Ben woke up for a pleasant Sunday morning with nothing but his couch and a book jamboree prepared.

You see, Ben's power allowed him to read between the pages of a closed book, even though he needed to focus on the words intentionally. He's used this quirk to walk through large amounts of printed texts and just absorb the information. He did this in libraries, colleges, and highly classified information vaults.

This day however, he had gathered a bunch of pop-culture books that people seemed to like and was ready to be the king of cultured conversation at work. The books were stacked in piles around the couch where a fluffy pillow fort had been piled complete with blankets and a foot warmer.

Exiting his bedroom, he went to the kitchen and checked the fridge for breakfast plates worth his time.

"Lean protein for the immediate wake-up and carbs for the long haul," he said, smiling as a classic breakfast option popped up on the filtered list. "Chicken and waffles!"

The fridge didn't mention anything about dietary concerns, it had learned its lesson last time. Sam breaded and fried the chicken, throwing a little bacon on there for a side, and to soak the grease into the breading. While that was cooking on the pan, he had to find both the waffle-iron and the pancake mix at the back of their respective cupboards. The waffle mix was easy and over in the twenty minutes it took to really crisp the bacon and soak the chicken.

Ben sat down at the dinner table and cracked open a plain glass bottle with a thick, brown liquid inside. The maple syrup didn't quite drool, it was almost like jelly as Ben used a knife to spread the concoction on his waffles to hold the chicken in place.

"Homemade, is best made," Ben said as he set the syrup down and picked up his utensils. "FUCK!"

The doorbell rang after Sam cursed, and the councilman stood up with such aggression, his chair was kicked back into the wall. He marched around the table, across the living room, to the front door and swung it open.

Standing on his front porch was a familiar redhead, clearly in distress, tears treading down her makeup free face.

"What?" Ben asked, with an undertone of 'I-will-skin-you-alive-if-this-is-about-some-bullshit'.

"Some new guys jumped Timmy," Sue said, wiping a tear away. "They took my family and want-"

"NO!" Ben roared and the light fixture on the porch opened up and pointed a long, blue spike at the uninvited guest. "This is not my problem. This is your problem. I have nothing to do with this. I'm a simple city councilman. Solve it by yourself."

"My family-!"

"Is not my family! Get the hell off my porch before I call the cops."

Ben slammed the door behind him and pressed the door knob so that the blue spear started thrusting at Sue, forcing her off his property. She drove away with the squeal of burning tires and Ben watched her leave with a breath of relief.

Back to his books, Ben laid down on his specially prepared couch and closed his eyes with a gentle grin. He started with the most highly recommended book, Lord of the Bings. The speed of comprehension his dimensional sight gave him allowed him to complete the book within two hours, and immediately move onto The Two Phones.

Ben didn't move anything except for his face for almost four hours, having gotten through the Lord of the Bings trilogy and starting on The City of Brass. He felt a little hungry and got up to have lunch, frying up some pot stickers before getting back to it.

He laid down and tried to find his spot, when his phone buzzed in his pocket. He didn't recognize the number, so he begrudgingly put the phone to his ear and answered.

"Hello, this is Ben, City Councilman," Ben said to the stranger.

"Ben, this is officer Renfield, from the Darl City Police Station. We have a child here who says you're their guardian."

"Katherine, Gary, Garrett, Stanley, or Michael?"

"Uh, Stanley," said the officer, a bit taken aback by the supposed other guardians.

"What did he do?"

"He was arrested on a count of vigilantism. Would you happen to know how to contact his parents? He had the contacts in his phone, but he told us to call you."

"His parents are Humanity First extremists," Ben said. "It's a very harsh home life. I'm the only adult meta-human in the county, so he comes to me for power-related things. What were the charges, again?"

"We still need to alert the parents," the officer said, ignoring the question. "Do you have their number?"

"Yes, let me get it here," Ben said, opening his phone to check his contacts for Jeff. He relayed the number and the cop thanked him for the information.

Ben was about to hang up, but ground his teeth to ask, "I don't suppose I could talk to the man in question?"

"I was just about to hand you over," said the officer as the phone switched hands.

"Ahh, I was really hoping you would keep this a secret from my parents," said Stanley's voice. "Didn't you promise to keep everything a secret?"

"That's for my power," Ben stated, "if you come out and tell me, the secret is under my discretion. What happened?"

"Ah, well, psh, I kinda... ran away from home.... I had a fight with my mum about helping out the team. I always thought, as much as she hates powers, she figured I could still use them to try and save people. Turns out, she would rather I watch people die than use the devil's contract."

"No comment. Continue."

"So, I ran away from home, and," Stanley choked up a bit, "made it into Darl."

"Why the city?"

"I just felt like it. Like, I wanted to change my surroundings and the vibe of my settings, you know?"

"I get the gist of what you just said. Continue."

