“What did you just call me?” The man or perhaps woman turned from examining the contents of a shelf to give Valorie a bit of a Look.
“Siren.” She cocked a hip and placed a hand on it, doing her best to return the Look without craning her head weirdly, considering that she was a bit too short to look down at her client. “Your street name? With the likelihood of this place being tapped by about twelve different interested groups since the last time you dealt with them, I’m hardly going to use your givenname.”
“That’s not the one you used last time, Spherica.” Sass for sass, she had to respect it.
“You have several names out there. Do none of your clients tell you about them?” It seemed that this record was not going to be accepted immediately, so she walked further in, setting it on a table and lowering herself into an armchair. “There’s enough aliases floating around that I have to go overtime just to verify whether a mention of you is you or just some upstart, or someone from out of state, and that on top of the potential for imitators…”
“Siren’s a bad one, there’s already a mermaid themed cape using it. Did you steal this, by the way, or do your identity theft thing?” Not-Siren came closer to inspect the record, picking it up and turning it over, probably looking for a price tag.
“In Philadelphia?”
“What?”
“Is the mermaid-themed Siren operating in Philadelphia? I should have heard of it if there’s a new one, for any affiliation.”
“Still on that, huh? No, Siren’s out in… Lancaster?” The record was removed from its case and examined under the light. “Hey, this is fresh! I thought you’d be going for secondhand.”
“No, secondhand’s worse quality and hurts small businesses.” There was a little bowl of hard candies within arm’s reach of her, but she was refraining from getting too close to them immediately.
“So you did steal it.” That was absolutely correct, but,
“I never said that. It would be pretty suspicious for my sister to be out secondhand record shopping when it’s currently her night shift, though, wouldn’t it, Dr Diva?”
Judging by the sound that followed this, if Not-Dr-Diva had been drinking something at the moment, that drink would have found itself quickly airborne and splattered over the wood floor and probably some of the furniture.
“They call me what,” came out strangled enough that Valorie could believe they had been choking just a second ago.
“That or Diva Doctor, nobody’s entirely certain which order it ought to fall in.”
“I’ve never even considered that many years of medical school, not– Not all healing types are medical types, all I do is sing!” Strangely, but in a way that was thoroughly in the norm when one was used to dealing with Not-Diva-Doctor, that raised voice managed to be soothing instead of grating.
“Then maybe you’d prefer Songbird?”
“That one’s taken by at least one person per state and you know one of the new sidekicks is looking at it for their temp alias.” Not-Songbird carefully slid the record back into its case and moved to line it up in an empty space on their shelf. Then turned around, giving Valorie a suspicious once-over. “You don’t have any more for me, do y–”
“Now that you mention it, Mx. Minstrel–”
“Oh not another–”
“–you wanted tabs kept on the requests, and I have one asking if you do rap?”
“Badly.”
“More of a demand than a request, really, but they won’t be able to back it up with anything substantial so I’m sure they’ll take whatever you want to give…” she paused as though not quite finished, just for the few seconds of tense, anticipatory eye contact before her next, “…Supercore.”
“That one’s not even a name! It’s not related to singing or healing, who came up with that one?”
“It’s the name of a niche aesthetic and music genre started onli–”
“Started online, of course it makes no sense.”
“A lot of my information comes from online sources, you know. Aside from the public hero profiles. People post a lot of footage, say a lot of things in supposedly-secure chatrooms…” The bowl of candy was calling to her too strongly to refuse by now. She casually selected something with a pink wrapper and passed it between her fingers for a minute before acknowledging it any further.
“Good thing we have our little arrangement, so the only thing I ever need the internet for is…” They paused when Valorie tapped one finger to her ear with a glance around, a reminder that the place was probably tapped. “…Alright, you know I make a whole deal out of not caring how my recordings sound, but I’ll admit that I know how to look up video tutorials.”
“Remarkable.” Finally looking at the candy, she found that it had a picture of a strawberry, and the label and ingredients were written in Hangul.
“I’d think you would agree with me about how nonsense the aliases that come from the internet are, all things considered, Spherica.”
“That was from the press,Balladeer. Where did you get these?”
“H-Mart had some on sale. Upper Darby, if you’re interested in identity theft this weekend.” They started rearranging the throw pillows, seemingly just for something to do with their hands, but possibly to annoy anyone with too poorly-placed of a recording device. “Balladeer?”
