Luna was just throwing another handful of newspaper into the trashcan fire when she saw him. A shadowy figure approached slowly. That in and of itself wasn't very strange. The spot was popular with the local homeless population and Luna was surprised that she had been the only one there for as long as it had been. What was strange was that he showed no interest in joining her. He just stood there in the dark shadow behind the street lamp. Staring. Luna followed his gaze to the building she herself had been watching that night.
It was closed up tight. There was talk of opening it up again "when things calmed down" but Luna doubted it. There simply wasn't much force behind the whole "help the homeless" movement since Penny's death.
Luna's breathing hitched and she blinked away a stray tear. She reminded herself for the hundredth time that they hadn't really been all that close and Penny was just being nice to her like she was to everybody but it still hurt to loose the only person Luna trusted in a long time.
A cold breeze rushed passed and Luna hugged her thin sweater closer to her body and huddled closer to the fire. Out of the corner of her eye she saw the man do the same with his coat and she took pity.
"You know you're welcome to join me if you want. The fire's free."
The figure jerked and quickly turned to face her. Luna had the feeling he hadn't known she was there. She wasn't surprised. Now that she had a better look at him she could tell he probably wasn't homeless like her. His clothes were too clean and he looked slightly out of place, not that he stuck out necessarily, but he was a bit off. People who weren't homeless tended to ignore her kind, if not purposefully then they simply didn't notice.
She tried again, "Come on. It's cold. And you might as well be warm."
He stared at her for a few seconds before muttering under his breath, "I don't deserve to be warm."
Luna was pretty sure he hadn't meant for her to hear that but she had sharp ears, "It's been my experience that what happens to people doesn't really have much to do with whether or not they deserve it."
She said that a bit more bitterly then she meant to but her words seemed to reach him because he did walk over. In the flickering light of the fire Luna got her first good look at him. He wasn't altogether that impressive. He was maybe average in height and build and he wore a dark colored light jacket and some jeans. He had short blond hair and he was hunched over like he was trying to hide from the world. In fact, he looked miserable. His face was practically expressionless but Luna could see pain just below the surface. He turned his attention back the dark structure.
"What do you see?" Luna asked. She normally wouldn't have gotten involved but he looked so lost.
"An empty building." The hardness and bitterness in his voice somehow made him seem even more alone.
"Rrrrriiiiiight." Luna raised an eyebrow when he glanced at her. There was no way that's what he was looking at.
He looked back at the window, "I see the most beautiful woman in the world." His voice was so soft it was barely above a whisper, "She's smiling, at everyone. She has the most amazing smile. Everything around her is a little brighter just because she's there. And she has the most beautiful red hair on the face of the earth."
Luna twitched, "Are you talking about Penny?"
He started violently, whirling around to face her so fast she worried he might fall over, "You knew Penny?" The shocked expression on his face would have been comical under different circumstances.
Luna nodded, enthusiastically despite the tears she was only just keeping in check. "Yea. I mean, we weren't best friends or anything. But we talked. She was the only one who could remember my name."
Luna blushed and looked away. She hadn't meant to admit that last part. Living on the streets made her wary of admitting weaknesses, especially to complete strangers.
"You did better than me then."
Luna glanced up. He was looking at her with this faint, almost smile on his face, lost in a better memory.
"I only worked up the courage to talk to her a week or so before she died. And that was only because she talked to me first."
Luna nodded. She didn't trust herself to talk without bursting into tears.
"It's weird," He was staring into the fire, "I wonder if she'd never come up and asked me to sign that stupid petition would she still be alive?"
Luna had to close her eyes tightly against the wave of grief that threatened to overtake her. She reached down and picked up a rickety old broken wooden crate.
"It's not fair!"
She brought the crate smashing down into the trashcan. It shattered satisfyingly but it also sent sparks flying so violently that Luna had to jump back, hastily brushing a burning ember off her hand. The man also jumped back, but he didn't seem upset at her outburst. Luna was too mad to care about him anyway.
