Three days.
That's how long it's been since getting my powers at the community center. My body has felt charged. Like I chugged six redbulls and hooked myself up to a car battery.
I feel like God, son, this shit's crazy.
Hiding them from Nolan has been quite the task as well. I found that as I got older, he started to appear at home more frequently. And every time I would see him, the first thing he'd always ask is, if I got my powers yet.
So, for the last seventy-two hours, I've been mostly doing some late night test runs. I found an abandoned lot a couple miles out of town—far enough that I could make mistakes without any interference. It was there that I put myself through the ringer. I tested my grip strength on boulders, crushing them like Styrofoam. I tested my vertical leap, clearing the cloud layer in seconds. Lastly, I tested my durability by flying face-first into a cliffside at my fastest speed, just to see if it would hurt. It didn't.
I needed to be ready. Specifically, I needed to be ready for him.
On god, I ain't getting my ass beat this time around.
"Mark, you okay? You've hardly eaten anything tonight. You're still on your first plate." Debbie's voice snapped me out of my internal monologue.
I looked up. We were at the dinner table, the picture of a perfect suburban family. Meatloaf, mashed potatoes, and the strongest superhero on the planet wiping his mouth with a napkin.
"Life is complicated. It got me thinking about stuff, you know how it is. "
"Well, don't think too hard, you'll overheat," she teased, passing a bowl of gravy to Nolan.
Nolan took it, poured a generous amount over his meatloaf, and then locked his piercing blue eyes onto mine. He didn't look angry. He looked amused.
"You still up for that rematch you challenged me to yesterday?" Nolan asked, his voice casual.
I challenged him to an arm wrestling contest, and told him I'd beat him by the end of the week. It was something we usually did, since the time I asked him how I could measure up to his strength. He came up with the idea of arm wrestling, and proceeded to beat me handily each and every time; then, he'd gain this condescending smirk on his face like I was never even a challenge to begin with, just something meant to pass the time. And that's how things typically went.
But not anymore. This mustachioed bastard was going down.
"Yeah. Why? You ain't pulling out, are ya?"
Nolan chuckled, a deep rumble in his chest that caused me to glare at him. I hated that laugh, it was the laugh of an unrivaled winner.
"I don't know, son. I might, your technique is improving, after all. Especially that top-roll slam you were practicing this afternoon."
I did a double take and the table went silent. Even the clock on the wall seemed to stop ticking.
"Huh?!" is all I could get out.
"About three thousand feet up, over the old abandoned lot?" Nolan took a bite of meatloaf, chewing thoughtfully. "I was on patrol, scanning for a seismic anomaly, when I saw someone struggling against a rusted crane arm. You were trying to simulate an arm-wrestling pin, weren't you?"
My mouth hung open for a brief moment then, I shut my eyes and tried to hide all emotions from my face, but couldn't stop the grin from spreading across my face.
Yea, he got me.
"Wait," Debbie put her fork down, looking between us. "Nolan, what are you talking about?"
Nolan smiled, a genuine, proud grin that actually reached his eyes. "I'm talking about the fact that our boy has finally come into his own. He has his powers."
Debbie gasped, her hands flying to her mouth. "Mark! Is it true?"
I didn't give a verbal response yet, I just stood up, waiting for the right moment. It came when Nolan's arm that propped up on his elbow, extended slightly in an upwards motion. I dashed to him without delay, grabbing a hold of his open hand and attempted to slam it down. He didn't budge, he just looked at me with that same condescending smirk.
"Nice attempt son," he said as he gripped my hand with the strength of a hydraulic press and proceeded to lift me from my feet and slam me down on the floor.
AHHHHHH! I think the bastard broke it.
I laid on the floor, motionless for a moment. "Yeah, it's true," I groaned. "It happened three days ago."
"Three days?!" Mom looked ready to throw a dinner roll at me. "Why didn't you say anything? You could have been hurt! You could have flown into a plane!"