“I swear that some people just looked up synonyms for ‘singer’ for thirty seconds before picking one they thought was interesting.” Instead of tearing the wrapper open like a regular person, Valorie decided to see if she could get this one to pop by holding it just so and squeezing between thumb and curled forefinger.
“Interesting is a stretch. I know I’ve done some Johnny Cash covers, but that’s hardly my specialty… Spherica. Dear. Why did you… perk up like that, when I said Johnny Cash?”
“It turns out,” Valorie started, still wrestling with the surprisingly thick wrapper,
“Oh no.”
“…that some people decided to refer to you by other singers’ names. Mr Cash.” With a pop, the candy was freed.
“No.”
“Or would you prefer Mariah Carey, ma’am?” It was going to be difficult to keep a straight face with candy in her mouth while also pestering her client who was most certainly not Mariah Carey, but Valorie would manage.
“Nooo… That was one time.”
“Other options include–”
“Stop this at once, young lady,–”
“–Idol.”
“Too short, and I’m not famous enough.”
“I may contest you on the fame, Composer.”
“I have never composed once in my life since the day I was born.”
“Serenado,”
“No,”
“Seranada,”
“I’m sensing a pattern,”
“Serenadie,”
“Was this from the same people that came up with yours?”
“No, but it was used in the same circles that used The Vocalist.”
“With a capitalized ‘The’? Really?”
“I’m afraid so, Melody.”
“That one’s already taken at least twenty times, with a wait-list.”
“That’s rather unfortunate, Singster.”
“You’re making these up now. By yourself. In your head, right now, you’re making it up.”
“You have no way of proving that without using the internet, Doc Ditty.”
“Don’t ever say that in my office again, young lady.”
“It’s a deal, Caroler. Or Carol if you prefer.”
“And don’t say that one too much or you’ll summon… Her.”
“Word on the street is she’s been gone long enough to likely be dead by now, actually.”
“And? Word on the street is also that she’s too evil to die.”
“Just keeping you up to date, Cold Canary.”
“That sounds like turn of the century slang.”
“…I’m not certain it isn’t.” The candy was very good, she noted, even though she’d been talking around it since she put it in, not quite a realistic strawberry flavor but it certainly tasted very pink. “You know, I found a thread about you where they were trying to come up with an alias that would evoke a speakeasy lounge singer.”
“Who is ‘they’?”
“Teenagers, most likely, working on rumors and nothing else. I gave it a quick look into, no real information breaches. The most they got to was Speakeasy Singer before deciding it was too long and returning to calling you Dr Lullaby, which you may note is the same number of syllables.”
“Why’s everyone convinced I’m a doctor? I’m not even a trained nurse!” Not-Dr-Lullaby and Valorie both glanced around in what had become their usual ‘cursory wiretap acknowledgement’ way with that last sentence.
“Easier shorthand, I suppose. Though that does remind me of a couple more of your nicknames…”
“Are you ever going to run out of those?”
“Perhaps next time. I do have to leave soon, I have… another appointment, you could say.” Standing, she used the rustle of her clothes to mask the sound of her pulling out a folded note, holding it out between two fingers.
“I see, I see, you stick around exactly long enough to bother me but not long enough for me to dish any back, ah?” They stood, doing the same sound-masking trick while accepting the note but not unfolding or giving it a real look just yet.
“Someone in my line of work always knows when to retreat. And I don’t want to be stuck around here when you deal with your potential surveillance. I know you could fix any physical damage after the fact, but I would much prefer to keep my eardrums in a continuous state of…” The wording was going to be awkward, she realized now, but she pressed on, already waving a hand as if to dismiss the way it was phrased. “…remaining unbroken.”
“I’ll tell you if I start calling myself anything silly while you’re out, so you can throw out all your painstakingly collected lists.”
“I’ll make sure it gets laughed off the forums when you do, Beyonce.”
It was a nice night out. She preferred the cooler air, although it didn’t do much to help her stinging skin. And this was California, so it was only ‘cool’ compared to how hot it had been a few hours before. (Not that she’d been outside a few hours before, or very much at all in the last few days.) She would probably have been fine in just the threadbare clothes she’d been wearing during most of her latest infiltration, but the scarf and jacket she’d stolen (violently) on her way out was a welcome addition. It concealed most of her exposed injuries and some of the blood stained on her shirt, leaving anyone who saw her only able to wonder about what was up with the top half of her face.
