#captive hero

[chaotic-orphan]

Hi, hope you’re having a nice day!! Love your writing :) Could you please continue heroic betrayal if you’re planning to?? Not to rush you or anything, it’s just got me slightly hooked oops! Thank you!! :)

HEROIC BETRAYAL (6)

Part one here

Continued from here

This part has had so many drafts, so so many, because I couldn’t get Supervillain right at all, and today? For some reason! It all just flowed! So you are in luck! It’s the paddy’s day weekend, struck gold! Enjoy!

*~*~*~*~*

They walked in a tense silence that made Hero squirm. The two of them were always chatting, or having banter back and forth. When they fell into a silence it was an easy one that never felt awkward or uncomfortable. Now, with Flynn marching Hero up a set of stairs, it felt as if they were two strangers. As if Flynn was actually a Villain.

He is, a voice sniped in the back of Hero’s mind. Flynn is a villain. The lie was his Hero façade.

Hero kept their guard up as they stepped through the door at the top of the stairs. Hero expected to be greeted with the view of a warehouse, or some top secret villain base. Maybe something from the movies, or an equal to the Hero tower HQ.

Instead, their gaze found a house. Hero frowned, wanting to turn their head and comment on it to Flynn but they didn’t. They refused. Flynn didn’t deserve their comments or thoughts on anything anymore.

“Through here,” said Flynn, pulling Hero to the right. Hero caught only a glance of the framed pictures hanging on the wall, of Flynn and Villain as children and a man and woman smiling in the picture above them. Hero swallowed.

Were they in Flynn’s childhood home this entire time?

It’s not what Hero expected at all. It was clean, almost pristinely so with wooden oak floors and a warm, homely feel to it. Clean and yet lived in.

Hero closed their lips, and just let Flynn guide them through another door into a dining room. Hero’s brows raised to the ceiling, looking at Flynn in question before they could help it.

Flynn curled his top lip inward, his tell for when he was embarrassed. “Supervillain insisted,” he said by way of explanation and brought Hero to the end of the table. It sat six people, two chairs on each end and two on both sides.

Flynn pulled out Hero’s chair and quirked his lips at them. “Can I trust you not to do something stupid?”

“You can always stop me if I do,” Hero replied sweetly, sugared smile not quite meeting their eyes.

Flynn’s smile was cold in return. “I can. Or Villain, whichever is quicker.”

Hero felt that cruel pang of betrayal bloom in their heart like a rose’s thorns wrapped thick around it. Hero didn’t reply to that, they just sat down on the chair lifting their handcuffed hands onto the wooden table and let Flynn push in their chair.

Flynn sat beside them, on their right. Hero could have laughed at the horribleness of it all. Flynn sat on Hero’s right because after endless sparring they had both realised it was Hero’s weaker hand. If Hero was going to do something stupid, going for their right hand side would be easier to subdue than their left.

How had they not seen the warning signs? How had they not realised that Flynn was working against them this entire time?

Hero trusted them. They thought if the world ever went to shit, or turned against them, Hero could turn to Flynn and still find a home in him.

Now all their trust was twisted against them mercilessly, and Flynn was a stranger who could smile at them with a bloodied face — and possibly broken nose — and threaten to have the person who broke it hurt them more.

Hero heard movement and voices behind the two doors in front of them, different than the door that Flynn and Hero entered the room through. There was a lively bustling of movement and then a man in his late thirties, early forties walked through the doors with a wide friendly smile holding two plates of something.

He had wavy brown hair, slightly overgrown around the edges, some strands tucked behind his ears Hero noticed. His eyes were sea-coloured, somewhere between green and blue, but shining with a happiness that Hero didn’t expect of Supervillain.

Then it hit Hero that they were staring at Supervillain. The Supervillain! Hero’s nemesis, their foe— the man who was always one step ahead of Hero. Hero glanced at Flynn, almost mutinously before Supervillain drew Hero’s attention back to them.

Supervillain set a plate of food in front of Hero with a big smile, then walked around Hero and placed one in front of Flynn. It was what looked like roast chicken and green beans and roast potatoes. Hero stared down at it, their mouth watering slightly and a gnawing yearning in their gut for food.

How long had they been here? Overnight at least because it was day time at the moment. Hero looked at Flynn. Flynn glanced at Hero then to Hero’s plate and dragged it over to him.

“Hey—”

“Relax, I’m just cutting up your chicken. You’re not getting a knife.”

Hero waited, watching Flynn cut up the food. Then they sat back against their chair, eyes going to the doors to see Supervillain was gone. Flynn pushed Hero’s plate back in front of them. Then Supervillain came through again followed closely by Villain, a shadow like fist holding something that was dropped in front of Hero. It smacked against the table lightly with a bounce and Hero realised it was a plastic fork.

Everyone else had proper utensils.

Hero waited until Supervillain and Villain sat down before speaking. “If you think I’m eating this, you’re dumber than I thought.”

Supervillain’s smile didn’t dim. “As you like it, Hero. Though, if I drugged you with the chicken or the vegetables I would have drugged us all.”

Hero didn’t move to grab the fork, no matter how much their stomach wanted them to. Flynn grabbed Hero’s plate, “we can swap if you like.”

Hero’s head snapped to him. “And how do I know this wasn’t all some planned ploy?”

“You don’t,” said Flynn honestly, meeting Hero’s gaze earnestly. Hero had to look away before they cried. Stupid fucking Flynn.

“If I may,” said Supervillain, his voice smooth and steady, drawing Hero’s gaze. “If I wanted to starve you, I wouldn’t have plated you up a meal. I would have handcuffed you to the chair and let you smell the food and watch us eat.”

Hero swallowed, gaze hardening into a glare as Supervillain tilted his head and shrugged lightly. “However, if you don’t want to eat I won’t force you.”

Hero sat back stubbornly, eyes not leaving Supervillain as he tucked into his divine smelling meal.

“Flynn said you wanted to talk to me.”

“I do,” Supervillain replied. “As soon as we have eaten. It’s bad for the stomach to mix work and pleasure.”

Hero blinked at him, then stared back at their plate. The steam was still rising from it, begging for Hero to eat it. Hero swallowed again, finally reaching for the fork that was discarded in front of their plate.

Nobody at the table made any remarks as Hero took their first bite of chicken. They didn’t even feel eyes on them as they ate, and with every bite the possibility of the food being drugged became less and less important as they filled the hole in their stomach.

All too soon their plate was empty and Hero set their fork back on the plate, sitting back in their seat, satisfied. Supervillain smiled at them from across the table.

“Well?”

Hero swallowed. “Really good.”

Supervillain’s smile beamed at them. “Good. Flynn, would you and Villain mind cleaning up?”

Flynn’s eyes went between Hero and Supervillain, and he opened his mouth to protest, but Supervillain looked at him. It stifled the words in his throat and he nodded and gathered his and Hero’s plate. “Sure.”

Villain did the same with their and Supervillain’s plate. “Thank you. We shouldn’t be long.”

Flynn cast one last look over his shoulder at Hero, eyebrows drawing together in a frown. Then the double doors shut on both of them and it was just Hero and Supervillain alone.

Hero’s chest got tighter at the realisation. How many times had they longed to get to sit down with Supervillain and pick his brain on his strategies and plans? How long had they wanted to know his motivations behind it all? What the bigger picture was…

Now, Hero wanted to be anywhere but here.

Supervillain leaned forward, elbows resting on the table hands folded in front of him. “Flynn tells me you’re a fan of mine.”

Hero scoffed and looked away. “I’d hardly call myself a fan.”

“Of course,” he replied pleasantly. “A hero would never admire a villain after all.”

“That’s in the job description.”

“Tell me, did you ever admire Flynn?”

Hero’s eyes snapped back to Supervillain. His smile was less pleasant now, more shrewd. Intelligent, inquisitive, intimidating— his eyes narrowed in curiosity, the corners of his lips still quirked into a smile.

“I guess it doesn’t matter anymore, does it? He was always a Villain.”

“Yes. However, that is not what I asked you.” Supervillain said lightly, not letting Hero off the hook. Hero swallowed in reply. “Did you ever admire Flynn?”

“Yes,” said Hero patiently. They couldn’t lose their cool now, they had to match Supervillain’s relaxed demeanour. “He was my partner. Obviously I admired him.”

Supervillain let out a breath. “Tut, tut, Hero. He’s a villain. How can a Hero ever admire a Villain?”

“If you want to get into some philosophical debate I’d rather Villain bash my nose against the bars of my cell again.”

Supervillain’s lips pursed. “If you like.”

The words ran like cold water down Hero’s spine. “However,” he continued, “I’d rather pick your brain before Villain rips it from your skull.”

Hero swallowed the lump that was rising in their throat. How can he be so nonchalant about telling Hero that he had no reservations about Villain killing them? It isn’t anything like Hero thought he would be.

“You wouldn’t let them,” said Hero licking their lips, making an effort not to make a face at the taste of salt and iron of dried blood dancing along their tastebuds.

Supervillain’s smile was pleasant. “No?”

“No,” Hero echoed then swallowed. “Even if you did let Villain hurt me or torture me, or whatever, you wouldn’t let them kill me. You’d rather draw it out slowly.”

Supervillain raised his hands, elbows on the table and intertwined his fingers, resting his chin on them as he stared at Hero. His sea green eyes looked stormy now, the twisting murky colour piercing through Hero’s soul. His smile was anything but friendly now.

Now, he looked like Supervillain, like Hero expected him to be. Confident, perspicacious, formidable. This was the opponent Hero had been playing alongside across the city for months now. Hero noticed their heart beating faster in their chest.

“And you say you’re not a fan,” Supervillain said, a perceptible knowing coating every smooth syllable.

“I’m not a fan of you hurting people. Killing people.”

“And yet it’s all you heroes ever seem to respond to.” Hero’s retort died in their throat. “If it takes violence to goad you out of your precious hero tower, then I will resort to violence.”

Goading? What goading? Hero’s brows furrowed down over their eyes, shadowing them slightly as their mind ran over Supervillain’s words.

“Hmm,” Supervillain hummed fondly. “Flynn said you have a look when you’re trying to solve a riddle, this must be it.”

“I don’t have a look,” Hero spat, ignoring the blush that coloured their cheeks.

“Of course you do, dear Hero. We all do. That’s why in poker you have to learn to mask your tells.”

“Are we playing poker, Supervillain?”

“No, hardly. Though I’d wager I could win your money as easy as it took me to tank that developmental property on seventh.”

Hero hope their glare was burning a hole through Supervillain’s skull until they realised they were playing right into his hands and dissolving. Hero licked their lips and leaned forward in their chair too, hands clasped on the table in front of them.

“This wasn’t a spur of the moment thing, was it? You wanted me to follow Villain. You wanted them to catch me,” Hero said. Them was much easier than saying Flynn out loud.

Supervillain smiled appraisingly. “Yes.”

“And bring me here to meet you.”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

Supervillain’s eyes flashed, something glinting within them. “Because Hero, I’ve wanted to meet you as much as you’ve wanted to meet me.”

Hero held up their cuffed hands. “Couldn’t have done it more civilly?”

“Oh please,” Supervillain scoffed, resting his palms flat on the table and pushing his chair back. Hero’s heartbeat quickened as Supervillain stood up and started making his way slowly, predatorily slowly, towards Hero like a cat playing with a mouse. Hero wanted to not move, to not show him the effect he had on Hero, but their body didn’t get the message. The closer Supervillain came to Hero the more they shrunk back into the chair, hands braced on the table ready to spring to their feet and — and then what?

Supervillain stopped beside Hero’s chair, one hand on the back of it, the other hooking a finger around the small length of chain that kept Hero’s wrists locked together. He pulled it up, Hero’s arms going with it involuntarily until Supervillain held Hero’s arms up high over their head.

Hero grit their teeth as their shoulders strained from their sitting position.

“We both knew one of us would have to be in chains for us to be able to chat,” said Supervillain tilting his head. All friendliness had melted from his face leaving a cold grin and hungry eyes feasting off the sight of Hero at his table. “I just decided it wasn’t going to be me.”

Hero tugged their arms down suddenly but they may as well not have for the lot of good it did them. Supervillain leaned down, his face close to Hero’s as he grinned.

“You should have struck first, little Hero. Then maybe the roles would be reversed, but as of right now—” Supervillain’s eyes darkened. “I control the board.”

*~*~*~*~*

Continued here

Orphanage roll-call (lmk if you wanna be added or removed): @xenlust @books-are-everything @micechomper @shywhumpauthor @aarika-merrill

[the-broken-pen]

The hero woke up with a start, tears streaming down their face as their book went flying. They rubbed their palms against their cheeks angrily, but it did nothing to stop the flow.

Across the room, the villain coughed.

The Hero’s gaze snapped to them, and they regarded the hero calmly.

“Bad dream?”

The hero looked away, embarrassment coloring their cheeks.

“No.”

The villain sighed.

“Good dream, then?”

The hero said nothing, and the villain nodded in understanding.

“I see. Would you like to tell me about it?”

They studied every inch of their room, the silence fidgeting between them like an anxious child, before the words fought their way out.

“I—we, saved the world.”

The villain hummed. “Ah.”

The hero sniffed and tugged the blankets higher on their lap. The book lay forgotten on the floor.

“I can understand the tears, then,” they said sympathetically. The hero let out an unamused laugh.

“No, you can’t.”

“Just because I do not empathize does not mean I cannot understand,” the villain tipped their head. “You have many regrets. That much is clear. It is written upon every move you make. So do not preach understanding, Hero, when I know how you work.”

The hero stiffened.

“I hate you.”

“You hate yourself more,” the villain said conversationally, and the hero’s chest welled with pain.

The silence roiled.

“Yes,” they agreed quietly. “I do.”

The villain tapped their hand once against the door frame.

“I’ll leave you to your dreaming, then, Hero.”

Hero.

Nothing more than a bit of mockery, now.

Their eyes met, the villain’s gaze burning into them, before they turned from the door of the hero’s cell.

They paused. “You cannot change the past, fallen one,” they said softly. And then they were gone.

The hero lay back, and closed their eyes.

