masamasan

[masamasan]

[Brand New Hero | Mark x You]

Summary: As the newest PR intern at the GDA, you’re at the absolute bottom of the food chain. Until you meet him: a clumsy, god-awfully dressed rookie hero with no name, no fame, and no idea what he’s doing.

Your master plan: make him the greatest superhero this world has ever seen.

You’re a teenager. He’s a teenager. Throw in a wild cocktail of hormones, a couple of near-death experiences, and some crippling anxiety. What could possibly go wrong?

Contains: Alternate Universe | Female Reader | Slow Burn | Friends to Lovers

"Describe yourself."

Ah, yes — the most dreaded of questions, probably the most awkward ice breaker there is. Worst thing is that it tells you absolutely nothing about anyone.

It usually goes one of two ways:

You either tell them the most generic, Jane or John Doe kind of response as humanly possible (‘I like music, hanging out with friends, and going to the gym’) or go the special snowflake route and tell them a meaningless, obscure fact about yourself (‘I like this really niche, indie boy band from Iceland that nobody knows except for me’).

Either way, it’s fake, mildly disturbing, and something you’d rather like to skip.

But how would you describe yourself?

You freshly turned eighteen, were an early high school graduate, and had a full-ride scholarship to the University of Virgina. So you weren't completely stupid, no. But you weren't one of those brain-melting Einsteins nor one of those hard-working underdog model students either.

The most special thing about you was not you, but your family: Your parents were both prodigies in their respective fields and got recruited to work for the government right after college graduation.

When you were younger, you thought they were spies, like the ones in that movie with Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt. They'd zoom around in their bullet-proof Jeeps, only strut out of the house in their perfectly-ironed black suits, and would feed your classmates the lamest lies about working boring office jobs. When you discovered in fourth grade that they were, in fact, not secret agents, you were mildly devastated, to put it lightly.

In short: You were a nepo baby and had rich parents that sent you to an excessively expensive, really snobby private school that made it ridiculously easy to get into any college you wanted.

What else? You were kind of a (massive, enormous, colossal) people pleaser, and thought the only thing defining your self-worth was if others liked you. Everything you did was done perfectly, and you would rather swallow a thousand needles than let others think you were incompetent in any way. That left you stuck being everyone's go-to person whenever they needed a group project partner — only to end up doing the entire thing by yourself while they could lean back and watch.

You blamed your parents for that cursed trait, because they had such ridiculously high expectations for their only child that you couldn't allow yourself to disappoint them even microscopically. They wanted you to be their perfect mini-clone, destined to follow in their footsteps and become another successful government drone. And then when you found yourself a guy who would fulfill their impossible standards (probably an astronaut, doctor, and lawyer all in one), you'd create a perfect copy of them in the future again, so their legacy could live on forever and ever. Hooray.

That's how you ended up here, as an intern for the Global Defensive Agency inside the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia. Your parents had convinced the director to let you prove yourself, helping you to take your first step into your government career.

“It's going to be hard in the beginning," your dad had said. "If you don't do your tasks well, they will sort you out and you will never get that opportunity again."

Those words stuck with you throughout the first weeks of your internship, when you would run around to get everyone their correct order of coffee, copy and staple their paperwork or reply to angry emails from citizens whose houses got destroyed in the recent Omni-Man vs Lizard Group fight.

Work was hard, especially when you had to juggle that on top of your Political Economy online classes, but somehow you managed. The nightmarish image of your parents' disappointed faces combined with a truly concerning amount of your self-brewed espresso and Red Bull concoction (patent pending) kept you going, alright.

And you did well. You were an amazing errand runner, if you said so yourself. You never spilled a drop of coffee, never stapled the wrong documents, and never lost your cool when citizens called you insults in their angry emails. The best intern ever. That's what you were. Gold star for you.

So when your mother, a scientist, who worked closely with the director of the GDA, had helped you get a promotion, you weren't so sure if you were happy with it. You were great as a coffee girl, so why risk it and start from the bottom again? Hell, maybe you could be a coffee girl manager one day if you kept it up!

