Lyn exited back into the glowing arcade and shot a beeline towards the VR pod she’d directed Emma to wait by. Sure enough, the woman was waiting for her there, that slight look of anxiety still lingering on her face, but mixed with an apparent eagerness to try her hand at this unfamiliar spot.

  Do I ask her about what’s bugging her or try and let her relax first? Lyn wondered. It’s kind of a serious cry for help to call up someone in the middle of a random afternoon and ask them to come up with something to do, but is that the kind of help where you want someone to talk to? Or is it the kind where you definitely don’t want to talk about it and want to be distracted? Fuck... I’m not a hero. Helping isn’t what I do.

  Before she could figure that dilemma out, Emma spotted her and waved her over, sporting a smile that looked genuine enough.

  Well, I’ll feel like a dick now if I go “Hey before we go play video games, wanna let me know what’s wrong?” So I guess we’re going with the “have fun first” approach, Lyn thought as she strolled over to join her.

  “I think I’ve got this,” Emma told her with a fragile confidence that immediately said that Lyn was going to have to explain some things. “You have the- uh… um, what was that?”

  Emma’s gaze followed someone sprinting from the bathroom out the front door, with Al's shouts following her about running inside falling on deaf ears as they exploded through the double doors out of the arcade.

  Lyn shrugged, “No idea. So what’s the first thing you want to play?”

  It turned out that Emma had actually spent the time on her own compiling quite a list of the arcade’s games rather than brooding, much to Lyn’s surprise. A large portion of those seemed to have been selected based on the challenges that Al had attached and Lyn quickly learned how competitive her hero friend was.

  Minutes began to turn into hours and those free plays Al had given quickly evaporated, forcing the pair to start loading up using their own funds. Curse that trap master! He truly had designed an insidious lair meant to drain you of your money and that was before you did the stupid thing and actually try some of those stupid challenges. The goals he’d set for those who dared to attempt them often seemed simple but in reality turned out to be devilishly difficult, doubly so when you were simultaneously attempting to win against someone who must be using superpowers. The two had called a truce after playfully sabotaging each other’s runs early on (okay, mostly Lyn’s fault for starting it, but Emma quickly escalated it), but Lyn still found herself distracted by Emma getting incredibly heated by a few of the games as they played. Despite some of the more colorful curses she overheard, Emma was still trouncing Lyn both in scores and when it came to Al’s secret bonuses.

  Shouldn’t I have spider-like reflexes? I distinctly remember having spider-like reflexes, Lyn wondered as she once again was met with a death screen when a virtual enemy got her from out of nowhere. She pushed away from the cabinet she’d been hunched over in disgust. Either Al’s cheating or my two legged form needs the practice.

  For her part, Emma had managed to complete at least two of the challenges already, one on a light gun game asking her to spin the gun to reload it without getting a game over and another on a retro cabinet where the player character was practically six pixels jumping around which Al asked the player to beat without using the button that let the little pixel blob shoot its gun. The latter had drained more decks than either of the two women wanted to admit, distinctly embarrassed about how into the dumb little blob’s success they’d gotten. Meanwhile Lyn had yet to manage a single one of the arcade manager’s trials so far and was beginning to hate Al’s little printed messages by this point, scowling as they mocked her.

  “Just throw three guys off the train on the second level and beat it in three minutes,” one of them jeered from its curling printer paper taped to the machine where the trains apparently had locked doors made of fucking diamond you had to knock down to progress and pixel thin gaps to throw people out of. Fuck you, Al, you shit eating son of-

  “Just go cash in both of mine,” Emma insisted for the fifth time already. “Come on, I’m dying over here and need a drink.”

  Lyn finally relented, her own throat also like a damn desert by this point. Leaving the hero in disguise at some machine where she played as a barbarian slashing through hordes of enemies, she made her way back to the front desk. On her way over, she realized that neither of them had remembered to pull out their phones to record the wins.

