All Rights to Hiro Mashima

I found this fucking ridiculous prompt on Tumblr (Superhero sidekick meets Supervillain henchman in the waiting room of the hospital, shit hits the fan…) and I just couldn't help myself. Couldn't fucking stop myself from typing up this little plot bunny. :3

[I should be focusing on the intricacies of the Canadian Tax System, but OH FUCKING WELL] On another note…halp…I've lost my motivation for tax credits…

~ Restart ~

In which Cobra and SuperNova meet for the first time, for real, then make a decision that is equal parts crazy and insane.

[00:03]

She would recognize him anywhere.

Even without his mask, that single piece of vivid purple cloth that usually sat covering half his face…his scar is unmistakable.

She knows that scar.

She knows him.

Knows his face and his eye and that scar because she was the one who gave it to him. With her sword named 'Leo', she had attempted to cut him in half two years ago because that was what she was supposed to do.

That was her job.

Not that she was fucking paid for it. Heavens forbid.

She was supposed to keep the evil henchmen – and in extension, the Villain – away from the Hero of their fair city of Magnolia so that The Salamander could do what he did best and save the town and bring justice to the land. So he could save the damsel in distress, one Miss Lisanna Strauss after she was inevitably kidnapped time and time again.

Insert evil cackle here.

Which was just so ironic because Salamander was so incredibly gay and had the hots for another super named Absolute Zero, that the kidnap-the-pretty-girl-for-leverage trope didn't make a lick of sense to him. Nor did it make Natsu any more motivated.

Lucy had to explain to Natsu over and over the implications of just letting Lisanna 'chill' where she was (bound and tied with rope or some such nonsense in Commander Zero's evil lair, obviously) was such a bad idea. But he didn't really understand because women never made sense to him, and the whole supervillain thing just made him laugh.

He had once said that if Zero had taken all the pizza in Magnolia hostage, that it would have lit more of a fire under his ass. She had sighed and agreed, because what else could she do?

It was the truth.

She snorts and shifts on her uncomfortable plastic chair. One would think that they would have couches and the like in ER waiting rooms, but the blank walls and beeping had never installed peace and serenity in her like it was supposed to.

Quietly she laments her position in life.

Be the distraction. Be the helping hand. Be the shield.

Be everything. Do everything. Have none of the recognition, or the accolades. Be the sidekick, be the right-hand man…err woman in this case. Be his shadow. Come to his fucking rescue when Natsu inevitably forgets he has horrendous motion sickness.

Whoever thought that the Salamander's secret weakness was a goddamn train?

Honestly. The PR nightmare from Hargeon two years ago was enough for her to grow several grey hairs. Magnolia's famed superhero blowing chunks out of the window of the five o' clock bullet train after he forgot that everything moving (that wasn't his friend…Gods…he was just…so stupid sometimes) made him throw up.

It was on the news.

It was terrible.

Moving on.

She was one of the finest fighters in Fiore – next to her teacher, of course, no one could beat Erza – and she was called Super Nova for a reason. She was explosive and temperamental, fiery and passionate.

She was one of the good guys.

She fought for justice. For the underdog. For the citizens of her city. She fought and slashed and almost died on multiple occasions for freedom.

What did that ever accomplish though? Millions of dollars' worth of property damage? Lisanna tied up and inconvenienced at least twice a month? Anxiety over every car that backfires in her vicinity because she was more used to gunfire than a broken vehicle? Guilt that she lies to her friends and coworkers about who she really is, about what it would do to them if she was found out? A reconstructed knee after having it explode into tiny pieces? Too many scars to count? The fact that she's more of a babysitter to Salamander than a helper than a fighter?

All of the above.

Obviously.

No one knew her, not really. She was a side story, a side piece. The one that people went to with complaints of property damage and insurance coverage and yelling as if everything that Salamander did was her fault.

As if she could ever control Natsu.

Salamander was a force to be reckoned with, that was for sure. And he was a good friend. A bit…ditzy and a little airheaded when it came to obligations and appearances to the press. But he was a good man.

But this fight…

This one goddamn ridiculous fight.

It really took the fucking cake and she knew that something had to change. She was so…incredibly…done. Lucy was twenty-four, with a degree in astrophysics and she was sometimes too sore in the morning to get out of bed, sometimes she had so many aches and pains that all she could do was cry silently in her room. Her body felt like she was two hundred and not mid-twenties. Her life was in danger every day, and she was finally…finally questioning whether or not she was still sane if she thought that it was normal to go out at seven in the evening and do battle in the streets of Magnolia. That it was normal to watch Natsu get pile driven so hard into a brick building that the whole thing collapsed on top of him.

