Grounded.
The word echoed in my head, pathetic and juvenile, as I stared at my bedroom ceiling. Three days of confinement—school, training, social life, all suspended. My mother had delivered the sentence with the absolute conviction of someone who'd seen her garden destroyed by a meteorite of solid gold.
'Still worth it,' I muttered. But the conviction had faded. The crater was a daily reminder of what control I still lacked.
I rolled off the bed, landed on my feet, felt the familiar surge from morning calories—gold-infused everything. The school bell would ring in twenty minutes. I was already dressed, already planning.
---
I leaned against the fence outside Aldera Junior High, arms crossed, projecting impatience I didn't entirely feel. The waiting was ritual now. Tony was always late, always had some excuse involving crowds or prototypes or his father's sudden demands.
'…Three minutes,' I muttered to the air.
'Wow. You started counting now?'
I looked up. Tony jogged toward me, slightly out of breath but wearing that smirk that meant he'd engineered his own delay, turned it into an entrance.
'Hm. The nerd finally arrives.' I kept my voice flat. 'You kept me waiting.'
'Relax. There was a crowd, and it held me up.' He stopped in front of me, and I saw them—the shoes, modified, repulsor-tech humming faintly. 'But luckily, I had something to help me get out of it.'
'Rocket boots?'
'Version two.' He grinned, the expression of someone who'd spent breakfast refining thrust ratios. 'Better than that ugly jetpack.'
'At least I don't destroy gardens.'
'…Still on that?'
'I liked that garden.'
'You weren't even there.'
'I saw pictures.'
'…You're annoying.'
'And you're reckless.'
'Boys.'
We both turned. Howard Stark stood by the Tesla Model S, already wearing the expression of a man who'd refereed too many disputes between children who should have known better. The car's door stood open, autonomous systems presumably active.
'Get in.'
I looked at the vehicle. 'I'm not getting in that electric toaster.'
'It's not a toaster.'
'It hums like one.'
'Get. In.'
I caught Tony's eye, saw the slight shake of his head—'not now'—and climbed into the back seat. Tony took front. The car sealed itself, hummed to life, merged into traffic without Howard touching the controls.
I opened my mouth to deliver my favorite nickname—
*Click.*
Restraints snapped around my chest and waist, pinning me to the seat. Howard's reflection in the rearview mirror showed absolutely no satisfaction.
'…You've got to be kidding me.'
Tony laughed, but it was strained, the sound of someone who'd won a point but lost something else. 'You keep falling for that.'
The car accelerated. Smooth and silent and wrong.
---
The Tesla stopped hard enough to activate the collision avoidance system. Howard's hand shot out, caught the dashboard, and his voice came sharp: 'Out! Now!'
I was already moving. Restraints were mechanical—good for blunt force, useless against precision. I dissolved the back of my seat into liquid gold, slipped through the gaps, reformed standing on the street as the door sealed behind me with Tony still inside.
*Whistle.*
The sound cut through traffic noise, doppler-shifting as it approached. I looked up.
A figure descended from nowhere. The air screaming around him, body wrapped in steam or dust or some atmospheric disturbance I couldn't identify.
*CRASH.*
He landed, and the pavement cracked under the impact. Spiderweb fractures spreading from his feet. Steam rolled off shoulders broad as the Tesla was long—a physique that spoke of Quirk-enhancement or genetic modification beyond baseline human.
Howard exited the vehicle, rifle already in hand—repulsor-tech, Stark Industries standard issue, blue energy crackling in the barrel. His eyes found the tattoo on the intruder's shoulder: three heads, geometric, unmistakable.
'…Hydra.'
The intruder rolled his neck. Audible pops. Then he smiled.
Not a normal smile. Too wide. Too excited. The expression of someone who'd been promised something and was about to collect.
'So you're the "abnormality" the boss keeps talking about.' His voice carried that particular amusement that preceded cruelty. He took a step forward, and the asphalt cracked again—responding to his presence like it recognized him.
'Kid… do you have any idea how long I've been waiting to meet you?'
