#if you squint...

Hyperventilating, shoving a random mildly chlorine scented rag against their side, inside a closet. They weren’t stupid enough to hope for a rescue–not inside the villain’s base. They were going to have to wait, probably hours, before the henchmen who had spotted them let the alarm drop and they all assumed the hero had escaped. Then, maybe hero could–

A shadow stopped outside the door. A moment later, there was the tiniest thud as whoever it was, leaned a shoulder against the door. It felt, despite the fact the hero couldn’t see them and the world was beginning to blur just faintly around the edges, almost conversational. 

“Hey, love,” the villain said through the door, easy-going. Like this was a run-in at the town's only coffee shop. The hero stared, feeling a little sick and maybe a little dumb, at the crusty green of the door. 

The hero swallowed, the fabric of the shitty towel grinding harder into their palm. 

“See, the thing about being invisible,” the villain continued, as if the hero had given any sort of acknowledgement to the original comment. “Is that it’s only you that’s invisible. Not your blood. Which, by the way, I think you have substantially less of in you than you should right now.”

“I think my blood volume is none of your business,” the hero managed after another, too long moment. They were slow with it–the banter, and they knew that both wasn’t good and also that it was something the villain was carefully cataloguing. 

“Considering the majority of it is in my hallway? I think it is,” the villain corrected amicably. “But that can be forgiven. Who doesn’t love a good cleaning spree? What can’t be corrected is if you die in my closet, however. That would be rather distressing.”

“I’m not going to die in your closet,” the hero said, feeling somewhat petulant about it. “I’m fine.”

“You’ve got about, hmm,” the villain wagered, “ten minutes before you pass out. And I need you to know I’m being very generous with those ten minutes because I am respectful of your capabilities as both a vigilante and a stubborn little shit.”

“You’re a lair.”

“I’m an optimist,” the villain corrected, still lounging against the other side of the door. “And you’re bleeding out in my closet.”

The hero’s leg cramped, kicking out just barely, sending a broom clattering down the shelves and to the floor. The villain’s silence was judgmental.

“What exactly do you expect me to do about it,” the hero said, annoyed. A muscle tensed in their jaw, then untensed when their vision swam. “Tell my blood to knock it off?”

“I expect you to let me come in there and stop you from bleeding out, for one, and then you’re either going to let me drag you to my medbay and keep you nice and safe and alive, or you’re going to let me take you back to your base and your medbay, where they will also keep you nice and safe and alive.”

“I don’t seem to have much agency in this.”

“You’re down to roughly eight minutes of consciousness, now. If we’re generous.”

“Villain–”

“Hero,” the villain’s voice was firm. “I’m sure you’ve realized how limited your options are. So you either let me, a person who likes you and is generally amused by your antics instead of enraged by them, take care of you, or one of my henchmen finds your cooling body later. Tell me, do you think your body will still be invisible even after you’re dead?”

The hero’s stomach sunk. The villain was right–the hero wasn’t stupid. They knew, with an unfortunate amount of clarity, that there was no way they would make it past the villain, all of their henchmen, and out through their needlessly complex security system before they passed out on the concrete floors. 

It took them two, miserably pathetic tries to reach up and unlock the door, still half sprawled on the floor. The villain pulled it open before they had even fully sagged back on the floor–and though their voice had been calm, their eyes were half-wild, slightly wider than the hero was used to. 

“God,” they said, eyes darting through a visual assessment faster than the hero had ever seen them. “You got yourself fucked up, didn’t you?”

“Are we victim blaming the person who got shot?” The hero asked, voice rasping by the end of the sentence. They winced, throat raw. 

“You should know how to dodge by now,” the villain replied, and then their palms were pressed against the hero’s side and the hero was doing their best not to pass out. Their power flared, panicked, but the villain didn’t seem bothered by their brief stint in non-visibility. Sickeningly, the hero noticed once more, that their blood refused to go invisible with them, leaving half of their body outline only by the mess of red spreading across their side. 

It was really, really annoying that their power would turn clothes invisible but not their blood, because their clothes were just on them and their blood was their blood–

“Fuck–” the hero finally managed to gasp out, blinking the white spots from their vision. “You could have–”

“Warned you? Sure, but it wouldn’t have made it hurt any less. I’m trying to stop you from bleeding out, hero, not woo you.”

Privately, the hero considered the fact that in their mind, those things weren’t mutually exclusive, before promptly dismissing that thought as a product of their severe bloodloss. Maybe when they had more blood they would consider it again–

“Did you hit your head?” The villain asked. They pressed down harder with one hand, pulling a punched out wheeze from the hero’s lungs, before grabbing the hero’s chin with their free hand, tilting it up to the light. The hero could feel their own blood slick across their skin, but it was a faint, muted sensation. “Ah, yeah. That’s a concussion.”

“I’m not concussed,” the hero said, petulant. The villain shot them a…mildly scathing look.

“So the mismatched pupils are a fashion choice, then?”

The hero gave them as much of a dirty look as they could manage. From the way the villain bit back a snort, the hero was pretty sure the message got across just fine. 

