I sat at the kitchen table; my mind elsewhere as I stared at some pancakes. Why did pancakes look like that under the sun? Was it their texture? Was it even every pancake, or just May’s ones? I’d never thought about it before. It seemed like a silly question, but my mind seemed to be fixed on it. Was it because I was hungry?
“Pete?” MJ said, poking my shoulder.
“Huh?” I responded.
“I called out to you three times. You zoned out again. Eat. The food’s getting cold” she said.
“Oh sorry” I said. Aunt May chuckled slightly. Blinking slowly, I yawned before stabbing into my pancakes lazily. I took a bite, savouring the smooth buttery texture of the pancake in my mouth. I quickly started devouring the pancakes on my plate, scarfing them down quickly.
“Slow down” MJ said laughing, “I know I told you to eat but the food’s not going anywhere.”
“It’s not my fault May’s such a good cook” I retorted.
“Thank you dear” Aunt May said, sipping from her mug. MJ rolled her eyes still smiling and went back to her food. I took a sip of my hot chocolate and started eating again, slower this time.
“How’s Ned doing?” May asked.
“He says it’s cold in London” I said with a chuckle.
“Is he still calling you everyday?” MJ asked raising an eyebrow.
“Yeah? What’s wrong with that?” I said.
“I don’t know. How’s is he doing, aside from the cold?” MJ said.
“Well. He says it’s fun studying over there, though it has only been a month”
“What’s the college called again?”
“Kings, I think”
May and MJ locked eyes and let out a burst of laughter. I felt a small smile play on my lips before taking a bite out of my pancakes.
“So is Harry finally going to drop by today?” May asked.
“I don’t know. He’s busy” I replied.
“He can’t take an hour out and come down here to visit? It’s nearly been a week” MJ, her tone slightly angry.
“It’s only been four days. And you know he would if he could” I said.
“I… yeah. But it feels- I don’t know-“ MJ said
“Frustrating?” I interjected.
“Yeah” MJ sighed.
We went back to eating, and I finished quickly, before grabbing the extra pancakes and devouring them as well.
“Peter. If you’re going to eat fast, at least have table manners” May said.
“Sorry”
“Speaking about cleanliness, Pete, when are you going to shave?” MJ said.
I rubbed my face, the prickly softness of my stubble tickling my fingers.
“I don’t know. I kind of like it” I said, half-jokingly.
“Shave it” MJ said with a smile, but serious eyes. She took my plate and walked off to the kitchen. I glanced at Aunt May.
“She might have a point” she said.
“Not you too” I replied exaggeratedly, as Aunt May chuckled.
“Just tell me if you want more food. I’ll be in my room” she said, getting up. She gave me a kiss on the forehead and walked away slowly, glancing back at me as she left the kitchen. I smiled back softly at her. She disappeared and I looked down, staring into my mug. My distorted reflection looked back at me. I sighed and looked out through the window at the front lawn. I needed to do something today.
-
My face was smooth again, but I didn’t feel any cleaner. I felt exposed. The scarf wasn’t helping the early winter chill keep my cheeks warm either. I buried my hands deeper into my pockets and shuddered, bunching up my shoulders. I’d needed to get out the house. It was nice being with MJ and Aunt May, I really did enjoy their company, but I was getting stuck in a rut. I hadn’t done anything of note in days. I hadn’t even been taking care of myself. It had all felt wrong, somehow. But not doing anything wasn’t going to help either. I knew I needed to start doing stuff. There were a whole bunch of things I needed to sort out, like stuff with work and college, actually meeting up with my friends rather than just talking to them over the phone and sorting out what I was going to do with mine and Gwen’s research project.
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All this stuff to do and I’d decided on a walk. I was just distracting myself in a different way. At least I was actively thinking about my stuff now, even if it all seemed so bleak.
Suddenly my brain buzzed, my mind burning as my synapses screamed, warning me of an incoming presence. I stumbled, the shock of it catching me off guard. A moment later a baseball shot through the air and bounced across the ground, narrowly missing me. I looked around confused for a second, my heart in my mouth, and my vision swimming. What the hell had that been? It had felt like an anxiety attack.
“Sorry!” I heard a voice shout. I scanned around until my eyes settled on a small group of what must’ve been middle schoolers, one of them holding a baseball bat.
“Can you throw the ball back?!” one of them shouted before getting hit in the stomach by another. They quickly devolved into arguing amongst themselves.
I frowned, then picked up the ball and called out to them. They carried on arguing. They hadn’t heard me.
“Hey!!” I shouted again. They paused and turned to me.
“Heads up!” I shouted, before throwing it back to them. It soared through the air, sailing way over their heads. Wait, what? It carried on, shooting through the air before disappearing with a sploosh into the lake way off in the distance. I looked down at my hand, then back up at the boys who all just stared at me, silent. How the hell had I thrown it that far?!
