Author's Note: Thank goodness for my family. Every day I would ask some weird '80s-related question: "Hey, did people have washers and dryers in their houses in 1981?" "Was interracial dating a big deal in the early '80s?" Seriously, I was born in 1982, and my memories of the '80s are mostly pop-beads and Trapper Keepers, and really nothing at all about the social and cultural environment of California.

For anyone who doesn't know or doesn't remember, Greatest American Hero aired from 1981-83. It was made to be an hour-long drama, but kept getting nominated for comedy awards instead. The plot was simple: a high school teacher (Ralph) was given a suit (by aliens) that gave him superpowers. There was an instruction book, but he lost it. The aliens picked an FBI agent (Bill), who happened to be handy by, to be Ralph's crime-fighting partner. Pam was Ralph's lawyer girlfriend (she helped him with his divorce and custody case for Kevin, his son). Ralph's students were the "special" kids -- the troublemakers of the school that no one else wanted to deal with.

It started like this.

For once, he was on time when Kevin got out of school. "Dad, we're going on a field trip!" Kevin was practically bouncing with excitement as he slid into the passenger seat.

"That's great, Kevin! Where are you going?"

"Ms. Raffertly's taking us to the marina."

Ralph frowned. "The marina, really? I thought your class was doing a unit on the Civil War." Had that been last month?

Kevin looked like it made perfect sense to him that the Civil War would be in any way connected with a marina in California. "Yeah, we are. 'Cept she says there's another name for it -- the war of something-something, I don't remember what. I've got a paper for you to sign so I can go."

It was nice to see him excited about something other than television, and Kevin didn't pester him to be a chaperone (he was at the age where it could go either way -- wanting his dad to be around for everything, or not wanting to be seen with him at all). Ralph signed the paper and didn't give it a second thought.

***

But that was only part of it, so maybe it started before that.

"Come on, Mr. H! You never let us have any fun!"

He hadn't thrown a chair since the first day, but he found himself ready to bang his head against the desk on an almost hourly basis. "I'll tell you what, Tony. If everyone manages to stay out of trouble for a month, we'll do something fun. Andeducational."

They'd talked him down, of course. One month became three weeks (weekends included), and "stay out of trouble" became no physical fighting (plus at least 80% class attendance), to be rewarded with one (full) day away from the school, no assignments allowed. They wanted a beach day, but he put his foot down. Near the beach, sure. On the beach, and it'd be like askingto have his classroom audited, and he'd prefer to put that off for a while -- forever, if possible.

Which was how he wound up agreeing to take his class to the Kelley Research Center (and attached marina) a full month before he signed the permission slip for Kevin.

***

There was more to it than that, of course. There always was. So maybe it had started months before, in South America, or even years before, when a young Wren Raffertly had gotten mixed up with a questionable group of people. The point was, he'd finally ended up in a situation that he couldn't blame (entirely) on the suit. It wasn't as much of a relief as he'd thought it would be. Because really, if he'd learned anything at all from his first marriage, it was that people were complicated. Take any situation, and the more people who got involved, the more exponentially complex it became.

In other words, when you had a situation in which 25 fourth graders, 16 high school troublemakers, two teachers, one adult chaperone (who also happened to be an FBI agent -- he'd roped Bill into helping in exchange for agreeing to a training day), ended up together in the same room, it was going to be pretty damn complicated. Add in four men with guns, and it was off the charts. How did these things always end up happening to him?

***

"Psst -- Ralph!" Are you wearing the suit?"

It was a source of constant amazement to him that Bill actually seemed to think his "whispering" voice was quiet and unobtrusive. Luckily, the men with guns were talking with each other, and not looking in their direction. "Bill, I'm on a field trip, not a mission. There is absolutely no logical reason for me to be wearing the suit."

"I didn't ask if it was logical, kid. I asked if you were wearing the suit!"

He tried to stand up taller to see the other side of the room. Kevin was over there, somewhere. "Yeah, I'm wearing it, okay? Can you see Kevin?"

Bill crowed with delight. "Yes! They'll never know what hit 'em!"

"Bill, doesn't it seem a little suspicious to you? That all of us happened to be here at the same time, right when they -- whoever they are -- were planning to burst in and..." He trailed off, since it was unclear what, exactly, the gunmen were actually planning to do.

"And what? Rob a marina? Don't be ridiculous, Ralph. They're probably Russian spies. What are they researching out here, anyway? Weapons? Satellite technology? Submarines?"

"Radar, Bill. They're researching radar. I swear you're worse than the kids -- did you listen to anythingI said back there?"

Bill was patting down his jacket pockets, in a way that (to Ralph, at least) screamed 'Everyone look at me, I'm checking to see how many spare clips I brought today.' "No, not really. Do you think I should try and hide my badge? I might be able to stick it in my shoe, or something."

Ralph just stared at him until Bill made eye contact. "What?" Bill gestured towards the men with guns. "Every time we get captured by bad guys, they find my badge, and I get beat up. It's not my favorite scenario. We're not all invulnerable, you know."

"What if they're after the suit? Maybe they found out about me -- I knew we hadn't been being careful enough! Maybe they want to use it as a weapon, or blackmail me, or --"

"Would you relax? Not everything's about you, Ralph, suit or no suit. There could be a hundred reasons why those guys are here. Nobody's ever recognized you in the suit; I keep telling you that's got to be one of its powers."

He'd been watching the men with guns while he half-listened to Bill. Their argument seemed to reach some sort of crescendo, complete with gun-waving and gesturing towards the crowd (he'd already been calculating how long it would take to get his shoes off; that was always the trickiest part), but then cooled down again. They turned together towards some sort of machine and flipped a switch.

Suddenly, his brain was filled with the most excruciating, ear-splitting noise he'd ever heard. He clapped his hands over his ears and squeezed his eyes shut, neither of which helped at all, and dropped to his knees -- hopefully it would make the inevitable passing out less painful.

***

When he woke up, it was dark. His ear itched, and he had a terrible nagging feeling that he had forgotten something important. Also, his back hurt. Was he lying on the floor? He started to reach a hand towards his ear.

Someone grabbed it -- his hand, not his ear, which was reallyitching -- and pushed it down. There was a mutter in his non-itchy ear. "Bad timing, Mr. H. Don't move."

