“You look like ass,” Travis says as I limp after him for my lessons.

  I grunt in agreement, doing my best to ignore the symphony of pain my body is sharing with me.

  Once we're in the private room, he gestures for me to sit.

  “If I'm going to have to get up again, I'm not sitting down.” I say.

  “You're in no shape to train today, so sit down.” Travis says, giving me a look that reminds me of my dad scolding me.

  “I didn't want to cancel and figured this is part of the experience, right?” I say, not really wanting to train.

  “The hospital explosion?” Travis muses, handing me a water bottle and sitting down next to me.

  Something about him seems off to me. Though I don’t know if I want to broach that subject until I’m positive that something is actually going on.

  “Didn’t know that it exploded. All I knew was that it was on fire.” I admit with a shrug.

  “You did good work from what I know, so how did it feel?” Travis asks, looking at me, his eyes focused on the space behind me.

  Whatever he’s seeing, he’s definitely not looking at me.

  I drink the water and ignore my knee-jerk response that it feels like a pain in the ass.

  That’s the response of the Jason of now, but how did it feel in the moment?

  Afterwards, it felt amazing with people cheering me and knowing that I did as good ?a job as I could.

  After that, it felt like shit for all the people I wasn’t able to save because I was too slow.

  “Heavy.” I finally land on. “It was really heavy. Unbearably so.”

  “Welcome to my opinion, the second hardest thing about being a superhero or vigilante. The burden of every life counting on you. I don’t know how the big names do it. Couple hundred. Maybe even a few thousand. I’ve done that. The idea of my every movement could affect the lives of everyone in a nation or the planet? Miss me with that shit.” Travis laughs hollowly.

  “Only the second hardest thing as a super?” I joke. “Don’t tell me the first; I might not handle it.”

  “Telling you won’t make you understand why it’s hard.” Travis waves off.

  “You’re not as retired as you were insinuating, are you?” I say, trying to keep any hint of accusation out of my voice.

  “You can think of my current position as an extended work trip.” Travis agrees. “I don’t need to suit up most of the time, at least for now, but I’m probably going to pretty soon if you don’t shape up.”

  I pause, trying to run through the possibilities of what that could mean. “I thought precognatives were impossible?”

  “Not impossible, just unreliable. Anything more than a few seconds in the future is ?considered somewhere between probably going to happen and outright fantastical odds if you think it’s ever going to happen.” Travis agrees. “Trends, however, are a lot easier to predict.”

  “Is that why you’re helping me? Because someone told you that there were going to be a bunch of new supers coming into town pretty soon, and you wanted to engineer a homegrown hero?”

  “What? No, I only moved out here because everything we have to predict the future said this place was going to be going through it pretty soon. This is legitimately the job I do outside of hero work. You just took me up on it.” Travis assures me.

  “Pardon me if I don’t believe you.” I say with a shrug.

  “Precognatives make everything more complicated, don’t they?”

  “So you suited up and dealt with that big problem a few days ago?”

  “Yup,” Travis agrees. “No, I won’t tell you. But how did you deal with the fire at the hospital if you don’t mind me asking? Everything I know about your ability wouldn’t super help, right?”

  “If I knew how my ability worked, that would be awesome.” I complain gently, massaging the palm of my hand. “I phased the fire.”

  “To just make it vanish?”

  “Nope. If I phased what was burning without the fire, it seemed to vanish then, but if I just phased the fire, it would stay there burning my hands as I held it. When it came back though, it would explode in a burst.”

  “Yeah, that’s really odd,” Travis agrees.

  “Asher thought it might work on some kind of fourth-dimensional theory where I’m bringing things there so that they can pass through our world, but I don’t really get how it works.”

  “Don’t put much stock into what a genius says. If we actually knew how any of our powers worked, we would be able to replicate them. All he can do is make a best guess.” Travis says sternly.

  “But if that guess is close, wouldn’t that mean it could help me figure out what I could do?”

  “But if he’s wrong, it’ll totally bone your ability to improve. Asher is the person who made your suit, right?” Travis asks, getting a stiff nod from me. “I’m sure he’s brilliant, but he can’t explain how you can pass through whatever you want any more than my friends can explain how I break the sound barrier.”

  “That makes sense.”

  “All you need to focus on is what you can do and what you want to do.”

