9,998..
9,999..
10,000..
I held the final position for three seconds, letting the weight settle across my shoulders—a hundred pounds of iron plates balanced on a board, pressing down through my spine. Then I lowered myself to the mat, exhaled through my nose.
The burn in my triceps faded almost immediately. My pulse dropped. My breathing leveled.
'Ten thousand. Weighted. At six years old.'
I should have been destroyed. Any normal child—any normal *adult*—would have been destroyed. But my body had stopped obeying normal rules somewhere around year three. Now it was just maintenance. Wake up, move iron, eat gold, repeat.
I stood. My knees didn't buckle. My arms didn't shake. But behind my eyes, a dull ache had started—the cost of pushing past what my skeleton was designed for. I pressed my palm against my forehead, waited for it to ease.
It didn't. Not completely. But it faded enough.
'Still paying. Every time.'
'Midas! Breakfast!'
My mother's voice carried up the stairs, warm and expectant. I grabbed a towel, wiped sweat from my face and arms, and headed down.
---
The dining room smelled of butter and syrup. Waffles stacked high, scrambled eggs, sausage links. All of it gold—not transmuted, but made that way. My mother had learned early that cooking with gold-infused ingredients satisfied me in ways normal food couldn't, kept me from raiding her jewelry boxes between meals.
'Thanks, Mom.'
I sat down and ate. No ceremony, no savoring. Functional intake. Calories and metal processed with mechanical efficiency. The taste registered as pleasant—sweet, rich, the particular flavor of pure Au that my tongue had learned to interpret as nourishment.
Three plates vanished. Four.
I stopped counting after the fifth. Stood while she was still sipping her coffee.
'Heading out.'
'Mid—'
I was already at the door. Shoes on. Hand on the knob.
'—off to see that pervert's son again.' She sighed behind me. 'Be careful!'
---
The city blurred past. I ran at maybe thirty percent—enough to clear blocks in seconds without drawing the kind of attention that came with sonic booms. Cars became static objects. Pedestrians frozen in peripheral vision. I navigated by instinct, muscle memory of ten thousand morning runs mapping Manhattan's geography into my nervous system.
My left knee twinged. Still not perfect. Still not *reliable*.
'Compensation,' I thought. 'Always compensating for something.'
Central Park opened up ahead—green and artificial, the closest thing to nature this island allowed. I slowed to a jog as I entered, weaving through early dog-walkers and joggers who moved like they were underwater compared to me.
---
The hill was my destination. Tony was already there—same rock, same tree, same posture of absolute relaxation that meant he was working harder than anyone else. A book open in his lap. Advanced Thermodynamics, the spine cracked from use.
'Hey, nerd. I'm here.'
He didn't look up. 'Took you long enough, metalhead.'
'Yeah, yeah. You ready or what?'
He closed the book, stood, stretched with the careful precision of someone who'd been taught that injuries were unacceptable setbacks. At ten, Tony Stark was already moving like an athlete in training. All efficiency and control.
'Always.'
His routine started. Calisthenics, clean lines, no wasted motion. I turned to the oak tree beside us, placed my palm against bark that had grown rough over decades.
*Gold.*
The transformation was instant. Silent. Wood becoming metal without resistance. Leaves, branches, root system—all of it shifted. The tree became a sculpture that caught morning light and threw it back in blinding arcs.
But I didn't stop. I focused deeper, found the structure of the gold itself—the softness that made it useless for anything but decoration. 'Compress.' I felt the molecular bonds respond, tightening, strengthening, becoming something that could hold an edge.
Then I lifted it.
The ground cracked. Roots tore free, dirt cascading as the entire tree—now a solid gold pillar weighing several tons—rose into the air. My control had improved. A month ago, I could have lifted it, but it would have wobbled, threatened to slip from my mental grip. Now it was stable. Heavy, but *mine*.
The ache behind my eyes intensified. A warm trickle from my nose.
'Blood. Again.'
'Yeah… you've definitely improved.' Tony had paused mid-push-up to watch, calculating eyes cataloging the mass, the precision, the implications. 'A month ago, you couldn't even lift one of those.'
'Control's better.' I kept my voice flat, but I felt the satisfaction. Power was easy. Everyone in this world had power. Control was what separated the dangerous from the merely strong.
I tightened my grip mentally, felt the tree respond. Crushed it inward—compressing tons of metal into smaller and smaller space until it split into three spheres, each perfectly round, each the size of a beach ball. Then I reshaped them. Dragons. Eastern style, long bodies and flowing manes.
They looked *wrong*. Proportions off, scales uneven, faces like something drawn by a child who'd only heard dragons described. I held them in the air, rotating slowly, examining my failure.
Tony stared. Then laughed—sharp, genuine, unguarded in a way he rarely allowed.
'HAHA—those look terrible!'
I glared at him. 'Oh, do they now? I think you might need a closer look.'
The dragons shot forward. Mouths open, bodies twisting through air that whistled around their imperfect forms. Fast—faster than I should have made them. Anger leaking into the control.
Tony moved. No panic, just reaction. Hand pulling the disc from his pocket, throwing it forward. A barrier snapped into existence—hexagonal panels glowing blue-white—as the first dragon slammed into it. Gold spread like liquid across the surface, trying to penetrate, then hardened as I forced it to stop.
