Vanessa knew about Avery’s crush but thought it was a case of being starstruck because he saved her. That she loved him the way people loved celebrities they had never met. She didn’t know about her friend’s double life.

When she arrived she snapped Avery out of her thoughts and made a rather dramatic entrance. “Aves! The cheddar popcorn beckons. Where’s the biggest bowl you have?”

In terms of looks the two friends were total opposites but they had so much else in common that they practically shared a brain. People frequently thought they were related despite Vanessa having creamy brown skin, black eyes, and a mass of dark curls and Avery being an albino.

She was as pale as could be and had violet eyes. Even her eyelashes were white so mascara was a must. So was drawing on her eyebrows because otherwise it looked like she didn’t have any.

Right now in her pajamas without her face made up she looked even whiter than usual. No one got to see her like this but Vanessa and Angelo but that was only because he had known her so long he already knew every embarrassing thing about her.

“It’s on the counter already. I knew you’d want it,” Avery replied with a yawn.

“Sweet. I’ll get on the popcorn situation stat. Have you picked a movie yet?” Vanessa asked.

“Yeah. I was thinking we could watch that one where the rival bookstore owners have the online friendship and fall in love. Sound good to you?”

“That one’s fun! They have great chemistry. Witty banter is a totally necessary part of any relationship, which is probably why none of mine work out. Sometimes I wonder if men even have brains.”

Avery laughed. Having someone else understand the importance of witty banter was nice. There was a reason the two of them got along so well.

“Right?!”

There was one man she knew that had the witty banter part down. But knowing it was impossible made her movie choice downright masochistic. She was immersing herself in longing for something that could never be.

She shook those depressing thoughts free. Now wasn’t the time for that. She was here and was going to enjoy making movie commentary and stuffing herself on cheddar popcorn with her best friend.

She and Vanessa met in culinary school despite having different specialties and ended up hired at the same bakery entirely by chance. They didn’t become close until after they found themselves working together every day and both regretted their missed chance to have a school buddy.

There was no use regretting it now. They had been best friends ever since. Avery told her everything…except about the fact that she was Nox.

She knew she couldn’t—the more people that knew about her secret identity the more danger she would be in—but it killed her a little more inside each time she couldn’t tell Vanessa something.

“Cheddar popcorn coming at you right now!” Vanessa announced cheerfully as she plopped down next to Avery so forcefully that some spilled out of the bowl onto her pajama pants.

She cracked a smile. “Literally.”

“My bad. Once we’ve polished this off we should paint our nails. Something pretty that will distract from the cheese dust stains.”

It was hard to stay in a bad mood with Vanessa around. She had a way of making Avery laugh in any situation. She was able to push her concerns about her pitiful love life and the fact that she was keeping secrets to the back of her mind.

“Sounds great. Thanks, Ness.”

“I’ve got your back, girl! Everyone has dead days. We can go out some other time,” Vanessa reassured her.

Avery hugged a large blue owl plushy to her chest and felt herself relax. No matter how tired she got because of her missions she still loved the weekends. Especially when she got to spend them with people she cared about.

===

Christian Slater hated weekends. It was when the villains seemed to be at their most active though he still had hero duties to attend to during the week as well. It felt like that was all he did sometimes.

He hadn’t meant to become a hero but it was hard not to when you had superpowers. From the moment he was born he unconsciously began floating. That really freaked out his parents and the medical staff in the room. His mother had to swear them to secrecy because she didn’t want them to take him away to be experimented on.

She put weighted clothes and ankle weights on him to keep him grounded but as he learned to work around that and keep moving it made him significantly stronger than the average person. He was fast too.

On top of all of that he had a sixth sense about certain things. Such as if someone was in danger or where there might be trouble. Following those feelings had been what resulted in becoming a hero entirely by accident. It certainly wasn’t what he had envisioned doing with his life.

Christian didn’t get paid for it either. When he wasn’t running himself ragged helping the people of New York City and fighting villains he bored himself to death as a patent attorney.

Being a hero and going to law school at the same time was not an option. He got into the hero business in high school and keeping up with his studies in college while simultaneously managing a hero schedule nearly killed him.

He purposely only applied to law schools in areas where villains didn’t run rampant and ended up going to one in Idaho. Literally nothing happened in Idaho.

But New York was in his blood and his parents and younger brother—blessedly born without superpowers—lived there so he came back and found a job there once he was done. Liam now lived in his spare bedroom in order to get cheap rent.

The two of them didn’t always get along since his brother could not fathom why he would bother putting so much time and effort into something that wasn’t even paying him. He had always been jealous about being born without superpowers too. Unfortunately, because of Christian’s busy schedule Liam was his only real friend.

Given the chance he would gladly change places with his brother. He didn’t want to be a hero but he couldn’t morally leave people to fend for themselves when he knew they were in danger. So he kept doing it anyway.

That being said, he did get a certain sense of fulfilment saving people. It was villains that were the real problem. Some were more difficult to deal with than others.

Skulker was the least problematic of all the villains he dealt with because his motivations were both simple and stupid. Just last week he attacked multiple branches of a fast-food chain because they supposedly didn’t give enough condiment packets at the drive thru. That was about as petty and meaningless as it got.

Janus was obsessed with kidnapping people and making them choose between two equally horrendous choices for his own sick amusement and set up elaborate schemes to do so. He was the sort that would set the world on fire if it would ease his boredom.

Christian had all of the villains he dealt with regularly figured out except for one. Nox. The one he had been fighting the longest.

Nox was strong, smart, and had no discernible motives. Everything he did was about infiltration. Sneak in and steal something here. Sneak in and destroy something there. And he rarely hit the same place twice, which made it difficult to see any sort of pattern.

Unlike most of the other villains, his entire body was covered in some sort of black metal that seemed capable of doing virtually anything. Christian didn’t know what Nox’s superpowers were. If he even had any. It was entirely possible the suit was what made him unstoppable thus far.

Nox only seemed to operate on Saturday nights, which made him think he had some sort of job that didn’t allow for nighttime maneuvers for most of the week, but that didn’t narrow things down at all. Sometimes he wondered if he would ever catch the guy.

Most villains didn’t manage to rampage for more than a couple of years before someone got them thrown in jail at least on a temporary basis. Nox’s streak was impressive in a terrible sort of way.

Christian felt rather discouraged after yet another run-in with him, especially since he had to go rinse his eyes out and flew directly into the wall as he tried to make his way home. That hurt.

When he got home his eyes were red and he had a scrape across his forehead. Liam looked up from his phone on the couch and frowned. “What happened to you?”

“Nox decided it would be a good idea to temporarily blind me with black pepper to make his escape tonight. Then I flew into a wall because I couldn’t see,” he said grimly.

His unsympathetic brother cracked up so hard he fell off the couch. “I’m sorry but that’s hilarious! And so old school. I thought this was the guy with the high-tech super suit. Why would he do something like that?”

“No idea. But he got away and I don’t even know what he stole. He hits pharmaceutical warehouses somewhat often but I have no idea what he’s trying to do. Is he trying to poison someone? Create some sort of new mind-controlling drug by breaking down existing substances? I’ve seen both of those things happen before with other villains!

“He doesn’t give anything about himself or his plans away. I’ve been fighting him for more than four years now and I don’t know a thing about him except that he has an alarming variety of escape plans.”

Christian finished his speech wearily and flopped down on the other couch. He was so sick of this. Was saving people even worth it when there was always someone else in need of help? It never ended. It was like laundry or dishes in that way. There would always be more to do.