Tomato-Man

The next day, Felix was up before the sun had even begun to peek over the horizon. His head no longer hurt, and he was ready to resume his tests. What had he done differently last night?

He had a reason for going back in time both while in space and after getting food poisoning. Felix locked eyes with the foot of his bed, shifting his eyes between the wood and his foot. This was going to hurt. With as much force as he could bear to muster, he kicked the wood. Biting back a curse, Felix focused on returning to before he had injured himself.

With the customary distortion of time and a slight discomfort near his forehead, Felix stood in the center of the room, his foot no longer throbbing in pain. That proved it. With something to focus on, he could rewind time at will. That realization got him thinking. If he could take his mind off himself in the present and instead learn to focus on the past, maybe he could just jump backwards in time without needing a real reason. He'd have to join a meditation class, Felix decided.

Another repeat of his experiment returned the same results, but his head began to hurt for real. So there were side-effects to time travel, who knew?

Armed with an ice pack, Felix plopped down on his bed, turning on the TV on his dresser. The cable box defaulted to the news, prominently displaying Mindwave disarming a man before he could unleash hell upon the crowded streets. For someone whose superpower was, allegedly, to speak telepathically and read minds, she definitely knew how to make a statement. Her bright pink spandex uniform, together with a dazzling tiara, was noticeable from a mile away.

Mindwave was the only real superhero out there, someone with powers who just wanted to promote justice. Every other member of the Seven preferred the shadows. Well, it was refreshing to see her do her thing. He could learn from her, he guessed.

Waiting for his headache to dissipate took longer than expected. He nearly tried going back in time to before it began, but he doubted he could cheat the system – is that what you called whatever this was? – like that. It took a few movies and some caffeinated beverages before he was up and ready to go. Now that his itch to figure out the supernatural things happening to him had been fulfilled, Felix really looked at himself.

He'd lost a lot of muscle from a month of practically neglecting anything physical. Felix sighed. Grabbing his duffel bag, he hightailed it to the gym, where a swarm of people were busy lifting weights or using the machines.

As he got into his own routine, he noticed one girl in particular. She was absolutely stunning, and most definitely out of his league. Felix fought to keep his mind off her, zealously performing sit-up after sit-up. He failed.

Courage welled from an unknown source and Felix walked up to her. She was hard at work, doing push-ups in one corner of the gym. "Hi! Nice to meet you!" Felix said as he got closer. Looking up, the girl didn't even pause. Her grey eyes bored into him as she rhythmically lifted herself off the ground. Her mouth opened, and Felix's hope swelled.

"Uh, who even are you?"

Momentary distortion, and he was doing sit-ups again. What in the world had possessed him? Who walks up to a random person and introduces themselves with a "Hi, nice to meet you?" Crazy people, that's who. Felix mentally kicked himself while thanking his lucky stars that he had a big undo button.

For a short second, he considered trying again, but decided that the headache, literally, wasn't worth it. He'd never been a good flirt, and this was his proof. He finished the rest of his routine, doing his best to forget prior events. As he got up to leave, he heard someone curse and wheeze. Some idiot was bench-pressing without a spotter.

Felix looked around, trying to find the guy. He was practically a tomato, his face violently red. With an absurd 250 pounds loaded onto the bar, the skinny dude was practically asking for this outcome. Out-of-shape as he was, Felix couldn't help much from his position, especially now that tomato-man had run out of steam. Maybe if he'd gotten here when he was loading the bar…

Focusing, Felix appeared half a minute back in time. Rushing over to tomato-man, Felix found him about to begin benching. The bar and all the weight on it looked straight out of a cartoon. From the cocky look on tomato-man's face, Felix knew it would take quite some nudging to convince him to start small. "Dude, that's way too much. I can't even bench that much. Maybe try something closer to your body weight? That's what I do," he suggested, hoping that tomato-man would see reason.

Tomato-man considered it, his expression turning pensive for a minute. "I can handle it, but thanks for the concern. Spot me?"

Felix sighed. "You sure?"

"Yeah."

Felix stood behind tomato-man and watched him complete a single repetition. His arms shook with effort, and foolish as tomato-man was, Felix had to acknowledge the smaller man's attempt. Then, the second repetition came in like a wrecking ball. The bar practically dropped on tomato-man's chest, Felix trying to catch it as best as he could. Both of them straining against the weight, Felix helped him lift the bar off tomato-man's chest and back onto the bench.

Felix bit back the urge to say a quick "I told you so." Glancing at tomato-man, Felix saw his embarrassment. He'd spare the guy his ego.

"Thanks, dude. You were right," Tomato-man said, hanging his head.

"No worries," Felix waved it off and went back to his duffel bag, which was thankfully untouched. Hopefully, not every trip to the gym would be this eventful. If they were, he'd have to re-evaluate about finding a new place to exercise.