Chapter Text
I sometimes wondered where my life went wrong. Well, not wrong, but certainly not in the direction that I'd wanted it to go. Hell, I’d been a millionaire at one point, and yet here I was slinging burritos for the very same corporation that had stolen my idea for one of their most popular products.
On second thought, my life was going tremendously wrong.
I adjusted the tie of my Bueno Nacho uniform and sighed in relief as the last customer of the night finally left. One of the many downsides of being the manager is that, basically, you’re the company’s bitch. Have a date and one of your employees called out? Too bad, you’re the manager, you replace them. Want to go off the grid for a week on vacation? Can’t, you’re on call. I’d have totally demoted myself if I didn’t need every penny to pay my bills.
Turns out it’s hard being a college student and living on your own. My parents weren’t any help as they’d abruptly moved overseas and couldn’t afford to send me much of anything, but it was my senior year. Once I graduated and could stop paying for stupidly expensive books and supplies, I’d hopefully be able to find a job decent enough to afford me a living wage and better working hours.
Or at least I’d be able to demote myself like I wanted to.
I was just about to head over to lock the front doors when both flew open to reveal a stumbling, groaning dark shadow. This might’ve scared a normal person, but shit, when you’ve battled giant aliens and traveled through fucking time there’s not much out there that can frighten you anymore.
Except this time I found my mouth dropping open as the person stepped into the light of the restaurant.
Shego.
My body tensed as muscles that hadn’t been used in months readied themselves for a fight. I didn’t know what she wanted with me; Kim and I had long stopped going on missions together. Not because we were having problems or anything. It was more because I had almost no free time between school, work, and just trying to survive.
Was she trying to kidnap me? Use me for ransom? It wasn’t that farfetched. Though Kim and I might not have been together anymore, we were still best friends. There was family Shego could’ve gone after, but I guess it was part of that weird unspoken rule where it’s kind of a douchebag move to go after your enemies’ families if they’re not in the game. Not that it would’ve stopped her.
I relaxed a little as I took in her appearance. She wasn’t wearing her usual green and black jumpsuit, which was surprising to me. Instead she was wearing a tiny black dress and black heels. If she was here to kidnap me, she certainly wasn’t dressed for it. Granted, I had no doubt that she could probably still beat me down. I was willing to bet that wasn’t what she was after though as she didn’t even look at me, instead dragging herself up to the counter.
“Two nacos and a large Dr. Pepper. Now,” she slurred, slamming down a twenty dollar bill.
“We-we’re about to close.” To my amazement she hadn’t yet noticed who I was, and if I was lucky, it’d stay that way.
Her head snapped up in a glare, morphed into confusion, and then finally dropped into recognition. “Stoppable?” She leaned forward and broke out into a wide grin. “No way, it is you!” she laughed then, far too loudly. Yeah, she was wasted. “I haven’t seen you in like a year! Kimmie wouldn’t say where you were when I asked her.”
“Yeah, well, that’s not surprising,” I mumbled, unable to keep a little bitterness from slipping into my voice.
Shego blinked at my tone. “You two break up? Damn, you were only together for like, what, a year?”
Now officially annoyed with her, I pointed forcefully at the door. “You have to leave, Shego. Seriously, we’re closed.”
Her scowl returned with a vengeance and I swore her eyes glowed green. “But I need food! Gimme food!” she yelled, slamming her fists on the countertop and doing an impressive impression of a toddler. When she saw that threatening me wasn’t getting her anywhere, she quickly changed up tactics and poked out her lower lip. “C’mon, Stoppable, for old times sake?”
I sighed and shook my head, unable to believe her begging was actually working on me. Her puppy dog eyes could rival Kim’s, which was odd considering she was, well, evil. “I can’t make you anything fresh, we only have leftovers.”
“Don’t care. Wannit.”
I groaned and rubbed at my eyes. I was way too tired to fight with her, and she could probably just take what she wanted anyway if she really wanted to. Sighing, I grabbed a couple of the remaining burritos that I’d been planning to take home for breakfast and placed them on a tray that she immediately snatched up, triumphant smirk spreading across her face.
She stumbled over to a booth and ripped open one of the wrappers, taking a huge bite out of her meal. “Mmmm,” she groaned, eyes rolling upwards. I didn’t know why; it was lukewarm Bueno Nacho. She must’ve been starving to enjoy it so much, or, like I’d noted earlier, completely wasted.