Light flooded into the room. "Is he awake yet?" He didn't recognize the first voice, but the answer definitely came from Bill.

"Of course he's not awake yet! I told you, these seizures are very dangerous. It could be days before he regains consciousness. Do you really want a dead body on your hands?"

Despite the fact that he seemed to have ended up in the middle of a dangerous situation with only a hazy recollection of how it had happened, it was still a struggle not to laugh. Bill's steamroller approach to confrontations never changed -- he seemed to truly believe that whoever talked loudest and fastest was the winner, and nothing would convince him otherwise.

"We're in the middle of the ocean now. One more thing to dump overboard doesn't matter to us. I'll be back in an hour; you'd better hope he's ready to go by then." The room went back to darkness. The sound of a deadbolt sliding home didn't quite cover Bill's cursing.

"Maxwell," someone said close by. It sounded like Tony, which -- what? He tried to run through his memory of the day. Waking up, packing Kevin's lunch, Kevin's field trip, Bill griping, driving his kids to the marina -- oh yeah, there it was. Men with guns storming into the research center, rounding up both groups (along with the researchers) and forcing them into some sort of warehouse. And then there was a machine, and... that was it, until waking up wherever he was now. "He's awake."

"Finally! Now we can get out of here. Up and at 'em, kid."

Ralph didn't bother with more than a wave. "Gee, thanks for your concern, Bill. I'm feeling much better, how about you?"

He could picture Bill's exasperated expression so clearly in the darkness that he almost thought he was discovering a new aspect of the suit. Then he decided it was just because he saw the expression so frequently.

"Well, of course I was worried about you, Ralph, you dropped like a sack of potatoes back there. You're awake now, everyone's relieved, welcome back, etcetera, etcetera. Now can we get out of here? We've definitely got some suspicious activities going on around this boat, and I'm not talking about seasickness."

It was somewhat disconcerting to be lying down while Bill talked. Especially in the dark, and especially when he couldn't see who else was in the room.

Someone who sounded like Rodriguez spoke up. "I keep telling you, man, they're not Russians. They're Chileans.Haven't you ever heard Spanish before?"

The thought that his class was there -- and Kevin's class, too -- was enough to get him sitting up. He managed it on his own, though he had the feeling both Tony and Bill were hovering close by. "Rodriguez?"

"Hey, Mr. H!" came the enthusiastic reply. "You always have the best field trips!"

"Who else is here?" He wasn't touching the "best field trips" comment.

Predictably, it was Rhonda who came through with actual information. "Just Rodriguez, Chyler, Tony, and me. After you..." She seemed unsure of what to call his collapse. "Well, after that, we all got on this ship -- they had it right there at the research center, and there were a bunch more guys with guns on it. They yelled at each other a lot, then we got split up and taken to this room."

That didn't sound good, especially combined with the "we're in the middle of the ocean" statement from before.

"She means everyone was split up, not just us," Bill said. "Into small groups. And there were only seven guys, which makes a total of eleven that we've seen so far." Ralph was pretty sure the unspoken message there was 'we can totally take that many guys.'

"And they knew the lady teacher," Tony added unexpectedly.

"What?" Ralph said, overridden by Bill's, "What are you talking about?"

"The teacher -- they knew her, and she called a couple of 'em by name. And she didn't get put in a group."

"Kevin's teacher?"

"How do you know that? I didn't see that." Bill had switched from his default "dismissive" tone to his second-favorite "suspicious."

"Yeah, well, you were busy with Mr. H. Just seemed like a good idea to pay attention to what was happening." Tony sounded uncomfortable -- his own default whenever someone noticed him making an effort.

"Right. Good work, kid. Still, it doesn't change much."

There was a brief pause. Ralph itched his ear, wondering how big the ship was. The movement was choppy enough so he would have guessed pretty small, but the engine noise was quiet -- maybe they were muting it somehow?

"Well, what are you waiting for, Ralph? Suit up; we've got to get out of here!"

Ralph glared in Bill's direction, even though he knew the other man couldn't see him. "Bill, I am not using the suit, and I am certainly not taking off my clothes in front of my students!" As soon as the words left his mouth, he wished them back, and wondered if he could claim temporary insanity. A couple of wolf-whistles broke into the silence. "Pretend I didn't say that," he said, without any real hope it would work.

To his surprise, Tony said, "Sure, Mr. H. We didn't hear nothing. Come on, what are we going to say -- aliens gave you a magic suit that gives you special powers? That's funny pages stuff, nobody'd believe that."

He had a flash of memory -- the Whitney High gym, right after he'd gotten the suit. They'd been shooting hoops, and Tony had tossed him the ball on his way out. "See you in the funny pages," he'd said. The whole conversation had been a little strange, although in retrospect it certainly made a lot more sense if he just assumed Tony knew the truth. He wondered if the rest of the class was in on it too, or if they were just following Tony's lead.

"Okay," he said, trying to get his brain back on track. "Thank you." A wave of determination swept through him. Bill was right; they had to figure out what was going on. He stood up carefully, bracing himself against the sway of the boat. His jacket was already off -- he started to loosen his tie, but Bill stopped him.

"Just roll your sleeves up," Bill hissed (not at all quietly). "It's a locked door, not a cement wall."

It was a loudlocked door, and he winced at the noise as he pulled it inwards and the deadbolt bent and scraped over the metal door frame. Hopefully it would be covered by the engine noise. Everyone piled out into the corridor behind him as Bill tried to lay out some kind of scenario. They were all still in the "mill around aimlessly and wait for our eyes to adjust" stage when Ms. Raffertly walked around the corner. She stopped dead at the sight of them.

"Oh dear," she said.

***

They held a mini-interrogation right there in the corridor, because Bill refused to do it in the dark, and Ralph refused to sneak around the ship looking for someplace more appropriate. His son was still in danger. Luckily, Ms. Raffertly seemed willing to cooperate. Even more luckily, she had a teacher's knack for summing things up into easy-to-follow chunks of information. In under ten minutes, they'd learned that all the other kidnap-ees were safe and unhurt, scattered around the ship. They were headed to an unknown spot in the Pacific, where -- if everything went according to plan -- the bad guys were going to load all the students into lifeboats and sink the ship, while they escaped in a helicopter.