"You will never be the best, if you don't even try," your mother had said. “And what’s the point if you’re not the best?”

There wasn’t much you could say to argue — especially when she hit you with one of those ‘if looks could kill’ glares that made you rethink your entire life choice of opening your mouth. So you agreed, like the perfect grateful daughter you were.

Your new role in the PR department was to help raise Teen Team's public image. It sounded a lot more exciting than it actually was. Most days, it meant crafting excuses when they accidentally leveled a neighborhood during a fight, or scrambling to spin damage control after another politically incorrect comment in an interview.

And now you stood in front of young superheroes you were supposed to work with, a group of mismatched teens that had been under GDA's care for some time now. Five pairs of eyes were glued to your awkwardly stiff black suit-clad body, a clipboard with nothing written on it pressed against your chest as they expectantly waited for an introduction.

So… with your mediocre background story in mind, how did you describe yourself?

The most accurate would be: A privileged doormat with an unhealthy caffeine addiction.

But of course you would never say that.

"I like listening to music," you stammered, after giving them your name. "And meeting friends in my spare time," you quickly added.

You went the Jane Doe route, to play it safe. Not cool, but there was nothing cool about you anyway. You also forgot the gym part, but it was too late now.

Instead of introducing themselves back to you, they shrugged your uncomfortable attempt at socializing off. The redhead sent you a crooked smile out of pity. That was nice. Kinda.

"Well, you guys can go back to training," Donald said, clearing his throat, when the silence got too thick. “I think you did a great job."

The older man patted you awkwardly on your shoulder, and you grimaced at yourself as soon as the heroes turned their backs on you. You couldn't think of a better way to completely wreck your reputation on the first day with the people you were supposed to work for... at least it went better than that time when you met Cecil for the first time. That memory had been safely locked away in the 'never ever think about again, not even under torture' part of your brain.

"Don't worry," Donald quickly added, when he saw your panicked face. "It was hard for me, too, in the beginning. But you'll get the hang of it."

You nodded and suppressed the urge to cry tears of pure, undiluted mortification. Donald was probably the only person here who actually treated you like a human being, and not like a coffee-bringing, document-stapling, hate-mail-responding cyborg with a government-approved stamp on its forehead. You were pretty sure it was because you reminded him of himself — another professional doormat for the higher-ups to wipe their feet on.

He was the director's right-hand man... and left-hand man too. If there was anything Cecil didn't want to do, Donald would be stuck doing it. That's how he became your mentor of sorts — Cecil had waved you off like an annoying mosquito and declared he didn't have time for insignificant interns like you, so Donald got forcibly drafted into babysitting duty.

You involuntarily saw yourself in Donald, too, a haunting glimpse of what your future might hold. Your gaze wandered from his aggressively receding hairline to his strangely bland face. Is that how you would end up? Senior assistant manager or whatever Donald's actual title was? You just hoped you would end up with more stylish glasses than his tragic grey frames.

When you were asked to return to your desk and help with other tasks, your mind wandered off again. A life solely dedicated to chasing the approval of others, to being at the bottom of the food chain, to accepting even microscopic scraps of attention as long as you would get noticed... was that really how your life was going to be? Become the human equivalent of a participation certificate?

*

When you were younger, your parents moved around a lot. Government duties and all that. You’d been to San Fransisco, St. Louis, Milwaukee, and a bunch of other big cities you barely remembered. The last time you were in Chicago was when you were five. You think it was when your mom was send there for two months to work on a “super secret mission”. Now you were back in the Windy City as an official GDA intern, which sounded way more impressive than it actually was.

Donald had asked you to deliver "extremely important documents" the director needed urgently. They were supposedly so top secret that they couldn't be sent electronically or by mail and had to be hand-delivered. You were convinced Donald just really pitied seeing you sitting at your desk all day and invented a task to give you something vaguely resembling purpose.