Maybe if they tried hard enough, they could bring their dreams into reality. Maybe they could save everyone—could be the hero everyone had worshiped them as. Could rewrite the ending and bring their friends back to life. Could make it so they ended up in a pedestal and not in a cage. So many maybes. The hero dreamed of all of them, constantly. It never really made a difference.

In their cell designed by the villain who had beaten them irrevocably, the hero fell asleep, and outside, the world burned.

Unsaved.

[writingphoenix]

Realization

Hero came to in a brightly lit room. Everything hurt and he didn’t know where he was. The last he remembered, he was fighting with his team and was injured. Seriously injured. With a sinking feeling, he realized that he was restrained to the bed he was in and there were tubes attached to him. He could hear a familiar voice talking, just out of range to understand what she was saying. Villain’s lair. 

“Villain, he’s awake,” a voice called. Hero’s stomach sank. He knew what was coming and braced himself for pain. Or at least more of it. He heard footsteps.

“Hey, you pulled through,” Villain said. Her voice carried more compassion than Hero had ever heard.

“Just get it over with and kill me,” Hero spat. He was shocked at how hoarse his voice was. Villain began looking over him, checking his bandages and the tubes.

“Now, why would I do that? I just went through the trouble of nursing you back to health.”

“Torture. Interrogation. Humiliation. Retribution. Plenty of reasons. Just get it over with.”

“I’m not going hurt you or kill you,” Villain said. Hero didn’t believe her. 

Days went by and he got stronger. He was still restrained to the bed but he was otherwise treated like a normal hospital patient. He was confused at the lack of torture. He decided Villain must be playing mind games with him. He hadn’t seen her since the first day. Medic said it was because she had a mission and lots of work to catch up on. Apparently she hadn’t left his side during the few days he was unconscious. He didn’t know what to think about that.

Medic decided he was healthy enough to leave the bed. He was moved to a secure cell. He was shocked to find a TV that played movies and warm clothes and a comfortable bed. He thought back to the cells at Headquarters. They were small, dark, and bare. They had a hard bed and a single blanket. Anything more was too good for a villain. Hero didn’t know what to think about that.

Villain came to visit him in the cell. She helped Medic with his physical therapy as he relearned to walk. Hero thought back to the last villain he had captured. The villain had been left in the cell to deal with his injuries. He had been interrogated and then disposed of. He was a villain, he was evil, he couldn’t be left alive. That’s what Hero had been taught. But he was given medical care and a comfortable room. He was given good food instead of old scraps and leftovers. He didn’t know what to think about that.

He had asked Villain why. Why was he being treated like this? Hero shrugged and had said,

“Because you’re a person too.” He hated being a prisoner but he hated the way being treated like this made him feel. This wasn’t how it was supposed to be. He should have been tortured and killed. Villain was evil, that’s why he fought her. But he was starting to doubt that.

His trainer had taught him to protect the important things. Protect the mayor of the city. Protect the wealthy families that were targets of the villains. Protect the city hall and the mansions and the businesses downtown. Those kept the city going. Hero began to wonder about everyone else. Villain told him about her adventures and she was always mentioning some family in the poor side of town or some kid going home from school. She talked about plots she was planning for the very people Hero had protected, to stop them from doing one bad thing or another. Hero began to hate that he had protected them.

And then Hero came to a realization. Villain wasn’t evil. She did good things, treated everyone with dignity. He began to realize with horror that what he had done, what he had protected, revolted him. He had ignored the poor of the city, he had protected the rich who held them down. He had tortured men and women who were only trying to help and who had died to protect the little people. 

He wasn’t a hero. He was the Villain.

---

[macknus]

Heroic Betrayal (II)

Read part one here // Master-post // read next part here

They stopped at a car parked right on the edge of the park, pulled in on the opposite side of the road. Secluded, and remote. Villain was already at the car, and when he saw Morgan and Flynn, he walked around the car and opened the boot, turning to smile at Morgan.

Morgan stepped back unconsciously, shaking her head. “No. No. No.”

Flynn grabbed the crook of Morgan’s elbow and pulled her forward, but Morgan made herself grow heavy, dead weight. Flynn’s hand slipped off Morgan when she landed on her arse on the frozen muck. She pushed herself back on her feet, trying to escape. No, no, no, no, she couldn’t – Flynn wouldn’t, he knew she was claustrophobic, he knew and oh my god, he couldn’t!

“No! No! Flynn don’t, please! Please don’t do this!” Morgan cried. She kicked out a leg at Flynn when he came closer. “Please, please don’t put me in the trunk please.”

Flynn put a placating hand out to Villain as he crouched down in front of her. “I’ll make you forget,” Flynn said softly. Morgan’s heart slammed against her chest as tears pooled in her water line.

“No, Flynn. You can’t. I’ll know! You can’t please, please—”

“Morgan,” Flynn said, voice firmer. “If you drive with us in the car, I can’t trust you not to crash it or do something stupid.”

“I—” Morgan said but the words were whisked away with the hitch in her breath. She couldn’t go into the trunk. Morgan reached pathetically for her power as Flynn advanced, but it was silenced by the power dampeners and Morgan cursed. Her eyes never leaving the car’s boot that Villain stood at, grinning all the while over at her. Did he know? Did Flynn tell him that she was…?

She didn’t notice Flynn getting closer until it was too late. Flynn wrapped a hand around Morgan’s ankle and yanked her forward. Morgan yelped, screaming for “someone! Someone help me! So—”

“Flynn shut her up!” Villain yelled, as Flynn grabbed each side of Morgan’s head and locked his gaze on Morgan’s panicked eyes. Morgan felt her body go numb with Flynn’s gaze alone.

“Flynn, don’t, don’t – please,” she whimpered, pawing uselessly at Flynn’s chest as his eyes seemed to swirl, locking her in place.

“Ssh, there we go. Morgan you’re going to forget the journey to Supervillain’s house. You won’t remember you were trapped in the boot the whole ride there. Tell me.”

“I won’t remember the journey to Supervillain’s house. I won’t remember being trapped in the boot.”

“Good,” Flynn said with a smile. Then he took the opportunity to get the dazed Morgan to her feet and walk her over to Villain.

“It’s so creepy when you do that,” said Villain. Flynn flashed a grin in reply. Villain grabbed Morgan's arm and said, “start the car. I’ll put her in the boot. Knowing you, you’d let her ride in the passenger seat in a heartbeat.”

“You’re not wrong,” Flynn laughed. He left the pair and walked around the car to the driver’s seat, sliding in and shutting the door. He let out a sigh as he turned the key in the ignition. He forgot Morgan was claustrophobic. How could he forget that? He remembered Morgan telling him that fact in confidence, during one of their late-night stake outs. How scared she sounded.

He should have made her forget before she saw the car, but it was too late now anyhow. Villain climbed into the passenger seat and closed the door. Flynn put the car into drive and pulled out onto the road, as nonchalant as ever.

***

The next thing Morgan knew she was in a cell on a bed, the cuffs still firmly locked around her wrists. She didn’t remember how she got there, or where she was, something she could no doubt credit to Flynn. Though she felt the salt trail of tears hardened around the corner of her eyes and down her cheeks.

So much for not using his power on me.

She was thankful Flynn left her with her scabbard at least, straps still wrapped tight around her chest, a reassuring weight on her back. She could grab her daggers anytime.

As soon as Flynn took these stupid handcuffs off, Morgan thought mulishly, staring down at her trapped hands balanced in between her bent knees.

The sound of a door opening nearby made Morgan raise her head to look at the cell bars, waiting for whoever it was to come gloat. Somewhere, in the dark side of her mind, a sad, quiet voice wanted nothing more than to see Flynn’s stupid face on the other side of the bars. His stupid crimson red hair that was always precariously sticking up and perfectly windswept.

Instead, Villain appeared. Morgan struggled to keep her face neutral. She didn’t want to show him what impact he left on her. Villain and his stupid fucking shadows. Morgan fixed Villain with a bored stare, resting her head back against the cold wall.

“Miss me?” Morgan asked, wanting to celebrate that her voice didn’t betray her. Unlike Flynn.

Villain just stared, cocking a brow at her. Her eyes darted down to Villain’s hands, a trick of the light catching her attention. She frowned, about to raise her gaze again when she saw them. Shadows slipped in flowing rivers from his palms and under his clothes, slowly, dreadfully slowly, dripping, slithering along the ground and through the bars of the cell. Morgan’s heart hammered against her chest, but she forced herself not to move. Not to react. That’s what Villain wanted, for her to scream and cry.

Fine. Maybe she would, but Villain would damn fucking sure have to work for it.

“If you want to give me a hug Villain, you can come in here and do it yourself.”

“Cute,” said Villain, cocking his head to the side, as a smile slipped onto his face, “but I think I’ll leave that for Flynn.”

Morgan’s heart panged, and she hated herself for it. She shouldn’t be sad. she should be angry. Pissed off, but her stupid little heart ached at the mention of Flynn, and she couldn’t wrestle the feeling away.

“What was it like?” Villain asked, leaning his hands through the bars and clasping his fingers together. His eyes shining with malice as he continued, shadows inching closer and closer, “realising your best friend and greatest ally was all lies. Did it hurt? I bet it hurt.”

“Ehh. You win some, you lose some,” Morgan shrugged, subtly retracting her feet to her chest to evade the shadowy claws that were crawling up the legs of the bedframe.

“Ah. You seem more confident than before. Have you had time to process it all? Compartmentalise? Is that what they taught you during Hero training? Maybe I’ll ask Flynn…”

Morgan smiled, the result humourless and wan. “You do that.”

The cold was the first sign that the shadows were upon her. A hand wrapped around Morgan’s ankle, slowly pulling her leg down. “What about you?” Morgan asked, wanting to take her focus off the shadows that pulled at her.

Villain’s eyebrows raised in question. “What about me?”

“You must have missed him,” Morgan continued, nonchalant. “I mean when Flynn was pretending to be my friend. The late nights, the early mornings. The stakeouts… we got close. Maybe he was lying to me about being a villain and a traitor, but still… all that time he spent with me he wasn’t with you. How does that feel?”

Villain didn’t answer. Instead, he drew his arm back sharply and the shadows yanked Morgan down the bed. Morgan kicked and fought, but she was struggling in vain against air and shadows. They weren’t a tangible thing. With her hands locked uselessly in front of her dulling her powers Morgan could do nothing as the shadows kept dragging her towards the bars where Villain stood.

“You’re not worth the effort,” Villain spat as he reached down and pressed his actual cold hand to Morgan’s throat, keeping her chin up and forcing her to look into Villain’s cool black eyes, burning with an old kind of hatred.

“Mmm,” Morgan said, clearing her throat with a slight cough that highlighted Villain’s hands on her throat. “Maybe you should ask Fly—”

Villain cut Morgan off by squeezing his hand around her throat. Morgan pulled back, her brain screamed at her to flee, but it was as if a wall was behind her squishing her towards the bars, to Villain’s hand and his unyielding grip. Morgan couldn’t even use her hands to free herself because they were squished between her rib cage and the iron bars of the cell.

Eventually Villain let go and Morgan pushed back a little, gasping in lungfuls of air.

“I don’t even know what he sees in you,” Villain hissed. Morgan looked up through her lashes, still wheezing for oxygen and said: “my devil may care charm, perhaps.”

A shadowed hand gripped the back of Morgan’s head and slammed her nose into the bars in front of her. Morgan gripped the bars on instinct when a loud resounding crunch echoed through Morgan’s head, and she cried out. Warm blood started flowing down her nose and lips, dripping passed her chin and onto her shirt.

“Motherfucker,” Morgan gasped out. Her head was slammed down again and Morgan screamed. The impact caught the bridge of her nose this time making the blood gush, some sliding down the back of her throat and she coughed, the taste of iron staining her mouth. Enraged Morgan spit some of the blood into Villain’s stupid, smirking face.

Villain smiled and it seemed to suck all confidence from Morgan’s very soul. A smile so dark it struck fear straight to centre of Morgan’s heart, pumping the danger signal around her body through her blood that that was a mistake, and she should run.

“Ah. I see now what he likes about you. You look perfect when you’re bleeding and scared.”

Morgan couldn’t help herself as the words spilled from her mouth: “you creep. At least buy me dinner first.”

The shadows tightened around Morgan, cold hands grabbed and pushed her down. She knew it was futile to resist as she fought and struggled, Villain’s shadows were freakishly strong, and Morgan’s knees hit the cold concrete floor of her cell. Villain grabbed Morgan’s chin, moving her head side to side, examining her. She tried to push back, to stand up, to do anything; but the shadows kept her exactly how Villain wanted her.

“There. Beautiful,” Villain said. Morgan’s blood was dripping onto Villain’s hand, but he didn’t seem to care. Morgan sucked in a breath through clenched teeth and choked on some of the blood, sputtering slightly. Villain’s eyes seared into Morgan’s soul, watching her struggle and revelling in it. He pressed his hand that was soaked in Morgan’s blood to her cheek, wiping the remnants on Morgan before straightening properly.

When Villain released the shadows Morgan fell to all fours, coughing out the blood onto the concrete floor. Painting the miserable grey, a bright red. When Morgan looked up again Villain was gone, but the fear he trapped in Morgan’s chest was still very much there.

Lingering like the coldness of his shadowed touch.

Morgan retreated to the back wall of the cell, sat on the cot again and rested her head back against the wall, and waited for the blood to stop falling.

What kind of idiot was she to be stuck here? She should have told Sidekick when she got the tip about Villain… she should have told them that she was going to rough Villain up a bit, get the information they needed on Other Villain’s whereabouts and beat the shit out of him. Just a little revenge for touching a hair on Sidekick’s innocent head.

Even if she managed to catch Villain and mete out justice on Other Villain, she would have beaten the ever-living shit out of the wrong person, and that was something Morgan didn’t want to think about in that moment.

That Flynn…

Her Flynn was the one who put Sidekick in the hospital.

Sidekick, who was still in the hospital, where Morgan should be, but no. Instead, she was stuck here, powerless and bleeding and it was all her fault.

Morgan didn’t know how long she sat and stewed on that thought. Long enough that her nose stopped bleeding anyway. She tentatively reached up to her upper lip, her hand came away from it dry, the blood caked and flaked now. At least that was something, she supposed.

