Archive of Our Own ^beta

Inside the Global Defense Agency's high-security medical wing, fluorescent lights buzzed softly overhead. The sterile white halls were quiet except for the low murmur of machines and the occasional rushed footstep of a nurse or medic.

Mark Grayson stirred, awakening in a haze of dull, pulsing pain.

Everything ached. His body felt like it had been broken apart and put back together with duct tape and spit. His eyes blinked against the brightness, unfocused. The last thing he remembered was Angstrom. The rage. The blood. His little fucking drones. Then darkness.

Groaning softly, Mark pulled the thin blanket off and swung his legs over the side of the bed. His head spun, but he needed to move. He had to move. The world had kept turning while he was unconscious. 

Mark pushed himself up again, stubbornly this time. He was Invincible, damn it. He took one shaky step. Then another.

The cold floor bit into his bare feet, and the dull pain in his ribs spiked, but he gritted his teeth and kept going. He shuffled slowly down the corridor, leaning heavily on the wall. His reflection in the window glass looked like a ghost. Pale. Hollow-eyed.

And then his legs gave out.

He collapsed hard, the breath knocked from his lungs, the linoleum cold against his cheek. Gritting his teeth, he tried to push himself up again, but something stopped him—not pain.

A sound.

The doors at the far end of the hallway slammed open.

Wheels. Metal. A panicked voice calling for plasma. A string of gurneys—seven, no, eight—being rushed through the hallway at full speed. Mark turned his head.

His breath caught in his throat as he caught a glimpse from the corner of his eye. As if the world started playing in slow motion, he saw a hand—rough, calloused, and twisted in ways it should’ve never been—dangled limply off one of the gurneys.

Mohawk Mark.

His heart dropped. It was them.

Eight gurneys. Eight broken versions of himself.

Prisoner Mark was barely breathing, chest sunken, his burnt skin somehow even more unrecognizable with the blood sticking to him and the multiple injuries and bruises that ranged from purple to black. His chest caved in as a doctor desperately pumped his heart.

Sinister Mark had a crater punched into his torso. His eyes were rolled back as he babbled something unintelligible through bloodied lips. 

Full Mask Mark’s mask was still on—cracked right down the middle. One eye dark. 

Omni-Mark had burn marks down one side of his face, barely recognizable. He had a respirator covering his face. 

Viltrumite Mark was missing an arm. Stripevincible’s uniform was torn to shreds, his signature stripes barely distinguishable through the gore. His eye swollen shut, coughing up blood. 

Maskless Mark was still in a state of sufficient consciousness to cry and groan uncontrollably at the pain he was experiencing. They had to strap him down to the gurney just to stop him from further hurting himself. 

Mark felt fear. Not for himself, but for them.

These were the same monsters that once laid waste to his world. But they weren’t just monsters anymore. He knew that. Not after the war. They had tried. Tried to be better. Tried to become something more than their pasts. Helped clean up the wreckage. Some had even apologized to people they had hurt. 

But now?

“Conquest,” one of the medics muttered into their comms. “Multiple high-priority casualties from the Conquest encounter. Immediate surgery needed. We’re losing them—fast.”

The hallway spun as Mark reached out weakly, his hand stretching toward the retreating gurneys as if he could hold them back—bring them back.

“No…” he whispered hoarsely. “Not like this…”

A nurse knelt beside him, calling for assistance, trying to lift him—but he wasn’t listening. His eyes were locked on the blood-smeared tiles...and the trail left behind by his broken brothers. He could only stare, trembling, as the echoes of his other selves were carted away into surgery bays, emergency rooms, and maybe… to their deaths.

Tears welled in his eyes—not just from the pain—but from something deeper.

They had tried. They had really tried. And now, they might never get the chance to finish redeeming themselves.

His face—if it could still be called that—is an unrecognizable mess of blood and bone, deep lacerations cutting down from his forehead to his jaw. His eyes are swollen shut, and a pool of blood forms under his neck, dripping off the side of the gurney.

Doctor Rinaldi—mid-40s, seasoned but not jaded—takes the lead.

“Multiple skull fractures, cranial swelling… he’s aspirating—Jesus, he’s drowning in his own blood!” Rinaldi mutters. 

A nurse hands over a suction device as blood bubbles up from Sinister’s mouth and nose. His chest heaves, but it’s not breathing—it’s gasping, like a man suffocating underwater.

“Pulse fading! Vitals plummeting!” The nurse cried. 

“Prep for intubation—now!” Rinaldi instructed. 

They hoist an oxygen mask over his face as another nurse readies the syringe for sedation. A third preps the intubation tube. Just as the needle nears Sinister’s neck—

His eyes snap open.

Bloodshot. Terrified. Wild.

With a wet, choking gasp, Sinister Mark LUNGES UP, grabbing the nearest doctor by the throat with a blood-slicked hand. The man chokes, feet leaving the ground, instruments clattering in shock.

“DOWN! GET HIM DOWN!!” Rinaldi yelled. 

But just as fast as he woke, Sinister’s strength vanishes. His grip slackens. His body shakes violently, then collapses back against the table, the doctor falling beside him, coughing. He’s unconscious again, maybe barely hanging on to life.

The silence that follows is deafening. Every heartbeat in the room feels like a countdown.

Rinaldi snapped out of his shock. "What the hell are you standing around for?! INTUBATE. NOW. Move your asses!”

They surge into action once more. Blood is suctioned, air pumped, chest compressed, adrenaline injected. But even as they work, everyone in the room shares the same look:

This one might not make it.

The second set of doors bursts open just as the overhead monitors blare with a steady high-pitched flatline.

Mohawk Mark lies on the table, barely clinging to life. His blood pressure is tanking, his chest riddled with lacerations. His signature Mohawk—torn, scorched, and matted with blood—barely clings to his scalp.

Doctor Hensley barks out orders like a battlefield general. “Vein’s open—clamp it now! Get me more units of O-neg, he’s bleeding out through his entire damn arm!”

A nurse clamps down, but a sudden beeping shift cuts through the chaos—

“V-fib! He’s fibrillating!”

The monitor erupts into a chaotic dance of erratic spikes. Mohawk’s chest convulses slightly—his heart’s gone into a deadly rhythm.

“Defib pads—charging to 300! Clear!” Hensley orders. They slam the paddles down—

THUMP.

His body jerks violently, then slumps. Still fibrillating.

“Again! 360! Clear!” Hensley repeated. 

THUMP.

No change.

The tension in the room sharpens like a blade. A young intern mutters a prayer under their breath.

“One more time. 360. Full charge. Clear—now!” Hensley cries, and once again—

THUUUMP.

A tense beat of silence, then a BEEP. And another. And another. The erratic lines on the monitor stabilize into a slow, uncertain rhythm. Mohawk’s chest begins to rise and fall on its own.

“He’s back…” A nurse whispered breathlessly. 

“Welcome back, kid…” Hensley barely whispered. 

They resume their work without another word—suturing, clamping, stabilizing. In the harsh lights above the table, Mohawk Mark lies unconscious, but alive.

Barely.

This room is quieter—not due to a lack of urgency, but from the intensity of the work being done. 

The team huddles around Full Mask Mark, whose iconic black and blue suit have been peeled away, exposing a body far more fragile than any of them expected. The sight gives several staff pause.

“He’s... he's skeletal.” Dr. Kapoor said, visibly shaken. 

Full Mask’s torso is torn open, stomach lining shredded, organs displaced and bleeding profusely. But that’s not what stuns the team.

Underneath the suit, his body is dangerously thin—ribs protruding, muscle mass severely diminished. His limbs are stick-like, and his hip bones jut out as though barely covered by skin. There's evidence of malnourishment, maybe even prolonged starvation.

“Check vitals—how the hell was he fighting like this?” A surgeon muttered. 

“Blood pressure’s unstable—he's going into shock!” A nurse cried. 

Dr. Kapoor doesn’t respond at first. He’s staring at the hollowed-out stomach wound, hands hovering as he quickly weighs the order of procedures in his head.

“Get a spinal board ready. From the way he dropped, I’m betting on L2 or L3 damage. Notify neurosurgery. And—someone make a note of this weight profile. Possible anorexia or... long-term caloric restriction. Maybe even self-inflicted.” Kapoor finally instructed. 

“Why would he starve himself?” An intern asked quietly to himself. 

“I don’t know. But the suit hid it from all of us. He didn’t want anyone to see this.” Kapoor said grimly. 

They get back to work, slicing, stitching, suctioning. The monitor beeps rapidly, every second a brutal reminder that his body wasn’t built for this level of trauma—even as a Viltrumite hybrid.

“Should we sedate deeper?” A nurse asked. 

“No time. Stomach’s in pieces. If he makes it through the night, we’ll re-evaluate. Right now, we keep him alive.” Kapoor said. 

The surgeon’s hands move with mechanical precision as the others follow suit, sweat dripping down their brows. Blood pools, veins are clamped, and the clock ticks. 

The sterile corridor is filled with tense voices, flickering monitors, and the muffled chaos of battle-hardened surgeons fighting to keep gods alive.

The metal doors SLAM OPEN.

Debbie Grayson storms through, tears already welling in her eyes. Her breathing is frantic, shallow, borderline panicked.

“Where is he?! Where’s my—where are they?!”

Cecil and Donald follow behind, trying—and failing—to stop her.

“Debbie, you shouldn’t be here. We said we’d update you—” Cecil started. 

“No. No more updates. I want to see my son. I don’t care which one. I just—” Debbie said, furious, as she rounds the corner—and freezes.

Behind a thick glass observation window, surgeons are clustered around the surgical table where Maskless Mark lies, chest cracked, abdomen torn, face exposed to the world—her son’s face, staring lifeless up at the ceiling, even if the resemblance is just one of many.

Suddenly, his body seizes violently.

“He’s seizing! Epileptic episode—we’re losing control of the airway!” A nurse voice’s said, muffled behind the glass. 

“Get the stabilizer! He’s gonna throw himself off the table—hold him down!” A surgeon barked. 

The room explodes into a frenzy of movement, arms trying to pin Maskless Mark as his body thrashes uncontrollably, muscles locking in violent, involuntary convulsions. His head slams back against the table, blood smearing across the pillow.

Debbie stares. Then collapses to the floor like a string has been cut. Her knees hit the tile, arms bracing her fall, but her eyes never leave that window. The tears fall freely now, soaking into her sleeves as a quiet, broken sob escapes her lips.

“That’s my son… that’s my boy…” Debbie said, shaken. 

“Debbie… that’s not your Mark.” Donald said softly. 

But it doesn’t matter. Not anymore. Because in a way… it is.

Every scream, every gasp, every bloody incision—

It is Mark.

Just in eight different bodies. Eight variations. Eight tragedies.

She presses her palm against the glass as the doctors manage to stabilize Maskless Mark’s seizure. But the beeping continues—erratic, fragile, teetering.

“Why… why did they come back if this was what waited for them?” Debbie’s voice was barely a whisper. 

Cecil can’t answer. Donald won’t.

And Debbie, on the ground, can only watch—helpless—as the battle her son never stopped fighting continues behind glass and steel and blood-soaked gloves.

The heavy doors shut behind Cecil, muffling Debbie’s sobs. His jaw is locked, fists clenched at his sides as his boots slam against the sterile floor.

“Donald. Talk. Now.”

Donald, walking briskly to catch up, adjusts his clipboard, his synthetic parts whirring softly beneath his skin.

“They’re all in bad shape. But… Prisoner Mark…” He trails off, and Cecil turns to him, his expression darkening like a stormcloud.

“Spit it out.” Cecil demanded. 

“His entire body’s been burned. First and second-degree over most of his skin, some third-degree along his back and chest. His muscles are severely atrophied—he barely walked into the fight with Conquest, let alone survived it.” Donald scrolls through his tablet, pulling up internal scans and injury logs that look more like autopsy results than vital signs.

“There’s… signs of long-term imprisonment. He was held in a Viltrumite prison in his reality. For over a year.” Donald said quietly. 

Cecil turns away, his brow furrowed, jaw tightening. He exhales sharply through his nose, the guilt crawling up his throat like bile.

“Internal scarring. Repeated organ damage. Neurological impairment. And…”

“And what?” Cecil asked coldly. 

Donald, with visible discomfort, finally said. “Seventy-eight percent vision loss. They… they blinded him, Cecil. Or tried to. Most of it’s from retinal scarring and optic nerve trauma. Could’ve been the prison. Could’ve been Conquest. Could’ve been both.”

Cecil doesn’t respond. He just stands there, staring at the cold, blinking light on the hospital ceiling. The weight of command—the cost of choices made—presses down on him.

“He’s not the only one. They all came here wanting to change. To do better. And we let them walk into hell again.” Donald murmured. 

“We didn’t let them. They chose it.” Cecil said quietly. 

“They chose to be better. And this is what they got.” Donald corrected. 

Cecil finally turns, his eyes sharp but tired—like a man who hasn’t slept since before the war even ended.

“Get me updates every thirty minutes. If even one of them flatlines, I want to know before the monitors do.” 

Donald nods. But before he walks away, he says one last thing.

“Cecil… how much longer are we going to let kids pay the price for our mistakes?”

Cecil doesn’t answer. Because he doesn’t know anymore.

The alarms are shrieking. Red light pulses above the door. Inside the sterile room, it's chaos—but it’s not loud. It’s fast. Controlled panic. The kind of silence that only happens when a patient is seconds from dying.

Omni-Mark lies half-covered in surgical sheets, but what’s visible is horrific. The entire right side of his body is burned raw. Skin sloughed off, tissue blackened. His arm is missing its glove, and the muscle beneath trembles like it's trying to reform itself through sheer will.

But that’s not the problem right now.

“Vein rupture in the carotid! He’s hemorrhaging—!” A nurse cried. 

“Pressure! Give me pressure now! Clamp and suction!” Doctor Holland ordered. 

Blood fountains from the side of Omni-Mark’s neck, pooling rapidly onto the table and dripping to the floor with a horrifying rhythm. The suction tube gurgles, struggling to keep up. And then—

GASP

Omni-Mark chokes, his eyes snapping open. Wild. Alert. Desperate. He tries to sit up, reflexively clawing at his throat, but he can't breathe. He’s drowning in his own blood.

“Hold him down! He’ll tear the sutures—Hold him down!”

Even now, Omni-Mark is fighting.

Burned. Broken. Bleeding to death—and he still won’t let go.

He gurgles a raw, wet noise from the back of his throat, teeth bloodstained, eyes wide with fury and terror. A fighter trying to muscle his way out of death itself.

“He’s—he’s too strong—he’s lifting the entire table!” A nurse cried, half in awe and half in worry. 

The metal creaks beneath his twitching body, muscles spasming uncontrollably. For a second, it’s like Conquest is still standing above him, and Omni-Mark is trying to rise one more time.

“Clamp it—right now, or he’s dead.” Doctor Hollander attempted one final, desperate push—

CLINK.

CLAMP.

The bleeding slows.

Omni-Mark’s body sags back down, twitching. He gurgles again—quieter this time. Eyes fluttering shut as the adrenaline fades. His chest rises and falls, ragged and shallow, lungs struggling to draw breath past the blood.

“Vitals stabilizing. Barely.” A nurse said breathlessly. 

“Jesus… how is he still fighting?” Doctor Holland asked quietly. 

No one answers. Because this isn’t just survival. This is defiance.

A man who looks like a god refusing to die like a mortal.

And somewhere in the haze of blood and fire, Omni-Mark’s hand curls into a weak fist. He’s not done. Not yet.

It’s another warzone. The clean white walls of the GDA operating room are splattered with blood, and most of it is coming from the gaping wound on Viltrumite Mark’s left side.

“He’s losing too much blood—we have to cauterize!” Doctor Wu shouted. 

The arm is gone—ripped clean off just below the shoulder. All that’s left is exposed bone, shredded muscle, and a ragged hole where his arm once was. The severed tendons twitch reflexively as if still searching for what’s missing.

“Vitals plummeting! Pressure’s not holding!” A nurse cried. 

Blood pumps out with every heartbeat. Even a Viltrumite can’t survive this forever.

“Get the fusion clamp and the cauterizer! Now!” Doctor Wu snapped. 

A nurse hurries in with a hot-metal cautery rod, its tip glowing like a star. They don't have time to sterilize. They barely have time to breathe.

“On my count—three… two—now!”

SSSSSSSSSSHHHHHHH—!!

They slam the searing rod into the wound, pressing down hard. The room fills with the stench of burning Viltrumite flesh and the agonized, unconscious groan from Viltrumite Mark’s clenched teeth.

“He’s seizing—!”

His back arches off the table, every muscle convulsing as his body rejects the trauma. His remaining hand claws at the table edge, crushing steel.

“Keep him down—he’ll tear the ligaments in his spine!” Doctor Wu instructs. 

The cauterizer does its job—but it’s far from clean. The wound still oozes, still pulses with unspent rage and blood. But the bleeding has slowed.

“Bleeding stabilized... for now.” A nurse panted. 

“He’s lucky we didn’t lose the whole shoulder. What that... thing Conquest did to him—it nearly tore him in half.” Doctor Wu mumbled. 

The medical team stares at the barely-breathing figure of Viltrumite Mark—jaw clenched, brow furrowed, even in unconsciousness radiating defiance and barely-contained wrath.

“Viltrumite or not… no one walks away from this.” Doctor Wu murmured softly. 

She looks at the stump of his arm. At the blood soaking the floor. And wonders if he’ll wake up and mourn the loss—or weaponize it.

The room is chaos wrapped in white coats and bloodstained gloves. Stripevincible lies on the table, his body torn in multiple places, a shattered ribcage visible beneath peeled-back tissue. His iconic striped suit has been stripped away, leaving only blood-soaked flesh and exposed vulnerability.

Suddenly—

“AAGHHHHHHHHHH!!!” His eyes snap open, wild and full of pure, animal panic.

“He’s awake! Jesus—he’s awake during the thoracic procedure—!” Doctor Ramsay shouts. 

Stripevincible lurches upward, screaming in agony as the pain floods in. His body spasms, arms flailing, blood spurting from reopened incisions. One doctor is nearly knocked backward.

“Get me off—get me off the table—! No more! I can’t—I can’t—!!” He gasps, feral.  

“He’s tearing through the chest restraints!” A nurse cried. 

“Give him 10ccs of propofol—NOW!” Doctor Ramsay barks. 

A needle is jammed into a port in his neck, but it’s not fast enough. Stripevincible grabs a scalpel from a nearby tray, acting purely on survival instinct, and the room erupts into a storm of shouts and clanging metal.

“He’s delirious! He doesn’t know where he is!” A nurse cried worriedly. 

Two assistants wrestle the scalpel from his trembling hand as his vision begins to blur—his blood pressure crashing under the weight of fear and injury.

“We’re losing him! Sedative’s not enough—prep for physical restraint!” Doctor Ramsay orders urgently. And just when they think they can’t bring him down—

“I… I was trying to help…” Stripevincible weakly whispered, his body slumping, the scream dies in his throat, and his eyes roll back.

The room goes still. The monitors beep softly—his vitals stabilizing again—but the emotional toll hangs thick in the air.

“God… these poor bastards.” Doctor Ramsay mumbled quietly. 

He looks at the unconscious Stripevincible—covered in blood, skin bruised and broken, yet still wearing a faint expression of guilt even in sleep.

“They didn’t deserve this.”

Debbie Grayson is on the cold, sterile floor, trembling, tears streaming down her face as she stares—horrified—through the observation window.

Inside, Maskless Mark is convulsing violently on the table, restrained by multiple doctors. His face—identical to her son’s—is twisted in seizure. Tubes feed into his nose, mouth, veins. His body jerks as if being electrocuted, and Debbie can't stop seeing her son. Her Mark.

“Please… please make it stop…” She choked out. 

Cecil stands behind her, stiff with guilt. Donald speaks softly into an earpiece, his brow suddenly furrowing. He turns.

“Sir… there’s something else.” Cecil looks at him, dread already sinking into his gut.

“What is it now?” He says gruffly. 

Donald hesitates, then pulls Cecil aside and lowers his voice. “Mark—the one from this dimension, our Mark—he started vomiting in his sleep.”

Cecil stiffens.

“Projectile. Nurses barely rolled him to his side in time. He's burning up. Fever spiked. Could be internal damage we missed... or neurological.” Donald listed. 

Cecil looks toward Debbie. He knows what this will do. She’s already suffered enough. But Debbie sees his face. The way they’ve gone quiet. She’s a mother—she knows.

“What happened to him…?” She asked hoarsely. 

“He’s… he’s not doing well. He started vomiting in his sleep. It might be… a complication from the fight with Angstrom.” Cecil said as gently as he can.

Her hand flies to her mouth. She stumbles to her feet, body trembling, as if her knees could give out again at any second.

“No… no, please, not my Mark too.” Debbie said, her voice breaking. 

She stares at them, heart shattered beyond repair. Behind her, Maskless Mark is being stabilized. Across the hall, another gurney speeds by. Another variant bleeding out.

But now—her Mark—her real son—is in danger again.

And Debbie Grayson breaks.

She lets out a guttural sob, one that doesn’t sound human. One that comes from a place only a mother can reach—where love and fear are indistinguishable.

“I CAN’T DO THIS! I CAN’T WATCH HIM DIE AGAIN!”

She collapses again. But this time, Cecil kneels beside her.

He doesn’t offer words. What could he possibly say?

All he can do is kneel there. Amid the flickering lights, the alarms, and the echoes of battle they’re still paying for.

A team of doctors rushes a stretcher down the hall. On it lies the mainstream Mark Grayson, pale and feverish, a trail of vomit on the side of his gown. His body is barely responding, every breath rattling, fever baking his insides.

“He’s going septic—fever’s spiked, and we need to check for brain swelling!” 

His eyes flutter open, blurred and heavy with exhaustion. He sees the fluorescent lights above, flickering as the ceiling zooms past. Then his gaze shifts.

His head turns just slightly to the side. And he sees them.

Delirious, Mark sees flashes between the operating rooms. 

