"I was twelve when I first realized I was gay."
Kim, caught in the middle of lowering herself to the floor as Shego spoke, gave a squawk of surprise and lost her balance, sprawling in an ungainly heap on the exercise mats. Rolling onto her back and then into a seated position, she flicked her hair back and gave the older woman a rueful stare.
"You did that deliberately." She accused, though without real rancor.
"Maybe a little." The green woman gave an unapologetic smirk. "But it is actually relevant, Princess. Anyway ... once I knew I liked girls, I started trying to spot who else might be gay, too."
"How?"
"How did I try to spot them?"
"No." Kim shook her head and rested her hands on her knees as she sat cross-legged on the mats, looking up at Shego, who sat on a bench against the gymnasium wall. "How did you know you were gay? All the women in Paris seemed to have different stories. Some had always known. Some never even thought of liking another woman until they met the right one ..." She trailed off, then shrugged. "I was just wondering how it happened for you."
"Well ... I'd noticed the girls my age getting interested in boys over the past year or so before that. But I didn't really get why. I mean, I could see that a certain guy was handsome, but it didn't affect me the way it seemed to affect the other girls." Shego frowned a little as she thought back to a childhood she liked to pretend never happened. "Then one evening at home I came down from my room and saw Summer Gale on the TV and bam ... the flutters in the stomach and the excitement and everything else that the other girls said they felt about boys ... suddenly I felt them too."
"Summer Gale?" Kim's eyebrows shot up so far they almost disappeared into her hairline. "Wow. So this 'older woman' thing you've got going on isn't new, huh?"
"It was nearly fourteen years ago!" Shego protested as she folded her arms over her chest. "Summer was still in her twenties. I admit she hasn't a- ... matured ... as well as your mom has, but back then she was smoking."
"Or maybe it's the villain thing, rather than the age." Kim mused, deliberately ignoring Shego's protests. "I mean, mom's got the Sarah Bellum thing going on. Gale had the killer snowmen –"
"Killer snowmen?"
"Long story." Kim dismissed the interruption and continued speaking, a sing-song taunt in her voice. "Any other villainess crushes I should know about? Carmen Sandiego? Marisa Coulter? Maleficent? Lucy Diamond?"
"Definitely not Maleficent. I got called that enough at school." Shego gestured at her green skin, "Though being splashed with water to calls of 'I'm melting!' was more common."
"Oh." Kim's teasing grin faded. "Sorry."
"Not your fault, Pumpkin." Shego waved away the apology. "So, that was pretty much when I realized that I thought about girls the way most of the girls thought about boys. I did my best to hide it, pretending to be interested in the same celebrity crushes as the others –"
"Really?" Kim was genuinely surprised.
"I was different enough already, Princess." Shego gestured once more at her skin. "I didn't need another reason for people to hate me."
"I would have punched those jerks on the nose." Kim said heatedly, then caught the disbelieving look she was getting from the green woman. "What?"
"You're too much of a goody two-shoes to do that, and you know it."
The redhead sighed.
"Probably. But they were still jerks, and they would have deserved it."
"Definitely." Shego agreed. "But I was still buying into all of Hego's crap about 'protecting the world even if it hates and fears us' back then, so I never did it."
Kim looked incredulous.
"Protecting ... did he get that from a comic book or something?"
"Probably. Hego never even read a menu unless it had pictures to go with the words."
Kim smothered a snort of laughter, doing her best to turn it into a cough.
"So you started looking for anyone else who might be gay?"
"Yeah. Thing is, although I have many, many natural talents –" Shego smirked, "- gaydar isn't one of them. I've got a little better with experience, but at twelve? I couldn't spot a dyke in the Netherlands. And then when I was sixteen, I met Penny."
"Oh. Your first love?" Kim smiled as she leaned forward intently. She'd never expected to learn so much about Shego when she'd asked her question, and by now, she'd almost forgotten what she'd originally asked.
"... I thought so at the time." The green woman's tone was flat, and the redhead abruptly remembered where this story would end. Kim's smile faded.
"Do you want to stop?" The younger woman asked. "It's okay if you don't want to tell me."
"I've started." Shego shrugged, "May as well finish." Despite her decision, she fell silent for a moment, gathering her thoughts. "Penny was a transfer student during my second year of high school. I noticed her right away ... she was blonde and very pretty ... and there were a couple of times I thought I caught her checking out other girls. I tortured myself for about three months, trying to work out if she was gay or not."
"Wow." Kim uncrossed her legs and pulled her knees up to her chin. "I remember how hard it was for me to talk to Josh Mankey when I had a crush on him. This must have been so much worse. What did you do?"
