When Fiction Becomes Reality

I’ll never forget the night that I first met him. The masked vigilante. The one they would go on to call Thunderstrike... mostly because that was the name that I coined after our first encounter. I will also never forget how it would cause my life to change forever.

****

I had been working late at the comic book store that I own and operate alongside my fraternal twin brother Dinoco. He had a gig that night, so I told him not to worry about closing up with me, I’d do it on my own and take inventory before I left. As I was working, I couldn’t help but wish that my friend Oliver Pascha who owned the florist shop next to my shop wasn’t busy tonight. I loved talking to him when opening up in the morning and closing down at night. I especially appreciated it when he was there with me and helped me when it came to closing down for the night, he helped me feel safer. On this night though, I was on my own. Which certainly wasn’t a new experience for me, but it always made me a bit nervous just because that was when the less than law-abiding members of the town came out. It was one of the reasons why my brother and I had been able to afford this shop. We liked to think that we were creating a safe space for the children in the town to go when school wasn’t in session and it certainly seemed like it helped them. We’d been pretty lucky so far, we had yet to be robbed or broken into since we started our business and got it up and running. That lucky streak would end that night. With me still in the store.

I had just finished going through the last box of the newest shipment of comics and other assorted goods in the back room and had walked back into the store when the front door that I had locked when the store closed at 8:30 PM was broken open, causing the shop’s alarm to go off. The rumble of thunder from the thunderstorm that was forecasted to start tonight heralded the coming of the of the six very large and very intimidating male kintaurs who poured forth from outside. They seemed weirdly unphased by the blaring alarm, insteading pointing their guns at me and demanding that I fork over all the money from the cash registers. Before I even had a chance to either refuse, fight back, or comply, a dark figure swung in through the door and as the thunder rolled, it striked. I could barely process the scene before me, it was like something from out of one of the superhero comics that I loved so much or a scene from one of my favorite superhero TV shows. It was a thing of beauty to behold, how adept the dark figure was working to take care of the six kintaurs. I almost just stood there and watched if one hadn’t managed to escape the wrath of the dark figure, I had to pull my eyes away from the figure in order to stop the one trying to run away by putting my leg out trip him. He fell face first onto the ground and that’s when I heard the approaching sound of police sirens. I turned around to find that the dark figure had knocked all the other five kins unconscious and had bound them with zip ties. They pulled out a grappling hook gun, gave me a smile and a brief nod before shooting the gun and getting out of my shop, leaving me feeling both in awe of him and very curious of who he was.

When the police came inside, they were very curious as to what happened and I couldn’t tell them much more than what I knew, which was basically nothing. They wanted me to describe the person that had come to my rescue, but all I could really tell them was that it was a male kintaur who was wearing a hooded sweatshirt, a mask, and black jeans. I couldn’t even give them any defining features even if I wanted to.

Once the police were done questioning me and had taken all six of the kintaurs into custody, I was left standing alone in my shop with shards of glass scattered everywhere and a broken door that wouldn’t keep anyone out. I made a call to my twin brother and then to the insurance agent, I had to leave a message with the insurance agent because it late and they were asleep. When I was done with all of those calls, all I could do was just stare at the destruction that the attempted robbers had left behind as the thunderstorm raged outside, causing water to come into the store. I didn’t know what to do, whether I should stay in the store and try to make sure no one else tried to rob us, or if I should just go home and sleep.

In the end, I went home, talked to my twin brother some more about our plans on how to tackle this and what we would do tomorrow. Then I tried to fall asleep, mostly stared up at the ceiling hoping for answers until at last I passed out. In the morning, I went about things business as usual. Had breakfast, had a shower, dressed for work, then went to work. There to greet me like always was my friend Oliver. Unlike always, he wasn’t working on opening up his own shop and preparing for customers. Instead, he was working on… well it looked like he was installing a new door.

“What are you doing Oliver,” I inquired, laughing a bit, “I’m sure the insurance will take care of that.”