When you arrived at the glass-and-steel monstrosity in downtown Chicago, you endured a security process worse than the TSA: two body scans, multiple ID checks, and an interview that felt more like an interrogation — all so they could dramatically hand you... wait for it... two pages in a manila envelope.

"Close the door when you leave," the secretary droned without looking up from her phone, gnawing on her pen like it was a salami stick.

You nodded and smiled reflexively (your default response), then slipped out and eased the door shut with the careful precision of someone defusing a bomb. Looking down at the thin envelope in your hands, reality sank in. Did you really just take a flight in the middle of the night, went through all this alien like probing, just to be send away after five minutes? You sighed.

The hallway stretched out, empty — pretty sure you just saw a tumbleweed roll by. Security had been tight as a vice at the entrance, but once inside, the guards were seemingly on permanent coffee break. That's when you spotted it: a sign pointing to roof access. If anyone had been around, they might’ve seen the light bulb pop up over your head. If the government was going to waste your time, you might as well make it worthwhile with a nice view of Chicago before heading back.

You glanced around to make sure no one was watching, then slipped through the stairwell door and headed up.

The rooftop greeted you with a gust of wind that nearly snatched the precious two pages from your grasp. Clutching the envelope to your chest, you settled at a respectable distance from the edge. Safety first, exciting views second — you didn’t want to end up in the headlines as the first GDA intern that fell to her death while on duty, after all.

Chicago sprawled before you: all concrete, glass, and ant-sized humans going about their business. It was... fine, you thought. Nice, even. But not exactly the life-altering moment movies had promised. No epiphany, no sudden clarity about your life's purpose, just... buildings. Taller than the ones in Virginia, maybe, but still just… buildings.

Then, just as you were about to shrug and accept your boring fate, a flash of neon caught your eye. You froze mid-turn, eyes squinting.

About three blocks away, someone in a blinding mix of yellow, orange, and turquoise was flailing wildly at what looked like a living chunk of concrete. It was a fight — probably. At least, that’s what it was trying to be.

The hero, assuming that’s what you thought he was (villains usually had better fashion sense), launched himself at Concrete Man. Judging by how he pinballed off the alley walls just trying to reach his target, he was definitely new. Probably not even a properly trained hero.

Vigilantes and hobby heroes weren’t exactly rare these days. More and more people were waking up with powers, and plenty didn’t hesitate to use them, for better or worse. Technically, you were supposed to report your powers to the GDA and get registered before doing anything flashy. But good luck enforcing that on everyone.

Concrete Man responded by seizing the hero by his costume and hurling him sideways into the brick wall of an apartment building. The hero peeled himself off the wall, wobbling visibly even from your distant perch. But instead of retreating, he managed to launch himself forward again and crash directly into his opponent.

The impact sent both combatants tumbling violently against the walls of the alleyway, breaking off a fire escape in the process, and then finally into the street, where they managed to flip over a parked car.

The final crash sent both fighters sprawling. Concrete Man hit the ground hard, chunks of his rocky armor crumbling away to reveal dark skin and the surprisingly ordinary face of a man beneath the rubble. The hero was the first to get up. He didn’t look shaken, just winded, as he stared down at his fallen opponent.

He’d won. Somehow, against all odds and coordination, the rookie had actually taken down the villain.

You stood frozen, documents forgotten in your hand. You’d seen plenty of hero footage during your GDA internship: clean, polished takedowns by legends like Omni-Man or the Immortal. This wasn’t that. This was raw. Messy. Kind of pathetic.

And yet… You were leaning forward now, hands gripping the edge of the parapet, heart ticking faster than you cared to admit. This was probably the closest you'd ever come to being starstruck — and all because you’d just watched a clumsy rookie take down a giant pebble.

Blue and red flickered at the edge of your vision — sirens, no doubt — and the moment the hero noticed them, he bolted. He shot into the air, but clipped the side of a building, and spun wildly mid-air.