A pretty normal sight, all things considered, to any experienced night guard at the building she was approaching now. The two at her preferred entrance melted out of the shadows as she approached, having definitely seen her coming from a distance.
“Excuse me, ma’am, what is your business at this…” one of them started, trailing off when she pulled the scarf down. She would like to think that it was just because they recognized her and not because the bruising had gotten that much worse since the last time she saw her reflection.
“Friendly afternoon visit,” she said with a winning smile, ignoring how stretching those facial muscles made her want to wince.
“…Can you tell us the date, ma’am?” the other one asked after a second of staring.
“November 3rd, 1923,” she said, still smiling, without skipping a beat.
“Past midnight it’s November 4th, ma’am.” The second one said evenly.
“Of course, the late hour must be getting to me.”
This passed quickly, like two actors going over their thoroughly memorized lines. After an exchanged glance and a pause that would have made anyone else start to doubt their delivery, the first guard nodded, pressed something on their communicator, and stepped back to get the door for her.
Not bothering to pull the scarf back up now, she walked confidently into the dimly lit back entrance area, making a beeline for where she knew the elevator was. There was a special code in here, too, to make it to the penthouse, but she had that one memorized as well.
Leaning back against the support bar for a minute was nice, though she had to position herself carefully so as not to let it dig into her back or side in a bad position. Closing her eyes on the ride up, she hummed slightly in appreciation of how smooth the elevators were here. No jittering to worry about, just a soft whirring and the slight feeling of vertigo as it came to a stop many storeys up in the air.
The more steps she took to get into one of the most well-defended areas of this place, putting a set of barriers between her and anyone who might have been in pursuit, the more tension bled out of her shoulders.
As soon as she stepped out of the elevator, she was met by the familiar face of the butler, who had evidently seen her coming and had already known that it was her, rather than the one other person who was allowed in that elevator with any regularity.
“Hey, Ash,” she said casually before they could get through a more formal greeting, raising one hand in a lazy wave and holding back a wince as it reminded her of a hit she’d taken to the shoulder earlier.
“Good evening.” They sounded as proper and English as ever, and she didn’t miss their perceptive eyes zeroing in on every unusual detail about her current appearance, not only the injuries but definitely also the ill-fitting clothes and hair in desperate need of a wash.
(She’d been lucky no one had decided an impromptu haircut was in the cards. She wouldn’t have been able to stop them without breaking cover, but that would have been a little more awkward to explain to her sisters than the usual aftermath of a prolonged fight.)
“…Victor won’t be in for another week, I’m afraid, but the room is open to you as always,” they said with the air of someone who was giving the usual pleasantries only as a precursor to a more serious subject change, and was not trying to hide it. “Are you alright?” And there was the serious part.
“Yeah,” she shrugged, rolled her shoulders, and this time could not stop a wince. She merged it smoothly into a more joking sort of smile-grimace. “It’s just from the job I’ve been on, there were a couple of “complications,” you know how it is. No death traps in the kitchen tonight?”
The attempt at changing the subject again was not successful, as Ashton followed her into the kitchen and shooed her away to wait on a barstool while they got her a glass of water with exactly one cube of ice. Or, a sphere of ice, because the fridge here was massive and fancy and had both a cube and a sphere option for how the ice could come out.
The water was wonderful to her parched throat, and she held the glass up longer than necessary to let the ice rest against the split in her lip for a few seconds. It was always nice to spend a few minutes after one in the morning sipping water with a tall British person in a suit and pencil skirt hovering over her every move.
“Need something?” she asked with a look over the lip of the glass.
“Are you sure you’re alright, Ms Roxanne? You don’t need… medical attention?” Right, yeah, they were a highly skilled government agent before they became a butler. Definitely had some good first aid training from all that.
“Just some bandaids and a full night’s sleep… And, again, you can call me Roxy.”
Ashton did not look convinced, and then they turned to where she knew the painkillers and general medications of varying strengths were stored. There was no stopping them from this now, but she could try anyway for the principle of the thing.
“I’ve done this before, Ashton, it’s not that bad.”
“To put it lightly, Ms Roxanne, you look as though you tried to fight a team of superheroes. Or, if I were inclined to be generous, won a fight against an entire street gang.” Maintaining stern eye contact, they set down a couple of pills and a cookie.
