"Watch Him As He Goes". (Doctor Horrible fanfic, PG.)
*ahem* Joss Whedon... is a bastard. He's like an abusive bad boyfriend who you know is just going to rip your heart out and stomp on it, telling you it's what you need to see, and yet we all keep opening the door and letting him back in.
So. Probably this has spoilers for Act III, but I needed fix-it fic after that emotional anvil Joss dropped.
No time. No time. Leave her. Run, damnit. Fix it. Fix her. The metastable animation capacitor is burnt, wiring compromised, it’ll take time to fix it, time is short…
Ignore the flashbulbs. Ignore the shouts and the screams and the panic. Ignore the questions, the how could you what do you why did you chatter like crows (murder of crows, no, don’t think that, push it aside) in the background. Can’t feel that now, can’t give in to uncertainty. Hands, be steady. Twist. Recombine. Flash-solder. Reconnect. Reinitialize. Turn.
She’s so pale. So still. Is she - no time to think or examine. No time. No time. Must act.
I pull the trigger.
: : : : : :
“Penny? Are you awake?”
She wants to bolt up, run, adrenaline still coursing through her, cold, shock, there was -
- wasn’t there -
- an explosion?
She could swear there was. Red light tearing through her eyelids, not-wind ripping at her hair, a sudden thump! like being punched hard in the chest. She remembers -
- falling. But what was before -
“Penny?”
She opens her eyes. Tries to blink the sandy feeling away. Looks down blearily at the mass of wiring and lights and strange unknowable devices covering her. “Whu… what is…” Her voice feels raspy and broken and locked up inside of her, like rusted gears on a bicycle in desperate need of repair.
“Shhhhh. It’s going to be alright.” A tube at her mouth. “Drink. It’s water.”
Penny sucks at the tube greedily, only now consciously realizing her mouth is bone-dry, wanting more even as the tube is pulled back.
“Not too much.” That voice seems so familiar - she tries to see, but everything’s blurred, her eyes don’t want to focus. She knows it, she knows she does, and yet it’s so consumed, overrun with fear and worry and sorrow and grief that it’s barely familiar at all. Isn’t that…? “Thank God you’re not dead.”
A hand squeezes hers, warm, human, and she weakly squeezes back.
: : : : : :
She hears in delerium-blurred fragments.
(dude, seriously, what do you think you’re)
(had to save her, i couldn’t just)
(think the league really)
(did to hammer wasn’t enough for)
(no, man. they were saying they)
(I don’t care. I’m not going to let her die.)
: : : : : :
There’s a light in her chest. Not on, in. Well, sort of both, really.
She can see more clearly now. Looks around at the cluttered chaotic sprawl of technology and gadgetry and wires, vials and beakers and strange bubbling liquids, spare parts and glimmering geegaws and the IV in her arm. Sees the bed she’s lying on, feels the cool smooth sheets underneath her. “Hello?”
“Penny!” A yell, a thud, a clatter, a muffled curse, the sound of limping footsteps from beyond a doorway. And then…
“Billy?” She stares at him, the dark circles under his eyes, the thinness of his face lined with worry, the relief beginning to grow there. And she remembers. “You’re Doctor Horrible-”
“Yes.”
“But … why?”
Billy lets his breath out in a long sigh, walking slowly towards her. “I wish I knew anymore. Even though, technically, I’m not sure which why you’re referring to, so that question’s really kind of open-ended and imprecise but…” He shakes his head abruptly. “It doesn’t matter. All that matters is that you’re alive.”
Penny looks down at the lights and the apparatus and the wires coming out of her. “Am I?”
He reaches out hesitantly, as though to touch her shoulder or her chin, and his hand hangs between them for a moment as though not sure whether to move forward or back. She still feels weak as a kitten, but -
She reaches up and takes Billy’s hand in hers.
“Yes,” he manages. “You are.”
