Waking up in a holding cell is one of my least favorite experiences. Especially when surrounded by troublesome people with grubby fingernails and aloof tough-guy or gal demeanors who look at you like a sack of toothpicks if you aren't built as a beefcake. It is especially unpleasant because they often smell and have poor general hygiene. In my experience, every time that I have wound up in a cell, I have consistently thought that every criminal in there shouldn't be admitted until they had cleaned their bodies, and their filthy mouths, with soap.

Alas, simple prop stations, designed for simple typical wrong-doers, are not funded enough to consider bulk supplies of hygiene products for mostly temporary grunts like beaten-up drunks, hit-and-runners, and misunderstood reporters with blood on their hands.

When Tobias woke up in the cell of the East End Police Station, he felt enormously out of place. He was a temporary misunderstood bomb threatener amongst the company of an ear-picking gang member, a chanting spastic, a moaning businessman without any trousers, and a very smug teenager with red eyes and white hair.

Tobias rolled his shoulders and felt his ribs over his shirt. The hoodie was gone, but thankfully, so was the hospital gown, and he was left with his awful Team Defiance merchandise. Tight and itchy bandages wrapped around him beneath the fabric. The silicon mask smelled like smoke and sweat, heavy and uncomfortable. The cell smelled of alcohol and tobacco. All the scents mingled into one malodourous draft.

"What are chances of you winding up here?" the teenager purred.

Tobias frowned and looked over. He narrowed his eyes at the girl's red irises. "Excuse me?"

"I said, what are the chances?"

Tobias shook his head and looked away. He clenched his gloved fist, feeling a sharp shock of pain through his arm from the raw burns on his palm. His head cleared a little, and he did it again, harder. They would collect him soon, he thought. It was difficult to see when in the morning grog.

"I don't belong here," moaned the pants-less man.

The leather-clad gang member grunted and flicked a gob of earwax to the floor, and the chanting woman raised her voice and stroked the prison bars. The teenager blew a bubble of gum and popped it obnoxiously, watching Tobias with her smug, smug smirk.

Tobias looked around the bench for his crutch. It wound up among the photographs in the Higher Defense Headquarters records room, dented, blackened, and blown into two pieces. Tobias would never see it again. What he found instead was a sleek prosthetic, donated by an anonymous pair of parents and a very much alive little girl. He stared at it, lifting his jeans' leg to see the smooth new titanium. It was simple, like the end of a crutch—almost closer to a peg leg, if it weren't for the joint at the ankle.

Engraved into the slim steel shaft were the words THANK YOU. Tobias pulled off an attached tag and squinted at it through his dry contact lenses. They hurt, they blurred, and he was sure that they would soon fall out.

"For saving our little girl," the teenager read over his shoulder. "Well, ain't that adorable, huh? We've got a hero in our midst."

Tobias closed the note in his palm and glared at the girl. "Mind your own business."

The teenager sat back against the wall and shrugged apathetically. Tobias swallowed, expression slack. He clenched his fist again and stood resolutely. The prosthetic frightened him, for he could not feel the floor, and he stumbled a step. The rubber-capped foot caught him and, feeling a jolt up his knee at the landing of it, he stepped more confidently towards the cell's door. He wrapped his fingers around the bars and peered around the outside. There was a hallway to the left, lined with doors, a desk in front where a prop sat, and the exit into daylight to the right.

Tobias cleared his throat, and the prop looked up.

"Officer," he said respectfully. He bowed his head. "I was told there would be a representative from Higher Defense to see me."

The prop waved a hand. "Go and sit down. They'll get you when they want you. And ain't you lucky? You'll get to meet your idol, too."

Tobias frowned. "My idol, sir?"

"Mr. Might is on his way."

"Mr. Might." Tobias stared down at his t-shirt. The corners of his lips twitched. He laughed breathily and slipped his fingers into his hair, shaking his head in disbelief. "My idol."

He began to pace. And, oh, did it feel good to pace, even if the new leg didn't feel anything like a leg. He paced and paced, back and forth, wall to wall. The others sharing his cell complained, the prop complained, but Tobias kept on pacing, narrowed eyes downcast. He stopped for a moment to rub his wrist.

"My watch?" he asked. "Officer, where is my watch?"

The prop glared at him. "You probably lost it in the bomb blast. Now, sit down, would you?"

Tobias pursed his lips and pushed up his glasses. Except, the glasses weren't there, and his finger simply slid up the bridge of his nose. He grimaced and started to pace again until the bell at the door of the station tinkled.

He gripped the bars and stared.

The woman wore a pantsuit and carried a briefcase, with a professional but fashionable hairstyle that probably cost hundreds and was reminiscent of the 50's. She held up a badge, strung on a lanyard around her neck, for the prop at the reception desk to see.

