You could always tell when Slobo was coming. Even though he was shorter than Tim, he wore big screw-you army boots and stomped around in them like he was lugging a bag of cement on each shoulder. His wallet chain, all thirty feet of it, jangled like a Hellraiser movie and he cursed like he was trying to summon Cthulu if he bumped into anything, stepped on anything, or saw a drink with a coaster under it. He hated coasters.

Anita, used to sailor-swearing so thick it seemed to pitch a load of asterisks in the air like a Charlie Brown special, just turned to the next page of her magazine. Cissie had gotten interviewed and the reporter wanted to know if she was dating Beast Boy. That should be good.

"Empress! Fancy meeting you here!" Slobo dropped down into Kon's chair like a wrecking ball, and doing about as much damage to the upholstery with his spiked shoulderpads.

"It's the living room. I'm living in it. That so fancy, mon?"

He put his feet up on the coffee table. How had they gotten so muddy, it hadn't rained in days? "We're goin' on a date."

Anita flipped the page. Cissie said that her favorite superhero was Batman. Why did she have to pander? "Your psychic powers aren't developing themselves very well."

"Don't need a big sickic brain to know you want me, gal!"

"Good, as you don't have one."

From his leather jacket, Slobo produced a drinking flask and tossed it to her. She ducked her head out of the way. "I know what you're doin'. Playin' girlie games with me! Sayin' you don't want to go with me ta the monster truck rally just cuz you don't wanna go to the monster truck rally!"

He tossed another drinking flask at her, which she deflected with the magazine, thick as it was with subscription cards and perfume ads. "Why do you talk with so many apostrophes?"

"I get it. You wants to go to hoity-toity, girly-whirly happenin', dontcha?"

"I'm baying at the prospect."

Slobo tossed one more drinking flask onto the cushion next to her. Anita picked it up just to keep it from spilling onto the couch, knowing that whatever Slobo drank would leave a stain, if not melt through the leather. "Ha! So I got a guide to all the goings and gatherings in this fragged-up 'burg. Downloaded it off the internet! You know, there are sites there with no porn on 'em?"

"What a waste."

"Yeah!" He held out a print-out that had, in the time since he made it, had one corner burned off, acquired several tears, and become wet then dried off. "Right here in tha corner! Frellin' little clown telling me about community events instead of a naked chick! The clown could've at least been naked…"

"So, where do you see us going, Slobo? Rock concert? Pro wrestling show? Public execution?"

"Nah, I checked, there ain't none of those happenin' this weekend." Slobo turned a solicitous eye to her. "Ya don't have yer heart set on the public execution, do ya?"

"I'll live." Anita dog-eared her magazine. Who would've guessed Troian Bellisario would go outside in earrings like those?

"There's a revival showing at the old moviehouse. Dinner and a movie, can ya beat that? Show's got millions of deaths, nudity, cussin', everything! So how 'bout it, wanna go see Schindler's List?"

"Pass. Slobo, mon, why do you think I'd go do something else with you after saying no to a monster truck rally?"

"Good question! You're a tough dame to please! But I figger you turning me down was just your way of sayin' you had your eye really set on somethin' else, so once I find out what it is, we can quit playing these games and get down to some smoochin'!"

"'Smoochin'. That's surprisingly G-rated for you."

"Wait, did you think I meant on the mouthsies?"

Anita groaned. "This is why I told you to go headbutt an el-train."

"And that's how I knew ya wanted me. You hero types would never endorse tha destruction of public property like that, so you musta been sarcasmin' me!"

"Ya got me," Anita said sarcastically, before remembering she was talking to someone too dumb to understand sarcasm. A teenager who was too dumb to understand sarcasm.

Slobo slapped the print-out down on the coffee table and smoothed it out, serving to smear some more grease on the paper. "How 'bouts the monkey house at the zoo? Get this, they throw crap at people! I figure we must be allowed to throw ours back at 'em! Fair's fair."

