Grey detritus drips gooey down green domes. Grinning demons grind down ghoulish damsels in grim darkness. Galant destriers glide distant, gaining depth. Galant drivers gall demons, grinning; distraught, gangrenous demons gallop densely grouped downward. Gilded destriers grandly defend. Gasping, demons ground disgustingly gallop, defeated, glowering. Glinting damsels gallivant delighted to gaily dance, giving drivers glowing dimples. Grand drivers gasp demurely, aghast, distraught & giddy. Determined, giggling damsels dance grand dervishes gaining delighted gazes. Gulping, drivers gingerly descend, grinning, down galleries dancing. Goofy disasters gained, drivers giggle; damsels, grated, declare gentleman's detente. Damsels galvanize drivers, give directions. Drivers gaining determination gallivant, directed. Galvanized, dancing groups departs glad, demons gone. Delighted, gathered dignitaries grandly declare ended plague.

I spent days reminding myself to ask L how she wanted to be touched.

I don't know who leaned in first. It felt right, so I didn't ask.

I deleted her message today; my phone was full. I didn't remember what it said.

I’m not mad she sent it. I'm pissed at myself for being surprised.

Hate's a strong word.

It's been a few days, so now I'm just swimming in that frantic nihilism of knowing I can get laid but having no one to sleep with.

B is coming back to town. She responded to my post.

The other guy she responded to is "in a relationship."

So I've got that going for me.

"They call me mister Noon because I'm always on time." He tipped his hat.

"Well, hi, Moon man," the bouncer said, "you're not on the effen' list."

The evening smelled like Neon. Neon doesn't have a smell itself, but a broken sign spitting sparks only smells one way. As patrons came and went from the bar, they ground the broken glass into sand under their feet, but that was a slow process.

Noon shook his head, flopped his free arm at his side. His other held a black briefcase "You know you're the first one to say Hi to that, and you couldn't help but get the name wrong."

A man in a hooded jacked inside the bar straightened up and took a step towards the door, hands in his pockets. A messy haired woman with a violin case flipped the latches on the box and turned to face the door. The bouncer stood a full foot taller than noon. He folded his arms and narrowed his eyes down at the interloper. "What?"

Noon waved his free hand in the air. "It's Noon, so you're supposed to say 'Hi, Noon" like "High noon" the time, but you said it like Moon and that ruined the joke."

The bouncer shook his head slightly.

Noon sighed. "Maybe it doesn't translate well."

The bouncer looked over his shoulder. The man in the hood shook his head. When the bouncer looked back, Noon was holding up a folded piece of paper.

"Look, I know it's King's birthday, I came to give him a present." The piece of paper was brown and fragile, like it had aged in the sun for weeks. "I spilled my coffee on it this morning." said Noon. "Don't mind that."

The man on the inside began to walk quickly towards the two of them, gripping something in the folds of his jacket. Noon reached into his pocket.

"Leave it." said the woman, opening her violin case and propping her feet up on the table in front of her.

The man in the hood paused, and stepped forward more slowly, drawing out a pair of glasses. Without turning, the bouncer took them from him and put them on. He took the note from Noon, unfolded it, and he began to read. After a few moments, he handed it back to Noon. "A'rite." he said. "Enter at your own risk, mate."

Noon stepped into the bar, glass grinding under his feet. It was a clean coat, in contrast to the bar and the people in it. A girl in a blue hoodie and a gas mask quick stepped up, hopping to the side of the bouncer without a word and fell in behind Noon. "I'm with him." she said.

"She's with me." said Noon.

Noon came to a stop in the middle of the bar and looked around.

"You look like an idiot in here in the cowboy getup." said the girl. The denizens of the bar all wore black, mostly shirts with the logos of bands and they only knew what else on them. Noon wore a brown leather coat and hat, a bolo tie, and high leather boots. The bartender and the woman with the violin case both watched the two of them.

"Shush you." said Noon.

The two of them stepped towards the table of the woman with the Violin case.

As they stepped forward, the girl wrapped her hands around something in the pocket of her hoodie.

The woman at the table held up a finger. "Stop."

The two of them stopped.

The woman reached into the violin case, and the two of them tensed. The girl began to pull out her hands, and Noon shifted his weight and held the briefcase in front of himself in both hands.

The woman pulled out a violin.

The two of them relaxed.

The woman set her bow to string, but before she could play her first note, a middle aged asian man with bleached blonde hair opened a door to the side of her table. "Oh, Noon, don't let her keep you, she just likes to hear herself play."

Noon tipped his hat, and the girl chuckled.

"Much obliged" said noon.

Moments later they sat in King's office surrounded by a dozen or so similar looking band posters and a single poorly hand written note written in Khmer and framed. King wore a black shirt with no logo on it, and tight black jeans with a chrome chain looped from one pocket to the belt. He was built like a brick wall. His jacket barely fit him. He sat on his desk rather than behind it. "So what's the occasion?" he asked, smiling.

Noon set his suitcase on the desk. King smiled, slow and wide. "You brought me something I can make some money off of?"

Noon opened the case and King shook his head, clicking his teeth. "It's pure?"

At that the girl narrowed her eyes.

"Pure as anything you find on the trail's going to be." said Noon holding up a clear white stone. "Found it out on a hike, and knowin' it was your birthday coming, I figure'd you'd like it."