"Why did she have to die?! Penny never hurt anybody and those two idiots had no right to include her in their feud! I'm not even sure who to blame! They say it was a freak accident. A million to one chance. Why did it have to happen? Why couldn't things have gone just a little bit differently?"
Luna looked at her companion helplessly. She had no answers.
"I don't know."
He lifted his hands to his face and covered his eyes. His shoulders started shaking.
"I don't know."
He was crying. He dropped to his knees beside the still burning trashcan and sobbed quietly into his hands. Luna didn't really care though, because she was crying too. She curled up on her own side of the fire and lost herself in her tears.
Luna hadn't prayed in a long time but later she thanked God that no one passed by during that. She let all her despair and anger and frustration and hopelessness out on the ground next to a burning trashcan and a not quite still stranger. She didn't know how long it lasted, a few minutes or a few hours. It seemed to go on forever.
They both came out of it at roughly the same time though. Luna sniffed and rubbed her eyes mostly dry on her sleeve. She looked over to where the man was sitting with his back to the fence. He seemed, not happy, but better. He glanced over at her, "Thanks."
Luna cocked her head, wondering what he was talking about.
"That was the first time I was really able to cry about it."
Luna giggled. She didn't really find their situation funny but her emotions were so spent she had to laugh at something.
"Me too."
They sat in companionable silence for several minutes. Luna picked up a piece of cardboard and started tearing it into pieces.
"You're right."
"What?" Luna looked over at him, curious as to what he was talking about.
"Doctor Horrible and Captain Hammer should have never let her get involved in their fight. They should have left her out of it."
"Doesn't matter now does it?" Luna spat bitterly. She threw the piece of cardboard she'd just torn off as hard as she could. Unfortunately, because it was cardboard, all it did was flip three times in the air and skid to a stop on the ground in a very unsatisfactory manner. Luna glared at it, wishing it would explode. "She's dead and those two have probably already forgotten all about her. The papers sure have."
The man was shaking his head, "No. No I could never forget Penny. She died in my arms."
Luna's emotions might have been messed up but her instincts, the same instincts that had kept her alive for the past three years, were in perfect working order. She was on her feet and backing away in two seconds flat. She didn't know everything but she knew who had been closest to Penny when she died.
"You're him!"
She didn't trust herself to say the name. Super villains were dangerous and unpredictable and Luna wasn't sure what would set this particular one off.
He looked over at her, a strange coldness and almost amusement seemed to overtake his previously vulnerable face. "You going to run now?"
Luna hesitated. She was, her foot was already out behind her and she was about to turn but something stopped her. Maybe it was his casual tone of voice or the fact that he had been crying five minutes ago or all the questions she'd wished she could ask the very person in front of her.
"Should I?"
Luna couldn't think of a better way to ask if he was going to hurt her.
Doctor Horrible shrugged and turned his attention back to the empty building, "Honestly I don't care one way or the other."
Knowing she was probably doing something stupid, Luna walked over and sat down, leaning against the fence a few feet away. She glanced sideways at him nervously. He seemed calm enough. She tried to imagine goggles on his forehead and a red coat. It worked disturbingly well. It was nerve racking, sitting next to the most notorious villain in the area, but he hadn't given any indication that he wanted to cause trouble. He was just sitting there, lost in thought, practically ignoring her.
Luna's thoughts turned to Penny. She remembered how Penny would make sure there was enough for everyone to eat, even if she had to go to the grocery store herself. She remembered how Penny would always have a smile for her, even when she wasn't having a good day. She remembered the time Penny had stayed at the shelter for hours to look after a sick boy so his mother could go to work. The more she remembered, the angrier she became.
"I hated you."
It was without a doubt the stupidest thing she had ever said but Luna didn't care at the moment. She felt like she owed Penny, although she didn't know how saying that would help.
Doctor Horrible snorted, "Past tense? You don't still hate me?"
Luna sighed, "I don't know."
The silence stretched out until it became uncomfortable. Luna was trying to figure out why she stayed. She didn't really have a plan or a goal for the night but there was still something that was keeping her there.
"Tell me what happened."
Luna almost jumped at her own voice. She hadn't meant to say that out loud but now that she did she realized she wanted to know. She really wanted to know.