He got up and smiled that adorable smile he had and replied, “I know, but I also know that you needed a functioning door as soon as possible and I wanted to help out.”

“That’s really sweet of you, but I don’t know if we could ever pay you back for-“ I began before he put a claw to my lips.

“It’s totally free, no strings attached, I don’t want to be repaid. I just wanted to help,” he flashed that smile again and there was no way I could say no, but there was also no way I could let him get away with doing this for nothing.

“Surely there’s something I can do for you in return,” I said.

“Well,” he began, a playful wicked smile forming on his muzzle, “I’ll certainly take a nice long chat with you about superheroes as payment.”

“Really? Out of everything, you choose the thing we already do every time we have lunch,” I couldn’t help but laugh.

“Well, yeah,” he began, laughing, “that’s the point.”

I smiled and rolled my eyes, heading to the entrance to the shop. He opened the door for me and began rattling off all the features it had, assuring me that no one should be able to kick it down or bodily ram it down again. I certainly hoped that that was true.

I walked in and the store was even more depressing to behold in the light of the morning sun. The carpet was wet from the rain, comics were on the ground, some of them ruined from the fight, shelves were broken too. There was no way the shop was going to be opening up that day. I felt Oliver place a hand on my shoulder, I looked over at him to see him give me a reassuring smile.

“I closed my shop for the day in order to help you and Dinoco clean this place up so the carpet can be removed and replaced,” he told me, squeezing my shoulder gently in a reassuring manner.

Sometimes, I couldn’t help but wonder where Oliver came from. It was like he was the perfect guy in a romance novel or something that had sprung to life; he was a cinnamon roll of a geeky florist. I found him utterly adorable and completely handsome. I gave him the look I always give him when he’s being too perfect and say the thing I always do:

“Seriously dude, how are you still single?”

He chuckled, like he always did, but his response was not his usual one. He usually joked and said he was a really messy person or he was really bad at dates. On that particular day, at that moment, his response instead was: “I’m not as good a catch as I seem.”

That’s when I remembered that he had had a date last night with some girl named Nikki.

“Oh gosh,” I said, “did the date not go well last night?”

“Yeah,” he began, “she...left to go to the restroom and never came back.”

I was furious at his date for treating him like that. If it had been me instead of her, he would have had a much better date. I certainly wouldn’t have dreamed of ever ditching him during a date. I would just thank my lucky stars to have even gotten so far as to have been asked on a date by him in the first place. He was a rare species. He was an attractive geek. You really don't find too many of those. I would know.

“Clearly, she’s the one who wasn’t the catch,” I laughed, trying to reassure him, “because if she was she would have seen what a great catch you are or at the very least wouldn’t have ditched you on your date.”

I gave him a warm smile, which he returned before attempting to thank me. Something he never got to say because my twin brother came in through the new door.

After that, we stuck to working on removing everything from the store front so that the carpet could be removed and replaced. It was long work, but the three of us made it fun work by listening to music and cracking jokes until the conversation turned to what happened last night. I think we were all really excited about the prospect of an actual real-life vigilante in our town helping to fight crime.

“Did he leave a name or something,” my brother asked, which made me laugh because I seriously doubted that the guy had even come up with a name yet. My brother was probably joking anyway, yet I answered him seriously.

“No, he didn’t,” I began, “but if I were to name him... I think that I’d call him Thunderstrike.”

“Why Thunderstrike? Did he have lightning powers or something,” Oliver inquired, giving me a confused look.

“Because he came in while the thunder rolled and he struck just as quickly as lightning,” I told him, a bit embarrassed now that I’d explained the reason out loud. It made sense in my head. Oliver appeared to be the only one who thought it made sense too or that it sounded like a cool name.

“I dunno about you, but if I were the vigilante, I’d think that’d be a perfect kick-ass name,” he said, grinning widely as he swept up the glass into the dust pan.

