sadieᝰ.ᐟ

You’ve been surviving. Thriving, even, in flashes. Debbie calls every now and then, never pressing for details, just asking how you’re holding up. Her voice is always soft. Always slightly sad, and it makes your throat burn as you sit on your new couch.

You know Mark, he was never all that good at holding himself together as he thought he was.

Mark was falling apart.

You don’t need to hear it from her to know. You’ve seen the photos of Invincible on your reels. A paparazzi shot from just close enough. A vacant look. An unshaven jaw and slumped shoulders, like the world finally outweighs him.

You carried that kind of weight—not the saving of innocent people but him.

You had to stop that though, before it pulled you into a pit you couldn’t fly out of like him.

It’d been almost two months when you finally see him again.

The city is thick with dusk and rain, the pavement slick beneath your boots as you step into the little coffee place by your old apartment—the one you used to meet him at after patrols, when you both still knew how to smile. You’re grabbing your drink when you feel it.

The ache. That unnerving edge of a stare.

You turn, and there he is.

He doesn’t look like the Mark you remember. His eyes are tired, ringed with sleepless nights and guilt. His clothes hang differently now—less polished, more like he rolled out of bed and forgot he existed. But his lips part slightly when he sees you, like you’ve cracked through whatever fog he’s been lost in.

He doesn’t say your name.

And you don’t want to say his.

Not here. Not like this.

Still, he fumbles his way out of the two person booth and steps toward you like he’s forgetting how time works. You tighten your grip around your cup, the ghost of pain in your wrist reminding you why you should walk away.

But you don’t.

He stops short, hand twitching at his side as his eyes dart across you face. “Can we talk?”

Your throat goes dry.

You nod once.

The rain is coming down harder now. You both sit beneath the awning outside the café, the space between you buzzing with feelings you’ve stuffed down. You hold your drink tight in your hands. He doesn’t touch his, doesn’t even spare it a glance as he knots his fingers together across the table.

“You look better,” he says quietly, like if he spoke to loud he’d spook you.

You meet his gaze and it physically hurts you too. “I’m feeling better.”

His eyes flicker down to your wrist. He winces. There’s still a tan from before they’d taken the cast off. You hadn’t told the hospital why your wrist was broken at 11pm, just sat in the waiting room trying so hard not to breakdown.

“I didn’t mean to—” he starts.

“I know you didn’t.” You cut him off, the way you said it wasn’t angry, but you immediately regretted the stupid comforting lilt that laid out in your tone.

He nods. His hands are shaking as he tightens his grip on them. Adam’s apple bobbing as his eyes glisten, not unlike the wet cement just feet away

Silent. Heavy. Grieving.

He swallows. “I haven’t been okay. Since—since that night.”

You already know that. You’ve known since Debbie’s first call.

“I’m sorry,” he adds, voice cracking. “For everything. For what I said. What I did. I was—God, I was angry and scared and selfish. And I hurt you.”

You stare out at the rain, at the kids who skip along and the business men who brave the mist with their briefcases in hand. “You broke my heart, Mark. You didn’t just get angry.”

He visibly flinches—from the corner of your eye—recoils further into that adorable hoodie.

You look back at him, and your voice is softer now. “You made me feel like I was something small compared to what you do. I physically fought you, crying, begging for you to let go of me. You broke my arm trying to stop me from walking away. You can’t take that back.”

His face contorts, like the memory is a blade to the ribs. “I never wanted to be like that. I hate what I did.”

You look at him. Really look at him.

He means it. Means it like everything else was just a flimsy lie up until now.

But that doesn’t mean you have to fix it.

“You weren’t like that when we met,” you whisper, reaching out to cradle the mess that is his fiddling hands. “You were warm. And you were kind. You made me laugh even when the world was literally ending. But you stopped letting me in.”

He drags his hands away from yours, white knuckling at his jean-clad knees. “I don’t know what to do.”

“You’re not your dad.”

Cruel in its honesty. Raw. Angry like a bite you haven’t stopped scratching.

Eyes wide, owlish. Like he hadn’t expected that to come from your mouth. A tear rolls down his cheek, you want to comfort him this one last time but you know that will only hurt more. You’re okay now. He isn’t.

“I loved you more than anything, Mark. That night you told me I was all you had left, like it was supposed to make me stay. I wasn’t a shield you got to hide behind when it all got too much.”

Little rhinestone tears roll down rosy cheeks in earnest now, like he can’t hold it anymore. He wipes at them so aggressively he leaves streaks of red across his skin.

“I wasn’t enough,” he murmurs, those raven strands usually pushed up so neatly fall over his forehead. It puts an ache in your heart.

“No,” You hate the way your voice breaks as you try to catch his gaze again, “you were too much. I couldn’t carry both of us.”

There’s a whirl of emotions in him that you can still recognise after so long. You see it in the way he shakes.

“I didn’t want to ruin your life,” he says.

“You didn’t ruin it Mark,” There’s something in your throat that burns. “You were a part of it, I think the best part. I’ll never, ever forget it.”

For a moment, all he can do is sit there, hunched and shaking, like he’s waiting for the ground to swallow him.

You reach out, just once, and squeeze his hand. And he sighs like he couldn’t breathe out anything before.

“I still want you to get better,” you whisper. “Even if I’m not there to see it.”

And that’s the worst part. Not the breakup. Not the yelling. Not even the goodbye.

It’s knowing you still love the ghost of who he was—and he still loves the version of you who didn’t want to walk away.

He jogged up, breath fogging in the air, cheeks flushed from the night wind. He looked surprised to see you. “You waited for me?” he asked, like he hadn’t been the one to promise, “Just an hour, tops.”

And you laughed—so stupidly, stupidly in love. “Obviously,” you said, as if the answer could’ve been anything else.

As if your body didn’t already know what it meant to belong to him.

Before he became a ghost in your inbox, before the silence grew claws and wrapped around your throat, Mark had been good to you. Not perfect—never perfect—but good in the way that mattered, in the way you could build a life around.

He held your hand even when no one was looking. Tucked your hair behind your ear like it was instinct. You remember the way he’d fumble over his words when he was excited, how his cheeks flushed when he saw you across a room like he still couldn’t believe you were his. How he used to walk you home, even if it meant doubling back two neighborhoods. Just to make sure you got there safe. Just to have those last few minutes of quiet with you.

There were Sunday mornings when the world felt small enough to hold in your palm—his voice soft from sleep, your legs tangled beneath thin blankets, the smell of coffee you never drank but he always made, just in case you changed your mind. He’d sit on the couch in his old t-shirt, hair messy, face buried in some comic book you couldn’t name, and you’d watch him like you were afraid to blink.

