Chapter Text
There was a warm cup of coffee in his hands.
The air was crisp, the early morning still shrouded in darkness. He could hear the distant hum of the city outside, the quiet rustling of trees in the backyard. Upstairs, his wife lay fast asleep. His son, too, though from the way he stirred, his movements restless beneath the blankets, he wouldn't be asleep much longer.
Nolan took a slow sip, savoring the bitter taste.
Life was good.
This planet…
It's humans, it's cultures, it's funny little challenges, all of it was just...perfect.
Now, he technically hadn't conquered Earth yet as his mission entailed, but it wasn't as if it needed a firm hand. The nations were already doing a decent job of keeping their citizens in check. There were no serious wars happening, no imminent disasters that warranted immediate intervention. Earth, to put it plainly, was a well-managed planet all on its own.
Viltrum checked in on him once a year via transmitter, but as far as they were concerned, the mission was as good as completed.
The planet knew his name, or at least, his hero name. Both civilians and heroes listened when he spoke. The world's governments acknowledged his power, even if they didn't realize its full extent. He had already bred with one of the locals, ensuring that Viltrumite blood flowed through the next generation. It was fudging the truth just a bit, perhaps, but in the eyes of Viltrum, Earth was as good as conquered.
Five hundred years. That was how long he had been given to pacify this world; a virtual vacation for a Viltrumite.
And so, he had decided that he would wait.
He would wait for Debbie and Mark to…pass before he officially started on the preparation of the Earth to join the Empire.
They were the only ones who mattered here, the only ones he truly cared about. Once they were gone, once time, that inevitable force, took them away, then he would do what was necessary.
He would fufill his duty as a Viltrumite and —
Badum. Badum. Badum.
Huh. Mark's heart rate was elevating.
Nothing unusual. It was likely a nightmare. Maybe that Mexican food they had eaten last night wasn't agreeing with him.
Nolan sighed.
It was a shame that Mark had never developed his Viltrumite abilities, but he was half-human, after all. The chances had been slim considering they had never encountered this species before. Whilst Viltrumite blood was supposed to be superior to all others, it made sense that there would inevitably be some species that they couldn't mix with.
But if he was being honest? It was a relief.
Mark's humanity meant that Nolan could afford to be the man they thought he was for a few decades longer, at the very least.
Maybe it was better this way.
Badum. Badum. Badum. Badum.
The rhythm spiked, and a gasp echoed from upstairs.
Nolan's brow furrowed slightly. The heartbeat was faster now, but still within the realm of a nightmare. Mark had just woken up, his heart racing, and his breath coming in ragged gasps.
He'd settle down soon. With that thought in mind, Nolan took another sip of coffee, and his mind wandered back to the logistics of his eventual takeover.
Cecil.
Obviously, Cecil had to die first. While he doubted the man would still be alive when it was time for him to take over the Earth, it also wouldn't surprise him if that snake of a man was still alive centuries later. Cecil trusted very few people, and he was clever in a way that was very meddlesome to his goals. While there wasn't a weapon on Earth or a hero alive that could stop him, Cecil had a way of agitating others into resistance, and resistance in this case meant unnecessary bloodshed. It was better to cut off the snake's head first.
Donald would be easy to deal with: a simple show of force would break him. He wasn't as ruthless and prepared as Cecil was, but he still had the same amount of power within the GDA that Cecil did.
Then there were the world leaders. He would have to make sure they fell in line quickly. A demonstration would be necessary to show why going against him was a bad idea.
Another sip. Another thought.
He wouldn't go for the President, as he actually liked the United States as it was. The infrastructure was stable, the people were obedient in all the ways that mattered, and most importantly, he lived here.
Europe, then?
Hmm.
The Queen of Britain, perhaps? People on this planet infantilized women to an absurd degree, even when those women were in positions of power. He could use that strange psychological process against them. Killing the Queen would show that he was not afraid of their power, and that he would be as ruthless as he needed to get the people of Earth under control.
Yes. That would work nicely.
