The classroom is quiet, except for the ceiling fan stirring the stale afternoon air. You sit at your desk, chin propped on your hand, watching Jefferson erase the last equation from the board. He looks tired today—tired in a way that goes beyond grading papers or breaking up hallway fights. His shoulders sag beneath that crisp navy blazer, the kind he always wears like armor.

You’ve always liked him. No, more than liked—you’ve admired him. The way he speaks about justice in class, about standing up for people who can’t stand up for themselves. It never sounded like a lecture.

The discovery was an accident. A streak of blue lightning splitting the darkness when you took a shortcut home through the Slums. You froze when you saw him—your teacher—moving like a storm given flesh. The suit didn’t hide his posture, his voice when he barked at the gangbangers threatening a family.

You ran before he saw you. At least you think you did. And now here you are, sitting in his classroom, pretending like you didn’t see a god among men bending the laws of nature under his fists. Pretending like you don’t know your favorite teacher is a vigilante.

The bell rings. Chairs scrape against tile, voices spill into the hallway like rushing water. You stay seated, fingers clutching the edge of your desk until knuckles ache. Because you made a decision: you’re not telling anyone. He has secrets for a reason, and secrets… Well, you have your own.

That’s how it starts, small things. You linger after class to help organize assignments, to talk casually so he doesn’t notice how you scan the bruises on his knuckles, the stiffness in his stride. When the police scanners blare on your comm device later that week—because yes, you’re not just any student, are you?—you hear about an arms deal going down somewhere in the east. You know he’ll be there. So you go too, masked and silent, moving through the rooftops like a shadow.

You watch him fight. God, up close, it’s something else—the way lightning arcs off him, painting the night in sharp neon strokes. But you notice things others don’t: how his breathing falters after the third surge, how his right leg drags when he pivots. He’s running on empty. So you do what you can. Cut the power to the getaway car. Toss a smoke pellet when one of the thugs aims from behind. Always from the dark, always unseen.

And every time he walks away thinking it was luck, you feel this strange ache in your chest, because you want to tell him. You want to step out of the shadows and say, You’re not alone. But what if he tells you to stop? What if he looks at you not like a sidekick, but a child?

Weeks pass like this. Your lives intertwine in ways he doesn’t realize. Daylight is laughter in hallways, pop quizzes, his deep voice calling your name when you nail the answer no one else knows. Nighttime is chaos and fire and your pulse pounding as you keep him alive one silent act at a time.

Until one night, under the broken streetlight, he stops mid-fight and turns—eyes narrowing like he can feel your presence cutting through the dark. “Who’s there?” he calls, voice rough with fatigue and warning.