Revisit Revise Rewrite

“…that has got to be the dumbest idea ever. That’s…I don’t even have any words left,” the hero said but they knew just as well as the villain how their ears had turned tomato red.

For the record, it was a stupid idea. And it was something the hero definitely had to stomach for a few days before deciding.

“I am not interested in twisting the knife but your apartment is pathetic,” the villain said. They picked up a dusty snow globe and observed it. A little figure with a lei stared back at them and the hero cringed internally when they realised it must’ve been over a decade old. As if they had the money to visit Hawai’i any time soon. “And I’m not one for adding salt to wounds but you are, undeniably, poor.”

“Wow, thank you. What are you gonna say next? That I have no prospects?”

“I don’t know, are you already a burden to your parents?” the villain asked, a sly smile stretching over their lips. They seemed quite amused at the hero’s current situation, despite offering their help. Eventually they sat down on the hero’s creaking bed which didn’t help the hero when they tried to tell them they were doing just fine.

“Not that I know of,” the hero said. They crossed their arms in front of their chest and tried to stare at the villain as intensely as they could. “I’m not this desperate, you know? I’m alright. I’m good. This is fine, my apartment is okay.”

The villain stared at the empty ramen packages on the hero’s stove.

“That stuff kills you, you know?” they said, their thumb pointing at the trash angrily.

“I’m doing fine. I’m great. Great physique. Amazing grades. Impeccable catching-criminals-rate.”

“Brilliant,” the villain said. They tilted their head. “Great physique?”

“Yup.”

“Hm.” They looked around the room slowly, observing every imperfection. The hero was ashamed. They weren’t the cleanest person. “A little birdie told me you’re failing most of your classes. Which isn’t all that surprising, given that you’re spending most nights on rooftops in that…interesting costume.”

The villain looked them up and down and the hero stared at them, eyes wide. They had mentioned before that the hero’s costume wasn’t hiding much. The hero had thought it to be a joke.

“I’m not a child, you know? I don’t need your help with ridiculous offers.”

“How old are you again?” the villain asked.

“I’m a year older than you,” the hero reminded them and the villain gave them a belittling look. Sometimes the hero forgot about that, too. The villain seemed like they’d everything figured out. Organised, rich, intelligent — the hero was falling behind and didn’t even know how to change that.

On top of all that, the villain was taller than them.

“I apologise for not respecting my elders then.”

“You—”

“Look, this is a shithole. If we get married you could have a good life. That’s all there is to it. It’s a signature on a paper and some financial decisions. Nothing else,” the villain said. They seemed to suggest this quite casually, as if the hero’s parents wouldn’t freak out on them for failing to introduce their spouse.

Their parents had been asking for grandchildren already. That alone seemed like a burden with the little sexual experience the hero had. It was exhausting and the hero was starting to feel the pressure of college and their nightly activities together. The villain was technically right.

If they lived with someone else, if they had money, they could at least get something real to eat for dinner.

“Well, aren’t you such a generous soul? Offering your money, your life to me like that…”

“We wouldn’t see each other much.”

The hero’s heart was doing something weird.

“Of course…” They stared at the floor. There was something the villain wanted. Some kind of information, some kind of contract. They weren’t doing this because they were a nice and sweet person. Behind every decision, there was a plan. There was calculation. The villain functioned that way.

“Obviously, you can screw whoever you want,” the villain clarified but the hero hadn’t even asked for it nor did they desire it. For a brief moment, they gazed at each other but it was more than that. It was more than a simple look. It was a question, it was an answer. And the hero felt trapped. They feared the villain had a wrong picture of them in their head.

“Why are you offering this?”

“Because it’s an agreement on paper, nothing more. I wouldn’t force you to sleep in the same bed. We don’t even have to live on the same floor,” the villain said but they hadn’t understood the hero.

“I meant the marriage specifically. Why are you doing this? What am I supposed to do in return?”

Now, the villain lowered their gaze. They scratched the back of their neck and the hero was more than curious. If the villain wanted information, the hero would have to decline. They rather lived in this horrible apartment and live from paycheck to paycheck instead of endangering anyone.

“I need protection,” they mumbled. “There’s a mole in my team. Someone tried to assassinate me two times last week. Normally I would…I would have my ways but I don’t want any of my employees to suffer.”

The hero was flabbergasted. They had expected anything but this.

