I go to a lot of funerals.

The hardest part about a superhero’s funeral is that the war is relentless. There is no time to mourn, no time for heartbreak. The world keeps turning, the saucers keep arriving, and the superheroes keep fighting.

The dead are gone and forgotten.

But not by me. I’m the one who organizes for the name of the fallen hero to be cut into the wall of remembrance. I’m the one who has the heartbreaking task of sorting through whatever personal effects they leave behind and separating them into a pile for family, a pile for friends and a pile for the garbage.

I’m not a superhero, you see, I’m just one of the stewards who serves them.

And I’ve been on the Cerberus longer than anyone. I arrived on the ship while it was still having its enormous cannons fitted, and I immediately started setting the cabins out for the superheroes. I was hired as a contractor for a year. It wasn’t a glamorous job. Stewards don’t go anywhere near the armory or gun labs, and we never see the personnel files. We serve the food and clean the clothes, things like that. Nothing important, nothing confidential. I’m not particularly talented or brave, but I still wanted to serve the Super Corps and Earth in any way I could.

I had been on the ship for a month before Dark Fire and his first team arrived.

Then the Cerberus Brawlers joined the war, and I experienced the stress of working for superheroes first hand. They were a demanding bunch: loud and arrogant, pushy and often cruel.

And young, for the most part.

And scared.

I saw that right away, and they knew I knew. They used to yell at me a lot – they still do – but I never argued back, never got angry, never judged. It wasn’t a pleasant life for me, but it paled in comparison to what they lived through. Most of the world only sees superheroes when they are partying or after a victory, but I saw so much more, so much worse.

There were a lot of funerals in that first year, and I went to them all.

I stayed on after my contract was up. I didn’t discuss it with anyone; I just didn’t leave. I dedicated my life to serving the superheroes, although none of them know that. I doubt they would care. I stayed on when others left, and I took on new responsibilities. I was given more senior positions, although I never asked for them.

I became Dark Fire’s personal steward.

I remember the first time I saw him: he was in his office with his senior officers, and I took them a tray of coffee. I don’t know what they were talking about, but it seemed very serious. There was a lot of passionate arguing, but it was clear to me that the officers had a lot of respect for each other. Dark Fire was sitting at his desk. He didn’t speak much, only interrupting with quiet words from time to time.

He was shorter than I had expected, but I could see the fire in his eyes.

And he carries a great burden. They all do, of course, but Dark Fire’s is the greatest. The Super Corps don’t like him and many of the other superheroes are scared of him, but they know they need him. That’s a heavy cross to carry, but I only saw him give into it once, the day that Ice Blood died. It was a terrible time, and no–one felt it more than Dark Fire. Dark Fire often fought alone in those days. It was unhealthy and he knew it, but he continued none–the–less. He was a team of one, a master soldier, but even he couldn’t be everywhere. He had been fighting a saucer on the wrong side of the world when the call for reinforcements came. He missed it, and Ice Blood and his team died.

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I knew there was a problem as soon as I walked into his office. He was sitting at his desk in crumpled civilian clothes. I had served him for a year, but I have never seen him out of his armor. He looked defeated. I placed the tray on his desk, but he didn’t look at me. There was a whiskey bottle on his desk, half–empty. There was no glass.

It wasn’t the first time I had found him drinking, but it was the worst.

“You need to eat,” I said gently as I place the tray in front of him.

“What?” he said, startled.

He grabbed the bottle and tried to hide it, but we both knew that I had seen. Perhaps he had forgotten that we had been in this situation before; perhaps he didn’t remember who I was.

“You! Sneaking around like a thief. Get the hell out of here!”

He flipped the tray over, showering me in hot coffee and soup. It burnt, as you can imagine, but I just stood there and let him shout abuse at me until his anger was exhausted. He laid his head on the table and refused to look at me.

I was back within ten minutes with a new tray of food. If I have any ability of note, it is knowing what people need to help them keep going. Dark Fire needed more than I could give him, but at least I could help. I had stopped a lot of fights and meltdowns by arriving with the right food at the right time, and I knew what comfort food worked best. Don’t tell anyone I told you this, but the Chef always has a small supply of lasagna stowed away for emergencies.

And this was clearly an emergency.

I went back in armed with lasagna and black forest cake. I laid it out in front of Dark Fire and he looked up.

“I’m sorry,” he said, “I shouldn’t have done that.”

“It was nothing,” I said, “I shouldn’t have snuck up on you like that. I startled you, and you spilled your soup. It was my mistake.”

He shook his head.

“I’m not hungry,” he said.

But Chef’s lasagna cannot be denied. I waited patiently until Dark Fire started eating; he didn’t meet my eye when I took away the whiskey bottle.

“It’s the anniversary of Comet’s death today,” he said, as much to himself as to me.

“I know,” I answered quietly because I had memorized every name and date on the wall of remembrance.

“It should have been me that died that day,” he said, “she would have been much better at this than I will ever be.”

True. I kept quiet.

“You must hate me,” he said.

“Tell me about Cold Comet,” I asked.

I took a seat, and for the next hour I did nothing but listen to a widower talk about his memories of his wife. It was cathartic for him; it was a release. He finished the last story and we sat in silence for a few minutes. He looked better.

“She would want you to carry on,” I reminded him, “so you should get back into your suit.”

“Yeah,” he said, “yeah. I have to read the files on the latest recruits. Can you bring me some coffee?”

He didn’t look up when I returned to the room with his coffee, didn’t notice as I cleaned the spilled soup off the floor, didn’t see the red marks the hot soup had left on my face. He was a hero at work, and I was just part of the background.

I walked to the sickbay, but there was little they could do for me by that stage. I knew they had a store of artificial skin made especially for burns, but they don’t waste their best treatments on stewards when a superhero might need them.

And I agree with that. I’m not a hero. I’ve never been in danger, never fought or bled for the Earth. I’m just the person who serves dinner after the funerals, who gives the trainees the last apples they will ever eat, who reminds them to write to their parents before it’s too late.

I’m just the person who knows their secrets and never tells, the anonymous steward who cries at their funerals, who tidies up after them, who listens to their fears.

And when the heroes of the Cerberus Brawlers returned to Earth to find a civil war raging, it was me who stole a Comet to rescue them and return them to the safety of the Cerberus. History won’t forget what happened next, but it will forget me.

Because when you see my uniform, you won’t even see a name. There is nothing on my shirt to indicate that I am anything other than a typical steward, a servant, a shadow.

I accept this.

My name is not important, only what I do matters.