WHO: Mark Scott WHAT: Mark goes to the inauguration. It doesn't go well. WHEN: During/After this WHERE: Washington, D.C. WARNINGS: Violence, and character death.
There was a part of Mark, a big part, that had wanted to stay as far away from the inauguration as possible. Giving credence to an elected official who was in favor of taking away the rights of himself and his loved ones didn't sit well in his gut, especially in such turbulent times. His time was better spent standing in solidarity at any number of protests, or walking in the Women's March the next day. Just because his father was an enormous bigot who bred hate and violence didn't mean he had to be. He didn't have to be his father. And he certainly didn't need to support him.
A bigger part of him had a nagging feeling in the pit of his stomach every time he thought of not being there, as though there were some big omen warning him that staying away would cause devastation. It didn't make sense, him trusting a feeling like that. Mark wasn't exactly a boring mundie, he had powers, but clairvoyance wasn't one of them. It was probably residual guilt, something he'd been feeling for months now. Ever since that virus had run rampant and claimed the lives of so many reincarnates around them, Mark couldn't help but to feel responsible for it. For Shae. He hid it deep down below where he would take it out in private, masking it with half-hearted smiles that he played off as just typical mourning. He did his patrols, he hung around his fellow Justice Leaguers. He played it off as normal.
The problem was that no matter how much he tried to tell himself that he wasn't responsible for his father, no matter how hard Jen tried to tell him that, that guilt refused to go away. The virus itself was a sore spot for Mark even if it hadn't been successful in killing reincarnates; he and his sister, after all, had been the collective Patient Zero when his father released it the first time. No matter what, he couldn't stop thinking that there was something he could have done to prevent the good ol' Senator Scott from being able to rise to power the way he did while spouting off his evil vitriol about practically all of the marginalized groups in the country. Instead of hiding from his dad, maybe he should have been louder. Maybe he should have been willing to risk his own safety to take a stand instead of trying to be invisible.
The inauguration was exactly as he expected it to be. He watched the majority of it as a bird, hidden up in the tree closest to all of the action. He could have slipped in and watched as a human, he'd gotten into heavy-security areas before, but he knew his face was known, especially in the political atmosphere. He'd be recognized. It'd be a big thing. He'd probably end up missing what he'd come to witness as police brought him to his father, no doubt. So instead he watched as a bird, a sparrow that was a bit greener than a sparrow usually was, camouflaged in the higher branches as he listened to exactly the type of speech he was expecting. When Trump spoke about giving the country back to the people, he meant a very specific kind of people. Mark was sure he wasn't in that category.
The parade was a little easier to blend in without being an animal. He kept a baseball hat on pulled low, and tried to stick to the middle of crowds. No matter where he was, however, he kept his gaze on his father, as though waiting for a sign that he should do something. He wasn't sure what, exactly, he was going to need to do; Mark wasn't a particularly violent guy, even when he was taking down criminals. Sure, he fought, and did what he had to do, but he was able to avoid some of the violence his comrades had no choice but to partake in. When you could become a giant gorilla and just hold a robber upside down, it limited how often punches needed to be thrown. He was so intent on watching his father that at first he didn't notice the commotion, not until the panic had reached directly next to him and he nearly got trampled by people running and screaming in fear.
It wasn't particularly surprising that chaos was reigning. What was more surprising was that it took this long into the day for it to happen. Mark moved into the middle of the street, pushing against the crowd as he tried to get a look at what was going on. It was impossible to see that far down the street with so many people swarming, but the snippets of panicked conversation he heard around him painted a picture enough. A woman with some type of power had attacked the newly elected president. A reincarnate, he presumed. Mark stumbled as people pushed against him, frowning at the implications. While he understood the reasoning behind the attack quite well, it didn't leave him feeling good. In the middle of a crowd who hated reincarnates because politicians continued fear mongering propaganda about how dangerous they were, a reincarnate had proven that they were right.
He was jarred out of his thoughts by another scream, shouts of somebody having a gun. It was easy to locate the person with the firearm, a man shouting about reincarnate rights as he waved the gun around until it settled on a target. Without thinking, Mark rushed forward to try and prevent the man from shooting his father--not out of some misplaced love for the man, but to prevent him from becoming a martyr. If Senator Scott died then, the victim of a violent reincarnate, they had no hope of turning public opinion in their favor. They would all just keep dying.
At first, he didn't realize the gun had gone off. People were running away from the two men, one looking shell-shocked that he hadn't hit his intended target, and the other looking momentarily confused. The world around him sounded as though the volume had been turned down, leaving the pounding of his heart in his ears as everything seemed to slow down. It wasn't until he looked down and saw the blood seeping through his shirt over his gut that time seemed to catch up with itself. Suddenly the volume was back, and the visual cued the pain as he grunted and fell to his knees. He'd never been shot before. It didn't feel badass like the movies suggested.
"Move out of the way! That's my son!" Mark heard over the deafening thud of his own heartbeat, and he tried to concentrate on that voice. It was impossible to, not when everything was starting to feel and sound far away. He collapsed further onto the street, rolling onto his back, gasping for air like a fish washed ashore. And then there was black.