TO SAY I have built a bomb for her attention is a misunderstanding of the situation.
That caped crusader, who rushes into the hidden room under city hall, where I lie in wait, inspires me. Her dogged persistence, as she sets about our battle, is one I admire deeply.
I did not build the bomb for her alone. Would it be lovely, if it went off and destroyed the mangled heads of a laughable democracy? Yes, of course. To witness the inferno that those rats and liars and politicians would become would bring me immense pleasure. But my adversary? She brings me something beyond joy. A challenge. A rivalry. She makes me better. I improve her as well.
We have a relationship beyond words.
I dodge each punch thrown, block a kick to the head, and know each blow is a back and forth in our dialog. Her cape, a Kevlar blend, is thrown in front of my eyes, an attempted diversion. I duck low instead.
I catch her then, by the waist, tipped backwards. I keep my hands above her utility belt. I may be a super villain but I have manners.
For an infinite moment we are suspended in time, and I see her pupils dilate where they’re ringed by that mask she wears.
We are electric like this. Yin and Yang. Like two atoms drawn together in a supercollider. Sometimes I won-der what would happen if I knelt and asked her to join me instead. I wouldn’t get a yes. If she caved so easily she wouldn’t be the hero I adored to fight.
She throws me off balance with a kick to the back of my knee. I go down, gracefully conceding.
She turns to disarm the bomb, and I take my leave. This is another part of the game we play. She lets me go when she doesn’t have to.
She shoots me a look over her shoulder. She knows I will run. There is no time for a chase. She is unhappy about it. I blow her a kiss.
She rolls her eyes, as I blend into the shadows and away. I will see her soon enough.
When I am home, in a place others would call a lair, I plan our next meeting. This too, is a labour of love. Picking a location, parsing though possible inventions I have filed away, wondering what will cause enough mayhem to earn her attendance. Not anything that involves nuclear power. I don’t want to seem desperate. This process usually takes me a few weeks.
I know that like a reflection, she too is working. She is wondering where I will strike next. My blue-prints are paralleled by her cork board somewhere.
I sigh at the thought of what her own palace of solitude must be like. A desperate piece of me wants to see it, but the more logical majority knows this will spoil what we have. It’s so precious, so unique. It must be protected at all costs.
So when I reconfigure the largest radio tower in the station to play a customised mind control broadcast, I wait for her.
And wait.
And wait longer. The hostages are antsy. They sense my unease. A DJ and a secretary make nervous eyes to each other over their gags.
She has never stood me up before. It’s an ugly feeling, the one that washes over me. Could there be someone else? I hate that there are others, but I also understand it’s part of her job. None of them mean any-thing. None of them have what we have.
I turn on the news, hoping for answers. I get them.
A headline smashes down on my heart like a sledgehammer. CITY’S HERO IN CRITICAL CONDI-TION. CULPRIT UNKNOWN. IS OUR CITY SAFE?
I release the hostages quickly and pack up my work. I’m hot and cold all over. How could this happen? To my one and only? How could I not have known?
I’m at the hospital she’s in an hour later. The fact it takes me so long to find will be a shame carried forever.
The mind control song comes in handy then. Nurses happily lead me up to where she is staying. To say seeing her is devastating is like saying the Titanic took on a bit of water.
Her eyes are swollen shut. They do not open and glare at me. Her fingers are bandaged and broken. They do not curl into a fist and shake. She has a breathing tube down her throat, and the EKG machine mocks me from the corner with her heartbeat.
She wears no mask. I close my eyes. I have too much respect for her to defile her any further.
I collapse against the doorframe and I mean to demand an explanation from the nurse that stayed, but it comes out a weak plea instead.
What I hear takes my grief, and twists it into white hot rage.
Someone, a new upstart, has cheated. They used facial recognition software and AI models to locate her true identity. Then, like the lowest, simplest, crudest animal, attacked her while she slept.
I have known anger at injustice, as most in my profession do, but never like this. To have the most important relationship in my entire life desecrated in such a way? It is beyond irredeemable.
Where is the respect? The acknowledgment of skill? Where is the announcement of the duel, the blown trumpet, the pageantry, the effort?
It’s not evil. It’s just mean.
I am gone as soon as I’ve verified the doctors attending her are the best in their respective fields.
It is not hard to find the gutless coward who has left me unspeakable with fury. There are gathering places for people like myself. For those with super strength and costumed faces who wish to be amongst their own kind.
But I am not like the man who has done this. We are not the same species, much less kin.
I am well respected within my field. This is why when I ask for in-formation, the bartender at a popular haunt gives it to me discreetly. It is why people move out of my way when I walk into the back of the establishment, towards a loud crowing of victory that is undeserved. He is surrounded by peers, some jealous, some congratulatory, some silent.
The man himself is not impressive. He is instead, very drunk. He is also completely ignorant of who I am, be-cause when I put a hand on his shoulder and congratulate him though gritted teeth he only smiles.
He informs me he considered doing other things to the sleeping body of the only person on Earth I really care about. I had initially planned to get him drunker, but my control snaps like a bridge cable.
I grab the nearest beer bottle, and smash it over his head. Glass and blood sprays the ground. Already tipsy, he goes down like a felled tree.
No one stops me leaving with his unconscious form. I am well known in my field and I think the crowd is unsettled by my anger, rather unlike my usual professionalism.
When the man wakes up several hours later, I’ve just finished the knots around his middle.
I stand and walk away, beginning my lecture.
I tell him about the first true villains and what they meant. How they were admired and feared in equal measure. How they had things like class, things like polish, things like standards.
He lies on the ground and tries to squirm free of his bonds. He fails, of course. I do nothing poorly.
The ground begins to shake so I raise my voice above him. I speak to him of what a rivalry means. I speak to him of how love’s opposite is not hate, but apathy. How a lack of passion is the death of all things interesting. How it can drive people to do pathetically boring things.
The pebbles near my shoes begin to tremble. He screams behind his gag. I ask if he’s afraid. I ask if he understands. I ask if this puts his miser-able little acts in perspective, his petty attitude and vulgar methods.
But the train screams past and over where he lies before he can answer.
The next day I sit in the hospital room. Flowers bloom on the bedside table. The same roses were sent to the man’s mother. I’m not without a heart.
I’ve interrogated the doctors to my satisfaction. They say it will take time but my rival will recover. Currently I read a book of poetry aloud to drown out the EKG machine.
Something brushes my hand, and I look down in surprise. A bandaged finger nudges itself against me. I do not fling myself onto the bed in relief but it is only my manners which prevent me from doing so. Instead, I lift the hand in mine, and press a kiss to where the IV has been inserted into her veins.
She pinches the skin atop my hand, rolling her eyes, and I sigh rapturously. She does not let go, and I return to reading.
I am already planning our next battle, the first we will have after her recovery. It will be one for the ages I’m sure.
But for now there is me, there is her, and there is the beautiful space between good and evil.
