Does Velvet Vixen even like being a superheroine

Madame Mirage leans in close again, resting her chin on her knuckles, eyes glimmering with a deeper kind of mischief—less teasing, more probing.

“Do you even like being a hero, darling?” she murmurs, voice dipped in velvet. “Or is this just you playing dress-up in your own fantasy?”

Velvet Vixen doesn’t flinch. She meets the magician’s gaze—her entire body no bigger than Mirage’s hand, and yet her stare holds the kind of weight that would silence a ballroom.

“Of course I like it.”

Her voice is steady. Controlled.

“But that doesn’t mean I don’t question it. Every day.”

Mirage arches an eyebrow.

“Oh?”

“I’m not bulletproof. I’m not a ninja. I can’t fly. I don’t have super gadgets or some secret tech lab under my apartment.” Vixen breathes out slowly. “Most nights I’m chasing people I can’t catch… wearing heels that blister.”

Mirage blinks, caught slightly off-guard by the honesty.

“So why do it?”

Velvet Vixen lifts her chin.

“Because someone has to. Because it’s real to me.”

She smirks faintly.

“And maybe I like the fantasy. But it doesn’t mean I’m pretending.”

The silence that follows is different than before. Heavier.

Mirage leans back, blinking once, then slowly begins to twirl her wand again—though with less flair this time.

“Interesting,” she murmurs. “So you do like being a hero… even if it’s killing you a little at a time.”

She stands slowly, towering over Velvet Vixen once again, but no longer with the same air of smug superiority. More like… calculated interest.

“You are a complicated little sparkplug, aren’t you?”

She exhales through her nose and twirls the wand once more, more thoughtfully this time.