Not a Hero

“No, the logo was #e73518, not #24622. Get it right! What am I paying you side characters for…”

Bozo sighed atop his scaffolding, setting the megaphone down. Even as he watched the Missile Man slowly rebuild itself, after how that game ended, he felt so unsatisfied.

“I really think it’s going quite well, sir.” Wheel tried not to offend his boss as he adjusted his glasses. “You know… we’re all proud of you, sir. Maybe… those girls got away, but you-“

“What kind of hero lets a villain get away?” Bozo suddenly sobbed. “I haven’t changed. I’m pathetic…”

Julie patted his back, watching the others help out with construction. “Hey, it’s okay… don’t worry, don’t worry… that’s… normal, isn’t it? Sometimes the bad guys have to get away for the story to keep going…”

“But… but they aren’t even bad guys anymore! Not in the eyes of the law! How am I supposed to cope with that? I’m no antihero…”

“That’s right. You’re a hero.” Wheel leaned down to his crying commander’s level. “And you always will be. Why, just think about all the other terrorists we caught.”

“I’d… forgotten…”

Wheel and Julie blinked at each other.

“Well, um… yes, sir, you and… all of us captured most of those rats. They’re locked up in the prison, like they deserve. Heck, without any leads on those kids, and doubly so now that they’re… well, you know, “pardoned…” Officer Bartlet’s become a permanent resident there, too. I’m sure he’s keeping them in check.”

“Yeah!” Julie joined. “Just think, you captured all those guys! What’s two teenage girls?”

“Take me to them.”

“What?”

“Take me to them.”

The crusty metal door was opened to the immediate sound of laughter. It echoed through the gray walls as they stepped down the stairs.

“They must be going crazy in here…” Wheel murmured. Bozo was no longer responding to anything either of them had to say. Yet still, in his eyes, his intentions were clear anyway.

“You… want to gloat in front of them, r-right?” Julie stuttered. “Not that I wouldn't! I’m… happy you want to see your handiwork. Maybe it’ll help you respect yourself a little better.”

Still silent.

They passed empty coaster carts and cobwebs, they finally reached the cells- a long hallway reeking of dust, the permanent resting place of the Villainous Legion. But as the laugher ahead grew louder, they quickly realized it wasn’t coming from a cell.

“And then.. and then I pulled it off! She was hollering… “Oh, no, that’s all I know, all I know…” like a kid, just like that. I only kept going after that ‘cause she made me laugh, I’m really not the type of guy to… oh, hiya Mr. Bozo. Fancy seeing you here.”

Officer Bartlet was leaning over the cell talking at an unrecognizable legionary, broken by hunger and depression. At first glance, he certainly looked like a man- but there was just a bit too much innocence inside his glassy eyes. The child shivered in his dirty old clothes, his beard coarse, his long limbs now thin and bony.

“…Which one is this?” Bozo finally spoke.

“Eh- that’s the funny thing. Won’t tell me his real name. Best I can get out of him is “Spider.” What a joke.” He kicked the bars separating them. “Not that you’d know him by name. No, this is the one who interrupted that presentation of yours. When you first got your powers? He made the contraption that swatted you out of the sky.”

Bozo blinked. In his quest for vengeance, he’d forgotten about that, too. Hardly mattered to him anymore.

“Aw, why are you looking at him like that?” The cop giggled. “This one’s a bomber, too, remember?” He took a nice, long look at the work he’d done ruining the kid- the moxie he’d so perfectly drained from him. It made him giddy. “Lemme guess, you wanna give him a nice, swift punch or something? I’ve done it myself, sometimes, after a bad day. You know how it is. I can let you in there if you-“

Four knuckles shot into the Officer’s forehead as he then rocketed all the way down to the end of the hallway, almost breaking his back against the far concrete wall. As Bozo examined his hand afterwards, it almost had steam coming off it.

“Sir—!” Julie didn’t know what to think. Wheel was panicking.

“You’re fired. I don’t need you anymore.” Bozo growled.

“Sir… um… what… what are you doing…?” Wheel placed his glasses back on his face, the things haven fallen off due to the blowback of Bozo’s attack. The boss had a dark look on his face as he turned away from his subordinate. It took all the strength in his body to say it.

“I’m letting them go.”

“W-what??” Julie couldn’t believe what she was hearing. She couldn’t comprehend how far her boss had fallen. “B-but sir, we- you- you captured them! They’re the ones responsible for… for everything! Now that we’ve got them… you- you can just keep them here for good, can’t you?”

“That’s not what a hero would do.”

Julie shivered, too. It was hopeless.

Watching the Missile Man’s reconstruction all through the night, his sidekicks came back to him. They knew he wouldn’t have moved from this spot since they left.

“We… got you hot cocoa…” Julie mumbled. Bozo took and promptly sipped it, but not without some sass.

“How come? …It’s January already.”

“Just… thought you might like some.” She sat next to the older man, regret pinching her heart.

“I’ll take it.” He sipped. “Not that it needs to be any hotter out here.”

“I… must admit I still don’t quite understand your decision, sir.” Wheel stood and watched the engineers hard at work. “New management could’ve made their stay a lot more humane. You didn’t need to let them all go.”

“It was my way… of making it up to them.”

The worker’s lights made a small oasis of brightness in the dark night. All shining on what would soon be Coaster’s favorite ride, to him they looked more like Hope than some big blot on the moon could ever be.

“I got my coaster back. What’s the point in keeping them there any longer…?”

“…Very well.”

Wheel sat with the others, and nodded.

“I suppose, sir… that’s why you’re the hero and we’re the sidekicks.”

“You’re heroes to me. Happy new year, you two.”

They all watched their prized attraction’s progress through many hours of the night, as the ex-legionaries returned to their found family’s home.