According to Ms. Raffertly, the kidnapping had sort of been accidental, and the result of a miscommunication, caused by a language barrier (Rodriguez had interrupted with another, "I told you they were speaking Spanish, man!"). When she finished explaining, Bill was actually speechless for almost 30 seconds. Ralph was counting.

At 29 seconds, Bill said, "That is... the worstplan I have ever, everheard, in all my years at the bureau. The absolute worst. Whywould they do any of those things?"

Ms. Raffertly looked apologetic. "I'm sure it seemed like a good idea at the time," she said. "It's just that things didn't turn out quite like they expected."

"Story of my life," Ralph muttered. Bill elbowed him in the side.

"It's that new radar they're testing at the marina," Ms. Raffertly continued. "The crew's fallen on hard times, you see -- environmental activism doesn't really pay very well, and they've been supplementing their income with a little... smuggling, on the side."

Ralph could see Bill mouthing the phrase "fallen on hard times" like he couldn't believe his ears. He had to look away quickly before he was tempted to laugh. Ms. Raffertly continued. "They have a radar-fooling machine, of course, to stay hidden from the authorities, but this new system at the marina can punch right through it. They've only been a half-step away from the Feds for weeks. They tried to get into the Kelley Center to turn it off, but it was too late. Everyone's closing in now, they have to bail out, try to get a fresh start." She looked so disconsolate that Ralph almost went to comfort her, but Bill beat him to it.

"And what's your part in all of this, sweetheart? Selling out your own class as hostages?"

Okay, that wasn't exactly comforting. "Of course not!" she exclaimed. "They would never hurt me, or the children! It's just that I designed the radar-fooler in the first place -- I used to be part of the gang, you know, back when it was all about sticking it to the man and saving the whales. Those were good times. That's when anybody could make it as an environmentalist. It wasn't just for rich people back then."

Nobody seemed to know what to say to that, and Ralph wondered why he'd never noticed that Kevin's teacher was an absolute nutcase.

He continued to wonder while they unlocked the rest of the students (with warnings to stay where they were for the time being), and left Ms. Raffertly being watched by some of the teenagers. Then they headed for the control deck, where she said the smugglers were most likely to be.

***

"Don't worry, Mr. H., we got this." Tony looked surprisingly confident as they crouched in the corridor outside the control room. "Maxwell, have you still got your gun?"

"Yes, I've still got my gun, Villicana. Why?"

"You got a backup piece?"

Ralph cut in. "Tony..."

Tony looked affronted. "Not for me -- come on, Mr. H. I never shot anything in my life. I was asking for Rhonda."

Rhonda shrugged. "My mom taught me. She said you gotta be able to get one up on the scumbags somehow, right?" Bill gave her an appraising look, then pulled a gun out of his ankle holster.

"Bill!" Ralph was torn between exasperation and the sinking sensation that he'd missed the part where everyone had decided on a plan.

"Well, what do you want me to do, Ralph? Eleven guys, that's nothing to mess around with. We're just gonna... even the odds a little."

"Maybe you should give Mr. H. your badge," Rhonda suggested. "No offense, but your not exactly intimidating, you know?" Ralph just sighed. Less intimidating than Rhonda Blake -- he really wasn't cut out for this saving the day stuff.

And yet somehow he found himself bursting into the control room with the others, brandishing the borrowed badge. "Freeze," Bill yelled. "FBI!"

It seemed to inspire the others, because Tony shouted, "CIA! You're under arrest!" He wondered if that had been part of the plan.

Then Rodriguez chimed in with "FDA!" and Rhonda yelled, "Coast Guard! Drop your weapons!"

Ralph held the badge a little higher -- inspiration struck just in time, and he called out, "Immigration!" Cyler didn't say anything, just loomed menacingly -- which, Ralph had to admit, he was good at.

The whole thing probably only worked because the smugglers knew they were being pursued, but it did work. It must have looked ridiculous. Luckily, Ralph and Bill were used to bluffing their way through ridiculous situations.

"All right, boys, hands on the table," Bill said. "We've got a little interagency cooperation going on here, and it looks like we've caught us some criminals. Ralph, get their guns, would you? Rhonda, give that back."

There was a tense minute or two when the smugglers realized that they'd really only accidentally kidnapped onegovernment agent, and they'd been bamboozled by a bunch of high school kids. Bill yelled a lot, and Ralph found out he really was less intimidating than Rhonda (she yelled too), and everything calmed back down.

Everyone gathered on the main deck after that, with the criminals under Bill's watchful eye. Ms. Raffertly gave an impromptu lecture on marine life and boating to 25 very excited kids. Ralph's students had looked at him like he was crazy when he suggested a lesson, so they were playing poker for coffee beans while Ralph mentally composed his field trip evaluation form.

"Visited Kelley Research Center. Received boat tour and hands-on experience in boat operation."Surely he could find a way to leave out the part about feloniously impersonating federal officials.

"Didn't she say there was supposed to be a helicopter coming to pick these guys up?"

Ralph looked around. Tony and Rhonda had abandoned the poker game and were staring out across the ocean. "That's what she said, yes, but it was supposed to show up 30 minutes ago. Criminals aren't very reliable, Tony. Maybe they got lost."

He thought it was probably more likely that theywere lost, or at least significantly off-course. It wasn't like any of them had practice in steering a boat.

"Well, something'scoming," Rhonda said. "It looks like a helicopter to me."

That got everyone's attention -- it was actually three helicopters, converging on their location. Ralph had never put much thought into the average speed of a helicopter (though maybe he should, if he was going to keep flying after them), but these ones seemed especially fast. The engine noise of the boat was quickly drowned out by the rhythmic chop of helicopter blades. He could see weapons, but from the uniforms, it looked like the officials had found them before the bad guys, and he relaxed a little.

Of course, that was when four uniformed agents dropped out of one of the helicopters and told them they were all under arrest.

"What? We didn't do anything wrong!" Ralph protested. "We're the kidnap-ees, not the smugglers!" He waved a hand at the seated criminals. "Those guys are the smugglers!"

The guns wavered, and Bill shouted a lot more, drawing admiring looks from the teenagers and a reproachful glare from Ms. Raffertly. Finding significantly more people than expected on board the ship really seemed to throw the agents for a loop. Ms. Raffertly's calming presence was possibly the only thing that got them back on shore and headed home as quickly as they did -- which wasn't exactly fast, but soon enough to keep the kids' parents from worrying. Ralph decided not to mention any of her (potentially) felonious actions either, as a sort of thank you.

