FoodWay’s doors slid shut with an urgent hiss, then locked electronically and with no sound that could be heard over the frantic cries of a mother at the customer service booth and the confused and alarmed patter and chatter of the dozens of customers throughout the store. The secured exits weren’t meant to keep the city’s nighttime darkness out, but instead to contain a more vile darkness within the confines of the supermarket.

“What does he look like, Miss?” the mustached, forty-something shift manager, Ernie, asked the tear-soaked mother.

“Who took him? Who has my little boy?”

“Miss, we need a description.”

As Ernie knelt down to console the mother as much as possible, his eyes and ears caught the earnest rumbling of two, black boots approaching. And he heard a gasp. His own, but also the awe of the customers in the supermarket. He gazed upward, fully glimpsing the stone-faced, determined figure.

Gold trunks. Gold gloves. Glistening asp in hand. Black outfit. Black cowl.

Ernie stammered, “Who are you?”

“Black Marvel,” the figure said as he briskly passed through the provoked customers at the checkout stand. His compelled jaunt took him past the breakfast aisle, past the frozen foods section, and to the double-swinging doors of the stock room at the back of the store. Calmly, he led himself through the doors with his free hand while his left fist squeezed tighter around the black handle of his asp.

Once in the dank, musty stock room, he detected the wheezing of a thirty-something year old man, and the distinctly different, fearful pant of a six or seven year old boy. He turned the corner, where he found mounds of cardboard boxes, each containing various items, as well as several temples of wooden crates holding produce. And prepared to ascend the temple at the back of the stock room, he found the kidnapper, his head shaved, his murky eyes seething, the boy in hand, both burnished with sweat. The boy resembled his mother in his thin, blond hair, his wide, blue eyes, and, in this instance, the fearful trembling that rocked his fragile body.

With a flick of Black Marvel’s wrist, his asp was fully extended, and he launched the titanium weapon at the hairless scamp before he could begin his climb up the stack of crates.

THUMP!!!

Blunt contact with his knee, and, with a grunt, the man reflexively dropped the child, who naturally ran to Black Marvel, finding shelter at the costumed street-patriot’s side.

Black Marvel gave the boy a gentle pat on the head and said, “Close your eyes, son. Close ‘em tight.” Kid had been through enough this evening--no use in his virgin eyes seeing what was about to transpire.

The boy gave an anxious glare past his brow, then shut his eyes as told, and stood still as Black Marvel charged toward the immobile kidnapper.

He retrieved his asp, and--

THWAP!!!

THUNK!!!

THWAP!!!

THWAP!!!

After seven or eight lethal blows, the vermin’s eyes lit with fury, and he threw a punch with a feeble fist, which Black Marvel caught mid-thrust and threw back in the kidnapper’s face. Then, he let his asp work its magic again.

The kidnapper-turned-play toy was not as long in response the second round, as he threw up his arm again, not in attack, but in defense, as his eyes glowed again with that same fury. But something else, now, as well. Discovery.

When the culprit’s fingers gleamed with moisture that turned to ice, Black Marvel made a discovery of his own: he was dealing with a superhuman criminal, now. The stakes were higher. He could handle it.

Or so he thought, until the kidnapper’s icy fingers formed a mound of ice around Black Marvel’s right boot, securing the street patriot to the floor long enough for the super-powered crook to escape through a door in the stock room that led to the dumpsters behind the supermarket.

Moments later, as Black Marvel cursed the fleeing evildoer under his breath, and cursed the lack of security at the door in this emergency situation, and cursed the cowardice of some bag boy or stock room employee, and, in turn, cursed the cowardice of criminals, and ignored the fact that the crook forgot the child--still standing silent, his eyes closed--because he COULD have taken him, he cursed...the ice melted enough that his foot could break free, and he rushed out the door.

Once outside, he felt a cold, night breeze tickle his face, and saw no one and nothing, save for a single, white feather drift down past his nose and rest on the ground, before being swept up and away by the breeze.

Weird.

“Gotta get used to weird things, I suppose,” he sighed in his baritone voice. “And weird things gotta get used to me.”

In the distance, he heard sirens pierce the still night and grow louder as they approached. He had been hearing sirens a lot of nights lately.

He hated that sound.

