Chapter 2: To Batman or Not to Batman

The slight chime vibrated through the air as Sheldon strolled confidently into Stuart's comic book store. Leonard followed Sheldon in and went over to talk to Stuart who was staring blankly off into space and questioning his life for the 25th time that day. Outside Alex was standing her ground against Piper.

"Oh come Al, this'll be fun," Piper insisted.

"Piper I am not doing this. Not only do I not care for superheros, but I don't want to be conspicuous. Isn't that why we're here, a fresh start and all?"

"Yeah, but it isn't a fresh start if you're going to be all stale about it. Look, it's just a comic book store, no one will even notice us."

Alex gave in and they stepped into the comic book store. As Piper and Alex entered everyone immediately turn to stared at them in disbelief. Comics fell to the floor everywhere as all 3 customers looked like they'd had a stroke and were paralyzed with their mouths lazily hanging open.

Stuart could since what was happening and said, "Everyone calm down, it's just…"

Then he trailed off as he stared at Alex and Piper and became as mute as the others.

"No one will see us, huh Pipes?" Alex smiled.

"Yeah, I may have called that one incorrectly."

"Stuart I'll give you $2 cash right now if you get them to stop staring," Leonard said across the counter.

With the thought of so much cold hard cash Stuart snapped out of his daze.

"Hey, they're just women, nothing you haven't seen in movies or comics, so observe from a distance or you'll scare them off. Go on, make yourself scarce."

The crowd reluctantly snuck away and continued to stare form what they thought were steal positions as some went back to reading.

"Well I'll say we're really managing to be inconspicuous Piper. I was right to trust you."

"Well in retrospect I probably shouldn't have decided to come to a comic book store as our first stop. But come on Al it could be worse, at least we come across as just young and vibrant women exploring the world. I mean luckily there's no-one here who knows who we are really."

No sooner did the words leave Piper's mouth when Mendez strode in dragging Howard at his side. He was in coffee stained police uniform and looked like a normal beat cop. He released Howard as he walked around and inspected the comic book store. Leonard rushed over while Sheldon continued to page through a comic book with no interest.

"Howard what happened," Leonard asked frantically.

"This guy apparently had the audacity to think it was cool to have a beatles haircut these days, so I pulled him over to teach him a lesson," Mendez answered.

"But what kind of a crime is a haircut, that's freedom of expression?" Leonard posed.

"No, it's disturbing the peace," Mendez countered.

"He's right Leonard, I told you we should add a section to the roommate agreement to fix Howard's hair for an incident like this." Sheldon chided in.

"No you didn't Sheldon, that was all because you thought Howard's hair was infested with radioactive lice," Leonard replied.

"You saw the way Howard handles lab equipment, radioactive lice could totally occupy his hair and attack me. I wouldn't mind a radioactive spider because then I could be spider man, but Lice man Leonard? That sounds like a worse superhero then aquaman."

"Yeah, this guy knows what he's talking about," Mendez said confidently to Sheldon.

"I was going to give this lice headed midget a ticket for disturbing the peace, but he said he was going to a comic book store so I thought I'd pursue the suspect and investigate."

"Isn't that a little dramatic," Leonard asked.

"Oh hush Leonard he's an officer of the law protecting people and pursuing justice; just because you're a failure in life who can only do experimental physics that others already do doesn't mean you should criticize others who do real work."

"You know what, I like this guy. Hey Sheldon I've got a get together coming up in a couple days at my place, why don't you come join me, you'll have a great time?" Mendez offered.

"Cool a party, I love parties, is there a theme to it?" Raj said as he appeared instantly at the sound of a party.

"No theme, I mean I'm a cop who makes barely more than minimum wage."

"Even on a low budget I can work with that, and I'll bring wine and a dish," Raj offered.

"Well then my man you're in," Mendez replied. "Yah, this city is pretty great, but I still miss my old job sometimes."

"Yeah, I miss being an astronaut since I went to space and…" Howard began.

"Shut up there beatles with radioactive lice. You and curly hair glasses here are not invited to my party or this conversation."

Mendez turned back to just Sheldon and Raj, "Anyway I used to work in a women's prison and man was it great."

"I can imagine," Howard interjected.

"You can't imagine shutting up could you?," Mendez snapped back. "Anyways, I got to just sit at a desk and stare at all that all day, just watch them moving back and forth and some moving back and forth on each other, ah it was paradise," Mendez said with a shinning look in his eye.

"So there were lots of lesbians," Raj asked with interest.

"Oh yeah, I remember these two women who were just the best. One was a tall brunette with glasses, and the other a shorter blonde playing all innocent like; oh they were so hot together, hm…" Mendez trailed off as he closed his eyes.

"Okay Alex, no sudden movements," Piper whispered. "Maybe he just won't see us and we can be completely inconspicuous if we just stand perfectly still…"

"Yeah, they looked a lot like those gals over there." Mendez said.

"Damn it Piper, you just had to go and open your mouth," Alex whispered back.

` "It's not like I'm at fault here."

"What, of course you are. We could be breaking in the leather on our couch right now while we were alone in our apartment, but no you had to go to the comic book store."

"Hey it isn't that bad, all he did was make a comment about us, he probably will just walk away and leave without investigating further."

