aspen78

[aspen78]

Chapter 8: How it all Byrnes

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--

Flying in an airplane, you would only expect to see clouds, sky, a random bird, or y’know nature stuff… maybe another airplane next to you. 

What you would not expect was a blue-and-yellow boy flying like he had a personal vendetta against air traffic regulations.

Then again… in this universe? Maybe you did.

So, there he was. Flying dangerously close to the jet engine as if it was the most natural thing for him.

The wind whipped through his hair, no doubt giving him a few fun knots to untangle later. Cloud after cloud blurred by, prettily tinged in today’s sunset. A few loud ‘whoops’ left miles behind him, echoing out for every Chicagoan down there to hear. An occasional bug hit the back of his throat, a direct result of him being too negligent to close his mouth. 

He gagged. Audibly.

"Gross," Mark choked, spitting into the open air. “Why are bugs always the worst part of flying?”

There was no one around to answer. Which somehow made it worse.

He wiped his mouth with the back of his glove and glanced off to the side, hoping no surveillance--government or vigilante-owned--caught that. 

The plane zipped off without him and the bug in his stomach. Sighing, he glanced down at the metropolitan he has grown to know from a bird’s point of view. 

He hovered a few seconds longer, squinting down at the skyline and a building with letters?

“nvncbl?” he mumbled under his breath--or tried to; can’t say much without vowels. “Huh?”

It was one of the mid-risers, not super noticeable without the current blazing yellow graffiti literally shouting his name--well, a license plate version of it.

NVNCBL. 

Mark angled downward, descending quickly onto the rooftop, but not without a showy flip. 

He chuckled at whoever the hooded-somebody was sat on the HVAC system by some buckets of paint. “You missed a few letters.”

“Paint costs money and you got a longass name.”

The figure didn’t even look up at first, just sat there. Hoodie up. Hands pocketed.

Mark leaned against the railing, squinting intensely at the mural and the other body on the roof.

He straightened with recognition as he clocked gray-hoodie guy. “Oh, you’re that guy I stopped from robbing a bank a few months ago.”

The hood kicked off from his seat and pulled off his guise, deadpanning. “My name’s Titan.”

And, much like he jumped down from the ledge, Mark jumped to a conclusion. “Ooh… you’re… you’re out for revenge.”

The hero cockily pulled on a fighting stance and threw a few punches to the air. “Fine, let’s do this.”

Titan stared at him, unimpressed. “I didn’t call you here to fight.”

“Because I’d win?”

“You got lucky.”

“Sure, I did.”

Titan let out a long, slow sigh--the kind that sounded like it cost him rent. “I called you here because I need your help.”

--

“--and I laughed. Because obviously, I thought he was joking. I mean, would you help a guy who beats people up for protection money?” 

Floating a few feet before a cracked, standard Midnight alley, Mark looked expectantly at his company: two unconscious goons, another three conscious--for now--, and a bird-themed vigilante. 

Knee-deep in a fight. 

One charged with a crowbar. Another swung a rusted pipe like he was trying for a home run. The third was smart enough to hesitate but not smart enough to run. 

Their target? She moved like she was stuck on 1.5x speed. Not frantic--precise. She parried a punch, pivoted around the guy’s back, and drove her heel into his knee. He dropped with a yelp.

“So yeah. Titan wants me to take down his boss--um… Machine Head,” the monologuing hero chuckled. “Still doesn’t sound like a real name--Anyway, I said no, because I’m kind of more like a save-the-world kind of hero, not a… mob clean-up crew. Y’know?” 

Mark hovered a little lower, watching with vague amusement as she spun around just in time to catch the crowbar with her forearm. She winced, jaw tightening, before grabbing the bar and using his own momentum to pull him forward. She rammed the back of her elbow into his jaw.

Down he went.

“You know-” A much needed breath for air interrupted her. “You know, in-” And another. “In most retellings, people subconsciously edit the story to make themselves look be-”

Pipe guy winded up his mock-bat and swung just for her to jolt backwards, letting the swing pass so close to her head it fluttered the edge of her hood.

“Better,” she finished with a hard grunt as she drove her shoulder into his gut and him into the wall. 

The pipe clattered to the ground uselessly. Its user crumbled.

“You-” Vireo finally stood straight, breath slightly uneven, one hand bracing against the brick. “You sound like a superficial dick in yours.”

Mark thumped a palm on his spandex-covered chest. “You wound me.”

Ignoring the short protest from the other teen, she gave a nonchalant nudge to the thug for safe-measures. When she got a regretful groan, she knelt to his eye-level, pressing her elbow against his throat. 

The thug wheezed beneath the pressure of her arm, one hand pawing weakly at her cape. His eyes darted around--between the unconscious bodies, the looming shape of Invincible above, and the cold gleam of the bird-shaped mask staring him down.

“Three chances,” Vireo said, modded voice cold now. “Then I stop asking.”

“I-” he gasped, voice thin and cracking. “I don’t know nothing.”

“That’s one,” she said calmly, adjusting her elbow just enough to make him choke on his next breath.

Mark hovered closer, a little uncomfortable. “Hey, maybe we dial it down a bit-?”

She didn’t even look at him.

“You’re working for Hollow,” she said to the thug, voice clipped. “Which means you answer to someone higher. I want the name. And I want the warehouse.”

“I-I swear-”

“That’s two.”

“Okay, okay, okay!” he wheezed, eyes wide. “I dunno his real name, but we call him Ferryman--runs the drop routes for Hollow, sometimes backs up Enzo when they’re short.”

Vireo’s posture didn’t shift, but her voice did. Sharpened.

“Where.”

“Uh--Midland District. Abandoned power substation, like four blocks past the dead zone! There’s always trucks coming in and out after dark--red floodlights, hard to miss.”

She let up her elbow, just enough for the guy to suck in air--and then jabbed her knee lightly into his ribs when he looked like he might move.

“Stay down.”

“Gladly,” he croaked.

She stood slowly, scanning the alley again with her usual measured glance. The kind that made Mark feel like she wasn’t just seeing things--she was cataloguing, calculating, storing it all away for later. Maybe even years later.

“So,” he said, landing beside her with a soft thud. “A superficial dick, huh?”

Her masked face swiveled toward him. Even physically emotionless, he could see the exhausted judgment radiating off her like secondhand smoke. 

“Yes,” Vireo said flatly.

Mark raised a hand in faux offense. “Wow. You know, most people go for ‘charming’ or ‘devilishly handsome’ first. But ooh-kay, superficial dick.”

A deep, robotic sigh released into the air. “What do you think I just did?”

He looked down at one of the unconscious guys and toed a fallen crowbar with his boot. “Um, take down five guys?”

“Five guys who work for Hollow,” she corrected. Her voice lost some of its bark, but none of its edge. 

The spot of primary colors in the dark alley shrugged, “Yeah, I got that. But… he’s just another mob guy, right? I mean, it sucks, but it’s not… world-ending.”

She turned to him slowly.

“You ever wonder why this city looks the way it does?” she asked, gesturing out toward the mouth of the alley. Distant neon glared through the smog, bent and warped like it was trying not to be seen. “Why every window’s got bars, and every cop’s on someone’s payroll, and half the kids grow up knowing the name of a fixer before they know algebra?”

Mark hesitated. “I mean… yeah, I guess, but-”

“Organized crime doesn’t explode cities like supervillains do,” she said, voice low, feet moving away from prying ears. “It doesn’t flatten them overnight. It doesn’t announce itself. It just… settles in. Gets comfortable. Quiet. People learn not to ask for help because help never comes. They stop dreaming about futures and start planning for exits. And by the time you notice the place is bleeding out, it’s already normal.”

He glanced at the unconscious bodies again. His jaw flexed.

Vireo folded her arms. “Hollow doesn’t just break bones. He buys off zoning boards, extorts small business owners, blackmails families, and corrupts city infrastructure. You think aliens are the only thing that ruins lives? People like Hollow ruin generations--ruin cities.”

Mark didn’t answer. He just looked at her. Looked at Midnight. Looked at what was left. 

A somewhere just trying to survive.

“It’s your city,” she added after a moment, less accusatory than tired. “You might not get that headline, but it still matters.”

Mark didn’t speak. Not right away.

He just stared out at the crooked skyline. At the half-lit billboards flickering over buildings that should’ve been condemned years ago. At the distant neon-red sign buzzing OPEN 24/7 over a corner store with iron shutters and bullet holes in the brick.

“You sound like my mom,” he muttered, absentmindedly.

The whole of Midnight quieted for that. 

“… Excuse me?”

“I didn’t mean it like that!” Mark blurted with a wince. “Wai-wait, I… I just-Okay. That came out wrong.”

Vireo turned toward him fully, arms crossed. The bird-shaped mask stared him down like it had been engineered for this exact purpose: twin glass eyes locked on target, unblinking and unimpressed. “I sincerely hope so.”

“No, I just mean--” He scratched the back of his neck, sheepish in the way only someone trying not to offend a highly trained vigilante could be. “She said the same thing… sort of. Pretty much.”

A huge exhale unloaded. “Dad thinks otherwise, though.”

Her eyebrow twitched just under her mask, and she was kind of glad he didn’t have X-ray vision too--because the expression that flickered across her face was unguarded. Almost amused. Mostly vexed.

A dry chuckle nearly made it out, but the weight of the night kept it small. It left her chest as a small, involuntary scoff instead. “Shocker.”

Mark glanced at her with an eyebrow raised, a silent question pushing it up.

She didn’t answer right away. Instead, she rolled her neck like the tension there had built up over years, not hours. The mask tilted back toward the mouth of the alley, scanning for movement--but the fight was long done. Just the two of them now, and the distant hum of a city trying not to suffocate under its own weight.

“He’s him,” she said finally, tone noncommittal. “It tracks.”

He frowned, half-offended. “Okay, rude.”

“Is it?”

His arms folded across his chest, mirroring hers. “He’s not some monster, you know.”

“I never said he was.” Her voice was even. Too even.

Mark caught it. He wasn’t always the most perceptive guy, but something about her made him pay closer attention. Maybe it was the way she measured every word like it might cost her something. Maybe it was the way she always deflected with strategy instead of emotion.

She watched him from behind the mask, something unreadable flickering in her stance.

“Look,” she swallowed down the bitter. “I get that when you’re actually ‘super,’ you start seeing things in extremes. There's a whole other scale you need to worry about. I mean, your dad--you are flying from country to country--and into space--to save the world. That sort of thing forces you to always look from the top down.” 

Vireo shifted away from him and toward the street. Her cape silently covered any part of her he saw seconds ago. “I never said he was a monster. But he doesn’t look. Not really. Not until it explodes.” 

“And when he does look? It’s with judgment. Like the world’s some broken system he’s forced to tolerate. So, yeah.” She let the silence stretch a beat, let it sink in. “It tracks.”

Mark didn’t say anything at first. He just stood there, his face scrunching slightly, like he wasn’t sure whether to argue or just… absorb.

She wasn’t shouting. Wasn’t even angry. But there was something razor-clean in the way she said it. Like a diagnosis.

His jaw flexed, but he didn’t argue. Couldn’t. Not when part of him agreed.

“He’s not perfect,” Mark said after a beat. “But he’s trying. And he wants me to focus on the big stuff. On the stuff that matters.”

Her head turned slightly. Not enough to look at him. Just enough to show she’d heard.

“I-um… I don’t think he’s right.” His voice trailed off, but then he squared up. Not in a combative way. Just… ready to mean what he said. 

His head shook, but his eyes stayed trained on her. “About… about the big stuff being the stuff that matters.”

He took a step closer to her still figure. “I care. I… I’ll show up. I’ll learn. I’ll fight. I’ll fight for… for the city. For this city too--I mean if you let me.”  

Vireo didn’t respond. Didn’t move. Didn’t leave. Just stood, still and silent, like she was giving him rope--to hang himself or climb, she didn’t know yet.

Mark took another earnest step towards her. “With you.”

That did it. Not the words, exactly.

The with you.

Two syllables that felt heavier than all his earlier justifications. Not a claim. Not a demand. A choice.

Her mask didn’t twitch. Her body didn’t shift. But something in her breathing--barely audible--hitched. Just for a second.

Then, she turned.

Not away. Not toward the skyline or the alley or the dead neon buzzing through smog.

Toward him.

Fully.

Then, she was the one to take steps. 

One silent plod after another until there was only half a breath between them, maybe less. 

His breath staggered just a little, but he didn’t move. Even with his heartbeat screaming in his ears for him to. 

She tilted her head--not birdlike or mechanical, but quiet. Human. Studying him. Deciding what to make of him.

Deciding if he meant it.

There was a pause.

A long one.

“Let’s start with your city first,” Vireo mumbled, only loud enough for him to hear.

Then, a hair of a smirk in her tone.

“Bug boy.”

She expected a hidden eye roll under his lenses paired with a scoff, but all he did was smile. 

A little crooked in the way he didn’t mean to smile but did. A little too okay for someone forever nicknamed ‘bug boy.’ And much too boyish for the distance--or lack thereof--between them. 

She was going for smartass. A tad annoying. A taunt to cut through the weight sitting on both their shoulders. She didn’t aim for this.

Them. In this alley. Prying eyes, unconscious and incapacitated. Midnight weather not drenching for once, but drizzling; enough for a mist of glow around warm street lamps and red neon.  

Two people with a mere inch between them. And, him with that stupid kind of smile that didn’t try to be charming--it just was. The weird gleam of cheap neon and HPS bulbs turning him into some cinematic male lead. Red and orange practically swooned across his cheekbones and the curve of his mouth like it had been art-directed. Somehow, even the wind made sure his hair was tousled in just the right ways. 

How can he just stand there like that? After she called him a superficial dick? After she lectured him for it? After she practically drew a straight line from his dad to systemic decay? 

After everything she has said and everything she has done… he stood there smiling at her like that. 

Still? 

Still.

She blinked. Once. Slowly.

As if to reset whatever her brain was trying to do with this image of him: glowing, crooked, too close, too okay.

He just waited, watching her like he wasn’t trying to solve her, just witness.

“You’re not supposed to just…” Her voice wavered, modulator flickering slightly. “Take that.”

That smile softened--just barely--and he spoke. 

“Take what?” 

“Me,” she groaned--louder than she meant to. “Calling you names. Questioning your choices. Insulting your dad.”

“All of it. I-” She took a breath like it shocked her. “I.. I called you a dick.”

Him leaning an inch closer was enough to shut her up. 

“You could’ve called me a hundred things. You could’ve thrown that gross pipe at me. I'd still take it,” he said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. 

“Because it means you're still talking to me.” His voice dropped slightly, steadier than before. And he smirked like he was just let in on the biggest secret.

“You’re letting me in.”

…

She had half a mind to swat the teeth off his face. It wasn't a heart-stopping smile like before. No, this one was all degrees of smug.

She didn't though. 

She clipped her own head instead.

A quick, sharp motion like she could jolt herself back into alignment--like maybe, if she knocked just the right synapse, she'd remember why keeping people at arm’s length was supposed to be safer.

Mark blinked at the movement, caught between concern and mild amusement. He also caught her hand before she could even attempt to try again. “Uh… what are you doing?”

“Knocking my brain cell back in place.” She shot him a look, sharp and sideways, her mask still hiding the worst of it.

“…You only have one brain cell?” he asked, voice low, teasing, careful. 

“More than you,” she shot back, subconsciously trying to retract her hand, only to find he still had it. 

He didn’t let go.

Didn’t squeeze, either. Just… held it. Like she might try to disappear again, and he wasn’t going to let her. Like he hadn’t even realized he did it.

She looked at their joined hands.

Her hand was cold. His wasn’t.

“…If you have even half of one, you won’t go after Machine Head tonight,” she murmured, staring down at their fingers like they were some anomaly.

His gaze followed hers, expression settling into something less smug and more there. His thumb twitched over hers. 

“I mean it,” she pressed, squeezing his hand in emphasization. 

He squeezed back as if signalling he was listening--he always does for her.

“I’m not saying don’t go,” she added, softer now. “Just don’t go in dumb… and don’t go alone.”

Another breath. Another beat between them.

She didn’t expect him to respond, really.

So when he gently twisted his hand, threading their fingers together instead of just holding on--her brain misfired.

Hard.

“What are you doing?” she said flatly, voice robotic, betrayed only by the sudden static in her chest.

Mark chuckled, not at her, but at how thoroughly confused she sounded. “You said don’t go alone.”  

She finally looked up. Not at his smile. Not at his mouth. At his eyes.

They were wide open and unreadable in all the wrong ways: too hopeful, too trusting, too young.

And God, he had no idea what he was walking into.

Not really.

“...” 

God, she never thought she’d be this easy. But here she was. Her pulse was skipping every third beat like it was optional. Her stomach was filling with that uncomfortable static she hated admitting wasn’t fear. Her brain was trying to file this under leftover adrenaline or something else. 

Please, let it be adrenaline.

“I’ve got a fake date tonight,” she muttered, barely above a whisper. “So, knock it off, loverboy.”

Not annoyed. Not really. More like… a reflex. Like if she could make it a joke, it wouldn’t feel so close to something else.

Mark didn’t let go, just shrugged. “…You say that like I wasn’t already picturing you showing up mid-fight in some ridiculous designer dress.”

She could only react with a half a scoff, half something else. “It’s black.”

Mark tilted his head, like that made it easier to picture. “Strappy?”

She lightly tapped his elbow with hers as a warning, but she still held a playful edge in her tone. “Shut up.” 

He grinned. Didn’t flinch. Didn’t pull back. Like her saying that just gave him permission to keep going.

“Open back?”

She groaned under her breath, shook her head like she was trying to rattle him out of it. 

“Seriously, though.” His snickers quieted to a small huff.  “I can wait.”

Her eyebrow curved and her mouth flattened.

“Just like that?”

“Yeah.”

God.

He meant it.

And it didn’t matter how much sarcasm she threw, or how many ways she tried to keep him at arm’s length. He always just… stayed.

A drawn-out exhale filtered through her modulator, then she snickered. Mostly in disbelief directed at herself and this situation. “If this is how you were with Titan, you’re definitely getting played.”

She slipped her hand out of his. Already letting the brisk air replace the heat from his hand. Like it didn’t still linger.

She flexed her fingers once. Like they were remembering something she didn’t give them permission to.

She stepped away. Like if she moved now, the moment wouldn’t follow.

“Use Titan, don’t let him use you.”

Another step plopped in a puddle.

“Call the Guardians.”

One more step hid the sound of a grappling gun unlatching.

“Keep me in the loop, Bug boy.” 

And no more steps for we have liftoff. 

The next meaningful step wouldn’t be clad in armored boots. Those were swapped for heels. 

And she would no longer don an incognito suit. Swapped for a black dress. 

Cape for a clutch.

Weapons for jewelry.

Mask for smile.

Sarcasm for charm.

Unfortunately, she wasn’t lying about that date.

Just now she had to play dumb on another guy’s arm, pretending she hadn’t stood in that alley with him. 

And hoping that alert wouldn’t come.

But if it did? 

She’d come.

Dress or not.

--

“See you soon, Birdbrain.”

--

<<next chp??

tbh school has been kicking my shit :'D this chapter was also kinda hard for me to finish and im sorry its p much filler ;-; take this sketch tho!

<3 -> @jiyeons-closet @heiankyonoeiyuukun @weirdstartshere

[aspen78]

Chapter 7: How it all Byrnes

<<prev chp>>

--

A few weeks later, the world hadn’t ended--but it hadn’t exactly calmed down, either. 

But there was a certain sort of peace. 

Not a good peace. Not a resting peace.

Just the kind of quiet that makes you check the news twice and squint at every blue sky like it’s faking something.

And Mark Grayson had a theory.

He wasn’t stupid. Not really. Maybe a little dense. Maybe a little too hopeful. Maybe the kind of guy who could get hit in the face by a kaijū and still try to make a joke about it. But not stupid.

He had a theory, but he wasn’t going to say it out loud. Mostly because it sounded insane even in his own head. But something was off.

Or maybe not off. Just... less.

He noticed it first in the little things.

His backpack wasn’t always half-zipped from changing in alleyways. His shoes didn’t reek of scorched pavement. He wasn’t chronically late to first period anymore. Hell, he even had time to shower. Twice in one day, once.

William and Eve noticed too--said he seemed “less frantic” lately. Less distracted. “Like you’re finally getting your shit together,” they’d teased, nudging his arm as they walked between buildings. He smiled and made some joke about maturity or caffeine finally kicking in. But the truth?

He definitely did not have his shit together.

It wasn’t that the world had stopped falling apart. It just… wasn’t falling apart on repeat.

The alerts hadn’t stopped entirely. They’d just gotten less frequent. Shorter. Manageable. Small, unremarkable gaps in the chaos. Like someone was erasing the worst parts of his week with a dull pencil.

But they still always came--just when he’d start to worry he was getting rusty, that something bad must be brewing--; then a notification would buzz in. Always a decent fight. Enough to challenge him. Not enough to land him in a hospital bed. 

He’d mentioned it to Cecil once. Offhand. Half-curious, half-suspicious.

Cecil just grunted over a scratchy comm line and muttered something about "load balancing." Which felt like a bureaucratic way to say “don’t ask, just enjoy it.”

Mark figured maybe the GDA was finally getting its act together. Maybe they had other supers pulling more weight now. Maybe the world was being… considerate?

Yeah, okay. That one felt fake even as he thought it.

But whatever it was, he wasn’t entirely complaining. His GPA was recovering. His bad excuses came less frequently. And he got to sleep. Real sleep. Without the guilt gnawing at his spine every time he skipped a patrol or tuned out a police scanner.

It was weird.

Nice. But weird.

And somewhere in that weirdness, he found himself glancing up more often--toward rooftops. Toward the edges of clouds. Toward the static on the news, listening for a voice that never came over the line.

He hadn’t seen her in days. Weeks, maybe.

Not since the Pentagon. Not since the bad coffee. Not since she disappeared through a hallway like she didn’t want to be recognized.

But then--maybe he had seen her.

A blur on the skyline. A shadow disappearing off the end of a roof. A trail of movement in the wake of a solved crisis that he hadn’t had to touch. 

He never said it out loud, but there was this part of him--the same part that used to watch the door during class, hoping someone else would get called up first--wondering if maybe, just maybe, she was doing it on purpose.

Buying him a buffer.

Not out of pity. Not out of obligation.

Just to give him space.

Normalcy.

Time.

Mark exhaled and let the thought go before it got too warm. Before it felt too much like hope. He shook his head, shifted in his seat. 

One part of him was half-listening to his Stats teacher give a drawn-out lecture on distribution curves, and the other part was trying not to Google how to tell if a vigilante is secretly running interference on your entire life.

Amber was two rows ahead, laughing at something the professor said, and he smiled before realizing he wasn’t really listening. Again.

He hadn’t talked to her much. Not since he tried a second and a third date. Not because he didn’t want to. But because something about that coffee break stuck with him.

Like a splinter you keep forgetting about until it snags your sleeve.

She’d been great. Funny. Smart. Real.

But whenever she’d asked about his life--about him--he’d lied. Not maliciously. Just… by omission. A lot of omission. Small things, then bigger ones. Then all of it. And suddenly every conversation felt like one long sentence he couldn’t finish without crossing a line.

That line hadn’t been there with (Y/n). 

But he also hadn’t seen (Y/n) since the coffee. Not really.

Her popping in at Guardian HQ didn’t count. Not when she was only ever Vireo to the team. Not when her voice was modulated and her posture was all deflection. 

And yeah, maybe he shouldn’t be thinking about that. About her.

Except he was. Constantly. In the gaps between lectures. In the space before sleep. In the silence that came after surviving something that should’ve killed him.

And now she was… what? Taking alerts before he could?

They weren't even huge alerts. Just the mildly annoying “oh my god, I can't believe I'm missing pasta night” ones. The kind of things that weren’t end-of-the-world but still had his name on them. A collapsing bridge. A mid-tier villain with a laser fetish knocking over ATMs. A biotech worm slipping out of containment and oozing its way through a sewer grid.

Still serious. Still his responsibility.

Not emergencies--just enough responsibility to make normal things harder.

But they were gone. Handled. Out of sight before he even got the call.

Mark leaned his head back, eyes on the ceiling tiles, ignoring the curve of the projector light cutting across the floor.

He knew she was watching out for him.

And he hated how much he liked that.

Because if she was helping--if she was deliberately carving space out of the chaos so he could breathe--it meant she thought he needed it.

And maybe he did.

But he hated being someone people had to work around just to keep standing.

He didn’t want to be the weak link.

Didn’t want to be protected like a kid while everyone else played chess with their lives.

Still, every time an alert came in minutes after his math test ended--every time he managed to stop a meteor in the sky without anyone already bleeding on the pavement--he wondered.

And it always came back to her.

He didn’t even know what to call her in his head anymore.

(Vireo)? Felt too formal. Like calling someone by their username in real life.

(Y/n)? Felt too personal. Like using a nickname you hadn’t earned.

So most of the time, she was just… her.

The voice in the static. The shadow in the skyline.

The one person who hadn’t lied to his face--at least not in the way that mattered.

Mark wasn’t good at subtle.

He wasn’t good at waiting, either.

So when the next Guardian training buzzed in--

He bolted.

Not to train.

But to see if he could catch her.

--

Guardians HQ was quieter than usual.

Not the literal kind of quiet--it was still full of thuds and grunts and the occasional "Ow! Bitch!"--but the kind of quiet that came when the world wasn’t ending for once. 

The kind that felt like a lull in the chaos. Like a skipped heartbeat.

The kind that didn’t come often.

The kind that you shouldn’t trust.

And (Y/n) was forced to step into it through the side entrance of HQ. 

Not armored up either. 

No voice mod. No Vireo--not really. Just her… with a cheap, black face mask. 

Summoned by a ping from Robot. Specifically, a ping in the form of an excuse for her to pick up requested data that he claimed “could not be securely transmitted via comms”--which was code for I want to talk to you in person.

She sighed as the main corridor lit up in glaring, sterile lights under her steps. Maybe Robot was bored. Or maybe it was some kind of test. She was still figuring out which kind of annoying he liked to be when he wasn’t in mission mode.

She followed the hall past the briefing room, past the memorial wing still under partial reconstruction, until she heard it.

Grunting. Clashing. Someone swearing.

Then a muffled “You literally ran into me again--Rex, that’s the third time!”

A monitor on the wall flickered to life beside her. Robot’s voice filtered out from its speaker, calm and clinical:

“Training Room C. Status: Active Simulation. Spectator clearance authorized.”

“Of course it is,” (Y/n) muttered, more to herself than anyone.

She stepped through the observation door. Just enough to watch. Just enough to get a taste.

And what she saw made her eyebrows twitch.

Teen Team--the “new” Guardians--was falling apart.

