Mandy was of the opinion that every city where a hero and a villain decided to stay would sooner or later be in dire need for someone with her skillset. Another thing she was convinced of was that she, on the other hand, was not in need of any kind of heroes or villains. If nothing else then because their presence always ended up with her having to move. 

Again.

Looking around her new flat she already missed her old home. The well-known sounds of her neighbors were missing. The rhythm of the traffic outside her windows was all wrong. And was that a moldy patch she saw in the corner? She didn't want to know and decided that she would take a look later. Or maybe never. 

But even with all of that there was no way she would return to her previous home of her own free will. It had started to get a little overrun, so to speak. And just as she had been ready to throw a dart at the nearest map and move to wherever it landed, the headlines had started to appear. 

"NEW HERO IN TOWN: COMPETITOR OR COLLEAGUE?" they had asked.

"DOES THE ARRIVAL OF A NEW HERO INDICATE A RISE IN VILLAIN ACTIVITY?", read another. 

In the end, she hadn't thrown a dart at a map but her decision process had been every bit as random, and packing her boxes had been an easy choice. Moving halfway across the country took less than a week – she had been prepared for something like that to happen. She didn't have a lot of things anyway. No doubt she would be missed by some, but she would soon turn into nothing more than an urban legend. 

She hoped this would be a new start. This time she didn't want to move, and she couldn't come up with a reason why he would decide to come here. There were no reports of supervillains in this city, and as far as she could tell one of the heroes from the neighboring city kept an eye out for this city too. 

Shaking her head she gripped her coat and headed out, locking the door of her new flat behind her. This would do just fine. Now she just needed to find a job to pay the rent. There was no stopping the wheels then they first started spinning, all she could do was pray. Those who needed her would find her soon enough anyway. They always did.

•••

It hadn't taken her long to find a job at a rundown coffee shop at the undefined borderline between a nice neighborhood and a part of the city inhabited by nothing but office buildings. In truth, it had been easy finding a job. There were too many hours to fill and too few people to work them. What had been infinitely more difficult was finding a job she was able to live off of. The job at the coffee shop was a compromise: it offered her enough odd hours that she could make her everyday life function while the place itself didn't attract more attention than she liked. 

And for a while everything felt normal. She woke up, made breakfast, took a bath, went to work, went home, ate dinner, and went to bed. Sometimes she bought groceries or walked four blocks over to the local library. Sometimes she strolled through the streets as she tried to become familiar with her new home. 

And she even agreed to go on a couple of blind dates using a dating profile under an alias, and once or twice she ended up spending the night with her date. But none of them graduated from the first to the second date although Pete might have stood a chance if he hadn't turned out to have some very profound opinions that Mandy just couldn't reconcile with. The chocolate he had bought her, lasted longer than he did. The flowers too. 

A couple of weeks into the job, her boss had realized that Mandy accepted any and all shifts, and so she ended up having her fair share of closing and opening duties. Mandy didn't mind that much; it kept her out of the shop when the lunch rush came in. 

What she did mind was a couple of months later when the evening clientele suddenly shifted. It was no longer a secretary working late or a businessman on his way home from work, but a different kind of person

Well, some of them were businessmen and secretaries and some of them might even have lived nearby, but they didn't come for the coffee. They came to talk. 

Mandy had no choice but to listen, and so she learned of a string of bank robberies a full twenty four hours before the police did, of the best way to delete your search history from an office laptop, the tell tale signs of the local heroes and villains, and of the undivided loyalty the Spider's informants held for the still – to most of the world – unknown supervillain. 

One night a tired looking man entered the shop and plopped down on a chair just next to the counter. 

'What can I do for you today?' Mandy asked. They were the only people in the room. 

'You know what, Mandy?' he asked her. 

Mandy pressed her lips together until they had turned into a thin line. She didn't know and judging from his tone of voice, she didn't want to know. 

'A latte?' she asked in a feeble attempt to distract him from what he was about to say. 

'If you ever get bored,' he slurped, 'I think she would like you very much.'

A subtle stench of booze made its way into Mandy's nostrils, and a quiet sigh left her lips. At least it explained why he was so talkative tonight. The man had visited the shop several times the last month, and though he liked to talk neither he nor anyone else ever talked about her. She was like a closely guarded secret and Mandy still hadn't met anyone willing to spill. 

'Black coffee then,' she said and turned her back towards the man. 

Her hands moved at their own accord. She had been here long enough to know when to hit the machine on the side and when to give the handle another turn. Tonight, blessedly, it behaved. 

'Very nice, our lady,' he continued as Mandy placed his coffee in front of him. 'Awfully lonely if you ask me. I don't think she sleeps enough, Mandy.'

'She probably doesn't,' Mandy agreed as she started swiping down the tables. 

'Maybe you could talk to her. Maybe it would help if she had someone willing to listen, and you are very good at listening, you know that?'

Mandy made a nonconsensual sound. 

'And with the media that has started to blame her for everything, she really didn't need that. And on top of that new hero-dude that has started to make a name for himself.'

Mandy froze with the dishcloth in one hand and an empty mug in the other. 

'The hero?' she asked but the man didn't even register her question. 

'He was pretty known until a couple of years ago. Went of the radar, he did. Too bad, helping with the flood after that god awful storm, he could have gone all the way.'

Mandy stopped listening. Every bone in her body told her to run, but her mind had frozen. It couldn't be. The man was talking about a different hero. He had to be. 

He had to, Mandy told herself as she plastered on her brightest smile. 

Pulling the man to his feet, she met his eyes. 'Go home, sleep. This conversation never happened, and you won't mention it to anyone, okay?' 

'Okay, Mandy,' the man repeated back to her. 

She didn't let go of his arm before she was sure he would do as told. As he stumbled out of the shop, Mandy barely had time to turn the sign or pull down the blinds before her body betrayed her and she fell to the floor gasping for air.