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ithehellisbucky · 4 years ago

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Waking Up In Vegas

spencer reid x reader

request: prompts 87 (boop), 88 (that's such a bad idea- lets do it), 89 (Cool Cool Cool Cool Cool Cool Cool Cool Cool), 96 (I'm not crying, you are.) by anon

word count: 1.7k

warnings: Mentions of drug addiction, heavy drinking and blackout, that's it.

author's note: I've had this in my inbox for months, and I'm so sorry I didn't finish it sooner. Also, what do you want to see from my blog, it seems like I only post once a week for my fics and that's a no go from me.

~~~

The light was too loud- that's a wonderful thing to think when you remember nothing of the night before. You groaned and sat up, seeing that you were in a large bed with white covers. You scratched your head and looked around, noticing that the bedboard behind you was a large pink heart.

Looking down you realize that you're wearing a sequined red bikini top and a skirt scarf combo with booty shorts underneath. Drunk you does not have good fashion sense.

Before you can notice anything else, you start to feel puke crawling up your throat and you immediately run and vomit all your guts up.

You rinse your mouth out and notice that the blanket mound you left has shifted, and you become wary and pick up a heavy brass candlestick.

And then the lump rolls over, and it's your goddamn coworker.

"Reid?"

He startles and wakes up, staring at you and then glancing down at himself- huh, there was something wrong about that picture, but you couldn't figure out what it was just yet.

"y/n? What are you doing in my hotel room?" He pauses, looks around, then mutters under his breath "this isn't my hotel room."

He looks up at you "Since when are you married?"

"I'm not," You look down at your hand, noticing a giant red ruby adorning your ring finger "I am."

You look down at his hand and notice that he is too, "And so are you."

You and Spencer look around your room, both badly masking paranoia and panic. Both of your eyes stop when you notice a picture frame in the corner- a wedding certificate.

"Cool Cool Cool Cool Cool Cool Cool Cool Cool. This is fine, no big deal, just a marriage certificate," You move over and pick it up "with both of our names on it."

"Okay, this is okay, this is fine," Spencer says, sitting back down on the bed stunned.

"So, we're married, which is a thing that happened, last night, that you definitely remember." You say, sitting down next to your newly revealed husband.

"I don't remember."

"How do you not remember? You have super memory powers!"

"This is an excellent first fight to have as a married couple, of course, you blame me." He says, standing up and shrugging.

You meet his stance "Of course I blame you! You're the smart one!"

"Oh, well Agent, I wasn't aware that you had an IQ of 25!" He pauses "25 is the number associated by Henry H. Goodard to be an idiot, it's actually-"

"I know!" You exclaim, seething with half-hearted rage.

"You know, your the one who got an addict drunk!"

"Your vice isn't alcohol! If I drugged you I'd be a monster! You ordered that first bloody mary all by yourself, and those shots we did were totally consensual!!!"

He looked up at you "you remember that?"

You think, and notice memories that you didn't know were there, "um, yeah, bits and pieces."

From the expression he makes, he looks to be remembered more too. You and your new husband sit down and let it all hit you.

~~~

"4 tequila shots please." You wave down the bartender.

You're already buzzed, but you and Spencer were just getting warmed up. Morgan and Garcia left hours ago to go to a fancy restaurant, Rossi was planted firmly at the poker table, Hotch was nowhere to be seen, JJ had gone home to be with Henry, and Emily was at a "sin to win" night at some casino that you already knew too much about just by hearing the name.

So that leaves you and Spencer at the bar in the only casino in town he wasn't banned from.

At first, you were concerned about him drinking, but once he reassured that alcohol isn't his way of self-medicating, you were okay. Besides, if you saw any red flags, you would throw his ass in rehab faster than you can say 'gin'.

So, you were 5 drinks in and having the time of your lives, showing off battle scars and laughing. God, his eyes were pretty.

"Your eyes are so pretty!" You giggled "like soooooo pretty, woooooooow."

He laughed and looked back at you "your skin is pretty, like in a non-serial killer way, it's really pretty."

"Thank you, just don't kill me for it."

"I just called no murder!" He whined "besides, how am I sure you won't kill me and scoop my eyes out?"

"Because that's gross." You said, rolling your eyes.

"And stealing your skin isn't?"

"You can' have my skin!" You say, mock running away.

He laughs, and looks directly into your eyes, and smiles, wow, he was pretty. Morgan was right.

"Hey, do you wanna get out of here?" Spencer asks you.

"Yeah, let's get ice cream!" You grab his hand, and it feels natural through your foggy brain.

After stumbling through the ice cream parlor, full of people who were trying to pretend like they weren't. Spencer got butter pecan, and you got sherbert and chocolate.

You stumbled out of the store, giggling to yourself and Spencer.

God, you loved him. So you told him.

"I love you." He stopped in his tracks, and you almost tripped on a bicycle rack.

"Really?" He whispers.

All of the giggles are gone.

"I love you."

The ice cream is long forgotten, his on the ground, and half of yours on your clothes and half next to his on the ground. All that's left is your faces inching closer to each other.

When your lips meet it feels like firecrackers going off inside your head.

His mouth is soft, gently contrasting with your soft lips. His tongue sneaks into your mouth, your smile around his.

"Let's get married." He pulls apart from you, out of breath.

You stay silent for a moment, before looking up and directly into his chocolate brown eyes "That is such a bad idea-"

He diverts his eyes and scratches the back of his skull "Um, yeah, that's okay, let's-"

"Let's do it."