Howard didn't negotiate. The rifle hummed, charged, fired. A beam of concentrated energy, blue-white and screaming.
The intruder raised his right hand, caught the beam, and his flesh changed. Became something else. Something that absorbed the impact, redirected it, grounded it through feet that suddenly sank six inches into the street.
'…Oh, that's cute.' He examined his hand, now returning to normal flesh, and I saw the mechanism—transformation-type Quirk, elemental conversion. Dirt and stone to organic simulation. 'Tech toys.'
'…Fuck. He's tough.' Howard muttered, already calculating retreat vectors, already knowing they were insufficient.
---
I acted.
Golden needles formed from ambient gold dust—from my morning meal, still circulating in my system. Launched toward the Hydra agent.
He didn't dodge. Didn't need to. His skin hardened again, became living stone. The needles shattered against him like they were made of glass.
'…Is that it?'
He laughed, and the sound made something in my chest tighten. Instinct. Warning. The recognition that I was outclassed in ways I hadn't prepared for.
'They lied to me.' He sounded almost disappointed. 'Told me you're a monster. But you're just an ant.'
He grinned wider. I saw the teeth—too even, too sharp.
'Oh well… I thought this would be fun.'
Then he stomped.
The street erupted. Earth spikes, jagged and irregular, shot from every direction. Too fast. Too many. A forest of stone spears blooming in an instant.
'MOVE!'
I grabbed Tony, grabbed Howard, formed my board from the gold I'd absorbed that morning, and shot upward. Barely clearing the eruption. A spike caught my shoe, tore it away, left me barefoot as we cleared the kill-zone.
'That guy is way too strong…' Howard's voice, strained, professional assessment failing to mask fear.
'…Yeah. He is.' I agreed.
My chest hurt from the sudden acceleration. My left arm hung wrong—dislocated, maybe, or worse.
'Midas, take me down there and fight with me,' Howard said, the words rushed, desperate. 'We can—'
'No.' My voice was flat. Certain. The decision made in the space between his words and my understanding of the gap between us. 'I'll deal with him. Just stay here and call for help.'
I released them. Dropped. Accelerated.
---
The wind became pressure became pain as I cut through atmosphere, angling toward the Hydra agent who looked up—surprised, actually surprised—by the velocity.
'I know I can't win…' The words came out through gritted teeth, my body already reacting to the damage I'd taken, the damage I was about to take. 'But there's no other way.'
Faster. I pushed harder, felt the gold reserves burning, converted directly into thrust.
Then I dissolved the board, let gravity take me, added rotation, became a human-shaped meteor of precious metal.
The punch I threw contained everything—every ounce of strength, every reserve of power, every calculation of impact geometry I'd learned from Tony's physics books and my own painful experience.
*BOOM.*
It connected.
*CRACK.*
The sound of my left hand breaking. Bones shattering from the force of my own strike. Pain delayed by adrenaline, but arriving.
He'd raised an earth wall. I'd punched through it. He'd absorbed the impact through his transformation. Hadn't moved. Not even slightly.
'…That's it?' He sounded almost sad. His arms reverted to normal flesh, the stone-skin receding. 'Still standing?'
I stood. Barely. My left arm useless, already swelling, pain beginning to arrive in waves that made my vision blur.
'Man…' He took a step toward me, and I felt the ground respond—ready to rise, ready to become whatever he needed it to be. 'I like you. You don't break easy.'
Before I could respond, another pillar shot toward me. I saw it coming. Couldn't move fast enough.
*BOOM.*
It caught my chest, threw me. I tasted blood. Felt ribs crack. Skidded across pavement, the rough surface tearing skin from my back.
He wasn't even trying.
The thought was clear, cold, arriving through the pain: 'He is stronger. Faster. More experienced. This is what that means.'
---
I stood up anyway. Slowly. Painfully.
The hope was stupid, but it was all I had: 'He doesn't know. He doesn't know I can turn things to gold with a touch. He doesn't know the range. My only chance.'
'Time to count your seconds, kid,' he said, and he meant it—meant the end, meant death, meant the termination of something that had become inconvenient.
