- Warning: Very depressing one-shot, this is angst.
- The conversation between Ben and Julie is a direct quotation from Ultimate Alien, episode "Hero Time".
- The conversation between Ben and Rook about Ben feeling bored is a direct quotation from Omniverse, episode "Something Zombozo this way comes"
You are Ben Tennyson, and when you were ten you had the best summer of your life. You were the hero! You were her hero! Then you get older, and you're still a hero, but you're not her hero anymore.
Kevin is.
And he might be a good guy now, but the things he did in the past, when he was eleven… He tried to burn her alive! He dropped her to die in a free-fall inside the Null-Void! How can he be her hero now? But Kevin is taller than you, more handsome than you, is a bad boy with a troubled past and a rebellious attitude, and he is not her cousin. It's not hard for you to realize that you lost the second he set his eyes on her.
She was the one taught you how to dance. You two dancing on the Rust Bucket was the sweetest memory of your life. And it hurts much more than you can admit when she goes straight to Kevin and almost forces him to take her to a dance, didn't even bothering to ask if you would want to go. You know you will have never another chance to dance with her, and you two dancing on the Rust Bucket is now the bittersweetest memory of your life.
When you were ten, Gwen was loyal to you. She went to the Null-Void to save you from Kevin (yes, the same Kevin) and Vilgax. She almost sacrificed her life to save you from the wildvines in Xenon. But by now Gwen has shifted her loyalty towards Kevin, and you are lucky she didn't elope with him leaving you completely alone - even though you know it's only a matter of time before she does.
You fake a smile and put up with playing second fiddle to Kevin. Gwen realizes you're lonely playing the third wheel, and she pushes you to start dating Julie. Julie is caring and she loves you and you think that you might even have loved her too if you hadn't know Gwen. Because Gwen is beautiful, smart, sweet, funny, powerful… It's not Julie's fault in any way. The bar was set too high.
You are unhappy and stressed and tired and you end up being a total jerk to Julie. You save the life of a hot actress, she invites you to her house, and you say yes. You tell Julie later that it was just a publicity stunt, then she asks, "And those pictures of the two of you in her hot tub?" and you simply answer, "That was fun. Great view. You know, if you squint just right, the Eiffel Tower kind of lines up with the Arc de Triomphe." Julie deserved better than that, and you know it.
One day you meet a girl that you think maybe you can love for real. Her name is Eunice, she is so beautiful and you feel something for her immediately. But in the end of the day, you find out she was a clone of Gwen. Your feelings for her were just a subconscious reflection of your feelings for Gwen. And it doesn't even matter, because Azmuth takes her away.
After a while, just like you feared, Gwen decides to abandon you for real. She goes to college, and of course, Kevin goes to live near her, or with her, you don't even know. And you realize something tragic and funny... When Kevin was your enemy and a villain he never actually managed to hurt you other than a few bruises, but now as your friend and a hero he wounded you in a way that you never will recover. Oh, the ironies of life.
You are now more unhappy than ever and decide to hide behind arrogance and faux confidence. Grandpa Max tries to help you and gets you a new partner, Rook Blonko. Nice guy, but Grandpa Max completely missed the point. You're not unhappy because your friends are gone away and you need new friends. You are unhappy because you will never get the love of your life, and she can't be replaced, because no one measures up to her.
You learn that you will eventually get together with Kai. Kai, who never liked you for who you really are. Kai, who likes you only because of your aliens forms, especially the wolf one. But actually it's a match made in heaven, because by now you have become a complete jerk, so you two deserve a shallow and meaningless life with each other.
You are self-destructive. In a peaceful day you say to Rook, "Nobody's tried to blow up the Earth. Nobody's tried to kill me and take the Omnitrix. Everything is just fine and boring!" Because now you live to fight, that's the only thing that makes you forget about your crap life. You thrive when something happens, "How about a rogue waybad returning to seek revenge on me, with Vilgax? Please let it be an awesomely, catastrophic, cool, world-threatening crisis."
Sometimes you wonder, if you can't be her hero, why bother playing hero for this hypocritical self-righteous society who stops you from being with the girl you love?
And you realize, you do it because, since you're not her hero, being a hero is all that you have left.