As usual after a field trip ended in disaster, his class was full of energy. Tony even offered him a high five. Even more impressively, Tony didn'trearrange Bill's hubcaps (for once). On the way home, Kevin called it "the best field trip ever" and couldn't wait to tell Pam all about it. Ralph wondered why he hadn't thought to put the trip on a Friday-- there was no way he was going to make it through another three days with only one evening to recuperate.

***
***

There were days when he looked out at his classroom and could truly believe it was full of impressionable young minds that were eager to learn, grow, and become productive members of society. This wasn't one of those days.

"Does anyone know where Rhonda is?" Silence. "All right, how about Tony? I don't suppose anyone's seen him either, right?"

Not even a single glance in his direction. He hadn't realized how much he'd come to count on Rhonda eventually spilling the beans on missing classmates until she wasn't there to do it. He wasn't getting the same "something's seriously wrong here" vibe that he'd felt the lasttime Tony'd disappeared, so that was something, at least. Just the usual careless inattention he'd come to recognize -- the "nobody cares about us, so why should we care about anybody?" attitude. It drove him nuts, but he couldn't deny that -- at least within the school system -- nobody didseem to care. Except for him, which made his job both more frustrating and more rewarding, the few times he really felt like he got through to someone.

"Right, quiet study time, everyone," he told the class. "You've got an hour, and then I'll be collecting yesterday's homework assignment. Yes, the questions are still written on the board, for those of you who may have 'forgotten' them. And no, no question asking you to list similarities between Shakespeare's plays and current events can adequately be answered by writing 'everyone speaks English.' I'm looking at you, Rodriguez."

He took the hour to make a few phone calls -- Bill, Pam, his house (just in case; it wasn't like Tony had never showed up there before) -- and somehow made it through the rest of the day. He was somewhat surprised when no one showed up at his unofficial "office hours" after school (time he spent doing paperwork, the biggest downside of being the temporary vice principal), and not at all surprised to walk into his dining room and see Tony and Kevin sprawled out on the floor together, taking apart one of the train sets.

"Hi Kevin," he greeted warmly. Then, letting his exasperation show, he added, "Tony. Where's Rhonda?"

Kevin waved, thoroughly engrossed in his project. Tony just shrugged. "Dunno. Probably home by now." Then he smirked. "Why, long day?"

"Tony, what are you doing here?"

"Come on, Mr. H. I gotta get the homework somehow, right?"

"Tony..."

Bill burst through the front door. "Ralph! Oh good, you're okay. You've got to get the suit off, right away."

Ralph held his hands out to the sides. "Whoa, slow down. What are you talking about?" He tugged his tie down to show his bare neck. "I'm not even wearing it."

"Oh." Bill frowned. "Good, I mean. That's good." He seemed to notice the other people in the room for the first time. "Hey, kid -- Kevin, sorry. And Villicana, not under arrest, I see."

"Aw, Maxwell, were you worried about me? That's so sweet."

"Ralph was worried. Called me out of a meeting and everything. Anyway, I'm starving. What time's dinner around here, anyway? You gotta eat, Ralph."

"Sure Bill, let's eat. I'll invite Pam, and the neighbors, and it'll be a regular block party. What's going on, Bill?" He put his hands on his hips and stood his ground.

Bill hemmed and hawed and looked anywhere but at Ralph. "It's like this," he said finally. "Remember that machine on the smugglers boat? The one that made you go kaput? Well, the military's got a hold of it now, and they're trying to see what makes it tick. They're gonna be testing it."

He might strike out on getting information from his class, but he'd learned Bill's tricks months ago. "Testing it."

"You know, turning it on and off, adjusting the range, that sort of thing." Bill gestured vaguely. "They're starting tonight. I came over as soon as I found out."

"Not to sound rude, Bill, but you could have just called. That's what phones are for."

Bill scowled. "Yeah, well, that wouldn't have done any good if you'd been lying on the floor bleeding from your ears, would it? And what areyou doing here, Villicana?"

"None of your business, Maxwell." Tony leaped to his feet and headed for the kitchen. Kevin quickly abandoned his train and followed him. Ralph just shook his head. "Look, Bill, you're welcome to stay for dinner, but I've got to find out what's going on with Tony and Rhonda." He could see Bill debating the merits of a free meal versus willingly spending time with kids. "It's leftover meatloaf," he offered.

"Sold," Bill replied. "There's nothing to eat in my apartment except dog biscuits. Let's eat; I'll crack Villicana like a walnut."

"Bill, you don't even have a dog -- why do you have dog biscuits?"

"Davidson gave 'em to me. The Councilor's got a real sense of humor, if you ask me."

There were some days, Ralph thought, that it really was better to just not ask.

***

Bill didn't get Tony to talk. In fact, Bill fell asleep on the sofa as soon as he'd finished eating. Kevin followed not much later, drooping in front of the television. It was early for him, which probably meant he'd be awake before dawn the next morning. Ralph tucked him in anyway, tossed a blanket over Bill, and joined Tony on the back steps. He even brought him a glass of water -- mostly because he was hoping having something in his hands would keep Tony from running off.

"Spill, Tony. What's going on?"

Tony didn't say anything. Instead, Ralph got an incredulous glance in his direction, a sort of 'You really think it's going to be that easy?' look.

"Is Rhonda... in trouble?" he prompted.

"No! 'Course she's not." Tony shook his head. "'In trouble.' You gotta be kidding me. Of all the girls I've ever met, Rhonda's, like, the least likely to be in trouble." There was a pause, like Tony was daring him to contradict the statement. Then he said, "It's just... that's what everyone would think, you know? If we miss class together, it's cool, everyone figures we're skipping -- at the beach, or something. Rhonda misses classes on her own, everyone asks me where she is, I gotta say I don't know, it looks bad, you know?"

No, he really didn't. He tried to work his way through Tony's rambling explanation. Sometimes he thought Whitney High was a lot more than just a decade and a couple hundred miles removed from his own high school. "I think you're going to have to explain in a little more detail," he said.

