He thought that she might kill him. He thought that he might kill her.

“No way,” he said as he hoisted himself into the treehouse. “Are you kidding? You’re the one that’s been crippling all those dudes?”

Meg tried to stand but grimaced and sat back down. Fresh blood squirted from the gash in her shin. “Ah,” she said, and then, to Chuck, “I think you should calm down.”

“Calm down?” Chuck said, raising a hand to his forehead. “We need to get you to a hospital.”

Meg bit her bottom lip as she gripped the needle between her thumb and forefinger. With precision, she sent the tip of the needle back through the skin around the wound. “That’s not going to work,” she said as the needle came out the other side. Chuck saw that it trailed bloody thread. “Unfortunately, I’m wanted by every law enforcement body in the city. It turns out they don't like when you take the law into your own hands.”

But Chuck wasn't worried about that. How could you not tell me? he thought about yelling. At the same time, he couldn’t get over how hot she looked. It was a weird thought, and one he recognized as incongruous with the gravity of the situation, but his mind worked by its own rules.

Clearing his throat, he pointed to the cut on her leg.

“How’d that happen?” he asked.

Meg blew a lock of hair from in front of her face. “Eh, it's not a big deal,” she said. “I stopped an assault near Target. I was making myself scarce and tripped over a fence. I’m up on my tetanus and don’t need a hospital. And before you say anything else, it looks a lot worse than it is.”

The needle dipped back through the skin. Chuck glanced at it and felt like vomiting. And yet, at the same time, he felt like pressing his lips against hers and running his hands along the baby hairs at the base of her neck. He gripped the doorframe tightly.

“Becoming a vigilante was my dream,” he said. “Haven’t you seen the weapons I’ve designed?”

“Of course,” Meg said. “About that. I know you wanted to call that thing on your fist the Shocker. I think you should call it something else. The Shocker is—”

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“I know what it is,” Chuck said. “That was the working title. I call it Faraday’s Fist.”

“Meh.”

“Don’t change the subject,” he said. “It didn’t occur to you that this is everything I’ve ever wanted?” he said.

Meg shook her head. “I… this is serious, Chuck,” she said.

“You think you need to protect me? You think I’m some kid you need to protect?”

“I don’t think you’re ready to fight men who would kill you, no.”

“You don’t believe in me,” he said. He walked over to the desk and sat down in his chair, putting his head in his hands. “My best friend thinks I can’t handle reality.”

Meg glanced over at him. “I don’t think that,” she said. She used a bottle of water with a hole in the top to spray blood off her shin and wiped it with a pink-tinged towel. “I just think that parts of this job are best left to people who aren’t going to be missed if they die.” The needle pierced her skin and came back out again, trailing bloody thread. “You can’t argue that your life would be better spent pursuing vigilante justice than curing cancer.”

Chuck sat back and used his fingers to rub the cups of his eyes. Suddenly he was very tired. “When did you start?” he said.

Meg broke the thread with her teeth, put the needle back into a small makeup case, and sprayed the remaining blood from her shin. “My mom, ah, worked in the industry,” she said, setting the makeup case on the ground and starting to unwrap a roll of gauze. “You know that. So I’ve never been too stoked about sex work. And then, I don’t know, I got into superheroes and it seemed fun. I’m a blackbelt in jujutsu. And my dad has taken me hunting forever. So I thought, why not?”

“Your dad,” Chuck said. “He doesn’t…?”

“Doesn’t what? Know? Beat me?” She shook her head. “Neither. That was a terrible rumor to start. When I come home late, he thinks I’m with Steve.”

Chuck snorted. “McGarvey?” he said. “The football player?”

Meg shrugged. “He thinks we’re dating,” she said, wrapping the gauze around her shin. Chuck felt an unbidden spike of jealousy and pressed his lips together. “At some point, everything escalated. I got on the news. I thought about telling you, but I thought, Okay, if I don’t tell Chuck, he’s gonna go to Yale and become the ruler of the free world, and if I do, he’s gonna stay in Pittsburgh. So the choice wasn’t that hard.”

“Would’ve been nice to ask,” Chuck said.

Meg lifted a roll of electrical tape from the ground beside her and bit off a small piece. “You’re right,” she said, applying the tape to the gauze to keep it from unraveling. “I’m sorry.” She looked up at him. “Do you forgive me?”

Chuck sighed. “Yes,” he said. “But only if you let me help you. Let me build you weapons.”

Meg leaned back, resting her head on the treehouse wall. “I'll think about it. Will you get me some Advil?”

Chuck reached into his pocket and pulled out a quarter. "We'll let fate decide," he said, praying to any god watching over him that his gambit would work. "Heads, we go on as normal, and I never breathe a word of this to anyone. But tails... tails, you let me build you weapons. You let me become your sidekick."

Meg looked like she was going to argue, but Chuck quickly cut in. "That's it, then," he said as he brought the coin to his thumb. "Ready?"

He flipped the coin.