He made you mixtapes, real ones—burned CDs with tracklists scrawled in sharpie and titles like “For the Coolest Person I Know (Don’t Roll Your Eyes).” Songs he thought you’d like. Songs that reminded him of you. Sometimes he’d get the lyrics wrong, but he’d sing them anyway, horribly off-key, like it didn’t matter if he sounded dumb as long as it made you laugh.

And he listened. Really listened. Back then, you could tell him about the weird dream you had or how your coworker was annoying you and he’d actually care. You’d talk for hours, about nothing and everything, until the sun dipped low and your voices were hoarse from too many words. He remembered little things. Your favorite brand of cereal. The way you hated the sound of styrofoam. How you always got cold after you cried, even if it wasn’t winter.

He used to kiss you like he thought it might save him. Like if he just held you close enough, long enough, he could outrun whatever waited on the other side of the sky.

But then the world crept in. Bit by bit, like water under a locked door. You didn’t notice it at first.

You excused the first time he forgot your birthday—he was fighting a villain halfway across the country. You got it. Really, you did. You said it was fine and meant it, even if you cried in the bathroom at work.

Then came the days he didn’t check in after disappearing mid-dinner. The lies got easier for him to tell. Easier for you to swallow. He wasn’t just a person anymore. He was someone. Someone the world needed more than you did. Or so you started to believe.

You told yourself you were lucky. Blessed, even. To love someone who mattered. To matter to someone who could move mountains and outrun lightning. But somewhere along the way, he stopped seeing you as part of his world, and more like a pit stop. A soft place to land when the mantle got heavy.

You used to be his secret. Then his comfort. Then his burden.

You remember the last time he touched you like he wanted to. It was almost accidental—his fingers brushing your wrist as he took the mug from your hand. There was no heat. No ache. No softness. Just contact. You looked at him, trying to find that old spark—the boy who used to look at you like you hung the damn stars—and all you saw was someone who’d already left.

It didn’t fall apart all at once. It never does. It was a thousand tiny breaks. A slow erosion of everything you thought you had. A fading. A flicker. A final, quiet extinguishing.

You used to think love was something you could hold together if you just tried hard enough.

But some people hand you broken things and blame you when they don’t work.

Of course you didn’t know he was Invincible.

No one did. He looked like a kid still trying to grow into his body. He winced when he laughed too hard and couldn’t cook for shit. There was no part of you that thought he was saving the world between algebra quizzes and late-night cartoons.

But he told you. Right before he left.

The first thing you notice is that he doesn’t look surprised to see you.

He opens the door like he was already waiting for this. For you. For the end.

Mark’s hair is unkempt. There’s a bruise healing on his jaw and a dried line of blood near his ear. He smells like the cold night air and smoke, you can smell it from the threshold of his room. You don’t ask what happened. You don’t care. Or maybe you do, but not in the same way you used to.

You step inside. Quiet. Slow.

His room is dark, save for the small desk lamp. Everything is half-unpacked, like he never really came back. Like his body is here, but the rest of him never made it down from orbit.

“I thought you were dead,” you say softly.

Mark flinches.

“You were just gone. For months, Mark. No messages. No explanation. Not even a goddamn voicemail.”

He doesn’t move. Just stands there, hands in his pockets, staring at the floor like it might split open and swallow him.

“I checked the news every day. I asked Eve, I asked your mom. Nobody knew where you went. Nobody knew if you were even coming back.”

You’re already crying and you didn’t notice until your voice cracks, until your chest hitches. You wipe your face roughly, like you’re angry for feeling this much.

“I—I couldn’t sleep,” you go on, choking it out. “I thought maybe—maybe you’d call, or come home, or—or say something. Anything. But you didn’t.”

Mark’s breathing is shallow. His fists are clenched. His voice is low when he finally says, “I didn’t know how.”

“That’s bullshit.”

He looks up.

“That’s bullshit, baby,” you say again, louder now, louder than you mean to. “You always know what to say to everyone else. To save everyone else. But when it’s me, suddenly you go silent?”

“I was trying to protect you,” he snaps, like it’s a reflex. A shield he throws up before the words can cut too deep.

You let out a sound that’s halfway between a sob and a laugh. “No. No, you don’t get to say that anymore. You don’t get to act like I’m some fragile thing you had to put on a shelf and forget about.”

Mark’s eyes are glassy now, too. Red-rimmed. Shining in the low light.

“I love you,” you say, the words breaking apart in your mouth. “I love you so fucking much, and you left me to grieve you like you died. You made me grieve you while you were still alive.”

He crosses the room in two strides, arms reaching, but you step back before he can touch you. Fingers grazing the wool of the your sweater— the one he gave you with its blue and yellow stripes.

“Don’t,” you whisper. “Please just don’t.”

“I didn’t mean to hurt you,” he says, shaking. “I thought—God, I thought I was doing the right thing. I thought—”

“You didn’t think about me.”

There it is. The truth. And it lands like a thunderclap between you.

Mark stares at you like he’s watching something beautiful collapse.

“I don’t even recognize you anymore,” you whisper. “You used to be kind. You used to show up. Now you disappear and expect me to just keep… waiting.”

“I never stopped loving you.”

You close your eyes. The tears won’t stop coming. “Then why didn’t you come back for me?”

He doesn’t have an answer.

And maybe that’s the worst part. Because you wanted to hear something. Anything. A reason big enough to make this hurt mean something. But there’s just silence.

You move towards the door, out of the his room. The one you’d spend hours in just to be with him.

Mark’s voice breaks behind you. “Please don’t go.”

Those same big brown eyes you’d fallen in love with in home economics, staring right back.

You move toward the door with tears streaking down your cheeks, fingers trembling as you reach for the handle. You can barely see straight. The lump in your throat is thick enough to choke you.

“I don’t think I can stay anymore,” Your voice cracks on the last word, “not when I’m the only one who was still trying.”

You open the door.

But before you can take a single step, you feel his hand close around your arm.

Fast. Too fast.

Mark yanks you back—not roughly, not enough to hurt, but enough to stop you in your tracks. His grip is iron. Not human. And it makes you feel even smaller than you already do.

You whip around, tears flying. “Let go of me!”

He’s breathing hard. Face flushed. Eyes frantic. “No. No, we can’t—we can’t end it like this.”

“You don’t get to decide that!”

You try to pull free, but his fingers won’t budge. It’s like being caught in a bear trap. You shove him, slap at his chest with your free hand, tears falling hot and fast.

His grip tightens to the point you follow the hand that holds you, pinned. “Let go.”

“I still love you!” he shouts, voice shaking. “Please just—just talk to me, please—”

You hit him again, fighting against him. Weak punches to his chest. You don’t care if it hurts him. You want it to. Even though you know it won’t.

