CHAPTER ELEVEN
Chase almost blew the door of the shop off its hinges. “Well, hello to you, too, Chase,” Robert said, wincing at the sound of the door slamming into the wall.

“Where is he,” Chase said, swinging his head from side to side, scanning the sales floor.

“Not back yet,” Robert said. He came around the counter, hands up. “Hey, hey, calm down,” he soothed as he approached Chase cautiously.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” Chase said matter-of-factly. “I just have to find Adam before he goes and does something stupid.”

“Like going to see Lydia,” Robert asked pointedly.

“I went for coffee. She just happened to be there.” Chase stopped stalking around and looked at Robert. “She kissed me on the cheek. You know, after this juggernaut-looking guy knocked her unconscious and then Adam flew in through the window and almost kicked him to death.” Chase sat down on the floor, heavily. “Did this really happen?” He looked at his hands, stretching them out in front of his face. “Do I really have frickin’ super-powers?”

Robert sat down across from him. “Seems that way,” he said.

“How can you be so clam,” Chase barked. “Sorry, sorry. Man, I’m sorry, it’s just…you know…this,” he waved his hands between them, “this is an awful lot of responsibility.”

“I’m barely keeping it together, here, Chase,” Robert confided. “You I’m not too worried about, you know. I mean, sure, I’m worried in a general sort of ‘I hope that Chase doesn’t have some degenerative sickness because of what happened today’ way. And a ‘I hope Chase doesn’t get hurt trying to use these powers’ sort of way. And a ‘I hope Chase’s career as a super-hero doesn’t give rise to a city full of costumed lunatics in much the same way Bruce Wayne becoming Batman seems to have done’ way.” He waited for a reaction, but Chase continued to stare at his hands. “That last one was supposed to be a joke. I guess it got a little too wordy.” Chase still didn’t look up. “Chase,” Robert called and Chase finally looked at him. “You’re going to be fine. You’re smart. You’re a good person. You’re responsible.” He patted Chase’s knee.

“Thanks, man. That actually means a lot.”

“Now Adam, on the other hand…” Robert trailed off.

“He almost kicked a man to death for hurting Lydia. He’s reckless,” Chase said. “Jesus, did I just say that? How very Wildstorm of me.”

“You see these gifts as responsibility. Adam sees them as power.” Robert held out his left hand. “Power,” he said. He held out his right hand. “Responsibility,” he said. “Can’t have one without the other.”

“So, what you’re saying is that with great power comes great responsibility?” Chase smirked.

“Smartass,” Robert chuckled. He craned his neck around to look out the door. “Adam will probably come in the back way,” he said, turning back to Chase.

“What am I going to wear. For a costume, I mean,” Chase asked. “You gave Adam the Superheroman costume.”

“Yeah, sorry, he was here,” Robert said, shrugging.

“Oh, no, don’t worry, I’m not upset. I wouldn’t wear that thing when you first got it, I’m not going to wear it now. I guess, what, I should go to a sporting goods store? Probably look into lycra or something like that. Something that will cut down on wind resistance?” Chase looked down at his gut. He grabbed it and shook. “I’m going to look like forty pounds of jell-o in a twenty pound bag.”

“See, this is what I would love to see in a comic book,” Robert said, standing up. “You never see this, you know? An everyday guy gets powers and he’s not in the best shape, doesn’t have a scientist friend, doesn’t work for the government. What does he do?” Robert moved back behind the counter and grabbed a legal pad the shelf. He set to work scribbling with a black pen.

“Don’t write this down, Robert,” Chase said, getting up. “This is mine. I get to write this one,” Chase swatted playfully at the pen.

“You’re a super-hero, Chase. Do you really still want to write comic books? I mean, you can live one.”

“Every hero needs a secret identity. I’ll be Chase McMillan, comic book writer by day and…” Chase frowned. “I guess I need a name, huh?”

“It’s going to be hard to top Adamantium,” Robert said without looking up.

“Be nice,” Chase said. “It is a stupid name, though, right? It’s like naming yourself ‘Trivium’ or ‘Mithral’ or some other made up substance.”

“But it has ‘Adam’ in it,” Robert said, letting his voice take on a mocking tone.

“Alright, alright, enough Adam bashing.” Chase looked to the storeroom. “Speaking of Adam, where is he? He should have been back by now, even if he was being careful.”

“He’s probably out joyriding his new powers,” Robert said as he went back to scribbling. “Yeah, I need you to come up with a name soon. And it better be good, because it’ll probably be the title of the book.”

“Not Adamantium,” Chase asked.

