Just as she's settling down to watch World's Biggest Loser on TV, there's a knock at the door. She unfolds her stiff limbs, levers herself out of the huge armchair and goes to answer it, yawning and rubbing her eyes, bending her spine back until the bones click.
Standing there is a sweaty young man holding a pile of damp paper. "Uh, is Billy there?" He asks, uncertainly, smiling a sickly kind of smile.
She gives him an awkward half-shrug because her ribs are still tender. "Billy…?"
"He u-used to live here," the man stutters, eyes darting past her to the empty apartment. "I have his mail," he explains weakly, holding out a wad of sodden letters.
"Nope, no Billy here," she answers with a carefully cultivated blank expression. "Just me."
For a moment she thinks the man's going to argue and she tenses for the confrontation that she's been worried might be coming, but in the end he just slowly turns around and leaves. When he hesitates at the end of the hall she can see that he looks torn, like he doesn't quite believe her, but then Penny simply closes the door, locking him out.
Locking the world out.
#~-
When was the last time she bathed? Penny wrinkles her nose as she peels off her sweater. That visitor, that friend of Billy's, he didn't seem to recognize her even though Billy's got photographs of her all over his apartment.
But then she has been dead since those photos were taken.
Still wondering if Billy's friend will change his mind and return, Penny walks over to the TV and switches it off, then dims the lights in the apartment. If he thinks the apartment is empty, maybe he'll go away. Satisfied with that plan, she crosses over to the wall and reaches out for the wheel that's affixed there, hefting it a full turn clockwise. A false wall is hoisted upwards revealing what used to be a laboratory-of-sorts and a tiny bedroom/bathroom. Unlike the main apartment, this room is brightly lit and relatively clean. It's empty except for a work bench and a long table (the table where she first woke up when he revived her) and a metal chair, bolted to the floor.
It's on that chair that he sits - Billy. Doctor Horrible, that is. God, she still can't quite reconcile the fact that they are the same person. It's weird, because she always thought that Billy was a relatively nice guy, if a little creepy. It seems that she was way off the mark and he was actually a murdering psychopath. Now even the thought of him turns her stomach and sends her pulse racing with anger.
And when Penny looks down at her own body it's like she's got x-ray vision. It's like she can somehow see the stitching, the scars and the bruised flesh even underneath all the layers of clothing and bandages. She knows that her wounds are still there, even if nobody else does. She still feels them.
#~-
Waking up to this nightmare, she was terrified. He terrified her, looming over her in that surgical mask and goggles. Over her hysterical screams, he had tried to explain it all to her: About his freeze ray, about getting her to hospital just in time, in secret. The man, Billy, Doctor Horrible, he tried to tell her how he stole her away as soon as her life signs were stable and then had hacked into the hospital database and to list her as deceased.
It was terrifying. The guy was clearly a madman.
But what could she do to escape? He was caring for her and giving her medication that kept her pain at bay. To the rest of the world, she was dead. But when he touched her - Jeez, the hesitant way he touched her - it was more like a lover's caress than a doctor's healing hand. She felt violated every single time.
She would flinch away from him, holding back tears, telling herself to wake up from this dream, but she never did. In the end she struggled so violently he had to strap her down. He told her he didn't want her to hurt herself, but all she wanted to do was get away from him.
#~-
Now Billy sits in the bolted-down chair. When Penny winches open the partition wall, he looks over at her, slowly, vacantly. He's naked except for the metal collar clamped firmly around his throat, a single light flashing steadily over his Adam's apple. His blue eyes widen, innocent and trusting. He has pretty eyes. He's kind of cute now she knows he can't hurt her, knows his formidable mind has been caged. She is almost reminded of when they first met, when he stammered his way through their first conversation, seemingly so shy. But that was just an act. Underneath that façade, behind those pretty eyes, was a cold and calculating brain.
Well, he can't put on that act, not any more. It's like the collar around his neck has broken him somehow, taken away his will. She doesn't understand the science, but the metal band has turned Billy into her unresisting slave. Now it is his pale skin that's marked with abuse, mirroring hers. But his eyes, his eyes are blank and beautiful.