A sudden thud from upstairs pulled him from his thoughts. Nolan paused, his cup of coffee hovering just before his lips.
He heard Mark stumble, his feet dragging awkwardly against the floor. Then came a loud crash, the sharp bang! of a body slamming against the bathroom door, forcing it open.
He set his coffee down.
That was weird.
Mark was clumsy sometimes, sure, but not like this, and he had never been groggy enough to stumble like that. His mind immediately ran through possibilities of what could make him move like that.
Had the boy been drinking?
No, he would have smelled it on him. He had a good nose for that sort of thing, and besides, his own alcohol stash was untouched. If Mark had snuck any alcohol into the house, Nolan definitely would have noticed. And he definitely would have noticed drugs, so it wasn't that either.
Another sound, this one a loud shatter, followed by the distinctive tinkle of glass hitting tile.
"What the—what the actual fuck?!" Mark's voice rang out, filled with shock and something dangerously close to panic.
Alright, now it was time for Nolan to find out what was going on. If Mark kept yelling like that, he was going to wake up Debbie.
In a blur, Nolan flew up the stairs, arriving at the bathroom doorway within seconds. The door was hanging open, sunlight streaming through the bathroom window, giving him a clear view.
His son stood there, rigid, staring at the broken bathroom mirror as if he had no idea who the person staring back at him was.
Something's wrong.
"Mark?" Nolan said cautiously, lowering himself until his feet touched the cold tile floor.
Mark turned to look at him, and Nolan's concern immediately deepened.
Mark's pupils were blown wide, nearly eclipsing the brown of his irises. He was hyperventilating, his breath coming in sharp, shallow gasps. Beads of sweat rolled down his face and arms, his whole body trembling as if he had just run a marathon.
And then there was the smell in the air; the sharp, acrid, unmistakable scent of fear, like the fear of death. He had never smelt anything like this from Mark before
"Mark, calm down," Nolan said, raising his hands in a non-threatening gesture. "It's me, Dad."
Mark's stomach rumbled violently, an unnatural, almost distorted sound coming from it. Nolan's instincts flared, warning him a second too late.
Mark lurched forward and promptly vomited all over the floor.
"Shit!" Nolan hissed, instantly lifting off the ground to avoid the mess.
Okay, this was quickly becoming something he couldn't deal with. Time for reinforcements.
"Debbie!" he called, grimacing. "A little help!"
"And you're absolutely certain that he's not drunk or on drugs?" Debbie asked, arms crossed, worry etched into every line of her face.
Nolan let out a frustrated sigh. He understood why she kept questioning him, but sometimes he did wish that she would just trust his words as blindly as any civilian would have.
"Yes, Debbie. I checked his room, his bag, and every single nook and cranny in the house. There's no alcohol, no drugs, nothing that he could take that could cause this. The only alcohol in the house is ours, and the one open bottle we have was sealed by me last. Mark wouldn't be able to get into it without breaking the cap off, and I'd have noticed."
"Then what the hell is wrong with him?" she demanded, gesturing toward their son, who lay curled up in bed, shivering uncontrollably.
Mark's body was drenched in sweat, yet his skin was covered in goosebumps. He still reeked of the sharp scent of fear, something Nolan found deeply unsettling. His heartbeat was erratic, and worse still, every time Nolan so much as spoke, his heart rate spiked.
Was Mark. . . afraid of him?
Nolan suppressed the sharp pang of unease that thought brought him.
"What if it's some kind of human sickness?" he suggested, glancing at his wife. "Maybe the cold, or the flu?"
Debbie hesitated, biting her lip. "I—I guess that's possible," she admitted, but her tone was uncertain. "But, Nolan… he's never been sick for more than a few hours before. That's something he inherited from you. He's already past the three-hour mark where he usually recovers, and his temperature's still climbing. If this is a human illness, then it has to be something serious."
Her voice wavered as her thoughts spiraled further. "Oh my God… what if he's a carrier for some kind of new, alien-human disease? What if he's contagious? What if I'm contagious—?"
