“I find that insulting, Mia. Give me some credit, will you?” He sniffed in indignation. “They were a ‘not-for-profit’ which is entirely different than a 'charity,' and you know it.”
She pinched the bridge of her nose and let out an exasperated breath. “Just… just go away. Please. Just go bother someone else.”
“Oh, who else would ever make me feel the way you do, Mia?” He took on a shrill mocking tone, which was evidentially supposed to be her. “’I don’t like you, Deacon!’ ‘This is my best friend’s wedding, Deacon! You weren’t invited!’ ‘You stole all my Christmas presents, Deacon! Give them back!’” He rolled his eyes. “Frankly, I never understood why you overdramatize every…”
She cut him off before he could finish that thought. “You did steal them!” She smacked at his chest. “You stole them, and then you sent me pictures of them all under your tree, and the fun you were having opening them!”
He nodded sadly. “In my defense… our ‘Little Miss Doctor Darci’ doll was an awesomely fun toy.” He popped another snack into his mouth. “And her dream Corvette? Oh my God! That thing was…”
“Shut up, Deacon!” She pushed at him, unwilling to hear any more. “You’re not funny. I know you’ve always gotten a perverse thrill from making my life miserable, but tonight is important.”
He looked around the room. “Why? What’s going on tonight? Looks like the same bunch of drunken assholes it always is.”
“My mother is trying to get me to put myself out there and join up with a new team.”
He snorted. “Yeah, good luck with that.”
“And what’s that supposed to mean?” She pushed at him again. “Are you saying I can’t join any team in this room if I wanted?”
“Apparently, I don’t need to say it, because we have a mind-meld thing happening. Or maybe you’re finally learning from decades of life experience that you’re simply not very good at hooking people up with the team that’s right for them. Your career counseling sucks.”
Her eyes narrowed in irritation. “I’m not going to let you ruin this for me.”
He trudged after her. “Oh, when was the last time I ruined anything?”
She was literally too shocked to say anything for a moment. “When I was fifteen, and on my first date, you called in a bomb threat to the restaurant, and the Freedom Squad arrested everyone! Do you have any idea how embarrassing it is to have to explain to your date why a group of super-heroes took him into custody? For three weeks!?!"
“To be fair… I was only thinking about your safety. If I hadn’t called in the threat, you could have been hurt in the explosion from the bomb I set.” He nodded seriously. “You should have thanked me. I probably saved your life. I typically use a lot of dynamite.”
She started across the room again. “This is why my mom stopped working with your dad. She just couldn’t take your insanity anymore.”
“Oh, your parents left my dad’s team because they didn’t want to steal that acid spraying gun thing from that science-y dude that time.” He grabbed a glass of wine from one of the waiters as the man strolled passed. “Which, as it turned out, was a pretty good idea because that shit simply got everywhere.” He took on a regretful tone. “My collection of your Darci dolls was just unrecognizable after that.”
She ground her teeth together, trying to hold in her temper, but it finally snapped anyway. “You always do this! You just flounce through life, completely oblivious to the damage you do to people and only seem to really pay attention when you want to make some smartass comment to your victims.”
He watched her for a moment. “’Flounce?’” He repeated. “Really? Wow. I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone use that word outside of…”
“You just did it again!” She cut him off, marching away and yelling back at him over her shoulder. “Grow the hell up, Deacon! This wasn’t cute when we were kids, and it’s not cute now!”
“Wait!” he called after her tauntingly. “Aren’t you going to ask to join my team, Mia? Come on! It’ll be like the Beatles getting back together or something!”
She gave him the finger. “I wouldn’t join your team if… if…” She struggled to think up a good situation. “Ummm…”
“If you were in need of a good analogy and I was the only man in the world who could give you one?” He offered smugly.
“Shut up, Deacon!” She shouted back at him as she stormed off, furious with herself that she couldn’t think of something better to scream at him.