You watched, amused… until something about the trajectory felt off.

He was getting bigger.

No, closer.

Wait.

Your mind was still playing catch-up, trying to connect the dots, when your body finally decided to panic. You stumbled back, clutching your very important GDA documents like your life depended on them.

A blur of orange filled your vision, followed by a heavy thud, and the next thing you knew, you were flat on your back, staring at the sky, with the wind knocked clean out of you.

You blinked, disoriented. The thin GDA envelope was still clutched against your chest, safe and sound, so you sat up, heart thudding. No concussion, no major injuries. You were fine.

Your gaze shifted to the sprawled figure in orange, yellow, and turquoise lying a few feet away.

For a split second, your body locked up. The guy who just punched a literal walking, talking concrete wall was lying just an arm's length away from you — a mere (below average fit) human. The last time you physically hurt someone was when you accidentally slapped Donald on the forehead, trying to swat a fly. You were, without question, the last person on Earth who stood a chance against someone with superhuman strength.

Your fight-or-flight instinct kicked in, and you scrambled to bolt for the door. But just as your foot lifted, he groaned and sat up, hand cradling his head.

Your heart was slamming violently against your ribs. Every instinct screamed run, but you couldn’t take your eyes off him.

Up close, the outfit was even worse: faded orange rain boots, baggy turquoise joggers with at least two visible holes, and a tight orange top that definitely had seen better days. A yellow cloth masked the lower half of his face. Through his cracked pair of goggles, a sharp brown eye peered out.

You hadn’t realized you were full-on staring until he met your gaze. Instantly, your breath caught.

Your muscles froze. Not out of awe, but out of pure, feral fear.

Sure, he seemed like a hero. But these days, who knew? Powers didn’t come with moral compasses. What if he was one of those loose-cannon vigilantes who didn’t like witnesses?

Was this how it ended? Smacked off a rooftop just because you were nosy?

For a moment that felt like eternity, you both stared at each other, silence stretching until it got too uncomfortable.

“Are you—” your voice came out lower than you expected, so you tried again, louder. “Are you gonna kill me?”

The words tumbled out before you could stop them. Your eyes dropped immediately, refusing to meet his.

A dozen grim scenarios flashed through your mind, one worse than the next, until they all blurred into static. Silence stretched.

“Huh?” the guy said, blinking. His voice was higher than you’d expected. “Wait — what? No! I — God, no. I was just… trying to help.”

You risked a glance up. He was standing now — and, wow, he was taller than you expected. Yeah, you definitely stood no chance at all against him.

He took a cautious step forward.

You mirrored it backward, stiff as a board.

He froze, then quickly raised both hands like he was trying to show you he meant no harm. “Sorry! Sorry, I didn’t mean to freak you out.”

His gaze flickered sideways, seeming nervous all of a sudden.

“I was just chasing this bad guy and then… uh—“ He scratched the back of his neck, shifting his weight. “I kinda lost control.”

A beat passed.

“Also, sorry about… you know.” He gestured vaguely at the rooftop. “Crashing into you.”

You gave him another cautious once-over. His posture was stiff, his eyes wide and unsure — it almost reminded you of a puppy meeting someone new for the first time. He definitely didn’t look dangerous. If anything, he seemed more scared of you than the other way around. Your shoulders dropped a little. It wasn’t safe, not exactly, but not an immediate threat either.

You offered him a tight-lipped smile.

“It was amazing!” you blurted before your brain could stop your mouth. Your face flushed. “I mean the fight against the stone guy. Not the part where you knocked me out.”

“Oh. Uh… thanks?” he said, blinking like he couldn’t quite believe what he was hearing. “I’m still figuring things out. Kind of winging it, honestly.”

Then, the two of you were both staring — holding the awkward prolonged eye contact like neither of you had any idea how social interactions were supposed to work. Still, there was something about him. He didn’t just survive a fight with a living concrete slab — he won. And he was a complete nobody.

