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“…Back?” His lips are numb around the shape of it.

“Yeah.” She shrugs one shoulder, his shirt slipping further down it. She pulled it on after they…It was too late, but he had to tell her the truth. He’s sat on the edge of her bed, and she’s next to him, and she smiles a little under his stare. “Sounds less dramatic than ‘ending this.’”

“I’m not- Robin.” He turns to her, grabbing her hand and god, he shouldn’t. He should’ve never come here. He never should’ve met her, but he…he did. Here, he did, and she made everything- better. Whenever he was around her, it was better, and he almost could’ve lived with it.

Except when he’s alone, and he thinks about Terra. His daughter, who’ll never exist here. If Mark stays, he’s erasing her from existence - he’s killing her. He can’t. He just…can’t.

Then, the alien glow worm showed up again. He found out it was a choice.

He made his choice. But he had to see Robin first, tell her the truth - all of it, every rotten piece - except he showed up at her apartment, he saw her and…It feels like he used her. It feels like the moment he kissed her, he couldn’t stop what followed. He didn’t want to stop.

“I want to stay with you,” he says in a rush, and he should be used to the guilt by now. Feeling sick with it so fucking often. “I do. I really-” He hesitates, because he hasn’t said it yet. He held off even once he knew he’d betrayed Eve so completely. But if this is his only chance- “I love you. I-”

“Stop,” she says, and he winces.

But she doesn’t look angry. Or like she doesn’t believe him on the whole crazy story he just told her. And as nonchalant as she is - and he’s honestly jealous of it a lot of the time - she did look surprised when he first said he was from the future, before she seemed to accept it scarily fast.

“Quit making this harder on yourself.” Robin nudges her knee to his, her hand shifting to hold his back. “I’m not gonna add to your guilt trip, ’kay?”

He wishes she would. He wishes she was anything but calm and steady and…quietly fond, as she looks at him. Like he isn’t about to let so many people die, just to save his daughter.

Like he isn’t about to erase everything he has with Robin, without even knowing if she’s alive in his world.

“Besides, I don’t trust this balance keeper of yours,” Robin continues. “How d’you know this isn’t all some dream sequence it cooked up to keep you here, so your mind doesn’t fight back while it-” She pauses, seeming to consider exactly what the alien glow worm could want with him. Then she shrugs again. “Does whatever cave-dwelling wriggly lightshows do.”

Despite everything, Mark smiles weakly. “I know because of you.”

She laughs softly, and his heart skips a beat. “Smooth. Wasting your charm on me, ace, but that wasn’t half bad.”

“And you said I sucked at flirting.”

“Oh, you do. Different arenas, just some overlap.”

She pulls her hand away from his, and for a second he thinks, this is it, she’s not as okay as she’s pretending to be, and maybe she’ll finally treat him like he deserves.

Instead, he swallows hard as she straddles his lap, abruptly aware he only put his boxers back on. Nothing else. Totally naked otherwise, and boxers are pretty thin.

“What- What’re you doing?” he stammers like he’s actually a teenager again, flustered over having a pretty girl show any interest in him. If he’d met Robin back when he was seventeen, eighteen-

“Decision’s made, so no more feeling bad about it,” she says as if it’s so simple. But she cups his cheek, brushes his hair back from his face with a gentleness that makes his eyes sting, and he’s crying again.

He wishes everything was different. He wishes he could fix this. “I’m sorry.”

“I know.” She sighs and pulls him in, and he hides against her neck. Clutches at her as tight as he can without hurting her. She’s human. She lives on Earth, and she’s human, and she could be dead when he leaves.

“It isn’t your fault,” she says, and he scoffs, wet and pathetic. “Fuck off, it isn’t. Even if this whole universe collapses - you didn’t do this. You didn’t choose to be here. I don’t blame you for wanting your kid to live and to get back to her, and you’re an idiot if you feel guilty over it.”

“Guess I’m the biggest idiot ever,” he mumbles, and he hates himself for trying to memorise how she feels in his arms.

The smell of her, the sweat still drying on her skin. The way she yanked at his hair as he tasted her, didn’t move from between her legs until she ordered him to fuck her, and for a while, he forgot about everything else. It was just the two of them.

It’ll just be him, soon.

“Yeah, you are,” she says, and her fingers are light in his hair now, rubbing at his scalp in slow, tender sweeps, and if he wasn’t already crying, this would’ve pushed him over the edge. If he wasn’t already getting hard, the shiver of heat down his spine would get him there, too.

“Everything will work out,” she promises. “So we can…make the most of tonight, if you want? Before you go.”