The man had a way of getting under her skin. It was like no matter what else was going on in the world or his own life, he always made sure to take the time to come pester her about something. He was always right there to tell her that her plans wouldn’t work and that she was wasting her time trying to help someone find a place on a good team. He loved popping into her life and reminding her how inexplicably successful and handsome he was.
He broken out of prison to crash her prom and gotten everyone there arrested on suspicion of being his coconspirators.
He used iron-on transfers to add his own face to the front of all of her clothes.
He taught her to drive using the governor’s stolen luxury sedan and then fled the scene when the Freedom Squad showed up to rescue the hogtied man from the trunk, only to appear again at her trial to give a victim’s impact statement about how her crime negatively affected his life.
He was determined to make her feel bad about herself, but it wasn’t going to work this time. She was going to listen to her mother and finally join a good bad team, and then she would parade all her new coworkers right in front of him. She would show him how well she could do on her own and how perfect everything was thanks to her. This time she was going to put the right person on the right team, and it would be her!
She didn’t need him at all!
Her eyes narrowed at him across the room as he continued watching her.
He gave her a jaunty wave. “Room 1815, Mia. Just let yourself in and draw a bath. I’ll grab the champagne and be right up.” He yelled loud enough for the entire party to hear, just to cause her embarrassment.
She flipped him off again, which only seemed to amuse him.
“1815? Cheap bastard didn’t even spring for the penthouse for your first time?” Came a friendly voice from her behind her. “Lame.”
Mia turned to see the jolly face of Holly Claus, AKA “Missile-Tow” smiling at her. Holly ran with the Consortium of Chaos, one of the larger villain groups but not necessarily one of the most well-respected. They were insane. Even for super-villains, they were insane.
As usual, the jubilant woman looked fabulous in her Santa suit themed outfit. Holly was the woman you knew who looked stunning in her driver’s license photo. She was pretty and tough and equally loved and feared by everyone. She had an awesome villainous theme, was committed to doing whatever horribly evil thing she felt like doing, and her last birthday party had been so epic that it was declared a national state of emergency.
She was everything little villainesses dreamed of one day becoming.
“Hey, girl.” Holly added a cream puff to her plate. “Haven’t seen you since your arraignment that time. You were looking at what? Like a dime, right?” She chewed on her food thoughtfully. “I remember the first time I graduated to ‘D Block,’ rather than getting stuck with the cowards in ‘A’.” She laughed at the memory. “Boy, did I think I had hit the big-time.” She popped another snack into her mouth. “Whatever happened with that, anyway? I blew up the transport van and escaped before I could see how it turned out. Deacon free you?”
“I didn’t need his help!” She snapped, a little too loudly. “I had everything under control!”
Holly nodded. “Riiiiiight.” She drew out.
“I did.”
“Whatever.” She turned to the large dark-haired shirtless man carrying a trident who was standing next to her. “Hey, Jules? You know Mia, right?”
The man looked down at Mia, then returne
d his gaze to something he considered more important. “No.”
Holly looked back at Mia. “Julian isn’t a conversationalist. Unless you’re a fish.” She ate another cream puff. “So… anything up with you? Heard your mom’s finally retiring.” She shook her head sadly. “One of the greats.”
“Uh-huh.” Mia sighed. “I don’t know why she’s doing this to me. She just left me completely high and dry as far as a team goes.”
“I can think of nothing more terrifying than being 'high and dry,'" Julian agreed. “It sounds like a nightmare.”
“So find someone new to join, right?” Holly shrugged. “What can you do again?”
“Turn into an intangible mist,” Mia answered.
Holly made an uncertain face. “Yeah, that doesn’t have too many uses in a fight. You’re sure you can’t like… I don’t know… spit acid or anything?”
“Yes.”
“Have you tried?” Holly asked seriously. “I mean really tried to…”
“Yes, I’m sure I don’t spit fucking acid, Holly! Just let it drop!”
“Jeez. We’re kinda touchy over our lame powers today, aren’t we?”
