Nick Miller loved superheroes. In fairness, everyone Nick’s age loved superheroes - anyone who didn’t was boring and dumb - but Nick was one of the few that genuinely aspired to a career of costumed crime-fighting while others aspired to be brain surgeons or astronauts.

His family mostly tried to discourage him, but found it difficult to convince him that superheroes weren’t real, because every effort to do so was tacitly misinterpreted by Nick to include a wink and a nudge because everyone knew real superheroes needed to be kept a secret.

Nick’s older sister did NOT discourage him, much to their relative’s annoyance. Dana had given up a promising life as a banking clerk to pursue a career in both cosplay and martial arts - a life decision that had functionally excommunicated her from the family except on special occasions.

This attempt to shield Nick from outlandish influence proved to be ironically counter-productive, as it lent Dana’s few appearances in Nick’s life a mythological quality and allowed her to lean into her stage persona as the Amazing Danamite whenever they met: Yes, she’d been on lots of adventures since their last meeting. This year she had defeated invading aliens from the Negaverse, but not before fighting off assassins sent by the League of Villains. Nick believed every word of it and pinkie-promised that he would never tell anyone about Dana’s true identity, ever, ever, ever, and in return, for Christmas after his tenth birthday, Dana would begin training him as a real life superhero.

***

It had not gone well.

The training had started off with a lot of promise - Nick’s very first lesson in being a superhero was how to survive. Most kids might have baulked at this - demanding instead to be taught how to throw devastating punches or summon giant robots - but Dana had impressed upon him the vital importance of staying alive. The superheroes you know about are the ones that learned to survive; you don’t hear about the other ones, because they didn’t learn.

It had actually been a lot of fun. Dana was a strong girl (she was a superhero, so of course she was) and once Nick had learned the basics of landing safely, she had spent the afternoon picking him up and throwing him around the grass while he practised his tucks and rolls. Neither of them noticed the …