Normal to not worry a lick about him because she knew he would be fucking fine.

Jesus fucking Christ. What is her life anymore?

She knows it's not normal. None of it.

She longs for normal. Craves it like she's pregnant and its ice-cream and pickles with hot sauce at two in the morning.

Lucy huffs and glances up at the glowing red lights of the digital clock while her right knee twinges with phantom pain as she shifts.

Just a few minutes after midnight, then.

She had been sitting here for almost four hours already.

Natsu had been in surgery for almost that entire time, and no matter how many questions she asked, she never got an answer because she had come to the emergency room in her secret identity, as Lucy Heartfilia the clumsy, ditzy heiress to one of the biggest fortunes in Fiore and not as Super Nova. The staff knows her here. By name. Since you know…she's had so many injuries from the battles she wages and has none of the super healing powers of Salamander.

She's not a true super, not really. Only half on her mother's side. The swords and daggers and weapons she uses (given to her by her late momma and named after the zodiac) are imbued with the power of their namesakes. She has a little magic, but not nearly as much as Natsu does.

Hence the 'sidekick' status.

At the moment, she only has Virgo (a small wickedly sharp dagger that seems to delight in the punishment of her foes) shoved down her boot and Capricorn (brass knuckles that give her an edge with melee combat) in her jacket pockets. Lucy laments for a moment at the loss of Leo on her hip, and Sagittarius (a bow with crazy good accuracy, even though it wasn't her favoured form of fighting as she preferred to be up close and personal to the people she fought with to see the looks on their faces when they realise they underestimated her) slung over her back.

She had to be fast to get here to Salamander.

Park her ass in a chair and wait until he got out of surgery or Master Makarov called her back into Fairy Tail HQ for a debrief.

There was only time for her to ditch her bloodstained costume at her apartment, wipe her face down to get rid of all the ash and soot and dirt that had accumulated – she was so lucky her pores hadn't all clogged by now – and run right to the ER.

Her eyes unwillingly flitted to the man with caramel skin and brilliant auburn hair and that scar before she could tell herself to stop that.

She knew him well, and he knew her. Probably the only one who did know her, and not in a superficial oh-we-know-Lucy-Heartfilia-because-we-knew-of-her kind of way. He knows her down to a deep, deep level that would only come from two places.

The throes of passion – she is sad to say that she hasn't had much time for that in the past…who knows now? Four years? Since she started all this? – Or from something equally passionate but more primal in nature.

Combat.

Lucy has fought him day after day, until those days turned into months, and then years. And nothing had changed. Except maybe his scar, and her knee – an old injury that he gave her only weeks into this whole mortal enemy thing – and they were older now. He had more worry lines in his face and her hair was shorter. She was weary and he was jittery.

And they were both just so much older.

Mentally and physically.

Her bones ached. Her skin prickled with scrapes and burns from sliding all over the pavement and debris and she knew she had dirt caked in unfortunate places.

Lucy didn't realize she was staring at him until his single burning eye caught hers. She wanted to turn away, hide her pink cheeks. Hide the shame of her actions because her mother had raised her better. Never point, never stare. Don't be fucking rude Lucy.

But she couldn't help it, dammit.

Because he looked as tired as she felt.

Like his body just couldn't physically go on anymore. Covered in bruises and scars and scrapes and mud.

She knew the feeling. She knew it so well.

Lucy looked back at the clock. Almost quarter after midnight. Well…at least she wasn't waiting alone anymore.

[00:16]

He knew her. Would know that hair anywhere.

Golden, just like the sun, or the stars, or something equally romantically cringe-worthy. Glowing like her swords and her one dagger named Virgo, that one inlaid with a pink stone so big it distracted him once.

But only that one time. He had learned his lesson to never drop his guard around her after that. The scar he had gotten from Virgo ran from his elbow to his thumb, had shredded through muscle and tissue and almost dug down to his bones.

The snarl on her face, those lips pulled up in a sneer as she wrenched that weapon through him had stunned him into silence.

Her hair though. It was shorter now, and he knew it was his fault. One of his special arrows had grazed the bottom strands and they had caught on fire. The only thing she could do was whip out that dagger, Virgo – he smiles secretly to himself here because he remembers its name – and chop off as much of her hair as possible to save the delicate skin of her neck.

In his defense, he hadn't been aiming at her hair, per se.

He had been aiming at her head.

