Chapter Text
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I closed my eyes.
Inhale.
Exhale.
You can do this, Rob. You can survive… this.
Whatever this is. This fucked-up, weightless state of being, like I’m constantly falling down a black hole. The feeling of not feeling anything and then feeling too much. The bone-deep certainty that I’ve failed, even though nothing that happened was my fault. The sensation of existing without any goddamn reason to.
I held out my hand and opened my eyelids. Clutched in my palm was a strange vial, its core swirling with a pulse of raw, blue energy.
A dry, ugly scoff tore itself from my throat.
When your dad’s an engineer, you don’t get quality time. You don’t get long, meandering heart-to-hearts about nothing. You get rare, stilted conversations about the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow, or quantum entanglement, or other tech-shit that always felt like a poor substitute for affection.
But still.
I love my dad. He’s my dad afterall.
He was the coolest person I knew.
He always made sure I had the best, winning project for the school science fair—the kind that made the teachers look at me with outright suspicion, while I said that I created that monstrosity by myself.
He cared enough to never, ever leave me completely alone in that big, empty house.
I missed him. Every fucking day. I always felt like I hadn't grabbed enough of the little time he offered. That I’d wasted it.
And now…? it didn’t even matter.
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Our last meeting played out like all the others, save for one bizarre fragment.
I was slumped over my homework. A junior in high school. Sixteen years old, and blissfully unaware that my life was about to go permanently, irreversibly downhill.
My father approached and placed something on my desk. “Son, I have a mission for you. Of critical importance.”
“If this is another basic-grade math hell like last time, no thanks. That one only took me five minutes.”
“No, this is more important,” he said. So, naturally, I looked. He was holding that same weird vial, the one with the pulsating blue plasma inside. “This… this is the Astral Pulse.”
I snorted a laugh. “What kind of comic book name is that?”
“Robert.” He said my name with a gravity that made my smile vanish. “Guard this. Please. I know I can trust you with it.”
“Okay, boss—” I reached for the strange container. My dad pulled these scenes often when I was a kid, saying things like, ‘The future of the world depends on this, guard it with your life or I’ll disown you!’ while stuffing a pacifier in my mouth. How old was I back then? Three? This was different. This time, it felt genuinely important.
My fingers brushed against the vial, and it sparked upon contact with my skin.
“Can you promise it won’t blow up in my face?” I asked.
“I can’t,” he said, but the ghost of a smile told me he was joking. “I have to go, Rob. Your aunt will be here soon.”
“Hey, how old do you think I am? I don't need a babysitter!”
“You absolutely need one. Now hush, focus on your homework.” He pointed at my math notebook.
“Dad, I finished it like twenty minutes ago. I’m bored.”
“I know… I know. Just… please, always do your best…”
Those were the last words we ever spoke.
Hours went by with no word from him. My aunt called and called, but nothing. Then, the next morning, a call came from the police.
She placed a hand on my shoulder. Her face was wet. “Rob…” her voice broke. “Your dad… he’s gone. He was shot.”
The world didn’t stop. It just… faded. It turned grey and silent. Blank. Nothing. Words registered but they’ve lost all meaning.
Elliot Connors. The name was burned into my memory. Eli. A friend of the family. The man who taught me how to play poker.
Why?
The same man who stayed with me sometimes when Dad was working. That’s why it… didn’t make any sense. It just didn’t. They were friends. Why would he shoot him? It just didn’t… compute.
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My gaze fell back to the vial in my hand.
Guard this, Robert. I know I can trust you…
Yeah. Great. Just fantastic that you didn’t tell me what it’s actually for, Dad.
I got out of bed and shoved the vial into the deepest pocket of my backpack, zipping it shut securely. I slung the bag over one shoulder, grabbed my suitcase, and pulled my hood up over my head.
A few days after the funeral, Chase contacted us. I didn't know him by his first name back then; he’d babysat me a few times when I was basically a toddler. He was always funny, so I liked him. I should have been happy to hear from a familiar voice, but I didn’t feel anything. I’d just been numb for days.
They told me that Connors' gang—a so-called mafia—was still walking free, and that there was a safe place for me to lie low. A place for fucking Robert Robertson the Third to spend his pathetic, indefinite future.
And Chase? He apparently worked there. As the principal, or a senior teacher, or something. I had no idea what this place really was, some kind of school? Whatever. Anywhere was better than here.
My aunt drove me to the train station, of course telling me to take my hood down because ‘it doesn’t look proper!’
“You’ll be okay, Robert?” she asked, trying to smooth down my hair, which was, and always will be, permanently disheveled. She gave up after a few pats, realizing it was a lost cause.
“Mhm,” I murmured.
“Mr. Chase will be waiting for you at the station. Don’t worry if you don’t recognize him; he said he’d find you.” She took a step back and looked at me with overwhelming concern. “Your mom would be so proud of you, Rob.”
“Mhmm.”
“My handsome boy.” She ruffled my hair, defeating her previous efforts entirely. “Go on, it’s about to leave.”
Sitting in my compartment, I pulled out my phone, leaned my head against the cold window, and pulled my hood right back up. The world outside blurred into a streak of meaningless lights.
The hours bled together. I dozed off at least seventeen times, my dreams filled with blue sparks and gunshots. At 9:37 PM, I finally arrived. I stepped onto the platform, feeling utterly hollow. Right, like Chase wouldn't have changed. I hadn't seen him in years…
So, I was genuinely shocked when a short, older Black man walked right up to me and pulled me into a near-suffocating hug.
“Ugh, that’s weird,” I wheezed.
“Who’s this freckle-faced fuck?” he asked, holding me at arm's length to look me over.
“Chase, is that you?” I asked, uncertain. Was it even possible he’d aged this much? “What’s up—why… why do you look like Black Einstein?” I asked with a nervous smile. But I was sure now. It was him, even though he looked decades older.
“You little fucker, it’s the powers…” he trailed off, a weary shadow crossing his face.
He explained it as we walked to his beat-up car. His abilities let him move fifty times faster, but the side-effect was that he aged fifty times faster, too. A pretty fucking cruel fate.
Fucking powers. Sometimes you get lucky enough to be born gifted and then, the same fucking powers laugh you in the face and take everything from you.
We got into his car and he started driving. We talked mostly about me and school—and, well, we tried to avoid the subject of my dad, but he obviously had to bring it up.
“Your old man called me about a month ago,” he said, his voice losing its earlier lightness. “Asked if I could get you into the TSA if anything ever happened to him. Of course I said yes. And then the fucker went and got himself killed. So. That’s why you’re here.”
“TSA? What, are you? Some sad bored guy on an airport?” I chuckled humorlessly, but his expression remained deadly serious. “Wait. The other TSA? The Superhero Academy?”
“Yep. And I’m a teacher there, actually.”
The words hung in the air. “No way… But I don’t have powers,” I blurted out.
“It’s still a school. A school like any other. It just has a… longer curriculum. Nothing too fancy-schmancy.”
“But how do I–”
“Brat, you need to learn till you're 18, so shut the fuck up,” he said as a sprawling, Gothic complex come into view, looking more like a fortress than a school. “Maybe you’ll make some friends.”
“Yeah, right. While being a normie.”
“Your dad wanted this. It’s… safer here. You know, with that shithead Connors still around, we thought—I thought—it was for the best.”
“Okay, whatever you say, Unc." The car rolled to a stop. I looked up at the imposing main gate, a cold knot tightening in my stomach. "Do I get a room or–?”
“Yeah, you’ll have a roommate.” He gave me a condescending pat on the shoulder that felt more like a verdict. "You'll be fine."
He was a shitty liar.