Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Rain pattered down on the wide brim of Lydia Deetz’s hat. Next to her, her dad stood stock still, stoic as ever, while the priest read out the funeral rites. Something about how the living do not walk alone, or carry bits of the dead with them, or some other trite nonsense.

Emily Deetz had known that from practical experience. As a costumed hero with her license and official ranking and everything, she’d been extremely careful when rooting out malicious ghosts. As was her specialty. Until she’d come up against some sort of vengeful entity she couldn’t coax into a bargain, or cajole into leaving its haunt.

There hadn’t even been a body for her family to find. Just a smear of ash on the ground.

Lydia slunk away from the tearful hugs and handshakes once the ceremony concluded. Shouldered past a couple of her mom’s colleagues and OSI suits who’d come to pay respects and headed home to her leaky apartment.

At least until nightfall, when she hailed a cab to the Doom Factory’s club. She’d taken the time to swap her funereal LBD for a latex minidress and thigh high boots. More appropriate for the venue.

And sure, the mushroom-shaped building rising out of the Hudson looked ominous from the cab window, especially silhouetted against the night sky. But, Lydia reasoned, she wouldn’t know anyone at the villain-centered club, and she wanted to get plastered.

Hence why she was sitting at a corner table at this very adult nightclub affiliated with the Guild of Calamitous Intent, eyeing the blue-skinned performer (body paint? Colloidal silver? Who cared?) on the main stage. With her shiny boots, and most of her lower body to be fair, draped over a stranger’s lap. And the stranger was rubbing her back. And had bought her several drinks and had listened to her problems out of the goodness of his heart. Probably not. But whatever.

“I f-feel like she’d expect me to, to carry on her legacy, or whatever,” Lydia said. “But, I don’t know, I haven’t decided yet.” The loud, thumping music made her head ring, made her lean closer to the guy she was currently sprawled all over. She sipped her fourth whiskey sour and grimaced. “God, what do they put in these?”

The anonymous guy said something, but she couldn’t hear him over the noise of the club. His big, cool hand with its sharp fingernails (interesting) scraped along her exposed back.

“What happened to her?” he asked, right in her ear this time. His voice sounded…not calming, but pleasant. Scratchy.

“Exorcism gone wrong,” Lydia said. “God, it sucks. They called me in the middle of the day at my job.” She drained the rest of her glass and set it down on the table. At least Anonymous Guy had her drink refreshed in a flash.

Polite of him. And very polite of him to listen to her while she rambled about her dead mom. Couldn’t have been very sexy.

Lydia considered him for the first time. Nondescript. She could make out brown hair, a beard, but nothing more specific about his face, oddly. Chubby, with nice thick arms and meaty thighs.

He’d work.

She leaned in close and slung an arm around his neck. He blinked down at her, but quickly the hand on her back pressed her close. “Thanks for listening,” Lydia said, eyes heavy-lidded and pleasantly drunk. She snuggled into him, pressing her chest to his, and wound her hand into his tie. “Can I…do anything for you?”

It seemed to take him a minute. She couldn’t quite read what was on his face - her eyes felt like they slipped off him, a little. Weird. “Got a pass for one of the private rooms,” he said, voice husky.

“Really?” Lydia asked. Wow. Maybe this guy was a higher roller than she’d thought - she’d pegged him for somebody’s henchman. And she’d never been in one of the private rooms here. Although she’d heard rumors. Everyone had.

“Really,” the guy said, giving her a big grin. At least she could make out that expression. Probably the lighting. “If you wanna…talk.”

Lydia licked her lips. “I could…talk,” she said, “for sure.”

And five minutes later, she had this stranger by the lapels and had pinned him to one of the velvet-upholstered walls while she attempted to climb him like a tree.

“Fuck, babe, slow down,” the guy groaned, letting out a shaky laugh. His dick ground between her legs. “Jesus, I. I don’t even know your name.”

“Lydia,” she said, without thinking about it. Once she realized her mistake, she froze in the middle of attempting to mouth at his neck, but…well, no taking that back now. He’d probably assume it was an alias of some kind. People tended to keep themselves guarded here.

“Lydia,” he repeated, slowly. Oh, her name sounded good in his voice. “Lydia, you gotta…you gotta give me a minute. It’s been a while.”

Weird that it’d “been a while” for a guy who had a private room key, but okay. She reluctantly pulled her lips from his collar and unwound her hand from his tie. Now that she had a moment to glance around the room, she saw the…implements. For a small room, they sure could fit a lot of racks and handcuffs in there.

The guy ran a hand through his hair. “Any of that interest you?” he asked, voice low. “Not forcin’ you, just…might as well, right?”

“Absolutely,” Lydia breathed. She walked over to the display of restraints, keeping her steps even despite the booze. “How about…” she ran her fingers over the back of a padded chair, with buckles and clamps around its arms and legs to secure someone in it, “this one?”

“Do ya wanna sit down, or?”

Oh, that was cute. “No. For you.”

She heard the mystery guy exhale through his nose and stood, waiting. Either she’d misread the situation and would find someone else or…

The thud of knees hitting the floor.

“Holy shit, yes please.”

Good. Lydia smirked as the guy crawled over to the chair and pulled himself into it. The restraints forced his legs slightly open and drew her attention to the obvious tent at his crotch. Her mouth watered. She still had enough fine motor control to fasten the restraints at his wrists and ankles.

Odd that his face looked so…blank. She could read his expression - currently wide-eyed, devoted, worshipful - but trying to map individual features was a challenge. Oh well. She’d wanted relative anonymity, right?

Still, when she undid his fly and realized just how thick his cock felt in her grasp, she regretted, just for a minute, not asking for his name.

“Nice,” Lydia said, meaning it. Before he had a chance to reply she sank down and took the first few inches into her mouth.

The sounds he made were exquisite. He threw his head back and whined like a chained dog when she licked around the head. Under her hands, his thighs strained, like he was trying to pull out of the restraints, just barely stopping himself from fucking her mouth. “Be good,” Lydia warned, when she pulled back to catch her breath. “You could choke me with that thing.”

“B-bet you - ohh - bet you say that to everybody,” he moaned. Lydia heard his fingernails scratching grooves into the arms of the chair, the restraints rattling. She hummed around his cock in lieu of answering. Bobbed her head in short motions that had him practically writhing underneath her. Still, he wasn’t trying to push more of his fat shaft past her lips. Good etiquette. Lydia rewarded him by reaching a hand down to roll his heavy sac in her palm.

She really should’ve picked out a cock ring or something from the room’s selection of toys, because his balls already felt tight, and his cock was starting to spasm in her mouth before too long. She reached her other hand down between her legs, dipping under the tight skirt of her dress to play with her clit. She’d been wet since watching the performer on stage and didn’t need much to get her over. The stranger’s cock leaked precum onto her tongue when he realized what she was doing.

After bringing herself to a quick, tight orgasm, Lydia redoubled her efforts on the guy’s cock, using her wet fingers to encircle the base of his shaft. “God, fuck, L-lydia,” he gasped above her, “please, please, wanna come, so close, can I come, please,” begging in that whiskey voice. She sucked hard on the head in response, felt him thicken and spurt all over her tongue and down her throat. There…well, she hadn’t sucked a dick in a while, but there was a lot.

He was panting when she crawled up his body and sat herself on one of his thighs. “Oh my God,” he breathed. His face seemed to…warp? Shimmer? Something that made her head hurt. Maybe it was just the booze.

That one orgasm hadn’t really done much. She could get another from him. Lydia rocked her hips against his thigh, feeling the muscle tremble underneath her. “Can you go again?” she asked. “Not…not immediately, I just…” she glanced down at his softening cock and flushed. “I…kinda want it inside me and I didn’t really think that through.” Great job at domming this stranger, Lydia.

Except it actually seemed like it was, because the guy groaned again and chuckled. “Uh, I definitely can if you keep talkin’ like that,” he said. She could tell he was smiling huge at her even though his face blurred in her vision. Good.

She freed his right wrist, watched him shake his hand out. “I guess I’ll just have to sit here and wait, then,” Lydia said. She sighed, affecting a playful pout. Thankfully he laughed and snuck two fingers between her legs while she clenched her thighs around his.

Her arms fit so nicely around his thick neck. She leaned in, savoring the moan that rumbled through his chest when he discovered her wetness dripping onto his pants. He found her sensitive clit immediately and rubbed it with the pads of those lovely rough fingers. “That’s perfect,” she breathed, pressing her lips to his beard and leaving tiny kisses there. “Just like that, baby, making me feel so good –” He tilted his head and kissed her full on the mouth, stifling her.

She felt his cock hardening against her thigh already when he made her come effortlessly. Wow, that fast? Impressive stamina. She told him as much when he finally pulled his tongue out of her mouth and he let out a wheezing laugh.

Lydia had the wherewithal to fish a condom out of a drawer, at least (thanks, club staff, for keeping the rooms stocked). The minute his prick got hard enough she rolled the latex onto him, lined him up with her entrance, and slid down, nearly weeping at the satisfaction of being filled. “Oh, good,” she said, her voice thready, “yeah, good, perfect,” as he planted his feet on the ground as best he could, given the restraints, and drove up into her. She felt him panting against her shoulder, mumbling nonsense into her skin and occasionally mouthing at her flesh. Teeth kept grazing her. She wished he’d bite.

He didn’t seem like he was going to last long the second time, not that Lydia minded - she really just needed a good fuck to set her right, and then to go home. But with one hand gripping her waist tight and another plucking at her stiff nipple, visible through the latex, she could feel herself building again. Usually partners only got her to two orgasms max, Lydia thought, surprised. But cool lips and sharp teeth against her earlobe and a voice saying her name so sweetly? She curled against his soft belly and let him take her over the edge with him, her pussy squeezing his thick cock tight.

He groaned and bit down on her neck hard when he came, the imprint of teeth on her skin lengthening her pleasure. And when he’d finished twitching inside her, Lydia staggered up, righted herself, and leaned down to press another kiss to his slack mouth.

He gasped and leaned into her again, sounding completely overwhelmed. Blinking up at her like she was some kind of goddess. “What’s your name?” she asked, idly, while undoing his other wrist (odd, she could’ve sworn she felt two hands on her earlier).

That made his entire body clench. Great. She made it weird. “You don’t have to tell me, I just…” Lydia grimaced, swallowing any lame words like “really like your cock” or, worse, “think I felt a connection.” But he groaned and buried his head in his hands.

“I can’t tell ya. Literally,” he said. “You gotta believe me.”

“Right,” Lydia said, as she worked the ankle restraints open. If he wouldn’t give her his name, he definitely wouldn’t give her something like his phone number. “Want it anonymous. I get it.” She laughed to hide her disappointment. “I had fun. Thanks.”

When she turned to leave, he grabbed her wrist and pulled her back to him, pressing a bruising kiss to her lips, holding her so tight she thought he’d break her wrist. Fear coursed through her, briefly, but he looked…well, he didn’t look like anything. Because she couldn’t really see his face.

“No, please, please, I swear, I wanna see you again, Lydia, I feel it too, don’t–” he babbled, before he saw her expression and fell silent. Even with the weird blurring she could tell his eyes were huge, begging her for something.

Lydia sighed and chewed her lip. She’d been played before with encounters like this. “That’s nice,” she said, noncommittal. As she limped out of the private room, she heard him say something like “I’ll find you, please, I promise,” voice rising in panic, before she closed the door.

When she woke up the next morning with a miserable hangover, Lydia realized that he’d certainly been wearing a glamour of some kind. Which she should’ve done, too, if she hadn’t been stupid.

Well, great. When she inevitably took up her mom’s mantle she’d need to be extra careful about her secret identity. At least no villain with an iota of sense would expect a hero type to go for anonymous sex at a Guild club.

“Already fucked it up,” she said to the box of her mom’s stuff sitting in her closet. It didn’t answer. Because it was just a box.

The best she could do was try to make up for her mistake somehow. And so she went to the fabric store and got several yards of red material that would drape well and obscure her form. Time to get to work.

Chapter Text

Two Months Later

So, as it turned out, exorcisms weren’t hard.

Lydia now understood why her mom could treat this job as a regular nine-to-five (that is, nine PM to five AM). Answering a call to an old apartment, setting up a circle, talking with an angry ghost, and dispatching it on its way only took a couple of hours and a minimal amount of energy. The elderly couple living there wanted to pay her, even. Not wanting to give up her day job or deal with the tax implications, she accepted a potted plant of some unknown genus as compensation and made a note to look up its care requirements later.

She got home a little after midnight and was able to fall asleep easily, for once. Without even jacking off to that one hookup that felt like it’d happened ages ago.

Only to be awoken an hour before her alarm by her phone buzzing loudly on her nightstand.

