Plot: Really, she never had any intention of catching the eye of anyone. She was just another servant, another worker, another background body to keep the place functioning. That was what people like her did with the 'Villains'. If you weren't at least partly off your rocker – and therefore couldn't be called a Villain – but you wanted to make fast, tax-free cash, you'd work behind the scenes for a Villain.

It all changed when a domino effect started with a grabby patron and ended with a broken monkey artifact…

Penelope was a typical first-generation college student who worked a quasi-typical shit job to put herself through said college. Her hair was usually in a ponytail as it helped with her waitressing job. Her feet constantly ached due to shoes – not the tennis shoes that would have offered comfort, but the "job required" high heels. At least the high heels went along with the "job required" tight, short skirt and sleeveless, low cut shirt.

On the bright side, she didn't sweat as much.

The tips were still hit or miss depending on the night, of course.

And where was this grand dictating café that Penelope worked at? Why, it was a branch off of HenchCo. The official name was "Devil's Tavern" but rarely did it get anyone who didn't have a criminal record. Her boss, the great sexist Jack Hench, prided himself on his loyal customer base.

One might think that serving a bunch of Villains some drinks and food would end in great tips. After all, they were rich, right? They had money to finance their crazy plans – cough, cough, Dr. Drakken – and new toys, so why not tip well? That's what Penelope thought when she took the job. Penelope, who had only ever had a brush up with the law by means of a speeding ticket at the age of sixteen. Penelope, who thought this would be a quick, safe way to make money under the table, away from the tax-inducing Uncle Sam. Penelope, who…well into month seven of this job was beginning to question her decisions.

Could she leave this job now though?

Sure she made more than she normally would have at a normal, lawful diner but it wasn't much. The hours were, for the most part, decent. Though sexist as he was, Hench at least understood and accepted when she needed days/nights off for school. Her rent was paid, food was in her fridge, and her grades were great.

Yet even if she wanted to leave…well…she wasn't so sure she could. See, part of being that background body included the, er, benefits of hearing things. Who would stop talking about their plots and plans just because some nobody took thirty seconds to put your drinks and snacks down? Not them, evidently. So while it wasn't explicitly said, she was fairly sure she couldn't leave anytime soon even if she wanted to.

But again, it wasn't quite a bad thing…so long as she didn't think about the lack of freedom implied. She did rather enjoy some of the regular patrons.

Duff Killigan's accented and passionate rants were always amusing to listen to.

On the nights they had life music, Señior Senior Junior often showed his dancing moves for better or worse. Señior Senior Senior was another that had a pleasant voice when he visited for the calmer brunch days – even when he was irritated with his son, he had the pleasure of reminding Penelope of her late grandfather.

Shego's sass and sarcasm always promised Penelope a good laugh or two back behind the bar. Dr. Drakken…well, aside from his pouts, he was a fairly simple customer. When his, ah, rival Professor Dementor came around, the pair often got into such a loud pissing match that Hench himself would come out to snap at them.

DNAmy was definitely one person who Penelope wished would limit her visits to zero to one time a month. It wasn't that her constant enthusiasm was annoying, but that her sickly sweet tone always made Penelope think that her voice was what the color pink sounded like. Weird, but accurate.

And then there was, of the 'famous Villains' who frequented a good amount, Monkey Fist. She wasn't too sure what to think of him or his monkeys, except that they were oddly clean for primates and simple enough. Bananas all around, and all that jazz. Other than a few growls and snarls he had to his colleagues – particularly DNAmy when he had the bad enough luck to run into her here – he barely spoke. In fact, as Penelope thought about it, he probably hadn't said more than two hundred words to her in the past seven months.

No matter. She didn't care, really. Sure his accent was nice to hear too, but something about his eyes always made her tense near him. And more importantly, as she had noted before, his hench-monkeys were quite clean. That was something to mark to his favor.

The other patrons, both regular and new, were hardly worth paying much attention to. They hardly noticed her other than the usual 'another beer', 'check', and 'send this back to the kitchen'. Why should she note much on them? They were usually the henchmen of Jack Hench, Drakken, or some other Villain. Sometimes there were thieves, assassins-for-hire (wannabe or legit, she wasn't sure), and scammers. The common folk, as she had heard one of the bartenders joke before.

Lo' and behold, however, it was one of these common folk who sent Penelope's life into an irreversible spiral. Given her outfit and, alright, her decent natural looks – she was modest – of course she got compliments. They often came in as catcalls once the patrons drank more and more. She'd get a few winks. Even two or three times before, she had gotten a not-so-subtle suggested deal of exchanging goods.

…

Yeah.

But so far in her seven months there as a model employee, it had all been verbal harassment. Annoying, but she could deal with it. What was the point of telling Jack Hench since he was the one who placed her in such an outfit to begin with? What, did she think he'd toss out the customer? Pfft.

As the story goes, cliché and all, Penelope was having a fairly shitty day. It wasn't the usual run-of-the-mill 'oh, it rained as I walked to class' or 'damn, the 8 AM professor cancelled last minute' after an all-nighter of a term paper. Well, that last part did happen actually. She had only slept – read: napped – for an hour in between her completion of a term paper and arriving to the classroom of her 8 AM class to find it cancelled.