'You could've killed me!' he yelled. But his voice held more excitement than fear.
'Well, you deserved that for being annoying.'
He tapped the disc, smirking despite the sweat on his forehead. 'Oh yeah? I improved this—my father's portable barrier design. Perfect time to test your actual damage output.'
'…You sure about that?'
'Try me.'
---
I stepped forward. Then I wasn't there anymore—not in any way he could track.
The distance closed in an instant. My body moving faster than his eyes could follow, faster than his nervous system could process. I appeared in front of him, fist already traveling, almost all of my strength behind it.
*BOOM.*
The barrier shattered. Not cracked—*exploded*. Hexagonal fragments scattering as the force transferred through. Shockwaves rippled outward. Trees bent. Small ones snapped. Dust filled the air—a localized sandstorm of pulverized dirt and leaf litter.
I stomped, sent a gust through the cloud to clear my vision. Tony stood exactly where he'd been, blinking, the broken disc in his hand sparking with failed circuitry.
My nose was bleeding freely now. I wiped it with the back of my hand.
'…I keep forgetting how ridiculous you are.' He shook his head, looked at the ruined barrier with something like professional irritation. 'That could tank a semi at two hundred miles per hour. You broke it in one hit.'
I looked at my fist. The skin unbroken. The bones feeling nothing. The blood from my nose had stopped already—clotted, healing.
'So my punches are that strong now.'
Silence.
Then—
*Thump.*
Something hit my stomach. I looked down. Tony was shaking his hand, wincing, knuckles already reddening.
'Crap—that hurt! I've been calling your name for the past minute!'
'My bad.' I didn't apologize. 'But that's on you for punching me.'
'I was trying to get your attention!'
He shook his hand again, exhaled sharply. 'Whatever. I'm done for today. Also—my father said we're getting put into boxing and Muay Thai classes soon.'
'Finally.' I found my shoes, shoved my feet in. 'We're gonna learn how to kick butt without looking stupid.'
'Yeah, but you'll be the only one looking stupid.' But he was smiling. Gathering his things.
He pulled out his phone, pressed a button, watched it unfold into a sleek electric bike—Stark tech, prototype, probably worth more than most apartments. I shook my head.
'I still can't imagine how many weird gadgets you two have made.'
'There's more coming since you gave me the idea for the armor suit.' He swung onto the bike, activated it with a thumbprint. 'Still stuck on the power source, by the way.'
'We'll figure it out tomorrow.'
'Yeah. See you Monday.'
'Later.'
---
I turned to the puddle of gold that had been my failed dragons. With a thought, I reshaped it—flat, elongated, a surfboard. Stepped onto it, felt the surface harden and bond slightly to my shoes.
Then I lifted it. Ten feet. Stable.
I leaned forward. Pushed with my mind.
And shot.
Wind became pressure, became sound, became the roar of displacement as I cut through air above Central Park. The ground blurred—trees becoming texture, buildings resolving and vanishing. I adjusted stance, weight, angle. Every micro-movement translating to stability or chaos.
The ache behind my eyes returned. My pulse spiked. But I held.
My house appeared ahead. Rooftop approaching fast.
'Alright… slow down.'
I leaned back. Reduced momentum. Miscalculated the rate—
*CRASH.*
I hit the backyard like a meteor. Dirt and sod erupting. The gold board embedding itself in the crater I'd created. Pain flared—distant, already fading as my body processed the impact.
I groaned, spat out a mouthful of soil. '…Yeah. That could've gone better.'
'MIDAS!!'
My mother's voice. From inside. Pitched at a frequency that made my teeth hurt.
'WHAT IS GOING ON IN MY BACKYARD?!'
I froze. Still half-buried. Calculating escape routes.
She appeared at the back door. Coffee forgotten. Staring at the destroyed garden with an expression that promised consequences.
'I can explain—'
'Don't.' She cut me off. Voice flat. Dangerous. 'Go to your room. Now. Before I decide you don't need hair anymore.'
I moved.
---
Upstairs. Door locked. Face-first into the mattress. Heart rate spiking at the thought of scissors near my scalp.
Safe. For now.
I exhaled. Felt fatigue finally catch up—real fatigue, the kind that came from Quirk overuse and physical impact and adrenaline crash. The headache had spread from behind my eyes to my whole skull. My nose had started bleeding again. I let it. Too tired to wipe.
Stared at my ceiling. At the posters of All Might and Captain America that shouldn't coexist but did.
Training. Tony. Flying. Crashing.
A smirk pulled at my mouth, despite everything.
'…Still worth it.'
My eyes closed. Sleep took me in seconds—the deep unconsciousness of a body that knew it needed repair.
---
*Downstairs, Cybele stood in the destroyed backyard, arms crossed, gold flakes falling from her fingertips. She wasn't angry anymore. She was counting.*
*'Third crater this month.'*
*She pulled out her phone. Scrolled to a contact she'd saved six months ago—a woman who worked for the Hero Commission's Quirk oversight division. No name, just an initial: 'R.'*
*She typed: 'He's getting stronger faster than expected. Any news on the observer request?'*
*The response came three minutes later: 'Pending. But they know about him now. It's not a matter of if. It's when.'*
*Cybele deleted the conversation. Went inside. Made a fresh pot of coffee.*
*She had a feeling it was going to be a long night.*