[color=deeppink]I wrote this story about a year ago for my creative writing class. I was bored and curious, so I figured I'd post it here.
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[color=navy][center][b]The Mighty[/center][/b]
Walt Whittaker was disappointed with his eldest son.
He sat at the table, eating breakfast and musing over his first son as he often did in the wee hours of the morning when he hadn’t had his coffee yet and couldn’t quite control his thoughts. He was growing increasingly irritated with his son’s sheer abject laziness; he felt as if he could explode any minute just thinking about it. Then he drank his coffee, and the resulting caffeine rush reminded him just where that distant corner of his mind was that he sent his emotions to when they misbehaved.
His other sons were already up, and were already arguing over something silly. Walt didn’t care what it was; he had long ago learned to tune out their bickering. Every couple of minutes he managed to bark out a quick “Stop it you two,” mostly without realizing he was even talking. His sons never seemed to realize it either.
His head was pounding. He had this problem at least twice a week; the doctors told him it was stress, same as his blood pressure problems. They told him to keep taking his medicine and try to relax a bit more. Walt thought he was doing just fine with that, though there was that project at work keeping him busy most of the time. And there was that leak in the roof he still hadn’t gotten around to fixing. And he had his middle son’s college tuition tearing apart his wallet.
His face contorted into an awful sneer at the thought of all the money he was pouring into that damn college. His eldest couldn’t get enough scholarships for a free ride either, or rather he didn’t try to; Walt had to pay every red cent to those money-grubbing bastards at the university of wherever it was he had gone to, and he had never gotten any of that back when that slacker dropped out. It had all been wasted. He had been so proud that his son was finally going to make something of himself, but his hopes were dashed to pieces by with a single maddeningly apathetic shrug. But Walt wouldn’t have that same problem with Paul; he always finished what he started.
Walt stared at the empty seat between Paul and his wife, Andrea.
“Why isn’t he joining us for breakfast?” he asked her, a question born entirely out of routine.
“He’s still asleep, like he always is.”
“When I was his age, my parents never would have let me do sleep this long. Hell, when I was that old, I was already living on my own, I had a job, and I was raising a son! Him! When is he going to get a damn job?”
“Now, you know he’s not going to want to go for that.”
“What does it matter what he wants? He needs to get a job. It’s time we told him to either get a job or get the hell out.”
“And what, kick him out into the street? “
“Let him go live with his mother. I’m sure she’ll be thrilled at the chance to coddle him some more.”
“Walt, calm down. Your face is turning red. I thought the doctor told you to cut back on the caffeine?”
Walt wanted to say something snide and insulting back, but he decided against it. He just went back to drinking his coffee, ignoring the bickering of his sons, and dreading the hassle that he knew awaited him at work. And that’s when he and everyone else were caught completely off guard as his son silently joined them at the table.
Walt tried very hard not to stare like everyone else, but he couldn’t help gaping just a little bit. It was simply too early for surprises. No one said a word as his son grabbed a plate of bacon and sat down.
“Morning,” Andrea said to him. “You know there’s some scrambled eggs too, if you want them.”
His mouth twitched slightly in what Walt assumed was supposed to be a smile and he nodded. Walt was uncomfortable with eating meals with him; there was always this awkward silence that seemed to permeate the air between them, and his son would always stare out the window. It was why Walt stopped making him come out of his room for meals, though Walt never stopped complaining about the empty seat.
He had immense dark circles under his eyes, as if he hadn’t slept for days, and his hair and clothes were both disheveled. Walt noticed that despite looking like an insomniac, his eyes were alive and alert; he seemed excited about something despite the blank look on his face. He always tried to hide his emotions, but he seemed to have let down his guard today.
Walt realized that he hadn’t seen his son in days, which was unusual even considering the amount of time that he spent in his room. Usually he would at least appear sometime during the evenings to feed himself, even if he rarely ever interacted with anyone. Walt started to wonder just what he was doing up there, and decided to break the uncomfortable silence.
“You’re up early.”
“Yup.”
The silence returned, thicker and more awkward than before. Walt searched his head for some way to get his son to start talking to him, but he knew it was in vain. Nobody spoke again until he finished his bacon and left the table, at which point Paul and Jordan resumed their quarrel.
[center]************[/center]
When Walt arrived at work, he was met with a very unhappy supervisor.
“Dammit, Walt, where have you been? We’ve hit another snag. One of those fucking freaks got in a fight with another fucking freak and demolished City Hall. The city’s seized all the buildin’ supplies for the next two weeks. We’re gonna hafta cut more corners if we want to get this thing done on time.”
“Yes, sir. I’ll get right on it.”
“I tell ya’, Walt, these goddamn bureaucrats. Letting those freaks get away with destruction of city property and then stealing resources from hard workin’ citizens. They should all be hung from the highest tree.
“Hanged.”
“I swear, if I ever catch one of those caped sons of bitches on this property I’m gonna kill ‘em. How are the kids, Walt?”
“Oh, they’re fine. Paul is starting college soon, and Jordan’s about to start High School. The football coach is already after him to join the team.”
“I tell you, Walt, that Jordan’s quite a little dynamo. You should be proud. And what about the other one?”
“What other one?”
“You know, the oldest. What’s-his-name.” Walt felt his face growing red.
“I’m not sure who you’re talking about, sir.”