The girl blinked.

Noon handed King the stone and King held it up to the light. "Very cool." he said. "I miss our Geode team." He set the stone down on his desk, and his smile slipped. "Now, we do have some business to do." he said softly.

Noon pulled a stuffed bear out of the suitcase. The girl gasped.

King and Noon both looked at the girl, confused for a second. She shrugged. "It's nothing." she said.

King and Noon both laughed. "I know your granddaughter would have thrown a real fit if I visited you and didn't leave her a present."

King smiled and shook his head. "Nah, she's a good girl. She wouldn't complain, but she'd be sad, and I'd have hated to disappoint her."

Noon nodded to the note on the wall. "She's growing up."

King threw his hands up in the air. "She's already writing in more languages than I can speak. She'll be incredible someday. Hell, she already is!"

Minutes later, Noon and the girl were out on the street again. The bouncer was sweeping up the broken glass.

"That was weird." said the girl.

"What was weird about it?" asked Noon, straightening his hat as they walked.

"That place seemed shady. You said you knew that guy from way back but he was super wild. I thought they were going to pull a gun on you."

Noon coughed violently. "Lord, girl!" he said "He's a party animal is all. King's a serious businessman!"

The girl shrugged. "Well, it also really sounded like you were about to sell him drugs in there. Like, a stuffed bear? Pure rocks? Was that another one of your puns?"

Noon stopped dead in his tracks. "For fucks sake you little cunt!" he shouted. "I stick my fucking neck out for you all this time and you think I'd sell fucking drugs in this town?"

The girl turned, eyebrows raised. "Hey keep it PG-13, I'm still a kid."

Noon shook his head and sighed. "Have a little faith." he muttered.

The girl rolled her eyes.

"What are you going to do when all of this is over?"

I never thought of an answer.

She didn't look at me, just waited for me to say something back. I don’t think she cared if I answered or not. She was watching the canal, leaning against the railing on the boat's bow. One hand was curled around the railing, pushing her shoulder up, turning her body to slope forward. Her other drifted lazy in the air, one finger cutting left to right as we went around a bend. I couldn't see her eyes. If I could, I know they would have been focused in the little lights in their corners, information I'll never see flashing straight into her optical nerve.

The boat turned, and the motor sagged from a distant hum into a brief, violent chug before stopping altogether. We stepped down the ramp in the loping hops that disembarking from a not quite stationary motorboat requires. It was cold out. The sun was just far enough gone that the corners of things were hidden, but not quite enough that the streetlights came on.

An old woman in tight pants met us with a tighter smile. I tried to act surprised, chewed my lip. She blinked at us, and Elle blinked back.

Fighting the wind, the old woman brushed her hair out of her eyes and held it to the side of her ponytail. "We've found someone on the inside." she said. "You'll like it."

Elle cocked her head. Their eyes flashed, and Elle grinned.

---

The room was larger than it needed to be, with only two lamps set in the ceiling at the far end for light. There was nothing in it but two chairs and the table between us. Behind me was the door, and behind my interrogator was a frosted glass window.

"I know you don't want to think of this as an interrogation, but it is necessary." the interrogator said.

"Of course."

The interrogator flicked their finger. A light flashed in the corner of their eye. "How well do you know Elle?"

"We used to drink together. She's serious, never smiles, but she has a lot of good ideas." I paused just long enough for the silence to hang in the air. "Fun ones. We went to a wine tour at a museum once." I paused again, shorter. "With my wife of course." I added.

The interrogator tapped their finger. "Do you know this man."

I blinked. "I'm sorry." I said, trailing off.

The interrogator tapped their finger again. "What about this woman?"

I chewed on my lip. "I don't have implants. They took my glasses at the door."

The interrogator blinked, exhaled a burst of air all at once. "Of course." The interrogator smiled. "We'll save that for later then."

I smiled back.

---

Six O'clock, every storefront on the corner trying too hard to look like a corner in Paris. The morning fog hadn't dissipated, and most of the tables outside still had chairs on them. One didn't. A woman in black glasses sat at the table with a chair pulled out for Elle. The woman had dry black hair with bright red roots, the kind of red you don't get without bleach and dye.

"Hey." said the woman with the black hair.

"Hey." said Elle, her eyes a little narrow.

"Are you going to sit down?" the woman asked.

Elle blinked, nodded. "Yes. Of course." She sat.

The woman raised her eyebrows, took a sip of coffee. "You need a vacation."

Elle shook her head, incredulous. "Is that a joke?"

The woman rolled her eyes. "Yes, that was a joke." She slid forward, elbows on the table, and she took her glasses off.

Elle inhaled, slightly, sharply. She looked away. First at me across the street, then down at her feet.

The woman grimaced. "You know for someone who wanted to meet so badly, you don't seem excited to see me."

Elle shook her head, eyes closed. "I'm sorry. It's, ah." She opened her eyes, made eye contact. "You look just like her. Just like she used to." Before Elle could bring herself to ask, she let the moment fill with silence. "What's your name?"

The woman leaned back, grinned, spread her arms. "Oh come on, that's too easy."

Elle folded her hands on the table. She glanced down. Then she made eye contact, shifting her weight, letting her nervous energy out of her legs and out of the conversation. "What do you call yourself."