No, things were a bit more interesting than that. From that point, she decided she may as well go print the paper and drop it off at the professor's office before class. So she went to print…only to discover she didn't have enough money. So she went back to her dorm – and oh, was she envious of her roommate sleeping – to get money. When she returned to the library, she realized that the flashdrive that held her term paper…wasn't on her! Worse, her sleep-ridden mind realized, she had left it behind!

A frantic search around the library and staff proved to be worthless. No one had turned in a flashdrive. Some bastard – one of the very few who were up so early – had just scored a free flashdrive with a semester's worth of work on it.

F.u.c.k.

So she had to go back to the dorm – and yes, this time it whipped icy rain around her – to pull up the copy on her computer. Smart her, however, hadn't saved the completed version on her desktop. No, the desktop version offered only 85% of the complete paper. So she fixed that…

Class was at one. She had to skip lunch to finish the paper. Not that she could have eaten anything. She was practically sticking an IV of coffee into her veins anyway. The idea of stomaching food wasn't a pleasant one at that point. So when 12:30 came around, she emailed the paper to herself, went to the library, and printed it. And yes, she was sure she logged out of her email.

The stapler was broken. Okay, that was fine. She'd place it in a folder for the professor. She walked to class, again fighting the wind…and lost about 10 pages of her paper. So back to the library she went.

She was late to class. The professor was upset that she lacked both a staple for her papers – which had droplets of water by the way – and the lack of a folder, which she hadn't had time to get. Berated unfairly, she sat in the back quietly. Her mind, sleep deprived, wondered most of the lecture.

Penelope's plan was to take a nap between the end of this class and her job. Well, the bus to take to her job, that was. Yet Fate disagreed. When she got into her dorm, her roommate was playing music…and clearly had someone in with her. At least one of them was getting laid.

She was certain she'd sleep right through it though, she was so tired. Except…her phone rang. Oh, it was the bank. Her credit card and debit card were cut off due to suspicious activity – about $550 fraud charges to be exact – and she would have new cards within "3-5 business days".

It was Friday.

She was out of cash, save for any tips she got at work.

Greaaaaaat.

A nap never sounded so good. Except her phone rang again. She should have known better just based on today to not answer it. Yet answer it she did. Financial Aid was calling to say that she had missed the next installment of her plan and she would have to pay a late fee. Fabulous.

One hour. She had one hour to sleep. And she would have…had a fire alarm not gone off. Ah, yes, the routine once-a-semester-at-the-most-annoying-time fire alarm checks. An RA knocked at their door. She cursed loudly, put her jacket on, and packed her bags.

Might as well just go to work early.

By the time she arrived, Penelope was frozen over and exhausted. The coffee didn't keep her awake or alert, but it did make her anxious. Oh, the betrayal. Against her better judgement, especially at seeing how many people were at the tables, she took the bartender's 'Six and a Half Energy Drink' and chugged the few ounces.

Her heart started to skip and not to a musical sense.

So by the time she changed into her skimpy outfit, she was pretty much done with today. She was glad that the orders were simple enough. Two hours into her shift, she noticed Duff's voice and…much to her surprise, Monkey Fist's voice sharply pierce the soft live music. When she glanced over, she saw that they were arguing over some sort of small monkey statue that Fist was zealously guarding. Weird. At least someone got a new shiny toy, she thought.

She carried a tray of beers – the fourth round – to the small table near these two. Fist was at his normal table – yes, "his" table – and these henchmen had decided to sit at the mediocre table next to it. Given that most, if not all, of the tables were full, it made sense. As Penelope was setting each beer down, her eyelids heavy, she realized belatedly that one of them had been talking to her.

Ah, these henchmen…they all looked so similar in their uniforms. It didn't help that they were bulky about the same size. Oh, and the beer gut of course. She blinked and looked over, trying to focus. As she was picking up their empty bottles and placing them on the tray, she heard the guy to her left say something off-colored. It was something to the effect of her being a 'hot, tight piece of ass'.

This would have been brushed off as the usual under any other day. Even her shitty day, she would have ignored it. What he did next, however, was distinctly unique and a milestone for the waitress of seven months.

He pinched her ass.

On impulse, on a tired, sluggish brain, on sheer emotion, she reacted.

She swung the tray with three empty bottles on it to her side and CRACK! She smacked it across the man's face. He flew off of his chair that he had been precariously sitting on due to alcohol anyway. Two of the three empty bottles, however, didn't follow his motion. Instead, they flew ever so slightly behind him…and…

CRACK!

The noise wasn't wood against face, it was glass against something very fragile.

She looked up and wished immediately that she hadn't. The statue that Monkey Fist had been holding…was cracked, the bottle shattered like confetti below it. Even the live music stopped playing, emphasizing the noise, the deafening silence afterwards.

Sharply alert now, and with a heartrate jumping from more than just that energy shot, Penelope was keenly aware of how many eyes were on her. More importantly, she was painfully aware of the fury, the absolute unadultered loathing, that Monkey Fist's narrowed eyes emitted as they landed on her.

Forget Jack Hench and her job, Penelope gulped nervously and seriously wondered if her last day on this planet would be spent so poorly…