[center]************[/center]
The drive home was tense. The supply shortage was just another in a long list of problems that Walt, and only Walt, had to deal with to keep this project afloat. HeroCo wanted a new corporate office built, but they didn’t want to pay for it; he had been ordered to cut costs at every opportunity, and he did so begrudgingly. He couldn’t risk upsetting the bigwigs.
He thought about the low-quality concrete that was used to lay the foundation, and how the building would begin to sink within a decade. He thought about the mostly hollow walls, and how they couldn’t possibly bear the weight of a four-story building for long. He thought about the rush to show HeroCo progress, and how combining that with hiring unskilled teenagers -- children, really – had already caused the building to tilt slightly to the left. He thought about the low-quality wood that would begin to rot in a month, the cheap drywall that wasn’t even supported by any studs, and all the exposed wiring that was already far too tangled to fix without ripping everything out and starting over.
He arrived at home to find that dinner was not ready as he had hoped. Andrea had apparently taken Paul to the store to buy him a brand new wardrobe for college, and Jordan was out golfing with his friends. Walt dreaded time alone with his eldest, even if it was for the miniscule amount of time that he would leave his room, though to Walt’s surprise and relief he never appeared.
In fact, Walt didn’t see him for a entire week. He didn’t notice for a while; he tended to avoid the awkward silences as much as possible, so not seeing his son for an extended period of time was nothing new. However, when Walt left for work early on Monday morning, he drove past his son walking down the street two blocks down. The shock of seeing his son out in public almost caused Walt to crash into an oncoming car.
His son’s appearance was worrying. He wasn’t walking so much as he was limping, and he was favoring his right side. His clothes were ragged and dirty and were torn in several places revealing nasty scrapes and bruises. He looked completely haggard, with roughly a week’s worth of unkempt beard on his face. He didn’t appear to be paying attention to anything around him as he was bumping into the other pedestrians walking by him. One woman holding a baby was shouting something at him, though he didn’t seem to hear
Walt’s concern lasted through the day, and he could hardly focus on his responsibilities at work. He even cut out early, much to the surprise of his boss who was so taken aback he couldn’t muster any response besides “yes.” When Walt returned home, he found the house mostly empty, as everyone was at their respective jobs; the only sounds came from upstairs. He wasn’t quite sure what it was, though it sounded like music. As he climbed the stairs, he realized that his son was listening to Rush. Walt was taken aback; he didn’t know his son liked Rush. He briefly considered sharing his old record collection, but quickly decided against it.
He pounded on the door with as much authority as he could muster, which was quite a lot. He heard frantic rustling over the sound of “2112”, a personal favorite of Walt’s. His son was taking far too long opening the door, and it was testing Walt’s patience. He knocked again.
“Open up.”
The music stopped and the door opened. His son’s freshly shaven face was as blank as ever, but he was breathing heavily and was still clutching at his side. He stood there, staring, waiting for his father to say something.
“What were you doing this morning?”
“Nothing.”
“It didn’t look like nothing. I saw you limping down the street, and it looked like you hadn’t showered in two weeks. You looked like a bum. What would people think of me if they knew I let you go around looking like that?”
“I don’t know.”
“’I don’t know.’ ‘Nothing.’ That’s all you ever say. I have a hard time believing you know so little. What were you doing in there just now?”
“Nothing.”
“Damn it, I don’t want to hear that word again. Tell me what were you doing in there!”
“I wasn’t doing anything.”
“Don’t talk back to me.”
“Okay.”
“And don’t go into public looking like that again.”
“Okay.”
Walt slammed the door in frustration and stormed down the steps. He could feel the veins in his forehead throbbing from anger at his son’s refusal to communicate.
Many times that evening, after he had calmed, he stood at the bottom of the stairs to hear if his son ever turned the music back on. He never heard a sound.
[center]************[/center]
For the next few days, Walt saw his son wandering about the house. He still did not join them for meals or speak to anybody; he even seemed to refuse to look anyone directly in the eye, a trait Walt thought he grew out of when he went to college. He seemed energized, and his wanderings seemed to be little more than pacing. He would mutter to himself under his breath almost constantly, which unnerved anyone who stood in the same room with him, especially Walt.
This all abruptly stopped after the fourth day. It wasn’t until late in the evening, several hours after he got home from work, that Walt noticed the distinct absence of the muttering that he had grown so accustomed to in the past few days. These sudden changes in behavior were starting to worry him, and he decided to talk to his wife about him.
“Have you noticed how odd that kid’s been acting lately?”
“Honey, odd’s a relative term. Especially for him.”
“Yeah, but he seems… odder. He’s been wandering around the house like he’s some lost puppy. He doesn’t even acknowledge us anymore, unless we’re in his way, and even then he just looks at us like he’s surprised to see us and waits for us to move.
“So what? You think there’s something wrong with him?”
“Maybe. I saw him limping home the other day and looking like he slept in a dumpster. You think he might have gotten himself in some trouble?”
“Like what? Drugs?”
“Don’t be silly. Drugs are the last thing he’d get himself involved with. He wouldn’t even let us put him on those anti-depressants we spent a fortune on.”
“What else could it be, then? Aside from, you know, his personality.”
“I don’t know, Andrea. But I bet you it’s something serious.”
“Well, fine. If you’re that concerned about it, why don’t you go talk to him instead of complaining about it to me. I’m certainly not going to know what the hell’s wrong with him.”