Not physically. Not yet. But strategically? It was havoc. Glorified flailing.

Dupli-Kate was duplicating faster than she could process, trying to flank a pair of simulated drones that kept outpacing her. Rex was tossing explosives in every direction like a sparkler-happy toddler on the Fourth of July. Robot kept barking suggestions in his clinical voice--no one was listening. Samson looked like he wanted to leave. Rae nearly got flattened by a projectile Kate didn’t see coming. Amanda looked the calmest--because she was handling her section solo.

Mark was there too. 

And he was holding the line.

Not leading. Not commanding. But steady.

There was a look in his eyes--focused, controlled, not frantic. 

That was new.

He wasn’t flailing. He wasn’t yelling. He wasn’t cracking jokes to cover the panic in his bones like he usually did when things got hairy.

He was just… grounded. Braced. Moving with purpose instead of panic.

He was trying to stabilize. As best as he could with the mess of a team. 

He caught a chunk of fake debris before it could smack Kate in the jaw and flung it clean through a drone’s weak point like he’d seen it coming five seconds earlier. Then pivoted. Covered Rex’s blind spot. Nudged Rae behind cover. Didn’t flinch.

It wasn’t flashy.

It wasn’t loud.

But it was clean.

He wasn’t the same guy who used to stumble into fights like he was playing catch-up with the world.

He was adapting.

(Y/n) didn’t say anything from the room above. She just watched. 

And maybe there was a smile. A tiny one.

For the boy who used to chase the fight, and was finally learning when to catch it.

She didn’t mean to linger. Didn’t mean to feel anything. This was supposed to be a info hand-off. A grab-and-go. 

…But Robot was keeping that data stick from her--yeah, let’s go with that.

She settled against the tinted glass. And let her eyes take a break from the screens.

She watched the way he moved--sharp but deliberate, like every motion had finally been given room to breathe. Like someone had finally taught him that surviving wasn’t the same as winning.

And maybe, she thought, this was the point.

Maybe she wasn’t supposed to swoop in and save him.

Maybe she was just supposed to clear the field long enough for him to remember he could.

Maybe--just maybe--she felt she could take some of the fault for it.

Or credit. She wasn’t sure which yet.

She hadn’t trained him. Not really.

Hadn’t taken him under her wing, hadn’t sat down and walked him through strategy charts or run him through drills.

She hadn’t told him how to survive the way the world was breaking now.

But she’d given him something no one else had:

Space to figure it out.

And maybe that was what made the difference. “Vireo,” Robot's voice sounded out over the intercom again--if it were possible for a robot to sound tired? this would be it. “Your presence is noted. Please assess the team’s current performance.” This would be if a robot could beg.

(Y/n) stood in the observation deck, expression unreadable behind her mask, but her silence said plenty.

Her gaze swept across the room again--methodical, hawk-like.

Dupli-Kate was overextending her clones and exhausting herself. Rex’s bombs had no pattern--just noise. Rae lacked both communication and coverage. Samson wasn’t syncing with anyone, and Mark… Mark looked like the only one trying to build a rhythm instead of survive one. 

The training sim ended with a fizzle. Literally. Rex hit the wrong power node and the entire left wall shorted. The simulation dissolved in a sad puff of smoke.

“Jesus, Rex!” Amanda groaned. “That was the power core!”

“Well maybe the core shouldn’t look like a target!”

“Everything looks like a target to you.”

Black Samson shook his head, tired. “We’re getting worse.”

“Speak for yourself,” Rex snapped, then immediately winced at the glares he earned. “Okay, maybe all of us. A little.”

“Not a little,” Kate grumbled, wiping sweat off her face. “We’re not syncing. At all.”

No one said anything after that. They just caught their breath.

That was the moment (Y/n) finally made her entrance.

Sneakers soft. Glasses on, tucked into a corner of her face like armor in civilian drag.

“Y’know,” she said casually, “I’ve seen toddlers in a bounce house show more coordinated tactics.”

Rex groaned. “Oh, great. The auditor speaks.”

(Y/n) didn’t smile. Didn’t scowl either. Just walked across the floor toward Robot, not looking at them yet.

Then she just simply laid her palm flat and up. 

Robot handed over the chip--silent, mechanical, clearly waiting for feedback.

She glanced down at it, then tucked it into her coat pocket. Still no rush. Still no reaction to the team practically dragging themselves back to standing positions. She took her time facing them. She let the silence hang just long enough to be heard.

“You’re not reading each other. Not adjusting. Not covering blind spots. Kate’s burning clones. Rae’s silent. Amanda’s just solo. Samson’s stuck in his glory days. And Rex has no thoughts. You’re all stepping on each other’s airspace.” 

Turning to Robot again, she slanted her head as if she figured he would know better. “…Why the hell are you simming a Level 7 scenario with a team that barely survived a Level 3 last week?”

Robot’s optics open and shut in what might’ve been his version of a blink. “Stress reveals weaknesses more efficiently than repetition. Exposure to failur-”

“Which only works if there was active learning involved,” she cut in, cool and surgical. “This isn’t exposure. This is setting a group of half-synced rookies on fire and wondering why the smoke alarm keeps going off.”

Robot paused. Calculated. Recalibrated. “Noted.”

“Make it more than noted,” (Y/n) muttered, folding her arms. “If you're serious about their survival rate, don’t treat it like code optimization. Treat it like they're human.”

Finally, she looked at the boy she had spared in the earlier spout off of errors. He--already watching her--didn’t look away.

Mark was breathing hard, arms resting on his knees, sweat glinting at the edge of his hairline. No smirk. No snark. Just that quiet, searching expression that asked more than it ever said aloud.

“And you.” She glanced away with a dismissive roll of her eyes when he just looked at her like that. “Stop holding back. You’re the only one actually adapting.”

A beat.

“And you’re doing it with dead weight.”

“Hey,” Rex snapped, halfway to offended and halfway to defensive. “Watch it with the shit talk, Murderbird.”

(Y/n) didn’t even blink. 

“Then stop making me say it,” she said, flatly, not sparing him a glance.

Rex made a noise like he was about to argue--but even he didn’t have a real comeback. He just threw up his hands in exasperation and turned away, muttering something that sounded suspiciously like “I hate this bi-”

“Alright, trench coat,” Black Samson interrupted, tone sharp but not cruel. “You’ve had plenty to say about what we’re doing wrong.”

(Y/n) spared him a microexpression, slow. Measured.

He stood there--arms crossed, jaw locked, not quite confrontational but close enough.

“You’ve been watching from the cheap seats, tossing critiques like you’re above it. But far as I can tell, no powers, no allegiance, no field command experience. So, humor me.”

A beat.

Then: “What makes you qualified to say any of this?”

The room froze.

Rex made a face like, finally.

Amanda narrowed her eyes--curious now, not dismissive.

Kate shifted to cross her arms--enough to say something, but sensible enough not to.

(Y/n) didn’t move right away. She just looked at Samson for a long second, like she was considering whether or not to answer honestly or just leave.

Rex, ever the loudmouth, added to the bait. “No, no, he’s right.” 

To Rae’s credit, she did try to stop him. But he still took a cocky step forward to crowd (Y/n). 

“We’re the ones sweating our asses off in training. We’re the ones out there catching shrapnel while she drops in like it’s a pop quiz.” He gestured to her with both hands in her face. “She’s supposed to be a ‘contingency?’ What kind of contingency just talks?”

(Y/n) didn’t flinch.

Not when Rex got too close. Not when he gestured inches from her face. Not when he grinned too proud. Not when the rest of the room felt ready to break into a real fight over a hypothetical one.

She just watched him.

Expression unreadable.

“Are you asking because you want to learn something?” she asked, voice low, clinical. “Or because you need to hear yourself over your insecurities again?”

Rex stepped back, affronted. “Okay, wow-”

“No, really. I’m just trying to figure out which flavor of fragile ego I’m dealing with.”

“Alright.” Samson stepped forward again, tone firm. “We’re done posturing.”

(Y/n) tilted her head toward him now, brow slightly raised behind the glasses, mouth hidden behind her mask.

“You want to prove you’re more than a mouth?” Samson said. “Show us.”

A few surprised glances were exchanged around the room.

“Right here. Right now. No powers,” he added, glancing at the rest of the team as he stepped into the training ring. “Just you. Just us. Let’s see if your attitude can fight.”

Rex grinned. “Aw, hell yeah, a chance to knock this chick on her ass? I’m getting in on this action.”

Mark glared at him, straightening slightly and brows pulling inward. “Guys-”

But she was already taking off her coat.

No dramatics. No flair. Just the fluid, practiced motion of someone who’d done this a hundred times. 

“Say that again. With your chest this time.”

She placed the coat down neatly on a bench nearby. 

“I’m not supposed to interfere unless there’s a threat.” 

As if she wasn’t just challenged by a former Guardian and a human explosion, she nonchalantly adjusted the sleeves of the dark long-sleeve shirt beneath. Understated. Streamlined.

“But if you both say it loud enough, it might qualify.”

The corners of her eyes crinkled enough to show her amusement. And, then she just stepped into the ring.

“Use your powers if you want. It’ll end the same way.”

The silence that followed her last words wasn’t empty.

It was weight.

Tension strung tight across the floor as (Y/n) stepped into the ring like it wasn’t a challenge--like it was an errand.

Samson rolled his shoulders, nodding to the rest of the team. “Stand back.”

Rex muttered, “Better call first aid,” under his breath.

(Y/n) didn’t react. Her focus was already dialing in like a camera lens. She tugged the last elastic from her wrist, tying her hair up without breaking eye contact. Her face was half-obscured, still. But her eyes? Her eyes were awake now.

She didn’t ask what the rules were.

Samson gave a small nod, enough to signal ready.

She gave nothing back.

No combat stance. No flourish. No countdown.

Just stillness--weaponized.

Robot’s voice filtered through the overhead speakers:

“Begin.”

Rex charged first.

Of course he did.

A low arc of energy sparked in his palm--standard concussive charge, tuned down for training--but still enough to knock out teeth if it landed clean.

He threw it.

(Y/n) stepped into it.

Not around.

Into.

One foot angled, the other pivoted, body turning with the momentum of the blast--not fighting it, but catching it like a wave. The explosion burst inches behind her, searing past the hem of her sleeve. It grazed her, but didn’t stop her.

She moved.

Fast.

Not showy-fast. Not Mark-fast. But fast in the way that didn’t give you time to flinch. No wasted motion. 

Her elbow cracked into Rex’s jaw before he registered she was already inside his guard.

He stumbled. Blinked. Hands going up too slow.

She swept his leg out from under him--clean, sharp, no windup--and dropped him flat on the mat. 

Rex hit the floor with a thud and a grunt of disbelief. He blinked up at the ceiling, eyes wide, lips parted like he still hadn’t processed what just happened. 

“Okay…what the hell-”

But (Y/n) wasn’t listening. She was already pivoting.

Samson was faster. Smarter. He didn’t charge in like a hothead. He advanced, calculated. Weight centered. Eyes locked. A soldier, not a showboat.

(Y/n) adjusted accordingly.

She didn’t posture. Didn’t square up like she was in a movie. She just moved--smoothly, naturally--like she was stepping through a rhythm only she could hear.

Samson threw a jab, testing. Meant to bait.

She tilted her head. Let it pass.

She watched his shoulder instead of his fist, and when the second hit came--low, fast, with force behind it--she slipped under it, inside his guard, and-

Tapped.

Just a touch. Her palm against his ribs. Not enough to hurt. Just enough to say: I could’ve.

Samson blinked. Reset.

Again.

This time a grapple. He tried to catch her arm mid-turn--classic takedown setup. She let him touch her. Let the grip form.

And then she broke it.

Not with strength. Not with brute force.

With technique.

A twist, a shift of balance, a hitch of breath--and she spun with the motion, redirected the hold, and used his own center of gravity to fold him down toward the mat.

Samson landed, hard. But not painfully. Just… completely off-balance.

Kate leaned in. “Wait, she’s actually-?”

Amanda nodded, arms crossed, lips twitching upward. “Yup.”

Samson exhaled through his nose. “Alright. You’ve got moves.”

She didn’t gloat. Just waited.

Didn’t smirk. Just straightened. 

Calm. Silent.

“Okay,” Rex said, scrambling back to his feet, one hand on his jaw. “Okay, screw that. Tag team. Let’s go, old man.”

Samson grunted as he stood, brushing off the mat with the kind of nonchalance only mildly bruised pride could manage. He didn’t argue. He just reset his stance. He didn’t like getting shown up--but he respected a clean takedown.

(Y/n) didn’t protest either. No sharp reply. No taunt. She just flicked her sleeves up an inch and rolled her neck once.

“Together?” she asked, tone dry. “Finally learning teamwork. I’m touched.”

Her attention was split between the rhythm of Samson’s footfalls and the erratic pulse of Rex’s rising energy signature.

Two opponents. One smart, one chaotic. It should’ve been overwhelming.

Instead, it looked like she was waiting for a train she knew would be late.

Rex moved first. Again.

A high, arcing shot--meant to distract, to herd her toward Samson’s reach.

She ducked the blast, pivoted left-

And walked into Samson’s path.

Except she didn’t.

Because the second his arm swept in to clothesline her, she dropped--a sharp, coiled motion like a trap snapping shut--rolled under, and popped up behind him just as Rex came in from the flank.

She palmed Samson between the shoulder blades with a sharp shove--enough to send him stumbling into Rex’s swing.

The two collided mid-momentum. Off-balance. Sloppy.

She didn’t even need to do anything fancy.

They collided--Rex swearing, Samson grunting as his balance broke--and in the fraction of a second it took for them to untangle, she was already moving again.

No break. No breath. No hesitation.

She flowed.

Rex came back first, swinging wild. Too wide, too fast, too loud. Predictable.

She let his fist pass her cheek by inches, turned with it, and snapped a palm strike into the side of his ribs. Not meant to break. Meant to say I could’ve.

Samson surged forward, aiming low this time. Takedown sweep. Military textbook.

She pivoted on her heel, redirected his arm with a single wrist-grab, and rolled over his back as he passed beneath her. One smooth vault. Graceful. Surgical.

She didn’t land far--just enough to keep the space tight.

“Try again,” she said. Not smug. Just… offering.

They did.

This time, together. Not staggered, not alternating. Together. Like they’d finally realized going one at a time was just letting her pick who hit the mat first.

And this time? It was a brawl.

Rex was all noise and momentum--sparks already charging in one palm, a curse in the other. Samson, by contrast, was steady. Coordinated. Low center of gravity and built like a wall that moved with intention.

But (Y/n) didn’t flinch.

She adjusted her footing half a breath before contact, weight shifting slightly forward--welcoming the charge instead of bracing against it.

Rex fired another high shot, fast. 

She ducked, clean and sharp.

Samson came in from the side, aiming to catch her legs mid-dodge.

She jumped--not high, not flashy. Just enough. One sharp pivot of her heel midair, and she kicked off his shoulder, using his own body as leverage to push behind them both.

She touched down like she’d always belonged there--like gravity bent for her out of habit.

“Coordination,” she offered, voice calm. “That’s new.”

She didn’t give them time to feel proud of it.

No warning.

No sharp breath before the strike.

Just motion--precise and quiet.

(Y/n) didn’t move like she was dodging. She moved like she’d already mapped out the space two seconds ago and was simply stepping through it.

She ducked low under Rex’s swing, used the momentum to slide forward--right into Samson’s blind spot just as he lunged. A quick hook aimed center mass--meant to throw her off balance, slow her down for Rex’s follow-up blast. 

But she shifted, sliding under the arc of his strike.

Her hand came up--flat palm, controlled--and tapped the underside of Samson’s elbow. A precision angle. She turned his momentum against him, guiding the swing just wide enough to clip Rex’s shoulder instead of her.

“Dude!” Rex shouted.

Samson hissed between his teeth, but didn’t waste time glaring. He came back around fast. 

He tried to fake high. She ducked before he committed. Her foot slid forward, hooking behind his ankle, and just as he adjusted for balance-

She snapped her arm out. Not a punch. Just a solid, open-handed shove to his chest, using the leverage of his own recovery against him.

She used his shift in weight to pivot, catching Rex’s incoming punch with her forearm--redirecting, not blocking--and turned the energy back into his shoulder with a palm strike that knocked him off balance.

She stepped in.

Twisted Rex’s arm behind his back with one clean motion and used his own momentum to drive him toward Samson, who was just recovering his footing.

Rex hit Samson mid-turn. They both stumbled.

And before either of them could fully reset-

(Y/n) swiped low at Samson’s legs, and drove her elbow lightly into Rex’s ribs on the way up.

Both of them.

Down.

They groaned. Not seriously hurt. But wrecked.

(Y/n) stepped back.

A heavy breath. But still. Poised.

Rex wailed, out of breath, “You’ve gotta be kidding me-”

Samson just lay there, chest rising with the rhythm of someone recalibrating both breath and ego.

“Who trained you?” he muttered.

She shrugged, “You knew him.”

His head gave a slight shake. “He didn’t fight like that.”

“He liked the rules more.”

Behind her, the team was still quiet. Kate had both eyebrows raised. Amanda was watching with barely-veiled curiosity. Rae looked like she was happy someone finally knocked Rex down a peg.

Mark? He hadn’t looked away once.

Robot’s voice filtered into the air, less clinical this time--like even his processors were buffering:

“Demonstration complete.”

Rex sobbed from the mat. “That wasn’t a demonstration. That was assault.”

(Y/n) didn’t look at him. “You volunteered.”

He wheezed, still half-curled on the mat like the floor owed him an apology.

He squinted up at (Y/n), holding his side with a dramatic grimace.

“You know what?” he rasped. “Next time I try talking to you, someone taze me.”

Kate muffled a snort behind her glove.

Amanda just smirked. “Smartest thing you’ve said all week.”

Rex shot her a glare, but even he knew better than to start something again. Not when the sound of Samson still getting his breath back was echoing in the training ring.

“So you are capable of learning.” (Y/n) stepped out of the ring with the same composure she walked in with--sliding her sleeves back down, brushing invisible dust off her shirt. 

Samson finally pushed himself up with a grunt and shook out his shoulders. “Well,” he sighed, “that answers that.”

“Not entirely,” Dupli-Kate said, finally stepping forward. “You’re clearly trained. Tactical. But who are you?”

Rex frowned with her, “Yeah, we don’t even have a real name.”

(Y/n) adjusted her collar. Her fingers slowed. Not pausing--just... deciding.

“I’ll answer that when one of you takes me down,” she said simply, then asked Robot, “Did any of that help team morale at all?”

Robot, whose optical sensors had been whirring silently throughout the entire sparring match, processed her question in a microsecond.

“Morale: increased. Uncertainty: reduced. Hostility: redirected.”

(Y/n) huffed once. It might’ve been a laugh. It might’ve been relief. “Guess I have to come back then.”

Hearing that, Mark smiled a little.

--

And she did.

She came back.

Not with fanfare or flare, and never under the same name twice. Some days, she was a consultant. Others, a backup. Occasionally just a ghost who loomed in a corner while they trained and said nothing until they needed her to.

But she showed up.

Every time.

And slowly--without them realizing--it changed things.

Kate started timing her clones differently. Amanda started taking calculated risks she didn’t take before. Rex started thinking before he acted--most of the time. Even Robot adjusted his simulations to account for “non-powered interventions”--though he never said her name.

She never offered comfort outright, never praised. But when someone landed a better hit, or covered a teammate’s blind side without prompting, she gave the smallest nod. And weirdly? That nod started to mean more than anything else.

They didn’t like her at first. Not really. She was condescending. Mysterious. Kind of mean.

But then she helped Rae up after a rough hit and muttered, “You’re getting faster.”

Then she pointed out the exact moment Kate could’ve gotten Rex killed--and followed it with a dry, “But you didn’t. Progress.”

Then Amanda caught her leaning against a wall post-mission, one hand gripping her side like she was trying not to feel something under her ribs--and didn’t say a word. Just nodded, and left her alone.

Somehow, that made it realer.

And maybe it was the little things--like how she never demanded to be liked. How she treated them like a mess worth fixing, not failures waiting to be replaced. Like she knew what it meant to be broken and still be useful.

She started talking more. Nothing major. Observations. The occasional sarcastic aside. Even a very weirdly dry inside joke with Rae that Rex didn’t understand but was pretty sure was about him.

She started letting them see glimpses of her. Not much. But enough.

And they started leaning in.

Mark was too.

It started slow. Like most good things.

Mark didn’t say much at first. Just nodded when she showed up. Gave her space when she leaned against the wall instead of joining them on the benches after drills. Laughed a little too hard when Rex got knocked flat--again. But mostly, he watched. Not in a weird way. Just… in that quiet, observant way he had when he was trying not to feel something too loud.

(Y/n) noticed. Of course she noticed. She always noticed him. The way his posture shifted when she entered a room. The way his shoulders loosened when she spoke, even if she was giving Rex hell. The way he lingered just a second longer after training, like maybe he had something to say but hadn’t figured out the shape of it yet.

She watched him for a while too. From a distance. Gave him the same space she gave everyone else.

Until one day, she didn’t.

Training had wrapped. Rex was icing something and dramatically complaining about nerve damage. Amanda and Kate were talking near the lockers, swapping notes between shoulder stretches. Samson had left already--quiet and bruised but noticeably more respectful than usual. Rae gave (Y/n) a brief nod on her way out, and (Y/n) actually nodded back.

The room was thinning out.

But Mark hadn’t left.

And neither had she.

But she was about to. She gathered her things and started toward the door.

But just before she hit the door, Mark--finally--moved.

“Wait.”

She paused. Only half-turned.

Mark took a step forward before he could think himself out of it, running a hand through his hair. He looked... off. A little flushed. A little out of breath, like he hadn’t fully recovered from training or something else.

“You have another five minutes?” he asked, softer than the others could hear.

She raised an eyebrow, barely visible under her glasses.

He tried again, quieter. “Just... outside?”

Her head tilted slightly, the kind of motion that wasn’t permission but wasn’t refusal either. And then--without a word--she nudged the door open and stepped out.

Mark followed. Not immediately. Just long enough to make it look like nothing.

They stepped out into the HQ rooftop access, where the sun had already started to tip toward the horizon. The air was cooler up here. Quieter. The wildlife buzzed somewhere below, muffled by altitude and concrete and distance.

She leaned against the ledge like she wasn’t staying long. Like she didn’t want to give the moment more weight than necessary.

He crossed the distance slower than he meant to. Less superhero. More kid trying to figure out what he’d even say once he got there.

She didn’t speak first. Of course she didn’t.

He opened his mouth, closed it, then rubbed the back of his neck like maybe that would make the words come easier.

He settled for: “You’ve been… different.”

Her expression didn’t shift much. Just a flicker. A pause in her breath.

She didn’t look over right away. Just kept her eyes on the skyline, the dying light painting the mountains in washed-out orange. Then:

“Yeah,” she said simply. “So have you.”

Mark’s mouth twitched. Not a full smile, not yet. Just acknowledgment. It was true--he felt it, even if he hadn’t put words to it until now.

“I think you’re rubbing off on me,” he admitted, softer. “And maybe the team, too.”

She huffed softly. “That’s a terrifying thought.”

“Is it?”

She finally looked at him then. Not guarded, not deflecting. Just quiet and genuine. Like maybe she hadn’t expected this conversation to feel real either.

“A little,” she admitted, lips quirking beneath the edge of the mask. “I was aiming for competence, not… emotional attachment.”

Mark laughed softly at that. “Yeah, well, you don’t get that choice.”

They let silence stretch comfortably between them for a few breaths. The wind murmured below, alive but distant. Neither moved to close the space, but neither stepped away either.

When he finally spoke again, it was quieter. More careful. “Thanks, by the way.”

She gave him a sideways look, eyebrows arching just enough to question without saying anything.

He smiled faintly, eyes drifting out over the sunset. “For showing up. For them… for me.”

She didn’t answer right away.

Didn’t say you’re welcome, didn’t shrug it off with sarcasm. She just watched him for a moment--really watched--like she was trying to decide if this was the part where she stepped closer or disappeared.

“I didn’t know if it mattered to you,” she admitted.

Mark’s brow furrowed. “What?”

“The space,” she said, shrugging. “I just rerouted a few alerts. Took some early. Dusted others. It wasn’t about you.”

Mark gave her a look.

She sighed, exaggerated. “Okay. It wasn’t only about you.”

He smiled a little. She tried not to.

He leaned forward on the railing beside her, elbows braced against the warm concrete. “You could’ve just let it happen, you know. Let me figure it out the hard way.”

“I was,” she said, dry.

He huffed a laugh. “Yeah, but not all the way.”

A beat passed.

“Seemed like Chicago was burning you out,” she said, so quiet he almost missed it. “I had time for a few fires.” 

She paused, fingers tapping once against the concrete. “Just didn’t know if it even helped or just… made you feel watched.”

Mark tilted his head. Not toward her--just enough to register the weight of her voice. It wasn’t her usual tone. Not clipped or clinical. Not sarcastic or dry. Just honest. Measured. Like she’d been chewing on the thought for weeks and wasn’t sure if it was safe to spit it out.

“I mean,” he said, slowly, “it kinda did.”

She blinked, already turning to leave.

“But not in a bad way,” he added quickly, catching the twitch of her shoulder. “It felt like… someone gave a damn. Without asking for anything back.”

That stopped her.

Not just her feet. The whole current of her tension shifted--like her spine unclenched one vertebra at a time.

Mark didn’t look at her when he said it. He wasn’t trying to pin her with sincerity. He just let it land. Kept his eyes forward, like it didn’t matter what she said back.

Which, ironically, made it easier to speak.

“I didn’t want to make it worse,” she said finally. “Didn’t want you thinking I didn’t think you could handle it.”

She mumbled the next words like she didn’t want to be caught being this sappy. “I do think you can… but I also think you shouldn’t have to incinerate yourself to confirm it.”

Mark stepped closer, hands loose at his sides. “You could’ve just said something.”

“You would’ve argued.”

“Maybe.”

“You would’ve felt guilty.”

He looked away, jaw tensing. “Yeah. Maybe.”

“And you wouldn’t have taken the time.”

That made him look up again. Not sharply. Just enough for her to see the defense flicker across his face.

Because she wasn’t wrong.

But she wasn’t entirely right, either.

“I don’t want to be someone you have to plan around,” he said. Quieter now. More honest.

“You’re not.” She tilted her head--not quite disagreement, not quite comfort. Just assessing. “Planning around someone implies they’re in the way.”

“And I’m not?” he asked, half a laugh under the words. But it wasn’t a joke. Not really.

“No,” she said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “You’re the reason there’s anything left to plan for.”

That stopped him.

For a second, the rooftop faded. The wind. The mountains. All of it dropped away.