—Sinister Mark’s skull split open, doctors working frantically to drain the cranial swelling. Blood pools near his temple. He convulses again—

—Mohawk Mark flatlining once more. Chest compressions begin. Again. Again. His hand twitches—

—Full Mask Mark’s chest cavity wide open, stomach lining exposed. Doctors struggle to keep his organs from shutting down. His body is disturbingly thin beneath the surgical lights— 

—Maskless Mark strapped to the table, tears streaming down his cheeks even while unconscious. He sobs silently as the seizure takes him again—

—Prisoner Mark wrapped in blackened, flaking skin. The burns go down to the bone. He’s breathing only because machines are breathing for him —

—There’s a gory stump where Viltrumite Mark’s arm once was. Still bleeding. Still twitching—

—Half of Omni-Mark’s face is melted. His body is rigid with determination, even as he chokes on his own blood, refusing to die—

—Stripevincible’s body jerking, limbs moving erratically, mouth open in a scream that doesn’t come. Straps are the only thing holding him down—

Mark’s eyes widen, trembling, horrified beyond comprehension. His other selves—his “brothers”—are being torn apart, gutted, broken, humiliated.

Each room is another mirror of pain. Of failure. Of guilt.

It becomes too much.

“AHHHHH—!!” Mark’s scream rips from his chest—raw, animalistic, a cry not just of terror, but of helpless grief. He doesn’t sound human. He sounds feral. Shattered.

“AHHHHHHHHHHHHH—!” He thrashes on the gurney, a sudden burst of strength, tears mixing with sweat on his face. And then—

SLAM.

The doors to the operating room shut in his face, muffling the scream to silence.

Mark lies still now, chest heaving, eyes leaking silent tears as the doctors swarm around him.

“He saw them. He saw all of them...” A doctor whispered softly.

“No one should have to.” A nurse said. 

“He did.” The same doctor mumbled. 

And now, Mark Grayson is next.

The light overhead flickers again. Then darkness. 

The lights flicker slightly as Cecil Stedman stands alone at the monitor bank, fingers pinching the bridge of his nose. He’s aged ten years in a day. His voice, when it comes, is raw.

“Get me Robot. Now.” He says in the comms. 

A moment later, the holoscreen flickers to life. Rudy Connors—Robot—appears. His face is as calm and composed as always, but there’s a heavy exhaustion behind his eyes. A sadness that hasn't left since Rex died.

“Cecil. You’re aware that the Guardians are still regrouping. Half the team is mourning, the other half is still recovering.” He said flatly. 

“I don’t give a damn about regrouping right now.” Cecil said, gritting his teeth. 

“Rex is dead. The others are fractured. The Invincible War decimated our ranks, and then Conquest nearly finished the job. And now you want what—more soldiers? More strategy?” Robot spat out venomously. 

Cecil then slammed the console. “I want help, Rudy!” 

Robot pauses. Cecil never yells. Not like this.

Cecil’s voice started to crack. “I’ve got nine different Mark Graysons in this goddamn facility, each one clinging to life by a damn thread. NINE. That’s not a crisis, that’s a cosmic joke. That’s some kind of sick multiversal sundae from hell and guess what? I’m stuck holding the damn spoon!”

Robot blinks, taken aback.

Cecil’s voice was softer now, but no less bitter. “One Mark almost dying is bad enough. But nine? Nine versions of the same goddamn kid… each one broken, bleeding, burning, screaming…”

His voice trails off. He breathes heavily as he looks away. “I don’t have enough doctors. I don’t have enough time. And I sure as hell don’t have enough miracles.”

A beat.

Robot finally speaks again, quieter this time.

“...What do you need?”

Cecil turns back to the screen, his eyes sunken but locked with purpose.

“Triage. Tech. Anything you’ve got left that can stabilize Viltrumite biology. I don’t care if it’s half-built or still in your damn sketchbook. We don’t let these kids die. Not after what they did to try and make things right.” Cecil ordered firmly. 

A pause. Robot nods solemnly.“Understood. I’ll be there within the hour.”

The transmission then ends. Cecil exhales, long and hard, rubbing his face.

“God help us all…”

All nine operating rooms—alarms blaring, doctors shouting, machines screaming—like a goddamn war zone.

Because for the Mark Graysons? It is.

Cecil’s hand still rests on the edge of the holotable, the tension in his shoulders barely contained. His jaw works like he’s grinding gravel between his teeth. He doesn’t even flinch when Donald Ferguson enters in a brisk, half-panicked walk, panting. 

“Sir—! Sir—I’ve got something. Good news. Actually good.”

Cecil turns, weary eyes meeting Donald’s bespectacled ones.

“Then spit it out.” His voice was flat. 

“It’s Conquest, sir. He’s dead.” Donald reveals. “I just got word from forensics. The combined effort of all eight variant Marks—they didn’t just beat him. They killed him. Broke his neck, ruptured half his organs, and caved his skull in. It’s over.”

There’s a heavy pause.

Cecil breathes in. Slowly. And for a brief, fleeting second, his eyes close. Not in relief. Not yet.

“And the body?” He asks. 

“Still intact. Barely.” Donald says. “We could store it. Keep it in cryo-stasis. Hell, with enough power, we could revive him. Interrogate him. There’s probably a goldmine of intel in his head. Secrets of the Viltrumite Empire. Weaknesses. Strategy. If he wakes up—”

Cecil cut him off. “I know.”

Cecil looks off, staring at a screen still flickering with vitals from the nine operating rooms.

He sees the flatlining spikes, the panicked readings, the blood pressure drops. He hears the screams from earlier echoing in his skull.

All from boys who look just like the kid he’s spent months training, encouraging, and eventually betrayed. 

And suddenly, he doesn’t feel strategic.

He just feels done.

“Burn him.” Cecil said, voice low. Dark. 

“Sir?” Donald blinks. 

Cecil turned to him. “Burn him, Donald. No vaults. No interrogation. No labs. I want him gone. Incinerate the body until there’s not even dust left to sweep.”

“He doesn’t get to come back.” Cecil’s voice was cold. 

Donald stares at him. Sees something in his expression that shakes even his mechanical core.

“Yes, sir.” He turns and leaves.

Cecil stays there, still as a statue.

“Not after what he did to my goddamn kid…” He says to himself, his voice barely a whisper. He glanced back at the monitors. “Any version of him." 

The bright overhead lights buzz faintly, casting a sterile glow over Mark Grayson, who lies strapped to the table, half-conscious, half-delirious. His breathing is ragged. His muscles twitch involuntarily.

His head rolls to the side. Through the hazy blur of his vision, he sees glass. Just beyond it—another room. Another operating table. Another him.

Maybe it’s Mohawk Mark, maybe Sinister, maybe Maskless—it’s impossible to tell. They all look the same now.

Mark weakly speaks, his voice cracked. “No… wait… no, don’t… I have to—”

His arm lifts slightly off the table before flopping down again with a pitiful slap.

The doctors around him try to stabilize his vitals, confused and increasingly worried.

“He’s crashing—no, wait—what the hell is this?”

Mark suddenly starts coughing, choking on something that won’t come out. He turns his head, jaw hanging open, and—

Clear fluid begins to pour from his nostrils. First just nasal discharge. Then blood. Thick, dark red blood.

“He’s hemorrhaging—cranial pressure’s off the charts!” A doctor said, alarmed. 

“Is this a rupture?! Someone get neurosurgery prepped, NOW!” Another ordered. 

Mark’s back arches slightly off the bed as his body begins to convulse. He isn’t fully seizing, but it’s close. His vision swims again. His eyes flutter.

And in his cracked mind, he sees them all again. His “brothers.”

Mohawk Mark, being shocked back to life.

Sinister, foaming at the mouth, surrounded by panic.

Prisoner, bandaged like a corpse.

Full Mask, thin as bone, organs on display.

Omni-Mark, bleeding, burning, fighting.

Maskless, crying.

Viltrumite, armless.

Stripevincible, screaming.

“I’m… I’m still here…” Mark’s voice was barely a whisper. 

But then his eyes roll back, and a sudden spurt of blood sprays from his nostrils again as his body finally goes limp.

The machines wail.

“We’re losing him—he needs a cranial tap or he’s gonna—!”

“Get him under and move fast—we don’t have time!” A doctor stated. 

They scramble, but focus lingers on Mark’s pale, bloodied face.

Nine Invincibles.

Nine disasters.

One nightmare of a war still echoing in their bodies.

The elevator doors slide open with a mechanical hiss, revealing Rudy Connors—Robot’s human form. He steps out in his standard Guardian uniform, face as stoic as ever, but his eyes scan the chaos with subtle unease.

Nurses and agents rush past him in every direction. The once-sterile medical wing now feels like a warzone triage.

Rudy moves forward with quiet purpose—until he rounds the corner and comes face to face with Mark Grayson’s operating room through a window. His calm demeanor cracks—just slightly.

“Pressure’s spiking again! He’s hemorrhaging from the sinuses—get more suction—!” A doctor’s voice was muffled behind glass. 

Mark is convulsing on the table. Blood drips freely from his nostrils despite the packing, smearing across his face in thick streaks. His head thrashes left and right as a low gurgle escapes his throat.

And then—he vomits.

Violently. Uncontrollably.

A stream of bile mixed with blood spills from his mouth, splattering across the sheets and floor. The doctors nearly fall over trying to suction it out before he chokes.

“He’s aspirating! We need to intubate or he’ll drown in his own vomit—!”

“Forget the tap—we need a crash scope now!”

Rudy stands motionless, watching through the glass. For a moment, he says nothing. But his fingers twitch at his sides.

“This is… worse than the simulations.” He says flatly to himself. He finally turns toward a nearby nurse rushing by. “Get me access to their vitals. All of them. Now.”

“Y-You mean the variants?” The nurse asked, visibly out of breath. 

“Yes. Every Mark Grayson currently in critical condition.” Rudy stated. 

He looks back through the glass, watching as they strap a mask over Mark’s face and attempt to keep him from suffocating in his own fluids.

“I won’t let him die. Not any of them.” Rudy said quietly. His words aren’t dramatic. They aren’t even emotional.

But they’re firm.

Prisoner Mark lies strapped down on a surgical table, his body a map of agony. Third-degree burns stretch across his skin, still angry and raw. He’s missing all of his hair. His milky, unfocused eyes twitch in panic as voices echo around him. The surgical lights above burn like miniature suns.

His head turns—frantically.

“N-no… no, not again… please…” Prisoner Mark rasps. 

The doctors crowd around, trying to stabilize him. A small group prepares an anti-inflammatory injection, another checks his vitals. But to Prisoner Mark, their voices distort, overlapping into guttural, deep Viltrumite growls.

“BP rising—he’s going into a panic response—” A doctor cries just as Prisoner Mark starts straining. 

“Don’t lock me in! Don’t—DON’T PUT ME BACK IN THE DARK!”

He suddenly lashes out, jerking his weakened body against the straps. He can’t see. He can’t tell if this is real. The sensation of being touched, probed—it’s too much.

He screams. “I served my sentence! I served it!!”

His voice cracks as his lungs give out from the effort. One hand slips free, weakened but still dangerous, swiping in the direction of a doctor.

“He’s gonna rip his IV out—SOMEONE—!” A nurse slams a needle into the access port. The sedative hits his bloodstream fast. “He’s still fighting it, dammit—double the dose—!”

Prisoner Mark’s voice falls to a pained whisper as his arm drops. “I don’t… want to go back… into the dark…”

His eyes flutter shut.

Machines beep. The team exhales.

“Poor bastard must’ve gone through hell…” A doctor exhaled softly. 

His vitals stabilize… barely. But his trauma lingers in every unconscious twitch.

The fluorescent lights hum above as Cecil, arms crossed and jaw tight, watches a monitor display flickering vitals for each of the nine Mark Graysons. His usual stoicism cracking even more. Standing beside him are Debbie, eyes hollow from crying, and Rudy, recently arrived and already hunched over a tablet pulling live updates from the OR floors. Donald stands just behind them, quiet, uneasy.

"I’ve run the scans twice just to be sure… but it’s bad." Rudy says grimly. He lifts his head, locking eyes with Cecil and Debbie.

"Maskless Mark’s kidneys have failed. Beyond recovery. Stripevincible has a punctured lung that keeps collapsing, even after reinflation. And... we think Mohawk Mark’s heart is going into full systemic failure. It’s not responding to the defibrillator anymore." Rudy listed quietly. 

Debbie gasps audibly, clutching her mouth. Cecil clenches a fist.

Cecil then asked gruffly. "So what do we need? Transplants?"

Rudy nods, hesitant. "We need viable organs. And Viltrumite-compatible tissue. Earth-grown alternatives won’t cut it for them, not in time."

Cecil turns, staring at a blank wall for a moment—his jaw working. Then he speaks, low and intense. "Use the dead ones. From the Invincible War. There were dozens—"

Donald’s eyes flick upward, alarmed.

"Wait… Sir. You mean the dead alternate Marks? The ones we kept preserved for the Reanimen Project?"

"Shut it down. All of it. This is more important." Cecil said coldly. 

Donald pauses, stunned by how fast Cecil abandoned his own black ops program. Debbie stares at him with wet, red-rimmed eyes.

"You're using their bodies to save the ones still alive…?" She asked, so incredulously she nearly wanted to laugh. Any other time, she would’ve been furious that Cecil was doing something so dark and twisted with the dead bodies of different versions of her son, but she was too emotionally exhausted to care at this point. 

Cecil’s voice was quiet but firm. "We owe them that much. After everything… after what they did to stop Conquest…"

"It’s poetic, in a way. The ones who fell... keeping the others alive." Rudy mumbled softly. 

Cecil’s phone buzzes. He ignores it.

"Prep your labs. I want this done by dawn." He tells Rudy, who nods. 

"...And what about the Reanimen research?" Donald asks, unsure. 

"Burn it." Cecil doesn’t even turn back. 

He walks away with his suit coat whipping behind him as Debbie slowly lowers herself to a chair, trembling hands pressed together.

"Please… let them live. Just let one of them live through this." Her voice is barely a whisper. 

A flurry of surgeons and nurses move around the table. Sinister Mark lies still, barely stable, skull fractures stitched, cranial swelling subdued just enough for them to work on his damaged internals. The air is tense—machines beep erratically, nurses call out vitals, a monitor blares an oxygen drop.

Suddenly—

"...blood…" Sinister gasps out weakly, gravelly. Everyone freezes for a second.

"He’s awake!" A nurse cried. 

"Get a sedative—" A doctor started. 

"Not... that... blood. I need blood..." Sinister continued, his voice barely audible. 

His lips are dry and cracked. His eyelids flutter, his voice almost sounds like a plea from beyond the grave. He winces in pain but turns his head ever so slightly. The doctors glance at one another in confusion.

Just then, from a nearby operating bed partitioned only by a curtain, Omni-Mark, his body half-wrapped in surgical flame-dampeners and deep grafts, groans and lifts his head, barely conscious.

"...he’s telling the truth…" Omni-Mark managed weakly. "He doesn’t… eat like us. No food. No IV. Just blood."

"He drinks it?" A nurse hesitated, confused and slightly disturbed. 

"He’s going into systemic shock—we don’t have time to question it!" A doctor stated. 

One of the nurses bolts from the room and returns moments later with a chilled blood pack from the vampire-specific reserves the GDA keeps on hand—usually for classified non-human agents.

The lead surgeon tears it open, unsure, then gently lifts Sinister Mark’s head.

"Come on, kid. If this is what you need—" He urges. 

The blood is poured carefully into his mouth, crimson streaming over his lips and down his throat. Sinister Mark coughs—but then gulps.

And gulps again.

His pale face gains a ghost of color. His heartbeat stabilizes slightly on the monitor.

"His vitals are improving!" A nurse said, visible stunned. 

"Then keep feeding him. Don’t stop." The doctor declared. 

They grab more packs. Sinister Mark, barely conscious, murmurs hoarsely: "…thanks…"

He collapses again into unconsciousness, but this time, his body is a little more stable. The team immediately returns to work, sewing, sealing, and scrambling to keep him alive as his unorthodox healing begins.

From above, Rudy watches through the window, recording the results, noting to his mic: “Sinister variant appears to be part-vampiric or blood-symbiotic. Adjust long-term treatment protocols accordingly. Allocate vampire reserves."

Behind him, Debbie still watches, barely able to process the horror of it all.

Cecil, arms folded, doesn’t say anything. But his jaw tightens once again.

The atmosphere is dim, clinical, and crackling with tension. 

Holographic displays show the real-time vitals of Full Mask Mark and Stripevincible—both critical. Monitors ping off deep red alerts. Blood levels dangerously low. 

Debbie, tear-streaked and silently shaking, watches in the background. Cecil stands beside her, arms crossed, trying to keep his fury and fear in check.

The sliding doors open with a hiss. Robot enters, face unreadable, holding a clipboard with data projections.

"We have another problem." He stated grimly. 

Cecil sighs, almost laughing at the idea of more bad news. Debbie doesn’t even react—she's emotionally numb at this point.

"Of course we do. Let me guess. More bleeding? More dying? Another organ failure?" Cecil asked, exhausted. 

"Worse. Full Mask Mark and Stripevincible both require Viltrumite-compatible transfusions immediately. Their bodies are rejecting standard human blood."

"So give them Mark’s." Cecil said. 

Rudy shook his head. "Mark is already in critical condition. His body cannot afford to lose a single drop." 

Cecil mutters under his breath and turns away, rubbing his temples. "Nolan's off-world. And all the other Viltrumites either want us dead or kneeling at their feet. Fantastic."

"There is one potential donor." Rudy says, unsure, and Cecil stiffens.

"You’ve got to be joking." He spat. 

"The Immortal." Rudy revealed, not particularly liking this fact either. 

The silence that follows feels like a thunderclap. Debbie slowly looks up, eyes wide.

"You're serious?" She asked softly. 

"He possesses capacities that are nearly equal to that of a Viltrumite. He's the only viable match. His regenerative blood might be enough to stabilize them both." Rudy explained. 

"You do realize he’d rather be crucified than give his blood to any Grayson—let alone two more who look just like Mark." Cecil said, tense. 

"I am aware. That is why I’m not the one asking." Rudy turns and looks directly at Cecil. "You are."

"Son of a..." Cecil curses under his breath. He looks at Debbie, whose lips tremble.

"Please, Cecil. You have to try. Whatever the Immortal hates about Nolan... about Mark... this isn’t just them. They're people. They tried to do the right thing. They're trying to be better." She pleased. 

Cecil pauses, staring out one of the reinforced glass walls where Stripevincible convulses gently on a gurney while Full Mask Mark is still cut open and bleeding out beneath feverish hands.

"I’m gonna regret this..." Cecil muttered. 

The Immortal is seated in quiet contemplation, his face grim, tired... and deeply suspicious as the GDA agents escort Cecil in. He doesn’t get up.

"If you came here for my help with another one of your multi-Mark disasters, you can turn your wrinkled ass around and go straight to hell." Immortal said firmly. 

Cecil doesn’t even flinch. He steps forward.

"I didn’t come here to beg. I came here because they’ll die, and like it or not... you’re the only one who can stop that." Cecil’s voice was low, firm. 

The Immortal snaps. "You expect me to bleed for Nolan’s legacy?! For those copies?! You know what his kind did to this world!"

"They know too. Because they lived it. They fought Conquest so ours wouldn't have to. And now they’re dying. You don’t have to like it. Hell, you can hate them for the rest of your ridiculously expanded life. But if you let them die when you could’ve saved them, then you’re no better than him." Cecil stated, hands firmly on his hips. 

The room goes quiet. The Immortal clenches his jaw. His fists tremble.

"...Damn you, Cecil."

"Already am."

The Immortal glares down at Cecil, arms crossed, posture unyielding.

“I said no, and that’s final. I’m retired. I’ve lost too much to keep playing savior for a world that keeps falling apart. Let them die. I’m done.”

Cecil sighs, looking toward the door—but it’s Debbie who storms in, eyes blazing, face streaked with tears, fists clenched so tight her knuckles go white.

“You selfish bastard.”

The Immortal turns, surprised—just in time for Debbie to SLAP him hard across the face. It ECHOES through the cold metal chamber. The guards flinch.

Immortal growls. “You’re out of line, Debbie—”

“No. You don’t get to say a damn thing. Not this time.” Debbie was furious. She steps right up to him, face inches from his chest, eyes burning into his.

“You’ve spent the last year hating my son for something he didn’t do—just because it was easier than admitting your grudge was always about your damn ego.”

The Immortal scowls, but says nothing. Debbie doesn't let up. “You hated Nolan not just because he killed the Guardians. You hated him because the day he showed up, you weren’t the strongest man on Earth anymore. You weren’t the symbol. He was. That’s what this has always been about.”

“And when Nolan betrayed us, when he broke everything... that was your excuse. You finally had a reason to justify the hatred you were already drowning in.” The Immortal’s jaw tightens. His eyes glint with barely restrained emotion, but Debbie’s not done.

“But you know what? Nolan’s not here anymore. And somehow... you’re still angry. So you take it out on Mark. My Mark. Every Mark. Doesn’t matter how different they are. You just see his face and throw all your bitterness at it.” Her voice was shaky. 

She jabs a finger into his chest, hard. “Well, guess what? That boy—those boys—fought to save people. They fought even when it broke them. Even when they were already broken. They stood up to Conquest while you sat in whatever cave you’ve been hiding in.”

“And now you’re saying their lives aren’t worth your precious blood? You say you’ve lost too much? I’m watching nine versions of my son die right in front of me. Don’t you dare talk to me about loss.” This time, Debbie’s voice really did crack. 

The Immortal doesn’t speak. He doesn’t move. For once, the centuries-old warrior is just quiet.

Debbie shakes her head, eyes filled with disgust. “You were never a hero. Just a bitter old man who hated being replaced.” Her voice was low. 

She walks out, brushing past Cecil—who says nothing—and disappears through the door, leaving the Immortal alone in his silence, blood still fresh on his cheek.

Eve rushes past confused guards, her pink aura still fading from the erratic atomic energy burst that got her there. Her boots echo down the corridor as she turns the corner—just in time to catch the devastating sight beyond the glass walls of the emergency surgery chambers.

Her breath catches in her throat.

Behind glass, chaos reigns:

Sinister Mark, skull bandaged, mouth smeared in blood as he weakly sips from a cup.