  “Is there anything you wish you could do with your powers?” I ask, curious. There’s tons of powers I wish I could do instead, but as for a way for my ability to grow?

  “Fly, phase through something, run on air, run up walls. All of them, some speedster types have had before, do you know how much faster I could get everywhere if I only had to worry about going in a straight line?”

  “Faster?”

  “A lot.”

  This could be my opportunity to learn about other supers with way more experience than I do, but I don’t know what to ask?

  My world feels so much smaller now than it used to. The more I try all of this, the more my world seems to shrink.

  Who knows when the next time I’ll be able to have a conversation with Travis when he’s in a sharing mood.

  He’ll probably tell me to cancel our next two sessions, and by then it’ll be back to him beating me up and wishing I had any ability to keep up with him.

  “How do other supers deal with all the secrecy?”

  Travis looks at me for a few seconds, his eyes narrowing as if he’s actually looking at me. “You know, most in your position would ask for training or how to bear all the weight of it.”

  “No offense, Travis, but if I wanted tips on how to bear the burden, you are not the person ?I should ask.” I point out. “Bags under your eyes, you keep staring off into space, and you’re acting all philosophical towards someone you really don’t know in the hopes they’ll learn the lessons you never learned. You’re holding it about as well as Bianca can hide her desire for vanilla ice cream.”

  Travis looks at me before laughing, clutching his hands to his stomach. “Fair point for sure.” He agrees.

  I thought for a moment that was all I’m going to get, but Travis pulls himself to his feet, beginning to walk around, throwing a few punches in the air as he thinks.

  Letting my mind flow out, I watch all of his movements, trying to see what I can learn from him.

  Travis and I have similar enough shaped bodies that just watching him can teach me a lot, and the better my view is, the more I can learn.

  “Most of us only deal with people that truly get what both sides of the mask are like. Not just friends who know your secret identity but heroes, vigilantes, villains any of them, current or retired. Children of those are super common too. A normal person might understand that you juggle a lot of stuff, but they can’t actually see it. Hero work and an additional civilian life isn’t really like having two jobs." Travis starts every word slow and intentional.

  I chew on that for a second, trying to figure out what my opinion is. Realistically, it would mean cutting most people out of my life except Travis and Sasha.

  Maybe Bianca’s class has a parents group chat or something ridiculous.

  “The other fan favorite option is abandon your real identity and put everything into the persona. If you do that, you don’t have to worry about anything.” Travis admits throwing a viscous uppercut into the air.

  This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  “And what if I want to keep the friends and family that I already have along with the ones I’m gaining?”

  The glance he shoots me feels almost piercing, but I stand by my question. “You put in the work. You want to have friends on all three sides, you put in a lot of the work, and you brace yourself to fall apart.”

  That pisses me off.

  Of course I’m going to work to keep the members of my world in my life, but what is it supposed to mean to work hard?

  Staring at Travis, I try to decide where he fits in with all of this before mentally shrugging.

  May as well put it all into it, right?

  I force myself to my feet and put a hand out to him. “Hey Travis, superhero name unknown, would you like to come over to my apartment for Friendsgiving dinner this year?”

  Travis looks at me confused for a second, his eyes going from my hand to my face and back to my hand.

  The cycle lasts for nearly a minute before he slows down.

  “Friendsgiving?”

  “Commonly called Thanksgiving. Bit of a tradition for my family to invite friends instead of relatives.”

  “And you’re not going ?back home for it?”

  “My home is here. With the family I choose. I love my parents, but I think they approve of that too. And whatever our relationship was, or will be, you’ve helped me a lot since I got these eyes.”

  Travis considers for a second before dropping the shadow boxing.

  “Also, you’re out here because you presume that in some nebulous timeline the streets will be running with supers, and I doubt you want to run over ?somewhere else for the holidays or bug a teleporter.”

  Travis laughs at the last bit, shaking my hand. “Do I get a plus one?”

  “Probably who would you want to invite?”

  “Sasha.” Travis answers immediately, a smile playing on his lips. Whatever the relationship between the two of them is, I wonder if it’s more than colleagues.

  “Can’t let you do that one since I was already going to invite her for everything she’s done for me and Bianca.” I admit laughing.

  “Then I’ll have to think about it.”