'Playtime's over.'
He raised both arms, and the ground shook—not local vibration, but tectonic response. The city itself registering his power.
A shadow covered me. Massive. Impossible. I looked up. A colossal hand of earth and stone, five stories tall, fingers preparing to close.
'…Yeah.' My voice was barely audible, even to myself. 'That's it.'
The calculation was simple: survive this, and I win. Don't, and I'm dead.
'DIE!!'
The hand came down. *BOOM.*
I moved.
Not fast. *Now*, at the last possible second, every muscle screaming, my chest burning, my left arm dead weight. I appeared behind him.
He sensed it—turned—too late.
My right index finger touched his shoulder.
Gold spread instantly—but slowly. His stone-skin fought it. One second. Two. I could feel his Quirk pushing back, reinforcing his biology.
He realized what was happening. His eyes widened. He tried to pull away.
I held on. My broken arm screamed. My ribs ground together.
Three seconds. Four.
His shoulder was half gold. He swung his other arm—a fist of solid stone—toward my head.
I didn't let go.
Five seconds.
The fist connected. *CRACK.* My vision went red. Something in my jaw gave way.
But his arm was gold now. The transmutation had reached his chest. His stone-skin collapsed, unable to maintain cohesion against the conversion.
I raised my right fist—the only hand still working—and brought it down on his golden temple.
*CRACK.*
He shattered. Golden fragments exploded outward. The colossal hand collapsed without his power, sunlight pouring through.
I dropped to my knees.
The pain arrived. Everything. My hand, my chest, my back, my jaw. Blood filled my mouth. My nose bled freely.
I laughed anyway. '…I took down a Hydra agent. At ten years old.'
Darkness took me.
---
But the gold began to revert. Where his body had shattered, fragments started turning back to flesh and stone. The transmutation wasn't permanent on living tissue—not when I was unconscious.
Howard appeared above me, rifle raised. He fired into the reforming mass—point-blank, full power. The beam carved through the half-gold, half-stone torso, scattering fragments further.
Tony stood behind him, hands shaking, holding a second rifle he'd pulled from the car.
'Is he—'
'Not yet.' Howard fired again. 'Help me scatter the pieces. Don't let them touch.'
They worked in silence. By the time the police arrived, the Hydra agent was in forty pieces spread across three blocks. He would not reform from that.
---
The hospital ceiling was white. Too white. I turned my head—slow, heavy—and found my mother there.
Cybele had pulled a chair to the bedside, close enough to hold my hand. Her grip was tight even in rest. Gold flakes dried on her cheeks.
'Mom.' My voice came out rough. 'Mom, wake up.'
She stirred. Her eyes opened—blue, normal, human—and found mine. The relief that flooded her face was painful to watch, too raw, too much.
'Oh, my little golden boy…' She pulled me into a hug, crushing me against her chest. I felt her heartbeat, rabbit-fast, felt the tremor in her arms. 'You scared me. You scared me so badly.'
I let her hold me. Waited for the shaking to subside.
'They said you broke your hand,' she whispered. 'Cracked three ribs. Dislocated your jaw. Internal bleeding. And the gold—your Quirk—it almost—'
'I'm fine.'
She laughed. It was wet. 'You're never going to be fine, are you? That's the thing.' She looked at me, and her gold tears started again. 'You're going to be extraordinary. And I'm going to spend the rest of my life terrified that someone's going to take you away.'
I didn't have an answer for that. So I just held on.
Ten years old. First kill. First lesson in what it cost to be dangerous.
---
*That night, alone in her office, Cybele made two phone calls.*
*The first was to a lawyer—the best money could buy, specializing in Quirk registry law and parental rights.*
*The second was to a woman she hadn't spoken to in fifteen years. Her sister's old number. Disconnected, as always.*
*She left a voicemail anyway.*
*'I have a son. His name is Midas. And if you're still alive—if you're still out there—I need you to tell me what Howard Stark knows about children like him.'*
*She hung up. Waited.*
*The phone did not ring.*