Work Text:
Mikele climbed the stairs.
It was kind of a skeevy, horrid little job; filled with hours of boredom and the kind of moral greyness that sticks to your soul in the wash. But it paid the bills.
Mikele climbed the stairs.
She could still tell her friends that she was a photographer, just as long as they didn’t ask any awkward follow-up questions.
Mikele climbed the stairs.
Plus she got added “danger money” for working in the “hot zone”. Another symptom of the superheroes coming along. Back when it first started, people were paranoid about leaving the house, let alone visit an area that attracted capes like flies. Nowadays, the government adds a few more bucks to your payslip and it’s all treated as normal.
Mikele continued to climb the stairs.
Mikele knew, in her heart of hearts, that she was also a symptom of superheroes. Well this job was anyway.
Finally reaching the top floor, Mikele unlocked what she jokingly referred to as her “penthouse suite”: a huge bare concrete room, huge windows, and her little encampment of chair and equipment in one corner. She looked out the window, and her job looked back, greeting her with the same words as always;
W E C A N
MAKE YOU
S O A R
Mikele set up her very expensive camera to look at the giant billboard above the opposite skyscraper, briefly checked her radar and the rest of the equipment, and settled in to wait. The company had set up the billboard as huge and as high as this for a reason. All it would take is the right hero flying by, a shutter clicked at the right time, and presto! A photo that’d be worth millions in advertising.
We Can Make You Soar
So far, Mikele had snapped a kite, a pigeon, and a long thin blur that could have been a speedster? She had received a partial bonus for the pigeon, because it was posed and positioned nicely enough to be useable. But no big prize yet.
We Can Make You Soar
The slogan was slowly worming it’s way into Mikele’s head. It was for sports shoes, and she personally thought it was a terrible slogan. The shoes didn’t even help you jump higher! Who even thinks of this stuff! Who even thinks to put a woman with a camera in a building for days on end. Some committee somewhere.
We Can Make You Soar
Mikele relied more and more on her early-warning radar while her vigilance waned. A camera lens can see a lot of things, and she had gotten fairly familiar with the neighbourhood around her. No pictures though, she wasn’t there to capture the beauty of the city around her. She was there to photo any passing floating persons, without consent, in order to sell more shoes.
We Can Make You Soar
“Can you though?” She caught herself thinking one day. “Can you make me soar?” It seemed to her that all this job did was make her feel vaguely guilty. To pull her down. Yesterday she had done something to balance the scales slightly. Just a little anonymous tip to the police, about an incident in the street below. She couldn’t just sit there and do nothing right? Somebody could’ve been hurt.
We Can Make You Soar
A few weeks later, and the slogan was beginning to sound like a threat. “Stand closer to the edge, we’ll show you just how far you can soar”. She had missed her chance yesterday, and regrets filled her head. The anonymous tips had become a habit, the streets had started to feel like her “watch”, but she should’ve been watching that damn billboard as that damn hero flew past! She really REALLY needed this job. She just wanted to help the people below too, was that such a crime?
We Can Make You Soar
Management had not liked her missing the shot, but when she admitted to seeing a mugging in the street below and calling the cops..... How could they even say that? "You should've let it happen, a hero might've shown up". How could they say that in such a tone that made it sound like the obvious choice, like a reasonable response? They had given her a deadline to "prove" herself. A deadline that was fast approaching.
We Can Make You Soar
The wind whipped Mikele’s hair. She looked down, and then down some more. Standing on the edge of the roof, as the failure and the pressure had jacked up, the slogan had become……….. a temptation. Who knows, just one last step and maybe, she would soar after all?
We Can Make You-
Tears in her eyes and a lean forwards into the void
An almost instant feeling of wrongness and panic
A sudden stop in midair? The wind being knocked from her chest? The exhilaration of flight!
Saved! Caught by a hero no less! Mikele could only stop crying long enough to thank the brightly coloured woman. She had instantly regretted her final step. It was some surprise to be thanked back…. Turns out her little anonymous tips had not gone unnoticed, and Mikele’s effect on the world around her was far deeper than she had realised. There were vulnerable people alive today that would have died if not for her.
As the hero softly asked her if there was anything she could do for her, maybe recommend a few place she could go to talk about her problems, Mikele agreed on one condition;
“Would you mind posing for a photo?”