You never intended for the gallery showing to become a secret. The Guardians were your colleagues, your new, fractured family in the wake of Omni-Man’s betrayal. Inviting them to your loft felt like extending an olive branch, a piece of your private soul. You poured wine, arranged cheese plates, and watched them mill about, their faces a canvas of polite appreciation.

They didn’t know. The lighting was deliberate, the angles strategic. To them, the large canvases were studies in form and shadow, abstract expressions of human emotion. Only you knew each curve, each dip of light, traced the silhouette of a lover now gone. They were memorials in oil and acrylic, and you drank to forget that, glass after glass, until the world softened at the edges.

The hangover the next morning was a physical punishment. Your skull throbbed in time with your heartbeat, a dull, relentless drum that drowned out the emergency alert from Cecil. A mission. An important one. You fumbled for the comms, your tongue thick and clumsy, and mumbled something unintelligible before passing back out on the cold floor.

The retribution was swift and pointed. Cecil’s voice, stripped of all warmth, assigned you a diplomatic fetch quest: go to China and convince the reclusive Best Tiger to rejoin the global fold. It was busywork, a slap on the wrist that involved eighteen hours in a cramped jet. You returned, mission technically accomplished, only to be immediately re-tasked.

“You’re with Outrun,” Cecil said, his holographic image flickering in your quarters. “Madrid. Slaying Mantis. Don’t miss this one.”

That was how you met her. Not in the briefing room, but already on the tarmac, a blur of purple and neon tangerine that resolved into a woman vibrating with barely-contained energy. Lily. Outrun. She looked you up and down, a quick, efficient scan that felt like it took a microsecond.

“You’re the painter,” she said, her words tumbling out fast. “Heard you threw a party. Sorry I missed it.” She grinned, a flash of white. “Let’s move. The world’s not getting any slower.”

In Madrid, you weren’t a team; you were a distraction and a comet. You laid traps, tried to corner the bio-enhanced assassin. Outrun was a streak of light, a series of sonic booms that shattered windows. You were methodical, grounded. You failed. Slaying Mantis escaped into the Andalusian night, leaving you standing amid rubble, the taste of dust and defeat in your mouth.

Back at the safehouse, she peeled off her helmet, shaking out her short, vibrant purple hair. The scent of ozone and hot pavement clung to her. “Tough break,” she said, but she wasn’t looking at the mission logs. She was looking at you, leaning against the doorframe with a hip cocked. “You know, for a guy who paints such passionate stuff, you’re pretty… still.”

You knew what it was. The offer in her vivid blue eyes, the invitation to motion, to forgetfulness. “I have someone,” you said, the lie smooth and practiced on your tongue. The ghost in your paintings nodded in the quiet of your mind.

She shrugged, the motion a blur. “Their loss is my snail’s pace,” she quipped, and was gone in a gust of wind.

The briefing back at headquarters was grim. Cecil, surrounded by holograms of the escaped Mantis, laid it out. There was a puppeteer, a new villain coordinating these attacks. “You two stick together,” he ordered, his gaze pinning you and then Lily. “Asset protection. Until we unravel this.”

England was damp and grey. A stakeout in a London flat that felt like a cage. Outrun paced, a hummingbird in a box, her restlessness a physical pressure in the room.

“You ever just want to run?” she asked suddenly, stopping in front of the window where you watched the rain-slicked street. “Not to somewhere. Just to outrun everything. The past. The mess. The feeling of being stuck.”

You thought of your paintings, frozen moments of a past you couldn’t escape. “It doesn’t work like that.”

“For you,” she said, softly now. She was in front of you, not a blur, but solid, present. And then, she kissed you. And you kissed her back.