Mark groaned in annoyance as he heard his alarm going off. He had never been a morning person, and swore he never would be. People who liked mornings were probably the same as people who gave out raisins on Halloween and tried to pass it off as candy. Groggily thinking to himself, he wondered if he could maybe ignore the alarm for another 5 minutes. He buried his head between his pillows, trying to ignore the feeling of his arm sliding off his bed and moving to press the......wait.

"Euclid, no!" Mark exclaimed as he suddenly shot up from bed. He glared at his now metallic left hand, which had been positioned over the alarm button. "Last time you did that you crushed it. I don't need to buy another alarm clock, thank you." Mark felt an odd scratching at the back of his mind that he had come to recognize as annoyance from his symbiote. Still, the metal around his arm turned to liquid, and rejoined the small metal plate at the top of his spine. 

Finally awake, Mark took a moment to reflect. It had been four years since his symbiote, whom he named Euclid, bonded with him and changed his life. Since then, he had learned to communicate with it at a basic level. To no one's surprise, it turned out Euclid thought very much like a computer, though it had its own little quirks. It didn't like it when Mark slept in, for instance. 

Mark looked around his room. He had moved back in yesterday, and appreciated the simple look of his dorm. The walls were lined with a few posters of sci-fi settings. His desk was dominated by his desktop computer, which he mainly used for finalizing blueprints, though he also appreciated the processing power for the occasional computer game he played. He also had a large amount of papers shoved to the side that he used for his sketches.

--

After finally getting himself ready for the morning, Mark gathered up his stuff, and made for the cafeteria. In Mark's opinion, the only good thing about mornings was breakfast. He figured he'd grab something to eat before he made his way to the Hall of Heroes. It would be his second year in the "Next Avengers" program, and he wanted to at least make an alright impression.