Boss

I was thirsty, dizzy, and not really sure how I had managed to end up in Parroquia de San Miguel Arcángel. Managing to blend with the few people scattered amongst the pews; head down, eyes clenched shut, and leaning heavily against the pew in front of me; I wasn't sure if I could support myself. I wasn't really sure how I knew which cathedral I was in. I wasn't really sure how the hell I'd ended up in Mexico, and I'm wasn't sure where my hangover had come from.

It hurt to breathe. I wanted to find the nearest lake and drain it.

"Boss?" Now I wanted to invent a way to eliminate all sound while I wallowed in self-pity. "Boss? You feeling alright?"

"No," I muttered, lifting my head just enough to glimpse the altar. "Why am I in San Miguel De Allende?"

"Erm...boss, we've been looking all over for you."

"Noise-cancelling headphones," I muttered.

"What?"

"Noise-cancelling headphones." I leaned back into the pew, groaning as the new henchperson swallowed nervously. "I was trying to think of a way to keep the noise out. I don't have to invent anything. Noise-canceling headphones. That's the answer."

"That's a pretty good answer, Boss. I've got a car waiting outside right now. You've got."

"A thing," I kept my eyes closed as I stood, painfully slow. "I've got a thing. Henchman, who are we hiding from?"

"Hiding from, boss?" Apparently, my newest henchman was a gentleman, because he offered his arm. Letting me lean heavily against him as we exited the cathedral.

"San Miguel has a policy against building modern constructions, and their policies about admitting superheroes and supervillains are just as strict. The only reason I'd be in this city would be to hide; enemies or allies?"

"You can't remember how you ended up here, but you can remember a policy about admitting villains and heroes into the city limits?" He sounded bemused and produced a pair of sunglasses from his coat pocket. "Boss, your brain is crazy."

"I build superweapons and routinely plot to bring the downfall of the Hero Association." Something tickled the back of my brain. "My brain is a thing of glory. Now answer, allies or enemies?"

"Enemies mostly, we’re fielding calls from other supervillains. You’ve got a few flower arrangements sent to your New York residence." the car was a small green and white taxi. Meant to blend into the city, give the agents and spies stationed here a cover story, and bring a bit of extra cash on the side. It was also bullet-proof, blast-proof, but the self-driving feature had to be turned off in order to cope with the insane traffic. “You headlined BBC homepage.”

“Ouch.” I nodded to the driver and picked up yesterday's copy of the New York Times, and sighed at the screaming headline. “This clarifies nothing. ‘Boss Take out Headquarters.’ This doesn’t explain how I got to Mexico, or why I’m hiding in this city specifically...Henchman?”

“I’m sorry, Boss,” he tugged at his collar and stared out the window. “I don’t think that you should really hear it from me.”

“That...can't be good.” I returned to the article. It did nothing to clear up my confusion. The papers were just as confused by my motivations as I was. Never in my thirty-year supervillain career, ever directly attacked the association headquarters. It was a cheap tactic, like punching someone in the bathtub or toilet. I’d done a lot of other things to the headquarters, such as slowly replacing the cleaning staff with my own henchmen and henchwoman. Rewiring the building to have the most obnoxiously timed fire drills, locking heroes in a panic room, weakening their practice dummies programming, and working on the water heater so the water temperature in the bathrooms never really got warm enough for a hot shower. “They want to know if this is part of my world domination plan. Huh, I really wish I could remember…”

“Oh, look!” He perked up, studiously avoiding eye-contact. “We’re here.” The gate opened, and I covered my ears. “I’ll make a note to have them oil the hinges, Boss.”

“Don’t bother.” I groaned, wishing I could skip the hangover bit and plop right down in the middle of sobriety. “Don’t bother; we need it in case the fuzz ever pick up on the fact that there’s a supervillain living here. I’d rather not have ya’ll be caught by surprise.”

“Thanks, Boss,” he climbed out and moved around to open my door. “I called ahead; someone should be making breakfast right about now.”

“Ugh,” I clambered from the car, wondering where the hell my equilibrium had run off to. “Remind me to make a big donation to the cathedral's poor box. If they have to deal with a drunk supervillain passing out in their pews, then they need monetary compensation.”

“Does that mean I get a bonus?”

“Depends,” I paused in front of the door, staring at the peeling black paint before turning; enough to look at him, but not to send myself tumbling to the bricks. “On what I’m going to be expecting inside.”

“You,” the henchman shrugged, “you were drunk, Boss...but I think you made the right decision. So don’t...don’t get upset...aright. Well, don’t blame them. You might screw them up more than they are already.”

“That is ominous,” I opened the door and staggered gratefully into the air-conditioned entryway. “Mr. Butler.” I leaned against the wall and slid my sunglasses up my forehead.

“Mr. Butler, you are a gift from heaven.”

“I try, madam.” He held out a tiny tray, holding my favorite china-cup filled with coffee strong enough to melt a spoon. “Welcome back. How was the Mass?”

