THE MOMENT
As first meetings went, Steve was content with the date so far. He matched with the lovely stranger, Celia, through an app, and the two met at the park on a cool evening. They chatted briefly, testing comfort levels and chemistry, before the pair agreed to move to a nearby coffee shop to sit and have a longer conversation. Now, they were walking through the park side by side, and the topic of discussion became more personal.
"So what's your superpower?" Celia asked. She didn't have a superpower but they were common enough in the world. Steve mentioned it when they were texting through the app, but she didn't want to accidentally seem overly-interested in it. Now that she felt some rapport, she was comfortable bringing it up.
"In key moments, I can see the actions that give the best outcomes," Steve replied with a casual tone and a friendly smile. He gave no indication that it was a sensitive subject, which was good. She'd briefly dated other Supers who were obsessively defensive about revealing their powers. There was always some over-complicated backstory about how they didn't want to put her in danger, or they were scared of her misusing the knowledge. Those never got a second date.
"Wow! Nice," Celia replied. It was a sincere comment, but she was happy that he answered at all. She had a good feeling about Steve.
"Yeah, you'd think that," Steve nodded as he kept the conversation going. "But there's a caveat...," he added.
"Is that why you're not a hero?" she asked. She was more interested in him than the specifics of his superpower.
"That's a whole host of reasons, but it's on the list," Steve nodded. "The issue is, my power's too subjective to be useful," he said.
"Huh? How?" Celia asked.
"'Key moments' and 'best outcome', are not limited to my experiences. Something might be a key moment for someone else, and the best outcome from that situation might in fact be the best for a different person entirely."
"Oh.. wow, that's not a small catch...," Celia commented. She was trying to understand how that worked when Steve's next comment gave her something new to be concerned about.
"Nope...," he shook his head. "...last time I tried to help someone, I accidentally killed 17 people. It was a pretty good outcome for the undertaker as far as I can tell."