Twin vs Twin: Sidekick and Henchman At The Same Time (Patreon)

What they never tell you about tights is that they're very itchy, and they were definitely not designed for people who had regular human concerns, like being able to breathe. 

Unfortunately, I'd somehow managed to let myself be roped into being present at a heist, and because it was very hard to say no, I'd said yes twice. Jessica and Megan were very persuasive at the worst of times. Usually, I never played the sidekick for Meg unless she needed serious help, and I only ever helped Jess from afar, with planning and logistics.

And now, there I was, in gray tights and a full face mask, tending to the injuries of one of the hostages, who had accidentally been trampled in the panicked rush, as people tried to flee the shopping mall that the city's resident super villain, Deville, had taken over, alongside a small army of thugs.

She'd been building up to this one for a while, the shopping mall was the biggest and juiciest target in the city, and I had actually been privy to her plans for quite some time. A lot of planning and thinking had gone into the heist, on hiring the right people, setting it all up, and investigating her targets... several had been discarded, but ultimately, she had decided on the appropriate targets.

And while she went about striking each of them individually, I was retaking my role as second in command, one which seldom was seen in the field, and making sure that everything was going smoothly. Many of these henchmen were new, after all, and Jess was a very charismatic and personally powerful person, but she didn't have the best head for hiring people. Sometimes she was too lenient with her idiots.

"You'll keep your hands to yourself, or you'll lose those hands," I barked at the thug that was clearly getting a bit too handsy with one of the female hostages as he tied her up. "You, have we collected the phones already?" I asked, pointing at the man with the bag going around.

"Well it'd be faster if we didn't have to tag'em," the henchman grumbled. "Shouldn't we just take the phones?"

I rolled my eyes and resisted the urge to complain. "These can be tracked," I explained, "besides, we're thieves, not assholes," I added. "We'll return them when we're done."

It'd be a waste of a lot of time if people could blow the lid on the operation before it was done, so we couldn't afford to let them keep their phones. And at the same time, they really had no value to us, even the expensive ones, fencing would be too much of a hassle and really we had an image to maintain. Luckily, one of the squad commanders was around. "Fairy, you're in command, I'm going to go check on the situation at the food court. Keep everyone in line," I ordered.

Unlike the rest of the thugs, I was not armed, and my armor was more for show than anything else. I felt pretty safe around these people, everyone knew that touching me would result in their boss taking judicious revenge upon anybody who visited harm upon me. It had only taken one jumped up idiot for everyone else to get the message.

Fairy saluted. "Yes, sir!" she spoke. 

With a nod and a smile, I left that situation to take care of itself and walked away, leaving the thugs to be directed by Fairy, one of Deville's trusted lieutenants, and then ducking into the bathroom to quickly change. While I could not change my clothes using powers like Jess and Meg could, you could definitely change a costume rather quickly if you knew how to do it, and so I did. Neither Jess nor Meg knew that I'd deliberately designed my costume on both ends to be easily replaceable.

The bathrooms had ceiling panels that could easily be removed, and if you removed one of the panels on the ceiling, there was enough space to put in something where it wouldn't be seen, something I'd discovered while casing the place. So I had enough reach to pull out a briefcase containing Firestarter's costume. Firestarter being Blaze's infrequently appearing sidekick, someone whom many thought to be her sibling.

I snorted at the thought as I put on the blue coat over the grey tights and removed my full mask to put on Firestarter's much fancier helmet. Jess preferred function over form, Meg was a flashy kind of girl. I also made sure that the communicator wristband that gave me a direct line to Jess was hidden underneath the white gloves of the Firestarter.

With the costume in place, I quickly made my way to the food court, where I wound up finding the red Blaze and the blue Deville, the unknowing sisters having become locked in combat. Both of them had discarded the grand majority of their costumes. They made those costumes with their power, and they apparently had to maintain those costumes using more power.

Both of them had reduced their fancy costumes to what was essentially a leotard, leaving their thighs exposed. Blaze had a white base with red highlights, with white thighhigh boots, while Deville had a black and blue leotard, black gloves and knee high boots with high heels.

Both of them wielded staves. The fact that neither of them realized that they had quite literally learned how to use said staves from the same martial arts dojo was always hilarious.

They had cleared a large area, and I knew the logic on both ends. Blaze no doubt headed straight for Deville, cut the head off the snake and all, while Deville knew that she was the only person in her organization who could hold off Blaze. All part of the plan.

Fortunately, the same toolbelt that I used in my role as Deville's Number 1 Guy was Firestarter's own toolbelt, and it contained a few quite useful things... among them smoke grenades.

While the girls were distracted, I tossed a smoke grenade right near where they were fighting, and the thick dark smoke soon created a screen that rendered them blind. I then used the communicator wristband that I kept on myself, connecting me to the earpiece Jess was wearing. "Pull back, Firestarter's on the scene, I couldn't stop him, but I'll keep him and Blaze pinned while you go finish at the Jewelry store!"

"R-Right, keep safe!" Jess' answer came through my own earpiece, and soon enough, I saw her exit the smoke cloud, rushing away. No doubt, the smoke would soon be dissipated by Meg. I had to move quickly.

A blazing hot wind, produced by Meg using heat to manipulate pressure and create a small scale explosion, followed the smoke being dissipated.

I quickly rushed to meet her. "Sorry, Blaze, I couldn't stop that blasted henchman of hers, he managed to throw the smoke bomb and a flashbang and get away from me," I said, as I reached her.