Blearily, she checked the screen. Unknown number. Great. She denied the call and slammed her head back into her pillow, only for her phone to buzz again. This time with a call from Dad.

Lydia stabbed at the green “accept” icon and held her phone to her ear. “Dad? Did you die?” she asked, sleepily, rubbing at her eyes.

“Lydia, what did you do?” Her father sounded frantic.

“I’m asleep.”

“Lydia, the Office of Secret Intelligence has been calling the house since midnight, asking about you.”

She sat bolt upright in her bed. “What?” Why the hell was the superhero CIA out for her?

“I hadn’t heard from them since they sent the fruit basket when…when your mother died,” Dad said. She could hear him pacing on the other end of the line. “They want to contact you immediately. Evidently you shot up from a Level One to a Level Four overnight.”

Lydia blinked. “Level Four what?”

Dad sighed. Lydia could imagine him pinching the bridge of his nose. “Level Four E.M.A.” When Lydia didn’t respond, he elaborated, “Equally Matched Aggression level. Threat capability.” Another pause. “For context, your mother only achieved Level Five last year and she’d been performing for decades.”

“That can’t be right,” Lydia said, slowly. She padded into the bathroom to splash cold water on her face and set her phone to speaker. “I did one exorcism last night, and it was an old cat lady ghost who didn’t want to leave her precious babies. Turned out the bones were in the back of a cabinet.”

“It might be a mix-up,” Dad agreed, cautiously, “but…they seemed quite insistent, Lydia.” She heard him start to say something and swallow the words. “I…I don’t want you getting in over your head.”

Lydia scowled into the bathroom mirror. Easy for him to say when he was already dating some bimbo while Mom’s body hadn’t even gone cold. “I’m not in over anything, Dad,” she bit out. “I haven’t even decided on a codename yet.”

“You’re doing these under your real name?!”

“Oh, my God,” Lydia groaned, and hung up the phone. Great. Another thing to worry about.

Her phone kept buzzing as she made herself a bowl of cereal and a pot of coffee. When she sat down to eat breakfast (after turning vibrate off) she stopped.

There was a red envelope on her kitchen table.

Right where she would sit for breakfast.

Lydia froze. She ran to grab her mom’s grimoire and flipped through for any kind of spell to detect traps. It came up clean.

How had the envelope even gotten there?

Swallowing hard, Lydia snatched a paring knife from the kitchen and slit the envelope. The paper felt thick, heavy. Artisanal, almost. There was a wax seal and everything.

She pulled out a heavy sheaf of documents on embossed paper, held together with an embellished gold binder clip emblazoned with the logo of the Guild of Calamitous Intent.

What?!

Her heart in her throat, she read through the document, brow furrowed.

This document notifies [UNKNOWN CODENAME] (Lydia Deetz, hereafter “Hero”) of an official request of archnemesisship from [ILLEGIBLE] (hereafter “Villain”). Due to the disparity between Hero’s and Villain’s respective E.M.A. levels, Hero has been granted a provisional E.M.A. level of four (4), to be reevaluated after one (1) calendar month.

As part of this request, Hero is hereby notified of commencement of hostilities by Villain, to be initiated immediately.

Such hostilities may include, but are not limited to:

-Harassment (physical)

-Harassment (emotional)

-Destruction of property (personal)

…

Numb, Lydia skimmed through the list of potential overtures she could expect from “Villain.”

What the actual fuck?

How had this happened?

She scanned down the document, flipping it over. The bulleted list continued for another two pages. At the end, she encountered the following clause.

If Hero does not wish to accept this request, or the provisional period of hostilities, Hero may contact the listed twenty-four (24) hour phone number…

Lydia dialed the number, and the proper extension, on her phone. After ten minutes of tinny hold music, during which she was told that her call was, indeed, important to the Guild, she made contact with an actual (presumably) human on the other end. When she identified herself, though, she heard something crash.

“I’m, uh, escalating this request,” she heard the operator stammer, before five more minutes of hold music played through her phone’s speakers.

Eventually, though, Lydia heard a flat, shockingly deep voice on the other end say, “Councilwoman One. To whom am I speaking?”

Lydia racked her brain. The Council of Thirteen led the Guild. Everyone knew that. If she was speaking to Councilwoman One…

Oh. This wasn’t good.

“My name is Lydia Deetz,” she said, trying to keep her voice steady, “and I want to know what the fuck is happening.”

A long, pregnant pause, followed by what sounded like the click of a lighter and a long inhale. “Deetz…Deetz…let me look through the files.” Typing noises. “Oh. Oh. I see.”

“Yeah,” Lydia said, and laughed. “Yeah, I bet.”

Councilwoman One sighed. It sounded like a death rattle. She should really get that checked out. “Sweetie, I can imagine you’re feeling very confused right now.”

“Uh huh,” Lydia said.

Another exhale. “Confidentiality requirements in our guild prohibit me from telling you exactly what is happening, but…” More typing. “...I’m allowed to tell you that your profile has been accelerated through our archnemesis assignment program. Upon special request.”

“Special request from who?”

“I’m not at liberty to say,” the woman said, her deep voice sounding clipped. “However, this entity is currently operating at an E.M.A. level of nine. And for context, the highest level is ten.”

Lydia stood stock still and gripped the back of her chair in her hand. Her coffee was certainly cold by now. “Level Nine?!”

“I know this is quite a lot to process,” Councilwoman One said. She sounded mildly sympathetic. “This entity is…a tough customer, sweetie. And it’s not a clerical mistake, before you ask. All the paperwork has been filed correctly.”

“All the…”

“Form 49A, Form 827, Forms W-29 and 28, in triplicate. Everything checks out.” Another drag. “Must’ve had this ready to go. Says your first excursion was…only five hours ago, and the paperwork got fast-tracked through the ranks.”

“Why is this happening?” Lydia asked.

“I could not tell you even if I knew,” said the Councilwoman. “This sounds like…well. This sounds like a vendetta. Which we do encourage.”

“But I haven’t done anything!”

The Councilwoman hummed. “No, but someone close to you might have. And Clause 31F states that an arch - that’s archnemesis - can expedite a relationship in the case of a grudge.”

“My mom was a hero - do you think…”

“Deetz…” the woman on the other end of the line murmured, before another flurry of typing. “Your mother being Emily Deetz, codename Miss Strange?”

Lydia grimaced. Mom had been a little too Elvira for her tastes. Hence her making a new costume - a less revealing one - instead of altering Mom’s to fit. “Yeah.”

“Says in her file that she didn’t have a nemesis on the books,” Councilwoman One said. “That’s funny.”

Well, that lead turned out to be a whole bunch of nothing. “So what do I do?”

Councilwoman One went silent for a long moment before saying, gently, “I think you should work on a codename, sweetheart.”

“What if I just…quit? Don’t go out anymore? Don’t do exorcisms?”

“Then you’ll be subject to Clause 481J, and you’ll be hit with a Denial of Arching fee and a hefty lawsuit, at least,” the Councilwoman said, grimly. “This…villain…has really thought things through.”

“Great,” Lydia said. She sank into her chair and poked at her soggy cereal. “What a lovely thing to wake up to.”

The Councilwoman paused. “Listen, Lydia. Can I call you Lydia? I’m going to give you my direct line. This seems fishy. I need to check with some of my, uh, contacts.” Lydia heard her muttering something, the scritch of a pen against paper. “And maybe they’ll know something that can help you. But once hostilities have commenced officially I may be able to give you more information. I don’t want this experience to sour you to our guild.”

“Right,” Lydia said, feeling hysteria well up in her chest. She didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. “Of course. Don’t want to give you a bad review on Yelp or whatever.”

“Please don’t even joke about that,” the Councilwoman snapped. “I’ve been working my ass off on an incredibly labor-intensive PR initiative and I would not appreciate anything hurting it. It is in my best interest to help you out, honey, so don’t give me any crap, okay?”

Lydia blinked. Weirdly enough, that…helped. Made her feel like she was talking to another human being. “Okay. I’ll write down your direct line. Thank you.”

“Good. Now, if you’d do me a favor and answer the survey at the end of the call…”

Lydia hung up.

Chapter Text

Lydia managed to take the subway to her job without problems. Endure her whole workday without problems. Go home and eat dinner without problems.

Until she glanced at her phone and realized she’d scheduled an exorcism for that night.

Fuck.

So she changed into her costume without problems. Slid into her leotard and boots and her red cloak, pulled up the hood and affixed a domino mask to her face with spirit gum. Made sure all the interior pockets she’d sewn in were loaded up with various useful items (some supernatural, like holy water and salt, and some more practical, like pepper spray).

If a level nine villain had decided to bully her, at least she wouldn’t go down without a fight.

She arrived at the creaky old house, dispatched its inhabitants, and set to work.

Immediately something felt…off.

Lydia had been around her mom enough to learn the signs of supernatural events happening. A certain chill in the air, for instance, or a door that wouldn’t shut all the way.

In this house, the kitchen cabinets were flapping off their hinges.

“Huh,” Lydia said.

The wind whooshed around her ankles, making the edges of her cloak flutter.

“Nice poncho,” she heard a gravelly voice say behind her, followed by a cackle. “Red’s your color.”

The voice scraped along the back of her neck, made her hair stand on end. Lydia swallowed hard, clenched her fists. The air around her smelled like ozone and death. Awful. “Show yourself,” she said. “I’m not afraid of you.”

“‘Course you aren’t,” the voice said. It sounded like it was coming from right behind her, somehow. She turned around but, of course, nobody was standing there.

“Somehow I’m guessing you’re not the ghost I was sent here about,” Lydia said, slowly. She readied a spell under her cloak, keeping her hand motions as minimal as possible. If she kept this thing talking, she could distract him.

“Maybe, maybe not,” the voice said. “Maybe I’ve been waitin’ here to meet you my whole life.”

Lydia shuddered. “Ew. You’re going to have to do better than lame pickup lines, creep,” she said. The cold wind blew the hood of her cloak off. “Why me?”

“Gonna have to figure that one out yourself, Little Red Riding Hood,” the voice said right back.

“I’m not into big bad wolves,” Lydia snapped. She finished the gestures for the spell and muttered the incantation under her breath.

Immediately something fell to the ground with a thump. She turned back around to see…a guy. A really fucked-up looking guy, but a guy, in a loud striped suit, with green hair and pallid skin. Yellow eyes, big smirk, pointy nose. Scruffy green beard.

Not exactly what she expected.

“Who the hell are you?”

The guy grinned up at her with a mouth full of jagged yellow teeth. “Your new archnemesis, babes.”

Lydia scowled at him. “Buzz off. I didn’t ask for you.”

“Yeah, but Clause 110-D of Subsection H of the Guild rules says you don’t hafta,” the guy said. He cleared his throat and put on a Masterpiece Theatre accent. “Any unaffiliated hero may subject to blind solicitation by potential archnemeses upon becoming active.” He tapped one filthy finger against his temple. “Got that shit memorized.”

“Sure,” Lydia said. “That’s probably for, like, your entry-level capes and goons. What if I want to be left alone?”

That made him get up, floating in the air over her head. “If you wanted to be left alone you wouldn’t’ve started this heroing crap to begin with.”

Lydia frowned. She…couldn’t argue with that. “What do I do to make you go away?”

The guy spread his striped arms. “Be a good little superhero. Fight me. Put your heart into it.”

And therein lay the trouble. Lydia swallowed, remembering how her mom had died only months ago to a malevolent ghost. It seemed like this asshole saw her face go pale, because he paused. “Tell you what,” he said, holding his hands up. “I’ll take it easy on ya, okay?”

Possibly the worst thing he could’ve said. Lydia’s eyes narrowed. “Fuck you,” she hissed, and threw a fireball at his head.

He dodged, because of course he did. Well, more like he shimmered and reappeared five feet away. One of the kitchen cabinet doors exploded into cinders. “Now that’s what I’m talkin’ about!” he cheered, manifesting two black-and-green pompoms and lifting them in the air. “Woo! Keep it up!”

“Don’t patronize me!” Lydia yelled. Her hand twitched and smoked. That had taken…a surprising amount of energy. She needed to hit the gym. Maybe look into stamina solutions. Prep spells beforehand. Something like that. She glanced around the room and flung a cloud of the wood shards and embers that used to be the cabinet into her enemy’s face.

He coughed and doubled over. “Great!” he wheezed. “Find the weak points. God, that smarts.”

While he was distracted, she ran to the open cabinet and snatched a cast-iron frying pan. Hefting it with both hands (yeah, she really needed to hit the gym), she ran behind him and clonked him in his stupid green head with it.

He hit the deck with a sound like a gong being struck. Little yellow birds tweeted around his head. “Oh, wow,” he said, sounding dazed, “wowee, you really rang my bell there, babes. G-good one.”

