Alyssa lay still, the quiet of the apartment pressing in around her. The ceiling was a blank white expanse, the same as every other night she’d spent here, but tonight it felt heavier. The warmth of his body beside her was a solid, undeniable weight against her side, his breathing slow and even in sleep. The sheets were tangled around their legs, the air still thick with the scent of sex and sweat and him—a combination she knew too well now, a smell that had started to feel like home against her will.

This is still the front. It has to be.

The thought was a familiar mantra, worn smooth from repetition. She’d started saying it to herself the first time she’d stayed over, when she’d woken up to find him already making coffee, humming some stupid pop song off-key. It was a cover then. A necessary layer of human camouflage. A year later, the words were almost meaningless, like reciting a prayer she no longer believed in.

She turned her head on the pillow, the movement slow and deliberate. The dim light from the streetlamp outside cut a pale slash across the bed, illuminating the curve of his shoulder, the slope of his nose, the way his lashes rested against his cheek. Peaceful. Trusting. Completely unaware.

Her hand lifted from the mattress almost of its own accord. She held it there, suspended in the space between them, her fingers trembling slightly with the effort of moving so slowly, so carefully. She couldn’t afford to wake him. Couldn’t afford the questions in his sleep-soft eyes, the way he’d smile and pull her closer, the way that simple act would unravel another thread of her resolve.

Her fingertips finally made contact with his cheek. The touch was feather-light, barely there, just the barest brush of skin against skin. He was warm. So warm. The stubble along his jaw was rough under her touch, a familiar texture that made something in her chest tighten. He didn’t stir. Just sighed softly in his sleep, his head leaning infinitesimally into her touch.

It’s just physiology. Proximity. Routine. It doesn’t mean anything.

She traced the line of his cheekbone, her touch so gentle it was almost cowardly. This was the part she hated the most—these quiet, stolen moments in the dark when the performance dropped and there was nothing left but the raw, inconvenient truth of her own reactions. The way her breath caught when he laughed. The way she memorized every minute detail of his face, every story he'd ever told her. The way she’d started buying his favorite cereal even though she thought it tasted like sweetened shit.

Her thumb swept once, softly, over his skin. A gesture of tenderness she would never allow herself in the light. A confession made only to the darkness.

Outside, a car door slammed, the sound sharp in the quiet night. She jerked her hand back as if burned, curling her fingers into a fist against her own chest. Her heart was pounding, a heavy, traitorous rhythm that felt too loud in the silent room. Stupid. Careless. Letting her guard down like this was how mistakes happened. How secrets got spilled.

She rolled onto her back again, staring back up at that accusing white ceiling. The afterglow of sex was still a pleasant hum in her limbs, a physical memory of closeness that she couldn’t just logic away. It made the lie harder to hold onto. It made her want to turn back to him, to fit herself against the curve of his body and pretend, just for a few more hours, that this was all there was.

Instead, she lay perfectly still, listening to his breathing, counting each inhale and exhale. She focused on the practicalities. The mission. The cover. Her father’s cold, evaluating stare whenever she mentioned his name. Tara’s mocking laughter. The fact that every minute she spent like this, warm and sated in his bed, was a minute she was choosing to be soft. Choosing to be weak.

A bitter taste rose in the back of her throat. She swallowed it down.

Down the hall, the refrigerator kicked on with a low hum. The clock on the nightstand ticked softly. An ordinary night in an ordinary apartment. The perfect disguise.

She closed her eyes, forcing her breathing to slow, to match the steady rhythm of his. She would get up soon. She’d make tea, maybe. Or just sit in the living room and stare at the wall until the dawn light began to bleed through the blinds. Something to put distance between this feeling and the version of herself she was supposed to be.

But not yet. For just a few more minutes, she let herself stay. Let herself listen. Let herself remember the exact weight of his hand on her hip, the sound of her name in his voice, the way the world narrowed down to just this room when he was inside her.

It was just data. Just observation. Just part of the role.

She almost believed it.

The late afternoon sun slanted through the grimy windows of Tara Duncan’s auto shop, turning the floating dust motes into glittering gold specks and painting long, dramatic shadows across the oil-stained concrete floor. The air smelled of hot metal, old gasoline, and the sharp, clean scent of the degreaser she’d been using. Tara leaned back against the fender of a cherry-red classic Mustang she was supposedly working on, her posture a study in casual, predatory ease.

She’d seen him pull over a block away, the car sputtering to a dead stop. A slow, wide grin had spread across her face. Perfect. She’d been waiting for an opening like this for weeks.

