Chasing Normal (2/3)
by dotfic
Gen, PG
All characters are the property of DC Comics and Warner Brothers, except for the janitor, who belongs to the author.

I lived in the Metro Tower for three weeks. Superman offered me larger quarters but I stayed in my usual room on level six where all the other crew and techs stayed while they were on-shift. I wanted to keep working but Mr. Terrific gave orders that I was to be kept off duty and under observation. Hitchens filled in—he'd taken the same training I'd had. We'd planned carefully for a backup, given the amount of hazardous spills the Tower seemed to have.

But it was my job, dammit. Hitchens was a good guy and smart enough, but I worried if I wasn't keeping an eye on things one of the janitors would forget proper procedure and fail to put up a "wet floor" sign or give proper warning about breathing conditions when the ventilation system was being cleaned.

For a couple of days I tried hanging around and watching Hitchens supervise until he lost it and yelled at me that I was giving him the creeps and would I just relax and take this as a bonus vacation already?

As I walked away I heard him mutter to Clemens, "Just got his superpowers, and already he's got delusions of grandeur."

Which was really unfair.

I stuck to myself after that. A lot of the capes were friendly. But it felt strange hanging around with them.

At the end of three weeks, Green Lantern came to the lab.

"We need to talk."

"Okay," I said. "Should we go to the cafeteria or..."

"No. Not there. Follow me."

I swallowed, and followed him. Green Lantern opened a small panel in the side of the elevator and punched in a security code.

We were silent on the ride up. I couldn't have spoken even if I wanted to. He wasn't frowning, but he looked stern. Maybe I'd done something wrong. Maybe they'd decided to fire me and give Hitchens my job.

The doors hissed quietly open and the first thing I saw was the big Justice League symbol. They were on the double doors that led into the Founding Members' Conference Room. Only myself, two of my crew, and a handful of techs were even allowed in there—someone had to change the bulbs in the light fixtures, dust it, and keep the computers running.

They were seated around the big table: Batman, Superman, Flash, Wonder Woman, Hawkgirl, and Green Lantern.

There was an empty chair, the symbol on its back a reminder of change.

I suddenly missed him. He used to scare me until I actually sat down and talked with him. He would have been a comfort. Word had gotten around why he'd left. Ironic, that I was in that room and he wasn't. Both of us chasing after normal.

No one asked me to sit, and I didn't ask to.

"Thank you for coming," Superman said. There was a file folder open in front of him. In fact, there was one open in front of all of them. The Flash was nearest to me and when I snuck a closer look at his folder, I saw my own name on the tab.

I started to feel nervous.

"It's been three weeks and your powers show no sign of fading. It's impossible to tell if they're permanent or not." He added, in a tone that sounded like he was trying very hard to be reassuring, "They could last another week, they could last a year, they could last the rest of your life."

"We just don't know enough about planet XP3414," said Green Lantern, turning over a page in the file. "Our scientists have been studying the substance that fell on you. I'm quoting from their report: subject has low-grade telekinesis, which acts on fluids of varying degrees of viscosity, and on solid substances if they are in small enough pieces. Physical contact must be initially established with the substance for subject to perform telekinesis, and afterwards he experiences episodic tension headaches, which have determined to be harmless, if of some discomfort to the subject."

Fifty-dollar words. Great.

"In English, you can move stuff with the power of your mind, but only small objects or liquids, and your head hurts later," said Flash.

"What happens to me now?" I said, and my voice came out too loud, echoing in the big room. "Do I get to go home? Can I go back to my job?"

Superman folded his hands on top of the file folder, looking uncomfortable. "Actually, since we don't know how long this will last, and you do have some new, unusual powers... we think it would be best if we kept you around."

"So I can be a lab rat indefinitely? Forget it!"

"Although you will have to get periodic tests, you won't have to be in the lab every single day or even every week," Wonder Woman said hastily. "You just can't go back to your old job yet."

"But my family...what about my salary..."

"It's being covered," Batman said tersely.

"Then what am I..."

"We're inviting you to join the Justice League, at the entry level. You will be provided with training," said Green Lantern.