  “I’m gonna kill Al if he fights me on this,” she muttered, already planning the method of execution.

  Al had barely moved since she’d first seen him, though the sandwich he’d been holding had been replaced at some point by a phone he was scrolling through. One hand still lazily poked at the computer keyboard though his gaze didn’t even drift in the direction of the monitor.

  Strolling up to the counter, Lyn announced, “I’m here for my smoothies.”

  “Smoothies are for winners,” the bored man parroted the sign behind him without looking up.

  Lyn couldn’t keep the edge of irritation out of her voice, “Emma managed to beat two of your challenges on the-”

  “Alright then,” Al slowly lurched up, placing the phone on the desk and trodded back to the blender, snagging some ingredients from a nearby mini-fridge on his way.

  Lyn blinked, “Wait… that’s it?”

  “Yep.”

  “I don’t need to tell you which challenges?”

  “Nope.”

  Lyn let out a sharp chuckle, gesturing at his computer, “So you’re watching the whole arcade then.”

  “Nope,” Al deposited everything in the blender and smiled at her as he hit the switch, the noise immediately cutting off any further questions as Lyn processed his monosyllabic answers. As the realization formed, so too did a scowl.

  “So literally all you have to do is ask for one?!” she growled as the machine finally went silent.

  “It’s a smoothie,” Al shrugged. “They ain’t expensive.”

  “But-”

  “You really don’t get it, huh?” Al scratched his chin and pointedly looked back over the arcade.

  Lyn followed his gaze and noticed everyone there lost in their games, utterly absorbed by them. Scattered among the people playing purely by the rules of the games were a few who would frantically smash buttons and yank controls while sneaking glances at the printed instructions next to them, most of those cursing as another attempt failed and they began to try again. They were paying for new games just to win against Al, not the game itself, all because he’d left them a note with the promise to give them a prize. None of them were aware it was an honor system, ripe for exploit.

  “Only winners would dare ask for it,” she concluded.

  Al snorted at that, “Sure. That’s one way to look at it.”

  She gave him a confused look while he poured out the mixture into a cup before grabbing another set of ingredients to toss into the blender. He passed her the first smoothie and gestured for her to try it while he flipped on the loud machine again.

  Godsdammit, this lived up to his hype. He hadn’t even asked her for any preferences and he’d somehow nailed the most perfect smoothie in one go. Or maybe…

  “It tastes better when you earn it?” she hazarded a guess as the machine went silent again.

  This earned her another snort, irritating her to no end. Oh this was gonna be some fucking metaphor alright. It always was when people did this shit.

  “A fool and his money? People have too much time on their hands? The only winning move is not to play?” she ran through a list.

  “Close, I’ll just tell you,” he told her, noticing her irritation. “Everyone here’s a winner because I’m the winner.”

  Lyn rolled her eyes, only for a disposable straw to smack her in the forehead. She clawed her hands and rounded on the retiree only to see him smugly smiling at her, “I ain’t saying ‘thank you for coming to the arcade, you’re so special to me,’ and I sure as shit ain’t spouting that crappy ‘everyone’s special’ line. I’m bragging about the fact that I fucking won. I did it. This is my victory lap and I can make as many damn smoothies as I want.”

  Like that, the slightly overweight desk fixture disappeared and she saw the villain he once was. That confidence and satisfaction at having conquered what the world threw at him. It was the high almost everyone in her career chased. Here Al was, running an arcade, and somehow he looked every bit the same as if he’d just designed a photon barrier array that trapped a meddlesome hero long enough for him to escape with all his ill-gotten loot. He legitimately looked like he was pulling the job of a century here.

  “Go on,” she prompted, sincerely hoping this didn’t mean the machines were swiping her bank account info.

  “I was in the biz purely for this,” he swept an arm out, gesturing over the arcade. “Didn’t know it at the time though. See, when I was a kid, I practically lived in a local arcade just off old 286 called Star Works, collecting coins off the ground, out of gutters, anywhere I could find them really, for a whole week to blow them all on the weekend.”