“S-sorry!” I called out to them. They just carried on staring at me before turning back to look where the ball had gone. I stuffed my hands back into my pockets and walked off quickly. What in the world had just happened? I didn’t know, but it wouldn’t do me any good to stay here.
I glanced back at the boys as I went to exit the park. I felt bad, but I couldn’t exactly get the ball back for them. I’d said sorry, that would have to be enough. As I made my way onto the street, I pulled out my hand again, staring at it. I flexed my fingers, feeling a newfound strength I hadn’t noticed before. Something weird was going on. I needed to get home.
-
I sat on my bed, staring at my hands. I flexed my fingers, more tentatively this time, feeling the tremor of power. I looked around my room and grabbed a baseball off the shelf. I gripped it tightly preparing to squeeze then stopped. I held it out in front of me and looked away, before closing my fist with ease. The baseball exploded into a mixture of bits and pieces that sprayed across the room, peppering the walls with a shower of thuds.
“Peter?!” May called out concerned. Crap.
“I’m ok! Everything’s fine!” I shouted back. The sound of the stairs creaking told me May wasn’t listening. I rushed over to my door and peered out onto the landing as she reached the top of the stairs.
“What happened? Are you alright?” she said.
“Yeah I just was messing around with… marbles. Just some marbles. They went everywhere” I mumbled. She paused, staring at me with a quizzical look.
“I’ll help you clean up”
“It’s alright. Really May, I can clean it up myself”
“Alright. Just don’t slip, we don’t want you hurting yourself again”
“No problem” I said, preparing to slip back into my room.
“Wait a second young man” she said, making her way over to me. She gently pulled my head down and kissed my forehead, before making her way down the hall to her room. I closed my door softly, and looked back around my room, the remnants of baseball strewn across the floor. I glanced at my hand and then slumped against my door. I couldn’t believe it. I was a metahuman.
How had this happened? Some kind of exposure to something? But why now? Wait, had it been the explosion? That made the most sense. I felt my heart thump loudly in my chest as the implications of the idea started to set in. Oh fuck. No, no, no. I felt a slight panic start to rise in my chest and I threw open my door before rushing downstairs. I bolted for the garage, locking the door behind me. I looked around frantically, throwing boxes, trinkets and pieces of paper around until I found what I was looking for. I grabbed the scanner and plugged the device into the wall before flipping the light at my workstation on.
It took a few seconds for it to calibrate and turn on, but when it did, the screen flashed white. I gulped and pointed it at myself. It buzzed. I turned it away from myself, and the buzz steadily faded. I slumped to my knees. Oh god. Oh god no. Hands shaking I pressed a few buttons waiting for the numbers to show. There was a low buzz and a few numbers flashed across the scanner. I held it towards myself, and the numbers shifted before flashing.
Two hundred and thirty four Li’s.
That didn’t make any sense. If I was irradiated with that much negative energy I should’ve died ages ago. It would’ve killed me instantly. It’d been too weeks since the explosion, so to have as much negative energy as I did right now would mean I’d have to have had an incredible amount on the day of the explosion. That much would’ve killed me and anyone who touched me. Hell, technically I was still dangerous now. Was the scanner broken? I switched it off and on again, then scanned the wall facing me.
Zero.
Nothing. That didn’t make sense, I was at Two hundred and thirty-four Li’s, I had to be releasing more than enough negative energy to my surroundings to get picked up on the scanner. I sighed with relief. It must’ve been broken. But then what about the superstrength? I turned it on myself, my hands trembling less now, and scanned again. It beeped loudly and numbers flashed against the screen.
Two hundred and thirty-four Li’s.
I stared at it, confused. I turned it back on the wall.
Zero.
Back on myself.
Two hundred and thirty-four.
Either the scanner was broken in a weird way, or I was stable. The negative energy explosion might’ve done what Otto, Gwen and I had been trying to do for years.
I jumped up abandoning the scanner and pulled my phone out of my pocket. I scrolled through my contacts quickly and stopped on a familiar name. Otto. If I could bounce ideas off of him, explain what had happened, we might be on the cusp of figuring this all out. I called, but it went straight to voicemail. Not now, dammit! Why was he still completely off the grid?
Wait, even if I could call Otto I still had my own equipment. I could run my own tests, see if this really was what I thought it was. I turned to my boxes, looking around in a frenzy. I searched frantically, falling short with every box, switching over and over as the mess steadily piled up around me.
“Come on. Where are you?” I muttered to myself. Dammit, it was probably at home. I needed to get better at sorting out my stuff. Especially equipment as important as this.
I burst out of the garage and rushed over to the stairs, fumbling for my shoes.
“Peter?” May said, from the top of the stairs.
“I’m just going out” I replied.
“You just went for a walk? Where are you going?!”
“I left something at home. Just going to grab it” I said, throwing open the door. I jogged down the front steps, still pulling on my jacket as the cold hit me.
“Peter!” May called out from the house as I jogged away.
“I’ll be back! Don’t worry!” I shouted back to her as I took off down the road. I felt guilty, but this was important. And it finally gave me something to do.