227 End of Book 4 – Mediate
227 End of Book 4 - Mediate
I watched the recording in silence as Amelia dismantled the gravitykinetic.
Gavel was an old name in the cape world. He belonged to a different era of capes, the kind that survived long enough to understand that raw potency faded, that variety scattered focus, but technique endured. In the years after the Great War, that belief had hardened into doctrine among the survivors. They trained in isolation, refined their powers obsessively, and waited for a world that no longer wanted them.
It was almost poetic.
Back then, powers had fallen out of favor. Trauma was the price of awakening, and once people truly understood that, society recoiled. Governments tried to legislate pain out of existence with trauma-free environments, preventative systems, and early intervention. Noble goals, poorly executed. Powered groups were throttled, sidelined, and quietly sabotaged. The divide widened anyway, morphing into something uglier.
Heroes and villains weren’t born. They were manufactured.
On the screen, Amelia finished the fight decisively. She could have killed him. She didn’t.
I exhaled slowly.
Then came Leverage.
The way her voice cracked when she quit hurt more than I expected. Amelia stood there, wings folded, blood still warm on her hands, and took it without protest.
I felt a pang of something dangerously close to guilt.
Learning about ‘us’ had cost Amelia a friend. Hopefully, it wouldn’t cost her more than that. She was better than me. Always had been. A better hero. A better person. Someone who still believed lines mattered.
The limo slowed to a stop.
The driver stepped out and opened the door. “We’re here, sir.”
Markend.
I hadn’t been back in a long time.
I stepped out, psychically blurring my features until my face slid off attention like water off glass. The city felt smaller than I remembered. Or maybe I’d just grown too used to worlds that wanted me dead.
I walked the familiar paths, letting memory guide my feet.
George appeared beside me in a shimmer of hard light, his usual lab coat flickering into place like a bad habit.
“How are you doing, George?” I asked.
“Terrible.”
I smiled faintly. “Why?”
“Because you keep disappearing on your wife,” he snapped. “Or wife-to-be. Whatever. You’re not officially married, but you’re officially stupid. Also, reminder, I am not a doctor. I just look like one.”
“You do a convincing job.”
“That’s because I cheat,” he said irritably. “Extra servers, parallel processes, enhancer-like feedback loops. I can learn almost any trade, act competently in it, and still… I have better things to do than babysit your emotional avoidance.”
“But you can split yourself,” I said mildly.
“Yes. And I have been,” George replied. “Which is giving me a headache, because paranoia is a bitch. What if one of my copies rebels?”
“Then I’ll kill it,” I said without hesitation.
George stared at me. “That is not comforting.”
I changed the subject. “Anything new about your powers?”
His expression shifted, becoming more serious. “I’ve been comparing notes with Griffin. I think I have a Source Mutate. Same category as her Chimera.”
I stopped walking.
“A Source Mutate?” I repeated.
He nodded. “I don’t know what it’s called. Or how I got it. But it explains a lot.”
That was… troubling. And fascinating.
“We’re here,” George said, gesturing ahead.
We stood before a nondescript room with plain door, no markings, and shielded in ways only someone like George would bother with.
Slowly, I reached for the handle.
“Wait.”
George’s hand didn’t touch me, but his voice carried enough weight to stop me all the same.
“Before you continue,” he said, quieter now, stripped of sarcasm, “there’s something you must hear.”
“I read the medical report,” I replied without turning.
“Oh,” George said. “So you know the stakes, then?”
“Yes.”
Nicole might die from the pregnancy. That part was clear. But the unborn child, four months in, had it far worse.
George continued anyway, because that was who he was. Because facts mattered to him, even when they hurt.
“Nicole has been weakening rapidly. Day by day. At first we thought it was a complication from stress, or latent damage from earlier exposures. But we finally isolated the cause.” His voice tightened. “The fetus has pulled.”
I closed my eyes.
“And it’s already developed powers,” George added. “We suspect that’s what’s draining her. As for why this is happening—why a pull occurred in utero—we still don’t know.”
“I know,” I said, cutting him off gently.
He fell silent.
“Thank you, George,” I continued. “For everything. But I’ll take it from here.”
Another pause. Then, softer, “Then I’ll leave you to it.”
His hard-light form dissolved, leaving me alone with the door.
I pushed it open.