“One – I’d get sued. Two – Adam’s the bad guy in the book,” Robert said. He looked at Chase. “Oh, come on, it’s the perfect set-up. Two guys, friends-but-rivals, get powers at the same time from the same incident. One has to end up good and the other evil. It’s your basic Reed Richards/Dr. Doom scenario.”

“They didn’t get their powers at the same time,” Chase replied.

“They did in the movie,” Robert retorted.

“You didn’t just say that, did you?” Chase looked Robert in the eye.

After a long pause, Robert said, “Stop splitting hairs, nerd. You know what I mean.”

They stood there for a long moment, the only sound coming from Robert’s pen as it scribbled on the pad.

“Alpha?”

“God bless you?”

“Seriously,” Chase said. “As a name. Alpha?”

“Adam would take issue. He’d want you to be Beta.”

Another pause.

“Paramount?”

“Lame.”

“Platonic?”

“Sounds like you just want to be friends. How about The Platonic Man?

“I don’t want to be ‘something’-man.”

Robert looked up. “Yeah, stay away from that.”

“And I don’t know how I feel about the ‘The’. Makes it hard for bad guys to threaten you. ‘I’ll get you, The Platonic Man!”

Chase wandered across the sales floor to the racks on the far side. He browsed the covers of the various comics, wracking his brain for the perfect name.

“How about ‘Archetype’,” Robert asked, still scribbling.

Chase stopped and thought about it for a moment. “The Archetype,” he said, turning.

“What about the ‘The’ thing. Now you want the ‘The’ at the beginning?”

“I can change my mind. It just sounds right.”

“It does sound good. The Archetype.”

“The Archetype,” Chase echoed.

“Blue and white?”

“What,” Chase asked.

“For your costume,” Robert said, “blue and white?”

“I don’t know. I don’t want black. To grim and gritty. And I don’t want it to be too busy or over-the-top, you know, too silver age. Slick. Sleek. New X-Men hip, but without the fetish baggage.” Chase stepped back to the counter.

“Seriously, where do you think Adam is? I don’t want to say that I don’t trust him, but he can be a little…overzealous.”

“Is Lydia okay,” Robert asked, out of the blue. “You said she was knocked out.”

“Huh, oh, yeah, yeah, but she seemed fine. Adam said he scanned her with his X-Ray Vision and didn’t see anything that looked weird.”

Robert looked Chase in the eyes. “He scanned her? With his X-Ray Vision? He’s a little perv, you know?”

“He wouldn’t,” Chase said earnestly. Then he added, “Ok, ok, he would.”

“So, she kissed you?” Robert was watching Chase.

Chase shrugged. “Yeah. Just a peck. On the cheek. She was, I don’t know, probably delirious or something.”

“For the record,” Robert said, “I’m pretty sure she dumped Dylan for you. That’s the vibe I got anyway.”

“Hey, there’s the twist for your book. The heroes have a falling out over a girl.”

“It’s a classic, no doubt about it,” Robert said. “So, are you going to ask her out?”

“I think I’ll wait until she’s out of the hospital first, but, yeah, I think I will.”

“What are you going to tell Adam,” Robert asked.

“He’s a grown up. He can handle it,” Chase said. “Oh, man. I know where Adam is. I am so stupid.”

“Where?”

“They took Lydia to Northwestern. He could have heard the ambulance drivers talking. I did and they were a couple of blocks away. He’s probably there right now.” Chase bolted for the door. “I have to get over there.”

“Why? She’s asleep. He can’t really do anything,” Robert called after him.

“Dylan’s there. And he’s pissed off at me. If he picks a fight with Adam…”

“Go, get out of here,” Robert said, then he hollered, “Wait!”

Chase stepped back into the shop. Robert came around the corner, holding out a domino mask. “I’ll look like Robin,” Chase said.

“It’ll help, in case you have to do something heroic,” Robert said, shaking the small mask at Chase. “Take it. And grab one of those tee-shirts off the rack. The lightning bolt ones. People have seen you in those clothes today.”

Chase grabbed a tee-shirt off the rack. “Thanks,” he said and ran out the door.

Three miles away, Adam floated in the air outside Lydia’s hospital room. He watched as Dylan berated her as she slept, hollering about her leaving him.

He wasn’t paying any attention to what Dylan was saying, though. He was listening, quite intently, to the conversation that Robert and Chase were having back at the store.

“You think you’ll win her,” Adam hissed to no one. He shook his fist to the heavens and continued, “You don’t stand a chance, Archetype!”

Adam looked around sheepishly to see if anyone had heard him talking to himself. No one seemed to be within earshot.