That got him the disbelief eyebrows again. "Seriously, Mr. H., you need me to draw you a picture or something? I'm supposed to be Rhonda's boyfriend -- she disappears for a day, everyone's gonna assume she's doing something she doesn't want me to know about. That's one of two things: either she's sneaking around with another guy, or she's going to the doctor to find out if she's knocked up. Either way it's trouble."

Ralph's brain was still stuck at the beginning -- "'Supposed to be?'" he repeated.

Tony shifted uncomfortably. "Yeah, well, it works out for both of us, doesn't it? Rhonda's smart; she really wants to do something with her life. But she's a looker, you know? She was getting hassled all the time till I came along. I was the new kid from New York; I was nobody. On our own, we both had all kinds of trouble -- soon as we decided to hook up, everybody else backs off. She gets left alone, I move up from nobody to somebody. No downside, except for Cyler nagging on me all the time about being a bad boyfriend."

Eventually, he would try to be involved in the conversation beyond just repeating things Tony said. "Cyler?"

"Yeah, he's sweet on Rhonda, so he's always telling me I should treat her better, that kind of thing." Tony rolled his eyes. "I'd tell him to just date her himself, but the whole point is to stop people harassing her, not make it worse."

"...Right." He'd think about that later, along with the fact that Tony was apparently much more of a social schemer than he'd ever suspected. "Okay, so whatwasRhonda doing today?"

"Her mom took her to the doctor, to find out if she's knocked up."

Tony said the words so casually, they took a second to sink in. "What?"

"Relax, Mr. H. Rhonda's like my sister. Besides, she doesn't want to end up like her mom, waiting tables and lying about her age."

"So, why the doctor visit?"

"I guess her mom doesn't have any sisters." The tone was flippant, but Tony's scowl said he had taken the implied slight personally.

It wasn't until hours later, as Ralph was falling asleep, that he realized he'd heard a long explanation of Rhonda'swhereabouts that day, but not a single word about what Tonyhad been doing, or why he'd wound up at his teacher's house in the middle of the afternoon.

***

He got his answers the next day. Rhonda poked her head in the door of his office after school let out, and he waved her in. "Hey, Mr. H., how's it going? Tony told me he explained everything to you; we're real sorry about missing class yesterday."

Privately, Ralph thought that neither of them were probably that sorry to have missed class (especially Tony). "It's fine, Rhonda," he told her. "Tony didn't exactly explain everything. Can you tell me what he was doing yesterday?"

"Tony? I don't know, really -- he just said he was going to go someplace safe. We didn't have much of a chance to talk before my mom walked in and started yelling. She was really mad, but nothing was going on, honest! He just needed a place to stay!"

It was rapidly becoming clear that Tony had left out some fairly significant portions of the story when he'd "explained" to Ralph. He rubbed his forehead. "Why don't you start from the beginning?"

Rhonda leaned forward in her chair, apparently eager to share. "It's like this, see, Tony's bum of an uncle kicked him out of the house, not that I'd really call it a house anyway, a while back. And he's been staying with friends, but you don't want to over stay your welcome, right Mr. H.? And my mom's hardly ever home. He said it was better than sleeping in his car -- did you know cops'll give you a ticket for that? That's completely unfair! But my mom walked in and thought we were -- but we weren't, Mr. H., I swear -- and she yelled and kicked him out and made me go to the doctor even though I'm perfectly fine, and we didn't even do anything."

So far he was mostly getting that Rhonda definitely wasn't pregnant. And that Tony was vagrant. (Which could explain his recent math assignments, not that he'd ever needed a reason before to not turn things in.)

He ignored all of it and focused on Tony's explanation instead. "Rhonda, Tony told me about Cyler. If you two ever wanted to..." He floundered for the right words. "Well, I'd support you. I just wanted you to know."

She laughed. "That's sweet, Mr. H. Me and Cyler, though -- he's a great guy, but we'd never work. We just don't like each other enough to deal with all the people who'd try to bring us down. It's not worth it."

She sounded so sure, so confident that the world just worked in a certain way and you had to deal with it. "But that's not fair. It shouldn't have to be that way."

"Of course it's not fair. It's life." Rhonda shrugged. "There's some things worth fighting for, and you fight for them because you love them, and you care more about them than about what anybody thinks. You know, you talk about it all the time in class. You gotta fight the fights that are the most important to you, not the ones someone else told you was important. 'Cause if you try to fight for something just because you think you should, you'll never be as good as you could have been."

Ralph wished he knew what he'd said that Rhonda had interpreted to mean all those things, because then he could write it down and say it again. "Wow, Rhonda. You really got all that from my class?"

"Sure, Mr. H.," she said easily. Then she added, "Well, a lot of it was from that show -- you know, Dynasty? But some of it was from you too!"

***

The phone was ringing when he walked in the door. "Kevin!" he called. "Can you get that?" He dropped his briefcase and keys by the sofa and headed for the kitchen, where he could hear Kevin talking excitedly. "Yeah, he just got home," Kevin was saying. "It's Pam," he announced as he handed over the phone. Then he ran off towards the stairs, leaving Ralph holding the phone and (he was sure) looking slightly bewildered.

"Hi Kevin, how was your day?" he said to himself. "Mine was great, thanks for asking." Shaking his head, he put the receiver to his ear. "Pam?"

"Ralph!" She sounded relieved. "Thank goodness you're home. I have a... small problem, here."

"Is everything all right?" Pam was the most level-headed person he'd ever met. He was sure she'd sound calm and relaxed explaining anything from a missing sock to a four-alarm fire. "You know I'll do whatever I can to help."

"Everything's fine, I think. I hope. There's a woman here who says she wants to see you."

Well, as long as it wasn't his ex-wife, things didn't sound too bad so far. "Okay. Did she say anything else?"

"She says she's Kevin's teacher -- Wren Raffertly? And she needs to talk with you and Bill right away. Something about a radar machine? She said she thought you wouldn't be as likely to freak out if I asked you, instead of her." Pam sounded confused. "Ralph, what's going on? Is this about that field trip you went on?"

He groaned. "Probably? I really don't know, Pam. Are you sure that's what she said?"

"Of course I'm sure, she's standing right here."

