"Good evening Miss Terrare," the snooty guy guarding the front entrance to Skyhigh said.

I nodded. "Nice to see you again, Thompson."

Selena leaned in and whispered just loud enough that I could hear her. "Terrare? Where'd you come up with that ridiculous name? Don't you usually go with Terror?"

I patted the hand she'd wrapped around my arm and turned my head just enough that I was talking right in her ear. After all, it was entirely possible there was someone out there listening in on this conversation, and I didn't want to give up too much thank you very much.

"Things have been heating up lately. I figure you of all people would appreciate the value of a good secret identity."

"So is your real name even Natalie?" she asked.

"Is your real name even Selena?" I responded.

It was a silly question. I already knew her real name was Selena. All the records I'd had CORVAC dig up on her after we figured out who she was indicated she'd been Selena Solare since she first arrived on this world and started creating a paper trail.

Though it was more like an electronic trail in this day and age. Either way there'd been enough of a footprint in the system that I was sure that was her name, but I also figured there was an off chance she might slip up and tell me her secret name from her home world or something.

Assuming the operating assumption I'd made about her not being from this world was correct. Also assuming she had some way of knowing something about that world even though she'd been on earth since she was a baby if the records were to be believed.

It was almost as though she'd been born here, but that was impossible considering the powers she'd once had. Somebody somewhere had to be messing with the records.

"That's my name," she said.

"Then yes. Natalie is my name too," I said. "I wouldn't lie to you about that."

Her eyes twinkled as we made our way to the table. "Implying there are some things you would lie to me about?"

"Well yes, there are things I've lied to you about in the past," I said. "But not anymore."

Thompson led us to a table out on a balcony with an impressive view of the city. The lights sparkled, and for a moment I could breathe in the city air. Which wasn't nearly as bad all the way up here as it was down on the ground level where a combination of winds and skyscrapers all around meant everyone was breathing a toxic sludge.

Looking at all those twinkling lights reminded me why they called this place Starlight City. Though ironically enough the city had gotten that name well before the advent of modern skyscrapers.

The traders who originally settled the area enjoyed the night sky so much they named the place after that view.

Also? It was sort of ironic considering light pollution meant that view of the stars had long since been obscured, but most everyone thought of the twinkling buildings these days rather than the twinkling stars thanks to some wily marketing executive who came up with a retcon for the name back on the eighties complete with T-shirts that said I*SLC.

"Look," Selena said.

I followed her gaze. And my good mood was immediately ruined. Down there at the bottom of the concrete canyon was a building that'd been damaged in the last giant robot attack.

There were so many buildings constantly being repaired in this city. The city was a construction company's wet dream.

"Is something wrong with the seat madame?" Thompson asked, his tone clearly conveying that if we thought there was something wrong with the seat then there was clearly something wrong with us.

Selena shook herself. Smiled. I breathed a small sigh of relief.

I'd worried she might be going back into the funk she'd sank into back in the lab. The last thing I needed was for her to sink into another funk. I wasn't sure how I'd get her out of it this time around.

I could only pretend to disintegrate her once. She'd never believe I was actually going to do it moving forward.

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"It's fine," she said with a smile that only looked partially forced. "Thank you so much for showing us to our seat."

Thompson sniffed. It was a sniff that said more than words ever could. It was a sniff that told us he would do his duty and show us to our seats and it would be a wonderful view and, again, if there was something wrong with that then obviously we were the ones who had the problem. Not the Skyhigh.

"Come on," I said, reaching over the table and taking her hands.

Even after being together for months, the simple act of touching her hand still sent a shiver running through me. Like the first time I tried to do a forced reprogramming of CORVAC's central processing units by taking a sledgehammer to some of the chips that made up his systems and he'd retaliated with an electric shock that knocked me on my ass.

Fialux's touch was like that. All the more so now because it had been a while since I got an opportunity to touch her like this. Her touch was electric, and she was perfect.

I'd missed this.

"I'm sorry," she said, looking away from the buildings below. "It's just that seeing that is a reminder that…"

"Look. We're going to take care of you. Don't you worry about it. You're going to be back out there saving the city in no time, and in the meantime you should learn to enjoy what you have."

