Crimson Fox...works an office job?

The news didn’t have much direct coverage from the event at the Metropolis Women’s Society. Compared to Brandon’s previous antics, this one had a low opportunity for photographs and videos to be hoarded and distributed across the world; almost all of the witnesses were also victims, and they were too busy exploring themselves and each other to preserve the moment on camera. There was plenty of after-the-fact evidence, though, more than enough to confirm the existence of a fourth (Fifth? Ninth? Commentators were still debating it.) amulet in the wild. With scant new footage to parade in front of thirsty viewers, the pundits mostly replayed their talking points: the Justice League is irresponsible this, Luthor is clearly innocent that, women around the globe blah blah blah. The surreptitious glee Brandon got from knowing he was the non-supervillain terrorizing the world didn’t benefit from hearing the same things over and over, so he focused on his final amulet-planting mission.

By his count, only three members of the League remained unsullied by his efforts. One was Stargirl, whose time on the Watchtower rarely overlapped with his. Something seemed to be occupying her during normal working hours, and there hadn’t been any opportunities for him to apply for an after-hours shift, not with his co-workers equally interested in overtime pay. The second was Hawkgirl—who really should have been Hawkwoman, but that was an editorial for another time—and she had escaped his attention mostly because pinning her down was borderline impossible. She didn’t have set hours on the Watchtower, she lived with at least one man who also had superpowers (whether Solomon Grundy counted as a man was an interesting theory, and Brandon didn’t intend to test it out), and her visible role in the Thanagarian invasion strongly restricted the public’s interest in treating her as an ambassador. There simply weren’t any times he knew for sure he could get her alone and definitely no times he could get her in public surrounded by women. In both cases, he’d have to take opportunities as they came and hope women fell into his lap.

He’d noticed a lot more sex puns in his thoughts these days. Maybe supervillains came about them naturally.

His other target was a missed opportunity in more ways than one. Crimson Fox was one of the League’s most overlooked members, a background heroine who only showed up when the entire roster was out in ****. He thought that a crying shame, because it demonstrated the Justice League’s narrow focus on the United States and relative ignorance of the wide world of capable heroes. (He’d done the math one time, and the U.S.A. was the most popular home country of Justice League members. Second was space.) But also, she was an acrobat built like a goddess in an outfit so tight she probably didn’t need to take it off to see her dermatologist. One would think there were some candid photos of her in compromising positions with her assets in beautiful focus, but nope! Anything he could find about her was written in a language he had not learned from Chinese take-out menus. She was, in the eyes of the media, a non-entity. Today Brandon would fix that.

Her calendar had only said, ominously, “office”. That was fine with him. If she was some important person with her own office, he’d have privacy. If she was some random paper-pusher, first, how did she keep her job with all that time off for saving lives because Brandon could use some tips about skipping work, and second, a random company would be a great way to make some waves, either by shaming the women in a male-dominated office where plenty of people would happily record the events for posterity or by turning a female-dominated office into an accidental phone sex hub. He would ride after Crimson Fox when she left the Watchtower via teleporter, show up in whatever secret location she had, scope out the situation, and plan his attack.

And then she popped into a room that already had somebody else in it because of course she did this was exactly what he was afraid of.

Brandon did not panic per se. In getting his bearings, he saw a person besides him and Crimson Fox, and before he hopped backward into the magic science tunnel he thankfully realized it was a woman. She sat behind a desk far too big and far too clean, casually tippy-tappying away on her computer while a superhero fell out of space not five feet away. Straight red hair fell to her shoulders around an eerily-familiar face gorgeous enough to compete with any of the models he had recently “met”. A just-tight-enough blouse, unbuttoned to show just-too-much-enough cleavage, and an a-line skirt failed wildly to hide a build the envy of any heroine, and her hose-clad legs ended in white-soled heels probably more expensive than his rent. She didn’t pay a glance to Crimson Fox, only continued her work while her visitor sank into a low, plush chair on the other side of the office. “Aueoe oaia ieueoeo, eiauaue ieoua?”

Ah, Hell, of course she spoke French.