There were several awkward glances his way when Jake returned to the Merifield Local. No one tried to meet his eyes and he noticed the interns scurried into any nearby room when he went by. Randall ran straight into the women's restroom. That cheered Jake up a bit at least.

Natalie was blissfully absent from the office, allowing him to slide into his chair unbothered. A small stack of papers waited by his keyboard. One bright yellow sticky note rested on top with a familiar scrawl across it. Jake ripped it into confetti fine enough to rival the Phantom Clown's and sprinkled it in his mini wastebasket.

"You've been busy," Jake observed, looking around at the papers spread around Warren's closet sized office. It was a closet actually. Warren had bribed one of the janitors to move their supplies elsewhere so he could do his editing behind a closed door. It made a convenient meeting place as well when the two of them needed to cobble together a plan.

"No mistakes this time, Jake. After your little debacle I wanted to make sure I had back up plans," Warren said. He pointed out a detailed map. "Back exits, guard routes, including the extra ones they've hired since last time. They won't be a problem."

"As long as I do my part correctly, right?" Jake finished for him. "It wasn't my fault the schematics were outdated." He helped stack the papers back into neat piles that Warren his under a false bottom of a drawer.

"I thought wiring was your passion project. Master of electronics I believe you called yourself," Warren countered. He smacked Jake's shoulder playfully. "Hey, if you screw up this time I'll dope you up and leave you as a gift to whoever comes around."

Jake rolled his eyes and elbowed past him to head back to this desk. Someone was waiting for him now, but thankfully still not Natalie. The man was tall, dressed in an inky black suit with his hair combed back. He was leaning against Jake's desk with his right ankle crossed over the right. "Can I help you?" Jake asked hesitantly.

"Ah, Mr. Erwin, I was hoping I hadn't missed you before you dashed off for your next scoop," he said excitedly. "Simon Lauder, delighted to meet you." He offered Jake a smooth but strong hand.

"I'm sorry Mr. Lauder, I'm a bit confused. Was there something I can help you with?" Jake glanced over his desk, checking for anything out of place. The drawers were closed and none of the papers had been shuffled, but he noticed his computer monitor was on and his last article was open on the screen. The harshly worded thrashing of supers was likely to be rejected by Natalie but she always told him to write what most excited him.

"I was just introducing myself to Miss Pruitt and couldn't pass up the opportunity to tell you how much I admire your work," Simon explained. "I only just moved here last week but I have been thoroughly enjoying your articles on the danger of blindly following the, what did you call them, caped wonders?"

Jake couldn't suppress the grin that spread across his face even if he wanted to. "I'm glad to hear they made such an impression. What did you move to the city for?"

"Business. My younger brother had grandiose plans that sadly fell through so I've come to clear up the pieces. Merifield is quickly growing on me though and I was thinking of taking up a permanent residence." Simon walked to the floor to ceiling window nearby and looked over the city sprawled below him. "So many opportunities just waiting for the right person to come along."

Something in the quietness of his tone sent a shiver along Jake's back but he dismissed it as the awkwardness of meeting someone new. "It's not half bad in my opinion, though I am a little biased. I was born here after all and with luck I'll start my own family here."

"With her?" Simon asked, nodding to the framed photo on Jake's desk. He walked back over to pick it up. "She's rather pretty, isn't she?"

Jake itched to take the photo back from him and return it to the front and center spot it had occupied on his desk for the last two years. It was a badly angled photo of Hannah and himself, though mostly it was only Jake's eyes and the beginning of his nose in the bottom left corner. Hannah was the star, dressed in a purple cap and gown with her hair curling wildly over her shoulders.

It had been her graduation and the official start of her life, according to her. What he didn't tell most people was that it had also been the start of when he'd realized there was no living without her. They'd gone out celebrating and Jake had tucked a very drunk Hannah into his bed before he settled in for backache on the couch. In the morning he'd carefully woken her up with breakfast and the biggest cup of coffee he could manage. There was still a stain on the bed frame from where it had spilled when she kissed him without warning.

"Yeah, with her if she'll have me," Jake finally answered. "Hannah, she's a nurse at Merifield Memorial."

