Mark was good at pretending the sky didn't matter.
He could walk under it like it was just a lid for the day, nod through homework, grin at teachers, clock in at Burger Bash, clock out smelling like salt. He could be the guy who gave you the last fry and meant it. He could carry the waiting like a backpack: heavy, ordinary, his.
But sometimes the sky reached down and tugged his chin up anyway.
_ _ ♛ _ _
Eve answered Mr. Keating's physics question before he finished the verb. Resonance, energy bleed, natural frequencies—she laid it out like it had always been on the desk.
The class blinked. Mr. Keating blinked. Mark didn't. Stephen did that—rolled a whole universe into three neat sentences and then checked if you were still with him. The familiarity loosened something in Mark's chest that had been clenched since forever.
At lunch, they took their habitual spots: Eve across, William at Mark's elbow. The cafeteria smelled like warm plastic and democracy.
"Breaking news," William announced, collapsing into his seat. "I have rage-quit Elden Ring again and I'm bravely pivoting to cozy games, like watching paint dry and government hearings."
"Growth," Eve said, stabbing her peas.
"Also," William continued, flipping to gossip channel, "Omni-Man is—hear me out—an absolute zaddy."
Mark inhaled a crumb and died a little. "Can we—" he coughed— "not?"
"Why are you such a hater?" William said, delighted. "Is it the moustache? Because it's giving Silver Fox. I would climb that mountain."
Mark made a face with six syllables. "He—he's fine."
"Fine?" William clutched his chest. "Prison."
Eve's smile went sly. "You okay there, Grayson?"
"Physics," Mark said. "I'm thinking about physics."
"Hot," William said. "Say displacement again."
"Displacement," Mark sighed. Eve flicked a pea. It bounced off his hoodie and defected to his tray. He left it there like a treaty.
They talked about everything and nothing. Eve's jokes landed like paper airplanes—simple, neat, oddly beautiful. When she leaned in to tell one, he matched her without meaning to. It made the day less heavy, the sky less loud.
[Spicy Nuggets]: peagate @ table 7. culprit: e.v.e.
[reply]: this is slander. peas are too round to be weaponized
[reply]: circles: nature's bullets
[reply]: grayson hates omni-man pass it on
[mark]: i do not
[William]: he absolutely does your honour
_ _ ♛ _ _
The shift was small at first—how they found each other in hallways, how she started sitting a little closer, how he began keeping jokes in his pocket just to spend them on her.
She rubbed her thumb along notebook paper when she thought hard. She saved the worst chip for last like she owed it something. Sometimes her face went still, like she'd stepped into a quieter room only she could see.
"You ever feel like you're supposed to be doing something bigger?" she asked while they cut across the green after last period. Late sun made the grass loud.
"All the time," Mark said, and didn't make it a joke.
Her shoulders dropped the way people's shoulders do when they hear their language in a new place. "Good. Thought maybe I was weird."
"You are," he said. "But so am I."
"Team Meeting of Two," she decreed, sticking out a pinkie. He hooked it with his own because why not sign a treaty you want to keep.
_ _ ♛ _ _
Night poured itself out over the neighbourhood. Mark ran to the corner store because the house suddenly needed soda more than oxygen. On the way back, a streak cut the sky at a right slant—pink, warm, deliberate. It arced over rooftops, paused like a breath, dropped glitter-bright to street level two blocks over.
He stood on the sidewalk with a crinkling bag of chips and watched the kind of thing you only think you'll see on your phone: a blur of rose light, a shape inside it that resolved into someone with control in the bones, landing like punctuation at the end of a sentence.
A second later, a [CityCam Live] alert pinged in a hundred pockets: [Pink Trail Sighted — Atom Eve engages near 12th & Pine].
The chips whispered against his palm. His heart tried to make new rules about beating.
Eve. That Eve.
