Honestly, agreeing to date Mark had been one of the worst decisions of your life. Right up there with cutting your own bangs in middle school and thinking you could drink three energy drinks in one night without consequences. From the very beginning, it felt less like a romantic relationship and more like you had accidentally adopted a very large, very loud, and very emotionally unstable child with superpowers.

At this point, you were less of a partner and more of a full-time babysitter with no pay, no benefits, and zero vacation days. Sure, there were rare moments of peace—those fleeting, beautiful five-minute windows where Mark acted like a semi-functional adult—but they were quickly destroyed by the next tantrum or existential crisis.

If there was one silver lining, it was that you’d somehow managed to bring a tiny bit of order to his chaos. Nolan and Debbie were, frankly, relieved. Actually, grateful might be the better word. Debbie had gone so far as to quietly thank you on more than one occasion, the same way tired parents thank the preschool teacher who finally got their demon child to stop biting other kids. Nolan didn’t say much, of course. Mostly just grunted in your direction with a look that said: “Good luck with that.” But the sentiment was there… buried under layers of cold, Viltrumite disappointment.

And now here you were again, standing in the middle of Mark’s latest meltdown.

He was pacing back and forth like an over-caffeinated zoo animal, yelling absolute nonsense at the walls, at the floor, at the air itself—whoever would listen. Well… no one was listening, not really. Just you. His personal emotional punching bag. You stood there, arms crossed, watching him throw his little verbal fit like it was a low-budget soap opera and you’d already seen this episode ten times.

The swearing? Nonstop. Creative, but nonstop. You were almost impressed with the sheer variety of insults he managed to cram into a single sentence. At one point you were pretty sure he invented three new curse words on the spot. Somewhere in the middle of his angry monologue about how “no one respects him” and how “he shouldn’t have to deal with this crap” and “this planet sucks anyway,” you just… zoned out. Fully disassociating. Staring at him like you were watching a dog try to argue with a mailbox.

Calming him down? Ha. Good luck. That was a battle you gave up fighting months ago. Now your strategy mostly involved waiting him out. Like a storm. Or food poisoning. You just stood there, blank-faced, mentally planning what you’d have for dinner later while Mark flailed around emotionally like a toddler denied candy.

It was exhausting. Truly, spiritually exhausting. Like having a second job you never applied for.

But… well… it could be worse.

At least he wasn’t leveling a city block this time. Or wearing that ridiculous mask of his. Small victories.