Ralph ran a hand through his hair. "Well, tell her that stalking the people I love is just as likely to make me 'freak out' as having unexpected guests show up." Actually, it was considerably more likely, given the array of strangers he'd invited home and/or been kidnapped to meet since getting the suit. "Look, are you sure you're all right? Does she have a gun on you?"

"I'm fine. I'm at work, there's people all around me. She's a school teacher, Ralph, not a criminal."

Right, well, hewas a school teacher, and he happened to have a magical alien suit that gave him super powers. "Appearances can be deceiving," he said. Then he frowned. Kevin had returned to the kitchen, where he was making a sandwich. A sandwich he'd just put mustard on, even though Ralph knew he hated mustard. Speaking of appearances...

"I'll call Bill," he said into the phone. "Bring her over here whenever you can get out of the office, and she can talk to all of us at once."

"Right. I'll be there before 7:30."

"Just be careful, Pam, okay? I've got to check on Kevin." He hung up the phone carefully, then headed up the stairs after Kevin. He thought about taking off his shoes, to make his approach more stealthy, but decided to leave them on. In case he had to do any running, it would be easier if he wasn't just wearing socks.

There were voices behind Kevin's closed door. Two voices, to be precise, and he recognized both of them. With a sigh, he pushed open the door. "Hi Tony."

***

According to Kevin, Tony had been invited. According to Tony, it was Kevin who'd done the inviting. Ralph was only just beginning to sort out their jumbled explanations when Bill arrived. He had sandwiches.

"Bill?" Tony and Kevin both glared as Ralph poked through the bags of food. "What's all this?"

Bill looked uncomfortable, and (as usual) tried to cover it with bluster. "Well, I knew Davidson wasn't going to come through with anything. And I'm starving, and I'm not going to sit and listen to that --" He censored his words just in time, with obvious effort.

"To Kevin's teacher? Bill, I'm sure she's a perfectly nice woman. Kevin likes her, right Kevin?"

Kevin nodded. "She lets us do class outside a lot," he said.

"Yeah, I can see he's a real judge of character," Bill groused. "What's Villicana doing here again?"

Ralph looked at Tony, who was studiously avoiding his gaze. "He's watching Kevin." (Ralph had learned to never use the word "babysitting" anywhere Kevin could hear him.) Might as well line up free childcare for the evening while Tony couldn't protest.

"What are you doing here again, Maxwell?"

"Hey, I was invited!"

"I was invited too!"

The doorbell rang. "Oh good," Ralph said brightly. "That must be Pam and Ms. Raffertly." Nobody moved. "I'll just get the door," he added. On his way past Tony and Bill, still locked in a staring contest, he said (quietly enough so Kevin couldn't overhear, he prayed), "If either of you pull a weapon in this kitchen, I swear, you will never hear the end of it."

Walking away without looking back took all his willpower, but he managed it. Pam turned out to be surprisingly gracious about the sandwiches, and Ms. Raffertly ("Please, call me Wren") didn't seem anywhere near as scattered as she had on the boat.

"Really, it's all been a sort of comedy of errors," she explained, gesturing with a pickle. "Never in a million years did I think they'd want it back."

Bill made a small sound of disbelief. He was apparently trying to keep from saying anything rude or offensive in front of Kevin by keeping his mouth full at all times. Ralph sent him a warning look anyway, and said, "Why don't you start from the beginning?"

"That would make it a very long story," she said. He just looked at her. "In a nutshell, then," she relented. "You know the aliens who gave you your suit? Well, I met them once, when I was a teenager. They took me with them, traveling -- you know, sightseeing. And we visited a marketplace, and I bought a doohickey -- harmless, they assured me, little more than a child's toy."

There was a brief pause while Bill choked on his sandwich, and Ralph tried to decide if he needed to do the heimlich maneuver, but ultimately just brought him another glass of water.

"Anyway, when I got back to Earth, it turned out that the doohickey was pretty useful."

And suddenly he knew -- or at least could guess -- where the story was headed. "For blocking radar," he said.

"Yes!"

"And now they want it back, and you don't have it anymore."

She nodded. "It turns out that the person who sold it to me was... estranged, I suppose is the word, from his family. I guess it's some sort of heirloom?"

Bill finally couldn't hold back any longer. "Well, that's gonna be a real problem, sweetheart, because now the military's got it, and there's no way Ralph's gonna suit up and go steal it back for you!"

Wren bit her lip. "It's not like it would really be stealing..." she said hesitantly.

"Look, I'm sorry," Ralph interrupted. "But I can't. Even if I wanted to, the device does something to the suit -- that's why I collapsed on the boat."

"Oh, I'd almost forgotten! I made this for you -- it should block the effects so you shouldn't have any problems with that." She handed him what looked like a rock. A rock on a piece of string.

"It looks like a rock on a piece of string," Pam said helpfully.

"It doesn't matter," Bill said. "We're still not doing it!"

"Bill... Come on, how hard could it be?" He played his trump card. "Just think what would happen if that device fell into the wrong hands. Just imagine what the Russians might do if they could block our radar!"

***

He really hadn't expected there to actuallybe any Russians. And yet there they were, four of them, climbing in through the exact window Ralph and Bill (and Pam and Wren, much to Bill's dismay) had entered through an hour earlier. Since then, they'd mostly argued about what to do next. Far from being deserted and shut down for the night, the base was humming with activity.

"I told you we should have come later," Bill said, like repetition of his main point would actually change any of the facts of the situation.

"And I told you we couldn'tcome later; I have to be at work early tomorrow for a meeting."

"Well, Councilor, some things are more important than your job. Things like the security of this country, for one."

"Bill, look," Ralph hissed. "I think it's Russians!"

"What? Where?"

The worst part, of course, was that the Russians seemed to have a much better plan than theirs (not that it would be hard to have a better plan than "break in, steal stuff, run away"). Also, none of the Russians was wearing a ridiculous red cape and tights.

"Right there," he said, pointing. "See? One of them's standing right next to the fire -- Oh."

The fire alarm went off, its standard siren wail accompanied by an automated voice giving evacuation instructions. "Damn," he said. "I wish we'd thought of that. Now what do we do?"

"Now we stop them, obviously." Bill started to stand up, but Pam grabbed his arm.

"Why don't you just let them steal it?" she asked. "The radar device must be what they're after, right? So we let them do the hard part, since it looks like they have an actual plan, and then we follow them afterwards and steal it back."

