=== Curt ===

I woke up with a start, glancing around. It was dark. The cityscape outside of the window wasn’t right. For one, the curtains were open and showed the city. And two, it wasn’t where Cindi and I had been staying at for ages. I felt someone shift beside me. Must be Cindi. Did we stop somewhere last night? I thought to myself. I turned, and I saw a flash of blonde hair. Not Cin’s brown. I froze; my breath caught in my throat. I pulled the sheets down a bit and revealed the woman’s face. What the fuck!? I internally screamed.

Smash Gal was lying nude from the waist up in the bed I was sitting in. Her hair was a lot longer than the bob cut she usually wore, but there was no way I could mistake someone with that much muscle for anyone else. I stumbled out and looked around, desperately for anything I could. I saw a case on the night table. I grabbed it and tore it open. It was my rig. Kind of. The design was slightly different, and the base metal wasn’t the same. But it was definitely similar enough. I grabbed that, and my phone and I looked for my glasses. They were nowhere to be found. I took a few deep breaths, trying desperately to stay calm. What the fuck is going on? Why the hell was I in bed with Smash Gal? What the fuck . . . My thoughts constantly cycled through those same sentences over and over again. I took a few deep breaths, trying to find any stability. Alright. What’s the last thing I remember happening? I thought about it. Cin, Tierra, and I just returned from dealing with the Acolytes. We had dinner with Des. Did I get drunk? It was unlikely; I didn’t really drink much. And I couldn’t recall drinking at all.

At a loss, I checked the bathroom, unsure where else they could be. I caught sight of myself in the mirror; I was less scared. And less muscular. Cindi had me bulking up a bit with a regular workout routine, and I’d taken well to it. But this body was slim. Still fit, It was also missing almost all the scars I’d accrued. The one on my arm was still there, where I’d ported partially into a wall, but the gunshots and the cuts were all gone. I hadn’t seen my body this unmarred in years. It’s uncanny; I found a small case on the counter and opened it. There were contacts. They were like the kind I had made for Cindi. I don’t use contacts. I . . . I guess I have no choice. I need to figure out what the fuck is going on. It took a while to get the damned contacts in my eye. I had to look up a tutorial to figure it out. My eyes watered furiously. But once they were there, a GUI appeared. I froze. This . . . isn’t mine. I had designed my own UI and had been working the bugs out of it for years. This is cleaner; neater in a lot of ways. It wasn’t the desperately cobbled together at 3am mess I had made. It was elegant. Capable.

I hated it. I cycled through several options of the most commonly used locations. Work, Home, Kari’s Work, Turanna’s Ristorante, and a bunch of other places I didn’t recognize, including an office building labeled simply as Work. My radius also was a lot smaller. Limited to about 100 miles. Which was large enough for Avalare City, but compared to my hemisphere range, it was pathetic. I shifted. What the hell is going on!? I fit on the rig and snapped my fingers, and the world shifted before me. I was in an office room. The lights were off, but when I moved, the evil fluorescent lights turned on. It was generic. I frowned and left the room, lights turning on as I walked through the office. I didn’t think anything of it. It’s just a workspace. I don’t know why I have a default set here. Then I froze, and my eyes were stuck on the wall. There was a sign hanging there.

Esvanir, Inc.

Recovery and Protection Services.

I stood there staring at the sign, my mind running through every possibility I could think of. Elaborate prank? Any moment now, Ashton Kutcher will jump out and tell me I’m punked. Or maybe I got struck in the head, and I’m in a coma; this is the reality my brain crafted for myself. Maybe I’m dead, and I was wrong, and God does exist, and this is the afterlife, and God, the insufferable prick, still doesn’t show up and give up the game. The lights in the office turned off again, as I had been standing completely still for probably about five minutes. It was genuinely a baffling experience. I took out my phone and did something I had managed to resist for three months. I googled myself. Well, actually, weirdly, Google wasn’t available. Yahoo was the default in my phone’s browser. If this is the afterlife, I must be in hell, I thought.

