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alive-gh0st · 1 month ago

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˗ˏˋ❝Afterglow❞ˎˊ˗

Mark Grayson x Med!Reader♡ྀི

.….ﮩ٨ـﮩﮩ٨ـ♡ﮩ٨ـﮩﮩ٨ـ ﮩ٨ـﮩﮩ٨ـ♡ﮩ٨ـﮩﮩ٨ـ ﮩ٨ـﮩﮩ٨ـ♡ﮩ٨ـﮩﮩ٨.ـ.. .

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⛨ summary: you’re not obsessed with him. you’re not. but the world clearly is. strange articles. sneaky algorithms. and a voice in your head that won’t shut up. meanwhile, invincible’s got his own problem: he can’t find the girl who called him out like a scrub tech on a bad day.

⛨ contains: sfw. nurse carla’s mischief. media-induced annoyance. early emotional foreshadowing. reader in denial. mark being haunted by words and mystery. parallel narration. bonus scene chaos.

⛨ warnings: mild language. internet stalking (light). stubbornness. minor delusion. no real threats—just a very determined destiny.

⛨ wc: 2146

prologue, part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5

﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌a/n: fun fact—i lost half of this chapter mid-edit because my wifi decided to flatline like a soap opera character. dramatic gasp, hospital monitor beep, the whole deal. one second i’m tweaking a paragraph, the next i’m staring at the void where 800 words used to be. i almost fought my router. bare-fisted. anyway, here it is—risen from the ashes, caffeinated, and slightly more unhinged than originally planned. enjoy my suffering.

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The universe has a sick sense of humor.

You know this. You’ve always known this.

You work twelve-hour shifts surrounded by people coughing on your scrubs and trying to die inconveniently. You’ve stitched up knife wounds caused by things described as “accidents,” told grown men they’re not, in fact, dying from a sore throat, and once had to remove a Lego from a place no Lego should ever be.

But lately, it feels personal.

There’s been a shift. A pattern. A very specific, very annoying theme threading itself through your life like the world’s most persistent pop-up ad.

It’s not love. It’s not fate.

It’s him.

‎٨ـﮩﮩ٨ﮩ_ ﮩ٨ـﮩﮩ෴ﮩ____

You tap your phone’s screen with more passive aggression than necessary, holding it to your ear even though you know your (only) friend won’t pick up.

Beep.

“Okay, listen—I’m not spiraling. I’m not.”

(Pause. Sip. Another pause.)

“But if one more news article, thirst edit, or random merch featuring that man—shows up in my general vicinity, I will commit a felony. Probably a creative one.”

(Beat.)

“And no—before you say it—it’s not a crush. I don’t have time for crushes. I have sleep deprivation and a spine held together by caffeine.”

(Silence.)

“He’s not even that hot.”

You hang up.

Regret it. Immediately.

And that’s when it hits you—

You’re not obsessed with him.

You’re not.

You’ve been into people before—celebrities, coworkers, a random guy who pronounced your name right on the first try—but this isn’t that. You’re not delusional. You’re tired. You have a full-time job, a chaotic sleep schedule, and at least two stress migraines scheduled for the week.

You’re not obsessed.

The entire world, on the other hand, clearly is.

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It starts with a newspaper.

A real one. Paper and ink and everything. You’re halfway through your first sip of coffee (not bad, not cursed) when you spot it, splayed open on the front counter like it tripped and fell into your line of sight.

’Invincible saves subway commuters in mid-derailment battle.’

There’s a photo. Midair. Bloodied knuckles. Hero pose. That obnoxious blue-yellow suit.

You blink at it once. Twice. The espresso tastes more bitter somehow.

“…Carla,” you call out, slowly.

A soft shuffle from the break room. “Mhm?”

You tilt your head toward the paper. “Is that yours?”

“Nope,” she chirps, far too quickly.

You squint.

Carla reappears moments later with a tea mug that says ’I am the storm’ in passive-aggressive font and absolutely does not make eye contact as she walks past you.

She hums.

The kind of hum that implies dark intentions.

You stare at the paper like it personally insulted your scrubs.

That’s strike one.

Strike two comes via TikTok. Or… Instagram Reels. Or whatever godforsaken app the algorithm has you trapped in.

You’re lying on your couch on your one night off, a warm takeout container on your lap, the lights dimmed just enough to make it feel like self-care. You open your phone to zone out. Maybe scroll through food mukbangs. A few raccoon videos. Rewatch that one clip from ’The Bear’ for the emotional damage.

Instead, the second video to pop up is a slow-motion fan edit of Invincible. Set to a remix of a 2000s ballad.