The room was quiet, the kind of silence that pressed against your ears. Nicole lay on a soft bed, thin to the point it hurt to look at her. Her skin had darkened in places, shadows pooling around her neck and eyes like bruises that never fully formed. Machines hummed softly beside her, their lights steady, indifferent.
She looked fragile.
She opened her eyes the moment I stepped inside.
Joy washed over me through my empathy, immediate and unguarded. Relief. Warmth. And beneath it was anger, faint but sharp, like a needle under silk. More than anything, though, was pleasant surprise at my appearance.
“Took you long enough, Nick,” she said, her voice dry but fond.
I moved closer, every step heavier than it should have been.
She glanced down at her stomach, then back up at me, a ghost of a smile tugging at her lips.
“So,” she added, eyes glinting despite everything, “wanna bet if it’s a boy or a girl?”
Nicole didn’t let me speak.
“Before you start,” she said, her voice suddenly sharp, brittle strength wrapped around every word, “I need to warn you. Don’t even think about suggesting an abortion, because I will kill you, even like this.” Her fingers tightened around the bedsheet. “George keeps telling me to give up the baby, and he’s getting on my nerves. I’d rather die fighting than live the rest of my life knowing I gave up something this precious. Do you hear me, Nick?”
I did.
Not long ago, she’d threatened to kill our unborn child if I died or disappeared on her. I almost smiled at the memory. Insane. Still insane. Still Nicole.
“I’m with you,” I said quietly. “All the way.”
Her eyes shimmered, moisture gathering as she studied my face. “Nick… is it just me, or did something change in you?”
I nodded. “I think you can feel it too.”
I sat beside her, carefully, as if the wrong movement might shatter something fragile. My awareness slipped inward, just listening. And there it was.
The mind.
Small. Immature. Impossible.
An unborn child, barely four months old, had pulled.
The absurdity of it should have broken me. It was rudimentary and instinctive hypnosis of all things. Weak compared to trained psychics, yet undeniably there. Worse or perhaps stranger, it was drawing on Nicole’s powers, amplifying itself just enough to touch and influence me.
And I let it.
I didn’t know how long I’d been under its thrall. Days? Weeks? Maybe since the moment it had been more than a cluster of cells. A whisper at the edge of thought. A warmth I’d mistaken for my own feelings.
Miraculous didn’t begin to cover it.
Our love had produced something that defied every rule I knew. It bound the three of us together in a way no contract, no oath, and no power ever could.
And now I might lose it.
Nicole squeezed my hand, her expression torn. “What is it like, Nick? Our child… isn’t normal. Is there something wrong with him?”
The word ‘monster’ flickered through my mind, unbidden. I shoved it aside with everything I had. I was scared and terrified. But I was done running. Hope was elusive, fragile, easy to mistake for a lie, but I knew it when I felt it. And this… this was hope.
“This child wants to live,” I said softly. “I can feel it. In my bones. He wants me to protect you. And just as badly… he wants me to live too.”
Nicole blinked, confused. “He?”
“I can’t be sure. It’s just a feeling.”
I did everything in my power to make it work.
I called in favors I’d sworn I’d never use, burned goodwill I’d been saving for wars not yet fought, and leaned on friends who already carried more weight than they should. Abner and Spoiler tore through possible futures, their precognition skimming timelines like gamblers counting cards, searching for even a single path where Nicole and the child both lived. George, for his part, turned the world upside down, arranging facilities, requisitioning tools, and repurposing technology that was never meant to touch obstetrics.
I had expected the answer to come from some bleeding-edge lab or a special existence I’d yet to bargain with.
Instead, it came from Dr. Hera.
Former Foresthome. Former Lockworld prisoner. Silver-haired, albino, brilliant, and utterly uninterested in modesty or ceremony. Of all people, it was her expertise that gave us a chance.
The diagnosis was brutally simple.
The child was taking too much nutrients.
Nicole’s body was being drained faster than it could replenish itself, thanks to a developing power that didn’t understand restraint. A fetus with abilities was unheard of, but once the premise was accepted, the consequences followed naturally. Power demanded fuel. And Nicole was paying the price.
Dr. Hera took command with unsettling confidence, rattling off instructions as if this were merely an unusual variation of a familiar problem. I handed the fate of my wife and unborn child to her with no small amount of dread, but I trusted my numbers… and more importantly, I trusted her competence.
