Chapter Text
Mark Scout never thought about what he did at Lumon. He just simply did it. Of course, he thought about all the shit Lumon has done. He knows the severance procedure is morally wrong,but he really couldn’t give two fucks. It helped him.
Sure, he wondered what he did. He knew Lumon was transitioning to be a superhero company, but severed people weren’t heroes. Heroes weren’t made, they were born. Heroes weren’t sad mourning men who couldn’t get through the whole day and had to turn themselves off for eight hours a day.
He knew he wasn’t a hero, but it was nice to still dream about it.
Devon always joked about one of them kind of looking like him. He would say she was crazy, and that she would never catch him in spandex.
He did not, however, tell her about driving back to work daydreaming about it. He dreamed about being a hero. Saving people, having powers, making the world a better place instead of the shit hole he makes it when he’s around it.
He hates himself, and truthfully, it was just as bad before Gemma’s death. He was just as much an alcoholic as he is now.
He chuckles as he leans back into his arm chair with a beer in his hand. He takes a swig mindlessly watching the television.
“Earlier today, Lumon heroes Frost, Echo, Ghost, and Sprout defeated a brand new villain in uptown Ganz. The foe, who Lumon has now termed ‘Quake’, was holding hostage a Lumon executive. Echo, the leader of the Municipal Defence Response Team, otherwise known as MDR, allowed us to have a brief interview after the battle was over.”
Mark perked up in his chair as he scrambled for the TV remote trying to turn it up. For some reason, he’s always been somewhat fascinated with Lumon’s number one hero team (although he would absolutely never tell a single soul).
“Echo, what do you want to say about today’s rescue, and who would you like to thank?” asked a woman holding up a microphone to the leader of MDR, Echo. He was an older man, already greying. He was in a typical Lumon blue super-suit, but had a shockwave symbol on the front of his chest. Blue tinted goggles were covering his eyes, but he gave the camera an award winning smile as he brushed his fingers through his hair.
“The whole reason I’m able to do what I do is because of my team.” He said, looking at the camera. “They are my family, and family is everything to me.” His voice kind of wandered for a second, and Mark frowned a bit. They never said stuff like that. It was always “Thank Kier.” Thanking his team wasn’t normal. This wasn’t normal. Some part of Mark knew that the Lumon executives didn’t appreciate what he said.
He sighed after they cut back to the studio, and he reached for the remote and turned the television off almost automatically after.
He got up from the chair and shivered. His house was always freezing. He went over to the thermostat and tilted his head. It was as high as it could go. He mumbled angrily about the heater being broken, and Mark made a mental note to call someone tomorrow to try and get that fixed.
But, for now, he would succumb to sleep.
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Mark Scout was never a fan of mornings in Kier. They were always so gloomy.
This wasn’t that much a Kier thing though, it was mainly a Mark thing. He sighed as he got ready for the morning.
Mark Scout’s morning routine was bland and minimal at best. At worst, it was the routine of a man who was slowly and surely losing more and more of himself as the days went past, but that wasn’t as big of a deal as it could’ve been.
While he was struggling with his tie, he felt his phone ring in his pocket. He rolled his eyes when he saw the name on the screen.
“What do you want?” He said feigning annoyance.
“Wow,” His sister, Devon, gasped with fake shock and disgust on the other side “Good morning, Devon, my absolute favourite sister. How are you doing? I’ve missed you so much-“
“I literally saw you yesterday.”
“Okay! Yesterday was like forever ago. Think in the today Mark!”
“Okay, whatever,” He said scoffing as he threw on his jacket and walked down to his kitchen. He shivered a bit as he walked down. It felt like the house got even colder since last night. “You think if I call someone today to fix my heating, they’d fix it by the time I get home?”
“What's wrong with your heating?” She questioned him.
“I have it all the way up, and I am fucking freezing,” he said. He tucked the phone in between his shoulder and ear to free up some space. He opened his cupboard and grabbed a pop-tart from the box. He opened it quickly and took a big bite. “It’s fucking freezing in here,” he muttered between pop-tart bites.
“I think Ricken knows a guy,” she says, “unless you want one of the Lumon goons to come out and fix it.”
“They take absolutely forever to fix shit.” He spewed a bunch of crumbs everywhere when he said that and grumpily rolled his eyes knowing he’d have to clean that up later. “If you guys would be able to call them, that’d be great. I’ll leave a key under the doormat, so they can get in if they can get out here today. They can mail me the bill or some shit like that. I seriously cannot spend another day like this.”
“Okay,” she said. “Hey, you still coming over for Ricken’s thing tonight?”
“God, that’s tonight,” He groaned. “Do I have to?”
“Well since I’m doing this for you, you owe me one.”
“Whatever, okay.” He said, rolling his eyes. “Talk to you later, okay?”
“Okay, bye, love you!”
“Love you too, bye.” He said before hanging up the phone. He sighed as he walked out the door.
“Mark!” A voice called, “How are you doing this lovely morning?”
“Uh, it’s nothing Ms. Selvig! I’ve got to get to work, I’ll see you later okay!” He said waving her goodbye before walking to the car.
“Be a hero today, Mark!” She called out to him.
“Okay!” he said, giving her a curt wave before getting in his car and slamming his door.
He sighed as he turned the heat all the way up in his car before backing out of the driveway.
After he pulled into Lumon, he took a second to mentally prepare for going in. It would just feel like a second, and then he’d be eight hours closer to drowning out his sorrows at night. This is what she would’ve wanted for him. She would’ve been proud. He sniffled as he got out of the car and shut the car door behind him.
He waited at the secretary's desk for a second before she gave him the okay that he could go through. He smiled at her politely, and walked past her. It was a meaningless task for him.
He walked into the security room, quickly exchanging his outie watch with his innie and his outie lanyard with his innie.
“Good morning, Mr. Scout,” Judd said gruffly as he sat up to scan Mark.
“Morning Judd.”
“See you later, Mr. Scout.” Judd said.
“See you in a second, Judd.”
Mark pressed the elevator button and stepped in.
He sighed for a second, before everything went black.