#steam-blowing-off with a purely cheerful/silly au like this

[tanoraqui]

I’m trying not to make the whole Silmarillion superhero au about Fingon and Maedhros, but really, who is doing it like them.

They’re punchclock super-nemeses but they’re both chronic workaholics, and also genuinely Like This (Fingon reflexively rescues cats from trees in passing; Maedhros’s civilian hobby, aside from sometimes sketching, is engaging in vengeful internecine politics in first their apartment building’s Residents Association [despite owning the building], then their HOA and PTA).

Maedhros is arguably an antihero more than a villain, but the scale of his willingness to steal, kill, conquer, mind control, etc. in order to achieve his roughly benevolent goals puts him squarely in Supervillain.

They’re married in their secret civilian identities.

They flirt so much as public nemeses that they accidentally developed a shared kink about it.

Maedhros Phoenix has a team of scientists dedicated to figuring out how to defeat Valiant; he marks these meetings as “Date Night Ideas.” Some of the scientists have figured it out and are cool about it; sometimes one will get frustrated, go Villain independently and try to kill Valiant on their own, which is kind of like extra enrichment in Fingon’s enclosure.

Once, the scientists stole some of Fingon’s DNA and combined it with Maedhros’s to make a test tube baby to defeat the hero once and for all; Maedhros took him out as a baby and they raised him as a normal child. Ironically, Ereinion DOES have the power of negating other people’s powers and notable abilities, very conducive to defeating a Hero, but that’s his Light-given power so the scientists had no influence on it whatsoever.

Fingon thinks the way to unite the world behind against Morgoth (who WILL return one day; the whole headless House of Finwë agrees on this) is to prove themselves reliable allies and leaders, and to generally inoculate Earth against the Enemy by spreading unity, compassion, etc; Maedhros thinks the world will unite behind them against Morgoth when he fucking rules it.

Their neighbors’ understanding is that Maedhros runs a stationary business with some unclear number of his eternally misbehaving younger brothers and Fingon is a private sports coach/martial arts instructor who also offers free classes for underserved youth at an inner-city community center (which he does).

There is in-universe shipping discourse about them (as Valiant and Phoenix, common shipname bravebird) like you wouldn’t BELIEVE.

Like the rest of the House of Finwë, they wear glasses in their secret identities enchanted to hide their glowing eyes. Fingon’s are gold-rimmed.