Walt paled slightly, but he soon flushed with anger again. He hated her knowing stare; she could tell that that was the last thing Walt wanted to do. However, Walt knew she was right; he also knew there was no arguing with her even if she wasn’t. With one last look of defiance, he turned and walked towards the stairway, his prideful swagger turning to a skulking shuffle as soon as he was out of her sight.
He stood at the top of the stairs for a while, gathering his courage and planning his strategy. He thought it would be best to try and be less forceful this time; not too much, of course, but it wouldn’t serve any purpose to yell again. He wasn’t going to back down this time, and he didn’t want this confrontation to end in a fistfight. He needed to exude an aura of casual friendship; perhaps he would start with an off-color joke?
“Honey, quit stalling and knock already.”
Walt jumped at the sound of his wife’s voice. He turned to her and found her standing at the bottom of the stairs, one hand on her hip and a very disapproving stair on her face. Walt quickly knocked on the door.
Then he knocked again. No answer. He knocked harder. No answer, and no sound came from inside.
“It’s your father. Open up.”
Still there was nothing. He started down the stairs, giving his wife the familiar “well, I tried” look. She countered with the less familiar “get the hell back up those stairs” look. He decided it would be best to listen to it.
He breathed in deeply and opened the door; what he saw was an absolute nightmare. There were dirty clothes scattered about the room, books laying everywhere, and mounds of junk strewn about. The room was a mess, and Walt’s son was nowhere to be seen.
Walt approached one of the largest piles of junk and began to sift through it, hoping to find some clue to his son’s behavior. He found nothing out of the ordinary, only random comic books and video games that he didn’t recognize. A copy of The Flash, however, caught his eye.
“What, there’s another new Flash?” Walt muttered to himself. “What is this, the eighth one? They should just bring Barry Allen back and be done with it.”
He discarded the comic book and decided that the random piles of clutter around the room would probably not result in any great find; perhaps the desk would bear more fruit. He noticed that, even though it still seemed far from clean, the desk wasn’t nearly as disorganized as the rest of the room. There was broken glass all over the desk, which itself was sticky and purple in spots. There were sewing materials scattered about (the sight of which nearly sent Walt into a panic attack), and bits of torn fabric were stuck to the desk, but the area itself seemed relatively clean.
What most caught Walt’s interest, however, was the small wooden box. It was an innocent looking box, big enough to maybe fit a stack of papers in, except for the bizarre cage of silverware erected around it. Spoons, knives, and forks all came together to form a wicked looking deathtrap; Walt knew that this was a crude security system. Anyone who tried to simply reach for the box would undoubtedly come out of the situation with a severely nicked hand, and to remove even a single spoon would cause the entire structure to collapse. It was too complicated to try and rebuild; any attempt to do so would be just like spray painting “Walt was here!” all over the walls. He was impressed.
A quick flash of red in the corner of his eye seized his attention away from the silver cage of death. Walt crouched down to get a better look, and found the source of the distraction: the trash can sitting next to the desk was filled to the brim with gauze, stained crimson with blood. Walt was taken aback; he had never thought his son would be so withdrawn as to not even tell his own father when he was badly hurt. He realized another stern talking to was in order.
He nearly had another panic attack when a loud, vicious thump came from behind him. He turned around to see two gloved hands clutching desperately onto the window ledge outside the house. Quickly and stealthily, Walt moved to the side of the window so as not to be seen, but not before catching a tiny glimpse of the cause of the noise; a man wearing a dark red mask was scaling the wall and was attempting to open the window from outside the house.
Walt waited patiently for the masked man to open the window, which eventually he did. Panting hard, he stuck his head in the window only to be greeted by a fist. The intruder was ripped right off the window, and Walt heard a soft thud. By the time Walt looked out of the window, the masked man was already bounding through the trees by the side of the house, and before long he was out of sight. Walt charged down the stairs and nearly ran over his wife.
“Walt, what the hell was that?”
“Some jackass in a mask just tried to break in. Call the police, and get me some peroxide for my hand. He had a hard head.”
As his wife ran to fetch the medicine and the phone, Walt collapsed in a chair, hoping that the burglar didn’t have time to see the mess.
[center]************[/center]
The police came and went quickly; nothing was stolen and there was no property damage to speak of. The officers found the situation to be extremely funny, and joked about how lucky Walt was that it wasn’t General Catastrophe or Invulnero or some other local menace, or they would have had to call in some new guy to get back all this junk. They made sure to emphasize “junk.” Walt laughed politely, but made a point to roll his eyes as soon as the cops’ backs were turned. “General Catastrophe?” “Invulnero?” Silly names for stupid people, Walt thought. Some guy in tights couldn’t possibly be that threatening, no matter how strong or invulnerable they are.
Walt told the cops that his son was out with friends when it happened. They didn’t fully search the room, only checking the window, so they had never discovered the trashcan full of bloody gauze by the desk, for which Walt was thankful. He didn’t want to have to explain that, in no small part because he couldn’t. He ended up telling the cops that his son was out with friends, a lie that would only work on a stranger. They accepted his explanation, and left without another word, undoubtedly laughing at the inept criminal and the giant mess he couldn’t steal.
Walt collapsed on the couch, hoping the evening news would take his mind away from his troubles. He was quickly disappointed, as it seemed he caught the last ten minutes of the news when the silly local interest stories ran. Normally they were at least tolerable, but this time they were doing a report on some new local superhero.