The woman's smile slipped, her arms hanging limp on the back of her chair. She chewed on the moment. "Zero."

Elle frowned, closed her eyes, and reached into her coat. The woman shifted her body forward, fidgeting deliberately, moving everything but her left hand.

I didn't like it. “Elle," I said. But she didn't respond. Her eyes were on the woman in front of her. For the first time, she ignored the lights in the corner of her eyes.

Elle slid an envelope across the table. "This is it."

The woman flipped open the envelope, glanced down with her eyes, neck steady. It wasn't sealed. "Plane tickets?"

"China."

"Why?"

Elle cut in. Her voice cracked. She swallowed and started again. "I want you to be safe." she closed her eyes. "You're all I care about."

The woman huffed, shook her head. After a long pause, "Can I ask you something?"

Elle's face was tight. "Anything." she said then, struggling to keep her face in line.

The woman chewed her lip. She leaned forward, putting her sunglasses back on, one eyebrow cocked. She asked Elle a question. Elle never answered, because Zero moved her finger and Elle died.

---

"Thanks." I smiled at the guard. The guard gave me a half smile back, and left the room. I forgot about the glasses in my hand for a moment and watched the guard leave. When the door closed, I put the glasses back on and nodded to my interrogator. "Thanks." Again.

My interrogator sat upright, arms folded in their lap. They nodded. "Of course." They tapped their finger, and my glasses lit up, projecting an image of an old woman with a tight smile. "Do you know this woman?"

"No."

The interrogator tapped their finger again. "What about this one."

"Of course." I said it, confused. Before I had the words out, they caught in my throat.

The image projected into my eyes was a young woman, frowning. Her hair was white. The corners of the interrogator's mouth turned up, briefly.

I chewed on my lip. "That's an agent, one of the field agents, isn't it?" I asked the interrogator.

The interrogator did not respond.

We sat in silence for several seconds. I counted my breathing. "I think that's one of the agent's that was... taken from her mother."

"Whose mother." the interrogator was ready with the words.

"Elle's mother." I didn't think then because I had thought so much already about Elle. I was tired. "Why are you asking me this." I didn't get an answer. "They're all dead."

The interrogator smiled. "This is agent Zero."

Before the weight of that statement could hang in the air, I responded. "If Elle knew there was one left, she would find them."

"She would stop, and look for them."

---

The bullet didn't hang in the air. First it had not been fired, and then Elle was on the ground in a bed of a broken chair, and the bullet had bounced off of the cobblestones and buried itself in a wall. A breath later there was a crack. The sound didn't last, but it's echoes left down the street behind us at a leisurely pace. I ran to her side.  

"This isn't what I wanted." I held her by the shoulders, struggling to keep grip without moving her torso. I could feel the blood, but couldn't see it yet.

"This isn't what any of us wanted." she said. Her mouth was tight. She didn't match my gaze but not because she couldn't. Her eyes weren’t narrow in the fading sag of someone losing their grip but with anger, frustration. "I fucked up." she said. Her mouth was red at the edges. "The rest of you can still do it."

I narrowed mine to match hers.

"Find her." she hissed, and her eyes flashed red, gaze fixed on the data outrunning her.

"I'll find her." I lied.

She smiled. "Good." she said, and she looked at me for the first time in weeks. She didn't smile. She did reach towards me with her right arm, and I held onto it. She didn't have a hand to hold onto, only a burnt twist of wire and gunmetal. I held onto it until she died.  

I'm told I seem happy now, but I never wasn't.

Never's a strong word, but at least recently. I've been happy for a while.

I'm told I seem happy in that no-chill way that one enacts happiness.

It's not false.

A white man in the body of a wise woman once said to a talking horse,

"There's no such thing as deep down, just what you do."

But that's bullshit, there is.

It's the fire to the smoke.

You know what comes next.

You fill yourself up with happiness until it's bursting out of the seems.

It's like a needle, there has to be so much that some leaks out before you know you have enough.

But then the seems come apart, and you're stretched out and tired.

Just tired.

You lay there doing nothing, wishing you were hungry enough to get up and eat.

Only when that passes do you feel grief.

Only then, when the you've got a moment to stitch up your seams and reflate your body and get up and go run.

Only after all that do you have the energy to remember that people are dead, and you inherited their splendor.

And you sit, tragic and beautiful in a dress of skulls that you can't show to anyone.

And to avoid showing anyone, you fill yourself up with grief.

Until you're bursting at the seams.

The man who said that the commons was a tragedy recanted.

The "Unmanaged Commons" was the tragedy, he said.

The people we know live inside our heads.

And there's no one to manage us.

(CW for racial segregation) The lab was white, the kind of uniform white that makes everything brighter, the better to see how pristine and white everything is. Everything in that room was white. White tables, white instruments, the doors were white, the lab coats were white, the glass on the observation window was so clean that you could only see the plain white room on the other side, a room with nothing but a white box in it. The scientists were all white. Half a dozen white old men in white lab coats with white hair looking through the glass into that white room and none of them said a word.

Only one lab assistant was in that day, and he came through the door holding a little hand in his. At the end of that little hand was an arm that lead all the way up to a little girl in a black dress and red shoes. That little girl was why he was worried.