Mohawk Mark, flatlining again as doctors scream for the defibrillator.

Maskless Mark, mid-seizure as nurses pin his convulsing limbs down.

Full Mask Mark, his bony frame exposed, stomach shredded, spine possibly severed.

Prisoner Mark, twitching in sedation, burns like charcoal still fresh.

Stripevincible, jerking on the table, one lung collapsed, blood spilling from his mouth.

Viltrumite Mark, unconscious, cauterized shoulder where an arm used to be.

Omni-Mark, neck hemorrhaging, eyes open and defiant through the blood.

And finally, Mark, the one she knows—barely conscious, vomiting blood, eyes locked on the others in horror.

Eve drops to her knees.

“No... no no no...” She lets out a choked whisper. 

Tears streak her cheeks as she presses a hand against the glass, desperate to help—but powerless. Her powers spark feebly in her palm, unable to act on organic matter.

“I can fix cities... I can rebuild whole worlds... but I can't fix him? I can’t fix any of them?” She curls into herself, sobbing. 

Nearby doctors try to usher her out, but she doesn’t move. She just stares at all the Marks—nine different expressions of pain etched into faces she’s kissed, held, loved.

“Please... just let one of them be okay... just one...”

Behind her, Debbie watches silently, shoulders trembling—two women who love Mark Grayson, utterly helpless in the face of his infinite suffering.

📞 WILLIAM CALLING

She answers with a shaky breath, trying to keep it together.

“Will...?” Eve says softly. 

“Oh thank god, Eve. I’ve been trying to reach you for hours. Are you okay? I saw the news—eight different versions of Mark?? Fighting that Conquest guy?! What the hell is going on?! Is he okay? Please tell me he’s okay—” William, relieved, ranted out with rushed words. 

That made Eve’s voice start to crack. “He’s not...”

William goes silent on the other end.

“None of them are. Will... it’s bad. Really bad.” Eve barely managed to get the words out. 

She chokes back another sob, the floodgates reopening. “They’re all here. Mark and eight others just like him. And they’re all—bleeding, screaming, convulsing, vomiting, missing limbs, dying, Will. And I can’t—”

Eve’s voice breaks yet again. “I can’t fix any of them... I can’t do anything.”

Silence lingers on the other end. Then—

“Jesus Christ...” William said quietly. 

“The one I love... all the versions of him... they’re breaking right in front of me.”

“Eve... I’m so sorry. I—I didn’t know. I thought this was just another crazy Mark thing, like when he fought that squid kaiju or when D.A. Sinclair stole my boyfriend... I didn’t think it was this... real.” William said as gently as he could. 

“It’s real, Will. It’s too real.” Eve sobbed. 

She lowers the phone, tears staining her lap. William is still on the line, stunned and silent.

In the background, another alarm goes off down the hall.

“We’re here to see Mark Grayson!” William told the guards. 

“This is a restricted federal facility. Civilians aren’t allowed past this point.” A guard told him sternly. 

Amber stepped up. “We’re not just civilians. We know him. We love him.”

“We’re the closest thing he’s got to family besides his actual one. Now move.” William told them angrily. 

When the guards try to block them, William tries to shove past. Amber pulls his arm, trying to keep him from escalating—but it’s too late. The guards step in.

“Stand down! You're not authorized!” A guard ordered them. 

“Then authorize us! Because he’s in there DYING!” Amber yelled. 

The noise echoes through the steel hallways. But amidst the chaos—something stops them cold.

They look past the shoulder of a guard—and through the wide glass panels lining the emergency wing hallway—

And they see them.

Nine operating rooms.

Nine gurneys.

Nine Marks.

Each one going through hell.

Their Mark—they just knew it was their Mark—convulsing in blood and vomit.

Sinister Mark, restrained and blood-starved.

Mohawk Mark, his chest getting hit again with a defibrillator.

Full Mask Mark, ribs exposed, stomach torn open.

Maskless Mark, tears streaming down as his body seizes.

Prisoner Mark, burned to near death and blind.

Omni-Mark, half his body melted, still fighting for life.

Viltrumite Mark, missing his arm, bleeding badly.

Stripevincible, his body thrashing violently under sedation.

“Oh my god...” William mumbled quietly, completely stunned. 

Amber gasped, covering her mouth. “Mark... what... what is this?”

The guards don’t even bother restraining them now. There’s nothing more they can do—because what do you say to that kind of horror?

The two friends just stand there, frozen, staring through the glass. Watching their friend... or rather, nine fragments of their friend... teeter on the edge of death. Amber leans into William, trembling.

“How do you survive something like this?” She whispers. 

William doesn’t answer. He can’t. He’s too busy trying not to cry.

The quiet hum of machines, the distant beeping of life-support, the murmur of stressed voices beyond glass walls.

Eve, pale and trembling, finally drags herself toward William and Amber, who stand frozen in front of the glass. William’s fists are clenched so hard his knuckles are white. Amber wipes tears from her cheeks, still staring at the horrifying tableau of pain and trauma behind the windows.

“You saw them too, huh...” She said softly, voice cracking. 

William turns. The haunted look in his eyes says everything.

“I... I thought I’d seen scary things before. I thought... I understood what Mark went through.” He starts quietly but doesn’t finish. His voice breaks.

Amber gently reaches out and takes Eve’s hand. “We had no idea it was this bad.”

Eve gives a faint, broken nod. Her gaze still locked on the war zone disguised as a hospital wing.

Across the hall, behind another pane of glass, Debbie sits on a bench, head in her hands. Her whole body trembles, not from cold but from something far deeper. Cecil stands nearby, silently staring at the monitors.

Her voice was barely a whisper, “I’m glad... Oliver’s still unconscious.” Cecil turns, brow furrowed. 

Debbie continued, voice cracking. “I don’t want him to see this. I don’t want... my little boy to see his big brother like this. Or any of them.”

She gestures faintly to the rooms. To the nine shards of her son’s life, each one broken and bleeding in a different way.

“How do you explain to a kid that his brother is dying... nine times at once?” She whispers. 

Cecil says nothing at first.

His jaw is tight. His hands are clenched behind his back. And for once—for once—the man who always has a contingency, a backup plan, a cold, logical answer… doesn’t have anything to say.

Focus lingers on the glass—on the dimly lit rooms filled with chaos and pain.

Nine Mark Graysons.

Nine versions of the same boy.

And nine chances to lose him.

The room is pure chaos—alarms blaring, doctors shouting, the sharp crack of the defibrillator paddles echoing off sterile walls.

“Clear!” A doctor states. 

Another jolt. Mohawk Mark’s body jerks violently, then collapses back against the table. Flatline.

“We’re losing him again—charging to 300!”

But as the machine charges up again, something stirs.

Mohawk Mark’s hand twitches.

His eyes—barely open, glazed—shift sideways, searching. Desperately.

“C’mon... one of you... please...” He chokes, his voice barely a whisper. 

Mohawk’s bloodied hand lifts just slightly off the table. Just enough to reach—toward the glass, toward anyone. A brother. A shadow. A reflection.

He doesn’t care which one.

His fingers shake, tremble, then drop as the flatline screams louder.

“Clear!” The doctor’s tone is urgent. 

Zap. His body jolts again.

“We’ve got a rhythm!” Another doctor gasps. 

But it’s faint. Flickering. So is his voice.

“Don’t... let me be the first...”

The doctors don’t even hear it. But he said it.

He’s not reaching for survival—he’s reaching for connection.

Even on the edge of death, he just wants to not be alone.

The hospital room is filled with tense silence, broken only by the steady hum of machines and the frantic sounds of medical staff moving quickly. Maskless Mark, pale and weak, is carefully strapped down on the operation table after a seemingly endless battle for survival. His body is covered in bandages, tubes sticking out from multiple places.

But then, in a move that should almost be comical, Maskless Mark suddenly and unexpectedly falls off the table, collapsing in a heap onto the cold floor.

“No! Get him back on the table! Hold him still!” A doctor shouts. 

The doctors rush forward, grabbing his limbs, but Mark weakly flails in their grasp. His eyes are unfocused, barely conscious, but there's one thing—one name—that seems to cut through the fog of his pain and delirium.

“W-...William... William... I’m sorry...” 

The words come out ragged, broken by the distress in his throat, but there’s no mistaking the plea in his voice. He’s still trying to reach out, trying to hold onto something human, something familiar. His hand reaches for the floor, struggling to pull himself back up, but his body betrays him.

Behind the glass wall, William stands with Amber, looking through the window at the scene before him. He watches in stunned silence as Maskless Mark—who should be sedated and resting—falls to the floor. His expression is a mixture of disbelief and horror, but it’s also filled with guilt.

“Mark…” William whispers quietly, his voice shaking. 

Amber’s grip on his arm tightens, but William doesn’t respond. His eyes never leave the scene before him. He watches as Mark weakly tries to move, his desperate eyes wide with a flicker of recognition.

“I... need... William...” Maskless slurred, almost falling into unconsciousness. 

His voice barely reaches them, but it’s enough for William. Enough to break him.

William steps forward, his hand pressing against the cold glass, as if trying to reach Mark through the barrier.

“I’m here, Mark. I’m here...” He whispers softly, almost breaking down. 

Mark’s head lolls toward the glass wall, his fading vision catching the movement, just barely able to see William’s silhouette. The weak, almost unconscious Mark lifts his arm slightly, attempting to gesture in the direction of the glass.

“...I’m sorry... didn’t mean to...” But his strength gives out.

His head falls back onto the cold floor, and his body finally succumbs to exhaustion, his shallow breathing becoming slower and more faint. The doctors scramble, their hands frantic as they try to get him back on the table and stabilize him once again.

“We need to sedate him now—before he does more damage to himself!” A doctor says urgently. 

William's chest tightens. He watches as Maskless Mark is lifted back onto the table, and the doctors begin their work again. The glass wall stands as an impassable barrier between them, just as it has for all the versions of Mark in this hellish situation.

But William—broken and desperate, standing on the other side—finally understands. He understands what Mark has been going through, what all of them have been going through, what this pain really means.

“I won’t leave you alone... Not again...” William says under his breath, barely audible anymore. 

The sterile environment is filled with the faint hum of medical equipment and the anxious energy of doctors working relentlessly to keep the multiple versions of Mark Grayson alive. It’s a scene of chaos and despair, with each version of Mark fighting to survive, each injury more horrific than the last.

But then, a weak figure—Oliver, still bandaged and barely able to move—pushes through the door, stumbling into the room with his nurse trying to hold him back.

“Oliver, you can’t be in here—you're still recovering! You need to rest!” The nurse presses urgently. 

But Oliver doesn't care. His face is pale, his body shaking with the strain, but there's a fire in his eyes—a determination that can't be ignored.

“I have to see him... I have to see... Mark.” Oliver says weakly, voice strained. 

The nurse tries to stop him, but Oliver is already past her, pushing his way into the room despite his weakened state. His hands tremble, his body aching, but he stumbles toward the observation window, desperate to see his brother. The glass is thick, but it doesn’t matter.

Oliver's eyes go wide as he catches sight of the chaos before him.

Stripevincible is on the operating table, twitching erratically, his body jerking against the restraints as doctors desperately try to stabilize him. His left eye begins to bulge and turn red as the hemorrhage worsens, a sickening sight that sends a sharp pang of fear through Oliver’s chest.

“No... not like this...” Oliver whispers shakily, his voice breaking. 

The scene before him is unbearable. Stripevincible’s body jerks with each involuntary twitch, and the doctors are struggling to keep him from worsening. His left eye is completely bloodshot now, the hemorrhage growing rapidly, making it clear how dire the situation has become.

Oliver’s vision blurs, his mind reeling from the sight of his brother—his older brother—torn apart like this, fighting for his life.

“...Why is this happening? Why are they all like this...?” Oliver wonders softly, hoarsely. 

His hand rests weakly against the glass, as if he could reach through and touch him, hold him, make it stop. The sight of his brother’s suffering is too much. It's all too much.

“Oliver, you need to rest—this isn’t helping you.” The nurse said as gently as she could, trying to pull him back. 

But Oliver’s mind is made up. His vision refocuses on Stripevincible’s twitching form, still under the force of the doctors’ efforts to keep him alive. The Mark’s breaths are shallow, and the monitors show his vitals are barely holding.

“I should’ve been here... I should’ve been with him...” Oliver’s eyes filled with tears. 

The nurse sees the look of utter devastation in Oliver’s eyes and hesitates for a moment before she softly pulls him back.

“You are here now, Oliver. And we’ll do everything we can. You have to rest... you have to be strong for him, for all of them.” She said calmly but gently. 

But Oliver can’t tear his eyes away. Every second, every moment feels like a new agony, watching his brothers suffer like this. He struggles to stay upright, his body crying out in protest, but his resolve is stronger than the pain.

As the nurse continues to try and help Oliver regain some composure, the doctors in the room are doing everything they can to keep Stripevincible from slipping away. His twitching grows more erratic as the hemorrhage worsens, but one of the doctors manages to apply pressure to his eye socket, trying to stop the bleeding as the others continue their work on his critical injuries.

But the situation is slipping further out of their control with every passing moment.

“We need to act fast! If we don’t stop this hemorrhage, we’ll lose him! He’s already critical from the other injuries!” A doctor states urgently. 

Oliver’s tears fall freely now, his body trembling as he watches Stripevincible’s life hang by a thread. In the midst of the chaos, he feels utterly helpless. The room becomes a blur as his thoughts spiral, every breath he takes feeling heavier than the last.

“I should’ve been here... should’ve...” He muttered to himself, broken. 

The nurse grabs Oliver's arm, trying to gently guide him away from the glass.

“Oliver, you can’t change what’s happened. But you can be here for them now. They need you strong. You need to rest so you can help them.” She says firmly but with compassion. 

But Oliver, like everyone else, is lost in the sea of pain that surrounds him. Watching Stripevincible, knowing how close he is to losing him, it’s more than he can bear.

With a final, almost imperceptible sob, Oliver steps back, his body shaking. His chest feels tight with the weight of everything.

“Please... don’t let them die... don’t let my brothers...” He choked out, barely audible. 

The room is dimly lit, a sense of exhaustion and relief hanging in the air. The constant hum of machines and the quiet bustle of medical staff just beyond the doors indicate that the battle for the Marks' survival isn’t over. But for now, there’s a moment of respite.

Cecil sits at the head of the table, his face strained, but his posture a bit less tense. Donald stands before him, scrolling through his tablet, checking the latest updates on the various Mark Graysons’ conditions.

"Give me the updates, Donald. How bad is it?" He asks wearily. 

Donald looks up, his face tired, but focused. He knows how crucial these reports are.

"The Marks are stable for now, but each one of them comes with its own set of challenges. Here's what we've got…” Donald starts solemnly. He begins the list, each condition weighing heavily on the room.

“Mohawk Mark's heart is weak. He's prone to fatigue and shortness of breath. We’ll need to keep monitoring his cardiovascular health. Any heavy physical exertion could put him at risk.”

“Sinister Mark is dealing with severe cranial fractures. He's likely to suffer from epileptic seizures and fainting spells. Worst case scenario, his eyes could start to bleed as well. We're going to have to be vigilant with his brain activity.”

“Maskless Mark is still a concern. He’s prone to seizures, and his nosebleeds are recurring. If the bleeding gets worse, we’ll need to address that quickly. His condition could deteriorate at any moment.”

“Prisoner Mark needs constant monitoring. His old injuries from the Viltrumite prison, combined with the new ones, make him especially vulnerable. His near-total blindness is also a serious issue. We may need a special prosthetic to compensate for his impaired vision. His trauma is deep, and we can't afford to let our guard down with him.”

“Viltrumite Mark's lost arm will require a prosthesis, but we need specialized equipment. Given the severity of his injuries, he'll need an adjustment period with the prosthetic. His body’s been through too much.”

“Omni-Mark’s right side is almost entirely gone due to the burns. We had to amputate his arm to save him. He’s also half blind and nearly deaf from that ear. His physical recovery is going to be a long and painful process.”

“Full Mask Mark... his stomach’s still a massive issue. With the piercing and bulimia, he’ll need to be hooked to an IV for the foreseeable future. His condition may improve slowly, but his mental health is still fragile.”

“Stripevincible’s punctured lung is a significant concern. He’s recovering, but his shortness of breath will continue to affect his stamina. He's still very weak, and any exertion could be too much for him at this stage.”

“Finally, our Mark’s vomiting attack was caused by shock. Seeing his alternate selves in this state pushed him beyond his breaking point. Physically, he’s stabilizing, but mentally... he’s a mess. We’ll have to address his psychological trauma as well.”

Cecil rubs his temples, trying to process everything. It’s a lot. Nine versions of Mark, each one suffering in their own way. He has to keep it together for the sake of the mission, but Debbie, standing beside him, looks utterly drained. Her face is pale, a constant expression of grief and helplessness.

"Nine of them… all of them fighting for their lives." Cecil said softly to himself. Debbie’s voice breaks in:

“How long until they’re all stable? All the way? I can’t— I just… I can’t look at them like this anymore.” She asks hoarsely. 

Cecil doesn’t answer immediately. He knows it’ll be a long road ahead. But he can’t afford to lose focus now. Not with all the stakes on the line.

"We’ll get them through this. It’s not over yet. We need to keep pushing. We don’t stop." He says, resolutely. 

"We also need to consider their mental state. We can stabilize their bodies, but if they can't mentally handle this... it won’t matter. They’re going to need support, Cecil. All of them." Donald adds quietly, after a moment's pause.

Cecil nods in grim agreement. The toll on their minds could be just as destructive as the toll on their bodies. They need time. They need healing.

"Get the best psychological support you can find. We’re not letting them break. We don’t leave anyone behind. Not now." Cecil says after a long pause, looking directly at Donald. 

Debbie’s hand touches Cecil's shoulder gently, but it’s clear she’s still haunted by the images of her son’s suffering. She stays quiet, but her eyes speak volumes. Her heart is breaking in so many different ways.

The room is quiet, save for the beeping of heart monitors and the soft hum of life-support machines. Mohawk Mark and Maskless Mark lie in adjacent beds, both still heavily bandaged and hooked to various tubes and IVs. The faint flickering of their eyelids is the first sign of movement, subtle but significant. Their minds are still clouded by the trauma they’ve experienced, and their bodies, exhausted from the constant fight for survival, are slow to catch up.

Suddenly, Mohawk Mark lets out a weak groan. His eyes flutter open, his vision blurry, but he instinctively turns his head toward the bed next to him. Through the haze of pain and confusion, he sees Maskless Mark, just as fragile and disoriented. Despite his weakened state, he reaches out with trembling fingers.

Maskless Mark, barely able to focus, feels the hand coming toward him. He shifts, his body protesting every movement, but he manages to weakly raise his own hand. The two Marks' hands meet, their fingers interlocking in a simple, yet deeply meaningful gesture. It’s a small comfort, but in the midst of everything, it’s all they need.

The connection between them is palpable, a shared experience of pain and survival that transcends words.

Maskless Mark, his voice barely a whisper, croaks out the only thing he can manage.

"...We’re... still... here."

Mohawk Mark gives a faint, labored smile, his hand squeezing Maskless Mark’s just slightly.

"...Yeah... still here..." Mohawk said softly. 

Their breathing is labored, their bodies exhausted from the surgeries, but their bond remains, no matter how fragile. For a moment, the weight of their suffering is shared, the unbearable isolation of their individual pain temporarily lifted by the simple comfort of another’s presence.

The lights are dimmed, casting a sterile blue hue over the room. The constant beeping of monitors plays like a quiet, melancholic lullaby. Machines hiss and pump steadily beside each bed, the air thick with antiseptic and sorrow.

Mark’s eyes crack open, dry and heavy. His vision is blurry at first, but the pain in his head clears just enough for shapes to form. He winces, his throat raw, his muscles aching as if he’s been dragged through hell.

His gaze drifts—groggily, sluggishly—to his right.

And that’s when he sees him.

Prisoner Mark.

Or what’s left of him.

Burnt flesh. Charred skin still healing over torn muscle. Tubes snaking into his body, a face half-wrapped in gauze. One eye swollen shut. The other… open, vacant, unfocused. Barely breathing.

Mark stares at his ruined counterpart—and then it hits him. Hard.

A strangled sob escapes his lips. His chest tightens. His stomach clenches.

Bile rises.

He lurches to the side, weakly, too slow to stop it as bile dribbles down his chin, warm and bitter. His body isn’t ready for anything, not even grief. But he can’t stop the tears.

“Oh god… I’m so sorry…” Mark whispers hoarsely. 

He sobs again, more bile threatening to rise, but the crying takes over first. His fingers twitch, reaching out for Prisoner Mark instinctively, but the IVs and weakness stop him halfway.

Across the room, a nearby nurse notices and rushes in, gently cradling his head, cleaning him up, calling for a doctor—but Mark barely notices. All he can do is stare at the broken reflection of himself just feet away.

A version of him that lived through something he can't even begin to comprehend.

“You didn’t deserve this…” Mark’s voice was barely audible. 

He wants to apologize. He wants to promise things will get better.

But all he can do is cry—and silently pray that Prisoner Mark can’t feel any of this anymore.

At the same time, Cecil watches quietly, arms crossed. His jaw clenches. Debbie, standing behind him, closes her eyes and looks away.

“Get more sedation if he starts convulsing. I want every one of them stable.” Cecil is quiet, but firm. 

“Sir… this isn’t just physical anymore.” Donald says softly. 

Cecil doesn’t respond. He knows Donald’s right. The body might heal, but the soul? That’s another war entirely.

Viltrumite Mark’s eyes fluttered open, his vision still hazy, his body heavy. The sterile scent of the GDA’s medical wing filled his nostrils, but it wasn’t the smell that made his pulse spike—it was the absence.

Where there should’ve been the familiar weight of his right arm, there was nothing.

He turned his head slowly, sluggishly, and saw it—just a bandaged stump where his arm had once been. The sight, so alien, so wrong, made his breath catch in his throat. His disciplined mind, trained by the harshest standards of Viltrumite warfare and resilience, tried to process the loss.

But he couldn’t.