What could he say? He was an expert sniper, a sharpshooter who specialized with bows and carefully crafted poison-tipped arrows. Sometimes he made the arrows explode, sometimes he made them burn. Sometimes he made them into smoke bombs.

Sometimes…they were just regular arrows, but those weren't as exciting as the others.

It was his job to dispatch her. That was what he was…volunteered for. And by volunteered he means coerced and blackmailed years ago to follow along with Commander Zero and the bastards in the Balam Alliance.

Fucking douche canoes. All of them.

But the leverage Zero had over him, his family. Sorano, Macbeth, Sawyer, and Richard…they had escaped years ago, and still, Cobra stayed.

He served.

And he waited.

Because he had nowhere else to go. Where was a poor little orphan boy who hadn't had a hug in literal years supposed to make a home? Where was Erik supposed to hide once the darkness left?

So he kept fighting. He gawked at the stunts that Zero and Salamander pulled trying to finish each other off. The collateral damage to Magnolia was…extensive, to say the least.

But he had always watched Super Nova a little more carefully than anyone else.

For one, she was pretty handy with those swords and he had firsthand knowledge just how fucking sharp Leo was. For another, she was as beautiful as she was deadly.

They danced around each other in an exhilarating tango filled with poison and sharp edges. It was the most alive he had ever felt, trying to kill this wonderfully wicked woman who had taken his eye.

She was mesmerizing and terrifying and—

Sitting in the same waiting room as him, staring at him as if he was the most important thing there. To be honest, he probably was, but that didn't mean shit to him at the moment.

Did she recognize him?

Of course, she did. She was smart. She was talented. She was cunning.

His scar wasn't well known when he was in his alter ego – he covered it up so that he wasn't recognized easily – and the only one who would know it would be the one who gave it to him.

Therefore the only one who would know it would be the woman sitting on the opposite side of the room, hair sheared off at an awkward angle, covered in dark blue bruises and favoring one of her knees slightly out of habit.

That one knee he had shattered in the middle of a fight four years ago. She had been gone for so long after that, and Cobra was startled to feel relieved when she had finally shown up again months later. That had been the turning point for him.

He still fought, still aimed for her heart with his arrows…but if he accidentally missed more often than not. Oh well.

Nova is more fun to fight, more exhilarating to be around if she's alive, after all.

She looks as tired as he feels, right down to his core. The saying that there wasn't any rest for the wicked was fucking right. And after the shit day he's had, he wanted to fall into a coma for a thousand years.

But instead, he was stuck here on orders from his higher-ups to wait. Sit on his ass and wait for the fucking idiot that had been stupid enough to try one of his ultimate moves on Salamander while he had been in Dragon Force.

Fucking moron.

Wait for the fucking moron that had been in surgery getting his everything reconstructed because he was so dumb. Zero was a super, he would make it through. He wasn't worried about the outcome. Didn't give two shits if Salamander woke up first and arrested Zero on the spot. Didn't give a flying fuck if Zero went to jail and never saw the light of day again.

But…he would need to get out of here before that happened because Nova knew him. Knew his face and him without the mask.

Although…he might want to do something first. Do something exciting if he was going to go through with what his mind and his body and everything that he was, was screaming at him to do.

Cobra ran a hand through his hair and decided to do something he had never done before. So he laid all his cards on the table and took a leap of faith, or whatever. He just wants to know her a little more, before he says fuck it and runs as far away as he could from Magnolia and never looked back. Know the woman he had tried to kill time and time again. Who tries to kill him right back.

"…Nova."

Cobra watched as her eyes spark a little at that name in recognition…perhaps with something else as well, and she quirks an eyebrow at him and smirks.

Opens those pretty pink lips and says a single word that sends a shiver of anticipation and dread down his spine.

"Cobra."

[00:25]

"—and then he just…fucking throws himself out a fucking window – mind you I grabbed a hold of his damn legs so he didn't fall out – and barfs out everything he's ever eaten. Everywhere."

Cobra was trying to smother his laughter in his palm but Lucy can see it wasn't working all that well. She smiles a little at his joy, slightly mollified to see her 'mortal enemy' with tears of unmitigated mirth in his eye.

She had crossed the room after the stalemate of silence had been broken. They both recognized one another and so it didn't matter at all now if they shared a couple of stories. Fucking dumb stories about the dumb things that their dumb supers do. They had those in spades.

"And you wanna know what the worst part of it was?"

His giggles die down looking a little stunned that there was more to this ridiculous story. "Sweet nine-pound baby Mavis. What could be worse?"

