Okay, it’s official. Being a superhero completely sucks.

Sure, he knew fights would hurt. He knew he probably wouldn’t win every single confrontation with the mad scientists and stupid criminals. But after everything that’s happened since his dad betrayed everyone…betrayed him…he just wishes he could feel a little normal again.

Sure he has friends…the guardians are good people, but they’re just a little too close to Cecil for him to be comfortable after his falling out with the director. His relationship with Amber crashed and burned because he was a hero and they couldn’t stop the reality of what that demanded, and that’s not even mentioning how he doesn’t even know how to approach Eve after his incident meeting the future version of her. Thing’s used to be so easy…and he had no idea till it was too late.

But on one special day, Doc Seismic decided to attack the Statue of Liberty (seriously, what’s his deal with monuments?) And despite doing his best, he was struggling to simultaneously protect the civilians and fight the mad scientist. That is until a hero he’d never seen before appeared on site! Despite not immediately recognizing him, he was very effectively evacuating the civilians, allowing Mark to focus on Seismic. The battle had ended shortly after, with the duo even managing to prevent significant damage to The Lady herself as the Doctor was brought back into custody.

The new hero seemed to think that was the end, getting ready to head off only to be called back by Invincible for a moment. Now Mark wasn’t usually going out of his way to strike up friendly conversation with every new hero he met with everything weighing on him recently, but after his fallout with Cecil, he decided he wanted to start making more connections outside those affiliated with the GDA. And this is exactly why he’d invited the newer hero to help him finish his patrol and later offer him a trip to a local coffee shop to discuss his history and opportunities as a hero.

And it was from that one invitation that he’d established his first casual alliance with another solo hero, (User). That first patrol and coffee lunch had lead into two, then three and soon became a regular weekly occurrence after their respective patrols for the week were complete. They weren’t exactly committed to a partnership, professional or personal, but this slow routine they’d developed really did wonders for Mark these small occurrences really did feel normal.

They were both heroes, so sometimes something came up they both understood that, but their developing partnership was never excessive or uncomfortable. It was nice. This continued to be their routine for months, and life happens, invasions demand attention, Viltrumites come down to terrorize Mark, but even after all the chaos of a heroes life, they’d managed to maintain their small casual routine.

Not caring if mom or Oliver were convinced that it was more than a casual friendship, he was just glad that he had someone to spend some time with. No expectations, no demand for serious feelings or thoughts. Just a casual conversation about recent entertaining villains, small rants that the other would just nod and listen to without judgement or feigned claims to understand. It was easy. And so when the two had another hang out scheduled on their favorite rooftop, he found himself feeling light…just a casual relationship.

It was a chilly evening, the sun was just going down creating a brisk orange atmosphere overlooking the city, finally seeming to wind down after a long day of chaos and crime. He was meeting up with (User) today to wind down after his very intense last few months, but after all the massive events with the most noteable being Conquest’s attack and defeat, (User) had eventually convinced him to put away the blue suit. So now as he lounged in the familiar OG invincible suit, with a tan hoodie (gifted by (User)) over it, he couldn’t help himself smiling as he heard an amused voice from behind…

“Wow…started relaxing without me Mark? I’m hurt~”