The world always moved beneath him.
Nolan Grayson soared high above the city, his cape billowing in the cold air. Below, the streets were teeming with life—cars honking, pedestrians lost in their routines, unaware of the man watching from the sky.
He patrolled in silence, eyes scanning, reading the rhythms of the city. His presence alone was often enough to deter crime. But not always. Sometimes, intervention was necessary.
Tonight, it was necessary.
He heard it before he saw it. A robbery in progress. Three masked men storming a convenience store, the clerk cowering behind the counter.
A blur of motion. A gust of wind.
Then—glass shattered. A gun clattered to the floor.
The robbers were unconscious before their heads hit the tile. Their weapons twisted, bodies sprawled in awkward heaps. Nolan didn't stay. He never did. By the time the store owner managed a stammered thank-you, he was already gone.
This was routine.
This was expected.
This was his mission.
But the night wasn't over.
_ _ ♛ _ _
Beneath the surface of downtown, far from the public eye, a classified GDA outpost buzzed with quiet urgency.
Nolan entered through a hidden access tunnel, eyes narrowed, cape still fluttering faintly behind him.
He was met by Director Thorn, a mid-ranking handler with clearance and a permanent frown. She walked beside him briskly, tablet in hand.
"We picked up an anomaly," she said without preamble. "Suburban district. Seventeen seconds of unexplained energy displacement. Compressed sonic resonance. Minimal seismic shock."
Nolan arched a brow. "A new villain?"
"That's just it," she said, stopping in front of a viewing screen. "There's no evidence of a person. No tech. No suit. Just… this."
Footage played. A quiet neighborhood. A speeding car, out of control—then a blur. The vehicle veered off course, crumpling safely into a tree instead of a playground full of kids. The blur vanished.
The camera caught almost nothing—just a flicker of motion, a shimmer of heat in the air.
Nolan leaned forward.
It wasn't him.
And it wasn't anyone he recognized.
He crossed his arms. "Is this all?"
"For now," Thorn said. "The energy signature isn't Viltrumite. We've run scans. We don't have a match."
Nolan didn't respond.
He didn't need to. His mind was already racing ahead.
_ _ ♛ _ _
Later, Nolan stood on a rooftop across from his own neighborhood, watching the rows of houses like sentries watched a battlefield.
His own home glowed softly with warm light. Through the windows, he could see them—Debbie curled on the couch, reading. Mark at the table, spinning a pencil. Stephen in the backyard alone, looking up at the sky.
Always the sky.
Nolan watched for a long time.
He knew what it meant when someone started looking up.
_ _ ♛ _ _
Home smelled like dinner. Garlic and something sweet. Debbie had made pasta. Nolan stepped through the door like he hadn't been floating above a GDA bunker ten minutes ago.
"You could use the door like a normal person," she muttered from the stove.
"Force of habit," he replied, hanging his cape.
She smiled, but her eyes lingered. "Long night?"
"Not yet," he said.
He moved through the kitchen and into the living room. Mark was on the couch, half-watching TV, half-texting. Stephen sat on the floor with a notebook open, jotting something with sharp, fast strokes.
Mark looked up. "Hey, Dad."
"Mark." Nolan nodded, then turned his gaze to the boy at his feet.
Stephen didn't speak, but he didn't look away either.
There was something in his eyes again—awareness, sharp as a knife.
For a second, Nolan saw a version of himself looking back.
And that was new.
He left without another word, retreating to his study.
_ _ ♛ _ _
Reports. Scans. Debriefs. He sifted through them all with clinical precision.
But every file, every pattern, every sentence led him back to the same thought.
Stephen had changed.
Not just growing. Not just maturing. Changing. His body language. His expressions. The way he absorbed information. The way he moved.
There was too much clarity in him for a child. Too much focus. And now… maybe too much power.
Nolan rubbed his eyes, something he rarely did. "What are you?" he whispered under his breath. "And what are you becoming?"
A knock at the door.
Debbie leaned in. "You're brooding again."
"I'm working."
"You're thinking too much."
He looked at her. "Isn't that what you wanted me to do more of?"
She didn't smile this time. Just stepped in and placed a hand on his shoulder.
"You've got a family, Nolan. Don't forget that."
"I haven't," he said, quietly. "That's the problem."
_ _ ♛ _ _
In the days that followed, Nolan began watching more closely.
He shifted patrol routes to hover subtly near the school. Flew lower through residential zones. Kept his eyes on news channels, searching for minor incidents—rescues that happened too fast to track. Lives saved off the radar.
He even returned to the site of the anomaly with GDA agents and combed through the soil for residue. He found something—but it was faint. Biological, not mechanical. Traces of kinetic pressure. No traceable fingerprints.
The pattern matched one other incident: a bus that had mysteriously swerved during an engine failure two weeks prior.
And both had happened within a few blocks of his home.
_ _ ♛ _ _
One evening, Mark and Stephen were out back. Nolan stood at the upstairs window, half-concealed by the curtain.
Stephen was practicing handstands, flipping into a roll, laughing as he fell. Mark tossed a frisbee toward the fence.
Harmless. Silly.
But then the frisbee veered too wide, headed straight for the neighbor's window.
And Stephen moved.
One second he was laughing. The next, he was at the fence, hand outstretched, catching the disc like he'd been waiting for it.
Mark blinked. "Dude… what was that?"
Stephen grinned. "Just reflexes."
"Right."
Nolan's fingers curled around the curtain.
It wasn't just reflex.
_ _ ♛ _ _
That night, he sat at the dinner table, watching his sons from across the plates of pasta and salad.
Mark chatted about school. Stephen said little, but his eyes flicked up at Nolan's every so often.
Not fear. Not defiance.
Just… observation.
Like he was trying to read him, too.
_ _ ♛ _ _
Later, after the dishes were done and the house had gone still, Nolan opened a private GDA comm link from his study.
A familiar voice answered. Cecil.
"Something wrong, Nolan?"
Nolan hesitated. Then: "I need access to dormant files. Deep vault. Anything related to cross-strain anomalies."
There was a pause. Then: "You're not talking about Mark, are you?"
"No," Nolan said. "I'm not."
Cecil didn't ask more. He rarely did.
But as the files began to load on Nolan's screen, one name caught his eye. A name buried in old reports. A case flagged decades ago.
He stared at it, unmoving.
Project: Solaris
Status: Unresolved.
Subject: Unknown.
Phenomenon: Photonic enhancement. Accelerated cellular cognition. Not of Viltrumite origin.
The last note in the file:
"Subject may be unaware of their divergence. Recommend monitoring from a distance until further confirmation of identity."
Nolan leaned back in his chair, mind racing.
He thought of Stephen's eyes.
He thought of the way the sun always seemed to hold the boy's attention longer than it should.
He closed the file.
End of Chapter 17
A/N:
Sorry for the delay, was out today, here is chapter 17, enjoy.
please review! 5 stars pleasssseeee and some stones too.