The kettle clicked off with its usual tiny sigh. Steam fogged the kitchen window in a square; the porch light beyond it was still on. Debbie dried her hands on a towel with peaches on it and pushed a mug toward Stephen as he came in.
"Drink," she said.
He wrapped both hands around the mug. Heat gave his fingers somewhere to be.
Nolan sat at the table in a dark sweater, hair still damp from a shower, the crossword folded at a neat angle. He filled two boxes without looking up. "Walk me through your day."
Stephen kept his eyes on the tea. "On time. Classes. Then home."
Mark entered like weather—hoodie half on, shoes untied, grin already loaded. He kissed Debbie's cheek, grabbed toast, missed the plate by an inch. "I'm walking him in," he said around a bite.
"Obviously," Debbie said. She touched Stephen's hair as if checking for a fever no thermometer could find. "If anything starts, you call me."
Nolan set his pen down. "If something starts, pick the fight, not the crowd."
"I was listening the first dozen times," Stephen said.
That almost-smile cut through Nolan's careful face and was gone. "Good."
They ate. They pretended time behaved.
_ _ ♛ _ _
Gray clung to the morning. The flag out front snapped in a steady wind that smelled like wet concrete. Mark and Stephen fell into step; William jogged up on the corner, backpack bouncing, a wall of words already forming.
"Okay, quick briefing," William said, breath puffing. "Admin's doing a 'meeting' that's actually a trap. Ms. Nieves says skip it; she'll cover. SchoolNet is on fire. Local news van is parked by the far lot with a drone that looks like it cost $39.99 and a dream."
Mark grimaced. "Perfect."
Stephen didn't look for the drone; he could feel the rotor's high whine teasing the air like a mosquito you can't swat. He shifted their path to hug the maple and the brick—enough canopy and edge to make the lens work for a shot.
"Eve's already inside," William added. "Front hall. She said, and I quote, 'We're not letting him walk alone like an idiot.'"
Mark's mouth twitched. "Love her."
The front doors groaned their old groan. The hinge on the right sang the same note. Stephen used to fix squeaks on sight. Today he let their noise be theirs.
They stepped in.
The school kept its fish-tank hum, but the water felt colder. Not silent—just thinner. Conversations dipped and then pretended not to. Phones turned into mirrors. A guidance counsellor by the office scanned her clipboard too long.
"Stay left," William muttered. "Admin stashed hall monitors on the right like they expect a parade."
"Because we love parades," Mark said.
Eve peeled off a wall a few yards ahead and fell in without comment, shoulder to shoulder with Mark. Stephen lagged half a step behind them, kid-trailing his big brother and his brother's friends because that felt like the right angle on the world.
They almost made it to the science wing stairwell before a senior cut them off. Broad shoulders, football sweatshirt, the kind of face that had been told it had to be strong at too many kitchen tables.
"You don't belong here," he said. Not a shout. Earnest, and wrecked. "My uncle's still in the hospital because of your fight."
Mark planted his feet. "Not today, man."
Eve's voice was steady, not sharp. "He's twelve. We're getting to class."
Stephen tugged Mark's sleeve. "Can we just… go?"
The senior flicked his eyes between their faces and shifted half a step—Mark's space, not Stephen's. He wasn't convinced. He was tired. They moved past him anyway. Ms. Nieves had been hovering; she drifted into the gap like a plug in a leak.
"Science wing," she said without looking at them. "Now."
_ _ ♛ _ _
Chemistry smelled like lemon cleaner and old flame. Four lab benches sat in two neat rows—two up front, two at the back—each with a sink and a gas tap. (A/N: "lab benches" are the big desks in the middle of a science room.) The fume hood coughed awake; its fan muttered and then decided to do its job.
"Safety first," Mr. Alvarez said. He meant it. He always did.
Stephen took the front-left bench. He lined glass with glass, set a notebook open, wrote smaller than the lines asked for. He kept his field tucked tight to skin—just awareness, no push.
Ten minutes in, he heard a thin hiss at the back-right bench. A coupler hadn't seated. A boy there kept clicking a cheap lighter—click, click, click—without luck. The girl across from him reached to help, sleeve too loose.
Stephen moved before the part of his brain that narrates could sit up.
He spun a spare stool on one leg and let it clatter. Metal on tile scraped the air; heads snapped toward the noise.
In that blink, his field did tidy work:
the lighter slid to the rubber mat,
three gas knobs turned shut with neat tick, tick, tick,
the unlit burner tipped into the sink and clinked harmlessly.
"Hands up!" Mr. Alvarez barked, already moving. "Nobody touch the valves."