“What happened to your face?” Morgan angled her head down from where she stared at the ceiling to see Flynn standing on the other side of the cell bars.

“Fuck off, Red,” Morgan grumbled, and fought the wince at the nickname that slipped so casually from her lips. “I’m not in the mood.”

A jangle of keys and the cell door was open, footsteps approached Morgan in her cot in the corner. Her heart ached with every beat as Flynn came into her line of sight, concern drawing his features together.

How many times had she seen that same concern on his face? Told her it was going to be okay… Cleaned her wounds, laughed about the bruises the next day?

How much of it was a lie? — Morgan wanted to ask. The question burned a hole on the tip of her tongue, but she didn’t dare speak it. She just stared and tried not to cry.

“What? You piss someone off already?”

Morgan sighed. Flynn sat on the edge of the bed, moving closer, hands going to inspect the damage. Morgan slapped them away, tears burning the back of her eyes.

“Don’t fucking touch me, Flynn,” Morgan spat. “You don’t get to betray me and then pretend to be my friend and concerned about me.”

Flynn stared; eyes sad as he said: “okay. Guess I deserve that.”

“You deserve so much more,” Morgan said, eyes burning with hatred, her voice barely above a whisper. “How many of our friends died because of you? Hmm?”

“Morgan, not all of it–” Flynn began then stopped, huffed out a breath of air through his nose, hand running through his hair. His nervous tick. “Not all of it was a lie. I am your friend. I do care about you.”

“Oh really? Then you’d never use your power on me, right?” Morgan demanded, echoing Flynn’s words against him. Flynn had the audacity to look guilty at that, and Morgan leaned forwards, hands on Flynn’s as she said: “I forgive you, okay. I forgive you if you let me go. Flynn, please.”

Flynn’s eyebrows knit together, clearly conflicted but he said nothing. After a moment, Morgan let out a breath of disbelief and sat back against the wall again.

“Yeah,” Morgan scoffed, “we’re friends.”

“You have blood all over your face, Morgan. You really want to just leave it?”

“Why the hell not?” Morgan demanded, an attempt to force her tone into some form of neutrality.

Flynn sighed and stood from the cot. “Supervillain wants an audience with you. I was sent to retrieve you.”

Morgan rolled her eyes, but she got to her feet regardless. “Of course,” she said, pushing past Flynn to the door. “God help you actually wanted to see how I was doing.”

“Morgan—”

“I don’t want to talk to you anymore. Let’s just go.”

“Morgan that’s not—”

Before he could get the fourth word out, Morgan had whirled on him eyes blazing hotter than any of hell’s furnaces.

“Fair?!” She asked incredulously, her voice jumped two pitches at the sheer audacity of the word on her lips. “Is that what you were going to say?”

Flynn didn’t back down this time. He stepped forward, and stared down his nose at Morgan.

“Yes. That is what I was going to say.”

“You are unbelievable!” Morgan snapped matching Flynn with a step forward of her own. She held her cuffed hands up in Flynn’s face as if to remind him exactly why Morgan was there in the first place. “If you’re my friend you’ll take these off.”

“Morgan you know I can’t—”

Morgan didn’t let him finish. Instead, she placed her palms flat on Flynn’s chest and shoved him as hard as she could. Flynn looked about as bothered as if a fly had flown into the room.

“I can’t uncuff you Morgan,” Morgan said, lowering her voice to mimic Flynn’s and shoved him back again. “I can’t let you go Morgan.” And again. “I can’t fucking think—” shove “for myself” shove “Morgan.”

Morgan glared up at Flynn trying to fight back the frustrated tears building behind her eyes. Anger was easier to focus on in the moment rather than that vast aching pit that twisted like briars uncomfortably in her gut.

“But I promise I’m your friend, Morgan,” Morgan mocked, shoving him back again until Flynn’s back hit off the wall. Flynn’s eyebrows curved down and it left a pang in Morgan’s chest that she hated. “And then you have the gall to look hurt. As if I betrayed you.”

Morgan ignored the tears that fell at the last sentence, or at least, she tried to. She tried to be firm and act tough, but saying the betrayal out loud, acknowledging it when it was just the two of them was too much.

“Would you trust me if the roles were reversed?” Morgan asked, not wanting to look at Flynn for the answer. The more she saw the conflict on his face the harder it was to hate him. Flynn, however, didn’t take this into consideration when he put his hand on Morgan’s face and tilted her back to face him.

Morgan narrowed her eyes at him, pushing every ounce of anger into her gaze hoping it would turn into actual daggers and stab him.

“No,” Flynn breathed softly, thumb wiping away the tear streaks from Morgan’s face. “I wouldn’t trust you if the roles were reversed, but I would hear you out of you tried to explain it to me.”

“And if I took you to Supervillain?!” Morgan asked, her voice low and furious as she stepped out of Flynn’s touch. “The enemy we’ve been trying to stop for months?”

“You.”

“What?!” Morgan demanded hotly.

Flynn’s gaze hardened, his face devoid of all emotion now except for his usual mask of easy confidence, smirk on his lips as if he didn’t just wipe Morgan’s tears away with tender strokes.

“The enemy you’ve been trying to stop for months,” Flynn said again taking a step forward, a dangerous glint in his eyes. Morgan matched it with one back, cautious, hackles raised. “I mean the man you borderline obsessed over, Morgan. Don’t you want to meet the genius who eluded you, the great detective, for all that time?”

“Not particularly,” Morgan said through gritted teeth with another step back that Flynn matched, getting closer and closer each time. She was acutely aware that he was cornering her but she didn’t have time to do anything except evade.

“That’s what you called him though, right? A genius,” Flynn teased, his grin showing his teeth. “I mean, fuck, Morgan some of the moves he made you were damn right impressed with. You even said you’d have done exactly the same thing if—”

“I was in his position,” Morgan cut Flynn off. Flynn’s smirk grew wider as he took another step closer, dipping his head conspiratorially.

“Now you can be,” said Flynn with a wide gesture of his hands. Morgan followed his hand to the cell door that they happened to be right beside. “Even just for the intellectual stimulation if nothing else.”

“Go fuck yourself, Flynn. I’m not willingly walking into the Lion’s den.”

Flynn’s eyelids fell halfway over his eyes. “It is less dignified to be dragged, Morgan, but if you insist.”

Flynn made a grab for Morgan’s arm, but she dodged at the last minute, turning to shoulder Flynn out of the way. Flynn didn’t so much as budge from his spot. Instead, he caught Morgan by the strap of her scabbard and yanked her back into his chest.

“The hard way, wonderful. I wouldn’t expect any less of you Morgan,” Flynn said, wrapping an arm over Morgan's chest and keeping her close as he stepped out of the cell, pushing Morgan forward with his own body weight. “Let's go introduce you to Supervillain.”

*~*~*~*~*

Continued here

[shironezuninja]

I think a lot of us grew up to have a bit of S&M since the days of cartoon shows, like Tiny Toons.

[warrioreowynofrohan]

One of the oddest Silmarillion takes that I’ve seen recently is the idea that Beren and Lúthien had it easy.

I mean, let’s take a look at Beren’s life. The Battle of Sudden Flame hits when he’s in his early twenties. He spends five years carrying on a guerilla war against the invasion of his homeland by orcs and other evil creatures; his mother and all his female relatives have to flee, and he has no knowledge of whether they are desd or alive, or captured. There’s a strange darkness speading over the forest and turning it into something out of a horror movie, a place most people won’t even dare to go into. The band of guerillas is slowly whittled down to about a dozen people, who are hunted constantly by Sauron and his wolves. Then, while he is away, his father, his uncles, and everyone else remaining are brutally killed, and he returns to find crows eating their corpses and orcs joking about looting the dead.

He carries on an guerilla alone, against Sauron, for another several years, in the haunted woods od Taur-nu-Fuin. When he absolutely can’t last any longer, he crosses the most horrifying wasteland in all of Beleriand, where the only water present is poisoned and turns you mad, filled with evil spiders and who knows what other creatures. He’s in his early thirties but he’s been through so mich that he looks like an old man. He has lost literally everyone he has ever known; he does not know if any friend or relative of his, anywhere, is still free or living.

Then he meets Lúthien.

When he leaves Doriath on the quest of the Silmaril, which every sane person in Beleriand knows is laughably impossible, he goes to Finrod, the one person he can hope for any assustance from. Finrod has an entire realm; I don’t think Beren is any expectation that Finrod will go with him personally. And what happens? The king of the largest remaining kingdom in Beleriand besides Doriath is overthrown by his own people at the instigation of Celegorm and Curufin and left with only a few loyal people around him. All of whom then die torturously in the dungeons of Sauron, followed by Finrod’s own death saving Beren.

On top of everything else he’s been through, on top of spending several months in despair being tortured in Sauron’s dungeons, the survivor’s guilt that Beren must be feeling is extreme. Even after Lúthien rescues him, it takes him a while to recover. And he still hasn’t made any progress on the quest itself!

Then they’re attacked by Celegorm and Curufin – the people who bear a substantial amount of respinsibility for the death of Finrod and the Ten, the people who very deliberately abandoned them all to due and coerced all Nargothrond to do the same, and the people who kidnapped Lúthien and attempted to force her into marriage – and they try to kidnap Lúthien again, and to murder Beren.

The fact that Beren does not kill Curufin in that moment is a deed of extreme moral fortitude. The difference between Beren and Lúthien compared with many of the Finwëans isn’t that they don’t face temptations, or that their choices are easy, it’s that they overcome those temptations.

So. Beren spares Curufin’s life at Lúthien’s urging and Curufin immediately tries to murder Lúthien; Beren jumps in front of the arrow, is severely wounded again, and for the third time since they met Lúthien gets to work healing him. Virtually all of their time together has been spent with Beren recuperating from physical injury, psychological injury, or both.

And as soon as Beren recovers, he walks away from the one person who loves him who’s still alive, and prepares to rob the gates of Hell, alone. Because Beleriand is dangerous, and as long as Lúthien is with him and therefore unable to go anywhere safe, she will be in danger from both the servants of Morgoth and the sons of Fëanor. And even if there’s a virtual 100% chance that him walking into Angband will lead to him being slowly tortured to death, that’s a better option than the one person he has left getting killed or, worse, captured, because of him.

And then she goes with him anyway. And beyond all hope they actually succeed in getting a Silmaril - and then he immediately loses it, and his hand, to Carcharoth, and it was all for nothing.

And for the fourth time since Lúthien met him, he’s near death and she’s desperately fighting to heal him and kerp him alive, while she’s exhausted to the point of collapse. And this is the moment when she gives up and goes back to Doriath, because that is what has the best chance of keeping Beren alive.

And then, at last, a ray of hope – Thingol looks at all they’ve been through and says, fine, you crazy kids can get married. And they’ve scarcely been married yet when they learn that oh, it’s not over, Carcharoth is rampaging through the land killing people and this needs to be dealt with. And Beren, even after everything, insists on going. (Because, hello, survivor’s guilt! he probably feels that this is his fault for, uh, getting his hand bitten off.)

(The fact that the Silmaril was, for a time, inside a wolf and outside Doriath, and Celegorm, noted hunter, never got near it, is, okay, rather amusing to me.)

And then Beren dies, saving Thingol, because he knows deeply what it feels like to lose his family and he’s not going to let that happen to Lúthien. And she loses him instead.

Now let’s shift to Lúthien’s point of view. Since her first meeting with Beren she has been betrayed by literally everyone she knows and everyone she meets except for Beren and Huan. She has been treated like a child, and a madwoman, and a trophy, and a pawn, and a sex object, and literally everything except an adult person whose choices have worth and meaning. She is not a superhero; she does not know what she is doing; she is terrified for practically every moment of it, for Beren’s sake even more than for her own, and for much of it she is hopeless. She does not know how or if she can achieve anything; she only knows that she has to try, because it is better than sitting in Doriath waiting to find out if Beren is dead. She puts substantial work and thought and effort into figuring out how to get out of Doriath (given in more detail in the poetic version) – and then, just when she thinks she’s found help (note: Celegorm and Curufin do not give her their names when they first meet her; she doesn’t know they’re the sons of Fëanor), she is again taken captive, this time with the goal of forced marriage and the threat of rape hanging over her. And she still knows Beren is in desperate danger, and she still can do nothing about it.

When Huan aids her and she goes to Tol-in-Gaurhoth, it isn’t because she feels she has the power to fight Sauron one-on-one! It’s because she’s desperate and can’t think of any other options. And in fact, it is not she who defeats Sauron, it is Huan; once he is defeated by Huan, she has the intelligence and strength of will to force his surrender by threatening him with something he fears more than defeat, and to demand – not the freeing of Beren alone – but the destruction of Tol-in-Gaurhoth, freeing all its prisoners. The reason she defeats Sauron is not that she’s a half-Maia badass who can wave her hands and do everything easily! The reason she defeats him is that she shows up there completely vulnerable and in effect uses herself as bait. That is an extraordinary degree of courage, not some kind of deus ex machina. And she’s putting all the strength that she has on the line – she’s pretty much passing out by the time she finds Beren. Similarly, all her healing of him is hard, exhausting work that she’s doing despite being, the whole time, terrified that he’s about to die. None of this is easy.

Likewise in Angband – Huan’s advice and Lúthien’s magic of disguise and sleep is invaluble in getting them through the door and past Carcharoth, but the reason she is able to enchant Morgoth and cast all Angband into sleep is not primarily because of extreme power, but because, like every other non-Beren person she meets, he doesn’t take her seriously. Morgoth finds the idea of using Melian’s daughter as a brief entertainment amusing (and, if you read the poetic version, makes some truly creepy sexual threats against her), and that’s how she is able to get him unguarded enough that she’s well into her song and he’s already getting sleepy before it starts to occur to him that maybe this isn’t going quite as he planned. Lúthien’s victories are not because she’s just on a different power level from the rest of Beleriand, they’re because she’s amazingly brave and willing to walk into the most dangerous places virtually defenceless. And she and Beren rely on each other utterly – after her sleep song she’s practically passing out and can only get out of Angband because Beren is holding her up.

So this is who they are, at Beren’s death. A man who has lost everyone he loves and everyone who loves him, every friend or family, often helplessly witnessing their gruesome death – everyone except for Lúthien. And an elf-woman who has been betrayed by everyone she loved or trusted, except for Beren.

