Galaxy Girl repeatedly tried to swallow the lump of sadness and self-hatred that seemed to have attached itself to her throat.

She had only one job, one thing in life she was supposed to excel at; it was pretty simple: BE A HERO. Her heart was heavy with her father's disappointment, her pride wounded that he already considered her to be a failure. She slammed door of the pod shut angrily, and the thing shot off its rails, ramming into the wall. "Oh Crud!" she cursed to herself, immediately regretting it, groaning as she looked at the crack in the cement which the metal transporter had created upon impact.

Without a minute to lose, she was heading straight for Toxic. He believed his bomb was still active, and she hoped she could deal with him before he put the whole world into another panic. Her flight speed seemed to be as depressed as she felt. A single tear was rolling down her cheek. She wasn't as immune to sad feelings as everyone probably thought, since she was a Superhero. Galaxy Girl got the sudden urge to turn around, fly straight to back to bed and just scream into her pillow, but she had other things to deal with. Protecting the city would always come first; over any sort of emotional wounds or terrible feelings.

She landed on the steps leading up to Toxic's lair and brought her fist back, ready to punch through the wall, but then she noticed the mortar was still wet, as if the wall had been freshly rebuilt.
"You don't always have to crash through my walls, you know!" his familiar complaint nagged in her mind. Next, the hero did something that was totally strange to her. She reached out for the new brass door knob and concentrated hard on containing her strength. She attempted the twist and pull, a motion she had seen so many humans perform with ease before, but had never had to do herself because all the doors at home and at Headquarters were automatic, or opened with a simple push. At her attempt, the entire knob ripped out of the frame in her grasp, and the whole door swung open with a loud creak.

And now, there she stood, awkwardly holding the brass object in her hand as Toxic stared at her, one of his dark eyebrows arched highly, with a slightly dumbfounded expression on his face, his favorite blaster aimed directly at her chest. "Sorry..." she found herself apologizing to him. Save people from burning buildings, not a problem. Carry a bomb into the atmosphere, no biggie. But she couldn't even open a simple door, and it embarrassed her, showing on her cheeks as a faint blush. "Well, that's good for a change." he stated, slightly amazed. "But hey, no worries," he chuckled, noticing her sad face. "It's an easy fix." Toxic motioned to the knob.

"You are a little early for the main event, but all the same, I can battle you before I detonate the gas, and take over the world." He swaggered around the room with his usual arrogance. Galaxy Girl shook her head.
"Cybervore disarmed your bomb earlier."

"Damn it...." he groaned, rolling his eyes with annoyance. Dropping the door knob, she balled her fists and took on her regular fighting stance.
"Can we not do the banter tonight? Let's just get this over with, I'm really not in the mood," the Hero pleaded.

"Not in the mood for banter?" Toxic gasped in shock.
These words were coming from the hero who lived to banter, daughter of the guy who practically invented it. The idea that she didn't relish the idea of bantering him seemed unbelievable. "Do you know how long I work on these sarcastic comebacks and insults?" he snapped at her, pointing the blaster towards the floor.
"I put a lot of effort into our battles. Is it so wrong of me to expect you to do the same?" Toxic continued to rant like a full-blown pop diva. "Oh no, not tonight you don't get an easy way out, I've worked too hard on this!" To Galaxy Girl he seemed genuinely disappointed and a little mad. She bit her lip, and broke his gaze to look at the floor.

Toxic tilted his head in curiosity and slowly his eyes softened.
"Are you okay?" He asked. Oddly, the villain's voice was soft and contained a hint of concern as he saw Galaxy Girl in the midst of a rare bought of sadness. Galaxy rubbed the sides of her forehead with her fingers. "No," she answered honestly. "I'm not okay." She was mad, sad, disappointed...so many emotions weaved into one, and she couldn't even process them! Toxic lowered his gun, shaking his head. "You're not the only one," he spoke under his breath.
He quickly regained his composure. "Oh no you don't! I can't battle you in this state, it's no fun!" Toxic holstered his weapon and walked around her to a sliding closet in the wall. Her blue eyes following him curiously. The bad guy slid the door open to reveal a large coat rack, which was filled with many different styles of long coats. The Hero tried to figure out what he was up to this time.

He stroked his chin like he usually did when making a choice, before grabbing a 1950's noir detective's trench coat and tossing it in her direction. Holding it out, she wondered if this was another one of his traps? "Put it on," he ordered. What was his scheme this time? Galaxy knew that Toxic knew better than to try and order her around, especially after that whole mind control fiasco. "What for?" she questioned him. "Just do it please," he answered, seemingly annoyed at her non-compliance. "Why?" she demanded, her voice louder than before, examining the vintage piece of clothing in her hands with great suspicion. "Don't put it on then, it's fine if you want everyone we pass by to recognize you." He shrugged, taking off his high collared green trench in favor of a black leather coat. "We? We what? Where are we going?" She was getting more and more confused. "I'm getting you some ice cream that always perks me up" the villain answered casually. Was he being serious? "Excuse me?" She was quite confounded.

He grabbed the frame of the knobless door and opened it. "I can't fight you like this, you are all whiny, and depressed, and your eyes are all red. Have you been crying?" He squinted at her, and her hand instantly went to her cheek. "No!" she retorted. "Maybe," she admitted reluctantly with a sigh. "Come on then, the faster we go; the sooner you'd be all...not moody, and then we can fight, and I can destroy you, and everybody wins!" said the villain with a happy smile. "Well not everybody, mostly me, but you know what I mean." He laughed. This time, it wasn't his evil laughter that escaped his lips but rather, the genuine version of his laughter.