: : : : : :
[blog]
She’s alive. It worked. That’s something, at least. Isn’t it? Anyways, the infusion I created is doing its job, miraculously enough. It’s healing the peripheral surgical aftereffects with remarkable efficiency. The central wounds, though… I had to improvise, just a bit. Put in some cyberphysiology to counteract the more grievous damage. There wasn’t time for a more elegant solution. She’s alive, though, and healing, and she’ll be on her feet soon. That’s what’s important.
[pause-feed]
The League isn’t pleased. I shouldn’t be surprised, I guess. Bad Horse was pretty specific. To hell with him. I’ll change things my own way. The League’s not the only way to get things done. Just the most obvious one, the most straightforward one. And now that Captain Hammer’s out of the picture…
(Horrible looks aside, nibbles at his lip.)
Things are going to change. That much I know.
[/blog]
: : : : : :
Days pass. She heals, faster than she would’ve thought possible, but she’s still worn and exhausted and aching every day as her body tries to adapt to this new state of … whatever-it-is. She tumbles into slumber like she’s falling off a cliff, sometimes in the middle of a sentence. She’ll wake with morning sun streaming through the window, or in the middle of cool night with crickets chirping somewhere nearby. Sometimes she can stay awake for hours, sometimes just a few minutes.
Doctor Horri - Billy - sits with her most of the time when she’s awake, brings her whatever she asks for if it’s in his power, keeps her company, talks with her about mundane and not-so-mundane things. He spends time trying to explain the glowing light and metallic something that’s embedded in her chest, talks about impedance capacitors and micro-flux-reactors and arc-light technology, how it was necessary to save her life, how he couldn’t let her die. She thinks he’s somehow trying to apologize but can’t quite figure out how, like the words are all caught up and tangled together inside him.
Guys. She rolls her eyes when he’s out of the room, but can’t help smiling all the same. There’s something in him, something so much more present and substantial and whole than Captain Hammer ever was.
She thinks back to Billy and her, talking at the laundromat. Thinks about the times before that, her noticing him noticing her, both of them trying to figure out how to say hello without being too obvious about it. Thinks about both of them dancing around what’s happened here in the same way. How they’ve become so close while somehow still staying so far apart.
He’s saved her life. (Even if technically the accident that put it in jeopardy was kind of because of him, she thinks, but still it wasn’t something he was trying to do.) He’s seen her naked. (Wait - does impromptu chest surgery really count as naked? she wonders) And yet there’s still that gap between them that neither of them knows how to bridge.
But then again, she realizes while Billy’s rigging some kind of prototype exoskeleton he says will bring her muscular condition back up to what it once was, maybe she can bridge it after all.
: : : : : :
“I’m sorry,” she finally says one morning.
Today, he said earlier, today she’ll be up on her feet. Sure, it’ll be in the exo-rehab-skeleton-whatever thing, but she’s just glad to get up out of this bed.
Billy looks up, startled, at Penny’s words. She’s sitting up on the edge of the bed, IV finally pulled from her arm, waiting to step up into the whatever-it-is as he makes last minute adjustments. “What? No - you don’t have anything to be - I’m the one who should be apologiz-”
“I’m sorry I wasn’t listening to you before. That I didn’t hear what you were saying, all those times when we talked.”
He ducks his head, looks away. “It wasn’t you,” he says softly. “It was me. I’m sorry. I’m the one who -”
She reaches out, touches his chin, pulls his gaze up to hers. “We both made mistakes. We have to get past them if we want to move forward.”
He just looks at her, the faintest hesitant touch of a smile peeking through his clouded expression. “OK. Now, if you’ll just, uh, step up into here -”
He puts out his arms, and she steps into them willingly. She puts one foot into the exoskeleton, twists to do the same with the other as Billy’s hands are on her waist to steady her, and then tries to hold still as he buckles her in (which is harder than it sounds because he’s so intently precise yet so careful that it feels like butterflies are dancing over her and fastening straps, and she’s always been ticklish).
“There. How does that feel?”
