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Hayden dodged the swinging arm of the robot that was aiming for her. It was a near hit, the smooth metal only barely grazing her cheek. Loose strands of black hair that had fallen out of her ponytail were plastered the back of her neck by sweat.
In all of her five years of fighting Rowan, the villainess had never made her robots this fast or dangerous. Someone might seriously be hurt in a way that hadn’t happened in quite a while. Hayden was willing to play this fun little game as long as she didn’t feel there was an actual threat to the people of this city. This was close to crossing that line and it bothered her more than she cared to admit.
Irritation made Hayden’s movements sharp as she fought her way through the swarm of robots and got to the young woman in the center.
“What do you think of the new upgrade?” Rowan stood out against the silver monochrome of her creations. It was mostly due to her fiery red hair that tumbled down just past her shoulders. Bottle-green eyes narrowed with malice.
Hayden frowned, there was a bruise on the arc of Rowan’s cheekbone. There was another one on the supervillainess’ forearms and a surprising amount of worry flared up in Hayden's chest. “What happened?”
It was Rowan’s turn to frown as she raised a hand to her face. Leather-clad fingers brushed the purple-blue swell of skin and the woman winced. A sharp breath escaped from behind locked teeth. Rowan waved her hand to dismiss the heroine’s concern. “A scuffle with one of the low-class villains.”
“Who?” Hazel eyes widened in surprise. There wasn’t a lot of in-fighting with the villains. It was always a shock to hear that someone wasn’t playing by the unspoken rules.
“Some Dr. Raze guy...” Rowan tried to remember what his schtick was. Clearly, it hadn’t been good if it wasn’t memorable. Then again, she thought to herself, she was dealing with a low-level villain. “He said something about destroying the city and starting with you.” There was a pause. “Or, whatever,” Rowan tacked on. She couldn’t afford to let Hayden think that she cared or anything. Especially about her.
“Did he almost have you beat or something? ‘Cause the robots seem to be overcompensating for something.” Hayden couldn’t help but smirk at the offended look that Rowan shot her.
Rowan flipped Hayden off before turning and retreating. She was tired from the fight yesterday, but she would loathe to miss one of her usual bi-weekly fights. Now that Hayden had made it to the center, she could pack up and go home to that nap she was fantasizing about.
Hayden watched her arch-nemesis go with a bemused shake of her head. Rowan always pretended that she was going to be the end of this city, but it was moments like these that helped Hayden remember that she would never let anything truly terrible happen. The heroine just returned to taking down as many ‘bots as possible.
No one said anything if Hayden and Rowan seemed to go a little easier on each other the next couple of times that they fought.
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Hayden was slowly creeping up behind Rowan when the twenty year old turned to face her. The redhead was normally energetic and had a gleeful shimmer in her eyes, but today she looked...tired. Instead of capturing the girl for the bank-heist that happened two days ago, Hayden dropped down to sit next to her.
They didn’t speak to one another for a while. Both of their focus was on the city bustling below them and watching the sunset from the rooftop they were sitting on. Hayden was sitting with her legs dangling off the roof and leaning back on her hands. Rowan hadn’t budged from her cross-legged position.
Finally, Rowan broke the silence. “You can take me to jail now.”
“Maybe I don’t want to.” Hayden shrugged at Rowan’s look. It was a mixture of confusion and curiosity. She could feel the villainess’ urge to ask a question, but she didn’t have any answers so she asked one of her own. “What’s up with you?”
“...it has nothing to do with our...thing.” Rowan picked at a loose thread on her jeans.
“Tell me anyway.” Hayden lightly knocked her shoulder against Rowan’s. She was sure it would have everything to do with their fighting. One thing that Hayden had realized was that Rowan’s personal life always spilled over.
Hayden never minded, it was nice to know that she was fighting a person, comforting in an unexplainable way. That was the difference between Rowan and Hayden’s life. Rowan’s life had motivated or at least fuelled a little of her scheme of the week. Hayden, however, preferred keeping this as something separate from the rest of her life. Life was always easier if you knew where to draw the lines.
“My rent was jacked up and I’m not sure I’ll be able to afford it. Guess I’m going apartment searching again.” She sighed.
Hayden was talking before she thought about what she was saying. “Give me your phone.”