We continued to talk about the vigilante as we worked, mostly just speculations. Who they were, where they came from, if they were new at this or not. What other skills or gadgets they might have. There was also a great deal of comparing them to heroes in comics and wondering who they’d be most like.

“I kinda wish I could have thanked him,” I said at one point.

My brother Dinoco scoffed, “He’s a proper hero then not to stick around to hear someone thank him.”

I scowled at him before moving the last of the comics into the backroom, “I still hope to meet him again sometime so that I can at least get the chance to try and thank him.”

“Good luck with that Dani,” Dinoco scoffed as he lugged a box of stuff into the back room.

“Maybe I’ll start an anonymous blog and see if other people will help me locate him,” that was the idea that I threw out there, an idea which seemed to bring a great deal of concern to both my brother and Oliver.

“I don’t think that’s a very good idea...” Oliver began.

“Yeah, you’ll bring all the crazies to you,” Dinoco stated as he dismantled the shelving on one of the bookcases.

“I’m sure that the vigilante wouldn’t really appreciate you having a blog where he was being tracked,” Oliver finished, having been cut off by my brother.

“True, but I don’t know how else to get his attention so that I can thank him,” I replied with a frown.

“You could always go deep into the dangerous parts of the neighborhood and see if you get mugged,” Dinoco suggested jokingly.

I scowled at him and so did Oliver. Sometimes, my brother just made the worst jokes.

****

That night, I sat before my laptop staring at the screen. My mouse pointer hovering over the “publish” button. I had started work on making that blog I had mentioned and had been shot down. I figured that if it was an innocent sort of blog where I just sound like a fan who appreciates what he does and just wants to tell others about him, it should be okay.

Still, I hesitated.

With both my brother and Oliver telling me that I shouldn’t, I couldn’t help but question if my decision to ignore what they said was a good idea. Still, they hadn’t met Thunderstrike; I had. Sure, it didn’t mean that I knew anything about him, but I had to believe that he wouldn’t hurt me just because I made a blog. The only concern that I really had was whether or not he would be mad at me for it. I hoped not. In the end, I decided that it was worth it and that I should just go ahead and do it. So I hit that publish button and waited as my blog began its life that night. As soon as my blog had officially been born, I decided that that was the end of the night and I might as well turn in for the night.

****

Weeks later and my blog hadn’t gotten very many hits. My blog had also failed to garner me any attention or even an audience with the vigilante that I had dubbed Thunderstrike. I could name several female reporters from my favorite superhero comic book series and shows who had had way more success attracting the attention of the heroes they wrote about. Then again, it probably helped that they already knew or worked with those people and didn’t know it at the time. I wasn’t so lucky. I was pretty sure that no one that I worked closely with was the vigilante. I’d certainly know if my own twin brother was masquerading around town saving people and wrangling up criminals for the cops. His injuries resulting from such activities would not escape my notice, especially since he lacked the ability to not complain afterwards. I couldn’t really have said with any absolute certainty that Oliver couldn’t be Thunderstrike, but I felt relatively confident in the assumption that it wasn’t him. Anyway, I hadn’t told my brother or Oliver yet that I had made the blog. If I was being honest, I was waiting for something to come out of it before telling anyone anything. Maybe it was slow because there wasn’t much word on the masked vigilante since the night he had rescued me. There had been chatter however about a different masked vigilante, one that was running around in a suit that looked like it had leaped out of the pages of a comic book or straight from the silver screen or something. I wondered if my hero had spurred a movement or if maybe he had changed his costume sometime over the past couple weeks. Anything was certainly possible. I supposed though that I would probably never know for sure. Which is why it came as such a surprise to me when I ran into that masked vigilante with the fancy suit I had heard about.