She looked at me and there was a sparkle to her eyes. I couldn't tell if that sparkle was because she was taking what I said to heart, or if it was because she was on the verge of tears. Again.

I already had trouble dealing with it when she was crying in private. I didn't know how I was going to deal with it if she started doing it out here in public.

"What's that music they're playing down there?" she asked, turning away from me before I could decide whether or not that was mischief or real tears brewing.

I looked down at a level below where we were seated. A band was down there playing for people on the dance floor.

"That sounds like some Glenn Miller," I said.

"Which is?" she asked.

I stared at her. I found myself wondering if I was absolutely right in my suspicion that she was actually a beautiful creature from another world.

Glenn Miller was one of those musical experiences that was universal to everyone. Even if you were born well after the twenties or thirties.

Glenn Miller was also the sort of old school classy stuff they loved playing at this joint, and down below people flowed out of their seats and onto the open air dance floor overlooking the city. Dancers twirled and smiled without a care in the world.

Which seemed odd for Starlight City considering bad shit could go down at any moment. Maybe that was why they were twirling and dancing with such reckless abandon. Take your joy where you could get it, because you never knew when a giant irradiated lizard might stomp you.

"He was really big back around World War II," I said. "Died in a plane crash. It was all very sad, but his music lives on."

"Huh. I think I kind of like it," she said.

"Of course you do," I replied. "You'd have to have no soul not to like this stuff, even if it is a little old timey these days."

"Yeah, I guess that is really old school," she said. "Like that's not even something my grandparents would've listened to."

I filed that one away for future reference. Was that not even something her grandparents would've listened to because she was so young they were probably bigger on Vietnam protest rock? Or was it because her grandparents were aliens from another world who wouldn't have any idea who any earth musicians were?

"Yup," I said, deciding to ignore those obvious questions for now. "It's actually sort of appropriate they're playing something like that here. The dance floor at the Skyhigh got its start back in the days when the biggest villains threatening the world were Hitler and Tojo."

I didn't bother to add anything about how my villainous takeover of the world was going to be a hell of a lot more benevolent than either of those assholes. This was Fialux I was talking with, after all, and that meant she didn't have a particularly nuanced or pleasant view of my career goals.

Which was something that was going to be a problem down the line if we managed to take care of this whole Dr. Lana situation. Honestly the fact that she was a hero and I was a villain just hadn't come up all that much before.

Mostly because she'd been too distracted with all the fun we were having with each other to stop and think about the fact that she was dating a villain who was still very much set on world domination.

"That looks like fun," she said.

That pulled me out of my reverie on the better angels and demons of our conflicting natures and how rather than being a source of relationship conflict it just sort of made everything that much more forbidden, naughty, and hot.

"Shall we dance?" she asked, arching an eyebrow at me.

"That sounds lovely," I said with a smile.

We hadn't danced the last time we were here. Mostly because the weather had been pretty nasty. A flash thunderstorm caused by some wannabe villain who thought they could control the city by controlling the weather. At least they'd thought that until I flew up and blew up their weather machine hovering over the city because I was so pissed off that it ruined my chance to dance with my best girl.

Sure we'd done some horizontal mambo later that night, giggity, but we never got the chance to try real dancing like this. I felt like I was getting a chance to do all the crazy dating things we never got around to when we first got together because that had mostly been about the passionate whirlwind and less about actually getting to know each other.

Not that there's anything wrong with that. Passion and whirlwinds are good things, if you ask me, and it was something I was missing.

Still, this was nice.

And of course that would be the moment our snooty waiter appeared looking like something out of a New Yorker cartoon as he looked down his nose at us. This was the kind of classy joint where the waiters made enough in tips that they could look down on just about everyone else, secure that those tips put them firmly in a much higher tax bracket than your typical waiter down at the Olive Garden.

Though apparently he had that universal waiter superpower of showing up at the worst possible moment and interrupting a moment.

It was lucky for him that my desire to not make a scene and ruin this date night was greater than my desire to reduce him to a puff of molecules to be carried away on the wind.

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