She had her mouth open when they came in. One of the scientists turned to look at her and her father for just a moment, and she closed it and looked down at her feet. But the old white man didn't look at her long. If you asked the girl then why she was afraid of the old white man's look she couldn’t have told you, and it wouldn’t have concerned her. That was how her father liked it. Knowing is hard. She had known before though, and she would know again. This was why he was worried.

The girl and her father shared a secret smile, and the girl's heart raced. She didn't know what she was going to see, and that excited her. They looked through the glass with the old men, behind them but in the same room, looking through the same glass. All of them watched the box on the other side of the glass glow white hot and flicker. That was nothing new.

They watched this box every day. On that day, though, that father took his daughter with him like she always asked him to, because she had asked him to. This was why he was worried.

But then the box exploded, and for the first time she knew again what she had come that day to see. Eleven years earlier, the girl held the box firmly in her hand and told her father exactly what it could do, and she asked him to have taken her into that lab.

I was tired, tired like I hadn’t been since before the powers. It was dark, but something inside me told my pupils not to dilate, to stay ready for the light.

It was midnight up on the side of a mountain in Colorado you’ve never heard of. It took me almost two hours after I got the call to run down there from New York. There wasn’t a road, just an unmarked helicopter pad, and a hatch on the forest floor with NORAD painted on the side in bright yellow Helvetica.

I could smell the guns coming for me, and I could hear soldiers snapping twigs in the underbrush even if I couldn’t see them. I was tired, but I still had a million and a half New Yorkers wishing for me. That’s how the power works. Psychic energy. They have to want me to have it.

I should have known why I was tired. Kids with machine guns are easy, but I was slow, and before I finished cracking their skulls, the hatch opened up. I was glad my eyes hadn’t adjusted to the darkness then; the nuke left a trail brighter than the sun, knocked all of us on our asses. Probably killed most of the soldiers trying to kill me. And when I tried to get up, I couldn’t. Too tired.

as the nuke trailed off into the sky, the dark settled back in and the red glow of the dial on my arm was all the light I had left. It read 1.00, the strength of one. I was tired because I was on my own. They were gone. New York was gone. Even we couldn’t stop Nuclear war.

I crawled over to the silo and laid there, and I looked down. It was deep, maybe deep enough to die in, quicker than cancer at least.

But I’m afraid she might be here, for just a flicker, on her journey through the time stream. She can move backwards and forwards, loop around to try again and again, but I know she feels every second. I know how tired she is. I know how much work she did just to give me this shot.

I can’t see her face, but if she saw mine I couldn't live with myself. So I get up, even though I’m tired.

I go back to work, gathering wishes for the next fight, not so I can win, but so that after I lose, I can get back up.

I told my shrink, who is the smartest person I know, about the time I told a room of my friends the joke that the Vision told to his wife a joke.

"I said, 'I never really cared about the vision until he got his own comic'" I said to my shrink.

I said "'He builds himself a family and live a normal life, you know because he's lonely as a robot or whatever, and it goes about as well as you'd expect' I said."

"I said, 'After his wife kills a boy on accident because his father tried to make them leave the neighborhood, they're in bed." I said.

"''Two toasters are sitting on the counter, and one toaster turns to the other. 'what do you think is the meaning of our existence' it says.' he said' I said" I said to my shrink.

“My god! It’s a talking toaster!’ It said’ he said’ I said” I said.

And the Vision’s wife turned to him and smiled. My friends all smiled. My shrink smiled. I smiled, twice. It wasn’t a particularly funny joke, but everyone smiled anyway. We were all just glad to have a toaster to talk to.

---

So this guy wants to be a superhero and he goes down to Avenger’s mansion to sign up. When he gets there, Jarvis the butler greets him, and he says:

“I’m here to be a superhero!”

And Jarvis tells him he can’t be a superhero if he doesn’t have any powers, so he says he’ll come back when he has powers.

So this guy goes out and gets some sketchy mad scientist to experiment on him so he gets super strength, and he goes back to Avenger’s mansion and he says:

“I’ve got super strength and I’m here to be a superhero!”

And Jarvis tells him to go right on in.

So this guy walks into the front room and Hawkeye is sitting there reading ’Archers Quarterly” or something ridiculous like that, and Hawkeye asks the guy who he is, and the guy says:

“I’ve got super strength and I’m here to be a superhero!”

And Hawkeye tells him that it’s not all about super strength. To be a superhero, you have to actually be a hero, so he tells the guy to go save some people.

So this guy goes out and saves some people from a rampaging Rhino Guy or something, and he comes back to Avenger’s mansion, and when he gets to the lobby Jarvis is there, and Jarvis’s eyesight is getting pretty bad in his old age, so he doesn’t recognise the guy and he asks who he is, and the guy says:

“I’ve got super strength and I used it to stop the Rhino Guy and I’m here to be a superhero!”

And Jarvis tells him to go right on in.

So this guy goes into the front room of the mansion again, and there’s Hawkeye still reading his magazine, and he stop the guy, and the guy says:

“I’ve got super strength, and I used it to stop the Rhino Guy and I’m here to be a superhero!”

And Hawkeye tells him to go right on in.