He takes a deep, shuddering breath. He nods.

You-four is passed out on the surgical table and almost done with, and you-five switches out the blood bags once the current one fills up. You-six duplicates while holding an empty bag, both you-six and you-seven tossing them onto the stack, before you-seven joins you-three in the ‘what random subject are we learning about today’ zone in the corner of your lab.

“Nah, it’s shakey,” Rex says from the doorway, though he grimaces as he strolls inside. “This’ll never not be creepy. Couldn’t you at least get Robot to steal your organs instead? It’s just plain wrong to see-” He gestures to where you’re carefully extracting you-four’s right lung “-this horrorshow. D’you think you might have some self-hatred going on?”

“Don’t we all?”

“Good point.” Despite his complaints, he peers curiously into you-four’s near-empty chest cavity. The heart is still pumping slowly, but you-two has stepped in to manually do that to get as much blood out as possible. Well, without just turning you-four upside down and draining you into a few buckets, but Eve banned you from doing that after the last time. Seems there’s a level of too morbid, even for your bad habits.

Though, come on. They’re good habits. You’ve saved more lives with these donations than Teen Team, Fight Force, and Capes Inc combined. Really, if you were a genuine hero, you’d do this full time instead of keeping one or two on the go while the rest of your clones are occupied.

But like. That’d be boring, so no.

It’s also why you haven’t left your clones - dead or otherwise - in the GDA’s capable hands. Fuckers didn’t see your potential while they had you under their control, so why the hell should they benefit now? Also, they kept trying to recreate you and Paul, which is just weird. Only you two can recreate you and Paul. Duh.

Huh, you should check if he’s in the country. He’ll try to convince you to leave Teen Team and become a globe-trotting assassin again, but like you always say, you aren’t ready for a villain arc yet. Who’d even become the arch-enemy who tries to bring you back to the side of good? Rex?

“So gross,” he says while poking at you-four’s exposed rib.

You-two knocks his hand away from where you’re pumping the heart. “I’m almost done. Unless you wanna help?”

“I’ll pass. Unlike some people, I don’t play mad scientist in my spare time.” He wanders over to the Learning Zone instead. “What’re you nerds up to today?” he asks brightly, as if addressing a gaggle of toddlers in need for an early dose of bullying before they start kindergarten.

While you-seven tells him about the medical journal articles you’re catching up on, you follow the splits on your attention elsewhere.

When you watched the show and read the comic, can’t say you put that much thought into how what’s essentially a hivemind would function. Did it even come up much? Kate’s main thing seemed to be the whole, dying over and over - and yeah, that part sucks, sure. But you’re also all of your clones, all of you, at the same time. And not, a hint of separation where it becomes more about who you focus as, because-

The original? Not a thing. A clone can clone itself, so whatever ‘original’ existed is long dead. The one you have hidden away - since duh, obviously you did that, and Paul even sourced you the untraceable cash for a snazzy getaway filled with comics, boxsets, manga and half-decent internet access - was made by the current you-one, but there’s only a you-one because Teen Team think this is the actual you.

It’s all a bit fucky. But hey, you make it work.

So, elsewhere-

Backups to backups, and the world’s a big place, and you haven’t found a block on range yet. Just the more of you there are, the more…strain is the wrong word. But it creates a building urge to cut down on the number, wrap your fingers around your bare throats if you have to. So.

Best to avoid getting to that stage - Paul doesn’t keep his mini battalions around for long for good reason.

But helpful if you’re ever in a ‘stranded in another dimension’ situation. All you can eat buffet on demand, baby. And you could probably keep going on blood for a while, since you do get a few general superhuman buffs, just not as much as the heavy-hitters.

Surgical gloves and apron stripped off, you-one joins Rex on the route to the kitchen while he chatters about a new chain reaction he wants to practice next time you’re in the field.

He passes you a stack of the coins he likes to use, and you clone yourself a couple times, then hand the new stacks back to him. You think it uses a little more energy to clone things other than your clothes, but you kinda just. Did it over and over and over until you got used to the spikes driving into the back of your skull. Now it’s pretty natural, as long as it’s nothing bigger than you are.

Cloning a motorbike so you could steal it absolutely fucked you up for days. Like, five of your clones killed each other, and one started hallucinating a never-ending fall. Weird day. Cool bike, though. Robot made you a fancier one more recently, but it was nice to have a classic for a while.

You-nineteen gets hit by a car, and you blink as you crack some eggs.