"Debbie," Nolan said firmly, gripping her shoulders. "Take a deep breath. You're overthinking this."
She inhaled shakily, nodding but still visibly rattled.
"Viltrumites don't get sick," he reminded her. "Not like humans do. A more plausible explanation is that as he's getting older, his human side is becoming more dominant than his Viltrumite side. It's something I've suspected ever since he didn't inherit my powers."
That last thought troubled him more than he cared to admit. He had long accepted that Mark would not get his powers, but he had at least been satisfied to know that Mark's body was much more resilient than that of a regular human. But the possibility that his human blood was actually overriding his Viltrumite genes was something that made a pang of worry flow through him.
This planet was as strange as it was fascinating. In his short time here, he had encountered foes with an astonishing variety of abilities, powers that seemed to defy reason, cultivated by Earth in a way he had never seen before, not in the thousands of years he had lived. Some, like the Immortal, could persist beyond death. Others wielded strength, speed, or other abilities that rivaled even his own people.
At first, he had entertained the idea that Mark might inherit some of these extraordinary abilities in addition to his Viltrumite strength, which would be an unexpected but useful advantage. But if human blood could suppress the gifts of a Viltrumite so thoroughly that it began to erase what little benefits a half-blood could get from it, then that was a very serious problem.
Grand Regent Thragg wouldn't be pleased.
It would be difficult enough to justify keeping this planet intact, delaying conquest for as long as he had already if he came back with the news that humans were incompatible with them, but if Mark was evidence that human genetics could interfere with their superior physiology, the Grand Regent and General Kregg would see it only as a liability, a potential contamination of their purity.
Still, Nolan wasn't entirely concerned about that. He had long suspected that the Grand Regent might take an interest in Earth for another reason such as the sheer variety of abilities its people possessed. If they could find a way to harness those abilities, replicate them without the need for reproduction, then the Viltrumites might truly become unstoppable. What if they could somehow integrate the Immortal's regeneration into their bloodline, or add the power of Martian Man's shapeshifting to their gene pool?
That would be worth delaying the conquest for. That would justify him being gentle with Earth and taking his time.
But all of that was far into the future. For now, he had more immediate concerns.
"Give it a day," he said, watching Debbie's anxious expression. "If it lasts longer than that, then we'll call Cecil and have the GDA take a look at him. If you're worried about being infectious, you can stay home with me, and we'll take care of him together. Take a few days off work, okay?"
Debbie hesitated, chewing her lip, but slowly nodded.
"Okay… alright," she said, exhaling shakily as she ran a hand through her hair. "That's a good idea. Cecil has the best medical care in the world. If it gets worse, we call him."
Then she leaned up and kissed him.
Nolan let out a quiet hum, his arms wrapping around her, pulling her close, but not holding her too tightly. Just enough to let her feel safe.
Being with Debbie was honestly the hardest thing he had ever done.
She was so fragile, even compared to some of the weaker species he had encountered in his time. He had spent years training himself to move as if she were made of glass, learning to temper his strength, to be mindful of every touch and every movement. It had been frustrating at first, but eventually, it had become second nature to use only a fraction of his strength to move through the world.
And that control had prepared him for Mark. Mark, who had been so much more delicate than even Debbie as a newborn. He still remembered how, in the first two weeks after his son's birth, he had been afraid to hold him.
It was the first time he had ever feared his own strength.
But he had learned, he had adjusted, and he had become someone new due to it. And now, his son, his only child, was sick, and there was nothing he could do.
All of his strength, all of his power, and the worst problem he faced was the one he couldn't punch through.
Mark's fever finally broke around midday, and by nightfall, he seemed to have made a full recovery. They celebrated with pizza, and while Debbie had quickly returned to her usual warmth and laughter, Nolan couldn't shake the nagging feeling that something was… off.
There were little things that Mark kept doing, things that most people write off or just wouldn't notice, but Nolan did.