“Not as wrong as you could be.” Roxy picked up the cookie first, searching both sides with suspicion. It was the imported kind that was labeled ‘biscuit’ instead of ‘cookie’ and which everyone knew she secretly liked but pretended to be suspicious of anyway. Because they were in the US, so being suspicious of England was funny. “What’s this, weird, British thing– trying to poison me?”
“Would you like me to put the biscuit away and let you have an upset stomach? Please pardon me for assuming you haven’t eaten in the last hour.”
Not feeling up to a prolonged bit at the moment, Roxy caved and ate the ‘biscuit’. After swallowing the painkillers with the second half of her water, she let the ice sit for a moment again. It turned out talking too much made the split lip hurt worse, who could’ve guessed?
“I notice you snuck some melatonin in there,” she observed.
“To help you sleep. Pardon me again for assuming you may have some trouble, otherwise,” they paused and looked her up and down again, “considering.”
“Fair,” she admitted.
They sat in silence as she finished off the water one sip at a time. She debated waiting for the ice to melt enough that she could take another tiny sip every several minutes, just to see how Ashton would react, then decided against it and crunched what remained of the ice sphere.
Getting to bed wasn’t too much of a hassle. Ashton followed her to the master bathroom, because of course they did, but left her to go inside by herself. She only heard them step in once she was in the middle of showering, presumably to put some things on the counter and whisk away her dirty and one hundred percent stolen clothing.
Hot water would be nice and she happened to know for a fact that it was literally unlimited here, but she kept it to a mild, lukewarm temperature as she carefully cleaned everything she could currently reach without wincing, and let soap and water wash down her back unassisted to at least get the worst of it off back there. Drying off was a little bit of an ordeal, but the towels were very soft and she didn’t have any head wounds to stop her from wrapping up her hair. Everything she couldn’t get for the risk of aggravating some injury or another could just air dry while she went looking for first aid supplies to use on her face.
When she turned around to see how her back looked, she let out a low whistle. Who knew whips could do that when you weren’t being nice and responsible with them? (Probably every single person who’d ever been remotely involved with the “market” that her latest job had had her infiltrating.)
There were two options here. One, she could put on the silky robe Ashton had left hanging up for her and go to bed without dealing with all that yet, and probably wake up really sore and maybe with some kind of infection. Two, she could get some help tending to it and go to bed with some level of reassurance that it was fine, but at the cost of Ashton knowing exactly how bad it looked.
With a towel around her waist, she cracked the door and summoned them. Their face remained carefully neutral even after they saw, which definitely meant that they thought it was incredibly bad but knew that Roxy would not be taking constructive criticism on the choices she made that led up to it. That, or, they just didn’t want to get into it right now, in favor of getting her into a bed at some point during that melatonin’s window of greatest effect.
There was a lot more stinging disinfectant and a lot more bandaging going on back there than Roxy would have thought necessary, herself, but she wasn’t going to complain. Anything touching the whip marks directly was incredibly Bad with a capital B, but she had to admit to feeling a lot better once they were all cleaned and wrapped up.
The one joke she cracked about how it wasn’t as bad as it could be because she didn’t have any broken bones did not seem to go over well, so she conceded and didn’t say much until they were done. Ashton helped her into the robe and left her to get some pajama pants on by herself, continuing to hover and help until she was safely tucked in between Victor’s silk sheets.
It was still uncomfortable to lie down in most positions she tried, but, then again, that melatonin really was having a window of greatest effect.
- - -
Predictably, Roxy woke up sore. The painkillers had worn off at some point, so she got the full experience of throbbing and stinging and every attempted movement making her limbs want to go on strike. They had not yet managed to achieve independence from the rest of her, however, so when she decided it was time for them to get her standing up, they obeyed. The blackout curtains did their job well, so she had to pull one back slightly if she wanted to see by anything other than the soft, slightly futuristic floor lights on the edges of the room.
Taking stock, she determined that this was actually better than a couple of the times she’d come out of a mission injured. When her hair fell into her face for want of a headband, it was soft and light from being cleaned with incredibly expensive, high quality rich-people products, and she knew her back would have been a lot worse without Ashton’s help.
Speaking of Ashton, they seemed to have woken up before her, because she could smell something cooking. Possibly more than one something, which would make sense if they still felt like hovering but hadn’t come in to wake her up yet. There was the almost-imperceptible sound of voices, as if they were talking to themself or perhaps playing a video. Cooking tutorial, maybe.