Simon returned the photo to its rightful place and nodded. "What a pair the two of you must make. I assume she sees plenty of the handiwork the so-called heroes send her way."

"She does, but she's still got a soft spot for them. I can't stand it but I'd rather see her believe they keep everything safe and keep her hope alive," Jake admitted. It drove him nuts sometimes when he thought about Hannah trapped somewhere and waiting for a rescue from someone who couldn't care less about the little people that got crushed under their gold boots.

"Willingness to forgive is an admirable quality I suppose," Simon said. He held out his hand to Jake again. "It was wonderful to meet you Mr. Erwin. I hope we can speak again soon.

"I'd like that," Jake agreed. He walked Simon to the elevator and was glad to see him off.

As he'd expected, Natalie was not entirely pleased with how his interview with Solar Flare had gone, but she allowed him to type up an article anyway. "Maybe it will raise sales when people buy the paper to burn it," she mused.

Jake convinced Warren to go over the plan with the promise of Thai food. They took advantage of the empty apartment to reenact their plan with condiments set up where they were likely to find the guards. If anyone had walked in they'd have found two grown men playing an intense game of freeze tag with ketchup.

They were putting everything back when Warren wandered into Jake's home office with the guard schedules. He'd planned to hide them away in a hollow floorspace he knew Jake kept under the rug when something caught his eye on the desk. He walked back into the living room with a small silver key dangling from a banana keychain. "Don't tell me you leave the key to Hannah's place lying around like this. With the way you leave this place unlocked you're likely to get her place robbed too."

"It's not to her place, it's to mine," Jake said, snatching the key away. The key jangled against the chain. "I was thinking about mayne asking her if she'd like to move across town from the place she lives now."

"You want her to move in with you?" Warren asked. "That seems like one of the worst ideas you've had so far."

Jake rolled his eyes and sat on the armchair with his legs propped over one of the arms. "Look, there was this guy and he was asking questions about the two of us and my plans with her and it got me thinking. After all this business with settling things with Lorelai is done, what comes next? What comes next is Hannah."

"And if something comes back from your tragic past to kick you in the ass? What if Hannah gets caught up in someone getting revenge for your revenge?" Warren leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees while he stared at Jake. A haze of purple seeped into his eyes.

"Warren,don't you dare. No mind trips," Jake warned.

"I don't need to trip you to make this clear to you. Right now, the most you've done is hunt down information. Yeah, there was that attempted burglary and you've done some stuff that wouldn't fly by government standards but it's nothing that hurt anyone. You can stop right now and leave it all," he said. "But if you keep this up people will get hurt and the people you want to hurt can destroy everything."

The warning settled in Jake's mind and squeezed his heart while he sat in his office long after Warren had left. He'd tucked the key away with the papers and carefully flattened the rug back over it. The key had seemed like such a good idea only a few hours ago. The worst he'd thought might come of it would be that she'd say no. Hannah liked her personal space and her apartment was her place to unwind after a long day. She graciously allowed him to occupy that space as well on occasion but at the end of the day it was hers.

Besides that, she was only a short walk to the hospital. Even if he offered to drive her in for every shift or gave her the car it would be a new inconvenience. A new upset in her day to navigate.

What if she said yes? She already spent so much of her time here and between them they could scrape together enough for a second car to fill his second parking space. But just like her apartment was her sanctuary, his was the closest he had to a secret lair. A poorly hid secret but it did the job. What if something really did happen and he had to renew his criminal license? Worse yet, what if she connected the dots living so close to him?

In separate apartments he could convince her that she was misremembering his schedule and run out at a moment's notice. There'd be no evading her after. The only way to keep her safe was to do as Warren had suggested and stop everything. He rubbed his face roughly to stop the vicious cycle of thoughts.

Outside a line of ambulances and firetrucks went by and the whoosh of a caped crusader rattled his window as they followed the sirens. A news alert popped up in the bottom corner of his screen warning people away from the area three blocks away. It looked like something small but with the supers getting involved it would escalate in no time. Jake's resolve came back redoubled.

The only way to keep Hannah safe was to remove the things that would harm her. The very people she considered to be the saviors of the city were the only things standing between them and a safe future.