“Um, can you tell me something first? What are we?” Christian asked stupidly.

Avery grinned at him with a mischievous sparkle in her eye. “Well, I don’t know what I am but you’re mine now. If that wasn’t your end goal you shouldn’t have kissed me like that.”

His heart thumped unevenly. Hers now. He really shouldn’t but he liked the sound of that. He would gladly be hers for as long as he could get away with it. He hoped that was able to last as long as possible.

“…that’s fair. Sorry about that. I kind of lost my head.”

“Don’t you dare apologize!” she insisted.

“Sorry. I mean!—okay, I won’t apologize anymore,” Christian said wishing he could bury his head in the sand like an ostrich.

Avery shrugged this off but a moment later her eyes widened and she slapped the couch next to her as if she thought of something important. “I don’t even know your last name! If you’re going to date me that’s fairly vital information to have. Mine’s West.”

He already knew that but she didn’t know he knew. This was going to be confusing, wasn’t it? “It’s Slater. Are you on social media at all? If you are I’ll add you.”

“Yep. Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and Tumblr. I follow a lot of cake decoration pages.”

Of course she did. He had heard of Pinterest and Tumblr but didn’t know what exactly they entailed. All he had was Facebook and Instagram in order to stay in limited contact with people from college.

Christian found her pages easily enough and added her. She accepted the requests right next to him and a moment later he got a notification saying that she had changed her status to ‘in a relationship’ and tagged him.

They hadn’t used the words outright but she had essentially laid claim to him already and he had decided to go along with it. He accepted the tag and she smiled in satisfaction.

“There. Now that’s settled so do you want to play Battleship or something? It’s been ages since I’ve played because Vanessa and Angelo don’t like that they always lose to me,” Avery said casually.

He didn’t want to push his luck asking if they could resume what they were doing before since they had been official for less than two minutes so he agreed. There would be plenty of time to kiss more later since he was her boyfriend now.

Christian sincerely hoped he hadn’t just made the biggest mistake of his life getting involved with someone he knew he would have to leave someday. He was already under her spell and could see that getting much worse based on his limited experience with her. She was special like that.

===

Christian was much nobler and more self-sacrificing than Avery was considering he tried to back away knowing he was a hero and couldn’t be in a normal relationship. She supposed that was why he was a hero and she was a villain.

She barely managed to keep her cool when she finally wore him down into agreement and he kissed her so thoroughly she nearly forgot her name. Her calm was a lie. After she was sure he was no longer on the same floor as her apartment she squealed at top volume.

Ahhhhhhhhh! She was actually Mercury’s girlfriend!!

In all of the times she had fantasized about the impossible she never would have imagined how amazing a kisser he would be. Her previous boyfriends paled in comparison.

Avery knew this wouldn’t last as well as he did unless she miraculously managed to take down Hunsacher in the next couple of years and could put Nox behind her forever. That still didn’t factor in his side of the equation. He didn’t know she was already aware of his secret identity. If she wasn’t a villain this wouldn’t be an issue.

But she was. If she wasn’t she wouldn’t shamelessly date her archnemesis.

She had been so happy and relaxed thriving off of simply being around him this past week. Happy and relaxed feelings weren’t a regular part of her life since her father’s death. She had been a normal person before that…albeit one with a villain for a father.

Levi West had been a good person though. If he hadn’t been he wouldn’t care about a tyrant taking over the country or helping the oppressed. It was caring about the fates of other people that got him killed.

Avery had a bit of his altruism but she was also fueled by revenge. She was more selfish than he was too but she couldn’t be bothered by that now. She had already come this far.

She was trying to save the world, albeit illegally. Didn’t she deserve to have a tiny bit of happiness too?

Her phone rang and she saw it was Angelo. She pushed the accept button and immediately had to hold the phone away from her ear because he was yelling into it in rapid fire Spanish.

“AVERY WEST WHY DIDN’T YOU TELL ME YOU GOT A BOYFRIEND?! DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW DANGEROUS THIS IS? IT COULD JEOPARDIZE OUR MISSION! I KNOW YOU THINK WITH YOUR HEART MORE THAN YOUR HEAD BUT YOU NEED TO BE SMARTER THAN THIS.”

Avery should have expected a lecture. He didn’t give Jorge a hard time about having a girlfriend considering his role was much less visible than hers and he had an excuse for being gone frequently. But she wasn’t in danger of getting caught.

“Relax, Angelo! He works weekends; he’ll never suspect a thing,” she said soothingly.

He did, slightly. She knew that was what he was primarily worried about. “Is this the subway guy? He’s the only person I know you’ve been out with recently.”

“Yeah.”

“Once again, I told you he liked you! The real question is why you got into a relationship with him so quickly when you’re hung up on your hero. That doesn’t sound like you, Güera. You’re too obsessive to switch tacks like this.”

“Wow, thanks,” Avery deadpanned.

“You know it’s true! What made you change your mind, anyway? No wait—don’t tell me. It’s because you secretly like being a damsel in distress and want to be saved all the time and this guy helped you out once just like Mercury did,” Angelo mused. “And here I thought you were embarrassed about the whole bloody nose thing.”

She couldn’t tell the truth but she definitely had to refute that. She did NOT like being a damsel in distress. She didn’t like Mercury because he saved her; she liked him because she already knew a bunch of good things about him and then he bought her a hot dog when he didn’t have to do that. It was the extra act of kindness that got to her rather than the save itself.

In hindsight it made sense. Christian must have already liked her and wanted to do something to make her feel better. He was a rather helpful person by nature.

“That wasn’t it!” Avery protested with a scowl.

Angelo didn’t seem convinced. “Oh? What was it then? What amazing thing did he do that made you stop liking Hero Boy?”

She had to jump on the first thing she could. He wasn’t aware of the apology cake thing but he did know she had a weird sense of humor that few people could appreciate. It wasn’t so unreasonable she would like him if he understood that part of her.

“I felt bad about bleeding all over him so I made him an apology cake and he thought it was hilarious. I became curious about him after that so when he asked me out I had no reason to say no. We’ve talked a lot since then and he’s really cool. I figured it makes more sense to take the person that likes me that I’m allowed to be with than continue pining after someone who doesn’t know I exist,” she lied.

She could practically hear Angelo rolling his eyes. “It’s about time! Good for you. You know, aside from the potential to completely ruin everything we’ve worked for. At least you’ve started accepting reality a little. Having a crush on your archnemesis really was too ridiculous.”

Oh boy would he flip if he knew the truth! Dating her archnemesis was even worse. But nobody knew it but her and she was only 99% positive her theory was correct. The 1% margin of error was what she was desperately clinging to as an excuse.

“As you’ve pointed out many times. Do you have anything else to say or can I go now?” Avery asked.

The longer she talked about this the more likely it was she would unintentionally give herself away. She didn’t even want to think about what his reaction would be if she found out exactly who her new boyfriend was.

“No. I suppose I’ll have to meet him at some point though. Officially. Since I only saw him for like a minute last time I wasn’t able to form much of an impression,” Angelo replied nonchalantly.

“We did only just start dating. Having him meet you this early wouldn’t make sense but I’m sure it will happen eventually.”

Avery wasn’t looking forward to that. Christian would have to make something up on the spot about what his ‘on call’ weekend work was if Angelo asked. Plus there was a good chance he would try to embarrass her on purpose. That was simply the way her friend was.

She agreed absently to get him off her back and ended the call before sighing and flopping backward on the couch. She really hoped that this wouldn’t backfire horribly on her. All she wanted to do was have a little fun with the guy she liked. Dating was hard when you had a secret double life.