“I’m not ‘touchy.’ I just don’t need you reminding me how not in demand I am right now. I am trying to join a new team, and I don’t need your naysaying.”
“Why the sudden interest in joining a new team? I mean, your mom’s been talking about retiring for years, and it’s never worried you before.”
“No reason.” Mia answered hurriedly.
“Ah.” Holly nodded, like that was all the answer she needed. “Must be something to do with Deacon, then.”
“This has nothing to do with him.” She looked around the room, scouting for likely prospects again, determined to climb the social ladder straight to the top and then spit not-acid on Deacon as he toiled down below at the bottom. “Maybe I should ask Hook, Line and Sinker over there if I can join up with them.”
Holly frowned in thought. “Something tells me their group is kinda a set as it is. I mean, what would you even call yourself?”
“I could go by ‘Deadweight’.”
“Nah, there’s already a guy who uses it. He’s with The Roustabouts.” She took a sip from her drink and shook her head. “They don’t use him much.”
Mia’s gaze shifted to a group of women against the wall. “Well, I could join The Bridesmaids.”
“Yeah, but their greatest crime against the world is those dresses.” Holly pointed at the fashion statements in question and made a face. “Ick. Talk about heinous atrocities against humanity.” She added a peppermint stick to her drink. “You could join Satan’s Evil Team,” she tried.
“Don’t they like… eat babies and worship demons and stuff?”
“And?” Holly shrugged. “Sounds like religious intolerance to me.” She shook her head in condemnation. “That’s not the Christmas spirit, Mia.”
“They have virgin sacrifices!”
“So?” Holly snorted in dismissal. “I don’t think that’s something you would really have to worry about.”
Mia stared at her expressionlessly, trying to imagine ever being the kind of woman who would say that to someone. It wasn’t meant to be insulting; Holly just lived in her own little Christmas themed world and sometimes it never occurred to her that other people might have feelings, too.
Holly considered the matter again. “I’ve never really understood the thought process behind that anyway. I mean, if they’re still virgins, there’s probably a reason, you know? If the guys wanted to be rational, they’d sacrifice someone who was more in demand. I’m betting the devil would like hanging out with an awesome whore more than some boring virgin, but maybe that’s just me.”
Mia made a humoring sound. “Well, in either case, they also carve pentagrams into their foreheads.” She shook her head. “And I’m not doing that.”
“Well, if you’re really desperate, you could join our team. But I don’t think we’re really hiring.” She glanced at the man standing next to her. “The Commodore taking on any new people right now, Julian?”
The man shrugged. “I hope not. I already know enough terrestrials.” He looked at Mia in distaste. “And I do not like this one. We already have a female surface-dweller on the team. She is redundant.”
Holly smiled at Mia and pointed at him. “See, he sounds sexist, but it’s only because you don’t understand how prejudiced that was. Jules is against all of humanity.”
“You people are monsters,” he added. “You kill innocent fish by the score.”
Mia had no response to that, so she fell back on her usual selection of dinner party conversation nuggets. “Have you tried these puffed things?” she asked, holding the tray out to him.
Julian turned to watch her in silence for a moment. Mia looked down at the food in question.
Right.
Tuna puffs.
Not good.
“Probably not, huh,” she said uncomfortably. “You like… probably knew them and stuff, right?”
Holly looked back and forth between them and pursed her lips. “Aaaaaaawkward,”she sang, then laughed happily. “Hehehehehe.”
Julian stormed off.
“Sorry,” Mia called after him.
Holly shrugged. “Oh, fuck him. He’ll get over it.” She laughed again, watching the man push his way through the crowd. She turned back to Mia. “The job satisfaction I have right now? Off the charts.” She raised her voice to be heard over the crowd. “Don’t go away angry, Jules! Wait! At least try the lobster before you go! It’s amazing!” She giggled again, then looked back at Mia. “Not to go all ‘Vacation’ or anything, but if you think you hate him now, wait until you really get to know him.”
