The city outside whispered through cracks in the hotel window. Wind against concrete. Tires over wet pavement. Inside, the glow of Ethan's laptop painted his face in cold, digital light. Dozens of windows bloomed across the screen—government sites, educational record pools, flagged forums, dark web caches, redacted data dumps. A web of secrets and simulations.
And all of it for one singular question:
'How do you disappear from the lives of people who love you?'
His fingers hovered over the keyboard, unmoving.
His parents were good people. The best he'd experienced in a long time. His mother had been quiet over dinner, her eyes darting to him every few minutes like she expected him to vanish again. His father tried to keep the conversation light—TV shows, his coworkers, even some bad dad jokes about missing socks—but the edges of every word carried something unspoken: Fear. Worry. Love.
And it was annoying because he felt some level of guilt. They really loved him, but to him, they were really just strangers. It was unfortunate to say, but he valued his life more than their feeling. At the very least, all he could do was try to spare them as much pain as he could manage.
Because that love was a leash. One a world like this would rip from his neck and drag him down the moment he turned his back. They were kind, honest people in a universe filled with cosmic tyrants, secret wars, and hidden gods. They couldn't protect him. Worse—they couldn't help but need protecting themselves. He would have to take on the burden of protecting them. Which made them... liabilities.
And liabilities, Ethan thought grimly, had to be handled.
He tabbed into a digital notebook labeled "Emergency Plans" and pulled up a subfolder titled: Identity Severance Protocols.
Option A: Runaway.
Too sloppy. Too many eyes, too many open threads. He couldn't just ghost his own life—not with school records, dental appointments, media tags, and yearbook photos. Besides, they might spend years looking for him before letting up and assuming he was dead.
Option B: Fake death.
Possible. Painful. The idea twisted in his stomach. A staged accident? An unsolved disappearance? It would devastate them. Even if it worked, it wouldn't guarantee freedom—just grief and potential investigation. Not clean enough.
Option C: Memory Alteration.
Now that… had promise.
Ethan's eyes narrowed, and he began a mental checklist.
His parents' memories of him.
School records.
Friends. Teachers. Casual acquaintances who knew "Ethan Kane."
It would take precision. A surgical strike on memory. One wrong gap, one inconsistent memory floating loose in the world, and it could unravel everything. But done right—it would be like he never existed.
He scoured his mind for viable candidates.
'Professor X? Too far. Too visible. Jean Grey? Same issues and also unpredictable. But… Emma Frost.'
She had touched his mind once—briefly—after he'd brushed up against one of the Hellfire Club locations in the city. A slip in his earliest movements. She'd warned him off, after looking through his memories. She'd also… left a psychic signature inside his mental scape. It was harmless, but as she searched his mind, traces of her mental energy stayed even till now. As she searched, Ethan used that time to access her memories and find her phone number in a buried memory.
And Ethan had remembered it. Perfectly. Well, not like he could forget anything now that he'd copied Sage's ability.
He reached for his burner phone, the one he'd never used. The number was still there, memorized—not written down. His thumb hovered over the screen. One press, one message, and he could open the door to a clean slate.
Instead, he slowly set the phone down.
'Not yet.'
"I'm nowhere near ready to approach Frost or orchestrate mass memory wipes," he thought. "First, I don't know how many people have intimate knowledge versus those with just passing knowledge of Ethan Kane's existence. I need a list, and once the first base is complete, I'll know where to start."
He sat back, eyes on the ceiling.
"The timing has to be perfect. No traces. No doubts. Not even the slightest room for grief."
The digital whiteboard on his screen still showed a heading he hadn't erased:
Phase 1.5 – Severing Civilian Ties
He added a new sub-bullet:
Contact Emma Frost: Only after Base 01 is complete. It's also best to hold on until I have enough money, power, and connections to entice her to move to his side or, at the very least, make a move on his behalf.
Then another:
Risk Assessment: Possible emotional instability in targets post-memory modification. Use on a test subject. Monitor behavior. Reassess contingency.
He looked at the screen until the words blurred.
Then, slowly, he shut the laptop.
The room was too quiet now.
Ethan slid into bed. The sheets were warm from earlier, and the pillow still smelled faintly like the hotel detergent. But sleep didn't come easily.
He thought of his mother's hand brushing his hair back at dinner.
His father, looking over the paper, talking about why these heroes and villains are never made to pay for the damages. This was enough to make him chuckle a little.
