writing prompt: the painting "nighthawks" in misc. flash fiction

Everyone talks a big game about the value of a home-cooked meal, he thought to himself as he drank his coffee alone in an almost-empty restaurant, unless they’re the one who has to cook it. When you’d have to make it yourself, suddenly a preparation by someone else is rendered twice as delicious by the spice of another person’s effort. Thanksgiving’s a wonder if you just show up with a store-bought pumpkin pie and a bottle of cheap wine, for those who have to set the whole thing up and tear it down, it’s pretty much a plastic hassle. Something to be said for just going to a diner for some corned beef hash and eggs, letting the wait-staff worry about the dirty dishes.

It had been an unusually quiet night. Because it was the holidays, probably. Wrapped up one would-be mugger in a bag for the police early, had swooped down from a rooftop and only had to glare to make a team of young pickpockets decide not to ply their trade. Got so slow he put on his civilian clothes to wait out the evening in the diner with a meal. His radioactive danger sense hadn’t vibrated at the back of his neck in hours, the emergency bands he listened to in his earbud radio were silent but for routine check-ins to their station houses. Not even a cat stuck in a tree or a simple trash-can fire. For one night, his city didn’t need him much and he was grateful.

Telepathic scans of the few people in the building didn’t come up with any looming crime or confrontation either. The guy behind the counter was just tired, waiting for the end of his shift, crunching baseball stats to figure if his team could make the playoffs. The redhead in the corner was thinking vaguely dirty thoughts about the man she was sitting next to, the man who she sat next to was thinking vaguely dirty thoughts about the man behind the counter. That was it.

Nearly three in the morning, turning into the Friday after Thanksgiving. There were people lined up for sales, he thought, way out in the suburbs at the malls and superstores, far beyond the range of any of his eight senses but there in his city, nearly everyone was either asleep or trying to get through their third shift jobs or having a light breakfast in fifty other cafes just like this one.

It was nice to take off the cape and mask, put on the costume of a normal businessman, be ready to stop a murder or a trans-dimensional evil wizard if they came along, of course, but mostly just eat corned beef hash and share pleasantries with the people he protected as if he weren’t a lauded superhero.

For a couple of hours, he can just drink his okay-but-not-outstanding coffee in anonymity’s peace because nobody else knows, The Nighthawk’s at the diner.