I left her to go about my job of checking inventory and making sure that things were ready for the morning shift manager when they came in. It took me a good half hour to get everything squared away, and I figured by now Shego had to have left.
No such luck. She’d passed out in the booth, half eaten burrito in one hand and empty cup of soda in the other.
“You’ve gotta be kidding me,” I groaned. “Shego. Hey, wake up. Shego!” I shook her shoulder. Her head lolled to the side, yet she didn’t budge. “Fucking Christ.”
I couldn’t leave her there. I could’ve just dragged her outside and let her sleep it off outside on one of the benches, but...look, I knew her. We weren’t friends — very far from it in fact — but when you exchanged blows with someone (even if she kicked your ass most of the time), you developed a weird sort of grudging respect for each other.
I carefully dug through her purse until I found her wallet and then her license, scanning it for her address. I didn’t really know where it was, and as I only had my trusty scooter for transportation, I’d have to get a cab. Luckily this particular location was downtown and in a pretty busy area, so it was never hard to get one even at this time of night.
“Alright, here we go,” I said to her even though she couldn’t hear me. I grabbed her arm and put it over my shoulder and tried to get her to walk; no deal. I’d have to carry her. I shifted her so that she was draped over my back, leaning forward in order to keep her from slipping off onto the floor. I stumbled towards the front door and out into the cool night air. It was tricky trying to balance her while also setting the store alarm and locking up, but I somehow managed it.
I walked us out to the curb and glanced around. The street was dead, rare even for this time of night. Eventually I saw the light of a taxi and raised my hand to hail it, and the cabbie gave me an odd look as I tossed her into the backseat none too gently after he’d pulled over.
“Can you take us to…” I glanced at the address on her license. “4432 Southwest Birch Street?” I asked, sliding in next to her.
The man narrowed his eyes. “Kind of remote, ain’t it? You know her?”
“Unfortunately.” Realizing that that probably wasn’t a good answer, I shrugged. “I’m just taking her home. She’d literally kill me if I tried anything. Literally.“
He took another look at her and seemed to agree. Even drunk and asleep she looked sort of terrifying. “Alright, but don’t let me hear about you on the news tomorrow. Don’t need that on my conscience.”
We pulled off and rode for a good twenty five minutes, leaving the city limits and even cruising past the suburbs. I was just starting to get worried this cabbie was trying to find somewhere to kill us when we slowed to a stop in front of a pair of tall metal gates protecting a long driveway that led up to a ridiculously large house.
“Uh…” I said, looking out the window. “I think we’re in the wrong place.”
“4432 Southwest Birch Street?”
“Yeah?”
“This is the place.”
I looked again and could just about make out the golden numbers on the brick column next to the driveway. Jesus, Shego lived in a fucking mansion.
“Oh...yeah. How much do I owe you?” I asked, reaching for my wallet.
“Forty four dollars and five cents. Make it forty four even.”
“What?! Seriously?” We’d been riding longer than I thought, and I knew for a fact I didn’t have more than twenty on me. I’d have to come up with the rest some other way. I felt a little skeezy about it, but I’d have to go in her purse. The way I saw it, though, this whole thing was her fault to begin with. Luckily she actually had some cash on her, and combined with mine, we were almost there.
“Alright, look.” I reached into my pocket and dug around a bit until I gripped a glossy piece of paper. “I only have forty two, but here’s a free coupon for any grande sized meal from Bueno Nacho. That’s worth at least five dollars.”
The cabbie eyed the coupon for a second but nodded and grabbed it. “Okay, fine. You’re lucky I love that place.”
I almost said something along the lines of ‘no shit’ because of the pile of wrappers I’d spied in his front seat but managed to bite my tongue long enough to get out of the car with Shego in tow. I looked up at the two story house from the bottom of the driveway and sighed. Great.
It felt like at least half a mile, and my legs were burning by the time I made it up to the front door. It took me a minute to find it, but I grabbed her keys from her purse and unlocked it. I didn’t know where the light switch was nor her room, so I used the meager moonlight coming in through the windows to find the couch and drop her onto it. I then began to look around for the light switch. I stumbled a bit, my foot catching on what felt like a bra, but eventually I found it. When I flipped it on, I couldn’t stop a gasp from slipping out of my throat.