"Oh. I don't know? Maybe the fact that we were just pulling into Hargeon Station and literally everyone got it on camera? Or that the Vanish Brothers actually fucking vanished after they robbed the train? Or the fact that after all of this Salamander still forgets that he has motion sickness on a weekly basis?"

"Oh my Lord."

"I know. Okay. Your turn again."

"Alright, alright. Uhm…Oh. This was about three years ago? I think? Zero got it into his head that he needed to give Salamander a little incentive to fight harder. So he thinks that he should follow along with that trope of kidnapping a woman, right? So he takes Miss Strauss, tries to try her up with rope—Jesus, this…I can't…"

He's laughing again and Lucy wants to know the end of the story so badly.

Cobra wipes another tear away before he goes on, his voice a little strangled as he tries to keep his smile down. "Okay. Well…he tries to tie her up and he succeeds, except for the fact that he also gets the rope tangled around his legs without him noticing. So when he flips the switch to hoist her up in the air real high to show the world he's taken her hostage…"

He breaks down as Lucy claps a hand over her mouth. "Oh, my Mavis. He got strung up too didn't he?"

"Yeah. I found him like…twenty minutes later just…dangling in the air with this goddamn pout on his face. I took pictures…look."

So he did, and the evidence makes Lucy double over with laughter at the stupidity and a little pain from a bruised rib. She's had worse though, so it doesn't matter.

After she recovers her breath, she decides that she wants to tell Cobra every stupid thing that Natsu has ever done. "Want to hear something stupid?"

Cobra cocks his head to the side and fixes Lucy with a focused stare that makes her stomach flip. "Sure. Why not?"

"Salamander…he's gay."

"As in…?"

"Flamboyantly. Lisanna isn't a love interest. If anything she's just a really good friend now because he rescues her so often. He'll protect her with his life, of course, so would I. But the look on his face the first time Zero monologued that he had captured Salamander's "Lady Love" made me almost pee my fucking pants. He was so fucking confused. It was adorable."

"No fucking way."

"Mhmmm."

A comfortable silence fills the ER waiting room and Lucy doesn't see the need to fill it for a least a little while. It's nice to just…relax with someone that knows the struggles she's going through.

Cobra is starring at the clock again, a serious contemplative kind of look on his face, like he's having a mid-life crisis or trying to decide how many pieces of garlic bread he should eat in one sitting (Hint: all of them, of course).

So she almost jolts from her half meditative state when she hears his voice again. "Why do you fight?"

The answer comes automatically like she was a robot that was programmed with the words instead of flesh and blood. "Because I have to protect the people of Magnolia."

That burning eye is turned on her again and it's so full of some type of emotion that it makes her squirm. (Conviction? Determination? Something like that…) "Do you enjoy it?"

The words come slower this time because she actually has to think. "I used to…then…"

"Then it started to become harder, didn't it? Like a chore almost."

"Yes."

More silence. It was overwhelming for Lucy to have someone so close to her that knew exactly what she was feeling because they might be feeling the same thing at the same time. Know her struggles, know her aches and pains. "Cobra. Why do you fight?"

"I was blackmailed. My family…held hostage."

Even though Lucy feels something terrible twist in her heart, she knows that's not the whole story. So she waits until he goes on.

"Then…after they escaped…I still didn't leave. My family is safe, but I still fight. I don't think…" He sighs like he's so weary and tired. Of everything in the world. Lucy can relate better than anyone, really. "…I don't have the courage to walk away. To go somewhere and start over. To find my family and face them as this monster I've turned into because I was too cowardly to find another path."

Lucy is smacked in the face with the realization that Cobra – even though they had fought against each other for years on opposite sides of this conflict – was an actual living breathing person. He had just been an abstract idea before now.

But now he is a beautiful man that's sitting beside her that has his own insecurities and will, his own life and hang-ups and choices and made mistakes. She knew about all of those too, because she has her own.

So in a split second decision that would redefine her life – and she knew it would, it was too obvious to her not to make sense – Lucy cupped his hands in her own, marveling a little at the difference in the contrast of their skin, and unwound his fingers until they were relaxed out of the balls they had been for close to five minutes. "I think you have courage Cobra. Not many get up and fight every day. Not many people can say that they look death in the face on a weekly basis and still have the conviction to not back down. We may have been on separate sides, but I never, not once, thought that you were evil. I think I saw a lot of myself in you."

"What do you mean?" His eye held a spark of hope in them.

"We fight…because it's our job because we feel an obligation to. Because we feel like we have nothing else. Who are you outside of Cobra?"

