The Guardian Of The Multiverse: A Hero's Burden

A Walk with the Laughing Man

(Marvel, DC, images, manhuas, and every anime that will be mentioned and used in this story are not mine. They all belong to their respective owners. The main character "Karito/Adriel Josue Valdez" and the story are mine)

Peter measured time in seams.

The first month, seams were everywhere. Hairline fractures in bus-station air. Faint zipper-sounds above rooftops. A ripple on a lake that wasn't there. He chased them like a night janitor with a roll of "DO NOT CROSS" tape for causality, finding where the Mirror had abraded the world and laying down anchors until the ground remembered how to stay ground.

By the third week he had a routine: dawn check of the planetary barrier—his quiet, stubborn dome, "house rules for Earth"—then coffee, then a sweep of known weak points: the park fountain, the monorail bend, the cul-de-sac where light still bent wrong. He'd press his palm to air that felt like thin ice and whisper to the physics. Keep. He'd mean it. The web would answer with a soft, compliant thrum, and the seam would refuse to widen.

The 3-2-3 pulse that used to haunt the night grew shy. It showed itself now and then—three quick flutters, two slow, three again—like the memory of a panic attack passing through the city. Peter learned not to flinch. He learned to listen until it faded.

He learned a lot of things.

Zoe, Xayah, and Rakan arrived in pieces and stayed in rules.

The first week, they were sharp edges trying not to cut anything. The second week, they learned where the glasses lived and put them away facing the same direction. By week four they asked, "Is this seat taken?" before sitting on the couch they had already sat on every night for a month.

Probation looked like small, unremarkable choices. Rakan folding the blanket he'd slept under and tucking it behind the armrest like it belonged to someone else. Xayah wiping down the counter without being asked, jaw tight with a pride that refused to accept the act as servile. Zoe standing in doorways until invited, hoodie sleeves past her knuckles like an apology she didn't know how to pronounce twice.

They never went upstairs. They never tested the lab door. Once, Zoe drifted too close and the door prickled—his "grows teeth" enchantment raising invisible hackles. She stepped back and didn't make a joke. That mattered.

Jinx called it "house arrest with better snacks." Lux called it "a start." Neeko, who had every right to throw plates, set a cup down in front of Zoe one evening and said, "Drink. Not poison." That was the whole thing. It was also everything.

The day Ahri's team met Zoe again, the air had weight.

They walked into Peter's living room like a front line—Ahri first, beautiful and controlled, Sarah Fortune at her shoulder, bunkered charm hiding a loaded muzzle. Janna hovered at the back, serene wind on a leash; Soraka's staff glowed like mercy with reservations; Syndra's orbs spun lazy and lethal as planets you shouldn't approach. Poppy had the hammer. Lulu had stars in her pockets, dangerous in a different way.

"Tell me this isn't what it looks like," Sarah Fortune said, fingers already sure of trigger discipline. She didn't point the weapon. She didn't need to. Her eyes did it.

"It's what it looks like," Peter said.

Zoe didn't posture. She didn't smirk. She didn't call anyone kid. She tucked her hands into her sleeves and looked at the carpet like it might refuse to hold her weight. "We're not here to—" she started, voice small, and stopped. Maybe because that sentence had never existed in her mouth before.

Ahri's tails stilled in a way that meant they very much wanted to move. "You bring our executioner into our home," she said, polite in the way people are when they're trying not to break something they might regret. "Explain."