actually going to be useful. Not that Mark wanted to kill people, but if dad had thought he would have his powers by now, why hadn’t he already started training him? When they had all gone out into the city that day, Mark had thrown bricks at heads as a distraction and shouted out warnings to anyone about to get hit in the back. Even if that someone was Rex. He wanted to actually be able to do something useful.

Moving back in with mom happened with very little fanfare. The GDA had good doctors and they let her out pretty quickly, and it wasn’t like he had a lot of things he had to pack. Most of his stuff had still been at the barracks anyway. Mark itched to be elsewhere, but whatever unsupervised independence he’d had at his dad’s had been fucking lonely. Though, that was the most he had talked to his father in ages. Maybe he’d actually remember to miss him this time. Not that Mark wanted to see that prick after what he did, but it would be good if he asked. Just so Mark could tell him no, for once.

No one was going to touch him once he got his powers. He’d be faster. He could fly away.

He supposed one thing there was to miss about his dad’s apartment was the windows. And the food. He and his mom were eating whatever the hell it was the GDA gave people who never bothered to cook. She never asked him what he wanted to eat either.

“Why’d you get divorced?” Mark had never asked before. When he was little and it had happened, it had just seemed like the nature of the world. The sun rose in the morning. Parents got divorced. There wasn’t a question with an answer, it just was what was.

His mom stared at him for a long while before finally answering. “He went off to do something, I don’t remember what. He was gone for four months, and I realized nothing in my life was different than when he was on the planet.”

Mark’s life had changed. Had she ever stopped to think about that?

“I didn’t…” She sighed. “I didn’t want things to turn out this way. I thought it might be a wake up call, that he’d realize he should be home more.”

Mark poked at his meal with his fork, frowning. “You’re blaming dad? After saying you’re the one who asked for a divorce? Gee mom, maybe if you wanted him to stick around you shouldn’t have told him to leave.”

Her tentative expression became thunderous. Her still healing bruises made it look like there were extra shadows across her face. Mark thought about his father picking him up off the ground and holding him until he exhausted himself. His mom couldn’t do that to him. He was going to be fine. She couldn’t do anything to him.

She stood up from their tiny dining table. “Yes, go ahead, blame me. It’s easy to do, since I’m the one who’s actually around for you to yell at.” She snatched her glass off the table and disappeared down the hallway into her room. Mark wondered if she had forgotten it was water and not booze when she grabbed it.

Chapter Text

Mark’s dad stopped by but didn’t stay very long. Just enough to wish him a happy birthday. He was sixteen now. Still no strength, flight or super speed. Mark didn’t really care about the short visit. It wasn’t like he was planning on hanging around on the facility today anyway. His mom had left a note on the counter about dinner and there was a cake in the fridge. He didn’t spend time lingering over either. Since she was eighteen, Kate had been granted her own apartment. Mark was going to go there, she and Eve and Rex were all supposed to spend time with him.

Supposed to being the key phrase there. “You guys really leaving me with the fucking robot?”

“I am more suited to be out on the field,” Robot said.

“No offense tin can, but we don’t really know what you can do. Except be suspiciously loaded with cash and hack computers.” Rex wiggled his fingers. Probably his attempt to mimic typing. Mark sometimes still wondered if he even knew how to read or write. “So, hack computers, and look at security feeds, and tell us stuff.”

When they had officially formed Teen Team they had sworn they weren’t going to ghost Mark out. That he had a place. He was the guy in the chair, watching out for them from the background. He hadn’t struggled through all those shitty GDA ‘classes’ on computers and software security to get replaced by an empty fucking metal shell that had walked in off the street one day. There was something about building permits and supposedly a base being put in the bridge. Hench being suspiciously loaded for a bag of bolts no one was totally sure the origin of. What kind of lazy name was Robot anyway? He couldn’t be that intelligent.

Rex had laughed at him so Mark had punched him in the face, but Eve and Kate had accepted the name he had given himself. What he contributed, what he got from being a part of this group? It was control. So that was who he was. Dupli-Kate, Atom Eve, Rex-Splode and Control. They didn’t need a fucking robot.

He opened up his computer and input the street address Kate had said they were heading too. He could start with traffic cameras and work his way from there. Kate squeezed his shoulder and then everyone piled on to a construct of Eve’s and left off the balcony. Robot had said something about putting together a flying bike schematic, but Mark would believe it when he saw it.

