Jessica stared blankly as Zod led her back to his place. She sat in silence on the couch, visibly shaken.
"Relax, you did well," Zod assured her. "No one's going to blame you."
"It's not that..." Jessica mumbled, fighting a wave of nausea. "It's just... all the blood."
"With your current strength, you're pushing at least 30 tons. That's the impact force of a large truck. It's no wonder things got... messy," Zod explained calmly. "If a guy took one of your punches and just walked away, then he wouldn't be human."
"But what if I accidentally kill someone?" Jessica asked, her voice low.
"It depends on the situation. If it's an accident, just stay put and call Uuld—she'll handle it. If it's intentional… well, then it falls under U.S. law," Zod replied. His experiences had left him with a broad, morally gray view of the world. "This world isn't black and white, Jessica. Most of it lies in shades of gray."
Overwhelmed, Jessica hugged Zod tightly, the strength of her grip evident even through his bio-magnetic shielding.
"I'm not your father," he remarked, with a hint of humor. "Are you sure this is okay?"
Jessica didn't respond verbally but leaned in for a kiss. Zod chuckled, gently placing his hand on her forehead to push her away.
"Save that for when you're twenty," he said with a teasing smile. "Right now, it just feels... well, it's amusing."
Jessica, flustered and a little hurt, watched him walk away. Am I really that undesirable? she wondered. She knew her popularity at school; even the jocks were vying for her attention. But with Zod, she felt strangely inadequate.
Zod's thoughts soon shifted to the people moving through Hell's Kitchen, including one that piqued his interest: Daredevil, known by day as Matt Murdock, a lawyer defending the underprivileged. Murdock, blinded by radioactive waste as a child, had gained extraordinary sensory abilities, allowing him to "see" his surroundings in a way that mimicked radar.
Daredevil's perception extended beyond sight. Through rigorous training, Murdock had developed a near-360-degree sensory awareness, enough to "see" most of Hell's Kitchen in his mind, the outlines of people and objects forming as if in 3D.
Though Zod had no particular interest in Daredevil's powers—average by his standards—he noted the uniqueness of Murdock's abilities. Unlike Spider-Man's instinctual spider-sense or Wolverine's animal-like awareness, Daredevil's perception was rooted in his brain's unique emission of electromagnetic pulses, making his awareness comprehensive but non-combat-enhancing.
Back in Zod's office, his secretary, Uuld, entered quietly. She was unusually hesitant, which Zod immediately noted.
"What's up?" he asked, noticing that she hadn't called him "Boss" as usual. He knew Uuld well enough to recognize when something personal was on her mind.
"Today's my birthday," she said, looking at him expectantly.
"Oh, I didn't realize," Zod replied, reaching for his wallet. "Choose any gift you want," he offered, handing her a card.
Uuld laughed softly, shaking her head. "No, not like that. I was hoping you'd join me for dinner tonight."
Zod looked at her, a small smile tugging at his lips. "Just us?"
She nodded, a faint blush coloring her cheeks.
"Alright, then." He agreed and made a mental note to book the finest restaurant in Los Angeles and to get her a fitting gift—perhaps a gemstone, a classic choice but one he felt would be well-received.
After she left with a happy smile, Zod returned to his work. Standing in front of a mannequin, he studied it intently before making it crack and reform in an intricate pattern. His latest experiment involved assembling human-like bodies from atoms—an endeavor that veered into what many would consider blasphemous.
Though he wasn't practicing alchemy in the traditional sense, Zod was trying to build a human body atom by atom, each piece held together by his magnetic field. He'd wondered if he could craft a body that could respond to his brain waves, a kind of synthetic human. If successful, this creation would become his first "Robot One."
"The taboo of the blasphemous realm, a truly forbidden practice…" Zod mused, meticulously realigning the atoms, watching as the mannequin took on increasingly human characteristics.