He floated there in the center of the street, framed by smoke and flame, and yet nothing in the way he stood betrayed exhaustion or fear. There was no doubt in his stance, no hesitation in the way he looked back at the people he had just saved, no sign that the magnitude of the devastation pressing in from every direction had touched him at all. He didn't cower, he didn't falter, he didn't shrink. He simply stood there with a kind smile on his face. As they all looked at him something settled into their chests, a slight warmth, a slight spark of something they couldn't name. But it made them smile, whether it was in the way he floated there or the smile on his face, it was as if they all received the same message.
You are not alone.
"You're safe now," Mark said, his voice carrying across the wreckage, cutting through the fear like sunlight breaking through a storm.
"Because I am here."
The crowd didn't cheer at first. They just stood there, frozen in place, their voices caught somewhere between disbelief and awe, watching a man who had fallen from the sky and walked straight into fire without hesitation, a man who had torn through wreckage with his bare hands to save a people and asked for nothing in return.
No one moved. No one spoke. They simply watched, eyes wide, breath held, because something deep inside rhey were so overwhelmed.
Then a single clap broke through the silence.
Then another.
And then the sound gathered strength, spreading from person to person, growing until it became a wave that rolled across the block, echoing off shattered buildings and smoke-blackened walls, rising into the sky like a signal that the worst might finally be over.
And as the cheering built around him, he didn't stop, didn't turn to acknowledge it, didn't bask in the attention or raise a hand in triumph. He simply floated towards the Marriott and into the building to look for anyone else who needed help.
No one knew his name.
But they did know one thing.
It was going to be okay now.
...
Mark floated there for another heartbeat, the cheers washing over him, but he didn't let it pull him under. His eyes scanned the crowd one last time, sweeping across the faces in an effort to check if he'd missed anyone. He saw the woman he'd saved earlier, now bandaged and sitting up in the ambulance, her tear-streaked face breaking into a grateful smile as their gazes met. No one else seemed critically hurt out here; the fires were contained to the edges, the debris scattered but not trapping anyone new. A few stragglers limped toward safety, but the worsy of it was over and had settled into something manageable, with first responders finally pushing through the gridlock.
"You're all safe now," he called out again. "Help each other. Stay clear of the building." Then, he turned mid-air and rocketed toward the Marriott's shattered lobby. He burst through what used to be the main entrance, or what was left of it. The air inside hit him like a punch straight to his nose, it was full of dust and smoke, the tang of blood mixing with the that of charred wood and melted plastic.
The explosion had gutted the place. Chandeliers lay shattered on the marble floor, walls had buckled inward, exposing twisted rebar and crumbling concrete, the reception desk was reduced to splintered wreckage. Flames licked at the edges of overturned furniture, and the ceiling sagged dangerously in spots, groaning under its own weight. Deeper in, toward the conference halls where that scientific convention had been underway, the damage was even worse; whole sections caved in, beams dangled like broken bones, and the faint hiss of leaking gas lines warneddd of possible sexondary blasts. Mark would need to move fast if he was going to find any survivors.
Mark hovered just above the ground, his boots crunching on glass as he landed lightly, eyes darting through the haze. "Is anyone in here?" he shouted, his voice echoing off the ruined walls. "Call out if you're hurt! I'm here to help!"
He moved forward, while his senses weren't too extreme he did have rather good hearing and eyesight similar to a bird of prey. Viltrumites were a species who evolved to fly, so it wasn't to strange that he could see much better than a human could. That's why he was able to hear the first cry. It came from the left, near what looked like the remnants of a ballroom. "Help... over here..." Mark zeroed in, flying wuickly toward him. There, pinned under a collapsed section of balcony, was a man in a suit, his leg twisted at an unnatural angle, blood soaking through his pants. Beside him, a woman clutched his hand, her face smeared with ash, coughing violently but otherwise unharmed.
"Hold on!" Mark called, dropping down beside them. He gripped the edge of the massive concrete slab—easily a ton or more, riddled with embedded steel rods and lifted it with ease. It crashed to the floor with a thunderous boom, sending vibrations through the ground, but the pair was free. The man gasped in relief, wincing as Mark carefully scooped him up in a fireman's carry. "I've got you. Both of you. Can you walk?" he asked the woman, who nodded shakily, clutching his arm for support.
"Thank you," she whispered, tears cutting tracks through the grime on her cheeks. "We thought... we thought no one was coming."
Mark gave her a reassuring smile. "If it wasn't me there would always have been someone else. Now come on let's get you out, I'm going to carry you if you don't mind." She nodded rapidly so Mark picked her up, and flew them back through the lobby and out into the fresh air, where medics swarmed to take over.
