Glue

The mold was continuing its steady march up the discoloured, faded wallpaper; underneath peeling bits the dry wall was cracking and shifting; the floorboards were scuffed and gouged, dull and missing finish. Moist tiredly took in the sorry state of his apartment.

He'd hoped to find work when he'd moved out here, but no one had wanted to hire him for anything honest. He was quickly learning that the underworld didn't have much interest in his superpower either, and his own misdeeds were slightly too difficult to handle (literally). He slid away from the doorway and wiped away the water his proximity had running down the doorframe; he didn't need that to warp on him.

Somehow, he needed to find a villain who would take him on as a henchman, so that he could get enough evil hours for Union membership; even the pay for minions hired just to make a lair look more impressive was better than petty theft. Then he could afford to move to somewhere better, which was desperately needed. His apartment had been bad when he first rented it, but the months of exposure to humidity were taking their toll. The place was falling apart.

A piece of ceiling fell into the room abruptly. Moist jumped, then turned a long-suffering look upwards.

Another tenant appeared in the hole above him wearing a white lab coat and welding goggles, hair spiked up like straw and blue eyes concerned. "Sorry! That didn't hit you, did it?"

So this wasn't the natural deterioration of the building structure? He'd never seen his upstairs neighbor, and his impression was that the other man was something of a shut-in. There was a shy sort of sincerity in the question, though, and taking in the clothes Moist thought he might have an idea why. Mad scientist. Yeah, that would explain it. He frowned. "Uh. What are you doing?"

"Gluing down my tables in case of an earthquake," his neighbor answered apologetically, holding up some odd sort of gun.

Moist stared. "Glue?"

"Really strong glue," the scientist confirmed. Moist glanced back at the piece of ceiling that had fallen through; it looked kind of melted to him. "Well," the blond amended, "okay, so the chemical formula's not right yet." The other man glowered at the invention, thinking, and began to fiddle with some setting on it. The gun fired glob of… something into the air, which was followed by wide eyes, and melted through Moist's ceiling again. "Oops." With a pained expression, his neighbor turned back to him. "Um. I'll fix that."

Wait. Mad scientist. Moist brightened at the revelation the second time around. "I'll help."

Maybe he'd get his evil hours after all.