  He was lost in old, good memories for a few moments, and Lyn let him linger there. As someone who practically lived out the trunk of her own past for a decade whenever she had a hard day as Terrorantula, it felt rude to jostle people out of their nostalgia. His smile faded as he continued his story.

  “It shut down when I was like ten. I kept busy by ripping open anything no one cared about to see how it worked instead. Set me up for my future career. Still, whenever I got kicked out the house, I’d be drooling in the windows of a game store in the mall. It was the next best thing to Star Works I could find. Thought about owning one of those before I learned what running a shop like that meant. Retail ain’t for me. Instead, I threw on a mask and sold death traps to crazy people. Full offense.”

  Lyn flipped him off, causing him to laugh, “Years went by and I found out you could just buy those old games I loved playing. Then I found out how to get them for free! Anyways, I kept getting the itch to make my own arcade. I once thought about making my own secret lair full of every video game I could steal, just for me, but then I had a realization: that’s fucking stupid. What happens when some hero busts in and ruins all my stuff?”

  Lyn had learned that lesson when she’d moved a lot of her possessions into the Evil Eight’s lair, only for Ned and some team called the Street Cleaners to raid the place. Ned had salvaged a few sentimental objects of the group, but the Cleaners hadn’t been nearly as careful. It had basically been the end to Lyn’s short-lived phase of collecting vinyl records.

  “Still, kept thinking back to Star Works, and I couldn’t get over the idea of running something like that. The best damn version of it that kid me would’ve loved. So I did it,” Al told her. “I settled debts, bought this place with cash, and got it all set up. I won.”

  “You ‘won’ because of this?” Lyn mulled it over. As fun as this place was, all this still felt like retirement, like he was walking away when he thought the winnings were good.

  That wasn’t what the business was to her. It wasn’t this casino you cashed out at before the house took the winnings back. It was its own life, an alternative to the mundane. Sure the lab accident had kind of pushed her into it initially, but it wasn’t as though an advanced biology education, even one that wasn’t quite complete, couldn’t lead her to any other options. Her parents had certainly put together quite a list of options. It’s just… all of those were boring and asked you to set aside your powers to use the same things everyone else was gifted with. You were shackled to a job, a routine, something simple and mundane.

  As much as Lyn had lamented so much she’d lost over the years as Terrorantula, she’d never really thought about moving on from that. Yes, she wanted to go on dates, to eat out, and to have afternoons like this but having that back wasn’t her goal in life. All of it was just what stuff she should’ve had in addition to the chases, the capers, and the clashes, not the alternative to it.

  Al clearly saw where her thoughts were heading from the look on her face, “Gods, I thought you’d get it after having that new set of legs. The life only ends one of three ways: you rot in a cell, you die in your mask, or you walk away, either with what you came for or with jack shit. You gotta know what you’re aiming for and when you’ve got it, it’s time to cash out. Walk away from the machine no matter how much fun you’re having, and grab what you came for.”

  He passed her the other drink with a smile that was clearly trying to say something. She stared at the ground-up icy beverage, shredded to an even consistency by uncaring blades.

  Al pressed his message, “Smoothies are for winners, and winning’s all about getting the prize. Fuck the whole ‘journey along the way’ shit. If you gotta lie or cheat to get your bag, go ahead, just don’t get stuck there with nothing to show for it in the end.”

  “You’re kind of a piss poor arcade manager if you’re telling people to stop spending money,” Lyn told him, earning a glower. “I came here to play, the smoothie is just a bonus.”

  “Kid, you know what I’m talking about,” he insisted sourly. “You’ve been in this for awhile, you know there’s gotta be something worth hanging it up for.”

  Lyn smiled, “Probably. But for now, I’m enjoying the games too much.”