****

I had been walking to the local library in the town where my business was located in order to go put up some flyers to advertise the reopening of Super Twins Comics. I probably should have done it in the morning or during my break, but I didn’t like missing my breaks because I really enjoyed spending them talking to Oliver. Which was probably a testament to how much I loved him and how much I was crushing on him. Anyway, I had just finished hanging up the flyers and had turned around to head home and found myself face to face with three very tall, very frightening male Kintaurs.

“Oh, sorry,” I began, “I didn’t see you guys there. I’ll go ahead and let you-”

I never did finish that sentence because one of them brandished a knife while the other two brought out guns.

Great, I thought to myself. “Give us all your money and valuables,” the one with the knife growled at me.

It was at that moment that I swore to myself that if I got out of this situation alive, I would start taking some self-defense classes right away. Right after that moment was when the masked vigilante with the fancy suit swooped in, bowling the three guys over. His grappling hook gun automatically reeled in before he started kicking serious criminal butt. I probably should have high-tailed it out of there, but I wanted to watch him work, to see if I could figure out if he was the same guy who saved me several weeks ago while wearing a hooded sweatshirt and a mask. The fighting style certainly looked the same, but if I was being honest I hadn’t seen any videos of this guy fighting before in order to compare. Not that there had been much in terms of videos of either of the masked vigilantes fighting on KinTube. It was unlikely that they would have compared to witnessing it first-hand and making one’s own judgement, that being said, it was hard to fully appreciate or even assess his fighting technique when you were the one who was in danger.

I was, however, able to get a good look at him up close and personal.

He had been fighting the largest of the male Kintaurs and had almost been sent crashing into me if he hadn’t had quick reflexes. He came skidding to a halt right in front of me and seemed to almost lose his balance. In that moment, our noses touched and we both looked at each other with our eye large from surprise. His reaction was one I had not expected, for he seemed to be flustered as he jumped back hastily into the fray. It wasn’t long after that that the three thugs beat a very hasty retreat, but instead of chasing after them, the vigilante turned to me instead.

“Are you alright,” he asked, his voice too deep and garbled sounding to be his real voice.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” I replied, perplexed as to why he was even asking, surely he knew that I was perfectly fine.

He nodded and turned to leave, if I didn’t act, I wouldn’t be able to know what I was dying to learn.

“Wait,” I shouted, “please, I have to know. Are you the same vigilante who saved me almost a month ago when some thugs showed up at my store?”

He hesitated, then replied, “Yes, that was me.”

“Nice new costume then Thunderstrike,” my response had caused him to laugh before he shot his grappling hook gun out and swung away. I watched him go, then swore at myself when I realized that I had been so caught up in trying to figure out if it was the same vigilante that I had completely forgotten to do the one thing that I had been hoping to do whenever I saw him again. I forgot to thank him.

****

I very quickly hurried back to the shop, put away the flyers, grabbed my things, locked up, then drove home. The first thing to greet me when I opened the door was my twin brother Dinoco, who seemed very angry.

“You did it, didn’t you?”

“Did what Dinoco,” I sighed, “you’ll have to be a bit more specific.”

“You made that blog anyway.”

“Yes, I did, but how did you find out anyway,” I had to ask because it wasn’t like I had left my browser open on it or anything.

“Your browser history of course.”

Of course.

“Well, I don’t really need it now anyway,” I was trying to rile him up at this point by sounding flippant about it, “I got oral confirmation straight from the source that the new guy in the fancy suit is the same guy in the hooded sweatshirt who saved me about a month ago.”

“Wait, you saw him again? What happened?”

“Um,” I didn’t know if I really wanted to tell my brother that I had been attacked again. I was fairly certain that if I did, he probably wouldn’t let me go out alone ever again. He’d have friends do some sort of buddy system thing with me or ask Oliver to do it since we were such good friends.

Actually, I wouldn’t have minded it at all if he had had Oliver do it. I probably would have enjoyed having an excuse to spend more time with my best friend.

“Well, what happened?”

