>>123277044"You want to die for this planet? Fine! What's seventeen more years? I can always start again. Make another kid."
Mark thought he knew pain. Thought he knew intimately what it meant to have his body broken, to drown in despair. Here and now, as his dad rants and raves and crushes both body and spirit with punishing punches and cruel words both, he realizes knows nothing.
This can't be happening.
He doesn't know how to make him stop. He doesn't think it's even possible for him to make him stop. Since before forever, like an absolute truth of the universe, he's known his dad is invincible.
"And you're going to help me, Mark. Willingly or not. It is, after all, what you were made for."
The words cut through the haze of pain like broken glass. "I… I won't…" Mark rasps. He can't even make his dad understand. Why won't he understand? Why can't he understand? How can he even think of betraying Earth, when they both had to love it so much?
"I should've known from the moment of your birth that wouldn't be useful for anything but this." Such bitter, hateful words. No love. No love, because if Mark won't stand with him, his father will spare him none.
Tear.
That's… that's a new sound. Not the thump of fist hitting flesh, nor the crack of bone breaking, nor the wheezing of his own stuttering breath.
His dad is holding up scraps of dark cloth.
His costume.
His binder.
And suddenly, as he becomes acutely aware of the breeze on his small exposed chest, shame rises. Omni-Man had torn off the front of his costume, and Mark doesn't know why. Why did he take it off? What if someone sees? "D-dad? W-wha– urk!" He chokes, as hands clamp down his throat with terrifying force.
NoairnoairnoAIR–
"Shut up ," his dad sneers and Mark wants to cry but can barely make his arms twitch.