Stephen felt the hiss go dead. He exhaled. The fume hood whirred like an old fan catching breath.
The girl looked at her sleeve. A light brown singe kissed the cuff. She swallowed. "I didn't—"
"I know," Stephen said, palms out, cheeks warm. "Sorry for the scare. Saw a leak."
Phones rose—two in the back, one near the door, one pretending to be a mirror. Stephen ignored them.
Then he saw another problem: front-right bench, a freshman had scooted his stool back, about to sit into a low blue flame he'd forgotten he'd left on. In classroom light, that kind of flame is nearly invisible.
Stephen reappeared behind him—no show, just there—hooked two fingers under the backpack strap, lifted him two inches clear, spun the gas knob off with the other hand.
"Seat's hot," Stephen said, trying for a smile.
The kid made a hiccup-laugh that was more relief than sound. "Yeah—thanks."
Mr. Alvarez had a damp towel at the singed cuff in three strides. "Accidents happen," he said, voice finding its steady again. "We prefer eyebrows stay attached."
He looked to Stephen. "Nurse will want to see your face—protocol." He tossed a hall pass. "Take the long way."
"Thanks, Mr. A," Stephen said. He tucked the pass away, kept his posture soft, and slid out.
_ _ ♛ _ _
The nurse's office had a poster about hand-washing that had been there long enough to become wallpaper. Ms. Ward peered at him over her glasses, tilted his chin to the light like he was her own.
"You look like a boy who hasn't been sleeping," she said.
"I don't need much," Stephen said, then realized that sounded weird. "I mean—yeah."
She sighed, the kind of adult sound that pretends not to be a prayer. "You have a second home here if you need one. You want a lollipop?"
He hesitated, then nodded. "Grape?"
"Only monsters choose grape," she said, and handed him one. "You're fine."
He pocketed it for later. Kids broke around him this morning; he didn't want to be the only one with something sweet.
_ _ ♛ _ _
By lunch, rain settled in. The cafeteria smelled like salt and oranges and floor wax. Mark's table was a familiar orbit—William loud, Eve quiet until not, two track kids arguing about shoes like religion. Stephen took the corner seat that let him see both doors because old habits don't ask permission.
William leaned in. "So. Roof stunt."
Stephen poked his carton with the straw. "No roof stunt."
William blinked. "Right. Rumour lag. Ignore me."
Eve slid a folded note across. City council wants access to GDA downtown feeds or they pull funding. He read it, frowned. "That's… dumb."
"Welcome to politics," she said, dry. "How's Chem?"
"Explosive," he said, then winced at his own joke. "Sorry. Uh—fixed it."
A voice from another table rose one notch above bravery. "Hey, freak!"
Mark's chair scraped. Eve's eyes narrowed.
Stephen shook his head. "It's fine."
"It's not," Mark said.
"It's lunch," Stephen said, softer. "Eat."
The voice tried again and ran out of gas. A staff member nearby refilled napkin dispensers with a little too much interest.
They ate. They pretended time behaved.
Halfway through, a freshman—the same one from the burner—shuffled up, backpack too big. He stood there like he didn't know what to do with his hands.
"Thanks," he blurted.
Stephen nodded. "Don't sit on fire."
The freshman laughed, nodded too hard, and fled.
William grinned. "You're a poet."
Stephen opened his milk. He actually drank it this time.
_ _ ♛ _ _
The rest of the day did not raise its voice. A teacher gave Stephen a look that tried to be polite and failed; he handed homework in early and she didn't know where to put her eyes. A kid down the hall whispered something hateful and then looked terrified of himself. Stephen didn't correct him. He didn't forgive him, either. He just let the moment pass and didn't give it a home.
At the final bell, students burst out of doors like steam. Rain slicked the sidewalks. Mark joined Stephen without having to be texted; William flanked, hood up.
"Home," Mark said.
"Home," Stephen echoed.
They didn't hurry. You don't run from a building; you simply stop being in it.
_ _ ♛ _ _
Debbie had soup again because she'd made too much on purpose. The porch light was still on; Stephen left it. Nolan came down the stairs at the sound of the door with a paperback in his hand, a small crease between his eyes smoothing when he saw both boys upright and damp.
"How was—" he started.
"Rainy," Stephen said.
Nolan tried again. "Any trouble?"
"Just gravity," Stephen said.
Nolan's chest made that quiet sound of pride he never gives full words. Debbie kissed both their wet hair without caring about the couch. "Shoes off. Bowls on the table. Eat."
They did. Mark told a story about a track kid face-planting so dramatically the coach clapped. Debbie laughed; Stephen laughed into his spoon. It felt like standing under an awning while the world remembered how to be weather somewhere else.
