“No, you’re not,” Angelica said, putting the paper back in the stack. “People love you.”

“Yeah, because of my cool suit. Which my mother made.”

“Your cool suit which can fly. And your mother couldn’t make hers fly, could she? Not without carrying a reactor too big to lift off the ground. You make it cool.”

“Because I was born with a power that’s otherwise useless! Like, what would I do if I didn’t have a superhero mom to do half my work for me?”

Angelica shrugged. “Singlehandedly solve the rocket problem for NASA?”

Nathan shook his head. “They said it wasn’t feasible. Aside from the fact that I can’t be an astronaut because my heart might explode on liftoff, designing rockets around my power would be incredibly costly for them if I can’t be there. Which I assume means the heart-exploding problem. So they’re going to stick with being flung into space by Flying Bricks.”

“Ah,” Angelica said. “Still, you could serve as an emergency battery for anyone or anything. Power plants. Hospitals. Labs. For that matter, if you did quit, we could hire you to do just that.”

“What, sit around all day in case of a power failure?”

“We know you can do that,” Angelica said, smiling. “Honestly, you have more options than I do. As helpful as it’s been for other things, my power isn’t exactly useful in a fight. If I quit, well, what else can I do with it?”

Nathan shrugged. “Become a mascot?”

“Ah, yes.” Angelica drained her soda and then concentrated. Her head grew and distorted, purple fur sprouting from her face. Within moments, she was the very picture of the high school mascot, Purple Panther, if that picture was made with distorted CGI. Her jaw stretched too wide and her eyes were too large to exist. His instincts screamed that there was a large predator in front of him and his brain screamed that what he was seeing was wrong.

“Nope!” Nathan scooted his chair back until he couldn’t reach the table with his fingertips.

Angelica reverted her head back to its normal shape. “You see?”

“Wait, you’ve done that before?” Nathan asked.

“Yes. I was experimenting.” Angelica got up and headed for the minifridge again.

Nathan eyed her as he scooted back to the table. First, she deliberately sprouted wings even though they really didn’t help her fight crime, and then she tried out animal heads? Maybe Hermes was right about her being a furry. “There are also things you could do that don’t involve your power, too.”

“True. But how many of those would let me walk around with wings?” Angelica asked, heading back with a fresh soda. Definitely a furry. “I’m too accustomed to them to stop at this point. You, on the other hand, could easily go incognito.”

“Yes, with a massive hole in my resume,” Nathan said.

“You know perfectly well we help with that,” Angelica said. “Or you could train for a new job in the Corps. We need all sorts of jobs. Bureaucrats, lawyers, chefs, and so on. You could be pretty much anything and we’d have room for you. Honestly, it’s a miracle we still function. Or you could retire. It’s a little early, but you’re not invulnerable and you have enough time under your belt for a good package. You could easily live off of that, if you’re careful enough.”

Nathan thought about it, then shook his head. “No. I want to be a hero.”

Angelica interlaced her fingers and rested her head on them. “Why? What made you decide to become one in the first place?”

“Because of The End.”

He’d been in middle school then. It had been a day like any other, until the school’s fire alarm had gone off. They hadn’t been warned of a fire drill – they hadn’t had super evacuation drills in those days, not before The End – but lined up outside as if it was one. From there, only 60 miles away, they could see flashes in the sky and hear a faint drone. All the buses had been parked there and they were told to get in, directed by one of the non-powered heroes. They’d gone to the shore, been ushered onto a huge cruise ship with anyone else who could get there in time, and sailed away, a new cruise ship pulling into the bay. Only then did they find out what was going on.

“I saw the destruction.”