Penny stands up straight, shuffles, turns cautiously, moving one metal-caged arm and then the other and feeling how each motion tugs - not painful so much as strangely tight - at the healing skin in her chest. “It feels… kind of natural, I guess?”
She catches a glimpse of herself in a mirror across the room - red-haired, willow-lean, (still too pale, she thinks,) standing inside something that looks half like part of a lycra bodysuit and half like an erector set - and turns sideways, watching herself for a moment. Looks over at Billy - looks down at him, actually; the exoskeleton adds inches she wouldn’t normally have without wearing really high heels - and smiles. “It’s like I’m wearing a heavy backpack that I can’t actually feel, like my arms and legs are weightier but it’s not hard to move. Does that make any sense at all?”
“Yes! Definitely.” Billy grins up at her, then ticks off marks on a handheld device. “Actually, that’s exactly what I was hoping for. Although,” he frowns for a moment, tapping intently at something on the device as she shifts her weight, “it might need a bit of fine-tuning I think that it’s an excellent beginni-”
Right about then is when the door blows in.
: : : : : :
Later, all she can seem to remember are still images and disassociated sounds, like some half-loaded streaming video that freezes and stutters and recycles in some false likeness of real life.
- Billy spinning away to dive for something across the room, coming up with a gadget that looks like someone crossbred a rifle with bagful of stainless steel pipes -
- half a dozen or more men pouring into the rooms with blades in their hands -
- seen in the mirror’s reflection: a deathly pale man, gaunt-cheeked, wearing a duster and leathers and a horrifying grin -
(The League doesn’t tolerate scabs or failures, Horrible.)
(I won’t let you --)
(Let us?) Laughter. (Keep him alive. Anyone else, not so much.)
- a beam of incandescent blue lancing out from Billy’s not-rifle, spearing the gaunt man and freezing him where he stands -
- the minions paralyzed momentarily, then turning with scowls to charge (get him, boys! he can’t shoot us all!) -
- Billy’s face, terrified, as he reaches desperately for something else -
- the feel of the IV stand, cool and metallic in her fist as she stumbles forward and swings at the nearest one -
- shock of impact barely felt as the minion flies back in a sprawl and knocks over the two next in line -
- shouts of pain, Billy’s, hers, the minions’, bursts of purple energy lashing out from Billy's device, sharp-edged steel clashing off the metal cage she wears, her throwing a man across the room like he’s hollow cardboard -
- ‘til finally she stands, panting, and Billy is leaning against the table clutching his shoulder, and all the minions lie unmoving on the floor and the gaunt pale man still stands frozen in the doorway -
- Billy staring at her with a disbelieving grin edging through obvious pain, both fading into determination -
(you ok, penny?)
(i think so, yeah. yes. you ok?)
(yeah. yeah. ow.)
(what?)
(i said, uh, wow. that exoskeleton’s a lot stronger than I thought.)
(i’ll say.)
(we can’t stay. we have to get away from here.)
(anywhere you go i’m going with you, billy.)
He nods decisively and takes her hand in his. (ok. i just need you to pop my shoulder back in first.)
: : : : : :
Much later, they sit outside a Dairy Queen at the edge of the suburbs, sharing frozen yogurt and quiet conversation. Billy’s all nervous energy, eyes always moving, his fingers making the plastic spoon (when it’s not full of yogurt) spin and dance like some kind of demented cheerleader’s baton.
Penny eyes him with a grin. “Would you calm down and eat?”
“What? Oh. Yeah. Right. Of course.” He digs the spoon into the yogurt with a focused look, but a minute (and most of the yogurt) later, he’s jittering energy again.
She gently puts a hand over his, and as her fingers brush his all his tension seems to bleed away. “So. What are we going to do next?”
He takes a deep breath, holds it in for a second, then slowly lets it ease out of him. “I don’t know. The League won’t be happy, that’s for sure.”
“The Evil League of Evil?”
“That’s the one.”
“So when you were talking about that job before… you wanting to be an achiever … that was with them, wasn’t it?”