"No." Anita held out her hand. "Let me see that." She drew back her hand as soon as Slobo reached for it, like Gandalf encountering the One Ring. "No, hold it in front of me." She examined the paper. Somehow, Slobo printing it out from a website had seemed to imbue it with typos. "This looks good. Museum of Tattoos is doing an expo on the Vikings. Even you can manage an interest in that. Or fake it while you stare at my boobs."

"I won't look at your boobs!"

"You're looking at them right now."

"There's a fly on 'em. Hold still—" He raised his hand…

"I will cut that appendage off and feed it to you… for starters."

Superboy was nice enough to help Slobo dress up, once Slobo threatened to pound on him a little if he didn't. A pair of skinny jeans, a set of nerd glasses from his secret identity, an Alien Nation shirt under an unzipped flannel hoodie, and Converses had Slobo looking like a hipster. He didn't know what that was, but everyone seemed to hate and fear them, so he liked it.

Anita wore shorts and sandals, sleeveless gingham over a pink bra. She didn't even put on a hat. Who wore a hat to a tattoo museum?

When Slobo came to pick her up, one look at him and she thought Well, at least it's not a goddamn leather duster.

"You don't like it," he said.

"It's… fashionable."

"It has a hood. Look." He flipped the hood up over his head. "Look at this frellin' hood! Now I don't have to get wet if it's rainin'!"

"But how else will you wash your hair?"

"Sometimes I drive my hog through the ocean."

Anita did not pursue that line of questioning.

He was driving the 'formal' motorcycle, a Harley-Davidson Fat Bob. He thought it was cute, and with the radio off it was mildly quieter than the one he rode through space. He also had a helmet ready for Anita. That amount of thoughtfulness surprised her; 'that' being any.

"You sure you're not under hypnosis again, mon?"

"Nah, I'd frag anyone who wanted to frak with my frellin' head."

Can't he just say the F-word? Anita wondered. "You sure?" She snapped her fingers, then clapped her hands, then tried humming that song from Inception…

"Oh, I get it. You want yer wild man back. Well, wait til tonight, babe. The main man expects a little appreciation before a trip to Pleasuretown."

Anita slapped her forehead. "You know, most guys at least try to fool me into thinking they're thoughtful."

"I'm plenty thoughtful! Took a leak before I came here and everything, so I'm all dry. Unless, you know, tonight…"

"Not happening."

The Museum of Tattoos was about what Anita should've expected from a place with the word 'tattoos' in its name. It was more like a Ponderosa Steakhouse than the exhibitions that Cassie's mom ran. Wooden floors, tight hallways, flickering lights, stains on the walls, and one of the exhibits was a picture of Lil Wayne. Even Slobo was unamused.

"Look, Vikings!" Anita enthused, feeling some responsibility for the date's failure. She didn't like to lose, even when—especially when—it was something as foolproof as dating Slobo.

"Ahhhh, buncha wusses," Slobo proclaimed.

"The Vikings. Of the loot and plunder variety?"

"Wusses!" he insisted. "Look at 'em! Hitting people with swords, carrying shields around. Use yer teeth, numbnuts!"

"Hey, what's this?" Anita asked, moving off to another exhibit.

"'Maori chisel'," Slobo read, sounding out each word and mangling them worse than people who owed him money. "They use chisels to get tattoos? Band of pussies. Why don't these punks use laser chainsaws to get their marks, like real men!?"

Anita shut her eyes. "I'm getting a lot of mystical energy coming off this thing. It's hotter than a space heater… this is some kind of totem."

"I'd ask what that wuz if I cared."

"You know all those times some security guard accidentally messes with an ancient artifact, unleashes a curse, and turns into a twenty-foot monster or something? This is one of those, without the hapless security guard! We've got to get it someplace safe."

"Mehhhh." Slobo had wandered off to look at a photo exhibit on Philippines tattooing. He hoped one of the native women would show some nip. "Call Robin. Bet he loves filling out forms in triplicate. You'd make his weekend."

"I am not putting this on Robin. He's Batman's partner. Who knows what kind of important work he could be doing?"