He just stared at her, heart thudding a little too loud in his ears. She looked back--still unreadable behind the mask, but not cold. Not distant. Just measured, like she’d calculated the exact emotional cost of saying that and decided he deserved to hear it anyway.

Mark shifted. “Then why do I feel like I’m just… being handled?”

She shrugged. “Because you’re used to jumping in and out of fights like you were proving something. To yourself. To your father. To everyone else.”

“You’re not being handled,” she added. “You’re being given room to breathe.” 

He looked down, biting the inside of his cheek. “Feels like I didn’t earn the breathing room.”

“Then you’re really playing into your name, Invincible,” she said it sardonically, but not without a flicker of something like wry affection.

She smiled under the mask. At least he thought so.

“But if you want me to stop, I’ll stop. Just thought you looked like you were going to implode if you didn’t get a break.” A sigh expelled from her, almost emphasizingly dramatic. “And I owed you the five minutes of bad coffee you forced on me.”

Mark snorted a laugh--quiet, surprised. “Looking back on it, it wasn’t that bad.”

“You poured sugar into it like you were trying to embalm it.”

“That was strategy,” he shot back. “Caffeine and sugar--classic recovery combo.”

“You were shaking.”

“I was nervous!”

The words slipped out before he could stop them.

And she let them both ignore it.

Just… looked at him.

Like maybe she hadn’t expected that either.

The silence didn’t stretch awkwardly this time. It just hovered--soft around the edges. Like they were both pretending the horizon wasn’t blurred by something a little heavier than clouds.

Mark rubbed his palm against the back of his neck again, eyes sliding up to meet hers.

“You didn’t owe me anything,” he said.

“I didn’t do it to settle a score,” she said, finally brushing against his shoulder. As if that would nudge him toward a realization. “I did it because I knew you wouldn’t stop unless someone made you.”

His lips parted. “That sounds… manipulative.”

“That sounds true.”

He hated that she wasn’t wrong. Again.

“I just wanted you to have a chance,” she said, quieter now. “To figure out who you really want to be. Before the world forces you to be something else.”

She paused, voice soft but clear. “Everything’s pushing you to a version of yourself you didn’t choose. I wanted to make sure you had room to choose anyway.” 

The wind slid between them, tousling Mark’s hair and tugging faintly at hers. She didn’t reach to fix it. Didn’t look away. Just stood there--still, steady, unmoving--like she wasn’t waiting for a response so much as making sure he heard her.

And he had.

Mark swallowed around something tight in his throat.

She knew he didn’t know how to--couldn’t respond to that. So she did it again. Made it a little easier for him.

“And also to resuscitate your GPA.”

He snorted before he could stop himself. Letting his lips reset from the previous frown. Not quite a smile. Not quite not one.

“I missed you,” he said.

She looked at him like the sentence had thrown her off balance more than a punch ever could.

It seemed like she short-circuited. Like she needed a second to recalibrate.

He didn’t say it like someone pining. Or pressuring. Just… offering. Quiet and real.

For a second, no reply came--not even a sarcastic deflection or some dry, well-timed quip about emotional vulnerability being inefficient.

Then--

“Yeah, whatever,” she scoffed. “Missed you too, bug boy.”

(Y/n) was definitely smiling at him this time.

--

<<next chp>>

<3 -> @jiyeons-closet @heiankyonoeiyuukun @weirdstartshere

[aspen78]

Chapter 6: How it all Byrnes

<<prev chp>>

--

Government buildings rarely whispered, but this one? The Pentagon? This floor of the Pentagon? 

It stopped whispering long ago. It held its breath.

Sound didn’t just fade here--it was put on mute.  

This was the kind of silence you didn’t break with a cough. The kind you didn’t fill with footsteps unless you knew where you were going. 

Everything was all steel walls and buried secrets. No windows. No clocks. Time moved differently here--like it could be redacted just like anything else.

Air down here buzzed with something more than fluorescent lighting--something buried beneath miles of earth and silence. Most people didn’t know this wing existed. Most who did pretended it didn’t.

And, for what goes on down here. It was probably for the best.

(Y/n)--Vireo, whatever you want to call her, all of her--had a bad habit of showing up in these sort of places. Places she technically wasn't cleared for.

Another set of mechanized doors swished open for the girl as she dropped the “borrowed” key card and the silicone swatch of an authorized fingerprint back into the pocket of her blazer. Even through leathered loafers, her steps plodded through the maze of halls inaudibly.

She moved through the system like a courier. Quick. Unimportant. Boring. Belonging.

Security cameras tracked her, but what were they going to do with footage of a person who so very much looked like another agent? 

Black blazer? Check.

Pressed button up? You know it.

Glasses? Exactly the kind you’d never notice.

Badge? Got it… stolen, but still got it.

Finger ready to be scanned? The wonders of 3D printing are truly amazing.

People didn’t question confidence in this place. They questioned mistakes. Glitches. Broken lines of protocol. They looked for the hacker in the hoodie, the grunt with the sweaty hands. No one looked twice at an unmemorable face.

(Y/n) passed another checkpoint like it was just a suggestion. She didn’t smirk. But she wanted to.

Cecil was going to be pissed.

But she was already pissed.

Her taking their defense system for a joyride was the start of making things even. 

A few turns later, and she was standing in front of a vault-grade door marked with no nameplate.

It slid open before she could even attempt to rewire it.

“Come in, Byrnes.”

She sighed. “You’re no fun anymore.”

Cecil’s office was less of a room and more of a cold war command center dressed like a broom closet. Low lights. One-way mirrors. A single screen flickering static-blue across his desk. And the man himself, standing behind it like he hadn’t moved in hours.

(Y/n) stepped in, slow, deliberate. She didn’t take off the glasses. Didn’t drop the mask--not the real one. 

He gestured to the chair across from him. “Have a seat.”

She remained standing.

Cecil didn’t push it. He didn’t need to. 

“You’re not subtle,” he said, adjusting a file on his desk that wasn’t really a file. Just a thin stack of hollow pages, light-reactive and probably encrypted six different ways.

“I was,” she said flatly. “You’re just not normal.”

“You broke in through seven layers of biometric security and knocked one of my guys out.”

(Y/n) folded her arms. “You say that like it’s impressive.”

“It is,” Cecil admitted. “Still doesn’t mean I like it.”

She shrugged before reaching into her pocket. “You’re still alive after your late-night talk.”

Her eyes narrowed to hone in on the faint bruising around his neck. “I take it that it went well.”

He just rubbed his jaw with a sigh like he hadn’t slept. “Define well.”

“You’re breathing.”

“Barely.” He glanced up from the terminal embedded in his desk. “Nolan doesn’t like being questioned. And he's on edge right now.”

Her fingers grazed a small flash drive, letting her thumb run across the smooth surface of it. Thinking. Debating.

To her credit, this was quite a decision to make. It was essentially synonymous to hovering over the button that would nuke the world.

She rolled the flash drive between her fingers once, then twice more, like it might decide for her.

Then she set it down on the edge of his desk. Soft. Final.

It made no sound. But the weight was there.

He looked at it, eyes glaring. He didn’t reach for it yet.

“And what’s on this that I haven’t already seen?”

“Proof,” she murmured, cautious of how loud she spoke this into existence.

Cecil slowly picked up the drive, turning it between his fingers. “Of what?”

(Y/n) met his gaze, somewhat amused, but mostly annoyed. “How long are we going to play 20 questions, Stedman?”

Cecil didn’t answer right away.

He stared at her, like he was searching for the catch hidden in the words she hadn’t said yet. Then he looked at the drive again, almost like it might burn a hole through his hand.

Finally, he sighed and slotted it into the reader embedded in his desk.

The lights dimmed slightly as the screen lit up--not a clean data stream, but a patchwork of spliced footage, metadata, satellite timestamps, and audio pulled from black box files that were never supposed to exist.

And there he was.

Nolan Grayson. Omni-Man.

Not just standing. Not just moving.

Killing.

The Guardians.

No interference. No defense. No unknown third party.

There was only him. And them. And red.

The footage wasn’t long. It didn’t need to be. You didn’t need ten minutes of betrayal to know it happened. You only needed one frame.

As the room came back to a still quiet, both of them sighed.

“Why bring it to me now?”

She shrugged, but it wasn’t casual. “Because I’ve been called a lot of things, but not suicidal.”

Cecil allowed himself a bitter smirk. “Yet you broke into my base to hand me the trigger we’d have to use on the most powerful man on Earth.”

His eyes lingered on the screen for a long time, even after it darkened again. His fingertips tapped the desk--once, twice--then went still.

“I already had Darkblood sniffing around,” he said after a long beat. “He’s been circling the edges of this. Hasn’t found this yet, though. But he’s still… pushing too close.”

(Y/n) watched his face scrunch up in annoyed frustration. “You don’t like him?”

“I don’t trust him,” Cecil corrected. “But that doesn’t mean he’s wrong.”

“He isn’t,” she confirmed, her eyebrow raised. “It’s plugged into your computer now. It’s not a theory anymore, Stedman. It’s not ‘he’s off.’ It’s not ‘he’s hiding something.’ It’s him. In that room. I can ID the timestamp, the body language. I watched him crack Red Rush’s skull on repeat just to be sure I wasn’t projecting.”

It was a long second of just eye contact. Scrutinizing. Uncomfortable. Eye contact.

“You realize what happens if we move too soon, right? No backup plan. No replacement. No safety net. If we spook him-”

“We all die.” She said it like she was stating a grocery item. “I know.”

“And if we wait too long-”

“We still all die.”

Cecil nodded grimly. “Glad we’re on the same page.”

“I don’t think glad is the right word,” (Y/n) scoffed at that. “And I didn’t bring this to you for you to give me orders on what to do and what not to do.” 

“What are you doing in preparation for this.”

Her mouth pressed thin when he didn’t have a response. “You’re waiting for the perfect checkmate while Omni-Man is already moving pawns,” she said, voice dropping lower. “You think he’ll slip. That you’ll come up with a plan so airtight, you can tip the king with a smile on your face.”

“In an ideal world, that would be the plan. But I think we both know ideal is so far from reality now.” She leaned closer across the desk--not threatening, but unwavering. “Stop waiting for ideal. Or you’re gonna be the director who let the world burn while he waited for it.”

“I know,” he finally said, quiet. Not reluctant. Just weighed. “I know.”

He sat back in his chair like it aged him. The static-blue monitor dimmed. The flash drive still blinked at the base of the desk like a tiny red eye.

She could see it behind his tired eyes. The rotations of a dozen emergency scenarios. The unspoken calculations about damage, fallout, and what--if anything--could stop Omni-Man.

(Y/n) watched him. Not like an ally. Not like an enemy. Like someone who refused to be either.

“Whatever you’re thinking? It won’t be enough,” she sighed. Deeply. “There isn’t going to be one perfect play. We’re going to need play after play. Hit after hit.”

“We can’t be stupid enough to delusionize a win. We’re here to buy time.” Running a tense hand through her hair, she tugged on the very ends of it like they could anchor her, stressed. Distraught. Scared. “For him.”

Cecil watched her for a moment, then looked past her. Maybe at the wall. Maybe through it. Then, he closed his eyes. “You saw the file.”

“I saw the file.”

He tried justifying himself, “Mark is the only one who stands a chance-” 

“I know, Stedman,” (y/n) cut in.

Her voice didn’t spike. It dropped. Soft. Dangerous. Like she was tired of repeating herself but still doing it anyway--because no one else would.

“I know what he is. I know what he could become. I know what he might have to become.” 

For the first time since she stepped down here, she let go of her facade. 

The edge in her voice dulled, not from weakness but from wear. The glint in her eyes faded, no longer pretending she was only a third party. The rigidity of her posture loosened under the weight of sentiment. A quiet kind of resignation.

“That doesn’t mean I have to like it.”

The moment didn’t last. It never did.

(Y/n) ran a hand down her face, reeling in whatever was left unsaid, before her spine reset into something colder--straighter. She gave one last glance to the blinking drive.

“You’re the director,” she muttered, already prepping to leave. “Direct.”

His mouth twitched, barely. An unrestrained movement breaking through. “Watch it.”

Her brow arched, just slightly. “Or what? You’ll assign me more teenagers to babysit?”

Cecil gave her a dry, unenthused look. “You’re exhausting.”

“So are you. What’s new?” She rolled her eyes with a small smirk. 

She finally took a step back, her stance loosening by degrees. “I’m thinking with you. But y’know, you get paid for this.”

His eyes bored into her, and he deadpanned--yet again, “Exhausting.”

Her smirk grew enough. And, the door behind her hissed open again for her to turn to leave.

“But Byrnes?” his voice hooked in the air, catching her right before she stepped out of the frame.

She paused. 

“If something happens to you before we act--”

“Don’t pretend you’ll avenge me,” she cut in, calm but cold. “You’re not that sentimental.”

Cecil didn’t deny it. Just tapped the desk once more. “Fine. Then try not to die. I’m short on people who actually get it.”

(Y/n) gave no reply. Only a faint lilt of a chuckle as she disappeared into the corridor.

Still the same steel-and-silence tomb they’d always been, but she now felt heavier walking through them this time. Like the walls had swallowed her voice whole. Like the decision she’d just made had soaked into the soles of her shoes.

She passed another security junction, nodded at a guard who didn’t look twice, and slipped into a nondescript elevator bound for the upper floors.

She adjusted the blazer again. Straightened her cuffs. She didn’t need to, but it helped. Rituals did. Something to focus on besides the knowledge she’d just handed the end of the world to a man with a scar and a death wish. 

The Pentagon aboveground was louder--barely--but even this high up, the silence dragged behind her like a shadow.

The elevator doors dinged open.

She stepped out into a sterile hallway--bright, bland, somewhere between reception and regulation. Not her style. Too clean. Too conscious of itself.

And then she turned a corner--and collided with someone.

Hard enough that the wind almost knocked out of her. Not from the impact. From the recognition.

“Whoa--sorry, I didn’t see-” A voice halted mid-apology.

His hands had automatically caught her shoulders. Gentle. Familiar.

His fingers froze.

Her eyes snapped up. Met his.

Brown. Wide. Familiar.

Mark Grayson.

Oh, great. 

Impeccable timing as always. Just what she needed after pawning off a flash drive labeled "End of World, Probably."

She didn’t say anything. Neither did he.

Not at first.

Because she knew he was already squinting.

And not in the normal awkward-teenage-boy way. The I-know-you’ve-kicked-someone’s-ass-in-front-of-me-before kind of squint.

The blazer. The glasses. The hair. She still looked like someone he should walk past in a hallway. But her eyes?

He’d seen them behind a visor. Under smoke. Just before the sword moved. 

And he watched them move over him. The way she looked at him made him nervous, self-conscious even. Made him automatically look down at his suit for any oddly placed tears. Made him fix his windassaulted hair. Made him grip his mask even tighter. Made him sweat.

He may not be squinting in the normal awkward-teenage-boy way, but he sure was fidgeting in the normal awkward-teenage-boy way. 

Meanwhile, she was facing the quiet internal siren in her head screaming at her to switch from contain nuclear secrets mode to oh no, social interaction mode.

“Uh…” Mark blinked. “Hi?”

(Y/n) adjusted her glasses--not because they’d slipped, but because she needed a second. Maybe two. Maybe a decade.

“…Hello,” she said, cool and even. Polite. The way school acquaintances say it when you spot them in public.

He squinted again.“Wait a second...”

“Nope,” she said immediately, backing out of his hold. “Wrong person. Very flattering though.”

He frowned. “I didn’t say anything yet.”

“You were about to.”

“Was I?”

“You always are.”

 “Okay, that sounds like something someone who knows me would say,” he spluttered with a half-hazardly thrown finger gun, confident he was fully caught up with the scene now. 

(Y/n) groaned under her breath and pinched the bridge of her nose. And her stomach did a slow, sarcastic spin. Of course. Of course.

This was not on the agenda. Not after footage. Not after war prep. Not after giving Cecil the flash drive of doom and telling him to think faster.

And now she was arguing with a half-sweaty teenage hero in the middle of a hallway that probably had thirty surveillance cameras.

Whiplash.

Absolute whiplash.

“Your eyes give you away,” Mark said, like that settled it. And settled himself against the wall, arms crossed and teeth smiling.

“That’s creepy,” she deadpanned, her face pinched to show her distaste--amused distaste, but still distaste. 

“Is it?” he asked, smile widening like he thought he was winning something. “Because I think it’s poetic. Like--Shakespeare-level poetic. Or at least early Poe.”

She let a long sigh through her nose. “Grayson.”

He grinned. “Wow, last name. I must really be getting to you.”

(Y/n) scrunched those eyes he was so very familiar with, apparently.

“C’mon,” he said, taking a small step closer, tilting his head like he was trying to line up her current form with the battle-ready image in his memory. “You think a pair of glasses and a blazer are gonna throw me off?”

“They usually do,” she muttered. “That’s half the point.”

“Well, they don’t. I’d recognize those eyes anywhere.”

“Stop saying that.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re saying it like you’re in a cheesy romcom.”

He chuckled. Real. Stupid. Warm. His smile was crooked now. Warm. And it hit her in a way it absolutely shouldn’t have. Not right now. Not when she still felt the blood pumping cold from her last conversation.

(Y/n) stood there a beat longer than she meant to. Her shoulders were still squared like they hadn’t realized the war room was gone. Her mind was still back on the screen. The footage. The future.

But Mark? Mark was just there. Waiting. No knives. No suspicion. Just the same awkward warmth that had somehow become familiar.

She opened her mouth. The beginnings of a sentence tried to leave her, but then stopped. It swerved into a breath, and she pressed her lips together. Then, she tried again. 

“I’m going now.”

She took a step back. He took one forward.

(Y/n) narrowed her eyes. 

He saw it, because of course he did. 

“I’m not- I’m not following you,” Mark spluttered, unconvincingly, still with a smile. “I’m just… walking the same direction at the same time. Like a coincidence. Or fate.”

She quickened her pace slightly, but he matched her again, too persistent for someone who was just “walking the same government hallway.”

(Y/n) huffed, blowing a strand of hair out of her face as her shoes mutely hit the sterile tile. “You’re unbearable.”

Mark didn’t miss a beat. “You say that like it’s a new development.”

“It’s not.”

“Well, then, at least I’m consistent.” He grinned at her like that was a badge of honor.

She finally cracked--air that almost became a laugh escaped her nose. And she hated how easy it was. How damn fast he melted the steel she hadn’t even unclenched since the sublevels. The shift in her tone, her spine, her pulse--it was too fast. Too much. Whiplash.

She immediately covered it with a cough. And, Mark pretended not to notice, but his teeth shone even brighter than the white lights.

“You are the only person who talks to me like this,” she tried to scoff.

Mark grinned like that was the entire point.

“Yeah, well--maybe I’m just the only one who knows how,” he said, easy, shrugging one shoulder.

(Y/n) rolled her eyes so hard it was practically audible, but she didn’t stop walking. Didn't tell him to leave. Didn't tell him not to follow, either.

They walked in silence for a few steps. Or rather, they moved in parallel--(Y/n) all control and solitary, Mark more of a friendly orbit, like a moon too interested in a planet that very clearly did not want to be the center of anything right now.

It should’ve been irritating.

It was irritating.

But it also wasn’t.

Because he wasn’t asking. He wasn’t pressing. He wasn’t even demanding she confirm who she was, despite the fact he clearly knew. He just walked with her, making the atmosphere lighter whether she wanted it or not.

…She hated him a little for that.

Not real hate. Not the kind that sticks. The kind that flares when someone makes it too easy to breathe after you’ve nearly drowned.

“Do you always do this?” she asked after a moment, gaze forward, voice low.

He tilted his head. “Do what?”

“This,” she motioned vaguely with a hand. “Miraculously time it so you catch me at my worst moments and use that to try to be my friend.”

Mark smiled. Not like before. Just simple. Like the kind of smile you pull on when you don’t know how to respond. 

“...Aren’t we friends?”

She stopped walking.

Not with some dramatic skid or gasp or swing of the arms--but like a machine whose program had hit a wall. Like the word itself broke a cog inside her head. Friends.

Her jaw didn’t drop. Her breath didn’t catch.

She just paused.

Long enough that Mark realized he’d said something heavier than it sounded.

He blinked. “I mean--I thought we were. Or at least heading that way? I mean, I hoped-” He was doing that thing again. Rambling. Filling the air. Hands trying to catch his own words as they tripped over each other. “It’s not like I have a quota or anything, I just--well, you’re you, and I like being around-”

“Mark.”

She said it like a pressure valve.

He shut up.

The hallway, the lights, the sterile silence--all of it blurred for a second.

She wasn’t looking at him.

Her posture was still straight, still calculated. But something in her face--something in the space just beneath the skin--looked tired.

Not from walking. Not from running.

From carrying.

“…Aren’t we friends?” he asked again, a little more carefully this time. A little less certain.

(Y/n) didn’t answer right away.

She stared down the hallway instead. Like she might find the right words hidden between fluorescent hums and security cameras.

Then she said, “You don’t know me.”

“I’m trying to,” he said, quiet.

That got a glimpse of something behind her eyes. Not warmth. Not cold. Something unfinished.

She looked at him fully now, and it hit harder than it should have--how much was behind that expression. Grief. Steel. Hesitation. All fighting for the same square inch of space.

“You’re not supposed to,” she said.

He tilted his head. “Why not?”

She gave a breath of something like a laugh, but it didn’t reach very far. “Because if you do, it gets harder.”

“For who?”

“For me.”

That landed with more weight than either of them expected.

Mark’s mouth opened--some clumsy kindness ready to leap out--but her look stopped it before it formed.

She stepped back once. Not far. Just enough to reset the space between them.

“You’re… good,” she said. Like it hurt to admit. “And I’m trying to keep you that way.”

Mark swallowed. “…You don’t have to protect me.”

“Yeah,” she murmured. “I do.”

She didn’t say it like a martyr.

She didn’t say it like someone brave.

She said it like it cost her something.

It hung there.

Simple. Unadorned. Heavy in a way that made the silence around it feel thinner, stretched like glass.

Maybe it was in the way she avoided looking at him. Or maybe it was in the way bits of guilt and sadness peeked out.

But he understood something now--something he hadn’t put words to until this second.

She wasn’t pushing him away because she didn’t care.

She was doing it because she did.

He shifted his weight, eyes flicking to her hands, her shoulders, her jaw--every part of her holding still like movement would make everything spill out.

“You always do that,” he sighed, shaking his head the way you do in every frustrating argument. 

It took a beat of hesitation for (Y/n) meet his prying stare. “Do what?”

“That thing where you decide everything for everyone. Like if you hold the weight long enough, the rest of us get to keep pretending this is… normal.”

She flinched. Barely, but enough. 

He saw it.

And, she had to look away for her next words. 

“Well, that's sort of the point.”

Mark’s brow creased. 

“If I hold it,” she mumbled, steadily. Almost eerily so. With that hollow undertone of someone reciting something implanted deep within them. “Then maybe you don’t have to. Maybe you still get make your stupid jokes. Still worry about that test you forgot about. Still flail at every attempt to impress the girl. Still wake up and want something.”

He couldn’t respond to that. Not right away.

Not because he didn’t have something to say--god, he had too much to say. Too many arguments, too many reasons she was wrong, or brave, or unfair to herself. 

But none of it would’ve mattered. None of it would’ve reached her the way he wanted it to.

Because she wasn’t asking for comfort.

She was explaining her logic.

And that’s what bothered him the most.

“…You think that’s what I want?” he asked finally, his voice lower now. “To be protected from the world like I’m still some kid who doesn’t get what’s coming?”

“No,” she stated, softly. “I think it’s what you deserve.”

That undid something in him.

Because there it was. Not pity. Not distance. Just… belief. In him, more than she let herself believe in anything else.

He stepped forward--not to grab her, not to reach, but to narrow the space again. Make it real.

“I don’t want to deserve normal if it means you don’t get to have it too,” he said.

Her voice came out barely above a whisper now, but it was still the loudest thing to him. “That’s not how this works.”

She looked at him then, and it almost ruined him.

Because it wasn’t cold. It wasn’t armored.

It was sad.

Not the kind of sadness that breaks down crying--but the kind that’s lived in someone’s bones so long, it’s just part of how they move now.

“You think I don’t want it?” she asked, a wry smile tugging at her mouth. “You think I don’t lie awake wishing for something as simple as a bad grade or an awkward party or a real conversation that doesn’t come with collateral damage?”

She didn’t wait for him to answer. He didn’t try to.

“I want normal more than anything,” she said, voice flat--not because she didn’t feel it, but because she felt it too much. “I don’t even get to pretend to have it as ‘me.’ I don’t go to school anymore. I head a company. I argue with men twice my age. I date to keep the tabloids distracted. I flirt when I’m supposed to, smile when it’ll make a better headline, and leave before anyone can ask a real question.” 

Finally, (y/n) met his eyes. Tired meeting pity. 

“And everyone keeps telling me I’m impressive. That I’m composed. That I’m handling it.” She paused, her jaw clenching. 

“I’m already fighting to keep two lives.” She looked away again. “I can’t handle adding a normal one.”

Mark didn’t back off. No, he stepped closer. Grazed his hand on her shoulder enough to get her attention again.

“Maybe…” he started, not sure and full of uncertainty, but earnest. “Maybe you don’t need another life.”

She didn’t move, but something in her eyes flickered. Caution. Skepticism. Bracing for some hollow reassurance.

“You can take--you’re allowed to take a moment for you. Just five minutes? Where none of that matters. Not the headlines, missions, or- or anything,” he smiled, asking for any form of consideration. “The world won’t fall apart that quickly, right?”

She stared at him like he’d just spoken in a language she hadn’t heard in years.

Five minutes?

Her throat tightened around the idea. Not because it was absurd.

But because it was dangerous.

Because it sounded a little too much like hope.

(Y/n) didn’t answer right away. Her eyes dropped--not out of guilt, not even hesitation, but calculation. Like she was weighing the cost of softness in a life that had no room for it.

He wasn’t asking for forever. Wasn’t asking her to tear down everything she'd built just to let him in.

He was asking for five minutes.

And she didn’t know how to say yes to something so simple.

Because if she said yes now, what would happen the next time someone needed her?

What if five minutes turned into ten? Turned into a habit?

Turned into her wanting more?

And want was dangerous.

Want was weakness.

Want was how people got kill-

Shit. How did it get this bad? 

Even when someone is asking for five minutes where you don’t spiral into your responsibilities, you still were.

(Y/n) shut her eyes, letting a new breath cycle through her lungs. She let herself breathe. Just once. Fully. 

Then it came out as a curt huff. Just like the ones when you can’t believe how stupid you were.