"So, I started looking around for somewhere to sleep, and I found a dry spot behind a restaurant. I fell asleep, then I woke up and heard this scuffle. I got up and looked around, and saw these two guys fighting. I tried yelling at them to stop, and they pulled out knives and started stabbing each other."

"Okay, don't say anything else while in police custody. Plead the fifth from now on. Which precinct are you at?"

"The 35th."

"Okay, I should be there before your dad, but your dad's the only one who can pull you out. Say nothing. They can only press charges if they've got something to stick you with. Don't give them that something."

"Okay."

"Hanging up now," Ben declared.

Once the phone line went dead, Ben groaned with all the air in his lungs.

"Fuck these kids! They suck up every weekend!"

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Still, the city councilman donned a presentable jacket and started his car up, setting his GPS to Darl's 35th Police Precinct. It was a thirty-five minute drive along mostly highway, which worked for Ben, who hated city driving and avoided it at most costs. He arrived fashionably late and noticed Jeff's truck already parked in the visitor section.

Walking into the precinct and ground his teeth when he heard the familiar screeching of Stanley's harpy mother. She was shouting obscenities at the poor receptionist, who was probably just doing his job. Jeff was standing next to his wife, holding the woman back so she didn't leap over the desk and subsequently join her son behind bars.

Ben worked his way around the precinct until he was at another desk, waving to try and get Jeff's attention without his wife noticing.

Unfortunately, she noticed.

"YOU!" she screamed, still being held back by Jeff. "YOU DID THIS!"

"I'm just here to help," Ben said, putting his hands up in surrender. "How's Stanley doing?"

"YOU SOLD MY SON TO THE DEVIL! HE'S COMPLETED THE PACT ON YOUR-"

"The boy's fine," Jeff said, putting his hand over his wife's mouth to soften her freakout. "Why did he call you first?"

"He was hoping I would keep this a secret from you two," Ben offered, nodding to the maniacal woman in Jeff's arms. "But you are his parents and have the right to know what's happening with your son."

Mrs. Chevis pulled away from her husband, but didn't resume screaming, "He called you first?"

"He mentioned you guys had a fight," Ben said, and the mother recoiled, "and he probably didn't want to make it worse."

"Jeffery Chevis!" called an officer from behind the counter, and the family looked back to see their number was up.

"He's probably freaking out," Ben urged the couple to go, "keep calm and ask questions."

The parents followed the officer into the back where Stanley was being held in a cell with two other guys. The parents broke down upon seeing their baby boy, who held back his own tears as they were reunited for a fast moment. But they didn't hug each other or even try to reconcile, they kept a safe distance as if the other would explode. The family were led into the interrogation room and given space to talk it out together, and Stanley spilled the whole story.

When he woke up, two guys were fighting and screaming at each other, stabbing each other in the chest like men possessed. Stanley tried to call out to them, then remembered how much he wanted to save people and used his power to push them back a little, just to get their attention. But when he did, they both turned on him, so he used his power to keep pushing them back, but then one of the guys slipped while trying to fight the levitation... directly onto his knife.

Stanley freaked out and pushed the other guy harder, throwing him back while he ran away. He got a cop and pointed him down the alley where a homeless man had bled to death on a knife, and was arrested and put in jail.

'The cops think he did it,' Ben realized after lip-reading the story from across the building. 'Some kid came running and showed them a dead body with a knife in his gut and no other person, he's the most likely suspect. Him having powers that doesn't require him to touch a blade makes it feasible that his fingerprints wouldn't be on the scene.'

And that's the same thing Jeff must have thought, because the dad started asking some really tough questions that investigators wouldn't even think to ask. He grilled his son, who eventually realized that his own father thought he had just murdered someone and was now blaming it on circumstance.

'I should probably figure out if he's actually innocent,' Ben thought, and he started fiddling with his watch.

Once his vision expanded across the city, Ben did a preliminary search through the precinct to see the notes and reports about Stanley's case. From that, he got the street address of the stabbing and found the street where a police unit had cordoned off the area. The scene was pretty disgusting, but Ben was able to recognize the blood splatter from where the body had been and even the difference in another blood stain nearby. He widened his view after assuming the other homeless man couldn't have gotten far, and found the guy bleeding out in a dumpster in another alley.

With a weary sigh, Sam got up, taking note of the anonymous tip line, and exited the lobby to make a call.

"Hello?!" he cried in feminine distress. "There's like, a dead body in my trash!"

After passing along the address and location, and hung up right as his name was called to join the Chevis family.

Heading into the precinct, Ben switched his watch back to a closer view and saw the family much further apart from each other, as though they had more of a falling out after he'd stopped paying attention. There was also a chubby woman in a business suit carrying a "Child Protective Services" badge sitting next to Stanley.

Ben was ushered in and pretended to not know what was going on, "What's happening? Are they releasing you?"

Jeff scowled at Ben, who legitimately didn't know why, until he eeked out, "Stanley has requested... that he stay at your house until the investigation is over."