The stolen clothing from the night before was nowhere to be seen; either it was waiting to be washed or Ashton had burned it. Roxy wasn’t worried about what happened to most of it, but it would be nice if the bloodstained parts had been saved in case she felt like getting them tested for genes.
Leaving the robe on the bed, she stretched her arms as much as they dared as she made her way to steal one of Victor’s shirts. They were long enough that she had gone around the penthouse in one with no pants before (but she would rather get stabbed again than get out of these soft pajama pants before eating something). There were no headbands to steal in Victor’s bedroom, and she didn’t feel like scavenging the bathroom for elastics, clips, or pins. So, with her hair loose, wearing no more than pajama pants, bandages, and an oversized button-up shirt, she pushed her hair back and stepped out.
Ashton was, indeed, doing their thing in the kitchen, wearing pants today along with an apron that looked a little too professional for someone making relatively normal breakfast in a non-restaurant kitchen. More curtains kept the floor-to-ceiling windows in the main area from letting in too much light, but from the angle and brightness she could still estimate that it must be later than she usually woke up. And from a glance at the clock, she could confirm that it was almost nine in the morning. She had reallyoverslept.
As she nosed her way into the cooking space, she found them carefully transferring what looked like small fried pies out of a skillet. Uncooked ones waited their turn on a plate nearby.
“You need a little more oil,” she observed, her voice coming out a little more thick and sleepy than she would have liked. Actually wait, hold on, she hadn’t seen anyone making these since the last time she visited family. “You can make spanakopita?” The question came out sounding like an accusation.
“I can make anything, given a good recipe, Ms Roxanne.” So that probably had been a cooking video she’d heard before. Ashton removed the last one from the pan and reached for more oil, but refrained from putting any new ones in until they had turned to shoo her away from the barstools. “I would invite you to wait in the living area,” was their way of banishing her, possibly to avoid having their cooking process nitpicked again. Possibly also to keep her from seeing them pull up a tutorial to nitpick their own cooking process with.
When she stifled a yawn with the back of her hand, she was reminded of her shoulders’ present desire to complain about everything but especially movement. Sitting down in a chair that had a soft back would be pretty nice…
The living area was surrounded by sliding walls that could be used to keep it more or less separate from the adjacent sometimes-areas sometimes-rooms. At the moment, it had a wide doorway on one side, a deployed wall opposite the full length windows, and a view into Victor’s office area and the back of his tall spinny chair. Were she feeling inclined to snoop, Roxy would have looked into there, but was distracted easily by the setup surrounding one of the lounge chairs. A side table held a full glass of water with exactly one sphere of ice, a small pitcher with more water and no ice, and a tall mug of steeping tea. The matching table on the other side held a very inviting plate of buttered toast, with a fried egg sitting on top of one piece.
For a second, she thought about draping herself over a couch instead of taking the obviously intended seat, just to see how Ash reacted. But her desire for water and toast outweighed her desire for mischief at this time, so she sank down into the black leather and took a second to close her eyes and breathe in and will her strained muscles to relax. It wasn’t like the guys she’d been spying on could make it up here, even if they had somehow tracked her all the way to the building. And her next information rendezvous wasn’t until that evening, so she could take a minute to chill.
When her eyes opened, it was to the realization that her current seat was centered perfectly behind Victor’s chair, brought to her by the realization that said chair was slowly turning around.
Of the two supervillains that she was familiar with, she knew that one of them participated in dramatics mostly because it helped with the stress of the job, and partly because it was fun. Victor Stirling, on the other hand, having inherited quite a few things from his supervillain parents including a general style of mannerisms, was probably not doing the chair spin reveal thing ironically.
Before he came to a stop, facing her head-on, Roxy put together that Ashton must have called him about her condition either while she was in the shower or after she had fallen asleep last night. If he hadn’t meant to come back for another week, very few other things could have summoned him on such short notice.
She prepared a smirk and a tease about him being predictable, but both died before making it out when she met his eyes.
“So I’m not known for cutting business meetings short.” Starting off strong with a non sequitur, classic. Roxy’s smile started to edge back on as she watched Victor stand up from his seat.
“Catch you in the middle of one?” she asked, then remembered her voice wasn’t great at the moment and she would be partaking of some water before saying anything else.
