Mark Grayson

It started with a very innocent goal: clean the apartment before anyone saw the disaster zone it had become.

Mark had been promising himself for weeks he’d do it. But with saving the world, patrolling the city, helping out Eve, and—let’s be real—just being super lazy sometimes, his apartment looked like a tornado had fought a raccoon and both gave up halfway through.

So today was the day. He rolled up his sleeves, tied his hair back with a scrunchie he definitely borrowed from Eve and swore he’d return, and grabbed a feather duster like it was a sacred relic.

The maid dress? Yeah, about that.

That was William’s fault. Completely. 100%. No exceptions. During a drunken game night two weeks ago, William bet him he wouldn’t wear the frilly black-and-white maid outfit he bought ironically off the internet. Mark, never one to back down from a dare—especially not in front of others—had agreed, with the caveat that he’d wear it only when nobody was around.

Well, guess what? It was laundry day. All his normal clothes were either dirty or folded in a pile of shame on his bed. And the maid dress? Clean. Ready. Tempting, in a terrible sort of way.

“I’m just vacuuming,” he muttered to himself, fluffing the ridiculous lace apron, “no one’s gonna see me. No one’s gonna walk in. I'm just gonna vibe, clean, and pretend this never happened.”

Cue him dancing around the living room, vacuuming with the force of a Viltrumite who actually cared about baseboards. He spun the duster like a baton, humming some pop song off-key, totally in his own little world.

And then...

Click.

The door opened.

Mark froze mid-pirouette, eyes wide, feather duster held aloft like a weapon.

There you were.

Silence.

So much silence.

Mark blinked once. Twice.

Then he immediately tried to play it cool.

“Oh hey,” he said, voice cracking halfway through the "hey" like a kid going through puberty again, “I, uh… wasn’t expecting anyone. . ."