"I was getting a handle on it. I was planning on surprising the both of you." I shrugged then, I looked at Nolan. "Specifically, I wanted to slam your hand through the coffee table."
Nolan laughed, loud and boisterous. "I appreciate the competitive spirit, Mark. And honestly? I respect the caution. Most kids get their powers and immediately try to show off. You took a few days to assess your capabilities, to understand your limits before announcing yourself. That shows discipline."
He reached across the table and squeezed my shoulder. His grip was heavy, grounding.
Jesus Christ man, you tryna kill me?!
"That shows a warrior's mindset," he said.
I looked at his hand on my shoulder. A warrior's mindset. If only he knew exactly what kind of war I was preparing for.
"Thanks, Pops." I said. "But don't think this gets you off the hook. I'm still taking you down."
"In your dreams, son," Nolan responded. "But now, we can finally start your real training."
The next morning, real training began. And by training, I mean Nolan dragging my ass out of bed at 4 AM to play a high-stakes game of keep up.
We were currently hovering about 30,000 feet above the Midwest. The air was thin, crisp, and freezing, but thanks to my new biology, it just felt like a cool autumn breeze.
"You're stiff," Nolan called out. He was floating effortlessly a few yards away, arms crossed, looking like he was standing on a solid floor. Meanwhile, I was bobbing around like a cork in the ocean, trying to find my center of gravity.
"I'm not stiff, I'm engaging my core," I grunted, trying to stabilize. "It's called aerodynamics."
"It's called overthinking," he countered, drifting closer. "You're treating flight like swimming. You're trying to push against the air to move. Stop that. You don't need the air. You move because you will it. The air just gets out of your way."
That was a theory I was trying to uncover. It felt like reality itself was bending around me. Is this how Smart Atoms work? They don't just defy physics; they ignore it? Like they're almost limitless? I'll have to test that later.
He suddenly rocketed upwards, breaking the sound barrier instantly.
BOOM.
"Catch me!" his voice echoed, trailing off into the stratosphere.
The fuck?! He disappeared before I could blink.
I pushed hard, feeling the G-force press against my face. I was fast—faster than any jet I'd ever seen on TV—but Nolan was on another level. He wasn't just flying; he was cutting through the sky with surgical precision. Every time I got close, he'd bank hard left or perform a sudden drop, forcing me to overshoot and tumble through the clouds.
No wonder these bastards think they're better than everyone else. This is insane!
"Control, Mark!" He shouted as I spun out of a messy barrel roll. "Speed is useless without the ability to stop! You're a bullet, not a bomb. You need to be able to stop on a dime."
He stopped instantly, going from Mach 3 to zero in a millisecond without even a tremble. I tried to copy him, but my momentum didn't care about my intentions. I tumbled past him, flailing my arms until I managed to right myself a mile later.
This flying shit's kinda hard, not gonna lie.
Nolan flew down, a smirk playing on his lips. "Better. But you're still flailing. When you turn, don't use your shoulders. Use your eyes. Look where you want to go, and your body will follow. It's instinctual."
"Instinctual, got it," I panted.
"And landing," he added, pointing to a mountain peak below. "The hardest part isn't taking off. It's hitting the ground without cracking the pavement—or your ankles. You have to decelerate your personal gravity the moment before contact. Featherlight."
He dropped like a stone, plummeting toward the jagged rocks. Just inches before impact, he slowed and touched down as gently as a snowflake. "Your turn."
I took a deep breath and dove. The ground rushed up fast. Too fast. I tried to feather the brakes, but I miscalculated the distance. I slammed into the mountain peak, burying myself waist-deep in solid granite.
"Ow," I groaned, pulling myself out of the crater.
Nolan shook his head, though he looked amused. "We'll work on it. But remember this sensation, Mark. The world is fragile. We are not. If you don't control your movements, you won't just hurt yourself—you'll break everything around you."
"Noted," I said, dusting rock powder off my sweats. "Don't break the world. Got it."
