Tales From A Teenage Henchman

Good Intentions

Sparrow was starting to get suspicious and honestly, Tim was starting to freak out.

To be fair, it was only to be expected. After all, Tim had already covered for his friends about five times without counting the first time they'd ran into Sparrow. It still kind of sucked that he was forced to stop hanging out with her. Tim had gotten pretty used to having some company during his supposed patrols and Sparrow was nice enough to be good company.

It definitely wasn't just because he missed the free chili dogs. Of course not.

"Maybe you should just take a break from the whole hero thing," Lina suggested, as if the whole thing hadn't been her idea from the start. "Just until things settle down a bit."

For once, Tim actually agreed with Lina. Maybe it was because they were doing laps around their hideout. That couldn't be good for their thinking process. Tim still felt a bit proud of how not out of breath they were. There was something to be said for exercising regularly.

"Yeah, I guess I should. Though we really need to come up with a way to make Sparrow stop coming after us. I mean, it's not like I can keep sabotaging her forever." Especially once Tim left the whole henchman business and went back to school.

"Eh, I'm sure we'll come up with something." Tim didn't share her confidence.

In the long run, it didn't really matter. Mostly because, against all odds, things had gotten worse.

As all things did, it started with one of Penny's ideas. She seemed to think their hard work in training warranted a reward. That was really why Tim couldn't even be mad. After all, Penny was just trying to do something nice for her henchmen.

It didn't make the situation any better, but Tim could still appreciate the good intentions behind the whole mess. Still, there was something to be said for the road to hell being paved with good intentions. Tim was most certainly a believer of that particular piece of wisdom.

To celebrate the fact that her lackeys were still alive and hadn't abandoned her thanks to their new routine, Penny had taken them all out to eat. That was quite a feat given how many of them there were. Still, even with them being kind of crowded into the diner—and taking up about half the available space and approximately all of the coffee—it was nice. There was a strange sort of normalcy that came from putting on regular old clothes and going out like average people.

Hell, even Penny looked less villainous with her long dark hair up in a ponytail and a regular outfit consisting of jeans and a sweater. Granted, she never looked particularly evil. Tim didn't really think her usual style could be called normal either. Now though, well now she looked downright cuddly. Tim's evil side was vaguely disgusted with his brain's word of choice to describe his boss.

"This is weird," Lina said from her seat next to Tim, successfully distracting him from his burger.

"Why, because we're not robbing the place?" They'd considered it, but Penny had insisted on everyone acting like normal human beings for once. Apparently, it wouldn't count as a treat if they just ended up not paying through illegal means.

"Well, that too, but I meant it just feels weird doing stuff like this." She poked at her plate of chicken with her fork and Tim was about ten seconds away from taking her food away and claiming it for himself.

"Lina's allergic to non-criminal activities," Vic chimed in from his place across the table. He then proceeded to shovel some more of his pasta dish into his mouth as if he were afraid someone would steal it from him.

Given the current company it wouldn't be that unexpected.

"I mean, she's not wrong though. This is just weird." Alex took a break from attempting to steal Tim's fries to join their conversation. "Last time we went out like this was Penny's birthday."