It was huge. I mean, I knew that from the outside, but...wow. I'd always figured the supervillain business paid well, but not million-dollar-house well. Picking my jaw up off the floor I went up the spiral staircase and began peeking into rooms, hoping to find the one that belonged to Shego. Most of them were empty or sparsely furnished — which was odd because why did she need a house so big if she lived alone — but when I saw the huge double doors at the end of the hall, I instantly knew that was her bedroom. Taking a deep breath, I made my way down and pushed open both doors.
Clothes were strewn all over the room, there were empty bowls, pizza boxes, and takeout containers...it was a pigsty, to put it mildly. How could she live like this? I wasn’t the cleanest guy around, but I was miles better than Shego.
Shaking my head I jogged back down the stairs to grab her. Strangely I’d gotten sort of used to carrying her and made it up to her room at a pretty good pace. When I dumped her none too gently on the large, king-sized bed, she mumbled something that sounded suspiciously like ‘I’m gonna kill you’ and rolled over onto her side, her dress riding up to reveal a pair of rather skimpy black panties to my widening eyes. If she ever found out I’d seen them, I was a dead man. Better to get out of there as soon as humanly possible.
I made it down the steps and to the front door before I realized that I was basically stuck. I was broke so I couldn’t call a cab, my moped was still at Bueno Nacho, and there was absolutely no way I was going to hoof it at three in the morning when I had only the vaguest idea of where I was.
With an exhausted sigh I pulled my tie, shirt, and pants off, draping them over the back of her couch. I then pushed all of the trash onto the floor and lay down, shoving one of the throw pillows beneath my head. The couch was huge and more comfortable than my own bed, so it didn’t take long for me to fall asleep. If I was lucky, Shego wouldn’t murder me the second she woke up.
Maybe it was because I was in an unfamiliar place, but I couldn’t sleep for more than six or so hours. The first thing I saw when I opened my eyes was a white, beautiful high ceiling, and the second thing I saw was trash; lots and lots of trash that I hadn’t particularly noticed in my exhausted state the night before. It was, quite frankly, disgusting.
I wasn’t able to do anything until Shego woke up and I didn’t have class until that afternoon, so I rolled off of the couch and began to tidy the room, picking up discarded wrappers, throwing out old containers, taking dishes to the kitchen...things that obviously hadn’t been done in months. When I was done with that, I washed the dishes that had stacked up and wiped down the kitchen.
As I worked my stomach growled noisily, so I decided to go ahead and cook something. Besides, if she drank anywhere near as much it seemed she had, she’d feel like crap when she eventually woke up. A good breakfast would do her head wonders.
Though I shouldn’t have been surprised, the woman had almost no food. Half a carton of eggs, some nearly expired bacon, butter, orange juice, a baguette...I could work with those ingredients, if just barely.
I heard heavy footfalls coming from somewhere above me right as I was finishing up toasting the bread. I held my breath as the footsteps got closer, and then she was standing in the doorway of the kitchen, eyes half closed and hair a mess. She’d thankfully changed into a t-shirt and shorts, so at least I didn’t have to worry about accidentally seeing her panties again.
I stared at her terrified when her eyes met mine, and for a second, neither one of us moved.
And then she did.
I knew Shego was fast, but god damn. Before I could even blink she was on me, one hand wrapped around my throat, the other raised and glowing. “What the fuck are you doing in my house, Stoppable?!” she screamed into my face.
I wasn’t afraid to admit it — I was scared. I knew what she was capable of with that radiation glowy hand thingy of hers, and her boozy morning after breath wasn’t so nice either. “You, uh, got drunk, came into my restaurant, and then I brought you home. N-nothing happened, I swear.”
She glared at me for a bit longer, and then I could gradually see remembrance begin to pour into her face. She pulled me closer by my collar and narrowed her eyes at me. “Oh, yeah? Then why didn’t you go home?”
“Spent all my money on the cab over here. By the way, I need a ride back to the city.”
She harrumphed and let me go, grudgingly, and then her eyes slid over to the table where all of the food was resting. “What's all this?”
Now that my life wasn’t in immediate danger, I took a breath and tried to smile. “Breakfast. Figured it’d help with your hangover.” I motioned for her to take a seat, and when she did, I slid a cup of coffee in front of her. “I didn’t know how you liked it, so it’s black.”
Still glaring at me suspiciously, she took a small sip. “Oh, god…” she moaned, leaning her head back. She took a bite of her toast and rolled her eyes, letting loose another oddly erotic moan. “I’m surprised you didn’t burn my kitchen down making all of this.”