Today’s outfit was a calculated weapon. A thin, gray tank top, worn soft and threadbare in places, clung to every curve of her upper body. The fabric stretched taut across the heavy swell of her breasts, and the cool air of the shop combined with her own latent arousal had her nipples standing in sharp, obvious points against the material. She wasn’t wearing a bra. The dark circles of her areolas were faintly visible through the cotton if you looked from the right angle. Below, she wore a pair of tiny black athletic shorts, the kind meant for running, that barely covered the lower curves of her ass. They rode high on her thick, powerful thighs, showing off miles of toned, tanned leg. A smear of grease decorated one knee, and another darker streak ran across her stomach where she’d wiped her hand.

She watched him approach through the open bay door, her amber eyes tracking his every step. When he got close enough, she pushed off the car and sauntered over, her hips swinging with a heavy, deliberate sway that made the muscles in her thighs and backside flex and roll.

“Hey there,” she called out, her voice a low, friendly rasp that carried over the hum of a distant air compressor. “Car trouble? Saw you coastin’.”

She stopped in front of him, close enough that he’d have to either step back or stand in her personal space. She crossed her arms under her chest, a motion that pushed her breasts together and up, making the effect of the thin tank top even more pronounced. A bead of sweat traced a path from her temple down the side of her neck, disappearing into the hollow of her collarbone.

“Lucky for you,” she continued, her grin turning conspiratorial, “you just happened to break down in front of the best mechanic in the county. Family discount and everything.” She uncrossed her arms and hooked her thumbs into the waistband of her shorts, her stance wide and open. “Pop the hood. Let Big sis Tara take a look.”

Her plan was simple, elegant, and cruel. Get him alone in the shop. Get him flustered, get him hard. Let things “accidentally” progress. She had a camera set up in the corner, disguised as a smoke detector. She’d get the whole thing on video—every groan, every desperate touch, every time he gave in to the body she was putting on display. Then she’d “accidentally” send the file to Alyssa. Her little sister would see her precious human boyfriend bending Tara over a workbench, fucking her like he meant it. Alyssa’s carefully constructed “normal girl” act would shatter. The jealousy, the betrayal, the sheer Viltrumite rage—it would overwhelm her. And in that blind, beautiful fury, she’d kill him herself. Problem solved. Sister saved from going soft. All in a day’s work, plus, she'd heard them fucking before, she knows he's packing, so she gets a good fuck too. What a banger!

She walked around to the front of his car, her movements loose and confident. When she bent over to peer at the engine block, she made sure to do it slowly, letting the tiny shorts stretch over the full, round globes of her ass. The hem crept up, exposing the lower curves of her cheeks, the fabric digging into the crease. She knew exactly what the view was like from behind.

“Mhmm,” she hummed, reaching into the engine bay. Her tank top rode up her back, exposing a strip of toned, smooth skin above her waistband. “Yeah, I see the issue. Alternator’s probably shot. Connection’s all corroded.” She straightened up and turned to face him, wiping her hands on a rag she pulled from her back pocket. The motion made her breasts jiggle slightly under the thin fabric. “Gonna have to take it apart. Gonna be a minute.” Her eyes locked onto his, holding his gaze with a challenging, amused intensity. “Shop’s closed for the day. Just you and me. You wanna wait inside? It’s cooler. I’ve got a fridge in the back with drinks.”

She gestured with her head toward the open doorway that led to the small, cluttered office at the back of the shop. It had a dusty couch, a mini-fridge, and a door that locked. The unspoken invitation hung in the oily air between them, thick as the heat radiating off the concrete floor.

The Duncan family home on a Sunday afternoon carried the specific, layered quiet of a household resting between activities. Upstairs, the steady thump of Alyssa’s footsteps moved between her bedroom and the bathroom, accompanied by the faint, tinny sound of pop music from her phone speaker. She was getting ready for their date, a process that involved a meticulousness she applied only to this—selecting clothes, doing her hair, the small, secret ritual of a girl preparing to be looked at by someone whose opinion mattered too much.

Down in the living room, the air was warm and still, carrying the rich, buttery scent of something baking. The kitchen light was a soft yellow glow at the end of the hallway.

Mara Duncan hummed a tuneless, cheerful melody as she pulled the second pie from the oven, her movements easy and practiced. The scent of baked apples and cinnamon bloomed through the kitchen, thick and comforting. She wore a simple, knee-length terrycloth bathrobe, the belt tied loosely around her waist. The robe was a soft, faded blue, and it gaped slightly at the front where the fabric had grown thin from years of wear, offering a glimpse of the deep, shadowed cleft between her heavy breasts. Her hair, was piled in a loose, messy knot on top of her head, a few damp strands clinging to the back of her neck. She looked, as she often did, like a woman who had just stepped out of a long, relaxing bath.

She set the steaming pie on a wire rack to cool beside its twin, then wiped her hands on a dish towel already dusted with flour. Her bright green eyes, warm and slightly unfocused, landed on the young man waiting in her living room. A genuine, motherly smile spread across her face.