Like how Mark kept forgetting where things were. He went to the wrong cupboard to get the plates, he hesitated before grabbing the cups, and even opened the freezer instead of the fridge when reaching for a soda.
Or how there was a delay whenever they called his name. Instead of responding right away, Mark would pause, just for a second, before glancing up and saying "Huh?" as if it took him an extra moment to register that they were speaking to him.
And then there was the most unsettling thing of all.
Mark wouldn't meet his eyes.
Every time Nolan glanced at him, his son's heartbeat spiked wildly before settling back to normal. But he never looked directly at him. Whenever he spoke, Mark kept his gaze low, focused on his plate, on the table, on anything except him.
What the hell was that about?
Had Mark done something wrong? Something that made him think he was in trouble? Maybe that was why he had reacted so badly when he woke up?
Or was it something worse? Was someone threatening him?
The thought made his fingers twitch, and he had to suppress the instinct to clench them into fists. If someone was blackmailing his son, hurting him in any way. . .
He didn't see any bruises on Mark, but there were plenty of ways to hurt someone without leaving a mark. Psychic influence, coercion, the use of fear, those were all very real dangers, and Nolan had seen them before, used on other weaker heroes.
He'd dealt with it before, when clever fools tried to get an upper hand against him.
A few times in the past, some people figured out his identity before and tried to use it against him. They had threatened his family and tried to use the knowledge of their existence against him.
And every single time, Nolan had made sure they didn't live long enough to try again. He had personally thrown those people into space. Cecil had made sure that no one asked any questions.
But there hadn't been any unusual activity lately. There were no new threats on the superhero scene, and Nolan would be the first to notice any strange figures lurking in the shadows.
So why was Mark so nervous around him?
"Um, I'm not that hungry," Mark suddenly said, setting his slice of pizza down after only a few bites. "And I've got some homework that's due soon. I should probably start working on that."
Debbie frowned. "On a Friday?"
"Y-yeah," Mark stammered. "I just wanna get a head start. My grades could be higher, you know?"
That was true. Nolan would give him that. Mark was a solid C student at best. It wasn't a disaster, but Nolan had always felt that he could do better if he actually applied himself. A little extra studying wouldn't hurt.
Debbie, however, wasn't buying it.
"Mark," she started gently, placing her hand over his. "You know you can tell us anything, right?"
There it was again.
Mark's heartbeat jumped as he glanced at Nolan, before it leveled out just as quickly.
"She's right, son," Nolan added, his voice steady but firm. "No matter what it is, what time or place, we will always be there for you."
And unlike many parents, Nolan could actually keep that promise.
Mark swallowed, his shoulders tensing slightly, but then, just as quickly, he relaxed.
"...Thanks, guys," he said softly. "I'll—I'll remember that."
But Nolan had a gut-deep feeling, one that had been honed over centuries of battle and war, that Mark was lying.
You'd think that with the sheer number of villains out there, there would be an equal number of heroes to keep them in check, right? A balance to the bullshit. Yin and Yang, equivalent exchange, all that philosophical crap.
No such luck.
Sure, the majority of villains were small-time. Petty crooks who were strong enough to rob a bank, destroy a building, or cause a little chaos before they got taken down. Low-risk, high-annoyance bastards that crawled out of the woodwork on a daily basis. But there were always outliers, the ones who defied the usual statistics.
The Mauler Twins, for example: genius-level intellects in bodies that could go toe-to-toe with tanks. Doc Seismic, the lunatic with the earthquake gauntlets, who had somehow convinced himself that society itself was a crime. Killcanon, who, without fail, managed to find someone who could piece back together the shattered remains of his laser cannon. The Lizard League, who always managed to stay under the radar until they did something crazy, like breaching a nuclear plant with the intent to cause a meltdown.
The real threats were always insane. They didn't just want money or power. No, they had to go big, go global, make their bullshit everyone else's mess to deal with.
Rule the world. Destroy the world. Invade the world.