I put Curtis Drei in the search bar. Then slowly backspaced the surname, realizing that wherever I was, I was probably not Cindi’s here. The thought stabbed into my heart, and I swallowed hard. I put in my maiden name. Curtis Reese. It had only been a tiny fraction of my life, yet I didn’t feel like a Reese anymore. I am Curtis Drei, I thought. This doesn’t mean anything. News stories came up. They were old. Years old. I frowned and tapped on one.

The Superhero Super-Couple Kari Stewart and Curtis Reese Have Eloped was the title of the article. I stumbled back, the lights buzzing back on as I collapsed into a chair. What the fuck? Me? Marry that fucking monster!? Never! I would never! I could never! I looked down at my left hand. There was a different band on it. Cindi and I both wore simple, elegant black gold rings that she had chosen. I hadn’t thought anything of it because of the shock of what I had woken up to. But this wasn’t my ring. This was a plain gold ring. I slipped it off of my finger. There was a tan line around it. And it was hard to get off. There was an inscription.

KS + CS 6/25

“Oh god . . . What the fuck?”

=== Kari ===

I received a message from Curt. It was strange. Curt had no reason to talk to me. He hated me; he hated everything about me. He was trying to kill me. And after everything we had done to each other, I never thought it could be any other way. But the message was right there.

I woke up in a weird place. Our apartment has other people living in it. What the hell happened? Meet me at our spot in town. I think something strange is going on.

What the hell does he mean by this? Our spot? We don’t have a spot. We haven’t had a spot since we were 14. What the fuck? I was on patrol when I got the message. It had been a relatively slow night; I had just been stopping minor crimes here and there. But when I received that, I stopped. I had to. I had to sit down. The message was so . . . Familiar. I didn’t know where to go. I definitely didn’t know what to do. How could I? I sat there staring at my phone for an hour, trying to piece things together. I was brought out of my thoughts when something shifted behind me. I blasted off the building and turned to the noise, fists clenched. Curt stepped out of a portal. “Kari, thank god. You’re okay.”

“What the hell are you doing here?”

“I . . . Kari, it’s me. It’s Curteh,” he almost whispered. He looked hurt. That face . . . It wasn’t filled with the rage that had contorted it the last time I had seen it. There was no malice. There was just pain. He looked down at his hand and nodded. “Okay . . . So, wherever I am, things aren’t right. That . . . Damn it!”

“Yeah, things are definitely not right, Curt. I’m taking you in! You need to go to jail.”

“Jail?” He repeated. “Ah. Okay. Maybe time travel, then. No, that doesn’t make sense; the date’s right. Hmm. What could be different here.”

“Acting crazy isn’t going to stop me from arresting you,” I called out as I charged forward. Curt wasn’t paying attention, and my fist slammed into his face. He flew into the back wall and then slammed into the ground. Shakily, he stood up.

“Kari!” He shouted indignantly. “What the hell are you doing? If the tabloids get a hold of that, they’ll have a field day. Call you an abusive spouse all day!”

“Spouse? You think that I’m your wife? I didn’t hit you that hard!” I protested. Hundreds of thoughts flooded my head. The What Ifs that I had when I first found Curt back in my life. What could have been, I lamented. He stared at me, rubbing his jaw.

“Right, sorry. You’re. . . You’re not my Kari. And you and I are enemies. Okay.” He looked down at his hand. “But I am married to . . . someone. It must be that brunette I woke up next to. And you want to take me to jail.”

“What the hell are you talking about, Curt!?” I demanded, clenching my fists. My knuckles popped. I flew closer, but he didn’t raise a hand to defend himself.

“I should have known. Your hair is different. And I’ve been sore this entire time. I thought it was just me getting older, but if we’ve been fighting, I’m lucky to not be in a full-body cast. I . . . I must’ve done something to really hurt you for you to respond fist-first. Well, whatever this other me did, I’m sorry.” I froze at those words, eyes wide. Curt would never apologize. Especially not to me. Not after . . . everything.

“You’re. . . You’re really not you. You’re not Curt.”

“No, I’m not. And while normally, I’d be grateful for that, I am stuck here in his body.”

“And . . . wherever you’re from . . . we’re. . . we’re married?” I asked, gulping.

“Yeah. You proposed two years ago. We eloped last year.”

“Eloped? We didn’t even have a proper wedding?”