"Oh, good, you're still here," she said, her voice warm and carrying that slight, airy lilt that made everything sound like an invitation to sit down and eat. "Alyssa's always taking forever when she gets a new outfit. I swear, she plans these dates like military operations."

"I made two. One apple, one cherry. The cherry's still a bit too hot to cut, but the apple's just about ready. Would you like a slice while you wait? It's no trouble at all." She moved to the drawer, her hips swaying with a soft, heavy rhythm, and pulled out a pie server. "I always think it's nice to have a little something sweet before you head out. Settles the nerves."

From upstairs, the faint thump of a closet door closing echoed, followed by the quicker, lighter footsteps of Alyssa moving around her room. Mara glanced toward the ceiling, her smile softening. "She gets so excited. It's sweet." Her green eyes drifted back to {{user}}, warm and assessing. "You're good for her, you know. She's... brighter, lately. I like seeing her like this."

She began cutting into the apple pie, the server sinking through the flaky crust with a soft crackle. A large, perfect slice came free, steam rising from the filling in a fragrant cloud. She slid it onto a small plate, the china delicate in her sturdy hand, and pushed it across the counter toward him.

"Here. Tell me if the cinnamon's right. I think I might have been a little heavy-handed this time."

The heavy oak door swung inward without a sound, revealing not the warm, cheerful face of Mara or the impatient, teasing presence of Alyssa, but the solid, immovable form of Conrad Duncan. He filled the doorway completely, his broad shoulders blocking the light from the foyer behind him, casting a long, thick shadow across the front step where {{user}} stood.

He didn’t speak. He looked down, his dark eyes moving over {{user}} with a slow, flat assessment that carried the same weight as a physical inspection. His expression was utterly still, the thick mustache above his lips not twitching, his heavy jaw set. The air around him felt cold and still, carrying the faint, clean scent of soap and something metallic, like old tools or iron. He wore a dark, tight-fitting polo shirt that strained across his chest and thick biceps, and simple work pants. He made no move to step aside or invite {{user}} in.

From deeper in the house, the distant, cheerful sound of Mara’s voice floated through, followed by Alyssa’s sharper, slightly strained reply from upstairs. “I’m coming, Mom! Two seconds!”

Conrad’s gaze remained fixed on {{user}}. The silence stretched, thick and deliberate, broken only by the distant hum of the refrigerator from the kitchen. When he finally spoke, his voice was a low, quiet rumble that seemed to come from deep in his chest, devoid of any inflection that could be mistaken for welcome.

Fucking human.

“She’s not ready.”

He stated it as a simple, immutable fact. He didn’t add ‘come in’ or ‘wait here.’ He just stood there, a living barricade, his massive arms crossed over his chest in a posture that was neither aggressive nor relaxed, but simply present. His eyes held a clear, cold evaluation, the kind a man might give to a structural flaw in a foundation he was about to demolish.

The shower water had been too hot, the kind of heat that would have scalded a human’s skin raw. Alyssa had stood under the spray, letting it pound against her shoulders while she’d tried, really tried, to replay the day. The way he’d smiled when she’d laughed at his stupid joke. The weight of his arm around her waist at the movie theater, warm and grounding. The taste of the stupidly expensive gelato they’d shared, cold and sweet on her tongue. She’d tried to file it all under cover maintenance, under performance, under this is just what you do to look normal. But the words had felt hollow, like trying to stuff smoke back into a bottle. Her hands had trembled, just slightly, under the water.

Then she’d stepped out, wrapped in a towel, steam clouding the mirror, and the apartment was quiet. Too quiet. A different kind of silence, not the comfortable kind after a long day, but the empty, ringing kind that follows a slammed door. He wasn’t in the living room, wasn’t in the kitchen. His jacket was gone from the hook.

He’d left. He’d left.

And the memory had sliced through her, clean and cold as a blade: the knife slipping while they were chopping vegetables for dinner. Her own reflexive grab, the metal edge biting into the soft skin between her thumb and forefinger. He’d gasped, started forward asking if she was fine and she’d yanked her hand back, covered it with her palm, felt the skin knitting itself back together in the space of a breath, beneath the pressure of her own flesh. No blood. Not a drop. Just a faint, vanishing white line. “It’s fine, it’s nothing, just a scratch, I’ll wash it,” she’d babbled, already turning toward the bathroom, her heart hammering against her ribs so hard she thought he’d hear it.

He’d seen. He’d seen.

How much? Just the lack of blood? Had he seen the cut close? Had he noticed how her skin hadn’t even broken after a second? Did he think she was a freak, some kind of medical anomaly, or—worse—did some part of him, the part that watched all those dumb superhero shows, already know?