Billy tries to shrug, winces, then manages a one-shouldered motion that kind of approximates the same intent. “I just wish I had a plan. Something that could… I don’t know, stop them or something.”
“Well…” Penny looks at him intently. “Why don’t we? Stop them, I mean.”
He scoffs. “Oh, right, just up and -” He stops abruptly. “Wait, you’re serious, aren’t you?”
She nibbles on her lip. “Yeah. It’s that or be running away for the rest of our lives, isn’t it?”
He slowly nods.
“The rest is just details.” She twines her fingers in his. “And between the two of us, I think we can manage details.”
Billy narrows his eyes, looks at her consideringly, then pulls out a pencil. “Penny… have you ever considered becoming a superhero?”
“What, like Captain Hamm -” She stops dead as she sees him wince. “Um. Not exactly, no, not really. I mean, I don’t have any powers or anything like that.”
Billy’s already frantically sketching something out on a Dairy Queen napkin. “Trust me, powers are overrated. But there’s something to be said for -” He finishes, slides the napkin across to her. “- technology.”
She looks at the wrinkled wisp of paper and the detailed designs hastily drawn there, then towards their car, its backseat and trunk filled with everything they could throw into it in the space of ten minutes. “The exoskeleton?”
He grins. “Among other things. Tell me, how would you feel about an alias like ‘Iron Maiden’?”
: : : : : :
[blog]
I’ve never tried to be any kind of superhero before. Neither of us has. For me that was because I couldn’t see how working within the system, being any kind of normal “hero”, was going to change the things that were terribly wrong with the system itself. But maybe a hero can change things without being a tool of the system, without being corrupted into idiocy and egomania and stupid propaganda. I know the League will be… quite a challenge. But I -
(A female voice interrupts.)
- but we -
(Billy smiles up at someone off-camera.)
We can make it work. Together.
I can’t think of anyone ever trying anything like this before. Maybe that’s what will make it work. This is Doctor Horrible… signing off.
[/blog]
Billy: “I’m talking about an overhaul of the system.
Putting the power in different hands.”
Penny: “I’m all for that.”
"There goes my hero, watch him as he goes.
There goes my hero, he's ordinary."
Foo Fighters, "My Hero"
So. Probably this has spoilers for Act III, but I needed fix-it fic after that emotional anvil Joss dropped.
No time. No time. Leave her. Run, damnit. Fix it. Fix her. The metastable animation capacitor is burnt, wiring compromised, it’ll take time to fix it, time is short…
Ignore the flashbulbs. Ignore the shouts and the screams and the panic. Ignore the questions, the how could you what do you why did you chatter like crows (murder of crows, no, don’t think that, push it aside) in the background. Can’t feel that now, can’t give in to uncertainty. Hands, be steady. Twist. Recombine. Flash-solder. Reconnect. Reinitialize. Turn.
She’s so pale. So still. Is she - no time to think or examine. No time. No time. Must act.
I pull the trigger.
: : : : : :
“Penny? Are you awake?”
She wants to bolt up, run, adrenaline still coursing through her, cold, shock, there was -
- wasn’t there -
- an explosion?
She could swear there was. Red light tearing through her eyelids, not-wind ripping at her hair, a sudden thump! like being punched hard in the chest. She remembers -
- falling. But what was before -
“Penny?”
She opens her eyes. Tries to blink the sandy feeling away. Looks down blearily at the mass of wiring and lights and strange unknowable devices covering her. “Whu… what is…” Her voice feels raspy and broken and locked up inside of her, like rusted gears on a bicycle in desperate need of repair.
“Shhhhh. It’s going to be alright.” A tube at her mouth. “Drink. It’s water.”
Penny sucks at the tube greedily, only now consciously realizing her mouth is bone-dry, wanting more even as the tube is pulled back.
“Not too much.” That voice seems so familiar - she tries to see, but everything’s blurred, her eyes don’t want to focus. She knows it, she knows she does, and yet it’s so consumed, overrun with fear and worry and sorrow and grief that it’s barely familiar at all. Isn’t that…? “Thank God you’re not dead.”