The next few days were a blur of high-altitude cardio, impact durability tests: Nolan throwing boulders at me, and learning how to hold my breath for extended periods in the upper atmosphere. But eventually, Nolan decided I wasn't going to embarrass him immediately, so he took me to see a guy about a suit.
"Art Rosenbaum."
Nolan introduced him as the premier tailor for the superhero community, and the guy definitely looked the part. He was eccentric, chatty, and clearly knew way too much about my old man's work life.
While Nolan and Art caught up, I wasted no time pitching my vision; I already knew what I wanted. I pulled out the sketch I'd been working on. "Yellow and blue. And I want an 'I' logo, but smaller and right here under the pecs with a dot above it. Sleek."
It's the updated design of the original concept, but without the knee pads or fingerless gloves.
Art adjusted his glasses, looking at the design. Then he cracked a wide smile. "Kid knows what he wants. I like it! Nolan, he's got better taste than you."
"Just make sure it fits," Nolan laughed.
"Give me a week," Art said, already pulling out swatches of high-tensile fabric. "I'll make you look like a pro."
With the suit in production and my flight skills upgraded from disaster to competent, I finally felt ready to step out into the night. It was time to see what this world really had to offer.
Two weeks later, life had settled into a weird rhythm. Wake up, eat enough calories to feed a small army, go to school, pretend I wasn't made of steel, and then practice control at night.
"Did you hear?" William whispered to me during History. "Another kid went missing last night. That's the third one this month."
My pencil paused over my notebook. "Yeah, that's crazy," I whispered back.
I knew exactly who was doing it. The friendly, but straight laced teacher with the bad jokes and the secret bomb factory in his basement.
But knowing it and proving it were two different things. I needed a paper trail. I needed to be a detective.
It's time to get on my Batman shit.
So, for the rest of the day, I played the part. I lingered after class, pretending to have questions about the syllabus while my eyes scanned his desk. I "accidentally" kicked his bag to listen for metallic clinking. I was building a mental case file, waiting for the right moment to drop the hammer.
Later that evening, the investigation had to take a backseat to my stomach. I was cruising at about 40,000 feet, doing Mach 2, when I realized I was late for dinner.
Oh no, It's Pot Roast night, I thought, diving through the cloud layer.
I was focused on the horizon, checking my watch, when I blasted past a group of slow-moving objects. I barely registered them. A group of four individuals seated on some kind of hovercraft. There was someone in purple, another in orange and yellow, a robotic-looking creature driving the hovercraft, and someone in pink.
Huh?! Who're they? I thought, then my stomach growled, refocusing my priority.
"My fault!" I yelled back, though they probably just heard a sonic boom, and rocketed toward home.
The next day at school, the mystery of one of the individuals solved itself in the most unexpected way.
I was walking down the hallway, heading to third period, when a girl in front of me dropped her binder. Papers scattered everywhere.
She sighed and bent over to pick them up. I slowed my pace.
As a connoisseur of the female form, I have to thank the high heavens for this blessing. In other words... BABY GOT BACK AND THAT ASS IS PHAT!
She gathered her papers and stood up, brushing a strand of long, auburn hair out of her face. She turned, and we locked eyes.
It clicked instantly. The hair. The build. The energy.
Oh shit! It's Atom Eve! That's right, I almost forgot.
"Here," I said, picking up a stray sheet of paper she missed. I handed it to her, lowering my voice I whispered. "You're the girl from last night right? The pink one."
Her eyes widened momentarily before she quickly masked it. "What? Last night? I don't know what you're talking about."
Oh, a true pro.
"Relax," I smirked, leaning against the lockers. "I was the guy who almost turned ya'll into roadkill at twenty thousand feet. My bad, by the way; I was running late for dinner."
She stared at me, analyzing. Then, a small smile tugged at her lips. "That was you? You fly like a maniac."
"I fly with purpose," I corrected. "I'm Mark, by the way."
"Oh, trust me, I know who you are. Most of the girls in this school do too," she said with a knowing look, then extended her hand. "I'm Samantha. But people call me Eve."