“Get lost,” Lydia hissed. Well, more like panted from the exertion. But she felt the adrenaline coursing through her system, her pride in really getting the jump on this guy. On a level nine villain. On her second excursion.

He looked up at her with unfocused yellow eyes, beaming. “You got spunk, kid,” he said, his smile woozy but still present. “I think this is gonna be great. For both of us.”

He patted his pockets with shaking hands before holding out a slip of paper. “Here. My card.”

Lydia raised one eyebrow – it didn’t look trapped – before accepting it.

No address or phone number. Just three words. Well, one word, three times.

“Betelgeuse?” she said, quizzically. The guy let out a moan that she hoped was from pain. She pocketed the card without thinking about it. Maybe she could burn it later to spite him.

“Fuck, you’re perfect,” he said. Lydia gagged before remembering why she’d actually shown up in the first place.

“Was there even a ghost here to begin with?” she asked. “Besides…whatever you are.”

“Demon, actually. From hell,” he said, like that was a casual thing to admit to being. Lydia gaped, but he continued, still with that dreamy expression on his face. He hefted himself up on one elbow and raised a clawed finger to point upstairs. “Up in the kids’ room. Haunted doll. Low-level spirit. Think they – ow – think the parents got it at a flea market or someshit. It probably wants its mommy.”

“Could’ve found that out myself,” Lydia said, under her breath. But…well, if he was telling the truth, at least she wouldn’t have to extend herself further.

“Call me!” Betelgeuse yelled after her as she trudged upstairs. Lydia flipped him off and he laughed.

This was going to be miserable.

Chapter Text

The next day, during her lunch break, Lydia ducked into the ladies’ room at her office and called the number she’d gotten yesterday. After routine pleasantries, the Councilwoman asked, “So, how did it go?”

Lydia groaned. “Awful. This guy’s a huge creep.” The Councilwoman made a low, sympathetic noise. “He said his name is –”

Councilwoman One shushed her before she could finish. “Don’t. Don’t say it. There’s some kind of curse. I can disclose that much. Saying it three times will summon him to your location.”

“That would’ve been great to know,” Lydia deadpanned. She scribbled “don’t say his name” in a notepad. “What other information am I authorized to hear?”

A considering noise from the other end of the line. “Full dossier. Operated at a level six until five months ago, until he shot up to level nine. Unfortunately the details of that event are classified. Guild files. You understand.”

“Sure,” Lydia said. “Is there anyone not in the guild who might know about this?”

“Oh, you’re a smart one, huh,” the Councilwoman said. Her deep, gruff voice sounded warm. “I can put you in contact with the heroes he antagonized before then.”

Lydia blinked. “You’re allowed to do that?”

“It’s public information,” the Councilwoman said. “Being a card-carrying OSI member technically classes you as a government employee. It doesn’t necessarily give the protections the Guild does. I don’t think they even get healthcare.”

Lydia had written “healthcare?” down in her notepad before crossing it out. Still, she took down the phone number Councilwoman One gave her and thanked her for her trouble.

“Any other ways I can get out of this massive inconvenience?” Lydia asked.

“If you want the nuclear option, you can take health clemency. Get a note from your doctor citing grievous mental and/or bodily harm.”

“I’m guessing intense annoyance isn’t sufficient.”

“Sorry, sweetie,” the Councilwoman said. “You’re gonna have to suck it up.”

She left a message on the new phone number once she got off work. The voice saying the mailbox belonged to “Adam and Barbara Maitland” sounded crisp, clear, feminine, and for a second Lydia thought she must’ve taken it down wrong.

And of course, she had another haunted house call set for that night. At least this time she managed to convince the itinerant spirits to leave before a cold wind blew through the room and she heard loud, slow clapping behind her.

“You could’ve ruined my day during work,” Lydia sniped. “What gives?”

Betelgeuse cackled, pulling himself out of a mirror and adjusting his striped lapels.

“Not my style, babes,” he said, that raspy voice making her shiver more than the wind did. “Want your undivided attention. Don’t wanna compete with anyone for it.”

Weird. Wouldn’t attacking her while she was distracted work to his advantage, tactically speaking? Lydia frowned. Betelgeuse snapped his fingers, and before she could realize what was happening, two tendrils of smoke yanked her cloak off her shoulders, leaving her in her leotard and boots.

“As much as I like the red, ‘s more fair if I can see your hands,” Betelgeuse said. He made a show of looking her up and down. Yuck.

“Fair?” Lydia snapped. “In what universe is a level nine villain picking on a level one hero fair?”

Betelgeuse shrugged. “You’ll catch up.” He grinned at her. “In no time you’ll be flyin’ circles around me.”

Huh. Well, it wasn’t like she was defenseless. Lydia concentrated, focusing energy around her hands. Not a big explosion this time - she didn’t want to burn herself out all at once. And burning…hm, maybe that was a problem, too. What Betelgeuse had done seemed to be just. Dark energy. Maybe she could…

She didn’t even have to incant. With a twist of her wrist, she’d summoned a dark cloud around her left hand. Another twist, and her right hand generated a similar cloud of smoke. It felt dense, oily, cold, like dunking her hand in something thicker than water. Betelgeuse lazily waved more tendrils of shadow in a “come on” gesture.

Lydia narrowed her eyes and began her attack. Flechettes of dark energy shot out from each of her fingers, small but sharp. Betelgeuse cartwheeled in midair to avoid them. “Oh, kitty’s got claws!” he crowed, before a tendril snuck toward her ankle. Lydia pivoted to dodge. He had access to a whole entire plane of movement that she didn’t. If she could learn to levitate, maybe –

Why was she even considering that?! Lydia scowled and used one of her flechettes to slice the tendril, making it disappear in a cloud of shadow. She planted her feet and readied another volley, this time putting her whole arm into the throw.

One of them nicked his sleeve this time.

“Keep ‘em comin’, babes!”

He was playing with her.

“Stay still, you dick,” Lydia snarled. She wiped her bangs out of her eyes, careful not to slice her hair on one of her razor-sharp shadow blades. She’d need to play around with these, too.

He hovered over close to her. “What, wanna get up close and personal?” he leered. Lydia twisted around and elbowed him in his round stomach.

Her mistake, because a tendril curled around her waist and held her just a hair’s breadth away from his body. She could feel the chill radiating from him, the brush of his disgusting jacket against her back. “Nice one,” he whispered, husky, in her ear. She could hear him laughing at her. Lydia felt her cheeks heat from mortification. Rookie mistake. If this guy was going to harass her, she couldn’t let her guard down.

“B-bite me,” she said, trying not to let her discomfort show.

That earned her a full-throated cackle that made her squirm. “Maybe next time.”

The tendril vanished.

Had he…left already? What the hell was that about? Lydia straightened her back and walked over to get her poncho from where he’d thrown it across the room.

Three steps in, she realized she wasn’t standing on the floor, her boots hitting nothing but air. By the time she realized what was happening, she’d fallen a foot straight down only to land on her ass. Smooth move.

But that raised a bunch of implications.

Implications that she’d need to test. Maybe he hadn’t been taunting her when he said she’d fly circles around him.

Lydia scowled and scrubbed her hand down her face. Great. Now she was starting to play along with this stupid jerk and his stupid game.

She tossed and turned in bed once she got home, too frustrated and high on adrenaline to sleep. Lydia sighed and grabbed her vibrator out of her nightstand. At least she could resort to using her old standby.

Except it was getting harder and harder to remember the sordid details of that hookup the further away she got from it. And thus harder and harder to masturbate to. Her toy wasn’t as thick as her mystery date’s cock, and she had to pinch her shoulder and really dig her nails in to mimic the feeling of his teeth in her skin before she could come.

Another fucking indignity.

Chapter Text

After a week, Lydia hadn’t been able to walk on air again.

Not that she should be surprised. The first time had been a total fluke. But it frustrated her that in all her mom’s books and grimoires she couldn’t find anything about it.

Maybe she’d have better luck if her phone didn’t keep ringing off the hook.

Every time she picked up, the OSI’s robocall system (“Please be patient as the Office for Secret Intelligence is experiencing budget cuts. Your heroism is very important to us.” Lydia had outright laughed the first time she’d heard that one.) kept haranguing her about operating unregistered. She’d tuned most of the calls out or canceled them, but one had managed to slip past her defenses while she was showering and had made its way to her voicemail.

“Please be aware that if you continue practicing without a valid license, the OSI reserves the right to exert a fine of up to ten thousand dollars…”

Lydia froze while towel-drying her hair. Ten thousand dollars? She scowled and opened her laptop, hair still dripping, and pulled up the extremely slow government website. She needed to provide the OSI with a ton of personal information to operate legally as a level four. Like her driver’s license (which had expired, because she lived in New York City and didn’t own a car), her Social Security number, and the answers to at least six security questions. Two of them in the drop down menu were the same question about her first pet.

When it came to the field for “code name,” Lydia frowned.

She’d had some options scribbled down in her work notepad, but none of them really fit. She blew a breath out between her lips and scanned around the room. Something vaguely pithy, something clever, definitely not something gendered (sorry Mom, but Lydia didn’t feel like operating as anything “girl” or “woman”).

Her eyes fell on her vintage camera sitting on her coffee table. The one that took actual film. She hadn’t had a space to develop pictures in ages…

Lydia smirked and tapped her keyboard.

“Darkroom.”

There. Serviceable. Stylish. Tied in with her abilities, especially the shadows that got easier and easier for her to manifest by the day.

For the next exorcism she undertook, she sprinkled a salt circle around the entire perimeter of the apartment building her client inhabited. Well, salt rectangle. She had to squeeze between a couple of dumpsters to do it, but she managed.

And the exorcism went…smoothly. Barely any ritual needed. Just a one-and-done conversation with a confused ghost.

Honestly, kind of boring.

No, stop. She couldn’t be thinking that way. She trudged down the stairs of the apartment building (the ghost had been haunting the elevator and she didn’t want to risk it), her boots hitting the creaky stairs with more force than strictly necessary. God, if she could only figure out flying, she wouldn’t have to put in a full cardio session after she’d already gone to the gym that morning.

When she finally made it out the front door, Lydia froze. Something was blocking her path. An object that definitely hadn’t been there before.

A bouquet of wilting black roses, tied with a filthy, moth-eaten bow that looked like it’d been striped at one point. They smelled…well, they smelled like half-dead roses. Perfumey with an undertone of rot.

Cautiously, Lydia picked the bouquet up by the stems. She spotted a yellowed card tucked into the ribbon, addressed to “Darkroom”. Quotes included. She ripped the card out of its envelope, already feeling a headache throb at her temples. On the note inside was written:

See you next time, babes. -B

Lydia hurled the bouquet in the dumpster. The ribbon stuck to her hand. Gross. She wiped it off and stuck it in a pocket of her cloak, resolving, like with the business card, to burn it later.

The next night, she didn’t bother with the salt circle. Betelgeuse was just going to bother her anyway.

He didn’t disappoint. Or rather, he did disappoint, because she didn’t want to see him at all, and therefore encountering him was a disappointment. He loudly crunched on fistfuls of what looked like centipedes, eating them out of an old-timey red-and-white striped popcorn box. And followed her around while she swung a flashlight around the house she was examining.

“Nice name, by the way,” he stage-whispered in her ear. Lydia held her finger to her lips and glared at him. She ducked down and scanned around a large cabinet while Betelgeuse, of course, kept talking. “Was ‘Emo Phillips’ taken? Or ‘Miss Murder’? Or, wait, I got a whole list of these…”

“Shut up,” Lydia snapped.

“‘Crawling In My Skin?’ ‘Hot Topic’?”

“Stop.” He’d generated a third arm and actually pulled out a list that unfurled all the way onto the floor, so that he could hold it and read out loud without setting his snacks down. And when Lydia made a threatening motion with her flashlight, he just grinned broadly at her and kept going.

“‘Black Parade’? ‘Dead Zone’? ‘Ruby Gloom’? That one’s good, works with the costume. I could probably do somethin’ about the copyright if you wanted - whoa!”

Lydia threw her flashlight across the room and seized Betelgeuse by his lapels. She slammed his back against the cupboard and got up close to his face. His yellow eyes shot all the way open.

“Stop making fun of me,” Lydia hissed, deathly quiet. “I had to pick a stupid codename to get the Feds off my back because I don’t want to pay months and months of rent to the Government for operating ‘unlicensed.’” She leaned closer, teeth bared. Her nose practically touched his. His rotting corpse stench invaded her nostrils, making her wince, but she pressed on. “You’re already making my life difficult enough as it is with you trapping me in this arching situation. The last thing I need is your shitty attitude while I try to do my second, unpaid job.”

Betelgeuse gazed at her, silent for once, lips parted. His green hair darkened at the temples, going a deep reddish color. “Uh huh,” he said, voice cracking.