When Rowan handed her her phone, Hayden put in her address and cell-phone number. She didn’t know why she was doing this except for the fact that they were on a rooftop and every time she peered over the edge she wondered what falling would feel like. It turns out that this is another kind of fall. A trust fall, her traitorous mind supplied.
“Feel free to use this.” Hayden tossed the phone back and leaves the bewildered Rowan alone on the rooftop.
Ten minutes after the hazel-eyed girl catches a cab-ride home, she received a text message.
‘Just wanted to make sure this number works. There’s a movie coming out this Tuesday. I thought we could catch that instead of our regular battle, a sort of thank you. -Rowan.’
She was going to regret this, Hayden could tell. This might rank as one of the top ten mistakes she’s made in her twenty-three years of living. Her entire would be up in flames if she started blurring the lines. That didn’t change the fact that Hayden was replying ‘yes, that sounds like fun.’
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If you had told Hayden one year ago that she would be friends with Rowan, she would have laughed at how ridiculous that sounded. Rowan would never stop building her robots, and I would never stop destroying them, she would inform you. And she wouldn’t be wrong.
Rowan still built her robots, and Hayden still destroyed them. The only difference was between battles they would kill time together or patch each other up. Not much had changed. Except in the way that everything had.
It wasn’t in any big way that Hayden had noticed, and maybe that was the most baffling part of all of this. Hayden hadn’t been able to pinpoint the exact moment that she started thinking of Rowan as a friend, she was just suddenly calling the girl up for a late dinner that turned into watching a tv show together at twelve-thirty.
Baffling, but not unwelcome. Not when Hayden couldn’t count the number of close friends she’d had after high school on one hand. She had to admit that becoming friends with Rowan moved from being the top ten mistakes to the top ten best decisions with every passing battle.
They always spent the time afterward to brush off the dust and bandage each other up. There was nothing worse than a scrape or two. There actually had been one time where Rowan had managed to cut her arm across the back of her forearm. It had bled enough that Hayden was worried that she might have needed stitches.
“So, doc, am I gonna live?” Rowan laughed. She sat on a crushed torso of her latest robots. The cold metal chilled her to the bone and she had been sitting on it long enough that it made her feel uncomfortable, but she didn’t want to upset Hayden by moving.
“Yes, you fool.” Hayden had already cleaned the wound out. She was currently wrapping it up in gauze. “I can’t believe that you were stupid enough to try and get between me and one of those things.”
“I didn’t do it for you,” Rowan huffed. She brushed a lock of her behind her ear. “There was a dog, and I felt bad for it.”
“There was no dog.” Hayden knew that there was no dog in the same way that everyone knows that the sky is blue, that it was an absolute truth.
“There was too,” Rowan defensively argued. She knew that there was no dog. Worse, she knew that Hayden knew that there was no dog, but she refused to admit that she had done it for Hayden. She was going to stick to that excuse until her dying day.
Hayden hummed as she taped the loose end down. “I think that you just like me.”
“Psh, you wish.” Rowan laughed, hopping off of the robot’s torso. She ran her fingers over the white material wrapped around her entire forearm. She lightly punched Hayden in the arm before she started heading home. “Thanks a lot.”
For someone who was very dramatic, Hayden thought that she wasn’t very fussy when it came to injuries. Hayden couldn’t ever wrap her head around the differences between Rowan her friend and Rowan the villainess. Maybe, if she stuck around long enough, she would one day. Hayden couldn’t help smiling at that.
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A knock sounded at Hayden’s window. She got up from the living-room’s brown couch and drew the curtains. The woman could now see a figure crouching on the window-sill. “Will you ever use the front door?” Hayden let the young woman into her apartment.
“Will you let me win for once?” Rowan shot back. She flopped onto the vacant couch, her legs hooked over an armrest and her arm covering her eyes. “Can I use your Netflix? Mine isn’t working.”
Hayden nudged Rowan so she could sit down. The redhead didn’t move much. She only shifted so her friend could settle into the space between her legs and the couch. Hayden nodded. “This is like the third time this week. Do you want me to fix it?”
Rowan rolled her green eyes. “You don’t know how to fix it.”
“Says who?”
“Says me. I build robots that destroy this city on a bi-weekly basis. If anyone would be able to fix this problem is me.” By this point, Rowan had started browsing Hayden’s Netflix in search of her favorite show. “Plus, you haven’t offered until now, which means that you don’t know. Otherwise, you would have offered the first time this happened.”