So this guy heads into the mansion proper and he bumps into Iron man in the hall who is on his way to a meeting or something. Now, sure Hawkeye is a superhero, but Iron man is a big deal and this guy is kinda starstruck and he asks for Iron Man’s autograph, and Iron man gives it because he loves the attention, and while he’s signing he asks the guy where he’s headed and the guy says:

“I’ve got super strength, and I used it to stop the Rhino guy, and I’m here to be a superhero!”

And Iron man, who is kind of a jerk in addition to being a sucker for attention, laughs at the guy and tells him he never would have known. He tells this guy he needs to get a rad costume if he’s going to be a superhero.

So this guy goes out and shops around and has a tailor cut him a cape and so forth and he comes back with a rad costume, and he goes back to the mansion, and there’s Jarvis, who if he can’t recognise the guys without a costume sure as heck doesn’t know who the guy is in red tights and a cape, so he asks who the guy is and the guy says:

“I’ve got super strength, and I used it to stop the Rhino guy, and as you can see I have a rad costume, and I’m here to be a superhero!”

And Jarvis tells him to go right on in.

So the guy goes into the front room, and Hawkeye’s still there reading his magazine and he’s sees this guy in the tights and has no idea who he is, and so he asks him who he is, and the guy says:

I’ve got super strength, and I used it to stop the Rhino guy, and as you can see I have a rad costume, and I’m here to be a superhero!”

And Hawkeye tells him to go right on in.

So the guy heads in and Iron man is coming out of his meeting and and sees this guy in the whole getup and because he’s kind of a jerk asks the guy who he is just to make him feel inadequate. Well the guy is pretty hyped at this point, really feeling like a superhero, so he puffs out his chest and says:

“I’ve got super strength, and I used it to stop the Rhino guy, and as you can see I have a rad costume, and I’m here to be a superhero!”

So the guy keeps on going and he realizes he has no idea where he’s headed. He takes the first door he sees and he ends up in this super science lab, and there’s this guy in a lab coat leaning into this glowy green stuff and when the guy walks in, this scientist turns around all angry, and his eyes are glowing green, and he asks the guy what he wants. Now, this guy knows his super heroes, he’s into this stuff and that’s why he wants to be one, so he knows this guy is Bruce Banner the Hulk and if he gets mad all hell could break loose, so he explains himself. He says:

“I’ve got super strength and I used it to stop of the Rhino guy, and as you can see I have a rad costume, and I’m here to be a superhero!”

And Banner, because he’s a scientist, just looks at this guy, and he tells him there’s no way. See Super heroes deal with some weird shit on a daily basis, and Banner tells him; if he wants to play in the big leagues he’s going to have to understand what he’s dealing with, and that’s some pretty advanced science.

So the guy thanks him, and he leaves, and he thinks for a bit on how he’s going to handle this one. So he applies to a bunch of universities, hangs up the suit, and eventually gets accepted to one. After years of study he finally gets his degree in advanced particle physics, and he busts out the suit again, gets it tailored again because at this point he’s grown a bit, and heads back down to Avengers mansion.

Of course after all these years, the Avengers have moved to Avenger’s tower, so the new owner of the mansion tells him that and he heads off again.

When he gets to the tower, Jarvis is there to meet him, only it isn’t the kickass old butler, it’s a creepy hologram of the old butler. It’s cool in that super science kind of way, but creepy because it’s almost too real. Anyway, the hologram asks him this pre-recorded message about who he is and why he’s there, and the guy says:

“I’ve got super strength and I used it to beat the rhino guy, and as you can see I have a rad costume, and I have a degree in advanced particle physics, and I’m here to be a superhero!”

And the hologram tells him to go right on in.

So the guy goes in and sits in the waiting room, and Hawkeye is in there for some reason, and it’s been years and they only met a few times, and it was pretty brief, so Hawkeye has no idea who he is. So Hawkeye, he stop the guy and asks who he is, and the guy says:

“I’ve got super strength and I used it to beat the rhino guy, and as you can see I have a rad costume, and I have a degree in advanced particle physics, and I’m here to be a superhero!”

And Hawkeye says go right on in.

So the guy goes on in, and he runs into Iron man, who is talking to someone on a super advanced hands free phone thingy that just beams the sound right into his brain and projects a real time picture of the person into his eyes. He literally runs into the guy because he’s distracted by his gadget, sio he’s all angry at the guy (even though it’s really his fault) and demands to know who he is, and the guy says:

“I’ve got super strength and I used it to beat the rhino guy, and as you can see I have a rad costume, and I have a degree in advanced particle physics, and I’m here to be a superhero!”

So Iron man’s still mad but he knows it’s his fault, so he just tells the guy to go right on in, but all huffy.

So the guy goes into the tower proper and tries to find his way around, but the tower is way bigger than Avenger’s mansion, so he gets lost and just tries a door at random. He goes in, and it’s a gym with one kid working out. The kid sets down his bars, which are massive, and just good naturedly asks the guy who he is and where he’s headed, and the guy says:

“I’ve got super strength and I used it to beat the rhino guy, and as you can see I have a rad costume, and I have a degree in advanced particle physics, and I’m here to be a superhero!”

So the kid gives him directions and tells him to go right on ahead.

So the guy went to leave, but he ran into a huge blonde dude on his way out of the gym, and the dude was just surprised to see someone he didn’t recognise, and he was kind of stressed out, so he asked who the guy was, and the guy, who totally recognized that this dude was Thor, god of thunder, arguably the most badass of the Avengers, stammered out his answer. He said:

“I’ve got super strength and I used it to beat the rhino guy, and as you can see I have a rad costume, and I have a degree in advanced particle physics, and I’m here to be a superhero!”

