Harlow didn’t really sleep. Well, she was sure that she closed her eyes for a bit, but she never actually laid down to sleep. Instead she threw herself into the numerous articles, sightings, witness testimony and anything else that may concern the missing heroes or villains. If it was enough to murder her over, it was enough to look into. And yeah, the citadel probably had top eyes investigating the case, but what if they were being purposely misled. The thought itself spooked her a little, but she carried on.

After a while, she kinda resigned herself that she’d never see more about the villains. It sounds really bad, but Graves City was more concerned with the heroics and the marvelous feats of their superheroes. It was something to be proud of, with over 70 heroes stationed in the city and home to some of the greatest names in all hero-dom. 

A little less now, but details. 

Right now, Harlow had made a physical board full of the articles and cut-outs where she’d highlighted things that were repeated. Where she tried to find a pattern that could make everything make sense. Alas. 

Nothing. 

Nothing made sense. 

Separate the articles and there’s a bunch of random events. The only common thread between them is that they were all very capable beings and should have never went missing. Put them together and they became wild and sporadic instances. The person’s location, the time of day, who saw them (if anyone), what they were doing. None of it corresponded with the next person’s. 

When she wanted to scream, she went outside to avoid waking Black Star. When she got frustrated, she put a hand over her eyes and massaged her forehead, which is most likely why she didn’t feel tired. At some point, she must have exhausted herself, but she couldn’t remember ever closing her eyes. Even after making a mess of the desk, littering it with trash and print-outs, the only thing she learned was that this probably wasn’t a incident. But who would do it? What could they gain?

Eventually Harlow felt the light from the large windows at the back of her neck. She glanced at the clock to see that it was nearly 7am and that she basically wasted her whole night. She sighed, then stepped back to rub her eyes. Maybe she needed a different angle?

She hadn’t even noticed when Black Star had woken up. It was only when she felt something touch her shoulder that she even remembered there was another person in the room.

“Ack!” She jumped away from her, then quickly tried to regain composure. “A ‘Good Morning’ is just as good of a greeting.” She said. Black Star just rolled her eyes. 

“Have you even slept? Did you really look over these files all night?” Harlow refused to look her in the eyes, because she was certain she was gonna get some sort of lecture. But Black Star refused to back down, just leaning more into her line of sight. 

“W-what did you want me to do? Just go to sleep and accept that I’ll be treated like a, well…like a villain for the rest of my life?!” She shuffled some papers and tried to focus on them instead. “You’re the one who said it could be connected to the missing superheroes, I was just-“ 

“You were just gonna make sure? Yeah, you could’ve done that in the morning? You know, after doing that thing everyone else does when they’re physically and mentally exhausted?” 

She stopped trying to make eye contact. Instead she pushed Harlow out of the way and looked through her progress. “Well. Let’s see what you’ve done so far. Surely you’ve found something that could be useful.” She sounded like she already knew the answer. Harlow took a step to look at all of the screens as a whole. 

“I-i got nothing.” She exclaimed, throwing her hands into the air. She gestured wildly to everything in front of her. 

“Every time I think I’m onto something it just disappears!! First i thought there was a pattern as to who got kidnapped, but no! There are far more heroes than villains. And almost none of them really interact!!” Black Star leaned against her desk, folding her arms as Harlow continued. 

“Then! All of the locations are basically everywhere! Everyone was following there own routines, yeah, but none of them interacted!!” She paused to groan. Just thinking about it again was giving her a major headache. “They may as well have put them on a roulette wheel!!” When Black Star was sure she was finished, she covered her mouth to hide a chuckle.  “Seriously, you’re gonna laugh at me now?” Harlow asked, a hint of anger now present in her voice.

“Sorry, sorry.” Black Star cleared her throat. “I’m not laughing at you, i promise. I’m here to help you, you know that.” Harlow sighed, pulling her hair back from her face. She couldn’t have expected anymore from her, to be fair. Black Star wasn’t trying to desperately save her career. She accepted her fate a long time ago. 

“Okay, fine. Short answer is no, i got nothing.” Harlow fell back onto the couch she was supposed to have slept on the previous night. She leaned on the couple of blankets that had been placed  for her and buried her face into it. “you have no idea how many times i went outside to scream about this.” She muttered into the blankets.