"I like your thinking, Davidson. And then I'll turn them in to the Bureau and watch Carlisle turn green with envy." Bill rubbed his hands together in apparent glee.

"Wait, how are you going to explain how you just happened to stumble over four Russian spies in the middle of the night?"

"It's got to be easier than explaining how he stumbled over them in a secret military base," Pam reasoned.

"Yeah, Ralph -- plus, it is not the 'middle of the night.' It's 9:30, for pete's sake. Lot's of people -- people who aren't teachers--" (He said the word like he might say "communists.") "-- are still out doing things at this time of night!"

"I like Pam's plan," Wren said quickly, before Bill could say anything else.

"Me too," Ralph agreed. "Let's go, Bill. We'll wait for them in your car. This'll be the easiest mission we've had yet."

***

Things didn't go quiteas easily as he'd hoped. First of all, it turned out that Bill was really, freakishly good at Rock, Paper, Scissors. They got a little distracted trying to figure out if (and how) he was cheating, and almost missed the bad guys leaving the base. Which meant Ralph had to fly after them to try to catch up, but he got disoriented by the headlights and crashed into a tree in the dark.

By the time he didcatch up, everyone else was already there. Bill had them tied up, the FBI was on the way, and Pam had twisted her ankle after she took off her shoes to throw at the Russians (and then tripped in a gopher hole). It hadn't exactly been their finest hour, but Wren got her radar machine back, and Bill got his Russian spies, so the day as a whole was still more up than down.

And if he arrived home to find Tony asleep on his sofa and dirty dishes still all over the kitchen, well, at least Kevin was sleeping too. Even better, it was still early enough so he could at least get in a few hours of shuteye before it was time to get up again.

***

***

Ralph woke up to the sound of his alarm clock. It was, he thought, one of the most truly awful noises he'd ever heard, and the fact that he subjected himself to it day after day was probably a sign of a disturbed mind. On the other hand, it did get him awake and moving. Usually.

On this particular morning, however, he just rolled over and blinked in the direction of the clock. The snooze button beckoned. He could definitely still make it if he got up in another ten minutes, right? Right. He reached for the clock.

Feeling his hand go throughthe clock was enough to yank him fully awake. Damn. It was way too early for new freaky powers to be showing up (and going wrong). He wasn't even wearing the suit!

He closed his eyes, wondering if he could fall asleep, wake up again, and have the whole thing just be a bad dream. Just in case, he waved his hand around -- and yelped when his wrist hit the edge of the bedside table, hard. "Ow!"

Through trial and error (and an intense desire to silence his alarm by any means necessary), he figured out that as long as he kept his eyes shut, everything was normal. As soon as his eyes were open, he could move through solid objects like they were air. The walking through doors without opening them was neat; having to brush his teeth with his eyes shut was just a pain. Much later than usual, he made his way to the kitchen.

"Whoa, Mr. H! What happened? Did you get dressed in the dark or something?"

Of course. Of course Tony would still be in his house, drinking his orange juice and giving Kevin -- were those donuts? -- for breakfast. He didn't bother to ask what Tony was doing there. "Are those donuts?" he asked, ignoring Tony's question. (The answer was yes, he had -- his eyes had been closed, at least, which was close enough.) "Look, I need you to drive Kevin to school for me, okay? I can't go in today."

"Sure, I can take him -- you sure you want to take the day off, though? The Superintendent is coming; you told us last week. Told us not to break any furniture till after she's gone, remember?"

He took a moment, just to stand there and contemplate all the ways in which the day had (already) gone terribly, horribly wrong. "Dad?" Kevin finally asked. Ralph noticed too late that Kevin was reaching for him, and of course his hand went right through. "Whoa," Kevin said, wide-eyed. "That's awesome!"

"I'm gonna call Maxwell," Tony said.

Ralph focused on breathing. He'd handled invisibility, for crying out loud, this couldn't be worse than that. He'd dealt with aliens, and dead people, and nuclear warheads counting down to World War 3 -- not always gracefully, sure, but he'd muddled through. He focused on breathing some more. In the other room, he could hear Tony saying, "-- but there must be something else, because he's not falling through the floor, you know? I'm just saying, it seems like that suit should've come with an instruction book or something."

"Right," he said. "Okay." Then he said it again, starting to feel more confident. "Okay."

"One of the Super Friends on tv had that happen too," Kevin said, seeming not at all worried that his dad was suddenly insubstantial. "He got hit by lightning, and his superpowers didn't work right."

"Oh yeah? What did he do?" Part of him felt silly even asking, but they already had aliens that communicated through car radios. Taking advice from children's cartoons didn't seem like a huge stretch.

"He just had to get hit by lightning again, and everything got fixed. Don't worry, it was pretty easy."

Tony leaned around the corner with the phone still up to his ear and looked him up and down. "Yeah, less like he's gonna pass out any second," Tony said into the receiver. "Don't be late." He wondered what kind of plans they were making without him, and hoped it involved him not losing his job.

Finally, Tony hung up the phone. "Mr. H., you get into the weirdest trouble," he said, sounding admiring.

"Tony..."

"Come on, man, you gotta admit, it's unusual. Anyway, I've got Kevin -- we can take your car, right? Maxwell will be here in ten minutes. You guys can figure it out from there."

Kevin cheered and grabbed his backpack. Ralph sighed.

***

"Bill, who are they?" They'd gotten about three steps outside the house. Bill was locking the door, which gave Ralph (now changed into a less random assortment of clothing, and wearing his darkest sunglasses) plenty of time to see that Bill's car wasn't alone in the street. There were two nearly-identical cars right behind it, and a third idling down by the stop sign.

"Oh, them? I'm sure I told you about them. Positive. Come to think of it, it might have been while you were in the shower, but it really seemed like you were listening." Bill turned and waved at the closest car. "Just smile and wave, kid. And make sure you keep your eyes shut once you're in the car, or we're going to have an awful lot of explaining to do."

Ralph thought Bill already had some explaining to do; luckily, Bill tended to talk when he was nervous. "It's all Carlisle's fault," Bill said. "He can't stand it when anyone steals his thunder. Turns out he had his eye on those Russians we picked up last night. Now he thinks I'm -- and I quote, 'suspiciously lucky.' He stopped short of actually accusing me of anything, but he's got these clowns following me everywhere I go."

