"President Hansen, you—you—you haven't been watching me this whole time, have you?" Matthew's cheeks flushed scarlet, his voice suddenly small and nervous.
Oh my God, the President's been paying this much attention to me? Could it be… could she actually—
"Ahem. Matthew, you're really reading too much into this. You're the only blind kid in this school—it's hard not to notice you. Especially when, on your very first day after the accident, you flattened several boys who tried to bully you. I was sitting right here watching."
Come on, I just pointed out your terrible OpSec. Is that really worth getting this flustered? Don't tell me you think you're Naruto and I'm Hinata, secretly following you around?
Your cover's got more holes than Swiss cheese. Anyone with half a working brain cell would've figured it out. If your classmates weren't so oblivious, and if the editor hadn't given you plot-armor "Superman glasses," who exactly do you think you were fooling?
Matthew had no idea about President Maya's internal roast. His secret was blown, sure, but strangely enough, he felt… lighter. Like a weight had been lifted.
"President Hansen, what do you think is going on with me? Am I a mutant too?" Since the President already knew his situation, Matthew decided he might as well ask the question that had been gnawing at him.
"It's possible, but what got into your eyes was nuclear waste. Could just be a genetic mutation. I'd need an advanced electron microscope, or maybe some mutant cell samples for comparison, before I could give you a definitive answer."
Maya wasn't lying. Her sensory perception was powerful enough to "see" mitochondria and DNA within cells, but individual base-pair sequences were beyond her resolution. Think of it this way: standing on the Moon, you'd see Earth filling your entire field of vision, but you'd never spot the Great Wall of China—let alone individual people on the ground.
With mutant cell samples, though, Maya could compare the macromolecular composition inside the cells—check whether Matthew's cells contained the same signature substances—and determine whether he was a mutant.
As for what the canon had to say? Ha. Was the Scarlet Witch a mutant or wasn't she? Even the comics couldn't make up their mind.
"What do you think I should do, President?" Matthew sounded lost. His secret was out, and the consequences felt unpredictable.
"How would I know what you should do? I spotted your secret ages ago, but if you hadn't brought it up yourself today, I wasn't planning to tell anyone."
Maya meant every word. She'd called Matthew in to discuss Marion—she'd had no intention of unmasking him. Sure, his abilities were impressive and he could be a useful underling.
But Maya was still a greenhorn herself. She didn't have the ability or the intention to start recruiting subordinates just yet.
In Maya's philosophy, you couldn't just take from your people without giving back. The relationship had to be mutually beneficial—complementary.
Take Reeves in the high school section. Why did he still follow Maya's lead without question? Not because the guy had zero self-respect, and not because Maya had threatened him with force. It was because President Maya had proven her competence right before his eyes, and everyone benefited from her plans.
"So should I just keep this a secret?" Matthew asked after a stretch of silence.
Maya considered it. In this Marvel world, the bizarre was practically mundane. Matthew's mutation—triggered by altered DNA—wasn't even particularly rare.
"I think you can keep hiding it from everyone else, but telling your father is reasonable. Matthew, the world is full of mutants—literally too many to count. Your situation barely registers as unusual. By the way, how far can you hear?"
Matthew thought about it. "I'm not sure. Sometimes I can pick up conversations all the way out on Long Island, but most of the time I can only cover Manhattan. My ability's pretty unstable—when there's too much information, my head starts pounding."
Holy—Maya had figured eavesdropping across Hell's Kitchen was already impressive. But his range stretched past Queens all the way to Long Island? That was insane. No wonder the poor kid got headaches.
"I can also distinguish smells within about 1 kilometer (~0.6 miles). And when I get even closer, there's this… special sense. Hard to describe." Matthew continued, holding nothing back. He seemed to trust Maya completely—and not just because she'd helped him before. It was the image she'd carefully built over these years: righteous, reliable, above reproach.
Her character was beyond question. She'd known about his abilities for ages and kept the secret without a word. If he hadn't asked first, she would never have brought it up. So why not lay everything on the table?
That was Matthew's reasoning.
Internally, though, Maya was deeply conflicted. Matthew's abilities were extraordinary—even more valuable to her than they were to Matthew himself. There were things Matthew simply couldn't do with his own powers that Maya could accomplish effortlessly.
Take Manhattan's human trafficking problem, for instance.
With Matthew's wide-range surveillance, Maya could sit at home watching TV and wait for his call. The President wouldn't have to run back and forth across the Hudson River like an idiot in the dead of night anymore.
Or consider the recent student-gun-fight incident. It was Matthew's early warning that gave Maya enough time to set everything up and resolve the situation flawlessly.
Matthew and Maya were a natural complement. Matthew provided broad-sweep detection; Maya moved in for precision work. If they teamed up, New York would be their playground.
But President Maya had her own reservations. Teaming up meant coming clean—telling Matthew about her abilities, and about what she'd done.
Revealing her powers? She had zero qualms about that. The President knew perfectly well that the future was an age of heroes and aliens. Sooner or later, she'd need allies, and her abilities would come to light regardless.
Through years of being classmates, Maya had come to genuinely respect Matthew. Set aside his future superhero résumé for a moment—just look at the gun incident. He was smart enough to know that tipping off President Maya would inevitably raise questions about how he knew. And yet he'd gone ahead and told her everything without hesitation, even volunteering intelligence from the neighboring high school section.
So yes, just as Matthew trusted Maya's character, Maya trusted his. She didn't mind him knowing what she could do.
The real problem was what President Maya had done.
Alright, it wasn't like she'd committed crimes against humanity. Quite the opposite—everything she'd done had saved lives.
But she'd killed people. A lot of people. And that was the sticking point.
If she were dealing with the Punisher—oh great, another Frank; the name overlap in this story was getting ridiculous—Maya would've spilled everything without a second thought.
She knew Frank Castle's temperament—the man was far more ruthless and decisive than Maya could ever be, and his body count dwarfed hers. After hearing about Maya's exploits, he'd probably just give her a thumbs-up and say, "Nice work, kid."
Matthew was different. He was still a fourteen-year-old boy, not yet the Daredevil of the future.
If Matthew learned she'd directly or indirectly killed dozens of people, would he look at her the way you'd look at a butcher?
Hmm… actually, no. He literally couldn't look at her that way.
Because he couldn't see.