Hector began the morning sessions sitting at the kitchen table.

  Not with textbooks. Not with formal lessons that followed a set structure, a curriculum, or had a specific expected outcome.

  He began just like he seemed to begin everything important in his life, with a straightforward story about something real that happened to someone he knew, told plainly and without any extra flair.

  On the first morning, he told Johnny about a hero named Ironwall.

  Not well-known.

  He wasn't among the top rankings.

  A mid-level hero who had been working in Sydney's industrial district for twenty years, never once making headlines that would land a merchandise deal or a crowd of fans.

  He had a reinforcement quirk, plain and straightforward.

  Whenever he touched a surface, it would become temporarily impenetrable. For twenty years, he'd used it to protect people, taking hits that would have killed anyone else, and usually ended up the last one standing when everything else had fallen apart.

  He had retired three years before, with both knees replaced and a hearing aid in his left ear, feeling the calm satisfaction of someone who had accomplished what he set out to do.

  Hector had known him for thirty years.

  "He was never going to be number one," Hector said, holding his coffee cup with both hands. "He knew that right from the start. His quirk hit its limit, and once he got there, he just stayed stuck. Some heroes couldn't find peace with that. It ate away at them from the inside." He stopped for a moment.

  "Ironwall came to terms with it during his second year on the job and never looked back at the question again. After that, he simply got on with the work."

  Johnny glanced over at his grandfather. "You admired him, didn't you?" he said.

  "More than almost anyone I've known in this business," Hector said quietly.

  "Talent is common. Sticking with something over time doesn't happen often. He came in every single day for twenty years, putting in the same solid work on his last day as he did on his very first. That's tougher than it seems." Hector went quiet for a moment, eyes somewhere far off.

  Johnny remembered his two years spent in Setúbal. Working ten to twelve-hour shifts in a warehouse, sending money back home, and doing the job without anyone watching or cheering you on. That was what it was really about.

  "I think I get that," he said.

  Hector glanced over at him. Still a little surprised at the little guy, he seemed more mature every day.

  "That's good," he said quietly.

  He grabbed his coffee, took a sip, and started on the second story.

  By the end of the week, the morning sessions had settled into a steady rhythm.

  Hector talked, while Johnny listened and asked questions. Hector answered, and sometimes those answers turned into their own stories. The kitchen table felt like a classroom, but not in a way that seemed like school. No one was trying to teach, just sharing.

  They were simply two people having a conversation about things that really mattered.

  Johnny found out how the hero commission worked and the politics involved. There was often a gap between what the rankings showed and what really made a hero effective.

  Hector kept saying that a powerful quirk and a powerful hero were two totally different things, even though people often mixed them up.

  He picked up on Hector's career in the kind of roundabout way Hector spoke about it. Never straight out, but through stories about other folks, with Hector mostly in the background, popping in now and then to steer the story a different way.

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  Johnny knew that was just the way Hector saw his own past.

  He felt more at ease when he was just a witness rather than being the focus himself. But the facts came out anyway. The cases, the battles, the things Hector Graham had done were the kind of stories that made other people fall silent when his name came up.

  Johnny put all of it away carefully. Not just the information. The way his grandfather's mind worked. How he approached problems. The things he cared about and the things he just couldn't stand. He gave a kind of focused attention to anything he thought was worth figuring out.

  Johnny thought it was one of the most useful educations he'd ever had.

  He had gotten it while sitting at a kitchen table, eating Nel's toast.

  The afternoon sessions felt different.

  After lunch, Hector led him out to the back garden. They worked together in the spot behind the old oak tree, where the garden wall kept them hidden from the street.

  This wasn't hero training. Not yet. Hector knew better than to take risks like that. He understood exactly what a four-year-old body could handle and what it couldn't.

  But he was practical enough not to let what was already there go to waste.

  "Show me what you can do," he said that first afternoon.

  He stood there with his arms crossed, watching Johnny closely with those sharp, focused eyes.

  Johnny gave it honest thought.

  Then he went over to the garden wall. Old solid brick, about two meters tall. Without hesitation, he jumped.

  He cleared it by about half a meter.

  He landed on the other side with the kind of careful control that only came from realizing partway up that getting down would take some thought. He stood still for a moment. Then he climbed back over, dropped into the garden, and looked at his grandfather.

  Hector didn't move at all. "Do it again," he said.

  Johnny did it again.

  Hector watched closely, like someone rethinking what he knew about the situation.

  "The strength enhancement," Hector said. "It's more than I thought."

  "What's it like when you use it?" he asked.

  Johnny tried to figure out the best way to answer, sticking to what he was actually supposed to know about himself.

  "It's like I have more than I need," he said. "Like there's extra and I'm only using part of it."

  Hector gave a slow nod. "That's going to grow. Just be careful, don't try pushing past what feels comfortable.," he said, worried the boy might injure himself.

  "Seeing its potential, I think if it grows the way it feels right now, it should get a lot stronger as you get older." He paused. "We need to handle it carefully. Your body is four years old. Bones, joints, and tendons aren't prepared for heavy strain yet. You get it?"

  "Yes," Johnny said.

  "So we focus on control. No power for now. Always keep control first. Having power is useless if you can't control it." He kept his eyes fixed on Johnny. "That's true for every quirk, every person, and every situation you'll ever come across. Remember it."

  "I will," Johnny said.

  And he meant it in ways Hector never even realized.

  They spent about an hour each afternoon working in the garden.

  Simple things. Balance, finding that steady middle ground, not too much force, not too little. Coordination, learning how his body moved with the enhancement and how it moved without. He was figuring out where the line was and how to push himself right up to it without crossing it.

  Hector watched everything closely, with the eyes of someone who had trained others and could tell steady progress from recklessness on sight.

  Johnny was genuinely careful, not just performing carefulness, because he understood what was being taught and agreed with it.

  Control before power. Foundation before structure. The principle stayed the same whether you were building a physical skill or managing something enormous that lived inside your chest.

  Nel often watched from the kitchen window. She never talked about it, but Johnny caught her face once when she didn't know he was looking. It was quick. What he saw was a mix of pride and sadness, the kind of expression someone wore when they were watching something they loved while thinking about the person who wasn't there to see it.

  He thought of Devon.

  He looked away and gave her the moment.

  On the fifth day of training, Hector said something Johnny hadn't expected.

  They sat by the garden wall after the afternoon session, both quiet the way they often were together, that easy silence that came from just being with someone whose company was enough.

  "Your father used to sit right where you are," Hector said.

  Johnny looked at the ground in front of him. That patch of grass right against the old brick wall.

  "When he was my age?" he asked.

  "And older. He'd come out here whenever he needed to clear his head. Said the garden wall was just the right height to lean on." Hector looked at the wall. "I just never found the heart to change it."

  Johnny stayed quiet.

  "He would have been good at this," Hector said. "Teaching you. He had patience in ways I don't always manage. He had the same gift your grandmother did, explaining things without making you feel small for not knowing them." A brief pause. "I try to do it how I think he would have. Sometimes I'm not quite sure I'm getting it right."

  Johnny glanced over at his grandfather

  Hector was staring at the wall, but his face showed he wasn't really thinking about the wall at all.

  "You get it right," Johnny said.

  Hector looked at him.

  "Most of the time," Johnny added.

  Something in Hector's face loosened, the particular relief of someone who needed honesty more than comfort.

  "Most of the time," Hector agreed. And almost smiled.

  They stayed by the wall a while longer, soaking up the afternoon light.