“And what would you know about fashion,” they said. The villain raised a brow.

“Says the individual who wears a form fitting suit and domino, in perhaps the most basic superhero costume aesthetic known to man. Seriously, did you just open a random comic book and go from there?”

The hero fought a frown, insulted. “Hey, I’ll have you know people love the suit.”

“Right,” the villain said, head ducked low as they examined the wound. They ended up half-pressed against, half on top of the hero in the process, which the hero didn’t really mind. “Because it’s formfitting, and everyone loves to be saved by a hot, charming individual with a dashing grin. Why do you think people love firefighters so much?”

“You think I’m hot?” The hero asked, voice slightly slurred even to their own ears. A second later, they blinked, and blushed as much as they could out to the tips of their ears. They felt themselves flicker in and out of that comforting, all encompassing blur of light and image entirely, like a blink. 

The villain looked up from where they were wrapping a bandage against the hero’s side, fingers deft as they taped a generous amount of gauze through the hole of the hero’s suit. The hero had no idea where they had gotten it from. “Darling, I thought we had established this earlier.”

“Maybe you established that earlier,” the hero muttered, and they felt more than heard the villain laugh through where they had settled against the hero’s side.

“This is as good as we’re getting with the supplies I brought,” the villain said, sitting back. The hero missed the contact immediately, like a lost limb.

The villain shifted slightly closer once more, as if they knew exactly what the hero had been thinking.

From the very tiny, sly smirk at the corner of their mouth, somehow, the villain did.

“Stop that,” the hero said. The smirk widened slightly.

“Stop what? Saving your life?”

“You know what,” the hero said, and the villain laughed.

“Let’s get you up,” the villain said, half-rising on their haunches. The hero peered up at them, side still flaring with pain. 

“If you expect me to walk–”

The hero was settled in the villain’s arms. They weren’t…entirely sure how it had happened, but as they, vision dazed and half-blurred, watched their limbs flicker back into visibility, they figured they had probably passed out. 

The villain tucked the hero’s head more firmly against their neck. Like they were worried the hero would fall, or hurt their neck–

“What,” the hero finally managed. The villain glanced down at them, face a painful mix of panic and amusement.

The hallway was beginning to swirl around the edges as they moved–the only concrete, certain thing the hero had was the villain. 

Privately, again, they considered the fact that this was not in fact a new feeling–

“I’m taking you to the medical wing,” the villain reminded, soothingly, and the hero gave half a nod before slumping back against their chest.

“You’re really warm,” the hero informed them. The villain’s chest stuttered in a sort of half-laugh.

“This would be far funnier if you weren’t still actively bleeding out in my arms.”

“I’m not bleeding out,” the hero said. They glanced down at their side, but the villain’s arm, curled around the hero’s body, blocked their view. “You fixed that.”

“Fixed is generous,” the villain replied, and then they were half-turning to shoulder open some sort of swinging door. The hero, idly, watched it swish closed again as the villain settled them on to the medical bed. 

“I’m going to grab you something for the pain while we wait for my staff to–” the villain paused, half a step away from the bed. They turned back to look at the hero, expectant. The hero just blinked at them. 

A second later, the villain glanced down to where the hero’s hand had wrapped itself firmly around their wrist, slick with blood and about as strong as a newborn kitten. 

The hero willed their very traitorous hand to let go. It did not. 

“That’s–I’m not–”

The villain’s face softened. 

“Hero,” they said gently. They made no effort to tug themself out of the hero’s grip, something the hero was secretly, viciously grateful for. It was cold in here, and the hero didn’t know if it was the bloodloss or the dizzyingly white walls of the medbay, but the hero hated it. “I’m going to be right back, alright?”

The hero nodded. Their hand still refused to move. 

“Okay, hero,” the villain said, soft, all their edges dulled, and sat down at the side of the hero’s bed. They entwined their hand with the hero’s, seemingly unbothered by the blood. Considering how often injuries happened in this line of work, maybe they were. “I’ll stay.”

“It’s just–I can’t–”

“Hero,” the villain said, “you’re invisible.”

It took far more effort than it should have to force themself back into visibility, fighting to release their grip on light and mirage. By the time they managed, there was sweat slicking the side of their temple, their headache had sharpened to an unbearable point, and a medic had appeared and begun sorting through something against the far wall.

“Sorry,” they said, mouth heavy around the word, and the villain’s face tightened. 

The villain just shook their head, fingers tightening around the hero’s. A second later, the medic passed the villain something that the hero couldn’t see. 

“You’re probably going to pass out in a second,” the villain informed them. It didn’t scare the hero as much as it should. “But I’m not going to leave. Nobody is going to hurt you.”

“You mean more than the gunshot?” the hero managed. The villain’s face darkened.

“That will be handled.”

The hero managed a small nod in agreement, and then the world twisted in a sickening, thrumming way, and the hero was–

They woke up, bandaged, swaddled in blankets, and on what they could only assume was an insane level of pain killers, to find the villain half-asleep against the side of their bed, hair mussed.