Why was it always the world they wanted? Why not start smaller? Maybe conquer Iowa first? Or claim dominion over some tiny, irrelevant town in the middle of bumfuck nowhere, and see how that goes for a few months before graduating to the entire goddamn world? For once, he'd love to see a supervillain with manageable ambitions; someone who just wanted to steal cows, set hay bales on fire, or terrorize a single, unsuspecting county fair.
But no.
The megalomaniacs always had to go big or go home.
Meanwhile, a distressing number of the world's heroes refused to work with him. They saw him as "The Man." The government. The fuzz. The ever-watching big brother lurking behind the scenes, pulling the strings.
Did they think he was some kind of cartoon villain?
Right now, he funded the Guardians of the Globe, had tenuous alliances with groups like Teen Team and Fight Force, and most superheroes who survived longer than a month eventually learned about him in some way, shape, or form.
But getting them to trust him? To listen to him unwaveringly as any of his troopers might?
That was the real battle.
There was an endless war fought in conference rooms, encrypted channels, and classified briefings. The struggle wasn't just against supervillains, but against the unpredictable, the unknown, and the inevitable. Alien incursions, kaiju awakings, demonic breaches into the regular world, he had seen all of them, and if he could just get a few more people to actually listen to him, they could keep the casualty rates of these incidents almost to a zero. But no; everyone wanted 'freedom' and 'independence,' to be able to 'make their own way through the world,' not knowing or caring how much of a difference they could make if they just put their pride aside.
It was in the middle of these thoughts that Donald Ferguson, his right-hand man, approached with a grim look on his face.
"Sir, I hate to bother you, but we've got a situation."
Cecil sighed, already walking beside him as they made their way toward the control center of the GDA, buried deep beneath the Pentagon.
"What is it this time, Donald? The Lizard League making trouble again? Mister Liu being an overcompensating pain in my ass? The Maulers trying to break into some place they really shouldn't be?"
Donald hesitated, which immediately put Cecil on edge.
"Oddly enough, sir, this is both better than those situations… and significantly worse."
"Of course it is."
Donald led him to one of the main computer terminals, where three technicians sat, their faces set in grim, serious expressions. One of them, Jenkins, a former soldier with a scar over one eye that always looked slightly off-center, stood and snapped into a sharp salute as Cecil approached.
"Sir," Jenkins said. "About an hour ago, our online surveillance systems flagged a series of highly specific keyword searches that triggered multiple alerts. Robot from Teen Team also reached out: apparently, he has a similar system in place, and he's just as concerned as we are."
Cecil rubbed his temples. "Jesus Christ, just show me the damn screen."
He leaned forward, squinting at the terminal as the search queries filled the monitor. (Damn it, he really needed to either get glasses or cave and get that stupid laser eye surgery everyone raved about.)
But as he read the search history, his mood darkened.
How to get in contact with Cecil Stedman.
How to get in contact with Donald Ferguson.
How to get in contact with the Director of the GDA.
How to get in contact with Holly aka War Woman.
How to get in contact with Alana aka Green Ghost.
How to get in contact with Rudolph Conners.
How to get into GDA Headquarters under the Pentagon.
How to get into the Teen Team headquarters on a bridge.
Cecil stiffened.
Someone with either a genuine death wish or some kind of twisted agenda he couldn't make sense of right now was actively trying to make contact with some of the most powerful individuals and locations on the planet by blatantly spilling their secret identities onto the fucking Internet.
Cecil's fingers drummed against the console as he straightened, his mind already racing through possibilities.
"Get me the address of whoever this is. Now."
The string of searches was concerning enough, but the last search, the one entered just five minutes ago, sent an unwelcome chill down his spine.
I know you guys are watching this somehow. Please talk to me.
Cecil's jaw tightened. Whoever this was, they knew that someone was keeping an eye on shit like this, which meant that whatever. . .this was deliberate. They wanted attention and an audience.
"Is this coming from someone we know?" he asked, his eyes still glued to the terminal.