"Man this seems like such deja vu, those women look just like them, I have to go find out."

Alex shot Piper a glare.

"Yeah, maybe from now on I should never speak again," Piper ventured.

"We'll I know you two look just like a pair of gals I've seen before," Mendez started.

"Hello pornstache," Piper replied as she turned towards him as Alex did the same.

"Well I'll be, it is you guys. So what they don't check prison history for apartments around here?"

"Or apparently backgrounds on the police they higher," Alex retorted.

"Touche there Vause, touche. But it's nice to see you guys again and still together, oh yeah; and you're invited to my party," Mendez replied as he quickly scribbled down his address and information on the back of a ticket. "Here you go, and I hope to see you ladies again," Mendez flashed a grin and turned away. He grabbed a couple comic books off a shelf and walked towards the door.

"Hey, you need to pay for those," Stuart said with sudden interest as he rushed forward towards Mendez.

But then Mendez pulled out his taser and stopped Stuart dead in his tracks. Then he turned and was gone.

"Well I just lost 3 dollars worth of comics, I guess now I can't average $1.70 an hour, which is still mostly based off Sheldon buying that aquaman statue 3 years ago." Stuart sulked back behind the counter and went back to doing his thing.

The comic book store went quiet again and everything was back to normal. Then Sheldon gather his crew and brought them over to talk to Alex and Piper.

"So we were wondering what that was all about with that police dude," Howard said casually.

"Yeah, and are you lesbians?" Raj interrupted.

"Hey, hey, hey, you guys are acting more socially awkward than me," Sheldon interjected. "Now we're not here to talk about their past or anything weird, we're here to ask if you guys want to be in the comic convention's DC villain crew contest?"

"And that doesn't seem weird at all," Alex retorted sarcastically.

"Exactly," Sheldon replied.

"And that's 2/37 this month with sarcasm," Leonard muttered under his breath.

"Anyway," Sheldon continued, "I'm going as professor zoom," Sheldon said with a quick dab, "Leonard is the Penguin," Sheldon announced as Leonard stuck out his chest and adjusted his glasses to look like he was wearing a monocle, "Howard is the clock king," Sheldon continued as Howard adjusted his invisible hat and checked the time. "Yeah Howard's the Clock King even though he is always late to everything," Sheldon muttered.

"Hey, I am an english gentlemen and I am always on schedule by their time," Howard said in his best accent.

"Wow, an engineer who doesn't know that lines of longitude matter in the world for timezone, no wonder you don't have a PHD."

Before Howard could protest Sheldon continued, "And Raj is Jason Todd, from Arkham Knight, and The Red Hood."

"I keep telling you I am always the lame one, Jason Todd is the aquaman of this injustice league." Raj protested.

"Well justice has been served," Howard retorted. Leonard slapped him a high five.

"And that's why Howard's the funny one, and Raj is the foreign one who tries to get our culture but fails." Sheldon explained.

Raj glared at Sheldon.

"Oh come on Raj it's better than Leonard who is no longer worthy of being the muscle if either of these ladies joined our group."

Leonard also flashed Sheldon a death glare.

But before Leonard got to kill Sheldon and the show's main comic relief, Piper said to Alex, "You know we would be such great DC villains; We should totally go as Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy..."

"No Piper, I have had enough of this, no more comic book stores, and no more weirdness. I am out of this."

"But you can't leave, we need you to win this thing for sure." Sheldon rebutted.

"Read my lips poindexter, I'm out."

"But Alex wait," Piper shouted.

"No more Pipes, there is nothing that will make me change my mind," Alex firmly stated.

"I'll give you $2000 cash," Sheldon interrupted.

"Come again?" Alex frozen in place.

"If you compete in the contest there's a $50,000 grand prize at the convention. We'll give you two $30,000 if we win, and $2,000 if you compete and let us stand a chance," Sheldon offered.

Piper smiled at Alex, "And we do need money for rent and general needs, it couldn't hurt to have some fun as one of the best DC siren pair or hot women having fun together in exchange for cold hard cash?"

"Okay Pipes, I'm in," Alex reluctantly replied.

"Yes," the guys burst into cheers as they jumped up and down. Captain sweatpants and several others climbed out of their hiding places around the room and joined in the cheer.

From behind the counter Stuart sarcastically shouted, "Hooray," with no enthusiasm.

As the new injustice six excited the comic book store with the new editions of Batman in hand, Stuart called after Sheldon, "Hey you're going to give them $2,000 to join your league, could I get say $20 to cover food expenses for a week so I won't have to eat comic books?"

"Oh Stuart of course not, as my former 9th best friend, now my 11th best friend I have to tell you I don't have $20 to waste."

"Thanks Sheldon, as your 9-11 friend I sincerely thank you for your willingness to give random women $2000 but not your friend $20 so he won't starve."

"Your welcome," Sheldon waved goodbye as he was now 2/38 with sarcasm.

Author's notes:

Thanks for all the support everyone. What started as a simple comedy chapter I wrote one night has really started to become something more to me as I've kept thinking and working. Most of my work is usually darker so it's nice to write comedy sometimes. So I'll keep going and publish a chapter every 2 weeks or so and see how it goes. I think it's fun to write and having it read is always an added bonus. So thanks and I'll write as fast as I can while making sure it's still good.