“I will do the absolute bare minimum to fulfill your requirements, and then I am going to go home,” Lydia snarled. “And you are going to stop talking to me.”

Betegeuse swallowed hard. His normally catlike pupils had dilated so wide they’d obscured most of his yellow irises. “Yes ma’am,” he whimpered.

Lydia took a step back, breathing heavy. Her feet weren’t touching the ground.

She gasped and looked down, managing to hover for a couple of seconds before losing her footing and falling to the floor. “Fuck,” Lydia whispered, hot tears of embarrassment prickling her eyes.

She heard a loud click and the cabinet opened, a mattress falling through Betelgeuse’s body and crashing onto the floor. A…Murphy bed? Immediately, what looked like a person wearing pajamas sidled out. Sidled, because the person looked like they’d been rolled through a pasta machine and completely flattened.

“Whew, I was stuck there for weeks!” the ghost said, adjusting their pajamas. “Thanks! Time to go!” And they faded into nonexistence.

Lydia blinked slowly. God, she couldn’t even figure this gig out. It took a minute before she registered a cold, pale hand on her shoulder.

“Need help?” Betelgeuse asked, his scratchy voice soft.

Lydia sniffed. She still accepted the help. Betelgeuse pulled her up and into midair like she weighed nothing.

“There you go,” Betelgeuse said. “That’s my girl.”

God, how mortifying. Her face felt as red as her cloak. Lydia yanked her hand out of his but…stayed in the air. Didn’t fall.

She blinked.

“You’re gettin’ there,” he said, offering her a crooked smile. His hair looked lighter for some reason. Almost pink. “Promise.”

Lydia frowned. That word, in that tone, sounded familiar. Betelgeuse picked up her shaking hand in his and, with the barest brush of his cold lips, pressed a kiss to it.

And then he was gone.

This time, she stayed floating, drifting at least a foot above the floor, for what felt like hours.

Chapter Text

Betelgeuse was doing something to her.

Lydia scowled before putting on her face mask. She could barely call what they’d done over their last couple of meetings fighting. Sure, he’d antagonize her, but she’d never seen him even attempt to go on the offensive physically or magically. Not since he’d kissed her hand. He mostly…dodged, occasionally sent out a tendril or an extra arm or something to grab at her ankle, make her jump.

He was lulling her into a false sense of security. She needed to stay sharp. Her muscles burned from the increased time she’d spent at the gym, and the dark energy that curled around her fingers barely resisted her call. She’d started putting together a spell based on the signature weapon of one of the high-profile heroines that worked in New York, but she hadn’t had the opportunity to test it on anyone but herself. Still, hopefully it wouldn’t backfire on her.

Meanwhile, she had another exorcism tonight. Lydia glanced at her calendar. Two weeks since she’d gotten the contract from the Guild. Two more weeks of harassment. Two more weeks of enduring Betelgeuse.

Well, if what she was planning worked, maybe less than that.

This time he left her alone during the exorcism work itself, which was kind of a blessing, honestly. She’d gotten a note in the mail with a $200 fine for property damage from one of her clients the other week, so any way she could be more careful during the actual work itself helped. But when she was turning to leave, she felt a tap on her shoulder. When she turned around, she saw a hand, attached to a striped arm, wiggle its black fingernails at her. It retracted like a hose, slowly enough that she could follow, until it snaked out the fire escape. And two of the fingers made a “come here” motion at her. Beckoning upward.

Lydia hesitated. She should leave. Call it an easy night and disappear. Go home and tuck herself into bed and maybe keep clinging to the one comfort she had in this nightmare of a situation.

But…he’d probably do something to prevent her from leaving if she didn’t follow, Lydia reasoned. Her shoulders sank. She huffed and swung her leg out the fire exit before climbing up the metal stairs.

Still, she began concentrating on her newest spell when she reached the top. Only to be greeted with the hand…pulling out a white flag?

“Ceasefire,” Betelgeuse called from where he was perched on an AC unit. He looked extra pale silhouetted against the night sky, as otherworldly as he said he was. “Not here to fight.”

Lydia blinked and peered up at him with narrowed eyes.

He held up his hands and cleared his throat. “Section 347-B-54. If one party requests a temporary cessation of hostilities and declares the length of the period, the other party must honor the request under penalty.” Returning to his normal voice, he said, “Let’s say…three hours. Honor code, baby.”

“Don’t call me that,” Lydia said. She didn’t want to know what an organization of supervillains thought a “penalty” was, and if she could get out of one of their dumb magic battles, so much the better. Even if she was still stuck being around this awful man. “Fine. What gives?”

Betelgeuse stood up and dusted himself off. “I wanna level the playing field.” He jumped off the AC unit and zoomed over to her, hovering in midair and extending his hand. “Way I see it, you’re operating at a major disadvantage.” Lydia crossed her arms and snorted, but Betelgeuse seemed to intuit her meaning. “No, not rank-wise. You know you’re at six now?”

She hadn’t. No notification from the OSI about that change in her standing. Lydia blinked, processing that information.

“And you’re pushing E.M.A. seven.” Betelgeuse smiled down at her. “Good hustle. But there’s somethin’ holding you back.”

Lydia scowled. “It’s probably you, with your constant bullshit.”

Betelgeuse gasped and clutched his chest. “Ow, a direct hit on the guy who’s trying to help you out!” He laughed. “No, babes, I want you to succeed. Know you’ve got it in ya.”

For some reason, those words made Lydia’s stomach tighten. Well, that confirmed that this whole thing was a setup. No way he was going to help her out of the goodness of his heart. Not when he’d put her through this whole fiasco to begin with. Still, if she could distract him…”What do you mean,” Lydia asked, “by ‘succeed’?”

Betelgeuse just winked at her and pointed at her feet. Lydia glanced down to see that somehow, while they were talking, she’d levitated off the surface of the roof. She stared down, shocked - how had that happened when she wasn’t even thinking about it?

Betelgeuse said in that softer tone that he’d used when he’d kissed her hand, “I think ya know, babes.”

Lydia felt her palms sweating. “C’mon,” Betelgeuse said. “Let’s go. Just you and me.”

“Go where?” Lydia asked. The hairs on the back of her neck prickled and her stomach twisted itself into knots. What was his game? What did he want with this psychological warfare? God, at least the magic fights made sense.

“You think too much. Just…I dunno, just trust me,” Betelgeuse said. His hair had lightened to pink at the tips, glowing in the moonlight. His yellow eyes had gone the color of warm, molten gold. “Please.”

The cold air around Lydia stilled, seemingly waiting for what she was about to do.

He was lowering his guard, she told herself. She could get the jump on him. If she just waited until the ceasefire was up, bided her time, stalled...

Lydia swallowed hard and placed her trembling hand in his.

Chapter Text

When Lydia’s palm settled in his bigger, cooler one, Betelgeuse startled. He looked down at her hand with his lips slightly parted. She thought she heard him mumble something to himself, maybe “okay,” but it was too quiet for her to hear.

“Great choice,” he said, his eyes moving back up to meet hers. With a tug of his wrist, he pulled her to hover right beside him. His thick, cold fingers interlaced with hers, squeezing. Lydia felt her cheeks flush. What was his game?

“Stop thinkin’ so hard,” she heard, vaguely, in her ear. Lydia realized her body was sinking, ever so slightly, in the air. She glared at Betelgeuse.

“It’s hard not to think when I’m defying physics,” Lydia snapped. Betelgeuse hummed the opening bars to “Defying Gravity” and she groaned, burying her face in her hand.

“Aw, what, not a Wicked girlie?” he asked, nudging her in her side. He’d started to drift higher, higher, making Lydia clutch his arm with his other hand. “I got it. How about…I can show you the woooorld…”

“That’s worse,” Lydia said. She gulped, suddenly aware that he could drop her at any moment and make her splatter on the pavement. “M-maybe this isn’t a good idea.”

“Are you kidding?” Betelgeuse glanced down at her and smiled, eyes dancing. “This is the best idea.”

The hand that wasn’t holding hers snuck around her waist, his strong fingers digging into the material of her cloak and pulling her close. He felt solid, real. She realized the position had forced his upper arm (his nice, thick upper arm - no, no, stop that) into the valley between her breasts and flushed.

“Make it quick,” she said. She couldn’t look, instead burying her face into his horrible musty jacket.

He didn’t move.

She felt another hand tilting her chin up, gently, like he was trying not to break an antique teacup. “Hey,” Betelgeuse said. “If you really, really want, I can put you down. But…” and here he glanced down and bit his lip, before looking back into her eyes. “...this is your one chance. I’m not gonna do another of these ceasefires again.”

This could be the weak point she needed. She just needed to stall him out.

His thumb barely brushed against her lower lip. Betelgeuse stared in her eyes like he was waiting for her, like he was searching for something. The intensity made goosebumps prickle along the backs of Lydia’s hands.

She tightened her mouth. “Okay.” Her voice emerged, small and faint, from her own throat.

The moldy, yellow grin Betelgeuse gave her made her breath catch. Something in it felt…familiar, somehow. Maybe because she’d been seeing it multiple times a week.

She realized, then, that his hair had stayed bubblegum pink since she’d taken his hand. Before she could figure out what that meant, his fingers tightened around her waist, and they were flying.

Fast. Too fast. Lydia screamed and clutched tighter. Betelgeuse gritted his teeth. “Please don’t make this hard,” he said, voice suddenly very low and rough.

She’d probably shrieked right in his ear. Lydia grimaced and stammered out a “sorry.”

“‘S okay,” he said, but then he cleared his throat and slowed down a little. They were still moving pretty fast and very high up in the air, to the point where the cars jammed in traffic below looked like toys. “Just. Try to focus on how this feels, awright? That’s…that’s probably the best way to figure it out.”

Lydia blinked and tried to register what was happening. Wind had blown the hood of her cloak right off and streamed through her short hair. The currents of air supported her body, which felt…light. Present enough not to drift away, but less substantial somehow. How weird.

“I guess it’s kinda like swimming?” Betelgeuse was saying, his gravelly voice worming through her brain. “I mean, I’ve never been swimming, but…”

Minutely, her grip relaxed. If he was going to kill her, he would’ve done it by now. She heard him hum approvingly and give her waist a squeeze. “There it is,” he said, warm. “There you go. You got it. Kid, you’re a natural.”

She nodded, suddenly unable to speak. When she glanced up, the night sky - surprisingly clear, with little pinpoints of stars twinkling merrily - her breath caught. “It’s beautiful,” she murmured.

Betelgeuse laughed, his soft chest shaking. “Yeah, it is,” he said.

Her face heated again and she squeezed her legs together. “C-could you…” she asked, and took her left arm off his completely. “I want to…”

Betelgeuse seemed to get her meaning, because he just smiled at her and, with a flick of his shoulder, spun her out like a top. Lydia gasped but, like he’d said, she didn’t fall. She covered her delighted laugh with her free hand. “Oh my God.”

“You still want me to…” and Betelgeuse glanced at their interlocked hands.

Lydia swallowed. “Uh. Yeah. For now.” He nodded and gave her palm a comforting squeeze.

And then he let her lead. She probably didn’t need his hand to keep her up, but she wasn’t taking any chances. He didn’t really seem bothered that she wasn’t letting go, his gaze just focused on where their fingers knit together as Lydia tried to get her movements under control. Weirdly enough, he didn’t weigh anything behind her, but his hand still felt solid and cool and there. Real. With her.

This was her archenemy, her brain screamed. By his own insistence. But the butterflies in Lydia’s stomach felt like they were going to carry her on their wings up, up, up, far above the New York skyline, all the way into the stars.

Eventually, she tired out, and landed (a little clumsily) on the flat top of a skyscraper, right near a billboard advertising something called "Rust! The Musical". Now that she wasn’t moving, the cold nipped at her through her thin leotard and blew her cloak around her. Lydia shivered and pulled her cloak tighter around herself.

“Here,” she heard, and then a soft, heavy weight settled onto her shoulders. She glanced down and saw stripes. Betelgeuse stood right to her side, stripped of his jacket and in his shirtsleeves and suspenders. (Suspenders?)

“Thanks,” Lydia mumbled. But then she froze. He was being too nice. Too friendly. Louder, she asked, “What is this for?”

Betelgeuse stood very, very still. “You tell me,” he said, keeping his tone measured. Something changed in the air between them, the atmosphere suddenly oppressive. “What do you want, babes?”

“World peace,” Lydia snapped. “And to be left alone.”

That made a dark color flash through Betelgeuse’s pink hair. “Uh huh?” he asked. He pulled on one of the sleeves of the jacket he’d lent her and somehow sent her reeling backward. Lydia flailed her arms, trying not to hit the ground, but a cold, firm pressure stopped her from falling on her ass. Betelgeuse leaned over her, holding her in what probably looked like a ballroom dance dip. Her hands clawing at his broad back. His face inches from hers.