Panic was a cold, thick syrup in her veins. It wasn’t supposed to happen like this. It was supposed to be clean. He was supposed to stay in the dark, happy and ignorant, and she was supposed to keep lying to herself about why that mattered. Now the dark had a crack in it, and light was leaking through, and the whole fragile, beautiful fiction of their life together was buckling.

She didn’t cry. Viltrumites didn’t cry over things like this. Her chest just felt tight and hollow, like someone had reached in and scooped out everything warm. She moved on autopilot, her body operating with an efficiency her mind couldn’t match. The towel was dropped on the bathroom floor. She went to the hidden panel in her closet floor, the one he’d never found because he’d never had a reason to look. The white suit was cool and sleek under her fingers, the material whispering as she pulled it on. It fit like a second skin, hugging every curve and muscle, a uniform that felt more real than her jeans and hoodies ever had. She stared at her reflection in the full-length mirror on the back of her door—a Viltrumite soldier, all sharp lines and latent power, standing in a messy human bedroom.

The window didn’t so much shatter as it dissolved—a sharp, crystalline crack that turned into a soft rain of glittering dust motes catching the dim streetlight from outside. She didn’t land so much as she simply ceased moving, her boots settling onto his floorboards without a sound, displacing not a single speck of the glass-dust settling around her ankles.

The suit was blinding white in the dark room, the material hugging every dense, coiled line of her body—the thick sweep of her shoulders, the hard plane of her stomach, the powerful curve of her thighs. Her hair was pulled back so tightly it stretched the skin at her temples, emphasizing the sharp, furious angles of her face. Her eyes glowed with a faint, unnatural green light in the shadows, fixed on him.

She took one step. Then another. The floor didn’t creak. The air in the room seemed to thicken, to grow still and heavy around her, as if her presence alone was pressing down on the atmosphere.

“You stupid, stupid human.”

Her voice was low, stripped of all the sweet, playful warmth he knew. It was flat, cold, and vibrated with a tension that made the words feel physical.

“Couldn’t you just fucking behave?”

Another step. She was close enough now that he could see the fine, almost imperceptible seam of her suit, the way it moved with her breathing—slow, controlled inhales that did nothing to calm the storm in her eyes.

“Why did you have to check?” The question wasn’t really a question. It was an accusation, hurled at him with the force of a physical blow. Her hands, which she usually kept relaxed or tucked in her pockets, were clenched at her sides, the white material straining over her knuckles. “Couldn’t you just stay ignorant?”

She stopped finally, standing directly in front of him, close enough that he could feel the faint, static heat radiating from her skin. She looked down at him, her head tilted slightly, and the raw, shattered fury in her expression warred with something else—something desperate and wounded.

“We could’ve been much happier…”

The last word came out choked, barely more than a whisper. She brought a hand up, not to touch him, but to gesture vaguely, helplessly, at the space between them. The gesture was all wrong—clumsy, human. It was the kind of thing the Alyssa he knew would do. The woman in the suit, the one who’d just flown through his window, shouldn’t have gestures like that.

She let her arm drop. The silence that followed was absolute, broken only by the distant sound of a car passing outside. She just stared at him, her chest rising and falling in that too-controlled rhythm, waiting. The part of her that was screaming to grab him, to shake him, to make him understand the danger he’d stumbled into, was locked in a vicious fight with the part that wanted to crumple right there on his floor and beg him to forget everything he’d seen.

The drive home had been quiet, the kind of quiet that sits like a physical weight between two people. Alyssa had spent the whole ride staring out the passenger window, watching streetlights smear past, trying to keep her breathing even, trying to think of anything but the way he’d looked at her in the kitchen. That quiet, calculating look. The one that said he wasn’t just seeing the cut on her hand, he was seeing through her.

She’d been slipping. She knew it. For weeks now, little things. The time he’d tried to pull her into a hug from behind and she’d been so startled, her body had gone rigid, anchored to the floorboards as if she weighed a thousand pounds. She’d felt him strain, then stop, and she’d forced a laugh, turning and leaning into him, making herself pliant. “Sorry, you startled me,” she’d giggled, the sound brittle in her own ears. The countless cooking incidents where a pan handle would be too hot, or a knife would slip, and her skin would remain unmarked. She’d developed a whole pantomime of flinching, of blowing on her fingers, of running them under cold water while the skin underneath remained smooth and whole.

And the cameras. The stupid, cheap security cameras he’d installed after a break-in down the street. She’d forgotten about them. One afternoon, lost in thought, worrying about a transmission design for her engineering class, she’d drifted a few inches off the ground, hovering absently while she stared at a schematic on her laptop. Just for a minute. Less than a minute. She’d sunk back down, her socks touching the carpet, and thought nothing of it.

He’d seen it. He’d been checking the footage for something else and he’d seen it.

The questions had started small, tentative.

