Our protagonist faces consequences at work.

He knew there would be consequences. After his field trip to Blackgate prison and a reverse gangbang not even the other participants knew about, he expected some fallout from his place of business. Shortly after Brandon returned to the Watchtower and resumed his job, his manager pulled him aside and asked, politely, where on Earth he had been for the last several hours. Obviously, answering honestly would get him fired, jailed, interrogated by people with superpowers, and possibly killed by a vengeful hero or a LexCorp assassin who wanted to close loose ends, in no particular order. Luckily, he had spent the entire flight back clinging to anything more stable than his own trembling knees and thinking of how he would handle this exact situation.

At his last job, Brandon would say he had been cleaning something in an obscure corner of the facility. He didn’t see any reason the same excuse wouldn’t work in space. But the Justice League had a slightly higher standard of “clean” than LexCorp, who kept their public areas spic and span while their main facilities were scrubbed just enough to avoid a lawsuit or government investigation. His manager would no doubt ask to see the fruits of his labors, and that was a charade Brandon couldn’t keep up for long. He needed a better idea.

In trying times like these, Brandon had an old, reliable escape hatch he saved for dire circumstances: tell a lie that seems too embarrassing to be false. With what he felt was exactly the correct amount of regret, he told his manager he hadn’t slept well the night before and simply wasn’t able to work. He had noticed a gap in the Watchtower’s security and used the space to catch a quick catnap, but since he didn’t have any electronic devices he couldn’t set an alarm and thus slept far longer than intended. He was sorry, it wouldn’t happen again, he understood if he’d have his pay docked, and so on, all while intentionally failing to look his manager in the eye. At LexCorp, admitting to something like that would have him out on the street within an hour. Here, he hoped the honestly—or a reasonable imitation of it—would earn him some leeway.

As expected, his manager wasn’t happy. He also demanded to see the place Brandon had taken his nap, and Brandon took him to one of the hallways with a low camera presence, sacrificing one of his routes into the women-only section of the Watchtower to support his lie. What followed was a perfectly understandable lecture about work ethic and discipline, and an admonition in the form of sacrificing his earnings for the day…and then a reminder that the Justice League’s sick leave policy did not require justification except in the case of unusually frequent absences or a single absence longer than five consecutive days. That was to say, if Brandon couldn’t work one day because of a lack of sleep, he only had to call in and say he was taking a sick day. And just he took it, no questions asked. He could even take a half-day without warning if he started his shift and found he couldn’t finish it. There was no need to put himself at physical risk in the future.

Brandon did not have to fake utter shock. Was this what work was like for the good guys? Decent pay, sick leave, a modicum of job security, and managers who wanted to aid his well-being instead of bosses who only cared about how they looked to their own bosses? No wonder the villains lost all the time. He would gladly stick around if this was how they treated their employees (except he was pretty sure his current gig had much better benefits in the form of lusty super-powered women and not being killed in his bed for daring to defy Luthor himself).

And while he was still reeling, his manager leaned in close and said “Look, Brandon, you do good work. I know it’s mind-numbing and tedious and not great on your knees, but I see you giving it your all. It really feels like you’re here to support the League, not just collect a paycheck. If you want to take a long lunch now and again, I think you’ve earned it. Just don’t disappear for a whole afternoon. That’s the sort of thing that puts a black mark on your career track, you know?”

“Career” was a strange word to Brandon. Custodial work was a dead-end job, right? People did it because they had no other meaningful skills and nowhere else to go. That was his impression and the mood around LexCorp, and he would leave it in a second if he could. Sure, it required a lot of effort, and skill in time management and task prioritization, and knowledge of chemicals and the ability to use them safely, and the willingness to respond quickly to emergency situations, and awareness of the health and well-being of people around him, and a thorough understanding of mechanical and electronic facilities such that cleaning materials caused no breakdown in holy shit he realized he was skilled labor and had been this whole time.

His entire worldview changed in a single conversation, his sense of self rose to the ceiling, he’d gotten tacit approval from his own manager to disappear for short bursts of time to perform extracurricular activities, and there was a pretty good chance he had put somewhere between one and five kids into some of the planet’s sexiest women. It was the best day of his life.

He did watch the actual news for once, just in case. As expected, the top story was the escape at Blackgate. But despite four stations covering the event, none mentioned the naked, creampied women who fought each other in the cell block. The nudity and sex were being kept nicely under wraps, known only to the people present and the people they were willing to tell. No doubt the whole League knew of it by this point, but if they were keeping it secret from the world at large, he certainly wasn’t going to advertise his own involvement.

Understandably, by the beginning of the next day’s shift there was a camera guarding the blind spot he had revealed to his manager. The Justice League worked fast when it came to security breaches. But he had others, and he didn’t even need them at the moment. He had other plans for his sperm, all based around a little device he had stolen from Batwoman. Getting it out took some doing, a careful balancing act that involved passing it around the security scanners while wearing the amulet so the girl at the front desk didn’t notice him, but sitting on his thrift-store coffee table at home was a tracking device capable of leading him straight to Harley Quinn. The Justice League could have a day without his attentions. Tonight he was taking some of the villains out of the game.