A hand squeezes hers, warm, human, and she weakly squeezes back.
: : : : : :
She hears in delerium-blurred fragments.
(dude, seriously, what do you think you’re)
(had to save her, i couldn’t just)
(think the league really)
(did to hammer wasn’t enough for)
(no, man. they were saying they)
(I don’t care. I’m not going to let her die.)
: : : : : :
There’s a light in her chest. Not on, in. Well, sort of both, really.
She can see more clearly now. Looks around at the cluttered chaotic sprawl of technology and gadgetry and wires, vials and beakers and strange bubbling liquids, spare parts and glimmering geegaws and the IV in her arm. Sees the bed she’s lying on, feels the cool smooth sheets underneath her. “Hello?”
“Penny!” A yell, a thud, a clatter, a muffled curse, the sound of limping footsteps from beyond a doorway. And then…
“Billy?” She stares at him, the dark circles under his eyes, the thinness of his face lined with worry, the relief beginning to grow there. And she remembers. “You’re Doctor Horrible-”
“Yes.”
“But … why?”
Billy lets his breath out in a long sigh, walking slowly towards her. “I wish I knew anymore. Even though, technically, I’m not sure which why you’re referring to, so that question’s really kind of open-ended and imprecise but…” He shakes his head abruptly. “It doesn’t matter. All that matters is that you’re alive.”
Penny looks down at the lights and the apparatus and the wires coming out of her. “Am I?”
He reaches out hesitantly, as though to touch her shoulder or her chin, and his hand hangs between them for a moment as though not sure whether to move forward or back. She still feels weak as a kitten, but -
She reaches up and takes Billy’s hand in hers.
“Yes,” he manages. “You are.”
: : : : : :
[blog]
She’s alive. It worked. That’s something, at least. Isn’t it? Anyways, the infusion I created is doing its job, miraculously enough. It’s healing the peripheral surgical aftereffects with remarkable efficiency. The central wounds, though… I had to improvise, just a bit. Put in some cyberphysiology to counteract the more grievous damage. There wasn’t time for a more elegant solution. She’s alive, though, and healing, and she’ll be on her feet soon. That’s what’s important.
[pause-feed]
The League isn’t pleased. I shouldn’t be surprised, I guess. Bad Horse was pretty specific. To hell with him. I’ll change things my own way. The League’s not the only way to get things done. Just the most obvious one, the most straightforward one. And now that Captain Hammer’s out of the picture…
(Horrible looks aside, nibbles at his lip.)
Things are going to change. That much I know.
[/blog]
: : : : : :
Days pass. She heals, faster than she would’ve thought possible, but she’s still worn and exhausted and aching every day as her body tries to adapt to this new state of … whatever-it-is. She tumbles into slumber like she’s falling off a cliff, sometimes in the middle of a sentence. She’ll wake with morning sun streaming through the window, or in the middle of cool night with crickets chirping somewhere nearby. Sometimes she can stay awake for hours, sometimes just a few minutes.
Doctor Horri - Billy - sits with her most of the time when she’s awake, brings her whatever she asks for if it’s in his power, keeps her company, talks with her about mundane and not-so-mundane things. He spends time trying to explain the glowing light and metallic something that’s embedded in her chest, talks about impedance capacitors and micro-flux-reactors and arc-light technology, how it was necessary to save her life, how he couldn’t let her die. She thinks he’s somehow trying to apologize but can’t quite figure out how, like the words are all caught up and tangled together inside him.
Guys. She rolls her eyes when he’s out of the room, but can’t help smiling all the same. There’s something in him, something so much more present and substantial and whole than Captain Hammer ever was.
She thinks back to Billy and her, talking at the laundromat. Thinks about the times before that, her noticing him noticing her, both of them trying to figure out how to say hello without being too obvious about it. Thinks about both of them dancing around what’s happened here in the same way. How they’ve become so close while somehow still staying so far apart.