He looks back at you, and you grab his body and kiss him.

~~~

Sometimes people can be happy, you realize as an elderly woman ties a sash around your waist.

You have to be honest, you never thought this was gonna be how you were gonna get married. Hell, you weren't sure if you were gonna get married at all. But certainly not like this. Certainly not at 1 am to your coworker 7 drinks in at a cheap roadside attraction.

Definitely not like this.

But something about this weirdness felt like the only way anything ever would've made any sense.

There was something about the outfit you were wearing that was perfect, a bright red bra covered in sequins underneath a top with buttons and poofy sleeves that showed off a lot of your chest, a wrap-around cheap white silk skirt with jeans shorts underneath. And of course purple open-toed boots. Perfect.

Marrying Spencer Reid is like a fever dream. A perfect man with perfect hair and perfect eyes. So of course you were giggling like crazy while they put the cheap crown with pink tulle serving as a veil on your head.

Your witnesses were an elderly couple, of course, you wanted to have your best friends there, but knowing them they'd try to talk you out, and believe me, there was no way you wanted out of it.

"Now's time dear," the woman exclaims, gently patting you on the shoulder and leading you out of the fitting room and towards the chapel.

The owner of the business hooks his arm around yours and leads you into the chapel, church bells from an iPod attached to a speaker ringing out into the air.

Spencer turns around the air visibly leaves his lungs when you make eye contact. The chapel you two had chosen in this drunken haze was costume-themed, and he was wearing an ancient Rome costume that fit the time where his favorite philosopher, so even though no one else noticed, you could tell he was dressed as Gaius.

His hair had been attempted to slick back, but little curls were popping up all over the place instead. He was wringing his hands tightly and bouncing his knee, god you couldn't wait to marry him.

The elderly man who had led you to the alter places you next to Spencer, you couldn't focus on anything but your soon-to-be-husband.

Spencer takes his hands and gently pulls your veil up from around your face, and a tear trickles out of his eyes as he sees you. You smile and notice his nerves, try to calm the love of your life down "boop", you gently tap his nose and he smiles in comfort.

The officiant drones on and on about love but you can't hear him, all you can focus on is his love-filled eyes.

"Do you take Spencer Reid to be your husband?"

Your eyes snap out of their daze and you say with the most certainty than you have ever said anything: "I do."

"And do you take (y/n) (y/l/n) to be your life partner for as long as you may live?"

"I do," And you feel more wanted than you ever have in your life, he wants you, Spencer wants you.

~~~

You and Spencer sit on your bed in stunned silence, neither believing that last night had really happened. You look over at your apparent husband and notice tears streaming down his face.

"You're crying." You say, your voice coming out as a chocked whisper.

"I'm not crying, you are." You look down and notice that your shirt is soaked in tears.

"Oh." You take a deep breath and look into his eyes. "So, what do you want to do?"

"Get an annulment?" He doesn't look completely happy about his answer and stares into your eyes for reassurance.

You take a deep breath and stare off into the distance, out into a world that would be so much better if you were married to Spencer Reid. "I don't want that."

You look back at him to meet his eyes, "Me neither."

"I love you, a lot, and I want to be married to you." Spencer smiles, and you feel wanted and safe and loved.

Instead of saying it back, he kissed you with a passion that was way more descriptive than simple words. Spencer is your husband and you love him, he loves you, and you are finally wanted.

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howtohero · 3 years ago

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#300.1: Saving the World Part 1

Prologue

The Haberdashery

“Hi, my name is Murk. I am a mud monster and a product of mad science, but I am also an accountant and a lover of classical music. For most of my existence I have tried to simply live a regular life in an increasingly strange world.”

The conference room in Hatman’s Haberdashery was filled with all manner of colorfully clad, or just plain colorful, superheroes, super-trainees, monsters, vampires, werewolves, sewer-mutants, Da Vincis and even a smattering of regular civilians who looked tired, angry, but overall fearless. According to Leonardo Da Vinci II, an android duplicate of the original from the far future, there had never been such an eclectic gathering of people in all of history. They had gathered — or been gathered — because the world, and life as they all knew it, hung in the balance. The world’s supervillains, led by a formerly low rate smuggler named Smuggles, had managed to do the unthinkable, they’d taken over the world, and in doing so they’d imprisoned most of the world’s heroes, world leaders, and superhero bloggers, in a secret prison. The oddball assembly was the Resistance, and at the moment each of them had their eyes on Murk. Some looked at him with confusion, he was by far the most eloquent mud monster they’d ever heard. Some looked at him in awe, over the past several weeks, Murk had rescued many of them from danger and had inspired them to join him in his fight. A few looked at him with pride, they knew him from before you see, and as far as they were concerned, that made his heroics their heroics.

(“I know that guy from before,”) Parenthetical Guy whispered to the warthog-mask wearing man sitting to his left. (“And as far as I’m concerned, that makes his heroics my heroics.)

{“I work with that guy, he does my taxes,”} Curly whispered, nudging Hatman who was looking forlornly toward the room’s exit. There were far too many people between him and it, and it was causing him no shortage of distress.

“When the heroes fell,” Murk continued. “It immediately became apparent that I, and many others like me, could no longer afford the luxury of standing to the side. For a long time I, and many of my ‘monstrous’ ilk have been more than happy to allow superheroes to handle the world’s problems for us. Whenever our homes, our lives, our world came under threat we all said to one another, ‘well, that looks like a job for superheroes,’ and we declined to act. When the heroes fell I saw how selfish I had been. And so I would like to be the first to extend my heartfelt thanks, and my sincerest apologies to the brave heroes who have gathered here today. I, along with my partner and friend, Lawyer Guy have gathered as many civilians as we could. Regular monsters and people who have cowered from or turned a blind eye to the acts of the villains who have dared to subjugate us, and we have come here to offer our assistance. If you’ll have us, we would like to help in any way we can.”

His speech concluded, Murk quickly sat down next to Lawyer Guy who smiled warmly at him. A few people sitting near him muttered polite words of affirmation toward the hulking mud man but everyone quickly became silent once more as somebody else strode to the head of the table.