#~-
When she was strapped to his table, all Penny could think about was escape. She was half mad with agony and fear and revulsion, unable to track time, unable to get away from his probing, invasive touch, but she would dream of running away. While she could only lie there and take it, he talked and talked and just wouldn't shut up. She screamed inside her mind, just please stop! She'd tried begging him to let her go but he'd calmly told her that she needed medical help, that she needed him.
He told her that he loved her.
That's when she really got scared. Maybe he was going to keep her forever, like some kind of pet? With a guy this crazy, this evil, who knew what kind of torture he'd subject her to? And when he finally realized that she would never feel anything for him other than utter disgust, the most profound loathing, what would he do then?
Because Penny knew that she could never love him. He was a creature of destruction, of horror. Her whole life, all she had wanted to do was to help people, to help build something good.
All Billy did was destroy. He had talked a lot about his inventions in the weeks she was his captive. There was junk everywhere around the place and he seemed to be constantly tinkering with it. Eventually, after days, or weeks, or maybe even months, some of his monologue began to sink in. After all, he was an expert with weapons and maybe she could get her hands on one and use it? Penny was pretty sure that she could reach across to his workbench, but the only thing near enough to grab seemed useless - a circle of metal, around six inches in diameter - and he had never explained to her what it did.
Then one day, he told her about his plan to turn all the politicians, all the rulers on the planet, into army of human slaves. That was when Penny finally knew how she could get out of this living hell. But she didn't know then exactly where that dark path that would lead her.
#~-
She reaches out and grabs his chin, forcing him to look up at her. There's a flicker of pain across his features, but he doesn't complain.
The trouble is, revenge is addictive. When you've finally got your tormentor in your power, the last thing you want to do is give him a quick, merciful death. At first, she just made Billy to do simple things, like unbuckle her restraints. The collar turned him into a meek zombie. He barely spoke, just looked at her in dumb adoration, waiting for her commands. When she gave him an instruction, no matter how humiliating, it seemed to make him happy.
That's what made her loose it. That's what made her grab one of his heavy metal ray guns and hit him with it, over and over. Even battered to the floor, he still didn't complain. But he did cry out when the blows rained down on his body.
He could not resist, but he could suffer. And the more he suffered the better Penny felt. She told him to undress. She touched him in intimate ways, lingering far longer than he had with her. He had always looked a little embarrassed when he touched her, had always flushed a little around his ears. But now the tables are turned, all Penny feels is more and more frustrated. Because it's too easy.
And he's so pretty.
He is, she she thinks, objectively attractive. Swathed in those over-sized clothes he always wore, or in that damn lab coat, you would never have guessed it, but his body is pretty great. His broad shoulders taper down to a narrow waist and long, lean legs. He's got a perfect, peachy ass.
That ass is now covered in red welts.
And it's like there's something building inside of Penny, something that means she cannot leave this place, this lab, this apartment, until she resolves it, or it bursts out of her and kills them both.
Angrily, she smacks him hard across the cheek. It unbalances him, but he doesn't fall. Of course, there's no reproach in those big blue eyes, just patient expectation.
The bastard.
That's all he is, the bastard who killed her, who stole her life, who took everything away from her, even her boyfriend. At first, after she woke up in this lab, Penny prayed ever day for Captain Hammer to save her. But of course he never came. He thought she was dead.
Just like the rest of the world. Just like her dreams.
#~-
Eventually she'll have to leave, Penny knows that. Because the skin around her stitches is itching and she gets dizzy and she knows she needs a proper doctor. She probably needs antibiotics, anti-inflammatory pills, all kinds of other drugs.
But knowing that Billy is here, waiting for her, ready to do literally anything she says, it's a more powerful kind of drug. As she slowly strips off her clothing, leaving her clad only in bandages and surgical tape, it makes her feel like an ancient Egyptian princess being wrapped, mummified, ready to take her journey into the next world.
But she's not ready yet, not ready to let go of him, not finished paying him back for every hurt he inflicted on her.
And deep down, Penny doesn't know if she ever will be.