Blaze, Meg, huffed, dismissing her staff and shaking her head. "Those dastardly fiends, they're always tricky!" she said. She tried to take a step, but she hissed and got down on her knee. I frowned, she clutched at her ankle. "Ugh, she managed to tag me, I must quickly chase-"

"Hold up," I said, crouching beside her and then scooping her up into a proper princess carry, then taking her into the restaurant. With the mall blocked off from the outside world and damn near everyone in it evacuated and held up elsewhere, I could easily have some privacy here. We'd already taken care of the security system as well, so I had no fear that we were being recorded as I took Meg into the closest restaurant and then into its bathroom. 

She protested as I did so, but without any real heat.

I sat her on the counter with the sinks and looked at her. "Dismiss your boot, I need to see how bad this is," I said.

She pouted, but did as I commanded. It was just a sprain, she'd be fine in a couple minutes. Her powers would help there at least. Still, she hissed in pain as I tested her ankle, and it was obvious that she was actually trying to keep it down. I sighed. "Meg, you shouldn't overtax yourself. This isn't current, you came here with a sprained ankle."

It was swollen already.

She looked aside. "I... maybe," she allowed. "I came flying here anyway, so it didn't matter!"

I smirked. "Should I kiss it better?" I asked.

She blushed. "Nick! Stop being such a weirdo! Pervert!" 

There was a moment's pause.

"Well?" she asked. "Aren't you going to?"

I snorted, cradling her foot and then holding it in place as I came down to kiss her swollen ankle, softly.

She giggled. "Ahh, now I really feel like a princess~!" she said, giggling. "Is everything okay out there? You've been doing recon so long I was starting to get worried."

An unfortunate part of keeping the secret. "Yeah," I said, nodding, "Deville doesn't hurt hostages, but some of her thugs are a bit rowdy."

She sighed. "Ugh, I was only supposed to come here for a publicity stunt!" she grumbled. "Sorry that our date got ruined by Deville..."

Well, if only you knew... I shook my head, then kissed her lips. "Don't worry about it," I said. "You just worry about resting your ankle, and don't step out of here until you're able to walk without using your powers. You're no good fighting Deville if you can't even take a step."

She huffed. "But Niiiiiick!" she complained. 

I chuckled and ruffled her hair. "I know you're a great heroine, and so does everyone else, but just trust me to handle the groundwork so you can fight Deville without interruptions, alright?"

She nodded. "A-Alright, I'll trust you! Love you!"

I nodded, kissed her again, and gave her one last hug. "Me too."

Leaving her there, I made my way back to the bathroom I stored my stuff in, and changed back into my henchman clothes. Number One Henchman was back, and with purpose, I headed to the jewelry store, where Deville had already made short work of the security team, including their superpowered mercenary. 

People tended to forget that Blaze and Deville were the top heroine and villain in the city, because they very frequently fought each other and only each other. It was a bit of a shocker when someone whose powers didn't cancel out either of theirs was made aware of just how powerful they were.

I went into the manager's office, and Jess greeted me, looking in frustration at a set of documents. "Look at this, Nick... I bought a necklace in this place recently," she said. "Blood diamonds, trafficking, money laundering... name a white collar crime, and these guys are involved. As I expected they track all the way back to Make's Domain, as well," she grumbled.

Make's Domain was a criminal organization that was her own organization's worst enemy. Where the heroes could prevent a heist, Make's Domain was essentially their opposite, stealing from the masses to enrich the few. 

I stepped into Jess' guard and kissed her just as I had Meg a few minutes earlier. She melted into my kiss, and I realized she was trembling a bit. 

She'd had to maintain her evil mistress persona for quite some time now, as this was a particularly grand heist, and more importantly, she'd just had a big fight with Blaze that had tested her limits. Meg might've arrived injured, but she was otherwise fresh, while the unhurt Jess was starting to get tired already. 

My hand grabbed at Jess' ass, and I used my free hand to turn her to look at me.

"You're doing great, it's just a little more, I made sure that Blaze was busy, and if we hurry up, we can be finished and leave before she can get free to fight again. Gather up your guys, I'll be disguising myself as a civilian and running interference."

Fortunately, Meg would undoubtedly play along with the idea of not knowing me, as she wouldn't want her Blaze identity and my civilian identity to be connected. 

"I- right," she said, stealing another quick kiss. "I love you."

"Me too," I said, nodding. "Now go ahead and start the retreat."

She nodded. 

Trying to keep the sisters from finding each other's identity out was... a constant struggle.

But later that day, when I saw them laughing and getting along and talking about which was cooler, the villain who got away without a single injured civilian or the heroine who forced an entire organization to retreat, my lovely twin girlfriends certainly made it all worth it.

We sat on the couch to watch a movie. Both of them were exhausted, and leaned on my shoulders. For a moment, while eating popcorn, we all forgot about any sort of crazy arrangements and we simply enjoyed our relaxation time as a strange sort of family. 

Unfortunately the movie we were watching was quite terrible, the effects were lame, and the killer was about as scary as a wet fart. Unfortunately, the only trait that the twins had that was perfectly identical across both of them was just how badly horror movies affected them, so even the worst horror movie was terrible for them...

But it had its upsides, I thought, feeling the warmth of their hands on mine, for once, neither complained nor fought the other, instead simply holding onto my hand and arm, on either side, for dear life, trying to run away from the low-effort movie monster...