Chapter Text
Mark Grayson was weird.
Everyone knew that, including himself.
He was the son of Debbie Grayson, a real estate agent, and Nolan Grayson, a travel author. Also, he was an alien that hailed from the distant planet of Viltrum, and was the Earth’s greatest superhero Omni-Man.
That alone would make any child feel out of place, but Mark somehow always brought it to the next level.
His mom has told him over how when he was young, he would stare at random things like the floor or the tree in their backyard, and just look at it. For hours. Unblinking.
She would hang his drawings on the fridge, whether they be of their family, of himself as a superhero, or strange structures depicting circles and straight lines in an specific but disorderly pattern. Debbie loved them all the same.
And by the time he was seven, Mark has memorized the entire Periodic Table on his head. But at the time, he didn’t know that.
Mark has always been an okay student, not the worst but also not particularly the brightest. However, if there was one subject that he always aced with frightening ease, it was definitely chemistry. It just made sense to him, the way in which atoms and molecules combined to create something entirely new, if one could just tweak it in the right way; it was as easy as breathing.
Naturally, that didn’t made him very popular amongst his peers. Apparently, he was a geek or something. Not even the teacher liked him, as Mark seemed to be way more knowledgeable of the subject he was teaching than himself, and how that gave Mark the excuse to slack off on his class, knowing he was going to ace it anyway. He always went out of his way to make things more difficult and challenging for Mark, but always ended up looking like a clown anyway in front of the entire class when Mark once again answered correctly and then some.
So yeah, maybe Mark wasn’t the most regular guy in the world with a superhero father and a Chemistry encyclopedia for a brain. But that doesn’t mean he couldn’t be normal!
He hung out with his friends Amber and William, he helped his mom around the house doing chores, he liked reading comic books and playing video games on his free times. And like any other kid, he dreamed about being a superhero. Only, unlike other kids, he knew that dream of his would become true once his Viltrumite powers finally begin kicking in.
Well, Mark was now twelve, and he was still waiting.
"Mark?" His mother’s soft voice called out to him from behind his bedroom door, interrupting his inner musings. He had been staring at his math homework for the past ten minutes or so, just trying to make it all make sense.
Ugh! Why couldn’t every subject be like Chemistry?! At least he understood that one!
"I brought you a snack" Debbie offered her son with a kind smile as she entered his bedroom, finding his miserably slouching on his chair and glaring at his textbook as if it personally had offended him.
Which, knowing her baby boy, he probably believed it did.
"Thanks, Mom" Mark graciously thanked his mother, thankful for any excuse to remove his eyes from that accursed math textbook "Maybe I need to refill my belly before any of this equations start making sense"
"You’ll get there, Mark. You’re a smart boy. I know you can do it" Debbie encouraged him, gently leaving a fleeting kiss on his cheek and making her son crack a smile. She then left the plate with Mark’s food on his desk and promptly left the bedroom, leaving Mark alone with his woeful attempts of understanding the equations in front of him.
Sighing, Mark rested his head in one of his hands while he absentmindedly snapped the fingers of his other hand. However, he was unaware of the tiny yet glowing blue sparks that ignited from the friction of his fingers touching.
"Stupid math…" Mark mentally grumbled, as he raised a hand to turn the page "Why can’t you turn into something more interesting?!"
And that’s when it happened. Just as Mark’s fingertips touched the pages of his textbook, its highlights suddenly began glowing a bright blue color, making him gasp with surprise.
"What the-?!" He cried, as he nearly fell from his chair. But things didn’t stopped there.
The pupils in Mark’s mahogany eyes seemed to dilate, as a streak of the same blue glow circled the rims of his irises. Mark was suddenly taken into deep space, and right in front of him, was a floating structure with a nucleus of tiny little particles compressed together and three red halos hovering around it.
"What are you?" Mark asked the hovering structure of pretty halos.
"I am an atom" It responded “I can turn into anything you want"
"Anything I want…?" Mark repeated incredulously, but before he could ask any more questions, the atom separated itself, and its wayward pieces begin floating into this deep space like comets in the night sky.
Those comets then crashed into other comets, and like the birth of a new star, a new atom was created now with beautiful blue halos hovering around it.
The impact of the birth of this new atom sent Mark crashing down into the floor alongside his chair, finally breaking him out of whatever trance he was in and back into the real world.