“I’m supposed to be your bodyguard? Me protecting you?” The hero would’ve laughed but they were too surprised by the fact that the villain could’ve died last week.

The villain took a deep breath and leaned back, eyes half-lidded.

“It’s more like…detective work. The marriage is supposed to cover for the both of us. You living at my place out of a sudden would be less suspicious if people thought we were…you know. Plus, I could give you money that way. As payment.”

The hero stared at them. Admittedly, they felt as tired as the villain looked. Both had been through a few rough months. The hero wasn’t sure what to say.

“Think about it,” the villain said. They stood up and walked over to the door. But before they could even reach for the doorknob, the hero grabbed their arm.

“I swear, if you’re using me, if you use the…situation I’m in—”

“Believe me. I don’t enjoy seeing you live like this.” The hero pressed them against the door. They’d missed being close like this. “And I’m getting anxious.”

“You’ll have to meet my parents,” the hero said. They looked down at the villain’s expensive clothes. They couldn’t really concentrate.

But the villain only grinned. They pulled the hero closer, close enough to kiss them. “And they’ll love me.”

Two days later, the hero agreed.

Hero smoothed her dress and looked in the mirror. She took a deep breath and grabbed her purse and keys.

She opened the door and saw Villain standing there. He looked down at her and crossed his arms.

"Don't." She said turning to lock her door.

"Where have you been?" He asked, following her down the hallway.

She sighed. "I've been busy."

"Busy with what?" He asked sharply.

She continued down the stairs and out onto the street. They walked in silence for a while.

She stopped in front of a church and turned to face him. "With planning the funeral of my dad."

She shook her head and turned away again. "There are seats in the back if you want to join. If not,"

She walked towards the doors of the church.

Hero took a sip of her coffee, her black dress flowing in the wind. Villain sat across the table, legs crossed, watching the people buzz by. 

“You once told me that you lived your life with no regrets. Is that still true?” 

Hero shook her head. “I don’t know anymore.”

Villain grew quiet, a rare moment of silence enveloping him. “Do you still see their faces?” His voice was almost drowned out by the wind, “I do.”

“No.” Supervillain smiled at Hero, “That’s not what I see at all.” Blood spewed from his mouth. His voice haunted her. “Look at all you have done under my guidance Hero. My beautiful Dau-” 

Hero twisted her knife up and into his heart. “You are nothing to me. You bastard!” Hero shoved him off her blade.

“Hero? Hero, untie me okay? I can help you just untie me and we can make all of this right.” Villain’s voice hardly reaching her above the sound of her boiling blood. It wasn’t enough. No one here could be allowed to live even if their part to play was small they were all guilty. 

“No Villain. I’m not done yet.” 

Hero shook her self out of the memory. “Is it wrong that I still love him? Even after I- I-” Hero’s breath hitched a tears escaping her eyes.

Villain’s hand twitched. A powerful urge to touch Hero, to comfort her; remnants of a different life.  

“I don’t think about them at all.” Hero breathed out. “Am I… broken?” Her controlled expression at odds with her wet cheeks and shaky voice. 

“Don’t think that, please.” please - please Hero save me. I’m so scared. Villain couldn’t stop the images in his mind; he couldn’t stop the voices.

“Please Hero- Please save me. I’m so scared.” A small woman was covered with C4, a detonator no doubt in Supervillain’s capable hands. Hero trembled, pressing the barrel of her gun against the woman.

Supervillain’s laughter echoed all around them. “Do it Hero or I’ll kill everyone in this building. We wouldn’t want to cause another unfortunate… accident. Think of the children. Think of your precious Villain.”  

“I’m s-so sorry.” Hero let a bullet go too weak to face what she had done. The woman slumped in the chair lifeless. The light on the center of the bomb turning green. Supervillain would abstain from bring the building down. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I-”

Hero’s screams mixed with her father’s laughter. 

That night could only be described as a slaughter.

He had lied before. He didn’t see the faces of the innocent civilians that Hero had left slaughtered in her wake. He saw only Hero’s anger, her eyes reflecting fire and her shadow chasing death.

The gritty sound of a chair being pushed against concrete knocked Villain from the memory. 

Hero wasn’t sure where she would go. “It’s time for you to pass on Hero. For better or for worse.” 

“I’m scared.” Hero’s face mimicked her first victim. Her neck turning red from Villain’s blade. She had tarried on earth far too long since that night.