Everybody in the room, everybody in the world, recognized the gold and white costume, the chiseled, stony features, and the piercing blue eyes of Ultiman. He was the superhero par excellence and when he clapped Murk on the shoulder and smiled widely, Murk’s ragtag civilian crew let out a collective sigh of relief.

“Thank you Murk,” Ultiman said. “Thank you everyone. As I’m sure you can see, our numbers are small but our members are dedicated and we are thrilled to be able to count each of you among us. I’m confident that, working together, we can depose Smuggles and his entire Consortium of Crime.”

***

Smuggles’s Secret Prison

My name is Zachary Schechter and I’d been locked up for a while by the time anybody had made any noise about breaking out. You may know me as the creator, author, and only functioning brain behind How To Hero. Actually you definitely know me as that. It’s a very popular blog. Just take my word on this ok? I was in a secret prison because I allowed my subordinates to talk me into hiring a known supervillain to, let’s see, live in our basement and interject unwanted comments into my blog. As it would happen, this supervillain, Smuggles, took the job as part of some kind of protracted and complicated plan to take over the world. I should have seen that coming of course. That’s basically the only reason any supervillain does anything. For a few weeks I was alone there. Just sitting in a cell twiddling my thumbs. Trying to make conversation with the drones they had guarding the place. The only thing they’d given me to eat is fish. I imagine Chuck the Fish Whisperer had something to do with that. Frikkin supervillains and their sycophantic dedication to their own themes. But then a ton of superheroes ended up there with me, and I knew things on the outside had taken a decisive turn for the worse. The heroes were all stripped of their costumes and gear, and were given supervillain costumes instead. It’s all spikes, horns, and red contact lenses now. It’s a bit silly, but I think the idea is that if the heroes are dressed like villains and forced to do things like play evil charades and watch movies about heroes turning bad, then some of them might actually turn evil. Actually, I know that’s the idea, but I’ll get to that later. Eventually Cowboy Rockstar, the coolest hero of all time, decided to stage some kind of jailbreak. Which was great. And he wanted me to help him plan it, probably because of my proven expertise in all manner of superhero related topics. I bet it was my treatise on the many superheroic uses of drills that got his attention. There was just one teeny tiny problem though...

“So what do you think?” Cowboy Rockstar whispered.

“I think… I think that I designed this prison,” I whispered dejectedly.

“I beg your pardon?”

It was recreation time once again, and Giorgio the Evil Mime had selected an assortment of clips of superheroes becoming evil from various films and TV shows. It’s really shocking how many times Hollywood has returned to the well of “a superhero clad in red, white, and blue murders a person.” We must’ve watched like thirty different clips already.

“Look, Mr. Rockstar, I appreciate you coming to me and all. It’s an honor to meet you and plot in hushed voices with you and everything. But I’m like 90% certain that I designed this prison. And I don’t know about you but Iitalics certainly wouldn’t have designed a prison that people could break outitalics of.”

Cowboy Rockstar furrowed his brow, “Ah, you’re saying this prison is… from your blog?”

I held up my hands defensively. “Hey, I know how it sounds but look around you. The costumes, the robots, the charades. It’s literally ripped straight from my post about running your own unsanctioned prison.”

“You wrote a guide to running an off the books blacksite for housing criminals?” Cowboy Rockstar arched an immaculate eyebrow. “That’s not really a very superheroic activity.”

“Huh. When you put it like that it’s really no wonder that the only person who seems to have implemented any of it is a supervillain who seems to have taken over the world.”

“He had help,” I heard somebody grumble from Cowboy Rockstar’s other side.

Helm Lady was one of the only Hatman proteges to both survive to adulthood and continue her career as a superhero, so it was hardly surprising that she’d been able to sneak up on us.

“Helm Lady, good of you to join us!” Cowboy Rockstar said. “Zach over here was just telling me about how he designed this prison to be unescapable! Isn’t that exciting.”

“Hardly,” Helm Lady said glumly.

“I gotta agree with her on this one,” I said.

“Are you kidding me? You’ve been given a rare opportunity to outdo yourself in a grandiose and practical way! You’ve been here longer than anybody. It seems like Smuggles has some kind of vendetta against you specifically, and so he’s used your own tactics against you! Now, with our help of course, you can show everybody that you’re smarter than you!” Cowboy Rockstar was gesticulating wildly at this point drawing a sharp and reproachful glare from warden Giorgio.

“Hm,” I said, I had already written a guide to escapology. Maybe I’d already unwittingly outwitted myself. Besides, Smuggles’s prison wasn’t actually an exact copy of the one I’d designed on the blog. He’d had to make some changes to prevent it from having any real rehabilitative value. Dressing the prisoners like villains instead of heroes for instance. And villain costumes are very different from hero costumes. They’re like eighty percent sharp edges. I looked Cowboy Rockstar up and down. The costume they had him in had spikes up and down his arms. Maybe we could use them to pick the locks on our cell? We’d still have to deal with the robot guards and who knows what else. But maybe that was a place to start.

“Ok,” I said after a moment. “I’m sure we can come up with something, after all, as I say

on my blog, when you’re in a locked room, anything can be a key.”

Cowboy Rockstar grinned and gestured around the room at the assorted superheroes that were locked in with us, “And we’ve certainly got an eclectic bunch of keys here haven’t we.”

I smiled and looked around the room, maybe this could actually work.

***

“If I had an iPod and a busted time machine we could do this in a snappy montage and be out in no time,” I grumbled to Cowboy Rockstar.

It was the next day, and our recreation activity was something called “evil baseball.” There’s no batters, no outfield, and the only umpire was a deranged mime. The only real resemblance it had to regular “non-evil” baseball, was the fact that there were four bases, and players could steal bases. In fact, the game was pretty much just stealing bases. Because stealing is a crime get it? Ugh, the sooner we got out of there and stopped Smuggles the better. Cowboy Rockstar was manning first base for his team, and I’d just stolen first. I suspected it was because Helm Lady, the “pitcher” for Cowboy Rockstar’s team, had allowed me to get to first so we could chat. It might have been because I’m really athletic though. It’s hard to say.