There was a rushing sound in my ears. "I'm sorry. What did you say?"

"Wanna be a superhero?" Flash asked, and grinned.

"No," I said. "I want my job back. I want to go home."

"I'm sorry, but we can't..." Superman began.

Batman interrupted him. "Power untrained and unchecked is dangerous. The only way to ensure that you learn to manage it safely, during the time you have it, is to give you proper supervision and help you manage those powers."

"We're not that scary, are we?" Hawkgirl asked gently. Even though everyone called her Shayera now, I still thought of her as Hawkgirl. It seemed disrespectful to use her first name.

"No...I mean, of course not, it's just that..."

"We know this has been tough for you," Green Lantern said. "But I agree with Batman."

"Believe me, it's easier than being out there with it on your own," Flash added.

Wonder Woman gave me a sympathetic, apologetic smile. "It has its rewards. Please consider our offer."

"He doesn't have a choice," Batman turned to her. "If he doesn't agree, we'll have to hold him here one way or another. It's too dangerous to..."

"Are you suggesting we keep this man here by force?" Wonder Woman said sharply. "He's been a part of the crew since the first Watchtower was constructed. He's done nothing wrong."

"He could be a danger to himself and others. He has no choice."

"She's right," Superman said. He glanced at me. "Relax. We're not going to keep you here by force. But if you choose to leave, I have to tell you, I think you'd be making a mistake. Not because it would make things more difficult for us. But because it would make it more difficult for you. There's a lot you'll have to deal with."

"Someone could see you using your powers," Flash said.

"I'm not going to use my..."

Flash shook his head. "You will. You think you won't, but you will. You're going to need a costume. And a mask."

"A mask? But I'm just a janitor. No one knows who I am."

"Not yet." Superman turned in his chair so he could face me more directly. "I'm sure the local news would be interested in how you stopped the muggers in that alley a few weeks ago."

"Think about it," Batman said slowly.

The cowl-covered face gave nothing away. This was a man with a lot of secrets.

I pictured footage of myself on the local news, my face clear for all to see, while reporters described what I could do, and then the next day when the girls didn't come home from school and my wife and I got the letter: "We have your daughters."

"All right," I said, and shivered.

Batman rose fluidly. "You will be issued an ID, a communicator, and limited access codes. Less than what you're used to having as Head of Maintenance. That's how it has to be. You will be heavily supervised. You will go out on low hazard level missions only. You will not consider yourself an official superhero."

"Yeah, yeah, I get it. What, you guys have a superhero internship program or something?"

"Something like that," said Green Lantern. He pressed his communicator. "You two can come in now." He turned back to me. "We've gotten in the habit, when trying out new members, of assigning them to more experienced entry-level members. Someone to show them the ropes and keep them out of trouble."

A door opened somewhere at the back and two costumed figured approached. As they moved out of the shadows into the light, I recognized them.

I cursed before I could remember where I was. But who could blame me? They were just kids, almost young enough to date my oldest daughter.

"Gear, Static, meet...uh..." Flash hesitated. "What are we going to call you?"

"The Janitor," I said.

"Whoa, man." Static put out his hands in denial. "We gotta work on that name."

They let me go home for two days' leave.

Before I left, Static and Gear took me down to level two where the administrative offices were located. Because I already worked there and Security had cleared me, there wasn't another background check, but I still had to fill out a few more forms. Then we headed to Security where I was issued an ID and a communicator.

I stared down at the ID tag. They'd made me wear an eye mask for the photo. I looked ridiculous.

I was staring at the tag that night as I sat on the bed, listening to the TV going downstairs. I was supposed to go down there and watch a movie with the girls. Family movie night.

I hadn't told them I was going away yet.

My wife poked her head in the door. "You coming down?"

Guiltily, I put the ID in the back pocket of my jeans.

"Sure, hon. But first, let's talk." I smiled and patted the bed next to me.

My wife looked at me, one hand on her hip, giving me The Suspicious Look. After a moment she sat down beside me, at the very edge of the bed.

"You know those long business trips I've been taking?"

She nodded. "Yes. I thought when the League switched you to the Metro Tower here on Earth that you'd be around more often."