“I work fast food, remember? I know my way around a kitchen. This is a nice one, by the way.”
She waved her hand dismissively, biting into a crispy piece of bacon. “Yeah. Thanks.”
We ate together in silence, Shego putting down a surprising amount of food for someone who was supposedly hungover, and I couldn’t help but feel a little pride at how much she seemed to enjoy it. At least my cooking skills were good for something. Still, I had things to do, and the sooner I got out of there the better. Her ‘good’ mood wouldn’t last forever.
“So, I need to go back to town. I have classes in a few hours…”
Sighing as if I’d just asked her to let me live in her awesome house, she walked over to a cookie pot, pulled out a bill, and slammed it into my chest. “There you go. That should get you back to town.”
I looked at the bill and gaped. “A hundred bucks?!”
She shrugged and sat back down to finish off the last of her eggs. “For your trouble. You’re welcome, now beat it.”
“Ungrateful…” I mumbled under my breath as I stood and headed out of the kitchen.
“ What? ”
“Nothing!” Before she could think about what I’d said, I skedaddled. Just because she hadn’t killed me yet didn’t mean she wouldn’t eventually.
I was luckily able to find a taxi back to town pretty quickly and still have enough time to grab my moped, get home, feed Rufus, shower, do my homework, and then make my way to class. It was getting pretty tough now to manage my time with class, homework, and working at Bueno Nacho, and it was all starting to catch up to me. I felt my chin dip towards my chest a few times as the teacher droned on, and it was then that I felt a gentle hand on my shoulder.
“You seem tired, Ronnie,” a voice whispered from behind me, snapping me out of my fatigue-induced daze. Wiping the tiny amount of drool that’d escaped from the corner of my mouth, I shook my head and glanced behind me to see who’d woken me up. Thankfully it was only Tara, a friend from high school whom I’d become much closer to once we’d graduated. I hadn’t even noticed her walk into the room, so yeah, I was truly out of it.
We’d kind of washed out in life so far, honestly. Both of us had desperately underachieved and been left behind by our friends, and with no one else to latch onto, we’d sort of latched onto each other. Funnily enough, we were also, well...sex friends. Every now and then one or the both of us would get lonely, seek each others’ company, and inevitably, end up in bed together. Much less frequently now that I’d taken on a management position, but we still occasionally hooked up.
“Yeah, had something crazy happen last night. I, uh, ran into an old acquaintance?” I explained in a low voice, trying not to give too much away. If Shego suddenly decided to take me out for helping her, I didn’t want Tara getting caught in the crossfire.
“Oh?”
I could hear the suspicion in her voice. We weren’t exclusive by any means, but you didn’t sleep with someone for a couple of years without developing some sort of feelings. “Yeah, an old enemy. ” I didn’t want her to get the wrong idea, and thankfully, it seemed to work as I saw her shoulders noticeably relax.
“Oh,” she said again, instantly understanding what I meant. It was no secret that Kim and I had gathered a fair amount of enemies over the years — some of whom still held grudges. “I’m sorry. Everything okay?”
“No, it was cool. Just glad it’s over.” I glanced at my phone right when class finally ended and sighed. Like usual it’d run long and now I’d have to rush. “I’ve gotta be at work in half an hour. I’ll call you?”
“Please and thank you!”
I couldn’t help the smile that sprouted on my face as she beamed at me. I really liked her. In many ways she was a lot lower maintenance than Kim. Not as ambitious...which wasn’t necessarily a good thing, but when you were with someone who traveled the world and was always on the go, it was a nice change of pace to be near someone who just kind of wanted to do the bare minimum every now and then.
Even though I’d had to gun it on my moped, I somehow managed to make it to work with a few minutes left to spare. The restaurant was slow, so I had a little time to relax and ease into my shift. Besides the dumb hours and shit pay, it wasn’t hard to be a manager overall. In fact, I looked forward to owning my own restaurant someday, so I did everything I could to learn about the business.
It was around ten at night when one of my coworkers slowly walked up to me. He had a strange look on his face, like he’d just seen a ghost or something, and he nervously cleared his throat before speaking. “Uh, someone’s here to see you, Ron.”
“Who is it? I’m a little busy.” And I was. A customer was currently complaining that she hadn’t received enough sauce with her burrito, and offering her another handful somehow wasn’t working. One of the many downsides of food service.
“Uh...I don’t know. She’s, well, green and scary?”