The new silence was broken by his electronic voice. “Perhaps we can speed up our response time by keeping an open line to police communication-”

Mark had most emergency services already tapped. They just didn’t need it right then. “Some of us aren’t science fair experiments put together in a basement, and have to actually learn things. Put in the work. Why don’t you go calculate the likelihood of me giving a shit about your opinion?”

Happy fucking birthday to him.

Kate had deflected enough of their questions that it had stopped being a big thing when they had to call the GDA for a body pick up. Her own body pick ups, anyway. They all still had to be very contrite about dead civilians. Eve even cried sometimes, like she really meant it. Mark didn’t think he would ever cry about it, a little blood wasn’t scary and it wasn’t like he knew the people they didn’t save. Kate tried to keep it blase when she died. Mark could still remember tripping over one of her corpses, before he got his remote setup implemented. He hated looking at her face with dead eyes staring back at him. She was his oldest friend. His GDA rat cohort, growing up in their windowless maze.

She was his. He didn’t like it when she died.

He still remembered laying down face first on the training mats, refusing to move until the boner he got went away after she tried to teach him how to snap a neck by putting her thighs around his face. He had thought about Kate before. Hell, he’d even kissed her before, but it had never come up between them. At least, he had never been sure how to talk about it. It had been easy to hide behind thought we were about to die, wanted to go out knowing what that felt like.

She was kissing him this time though.

He could hear Rex’s loud voice echoing down the hall. “You know what would be good here? A ping pong table.”

“I will take that under advisement.” Robot had lost control of his base grand tour pretty quickly.

Kate had grabbed Mark’s hand and led him off to do their own exploring. He hadn’t figured this was on the agenda. She hadn’t even died recently. It was like she wasn’t scared. He wrapped his arms around her, not wanting her to get the idea that he wanted her to stop.

“What are you doing out here, Mark?”

“It’s ‘Control’ while I’m working.”

His father closed his eyes, putting his hand on his face. “Working?”

His jaw tightened and he looked down at the screen in front of him. “Yeah, some of us are actually busy.”

“There is an active threat right now, I’m not letting you spectate on the roof.”

“I’m not spectating. You can move on. We’ve got this handled.”

“We?”

“Teen Team.”

His father blinked at him. God, he’d never even heard them before, had he? “Does your mother know you’re out here?”

She had stopped trying to get him to stay home ages ago. Just watched him walk out the door with a tense line ever thinning across her face. Had his dad seriously never even heard about what they got up to? They had stopped the guy with the submarine at the harbor last week. There had been a nuclear device on board. It had been front page news. Trending even. Of course, Control wasn’t exactly around for photo ops most of the time. Maybe his dad had seen it, he just hadn’t realized Mark was a part of the team. Even though it had been going on for several years now.

Not that it mattered. Not that Mark had needed him to know. Not that he expected him to give a shit or anything. Why was he trying to shuffle him off now anyway? He clearly hadn’t paid enough attention to any of the other times Mark had been much closer to danger.

He touched his earpiece. Robot had built them a private network so they didn’t have to use GDA tech anymore. He wasn’t totally useless. “Looks like the biggest concentration of people is in sub-basement three.”

“Understood. Your response time was delayed Control, is something happening on street level?” The fact Robot had taken it upon himself to start pointing out ‘inconsistencies’ and ‘needed areas of improvement’ had not made integrating him into the team all that great, though. The others even acted like he was honestly in charge sometimes.

“Just dealing with some interference. It’s about to go away.” He glared at his dad.

He did not take the hint. “This is ridiculous. You shouldn’t be wasting time with this… group.”

“What? Like the Guardians will have me? They won’t even take you!”

“The Guardians didn’t reject me, I didn’t want to join. You shouldn’t be working with others. When you get your powers-”

“Who the fuck knows if that’s going to happen! I can make a difference now. I can do stuff now. Why do you fucking care anyway?”

“Mark-”

There was an explosion, and Omni-Man dashed off to go save the day. Teen Team would have done fine without him, honestly. Getting very visibly carried off by his father in front of his teammates did not improve the situation in any way, shape, or form.

“What else is he supposed to do, Nolan? It’s not like he can have a normal fucking life, you made sure of that. Who do you think he’s copying when he goes out there?”