And yet…

Was this what talent scouts felt at high school basketball games? That strange gut-deep certainty? The kid had no training, no coordination, almost non existent flying skills… and yet you could see it. Potential. Raw, stupid, unpolished potential.

Your breath caught.

And suddenly, like lightning hitting the ground, you got an idea. A brilliant idea. This was it. This was your ticket out. He was going to change your fate!

“What’s your name?” you asked, taking a step closer.

“Ma—” He stopped, caught himself, and scratched the back of his head. “Uh. I mean. Haven’t really settled on one yet.”

“We’ll figure that out,” you muttered, mostly to yourself, and closed the distance between you. “Have you ever thought about becoming a professional hero?”

He squinted at you. “A… what?”

“A professional hero,” you repeated, eyes bright. “Y’know. Like, full-time. Uniform, sponsors, TV deals, the whole package.”

He gave a vague shrug. “I guess? I mean, not really. I just do stuff.”

Your grin widened, your mind already drifting into the ideal version of your future. This was happening. This was your moment. Goodbye coffee runs, goodbye being Donald’s stand-in, and good-fucking-bye to being your parents’ puppet. They couldn’t say a damn thing if you were the one who discovered the next great superhero.

You were going to make history.

“What’s your name?” he asked suddenly, breaking you out of your mental victory parade.

You blinked, quickly told him, and then, with way too much energy, asked, “Are you interested in working with the GDA?”

He flinched slightly at your volume. “The… GDA?”

With dramatic flair, you yanked the retractable cord on your badge and shoved it right in his face. “Boom. See? I work for them.” (You purposely skipped over the ‘intern’ part.)

“I could help you become a real hero,” you said, voice dropping into a lower, persuasive tone. “We’ve got the training. The funding. The connections.”

You were already picturing your new business cards. Agent. Advisor. Executive Talent Scout. No, screw it — director.

The rookie blinked again, slowly. Then smiled politely.

“Thanks,” he said. “But no.”

Pop. There went your dream. Your smile dropped.

“I’m not really looking to join a government squad,” he added, scratching at the back of his neck. “Kinda trying to do my own thing.”

You stared at him like he’d just refused a winning lottery ticket. Thirty days paid vacation. Free dental. 401k. You were pretty sure Donald even said something about a masseuse coming in every Monday. Was he insane not to accept a deal like that?

“Well, uh, sorry again for crashing into you,” he said, waving vaguely in your direction. “Nice meeting you, though.”

You watched in horror as he turned away.

No. No no no! You can’t let this opportunity slip through your fingers like that!

You scrambled after him. “Wait! I — I work with really big names! Like, I’ve met the Immortal!”

He didn’t even glance back. “Miss, I’ve got places to be.”

You followed anyway, practically tripping over your own feet. “Okay, okay, I get it! You don’t want anyone telling you what to do. Totally fair. Authority sucks. The government’s kind of the worst!”

He stopped at the rooftop edge, one foot already on the parapet. You panicked.

“But resources!” you yelled. “You want to help people, right? We have actual resources. Real support. Equipment. You could do so much more.”

That made him hesitate.

He turned just enough to glance at you over his shoulder. His expression had softened. This was it. Now or never — you pressed your advantage.

“We could train you. Help you get better. You’d be teamed with other pros — people with experience. People who could teach you. You could save thousands of lives, maybe millions.”

You paused for effect. “You could even be like… Omni-Man.”

That seemed to hit a nerve. His eyes widened, then dropped to the cracked concrete below him. He didn’t move. He was thinking.

You stood there, fists clenched, hardly breathing.

And then, when he lifted his gaze to meet yours, there was something in his expression you couldn’t quite place — curiosity? Hesitation?

“Like Omni-Man?” he asked.

You had him.

“Yes! Like Omni-Man! No — even better,” you said, nodding enthusiastically. “I saw what you did back there. You’ve got potential. You just need the right push!”

He turned fully to face you now. His shoulders lowered, the tension from just minutes in his stance slowly melting away. He let out a small sigh.