This felt dangerous.

Lydia stared up at him, unable to read the expression on his face. “I think you want somethin’ else,” he said, so quiet she had to lean in to hear him.

She didn’t. No way. Her insides squirmed. “I don’t,” she said, but her voice barely squeaked out from between her lips. She sounded so weak.

Betelgeuse’s other hand cradled the side of her face. Lydia fought the urge to lean into it, her whole body trembling from an agitation so intense that she didn’t know what to do. How to respond. “I do,” he rasped.

And then, cold, dry lips, firm but achingly gentle, pressed against hers.

Chapter Text

Lydia didn’t pull away.

She should have. Absolutely. Should’ve pushed Betelgeuse right off her and maybe pushed him off the building for good measure. Maybe then he’d get the picture.

But her body resisted. She, instead, found her fingers winding through Betelgeuse’s nasty pink hair, her spine arching to press more of herself against him. He moaned into her mouth as his rough thumb stroked her cheek.

The hand at her back pushed her even closer and kept holding her up, even as she felt him settle on top of her, his feet leaving the ground to position himself better. His cold thighs slotted between her slimmer ones, leaving Lydia’s legs free to wrap around him.

The firm outline of his cock nudged against the crotch of her leotard, and Lydia realized with horror and mortification how wet she’d gotten. Must be some wires crossing from the adrenaline, the thrill of flying high above New York City. He could feel it too, because his dick throbbed and he groaned, low and rough, into her mouth. He tasted less foul than she’d expected.

Both of his hands dipped under her cloak to palm her tits over her thin leotard, making Lydia hiss and twist further into him. But…wait, his one hand was still on her back, and another still held her face and rubbed along her cheekbone, and yet another had cupped the back of her head and was trailing fingers through her hair. Oh. Right. He could do more arms. That was…interesting.

God, she still hated him, still wanted him gone, but a larger and louder part of Lydia’s brain kept wondering exactly what he could do with his cold, gross monster tongue. She felt him finally pull away from her mouth to trail sloppy kisses across her face, down her neck, making her gasp.

“Mm, Lydia, that’s it, beautiful,” she heard him growl, low and raspy and running straight along her nerve endings.

Lydia froze.

After a moment, she realized…yeah, he probably did know her name. He’d been able to file all that paperwork about her, after all.

But that wasn’t the problem. It was how he said it.

Because Lydia could barely remember anything about the incredible hookup from the other month, the one with the cock that felt like it stretched her for days, but what she’d clung to, what had been enough, just barely, to masturbate to, was the way the mystery man had said her name. So intimately. Like he wanted all of her, even the messy raw bleeding parts.

Just like Betelgeuse had. Down to the way he drew out the syllables, the way the final “a” turned into a groan.

Lydia attempted to shove him off her, but that didn’t work - he was wrapped around her like an octopus. She resorted to beating her fists against his chest. “Stop. Stop it. Get off.”

Like he was lifting out of a trance, Betelgeuse gazed up at her with hazy golden eyes, but then pulled off with what looked like extreme reluctance.

“What the fuck is happening?” Lydia asked, trying to keep the panic out of her voice.

Betelgeuse blinked at her. “Uh, I really wanted to eat you out. Is that…is that a problem?”

Lydia clenched her fists and squeezed her eyes shut. “Oh my God. No. This can’t be happening.”

“Lydia? Lyds? Babes?” Betelgeuse reached a filthy hand toward her but Lydia jerked away.

She took a deep breath through her nose, concentrated all her confusion and anger and inexplicable betrayal into the spell she’d been cooking up. Shadowy tendrils twined together into thick ropes, glittering black, that yanked Betelgeuse’s arms backward and bound them tight. There.

She heard him moan even harder. “Oh, that’s what I’m talkin’ about.”

Lydia opened her eyes to see him still visibly hard, his hair a dark magenta color, tongue lolling out of his mouth. “What the hell is wrong with you?” she asked, voice rising in pitch.

“Uh, I dunno exactly, but probably a lot,” Betelgeuse said, matter-of-fact, but then frowned. “Huh. That…wasn’t what I wanted to say.” His eyes widened as he realized what was happening.

Lydia smirked. It had worked. “Are you, like, fun mad or mad mad?” Betelgeuse asked, his smile fading a little. “‘Cause we can stop the scene! If you want!”

Scene? What? “No,” Lydia said, righting herself and planting her feet firmly on the ground, “I think this works.” She straightened her cloak out and smoothed her hair, trying to regain a semblance of order. “You’re going to answer some questions from me. And you’re going to be honest. Not that you have a choice.” She let out a huff of laughter. “I saw somewhere that Warriana can force people to tell the truth with her lasso and thought I might as well give it a try.”

“That’s so fucking hot,” Betelgeuse said, sounding completely earnest. “You invented lie detector bondage, holy shit, you freak! I knew you were made for me!”

Lydia pressed her fingers to her temples, already feeling a headache starting to form. “Did you…did you know who I was the whole time?”

Betelgeuse snorted. “I mean, yeah, duh.”

She grimaced. “And you set this whole thing up and forced me into a contract because…why?”

“I guess it sounds real bad when you put it that way,” Betelgeuse said, his toothy grin fading minutely.

Lydia twisted her wrist and savored his little yelp as the bonds tightened. “Answer the question.”

“Ow ow ow, fuck, okay, ow,” Betelgeuse said, voice whimpery and thready in a way that was absolutely not distracting. “Uh. Lotsa reasons. Big one’s Article 97D of Guild bylaws. Says that no villain may arch a previously claimed nemesis, without first consulting the primary arch of said nemesis.”

It took Lydia a minute to process that statement. She narrowed her eyes. “You…you stalked me and waited to file this paperwork to make it so you’re the only one who can harass me? And to…to gatekeep any other supervillains from interacting with me?”

“Oh, no, I didn’t wait,” Betelgeuse said, shaking his head. “I prefiled the paperwork two days after we hooked up, once I saw you buyin’ costume materials.”

That raised another question. “You did stalk me, though.”

“I mean…yeah.” Betelgeuse’s shoulders shrugged. “You didn’t give me your last name and I needed it for the forms.”

Lydia’s stomach churned. Oh, this was bad. “Have you been watching me? How long?”

“Day after we met,” Betelgeuse said promptly. “Looked all over the city. Lotta foot traffic. But I found you! Like I said!”

“And you used a position of power to force me into a relationship.” At the word “relationship,” Betelgeuse’s hair softened to bubblegum pink and he gave Lydia a dopey smile. She felt like screaming. “Oh, my God, what is wrong with you?!”

“I thought you recognized me!” Betelgeuse said, finally seeming to realize that Lydia was actually angry. “Baby, please, don’t be mad! I thought we were doing a kinky roleplay thing the whole time!”

Lydia laughed hollowly. “You’re insane,” she said. “You’re crazy. I’m so glad I left the club and didn’t get your name or number. I really dodged a bullet there, huh? Never, ever talk to me again. Fuck you, fuck this. Go to hell or wherever you’re from.”

She released the spell with a dismissive hand gesture. Betelgeuse reached for her, his hair flickering colors too fast to see, but Lydia whipped away and ran right off the roof. She was able to float down from the surface of the building but it took the remainder of her strength, and her landing felt shaky. She wiped her eyes and called an Uber, furious and frustrated and cold.

Chapter Text

A week passed.

No exorcisms. No boring ghosts that needed to find a way home, or wherever it was that ghosts went.

And no Betelgeuse with his misguided Tuxedo Mask nonsense, either. At least he took Lydia seriously this time when she told him to get lost.

At work, Lydia’s drafts languished while she racked her brain about how he could’ve possibly come to the conclusion that they were…she didn’t know, an item or something. She thought she’d been pretty clear in her disdain for him. Maybe she should’ve stuck to fireballs. Definitely shouldn’t have taken his hand to fly across New York.

(She hadn’t tried to fly since that night, either. She told herself she didn’t miss it.)

She jolted out of her reverie to hear her phone buzzing on her desk. Lydia squinted down at the screen. Unknown caller. Not knowing what she expected - she’d blocked all the OSI numbers, and since she’d registered officially and given them her address they preferred snail mail, gross - she answered.

“Hello?”

“Hi, may I speak to Lydia Deetz?” a clear voice said, sounding slightly uncertain. “This is Barbara Maitland. You called us a while ago, and we’ve been, well, we’ve been so busy that we haven’t had a chance to get back to you.”

Lydia shot bolt upright in her seat. She glanced around the top of the cubicle farm before hunching down and answering in a low voice. “Yes, this is Lydia.”

“Based on what you said in your message, we’d like to meet you.” She heard what sounded like low voices on the other end of the line. “It’d be easier to talk in person. Are you in New York?”

“Yes…”

“Okay, good!” Barbara said. “Can you meet us at…” Lydia scribbled down the name of the diner Barbara mentioned. “It’s pretty popular with, well, with our crowd. And your crowd too, I guess!”

“Right,” Lydia said, swallowing. “You said Saturday morning?”

So she found herself at the diner 10:30 on Saturday, with a cup of black coffee in front of her, faced with an extremely friendly, extremely normal-looking couple of white people who looked to be in their thirties. She learned, over a five-minute introduction, that Barbara could control fire and Adam was indestructible. “My strong guy,” Barbara said, playfully squeezing her husband’s bicep. Lydia managed a weak nod. She’d definitely need more coffee.

“It’s our treat,” Barbara said, nodding her blonde head after she ordered waffles.

“Yeah, it’s not often that we meet a brand-new hero!” Adam added, with a big, dorky smile.

Lydia fiddled with her spoon. “So, uh. You said you got my message, right?”

Barbara’s cheery smile faded. “Yes,” she said. “We’re, um. We’re kind of concerned.”

Letting out a hollow laugh, Lydia nodded. “I bet.”

“We’re, well,” Adam said, “we’re not exactly upset that he’s not bothering us anymore, but…”

“But you just started out,” Barbara said, after a glance from Adam, “and he’s…powerful.”

“So, what, did he try to lock you guys into an arching contract too?”

Adam and Barbara’s eyes widened comically large. “Did he what now?” Adam managed, after he and Barbara exchanged a look.

“He’s…he’s on his own?” Barbara asked. “Operating…independently?”

Lydia frowned. “Why wouldn’t he be? He doesn’t seem like a popular guy. Not with his…personality.”

Barbara let out a heavy exhale, puffing out her cheeks. “Lydia, when Be–” she caught herself, “when we knew that man six months or so ago, he was just a henchman.”

“A level six henchman,” Adam added, then backpedaled, “not that there’s anything wrong with being a henchman!”

Lydia took a gulp of her coffee, ignoring the way her fingers clenched the mug’s handle. A henchman? Betelgeuse? With that level of power?

“That can’t be right,” she said, slowly.

Barbara shook her head. “No. We were being arched by one of the Councilmembers.”

That tidbit of information, delivered in a cautious whisper, made Lydia slam her coffee mug down on the formica table. “What?”

“It’s true, I’m afraid,” Adam said. He suddenly looked a lot older than his years. “We got the sense that she…didn’t do much herself. She seemed powerful but kind of…old?”

“Again, not that you can’t be old and powerful!” Barbara said. “Captain Sunshine’s pushing sixty and he’s in better shape than either of us!”

“But it seemed like...his boss…had him doing all her dirty work.”

Lydia’s brain struggled to imagine Betelgeuse at anyone’s beck and call. She then remembered shoving him against the Murphy bed, and that on their first meeting she’d locked him into restraints basically unprovoked. She ducked her head to hide her rapidly flushing cheeks.

“That’s weird,” Lydia mumbled. “What was the Councilwoman like?”

Adam and Barbara looked at each other again, before Barbara said, grimly, “Awful.”

“Mean. Nasty,” Adam supplied. “We only saw them interact once and it was…bad.”

Barbara hugged her upper arms and thanked the waitress who set their plates down in front of them. “He’d let us go from a trap and she…just laid into him. For ages.”

“Like, physically?”

Adam shuddered. “No. It was…it was really uncomfortable. We both told our therapist about it.”

“Upsetting,” Barbara said. “We…we really don’t like him. But we hope he’s doing better.”

The hash browns tasted like nothing. Lydia chewed robotically and swallowed just so she wouldn’t have to talk. “And how did he act around you?”

This time they replied immediately. “Needy,” Adam and Barbara said in unison.

“He, um, he kept trying to…insinuate himself,” Adam said.

Now that Lydia could imagine.

“But we haven’t seen him in months,” Barbara said. “And our archnemesis agreement with Juno - that’s the Councilwoman’s name - was declared null and void right before then.”

“Yeah, we’ve entered ourselves into candidacy for the Guild’s arch matching program,” Adam said, and held up two crossed fingers. “Hopefully we get paired with another couple!”