He’s saved her life. (Even if technically the accident that put it in jeopardy was kind of because of him, she thinks, but still it wasn’t something he was trying to do.) He’s seen her naked. (Wait - does impromptu chest surgery really count as naked? she wonders) And yet there’s still that gap between them that neither of them knows how to bridge.
But then again, she realizes while Billy’s rigging some kind of prototype exoskeleton he says will bring her muscular condition back up to what it once was, maybe she can bridge it after all.
: : : : : :
“I’m sorry,” she finally says one morning.
Today, he said earlier, today she’ll be up on her feet. Sure, it’ll be in the exo-rehab-skeleton-whatever thing, but she’s just glad to get up out of this bed.
Billy looks up, startled, at Penny’s words. She’s sitting up on the edge of the bed, IV finally pulled from her arm, waiting to step up into the whatever-it-is as he makes last minute adjustments. “What? No - you don’t have anything to be - I’m the one who should be apologiz-”
“I’m sorry I wasn’t listening to you before. That I didn’t hear what you were saying, all those times when we talked.”
He ducks his head, looks away. “It wasn’t you,” he says softly. “It was me. I’m sorry. I’m the one who -”
She reaches out, touches his chin, pulls his gaze up to hers. “We both made mistakes. We have to get past them if we want to move forward.”
He just looks at her, the faintest hesitant touch of a smile peeking through his clouded expression. “OK. Now, if you’ll just, uh, step up into here -”
He puts out his arms, and she steps into them willingly. She puts one foot into the exoskeleton, twists to do the same with the other as Billy’s hands are on her waist to steady her, and then tries to hold still as he buckles her in (which is harder than it sounds because he’s so intently precise yet so careful that it feels like butterflies are dancing over her and fastening straps, and she’s always been ticklish).
“There. How does that feel?”
Penny stands up straight, shuffles, turns cautiously, moving one metal-caged arm and then the other and feeling how each motion tugs - not painful so much as strangely tight - at the healing skin in her chest. “It feels… kind of natural, I guess?”
She catches a glimpse of herself in a mirror across the room - red-haired, willow-lean, (still too pale, she thinks,) standing inside something that looks half like part of a lycra bodysuit and half like an erector set - and turns sideways, watching herself for a moment. Looks over at Billy - looks down at him, actually; the exoskeleton adds inches she wouldn’t normally have without wearing really high heels - and smiles. “It’s like I’m wearing a heavy backpack that I can’t actually feel, like my arms and legs are weightier but it’s not hard to move. Does that make any sense at all?”
“Yes! Definitely.” Billy grins up at her, then ticks off marks on a handheld device. “Actually, that’s exactly what I was hoping for. Although,” he frowns for a moment, tapping intently at something on the device as she shifts her weight, “it might need a bit of fine-tuning I think that it’s an excellent beginni-”
Right about then is when the door blows in.
: : : : : :
Later, all she can seem to remember are still images and disassociated sounds, like some half-loaded streaming video that freezes and stutters and recycles in some false likeness of real life.
- Billy spinning away to dive for something across the room, coming up with a gadget that looks like someone crossbred a rifle with bagful of stainless steel pipes -
- half a dozen or more men pouring into the rooms with blades in their hands -
- seen in the mirror’s reflection: a deathly pale man, gaunt-cheeked, wearing a duster and leathers and a horrifying grin -
(The League doesn’t tolerate scabs or failures, Horrible.)
(I won’t let you --)
(Let us?) Laughter. (Keep him alive. Anyone else, not so much.)
- a beam of incandescent blue lancing out from Billy’s not-rifle, spearing the gaunt man and freezing him where he stands -
- the minions paralyzed momentarily, then turning with scowls to charge (get him, boys! he can’t shoot us all!) -
- Billy’s face, terrified, as he reaches desperately for something else -
- the feel of the IV stand, cool and metallic in her fist as she stumbles forward and swings at the nearest one -
- shock of impact barely felt as the minion flies back in a sprawl and knocks over the two next in line -
- shouts of pain, Billy’s, hers, the minions’, bursts of purple energy lashing out from Billy's device, sharp-edged steel clashing off the metal cage she wears, her throwing a man across the room like he’s hollow cardboard -
- ‘til finally she stands, panting, and Billy is leaning against the table clutching his shoulder, and all the minions lie unmoving on the floor and the gaunt pale man still stands frozen in the doorway -
- Billy staring at her with a disbelieving grin edging through obvious pain, both fading into determination -
(you ok, penny?)
