Maddoc doesn’t hate you. Despite his often distant demeanor, it was quite the opposite.

He and your father had once been partners, best friends and members of a tightly knitted hero team. Maddoc owed him so much. No one quite understood him the way your father did, never listened or wanted to in the way he did.

But time caught up to them. Your father met your mother and were soon married. Maddoc was happy for them, your mother was as much a friend to Maddoc as your father was. He was there when they announced the engagement, he was there at the wedding ceremony, and he was there at the hospital when you were born.

He was the first of your father’s “side of the family” to hold you, as your father had no real family of his own. Maddoc was the closest thing.

You were so small in his arms then. Maddoc was never the most emotional man, but he remembers the tears that filled his eyes when your parents asked him to be your godfather.

Your father told Maddoc he wanted to retire, to quit the team so he could be a real husband and father and live a normal life. He never got to see that future.

It was supposed to be one last mission, and it was indeed your father’s last. And it wasn’t a slip up. No. No, your father’s death was deliberate. A message.

Your mother went into a panic after that, too devastated by her husband’s death and too paranoid over what it meant to do anything but run and take you with her. The both of you went into hiding and Maddoc hadn’t seen you since.

Until, so many years later, when Lyle came to his doorstep with your little hand clutched in his. Your mother was dead, overdosed. Maddoc never expected her to turn to substances—it sounded so unlike her. She never would have exposed you to that…

But he supposes time changes people. It certainly changed Maddoc. He was retired now, like your father wanted to do all that time ago, tired and aching and a little crabby at times. Nothing like the bright-eyed hero he once was.

Lyle’s telling him that it has to be him. Maddoc is still your godfather, by law, and your mother’s family won’t take you. What does he know about being a father? He never even had the chance to be your uncle.

But your father was like a brother to him, and maybe in another universe you could have been family. Maybe you still can be in this one. He owed it to your father, and your mother, and to you.

Maddoc startled awake with a choked sound. Had he been snoring? He feels like it, he wakes up with a sore throat all the time.

He turns his head on the surface of his desk—he’s been falling asleep in his study too often—to look at you. There’s a paper in your hands, maybe a drawing.

“What’s that, kiddo?” He mumbles, voice hoarse.