The little kid was tugging at his cape.
"But you're the super hero! You're supposed to do whats right and save the day!"
He had finally had enough. He spun around so quickly to face the kid that the boy lost his balance and fell face forward in the mud. He didn't notice the mud, though. All he saw was the kid's look of disappointment, and it looked so much like his own face in the mirror every morning that he couldn't take it.
"Fine kid! you wanna be the hero, here! be the hero," at this he ripped off the cape the kid had given him, and threw it down in the mud beside him. The kid just stared. "Being the hero isn't anything to be proud of, you know. Everybody's so damned confident in you winning every time they forget that I'm just a regular person like anybody else! And you know that big Hero's Dilemma that you always dreamed about? Well stop that, because it's the worst one of all. Save the woman you love or a car full of innocent people- its a fucked up situation. Well guess what- when it came to be my turn, I chose the girl, and I saw ten people look at me with disappointment right before their car fell off the cliff. Thats 20 eyes that'll never see another birthday or Christmas, and there's at least ten families here in this city who absolutely hate me.
And then the girl doesn't think she's worth saving after all, not for the price paid, and she kills herself anyways. Sometimes we make the wrong choices, and there isn't a thing you can do about it." He took a deep breath. He could still hear the kid's scream, and he could still see the look of disappointment on the dead girl's eyes. They we're staring right at him. He broke consciousness and looked at the kid, still in the mud, holding the cape as high off the ground so it wouldn't get dirty. He felt dirty. This kid might've been the one last person who believed in him, and he was throwing that away, but he couldn't stop. This kid had to learn that life isn't always like it is in the comic books. The Lone Ranger doesn't always win. "And you know what the worst part is, kid? Its that I never die, and I never forget. Every night I live the same dream over and over, and it never changes. The same people always die, and the girl always dies.
Sometimes I'm in the car with them, you know, on the way down. Even then, in my dreams, I never die. I just see their bodies thrown everywhere, broken on the seats, all staring at me. I'm in the car with the girl, as it slowly sinks in the lake, and she never stops staring at me, not even when the water reaches the top of her head, and and not even when her lungs fill up. I try every night to save them both, and I never do. Live with that, and see if you still want to be a hero".
The kid got up from the mud, and looked at the man standing there. Without a cape, he looked like a gymnast. A drunk, unkempt, foul-mouthed gymnast who hadn't showered for days. He deliberately folded up the cape. "My mom made this for me," he said. "She made it, because I told her more than anything, I wanted to be like my hero and save the world. She gave it to me, and said all I need to do to save the world is do the right thing, always. Even if I'm the only one who stands up for what's right, and everybody is telling me to sit down, then I'll be the only one standing. This is the last thing I have of her, after everything else burned up. And you just tore it off, like it was nothing more than silk and cotton. Keep the damn cape. It means nothing now."
The folded up cape fell back into the mud, where the rain pushed it further, slowly burying it. The kid watched it as it covered with mud. When he looked back up, his eyes we're on the brink of tears. "You're right. We all make mistakes. You made your mistake six years ago. I made mine the day I decided you were my hero. I don't need you." He turned around, heading back to the warehouse, the rain filling in his footsteps as he walked away.
"Where are you going, kid!?"
"I'm going back to try to save that family."
"You'll get killed!"
Here, the kid turned around. He didn't have to yell, the man had super hearing, after all. "Killed? Probably. But at least I tried. And thats more than can be said for the Man Who Doesn't Die. The kid turned back around, and started running for the warehouse.
The hero watched him run, and flew up into the sky to see when he would chicken out. At any moment, he expected to see the kid run back the other way, but he didn't. He ran right into the warehouse. The hero watched from five-hundred feet up as the kid drew his gun and ran blindly in. It only took a split second to realize that this was really happening. He flew down to the warehouse, but not before the interior lit up in bright flashes, the staccato bursts reaching him after the lights. He saw through the large windows the kid fly face first into the ground, large black wet holes in his back growing, and he could see his chest barely moving up and down. A second outburst of gunfire stilled him, and the kid unclenched his fist, and let a little electronic trinket fall from it. He didn't have to be up close to see what it was. It was the communicator device he gave the kid after his mom died in the fire. If he ever needed help, he told him, just push this button.