“Superheros,” the program began. “Homo supremi. Capes. Whatever you want to call them, they have worked tirelessly to protect our fair city from catastrophe, whether it be a retired army general who leaks radiation or the more traditional meteor plummeting towards Earth. They have existed for nearly a century, and today there is a new personality to add to the list of men and women honored with the label ‘Hero.’”
“Heroes my ass,” Walt muttered. “Nuisances is more like it.”
“This man, clad in crimson and gold, earlier today saved a bus full of children from crashing into the reservoir after a freak accident caused its brakes to fail.” The image switched from the perky reporter to a frail looking man in dark red spandex highlighted by seemingly random streaks of gold. The spandex was slightly too tight, and Walt was stunned that anyone this shrimpy could ever consider himself to be an actual superhero.
The man was surrounded by nearly two dozen children, as least two of which appeared to be crippled, and his crimson cape was flapping in the wind as he laughed with the children. Walt thought he was about to vomit. Behind them all was a large yellow school bus sitting on its side; its front end was smashed as if it had run headlong into a brick wall and its back end was crushed as if a giant pair of pincers had clamped down upon it.
“Earlier today, this school bus found itself careening over the edge of Justice Girl Bridge, its concrete walls barely enough to slow the momentum of the out-of-control bus. All hope looked to be lost for Mrs. Flaherty’s 4th grade class, when suddenly they found themselves being lifted into the air and carried to safety! They had been rescued by Platinum City’s newest superhero, Mighty! Mr. Mighty, what was going through your head as you lifted those six tons of mangled steel and screaming children above your head?”
“Well, ma’am, I didn’t so much lift it as pull it, but I guess what I was thinking was ‘These children are depending upon me. I can’t let them down.’ ‘Then I sort of just… grabbed it real hard and pulled. You know, so they wouldn’t, uh, fall and die. That wouldn’t have looked good on my resume.” He cracked a feeble little smile, visible though the mask covered his entire face.
“Weren’t you terrified?”
“N-not at all. I, uh, only thought about the children, and how terrified they must be, and how, you know, I should make them not so terrified. I mean, you know, pull them away from the bridge or something. Make sure they didn’t get hurt.”
“A brave effort from a brave man. These children seem to love you, and Platinum City will sleep that much more soundly now that it has yet another guardian to patrol-“
The image of the cheery reporter and the scrawny superhero was replaced by a black void. Walt had had enough; this cheese was starting to give him indigestion.
[center]************[/center]
“Oh fuck, watch the fuck out!”
The warning was useless, unnecessary and came far too late, though Walt really did appreciate it. The sudden blast had knocked him completely off his feet, and there was no way he could have dodged the hundreds of fragments of razor-sharp glass even if he were still standing and knew they were coming. He managed to crawl to his feet, cradling a severely bruised and lacerated arm, and turned to see his supervisor standing next to him, looking none too pleased.
“You okay, Walt?”
“Um, not at the moment, Mr. Dunmar. What happened? “
“That Goddamned fucking freak Sonic Bomb just flew by here at the speed of fucking sound. The sonic boom probably knocked out every single window. Damn it, Walt, I told you to order those speedster-proof windows! It’s going to take at least a week to replace them all!”
Walt glared, but said nothing. It had actually been Walt who suggested to him that they should probably install the more expensive reinforced windows in case of a speedster running by, but Dunmar had just shrugged Walt off and told him that HeroCo wanted this place to be as cost-effective as possible, which Walt knew actually meant cheap.
The adrenaline rush had dulled a great deal of the pain at first, but Walt could feel it beginning to slowly worsen. He felt around his back and discovered that his shirt was sliced in several places. He pulled back his hand to find it covered in crimson blood.
“Jesus, Walt, you’re a mess. Order those speedster-proof windows and head home, get some rest. You’re gonna be busy as hell tomorrow.”
“Yes, sir.”
Walt was exhausted when he arrived home. He had decided that it would be more prudent to go to the doctor instead of straight home, but he was starting to regret it. They had kept him there for hours, and he came away with nearly a dozen stitches in his back and a couple pain pills that did almost nothing for him. He had just finished changing into a new shirt when he heard someone moving around in the kitchen. He tensed; it was still early, just a little past one, no one should be home.
Thinking that another break-in would be the last thing he needed, Walt crept slowly towards the kitchen, hoping to take yet another burglar unawares. When he arrived at the kitchen, he found his son rifling through the fridg. Walt cursed at himself; he had forgotten that his son almost never left the house.
“Hey.”
Walt could see every muscle in his son’s body tense in surprise, but it lasted for only a second and he kept looking into the fridge without turning around and facing his father.
“Hey.”
Walt suddenly realized that he hadn’t seen his son since the break-in from the other day. This caused him to remember everything else from that day too, which the attempted burglary had driven almost completely from his mind. He decided that this would be the perfect time to have that heart-to-heart with his son. Then he decided to dance around it.
“Someone tried to break into your room the other day.”
“I know.”
“You know?”
“Yeah.”
“How?”
“Andi told me.”
“You should keep your window locked.”
“Okay.”
“You know, I was in your room when it happened. If it wasn’t for me, that guy would have carted away all your stuff.”
“Okay.”
“You’re being awfully nonchalant here. Don’t you care that you almost lost all your comic books and video games and whatever other crap you have up there?”