***

Midnight, and Troy Malone walked home. Past the occasional pedestrian and vagrant, from the subway terminal toward his Eleventh Ave. apartment complex. Hell’s Kitchen loomed closer than Broadway nowadays, and it wasn’t safe for folks at this time of night--if it was EVER safe for them. But Troy moonlighted as the Black Marvel, and the night was his friend. He had kept a lot of late nights in the past few months, first training with the original Black Marvel--Dan Lyons--until he struck out on his own, patrolling the streets nightly in his dark costume, alone but with the stylized asp he had acquired in Iraq during the Gulf War. He never thought he’d have to use the asp, but then the day had betrayed him, and the Black Marvel had been born.

His costume hidden under civilian clothes, he protected himself from the night’s familiar chill with a black, hooded sweatshirt on top of blue Levi’s and dingy white sneakers. The sweatshirt’s hood covered his crew cut, red hair, translucent, blue eyes, and firm jaw, though his cheeks still turned scarlet at the night’s cold touch. His hands warm in the sweatshirt’s pockets, his wedding band was hidden.

Troy’s complex was now just yards away, and he peered up at his third floor bedroom window to see that the light was on. Jeannie was still up. He hoped the night hadn’t befriended her as it had him.

As he approached the building’s entrance, he also noted that his car was three spaces removed from where it had been parked on the curb when he had left the apartment earlier this evening. That wasn’t strange in itself, but when he walked by the 1978 Oldsmobile, he felt heat rising from the hood. Jeannie had taken it out very recently. This late at night?

He climbed the steps, entered the small, unmanned lobby, up two more flights of steps (their old apartment had an elevator, but unemployment and a marine's pention only afforded so much) and opened the front door. He found Jeannie washing dishes at the kitchen sink, her light, red hair rested in a bun, protected from the dish water. The bags under her eyes that had formed in recent months seemed to have faded, if only a little. In fact, every one of her features seemed to glow at this moment, from her bright, wide smile to her brown eyes. For once, at thirty-years old, she actually LOOKED two years his junior, which she was. She even hummed a cheery little tune while she scrubbed the dishes.

Catching a glimpse of Troy in the living room, she broke from her tune and chimed, “Hi, honey. Did it go well tonight?”

“Yeah, fine,” Troy said, held captive by Jeannie’s uncharacteristically breezy demeanor, and suspicious as to its source. “Where have you been?”

“The church,” she replied. “Working some things out with Pastor Marks.”

“Pretty late,” Troy remarked.

“The Pastor’s committed. He knows our situation. He’s been there to help since the first day.”

Troy nodded. “Did he bring you home?”

Jeannie’s eyes dulled with the realization of Troy’s intent. “No, I drove myself, actually.”

“I don’t like it when you’re out this late, Jeannie. It’s not safe.”

“It’s not safe in the day, either, Troy! We know that better than anyone!” she said, her voice lifting as it always did each time they’d had this conversation in the last three months. She dropped the cup she had been washing into the dishwater, threw the dish towel on the counter, and put her hand on her hip. “I’m sick of justifying my...process. I’m just trying to stay sane. I’m trying to cope in the church just like...you’re trying to cope on the streets.” She was hesitant--she knew Troy’s reaction to her familiar accusation. Knew too well.

“The streets didn’t change me!” Troy exclaimed, pointing his finger threateningly as he approached her. “They didn’t make me, Jeannie. I’m just a...a good man trying to do good things! I’m just a good man!”

“And I’m just a mom!” Jeannie shot back. “I just need someone to talk to--a shoulder to cry on. And if you’re gonna be slugging it out every night, Pastor Marks’ will have to do!”

“So...that’s how it is.” Troy’s teeth clenched with his fists.

***

A few hours later, Troy solemnly tossed a crimson-stained wash rag into the clothes hamper and retrieved a new one from the linen closet in the hall. As he shut the closet door, he heard a rustling from the unoccupied living room, and glanced up to see a small, white piece of paper sliding easily through the front door. Curious and confused, he picked up the paper, which turned out to be an envelope, and opened the front door, but upon peering down both sides of the hallway outside, he found no one--like at the supermarket, earlier in the evening.

He shook his head at the peculiar happening, then opened the envelope, where he found a note folded inside. He opened the note and, as not to alarm the ailing Jeannie, read it silently.