When Beren dies, I wonder if he’s even relieved that it’s finally him dying instead of everyone around him. When he sees Lúthien in the Halls of Mandos, I believe his first feeling would be not joy or love, but horror. That the last living person he loved, and the one he wanted above all to save, had now died because of him.

But Lúthien isn’t done. She goes to Mandos, and she sings, and her song says: look at what we have been through, look at what all Beleriand has been through, Eldar and Edain. We don’t want realms or glory or power; we only want a few moments of peace with each other, and we fought so hard for it, and we didn’t even get that. And when she’s offered bliss and immortality for herself, she says No, I don’t want it, not without Beren. She isn’t promised happiness or long life – she only know that for the short time she will get, she will have the chance to be with Beren. And that is enough for her; for that, she gives up everything else.

This is a faerie-story; but it does not sound to me like a trite tale of easy victories handed to the heroes by Fate or by the author! They fought and struggled and sacrificed for those victories, amd they did it without ever letting go of courage, and mercy, and humility. There is a reason why this is the story that Frodo and Sam hearken back to for inspiration.

[gingermintpepper]

In my Zeus bag today so I'm just gonna put it out there that exactly none of the great Ancient Greek warrior-heroes stayed loyal and faithful and completely monogamous and yet none of them have their greatness questioned nor do we question why they had the cultural prominence that they did and still do.

Jason, the brilliant leader of the Argo, got cold feet when it came to Medea - already put off by some of her magic and then exiled from his birthland because of her political ploys, he took Creusa to bed and fully intended on marrying her despite not properly dissolving things with Medea.

Theseus was a fierce warrior and an incredibly talented king but he had a horrible temper and was almost fatally weak to women. This is the man who got imprisoned in the Underworld for trying to get a friend laid, the man who started the whole Attic War because he couldn't keep his legs closed.

And we cannot at all forget Heracles for whom a not inconsiderable amount of his joy in life was loving people then losing the people around him that he loved. Wives, children, serving boys, mentors, Heracles had a list of lovers - male and female - long enough to rival some gods and even after completing his labours and coming down to the end of his life, he did not have one wife but three.

And y'know what, just because he's a cultural darling, I'll put Achilles up here too because that man was a Theseus type where he was fantastic at the thing he was born to do (that is, fight whereas Theseus' was to rule) but that was not enough to eclipse his horrid temper and his weakness to young pretty things. This is the man that killed two of Apollo's sons because they wouldn't let him hit - Tenes because he refused to let Achilles have his sister and Troilus who refused Achilles so vehemently that he ran into Apollo's temple to avoid him and still couldn't escape.

All four of these men are still celebrated as great heroes and men. All four of these men are given the dignity of nuance, of having their flaws treated as just that, flaws which enrich their character and can be used to discuss the wider cultural point of what truly makes a hero heroic. All four of these men still have their legacies respected.

Why can that same mindset not be applied to Zeus? Zeus, who was a warrior-king raised in seclusion apart from his family. Zeus who must have learned to embrace the violence of thunder for every time he cried as a babe, the Corybantes would bang their shields to hide the sound. Zeus learned to be great because being good would not see the universe's affairs in its order.

The wonderful thing about sympathy is that we never run out of it. There's no rule stopping us from being sympathetic to multiple plights at once, there's no law that necessitate things always exist on the good-evil binary. Yes, Zeus sentenced Prometheus to sufferation in Tartarus for what (to us) seems like a cruel reason. Prometheus only wanted to help humans! But when you think about Prometheus' actions from a king's perspective, the narrative is completely different: Prometheus stole divine knowledge and gifted it to humans after Zeus explicitly told him not to. And this was after Prometheus cheated all the gods out of a huge portion of wealth by having humans keep the best part of a sacrifice's meat while the gods must delight themselves with bones, fat and skin. Yes, Zeus gave Persephone away to Hades without consulting Demeter but what king consults a woman who is not his wife about the arrangement of his daughter's marriage to another king? Yes, Zeus breaks the marriage vows he set with Hera despite his love of her but what is the Master of Fate if not its staunchest slave?

The nuance is there. Even in his most bizarre actions, the nuance and logic and reason is there. The Ancient Greeks weren't a daft people, they worshipped Zeus as their primary god for a reason and they did not associate him with half the vices modern audiences take issue with. Zeus was a father, a visitor, a protector, a fair judge of character, a guide for the lost, the arbiter of revenge for those that had been wronged, a pillar of strength for those who needed it and a shield to protect those who made their home among the biting snakes. His children were reflections of him, extensions of his will who acted both as his mercy and as his retribution, his brothers and sisters deferred to him because he was wise as well as powerful. Zeus didn't become king by accident and it is a damn shame he does not get more respect.

[rhiangalaxy]

LQG: Shit I didn't mean to say that out loud.

[ID: A Scum Villain Comic. First image depicts Shen Yuan in an outfit reminiscent of BOTW!Zelda's goddess outfit except with sleeves that fall down the shoulder. He grips one of his arms and looks down to the side as if uncomfortable, saying "I don't know... I feel like I look stupid." The next image depicts Liu Qingge in BOTW!Link's champion outfit. He looks on with a loving expression/smile and says "You look...Wonderful." The last image has both characters in chibi style. SY now looks up to LQG with an amazed expression, his face and body now flushed. LQG on the other hand, looks away with a very flushed face and sweating, his fists clenched with an spiky thought bubble that simply says "FUCK" End ID]

[heybiji]

sketching a ttrpg npc that has yet to show up on screen yet. i'm well.

[chaotic-orphan]

Intoxicating Fear (XXIII)

Breaking spirits

Read part one // Masterpost // Continued from here

This part is dedicated to @dutifullykrispyland and that one choking anon who i thought of when writing the end of Ambrose’s scene :)

~*~*~*~*~*~

Jude smiled a toothy grin, his mouth wide like a shark’s, as he observed Ambrose with smiling eyes. “So you want to know about Supervillain, huh? Why?”

“I want to get in contact, shake his hand.”

Jude’s eyes flashed. “A fanboy are you?”

Ambrose smiled coldly, one hand on the barrel like table, pinky finger drumming a beat. “Something like that.”

“Mmmm, interesting. You want to join his squad, or are you just a groupie?”

“Supervillain has a squad?”

A flash of canines. Jude sat back in the booth, one hand on his chin in a mock contemplative expression. “Hmm. You’re not a groupie then, are you, stranger? You seem more like a fisherman to me.”

Ambrose clenched his teeth. This guy was getting on his last nerve and he’d like nothing more than to just shiv him with a broken bottle, or anything else sharp he could find. But then Max would kill him. But it would be worth it to see this bastard bleeding out under him.

“A fisherman?” Ambrose asked, voice deadpan. He shrugged, an irritated thing. “What does that mean?”

“You’re fishing for information,” Jude replied.

“Yeah, no shit. I’m starting to think that maybe you don’t even know Supervillain and just say you do so you have someone to talk to.” Ambrose said, getting to his feet and grabbing his jacket.

Only when he turned his back did he hear Jude say: “wait!”

Ambrose stopped, glancing back over his shoulder to the smiling idiot. Though he may as well have been looking at another man. Jude’s expression shifted in the flash of Ambrose’s disinterest, from a playful, smiling jackass to something completely different. Closer to Ambrose, or Kit, though colder than Kit was.

Serious, Ambrose realised, and he fought back a smile. Finally.

“Fine. We can be boring and talk business.” Jude conceded, gesturing for Ambrose to take a seat again. Ambrose did and the girl emerged from the shadows again with a tray of something Ambrose probably shouldn’t drink. The girl placed the bottle on the barrel, and two glasses onto the coasters already on the table.

Ambrose kept his black eyes trained on the girl as she blows a bubble of chewing gum and pops it before melting into the shadows again.

Was she watching them from now on, then? Two on one? Best to proceed as if they are, and if there’s two, why not twelve, especially if you’re Supervillain. Always good to have friends.

Jude poured Ambrose a glass and then himself, three fingers of bourbon each. A heavy pour. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you’re trying to get me drunk.”

“Afraid of a little libation?”

Ambrose lifted his glass, meeting Jude’s light eyes over the rim. “You look like a bottom, so I’m down to clown.”

Jude’s eyes drank in Ambrose as he took a hefty sip of the bourbon, Ambrose’s black eyes never leaving Jude’s. He really fucking hoped that his wasn’t poisoned or spiked, because he would never live that down if anyone found out.

Ambrose lowered his glass with a smack of his lips. “That’s good,” he said, feeling the grooves of the cut glass, the same glasses Max used in his bar so at least they were consistent. Ambrose appreciated the attention to detail. “It has some bite to it. Now.” Ambrose said, clasping his hands together on the barrel, black eyes catching Jude’s again. “Supervillain. Talk.”

Jude’s gaze fell to the glass and lazily trailed back up to Ambrose’s face, a slow, lazy smirk crawling it’s way onto his handsome face like the Cheshire Cat who knew something Alice didn’t.

“I could have poisoned that for all you know,” Jude said.

Ambrose shrugged. “What’s for me won’t pass me by, but I do have another stop after this exchange, so if you don’t mind talking. I’m a busy man.”

“You’re getting ahead of yourself. I don’t even know your name.”

“Ambrose,” Ambrose said flatly, eyes going to the bottle of bourbon. It really was a nice bourbon, and Ambrose didn’t usually drink it, so he grabbed the bottle in his hand, letting his eyes scan over the label.

“That’s all I get?”

“That’s all you get. Now. Jude, Supervillain. Do you know him or not?”

Jude scoffed out a laugh. “You’re a stubborn bastard, Ambrose, aren’t you?”

“You’re not the first person to accuse me of that.”

“You’re used to getting what you want.”

Ambrose shrugged. “Something like that. Are you going to talk, or can I go?”

Jude tsked, glancing to his right. Ambrose followed his line of sight to another table that was filled with more reserved patrons. Though, Ambrose suspected, Jude was probably looking into the darkness for the girl rather than at the other guests.

Jude grabbed his glass and threw back the liquid in one gulp, slamming the glass onto the table and exhaling with a sharp hiss. Ambrose grinned at him. Jude nodded at Ambrose. “Finish your drink.”

Ambrose obliged happily, and clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth after. Jude filled the glasses again. “Why’re you looking for Supervillain?”

Ambrose stared at Jude, tilting his head slightly. Somehow, Jude had grown more serious in the time that Ambrose felt himself loosen up. “I want to help him destroy the heroes in the city.”

Jude’s smile seemed lopsided. “You do, do you? A random civilian, albeit dapperly dressed, wants the heroes gone from the city? The protectors of our daily lives?”

“You don’t drink and meet people in the back of Dead Men’s Fingers unless you have some grudge against heroes, as I’m sure we both know.”

Something passed over Jude’s expression, as if Ambrose had just passed some test. Jude dipped his head, his hand over his glass. He tapped his index finger against the rim, never breaking eye contact with Ambrose.

“Drink.”

Ambrose didn’t hesitate. Jude’s eyes darkened. Ambrose blinked back the taste, the liquid burning his throat, running down hot and warming his gut. Jude grabbed the bottle, filling Ambrose’s empty glass again. Ambrose raised his brows, looking at Jude’s still full glass.

“Drink.”

“You first,” Ambrose said, his eyes narrowing.

Jude smiled a knowing smile, the same kind of smile that Ambrose imagined he wore when he first met Kit. The satisfied smirk of having all the control and power over a situation, and knowing it too.

“I have information and you want it, Ambrose. This isn’t a mutual exchange,” Jude said, pushing Ambrose’s glass towards him. Ambrose fought the urge to swallow and throttle Jude at the same time. “Drink.”

Ambrose pressed his lips into a thin line grabbing the glass and taking a sip. Jude shook his head with the same smirk on his face, though his eyes had lost all humour, dead-eyed and staring. “All of it.”

“I usually only let very sexy people get me drunk, Jude, and I hate to say it, but —”

“Drink, or I walk.”

A muscle in Ambrose’s jaw clicked and he swallowed back a scoff. He licked his lips and then threw his head back. The whiskey’s pleasant bite now seemed more of a pain than a plus, slithering through his mouth and down his throat like a viper caught in a net, nipping and biting at every place it could to try and free itself. A trapped, feral thing, something Ambrose could well turn into if Jude wasn’t careful.

Jude filled the glass the moment Ambrose set it down, and Ambrose wanted nothing more than to reach across the table and beat the shit out of the blond. But, to Ambrose’s relief, Jude let go of the bottle and sat back in his seat, smiling friendly at Ambrose again.

“Now, tell me, what’s your power.”

Ambrose blinked at Jude. He knew that Jude probably tried to access Ambrose’s head the same way Jude tried to reach in and grab the relevant information about Supervillain, but to know that Jude had attempted the same on Ambrose left him a little cagey.

“You tell me yours.”

Jude tilted his head to the side, as if to say: really? But to both of their surprise, he answered.

“I can possess people,” Jude said with a wry smile, taking a sip of his bourbon, his eyes crinkling at the taste. “Like a ghost.”

“Possess their body?” Ambrose asked. Jude nodded. “Interesting.”

“Mmm,” Jude hummed, something flickering briefly across his expression that was gone too fast for Ambrose to register. “Your turn.”

Ambrose hesitated. Aside from Kit, who he had compelled to keep silent about his Villain identity, Ambrose had never told someone his powers. Usually he wiped their memory after, ensuring he covered his tracks when he dabbled in and out of people’s minds.

Jude’s gaze sharpened. “Ambrose… I’m waiting. Tell me or dr—”

“It’s charm speak,” Ambrose said, meeting Jude’s bright green eyes. Ambrose tried to appear uncomfortable at the slip, bristling at the reveal. If he navigated this properly, Jude wouldn’t know for sure he was Omen.

“Explain.”

“I can be very persuasive. Make people like me more, get better deals in shops, get away with parking tickets.”

Jude hummed. Then nodded at Ambrose’s glass. “Drink that down and I’ll tell you what you want to know about Supervillain.”

Ambrose hesitated again. “Before you do… why the drinking? What’s in it for you?”