How did- Oh, just bad luck. Haha. You push yourself up and wave off the panicked driver, and there’s a few gashes in your arm from the impact, but otherwise you’re not too banged up. You jog away before anyone else can freak out though.

You’re in civilian gear in Chicago, a baseball cap low over your eyes and the daily grind of plot-surveillance at play. Pretty dull, but you have a laptop to mess around on in the various public spots you hang out in. A phone too, and you scroll through to check the alert.

A new hero calling himself Invincible is finally making a few, small waves. You hit like on the blurry clip of him punching a villain, and head over to one of Paul’s many safe houses to patch yourself up.

You also-

Fry up the eggs, pushing Rex away when he tries to sneak bacon out of the pan-

Flip the page of a comic issue, munching on doritos-

Keep running on the treadmill, because as long as one of you gets fitter, you all do-

Read until your head is spinning, pass the tablet over and switch to the surgical rota-

Check your notes, and wonder what you’ll do when the plot really kicks into gear. If you’ll do anything at all, when Dupli-Kate is barely a blip in the overall narrative.

Life is all about finding as many spots of joy as you can, even if man you ache a bunch still. A short period of R&R hasn’t been enough to get this old motor chugging without a few stutters and fuuuuck that hurts, wow, should you be conscious now?

Like, you’re absolutely whining about it more than you usually would, but you’ve gotta make these fucks feel guilty for doing this to you. Look how they’ve effected your glorious body! This is way worse than stretch marks and weight gain, come on.

Even besides the soulmarks, you’re all bruised and cut up like a Saturday night pizza at a frat party. You’re not allowed to take the braces off your wrist, the other elbow, and your ankle even though you’re-

Sure, not fine, but over…fifty percent? Yeah. You’re past that. You aren’t coughing up blood, so definitely at least a sixty.

“Or a paintball victim,” you consider, fiddling with the waistband of your boxers. “Extra violent paintball. Ten v one, and not the fun kind.”

“What would be the-” Mark flushes, and he scrubs a hand over it. “Dude. Seriously? How can you joke about- that?”

“About having an orgy with your evil alternative selves who’re also my soulmates? How can’t I joke about it, you should be asking. Not asking?” You give his shoulder a bracing pat, before figuring - fuck it, he’s yours now, and you already gave him the chance to downplay all this.

So you’re now morally obliged to step closer, watch the nervous flicker of his gaze down your chest, before his jaw firms as he looks at your face.

Ha, he totally wants you. Weeeird. But funny? Like, you’re still reeling from him confessing to a crush he apparently had before all the soulmate insanity.

Which, sounds fake but okay.

He’s Mark Grayson - what the hell is he doing, crushing on you? There are better picks for a gay awakening. You used to be a complete jerk to him, even if it cooled off - warmed up? - once you were friends.

And now you’re soulmates. It’s a goddamn riot.

“Stop worrying,” you say with an eye roll, but soften it by leaning in and kissing his cheek. Just a light brush of your lips, no obnoxious smack like you’re tempted to give, and you hear the tiny catch in his inhale. “Now, help me back into the lion’s den. I’m so hurt, Mark, I might burst into tears if you don’t cradle me in your strong, muscular, manly arms-”

You yelp as he does, in fact, swing you up into his strong, muscular, manly arms.

The jostling is completely worth it for his cocky grin, which only falters when you wrap your arm around his neck and swoon against his shoulder.

“My hero.” You kick your less fucked up leg - your calf aches from the grip Mohawk had on you, but nothing was broken like your other ankle - in delight, and wonder if anyone’s listening through the gap in the doorway. They’re a bunch of nosey bastards, you’re finding. “Onward, noble steed.”

“Whatever you say, princess.”

“If you wanted me to wear a pretty dress so bad, you could just ask instead of all this coy hinting. I’m a flexible guy.”

“Maybe save showing off your flexibility for when you can walk on your own.”

“I’ll take your suggestion under consideration…Okay, consideration complete. Discarded. I need to do my morning yoga routine, how else will I stay youthful and limber? It’s the Rex Splode brand, Mark.”

“Not the explosions?”

“Please, like the fans who follow my socials are in it for the explosions...Maybe some of them. I do score highly among pyromaniacs and people who jerk off to compilations of building demolitions.”

“Is that a big demographic?”

“Get the hell outta here! I’ve got this.” You smirk, play the part you’ve burnt yourself into. Day one edition, battered and bruised but good enough, you figure. Kept on track because what the fuck else were you gonna do. Serve a purpose, exit stage left.