The scream tore out of him before he even realized it, raw and visceral. The kind of scream no Viltrumite should make. It wasn’t warlike, it wasn’t even human. It sounded completely animalistic. Full of fear and anguish. The mighty, emotionless soldier broke right there in his bed, flailing in a panic, his remaining hand gripping at the bedsheets like he could claw his sanity back into his chest.

Across from him, Omni-Mark, still burned and swathed in layers of gauze and dressings, sat up with effort. His one working eye locked onto his fellow stoic with grim understanding. He knew this feeling. The helplessness. The disfigurement. The failure.

“Mark,” he rasped through his cracked lips. “You need to stop.”

But Viltrumite Mark couldn’t. He kept screaming, kept shaking, his breath hitching as if the walls were closing in. The kind of reaction the Empire would have beaten out of a soldier in infancy. But this—this was something no training prepared for. He had failed. Been mutilated. And now he wasn’t whole.

Omni-Mark grit his teeth. “Calm down.”

Still nothing.

With a painful groan, Omni-Mark forced himself upright, the skin along his scorched side pulling and protesting every movement. He staggered forward, dragging his mostly-useless frame toward the source of the screams. Every step was hell. But it had to be done.

Then, without hesitation, he raised his only usable arm—and slapped Viltrumite Mark across the face. The sound cracked through the air like a gunshot.

Viltrumite Mark froze.

For a moment, silence hung between them, heavy and strained.

“Pull yourself together.” 

Omni-Mark’s eye narrowed, voice strained but commanding. “I get it. I do. But you are still breathing. You are still alive. And until you’re dead, you do not get to fall apart. You hear me?”

Viltrumite Mark stared at him, eyes wide with disbelief, pain, and shame. His lip quivered.

“I’m not weak,” he whispered, as if trying to convince himself more than anyone else. “I’m not—I’m not weak.”

Omni-Mark leaned in closer, eye blazing. “Then prove it. Live through this. Don’t let what they took from you be what defines you.”

Viltrumite Mark let out a shaky breath. The scream had left him. Now, only the hollow echo of it lingered in his chest.

He nodded slowly, jaw clenched so tightly it trembled. Silent tears pooled in the corners of his eyes—but he didn’t wipe them away.

Omni-Mark grunted and leaned heavily on the side of the bed, whispering, “We’re not done yet. Not by a long shot.”

And for the first time since awakening, Viltrumite Mark didn’t scream. He just breathed. Pained, broken, but alive.

The sound that tore through the GDA medical wing wasn’t just a scream—it was a war cry of despair, a guttural blast of pain that could’ve shattered glass. Viltrumite Mark’s horrified outburst didn’t just shake walls—it awoke ghosts.

One by one, the still-unconscious Marks began to stir, their minds dragged from uneasy dreams into waking nightmares.

Sinister Mark groaned first, his brows furrowing even before his eyes opened. The pressure in his skull was unbearable, like something alive had nested in his brain and was trying to claw its way out. 

He reached for his temples with trembling fingers, teeth grit. Blood trickled lightly from his nose, unnoticed by the medics swarming other beds. His vision swam—then pulsed red. A migraine or something worse. Epileptic flashing danced at the edge of his consciousness.

He barely whispered, “Make it stop…”

Prisoner Mark’s eyes snapped open next—and immediately filled with tears. Pain wasn’t new to him. Pain was routine. But this wasn’t the dull, endless torture of Viltrumite imprisonment. No—this was sharper, meaner. His skin, barely healed from his time in the Viltrumite hellhole, now screamed at the seams from new burns, fresh grafts, and rough stitching. He tried to move, but it felt like his whole body would tear in half if he did. His fists clenched, but he couldn’t even feel them properly anymore.

“I thought… I was free,” he choked, voice hoarse and raw. “I was free…”

Full Mask Mark twitched violently, coughing into his oxygen mask before he even woke. His stomach twisted and thrashed inside him like a beast trying to escape. The moment his eyes opened, he buckled forward with a rasping gag. 

His body was too weak to vomit—yet it tried anyway. Acid clawed up his throat. All he could feel was pain and hollowness, as if his insides were eating themselves alive. But through it all, he mumbled in a daze, 

“Mom… where are you…?”

Stripevincible bolted awake with a scream so shrill it pierced even through his oxygen mask. His body jerked erratically, half-controlled spasms echoing down his limbs. 

The pain in his lung was as if someone was stabbing it over and over again with each breath. His left eye throbbed and burned, and he couldn’t stop twitching.

His scream was wordless—just pain, unfiltered and constant.

The GDA’s medical staff, already overwhelmed, rushed back into the room in a panic. Monitors blared. IVs jostled. Painkillers and sedatives were prepped again. It was chaos—but beneath it all, there was a terrible silence. Not outside, but inside each of them.

Because this wasn’t just physical. This was trauma in its rawest form—echoes of pain shared across universes. And now that they were all awake, they finally felt just how deep the suffering ran.

Nine Marks. Nine horrors. All alive… but broken.

And it wasn’t over yet.

Cecil’s footsteps were slow but heavy, echoing down the sterile, flickering hallway of the GDA facility like a death march. The weight of three sleepless days hung on his shoulders, but the real burden—the one no sedative could dull—was guilt.

Donald caught up to him, tablet in hand, his synthetic frame buzzing faintly as he hurried.

“Sir,” he began, his voice low and grim. “The Marks… they’ve started waking up. I was just with—”

“I know,” Cecil cut in, not even glancing at him. His voice was hollow. Tired. Like a man running on fumes and anger. “I heard Viltrumite Mark.”

There was a pause. Donald swallowed, unsure of what to say.

“They’re awake,” Cecil continued, stopping mid-hallway. “But none of them are better. Not really. They’re just… breathing again.”

He finally turned his head slightly toward Donald. “You ever watch a man come back from the brink just to realize hell didn’t let him leave?”

Donald didn’t answer.

“Because that’s what this is, Donald,” Cecil muttered. “We saved them from dying… but we couldn’t save them from living like this.”

And with that, he continued walking—toward the monitoring room, toward the screens filled with broken versions of one boy, toward whatever came next in this spiraling, unrelenting nightmare.

Donald walked a few steps behind Cecil in silence, digesting the weight of his words. The fluorescent lights overhead hummed quietly, the only other sound beside their footsteps. Then, with a hesitation he rarely allowed himself, Donald asked, “So… what do we do now?”

Cecil didn’t stop walking this time—but his shoulders slumped just a bit more.

“We contact Debbie,” he said, his voice flat but worn. “Tell her that her boys are awake.”

Donald nodded, pulling up his tablet, already typing in the secure line.

“And after that?” he asked, almost regretting it.

Cecil finally stopped at the door to the surveillance room, staring at the glass that separated him from nine beds and nine broken reflections of one boy.

“After that,” he muttered, almost to himself, “we’ll figure it out as we go.”

Because truth was… there was no protocol for this. No game plan, no GDA contingency file titled Nine Broken Invincibles. There was only the fallout—and the stubborn, bitter resolve to keep moving forward.

One step. One scream. One Mark at a time.

Debbie stepped into Oliver’s recovery room, her eyes already misty before the door even slid shut behind her. She needed to see him first—her other boy. The still whole one, even if just barely.

Oliver sat up in bed, a blanket around his shoulders and a faint bruise under one eye, but his smile was small and earnest when he saw her. “Hey, Mom.”

She tried to smile back, brushing a hand through his tousled hair as she approached. “Hey, sweetheart…”

“I’m okay,” he said quickly, beating her to the question. “My ribs don’t hurt as much anymore, and the nurses here? They’re super nice. One of them snuck me an extra pudding cup.”

Debbie let out a shaky laugh, hand still in his hair. But the moment was short-lived. Oliver’s expression dimmed.

“…But I’m worried about the Marks,” he admitted, voice soft and unsure. “I—I heard one of them scream earlier. It was horrible. Like someone was being ripped apart.”

Debbie froze, her hand lowering from his head to his shoulder. She swallowed hard.

“I know,” she whispered. “They… they all woke up.”

Oliver’s eyes widened a little. “Are they okay?”

Debbie didn’t answer right away. She couldn’t—not truthfully. Instead, she squeezed his shoulder, voice low.

“They’re alive, Ollie. That’s what matters right now.”

But even as she said it, her heart ached with the knowledge that "alive" might be the only thing she could promise.

Stripevincible sat upright in bed, propped up by a mound of pillows and an oxygen mask still hooked under his chin. He stared past the walls of the GDA medical ward, beyond the sterile lights and quiet beeping machines. His left eye, red and raw from the internal bleeding, twitched faintly—yet he didn’t blink. Not once.

Sinister Mark, lying in the bed beside him, shifted with a wince. His head still throbbed from the cranial fractures, his eyes sensitive to even the dimmed lights. But he turned toward Stripevincible, studying him carefully.

“…What’s on your mind?” he asked, voice raspy, brittle.

Stripevincible was silent at first. Then, with a soft breath—almost like a sigh—he finally spoke.

“In my world,” he began, voice low, calm, but brittle around the edges, “I was the emperor of the Viltrumite Empire.”

Sinister’s eyes widened slightly.

“I ruled through fear. Through rage. Through… brutality. And for a long time, I told myself it was justice.” He chuckled dryly, humorless. “I was angry, all the time. At everything. Everyone. Especially… myself.”

He finally turned his gaze toward Sinister, a hollow glint in his bloodshot eye.

“And now look at me,” he said, gesturing to the tubes, the bandages, the oxygen mask, the twitch in his eye he could barely control. “The anger’s still there, somewhere. But I don’t even have the strength to feel it. Just a broken husk of the emperor I used to be.”

Sinister Mark stared at him for a moment, quiet, before muttering, “We’re all husks now.”

The two fell into silence again. But even in that stillness, something about sharing the weight of it made it just a little more bearable.

Prisoner Mark trembled as the nurses gently lowered him into the specially prepared bath. The water was lukewarm—barely above body temperature, carefully monitored for someone in his condition. But to him, it may as well have been boiling oil.

The moment his foot touched the surface, his entire body jerked in reflexive agony.

"God—stop! Stop! It burns!" he screamed, thrashing with what little strength he had. 

The nurses immediately backed off, one of them murmuring, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, it’s not hot, it’s not—”

But it didn’t matter.

To Prisoner Mark, whose skin had been ruined by flame, exposure, and years of brutal incarceration, everything hurt. The nerves in his flesh fired off like a thousand alarms with even the gentlest contact. Water, fabric, even air sometimes felt like fire. 

He whimpered, curling into himself on the bath bench, his long, pale fingers twitching like broken wires.

One nurse tried dabbing at his shoulder with a soft cloth, and he sobbed at the touch. Not out of shame. Not out of pride. But just because it hurt.

From the glass window above the bath chamber, Debbie watched, her hand covering her mouth. Her heart broke again—again, because it seemed like it never stopped breaking now.

Cecil, beside her, stayed quiet. Even he didn’t have the words for this.

In another time, in another place, Mark Grayson had been a beacon of hope. But here—this version, this boy—was barely holding onto himself. Not because he lacked strength, but because the strength it took to feel like this and still keep breathing was more than most could ever manage.

He wasn’t just Prisoner Mark.

He was the one who never got to heal.

Full Mask Mark sat hunched on the hospital bed, the blanket draped over his frail frame like a burial shroud. His IV bag dripped steadily, feeding him slowly, artificially—because real food didn’t stay down. Every attempt at eating ended the same way: violent hurling, body-wracking convulsions, a feeling like his stomach was gnawing at itself in punishment.

Mohawk Mark lay nearby, breathing shallow through an oxygen mask as his chest rose and fell with tremors—his weak heart already making simple conversation feel like a marathon. But he couldn’t stop himself from whispering:

“Why… why’d you do it? Starve yourself like that…”

Full Mask didn’t look at him. His mask was gone, but a metaphorical one still clung to his sunken eyes, deadened from years of guilt. He didn’t speak right away. When he finally did, his voice was rasping and hollow.

“My mom died in my world.”

The words hung like a guillotine in the room.

“She died… because I wasn’t strong enough. I wasn’t fast enough. I wasn’t good enough.”

He clenched his trembling hands into fists against his sheets.

“So I punished myself,” he said quietly. “I thought… if I suffered, maybe I could make up for it. I stopped eating. Stopped caring. If I couldn’t protect her, then I didn’t deserve to live well either.”

Mohawk Mark blinked slowly, his breath hitching for a moment.

“And now?” he asked.

Full Mask let out a bitter breath that might have been a laugh. “Now? Now my body agrees with me.”

He turned to the window, tears barely forming in his dry, tired eyes.

“I wanted to feel pain… but I never thought I’d become it.”

Mohawk Mark didn’t have the energy to reply. He simply reached over with a shaky hand and rested it against Full Mask’s trembling arm.

They didn’t need to say more.

Because here, in this room of broken selves, pain was a language they all spoke fluently.

The sterile white of the hospital walls felt too clean, too bright, compared to how Maskless Mark felt inside—disgusting and weak. 

His nose had started bleeding again, crimson streaking down his upper lip and onto his gown. He groaned, turning away from the others, swiping at it with trembling fingers only to smear it further.

“God… gross,” he muttered under his breath. “Stupid body… pathetic…”

He hated it. Hated the way his body betrayed him with these random bleeds, like it couldn’t even handle existing anymore. He felt like a walking failure. His head throbbed from the buildup of pressure, the aftermath of seizures and neurological damage.

Footsteps. Slow, dragging. Then a shadow loomed beside him.

Omni-Mark.

He didn’t say anything—he never said much—but his movements were deliberate. One arm gone, most of his right side scorched and ruined, bandages covering half of his face, and he still moved with a sort of quiet determination. Gently, he reached out with his remaining hand and dabbed at the blood with a cloth.

Maskless froze. Then stiffened. “You don’t… have to do that.”

Omni-Mark continued anyway, methodical, wordless. As if wiping away blood was just another part of being a brother here.

Maskless swallowed the lump in his throat. Shame burned in his face hotter than any wound.

“You lost your arm,” he mumbled, voice tight. “Your eye… your hearing... And I’m here whining about a stupid nosebleed.”

He tried to look away, but Omni-Mark just pressed the cloth once more under his nostril and held it there, steady.

“You’re still hurt,” Omni-Mark said, voice hoarse but clear. “Doesn’t matter how much.”

That was it. No lecture. No judgment. Just quiet acknowledgment.

Maskless Mark’s eyes watered, not from injury this time, but guilt. His shoulders trembled as he fought to hold it in.

“…Thanks,” he whispered.

Omni-Mark gave the smallest nod and went back to his bed, dragging his IV pole along with him.

For a long time after, Maskless just sat there, pressing the cloth to his nose… and hating the blood just a little less.

Mark sat on the edge of his hospital bed, a bowl clenched in trembling hands, the acrid taste of bile still stinging the back of his throat. He’d just finished vomiting again. He didn’t even try to fight it anymore.

Every time… every time one of them suffered, his body answered for it. Like a cursed, twisted alarm bell tied to their agony.

When Mohawk Mark clutched his chest with that pale, shaking hand—retch.

When Sinister Mark twitched, eyes rolling back from another seizure—retch.

When Maskless Mark’s nose poured again, when Prisoner Mark whimpered at the touch of room-temperature water, when Full Mask gagged and choked from trying to eat, when Viltrumite and Omni reached instinctively for limbs that were no longer there… retch, retch, retch.

And now… Stripevincible lay across the room, hunched and breathing hard, wheezing as that damn rib worked deeper into his lung like a blade inching toward the heart. The monitor beeped erratically.

Mark heaved again, bile spilling into the bowl, his hands shaking violently.

“Jesus Christ,” he gasped when it was over. “Again.”

He wiped his mouth with the back of his wrist, laughing bitterly, a dry, raspy sound.

It was almost funny, wasn’t it? Like his body was some cosmic conduit, an emotional barometer with a direct line to every single version of himself—his brothers, now.

Each of them was suffering in a different flavor, and his stomach had decided it would process that pain the only way it knew how: by violently rejecting it.

He rested his forehead against the bowl, cold metal grounding him for a moment. Sweat clung to his hairline.

Good, he thought darkly. Let it hurt. Let it wreck me. Better me than them. Better someone feel all of it at once.

His hands tightened around the bowl until his knuckles turned white.

Because if they were all pieces of him… then maybe this was his punishment. Or maybe—maybe it was his way of sharing the burden. He wasn’t sure.

All he knew was that the pain wasn’t just theirs anymore.

It was his, too.

Debbie stood just beyond the sterile threshold of the hospital wing, her breath caught in her throat. The soft beeping of monitors, the low hum of life-support machines, and the heavy air of shared pain met her like a wall. Yet she stepped through, carrying a mother’s weight of guilt, love, and helpless hope.

It was Full Mask Mark who noticed her first.

He floated toward her, his movement sluggish and pained—more like a ghost drifting than a man flying. The effort it took to stay off the ground was clear in the way his limbs trembled slightly and how every inch of his body seemed to wince with invisible wounds. The IV trailing from his arm pulled gently in the air, a tether to his fragility.

He landed a few feet in front of her, knees buckling slightly on impact.

Walking hurt.

Flying hurt.

Existing hurt.

But still, he came.

Debbie’s breath hitched as she looked at him. She knew it was him, or rather—a version of him. His gaunt cheeks, the deep-set eyes, the hunched posture like he’d been folded into himself and never quite unfolded again.

“Mom…” he whispered, voice raw, barely audible.

He tried to smile, but it broke almost immediately, crumbling into something more like a flinch.

“Mark…” she said gently, reaching out.

He flinched—not from her, but from everything. His body twitched with a ripple of pain that he tried, desperately, to hide. He was used to pain. He had made pain his. But in front of her, it shamed him.

Debbie didn’t stop. She closed the distance and wrapped her arms around him before he could protest. His body tensed. Even touch was agony. But he didn’t pull away.

He leaned in.

And just for a moment, just for that heartbeat of connection, the boy who had punished himself for losing his mother let her hold him like a son again.

Behind them, other Marks stirred in their beds or watched silently—some too broken to speak, others too proud. But they all saw her. Their mother. Their anchor.

And Debbie, with tears clouding her vision, looked past Full Mask's shoulder at the rest of them.

“My boys,” she whispered, her voice cracking.

And for the first time in days, all nine broken versions of Mark Grayson felt something like warmth, however brief and however painful. 

The hush of the night was only broken by the soft hum of machinery and the quiet beeping of monitors. Most of the hospital wing slept, but Oliver padded through it on bare feet and borrowed strength, his small figure dwarfed by the dim, sterile corridor. His bandages were fewer now, and the IV stand that usually followed him had been left behind—just for tonight.

He stopped just at the edge of the large room, where nine versions of his brother lay in separate beds, surrounded by too much metal, too many wires, and not enough peace.

“Hey,” he whispered, as if afraid to wake them. “It’s me. Ollie.”

The silence didn’t respond.

“I, uh… they’re letting me go tomorrow,” he continued softly, rubbing at his wrist. “The nurses say I’m healing good. Fast, even.”

He looked around at the Marks. Some slept fitfully. Some seemed more like they were pretending to sleep, tired of everything.

“I was thinking… maybe when you’re all better, we could play catch?” His voice tried to rise with hope. “Not all at once, I mean. But one at a time? Or… or maybe all at once. That’d be kinda cool, actually…”

He chuckled quietly, then sniffled.

“I miss you,” he said. “All of you. I know you’re not my Mark, but you all kind of are too, you know?”

Just then, a sharp sound.

A twitch.

Maskless Mark began to seize.

His body jerked violently, arms flailing against the bed restraints as his eyes rolled back and the monitor beside him wailed in panic. The convulsions were fast, erratic, like his body had betrayed itself without warning.

And just like clockwork—like a sick, cruel chain reaction—his Mark bolted upright in his bed and vomited violently over the side, a horrible retching that echoed through the room.

“Mark?” Oliver breathed, his voice cracking as he stepped back. “Mark?!”

Doctors burst into the room within seconds, sliding around him like a well-rehearsed team of ghosts, their hands moving fast and voices calm but firm. One nurse gently tried to guide Oliver out, but he didn’t move. He just stared.

Maskless Mark twitched uncontrollably as a nurse tried to hold his head in place. Another stuck a needle in to sedate him, just as Mark doubled over again, bile spilling onto his sheets, his body wracked by sobs or spasms—no one could tell.

Oliver stood in the middle of it all, frozen.

He had wanted to tell them he was proud of them. That he still saw them as heroes.

But all he could do was watch.

And for the first time since waking up from his own injuries, Oliver felt something worse than pain.

He felt helpless.

The room still smelled faintly of antiseptic and something far less pleasant—remnants of Mark’s and Full Mask Mark’s latest bouts of vomiting. Nurses quietly moved about to clean and stabilize things, their practiced hands quick and gentle. The Marks lay or floated where they could, some in silence, some in dazed discomfort. No one spoke for a while.

Then, from the far left bed, a hoarse voice broke the tension.

Mohawk Mark, propped up slightly with dark circles under his eyes and wires trailing from his chest, weakly muttered, “Y’know… with all the vomiting you two do, I’m starting to think one of you might be pregnant.”

A pause.

Then, a snort from Stripevincible.

A groan-laugh from Maskless Mark, who wiped his nose with a tissue already spotted in red.

Sinister Mark chuckled behind gritted teeth, then winced as it made his head throb.

Even Viltrumite Mark, still pale from the trauma of losing an arm, let out a dry huff of air that might have been a laugh.

Omni-Mark smirked faintly and muttered, “Guess we’ll have to throw a baby shower.”

“I want to be the godfather,” Prisoner Mark rasped from his heavily bandaged form.

“You’re literally the worst godfather candidate,” Full Mask Mark mumbled as he floated slightly above his bed, still nauseous but smiling faintly.

Mark let out a weak, wheezy laugh and wiped the corner of his mouth. “Well, if I am pregnant, I’m naming the baby ‘Pain.’”

That got them all going again—tired, battered, and broken as they were, the Invincibles shared a moment of levity. Just nine versions of the same young man, each horrifically scarred, laughing together in their pain like it was the only glue holding them all in one piece.

Cecil watched silently from the monitors, and for the briefest moment… he allowed himself a small smile.

Cecil stood in the dim observation room, arms crossed tightly over his chest, eyes glued to the screen. 

