Chapter Text
It was meant to be a girl’s day out. Mother, daughter bonding time that Emma had begged for. Her mother had to take the day off to drive both of them over to the mall in the downtown area.
Emma is only ten, and she’s looking down at her mother who lies in a pool of blood on the ground.
It had been sudden, they had been going down the escalator when an ominous groan filled the air. They had both stopped talking and looked around for the source of the sound. A web of cracks went down the column next to them. People on the floors above them begin screaming, running down the escalators. The security around the mall are doing their best to bring order but there are too few of them, and just too many people.
Her mother is grabbing her arm painfully. She yelps at the roughness, her mother has never acted like this before.
Emma stumbles as she’s dragged along.
The crowd surges, rushing around them; it's so suffocating.
The groan gets louder, then a loud crash from the upper floors shakes the ground beneath them, and Emma realizes it's the building.
It’s falling apart.
The pillars around them are the only thing keeping the upper levels from falling on top of them.
Her mother is sobbing into the phone. It sounds like the call is to her father. Her mother keeps repeating for him to come get them.
Then the ceiling in front of them gives a loud series of cracks before collapsing in on itself.
Her mother is pushing her backwards falling on top of her to protect her, the debris and rebar miss both of them by just a few inches.
It’s not enough though, the floor beneath them is beginning to crack from all the weight on top of it.
They’re falling to the level below.
Emma blacks out for a few seconds, and now she’s standing there, staring at her mother, breathing fast, tears in her eyes, as the blood pooling around her mother’s head only gets bigger. She’s crouching down checking if her mother is still breathing with shaking hands. It’s there but faint, she doesn’t know for how long, her mother could stop breathing at any moment and it’s the most terrible feeling.
There’s a sharp groan from above her, and when she looks up, it’s almost like gravity slows, she sees every pebble, glint of metal and glass, the rotation of the wall falling heading right for them, it would crush her.
It would crush her mother.
And then there’s a surge in her body, like her blood is running on vitriol, like every fiber of her being needs to do whatever it can in order to save her family.
Her feet leave the ground, she’s pulling her arm back with a scream before surging her fist forward. The falling wall turns into pebbles. She’s quickly landing back on her feet and kneeling over her mother’s head to prevent further damage. The wall she turned into pebbles shower down on them from above, luckily small enough to not be painful.
Then everything was quiet, the cracking and groaning had stopped. The collapse was over, the ceiling above them now opened up into the sky. Emma could see helicopters passing over the area, sirens from police cars and ambulances.
Red zips across the sky, and she recognizes it.
She sobs out, “Dad!”
And then he’s there, hovering over the hole in the building, dressed in his red and white suit, his red cape billowing behind him.
Omni-Man would surely save them.
.
.
.
Emma was an accident. It had been a surprise to both her parents when at a regular check up they had noticed the high amount of HCG in her mother's blood test.
Her father made a joke that he had strong swimmers, even when he used protection, which had earned him a smack from her mother.
Nine months later there was Emma Deborah Grayson. Brought home in a carrier, her brother who was five years old at the time giggled saying she looked like a shriveled prune. Her father laughed heartily and her mother gently reprimanded her brother even though her lips curled with amusement. Emma had been sleeping at the time and it's not like she had enough brain to even understand what was happening.
Soon the family realized that she wasn't just quiet when she was asleep but even when she was awake. She wasn't a terrible crier, unlike her brother who had apparently been an absolute menace when he was a baby. This worried her mother, but relieved her father, he had been worried both of them would be losing sleep with the new baby. Her brother was a little too young and naive to understand much of anything, he was just excited to have a small wriggly little sibling.
Emma is four when she begins having awful dreams. Unexplainable dreams of blood and gore. Dreams that made her almost shrink in fear over every loud noise and fast movements especially from her father. But she hides her dreams from everyone, she doesn't really understand why she does. She hides it well enough that both her parents never notice. Mark, her brother did though, for all his guilelessness, he had keen perception.
One late night Mark lets himself into her room and slides himself under the covers with her. She had been dozing lightly when she felt his cold feet against her shins and boney shoulders elbowing her sternum accidentally. Emma slits her eyes open and croaks.
"What're you doing?"
Mark turns his head on the pillow so he's facing Emma. It's his pillow he brought from his own room. The moonlight from the window slants over his face. Emma can see that Mark's brows are twinged with worry but he grins a gap toothed smile at her. He reaches clumsily under the covers until he's holding Emma's smaller hands in his.
"I'm protecting you Ems, you don't ever have to worry about anything when I'm here."
He wriggles closer until his forehead thunks clumsily into Emma's. Emma reaches up with her free hand to rub it, and Markus rubs his own forehead too.
"Ow."
"Sorry."
"Is okay."
Mark grins again and nuzzles down into the comforter getting comfortable. Emma watches as he begins to doze, her face scrunches with thought.
"How did you know?"
Mark snorts.
"It wasn't hard, silly, you ate your peas like a zombie today. You hate peas."
"Huh"
Mark begins to fall asleep again.
"Thank you…" Emma mumbles.
Marks hums and pulls Emma into his arms.
"Just go to sleep, I'm here. I'll be your hero."
That night was one of the best sleep Emma had in a long while. But the dreams also never stopped. That night marked the first night of many other nights after.
Emma is six when she realizes she wants to endear herself to her father. And isn't that a strange thought? Why would she need to actively endear herself to her own father when he should already love her unconditionally? Something in the back of her mind tells her it's necessary though. She shrugs at the thought, finding no issue with it. She likes her father enough, he was an intelligent man, but she noticed he was often distant, if emotionally. So perhaps it really was necessary then, she'd at least try.