He thought of what it would feel like to see them again one day—on a street corner, or a news clip—and have them walk past without recognition. Without pain. Without love. Just another stranger. The thought brought a sensation of loss to the pit of his stomach, but Ethan quickly dismissed the feeling.
'It would be better for them,' he told himself.
And when sleep finally took him, his mind was already rehearsing his next lie.
Ethan woke to the soft knock, then a click of the door.
His father's voice followed, low and careful. "Morning, champ. You up?"
Ethan sat up, feigning a yawn. "Yeah. I just woke up now. Give me a second to get ready."
His mother had already left for work. A plate with reheated eggs and toast waited on the desk, along with a Post-it in her looping cursive: 'Be safe. I love you.' Beneath it, a folded twenty.
The illusion of normalcy was still intact.
"Finish up," his dad said. "We've got to head to the station as soon as you're done. I have to make a phone call, so I'll wait downstairs in the lobby for you."
Ethan nodded, and as soon as the door shut behind him, he dropped the facade. His breakfast went untouched. His attention was on the list growing inside his mind—people, files, systems. A neural map of vulnerabilities tied to the identity of "Ethan Kane." He couldn't let the police get too curious about him either. Couldn't let any records linger of this statement of his encounter with SHEILD agents remain.
That would also need to be dealt with at an appropriate time.
The precinct was tucked between a deli and an old bank, its walls beige and slightly peeling, like most public buildings in the city. The overhead fluorescents buzzed faintly. Ethan's father spoke with the receptionist while Ethan kept his posture tight and his expression appropriately muted as he tried to make himself look nervous.
Minutes later, a detective in his mid-40s appeared—shirt slightly wrinkled, eyes sharp behind square-rimmed glasses.
"Ethan Kane?" he asked.
Ethan stood. "Yes, sir."
"I'm Detective Hersch. Come with me please."
He followed the man into a small, windowless room. One table. Two chairs. A plastic bottle of water on a napkin. Ethan didn't touch it.
The recorder blinked red in the corner as Hersch sat down and opened a folder.
"I know this must be hard, so we'll keep it simple. We just want your side of the story of the event that occurred at the school."
Ethan nodded.
The questions came methodically.
"Where were you taken?"
"I believe it to be the school's storage room. Then a… space. I don't know how to explain it."
He only had to keep the parts that Paige knew off the same, as if she were also interrogated, these parts would need to match. The cops should already have an understanding of the events that occurred, so there would be no reason to lie about the whole story, but he could keep his actions as low-key as possible.
"Describe your captors."
"I don't know who or what they were. They didn't show their faces, but I think they could use magic based on what the other people there were talking about."
"How did you escape?"
"Two heroes came. I think they were with… an organization called S.H.I.E.L.D., they said. They didn't give names. Just helped us out and disappeared."
"What happened to the girls with you?"
"They were hurt. But alive when I last saw them. Two of them, Rachel and Amy, were taken to a place for medical care. Paige, the other girl who was there, and I were okay, so we were given rides home."
Detective Hersch scribbled notes. Occasionally, he paused—letting silence stretch, testing for discomfort. Ethan filled the voids just enough, never too fast, never too vague.
"Can you name anyone who helped you?"
Ethan shook his head. "No names. They used masks. They didn't want to be identified."
Hersch nodded slowly. "You've been through a lot. It's okay if some things are fuzzy. Memory under stress tends to be a bit unreliable."
He closed the folder gently.
"Well, for now, we'll list this as a kidnapping by unknown enhanced individuals. If the other victims, Amy or Rachel, can provide more, we'll update the case. Thank you very much. I hope you have a safe recovery. Here's a number to call to be compensated for the mental and physical damages."
"Am I… done? Is that it?" Ethan asked, voice small.
"Yeah, that's it," Hersch said. "For now. Go home. Rest. You had a difficult time so I image you'll need it."
Back in the car, his father started the engine in silence. They drove for several blocks before he asked, quietly, "You alright?"
Ethan hesitated. "Yeah. Just tired."
His father didn't press further. "Okay, we'll be home soon, so just close your eyes."
Ethan turned to look out the window, but his reflection stared back.
Inside his mind, the list lengthened.
Detective Hersch. Precinct staff. Digital recordings. Case files.
All of it added to the ever-growing pile.
'The questions will keep coming, he thought, 'but the more work I do now, the less I'll have to erase later. Hmm… another possibility I hadn't considered is the memory spell Strange used for Peter to wipe out all memory of his existence. Learning the spell might be more feasible than contacting Emma Frost at this time.'