It had been awhile since Mark had listened to his mom yell on the phone. It hadn’t gotten any better. Whatever mild surprise he felt about her not agreeing with his dad about him needing to stay home was buried under his sudden irritation. Copying. Copying. Every year it was less and less likely he was going to be like his dad at all.

“Well maybe if you talked to him -”

Mark left the barracks. He preferred staying over at Kate’s more these days anyway. The Teen Team base would do in a pinch too, though Robot recharged there. Mark generally did not like being alone with him. He and Rex even had an ongoing bet about how many unnecessary improvements he would try to implement each month in their team exercises. After the initial what the fuck had calmed down, Rex was honestly weirdly reasonable about his dad being Omni-Man. He had even charged up some small discs for him to throw at a few print outs of his picture. They had singed his hand but it had been worth it to watch his dad’s face burn off the page.

Kate asked Mark to come with her when she visited her dad. She had confessed he was alive but not said much else for months after. He was drugged out of his mind and smiled placidly at her the entire time. Most of the patients there seemed to be moved around on wheelchairs by attendants while they drooled on themselves. Mark just stayed next to her, not sure if she wanted him to try and say anything.

It was all sort of weird and uncomfortable. Her dad practically wasn’t even a person anymore. Why did she keep coming to see him? When they left, she just stayed curled up at his side for a long while and Mark held on to her. It seemed to be enough.

He hoped she didn’t ask him to go with her again.

Mark had gone to leap from the roof to regroup on the bike with the others. He had done such a maneuver plenty of times now. It felt awkward, stepping off the ledge that time. He missed the bike, but, he didn’t fall either.

Holy shit. He was flying.

After smashing into the side of a building on accident, Robot ordered Eve to fly with him and help guide his path with constructs so he didn’t cause anymore property damage. It was wild and weird and kind of exhilarating. He hadn’t even really felt it when he hit that building. Steel and glass right up against his face and it had basically been nothing. Concrete was like kicking a dirt clod.

Eve practically wrapped him up in a pink blanket when coming in for a landing at the base became something of an issue. He had thought about going down and suddenly the ground had been coming up a lot faster than he expected. Smashing into any part of the bridge would probably cause more damage than was worth it.

He was rolling up off the ground from the awkward position he’d ended up on his ass when the others swarmed him.

“What the fuck was that!” Rex called out. “I thought you were going to pancake for sure. Then Eve had to play fucking pinball. Excellent job by the way, babe.”

Eve rolled her eyes, but smiled at Mark. “Did you know that was going to happen?”

“Not really.” He grinned at Kate, opening up his arms as she got close to him.

“You are so going to get practice in before we go flying anywhere.” She still dropped into his hug.

“Indeed,” Robot spoke from the back of the bike. “This will change how we approach things in the future. Once you have more control.”

Rex smacked him on the shoulder. “Control! Control is the name of a guy whose ass is in a chair all day. You’ve got powers now man! What the hell is your name?”

What the fuck was his name? He needed to figure it out. They might have just finished with a mission, but his whole body was suddenly buzzing, and not because of an adrenaline crash. He stepped away from Kate and grabbed Rex’s arm, dragging him towards their training room.

“Throw shit at me,” Mark demanded.

“Dude, what?” He stumbled a bit as he was dragged, half laughing in disbelief.

He looked back behind them. “What are you standing around for, Eve? You too.”

She and Kate suddenly looked very unimpressed, but they followed.

He had Rex charge anything he could get his hands on since his belt was out after the day they had just had. Mark had to work on years of conditioning that told him to duck. They all exploded in his face, even when he punched them, especially if he punched them, but it didn’t hurt. He didn’t even have funny spots on his vision.

Rex was running out of stuff to throw, and Mark felt like he was just getting started.

“Come on! Hit me! I know you’ve been dying to,” he grinned.

“Oh, fuck you man,” Rex was panting, but still looking around their training room.

Mark tensed, getting ready for the next assault. Rather than throw something, Rex ran forward and tried to tackle him around the waist. He windmilled back a second before realizing he wasn’t falling, he was just flying, taking Rex into the air with him. He laughed, prying him off him and tossing him back.

“Is that all you got?”

Rex flipped him off from where he was now sprawled on the ground.

Then he hurled the empty disc holster from his side at Mark’s face. He batted it to the side, not even looking to where it landed before walking over to Rex. He reached down to help him up. When he gripped his hand and hauled himself up, it barely felt like there was a person attached to him. He was so light, even when he had tossed him. Mark kept a loose grip on his hand, and Rex started trying to yank free.

