No one was there to see the Molten Man wake up to find the Sandman standing over him in the darkness. The Vault was having a lousy opening year.
"I gotta tell you not to scream?"
Mark sat up. Carefully.
"Attaboy."
"What is this?"
"Dunno yet."
The last of the grains stopped seeping out of the thinner-than-hair- spaces of the adamantium floor, and the rough child's model of Sandman solidified into just plain old Flint Marko. Mark Allen drew back slightly.
"What happened to security? Where's Jankowicz?"
"Shorted out some of their gadgets, locked the security guy in his booths. No alarms, just us."
"Right…"
Mark wished he could actually summon the armour. He'd been wishing that a lot lately.
"So what exactly does the Sandman have to say to the Molten Man?"
"Depends on what the Molten Man wants to say to the Sandman."
Mark struggled to resist the urge to back up to the wall of the cell as he stood up. They held each others gaze for awhile, Mark squinting in the darkness, determined not to ask first. Marko's face could have been made from stone. But he cracked first.
"You're taking this kinda well."
Allen shrugged.
"Spend enough time as a super villain--"
"You ain't a super villain."
It was the first vaguely emotional thing the guy had said since he'd appeared. It startled Mark and his skin felt cold and vulnerable. Marko seemed to realise this. He didn't take a breath(probably didn't need to anymore)but in the darkness of lights out the grainy pattern of his shirt and skin Mark hadn't realised was there at first shifted reflexively.
"You'd know…right?"
"Dunno."
Marko's slightly disproportionate fist flexed, then he folded his arms and, hesitantly, lowered himself onto Mark's cot.
"Last year I was yer regular chump for the Big Man," he started, not noticing Mark's almost not there flinch. ", coupla nickel and dime jobs I shouda gotten diamonds for, got put in jail a bunch of times, but that was nothing new. Until Spider-Man."
There was an alien but fully understood silence between them.
"Then all of a sudden I've got super powers, and they ain't even the powers I was supposed to get. Once a mook…" He flicked an almost invisible grain across the small room from the not-flesh between thumb and forefinger that flashed as it zipped right back into his hand. "So I took some time out to…reflect on the whole super villain gig."
"How'd you get into that anyway?"
Mark was desperate to hear something else. Anything else from what was sounding all too familiar.
The pattern shifted again coldly. Uncomfortably.
"Hammerhead. The Doc before he was Ock. Had me in some room like a lab rat, pumped me fulla stuff. It wasn't supposed to happen."
He looked up, righ into Mark's eyes.
"That's what happened to you."
It wasn't a question.
"I didn't say that."
"Didn't have to."
Marko went back to looking at everything other than Mark.
"That…might kinda be why I'm here. I wasn't the most stand up guy even before I got like this. I read about you in the Bugle and figured…"
"I've heard this after school special before."
Allen was suddenly standing in front of Marko, his arms loose at his sides. His hands weren't fists yet, but a street kid like Marko knew that didn't mean anything. If you were smart with your strength you kept your hands loose. Ready. Waiting.
"Thing is pathological gambling isn't the same thing as pathological power. You want that kind of thing, Electro's up at Ravencroft."
A slight silicon rustle as the Sandman shifted.
"Yeah, well all of Electro's lights are on, but he's still got a coupla bulbs unscrewed. And like me he's made some bad decisions. Unlike me, he don't realise them."
"I'm not you!"
Now the kid's fists were ready.
"Good." Marko stood up too. A few trails of sand he'd left on the sheets darted off and up into his lower back. "You wouldn't wanna be me."
He hesitated.
"Is it warm in here?"
"Maybe…"
Mark scratched unconsciously at his chest. He closed his eyes, inhaled.
"Look, yeah I've got a problem and I've now got a bunch of others because of it. But I'm not like you. I can't do what I want with it. So until I can, I'm all in."
"That ain't choosing."
"It's all I've got."
"It's not."
"So…so why are you here?"
Marko hesitated.
"Dunno."
Allen swung suddenly and Marko blinked. Grains rushed along his arm, budging, almost a hammer. There was a gunshot of steel. Marko blinked, rustling in surprise. Mark had punched the cell wall. On the other sound came the petulant sound of Fancy Dan yelling for him to keep it down.
"I! Am not! You! I'm the full house they wanted, you're a jack five they got in the first hand! I don't know what you're here for, and you don't even know! You're a bum hand! And that's all you'll ever be!"
Screaming silence. The Molten Man wondered if the guards would come bursting through the cell door, find Marko just sitting there, what they'd think and his heart began beating even faster.
Then Marko stood up, carefully walked past Mark and began to dissolve back into the shadows.
"See ya around, kid."
"Where are you--what was the point of all this anyway?"
Marko hesitated, turning back slightly.
"Trying to help. Not sure if I can anymore."
And in a silent volcano in reverse, the Sandman fell apart. Leaving the Molten Man alone in his cell. The Molten Man sagged back down onto his cot, breathing hard, his head in his hands. His hands were shaking. And he felt cold.