Shego barked a laugh.
"I slipped some chocolates and a Valentine's card into her locker."
Kim gaped.
"You gave a Valentine?"
"Hey, I was young and stupid ... and unbelievably desperate." Shego shrugged defensively. "I wasn't dumb enough to sign the card or anything, but I made it clear in what I wrote that it was from a girl. I wanted to see how Penny would react."
"And?"
"The next day, I found one of the chocolates I'd given her in my own locker."
"Oh wow! She had you totally busted!"
Shego shook her head.
"That's what I thought at the time. I figured she could out me any time she wanted now, so I waited until Penny was alone, and slunk over to see what she would say ... and she admitted she'd put the chocolates into a dozen different lockers, because she wasn't sure who they were from."
"Oh ... but she was gay, right?"
"Yeah. She invited me for a sleep-over that weekend. First time I kissed a girl for something other than a dare. Damn near blew my mind. We snuck around for about four months after that. Always at her place ... I couldn't trust Hego not to just barge into my room at home, and even he would have figured something was up if he found me with my head between another girl's legs."
Kim swallowed.
"Oh ... you guys got pretty hot and heavy, huh?"
"No more than a lot of the straight girls were doing with guys." Shego shrugged. "And at least neither of us was going to get pregnant. But yeah ... we did get hot and heavy ... and we got careless. One day her parents came home early, and we were too wrapped up to notice. They walked right in on us."
"Oh shit."
Shego blinked, still not used to hearing coarse language from the redhead.
"Oh shit, is right." She agreed at last. "They went ballistic. They were shouting and ranting, not letting up at all. Penny started crying, so I started yelling back, and her dad got so angry he slapped me."
Kim's eyes widened, her expression showing that she knew this wouldn't end well. Shego gave a jerky nod of acknowledgment, feeling her guts knot up, even now, as she recalled the painful events.
"I hit him back. It was instinctive. I just lashed out ... and I was so angry, I lost control of my plasma. Broke his jaw and gave him second degree burns to the face. The next day, he pressed charges. Assault with a deadly weapon, grievous bodily harm ... and statutory rape."
"What?"
"Penny was sixteen."
"So were you!"
"Yeah, Kimmie. But I had superpowers. He claimed that I'd used threats and intimidation to coerce Penny into sleeping with me. If I was capable of hospitalizing a grown man, what would I have done to a mere girl?"
"But Penny could have told them –"
"She told them I forced her." Shego's tone was thick with anger, and she fought to keep herself under control as she watched Kim's eyes. "She said I threatened that if she didn't sleep with me, I'd burn her face so badly even her own parents wouldn't be able to look at her."
Now it comes. The doubt. The moment where she wonders if I really did rape Penny. The moment where I get betrayed again. The moment where -
The moment where she found herself enveloped in the warmest hug she'd ever experienced.
"I'm so sorry. It's so wrong." Kim sniffled into Shego's neck, her arms wrapped around the green woman's shoulders. "How could they do that to you?"
"Uh ..." The pale woman froze for a moment, then gave the redhead a couple of tentative, uncertain pats on the back. "It's okay, Pumpkin. It was a long time ago."
"It's not okay." Kim insisted, finally loosening her hold. "Didn't your brothers do something?"
"My brothers?" Shego gave a bitter laugh. "Oh, they did something alright. They bought him off."
"What?"
"Penny's father. They bought him off. A million dollars – cash, so it couldn't be traced – and a promise that I'd never come near his family again. In exchange, he dropped all the charges."
"But ... they knew you didn't rape Penny, didn't they?" Kim's voice rose. "They believed you, right?"
Shego shrugged.
"I don't know. I don't think it mattered to them whether it was true or not. Hego only cared about how a court case would reflect on Team Go. Mego only cared about how it would reflect on him. The Wegos ... well, they were too young to really understand what it was all about." She paused, then went on, unable to stop herself from asking the question that had been burning in her mind since that hug. "Why do you believe me?"
"Like I said before, you've never lied to me." Kim's gaze was open and free from guile, her olive green eyes meeting Shego's firmly, but without challenge. "Besides ... you're not a rapist. I'd stake my life on that."
Sego flushed, her skin darkening. She dropped her eyes from Kim's and gave a short nod.
"Thanks."
"No, thank you. It must have been ferociously hard to tell me that."
The green woman shrugged, doing her best to seem nonchalant.
"Like I said, it was a long time ago."
"So was this when you left Team Go?"
"Yeah." Shego gave a sudden, savage grin. "I grabbed the million bucks and Hego's car, and just took off."
