#deathtouched

Outside they could hear thundering footsteps, shouts, guns firing. Panic rising, Hero struggled against his hold, causing his hand to slip from the back of their head to wrap around their throat.

“I don’t have to use my power to kill you,” he warned.

Hero swallowed. “I know.”

“Then turn around.”

Hero allowed him to guide their body until they were sitting with their back to him, his chest a warm wall behind them. His hands lingered on their hips, the slight dip of their waist, as if he still couldn’t quite believe it.

The door burst open, the bright beam of a flashlight swinging in, blinding them. In a flash, the villain gripped their chin and rested his hand on the side of their face.

“Make any movement and I will snap their neck like a pretzel stick,” he warned.

Hero’s heart thundered so loudly their chest ached. They didn’t dare even to breathe.

“Let them go,” said one of the guards. All but begged, really. “They’re unarmed, they don’t know how to fight. They aren’t a threat to you.”

“Oh but they are,” rumbled. “They are my most dangerous threat. And if you were smart, you would leave because your most dangerous threat is coming.”

Hero’s mind whirled at the implications of that.

“And what would that be?” the guard demanded.

The distinctive, subtle  sound of a silencer hit just before the guard fell forward in a splatter of blood, the beam of the flashlight skittering across the floor.

“That would be me,” came a voice in the darkness behind.

A dangerous, terrifyingly familiar voice.

Supervillain stepped into the room, face blood-splattered, usually immaculate hair mussed.

“You took long enough,” said Villain.

“Forgive me, I had to kill my way up several underground floors. You look . . .cozy.”

Hero flushed, remembering what they had been doing just five minutes before. His whole confession of experimentation, single-minded revenge, pure loathing for Supervillain — it was all bullshit. Just a ploy to distract the Agency and enact whatever chain of events killed the power.

“This is the nullifier,” said Villain.

Supervillain bent down and scooped up the flashlight, training the beam to the ceiling to allow the light to diffuse.

“Ah, I see them now. Be a love, would you, and release his legs from the chair.”

Supervillain kept the gun trained on Hero as they shakily slid to the knees and began the arduous task of ripping up the duct tape. Luckily for them it had been hastily applied, as if in fear of Villain waking up too soon, or accidentally brushing up against his ankle.

When Villain stood, they pulled Hero up along with him. Supervillain trained the gun on Hero.

“Thank you, love. Your services are no longer needed.”

Villain yanked them behind him. “Wait! They are the Agency’s biggest asset.”

“Yes, and our biggest threat,” snapped Supervillain.

“They make the perfect collateral to get us out. Then you can shoot them.”

Hero felt like a doll between them, caught in the vice-like grip of Villain. A voiceless, powerless toy. Sure, Villain couldn’t suck out their life force and Supervillain couldn’t electrocute them, but who needed that when you had guns? The Agency’s other heroes would undoubtedly accept Hero’s death as collateral damage to keep these two from getting out.

Either way, they were dead.

Supervillain heaved a  theatrical sigh. “Fine. Have it your way. We have less than five minutes before Superhero gets here, so let's speed up the pace.”

Five minutes of life left. There was no hope.

Every instinct screamed to tear themselves away from Villain and run for their life, but they wouldn’t get very far before Supervillain shot them in the back. So Hero walked dutifully to their death, dragged behind Villain as they navigated the dark hallway and into the stairwell. The floor was littered in bodies, the hallway empty. The Agency must be concentrating their efforts on the exits now.

Footsteps echoed somewhere. Supervillain paused, holding up his hand for them to stop, and listened. His focus elsewhere, Hero debated on how fast they could run in the dark before Supervillain could react.

But before they could will their body to move, Villain dropped their arm and threw himself onto Supervillain. The flashlight fell to the floor again, and Hero saw more through their shadows than anything else, the Villain pressing his taped and gloved hands to his master’s face.

Supervillain thrashed, but his captivity had sapped him of all strength, especially compared to someone as broad and tall as Villain. It only took a few seconds for the telltale convulsions and screaming to start, and only a few seconds more after that for his body to still entirely.

Hero watched in sickened fear, feet rooted to the floor. For a long moment, Villain stayed there, straddling Supervillain with his hands pressed to the other man’s face. Slowly, with shaking hands, Hero crawled over and snatched the gun from the floor.

Villain either didn’t notice or didn’t care. He stood slowly to his feet.

“I’ve dreamed of doing that for so so long,” he said softly, eyes still trained on Supervillain’s body. He gestured to Hero without looking at them.“You can shoot me, if you want. I’ve done what I set out to do.”

“How? Your gloves  . . .” Hero stammered.

“There’s a small hole in one finger. No one checked.”

Of course. The gloves offered a false sense of security. Hero could bang their head on the wall for how stupid they’ve been.

“And you . . .you were planning to betray him this whole time?”

He turned that dark gaze onto them. “What I confessed to you was the truth. But he was so arrogant, he never believed a monster could hate their creator. He thought this escape attempt was my apology for ignoring him all these years. For not carrying out his wishes while he rot here.”

His voice twisted in bitterness.

“So he never suspected you,” Hero finished softly.

“No,” he agreed. He nodded at the gun. “You can kill me. It’s alright. I knew it would always end this way.”