“Sure.”
“You trying to refrigerate the house?”
Walt’s son had not stopped rifling through the fridge since the conversation began. He just sat there, picking things up and putting them down, his gaze never straying from the inside.
“Sorry.”
He shut the door and began walking away; Walt noticed that he refused to turn around, and seemed determined to allow Walt to only see his back.
“I didn’t mean stop looking. Just hurry up. If you’re hungry, eat something for crying out loud.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“You gonna look me in the eye anytime soon?”
He froze, halfway down the hallway.
“Come here and look at me. We need to talk.”
His shoulders slumped and he sighed as if all life was leaving him. He turned around slowly, head tilted down towards the floor in what was apparently one last futile attempt not to look Walt in the eye.
“Don’t look at your feet. When someone’s talking to you, you look at them.”
He stood still for what seemed like Walt to be an eternity; Walt was getting angrier and angrier at every second his son didn’t look him in the eye. Just as he was about to erupt, his son finally raised his head, revealing an enormous bruise around his left eye. Walt, struck speechless by his son’s black eye, gaped in shock. He found his own shoulders were drooping at the sudden revelation.
“Come here and sit down,” he said dejectedly, unwilling and unable to hide the disappointment and contempt in his voice. They both found themselves sitting at the kitchen table. Now his son seemed unwilling to look away from his father or even blink; they both sat there, hard-faced and determined.
“Care to tell me why you were climbing in your window instead of using the door like regular people? Or why you were wearing that mask?”
“No.”
“Don’t play games with me. I want you to tell me now why you were gallivanting around town in a damn cape and mask.”
“I think you already know.”
“I want to hear it from you.”
“Why? What difference would it make?”
“Damn it, son, quit avoiding the situation! You’ve made yourself a goddamn Supremis! What the hell is wrong with you?”
“Nothing is wrong with me, Dad. This is what I want to do.”
“Would you grow up! You can’t live like this! Superherosim is for children and idiots. You should let people who know what they’re doing take care of things instead of running around in your pajamas and mucking everything up.”
“What, like the cops? Yeah, sure, because they’re doing such a great job keeping this city safe. The Red Death hospitalized an entire squad just this last week and I think we both know how effective they are against Invulnero. This city needs superheroes.”
“The police aren’t perfect, but the city sure as hell doesn’t need any of those thoughtless, irresponsible troublemakers! They don’t think about the damage they can cause, the lives they can ruin, the-”
“They money they could lose?”
“… yes. The money they could lose or the money they could cause other people to lose. Whether you like to admit or not, money is important, and people don’t have enough of it that they can replace their houses on a moment’s notice. Is all the destruction they cause really protecting the city?”
“Shouldn’t you be happy about that, Dad? That just means more business for you, more money you can make.”
“That’s entirely beside the point! I don’t want people to lose their homes just so I can make a quick buck. Besides, I can’t get any goddamn work done when your buddy Sonic Bomb causes sonic booms in the middle of the street!”
“There are insurance companies in place for that, Dad. The government itself promises to replace anything destroyed by a licensed superhero.”
“And how long do you think that’s going to last, huh? The government was already in debt before your kind came along, and every monumental battle with a giant enemy crab is just another nail in the coffin. They’re ruining this country.”
“They’re saving lives, Dad.”
“Bullshit. They ruin them. Remember how General Catastrophe became General Catastrophe? He was some small-time punk that crossed paths with Metatron and got himself thrown out a window into a vat of radioactive waste or something like that.”
“A gross over-simplification.”
“Don’t give me that. When are you going to grow up and get over all of this childishness? When are you going to stop sitting in your room playing video games all day and get a job?”
“I have a job now, Dad. I--“
“No! Don’t give me that shit! That’s not a job! You’re playing pretend! You’re acting like a spoiled four year-old kid who doesn’t want to clean his room!”
“Dad, calm down, I-“
“You always do this! You never tried out for sports in high school, you never put forth any effort to make friends, you never got a job, you never studied for your classes. I thought things were going to change when you went to college, I thought you were going to start making something for yourself. But no! Yet again you gave up. And now this!”
“Dad, you’re turning read, come on, the doctor said you shouldn’t get this worked up.”
“Don’t you dare tell me to calm down! I have had it up to here with you! You’re twenty-five years old, son, you’re too old for this shit. Either you quit acting like a child or you’re no longer welcome in this house.”
“Dad, you’re being unreasonable.”
“I see I have my answer. I just knew you were going to do this, you’ve always been a disappointment to me. I wish I hadn’t talked your mother out of getting that abortion.”
His son just stared. He showed no sign of emotion; his face was blank. Walt was determined to return the steely stare; he hoped to goad his son into making a response, any response, even if he started yelling or broke down in tears. He wanted proof that his son was human.
But it never came. He just kept staring. Walt just couldn’t take it anymore; he needed some air. He turned and walk out of the room, seething with rage. He knew this would be a good time to take his pills, but they were still in the kitchen.
[center]************[/center]
Walt spent the next few days quietly regretting the fight. He had said terrible, horrible things, and he had meant every word. He told himself it wasn’t his fault. He told himself that every conversation with his son turned into a fight, he couldn’t stop that. He told himself that his son didn’t care, that the words had never really hurt him.
But he knew better. His son wasn’t the robot he presented himself to be; it was all a defense mechanism designed to keep people from getting too close to him. Walt had never been able to break those barriers, and he regretted this failure more than anything else.