Jude shrugged. “You’re a telepath like me. Some are stronger than others, some are weaker. Sometimes, getting them drunk means that they lower their mental defences and I can play with them a bit. Find out how their abilities work.”

“Why?”

A flash of teeth. “Why not?” He was hiding something, Ambrose realised dumbly, though his eyes weren’t as sharp as they usually were so he couldn’t ascertain what. He let out a long sigh as his black eyes stared into the brown liquid in the dim lighting.

Just one more drink and he can get out of here. Ambrose’s fingers tightened around the glass. Just one more.

Ambrose didn’t think. He brought the glass to his lips and tipped his head back, gulped the liquid, squeezing his eyes shut as it tore down his throat, abusing his oesophagus but swallow it he did and set the glass back on the table, smacking his lips.

Jude’s shark like smile still on his face. “Now. Where can I find Supervillain?”

“You don’t. He finds you.”

Ambrose glared at the smirking man. “What? You said you knew him!”

“I do. I pass on the information that someone wants to get in contact, and then he finds you,” Jude said smugly. “But don’t worry. I already know he’ll be interested in you. He likes telepaths.”

“So how long is the wait?” Ambrose asked, running a hand through his hair. “Actually, nevermind it’s fine. Annoying, but fine. I have a better question: what’s his abilities?”

A smug knowing glint inflected the corner of Jude’s eyes, turning them up into smiles of their own. Ambrose suddenly understood what made him so terrifying to Kit in the first place — excluding the fact that he destroyed Mentor’s mind — telepaths had an otherness to them. Most powered individuals did, but telepaths… right now, in front of Ambrose, Jude looked more monster, or god of chaos and trickery, than man. The quick-witted fox who knew how the story would play out.

“That would be spoilers, Ambrose. Something I’m not at liberty to discuss.”

“So you wanted to get me drunk to lower my defences so you could poke around in my body and see what powers I had, and what? Then you go and report it back to Supervillain? Are you auditioning people for—”

Jude tilted his chin back, the smug smile remained as realisation crashed into Ambrose like a truck. “Oh,” he said and Jude’s smile widened, leaning over the table on his elbows.

“Oh.”

Ambrose sat back, his head spinning, his eyes taking a moment to adjust with the movement, a little woozy from the booze. “Supervillain who attacked Mentor’s statue, that could’ve been you, possessing Mentor’s body. Using his powers.”

Jude didn’t say anything. His eyes twinkling in the darkness. “Then again,” Ambrose continued, thinking exclusively out loud about it. “You could just be a middleman like you say, working with Supervillain and helping them get connections, but connections for what? And then that all flies in the face of the shapeshifter theory because you’re new on the villain scene Jude, or at least, the villain drinking scene.”

Jude didn’t twitch or flinch, or make any movements to agree or disagree with Ambrose’s open pondering, his face remained annoyingly stoic, the smile remaining on his face, green eyes drinking in Ambrose’s expressions.

Ambrose laughed, sitting back in his seat. “You need eye contact for possession, don’t you?”

Jude inclined his head as if he was caught with his hand in the cookie jar, but knew he wouldn’t get in trouble. “Yeah. I do. Though, I have to give credit, Ambrose. You’re tougher than you look, and you look plenty tough.”

Ambrose didn’t know whether they were going to kiss or kill each other, but a civil understanding passed between them, that neither of them could attack the other and so they were on a more level playing field than most people they encountered.

Ambrose’s phone buzzed and he pulled it out. Jude reclined further back, glancing into the darkness. “Something important?”

“You have no idea…”

(20:36) Kit: Supervillain at old town clocktower. Omw.

If Supervillain was in old town, that meant Ambrose could reach him first, but then again he didn’t want to underestimate Kit’s speed. Ambrose lifted his eyes to Jude’s, to find the green pools grinning at him.

“You’re not Supervillain,” Ambrose said.

“You so sure?” Jude asked, whistling lowly as he drummed his fingers over the barrel of a table. Ambrose grinned back.

“Certain.”

When the girl melted out of the shadows, Ambrose grabbed her wrist and slammed it down, causing her to flash into materialisation but that was all Ambrose needed. “Be a dear and kill Jude for me.”

Ambrose didn’t have to wait for her to obey the command. She grabbed the bottle of bourbon and smashed it off the table. As Ambrose slid out of the booth a stray shard caught his cheek and lodged there. He hissed in pain, grabbing his jacket and barrelling through patrons in the bar.

Max emerged from the kitchen, his eyes finding Ambrose and sharpening to a glare as Ambrose waved his apology. George grabbed the gun from under the counter, checking to see if the double-barrel was loaded while Max clicked his fingers. A handful of fire lit up his striking face and cast shadows in all the right places, making him look more like a vengeful angel than a man.

Ambrose walked out onto Fagan’s lot, working his way back through the maze of skinny alleyways to get to the Clocktower. A hand seized his upper arm and pulled him sideways. Ambrose’s eyes widened, head turning, the disembodied arm was pulling him towards a brickwall and Ambrose panicked, his hands flying up to protect his face.

He didn’t hit the wall. Instead, he fell through it, and he felt as if his entire body was being grated, or strung through a mincer, grinding his bones and organs and then he was on the other side of the wall and he could breathe again, his feet back on the ground.

He fell to his hands and knees gasping. “Freaky, innit?” Ambrose groaned at the sound of Jude’s voice, though a bit pleased to see it was slightly laboured.

Ambrose looked up, the room zooming in and out like a camera trying to focus. Shadow walking when drunk is not something he wanted to experience again. He saw Jude standing ahead of him, half hunched over a wall, one hand out while his elbow propped a towel into his other hand that was red with blood.

Smiling green eyes met black. “I must say, you almost got me there. I had only managed to possess Selena here after she sank that broken bottle into my hand,” he said with a good natured laugh. “Good for you I only need one.”

“Pity,” Ambrose said. A snake of shadows wrapped around Ambrose’s neck, cold and vicious as they slithered tighter, leaving enough oxygen for him to breathe, but not comfortably.

“I think they call this an impassé, Omen.” Jude said with a heavy breath. Ambrose narrowed his eyes, focusing hard on Jude’s free hand with his fingers splayed, as if he was playing an octave on a piano. It was trembling. “I can’t release Selena until you compel her not to kill me, which means Selena’s shadows won’t release you either.”

“Seems like a you problem.”

A swift kick to the face sent Ambrose sideways with a grunt, the stray shard of glass crunching further into his cheek. He could taste iron in his mouth and grimaced.

The shadowed hands righted Ambrose to his knees again, the coil of snakes winding a little tighter until Ambrose could only suck in a breath after choking on three.

Jude’s next words cause Ambrose to freeze. “Don’t you want to try and save Kit?” Jude’s playful chuckle followed the motion, and then the shadows turned into a rope, pulling Ambrose towards Jude. Ambrose dug his heels into the ground, trying to fight against them, but he felt a hand on his back, pushing him forwards too, ensuring he couldn’t fight back.

Ambrose stumbled forward at the jolt of another tug, but caught himself before he fell. Jude’s smile widened to the size of a shark, and two hands forced Ambrose to his knees in front of Jude.

Green eyes met black, all humour gone from them, replaced with a wildness. Unpredictable and chaotic. “I can kill you right now Ambrose, and your little compulsion will die with you. So how about, to save your little friend, or brother— whatever fucking weird family thing you got going on, I suggest you compel Selena to not kill me.”

“How do you know Kit?!” Ambrose demanded, choking on Kit’s name. The question was answered by a crushing force on his throat that felt strong enough to obliterate his oesophagus. “Okay,” he wheezed, tapping Jude’s leg as blackness circled his vision like vultures stalking their prey, waiting for it to die. “Ock— kay!”

The shadows recoiled from Ambrose’s throat and he fell forward, sucking in air, his eyes so close to Jude’s ugly trainers. Actually he took it back, he’d rather be choked by shadows than endure Jude’s disgraceful taste in shoes.

Ambrose got to his knees after he caught his breath. Green eyes cut into his face as sharp as the glass still embedded in his skin. “No funny business, Omen.”

Ambrose turned and told the girl to stop trying to kill Jude. He turned to Jude who smirked at him. “Get rid of the word trying, and do it again, asshole.”

Ambrose shrugged, lighthearted. Technically, if Ambrose had compelled her to stop trying to kill Jude, the way the brain would pick that up is stop trying to kill Jude and just kill him. Always fun to do business with a telepath.

Ambrose lifted the compulsion, and turned back to Jude, spreading his hands, as if to say: there. Jude dropped his splayed hand with a sharp exhale, and Ambrose could see the sweat running down his forehead from the panic he hid so well from Ambrose.

“You can rest easy now,” Ambrose told him.

Jude sighed and pushed himself to his feet. “Yeah. No can do, unfortunately. The boss has called us in, so we’ll be on our way.”

Ambrose’s gaze hardened. “What?”

Jude grinned, green eyes shining. “Oops. Did I forget to mention that? Well, no worries, Ambrose. I’ll give Kit your best.”

“What do you—” Ambrose didn’t finish his sentence before his head whipped to the side and the world swam in front of him. He reached a hand up to the side of his head, blinking as he pulled it away. Something warm and wet staining his hand. He met green eyes and something flashed in front of him and he crumpled to the ground, his vision darkening like a vignette. The last thing he saw was Jude’s ugly trainers by the door.

Fuck.

~*~*~*~

The door opened to the basement opened again. Footsteps sounded through the basement, echoing slightly, off the walls and around the room.

“Malyn…” Sawyer hissed in warning. Supervillain smiled at Kit’s hero name. They must really not know who he is. He didn’t know if he should be offended or not, but it wasn’t something he had to decide on his way down the stairs and into the basement.

Sawyer looked up defiantly when Supervillain stood in the mouth of the room. Tides was awake too, eyes trying to burn a hole in his head, though the pair looked a little worse for wear. Tides face was flushed, while Sawyer looked a little grey around the edges. Only Kit remained asleep.

Supervillain crossed his arms over his chest, leaning against the wall, his eyes flicking to Tides. “Have you changed your mind?”

“Not in the slightest,” she replied immediately.

Supervillain turned to Sawyer. “Fuck you, dickhead.”

Supervillain shrugged. “Alright then, plan B.”

He walked over to Sawyer, pulling a key from his pocket to unlock Sawyer’s cuffs. Sawyer breathed a sigh of relief mixed with pain when his arms were freed and fell like lead onto his thighs. He kicked out weakly at Supervillain, but Supervillain just stepped forwards him, grabbing Sawyer to his feet under his arm.

“Hey! Get off him! Let him go!” Tides cried, yanking at her own cuffs. Sawyer tried to summon his magic but nothing happened and he cursed, glaring at Supervillain’s impassive mask.

“What— what did you do to us?” Sawyer couldn’t feel any power dampeners on him, not on his wrists or ankles, but he couldn’t feel his power in his body, like every time he went to reach for it, it pulled further away from him.

“I inhibited your ability to use your powers,” Supervillain told him simply. Sawyer’s stomach bottomed out. It felt so invasive, like a gut punch, as if Supervillain had reached in and messed with Sawyer’s physiology. He tried again, harder, reaching, but nothing happened.

“How?” Sawyer demanded, digging his heels in as Supervillain dragged him to the centre of the room and left him there.

“Stay,” he said and Sawyer couldn’t move. Supervillain walked to the corner, grabbing a chair and dragging it over to where Sawyer was before shoving Sawyer into the chair. Sawyer threw his hands out, trying to catch any part of Supervillain’s body but then he froze in his seat as he heard the door behind him open again. But Supervillain was beside Sawyer, dragging one of his wrists behind him and tying it to the chair.

Sawyer’s struggles renewed, pushing at Supervillain and when that didn’t work kicking him. He lunged up and tried to step away but his legs didn’t respond, still obeying the stay command. Supervillain put a hand on Sawyer’s chest, tilting his masked head to the side.

“You want to try again?” Sawyer met Tides wide eyes with his own, his mouth suddenly dry. He didn’t want to just give in, but if Tides saw that he obeyed willingly she’d think he deserved whatever torture that Supervillain had planned for him.

Sawyer pivoted and punched Supervillain’s mask, sending him stumbling back, then grabbed the chair his wrist was loosely tied to and held it up to the masked villain, holding the legs out like a shield and a weapon all in one.

“Sawyer!” Tides cried, but Sawyer was already turning so his body branched out to both threats. The other man was in his thirties, with dirty blond hair and forest green eyes. He had a freshly bandaged hand which was half stuck in his grey sweatpants pocket.

“Come on, fuckers,” Sawyer snapped, his teeth echoing at how sharply his jaw formed around the words. “Just let us go!”

“You sure you wanna do that, kid?” The blond asked, inclining his head. His green eyes smirking at the defiant spark in Sawyer. The blond glanced to Kit’s sleeping form and then to Tides pointedly. “Maybe we can’t get you, but think about your friends. You want to get them hurt too?”

Sawyer clenched his jaw, fingers curling around the arms of the chair. No, he didn’t want to get them hurt, but he didn’t want to get hurt either. “I’m not just gonna lie down and let you torture us. Beat us fairly, in combat. In the field.”

Jude clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth, and glanced at Supervillain. Supervillain dipped his head and Jude shrugged. He walked over to Kit and Sawyer’s heart leapt into his throat. Jude reached down and Sawyer yelled out a terse: “wait!”

The blond paused, glancing back at Sawyer, waiting for him to continue. Sawyer slammed the chair down and sat again, locking eyes with Tides who bowed her head too. A wordless understanding blossoming between them. They both would’ve done the same thing.

One of them grabbed Sawyer’s free hand and tied it behind the chair, attaching it to the wood and then his other wrist, enough room left so that if he struggled the coarse ropes would rub against his flesh, burning it. He swallowed his fear and sat silently.

Superhero would find them, wouldn’t he? He would come to the rescue. Sawyer didn’t even believe his own lie, but it was all the comfort he had as the blond guy came around to face Sawyer.

“This one’s Kit?” The blond asked, but Supervillain’s distorted voice replied behind Sawyer: “no. The sleepy one’s Kit.”

“I see,” he said, straightening, his cat-like eyes going back to Kit. Sawyer kicked a leg out at the blond who gasped as if shocked.

