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Christian could understand why his wife didn\'t want to talk about things if she was keeping this big a secret from him. Especially since she knew he disliked Nox. He was confused and hurt but if he was right he had to know. 

He looked directly at the woman he suspected was his wife. He needed to test his theory. The best way he could think of was by calling her name. 

"Avery."

Nox was on her feet in an instant, ready to bolt, but he reached out and grabbed her wrist. That was all the confirmation he needed even as she actively denied it. "I don\'t know any Avery. I have to go."

"Avery West-Slater, look at me!" he demanded. "I have questions and you better answer them but I\'m not going to leave you. Do you understand?"

Nox\'s helmet seemingly dissolved and there was that familiar white hair spilling out of it. The face he loved so much was stained with tears and had an expression of utmost shock on it. So he had been right. All this time Nox had been Avery?!

How? Why? He had so many questions he didn\'t know where to begin but one came to mind that he hadn\'t factored in while puzzling all of this out earlier. It hit him like a truck. 

"When were you going to tell me you were pregnant?! What do you think you\'re doing jumping around like that?!" Christian demanded. 

"I…I wasn\'t sure what to do," Avery stammered before sniffling. "I couldn\'t tell anybody. But how did you know it was me? Did I screw up the call or the voice changer? And what do you mean you\'re not going to leave? You hate me!" 

His heart sunk. He had given off that impression, hadn\'t he? How had she handled that knowing who he was? Hang on, how had she even known who he was? When did she figure that out?

"I don\'t hate you. But first you tell me how long you\'ve known who I am," he growled. "I\'m asking the questions right now and you have an awful lot of answers to give."

Avery started crying. Really crying. The only other time he had seen tears from her was at their wedding but those were happy tears. Right now she seemed so confused and in despair that he could hardly stand his ground. 

He wanted to comfort her but knew he couldn\'t until she told him what on earth was going on. He would never get answers any other way. 

"I had my suspicions since our first date but they weren\'t confirmed until Circus Freak stabbed you," she said as she futilely tried to stem her tears. "I\'m sorry. I know I was selfish. I liked you too much to let you go when your secret identity fell into my lap." 

"Why?!" 

"Seeing you was the highlight of my week. Pathetic, right? My life was so sad that I had to take what I could get from the guy trying to stop me. I didn\'t like you the whole time. It started about nine months before you asked me out. 

"I didn\'t give much thought to you before. But after you saved me that one time I realized how funny you were and how kind and soon I was head over heels. Angelo thought I was such an idiot for having a crush on the hero I was fighting."

How did Angelo factor into this? Were they in on it together?

Another missing piece of the puzzle hit him and he cursed. It was so obvious in hindsight. Hunsacher killed people off when they caused him trouble. Levi West and Horatio Cruz had died in the same accident. A car accident. Those were fairly easy to orchestrate. 

"Angelo\'s your partner because Hunsacher killed your dads," Christian said grimly. "I\'m right, aren\'t I?"

Avery seemed surprised he guessed correctly. "Yeah. We had to take over their jobs. My dad was Nox and his was tech support. They were a nanotechnologist and software developer and both worked for Hunsacher Inc. 

"That was no accident. The brakes went out but I had asked to borrow the car to go to a cake decorating expo in New Jersey less than a week earlier and I saw my dad fixing it himself. How could brand new brakes go out when a mechanical engineer had been the one to install them? 

"He left the suit to me in case something happened to him but I never thought it would happen so soon. He programmed my biometrics in as a failsafe so only I can control it. It\'s nanotech." 

The rest of Avery\'s suit melted away and disappeared back into the smartwatch that rarely left her wrist. Beneath it she was wearing a t-shirt and leggings and looked all the more vulnerable for it. She wiped at her eyes again as the tears flowed anew. 

"You have no idea how much I\'ve tortured myself about wanting to fulfil his last wishes and wanting to be with you. No idea! It\'s been killing me and I couldn\'t say anything to anyone! Not even Angelo. He doesn\'t know you\'re Mercury because he would have killed me if he did. He already thinks I\'m stupid enough."

Christian\'s hands balled into fists. He needed to try and keep his cool here or she would stop talking but he wanted to agree with Angelo for once. 

Was she completely insane?! Why had she thought it was a good idea to knowingly get involved with her nemesis? She hadn\'t showed much interest in his secret identity until after that date when she guessed who he was. It had only happened because of that!

Avery never switched who she liked at all. She simply switched her focus to the option where she would be able to spend more time with him. It was incredibly manipulative and selfish of her. No wonder she said it was the most villainous thing she did. Messing with him like that…it truly was terrible.

She said earlier that she meant for it to be casual and before she knew it she got in too deep because she was greedy. Marrying him and carrying his child was definitely in too deep! In fact, it was the understatement of the century!

Christian was angry and hurt and felt betrayed being lied to so much by someone who absolutely knew what she was doing was wrong but kept at it anyway. But he couldn\'t reject her even so. 

For better or worse. That was part of the marriage vow. This was about as "worse" as it could get but she was still his wife. And he still loved her. 

"It was pretty stupid," he said scathingly. "What were you thinking?"

Avery\'s tears spilled over again and despite himself he wanted to reach out to her. "I wasn\'t thinking. Not really. I came up with endless justifications for what I was doing as if that would make it okay. It wasn\'t okay. It was never okay. 

"I\'m so sorry, Christian! I never meant for things to go this far. I couldn\'t tell you the truth because I thought you would hate me for it. I couldn\'t live with myself if you hated me. I really couldn\'t. You do, don\'t you? How could you not? You\'re furious with me; I can tell."

Christian blew out a frustrated breath. "Yes, but that doesn\'t mean I hate you. You never tell me anything, Avery! I knew you were hiding things from me but I never would have anticipated this.

"How could you do this to me? More importantly, how could you do this to yourself? You\'ve been torturing yourself with guilt all this time, haven\'t you? That\'s why you\'ve been so off lately. Because you were overworked with all of this stuff and thought I couldn\'t accept it."

Avery looked at him pitifully and spoke up in a small voice. "Can you accept it?"

It wasn\'t like he had any other choice. He had promised he would support her no matter what. And mind control was straight supervillain territory. She was trying to save people like he used to even if her methods were questionable. 

"Do I have any other option? I said I would help you figure things out and I meant it. If stopping Hunsacher is what I have to do for you to be happy so be it. I\'m in," Christian said, hardly believing he was getting involved in something illegal even if it was for the sake of the woman he loved. 

Avery\'s eyes widened in astonishment as tears continued to fall. "Seriously? You\'re going to help me?"

"For better or worse, Avery. For better or worse."

She burst into incoherent sobs then and threw herself into his arms. He sighed and held her tightly. She had been holding all of that in for so long, hadn\'t she? 

Christian wasn\'t okay with this. He wasn\'t sure how long it would be before he was.. But he had made a commitment to this complicated woman and wasn\'t about to let her down even if she wasn\'t quite what he expected.