Read Please Don't Tell My Parents I'm a Supervillain for Free Online Page B

table, took off his helmet, and told me, “I hear there’s a new mad scientist in LA. Welcome to the brotherhood, sister.” And he winked at me.
    I was going to fall out of my chair. I couldn’t feel my butt. And he took off his helmet! Yes, the goggles and the flight suit underneath with all the metal to fit into the suit were nearly as good as a mask, but it was still a risk.
    I should have protested that mad scientists are villains, but if Mech and my Dad both used the term…
    Dad just couldn’t let me enjoy it. “Tell the rumor mill they’re jumping the gun, Mech. Penny’s powers showed themselves rather spectacularly today, but it’s only a flash. She won’t be one of us for a few years.”
    Bah.
    “Those few years will disappear, Brian. Be ready for it. So, what did you make?” Mech looked at me again!
    I held up my wrist. Then I felt like an idiot, so I told The Machine, “Uncurl.” It didn’t. I’d have to restart it.
    “Artificial life and a perpetual motion machine in one go,” Mom filled in. Now she looked pleased. Both of my parents did. Proud.
    “I can’t figure out how it works. It appears to eat ambient energy to keep moving and stores it in a nine-volt battery, of all things. It isn’t even electrical. The actual method of operation is a mystery,” Dad explained.
    Mom flashed a whimsical smile. “And it crank starts.”
    Yes, I’d had to grab it and twist it around, feeling it grind reluctantly until it picked up speed and came to life. Uncurling, The Machine climbed up onto my upraised hand and reared up facing Mech.
    “May I?” Mech asked me, personally.
    “Absolutely.”
    I knew I blushed. I sounded like an idiot fan girl. It’s just that Mech was talking to me, and he’d taken off his helmet, and, even with the gold mask of the flight suit, he had a jaw that rounded down in a way that was almost pretty, and his dark skin (Indian, maybe? I didn’t know him out of the suit) and his black eyes ….
    Get a grip, Penny. Get it fast. Mech is just the top of the game. Smart, powerful, dedicated. When those aliens with the drone army attacked, Mech was one of the heroes who went out to destroy their warp gate.
    Actually, as a superhero’s daughter, I was one of the very few non-heroes who even knew that had happened, and I was in the process of “superhero.”
    He had a thousand idiot fan girls, but treated me with respect regardless. While my brain raced, he picked up The Machine.
    I heard a nasty scraping noise, like metal fingernails on a blackboard. It came from The Machine. What the frog? Was it chewing on the thumb of Mech’s suit?
    “Stop that!” I scolded. It went still.
    “Voice commands, no identifiable power source, and it’s packed with gearwork. I’m impressed. The first thing we invent is often our greatest creation. Your father has warned you about that?” Mech asked, peeking up from squinting into The Machine’s open panels. They were convenient for showing off, but it looked half-built with a casing only on some of its segments.
    “Yeah,” I answered. Was absolutely everyone going to try and give me the speech?
    No, he was going another direction. He gave me a warm smile, and he looked impressed. He really looked impressed. “If the rest of your inventions are only half as brilliant as this, I look forward to adding some of them to my armor.”
    I laid my hands carefully on the table and tried not to geek out. Sitting on them would have been safer, but more obvious.
    Dad smirked. “Throwing me over for the younger model, Mech?”
    “I wouldn’t even be in the same league I am without your additions, Brian. All I invented was the armor,” Mech assured my Dad, giving him that warm smile now.
    “Which I still can’t replicate. As efficient and adjustable as it is, you could go to anyone for weapon systems,” Dad answered in the same tone.
    “Mech, how is Marvelous?” Mom inquired, slipping into the mutual congratulations.
    “I got her a sample of