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“Boss?”
Nimona strolled into the heart of Ballister’s lab, hands joined behind her back and a skip in her step. As Ballister had told her to keep her hands off the science unless she wanted the entire lab to explode around them, she stopped in respectable distance to his figure against the green, fluorescent light and jumped on to an unused table, now swinging her legs. She did not want the entire lab to explode around them, especially not with them still in it.
“Yes, Nimona?” Ballister was deeply bowed over a row of science-y looking apparatuses, measuring some funny-coloured liquids with a pipette, while other liquids were happily boiling over little flames. Sometimes Nimona wished Ballister’d have an evil laugh to go with his image, but the green light illuminating him and the explosive, dangerous science were already a nice touch.
“Why do you like Goldenloin?” Nimona asked.
“I don’t like him.”
“Then why do you not like him?” Nimona amended her question.
Ballister grimaced, which Nimona only knew because his grimaces always came with a sort of growl from the back of his throat. He might not even know that he was doing it, but Nimona had quickly learned to read those little tells to understand the boss even with his back turned to her. You never knew when it came in handy.
“It’s complicated,” he said.
“You’re dodging the question.”
“I am dodging the question indeed. If you realise that, why don’t you leave it be?” Ballister straightened up to his full height and lifted the pipette to the side, carefully storing it in a cannister with liquid that looked like water but wasn’t. Nimona tilted her head, dropping it to the side like a bird.
“Hmm. Makes me want to know the answer even more.”
“Why?” Ballister looked over to her and quizzically lifted an eyebrow. His dark eyes could be very unsettling when they studied their subject of interest like this. Nimona thought its effect was so cool that she practiced it in front of the mirror in secret, but as the sidekick she still had long ways to go before she could be as effective as the original.
Right now, it made her want to fidget. Instead, she lifted her hands away from where she had held onto the table’s edge and gesticulated.
“Because how did you know?” she asked, insisting. “That you don’t like him?” She drew quotation marks into the air.
Ballister narrowed his eyes, for a moment studying Nimona like a very interesting case study. Then he turned his back again, seemingly returning to his work. He picked a flask from the small, portable fire and swirled the liquid inside the flask several times. “Why do you like me?” he asked as he put the flask down again.
The question sent a bolt of electric excitement through Nimona. With a little scream, she jumped from her place of safe observation as if bitten by the table and took a big step towards Ballister, earning herself a warning glance from him over his shoulder.
“Are you kidding me, Boss?!” Nimona reacted to his silent warning more out of habit than conscious thought by now and immediately stopped walking, arms outstretched in a wide gesture, torn between admiration and indignation that Ballister would have to ask. “I love your evil style! Your science hideout with the scary green lights and potential to blow up stuff and everything around us! And I love that you fight against the Institution as your life goal, to destroy those stuck-up dastards up there! You are like, the biggest name in supervillainy! You are -”
She paused when she noticed Ballister smile, one of the rare smiles that actually reached his eyes and wrinkled them, though it was barely more than a curl of the corners of his lips. Her arms fell to her sides as understanding dawned on her face.
“Wait, hold up, you were just fishing for compliments, weren’t you?!”
“No. I’m actually helping you come to a conclusion, Nimona. If I got any compliments in the process, that’s only my win.” Ballister shrugged with his good shoulder. He continued talking before Nimona could complain that he was being unfair: “But to return your question, how do you know?”
“Know what?” Now it was Nimona’s turn to frown in a perfect imitation of Ballister, arms crossed defiantly in front of her chest. Ballister, knowing how to interpret her current mood, did not rise to the bait.
“It’s a matter of self-reflection, Nimona,” Ballister explained calmly, answering his own question. “Self-reflection on whether you like or dislike someone. Or how much you like or dislike someone. And sometimes it can be hard to tell.”
“Like with what’s between you and Goldenloin?” Nimona asked with extra emphasis on her O's, a smug and self-satisfied look returning to her face in a matter of seconds. Just like that, she was back on the original topic and had regained the upper hand in their debate.
Ballister, who knew when to tactically retreat, sighed. “Yes, like with what’s between me and Ambrosius,” he admitted defeat.
“I knew it!” Nimona exclaimed, pumping her fist in the air.