Supervillain Girlfriend!

Part Two, Chapter Eighteen: Sellout

Beatrice felt awful about leaving Charlie to go on her mission. Although she was all smiles the next morning, Beatrice could tell she was still in an emotionally vulnerable state. Beatrice had even offered to play sick so that she could stay home with her, but Charlie had encouraged her to go in anyway. 

"I wouldn't want to hold you back from your job." She had said.

 Beatrice hadn't had the courage to tell her that it didn't feel like being held back. If anything, she felt like her job was holding her back. 

And so Beatrice had gone, expecting the mission to last one night at most, but that quickly stretched into two, and then into three. Three days and no sign of their target. Three days of camping out on a rickety pier at a trash filled lake, staring at an environmental hazard to see if it was going to blow up or not. 

Between taking turns with Lin keeping watch on the oil pipeline she texted Charlie and played solitaire, wondering if stopping evil was always this painfully boring. 

Maybe being the evil one was always more exciting. 

Eventually she moved on to skipping rocks across the water to pass time, when her phone started ringing. 

She used the button on her wrist to answer the call. 

"What's up?" She said, expecting Lin to be on the other end. 

"Are you busy?" 

It wasn't Lin. It was her brother. 

"Unfortunately I am not." She said. "Why? What's Going on?"

"Nothing really, I just wanted to talk." He said. 

"Oh, okay." She said, "I could use some entertainment anyway." 

"So, how's it going so far?"

"Well, I'm just standing on a pier right now, kind of waiting for something to happen." Beatrice said. "So pretty boring."

"I actually meant like, in general." He said, "You know, are you happy being a hero?"

Beatrice tossed another rock across the pond while she paused and tried to gather her thoughts. For some reason, she didn't want to be completely honest with him.

"Of course. Why wouldn't I be?"

"I was just thinking about how when you were little, you used to tell me that you wanted to work at a zoo. You know, in that room with the jungle wallpaper, so you  take care of the reptiles and the amphibians." 

Color rushed to her cheeks as her stomach filled with embarrassment, despite the fact she was alone.

"That was back when I was a dumb kid." She said, "I'm an adult now, TJ. I can actually make money doing this."

"I just want to make sure that you're safe and happy." 

"Well, I want you to be safe and happy too." She said, "You're the only family that I have and the only family I've ever had." 

He chucked a little but, something she was thankful for. 

"I'm happy," he said. "Hey, I started a garden yesterday."

"Yeah?" 

"Yeah, well, it's just seeds so it's kind of just a bunch of pots with dirt in them right now, but I'm sure in a few weeks it'll be slightly more impressive—"

There was a muffled bang, and something whizzed by her helmet. 

She sighed and threw the last rock in her palm into the water.