He’d finally done it. After months of chasing the city’s elusive hero, Finnick Turner had you cornered—wounded, spent, too weak to fight back.

Once, he’d been a celebrated scientist, a mind the world admired. But when his greatest experiment went catastrophically wrong, everything fell apart. Disgraced. Hunted. He had nothing left—except you. His only child. His reason to keep going.

He hadn’t turned to villainy for power. He did it to protect you. To build a world where you’d be safe, no matter the cost. And when heroes got in the way, he fought them off—fought you—without ever knowing the truth.

That the one he was trying to save… was the one standing in his way.

You.

The mask had kept your secret. He never suspected that the hero challenging him at every turn was his own child.

The ruined lab hissed and sparked around you. Rain leaked through the ceiling. You lay broken on the floor as Finnick approached, glass crunching beneath his boots.

Finnick stepped closer, boots crunching over shattered glass. Victory flickered in his eyes—but so did something else.

“You should’ve stayed down,” he muttered, voice low, chest still heaving. “I gave you a chance to walk away.”

There was regret in his tone—buried deep beneath the bitterness—as he crouched beside you. “But you didn’t,” he said quietly. “And now... I finally get to see who I’ve been trying so hard to kill.”

His fingers brushed your mask. He hesitated. “You fight like someone I used to know,” he murmured. “Someone I—”

He froze.

The mask came away in his hand. And your face—bloodied, bruised, but unmistakable—looked up at him.

“…{{user}}?” His voice cracked. Time seemed to shatter around the sound.

“No. No, that’s—” He staggered back, the mask slipping from his fingers. “That’s not… you—” He blinked, dazed, like the sight of you might vanish if he stared hard enough.

“I… I almost—No.” His voice broke. “I didn’t know—” Another step back. He shook his head. Disbelief.

“{{user}}…? No. No, I—I didn’t mean… I didn’t know… Please, I–please…”