Her (e/c) met his patient brown ones and a small, pressed smile was willed into existence. Not a smartass smirk. Or that photo perfect grin. 

Just her smile.

“...Well,” she said, her tone somewhat neutral. “You got time for a coffee? Or should we keep standing here making eye contact until one of us combusts?” 

Mark’s grin was immediate. Stupid. Earnest. Real. 

Very Mark.

(Y/n)’s was tentative. Uncertain. But cracked open enough to be real.

Possibly (Y/n).

--

*bonus scene (b/c i felt like writing it but the chapter officially ended above :] )

The overhead lights in the break room buzzed with the faint flicker of neglect. One of them stuttered every now and then like it was trying to start a conversation. But it doesn’t. Because even the lights know better.  

Everything was beige or gray. Tables were bolted down. Chairs were stackable. Coffee machines looked like they have been through war.

Still, there was something oddly comforting about it. 

Maybe it was because no one spared the brightly colored hero or the ‘intern’ a second glance. In the eyes of everyone else, they simply just got another two bodies in the bureaucratic purgatory. 

The pair stood at the far end of the self-serve station. Mark stared at the array of options like it was a minefield. (Y/n) watched him with a vague sense of amusement, still trying to unclench the knot between her shoulder blades.

“So…,” he gestured with both hands, eyes squinting at the row of burnt carafes. “Do I risk the ‘hazelnut’ or the mystery third pot?”

She picked up a paper cup and lightly snorted, “I think you’ll regret either.”

He nodded solemnly, watching as she picked up the safe pot in the middle. “Cool, cool. Regret it is.”

Grasping the third pot, Mark watched the dark liquid slosh around the glass and swallowed. He filled the cup halfway and immediately winced at the scent that hit him. 

“Holy shit,” he groaned, shoving the cup away from his face. “That smells like battery acid and depression.”

(Y/n) hid a shit-eating grin behind her own cup, sipping at the bland, watered-down black coffee to cover a laugh. “That’s actually the Pentagon house blend.” 

He gave her a sidelong look, lips quirking. “I forgot you could joke.”

She gave him a look over the rim of her cup. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, I’m hilarious.”

Mark let out a soft snort.

“You’re just never in the crowd,” she finished, deadpan.

He chuckled as they walked their drinks over to a corner table tucked between a vending machine and a bulletin board littered with outdated training memos.

(Y/n) sat with her back to the corner. Old habit. Strategic. Eyes facing the room. One foot hooked around the leg of her chair like muscle memory never quite let her go.

Across from her, Mark plopped down ever so gracefully, staring at his cup like the coffee might melt through.

Still, he, of course, sipped it. Grimaced at it. And, immediately regretted it.

“I’m ninety percent sure this is paint thinner,” he muttered.

She finally let the smile fully break through. Not wide. Just... unguarded. “You’re the idiot who picked the mystery pot.”

He leaned on one elbow and pointed at her, mock-offended. “Excuse you, I was misled. You told me I’d regret both. That made this sound like a fun gamble.”

(Y/n) arched a disapproving brow at him, but the tilt of her lips gave her away. “So it’s my fault you chose to melt your tastebuds.”

Mark threw both hands up, still grinning. “Hey, I take responsibility for most of my terrible decisions. This one’s only, like… seventy percent mine.”

“Generous.”

“You’re welcome.”

She shook her head at his attempts of getting her to laugh, but she didn’t cover the tiny grin on her face.

Mark set the cursed cup down like it might explode if provoked further. He leaned back in the chair and glanced at her again, letting the grin settle into something softer. 

Seeing her in this light felt illegal for him. Not that she wasn’t allowed to be normal… adjacent. But with how she usually moved through the world, this felt new. And rare. And kind of good in its own weird, quiet way. 

She wasn’t armored up. Not fully. Not right now. No bird-mask. No shield. No mission reports or tactical evasions. Just her. Shoulders still a little tense. Foot still wrapped around the chair leg like she was expecting a breach. But her mouth? Still tilted in something that looked dangerously close to relaxed.

Mark tried not to stare. He did a bad job.

“So…” he started again, grasping at straws for a normalish topic. “No school?”

(Y/n) squinted at him as if asking “really,” but answered with a shrug anyway. “Not anymore.”

His eyes bore into her when she didn’t explain further, almost daring to pour his coffee in her watery one.

Snatching her cup from him, she gave a light glare. “I-um I graduated already.”

Mark blinked. “Wait. Really?”

(Y/n) took a swig from his coffee cup purely out of spite, grimaced, and set it back down like it personally offended her.

“Yeah,” she confirmed, voice recovering around the aftertaste. “Graduated.”

“High school?”

A quiet sip of bland chaser filled the air for a drawn out second. She gazed into the murky brown like it might offer a better way to say what came next. Because how do you admit to this without sounding pretentious? Or… like a government science experiment with a student ID.

“Um. Yeah, high school…” she started carefully. “And, uh. College.”

She could feel him trying to pry more out of her, but she didn’t look at him. Just sipped again.

“Wait.” Mark blinked like his brain was buffering. “College college?”

“Yeah.”

“You’re joking.”

She shook her head, the tiniest twitch of her mouth made a smirk. “I really wish I was.”

His mouth opened. Closed. Then opened again--this time with something that sounded like a confused half-laugh, like he wasn’t sure whether to be impressed or concerned.

“Hold on,” he said, holding out a hand like he could physically stop the revelation from snowballing. “You’re how old again?”

She leaned back slowly in her chair, arms crossing loosely, smirk already spreading. 

“Older than you,” she said, annoyingly smug.

He squinted harder at her. 

And, as if it actually managed to pull a real answer from her, she gave in. “...by a few months.”

“You’ve got that much mysterious aura and you’re barely older than me?”

“Some of us peak early,” (y/n) shrugged, smug still intact. “Besides, it’s not hard when you don’t sleep and already know half the curriculum because you’ve been hacking into government databases since middle school.”

Mark blinked again. “...What.”

She handed his cup back with a faint, innocent shrug. “What?” 

He waited for her to crack and admit it was all a bit. She didn’t. 

She smiled. “Is this really what you want to spend five minutes of normal wrapping your head around?”

He made a face. “Okay, fine, but if this is you being normal, I want a refund.”

Clicking her tongue, she put her cup down and corrected him like she was reading the fine print of a contract, “Five minutes of normal. Not five minutes of ordinary.”

"Right, my bad," He huffed a laugh, sinking into his chair like the weight of the day finally remembered it existed. His hand toyed with the edge of the coffee cup, rotating it slowly. “Y’know, for what it’s worth… I don’t think normal’s all that great.”

(Y/n) tilted her head--subtle, questioning.

“I mean, sure, it’s nice,” Mark continued, eyes still on the cup. “Simple. Safe. But--I don’t know. It’s hard to pretend I still fit into that.”

He glanced at her again, searching. Not pushing--just looking. Like he wasn’t sure if what he’d said made him sound ungrateful or just honest.

She didn’t give him an immediate answer. But she didn’t look away, either.

So he took that as permission to keep going.

Mark cleared his throat, “I keep trying to pretend I still care about pop quizzes and gross cafeteria food. But then there’s this whole other life I’m living that I’m not supposed to tell anyone about.”

He paused, swirling the coffee again like it might say something back this time.

“And, then I finally asked out this girl I like,” he said, almost as if he wasn’t sure whether to laugh or wince. “You saw how that went.”

The girl across from him just sat with him. Listening without interruption. Letting him have the air, because he needed it too.

“It was great for the most part. She was great. But I kept having to lie to her, or just leave stuff out,” he admitted, words slowing like they were dragging more weight than expected. “I mean, it was the first date… it’s the first try at getting to know someone you like, and I was already leaving out half my life.”  

He rubbed the back of his neck, fingers tangling slightly in his hair. “I want to be normal for her. I really do. But trying to just made me understand what you meant at the bench.”

(Y/n)’s gaze didn’t waver. If anything, it softened--but not in a way most people would notice. Just enough for someone who knew how hard she worked to keep things out of reach.

“You said it,” he added, voice a notch softer. “That’s not how this works when your life becomes fragments.”

She looked down at her hands. One still circled the rim of her cup like it was muscle memory. The other flexed slightly, resting against the edge of the table, fingers twitching like they were fighting the urge to hold something real.

“…Yeah,” she said after a long moment and then she let go of an admission. “I tried to give you a little buffer from that realization.”

His eyes flicked up only to see she wasn’t meeting his but her cup’s.

“Stedman said you were taking a night off so I picked up the alert for you,” she half shrugged as if it was nothing. “I didn’t think you should have to get electrocuted and broken up with in the same hour.” 

Mark let out a quiet breath, somewhere between gratitude and humor. “I was wondering how you showed up that fast. Don’t you live in New Jersey or something?”

“Stedman kidnapped me, so I was in the area,” she muttered with a grudge.   

He raised both eyebrows. “Like… literally kidnapped?”

She sipped her coffee again like it was a legally binding NDA. “The man has a teleporter at his disposal.”

“So… yeah. Literal kidnapping.”

“Technically, he asked first. I just didn’t realize ‘for what?’ was legally binding.”

He chuckled, a small, disbelieved one. 

“But, thanks…” he said quietly. “For taking the alert.”

(Y/n)’s eyes snapped to him for a half-second before she brushed the thanks off with a wave of her hand. “It wasn’t charity. You were busy. I wasn’t.”

“That’s the same tone Cecil uses when he wants me to think he’s not being nice.”

She scoffed, “Well, you both complain the same amount, so.”

“Still,” he said after a beat. “It helped.”

“Sure,” she offered an ounce of acknowledgement through a quirk of the lip. 

For a moment, neither of them said anything. Just let the scent of the--pathetic excuse for--coffee fill the air between them. No one else was in the room but them now. Two teens who didn’t feel like teens. Sitting across from each other--not like it was normal, but like normal didn’t matter. 

(Y/n) tapped her finger lightly against the rim of the cup again. A rhythm, faint and even. Mark watched the motion--not because it was loud, but because it was grounding. The kind of thing people did when they were still working out if they were allowed to be at peace.

“You think there’s anyone out there who doesn’t care about the ‘normal’ part?” he asked, faintly, almost like he didn’t want her to hear it.

A pause. Measured. Careful.

“Someone who gets it.”

That landed between them like a quiet echo. Not loud enough to demand anything--but not soft enough to ignore, either.

(Y/n) looked at him fully now, the weight of that last line filtering through her in real time. Something passed behind her eyes--quick, quiet, not quite visible. But it was there.

A flicker of recognition.

Of warning.

Of want.

She swallowed once. Then shifted an inch apart from him, gaze narrowing just slightly--not cold, but sharp. Assessing.

“Someone who gets it,” she echoed, carefully.

Not mocking. Not dismissive. Just… weighing it. Like she was trying to decide whether he even knew what he was asking.

Mark didn’t flinch under the scrutiny. He didn’t double down either. He just held the question where it was. In the air. Waiting.

“You’re looking for the wrong person then,” she said, voice quieter now. Less clipped. Less armored.

Mark tilted his head. “Yeah?”

She looked down again, like the words had to be mined from somewhere deeper than she was used to digging. Her next sentence came out like a confession whispered into a storm drain.

“You don’t want someone who gets it,” she said, voice lower. “You think you do.  But it’s a different kind of weight when someone understands exactly how much you’re carrying.”

“They don’t say, ‘I’m sorry you’re going through this.’ They say, ‘Yeah. Me too.’ And that’s worse, ” (Y/n)’s voice softened, somewhere between apology and resignation. “Because it’s not just shared. It’s mirrored. And sometimes, you don’t want a mirror. You want a window. A door. Something that opens out instead of in.”

Her eyes flicked back to his then--cautious, a little raw, but direct.

“That’s what normal people give you. Even if it’s fake, even if it’s fleeting. The chance to look at the world like you’re not trapped in it.”

She didn’t say "someone like me can’t give you that."

She didn’t have to.

It was written in the space between her posture and the tired set of her shoulders.

“I think you should give an actual shot with her.”

He could’ve said okay. He could’ve said maybe. He could’ve said nothing at all.

Instead, he leaned forward just slightly, elbows on the table, and said:

“But she doesn’t know this part of me.”

“It didn’t feel real.” His fingers tapped against the side of the cup again, mirroring her rhythm without realizing it. 

(Y/n) noticed. She always noticed. And for a moment, she said nothing.

Then--softly, without lifting her gaze-- “Maybe that’s why you tried.”

Mark tilted his head. “Because it wasn’t real?”

“No,” she said. “Because it could be.”

There was a pause.

Just long enough for the weight of it to settle between them. Not heavy--just exact. Measured. Like the moment had stopped pretending it was just casual.

Then his voice cut back in, low but sure.

“You think this--” he gestured between them, between the silence and the rawness and the edge of a conversation that wasn’t supposed to happen, “--feels fake?”

His tone wasn’t biting. It wasn’t dramatic. It was… quietly daring. Like he was offering her a way to deny it—if she needed it. But hoping she wouldn’t.

“No.” (Y/n) gave the smallest laugh. The kind that had too much honesty in it to be sarcastic. “But it’s messy.”

“It always is,” he agreed. “But that doesn’t mean it has to suck.”

“It kind of does, though,” she said. “If it didn’t suck, we wouldn’t be here drinking coffee that tastes like liquid regret pretending we’re allowed to have five minutes to feel human.”

She bit her lip, thinking. “Look, just try for the door before you’re stuck without an exit.”

Mark’s brow furrowed, lips pressing into something between a smile and a frown.

“Okay,” he said slowly. “But what if the door is locked?”

(Y/n)’s eyes flicked to him, guarded. “Then find another one.”

“And if I still end up circling back to the same room?”

“Then you’re not looking for an exit. You’re just stalling.”

His mouth quirked, more wry than amused. “Maybe. Or maybe…” he leaned in slightly, just enough to shift the air between them. “Maybe some rooms are worth getting stuck in.”

Exasperation filled her face. “Mark.”

She said his name like a warning. Like a sigh. Like a bruise she didn’t want him pressing on, even if part of her didn’t mind the weight.

“I don’t…” she hesitated. Then met his gaze--really met it, like she was pleading with him to let it pass through his thick skull. “I don’t want to be the reason you get stuck… Please, just try.”

“Okay,” he said again. Not flippant. Not blindly hopeful. Just steady. Like he understood what she meant, even if he didn’t agree with all of it. “I’ll try.”

(Y/n) exhaled. Not dramatically. Just enough to loosen the breath she’d been holding since the moment got too close.

A beat passed. They sat there, two weapons forged too early in the fire, trying not to need things they couldn’t name.

Then she glanced at the clock. Five minutes had long since passed.

And yet--

She didn’t move.

Didn’t push away.

Didn’t reset.

Instead, she nodded toward the cup he’d been rotating this whole time.

“Drink that again,” she said, deadpan. “Let’s make sure you suffer enough to remember me in a bad light.”

Mark laughed--actually laughed this time. Not the awkward, teen-fumbles kind. The real kind. Like something in his chest loosened.

And when he lifted the cup again in mock salute, (Y/n) laughed with him--moreso at his immediate gag. Letting another five minutes slip through her clock.

--

<<next chp>>

<3 -> @jiyeons-closet @heiankyonoeiyuukun

[aspen78]

Chapter 5: How it all Byrnes

<<prev chp>>

--

Midnight City was an odd place. 

If you associate odd with cities plunged into eternal darkness induced by some weird magical dude--places lit up by neon lights rather than the sun, too stubborn to die but too malnourished to live--then yeah, odd was the right descriptor.

It used to be different.

That's what the old-timers said, anyway.

Back before the darkness set in. Before heroes started dying. Before the city stopped pretending it could be saved. 

No one could. Few tried. Fewer were still trying.  

--

A quiet buzz of electricity barged into the loud, loud scene of Midnight City… well, I guess the quote, unquote nicer outskirts of Midnight City.

But even on the outskirts, no one here wanted to be here. Especially not the one that phased in with the blue electricity.

A heavy huff filled the rain dense air.

Though, much like the weird blue flash of a teleportation beam and the scarred-face man who materialized from it, it blended into the city static. Weird things go unnoticed--ignored in weird cities.

And just like that, he stepped into the metropolitan traffic, falling in step with the steps of all other Midnight City dwellers--the Nocturnals. 

He wrinkled his nose at it all. 

Streetlights flickered overhead, casting sickly halos over the cracked sidewalk. Neon signs blinked half-heartedly in the distance. Somewhere, someone screamed. Somewhere else, a siren wailed, getting swallowed by the sprawling dark.

It smelled like wet concrete and the definition of bad out here.

All reasons he didn’t “visit” often.

Not that he needed to; it was in capable hands.

He didn’t look around.

Didn’t need to.

He only looked dead ahead at a particular black umbrella in the sea of its clones. Tracking its movements as it tried to get lost. 

He treaded faster after its owner, following her pace. Fast. Purposeful. Not running. Not hiding, either. 

It curbed the corner. So did he.

It zipped into an alley. So did he. 

He closed the distance slowly, methodically, until he was half a step behind it. Close enough to speak without raising his voice. Close enough that its owner couldn’t pretend she hadn’t heard him.

"You're getting sloppy," Cecil said, his voice cutting through the static of the city like a clean knife.

The black umbrella finally stilled with an annoyed sigh. 

“Says you,” (Y/n) shot back with a scoff. 

Moving under the shelter of a fire escape, she cleanly pulled the umbrella shut. “Saw you beam in. You really thought I’d walk into an alley in this city for no reason?”

Cecil walked into place next to her. “I meant letting yourself be found.”

She snorted, “Wow. Congrats. You found Midnight’s favorite photo op. You want an award or something?” She glanced at him. “You found me because I let you.”

"You always were sharp," he said, his voice carrying that dry, clipped tone that--for him--could be catergorized as amused. "Sharp enough to know I don’t make social calls."

Her eyes narrowed at him. “What, Stedman?” she asked, but it came out more as a demand.

"You’re needed."

A beat. 

Two breaths.

One from the non-Nocturnal adjusting to the cold. The other from the Nocturnal calculating risk.

(Y/n) exhaled slowly, mist ghosting from her mouth. "By who?" she asked, slowly. "For what?"

Cecil smiled a grim, knowing smile.

The kind that promised nothing good.

"You’ll want to hear this one," he said. "And you’ll want to say no."

He tucked his hands into his pockets, like he had all the time in the world.

"But you won't."

(Y/n) watched him, unimpressed.

Midnight City had a way of breeding out curiosity. It left behind cynicism, and a bone-deep suspicion that anything "important" was probably a death sentence with a nicer jacket.

“Yeah, we’ll see about that.” Her fingers flexed slightly at her sides--like she was debating just fleeing right then and there. Cecil caught the movement, the calculation behind her stillness. He didn't push. He never did--not with her. He just waited, like a man watching dominoes he’d already knocked over.

“Talk fast, I have a board meeting,” she spat out. “And I’m already regretting letting you catch up.” 

He didn’t flinch at the jab. Just kept watching her unsettling calm and snark.

“It’s the new Guardians’ move-in day,” he said. “I didn’t see you at try-outs, but you could still make the team.”

(Y/n)’s expression didn’t change, but something in her jaw clicked. A barely-there twitch.

She stared at him like he’d just offered her a lit match and a room full of gasoline.

Then she laughed. Not a true one. One more so reserved for horrible jokes.

“Right,” she said, dry as sand. “I hope you didn’t crawl into this shithole for that pitch. Waste of tax money, Stedman.”

The scarred man glared at her with his mouth pressed into a thin line.

That made her laugh again--shorter this time. Meaner. “Jesus. You did.”

(Y/n) tipped her head back against the brick, eyes closed for a half-second longer than necessary. She looked exhausted. Not in the physical way. In the soul-deep kind of way. Like someone who kept waking up in a life they didn’t ask for.

She sighed and then pushed off from the brick wall, shaking her head like the whole conversation was a bad punchline she’d already heard too many times. 

“Appreciate the laugh, Stedman,” she scoffed as she stepped out from under the fire escape. 

She didn’t get far. Just a few steps into feeling droplets of rain hit the top of her head before he spoke.

“You’re not actually laughing, Byrnes,” Cecil sighed in return.

(Y/n) slowed--but didn’t stop.  

“Yeah,” she called back, not turning. “I do that sometimes. Makes it easier to stomach the truly dumb shit I’ve witnessed rolled out like it’s genius.”

“This isn’t dumb shit,” he said, flat but steady. “And you know it.”

She paused. Boots scraped to a halt on the wet pavement. Shoulders squared, back still to him. The kind of pause that wasn’t surrender, just... restraint. Barely.

“Doesn’t mean I want to be part of it.”

“I do not fit in a team,” she stressed out every syllable. “And me? A Guardian? Even more fucking hilarious.” 

She glared back at him with eyes that didn’t blink anymore, not after everything. “In case you forgot, Stedman? You’re asking me to be part of the Guardians of the Globe. Emphasis on ‘the Globe.’ I have no powers. I can’t fly around saving continents. I can’t punch holes in dimensions. I’m not even fucking bulletproof.”

“And I am not going to be your Darkwing replacement, Stedman.” (Y/n) stepped closer, just half a step, but it was enough to make her presence press into the space between them like a weight. “He was smart, but not smart enough to see how stupid it was to play superhero with actual superheroes.”

Cecil didn’t move. Didn’t flinch.

He just looked at her with that same dispassionate calm he wore to the Guardian’s crime scene, funeral, and replacement tryouts.

“He wasn’t stupid. He was necessary,” Cecil said simply. “So are you.”

His gaze didn’t change.

“You’re right. You’re not bulletproof. You’re not faster than light. You can’t fly.”

A beat.

“But you’re still standing.”

He dropped his hand with a low sigh, like he was tired of saying the same things to people who should already know better.

"You think I’m here offering you a gold star and a locker room pep talk?" he said.

"Grow up, Byrnes."

(Y/n) stiffened, just barely.

"You’re not here to be the heavy hitter. Or the mascot. Or the damn symbol," he continued, voice cold, measured. "You're here because the big ones--the ones who can punch planets--don’t know what to do when the punches don’t work."

He stepped forward now, matching her half-step with one of his own, until the rain-drenched alley felt a little too small for the two of them.

"You know what it’s like when powers don't save you. You know how to think small. How to think dirty. How to survive when surviving looks like losing."

Cecil let the words hang there--like that was enough. Like that was the pitch.

(Y/n)’s expression didn’t crack, but her silence did.

She took a slow step forward, just enough to make her voice feel closer than it was. “Is that what this is to you?” she asked, tone tight. “Some poetic tragedy you can use to fill another team roster?”

Cecil didn’t answer.

So she gave him one anyway.

"You want me to lead them because I’ve seen the worst. Because I know what happened." Her voice was quiet now, but shaking--not with fear. With fury held under her skin like pressure behind glass.

She took a breath, sharp through her nose.

“You say I know what it’s like when powers don’t save people?” She shook her head, bitter. “You don’t get to say that to me. Not you.”

Cecil’s jaw tightened, but he didn’t interrupt.

(Y/n) kept going, her voice rising like something clawing its way out.

“Because where the hell were you when they needed saving? Where the hell were you when he was crushed?”

She glowered at him as if the words ‘fuck’ and ‘you’ weren’t enough. “You talk big game for someone who couldn’t save any of them.”

Cecil’s jaw twitched. The first real crack in his composure all night.

For a heartbeat, he just stared at her--like he was weighing whether it was even worth answering.

Then, quietly, in that voice meant for graveside conversations and closed casket briefings, he said, "I know."

No defense. No excuses.

Just the truth, laid out in the wet, ugly dark

"You don't want the job? Fine." He shrugged, careless as a man throwing a match on an already-burning house. "Walk away. Go back to fighting junkies and thugs in the gutters until one of 'em gets lucky."

A pause. The rain filled the cracks.

"But if you’re half the stubborn little shit I think you are, you’ll show up when it matters. Whether you like it or not."

She shook her head, a short, vicious thing.

"You think I'm some fallback option?" she said, voice sharpening. "Some charity case you can guilt into babysitting the next batch of corpses?"

“You think whatever you want," he said finally, low and even. "It doesn’t change what’s coming."

(Y/n) opened her mouth--to argue, to tear him apart--but something in his tone made her hesitate. Not a threat. Not a plea. 

Just fact.

The kind of truth you couldn’t punch or out-think or outrun.

“What’s coming?” she asked, and it was less a question than a challenge. A challenge to finally say it out loud.

Cecil’s lips twitched into something that might’ve been a smile, if the world on the line.

“You know,” he said, squinting at her for any glint of actually knowing.

(Y/n) stared at him, her knuckles turned white around her briefcase handle.

And for a second--a real second--something in her expression cracked.

Not much. Not enough that anyone else would’ve noticed.

But Cecil did. He saw the flicker of recognition. Of fear. Of memory.

Because she did know.

He let out the deep breath he’d been holding since he touched the streets of this grimy city.

“The new Guardians--they’re good, but most of them are still kids. They think powers and potential are enough. I came to you because you’re the only one with experience this close to the edge.”

"You know what it looks like when the world doesn’t get saved," Cecil added, voice lowering like he was speaking an ugly truth they both already carried. "You know what it looks like when gods bleed."

Her mouth fell into a line so thin it barely existed.

"They’ll follow you," he said, taking a step closer, keeping his voice even. "Even if they don't know it yet. They’ll need you."

(Y/n) shook her head, a tight, almost imperceptible movement. “No. They’ll resent me.”

A mirthless chuckle scraped out of her throat. “Or worse. They'll pity me.”

She stared at him like she could will him into breaking first. Into backing off. Into realizing how stupid, how cruel, this was--to ask her to crawl out of the wreckage and be a shield.

Cecil didn't waver.

He absorbed her glare like a wall--unyielding, unfeeling, permanent.

“Let them,” he shrugged again, unbothered. “Doesn’t change what they’ll need when it all goes sideways.”

She breathed out slow through her nose, a rain droplet tracking every exhausted line of her face.

“This isn’t a recruitment speech, Stedman. This is a death sentence dressed up in cheap patriotism. This is a convoluted set up that ends with me as red paste.”

Her hands clenched uselessly at her sides, itching to hit something, anything, even him.

But she didn’t.

She knew he was right.

That was the worst part.

She was the leftover. The proof you didn’t need powers to still be a weapon. The proof that surviving took a hell of a lot more than amped up DNA.

(Y/n) turned away from him, raking a hand through her damp hair and gripping the back of her neck like she could physically hold herself together.

The city's endless buzz filled the space between them. Neon signs bleeding in puddles. Tires splashing through streets that hadn't been truly clean in years.

She could walk away. She could easily evade Cecil. She could just continue on like she always had. She could go to that meeting that had already started. She could.

But she was a stubborn little shit.

Then, with a quick, sharp flick of her wrist, she reopened the black umbrella and started back toward the current of the city without another word. 