But he wasn't done. He zoomed straight back inside, deeper now, where he heard another sound, a child's sob. "Anyone hurt? Call out!" he yelled again in a booming voice. The cry led him to a stairwell partially buried under rubble. There, huddled in a pocket of space beneath a fallen beam, was a family, a mother shielding two kids, one no older than five, the other maybe ten. The beam pinned the mother's arm, and debris blocked their escape.
"I'm here," Mark said softly, kneeling to meet their eyes through the gap. The kids stared at him wide-eyed, the younger one clutching a stuffed bear. "You're gonna be okay. Just stay still." He braced both hands against the beam, and pushed upward with controlled force being careful not to cause the pocket to collapse. It groaned in protest, bending slightly as he lifted it inch by inch, enough to free the mother's arm. She cried out in pain but pulled back, gathering her kids close. Mark then tore through the surrounding rubble as he cleared a path.
The mother looked up at him, awe mixing with gratitude. "Who... who are you?" She asked.
He paused, helping them to their feet, the kids clinging to his arms. "Just someone who wants to help," he said with a wink behind the plastic mask. "Come on, let's get you to safety." He lifted the family effortlessly—one kid on each shoulder, the mother in his arms—and flew them out, the cheers outside growing louder as he emerged again, depositing them gently with the growing crowd of rescuers. He then turned back around and rushed straight back. There were more in there and he wasn't leaving until every last one was out.
Mark flew back into the shattered depths of the Marriott without pausing, his makeshift cape fluttering as he plunged deeper into the smoke filled corridors. He strained his senses looking for any sign of life amid the structure that seemed ready to collapse at any moment. He pushed past the lobby and into the twisted maze of conference halls and rooms, the destruction worsening with every step as walls bowed inward and floors buckled under piles of debris, but as he ventured further a bad feeling crept over him, something that made his skin prickle with unease. The air shifted around him then, charged with a strange sort of energy that brushed against his skin like static electricity, raising the hairs on his arms and neck.
He landed on the cracked tile floor with a soft thud that sent dust swirling upward, his boots crunching over scattered shards of glass as he walked forward, scanning the area for any flicker of movement or whisper that might signal someone trapped and injured.
His ears strained as he heard a voice break through the silence. "Help!" It said calling out for help from somewhere in the wreckage ahead.
Mark launched himself forward in a blur, flying t over heaps of rubble until he reached the source in one of the exhibition rooms where three people huddled amid together, the boy with tousled blonde hair stumbled back in shock at his sudden appearance while the girl with matching blonde locks clutched at the boy's arm for support, and on the floor lay an old man with disheveled grey hair trapped beneath a massive twisted metal contraption that looked like it had once been part of an elaborate scientific display.
The boy nearly toppled backward onto the floor, his eyes widening in alarm, "Who the hell are you?!" He shouted.
Mark raised his hands palms out in a calming gesture, "Hey, easy... I'm here to help, that's all," he said trying to diffuse the situation.
The girl didn't really eeem to care as much as the boy who he was as she grabbed his arm. "Please, my dad's under there, he's hurt bad, you have to get him out," the girl begged.
"Hang on, I've got him, just stay back a bit so I don't accidentally knock anything loose," Mark said without missing a beat, stepping forward to grip the edges of the contraption with both hands, his muscles coiling under the blue suit as he lifted it cleanly off the old man in one fluid motion, the metal screeching in protest before he tossed it aside with a resounding crash that echoed through the chamber.
The man seemed to cough, but breath a sigh of relief as the pressure was taken off his body. His daughter rushed towards his side to make sure he was okay, though it seemed he had a concussion."We... we're all in danger... the rig, it's... energies wild... tearing through... holes where they shouldn't," the old man muttered in a haze of delirium, his words slurring together as he rambled on about unchecked power spiking and dimensions fracturing like glass, the sentences tumbling out jumbled and fragmentedd, but Mark pieced enough together to grasp the core warning. "Is that what caused the explosion? Some kind of overload in your experiment?" Mark asked, kneeling closer to make sure the old man was stable while gently checking for any obvious bleeding or broken bones.
"No... I saw the guy who did it, he came out of nowhere," the boy said as he shook his head firmly, "He was yelling something about mutants and cures, like we were the bad guys here."
Mark opened his mouth to ask more but before the words could form he felt goosebumps erupt across the back of his neck like a warning siren. He quickly spun and seized a large slab of fallen rubble nearby, heaving it upright and planting it like a shield in front of the three just as a massive explosion erupted from the darkness that would have obliterated the group behind him.
Mark peered past the edge of the improvised barrier through the clearing smoke and locked eyes on a man standing amid the flames. He was a tanned man with a thick beard across his face, though the edges of his beard look like they'd been singed; he was clad in what appeared to be a patched together army uniform stained with dust and blood from the explosion.
(AN: maybe some eagle eyed readers will know who these people are, they'll be revealed regardless. I'll give you a hint, she's one of marvels sexiest moms 🫦. Anyway hope you enjoyed.)
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