And The Silver Spoon
You sharply make eye contact with your son. You feel as if the wind has just been knocked out of you.
His black eye appears all the more gruesome now. The dark purples swirling beneath his skin, the yellowness on the outskirts of it, the blood leaking into his eye.
You think about reading the paper before work every morning. Seeing this "Apex" figure get throwin into buildings and smashed into pavements for months on end.
You think about your train ride home this morning, seeing live news coverage of a supervillain using enhanced strength to beat Apex black and blue.
You think of leather boots. A black cape. Black gloves.
You think of picking Theo up for the first time, unsure if you were cut out to be his father but still so blissfully excited for who he could grow up to become.
It was never supposed to be THIS, staring at a younger shell of who you used to be. Of who you still admittedly wish you were.
You think of Mary, sitting on Theo's other side right now. How badly you wish she were here. What you would do to trade places with her.
"You're what?"
"I'm...Apex. He is me, I am... well, you know."
You don't know. How on earth could you have known?
Scratch that, how could you have NOT known? How did you miss this?
"Wait...Theo, you have superpowers?"
"Well," Theo looks down, breathes out a laugh. "It must be genetic."