After three days of living in a stupor, barely doing anything, he was starting to feel like his son. This had to change; he needed something to take his mind off of the subject, and he knew just the thing: the lawnmower needed fixing. So he spent most of the afternoon trying to fix the lawnmower. Of course, this didn’t really help his mood; the lawnmower refused to cooperate with him, which only led to Walt becoming angrier and angrier. This, in turn, led to his language becoming more and more colorful.
“Walt, honey, you should come in and have a look at this.”
The sudden appearance of his wife startled Walt, and he banged his head against the wheel in surprise.
“Fucking hell!” he screamed, rubbing his head. “What, what is it? I’m a little busy here?”
“You’re not too busy to come inside and deal with this. And don’t curse at me.”
“I wasn’t, I was cursing because… you know what, never mind. This thing’s a piece of shit anyway.”
He wiped his greasy hands on a rag, which didn’t help much as the rag was more grease then cloth at this point anyways, and followed her into the house. She led him to the kitchen table, and with a look of utter disappointment on her face pointed to a note on the kitchen table.
“I’ve left. Thanks for the room and board.”
He stared at the note hardly able to grasp the meaning of the words. He looked up at his wife, who was somehow wordlessly telling him what a huge dick he was and how this was all his fault. Even though she didn’t know about the fight, Walt wasn’t quite sure that he disagreed with her.
He immediately began calling everyone that would possibly know where he was. This took no time at all; this list was limited to close family members. Once everyone was consulted, he found that he had no idea where to look. He decided to take drastic measures; he had to ask for help from his own children.
“Paul! Get in here!” he yelled. It was common for any one member in the family to summon the other like this; Walt suddenly thought this impersonal atmosphere might be part of the problem. Paul didn’t respond, and Walt yelled again. This time, Paul yelled back.
“What?”
“Get in here!”
“What do you want!”
“I want you to get in here!”
“Why?”
“Get the hell in here already!”
“Fine!”
It was still a few minutes before Paul actually came; Walt wondered if he ever had any authority over his children.
“What is it?”
“Have you heard about this new Cape?”
“Of course not. That stuff’s for kids.”
“Really? He’s been all over the news, supposed to be a big new hero.”
“Dad, nobody cares about grown men in tights except for people who live in their parent’s basements. Are you going somewhere with this? I’m a little busy.”
“Yeah. I want you to get on the internet and look this guy up for me. I’m curious.”
“Why don’t you do it?”
“Because I asked you to. Now get.”
“Fine. What’s his name?”
“Mighty.”
“Mighty? What, was Insecure Man already taken?”
“Just go do it.”
Walt hated using a computer. He never knew what he was doing, and that always made him angry. He heard Paul yell from the other room again, but he was too tired and frustrated to do anything about it.
“Says here he saved a bus full of kids from falling off a bridge on Monday.”
“Anything more recent?”
“Uh, he apparently stopped members of the Triple Threat Gang from robbing a bank later that day.”
“How about within the past two days?”
“Uh, let me see. It says here that he was accepted into the Liberty Brigade yesterday. Damn government. I’d bet they’d sanction anyone with a superpower. I know a guy with super-ventriloquism, maybe I should send in a nomination?”
Walt was already out the door by the time Paul finished his joke.
[center]************[/center]
“Man, this place looks terrible.”
Walt was standing outside the Ziggurat, the headquarters of the Liberty Brigade. It was a gaudy building; it was made mostly of glass, which Walt noted made it a terrible place for superheroes to live. It seemed to conform to no acceptable or known design, with useless glass protrusions comprising most of the roof. It reminded Walt of a broken bottle.
There was an enormous statue placed on the front lawn. The plaque said it was dedicated to the memory of Metatron and Lady Luck. Perhaps a little outdated, Walt mused. Both Metatron and Lady Luck were discovered alive and well about a week after they “boldly sacrificed” themselves to save the city from something. Walt couldn’t remember what exactly, but he had a sneaking suspicion that the entire thing was a hoax.
Walt approached the enormous glass doors, which were twice the size that any door would ever need to be. He almost felt sickened walking through them; it felt like walking into a wall of solid ego. The room was empty and entirely featureless, save for a girl sitting at a desk. Walt would have called her pretty had she not been a deep shade of green with bright orange hair.
“Excuse me Miss.”
“Oh! Salutations. Your entrance was not of note. May I be of assist to your needs?” Walt just stared back into the seemingly vapid smile of the bubbly green girl.
“Uh… I’m here to see my son.”
“I am apologizing. Visiting of familiars is not of allowed. The danger is increased.”
“What? Look, I’m not sure what you’re trying to say, but I want to see my son, and I’m not leaving until I do.”
The green girl continued to smile infuriatingly at him. She lifted her hand to the featureless desk and pressed her finger on top of it.
“Metratron Mister, we have a blue situation.”
Walt was wondering who this crazy green girl thought she was talking to; he nearly had a panic attack when she received the response.
Yes, I’ve been expecting him. Send him to my office please.
Walt was more than a little creeped out. No one spoke; he didn’t hear the response so much as it took form inside his own head, as if he thought it himself. The green girl seemed to have heard it too, because she smiled and waved him on.
A hallway had appeared directly behind the desk. He didn’t like the look of it, but he figured anything was better than this barren den of crazy monsters and voiceless words, and so he proceeded.