“I went to go post those flyers at the library like you wanted me to do,” I told him, “when I was done, there were three guys behind me with weapons demanding that I hand over all of my money and valuable items, but then Thunderstrike swooped in and fought them.”

“Danica, why the heck were you doing that at night,” he had completely ignored the fact that I had been rescued and had zeroed in on the fact that I had been attacked.

“Don’t start with me Dinoco, you do dangerous and stupid stuff too, so don’t even get me started.”

We pretty much continued verbally fighting for at least a good five minutes more before we were interrupted in our argument by the sound of the doorbell. My anger diffused and gave way to confusion as I looked to the door and back to my brother. He shrugged, so I guess he hadn’t ordered pizza or anything. Shame. Pizza sounded really good right about now. Since I was still the closest to the door, I went over and looked through the peephole. I was pleasantly surprised to see Oliver standing there with what looked like a box of pizza. I knew there was a reason that I had a massive crush on him besides his good looks, personality, his love of superhero comics, movies, and TV shows. I quickly opened the door to let him in, a big smile across my face.

“For a moment, I thought you two had forgotten that we were gonna hang out and have game night,” he chuckled as he came in through the door, handing the box of pizza off to my brother as I closed and locked the door behind him, “I wasn’t interrupting anything, was I?”

I was pretty sure that he knew that he had, my brother and I were certainly not whispering when we were fighting and our door was definitely not soundproof.

“It was nothing really, we were just having a stupid fight,” I replied, wanting nothing more than to make sure that my brother had no reason to pick back up again with Oliver here to witness it all. Unfortunately, it was too late for that.

He had heard his opening to get back at it and this time do it in front of my crush.

“She decided to put those flyers out a couple hours ago and could have died,” he informed Oliver and even though I didn’t look over, I could just hear the devious smile spread over his muzzle. “Yeah, but I didn’t, so let’s let it go,” I responded, trying really hard to kill the conversation.

“How did you get out of that though,” Oliver inquired as I breezed past him to grab the board games.

“Thunderstrike swooped in and saved me,” I told him in the very briefest of terms, “he has a fancy new suit now.”

“Pics or it never happened sis,” my brother called out from the kitchen.

I looked over at Oliver and we both rolled our eyes.

“I do want details later though,” Oliver whispered as he passed by me and went into the living room.

“Fine, but you’d better not lecture me like Dinoco,” I scowled playfully.

“I make no promises,” he laughed, setting up the first game of the night, which was Trivial Pursuit.

I came over and helped him out, by the time that we had finished setting up Dinoco had come over with the plates, napkins, sodas and the pizza. Two boxes of pizza, nine cans of soda, two games of Trivial Pursuit, several rounds of Super Smash Bros and one broken vase later we were done with game night and had started cleaning up. My brother being in charge of cleaning up the vase because he was the one who broke it during his victory dance after defeating me at one game of Super Smash Bros by the skin of his teeth. While Dinoco cleaned up his mess, Oliver and I cleaned up the dishes together in the kitchen. He washed, I dried. As promised, I told him about what had happened. He was a great listener, just nodded his head and didn’t ask too many questions that it made it hard to tell my story.

“Sounds like you had quite the eventful night then,” he chuckled by the end of my retelling of the events, “I’m glad you’re safe though.”

“Thanks, I’m glad I am too,” I replied, giving him a smile, “I just wish that I had remembered to thank him.”

“I’m sure he doesn’t need to be told,” Oliver stated, “it’s the nature of the job. I’m sure he knows that the people he’s saved are thankful.”

“You think so?”

“I think you and I have both read enough comics to know so,” he chuckled.

I laughed, he had a good point, but I still wanted to thank Thunderstrike in person.

“I ended up making that blog by the way,” I told him, figuring it was better to tell him than let my brother do it. He was bound to find out anyway.

“Oh? And how did that turn out? How many crazies stopped by to tell their wild stories?”

“It didn’t. I got absolutely nothing,” I laughed, “no crazies, no one who knew anything or seen anything about Thunderstrike.”