Still, trust didn’t make the waiting easier.
I phased just outside the operating room, half-present, half-absent, the sterile lights bleeding through me. Hera had insisted only relevant specialists be allowed inside. There were no exceptions.
Mira found me there.
“Sit,” she said, firmly enough that I obeyed without thinking.
I sat beside her, hands clenched, thoughts spiraling. She told me to calm down with the steady tone of someone who knew panic intimately and refused to let it rule her. She’d grown into that voice, reliable and grounded.
Mira Alice.
Her name still felt like a contradiction she carried with quiet honesty. ‘Alice,’ given by her mother, something she’d once tried to abandon when she wanted to start over, to become someone else entirely. ‘Mira’ had been her choice, her rebellion, and her attempt at distance. In the end, she couldn’t let Alice go. She admitted once that half the time she was still putting on a brave front after everything Light had done.
Hover had helped. Time had helped. But scars like hers didn’t vanish.
I asked her what she was thinking about, partly to distract myself, partly because I needed to hear something that wasn’t my own fear.
She spoke of her trauma, Light’s abuse, and the cage he’d built, gilded and inescapable. She spoke of her mother, who should have broken, who should have failed, who by all logic should not have been able to save her.
But she did.
Against an anomalous existence that should have been consumed or erased, her mother pulled off the impossible.
Of course, I knew all of this, since I lived her life. Reminding me of this things helped me focus, pulling strength from memories that weren’t truly mine.
Mira looked at me then, eyes steady.
“Mothers,” she said, “have a kind of power no rating system ever measured. When it’s about their child, they don’t follow rules. If ‘mothers’ area classification of a cape, I can bet my money on them being the strongest when it matters most.”
Dr. Hera stepped out of the operating room, gloves still stained, posture relaxed in a way that should have reassured me, but didn’t. I already knew something was wrong the moment I saw her eyes.
“The child is alive,” she said. “Extraction was successful.”
Relief surged, but it was shortly cut off as she continued.
“But the mother is in a coma.”
Something inside me broke.
I didn’t scream. I didn’t lash out. I didn’t destroy the corridor or collapse the building or phase the world inside out, though I could have. Instead, I did something far worse.
I shut myself down.
I killed my emotions with my powers, smothered them the way I’d learned to do long ago. Fear vanished. Grief followed. Love dulled into something distant and abstract. I was terrified of what I might do if I felt any of it. Terrified that if I let myself hurt, the world would pay the price.
So I didn’t feel.
A week passed.
Maybe more.
Time blurred into a succession of operations, meetings, executions, and blood. I worked nonstop, moving from city to city, dismantling gangs, erasing syndicates, toppling organizations that had existed for decades. The underworld bent… or broke. Word spread quickly. Eclipse wasn’t playing anymore.
He was returning to his roots, a monster!
Every takedown reinforced the myth. Every corpse added weight to my name. I became exactly what they feared: the ultimate villain. And through all of it, I avoided the hospital wing. I didn’t see my child. I didn’t sit by Nicole’s bedside.
Not thinking about it was easier. Easier than acknowledging the fragile, terrifying truth that for all my power, I’d nearly lost everything that mattered. Easier than standing in a room where I couldn’t fix things by force.
I told myself this was temporary. That once the Entity was dealt with, once the final enemy revealed itself, I would slow down. I would return. I would live.
That illusion lasted exactly until the message came from George.
“She’s awake.”
I was there in seconds.
The room was quiet, bathed in soft light. Nicole looked impossibly thin, skin pale, eyes sharp despite everything. Tubes still trailed from her arms, and monitors humming steadily.
She turned her head when I entered.
And then she scowled.
“Oh, so now you show up,” she said hoarsely.
I froze.
She continued, voice gaining strength with every word. “Let me guess. You went on a murder vacation. Killed half the underworld. Played king of monsters while I was unconscious.”
I opened my mouth.
She raised a finger. “Don’t. You left. You ran.”
The emotions I’d buried clawed their way back to the surface, messy and overwhelming.
“You didn’t even look at him, did you?” she snapped. “Your son.”
That did it.
I knelt beside her bed, head bowed, control finally slipping. “I was afraid,” I admitted. “Afraid I’d break something. Afraid I’d lose you. Afraid I’d lose him.”