“You don’t get to do this!” you cry. “You don’t get to leave me, disappear for months, break me down to pieces—and then decide you love me when it’s too late!”

Mark’s face crumples. He tries to reach for your face, but you pull back as hard as you can from the unyielding grip and push it out through pursed lips, “Don’t touch me!”

“Please do–“

“You’re HORRIBLE,” you sob, voice cracking apart as you watch your wrist twist at an angle you know it shouldn’t. “You are the worst thing that’s ever happened to me. I loved you. I trusted you. I waited and I waited and I WAITED, and you never come back!”

“I was trying to protect you—!” Crack. It burns, and it hurts in a different kind of way to what you feel in your chest. And you can’t help the wail that burns its way out of your mouth.

He drops your hand like it burned him, like he’s finally realising that maybe he’s the bad one. He hurt you, he was hurting you and he didn’t even realise it. And it fills a rage in you that burns wild. It fucking hurts, hurts so bad and you can’t express it in just one meeting of your eyes.

“No, you were protecting yourself! You were a coward, Mark! You were a COWARD, and I hate you for it!”

The words echo.

He looks like you shot him—he had the gun loaded and cocked all by himself. It’s like something inside him breaks right there. His arms fall to his sides, limp. Fat tears rolling down his cheeks as he looks as what he’s done for fucking once.

And finally, finally, you’re free.

You back away, shaking. Hand dangling at your side with fingers twisted unnaturally.

“I don’t want an apology,” you whisper. “I don’t want your love. I don’t even want you to look at me ever-fucking again.”

You pull open the door and this time—this time he doesn’t stop you.

You walk away. Sobbing. Trembling. Sick with the kind of grief that only comes when someone you love turns out to be the reason you’ll never be the same again.

Behind you, you can hear his knees hit the floor.

But you don’t turn around. Don’t even look back because if you met those big brown eyes you’d fallen for in home economics, you’d run back. You’d comfort him because that’s all you ever wanted to do.

You don’t save him.

Not this time.

The hallway of the house feels louder than it should.

He wasn’t exactly popular, but Mark had that quiet, harmless kind of presence that didn’t invite trouble. He wasn’t the smartest, a little awkward, one of those nerds no one hated but no one really hung out with either—excluding you and Will.

But you were his person. The first one he texted when something stupid happened in math class. The one who knew what his hoodie smelled like and the kind of cereal he ate when he was stressed. You made space for him in your life without even thinking. And for a while, it felt like he made space for you too.

But then things changed.

Slowly at first. One missed hangout. Then another. Then a week where he barely answered your texts. He started looking tired all the time — eyes rimmed red, shoulders tense like he was bracing for something invisible. You asked if he was okay. He’d smile, say “just tired,” and change the subject to the newest Seance Dog comic.

You started doing more things without him. William did too. The table at lunch got quieter. Your weekends got longer.

And then you met Daniel.

It was dumb — your pen ran out of ink in chem lab, and he offered you his like it was a grand gesture. He had an easy confidence to him, the kind that wasn’t trying too hard. Funny, in a smug but charming way. You told him a joke Mark once made and Daniel actually laughed. And for a second, it felt nice. Like being seen again.

You never meant to start spending so much time with him.

But Daniel texted back. He showed up when he said he would, at that cafe you and Mark used to go to religiously. He didn’t vanish without explanation. And when you smiled at him, he looked at you like he knew exactly what it meant.

The hardest part? Mark didn’t fight it. He didn’t ask where you were going. He didn’t stop you. He just watched— from across the hallway, across the lunchroom—with that Mark Grayson-specific look on his face.

You’d convinced yourself he didn’t care. But that wasn’t Mark, not at all.

It still hurt, walking past his locker and seeing him laugh at something William said, only to fall quiet the second he noticed you looking.

It all started small.

Daniel offers to walk you to class one day when Mark doesn’t show up in the morning. You’re used to that by now — used to watching your phone screen go dim, unread texts hanging in your chest like anchors on sewing thread. Daniel doesn’t make excuses. He’s just there. Warm smile. Easy laughter. He knows your coffee order, knows you hate the sound of metal chairs scraping on tile. He starts waiting for you outside of lecture halls. Offers you half his lunch.

And you let him.

Because he makes you feel noticed. Present. Not like someone left on the back burner while other things pop up.

It’s not like you mean to pull away from him. Or William, for that matter. It’s just… easier, sometimes. Being around Daniel means no tight smiles, no dodging questions, no waiting for at least a ‘still alive’ text.

Still, every now and then — when Daniel says something funny and you laugh without thinking — you catch Mark watching.

He doesn’t say anything. He never does. But his eyes follow you like he’s trying to decode a language he forgot how to read.

It happens during second period.

You’re in the back row of your history class, seated beside Daniel like you have been for the past few weeks. Mark’s two rows ahead, and slightly to the left — close enough that you can see the curve of his jaw, the way he keeps tapping his pencil against his notebook, like he’s itching to be anywhere else. He always did hate Mr. Jace.

You try not to look. Or at least, not to be caught looking. But it’s hard. Not when a muscle flutters in his jaw like he’s thinking about anything but the Industrial Revolution.

Daniel leans closer, nudging your elbow with his. It snaps you away from Mark, away from the thought of Mark’s hair being longer than it was last time you hung out. Your heart stutters, is he gonna call you out?

“Tell me again why this guy thinks he can teach history through interpretive dance?” Oh.

You snort. It slips out before you can stop it—and for a second, you forget.

“That’s what I used to say to Mark all the time,” you say, grinning. “W–we had this running joke that Mr. Jace choreographed the French Revolution.”

You glance back towards your best friend—your old one—before you can help yourself.

He’s frozen. Completely still.

His pencil is hovering mid-air over the page, like he’s paused in the middle of writing. You see his shoulders stiffen — just barely — and then he presses the pencil tip to the paper hard enough that it snaps. The sound is small, but you feel it in the way Mark’s fingers tremble. In the way those brown hues are cast down straight at the shards of graphite scattered on his book.

He doesn’t turn around. Doesn’t even flinch at the fact he just crushed a pencil in his fingers. Just calmly gets up, gathers his things, and walks out of the classroom without a word.

You blink. Flinching at the way he slams the door shut behind him. Little wooden bits scatter onto the floor, and a girl at the back of the class shrieks.

The teacher didn’t even notice he left, but he damn well does now.

Your heart starts pounding.

Daniel nudges you again, quieter this time. “Hey… what was that about? Is he okay?”

You shake your head slowly, the joke dying in your throat. “I don’t— I don’t know.”

But you do. You just don’t want to say it.