One of his hands spasms in her grip, but she doesn't let go. Not yet.

"My name…I'm Erik Ophis. I work part-time at a garage to keep a shitty roof over my head and food on the table." One hand rose to grip his bicep tightly, it was a significant gesture. "I was discharged from the army – I was a sniper – because they said I 'didn't work well with others' which makes sense because I hate most people. I'm afraid of the dark."

The last omission was whispered so lowly she almost missed it. But the fact that he did say it, made her happy. It seems that he trusts her.

"It's nice to meet you, Erik. Officially I mean. Without all the fighting and blood and shit."

His lips crack into a smirk. "Nice to meet you too. So…who are you when you're not Nova?"

Lucy's eyebrows raise in incredulous surprise. "You don't recognize me?"

"Should I?" Now he looks confused, squinting at her face like it would tell her all the answers to the universe.

She shakes her head. "I suppose not. It's just…refreshing I guess? To meet someone who doesn't automatically treat me like royalty. Or put me on a pedestal so high I can't climb down from their lofty expectations."

"Royalty?"

"Not really royalty. Hisui's just a good friend." Lucy sticks out a hand towards Cobra – Erik – and he grips it bemused. "Nice to meet you, Erik. My name is Lucy Heartfilia, heiress to the Heartfilia fortune, holder of a degree in astrophysics that I don't know what to do with and an orphan with abandonment issues."

"Shit."

"I know."

"Did you say astrophysics?"

Lucy smiles wider, happy that it was the part that stuck in his mind, seeing as it's the bit that she's the proudest of. "Yep." She's a little giddy now and pops the 'P' like she did when she was younger, just to annoy her nanny.

Someone knows her. All of her.

Every part.

"Huh. Guess I was right."

"About what?"

"You are as smart as you are beautiful."

A stunned moment of silence hits the room before Lucy snorts – a very un-lady-like thing that probably has her poor papa rolling in his grave, rest his soul – and laughs louder than she's ever laughed before. "Was that—did you just—oh my God."

Erik has two hands covering his burning face and Lucy grabs them again and twists their fingers together with a wry grin. "Were you flirting with me?" She wiggles her eyebrows in a way that makes him roll his eyes and try to smother another giggle at her antics.

He's still a bit pink when he finally answers, and even then his answer is more of a question as if he doesn't know himself. "I think so? It's been so long I can't really tell."

She huffs a quiet laugh. "Alright then. But in all seriousness, thank you. It's nice to hear something like that. Usually, I just get complimented on my boobs or my hip-to-rack ratio. Someone complimenting me on my brain is…refreshing."

Erik takes a long slow blink and shakes his head. "Everyone else are fools."

"No shit."

[00:41]

"If you could do this all over again. Go back four years and make the choice again…would you do it? Would you become SuperNova?"

"Yes." No hesitation.

"Why?"

"I—I don't know. Not really."

"What if…"

"There's no use in thinking about the past Erik. We can't change it."

"…I know."

She tilts her head to look him in the eye. "Think about the future instead."

He only nods once.

[00:48]

Erik leans over to whisper as if this was one of his deepest darkest secrets. "I have an idea. It's fucking crazy and wild and the worst one I've ever had. But also the best? I don't know."

Lucy's intrigued immediately, so she leans in close, their foreheads almost brushing. It's almost intimate, they could be mistaken as lovers. "Tell me." She whispers so low he barely hears it.

"I want to run."

"Where?"

"No idea. Does it really matter? Away. Away from here, from all of this."

Something cracks a little in her chest. "Then who will I fight Erik? Someone will replace Cobra. It's inevitable."

He shrugs unconcernedly. "I don't know. There's always someone else, another henchman, another Super."

A smile, small and broken falls over her face for only a moment. "I just met you, Erik. I'll miss trying to behead you with Leo."

He almost cackles but forces it down with a wicked smirk. "Oh. I believe you. I'll miss aiming for your heart or your eyes." Her eyes are so deep, so dark. They should stay in her head, unpierced by his arrows. She deserves that much at least.

"What will you do?"

"Don't know. Not yet." He watches her eyes dart away then back again. "Will you still fight?" Part of him wants her to say no, that he was the only one she would fight, the only one with that honor…or something equally strange.

"I have to."

And they were back full circle again. The same question with the same answer. "Why?"

"Because it's all I have." This surprises Erik. It's honest and scared and small. She sounded as lost as he felt.

"Come with me."

"What?"

His hands grip her shoulders tightly. "Lucy…come with me. Run. With me."