Lydia nearly spat out her eggs. “Why would you want that?” she asked. “An archnemesis, I mean?”

“Well,” Barbara said, after she’d completely doused her waffle with maple syrup, “sometimes you get a really strong friendship from it. It’s a great way to ensure you’re meeting people on your level, honestly.”

“And the Guild generally plays pretty fair,” Adam said. He gestured with his forkful of scrambled eggs. “Not always, and not as fair as the OSI!” Lydia swallowed her comment about the OSI’s willingness to levy fees. “But it’s a good way to keep these villains occupied with non-lethal matters.”

“Kind of like enrichment,” Barbara says. “Or community service. If they’re fighting us, they’re not blowing up a hospital.”

“Yeah, it’s actually fascinating history,” Adam said. His eyes sparkled. Barbara beamed up at him. “We watched a documentary on it the other week…”

The rest of the conversation devolved to minutia, small talk, the kind of stuff Lydia could respond to mechanically while her thoughts whirred. They asked Lydia how she’d gotten started, and she ended up telling them quite a few stories about her mom and her adventures.

When she left, she had plans to go bowling with them next month. No idea how she’d managed that. Barbara took Lydia’s hands in both of hers before they parted ways. “If he comes near you again,” she said, voice low and deadly serious, “you tell us right away.” Lydia could see the ends of her blond hair rise slightly, shining with flame, as she spoke. Adam nodded behind her. Lydia told them that she would.

But, she reflected as she walked from the diner to the nearest subway station, she also had way, way more questions than answers.

Chapter Text

After another (boring, dull, empty) week of no heroic excursions, just her day job and her usual routine, Lydia darted into her apartment’s lobby after a surprise thunderstorm caught her on the way home from work. She shook her hair out and opened her mailbox only for dozens of red envelopes to spill onto the cracked tile floor.

She glanced around to make sure nobody had seen, before shoveling all of them into her purse and booking it upstairs.

Safely in her apartment, she dumped the envelopes on her coffee table, sitting down to open them one by one, largest first. The biggest envelope contained a notification that her (that is, Darkroom’s) provisional arching period with Betelgeuse had expired and had not been renewed by either. Lydia breathed a sigh of relief. Thank God that was over. She ignored the slight twist in her stomach as she set the sheet of paper down.

She slit open the next envelope. This document notifies [Darkroom] (Lydia Deetz, hereafter “Hero”) of a provisional request of archnemesisship from…some guy she hadn’t heard of.

She rolled her eyes, crumpled the paper into a ball, and tossed it behind her.

The next one also contained an identical document, just with a different villain’s name.

As did the next one.

And the next.

And the one after that.

None of them were from Betelgeuse. Lydia didn’t know what she’d expected, but she’d thought he’d at least push the issue.

By the time she’d accumulated a small pile of crumpled paper behind her, Lydia was tempted to throw the remaining envelopes into the trash. Or burn them. Instead, she grabbed a wineglass from her kitchen cabinet and poured herself a very, very full glass of Malbec.

Then her phone rang.

Lydia paused and checked the screen. Councilwoman One. She hit accept and set it to speaker, flopping down on her couch.

“What did I do this time?” Lydia asked, voice flat.

“Look at you, Miss Popular,” the deep voice on the other end of the line said. “One provisional archship and you’re already E.M.A. level seven, with high-level villains beating down your door.”

Lydia groaned. “I don’t want that.” She swallowed a huge gulp of wine. “I just want to be left alone.”

Silence from the other end of the line.

“What, am I just a piece of meat now for you assholes to toss around?” Lydia snapped. “Oh, wow, suddenly I can fly sometimes and now every dickhead with a death ray wants to fight me?”

More silence.

“Fuck this,” Lydia muttered under her breath. Then, louder, after another drink of wine, “How do I quit?”

After a moment, she heard a low, rattling sigh. “Lydia, do you mind switching to video?”

Lydia glanced down at her work blouse and pencil skirt. She hadn’t changed yet, having been too busy with the letters. “I…I guess?”

The phone screen flickered before a circular-framed picture clarified. Lydia squinted. The view on the other end showed a woman sitting at a fancy desk in what looked like a really neat old house with…was that a butterfly motif in the wallpaper?

The woman looked nothing like Lydia had expected. She looked to be in her early forties or late thirties, maybe, with smooth dark shoulder-length hair, immaculate makeup, and tasteful pearl studs in her ears. And then her mouth opened and Councilwoman One’s unmistakable voice came out.

“Here’s some free advice, Lydia,” the Councilwoman said. She shook a cigarette out of a red and white box and lit it with a practiced motion. The smoke wafted upward in the camera’s view. “You’ve got a great momentum built up, and a high-level antagonist with a strong advancement history - including a dead council member under his belt - eating out of your hand. Cushy gig. Frankly, it’d be a terrible move to quit this industry.”

Dead council member? He’d…killed his boss, and that was somehow good? Lydia scowled. Not exactly a ringing endorsement. “He’s unstable, and anyway I don’t want to keep doing this,” she protested. “It’s not even my full-time job. The hours are horrible and it’s boring and I don’t want to be harassed by freaks anymore.” She cringed at how childish her voice sounded.

At “freaks,” the woman stared at her with cold blue eyes. “You wear a poncho to do little dance routines in the sky with your ‘unstable’ boyfriend, honey. I don’t think you need to be calling us freaks.”

“It’s a cloak,” Lydia said, and after a minute, added, “and he’s not my boyfriend, gross.”

The Councilwoman’s eyes narrowed. One eyebrow rose.

“He isn’t!” Lydia said, voice rising in pitch. “He didn’t…he didn’t even ask!”

The Councilwoman exhaled smoke through her nose and rubbed her temple with a gloved hand. “Lydia. Sweetie. I’m…I’m going to tell you a secret. You’re young, so you may not know this.”

After a pause, she continued. “Men are idiots.”

As if on cue, Lydia heard a nasal, shrieking voice from off-camera. “Pookums?”

The Councilwoman’s posture stiffened. “Yes, lambykins?” she called, turning away from the camera. Lydia mouthed “Pookums? Lambykins?” to herself in utter disbelief.

“Have you seen my spare wings?”

“Have you checked the garage?” the Councilwoman asked, holding one finger up to the camera in a “wait a minute” gesture. Lydia noticed a fat diamond ring sparkling on her left hand.

A theatrical groan. “They’re never in the garage! And I already checked in there.”

“They’ve been in the garage the last three times,” the Councilwoman said, voice measured and patient, “right behind the lawnmower, because you leave them there when you and 21 come back late at night and you forget to bring them back down to the cave where they belong.”

A long pause. What sounded like a bunch of banging around. “A-ha! Found ‘em! Love you!”

“Love you too, sweetie!” the Councilwoman called, blowing a kiss in what Lydia presumed was the direction of the door. She swiveled around in her chair and looked back at the camera, back to her professional demeanor like nothing had happened.

“Do you see what I mean?” she asked Lydia, evenly.

“I didn’t know you were married,” Lydia said.

Councilwoman One’s painted lips curled upward in a real, gorgeous smile. “Yeah, a while now.” She glanced off to the side. “Used to work together, too, until that became a conflict of interest.”

“How did that work?” Lydia asked.

“Oh, you know. Classic two-man gig. He did the public-facing stuff and I backed him up with tech and ideas.” The Councilwoman had already smoked her first cigarette to the filter. She stubbed it out in a delicate cut-crystal ashtray and lit a second. “Love my job, but sometimes I do miss being a Number Two. Doing field work. But hey, this has better hours, and you can’t beat the family health plan.”

She looked directly into Lydia’s eyes. “And even now, things are mostly great, but…communication can be difficult sometimes. You’ve got to be very, very clear about what you want, because you might be thinking that you want different things. When the…when my husband proposed, I gave him a list of terms and he did a pretty good job of sticking to them, all things considered.” She sighed dreamily and leaned her chin on her gloved hand. “Wouldn’t trade it for anything.”

Lydia blinked.

“So I wouldn’t dip out of the business just yet,” the woman finished, “before you really nail down what you want…and who you want it from.” She gave Lydia a wink. “And if you need the Guild’s services, in any capacity, you know who to call. Especially if you want to hear about our benefits package.”

The screen went blank and the call ended. Outside, lightning crackled. Lydia lay on her couch, thinking, her brain going a mile a minute.

Until, out of nowhere, she heard something crash outside her window, interrupting the heavy rain.

Chapter Text

Lydia stood up, set her now nearly-empty wineglass down, and walked cautiously over to her window. She readied two flechettes between the fingers of her left hand, just in case. Her apartment was on the fifth floor, but still, better safe than sorry…

She glanced down and saw what looked like a man in a frog outfit (???) running away from her building, carrying what looked like a sack of heavy objects. “And stay out, asshole!” a raspy, gravelly voice yelled. “Bricks? Really?! Against a level seven? Eat shit!” It sounded like it was coming from the tree nearest her building. Lydia squinted.

Betelgeuse had crawled up in the branches, perched like a cat, even while heavy rain and wind battered the poor tree. One of his hands smoked, and his other arm made what sounded like a sick schlorping noise as it retracted from its extended position. “Fuckin’ hack,” he mumbled.

Lydia scowled. Was he…keeping people away from her? What the hell? He…didn’t look good, she noticed. Soaking wet, his suit sticking to him (somehow he’d gotten his jacket back from when he’d draped it over her the other night, and instead of his usual green or magenta or pink, his whole color scheme had shifted to a dark, eggplant purple. He almost blended into the surroundings.

Well. She should probably interrogate him, right? See what he was doing? She frowned, remembering what the Councilwoman had told her about his name. Lydia closed her eyes, thought about it for a moment, and muttered “Betelgeuse” under her breath.

His reaction was immediate - stiffening, sitting straight up, and whacking his head on a branch. Lydia snorted. “Betelgeuse,” she said again. Now he was looking around, desperate, like he was trying to find out where the call was coming from. What a moron.

After she’d said the third “Betelgeuse,” he disappeared in a puff of smoke, only to reappear crouched on her rug like some sort of insect.

Lydia folded my arms. “Spying on me?” she asked, flatly.

Betelgeuse blinked up at her, his purple hair falling into his face. Then his eyes widened comically huge, his mouth falling open. “You…you could still see me?”

“Uh, yeah,” Lydia said. She jerked her head toward her window. “It’s not hard when you’re right there.”

She suddenly realized she’d let this creep into her apartment. Shit. Hopefully he didn’t operate on vampire rules and this didn’t give him blanket permission to harass her forever, although her stomach did a curious little flip at that thought. His hair was still purple, but lightening at the tips.

Lydia sighed. “Look, you’re…uh, you’re probably freezing. Can I get you a towel or something? I don’t want you to get water all over my rug.”

The pink spread downward. Betelgeuse stared at Lydia before letting out a weak “‘kay.”

When she came back from her bathroom with a towel (and a blanket, for good measure) Betelgeuse was in the middle of shaking himself dry like a dog. Great. Now the rest of her apartment would be soaked. Lydia gritted her teeth. “Kinda defeats the purpose,” she said, deadpan, but she dropped the blanket on his shoulders anyway.

The way he looked at her reminded her of that first night, when she couldn’t really see his face, but she could sense the weird worshipful energy emanating off him in waves. “So,” Lydia asked, sitting back down with her wine. “What are you doing here?”

“Uh,” Betelgeuse said. He shifted on his feet. “I…I dunno. Was in the neighborhood.”

Lydia leveled a flat look at him.

“I’m just…I’m just gonna go,” he said, backing away. “Sorry. Don’t wanna waste your time.”

Nope. Not having it. Lydia rolled her eyes and made a couple of gestures with her hands. Rope shackles twined around Betelgeuse’s wrists, binding them in front of him. He sank onto his knees, the blanket sliding off his shoulders. She let the end of the rope dangle in her hand.

His hair was shifting between purple, magenta, red, yellow. He looked…confused, mostly. Lydia crossed her legs. “Let me ask that again,” she said. “What are you doing here?”

Betelgeuse hung his head, his hair back to that deep violet. “Watchin’ you. Making sure nobody gets the drop on you. You really gotta ward this place, by the way. At least four dipshits have tried to sneak attack you in the past hour alone. Brick Frog was just the last one.”

Lydia frowned. “Now that you’re not, uh, attached,” Betelgeuse said, “ain’t nothin’ stopping people from making overtures. Missiles. Spells. Whatever.”

“So you’re taking it upon yourself to protect me,” Lydia said. She felt warmth curl through her chest. “Because I wouldn’t know to do so. Okay.”

“I’m not sorry about it,” Betelgeuse said, then grimaced. Clearly he’d meant to say something else. “I also just…wanted to see. If you were okay.”