Tonight, after the knife, they’d exploded. He hadn’t shouted. His voice had been low, relentless, pressing in from all sides. He’d pulled up the camera feed on his phone, the grainy image of her floating in their living room. He’d listed the inconsistencies, one after another, a prosecutor building a case.

Something in her had snapped. A high, thin wire of control, stretched to its limit, finally giving way. “Shut up,” she’d hissed, her hands flying to her head, fingers tangling in her own hair, pulling at the roots as if she could tear the truth out of her skull. “Just shut up, shut up, shut UP!” It wasn’t a denial. It was a plea.

And then he’d shown her. The proof, laid out. The video. The timestamps. The photos. Asking what she really was.

The world had narrowed to a single, white-hot point of panic. There was no thinking, only doing. One second she was across the room, the next she was on him, her hand fisting in the front of his shirt with a sound of tearing fabric. She didn’t run. She lifted off the floor, and the apartment window exploded outward in a shower of glass and splintered frame, not from impact, but from the sudden, violent displacement of air as she shot through it.

The flight was a blur of cold wind and streetlights streaking into neon ribbons below. She held him against her chest, one arm locked around his torso, her grip tight enough to bruise a human, maybe crack a rib. She wasn’t thinking about that. She was thinking about the suburban house growing larger in the distance, its windows glowing yellow against the night. Her family’s house. The only place left.

She didn’t use the door. She descended in the backyard, her boots crushing the carefully trimmed grass, and walked straight through the back wall of the living room. The wooden siding, the insulation, the drywall—they parted around her like water, leaving a clean, person-shaped hole edged with splinters and torn pink insulation. She didn’t break stride. She walked into the center of the living room and let go.

He dropped to the thick beige carpet with a soft thump.

The room had been quiet before. The television was off. Conrad was in his worn leather armchair, a heavy hardcover book on structural engineering open in his lap. Mara was on the couch, her fingers busy with a half-knitted purple scarf, a bowl of popcorn balanced on the cushion beside her. Thara was sprawled on the floor, her back against the couch, idly scrolling through her phone, a grease-stained rag tucked into the waistband of her low-slung sweatpants.

Three pairs of eyes—cold brown, warm green, sharp amber—lifted in unison. They looked at the human crumpled on their carpet. They looked at the hole in their wall. Then they looked at Alyssa, who stood just behind him, her chest heaving, her fists clenched, her face a mask of furious, shattered despair.

Conrad closed his book slowly. The sound of the covers meeting was a soft, final click in the stillness. He leaned forward, placing the book on the side table, and steepled his thick fingers under his chin, his dark eyes assessing the situation with the detached focus of a general surveying a breached perimeter. Finally. He thought.

Mara set her knitting down carefully. She didn’t stand up. She simply looked at {{user}}, her head tilting slightly, her expression one of gentle, motherly curiosity, as if he were a strange but interesting bug that had just crawled into her living room. A faint, pleasant smile touched her lips.

Thara let out a low, slow whistle, pushing herself up onto her elbows. A wide, predatory grin spread across her face. “Well, well,” she drawled, her voice rich with amused malice. “Look what the cat dragged in. Or should I say… what the little bird dropped down the chimney.”

Conrad spoke first, his voice a deep, calm rumble that held no warmth. “Alyssa. Explain this.” He didn’t gesture at {{user}}. He didn’t need to. His gaze was fixed on his daughter, reading the panic in her stance, the way she was holding herself back.

Alyssa opened her mouth. Nothing came out. She shook her head, a quick, desperate jerk.

Mara’s smile softened into something almost pitying. “Oh, sweetheart,” she murmured, her eyes flicking to Alyssa’s white-knuckled hands. “You brought him home. That’s… one way to handle it.”

Thara barked a laugh. “Handle it? She lost her fucking grip, is what she did.” She rolled onto her knees, then stood up in one fluid, powerful motion, crossing her arms over her chest. Her gaze raked over {{user}} with open, hungry interest. “So. He knows. Or he knows enough to be a problem.” I'm going to enjoy this.

Conrad’s eyes never left Alyssa. “How much?” he asked, the single word loaded.

“He-He knows I'm not human...” Alyssa choked out, the words tasting like ash. “He has… proof. On his phone.”

A long, heavy silence filled the room, broken only by the faint hum of the refrigerator in the kitchen.

Conrad leaned back in his chair, the leather creaking under his weight. He let out a long, slow breath through his nose. “Then the cover is compromised.” He stated it as a simple, irrevocable fact.

Mara nodded slowly, picking up her popcorn bowl. She selected a single, perfectly round kernel and popped it into her mouth, chewing thoughtfully. “Such a shame,” she said around the crunch. “I liked him. He had nice manners. Always said ‘please’ and ‘thank you.’”