“Well, it’s bound to attract attention eventually,” he said, “when it does, just be careful okay?”

“Promise.”

****

After that night, my blog thankfully did start to get more hits. It seemed as if Thunderstrike had become more active since then. The burst in attention in my blog caused a change to my daily routine. I looked forward to waking up and reading a new report about what Thunderstrike had been up to. I often found myself smiling as I read through posts people made on my blog about what he had done. Especially when reports started to circulate that he had started writing messages on note cards that he would leave with the criminals he would apprehend. It reminded me of Spider-Man and I couldn’t help but wonder if that had been his inspiration, which then made me curious about whether or not he was a fan of superheroes and was taking inspiration from them. What I wouldn’t have given to have a sit-down chat with him or something. I’d even settle for brief interviews with Thunderstrike like Iris would have with the Flash in the early days before she found out his identity. I was pretty sure that was never gonna happen though. Those things had happened for Iris because Barry was her best friend and he had a huge crush on her. Thunderstrike didn’t know me at all, at least I assumed so. I was back to that thought process again. The one I was constantly going back to. Who was he? What if I do know him? But every time that I went down that road, I’d reach a dead end. The only new information that even made me wonder if he was someone I knew was the fact that he had obviously used a voice changer when he spoke to me. If he didn’t know me...would he use that? Maybe, but in all the instances that I could think of in which heroes had used voice changers or modified their voices when speaking to someone who was not a criminal, it was because they knew the person and didn’t want to risk the chance that they would be recognized by their voice. I had tried to discuss these theories with both my brother and Oliver, but I got the impression that they really wanted me to just drop it. Dinoco often citing just about every comic book in which the woman who had too much interest in finding out who the hero was often winding up in the most danger. Oliver was less outright disapproving than Dinoco, he wouldn’t lecture me and he had no qualms listening to me throw out my theories, talking to me and tossing about theories, but by the end of things he always seemed to be worried. Eventually, I decided to just keep my theories and ponderings on Thunderstrike to myself. If I really couldn’t keep them to myself because they were really good, I would still find myself ending up telling Dinoco and Oliver though. Things continued on in this way for a little over a month and a half. Each day of that time I would learn something new about how Thunderstrike would operate, but nothing else substantial that might help me be able to find him so that I could finally thank him. I had come to start to lose hope and that I should give up on my goal of being able to see Thunderstrike again so that I would be able to thank him when things quickly took a dramatic turn one night in October.

****

It was a week before Halloween, I had just purchased my Halloween costume from a nearby shop in town after having closed Super Twins Comics an hour ago and I had headed back to my car. My life probably wouldn’t have changed forever if I had just driven away from my store and back home like I was going to if I hadn’t remembered that I had forgotten the comic book that I had left under the counter in the shop that I was planning to give to Oliver the next day. He had been talking to me at lunch that day, as we always did, but on that day we had had a very long in-depth conversation about how different heroes had gone about handling major crime organizations. I had brought up an obscure comic which he had never read, so I had told him I’d grab it from my own personal inventory and let him read it. After debating whether or not I should grab it, I decided that it was just best to go in and grab it. I didn’t want the issue stolen or anything, I’d never forgive myself if it did. So I got out of my car, unlocked the store and headed in. I hadn’t even bothered to turn on the lights when I did so because it was just under the counter and I knew my way around the shop so well that I didn’t need to turn on the lights. I had already grabbed the comic book and was halfway to the door when I heard a groan come from the back room. I paused. Was it a criminal? Was it Dinoco? I had no idea, but I came back to the counter and put the comic book on the counter and grabbed the nearest object I could find that I could use to defend myself and headed to the back room.

“Hello,” I called out hesitantly as I stood in the doorway.