You stare at your phone in silence as the hero who bloodied his way through your afternoon is now being thirsted after by teenagers in the comments.

You swipe up fast enough to sprain something.

Then another pops up.

And another.

And—oh, good god. This one’s tagged #invincibae.

You throw your phone facedown on your stomach like it’s contagious.

You’re not angry. You’re not even annoyed.

You’re just trying to have one singular crumb of peace in this godless world, and the masked himbo you verbally body-checked in the middle of a disaster won’t stop invading your downtime.

You eventually find a rerun of ’House MD’ and watch a patient nearly die from licking envelopes, which feels more comforting than it should.

You’re not obsessed.

(But maybe you do glare at a passing bus with his face on the side. Just a little.)

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By the end of the week, it gets worse.

You’re at the pharmacy grabbing gauze, extra gloves, and the least offensive granola bar in existence when you see the merch.

Merch.

A corner display stacked with shirts and water bottles and pins. There’s a plushie. A plushie. Of him.

You pause, granola bar halfway to your basket.

A kid next to you picks up the Invincible water bottle and turns to his mom. “Do you think he drinks from this too?”

You visibly clench your jaw.

At that exact moment, your phone dings.

You pull it out with the practiced grace of someone who lives and dies by their calendar app—only to find a suggested article on your lock screen.

’Why Invincible Might Be the Most Relatable Hero Yet!’

You could scream.

Instead, you mutter, “I patched up his concussion while inhaling drywall dust. He was seeing double and still arguing with me.”

The cashier stares at you.

You move on.

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The final straw?

A patient brings him up.

Middle of a wound check, nothing dramatic. A few stitches, topical numbing, your hands moving on autopilot. You’re explaining aftercare, bandage changes, when the patient—maybe fifteen, maybe sixteen—smiles at you and says:

“You kinda remind me of Invincible, y’know? Like, you’re calm under pressure and.. kind of badass.”

You blink.

Smile politely. “Cool.”

Inside, your soul shrivels.

You are not him.

You don’t throw punches. You don’t fly. You don’t have a theme song or fan cams or merchandise.

You have an overtime shift on Sunday and a stress knot in your shoulder that’s starting to feel like a second spine.

But the universe doesn’t care.

You’re not obsessed.

You just can’t escape.

‎٨ـﮩﮩ٨ﮩ_ ﮩ٨ـﮩﮩ෴ﮩ____

Mark doesn’t remember your face.

Not clearly, anyway.

The smoke had blurred the details, painted you in silhouettes and urgency. You weren’t the loudest voice in the chaos—just the sharpest. Crisp, cutting, sure of yourself in a way that made his head spin more than the actual concussion.

But your voice?

He remembers that like it’s stitched into the inside of his skull.

Low. Stern. Half-sarcastic and half-soothing. It sounded like someone who didn’t have time for bullshit, which—given the circumstances—made sense.

He was bleeding from the ribs. The city was literally burning.

Still, the memory echoes:

“Don’t say fine.”

“You’re favoring your left.”

“You shouldn’t be flying.”

Mark exhales hard, slumping deeper into the worn couch. The TV’s on but silent. Some old action movie flickers in the corner of his vision. It’s supposed to be background noise.

But nothing is loud enough to drown you out.

He doesn’t know your name.

Doesn’t know what you do, where you’re from, if you even survived the aftermath unscathed.

All he knows is that you made him feel—briefly, dangerously—human.

Not a symbol. Not a name in headlines. Just a guy who was bleeding too much and doing too little.

And he can’t stop hearing you.

“You’re zoning out again,” Debbie says from the kitchen.

Mark flinches, barely registering the sound of the fridge opening.

“Sorry. Just tired.”

Debbie hums skeptically and tosses him a cold can of soda. “You’ve said that every day this week.”

“I am tired.”

“You’re also muttering to yourself like a haunted Victorian widow. Anything I should know?”

Mark cracks the can open with unnecessary force.

He doesn’t answer right away. Just stares ahead like the wall is going to give him divine guidance.

“I met someone,” he says finally.

Debbie doesn’t react. Just leans against the counter, raising a perfectly arched brow. “Okay. And?”

“She yelled at me.”

Still silence.

“And I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it since.”

There it is.

Debbie snorts into her cup. “That’s it? That’s what’s got you acting like a sad poet?”

He shifts. “It’s not just that. She—she saw right through me. In like, five seconds. Called out every injury I hadn’t processed yet. Told me I wasn’t fine before I could even lie about it.”

“And this was… romantic?”