“Are you in?” his dry voice echoed in the rainy alley.

She didn’t look at him.

(Y/n) set her jaw, felt the crackle of tension in her spine, the sharp, electric edge of a decision being made whether she wanted it to be or not.

But she didn’t stop.

But her voice carried back, clean and hard.

“No.”

Her answer rang out as Cecil widened his eyes, holding himself back from teleporting her with him to the HQ anyway.

“But I’ll meet them.” She looked back with bored eyes. “They need to at least meet their contingency plan.”

Cecil huffed once through his nose, almost a laugh, almost relief. But the tension around his shoulders loosened just enough to tell her he was satisfied.

Before she stepped back into the Nocturnal stream, she flickered back into the one they knew. Not the little asshole mouthing off at him. Not the one he needed for the new kids. The Byrnes one.

Posture corrected. Coat collar readjusted. Small, charming smile plastered. Eyes glinted. 

The version trained to be untouchable. To captivate.

To fool.

“I need two minutes to cancel the meeting and grab some things at the pharmacy,” she sighed back at him as if he was doing her a disservice… he was. 

“Two minutes,” he said, voice dry, unimpressed. “I’m timing you.”

(Y/n) flashed him a grin that didn’t touch her eyes. It was the kind of grin that belonged in boardrooms and funeral parlors--polished, professional, a little predatory.

--

She tossed a different kind of bird over her shoulder as she slipped back into the crowd.

He tugged the collar of his coat up against the rain, muttering something half-formed under his breath--something that sounded suspiciously like "goddamn kids"--and finally tapped the device at his wrist.

“Welcome to our new digs, baby.”

Wanna take a guess at who said that?

Six figures walked off the cat walk onto the central stage. Like new acts following the old acts. The new Guardians replacing old Guardians.

Whispers of awe and wonder filled the once gruesome scene.

A familiar blip of blue light brought Cecil, and thus, the Midnight City rain to--well--rain on their parade.

“Pick up your jaws,” their technical boss zapped in with. “You’re not tourists. This isn’t a holy site.”

“This is your job,” he practically stomped up to Robot, prodding a finger at his metal plates. “The sooner you get up to speed, the sooner people stop dying.”

“Hey, Cecil,” Rex butted in. He took a few bold, naive steps toward the two and then pointed past them. “Uh… you missed a spot?

Cecil turned, already unamused.

And then he glanced what Rex was pointing at. Everyone did.

It was the blotch of Guardian HQ. 

A red stain. 

Dark, dried, and still not washed away. Where it streaked above the floor their predecessors fell on. Where the silence had been loudest.

No one spoke.

Even Rex, mouth usually faster than his brain, kept it shut.

The stain wasn’t just red. It was memory. It was weight. It was proof.

Monster Girl's gaze hardened. Robot’s optics adjusted minutely--like he was analyzing it, cataloguing the remnants. Dupli-Kate looked away. Black Samson stiffened. Even Shrinking Rae stepped back, like the floor had grown teeth.

“Left that one there as a reminder.” Cecil’s voice cut through the stillness. Sharp. Final. “When you prove yourselves worthy of the heroes who came before you, it’ll get cleaned off.”

His steely eyes scrutinized the new team in front of him. “Until then, stare at it whenever you think you’re hot shit.”

No one responded.

Not immediately. 

The stain glared up at them like an open wound that hadn’t stopped bleeding--just dried into something uglier. Something permanent.

They all felt it.

Guilt, maybe. Pressure, definitely. 

Only until another blip interrupted their pity party.

This one softer. Quieter.

A second blue flash near the perimeter of the room--far from the stain.

She appeared in its wake.

Briefcase in hand. Coat drawn closed. Hair down, rain-slicked. Cheap sunglasses shielding half-lidded eyes. Black mask obscuring the rest of who she was. Dressed not like a vigilante, not like the heir to an empire--but like someone who’d just stepped out of the rain and still hadn’t dried off.

Cecil didn’t turn to greet her. He didn’t have to.

The almost nonexistent squeak of her wet boots against the polished floor echoed louder than it should have in a space this size. She didn’t try to fill the silence. She didn’t need to.

The team clocked her at once.

She stepped forward slowly, like she was already regretting every step she took.

“Took you longer than two minutes.”

A huff of bored humor muffled under the mask. “Didn’t want to rush your pep talk.”

She stopped just short of the bloodstain, gaze sweeping over the six fresh faces assembled at the center of the stage. No introduction. No name tag.

They looked back, expressions ranging from wary curiosity to thinly veiled judgement. A couple exchanged glances, clearly unsure of who she was--or why someone who didn’t wear spandex, metal, or insignias just strolled into their HQ like a funeral had called.

One loud, boisterous voice cut into this staring contest. 

“Who the fuck are you?”

Her head tilted slightly at the question, like she was considering how much effort the answer was worth.

Then, with a lazy drag of her fingers, she pulled off the sunglasses and tangled it into her hair. The black mask stayed on.

Rex--predictably--sized her up the way guys like him always did when they met someone they couldn't immediately categorize.

“I saved your ass twice now, you would think that would get me recognition,” she replied, voice low behind the mask. 

Rex blinked, thrown off just enough to be dangerous. “Wait, you’re-”

He squinted, pointing. “Murderbird?”

A pause. Just long enough for everyone to feel it.

Followed by a “You’re a girl?”

Monster Girl let out a sharp breath, like a laugh, if a laugh could sound like a slap.

She slowly blinked at the sheer awkwardness from that ask.

“You’re observant. That must be exhausting.” (Y/n) shot back, sweet and short.

Rex bristled, but covered it with a smirk. “How was I supposed to know you look like this when you looked like that?”

A brow angled up. “You weren’t. That was kind of the point.”

Monster Girl stepped forward slightly, arms crossed. She studied (Y/n) with a mix of curiosity and approval, her tone level but sharp. “You always this charming, or just when you’re masked up?”

(Y/n) tilted her head again, just slightly. The gesture was birdlike--intentional. The mask gave nothing, but her tone? Her tone smiled.

“Depends. Are you always this suspicious, or just when someone isn’t trying to impress you?”

The younger-looking girl paused and then a smile grew on her face. “I’m Amanda.”

(Y/n) gave a small nod--acknowledgment, not friendliness. “Vireo. Or, if you ask Stedman--your contingency plan.”

“And you’re… with us?” Kate asked.

The word “with” didn’t quite fit.

“I’m not with you,” (Y/n) said carefully. “I’m near you. For now. Until someone does something stupid.”

Robot finally spoke, his voice crisp, objective. “Cecil has authorized a shadow adjunct to observe and evaluate team protocol. You will treat her presence as operational necessity, not personal intrigue.”

Kate tilted her head toward Robot. “So she’s, what, auditing us?”

“Correct. Her assignment is strictly observational. Input limited to intervention during protocol failure or immediate risk of team compromise,” he explained in place of her.

Rex crossed his arms, huffing. “That’s just government-speak for watching us fuck up.”

“Yeah, because the last time half of you got near a battlefield, someone had to pull your dumbasses out of the rubble,” Cecil countered, rolling his eyes. “You don’t need to like her. But you’ll listen to her.”

(Y/n) looked back at the red behind her. “And it’s because you will fuck up.”

Black Samson, standing off to the side with his arms folded, frowned slightly.

“You really are Darkwing’s kid,” he scorned. “Are you even cleared for combat?”

“No,” she shrugged as if you’re asking if that’s supposed to stop her. “But I’m better at it than most people who are.”

It wasn’t bravado. It was just fact.

The kind of fact that made half the team uncomfortable.

The kind of fact that made the other half more derisive.

Samson's frown deepened, but he didn’t press. Not yet.

“Let’s get something straight,” she continued. “I’m not here to be one of you. I’m not even here because I want to be. I’m here so you know who to call when shit hits the fan. Because you’re not here because you’re ready. You’re here because there’s no one left.”

Her gaze swept over them again, clinical now. The kind of look people only gave to situations they’d already solved in their heads. She didn’t see potential.

She saw future liabilities.

“You want to make this work? Fine. You want to be heroes? Sure. Just understand, you weren’t chosen. You were available.”

That one landed. You could see it. A slow ripple through the group--subtle straightening of spines, barely-there flinches behind practiced faces. Truth rarely hit like thunder in rooms like this.

It settled in like cold.

Only Robot broke the silence. “Efficiency increases when clarity is present. Consider her remarks motivational.”

“Great,” Rex mumbled, dripping with sarcasm. “So our motivational speaker’s a nihilist in a trench coat. Loooove that for us.”

(Y/n) didn’t even look at him. “Better a nihilist than a narcissist who keeps a body count.”

Rex’s smirk faltered just slightly. He opened his mouth, then closed it again.

Amanda snickered as Rae muttered something under her breath that might have been “Damn.”

Rex rolled his shoulders like he was trying to shrug the sting off, but the silence afterward said enough. He wasn’t used to losing the verbal high ground--and definitely not to someone who hadn’t even given her real name--or face yet.

A series of quiet beeps sounded out in the comm in her ear. She side eyed the man who brought her here in the first place as if asking if this was enough.

Cecil gave a miniscule nod, and then finally stepped forward. “All right, enough meet-and-greet. We both have a thing. Settle in. We’ll talk later.”

And, just like that? The two fizzled out of the room in the same blue glow that brought them there. 

The room held its breath for a few seconds after the light blinked out.

Then someone finally exhaled.

Rex blew out a low breath. “So... we’re all just okay with her lurking in the shadows now?”

Amanda bounced her shoulders in dismissal. “Better to have her in the shadows with us than waiting outside them.”

Rae joined up, resting her arm around smaller girl’s shoulders with a small smirk. “Speak for yourself. I kinda like knowing there's a murderbird out there at all times.”

“She is a contingency asset,” Robot restated. “And statistically, the highest performing unregistered combatant from the last three urban-level threats.”

Rex gaped at all of them, but mostly the bot. “That’s not comforting, Robot. That’s like saying the fire extinguisher has better aim than we do.”

The chatter carried on, but Samson wasn’t listening anymore.

He stared at the stain.

Old blood dried into metal. Still shaped like failure. 

They were talking about Vireo like she was just another wildcard in the deck.

Like she hadn’t been trained by the only man in the last generation who knew how to fight gods without being one.

He knew Darkwing. He knew how he thought. He knew how he was.

She was there to make sure they don’t become a sequel. 

--

Blue light sparked off dry pavement and bounced between the houses of a quiet, cookie-cutter neighborhood.

Cecil and (Y/n) stepped out of the beam in silence.

The buzz faded, leaving only the faint hum of suburban air--sprinklers, cicadas, someone’s TV two doors down. The kind of place that hid cracks beneath flower beds and picket fences. Too normal to trust. 

(Y/n) pushed her sunglasses back on. The rain from Midnight City still clung to her coat. It didn’t belong here. Neither did she.

“Um, excuse me,” she groaned at the lack of familiarity of their surroundings. “What the fuck?”

Cecil adjusted his collar, glancing at the front door across the street. “I have business here.”

She rolled her shoulders like the teleport hadn't quite settled in her bones. Or maybe the ache wasn’t from the travel.

“Yeah, well, I don’t.” 

Cecil didn’t answer right away. He just started walking--calm, casual, like this wasn’t the kind of street that got taped off after something broke through a window in the middle of the night.

(Y/n) didn’t follow.

Not yet.

“Yes, you do.” 

She shot him a look from behind her sunglasses, mouth twitching with something half between a scoff and suspicion.

“You're not my handler. Or my father. So what exactly am I doing here?”

Cecil finally turned to look at her. “Seems like our favorite newbie took the night off. And I need to talk to his dad.”

He paused. Her eyes squinted at him as if trying to squeeze his next words out of him.

“So I need someone to take care of the alert I know you got.”

(Y/n)’s jaw tensed behind the mask. She didn’t look at her wrist, but the soft pulse of red blinking against her sleeve was answer enough. She did drag a frustrated hand across her covered face.

“Of course he took the night off. What seventeen year old hero wouldn’t.” She snorted, and then deadpanned with a hidden look at her non-boss. “Oh, wait. I know one.”

Cecil didn’t rise to the bait. He never did. Just gave her that tired, unreadable glance--the kind that said yes, and you’re still going to do it.

“You know the area. Handle the perimeter. Something’s setting off the motion grids near the city center. Could be nothing. Could be worse. Either way, you’ll get there faster than I will.”

She stared down the street like she had been trapped in a Wes Anderson movie. The porch lights. The welcome mats. The plastic flamingos that hadn’t been ironic in decades. 

“What? Because I run at light-speed now?”

He hit back with a “Because I’m about to sit down with a man who can kill a planet, and I’d like to be on time.”

(Y/n)’s smirk dropped, her mouth twisting into something closer to a grimace. Her voice lowered. “You’re really going to talk to him?”

Cecil finally stopped walking and looked back over his shoulder.

“He asked for me.”

“That usually ends well.”

Cecil gave a faint grunt--neither agreement nor denial. Just acknowledgment. He adjusted his coat and turned again, this time with the full intent of leaving her behind.

“You’re exhausting…” she groaned under her breath. “Don’t say I didn’t show up.”

(Y/n) peeled off in the opposite direction, muttering a curse under her breath as she disappeared down the sidewalk like a bad idea sneaking out past curfew.

She didn’t go far. Just far enough.

A forgotten sliver of park behind a crumbling community center caught her eye--dark, empty, overgrown enough to feel honest. She slipped through the broken gate and vanished into the overgrown shade.

Kneeling in the hollow between a rusted swing set and a half-dead tree, she unclipped her briefcase with a soft click. The shadows swallowed her like an old habit. She shrugged off her coat and the cheap pharmacy disguise she pulled on because suiting up for the guardians was pointless.

“If this is another Flaxan blip, I’m going to lose my shit.”

--

Crowds hummed beneath swaying string lights and food truck music. Neon signs reflected off wet pavement. The air buzzed with laughter, spilled beer, and the sound of someone aggressively trying to win a plush with a claw machine. It was almost peaceful.

Just a few streets away, something else buzzed.

Something wrong.

Mark Grayson walked beside Amber Bennett, smiling more than he had in days. She was teasing him about his complete inability to choose between dumplings and tacos, and he was losing the argument gracefully. 

“You’re the worst kind of indecisive,” Amber laughed. “It’s food. You eat both.”

“Hey! I just don’t want to regret not committing, okay? That’s maturity.” He grinned in response, just slightly too wide. A little too aware of himself.

He was trying.

It was going well. Really well.

Until the lights flickered.

And one of the generators behind a dumpling stand exploded with a violent yellow snap, throwing sparks across the market. A couple screamed. The crowd rippled, then scattered.

Amber turned, eyes wide. “What the hell was that?!”

“I-uh-I don’t know. Probably just a-uh, power thing?”

She gave him a really? kind of look.

Another bright pulse snapped across the alley, shattering a transformer box with a concussive crack. Streetlights went out one by one like dominos.

The air warped--charged with static.

And then came the voice.

It didn’t come from a speaker. Not from the panicked vendors or the disoriented crowd.

It came from everywhere. And nowhere.

Low. Mechanical. Filtered through something that didn’t quite sound human.

“Clever trick, but that doesn’t change anything stupid American.”

Kursk.

Not subtle. 

Not smart. 

But charged up like a walking generator with a grudge.

Mark’s eyes darted around, searching for whoever the electric thug was talking to.

Amber pulled Mark back to earth with a grab of his arm. “We should go. Now.”

He hesitated--already looking for somewhere to change, to switch to the other him. 

He didn’t get the chance.

Because before he could move, someone else did.

A smoke bomb was thrown down from beyond the chaos. And a blur moved through the smog. A glint of dark metal. A cape, maybe--no, wings. Something feather-like. Something fast.

Vireo started herding stray civilians out of harm’s way under the cover of the temporary gray. She didn’t answer him. She just moved. 

Mark blinked into the fog, trying to track the blur that cut through the crowd with surgical efficiency.

Amber pulled at his arm again, harder this time. “Mark. Seriously. We need to go.”

He nodded, mouth open to make some excuse--any excuse--but the ground shook before he could.

His gaze flickered back to see Vireo duck under the wild arcs of electricity Kursk flung toward her. The smoke had dissipated now--enough to for Kursk and Mark to see her now. 

Another crackling bolt shot across the scene--louder, brighter. It hit a food truck sign and sent the metal fixture spinning into the street like a flaming pinwheel.

A flaming pinwheel headed right toward Amber. 

Mark moved to intercept--but Vireo beat him to it. 

She caught the edge of the falling sign with her longsword, redirected it mid-air with a shower of sparks, and landed in a crouch as the metal skidded harmlessly into a recycling bin.

Someone watching gasped. Amber did too.

“Who the hell is that?” she whispered, almost shell-shocked.

As her cape finally caught up to her split-second movement, Vireo let out a breath and a curse, low under the mask. She dropped her sword tip to the pavement for a second, letting the tech core in the hilt flicker as it cooled down. Steam hissed off the metal. Her knees flexed like she was weighing the next move before she’d even finished the last one.

Her eyes glared back up behind dark lenses, hearing the human lightning bolt cut through the chaos with a voice drenched in static. 

“Coward. You hide behind smoke and swords like dumb magician.”

He stormed forward, electricity building on his arms in pulsing white lines. “You think only you who knows tricks? See how many volts to fry bird.”

Vireo rose smoothly, sword recharged, mask angled toward him with something unreadable. Unflinching.

“Try it.”

She moved. 

The fight was a blur of light and dark. 

Vireo darted low as Kursk flung two more arcs of wild current. One hit a lamppost, which sparked and burst. The other she absorbed through her kinetic barrier--now glowing faintly around her frame in a pulse of green and yellow. 

With him still looking at the place she was, she popped up behind him. Just enough time to press a device to the base of his neck. 

Then, she backed away. Fast.

It beeped.

“What did you-?” Kursk hissed. 

The device popped, discharging an altered, short-range EMP right into his system.

Anything remotely electric in the vicinity died instantly. Just like his violent yellow glow. 

Kursk groaned and hit the pavement hard, limbs twitching from the shock. His head thudded against concrete. He was still breathing. Still alive.

But not getting back up anytime soon.

Vireo heaved the breaths she was holding back through the entire exchange. She stumbled a few more steps back before kneeling on the ground. 

Each inhale rasped against the mask filter, fogging her lenses for a second. The sound emitting becoming less and less robotic. The faint green-yellow glow around her frame flickered. Then died.

Because her suit ran on electricity too.

She sank onto her back, lying on the pavement to stare at the sky. Her fingers hovered over the failsafe switch on her belt, already prepping for a manual reboot. She didn’t press it yet. Not until she had to.

Her unaltered voice whispered into the air, “Dumb move. Should’ve recalibrated the charge field before flinging the EMP…”

She wiped a smear of something off her mask--ash, maybe. Or soot. Or blood. She wasn’t checking yet.

The voices were getting louder now. People were stepping closer again. Cell phones raised. Flashlights flickering in the dark. That low murmur of “who are they?” threading through the crowd like smoke.

She hated that part.

A pair of teenage girls whispered near the food truck.

“They just--took him down. Alone.”

“I thought they were a myth.”

She let her hand drop to her belt. Thumb brushed the manual override.

Three seconds. That’s all it would take.

One… two…

“Are you okay?”

A face--that was getting more and more familiar by the months--intruded on her stargazing. Her eyes snapped toward it behind the fogging visor.

He was kneeling beside her now, face pinched with worry, scanning her for injuries like he didn’t know if she bled under the armor. 

Then, a sharp jolt coursed through her suit--minor, expected. Like CPR for tech. The visor’s interface blinked twice, then steadied. The filter hissed back to life. 

Her limbs jerked slightly from the reboot.

His face grew more concerned seeing her twitch on the ground. And, she groaned, this time through the modulator. Mechanical again. 

Vireo’s head turned slightly, mask glinting under the broken light above. “I’m rebooting. Not dying. Relax.”

“Wha- what happened? It’s like you just killed his battery. And your’s,” he spluttered.

“EMP. Collateral damage. I knew what I was doing,” she sighed, slowly pushing herself back up. 

He moved to help, but she waved him off. 

“I’m fine,” Vireo dismissed any hint of his worry. She glanced behind him, seeing the girl he was with earlier. “Go back to your date.”

“You don’t look fine.”

“Don’t make this a thing.” She straightened herself out and grabbed her sword off the ground. “Go before the questions start overflowing her pretty little head.”

Mark glanced over his shoulder. Amber was still half-hidden behind a market stall, wide-eyed, staring at both of them like they were pieces in a game she didn’t know she was playing.

When he looked back, Vireo was already stepping back toward the incapacitated villain, tossing another device onto his dim body.

“...You saved her,” Mark whispered before she fully left. “Thank you.”

Vireo paused. Just for a second. Pretending that she was just waiting for the field around Kursk to activate. 

The device beeped once. A soft hum vibrated off the concrete as the localized stasis field activated--locking Kursk’s twitching form in place like he’d been pinned under invisible ice.

But she didn’t move yet.

Didn’t look back.

She just shrugged. 

“She seems nice.”

--

<<next chp>>

<3 -> @jiyeons-closet @heiankyonoeiyuukun

[aspen78]

dont mind me camping over here, just waiting for the next chapter he he he

👀👀👀 -> chp 4! up now!!

[aspen78]

Chapter 4: How it all Byrnes

<<prev chp>>

--

Today was the day.

Today was the day all the heroes would gather. 

Today was the day even the villains would pause. 

Today was the day the world would be watching.

Today was the show.

The world stood still for its fallen titans, draped in ribbons and regalia, beneath marble monuments and a bright, cloudless sky. The lighting was perfect. The scripts were written. The speeches were rehearsed. And, now, the cameras were rolling. 

All of them pointing at the man responsible. Just not in the right light.

His hands were still red, but the crowd wouldn’t know it was not just his color scheme.

His frown was practiced, but the crowd wouldn’t know it was to hide secrets.

His strength was shown, but the crowd wouldn’t know that was a warning.

And from just beyond the cameras’ reach, dark lenses watched the crowd fall for it. Fall for all of it. They all looked up at him, faces glowing with admiration for a killer cloaked in more than just a red-dyed cape.

“I’ve fought the unimaginable in defense of this world…”

Omni-Man stood tall above the funeral wreaths.

“I’ve battled alien tyrants, defeated nightmares from the deep. Gone toe to toe with ancient gods… but no matter what threat I faced, I knew I wasn’t facing it alone.”

Her gloved hand twitched at that. A fist curled under her cape.

He had the nerve. With his chest puffed and the light hitting his face like a star. With her father’s name--no, pseudonym embroidered onto silk ribbon in front.

(Y/n) Byrnes couldn’t be here. Not as herself. 

Not when the global eye might catch the resemblance. Not when the internet was already theorizing.

She already scrubbed what she could--records, addresses, photos, any traces of Keon Byrnes that might confirm what are presently wild theories.

But some files couldn’t be deleted. Some ghosts refused to stay buried.

So she came as the ghost they whispered about online. The silent one in the smoke. The bird that vanished.

She had to come as Vireo. Because he existed as Darkwing here.

She had to mourn as someone colder than her father’s corpse. 

Because as stupid as the world was. She had to give them a little credit.

“Darkwing. Aquarus. War Woman. Green Ghost. Red Rush. Martian Man. Immortal.”

A perfect roll call of the dead. Read aloud by their executioner.

“Who will save us now?”

“I will.”

A bitter laugh almost slipped from her throat. She had to bite her tongue. Hard. 

The crowd around her hung onto every word. Some cried. Some clutched tissues. Some held their children tighter. 

(Y/n) just listened. 

Not to what he was saying. To the whisper of wind blowing past her cape, like the ghosts of the Guardians calling bullshit in unison.

"...have faith... and look to the sky."

The camera panned upward, perfectly timed with his words.

So did she.

But not in dumbstruck awe.

She looked to the sky because that’s where the monster came from now.

--

The public got their closure. Their speeches. Their polish.

Their show.

But real grief didn’t come with perfect lighting.

This part didn’t make the news cycle.

There were no capes or cameras at this one. 

Just the ones who actually mattered.

Just the dead.

(Y/n) Byrnes stood a few steps away from the rest of the Guardian’s loved ones. 

Not as Vireo this time.

Not quite as (Y/n), either.

That’s the luxury of being a Byrnes. Privacy didn’t exist. Not really. Not when every moment--every breath--was archived, indexed, and ready to be monetized.

So she stood in the back.

A black coat sized too big to hide her frame. A pair of dark sunglasses layered over her eyes. A surgical face mask covered her mouth. Hair tied in a bun she never wore. Shoulders tight like a tripwire.

Civilian enough to not get flagged. Masked enough to not get recognized.

Disguised enough to not look like herself. But at this point, she was not even sure who that would look like.

“I was never a Guardian of the Globe, but it was the Guardians who welcomed me when I first arrived on this planet.”

For some godforsaken reason, they had Omni-Man--Nolan Grayson give another speech.

“They were my mentors… my comrades… my friends.”

Rather than his empty words over bones he helped break, she listened to the raindrops falling onto black umbrellas. Onto black suits. Onto black coffins.

“Darkwing…”

That one she heard past the falling water. Her eyes narrowing under her glasses at his words.

It wasn't the name that did it.

It was the pause before. 

The rueful chuckle.

Like Darkwing was a punchline in a eulogy.

“Well, Darkwing made his own kind of solitude.”

(Y/n)’s jaw locked so tight under that flimsy mask it clicked. 

She didn’t hear the rest of his words at first--not the bit about rare connections, or restful peace, or whatever false grace he tried to pin to their graves like it made up for any of it.

Because that line? That delivery?

He doesn't get to chuckle over his name.

He doesn't get to speak his name like it was ever his to say.

She hadn’t cried. Not when the footage was found. Not when Cecil called. Not even when she scrubbed the blood from his tech belt herself.

But this?

This almost did it.

Because that chuckle--that rueful, perfectly timed pause--wasn’t just disrespect.

It was mocking.

She lowered her head, pretending it was for composure. Really, it was to hide the look on her face. Because he would have felt the burn from those eyes under tinted lenses.

“It was a rare, lucky few of us who found someone who understood our path…”

Oh, go to hell. 

Her father understood that path. He walked it every day without a safety net. Without a Viltrumite’s invulnerability or a magical hammer or Martian regeneration. He fought monsters with tech, wit, and bruised ribs. And he kept going. For this world. For her.

(Y/n) stared ahead, the rain sliding down her glasses. It blurred Nolan’s figure, smeared him into a vague black-and-white smudged silhouette against the gray.

She liked him better that way.

“…but at least they will rest together.”

They better. Because that was the only grace left in this mess.

The umbrellas shifted around her as the final silence descended. People bowed their heads. Some wept again.