“I don’t think that’s how anything works,” Cowboy Rockstar said.

“Oh what do you know?”

“A lot, I’ve unknotted several time paradoxes you know. Some experts even say that I ‘invented’ the current iteration of this timeline.”

“Ah, so this is all your fault.”

“Nice try, I didn’t give Smuggles access to an interdimensional warp gate so he could free his fish whispering friend from his prison.”

“Touche.”

“What have you got?”

“I was thinking, we know that Smuggles has everybody’s powers neutralized inside this prison right?”

“Yes.”

“Well not every hero has powers to begin with,” I started. “And there are few people here with relevant talents that Smuggles can’t turn off.”

“Talents such as?”

Giorgio blew his whistle. Apparently I’d spent too long dawdling at first base without even trying to steal second.

“I guess whistling doesn’t go against the mime code of silence,” I grumbled as I started to edge off of first base.

“Talents such as?” Cowboy Rockstar repeated before I took off.

I nodded towards his team’s second baseman.

“Being a giant rock monster with seven hands,” I said before racing off toward Rockblock.

***

The next night I laid awake, staring up at the ceiling of my cell, going over what was slowly starting to look like a plan again and again. If Cowboy Rockstar could use the many razor sharp spikes on his villain costume to pick the locks on his cell, — and he’d assured me that he could, upside down, in his sleep — and then get to the others, Rockblock could probably serve as our muscle until we got out and the other heroes got their powers back. He’d need to fight off dozens of battle drones though. No, that wasn’t much of a plan. Muscle was great, but we’d need some other way to guarantee the drones would stay off of us until we got outside. I consulted the scrap of paper I had hidden in the palm of my hand, directed away from any prying eyes or cameras. The scrap had been discretely slipped into the pocket of my hoodie by Helm Lady. She’d managed to steal a pencil during Evil Mad Libs, and had taken the liberty of jotting down everybody who we knew was imprisoned here. “Our list of keys,” as Cowboy Rockstar had called it. We needed to keep the circle of people who knew that we were planning a breakout small for now. That way there’d be less of a chance of any villains or drones getting wind of it. So Cowboy Rockstar wanted me to identify anybody who might be especially useful in the actual breakout, whereupon we’d obviously free the rest of the prisoners. I consulted the list again, mentally sorting the manifest into those who had powers, and thus were less likely to be especially useful without the use of them, and those who didn’t have powers, and therefore were pretty much operating at 100% effectiveness. There’s another thing I didn’t account for in my own designs, sucks to be you Smuggles. That’s what happens when you build your top secret superhero prison based on the musings of a comedy blog instead of doing your own work you frikkin goon. I circled a couple of names on my illicit scrap of paper and was just about ready to smugly smile myself to sleep when I noticed a faint buzzing. My first thought was wall bees. You wouldn’t believe how often strange buzzing sounds in the How To Hero office ended up being bees in the wall. But this buzzing was more mechanical and well, I guess it must have been there since I was first thrown into this dump. I had managed to sublimate it into the background noise of my time here but now in the dead of the night I was able to really listen to it finally. I tentatively got off of my threadbare cot and walked the length of my small cell. The buzzing was, as I’d feared, strongest by the door. Which could only mean one thing. Door bees! No, I’m kidding, it meant that the old fashioned deadbolt lock was either just for show, or just one part of the cell doors’ security systems. There was some kind of electronic component as well. One that probably wouldn’t be able to be thwarted with some evil-looking spikes. I looked at my scrap once more, I’d have to have a conversation with one of the other prisoners tomorrow.

***

“Professor Flay,” I whispered as I took a seat next to a glasses-wearing black man decked out in a purple jumpsuit with a skull belt buckle.

“Yes?” the man said, clearly startled, “I’m sorry I don’t believe we’ve met.”

“My name’s Zach, and I’m a fan of your Big Book of Fake Science.”

“Um, are you referring to my Complete Compendium of Improbable Science,” Professor Lucius Flay replied.

“Shoot, is that what it’s called? I knew it was something like that, only my buddy lost the cover and title page in a bet with a supervillain we knew who needed them to power his cover and title page powered doomsday device,” I explained quickly.

Professor Flay flared his nostrils, “And you have the nerve to insinuate that my science is fake. Is there a point to this, I don’t want to miss this performance.”

Our villainous rehabilitation activity for the day was “evil karaoke” only songs with the word “bad” in the title were allowed to be performed. Cowboy Rockstar was currently belting out an honestly breathtaking rendition of Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romance”. It was an especially loud and especially drawn out version of the song, so that Professor Flay and I could converse in relative peace.

“What kind of scientist would you say you are Professor?”

“If you must know, I consider myself to be more or less omnidisciplinary,” Professor Flay said.

“That means you dabble in a little bit of everything right?”

“Everything scientific.”

“And that’s not a superpower thing right? You came by all that knowledge on your own?”

Professor Flay waved a dismissive hand at me, “Of course I did. I studied for years to get to where I am today. Sure I may have had to break a few time travel regulations to do it, but otherwise, I come by my intellect fair and square.”

“Excellent!” I shouted a little too loudly. “This is the best version of ‘Bad Romance’ I’ve ever heard!” I quickly added, to cover myself.

“Yeah it’s so good that they should call it ‘Good Romance!’” Rockblock shouted, no doubt trying to help me out.

Unfortunately though, that was the wrong thing to say. Giorgio the Mime certainly couldn’t allow anything gooditalics to happen in this evil facility, so he quickly put the kibosh on Cowboy Rockstar’s performance, much to the chagrin of everyone else in the room. I thought I even saw a drone flash a frowny face. The drones then started ferrying us out of the room and back to our individual cells.