“I think I was too drunk to appreciate it.” I downed the cup in one go, coughing as it scalded every cell in my mouth and my throat. “Will someone please tell me what in the flippity jibbets I did the last two days?”

“I’m sorry,” Mr. Butler followed my uneven steps to the kitchen where the lure of delicious smelling food was too much to resist. “But I’m afraid you might react differently than the first time if you find out any other way.”

“I thought you were on assignment in D.C. You were.” I paused at the threshold to the kitchen and ever coherent thought I’d dredged up from the base of my pounding skull, died. “Why are there two baby heroes sitting at my table?”

Two sidekicks to be exact, both them working their way through the contents of a brown panaderia bag with gusto. Still dressed in their flashy superhero get-ups. “Did I kidnap you two?”

“Eeeeeyup!” The first teen looked, licking pink sugar off his fingertips. For the life of me, I couldn’t remember his sidekick name. I knew his real name though.

“Wallace,” I pressed the back of my hand to my head, keeping my eyes closed. “Did I cart you over state-lines?”

“International borders too,” the cook piped up, and it was my second-in-command. She was supposed to be Denver, yelling at Air Force Academy cadets instead she was here to yell at me.

“I’ve kidnapped minors,” I said faintly, sitting down. “I’ve kidnapped two superpowered sidekicks and...wait! You,” I pointed to Wallace, “have the ability to manipulate stone. You,” the girl finally looked up from her donut. “Ms. Helen can break literally anything. Why haven’t you left?”

“Uh.” Wallace and Helen exchanged a glance and shrugged simultaneously. “We can’t leave?”

“You got drunk,” Helen whistled, and I cringed at the noise.

“Yes,” I waved a finger at her, “it is stupid and overrated. Don’t do it.”

“Mr. Butler,” I leaned back in my seat, nearly topping to the tiled floor. “Oh, shit! Mr. Butler! Update! Please!”

“Of course, madam.” he waltzed into the room, and I knew I was in trouble. A thick manilla envelope landed on the table. “The reports from the last few days.”

“You read reports?” Helen asked, “you’re the Boss!”

“How do you think a criminal empire is run?” I glanced at the first page. “I need a hangover cure, ASAP.”

“You need to be shot,” my second interrupted, slamming a pan onto the stove. It was the worst sound I’d ever heard. “Because you’re an idiot.”

“Uhhh, anyone who can plan an attack that takes out most of the headquarters while that drunk can’t be an idiot.”

“I didn’t know you were teenagers,” I jolted upright and groaned when the world swam out of view. “Water. Water, Mr. Butler. Water.” I drained a glass and a half before speaking again. By that time, Lesil had set a bunch of scrambled eggs in front of me. She sat down with her own plate, still scowling. “I didn’t know you were teenagers.”

“Eeeeyup!” Wallace looked so cheerful it bordered on demented, but his eyes were dark.

“You didn’t know,” Helen repeated, and I buried my face in my hands as I recalled every fight we’d ever had. Not very many, they hadn’t been sidekicks very long.

“This explains the clusterfuck of the last few days.” Wallace laughed and winced when Helen kicked him under the table.

“I skipped you like a stone over Lake Erie!”

“Yeah.” Wallace and Helen waited until I straightened flipped open my reports. They were interesting, more interesting than any FBI or Interpol reports. Hiring fanfiction and liberal arts students in need of recommendation letters were what did the trick.

“Sooooo.” I glanced up. Both teenagers had stopped eating and were avoiding eye-contact. Drunk-me was an absolute genius, and much more cruel than Sober-me. I tended to avoid wholesale destruction whenever possible.

“You’re a lot more...dangerous when you’re drunk.”

“Huzzah for the temperance movement then.”

“I’d ban you from liquor,” Lesil said, “but then you’d have to swirl soda around in a wine-glass, and that isn’t suitably dramatic for a supervillain.”

“It isn’t,” I perked up, “prohibition was an absolute nightmare. So, children.”

“Not children,” Wallace muttered, reducing a pastry to crumbs without really looking at it. “And you took Hercules too.”

“That!” I took a deep breath. They’d already seen my drunk, mean, and vengeful. I really didn't want them to see me yelling, which was probably pointless honestly. “That man sent you into battle against a supervillain.”

“An immortal supervillain too,” Lesil interjected, “who was there when Rome burned.”

“I was not.” I sighed when the sidekicks perked up. “And now do you understand the reason I’ve been trying destroy the Hero Association for so long? Children into a fight against someone like me?”

Wallace shrugged, “do you really count as a supervillain if you’re not superpowered. We’ve fought some superpowered villains, and put them away.”

I paused, lifting my eyes from the highly entertaining report that detailed my drunken self’s rage-fueled planning session from three days ago. “Young one, I’m the OG supervillain. I founded the Villains League. Do you think I count?”

“Uh...you do,” Helen nodded furiously, kicking Wallace again. “Totally count, powers are nothing next to the ability to network and plan.”