[Sequences of flashing lights may not be suitable for photosensitive viewers]

Civilian woke with a start, the hairs on her arms standing on end.

Something was wrong.

The curtains were closed. That was the first thing she noticed.

Civilian never closed the curtains. Waking up in the morning required the full force of the sun.

She fought to keep her breathing even as she regarded the room through slitted eyes.

“There’s no point pretending you’re still asleep.” The voice was rich, smooth, and utterly terrifying.

Her heart pounded. What kind of robber announced their presence?

Civilian opened her eyes fully, diving for the nightstand. She yanked open the top drawer.

It was empty.

She whirled around as a malicious chuckle sent shivers down her spine.

A shadow detached itself from the corner near the door, slowly spinning a glinting silver barrel on two fingers.

“Did you really think I wouldn’t check the room for weapons?”

How long had he been in her room...

The spinning stopped, and she heard the distinct clink clink of bullets hitting the wood floor as the light above the bed began to flicker.

The figure stepped forward, tossing her gun and the now empty clip on the bed between them. She caught a glimpse of his face as the light continued to flicker on and off.

For a moment her fear receded.

“Hero.”

No need to be afraid of the city’s golden boy.

Then logic kicked in. It was 2 a.m. according to the alarm clock on her nightstand. What was he doing here?

“Hero?”

He smiled, white teeth glinting in the flashing light. “So you know who I am. Good. That will make this much easier.”

“No.”

The word, small, inconvenient to the assassin otherwise, stopped them cold in their tracks.

“No?” The assassin echoed. “Your majesty, I have a job.”

“No.” The king became quiet, the awful decision he planned to make clear in his eyes. “Not anymore, not right now. Take them to their rooms, be sure they don’t leave.”

The assassin had a habit of picking apart people, from the way faces wrinkled when they smiled, to the way they held themselves, down to the very tone in someone’s voice. Admittedly, it was harder with royals, who were raised to be unpickable. This king was different, however, because this assassin knew this king. His voice was familiar in any infliction he put on.

The assassin saw the smallest crack, and there it was, the remorse behind it all. Guilt was a wretched emotion.

“Your majesty.” The assassin kept a cool facade, they were good at that. “I have served you well.”

“I know. This is not a punishment.” He looked to his guards pointedly. “Take them.”

The king was tactical as he was guilty. Challenging an assassin to defy him in front of the guards, to fight some of his best trained men. They could do it, but in the end, it would only harm both king and assassin. So, the assassin bit their tongue.

“Your majesty.”

They were swept up to their rooms with sympathetic glances, light touches, an acknowledgement of something being horribly wrong here.

The assassin listened for any signs of retreating footsteps once they were properly shut in, but there were none. Their door was already locked, as were their windows. Which had to mean the king was planning this.

The assassin prided themselves on their ability to be calm in any situation, it was yet another useful skill. This situation, however, had the assassin going in blind.

The overly stuffed and out of use pillows were thrown every which way, abandoning a bed the assassin never liked anyway. The table provided for work and meals managed to lose a leg. The window always seemed one hit away from destroyed, but the one hit never came.

He did, though.

“Are you alright?” He asked, shifting his weight to both feet equally, standing taller than before.

To his credit, he didn’t flinch when the dagger was at his throat.

“What is this?” The assassin hissed.

“We both know you won’t use that.”

At the non-answer of the assassin, the king swept a glance across the room.

“You aren’t hurt are you?” His eyes narrowed on the broken table.

“What is this?”

The king, who leveled his gaze back to the assassin, raised his hand slowly, pushing away the point of the dagger.

With his tone softened, he answered. “A new assignment.”

The assassin scoffed, but didn’t bother raising their weapon of choice again. “What’s that? Waiting for the targets to come here? Is that when I can do my job?”

“No.” The king took the free hand of the assassin, looking at the newest bruise. “You came back hurt.”

“That’s part of it.”

“Not anymore. I can’t have you hurt. I won’t have you gone.”

The assassin pulled away from the king’s touch.

“That isn’t for you to decide.” They stepped back. “This is what I do. This is how I help the kingdom.”

“It is for me to decide. Help the kingdom in any other way, then.” Kings often do not plead, but he came rather close.

The assassin took note of the desperation. They hated it. “Your pride is showing. No one else can protect you the way I can, carry secrets the way I can. You know that.”

“I don’t care nearly enough for protection and secrets.”