There was only one door in the hallway, at the very end. He braced himself, opened it, and found himself face to face with Metatron himself.
“Greetings”
“Hi. Some receptionist you got there.”
“Oh, Hela? Yes, I’m afraid I have to apologize for the any inconvenience. She’s a recent immigrant, hasn’t quite mastered English yet.”
“Where’s she from?”
“Somewhere in the Andromeda Galaxy. I can’t say where, exactly… we haven’t discovered it yet, and her native language is impossible to speak using human vocal cords. I suppose I could tell you telepathically, but it would only sound like a cat being slowly crushed by interlocking gears. Not a pleasant thought to have inside your head. Now, how can I help?”
“I… I’m here to see my son. His name is –“
“I know what his name is. We have a policy against mentioning our secret identities out loud here. I must also ask that you refrain from mentioning your name too. Security purposes.”
“Er…fine.”
“You’ve raised quite a son there. He’s perhaps the strongest member our team’s ever had; he’ll be a wonderful asset when dealing with the more powerful undesirables. You should be proud.”
“Hmph. Can I see him?”
“I’m afraid he’s made it clear that he doesn’t wish to see you.”
“Well, I’m his father, damn it, he doesn’t have a choice. He ran away from home yesterday, and I’m here to bring him back.”
“’Ran away from home?’ He’s twenty-five years old. Most parents would refer to that as ‘finally moving out.’ Isn’t this what you wanted?”
“You can’t let him go through with this, he’s going to get himself killed!”
“Must I remind you of your son’s age yet again? He’s here of his own free will. It is his decision, not mine. Nor yours. He understands the risks, and this is what he wants.”
“But that’s just it, he doesn’t understand. He’s never understood how the world works, he’s still just a child!”
“That may be true, but I’m afraid you have no right to stop him. For better or for worse, he has made his own decision. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m a very busy man.”
“I’m not leaving without my son.”
Leave.
Once again Walt heard the voice in his head; however, it sounded different. It was harsher, more grating. Walt felt compelled to do what it said. Obeying this voice was the only thing that made sense; a simple, direct order that, if obeyed, would fix everything.
Walt stood. His legs were wobbling. No, not wobbling: resisting. His legs didn’t want to go. He tried harder. They resisted harder. Another voice in the back of his head was telling him to stay; this one was quieter, softer. Walt thought it sounded weak and unconvincing. He tried ignoring it, but it wouldn’t go away. It kept getting louder and louder until it was the only thought in his head; it was then that Walt realized that the voice he saw as frail and pitiful was his own.
He found himself standing in the middle of the doorway with no recollection of just how he got there. He turned around to face Metatron, who was staring at him with a look of mingled shock and horror.
You have an unexpectedly strong mind, Mr. Whittaker. Not many can resist my commands.
“Where is my son.”
Mr. Whittaker, I suggest that you leave now. I may not be able to influence your actions, but I assure you, you will not be able to remain in this building. You may be able to resist my telepathy, but it is not the only ability I have. And it is the only ability you could hope to resist.
Walt understood the concealed threat. He decided that it would be better for his health if he left without a fight; as much as he thought these people were useless and a burden on society, he knew better than to pick a fight with an entire building full of people who could kick his ass a hundred different ways. But he couldn’t resist getting in the last word.
“If he dies, his blood is on your hands.”
He turned and left, making sure to flip off the receptionist as he walked out. She cheerfully responded in kind.
[center]************[/center]
Two weeks later, Walt finally finished work on the HeroCo building. The windows had all been replaced (although they were still not speedster-proof; Mr. Dunmar and the HeroCo executives had seen to that), the walls had all been painted, and the lobby was even decorated in those tacky potted plants faceless corporations love so much. Walt stood next to those potted plants, admiring his handiwork. For the first time in weeks– months, even—Walt was finally thinking about something other than his son, and he was happy. Then, to his horror, he caught the faintest murmur of a sound from every architect’s most horrible nightmares: the sound of a body colliding with concrete.
The few workers left in the lobby all froze and looked around fearfully. They all knew what this meant, everyone in construction knew, but they all seemed too frightened at the possibility to do anything about it.
“Get the fuck out! They’re coming this way!” Walt screamed at the top of his lungs. Walt’s screams jolted his workers back to reality, and they ran screaming towards the door. Walt ran to the wall and pulled the bright orange lever, labeled “Pull here in case of Supremi fight,” and pulled. And then he pulled again. Nothing happened.
“Cheap sons of bitches!”
Walt told them not to hire those contractors. He’d be surprised if any of the wiring in the building worked. Now he had to climb five stories to make sure everybody knew what was coming. He scoured each floor, finding random clumps of workers too frightened or unsure to move, all while the sounds of furious battle drew nearer and nearer.
By the time he cleared out the fourth floor, he was almost completely out of breath. He was sweating, and his skin was flushed red. He didn’t want to move, but he knew he had to. He hurried down the stairs, clutching the rail with one hand and his chest with the other. Fortunately, gravity was on his side, and he made it to the bottom quickly. Too exhausted for an all-out run, he lurched as quickly as he could towards the door. He managed to make it, and he burst through to find a sight that, if he still had it, would have taken his breath away: there, right in front of the brand new HeroCo building was the indestructible criminal Invulnero duking it out with Walt’s own son, Mighty.