(i think so, yeah. yes. you ok?)
(yeah. yeah. ow.)
(what?)
(i said, uh, wow. that exoskeleton’s a lot stronger than I thought.)
(i’ll say.)
(we can’t stay. we have to get away from here.)
(anywhere you go i’m going with you, billy.)
He nods decisively and takes her hand in his. (ok. i just need you to pop my shoulder back in first.)
: : : : : :
Much later, they sit outside a Dairy Queen at the edge of the suburbs, sharing frozen yogurt and quiet conversation. Billy’s all nervous energy, eyes always moving, his fingers making the plastic spoon (when it’s not full of yogurt) spin and dance like some kind of demented cheerleader’s baton.
Penny eyes him with a grin. “Would you calm down and eat?”
“What? Oh. Yeah. Right. Of course.” He digs the spoon into the yogurt with a focused look, but a minute (and most of the yogurt) later, he’s jittering energy again.
She gently puts a hand over his, and as her fingers brush his all his tension seems to bleed away. “So. What are we going to do next?”
He takes a deep breath, holds it in for a second, then slowly lets it ease out of him. “I don’t know. The League won’t be happy, that’s for sure.”
“The Evil League of Evil?”
“That’s the one.”
“So when you were talking about that job before… you wanting to be an achiever … that was with them, wasn’t it?”
Billy tries to shrug, winces, then manages a one-shouldered motion that kind of approximates the same intent. “I just wish I had a plan. Something that could… I don’t know, stop them or something.”
“Well…” Penny looks at him intently. “Why don’t we? Stop them, I mean.”
He scoffs. “Oh, right, just up and -” He stops abruptly. “Wait, you’re serious, aren’t you?”
She nibbles on her lip. “Yeah. It’s that or be running away for the rest of our lives, isn’t it?”
He slowly nods.
“The rest is just details.” She twines her fingers in his. “And between the two of us, I think we can manage details.”
Billy narrows his eyes, looks at her consideringly, then pulls out a pencil. “Penny… have you ever considered becoming a superhero?”
“What, like Captain Hamm -” She stops dead as she sees him wince. “Um. Not exactly, no, not really. I mean, I don’t have any powers or anything like that.”
Billy’s already frantically sketching something out on a Dairy Queen napkin. “Trust me, powers are overrated. But there’s something to be said for -” He finishes, slides the napkin across to her. “- technology.”
She looks at the wrinkled wisp of paper and the detailed designs hastily drawn there, then towards their car, its backseat and trunk filled with everything they could throw into it in the space of ten minutes. “The exoskeleton?”
He grins. “Among other things. Tell me, how would you feel about an alias like ‘Iron Maiden’?”
: : : : : :
[blog]
I’ve never tried to be any kind of superhero before. Neither of us has. For me that was because I couldn’t see how working within the system, being any kind of normal “hero”, was going to change the things that were terribly wrong with the system itself. But maybe a hero can change things without being a tool of the system, without being corrupted into idiocy and egomania and stupid propaganda. I know the League will be… quite a challenge. But I -
(A female voice interrupts.)
- but we -
(Billy smiles up at someone off-camera.)
We can make it work. Together.
I can’t think of anyone ever trying anything like this before. Maybe that’s what will make it work. This is Doctor Horrible… signing off.
[/blog]
Billy: “I’m talking about an overhaul of the system.
Putting the power in different hands.”
Penny: “I’m all for that.”
"There goes my hero, watch him as he goes.
There goes my hero, he's ordinary."
Foo Fighters, "My Hero"