The Confidential Files of A Superhero

Onyx: Six

Alex’s Point of View

Soundtrack: Mistake by NF

A part of me wanted to head straight home, to crawl into my bed and hide under the sheets until I snapped out of whatever this was. Superhero’s didn’t do that though, and I hated myself for even thinking about it. I wanted to slap myself across the side of my head, hoping it might rattle this nonsense out of my brain. But also, I didn’t really know how to deal with this at all. I’d been a professional superhero for nearly four years now, and this had never happened to me before. I’d never felt afraid in a situation like that, I’d never been so panicky or jumpy in my entire life. Even on my very first mission ever, I’d felt more comfortable than I had today, but at least I’d pushed through it and caught the bad guys anyways. I couldn’t even imagine what would be going through my head right now if today hadn’t worked out in my favour.

It was true that I could probably ask my dad about this. Being the famous Mr.Mask, he’d been a superhero for much longer than I had been, and definitely had more experience than I did. I mean, there had to have been at least one mission where my father was feeling the same way I had today, right? Plus, even if he hadn’t personally, it turned out that he apparently knew a lot more famous superhero’s than I had originally realized, thanks to the drama that came out last spring. Yet, that drama had also made an uncomfortable doubt about my father settle into my core, especially when he brought home Ali’s mother and decided he was going to keep her hostage in our basement.

At the thought of Sabine, a chill ran through my body. I wasn’t sure if my father had ever been through something like this, but I think I knew someone that had. Allison’s mother had been one of us, one of a multi-superhero team, once upon a time, until everything had fallen apart. I’d seen the fear in her eyes back in June as she walked into the battlefield she was once confident on. She definitely would understand it, but before I could even consider the thought I was already pushing it away. No, Sabine had no place in this, and certainly couldn’t be trusted to talk to her about something so personal. I shook the thought away, making one last harsh attempt to block out today’s events from my mind. It was my first day back, it was a little bit of jitters, nothing more. By my next mission, I’ll be fully prepared and feel fine. This won’t happen again, I promised myself, but deep down I wasn’t so sure.

I circled around the perimeter of my car, swooping down and hopping into the driver’s seat only when I was certain that no one else was around. I’d been flying around for a little while now, letting the sun fully set on the horizon so that it was dark before I dropped down. I was probably taking too many precautions right now, but as my mother always said, you can never be too careful with a secret like ours. Our whole lives would change if it got out that we were superhero’s. More than that, we’d be in a lot of danger as our enemies teamed up and made their moves to take us down.

“Hey,’ A voice startled me, greeting me just as I flung open the jeep door. I was surprised to find Kyle already perched in the passenger seat. He’d already freed himself of his suit as was sliding back into his normal clothes, clearly having just got here as well.

‘Hey,” I nodded back. It was taking everything I had to try and act casual right now, as if a thousand thoughts of personal doubt weren’t spinning through my head. Kyle thankfully didn’t seem to notice right now, too focused on getting himself changed. For a moment I wondered if he ever had these feelings, and a part of me thought about even asking him, but I chickened out. Doubting yourself wasn’t a good look for a superhero, and unless this became an ongoing issue for me then there really wasn’t any reason to do anything about it, right? After all, it was just one bad mission that had actually all worked out anyways. I was fine.

I moved quicker to change this time than I had earlier. Whatever clumsiness that had come over me before was clearly gone now, but maybe I was just extra enthused to get out of the suit now. After being so anxious all summer to put it back on, it was weird to now feel so uncomfortable in it. In record time I had transformed out of the roll of Onyx and was back to being just regular Alex. Pulling my driver’s seat back into it’s proper position, I rest my hands on the steering wheel. If I were certain about one thing tonight, it was that I just wanted to get the hell out of here and back home. My eyes scanned over the watch on my wrist, and for the first time in my life I was pleading with the damn thing not to call me out again.

“Are you alright man?” Kyle asked as he slipped his regular t shirt over his head and tugged it down. I wanted to groan, but I held it back. I knew he was just looking out for me, but I desperately wanted to forget this whole mission had ever happened. This whole summer, all I had been looking forward to was getting back out to guarding the city skyline. Yet, now that I was actually back out there, it wasn’t as glorious as I had remembered.

“I’m fine, just tired,” I quipped back, but we both knew that Kyle could see right through me. We’d been doing this together for too long, he was my best friend, and we practically grew up together. With the amount of time we spent together, he knew me almost as well as he knew himself. Which meant he knew that after any mission, I was usually practically vibrating with excitement over our accomplishment. No matter how tired I was feeling, I was never like this.

Still, Kyle knew better than to push back. Whatever it was I was going through, he knew he could trust that I would open up to him about it when I was ready. If I were ever ready to talk about this, I thought to myself. “That was a good mission tonight, close call with the bomb though. The criminals in this city are getting more and more daring every day, I swear,” Kyle said next, making small talk about the day’s events just like we always did, only this time I didn’t want to talk.

Thankfully, it wasn’t a far drive back to the university. I muttered something back to him like, “yeah always,” then kept my eyes focused on the road the rest of the way. In less than 5 minutes we were back on campus and Kyle was hopping out of my truck.

“Are you going to go in and see Ali?” He asked through the open jeep door, now standing outside the vehicle. My hand hovered over the seatbelt clip for a moment. I wanted to, I really wanted to. After the day I had, I knew just a few seconds with Ali hugged tight against my chest and I would forget all about what had happened today. But once glance up to her dorm building and I knew that the next few weeks were going to be spectacularly hard for us. I’d already said goodbye to her once today, and if I walked back in there tonight then I’d have a hard time leaving again. Besides, I think this was something I needed to work through on my own. No matter how much I loved Ali, I didn’t want to let her see this weakness anymore than I wanted anyone else to see it.

So, I shook my head. “No, gonna head home. You going in?” I asked, silently praying he would say no. It would only make me look worse if Kyle went in and I didn’t. Thankfully Kyle shook his head though.

“Nah I’m tired. It was a long day and I’m sure the girls need some time to unpack anyways,” he said with a shrug of his shoulders. One last nod between the two of us and Kyle was slamming the jeep door shut and hopping into his own vehicle. I waved one last time through the dark tinted windows and then pulled back out onto the road, headed for the comfort of my own home.

By the time I made it there, my entire body felt exhausted. I wanted to head straight upstairs to bed but with my mind tangled in my own thoughts, my feet were carrying me elsewhere. Against my better judgement, I stumbled into the lab, ashamed and embarrassed by what had just happened to me today. I wasn’t even able to look at Kyle in the eye as he turned to head home and leave me to my own misery.

I stared at the empty room in front of me, my eyes glazing over the construction zone. The guilt settled into my body, pulling me down with a thousand pounds of weight as I urged myself to take a step forwards. It was about time I admitted to myself that this day had been the worst I’d had in a while. I stooped down to maneuver myself under the construction tape, then took a deep breath as I came face to face with the door to the room we’d once used for training. Well, at least it didn’t feel like this day could get any worst at this point.