“How much do you know about electronic locks?” I quickly asked as I pressed my scrap of paper in between Professor Flay’s belt and jumpsuit.

Realization flashed across Professor Flay’s face.

“Ah,” he said. “Enough.”

I hoped he was right.

***

The next day our recreational activity was evil baking. There were several different stations set up in the auditorium, each with ingredients set up to make different evil foods. I ambled past “exploding pies”, “sentient food that will actively beg for its life as you eat it”, and “kale cookies” before taking a seat next to Cowboy Rockstar at the “general poisons” table. Helm Lady and Rockblock were already there, and I noticed Helm Lady was taking special care not to touch any of the ingredients on the table. Rockblock, being made entirely out of stone and cando spirit, began handling the various herbs and toxins and following the recipe. I guess they’d decided that somebody at our table had to be doing something to avoid attracting any unwanted attention.

“Where’s Professor Flay?” I asked.

“He just walked in,” Cowboy Rockstar said, nodding toward the door, where a contingent of drones were herding in another batch of prisoners.

“Over here!” Rockblock bellowed, waving three of his giant hands while the other four mixed and mashed various ingredients.

“Quiet,” Helm Lady snarled. I was beginning to regret bringing Rockblock in on our plans so early.

Still, Professor Flay managed to get the message and made his way over to our table.

“Hello everybody,” he said as he sat down next to Helm Lady. He wrinkled his nose as he caught a whiff of what Rockblock was mixing in his bowl. “What are we making?”

“Sulfide sausages,” Rockblock replied.

“Lovely.”

“So?” I asked, raising my eyebrow inquisitively at the professor.

Professor Flay glanced around and, confident that there were no drones within listening distance, leaned in conspiratorially.

“I can build the device you described but-”

“Hey guys, sorry I didn’t come right away. I wanted to do a lap to see if there were any other cooler tables,” a pale skinned man clad in black chainmail and sporting thick rimmed glasses said as he sat down at our table.

“Er… what?” I asked.

“I know Rockblock called me over, but I’m not just going to sit down at the first table that offers me a spot, am I?” the other man replied as if that were a perfectly normal thing to say.

“Uh, I was actually talking to Professor Flay,” Rockblock said.

The bespectacled man laughed, “Oh Rockblock, I’d heard your sense of humor was legendary.”

Rockblock looked confused but Helm Lady put a hand on one of his arms.

“What do you want Glassesman?”

“Helm Lady! Great to see you. How’s the old man?”

“We don’t talk.”

“Oh, is that right? Poor Hats never could keep a protege.”

“Glassesman.” I said, interjecting before things escalated. “You weren’t on the list. When did you get here?”

“Oh, just recently. I wasn’t captured with the rest of you in the first wave.”

Cowboy Rockstar ignored the jab and leaned forward. “Are you saying that Smuggles has found whatever resistance there is? Where’s Ultiman?”

“Keep your ten-gallon hat on buckaroo, the resistance is fine such as it is. I was deep undercover in Smuggles’ operation, but I got found out.”

“No surprise there. You probably started handing out promotional sunglasses to all the villains as soon as you got in there,” Helm Lady muttered.

“Hey, supervillains are a market I have yet to break into. This was a rare networking opportunity for me!”

What a tool.

“Enough,” Cowboy Rockstar said, making sure to keep his voice even.

“What’s with all the hushed tones,” Glassesman said, looking us all up and down.

“Ah,” he said when he’d completed his appraisal. “You’re planning a break out.”

“No we’re n-” Helm Lady started but Glassesman held up his hand.

“Oh please, you’ve got a scientist, a jack-of-all-trades, a bruiser, a non-powered combatant and a…” he faltered when he got to me.

“Blogger,” I said curtly.

Glassesman raised an eyebrow but kept going, “So don’t try to keep me out of this, I’m non-powered too, and I can fight better than a Hatb- sorry exitalics-Hatboy any day of the week.”

Cowboy Rockstar looked as though he was going to say something to get rid of Glassesman but he just sighed and gestured to Professor Flay.

“Fine, sure. Professor you were saying?”

“Um, well, yes. I can build the… device, you asked for but I can’t do it from thin air. I need something to work from.”

We all sat in silence for a moment. I guess it was too much to ask for an omni-disciplinaryitalics super-scientist to be able to whip up an EMP device out of whatever he could find in his prison cell. I’d be sure to inform whatever board certifies omni-disciplinary scientists to amend an asterisk to Professor Flay’s credentials when we got out of here.

“Could you build it out of whatever those things are made of?” Glassesman said, jerking a thumb towards one of the drones.

Professor Flay appraised it, “It appears to run on a lithioplasmic core with a carbon-electrum chassis. Assuming there’s a terrakon multispacial chip rattling around in or near its processor… Yes, I wouldn’t even need too much of it. Just a chunk from the chest if I had to guess.”

“Excellent,” Glassesman said before he stood up and flipped over our table. “And you can tell that cap clad crank that I’m twice the hero he ever was!”

Helm Lady smirked and wordlessly lunged at him, wrapping her long fingers around his neck. Professor Flay and I quickly took cover behind the table. Flay because he was a nerd and wasn’t about to get involved in a fist fight between two highly trained combatants. And me to protect Flay naturally. We needed him fit enough to build us the EMP, I couldn’t exactly leave him. Cowboy Rockstar jumped on Glassesman’s back and tried to pull him away while Rockblock scrambled to gather up the ingredients from his poison. A stray pellet of congealed arsenic bounced over to me and I scooped it up into my hoodie. You never know, right?