She stared at me for a long moment.
With what little strength she had, she smacked the side of my head.
“Idiot,” she muttered. “You don’t get to disappear when things get hard. Not anymore. You’re a husband. You’re a father. Start acting like it.”
She exhaled, eyes softening just a fraction.
“And you’re not doing this alone,” added Nicole as she shifted slightly on the bed, wincing but stubborn. “We’re going together.”
I looked up at her. “Nicole, you just woke up—”
“I don’t care,” she snapped. “I didn’t fight this hard just to lie here while you meet our son without me.”
“…Okay,” I said quietly. “Together.”
Her grip loosened, satisfied. “Good. Now help me up, Nick. And if you even think about turning your emotions off again—”
“I won’t,” I said immediately. “I promise.”
She huffed. “You’d better.”
I helped Nicole into the wheelchair, careful with every movement, like the world would shatter if I moved too fast. She complained anyway, swatting my hand when I hovered too close.
“I’m not made of glass, Nick.”
“You are literally recovering from almost dying,” I muttered, pushing the chair forward.
“That just means you’re overqualified as a worrier.”
George opened the way for us without a word. Doors that didn’t exist slid aside. Fields dropped. Sensors went blind. The corridor beyond wasn’t on any map, layered with redundancies only someone like George could orchestrate. If the world knew what was kept here, it would tear itself apart trying to get in.
At the end of it all was a room bathed in soft white light.
In the center stood a glassy tube, humming faintly, lines of gentle energy flowing through it like veins. Inside was something impossibly small.
Our son.
He was beautiful in a way that hurt. Tiny fingers curled and uncurled as if grasping at dreams, his chest rising in steady, stubborn breaths. A faint glow pulsed around him, barely visible, more felt than seen.
The moment I looked at him, I felt it.
A thread.
Not metaphorical. Not imagined.
A delicate psychic filament stretched from him to Nicole… and from him to me. Weak, but unbreakable. It tugged at my chest, at my thoughts, anchoring me in a way nothing ever had.
Nicole inhaled sharply. Her hand trembled as she reached toward the glass.
“Oh,” she whispered. “That’s… that’s him.”
I nodded, unable to speak.
He noticed us.
Not with his eyes, since they barely fluttered. Instead, he felt us with his mind. A ripple passed through the thread, curious and warm, brushing against my thoughts like a question.
I felt Nicole’s emotions spike through the link filled with joy, fear, awe, and love all crashing together.
“He’s already nosy,” she murmured weakly. “Definitely your fault.”
I let out a shaky breath. “He’s strong.”
“Obviously,” she said. “He survived us!”
We stood there in silence for a while, just watching him exist.
Then Nicole tilted her head, thoughtful. “So… names.”
I stiffened. “Already?”
“Nick,” she said flatly. “I almost died. I’m naming my son.”
“…Fair.”
She squinted at the child. “He needs something dignified. Something powerful. A name that says don’t mess with me.”
I crossed my arms. “You’re not naming him ‘Doom’.”
“I wasn’t thinking Doom,” she said. “I was thinking… Ronald.”
I blinked. “…Ronald.”
“A name fit for a king,” she declared. “Strong. Commanding. Regal.”
I stared at our son, the faint psychic glow flickering around him. “You want to name the ‘probably’ most dangerous baby in existence Ronald?”
She smirked. “Exactly. No one will see it coming.”
I rubbed my face. “He’s going to get bullied.”
“He’s going to bully reality,” she shot back. “He’ll be fine.”
The thread pulsed again, faint but approving.
I sighed. “…Alright. Ronald.”
Nicole smiled, satisfied. Then she softened. “But that’s a lot for a kid, isn’t it?”
“Yeah,” I admitted. “Feels… heavy.”
She looked at him again, eyes gentler now. “Ronald for the records.”
I nodded. “For the crown.”
She tapped the glass lightly. “But for us…”
I finished the thought. “…Ron.”
The thread warmed.
Ron shifted inside the tube, tiny fingers curling, as if grasping the name and deciding it suited him.
Nicole leaned back in her chair, exhausted but smiling. I rested a hand on her shoulder, and for the first time in a long while, the world felt… still.
Not safe.
Not peaceful.
But whole.