Wait, most of the girls know of me? Damn, these bitches gossiping?
"Well Eve, since we're both in the extra-curricular club, I need a favor. I've got intel on the missing kids."
Her demeanor shifted from guarded to serious instantly. "What do you know?"
"Mr. Hiles," I whispered. "I've been tracking him. He's building something. I can't move on him yet without blowing my cover, but someone with... established connections could get the police to look in his basement."
Eve nodded, taking the information. "Leave it to me."
By the time I got home, the news was breaking. Police had raided Hiles' home on an anonymous tip. They found the kids—shaken, but alive—and enough explosives to level the school.
Hiles was in custody. Crisis averted.
I walked into the kitchen, feeling pretty good about myself, when I saw the box on the counter. It was from Art.
"Finally," I grinned.
I ran upstairs and tore it open. It was perfect. The yellow and blue fabric was sleek, durable, and exactly as I designed. The knee pads were gone, replaced by reinforced weaving. The gloves were full-fingered. And the cowl had an aerodynamic look. The 'I' logo sat smaller and proudly placed under the chest.
I suited up. I looked in the mirror. I didn't look like a sidekick. I looked like a heavyweight.
Damn, Boy, you've been liftin'?!
My burner phone—which I'd just set up—suddenly rang.
"Mark?" It was Eve. "So, Hiles is done. Good call. Listen, the rest of the team wants to meet the 'Maniac' who tipped us off. You free?"
"Yea, just send the coordinates and I'll be there."
I met the Teen Team on a rooftop downtown. Meeting Robot, Rex Splode, and Dupli-Kate felt surreal, like stepping into the comic panel. Rex was a dickhead, naturally. Kate was cool. And Robot was... robotic. But I played it cool, shaking hands and establishing myself as someone competent.
I flew home that night feeling good. I had the suit. I had the connections. And I had saved the day without throwing a single punch.
I landed on the back porch, stashing the suit away, and walked into the living room, expecting to see Nolan reading the paper. Instead, the house was silent. I thought nothing of it and went to lay down after a long day.
When I woke up the following morning, Debbie was standing by the living room window, peering out through the blinds, her arms crossed tight against her chest. She looked like she was vibrating with anxiety.
"Aye Ma. Everything okay?"
Something's definitely wrong. She ain't got no pancakes, no eggs, or nothing on the table. I don't even hear the sweet sizzle of bacon.
She jumped, spinning around to face me. "Oh, Mark! Good Morning! I... I don't know. Your father went out on a call yesterday. He said it wouldn't be long, but he didn't come home last night."
"It's probably nothing, he probably just got buried under a mountain again or something."
"Yea, you're probably right, I might just be worrying about nothing. I…." she trailed off as the doorbell suddenly rang.
When she opened the door to see who it was, standing there was a man I recognized from the source material, Donald Ferguson; stiff suit, glasses, earpiece.
He stood there with a posture that screamed emergency.
"Mrs. Grayson? Mark?" Donald said, his voice clipped and professional. "Please, come with us."
"What's going on?" Debbie asked. "Is it Nolan? Is he okay?"
Donald hesitated for a fraction of a second, his stoic mask slipping just enough to reveal something grim underneath. "There has been... an incident at Guardians Headquarters. Omni-Man has been airlifted to the Pentagon's medical wing."
"Incident?" I asked, feigning confusion. "What kind of incident?"
"We need to go. Now," Donald said, ushering us toward the waiting cars. "We're keeping a lid on this for the public until we assess the situation, but time is of the essence."
Debbie didn't need to be told twice. She rushed to the car.
I followed more slowly, looking back at the quiet suburban street. The world was spinning on, completely unaware that its greatest defenders had just been butchered.
I climbed into the back of the SUV, the heavy door thumping shut like a coffin lid. As we sped off into the early morning light, I looked at Debbie, who was clutching her hands together in prayer.
I didn't pray. I just stared out the window. It finally happened. The timeline had officially started.
And so, it begins.