In a minute several drones were trundling over to our little group trying to break up the fight. They’d just about managed to pry Cowboy Rockstar, Glassesman and Helm Lady apart when Rockblock let out a deafening roar and joined the fray, sending a handful of drones flying as he growled something incoherent about how hard he’d been working on perfecting his recipe. By this time the other assembled heroes were all looking toward us, but before anybody else could get any ideas about joining the riot, more drones than I’d even realized were in the prison poured into the auditorium and surrounded my friends. Finally managing to pull them apart.

The rest of the heroes, myself and Professor Flay included, were now being rounded up by some of the drones while most of them were being engaged by six of Rockblock’s giant fists. As we walked by though, I noticed his seventh appendage experly flick a chunk of metal in our direction. I stumbled slightly, bending over quickly to grab the robot chunk. And then discretely passed it to Professor Flay before we were split off to return to our own cells.

“I’ll have it done before tonight,” he said to me as he palmed the misshapen blob of metal and wiring.

I nodded and smiled, by that time tomorrow we’d be out of that forsaken prison and saving the world.

***

Night fell, and I paced anxiously around the length of my cell. Assuming Professor Flay was able to work as quickly as he claimed he was able to. And assuming Rockblock had gotten him exactly what he needed. And assuming Cowboy Rockstar and Glassesman and Helm Lady were able to pick the locks on their cells when the time came. And assuming Rockblock could keep any guards off of us. And assuming- Well, there were a lot of assumptions before I’d be tasting fresh air. Our plan was hardly fool proof, and we had at least two or three fools on our team, depending on who you asked. We were making a few too many assumptions for my liking. But it was the best we had, so I guess that was that. There was nothing I could do except wait for something to happen.

And when something happened, everything happened.

First there was a deafening boom, followed by a shockwave that traveled quickly throughout the cell block. If I hadn’t been deafened by the explosion, I would have noticed that the electronic buzzing I’d heard had gone silent. Professor Flay’s homebrewed EMP had worked. I ran to the door and saw several guard drones collapsed on the ground. Their cybernetic features were blank.

Seconds later three cell doors swung open and Cowboy Rockstar, Helm Lady, and Glassesman strode out. Glassesman looked especially smug, even though he was the last one out. The other two were such pros, they decided to let it slide. They quickly started working on picking the locks on the other cells. Helm Lady sprung Rockblock first, just in case there were any drones outside the EMP’s radius that might’ve been trundling our way. Professor Flay’s EMP was a one-shot kind of deal so we’d have to fight or evade any other drones we encountered.

“So far so good eh?” Cowboy Rockstar grinned as he unlocked the door to my cell.

“So far, yeah,” I said anxiously. “We’re pretty much flying blind from here on out th- Woah!”

I took a step back into my cell as Cowboy Rockstar became enveloped in a brilliant white light. I stood agape as he began hovering a few inches off the ground and the light faded into his body.

“What was that?” I asked.

Cowboy Rockstar landed adroitly on the ground and checked his pulse with two of his fingers.

“It’s… I think the EMP must have shorted out whatever device was neutralizing our powers in here,” Cowboy Rockstar said. His fists began crackling with energy.

I looked up and down the hall of cells. Powerful glows or crumpled cell doors told me that many of the other heroes were starting to regain access to their powers.

“Well that certainly changes the game,” I said as I began taking stock of all of the new keys we’d just acquired.

***

We quickly divided into a few teams:

Team One: Nightron, Foresight P. Jones, and Intangi-Bill. None of us had been outside since we’d arrived in the prison and so none of us actually knew where the exit was. Team one would use their respective speed, supervision and intangibility in concert to find a way out.

Team Two: Cowboy Rockstar, Rockblock, and Cannonballer: Baller of Cannons. Our heavy hitters. If anybody could break straight through the walls that surrounded us to the outside it was them.

Team Three: Professor Flay, Electrobug, Digitalized, Psionica. They set about trying to cobble together weapons and gear from the broken husks of the drones that we had at our disposal.

Team Four: Captain Patriot, Brad the Radioactive Man, Amphin, Glassesman, Helm Lady and the Human Wall. The best offense is a strong defense, and if any of our other teams were going to have any hope of doing what they needed to do, they’d need somebody keeping Giorgio and whatever drones he could scrounge together off of their backs.

Team Five: Dr. Hemer, Knife Knurse, and Super Surgeon. A lot of heroes were suffering painful side-effects either from the sudden reemergence of their superpowers or the power-deprivation they’d been suffering since they’d gotten here. Anybody who had any sort of medical knowledge would tend to them until we get help on the outside.

Team Six: Just me. My job was to come up with the team names and I’m not ashamed to admit that I totally phoned it in.

I was sitting back and taking stock of the other teams’ progress when a gust of wind informed me of Nightron’s return.

“We’re not the only prisoners here,” he said panting, parts of his supervillain costume were singed, he must have encountered other guards elsewhere in the facility.

“You’re sure?” I asked frantically. I’m not sure why it had never occurred to me that there might be other prisoners somewhere in this facility. But I had only ever seen the heroes that were in that corridor at communal recreational events.

“Positive, there are maybe five or six other cell blocks just like this one. They’ve got dozens of other superheroes here. But that’s not all. World leaders, para-folk, some civilians. I think I even saw some sort of zoo,” Nightron said.

“Probably for animal sidekicks and the like,” I mused aloud. “Were you followed back here?”

“No, but they saw who I was. I’m sure they know where I’m supposed to be. It won’t be long before we have company here.”

“You’re right. Professor, how are those weapons coming!” I shouted towards where Team Three was working.

“My EMP seems to have worked a little too well, there’s no resteoring powers to these machines, but Psionica has managed to use her telekinetic abilities to reform some chunks of metal into clubs.”

“That’ll have to do,” I said. “Nightron, grab a few of those clubs, if anybody comes you’ll join Team Four. Hit them hard and hit them fast.”