  She left him standing there with a disappointed look on his face to return to Emma. Good, let the preachy bastard sulk. Al wasn’t the first person out there who acted like leaving the life early was him dodging a bullet by inches and then acting like everyone else still in the biz was living on borrowed time and he wouldn’t be the last. Conveniently, all of the ones that were “just looking out for you” tended to have retired rich.

  Besides, why even bother thinking about leaving now? Lyn had a new secret identity, and had the ball rolling on her plot later this week that was step one towards ending up richer than Al had been when he bounced out. A place like this wasn’t cheap even if she wanted to call it quits for something similar. Say she did, well, her roommate was probably locked into making gadgets for at least two or three years if Crash didn’t blow himself up one more time. What would retiring even mean when she lived right next door to someone building supervillain tech? Hell, pretty much all her kinda-sorta friends were villains as well so what did she even have outside of it?

  Going hero? Cool, just as much danger but for a worse paycheck and more drama if she read the cross talk the heroes yapped about during fights right. Opening up her own business? She might be excited to run a team-up later this week but she lacked any desire to try and manage employees or manage a little craft project online or whatever. Sit in a fucking desk job?!

  No, she was thriving here and Al could mind his own damn business.

  The irritation at him for trying to take this from her lingered in the back of her head as she stomped through the aisles, searching for Emma.

  Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

  ---------------------------------

  Lyn spotted the heroine at a different game than she’d left her at. This one was an old fighting game themed after heroes and villains. All of the characters starring in it were fictitious originals but there were some clear allusions to some of the classics back when this game was made. Lyn noted a few store-brand versions of some guys who had hung up their capes in the last few years adorning the sides of the machine.

  Emma seemed to be halfheartedly tapping away at it while wearing a pensive look. Lyn slid up beside her and watched as Emma badly piloted what looked like a vikor raider guy against a shirtless guy whose arms kept turning into giant mouths and biting at her.

  I wonder if the guys who made this machine really risked making a clone of Arex without his permission, Lyn wondered, looking at the digital knockoff of him flatten Emma’s character with a supermove. I can’t see them actually trying to get him to sign off on this. From what I’ve heard, there’s no way he would’ve let them get away with not making his powers accurate.

  “Oooh, tough luck,” she commiserated, passing along the drink to her sulking acquaintance. “Here’s your spoils by the way.”

  Emma took the drink but said nothing. Lyn was getting the vibe it was just about time for the big talk she’d been dodging for the past couple hours. After a moment though, the hero put on another brave face.

  “So, what’s next?”

  Lyn wasn’t sure if she was glad or upset to postpone the inevitable. Still she decided to run with it, “Well, we’ve done almost everything except one of those racing games over there.”

  She pointed over to the large chairs hooked up to steering wheels and a screen that were finally being vacated by the crowd that had been squatting on them.

  Emma rolled her eyes, “Pass. Too much like the real thing.”

  Gods, right, this hang up. Hero lady here had a whole thing about cars. The second time they’d met up in a bar had ended with a whole thing when Celeste and Lyn tried to call her a taxi. Apparently Emma did not trust anything with wheels and refused to even consider them. More evidence she probably wore a cape because who else would go on a drink-lubricated rant that long about the relative safety of airplanes over automobiles if they couldn’t fly themselves.

  “I literally just watched you play as a sweaty vikor,” Lyn told her. “If you can pretend to do that, you can pretend to drive for once.”

  Emma gave her a wry smile before shaking her head, “Look, if Marcus couldn’t get me in a car then-”

  She abruptly cut off, choking on her words. Her jaw trembled and she tried to turn away. Lyn recognized the signs of that kind of abrupt spiral immediately. It was the type that crept on you when you were holding it back too long and it snuck around your guard.