“It was mostly to get away from the paparazzi.” I landed on the roof. I had to. I needed something stable underneath me. My mind flashed to Chuck for a moment. What he’d think of all of this. I frowned and nodded.

“Okay. I’m not sure what’s happening. But I think I need to bring in . . .” I paused. Does this Curt know Chuck? I’d better play it safe. I looked away from the man in front of me. I tried not to think of him as my enemy. If he really is a different Curt, somehow, then he’s not. Especially not if we’re married. The thought was almost enough to send me spiraling. It’s all fourteen-year-old me ever wanted. I distinctly remembered scrawling our names together in my notebook in Social Studies. Picturing our wedding. Before everything changed. Before I changed. I took a deep breath. He was watching me. It was a little disconcerting. I hadn’t seen him so calm in months. He looked more curious than anything, the way his lip would twist upward as he considered something. A look I hadn’t seen in too long. It can’t be him. “I don’t know what’s going on. But we need to confirm some things. I’m going to bring in Professor Mind and have him check you out?”

“What!?” He demanded, disgust in his voice. “You’re going to trust a supervillain with my brain?”

=== Curt ===

I sat in that waiting room for a long time, trying to understand what the fuck was happening. And I couldn’t. There was nothing to understand. This is insane. It’s impossible. There’s no reality, no way I could ever end up with Kari. I’d never forgive her for what she did to . . . My mind lurched to a stop. Cindi. I checked my contacts, and Cindi Drei wasn’t there. I checked the news. Buck Cherry still existed, and she had teamed up with . . . Professor Mind!?

They were a supervillain team. Literally. They went around killing people and lobotomizing them. Professor Mind was considered to be the most dangerous man on the planet. There were exposés detailing his fall from grace. From his days as Kid Mind to the man who rendered Bion braindead. He’d never recovered from the events with Light Knight and Cannon Punch. He had become more and more violent until he and Cherry had gotten together. They’d done a ton of high-end jobs. They’d robbed the Louvre for fun. They’d steal anything and sell it publicly. And no one had been able to stop them. Cindi also wasn’t the same either. She didn’t just disable people like my Cherry did. She tore people’s hearts out and laughed. Her history was far more sparse. She wasn’t as well-liked in this universe. Some still thirsted after her, but she wasn’t on Twitter or Instagram, and her online presence seemed to revel in people’s fear. I Yahoo’d her ex, Hope Moore. She had been found dead in her prison cell shortly after her arrest, around the same time that Cindi would’ve found Pinikir’s statue. My heart sank.

Loneliness poured into me, filling my chest and weighing down my arms and legs. I hadn’t felt this isolated since . . . Since Kari left me. And almost as if thinking about her was a summoning ritual, Kari walked through the door. The lights came on, and I jumped up; the UI responded to my motions and targeted her immediately, but she was outlined as green. I didn’t know what that meant. Her costume was different. It was still her bright pink, but it was a halter top that hung off her shoulders and showed off her chest much more than her everyday outfit, her red cape hanging from just below her shoulder blades. She also wore similarly pink pants, which looked more like leather than her gym rat aesthetic. And her long hair was drawn back into a ponytail. She closed the distance between us and pulled me into a tight hug. “Curt, you’re okay. What’s going on? You weren’t in bed. Did you forget something here?”

I pushed away from her, trying to keep my breathing under control. My heart was pounding, and my mind was racing. Think! I got to come up with a plausible excuse. She’ll kill me if she finds out that I’m not her Curt. I stuttered for a moment. “F-forgot something, yeah. That’s it. I just had some work to do and couldn’t sleep. I-I’m sorry, Sm-Smash Gal. I didn’t mean to leave you hanging.”

“Smash Gal?” She asked, then she grinned, pulling me back to her. “Ooh. Are we roleplaying? Like the old days. Mean ol’ Smash Gal come to stop one of your little heists. How will you ever convince me to not take you to jail?” I choked on the air and pulled myself from her grasp again. The thought of doing . . . that, any of that with her, sent my stomach roiling. Eventually, I regained my composure and looked back at Kari. She was frowning at me. “Curteh, are you okay? I know you’ve been working really hard lately. Maybe you should take the day off.”