“But what about the other prisoners?” Nightron protested.

“We need to break ourselves out before we can worry about anybody else,” Glassesman said.

“I hate to admit it but he’s right,” Helm Lady agreed.

“Yeah but-” and then, in a whoosh he was gone, because it was at that moment that a platoon of drones filed into our hallway. Two of them hit the ground, their CPUs bashed in by Nightron, before the rest of us even registered what was happening but once we did, the rest of Team Four, sprung into action.

“Zach, over here,” Professor Flay called.

I ran over to him, he passed me a makeshift club and we formed a defensive ring around our medics and the wounded along with the rest of Team Three.

“We are through!” Cannonballer: Baller of Cannons cried.

We helped Team Five get to the large gap in the wall that Team Two had formed as Rockblock and Cowboy Rockstar went to join the fray in the corridor.

“We may have problem,” Cannonballer: Baller of Cannons muttered to us as we joined her outside.

Problem was an understatement. For one thing, the sky was a murky blend of purples, oranges, and reds, and I know I haven’t been doing a ton of “world-building” in this dramatic account of my escape from a supervillain run supermax, but the sky we were all used to seeing was definitely blue. The ground we were standing on was somehow both dusty and crumbly. Every step we took sent a cloud of dust and ground flakes into the air. And we couldn’t see any other signs of life or civilization anywhere at all. I had always assumed that we would be somewhere inconspicuous but local, so that Smuggles could keep an eye on us, but it appeared as though we were in the middle of nowhere with no way of getting to the middle of anywhere.

“What… What is this place?” Professor Flay said.

“Beats me,” I said with a shrug. When I designed this prison for How To Hero I recommended finding a large unused building with reinforced walls that was situated in a place that no cops would ever be caught dead anywhere near. There are literally four or five places like that within a twenty block radius of How To Hero headquarters so where the hell were we. Unless… crap.

“Atomspace,” I said. “We’ve been shrunken down and sent to a prison in Atomspace.”

“Well,” Professor Flay said, taking in our otherworldly surroundings. “That creates a wrinkle in our plans doesn’t it.”

“It certainly does,” I agreed.

And that’s when everything went black.

***

I awoke, chained to a chair, in what may very well have been the most garishly decorated room I had ever seen. And Parenthetical Guy once painted our office neon green and creamsicle orange so that was saying something. The walls were all a deep blood red and there were various supervillainous accoutrements mounted all over the walls. Scary looking masks, futuristic blasters, esoteric looking staffs. A giant serpent’s head wearing oversized sunglasses was mounted on the wall directly opposite me. Below the serpent head sat an ornate, obsidian desk with a high backed leather chair behind it. The carpet was the color of rotting bones, which made a lot of sense when I realized that it wasn’t really a carpet at all, but rather a mat made entirely of very thin bone fragments. Bone fragments that were incredibly sharp at the ends.

“Ouch!” I yelped as I lifted my feet slightly off of the ground.

“Well look who’s finally awake,” a snide voice to my left said.

I turned my head and my heart dropped. Joining me in this chilling chamber were the rest of my friends: Cowboy Rockstar, Helm Lady, Professor Flay and Glassesman were chained to chairs like mine while Rockblock’s hulking form was chained to the wall on the far side of the room. The humans in the chairs also had their feet up in various positions. Rockblock was stuck standing on the bone floor, but at least he didn’t seem to mind.

“What happened?” I asked groggily.

“We were all knocked unconscious after we broke through the prison walls,” Professor Flay explained. “Cerebral implants I’d guess.”

“You’re saying we were all chipped?” I said, bewildered. “That’s crazy. Why weren’t we all knocked out as soon as we broke out of our cells?”

“Because I wanted to see the look on your face when you realized you were in Atomspace.”

All of our heads snapped towards the door where a man wearing a dark gray catsuit, a bright orange domino mask, and heavy metal boots strode into the room. “Do you like how I’ve decorated? Greg the Skeleton King referred me to his interior design guy.”

“That explains the bones,” Helm Lady muttered.

“And the hellfire!” Cowboy Rockstar proclaimed. “From right before we were captured, I’d been wondering about that.”

“Smuggles,” I said through gritted teeth.

“Zachary,” he said curtly. “Mr. How To Hero himself, how does it feel to be so utterly defeated by someone you’ve spent years ridiculing on your infantile blog?”

“I’ll let you know when it happens,” I said.

“Always with the clever little jokes,” Smuggles said as he took a seat in the leather chair and steepled his fingers. “You have been utterly defeated though. I’ve been following your little escape attempt from the very beginning. My people are not idiots you know. We’ve been listening to every conversation, watching your every move. The riot in the cafeteria was especially amusing.” He nodded at Rockblock who just grunted in response. “Quite frankly, you got further than I expected you to. But I’m glad you did, because now you have to admit that I’ve completely bested you. You’ve been thoroughly trounced Zachary. Who’s the laughingstock now?”

I narrowed my eyes, trying to think of a way out of this for myself and my friends, when Glassesman burst out laughing. Smuggles’s eye flashed with rage and he slammed a hand down on his desk.

“I’m sorry, is something amusing here?”

“No no… Well yeah, sorry, it’s just… You got every supervillain to band together, captured most of the superheroes, and basically took over the entire world just to get back at some low rate blogger?”

“Hey, uncalled for!” I shouted.

“I’m sorry it’s just a bit ridiculous don’t you think?”

“Honestly, I kind of agree with him,” Helm Lady said sheepishly.

“I legitimately thought this whole thing was about me,” Cowboy Rockstar admitted. “I’m kind of a big deal you know, being a semigod and all that.”

“Don’t you mean demigod?” Professor Flay asked, doing a little wiggle shake to get his chair facing Cowboy Rockstar.