Because you remember that joke. The dumb one about Mr. Jace tap-dancing through history. Mark used to do it with a fake accent, arms waving dramatically in your living room until you were wheezing with laughter in the throw blanket Mark brought over. It was your little thing, one of many.

And now you’d handed it off — just like that.

You glance back at the door again, chipped at the edges and swinging on its hinges, as Mr Jace huffs and puffs in all his red-faced glory.

The hallway is empty.

You don’t see Mark after that class.

You check the hallway. The stairwell. Even the front entrance of the school where he sometimes stands, where he used to wait for you.

Nothing.

You tell yourself it’s fine. That maybe he just needed air. That he wasn’t angry, just overwhelmed. But the lie tastes bitter, and your phone feels impossibly heavy in your fingers. You glance up at your chem teacher—an older lady with large lensed glasses, she’s too nice for this school—then back at the screen. It’s a selfie of Will and you at Burger Mart, Mark standing behind the counter with your order held out like the world sent him a punishment in the form of his friends. You miss them, both of them. You breathe out a half-sigh half-laugh.

Swallowing your stupid sorrow, you unlock it.

You open your messages and stare at your last conversation with him—from nearly two weeks ago.

You: did you wanna go for lunch at that new cafe today?

You: markkkkk?

You: we can go somewhere else if you want

All left on read. You didn’t say anything after that, didn’t wanna bother him. Maybe he was finally moving on. Better friends or something.

Your thumb hovers over the keyboard. You type something. Delete it. Type again. Biting at your nail as you resist the urge to rip it off entirely.

Finally, you send:

you okay? i saw you leave class

Three dots appear. You sit up straighter, heart kicking like it’s on a timer. You spare a glance at Miss Lily to make sure she hasn’t caught you.

They vanished.

No reply. No message. No explanation.

Just that haunting “Read 2:33 pm” stamp glowing beneath your text like a ghost.

You shove your phone back into your pocket, frustration and something deeper rising in your throat. You sit back into your chair too hard, making the metal legs scrape across the scratchy linoleum, staring at the ceiling like the answer might be written in the cracks.

“You alright?”

“Yeah, I’m all good Danny.”

It doesn’t stop you from thinking about him.

It’s worse at night. When the house is still and your phone’s gone quiet. You replay old voice messages—ones you never deleted, where he’s laughing too hard at his own joke or asking you where you are that time you got lost in the shopping mall.

You see him everywhere, too. In the hoodie at the back of your closet that still smells like popcorn and the cologne he used to borrow from his dad. In the half-empty slushie cup in your freezer from the last time he showed up unannounced and dragged you to 7-Eleven “just because.”

You sit at your lunch table now with Daniel sometimes. William stopped sitting with you last week. You don’t blame him. It’s not the same. Maybe Mark said something.

And the worst part is that you still look for him—in the hallways, at his locker, in the corners of your classrooms where he always slouched like the chairs offended him personally. Horrible posture even for a teenage boy. You tell yourself you don’t care. That if he wants to ghost you, fine.

But you do care.

You care so much it feels like grief.

And every time you check your phone, you still hope the read receipt disappears—replaced by something that feels like him again.

The late afternoon sun casts long shadows across the pavement as you and Daniel make your way down the neighborhood sidewalk, your steps syncing in that easy, casual rhythm that comes from walking the same way more than a few times.

Your backpack digs into your shoulder, but you walk slower than usual. You’ve been doing that a lot lately. Drawing out the silence between things. Trying to outrun your own thoughts.

He’s talking about something—a goofy movie, maybe, or how the vending machine still owes him two dollars and a grudge match. You nod along, offering the right laughs at the right places, but your heart’s not really in it. Hasn’t been, not lately.

Because your mind keeps flickering back to Mark.

To that pencil snap in class. To the unread messages. To the way he looked at you like you were a stranger.

Daniel notices your quiet. He always does. For a guy he’s a bit too in tune with your inner workings.

He nudges your arm gently. “You’ve been kinda spacey today.”

You force a smile. “Yeah, just tired. Long week.”

He buys it. Or at least pretends to. “Well, you sure you don’t want me to walk you all the way home?”

“I’ll be fine,” you say, slowing as you reach the corner where his street splits off. “Thanks, though.”

He hesitates, like he wants to say more, then just nods. “Alright. Text me, okay?”

You nod and wave as he heads off, then slide your headphones on, turning up the volume just enough to fill the empty space.

The music cushions your walk—from the odd 80’s song to something stupidly sad that you skip because you can’t handle that right now, to ‘Get down on it’ by Kool and the Gang of all things.

You laugh at that switch up, you remember that one time Will, and Mark, were playing blind karaoke and Will somehow, out of all the songs in the world, began singing Pitbull. You were dying on the couch, quite literally. You choked on one of the sour strips you were eating. Mark fell over himself trying to save the day. He did end up saving the day and ending your near-death experience, your ribs were so sore that night.

Your shoes crunch along the sidewalk. Your fingers trail over the stray flower bushes as you pass. You miss those dumb little sleepovers you used to all have. It makes you miss the group.

What you don’t notice, is the footsteps behind you.

Not until you reach your gate—the familiar squeaky latch already at the tips of your fingers—when a haggard voice cuts through the one quiet song in your playlist.

“Please wait!”

You freeze, nearly like a deer in headlight.

Your heart does a strange, sharp flip. He’s a little breathless, like he jogged to catch up, hands tapping at the sides of his sweater you know better than your own. He looks bigger, or maybe the sweater’s gotten smaller. You can’t tell. You slip your headphones off, scratching at the stupid little sticker he put onto it.

His brows are furrowed like he’s barely holding it together. His lip is split—not badly, but enough that you notice.

He’s standing at the edge of your driveway, chest rising and falling like he ran the last block to catch you. His hair’s a little messy, wind-tousled. There’s a quiet desperation in his eyes—the kind that makes your own throat tighten.

“I need to talk to you,” Those bay brown eyes you missed so much flickering all over your face. “Please.”

You stare at him for a second.

Then push open the gate, you take two steps in and when you don’t hear him behind you, you simply turn. Tugging at the loose threads of your cardigan as you watch him. Finally, finally he’s here and you don’t know what to say, or how to feel. So you spit out the first thing you can think of, the way you used to talk to him. Like slipping back into normalcy.

“You coming, or what?”

He blinks like you’ve just broken whatever trance had him frozen in place, then finally moves—quick strides crunching over the cement path behind you. The two of you slip through the side gate like you used to—like nothing’s changed, like the silence between you hasn’t cracked the foundation. The gate creaks shut with that familiar metallic whine, and the two of you are alone in the backyard.