“No!” Mark frowns. “I don’t even know what it was. I don’t know anything about her. I couldn’t even see her face.”

“Okay, now it’s giving Victorian ghost story.”

“She saved a kid.”

Debbie blinks.

“In the middle of it all. Ran straight into debris and smoke. People tried to stop her and she looked at me like I was the liability.”

He doesn’t mention the way your hands shook but never stopped moving. Or the way you lied—beautifully, horribly—just to keep that child alive a few seconds longer.

He doesn’t mention how it made something in his chest ache.

“She sounds amazing,” Debbie says, more gently now.

“She was,” he mutters. “And now she’s just… gone.”

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The thing is, Mark’s not usually like this.

He gets hit, he gets up. He saves people, and he moves on. Faces blur. Names fade. It’s how he copes.

But this? This isn’t fading.

It’s getting worse.

He’ll be flying over the city and see a flash of hair that looks vaguely like yours—and he’ll nearly crash into a billboard turning to check. His neck has started clicking. He’s going to need chiropractic help and therapy.

He doesn’t even know you, but he’s half-convinced he’ll know when he sees you again.

He’s waiting for it.

And that thought alone is ridiculous.

Because he doesn’t wait. Not for danger. Not for hope. Not for anyone.

Except now, apparently, for you.

‎٨ـﮩﮩ٨ﮩ_ ﮩ٨ـﮩﮩ෴ﮩ____

More than once, he’s hovered outside hospitals and urgent care clinics on patrol. Just a few seconds. Just in case.

He makes excuses for it, of course:

• You never know when you might be needed.

• Some med centers don’t have enough security.

• Maybe he’s being responsible.

But then he hears a nurse’s laugh and it isn’t yours.

And he flies off like a coward.

Not even a few minutes later there’s a robbery in Midtown.

Small-time. Two guys. One has a crowbar. The other trips over his shoelace trying to run.

Mark’s on it in sixty seconds flat.

It’s easy—should be, anyway—but his timing’s off. He lands too hard, shoulder twinges wrong. The guy gets one good swing in before Mark sends him flying (not too far).

It’s done in under a minute.

And still—he’s breathless. Not from the fight, but from the feeling.

The missing.

The what if you’d seen that and thought I was sloppy kind of missing.

He doesn’t say anything as he lifts the guy’s dropped phone and hands it off to the store clerk. They thank him. He nods.

Flies away.

He doesn’t go far.

Just lands on some apartment roof, crouches by the ledge, and lets his hands tangle in his hair for a minute.

The city stretches below him, loud and alive.

But all he wants to find is a blur in the chaos that isn’t there.

‎٨ـﮩﮩ٨ﮩ_ ﮩ٨ـﮩﮩ෴ﮩ____

Later that night, he lies in bed, eyes wide open, staring at the ceiling like it might offer closure.

It doesn’t.

It’s just drywall and shadows and everything you saw through.

His notebook lies half-open next to him—not forgotten, just untouched, like a question he doesn’t know how to answer yet.

It’s not a journal—he doesn’t do feelings that way—but sometimes, when his head’s too loud and his hands need something to do, he sketches. Nothing fancy. Just lines. Shapes. Impressions.

Tonight, it’s you.

Or, what he remembers of you. Which isn’t much.

Your face is a blur. Hair? A vague impression. Maybe dark. Maybe not. But your hands—he remembers those. Quick, steady, smudged with ash. Your posture. How you stood slightly in front of the child like a shield, chin up, like fear was something for other people.

He’s drawn the same half-profile six times now. None of them are right.

He sighs, drags a hand through his hair, and flips the page over.

Maybe he’s not trying to get it right.

Maybe he just doesn’t want to forget.

He closes his eyes.

But the voice stays with him.

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⋆ ˚｡⋆ ˖⁺‧₊˚❤️‍🔥˚₊‧⁺˖ ⋆ ˚｡⋆

﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌Clinic break room. You. Tired.

You sneeze—violently.

Again.

You rub your nose with the heel of your palm, the tip of it already reddish from overuse, and a dramatic groan leaves your throat as you sink into the unforgiving plastic chair.

“This is some kind of karmic punishment,” you mutter to no one in particular. “Like, I must’ve offended a witch. Or touched something cursed.”

“Maybe you’re getting sick,” offers a random nurse from across the room.

You glare at her. “I’m immune to sickness.”

Then of course, Carla appears behind you, perfectly timed as always.

“Maybe someone’s thinking about you,” she says, casual as rain, not even glancing your way before walking off.

You blink. Deadpan.

Then sneeze again.

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