Black Star walked over an sat down next to her. “I mean, I could guess. Unless you bypassed the security of my smart home, that is. Every entrance and exit is recorded.” Harlow looked at her, well more like squinted. 

“Why?” 

“I thought you liked smart homes?” Black Star asked, an eyebrow raised. 

“I mean, I do. Not that part, why do you record every exit and entrance? Aren’t you the only person to be in here?” Harlow sat up. 

“Oh jeez, “ Black Star got up, yawning and stretching her arms and legs before walking back up to the bedroom. “Wouldn’t you like to know?” Harlow started to object, but Black Star interrupted. “Besides, I wouldn’t tell you anyways Mrs. Hero” 

Harlow sat back onto the couch. “…okay. Well, what should we do now? You said you were here to help, so I’m open to ideas.” She didn’t hear a thing when Black Star began leaning dramatically over the upstairs guardrail. “Except to basically except that I’m considered a villain now, please. Like, real suggestions.” She heard Black Star pout before going back to doing what she was doing. 

Harlow sat in silence for a while before beginning to nod off. She was pretty exhausted. And doing all that deep analysis only to go nowhere was really disheartening to her. 

“I got two, but I’m not sure you’re gonna like either of them honestly.” Black Star said, much closer to the couch than before and starling Harlow awake. You wanna hear them?” Harlow nodded slowly. “Okay well option number one, we break into the Citadel and take whatever information we can find. Because they obviously have all the answers to our questions, right?”

“Terrible plan, next.” Harlow said without even blinking. 

“Yeah, figured. Okay option two is we find someone who’s maybe been looking into this more seriously than us. I mean, you only just started and I have a rotating interest in the entire affair.”  Harlow wasn’t sure what to think of the phrase ‘rotating interest’ when it came to human lives, but she’d put a pin in that for later.  

“Hmm, you say it like you already have someone in mind.” Harlow suggested. 

“Of course i do! The Villains network is just as vast and connected as the Citadel and their gang of heroes.” Black Star shot up, walking immediately over to her computers again. “Oh yeah, get dressed. Like get a change of clothes. I think I may still  some stuff of your in my drawer.”

Harlow’s ears perked. “What? Why?” 

Black Star didn’t turn around to answer. She was already looking through her emails. Harlow slowly stood and made her way back up to the bedroom loft. It hadn’t even occurred to her that Black Star would keep any of her stuff, because she was like 90% certain this ‘Under-Graves City’ didn’t exist then.

She did find some of her old clothes though. 

It was a little embarrassing, because she hadn’t thought about it in forever. Who would? No one would think about the clothes left behind. But several of her old shirts and pants were perfectly preserved and folded in the dresser. All in one drawer, like Black Star had expected her to come over often. Or come back. 

“Hey, you don’t need to keep this stuff, you know?” Harlow yelled down to Black Star. She changed into a small black t-shirt and some jogging pants. Something quick and simple. Black Star hadn’t even acknowledged her. eventually she yelled back up. 

“Okay, I got it!” Just as Harlow reached the steps, Black Star had gotten straight into her face. “We need to go the puppet theatre! Come on, I’ll show you where it is!” She grabbed Harlow’s arms and dragged her out of the building. Harlow hadn’t even gotten to say what she wanted to say. 

“Okay, wait-what!?! What puppet theatre?! Why?!” She asked as quickly as possible. She could feel eyes on her and Black Star as they rushed through the streets. People and objects looking blurry before she abruptly stopped, running directly into the Black and almost tripping over her. Harlow grunted, planting herself firmly on the ground before shaking of whatever ‘exhilaration’ of their morning jog. “What the hell, Cass!! Where are we now?” Black Star shushed Harlow. She pointed vigorously at the retro Theatre sign that hung on the building in front of them. 

“Can you like promise me, you’ll be cool? Don’t go all Superhero Defender here, please?” She whispered. Harlow’s face scrunched up. What did she mean by that? Where were they?

“Is this…a villain hideout? Like, an actual villain hideout??” Harlow asked. She tried act natural, but the thought of being in front of a lair of supervillains, trapped underground in a city of supervillains… Well, it didn’t bring the most pleasant of thoughts. “Cass…” She stressed, but was met with hushed whispers again. As Black Star lead her through the front doors into a barely lit, almost haunted theatre. filled to the brim with half-decayed puppets and more memorabilia that would probably be more fit for a children’s TV show. 

“Do you remember the Phantasm?” She asked.