"Uh...me too." I stared down at my hand against the floral pattern on the bedspread, at her hand too far from mine. Then I looked up into her brown eyes. "There's something I have to tell you about those business trips. They weren't to meet with salespeople. I made the NASA thing up."

The look in her eyes went detached, shutting me out, and she didn't move any closer to me. I kept on talking because I didn't know what else to do. "It's...you're not going to like this."

"Just tell me." It sounded like her teeth were clenched, but since she kept her mouth mostly shut in a tight, defensive line it was hard to tell.

I looked down at the bedspread again. "See, the thing is, hon, there was this accident at work. They had a mission to another planet and when they got back there was this alien goop all over one of the Javelins. My crew and I were cleaning it off and some got on me and now...uh...I...have...special...uh...pow

ers."

The bed twitched as she moved. I looked at her and watched as she blinked and turned her head like someone waking up from a dream.

"There was a...you have what?"

"Powers. Because this alien...substance...fell on me and..."

"Are you telling me you have superpowers because alien goop fell on you?"

Oh, God, I'm in trouble.

She made a funny, whooping sound and then quickly covered her mouth with her hands. Her eyes were way too bright.

"It's not funny! They ran tests on me and stuck me with needles and I had to lie to you and the kids for weeks and it was boring..."

"I'm sorry, babe. I know." She put her arms around me from the side, resting her cheek on my shoulder. "The goop didn't hurt you, did it?" Pulling away, she looked at me seriously. "I mean, it's not radioactive goop? You aren't..."

"I'm in perfect health. It's just that I can do...things...I couldn't before."

She bounced up and down on the bed. "What kind of things? Can you fly?"

"No."

"Super-strength?"

"Not exactly."

"Or are you invulnerable to harm? Like that guy in Unbreakable?"

"Um...not that either."

"Omigod." She bounced again. "Can you run really fast like the Flash?"

Damn his eyes. It was one thing that my twelve-year-old had a crush on him, it was quite another that my wife seemed to as well. What was it with that guy and women?

"No."

"Then what?"

"I can move substances from one spot to another."

"You mean levitate objects?"

"Not objects. Substances. I have to touch them first, and then I can move it from one location to another just by concentrating. Low-grade telekinesis, if you want to get technical. If there's sand all over the floor, if I touch a few grains, I can shift it all into a neat pile by thinking about it. I can put spilled water back into a container, or gather all the dust in a room into one clump."

A slow smile crept across her face as she processed what I was telling her.

I could tell who would be doing all the cleaning in our house for the indefinite future.

Then she changed gears. From zero to sixty in oh point three seconds, that's my sweetie. "Okay." She rubbed her hands together. "We have to plan. What does this involve, exactly? How much are you going to be away?"

"A month. I'll be given leave, so it's not like you and the girls won't see me. But they said they have no other option but to bring me into the Justice League."

Her mouth dropped open.

"Only entry level, honey. They're going to train me. I'll have to take, I dunno, hero classes, something like that, and they're going to handle all the costuming issues so you don't have to get on the sewing machine."

"Do you have a persona? A hero name?"

"Well, I was kind of thinking of calling myself..." I hesitated, knowing she would laugh. "'The Janitor.'"

She didn't laugh. Instead she gave me a pitying look. "Oh, babe. We'll have to work on that. Now what about the costume? I could come up with some ideas. It should be practical, yet impressive. Maybe something in black...no, green...no, that's been done. How about dark blue? Blue with yellow trim...that would look so great with your coloring. And you'll need a mask." She began rummaging on the night table for a pad and pencil. "Maybe a cape..."

"NO CAPES!" Two voices shouted from just outside the door, followed by giggles.

"Get in here," I said.

The girls slowly pushed the bedroom door open. My oldest actually did look a little sorry, but her sister just ran to me and jumped up on the bed, giggling. "Daddy's a superhero!" She shouted.

"No...no, I'm not...it's not like that..."

"Dad." My almost teenager folded her arms. One eyebrow went up. "You do understand how incredibly cool this is, right? Does this mean I get to meet the Flash?"

I put my head in my hands, and groaned.

