Jaime slept soundly on his bed, with his race car sheets up over him. Mary watched her son sleep, seeing the slow, steady rhythm of his breathing, carefully studying his face. She wondered fancifully what he might be dreaming about. She had heard all her life that these were the moments to be treasured because children grew up too fast, that she should savor each and every moment. So, savor it she did. She breathed deeply, willed herself to forget all the drama about her returning powers, about the bills, about the state of the world, about everything. Then, she just stared at him, drinking him in with her eyes, burning every detail into her memory, hopefully forever. Finally, she leaned down and kissed his cheek before leaving the room and descending the stairs.

Roger and Smerd were out on the back porch. The back porch was a huge affair, running along the entire back of the house, encased in screens to keep out the insects but allow the air. There was an abundance of deck furniture and even a stone fireplace for winter nights. A nice breeze was blowing through that night, a welcome reprieve from what had so far been an oppressively hot summer.

Roger’s wheelchair was empty. As usual for their nights on the porch, he had parked it and transferred himself onto the deck sofa so that he could cuddle his wife in his strong arms. Smerd gently snored on what was left of Roger’s lap since his amputations. The diminutive purple dragon was leaned up against a recently emptied bottle of Yowzah Chocolate Drink to his left, and reclined against Roger’s abs behind him. Smerd looked cute with his little paw resting on his fattened belly full of chocolate satisfaction. His tail sprawled out to the side. Mary took all this in by the flickering light of an open laptop computer set on a coffee table in front of the deck sofa. She noticed the screen had been paused on a commercial.

“What have you boys been watching tonight?” she asked.

“Some wuxia kung fu. It always reminds Smerd of Xuan Hu. We should go visit him sometime, honey. It’s been awhile.”

Mary smiled at the mention of her mentor and teacher. “Yes, it has,” she admitted as she settled in on the sofa next to Roger. His arm floated out to embrace her and pull her close.

Before he firmly engaged the hug, however, he suddenly held himself back, asking, “should I be gentle with you? How do you feel?”

“Well, my powers are back for sure. Smerd said I was healing faster than he could hook up his medical diagnostic equipment to me. If things work the way they used to, I should be totally fine like nothing even happened by morning.”

At that, Roger pulled her fully and fiercely into an affectionate snuggle-hug, asking “Should we be talking about this out here on the porch do you think?”

Mary looked at the blue pieces of painter’s tape that covered both the camera lens and the microphone hole on the laptop. “I don’t think anyone’s around,” she said. “We leave our phones off when we’re here at home. It’s not like the government doesn’t know about me and Smerd. We did work for them for years until my powers went away.”

“But now they’re back.” Roger sounded worried.

“That means you won’t have to hear me complain about getting fat anymore. My powers won’t let that happen.” Mary smiled, hoping that her attempt at humor would take down the seriousness of things a notch.

Clearly, Roger wasn’t taking the hint, or, alternatively, he did get the hint but thought the conversation was too important to wait until later. “Do you want to be Velocity GIrl again?”

“No.” Mary snuggled deeper into her husband’s side, trying to sink into the sofa. Unfortunately, it wasn’t a deep couch designed for inside a house. It was a deck sofa. It didn’t swallow her up so she could forget the outside world. She could still feel the cool breeze on her face, still hear Smerd’s soft, cute snoring, and still hear the beating of her husband’s heart as her ear lay against his rib cage. She closed her eyes. Against her eyelids she could even still see some flashing glare from the laptop, which had switched its display to screen saver mode. There would be no shutting out the world, even as there would be no shutting out this issue.

“I’m not a kid anymore. And a lot of what I did back then was pretty dumb even for a kid.”

“You saved the world a few times.”

“It’s overrated.” Mary responded.

Roger gently scooped up Smerd in one hand without waking him. The Yowzah Chocolate Drink bottle rolled onto the floor as Roger withdrew his other arm from around his wife and used it to heave himself up. Balancing himself on one arm, Roger gently placed the tiny alien dragon on the cushioned softness of a chair next to the sofa. With Smerd out of the way, the veteran used both of his arms to turn himself to face his wife fully.

Mary had been forced to sit up, the cuddly moment gone. She knew Roger was about to say something serious. She couldn’t face him. She closed her eyes, just wanting everything to go away, everything but the two of them and this sofa and the security of their child sleeping upstairs safely in bed. That’s all she needed. Why did the stupid, sick, uncaring world have to mess everything up for everyone?

She felt Roger’s hand lifting her chin.

“Mary.”

She opened her eyes and there, in the flickering light of the screen saver, was the man she married. His eyes searched hers with the compassion, seeking to understand what she was going through.