  She’d once had it happen herself over mentioning a shoe box during a particularly tough week and had been forever grateful that Wither Wasp had gotten her out of the room at the time rather than letting the rest of the Evil Eight see that breakdown. Paying it forward, she guided Emma over to one of the empty party rooms at the edge of the arcade. The two shuffled inside, stopping just short of the large barren table that probably seated two dozen brats, all the folding chairs stuffed against the wall. Lyn moved away from Emma to shut the blinds, casting the room into semi-blackness lit by the flashes peaking through them, allowing the woman the privacy to choke back sobs for a few minutes. She still wasn’t letting herself breakdown completely. Lyn cautiously patted her on the back as Emma fought to wrestle herself back in control, the brief touch causing her to flinch.

  A few more seconds passed before the wheezes turned to sniffles and then just deep, jagged breathes. After one last deep shudder, Emma wiped her face with a handkerchief she pulled out a pocket and slowly turned to face Lyn. The relative darkness didn’t truly conceal the wet lines of tears or shimmer under her nostrils, nor did it hide the redness creeping across her face. It broke Lyn’s heart.

  “I’m sorry, I’m ruining this,” Emma's voice cracked, her words still difficult for her to form after the sudden breakdown, and clearly running the risk of sending her back into the spiral again. “I just- You keep calling me a hero and I’m not!”

  “Em-” Lyn began.

  “No! I’m awful! I’m a liar and I hurt people! And- and the worst part is that I don’t feel guilty!” she spat, her breathing starting to quicken again as she worked through her self loathing. “I hate that I don’t care about it because all I want to do is hurt him! I’m just like- I’m lying about who I am to you, even as you’re helping me right now because all I care about it is killing him!”

  Lyn studied the woman as she hunched over, grabbing a fistful of her hair as she drowned in her own grief. Fuck… she did not know how to help anyone, least of all with something emotional like this. She could tell Emma was staring at her, wanting her to say something. There was something familiar in that gaze.

  She wants this to end with me hurting her, Lyn realized.

  She’d seen that look on Beetle Blaster after the last time the Evil Eight had broken up, wishing the rest of the team blamed him as much as he blamed himself. She’d seen it on her roommate’s face when that contract had fallen through and the two of them were living off pawning the Web of Anari. She’d sometimes seen it in the mirror.

  Dammit, why the hell can’t an actual hero be here? Fine, guess we’ll do this my way.

  “If this is you lying to me, you’re not very good at it,” Lyn faked a cocky grin she sure as shit didn’t feel and gestured at Emma. “We clocked you the moment you showed up at the Slam.”

  The woman’s jaw trembled, “It’s not just-”

  Lyn didn’t let her continue, “Seriously, you think my name’s Terri? Do I look like a Terri?”

  Celeste had given her shit for that, throwing her stones from that glass house of hers. At least I didn’t bomb two alternate identities back to back! Meanwhile, it sounded like Emma had actually pegged them as villains that night just as they’d figured out she was a white cape in disguise, though apparently she hadn’t realized that they’d lied about their names given the shocked reaction plastered on her face. Oh, if Lyn wasn’t walking the tightrope here when it came to redirecting, she’d be basking in that. A reveal like this was the type of classic villain stuff that made this job worth it.

  “You’re not-?”

  “Anyways, I think you’re on a good start, but clearly we need to work on your commitment to this whole thing,” Lyn paced around the large table at the center of the room.

  “Commitment?”

  Okay good, we’ve got her wrongfooted. Perfect. If there’s one thing I’ve learned from a lifetime of fighting against a quipster, it’s that if you can whip someone around in conversation quickly enough, they won’t have a moment to think.

  “Of course, you’re telling me all this because you know it’s time to swap sides, and you want advice on being a villain. Perfect timing, I’m actually helping workshop a name for someone else right now,” Lyn lied, having decided early on when Celeste started her list that she wanted no part in that foolishness.

  “I- No!” Emma protested. “I’m not… turning to villainy!”

