Slipping Through My Fingers: Rewind Hero Origin

Later, Ryan would remember that it was a beautiful day. The kind of early-March day that felt like April; the kind that promised an end to the winter, sun returning to the sky in the morning and evening. When Ryan was younger, it would have been the kind of day where Emmy would drag them outside to check all the gardens on their street, see if the crocuses were up yet, check for violets in the tall grass.

 But that day, Ryan hadn’t been thinking about the weather, or about memories of violets and crocuses; their mind had wholly been on the museum. All day in class their mind skidded away from the teacher’s voice, picturing instead the exhibit layout last time they’d seen it, the plans spread across the kitchen table as their mother frowned, picked up her pencil, and switched two pieces’ positions again. It was opening on Sunday, and all of the banners and design had been approved months ago. *Superhistory: Power and Altruism through the Ages*. An exhibit of art, artifacts, and reports on historical superhumans like the ones Halcyon City saw every day. Things used to help people long before the term “superhero” had been invented, and newspaper clippings from the early days of heroics.

 It was going to be *amazing*.

 And today, Friday, was the first day Ryan would be able to go in and help in over a week. Schoolwork had happened, and then a test to study for, and while their mom understood their love of the museum--how could she not, when she was the one they had inherited it from?--school came first. That had always been one of the rules. So for a week Ryan had gone home instead of to the museum, pulling out paper in the silence of the kitchen, messing around on the computer to pass the time faster until Violet came home for dinner--another thing that was one of the rules, had been all Ryan’s life. No matter what, family dinner was important.

 Even though now it was only Ryan and Violet, it was still important.

 But today Ryan had no homework and no school tomorrow, so instead of getting on the school bus home, they walked the three blocks from Big High to the nearest city bus stop. The ride to the museum was always short, too short to do much other than think for a few minutes; Ryan used the moment to pull their glasses off, letting their eyes slide shut and massaging at their temples for a moment. The glasses weren’t a perfect solution--the building headache from looking through lenses just a *little* wrong for you was always painful, especially after a day of squinting at a whiteboard--but it was certainly better than jerking out of the way of walls that had fallen years ago or people who had already graduated.

 So they took the bus ride to let their eyes rest, because the back of their eyelids had no afterimages, and the rumble of the bus was enough like white noise to be soothing. They didn’t bother looking outside, feeling out the number of stops by memory alone; one by the bay, one by city hall, one by the park, and there they were--they slid their glasses on, pulled themselves and their backpack out of the seat, and headed for the doors. The stop was right in front of the museum; when the bus trundled off down the street, Ryan was left staring up at the Halcyon City Museum of Culture and History.

 The museum was one of the older buildings, and the architect had been an incorrigible anglophile; Ryan wasn’t sure the man had ever seen the British Museum, but he had done its level best to capture its aesthetics. The building had a collonaded, Grecian front, with two wings stretching out long to either side, taking up the block. Further inside, the atrium--built long before superheroes were a common concern--had a skylight-studded ceiling, yet again mimicking a museum across the ocean.

 Ryan had made a case for a banner highlighting the similarities, reading simply “HCMCH: The British Museum, Now With Less Theft And Imperialism!” It had been shot down, but the idea still made them snicker whenever they climbed the stairs. They slipped between the columns, trailing a hand along their grooved surface, before pushing one of the doors open and heading inside.

 Ms. Fletcher was at the desk, and she looked up when the door opened before relaxing when she saw who it was.

 “Oh, Ryan! Ms. Saito said you might be heading in today. How was school?”

 Ryan shrugged with one shoulder. “School. Nothing was really happening there. Is mom back in storage, or have they moved everything out to the exhibit hall?”

 “I think it’s all in the exhibit hall, but they’re still putting stuff together. I’m sure she wouldn’t mind another pair of hands in there.” Ms. Fletcher said, and Ryan allowed themself a smile.

 “Thanks. I’ll see you...at the end of the day, probably?” Ryan waved, already heading into the coatroom. Their typical hook--second from the end, next to where their mother hung her typical purple jacket--was empty, so they hooked their backpack onto it before heading out of the room and back through the museum.

 The skylit atrium was a familiar friend at this point, and they knew it well enough that they could pull their glasses off, giving their eyes a break as they ignored the visuals of windows cracking and reforming above them and focused on the more friendly sights--the shadows of sculptors moving around the pieces kept in the lobby.