“The fame and glory of saving the world is overrated. Doing it is not. There are millions of people alive today who wouldn’t be if you hadn’t been Velocity GIrl. Even if somebody else had been born with your powers, they wouldn’t have been you. They might have made different choices, might have had different values. No one else could have been you.

“How did it feel to save that baby today?”

‘Well, it hurt pretty much at the time. Broken ribs do.”

“Mary, I’m being serious. How did it feel?”

She reached up to clasp Roger’s hand. “It felt great.”

“I bet it did. And now there’s another mom in the world that will have her child safe and alive just like you and I have Jaime right now, thanks to you.”

The couple settled back into their more traditional couch cuddling position after setting the laptop to play smooth jazz in the background. They cuddled silently for awhile until a thought struck Mary that she just had to share.

“Roger?”

“Wha-” Roger was nearly asleep. “I’m listening, honey.”

“Do you think all powered up heroes do it out of a sense of guilt sometimes? Like they would choose a normal life if they could, but they just can’t because of their abilities? Isn’t there something in one of Jaime’s comics about ‘With great power comes great responsibility’ or something like that?”

No answer.

“Roger?”

His deep breathing indicated he had fallen asleep. Mary could hear his heart beating, beating, beating. It didn’t matter that two of his limbs were gone. That was where Roger’s strength came from, his heart. That was his superpower.

Mary lay there in the flickering screensaver light, not knowing what the future would hold, but being content nonetheless, content in her husband’s love and commitment. No matter what happened, they would face it together. She hadn’t been content for so long, she savored it just as she had savored the moments upstairs in Jaime’s  room earlier. She really wanted to appreciate it. After a long while, she fell asleep to the sounds of laptop speakers putting out smooth jazz, the light snoring of a tiny alien purple dragon, and the heartbeat of the strongest man she’d ever met.

*******

Later that night, a broom closet door opened into the hallway of a highschool, the walls lined with lockers. A Janitor carrying a large mop emerged. The Janitor hadn’t been in the broom closet. He simply emerged from the broom closet door into this world from another. The Janitor was stooped. Cautiously, he straightened. Yes, he could stand to his full height here, barely. His horns came close to gouging the ceiling. But, as mortals said, close only counted in horse shoes and hand grenades. What wonderfully entertaining little devices hand grenades were! Perhaps he would find some to take home with him during this mission on Earth. Business would take first priority, though, as always.

Turning, the tall, horned Janitor removed his key and its keyring from the broom closet door. It wouldn’t do to leave that behind, Not only would he need the keyring for his mission, but having it fall into the hands of a mortal could be disastrous, mostly for the mortal, not that he cared about mortals. The keychain contained keys able to open doors to other doors, across the world or in several other worlds. Before he or she died hideously, any mortal stupid enough to be using a Janitor’s Keyring might cause an “incident”, as his superiors phrased such things. That’s what he and his fellow Janitors existed for, to clean up “incidents”.

The Janitor was over eight feet tall, with red skin, rippling muscles, clawed hands and feet, and a demonic visage. He wore a pair of overalls, sized to his prodigious girth, a vest covered in pockets, and a belt that dangled with strange equipment, including various spray bottles. Each and every one of the spray bottles bore a skull and crossbones symbol.

The Janitor knew that his Keyring wouldn’t have brought him to this place if one of the creatures he had been sent to Earth to recapture wasn’t nearby. The Janitor strode down the hallway, bearing his mop-weapon in two hands. The mop’s handle was a black wood with deep silver etchings of occult symbols. The mop’s head was a mass of pure, radiant white cords that writhed like tentacles. The hunt was on.

*******

In the school gymnasium, a tiny creature perched on top of the wall-mounted scoreboard waiting for daytime to come fill the school with the hustle and bustle of so many confused, insecure, depressed, attention-starved, young humans and their overworked and overstressed adult caretakers. The creature had been at the school three days, just watching. Tomorrow would be Friday, the day before what the humans called a weekend. The creature didn’t want to wait in the school all alone over the weekend, so it was determined to select a victim to go home with before Friday afternoon. It thought about the most interesting cases it had seen over the past three days.

Suddenly, one of the gym doors came open. Perhaps the school had a night security guard? It hadn’t had one on the previous nights. Whatever. What fun! A lone human to play with! Should he destroy the human or just scare the human to build more chaos and fear in the school environment overall?

Then the creature saw the size of the Janitor, much bigger than any human, and saw the Janitor’s Mop, its brilliant white tentacles no doubt tasting the air, seeking the small creature’s spoor. The small creature froze in the shadows on top of the scoreboard. It didn’t dare move a muscle. Fortunately, it had no need to breathe the vapors of this world that the humans called air.

A Janitor had arrived. Yes, it was time to select a victim and go home with that victim. There would be no staying at the school anymore.