“Hey man, you going to let go anytime soon-”

“I think if you apply yourself a little more, Rex-Splode-” That was one of Robot’s favorite refrains.

A pink light burst in his face and Mark instinctively lifted his hand to shield his eyes. Rex jumped back the moment he was free. Mark scowled, but before he could take a step forward a full barrier sprang up. He didn’t bother looking over to where Eve was standing. He slammed his fist against the barrier, watching the cracks spread out across Rex’s face.

“Hey,” Kate’s voice called out. “I think that’s enough for today.”

Mark smiled and bounced back on his heels. “Was just messing around. Wanted to see what I could do.”

Rex eyed him, tired and sweaty face warped by the light of Eve’s abilities. The barrier stayed up until Mark walked back towards the girls. He wrapped his arms around Kate’s waist and picked her up.

He was Invincible.

Mark was going to kick the shit out of his dad.

There were options here, really. Show up during some big to do on the news and just clock his dad in the head. Run into one another during the general run of the mill nonsense that plagued the city and just clock his dad in the head. Wait until he stopped by the barracks, though who knew when the fuck that would be, and punch him through a wall. Cecil would probably get pissy about the property damage, like Robot did. His mom too.

Mark could be more proactive than that. His dad never seemed to be at his apartment, but he still fucking had one. He had to be able to catch him there at some point. He could get the drop on him before word had even gotten out about a new hero on the scene. Not that his dad had seemed to notice when he was out before. Invincible was going to make a bigger splash than Control ever did, Mark was positive.

There would be the element of surprise, showing up at the apartment. Not that Mark needed it, but like, it would be nice. Surprise his dad for once. Then boom! Fist in the face. He hovered outside the kitchen windows. It was night, he had dark clothes on, it would be hard to spot him from inside. So long as his dad didn’t decide to enter the apartment from the balcony. Maybe Mark would watch from a little farther away. Wait for a light to be on, just to be sure.

He flew a few stories up and tucked himself under someone else’s balcony. He’d be able to see a light come on from here, no problem. He had told Kate not to wait up for him. He hadn’t gone back to the barracks since his powers had manifested.

He was almost dozing before he noticed a light finally come on. It had better not just be a fucking timer on something. Mark drifted down until he could get a good angle through the window. He didn’t see his dad. He saw his mom. She was wearing an oversized shirt that was probably his dad’s. Mark couldn’t tell if she was frowning, or if that was just the way her mouth turned these days. She opened the fridge and pulled out a bottle of wine. It had a screw cap and it didn’t look like she was bothering with finding a glass. It had not been full.

His dad walked out of the hallway. Totally naked. Gross. Fucking gross. Mark was not punching him like this. He launched back from the window and thought of the best possible ways he could reasonably apply bleach on his brain.

He definitely needed to come up with a different plan of action.

“I’m glad it happened.”

“What?”

“Before I got my powers. I’m glad. It means you like me.”

“What, you think I’m some superhero groupie?”

“No-”

Kate’s stern frown broke into a soft smile. “I’m glad too. That we got to grow up together. Going out without you wouldn’t be the same. Doing this wouldn’t be the same without you.”

Mark sank into her kiss. “You know this means we can go anywhere now?” He had said he would do it. She had said she would go with him anywhere. Where would be first? Somewhere way cooler than a fenced in baseball field, that was for sure. He hadn’t thought about the games they used to play together in years. It had been a long time since either of them had gone to that field. “Where do you want to hear them chanting the name Dupli-Kate?”

She huffed, pushing two fingers against his forehead to shove him back. “I don’t want anyone to worship me. Besides, we’re doing pretty good here.”

Mark hummed, wrapping his arms around her and pulling her on to her chest as he rolled on to his back. “Ah, c’mon. We could do better.” He was Invincible now.

His mom was staring at him strangely. Mark was used to her looking away once he looked back. He frowned at her. “What?”

“Nothing.” She reached out and tugged the sleeve of his new suit. “Eve make it?”

“Yeah.” She was basically their free costume department, though she got annoyed if they fucked up their clothes too much. The only one whose suit she didn’t make was Kate’s, since hers had to be some special bio-mesh that would duplicate with her so she wasn’t running around naked. Eve said making it with her powers was really taxing compared to just doing standard suits, hence leaving it to other people.