Against all good judgement, she slid the coat on and tied it. He ushered for her to hurry up as he impatiently held the door open. Silently she stepped out of the door and onto the stone steps which led down to the abandoned street below. The whole area was rundown and looked completely deserted. Not even the homeless were to be seen. Toxic did his best to close the door, then adjusted his gloves as he stepped up beside his nemesis. Noticing her extremely suspicious facial expression, he held up his hands. "No tricks, I promise! Look, I even left my blaster inside." He pulled back his coat, exposing his hip, to show her that both the silver gun and its brown leather holster were missing. I should just take him to jail, she thought, but for some reason, she couldn't follow through on that line of thinking. He started quickly bounding down the stairs, and she followed suit, trying to keep to his pace. "A little hot for these kind of jackets, suspicious don't you think?" she asked, catching up to him.

"Hipsters." He shrugged, the corner of his mouth almost tugging into a smile. They went around the corner and walked straight into a dead end, an alleyway that had no outlet. "There's nothing here," she chided, and he glared like her as though she'd just uttered the most stupid statement he'd heard all day. He pressed his hand against the wall and the whole thing swiveled around. They were now standing in another alleyway with lights and cars driving by, plus a few shops that were still open in the evening. "Cool!" she said, impressed. This time he did manage to smile ever so slightly.

Planting one foot in front of the other, Galaxy Girl started walking toward the lights. "You might want to lose the mask...Andromeda," his voice warned from behind her, and she stopped dead in her tracks at the sound of her birth name. The hero turned on her golden boot heel and was surprisingly calm. "After you, Sylvester," she replied politely. He gasped, taking a step back, and for the first time all day, they smiled together. "You thought I didn't know?" She continued to grin, raising an eyebrow.

"No, it's not that, I'm just shocked that you're not shocked I knew," he began. "Because I knew you knew, I just didn't know that you knew that I knew," Toxic prattled. "Why haven't you ever exposed me?" she asked him, a curious smirk on her guarded face.

"Because it would just be a waste of my time. My goal is to defeat Galaxy Girl, not Andromeda Avis." He untied his mask from his face, still wearing his usual black eye makeup and guy liner or "villain liner" as he called it, but in this city, that wouldn't be something they pulled you over and searched you for; you'd be dismissed as just another goth. Folding it in half, he put it in his pocket and crossed his arms, waiting for her to do the same.

She took a deep breath and peeled her golden mask off her face. In front of him without her mask, Galaxy Girl felt worse than naked.
"Hmm...different." He cocked his head. "Come on." The unmasked villain

A kid not much older than 16, dressed in a plain grey running suit jogged up behind them, jamming out to his tunes as he came to an intersection. "Interesting," Toxic commented nonchalantly, glancing back at the runner, and just as he passed them, Toxic stuck out his foot, causing the guy to trip over. Galaxy Girl gasped at his apparent cruelty.

"Watch your step!" Toxic was yelling out at the teenager, pointing to the road, when at that exact second a huge green garbage truck whooshed by, doing at least 70 miles per hour. Without another word the Villain stepped over the guy as he kept on taking his rapid strides. Galaxy Girl was shocked, jogging to catch up with his long-legged strides. "Did you just... save that guy?" she questioned in utter amazement. Toxic just rolled his eyes and ignored her, and before she could press him any further, they reached a tiny little ice cream cart, covered by a huge red and white umbrella. "Two chocolate cones," he ordered.

The elderly man dressed in a matching red and white uniform scooped large heaps of the stuff into a set of waffle cones. The old man handed the first one to Toxic, who grabbed the bottom of the cone as far away from the man's hand as possible, and handed it to the girl beside him. "Ladies first," he said, sincerely. That was the one thing about him that was lost on other villains; he was power crazed and egotistical but he still had those impeccable manners in place.

Galaxy Girl awkwardly accepted the cone from him. He grabbed his own cone while the man rang up the bill, extending his hand to take the money for the order. Toxic reached into his coat pocket, pulled out the exact change and set it on the counter, not into the vendor's outstretched hand. He thanked the man and began walking towards the seating area. Though every hero instinct told her to just jail him right then, Galaxy Girl still found herself following Toxic. As they walked towards the little bench area located behind the stand, Toxic savored his ice cream. It was dark, rich and cold. Just like you, his inner voice humored, causing the genius to smile at his own inside joke. On reaching the seats, they discovered that all of them had been taken by a busload of tourists; and without consulting his semi-reluctant companion, he decided to walk back to his lair and eat his ice-cream cone in peace.

Silent and still highly suspicious, his nemesis followed. Part of him couldn't believe she was going along with him on this, but another part of him knew she would- the girl was as curious as a bat. Moreover, she needed some company probably as much as he did, or even more.
You know what they say: misery loves company.

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A/N: Happy Saturday Guys!
Hope you enjoyed this chapter, and a delve into my mind at only 16.
Toxic and Galaxy are my original OTP, and I hope you enjoy this journey as much as I enjoyed writing it, and discovering how much I loved to write.

Yours,
-Queenofgeeks

P.S. please don't forget to vote. :)