My question was answered with a groan, it sounded like someone in a great deal of pain. Despite that, I didn’t lower the fire extinguisher as I headed inside and flicked the lightswitch on. The sight that met me caused me to gasp in surprise as it was quite literally the last thing that I thought I would find in my backroom. It was Thunderstrike. And he did not look good at all. He was lying on the floor and looked like he had been pretty badly beaten up, so much so that he was bleeding out onto the carpet.

“Oh my gosh,” were the first words out of my mouth because I was panicking.

“I’m not going to hurt you Danica,” he told me, grunting in pain as he maneuvered himself to look at me.

“How do you know my name,” I inquired, really freaked out that he knew my name. I glanced down at my shirt quickly to double check that I wasn’t still wearing my name tag. I wasn’t.

So how did he know?

“I know your name because you know mine,” he groaned again as he re-adjusted his position once more so that he could sit up and look at me before he pulled his blue hood down.

And then he took the mask off.

And then I saw him.

And then everything about him became so unbelievably clear.

“Oliver,” I said, somehow, I felt like I should have known it was him. Somehow, I also couldn’t even be mad at him for not telling me because he had pretty much re-enacted one of my favorite scenes from season one of Arrow.

He coughed and gave me a weak half-smile, “I suppose everything about me just became so unbelievably clear now, huh?” He knew, because of course he did.

“You gotta go to a hospital Oliver,” was my knee-jerk response to the sight of how much blood he’d lost onto the carpet in the backroom. As soon as the words had come out though, I knew that he would tell me no and he of course did just that.

“If you tell me I have to take you to your father’s old factory in the Glades we’re going to need to have a serious conversation,” it was hard to joke considering the state he was in, but it was all I could do to prevent myself from being scared and scared wasn’t productive.

He laughed weakly, “No, my dad doesn’t have one of those and I think the nearest place called ‘the Glades’ is several hours away. No, I just need you to take me to my house if you could please.”

Fortunately, he could walk to the car, but it was more like a hobble and it was still a challenge to say the least.

“I wish you had just broken into my car and gotten into the back seat of it in the first place,” I joked once I had gotten him inside and had started driving to his house. He chuckled, but that was the last thing that I really heard from him because he passed out from blood loss after that. When I reached his house, I tried very hard to get him out of the car myself, but he was entirely too heavy for me to move by myself.

“Oliver, Oliver,” I was trying to wake him up long enough to ask him if there might be someone inside his house who could help him. Unfortunately, he had lost too much blood for me to be able to do that. I unlocked the door and ran into the house, calling out as loudly as I could to try to see if there was anyone in there who could help me out, but there was no one in there. I ended up making the executive decision to call Dinoco to get him to help me out. The seconds that ticked by as I waited for him to pick up his phone were agonizing, when he finally picked up, I didn’t even let him get a word in.

“Dinoco, I need you to drive to Oliver’s house right now, now he’s been badly injured and we can’t take him to a hospital,” I began very rapidly, I heard him try to ask something, but I cut him off, “it’s a long story, but it’s not important right now. I need help! He’s really heavy.”

“Alright, I’ll be right over sis,” he said, hanging up.

I was left there to spend some time alone in Oliver’s house. I wasn’t sure what to do, I wanted to pace around, to go back to Oliver and check on him. Something. Anything. I supposed that I might as well take a look around to see if I could find out where his “bunker” was located, because he must have had one and it had to have some sort of medical equipment. Right? He had to. It was pretty much a vigilante requirement. So I diligently searched the house from top to bottom looking for something to trigger a secret entrance or something. It took some time, by the time I had found it my brother had just pulled into the drive. Together, we lugged him in and set him on a table, getting to work on fixing him up best we could. Both of us praying that all those years of watching heroes doing self-surgery or getting medical attention from their sidekicks or something on TV shows and movies was enough to help us save his life.

****

After several blood bags, no less than twelve stitches, two heart re-starts, and at least three separate terrifying times in which I had honestly thought that I had killed my best friend later: Oliver was alive and well despite his best efforts not to be. I was relieved when he finally regained consciousness. His first words out of his mouth were, honest to gosh: “I guess I didn’t die…again. Cool.”