The sky has moved slowly into dusk. The sky’s already dipped into shades of gold and lavender, the edges of the day softening like bruises fading. The backyard is lit by the warm glow of the string lights above flickering to life as they sense the dark. You’d put them up with Mark last spring, threading them between the beams with both your hands dirty from potting soil and pruning the gardens. Your hanging plants sway gently in the breeze—ivy and succulents and little flowering herbs you’ve been nursing for months. Longer than all this stuff, has been happening. Ferns and ivy hang from every corner.

Little ceramic pots painted by hand line the railing, overflowing with green and bursts of colour that slowly blur with the darkening of the sky.

It smells like rosemary and fresh dirt.

Mark lingers by the patio entrance as you step up onto the wood, slipping off your shoes before curling up into one of the cushioned chairs closest to the back door. You don’t invite him to sit. You don’t have to. You know he loves these chairs, not as much as you, but still.

He doesn’t, at first. Just stands there, watching you like you’re the only thing right this moment.

You break the silence. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

For a moment, a singular breath between you both, the only sound is the hum of the lights and the soft creak of the wind swaying hanging pots.

He exhales through his nose.

“I’m sorry.”

You cross your arms, eyes fixed on a chipped piece of the wooden patio floor. “For what?”

“For avoiding you, for not answering, for all this stuff that I’ve done.” He pauses, toeing at a stray leaf. He can’t even look at you as he says it. “I just want us to go back to normal.”

You laugh.

Not because it’s funny, but because it’s the only thing stopping your throat from closing. A dry, bitter thing that makes Mark’s shoulders tense.

“Normal?” you echo, your voice sharp. “Mark, you haven’t even spoken to me in weeks.”

“I know,” he says quickly, eyes snapping up. “I know, okay? But it wasn’t because I didn’t care—”

“Then what was it?” you cut in. “Because from where I was sitting, it sure as hell felt like you just didn’t want me around anymore.”

“I was trying to protect you!” he fires back, louder than you expected. He catches himself, fingers curling so hard his knuckles turn white. “God, I didn’t want to drag you into—into the danger, the pressure. I thought if I just… let you go a little, you’d be safer.”

“That’s not your decision to make,” Your voice starts to shake now. “You say you’ll meet me and you don’t show up. You never explain anything, you just disappear. You don’t get to disappear, an—and then act like we can just snap back to what we were.”

“I was doing my best!” He starts pacing toward the edge of the patio. “You don’t know what it’s like, okay? Balancing everything. Trying to be there for everyone and still not being enough.”

“And you think I don’t know what that feels like?” You’re on your feet now too, arms at your sides, fingers curled into fists. “I’ve been showing up for you, Mark. Even when you wouldn’t answer me. Even when it felt like I was screaming into a void just hoping for one text back.”

His jaw flexes. He turns, hands gripping the railing, back to you.

“I didn’t know what to say.”

You stare at him, your voice dropping, cracking. Like one of the pots he dropped when you were painting them.

“You could’ve said anything.”

The string lights buzz quietly above, casting halos around the plants you’ve poured your heart into, into him. The air feels heavier now, thicker, like it’s trying to hold the weight of everything that’s never been said between you.

“I felt like you hated me,” you say. “Like I did something wrong.”

He turns then, his eyes wide, like the idea guts him. “No. God—no. I never hated you.”

“Well, you sure made it feel that way.”

He’s breathing harder now, chest rising and falling like he’s been running, but this time, it’s not from chasing you down the block. It’s from running in circles inside his own head. And you’re just… tired.

“You don’t get to play the victim in this,” you say, quieter now, but firmer. “You ghosted me. You left. And you only came back when you saw someone else being there for me.”

That hits. You see it land, like a real punch.

His lips part like he wants to argue, but no words come out. So you just stare at him. And wait.

Because if this is going to mean anything at all—he needs to mean it.

“I was trying to protect you.”

“Bullshit,” you snap.

The word hangs in the air between you, sharp and ugly. You don’t regret saying it.

He doesn’t look away, doesn’t glance out at the garden. “You don’t get it. I couldn’t tell you. Not then.”

“Why not? What could possibly be so bad that you’d rather have me thinking you hated me?”

He chews on his words, opening his mouth more than once, it makes you angry. He can’t even find a good reason. Right as you’re about to start up again, he blurts it out. “Because I’m Invincible.”

Silence.

The word falls like a nuclear bomb in a suburb.

You stare at him.

“What?”

Mark steps closer, eyes flicking over your face like he’s watching you come apart. “I’m Invincible. The superhero. That’s where I’ve been. That’s why I leave. That’s why I’ve been gone.”

You’re frozen. Your lips part, but nothing comes out.

“I didn’t want to drag you into it,” He’s jumping all over his words, speaking so fast it hurts your brain as you try and figure out, how? “I thought if I distanced myself, if I cut it off before it got serious, I’d be keeping you safe. But I was wrong. I just hurt you.”

You don’t say anything at first. You can’t. The boy you grew up with is a superhero? Invincible? He was scared of cockroaches. How—how could, why could— your brain muddles and flips.

Your chest feels like it’s caving in—everything you’ve been holding back for weeks, maybe months, starts clawing its way out of you in shallow breaths and a pressure behind your eyes that refuses to stop building.

“I thought you hated me,” you whisper.

Mark’s face crumples. “What? No. No, I—”

But it’s too late. Your throat tightens and the tears start falling, hot and fast. Not the kind you can wipe away and pretend never happened—these are ugly sobs. The kind that rip out of your chest in pieces, leaving your voice shaking and your hands trembling. You try to cover your face, embarrassed, but your body won’t stop heaving.

“All this time,” you gasp, “I thought I did something wrong. I thought I pushed you away or—God, something. You stopped texting back, you’d look right through me, and I kept trying to pretend it didn’t hurt but it did, Mark. It did, and you didn’t even say anything.”

Mark’s already moving before you finish—stepping forward, arms wrapping around you with a desperation that almost knocks the wind out of you. You don’t fight it. You collapse into him, fists gripping the front of his sweater, sobbing into his shoulder like you’ve been carrying this pain in silence for way too long. You have been.

“I didn’t hate you,” he whispers, over and over again, holding you like the world is ending. “I never hated you. I thought you’d be safer if I stayed away. But it just made everything worse. I’m so, so sorry.”

His voice breaks at the end.

You cling to him like you’re scared he’ll vanish again, shaking with all the weight of what’s gone unsaid. He just holds you tighter, like he needs you just as badly.

“I missed you,” you manage through the tears, voice muffled by his shoulder. “I kept waiting for you to come back.”

“I’m here,” Mark whispers, forehead pressing to yours as he holds you so lovingly. “I’m not going anywhere.”

You sniffle, the sound ugly and wet and real, like everything else.