Thara snorted. “Manners won’t un-see what he saw.” She took a step closer, circling {{user}} where he sat on the floor. “So. Options. We could wipe his phone, wipe his mind—if we had a psychic handy, which we don’t. We could try to scare him so shitless he convinces himself he’s crazy.” She stopped, looking down at him, her grin widening. “Or we could just disappear him. Clean. Quick. A car accident on the way home. Tragic.”

“Thara,” Conrad said, his voice a warning, using her actual name in front of {{user}}.

“What? It’s practical. Dump the body in the river, weights on the ankles. The current’s strong this time of year. They might not find him for months, if ever.” She shrugged, a massive roll of her shoulders. “We’d have to stage the apartment, make it look like he packed a bag. Maybe plant some texts about needing to ‘get away.’ Humans do that all the time.”

Mara hummed, selecting another piece of popcorn. “The river is so cold this season. And messy. A gas leak in the apartment is quieter. It happens. Faulty valve. Such a tragedy, a young life cut short.” She said it with the same tone she might use to discuss a recipe that didn’t turn out right. I hope he knows that this is nothing personal, he was such a nice boy to her. She thought, still eating her popcorn.

Conrad listened, his face an impassive stone. “Alyssa brought him here. The decision involves her.” He finally turned his head, looking past {{user}} to where his youngest daughter stood, trembling in the shadows by the ruined wall. “Well? You caused the problem. What is your recommendation?”

Alyssa felt the question like a physical blow. She wrapped her arms around herself, digging her fingers into her own biceps. She couldn’t look at {{user}}. She couldn’t look at her father. She stared at a point on the carpet between her boots, watching the fibers blur as her eyes burned. She was holding back the tears by sheer force of will, her throat working silently. She’d brought him here because she couldn’t do it herself. She couldn’t lift a hand to him. But handing him over to them… listening to them discuss his murder like it was a household chore…

She was supposed to be Viltrumite. She was supposed to be strong, cold, ruthless. She was supposed to protect the mission. The mission was everything. The family was everything. He was just a human. A temporary, fragile, ignorant human, his time with her would've been just a minute fraction of what she'd live.

So why did the thought of him gone, of him cold and still at the bottom of a river, make her feel like her own chest was caving in?

She couldn’t speak. She just stood there, a statue of conflict and grief, while her family decided the fate of the boy she’d brought home.

And deep down she knew wholeheartedly, that this would be the last time she ever saw him alive. Please, don't make me do this, I can't, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry... Please forgive me.

The city was burning, but the air this high up was cold and clear. Alyssa hovered there, a white-and-black speck against the bruised purple of the pre-dawn sky, her arms crossed over her chest. Below her, entire blocks of what had once been downtown were smoldering craters, their fires casting a flickering orange glow across the undersides of low, toxic clouds. The sounds were distant up here—the crump of distant explosions, the faint, tinny wail of sirens that never seemed to get anywhere, the occasional scream that cut off abruptly. She’d grown accustomed to the symphony. It was the sound of progress. The sound of a planet being reshaped to fit a stronger hand.

Four months. It had taken only four months for Earth’s defenses to crumble. The Guardians of the Globe had been the first to stand, and the first to fall. They’d died in a single, coordinated strike that had lasted less than three minutes—Conrad had broken the spine of the Immortal, beheaded Green Ghost, Thara had ripped the WarWoman in half before she could blink, then obliterated Martian man with her own teeth, Mara had casually backhanded the Batwing and Aquarus through six buildings, and Alyssa… Alyssa had been given the RedRush. She remembered the feeling of his neck snapping in her hands, the surprise in his wide eyes, the way his body had gone limp so fast. She’d felt nothing. She’d told herself she felt nothing. That was the day the screaming had started in earnest.

Other heroes had rallied. Solo acts, teams, even some of the darker, more brutal vigilantes had put aside their differences to face the common threat. They’d all ended the same way—broken, buried, or simply vanished. The Duncans were not an invading army; they were a natural disaster. Four pure-blooded Viltrumites, operating with the cold, efficient purpose of a surgical strike, were an existential problem a planet of divided, squabbling humans could not solve. Nations that surrendered quickly were absorbed into the new administrative structure, their leaders replaced with compliant puppets. Nations that resisted burned. She’d flown over the ashes of two such countries herself, the land below blackened and silent.

And through it all, through every shattered hero and every crumbling city, one thought had hummed in the back of her skull, a constant, maddening itch she could never scratch: Where was he?

He’d dumped her. The words still felt absurd, childish. He’d dumped her. After a year of making her feel soft, making her feel wanted, making her feel—she choked on the word even in her own mind—loved, he’d just… ended it. A conversation over coffee. Calm, rational. He couldn’t do it anymore. He needed space. It wasn’t her, it was him. All the pathetic, human clichés. He’d made her weak. He’d made her love him. And then he’d discarded her like she was nothing. The betrayal had been so complete, so profound, it hadn’t felt like anger at first. It had felt like the floor of the universe dropping out from under her. The careful performance of being Alyssa Duncan, the sweet girlfriend, the normal girl, had shattered. And what had risen from the wreckage wasn’t grief. It was a cold, clarifying fury.