Hayden knew that Rowan was right. She didn’t know, and if she did, she would have offered the first time around. “So what are you gonna do, hang around here all day?”
Rowan grinned in that impish way of hers. She stretched and made a point to look like she was settling in. She knew that Hayden wouldn’t say no. “I think that I just might.”
The slightly older woman shoved Rowan’s legs off of her as she stood up. She wandered over to the kitchen. She pulled out a Diet Coke from the fridge.
“Can you grab me some lemonade?” Rowan was peering over the back of the couch. Her eyes were wide and pleading.
“If you’re staying here you can get your own drink.”
The heroine could be heard opening the fridge again. A glass clinked against the countertop and a minute later Hayden was walking out of the kitchen with a can of Coke in one hand and the requested glass of lemonade in the other.
“Thank you!” Rowan gratefully took the drink. Her fingers curled around the smooth glass and she cradled it close to her. “I’m definitely going to like it here.”
“You aren’t staying here again.”
“What?” Rowan pretended to be hurt. “Not even for the weekend?”
“Nope.”
“How about just one night?”
Hayden thought for a bit. It wasn’t like Rowan wasn’t already here constantly. The only difference was that she generally had her leave after they decided to go to bed. “Maybe...”
Rowan perked up. “Really?” Her eyes narrowed, she knew that tone of voice. It was a let’s make a deal tone of voice. “What do you want?”
“If you bring some brownies, I might think about letting you stay.” She knew that Rowan was going to turn her down. Even though Hayden knew that she could make some of the best brownies, Rowan refused to bake some for her. The villainess claimed that it was too nice of her to bake brownies for her.
Rowan scoffed, “no way!”
“Then I guess you can’t stay, can you.” Hayden only smiled at Rowan’s fake glare.
Their focus shifted to the screen as they tried to decide on something that they both wanted to watch.
The conversation was quickly forgotten by Hayden. She had been stretched thin between work and she was thankful that Rowan had understood and kept the battle short. Other villains weren’t as understanding, and she was thankful that she had a close tie with her main villainess. She had promptly collapsed on her couch two days after her battle with Rowan, still exhausted. It happened to be just then when there was a knocking on her door.
Hayden groaned and dragged herself over to the door. She yanked the door open with bleary eyes. When she registered what exactly stood in front of her, she could feel her exhaustion alleviate.
Before her stood Rowan. Her hair was pulled into a loose ponytail. On her back was a small backpack that Hayden assumed was filled with some clothes and such. In her arms was an open plastic container, and in it was filled with what looked like chocolate chip brownies.
“You drive a hard bargain.” Rowan watched Hayden’s eyes flicker from the brownies to her face. She smiled at the pleased look on her face. She pushed past the stunned heroine and placed the container on the coffee table. The redhead placed her hands on her hips and turned to face her friend. “Now, let’s get you out of your funk.”
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“What’s up?” Rowan sat down next to Hayden on the rooftop. They had found themselves up here a lot more recently, so when she realized that Hayden wasn’t home she came here first.
The woman looked upset. Her arms were wrapped around her knees, hugging them to her chest. Her eyes were lidded like she was deep in thought. Rowan wanted to make her fix the problem as soon as possible. It made her upset to see her best friend unhappy.
“It’s...nothing.” Hayden rubbed her eyes and dragged her hand down her face.
Rowan raised a skeptical eyebrow. “Sure. Tell me about this ‘nothing’.”
Hayden shrugged. “I had this date. It didn’t exactly go well.”
Rowan narrowed her eyes. “What did he do?” She knew Hayden’s boyfriend, a Jeremy Walker. If he did anything too bad, she swore that he might not-
“It wasn’t Jer. We broke up a while ago.”
That stopped Rowan in her tracks. “Oh. Then who was it?”
“You wouldn’t know her.”
Rowan shrugged. That was a good point, but still. That didn’t explain why Hayden was upset. “Then what did this chick do?”
“Nothing. I’m the one who doesn’t feel like I can do it.”
Rowan could tell that Hayden was looking out on the bustling city to avoid making eye contact with her companion. She decided that it would be easier to copy her. “Why not? Your heart belong to someone else?”
“Maybe.” Hayden glanced over at Rowan. “And a bit of something else.”
