PSEUDOYNM ━ Marvel

ACT I: ECLIPSED I

CHAPTER ONE
ECLIPSED I

EVERYONE HAS SECRETS.

Everyone has that one thing that they keep under wraps because it could ruin everything that they have become or everything that they will become. Like a member of the Hellfire Club, who's made some kind of deal with the Daily Bugle to get information for some kind of exposé. Or one of the members of former-Secretary Ross' inner-circle that's secretly dating a super while pretending to be vehemently against them. It's shit like this that always ends up ruining everything for some poor, paranoid bastard.

It's not like I'm complaining, though.

Secrets are what keep me going. You'd think the spectacle of lights in a city like New York City would be worth the hassle to live in, but it's far from that. Corruption lies deep within this elegant paradise, and it's not like anyone will tell you the truth about that. Like I said before, secrets.

Secrets are what give me my source of income.

The main part of my job is to look for what lies beneath the surface of these spineless idiots and finding out just what they're hiding, and I'm damn good at my job.

I'm the one they call when someone goes missing, but the police aren't doing anything about it because it doesn't "match the missing person criteria," and I'm the one they call when they're worried their husband or wife is sleeping around with a stripper. Though they hire me, they always end up surprised – I'm not sure why. Maybe it's because I'm young and talented in my work, or maybe they just refuse to believe the information I give them.

God knows it's always a mess.

The typical scenario is that a someone from Brooklyn, or hell, even Tribeca, will ask me to look into the matter of their wife. "She's staying out later than usual," or "she keeps telling me she's at work, but when she comes home, she smells different," and then my personal favorite, "it's not like her to be this way." Maybe people just want to see the best in the person they gave their heart to – but it's a shame that the optimistic can't do anything but lie in their own pool of happiness. That is, until I come forward with pictures of the ordeal.

It's always so chaotic.

"She wouldn't do this to me," the man's Brooklyn-accented, deep voice spits out, practically screaming his words at me. "This isn't my wife."

There's a few solutions to the insanity they hire me for. They could choose to pretend it isn't happening and go about their merry ass way with their shitty lives. They could raise hell and break off their toxic and tainted relationship. Or they can raise hell – denying everything I said and blame me for it. Unfortunately for me, this seems to always be the option they choose.

"Sir, you hired me to find out where she's been going and I did exactly that," I state, almost robotic with how often I've gotten around to saying this same clause.

He puts his face down into the palm of his hands – to cry or be angry, I don't know, but I roll my eyes without hesitating.

"You enjoy this," he begins, "you like ruining lives for people. That's why you do this for a living. You want to make everyone as miserable as you are and you find these fake pictures—"

"Hey, asshole, you hired me to do this discreetly, and I'm a professional. My reputation is on the line so I wouldn't bother faking any damn pictures," I spit back, trying to resist the urge of displaying my powers that's nagging at me – they're tied in my emotions, and all this idiot needs is to see a table disperse into pieces just because I caught an attitude. I'm not about to be registered and wear that stupid bracelet. "Face it. Your wife is fucking a stripper. Now, pay up so you can go deal with your problems somewhere else."