Doctor Horrible was already shaking his head.
A flash of anger made Luna stupidly brave, "I mean it!" She shifted her body so she was facing him, digging her nails into the soft fabric over her knees, "I know it's complicated and I know the mechanics of the whole hero/villain thing is way over my head but Penny was my friend!" Luna's voice cracked, "My only friend. You owe me that much."
The super villain looked at her. Luna was too far into it to care by that point. If he killed her, well, there was no one that would miss the skinny street kid.
He nodded, "Okay."
Luna tried not to show her surprise.
Doctor Horrible turned his attention inward again and stared into space, "I got there early. It wasn't that hard to get rid of the statue. I needed a spot with a clear shot of Captain Hammer, I was going after him by the way,"
He turned to her and his expression was so forlorn that Luna had to believe him, she nodded.
"Anyway my freeze ray needed some time to warm up before I could shoot it so posing as the statue was the only option really."
Luna was interested despite herself. The papers didn't mention details like this.
"I waited until he was almost done with his speech. You have to get the timing right in these things you know. He was being an idiot, as usual. He even bragged about how he and Penny had had sex."
The doctor's face twisted in rage and Luna remembered how he'd first described Penny. Something clicked inside her.
"I don't know how she took that. I couldn't really see through the fabric. I'm assuming not well though. When I pushed aside the fabric and shot him I didn't see her on stage anyway. The freeze ray worked perfectly. I knew it would. All I had to do was shoot him with my death ray. That's all I had to do." He sighed once again and looked at the stars, "I'm not in this for the killing. I don't like it and I wasn't ready so I stalled. I didn't see Penny. I had thought, hoped she'd run away like the majority of the people. When I couldn't stall anymore I was getting ready to shoot but I still," He jerked his hands in the air and let them fall uselessly to the ground, "Anyway the freeze ray chose that moment to run out of juice. Captain Hammer punched me across the room. The death ray, of course, smashed against the floor. Before I could really react he'd picked it up and was standing over me with it in his hand, pinning me down with his foot."
Luna held her hands up, "Wait a minute hold on back it up." She knew she was interrupting but something didn't make sense, "The villain has to psych himself up to kill his most hated enemy but the hero has no qualms about waving a dangerous weapon in someone's face?"
Doctor Horrible snorted, "He had no qualms about pulling the trigger."
Luna stared, "You know what? The world's messed up."
He laughed. He laughed so loudly and so suddenly that Luna jumped. "I make that observation every day."
Luna looked away for the first time. So this was how a super villain thinks. She was a little disturbed to realize she felt similar.
"I could see." his voice had gone softer now, "I could see the error light flashing on the side of the death ray. I knew what would happen if he tried to use it. I tried to warn him. He wouldn't listen to me. I should have tried harder." He pulled his knees up to his chest and hugged them, "When he pulled the trigger there was a huge explosion. At first I was just glad I was still alive and Captain Hammer was out of commission. I think that's the first time in his life he felt pain. Then I saw her. The shrapnel."
He looked at her. As if she could somehow make it not so. She couldn't.
"She was dying and there was nothing I could do."
They were silent for a few minutes as Luna tried to process what he'd told her. Now that she'd heard the story she wasn't sure how to feel. She'd thought she'd known who to blame for this. Who it was safe to hate. Who everyone was telling her to hate. But now that she'd heard the story (and she did believe him) she realized that it was complicated.
"You loved her. Didn't you." Luna wondered when she'd stopped being afraid of the man.
"Yes." Even in a whisper he sounded the most sure of himself in that one word then all the rest of the conversation.
Luna sighed and slumped against the fence.
"Feel better?" Doctor Horrible asked with a hint of bitterness to his voice, although Luna got the impression he did want to know.
Luna shook her head, "Not really," she looked over at him, "but thanks for telling me anyways."
He nodded and they lapsed into silence again. There was something that was still bothering Luna but she couldn't quite put her finger on it. Suddenly she realized, "Why go after Captain Hammer in the first place?"
"What?"