“N-no. I’m fine,” I lied. My mind was reeling from everything that was happening. Nothing could have ever prepared me for . . . roleplay with Kari. Nothing. Ever. She stepped closer to me, and I took a step back.

“You aren’t yourself. Wh-who are you?”

“I’m Curtis Dre- Reese,” I said, not catching myself soon enough. Her eyes widened.

“Reese? Something has happened to you. Was it Professor Mind? Did he do something to your memories? I’ll kill him!” She growled. That’s the Kari, I know.

“No, Smash . . . Kari. Just . . . Clam down,” I began, taking several deep breaths. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

“Curt, try me. We’re superheroes. Weird shit happens to us every day. Remember that time when we were hit with the Rule 63 beam? I was a pretty hot guy.”

“Uh . . .” I smacked my lips. “I’m not your Curt. I’m. . . This is ridiculous.” She stepped closer and threw an arm around me. And this body, the body not mine, reacted. It felt right. It was comforted by this. Which scared me.

“We’ll get this fixed. We’ll figure something out. We always do, together.”

=== Chuck ===

“Hey, Kari. What’s up?” I asked after accepting the call.

“Chuck, something weird’s happening with Curt. Could you come down and see what’s going on?”

“Curt? Uh, yeah. Of course.” It didn’t take long to get there. When I did, Curt and Kari were sitting next to each other on a roof somewhere. I landed, and Drei jumped up, backing away.

“St-stay back! Kari says you’re trustworthy, but I know what you’re capable of. I saw what you did to Bion. I was there.”

“Bion?” I asked, looking between the two of them. Kari walked over to me and kissed me on the cheek. I opened my senses to both of them. Apprehension and confusion coming from Kari. I paused. Curt’s emotions are entirely different. There’s confusion and fear, mainly directed at me. Jealousy. But no anger. No hatred. I’d never seen Reese anywhere near this . . . stable.

“Oh, so you brainwashed her!” Esvanir accused. He whipped out his little toy and started flicking through menus before deflating. “God! What moron designed this? The nested menus are fucking terrible!”

“So, this is Curt, but I don’t think this is . . . the one we know.”

“Yeah, that’s what he was saying. He . . . He thought we were married. Imagine that.”

“Married? That’s. . . new.” I walked forward, and that got his attention again, and he raised a hand, and I held up my own, trying to placate him. “Mister Drei, I don’t know what’s happening here, but I’m here to help.”

“Who the fuck is Mister Drei?” He demanded, heat crawling through his voice.

“Definitely not our Curt,” Kari said, standing beside me again. She wrapped an arm around my waist, and I felt Curt’s jealousy flare up. It was pointed and overwhelming. His emotions were still strong and somewhat familiar. But it was surreal, seeing this man who usually was rabidly vying for Smash Gal’s death wanting to flay me for her touching me.

“No, but I think he genuinely believes you were married.”

“How are you so sure?”

“Every time you touch me, jealousy pours off of him.”

“Hey, could you two not talk about me like I’m not here?” Curt asked bitterly.

“Mister . . . Reese,” I began. After all of the times he corrected me, it felt wrong to say.

“Stewart,” he corrected.

“What?” Kari demanded.

“I took your last name.”

“Some things never change, I guess,” I said, looking at my girlfriend. Amusement threaded itself through her emotions.

“What does that mean?”

“Uh . . . O-our Curt took his wife’s last name as well. Just not . . . K-Kari’s.” This was baffling. I don’t even know where to begin with this. I cleared my throat. “Mister St-Stewart, what’s the last thing that you remember?”

“Who would I have married?” Curt asked, frowning.

“Cindi Drei.”

“I don’t. . .” He trailed off, shaking his head.

“Buck Cherry,” Kari said, annoyance trickling through.

“B-Buck Cherry?” He stumbled back and sat down on the ledge. His emotions were a maelstrom of confusion, fear, and anger. “I-I married a murderer. I married the greatest thief and one of the greatest terrorists in the world.” He took several deep breaths and looked up at Smash Gal, and his words sent me reeling. Coming from that face, coming from that man. This just feels wrong. “Kar, help me. Please.”