"But Bill, you're not in league with the Russians or anyone else. You're a good agent, come on, you've got nothing to worry about."

"Well, of course not, Ralph, but it's not like I've got nothing to hide, you know? This could be a big problem, especially with your powers all..." He waved a hand, indicating the size of the problem, the wackiness of Ralph's powers, or possibly both. "Where is the suit, by the way?"

"It's at home, why?" He remembered not to open his eyes at the last second. "There's no way I'm putting it on when I'm like this, Bill. No way."

"No, of course not! I just figured, it might not be a bad idea to have it around, you know? You and those kids tend to attract an awful lot of trouble."

"Me? I attract trouble? Gee, Bill, that's kind of like the pot calling the kettle black, don't you think?"

He was sure Bill was waving his hand, as if to say 'I have no idea what you're talking about; Inever get into trouble.' What he actually said was, "All right, we're here. Look sharp, kid. I'll hang around for a while in case you need me for anything."

Ralph waited until he was outside the car to open his eyes. Bill's expression was carefully nonchalant. "Avoiding Carlisle?" he asked dryly.

Bill harumphed, caught out. "Yeah, that too."

***

Somehow, he made it through the morning. No one fell asleep during his lecture, and he remembered not to try to pick up the chalk. Even the inevitable quiet study battle never escalated past thrown eraser caps and bits of paper. He was impressed -- they really were on their best behavior. The Superintendent mostly just sat in the corner and took notes. Ralph hoped that her bored expression was a good sign, but it was hard to tell.

Then came lunch. As the students filed out, and the Superintendent excused herself to make a phone call, Ralph let himself breathe a sigh of relief. Maybe they were going to pull it off. Of course, when the Superintendent walked back in, she had both hands on her head and was trailed by a very angry-looking man holding a gun. Maybe not, then.

"Hi," Ralph said. He got two glares in return. "What's going on?" He tried to remember how he would have reacted to a situation like this back when he was just a regular teacher, not a guy with a slightly glitchy supersuit. It was hard, because things like this just hadn't happened to him before the suit. But he guessed blind panic would probably be the most likely. Since it was also the least useful, he settled on confused disbelief instead. "Who are you?"

"I?" the angry-looking man said. "I am Sergei, the leader of the espionage cell you took down with your pathetic bumbling last night. I evaded capture and was contemplating my shame at a local diner, when I overheard this one complaining about her job, talking about an annoying high school teacher who hangs around an FBI agent."

What was it about bad guys that made them so prone to exposition? Ralph made a note to remind Bill that they should be more careful about what they said when they were busting people.

"And I asked myself, 'What are the odds?' So I followed her from the diner and waited for my chance."

The Superintendent put her hands down. "I can't believe this!" she said, outraged. "You followed me?"

"I can't believe you!" Sergei practically shouted. "You think your job is hard -- try being Russian secret agent!"

Ralph glanced towards the door just in time to see Rhonda looking in. "Get Bill," he mouthed at her. She nodded, and he turned his attention back to Sergei, who was in the middle of describing a fairly complicated plan to drive him back to the desert where they'd arrested the other spies and then shoot him, to get revenge for his crimes against the Mother Country.

Finally, Sergei asked, "So where is your partner? Where is the FBI agent?"

"I don't know," Ralph said.

"What do you mean, you don't know? I need both of you!"

"I mean, I don't know where he is. Not here, obviously. He has a job, you know; it's not like we're joined at the hip."

Of course, Bill appeared in the doorway at that exact moment. Ralph tried to make surreptitious "go away" gestures in his direction, but the Superintendent pointed and said, "There he is!" He wondered if he could get away with kicking her and call it the stress of the moment.

Bill walked in -- sauntered in, really, if a grown man could be said to saunter. "Hello, Sergei. You might as well turn yourself in," he said. "There are six more federal agents right behind me."

Sergei waved his gun. "I know that trick; you can't fool me."

Bill shrugged. "Suit yourself. Oh, and Ralph -- catch."

His hands came up instinctively, but he was still surprised when the object hit his palms instead of sailing right through. "Bill! I'm --"

"Yup. Seems there were a few extra gadgets on that smuggling ship your teacher-friend 'forgot' to tell us about. Rodriguez found it, then Villicana won it off him when they played poker. He must've turned it on by accident last night; it was right under our noses the whole time."

Both the Superintendent and Sergei looked confused. "No talking," Sergei said.

"Why, are you trying to hear yourself think? You know, Ralph, did this guy try to tell you he was the leader? Because I'm thinking he doesn't seem smart enough to be the leader." Bill always seemed to enjoy baiting the criminals just a little too much. Sergei looked like he was ready to toss his gun down and start some old-fashioned fist fighting, but for once Bill hadn't been lying. His "backup" burst through the door just in time.

***

"I don't know how you do it, Maxwell."

"Years of hard work, dedication to the Bureau, honing my instincts to razor-sharpness. Don't worry, Stevens, you'll get there someday." Bill's expression indicated he wasn't so sure about that last part, and Ralph shook his head. Only Bill could sound so smug while lying to the people who'd just saved his life.

Stevens didn't seem to mind, though, and the agents led Sergei out in handcuffs just as Ralph's students started to trickle back in. Much to his relief, the FBI decided they needed to take the Superintendent along as a witness.

"You know, Mr. H, we ain't never had a teacher like you before."

"Thanks, Rhonda." He frowned. "I think."

Bill pulled him off to the side, glaring at the class. "Ralph, we gotta check this out! They could've been smuggling anything on that ship -- microchips, alien technology... Could be a connection to the little green guys, even!"

"Bill, I've got to stay and teach class. Unless you want to make this another field trip?"

Bill's reaction was as immediate as it was predictable. "No! Definitely not. After school, then."

"Bill..."

"Fine, after your little homework club too." Ralph crossed his arms and waited. "And basketball practice, yes, I know. Andwe'll have you back in time for your date with the Councilor. But you better bring the suit!"

"Sounds good, Bill, see you later!" He found himself smiling as he ushered Bill through the door. It felt good. Maybe Pam would want to come along, even. They could bring sandwiches. And coffee -- Bill would like that.

He turned back to his class with the smile still on his face. "Right, where were we?"