He was referencing that same episode of Arrow that he had been referencing earlier and I knew it. He was trying to lighten the mood, but I was still pretty scared. I probably would have hugged him if I thought that it wouldn’t hurt him and send him into cardiac arrest again or something. I was also so very frustrated with him for how much he had scared me that I also wanted to punch him in the shoulder, but I didn’t want to hurt him more than he already was. It was a very rapid emotional roller-coaster ride that I was on in which I couldn’t really act physically upon any of the emotions that coursed through me.

“I’m really glad that you’re alive Oliver,” was the comment that I had ended up settling on making for lack of any idea of something better to say. It wasn’t like there was a script for instances when you find out your best friend and crush is a vigilante. Okay, that was probably a lie. There was probably a script and it probably belonged to an episode of a superhero television show and that show had to be The Flash, but that was entirely not the point.

“So am I,” Oliver replied, giving me a weak smile, I was pretty sure that he knew what I hadn’t been saying, “I’m sorry Danica.”

“I’m sorry too because I have absolutely no idea what’s going on here,” Dinoco interjected, I almost glared at him, I wanted to just shove him outside and lock the door so Oliver and I could just talk. Alone. This was a conversation that really should have just been the two of us and I didn’t really want my twin brother to be a part of it. That was quite literally the last thing that either of us needed.

“I’ll explain later Dinoco, just...go outside the room, okay,” Oliver requested, I appreciated that he apparently felt the same way I did about this conversation that we needed to have. When Dinoco had left and the door was completely shut, we both turned to each other.

“Why didn’t you tell me Oliver?”

“I wanted to...so many times,” he began, “believe me, I did.”

“Why didn’t you then?”

“Because I was afraid of what might happen. How it would impact our relationship.”

“Why did you think that it would? You know that I-,” I almost said it, but I just couldn’t bring myself to say those words to him, not right now, “you know that I’ll always be there for you.”

“I know, I was afraid you…” he hesitated, “I was afraid that you wouldn’t want to hang out with me or be associated with me anymore because of what I do and how it puts a target on my back.”

“I think that I can say with a great deal of confidence that that definitely wouldn’t have driven me away from you, I think that your being a masked vigilante is a nice selling a point,” I laughed, “I would have wanted to help you out, be your girl Friday or something.”

“Do you think that you would still want to be? After all this?”

“Be what?”

“My girl Friday?”

“I think I’d have to think about it,” I told him, “this whole thing kinda makes me question things. I mean, you don’t seem to trust me. If you did, you certainly would have told me, right?”

“I do trust you Danica! I trust you more than anyone else,” he practically shouted as he pleaded his case to me, “the truth is that I didn’t trust myself. I didn’t even know if I was going to keep doing it. I almost quite a couple times. If I did...I didn’t see the reason to ever need to tell you if I decided to stop.”

“Why would you want to stop anyway? You’re really good and you seem to really enjoy it.”

“To be honest, there’s only one person that would make me want to stop,” he began, “I would do anything if you told me to.”

I blinked, trying to process what he was saying, I wasn’t really sure how to reply to such a statement, “Why would you say that?”

“Because...you’re really important to me,” he answered, seeming quite flustered to me.

“Why,” I asked once more, this was clearly becoming a repetitive question for me to ask him.

“Our friendship...the way I feel about you…” he trailed off and I couldn’t help but wonder if he felt the same way I did. If that was why he wasn’t being quite so...succinct.

“H-how exactly do you feel about me and how does that-” I was trying to push him to say it or say something to the contrary of what I was thinking, but I never finished the question because suddenly he was kissing me. It was...mind-blowingly amazing. Not just because he was a phenomenal kisser, but also because it was unexpected and took my breath away. In that moment, I knew that everything had changed. And I couldn’t possibly have been happier.