“So, you don’t think the Commodore would let me join your team?”
“Are you capable of getting in anywhere else?”
“I’d like to think so.”
“Then you’re out. Sorry. We really try to exclude the people who can find better employment elsewhere.” She downed her glass in one long swallow, then reached for another. “We’re very selective.”
“Yeah, it really sounds like it.” Mia turned to absently watch a woman in stiletto heel boots rub herself up against Deacon. Mia’s eyes narrowed in annoyance. “What is he doing? Why is he letting that woman do that? God, she dresses like such a whore.”
“Hey!” Holly turned to look at her. “I have those exact shoes.”
“Really?”
“Nah, I’m just messing with you.” Holly went back to her food. “The ones I have are black.” She flagged down a waiter and simply took his entire tray of desserts. The man tried to protest, but she just pushed him away and began to sample one of her many dining options. “He’s only doing it because he knows it bothers you, you know. He’s just trying to get your attention.”
Mia snorted. “Oh, he is not.” She rolled her eyes. “Why would I care if he makes an idiot out of himself with some strange slutty woman at a party? Who he’s never even met, and he’ll probably end up with some icky STD and then send me pictures of his new gross pus-filled rashes or something.”
“Ew.” Holly made a face. “I’m eating here.”
Mia ignored that. “And even if it does bother me to see him embarrass himself like that, I don’t know why he would ever care.”
“Aw, aren’t you sweet?” Holly smiled at her like Mia was a kindergartener who amused her. “’Cindy Lou Who’ doesn’t know that the ‘Grinch’ totally wants to stuff his tree up her chimney.” She took a sip of her drink. “You are just too adorable.”
Mia watched the man in question for a long moment, not knowing how to feel about Holly’s theory. “I think you’re nuts.” She finally got out. “We are not like that. He’s only pestering me because he’s an asshole and thinks it’s funny.” She cleared her throat. “W-what do you think I should do about it?”
“My advice?” Holly turned to look at Deacon. “I’d rock his world like a bowl full of jelly.”
Holly nodded. “Oh, right. Gotcha.” She looked back at him. “I’d rock his world like…”
“Well, you’re not me,” Mia interrupted, “so on second thought, I don’t need your help after all.”
Holly snorted in dismissal. “Whatever.” She finished off her desserts and absently dumped the tray on the nearest table, paying no attention to the fact that people were sitting there. “Just saying that if I were you, and a guy that hot was trying to get my attention, he wouldn’t have to try for long.”
Mia’s eyes narrowed in irritation. “Well, if you like him so much, why don’t you go over there and throw yourself at him, too? Hell, everyone else is, and I’m sure you’d have so much to talk about.”
Holly’s smile disappeared. “Wait… if I have to talk to him, that’s a deal breaker.” She pointed at him. “Why would anyone want to talk to him? He’s an asshole!” She shook her head. “Nope. Best if he keeps his mouth shut until after.” She wiped her hands together as if that solved all of the world’s problems. “Now then, I’d better go see if I can keep Jules from ‘Born Free’-ing the koi fish in the fountain outside again this year.”
Mia made a face and absently handed her empty plate of food off to one of the waiters, as Holly strolled from the room. This party was really starting to suck.
No. Not just “starting to.” It was already sucking.
Across the room, Deacon had worked his way through the party’s assortment of scantily dressed villainesses, and was now laughing with Mia’s mother.
Mia's eyes narrowed in annoyance and she hurried over to try to undo whatever awful thing he was planning now.
Mia’s mother glanced over her shoulder at hearing Mia approach. “Oh, hello dear.” She pointed at Deacon. “Did you know he was here? Isn’t it amazing to see him again?” She patted the man’s hand. “You don’t visit us nearly enough, dear boy. You know that you’ll always be family to me, and Mia misses you so much, too.” Her mother shook her head sadly. “She’s always so quiet when you’re gone. You really bring out the best in her.”
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