Couples strolled on the sidewalk hand in hand. Girls with shopping bags on their arms flitted from entrance to entrance, chatter and laughter in their wake. Espresso roasted in the air, warm and tantalizing.

The hero adjusted their sniper rifle and sighted along the rooftop.

Soon to land on the villain, standing next to a grizzled man with a crossword puzzle in his grasp, spectacles never quite seeming to sit right on the bridge of his nose. Glasses or no glasses, the hero would recognize that nose anywhere.

It was risky. High-profile. A media zoo waiting to happen. But the hero’s heart swelled with something—certainly not love—whenever they were in sight of the villain’s boss, the very epitome of a wolf in sheep’s clothing, and it didn’t take long for him to be in the crosshairs of their rifle.

One shot. Just one. That’s all it took to put an end to this miserable shell for a human being.

Yes ofc! Thank you so much for the wait 🧸🫂💘

-> part one

“And you’re sure you know nothing of Villain’s appearance?” the detective pressed, pen poised ever ready over her notepad. “Nothing at all, aside from height and build?”

“No, nothing. I’m sorry.” Civilian wrung their hands together, willing away the tremors. “I guess I was too close to really see what was going on.”

The lie would have tasted bitter in their mouth, except . . .

Was it truly a lie? Civilian had really been close to Villain in the time of their captivity. Too close. Skin-on-skin, eyes-on-eyes, lips-on-lips close, and—

And frankly, Civilian could bring themself to remember nothing else.

based on this nifty idea by @epiclamer, hope u like 💘✨🧸🌹

cw: mention of drug abuse

Heaving the villain to an isolated alleyway felt like the hardest battle the hero had ever had. And they’d been to a lot of battles.

“I can’t believe you’d do this to yourself,” the hero bit out as the villain collapsed onto cold, unforgiving pavement, the deep breaths a likely attempt of excising whatever the hell they’d put in their body.

They’d promised themself they wouldn’t. That they’d hold their tongue in the wake of the villain’s slurred speech, uneven gait, clammy skin. But the hero could only tolerate self-sabotage so much, and the sight of the villain barely just managing to sit themself upright all but added to the tension in their muscles.

“Why?” the hero asked.

“God,” came the villain’s answer. “Just shut the fuck up.”

In a body much too numb to be her own, the hero watched her mother rush toward her, face pale, clutching her housecoat tight to her frame.

“Oh, sweetie.” First a touch to the livid bruise on her cheek, and then another to the wound on her shoulder, her arm. “What h—”

“Dad sent in more reinforcements than I expected tonight.” A wince as her mother attended to her shoulder injury, with antiseptic and Band-Aid she couldn’t recall her fetching. Must be the concussion. “It took me a little longer than usual to fend them all off.”

Meaning: she’d absolutely gotten her ass handed to her. It was a miracle the mask hadn’t torn off, exposing her identity to her father—otherwise known as the city’s most infamous villain.

Although, there was a moment when—

“I can’t take this.”

The hero looked up. Her mother’s eyes had gone glassy, hands suspended halfway through dressing up her once-bloodied arm.

“You know I can’t take watching the both of you go at it like this. I can barely handle deceiving your father every d—”

words cannot describe how heartwarming & sweet this is… thank you so much for taking the time out of your day to send this to me!! I’ve been rereading it all day & it gets better every time. I’m so glad you find my snippets entertaining/well done. Not a professional writer by any means, but hopefully one day ♥️♥️♥️

“A heist? Really?”

The hero felt a glare bore into their skull—and of none other than the city’s other hero.

Word of competition had spread through city avenues like wildfire. It was no longer just the hero doing the charity work, the articles had said. Some other hotshot savior had come in to steal the hero’s thunder. When the hero had first heard that, their only reaction was a derisive snort. This place was practically renowned for its cutthroat villains, from mass murderers to unapologetic guttersnipes, and it took far more than some fame-hungry wannabe to withstand them all.