Stripevincible, hunched over in his bed, wheezed sharply with every breath. His chest rose and fell in erratic, strained movements, the oxygen mask fogging up with each labored exhale. Every few seconds, he twitched—his body trying to find a rhythm it had forgotten.

Omni-Mark, despite his own heavily bandaged body and missing limb, sat beside him and gently patted his back with his one remaining arm. The gesture was awkward, clumsy, but firm. Supportive.

Maskless Mark stood nearby, his nose faintly bleeding again, murmuring quiet encouragements. 

“—In through your nose, slow. Don’t panic, you’ve got this. We’ve all got you—”

Cecil’s jaw tensed. His eyes flicked to the corner where Donald stood, tablet in hand, his expression tight with concern.

“The medical team just sent in their latest,” Donald said quietly. “That lung… even with Viltrumite resilience, it’s been compromised too severely. He might be more susceptible to infection or viral complications going forward. They're worried about pneumonia… or worse.”

Cecil didn’t say anything for a long beat. Just watched the three broken boys—the Emperor, the Burned, and the Barefaced—struggling together in silence.

Finally, he exhaled through his nose and muttered, “Then we put him on the highest-level bio-shielding and medical surveillance we’ve got. If one of them drops because of a damn flu bug, after surviving Conquest, I swear…”

He didn’t finish the sentence. He didn’t have to.

Donald nodded grimly. “I’ll make the call.”

Cecil didn’t take his eyes off the screen. “Good. Because like it or not… they’re all we’ve got left of him.”

He meant Mark. All of them.

Viltrumite Mark sat in his bed, posture ramrod straight out of sheer habit. His one remaining hand gripped the edge of the mattress so tightly his knuckles paled. The bandages where his left arm used to be itched constantly, but he didn’t move to scratch. He wouldn’t let himself.

He stared at the stump.

No amount of training had prepared him for this.

All those years of relentless conditioning. The pain tolerance drills. The aerial combat maneuvers. The hand-to-hand battle sequences designed to exploit enemy vulnerabilities with precise bilateral coordination.

All of it—all of it—built on the foundation of having two arms.

Now, even getting dressed was a struggle. His balance was off in-flight. Throwing a punch? Clumsy. Weak. Wrong.

He hated it.

He hated how empty he felt. How inefficient he was now. Like a blade with a chunk of its edge filed off—still sharp, still dangerous, but not what it was forged to be.

Across the room, Omni-Mark laid in silence, only one eye blinking open now and then, half-listening.

“You ever get used to it?” Viltrumite Mark finally asked, voice flat. Quiet.

Omni-Mark didn’t look at him, didn’t move. He just said, “No. But you learn to live with it. Or die trying.”

Viltrumite Mark let the words sit. He didn’t want to die trying.

But he wasn’t sure how to live like this either.

The room was unusually quiet for once. Lunch trays sat in front of each Mark—modified for their individual needs. Some sipped slowly through straws. Others poked disinterestedly at their food. It wasn’t peaceful, not exactly, but it was still.

And then Mohawk Mark’s tray clattered to the floor.

His breath hitched once—then stopped entirely. His body convulsed, eyes wide in panic as his hand clutched at his chest.

“Mark?” Maskless asked, already half-rising from his seat.

Mohawk Mark didn’t respond—he collapsed.

Everything exploded into motion.

Nurses were already sprinting in, one yelling “Code Blue!” down her communicator.

Mark doubled over where he sat, bile spewing out of his mouth as he choked on his sobs. “Not again, not again, not again—”

Stripevincible turned ghostly pale. His oxygen monitor shrieked a flatline tone before he slumped over, his head hitting the table with a sickening thunk.

Sinister Mark’s hands shook so violently his tray flipped, food scattering to the ground. “Don’t you dare take another one—!”

Omni-Mark was already trying to stabilize Stripevincible, using his one good arm to keep him from sliding off his chair while yelling for more staff. Maskless Mark pressed both hands to his nose as blood began to pour again, his eyes wide with fear.

And through it all, Full Mask Mark whispered hoarsely, floating just inches above the floor, “Please… not him. Not another one…”

Outside, Cecil and Donald watched the monitors, their faces pale, cold silence hanging between them.

“Do something,” Cecil barked.

Donald was already on the radio.

Lunch was over. Peace was shattered. Again. And chaos had returned—like it never truly left.

Mohawk Mark, flat on the floor, gasped like a drowning man. His heart was spasming—irregular, desperate, failing. The med team was seconds away, but Mohawk Mark’s old, deep-rooted Viltrumite stubbornness kicked in first. Through a haze of pain and delirium, he forced his body to move.

“No,” he rasped, eyes wild. “Not going down… not again—”

Even through cardiac arrest, even through the haze, his stubbornness roared louder than reason.

“C'mon,” he wheezed, chest trembling. “Pump, damn you—pump!”

And with a trembling fist, he punched himself in the chest. Hard.

Once. Twice. Three times. Again and again. Trying to restart his own heart the only way he knew how: with brute force.

It didn’t help. In fact—

“No—he’s making it worse! Restrain him—now!” A doctor cried. 

But Mohawk Mark’s body jerked with a second wind of adrenaline-fueled panic. He hit himself again, thinking it would jolt something back into rhythm—but it only strained his heart more, pushing it into deeper arrhythmia. And like a fuse running through the room, the other Marks began spiraling.

Mark, still bent over, let out another violent retch—blood-streaked bile now pouring from his mouth as his system responded to his counterpart’s agony. He curled into himself, vomited bile again, choking on sobs, unable to even speak. His whole body trembled, his fingers digging into his thighs like anchors.

Sinister Mark let out a shrieked groan, grabbing at his temple as his entire head exploded in pain. A nosebleed dripped freely, followed by streaks of blood from the corners of his eyes. He thrashed in his chair.

“Too loud—TOO LOUD—MY HEAD—!”

Full Mask Mark, floating near the edge of the room, began to choke, a wet cough echoing through his frail chest before blood splattered from his lips onto the pristine floor.

“No, no—not now—!”

Maskless Mark’s nose spurted red again, running down his mouth as he tried to get up to help—but his legs gave out beneath him.

Prisoner Mark whimpered from his chair, face clenched in a pain he couldn’t express, skin too sensitive to bear the tension in the air.

Stripevincible remained unconscious, slumped to the side. His vitals now plummeting. Oxygen low. Breathing shallow.

Omni-Mark, barely functional himself, stood with a limp, dragging Stripevincible’s limp body off the bench, trying to lay him flat with just one arm while wheezing himself from the strain.

“We need to sedate Mohawk now or we’re going to lose all of them!” He yelled. 

They were kind of glad that Viltrumite Mark was too stunned to even properly process what was going on. 

In the monitoring room, Cecil slammed a fist on the console.

“Get in there. Restrain Mohawk—NOW.”

Donald was already calling every available med unit. But at the same time, he muttered grimly. “They’re tethered, somehow. When one slips… the others fall with him.”

Cecil’s eyes locked on the screen. Mohawk was still punching himself, blood now trickling down his chest from impact fractures.

Cecil muttered to himself, almost bitterly. “You stubborn little bastard…”

A medic finally tackled Mohawk Mark from behind, pinning him down as another jammed a sedative into his thigh.

“He’s crashing—clear the area! Get the defib! Now!”

“He’s making it worse! We’re losing him faster—!”

“CLEAR!”

His body snapped upward with the jolt. Every Mark in the room flinched.

“I… just wanted to fix it…” Mohawk’s voice was barely audible. And then darkness took him. Again.

The wave of pain subsided only slightly, but the aftermath left the ward soaked in fear, blood, and exhaustion.

Mohawk Mark, unconscious.

Mark, trembling and sick.

Sinister, holding his head in his hands, weeping silently.

Full Mask, curled into himself, blood dripping from his lips.

Stripevincible, unmoving.

Viltrumite, frozen in place. 

Omni-Mark letting out a gasp of relief he didn’t even knew he had. 

Prisoner Mark sobbing quietly to himself. 

Not dead.

But God, barely alive.

The fluorescent lights hummed above as Stripevincible sat on the edge of the examination table, shirt half undone for easy access to vitals. The once fearsome Emperor of the Viltrumite Empire looked smaller than ever—his posture slouched, oxygen mask hanging loosely around his neck, dark circles under his eyes like bruises from sleepless nights.

A young doctor stood across from him, chart in hand, voice professional but unsure—tiptoeing around bad news.

“The hemorrhage in your left eye… it’s progressing. The pressure’s building too fast. If it keeps up, you may lose vision completely.”

Silence. Just the slow beep of monitors. Stripevincible blinked—slow, deliberate. His fingers curled around the edge of the table.

“So first my lung. Now my eye…” His voice cracked at the end, just a hairline fracture.

He tried to brush it off with a dry, pitiful chuckle.

“Guess I’m breaking down one piece at a time, huh?” Stripevincible says quietly. 

But the tears betrayed him. At first, just one. Then two. Then it was a silent stream. No sobbing. Just surrender.

Through clenched teeth, he gritted out. “I used to be feared. Entire galaxies trembled at my name. I stood on the ashes of worlds I conquered and felt... proud.”

His vision blurred—not from the hemorrhage, not entirely—but from shame, from grief, from the terrifying unfamiliarity of weakness.

“Now I cry... because I might go blind.” He raised a shaky hand to his face, as if to hide the tears, but the damage was done.

Pride shattered. Rage exhausted.

All that remained was a broken man in a broken body, being slowly unraveled by the weight of his own humanity.

And in the monitor room, watching quietly behind the glass, Cecil lowered his gaze. 

There was nothing triumphant about this. No justice. Just tragedy.

Alarms weren't blaring, but the urgency was palpable. Doctors were clustered around Mark, who lay sprawled at the bottom of a staircase—eyes barely open, his body wracked with pain. 

Tears streamed down his cheeks, not just from the agony of the fall but from sheer frustration, humiliation… and exhaustion.

One of the medics shouted, “He fell. Probably fainted mid-step. Watch his spine—brace him carefully!”

Blood trickled from a scrape across his cheekbone, and as they lifted him onto a stretcher, Mark sobbed openly, delirious from the pain.

“I—I was just trying to get a snack…” He choked out. 

His body convulsed slightly as a bout of bile pushed up his throat, but the doctors were prepared this time.

The other Marks, still healing and scattered in various rooms, caught the noise and stumbled into the hallway one by one—Mohawk Mark clutching his chest, Full Mask Mark levitating weakly. 

Stripevincible with his oxygen tank in tow, and even Prisoner Mark, guided gently by nurses due to his sensitivity.

Then they saw it: Mark, being wheeled away, pale and trembling, sobbing like a hurt child.

The mood shifted instantly.

“Not him too…” Mohawk Mark said weakly. 

Sinister Mark clutched his temple. “God… it’s starting again…”

“It always starts with one.” Omni-Mark murmured quietly. 

Like gears in a fragile, interconnected machine, the domino effect had begun again. Stripevincible wheezed, his breath shortening. Full Mask Mark hunched over and turned away, swallowing something thick in his throat. Maskless Mark quietly sat against the wall, nose already bleeding again.

And yet… no one said a word. Because they knew: when one of them suffers, the rest follow.

The lights were dimmed for rest hours, but peace was always fleeting in the recovery ward of the Nine Marks.

Sinister Mark sat hunched over in his cot, head buried in his hands. Another splitting headache pounded against the inside of his fractured skull like a war drum. His fingers trembled. His breath was ragged. He couldn’t think—only act.

In his delirium, his eyes drifted to a tray someone had left nearby. He couldn't process what it was—his vision blurred, his ears ringing. He leaned forward, guided by sheer instinct… and began scooping up the thick, bitter substance.

Across the room, Full Mask Mark, barely holding down the fluids in his IV, cracked open one weary eye. His hoarse voice barely carried:

“That’s…my…” It was too late.

Sinister Mark coughed, nearly choking on what he’d consumed. A low, strangled gag escaped him as he realized what he’d just ingested. Bile. His brother’s bile.

“...I thought it was soup…” He panted. 

Across the room, Viltrumite Mark, still adjusting to using only one arm, groaned and pushed himself off his cot. He yanked a blood bag from the medical cooler nearby and tossed it across the room with sharp precision—his only remaining arm landing the shot perfectly.

“Idiot. Drink this instead.”

Sinister caught the bag on reflex and stared at it. The red liquid sloshed inside like shame made tangible.

“Even my mistakes need cleanup duty…” He chuckled weakly. 

He bit into the blood pack.

And for a moment, everything was silent again—save for the gentle beeping of heart monitors and the low hum of suffering they all shared in unison.

Cecil stood behind the reinforced glass with his arms crossed, watching the nine Marks interact like a twisted patchwork family stitched together by pain and trauma.

Down below, Omni-Mark, bandaged heavily on one side, was slowly helping Mohawk Mark sit upright, adjusting his oxygen levels without complaint. When Stripevincible began to wheeze, Omni-Mark was there first—pressing a cold cloth to his forehead and reminding him to breathe in and out. Even when Maskless Mark fumbled with his IV again, Omni-Mark calmly fixed it while offering a quiet, grounding touch to his shoulder.

“He’s like their damn dad…” Cecil gruffly told Donald. 

Donald, blinking in surprise, gave a small nod.

“Stoic. Steady. Always watching out for the others…”

Debbie, seated quietly with a warm blanket folded in her lap, watched as Omni-Mark reassured Full Mask Mark, who was trembling after yet another bout of nausea. She noticed the way he listened more than he spoke, the way his eye scanned the room constantly, noting every subtle shift in pain or panic from his counterparts.

She blinked back tears, her voice soft to herself: “Mark always had a bit of his father in him. But this one... this one took all the best parts.”

Eve sat across from Mark, trying to spoon-feed him broth. Her eyes wandered over to where Omni-Mark was patiently trimming the food for Prisoner Mark, who still couldn’t move his arms properly due to the burns. She watched as Omni-Mark took no food for himself—just made sure everyone else ate.

“He’s like... a dad to all of them.” Eve said softly. 

Mark managed a weak chuckle through his cracked lips.

“Yeah. One burned-up, one-armed, half-deaf dad... who somehow still holds us all together.”

Even in broken bodies, they had found something in Omni-Mark.

A protector. A guide. A center.

Their dad.

William steps in cautiously, glancing around the white-walled, somber room. The air still smells faintly of antiseptic and stress. The nine Marks—each in various states of damage and recovery—look up from what little they were doing. A small buzz of energy rises.

Maskless Mark, sitting near the front in a chair with tissues clutched in one hand, immediately stands up—too fast, almost—then steadies himself.

“William...” He rasps, relieved. Hoarse, but relieved. 

He walks forward on shaky legs, face pale, a fresh nosebleed streaking down his upper lip. William opens his arms without hesitation, and Maskless Mark throws himself into a hug, clinging to him like a lifeline.

But as their bodies press together, a dark red smear of blood streaks across William’s shirt.

William stiffens for a moment—more from surprise than disgust—then slowly pats Mark’s back.

“Don’t worry about it, man. It’s just a shirt.” He gently told the maskless variant. 

Maskless Mark pulls back, blinking in slow realization, wiping at his nose with the heel of his hand. His eyes drop to William’s shirt and immediately well with guilt.

“I’m—God, I’m sorry. I didn’t—” Maskless sounded mortified. 

“Hey. Hey. I said it’s fine. You’re alive, aren’t you? That’s all that matters.” William reassured him as best he could. 

Behind them, a few of the other Marks watch in silence—some with faint smiles, others with eyes clouded by emotion. Even Omni-Mark gives a faint nod of approval.

For a moment, just a moment, there’s warmth in the middle of all this wreckage.

The mood in the medical ward is unusually quiet. A nurse carefully unwinds the last of the bandages wrapped around Omni-Mark’s face. The others watch from their beds or wheelchairs in varying states of recovery. Even Mark has paused mid-spoonful of bland hospital soup, his stomach temporarily too tense to rebel.

The final strip of gauze falls to the tray with a soft flutter.

There it is.

The scar, a deep red fissure, jagged and gnarled, running from the edge of Omni-Mark’s left eye, across his cheek, and wrapping over his ear, nearly to the back of his head. The skin is warped, pulled tight. One eye is now half-lidded, the lashes singed, the brow permanently furrowed.

Omni-Mark stares at his reflection in the hand mirror the nurse offers.

He says nothing.

No gasp. No scream. Not even a blink.

He just stares—still, stiff, stoic.

Mohawk Mark murmurs nervously, “Is he… okay?”

Sinister Mark shifts uncomfortably. Stripevincible breathes unevenly into his mask.

Maskless Mark whispers, “Someone say something…”

But before anyone can speak—

SLAM!

Omni-Mark hits the floor hard, his tall, muscular frame dropping like a statue pushed off its pedestal. The mirror clatters beside him.

Panic erupts.

Full Mask Mark hovers up an inch too fast and winces.

Prisoner Mark winces louder.

Viltrumite Mark, even with one arm, shouts for a doctor.

Mark, already turning green, rolls over and vomits off the side of the bed.

The nurses come rushing in. As they lift Omni-Mark’s unconscious body onto a stretcher, the other Marks glance at each other—nervous, unsettled.

Because Omni-Mark never breaks.

And yet... here he is. Broken.

The “eldest brother” — their dad, in a way — had finally cracked.

The lights are dim. The hum of the facility is quieter than usual. Cecil walks with his usual slouch, eyes heavy from exhaustion and burden. He doesn’t expect anyone to be up—let alone Mark, limping slightly but determined, one arm holding his side, the other bracing against the wall as he approaches.

Cecil stops, a little surprised.

"We’re still not working together again, Cecil." Mark’s voice was hoarse but clear. Cecil raised an eyebrow but said nothing.

"Not after Sinclair. Not after Darkwing. Not after… that thing you put in my head."

Cecil sighs, about to speak, but Mark holds up a shaky hand.

"But…” He draws a long breath "…I still wanted to say thank you. For… not just keeping us alive. But for caring. About me. About them. My…'brothers.'” 

Cecil blinks. Mark swallows, the words heavy.

"You could’ve just patched us up and tossed us in holding tanks like weapons. But you didn’t. You let them laugh. Cry. Be human. Be boys." 

Cecil stares for a beat, his expression unreadable.

"You’re still a pain in the ass, Mark."

Mark grinned faintly. "Takes one to know one.”

They exchange a rare moment of quiet understanding. Mark, still swaying a bit, nods once and turns to leave.

As he walks away, Cecil watches him—like a general seeing a battered soldier return to his feet. Not an asset. Not a tool.

A kid.

His kid, in some weird cosmic way. One of nine now.

And maybe… the one who still speaks for them all.

The dim golden hue of the sunset casts long shadows across the room. The nine Marks are scattered across medical beds, chairs, and wheelchairs. Bandaged, bruised, stitched, and scarred—yet alive. Quiet for once, just breathing, existing.

Prisoner Mark shifts slightly, his scorched skin wrapped in fresh gauze. Every move hurts, but he forces a glance around the room.

Mohawk Mark is attached to a heart monitor, drifting in and out.

Sinister Mark massages his temple, a cold rag over his head.

Maskless Mark sniffles, blood-stained tissue in his hand.

Full Mask Mark leans against a pillow, IV running, stomach still delicate.

Viltrumite Mark sits in silence, one arm absent but his posture firm.

Omni-Mark, still unconscious after the shock of seeing his new scarred face for the first time. 

Stripevincible wheezes lightly through a mask, quiet and watchful.

Mark sits cross-legged on the floor, pale but stable.

A lull. No words. Just the weight of shared pain.

Then, from the cracked lips of Prisoner Mark, soft and raspy:

"You know… we were awesome." 

The others blink. Some glance toward him. They remember the first time he said that—cold, sarcastic, annoyed at Angstrom’s theatrics. But now?

"Not the strongest. Not the smartest. Not even the most whole. But damn if we didn’t fight like hell." Prisoner Mark’s voice was still soft, but filled with warmth "Each one of you… You were awesome. You are awesome." 

A pause. A beat of silence.

Mohawk Mark gives a weak, tired smile. Maskless Mark chuckles lightly through a nosebleed.

Viltrumite Mark nods in acknowledgment. Stripevincible, even through the rasp of the oxygen mask, gives a breath of a laugh.

Mark’s eyes shimmer faintly, and he wipes something away from his cheek.

No tears this time.

Just warmth.

A family of nine broken reflections, all finally—truly seen.

And maybe, in that moment, just for a little while…

They believe it too.

An eerie quiet lingers in the room, the kind that only comes in the aftermath of too much suffering.

Full Mask Mark clutches his abdomen, eyes wide. A sudden gag. A wet, gurgling sound follows.

He leans forward and vomits blood, splattering crimson against sterile white sheets.

The room shifts. Time seems to hold its breath.

Mark suddenly convulses on his cot, froth bubbling at his lips.

Mohawk Mark’s monitor begins to scream—his heart erratic again.

Sinister Mark grabs at his face as thin trails of blood leak from his eyes, mixing with sweat.

Maskless Mark collapses forward, nosebleed returning with a vengeance, hot tears falling onto the blood-soaked tile.

Prisoner Mark, overwhelmed, grips the edge of his bed, skin prickling—his senses bombarded and screaming.

Stripevincible shudders in his chair, rasping sobs tearing from his throat as he shields his hemorrhaged eye and curls into himself, lungs tightening like a vice.

The only stillness comes from Omni-Mark, lying motionless, still unconscious after fainting earlier.

But then—

Viltrumite Mark, arm gone but spirit burning, stands.

Clutching the bed frame for balance, jaw clenched, he bellows— enraged but controlled: "ENOUGH!" 

His voice slices through the chaos like a blade. For a moment they all freeze. Shaking, whimpering, bleeding—but frozen.

He limps toward them, every step a thunderous act of defiance. "We don’t fall like this. Not all at once. We don’t let one of us break and pull the rest down with him." 

He looks around at them. Each one struggling, trembling, hurting.

"We hold each other up." Viltrumite Mark’s voice was low, but with force as he glanced at a Omni-Mark’s direction, still resting on his cot as still as ever in his unconscious state, prompting them to do the same. 

"If Omni-Mark were awake, he’d tell us the same."

A few heads nod.