"You stole the money?"
"Hell, yes. I needed the cash, and there was plenty more available to pay off Penny's dad. You saw the Go Tower, and the Go Jet. Team Go had plenty of financial resources."
"But if you had a million dollars, why would you need to become a criminal?"
"Strictly speaking, Pumpkin, I think taking the money meant I was a criminal already." Shego gave a half-hearted smirk. "But as for why I kept doing it? Well, sixteen year olds aren't known for their fiscal responsibility. I lived the high life. The money only lasted a few months. Then I needed a way to make more. And let's face it: as a runaway high school dropout, I only had two marketable assets. I chose to sell my plasma, instead of the alternative."
"What alterna ... oh. Oh." Kim blushed as she belatedly got Shego's meaning.
"Yeah. Anyway, it turned out I was pretty good at the criminal thing. And I found I liked it. The usual teenage renegade bullshit: 'society's screwed me over, so now I'm screwing it back'."
"I think what happened to you is a little out of the 'usual'."
"I guess. But I was still sixteen, and angry. I knocked about doing small time stuff for a few years. Burglaries, underground fights, that sort of thing. I did some work for Big Daddy Brotherson for a while. That got me an introduction to Jack Hench ... and that got me the job with Dr D. You know the rest of the story ... you were there for most of it."
"I can't believe Penny did that to you." Kim shook her head.
Shego shrugged.
"She was just a kid, Kimmie. She got scared."
"Still ..." The redhead protested, but then trailed off. "Is that why you like older women?"
"Geez, Pumpkin." Shego rolled her eyes. "You make it sound like I'm some kind of MILF-hound."
The redhead flushed.
"I didn't mean it like that. I meant ... you want to be with someone who is mature enough to know who she wants, and not afraid of what people will say about it."
The green woman chuckled.
"Well, Kimmie, it's not that easy." If it was, I wouldn't still be thinking about that kiss you gave me earlier. "I've had my share of bad experiences with older women too ... but yeah, if they can't legally buy a drink, I try to steer clear."
"I can see why." The redhead acknowledged, her tone curiously flat. Shego wondered at that for a moment, but before she could say anything, the younger woman continued. "And now I guess the story ends."
"Huh?" Shego blinked.
"Earlier, when you were talking about how you became a villain, you said I knew the rest of the story." The redhead explained. "I was just thinking that this is the end of that story. After this competition, you're out of the villain business."
"Yeah." Shego nodded, then gave a small grunt of annoyance. "Though the tournament hasn't turned out to be quite the triumphant ending I'd hoped."
Kim sighed.
"I'm sorry. I know winning this tournament meant a lot to you."
"We did the right thing, Pumpkin. I don't regret it." Much.
"I know we did. It's just so unfair ..." The redhead scrunched up her face in frustration. "... you're the best I've ever fought, Shego. You deserve to win this tournament, but Senior's stolen it out from under you."
"Yeah, he has." Shego agreed, closing her eyes and leaning back against the wall. After a moment, her body stiffened and her eyes snapped open. "Yeah, he has."
"What?" Kim gave her an inquisitive look.
"Triple S. He's stolen the competition." The pale woman's emerald eyes began to gleam. "Do you know what I did when Dementor stole Doctor D's favorite fusion ray?"
Kim shrugged.
"Kicked his butt and stole it back?"
"Exactly." The green woman emphasized the word, giving the redhead a significant look. Kim gazed back blankly for a moment, then her eyes widened as she realized what Shego was suggesting.
"Senior's stolen the tournament. You want to steal it back."
"Damn right I do. What about it, Kimmie?" Shego leaned forward, locking eyes with the redhead as she held out her hand. "You and me. Partners, working together. Think we could do it?"
Kim's eyebrows shot up, and the green woman felt her excitement stutter. Idiot. She's a hero. She'd never go for this. Then the redhead grinned, and hope flared through Shego's body once more.
"Do I think we could do it?" The redhead's smile grew almost predatory as she grabbed Shego's hand and clasped it firmly. "You're the best thief in the world and I'm the girl who can do anything. Who the hell could stop us?"
Author's Notes: The next 'Most Wanted' update is only about half done, but this was finished, so I decided to post it first.
I'm going on vacation in about five days (Indianapolis, Boston, London, Bruges, Reading, York, Edinburgh, The Orkneys, home). Not sure what impact that will have on my posting here. On the one hand, internet access will be spotty. On the other, I'll have lots of travel time in which to write.
If you're going to be at Gencon (Indy or UK) drop me a PM.