Or so the hero had thought. It wasn’t long before they were proven wrong. And, to tell the truth, the hero’s nonchalance had kept firm throughout the whole ordeal. Getting less coverage was no big deal in their books. To someone like the hero, so much as having a safe haven was more than enough, the public’s adoration be demanded.

That is, until the safe haven no longer became safe. It first happened when the hero was shopping. Next thing they knew, a robbery was reported on TV. Then when the hero was at a library, and fire was set to the books moments after they’d left. And now, right after visiting one of the city’s hole-in-the-wall art galleries, they’d waited in the shroud, eyes peeled—only to spy a second shadow slink to some antiquated portrait, footfalls whisper-soft, face hidden by a ski mask.

But it didn’t take a genius to figure out what was concealed underneath.

“How did you find me?” asked the other hero—no, asked the hero’s former sidekick.

“I’m just saying,” went on the hero, ignoring their former sidekick’s question in its entirety, “that you didn’t have to go so far as to ruin fine art to frame me. That’s a true waste of talent. I think convenience-store robberies suit you far more.”

Even through the mask, their former sidekick’s building agitation was unmistakable. “Is it really framing, if you’ve done much, much worse before?”

“Some people change, [Sidekick].”

“And some people don’t,” sniped their former sidekick. “Just because you rebranded yourself here, doesn’t mean everyone’s going to forget what you did back home.”

The hero’s impassive expression started wavering, but they did their best not to show as much.

“You’re not one to say, are you?” they pointed out. “You’re doing the exact same thing—except you’re actually deceiving, and I’m not. I’ve moved past it.”

“You’ve moved past everyone. Your crew. The city you worked so hard to take over. Me.”

Not this again.

“I wanted to quit. You didn’t.”

“So you just throw me to the wayside like that?” Their former sidekick’s fingers balled into fists. “Just because I pushed against you the slightest amount?” Then they let the portrait clatter to the floor, as though it was worth as much as luring the hero to a secluded gallery, where only CCTVs—likely deactivated by now—would bear witness to the glint of the knife their sidekick had flashed.

It was.

“I’ve waited a long time for this,” said their former sidekick.

The hero knew.

And they knew that their former sidekick, all for pack loyalty, wouldn’t be doing this alone.

So when their former crew, each with their own deadly asset in tow, bled from the semidarkness, the hero—no, the former villain—wasn’t shocked.

Really, the only shocking thing, right then and there, would come in the form of the former villain slaughtering them all in cold blood, one by one, attack by attack.

Until there was nothing left but the drip of blood onto the floor, with the former villain—no, the villain—the only one standing.

“I already told you,” said the detective’s father. “It’s a double suicide.”

“And I already told you,” retorted the detective, “that that’s bullshit.”

Historically, this was the point in time where the detective’s father—high up the NYPD’s chain, and with the gal and arrogance to show for it—would pinch the bridge of his nose in frustration, look his so-called recalcitrant son in the eye, and proceed to launch into a tirade as to how the detective should be more respectful of a veteran’s word. Also the point in time where the detective would set his chin straight, lock his jaw, and weather each and every effort to deter him. In other words: I’m not backing down today.

Or any other day.

At long last, his father, visibly struggling to rein in his oncoming temper: “I don’t get how you’re so obsessed with a cold case.”

“I don’t get how you’re so willing to sweep a mass murder under the rug.”

“The coroner ruled it a double suicide.”

“The coroner is wrong. And so are you, for letting an entire family not get justice.”

So the villain had gone out of his way to sweep the hero’s city clean of his other rivals—either by injuring them out of commission, or by killing them in cold blood.

No big deal, right?

Wrong.

“I don’t kill people.” The anger in the hero’s voice could have shaken a sane person twice the villain’s size. Fortunately, the villain was no sane person. “That’s not what I do.”

“Even if they’re your enemies?” The villain had edged closer. As a countermeasure, the hero made sure to edge farther away. It wasn’t that the villain’s proximity disgusted him. The opposite, in fact. Something about the villain was a flame begging to be touched—and for his entire life, the hero had been the damn moth. No longer.