He walked home in a straight line that felt like a circle, set the sodas on the counter, went to his room, lay on his back, and stared at his ceiling like it was questions.
Every vague text. Every "family thing." Every time she'd been very calm when talk turned to the super stuff. The bruise she never explained. The way she noticed exits.
"Idiot," he told himself, not unkindly.
He didn't sleep much. He didn't need to. He woke up feeling like someone had rewritten the labels on his day and left the shelves in the same place.
_ _ ♛ _ _
He cornered her at the locker.
"We need to talk," he said, trying not to smile like a lunatic.
"You're being dramatic," she said, already smiling back.
"I know who you are."
She didn't play dumb. "Took you long enough."
"You knew I didn't know?"
"You thought I had a permanent dentist appointment third period," she said. "I didn't correct you. He's very thorough. Lots of flossing."
"I'm an idiot," he confessed.
"A little. But you're nice about it," she said. Then, lower: "You okay?"
"Yeah," he said, surprised to hear how true it sounded. "I'm… weirdly proud?"
Something flickered across her face—relief wearing a joke's jacket. "Good. Because if you had freaked out, I would have reorganized your atoms. A little."
He laughed too loud and made three freshmen look. "What's it like?"
"Like making sense," she said, and that landed in him somewhere deep.
"Do you," he gestured skyward, "after school? Missions? Whatever?"
"Sometimes," she said. "Sometimes it's just… traffic lights. Or a cracked hydrant. Or a kid stuck on a fire escape whose parents absolutely called 911 after calling me on a number I do not own."
"Relatable," he said solemnly. "I flip burgers."
"Public service," she said.
"Also: my best friend calls Omni-Man 'zaddy.'"
She blinked. "William?"
"William."
She considered this. "He has taste."
Mark groaned. "Don't help him."
"Never," she promised, already plotting.
_ _ ♛ _ _
She came over that afternoon because the world had already shifted and marking it felt right. She sat on the couch like it was a test. He handed her a soda like a peace offering. They were both trying not to laugh.
The front door opened on a gust and a cape. Nolan stepped in with the weather like he controlled it.
Eve stopped mid-sip. The can made a tiny hiss.
"Oh," Mark said, almost cheerful. "Right."
Nolan's presence changed the room tint. He took everything in—Eve, posture, breath—quick scan, stored. "You're with Team Teen," he said, not asking.
"Yes, sir," Eve said, the 'sir' falling out of a drawer she didn't know she had.
"You're holding your shoulders too tight in flight," Nolan said. "Your body's overcorrecting. You'll tire faster."
Eve blinked. "I—thanks."
He nodded once, like a box checked, and moved toward the kitchen, pausing just long enough to put a hand on Mark's shoulder—light, a dot, over and gone. The house exhaled in his wake.
"Okay," Eve said after a beat, deadpan. "That explains everything."
"Yeah," Mark said. They both started laughing because the other options were worse.
"Does William…?" she asked, hand hovering, indicating the house, the myth in it.
"No," Mark said. "He thinks I'm an Omni-Man hater."
Eve looked delighted. "This is my favourite sitcom."
[William → Mark]: movie later? i promise not to say "omni-daddy" more than five times
[Mark]: you're banned from my home
[William]: homophobe
[Mark]: …
[William]: kidding. love u. see u at seven
"Normal," Mark said, showing her the screen. "We are very normal."
"Exceedingly," she agreed.
_ _ ♛ _ _
They sat on the porch steps with their knees knocking while the sky did a very dramatic sunset and the cicadas tuned up. Eve traced the ridge of the soda can with a fingernail, metal making a small song.
"I didn't tell you because…" She searched for it. "Because I wanted to be Eve with you. Not a thing. Not… someone who makes people stop talking."
Mark considered the many versions of himself that had felt like a thing. "I get that."
"I'll tell William when I'm ready," she added quickly. "I like him. He's good. I just—"
"It's your story," Mark said. "I'm not the narrator."
