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Roy made a face at her. “You’re not funny, Red.

” He started off to continue his rounds.

“Telepaths shouldn’t ever read people’s minds without permission, unless there’s no other choice.

There isn’t a telepath Cape around who would dare to read someone’s thoughts on a whim.

Having powers is a burden and should be treated with responsibility, even if you only have them for 24 hours. ”

“I’m 10 , Roy.” She reminded him, following along behind him as he walked through the store. “ Recharging my phone is too big a responsibility for me.”

“If you want to be a heroine, that’s something you’re going to have to work on.

” He carefully instructed, not for the first time.

“It means that you have to put others ahead of yourself. Protect people from each other and themselves. And, most importantly, from you. It’s an honor and a heavy burden.

It is not a life many people can live. It is often not a happy one. ”

“Why wouldn’t it be happy?” The freckles on her tiny nose moved as her face scrunched up in confusion. “Everyone loves a hero.”

“Not so much.” Roy shook his head. “Best to do the job and go home. That’s the only way you can be a hero and be happy. When you start internalizing the things you see and the mistakes you make… nothing good comes from that. Just madness, hate, and misery.”

“So is that what you do?”

Roy’s mind thought back on his life, recognizing that a lot of it was horrible.

He’d been engaged once. A beautiful woman named Melissa, who brought joy with her everywhere she went.

It was impossible to see that woman and not fall in love with her.

She ran a charming bed and breakfast out of an old Victorian house on the outskirts of Washington DC.

And Roy had loved that woman with everything in him. Everything he had was her.

He’d come home from one of his missions, to find Melissa missing. He had searched the entire house and hadn’t found a sign of her. Talked to her family and all of her friends, and no one knew where she was.

Hours later, he’d gone into the kitchen… and found that a villain named “8-Pints” Potts, had broken into that same B&B… and murdered Melissa. He’d stripped her body and stuffed it into Roy’s refrigerator as a message to him. It had…

“Holy shit!” The girl’s eyebrows soared in amazement. “ In the fridge!?! How does that even work!?! What did he do with the food to make room!?!”

Roy looked down at the ground. “Please stay out of my head, kid.”

She nodded, looking shell-shocked. “Sorry, Roy. It’s just…” She trailed off. “I’m sorry about your girlfriend. I didn’t mean to make you sad.”

He patted her on the head reassuringly. “It’s okay.

Sometimes it’s okay to be sad, if you’re thinking about people you loved that aren’t there anymore.

Because there are good memories of them too.

Life can’t ever be one thing or the other.

Life has layers .” He cleared the lump in his throat.

“You can’t dwell on things though. It’s not healthy. ”

Of course, Roy had spent most of his life dwelling on that event.

He’d never gotten involved with anyone else after that.

The girl arched an eyebrow at him, silently calling him on his unspoken contradiction.

“It’s my advice, Red, that doesn’t mean I personally follow it.

” He heaved a sigh, wishing he didn’t have to have this talk with her.

“Some things… they’re hard to walk away from.

And once they happen, there’s no going back.

You live in those moments forever, never able to just move past them.

Because some horrors… they’ll follow you.

” He met her eyes again, tone serious. “Don’t. Look. Back.”

The girl swallowed, processing whatever new terrible imagery she saw in Roy’s mind. “Do… do you think I could be a hero on e day?”

“I think you can be a hero right now, if you want.”

She instantly brightened. “Really?”

“Yes. By being the kind of person you’d want a hero to be. Helping people who need help. Donating your time to worthy causes. Trying to understand, rather than…”

The girl made an impatient sound, like she was bored with his lecture. “I mean a real hero.”

“Let me tell you something: it’s easy to throw your weight around when you’ve got powers.

And yeah, the fighters get the headlines.

The guys duking it out with trans-dimensional threats and blowing apart asteroids with one punch.

But there is nothing on earth more heroic or challenging than helping people at a community level.

