Fear and Doubting in Metro City

From behind the massive panel of monitors, keyboards, mother boards, and other technological wonders, I watched as Strong Man battled away in the infamous streets of Metro City. With my fingers flowing across the keys like a ballerina across the stage, I hacked into CCTV cameras across the city, following the action, providing a play-by-play so that Strong Man could follow the heinous villains and catch them no matter which shadows they used to mask their wrongdoing.

I was most comfortable here since the last time I ventured out of the Power Cave on the hunt with Strong Man…

I shook away the thought.

Another dance across the keys changed the scene on the panel of screens. Strong Man leaped from rooftops. On another monitor, a pair of criminals ran down alleyways, trying to use the darkness as an ally. But darkness was uncaring, allowing anyone to use it. Even us. “Keep it up, S Man! They’ve just turned north out of the alley toward the warehouse district.”

“Copy.” Strong Man’s deep, gruff voice scraped over the headset that I wore.

I continued to watch as Strong Man leaped down onto the street. He pummeled the villains, then tied them up. Police lights announced their arrival down the road. “Police are thirty seconds out. Let’s get outta there.”

Strong Man only grunted, shot his grappling hook at a nearby rooftop and ferried himself into the air, his cape flowing noisily as the police cars squealed to a stop, their headlights bringing the criminals out of the shadows.

With a short duet across the keys, the monitors went dark, and I jumped out of my seat and danced around, my cape fluttering around me gracefully. I threw punches and kicks at invisible enemies, but ghosts clouded my vision and I stopped.

“Perhaps you’d like to come out on patrol with me next time, Barrett?” Strong Man’s deep, booming voice reverberated off the barriers of the cave, its sound bouncing around in my eardrums.

I stood stiff, “No, thanks.”

“Barrett,” Strong Man removed his cowl, his deep and brooding eyes revealing themselves to be a vibrant and enigmatic blue, a deep ocean of mystery, “at some point, you should come back out on patrol with me.”

“But…” I recalled the first, last, and only time I went on patrol after being taken in by Strong Man as an orphan. That night was one that I will not soon forget.

I had been fighting alongside my mentor, when I was knocked back and dizzied. I felt the world spinning around me, and that’s when it happened. Strong Man was distracted because I was in need. He stopped fighting his enemy, and instead came to my rescue. Strong Man was then incapacitated and the villains spirited away with their loot. We were embarrassed by the local media, and their reputation was tarnished. Strong Man must have been disappointed because he never said a word about it. That shame, from the person whom I viewed as a father figure. Those brooding eyes were foggy, muddied by regret.

“But nothing.” Strong Man interrupted my train of thought, derailing it at the station. “Next time, you come with.” He walked to where his costumes were hung and began to remove his cape.

“Well,” I kicked at the hard ground, displacing some dirt. A swirl cloud of dust puffed into the air, a breath of doubt and fear. “I was thinking…”

Strong Man turned, running a hand through his sweaty and matted hair, “Yes?”

A pause filled the air as if that small cloud of doubt inflated like a balloon to take my air straight from my lungs.

Strong Man came and place a reassuring hand on my shoulder. The same hand that is used to batter its enemies is being used to comfort. “What is it, Barrett?”

“Well, I… I just…” But the words would not come. In the eyes of my mentor, I saw a soft, welcoming glow, but I still feared those same eyes that reflected the disappointment that sunk their claws into me from that one time I was tasked with helping my partner.

When I had failed.

The firm hand squeezed my shoulder as the other hand rose to hold the other, lonely shoulder. “Barrett, you are my partner,” and this time with his mask fully removed, Strong Man’s voice took on the tone of his real life alter ego, the person he was on a day-to-day basis: someone who was philanthropic and diplomatic. A stark difference from the typical, sardonic and hopeless tone that his voice usually materialized. His face curled into a smile, “and there is no one I’d rather have watching my back. You’re like a son to me, and you could never disappoint me. Unless you quit.”

“But the last time—”

“—Was the first time you had ever been in the field. I could see in your eyes when you were taken down that you were afraid…”

“But…” my voice became meek, timid, like the boy I was before, “you were so disappointed in me…” Strong Man’s face fell. His eyes opened wide and his jaw unhinged. The shock took me by surprise and I almost saw that same regret from the last time. “You see…”

And though I tried to walk away, the hands upon my shoulders reaffirmed their spell on me. I was transfixed. Not yet. “Listen to me, my friend. That disappointment in my face was not your burden to bear. Rather it was my own misgivings that I allowed to convince me to let you in the field, perhaps, before you were ready. I could never be disappointed in you. You, at every turn, have been by my side. Do you remember when the Jokster pinned me above that vat of boiling acid? And then Horrid Vine came from behind?”

Barrett nodded.

“Well, you were right here, in this cave. Remember? And you used your own abilities to guide me through. And I remember, in that moment, that I thought I was a goner. I was about to give up. But I heard your voice…”

I looked up. “My voice?”

Strong Man nodded, his eyes never relenting the hold they had on my soul. “Yes. Your voice. And you got me out of there. And I was able to come home one more night.”

I finally smiled, and I realized something. “I’ve been thinking.”

“Yes?”

“I’ve been thinking that… maybe.. I don’t want to be in the field…”

Strong Man tilted his head slightly. “Oh?”

My smile deepened, creasing his face, “Yeah. When I’m behind the screen here at the command center, I feel a part of the action. I can be in the middle of it, my eyes and hands dancing a duet.”

Strong Man smiled and his hands finally released my shoulders. But my body remained where it was, the fear and doubt finally emanating from my skin as the heat rises in the atmosphere, evaporating.

“I think I do more good here.”

Strong Man waited patiently for me to conclude my thought. In the field, he was terrifying and aggressive. But here? Here he was open and warm, a hearth. He was home.

“Yeah.” I straightened my back, posing with my hands on my hips. I gave my hands a flutter, attempting to get my cape to fly behind me. Unflappable, I continued on, “I am Barrett, faithful companion to Strong Man, the unmistakable duo who keep Metro City safe from the infamous, the nefarious, and the all around bad! And I like it this way.”

“Good for you, my boy.” With that he walked off, toward the elevator.

“Where are you going now, Strong Man? To prepare for more bad guys?”

“Indeed I am.” He laughed aloud, his hands running through his matted hair again, “But this time the nefarious fellows are body odor and sweat.”

I laughed, clutching my stomach as the elevator on the far end of the platform listed Strong Man to the mansion above, where he could rest and recover.

Regaining myself, I twirled and pirouetted back to my seat behind the computer, allowing my hands to perform their magnificent ballet across the keys, bringing the screens to life once more, to watch over the innocent in Metro City.

And, finally, I was confident that this is where I belonged.

I was content, knowing now that I had never disappointed my most faithful friend. I was happy to know that I was exactly where I should be, that I was helping, behind the front lines.

Not away from the limelight, but behind it, controlling it.