Hearing that I instantly panicked and dropped the handful of hot sauce packets in front of the woman, leaving her to figure the rest out for herself. Crap, crap crap. Of course she was back. No good deed goes unpunished and she was here to kill me, I was sure of it. But for what? Even if she was evil she’d never seemed like the type to go out of her way to do anything, especially when that thing wasn’t a threat to her in any way.
I swallowed nervously and approached the booth where she was waiting. For some reason she was wearing shades at night, almost as if she was trying to hide her appearance which was hilarious at best. “Can I...help you?” I asked. I had to applaud myself for not stuttering even though I was terrified.
“Wow, you look like a dork,” she snorted, lowering her shades to give me a once over.
“Thanks. Can I help you? ” I repeated, more forcefully this time.
Realizing that I wasn’t particularly willing to banter, she pushed her sunglasses back up and frowned. “Yeah, you can, actually. Who said you could clean up my place when you stayed over?”
A couple of my employees — who had of course moved closer to eavesdrop — looked over in shock. Great, there’d be rumors about this for months. “Let’s talk outside,” I said, speed walking towards one of the side doors.
Shego shrugged and followed, leaving her half finished soda on the table for me to clean up later.
Once I was sure we were out of earshot, I rounded on her. “Look, I just did it because I was bored waiting for you to get up. Sorry if I messed anything up, I’ll pay for it.”
Raising an eyebrow, she shook her head. “What? No. Actually, I’m glad you did it. I haven’t really had time to go over the place lately. Or ever.”
“Oh. Well...you’re welcome?” Apparently I wasn’t going to die tonight.
She stared pensively at me from behind those dark glasses. I wasn’t sure how she could even see with those things on, what with it being so late and all. “You wanna work for me?”
I blinked, confused as I tried to process what she’d said, and then my eyes bugged out of my head. “I...what?”
“Yeah, as like...my houseboy. Butler. Manservant. Whatever the socially acceptable term is now,” she shrugged, flippantly waving her hand.
“No! What? Are you joking?”
Exasperated, she sighed and ran a hand through her dark hair. “Look, your job sucks, and I need someone to keep my house up for me. It’s a win-win.”
“But we’re enemies, and I need this job.”
“ We’re not enemies, Kimmie and I are. I’ve never disliked you all that much. And I’ll pay you 200 dollars a day, under the table of course. I’m evil, remember?”
I felt a little nauseous as I considered her offer. That much money, completely tax free...after only a year or two, I’d have more than enough money to get started on my dreams. I’d probably have to launder it to avoid the IRS first, but I knew some people.
“I don’t know.”
“You’ll be living with me rent free and making 200 a day. I don’t see what the issue is.”
“The issue is — well —” shit. Beyond the moral implications of living with and working for a supervillain, there was no real issue. If I’d be living with her, I’d easily be making double what I do now and for probably much less stress. “What would I have to do?”
She smirked then, her grin sharp as though smelling blood in the water. “Clean the house, the pool, yard work, do any repairs, shop, and...that’s it, really. Just manage the house so I don’t have to.”
“You’ll pay me 200 dollars a day just to do that ? Weekends included?”
She shrugged and glanced at her nails. “Yup, being evil pays. And it’s a big house.”
I stood there for a long minute or two, weighing the pros and cons of working for Shego. Pros? Money. Less responsibility. Getting to live in a sweet ass mansion. Cons? Shego was evil and could murder me with a thought.
The pros far outweighed the cons, sure, though ultimately, I just couldn’t. Even if it were only tangentially, I’d be supporting a supervillain; a supervillain who actively wanted to kill my best friend. “No. No, no way. I can’t.”
She frowned at me, and I was immediately worried she was going to eviscerate me for turning her down. But then she just rolled her eyes and walked towards what I was fairly certain was a Maserati. Being evil definitely paid. “Whatever. Lemme know if you change your mind, but do it fast — I might have found someone else by the time you realize how stupid you’re being.” She slid gracefully into the front seat, started up the car, and sped off at a speed that was incredibly unsafe.
I took another few minutes to gather myself and then walked back into the restaurant in a daze. No matter how I thought about it it was an insane proposition — quitting my job, living with Shego, and cleaning up after her for a crazy amount of money. Money that could set me up for a couple of years easy while I found my footing in life.
“Who was that?” one of my employees asked as I straightened my tie and prepared to get back to work.
With a not-quite-careless shrug, I glanced over my shoulder at the still open back door and frowned. “Just someone I know.”