A D Tier's Breaking Point

Chapter 28

It had been the cookies that had woken Morgan up first. The soft smells of warm and sweet baking wafted through the apartment, making Morgan stir slowly. They blinked their eyes open, trying to focus through the fog of a dreamless and uninterrupted sleep. It was tempting to close their eyes and roll over back, they didn't even care about Alex's inevitable teasing about needing more sleep during the sacred night time hours. But they wanted to claim whatever was in the oven more, and their stomach agreed. That was when they noticed Alex's voice coming from the kitchen, talking to someone on the phone. She sounded familiar, but in their half asleep state Morgan couldn't place the voice. Ah well, they thought, I'll bother Alex about it later . They stretched, groaning as their muscles ached and a number of joints popped. Had they run a marathon or something? No wonder they were struggling to move. Maybe there was chocolate milk in the fridge so they could have their favourite drink, that should fix them right up.

Morgan rubbed at their eyes, wincing as they pushed at something in their eye, moving with their knuckle, and that felt wrong. They tried to blink through the sting, looking up at the ceiling, focusing on the foreign object that seemed to be covering their whole eye. Contact lens.

Everything came back at once and Morgan was suddenly sitting up, staring straight ahead at the kitchen door that was ajar. Alex's voice was still coming through the door, along with Monday's. Breathe in for five seconds, Morgan began to count, hold for three seconds, breath out for eight. They counted each breath, focusing on only that, and not on the other emotions clawing up their throat to try and choke them. They looked down at their front, touching the now crumpled black shirt, the steel power bracers on their arms. They were in their lair, they had sparred with Alex, they had shown him around the labs. Alex was cooking lunch. Alex was here. He was back. He was okay.

Eventually Morgan felt calm enough to move, and as they stood up they realised that Alex hadn't heard them wake up. Monday should have noticed, but apparently whatever they were talking about was distracting her too much. They crept over to the door, glancing in to see Alex with their tablet, watching something on the screen with something that looked like awe, like pride, like sorrow. And Monday was describing fighting styles, ones that Morgan learned. 'But you're the one person they know better than anyone else, including how you fight. I think, the second they started learning how to fight properly, some of your inspiration was bound to slip in.'

Alex flushed, ducking his head away, and Morgan smiled as something tugged at their chest. 'Where did you pick that nugget of wisdom up from?'

Monday was silent, and Morgan was tempted to interrupt, before she said, 'Everything that the Boss has done in the past year has been for you. And because of you. And inspired by you.'

That's my cue. 'Not quite.'

They had to smirk at somehow being able to sneak up on the S tier villain and an AI designed to be able to see 98% of the base. But there they were, Monday trying to work out how to lie despite her code while Alex was busying himself with the oven. Quickly enough Morgan skipped over the awkwardness, falling into something they could info-dump on while Alex cooked lunch and Monday vanished the videos from the tablet. Apparently she had done with her meddling for the day.

Soon enough Alex passed over a plate of homemade pasta and Morgan barely stopped talking as they caught the plate and loaded up their fork. They did however freeze mid-word when they took their first bite.

Alex immediately noticed, 'Is it okay?'

Morgan glanced up, trying to focus on keeping their voice even as they nodded, 'Yeah. Um...you added something to the sauce, I mean...there's something in there that Janice doesn't use.'