"Oh, no." Gear let out a groan.

"What?"

"Look at who we have for forensics."

"Him? Are you surprised he's teaching forensics?" Static said.

"I was hoping for The Question. Or maybe Captain Atom. Or Mr. Terrific...what's so funny?"

They both turned to look at me.

I stifled my smile. "You two sound exactly like me and my buddies back in high school. Of course we didn't have the outfits..." I gestured vaguely at my chest, which was now covered in some kind of stretchy blue fabric, thicker than spandex. I'd been told it was heat, cold, and stain resistant, but not bullet-proof so I shouldn't get cocky.

"You won't be laughing at ten fifteen," said Gear, glancing at the digital readout on his wrist.

"What happens at ten fifteen?"

"Forensics."

It wasn't that I had been bad at school. My grades were fine. It wasn't that I disliked going to school. I had a good group of pals. It was that I didn't like school enough to keep doing it. Never went to college. I didn't like memorizing pointless information that would be useless as soon as the test was over. Of course, I've never shared that view with my kids. My wife is a big believer in education. She didn't go to college either, but she was a straight-A student and often said wistfully she'd like to get her degree. She decided she would when our youngest is out of elementary school.

That was why I went into the army—the not liking school. I figured at least I could be learning practical stuff and then using it in real life situations right away. The Go Army ads always got that much right, anyway, even if they never said jack about what it would feel like the first time a shell exploded a dozen yards away from you.

The Justice League classes were like that, though. Real things you could use. Before forensics we had hand-to-hand fighting with Green Lantern.

He nodded at me as we walked in, no smile or greeting. Usually the guy is pretty friendly. I got the message: class time.

Green Lantern was former USMC and he made my old drill sergeant look like a sweet elderly babysitter. My army training helped prepare me a little better than the other junior Leaguers in the class, but not by much.

He called the class to order and I snapped to attention automatically, back straight, awaiting orders. Static and Gear stopped talking and stood, if not with military precision, without slouching.

The others seemed lost, and kept talking, only in quieter voices.

"Shut your cakeholes and listen up," Green Lantern barked. "Form a line."

They scurried like ants to obey. Except for Booster Gold, who moved more slowly and looked very bored. For a little while he tried to stand up straight and look serious, but as Green Lantern paced back and forth in front of us, reeling off the principles of fighting, Booster put his gloved hand to his mouth, and yawned.

"Booster Gold!" Green Lantern spun suddenly and put his face close to the other superhero's. "Do you feel like repeating this class a third time?"

"No, not really."

"Then. Pay. Attention. Even Blue Beetle made it through in two takes."

Somebody snickered. After that Green Lantern was in a bad mood.

I got thrown to the mat about seven times. I'm in decent shape—I lift weights—and I remembered some of my Army training. But it wasn't enough to prepare me. By the end of class I was stiff and my back hurt. Almost all of us were limping. Gear had to help Static up off the floor, and the boys supported each other as they limped out of the room at the end of class.

Now Green Lantern was all smiles, kidding around and even giving out a few pats on the back.

"Not bad," he said, clamping a hand down on my shoulder.

I tried not to wince.

So by the time we headed to forensics, we were in pain. I figured at least in forensics, we wouldn't get beat up. Besides, part of my training in special cleanup as head of maintenance involved a lot of chemistry. Plus I'd seen the TV shows.

"Whatever you do, just don't annoy him," Booster Gold joined me in as we headed along the corridor. "He's scary when he's annoyed."

"He's scary when he's not annoyed, too," said Gear. "He's already flunked me twice. Me! Flunk something involving science!"

"And yet, you live to tell the tale," Static said, rolling his eyes.

"He's flunked me four times. The guy has it in for me." Booster nodded.

"Booster, you never study!" Static protested.

"We've got tactics class with Shayera right before lunch. What is this, tough teacher Tuesday?" Gear squinted through his goggles at the class schedule. "Then there's Ground Level Surveillance at three...oh. That was going to be The Question, but his name's crossed off."

"Guess he had a last-minute mission." Booster shrugged.

"Shayera?" I said, as we entered the lecture room and sat down near the middle. "You mean Hawkgirl?"