“Especially if they’re my enemies,” the hero spat. “I don’t want to stoop down to their level. Don’t you see how wrong that is?”

The villain stared at him. Blindly.

"Love is a fickle thing, is it not? Pliable and easy to use given the opportunity." The hero laughs a little too loudly. "I can't believe you thought I could ever love you."

"That's... That's what you think of love?" And the hero, who is so used to calculating and planning and winning, is shocked to watch the villain's eyes fill with pity

- @nuttynutcycle

“That’s not what I think.” The hero themself couldn’t have foreseen the newfound defensiveness to their voice. “That’s what I know.”

And by way of experience, too. In the hero’s time, they’d acquired love just as they acquired all things—through buying it. The city loved the hero because the hero protected it. People loved the hero because the hero saved them. The hero took the hits so no one else had to. In exchange: their love. Or maybe it was more their adoration. The hero didn’t care for the difference.

The villain, apparently, did.

“So everything you’ve been trying to teach me was just an act.” Putting a hand on their forehead, expression aghast. And no less pathetic for it. “About love and compassion and all that. All a ruse.”

“It wasn’t a ruse,” the hero said.

“Why? Because you love me? Because, secretly, you believe in those things?”

The hero didn’t answer. It had never been about not believing in love—they did. If love was a product of fiction, then there was no reason why it would be driving the villain mad the way it was. It was the malleability of it that had always been a weapon far too enticing not to use.

Yes, love was a force unlike any other—and that was all the more cause to stab the villain squarely in the chest with it.

For whatever reason, the villain had taken the hero’s silence as a sign to get closer. Another indication that love did, in fact, make you do blind things. Then they put their hands on the hero’s cheeks.

Love made you do dangerous things, too.

The hero’s fingers flexed, ready to become talons. They didn’t move. Not yet.

“I know you’re not like that.” Was that desperation the hero sensed in the villain’s voice? Not wanting, perhaps, to have their make-believe comfort torn away from them in the blink of a disintegrating masquerade? “I know it. Remember when you saved that poor kid from being bullied?”

Only because the hero had known the press was nearby that day.

“Or when you donated to an animal shelter?”

Only so the city would cease their rumors about the hero’s acute dislike of dogs, which had severely hurt their popularity polls.

“Or when you gave me a chance. Even though everyone else turned their backs on me.”

Only for this moment. This very moment here, where the villain was so vulnerable their heart was laid bare, and well within the sights of sniping.

“No, you’re not as fickle as you claim love to be.” Now the villain was sounding as though they were trying to convince themself. “I refuse to believe it.”

Finally, the villain was right.

“Come closer,” the hero ordered. When the villain did, the hero wrapped their arms around them. Listened as their breaths relaxed in their embrace.

No, the hero wasn’t fickle.

Fickle things were never with knives concealed expertly out of their lovers’ views. The likes of which the hero was discreetly raising, then, right to the villain’s heart.

The key was not to forget, the hero had told the villain, but rather to make peace with that which you wanted to forget.

Even if the villain’s version of making peace was planting a bomb right beneath their former tower.

“It’s been so long,” remarked the hero, “since I last came here.”

It was true. Last they’d been here, everything had been on fire—that is, everything but the villain’s place. The hero remembered the preparing, the battling, the shedding blood. They remembered storm clouds and brassy thunder.

And, of course, they never forgot the heartbeat the villain had confessed they’d wanted an end to it all.

In the months to follow, the villain would hold true to their metamorphosis. Aside from the occasional relapse—nothing too drastic, especially considering previous stunts—they’d put a genuine effort into turning over a new leaf. The why of it would only become clear come their heart-to-heart, upon which the villain would admit to their growing feelings for the hero. A revelation the hero hadn’t minded, seeing as they, too, had developed something of a fancy for the villain.

So when the villain had suggested such an outlandish idea, the hero took their hand, met their eyes, and vowed they would be present to watch the villain’s old home burn.

“Hurry,” the hero said, the jail door creaking open in their wake. “The guards will be wanting to report soon.”