  “Well, you’re not doing a very good job, obviously.” Lyn turned around before reaching the end of the table, propping herself against the wall. “I mean, you’re off to a pretty good start with lying and hurting people without caring, but the feeling bad for not feeling guilty? Ugh, you’re too much of a hero.”

  “That’s- I-” Emma struggled over her words, clearly not expecting the conversation to go this direction.

  “And no points awarded for wanting vengeance, I’m afraid. Plenty of heroes and vigilantes do that all the time. No, you’re gonna need something more to really sell you swapping sides,” Lyn explained.

  “I’m not swapping sides!” Emma yelled. “Why- Why the hell are you-? I lied to you!”

  “Badly,” Lyn waved it off. “Come on, why are you hesitating. Let’s go rob a bank!”

  “No!”

  “So you’re not gonna rob a bank and you feel bad that people were hurt,” Lyn huffed dramatically. “Pfft, I knew you were a hero, even if you did fuck up.”

  Emma stared at her blankly. Then a guffaw coughed its way out her mouth, albeit one still tinged with melancholy. Her hands gripped at her face as she let out a series of half laughs, half sobs and sunk to her knees.

  “What is even happening?” she choked through the sounds she was making. “A-are you comforting me? I’m supposed to be better than this and here I am with a villain comforting me while I have a breakdown in some kids’ party place.”

  “You saying you're better than me?” Lyn strode over to the kneeling woman.

  “No! I-” Lyn interrupted her with a flick on the forehead. Emma glared up at her, puffy golden eyes flashing dangerously in the speckled light that carved through the blinds. A prickle on the back of Lyn’s neck told her that she could probably only push this hero so far.

  “Yes, I am comforting you,” Lyn slowly marched through that sentence like admitting it had to be dragged out of her kicking and screaming. For any other hero, it probably would’ve needed that and she’d probably actually be putting more effort into getting them to quit their job and join the more fun side. Emma was… a friend though, even if she was one that might end up trying to arrest Lyn before the week was over. “So spill your secrets so I can do it right. I’m fairly sure I’ve got the gist that you’re here to avenge a certain someone, and you’re not going to be getting any brake pumping on that from me, but go over the rest so I can tell you how justified you were.”

  Emma’s glare didn’t waver, “I knew you were a villain when I saw you almost kill that boy.”

  “He’d have been fine,” Lyn lied. Emma just kept shooting her a dirty look at that.

  She huffed and continued, “I’m here because someone called to tell me they found… the man who killed my fiance.”

  Lyn expected her to break again, but instead the woman just snarled, running through that part of the story on rage alone rather than dwelling on the pain.

  “...It came at a cost though,” her anger dwindled and the hurt bled in. “Their friend got hurt to find this out.”

  “You ask them to do it?” Lyn propped herself up on the table, ignoring an ominous creak.

  Emma shook her head, “No, but I’d been wishing for this for years. I-”

  “Then it was their own dumb fault and it’s their job to figure things out,” Lyn shrugged, carefully getting off the table as it made another groan. Godsdammit, this body wasn’t that heavy, she had checked! Al fix your fucking table before some brat caves it in!

  “But-”

  “Oh, does the universe revolve around you?” Lyn cut her off curtly. “Does everything you really, really want end up happening?”

  Emma stared up at her in bewilderment, clearly working through something in her head. Lyn wondered if she’d said something wrong or been too mocking in tone before the woman shook her head, accepting Lyn’s point.

  “...When I got here, I looked up villain hang outs…” Emma continued. “I went to a few of them.”

  “You’re cheating on me with other villains!” Lyn acted scandalized. A part of her actually kind of felt a bit jealous though. Oh shut up, she told it, I do not need to process that right now!

  Her statement flabbergasted Emma, “I just spoke with a few others! I didn’t- I’ve only hung out with you and Selli!”

  Yeah, given the fact that Emma had basically invited them out almost every other day, it didn’t feel like she’d have much time for other “deep cover” jobs. That stupid jealous part of Lyn was relieved and she immediately quashed it and made a mental note to figure out if the damn wigglies were responsible for that.

