If I were the type of writer that provided happy-go-lucky montages of highlights and important moments, I would write something about Viola Mae's shock at finding six million dollars in her bank after the processing of Tobias's will, and I would write something about how Tobias felt on being bought a pair of fitting pants, and how Teddy blushed when Tobias giggled at his jokes before he said them as his predictive powers recovered with his health. Alas, I am not that kind of writer, so you will simply have to imagine those moments as happy and positive in the lives of our two heroes and their favorite pilot as a week went by.

I would much prefer to write about something more important than fleeting happiness and "cute" relationships. For instance: real estate.

On Wednesday morning, the latest newspaper arrived at the doorstep, and after the delivery boy had skipped off, Tobias snaked his arm—and just his arm—out the door to snatch it and bring it back inside. He shut the door and vaulted himself to the lounge, where he settled into an armchair and shook out the paper.

Tobias enjoyed reading and if he had been permitted to, would have read all the offerings that the paper had, except for the obituaries, which he suspected would be depressing. That would make sense, in the same way one might avoid visiting a graveyard on a sightseeing trip, or in the same way that I avoid visiting my mother while researching at the stunning library in her town.

Among a multitude of other "in" superheroes and supervillains, Mr. Might, Vine Voodoo, and the memory of Chance took up many pages, but Viola Mae grabbed those concerning team Defiance on her way out of the house, before Tobias could find them himself. He opened his mouth to protest, but cut himself short.

"I've disconnected everything and locked all the important cords in a box that only I have the key to," she said, handing the paper back to him. She tore up the pages and stuffed the ruins into the pocket of her blazer.

"Excessive," he mumbled. He stood up to embrace her, leaning on his crutch as he slung his good arm around. It was his chest that hurt the most, covered in unevenly blotched second- and third-degree burns. The second-degree ones hurt like the dickens, and he was grateful that eventually, they would heal. In the meantime, he kept those tender spots away from any contact. "I'm sorry that you have to do this. I promise I will get out of your hair soon." He offered an awkward close-lipped Duchenne smile. "You look nice. I'm so used to seeing you in sweatpants and men's shirts."

Viola Mae punched his shoulder, just hard enough to bring out a wince. "Yeah, yeah. Don't you go getting into any trouble while we're gone, okay? If you need anything, you know where the landline is, and I left my number next to it. We'll be back early evening. Sit tight. No T.V."

Tobias snickered and waved his hand. "I've got it, Viola Mae. No T.V. No reading about myself, no news about Benjamin and Poppy. I'll be fine here alone. And for the record, you and Teddy can return to working whenever. I don't mean to hold anyone back." He twirled his finger towards the floor. "Now, turn around and I'll fix your hair."

"Why, is it broken?"

"Haha," Tobias drawled, planting his hands on his hips.

Viola Mae turned around, rolling her eyes, and let the man pull back her hair. She passed him a hair tie. "So, how's it going without the painkillers?"

"Well enough. The third- and fourth- and fifth-degree damages, though they look the worst, don't hurt—or not much, anyways. It's the second-degree burns, which are all up the middle line, back and front, and a little bit on my hand. But, they keep me alert. My powers have never been stronger. Yesterday, I sat down and focused, and I could read an entire hour into the future. The possible futures, that is. It all becomes more uncertain the farther I look." He delicately arranged the hair that always hung in her face into three parts and began to plait it. In the past, braiding had been simple, even enjoyable, but with shaky hands, it took tremendous effort to keep each loop even and neat. Sweat beaded on his sunken brow.

"Big moments always lead to big revelations," Viola Mae said. She pulled him forward with her to bend and sweep up the paper.

"Watch it..." Tobias's hand shot down to his crutch.

"You're fine. You've gotten to be pretty good on that old crutch." She opened the newspaper as she straightened out, and he continued his process. "After my accident, I got more powerful, too."

"Oh?"

"I can turn other people invisible with me, now. It was just objects, initially."

"I knew about the objects. You showed me before. But, people? Does that not drain your stamina substantially?"

"I'm working on it." She frowned. "Hey, that volcano lair is for sale already."