“No, I was just starting the day in Spain, actually,” he answered while watching as if worried that she might have trouble drinking water, of all things. And without waiting for another response, he launched right back into… Ooh, he was monologuing.
“Allow me to paint a picture of it for you. It was past ten in the morning, I had completed much of my less savory business the night before, and had the entire afternoon ahead of me booked with meetings on the more savory side of things, when suddenly I find I’m receiving a call from my good, trusted friend Ashton, whom you may be aware I’ve expressly told to call me only in the circumstances of an emergency.
“And, upon answering this call, what should I hear them say, but that my girlfriend arrived at a late hour and is much worse for wear.
“Now, I know that my dear, competent, intelligent partner is experienced and knows how to handle herself in her work, so if Ashton is calling my emergency line, the situation she finds herself in must be truly dire, no? Certainly not the usual bouts of combat –which I am well aware you can normally teleport out of the moment they become too much– and certainly not gained from your usual heists and espionage, no, I was told that you seem to have been whipped?”
The worry in his voice was clear, and would have been clear even to someone who didn’t know him well enough to read him. As he drew closer, having apparently vented enough of his feelings for the moment to move to the next stage of his presentation, Roxy saw that his suit was rumpled and was probably, in fact, the same suit he had put on before 10 AM in Madrid. Had he slept at all? Maybe on the couch she had been eyeballing a second before this began. If anyone had gone into his bedroom while she was asleep, she probably wouldn’t have stayed asleep for very long.
“And I don’t mean to put down your skills, it would be foolish for anyone in my position to suggest that you aren’t a professional, or chose your mission poorly. But your present state is…” He broke eye contact to look down at the gauze covering her torso through the gap in the stolen shirt. He probably knew that it was there for everything on her back, but he wouldn’t be wrong to wonder if it was also hiding any bruises over her ribs or stomach area. She knew there was a pretty bad one peeking out by her collarbone.
“Roxanne. Roxy. I know that in our… business relationship, I tend to be the one who calls on you for assistance in these underground affairs, but you must know that you can call on me when something is… of a caliber where you may want my assistance.” He stopped a couple of steps in front of her, giving another up and down look. “You mentioned you were going into something undercover.”
“Deep undercover,” she confirmed. When he kept looking expectant, she continued, leaning forward to get to business, “It wasn’t in the cards to go in on the same level as the higher-ups, and we needed to confirm how exactly they get the victims and transport them. So I posed as one.”
Victor was quiet for a moment, his crossed arms rising, then falling as he took a breath and let it out.
“You remained just long enough to get the necessary information,” he assumed, and she nodded. Letting out another breath, he closed the distance and half-knelt in front of her in one smooth motion, reaching up to put a hand gently under her chin, moving it to cup the side of her face. “Then I hope you’ll be able to tell me,” his voice was softer now, not that that in any way concealed the dangerous undertone as his eyes lingered on her split lip, black eye, the faint bruise left from a harsh slap, “who did this to you?”
Concept: a superhero whose civilian identity is five different people. Not like they’re a hive mind or they can duplicate themselves or anything – they’re just a group of five people who all have different powers but coincidentally wear roughly the same size costume, who’ve decided to team up and share the same heroic persona. As far as both the general public and the broader super-powered community know, they’re a single incredibly hard-working super with a bewildering variety of seemingly unrelated powers, except they only have access to any given power some of the time owing to complex criteria they refuse to adequately explain.
(Thus far they’ve been very careful to ensure that their heroic persona is never provably in two places at once, though honestly it’s only a matter of time; there’s some argument among the group whether to deal with that eventuality by coming clean, or by claiming that bilocation is also one of their powers.)
Each of them has a different specific weakness. After a long and harrowing fight their Archnemesis discovers that the Hero’s vulnerable to silver. Three weeks later they’ve got the Hero wrapped head to toe in silver chains, only to have the super-strong Hero break out like it was toilet paper.
“I hate sneezes. Why can my body can do things involuntary that I can’t do on command. I thought I gave the orders around here,” the Supervillain snapped.
The henchman sighed, and left the soup on their desk. They were like this everytime they got sick.
Taking care of business, every daaay!!!…not really, with Pokemon taking up all my time. That changes today though! Today I got the first chapter of my comic thumbed; I plan to post it as a weekly webcomic soon. It’ll be a re-make of an old comic I did for class, “Sidekick Support Group.” I know this thumbnail probably makes little to no sense to most of you, but it’s still proof that something is on the way!