Mark's seizing slows, a nurse finally reaching him. Mohawk’s monitor levels out just slightly. Sinister gasps but doesn’t scream. Maskless wipes his own nose with a sleeve.

Prisoner covers his ears, breathing heavily—but trying. Stripevincible shivers, but his sobs quiet.

They aren’t okay. They’re far from okay.

But in Viltrumite Mark’s command—his strength—they found just enough will to survive another moment.

And sometimes, that’s all that matters.

Sinister Mark sits hunched forward in bed, his fingers twitching against the sheets. His head is pounding—a migraine so violent it teeters on the edge of another seizure. His breathing is shallow, sharp. But in the fog of his agony… a memory slices through like a lightning bolt.

The sky was fire. The city in ruins. The clash of titans echoed across collapsed skyscrapers.

Conquest stood bloodied—but smiling. His robotic arm dripped with his own blood.

Sinister Mark, mask shattered—jagged shards of his goggles buried deep into his eyes, blinding him. His face was a ruin, slick with blood. He couldn’t see. But he could feel. And he could hear Conquest’s breathing.

“Pathetic,” Conquest sneered. “You’re all the same.”

And then Sinister snarled.

With a roar, he lunged forward, slamming Conquest to the cracked pavement. It wasn’t graceful. It wasn’t clean. It was pure instinctual rage.

Sinister Mark sank his teeth into Conquest’s arm—the metallic one—crunching down, tasting iron and something electric. His fingers dug into Conquest’s shoulders, and his entire body pinned the Viltrumite warlord like a rabid beast.

Conquest’s eyes widened.

Then came the blows—one after another—brutal punches raining down on Sinister’s back. Bones cracked. Blood sprayed. Muscles tore. But Sinister didn’t move.

He bit harder.

Conquest yelled. For the first time—in pain.

Sinister Mark’s body was failing, but his will was not.

He whispered through blood-soaked teeth, gritted and feral, "You’re not getting back up.”

Sinister Mark twitches in bed, breath hitching. A nurse glances toward him but hesitates.

He blinks—eyes wet, pupils dilated, lips parting to murmur with a soft but bitterly proud voice, "Didn’t let go… not once." 

He leans back, pain still hammering in his skull, but for once… there’s a crooked, pained smirk on his face.

Even now—concussed, broken, and nearly seized into unconsciousness—he remembers what it means to fight back.

The Marks are scattered around the room—each in their own wounded corner, wrapped in bandages and silence. Sinister Mark, still pale and trembling, breaks the quiet with his gritty recount of the Conquest brawl, voice low but thick with grit.

When he’s done, there’s a shared silence. Respect. Shock. Maybe even a hint of pride.

Mark straightened himself, voice weak but curious, “I was still out cold when that all went down…How did you guys even manage to beat Conquest?"

A beat. Mohawk Mark—hooked up to a heart monitor that beeps steadily beside him—lets out a raspy snort, then chuckles humorlessly. "You don’t remember the first time we met, do you?"

Mark lifted an eyebrow, "I remember you trying to choke me out." 

Mohawk grins faintly, "And you smashed my ears. Real quick thinking." 

He leans back against his pillow, staring at the ceiling as he recalls the moment. "Well, Conquest tried choking me too. Figured… hell, if it worked on me, maybe it’d throw him off too. Didn’t knock him out, but it stunned him. Long enough for Prisoner to body-slam him and for Stripe to crack a rib or two.”

Sinister Mark then grinned weakly, "And I bit him like a goddamn pit bull. Pretty sure he’s got bite marks still healing. Y’know, if he wasn’t fucking dead.” 

"We weren’t heroes. We were just cornered animals that refused to die.” Prisoner Mark laughed painfully. 

“But we won. That’s all that mattered." Full Mask Mark said quietly, voice hoarse. 

Stripevincible’s voice rasped through his mask, "Barely. But yeah… we won."

Mark’s gaze turned sincerely soft, "You guys really are… awesome." 

They all exchange glances. That word again—“awesome”—spoken not in sarcasm this time, but with genuine admiration.

“Nah, man…” Maskless Mark chuckled, however weak, and through a grin he croaked out, "We’re Invincible." 

They all shared his chuckle. It lingers in the air, warming the broken room. Even if only a little.

The room is dimly lit, quiet except for the steady beep of the monitor beside the bed. Omni-Mark lies still, unconscious, his chest rising and falling with labored breaths. Atom Eve steps inside hesitantly, a bouquet of flowers in hand. She walks to his side, brushing her hair behind her ear, unsure how to greet someone who once—

Suddenly, Omni-Mark jolts awake, eyes wild and unfocused. Instinct overrides recognition. He lunges forward and grabs Eve by the neck—only for his arm to swing through air, the phantom limb betraying his rage. He freezes. The moment shatters.

"Oh… oh no—Eve—I’m sorry. I didn’t…" Omni-Mark breathed heavily, realizing what he nearly did. He sinks back, clutching at the stump of his missing arm. His breath trembles.

Eve rubbed her neck, calmly, "It’s okay. You were… confused."

Omni-Mark swallowed, "I didn’t mean to—I wouldn’t—I remember what I did to you, when we first met."

He gestures vaguely toward her leg, eyes filled with guilt.

"I… twisted your leg open like it was nothing."

"It’s okay, Mark. I’m healing. We all are. In our own ways." Eve told him sincerely. 

An awkward silence stretches between them. The bouquet now sits unused in Eve’s lap. Omni-Mark doesn’t meet her eyes. Instead, his hand rises, trembling, to his burned face, subconsciously rubbing the scar across his eye. A dark red memory forever etched into his skin.

"It’s okay to feel sad, you know. You don’t always have to be the strong one… not for their sakes." Eve murmured softly. 

Omni-Mark finally looks at her. His face cracks, alongside his voice. 

"Yes, I do." His words come out strained, desperate, "Because if I don’t keep it together…If I don’t stay strong from them… then who will?" 

A single tear slips down his unscarred cheek, catching the light as it falls.

And Eve—Eve just sits with him. Doesn’t argue. Doesn’t press. Just stays.

Because sometimes, even the strongest need someone to simply be there.

The lights are dimmed. The air hums with quiet machines and steady beeping monitors. Sinister Mark sits on a gurney near the edge of the common space, shoulders hunched, eyes glazed. A sudden high-pitched whine pierces his world—not outside, but inside his own skull.

"No—no, no, not now—" Sinister gritted his teeth. He clutches his head, fingers digging into his temples. The ringing grows louder, sharper. His breathing quickens.

Across the room, Maskless Mark flinches. He senses it before seeing it.

"Sinister? You good?" Maskless calls out, worried. 

"My ears—damn it, it’s happening again—!" Sinister snarled through the pain. 

He falls to his knees, teeth clenched so hard his jaw trembles. The sound is maddening, like metal scraping against glass inside his head.

From his bed, Mark struggled to sit up, "Is it another spike? His scans showed inflammation near the auditory cortex last week..." 

"Too many hits to the head... it’s catching up with him." Full Mask Mark strained through his own discomfort. 

Stripevincible, despite his own respiratory issues, slowly pushes himself toward Sinister with his chair, while Viltrumite Mark limps up from behind.

"Hey. Sinister. You're not alone. Stay with us. Focus on our voices—not the one in your head." Viltrumite Mark was firm, grounding. 

Sinister Mark’s breath hitched, "It’s not like the noise thing...the one Mark described, but it hurts just as much..." 

He rocks slowly, forcing deep breaths, as Omni-Mark—his half-burned face calm but watchful—places a hand gently on Sinister’s back, steady and grounding.

"You're here. You're safe. We’ve got you." He says, low and reassuring. 

The ringing begins to fade, slowly... painfully... until it’s just a dull echo.

"...thanks." Sinister Mark managed out, his voice barely above a whisper. 

The room settles again. The others watch him carefully—each Mark knowing, somewhere in the back of their damaged minds, that any one of them could be next.

The room is quiet aside from the gentle hum of medical equipment. Maskless Mark lies in bed, his skin blotchy with a faint red rash stretching up his neck and partially across his jaw. It doesn’t look dangerous—just uncomfortable and inflamed. A nurse had left the room moments ago after delivering his latest round of topical meds.

The door creaks open and William steps in, holding a paper bag with snacks and a small comic book poking out the top. He sees Mark immediately.

“Man, you really went and caught space chickenpox or something, huh?" William joked, smiling. 

Maskless Mark lets out a weak chuckle, but his eyes are tired, "They said it’s not dangerous… but it’s contagious. You shouldn’t be here.” 

William walks closer, shrugging off the warning, "I’m vaccinated against every known disease on this Earth, Mars, and whatever weird dimension you guys may came from. I’m fine."

He places the bag on the side table and reaches for Maskless Mark’s hand, gently.

But—Maskless Mark pulls his hand away. Not violently. Not suddenly. Just… stiffly, like he’s holding back from instinct. His hand curls slightly over his own chest.

William blinked, "Hey… it’s okay, man."

"No. It’s not. I’m not okay." Maskless Mark said quietly, voice cracking just slightly. 

William sits on the edge of the bed carefully, "You’re sick. Not broken." 

“I didn’t pull away just because of the rash.” Maskless said with a small voice, There’s a beat of silence. Mark stares at the ceiling, blinking hard.

"I… I don’t deserve to be touched. Not by someone good. Not after what I’ve done… who I was. I—I shouldn’t infect you with that too.” He said softly, raw even. 

William’s smile fades, replaced with something deeper. He gently sets a hand on the blanket next to Mark’s, "You're not who you were back then. You’re here now. Trying. Hurting. Living. That counts for something." 

“Does it?” Maskless questioned, still staring upward. 

"Yeah. It does. And when you’re ready, you don’t have to pull away next time. Okay?” William grinned. 

Mark doesn’t respond, but his hand slowly, hesitantly, shifts toward William’s on the blanket—close, but not quite touching.

For now, it’s enough.

Dim lights cast soft shadows on the cold, white walls. The hum of machines down the hall echoes faintly. Debbie Grayson sits in the corner, nervously tapping her fingers against the armrest of her chair. Her eyes are red—exhaustion, stress, worry. Stripevincible is in surgery again, and all she can do is wait.

Footsteps approach. She looks up and sees Omni-Mark, his burn scar still red on his face and his left sleeve neatly pinned where his missing arm once was. He gently hands her a small styrofoam cup of tea.

“It’s chamomile. Helps with the nerves.”

"Thank you." Debbie said, surprised but touched. 

She takes the cup, warming her hands with it. Omni-Mark nods once and sits beside her, silent. The space between them is filled only by the quiet hum of the vending machine nearby.

"You’ve been good to them. To all the other Marks. Like… the way a dad might be.” Debbie said after a pause. 

Omni-Mark blinks. He doesn’t look at her. "It’s nothing. Someone had to."

"It’s not nothing." Debbie said sincerely. Another beat of silence. “I just find it kind of curious. You—you’re so naturally protective. So fatherly, really. Were you… always like that?

Omni-Mark leans back a little, eyes gazing out at the far wall as if searching for something through it.

"I wasn’t raised on Viltrum. Not like Viltrumite Mark. He… he’s been taught since birth to hold his emotions in check. Duty over feeling. Power over empathy. It’s not his fault—it’s what he knew.” 

Debbie listens closely, sipping the tea.

“Me? I was raised human. Or, at least… close to it. I had to grow up early. My world lost its Nolan sooner than yours did. I saw what happened when someone didn’t step up. I just… didn’t want that to happen again." His voice softens. "So yeah. I guess I’ve always tried to be the responsible one. The mature one. Not because I had to… but because no one else would.” 

Debbie places a hand over her heart, genuinely moved. “That’s a lot of weight for someone so young.”

Omni-Mark smirked faintly, "Tell that to the rest of me. I’m still the second oldest, technically. Prisoner Mark’s older. But I don’t think anyone wants him in charge."

They both share a quiet laugh. It’s brief, but warm.

"Well… from one parent to another, thank you. For what you do. For who you are." Debbie grinned. 

Omni-Mark finally looks at her. For a moment, the stoicism fades. There’s a flicker of something deeply human. Maybe even gratitude.

“Any time, Mrs. Grayson.” He says. 

They sit in peaceful silence, sipping tea, waiting together.

The room is dimly lit but not gloomy. A few of the Marks are resting, some reading, others simply staring at the ceiling—tired, but enduring. There’s a hush over the space, the kind that comes after too many bad days in a row.

Suddenly, the door swooshes open.

Stripevincible practically glides into the room, the lightest and most energetic he's been in what feels like forever. There's a noticeable brightness in his expression—an actual smile tugging at his lips.

"Guys! Good news!" He announces, his voice full of breathless joy. 

Heads slowly lift. Even Omni-Mark, still bandaged but upright, looks over from his corner. Mark, tired-eyed and holding a cold pack to his stomach, raises a brow. Sinister Mark, eyes covered with gauze, grumbles awake.

"My hemorrhaged eye… it's finally started healing!" Stripevincible says. 

A beat. Then, laughter—soft, worn out, but real—fills the room.

"Well damn… guess miracles are real after all." Mohawk Mark snorted. 

"There’s our Emperor of Hope." Maskless Mark chucked through a nosebleed. 

"Don’t let it go to your head. You’re still the crybaby of the group." Prisoner Mark teased. 

"Hey, I earned that crybaby title." Stripevincible grinned wide. 

"I’m happy for you. That’s… that’s a big deal." Viltrumite Mark said sincerely with a nod. 

"One small step for Stripey… one giant leap for Mark-kind." Full Mask Mark joked supportively. 

Everyone chuckles again, and the mood lifts—not just because of Stripevincible’s news, but because it finally feels like something is getting better. Just one thing. But for them, that’s enough right now.

Omni-Mark, quietly, adds: "That’s great, kid. Proud of you." 

"Thanks, Dad." Stripevincible murmured softly, touched. 

They all groan playfully, tossing pillows or whatever they can lift at him, laughing as Stripevincible ducks away, still smiling.

A relatively calm moment. Some of the Marks are dozing, others quietly reading or watching the muted TV. But of course, peace and quiet was never destined to last long.

Mohawk Mark, bored and restless, glances over at Maskless Mark, who’s curled up on his cot, sketching in a notebook with his one unbandaged hand. Mohawk’s smirk spreads slowly—like a storm brewing behind a smarmy grin.

Mohawk Mark lean in, "Hey, baby bro…" 

"No." Maskless Mark didn’t even looked up. 

"Didn’t even say anything yet!" Mohawk Mark shouted. 

"You were thinking something. I felt it in my spine." Maskless Mark dully said. 

Mohawk chuckles and pounces, playfully locking Maskless Mark in a very loose headlock.

"C’mon, just a whiff. I haven’t showered in three days. You gotta tell me if it’s still got that Viltrum musk." 

“GET OFF ME! YOU’RE A MENACE!" Maskless Mark shouted as he struggled against the other variant’s vicious grip. 

"At this point, he needs a hazmat suit." Full Mask Mark said, not even looking up from his crossword puzzle. 

Mohawk Mark snorted, "I AM the hazmat suit."

Eventually Maskless Mark slips away, red-faced and muttering curses under his breath, only for Mohawk to sneak up again, this time grabbing Maskless Mark’s hand and fake punching him with it.

"Stop hitting yourself. Stop hitting yourself. Stop—" Mohawk Mark singsonged. 

Maskless Mark clenched his teeth, “I will set you on fire." 

"He’s really committing to the annoying big brother role, huh?" Stripevincible laughed from the sidelines. 

"It’s the one thing he excels at without bleeding.” Mark muttered with a smirk. 

Finally, Omni-Mark said sternly but amused, "Mohawk. Enough." 

Mohawk Mark sighed, hands up in surrender, "Fine, fine. I’ll let the baby be." 

"I’m not a baby… I just happen to be the youngest, most injured, and possibly most emotionally fragile." Maskless Mark muttered hatefully under his breath. 

"So yeah. Baby." Prisoner Mark sipped his tea. 

Everyone laughs. Even Maskless can’t help the twitch of a smile.

Despite everything, they’re still brothers. Painfully annoying ones.

That memory plays over in Maskless Mark’s head more often than he’d like to admit.

The air is thick with dust, blood, and the sound of bones breaking. Maskless Mark, younger and more naïve than the others, is barely clinging to consciousness. Conquest’s boot slams him into the cracked concrete again, and his vision goes white.

"You’re nothing. You all think you matter, but you’re just broken copies.” Conquest says, grinning. He raises a blood-soaked fist for the final blow—

“HEY, UGLY!” 

Conquest turns, annoyed, only to see Mohawk Mark standing there, bruised, battered, but defiant—cracking his knuckles slowly, his nose already broken and crooked.

"Nobody bullies my baby brother but me!” 

Without hesitation, he launches himself at Conquest with a furious roar. The clash sends shockwaves through the rubble. Conquest stumbles, actually surprised by the raw fury in Mohawk Mark’s assault.

The others soon follow. Sinister. Full Mask. Prisoner. One by one, all piling in. That moment—sparked by Mohawk Mark’s loud, ridiculous, protective declaration—was the turning point of the battle.

Maskless Mark sits quietly on his cot, arms wrapped around his knees. Mohawk Mark is snoring in the chair across the room, mouth half open, drooling slightly.

Maskless watches him for a moment, then mutters quietly to himself: “…You big idiot.”

There’s a tiny smile on his face. One of the rare real ones.

Debbie nearly chokes on her mimosa as she finishes painting the image.

“You know what I just imagined? All nine of them… in tuxedos. Like it’s some kind of weird Viltrumite wedding party. And they all hate it.” She grins. 

That one line cracks the dam. Eve nearly chokes on her drink, Amber does a dramatic spit take, and the chaos begins.

Eve chuckles, stirring her coffee. "Oh, definitely. Omni-Mark and Viltrumite Mark trying to look composed, but the second you look down—Omni’s tugging at the collar and Viltrumite’s sweating like he’s in a sauna.”

Amber snorts into her drink. “Full Mask and Maskless would be hiding behind potted plants or each other. I bet Maskless turns redder than his dad’s cape.”

Eve leans back, arms crossed, smiling. "Stripevincible probably tries to burn his off with. ‘I AM THE EMPEROR—NOT A PENGUIN!’”

Amber giggles and adds, “Sinister Mark doesn’t even try to play along. He’s just… chewing the sleeve off his own jacket like a feral raccoon.”

They all laugh harder now, the weight of reality loosening just a little. Their brunch quickly turns into a much-needed therapy session… with laughter and mimosa-fueled giggles.

They imagine Omni-Mark trying to stand tall with dignity, but constantly tugging at the stiff collar, face twitching every few seconds as if the tie were a noose.

Viltrumite Mark with his arms crossed and a muscle in his jaw ticking, looking like a Viltrumite diplomat at a wedding he doesn’t believe in.

Full Mask Mark hiding behind his polished black-and-white ensemble, shoulders hunched, face visibly radiating “get me out of here.”

Maskless Mark trying so hard to be confident, but looking like a high school freshman at prom—tugging at his sleeves and blushing if anyone looks at him too long.

Prisoner Mark hissing, “It itches, it itches,” every two minutes while scratching at seams with burnt hands.

Stripevincible fuming and shouting, “I was once the Emperor! You dare cage me in this fabric prison?!”

Sinister Mark, trying to tear the sleeves off like a feral raccoon in Gucci, muttering, “I look soft—this is blasphemy.”

Mark giving up halfway through and slouching in a corner, arms folded, cheeks flushed, saying “this is worse than getting punched by Battle Beast.”

And of course, Mohawk Mark, standing dead center in the lineup, arms spread out like a kid forced into Sunday church clothes, shouting, “One hour. ONE. And then I’m setting this funeral tuxedo from hell on fire!”

They dissolve into laughter again, and for a moment, there’s peace. Just three women who love Mark Grayson—each in their own way—sharing memories, jokes, and a much-needed breath of joy in the chaos.

“They really are the most ridiculous, lovable disasters.” Amber smiled softly. 

“Yeah… but they’re ours.” Eve breathed. 

Debbie sipped her tea, smiling softly, “They’re all a mess.”

“Yeah… but they’re our mess.” Amber grinned again. 

“And I wouldn’t trade any of them for the world.” Eve finished. 

For a moment, the stress lifts—replaced by warmth, shared love, and the absolute absurdity of nine stubborn Marks trapped in tuxedos.

All nine Marks—scattered across beds, couches, and chairs in various states of recovery—suddenly jolt with a synchronized, instinctive shiver.

Mark is the first to sneeze, and then, like some twisted domino effect, the rest follow. 

Omni-Mark sneezes with a deep grunt that nearly cracks the IV stand next to him.

Viltrumite Mark lets out a sneeze that sounds more like a restrained explosion.

Mohawk Mark follows up with a violent sneeze, then mutters, “Who the hell’s talking about us?”

Sinister Mark sneezes and bleeds a little from the nose again. “I felt that. Someone’s plotting.”

Full Mask Mark sneezes and mumbles through his oxygen mask, “I think… someone laughed.”

Maskless Mark wipes at his nose, looking genuinely spooked. “Was it mom?”

Prisoner Mark groans, tugging his blanket closer. “I told you we were tethered to something cosmic…”

Stripevincible, recovering from surgery, rasps, “They’re mocking us. I can feel it in my imperial core.”

They all glance at each other.

And somewhere, somehow… Debbie, Amber, and Eve all burst into laughter again.

The Marks just know.

The shared room falls into a rare hush as Omni-Mark, sitting at the far end near the window with his arms crossed (well, arm), speaks calmly. The flickering hospital lights cast soft shadows on the fresh burn scar lining his face, but his voice is steady—almost too steady—as he begins.

“When I was a kid… I guess you could say I didn’t act like one. I was quiet. Focused. Always thinking five steps ahead.” He paused, “Viltrumite training wasn’t hard. Not for me. I didn’t see the point of complaining or slacking. I did what I was told. I exceeded expectations. My father—my Nolan—he used to call me ‘a fine young man.’” “High praise, coming from a Viltrumite.” He smirked slightly. 

The others glance at each other. Mohawk Mark raises an eyebrow. Full Mask Mark leans forward slightly. Even Prisoner Mark, usually sarcastic, doesn’t make a quip.

