(TSSFH) INTERLUDE - KEITH

Keith stood behind the rows of cameras and clustered reporters, arms folded tightly across his chest. His mask failed to hide the exhaustion etched into every line of his face, but thankfully, he wasn’t here to speak—just to watch. To listen. To be seen, maybe, as a symbol of continuity. He was the leader of the Protectorate.

Superman stood at the podium, cape stirring faintly by the hum of overhead vents. His voice carried clearly and composed, each word delivered with the kind of quiet, unwavering sincerity Keith had almost forgotten could exist in a cape these days.

“I didn’t come here to replace anyone,” Superman said, hands resting lightly on either side of the podium. “Least of all the PRT. When I arrived in this world, I took time to learn. To understand what had gone wrong, and where I could help. And I stayed in Brockton Bay because I saw something there. A chance to make things better.”

Keith exhaled slowly. He could predict the rest of the speech: superman’s carefully measured assurances; his insistence that the PRT, fractured as it was, still had a role to play; that oversight and institutional reform were necessary, not dissolution. The kind of speech that tried to salvage trust without diminishing the truth.

Calculated yet honest. And necessary.

But Keith had stopped listening, his thoughts drifting to the other man of the hour. 

He’d known Eidolon for more than twenty years. Knew the man under the mask, David, well. And no matter what the world had decided about him, what had happened—what he’d done—Keith couldn’t bring himself to pretend the man hadn’t once stood for noble.

Even if he’d lost sight of it in the end.

The press drank in Superman’s words like it was gospel. Keith watched them: journalists who had once bent over backwards to crown Eidolon the strongest parahuman alive now hung on Superman’s every sentence—reverent in a way that bordered on worship. Hungry for guidance. Desperate for a symbol they could believe in again.

Keith couldn’t blame them.

He remembered Eidolon at his peak. The man had been—there was no other word—awe-inspiring. Any power he needed, summoned at will. A living legend. The man who could match Behemoth blow for blow, who could halt a Simurgh attack with a gesture, who could heal and destroy in the same breath. There had been awe in those years. A kind of reverence too.

But that was a long time ago. Before his weakening potency. Before the doubts crept in. Before he started looking for a sense of challenge.

Maybe they should have noticed it. If they’d been better friends—better teammates—they would’ve seen the signs earlier. It was subtle, but undeniable. The erratic behavior. The subtle envy whenever someone new rose to prominence. The way he’d started looking at fights not as emergencies, but as opportunities—less about saving lives and more about proving he still could.

If only we’d reached out, Keith thought bitterly.

If we’d been closer.

If he’d just asked for help.

He hated that word. If.

Superman hadn’t even tried to take anything from him. That was the tragedy. He didn’t want power or glory. He just wanted to help. And Eidolon couldn’t stand it.

By the end, it hadn’t been a fight. It had been a man lashing out at a world that no longer needed him. And another trying to stop him without killing, trying to do what Keith and the rest never managed—to reach him. But it hadn’t been enough. It was never going to be.

And then, Eidolon made his choice.

Keith knew that much. The autopsy confirmed it. No injuries beyond the final one. No struggle or attempt at an excuse. Just a man who’d sat quietly and accepted the end. Maybe even welcomed it.

The story they told the public was simple. That Eidolon had lost control. That he’d endangered lives, and that justice had been served. And the public ate it up. Another monster fallen. The end of a threat.

Keith had stood silently while the narrative took shape, while Contessa and Doctor Mother ensured no one questioned the clean version. And maybe it was justice, in the coldest sense.

But he couldn’t forget the man who’d crossed oceans to stop monsters. Who’d held Keith steady after the Siberian incident, who had done his best to heal both Hero and Alexandria. Who once said, after a brutal fight in their early days, “If we ever fall, I hope someone better takes our place.”

Keith doubted Eidolon had expected that someone would actually show up.

Still, he mourned that man. David. Not Eidolon, the mask. Not the empty shell he became in the end. But the friend whose sole purpose was to help as many people as possible, to prepare for the end of the world. 

Most days, Keith felt like he was the only one still carrying that weight.

The press conference wound down. Superman stepped aside, letting the next speaker take the podium—Miss Militia, moving with a somber confidence. Keith watched him leave, offering a small nod to a civilian in the crowd who held up a child on her shoulders. No attempt to defend himself in case of any danger. No security detail. Just confidence.

A different kind of cape.

The kind the world hadn’t known it needed until he arrived.

Keith sighed through his nose and turned away, the voices behind him fading into indistinct noise. His comm buzzed. More meetings. More deaths. Always more.

He walked down the corridor of the PRT building, his footsteps sounding too loud in the quiet.

Eidolon was gone. Superman was here.

The world was moving on. Faster than he could keep up with.

And maybe—just maybe—it was for the best.

Still, as Keith opened the door to his office and stepped inside, he paused to glance at the old photo on his desk. A snapshot from a decade ago. Himself, Eidolon, Alexandria, and Hero. Standing tall and shoulder to shoulder, arms slung over each other, proud and young and impossibly sure of what they were doing.

Hopeful.

Keith picked it up, fingers tracing the edge of the frame. 

For a moment, he let himself feel it.

Grief.

Not for what was, but for what could have been.

And then he set it down, and the world demanded his attention once more.