Maybe I’ll post the old version in the meantime ❤ Dani.K
Fic by Bice (Source of pictures: twitter.com/GoddessSkotia)
“Oh, pardon me, I didn’t think you would be home so soon. I was just enjoying your chaise… I am a woman who does love the chase, you see.” She giggled at her own joke. You barely had the capacity to register that there was even humor in what she said though by the way her body looked. Sleek black latex painted onto her body in stark contrast to the white leather couch. She looked like she was made to be there.
The fact that you didn’t know her and that she was in your home unannounced only crossed your mind after you finally were able to move your eyes off of her for more than an eyeblink.
“Now, before we get into any of the more interesting issues that arise by you having come home a bit too early for my liking, I shall explain that I have come here strictly to rob you. That was my sole intention. With furniture like this, I can’t imagine what the jewelry looks like.” She yawned, stretching out over the chaise. Her back arched and her arm stretched above her head, aware that the admittance of her potential robbery was at odds with the lust you couldn’t help but feel for her.
You should be calling the police. You should be calling the front desk. There was so much you should be doing, but to go and do those things would be to miss her next subtle movement.
She sat up, every gesture felt like it was exaggerated and on purpose to continue the show. “My name is .. well, irrelevent really, as you’ll have a personal name for me shortly, but the papers have referred to me as Shine.”
You had heard of Shine… the cat burgler who had been driving the police mad from the lack of evidence they had of her even existing.
Well, she existed, and she was in your living room.
“You seem to have already gleaned where my name came from, but if you want, I shall spell it out more clearly. Every inch of this outfit, from my peacock earrings, my diamond choker, and yes, even the latex, is coated in a gently vibrating pattern of glimmering light that has kept your very being locked into place… hasn’t it?”
She looks at you, daring you to answer her question while her mouth takes the tip of her glove and begins to pull on it teasingly.
You say nothing… and you are certain at this point that you can’t. Perhaps a noise comes out of your throat, a low moan that may have sounded like ‘yes’ but like everything else, your eyes and ears have taken complete control over any other sense.
“Well then..” she continues, “as it seems everything is as it should be, I feel perfectly comfortable in admitting to you that I was well aware you would be coming home… and I was looking forward to it.”
And in one word, her tone changes from teasing, sultry, and oozing sex - into a demand. A demand you can’t help but listen to.
“Kneel.”
The positioning of her body, open and inviting. Her legs, glimmering. Her eyes, intently watching you. What more did she want? Because whatever it was.. it was hers to take.
“You will take off your clothes while I tell you what you will remember.. what you won’t… and how I like to be pleased. You may speak. Is that clear?”
You let out words, soft breathy empty words that sound like “yes Shine”
She giggles, her whole body twinkling, “No… I told you.. you have a special name for me. …and that’s Goddess. Now let’s get to work.”
Diamondback (Rachel Leighton) . Starting off as a Supervillain (part of the Serpent Society) to become a (kind of) sidekick for Captain America! . What’s your opinion on Diamondback? . 1st - 4th slide is from the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe v3 3 (1991) by Keith Pollard and Josef Rubinstein. . #diamondback #captainamerica #Marvel #supervillain #serpentsociety #davehoover #dannybulanadi https://www.instagram.com/p/Cd6tZ3wKvIo/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=
MySuper-rich SuperVillain collection was missing some undies. Like the first part of the collection, these items tend to be a bit stylish and sophisticated without being over-the-top. The feminine lingerie comes as separate tops and bottoms.
I’m having so much fun playing the new scenario Super-rich SuperVillain that I’ve made an entire collection for my supervillains and secret agents. This collection tends to be fashion, chic, a bit sophisticated without being over-the-top because, ya know, Sims work undercover here
I’m playing the Super-rich SuperVillain scenario with Ava, she’s a real b!tch and steals pretty much everything valuable. She’s a genius with very high tech skills, which makes her an excellent secret agent. Well, more of a double, or triple, agent. Ava always choose HER side and what’s the most profitable to her.
Her job requires some discretion, so I choose some looks fitting her personality but without being over-the-top.
Bizarro I designed for an unrealized Super Friends project several years ago. Short lived freelance, but I got to sit in a room with Bruce Timm and chat superheroes. Not bad:-)