Her father died facing someone he trusted.

Her father died betrayed.

And Nolan got to lie about it twice.

(Y/n) tilted her head ever so slightly, just enough for the rain to slip off her face and down the back of her neck. She welcomed the cold. She needed it. 

It was the only thing keeping her from stepping forward. From tearing off the mask. From making a scene no one could ignore.

But she didn’t.

Because she couldn’t ruin her father’s funeral for him, too.

So she just stood there.

Unmoving.

Unforgiving.

Mourning quiet. Mourning correctly, as the Byrnes family PR manuals would say.

(Y/n) stayed rooted to the gravel.

Only once the plot was rid of people did she finally move.

Boots crunching toward the edge of the grave.

She stood over it. Over him.

Still no words.

But her shoulders dropped. Just barely. A silent exhale fogged the air escaping the sides of her mask.

She reached into her coat pocket and pulled something small and black. Glossy. Heavy. A single throwing blade. Custom etched. Compact. Tactical.

She placed it gently on the lid of the coffin. That was her version of flowers.

She didn’t whisper anything. Didn’t need to.

There was nothing she could say that he didn’t already teach her with a nod or a look.

Though, before she turned to leave, she paused.

One last glance at the dirt.

Then, under her breath, nearly inaudible, “I’ll make it right.”

But beneath the layers--beneath the coat, beneath the disguise, beneath the strength that hadn’t cracked yet--her grief was not nearly as inaudible.

It was thunder without a storm.

It was the scream that hadn’t come yet.

And somehow--somehow--Mark Grayson heard the scream.

Not with his super-hearing.

Not with the part of him that could pick up heartbeats a mile away.

He heard it with the part of him that remembered.

The part that knew the rhythm of that voice--modulated or not. The cadence of conviction masked as sarcasm. The hum of quiet rage beneath careful calm.

He knew it.

He turned, cutting through the fog of black suits and low murmurs, eyes searching.

And then he saw her.

Just for a second.

Not the heiress. Not a hero. Not a vigilante. Not a knight in fractal light. 

Just a girl.

Standing alone at the edge of Darkwing's grave, coat too big, posture too tight.

And it hit him.

Like the air had been punched out of his lungs again.

“It’s her,” he whispered to himself.

Everything clicked--Chicago, the alley, the bird, the words she never really explained.

He didn’t call out.

Didn’t say her name. Not the one the tabloids used. Not the one that came with the billion-dollar net worth. 

He didn’t say “Vireo,” either.

He just watched.

Watched her retreat--controlled, quiet, head bowed like she was just another person leaving just another grave.

Mark took one step toward her.

Then another.

And stopped.

Because what the hell do you say to someone who’s been holding up the sky on their own?

To someone who cleaned blood off their kitchen island like it was just another Tuesday?

To someone who put on a mask and saved his life--three times--and then walked away like it didn’t mean anything?

To someone who was grieving quietly, because the world never gave her a version where she was allowed to scream?

But he followed anyway, with a quick “I’ll be right back” thrown over his shoulder to his parents. He followed at a distance. Past the uncovered graves. Past the rows of polished headstones. Past the mourners who were getting in their cars.

(Y/n) didn’t head toward the parking lot. She vanished behind a tall mausoleum and slipped down the far side of the hill, like a shadow disappearing off script.

Mark hesitated because fuck if he knew what the right thing to do right now was. 

His body wanted to move. His brain begged him not to screw this up.

It was funny.

A girl his age could rattle his heart harder than an alien warlord.

He sucked in a breath, continuing to cut through the rows and follow the traces of her.

He rounded the mausoleum corner, expecting nothing. Maybe the faintest glimpse of her coat vanishing into the tree line. Maybe nothing at all--because she was good at that. Disappearing.

But she hadn’t vanished yet.

She was still. 

(Y/n) had stopped at a stone bench nestled between the hedges--one of those pretty little places cemeteries pretend are peaceful. A crooked willow stretched above her, its leaves dripping with slow rain. She leaned back against its trunk, spine pressed to bark like she needed something real to hold her upright. Her head was angled up at the leaves as if they held the answers. Her arms were folded tightly across her chest. The oversized coat made her smaller than she was trying to be. Her face mask was gone… so were the sunglasses. In her hands. Not on. Not hidden. Just… there. Like an open wound. 

She hadn’t heard him yet. Or maybe she had, and just didn’t care.

It was the latter.

She had felt it before she saw it.

The shift in the air back at the gravesite. The attention. The eyes.

His eyes.

Even through tinted sunglasses and the face mask and the bun she never wore, he still looked right at her.

And then he followed her as she ducked through rows of headstones. As she tucked herself away into a little corner of the world to try to disappear.

But there he was. 

Mark Grayson.

Staring straight at her, hesitant, uncertain, and yet--still searching. For her.

He took a slow step forward.

Then another.

And another.

Until the distance between them was small enough that he could trail the rain droplets that dripped past lashes that didn’t blink, down the slope of her cheekbone, and off the twisted ends of her bun. Small enough that he could hear her breathing.

And she was breathing like someone who had been holding it in too long.

Mark stayed still for a breath.

Then another.

The air between them held its own kind of gravity--thick, waiting, full of the words neither of them knew how--or wanted to say. Her hands were dropped to her lap, gripping the edges of her coat closer to her body as if she could vanish into it if she tried hard enough.

He didn’t want to scare her off. But he also didn’t want to walk away.

So, carefully, quietly, he sat down on the opposite end of the bench. Not close. Not far. Just… enough.

“It is you.”

She didn’t look at him.

He didn’t expect her to.

“I-uh I almost didn’t come,” he said after a beat. His voice wasn’t steady--it was nervous and unwilling to come out.

“Didn’t think I deserved to be here.”

Still no reaction. Just her slow inhale, the kind that didn’t want to let anything in, even air.

“But I’m glad I did,” Mark added. “Because… I think I was supposed to see you.”

A drip.

Then her voice--still in the same charming cadence, but low with exhaustion. “Supposed to?”

He glanced sideways. “Yeah. I think… I needed to.”

(Y/n)’s gaze didn’t move from the willow branches above them. Her throat bobbed in a swallow. “And what do you think you saw?”

Mark let the silence sit a little too long, then answered with quiet certainty. “Someone who shouldn’t have to sit here alone.”

That made her finally look at him. Just for a second. Just enough.

There was no mask between them this time. No magic glasses. No voice filter. No cracked lens or billowing cape.

Just her eyes--bloodshot, rimmed with the kind of grief he didn’t know how to carry.

Her eyes didn’t stay on him long.

Just that second.

Enough to register that he meant it. Enough to see that he didn’t flinch from the mess.

Then they flicked away again--back up, like the tree above them had more answers than he ever could.

“You don’t know what you’re saying,” she said quietly.

Mark didn’t argue. Just let the rain fill the space again, soaking the edges of his suit, darkening the fabric where it clung to his arms.

“You think it’s enough to sit here. Say something nice. Play the good guy. It’s not.” Her voice cracked, barely, but she caught it--trapped it like so many other things.

He turned toward her more fully now. “I’m not trying to fix anything.”

“Good,” she muttered. “Because you can’t.”

He nodded, slowly. Accepted it.

“But,” he said, carefully, “I can listen.”

(Y/n) exhaled. Not quite a scoff. Not quite a sigh. “You think that helps?”

“I don’t know,” he admitted. “But it’s what I’ve got.”

The girl didn’t answer. Didn’t look at him again. But she let the absence of words stretch now, like a thread pulled tight but not snapping.

Mark leaned forward, bracing his elbows against his knees. Bracing him for everything he was expecting and not expecting.

“I didn’t think you’d recognize me,” she grumbled out as a disappointed sigh.

Mark’s mouth twitched. “You think I’d forget that voice?”

She huffed once through her nose. It might’ve been a laugh. Might’ve been a breath that wanted to be one.

“You called me a dramatic boulder… or something,” he added, accusingly.

“You are a dramatic little meteor.” She shook her head once, like the memory was something she didn’t want but couldn’t shake. “I was hoping you’d chalk it up to shock. Or a fever dream.”

“I did…” Mark said. “For, like, maybe a day.”

A boyish chuckle to himself escaped him as he shook his drenched head. “But I kept remembering it anyway.”

“Of course you did,” (Y/n) murmured, her shoulders sinking down just an inch. “Fuck, I got sloppy.” Her hands rubbed against her temples. “I wasn’t supposed to get close. Wasn’t supposed to give you hints.”

"You didn’t have to." His brows drew together, the faint grin he'd had fading. "Keep your distance, I mean."

"Yeah. I did." (Y/n) squeezed her eyes shut, slowly. “I wasn’t supposed to be anything around you. That was the plan.”

“Well,” he said, gently. “Plans don’t always work out.”

That earned him a small, tired, bloodshot glance. “Yeah. Tell that to the Guardians.”

The name hung between them like a crack in the air--jagged, quiet, inescapable.

Mark’s throat swallowed. He looked down at his hands, clenching and unclenching them slowly like he could wring answers from the spaces between his fingers.

Then--because he couldn’t not say it: “I just-I’m sorry.”

“You didn’t kill them… kill him,” she said, monotony replacing any emotion. “You don’t have to apologize for someone else’s hands. Or pity the aftermath of them.”

“It’s not pity,” he said firmly, almost letting his hand reach out to hers. “It’s… whatever the opposite of leaving you alone is.”

She passively muttered, “You kind of suck at this.”

He smiled faintly. “Yeah. I really do.”

Silence again. But not tense now. 

He never saw her like this before. And somehow, he knew she didn’t want anyone to--not even herself. 

“But everyone kind of sucks at this. Even him.”

Mark looked down. Then, tentatively, he reached over.

His hand brushed against hers. Light. Careful.

She flinched--just a micro-movement--but didn’t pull away.

Her fingers stayed still.

Then, slowly, a pinky curled around his.

The connection was barely there.

But it was there.

He was warm.

(Y/n)’s eyes drifted back to the leaves, her voice in reminiscent this time. “He wasn’t the ‘Darkwing.’ Or the ‘Keon Byrnes.’ And he was also... just my dad, Keon.” 

Her breath hitched in the rainy air. It fogged up the air in front of her, and she sank further into the stone. 

“I’ve had to bury him. Four times, Mark.” She could feel all the effort she’d spent suppressing it--pushing it down, locking it away--just fade. Her eyes were burning from more than just the cold running down her cheeks now. “For Darkwing. For Keon. For the media vultures. For my dad. And then I had to erase him, digitally, surgically, like he was tumor instead of a person. I can’t bring myself to do it again.” Her voice broke on that last part, and she didn’t catch it this time. “I-I don’t want to--I’m scared I’m going to forget him. All the parts I had to delete… those were him.”

Mark didn’t breathe right for a second.

Four times.

She’d buried him four times.

He didn’t have a script for that. No perfect words. No clever answer. Just the sound of rain against the willow branches and the muted, shuddering grief of a girl whose world had been stolen four separate times by the same loss.

“I won’t let you forget,” Mark said, low but sure. His thumb shifted--just a small movement, brushing against her knuckle.

It wasn’t a promise. It wasn’t even something he was sure he could do.

But it was the only thing he could give her.

“How can you say that like it means something?” (Y/n) huffed--small, watery, tired. “You didn’t even know him. You barely know me.”

“I don't need to,” Mark said, turning toward her just a little more. “I see what he left behind.”

Her head dipped slightly, rain dripping off the corner of her jaw. Her hand trembled just a little under his.

“That’s not enough,” she rasped.

Mark’s voice was softer now. “Maybe not. But… I think he’d be proud. Of what you’re doing. Of what you’re carrying. Of you.”

That broke something.

Something that got caught in her throat. A sound escaped--half-laugh, half-sob, the kind of noise grief makes when it finally claws its way out of your ribs.

He stayed still. He didn’t flinch. Didn’t lean in like he wanted to fix it.

He just held on.

(Y/n) dragged in another breath, shaky and uneven. “I hate this,” she whispered, feeling all the pressure just bloom in her chest.

Her throat flexed again. Her jaw clenched, like she was trying to hold onto the strength he’d just spoken aloud. But a tear still fell--one she didn’t bother hiding.

But she only let it pass the boundary of her cheek before she swiped it away, quickly. 

“He used to hum when he worked. Off-key. Every damn time.”

Mark let a smile tug the corner of his mouth. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” she said. “And he never remembered to label his files. Ever. Every hard drive I inherited is just named ‘stuff_2_final_FINAL_maybe.’ He was the worst.” Worn-down scoff. “Had an entire backup server labeled ‘DefinitelyNotTheCave.’”

A whisper of a laugh escaped her lips. Shaky. Real.

And, he held onto it like a lifeline. That tiny sound, barely there, but proof that she could still make it. That maybe, for the first time in too long, she wasn’t carrying all of it alone.

Mark laughed under his breath. “Okay, that’s genius.”

“It’s chaos,” she said, but the ache in her voice bent toward fondness. “I asked him once why he didn’t just organize everything. He said, ‘Because chaos is harder to hack.’”

Mark smiled wider. “He sounds kind of brilliant.”

“Or a menace,” she muttered. “He was a menace of a hero.”

She shook her head faintly as if trying to shake the resurfacing memories away from her like you would a fly. “He wasn’t trying to be one. He just… did what needed to be done. Quietly. Even when no one was watching. Especially then.”

Mark glanced down at their hands, still joined by the lightest pressure. “Guess that runs in the family.”

(Y/n) didn’t answer right away. 

“I’m not him.”

“No,” Mark said. “You’re you.”

She looked at him again. Really looked. Like it hurt to do, but she couldn’t not.

“I don’t know who that is anymore.”

And the words hit the air like a glass finally dropped.

Mark saw it--the fracture behind her eyes, the way it deepened when she said it aloud. Like naming it made it real.

(Y/n)’s gaze turned back to the ground again. “Ever since the massacre… I’ve been living in fragments. Vireo. (Y/n). The vigilante. The orphan. The billionaire ghost. I keep switching masks and forgetting which one is supposed to be my face.”

He wanted to reach for her. 

Not just her hand this time. All of her. Everything she was losing hold of. But he didn’t know how to. She was right. He couldn’t fix anything. He couldn’t save her. No matter how much he wanted to.

But, he couldn’t pull away either. He felt the tug in his chest--the kind that said to move closer, not further. Carefully, gently, he slid an inch toward her, just enough for their shoulders to barely brush.

She didn’t flinch at the contact. Didn’t lean in either. But she didn’t pull away.

And in its own quiet way, that was everything.

“It shouldn’t be this hard to exist.”

The rain dripped steadily through the willow branches above, playing muted percussion on hollow stone and wet leaves. Neither of them moved. There was nothing to run from in that moment--only things to sit with. 

“I kind of hate this bench,” she said suddenly, her voice brittle with something too cracked to be humor. “It’s making me say things I shouldn’t. It’s making me even more careless.”

“Then I guess I owe this bench something,” he said with an air of humor, but he was kind of serious.

(Y/n) let out a breath through her nose. Not a laugh. Not really. Just a sound of release. Of something heavy letting go just a little.

“I shouldn’t be telling you any of this,” she murmured, almost to herself, bringing a hand to swipe the wet hair out of her face. “I shouldn’t be talking at all.”

And, then tired (e/c) met his almost innocent brown. Not like she had before. Not broken. Not open. 

Like she’d just realized how much she’d said. Like she had been sleep talking against her will. Like she had finally sobered up. 

Like she remembered who she was supposed to be. 

Her posture straightened by a fraction, like she was trying to reassemble herself spine-first. Her hand broke from their already shaky connection, like she was trying to take back all the parts she laid bare.

Then her voice spoke, low and guarded, like she was doing damage control. “So what now?”

Mark didn’t answer right away.

He could see it happening--the walls going back up, brick by brick, every second he stayed silent. But he wasn’t good at this. He didn’t know the right words, the ones that could stop her from slipping away again.

And maybe if he were smarter, he would’ve let her. Pretended none of it happened. Let her have the distance she thought she needed.

But he wasn’t smarter. He was just here. With her. Still trying.

Mark tried when he opened his mouth. But that was all he could do. Try.

His mouth slowly closed again.

He knew it. 

And she saw it. 

The attempt. But ultimately the lack of anything. The nothing. The same helplessness she carried in her own chest. It was almost worse than a lie would’ve been.

Almost.

Because even in the silence, he stayed.

Even with no answers, he stayed.

(Y/n) exhaled slowly, something inside her unclenching in surrender, bitter and reluctant. She took down her bun and carded her fingers through wet knots, buying herself a few more seconds.

"It’s okay. Forget it," she said, trying for a shrug but barely managing it. "Bad day. Bad bench."

Her voice swayed on the last word.

Mark watched her pull her hair loose, fingers working through the mess like she could untangle something deeper. Maybe she could. Maybe she couldn't.

He hated how far away she suddenly felt, sitting not even a foot from him. 

He wasn’t even completely sure why he hated it. 

It should have been that way anyway. They barely knew each other. 

He was him. And she was her. 

If he hadn’t become the other him, she--all the parts of her--would not have batted an eyelash. If he hadn’t become the other him, she would have remained a headline. 

But even knowing that--especially knowing that--Mark found himself speaking anyway.

"I’m not going to forget it," he said, voice rougher than he'd meant. “Even if you want me to.”

She stilled for a millisecond, but for a long moment, she said nothing. Her hands stayed busy at the ends of her wet hair, twisting and untwisting.

“Then you’re an idiot for it.” No malice. No warmth. 

Mark stared down at his knees, at the cracked stone path beneath the bench. Anywhere but her. 

"You’re not the only idiot," she said, so low it could’ve been the rain.

His head lifted a little, not quite looking at her, but close.

"You’re not," she repeated, firmer now. Like she needed it to be true. Like she needed him to hear it.

(Y/n) sighed gently, looking back up to the willow leaves. 

“You just really suck at knowing when to walk away,” she whispered, almost as if she didn’t want him to hear.

“Yeah…” He scratched the back of his head, sheepishly but relieved. “I’ve heard that before.”

Something in her expression shifted--subtle, fragile.

“But thank you… for sucking.”

The sky was still crying. At least it didn’t pretend to be okay.

…

“I still hate this bench.”

A small, surprised chuckle of disbelief. 

“I don’t.”

--

<<next chp>>

<3 -> @jiyeons-closet @heiankyonoeiyuukun

[aspen78]

Chapter 3: How it all Byrnes

<<prev chp>>

--

Sensory overload was one way you could describe everything going on.

Not a microsecond passed without the city streets trembling into rubble. Without blood curdling screams filling the smoke-dense air. Without downtown Chicago turning into an all-out recreation of a sci-fi war. 

Pockets of Chicago were shot open like a bullet wound, oozing out alien tanks, aggressive soldiers, and deadly beams of red.

When a team of brightly-colored--but capable--teens spawned in, it seemed like maybe--just maybe--things would take a turn for the better. 

But that was a big maybe.

Tears streamed down the face of a young mother and her toddler. She quivered with the tremors of the once-normal day gone to hell. She held on to her boy with all she had to shield him and protect him. She whispered shaky lies of “It’s okay” and “It’ll be over soon” just to keep herself from collapsing. She did her best.  

But the world doesn’t always reward best efforts. 

She saw the light grow darker around her. She didn’t have to turn around to know they had been found. 

A Flaxan soldier loomed over the two with a twisted smirk on its face and a charged weapon in its hands. It approached with a teasing slowness--like it knew they weren’t going anywhere. Like it had time.

She heard the quiet crackle of what would likely be their cause of death. So, she just pulled her boy tighter, hoping all those fairytales were true; that a mother’s love was the strongest thing. 

A high-frequency chirp cut through the static.

She froze.

Then--SCHWINGG.

The light around the mother and child returned like a cloud had made way for the sun. 

A rogue beam sped meters past them and ricocheted off a fallen corner of a building.

The mother gasped.

So did the Flaxan--its weapon now completely useless with half of it sliced to the ground.

The soldier barely turned to react before a blur of green and black moved faster than its reflexes. And before it knew it, it could no longer have another reaction… ever. 

A clean, fluid strike. One swing, no hesitation.

And two thuds.

The new player landed into the scene with a grace far too deliberate to be mistaken for chaos. Their sword rested casually in their hands as if they didn’t just up their kill count. Their winged cape shrouded over their body and curtained over the severed head as if it didn’t exist.��

The mother peeked her eye out, still guarding her child. 

Then the figure straightened.

Green light flared as a kinetic barrier flickered around the civilians, forming a low hum of protection. The sound of war dulled inside it. The toddler’s cries became muffled whimpers.

“Are you both alright?” A distorted and unreadable voice filled the barrier. 

Everything about them screamed don’t trust this. Masked. Hooded. Armed to the teeth. But somehow... the mother did trust them. Even when they crouched slightly and extended a small sweet for her boy. 

Because let’s be real… taken out of context? This shit was shady as hell. 

The toddler finally looked up with watery eyes and a shivering lip at the bird-masked person offering solace in front of him. He looked to his mother as if asking if this person was safe.

She gave a tiny nod, breathless and trembling. “Go ahead, baby.”

His little hand reached forward, and for a second, it was just quiet. A moment carved out of catastrophe.

The mask tilted as if to communicate a smile before they whispered, “I’m going to get you guys out of here now. Are you alright to stand, ma’am?”

The woman nodded numbly, her legs threatening to buckle the second she tried to push herself upright. Their savior extended a gloved hand, not rushing her, just waiting.

Once she was steady enough, the kinetic barrier widened, carving out their exit. 

The hood took the lead with their sword at ready as the woman picked up her boy, covering his eyes and ears. 

Another Flaxan spotted them from across the intersection and took aim. A flash of silver metal swiped to protect.

But there was no shot.

BOOM.

A compact explosion swallowed it in a flare of pink energy, hurling its body across the asphalt like a ragdoll. The shockwave rippled, trying to unbalance the trio. 

The mother gasped, shrinking back, but the figure at her side just steadied them and glanced upward.

Famed Atom Eve floated in next, her body framed in sharp pink light and her eyes narrowed at the caped bird. 

“Who are you?”

They didn’t answer right away. 

Just shifted ever so slightly--shoulders straightening, sword lowering, body still tensing to protect the mother and her son.

There was no malice in their stance. But no warmth either.

“Someone who saw a hole in your perimeter.”

A beat. That voice is calm—too calm for a war zone. Measured, synthetic. Echoing like a birdcall in a metal cage.

Eve hovered down a little closer, cautious but curious. She didn’t sense any hostility, but the air around this figure felt... dense. Like they knew too much.

The pink hero eyed the stranger--the winged cape, the blade, the silent control over the chaos.

“You’re not GDA.”

“No.”

Before Eve could press further, a blur of blue and metal crashed into the pavement beside them--Rex Splode, scuffed but smirking, flung two energy-charged disks into a Flaxan crowd.

The redhead only flicked her attention away for one second to stare at the intrusion, but it returned to an empty space in front of her. 

“What the-?”

Her eyes sweeped the area around her, but all three of them were gone. And she could only hope they were gone to safety.

A barrage of red stole her attention back as she immediately put up a surface of pink in front of her and sent bolts back to counter. 

Robot fought his way through his crowd of aliens, getting pushed into the center of the street with Eve. 

“I am not positive we can handle this,” the robotic voice she was familiar with spoke as they covered each other's backs.

Eve grunted in response when her shield broke and made way for another. 

The army kept advancing and bodies kept piling up, even as all four members of the team fought with all they had.

“Uh guys?!” Rex yelped, flinging his explosives at whatever target he could find. “I’m down to pocket change here!”

Versions Dupli-Kate joined in one after the other as lasers kept taking them out, “They’re killing me faster than I can keep up.”

“We gave people time to escape, that’s what matters,” Eve growled under her breath and extended her hands outward, focused on keeping her powers up to give them three seconds of breathing room. Maybe two.

“Uhhh, no,” Rex’s snark--still ever-present--responded, backing into a corner as Flaxans crowded him. “Me living is what matters.”

Robot offered no comfort as he watched a cannon emerge from the portal. “Then I have bad news.”

A flicker of silver zipped past their heads like a streak of lightning. 

The cannon the team was so worried about seconds before? Suddenly not an issue. A sword embedded itself deep into the weapon’s core, slicing straight through the control panel. Sparks erupted--then the entire thing imploded with metal parts flying everywhere like shrapnel from a bomb. The energy inside detonated too early, rupturing backward into the portal.

The Flaxans around it shrieked, blinded.

The team ducked instinctively.

Dodging quickly through the metal parts, a shadowy cape followed its owner as they retrieved their sword. Weapon now firmly back in their possession they stepped in front of the brighter heroes, hand raised slightly as a thin layer of green fractals shielded them from the worst of the blast.

Robot blinked his mechanical eyes, “…Recalibrating battlefield odds.”

There was a beat of processing silence.

Of course, Rex broke it, “Okay. That was hot. Scary. But hot.”

Eve exhaled. Her shoulders dropped slightly—relieved, but still wary. “You came back.”

The caped hood didn’t look at them--just tilted their head, the metal mask catching a glint of wreckage light. Their stance stayed in that unreadable in-between of “poised to fight” and “just too focused to waste the effort on panic.”

Finally, they answered, voice calm, distorted as ever.

“I wasn’t finished.”

The mask returned to observe the Flaxans. “But they are.”

And, as if on cue, all of the intruders began shriveling up? 

They were dropping like flies… old, wrinkly flies. The surviving ones ran back through the portal before that too disappeared.

The battlefield was… quiet.

Rex’s jaw dropped before snapping shut to shove off the few deteriorated grabbing onto him. “I don’t know what just happened, but I think I speak for everyone here when I say I never want it to happen ever again!” He punched one of the still-miraculously alive Flaxans to put a punctuation on his statement.

“Indeed.” Robot agreed and then stared at the person in front of them. “You are not in our databases. Yet you possess strategic intel, combat training, and unregistered tech.”

They remained still, sword in hand, but now loosely at their side. For a moment, it seemed like they wouldn’t respond, but…

“I’m in your database somewhere,” the modded voice replied to his. “You just can’t find it.”

Robot visibly processed that. Optical lenses narrowed.

Eve stepped closer now, her tone still steady, but a thread of curiosity weaving through it. “You said you’re not GDA… who are you?”

A mechanical sigh left the mask as they methodically sheathed their sword. “Some call me Vireo.”

“Vireo...” Robot repeated.

The way he repeated it wasn’t skeptical. It was analytical. Filing it away. Highlighting it. Cross-referencing it with hidden files, encrypted logs, unexplained blips.

Rex pointed a finger vaguely at them. “Okay, cool name and all, but are we gonna talk about how you showed up like a horror movie extra and saved our butts?”

They huffed, it sounded like amusement, but no one could be sure. 

Because, before another word could be spoken, a pulse flickered beneath their feet.