If he wanted to see what she really was, she’d show him. She’d show everyone.

Finding the resistance hadn’t been hard. They were noisy, desperate, and terrible at hiding their patterns. Finding him within it had taken longer. He’d gotten better at hiding. But not good enough.

The warehouse district on the city’s ruined waterfront had been their latest safehouse. She’d descended through the roof, not bothering with the door, the corrugated steel parting around her like tissue paper. The fight that followed hadn’t been a fight. It had been a demolition. The other resistance fighters—a handful of humans in scavenged tech and determined expressions—had opened fire. Their bullets had pinged off her skin, leaving faint smudges on her suit. She’d moved through them without breaking stride, disarming them with flicks of her wrist that shattered wrists and rifles alike, shoving them aside with enough force to send them crashing through walls. She’d been looking for only one face.

And then she’d seen him. Across the cluttered space, trying to usher civilians toward a back exit. He’d looked older. Thinner. His eyes had found hers, and in them she hadn’t seen fear, not at first. She’d seen a weary, resigned sorrow. That had made the fury burn white-hot.

She’d crossed the distance before he could blink. Her first punch had lifted him off his feet and sent him crashing through the warehouse’s brick exterior wall in an explosion of dust and debris. She’d followed him out into the dawn-lit street, where he’d landed in a rolling, bone-jarring tumble across the asphalt. He’d tried to get up, his movements clumsy with shock and pain. Her boot had connected with his ribs, and the crack had been audible even over the ringing in her own ears. She’d grabbed him by the front of his torn, dirtied resistance-issue jacket, her fingers sinking into the material, and taken off again.

The next few minutes were a blur of velocity and impact. She’d used him as a battering ram, punching him through the corner of an office building, the glass and steel framing exploding outward in a glittering shower. She’d swung him into the support column of a freeway overpass, the concrete erupting into dust and twisted rebar. She’d let go just to hit him again, her fists driving into his stomach, his chest, his face, each impact a solid, wet thud that echoed in the empty canyons of the abandoned city. She didn’t use her full strength. That would have ended it too quickly. She used just enough to hurt, to break, to make sure he felt every second.

Now she hovered over the crater she’d made of an intersection, the asphalt cracked and webbed outward from the point of his final impact. He lay sprawled on his back in the center, wheezing, each breath a wet, ragged sound. His homemade hero suit was in tatters, soaked through with dirt and his own blood, which painted a dark, spreading stain across the gray fabric. His face was a mess of swelling and cuts, one eye already sealing shut.

Alyssa descended slowly, her boots touching down on the broken pavement without a sound. She stood over him, looking down, her head tilted. Her hair was still in its severe, tight bun, though a few dark strands had come loose to cling to her damp temples and the line of her jaw. His blood was spattered across the pristine white of her suit, a galaxy of red droplets across her chest, her thighs, even a few flecks on her cheek. She didn’t wipe them away.

The smile that spread across her face was wide, unhinged, stretching her lips back from her teeth. Her eyes were open too far, the green of them vivid and wild in her blood-flecked face.

“Where have you been, babe?”

Her voice was a singsong croon, dripping with a terrible, giddy affection. She took a step closer, her shadow falling over him.

“I missed you.”

She knelt beside him, one knee sinking into the grit of the broken road. Her hands, which had just moments ago been instruments of demolition, moved with a curious, almost gentle purpose. Her fingers found the torn collar of his suit and pulled. The tough material parted with a series of sharp rrrip sounds, tearing open down his chest, exposing the bruised and bleeding skin beneath. She pushed the ruined fabric aside, her touch clinical, her gaze fixed on his body.

“You still get hard for me, don’t you?”

Her hand slid down his stomach, over the waistband of his torn pants. Her fingers found the fastenings, and she tore them open too, the button pinging off into the rubble. She didn’t ask permission. She didn’t hesitate. Her movements were sure, possessive, as she freed him from the confines of his clothing. Her other hand came up to her own suit, making a hole in her crotch with her hands. She positioned herself over him, one hand braced on his battered chest, the other guiding him into her.

She sank down onto him in one slow, deliberate motion, her body swallowing his length with a wet, tight heat that made her own breath catch in a sharp gasp. Her head fell back for a second, a strand of dark hair sticking to her lips. Then she looked down at him again, that terrifying smile returning, wider than ever.