Shit. You didn’t…

Maybe you made a few minor changes, but c’mon, you can blame it on like- character development if you want to. Make your death sadder, for that one episode, if you have closer ties with the ones who remain. You just didn’t date Rae, since that felt cruel to do right before you were gonna kill yourself off.

Funny where the loose borders of right and wrong popped up. More toward the end, and your mechanical hand is clamped over the gouge on your side.

All alone now in the trampled base, and this variant Mark is right to call it stupid. Christ, did he have to look so much like the Mark of this world? Sure, the big-ass lenses look dumb as hell, and his colours are all faded out, but man. Just a sprinkle of salt on the wound, huh.

“Yeah, I know. But I’ve gotta say - can you really call yourself Invincible when you’re taking this long to win? Or is your universe a few power levels short of a multiverse crossover?”

Shockingly, evil Mark doesn’t take kindly to your critique.

“I saw this coming,” you manage a snicker when he lifts you into the air by your neck at the tailend of you last stand battle. Ouch. Dude has a firm grip, now he’s finally managed to grab you and hold on. Not pressing too hard on the artery though, or even your windpipe, so he must have practice.

“Did you?” This Mark is much better at the cold, kinda deadpan look. Must come with the launch day bonus on the evil edition. “Then you’re even dumber than the Rex in my world was.”

“A case…could be made.”

Fuck, alright. Arrived at the finish line. Let’s go out with a bang.

(Don’t think about what you could do differently. Don’t try, because it can’t ever be worth it. Not for something like you.)

You reach down to your exposed rib and-

The immovable grip on your neck is ripped away, and you drop.

Years of playing hero twists you into a landing, but it’s a fucked up stumble of one, and you curse as you trip over a piece of Rudy’s armour and land on your ass. The impact ripples through every broken rib and your side is fucking gushing, even with your enhancements stifling the worst.

“What the fuck,” you groan. Did one of those morons come back to help you? No fucking way. They weren’t in any shape for it, so who-

“Rex! Shit, are you okay?”

Uh.

That’s…

Mark is next to you, crouched with one knee on the ground, his hand on your back. This world’s Mark, blue and black suit, lenses smashed at some stage and looking at you all- worried?

What? The? Fuck?

Your mouth finally figures out how to do words again, just to mumble, “You’re…here?”

He saved you. He’s in the Teen Team base, and evil Mark is wobbling out of a pile of rubble on the other side of the room with a bloody nose, and not evil Mark is here. With you.

“Robot called, said you were in trouble,” he says quickly, and. Okay??? Robot, buddy, the hell man?? No trust with these people, Christ. Except- why did that work?!

Mark should be off, uh, with Eve? Maybe. They’re not actually dating here yet but you just kinda figured it was more of a slow burn sorta deal. And hey, they do need it for the endgame to have real weight, and this whole event could be a good way to push that development-

Not important.

“Uh huh. Great timing, dude.” You pat his shoulder and wince when you leave a bloody handprint. “Whoops. Sorry.”

He doesn’t seem too concerned. Not about that, anyway; his face is real worried when he looks at your side, and all the blood vacating the premises. This suit is totally fucked. Like, not as fucked as it was meant to be when you blew up your spine and all, but a dry clean won’t help this bad boy.

“Just- stay down, I’ll get you to someone who can help when I’ve dealt with him.” Ha, Mark’s puppy dog eyes go real sharp now. Locked in and ready to rumble. Pretty hot, you won’t lie.

“Break a leg,” you say as you slump back against part of the roof. Not exactly comfortable, but your body is begging for the chance to give up for a minute. Or hour. Or day. Maybe another coma, if you feel like treating yourself. “Preferably his.”

You consider it something of an accomplishment when his lips twitch into a small smile, before he jumps into the fight.

Sure didn’t help them when it came to Omni-Man, haha. See, this is why they should’ve made some proper headway on like, making you care and shit. Could’ve totally done…something?

Let’s be real; any interference from the human element most likely would’ve catapulted the lot of you into a much worse ending. At least on the current course, you know Earth makes it through with some dings and bruises (and a hell of a chunk taken out of the population), and it works out relatively alright.

For the next couple hundred years, anyway; can’t remember if the Immortal situation was a closed loop style of time travel, or if it’s a diverting path. Fucking time travel. You love it as a plot, sure, but goddamn writers better than Invincible’s have fallen into the trap of mucking up their own rules.

Best not to worry about. You’ll be long dead by them, anyway. In fact, you should’ve been dead a few weeks back when you made the dumbass decision to join a cape fight.

