Arch Frenemies

Part 63: Love Monster

Without her touch, he was quickly engulfed in his own radioactive energy, and if he didn't have his emotions in check he swore green sparks would have hit the ceiling. 

"But you have to." he warned.
"You have to know this can't work. Me and you? A hero and a villain? Children of another set of arch rivals? Please, this makes Romeo and Juliet look like amateur hour."

"You can't do this to me Toxic. Not here, not now, it's not fair." She throws the blankets off of herself and walked around the bed. 
"We can't just forget this happened. You might be able to lock away how you feel, but I cannot!" She yelled, walking right up to him, but not invading his personal space. 
"Yes Hero, we can, we have to, because technically...  This. Never. Happened." 
Toxic pointed to the ground with each word in metaphor. 
"This trip, him bringing you back from the dead, helping you. None of it," 
He crossed his arms in front of himself, emphasizing the word never. 
"Loving you..." 
He wanted to add but refrained
"If we succeed this mission and we can go back to our normal lives, nothing will have changed between us. You're still the hero in this story and I'm still the villain. We keep fighting. I continue trying to kill you, and you keep putting me in jail until one of us kills the other." 
He spoke without feeling, despite emotions trying desperately to break the bars of his mental cage.

She rubbed her shoulders, furious but her lip was trembling. Galaxy Girl was angry and sad at same time, something the bad guy didn't even know was possible.
"You can try your best to deny it, but whatever happened between us, it did happen! Nothing is going to change that. You can't just pretend it didn't happen!" She snapped at him, still rubbing her shoulders with her hands.
He gathered up all his courage; preparing to utter the words he needed to say, and how he needed to say them. It would have to be the best performance of his life.
"Remember what I told you when we started this?" he forced himself to look into her eyes, Toxic never imagined lying to her would be so hard. 
"What happens on dance tour, stays on dance tour," 
He reminded coldly. 

"Let's just be grateful we had the chance to get it out of our systems." His voice was filled with more ice than it had ever contained. It really was the performance of a lifetime.
"Get it out of our systems?" 
Her jaw dropped and her eyes fill with fire. 
"What do you mean by that?!?" 

Toxic became suddenly and extremely grateful that she didn't possess heat ray vision, for if she had, he knew he would probably be a little green puddle of melted super villain based on the look she was shooting him right now.
He braced himself for another lie.
"We both know what this was," he motion back and forth between them. 
"It's lust, mixed in with a very messed up cousin of Stockholm syndrome; but that's it, nothing more."  He felt more robotic than human as the steely words fell from his lips, but he knew it was for the best. It was what she needed to see him as, and the only way he could protect her.

"Nothing more? Nothing more?!?" 
She narrows her eyes at him, obviously infuriated. 
"What about...the emotions? Everything you said?!?" 
He tried not to flinch even though her tone cut into his skin.
"It was an overload of hormones and endorphins. Being around you drained my powers so much that my brain couldn't cope with all the exposure. Like I said, feel lucky we had this chance to get rid of all that icky human.
After all these years of solitude and celibacy.  It was bound to happen. It was lust. Nothing more."

"Nothing more?" 
She practically whimpered.
"What?" he crossed his arms?
"You didn't think I could actually love, did you?" he shook his head in disapproval. 
"You of all people should know that isn't possible!" 
He exclaimed as he unlocked one of his silver briefcases. 
"I am a monster. A walking radioactive catastrophe. Mastermind’s most successful experiment." Toxic continued as a stream of ant-sized microbots began to crawl out and surround their recently acquired Power Cell. 

"I can't feel love, my creator ensured that."

Out of the corner of his eye, Toxic saw his microbots removing the cover of the air conditioning vent and dragging the power cell inside. He swung on his coat, fumbling for the suitcase containing the miniaturized time paralysis unit, along with the shrinking ray.
He tried to walk cool and collected to the door, closing it behind himself. 

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A/N: Hey guys,
Sorry for the long absence.
Broke up with my long term partner last week, but things had been broiling over long before then.
Almost two years we were together and he never read a single page of either of my books, so that should have been a sign. Before I met him I had a lot of confidence in myself, and he kind of sucked that all from me, and it took a while to realize that I wasnt the problem.
It's been rough, and I spent a while recuperating from the break up, and just now am starting to feel as if I can write again. Will post another Arch Frenemies chapter asap.
-QueenOfGeeks.