 The door to the exhibit hall was labelled “for employees only”, but *technically* Ryan was an employee, even as only an aide and a tour guide; also, everyone here knew them well enough not to mind their presence.

 Through the door, Violet Saito commanded the museum like a general moving her troops. The room was a hurricane of activity, and she was its calm, assured center; as Ryan watched, she pointed a pair of people carrying a table over to the wall, before turning to correct the positioning of a case of framed news reports and moving another case three feet to the left. She’d pulled her dark hair into a ponytail, keeping it off her face and out of her grey eyes; between that and the smart button-up shirt and vest she wore, she looked every inch the head curator of the museum, overseeing the past year’s work.

 The facade of perfect, assured competence crumbled a little when she saw Ryan, though, and a smile broke out on her face.

 “Ryan!” She smiled, ducking under the moving table to make her way to the edge of the room. “It’s after school already?”

 “No, I’m cutting class,” Ryan deadpanned, accepting her hug with an eyeroll. “Hi, mom.”

 “Hey, kiddo,” She said, pulling back to reach up and ruffle their hair. “Was school okay today?” She looked them over, quickly, before frowning. “Did you go out in only that? I thought I told you to put a coat on, you could have caught a cold--”

 “Mom, I was fine, it was warm this afternoon,” Ryan batted away her hand as she tried to put it on their forehead, but only half-heartedly. “I didn’t catch anything.”

 “You can’t be sure of that yet,” Violet frowned, but let her child push her away. “And school? Was that alright?”

 “I mean, it was school,” Ryan deflected again, but Violet narrowed her eyes and they sighed. “It was boring! There’s not much going on right now, we’re *still* on World War Two in history and it’s *still* not the right time to talk about Japanese Internment, apparently--”

 “Are you making trouble in AP History?” Violet laughed, more amused than angry. “Am I going to get a call from the office?”

 “They can’t get me in trouble for asking when we’re going to cover proven historical facts of the period,” Ryan said, crossing their arms. The pique only lasted a second, as a new item was wheeled into the room. “Wait--that’s it, right? The centerpiece?”

 Violet *beamed* as Ryan took in the old, black-metal gauntlet that was held in a glass case, carefully wheeled into the room.

 “That’s it. What we can put together from rumors and the writing in the casket it was buried in, it’s name roughly translates to the Glove of Past-Movement or the Atavist’s Hand. It’s clear that whatever it’s tied to has to do with time, but we’re not very sure beyond that. We were thinking of calling in some of the magical specialists during this exhibit or afterwards to see what else they could manage,” Violet started, beaming as she gestured for the man wheeling it in to stop. “But despite it being buried in style and well-preserved, it’s completely inert. Which might be for the best, if it’s really a dramatic artifact--that’s good, Jeremy, you can put it down there.”

 “Want me to take a look at it?” Ryan asked, frowning, and Violet laughed.

 “Maybe later, Ry. For the moment, do you mind helping Jeremy face that properly? You’ve got a good eye for display, and I have to check on the entranceway.”

 “No problem,” Ryan said, heading over to where Jeremy--one of the older grad students who worked with the museum--had put the glove and started moving it. Ryan frowned, looking at the glove and then at the glass case that would go over it. “Do we have any gloves? I’m not a fan of touching, like, random artifacts with my bare hands--”

 “Yeah, we’ve got some over here,” Jeremy said, gesturing to the corner table. “And that’s a good point--I mean, this is mostly just a glove, but if it can do things--”

 That was about as far as they got before there was a *crash* from the entryway.

 The room froze, the overwhelming fear of *oh god someone dropped something* pervading the air before someone realized that no, that wasn’t where the noise came from. At the entrance to the room was a figure, standing over the fallen remains of--well, it looked like the door, but its hinges were corroded and rusted to the point they couldn’t have held a pencil, let alone a sturdy door.

 The figure was even more alarming. Tall and imposing, they were lit by the skylights behind them and a cool, blue glow coming from their left arm. Their body was covered by pale plates of some sleek, designed armor, which transitioned into a sleeve of white-chrome metal and blue light on their left arm alone. Their face was invisible; instead, Ryan looked into the mirrored visor that covered most of their head and saw the room reflected back at them, their own green eyes wide in alarm.

 And a figure, moving towards the intruder.

