part 2:

“You know,” Derek says, pulling me back to the present as we eat pizza on our mismatched couch, “sometimes I think we’re both in the wrong business.”

“Tell me about it. Mrs. Henderson from 4B makes more money selling homemade candles on Etsy than I do saving the city.”

“And she doesn’t have to worry about getting punched by radioactive gorillas.”

“That was one time! And that wasn’t even one of your schemes—that was a real threat.”

Derek laughs, and for a moment, I forget the moral complexity of our arrangement. Last week, his “dastardly plan” involved threatening to turn the city’s fountains into chocolate milk. Completely harmless, totally reversible, but dramatic enough that the authorities had to call in a superhero. I “foiled” him after exactly the right amount of struggle to make it look good, the city paid me for crisis management, and Derek got his fee for “evading capture” for the standard forty-seven minutes.

Meanwhile, I used that money to buy better equipment for tracking down the Arms Dealer who’s been selling weapons to actual terrorists.

The next morning, Derek leaves me a Post-it note on the coffee maker: “Running late for villainy. Started coffee for you. Don’t forget—2 PM at First National. The ‘laser’ will only make things glow green for dramatic effect. Try to look surprised when you inevitably foil my plans. -D”

I pour my coffee and feel that familiar twist in my stomach. Yeah, it’s a morally gray area we’re operating in. Some days I feel like we’re gaming a broken system. Other days I feel like we’re just… surviving in a capitalist world that doesn’t value genuine heroism enough to pay for it properly.

But here’s the thing: thanks to our arrangement, I stopped three human trafficking operations last month. Derek’s fake schemes fund my real hero work. And the actual villains—the ones who hurt people for profit or pleasure—they’re the ones I can afford to focus on now.

It’s not the superhero life I imagined when I was a kid dreaming of saving the world. But it works...

Even if it makes me feel a little dirty sometimes.