Her smile was grateful and a little crooked. "Thanks."
He bumped her shoulder. "Plus, if he found out now, he'd try to set you up with Omni-Man and I'd have to move."
"Prison," she said, agreeing.
Debbie opened the door behind them with the creak Stephen kept meaning to fix. "Pizza's in twenty. Mark, set plates, please. Eve, you're staying, right?"
"If I can help," Eve started.
"You can help by letting me feed you," Debbie said, already halfway back to the kitchen.
"She's like this," Mark said.
"It's terrifying," Eve said. She sounded happy.
_ _ ♛ _ _
William arrived with a DVD he insisted was "cinema" and a hoodie that declared GIRLS GAYS & THEYs. He flopped on the rug, propped his chin on his hands, and began a spirited, legally actionable monologue about Omni-Man's jawline.
"He's fine," Mark said, limp.
"Mark's a hater," William told Eve. "Don't be like Mark. Be free."
Eve nodded solemnly. "I will be brave."
Nolan ghosted through the living room on his way upstairs. William didn't look up. He never looked up. It was practically a superpower.
"Hey, Mr. Grayson," he said absentmindedly. "We're gonna watch The Matrix and scream about leather."
"Have fun," Nolan said, and vanished. Eve choked on her soda. Mark prayed to twelve gods and got zero replies.
They watched the movie. William heckled beautifully. Eve muttered, "That's not how molecules work," three times under her breath and once out loud, and Mark decided he would marry a person like that someday, even if it was just the idea.
When William left—hug, joke, "text me if Omni-Man flies by so I can thirst in real time"—the house fell into the soft post-friends quiet that meant everyone was happy and pretending not to be.
_ _ ♛ _ _
The porch after was cooler. Moths tested the light, failed with dignity. Mark exhaled something that wasn't weight.
"Do you ever think we're the same kind of weird?" he asked, picking a splinter out of the step.
Eve took her time. "I think you make me feel like I don't have to pick between versions of me for a few minutes."
"Yeah," Mark said. "That."
"Also," she added lightly, "I want fries."
"This is the second time today someone has called me to service," he grumbled, standing.
"Public servant," she said, and he could hear the smile.
_ _ ♛ _ _
In the backyard, Stephen lay in the grass, hoodie up, one arm out, tracing a constellation that wasn't there. He heard the porch laughter ping across the house—Eve's bright, Mark's relieved—and the echo made something in his chest lift like a balloon that wasn't helium, just hope.
He didn't sit up. Didn't call out. He filed the sound under Important and let the night finish being night.
He flipped the PROPERTY OF DOOMBRINGER STEVE notebook open on his stomach, wrote five small new lines without turning on a light, and smiled at how right they felt.
He listened to the neighbourhood in colour. Crickets were green. Distant traffic, silver. Someone's wind chime wore yellow. He closed his eyes. The sky didn't care; he loved it anyway.
He rested.
_ _ ♛ _ _
Red Notebook — Latest 5
Friends' secrets are theirs.(Protect the quiet.)
If you suspect a mask, don't guess in public.(Ask privately, or wait.)
Fix the creaky hinge before Mom notices.(Small kindnesses > capes.)
When joy is near, don't break it—listen.
Build what helps the day.(Sunband, zipper fix, fries at the right time.)
End of Chapter 20
(A/N: Spice Nuggets is a group chat.)
(A/N: In the show I cant believe that eve and mark never spoke before, that would make no sense, so I thought ok, mark was a nervous wreck before getting his powers, and self aware a bit too much so, and self conscious, so he thought he wasn't worthy enough to speak to her, but in my book i decided, he had his family and eve's intelligence reminded him of his brother so ofc he became more comfortable speaking. and eve is widely known but she likes to be treated normal, not the popular pretty girl, not the fake laughs people give because they cant understand her jokes, not people just listening and not talking back, that's why they became friends as easily as they did.)