The assassin let out a malicious laugh. “You cared when you hired me, let me into your court.”

The king’s jaw clenched. “If I had known-” he stopped.

Anger flared inside the assassin. “Known what? How dangerous it is to be me? Is his majesty feeling remorse for hiring an assassin to take care of his problems? Is the burden of blood on your hands too-”

“If I had known the extent of my feelings for you, I would have never let you out of my sight again!” The king’s breathing came uneven, his face struggling to be that same shade of regal impassive.

When the assassin stepped back, he stepped forward.

“No.” The assassin warned, raising their dagger. “You don’t get to keep people you find too pretty to be hurt. I’m not a prize.”

“I know.”

“Do you? You’re making a grand display of it.”

“I know.” The king stepped back. “This was just to address you properly.” He straightened once again. “As of today, you are relieved of your title, and henceforth all assassination attempts for any employers will be tried as treasonous.”

“You would stoop so low as to my livelihood?” They sneered. “You are the type of man you send me after. The kind who finds themselves bigger than those around them.”

“This is not me thinking I hold more over you.” The king managed to level the assassin’s gaze. “This is me wanting you alive. More than alive, safe, happy. There are places you could go. I could-”

“Don’t you dare. Don’t you dare pretend that this is for me and not your peace of mind.”

The king flinched. “It is for you, for your safety.”

“It’s so you don’t have to get hurt if something happens to me!”

The king’s eyes widened, his lips twitched downwards, voice dangerously low. “You came back hurt. Bloodied and bruised. And then you asked for your next assignment, only halfway healed. Your lip is still cut.”

Absentmindedly, the assassin brought their hand up to their lip, running fingers over the future scar.

“Did you even bother to notice?” The king asked, trying another step forward, one the assassin countered with their tightening of the dagger.

“You so desperately want to turn this around on me, when it’s about you, your inability to let this-” The assassin motioned between the two of them. “this go.”

The king stayed still for a moment, trying to decide the best course of action.

He settled, eventually, on a question. “You want this to end?”

The assassin turned their back entirely, looking between the unbreakable window, the very breakable table, and the hardly used bed.

They hadn’t expected the king to ask this, and they needed to think for just a second.

“Do you?” The king asked again, watching as the assassin’s shoulders began to shudder.

“You take away my work, my living, because you want to keep me close, alive.” If simply existing could be angry, the assassin would personify it. “You don’t want this to end. Am I wrong?”

“No. You’re not wrong.”

A split second decision was made on both ends, the king reaching for the door, the assassin lunging to do the same.

A trained killer would generally come out on top, and this was no exception, the assassin yanking the king forward and pushing him back.

They managed out the door silently, the guards posted outside of it on the ground before they knew what was happening. The assassin put them on the ground before they knew what was happening.

And as much as the assassin would have liked to be sincere, they could not, and they would not. Not anymore.

This was a fun request, since it gave me a chance to build on the continuation written by @revrevrew-writblr !

You can find the first part and Rev's continuation here.

Content warning for an extremely creepy villain, up to psychological abuse.

There was a lot for the villain to do and now only the villain to do it. He scrubbed the camera footage and erased his deceased henchmen and women from law enforcement databases. He sent out the right posts on the right message boards to throw the police off his trail and point the heroes away. He uploaded the stolen data to his own servers and set his algorithms running through the terabytes of reports and raw data, flagging intriguing connections and correlations against the villain's own research and schematics.

Then he could not in good conscience put it off further. He took a deep breath and slipped through the molecules to the Other Place.

The civilian was huddled in the mountainside pavilion, hugging her duffel bag to her chest with her still-bandaged hand. It had been the first place the villain had thought to take her, his favorite place to hide away when the world got to be too much. But seeing the civilian here, a splash of green and copper against the stark white of the polished stone and the staggering cliffs, suddenly made this place feel not beautiful and calm but cruelly cold and exposed. The villain clenched his fists. He should have taken her to a beach or somewhere with flowers. God, he was making this even worse-

"This isn't real, is it?" she said, without looking up. "I mean, not our reality. This is one of your architectural drawings."

"No," the villain said. "I mean, yes." He'd materialized himself on the wide stone steps, a respectful distance away. He forced the tension from his spine, relaxed his shoulders, and Henry took a cautious step forward up to the pavilion platform. "I don't just teleport from place to place," he said, sticking his hands in his pockets. "I go through here. Best I can tell it's some sort of malleable alternate plane. I've gotten pretty good at mally-ing things around."