But all Hero could think was that Villain finally had his life to himself, without a nightmare looming in the shadows. He had the chance to figure out his own purpose.

They lowered the gun.

“There’s a secret exit,” they whispered. “For emergencies. Just for Agents. I’ll show it to you. They won’t be looking for you there.”

His brow furrowed. He stared at them as if they were an impossible puzzle. “Why?”

“Your life is your own now. You deserve the chance to figure out what that means.”

“You’re serious?”

Hero swallowed. They are going to be so so so fired for this. “Yes.” They held out their hand. “Let me show you.”

Villain kissed them one last time before he disappeared into the woods. A goodbye and a promise.

Villain first appeared on body cam footage, in the middle of a street fight between Superhero and some low level villain grunt. He appeared like a ghost, a shadow figure that materialized from the shadows. In fact, his sudden presence stopped both Superhero and Grunt mid swings.

 Hero had initially rolled their eyes. Villain was tall, dressed in all black, complete with billowing cape and leather gloves. Like a Darth Vader fanboy, but without the mask.

No obvious powers either. No electricity or super speed or invulnerability. Hero wondered if this really was just some glorified cosplayer with a couple of gadgets and no real power to speak of. Just someone desperate for a little notoriety from the body cam footage.

“Who the fuck are you?” the Grunt had demanded.

Villain ignored him and looked straight at Superhero. “I need him. Hand him to me and no one else gets hurt.”

“Why?” Superhero had asked suspiciously. “What do you plan on doing with him?”

“That’s none of your concern.”

“I’m afraid, as an Hero of the Agency assigned to this area, it’s every bit my concern.”

As Superhero and Villain faced off, Grunt had tried to slink away. Before Hero could warn Superhero, Villain whirled around and grabbed a handful of Grunt’s jacket and slammed him up against the wall.

“Look, we obviously both have an interest in Grunt,” Superhero had said, approaching the Villain in slow cautious steps. “Why don’t we work together? You could come with me and question him back at the Agency.”

Villain leveraged Grunt against the wall with a forearm to the throat as he worked one of the leather gloves off.

“I don’t want to question him,” he had said before placing a long-fingered, elegant hand against the side of Grunt’s face.

Grunt let out an earsplitting scream of agony that lasted only a few seconds before he slumped over.

Lifeless.

The camera shook as Superhero immediately took several steps backward.

“What did you just do?” he had demanded.

“Walk away and you won’t have to find out,” Villain had warned.

If only Superhero had listened; he would still be alive.

Over the next week, a trail of bodies followed Villain, mostly grunts and spies and brokers for Supervillain. This was clearly a mission of vengeance.

 The Agency had debated on teams to send out, but hesitated to act. Superhero had been one of their strongest agents and he died in seconds at a mere touch. They didn’t want to risk anyone else to fight a Villain they knew nothing about.

And frantic searches revealed nothing about this guy.

Time ran out when Villain himself appeared at the doors of the Agency, like a nightmare come to life. The only person who volunteered to meet him was Hero.

“What is your name and why are you here?”

Hero’s voice didn’t shake, but their hands did. They kept them tightly in their coat pocket, fingers tightly wrapped against the glass syringe.

“I am here for Supervillain,” he said. “And if you let me kill him, no one else needs to die. I’ll even turn myself in.”

Revenge, just as Hero expected. Supervillain, locked away deep, deep, underground, was probably the worst of his kind. The personification of pure self-serving evil. If Hero was head of the Agency, they would roll the red carpet out for this villain to do exactly that.

But that would set up a dangerous precedent.

“I’m sorry. Even if I could take you at your word, I can’t allow you to waltz in and execute a Depowered individual.”

The Villain’s eyes narrowed and he took slow steps forward. Hero took several steps back before they even realized it, until their back pressed against the front door.

The locked front door.

Villain loomed before them, and Hero remembered how much the galaxy had feared Darth Vader, even if he did look ridiculous.

“You are not a fighter,” he murmured. “You have no profile in the Agency.”

 One gloved hand rose slowly to to cup their face. Hero shrunk back on instinct but had no where to go. Their heart thundered in their ears.

“You’re a sacrificial lamb they threw to the wolves while they scramble for an escape.”

He sound almost sorry for Hero, a thread of sincere empathy in his dark velvet voice. It did nothing to quell the choking fear. Villain’s power couldn’t hurt them, no. But a bullet could, or a hand wrapped around their throat, or even a good old fashioned beat down. Villain was much bigger than Hero and there were a thousand ways to die that had nothing to do with powers.

“There is no need for you to die,” he said softly. “Go home. Stay out of my way.”

He took a step back, putting enough distance to allow Hero to follow his orders. A locked door wouldn’t stop him and if he got into the facility he would kill every single person who stood in his way.  

They had one chance to take him out and they had no hope to win a fight. So Hero used their only other advantage — surprise.

Steeling themselves, Hero took two firm steps forward, fisted their fingers in edges of his cape, stood on the tiptoes and kissed Villain square on the mouth.

He flinched back immediately, but Hero kept their grip strong and did not pull away until the Villain’s mouth went slack in shock.

His gaze was a dark, glittering abyss.

“How,” he said hoarsely. “How?”

Hero’s only reply was the sharp jab of the needle into his neck as they plunged the sedative into his system.