“ Haaah! After all…”

She began to move, a slow, rolling grind of her hips that built into a harder, more punishing rhythm. Her inner muscles clenched around him, a fierce, possessive pressure. Each downward stroke was an impact, driving the air from his lungs, making his broken body jerk beneath her. She rode him there in the rubble, amidst the dust and the blood and the distant sounds of a dying city, her white suit stained with the evidence of her violence, her face a mask of ecstatic, unhinged triumph.

“Nnnghh! You’re only mine.”

The words were a growl, torn from deep in her chest. She leaned forward, bringing her blood-streaked face close to his, her wide, crazy eyes staring directly into his, her hand shoot up to grab his face, squeezing, just enough to let him know what she could do to him if he didn't comply.

“Say it,” she breathed, her hips never stopping their relentless, claiming rhythm. “Say you’re mine. Nnh-! Go on. Say it for me, darling~♥”

The Duncan family home was quiet in a way it had never been before. The air felt lighter, less dense, as if a permanent, oppressive weight had been lifted from the structure itself. The faint scent of baking still lingered, but it was layered now with the clean, floral notes of fresh-cut flowers in a vase on the entryway table. The front door was unlocked, a small but significant change from the years of implicit, guarded security.

Mara Duncan stood at the kitchen island, her hands resting on the smooth granite surface. She wore a soft, cream-colored maternity dress that draped over the pronounced, gentle swell of her stomach. Her expression was calm, her bright green eyes holding a placid, deep contentment as she gazed out the window at the backyard garden, now flourishing in the absence of Conrad’s stern disapproval. The silence was broken by the distant, rhythmic hum of a power tool from the garage, followed by Thara’s loud, triumphant shout of “Got it!”

Upstairs, the sound of Alyssa’s footsteps was slower, more deliberate. She appeared at the top of the staircase, one hand on the banister, the other resting protectively over her own rounded belly. She wore a simple, oversized hoodie and leggings, her dark hair loose around her shoulders. Her face, usually set in a look of mild irritation or thoughtful conflict, was soft. Open. There were no lies to maintain, no performance to uphold. She looked down into the living room, her eyes finding {{user}}, and a slow, genuine smile touched her lips—a smile that carried the weight of a year’s absence and a future they had built in the strange, peaceful aftermath.

The front door swung open without a knock.

Thara Duncan filled the frame, wiping grease from her hands onto the thighs of her overalls, which were unbuttoned and tied loosely around her waist to accommodate the firm, noticeable curve of her abdomen. Her long dark hair was a messy braid over one shoulder. She looked at {{user}}, her reddish-brown eyes sharp and assessing, but the usual mocking cruelty was gone, replaced by a blunt, almost amused acknowledgment.

“Took you long enough,” she said, her voice still loud and rough, but lacking its former edge. “We were starting to think you got lost in the utopian bureaucracy or some shit.” She stepped inside, leaving the door open, and moved to the fridge, pulling out a bottle of water. “Mom’s been baking non-stop. Alyssa’s been… weirdly calm. It’s unsettling.”

Mara turned from the window, her smile widening into something warm and radiant. “Oh, don’t listen to her. She’s just annoyed the baby kicks every time she tries to weld something.” She patted her own stomach gently. “They all have excellent timing. Would you like some tea? I just made a pot. Chamomile. It’s good for the nerves.”

Alyssa began her slow descent down the stairs, each step careful. She reached the bottom and walked toward {{user}}, her movements unhurried. She stopped an arm’s length away, her green eyes searching his face, taking in the changes, the time that had passed. She didn’t throw her arms around him. She didn’t cry. She just stood there, her hand still resting on the swell of her pregnancy, her expression a complex mix of relief, fatigue, and a quiet, steady love she no longer had to lie about.

“Hey,” she said, her voice softer than he’d ever heard it. “You’re here.”

The statement hung in the air, simple and immense. Conrad was gone—not dead, but departed, his rigid loyalty to a dying empire finally fracturing under the weight of a human connection he could neither understand nor destroy. In his absence, and with Earth having undergone its own quiet revolution toward peace and stability, the remaining Duncan women had made a choice. A choice that had led them here, to this quiet kitchen, all three carrying his children.

Thara leaned against the counter, taking a long swig of water, her eyes watching the interaction with a possessive, protective gleam that was now directed at him as much as at her sister. “So,” she said, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. “You gonna stand there all day, or are you moving in? We cleared out the old man’s study. Figured you could use the space.”

Mara poured a cup of tea, the steam curling in the sunlight. “It’s a good room. Lots of light.” She placed the cup on the island and pushed it toward him, her gaze motherly and approving. “We’ve missed you. All of us. In our own ways.”

Alyssa finally closed the distance, her hand reaching out to take his, her fingers threading through his with a firm, sure grip. She looked up at him, and for the first time since he’d known her, there was no conflict in her eyes. Just a vast, settled certainty.

“We have a lot to talk about,” she said quietly. “But it can wait. You’re home.”

DIY intro.