'Retard'

'Weirdo'

'Pervert'

Greg Veder was more than passingly familiar with such insults. In fact, if he were being honest with himself - which was rare even he could admit - he was probably referred to by such insults more frequently than his own name. At least by his peers.

And that was fine. Greg wasn't a baby - he could handle some name calling. He could even handle some bullying really. You could only spend so much time on the internet before you became acclimated to degeneracy.

Plus, Greg wasn't actually retarded. Or well, his Mom called it being 'disabled', and Greg made an effort to respect that in front of her, but it was what it was. No, Greg was just... different.

It wasn't noticeable when he was younger. What kid wasn't sort of excitable at that age? It was as Greg got older that problems began to accrue.

He just couldn't focus on things that didn't interest him. He would miss it when people were speaking to him, or assume they were speaking to him when they weren't. He would read into things incorrectly, and see intent where there was none, or not notice the subtext of a statement. Once or twice wasn't a problem. But once it became a consistent trend, people started to notice.

And teenagers arent well known for accepting people who are different.

So Greg had gone through life with something of a disconnect. It wasn't as though he couldn't learn to deal with people. It just took him a lot longer to get familiar with other people. Long enough that... most people found it to be too much of a hassle. And that stigma made it so that others wouldn't even consider the effort.

That was why Greg liked the internet. The internet made social interaction easier. The internet had rules. Subtext had to be explained because text was less expressive. Social norms weren't worth considering because suddenly messaging someone and suddenly walking up to them were very different prospects. If you had something to say you could say it, and if you had an interest in something you could find people who shared that interest. There was no awkward fumbling to say the right thing, or read the mood.

Still, he had been really happy when Taylor had started talking to him. It didn't noticeably improve his school life. Actually, it noteably lowered it. But he was glad regardless. Here he was, weird Greg, and he was getting to talk to a girl even more maligned than himself.

Yeah the general apathy and derision people had for him had sort of dialed itself up after that. He had read enough comic books to understand the progression at this point. Taylor was important. Taylor mattered. Greg was just set dressing. He did his best to keep that fact in mind. He kept his problems to himself.

He didn't need Superman to help him with his personal problems.

"Greg, sweety, are you up?" His mom called to him

"Yeah!" He called down to his mother.

"Dinner's ready!"

"Give me fifteen minutes!" He yelled back.

Then turned back to his computer.

"Fuck off you Empire fucks." He growled into his keyboard, leaning over it like a gremlin. This had been his appointed task since he had started hanging out with Taylor. He knew she didn't really 'do' internet. The chances that Taylor had been on PHO any time in the last week were... slim at best. So while she was off doing Superman things, he was waging the info war. Lois Lane things.

Most recently, that meant picking fights with Empre Eighty Eight goons who were trying to spread the dubious rumour that Taylor was secretly one of them. On paper it made sense. She hadn't made a major action against the Empire since she started caping. Meanwhile, the ABB was all but defunct. The Merchants were gutted. Even Greg knew the optics of the situation were... off.

Typing in one final insult, Greg leaned back to stretch, then rose to head down the stairs.

"Do you think it would be better if he was medicated?"

"With what? Who's going to diagnose him? He's just a bit different is all."

"He's barely passing school. He doesn't have any friends. I can barely understand him half the time!"

"Just, let it go. None of that shit's gonna help him."

"I just want him to be more normal."

'This is where you say I am normal Dad.' Greg thought bitterly. This wasn't a new thing for him. His parents weren't nearly so quiet as they thought they were. But they still loved him so he let it go. It didn't really hurt him anyway. It was just another thing he had grown used to.

Quietly as he could, Greg decided to slip outside for a walk. He slid his feet into his shoes, and slid out the door. It wasn't like he lived in a dangerous neighborhood. His family wasn't well off by any means, but via a combination of luck and and both his parents keeping their jobs when the economy crashed, they had ended up living in a neighborhood that was nominally 'upper class'.

Which was why he was extremely surprised when - not five minutes after turning the corner nearest his home, he was stopped.

"Hey Greg. Out kinda late huh?" A voice called out to him. It was one of his neighbors he was pretty sure. Not a very close one, just 'a neighbor'. The kind you saw at block parties, or barbeques. Still, Greg tried to be polite, if only for his parents sake.

"Uh, hi. I'm just sort of, walking around." Greg offered, attempting to step lightly around him, only to be blocked.

"Ah, ah. You know, somethings been bothering me. Why's a kid like you get to stay in a nice neighborhood like this huh?" The man asked rhetorically, an air of menace shifting into his tone.

"I- I don't-" Greg tried, backing up and trying to run towards his house.

"I- I- I-, quit stuttering you fucking defect." The man mocked, grabbing Gregs arm and pulling him backward.

"I'm not-!" Greg bit back automatically, only to be solidly struck across the face by the much larger man.

"Shut up. There are new rules now you here me? No more chinks or niggers to ruin the place for the rest of us. No more pretending mistakes like you are okay!" The man roared, dragging, Greg backwards towards a space between two houses.

Greg wondered why no one was coming. Why no one was calling the police, or even really taking notice. This wasn't like the Docks, or the area the ABB controlled. It was... it was...

A neighborhood full of white people that never seemed to experience any trouble with the nearest gang - a white supremacist group.

Greg felt his heartbeat begin to jackhammer as he pumped his scrawny legs in a feeble attempt to escape his capture.

"Quit fucking struggling retard!" The man yelled, punching Greg solidly in his gut. It hurt. It hurt a lot. He had never really been attacked before.

Greg spent a time that was simultaneously extremely short and infinitely long being physically bludgeoned. There was more to it than that, but really, there was only one word ringing in Gregs mind. He couldn't feel his arms, his chest felt like someone was sitting on him, and his eyes were swollen shut.

But all that was ringing in his mind was that one word. That one damn word.

'Retard'

'Why can't he just be normal'

He blacked out.

But only for a second.

And when he came back the world was different. His eyes were swollen, so he switched them out for ones that worked. His lungs, he could tell they were punctured by his own ribs now, so he changed them out for lungs that worked. While he was at it, he switched them out for Lungs that worked better. His neighbors lungs in fact. And on and on it went. By the time he fully realized what was going on, he was a perfectly average man.

Better muscles. Better bones. A healthy, strong body. It was like a jigsaw puzzle. He just had to grab the pieces he wanted from his surroundings.

He was so focused on improving himself that he didn't really notice he had bludgeoned the man before him to death until his fists had hit the ground where the mans head... was. You could punch surprisingly hard and fast when you had the luxury of swapping tired muscles out for fresh ones.

He hadn't dared go home after that. He had literally just killed man. He couldn't bring that back home with him.

So Greg wandered. He wandered for a few days actually. He didn't eat because he could just swap to a form that wasn't hungry. The same went for sleeping too.

Left to his own devices he probably would have continued on like that until he got bored. Having powers, he found, surprisingly did not include a crash course on heroics. Not that he would count as a hero. Rogue at best if anyone ever found the corpse of his... victim.

He was mostly minding his own business at a mall while using his powers to look inconspicuous when a blond girl who he would have literally died to speak too a week ago dropped into the seat across from him.

And that, is how he learned the unwritten rules - and more specifically, how badly one particular villain was abusing them.

Also how he got his first 3-Dimensional crush. But that was no one's business but his own.

A/N: Well, this is what I've got while trying to entertain a bunch of people that showed up at my house. Apologies if some of the spelling or grammar is off. Some of you did accurately guess that Greg is more or less acting as Taylor did in canon. Well, with some differences. Notably, Greg is a lot easier to manipulate than Taylor.