You Can't Waste Time With Dignity

Prologue

Warning(s): Blood, Violence, and the brief mention of being at the end of a gun.

   When Mark was younger, he loved the color red.

   He would buy red backpacks, adorn red shoes, hold onto the red gloves that stretched over his Dad's hands, and tug on the flowy red cape that curtained his Father's back when he could.

   Sure, red could've been associated with anger or blood, but Mark didn't see that. Red meant comfort.

   It looked like his Dad, on the news, saving the president of the United States with the Guardians of the Globe.

   It smelt like the lingering, musky scent of his dad's cologne that somehow lingered in his suit after a day of flying from continent to continent.

   It sounded like his Dad's low chuckles, quickly followed by a chortle or giggle from his Mom.

   It tasted like the warm lasagna from the restaurant in Italy that his Mom insisted they ate at.

   It felt like his Mom's kisses on the forehead, and her gentle pats on his back when he fell on the pavement and scraped his knee.

   Red meant safety, family, Mom, and Dad nearly every day of his life up until the moment he got his powers.

   The thought of red no longer made the phantom feeling of his Dad's cape, silky and soft at the same time. It felt like blood, clinging to his skin, staining him down to the bones, cracking and sticking to the creases of his knuckles, the inside of his nose, inside his mouth, the feeling of blood everywhere.

   This moment was no different.

   All he could see was red. Blood had made its way into his swollen eyes, adding a crimson haze to his blurry vision.

   Red gloves rained down on him, plummeting into him with destructive intent. Dead set on hurting him, causing pain.

   So they did.

   His ears rang, they nearly overpowered the booming sound of his Dad's voice. Some broken part of Mark silently begged the man above him to hit him harder, to drown out his own words with ringing, cracks, wheezes, anything. He didn't want to hear what his father was saying, didn't want to hear the venom falling from the man's tongue.

   "Instead, you saved him. So much effort... for what?"

   "These people are meaningless. They're cavemen without us."

   "That was your fault. Your stubbornness against the inevitable killed those people. How many more need to die, Mark? It's up to you. And what are they doing with those fragile little lives anyway? Listen to what I'm saying. You know in your heart I'm right."

   "Mark, this is good news. We can finally do what we were meant to do. Be who we were meant to be."

   The blows stopped, and Mark could hear his own wet wheezes cutting through the air.

   "You'll outlast every fragile, insignificant being on this planet. You'll live to see this world crumble to dust and blow away! Everyone and everything you know will be gone! What will you have after 500 years!?" His Dad's voice boomed, and echoed through the air. It was rough, harsh, sharp, cutting through the ringing in his ears like a knife to butter.

   "You, Dad..." Mark gurgled, barely managing to speak through the puddle of crimson that flooded the back of his throat.

   With that, the acidic words tumbling from his father's mouth died down into shaky, hitched breaths.

   Mark felt tears burn at his swollen eyes. The feeling was faint, numbed by the abuse to his nerves.

   Suddenly, the shifting of gravel caught his attention and Mark's breathing hitched.

   "D-Dad..?" He choked out, trying and failing to pry his eyes open long enough to see what the man was doing. If he wasn't so exhausted, he might have tensed and readied himself for a blow.

   And after a moment, the ground shook, causing stray gravel and small rocks to fling into his throbbing legs.

   Mark couldn't hear the man anymore. He couldn't try and piece together his movements in his foggy mind, couldn't prepare himself for the next hit.

   Tendrils of panic wrapped around him, curling around his broken ribs and pulling them in. Sharp edges impaled his ribs, and the rush sent his heart working in overdrive.

   Blood pumped through him, and his body pulsed with every thump. His shuddering gasps were wet and broken.

   "Dad-" He tried to call out again, but the word was warbler and broken.

   And when there wasn't any response, Mark felt his heart drop. He was alone.

   Why did that scare him? He should be more scared of his Dad.

   Mark let out a weak, splutter that was meant to be a sob but just sounded like a cough.

   He didn't want to die, alone and choking on his own blood. He wanted his Mom, Amber, William, Eve, anyone.

   He wanted his Dad.

   Not Omni-Man, Nolan Grayson, his Dad. The man who attended his little league games and held Mark above his head to let the boy pretend to fly.

   He sputtered out another cough-like sob, struggling to breathe beyond the panic, dread, and blood consuming him.

   He didn't know how long he had been there, his heart beating so hard it felt like he was trying to tear itself from his ribcage, with a body so mangled he couldn't even turn his head to let the blood in the back of his throat run away from his airway.

   The fog that had settled around his mind was blown away when the whirling of a helicopter settled. Snow, dirt, and gravel swirled in the air, sticking to his skin and digging into his skin.

   He let out a noise, barely audible above the sound of the helicopter.

   The noise died down, and Mark felt hands on him, bracing his neck and head.

   He let in a sharp gasp as he was tilted. He couldn't even clench his jaw as every broken bone and laceration was queued to torture his nerves.

   A mechanical click sounded off in front of his face, and Mark couldn't even try to begin to decipher what the noise was before he was moved again. A raged noise left his lips and he writhed slightly.

  Something nudged against his aching chest, and he barely managed to crack open his eyes enough to see the blurry glint of metal grasped by tactical gloves.

The hurried rumble of voices around him gave way to a high-pitched ringing, and Mark let out a pathetic noise as his head was guided back down and a light was flashed into his eyes.

   The blur of movement was buried under a haze of pain. He didn't know when an exhaustion had settled in his bones and tugged his eyes closed, but when he opened them all he could see was white.

A/N: 

I'm honestly not expecting much from this fiction. It's been a while since I wrote a lengthy fic, so bear with me if there are any plot holes.

Tags, relationships, and characters are going to be updated with every chapter so keep an eye on those, this fic is going to handle some heavy topics later on. Please stay safe!

Anyway, hope this prologue was interesting enough. I'm not really happy with how this turned out but that's normal for me.

Tysm for reading! Interactions of any kind help motivate me and are always amazing to read!♡