His thumb catches a tear slipping down your cheek. You open your eyes, and his are right there—wet and glistening, holding yours like they never stopped trying.

“I’ve been in love with you since the day you made me sit through that terrible romcom and you cried harder than the main character,” he says softly, lips curved with the smallest, saddest smile you’ve ever seen on him. “And I didn’t even care that it sucked because you were leaning on me the whole time.”

You let out a watery laugh, tears still spilling, and he cups your face gently, reverently, like you’re made of glass and starlight and a thousand things he almost lost.

“I didn’t know how to be both,” he murmurs. “A hero and myself. But every time I was out there—saving people, fighting monsters, almost dying—I just wanted to come back.”

You reach up and hold his wrists, holding him now. “You should’ve told me.”

“I know,” he breathes. “I was scared.”

“So was I.”

He leans in, foreheads still touching, your breath shared under the fairy lights of your backyard. The rosemary sways in the breeze, brushing against your leg like a memory.

“I love you,” he whispers.

You let out a broken sound—half sob, half laugh. “Say it again.”

He smiles through his tears, nose brushing yours. “I love you.”

And this time, when he kisses you, it’s like the sadness finally gives. It’s messy and tear-soaked and trembling, and everything you both have been holding back for too long. His hands are in your hair, yours around his neck, and the kiss is so, so soft but aching—like the words he couldn’t say finally found a way out. It’s messy, so messy but you need this. Need him.

When you break apart, foreheads still pressed together, you whisper, “I love you too.”

You don’t need to ask if he’s staying. You already know the answer.

.

But what would you say, really?

“Hey baby, I’ve known you’re Invincible for months now. I saw the blood on your shirt before you had time to change. I recognized your voice when you saved those people downtown. You leave handprint shaped bruises on my hips and back when you’re exhausted from superhero-ing.”

He’s not good at hiding things. Not from you anyways. Not when you know the way his voice cracks when he’s lying. Not when you’ve memorized the shape of every bruise he forgets to cover.

But still—you let him think he is. If not for your own sanity, then his.

Some days, you almost tell him. You think—this is the moment—when he crawls through your bedroom window because he’s too tired to go home. His hair is windswept, cheeks and nose a flushed red from the biting winter breeze, and because you quite literally watched him fight with his supersuit beside your flowerbed of lillies.

But then he says the thing that makes your heart soften into mush and your resolve to do the big reveal slips through your fingers like air. “I just needed to see you,” he mumbles it into the bare skin of your shoulder, teeth catching the smallest bit on your collarbone. Still trying to smile for you.

You wrap your arms around him like you’re trying to hold in all his jagged pieces. Kiss the side of his head, even though his hair’s sweaty. Feel the way he leans into you, like you’re gravity and he’s tired of orbiting alone. Drag your fingertips along the dips and bumps of his spine like you can stitch him back together.

“I’m right here,” you whisper. I always am.

You always are.

Sometimes, you think he knows. That he’s just waiting for you to say it. Like you’re both holding guns at your sides, fingers resting on triggers you’re too afraid to pull. It’s funny, in a way that makes you sick, how he can take punches from gods and aliens, bleed in space, crash through concrete walls—and yet he flinches at the thought of one human truth, one from a girl who bakes him cookies and kisses his bruises like they’ll fade faster if she means it hard enough.

You’ve seen what this life does to people. You’ve seen blood drip onto your doorstep and gotten calls at 2:00 a.m. that make your heart stop. And still—still—you stay. You pretend to be normal. You laugh when he makes dumb jokes, you hold his hand when his lip is split, and you say you’re okay when he forgets your birthday because he was off-planet. You stay because someone has to, because you don’t think anyone else would. You don’t do it out of pity, out of selfish love.

You are in love with a boy made of breaking points. A boy who holds the sky in his hands and still doesn’t know how to hold you without trembling.

And yet—you don’t break.

One night, he falls asleep with his head in your lap. He’s heavy. Warm. So real, it makes your ribs ache. Those long dark lashes are shadows against his bruised cheekbone, and he sighs in his sleep like he’s letting go of something he doesn’t even know he’s carrying. Like even being a Viltrumite isn’t enough to guarantee forever.

You run your fingers through his hair. Soft, gentle strokes, like turning the pages of a book you’ve read a hundred times but still love. A soft coo, a name that you roll over your tongue like the sweetest brown sugar, “Mark?”

He stirs, lashes fluttering even though his eyes can barely stay open. He hums, gravel-soft.

You nod, even though his eyes are already fluttering closed again. “I love you, baby.”

He smiles, and it’s so soft you feel it in your bones, feel it crack something hidden deep behind your sternum. Then he settles back into the plush of your thighs, trusting you with himself—his love, his secrets, even if he doesn’t know you already carry them all like a second heart.

You don’t need to tell him.

Not yet. Not for a long time yet.

Not when he already does these things that make you feel like you’re the only thing holding him down.

You hover just a few inches off the floor. It isn’t on purpose—it rarely is. The way gravity pulls here still feels… light. Like it’s not quite trying hard enough to hold you down. It lets you drift, lets your toes brush the soft carpet as your eyes wander around Mark’s room.

Your fingers brush lightly over the spines of books on his shelf. Mostly comics and a few school textbooks that look barely used. There’s a notebook with torn pages tucked beneath a cracked DVD case labeled “Seance Dog IV: Beyond the Grave.”

“Seance… Dog,” you whisper softly, tasting the syllables like something you haven’t tried yet. Your brow furrows. “What noble title.”

You float higher and turn slowly mid-air, your eyes catching on the wall above his desk.

There he is—drawn and smiling. Seance Dog, a cartoon hound cloaked in dramatic shadows and a heroic red cloak, staring dramatically into some ghostly storm. There are three posters, each more intense than the last. You float closer to one of them and tilt your head.

“He’s growling at… the sky?”

You nod once. Approving. “He understands.”

You rotate in the air, legs tucked lazily beneath you, curls trailing after you in the evening light. You do a slow roll upside down, studying the collection of strange Earth knickknacks scattered on Mark’s desk. There’s a half-eaten candy bar, something sticky on a coaster, and a photo in the corner—crumpled slightly but kept.

You float down to look at it, leaning in like looking at a secret.

It’s blurry and bright. You recognize yourself. The colour of your eyes and the ‘o’ shape of your mouth. You’re staring down the lense, your hair a mess of loops, eyes wide and curious as the flash goes off and blinds you. You remember that, his phone. You were curious about how it captured the moments so easily, with the tap of a finger.

Mark’s handwriting is scrawled at the bottom and it takes you a moment to read it with how bad the letters are smudged:

‘Goof’.

Your fingers brush the edge of the paper. Your chest feels a little strange. Warmer. Placing it down gently, you tug at your lip.