“Don’t touch him asshole.”

“Yeah? What’re you gonna do about it, hero?”

Sawyer kicked him again, but this time, he aimed for his hand and the blond drew back with a curse. Sawyer grinned as the blond drew his fist back and punched him square in the face, and then hit his nose again until tears sprung to his eyes, dizzying.

“Leave him alone, Jude. We won’t break them by beating them.”

The blond — Jude — sighed theatrically and turned to face Tides instead. Unfortunately, he had the sense to step out of Sawyer’s kicking range.

“Fine. You’re the boss…” he said, then whistled as he walked over to Tides, crouching down to be eye-level with her. “Hello gorgeous.”

Tides spit in his face. Jude laughed, his hand shot out and grabbed Tides by the throat, tilting her head up to face him. “Oh, darlin’, you’ll regret that real soon. I’d apologise to Sawyer if I were you.”

Sawyer bristled. “Why would she apologise to me dickhead?”

Nobody answered. Sawyer shifted in the chair. “Hey! Asshole!”

Nothing.

The sound of Tides’ restraints unlocking strangely sent a cold chill down Sawyer’s spine instead of being reassuring. Jude stood and so did Tides, silently, the noiseless echo choking him as he stilled in his chair, waiting for… something to happen.

Jude stepped away from Tides, revealing her to Sawyer. She looked bad, her broken wrist hung limply by her side but in her other hand she had a knife, her expression an eerie blankness.

Sawyer shifted in his seat again, pushing back in the chair, trying to escape from the ropes, but they just rubbed raw against his wrists. “Hey. Tides. Tides! Wake up! Tides! Hey, Tides! What’re you doing?!” Sawyer yelled, turning his glare to Jude who stood with his hand out, fingers splayed as if he were conducting a marionette, his fingers moving in tandem with Tides approaching Sawyer where he sat.

“If you refuse to quit being a hero,” Supervillain said behind Sawyer, Tides stopping suddenly in front of him. “Then we’ll have to do something drastic to change your minds, won’t we? Did you know, Sawyer, back in the day, before heroes were called heroes, a lot of them stopped being heroes because of the horrors they witnessed. The PTSD haunted their dreams, and when it got too much, they retired. Some killed themselves, some went mad. But they did stop being heroes after a lot of pain.”

Sawyer flinched when Supervisors put his hands on his shoulders, kneading the tense muscle with his thumbs. “Of course. You can just vow to quit now, and we don’t have to do anything nasty. Tides won’t have to hurt you, and you won’t have to let her. Is your pride really worth all the trauma this will cause?”

“Don’t—” Sawyer choked out, his eyes pleading as they found Tides’s bright blue ones, dull and dead. “Tides please, we’re friends.”

“If it makes you feel any better,” Jude said, “she’s not in control of her actions, but the guilt that will come after?” He whistled. The sound went through Sawyer.

“You can stop this,” Supervillain whispered. “You don’t have to go through with this Sawyer. Tides is out of it and I can make her forget if she remembers, and Kit is sleeping. Neither of them will judge you if you want to tap out now.”

“Please,” Sawyer said, shaking his head at Tides. “Tides, wake up! Please! Please! Fight back!”

Jude laughed. “Oh she’s fighting alright.”

“Let her go, you psychos!” Sawyer screamed, thrashing in the chair. Supervillain sighed above him, tightened his grip briefly, then stepped away.

“I’m sorry it had to come to this,” Supervillain said, and the worst part was that he sounded genuine. Jude however was smiling behind Tides, his green eyes fixed on Sawyer who squirmed as far back as he could away from Tides.

“We’ll start slow,” Jude said, and Tides sliced an arc down Sawyer’s face. Sawyer screamed through clenched teeth, humming as Tides withdrew the blade from his skin. It probably went an inch deep, because the blood was pouring down his face, leaking into his eyes and mouth.

“Crow?” Kit. Finally awake. “Crow! Tides! Stop! What’s going on?”

“Don’t worry, Kit,” Supervillain said and the three heroes stilled, their blood running cold. How did he know Kit’s name? He was right… they know who Supervillain is… Kit’s wide eyes turned to Supervillain’s two toned mask. He could feel Supervillain’s smile, hear it in his distorted voice. “You’ll get your turn after Sawyer.”

“Who are you, you bastard!?” Sawyer screamed, his head whipping to Supervillain. “Who the fuck are you?! Are you one of us? You fucking traitor!”

Kit trembled, cold, his wrists rattling in their restraints despite himself. “You heroes are so spirited,” the blond said, his eyes bright and cruel. “It’s adorable.”

“Do you want to stop being heroes?” Supervillain asked again.

“Go to hell,” Sawyer barked. Kit wanted to… he really wanted to stop, to not fight Supervillain on this and let him wipe his memory. Let the villain make the decision for him, let him quit while he’s ahead, he doesn’t want to end up like Mentor. He doesn’t.

He raised his head, looked Supervillain in his mask and said: “swap me with Sawyer.”

“What?” Sawyer asked, his voice a little hollow. “Kit—”

“Swap me out for Sawyer,” Kit said through clenched teeth. “Please, just please.“

If Kit could take the pain, and someone rescued them soon, then the other two wouldn’t have to suffer as much. Kit already dealt with Ambrose, he could take it.

Supervillain hummed on the way over to Kit. He crouched down in front of the hero, and took his chin in his hands. “Why would I do that? One hero is hurting another, it doesn’t matter which is which.”

“Please,” Kit said, his eyes pleading. “I’m begging you. Just let me go first. If you’re a hero you’ll understand. Please.”

Supervillain glanced back at Jude who kept his laughing green eyes on Kit, amused. “Hell, kid. I’ll even do the honours myself, I owe you one from your friend, Ambrose.”

Kit didn’t take his pleading eyes from Supervillain’s face, though he wanted to ask the blond a million questions. How do you know Ambrose? What do you mean owe him one? “Please.”

“I know you, Kit. I know it would kill you, and devastate you to see your friends in danger, in peril, and not be able to do anything to save them. I don’t want to cause you pain, I want you to stop being heroes. I want this to be quick and painless.”

“Supervillain please don’t do this!” Kit begged, shaking his arms in his cuffs. His voice breaking as he pleaded. “Please! Please, just let them go.”

Supervillain stood again. He nodded at the blond. Tides sliced again and Sawyer screamed. Kit flinched as if he was the one being cut. Only when Sawyer’s screams stopped did Supervillain say that was enough for the day, and leave the three heroes in the basement.

They didn’t even tie Tides up again, but her sobs filled the room instead of the screams, crying into Sawyer’s legs and apologising for it all. Kit stared numbly forward, his mind blank. He didn’t know what to do, so he did nothing.

And he didn’t know which would haunt him more.

*~*~*~*~*

Continued here

Orphanage roll-call (lmk if you wanna be added or removed): @beatenbruisedandbloody @404lunar1216 @whumpyworld @nameless-beanie e @andithewhumper @annablogsposts @whumpasaurus101 @0eggdealer r @rejectedbytheempty @sleepy-pearl l l @n3rv0usn0v4 4 @whumpatize-me-captain @sunshiline-writes @burningkittypoet @honeyed-euphrates @sacredwrath h h @theonewithallthefixations @xxgalgurlxx @princess-bubble-blossom @blood-enthusiast t @steh-lar-uh-nuhs @andtheysaidspeaknoww @dutifullykrispyland @tippytappytyping @shinokoro @bedtimescenarios @whatwhump @memepsychowhowantsuperpower-blog @ehobep @acer-whumpstuff @fa1rie

[passinhosdetartaruga]

I love characters that are Lawful Good in a negative way. When a character is so keen on following the rules that it actually becomes a hindrance and they can’t see how the rules are faulty or the system is corrupt or how breaking a certain rule could benefit everybody. They can’t do it. It’s not in their nature to see the world outside of the black and white mentality. And then i love seeing these characters slowly learn how to see the world in shades of grey.

[jumpywhumpywriter]

Mind over Mind - Hero Whumper Villain Whumpee

Warnings: torture, violence, forced compliance, mind control

Summary: Hero almost loses the fight against Villain... until she uses her unique powers to flip the tables.

Villain and Hero had been fighting for only an hour when both of them started to falter from exhaustion, but that's just the kind of fights they got into. Quick. Intense. Violent. Bloody. The kind that's hardly survivable for long.

Hero wielded two wickedly sharp daggers in her hands, while Villain had one in his left, and a serrated hunting blade in the other. Their weapons clashed together repeatedly, showering sparks onto the ground as they fought fiercely for the upper hand, both of them covered in sweat, bruises and dozens of vicious injuries inflicted by their opponent.

"Don't you ever know when to give up?" Hero grunted through gritted teeth as she blocked yet another one of Villain's attacks.

"Nope, apparently not," Villain sneered, and slashed a blade across Hero's ribs, slicing open a deep gash that made her cry out in pain. It was all the opening he needed. He didn't give her a chance to recover.

Villain closed the distance between them and brutally pummeled Hero with a series of quick blows, too fast for her to block or dodge. He punched her gut hard enough to crack ribs, before landing another blow on her jaw with a concussive amount of force, making her head snap back -- and the peak of the fight was over just like that.

Hero faltered and stumbled back with a broken, rattling wheeze, falling to the ground, and Villain descended on her like a bird of prey, wrapping a strong hand around her throat and lifting her up to pin her against a wall, squeezing hard.

Hero's eyes widened as she clawed desperately at the hand cutting off her air, thrashing uselessly in Villain's grip with slowly failing strength.

"The real question is... do you know when to give up?" Villain chuckled coldly.

Blood trickled from both corners of Hero's mouth as her terrified gaze locked with Villain's.

STOP! A booming voice suddenly roared in Villain's head, making him jerk back in surprise, losing his grip on Hero so that she crumpled to the ground, gasping and choking and coughing blood, her eyes still locked intensely on Villain.

Something brushed against Villain's mind that made him shiver, like claws brushing lightly against his brain, wandering and prodding uncertainly, as though searching for a hold. Then those claws turned sharp, deadly, sinking in.

Villain's whole body went stiff, muscles locking in place as that same voice spoke again.

That's right... obey.

Villain's blood went colder than ice, his face going pale as a slow, stretching pain spread through his body, setting every nerve on fire with excruciating agony as it sank into every part of him.

His mouth gaped, he tried to speak, but couldn't find his voice.

He was rooted to the spot with fear as Hero slowly picked herself up off the dirt, gasping and panting as she caught her breath, rubbing her neck where Villain's hand had been mere seconds away from crushing her windpipe.

She straightened with a groan, staggering a little before finding her balance, one arm wrapped protectively around her bleeding midsection. Then a crooked grin that was part-grimace broke out on her face as she spat out a mouthful of blood.

"My, how the tables have turned," she taunted, though it came out in a shallow, weak rasp of air.

"H-How..." Villain breathed, eyes enormous as they watched Hero with sudden wariness.

Because I never reveal all my playing cards, the voice echoed in his head. It sounded like Hero's -- but her mouth hadn't moved.

My single biggest advantage is letting people underestimate me, the voice continued.

Fear -- genuine, raw fear pulsed through Villain's entire being when he tried to move -- but physically couldn't.

He swallowed hard, fighting to tamp down the rising panic and maintain any shred of composure.

"W-What are you doing... how are you doing this?" He snarled, finally snapping out of the shock.

Hero limped towards him until she was inches away, the icy blue depths of her eyes boring into his, full of righteous anger.

"Surprise... my superpower isn't limited to super strength." She grinned wolfishly at his confusion, the utterly bafflement on her enemy's face.

Funny, isn't it? It's almost like... you don't have control over yourself anymore.

Again, Hero's mouth didn't move.

Hero bent over and picked up Villain's own fallen dagger, pressing it into his hand and resting the tip against her chest without a glimmer of fear.

"Go ahead, give it your best shot," she purred. "All it takes is one little push to kill me... try it if you can."

Villain shuddered as those strange mental claws tightened on him.

He gripped his dagger hard, mustering every inch of willpower in him to end it, to finally kill his greatest enemy, be rid of the menace -- his hand trembled, but he couldn't bring the blade forward.

"Don't tell me you're too weak for murder," Hero mocked with a dramatic gasp.

Villain's brow furrowed, and he held the hilt tighter, pushing, yanking against those restraints shackling him in his own mind. The blade jerked forward an inch, but no more than that, and Hero let out a cold, heartless laugh, easily swatting the weapon out of Villain's hand before roughly grabbing his jaw hard enough to bruise, forcing him to look straight into her cruel eyes.

Villain let out a weak whimper, ashamed that the sound even slipped out. But he was injured, and in pain, confused, and so, so scared... fear was a new feeling for him. He was the most powerful villain in the entire city, strong enough to beat Hero on several different occasions -- but never had he been rendered so vulnerable, so useless before, like a puppet with strings, at the complete mercy of his enemy.

Hero carefully wrapped her other hand around his throat, and step by deliberate step, backed him up until he was pinned against the opposite wall. She applied the same pressure that Villain had put on her windpipe earlier, and Villain's chest started heaving as he struggled to keep drawing air. His eyes went huge with disbelief, he couldn't even fight, his arms weren't working right. None of him was, bound and chained by some invisible force.

Spots danced in his vision, and right when he thought he would pass out the pressure on his neck vanished, leaving him taking great gulping gasps of air.

Hero leaned in close, her head right next to his face.

"Doesn't feel very good, does it?" She hissed into his ear before pulling back.

Her fingers trailed down his chest, almost seductively, running over the shredded lines of his suit where long gashes had sliced through and ripped the leather. They stopped at his stomach, grazing over a particularly deep slash right below the ribs.

Villain shuddered with a wince, a low moan escaping him, and he cursed himself for it.

Hero stared at him, then dug her fingers viciously into the wound, never breaking eye contact, her expression deadpan and impassive.

Villain screamed in sheer agony and writhed, which was more like weakly twitching against the bonds holding him in one place.

Hero took her fingers out, and Villain was left trembling all over with pain, his injury throbbing. His head lolled forward, breathing harsh and ragged as he recovered.

"Huh, even agony can't let you break free," she murmured aloud, as though she were experimenting with Villain, testing the limits of her ability. It was dehumanizing, degrading, and flat-out terrifying to know that Hero could do whatever she wanted to him. Holding his life in her hands.

