Villains Don't Date Heroes!

by Mia Archer

  I needed to avoid adding any more complications to my life.

  “Is anybody sitting here?”

  I looked up. Oh joy. It wasn’t enough that I was adding a seemingly infinite number of complications myself. No, now the complications were tracking me down.

  “No Miss Solare, no one’s sitting there.”

  I pushed down a thrill. I should be putting on my game face. I shouldn’t be blushing like I was at some middle school dance looking at the head cheerleader and not quite understanding why looking at her gave me a thrill instead of the captain of the basketball team which is what all the TV shows and movies told me I should be interested in.

  Selena Solare hesitated as though waiting for something that I didn’t offer. No invitation for her. I just looked up at her expectantly, feeling butterflies raging through my stomach. Butterflies that were on fire, butterflies that were exploding in small blasts of flame all throughout my body.

  I felt lightheaded looking at her. Just staring at that beautiful face. Damn it. I was acting like a teenage girl with a crush, which is about what I’d been reduced to since I saw Fialux for the first time.

  Not that I could be one hundred percent sure this was Fialux. I just had one hell of a hunch.

  I felt so awkward. I didn’t like feeling awkward. It was a feeling that hadn’t happened for years.

  Finally she sat down across from me. As she sat she fished her telephone out of her back pocket.

  I didn’t understand kids these days or why they insisted on keeping an expensive piece of computer equipment like that in a back pocket where anybody could run up and snatch it or where they could accidentally sit on it and smash it.

  She set it down on the table next to her tray which seemed to be the fashion with the kids these days if the dining hall full of zombies staring into their glowing screens was any indication.

  She pressed the button on it briefly, scanning it checking for whatever it was college students were looking for when they let the glowing mind control device take over, then looked up at me with a radiant smile. A smile that made me weak in the knees. A smile that’d force me to sit down if I wasn’t already sitting.

  Apparently Miss Solare didn’t take the hint that I didn’t want her sitting there, even though I wanted nothing more than to have her sitting there. Complications.

  I took a swig from my drink and regarded her. I wasn’t sure how the hell to proceed. I wasn’t sure what the hell I was supposed to do.

  There was a reason I’d decided to spend most of my time working in a lab with nothing but a homicidal megalomaniacal computer to keep me company. The nice thing about CORVAC was he was just as misanthropic as I was.

  Basically the problem was conquering the world came easily to me. Inventing new super science was simple. Dealing with people? That was a whole different ballgame.

  “So that was quite a performance in class today,” she said.

  “Performance?” I asked.

  “Performance, lesson, whatever,” she said. “Either way, you were really getting into that. I could tell you’re very passionate about what you teach.”

  “Let’s just say it’s a subject near and dear to me,” I replied.

  Damn it. Were we really doing this? The whole thing where we sat down and had a conversation pretending we don’t know who we were but in reality we had a sneaking suspicion?

  I always hated those conversations, but the thing is I wasn’t even sure I was having that conversation right now. I couldn’t tell if she was on to me or if she was oblivious and just making conversation with the new teacher.

  But I couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something more to this. It was time to go to work.

  27

  Lunch Sparring

  My palms were sweaty. My pulse was racing. If I had my suit on right now I’m sure it would be telling me that all my usual readings were off the charts.

  This was worse than the time I faced down that angry tyrannosaur I’d accidentally time shifted into the middle of my lab, and that encounter was pretty high up there on my list of super science screw ups I never wanted to repeat.

  Turns out talking to a pretty girl? Way more intimidating than facing down an ancient lizard without killing it and potentially fucking up history for good.

  It didn’t help that all of my usual instincts were completely off kilter because I was so distracted by how damn gorgeous she was.

  She smiled and leaned forward as though she was getting ready to pull me into some sort of confidence. I leaned forward as well without thinking. When I realized what I’d done I was shocked, but it was too late. I’d already done it.

  I was under her control and I didn’t like it one bit. I was in her thrall and I loved it.

  “I have to admit I was a little surprised when I saw you walk into class today,” she said.

  “Why’s that?”

  She shrugged. “Usually professors are stuffy older types. I definitely wasn’t expecting…”

  She looked me up and down for the briefest of moments and I felt a thrill run through me. Could she possibly…

  “…You.”

  Was I imagining things? That look had to be wishful thinking on my part because it sure as hell looked like she’d just given me an appreciative once over.

  No. That had to be my imagination. That had to be me inserting a hell of a lot of wish fulfillment into reality. I was well aware that the mind could play tricks, especially when you really wanted something.

  Best to ignore that look. Pretend it never happened.

  “I’m not your typical academic,” I said.

  “You seem very passionate about the subject,” she said.

  I scowled without realizing it. Something about the look on my face must’ve been surprising, because she stared at me wide-eyed.

  “I’ve been personally affected by a heroic intervention,” I said.

  That wasn’t exactly a lie. I had been affected by heroic interventions on multiple occasions.

  Of course I was usually the one who was putting down those heroic interventions. It wasn’t until Fialux came to town and started causing trouble that I started having trouble.

