#but hero is dead...

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The villain’s first thought took him by surprise. 

Those are her eyes. 

The child must have been one or two years away from high school, and yet her round cheeks and the way she played with the hem of her sleeves could have said otherwise. The villain didn’t recognize where the young girl’s dark brown hair or freckles came from- surely the hero didn’t have freckles? Did she? A surge of panic ran through the villain as the features of the hero’s face became warped and foggy in his mind.

“Absolutely not.” He said. The child pouted in response, flashing him a weak and pathetic mockery of the hero’s puppy eyes. 

That’s her face, you faker. 

“This isn’t fair.” 

“Nothing is fair. Go home.” 

The villain had noticed someone was tailing him recently, he had assumed some amateur journalist or paparazzi (no difference, really) was the culprit before she made herself known by sneaking in with his cleaning crew into his office. Hero’s daughter was kept as a strict secret, as far as he knew only himself and the child’s late grandmother knew about her.  

“You have to help me.”

“And why’s that?” It was getting harder and harder to be civil with the trespassing child. 

“Mom said you’d help me!” 

The villain’s neck was beginning to strain looking down at her. 

“The hero was an optimist. She saw and felt things that were never there. Any sense of camaraderie you think we had didn’t ever exist.” He didn’t mean to sneer, it simply came out that way.  

The child laughed, a sarcastic, exhausted thing. She sounded like her too. 

“You would have never known about me if that were true.” 

“She could never keep a secret. Always jumpy. It took less than lazy observation to know.” 

The villain, in fact, knew from the moment she was born. He was there. The hero had been conveniently taken hostage by the villain for five months right when she started showing and three months after for recovery, he hadn’t seen the child since. The villain wouldn’t ever admit it, but they were eight months of pure bliss. The hero’s pregnancy was pleasant, she handled it very well up until her last month when she needed the villain for every menial task. After abandoning her abusive diet and workout schedule she finally gained some healthy weight (although lost most of it a month into heroism) and began to sleep a much needed eight hours a night. For the first time since they met, she went back to being a shiny and sparkling thing, all smiles and rosy cheeks, pure indulgence and excitement. 

The villain almost caught himself smiling at the memories before his gaze focussed back on the tiny monster in his office.

“Go home.”

“I can’t.” She said, copying his own demanding tone; slight pauses between words, emphasis on the important parts. “I have nowhere to go, the house was taken over by some people wanting to make it some messed up Hero museum. Grandma passed away, no one even knows I exist, and there is no way in hell I’m going back to the orphanage” She rummaged through the duffle at her side, the villain assumed it contained everything she owned. She pulled out a beige card with the hero’s writing in blue ink. 

As the villain read, the child blabbered. 

“You guys were friends, and I don’t believe you killed her like the news says. Mom talked about you all the time! She mentioned that she trusted you over and over again. You have to help me!” 

The villain couldn’t tell who the card was addressed to. It wasn’t signed to anyone and spoke ambiguously about love and trust and other disgusting things, the girl had assumed the card was supposed to be for him. The villain, albeit embarrassingly, wanted to believe that. 

“This isn’t for me.” 

“Of course it was!” 

“She’d never speak like this. Especially to me.” 

“Well I certainly have no use for it. My mom loved me. I don’t need a lousy card to know it. She knew that too. But I don’t think she was brave enough to ever tell you-”

“You shouldn’t speak about things you know nothing about.” This, he hoped, was laced with venom. 

“I dunno Mr. Doom and Gloom, you didn’t have to hear her go on and on about a secret crush she had rooftop fights with.” 

Dear lord, Hero. I don’t know whether to be angry at you for not saying something, or at myself for never noticing. 

He recognized how immature and childish his hope was. The only woman he’d ever loved was dead, and hearing now they had the illusion of a chance from her very own daughter was a worse heartbreak than if she just rejected him outright. 

They always had a weird relationship. A complex, fluttering thing that consisted of fistfights (regardless of powers; the villain considered it intimate, the hero considered it sexy), partnerships of planning and scheming, and being public representations of compliance and deviancy, the good and the dirty, love and hate. 

Somewhere along the line it had become late nights at diners, comfort in close proximity, a head on a shoulder, a hand on the back. The flirting, the teasing, the stares. The all-holy casual hookups.

The villain knew he was screwed when she came to his apartment late at night, drenched by the rain, mascara running down her cheeks. 

Villain, I need your help. I’m pregnant. 

The timing revealed Hero’s fling, it had been months after a fight that led them to ‘strict fighting terms’ it all broke down as fast as hero did in the villain’s arms. 

But she was gone now, buried in a government cemetery surrounded by hundreds of now wilting bouquets and dusty gifts. And yet, the innocent joy of reciprocation flushed through his body. He allowed himself one more denial. Just to be safe. 

“Perhaps it was for your father.” The child laughed at this, more genuine amusement than it was self deprecating, the villain didn’t blame her. He knew from the second he said it how stupid it sounded. 

“Good one. Anyways. Help me kill Supervillain.” 

Dejectedly, the villain plopped down at his desk chair, signalling the young girl to do the same on the chair across the desk. The girl happily obliged. “Here’s what I’m thinking, we disguise ourselves as post office men-”

“Wait wait wait. Be quiet for five seconds.” The villain found himself massaging his temples. “Your mother wanted one thing for you. And that explicitly included staying out of the business. I’ll get you a room with someone I trust. Lie low for now, I’ll send you off to a boarding school or something until you turn eighteen.” 

“What? No! I want to help you bring down the supervillain.” 

“Trust me, I can do that myself. You need to go back to the orphanage.” 

“I hate it there! I have things to do! I need to avenge my mom and that means killing the supervillain myself.” 

The villain was beginning to wonder if the child was a clone rather than a daughter. Perhaps the brown hair was just box dye. She had an edge she’d only seen in his hero, a bright star deep in the colour of her eyes, an unmatched amount of life inside her. The hero had passed away a little over two months ago and her daughter was immediately on the run. She must have known how important it was to stay hidden. When was the last time she had a full sleep? 

“Look, Lily, I get it. But your mother will rise from her grave if she knew I got you hurt.” The villain ignored the shock on the girl’s face at the mention of her name. 

Your mom wouldn’t stop talking about me, well I guess we were on the same boat then. 

"Even better, I think." She joked. Of course only your daughter would joke at a time like this.

“You need time. You need to rest. I can offer you safety. I can promise you that when the time comes to kill Supervillain, it’ll be done as far away from you as possible. Your mother would never forgive you if you ever even touched the handle of a gun. Please, at least give her that.” 

Lily was her mother’s spitting image. Her curls didn’t hold without product, her big brown eyes hid underneath long lashes. Her cheeks would stay round well into adulthood, and they both picked nervously at their nails. But when she finally lifted her head and her eyes met the villain’s eyes, he swore he saw a glimpse of himself in them. 

“Make it slow.” 

The villain smiled.