“Why?”

Betelgeuse went dead quiet, then let out a hollow laugh.

“You’re gonna make me say it,” he said. He looked up at Lydia with pleading yellow eyes. “You’re really, really gonna do it, huh? God, you’re really on the wrong side.”

Lydia frowned. “Stop stalling. Why?” He was going to say something gross or horny or possessive, she knew it.

Betelgeuse groaned. His voice softened, went so quiet that Lydia had to strain to hear. “Bcsmnlvwthya,” he mumbled.

She leaned forward. “Couldn’t hear you.”

The purple of his hair deepened to near black. “Because. I’m in love. With you,” he said, biting off the words like caused him physical pain. He buried his face in his bound hands, curled up on himself, and fell on his side.

Lydia froze.

She…well, first she thought he’d broken through her truth spell, but then she saw the way his shoulders hitched and heard the soft, broken noises coming out from his hands, still bound by her rope.

“That doesn’t make sense,” Lydia said, inanely. Her ears rang and her skin buzzed and something in her chest felt like it was squeezing right down on her heart.

Betelgeuse let out a wet chuckle. “Yeah it does,” he said. “It makes more sense than anything in my stupid life.”

When he peeled his face out of his filthy hands, Lydia saw that dark tear tracks streaked down his cheeks and matted the purple of his beard. “Just get rid of me,” he said, voice flat. “Go ahead. This hurts too bad.”

The bonds hadn’t moved from his wrists. Lydia swallowed hard. “Since when?”

“Since I met ya,” Betelgeuse said, then winced. “Since you saw me at the club.”

Lydia frowned. Some silly “love-at-first-sight” crush? But that wouldn’t explain why he persisted so hard. “Why?”

Betelgeuse fell silent. Then, dully, he asked, “What did I look like?”

What a weird question. Lydia opened her mouth, closed it. Nothing came to mind, just his voice moaning her name. She racked her brain. Her eyes widened as she said, “I…I can’t remember.”

Betelgeuse scowled and muttered something under his breath. Then he glanced up at Lydia. “I got, uh, put under a curse. A while ago. Millennia. People can’t…see me. At all. Unless the person who’s, uh, holding the leash, or whatever, specifies. In writing or something.”

Lydia’s hands dug into the fabric of her pencil skirt. She hadn’t breathed since he started speaking.

“Except you. You came up to me in that tight little dress and those fuck-me boots and saw me and you were the first person who’d talked to me in months. Made me feel…I dunno, special? Wanted, I guess,” Betelgeuse said. His voice stayed flat, his shackled hands curled to his chest. “Right before that, it was just A-Dog and B-Town. But, uh, they couldn’t see me after…”

“After what?”

Betelgeuse’s yellow eyes fell closed. “After I killed my mom.”

Chapter Text

Well.

That certainly was a revelation.

Lydia opened her mouth to ask what his mom would have to do with this, then, with horror, clicked the pieces of information she had together like so many horrible puzzle pieces.

“You…you were henching for your mom?” she asked, weakly. Betelgeuse nodded, his hair still nearly black. Lydia stood up, walked to her apartment’s miniscule kitchen, and refilled her wineglass. Then, she thought for a second, and grabbed a second glass from the cabinet. Filled that one up too. When she returned, Betelgeuse was still talking.

“She’d failed her level ten exam,” Betelgeuse said, tonelessly. “Like, so many times. Kept killing her arches. Never thought that maybe she was doing something wrong. It really chapped her ass that she had a council seat but was only a level fuckin’ nine.” Lydia nodded and set the second wineglass down by Betelgeuse’s head. She sat, cross-legged (or as cross-legged as she could in a pencil skirt), on the floor right next to him.

“Served the bitch right,” Betelgeuse said. He noticed the glass, grabbed it in both of his big hands (still bound with Lydia’s shadowy rope) and drained it. Almost looked like he was going to bite a chunk out of the rim for a second, but he thought better of it and just rotated it in his hands. “She thought that the problem was she was doing all the dirty work herself. So she pulled me from where she’d stuck me, in fucking Connecticut, and press-ganged me into working for her. Said she’d break the curse on me if she did. And, like a dumbass, I believed her.”

Betelgeuse turned his yellow eyes on Lydia. “Somehow I thought this was, like, an apology. From her. For everything. Maybe her thinking I could be useful meant she could love me. Maybe she wouldn’t think I was such a fuckup anymore.”

Lydia scooted closer to him. “What happened next?” she asked, softly. One of her hands drifted over to pet his hair. Like he was a big, smelly feral cat, or something. She had no clue why.

His mass of tangled purple hair still felt weirdly soft under her palm.

Betelgeuse initially startled at the touch before sighing and leaning into it. “Uh,” he said. “So Ma needed some new arches. Thought maybe going after a pair of ‘em would boost her cred. Made me visible just to them to give herself a handicap, or something. I guess…I guess I was too nice. Dunno why.”

Lydia nodded. “Adam and Barbara are pretty easy to like,” she said.

Betelgeuse’s hair flickered green for a second. “Ain’t they, though? Especially Adam. God, he’s hot. Anyway. Shit got boring. I felt…bad. Antsy. Asked Ma when shit was gonna be over. And I guess I picked a bad time, ‘cause she was drunk, and she said…” Betelgeuse shifted into a shrill, nasal voice. “‘It’ll be over when they’re dead and I’m level ten, Lawrence, now stop playing around. These two human idiots aren’t going to love you if you play with them nicely. Nobody will.’”

Lydia’s hand stopped moving in Betelgeuse’s hair. He wasn’t lying, couldn’t be lying. Her stomach twisted. “That’s horrible,” she said. “And you killed her?”

Betelgeuse nodded. “Had enough. Took her ass to Saturn and fed her to a giant snake.”

Served her right, Lydia thought. “And that was six, seven months ago?”

“Yep,” Betelgeuse said, popping the “p”. “Felt great for a couple days. Felt free, for once in my life. But then A-Dog and B-Town couldn’t see me anymore. Fuckin’...nobody could. Just started kickin’ around old haunts just ‘cause…” his voice broke, “I d-didn’t wanna be alone anymore.”

He turned his head around, looking up at Lydia with his yellow eyes big and damp. “So when you saw me? Most people look right through me and you were…so, so different. Special.”

The confusing, shaky warmth in Lydia’s stomach made her squirm. Her hand was still tangled up in Betelgeuse’s hair. “So you…developed a crush on me,” she said, slowly, “because I could see you, and then we fucked, and you decided that antagonizing me was the best option?”

Betelgeuse reached up and grabbed her smaller hand with both of his. Looked Lydia dead in the eyes. “Oh, no, babes. This ain’t a crush. Me and the squares? That was a crush.” He enunciated clearly, making each word stand out, while pink crept up the roots of his hair. “I am in love with you. You’re whip-smart and funny and so, so gorgeous and I don’t hafta…play dumb, or talk down, or nothin’ around you.”

Lydia’s breath caught. Her hand trembled in his bigger ones, cool calloused palms brushing against her softer skin. “W-why didn’t you just…call me? Or ask to take me back to your place? Or work with me?”

Betelgeuse laughed, showing his jagged yellow teeth. “Bold of ya to assume I have a phone or a place, babes.” The pink faded out as quickly as it came. “I panicked. That’s why. I’d already stolen someone’s room key and I hadn’t expected shit to go the way it had. And I guessed…maybe you could see that this villain shit’s fun. If you weren’t a little curious you wouldn’t’ve shown up at the fuckin’ Doom Factory. And if I ‘antagonized you,’” he rolled his eyes, “maybe you’d punish me later.”

Lydia wanted to say something like “gross,” but what instead came out of her mouth was, matter-of-fact, “That sounds really hot.”

She blinked. Betelgeuse grinned up at her and took his hands off hers to reveal that her wrist was now tied, messily, with a length of her own shadow rope.

“Classic bait and switch,” Betelgeuse said, smirking. “Oldest trick in the book.” He leaned back. “How you feelin’, babes?”

Lydia’s jaw clenched. He must’ve done some stupid rope trick while she wasn’t looking. “I’m…still mad at you,” she said, “about…that. The contract. Coercing me.” The words came easier, flowing from her lips like water. “I hate the exorcisms. They’re boring as hell and they killed my mom and I’d be happy if I never did another one again.”

Betelgeuse nodded. He rubbed the back of her hand with his thumb. “Didn’t put that together,” he said. “Probably kinda stupid of me. Not my best move.”

Tears gathered at the corners of her eyes. Lydia wanted, so badly, to tell Betelgeuse to go away. To push him out, keep him far from her. But the spell that she’d made wouldn’t let her do it. “I f-feel hurt,” she said, the words like glass in her mouth. “I don’t want to keep doing this but it feels really boring not seeing you.” You’re awful, she wanted to say. “You’re really funny and hot and I’ve been jacking off after we fight,” she said.

Betelgeuse giggled, the pink starting to creep back into his hair. He sat up on his knees and crawled over to her. “Uh huh?”

“And I’m…I’m mad at you for not giving me your name that first night,” Lydia said, ducking her head and feeling her cheeks flush deep, deep pink. “I was already thinking about meeting you again.”

Betelgeuse’s smile faded. “Guess I fucked that up bad, huh? Bet you hate me now.”

“You did fuck it up,” Lydia said. She tried to form the words I hate you for it but they wouldn’t come. “I d-don’t hate you,” slipped out of her mouth. Betelgeuse’s face had gotten so, so close to hers. When had that happened?

No more talking. She needed to save at least a fraction of her dignity. Lydia swallowed hard, curled her hand around the back of his neck. Betelgeuse blinked owlishly at her. “I missed you,” she said, finally, and leaned in to press her mouth to his.

Chapter Text

Betelgeuse caught on quick, despite his initial confusion. Tilted his head and let out the sweetest little sigh when Lydia’s tongue swiped at his lips. Lydia let her body fall against his, digging her fingernails into the back of his neck in a way that probably wouldn’t feel great to a human being but made Betelgeuse whine. “God, Lyds, please…”

“Missed this,” Lydia said, breathless. She kissed the corner of his mouth more tenderly than she’d initially planned too, but the hiccuping noise her action drew out of his throat made it worth it.

Betelgeuse laughed, breathy. His bound hands splayed across her belly, thumbs rubbing circles into the silky material of her blouse. “Yeah,” he said, after a minute, then dipped his head to kiss her again. Lydia felt his cock prodding into her thigh through her skirt and let her hips rock into him. With a bit of concentration, the rope around her arms shifted, one loop closing off and turning into a thin bangle. It wouldn’t be fair to just keep him in the lie detector bondage. Especially now that she didn’t have anything to hide.

The other end of the rope twined around her other wrist, becoming the handle of a leash. Lydia wound the excess glittering rope around her palm and tugged him closer by his wrists. “What do you want?” she asked, cupping his cheeks in both hands.

Betelgeuse gave her a slow, catlike blink, his pupils huge and dark. “You,” he said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

Lydia rolled her eyes and kissed his forehead. Maybe the spell was making her be all cutesy and sweet to him. Maybe she wanted that. Maybe she’d wanted it all along. “No, dumbass. What do you want to do with me?”

Betelgeuse gaped at her. “Uh.” His hair darkened at its roots to a rich, vibrant magenta, with the tips still that soft pink. She’d figure out if that meant anything eventually.

Too many choices, maybe. “You’d mentioned something about eating me out,” Lydia said, and watched his irises darken and his throat work. “Still interested?”

Her fingers raked through his hair and he moaned, low and growly. “Y-yeah, babes, absolutely. Please. Been dyin’ to eat your pussy since I met ya.”

Lydia smirked. “Good.” She stood up and stretched her legs, then tugged on the rope connected to his wrists. Betelgeuse floated behind her as she walked to the bedroom. She could feel his hot gaze burning into her ass as she walked.

“God, you’re a knockout,” she heard him say. This time, Lydia didn’t bother trying to control her blush. She directed him to lie on his back on her bed, with his tied hands above his head. Lydia sat next to him. The bedsprings creaked.

Betelgeuse blinked and muttered a curse under his breath. “Shit, uh, hold on,” he said, and Lydia saw his fingers twitch and wriggle. Bright green light emitted from the too-small window before fading into a faint shimmer. “Wards. And soundproofing,” he explained. “Don’t wanna get interrupted.” He gave Lydia an exaggerated wink.

How thoughtful of him. She twined her fingers in his tie and began undoing the knot, taking her time with it. Betelgeuse squirmed underneath her, obviously not used to lying still for that long. Once she’d undone his tie, Lydia glanced up at his wrists and realized she’d made a slight error in calculation. She didn’t want him to go free, but she didn’t want him to magic away his clothes (which she felt sure he could do) either. Biting her lip, she straddled his waist (he let out a grunt of surprise) and gently pulled his wrists apart. The rope split into two rings. When she pushed them back, the shadows twined together again.