"I'm not saying Superman is gay," Tim was saying, not taking his eyes off the screen as he demolished Kon's fighter with his own. "I'm just saying, Batman sees him and this guy Clark Kent going into a lot of the same secluded locations…"

"He's not gay, alright?" Beside him on the couch, Kon weaved and bobbed like it would give his fighter an advantage in dispensing Fatalities. "I'm his clone and I'm not gay, so—"

"How do you know you're not gay, though?"

"Because I like chicks!"

"So? Maybe you get that from Lex Luthor. He's half your DNA, right?" Bart was on the easy chair, adjusting a bucket under a hole in the ceiling to catch any rain that came through. It wasn't raining.

"Thanks for bringing that up. Not a sore subject."

"He's not wrong." Tim had his fighter sweep the leg, which thankfully had neither of his two friends quoting the movie. They hadn't noticed. "How do you know you're not bisexual? Have you ever met Nightwing?"

"Pausing," Kon announced, hitting the Start button, then set his controller aside to kiss Tim full on the lips. "Nope, not bi." He picked up his controller.

Tim wiped his mouth. "Well, thanks for basing your entire sexual identity on me, that's a re—" He was interrupted by Bart kissing him.

"Nope, I'm not bi either," Bart announced, going back to getting the bucket situated.

Tim sighed. "Am I a slut?"

"Then you do it," Slobo insisted. "Put on your superhero jammies, talk to the curator, get it gift-wrapped, and boot it into someone's cave."

"There's no time for that! Anything could unleash this thing's curse. Even if we got it moved first thing tomorrow, that's twelve hours with innocent people at risk! Could you really live with yourself if someone died during that time?"

"Yup."

Anita ignored him, which she had gotten better at as their relationship progressed. "We have to steal it."

"Oh, I got ya. I got all yer womanly hormones racin'. Ya wanna break the law, wear some tight clothes, listen to music they don't sell at Wal-Mart, and get yer body rocked by the Rock-Hard of Ages. Let's go see if some rich pervert will pay us to have sex in front of 'im!"

Anita shut her eyes and thanked her loa that she hadn't eaten yet. "C'mon, let's go find some clothes. I think I saw a costume shop on the way here."

"Hey, toots, the top teen is always dressed to commit a crime."

"Yeah, but I wanna go to college someday, and most admission offices frown on heists."

"Even if ya get away with it? No wonder this country's going down the tubes."

And that was how Anita and Slobo ended up outside the Museum of Tattoos wearing knockoff Riddler costumes after hours. It had nothing to do with recreational drugs.

Anita had never stolen anything before, but how hard could it be if Plastic Man had used to do it? "Slobo, I know subtlety isn't your forte—"

"Huh? Hey, no need to bring my mother into this!"

Anita sighed. "Just… how would you do this if you didn't want to get caught?"

Slobo laughed—or a car's alternator was shot. It was hard to tell which. "I'd frag any sucko who tried to catch me!"

Anita waved him off. "Alright, just keep quiet and do as I say."

"Gotcha." Slobo winked and gunned his finger at her. "So, what's your safe word?"

"Pixie sticks." Should it bother Anita that she'd expected that question?

There was a guard inside she could body-control into unlocking the side door and then taking a nap. Anita would never admit it, but she got a rush of satisfaction from taking over someone else's body. It meant her will was stronger than others, that she thought their thoughts better than them. Like a power borne from her striving for excellence.

They ascended the three-story building. Anita thought she heard something wrong, then realized it was Slobo. He wasn't clopping around like a Dutchman who'd studded his toe. There wasn't even any death metal coming from his earbuds. He was quiet as a mouse, and when she looked at him, he gave her a look that was innocent as could be with the black warpaint around his eyes.

They came to the exhibit. Anita tapped at the Lexan covering like she doubted it. "How do we get in here?"

"We could break the glass."

And light up the nearest police station like a Christmas tree. "We're not breaking in—maybe the guard has a key? No, I don't want to get him in trouble with the authorities."

"We could always break the glass."

"We're not. Maybe I could use my sword-batons to cut a hole in the glass."

"Or we could break the glass."

