𝗔𝗘𝗢𝗡𝗜𝗔𝗡 | 𝗗𝗿𝘂𝗶𝗴 𝗫 𝗠𝗮𝗹𝗲𝗢𝗖

x

Chicago

Gale rolled his eyes with crossed arms, following Ikaris and Sersi to recruit the intelligent inventor of the group. He missed Phastos's sarcastic company and not understanding his long equations. But he had also hoped to spend time with his lover and catch up. Druig expected the same and was ready to throw hands when they informed that they wanted to drag along his lover. But Ikaris gave a boring speech on the risk of the safety of earth and managed to convince the two to reluctantly agree though they were still slightly upset. No grudges.

Phastos built his son's bicycle and chuckled at his husband teaching his son how to play catch. His grin immediately faltered, however, at the sight of three extremely known people entering his compound.

"Hi." Sersi smile and Gale waved.

"Hello. Can we help you?" The husband of Phastos asked, throwing the ball back to his son.

"Hey Jack, Ben." Phastos exited the garage and walked towards the three. "Hey, guys. These are my friends from college." His husband gave him a pointed stare at that, not believing. "Uh, this is Sylvia and, uh, Isaac." He pointed to Sersi and Ikaris who held amusement at the made-up names. "And this is Sunny."

"Sunny?" Gale held disbelief at the name. "Of all names, Sunny?" He grumbled under his breadth. (no hate to anyone who's named Sunny ☠️)

"Dad, that's Superman. Dad, that's Superman!" Jack excitedly tugged his father's clothes.

"Jack." Phastos tensely snorted, "That's really funny, Jack."

"No, no! He is Superman." His son was as stubborn as his father.

"That is definitely not Superman." Like father, like son.

"I saw him on TV." Phastos gave up and turned away, his son continuing to ramble, "He was in London, fighting a monster. And you were with a cape and you were shooting laser beams out of your eyes." He pointed to Ikaris.

Gale grinned and bent to his knees to the short Jack's level. "You've definitely got your father's brains, Jack." He ruffled the young boy's hair receiving a proud giggle.

"I don't wear a cape." Ikaris corrected, shrugging ignorantly when Gale lightly hit him.

"Okay, well, we should just go inside, right?" Phastos pointed to the house behind, "Can I call you Clark?" He asked Ikaris as they made their way towards the house.

"You've called me worse."

Gale smirked. "You're still Wiz to me." He reminded the old nickname and the Eternal groaned in remembrance of that.

.

Gale tapped his fingers on the table, giggling at Druig's texts to him. If there was one thing he loved about the present rather than the past, it was the advancement of technology.

He chuckled on Ikaris and Sersi shuffling back from sneaking a peep at Phastos with his son. A low laugh escaped when Ikaris snatched the comic from Sersi's hand and pretended to read, the latter scoffing and getting a mug in her hand.

"Yeah. Incredibly natural guys." A sarcastic remark came from Phastos's lips on entering and the two dropped the act. "So, after all these years," he set his glasses down, "even you fell for Ajak's lies."

"No need to rub it in." Ikaris mumbled.

"It all makes sense why she wouldn't let us interfere with human conflicts. Conflicts lead to war and war actually leads to advancement in lifesaving technology and medicine. So our mission was never to make a peaceful or harmonious world, but to increase the population at all costs. Just farming humans as food for the Celestials, right?" Phastos rambled.