"S-Stop it... L-Let me go..." Villain croaked. He couldn't help the shakiness in his voice, and Hero's eyes lit up at hearing it. "S-Since when could you even do this?" He added.

"Since always," Hero answered flatly. "I just never show it. I don't use this power often, because it is unfathomably taxing on my body in ways you couldn't even imagine, but today... today I'm feeling violent." Her teeth bared into a feral grin, making Villain shiver uneasily.

"I haven't practiced using it much, so I'm curious to see what potential... motivations might be enough for your willpower and desperation to let you break free of my hold." She tilted her head to one side, a lethal predator in every slight movement. "I can break you in so many ways beneath the surface," she whispered dangerously.

"Let's see how strong your resolve is, hmm?" Hero's gaze dropped down where a dagger was, and she stomped on the hilt, skillfully flinging it up into her waiting hand.

Villain whimpered again anxiously, squirming and eyeing the bright metal, and she pressed the blade against his lips.

"Shhh... all you have to do is raise your left hand when the pain becomes too much, and I'll stop," she said mischievously. A deadly game for her, toying with her new victim like a plaything.

Hero leaned close again, her breath ghosting above Villain's carotid artery as she scraped her teeth lightly against his neck, teasing, violating his space.

She trailed the sharp edge of the blade down his bare arm, not breaking skin at first as she smiled coldly. Then she sliced it deep without warning, tearing a ragged wail from Villain as she started carving into his flesh over and over again while her enemy screamed his throat raw.

Villain tried desperately to push her away, to stop the excruciating agony, do something but stand there and take it... but he couldn't. He physically couldn't.

Tears of pure pain spilled out of his eyes and rolled down his cheeks, hiccupping sobs breaking up his breaths at the sheer intensity of it, every time the blade left a fresh mark of fire in his flesh.

He could feel the warm blood sliding down his arm to drip on the floor with every pounding heartbeat, endless suffering. It was worse when she switched from his arm to the sensitive skin of his abdomen, and he screamed and yelped and cried out as the metal bit his skin repeatedly. Hero showed no signs of stopping anytime soon.

Eventually the screaming devolved to agonized moaning and pathetic whimpers as Villain lost strength, his throat burning fiercely in the aftermath of all his loud cries.

Now, listen closely...

That voice returned in his head, and his stomach churned with dread. He couldn't take any more torture. Any more pain. His whole body was blazing with it.

Take the knife from my hand, and put it against your throat...

Hero held the dagger in her hand invitingly, stained with Villain's own blood.

Villain moaned as his shaky hand automatically lifted to take the blade, then his body betrayed him by resting the sharp, cool metal right under his chin. He swallowed against it, throat bobbing fearfully.

Saw through your neck.

Villain's eyes widened with terror, hand trembling as he fought against the mental claws Hero had sunk into him. But it was no use. The blade started slicing through his skin, and Villain closed his eyes, another teak leaking out as he accepted his fate.

...Now stop. Villain's body instantly obeyed, stiffening in place.

Villain took a rattling breath, cautiously opening his watery eyes to gauge Hero's expression, which was dark and unreadable.

I want you to remember this moment, her voice hissed into his mind, remember that I held your life in my hands... that I could have killed you right now... and I want you to run away from here with that memory, and the scar on your neck will remind you of me every time you look in the mirror. Run, and never come back. If I EVER see your face again... I will not stop.

And suddenly, a rush of cold washed over Villain, an aching absence of a hollow void that opened up, and Villain collapsed on the ground, panting as he felt those vicious mental claws retreat, releasing him at last.

Hero stepped back, eyes narrowed. "You have ten seconds to remove yourself from my line of sight before I change my mind. Run, or die. Ten."

Villain peered dizzily up at her, his face pale with blood loss. "...You're bluffing," he wheezed in disbelief.

"That is a theory you're certainly welcome to test. Nine." Hero's face stayed harsh and cruel, and Villain lurched to his feet with a gasp, not willing to risk the chance she'd given him.

He stumbled into an awkward, adrenaline-powered run, limping heavily away as fast as he could while Hero's voice trailed after him.

"Eight... seven... six..."

She never got to five before Villain was out of sight, slipping away into a dark alley. Gone. Never seen or heard from again.

I appreciate any and all feedback from my peers! 😁 (and if anyone has any other Hero x Villain prompt ideas or things they'd like to see more of feel free to share them and I might write a story for it)

Masterlist

@scoundrelwithboba

[defire]

What if a group of fucked up, sadistic "heroes" took both a whumper and the whumper's Whumpee into their custody? Either knowingly (victim blaming) or unknowingly?

Imagine the Whumpee being put in the same cell as their (old?) whumper,

Is the whumper afraid of what the "heroes" will do to them? Or do they mock the Whumpee still?

Do they try to whump the Whumpee even in their current situation?

The possibilities!

Everybody's asks have me so excited, thank you!

Whumper gets imprisoned with whumpee!

Content: begging, imprisonment, surveillance, sadistic whumpers, whumper turned whumpee, whumpee turned (reluctant) caretaker, beatings, creepy whumper, whumpee turned whumper

"Not together--wait! Don't leave us together, please!" Whumpee screaming after their captors as they leave.

As soon as the doors close whumper immediately takes whumpee by the collar, slamming them into the wall, "what did you fucking tell them?!"

"well isn't this nice... Just the two of us."

Whumpee backing to the corner of the cell and taking exactly the space in which they sit, leaving the rest of the space for whumper to claim.

Whumper thrown back in the cell after "interrogation", bruised and exhausted, slumping down against the far wall with a grunt of pain. "How does it feel?" Whumpee asks. Whumper just groans a "fuck you."

Whumper scooting closer and closer to whumpee, making whumpee extremely uncomfortable... Especially when they glance at whumper and see a hopeful smile on their face.

"Whumpee, whumpee... You know these guys right? So, how do you get on their good side?"

Whumpee torn between making friends with their only cellmate and getting revenge on whumper, snapping angrily at them while they roughly tend their wounds.

Whumper laughing at whumpee's confusion and egging them on. "Come on, you know you love me."

Whumpee coming back in from being interrogated and slumping down. Whumper smirks at them and whumpee, no longer afraid of them, sighs and buries their head in their arms. "I'm not in the mood."

Whumper silently (annoyed) taking care of whumpee because they need a cellmate to torment.

Whumpee sullenly letting them without looking at whumper.

Whumpee screaming "don't you fucking touch me!"

Whumper's once-frightening flaws now look pathetic in this context. Pushiness becomes begging, "sadist" becomes "creep", pride becomes anxiety. It was always there but whumpee feels stupid for not recognizing it before.

"I can't take it, please, I just want it to stop," whumper is the one in pain now. "Please, whumpee, get them to help me." Whumpee glares sideways at them, delivering one of whumper's own answers back at them. "Tough it out; it's not that bad."

Whumper trying to steal whumpee's blanket and they get into a full-out brawl until whumpee realizes they're beating the crap out of whumper and almost enjoying it. They stop themselves and grab their blanket, and yank away whumper's blanket as well for good measure, stalking back to their corner and huddling up under them.

[bleedingreverie]

Yanderes who keep you in a daze…

You wouldn’t even know where the door is, let alone how to get there. Every thought feels distant, your limbs too heavy, your mind too clouded. And he loves it that way. You’re soft, pliant, and so adorably helpless. Whatever fight you had in you has melted away, leaving you curled up in his arms, so warm and small against him.

Some yanderes do it for the sheer convenience.

You’re easier to handle like this, reduced to a sweet, giggling thing that clings to him without a care. You’ll whimper a little in protest at first, trying to remember what you were so upset about, but soon enough, you’ll forget. You always do. You’ll sigh softly, resting your head against his chest as he strokes your hair, humming softly like he’s soothing a child.

“There you go, sweetheart,” he whispers, his lips brushing your forehead. “So much better now, aren’t you?”

And you are. Or at least, that’s what you think in your hazy state. You even start to lean into his touch, pressing closer as he wraps his arms around you. His hand slides lower, fingers brushing under the hem of your shorts. You don’t stop him. You can’t. All you can do is let out a soft, sleepy sound as his hand moves lower still, his voice in your ear a low murmur of praise.

“You’re perfect like this,” he says, his breath warm against your neck.

Other yanderes enjoy it for entirely different reasons.

He thrives on the sight of you stumbling around, dizzy and disoriented, like a child after spinning too many times in a circle. He watches with an almost gleeful expression as you try to push him away with those weak, clumsy hands of yours. Your attempts to fight back make him laugh—deep, genuine laughter that only makes your cheeks flush.

“What’s that? You’re trying to stop me?” he teases, catching your wrists with ease. “So scary. I’m absolutely terrified.”

He’ll let you go, just to see you try again, toying with you as if it’s a game. You swing at him, but your hits are nothing more than playful taps, and he’s grinning like a wolf, letting you wear yourself out. It never takes long. Soon enough, you’re collapsing against him, breathless and flushed, too exhausted to keep up the charade.

“You’re adorable,” he says, brushing a strand of hair from your face. “But you know you can’t win, right?”

By then, you’re too tired to care. You whimper softly as he pulls you closer, his hands wandering as he presses kisses to your cheeks and neck. You’ll whine, but you don’t resist—not really. He’s already won, and you both know it.

And then there are the ones who want the best of both worlds.

He keeps you this way because it makes you everything he’s ever wanted—soft, sweet, and utterly dependent on him. But he also loves the control it gives him, the way your struggles turn into nothing more than pitiful little attempts at rebellion. He can have you however he wants, whenever he wants, and all you’ll do is sigh and lean into him, your mind too far gone to do anything else.

And he wouldn’t have it any other way.

Insert:

BNHA - Denki, Shigaraki, Dabi, Hawks, Shinso, Natsuo, Amajiki, Deku.

JJK - Sukuna, Mahito, Toji, Geto

HC - kuro, Kenma, Bokuto, Suna, Tendou

BLLK - Reo, Nagi, Bachira, Ego

DS - Zenitsu, Doma

HXH: Gon, Killua, Illumi, Hisoka, Uvogin, Meruem, knuckle.

[macknus]

Heroic Betrayal (III)

Read part one // Master-post // Continued from here

They walked in a tense silence that made Morgan squirm. The only sound between them was their footsteps on the concrete of the cell block. There was more than Morgan’s cell, but she was the only prisoner in here at the moment. God, she didn’t even consider that Supervillain had cells like this, a place to keep heroes he captured. Far from prying eyes, and because she was the lead detective on the case that meant nobody else knew about these cells either. A shiver raced down her spine.

Not only that, but the silence ate at her mind like a moth eats through clothes, leaving vacuums of space and holes in her mind; a wide, yawning mouth of distance between her and Flynn that she had never experienced before. That she didn’t understand. Why weren’t they talking? Why was Flynn marching her around like they were strangers? Why was he doing this? Why wasn’t he cracking jokes? The two of them always laughed or bantered back and forth. When they fell into a silence it was an easy one that never felt awkward or uncomfortable. But now, with this new Flynn who marched Morgan up a set of stairs, it felt as if they were two strangers. As if Flynn was actually a Villain.

He is, a voice sniped in the back of her mind. Flynn is a villain. The lie was his hero façade.

Morgan kept her guard up as they stepped through the door at the top of the stairs. She expected to be greeted with the view of a warehouse, or some top-secret villain base. Maybe something from the movies, or an equal to the Hero tower HQ at the very least.

Instead, her fearful gaze found a house. Morgan frowned. She wanted to turn her head and comment on how strange this was to Flynn before she realised that he already knew where they were. He wasn’t experiencing all this for the first time like she was. He was the one who brought her here after all. An ache split her chest, and she wanted nothing more than to cry and rage at Flynn, but she refused. Pride washed over her vocal chords like a sealant at the thought of talking to him. Flynn didn’t deserve their comments or thoughts on anything anymore.

“Through here,” said Flynn as he pulled Morgan to the right. She caught a glance of the framed pictures hanging on the wall, of Flynn and Villain as children and a man and woman smiling in the picture above them. Morgan swallowed.

Were they in Flynn’s childhood home this entire time?

It’s not what Morgan expected at all. It was clean, almost pristinely so with wooden oak floors and a warm, homely feel to it. Clean and yet lived in.

Morgan closed her lips, and let Flynn guide her through another door into a dining room. Morgan’s brows raised to the ceiling. She looked at Flynn in question before she could help it and wanted to kick herself for it.

Flynn curled his top lip inward, his tell for when he was embarrassed. “Supervillain insisted,” he said by way of explanation and brought Morgan to the end of the table. It sat six people, two chairs on each end and two on both sides.

Flynn pulled out Morgan’s chair and quirked his lips at her. “Can I trust you not to do something stupid?”

“You can always stop me if I do,” Morgan replied sweetly, sugared smile not quite meeting her eyes.

Flynn’s smile was cold in return. “I can. Or Villain, whoever’s quicker.”

Morgan felt that cruel pang of betrayal bloom in her chest like a string of rose’s thorns wrapped thick around her heart. She didn’t deign to reply to that. She didn’t trust her voice not to betray her. Instead, she sat down on the chair and lifted her handcuffed hands onto the wooden table and let Flynn push her chair in.

Flynn sat beside her, on her right. Morgan could have laughed at the horribleness of it all. Flynn sat on Morgan’s right because after endless sparring they both realised it was Morgan’s weaker hand. If Morgan was going to do something stupid, going for her right-hand side would be easier to subdue than her left.

How had she not seen the warning signs? How had she not realised that Flynn was working against her this entire time? She was such an idiot, oh god. And Sidekick… they would have no idea about Flynn either and…

Morgan bit the inside of her cheek to stop her from releasing a pathetic noise, somewhere between a whimper and a cry. God, she felt sick to sit this close to him, to the wolf in sheep’s clothing who played his part so well. She was a fool.

Morgan trusted him. God, she thought if the world ever went to shit, or turned against her, she could turn to Flynn and still find a home in him.

Now all her trust twisted against her mercilessly, and Flynn was a stranger who could smile at her with a bloodied face — and possibly broken nose — and threaten to have the person who broke it hurt her more. She stared at him openly, her eyes narrowed, squinting, trying to see past the man she loved and see the stranger first because that’s the real Flynn. This vicious monster that would use her, get close to her, become her partner in work and outside of it.