"Well, I mean, if you don't like killing then why were you planning to do it?"
The blond sighed again, "It was the price of admission."
Luna was confused, "Admission to what?"
"The Evil League of Evil."
"Oh." Luna began to feel nervous again. She only knew a few things about the league but she did know they were bad news.
"H-how did you two meet anyway?" Luna figured keeping the conversation as far away from Doctor Horrible's "job" as possible was a good idea.
"We went to the same laundry mat."
Luna couldn't help giggling, "Seriously? Super villains do laundry?"
He smiled, Luna was surprised to find he had a nice smile, "I have clothes don't I?" He tugged at his own jacket to illustrate the point, "Well clothes occasionally get dirty don't they? Since, until recently, I didn't exactly have the funds for a washer and dryer I had to use other means."
Luna nodded but she was still grinning, "I suppose that makes sense but I still find it weird. It's just too normal."
"That's our saving grace. If normal people realized how often they probably encounter superheroes and super villains every day while they're in civilian mode they'd probably be astonished. And look harder. But because they don't expect us, they don't see us."
Luna thought about it and was struck by how similar her own life was. People passed her by every day without a second glance. Nobody noticed the street kids at the edge of their vision. Sometimes it was heartbreaking, being looked over like that, but other times it was a life saver. Luna had lost count of the number of times being unnoticed had saved her from trouble.
"So, I was wondering," Doctor Horrible seemed a bit unsure, "you said Penny talked to you?"
Luna nodded, "Yea, every week or so we'd meet and catch up on each others lives. It was actually really fun because it gave both of us a chance to blow off steam. I would complain about something and than she would complain about something and then we'd both laugh."
"Really? I don't think I've ever heard Penny complain about anything."
Luna smiled, "I'm not surprised, she was a very positive person. But everybody's had bad days you know."
Doctor Horrible gave a short laugh and nodded.
"It kinda came out of our first conversation. I'm not really an open person and didn't want to talk to her but she promised me that she would listen without judging or looking down on me if I would do the same for her."
"Sounds like a good system."
"It was." Luna fell silent as she mourned the loss of yet another part of her life that died with Penny.
"Hey, do you think you could do me a favor?"
Luna blinked in surprise. A super villain is asking me for a favor? "Um, what is it?"
"Well, you had more time to get to know Penny then I did. Do you think you can tell me what you found out?"
"You mean like what she talked about or what she liked to do or..."
"Everything. Anything."
Luna considered it. Would it be betraying Penny's trust to tell him? He'd obviously cared for her and it was a little heartbreaking how he never had the time to get to know her properly while she was alive but she still wasn't sure. "Why do you need to know?"
"Why did you need to know how she died?"
That stopped her. She couldn't exactly put into words why knowing was so important to her but it was and it made sense that he felt similar.
Luna settled back more comfortably against the fence, "Okay. Well, I guess I could start with when we first met."
Suddenly a ringtone interrupted them from Doctor Horrible's pants pocket. He quickly fished a cell phone out and flipped it open.
"Hello?"
He listened for a few seconds before leaping to his feet.
"What!?"
Luna jumped up too.
"How long has it been doing that?" He listened for a few seconds, "Okay did you put out the fire?"
Luna blinked, fire?
"Right. Wait! Are the orange lights blinking or the red ones?"
What lights?
"Okay okay, this is what I want you to do. Go get the liquid nitrogen and pour it over it. Don't forget to wear the gloves! That should slow it down long enough for me to get there but keep the fire extinguisher handy just in case. I'll be right over."
He flipped the phone closed and turned to Luna, "Something's come up. There was an accident in the lab and I've got to go."
Luna nodded, "Okay."
He walked a few steps away but then hesitated, turning to her, "If you wanted. Maybe we could meet here tomorrow night and you could finish your story."
Luna smiled and nodded, "Sure."
He gave a curt not and then he was racing down the street as fast as he could. His figure was quickly swallowed up in the darkness.
Luna added some cardboard to the fire and poked it with a stick. She wasn't sure how it happened, but she had an appointment with a super villain the next day. And she was looking forward to it.