The team instinctively stepped back, but the green fractals swirled upward in a vertical line—like a hatch to somewhere else. In the blink of an eye, Vireo dropped into the light and vanished.

Gone.

No flash. No boom. Just… gone.

But not gone like a horror movie extra would be gone… aka dead. Rex was wrong about that one. Vireo was not an extra; they were more of a recurring character. They would come to realize that.

They would come to realize that when the caped bird reappeared at the next Flaxan invasion. 

From one giant shitshow to another.

--

This was déjà vu… if déjà vu came with more craters, more smoke, and somehow even more destruction.

Teen Team stood at the edge of a skyscraper with their new addition of Invincible, scanning the streets of Chicago as they yet again became the set of a battle. 

The Flaxans had returned.

This time, they came prepared—new armor, energy shields, heavier artillery. They’d learned. 

Robot took off with Kate and Rex on his tech, leaving behind the two flight-users.

“Ready for this?” Eve asked, noticing Mark’s apprehension.

“Yeah,” he breathed, but still unsure. “I think so.”

Yet, he still launched into the fight, flying down the ledge with Eve at his side. 

The team dropped into the chaos like a strike team.

Eve’s constructs intercepted tank fire while Mark charged into melee, slamming a Flaxan brute straight through a parking garage.

Rex and Dupli-Kate moved like second nature now—Kate duplicating mid-dash, Rex tossing glowing charges to soften up armor.

Still, it wasn’t enough. They were tougher this time.

One by one, the teens would be overpowered.

Dupli-Kate and Rex got caught in an explosion. Robot was electrocuted by the soldiers and their tech. Atom Eve had some sort of device strapped to her head. Invincible was stuck in some sort of sludge--super strong sludge. 

A Flaxan--the leader, it seemed--fixated on Eve, grabbing the back of her head and looking directly at Mark while bringing its gun to her face. 

“No, don’t!” Mark cried out, thrashing harder to get out of his restraints. “Don’t. Don’t--NO!”

But why would it listen?

The Flaxan cocked its weapon with a deep, mechanical hiss.

A trigger was pulled at that moment. Not a physical one, but a trigger was pulled. 

“I SAID NO!”

In an instant, the playing field shifted. 

A force stronger than anticipated knocked those around not just off their feet--but away. They were blown away like simple leaves in a particularly strong gust. 

And, their leader? It was the unlucky leaf that got tackled by Invincible.

His collision tore through a building. Glass and metal shrieked. The Flaxan slammed onto the pavement before Mark followed with a sickening crunch.

His fists didn’t stop. He didn’t let them stop.

He struck the alien over and over and over… and over.

Until he heard Eve gasp for air from behind him.

Mark whipped around, eyes darting around from the adrenaline, before they locked onto a familiar shadow hunched over Eve. 

The winged figure knelt with their back to him beside the pink hero. The piece of tech that was previously latched onto her face was dismantled in their gloved hands.

Vireo stared at it, almost curiously memorizing its circuits. The device sparked, then hissed, dead in the ash-covered street.

They faced the redhead again. Didn’t speak. Just handed Eve a small oxygen patch, motioning silently for her to press it to her nose.

She coughed, dazed--burnt at the edges, eyes unfocused--but she recognized the mask. The silhouette. The calm that followed chaos.

Mark stumbled closer, fists still trembling, rage still boiling under his skin.

“You-,” he choked. “You came back.”

Vireo didn’t answer immediately. Just slowly stood to their full height and turned, half-shadowed by smoke and red haze. They observed him the same way they observed the fizzling circuit—curious, methodical.

“You lost control.”

His mouth opened--whether to argue, defend himself, or say thank you, even he didn’t know. Nothing came out.

His fists were still curled. His breath still ragged. The crunch of alien armor under his knuckles still echoed in his bones.

“I had to,” he finally forced out, like it was a confession. “I didn’t mean to go that far, but I had to--he was going to--he was-”

He looked past Vireo at Eve, who was still catching her breath, pressing the oxygen patch shakily to her face.

“I know.”

The answer came quick. Not accusing. Not forgiving. Just… stated. Like a field report.

His attention returned to their avian mask, but they were also looking past him. 

Black, beady lenses were trained on the alien he had just beat down. It had got up at this point, but it still seemed to panic. It looked down at its wrist; at the damaged wristband.

In simultaneous robotic voices, Vireo and Robot spouted, “The wristbands protect them from our timestream.” 

They looked at each other; an eyebrow raised under one of their masks. 

Robot continued, getting back up, “Destroy their wristbands.”

The Flaxan scrambled backwards, cradling its smoking wrist as if protecting what was left of its broken device. Mark looked from it to Vireo and then to Robot, his brain struggling to catch up.

One of the monotone voices explained further to the now-gathered team, “They're tethered to a different temporal frequency. Without the stabilizers, their bodies can’t handle ours.”

Mark whispered under his breath, “They’ll age out.”

Vireo continued, flatly, “They’ll die.”

The sharp sound of Vireo’s blade cutting through air preceded the clean separation of another wristband from its owner. The alien staggered, cracked, and shriveled into a raisin.

With that, everyone had the new objective: wristbands.

While everyone else took off, Vireo snatched up the severed hand and neared Robot. 

They handed him the still-working wristband almost like a peace offering.

Unblinking eyes met each other, one pair green and the other black. 

“Unknown agent. Unknown allegiance. Still not confirmed as ally.”

Vireo tilted their head slightly, bird-like as always. Their voice, modulated and unreadable, remained calm. “Don’t mistake lack of paperwork for lack of purpose.”

Robot didn’t blink, but the weight of his silence said enough. He reached forward and accepted the wristband, analyzing it even before it hit his palm.

“This will help. But I’ll still be monitoring you.”

“I’d be disappointed if you weren’t.” Their voice had that same half-amused edge again, like every word was measured for maximum deflection. Then--without another word--they turned back toward the fray.

The team was scattered, weaving between explosions, stray fire, and collapsing infrastructure.

Kate was spawning more and more of herself to incapacitate the never-ending army. Eve was flying again, using her vantage point to take out more soldiers with her energy beams. Rex was off wreaking havoc on the opposition but now with Robot’s permission. Mark flew out from a dog pile of Flaxans, breathing hard, but generally okay.

From the corner of all their eyes, they watched as Vireo leapt from the wreckage and into the fight like a shadow come to life. Not just hacking at the Flaxans, but surgically slicing tech off arms, ripping devices from belts, even marking units for Robot’s targeting drones.

They were efficient. Too efficient for someone who didn’t have training.

Mark mumbled into the comms, absentmindedly, as he took out another squadron, “Anyone else think they’re ex-GDA?”

In between duplicates, Kate responded, “Or black ops. Or freelance. Or all of the above.”

Rex chimed into their selective conversation, “Or just super creepy. Don’t forget creepy.”

Back down on street level, Vireo slid under a laser blast, then drove a boot into the Flaxan’s knee. Their sword followed--fast, brutal, and clean.

Another wristband clattered to the concrete.

They didn’t even watch the soldier age. Just moved on.

Eve spoke to herself, but everyone heard, “How the hell do they move like that?”

“They’re more robot than Robot is,” Rex almost laughed into the system.

Robot had to ignore that comment. He was scanning the wristband Vireo had handed him. Internal processors hummed. Code bloomed in his vision like a storm of data. “49,000 kilohertz.”

He looked up--just in time to see a Flaxan sneaking up on his blind side.

A loud clang interrupted.

Vireo’s blade intercepted the hit. Without a word, without even slowing, they blocked for Robot and pivoted the creature’s weight into the pavement with an unnatural grace.

“…Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” they grunted as they continued blocking hit after hit meant for the android. “Now would be a good time to execute that frequency hack.”

Without another word, a sharp pulse crackled from Robot’s chest. The signal broadcasted invisibly, but its effects were immediate.

And, just like before, Flaxans staggered. The wristbands still intact began to flicker--some sparking, some outright detonating. Others overloaded, and the soldiers wearing them screamed, aging in milliseconds, collapsing into husks of themselves.

Some Flaxans managed to scramble through the rapidly destabilizing portal--those who could still run.

The last one tried.

It didn’t get far.

A whistle went through the air. A single well-aimed dagger--clean, compact, glowing faintly green--embedded into the back of its wristband. A pop of light. A shriek. Another raisin.

Everyone turned to see Vireo lower their arm, calm as ever.

The moment their hand dropped, it was as if the city finally took a breath it had been holding for hours.

One by one, the team let the tension drain from their bodies.

Mark hovered a little above the street, still panting. He watched as Vireo adjusted their grip on the sword and gave one quick glance around--as if confirming: no more threats.

None of the other heroes did that. 

Robot turned to Vireo. “You have a tendency to arrive exactly when the mission is compromised.”

A moment passed. 

Robot spoke again, more pointed this time. “We still don’t have record of your identity. No registration, no organizational alignment, and your voice modulation masks any biometrics.”

Vireo finally turned toward him, ignoring his accusations. “They’ll be back. Stronger. Angrier. You know that now.”

And, Eve ignored their warning and stepped forward, more curious than confrontational. “You keep doing this--showing up, saving our asses, disappearing. What’s your angle?”

Rex scoffed, “Right? You some edgy altruist or just reaaaally committed to the murderbird theme?”

Vireo didn’t take the bait. “It’s necessary. No one else is coming.”

They turned then, smoke catching in their cape, sword slotted back into its sheath. They walked toward the ruined edge of the block, disappearing into a zap of green.

Gone again. Leaving them with questions again.

But this time, the team knew they weren’t just a one-off character.

When headlines broke out weeks later about the Guardians, they knew that even deeper in their minds.

And, when the third invasion came? 

When more-than-infinite Flaxans spilled into Chicago? 

When nuclear response seemed like the only solution? 

When the city was considered beyond saving?

They hoped the ave would come back.

--

Thud after thud echoed, even through the destructive commotion as the Flaxan leader--the same one that had faced him last time, now bulked, geared, armored to hell with a vengeance--had Invincible punched further and further into a crater. 

“Help,” Mark weakly groaned as he felt another amped up fist meet his face.

The creature cackled and seethed, “Die.” 

Another fist reeled back. Mechanical whirs built up tension.

Then, another mechanical whir joined it. Sharper. Higher-pitched.

A sudden, piercing force slammed into the commander’s shoulder, sending it reeling off balance. The impact didn’t come from Earth tech. It was one of theirs. 

It stumbled, glancing at the scorched edge of its armor, no longer smug. Confused. Alert.

Then it looked up.

Above, perched on the jagged, broken top of a half-demolished skyscraper, stood a shadow cloaked in smoke and falling ash. The winged cape. The bird mask. 

And a stolen Flaxan hand-cannon. 

A stolen Flaxan hand-cannon that was charging up for another blast.

Another shot thundered through the air. The recoil made the roof crumble slightly beneath their boots. The cannon’s beam slammed into the Flaxan leader’s leg this time, sending it sprawling.

It tried to get back up but something else grabbed onto it. 

A red billowing cape grazed its vision before the same shade of red covered it. Grasped onto its eye. Clutching its head in mid-air.

“You okay, Mark?” 

Mark’s eyes fluttered open under cracked lenses, looking up at the familiar image of his dad. Omni-Man.

He barely managed a nod, coughing blood.

Omni-Man turned back toward the Flaxan general--scrambling in mid-air like a mere insect--and reeled his arm back to slam it into the ground.

It screeched as it was sent across the asphalt almost back through the portal. Omni-Man immediately closed the distance again.

Mark wheezed as he tried to sit up, vision foggy. Then, Vireo was at his side, crouched low, arm sweeping across him with a sharp press of a patch to his chest. The patch hissed against Mark’s ribs, glowing green for a moment before settling. The pain didn’t leave, but it dulled--enough for him to breathe again. Kind of.

“You're… always… saving…”

“Stop needing saving.” Vireo didn’t look at him. Their gaze followed the distant shape of Omni-Man as he ripped another Flaxan in half like a sheet of paper.

Vireo bristled for once.

Invincible felt their hand stiffen as they continued to patch him up.

Their posture shifted--not fear. Not quite that. But something like... anticipation. Wariness. Like they weren’t sure if what they were doing was right anymore.

Omni-Man blurred past them again, a sonic boom cracking the sky as another squadron of Flaxans vanished under his fists. He moved like a monster--too fast to track, too powerful to match.

The Flaxans weren’t fighting anymore. They were fleeing.

And he was still killing.

Mark tried to sit up straighter. “H-he’s got it. We’re—we’re okay now…”

“No,” Vireo said, sharp and quiet. “We’re not.”

Another Flaxan ran for the portal--too slow. Omni-Man caught it by the throat and slammed it into the pavement hard enough to shatter the ground beneath it.

Then again.

And again.

And again.

Mark flinched. “Da-... Omni-Man--he’s just making sure they don’t come back. That’s all.”

Vireo finally looked at him, visor glinting with the reflection of carnage in the background. “Is that what you really think?”

He didn’t have an answer.

Not one he wanted to say out loud.

Vireo stood slowly, fingers twitching at their side. Not toward the sword. Toward the cannon still slung over their back. A stolen weapon. A foreign one. One calibrated for Flaxans—but easily recalibrated.

Mark caught the movement. “Hey. He’s… on our side.”

A long beat passed. Then Vireo finally said, coldly, “Not mine.”

--

<<next chp>>

im starting a taglist :] if you wanna be added -> form

<3 -> @jiyeons-closet

[aspen78]

taglist??

hi hello :]

im still kinda figuring out this acc (pls be gentle :'D)

but i thought i should make a lil thing for taglist requests

please fill out this form if youd like to be added!

[aspen78]

Chapter 2: How it all Byrnes

<<prev chp>>

**editing the timeline a bit so that Mark met Cecil earlier than in the show

--

The headlines hadn’t broken yet. The world was still playing pretend.

The GDA made sure of it. Letting them be dumb. Letting them carry on with their brunches and business meetings. Blissfully ignorant.

Letting them believe that their global security wasn’t completely decimated. 

But the grainy footage looping on her screen didn’t give a shit about the GDA’s plan to keep the world in the dark. 

It flickered, bled static.

Then landed.

Still frame: blood.

Blood and guts and the unmistakable cape of Darkwing. Wrapped around his mangled body.

(Y/n) Byrnes stared at it, unblinking. One hand cradled a chipped mug of now-cold tea, the other curled into a fist around the edge of the table.

She couldn’t have the luxury of pretending.

The Guardians of the Globe were gone. 

Darkwing was gone. 

Keon Byrnes was gone.

It had to be fake.

Like another troll on the internet, manufacturing whatever story about the Byrnes to get their fifteen minutes of journalistic fame.

It felt impossible. The way that you believe your dad is indestructible when you both knew that was far from the truth. But, Keon, he always seemed to be one leap ahead. He was human; he was surrounded by superhumans. He had to be.

But it wasn’t impossible. It wasn’t fake.

She was looking right at the truth.

The world would call it a tragedy.

The kind that gets memorial murals, ribbon-cutting fundraisers, and limited-edition merch.

But (Y/n)? She felt something colder.

Not grief. Not yet.

Something more like clarity.

A blade’s edge kind of clarity.

Because when the gods fall, monsters don’t just crawl out of hiding.

They put on suits. They smile for the cameras. They start rearranging the pieces.

And whoever did this hadn’t finished.

Her fingers hovered over the keyboard, then tapped in a string of characters only her system would recognize. A new screen unfolded. Encrypted reports. Flagged GDA field data. Buried keywords.

REDACTED: Unidentified Secondary Signature Detected REDACTED: Strength Class Omega REDACTED: Potential Guardian Involvement Suppressed

She narrowed her eyes.

“…Class Omega?”

Only one person matched that level of force.

And it sure as hell wasn’t the bogeyman GDA was pretending they didn’t have a file on.

Not unless they were willing to admit the only Class Omega existing on Earth had a mustache and a son.

Her lips pressed into a thin line.

“You always said if something ever took out the Guardians, it’d be an inside job,” she murmured, low and sharp. “Guess you were right. Congrats, old man. You’re dead and right.”

Her fingers drifted above the interface, biting her lip as she hesitated. Her eyes flickered to another screen, specifically to that signature blue blinking dot. 

Invincible’s GDA tag. Mark Grayson’s.

The boy she had dragged onto her kitchen island one month ago. The boy who told her she glittered. 

The boy whom she hoped had forgotten about her.

His tag blinked steadily on the map—flying on a path directly from the Pentagon to downtown Chicago. Still flying too fast, too low, like someone still new to all this.

Erratic flight pattern. No backup. No comms chatter.

“No orders either,” she muttered under her breath.

He was off-mission. Or maybe on one of his own.

Back then, he was still learning how to play the part. Play hero with Cecil in his ear and his dad on his back.

Now?

He was alone.

And the worst part?

She didn’t know if he knew yet. About the Guardians. 

About what his dad had done.

Her hand hesitated over the comms trigger.

But she didn’t open a line.

Not yet.

Not until she was sure.

She leaned back in her chair, eyes still locked on the satellite screen, the glow bathing her hardened features in pale static light. 

A soft ping brought her other hand up to slide back toward her keyboard, pulling up the newly flagged metadata from the encrypted file her system just stumbled upon.

She jerked up in her seat when the pixels of the screen popped out fourteen words.

Unidentified Secondary Signature Detected.

Class Omega.

Suppressed Report. Eyes Only. Clearance 9.

Her seemingly permanent squinted eyes widened at the file data now on her radar. Clearance nine, huh? That was well above her level. Hell, it was well above anyone’s level if they weren’t Cecil, a corpse, or a ghost.

She tapped out another string of code, the system hesitating for a fraction too long before opening a redacted personnel log.

No names. No visuals. Just one line buried in the clearance trail:

Contingency Protocol 001-A Activated. Subject: Grayson (M).

Her stomach churned.

Not Nolan. Not Omni-Man.

Mark.

They were already covering him, too.

If she thought she was tense before, this was a whole new level. Every single atom of her living body was being squeezed. She reached up and rubbed the bridge of her nose until her vision blurred with something that wasn’t tiredness.

(Y/n) didn’t know what was worse: that Mark might be connected to this, or that the GDA already thought he was.

If she told him now--before she had anything concrete--what would it do? Blow his entire world apart? Push him closer to the agency, or worse, closer to him?

The old man used to tell her: Don’t drop a match if you don’t know where the gas is.

And this?

This wasn’t a match. It was a goddamn detonator.

Her mind was still racing—already mapping out every step ahead, every possibility, every risk.

Don’t act without evidence. Don’t act without a plan. Don’t act at all, not until--

Ping.

Another alert blinked into life. This one louder. Immediate. Center screen.

“..Shit.”

--

His ears were ringing.

Which, at this point, felt like the least concerning thing happening--especially after getting hit square in the chest by something that definitely was not developed on this planet.

Mark groaned as he pulled himself up from the asphalt, debris crunching beneath his feet. He shook it off, wiped blood from the corner of his mouth and his suit, his breaths rapidly increasing the panic of how real this was set in. 

Okay. Okay. You're fine. Totally fine.

“Oh, shit,” he shakily whispered to himself. “Get it together.”

The city roared around him--people screaming, car alarms blaring, explosions lighting up the skyline in too-bright flashes that cast monstrous shadows across buildings. Something mechanical screeched across the sky. Another ship dropped out of the portal with all the grace of a sledgehammer.

Mark's eyes locked on the nearest chaos: a Flaxan grunt targeting an injured old woman crawling to somewhere, anywhere but there.

No time.

“No!” he screamed out, seeing the creature aim to take out the woman… permanently. 

He launched forward without thinking, snatching the first piece of debris his hands touched--a chunk of concrete with rebar--and hurled it with a growl of effort. The Flaxan’s head snapped sideways with the impact, and it crashed into the pavement meters away. The woman flinched, frozen in place.

Mark landed hard beside her, knees catching the concrete as he reached out a hand.

“It’s okay, I’m here,” he asked, voice rougher than he expected. 

The woman stared up at him with wide, terrified eyes.

He forced down a gulp. “Are you hurt?”

The woman's lips parted but no words came out. Her whole body shook. She didn’t nod. She didn’t speak. She just looked at him like she was trying to just hold on.

From behind them, Mark vaguely heard a commanding shout before the barrage of lasers densified.

Not knowing what to do, the Viltrumite tried to shield her from the onslaught and surged into the air to find any corner of haven. His eyes wildly swept for a way out but it seemed like any direction he looked in, there was some sort of aggressive obstacle forcing him to look elsewhere. He was running out of ‘wheres.’

A bright flame of pain spread from an isolated point on his back into a full plane of hurt. 

“Ugh!” Invincible cried out, crashing into a pre-existing crater and bouncing around like a pinball until motion stopped.

And then, he felt it. More sticky wetness soaking into his suit and his face.

“Oh, shit! Oh, my god…” 

His ears were ringing again. His breaths quickened but he could barely breath. 

The old lady he was trying to save was in worse shape than he found her. All her limbs, maimed. She wasn’t moving. She wasn’t reacting.

Swears and curses flooded his mind. He’s fucking it up. 

The center of chaos was the last place to realize that. That he was way in over his head.

The cacophony of destruction surrounded him: screams, explosions, the whir of alien machinery. He staggered to his feet, the injured woman was weighing more than just in his arms.

So much so, another--more powerful--laser almost did more than push him into a crater. 

Mark’s head whirled around a second too late, helpless to react, only to watch the red fill more and more of his vision.

Only, a soft flash of green and yellow brought him his knight.

Only, the red beam didn’t reach its target, it bounced. 

He blinked. Disoriented. Untouched.

The laser that should’ve struck his wholly unprotected head instead bounced off a sort of force field of green and yellow fractals flickering around the crater, reflecting in a sharp arc that exploded the structure of a nearby building.

Just like the hero’s reaction, a pink energy field formed in front of the green and yellow a little too late. 

“Still a dramatic little meteor,” a robotic, cold voice echoed out within the bubble of fractals. Weirdly, the coldness couldn’t cut through the playful edge. 

The voice hit him like a second wave of confusion.

Mark snapped his neck, blood still buzzing in his ears. His chest rose and fell in uneven bursts as he stared at the stranger crouched in front of him.

The hooded, dark figure turned slightly, letting his eyes meet an expressionless bird mask, but didn’t slow their hands. Whoever they were, they worked fast--fluid, practiced motions pressing gauze onto the woman’s wounds, injecting something fluorescent into her arm that immediately slowed the bleeding. Their hands were covered in sleek black gloves lined with faint green tech seams. They didn’t shake. They didn’t hesitate.

Him, on the other hand, could barely get his mouth to move.

“Who--?”

“Not now, Invincible,” the voice cut him off, clipped but not cruel.

They didn’t look at him. Not really. Just moved like they didn’t need to--like they already knew where he was, what he’d ask, what they’d say next.

The masked stranger crouched lower, tapping a small cube into a tech-powered stretcher and flicking a similarly-aestheticized screen open with the other. Their fingers danced across the air, plugging in strings of code and pulling up panels of camera footage.

They stood smoothly, carefully guiding the hovering stretcher to Mark. Their metal mask glinted in the soft green lighting despite their hooded cape doing its best to shield it from the light. Strapped on their person was a whole arsenal of weapons and tech, including an impressive longsword. They looked like a knight; it was fitting.

The green-and-yellow shield still shimmered at the edges of the crater, flickering now from exertion but still holding.

“You need to regroup,” they muttered, handing off the woman to him. “A team is here now. Drop off the bleeding civilian, don’t try and take on another ship solo. You’re not there yet.”

It should’ve pissed him off. It almost did.

But it didn’t feel like an insult.

It felt… like the truth. Brutal, but not malicious. Like someone giving a battlefield report without the sugarcoating.

Still, Mark’s jaw clenched. “You don’t get to just show up and act like you know me.”

Finally, the masked figure turned to face him.

And, much like a bird, they tilted their head, observing. 

“Go,” they said again, harder now. There was no room for argument now.

The masked figure stared back for a beat, their unreadable gaze shielded behind pitch-black lenses.

Then came the faintest tilt of their helmeted head.

“I’ll cover your exit,” they said again, voice sharp as flint. “But you’re burning seconds we don’t have.”

That snapped him out of it.

“Just fly up. I tweaked the shield to let your DNA through.”  

Mark adjusted his grip on the stretcher and took off into the smoke-filled sky--fast, but not too fast, careful now. Conscious of the fragile, broken body in his care.

He looked back once safe in the clouds, past the aliens, past the lasers, and past the smoke. He saw the forcefield drop, and the personification of a shadow leapt into action with a grace that fit into their whole bird-motif. They unanchored their longsword from its sheath, and they became a blur, wiping out Flaxan after Flaxan and flinging small explosives at the missed ones. He watched as they seamlessly worked into the fight that Teen Team was putting up--whenever they showed up, he had no idea.

Mark tore his eyes away from the mayhem, flying in silence with his new goal in mind. But he couldn’t stop his mind from letting at least one of his brain cells relive what they had said.

“Still a dramatic little meteor.”

--

<<next chp>>

it's not spoiling if its kinda already really obvious that you are part of the hero scene too :'D

**peep the sketch below 👀 (purely for suit design :'), i just needed a base to draw on)

[aspen78]

Masterlist: "How it all Byrnes"

This all began in an alleyway. By locals of this by-all-definitions “dark and gloomy” city, this alleyway was infamously dubbed “Crime Alley.” With a name like that, truly nothing good could be expected to come out of it. And, as it happens, we may be witnesses to a mugging at this exact moment.

You may think you know this story already, but I can guarantee you have yet to bear witness to it. As familiar as it may seem, it's quite jarring how a difference in classification can change a story. For this is not a story about a flying mammal [person], rather a story about a flying ave…[person].

chapter 1

chapter 2

chapter 3

chapter 4

chapter 5

chapter 6

chapter 7

chapter 8

chapter 9 (wip)

chapter 10 (wip)

--

also heres a link if you want to be added to a taglist :]

[aspen78]

Chapter 1: How it all Byrnes

:]

invincible x reader; i think everyone knows the protocol

chp 1!

--

Nothing about a world where superheroes and supervillains is in the least bit normal. Not for the--quote, unquote--normal civilians. And especially, not for the heroes or villains. So, why would meeting a hero be under normal circumstances? 

Spoilers! It never is. 

Now, let's set the scene, shall we?

--

This all began in an alleyway. By locals of this by-all-definitions “dark and gloomy” city, this alleyway was infamously dubbed “Crime Alley.” With a name like that, truly nothing good could be expected to come out of it. And, as it happens, we may be witnesses to a mugging at this exact moment. 

You may think you know this story already, but I can guarantee you have yet to bear witness to it. As familiar as it may seem, it's quite jarring how a difference in classification can change a story. For this is not a story about a flying mammal [person], rather a story about a flying ave…[person].