"No! We are not breaking the glass!"

That would be when the grappling hook shot out of the darkness, smashed through the glass, hit the chisel, and reeled it in.

The alarm didn't sound.

"There's no alarm here," Slobo said, "so we could've—"

"I know. Broken the glass."

"I was going to say 'naked two-person dance party'."

For all she'd promised herself not to touch him, Anita grabbed Slobo by the ear as she ran after the chisel. In a second, they were in the barbed wire tattoo exhibit facing a foe in a familiar catsuit.

"Catwoman!" Slobo cried. "We're gonna wrestle with Catwoman? Allll right!"

"It's not Catwoman, it's an imposter, mon. Look at the green costume. That's Catlady!"

"An imposter?"

"A copycat."

The Catlady hissed. "Who cares about that old bitch? All she does anymore is screw Batman and watch Poison Ivy flirt with Harley Quinn! I pull the cat-themed heists now!"

"Listen, lady—"

"Catlady!"

"That belongs in a museum!" Slobo yelled. He'd been spending a lot of time with Kon.

"No, it doesn't, it belongs somewhere safe," Anita emphasized. "Catlady, what you are holding is an extremely dangerous mystical power source!"

"Oh? Would it be enough to cause a cat-astrophe?"

"Yes! A regular catastrophe, even! With no feline theme!"

Catlady mused with her hand on her chin, then shook her head decisively. "Nope, don't buy it. I hate to bring race into it, but c'mon—when was the last time you met a trustworthy albino?"

Apparently considering that a perfectly acceptable exit line, Catlady backflipped away.

"She can't make fun of white people like that! I mean—" Growling at herself, Anita ran after her.

Catlady had a getaway vehicle running outside, the wheelman visible in the convertible's open cab. She leapt into the backseat and the convertible took off. Anita couldn't help but think about how carefree and loving life the convertible made the criminals look as they sped off. She knew she should've bought one instead of a Prius.

"Slobo, where's your hog?"

"In the alley around back, remember? It was three minutes ago. If you don't remember, I want you to share whatever you're on, lady."

"Not that hog, the one that flies!"

"Ah." Slobo whistled and it came running—well, hovering. Its autopilot had it weaving drunkenly through the air; it weaved even more drunkenly once Slobo and Anita were onboard. They followed the convertible at a snail's pace, the exhaust burping flames every now and then to keep up with it.

"What are you doing? Speed up!"

"You said be subtle! I figger that means discreet! It ain't discreet to be jammin' through walls!"

"You can go faster than this!"

"Okay, I'll open 'er up a lit—"

The cycle shot forward, then stopped an inch in front of a billboard for a dentist's office. Slobo awkwardly wheeled it around to face the way the convertible had gone. He winced as the end of the forks scraped on an eight-foot smile.

"Do you even know how to drive this thing, mon?"

"Sure I do, babes! Watch this!" Looking over the console, Slobo hunted down a button. He pressed it.

"What's that do? Stun ray?"

"Nah!" Slobo jerked his head back. When Anita looked, she saw the left blinker was on.

"You're signaling?"

"Yeah! They turned a corner, right? We hafta let people know we're turning too!"

Anita sighed and kneaded her sinuses. A month from now, Blue Devil or someone would be fighting a twenty-foot-tall Maori tattoo cat thing. Would Anita get any credit for trying to stop it from rampaging through New Mexico or whatever? No. She would get asked why she was on a date with Lobo's Mini-Me, if she was lucky.

"Just get them! I don't care if you run a few red lights, we have to stop them!"

"Alright, toots, your wish is my command!" Revving the throttle on his hog, Lobo boomeranged them around the corner and gunned it toward the convertible. As they hurtled toward the car like a lawn dart toward a black hole (Anita was too frightened to come up with a better metaphor), Anita found herself remembering the first rule of voodoo.

Be careful what you wish for.

No one was killed in the crash. Crashes, that is. Catlady and her accomplice were thrown from their vehicle and then caught by Anita's magic. It was just that their car was then thrown from the hog, and it couldn't have landed in a Toyota car lot, or a Ford car lot, or a golf cart storage facility. No. Had to be a Bentley dealership.

