Mason’s grin was astronomical as he spotted Claire. Her greeting was casual as ever but he was sure that some enthusiasm for the whole idea was beginning to creep up on her. The fact that she noted their early arrival meant that she had intentionally arrived early herself. It wasn’t quite the jumping, dancing and spinning that Alice and Mason liked to indulge in but she definitely seemed to have warmed up considerably to spending time in the warehouse.

“Don’t sound too excited,” Mason teased as Persephone somewhat reluctantly admitted to being "roped in too". “Whatcha drawing, Picasso?”

His latest attempts at nickname had been famous artists. Unfortunately, Mason was quickly running out of names… Did Banksy count? Ronaldo? No, wait- he was a footballer.

It was actually quite interesting taking in Persephone’s reaction. She hadn’t given much away and so he wasn’t really sure how happy she’d be to join the makeshift supergroup but she actually seemed quite intrigued. Then she even said it sounded fun! The reaction was a bit of a surprise, but at least it was a pleasant one.

Alice practically leapt at the chance to show off her powers to Persephone. It was, after all, a pretty amazing power to demonstrate and still something that Mason hadn’t quite wrapped his head around. Alice seemed happy with it though, and she was certainly happy in getting to grips with it herself, so that’s all that mattered. He wished he could be at that level too – desire to understand it driven purely by excitement rather than desperation. He wouldn’t have swapped powers with her for the world though – she clearly loved her current set.

A menacing-looking metal leg was torn from one of the piles they should have cleaned up from last time they experimented in here. “Here,” he said, taking the bar from her as softly as possible. He didn’t want to snatch it and catch her by surprise in case her power didn’t have time to respond. Swinging it wildly at her once she knew it was coming? He’d done that enough times by now to be perfectly content with that routine. Still, he kept the jagged end away from Alice. Just in case.

“Ready, Persephone?”

He said it more for Alice than he did her, making sure Alice was really, really ready, and then hauled it round to smack straight into the side of her shoulder. He grunted – it was kinda heavy. Then, heaving it back, he struck her a second and a third time. Gotta give Persephone a proper show, right? With each blow he marvelled at the way it just… stopped, and at the way that Alice barely even blinked. It was awesome.

Then Alice took the weapon back in her hands and spun around to face the far wall. He was about to ask what she was doing, and then it happened.

He winced as the wall took the force of the projectile, making a mental note to check whether the structure was still safe, but was unable to really focus on health and safety when he’d just witnessed Alice launch a freaking rocket from nothing.

“WOAAHH that’s new, okay, okay. Wait,” he frowned. “Are you hurt? What happened?”

He’d gotten so used to her invincibility that he was even more concerned than usual about the injuries. She didn’t seem too worried herself though. Eventually he let himself relax.

“So cool, Paladin,” he said proudly, deciding the moment was a little too cool to deserve a Prom Queen reference. There were plenty of opportunities for PQ, he’d let her have Paladin for this one.

It had been a surprise when Claire first snatched her bag away but that soon faded as a deep, flushing embarrassment took its place. “Oh right, invisible, yeah…” It had just been Mason’s first instinct to do the heavy lifting – he hadn’t meant to be dumb. Fortunately the slight-framed girl seemed more than capable of handling her own suitcase and so Mason was able to feel a little less guilty about it, focusing more on not getting in her way as she manoeuvred round the car to open the door for him.

“Looks like you’re the gentlemanly one in this scenario,” he teased as he took his seat. “Thank you.”

Mason sat up a little straighter in his seat at the mention of road snacks, his imagination filling with images of brightly coloured wrappers and endless bags of crisps. She was definitely being more thoughtful about this trip than he was. Normally he would just drive until his stomach complained, and then he’d have to drive a little longer until he could find something to satisfy the hunger pangs. Starting the journey with food already in position was such a simple, genius idea that Mason was slightly ashamed that he hadn’t thought of it himself.

“Do you think they’ll have pretzels? I’ll eat anything but I really fancy a pretzel right now…” He sighed longingly.

Mason pulled out the crumpled piece of paper that had his parents’ address on it. At least that was one thing he had come prepared with. Remembering things like addresses and phone numbers was just not a thing that Mason’s memory could handle. It preferred to hold onto things like obscure soccer statistics and quotes from TV shows – clearly a mind honed for conversations in the pub.

