Superbia

By the time that Rick finally got up the nerve to walk down the alley and knock on his neighbor's backdoor, there was a distinct patch of flattened grass where he had been pacing for the past ten minutes.  The week before, Andrew Stone had told him he should come over and say something if he'd needed anything.  Rick had declined, politely.  It was good to have neighbors, but it seemed a bit or a paltry thing to ask.  Normally you wouldn't think twice about asking a neighbor to help you move your boat across the yard, what with the kids out of town for some concert or another without warning.  Normally you'd just peep over the fence, or like he was doing now, walk around to the back gate to knock on the back door.  Normally, you would have a thought that you might be interrupting a TV show, or an early dinner.  Rick just kept thinking back to a few weeks ago when he matched the picture of famed city-superhero Colonel Flash with the dirty spandex suit that was lying just inside the back door when he had glanced over.  They'd talked, after Rick had mustered the courage that time to go over and ring the bell to let Mr. Stone know that he may have accidentally left something in view of the alley.  Today, he would have just waited to move the boat, but the grass under it was getting a bit too brown from lack of watering, and he didn't want to seem unfriendly.  If he was interrupting some important crisis, or if Mr. Stone wasn't home, he would just head back and wait for the weekend to end and he kids to get back.  Walking up the sidewalk in the back of the yard, he couldn't help but wonder if there was, some sort of bat-cave structure under the house, just to the east of his own basement.  Superheros tended to have those sorts of things, he'd heard.  The yard itself looked normal.  Grill off to the side on the patio, green grass, lawn chairs, and even a nice sun-umbrella.  Mr. Stone sat out in the yard on nice days, and they had over the course of the year he had lived here had around five or six conversations about the weather and what a nice day it was before Rick had discovered his secret.  The door was a bit ajar when he got up to it, so he rang the bell and waited.  Footsteps, the door pulled open, and a man in a strange white lab coat with a lobster arm opened the door.  He had been in last week's newspaper.  The vise, or something, it had been.  Nasty fellow, always trying to take over the downtown area and turn it into a big fish tank filled with lobsters and sharks because of some deluded ecological ideal.  He was holding what looked like a ray gun in his human hand, and had a scowl that made Rick think that he might have wanted to start leaving sooner because now he was in trouble.  The ray gun was, non-coincidentally, pointed at him.

"Where is he, mammel?"

"You mean Mr. err, Colonel Flash?"

"Who else?  I don't go terrorizing the suburbs for kicks, now do I?  Who are you, anyway?"

"I'm just the neighbor, coming over to umm, see if, ummm. . ."

"Right, noncombatant, get in the house."

"Or you'll shoot me?"

"Or I'll punch you with my crab arm.  The gun is for the big guy."

"Sure I couldn't just come back some other. . ."

"No."

". . ."

Rick walked inside, was ushered into a very normal looking front room, and seated in a sofa.

"Don't move.  I forgot my ropes, but that would have been hard to manage on short notice without henchmen anyway.  We're working on an honorable system where you don't try anything and I don't resort to claw."

". . ."

". . ."

"Sooo, this place isn't very secret then?"

"Oh, no, it is, it was a damn hard place to find.  Had to stage five takeovers of city hall before I managed to slip the tracer into his suit."

"And then follow it back to this house?"

"Yes.  Almost wasn't sure it was the right one until I found the thing in the washing machine."

". . ."

". . ."

"Couldn't you have just not answered the door?"

"Well, I panicked a bit, besides, the back door doesn't have a peephole."

"Oh."

"Don't worry though, I'm just using you as a hostage until I fry him with this sun ray.  I'll let you go to call the police and other formalities afterwards."

"That's nice of you."

"Hostages don't tend to work unless people believe you'll let them go, it's a way of hedging my bets for other supers after this.  Not that it will help the revenge attempts."

". . ."

"I don't suppose you two were really close and you knew his special weaknesses or anything?"

"No, just neighbors.  I found out about it two weeks ago."

"After he got back from the last city hall thing?"

"Must have been, that was the friday, right?"

"Indeed, I was hoping to avoid too many deaths with the bomb, it being late afternoon.  He managed to disarm that one though, I was expecting him a little later that that, truth be told."

"He does have good timing, from what I've seen."

CLONK

"And a cast iron skillet, by the way."

Mr. Stone stood at the living room doorway, skillet in hand, lab coated adversary knocked out at his feet.

"Thanks for that, and good job avoiding eye contact.  Sorry to get you mixed up in this.  I really don't know how he found this place, I was fairly sure this alias was secure."

"Hidden tracker in the suit.  Said it before you came in.  I didn't hear the door?"

"I came in through the garage.  Set the groceries down when I heard the talking.  He forgot his rope, I see."

"Said it would be too much trouble."

"Yeah, has to get henchmen to do it for him, most of the time.  Would you like some coffee, I just got some new stuff in."

"Don't you need to tie him up or something?"

"Yeah, that first, but we do have some time.  For all of his gadgets, he has yet to start wearing a helmet.  Villain aesthetic I suppose."

"I'd love some coffee, then."

"Great, now where did I put that rope I had last time Clementine Von Gratin tried to capture me to power her hamster ball thingy. . ."

Mr. Stone wandered out into the hall, talking to himself.  Rick wondered if super-villains held grudges.