My scoff startles the men that kicked off the wall of the alley as I passed.

I’m sure they’d prefer being called ‘thugs,’ but while bedazzling the word across your shirt certainly adds pizzazz, it unfortunately loses its punch.

I assess them as we face each other, not at all envious of their outfits.

Alright. I lied.

This uncomfortably fancy pencil skirt suit of mine only further confirms how much I don’t fit in a corporate setting.

I just wanted to go for a normal walk to decompress after stupid work, but they don’t call me the Havoc Magnet for nothing.

It’s been heavily debated whether I’m drawn to trouble or if trouble finds me, but I never got a firm answer since I quit therapy.

My question escapes in a conspiratorial whisper and without my permission.

“Where can I get me one of those shirts?”

The man on the left scoffs and shoves his hands in his front pants pockets, assured that I don’t pose a threat, while the guy on the right waves the gun he’s had pointed at my face for a while as if to say, ‘Helloooo?’

Right.

Should probably be more concerned about that.

But it’s just…

“You’re not very good at this,” I tell the man with the gun.

His friend spins to the side to repress the laughter I caught forming on his face.

“What?!” Gun Guy asks.

It’s admittedly a pretty lackluster superhero name, but I think it suits him.

I tsk and raise my hands in innocence and apology.

“You haven’t made any demands! Are you robbing me or just showing off your weapon? It’s nice, by the way. Very shiny. Like your shirts.”

The buddy doesn’t hold in his laugh this time, which only further infuriates Gun Guy.

“Do you know you’re being robbed right now?” He snarls.

I lift my arms further in exasperation.

“I do now!”

His still laughing friend wipes tears from under his eyes.

I quickly flick my attention to the sky, furtively pleading with the powers that be to send someone swooping in to save the day.

As expected, no one arrives, so I guess I’ll have to be my own hero.

I wrinkle my nose at the corniness of that idea.

Gun Guy stares over the barrel expectantly, as though there’s some choreography to this dance I’m meant to remember.

This is ironically triggering.

Every time my childhood dance class would have us perform our routine on stage, I’d forget everything we learned once I felt the focus of the crowd, and I’d just end up winging it.

My teachers were never impressed.

But the Havoc Magnet couldn’t care less.

No, people who refer to themselves in third person, rarely care about much.

The thrust of a gun in my face naturally brings me back to the present.

“Give me your wallet,” Gun Guy insists.

I inhale sharply through the wide smile spreading across my face.

“There we go! Good job,” I praise him.

Baffled as he is, he doesn’t notice the way my eyes start to glow, but Giggles over there does.

“Gunner,” his friend hisses in warning.

Gun Guy’s name is Gunner?

It’s like it was meant to be.

Too bad, really, as my raised hands heat until a pulse of blinding light bursts from each palm, leaving smoking craters in the center of both men’s chests.

Ah, man. I liked Giggles.

Even worse, I ruined their shirts!

I still haven’t gotten the whole ‘latent superpower’ thing down, but it turns out that the nickname I had been teasingly given was eerily apt.

The Havoc Magnet is at it again, I guess.

I can see the repeat headlines now.

Both men’s wide eyed expressions freeze on their face as they drop to their knees before collapsing at my feet.

I dig in my purse a bit before placing my empty wallet – the one I keep for my frequent robberies – on Gun Guy’s steaming chest.

The thug earned it.