Perfect.

Lydia pulled his hands apart again and pushed his jacket off his shoulders. His shirt had definitely been a mottled purple before, but now it looked like the deep magenta of his hair had bled through to the fabric. “Good color on you,” she said, without realizing it. Betelgeuse gulped and looked up at Lydia, too slack-jawed to even mumble a “thanks”. She’d undone the top two or three buttons of his shirt and was staring at his chest hair and absently grinding on his erection before she even realized he’d said something.

Lydia shook her head. “Sorry, I missed that.”

“C-can I see you too? Please?” He sounded desperate, voice cracking on the last word. “Love the gothy librarian look, but…”

Lydia had honestly forgotten she was even wearing clothes, too focused on having Betelgeuse spread out underneath her. She licked her lips and nodded, taking a moment to push his hands back together above his head. She noticed the way his eyes laser-focused on her hands and smirked. “Eager, huh?” she asked, as she slowly undid the satiny bow at the neck of her blouse before moving down to her own buttons. Betelgeuse nodded, his hips twitching into her.

“Wanted to rip that dumb plastic dress off ya,” he said, his voice a hoarse growl. Lydia’s fingers slipped, her pussy clenching on nothing. She let her trembling hands keep working on her buttons, but she felt heat sweep from her flushed cheeks down to her collarbones, his gaze tangible on her skin. “Or your stupid poncho.”

“It’s a cloak,” Lydia insisted, even as her insides warmed. “It’s got pockets.”

Betelgeuse snorted, but then Lydia unbuttoned enough of her blouse to show a peek of her plain black bra and that shut him up fast. If she skipped the last couple buttons and just yanked her top off over her head, well. She felt like he wasn’t going to complain. Especially not once she reached behind her back to unhook her bra and let it slide off her arms.

This time his cock throbbed against her. “Fuck,” he gasped. “God, please lemme suck on those. Please. Look even better than I imagined.”

Lydia laughed and cupped her smallish tits in her hands, thumbs running over her stiff pink nipples, just to hear Betelgeuse’s sinful moan. “You’ve imagined a lot?” she asked, smirking, as she fumbled with the side zip of her skirt.

Betelgeuse nodded emphatically. “All the time. Can’t stop thinkin’ about you.” Lydia bit her lip and shimmied out of the skirt (probably not in an attractive way), leaving herself in her thigh-high stockings and panties. When she slid one hand under the lace top of one stocking, she heard Betelgeuse yell “no!”. She glanced at his face, only for him to stammer and his hair to shade an even darker pink. “Uh, I mean. Could you maybe keep those on?”

Lydia rolled her eyes and pulled her panties down instead. Betelgeuse looked like he was about to have some kind of seizure, his eyes bulging out of his skull and his wrists visibly straining at the ropes binding him.

With her soaked panties in her hand, her dripping slit fully on display, and her archnemesis (former archnemesis? They’d work it out) looking at her and visibly salivating, Lydia realized…she didn’t want to wait anymore. Gesturing to Betelgeuse’s clothes, she asked, “Can you…”

Betelgeuse blinked and snapped his fingers. Instantly the suit disappeared off him, leaving him in a ratty, stained undershirt that might’ve been white at one point, a pair of striped boxers that were clearly straining to contain his erect prick, and black socks with holes in the toes. And sock garters, for some reason. Huh. Still, the way the elastic bit into his meaty calves made Lydia’s mouth water.

She greedily eyed the round swell of his stomach, the softness of his pecs, the breadth of his thighs. “God, I wanna eat you up,” she said, then blushed bright red and covered her mouth. Betelgeuse just gazed at her with dreamy eyes.

“I wanna eat you first,” he said, licking his lips. “C’mere. Please. Been dyin’ to have you sit on my face, babes.”

He wouldn’t need to tell her twice. Lydia scrambled up his torso and knelt above his head, giving him an up-close view of her absolutely drenched cunt. Betelgeuse groaned, audibly, and leaned up to give a quick closed-mouth kiss, almost gently, to her throbbing, engorged clit. Lydia gasped and buried her fingers in his hair, pulling him in.

His cold tongue swiped along her inner thigh, making Lydia shiver. “Taste even better than I hoped,” Betelgeuse said, sounding dazed, almost drunk. He licked at her outer lips, coaxing her thighs open wider. “God, look how pretty you are. Fuck. All cute and pink.”

“You gonna talk or eat?” Lydia asked, rocking her hips into his face, impatient now.

Betelgeuse laughed. “Who says I can’t do both?” He leaned forward, his beard scratching at the tops of her stockings. His black, gross, slimy tongue snaked out of his mouth to part her folds, but even with his mouth occupied, his voice emanated from around them.

So wet. All for me?

Lydia gasped and nodded, before realizing Betelguese had closed his eyes in ecstasy. “Y-yeah,” she said. She couldn’t lie. “Mm. Th-the past couple times we met I came back and…”

And what? The tip of his tongue flicked at her entrance. Lydia’s fingers tightened in his hair.

“And jacked off,” Lydia said. “Even when I was mad.”

Knew you couldn’t stay away from me, Betelgeuse said, sounding gleeful. He rewarded her honesty by delving the first couple inches (wait, how long was his tongue?) inside her, exploring. Fuck, you’re tight.

“Haven’t – ohh – haven’t fucked anyone since you,” Lydia said, breathless. “It was too good. Didn’t want to. Replace it. In my head.” She hadn’t known she felt that herself. Huh. Was she showing too much of her hand? From the delicious, throaty groan that vibrated through her pussy, maybe not.

Freak, Betelgeuse said, his voice warm and delicious, curling around her. It felt like his tongue…thickened, maybe, inside her. Way too long and way too wide. The fattest part of it nudged her g-spot and Lydia curled over him, panting.

They were floating off the bed.

“Wh-wha–”

Another finger came up and stroked her lips. Was he cheating? Shh, baby. Just go with it. You think too much. His smug laughter echoed around the room. Have fun. Don’t worry ‘bout it.

“Hands?” Lydia asked, inanely. Even so, more of them crawled over her body. One stroked over her ribs, while another cupped her right tit, thumb tracing circles over her nipple. Another petted her leg like it was trying to soothe her. It felt like something was starting to rub her clit, too, but when she glanced down, she couldn’t see anything…

Then Betelgeuse glanced up to wink one yellow eye at her, and another tongue waggled its way out of his mouth.

“Holy shit,” Lydia moaned, as Betelgeuse licked her clit and tongue-fucked her at the same time. Her thighs clenched around his head, and Betelgeuse hummed in approval. That’s it. Beautiful.

At least his main hands were still bound over his head, Lydia thought. God, was that a third tongue licking at her labia while the second one fluttered over her clit? “If I knew you could do this,” she moaned, but drifted off, unable to finish the thought. Her whole body felt too hot, overstimulated. Betelgeuse was playing her body like a piano, just ratcheting up the sensations that were already becoming nearly too much to bear. All the while, he kept murmuring filthy words in that gorgeous voice.

Taste so good, babes, ride me, that’s it, that’s my girl, love you…

The last one took Lydia by surprise, but by that point it was already too late. The tension that had her thighs and belly thrumming boiled over. She keened and dug her fingernails into Betelgeuse’s scalp, her entire body tensing before an overwhelming release had her seeing stars.

Her hips twitched into his eager mouth, Betelgeuse licking and sucking her through her mind-melting orgasm. (He hadn’t stopped talking for a minute, either.) By the time it wound down, Lydia could already feel the beginnings of a second climax making her belly twist. “L-little more,” she whispered, tugging on Betelgeuse’s hair. “Just a little – oh, perfect, yes!”

Take what you need, baby. Use me. That’s what I’m here for. Lydia wailed and convulsed as her cunt rippled around his tongue, her clit pulsing white-hot bursts of liquid pleasure. He worked her through that one, too, so that by the time she finished she was nearly crying with overstimulation.

She crawled back down and fell onto his chest, legs feeling like jelly. “Oh my God,” she wheezed. A couple of extra hands still rubbed her back, soothing her through the aftershocks.

After a minute, Lydia tilted her head up, squinting at him. “Am I cutting off your circulation?” she asked.

Betelgeuse laughed. “Very cute that you think I have circulation,” he said, kissing the top of her head. “Nah, I’m good.”

“Great,” Lydia said. She reached down under the flap of his boxers to stroke his still very stiff cock. “Gimme a minute and then I’ll…”

“Uh,” Betelgeuse said, cutting her off. Lydia looked up at him and saw his hair lightening to yellow at the tips. “M-might wanna move your hand,” he said through gritted teeth. “I…I dunno if I can last.”

Lydia bit her lip, thinking. Then a wicked smirk crawled across her face. She summoned a thinner, softer length of shadowy rope and, with a twist of her finger, encircled the base of his cock with it. Betelgeuse hissed. “Too tight?” Lydia asked.

Betelgeuse shook his head. “Perfect,” he rasped. “Amazing. You’re a fuckin’ genius.”

His cock, now freed from its confines, twitched out a dribble of dark precum. Lydia’s cunt squeezed down on nothing. “Need that now,” she growled, overstimulation a distant memory. She scooted down and felt the head catch on her entrance, like it had a mind of its own. Fuck, with his anatomy, maybe it did.

She braced her hands on his belly and slid down, exactly where she needed to be.

Chapter Text

“So, tell us about your boyfriend,” Barbara said, leaning in and settling her chin in her hands.

Lydia smiled and grabbed another nacho. Adam had gotten his third spare of the evening, but Barbara was too busy cleaning both their clocks to notice how much Lydia sucked at bowling. After chewing and swallowing, she said, “He’s older. Really cute. Great sense of humor. Had to sort out some paperwork before moving here.” She smiled down into her Coke Zero. “I can’t wait for you guys to meet him.”

“He sounds lovely,” Barbara said, eyes shining. “You seem…a lot happier than when we met you, if you don’t mind me saying so.”

This time, Lydia felt herself blush.

By the time they’d finished bowling and made arrangements for a double date at an arts and crafts fair, Lydia waited outside for her “boyfriend” to pick her up. Literally. Once Adam and Barbara got in their minivan to drive away, she felt strong arms wrap around her waist and yank her into the air.

“Didja win?” Betelgeuse asked. Lydia snorted and shook her head.

“Gross motor control isn’t my strong suit,” she said. “Unlike you. You’re real good at gross.” Betelgeuse grinned and tickled her ribs before taking her hand to fly home with her.

“You free the first weekend of next month, by the way?” Lydia asked. “They want to ‘meet you’.” She made air quotes with her free hand.

Betelgeuse snorted and floated on his back, tucking his hands behind his head. Lydia twisted in the air to lie on top of him. “Do we wanna surprise them before or after we blindside ‘em with their new archnemesis team?”

Lydia smirked. “I don’t know. I haven’t sprung that I’ve switched sides yet.”

“You monster,” Betelgeuse gasped, faking shock. “You’re lying to this sweet couple? Miss Deetz, I’m surprised at you!”

Lydia poked him in the ribs. “I’m not lying. They said to let me know if you ‘came near me,’” she said, “and I’m pretty sure you’ve been coming other places.”

Betelgeuse blinked before cackling loud enough to startle a flock of birds flying near them. “I love you so much,” he wheezed, barrel-rolling with Lydia in his arms. He planted about five sloppy kisses all over her face before she pulled him close to kiss her properly.

After several minutes and several additional arms manifesting, Betelgeuse reluctantly pulled away from Lydia’s mouth. “How early do ya need to wake up tomorrow?”

Lydia shrugged. “I’ve got brunch with Sheila at eleven.”

“Oooh, we’re on first name basis with the head honcho,” Betelgeuse said, grinning. “Guess those acts of domestic terrorism are doin’ their job.”

“In twenty years, blowing up an AI server farm won’t be domestic terrorism,” Lydia scoffed. Betelgeuse nodded. Honestly, he seemed content to go along with Lydia’s plans of mayhem as long as something exploded. Being a villain (of sorts) really was more fun.

“But yes, the Councilwoman told me to call her Sheila last time we talked,” she added. “She wants us to come over for dinner at their house in Newark next month. Evidently her husband makes a mean charcuterie platter.”

Betelgeuse pretended to consider. “I guess I can pencil ‘em in,” he said. “She’s workin’ on getting the whole…”

Lydia nodded. “She’s got a couple guys working on digging out your mom’s curse. You’ll be as visible as you want soon.”

The smile on Betelgeuse’s face lit up the whole night sky. “I’m so glad I met you,” he said, sincerely.

Lydia pressed her forehead into his. “Me too,” she said. Maybe tonight she’d finally work up the courage to say those three words. She felt like he knew, but…he could be kind of stupid. “Come on. Let’s go home.”