'You had time to call the police.' The Spider looked the trembling woman up and down. 'Why didn't you?' 

Shaking off the remnants of her shock but not the trembling of her limbs, Mandy moved over to the door and turned the sign over. 

"Closed," it read from the outside. She let the blinds shut close one by one as slowly as possible, buying time before she had to face the Spider. 

'You wouldn't have come here if you didn't need my help,' she said as she turned around. What she wouldn't have done for it not to have been the case. 

'And if I had called the cops, one of the heroes,' this was said with such disdain that it surprised the Spider, 'would have turned up too and then everyone would have known.'

'You are not fond of heroes,' the Spider said as she followed the woman with her eyes. The woman moved over to the counter. 

'I'm no more fond of villains, you know,' she said. 'Coffee?'

The Spider blinked. Before she could answer, the woman's hands were moving through the well-known routine of emptying and refilling the coffee machine. As the woman placed two steaming cups of coffee down on the table, her hands had stopped trembling. As they sat there - the woman sipping her coffee, the Spider staring with her arms crossed - the silence stretched on between them. 

'How come you became a super? When I first came, there were merely whispers of villains roaming the streets,' the woman took a sip of her coffee, 'not a super pulling the strings.'

The Spider finally picked up her coffee, a smile threatening to break out behind her mask. 

'When a superhero comes to town, it is time to up your game a bit. A regular hero or two? There are plenty of minor villains who can handle them. But a superhero? That requires something a little extra.' 

The Spider closed her hands around her cup. Despite having stood on the table a while, it was scalding hot between her fingers. Had she not had her mask on, she would have taken a greedy mouthful of the almost black liquid in the cup.

'I never wanted to become a super,' the Spider continued. 'If those damn heroes would just have stayed away from my town, everything would have been fine.' 

'Eighteen months ago people barely knew I existed and now the newspapers have given me a name. The Spider, they call me. Always siding with the heroes, blaming me for every death in this godforsaken place.' 

Underneath her mask the Spider pulled a sour face.

'They keep trying to infiltrate my network, those fools. My people are as loyal as they come. A little rough around the edges, but they wouldn't betray me.'

'Trust me, I know,' the woman said, thus making the Spider aware of her presence. 'I don't think, I've ever heard a bad word about you from anyone you work with.' 

The woman put down her now empty coffee cup, scrunching up her face.

'Or any word at all for that matter.' The Spider stared at the woman sitting in front of her. Why had she told all that to a coffee shop employee?

She should kill her (or at least threaten to kill her if she talked). The Spider knew that much. But as she reached to pull the dagger hidden in her boot, she physically couldn't get her body to perform the needed steps to do so.

Instead she rose to her feat, caging the woman between her arms. The Spider moved forward until she could feel the warm breath of the woman make her mask move slightly.

'This meeting never happened. If anyone suggests otherwise, I'll find out.' The Spider paused her speech to catch the eyes of the woman. 'Do you understand what I am trying to say?' 

'I-I understand,' the woman said, desperately trying to keep her body from curling in on itself. 'I pro-pro-promise I won't tell a soul.' 

Had the Spider stayed in place just a few seconds longer, the woman would have lost her ongoing battle with her body.

But the Spider didn't. Instead she marched out of the small coffee shop and disappeared into the night, leaving Mandy with a racing heart and an untouched cup of coffee.

•••

Mandy didn't see the Spider for days. In fact she didn't see anyone. The regulars came and went. She made a thousand cups of coffee. She ate, she slept and did everything all over again. It wasn't until a week later - when she saw the headlines - that her routine got severely messed up. 

"SUPERHERO: HAS HE COME TO STAY?"

Later that evening, the Spider came walking in while Mandy was mopping the floor. It was well past closing hours, and Mandy didn't bother lifting her head as the door opened. When the bell above the door started jingling, Mandy just kept mobbing the floor. 

'If you're here to rob the place, the register is unlocked. Just don't leave any footprints on the floor or I'll make you mob it yourself, you hear me?'

But when Mandy finally turned around and lifted her head, she wasn't met with some low class burglar but a pair of vibrant eyes learning out between flowing fabric and golden scales. With the mop halfway down the bucket, she froze. She should have expected this, but she had been too caught up in her own panic to anticipate anything. 

Slowly lowering the mop into the bucket Mandy opened her mouth, 'We are, eh, we're actually closed, you know?' 

'I know,' the Spider said and pulled out the closest chair. 

'Okay,' Mandy mumbled to herself so low that the Spider wouldn't hear. 

'So, what can I do for you?' she asked, this time a little higher. 

The Spider didn't answer. Instead she just stared at the ruffled coffee shop employee. She didn't really know why she had come tonight. Something about the recent events had pushed her to come, but now she didn't know what to say. Instead she just sat there. 

This didn't need her full attention, Mandy decided. She could definitely wrap up while the Spider figured out why she had come. 

Nearly fifteen minutes and a clean floor later, Mandy decided that the silence had lasted long enough. Packing the cleaning utensils away, she picked up her stuff from the backroom. Swinging a marine blue backpack over her shoulder, she turned to the Spider.

'I'm going to go home now. Are you coming so I can lock up the place?' 

The Spider got up from her chair and followed Mandy out into the street. 

'Robberies aren't really my thing,' the Spider said while she watched the other woman box with the door. It clearly needed someone to give it a generous amount of oil, but judging by the facade that wouldn't be happening anytime soon. 

'Trust me, I know,' Mandy said as the lock finally fell into place. 

'Well,' the Spider still didn't know what to say, 'I'll see you around, I guess.'

She was halfway to the nearest streetlight when Mandy's voice made her stop in her tracks. 

'The new super, the one you've been keeping taps on? He is bad company. You should watch out for him. And you might consider reading the articles in Ground Zero Journal all the way back to August five years ago. They got some first class journalists on their payroll.'

The Spider just stared as Mandy turned on her heels and walked into the night, leaving a befuddled villain in her wake. 

A/N: Thank you kindly for sticking with the story. If you enjoyed it, please feel free to leave a like or a comment (and it would make my day if you could spare a couple of minutes to tell me what you think of Mandy and the Spider so far)