After, Stephen fixed the squeaky hinge by the front door—six turns, a clean swing. He hadn't earned the right to feel useful, but he accepted it anyway.
When the house became soft and ship-like, when Nolan's footsteps settled in his study and Mark's door clicked shut with the rhythm of a video starting, Stephen went to the backyard. The grass remembered feet. Low cloud smudged the sky. He looked up and didn't take the sky. Not tonight.
He went inside.
_ _ ♛ _ _
Washington, D.C.
Beneath the Pentagon
There are levels below the levels. On one of them, a room stayed blue from too much screen light. The air hummed with machines. Coffee had become a smell more than a drink.
Cecil Stedman stood with his hands behind his back and watched a still frame the human eye shouldn't have to resolve: a twelve-year-old boy, dust and blood streaking his face, driving a Viltrumite into the ground hard enough to make asphalt behave like water. Pause icon in the corner. Gravity captured.
Analysts pretended to read other screens. On the side wall, a grid of civilian clips rolled—traffic cams, police body cams, vertical phone rectangles. Sounds overlapped: sirens, a woman screaming a name, the flat pop of something electrical failing. The room carried the weight of things that had already happened.
"Sir," a tech said, eyes on a dashboard of jagged lines. "Seventy-four percent of trending posts blame the boy. Calls for detainment, exile—worse."
"Good," Cecil said. The syllable came out balanced on a knife.
A chair creaked. Someone cleared a throat. Another someone asked what her face said she couldn't stop herself from asking. "With respect, Director, we had cleaner edits. We could've led with rescues. He pulled eight people out of that bus while bleeding."
Cecil's eyes flicked to her and back to the still frame. "He is a hero," he said, like a fact to be filed. "The world isn't ready to see that."
He let the line live a second. Kept talking.
"We took Nolan at his word," he said, pacing like men who live in rooms. "He spoke ours. Ate our food. Photographed fireworks with his wife. We built safeguards around his smile. Then the mask came off and we learned a thing about bets."
He stopped at the glass of an empty lab bay. The blue from the screens made his face look ten years more tired than it was.
"He's stronger than Nolan," an analyst said because it needed saying. "Or will be."
"He's twelve," another offered, because something needed softening.
"That's why he can still be shaped," Cecil said.
Silence arranged itself into attention. The tech who wasn't good at not asking questions failed again. "You want him broken."
Cecil didn't bother to dress it. "Grounded," he corrected, which is the same thing if you're honest. "He needs to understand that applause is weather. A leak is cheaper than a funeral."
He moved to a console and woke a new set of files. Profiles opened like paper flowers—kids Stephen's age, faces too open, bios written to be believed. One glowed brighter. A girl with warm eyes, foster history, a mouth set like courage had been practiced and then learned.
"Her," Cecil said. "Wrong corridor, right time. She sees past his silhouette. She likes him on purpose. He needs an anchor that isn't an idea."
"You'll be manipulating a child," the first analyst said. Truth sits heavy when you say it plain.
"I'm protecting a species," Cecil said. He didn't put heat in it; heat wastes time. "Manufactured loyalty beats ungoverned power."
He tapped another file. Scenario trees bloomed. In one, Stephen saves the girl from a staged danger that looks un-staged. In another, she laughs first and he doesn't know what to do with a laugh that isn't afraid of him. In a third, she fails to be useful and the file closes itself and vanishes.
A chime sounded on his desk. The GDA seal pulsed once and became Donald's face.
"We've got movement," Donald said. "Orbit. Small Viltrumite signature. The one the boy fought. He's alive."
"Vector?" Cecil asked.
"Outbound," Donald said. "Trajectory suggests homeward. He's not slowing."
"Let him," Cecil said.
Donald's mouth compressed. "Sir?"
"Let him report," Cecil said, patient. "Let them all have a look. Nolan's shadow buys us weeks. Months, if they're stupid. They'll send a whisper to taste the fence. By the time the hammer falls, we'll have a hand on the handle."
Donald nodded because the math didn't care about feelings. "Yes, sir."
The seal collapsed back into a logo. The room returned to blue.
Cecil looked once more at the boy paused mid-strike. He'd watched the other clip too—the one of the hallway and the crying, the way Stephen folded into his brother like a person who finally allowed gravity in. He'd watched it twice and then stopped because he is not paid to feel.
"I know what this costs him," he said to the glass that reflected him back. "We don't get to choose the burdens we place on monsters. Only the direction they break."
He flicked a finger. The frame advanced by a fraction. The shockwave began again; the room filled with the sound of a child hitting the ground hard enough to tell a planet what lives on it now.
End of Chapter 41.