  I’m sure that wasn’t exactly what she was thinking when I said that though. Sure lying by omission was still a lie and maybe she wasn’t buying it considering she maybe had a sneaking suspicion who I really was.

  Or maybe she bought it and thought I had some tragic back story. Maybe a favorite pet that was killed by a hero and villain duking it out in the middle of downtown or some other sob story.

  Whatever it was, she seemed to be buying it. Or she was acting like she bought it, which wasn’t exactly the same thing. She leaned forward and then her hand was moving across the table. Touching mine.

  I’ve accidentally brushed my hand against one of the isolinear chips that contained the majority of CORVAC’s memory and personality while doing a repair on one of his systems. The shock was powerful enough that it blasted me across the lab and very nearly stopped my heart.

  I guess the point I’m trying to get across here is I’ve been on the receiving end of one hell of a shock before, and yet that was nothing compared to the feeling of her hand brushing against mine.

  “Is something wrong?”

  Her eyes were searching mine. She smiled, but looked concerned. My breath caught. She looked beautiful no matter what, and feeling her tracing her finger lightly against my hand was causing me to think impossible thoughts.

  Of course I was also thinking this would be the perfect moment to try and catch her off guard, to test out my anti-Newtonian stasis field, but no.

  I didn’t know for sure that this was Fialux for one thing. The resemblance was uncanny, but I’d already had CORVAC run her student ID picture and compare it to what we had on Fialux.

  Apparently her glasses were enough to trip up even the most advanced facial recognition software CORVAC could throw at the problem. Who knew?

  The second reason I didn�
��t break out the stasis field now was we were in the middle of a crowded room. There were students all over, and the last thing I wanted was to cause potential collateral damage by picking a fight with Fialux in the middle of a crowded area.

  Something told me that a dining hall on the bottom floor of a university dormitory that had been built a good fifty years ago and then rebuilt and refit to hell and back because the administration was too cheap to cough up money for a new building wouldn’t stand up to a fight between Night Terror and Fialux in quite the same way that the reinforced skyscrapers downtown did.

  Of course the third, final, and most compelling reason why I didn’t do anything had absolutely nothing to do with any of that crap.

  No, the real reason why I wasn’t going to break out the stasis field right now was because I was enjoying the feel of her hand on mine. I wanted this moment to last forever, and I sure as hell wasn’t going to do anything to interrupt it.

  I wanted to close my eyes, sigh, and melt into her. Not try and capture her.

  CORVAC would be furious if he could see me right now. If he knew my reasoning for not trying to capture her. He might understand the first two, but I sure wasn’t going to tell him the third.

  “Nothing’s wrong,” I said. “Just working some things out.”

  Selena pulled her hand away and I wanted to cry out. As it was I just sighed. Her hand felt good on mine, felt right, and I was going to miss that contact.

  I suddenly found myself wondering if maybe we were going to run into each other on campus more often. Maybe have more of these moments. That’d definitely give me a compelling reason to play the studious professor role and maybe enjoy my time on campus instead of looking at it as torture.

  Though as I looked her up and down it occurred to me that it might just be a different sort of torture.

  “Well I’m very glad you’re my teacher for this class,” she said. “I’m especially glad to have a professor who’s so…”

  Okay, so maybe I wasn’t the greatest at this whole dating thing. Maybe I was clueless even when someone was throwing themselves at me because I was always the kind of girl who was more interested in the science lab than the captain of the cheerleading squad.

  But even I couldn’t miss the way she looked me up and down. That was one hell of an appreciative glance.

  That was the kind of look that made me feel like I needed to smoke a cigarette when it was done. That was the kind of look that screamed that Miss Solare was indulging in a naughty professor fantasy, which was just fine by me given the circumstances.

  It was the kind of look that said she was clearly interested in me in more than academic terms, and it was so obvious that even I, the queen of the oblivious, couldn’t miss it.

  A little voice inside my head was screaming. I needed to say something. I needed to make a move. It’s not like I gave a damn about the whole professional ethics thing regarding students considering I was a villain using a mind control device to get into a class long enough to capture the greatest hero in the world.

  Next to that the prohibition in the employee handbook about dating students was small potatoes.

  I opened my mouth.

  Her phone lit up and started buzzing on the table. Damn it. I glanced down at the screen and thought I saw a name that started with R. Roger? Ron?

  I didn’t get a long enough look to tell, and it’s not like it was any of my damn business anyways aside from being very interested in anything that had to do with her.

  “Hello?”

  Selena put a hand over the microphone and whispered an apology to me. “It’s my boyfriend.”

  Then she was back to her phone call while I sat there with a smile on my face as the food I was shoveling into my mouth turned to ash. For a moment there it had been downright tasty while we were talking.

  Her boyfriend. She had a boyfriend.

  So much for all my hopes that she’d been looking at me with interest. So much for all my hopes that the way she was flirting and talking about how she was so glad I was her professor meant something more than her thinking I’d be a good teacher.