“To you,” came the villain’s response, merry. As merry as it could get, at least, contained in a damp cell the hero’s legion had thrown them into not too long prior—and with no small amount of pleasure, at that.

Likely the same sort of pleasure that surged delicious under the villain’s skin, seeing the hero’s gaze darken in the half-light.

“You know I went through a lot of trouble, stalling them for you,” the hero pressed. The villain could have rolled their eyes for the haughtiness of it. “So if you could just do me a favor and get u—”

“I didn’t ask you to come here.” Just to enunciate the bite to their words, the villain slammed their back against the brick wall behind them. “You did it out of your own volition. Or maybe it’s the ridiculous hero complex you can never let anyone forget about.”

“Showing mercy is part of my hero complex?”

“Especially when it’s unwanted,” the villain answered.

The hero’s fingers closed down on the metal bars. The villain spied the faintest hint of a protruding vein along their arm. “Unnecessary defiance isn’t always a good look on you.”

“I’m not coming. Not unless it’s on my own terms. My own decision.”

“This whole prison system is state of the art.” The hero could never give up, could they? “You’d get caught before you could even know what hit you. And you’ll have to understand that there’s only so much that I can do for you, at that point. I barely convinced them not to kill you on sight.”

“Good.” It wasn’t in a vengeful villain’s nature to give up, either. “That’s one less thing I have to worry about you interfering with.”

A sharp inhale told the villain the hero’s patience was running thin. Thinning patience was a decent sign. Thinning patience meant that the hero could let go of this charade of theirs—or that this entire thing could come to blows. The villain had little qualms with either possibility.

And yet, much to the villain’s chagrin, the hero’s expression regained its homeostasis, long before the villain had enough time to enjoy the storminess of it.

The hero stepped inside the jail cell.

The jail cell suddenly seemed way smaller than it had already been.

“I’m doing this for you,” the hero said.

The villain couldn’t help but bark out a laugh at that. “No, you’re not.”

“I don’t want you to rot in here.”

“You seemed very well fine with that,” retorted the villain, “when you were turning the big, bad villain in. You thrived in the attention.”

“That’s until I realized what they were planning to do with—”

“That’s until you realized that your conscience couldn’t handle it.” The villain didn’t give the hero a chance to finish. The time for chances was long past. In the same way that whatever camaraderie the villain and hero had had was long past, too.

“You wanted peace of mind,” the villain went on, in spite of the warning glint in the hero’s stare. “And you saw me as some kind of bleeding heart. That’s why you’re here.” The anger to plague the villain struck as unexpected as the villain hadn’t braced themself for it. So, in tones hotter than the flames in hell:

“And the last thing I want to give you is peace of mind.”

Every moment the hero stewed in silence, was a moment the villain reveled in theirs. How dared this self-serving bastard come all the way here—after all they’d done—and pretend as though they were offering the villain a rare kindness?

No. The villain would never give the hero the peace of mind they so clearly coveted, the way they dropped low, held their fists before them, and met the villain dead in the eye.

“I’m not leaving until you’ve left, too.” The burning intensity in every syllable . . . The hero meant it.

The villain smirked, at that.

They, too, held up their fists.

“It’s such a lonely place,” the hero said.

“What else,” asked one of their crew members, “did you expect from some lunatic’s lair? I’m just glad we don’t have to deal with the dramatic monologues.”

The hero supposed that was true. It was just like the villain to own a desolate mansion on the fringes of the city, where few other souls lived, and where they were far better off than the working class they terrorized. Not like you could spend your whole time hemming and hawing when you had bills to pay.

It would have been fine if that were the villain’s only advantage, but no—on top of being in possession of endless funds to conduct crime, there was one more thing that had made beating their archenemy damn near impossible: the villain was a shapeshifter. Which was to say, the villain was beyond difficult to nail down. That was the reason the hero found themselves revisiting the villain’s once-residence, their crew hard at work combing hallways for the barest of hints as to the villain’s whereabouts.

