#bite him

you’re panting, your bruised knuckles pressed into the cracked pavement as you push yourself up, every muscle screaming in protest. the city around you is a graveyard—skyscrapers reduced to skeletal husks, streets littered with bodies, some still twitching, others long gone. the invincible war has turned your world into a slaughterhouse, and standing in the middle of it all, untouched by the ruin, is him.

mark grayson.

but not your mark.

this one is different—sharp where your best friend is soft, his jaw set in a hard line, his eyes dark with something unreadable. there’s a cruel twist to his lips, a coldness in his stare that makes your stomach knot. he wears the viltrumite empire’s uniform, the sleek, lighter armor a stark contrast to the torn superhero costumes scattered around you. a few blood stains littered the fabric, some of it still fresh, glistening under the firelight. it’s not just from battle—no, this mark wears it like a trophy.

you had just finished killing other variants of him, their lifeless eyes staring up at you, their faces so familiar it made your hands shake. you mourned them, grieved for the versions of you in their worlds who must have loved them as fiercely as you love yours. your breath still comes in ragged gasps, your heart pounding not just from exhaustion, but from the weight of what you’ve done.

and then he arrived.

this mark moves with a predator’s grace, his steps measured, his shoulders squared with the confidence of someone who’s never lost. there’s a quiet intensity in the way he surveys the wreckage—like a king surveying his domain. but when his eyes land on you, something shifts. the cold superiority in his gaze softens, just for a second, before he schools his expression back into something unreadable.

"there you are," he says, voice low, almost reverent, like he’s been searching through a thousand broken worlds just to find you. the way his eyes trace over you—lingering on the blood smeared across your cheek, the way your chest heaves with exhaustion—makes your skin prickle. it’s not relief in his tone. it’s claiming.

and you realize, with a sinking dread that coils like ice in your gut, that this isn’t over. it’s only beginning.

"missed you," he murmurs, the words rough, scraped raw from his throat. his voice is different from your mark’s—deeper, edged with a hunger that makes your pulse stutter. he says it like he’s been holding it in for years, like he’s carved the words into his ribs just to keep them close.

your chest tightens, heart hammering against your sternum. you’ve heard the stories—whispers of alternate marks, warped by viltrum’s cruelty, ripping through dimensions to drag back what they think belongs to them. and now he’s here, standing in the wreckage of your city, looking at you like you’re a ghost he’s been chasing. like you’re already his.

"you don’t even know me," you spit, swiping the back of your hand across your split lip. the metallic tang of blood coats your tongue, bitter and familiar.

he tilts his head, considering you with a gaze that feels like a physical touch. "i know enough," he says, voice dropping into something dangerously soft. "in my world, you were mine." his thumb brushes over a streak of dirt on your jaw, possessive and tender all at once. "we had a life. a future." his eyes darken, something feral flickering behind them. "i’m taking you back."

your fists clench, nails biting into your palms hard enough to draw blood. you think of your mark—the boy who scraped his knees racing you down suburban streets, whose laughter was always a little too loud, a little too bright. the one who looks at eve like she hung the stars, while you’ve spent years swallowing down words that taste like rust and regret.

"what happened to me?" you choke out, the question tearing from you like a wound ripped open. "in your world. did i—" your voice fractures. "did i love you too? or did you just force me to?"

his pupils dilate, just slightly, the only crack in his controlled facade. for a heartbeat, he looks almost human. "you begged me to stay," he says, low and rough, like the memory is a blade twisting in his gut. "the night before the viltrumite fleet came. you held onto me like you knew." his jaw tightens. "then they burned our world to ash. but you—" his thumb presses against your pulse point, a mockery of tenderness. "you were always meant to survive."

the air leaves your lungs. you can see it—some other version of you, screaming as the sky split open, clinging to a monster because they didn’t know he’d become one.

"no."

his expression darkens—not like a storm rolling in, but like a door slamming shut. the brief vulnerability in his eyes snuffs out, pupils contracting into something cold and calculating. his jaw tightens, the muscle flexing as his teeth grind together, like he’s biting back words he’ll never say. the softness that had flickered across his face for just a second hardens into something unreadable, the lines of his face sharpening into a mask of imperial discipline.

but his eyes—oh, his eyes. they’re not just empty. they’re hungry.

the way he looks at you isn’t just possessive. it’s devouring. his gaze drags over you like he’s memorizing the shape of your defiance, like he can’t wait to break it apart and remake you into something that fits in the hollow of his hands. his lips twitch, not into a smirk, but into something far more dangerous—a smile that doesn’t reach his eyes, a smile that says, you think you have a choice?

and then, just like that—it’s gone. his face smooths back into viltrumite indifference, as if that momentary crack in his armor had never existed. but you saw it. you felt it. and that’s what terrifies you the most. "you don’t get a choice."