"Yeah. Why couldn't it have been Wonder Woman? She's always sweet to me." Gear tucked the schedule away into a pocket somewhere.

"But...Shay...I mean Hawkgirl. She's teaching one of our classes? I mean, in person?"

"Yeah," Gear said slowly, in the tone I'd heard my teenage daughter use sometimes when she clearly thought I was being dense. "In person. Dude, what's the big...oh." He snickered.

"She is pretty," said Static.

I was about to open my mouth to say something sharp—these kids were half my age and I thought maybe I needed to remind them that seniority counts, even if they knew a lot already about being a hero and I knew zip—when Batman appeared.

He didn't walk in. The door to the left of the lectern never moved. One minute he wasn't there, the next he was.

Immediately, like someone had thrown a switch, all conversation winked out.

He pulled something out of his belt and walked up the steps of the center aisle. He stopped at our row, and dropped something on the table in front of Gear.

"Tell me what you see."

"It's rope."

"What kind?"

Gear picked it up. "Synthetic. Nylon maybe?"

"And?"

"And?" The kid's voice squeaked and he immediately repeated, in a deeper voice, "And...the ends are frayed."

"Worn or cut?"

"Cut."

"Why?"

"Because all the threads are even. If it had just broken from wear, it would be more ragged."

"What kind of knife?"

"Um..."

"Anything else?"

"There's a stain." He sniffed the rope. "Smells like fish."

The implacable figure standing in the aisle just looked, and waited.

"So it's probably from the waterfront!" Gear finished, sitting up with a note of triumph in his voice.

"Which. Waterfront."

The kid slumped. Well, he'd tried.

"Write me a fifteen page paper on the ecology and pollutants of all major ports on the East Coast by next week. And memorize the list of synthetic fibers in the handout."

Then he turned and headed back down towards the lectern.

Slumping down further in his chair, Gear shot Static a despairing look.

"Don't slouch," Batman said, without turning around.

An endless forty minutes later, we emerged. I'd managed to escape notice and he hadn't called on me once.

Next up was tactics. I didn't escape Hawkgirl's notice. She called on me. I answered wrong. She cursed at me in a language I didn't recognize and repeated what she'd just told us. Then she asked me again and when I answered correctly, she smiled.

I don't remember anything about the class after that.

Hey. Fair's fair. If my wife can have a crush on the Flash...besides, there's no crime in looking.

"What are you so cheery about?" Booster Gold asked me afterwards when we sat down in the cafeteria for lunch.

"Yeah." Static reached for the ketchup. "Considering this was your first time through the class, she chewed you out pretty good."

"I know," I said. "Isn't she amazing?"

My head was kind of full from the morning. Bits and fragments of new knowledge, the way my back still ached from Green Lantern's class, how glad I was that Hawkgirl no longer wore a helmet that concealed her face, Batman's slides of actual crime scenes, Booster Gold yawning, Gear and Static arguing like two guys who'd been in the same platoon for too long. So I chewed my sandwich without really tasting it. I'd eaten in that cafeteria a thousand times, but now it felt different. The material of my costume felt weird, too tight and yet stretchy and comfortable at the same time. Even though I was wearing gloves, my cup of soda was cold in my hand, because they'd given me special gloves with the finger pads open to the air. It was because I had to touch objects to do TK.

Maybe it was the touch of cold, but something snapped into focus. It could have been the glint of gold in the corner of my eye—Wonder Woman's lasso. Or the tails on Zatanna's jacket fluttering as she walked by. Or the way Vigilante's boots sounded on the linoleum. There was Green Arrow, eating what looked like a Caesar salad, gesturing with his fork as he made some point to Mr. Terrific, who listened attentively as he ate his tuna sandwich.

Suddenly I was hyper-aware of every person in the room. There were techs in their jumpsuits and heroes in their costumes and even though I'd eaten in that cafeteria a thousand times before, it definitely felt different. Surreal.

"'Scuse me," I mumbled, and pushed back my chair with a loud scrape.

"You okay?" Static asked.

"I'm fine. Be right back. Indigestion."