The good news was, off news of his two "henchmen" demolishing a car lot on his behalf, the Riddler experienced an upswing in popularity. Anita had always liked him. Very feminist for a supervillain. Always tied her up with her hands in front of her so she didn't have to show off her chest like Bettie Page.

"So look," Slobo said, after they'd scrammed, leaving the Catlady 'gang' tied up, "I don't know about you, but I had a great time."

"Great time? We didn't even get the chisel!"

"Yeah, well, you know, now at least it's out of harm's way."

"What if it landed in a kid's backyard?"

"Kids hate chisels!"

Anita groaned and pulled at her Riddler jumpsuit. Incredibly uncomfortable. No wonder Eddie had switched to a suit and tie. "Slobo, thank you for a lovely evening and I never want to see you again."

Having said that, she wasn't surprised when the next day Slobo showed up at her doorstep with a box of chocolates that could do real damage if someone was bludgeoned with them. And as that may have happened, Anita took them.

"Don't try and tell me ladies don't like chocolate! I know you love them! You can't pull one over the ol' fragster's eyes!"

"Yes. We do like chocolate, but not always the men who bring it."

"That's why I got ya a leetle somethin' extra!" And he held out the chisel.

Anita may have boggled. She didn't have a good poker face. One of the reasons she wore a mask over her entire head. "How did you…?"

Slobo tossed it up into the air and back into his hand, pleased with himself as only a man could be. "I caught a gang of drug dealers and told 'em I'd let them go if they helped me find it. One of the meth dealers finally picked it up in a swimming pool. Gotta love the tweakers, eh?"

"But you… you…" Anita clapped her hands together. "Okay, time out, stop. What is this with you? You try to drive safe, you help find the chisel, and I think you've shampooed twice this week alone. What's up?"

"Well, uh—" Slobo's teeth clenched. "Ya asked me out! We was on a date! Of course I gave you some of the best behavior! I'm not some lowlife, now!"

Anita grinned to herself, full-fledged. "I knew it. I knew you were capable of being—"

"Nice?" Slobo said with disgust.

"Sweet. So why is it you can't be that considerate all the time?"

Anita doubted Slobo spat on the sidewalk just because he'd gotten tired of his gum. "Because I'm The Main Man, Scourge o' the Cosmos, The Destroyer, The Master Fragger, The 'Bo, The Wolf, Mister Machete, He Who Devours Your Entrails and Thoroughly Enjoys It—"

"I get it."

"The Last Son of Czarnia…"

"Slobo!" Anita interrupted. "You know you're not him, right?"

"Who?"

"The other guy. Lobo."

Slobo's lips pulled back and he bared his teeth, but it seemed more like a grimace than anything else. "C'mon!"

"I know who Lobo is. He beats on Superman and drinks lakes of beer and smokes cigars and hunts people for cash. You're not him. You don't even smoke!"

"I'm allergic! Runt of the litter, remember?"

"Yeah. I remember. I also remember you hanging out with us because we're your friends, not because—God, do you even have an excuse?"

Slobo turned to leave, then turned back. "Okay, okay, okay! What about you?"

"What about me?"

"You really think you have to be the best at everything just to replace a chick with a bow?"

"I'm not trying to replace Cissie."

"Nah, you're trying to be the best. Having adventures all on your lonesome, with just a little assist from your bumblin' sidekick, Slobo! Y'know some people already think you're the best?"

Anita leaned against the doorframe. "Best at what?"

"Smilin'." Slobo shook himself like a wet dog. "I gotta go. I need to tune the engine in my hog. Change the oil. Tighten some wrenches and turn a few screwdrivers."

"Uh-huh. Have fun being heterosexual."

"You have fun being heterosexual!" he retorted as he stomped off, giving her the finger over the shoulder, but thinking better of it in a second and just making a thumbs down sign.

Anita giggled. She then realized it was the first time Slobo had made her laugh.

She hoped it wasn't awakening anything in her.