  “If it’s someone I don’t know, please clear it with me first. My apartment is big, but not big enough for everyone to have a plus one. And while I’m happy to meet new people, I don’t want just random people showing up.” I warn as we shake hands.

  “I’ll make sure you can talk to them before the big day.” Travis agrees.

  “Excited to meet another super, I suppose.” I joke.

  Travis gives me the look. “Not everyone I know is a super.”

  “And how far down the list are most of the non-supers?” I ask.

  “Not my fault most superheroes and supers ?could use a warm place to be for the holidays.” Travis complains.

  “I’m going to invite everyone I’m planning on today, so if you and Sasha want to tag team the person you’re inviting it do it after seven when I’ve finished my phone calls.” I warn.

  “I thought you barely knew what day of the week it is.” Travis jokes.

  “I have no idea what day of the week it is. However, I want to remind the people I care about that I care for them, and now is a good time of year for that.” I agree setting a reminder for me to call everyone else as soon as my lesson time ends.

  Even if the lesson today is just going to be talking, I don’t want to call during it, and as soon as I’m free, I’m going to head straight home to rest.

  “How quickly is your body going to be done pulling itself back together?” Travis asks, changing the subject.

  “Most of the time I’ve rarely needed more than a few days to heal, so probably a week? This is worse than anything I’ve felt before, but that’s more of a quantity rather than quality of injury.” I admit.

  “Having the full physical suite of abilities is awesome, isn’t it?” Travis says.

  “For sure. It’s awesome. Makes me feel like a real superhuman. Even if it’s difficult to not break some of my stuff.”

  “What would being a fake superhuman feel like?”

  “No idea, just a figure of speech.”

  “Do you mind if I head home early today?” I ask, forcing the words out. It’s easy here. I can be stagnant, and Travis can handle the problems with all that experience of his.

  If I want to reach higher and improve today, I’m going to have to go back home and confront all of my calls.

  “I was going to send you home anyway. We can talk theory or watch videos, but that would be done better at home when you can study them.” Travis agrees moving to the door and opening it.

  “Thanks for it all. You constantly give me stuff I want to think about.” I say, trudging forward, doing my best to keep any sign of discomfort off my face.

  I don’t care if Travis sees any of it, but I want to be as okay as possible when I get home.

  “Believe it or not, seeing a young gun trying to figure it out helps me remember why I started.” Travis laughs.

  “Young gun?”

  “I run because it’s who I am. I run towards danger because that’s who I want to be,” Travis says.

  “Whatever kung fu master cryptic advice that’s supposed to be, I don’t get it.”

  “You’re not supposed to.”

  “See you next time or next week?”

  “If I said next week, that would also be next time.”

  “Point.”

  Travis laughs as he follows me to the exit. “Next week, let your body recuperate properly and take off any of your other physical training too.”

  “Yes, Mom,” I laugh, giving the man a wave before getting into my car.

  A moment to settle my breathing, I start the car and drive off, though before I get out of the parking lot, I press a recently added contact to my phone and set it to speaker so that I can talk while driving.

  “Sup?” Asher says, fighting back a yawn. “If you tell me you need your new suit and you’re about to fight crime before healing, I’m going to stab you.”

  “Nothing like that. I have no plans on fighting crime till I’m at least back to mostly functional.” I assure him.

  “Then you woke me up because?”

  “Would you want to come over to my place, my actual place, for Thanksgiving?” I ask silently, drumming my fingers on the steering wheel as I wait for his response.

  “You sure? You don't know me.”

  “Sure I do. Besides, we’re partners; it would suck if you didn’t have anyone to spend it with. You can meet my friends. Have some food; it’ll be chill.” I say purposefully trying to downplay the holiday so that he’ll feel more comfortable with it.

  “Nobody I want to spend it with.” Asher says after a few seconds of thought. “You sure you don’t mind inviting me?”

  “Not in the slightest. I would love to have you. The only rule is no shop talk.”

  “Shop talk?”

  “My friends don’t know I’m fighting crime in the middle of the night. They might know I have powers, and they know about Bianca, but they think I’m just doing my normal job now with magic powers.” I explain.

  “Going to keep it that way?”

  “I’m not trying to hide it, I suppose. But I’m just me. No matter what mask I’m wearing so I don’t feel pressed to share or not.” I admit.