"Huh," she said quietly, tracing her hand along the subtle silver veins he'd worked into stone. "It's really beautiful." She wiped her eyes and turned to him with a broken, tearstained smile; his neighbor, his friend, his dearest and only person in the world worth a damn. "Henry. You need to take me back."

The villain was already shaking his head. "It's not safe," Henry tried to explain. "I did everything I could to keep you and- and the other part of my life separated. But..." He sat down heavily on the steps. "This is my fault. I needed that data from your lab. I took every precaution to keep you away, but still... The very minute someone suspected my connection to you, your life was being threatened. I can't allow people to use you against me."

"That's why you were always trying to get me to find a new job?" she said slowly. "It wasn't about the company disrespecting me or my worth-"

"Oh it was." Henry sat down heavily on a bench. "They are terrible. Hoarding knowledge, exploiting desperate people - did you know you're being paid two thirds of what the average new hire with your degrees is being offered?"

"Okay. I'll quit." She sat up a little straighter, tried again to form a smile that didn't disguise that awful fear in her eyes. And something darker beneath it, something he'd seen when she'd raised that gun and fired. "I'll move. I'll never tell anyone. I'll leave the country if you want, just... please. You have to let me out of here."

"I engineered our meeting," Henry blurted out. To the villain's horror, he couldn't bring himself to stop. It felt like the glass had cracked and now the truth was pouring out. "I cultivated you for your access credentials. It wasn't supposed to be take than a few weeks. Henry wasn't supposed to last more than a few weeks. But when it was time - I couldn't let you go. I liked being your friend. I threw away your credentials and hit a different biotech lab."

He swallowed. That look, that awful look on her face was only getting worse. He didn't know why he expected her sympathy, or at least her understanding. Rationally, he couldn't blame her. But irrationally, he didn't like it. And it was making him angry. Despite himself his voice raised. "I've spent years working around you, avoiding anywhere with even the slightest connection!"

"You murdered people," she breathed. "Not just your own people, and that was bad enough. I knew people who died in your attack on the university lab- God, you comforted me!"

He threw up his hands. "And you tried to shoot me! Anybody will do anything when push comes to shove."

"That was not the same-" She cut herself off, pressed her hands to her mouth as her shoulders shook.

"This was a mistake. Coming here, trying to explain." The villain stood. "I'm only making you more upset."

"No!" she screamed and sprang at him. The villain, caught off guard, had no chance to block. But instead of attacking, the civilian flung her arms around his neck, her uninjured hand bunching in the fabric of his shirt. "Don't leave me here!" she gasped, her breathing as rapid and shallow as a bird's. "This place is so- so- so- is so damn quiet. I feel like I'm losing my mind. I mean, am I aging? Am I breathing? If I jump off the cliff, will I die?"

"No, no!" the villain protested, rubbing a soothing circle into her back the way Henry would. The familiar weight of her, feel of her, soothed his temper and Henry tightened his arms around his dear friend Laura. "I won't leave you here," he whispered into her ear. "Hang on to me."

The air stirred, then warmed against their skin. The familiar distant rush of traffic and city sounds filtered in through Laura's apartment windows. She stepped back with a gasp of relief and a pitifully grateful look - that collapsed into confusion, shock, despair as her eyes went past him to the blank space on her wall where her front door should have been.

"No!" she screamed. "Henry-!"

"You'll be more comfortable here," the villain said, disentangling himself from her, taking a quick glance for any fuzzy places he hadn't fully materialized. "Just until it's safe."

She grabbed a book and flung it at him. He ducked. "Being held prisoner in your nightmare pocket dimension is not safe!" she howled. "Who's going to save me from you?"

"It's a paradox," the villain admitted quietly, and then slipped away to the sound of her wail, back to the real world where he sat down in office chair with a groan.

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“He was never going to let us go,” the hero told his lover. “I’m sorry.”

The villain wiped away blood from the corner of their mouth. The hero had lashed out, made a big show of struggling to get free, even though everyone could see the attempt was doomed from the start. The villain had hoped against hope that taking the hero’s lover hostage might get him to think about his actions for once, but then he had made a career out of making all the right noises about not negotiating with terrorists.

Even when it came to the life of the person he was supposed to love the most, he didn’t let anything get in the way of doing his job.