“Thank you,” I looked back at the report. “And I’m not that old. If I used sprite and a champagne glass, I’m sure no one would notice the difference.”

“What?”

“I wouldn’t need wine. I could use soda and a champagne glass,” I told Lesil, wondering where I’d lost her. “No loss of dramatics or symbolism. Maybe even a bit classier.” I paused as I uncovered another document, and glanced at Lesil and Mr. Butler. Excuse me, who let me?”

“We didn’t let you do anything,” Mr. Butler said, “you threatened them and us.”

“My poor lawyers,” I sighed, “what did I threaten them with?”

“I think you had some of your intern villains drop them onto a deserted island in the middle of the North China Sea until they agreed.” Lesil glowered, and I shrugged. Lawyers were sharks; they’d be fine swimming through open water.

“That sounds like me.” The fact that the rage was still simmering in the back of my throat and stomach, days later and even diluted with copious amounts of booze, led me to believe that it must have been absolutely volcanic during the fact. Any means necessary had never been so literal. “Lesil, Mr. Butler, give us a minute.” They were gone in an instant, hardly leaving dust in their wake. Wallace and Helen watched carefully as I leaned back in my chair, and sipped at my third cup of coffee. “Kids.”

“So what are you going to do?”

“Stop drinking, I think.”

“Another sign of immortality,” Helen nodded to Wallace knowingly. “That much booze should have killed her.”

“And I seemed to have reduced two wings of the Hero's Association Headquarters to rubble as well as kidnapped two bitty heroes.”

“She did say Prohibition was terrible,” Wallace agreed. “No one who remembers prohibition to talk about is still alive.”

“So are you immortal?” Helen asked, “because no one at the association was really sure.”

“Why did you say that you couldn’t leave?” I demanded, ignoring their line of questioning.

“We’re in San Miguel de Allende,” Helen rolled her eyes, clearly nervous. “You stranded us in the middle of the only city we’re never supposed to enter. If we go out like this, we’ll be arrested.”

“Right,” this was a very effective place to trap them. Even drunk I was a genius.

“Trapped...imprisoned.”

“You also kidnapped Hercules.”

“Don’t call him that, his name is Eugene.”

“You kidnapped him, and we want to figure out what you're going to do with him."

“I’m guessing that hasn’t made it to the news yet.” I grimaced. Kidnapping Hercules was something I would do. He was an insuffurable do-gooder. Too self-righteous to realize when he's actually made a mistake. As far I was a concerned, everything Eugene did was a mistake.

“You did collapse part of the headquarters.” Wallace pointed out. “And we’re gone too. Someone is bound to notice.”

“Yes,” I paused, “someone is bound to notice, not that you can do anything about it anyway.” The pieces slotted into place. Missing persons reports would be out within the hour, and soon the whole world would know what the two sidekicks really looked like. I folded over the adoption papers over. This was probably not the time to mention it.

“You stopped fighting us because you found out we were teenagers,” Helen crossed her arms over her chest.

“I’ve never actually seen anyone that angry,” Wallace agreed, feigning calm. Both teens were strung out on a wire, clearly nervous. Granted, I had a reputation for a reason...and because of reasons. One didn’t become the foremost supervillain in the world without making a bit of a mess.

“So I don’t think you’re actually going to do anything to us.”

“Remind me,” I frowned. “Who is supposed to be the villain?”

“You were pissed because they threw us up against an immortal villain.”

“They shouldn’t have children fighting their fights!” I exclaimed. “Actual, literal, children!”

“I’m fifteen!” Helen protested, and I stared blankly at her until she threw her hands up. “What else was I supposed to do with my power?”

“Use to properly cut a pizza when you have friends over!” I sighed. “It’s a moot point now. You both need to go get cleaned up. The upstairs has a really nice shower, and I’m sure there are spare clothes that will fit on you somewhere.”

“Are you sure you’re a villain?” Wallace asked. I scoffed.

“Who else would drag teenagers to a place they couldn’t escape?” I gestured to the kitchen window that looked out on a small plaza.

“How do you think we ended up with the Hero Association?”

I buried my face in my hands, sighing heavily. “Go, before I have henchpeople throw you out onto the streets.” The two former sidekicks filed out of the kitchen. I managed to maintain composure just long enough before dropping my head to the table, and muttering swear words under my breath.

“They’re going to have to rebuild the Hero’s Association Headquarters,” Lesil reminded me as she wandered into the kitchen.

“We have three construction companies in New York alone,” I lifted my head, “have them bid on the repairs, make sure one of them gets the contract. The kids?”

“Seem like it well enough. Honestly, they’re a little traumatized right now.”

“Children," I muttered, "how long have they been sending literal children to fight me?”

“Long enough,” she set down another packet of papers. “On the upside, your reputation is soaring...or sinking, depending on how you look at it. What do you want to do with Eugene?”

For the first time all morning my head didn’t hurt, and the sort of unholy, vengeful hatred I’d thrived on for ages buoyed me into the first bit of joy I’d felt all morning. “Let’s make an example out of him.”