Fuck Flynn had met her parents…

The heartache was sliced through with a knife of fear as Morgan heard movement and voices behind the two doors in front of them; different than the door that Flynn and Morgan entered the room t. There was a lively bustling of movement and then a man in his late thirties, early forties walked through the doors with a wide friendly smile holding two plates of something steamy.

He had wavy brown hair, slightly overgrown around the edges, some strands tucked behind his ears Morgan noticed. His eyes were sea-coloured, somewhere between green and blue, but shined with a happiness that Morgan didn’t expect of Supervillain.

Oh… oh… this was… this was Supervillain. She was staring, looking, seeing Supervillain. The Supervillain! Morgan’s nemesis, her foe— the man who seemed to be one step ahead of her at all times. Morgan glanced at Flynn mutinously before Supervillain drew Morgan’s attention back to them.

He set a plate of food in front of Morgan with a big smile, then walked around the back of Morgan’s chair and placed one in front of Flynn. The plate was filled with what looked like roast chicken, green beans and roast potatoes. Morgan stared down at it, her mouth watering slightly and a gnawed yearning awoke in her gut as she caught the delicious whiff of roast chicken and spuds.

She was starving, she realised. How long had she been here? Overnight at least because it was daytime at the moment. Morgan looked at Flynn. Flynn glanced at Morgan then to Morgan’s plate and dragged it over to him.

“Hey—”

“Relax, I’m just cutting up your chicken. You’re not getting a knife.”

Morgan waited, watching Flynn cut up the food. She sat back against her chair, eyes going to the doors to see Supervillain was gone. Flynn pushed Morgan’s plate back in front of her as Supervillain came through again followed closely by Villain, a shadow like fist holding something that was dropped in front of Morgan. It smacked against the table lightly with a bounce and Morgan realised it was a plastic fork.

Everyone else had proper utensils.

Morgan scowled. She waited until Supervillain and Villain sat down before she spoke. “If you think I’m eating this, you’re dumber than I thought.”

Supervillain’s smile didn’t dim. “As you like it, Morgan. Though, if I drugged you with the chicken or the vegetables, I would have drugged us all.”

She didn’t move to grab the fork, no matter how much her stomach wanted her to. How much it ached for her to cast aside her fear and damn it all while she filled her stomach with the delicious morsels of… Flynn grabbed Morgan’s plate, “we can swap if you like.”

Morgan’s head snapped to him. “And how do I know this wasn’t all some planned ploy?”

“You don’t,” said Flynn honestly, meeting Morgan’s gaze earnestly. Morgan had to look away before she cried. Stupid fucking Flynn.

“If I may,” said Supervillain, his voice smooth and steady, drawing Morgan’s gaze. “If I wanted to starve you, I wouldn’t have plated you up a meal. I would have handcuffed you to the chair and let you smell the food and watch us eat.”

Morgan swallowed, gaze hardening into a glare as Supervillain tilted his head and shrugged lightly. “However, if you don’t want to eat, I won’t force you.”

Morgan sat back stubbornly, eyes not leaving Supervillain as he tucked into his divine smelling meal.

“Flynn said you wanted to talk to me.”

“I do,” Supervillain replied. “As soon as we have eaten. It’s bad for the stomach to mix work and pleasure.”

Morgan blinked at him and scoffed; her eyes drifted back to the plate in front of her. The steam was rose so temptingly from it, dancing in the air with joy and swirls of mirthful mischief, practically begging Morgan to eat it. Morgan swallowed again; her resolve shattered as she reached for the fork.

Nobody at the table made remarks as Morgan took her first bite of chicken. She didn’t feel eyes on her as she ate, and with every bite the possibility of the food being drugged became less and less important as she filled the hole in her stomach. The chicken was so moist in her mouth, lightly salted that danced deliciously across her tastebuds and the green beans were roasted to perfection instead of boiled. God, she didn’t know green beans could taste so good, and don’t get her started on the potatoes. All too soon her plate was empty and Morgan set her fork back on the plate, and sat back in her chair, satisfied. Supervillain smiled at her from across the table.

“Well?”

Morgan swallowed. “Really good.”

Supervillain beamed a smile at the praise. “Good. Flynn, would you and Villain mind cleaning up?”

Flynn’s eyes went between Morgan and Supervillain. He opened his mouth to protest but closed it again when Supervillain shot him a look. It stifled the words in his throat, and he nodded and gathered his and Morgan’s plate. “Sure.”

Villain did the same with his and Supervillain’s plate. “Thank you. We shouldn’t be long.”

Flynn cast one last look over his shoulder at Morgan, eyebrows drawing together in a frown. The two disappeared behind the double doors, which left Morgan and Supervillain alone.

Morgan’s chest tightened at the realisation. How many times had she longed to get to sit down with Supervillain and pick his brain on his strategies and plans? How long had she wanted to know his motivations behind it all? What the bigger picture was…

Now, Morgan wanted to be anywhere but here.

Supervillain leaned forward. He rested his elbows on the table, his hands clasped in front of him as he stared down Morgan with his sea-coloured eyes. They would have been beautiful if they weren’t on the face of the city’s most dangerous villain. “Flynn tells me you’re a fan of mine.”

Morgan scoffed and looked away. “I’d hardly call myself a fan.”

“Of course,” he replied pleasantly. “A hero would never admire a villain after all.”

“That’s in the job description.”

“Tell me, did you ever admire Flynn?”

Morgan’s eyes snapped back to Supervillain. His smile less pleasant now, shrewder. Intelligent, inquisitive, intimidating— his eyes narrowed in curiosity, the corners of his lips quirked into a smile.

“I guess it doesn’t matter anymore, does it? He was always a Villain.”

“Yes. However, that is not what I asked you.” Morgan swallowed in reply. “Did you ever admire Flynn?”

“Yes,” said Morgan patiently. She couldn’t lose her cool now, she had to match Supervillain’s relaxed demeanour. At least he couldn’t hear how loud her heart panged against her ribs, trying to crack her chest wide open as she spoke face to face with her kidnapper. “He was my partner. Obviously, I admired him.”

Supervillain let out a breath. “Tut, tut, Morgan. He’s a villain. How can a hero ever admire a Villain?”

“If you want to get into some philosophical debate, I’d rather Villain bash my nose against the bars of my cell again.”

Supervillain’s lips pursed. “If you like.”

The words ran like cold water down Morgan’s spine. She hated how easily violent they were towards her, Flynn, Villain, Supervillain – an unsettling pattern she had noticed in her short amount of time here was how willingly they would hurt her for their amusement.

Dicks.

“However,” he continued, “I’d much rather pick your brain before Villain rips it from your skull.”

Morgan swallowed the lump that was rising in her throat. How can he be so nonchalant about telling Morgan that he had no reservations about Villain killing her? He isn’t anything like Morgan thought he would be. He wasn’t as debonair or as cautious as she pictured him, he spoke quite plainly, not indirect or with some evasive innuendos to pain. She couldn’t help but feel a tinge of… disappointment, along with the overwhelming amounts of fear that flooded her veins and screamed at her to run.

“You wouldn’t let him,” said Morgan licking her dry lips. She made an effort to hide her expression as the vile taste of salt and iron of dried blood danced along her tastebuds.

Supervillain’s smile was pleasant. “No?”

“No,” Morgan echoed, swallowed. “Even if you did let Villain hurt me or torture me, or whatever, you wouldn’t let him kill me. You’d rather draw it out slowly.”

Supervillain raised his hands and intertwined his fingers, resting his chin on them as he stared at Morgan. His sea green eyes looked stormy now, the twisting murky colour piercing through Morgan’s soul. His smile anything but friendly.

Now, he looked like Supervillain, like Morgan expected him to be. Confident, perspicacious, formidable. This was the opponent Morgan had been playing alongside across the city for months now. Morgan noticed her heart beat faster in her chest.

“And you say you’re not a fan,” Supervillain said, a perceptible knowing coating every smooth syllable.

“I’m not a fan of you hurting people. Killing people.”

“And yet it’s all you heroes ever seem to respond to.” Morgan’s retort died in her throat. “If it takes violence to goad you out of your precious hero tower, then I will resort to violence.”

Goading? What goading? Morgan’s brows furrowed down over her eyes, shadowing them slightly as her mind ran over Supervillain’s words.

“Hmm,” Supervillain hummed fondly. “Flynn said you have a look when you’re trying to solve a riddle, this must be it.”

“I don’t have a look,” Morgan spat, ignoring the blush that climbed warm up her cheeks.

“Of course you do, dear Morgan. We all do. That’s why in poker you have to learn to mask your tells.”

“Are we playing poker, Supervillain?”

“No, hardly. Though I’d wager I could win your money as easy as it took me to tank that developmental property on seventh.”

Morgan hoped her glare burned a hole through Supervillain’s skull until she realised, she was playing right into his hands and dissolving. Morgan licked her lips and leaned forward in her chair too, hands clasped on the table in front of her.

“This wasn’t a spur of the moment thing, was it? You wanted me to follow Villain. You wanted them to catch me,” Morgan said. Them was much easier than saying Flynn out loud.

Supervillain smiled appraisingly. “Yes.”

“And bring me here to meet you.”

“Yes.”

She tilted her head. “Why?”

Supervillain’s eyes flashed, glinting. “Because Morgan, I’ve wanted to meet you as much as you’ve wanted to meet me.”

Morgan held up her cuffed hands. “Couldn’t have done it more civilly?”

“Oh please,” Supervillain scoffed. He lay his palms flat on the table and pushed his chair back. Morgan’s heartbeat quickened as Supervillain stood up and made his way slowly, predatorily slowly, towards Morgan like a cat playing with a mouse. Morgan wanted to stay still, stay strong, to not show him the effect he had on her, but her body didn’t get the message. The closer Supervillain came to Morgan the more she shrunk back into the chair, hands braced on the table ready to spring to her feet and — and then what?

Supervillain stopped beside Morgan’s, one hand on the back of her chair, the other hooking a finger around the small length of chain that kept Morgan’s wrists locked together. He pulled it up, Morgan’s arms going with it involuntarily until Supervillain held Morgan’s arms up high over her head.

Morgan clenched her teeth as her shoulders strained from her sitting position.

“We both knew one of us would have to be in chains for us to be able to chat,” said Supervillain. He tilted his head, regarding her micro expressions as she glared up at him. All friendliness had melted from his face leaving a cold grin and hungry eyes feasting off the sight of Morgan at his table. “I just decided it wasn’t going to be me.”

Morgan tugged her arms down suddenly, but she may as well not have for the lot of good it did her. Supervillain leaned down; his face close to Morgan’s as he grinned.

“You should have struck first, little hero. Then maybe the roles would be reversed, but as of right now—” Supervillain’s eyes darkened as he yanked Morgan's hands up higher and half lifted her off the chair bringing her face close to his so he could smirk at her; drinking in how small flashes of discomfort punctuated her unending glare. “I control the board.”

[hufflepuffwritingstuff2]

An Offer You Can't Refuse- Part 2

Part 1

Hero woke up to the feeling of being watched. The weight over their eyes had been lifted, and their restraints had been removed as well, judging by how they were sprawled out in bed. Bed? This bed felt much bigger and softer than their own bed. The feeling of being watched grew stronger. Who cared whose bed it was- who was watching them!? Hero’s eyes snapped open, darting around the room until they landed on- oh. Right. Them. That. This.

“Good morning, Hero,” Supervillain said softly, “I must admit, you slept so long I was worried they had overdosed you, but you seem to be alright. That’s good.”

Alright? Alright!? What about this was alright!?

“Do you often make a habit of watching people sleeping?” Hero blurted.

Did they really just say that!? Hero’s heart hammered in their chest. This was Supervillain they were talking about- one false move and they were dead. No, scratch that, death would be a mercy- surely someone like Supervillain was an expert at dishing out fates worse than death-

Supervillain just chuckled.

“No,” they said, “but after eighteen hours and no sign of you waking, I did want to check up on you. That couldn’t have all been the drugs, I’d wager. Were you overworking yourself before you were abducted?”

“Eighteen-” Hero started.

“Technically twenty-five if we’re being specific,” Supervillain said, “your little snores are quite cute, and did you know you sleep-talk?”

Hero blushed in embarrassment. More than flustered, they felt confused. Supervillain had bought them for… however much they paid for them (Hero couldn’t quite remember) and now they were waking up in a lavish bed while the mastermind made small-talk about the whole thing?

“Are you hungry?” Supervillain prompted.

“Confused.” Hero admitted.

Hero’s stomach didn’t like that answer, and it growled loudly in protest. Supervillain smiled knowingly.

“I’ll have my chef make you something,” they said, getting up, “It would be in your best interest not to leave this room.”

Supervillain left the bedroom, closing the door behind them. Hero waited until their footsteps faded into silence. They sprung out of bed and tried the door. Locked, of course. Hero formed a small icicle in their hand and started to pick the lock. After a couple seconds of picking, the icicle snapped in two. Right, well, time for something more aggressive then. Hero forced the door down with a blast of ice. Stepping over the now-warped door, they looked around for the nearest exit. They ran down a hallway and past a few different doors, before reaching a grand staircase. They checked both ways for signs of Supervillain, then descended the stairs at a breakneck pace.

They realized, as they were rushing to freedom, that they weren’t wearing any shoes. In fact, their entire suit had been replaced by silk sleepwear. Oh well, they’d just have to make a new one when they got out of here. Their hand was on the front doorknob when a rough force yanked them backwards.

Hero yelped in surprise. They craned their neck to see a large, muscular person behind them. They had an earpiece and a small microphone hooked up to them.

“Got ‘em,” they said, “taking them back now.”

The henchman started to drag Hero back by the arm.

“Hey, let me go!” Hero shouted, forming cold energy in their hand and hurling a snowball at the henchman.

“Gah- why you-!”

In shock from getting a snowball to the face, the henchman had let go of Hero, who was now making another run for it.

“C’mere you-”

Hero turned, anger burning in their eyes. If it was a fight this bozo wanted, it was a fight they were going to get. And Hero was going to win.

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