It started with a sandwich.
Not a metaphysical metaphor. Not poisoned. Just a slightly squished, overpriced, damn tuna sandwich.
I had been saving it. Treasure of the gods. My breakfast-lunch-dinner hybrid.
But then this punk tried to steal it.
Correction: this villain-in-training, complete with a knockoff costume, tried to mug me in broad daylight. For a tuna sandwich.
"Hand it over, extra," he growled, puffing his chest like I'd be impressed.
Kira, watching from a rooftop with binoculars and popcorn, muttered through my earpiece,
"Don't get yourself hospitalized. I'm not dragging your corpse this time."
Mid-alley, sun behind him, trying way too hard to look dramatic in a faux-leather costume that smelled like cheap glue and burnt plastic.
I blinked. "What?"
He pointed at it like I was holding a hostage. "The sandwich. Or I'll gut you with wire."
…Really?
---
His name—according to the sloppy graffiti on his shoulder pad—was Smokewire. Dumb name. Dumber power. He started explaining like doofenshmirtz that he could generate thin metallic threads from his fingertips and heat them just enough to sizzle on contact.
Might've been dangerous if he wasn't built like a wet noodle.
Still, a wire is a wire.
And I wasn't armed. Or trained. Or confident.
So when he snapped his fingers and a thread whipped toward me—I froze.
Instinct said "duck."
My body said "stand there and regret your life choices."
The wire slashed across my forearm, hot and fast. Skin split. Blood sprayed(not really). My sandwich hit the ground.
I snapped.
---
I'm not proud of what happened next.
There was no heroic leap. No last-second awakening.
Just a clumsy lunge and a tackle that barely knocked him off balance.
He swung wildly with his wires, cutting the air and my hoodie.
I dodged. Not because I was fast—but because panic is an excellent motivator.
We grappled. Rolled.
His wires coiled around my leg—I kicked.
He got in a hit—I elbowed his jaw.
We weren't fighting like heroes.
We were flailing like idiots in a parking lot after school.
But I learned something important in those awful, bloody seconds:
He wasn't better than me.
He just thought he was.
---
Eventually, I got in a good shove and knocked him into a stack of garbage bins.
He slipped, tangled himself in his own wires, and fell flat.
I stood there, heaving, one arm soaked in blood, half my sandwich crushed under my shoe.
We stared at each other.
And in that moment, we both realized the same thing:
Neither of us wanted to keep fighting.
I limped away.
He didn't follow.
---
Ten minutes later, I collapsed in the alley behind our safehouse.
Kira looked down at me, unimpressed.
"You bled for a sandwich."
"I fought for a sandwich," I corrected, holding up the last salvageable piece like it was a war medal.
She snorted. "Congratulations, hero."
---
Later that night, after patching myself up with cheap gauze and stubborn pride, I sat alone on the rooftop.
Next time?
I'd bleed smarter.
---
To be continued…