  “As long as I don’t have to cook anything, I would love to come if you’re sure.” Asher says, circling back to his invitation.

  “Sounds great. Feel free to invite a plus one; we’ll have more than enough space.”

  “I’ll think about it. Now I’m going back to sleep.” Asher yawns before hanging up before I can say anything else.

  That leaves all but one of the people new in my life to invite, and she can wait till I am back home.

  Following that, it’s just the regular suspects.

  I don’t know what Sasha is doing, so I just text her as I make my way up the stairs to my apartment.

  She’ll be able to respond when she gets it, and I won’t have to worry about potentially bothering her while she’s in the middle of something important.

  My phone back in my pocket, I force myself up the stairs as quickly as possible, making it to my apartment without needing to rest any more.

  Once I get moving while I still ache, it’s pretty easy to keep going. It’s only when I’ve been stationary and relaxed that things get hard again.

  “Home!” I call out walking into the apartment.

  Bianca bolts from her spot on the floor, barreling towards me before stopping just before hugging me.

  “I’m okay, Bianca promise.” I assure her, scooping her up into my arms, ignoring the pain.

  I think I do a pretty good job keeping it off my face because Bianca hugs me tightly before pointing to where she was playing.

  “You seem a lot more alive than I thought you were going to be with the state I saw you in this morning.” Ben comments, giving me a wave.

  “Thanks for watching Bianca. Man, you’re a lifesaver.” I say, settling down into my chair and reaching over to grab the notebook and pens Bianca had been using to color.

  “Don’t worry about it. It's not every day that I get to say I watched after superhero, am I right?” He asks, giving Bianca finger guns and a wink.

  Bianca nods aggressively as I supply her drawing supplies back.

  “You good for Friendsgiving this year?” I ask, deciding to spearhead the conversation in the required direction.

  “Always, but do you actually want to celebrate with, you know?” Ben asks, looking at me nervously.

  “All the more reason to.”

  “You want me to handle asking Caleb?” Ben offers, which seems sweet, but I can handle something as easy as inviting my friend over for a holiday dinner.

  “Nah, I got it. You want to stay for a bit, or do you need to get running?” I ask, pulling up my phone.

  “Enjoy studying.” I call as he makes his exit.

  Ben gives me a wave as the door clicks shut.

  Now, just the two of us, I look over Bianca’s drawings for a bit before letting her get back to it and putting my phone to my ear, phone ringing.

  “What?” Caleb asks, sounding irritated.

  “Nothing much, just wanted to see if you’re clear for Friendsgiving this year?” I hum, patting Bianca on the head as she scribbles on her paper.

  “Is it going to be safe?” Caleb asks.

  The hell is he on about? I can’t think of a single thing that might make this dinner any more dangerous than any other dinner I go to. “Why wouldn’t it be?”

  “You still haven’t found a proper home for that wire child you picked up. Is it going to be safe having potential razor wires appearing at a holiday dinner?” Caleb points out, sounding absolutely baffled at the thought of me missing how dangerous Bianca could be.

  “She has a safe place to be. With me.” I say firmly, taking care of the most important bit. Sasha and I have been slowly muddling our way through the paperwork to make Bianca mine legally as well, and everything has been going smoothly on that front. “Everyone’s going to be safe for dinner, I promise.”

  “You realize how ridiculous you sound, right?”

  “Nope, I'm entirely serious.”

  “Whatever. If you promise you can keep them contained, I don't have a problem with attending.” Caleb finally says after a long moment.

  “You and everyone else will be safe. Bianca hasn’t lost control of her powers once, promise.” I say, giving Bianca a brilliant smile when she looks up at the sound of her name.

  “Sure,” Caleb says before hanging up on me.

  “Well, that went well, didn’t it, Bianca?” I snort, rolling my eyes as I pat her head. “After I call one more person, do you want to get breakfast food? I could go for waffles?”

  Bianca stares at me before nodding and returning to her coloring book.

  Thankfully, the call with Reyna goes much faster, mostly because before I even get through the question she goes, “Fucking finally, of course I’m going.” Before hanging up on me once we’re both done laughing.

  Juggling running Thanksgiving for all of my friends while also fighting crime at night can’t be too hard, can it?

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