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Morgan shifted in her seat in the hospital waiting room and swallowed back a sob. Heroes don't cry, she told herself. And you're not even a hero. You're a villain. What would a villain do now?
A villain would laugh this off. A villain would go back to her. A villain wouldn’t be furious, and full of fear, and so so tired.
She wasn’t a villain. She wasn’t a hero, either. Morgan was a sidekick. An undercover agent. An idiot. A failure.
She’d known it was impossible when she took the job. Not that she’d had much of an option. The S Tier villain couldn’t be stopped, and everyone knew that. But maybe she could be distracted. And as it turned out, that part of the plan was a success. The uptick in theft caused by Morgan’s heists was far outshadowed by the decrease in S Tier’s murders. Ultrawoman loved pointing out that statistic, as though it was her new policies that did this, and not Nightster’s plan for Morgan.
Morgan didn’t even mind the plan, for the most part. She didn’t miss being Chad’s sidekick, and robbing banks and museums was fun. Working with Barnaby, Ohio, and her other nemeseesisi was even more fun. The constant danger was less fun, but she’d gotten used to it.
That was her mistake, really. She’d gotten overconfident, thinking Alex wouldn’t hurt her. Alex had promised she would never do that, and Morgan was the fool who believed her. Her trust had cost her her hand. Half the fingers of her right hand. Crushed to a mangled mess of flesh and bone. And there was nothing to stop Alex from crushing the rest of her just as easily.
Except that Alex wouldn’t just kill her that easily. If she ever found out why Morgan stayed with her, she would do so much worse. To start, she’d kill everyone on the No Kill List she had made. Violently. If there was anything left of Morgan’s family after Alex got through with them, she’d use it to tie Morgan to a giant rock on some faraway cliff where no one would be able to find her. And then she’d give Morgan a healing factor and drip poison into her eyes for eternity.
That was if Morgan was lucky. And lately it seemed like her luck was running out. Her stomach grumbled, reminding her that she hadn’t eaten since breakfast. It was close to 4am now. She’d had Alex teleport her to the hospital sometime around midnight. Stupid hospital, she thought, stupid villain, stupid horror movie, stupid idiot me.
Before she could start crying again, her thoughts were interrupted by the man who had sat down next to her.
“Lost a hand, girlie?” he asked. “I’ve been there.”
Morgan turned to see a massive man with a grizzled beard and braided hair. He had scars all across his face and arms, and he was holding out a stump of a wrist to show her.
“That was before hospitals were invented though,” he went on.
Morgan nodded and held out her hand in return, “not the whole thing, I don’t think. Just a few fingers.”
“No matter, it’s still a loss,” he said. “How’d it happen?”
Morgan hesitated. She couldn’t just tell this stranger her mission, and she figured the excuse she’d given the nurse wouldn’t work.
“A trade then? I’ll tell mine if you tell yours.”
“Sure,” Morgan said. If she could get him talking, she’d have time to come up with a lie. Or at least a good way to cover up the truth.
“I lost my hand by sticking it into the mouth of a beast,” the man began. He had a distant look in his eyes, as though he was looking back through centuries of memories. “Naturally, the beast bit down, even though he said he wouldn’t if my family promised they wouldn’t trap it. Of course, my family did what they had to to stop the apocalypse from coming. All we lost was my hand, and through that we saved more lives than could ever be counted.”
Morgan smiled, before realizing where she’d heard that story before. “Tyr?” she exclaimed.
“Ah, you know me then.” Tyr didn’t seem surprised, but there was a new air of sadness to him, as though the weight of being forgotten hadn’t hit him until he was remembered.
“Of course!” Morgan said. “How could I not? My parents told your stories a thousand times, where else do you think I got the strength to do what I do?”
“I’m flattered, young warrior, now I think you owe me a story.”
Morgan looked at her hand. “I lost my hand almost the same way you lost yours. But my monster isn’t trapped yet. I doubt she ever will be, but that’s not going to stop me from trying.”