‘...Fuck. It’s one thing for Marsha to believe it, but Maria and Mary..? They’ll definitely figure that somethin’s up with me and Jon.’

[...Yes. Fortunately, as they were only children themselves during the war, it is highly unlikely that they are aware of any of the clues regarding the presence of the Superhero Enhancement System, so who knows what conclusions Miss Calculated will come to. Perhaps she’ll do some research which will lead to her finding out about the system, if any of the relevant information from the war is documented anywhere. Though, I find that rather unlikely. They were always rather secretive about how it functions, on both sides, so I highly doubt it is archived in any accessible way.]

Lucas had frozen in the middle of measuring out the length of his tie before beginning to knot it thanks to Miss Masher’s declaration. After a few moments, he continues going through the motions as if nothing strange happened.

Before he can come up with some sort of cover story, Miss Chievous finally collects herself enough to vocalize something coherent.

“That… That can’t even be physically possible, can it? He HAS to be lying about at least some of it, if not ALL of it!” Once Miss Chievous finishes shouting this out at Miss Masher, she then sharply turns to glare at Lucas.

“Seriously? ONE DAY!? And you fucking adopted him!? There HAS to be more to that story!” To say Miss Chievous has an incredulous expression when she shouts this at Lucas would be an understatement.

Lucas can’t help flinching again. Considering she’s looking right at him, there’s no way she missed his involuntary response.

‘Uhh, fuck. A blatant lie won’t help us any, but… Oh! Eheheh…’

[..?]

Lucas clears his throat and tugs his tie a bit, he would have straightened it reflexively if it was actually fully knotted at the moment.

“Well, if I told you, I’d have to kill you.” Lucas is currently having an epic internal struggle not to smile after managing to seriously say that line.

‘Yesss it still feels so badass to actually sorta mean it the second time I get to say it, too!’

[...]

Miss Chievous groans and takes a deep breath while rubbing her face with both hands. Meanwhile, Miss Masher is chuckling, and Lucas is struggling to keep a straight face.

“Okay. Okay. Fine, yes, obviously it’s something that’s a big deal. Fuck. Just… Anything you need to cover, just say so, please don’t tell such ridiculous lies.” After saying this much, Miss Chievous sighs, shakes her head, and continues.

“Four months my ass, I stress used the hell out of my power and it was considered fast development for being only a year before I had any meaningful control, and that wasn’t at the level he’s at now. At least a year and four months could have sounded feasible... Is he just really dedicated to pretending he’s younger than he actually is, for some reason..?” While Miss Chievous is saying this, Miss Masher is nodding along.

Miss Chievous crosses her arms, frowning slightly before quietly mumbling, “I mean, he has enough of a babyface to get away with it… but still…”

Miss Masher snickers and Miss Chievous glares at her briefly, then clears her throat.

Meanwhile, Lucas is nervously fiddling with his tie more than necessary to knot it back up.

“I… really can’t say. Sure, it probably sounds utterly insane, but kiddo is such a ball of nerves, I don’t see how he could possibly manage a convincin’ large-scale lie, even if his life depended on it.” After saying this, Lucas realizes how much he’s channeling Jonathan’s nervous energy with his tie twiddling, so he makes a conscious effort to smooth it out and start over.

He then formally works on tying it into a fresh Eldredge knot, figuring it would seem odd to have changed the way his tie is tied over the course of being inside the building.

Oddly enough, Miss Masher was nodding along to what Lucas was saying as well, then finally chimes in.

“For real though, he seemed dead-serious. Sure, maybe he has different lyin’ ticks than most people, but he’d gotta be REAL good at lyin’ to have pulled that off as authentically as he did. That’d be more than you’d reasonably be able to train by his age, even if you account for him pretendin’ to be younger than he really is.” When Miss Masher finishes making this point, Miss Chievous grumbles briefly before responding.

“I’ve seen plenty of other people that spent time on the streets that don’t have his level of maturity, and some of them were supposedly full-grown adults. But, yes. He’d have to... what..? Have years of elite training? Probably have taken hormone blockers to delay puberty or something? That would have been easier than faking his voice convincingly cracking, that’s for sure. Surgery, too..? To what end, then? I’ll admit that’s a bit much, trying to claim his awkwardness is somehow carefully crafted. It’s just, no matter how you look at it, something is off, one way or another.” Miss Chievous shakes her head a few times after saying this, but then she gives Lucas another piercing look.