The chubby CPS agent handed him some papers which he signed like a responsible adult. While doing so, he sent a text message to Idet that Stanley would be coming over and to sanitize the house.

It took six hours, and Ben felt his goodwill draining by the minute. He regularly contemplated just bailing on the whole thing and throwing away the mayoral grab next year, but he hunkered down and got through it. The CPS interviews were probably the most draining, and he kept in the back of his mind that this was not a good way to spend his Sunday evening.

When he finally got into his car with Stanley in the passenger seat, Ben had been drained completely of all ability to keep up his customer service face.

Without even asking, Ben drove to a Wendy's and ordered a Baconator with a frosty, ordering some nuggets for Stanley, who said he didn't want anything.

"In my experience, not being hungry means you should eat something," Ben stated as he sucked his frosty down.

Stanley begrudgingly ate the nuggets and had some of Ben's fries as they drove back to their sleepy little village hamlet.

"There's only one thing I need to know," Ben said as he pulled onto his subdivision's main road. "What was the fight you had with your parents that made you so angry that you left the house like that?"

Stanley stooled in his angry embarrassment for a little while before answering, "My mom would rather die than let me save her.... I would rather be damned for all eternity than let my mother just die in front of me.... She just doesn't get it, I can save people!"

Ben was about to respond, but noticed something strange when he pulled up to his home. There was someone on his doorstep, slumped against the door with a UPS box in their lap. From this distance, it could have been Hannah back from a bender, trying to be cute, but there was something about how the box that made him doubt this was some joke.

"Is this how supervillains are made?" Stanley asked sourly as Ben fiddled with his watch. "I thought about it, ya know? I've got good grades and a clean image, maybe I could do something fun with my powers."

"You don't want to do that," Ben said, half-focusing on his porch as he tried to decide how to handle this.

"What would you know?" the kid asked. "You've never done anything interesting in your life."

Ben's eyes zoned out as his final iota of fucks drained away with an audible click of his tongue. He'd just sat through six hours of this kids bullshit charges and interviews, made the anonymous call that brought in the fucker who backed up his story, bought the brat dinner, and even missed his special Sunday reading time; and now the little bitch was going to trash talk him before staying at his house?

"I'll show you what I know," Ben said, "follow me."

Stanley was a little perplexed as his coach drove right onto his own front lawn and slid out of the truck before it came to a full stop. The darkness surrounded them as Stanley stepped out onto unfamiliar ground, listening to a door open before Ben turned a porch light on and beckoned the kid closer. For the first time, Stanley stopped being absorbed in his own problems and saw the person leaning against the door wearing a trench coat and high heels. There was a bag over her head, a plain sports one that people throw around at conventions with the strap tied tightly around the head.

"You see this box?" Ben asked as Stanley caught a foul stench from the stranger. "Open it."

"Are-are they okay?" the boy asked, inching closer.

"They were left alive on purpose," Ben stated dryly. "She's not going to die anytime soon. Now open the box."

Stanley was curious, but when he leaned down to grab the box, the foul odor assaulted him directly and got into his eyes. He recoiled form the smell, looking to Ben for some kind of explanation, but the councilman was just staring expectantly at the teen.

"Open it."

Stanley knelt down once more, holding his jacket over his nose while he pulled at the box with one hand. The masking tape was inexpertly applied, which allowed the kid to pull one side of easily, but the stench doubled when the box opened, gagging the child.

"What the hell is in here?!" Stanley cried, his eyes shedding tears as he shielded his face from the pack.

"The consequences of a villainous lifestyle," Ben said, leaning down and opening the package the rest of the way.

Stanley braved a glance at the contents, and felt nausea hit him like a train as his stomach returned the Wendy's nuggets and fries.

Centered inside the repurposed cardboard box was the flaps of skin around Sue's husband's ears, surrounded by two dozen cut-off fingers that worked like packing peanuts. The fingers matched with a man, woman, and child. Though he hadn't noticed on approach, the person slumped onto the doorway had their hands tucked into pockets which were stained red.

"W-w-w-w-w-w-w-w-w-w-w-w-" Stanley stammered as he crawled away from the bloody mass of tangled skin.

"What is this?" Ben completed as the boy started to cry. "This is what happens to villains who can't handle themselves. When they drop their guard, there's always someone there to cut their throat and play hangman with the remains."

Ben picked the package up, showing no sign of gentle care for the remains of another person, and brought it into the house. He then grabbed the woman by the collar of her trench coat and dragged her in as well. Stanley sat dazed in the yard as Ben turned on some lights and did something inside his house, only for a chill to run up his spine as Ben emerged with a frowning theater mask over his face.

"W-w-w-w-what are you doing?!" Stanley pleaded as Ben grabbed the back of his shirt and dragged him to the truck.

Ben got into the driver's seat, then stared at Stanley as the mask over Ben's face slowly turned the sad frown into a wicked smile.

"Something interesting."