The Repairer

I casually strolled down to the site, making sure to wave and smile for my fans on the way.

Fans were something I had plenty of. It turned out that remaining active for over a dozen years without a single complaint, without a single mishap or civilian getting hurt while you did your work, was quite the way to build popularity. All the interviews probably hadn’t hurt either. It wasn’t like I had intentionally sought out fame, but I had no intention of avoiding it now that it was here.

As for where I was headed?

To do my job.

I was, you see, a hero. The super kind, you know, the kind with lots of fancy powers. The kind that often left behind explosions, destruction in their wake, that always stopped the bad guys without paying the slightest thought to how much property they were destroying in the process.

But not me. I was different.

For one thing, fighting villains wasn’t the main part of my job, nor was rescuing people.

For another, I actually paid attention to what was going on around me, instead of just mindlessly punching my way through everything that got in my way.

My job was, after all, to clean up after the messier supers. And that wasn’t the kind of job you would keep for long if you weren’t actually helping… well, actually getting things less messy than they were before you showed up.

It was a job with plenty of advantages.

I didn’t have to bother too much with being on time, as long as I didn’t just let rubble lying around for days on end.

I didn’t have to fight the nastiest villains, and the risk to me was significantly lower than it was for the average hero.

And there was of course also the fans. At least a dozen trailing behind me at this very moment, in fact.

If I had any complaints… Actually, I did have one. Having too many fans following you around made it harder to do your job. Once I arrived at the site — a skyscraper with half the glass windows blown into tiny fragments, and the building itself leaning quite perilously to the side, looking like the wind would blow it down at any moment — I had to stop for a minute. Prepare properly before seriously starting on my work.

I turned around, faced my fans. They probably expected me to say something nice, or whatever. But this wasn’t the time for that. Instead I asked them to leave, as kindly as I could. If there was one thing I absolutely did not want, it was to have other people nearby when I worked. What if I hurt them by accident while focused on my work?

One particularly argumentative fellow didn’t leave until I argued with him for over fifteen minutes… and also gave him my signature… but after that it was all clear.

I closed my eyes, feeling out for the metal and stone around me.

That was my power. Absolute, near-instant, limitless control over metal and steel. If I had wanted to, it would have been a power better suited for combat than what the vast majority of other heroes had.

But the thing was, I didn’t want to.

So instead I simply fixed the building, one piece at a time. Slowly tilting it back upwards again: I could have done it more quickly, but that would have ruined the effect on the off chance I was being filmed in secret, and would also have increased future demands on me.

As I went about my work, a man approached me from behind. The argumentative one from before.

In his hand, a knife. A really sharp and pointy one.

I had absolutely no protection against getting stabbed. Nor any protection beyond what a normal person may have, for that matter. I mean, why would powers over stone and metal make me more durable?

Too focused on my work, I had absolutely no idea he was there. Didn’t see him sneakily approaching me one step at a time.

Didn’t see him slowly lift his knife. Noiselessly bring it down in a single, swift, motion. Striking just the right point to immobilise me. I fell to the ground, blood gushing out…

...Nah.

I already told you, didn’t I? I pay attention to my surroundings.

So, I smacked this thickheaded fellow in the side with an equally thick concrete slab. Just hard enough to take the breath out of him, maybe enough to also hurt a tiny huge bit. But hey, he was alive, and would recover, and just over a minute later my work was done and the knifey guy was firmly in police custody. I may accidentally have smashed another window in the process, but let’s not worry too much about that.

See? Remember what I told you about other people getting hurt if they came near me when I was working?

I would say this fellow set quite the illustrating example.

Oh, and then there was also the glass. Still just as messily lying around on the ground, not a single one of the dozen broken windows fixed.

But my powers were over stone and metal.

Glass wasn’t my job.

The next guy would deal with that.