Hero

The other side

-And the clock still reads 4:30.

Laura yawns, loud enough for the whole office to hear, hidden in the cubicle next to mine. A small spark jumps over the cubicle wall and almost hits me; I dodge nonchalantly.

"Sorry."

The small spark hits one of the wires coming from my computer.

"It's-"

All of the office goes pitch black, I hear a yelp and see a blue glow emit from around the water cooler, the winter white sun streams through one window no one's shut the blinds to. A collective groan is sounded. I decide to be the job-bearer of turning the fuse back on and grab my flashlight from the desk drawer.

"I got it." Mike speaks up. "Flashlight?"

"Yup, over here."

"Sorry guys." Laura adds again.

Of course, the whole block responds with 'its okays' and 'no worries', because she can't help it, none of us can, that's why we work here. I'm sure most - if not all - of us are really thinking 'there goes half my spreadsheet' and 'literally the third time this week, you'd think in all her 43 years she'd have gotten the hang of it by now.'

But none of us have, we'd be out there if we had, maybe not saving lives or killing innocents but I sure as hell wouldn't be anywhere near the most polluted part of London if I was in anyone else's shoes. I still use those shoes, however, to meet Mike by the elevator, flashlight leading both of our ways.

"They should really move the fuses up to Laura's level."

"Or move Laura down to the basement." Mike jokes a little too loudly, snorting a bit to punctuate his point.

I press the button on the elevator and then realise, for the third time this week; that that's not going to work.

"Dammit." I exclaim lightly.

"Stairs?"

"Yeah, we'll have to."

"Ugh."

We're on the 7th floor, we have to go to the basement, which is below the carpark, so we actually have to go down 9 flights of stairs-no pun intended.

Mike smiles cockily, I begin to walk down the first of 9 stairwells as mike kicks his feet around the tiniest amount, hovering about an inch off the ground.

"Yeah? Try surpassing air traffic, oh wait- " I turn to him, flashing the light in his eyes so he drops almost half an inch down." -you can't go that high."

"Fuck off Trevor." His face scrunches as he regains his minor altitude. "Why don't you just-" He searches for a joke but can't find one, because I don't have anything, I mean I probably do, I just have no clue what it is. " -fuck off."

"Oh wow, reallly good one."

"Dickhead."

"Takes one to know one. Why can't you just pick me up and fly us both down?"

"Do I look like I work out?"

No, he absolutely doesn't. I must be giving him a look that says exactly that.

" -Not everyone is weirdly obsessed with weight training, like you." Is his response to the look.

"I'm so sorry that I don't want to die. You can just fly away anyways."

He scoffs in response, a quick 'I wish' look is shared between us. And eventually, telling everyone on the way down that there's no villain attack it's just Laura again, we end up down at the basement stairwell.

Those red backup lights are on, so I turn my flashlight off.

"What the hell!? Warn a guy!"

"Sorry. Hey maybe I have night vision."

"Lame."

"Rude." I take a step down.

"You're not like, innately terrified of basements?"

"Why would I be?"

"Every horror story ever written maybe?" I can't see his face, but I can just hear the incredulous look he's making at the back of my neck.

"Every time I've been in a basement and not died yet maybe?"

"Nah man, that's crazy, you're crazy." He laughs a little nervously as I open the door to the basement.

The doors pretty creaky by now, no one cares quite enough to oil it, it's become a bit of a management to worker tiff, we wait for them to fix it, they wait for us to do the same.

The red lights buzz in the doorway, they are sort of menacing, now Mike mentions it, but not scary. Just a good place for scary things to happen.

"You know, the ones that show up last are usually the most powerful."

"Are we in a comic book?"

"No. I guess not."

I find the fuse trip, but it hasn't gone off. I flip it off quickly, so the fuse doesn't explode in our faces, or whatever happens, I know it's bad.

"Out, we need another fuse, maybe fuses, not sure."

"Fuck."

"My thoughts exactly."

I can feel him drop to the ground behind me as he sighs, frustrated. "Do we actually have to go back up, just to get a fuse?"

"Or fuses."

"Yeah."

We share a look, is this really our job? It's probably already 5:00. On perfect cue with my thoughts, Mike pulls his phone out, blinking at the screen, then turning to me.

"5:05."

"So, just get in our cars and go?"

"That's what I'm thinking, you wanna get a drink?"

"I- " I begin to form a no, but who am I, really? I'm that dickhead introvert that doesn't even have a power yet, keeping semi ok people around me is the best I'm gonna get. The best people are the proper supers, but they're busy, saving the world or ruining it, and from what I've heard, having a kind of insane amount of sex, with villains and heroes alike, apparently. "Oh, what the fuck- sure."

"Was not expecting that honestly; sweet! Alright I'll text you the place. See you 6:00 -ish?"

"Okay, cool."

We walk back up the stairs to the carpark and get in our transport, for Mike that's a tiny but very cute dark blue beetle, and for me is a 'the smallest size they had' yellow motorbike.

He texts me about 10 minutes later, the place is The Blue Rose, which is far fancier than I was hoping for. I start to get very nervous that I've been asked on a date and I haven't realised, that doesn't happen a lot, well, I don't get asked out a lot, or maybe I just don't realise when people like me, so I never make moves?

Thoroughly questioning every action I've ever made, I change into a vague outfit, jacket, black jeans, a yellow shirt with some sort of insignia on it, probably too chill for the rose, but that's kind of where I want to be, out of place, didn't know this was a date, if it's gonna be one.

And off I go, to a fancy bar, with someone I only know from work...

I'm going to get murdered, aren't I?