Little beady eyes catch your own again, there’s a plush of the beagle slumped sideways on his desk, one ear bent and worn at the seams. You coo and pick it up, tucked gently into your arms like a baby. How adorable.

You glance around again, with your newly acquired friend.

His bed is unmade. His lamp is crooked and facing his bed instead of his desk. His socks are not where socks are meant to be. And you love it. All of it.

Because this—this is who he is when no one’s looking. Slightly messy but that’s not of importance.

Messy, human, soft. So grounded.

You curl mid-air into a slow, lazy spin above his bed, letting your body relax as you float in aimless circles, cradling the little beagle teddy to your chest, curls trailing along behind you like ribbons. Some dipping low enough to drag against the sheets of his bed.

You think of how often he tugs at the collar of his shirt when he’s nervous. How he frowns when he doesn’t understand something you say but still tries to, like it’s his fault. How he always offers you the last bite of food as if it’s some sacred tradition.

You don’t understand all of it yet.

But you’re learning.

And you think—if this is what being human means, you’d like to keep learning.

From him.

The floor creaks from downstairs and you hear his voice, laughing with his mother.

You smile and float just a little higher, pressing your fingers to your lips in a quiet, secret smile.

And then you keep spinning, weightless above it all.

─────────────────────────

Mark dragged a hand down his face as he climbed the last few steps, still chewing the last bite of lasagna.

Dinner had been nice. Chill. His mom didn’t bring up his black eye, which was kind of her version of a warm hug these days. And now all he wanted was to crash on his bed, maybe finish that Seance Dog comic he bought this morning before dragging himself into more school work and superhero chaos tomorrow.

He reached for the doorknob of his bedroom and sighed. A long, satisfied sigh.

Then he opened the door.

And blinked.

Then blinked again.

Because there, hovering midair, legs crossed and curls swaying lightly with each slow, graceful rotation—was you.

Floating like it was the most natural thing in the universe.

You had one hand tucked beneath your chin, the other gently wrapped around the well-worn body of his Seance Dog plushie. The plushie he’d had since he was ten. The one with the missing eye and the chewed ear that was definitely not younger him.

Mark froze.

Your eyes sparkled as they met his, wide and full of stars. “This is the Seance Dog,” You said brightly, hugging it a little closer like it was a rare artifact. “He’s soft. And wise.”

Mark panicked.

“Ohmygodyou’reinmyroom.”

He said it like one breathless word and immediately tripped over his own feet trying to shut the door behind him. His heart launched itself somewhere into his throat.

You tilted your head so innocently he felt bad that he walked into his room. “I was curious.”

“You—you broke in—!”

“I floated in,” You corrected, as if that made it better.

He looked around, mortified.

Clothes on the floor. Seance Dog posters everywhere. A truly cursed sock peeking from beneath the bed. The moisturiser on his desk. The crushed energy drink can by the bed that he swore he threw away yesterday.

Kill him. Now.

No—throw him into space. Put him in the definitely real GDA prison. Anything but this.

“You could’ve—I don’t know—knocked? Or called? Or—anything but this?”

You just kept floating, hugging the plushie tighter, eyes tracking around the room in loops as you took in more. And oh god, his heart was hammering out of his chest.

“I enjoy seeing the… human pieces of you,” You smiled. “It’s like… like seeing your soul scattered around the room.”

Mark didn’t know what to say to that.

So, of course, his brain decided the right response was: “You’re hugging my childhood plushie. He’s—he’s been through a lot.”

You looked down at it with reverence.

“He is brave,” You whispered. “I can tell.”

Mark groaned and covered his face with his hands, fingers twitching as he resisted the urge to pull all those raven strands right out of his own scalp.

And yet, when he peeked between his fingers… you were still there. Floating in his orbit. Looking like you belonged in the sky and somehow—somehow—in this very room, holding his weird, stitched-up childhood toy like it was something precious. It was to him, and now you apparently.

He exhaled, defeated. “I need, like… ten seconds to recover from this. Maybe twelve.”

You blinked slowly. “Is that a human unit of emotional recovery?”

“Sure. Yeah.” He was gonna need some recovery time, whether from the shame building in his throat or the thundering of his heart against his ribcage.

She twirls again, and smiles so brightly it makes a weak smile pull at his own lips. Yeah.

─────────────────────────

You point at it, brow furrowed.

“This… is a canine who communes with the dead?”

Mark snorts from where he’s lying sideways across his bed, one foot on the floor, the other bent at the knee. He props his head on his hand.

“Yeah. He talks to ghosts. And solves crimes. But mostly? He’s just really good at guilt-tripping people.”

You blink. “That’s… a very odd thing.”

You hear the way your words come out—still not always right. The phrasing, the syntax. But Mark doesn’t correct you. He just smiles.

“Yeah. He kind of is.”

You don’t mean to move closer, but you do. Like a magnet being tugged. You end up midair above his bed, and Mark watches as you slowly descend until your knees sink into the mattress, making him lean your way a little.

“Sorry,” you whisper, then grin.

He rolls his eyes but he’s laughing.

You reach for the Seance Dog plush he keeps by the pillow and hug it gently, turning it over in your hands like it’s made of starlight. “You… are very human.”

Mark raises an eyebrow. “Thanks?”

You shake your head. “No. I mean it. You eat snacks until you are sick. You watch glowing boxes of moving stories. You speak kindly when you are afraid. And your room smells like… soap and boy.”

He laughs, full and unguarded. The sound makes something warm shift in your chest. You think you might like this planet after all.

Then, without thinking, you hug him.

You mean for it to be gentle. But you forget. Forget how strong you are, how fragile he can be. Your arms wrap tight around his chest and his arms and he lets out a strangled noise against your bare shoulder.

“Sorry—sorry!” you gasp, pulling back a little, hovering instinctively off the bed again, fretting over him like you haven’t seen him destroy things a normal person couldn’t.

Mark wheezes but chuckles, patting your arm. “No, it’s okay. Just… maybe 30% less bone-crushing next time?”

You nod, sheepish. “Thirty percent. Yes. I will crush you less.”

He smiles at that, leaning back against the pillows. You float down beside him again, this time careful not to jostle him sideways.

─────────────────────────

You like it up here.

Quiet, still, sun-warmed roofing under your legs and soft wind tangling through your hair. No one looks for anybody on the rooftop. Except Mark.

He finds you anyway. Only he ever can.

You hear the door creak open behind you. Feel his presence before he says anything. The small shift of air, the sound of sneakers on gravel. Then his voice—low, a little breathless.

“I had to search the house top to bottom.”

Maybe not always.

You snort, an ugly thing that comes out of your mouth before you can stop it. “You’re not very smart sometimes.”