  “Wait, what am I apologizing for?” the realization hit Emma. “I was spying on you! I was trying find out how the villains around here operated and where they hid!”

  “Uh huh. Great job with that. Hey, you wouldn’t happen to have figured out my real name doing that?” Lyn questioned.

  Emma’s face went red again, visible even in this room.

  Lyn bit her lip, considering for a moment. A different part of her that was cold and pragmatic seized on what she was thinking about and screamed for her not to do it. As she looked down at the huddled mess of a hero that she’d barely redirected out of an all night depression spiral, Lyn’s heart overruled that. Fuck it: it was stupid and selfish but it was the right thing.

  “I’m Evelyn,” she admitted. Then quickly warned, “Do not call me Eve.”

  A million emotions fought for control across Emma’s face. Twitches around the edges crept towards the center, twisting her mouth and eyes as she processed what the villainess had just done. Her mouth worked for almost half a minute but couldn’t manage any sounds that approached a real word.

  Lyn scratched the back of her head and decided to offer the answer to the question she knew Emma was trying to figure out asking, “We’re friends, right?”

  Tears began to stream again, but at least these ones looked happy. Or relieved. Or at least not sad or something. It was still uncomfortable in a way Lyn didn’t know how to deal with, but at least it felt like she’d done the right thing. Lyn let Emma get it out of her system for a bit.

  The woman eventually choked out, “Is it okay if I’m still Emma for now? It’s still me just-”

  “I get it, I’m starting to get a handle on having two selves,” Lyn told her. “Besides, you’ll need a new villain name to replace the other one soon enough so who cares about it.”

  Emma punched her in the leg as she stood up. Probably “playfully” given the snort of laughter accompanying it but fuuuuuuuuuck that felt like it was gonna bruise. Lyn recovered quickly and glanced over at Emma just in time to be wrapped up in a hug.

  “I’m not going to be a villain, but thank you for being my friend,” she said. “I really needed one of those, Evelyn.”

  Oh, she’s fucking super jacked, Lyn thought as she was crushed, barely hearing her friend over the pressure she’d just found herself in. Oh fuck, first the leg now this.

  Thankfully Emma released her quickly enough, letting her gasp in air and reset her spine.

  “You okay? I felt something-” she gestured at Lyn’s back.

  “Just fine!” Lyn interrupted, her extra legs rearranging themselves back into place. Neat, five bruised legs in under a minute…

  Emma at least had the decency to look a little guilty over that mistake, “Anyways, thanks again. I’m still… Look, thank you again for today, for trusting me and this… I… I think I need to go now.”

  “Yeah,” Lyn struggled to find her words.

  She felt like there still needed to be more said. She wanted to offer to help hunt down whatever villain she was clearly hunting for here, help her eviscerate them. Moreover, she saw that hesitation in her friend's eyes and felt like there was a lot more not being said here. A weight of responsibility, a frailness, and this stubborn need to be upright through it all. It made Lyn want to just grab her and spirit her away, lecturing her until she understood the freedom of a life of villainy which let you stop caring about everyone else in the world who looks at your greatness as some obligation while making you out to be a monster for it. On some foundational level, Lyn could see the same thing eating away at Emma that drove her to being Terrorantula in that weary expression.

  Or maybe just tie her up and leave her on Ned’s doorstep. Fucker was always better at this therapy shit. She decided against it as her ribs ached which decidedly warned her away from testing if Emma could break her webs.

  She couldn’t say anything though, feeling some gulf between Emma and herself.

  “Can… we still hang out?” Emma hesitated by the door out of the private room.

  “Yeah!” Lyn answered a little too quickly. “I mean, I still have work to do on you. I will make you a villain yet!”

  Emma laughed at that before silently slipping out the door, leaving Lyn alone in the darkness.