Robert insists, rather vehemently, on taking Aaron on a tour of the house before he leaves, and Aaron resigns himself to being dragged from oversized room to oversized room to pretend admiration for yet more unsightly artwork and wallpaper that cost umpteen hundred pounds a roll.
But, instead, Robert merely gestures somewhat dismissively towards every doorway they pass – "Kitchen, second reception, bedroom, bedroom, bedroom." – until they reach Lawrence's study.
It's a light, airy room, sparsely furnished with sleek, modern furniture. The dark wooden bookcase that stretches floor to ceiling across the entire length of the back wall behind the glass and chrome desk looks distinctly out of place.
Robert beckons Aaron towards it. "The old man's a traditionalist," he says, skimming his fingers across the top of the books on the third shelf until he reaches a dusty, leather-bound copy of Paradise Lost. "And about as subtle as a brick."
He tips the book forward and the bookshelf slides back with a pneumatic hiss, revealing the top of a concrete spiral staircase beyond.
"Come on," Robert says, waving Aaron on again. "I'll show you where the magic happens."
He leads Aaron down the stairs and out into a long corridor starkly lit by buzzing fluorescent lights recessed into the white ceiling high overhead. The tiles underfoot are gunmetal grey, the walls painted institutional green, and there doesn't appear to be anything even remotely magical about it on first glance. It looks like a hospital wing, albeit possibly an evil hospital wing, given the circumstances.
"Okay, so we'll start with the team room," Robert says, "where Lawrence's minions take their breaks."
He opens the first brushed metal door on their left onto a small, windowless room containing a short kitchen counter equipped with a sink, microwave and kettle, and two sagging brown sofas with balding upholstery, one of which is occupied by a hulking behemoth of a man with a face like a bulldog chewing an entire colony of wasps, who is stolidly munching his way through a packet of cheese and onion crisps.
He drops the packet onto the rubbish strewn table in front of him when Robert approaches, then springs to his feet and fumbles out a slightly sloppy salute. "Sir." He eyes Aaron suspiciously. "And...?"
"This is Aaron," Robert drops into that expectant pause. "I'm going to be arching him once the paperwork goes through. Aaron, this is Chris. Or, as Lawrence calls him, Number Five."
"Actually, it's Number Four now," Chris says, blushing and bashful; a thoroughly disconcerting and incongruous expression on six foot six lump of solid muscle. "Mark ended up in traction after our last run in with The Annihilator. He's going to be out of action for at least a year."
"That's terrible," Robert says, but he doesn't look particularly concerned and there's a hesitant quality to the words, a slight questioning intonation, that suggests he doesn't particularly believe in the truth of them. That he's hedging his bets, and unwilling to commit himself to any particular reaction to the news until Chris has revealed his own.
"Yeah, it is, but..." Chris' blush deepens. "I couldn't turn down the promotion, could I? It's a five percent pay rise and an extra day's holiday a year."
"Of course you couldn't," Robert assures him. "I guess congratulations are in order, then."
He shakes Chris' hand, and then Chris shakes Aaron's as they make their farewells, grinding Aaron's knuckles until they creak under the strain.
"Nice to have met you, mate," he says, sounding sincere enough that the sentiment actually seems genuine. "No doubt we'll be seeing a lot of each other in the future."
That, however, sounds like a threat.
Robert inclines his head towards Aaron's as they leave the room, says in a whisper, "Each one of Lawrence's minions is equipped with a shock baton, stab vest, tranquiliser dart gun, and about enough brains to fill an eggcup. They're all vicious, though. Highly trained. Except he'll have to recruit a new Number Ten now, so they'll be the weak link for a while."
Their next stop takes them to two wide, rectangular windows set into the corridor wall – one-way mirrors, Robert informs him – which overlook two perfectly white square rooms, both of which are empty save for a set of manacles hanging down from the ceiling and, even more worryingly, a drain in the centre of the floor.
"Interrogation rooms," Robert says. "Sound-proofed. Their doors can only be opened from the central control room."
After that, he shows Aaron an emergency escape hatch partially hidden beneath a brown-leaved and despondently drooping potted plant, then takes pains to point out that the grate opposite is only very loosely affixed to the wall and leads to some extremely spacious ductwork that a man of, oh, around Aaron's height, could feasibly crawl through and out to the vent behind the garage, if the need ever arose.
This information, coupled with Robert's unasked-for and unnecessarily detailed account of Lawrence's minions' equipment and combat readiness, seems to add up to a conclusion that Aaron finds a little baffling.
"Why are you telling me all this?" he asks. "Giving away your trade secrets? It almost sounds as though you'd want me to be able to escape if I ever got myself locked up down here."
"Well, I'd definitely want you to have a fighting chance of escaping," Robert says. "I'd have to let you go eventually, either way, and it's all just part of the game."
"This is a game to you?"
"What else could it be to any of us? But no-one's playing it to win. It's just... a complicated system of checks and balances. Superheroes are just people at the end of the day. People with potentially dangerous powers who think they know what's best for everyone. They need someone to challenge them; keep them honest. And supervillains need someone who'll keep them contained.
"None of it's real, but it works."
"What's any of that got to do with me, though?" Aaron asks. "I don't have any powers."
"Neither do I," Robert says, shrugging.
With that, Aaron suddenly realises exactly how woefully short-sighted he's been, blithely signing up to have this bloke low-level menace him for the foreseeable without knowing the first thing about him. "So what about the rest of it? Alias? Costume?" Most importantly: "Weapons?"