Even the barest of hints was too much to ask for, apparently.

Finding little solace in their thoughts, the hero let their feet wander. And wander. And wander. It was when they drew up to the Forbidden Room that the hero stopped short, eyeing the door with equal parts curiosity and dread.

And by the Forbidden Room, the hero would mean the villain’s bedroom. It wasn’t that they’d never dared investigate the villain’s personal quarters—they had. Only they’d done so by proxy. They’d sent their crew in, given them permission to turn the room upside down. But not them. Never them, for the simple fact that the hero didn’t want to put a face to the oppressor. They didn’t want to see some family pictures and think there the inklings of humanity that, put bluntly, no longer existed.

That was then.

Now, the hero opened the door, stepped inside, and switched on the light.

The hero wasn’t sure what they’d expected. Probably it was the nothingness that greeted them, with only a wooden desk and a threadbare mattress to indicate there ever having been signs of life. After all, how could the villain stick to a cohesive theme? They could barely keep one identity every three months.

The hero was rifling among barren drawers when the floorboard underneath them caught their eye. On a harder stare, they realized that it was just two centimeters higher than the panels alongside. They knelt down, touched their fingers to it . . . A hatch. And they wasted no time in prying it clean off, to the horrendous sight of—

The hero blinked.

A journal.

Not poison. Not a knife. Not a firearm. A journal.

It was a moment before the hero gathered the heart to crack it open.

It’s been a rough first day, read the first entry. [Hero] doesn’t trust me—I can tell. But it’s no matter, for I know how weak a compassionate heart could be. I’ll be accepted into the crew in no time.

Second entry.

It’s just as I thought. [Hero] offered me safety, food, and—get this—a home. We’re living together for the meantime. The suspicion exists, but to [Hero] and their crew, I’m just some poor innocent who got caught in the crossfire.

Eighth entry.

Played cards with the crew today. Everyone’s so much more open when drunk.

Twelfth.

[Hero] and I slept together—in the literal sense, mind you. It was incredibly hard to resist going for the throat that night.

Twentieth.

[Hero] said they were in love with me. It felt like poison saying it back, but I got the job done.

Twenty-sixth.

I’m getting so much closer to—

“Darling?”

The hero started. Heart racing, they threw the journal where they’d found it, put the floorboard back, and pivoted on their heel in time to meet their lover’s concerned gaze.

“Yes?”

They could have cursed their voice for the wobble it held.

“Where have you been?” The hero’s lover invited themselves inside. They looked beautiful. Deathly beautiful. Deathly, venomously, villainously beautiful. “Everyone’s been calling your name for ten minutes now. We got worried you’d managed to run off and get yourself into trouble.”

“Trouble? Me?” The hero flashed a grin, entirely wrong considering the circumstances, and went for the breezy laugh. “As if.”

“You’re right.” After everything the hero had seen, the hero couldn’t help thinking their lover’s smile just a touch sinister. “You seem to attract trouble more than it attracts you.”

The hero’s chest burned.

“You worry too much,” they tried.

“How can I not?” retorted the hero’s lover. “The least I can do is worry. You gave me a home when I needed it most.”

But God, the hero wished they hadn’t.

“I’ll come back soon. I promise.”

The hero’s lover seemed inclined to object. Then they conceded with a sigh the hero knew well. Too well. So well it made everything hurt that much more.

“Just don’t be long, okay?”

read @literally-just-kirby’s Rescue snippet and fell in love, so I thought I’d take a shot at a continuation 💕🦋✨ i hope it’s up to par!

“Are you stalking me?” was the first thing that came out of the villain’s mouth, once they’d opened the door for the hero.

“Glad to see you’re well, too,” the hero muttered. The jacket over their head really wasn’t doing it for them—rain continued to pelt them without mercy, and they were pretty sure they were two seconds short of getting struck by lightning. They stared at the villain.

“You gonna let me come in?”