And Thor sighed. He told the guy about how he lost his magic Hammer Mjolnir, and he told the guy that if he wanted to go join the Avengers that was his choice, but he should probably be able to wrap his head around the cosmic magic that the Avengers often came into contact with so that he would be ready for it and he wouldn’t get screwed by magic the way Thor did.

The guy took the advice to heart, because you don’t just ignore advice from a literal god, and he set out for a magic journey to figure out how he could prepare himself for the challenges an Avenger would face. He tried to get an audience with Doctor Strange, the sorcerer supreme, but the Doctor is a busy man, and he couldn’t get an appointment. He was wandering New York dejectedly, when he ran into a street Magician who introduced himself as Senior Magico. Bewildered, he accepted a magic amulet from Senior Magico, who insisted that a prophecy foretold that he would need it to meet his destiny. The guy took the amulet and after a few days noticed that things were going his way. He eventually realized that the Amulet made him lucky, so he figured if he couldn’t get an audience with Doctor Strange, a lucky amulet would do the trick for now. So, the guy headed back to the tower, and of course was greeted by the creepy holographic butler, so he said:

“I’ve got super strength and I used it to beat the rhino guy, and as you can see I have a rad costume, and I have a degree in advanced particle physics, I have a lucky amulet to protect me from fel magic, and I’m here to be a superhero!”

So the creepy holographic butler told him to go right on in.

The guy went into the waiting room, and there was this girl waiting there in a purple outfit with a bow that he didn’t recognise. She noticed him looking at her funny and she kind of snapped at him and asked what he was about, so he said:

“I’ve got super strength and I used it to beat the rhino guy, and as you can see I have a rad costume, and I have a degree in advanced particle physics, I have a lucky amulet to protect me from fel magic, and I’m here to be a superhero!”

And the girl rolled her eyes and said he could go right on in.

So he headed in, and he tried a different door than he had last time, and this time he came in on Iron man writing something on a chalkboard. Well, Iron man wasn’t happy about being interrupted, but he’s a sucker for attention, so he asked the guy to explain himself, and the guy said:

“I’ve got super strength and I used it to beat the rhino guy, and as you can see I have a rad costume, and I have a degree in advanced particle physics, I have a lucky amulet to protect me from fel magic, and I’m here to be a superhero!”

Iron man realizes that this is the same boring guy that keeps running into him, so he shoos him away and tells him to go right on ahead.

So the guy goes back out into the hall, and as he is, the kid from earlier is coming out of the gym, and asks him how he’s doing, and the guy says:

“I’ve got super strength and I used it to beat the rhino guy, and as you can see I have a rad costume, and I have a degree in advanced particle physics, I have a lucky amulet to protect me from fel magic, and I’m here to be a superhero!”

So the kid tells him right on, and that he can go right on ahead.

But just as the guy is getting ready to, Thor, or the guy that used to be Thor until he lost his magic hammer Mjiolnir, comes heading into the gym, and he asks the guy how his quest goes, so the guy puffs up his chest and tells him:

“I’ve got super strength and I used it to beat the rhino guy, and as you can see I have a rad costume, and I have a degree in advanced particle physics, I have a lucky amulet to protect me from fel magic, and I’m here to be a superhero!”

So Thor gives him the thumbs up and tells him to go right on ahead.

So the guy heads up the tower and comes into the audition room, and bam, there he is, captain freaking, America. Captain America gives him a kindly old man smile and asks him what he’s there for, so the guy says:

“I’ve got super strength and I used it to beat the rhino guy, and as you can see I have a rad costume, and I have a degree in advanced particle physics, I have a lucky amulet to protect me from fel magic, and I’m here to be a superhero!”

And Cap’ tells him he’s doing a good job, but if he’s going to join the avengers, he’s missing something crucial. Great heroes have a rogues gallery; a bunch of villains that they thwart on a regular basis, but most importantly, a villain they’ve got a rivalry with, a nemesis, like Captain America and the Red Skull. Sure he fought this Rhino guy, but anyone could do that; there’s no rivalry, no grudge. The guy just feels like an idiot because, of course he needs a nemesis! So he heads out to get one.

Just as he’s leaving the tower, he runs into this evil guy who’s on a crime spree and he tries to stop him. The guy escapes, but he keeps on him for weeks. First one has the upper hand, then the other, and he keeps getting better and better at stopping the guy. The problem is, the guy keeps getting bigger and badder. First he has a death ray, then he has a doom machine, then he’s going to drop a meteor on the planet. Finally, the guy has the evil guy down for the count, the he locks him away and throws away the key. He’s siure the evil guy will get out eventually, but while he waits, he heads to Avenger’s tower, where he is, of course, greeted by the creepy holographic butler, who asks him what his business is, so he says:

“I’ve got super strength and I used it to beat the rhino guy, and as you can see I have a rad costume, and I have a degree in advanced particle physics, I have a lucky amulet to protect me from fel magic, and I have used all of this to thwart the evil guy time and time again, and I’m here to be a superhero!”

So the holographic Jarvis tells him to go right on in.