Going out there and interacting with them on days when the world isn’t ending.

Sometimes a person’s having the worst day of their lives, but the city goes on without noticing because that crisis isn’t related to a world-destroying emergency.

A hero is someone who listens to their fears and helps them overcome them, even if they have nothing to do with giant robots or the ‘Demonic Comet.’”

“I think I want to be the ‘fighting giant robots’ kind.” She broke the news to him. “Sorry.”

“As I said, it’s not a life for everyone.

” He admitted. “People love the ego boost of knowing that they’re the toughest. But you should only ever fight to save people.

That’s the only reason to do it. You shouldn’t fight to prove that you’re the best at fighting.

And if you can get by without fighting at all, then that’s what you should do.

But some people, they just want to see the adulation on the children’s faces and stand in the spotlight, after some brutal battle.

But the one in the spotlight is often blinded.

It’s the man in the shadows who can get the most done.

He’s the one who can see the best. See what’s hidden. ”

“Is that why you were all ‘super-secret government stuff’? I don’t think I’d like that.

” She waved a dismissive hand. “You weren’t even in the Lovers of Liberty.

No one in the city even knows who you are now.

But if you had fought a five-hundred foot squid on Ellis Island or a giant robot thing?

With the whole city watching? No one would ever forget that. ”

Roy tested the lock on the front door, using his flashlight to ensure that the outer lobby was still empty.

“I’ve seen a lot of fights. Watched a lot of powerful people kill things because they could.

Because they wanted to. It made them feel good.

Honestly, I don’t even remember half of their names now.

” He paused in his tracks. “…Bu t during the war, I watched a private run out into a mine field and carry back the mangiest dog you’ve ever seen.

Gave it the last swallow of water in his canteen.

I know that man’s name. All these years later.

” He nodded, silently saying a prayer for the man’s soul.

“Most heroic thing I’ve ever seen. That was something worthy of remembering. ”

“What happened to him?”

Roy looked down at the floor. “He got shot on the way back with the dog, fifty feet from safety. He died the next day.”

“And that doesn’t tell you something about that particular brand of heroism?”

“I know he helped something weaker than himself and was willing to put his own life on the line. He did what was right, no matter the consequences. To me, that’s heroism.

It’s about the act, not about the outcome.

God is in the process, not the result. It’s not the kind of heroism that gets headlines or wins medals, but it’s heroism all the same.

” He nodded at the truth of his own words.

“Helping people to your own detriment. Following the rules of your own conscience, no matter the result. Being willing to listen, rather than hating.” He met her eyes.

“Do good deeds because they’re the right thing to do.

If they’re not the right thing to do, don’t do them, no matter the outcome. ”

“I think that’s crazy. And stupid.” She snorted at the idea. “Why would I want to be a heroine who followed rules ? I’m never doing anything like that.”

“If you’re after glory, there are better careers.

This one is usually thankless. And painful.

You have to earn it. You have to struggle for it.

You don’t know what it is to hit someone unless you’ve been hit yourself.

If it’s just handed to you or if you’re just so spectacularly powerful that you can do it all, that’s a very dangerous thing.

If it’s all easy, then nothing means anything.

And if you’re capable of anything, then you could be capable of anything .

There are a lot of very easy to cross moral lines in this business and not all of them are marked. ”

“The job description is ‘fighting evil,’ it’s not that hard.”

“Yes, it is.” He nodded his head. “Evil is not always readily apparent. Sometimes it looks just like everyone else, hiding in plain sight. Silently hating the world.” He met her eyes again.

“Hate is one of the untamable elements of life. No hero or heroine can stop it forever. You can fight evil. But you can’t beat it all.

This job is Wack-A-Mole, you can only try to stop it when it next appears.

We have no more hope of stopping hate completely than a fireman has of stopping the element of fire from ever appearing again.

” He swallowed, remembering a thousand battles and a million scars.

“It wears you down, over time. But being a hero means never letting it keep you down.”