 “I’m sorry, this is a closed wing,” Violet Saito said, with the calm assurance of someone who had raised four children mostly by herself, and was therefore unflappable. “Can I ask who you are, and what you’re doing here?” The words phrased it as a question, but her stance and tone made it clear that it was a demand.

 The figure looked at Violet for a long moment, face unreadable.

 “My name is Tempus Fugit. You have recently come into possession of an artifact that you do not understand,” the figure said, in a low voice. “I will be retrieving it now. You have no way of stopping me from taking it, and this will be far easier if you don’t try.”

They set a hand to their side, laying it against the second door into the exhibit wing. Before Ryan’s eyes, the blue joints of their left arm glowed, making it clear that this was a glove, just one that led all the way up to their elbow--and the door started to buckle. Rust spread outward from the figure--Tempus Fugit’s--hands, eating away at the metal door until, with an overwhelming groan, it collapsed into a pile of scrap metal, so eaten through with rust that it was barely recognizable. Next to Ryan, Jeremy started backing up--first slowly, and then faster. *Time flies*, Ryan translated the name in a daze of panic. Tempus’s blank silver visor turned back to Violet, expectant.

 Nobody spoke, making the sound of people backing up and starting to move away the only thing Ryan could hear--it and their heartbeat. They had grown up in Halcyon City; they’d grown up with superheroes and supervillains on the news. None of that had prepared them for this, for the door in shreds on the floor and their mother standing face-to-face with someone who was a supervillain planning to steal from her museum. There had been supervillain attacks at the museum before, and Ryan knew about it in the abstract.

 This was not the abstract. Ryan could barely hear past the heartbeat in their ears, and the rasping breath in their throat. This was real, and it was here.

 Violet Saito let out a breath, loud in the quiet room, and raised her head to look at the person in front of her.

 “I’m sure you know that I can’t let you do that,” she said, eyes darting to the side as she moved, quickly, and pulled the alarm. The sirens blaring through the museum shook people out of their stupor, and Ryan could hear people dashing for the back door out of the wing. They were frozen, though, stuck in place as they watched the villain turn on their mother, white hair flaring out behind them as they moved.

 Violet looked over at them, her grey eyes meeting theirs.

 “Ryan, take the glove and get out,” she said, eyes narrowed. “I’ll meet you at home.”  Ryan’s feet jerked into motion, years of instinct--*mom knows best, in the museum mom knows what she’s doing, she worries too much and she babies you but when her voice is like iron and her eyes are narrow she knows what she’s talking about, she always knows*--overriding their fear as the figure reached for their mother with that white-and-blue hand.

 Ryan’s hands landed on the glove, pulling it out of its frame on the display as carefully as they could with their heartbeat in their fingertips, making their whole arms tremble. They pulled it close, turning towards the door--

 And the door wasn’t there, and nothing was there except the sensation of falling in a dream, seconds before you wake up.

 The world around Ryan was black, the only light coming from a faint silhouette. They froze, remembering the figure in the doorway reaching for their mother--but no. This was shorter than that. A faint outline of a human figure, indistinct and shadowy except for--they had one hand outstretched, their right hand, covered up to the elbow in black metal. As Ryan watched, their fingers started glowing, green light settling in the joints and flaring along the length of the arm, outlining cracks and crevasses that had been invisible on the glove, until the green light filled the space Ryan was in and the figure, slowly, opened its eyes.

 They were green too, holes of green light in a face made of shadows, and Ryan realized abruptly that they were the same height as Ryan themself, as they looked directly into those eyes. It was quiet, here--even Ryan’s heartbeat had vanished, leaving only a void of perfect silence.

 “Who are you?” Ryan said, voice vanishing the second it left their lips, but the figure tilted its head.

*I am the Gauntlet of Regression, the Atavist’s Reach. The Right Hand of Time Itself.* The words echoed in Ryan’s head, not in their ears, and they wanted to step back but something was stopping them, some deep curiosity even stronger than fear.

 “Tempus Fugit,” Ryan said, their voice still inaudible. “Can you stop them?” Because outside of this void, outside of whatever hallucination they were having, there was still a supervillain loose in the museum, going after their mother.

 The figure seemed to consider for a moment, raising their glowing hand to cup a shadowy chin.

 *Not on my own,* they said after a moment, and Ryan could feel the last dregs of hope they had slipping away from them. *Not as I am now. But--*

 Suddenly their glowing-green eyes were a scant inch from Ryan’s, the only thing holding them close Ryan’s complete inability to back up.