Mom's gone on a business trip, and Mark's gone to have a sleepover at William's house. That leaves Emma alone for the first time with only her father as company. She leans against her father on the living room couch, her father's arm slung over her back lazily. They're watching one of those new animated movies. Well at least Emma is, she's enjoying looking at the bright colors and pretty little characters. She takes a minute to look up at her father. He's at least looking at the screen, but he doesn't actually seem to be seeing. Does he even care?
"Do you even care?"
Why did she just say that aloud? She was supposed to be endearing herself to him, not testing his patience with petty sounding questions.
Her fathers eyes flick down to look at her, for a second she sees unbridled rage. The arm slung around her tenses. She's caged between the face of a raging bull and an iron bar.
It makes Emma's fight or flight senses ring. Just as quickly as it came her father's expression smoothes out into kind inquiry, the arm that was tensed rubs her back with a firm warmth.
"What do you mean sweetie?"
Emma contemplates what she'll say to her father. A satisfying response that doesn't involve admitting that she hadn't really meant to say what she did out loud.
Emma swallows dryly and looks away from her father. She sees her empty glass on the side table before deciding to slide out from her father's arm, which thankfully she wasn't trapped under. She walks over into the kitchen and onto the short stool in front of the sink so she can fill her glass with water. Emma runs her finger across the expensive filter that was recently installed on the neck of the tap. Maybe if she fiddles around in the kitchen long enough her father would forget that she spoke at all. She wishes she hadn't been left alone with him. She should have insisted on going with Mark. She doesn't really remember ever having a full conversation with her father. She turns around ready to get back to watching the movie only to knock herself into a solid wall. Emma drops her glass with a gasp, the cup shatters making a mess across the floor.
"Sweetie, are you feeling okay?"
Emma looks up at her father in surprise. When did he get there? He was so quiet. He has a look of concern on his face. He pays no heed to the broken glass on the marble floor. Nor to the water that could potentially ruin the expensive flooring. Emma's answer is almost immediate.
"I'm okay dad."
Her father reaches a hardened hand to feel her forehead. Feeling for a temperature...she hopes.
She can't afford to be reminded of one of her night terrors right now.
Especially the ones where she sees red gloved hands crushing heads with ease. Her father doesn't even wear red gloves. When her father seems satisfied that there isn't a temperature he slides his hands under her armpits and lifts her onto the island counter.
"Stay here, I need to clean up this mess." He begins bare handedly picking up the glass none too carefully.
Emma sputters. "Dad you're gonna get cut!"
He chuckles, "I've got thick skin, you have nothing to worry about Emma."
Emma sits obediently on the counter. She wrings her hands nervously as her father cleans up her mess. The dragging silence fills the air with tension. Her father finishes picking up the shards and throwing them in the bin. Emma could probably put herself back on the floor now, as she begins to slide off the counter her father holds up his hand to stop her. She halts. He walks over to the storage closet, gets a mop and sops up the water on the floor, before carelessly throwing it back into the closet. Emma cringes.
"Dad, the mop's gonna get moldy."
"Emma, you've really been rude tonight." He looks at her sternly.
Emma looks down into her lap ashamed, right, her dad just cleaned up the mess she created.
"Oh, right...sorry about the cup, I'll be more careful next time."
Her dad releases a heavy sigh, "This isn't about the cup Emma."
He moves to take a seat on one of the kitchen bar stools. Though Emma sits on the counter and her dad is seated lower he still manages to tower above her.
"You can't just attack, someone emotionally and leave them hanging."
"Oh..."
He looks at her seriously, "yeah, oh."
"Earlier, you asked me if I even care...do you feel like I give you less attention than your brother?" Emma is about to correct him when she pauses to think on that question. It certainly was true and because her father is mentioning it he probably knows it too, if subconsciously. She doesn't say so though because that really wasn't her primary issue.
"No..."
"Then? What is it? I want to be able to help you Emma but you gotta talk to me sweetie."
Emma breathes in deeply, she really may be digging herself into more trouble.
"Dad, do you wear red gloves?"
She honestly hopes to stump her father into confusion with this one. Maybe enough to just not pursue any more answers from her tonight. She looks at her intertwined fingers clenched tightly to stop herself from wringing her hands again.
"I didn't think you'd find out on your own."
Okay, now Emma is the one who's stumped, and the niggling unexplainable fear of her father raises its terrible face. She looks at her father wide eyed reminded of gore and bloody dreams, is he really the sadistic murderer in her dreams is he-
"Are you-"
"I'm Omni-Man." He pats her on the head. A proud smile on his face. "You'd have known sooner or later. Always knew you were a smart one."
She's still stumped. She hadn't expected the reveal of his hero identity but it made sense, her father clearly looked like Omni-Man, how did she never put it together? A poster of her father as Omni-Man lives in her brother's room, different figures of him litter his shelves. Mark already knew, it explained the literal hero worship he has for their father. It explained why her mother never worried even when her father would suddenly disappear with no explanation.
"Were you jealous that you were the only one who I didn't tell?" He grins like a cat who got the cream.
"...yes." Emma mumbles, it isn't true but she prefers this over the alternative, whatever that could have been.
He pulls her into a hug, "I didn't know if you were ready to hear it, I was going to tell you on your ninth birthday just like I did with your brother."
He pulls away, and smiles again it doesn't truly reach his eyes, but Emma thinks she's never really seen any of his smiles be genuine, "How about we finish up that movie of yours and then I'll put you to bed?"
Emma nods, glad she doesn't have to confirm anything from her dreams today. Well kind of. Omni-Man does wear red gloves but there's no way he'd ever do the terrible things from her dreams. For one he's her father, two he's a hero. Hero's don't hurt people, they save them. And she just found out her father is the best hero there is.