"Where?"

"Anywhere. Everywhere. Away from Magnolia." His voice is raising with excitement.

"Yes."

"What?" That answer…actually, stumps him for a moment. He never thought she would accept, let alone answer him.

"I'll do it." She looks wild and free and happier – younger too – than he had ever seen her. He's proud that he can be the one to make her look like that.

Lucy surges forward and for a terrifying moment Erik thinks she may kiss him – oh how he wants that, craves it, pictures it – but she only hugs him tightly, awkwardly over the chair arms between them. When was the last time he was hugged?

Years.

She's warm and soft. It healed a little of his jagged edges.

"Miss Heartfilia?"

And suddenly she's gone from his arms – which had been a little stiff around her – head bent together with a doctor and speaking in hushed tones.

She flashes him a smile, wide and sparkling. Darts forward towards him again for a second only to say "meet me in the parking lot in ten, I have to say goodbye." He understands and nods, giddiness welling up in his stomach until he's honestly a bit nauseous.

Her hair swings around the corner of the hallway and he surges forward, all movement and half runs down to underground garage where he's parked. Erik shoots off a single text to his bosses. Never had the words "I fucking quit," felt so good to text. He smashes the phone under his boot and chucks it in a trash can.

He can sever all ties. Easily.

His baby's waiting for him and his smiles. Time to go.

[00:55]

"Natsu?"

"Hey, Luce. I'm alright. Be totally healed in a day or two."

She smiles. Happy that he's alright. Natsu may be ridiculous, but he's the only thing remotely like a best friend in her life. "Good. You need to be more careful."

"I know."

Maybe it's something on her face, or in her eyes or in the air, but he senses something off. Something new in her. "What's going on? Did something happen?"

Guilt flies through her chest. But she knows this choice is the right one. There will be someone else, maybe Erza will help. She's the master after all. Why have the apprentice when you can have the teacher?

"I'm leaving Natsu."

"Oh. When are you coming back?"

Her heart twists and he sees it, understands her without her saying the words. "You aren't, are you?"

"I'm sorry Natsu."

"Me too."

The silence is deafening.

Then—

"Will you be alone?"

"No. I promise."

"And you'll be safe?"

She shoots him a wounded look. She has Virgo with her. She's not without a weapon. She can take care of herself.

"Oi. Don't look at me like that."

Lucy rolls her eyes. "I'll be fine Natsu."

"Okay. We'll see each other again. I know that."

This makes her feel better, and something pings in her brain then, something tells her that she will see him again. See everyone again one day. But she has to leave. It's time.

"Bye Natsu. Try to keep the damage to a minimum."

"Psht. Like that will happen."

She leaves with a sad smile on her face, but ready to run. Ready to be free.

[01:06]

He tosses her a helmet, bright vivid purple, just like the bike he's straddling. "Get on."

Lucy whistles low. "She's gorgeous Erik."

Cobra smiles and pats the motorcycle like a fond family pet. "Her name's Cubellios. She's a good girl."

She scoots up behind his lean form, reveling in all the muscles she can feel pressed to her. "I bet she is. Let's get out of here. We need to go by my apartment first, then we can go wherever we want."

He revs the engine twice. "Why?"

The smile she gives him is wicked and sharp and he can feel it grow where her face is pressed in between his shoulder blades. "I need Leo and all the rest of my weapons. Pack a bag, and grab my cash. I want to be untraceable for as long as possible."

He barks out a laugh. She was so fucking smart. "Alright. Hang on tight then."

She does.

"Are you sure about this Lucy? Last chance."

"I'm sure." And she is sure. She feels like this might be the best decision of her life.

He speeds off onto the highway and off towards the address she gives him while screaming in his ear over the wind.

She's ready. She's sure. It's time to move on.

It's time to restart her life with this man by her side.

(Two weeks later Cobra takes Lucy on a real date and she kisses him for the first time. And if in three years Erik decides to go back to school for his interest in Chemistry and Lucy publishes a book loosely based on what it was like to be a sidekick to a super, then good for them. If a year after that Erik graduates and asks his then-girlfriend to marry him to which she tackles him to the ground and kisses him senseless, then…perfect. If three months later she whispers in between kisses on their honeymoon that she's more than one hundred percent sure she's pregnant and he answers with tears and smiles, then no one could be happier for them.)

This smacked me in the face out of nowhere and I knew immediately that it was so obviously CoLu. Love those two. So much.

Love all of you, my precious cupcakes.

Stay Crazy,

LoadedEel