Rodney Rourk rolled over in bed and glared at his alarm clock. It was 12:59AM. Before he could move, the digital face flickered, and his apartment filled with insistent buzzing. A bolt of lightning arced across the room, missing the clock and leaving a fourth scorchmark on the wall. The clock continued to buzz aggravatingly. Struggling out of bed, he stalked over to the clock, and wrenched it out of the wall.
Sitting on the side of his coffee table, he began getting dressed. The leotard was a trick because it was too tight--he was due for a new one, but he couldn't afford it. The heat wave had broken, but it was still too early to switch over to the combat boots. He was tired anyway; the climbing shoes would have to do. He tugged the strap of the Dynamo Trigger and tightened the utility belt over his blue and yellow jumpsuit. He surveyed his apartment as he straightened up. Empty takeout containers covered the kitchen table, a stack of crumpled letters and notices were beginning to spill out of the cushion of his favorite chair. A spider hung smugly from a poster of a handsome man in a mask. "Yeah. Really clever. My life is full of subtle metaphors." Standing, he pulled on his lightning-bold smile balaclava, and it was the Lightningrod Kid that climbed onto the fire escape.
"Anything tonight?" The Reticent Rodent settled into a folding chair next to him. The Lightningrod Kid shook his head.
"Just, you know. Some drunks. It's bar time. I was going to spark a guy, but I don't need another lawsuit, y'know? He only tipped over a moped." The Rodent nodded.
"You bring the Mother's Ear?"
"Yeah." The Reticent Rodent dropped the cheaply made ham radio onto the table. There was a hand-stenciled J on the lid, an artifact of the machine's original owner, the Justice.
"Don't know why I bother with the damn thing. Most places can't even use the Crybaby any more. You know I found out that Behnke Insurance will drop anybody with a working model Crybaby in-house? They don't want customers that deal with us." They lapsed into silence for a moment.
"Hey, you hear about the Detonatrix? She got off. Turns out half the evidence was contaminated because Captain Justice collected it and he refused to reveal his identity. He even stole a crucial piece of evidence so he could 'examine it on the Justice Computer'. Without all that stuff, they couldn't convict her of anything. Not a thing."
The Rodent snorted. "She's been involved in a dozen heists in the last two years. Heck, last week I busted her for blowing up parked cars down on Second Avenue. She said she just needed to unwind after the preliminary trial."
"I know, man. She's been operating a long time. I can't believe they can't pull any usable testimony anywhere. I mean, I was there when she worked for the Hurtful Stereotype and crashed the East High prom."
"You went to East back then? Holy crap, I bet you knew my... uh." The Reticent Rodent ran his hand across the back of his cowl.
"Nah, it's okay. I didn't go there; my girlfriend did. She broke up with me, though. I ditched her to fight some of the 'type's goons, and she thought I rabbited. It was ridiculous. I almost told her my secret identity just to get her back. "
The two superheroes sit in silence for a minute, leaning over the roof. The Reticent Rodent wiped his eyes.
"This sucks, man."
"What, about my ex or the Detonatrix going free?"
"No, yeah, that too. It's just that I got fired two days ago."
"You got fired? From what?" The Lightningrod Kid grimaced behind his balaclava. Obviously he wasn't getting fired from hanging out on rooftops in the middle of the night. C'mon, Rodney.
"My job. I mean, I was out here almost every night. I haven't gotten a good night's sleep since that kidnapping attempt of my-- of that woman I know. So my performance at work started suffering. I've been doing six hour patrols for three weeks because I can't sleep. I knew it was coming, and that just made it worse. Last week I caught a drug dealer and I hung him over the side of a building until he cried for his mommy, and the only reason I didn't drop him anyway was because Foxtrot pulled me back. I'm so tired, man."
The Lightningrod Kid looked at him. He had known the Reticent Rodent for as long as either of them had worn the mask. They had foiled bank robberies, museum heists, and more than one inexplicable plan to hold the city hostage with a weather machine. He'd never thought of RR as having a job or anything. Nobody asked--it was rude. No, it was worse than rude. It was suspicious, and capes were paranoid and violent. Most of them had tons of psychopathic personal enemies, not to mention lawsuits, summons, and probably a couple warrants. The less other people knew about you, the better, and it held true for what you knew about them. After all, if you knew something about someone else, you were a target, right? Psychopathic enemies and all. The Kid realized he'd never even wondered what RR might do for a living. That he might even have a life outside. Unsure of how to respond or what to do, he just clapped RR on the shoulder.
"You'll figure it out, man. This stuff passes."
"No, it doesn't. I thought about it, and I'm out. Done with this bullshit. I wanted to tell somebody. Let 'em know I'm okay before I retire."
There was a shrill cry, and a light on the Ear lit up. The Reticent Rodent slumped in his chair. "You kidding me? My last freaking night and we get a robbery in progress. What're the odds."
The robbery was the type that the Lightningrod Kid had gotten used to. Punks smashed in the window in a third-rate jewelry store. No evidence of planning, lots of yelling and ski masks.