Yeah, Cecil’s the one who sent you out there. But it was your choice to get your ass to where Rex was fighting. Not the Teen Team’s base like you expected; nah, in all the chaos of the wildcard, the outskirts of an already shattered city played host to a cluster formed of the evil Invincibles remaining. Because their numbers had been very quickly cut down, one more dead every time you listened in on comms.

Christ. Didn’t see this coming, did you.

You had a plan for the Teen Team base scenario. You had fuckall for this. Then, it turned out not to matter at all, and the irrelevance was such a fucking relief.

But it’s been weeks, and the mystery of the century hasn’t headed back home. He’s moved in with Debbie Grayson, and by all reports, they’re getting along just swell. You’ve maybe snuck into surveillance a bunch, bribed the agents on duty with whatever works on them (hey, it’d be real lame to spend a decade as a GDA hostage and not make some dubious connections), and consistently wished you could get close so you could get a better sense of what the fuck is going on with this dude.

The universe has a sense of humour, because you’re in the field on cleanup duty the same day that Conquest drops in, and the Renegade Invincible decides to lend a hand.

You shove a chunk of rubble aside, grunting as your leg tries to decide if it’s gonna stay human or not. Huzzah, it stays flesh and blood, and aches like a bitch from the mild crushing.

You were pretty far from the initial impact zone, and you feel the reverberates of a battle cut short. Taste the blood which could’ve been spilt, and mourn the lack for a few shivering moments of almosts.

Then you get up, remove your helmet when the broken face guard proves a liability, and move towards the first screaming civilian you hear.

Comms remaining up means you just need to follow orders. Donald’s flicker of relief when you confirm your status, his apology for not releasing the collar’s restrictions, your “Don’t sweat it, dep,” as you bend a piece of rebar so a kid can be lifted from the wreckage, down a leg but up a lifetime of trauma.

Not your first disaster zone, and you’re joined by another squad and a few heroes within minutes. Yeah, it’s shittier because the area was already unstable and still had its fair share of rotting, splattered, sighing agony of corpses to discover, but there weren’t too many fresh bodies around, compared to a city’s worth.

A work crew was trying to salvage what they could of the electrical grid, and you push aside a digger now to get to the hole a bunch fell into. You’re already in a crater, concrete shifting in gentle warning above your head. Maybe should’ve grabbed a fresh helmet, but it isn’t like you can’t take a dent or two. Might do you good, ha.

Something in the pile-up gives in when you’re helping the fourth dusty, blood-stained worker out. You shove her away from the crunch-zone and settle in for your second collateral stomping of the day.

Instead, someone shields you from the collapse, and you blink at a t-shirt with Seance Dog front and centre. The colours are faded, and the design is more like the comic than the cartoon.

That limits the options on who this is, huh.

“Thanks for the save, hotshot,” you say as you look up at an almost-familiar face.

He does look a lot like the Mark Grayson of this world. Just younger, pushing late teens with a softer jawline and less muscles bulking him up compared to Earth’s prime defence. Sure didn’t make a difference when this twink went up against every other version of himself.

The blue eyes are distinct, but the shape is all Debbie Grayson, and-

They’re currently staring at you like you’re the most terrifying thing he’s ever seen.

“It’s really you,” he whispers while holding up the groaning ceiling of concrete and metal without a sweat, and the soulmark burns into your rib.

Oh.

Well, damn. You might get the chance to figure out his deal after all.

…Wait, did you just tattoo ‘hotshot’ onto his chest? Whoops. If he decides to let the rubble drop on you now, you figure it’s pretty justified.

He doesn’t.

He’s just…staring, and you’d stumbled back against a tilted slab when the area got unstable, so you’re just a bit trapped. Left to stare back at him, notice the total lack of breathing or blinking, as frozen as any statue if it weren’t for how his gaze skates over your features. Unable to settle, frantic but uncertain, and you can’t-

He’s different. You can feel that much, despite how numb you are. He’s as foreign an element in this world as you, and it chimes at some deep instinct you didn’t know you had.

You’re me, I’m you, we’re us. We could be.

The soulbond is separate. That, you feel as the chain it is, much more permanent than then collar around your neck. It makes his closeness the most natural thing in the world, and the remaining space between you an offence.

Seconds, and it’s already breaking your fractured mind further, leaving you to bleed into him - and him into you.

“It’s me,” you confirm, and when you cup his cheek he makes this sound, a broken whimper you adore in an instant.

His eyes close and his lips tremble but he holds so, so still. The jolt of fascination is the vibrant heat of spotlights on a stage left empty for too long.