"then fight me for it," you snap, surging forward until your forehead hovers a breath away from his, close enough to feel the heat of his skin, close enough to count the flecks of gold in his darkened eyes. the scent of smoke and iron and something uniquely him clings to the space between you, thick enough to choke on. he doesn’t flinch—doesn’t even breathe—just holds your gaze with a half-lidded, almost lazy intensity, like you’re a puzzle he’s already solved.

then his eyes drag downward, slow and deliberate, lingering on the part of your lips, the quickened rise and fall of your chest. there’s no shame in it, no pretense—just hunger, plain and unapologetic. your pulse stutters. for one terrifying second, you almost falter, because this isn’t the look of a conqueror assessing his enemy.

it’s the look of a man remembering how you taste.

"if i win, you leave this planet alone. if you win…" your voice wavers as a memory blindsides you—your mark’s face, soft in the moonlight on his rooftop, his fingers brushing yours as he smiled at you with something warm and unreadable. you’d let yourself imagine, just for a second, that it was love. that it could be you.

now, you’re bargaining with a ghost of him.

"i’ll go with you," you whisper.

he grins finally, all teeth, but still disciplined—like he’s savoring the way your breath hitches when he leans in. "deal."

(≧∇≦)ﾉ☆

the battle is brutal.

you’re strong—strong enough to have shattered the ribs of other marks, strong enough to have left their bodies broken in the rubble of this war. but him? he’s something else entirely. every hit he lands cracks through your bones like fault lines, every impact vibrating through your teeth until your jaw aches. you dodge, but you’re always a half-second too slow, his fist grazing your cheekbone hard enough to send stars exploding across your vision.

and the worst part? he’s smiling. small and private just for you, but still there.

not the sharp, cruel grin of a conqueror—no, this is lazy, almost playful, like he’s savoring the way your breath comes in ragged gasps, the way your muscles scream as you push yourself beyond limits that should have broken you already. he’s toying with you, you realize with a sickening lurch. not because he needs to, but because he wants to see how long you’ll last.

"you took down six of them," he muses, catching your fist mid-swing like it’s nothing, his fingers tightening until your knuckles creak in protest. "six of me." his voice drops, something almost like pride curling through it. "that’s not nothing."

then his knee slams into your gut, and the world blurs.

you don’t even feel the moment his fist collides with your ribs—just the sickening crunch, the way your body folds around the impact before you’re hurled backward, crashing through concrete and steel like paper. debris hails down around you, dust choking your lungs as you gasp, vision swimming in and out of black.

when the ringing in your ears fades, he’s already there, crouched beside you with all the casual grace of a predator who’s never known fear. his fingers brush the hair from your face, smearing blood across your temple in a mockery of tenderness.

"you put up a good fight," he murmurs, thumb dragging over your split lip. his voice is almost fond, like he’s praising a well-trained weapon. "stronger than most. smarter, too." his grip tightens, just slightly, forcing your gaze up to his. "but you were never gonna win."

your body screams—muscles torn, bones fractured, blood pooling beneath you like a second shadow. but the pain in your chest is worse, a hollowed-out wound no advanced viltrumite healing could ever fix. you think of your mark—his stupid, lopsided smile, the way his voice softened when he said your name, the light in his eyes when he looked at eve—a light that was never, ever for you.

and now you’ll never tell him.

"promise me," you whisper, the words slick with blood, metallic and bitter on your tongue. there’s so much more you want to say—begging, pleading things that claw at your throat like trapped birds. promise me you’ll love me. promise me i won’t just be another trophy. promise me you won’t get bored and break me when i’m no longer new. promise me you won't throw me aside like he did. but all that comes out is: "promise you’ll leave this world alone."

mark’s thumb drags across your cheekbone, smearing dirt and blood in a mockery of gentleness. his touch is warm, almost reverent, like you’re something precious instead of something stolen. "i promise," he says, and for a heartbeat, his voice is so soft it almost sounds like the boy you knew.

then his arms lock around you, lifting you against his chest like you weigh nothing. the sky splinters above you—crimson and gold and burning, the last beautiful thing you’ll ever see.

(and somewhere, in another life, your mark screams your name, raw and shattered, as the rubble of your city collapses around him. but you’re already gone, and the universe does not care.)