He could feel his mom’s fingers on his wrist before her hand fell back to her side. Mark wasn’t certain if she meant to smile or not. She left for her shift and he chucked his bowl of cereal at the wall. The bowl shattered into tiny fragments after leaving a small dent. Not telling her and dad, wanting them to find out second hand, to be the last to know he got his powers, was supposed to work. It was supposed to feel different.

They were supposed to try and do something about it. It was supposed to be too little too late, goodbye, guess you weren’t important enough for him to remember to tell. She wasn’t supposed to just leave.

Flying was alright, mostly it was a convenient way to get from one spot to another. The sky also had the most clear space for him to really pick up speed. That was what Mark liked best. Going so goddamn fast it was like the world slowed down around him and he could do anything, no one else the wiser.

So it was pretty annoying when his dad caught up to him.

“Mark… there’s a lot we need to talk about.”

“Is there?” He huffed. “Never felt that way before.”

“Son-”

Son. Christ. What a line to try and start with. “Catch you around, Omni-Man. Maybe we’ll pass each other in the sky sometime.” He didn’t get very far before his dad grabbed his arm. He thought about being picked up off the ground, flailing until he cried. They were flying. He couldn’t fall when he could fly.

“You can’t ignore this. There are responsibilities-”

“Responsibilities? You didn’t even know I was out there saving people.” He wrenched his arm free. “I don’t need you to show me how to be a hero. I don’t need you for anything.”

Something in his voice shifted. Like he was no longer trying to explain, he just sounded a little pissed. “I’m your father, Mark.”

He laughed. “So what? Try and tell me the last time that ever mattered.”

He should have just punched him in the fucking dick.

Robot kept telling him he should train more so that the collateral damage to buildings when they went out was kept to a minimum. Mark figured they could stand to make better buildings. Wasn’t his fault the whole city seemed to be built out of mud. He couldn’t believe Kate wanted to stay here. They could all go somewhere new. Even Robot. Surely Eve and Rex would be interested? Eve complained about her parents all the time, and it wasn’t like Rex had any. If Kate still wanted to visit her dad, Mark could take her, but like, once she was somewhere else she would probably forget about him. Wasn’t like there was much to remember.

Mark’s parents clearly did much better when he wasn’t around. Thinking about seeing them at his dad’s apartment still made him want to rinse his eyeballs with bleach.

Apparently getting powers was the magical switch that made his dad want to talk to him. Mark would have been fine gleefully telling him to fuck off for all eternity, except him showing up everywhere was starting to get a little annoying. Like when he was blocking the entrance to the Teen Team base. Mark was honestly a little surprised he even knew where it was. It wasn’t like he seemed to know anything about them.

He crossed his arms and landed in front of him. It was annoying his dad was still taller than him. Maybe Mark would get another growth spurt. “Well, what is it now? What’s so fucking important that you suddenly can’t leave me alone for five minutes?” Barring any emergencies, they were going to have a movie night tonight. Eve made popcorn for everybody. It was fun, and if anyone stole anything it was Robot’s and not Mark’s.

“Watch the tone.”

“Or what?”

It looked like he was grinding his teeth for a moment. “This is getting ridiculous, Mark. We need to talk.”

“And like I keep telling you, I’m busy with Teen Team business.” He was a little surprised no one had come up here when they noticed Omni-Man on the cameras. Perhaps they knew it was best to leave him to Mark.

“This… group, they aren’t your people.”

“Not my people?” Mark snapped. “What the hell makes you get to decide that? You and mom never wanted me, so I found someone who did.”

He finally seemed caught off guard. Surprised. All it took was telling the truth. Hilarious. “That… that’s not…”

Mark laughed. “Why are you even trying to lie about it? You leave me alone, I’ll leave you two alone. Seems fair.”

“That’s not going to be possible.”

“You’re the one making this difficult! Why is it so fucking difficult all of the sudden, huh? You couldn’t be around for the last twelve years, but now it’s suddenly so important that you are?” Mom didn’t even bother sending him texts asking if he was going to be home anymore. At least she had gotten the message, even if she had taken it in the most meek way possible.

“You’re a Viltrumite, Mark. I’m trying to explain what that means.”

“I. Don’t. Care. Fuck, how stupid do you have to be?”

His father reached out to grab the front of his uniform. “I said, watch the tone.”