In the waiting room, Hawkeye comes busting out of a hallway chasing after the woman in the purple outfit, and they’re arguing about who gets to call themselves Hawkeye, and he’s just awkwardly stuck in the middle of it, so they both give him this dirty look. He doesn’t know what else to do, so he says:

“I’ve got super strength and I used it to beat the rhino guy, and as you can see I have a rad costume, and I have a degree in advanced particle physics, I have a lucky amulet to protect me from fel magic, and I have used all of this to thwart the evil guy time and time again, and I’m here to be a superhero!”

And Hawkeye rolls her eyes and tells him to go right on in.

So he head on in, and as he’s going by the gym, well, it’s the usual time of day, so the buff kid is coming out. The guy's seen this kid a few times now, so he asks him for his name and the kid introduces himself as Amadeus Cho, the totally awesome hulk, and he asks the guy what he’s got going on this time, so the guys says:

“I’ve got super strength and I used it to beat the rhino guy, and as you can see I have a rad costume, and I have a degree in advanced particle physics, I have a lucky amulet to protect me from fel magic, and I have used all of this to thwart the evil guy time and time again, and I’m here to be a superhero!”

So Cho, the Totally awesome Hulk, wishes him luck and tells him to go on ahead.

So he heads in and finds himself in the elevator with a blonde woman in a costume he recognizes. He asks her if she’s related to Thor, and she tells him she is Thor, Goddess of Thunder, and he tells her that’s pretty dang cool, and she thanks him. She asks who he is out of politeness, and he says:

“I’ve got super strength and I used it to beat the rhino guy, and as you can see I have a rad costume, and I have a degree in advanced particle physics, I have a lucky amulet to protect me from fel magic, and I have used all of this to thwart the evil guy time and time again, and I’m here to be a superhero!”

So she wishes him luck and says he can go right on in.

So the guy heads on up the tower and finds himself once again in the audition room, and a different guy in Captain America’s outfit is sitting across the table from him. The guy asks him why he should be an Avenger, and he puffs out his chest, and a Toaster comes flying in through the window, hits him in the head and kills him dead.

"And there he is! Happy founder's day!" They exchanged brief kisses on the cheek, each of them in their holiday best, a pair of golden haired heroes celebrating a patriotic holiday together, mother and son. She wore a snug black dress, high neck and sleeves that met her opera gloves seamlessly. He wore a tuxedo and a tie so red it was almost black but couldn’t be called dower His blonde hair caught the light and all the black made a backdrop for his smile. For a moment, they were about the be genuinely happy to see each other.

The boy broke the moment.

"I wish you wouldn't wear those shoes every year."

Her shoes were tall pumps, black soles with a clear plastic body and an open toe, almost too small for her, but she was careful with her body even if she was getting old. She only wore them one day a year but she would be damned if she would let herself stop. She needed these shoes. They were traditional, "glass" shoes for the women of the nation, but for her, this pair, these shoes, even if you could call them retro, out of style, old after all these years, these shoes were her tradition. The shoes she wore the night she met the prince.

She put her hand on his shoulder, smiling. "Oh but I wear them every year. And they're so beautiful."

He sighed, and his smile grew in that forced way that smiles grow when their owners don't want to let them shrink. "You look beautiful in anything."

She turned and stepped quickly into the living room, small steps that fit inside her dress, but graceful; dainty and quick. She called him to follow her with her fingers, painted nails like red jewels curling one at a time comfortably into her palm. She lifted a golden bottle in one hand and two glasses deftly in the other. She curtsied. Both glasses already has an ice cube in them, not yet begun to melt even in the summer air, almost as if she'd been watching her window, waiting for him to start up the elevator, ready to make sure as soon as he arrived that everything would be as perfect as she could make it. "Oh but it's not about me." she said with a smile, nodding to the tension in the air by pretending she couldn't feel it. "Have you seen the tele?"

He set his coat on the rack and pulled at his tie. "No I haven't.". He took a class from her, their fingers brushing. "Good news I hope?"

She lifted the remote in one hand and the bottle in the other. The general murmur of patriotic bluster crept up until the words could spell out the night's propaganda just as the camera zoomed in on the prince, and... she poured into his class until the ice just crested the surface of the whiskey. By now, the ice had begun to melt.

He sat down on the couch and she on the armchair, legs crossed, and she let the bottle and her glass down with an elegant clink on the crystal table between them.

He held his, and rolled his first taste over in his mouth a second time, using the excuse to mask that his grimace was more than was patriotically acceptable.

"I hope the parliament stands up to him this year." he said. She could feel her skin getting hot already.

She smiled, playfully, conspicuously absent any offence. "I wouldn't know about that, but don't you think she's beautiful? The mother batted her eyelashes for her son, and he looked as he knew she wanted him to. She smiled the wide smile of someone who doesn't know how not to smile. "I like to think we have the same eyes."

On the television was the prince, and a new woman high on a balcony. Time had been there was a new woman every year, but he'd gotten old, and it had been years since a woman had last leaned on his arm, smiled for the nation, pretending like everyone else, in the way that only someone who knows that it might be true can, that she could still be hanging from the arm of his trim velvet coat in the morning, grinning pearls and waving with gold on her fingers.