*Your eyes,* it said, stepping back as quickly as it had approached. *Yes...I think this could work. I think this could work quite well.*

 “What could work--” Ryan started, and then the gloved hand had latched around their wrist, stronger than any grip Ryan had felt in their life. “Hey!”

 *Do you want to stop that attacker?* The figure asked, voice almost gentle in Ryan’s head. *Say no, and I let go. We leave it for the heroes of your city. But you don’t want that.* And then the tone shifted, something more desperate coming forward. *You need to stop them. And I need--I need a wielder. Please.*

 “Please,” Ryan echoed, looking into the green eyes of a shadow. “I--yes. I’ll help you if you can stop them.”

 The grip on Ryan’s arm tightened, and tightened again, and the falling sensation came back faster than Ryan had ever fallen before. The last thing they saw in the void was the figure closing its eyes, looking downward.

 *Thank you.*

 Ryan landed in the exhibit hall on their feet, in the exact position they had been--before. Before the void, before the figure, before everything. Their heart was in their throat and panic still clutched at them, but--there was something else. Something closer, a warmth they didn’t have before. A small voice at the back of their head: *Do not be afraid. I am here.*

 “Ryan?”

 Their mother’s voice shook them from their stupor and tugged their eyes up, towards the door. As long as the conversation they’d had in that void had seemed, here everything was as they remembered--their mother by the alarm, Tempus reaching for her with the glove--the gauntlet, Ryan realized, which looked like a mirrored version of the one Ryan had been holding.

 The one that was now on Ryan’s arm, covering it below the elbow. *I am here,* the small voice said, louder now.

 And then Tempus’s hand connected on Violet Saito’s shoulder, and everything went horribly wrong all at once. Her gaze jerked back to the white-clad figure, distracted momentarily by Ryan; there was enough time for her eyes to widen, and then something tore--nothing physical, but something that Ryan could feel in their *soul*, bringing the taste of blood into their mouth and nearly driving them to their knees. They could feel it, whatever Tempus did--ripping something, shoving it in somewhere else in a way that pounded at Ryan’s head like the worst headache their glasses had ever given them.

 And Violet was gone.

 She had been right there--right in front of  Ryan, by the door, by the alarm. The alarm she pulled was still blaring. The hand Tempus had touched her with dimmed from a flare of blue light to a satisfied, low glow. And she was *gone*. An empty space in the room that never should have been there, eyes that should be meeting Ryan’s.

 They did fall, then, barely noting the pain of their knees hitting stone. In front of them, their arm caught them before they could even ask it to, black metal hitting the ground. *No*, they thought, and weren’t sure if it was coming from them, or from the gauntlet.

 “What--” Tempus Fugit started, and there was emotion in their voice for the first time, a low shocked anger. “You can wield that!? You’re a *child*!” They stepped toward Ryan, who wasn’t looking at them; their eyes were fixed on the spot by the alarm, where their mother should be standing.

 “Put her back,” a quiet, childlike voice said, and it took them far too long to realize it was theirs, sounding much younger than sixteen.

 “What?”

 “Put her *back*!”

 The glove on their hand flared and they *pulled*, grabbing anything they could to fill in the hole that shouldn’t have been there, the gap that shouldn’t exist. The doors to the exhibit room uncrumpled and unfolded, sliding back into position as around Ryan, the exhibits shifted position, changing to prior configurations. Tempus watched them, mirrored face unreadable, before turning and stalking through the doorway, irritation in every inch of their posture.

 When the emergency responders finally arrived, that was where they found Ryan--knelt on the floor, a black glove that nobody could remove covering their arm below the elbow, completely unresponsive. They don’t remember that part. They remember flashes of being wrapped in a shock blanket, low voices talking above them, but they don’t remember anything concrete until later, when the low voice in the back of their head unrolled itself again. It sounded tired, as though the speaker had tried lifting something far too heavy.

 *Wielder. Partner. Ryan. I’m sorry.*

 That, more than anything else, shook Ryan out of their stupor. They looked down at their glove, pulling the shock blanket closer around them with their other hand.

 “Can we bring her back?” They asked, voice hoarse, although they didn’t remember screaming.

 *Not yet. I’m not...we’re not strong enough yet.*

 “Can we get stronger?”

 *Yes. Yes, Ryan, we can get stronger. We can bring her back then.*