“Yeah alright, you’re feeling mean today.”

You don’t answer right away. Just pat the spot beside you. He takes it, dropping down so close your knees brush. It doesn’t bother you but it does to him, he shuffles over just a little. You press your knee back to his, he doesn’t move this time.

Mark was the one teaching you all these things, how to act human. How to speak in appropriate sentences. Personal space was new, and you didn’t like that rule. It was hard sitting far away, made you itch to break that rule. He’s wearing one of those blue sweaters and a pair of jeans. He’s looking out upon the sunset.

Your eyes lift to the sky again, painted in melting orange and blush pink. Earth skies are soft like that—always changing, always gentle.

“I like the way your planet ends the day,” you say.

Mark glances over at you, squinting against the sun. “Yeah?”

You nod slowly. “Tamaran didn’t have this. We had twin suns. There was no sunset, only… shift. Heat to cold. One fire slipping behind the other.”

“Sounds kinda intense.”

You smile. “Everything was intense.”

Mark chuckles softly, picking at a frayed thread on his sleeve. You watch the way his lashes catch the last light. How his mouth moves when he’s not thinking about it. You wonder if he knows that your heart stumbles every time he grins in your direction.

You wonder if it shows.

“Do you ever miss it?” he asks, quieter now.

Your smile fades a little. “Every day.”

He doesn’t fill the silence. He lets it sit there, as if giving your grief room to breathe. To churn over in your heart and fold itself back into a small box.

You tilt your head, watching his profile. His jawline, the soft brown of his eyes. The way he bites his bottom lip when he’s unsure of himself.

“Mark,” you murmur. “You have starlight in your mouth.”

He turns to you, startled. “Wait—what?”

You blink, then laugh. “It’s a saying from Tamaran. When someone speaks kindly. Honestly. It means you’re full of light.”

Mark goes a bit pink. Rubs the back of his neck like he doesn’t know what to do with the compliment, looking at everything but you.

You lie back, soaking the last of the warmth from the rooftop as you stare up into the deepening sky.

“I think I’m starting to understand gravity,” you say.

Mark lies beside you, his arms behind his head. “You mean, like, Earth gravity?”

“No,” you whisper. “Yours.”

He turns to you, your pulse jumps as those eyes land on you.

The ones you’d choose to stare into for the rest of your long life.

You’re still laying back, hair haloed around your head like some celestial thing. You can’t tell if your pulse is fast because you’re so close to him or because of the way he looks back at you from over his broad shoulder.

“I’d orbit you,” you admit, voice barely a breath.

He smiles. That same shy, tilted smile. “I’d try not to crash.”

And in the space between both of your words your hands find his. Fingers brushing. Not quite holding. Not yet.

You want too, but he was serious about personal space. You didn’t want him to be uncomfortable, never. But the pull is there.

Like gravity. Like stars aligning. Like maybe, just maybe, the universe is a little kinder than you remember.

“Come.” It’s stupid to say, stupid to suggest it but it tumbles from your mouth all the same.

“Wha—“ He can’t finish before you’re hoisting him up by the hand that just brushed yours.

“Let’s fly.”

A silly expression crosses his face and you shake your head, he is so serious and you don’t think he means to be.

“But someone might see.”

“But they might not.” His shoes scrape across the roof as you pull. He doesn’t even try to fight, he has the strength too but he allows you too. Whether out of curiosity or trust, you’re not quite sure. You glance back at him, raising an eyebrow in a teasing manner, a test.

You can’t stop smiling.

The wind dances past your skin like it knows you. Cool, fresh, teasing. The city below melts into twinkling dots of light, and the clouds are painted lavender and hues of pink as the stars peek through. You can feel Mark’s eyes on you again as you twirl midair—arms stretched, legs pointed, spinning just fast enough to make strands of hair stick to your face.

“You’re showing off,” he calls with a grin, somewhere a few feet behind you.

You twist lazily, facing the stars as you move backwards until you’re upside down beneath him, head tilted as you look at him.

“I’m living, Mark.”

He laughs, startled by how effortlessly you say it. He’s moving at a slower pace than you had been, arms loose beside him, watching you move like you were born in the sky.

To you, flying isn’t this power. It’s instinct. Like breathing. And when you do it—really do it—Mark thinks you don’t just fly. You float. Drift. You dance.

Picking up pace you twirl again, this time faster, until your laughter spills out into the open air. Mark has never heard anything like it—joy without restraint, laughter without purpose. You’re not trying to be heroic. You’re not rescuing anyone. You’re just here. Just flying.

You call to him, coming to a stop just above the tallest building in the city.

“Come! You don’t always have to look so serious.”

“I don’t look serious.”

“You do! Like your face is trying to solve a very hard puzzle.”

He chuckles and finally follows. Hovering above the sharp antenna of the news station with you as you give him the most deviously toothy smile. You’re grabbing his hand and yanking him toward the stars, both of you soaring higher, wind pulling at your clothes, your hair, your laughter ringing in his ears like a wind chime.

Mark’s breath catches a little. Not from the altitude. From you.

You glance at him sideways. “I’ve flown with many. But never with someone who looks at me like I might disappear.”

He swallows, the type that makes his adam’s apple bob and he can feel it. He doesn’t meet your eyes right away.

“I don’t mean to.”

“I do not mind,” you say gently. “It makes me feel real.”

You slow until you’re both just hovering there, high above it all. Lights glitter below. Worlds glimmer in the far-off distance, their stars sending codes in Morse. Like they want you to decode their secrets, their love for their planets. And the two of you are suspended in silence.

Mark looks at you—really looks. The moonlight kisses your cheekbones. Your eyes glow faintly with the soft mould of someone made to belong in the sky. He doesn’t say a word, but it’s there in the curve of his mouth, the way his heartbeat kicks a little faster when your thumb brushes over the back of him hand again. In the way you look up at him through wet lashes. You weren’t crying, it’s from the clouds that mist you both as they surround you both. It makes your skin dewy and your hair bouncy.

‘I think I like her,’ he realizes. ‘God, I think I’m starting to really like her.’

He can’t bring himself to say that though.

“You make flying look like some kind of… magic.”

You tilt your head. Smile. That smile that looks like it hurts your cheeks. Your nose scrunching up and your eyebrows making that cute dip.

“That is because, to me, it is.” You bring both his hands up between you, brushing a kiss against his knuckles. Holding those eyes of his captive and making his heart batter at his ribcage like one of the villains you both fight.

You drift to the side, spinning him slowly before letting his hands fall from yours. Floating above him like a star, hair glowing just like one.

And this time, when he flies after you, it isn’t because someone’s in danger.

It’s just because you’re up there—and he wants to be wherever you are.