Her son took a gulp of whiskey. "How can you talk like that about him." He sighed, expelling his reservations by convincing himself that they were naturally leaving him, billowing out with his breath. "I feel sorry for the poor girl.

There was a pause while the moment hung in the air until she couldn't pretend it was smalltalk anymore. She waved her hand, to dismiss him, glass on her lips. "Oh you." she said, letting out a laugh like a summer breeze as golden as the whiskey but cut short by a door that should have eased shut but swung, sharp, closed. "You never could let him be, even on founder's day." She smiled, even as his lips began to form the response, because she knew that she could only pretend to be happy until those words came tumbling into her evening.

"But he did rape you, didn't he?"

She looked down into her glass, and for just a moment let her smile peel away like makeup. "Yes of course he did." she said, raising her chin, scolding her son, not with the rage and horror that she knew she ought to have, but as a mother scolding an impertinent child. "You know he did. But you know I don't like you talking like that."

She leaned back into a position of regal relaxation, forced, fake, fooling herself as much as her son, one leg reclining on the other, her body curving up into her chair, one arm relaxed at her side, and the other leaning gently on the arm, holding her glass a few inches from her lips, like a servant waiting at the edge of their master’s reach for a single command. "Besides, the man's a gentleman. He always treated me well."

The boy scoffed, and she sat bolt upright.

"What was that?" she said it sharply, too sharply; she could feel the tears at the corners of her eyes; she didn't blame him. She blamed herself, all the more for being too sharp with him, all the more because she couldn't control her own response, all the more because he was the last one, all the more because…

"After all, he gave me you."

And the tears welled up, because she couldn't find a way to make sense of it, the blaming.

His hair was short, but not buzzed. Manly, old fashioned, just long enough that in moments like this, at the end of a long day, with his tie hanging undone and crumpled but somehow still symmetrical, his hair hung, too, pointing down, drawing the line from his face to the bottom of the glass without hiding his eyes, eyes that drew the same line at first but began to peal desperately away. She imagined that he never shaved, and that the shadow across his face, as neat as it was, just lived there and stayed much shorter than it would for other, lesser men, like twilight on a winter day. Even now, after everything, the boy was still beautiful, like his…

"I'm not saying I don't believe you. I'll always be on your side, I'm just saying... I don't know what I'm saying." He looked up, and ran his hand through his hair. His eyes caught the shine of the TV. "Life's just been complicated is all."

She smiled at him. It was the kind of wide grin she'd always given when she met a new man. She knew she was getting older, god did she know how old she was, but smiling for a boy like this the way she used to smile for boys like him made her feel like she was young again, scared, foolish, so foolish, but young. And wasn't that just the most foolish thing about it all.

"I know." she said, and she put her hand on his cheek, letting herself believe that he felt like her little boy again. "Life is difficult for all of us." Her hand was shaking. "I don't care what anyone believes but you, you know."

He took her hand. His eyes weren't focused on hers anymore. He smiled, but his eyes were far away, and he held her hand in his long enough that his became stiff but not long enough that hers relaxed. "Happy founder's day." he said, softly, like he cared.

He stood up to leave.

"You're not staying for the fireworks?" She said it too quickly, jerking forward in her chair to keep her eyes on him in the hallway. As soon as she did, she hated herself for it. She hated herself for being cross with the boy for blaming him, all the more because she blamed herself, for blaming the boy, for blaming the prince, who she didn't blame, because he gave her the boy, who she blamed, for blaming the prince, who she couldn't blame, because-

"No." he said, smiling with less feeling, less effort, but more comfort. "I promised some folks from the office." he clicked his teeth. "There's a girl. You always tell me I need to find a girl."

"She can come here, I'd love to meet her." the mother said, her voice cracking. She didn't let herself notice.

"Next year." he said. He didn't even say goodbye.

She fell apart into her chair, her smile unfolding into the cracked face of an old woman. There wouldn't be another next year and she knew it.

She stood up, suddenly, holding her limbs close to her body, unsure of herself, afraid to take up space in her own home. She could already see her makeup running. She held her glass, shaking, for almost a minute, eyes on the television, on him, and she threw it.

She missed the television, and she knew that was right. It was right that her own failure should save her from ruining such a lovely gift. It shattered on the table, and she collapsed into the carpet, wet with the smell of scotch and her own sweat and perfume, and blood. She stared down at her hand, cut by the glass. Sobbing she held it up. How stupid could she be? She was nothing but a girl, a stupid girl who couldn't even control her own emotions, who was silly enough to think about something like how beautiful the blood and the glass looked on her fingers.

And through her fingers she saw, in the flickering light of her new television, the prince, blood and glass tangled in his hair, falling, and the young woman, scared and angry and tiny and giant all at once, her golden hair flowing as the clock struck midnight and the world behind her lit up in patriotic expression, a single, broken, glass slipper in her hand, and the world saw the truth.

And the mother cried, really cried, sobbing great wet heaving sobs that she couldn't control, and held herself, doubled over in the wreckage of her living room and her life. She cried because the girl on the television was young and she wasn't. She cried because the girl was beautiful and she wasn't. She cried because she was afraid that no one would believe in that girl the way they never believed in her, and because she was afraid they might believe the girl they way they never had her. She cried, as she cried every year on the same night, because she wasn't as strong as that girl; she cried because she didn't want to be as strong as that girl, and she hated it.