Mighty’s uniform was shredded in several places, revealing deep gashes, scrapes, and bruises. His cape was nowhere to be seen, probably torn off sometime earlier in the battle, and what remained of his uniform was covered in blood. Walt looked to his left, and saw the trail of destruction these two Supremi had left behind. Gigantic potholes surrounded by smashed concrete speckled the roads, lampposts were scattered about everywhere, and there wasn’t a building in sight that didn’t have some sort of hole in it.
Walt stood still in front of the door, frozen in place by the sudden appearance of his son. Mighty and Invulnero were quickly trading punches; despite Mighty’s massive strength, Invulnero was completely unharmed. He was even laughing with every bone-crushing blow that Mighty landed. Conversely, while Invulnero appeared to lack any sort of advanced strength, his blows were building up; Mighty looked like he was ready to collapse.
Invulnero was effortlessly shrugging off every single blow, though each one knocked him further and further into the parking lot of the HeroCo building, which was still littered with leftover construction equipment. A quick dodge from Invulnero and Mighty’s back was to Walt; Invulnero went on the offensive, and suddenly Mighty was the one being pushed closer and closer to where Walt was standing.
BOOM.
Walt bent over and clutched at his ears; something very loud had just happened immediately next to him, but the ringing in his ears disoriented him too much to know what it was. When he regained his composure, he looked to his right to see Mr. Dunmar holding a smoking magnum and yelling about something. The ringing in his ears was still too much; he couldn’t make out what Mr. Dunmar was saying. He followed the barrel of the gun to his target, and saw the body of his son lying prone on the ground. Invulnero was staring at it, a stunned look on his face and a fresh splatter of blood on his chest.
His look of disbelief slowly turned into a demonic grin, and he set his murderous eyes upon Mr. Dunmar. Walt, still frozen in absolute horror, could do nothing but stand and gape. Mr. Dunmar screamed, and fired again. BANG. Invulnero jerked back, the impact of the bullet causing him to miss a step, but he only started laughing and continued his slow walk towards Walt’s boss. BANG. Again, he barely flinched. BANG BANG BANG BANG. Invulnero stood within an inch of Walt and his boss, smiling a horrid green smile. He knocked the gun away from Mr. Dunmar’s hands, who was now no longer yelling angrily but was visibly shaking, and grabbed him by the throat. He lifted his prey straight up in the air, and began to laugh as he choked the man who just shot his enemy.
Walt saw it coming a split second before it happened, but that was all he needed. Walt leapt at Mr. Dunmar, tackling his boss out of the clutches of the supervillain moments before a steel girder slammed into Invulnero, carrying him with it through the front door of the HeroCo building.
Mr. Dunmar screamed and ran off. Walt glanced up as his son hobbled towards him, clutching the gushing hole in shoulder.
“Dad, get out of here. You’ll get hurt.”
Walt wanted to tell him not to fight. He wanted to say he was sorry. He wanted to ask him to come back home. He wanted to help his son, but through all the exhaustion and ringing in his ears and pain in his chest, the only words that came out were,
“It’ll crumble.”
Walt then watched helplessly as Invulnero leapt out of the building towards them, a look of inexpressible rage on his face. Mighty reacted in the only way a hero with super strength could: he socked him back into the building, destroying more of the wall. The sounds of loud cracking filled the air, audible even over the ringing in Walt’s ears, and the HeroCo building started to teeter. Mighty looked at him, and he knew that his son understood. Mighty reached out his good arm and grabbed Walt by the shirt.
“Tuck and roll, Dad.”
It happened too fast for him to stop it; Walt was flung through the air, and for the first time Walt experienced the raw power of his son. He landed two buildings away, and he landed hard. He felt a blinding pain in his arm. He screamed and clutched at it, the exposed bone cutting jutting into his hand.
The edges of his vision were white and blurry, and for a few moments he could barely make out what he was seeing. His vision cleared just in time to see the building that he constructed collapse, undoubtedly falling on top of his son.
[center]************[/center]
The wake was long grueling, and Walt wanted nothing more than to go home. It was a closed casket; half of his son’s body was crushed completely. The doctors said that if he was at full strength, he probably could have survived, but the extended battle combined with the bullet wound left him far too weak to support the weight of the rubble. The information wasn’t comforting in the slightest.
Invulnero was also dead; the rumor was he suffocated before the paramedics could get to him. There was going to be a full investigation. Walt didn’t care.
Very few people showed up for the wake; the only non-family members to pay their respects were the group of children that Mighty had saved from falling off the bridge. Every single one of them was crying, and most of them left homemade cards saying “Thank you!” and “We’ll miss you!” One little girl left a small statue made out of Play-Doh and resembling an angel.
Not a single member of the Liberty Brigade attended the wake; instead, Metatron mailed a bouquet of flowers with a card that said, “Our condolences on your loss. Your son died a hero.” Walt spat on it and threw it in the trash.
It was the last hour of the wake when Paul approached Walt with a gift.
“Hey, Dad. I found this going through the junk in his room.”
Paul held out a bandaged hand and gave Walt a small, wooden box. Walt opened it slowly, out of both dread at what he would find and difficulty in opening it with only one hand. In it was a smashed bullet, stained with blood, and a note.
“Don’t let Dad be right.”[/color]
___________________________
[color=deeppink]FUN FACT: This assignment was supposed to be 10 pages double spaced in word. It ended up being 32 or so.[/color]
