Work Text:
He still remembered the way you looked.
Mark sat hunched forward in the lumpy hospital chair, elbows digging into his knees, eyes fixated on the steady blue line on the monitor on the other side of the bed. Your breath came out unevenly through swollen lips. One side of your face was bruised, purple spreading down toward your jaw, and bandages were wrapped around the other side of your head.
Dad nearly killed you.
The thought kept going, and going through his head until it made him sick.
He couldn't understand why you'd done it. Why you stepped between them; Why you stood there screaming at Dad to stop while he destroyed half of Chicago.
"Run!" Mark had shouted at you. Over and over, desperate for you to get away. He remembered how raw his throat had gotten from it, blood spurting and dribbling down his mouth; the panic in his chest when he'd seen you run towards where he landed after taking a blow from Dad.
But you were stubborn. God, you were always so fucking stubborn.
And Dad…
Mark squeezed his eyes shut, thumbs trying to wipe away the image.
It was like swatting away a bug to him.
Your body flew further than any human body should have. You hit the pavement hard enough to bounce once, twice, before you slammed into a wall. Your head struck brick with a sound Mark knew he’d never forget; a deep, wet crack that filtered through everything else.
You were only human.
You hadn’t gotten powers like Mark. No Viltrumite strength; No healing factor. You couldn't take a hit from Dad. You were just a human, a fragile human being who had gotten in the way of a monster.
And Mark had watched it happen. He'd been right there.
He'd been close enough to see the blood spread beneath your head, close enough to hear the awful silence after you hit the ground, close enough to know that for a second, one terrible, endless second, he thought you were dead. He couldn't remember anything after that.
The doctors said it was a miracle you survived.
A shaky breath left him as he leaned back in the chair. His entire body hurt; bruises bloomed across his frame, and cuts were still healing, slower now that exhaustion was catching up to him. He should probably be lying down; it hurt being hunched over. But the pain didn't compare to seeing you like this.
The door clicked open behind him.
Debbie stepped inside as quietly as she could, carrying two paper cups of coffee. Her eyes drifted between him and the bed.
For a moment, neither of them spoke.
He glanced back toward you. Even unconscious, you looked like you were in pain; brows pinched faintly together, fingers twitching every now and then like you were stuck in a nightmare you couldn't escape.
She sat beside him, setting the coffee aside, placing her hand on his back,
"I told her to run," his voice came out rough, "I kept telling her to run."
His voice cracked,
"Mom...he hit her so hard—"
Mark doubled over suddenly, pressing a hand hard against his mouth as nausea twisted through him. Debbie immediately reached for him, and that only made him feel worse, because she was comforting him while her daughter lay unconscious in a hospital bed.
"I thought she died," he admitted shakily. "I thought….when she hit the wall I thought—"
She pulled him against her before he could spiral further, holding him the same way she used to after he woke up from a bad nightmare. Only this time, the nightmare was real.
And somewhere deep down, beneath the guilt and grief, Mark realized he was terrified to let you out of his sight ever again.