Her eyes flashed with something that Rowan couldn’t exactly describe. It was a little bit of hope, and longing and apprehension and-oh. The villainess felt a shiver run up her spine. In her bones, she felt that this was a very important moment. Her mouth felt too dry and she didn’t know what to say in response to that. Instead, she said, “what’s the other part?”
“I don’t think that I can keep my hero-thing a secret.” Hayden picked at a crack in the concrete. “It’s such a big part of me, you know.”
“I know. Why don’t you date someone who already knows then.” Rowan waited with baited breath to see what kind of turn that this conversation would take.
Hayden turned her head to face Rowan. “Other than my parents, and a handful of others, you’re the only one that actually knows.”
Rowan actually hadn’t known that so few people knew who Hayden was. She had found out by accident, and they always had an agreement. But now, the fact that she knew seemed to be like a treasure. “Really?”
“Really. So, you’re saying that I should date someone like you.” Hayden didn’t remember getting so close to Rowan. Those green eyes were always mesmerizing, but Hayden liked them best like this. They were dilated and half-lidded.
“Something like that.” Rowan decided that it was now or never and she leaned in for a kiss.
Hayden couldn’t help but think that saying yes to Rowan’s first offer to watch a movie together had to be the best decision that she made. She pulled back to catch her breath. From the corner of her eyes, she could see flashes of green. Evidently, Rowan had seen the flashes too. She turned to face them and leveled them with a glare that would have had the villain quaking in his shoes. The woman didn’t make a move to leave.
“Are you going to help me?” Hayden stood up and started to climb down the side of the building. If she got down three floors, she should be able to get back into her apartment without any problems. She peered up to the roof again and saw Rowan sprawled across the floor.
Rowan looked like she was going to stay there. “Nah, I’m good here.”
“You better get dinner then,” Hayden half-ordered. It might be late when she got back and making something to eat would be such a hassle.
“On it, Captain.” Rowan inched closer to the edge of the roof. She leaned down a little bit and saw that she was face to face with Hayden. She saw the smile that bloomed across Hayden’s face. It made something flutter in her stomach. She leaned closer and pecked Hayden on the cheek. “That’s for good luck.”
She left Hayden scaling the side of the building, a bounce in her step.
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Hayden was startled when she heard a harsh knocking at her front door. She frowned as she opened it. She couldn’t imagine who it was. The irritation of the rude interruption turned into bemusement when she saw Rowan. “Why didn’t you use your keys?”
Rowan pushed past her to get to the kitchen. She pulled out a water bottle from the fridge and guzzled half of it down in one go. Re-capping it, she shoved the local paper into Hayden’s hands. “Have you seen this?”
“No.” Confused, Hayden looked at the front cover. Taking up the top half of the paper’s front page was a blown-up photo of the two of them kissing goodbye after a battle. While she understood that it was a bit disconcerting, she didn’t exactly get what the big problem was. Asking directly would get a straight answer rather than risk getting it wrong. “What exactly is the problem?”
“What’s the problem?” Rowan dramatically half-shouted, throwing her hands into the air. “My reputation is gonna be ruined in the villain community!” She flopped down on the living room's couch.
Hayden followed her. She made Rowan sit up for a second so she could settle down. Rowan rested her head on her lap and huffed. Hayden rubbed her girlfriend’s arm and mulled over what Rowan said.
She knew that Rowan was definitely the worst villain that she had encountered in the city, so it wasn’t possible for her reputation to be ruined unless she quit. The two of them knew that they wouldn’t ever stop that. Even if it didn’t seem like it would mesh with their personal lives, it worked very well, and they had rules to keep some things from spilling over. Besides, Rowan has never cared about what the community had thought of her.
That meant that something else was bugging her. “What’s the actual problem, Ro?”
In a quieter voice, Rowan mumbled against her thigh. “What if people connect this with me? People will make exceptions for their heroes, but not for me.”
Everything seemed to click into place. That was definitely the issue plaguing Rowan. “I’m sorry. If anyone gives you trouble, point me in their direction.”
“Wow,” Rowan deadpanned, “my hero.”
Hayden laughed. There had never been a truer statement. She was completely hooked on the woman in her lap. She had slowly wormed way into her heart and under her skin. Hayden didn’t want to know it any other way. “Yes, I am.”