It's not often Penny finds herself with a day full of nothing to do, but today is one of them. It's Sunday, so she doesn't have to go to work, and the shelter's long since said that she does enough for them during the week that if she wants to stay home on the weekends, she can. She doesn't, usually, but it's been a long-feeling week.
She watches a movie, then surfs the Internet for a while. One of the blogs she follows is talking about another blog, apparently trying to figure out how much of its content is serious business and how much is fabricated. She's never heard of it, so she follows the link to the blog in question.
It's an odd sort of revelation; she hadn't known Billy kept a video blog. But when she starts watching the videos, she gets the feeling she can guess why he hasn't mentioned it before. Penny wouldn't have thought he had a bit of evil in him, especially since he wants to make the world a better place.
She watches a few videos, and notices a subtle change of tone at about the time Billy said he got the new job. The posts get a little bit vaguer and a lot more hopeful, and there's a lot less about the Evil League of Evil.
And then she gets to the most recent post, from yesterday, where he opens up with proof that the evil laugh coaching paid off.
"That," he says, "is in honor of a little something pulled off this afternoon. When Vanity Fair publishes its interview with Captain Hammer, just remember it was brought to you by Dr. Horrible, with a little help from Iron Man." Penny wonders, for a second, when Billy could have met Iron Man, and then remembers that he was still there, the day she just missed him; with the new information, she'd bet anything Billy was involved in whatever Captain Hammer was trying to stop.
"We distracted him with the reporter - who was in on this once we knew the equipment worked - and then I hit him with my Truth In Advertising Ray." He smiles a little, though the smile falters after a second or two. "Much as I'd love to call it the Veritaserum Ray, J.K. Rowling would sue the pants off of me, and I... don't have that many pants. Seems prudent to avoid that struggle--"
He's cut off by his phone ringing; he picks it up, frowns at the display, and then answers. Penny has to replay the video two or three times before she can make out the other end, but eventually she has it:
He saw your application
And thought it just might work.
But now you're associatin'
With some hero jerk!
Unless assassination
Is where your thoughts do lurk
He can't accept this change of course
So GTFO, signed, Bad Horse!
That's a little alarming, and for a second, Penny's afraid to watch the rest of the video. But she does turn it back on - she at least has to know how this turns out, so she knows what to say to Billy on Wednesday - and in the end, she's glad she did.
Billy - or Dr. Horrible, or whatever - turns off his phone, and sighs. "You know... that would have been a lot more upsetting this time last month, but right now I'm inclined to say Bad Horse and his singing telegram posse can stuff it. And anyway, I'm getting mixed messages here. Captain Hammer thinks Iron Man is a villain, the League and the press seem to be in agreement that he's a hero - who's right, here? Discuss. It'll give me some fun emails for next time, no doubt.
"But anyway, that's another part of why I've kept things vague lately. I didn't want word getting out before things were done, and, well. Iron Man keeps up his own PR all right, so I didn't really have to help him along. The blog is still rolling, make no mistake, but... maybe it'll be a little less villainous now. Time will tell."
The video ends; Penny just stares at the screen for a few moments, then watches it again. After a couple more viewings, she thinks she knows what to say to him. She sends him an email, since he asked for viewer commentary anyway, and says at the end that they'll talk Wednesday unless he'd rather do so sooner.
On the whole, she's rather glad Billy's moving away from the active-villainy thing. It wouldn't give him what he wants to see, most likely, and she'd hate to see his spirits crushed like that.