Tobias's brows raised. He had almost forgotten about Powerful Real Estate's visit. The events of the island had started to blur, becoming more of an indistinct mixture of unpleasant emotions than an actual memory. The mention of the island stirred an uncomfortable gloom in the back of his mind and summoned a lump in the back of his throat. "Is it?"

"That place is a powder keg," Viola Mae muttered, shaking her head. She winced as Tobias plucked out a knot in her black strands. "They said on the news yesterday that it's probably going to erupt again in a week or two. Why would anyone buy that? It's a death trap."

Tobias shrugged and tied off the braid, patting her back to let her know he was finished. He peered over at the real estate ad. "Bargain price. Only two-hundred thousand. It's a historical site, you know. Some of the greatest villains won some of the greatest battles in all Benediction on that island. It's isolated, it's central, and the lair is still nearly intact after generations of volatile eruptions. Not too bad a spot."

Viola Mae helped him to sit back down again and passed him the paper. "Sold by Powerful Real Estate. I guarantee it will wind up in another supervillain's hands."

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Tobias shrugged, looking up. "Maybe. Have a nice funeral." He frowned. "I'm sorry. Um, I hope everything goes well, and I'll see you this evening."

She laughed and folded her arms. "All right, buddy. I'll see you later." She started to walk off. "And thank you for the hair, girlfriend."

"You're welcome," Tobias answered. His brows, one bushy, one prickly, sunk. Already fallen into the trap, he sighed and returned, "Girlfriend."

"Nice hair," Teddy remarked, appearing in the doorway. He leaned in to give Tobias a wave. "See you, buddy! No parties!"

"Let me just cancel all the invites." He rolled his eyes and returned the wave. "Goodbye, guys."

"Stay out of trouble!"

Before too long, Tobias was alone, drinking his coffee with milk and perusing what remained of the newspaper with little interest. There were rumors of a nuke in Central Benediction, but there always seemed to be such a rumor. The matter-molder, Oetherium, had been locked up in the Penitentiary for Estranged Non-Typicals after all, too estranged and too non-typical to go quietly to retirement. In the end, Tobias wound up staring at the realty section, perplexed by the volcanic island and the few photographs of its interior.

He chuckled at how they marketed the dried lava streams that had penetrated the once impenetrable lair as "authentic décor for supervillain enthusiasts."

Eventually, he tired of reading the same page over and downed the rest of his drink, gagging at the unpleasant cold. Dropping the paper, he limped to the kitchen with his mug and found a pile of dishes and an assortment of things left out all over the counter, including foodstuffs, random items that Viola Mae had picked up while food-shopping and left on the counter, and carelessly strewn hair ties.

Viola Mae was far from a tidy person, and Teddy was far from a focused person. Together, they made a team that left a mess that could be picked at slowly for days. Viola Mae might appear and need a dish, find no more clean ones, and clean and dry one. Teddy might enter the kitchen and see a mess, but something he had forgotten about earlier might pop into his mind and he would abandon clean-up after a brief time.

Tobias, on the other hand, was both tidy and focused, and put everything neatly away. He continued to do this around the house, finding hair ties in peculiar places and hoodies thrown over furniture, and whiled the hours with the light and stimulating activity of one-legged cleaning. It felt good to do something to contribute. It made him smile, especially when he came to the foyer, where photographs hung across from the door and stood on the table by the entryway. She had the same photos that perched on his desk in his old room and it provided some comfort.

He dusted them quietly and moved on. The house was not large, so the pastime passed quickly, and Tobias found himself playing cards alone. Every time he won a round of solitaire, he felt stronger, predicting which cards to draw and where to lay them. Eventually, this pastime, too, lost his attention.

By two o'clock, lying on the floor in front of the powerless television in the lounge, he could think of nothing but his funeral. He had tried to avoid it, knowing very well that Viola Mae was right. It would upset him. It would anger him to hear whatever pompous rubbish Benjamin Jones rolled off his silver tongue. It would shake him to see how wrongly they presented the event of his "death". But he already was angry, and like a fire wanting to be fed, something deep down hungered for more.