“Oh, I’m that too. But I’m talking about the cult I inadvertently inspired that has deified me,” Cowboy Rockstar explained.

Smuggles banged his fist down on his desk again.

“Enough!” he shouted, before cradling his fist in his other hand. “Now that your merry band has been epically thwarted and humiliated, I must decide on your punishment. I’m not about to risk you lot plotting another breakout.”

My mind started racing for a way out. This was the first time I had come face to face with Smuggles since he’d unleashed Chuck the Fish Whisperer in the How To Hero basement. Until now I hadn’t realized just how much of what was happening revolved around me. I didn’t even realize Smuggles had been familiar with my blog before we hired him. Maybe I could work with that.

“Do your worst Smuggles. I guarantee you it won’t be anything worse than what actual villains have done to me,” I said, affixing my most smug expression on my features.

“What are you talking about?” Smuggles said, clearly thrown.

“I mean come on. I lived with a real supervillain before. Remember Dr. Brainwave?”

“Wait, what?” Helm Lady said. “You lived with Dr. Brainwave? We’ve been looking for him for years!”

“Yeah well I don’t know what to tell you,” I said.

“Brainwave was a sentimental hack. Killing him was child’s play.” Smuggles said through mounting anger.

I faltered for a moment. So Smuggles had been the one who had mailed that bomb to our office? He was the reason Dr. Brainwave was dead? Sure the guy was a supervillain, but at the end of the day he had been my… my friend. And he’d sacrificed his life to save mine and my friends’. The fact that I was sitting less than three feet away from his murderer was almost too much to bear. Still, there’d be plenty of time to deal with him later. Assuming my plan worked.

“Still before you killed him he made my life miserable. You’ve read my blog, I’m sure you know all about it. So I honestly doubt that anything you plan to do can compare.”

Smuggles literally shook with rage, “I can… I can killitalics you! You ever think about that?”

Cowboy Rockstar grinned, “Good luck with that.”

Ok, honestly I’m not sure what thatitalics was about. Is Cowboy Rockstar immortal? Has anybody ever checked that? Regardless, I decided to just roll with it.

“Do your worst.” I said.

“Guys!” Glassesman shouted exasperated. “I love taunting a bad guy as much as the next guy, but maybe we should all ease up a bit!”

“Oh relax,” I said. “Smuggles is a Z-lister trying to kick it with the big kids. He can’t just shoot us or something. If he wants to be a world-dominating evil monster he’s going to have to come up with a suitably ostentatious way to kill us and honestly, he doesn’t have the imagination. Just look at his face, this is clearly eating at him.”

It was as though a lightbulb went off over Smuggles’s head. His face warped from grimace to grin and he strode around to the other side of his desk.

“I’ve already succeeded in taking over the world and routing your beloved superheroes. I hardly need to prove myself to the likes of you. You can expect to be executed in a ‘suitable ostentatious manner’ shortly.”

I was all read to shoot back a witty retort when everything went black again.

***

I awoke to the sound of cheering, which made me feel pretty good. I don’t often get cheered for waking up. I’m sure Cowboy Rockstar was feeling pretty regular though, people cheer for everything that guy does. I was in the center of a gladiatorial arena, the stands were packed with guard drones and more than a few supervillains. The presence of so many of them here sent a shiver down my spine. Had Smuggles really been able to recruit and control so many supervillains? Next to me, my friends laid in a rumpled heap, all of them still unconscious with the exception of…

“Now look what you’ve done,” Professor Flay said sternly.

I turned to look at him and saw the abject fear sketched across his features.

“Relax Prof, everything’s going to be ok.”

“How can you say that! Look at us! We’re in an arena surrounded by bloodthirsty supervillains for god’s sake!”

“It’s not the supervillains you should be worrying about, it’s whatever’s going to come out of that gate,” I said, pointing to a massive (well, massive relative to our shrunken selves) gate directly opposite us.

Professor Flay shuddered, “I imagine the others are still unconscious to prevent them from being able to do anything against whatever that might be.”

I nodded, “It makes sense, Smuggles doesn’t want to risk anything going wrong.”

“But I still want the satisfaction of watching at least some of you soil yourselves in fear,” Smuggles said as his smug visage appeared on a floating jumbotron that was hovering over the arena.

“You’ll never get away with this you knave!” Professor Flay shouted.

“Oh Professor, I already have. I think I’ll make today an international holiday going forward,” Smuggles said as he leaned back from the camera so we could see his entire upper body on the screen. He was sitting on a golden throne and his fingers were hovering above a big red button. I assumed whatever was waiting behind the gate would be released at the press of that button. And why prolong the inevitable.

“Why don’t you come down here so I can wipe that smug expression off of your face, you absolute goober!” I called up to Smuggles.

Smuggles frowned, “Goodbye Zach, you will not be missed.”

His finger pressed the button. The gate started to ascend. Professor Flay sighed and rolled up his sleeves. I had to admire him, he wasn’t planning on going down without some sort of fight. As the gate rose the cheers of the crowd grew even more fevered. I think I even saw a sign that said “Cowboy Suckstar.” Rude. After what seemed like an eternity the gate was finally fully open and a ferocious roar shook the stadium as a massive beast lumbered into the arena. The ginormous monster truly had it all. Dozens of eyes, face tentacles, spikes, a flaming tail. I had to admit this would certainly be a suitably ostentatious way to die. Of course, I wasn’t about to let Smuggles get his way was I?

“Good god what is that thing?” Professor Flay said as he backed away from the giant monster.

“It’s our way out,” I said calmly as I climbed on top of Rockblock’s comatose body, put two fingers in my mouth and whistled sharply.

“What are you doing?” Professor Flay shouted at me as the monster began galloping towards us on all fours.

I looked down at Professor Flay and smiled, “See you on the other side Prof.”

And then the monster ate me.

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