“Oh wow, fossils…” he breathed, looking up from the CD collection with an impish grin. “This is the kind of music that Mom and Annie always played when I was growing up. I, uh, can’t not play Queen first. Sorry, that’s just how things work.” He perused the albums before carefully making his choice. “I gotta say, Etch-a-sketch, I’m pleasantly surprised. I thought it might be a load of indie stuff I’ve never heard of. This is pretty cool.”

He couldn’t think of a way to make his seatbelt look natural so decided to just leave it. Cars often had weird quirks – a dodgy seatbelt stuck in position wasn’t going to raise eyebrows, right? Just before settling into his seat, Mason turned to face Claire, extending his palm towards her in an invitation for a high five.

Oh, right.

He cleared his throat. “Woo, road trip! High five!! To your left… Up a bit… Ye- no, YEAH!”

With a sombre nod, Mason echoed Alice’s ‘Dawn of Justice’ criticism with a grunt of disgust. He’d been looking forward to the movie and had left feeling that – at best – he could call it an average movie. As much as he enjoyed action, he also enjoyed movies that had a cohesive plot, developed characters and an engaging screenplay. Thus he totally approved of Alice’s appraisal. It was indeed a stupid movie.

“Dude,” he said, the enthusiasm heavy in his voice. “There could be aliens. Maybe we’re like… descended from aliens, and that’s why we’re… you know…” He hushed his voice even more than before. “Superheroes.”

He smiled at Persephone. “It’s an amazing opportunity. Just think of all the good we can achieve! It’s what our powers were made for.”

Mason was still vaguely clinging to the concept of their powers having a destiny attached to them. It wasn’t something he’d really considered before. Previously, he’d never considered that his purpose in life was to be a manager, but he hadn’t thought it was anything else really either. The magnetic, intoxicating draw of super abilities had ignited something within him and it was a heady, dizzying drive towards heroism. He was sure that Alice in particular felt a similar way. The rest seemed to be still somewhat anchored in normality… for now.

He was happy that Alice accepted his cash without protest. They’d agreed on it beforehand, and she was definitely the type to keep her word, but he was still nervous that she might see it as charity. Alice had certainly consumed her fair share of fries.

Once they paid, Mason waited for the others to leave so that he could slip through the door behind them unnoticed. He was pleased with himself for remembering. Maybe he was getting used to being invisible after all. Maybe he really could continue a somewhat normal life. He’d have to tell his mums, of course, and eventually maybe he could tell work if powers became an accepted thing in society.

Buoyant, Mason walked along beside Persephone and Alice, noticing only too late that collision with a rubbish bin was imminent.

He stopped himself for the most part but the metal can still rattled and groaned a little at the sudden impact. He blushed. “Oops. Sorry guys, I’m… I’m fine. Wasn’t looking.”

Stealth was clearly not quite yet his infallible speciality...

For the first time in a few days, a visual flashback of the accident tore its way into Mason’s thoughts. He winced. Alice’s reminder that she’d been brought back from death had clearly triggered something in his mind. He’d been so caught up in the highs and lows of developing powers that he hadn’t really had time to think much about the crash itself. Yup, definitely still a traumatising experience. Thanks for the recap, brain.

“ I’d still keep a bunch of emergency sugar around just in case, until a doctor can confirm it or something,” Mason said hesitantly. He wasn’t really sure how diabetes worked. “But Alice is right, curing diabetes could definitely be in the doctor’s skillset.” That would be nice for Claire – an undeniably positive outcome of June 3rd.

He beamed, pleasantly surprised that Claire hadn’t shot his arty ideas down. “I can hold still! It’s typical though… my modelling career starts the second no one can see my face…”

Mason really wasn’t one to care about his looks. He supposed at least if someone were to become invisible, it was good that it was somebody like him. He could only imagine how terrible it’d be for somebody who lived and breathed on the admiration from others. Plus, he could work from home. A model didn’t really have that option…

Claire was visibly uncomfortable at the idea of joining in with power experimentation. To her credit, she was holding back fairly well from completely rejecting Alice’s invitation. Not well enough, obviously, but Alice probably would have been disappointed however she’d have put it unless the answer had been “Yes”. Alice reeled back, apologising profusely, and Mason watched with sadness as she retreated in on herself.

“It will be nice to show her the batcave,” he said gently, not really sure what else to say.