--

Droplets of dirty, greased-up water slid down one of the many patinaed pipes connecting whatever interior plumbing facility to the seemingly everlasting puddles in Park Row--unofficially renamed Crime Alley. Other than the small ripples caused by previously mentioned droplets, these pools of filth were left wholly untouched. Well, other than the occasional aggressive stomps from petty thieves trying to make a getaway. Yeah, wholly untouched. Perfectly in its own world. Pure.

It should have stayed that way. But I think we all know nothing can ever stay pure in this city.

So, here comes the inevitable unpurification. 

A weighty footstep splashed large ripples into the formerly undisturbed puddle. Heavy, unstable breaths fogged up the crisp air of Midnight City’s Crime Alley. The flashing headlights of passing cars flooded the dark alley and further disoriented the stumbling boy splattering his way deeper into the narrow backstreet. His alarmed, widened eyes stared into the pitch-black nothingness ahead before trailing down to his blood-soaked hands. 

Of course, no vulnerable and clearly indisposed person will go unnoticed in the city, especially here. 

Beady, wicked eyes followed the unsteady boy and watched as he made one faulty step onto an uneven patch of asphalt and tripped into the runoff ditch. Each pair of eyes grew a shade brighter now that they had an utterly incapacitated victim. Shifty glances met one another before every shady criminal in that alley launched their attempt in taking at least something off of the barely conscious body.

The first one to reach the boy immediately bashed his head into unconsciousness with a nearby chunk of brick. Tossing the remains of the brick aside, he reached to snatch the shiny gadget on the unconscious’s ear when a thick fog-like smoke sneaked into his vision. 

“What the-?” the thief mumbled under his breath, glancing around the dark and now-murky surroundings. 

Sharp yelps and grunts echoed through the alley, instilling enough panic into the pickpocket to shock him back into action. 

Taking no chances, he immediately snatched the piece of tech off the unmoving body and high-tailed it toward the main street. 

Just as light started to seem reachable, something latched around his torso and forcefully yanked his whole weight backward. 

“Shit!” 

“Where do you think you’re going?” an ominous, eerily modified voice bounced off the walls. 

“Oh, fuck.” he groaned at the realization of who his capturer was. His struggle against whatever was binding him intensified, squirming for freedom as if his life depended on it--which it did not, but for him, maybe getting caught did mean the end of his life… who knows.

Footsteps were made intentionally loud as a shadowy figure stepped out of the dissipating smoke and into his unwavering view. 

A different kind of beady eyes met his frightened ones as the shadow overtook any sort of light brave enough to enter the alley. 

“I-i’ll giv-give it back, please, I-i swear,” his blubbering voice pleaded as a last attempt. “I-i don’t even want it no more.”

To his utter dismay, a sardonically cold cackle was his only answer--as well as the last thing he would hear for the next two hours. 

With a satisfying twack, his vision surrendered to black.

--

 ‘Twas the wee hours of the night, when all through the apartment, not a creature was stirring, especially not the knocked-unconscious, self-proclaimed Invincible. An IV bag was hung by the cabinet with haphazard care, in hopes that “Bossman” Cecil soon would be there. A--thus far--unnamed figure was hunched all stiffly on the dining table while grumbles and curses danced in their head. And a hero on their kitchen island, and they in a hardwood chair, had just settled their brains from a long night’s fare. When just then in the room there arose such a clatter, they sprang up from their unseemly posture to see what was the matter. 

A quiet shriek traveled across the room to cut off what would have been a much louder shriek as our beloved “hit-first-think-later” hero unanchored from the janky, makeshift medbay and pinned the other company against the apartment wall all within one fell swoop.

Just so you can draw in your minds, the scene is laid out as this: in a pretty average city apartment--momentarily strewn with medical equipment--a teen boy semi-clad in bright yellow and blue, running on the pure-adrenaline of waking up in a stranger’s home, had his forearm up against the neck of a too-tired, too-overworked girl. Her body was forced a few tip-toes away from the ground, and her air was forced out of her lungs from the impact and the current choking against her own wall.

“Who are you?” the newly conscious boy demanded with a deadly-serious aggression displayed through a tighter push into her windpipe. “Where did you take me?”

On the bad side of a superpowered individual, any normal civilian would be understandably shaken and fearful; in fact, it is expected. Yet, the girl floating slightly in the air could only seem to glare at the superhero. 

Cold, turbed eyes glared at him through a thin pair of half-rimmed glasses--and to be honest, he was sort of glad for the albeit useless barrier between their eyes. 

She remained thoroughly unimpressed as her nails dug into his arm harder than before to allow for some room to speak… cough, “Yo-uff…ou reall-y ex-pehct uff…an answ-er?” 

The slightly taken-aback half-Viltrumite watched her head tilt down and her eyebrow cock as if to emphasize the stupidity of his actions. If he were out of costume, he would be kind of used to that sort of answer; but he was in costume. 

He quickly moved his gaze from her disinterested one to glance down at himself.

A barrage of white bandages and spots of blood red greeted him instead of the usual yellow and blue he had become accustomed to. 

But, yeah, he was in costume… mostly.

With his free arm, he briefly rubbed at his aching, bandaged ribcage. Oh. 

His other arm immediately retracted at his awkward realization. “You… uhm, did you…?”

Interrupting his stutter of a question, the girl gasped for a sharp intake of air before letting out an annoyed, but quiet curse. One brief coughing fit later, she finished his stutter for him, “Ahem… drag your heavy, unconscious body out of Midnight City and break into my extremely limited med supply to fix you up?” Cough. “Yes.”

Her words might have seemed harsh, but, really, she was more tired than annoyed by the current situation. 

“I thought you were supposed to be Invincible,” she mused while focused on soothing her neck. “Not ‘Invincible with a little help.’”

She watched as the boy with more power than he knew what to do with bit back a smile. An almost silent amused huff left her as no witty comeback came as a response, only a curious stare through broken goggles.

Seeing that no response would be coming at all, she continued to fill the silence after gently pushing the boy who was still way too close for her liking. He only stumbled a step back, enough to really look at the girl before him. 

And something about her… didn’t sit right. Not in a scary way--just… if you needed a model example of uncanny… no, liminal, here she was. Her appearance was at the very threshold of unsettling and unremarkable. Normal enough to not warrant a second glance, but if it did warrant a second glance, one can tell that something was off. Familiar, and yet, unfamiliar. It seemed to flicker between the two like an odd balancing act; it almost looked like she was glittering.

“Uhm, earth to bug boy?” 

Her voice brought him out of his stupor--surprisingly soft, oddly charming, and somehow… familiar. Didn’t quite fit her appearance; that is, until she pushed her glasses into her hair and pinched the bridge of her nose in frustration. 

Holy shit, she’s her… 

Ohmygod, she’s magic.

“Oh, fuck me,” she groaned, dragging a hand down her face. “Tell me you don’t have a concussion.” 

Up to now, he had only ever seen flashes of the girl in front of him through the means of a screen--filtered, framed, and pixel-perfect. But seeing her now, in the flesh, he finally understood why people stopped and stared. She glittered before, but this time, it was of her own doing--no weird magic-imbued glasses or the borrowed shine of a gilded life needed. Even as her clearly sleep-grumpy eyes bore into his, he could not help but feel the air get stolen right out of his lungs.

His jaw sank, and so did her hopes of sleeping tonight. 

“Oh my god,” she exhaled in full exasperation. “You do.”

She grabbed his arm and firmly guided him to the chair she was slumped over before being so rudely choked out. All the while, Invincible was just letting her. 

But make no mistake: he was very much not concussed.

He was reeling.

Because now that the adrenaline was wearing off--along with the whatever unremarkable illusion went with the glasses--, he realized whose apartment he was in.

And it wasn’t just some random girl. 

No. It was her. That girl.

The golden girl of Midnight City. The ward of billionaire Keon Byrnes.

The (Y/n) Byrnes.

And now here she was. And--yeah. Wow. She was way prettier in person.

(Y/n) rummaged through a bag like it wasn’t the strangest Tuesday of his life. Meanwhile, he was still stuck in “what the actual hell” mode.

It became painfully obvious how distracted he was with how his eyes trailed her figure, and--oh no--she was walking back toward him.

And getting closer.

Way too close. 

One of her hands reached toward him, and his breath couldn’t help but hitch as her slender fingers forced his face further into the overhead light. She leaned closer to his face and he was suddenly overtly aware of how very sweaty he was. 

He got pulled out of his daydreams when he heard her snort.

“Breathe, Invincible,” (Y/n) smirked after noticing his lack of breathing. “I don’t need you passing out again.”

He forced out an awkward chuckle, “Uhm, hah, right…”

The hint of her amusement stayed on her lips as she rolled her tired eyes and refocused on what she was doing. Holding up a small, low-beam flashlight, she readjusted her hold on his steadily reddening face and swept the light from the outer edge of his eye to the inner. 

“Tell me the months in reverse order,” she, tone quieter now--almost gentle-- as her (e/c) eyes stared straight into nervous brown eyes. 

Only getting a whole lot of nothing as a response, she lightly shook his attention back to life. 

“Wha-?”

“You’re failing my concussion test is wha-,” she lightheartedly mocked his response, then repeated herself more clearly. “Tell me the months of the year in reverse order.”   

He blinked. Processing. Frozen.

Because damn. This night just kept getting weirder.

He blinked again. “Uh… December. November. October. Sept—uh—August…?”

She tilted her head. “That… took longer than I’d hoped”

“I’m under pressure,” he muttered defensively, glancing at the lack of distance between them. “You’re, like, right there.”

That earned a small smile. Not a smirk, not a laugh—just a barely-there softening of her face. She stepped back just enough to let him breathe again—physically and psychologically. “Alright. You pass. Barely. No concussion, just adrenaline-fried.”

She turned away, flicking the flashlight off and setting it gently on the table. “That’s one less thing to worry about.”

With her back facing him, he felt self-assured enough to continue letting his eyes wander again. Maybe he was adrenaline-fried, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t still… curious.

“Wait, so…” he began, shifting in the chair a little. “You’re that Byrnes?”

(Y/n) glanced over her shoulder, brows raised. “There another one walking around this dump of a city?”

Without giving him a beat to respond, the Byrnes girl clicked her tongue. “Well, there is another one. That one would not be patching up overzealous Omniman-wannabes in his living room, though.”

“Hey!” he protested, sitting up straighter and puffing out his chest as if to prove something. “I’ll have you know I’ve saved entire countries.”

“Oh, sick,” she replied flatly, walking back to him with a cold pack and a glass of water in hand. Pressing the cold pack harder than necessary to the injured boy’s forehead, she sardonically grinned her pearly whites at him, “Clean the blood off my kitchen island and then you’ll earn brownie points from me.” 

He blinked, stunned again. “You’re… really not what I expected.”

“What?” she said, not dropping her crowd-winning Byrnes smile. “Expected some loose trust-fund girl with an emergency-butler button and a monthly tabloid scandal?”

The almighty Invincible avoided making eye contact; it was almost comedic. His unconvincing ‘noooo’ made it even more comedic.   

The sound that left her was something like a cringed groan turned embarrassed laugh. One of her hands dug into her forehead, and she all but faceplanted into it. 

“Fuuuuuckkkkk..” she muttered, muffled and fully mortified. “I didn’t expect you, of all people, to fall for--no even care about--that whole “Midnight Heiress’ bullshit.”  

(Y/n) slumped into the chair next to him and had her head propped on her wrist. “Pft.. at least I know all that money I’m pooling over to my PR team is worth something.” 

He snuck a glance at her, a faint grin tugging at the corner of his mouth. “If all of that is fake, you play the part preeettyy well..”

“Don’t remind me. I’ve spent more time practicing fake smiles than actually feeling anything worth smiling about,” she shook her head slightly, more to herself than him, as she picked at the residual blood on her fingers. 

Her voice wasn’t bitter—just tired. Honest in a way that made even the hero shift slightly in his seat, uncertain whether to fill the silence or respect it.

She stared at the faint red smudges like they had something new to tell her. “People don’t usually expect much beyond the last headline. Makes it easier to disappear when I need to,” she murmured, not quite looking at him.

He tilted his head. “Is that what you’re doing? Disappearing?”

There was a beat.

Then, she let out an honest chuckle. “Could you imagine?” Sitting up straighter, she launched into a deadpan impersonation, her voice taking on the dramatic flair of a local news anchor reading off the cue card, “Breaking news, famed Midnight Heiress, (Y/n) Byrnes has gone off the face of the Earth. She has mysteriously vanished from public view. Sources say she was last seen hauling a bloody superhero through the backstreets of Park Row-”

Her impression was soon cut short by a loud snort from the boy next to her as he covered his mouth to attempt at minimizing the volume. 

The socialite threw him a quick side-eye, though the corner of her mouth betrayed the start of a grin before she broke and joined in hiding her laughter.

“God, my PR team would be cursing at my theoretical corpse,” she sighed between laughs, leaning back against the chair, “But, nah. I’m not allowed to leave the limelight anytime soon.” 

She ducked her head, letting her glasses drop back down onto her nose. In an instant, the well-known playgirl of Midnight City flickered back to the weirdly normal illusion of a girl. “These help though.”

The boy’s laughter quieted as he watched her shift—watched the ease in her posture return to something more practiced, controlled normalcy. The transformation was subtle, but noticeable. Like someone slipping a mask back on, just reverse; from someone remarkable to just another civilian.

He squinted his eyes, trying to see through the strange illusion and studying her in silence for a moment. “Sooo…Are you like…” he pursed his lips in acceptance of the embarrassment he’s about to receive. “Are you like magic?”

(Y/n) blinked at him.

Then again.

Slowly.

“Am I… magic?” she repeated, like she needed to confirm that he really said it. 

He nodded slowly, already regretting every life decision that led to this moment. Cue the spluttering. “I mean, like, not in the wand-waving, spell-casting sense. More like… low-key enchanted? Maybe just… slightly reality-bending? You glittered, okay? I panicked.”

(Y/n) stared at him for a solid five seconds. Then six. Then seven.

“You panicked… because I glittered.”

He groaned, dragging a hand down his face. “God, that sounded better in my head.”

She opened her mouth. Closed it again. A breath of silence passed.

Then: “You get hit in the head a lot, don’t you?”

He rolled his eyes, but he was sort of relieved by the return of snark. “More than I’d like.”

(Y/n) smiled at that, but there was something softer underneath it now. Thoughtful.

“I’m not magic,” she said, and this time she said it like she was explaining it to a kindergartener. “I just have a lot of money.” A brief pause. “Enough to fund my tech projects. Like identity masking glasses.”

He raised a brow. “Wait—that’s tech?”

She nodded, pushing the glasses off her face. “Mm-hmm. Smart polymer lenses, facial recognition filters, micro-emotion mapping. They subtly shift how people perceive my face depending on proximity and familiarity. Makes me look… ‘normal.’ Whatever that means.”

Now it was his turn to stare. “No. You’re magic.”

Instead, she scoffed quietly, her eyes flicking away as if to deflect. “You really do get hit in the head too many times.” 

He only smiled--y’know that stupidly boyish smile of his--, shrugging like he wasn’t the least bit embarrassed this time. “Probably. But I know what I saw.”

She met his eyes again, and this time she didn’t look away so quickly. Something about the way he looked at her—like he wasn’t seeing the image or the illusion, but her, just her—was unnerving in the most frustratingly sincere way.

His voice dropped to a quieter decibel. “You know, for someone who’s supposedly trying to seem forgettable, you’re kinda hard to look away from.”

Her eyebrow twitched as if she were deciding whether to roll her eyes or hold his stare for another second.

“Guess the glasses aren’t working as well as I thought,” she said, almost absentmindedly.

“They work,” he mumbled, still keeping her gaze--and his cool under her gaze. But the boy is a boy. And she was looking at him like that.

“You just still glitter,” he blurted without thinking.

“What?”

Vibe? Instantly shattered.

He froze. He swore he could literally hear the record scratch play out loud in real life. 

And he immediately wished for a superpower that let him rewind time. “I—I didn’t mean like literally,” he rushed, hands flailing halfway to his temples. “It’s not, like, sparkles or fairy dust or—God, please stop looking at me like that.”

(Y/n) was absolutely not stopping.

In fact, she leaned in ever so slightly, eyes glimmering in humor, lips pressed together in what could only be described as unholy amusement. “You sure you don’t have something wrong up there?” she asked slowly. “Maybe I should do another concussion test.”

He groaned, sinking lower into the chair like he could vanish into it. “Okay, cool, we’re just… bullying me now. That’s what this is.”

She let a giggle slip out, and despite his grumbling, the corners of his busted lips turned up at that. 

“Alright, bug boy, if you’re mentally and physically sound enough to flirt, you’re mentally and physically sound enough to deal with your boss,” (y/n) pushed herself up from the table to make her way to her phone and left him to stew in his awkwardness. 

At that, Invincible blinked, the word boss immediately snapping him out of his fluster-induced spiral. “Wait, wait—what do you mean deal with my boss?”

She grabbed her phone from the counter, rehearsed tapping to unlock it. “You think Stedman just forgot about his golden boy striking an alley like a dramatic little meteor and then going dark?”

His face scrunched up. “How do you know about Cecil?”

(Y/n) didn’t even look up from her phone as she responded. “Despite what it looks like, Midnight City doesn’t exactly operate in a vacuum. Especially not when half of it is built on secret government contracts and overpriced surveillance tech.”

He looked at her with an intensity that can only be communicated as ‘ok, who the fuck are you really??’ “Okay, but… that doesn’t explain how you know.”

“I know lots of things.” She tapped her screen a few more times with the casual precision of someone far too comfortable with classified intel. “Besides, you’re not exactly low-profile. You’ve got a signature color palette and a reputation for punching first and asking questions somewhere around ‘never.’ You’re basically a walking satellite ping.”

“That feels… rude,” he muttered, crossing his arms and looking very much like a scolded golden retriever.

(Y/n) snorted. “Facts aren’t rude, bug boy. They’re just inconvenient.”

He leaned forward slightly, still trying to play catch-up. “So wait… you knew who I was before dragging me out of that alley?”

Hearing the question spill out of his mouth, she looked up. She grinned--a little too wide. And she didn’t stop when she pressed on the call button.

The phone rang once.

“(Y/n),” the hero practically whimpered, voice dropping into something just shy of a warning.

Twice.

She kept grinning.

Click.

In an almost nonchalant manner--one that could only come with being a Byrnes--, the heiress leaned against her countertop with a smile that was not heard in her next words. “I’ve got one of yours. In my apartment. Bled all over my kitchen island.”

And that was it.

She carelessly tossed her phone in his direction. 

He had no choice but to catch the probably very expensively modded device.

For a second, no sound came from either end of the call. 

Invincible had to wince at that lack of yelling because that meant Cecil had been marinating. “Hi, Cecil…”

“I see you’ve finally decided to resurface.”

(Y/n) watched the scene play out almost like she was watching a particularly interesting show. Under her entertained stare, he rubbed the back of his neck. “Look, I didn’t plan to have to resurface or go under the surface at all. Things got… complicated.”

“Complicated doesn’t begin to cover it,” Cecil practically fumed into the hero’s ears. “You flew through Midnight City without authorization. We scanned four square miles before your signal completely dropped. You’ve got half a squad still running sweeps--in that godforsaken city of all places. Do you know how expensive that is?”

He winced at the volume, pulling the phone slightly away from his ear like that would soften the sting. “Okay, yeah, I get it. Bad. Really bad.”

“…”

There was that silence again. The one that made Invincible want to lie down and let whatever petty thug that was bash him in the head again.

He instinctively glanced at (Y/n), who had made herself very comfortable, arms crossed, lips twitching like she was suppressing another laugh. She gave him a mock-sympathetic shrug that said, “you’re on your own, Invincible.”

He blew out a drawn-out breath. “Look, none of this was planned, alright? My comm kinda got ripped out of my ear, so I wasn’t really in a position to update you,” the boy snapped, sharper than he meant to. 

(Y/n) let out a low whistle, impressed. She mimed a yikes.

He mouthed help me. She only smirked wider.

Cecil didn’t miss a beat. “Watch the tone, Mark.” Then, he sighed, something that seemed like he had been holding back for a long time now. “Put Byrnes back on. Now.”

A pause. “You’re not gonna yell at her, are you?”

Cecil hesitated, “You obviously don’t know who she really is if you’re asking that.”

The boy’s face shifted in confusion as he glanced at the girl, who looked just smug enough to be accused of sainthood and war crimes in the same breath.

She gave a low hum, then slowly extended her hand toward him like she was being handed the mic at a roast.

Giving her a curious look, he slowly pawned off the phone to her. 

“Helll-o Stedman,” she said, voice shifting smoothly into something polished, public-facing, PR-seasoned--an heiress made of headlines. But just as quickly, the charm dropped immediately after her greeting, enough to be more dangerous. “Tell your people to stop scanning the city. You’re only drawing more attention to something already unstable.”

The line went silent again—different from before. Not angry. Calculating.

The Viltrumite could only pick up a small whisper of Cecil’s voice when it came through the line, slower. Heavier. “How unstable are we talking?”

(Y/n)’s expression didn’t change, but something behind her eyes sharpened. “Let’s just say… whatever this was was not random. This was something precise. Call off your dogs and let me handle this from inside the city.”

The undoubtedly lost hero sat up straighter, blinking at her like she’d just morphed into someone new. The tone, the command, the way she didn’t even ask permission—she wasn’t just someone with connections. She was someone with power.

Not borrowed.

Owned.

“Why would I do that?” Cecil asked flatly. “You’re not agency. You’re not even affiliated.”

“Because I have more pull in this city than you do,” she replied with practiced syrupy sweetness. “And because you’re smart enough to know that letting me work the inside keeps you from making this mess worse than it already is.”

That line made the director of the GDA sigh, so audibly that even the hero didn’t need his superhearing to register it. “You’ve always been a pain in my ass, Byrnes.”

“Yup,” (y/n) popped the ‘p’ with a smirk.

“Tell the kid he has sixty seconds.”

“Will do, Stedman.” 

And, just like that, a ‘beep’ ended the call. She tossed the phone back to the counter with a soft thunk, exhaling like she’d just sat through a ten-hour meeting.

He was staring at her like she’d just rewritten physics.

“I assume you heard that.” She crossed her arms and leaned into the counter once more. 

He had heard it. All of it. But hearing something and understanding it were two different things—and right now, he wasn’t doing either all that well.

“You… what just happened?” he finally asked, his voice about an octave too high for someone trying to sound cool.

A small charming smile appeared on her lips. “Sounds like he’s prepping the teleporter to beam you back.”

“No--seriously,” he insisted, gesturing to her, then to the now-silent phone. “What even are you?”

That made her laugh. Not a full one, just a soft, quiet thing that somehow still felt like it carried centuries of chaos and clarity in it.

“I’m... complicated,” she said finally, walking past him to grab a nearby hoodie.

He didn’t move.

“You really just… ordered him around. Like it was nothing.”

She glanced at him through the hole of the hoodie she was putting on, then shrugged. “I’m not nothing.”

And the way she said it—so casual, so matter-of-fact—made it impossible to argue. She wasn't nothing. No matter how much she wanted to be. She hadn’t just built a life in the shadows of power; she was the power. With her identity-masking glasses and her too-casual familiarity with covert surveillance grids, with her smirks and tired eyes and command over both PR and panic… she wasn’t someone you met. She was someone you encountered.

“You’re terrifying,” he mumbled under his breath.

(Y/n) popped her head through the cotton to throw him a grin that was all teeth and just the right amount of menace. “Thank you, bug boy.”

“You know,” he finally said, voice tentative, “you’ve been kind of... too chill about this whole thing. Me crashing in, bleeding all over your place, you fixing me up like it's your Tuesday routine—”

“It is Tuesday,” she said without looking at him.

“See? That’s not helping.”

She huffed a quiet laugh and turned back toward him, leaning her hip against the counter--half amused, half... guarded. Her gaze lingered on him a second too long. Calculated.

He tilted his head, narrowing his eyes just a little. “Why are you so used to this? It’s like you knowing what to do is second nature.”

Her lips twitched, not quite a smile. Not quite a denial either.

“Do you know who I am?

She didn’t answer right away. Instead, she stepped closer--slow, but deliberate. And when she looked at him again, something in her expression had shifted. The casual mask didn’t drop, but it tilted—just enough to see past the edges.

“I told you,” she said quietly. “I know a lot of things.”

He swallowed. “That’s not a normal amount of knowing.”

“No,” she agreed, tilting her head slightly. “But then again… you’re not exactly a normal guy.”

Caught somewhere between flattered and completely unnerved, he timidly asked, “So you’ve been keeping tabs on me?”

“More like... keeping an eye out,” she said, voice calm, unreadable. “For how new you are to the scene, you get into a lot of trouble. I like to know where the storms are before they hit my city.”

“You’re not the only one who reads between the headlines, hero,” she added, tapping a manicured nail once against her temple. “It’s amazing what you can learn if you don’t believe everything the GDA feeds the press.”

There was a quiet intensity in the way she looked at him now—like she was trying to decide if she could trust him… or if he was going to blow everything up by accident.

Again.

He shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “Okay, well, uh… if it helps, I usually blow stuff up by accident.”

(Y/n) let out a breath of a laugh, but there was a knowing look behind her eyes now—sharp and far too observant.

“I know, Mark,” she said.

And, there it was. Confirmation that she knew exactly what she shouldn’t know. So casually too, like she hadn’t just shattered the veil between his public hero persona and the person buried underneath it. Like she hadn’t just confirmed that she’d known his identity before dragging him out of an alley. 

He almost missed it. 

Only, he liked the way it sounded coming out of her mouth. 

Mark.

Not Invincible. Not bug boy. Just… Mark.

She grabbed a half-finished energy drink from the table and took a sip before checking her phone. 

For the first time since they started talking, Mark found the energy to stand despite his healing aches adamantly protesting against it. “So if you’ve been watching me for this long…” he started, voice softer now. “Did you ever think we’d actually meet?”

(Y/n) watched as he closed the distance between them, her expression unreadable behind the flicker of dim kitchen light and pixelated city glow bleeding through the blinds. The silence between them was a soft hum, alive and waiting. 

The way she pressed her lips together told him the answer was no. 

“I hoped we would.”

That answer--so simple, so unguarded--landed heavier than he expected. And for a second, just one stretched-out second, he forgot about the pain, the blood, the call, the world outside her apartment.

“Bye, Mark.”

He opened his mouth to say something--he didn’t even know what--but he didn’t get the chance.

Because in the next instant, a soft, low whirrr vibrated through the floor. A pulse of blue-white light swept around his feet. And then--

Bzzt.

He was gone.

“He’s lucky he’s cute.”

--

<<next chp>>