"Yes, actually," Donald answered immediately, eyes flicking between his own tablet and the terminal in front of them. "We've already got the address on file—it's a Priority One address."
Cecil frowned. That narrowed the list down considerably.
Priority One addresses were reserved for only the most important individuals in the world; people like the Guardians of the Globe or the various Presidents and Prime Ministers of the world. And those guys already knew how to contact him, and how to get in contact with each other.
As for Rudolph Conners… that was Robot's legal name, right? He'd seen it once in a classified file, back when he briefly considered inviting the kid to join the Guardians, but he ultimately decided to let him gain more experience before extending the offer.
"Whose address is it?" he asked sharply.
Donald hesitated, but he answered all the same.
"Omni-Man's."
Cecil's mind ground to a halt.
Why the fuck would Nolan be typing in how to get in contact with his own teammates when he knew where most of them lived? Wasn't his wife friends with Red Rush's girl, too?
He turned fully to face Donald, his forehead knitted in confusion.
"It's Nolan? Are you sure?"
Donald shook his head. "No. It's not coming from his or Debbie's computers. It's coming from their kid. Mark Grayson."
Cecil's mind blanked for a second. Mark Grayson. . .yeah, yeah, he remembered the kid. Small, took after Nolan more than Debbie, missing his front two teeth the last time he saw him, and didn't he win a baseball game or something not too long ago?
"The ten-year-old?" he asked, frowning in confusion.
He could practically feel Donald holding back an eye roll.
"It's been seven years since you last saw him. He's grown up quite a bit."
Cecil grunted. Great. Another reminder he was getting old.
"Kid got a webcam? Something we can use to see him?"
"Yes," Katrina, one of the technicians, piped up. "It's embedded in his computer. And, oddly enough, it's not covered, even though it's a model that has a slider for the camera. It's like he wants us to see him."
Cecil's brow furrowed. That was interesting. Most people were paranoid enough to tape over their cameras these days—hell, he made sure his agents did. But Mark wanted them to look.
"Turn the camera on. I want to see the kid."
The techies tapped away at their keyboards, and the screen shifted from the list of disturbing search queries to a grainy, low-quality feed.
A tall, Asian boy with faint dark circles under his eyes sat in front of the screen. He looked pale, sick even. The moment the feed went live, his expression flickered, first with relief, then with apprehension.
He knew they were watching him.
"We got audio?" Cecil asked.
"Yeah, but it's crap," Smith, the third tech, muttered. "Too much static unless he speaks. Hold up—he's doing something."
Mark leaned forward, holding up an index card with something scrawled on it in messy handwriting.
"Jesus, this kid needs a better camera," Cecil muttered, squinting. "Can we clean up the image?"
"Optimizing now, sir."
The screen flickered, then sharpened, making the words legible:
If you can read this, please turn the camera on and off after you finish reading this message to confirm. I have really important information that could help save a lot of lives, but my dad cannot know. I know you have a teleporter. Can you please pick me up ten minutes before school ends in the men's bathroom on the third floor of my school? I'll be there. We can talk more later.
Cecil read it twice.
Information that could save a lot of lives… but something Nolan couldn't know.
That alone set off alarm bells in his head, but the fact that the kid knew about his fucking teleporter was the real red flag. He might have heard about it from Nolan, but still, it wasn't exactly something that was public knowledge.
He exhaled sharply, stepping away from the terminal. "Give the kid confirmation that we saw the message."
Then he turned to the room at large, his voice sharp and commanding.
"I want a full file on Mark Grayson. I want to know everything about this kid. I want to know his grades, his daily schedule, his hobbies, what classes he does well in, hell, I wanna know the last time he took a goddamn shit if it helps. I don't like it when a civvie knows more about us than we do about them, so let's move, people!"
The agents jumped into action, fingers flying across keyboards and people moving around the room like ants in a disturbed anthill.
Cecil folded his arms, staring at the screen as Mark lowered the index card, waiting.
'Alright, Mark Grayson. You wanna step into the big leagues?'
Then let's show you how we really play.