He pointed to Tobias and Tobias took a step back, swallowing. Sweat beaded on his forehead, hot and sticky under the silicon face. The prop rose with a ring of keys to unlock the cell, followed by the woman. Tobias rubbed his contact lenses into a clearer position and squinted at her badge. She was a lawyer from Higher Defense Headquarters, and he vaguely remembered seeing her before. Every hero had a lawyer, but they were the shiftiest people in the entire business. Even shiftier than red-handed reporters, the lawyers slunk from typical to typical covering up messes that superheroes caused and never accounted for. Reporters simply told what they saw or were paid to see.

Somehow, at this lawyer, Tobias's false face broke into a wide and stupid grin. Even as the prop fixed his wrists in handcuffs and escorted him down the hallway of doors, Tobias could not contain his delight. There was a reason his memory of this woman was so vague, and it was for the same reason that she was so important, and for the same reason that she smelled of a mixture of pleasant herbs.

The prop seated him at a table and bound his handcuffs to a bar in the middle of it, then left after a few words to the woman. She folded into the seat across from Tobias and opened her briefcase, paying his grin no heed.

Tobias looked over all that he could see above the table in fascination. How had he never seen her this close before?

"You're his wife!" He wanted to blurt in triumph. "You're the tea-giver! You are the one!"

He bit his lip and clenched his raw fist. They would be alone for a while and blurting things out would only cause him trouble.

"Sir, we understand you already explained your situation to the police," she said, once satisfied with the organization of her briefcase.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

"Yes. I saw the bomb on the television and realized it was coming in this direction," Tobias answered, nodding. It was perfectly reasonable, he thought. No powers necessary. "They didn't believe me."

"No, they wouldn't." She folded her hands. "We are grateful that the people of East Benediction are still with us, and we at Headquarters do understand your situation."

"You do?" Tobias's brows furrowed and he clasped his hands. The two stuffed fingers of his glove stuck out uncooperatively. "But?"

She smiled and pulled a manila folder out of her case. "But, this accident could cause a lot of fear in the populace if the wrong facts, your facts, were to get out. Mr. Might is a highly regarded hero. If people were to think he endangered them, it would cause chaos. You must understand that we deeply regret the incident as it happened, but a public apology and confession would disrupt the balance of Benediction."

"The balance," Tobias repeated blandly. He stared down at the papers before him, mind blank.

"Mr. Might is human too, sir." The lawyer touched his glove. "He lost a team member."

Tobias flinched and pulled away. He held his hands as far from her as they could get on their chain.

She straightened and gestured to the papers. "This is a confidentiality agreement. You cannot say that Mr. Might was involved with the bomb. You cannot say that you were involved in the square. You cannot say anything that suggests that the event occurred at all, unless prompted and scripted. For your secrecy and for your service, if you sign this agreement, we offer you fifty thousand dollars." She lifted an envelope from the case. "As a cheque."

Tobias shook his head in astonishment. He dragged his hand down his face and rubbed his throat. He had never experienced the way Headquarters dealt with accidents. They always seemed to disappear and he regretted, now, never asking why or how. "What... What are you going to do? Pay off every citizen in the area to pretend that... that it never happened? Rebuild the entire square? Snap your fingers, and make it all go away? Benjamin Jones turned a bomb away from Headquarters and towards civilians. The entire nation saw the bomb turned around on the television."

She smiled again and pulled out a tablet, swiping a stylus over the screen. "The entire nation knows that Neville's bomb landed in the ocean."

The tablet screen flashed in his face, blue light blanching his cheeks. The moisture absconded from his mouth, which opened and closed wordlessly. Footage depicted Neville's nuke plunging into the sea with a grand show of spray and a sky-high rocket of water, following Mr. Might's landing in Vine Voodoo's net.

Tobias gaped and pulled back, rigid against his chair. "Th-that—that—that's doctored!" he stammered. His heart raced. "That's doctored!"

She rolled a pen over the table. "The nuke that fell in East Benediction was created by a copycat villain in the area. Whether that copycat villain is you, the easiest person to blame, or someone else, comes down to whether or not you sign here."

"B-Blackmail?" Tobias blubbered. "That's what you do at Headquarters? We—You are supposed to be the good guys. That's what Benediction counts on."

"We are the good guys," the lawyer responded, taking the tablet back. "Mr. Might himself insisted on coming to see you, to acknowledge and reward your incredible civic duty. But we need you to sign. Mr. McGuire, isn't it? Think of how many lives Mr. Might has saved. Please, read the agreement."

Tobias took the paper, noticing the trembling of his hands. He smoothed it out on the table and took a deep breath, clasping his hands together to reduce their obvious movement. He rubbed his eyes, readjusting the contact lenses, and read.

After a few sentences, he looked up. "This is wrong. Does Headquarters treat typicals like this whenever there is an accident? Is this how superheroes are never caught causing trouble until they've turned pom?"

"You say that as if you are not typical."

"No, I am," Tobias muttered quickly. He grimaced and returned to reading but choked. He read aloud, "'The event that occurred on Wednesday the sixteenth was the result of a copycat attack. The villain in question was a powerless Neville copycat who timed his nuke to be released at a moment that would cause the most civil unrest. I overheard him speaking about his plans to destroy the square and acted by instinct to prevent his actions from killing hundreds.'" He shook his head. "So, we absolve Mr. Might of all responsibility? An innocent somewhere gets penalized, and I get paid to tell a lie."