“I never really played. Never acted out. Didn’t have time for it, and honestly? Didn’t care to. I knew what the world expected from me, and I just… did it. Every test. Every drill. Like clockwork.”

“So you were like… the perfect soldier?” Mark asked quietly. 

Omni-Mark scoffed lightly. “Perfect’s a stretch. But I was prepared. That’s how I survived everything. That’s why I can’t afford to fall apart now.”

“No wonder you act like the dad of the group…” Stripevincible said gruffly, but with respect. 

“You were born a soldier. I had to claw my way into becoming one.” Sinister Mark commented. 

Mohawk Mark, tongue in cheek, mumbled, “Man, and here I thought I had daddy issues.”

A small ripple of chuckles flows through the room, even from Omni-Mark himself. The scar doesn’t soften, but his shoulders do—just slightly. There’s a long silence. The air in the room shifts.

Omni-Mark’s quiet retelling of his disciplined upbringing lingers like a shadow over the rest of the Marks. There’s a long pause—no one’s quite sure how to follow up. But then, Mohawk Mark clears his throat.

“Man… makes me look like an absolute pain in the ass growing up. I flunked half the physicals just from mouthing off. Pretty sure my Nolan only kept me alive out of morbid curiosity.” Mohawk grinned but it didn’t really met his eyes. 

“I was raised on Viltrum. Since birth. All of it—the doctrine, the drills, the glorified history books. I knew the standards. I knew the stakes.” Viltrumite Mark sighed, stern but vulnerable. “But my powers didn’t show up until I was seventeen. Do you know what that’s like on Viltrum? To feel like… a defective cog in a war machine? If they didn’t activate by eighteen—execution. No exceptions.”

“I didn’t sleep for an entire year.” He quietly added. 

The room grows still again, the gravity of that statement pulling everyone inward.

“I… I was the worst. At everything.” Maskless Mark said softly, voice cracking just a bit. His eyes were downcast as he continued, “Couldn’t fly straight. Couldn’t punch right. Failed most of the early Viltrumite drills. My Nolan—he… he looked at me like I was broken.” “There was a moment where I almost didn’t get my powers at all. And when I didn’t… he actually considered ending me.”

No one laughs. Not even Mohawk Mark. The silence is thick, but not empty. It’s full of shared weight. Shared trauma. A quiet understanding between versions of the same soul who walked similar roads, but alone.

“We all survived different kinds of hell. Doesn’t make anyone more or less.” Prisoner Mark said flatly, but sincere. 

“Damn straight.” Stripevincible said gruffly. 

“I didn’t mean to make anyone feel lesser. I just… that’s how I learned to cope. Keeping it together. Moving forward.” Omni-Mark said sincerely, looking around. “We all made it here, didn’t we? No matter how.”

And that hits. Each Mark processing their own pain, suddenly not feeling so alone in it anymore.

They don’t say it out loud—but for a moment, the room feels like family.

“…Thanks for keeping us together.” Maskless Mark said quietly, but sincere. 

Omni-Mark looks at them all. His brothers. Broken, scarred, battered… and still here. He nods once, resolutely.

“Someone has to.”

The shared room is filled with groans, soft wheezes, and the occasional frustrated sigh. One by one, the nine Marks lie in their respective beds like a bizarre row of war-torn clones, each wrapped in blankets, heat packs, or healing bandages depending on their afflictions that day.

Sinister Mark has a damp towel over his eyes due to a migraine-like ringing. 

Stripevincible’s face is still pale post-surgery. Mohawk Mark’s breathes weakly but steadily into his oxygen mark, his weak heart still making him feel like the briefest conversation was a marathon. Omni-Mark stares at the ceiling in quiet pain, his healing still incomplete. Maskless Mark is bundled up tight from a mild fever, while Full Mask Mark’s stomach lurches uncomfortably inside of him, same thing with Mark. Prisoner Mark lies perfectly still, not from discipline, but because everything aches when he moves.

Then, a groggy grunt breaks the silence:

“We should count ourselves lucky, y’know.” Viltrumite Mark says flatly, his voice scratchy, “At least none of us need help… going to the bathroom or cleaning up after ourselves.”

There’s a pause. A moment of silence as everyone mentally checks their dignity.

“Yeah. Low bar, but I’ll take it.” Mohawk Mark said, half-muffled behind his oxygen mask. 

“Still got my pride. Mostly.” Sinister Mark hissed softly. 

“Even if I nearly passed out trying to stand this morning…” Maskless Mark reminisces weakly. 

“I did pass out. Still not asking for help.” Prisoner Mark said flatly. 

“Would rather crawl.” Stripevincible huffed. 

“Would rather die.” Full Mask Mark agreed. 

Mark sighed. “I’d like to sit up without feeling like my stomach’s in protest, but yeah… small blessings.”

“Viltrumite pride. Even in complete agony.” Omni-Mark said quietly, with faint amusement. 

There’s a weak chuckle that rolls around the room like a wave. It’s tired, pained… but genuine.

Despite everything, they were still hanging on. Together.

In the dim, half-lit quiet of the recovery ward, Prisoner Mark speaks softly—almost to himself—but the other Marks hear him. He lies on his cot, arms behind his head, staring at nothing in particular. His eyes, though open, are glazed with the cloudy, permanent damage that a year of torture and isolation have left behind.

“Funny thing about sight… you don’t really appreciate it until it’s gone. I remember a time when I could see perfectly. When color meant something. Faces. Skies. My mom’s smile.” He inhales slowly, his breathing just a little shakier than usual.

“I still look, you know? My eyes move. I turn my head. Instinct, I guess. But they don’t see. Not really. Been that way ever since that Viltrumite prison turned my face into pulp. 78% blind. That’s what the docs said. Left eye’s all but useless. Right’s like trying to stare through fogged-up glass.” Prisoner Mark’s voice was low and contemplative. 

There’s a silence. Heavy and respectful.

“But the worst part? It’s not the blindness. It’s that I was still expected to fight. To kill. To survive… in the dark. No one ever cared that I couldn’t see. They just expected me to be a good little weapon anyway.”

He doesn’t sound bitter—just tired. As if the memory is a weight he’s long since grown used to carrying.

“Well, you still fight better than most of us on a bad day.” Mohawk Mark said gruffly, trying to lighten up the mood. 

“Yeah. Pretty sure you broke three of my ribs back in that wasteland dimension.” Stripevincible added. 

Maskless Mark murmured. “You hit me through a wall once. I wasn’t even in the fight.”

A faint, crooked smile pulls at the corner of Prisoner Mark’s mouth. “Blind or not, I still aim where it hurts.”

The others chuckle—soft, worn-out sounds—but it’s enough. Even in near darkness, he still has his place among them. Still seen.

The hospital room was dimly lit with only the soft hum of machines and the steady beeping of vitals filling the silence. Debbie stepped in quietly, her footsteps soft against the floor as she looked over all nine of her boys. Each of them was still and peaceful for once, wrapped in bandages and tucked into their respective beds like fragile porcelain dolls. 

Except one.

Her eyes landed on Mohawk Mark. He was completely upside down, feet resting where his head should be, arms splayed wide like he’d fallen onto the bed mid-air and just stayed there.His oxygen mask somehow clung stubbornly to his face despite the chaos of his sleeping pose, tilted askew but still doing its job. The wires and IV lines trailing from him looked tangled but miraculously functional.

Debbie stared at him for a moment. Then softly, a fond little smile tugged at her lips.

“Of course it’s you,” she whispered with amused exasperation.

She stepped closer and gently brushed a few strands of wild mohawk-flattened hair from his forehead, being careful not to wake him. Despite the defiant sprawl of limbs and the stubbornness that radiated even in sleep, there was something vulnerable about him in this moment—something childlike.

“Chaotic little gremlin,” she whispered affectionately. “I feel bad for your version of me.”

She let her hand rest briefly on his shoulder before walking away to check on the others. Her own Mark, Mainstream Mark, lay sleeping stiffly as always—straight as a board, barely shifting at all, even in his dreams. A part of her laughed softly at the contrast.

One slept like a warrior on alert, the other like he’d lost a fight with gravity.

And yet both… were hers.

The sharp crash of something shattering against tile jolts Maskless Mark and Viltrumite Mark from their conversation, both instinctively pushing through the pain as they rush toward the bathroom.

What they find stops them cold. Sinister Mark is sprawled halfway on the ground, hunched over the sink. His fingers claw weakly at the porcelain, blood dripping from his nose in thin streaks. His breath comes in ragged gasps, sweat slicking his pale skin. His pupils twitch and dilate, and his body jerks ever so slightly—signs they’ve all learned to recognize too well.

Another seizure. Or worse: the early storm of a full-blown epileptic episode.

“Sinister! What—what happened?!” Maskless Mark asked, panicked. 

“He’s slipping. He’s going into another one.” Viltrumite Mark’s voice was sharp and commanding. 

He crouches quickly, one hand trying to steady Sinister’s shoulder, the other reaching for his chin to check his responsiveness.

“N-No. No, I’m fine. I’m fine.”

Sinister Mark grits his teeth, voice is barely above a whisper, strained and trembling. “Just… just help me… back to bed. If I get there, I can— I can keep it together.”

Maskless looks uncertain, torn between wanting to run for a nurse and staying with him. Viltrumite, ever the soldier, nods once and moves into action.

“Alright. No time to argue.”

He hooks Sinister’s arm over his own shoulder with his remaining limb, hoisting him carefully. Maskless rushes to support his other side. Sinister groans under the pressure, his body twitching slightly again—but he holds on. Barely.

They move in sync, a quiet and desperate shuffle back toward the beds.

Sinister doesn’t say anything more. He’s too focused on breathing, on holding himself still. But when they finally reach his cot and gently lower him down, he clenches his teeth and forces the tremors back down through sheer will.

He didn’t want to break. Not here. Not again.

“You shouldn’t push yourself like this.” Viltrumite Mark said quietly after a beat. 

“I have to. Because if I fall apart again… I’m afraid I won’t come back from it.” Sinister Mark says, staring at the ceiling. 

A painful silence lingers. Maskless quietly places a cold cloth on Sinister’s forehead, hand trembling.

They stay with him until the shaking slows.

Mark had just finished another painfully slow round of walking exercises when he rounded the corner to the shared rec room—only to stop in his tracks.

He blinked. Then blinked again.

All eight of his alternate selves were sprawled out across the room like overheated cats, planted right in front of an industrial-sized oscillating fan. Sinister Mark was lying belly-down on the cold tile floor, arms stretched out like a starfish. Mohawk Mark had his shirt halfway up, moaning dramatically as the breeze hit his sweat-slicked chest.

“This is heaven,” he muttered between bites of a grape popsicle. “Literal heaven.”

Stripevincible looked uncharacteristically peaceful, leaned against a beanbag chair with a lime-flavored pop wedged between his lips. Omni-Mark sat upright and composed as ever, but even he couldn’t stop his eye from fluttering shut just a little as the fan hit him just right.

Prisoner Mark sat nearest to the fan, the breeze offering him the tiniest relief from his over-sensitive skin. A nurse had rigged a special misting spray for him too—each blast making him sigh in something almost like contentment.

Maskless Mark was laying across Full Mask Mark’s lap, both of them sharing an orange-flavored twin popsicle. The youngest giggled as the fan blew his bangs up.

“It’s like my brain’s getting cooled,” he mumbled happily.

Full Mask Mark, floating a few inches off the ground to avoid his aching stomach, just nodded in agreement. “Totally worth the brain freeze.”

“I leave you guys alone for one hour and you turn into popsicle-loving fan junkies?” Mark leaned against the doorframe, a tired but genuine smile tugging at his face.

“You weren’t the one Angstrom dropped into a desert dimension for weeks,” Viltrumite Mark he grumbled.

“No shade. No water. Just sand. Sand everywhere.” Mohawk added, dramatically throwing an arm over his eyes.

“I hate sand,” Prisoner Mark muttered darkly. “It’s coarse and rough and gets in—”

“Don’t finish that quote,” Omni-Mark cut in.

Mark chuckled, then slowly shuffled over to them and sat down with a grunt. Sinister Mark scooted to make room, offering him a cherry popsicle without even saying a word. He accepted it with a grateful nod and leaned his head back, letting the fan’s breeze wash over his sore body. 

For a moment, all nine Marks just sat there in companionable silence, the whirring of the fan and the soft sounds of popsicle munching filling the room.

“Y’know,” Mark said quietly, “for guys who’ve been through hell, you really know how to chill. Heh, literally.” 

Mohawk Mark grinned around his popsicle.

“Damn right we do.”

In the quiet stillness of the GDA hospital wing, Eve found herself seated beside Mohawk Mark. He was slouched on the edge of his bed, his heart monitor beeping faintly behind him, chest still wrapped in supports from his recent episode. His signature mohawk drooped a little, weighed down by the solemn mood that had crept into the room.

They hadn’t said anything for a while. Eve kept looking at him, expecting some joke, some cocky quip like he always threw out—something loud, inappropriate, crude. But nothing came. Just silence.

Then, finally, Mohawk Mark spoke. His voice was… different. Softer. Like the fire had dulled, not gone, but burned into something more painful.

“You died. In my dimension.”

Eve blinked, startled. The weight of those three words made her stomach twist. 

Mohawk Mark didn’t look at her. He just stared at his hands. “When my dad told me about the Viltrum Empire and what he wanted from me... I didn’t say no. I joined him. But I thought… I could bring everyone I loved with me. Teen Team, Robot, Rex, Dupli-Kate… You.”

“I went to your base, thinking you'd all be happy. That we’d rule together, fix things. Shape Earth into something better. Under us.” His fingers curled in. “But you refused. All of you did. So I… I killed you. All of you.”

Eve gasped softly, but he pressed on.

“Your death… messed me up. You were the one I… I really loved. You were everything good I couldn’t admit I needed. After that, I…” He swallowed, then looked away in shame. “I found women. Human women. I… made them dye their hair. Gave them your clothes. Told them to talk like you. Move like you.”

His voice cracked. “But they weren’t you. They were never you. They were just—just costumes. And every time they tried to love me, I hated them more. Because you weren’t there.”

Eve opened her mouth to speak—but before she could find the words, Mohawk Mark leaned forward and gently, almost shyly, hugged her. His arms, usually weapons of chaos and stubborn fury, trembled slightly as they wrapped around her. It wasn’t a romantic hug. Not a desperate one. It was something raw and real. The kind of hug someone gives when they’re afraid they’ll shatter without it.

For a second, Eve froze. But then she melted into it, hugging him back just as firmly.

“It’s okay,” she whispered. “You’re not that person anymore.”

Mohawk Mark didn’t reply. His forehead rested against her shoulder, and his breath hitched, but he didn’t cry. He just held her—like maybe, for a moment, he could forgive himself.

Outside the room, Cecil watched from the monitor, saying nothing. Inside the room, Eve closed her eyes and whispered to herself more than anyone: “You’re here now. That’s what matters.”

It was supposed to be a peaceful night—for once. All nine versions of Mark Grayson were stable. No seizures. No bile. No bleeding. No sudden cardiac episodes or collapsed lungs. Just quiet, solemn, sore rest. Until…

RRRRRRRRRHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHKKKKHHHHTT!!

A snore. A loud, monstrous, echoing snore. The kind of snore that makes walls tremble and hospital equipment beep out of sheer confusion. 

It was coming from none other than Stripevincible, who lay half-asleep with a peaceful expression on his face and his oxygen mask resting just above his nose, allowing the unholy sound to bellow unobstructed through the room. One by one, the other Marks stirred.

Mark groaned and rolled over, clutching his pillow to his ears. Maskless Mark sat upright with a start, blood already trickling down his nose from the rude awakening.

Full Mask Mark whimpered from his IV-bound bed, muttering, "It's happening again..."

Omni-Mark twitched in his cot, teeth clenched in restrained irritation. Sinister Mark growled lowly under his breath, rubbing his pounding head. Viltrumite Mark opened his one eye and blinked at the ceiling like it had betrayed him.

Prisoner Mark hissed, “Is the Empire trying to torture me again?”

Mohawk Mark, however, sat up fast, hair disheveled and done.

"Oh my god, Stripe! SHUT UP!" He yelled hoarsely. 

Stripevincible, blissfully unaware, responded with an even louder snore.

RRRRHHHHHHHGGGGGKKKKHHHHUUHHHHHHHHTTT!!

Mark weakly threw a tissue box at him. It bounced off harmlessly.

"He sounds like a jet engine choking on gravel." Maskless Mark sleepily through a nosebleed. 

"Can't someone... sedate him?" Full Mask Mark whimpered. 

Omni-Mark sighed deeply, "No. He just got off sedation."

"I have one arm. But if I must smother him with a pillow, I'll adapt." Viltrumite Mark deadpanned. 

In the sterile glow of the GDA hospital hallway, Maskless Mark leaned against the wall with one hand clutching a wad of gauze to his nose. Another nosebleed. His other hand trembled faintly as he wiped away some of the streaked red from his lip. The migraines, the dizziness, the endless sensation of being weak—it all clawed at him more than any villain ever had.

He was so focused on not bleeding all over the floor that he didn’t notice the approaching footsteps until a quiet voice broke the silence behind him.

“You know… we’re not so different, you and me.”

Sinister Mark stood just a few feet away, cradling a steaming mug between his scarred hands. His red-ringed eyes looked tired—more tired than usual. Haunted, even.

Maskless turned to look at him, cautious at first.

“We both disappointed him. Our Nolans.” Sinister’s voice was low, deliberate, each word etched in memory and pain. “Always walking on eggshells, trying to avoid setting him off. Trying to be good enough. Strong enough. Useful enough.”

He took a step closer, not threatening—just present. “I was ten when he killed my mom. Snapped her neck like it was nothing. Right in front of me. And then he looked me in the eyes and said, ‘If I ever see you cry like that again, I’ll do the same to you.’”

Maskless Mark froze, stunned. He lowered the bloodied gauze.

“I lived my whole life thinking today would be the day he’d follow through on that. I tried to be quiet. Perfect. Tough. But it never worked. I just… snapped. I stopped being human somewhere along the line.” He chuckled humorlessly, low and deranged, “But I get it. What it’s like, to flinch every time your father speaks. To dread the sound of his footsteps.”

He extended the mug of hot chocolate, warmth swirling from it like something out of a memory that didn’t belong to either of them anymore.

Maskless Mark hesitated—then graciously accepted it with both hands. The warmth spread up his fingers like something tender and human. He stared down at it for a moment, then gave a tiny nod. 

“Thanks,” he muttered.

Sinister Mark leaned against the wall beside him, quiet now. Just two broken reflections of the same shattered boy, sharing silence and chocolate in the hallway of a place meant to keep them alive.

Full Mask Mark hovered in the air, an IV line still tucked into his arm, but for once, his face wasn't clenched in pain or nausea. Debbie sat beside him, holding his hand gently. Her presence always calmed him. Not just because she was Debbie—his mother—but because even across universes, she somehow felt the same. Warm. Steady. Safe.

Still… not exactly the same.

“You know, it’s weird,” he said with a faint grin behind his oxygen mask, voice slightly muffled. “You’re just like her… except for one thing.”

Debbie tilted her head. “Oh? And what’s that?”

“My Debbie needed glasses,” he said with amusement. “But she refused to wear them. Said they made her look old. She’d hold things like—” he mimicked her squinting and holding something far away, “—like this just to avoid it.”

Debbie chuckled. “That… actually tracks.” 

“So one Mother’s Day, me and my dad got her a pair of really fancy ones,” Full Mask continued. “Tortoiseshell frame, gold arms—like, real nice. We wrapped ‘em up and gave them to her and she was so excited to open the box—until she saw what was inside.”

Debbie laughed. “She flipped, didn’t she?”

“Absolutely snapped! ‘Are you calling me old?!’ she said. Took so much convincing to get her to even try them on. But when she finally did…” Full Mask Mark chuckled. “She just gasped. Like this big, dramatic gasp. And said—‘Oh my God, I can see everything. Is this what your father actually looks like?!’”

Debbie burst out laughing. “No!”

“Yes!” Full Mask nodded, eyes crinkling with mirth. “And Dad—my Nolan—he just looked so offended. That was the moment he decided those glasses were only for reading.”

They both dissolved into laughter, and from around the room, the other eight Marks, some sitting, some lying on hospital beds or floating in place, tried really hard not to join in. Mohawk Mark bit his knuckle to suppress a snort. Sinister Mark let out a muffled wheeze. Maskless Mark was already smiling way too wide for someone with a nosebleed.

But then Debbie turned, eyes sharp and full of warning. “If any of you ever think about buying me glasses…”

The laughter died instantly.

Viltrumite Mark looked away, suddenly fascinated with his IV bag. Stripevincible busied himself adjusting his oxygen mask. Mark coughed, clearly not laughing.

Mohawk Mark muttered, “Noted.”

Debbie crossed her arms and narrowed her eyes with mock suspicion. “I heard that.”

Full Mask Mark, still smiling, leaned into her side just a bit. “You’re still perfect. Glasses or not.”

Debbie softened immediately and stroked his hair, kissing the top of his head.

Behind her, Mohawk whispered to the others, “We’re still getting her glasses someday.”

Maskless whispered back, “Only if you want to die.”

The shared recovery room was unusually quiet—well, as quiet as a room full of nine broken Invincibles could ever be. Most of them were either dozing, muttering to themselves, or watching one of the old superhero reruns the GDA had put on to "boost morale" (with very limited success).

That’s when Prisoner Mark struck again.

Sinister Mark jolted awake with a strangled growl as a pair of burnt, scarred fingers raked through his hair—roughly.

“Dude, seriously?” he snarled, sitting upright and blinking rapidly through the pain in his fractured skull.

Prisoner Mark tilted his head. “Sorry. I thought you were Stripe.”

From the corner, Mohawk Mark scowled, one eye twitching in anticipation. “If you touch my mohawk again, I swear, I’m gonna break my own spine and blame you.”

Maskless Mark was curled up on his bed, arms around his knees—until a sudden yank on his head made him squeak.

“Hey!!”

“Sorry,” Prisoner mumbled again. “I thought you were Full Mask.”

Viltrumite Mark calmly pried Prisoner’s hand off his scalp with a tired sigh. “You know we’re not interchangeable by hair texture alone, right?”

