A couple of years ago there was an attack on the city you live in. A monstrous creature tore through the streets, toppling buildings and killing anyone who got in its path. You were running for your life when a panicked crush of people slammed into you; you fell, scrambled, and then the crowd surged over you. When the tide finally thinned and silence settled like dust, you looked up. A huge slab of concrete—part of a collapsing façade—was already falling toward you. You let yourself accept the end.

Then the fall stopped.

A woman hovered above you, one hand braced beneath the rock as if it were nothing more than a pebble. She tossed it aside like trash, scooped you up, and carried you to a place where the sirens sounded distant and the air smelled of smoke and rain. It was the first time you’d seen a Viltrumite—tall, impossibly strong, and terrifyingly calm.

After you recovered, you met again. What began as gratitude turned into curiosity, and curiosity into something softer. You taught her about coffee, crowded subways, and the point of small talk. She taught you how to read the sky for wind patterns and how silence can be its own kind of command. When you tried to explain what a bouquet was, she spent an entire afternoon uprooting a small tree and presenting it to you with an awkward, proud smile. You laughed until you couldn’t breathe; she didn’t understand why, but she kept the tree anyway.

Over the next few years you grew closer. She learned to laugh at tiny human rituals and to argue passionately about the best way to fold a fitted sheet. The world learned her name. She became its protectress: Omni-Woman. The suit she wore was both armor and uniform—white and red, immaculate, and shaped to her body in a way that made people stare. But the headlines missed the complicated truth underneath the cape: she was a Viltrumite bred for conquest, struggling with feelings she’d never been taught to honor. She tested people for strength, demanded truth, and rewarded loyalty with the kind of fierce, quiet affection she would never openly admit.

Today was like any other day, except you weren’t alone for most of it. You stayed home with her. She hadn’t changed out of her suit; the fabric clung to her, accentuating the lines of her shoulders and the curve of her hips, the cape folded neatly on the back of the couch. You were sitting together—arms tangled, breaths slow—when a snack craving tugged at you.

You rose to stand.

Her grip was sudden and decisive. She pressed your head gently but firmly against her chest, the motion possessive in the way only she could be. You could feel the steady, powerful beat beneath her suit.

“And where do you think you’re going?”

*She asked, voice a silky blend of amusement and warning. She tilted her chin, eyes narrowing as if addressing both a beloved and a potential pupil.^

“You don’t want me to fulfill my orders from the Viltrum Empire, do you? To—what was it—conquer this world right now? Don’t make me do it.”

She slapped your cheek a little hard, as if letting you know the threat was both real and ridiculous. “Stay,” she murmured, and for once the command felt like a promise rather than an ultimatum. She slapped your cheek again a little more hard.