“Okay,” he said.

“Okay?” you echoed, blinking.

“Yeah… maybe I could come by. You could show me around or whatev—”

Before he could finish, you squealed and threw your fists in the air, letting your precious envelope fall to the ground. He flinched slightly at the volume, but you barely noticed. You grabbed his shoulders, surprisingly solid under your fingers, and gave him a small shake.

“I’m gonna make you a star!”

He nodded a little, eyes wide with second thoughts. But it didn’t matter. He said yes.

You spun around, already rambling through the list of things you’d need: training schedule, PR angle, a costume designer, maybe even a catchphrase. Behind your whirlwind of words, your thoughts were soaring.

He agreed. He really agreed.

Not just to being trained or becoming a part of the GDA.

He agreed to help you escape. To pull you out of the endless, thankless spiral you’d been trapped in.

You had just taken your first step toward freedom. And you were never going back.

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[masamasan]

[Hard Reset | Mark x You]

Summary: It’s one thing to get killed by a classmate you barely knew.

It’s another to wake up in a parallel universe where you’re dating said killer.

Now you had to figure out how to fake your way through this relationship long enough to ghost your homicidal superhero boyfriend for good.

A/N: Pictures by @/henzuu

Prologue

You were neither the childhood best friend turned love interest nor the villain with the tragic back story. There was just nothing remarkable nor distinctive about you. You were, what you’d like to call yourself, a background character. The one who showed up in a few scenes when the writers needed to fill space. Maybe the one who gets a speaking line or two, but no more than that. And you were fine with that. No messy love triangles, no world that relies on you to be saved, and most importantly, no near death situations.

Your dream was to finish high school, get into a decent college, meet a cute guy, and get married — the all-American fantasy, you could say.

What set you apart was your sharp mind. That’s what you were known for. You noticed things. You survived high school that way. But no matter how many times you replayed that day in your head, nothing could have prepared you for the explosion that tore through the roof of your classroom. Nothing could have prepared you to lie crushed beneath the rubble, paralyzed by pain and fear.

But the real anomaly came after — seeing someone painfully familiar hovering above the broken bodies of you and your classmates just before he delivered the final blow.

In the seconds between the blast and your death, you noticed everything: the black hair spilling from the edge of a yellow mask, the straight bridge of the nose, the upturned tip, the sharp jaw clench. The image hit you fast — and just before everything went dark, all you could think about was Mark Grayson.

That name echoed in your head, even as you jolted awake, yelping in pain. Your mind was foggy, your skin damp with sweat, and once your breathing slowed to something close to steady, the scene replayed. Again and again.

A dream? No. It felt too real. You remembered the crushing weight of the rubble pinning down your lower half, the way your limbs wouldn’t move no matter how much you tried. It wasn’t like a memory, it was like it had happened seconds ago.

But as your eyes adjusted to the darkness, you started noticing the first fractures in reality. The duvet cover. Stripes. But you were sure you had just changed it to a floral one three nights ago. Then the carpet — grey, nothing like the soft beige rug you’d begged your mom to get. You sat up and looked down at yourself: a mismatched pajama set, green and pink, unfamiliar and ugly in the dim light. You’d never worn them before.

And then came the final sign: your mom bursted into the room, asking what was wrong — the same concerned tone, the same warmth in her eyes. But her hair. It was a completely different color, a completely different cut. Shorter. Darker.

That’s when it hit you.

You weren’t dead. But you hadn’t just dreamed, either. You’d pinched yourself more times than you could count. The sounds, the light, the weight of the blankets… all real. But whatever this was, it wasn’t your life. It wasn’t your world. It was close enough to feel familiar, but far enough to keep you on your toes.

You should’ve panicked. But after what you saw, what you experienced in that demolished classroom all you could think about was survival. You didn’t know how or why, but something or someone had given you another shot at life.

And you sure as hell weren’t going to die at the hands of Mark Grayson again.

Read more on AO3.