"Ow, my head…" He groaned, nursing the back of his head which had collided against the floor after his floor. He couldn’t wait until he got some of his dad’s Viltrumite invulnerability so that he wouldn’t had to go through this kinds of injuries anymore.
But as Mark continued to nurse the sore spot in his head as he stood up, he noticed something…Weird. And that was saying something, considering he once had the misfortune of walking in on his parents making out mid-air.
His math textbook, the same one that liked to give him multiple headaches worse than the one he was enduring right now, was suddenly made out of glass. Mark blinked, believing this to be a trick of the light. Or maybe that fall gave him a concussion and this was the result. But either way, his curiosity got the better of him.
So with a shaky hand, he delicately traced his index finger through the now glass papers. It felt cold and smooth like regular glass, and even made a hollow clinking noise. Narrowing his eyes, Mark then tried flicking his finger against the glass, and it made a louder version of the same clinking sound.
There was no mistake. His math textbook was now a glass structure that would make a modern sculpture proud. And when Mark saw this, he freaked out!
"Oh my gosh!" Mark cried, covering his mouth with one of his hands and his eyes nervously glanced around his room, as if that would grant him the answer to this particular problem.
"Uhhhh-Change back!" He cried, hovering his hands over his new glass textbook like a fortune teller did her crystal ball. It was corny, he knew, but it was the only thing he could think of in this situation. “Change back! You can go back to being a regular math textbook now! Change back! Uh, pretty please?"
Thankfully, Mark didn’t need to beg as his kooky glass structure of a textbook suddenly began glowing in that same blue light like before. It hovered above the desk for a moment, before his book returned to its boring and regular self and unceremoniously landed back onto the desk as if nothing ever happened to it.
Mark sighed in relief, glad that particular problem was solved. But…
What had just happened couldn’t have been normal. Dad had said that Viltrumites had the powers of flight, strength and invulnerability; not turning textbooks into glass!
Mark stared at his hands in total disbelief and confusion, wishing to know what had happened. He had always desired for his Viltrumite powers to finally appear one day, ever since that late night talk with Nolan in which his father had explained to his son his origins. More than anything, he wanted his powers to appear so that he could join Dad in saving the world and become a true Viltrumite like his father always said.
But what he did to his textbook couldn’t be his powers awakening, could they…?
Still, despite his total disbelief over what had happened…A part of Mark was still curious.
He stared at the snack that his mother had brought to him earlier, sitting innocently on its plate at the edge of his desk. A traditional PBJ sandwich, nothing too out of the ordinary.
A bit uncertain but also filled with an overarching curiosity, Mark thoughtfully stared at his sandwich like a scientist attempting to solve a problem. He then spared a glance to his newly ordinary notebook, remembering what had happened just moments ago. And, with uncertain determination, raised a shaky hand towards the sandwich.
Once again, it’s like he could hear the atom’s voices in his mind…
"Hi, Mark!" They all said in a chorus, all in synchrony and filled with an almost childlike glee "What do you want us to become?”
Mark sighed as he closed his eyes tightly, imagining the sandwich transforming into the image he had on his head. The sandwich his mother had prepared suddenly glowed a blue light, and when it stopped, a juicy cheeseburger laid on its place.
Mark gasped, seeing that what he had done to his textbook had happened yet again. The burger looked pretty fine, but he couldn’t be certain just yet. With shaky fingers, Mark brought it close to his face. He gave it a sniff, once and then, twice. It smelled good. No, better than good, it smelled appetizing. But there was only one thing left to confirm…
Still with his shaking hands, Mark brought the cheeseburger into his mouth and took a tentative bite out of it.
And his eyes instantly popped out.
Mark let out a deep moan of pure happiness and delight as he felt the juiciness of the meat and the sweet flavor of the cheese just melting into his mouth. It didn’t just tasted like a normal cheeseburger, it tasted even better than a normal cheeseburger!
Jumping into his bed and laying his head on his pillow, Mark continued to happily munch down on his newly created and absolutely delicious burger. In hindsight, he should probably be focusing in other, more important things right now.
Like his still unfinished math homework, his freaky ability to turn things into something else with just a thought, and if this sudden new ability was somehow related to his Viltrumite heritage.
But right now, he was a boy enjoying his cheeseburger. A burger than tasted better than anything else he could’ve eaten in his entire life.