"No alias, no costume, no weapons." Robert grins. "Just me. Don't worry, Aaron. We're going to be just fine together. Now, onwards."
The next room is plain white like the interrogation rooms, but at least five times the size and ringed by a semi-circle of black leather seats, all facing what looks to be a metal dentist's chair with a thick coil of wires snaking out from the back of it.
There's a scythe-shaped pendulum hanging above it, its razor-sharp edges glittering as they catch the light bleeding through the doorway from the corridor.
"I thought you said the Guild didn't use lethal weapons," Aaron says.
"Lawrence arches Power-Man," Robert says. "You know, that guy over in Manchester that was bitten by a radioactive alien and it made him practically invulnerable. That thing probably just feels like it's tickling him. I won't be using it on you."
They move on then to a study that is a dark mirror to the one upstairs, decorated in black and blood red, and dominated by a huge, marble-topped desk. There is a single dark metal frame set upon it, which houses a picture of a man whom Aaron recognises as Lawrence, clinking his glass of champagne against those held by three other, bizarrely-dressed men.
Robert leans over his shoulder and points at the first of them, who is dressed in black goggles and an eye-searingly yellow suit. "That's The Hornet," he says. "He's basically an evil Ant-Man. Can shrink down to the size of an atom, that sort of thing."
The skinny bloke with the helmet covered in feathers is: "The Shrike. He grows metal spikes out of his hands, and, well, you can probably guess the rest."
"And the one with the purple top hat and cape is Baron Mesma. Who's a telepath and also not really one of the aristocracy. They're all members of the Council of 13."
Aaron's expression must unwittingly give some indication of his ignorance, because Robert then helpfully supplies: "They're the leaders of the Guild. Very exclusive club, and the only way in is by dead man's shoes. About half of them are immortal, too, so it can be a really long wait for a seat."
He straightens up and away from Aaron, smiles and says, "And this concludes today's tour. If you have any—"
"What's behind that?" Aaron asks, nodding his head towards the door on the opposite side of the corridor from the study; the only one Robert hasn't opened. It appears to be made of thick steel, and is covered in various locks, chains, and interlocking gears. There's a keypad beside it, and two cameras mounted above it, pointing down.
"No idea," Robert says. "I don't have a high enough clearance to find out yet."
Robert leads Aaron to the lift at the end of the corridor, and Aaron looks back down the impressively long length of it as they're waiting for the car to arrive.
"You've only been living here about a month," he says, "how the hell did you get all this built so fast?"
"Evil never sleeps," Robert says. "And it has fantastic contractors." He chuckles when Aaron looks at him askance, and then admits, "Okay, most of the rooms were already here when we moved in. This isn't the first time this house has been a supervillain lair, you know."
The lift moves quickly and eerily silently, and disgorges them in the garden before sinking back into the earth again, leaving no sign of its presence save a slightly darker ring of grass on the lawn.
Despite having ostensibly finished their tour, there are still a few more points of interest that Robert sees fit to draw Aaron's attention to as they wander around to the front of the house again: the minions' barracks – "Steer clear." – the kennels – "Steer well clear." – and then finally a large, square pond, bordered by granite flags.
"Lawrence tried filling it with piranhas," Robert says as they peer into the dark, still waters. "The climate didn't agree with them, though; they were all belly up the next day. He's decided he's better off with koi for the time being."
"Man-eating koi?"
"No, just the regular sort. I don't think anyone's managed to weaponise koi yet. Lawrence wants to build a lab down by the stables, and get his pet mad scientist on the job. We're just waiting for the planning permission to go through."
Robert's fiancée intercepts them as they round the corner of the house, greeting Aaron with a broad, dazzling smile of what looks to be honest delight.
"Number Four said we had a visitor! You must be The Mechanic."
Aaron winces at the name. Put on the spot when he signed up and faced with what had looked at the time to be acres of blank space beneath the heading 'Alias' on the League application, he had simply filled it in with the first thing that popped into his head, just to get it over and done with. Admittedly, it's not the worst choice he could have gone with, but he finds it faintly embarrassing that he has an alias, full stop, because it makes it seem as though he takes this whole thing a lot more seriously than he ever has in actuality.
He wishes he'd known he could have just stuck with his own name, like Robert has.
"You can call me Aaron," he says.
"Chrissie," she says, offering him her hand. Her grip is strong but slightly awkward, her fingers encumbered by several rings with huge, chunky stones. "Glad to have you joining the team." Her voice drops to an undertone that isn't really all that much of one. "Be gentle with him. This is his first time arching." Then (fractionally) louder again: "You'll have to join us for dinner some time."
She brushes a kiss against Robert's cheek, exhorts him not to be long in following her, and then takes her leave of them with a jangling, fluttering wave of her fingers.
Robert watches her go with what appears to be easy complaisance, but after she's disappeared from view and he turns towards Aaron once more, his expression pinches anxiously tight.
"I suggest you take her up on that offer," he says. "She can be dangerous, and you don't want to get on her bad side. Oh, and never accept a martini from her. Especially not if she's smiling."
Aaron wouldn't accept a martini from anyone unless all of the other alcohol on the planet had spontaneously up and evaporated. "I'll bear that in mind," he says.
"Good." Robert falls silent, staring pensively into the middle distance for a moment before rousing himself to add, "I'll let you know when I get the final nod from the Guild to start arching you. Should take about a week or so, I think." His gaze sharpens when it falls on Aaron again and takes another leisurely stroll about his person. "If I were you, though, I'd start limbering up for it now."