Within a half-hour, Tobias was up and fixated on finding news on the events of the day, which meant finding a television. With all the devices in the house disconnected, he locked himself in the bathroom with the silicon mask that he had ordered online and the assorted disguise items that Viola Mae had brought him. With his money—the half that didn't go to charity, that is—in her bank, he felt better about using her card to purchase the seven-hundred-dollar mask. It was of good quality.

He folded his specs on the counter and struggled with a pair of blue-colored contact lenses, then smeared a protective layer of jelly over his remaining eyebrow. It was his first time applying the prosthetics, but he was determined to make it work. He carefully removed the disturbingly realistic silicone mask from its Styrofoam head and, holding it, squinted at the mirror. Visions blocked his view of himself, showing the different possibilities of how his work might proceed. From the visions, he carefully selected which techniques were effective and eliminated those that were not. He slicked his hair back with the jelly and very gingerly eased the mask over his head. It provided most of the disguise; a complete package with cropped blonde hair, thin eyebrows, freckles, and a neck and partial torso to allow him the freedom of wearing a t-shirt, rather than trying to conceal how red his skin was in comparison to the mask.

Around the eyes he painted with latex and a color that matched the mask to blend it, then around his lips and nostrils. He adjusted it a few times before he was comfortable. At least as comfortable as he could be while looking at a new face on his "dumpy old"—his words—"body."

When satisfied with the mask, he slipped into the guest room and changed into the clothes that Viola Mae had picked for him.

His request had been, "If you see something—anything—that I would never wear, but would pass off as completely ordinary, then buy it. Please."

She had outdone herself.

Tobias returned to the bathroom mirror shaking his disguised head in disgust. Mr. Might grinned tauntingly back at him from his long-sleeved shirt. Vines snaked up his Vine Voodoo branded jeans, her logo on his pocket. He sneered and tied off the empty leg, then sat on the edge of the bathtub to pull on his single sneaker and tie the laces tight.

Lastly, he squirmed into a hoodie and flicked the hood up, then hid his hands in a pair of gloves, one with two stuffed fingers.

He stuck a note in the foyer before he left on his long and tedious hobble.

It was a long and tedious hobble out of the neighborhood, and a much longer and more tedious hobble into the town square. Buses and cars and bikes whizzed by, people laughed and swore, pets squabbled, and in all the chaos, Tobias could foresee no possibilities of being recognized.

But the curse of Tobias MacClain and his powers was that though he did not see he own greatest fear of losing everything in the nearest future, he did see many terrible possibilities. Even with his eyes downcast and his pace hasty, all around him he could see possible muggers, rapists, vehicle accidents, assaults, and even the chance of a plane crashing into the center of it all. No matter how sane Teddy thought Tobias was, the chances of so many horrible things occurring in every step on the street left the man paranoid and shaking. It had always been in his comfort zone to remain indoors outside of duty, for he had a dreadful habit of trying to change chances and interfere with futures.

Terrible, terrible things happen all the time, and terrible, terrible things were on their way for him then, though he wasn't looking far enough to see them. I dug up the mask months later from rubble, wearing a much less sophisticated mask of my own, and concealed in the dark. The swim from the beach of the West had been long and tiring, but nothing kept me more awake than chasing the traces of the case of Tobias MacClain.

After escaping the volcanic island with the mask in my bag, I stroked through the black night waters to a lake in the middle of the woods skirting East Benediction where I rinsed it of filth to expose its history.

The blonde hair was black and brittle, and the silicon was a grotesque smear, melted and warped. It looked inhuman, and even more so in the dark, in the middle of the empty woods, with only my reflection and his for company. The explosion had done it no favors, and the aftermath, no more. One cheek sagged like candle wax, speckled with welts where bubbles of heat had attempted escape.

With my bare hands, I recorded everything I could deduce from the horrifying skin and proceeded to dig it a final resting place in a secret alcove. There, where no one will ever find it, lies the destroyed face of the mysterious man who saved a city, shook hands with Mr. Might, broke into a university, and disappeared.