  I sat with a fake smile on my face. If I was on the verge of taking over the world and somebody caused my plan to come crashing down around me I’d be embarking on a world class villainous rant the likes of which you’d never seen before, but a romantic failure was unfamiliar territory. I didn’t know how to react.

  So I smiled the same fake smile I used for the news crews when Fialux was carting me off to the police station or wherever she was taking me after defeating me. It was a smile I’d had to spend a night perfecting in front of the mirror when I went from winning every time I implemented a plan to losing every time Fialux showed up.

  As the conversation wore on I guess it went from voice to video which seemed to add a layer of rudeness, but she’d obviously long since stopped caring about rudeness.

  As it went on she got a vacant look in her eyes and sat slack-jawed, her food forgotten, making the occasional grunt in response to whatever this guy was telling her. I finished my own food and she was still on the phone. I stood and she didn’t acknowledge it.

  With a shrug I took my food tray over to a conveyor belt and turned to leave. On my way out I passed by the table and she was still sitting there staring at her phone with a vacant expression on her face, and her food sitting cold in front of her.

  Something about the way she looked tickled something in the back of my mind, but I couldn’t say what it was.

  Whatever. If she wanted to forget her food because she was so busy talking to her boy toy then that was her business. I needed to get back to my office so I could start planning new tricks for getting her to reveal herself.

  I needed to remember that I was here on business. Not to make eyes at the pretty college girl who might be the most stunning heroine to hit this city in years.

  Yeah, mama needed to get to work.

  28

  Nasty Tricks

  Yea, it was time to get down to business. The only problem with that deceptively simple and oblivious plan? Nothing would draw her out and the class became pure torture as the semester wore on.

  Every day I’d demonstrate some new and devious method to try and get Fialux to reveal herself, and every day Selena Solare just sat halfway up the bleacher seats and stared at me with a smile on her face as though she was enjoying the show, but she never did anything that would reveal she was actually a super heroine in disguise.

  No jumping out and stopping one of my killer robots, or swooping down at the last moment to save somebody when I opened a portal directly under them into the caldera of an active volcano while they were suspended via the glories of antigravity.

  And saved from the oft forgotten dangers of convection thanks to not opening the portal completely.

  She refused to act. No, every time I had to save them at the last minute. Every time I was the one who blinked, and it was infuriating.

  It was almost enough to make me think she wasn’t who I thought she was. Almost.

  Of course if that was all I had to contend with I’d consider myself lucky, but no, that wasn’t all miss Selena Solare threw at me.

  Every day after class she stopped by my desk to engage in chitchat. Every day she said something that just crossed the line. Something that made me think she was flirting. Something that made me wonder if she was thinking of me as a professor or as her arch nemesis in disguise.

  Assuming she knew who I really was. The jury was still out on that one.

  Not that she’d probably even think of me as her arch nemesis even if she did suspect my true identity. I was starting to wonder if she even remembered who Night Terror was. I was starting to seriously wonder if the rest of the world remembered who Night Terror was.

  Other villains came and went, and I watched them on the nightly news, but there was no Night Terror out there getting her face on the Starlight City News Network because I was cooped up grading papers or working late in my office
at the university trying to come up with a new diabolical plan to get Fialux to reveal herself.

  Mostly I was coming up with new diabolical plans. Trying to come up with new diabolical plans. So far I’d only been able to settle on the one which made me wonder if I was losing my edge.

  CORVAC did most of the actual grading. Sure he bitched about doing it, but I’d pointed out that it took him a fraction of a second where it would take me all night.

  I told myself it’d all be worth it. It would be worth the trouble, worth the brief Night Terror hiatus the city was enjoying, when I finally caught Fialux in my web.

  At that point I’d either rule the city via being Fialux’s new main squeeze, or I’d rule the city because I’d finally captured her and added her to the vast collection of heroic souvenirs I kept buried deep in my lair.

  In suspended animation or something. I’m not that heartless. I figured that was a lot more likely than ruling the city as villain and subservient hero.

  Even if she kept getting my hopes up with that flirtation every day. It was pure torture. Even more so because every day she got interrupted by that damned phone in the same way she’d been interrupted in the dining hall at the beginning of the semester.

  It was always the same routine. She talked to me for a few minutes after class and her phone started ringing. Invariably she picked it up, swiped, answered, and talked or a few minutes. I could set my watch by how long it took for her to switch to voice chat.

  Her face always went slack-jawed as whatever the person on the other end of the line was telling her suddenly became far more important than whatever flirting she’d been doing with me.

  That annoyance, that craziness, might explain why, in a fit of pique, I decided to do away with little miss nice villainess. It was time to break out the big guns, or rather get rid of the guns entirely. It was time to stop with nice things like a cloud of nanobots that could disassemble living flesh or inanimate objects with a speed that made piranhas seem like carnivorous sloths in comparison. No more primitive artificial intelligences just on the verge of gaining sentience attached to miniguns loaded with foam darts so no one would actually get hurt when they inevitably gained sapience and decided to turn on their human masters during the convenient time frame of my class.