Fortunately Claire’s offer to draw something for Alice got her smiling again. It would probably take Alice a bit to really recover, but she was unexpectedly tough with this kind of thing. Her relentless attempts at positivity could only be seen as admirable in Mason’s eyes. He knew what it was like to put a happy face on, after all.

“Well you gotta give her something cool to draw now, Al,” Mason chuckled. “She’s already seen a flying bat smack you on the head after all. Shall we?”

He gestured to the door.

…Mason was definitely still in some kind of denial regarding his own transparency.

What a good way to describe it: “drowning in the red sea”. Mason made a mental note to steal it for future objections to the crime of covering fries in ketchup. He had a couple of buddies from the bar who would sometimes order fries for the group and then smother the entire thing. His joy and gratitude became tainted by resentment at being forced to endure soggy fries. The horror!

“’Course I trust you, Chef,” he affirmed. Mason felt pleased that she – a culinary pro – was on his side.

It was strange, but he knew that Alice was just one of those endlessly trustworthy people. She was just so earnest, forever wearing her heart on her sleeve, that there was no way that you couldn’t trust her after spending more than five minutes in her presence. There was also no way that you couldn’t pick up on her sensitive nature. Her concern that Persephone might not want to join their team was very much etched onto her face.

“I won’t lie, I don’t really get her power,” Mason confessed quietly. “But I bet it would come in handy, and I feel like we should all stick together and I’m sure she does too.”

He wasn’t sure about this, not at all, but he felt slightly more optimistic than Alice seemed so it was his job to spread the false positivity.

Persephone dropped off the fries – which smelled surprisingly delicious – with a particularly jarring “miss” thrown in Alice’s direction. He wasn’t sure there was quite the need for such formality. Then she dropped a little of the act again and he felt slightly more at ease. At least she wasn’t just flat-out pretending that she had no idea who they were. That would’ve have been mean.

He decided against thanking Persephone for the fries in case they were overheard. There was no way Alice could pass his voice off as her own – although it would be funny to watch her try.

He turned his attention to the fries. Maybe he was just hungry, or maybe these did actually look as good as they smelled. Only one way to find out how they tasted… Mason reached out and closed his fist around a large fry on the edge of the plate, taking care not to disrupt the pile in the process. Okay, so it was probably invisible now. He lifted it up a little and waved his closed fist around to check Alice’s reaction. No floating fry. Good.

He then manoeuvred the fry into his mouth, keeping it as tightly contained as possible throughout. There were no screams from nearby diners so he assumed that the mission had been a success. Mason chewed happily for a while (it was an okay fry, nothing special) before swallowing and letting out a soft, satisfied burp.

“Fry obtained!” he hissed happily, reaching for another. “And you thought I wasn’t stealthy…”

He continued in this manner for a while, getting bolder with how much coverage he gave the fry but never letting it just sit in his open hand, trying his best to develop a good technique of covertly dipping the fry in ketchup. For all its disadvantages, at least his ability was a fun mental exercise at times. And he’d always been told to pace himself better while eating anyway. At this rate of consumption, Alice actually had a chance of having her own fair share. Which, of course, he insisted upon.

At least Persephone wasn’t putting on such an act that she was prepared to pretend that Mason didn’t exist. She gazed just past his left shoulder as she informed them that she’d be coming back to take their food order which was a pretty good attempt at acknowledging him, to her credit. Then Persephone moved swiftly across the restaurant to continue doing her job and Mason and Alice were left alone momentarily.

For a second, Mason tried to figure out a noiseless protest against Alice’s decision to sit and listen to music while she waited. He was just about to rap his knuckles against the surface of the table when she suddenly explained herself.

“Ohhh…” Mason whispered with relief. “Good idea!”

He followed Alice’s gaze, taking a quick look at the menu. It was your standard greasy spoon fare – not much choice but enough to have a few tempting options for the average consumer.

“What about some fries? I can probably keep those hidden.”

Mason’s stomach rumbled approvingly. “Maybe a large fries. You can share but please let me pay, to thank you for ferrying my invisible ass around everywhere.”

It was something that Alice probably hadn’t even considered to be a kindness. She probably didn’t even realise how much Mason appreciated the time and effort she sacrificed to keep him company while they tracked the other survivors down to join their new team. He could have tried to do it alone, but it was so much easier with somebody else. Much more fun too. It was like they were on an important mission together – saving the world one diner trip at a time!