Mark wasn’t pathetic anymore. He wasn’t weak. This wasn’t going to be like last time. He could hear the fabric of his top tearing as he tore out of his father’s grip before punching him in the side of the head. He wasn’t made of mud, or steel, or glass. Punching him almost hurt. Mark bared his teeth and flew up to slam his knee into his cheek as a follow through. His head snapped back but he didn’t lose his footing.

His dad hurled him off the bridge and Mark barely had time to right himself, to slow. The rush of air from his momentum still forced up a wall of water, briefly obscuring him from view as it rained back over him. Rather than head directly back towards his father, Mark darted towards the base of one of the bridge’s support cables. The steel moved like butter in his hands. It reminded him how much better he was.

“What are you doing-”

The cable snapped so he moved to the next one. “Your job or me, let’s see what’s more important.” It was rush hour. The bridge was packed with cars, all slow going. The Team could evacuate the base no problem. The next cable practically melted under his hands. Mark moved to the next one.

For once his dad picked him over work. His ears rang from the blow to his head, but it wasn’t as bad as he feared. He could take it.

He wrapped his hand in the end of a loose cable and punched his dad in the face again. He snapped the cable free with the next strike so he wouldn’t be tethered to the bridge and dove at his father. There were so many news reports on Omni-Man. So much fan footage captured from phones around the world. So many pictures of him plastered across the internet. There had been a very, very short span of time where Mark coveted those images. The fantasy that his dad was someone spectacular.

When Mark got blood to dribble out of his father’s nose and into his mustache, things really picked up.

Traveling dried him off, but he still felt soaked to the bone. They had ended up in the water more than once, his uniform torn in a few more places, and through those tears it was like it had gotten into him. His keycard didn’t work at the GDA. He hadn’t been there in a while, but he had definitely spent longer away before. Had it gotten damaged? Were they trying to keep him out? That was ridiculous. They had enough money to fix their door, and it was their own goddamn fault for not opening it.

Mark flexed his back and stretched his arms out. The bruises felt a little good, honestly. Like a proper burn after a workout. Mark hadn’t really felt that since he had gotten his powers. Maybe his dad had been good for something in the end, after all. Think this through, he had said to him. Oh. Mark had. Plenty of times. He had looked at him like he thought Mark would want to stop. That was fucking pathetic.

Teen Team was busy at the bridge. Collateral damage on top of the broken cables. Whoops. Eve would be good for crying over the bodies. Mark had this to take care of before he rejoined them. Would they still be down for popcorn and a movie? Maybe just him and Kate, back at her place. She could help him deal with all these sore muscles.

The door opened. If it had been locked, he hadn’t felt the resistance. Hopefully she would be home. It would be a little funny if she was at dad’s apartment right then though. Just a little. Like, oh, did Mark’s existence fuck up their plans again?

His mother was home. Seated at their tiny dining table, hunched over in her chair, one hand covering her mouth. She was just staring at him, whole body shaking like she was silently choking on tears.

“Why are you crying?” He supposed it was a step up from getting drunk, but it still irritated him. Someone had already told her, hadn’t they? One more thing she was supposed to know when he wanted her to know not going how he planned.

She wasn’t really blinking. It made it easy to see the shine in her eyes as the tears pooled up.

“You don’t get to cry about him being gone.” He moved towards her and she flinched.

“I- I’m not-” She scrubbed furiously at her cheeks.

“You don’t get to be sad he’s gone, you didn’t want him, but now you do? Make up your fucking mind!”

She looked up at him, a flash of anger on her face before it broke under his stare. She pushed herself into the back of her chair. She would have to get up if she wanted to get away from him. “I haven’t talked to your father since I told him you got your powers.”

She had told him? Of course she had. They had talked so much once Mark wasn’t around. “So why are you crying?”

“I- I’m not crying-”

There were tears running down her face. What the fuck did she think that meant? “Yeah? Whatever. I’ll just grab a few things I left here, don’t expect me to stop by anymore.” There was still some shit in his room, right? He’d known how to deal with his dad, but his mom always just fucked things up. Derailed things. Tried to make everything about herself. The divorce. When Mark first started going out, how she thought saying no mattered. Unlike his dad, she seemed fine fading off into the background quickly enough. He would help that process along by not coming back here anymore.

“Mark…” Her voice broke.

He looked back at her, already halfway to the hallway.

The tear tracks on her face just looked like more wrinkles. “They're not going to let you leave.”

Let him? He almost laughed. He could go anywhere he wanted. He was Invincible.