It took a moment, but the villain gestured them past the entrance. Outside was a barren landscape, but the hero was stunned by the sight that had greeted them inside. Yes, the couches were faux leather, tattered at the seams; the walls were peeling, not a family picture to be spotted; and the windowpanes were scratched within an inch of their lives. Yet, all that paled in comparison to the large bookcase at the far end of the living room.

And a large bookcase it was. On toeing off their muddied shoes, while the villain attended to the teapot in the kitchenette, the hero allowed their bare feet to carry them over to the shelves. Raised three fingertips to spine after spine, some pertaining to fallen empires, others to rising kingdoms.

“You into history?” the hero prompted, flipping through a particularly heavyweight tome.

“Not history,” the villain replied. When the hero tilted their head, it was to the villain’s shrouded form, from where they stood a ways off with a tisane in tow. “Just the people who create it.”

The hero nodded to the teacup. “Do I get some, too?”

“How did you find me?” the villain demanded.

That was a no, then.

“Why, a thorough reconnaissance, of course.” The hero helped themselves to the seat nearest. Water dripped off their hair and soaked the armrests. “I conjured up a very clever gambit, investigated your partners’ whereabouts, sought them out—”

“They sold me out, didn’t they?” the villain interrupted. The hero couldn’t help but start at the crack in their voice: just about imperceptible, but still with the startling ability to stop the hero dead in their tracks.

“It was never about camaraderie to them. Just bribery and competition and how to best benefit from me.”

Something had sealed the hero’s throat shut. Fingers tangled in their wet strands as they scrambled for something to say—largely because the villain had already said it. The villain’s so-called comrades had double-crossed them in the blink of an eye. For whatever reason, their tongue had grown thick at the prospect of confirming as much.

They were spared, in the end, by a sharp turn of the villain’s head.

“Whatever. It doesn’t matter. More importantly, why did you find me?”

Here went nothing.

“To check on you,” the hero said, simply.

The villain’s eyes had gone wide. “To check—”

“You’ve been missing.” Here, the hero set their chin. “Since the fire. No evil schemes, no fights, nothing. What gives?”

“You can’t be serious,” the villain said.

“If you think I came all the way here to tell you a joke—”

“Because I can’t fight you,” the villain cut in. Their grip on their cup had become bone-white. “I’ve been taught two things. That we fight our enemies, and that we aid our allies. So I can’t fight you.”

The hero’s world slammed to a halt.

“Since when were we not enem—”

“Enemies don’t help enemies out of fires.” It was the villain’s turn to cut the hero off. “Enemies don’t save their enemies’ lives.” The hero couldn’t help thinking it an astounding mixture of sentimental and robotic.

“All the same,” continued the villain, “I am no longer sure what to make of us. It is most imperative to lie low until I figure it out.”

“Friends,” the hero said.

The villain’s gaze snapped to theirs. It begged a million and one questions.

“People who help other people out of burning buildings are called friends,” the hero explained—when, in reality, their mind had summoned a word different in its entirety.

This word they would keep to themselves. For now, at least.

“Friends . . .” Had the hero not known any better, they would have gone so far as to say the thought seemed to have sat well with the villain. “That did not fall in line with my deductions. But it’s close enough.”

The hero’s brow furrowed. “Your deductions?”

The villain nodded.

“Why don’t we hear them, then?”

As was usual, the villain did not hesitate in answering, and rather frankly at that:

“I deduced that you’d fallen in love with me.”

The hero spluttered. Choked. Brought a hand to their chest.

“I am not in love with you! I was just trying to do the decent, humane thing! I couldn’t leave you in there in good conscien—”

“In that case”—something told the hero the villain had stopped listening at “not in love with you”—“have this.” They shoved the teacup into the hero’s hands. “And consider it a platonic gesture. Because, as you may have very well realized, falling in love with me is a trap.” Again with the matter-of-fact tone, this time ten times more infuriating. “One I’d rather we both avoided.”

Then the villain pivoted on their heel and disappeared back into the kitchenette, no more cryptic words to be said.

A trap . . . Idle musings, as the hero took a sip. Chamomile tea.