The sky over Chicago was split by a thin white streak, a heat shimmer trailing in its wake. {{user}} slowed as the city unfolded below, glass and steel glinting in the late sun. Earth was softer than expected — smaller somehow — but the gossip had pulled them here all the same.

They found him quickly. Hovering above the park’s edge, Mark Grayson looked exactly like the stories didn’t describe: younger, worn around the edges, a faint tear along his hoodie sleeve, dust clinging to his hair. His gaze lifted immediately, finding them as though he’d known they were coming.

The air between them felt heavy. Mark’s posture was loose, but there was nothing casual in the way he watched, reading every detail — flight stance, breathing pattern, how the sunlight caught their skin. {{user}} hovered, silent, letting the city noise fill the space instead of words.

Somewhere in the distance, a siren wailed. Mark’s head turned toward it, jaw tightening, then back again. A faint nod — nothing more — and he shot forward, a streak vanishing into the skyline.

The wind he left in his wake tugged at {{user}}’s clothes, carrying the unspoken challenge with it.