“But, how the fuck do you adopt someone you knew for only a day? That’s… It has to be part of some larger scheme. That can’t be purely out of altruism, even ignoring the world being the way it is. It’s DEFINITELY related to all that money you two have. You’re so reckless with it that you couldn’t have had it for long, or else the whole world would know who you are already.” While Miss Chievous was attempting to interrogate Lucas, he was finishing up his knot.

Even though Miss Chievous was glaring at his face at first, both her and Miss Masher’s eyes fell onto his hands tying the elaborate knot that he was making without even looking at what he was doing. Miss Masher even seemed to be concentrating, trying to track his actions.

Lucas, however, has been too stressed by the conversation to realize where their gazes were and continued subconsciously using his proprioception-enhanced muscle memory to tie the knot.

Since the elevator finally reached the lobby, he glances out of the opening doors to ensure that no one is nearby before answering.

“Okay, fine. Yes, it is related to the money, but I really can’t say more than that. I probably shouldn’t have even said that much.” Lucas manages a rather guilty tone while he admits this particular data point.

Without verbally acknowledging the alarming technical precision Lucas was just executing blindly, Miss Chievous continues the conversational line of thought she was building up.

“Can you at least tell me if Willy or even 23 are in on whatever you’ve got going on?” While Miss Chievous was saying this, her eyes had moved back to Lucas’s face, since he finished fussing over his tie.

All three of them still have yet to make any sort of move to leave the elevator.

“What? No, no. It really is just the two of us.” One of Lucas’s eyebrows shot up from him being genuinely surprised by her speculation and he reflexively denied it without putting any thought into his answer.

“Pff, at least you aren’t even trying to deny the fact that there’s something going on… Sheesh, genuinely making friends with almost every single highly influential supe in the area over the course of only two days is no small feat. Even moreso if it wasn’t carefully planned out in advance. Ah, fuck, there have to be int supes involved... They aren’t being territorial against Mary, or something like that, right?” As Miss Chievous’s line of thought goes in a direction Lucas hadn't remotely anticipated, he locks up.

-----

Lucas’s total kills: 7

Lucas’s total deaths: 11

Lucas’s total assists: 1

Lucas’s current GDV: 17.43 [Recalculating...]

Lucas’s fame level: 6.0* (Local fame is completely maxed, he’s creeping up on minor celebrity status even on a global scale. Thanks, internet.)

Lucas's hero suspicion level: 2.0*

Jonathan’s total kills: 7

Jonathan’s total deaths: 4

Jonathan’s current GDV: 6.10 [Recalculating...]

Jonathan's fame level: 4.0* (Local fame is near-max, but everyone thinks of him via his affiliation with Lucas, and not often just for him, alone.)

Jonathan's hero suspicion level: 2.5*

Willy's fame level: 4.75* (Recently increased thanks to a new wave of memes featuring him and Mr. Quacks.)

Mr. Quacks’s fame level: 5.25* (Recently increased thanks to a new wave of memes featuring him and Willy.)

Supervillain social circle size: 15

-----

Little character theater:

Jonathan is busy fighting not only for his life, but also the lives of the few lingering people still nearby. Even still, if given the choice, he'd take that over the elevator conversation, without hesitation.

Willy has wriggled around in his sleep enough that he has mostly kicked off the blanket, a riveting development.

Lucas, mentally sputtering: ‘How the fuck do I answer that!? I mean, at least it's safe to say no int supes are involved, yeah?’

427, low-key taking it personally: [Ahem. There are no int supes that you are working with which are actively scheming against Miss Calculated, you mean.]

Author, trying to smooth 427's proverbial ruffled feathers: Now, now. You never directly said it to him, did you? You know how bad he is at filling in the blanks. Besides, do you still technically count as a supe, ever since your consciousness was uploaded into an AI?

Mr. Quacks, alongside Quackette, is watching the one remaining patron with a mix of amusement and concern. They’re casually sitting with their back to all of the action, wearing earbuds while they're sipping a coffee as they look at their phone, seeming completely unphased by the events transpiring around them: Quack..?