All the air had been sucked out of the room and I wondered that no one else seemed to be having trouble breathing.

Somehow I stumbled out of there. In the corridor outside I found a door marked "Deck Access," shoved the heavy metal bar, and as the door clicked open, cool air rushed in at me.

There were a few superheroes and a few techs seated out there, but not many. It was quiet. The street noises of Metropolis rose from below, muffled by distance. Mostly it was just the wind whistling around the building.

I found as unobtrusive a spot as I could, behind a potted evergreen bush. Leaning my elbows on the stout railing, I took several long deep breaths. A cold sweat prickled my forehead and as the wind passed over me I shivered.

The deck was paved with small, smooth round pebbles. I knelt and touched them, then using telekinesis, made a little pile by my boot, leaving a patch of exposed cement.

It made no sense. I couldn't possibly have TK and be taking classes in how to solve crimes and fight super villains. Hitchens was doing my job. It was some crazy alternate universe.

If I'd worked under the same roof with the heroes for years, why should it bother me now to see them everywhere, to be among them?

Some people would kill to be in my shoes, to be standing where I was standing.

It was selfish and ungrateful of me to wish I wasn't.

"Hey, man, you okay?"

There was a twitch of red, a blur, and then the Flash snapped to a halt beside me. Several needles fell from the evergreen bush.

"Yeah. I'm fine."

"Looking a little green around the gills," he said, "Or you would be if you were Aquaman. Maybe you should get to the infirmary. Alien goo, remember?"

"No...really, I'm okay. I have my check-up tomorrow anyway."

Flash leaned sideways against the railing and tucked one ankle over the other, as if the railing suddenly breaking away under his weight would be no concern at all.

I remembered something he'd said to me outside the lab. "Do you ever feel...intimidated...being one of them?"

He looked out over Metropolis. "Me? Intimidated?" He laughed. "Only every other day. On Mondays and Wednesdays I feel overwhelmed." He turned his glance to me, or at least the blank white eye slits of his cowl. "Whatever you're feeling? It's normal."

"But you saved the world from Brainiac."

He seemed to freeze at that and I was immediately sorry I'd said it. It was none of my business, and even superheroes have emotional scars. Especially superheroes maybe.

"Sometimes I think that was some other guy named Flash."

He straightened up and before he zipped away, added, "Stop thinking so hard. It'll give you bad dreams."

After that, I went back to the table, trying not to think about anything but what I might get asked in Ground-Level Surveillance.

When we reached the classroom, heroes were gathered in clumps, talking. There were a handful Gear and Static's age—Teen Titans. There was Robin—everyone knew who he was, and a kid with a quiver of arrows on his back, and a goth girl in a cloak.

The idea of kid sidekicks always bothered me. The concept of my oldest girl wearing an eye mask and a black cape with a red tunic filled me with horror.

Yet there were a lot of teenage heroes. Static and Gear loved what they did. Maybe there was something about it I didn't understand.

Some of the heroes speculated who was going to take The Question's place in the class, names spoken with a range of emotions from dread to eagerness.

Finally Robin walked up to the front of the room, and the whispered conversations died out. "Okay, everyone, let's get started."

The kid was teaching the class?

Of course. Remember who trained him.

Feeling unsettled and jittery, I showed up too early for my medical test the next day.

The waiting room looked like any doctor's office: burbling fish tank, dull beige upholstery, soft blue walls, Muzak. There was an oil painting of a mountain landscape, several color photographs of flowers. No superhero portraits.

They stuck on the electrodes, made me run on a treadmill, poked me with needles, took my blood pressure, and did a hundred other little things using machines I couldn't identify. I had to demonstrate my powers again, shifting sand, small stones, and marbles. A few slipped out of the container and rolled away across the floor, leading to the inevitable joke about how I'd lost them.

Those superhero doctors had a sense of humor (just not a good one). They probably had to or go insane.

Finally, it was over. One doctor said my blood pressure was too fast, was I under any stress? It was hard to tell if she was being ironic or not. I choked back my laughter and no, I was fine, just going through a period of adjustment.

The following day, I got the word—I'd been cleared to go out on a mission.

(to be continued)