The woman pursed her lips, then smiled once more her infuriating lawyer smile. The on-top-of-the-world, knowing, smug smile lorded over Tobias like a billboard with flashing white lights stating I OWN YOU.

His jaw clenched and he picked up the pen.

"If I sign, my identity will be kept a secret, and I will be released immediately?"

"Of course."

"If I don't?"

"The mask comes off, and the blame for the incident falls to you—the real you."

Tobias exhaled. He had never experienced the accident clean-up activities of Higher Defense Headquarters up close. Of course, he had known their main objective in the hero employment and deployment business was earning a buck, but he had not considered what lengths the non-typical justice department went to.

Personally, I know that the original cover-up for Neville's nuke's collateral damage did not involve Tobias being freed at all. The confidential e-mail, another item that I stumbled upon through entirely conventional methods, stated that the most convenient way to deal with East Benediction's disaster was by blaming the man who stood in the middle of it crying out that he had a bomb. His arrest was to be publicized, the mess would be cleaned up by the cement, earth, and metal molders in Headquarters employ, the witnesses paid off or hypnotized, and in a matter of weeks, it would be as if the explosion had never happened.

If you wish to see Mr. Might and Vine Voodoo as inherently antagonistic in order to fuel your anger and sympathize with our unconventional protagonist, I suggest skipping the next three paragraphs of my research.

Firstly, I must be clear that I sympathize entirely with Tobias MacClain. However, I acknowledge that Benjamin Jones and Poppy Tris are not villainous any more than I am. We make the wrong decisions often, and say the wrong things sometimes, and might accidentally leave the lights on when we leave the house, but we all feel guilt for our wrong doings. This is what distinguishes us as decent people, though it does not make us, per se, "good".

In the case of the Wednesday the 16th incident, it was an e-mail from the remaining duo of Team Defiance that stopped one good-intending one-legged man from being exposed as a death-faking former hero, and being blamed for a dreadful act of terror that he had only done his best to prevent. The e-mail, I am sure, was written by Poppy Tris, judging by the literate and formal language that indicated a high-achieving English student, but it was sent by Benjamin Jones, judging by the name and address on the e-mail, to the lawyer whose name is redacted from this script.

Benjamin and Poppy insisted that the person that saved so many people from their mistake deserved to be raised up, not locked up. And without their input, and the follow-up pleading from Benjamin over a phone call, Tobias most certainly would not have left that room freely. But, please, continue to think of the schism in this memoir as entirely black and white, if it is simpler that way.

The pen scratched a shaky signature of a false name over the paper and Tobias sighed and closed his eyes. It wouldn't matter in the future. He would go to jail regardless for all the incomplete schemes that swam in his mind, all the twisted truths he wished to expose to the nation, all the pain he wanted to put onto someone else. He didn't need to be a hero, or for anyone to know the risks he had taken faking his death, then saving thousands. Right now, all he needed was not to be noticed, but it was already too late for that.

He put down the pen, and he smiled back at the woman. "I have always aspired to be as bold and daring and heroic as Mr. Might," he insisted, slipping sardonically into the role of an innocent. It almost triggered his gag reflex. "When I saw him on the news, when I overheard that terrorist beside me, I just couldn't help myself. I was inspired. I knew that I could make a difference, even without super strength. Because that's what Mr. Might means to me." His smile tightened as the lady's chin lifted with interest. "He is the strength I'll never have. Seeing him on duty, serving our nation, gives me the strength I need to resist injustice, daily."

The lawyer's red lips parted to show her perfect teeth. She nodded, pleased, and took the manila folder and its lawful contents back to review them. "I like that," she said. "We can put that on television. You'll be a noble everyday hero, and so will—"

"No." Tobias glared at her. "I have done as you asked, and I would like to be released. If anyone asks, I will run with your story, as in the agreement. Uncuff me."

She delved into a pocket. Tobias's attention snapped to the door. Visitors would arrive soon. It could be in ten seconds or in twenty, it could be loud, or quiet. He could trip at the doorstop, or stride smoothly in. He could look at his secret wife first, or at Tobias first. The chances swam in Tobias's head as he half-consciously held his wrists out to the lawyer.

The handcuffs fell to the table and he stood abruptly, rubbing the marks from his wrists.

The door flew open hard enough to whack against the wall and bounce back. Mr. Might ducked inside with his hands on his hips and all his pearly whites on display. He filled Tobias's reddening vision so completely that the man barely noticed Spectre entering behind, or the lawyer leaving after.

There he was, dressed in the same blue and gold suit that he had worn when he had left Tobias to die. He stood tall and straight, as if he could never be brought down, as if he expected to be looked up to and worshipped. He extended his hand, as if he expected Tobias to shake it.

But Tobias was frozen, trembling and rigid as if he'd just arrived from the tundra. His eyes were wide and blank, and all that ran behind them was Benjamin Jones's cowardly face turning away from him when he needed it the most. It was as if he were powerless all over again.