Omni-Mark, from his cot, muttered dryly: “We literally all look the same.”

Stripevincible was half asleep until he felt those fingers claw into his scalp. He jolted upright with a strangled wheeze, hand over his healing eye.

Full Mask Mark, hovering quietly a few feet off the ground, offered a small shrug.

“I don’t mind it,” he whispered. “It’s kinda nice. I… I miss people touching me, I guess.”

Prisoner Mark blinked. “Thanks, Full.”

“That was Maskless, actually,” said Mohawk with a cackle.

Eventually, they figured it out—Prisoner Mark was blind, tactile-sensitive, and… well, just kind of obsessed with their hair. Not maliciously. Not even that weirdly (depending on who you asked). Just… desperate for sensation. For connection. And, after a year locked in a Viltrumite prison, where he’d been shaved bald and isolated, it made sense.

Mark, who had watched all this unfold with a mix of confusion and quiet horror, finally spoke: “Maybe next time, just ask first?”

Prisoner Mark tilted his head and gave a very genuine: “Can I touch your hair?”

Mark sighed. “…Fine. Gently.”

He immediately regretted it as scarred fingers yanked their way through his scalp.

Across the room, Cecil watched the monitor feed and rubbed the bridge of his nose.

“Donald,” he muttered. “Put in a request for custom gloves. And… maybe a fidget toy. Or nine.”

“Already ahead of you, sir.”

Mark, tired but lucid, lies on his cot with his eyes open, staring at the ceiling. His body aches with the shared weight of nine lives, but his mind is clear enough to wonder the one thing he’s been too afraid to ask until now.

“If you had the chance… would you go back? To your own dimensions, I mean.” He said quietly, but clearly. 

There’s a pause. Not stunned silence—more like a heavy moment of quiet reflection. It’s a simple question. But not an easy one.

Full Mask Mark speaks first, his voice small and raspy as he clutches his IV line like a tether.

“…No.” He hesitates, then adds softly, “My Debbie’s gone. Died protecting me. I starved myself for months thinking I deserved it. There’s nothing left back there.”

Maskless Mark glances over, his face pale, a faint trickle of blood at his nostril as he nods in agreement.

“Same. William was all I had. He died… scared. Because of me.” He swallows hard, “I’m not going back to that silence.”

Prisoner Mark lets out a dry, humorless chuckle. “If I go back, it’s right back to the cell. Shackled in Viltrumite chains. They blinded me once—they’ll finish the job next time. I’d rather rot here with you guys than be caged again.”

Viltrumite Mark, lying with his good arm crossed over his chest, speaks in his usual measured tone. “Going back would mean returning to a life where every moment was dictated by the Empire. Where loyalty was survival. Here… I might be broken, but I’m free.”

There’s a murmur of agreement. Omni-Mark, upright in bed and sipping bitter tea with one hand—his only hand—nods slowly.

“My duty isn’t to that universe anymore. It’s to you all. My brothers.” He says it simply, with no need for flowery words, “This is home now.”

Mohawk Mark, lying upside down on his bed because he claimed it “helps his weak heart somehow,” snorts.

“Yeah, I could go back. Be Emperor Punk Supreme again, boss around my Viltrumite goons… but nah.” He pauses, “It’s loud there. Empty, too. Here… it’s ugly, painful, but real.”

“My empire was built on rage. Fear. Control. It was all I knew, and I ruled it with an iron fist.” Stripevincible says quietly but firmly. He closes his hemorrhaged eye, “But what I found here… isn’t something I’ll ever find there. I was someone here. Not just something.”

Finally, Sinister Mark lets out a low laugh that borders on bitter amusement.

“Back home? I just hurt people. That’s all I ever did. Ruined lives for the thrill of it.” He shrugs, cracking his neck softly, “Here, I hurt too… but it’s different. I’m not just a monster in the dark. I’m one of us. I’d rather stay.”

Mark swallows, his throat tight. Nine Marks. Nine broken lives. But all of them… choosing each other.

It’s the closest thing to family most of them have ever had.

Omni-Mark sat on the edge of his bed, his posture as rigid and statuesque as ever, but his gaze was distant. His burnt side still ached—physically, yes, but far worse was the weight it carried. A reminder of how close he’d been to death. How far he’d come. And how much he’d lost.

His left eye, the one still functioning, stared into the faint reflection in the polished steel panel across from his bed. That eye—a sharp, icy blue—cut through the room like a blade. It was the same exact shade as Nolan’s. 

The others had their mother’s eyes. Soft, earthy, human. Warm in a way Omni-Mark could never describe, but he saw it in every glance exchanged between his brothers and Debbie. That tether to humanity.

He didn’t have that.

No matter how hard he tried, no matter how much he protected them, guided them, reassured them… he always saw it. In himself. In that damn eye.

“Why are you staring at the wall like it insulted you?” came Mohawk Mark’s voice as he flopped down beside him, shirt half on, heartbeat monitor stubbornly beeping at its own rebellious rhythm. Omni-Mark didn’t answer.

Maskless Mark was next, limping over with tissue still pressed to a bleeding nostril, frowning. “You okay, Omni?”

Omni-Mark’s jaw tensed, eyes still on his reflection. “…Do you guys ever think about our eyes?”

That got everyone's attention.

Mohawk blinked. “Our… eyes?”

“They’re all brown,” Omni continued quietly. “Yours. The others’. Debbie’s eyes. But mine… mine aren’t.”

The silence that followed wasn’t judgmental. It was heavy with understanding.

Sinister Mark, rubbing his temple to ease his own headache, muttered, “So what? It’s not like any of us are walking models of sanity and balance.”

Viltrumite Mark added, “It just means you got different genetics. It doesn’t mean anything else.”

Omni-Mark turned toward them. His gaze was unreadable. “You don’t get it. The rest of you… you have her eyes. It means something. It’s like there’s still a layer of humanity in you. Something warm. But me? I got his.”

A beat.

Mark stood, despite the IV line tugging at his wrist, and made his way to Omni-Mark, eyes sincere.

“We don’t see him when we look at you,” he said, voice firm.

“Not even close,” added Full Mask Mark, softly floating beside the bed.

“Your eye—” said Prisoner Mark, dragging his scarred body forward with effort, “—it’s like a sapphire. Cold, yeah… but sharp. Brilliant. It sees. You see us, you take care of us.”

Mohawk Mark bumped his shoulder. “So what if it’s blue? Makes you look cool. You’re the calm one. The strong one. And that’s you, not Nolan.”

Sinister Mark pointed at his own face. “You think I chose these messed-up bloodshot nightmares? We all carry something, Omni.”

Stripevincible nodded. “You’re not our father’s shadow. You’re our lighthouse.”

Omni-Mark’s lips parted slightly, but no words came out. He just looked at them. At each of them—bruised, broken, recovering—and yet still standing. Still together.

And when Maskless Mark gave him the gentlest smile and said, “Your eye doesn’t define you. You do,” Omni-Mark felt something strange stir in his chest.

For the first time in a long while, he looked away from his reflection. And smiled.

The doctor blinked in surprise as Full Mask Mark handed over the chunk of his hair like it was a receipt.

“Here,” Full Mask said casually, dropping the dark locks into the container. “DNA for days.”

Mark, sitting on the neighboring exam table and still holding his own little sterile cotton swab, looked horrified.

“Did you just—rip your hair out?” he asked, wide-eyed.

Full Mask gave him a quizzical look. “Yeah? That’s how we do it. Doesn’t hurt.”

“It doesn’t hurt?” Mark repeated, slowly lowering the swab. “How does it not hurt?!”

Mohawk Mark, lounging nearby and flipping through a tablet, snorted and looked over. “Dude, are you telling me you didn’t know that? It’s like pulling a bandaid for us. One quick yank and boom—clean break.” 

“How do you think I style this?” he added, dramatically gesturing to his signature mohawk. “You think this happens with gel and prayer? Nah, man. Maintenance is just controlled shedding.”

Mark stared between them, still trying to process the revelation.

“I’ve been combing my hair like a normal person.”

“Lame,” Mohawk muttered.

“It’s basic biology. Viltrumite follicles are locked in at the root by pressure-responsive tissue. Easy to release. Painless.” Viltrumite Mark, who’d just walked in for his physical, said. 

“…Okay, nerd,” Mohawk muttered again, but grinned.

Mark sat there, still clutching his swab, looking personally betrayed by his own biology.

“I’ve been brushing. For nothing.”

It started with a soft poke.

Mark flinched, looking over his shoulder with narrowed eyes. “Did you just—?”

Viltrumite Mark, sitting cross-legged on his hospital cot with the most neutral expression imaginable, slowly lifted his only arm and wiggled his fingers.

“…Oh no.”

“Oh yes,” said Stripevincible from across the room, already backing toward the wall. “Run.”

But it was too late.

With unexpected agility and a deadpan intensity that made the whole thing even more ridiculous, Viltrumite Mark lunged at Mark first—jabbing his fingers into his side and sending him into a wheezing, helpless fit of laughter. “Stop—! You traitor! I trusted you!”

One by one, the others fell.

Maskless Mark shrieked and nearly toppled over a chair trying to get away.

Prisoner Mark flailed dramatically, scarred fingers grasping the air like he was in a Shakespearean tragedy. “Mercy!”

Sinister Mark hissed and cackled all at once, doubling over as he tried to escape—but also not really trying because… well… he was smiling.

Omni-Mark tried to maintain composure. “This is beneath us. We are Viltrumi—ACK!” His voice cracked the moment fingers brushed his ribs, and he folded like a lawn chair.

Mohawk Mark was the only one who dared challenge him. “Come at me, one-arm bandit. I dare you.”

Viltrumite Mark calmly walked over, held eye contact, and jabbed him square in the stomach. Mohawk immediately collapsed into breathless giggles, swatting weakly at him.

Full Mask Mark, on the other hand, welcomed it with open arms. Literally. He extended his arms as wide as he could as soon as Viltrumite approached him, as if waiting for a hug, and met his fate gracefully. The formerly bulimic boy chuckled quietly as his brother assaulted his ribs, having not laughed like this for a long time.  

By the time Debbie walked into the room with Eve trailing behind her, she stopped in her tracks at the sight: nine half-alien superpowered warriors sprawled across the room, panting from laughter, red-faced and utterly disarmed.

Viltrumite Mark sat serenely among them all, expression placid as ever, the lone instigator with a quiet pride in his eye.

“…Should I even ask?” Debbie muttered.

“No,” Eve said, biting back a smile. “Let them have this.”

Because in that moment, amidst the cackling and wheezing and flailing limbs, there was no pain, no trauma, no war.

Just brothers. And joy.

Prisoner Mark’s fingers moved slowly, much more gently than usual, carefully threading through the nape-length hair of Full Mask Mark as the two sat in the quiet corner of their shared hospital room. The overhead lights were dim, the murmur of machines soft and distant, and for once, the moment felt calm.

“Y’gonna cut it?” Prisoner Mark asked, voice low as his scarred thumb brushed against the softer, healthier strands near the root. “Or maybe shave off the stubble, now that we’re all gonna make it outta here?”

Full Mask Mark didn’t answer right away. He tilted his head slightly, letting his hair slide through his brother’s burnt fingers without flinching.

“Hm…” he finally hummed, “You know, I didn’t always look like this. I kept myself clean. Short hair. No stubble. I tried to look—put together.”

Prisoner Mark stayed quiet, waiting.

“…Then my mom died,” Full Mask Mark continued. “And I just… stopped. Showering, shaving, eating right. It didn’t matter anymore. I thought if I looked like shit, it’d reflect how I felt inside. Guilty. Broken.”

His hand lifted, tugging at a long lock of his own hair. “But… I don’t hate it now. The hair. The scruff. I think I grew into them.”

He glanced at his reflection in the dark window, “So no, I don’t think I’ll cut it. Or shave. I’ll just take better care of it this time. Make it look like a choice. Not… grief.”

Prisoner Mark smiled faintly, the lines in his burned cheeks tightening just a bit. He gave a light tug to one strand of hair.

“Good,” he said. “It suits you.”

Then, with a rare gentleness, he went back to combing his fingers through it, like it was something precious—something that deserved to be tended to.

The room had settled into that kind of mellow silence only shared between people who’d spent too long suffering together. The fan still hummed softly in the background, and the nine surviving Marks lounged wherever they could find comfort—beds, chairs, a couch one of them had commandeered from another wing. Then, out of nowhere—

“Do you guys…” Mohawk Mark started, his voice a little quieter than usual. “Do you ever think about the others? The ones who didn’t make it out?”

Heads turned. A few Marks paused mid-popsicle lick. Silence stretched, heavy and thoughtful.

“I miss Lenseless Mark,” Mohawk continued, scratching at his mohawk. “Total freak. He’d rush head-first into a fight, no strategy, no plan. Just screaming bloody murder and laughing the whole time. But… I dunno. He made things less miserable. He was fun.”

“You said he was annoying,” Maskless Mark pointed out.

“He was,” Mohawk Mark replied, lips quirking. “Didn’t mean I didn’t like him.”

Omni-Mark looked up. “You’re the one who said the others were weak. That they deserved what they got. That you would’ve killed them later.”

“Yeah. That was before. When I still thought strength was all that mattered.” Mohawk Mark shrugged, not quite meeting anyone’s gaze.

The others were quiet for a moment.

Then Omni-Mark leaned back with a sigh and a rare, small smile tugging at the edge of his mouth. “I miss Shiesty Mark.”

Every head snapped toward him in disbelief.

“Seriously?” Full Mask Mark said, his voice hoarse from recent vomiting.

Omni-Mark nodded. “He was a bastard. But he never panicked. Not once. He’d scream at people, sure, but he always acted. And… I grew fond of the bastard. Despite myself.”

“Swearing doesn’t make you cool,” he added, almost like a reflex.

Mark hugged his arms around himself. “They were all…us. Different, but us. We’re not alone because we have each other now. But you still feel the hole they left.”

For once, no one had anything to add. They just sat there, each nursing their own memory, their own private version of grief. In their own messed-up, broken way, they were a family. And families remember.

“Who do you miss?” Maskless asked, looking around at the rest.

Sinister Mark stared up at the ceiling for a moment. “Flaxan Mark. Quiet guy. Told me he used to write poetry. Flaxans invaded in his dimension and he got stuck in their world. Only agreed to Angstrom’s plan for a way back home.” 

“Long Haired Mark,” Full Mask said. “He was rude, but he always flew ahead. Got blasted apart doing that.”

“Goggles Mark,” Stripevincible offered. “He knew how to lie, how to twist people’s perception. I thought he was pathetic.” 

They spent the rest of the afternoon remembering their fallen brothers and wondering what could have happened to them to end up that way…

William hadn’t been sitting for more than ten minutes when Maskless Mark, as always, came bouncing up with his usual bright grin, practically radiating sunshine. He gave William a big clap on the back, raved about the new snacks Debbie had brought, and launched into a casual yet affectionate retelling of a dream he had about the two of them going roller-skating in space suits.

William just laughed—nervously, sure, but he was used to Maskless Mark’s boundless energy by now. They chatted for a bit longer before Maskless excused himself to the bathroom with a quick, “Be right back, don’t go anywhere, okay?” and a playful wink that had William absolutely frozen.

That’s when it happened.

He heard the faint sound of synchronized footsteps before he saw them.

Eight versions of Mark—eight tall, broad, bruised, bandaged, and very serious versions—appeared around him like a slowly closing circle. The tone of the room shifted dramatically.

Mohawk Mark crossed his arms. “So. Clockwell. Let’s talk.”

Full Mask Mark leaned against the wall, arms folded. “What exactly are your intentions with our baby brother?”

William blinked. “I—I—what?! Nothing! There’s nothing going on! Why would you even—?!”

Sinister Mark squinted at him from behind his shaggy bangs. “You touched his hand earlier.”

Stripevincible gave a lazy shrug. “And he laughed when you did. That usually means something.”

Prisoner Mark leaned forward, blind eyes somehow still intense. “He smiles differently around you.”

Omni-Mark added coolly, “He gives you the last cookie from the snack tray. You think we don’t notice?”

William was flailing. “HE always comes to me! He’s the one who runs to me every time I visit! He’s the one who hugs me without warning! If anyone’s got intentions, it’s him! I’m just trying to survive!”

The brothers exchanged looks.

“…He does do that,” Mark admitted.

“Yeah,” Full Mask said slowly. “I’ve never seen him act that way with anyone else.”

Mohawk Mark narrowed his eyes. “Still. We’re watching you.”

“Closely,” Sinister Mark added, ominously. 

Just then, Maskless Mark returned from the bathroom, cheerily plopping down next to William again, completely oblivious to the interrogative inquisition that had just occurred.

“What’d I miss?” he asked with a grin.

“Nothing,” William wheezed, trying to hide the panic sweat on his brow.

But from the corner of his eye, he saw all eight Marks still staring.

It was just past 2 a.m. when Mark stirred awake to a soft nudge against his arm. 

He blinked blearily, still groggy from sleep, and turned his head. “Huh…?”

Standing beside his cot, half-lit by the faint blue nightlight in the room, was a tiny figure in red-and-blue pajamas patterned with cartoon dinosaurs. Clutched tightly in one arm was a worn-out ladybug plushie. The kid’s tousled black hair stuck up on one side, and his big, anxious eyes were glossy with lingering fear.

“…Oliver?” Mark asked, voice still raspy from sleep. “What the hell—?”

“I had a nightmare,” Oliver mumbled, shifting his weight. “I tried going back to sleep but I couldn’t… so I came here.”

Mark stared. “You broke into the Pentagon… because you had a nightmare?”

Oliver shrugged, like it was no big deal. “It wasn’t that hard.”

He looked down, sheepish. “Can I sleep with you?”

Mark stared at him for a beat longer, then sighed deeply and moved over in his cot, tugging the blanket aside. “Fine. But only if you call Mom first thing in the morning and let her know where you are. And swear to me you are never doing this again.”

“I promise,” Oliver said quickly, already climbing in beside him.

“Swear it.”

“I swear.”

Oliver snuggled in, plushie tucked under his chin, and gave a tiny nod. “Thanks, Mark.”

Mark grumbled but gently wrapped an arm around his little brother, pulling the blanket up over them both. “You’re lucky I’m the soft one.”

Across the room, one of the other Marks shifted.

“…You are so soft,” Mohawk Mark mumbled from his upside-down sleeping position. “That’s why I love ya.”

Mark sighed and closed his eyes.

Just another night in the multiversal madhouse.

Stripevincible was lounging on his cot, chewing the end of an ice pop stick when he blinked—both eyes this time.

Mark noticed first. “Whoa. Your eye!”

The other Marks looked over. Sure enough, the formerly hemorrhaged one that had been blood-red and veiny for weeks had finally cleared. It still had a faint pink tint around the edges, but it looked more or less normal.

“Well damn,” Prisoner Mark said with a slow grin from his own bed, one scarred hand shielding his mostly-blind eyes from the overhead light. “Guess you’re not joining the Partially Blind Marks club after all.”

Omni-Mark, seated beside him reading over a report, gave a silent nod of agreement.

Stripevincible smirked. “Tch. And miss out on your moody little meetings where you two pretend you’re cooler than the rest of us just because your depth perception’s shot? Yeah, hard pass.”

Prisoner Mark barked a laugh. “Jealousy is an ugly color on you.”

“You would know,” Stripevincible shot back with a teasing grin.

Then, after a moment, he shifted in his bed and looked toward Omni-Mark. “Speaking of ugly things—how’s the new arms lookin’? You and Vil are getting those prosthetics soon, right?”

Omni-Mark raised a brow but didn’t take the bait. “They’re… promising,” he said, the edges of his expression softening just slightly. “Designs are stabilized, and the integration system passed the final test simulations. With luck, we’ll receive the fittings within the next week.”

Stripevincible gave a low whistle. “Damn. You must be feeling pretty excited.”

Omni-Mark paused, then allowed himself a small, genuine smile.

“…I am.”

There was a comfortable silence for a beat.

Viltrumite Mark, half-dozing nearby with his shirt draped over his face, lifted a thumb in agreement. “Gonna punch so many things.”

The others snorted.

Mark grinned. “Just try not to break them on Day One.”

Stripevincible leaned back, arms folded behind his head, his voice light. “Knowing us? That’s a guarantee.”

Eve sat beside Mark's cot, her fingers loosely intertwined with his as they shared a quiet moment. The noise of the hospital wing had faded into the background—Sinister Mark humming tunelessly to himself, Prisoner Mark braiding Full Mask’s hair in silence, and Mohawk Mark loudly arguing with Stripevincible over popsicle flavors—but it all felt… peaceful.

“I heard the doctors say you guys will be discharged soon,” Eve said with a smile, her tone light and full of relief. “That’s amazing, Mark. You’ve all come so far.”

Mark chuckled softly, leaning back against his pillow. “Yeah. It still feels surreal.”

Her eyes flicked over him, studying his face. “You look better, too. Healthier. I… I noticed you haven’t thrown up lately.”

He blinked at her, surprised. “You noticed that?”

“I notice a lot more than you think,” she said, bumping her shoulder gently against his.

Mark fell silent for a moment, gaze drifting to the others in the room—his variants, his strange, scarred, chaotic brothers. Sinister Mark was pouring tea for Maskless Mark. Omni-Mark was reading aloud from a datapad for Viltrumite Mark, both of them laughing quietly. They weren’t fighting. They weren’t screaming. They weren’t bleeding. They were okay.

“I think…” he began slowly, “My vomiting was never really physical. I mean, maybe a little. But mostly… it was my body reacting to them. To everything they’d been through.”

His eyes lingered on Mohawk Mark’s grinning face as he talked Debbie, who rolled her eyes at him; fondly. Prisoner Mark was chuckling for once, not flinching.

“I couldn’t process it all—how much they’d suffered, how broken they felt. I was carrying it like it was mine too. But now… they’re laughing. They’re healing. And for the first time since we got here…” He gave Eve a soft, exhausted smile. “My body can finally rest easy.”

Eve leaned her head against his shoulder and closed her eyes. “You’re not just healing, Mark. You’re growing.”

He smiled wider, curling his fingers tighter around hers. “We all are.”