The Hero Was Halfway Home When They Got The Call.

The hero was halfway home when they got the call.

“I’m sorry,” the person on the other end said, voice wet with tears, and the hero knew.

They knew that tone of voice, they knew this sinking in their stomach. They knew.

Their phone shattered against the ground, fingers numb.

Their friend was dead.

Again. Again, again, again again–

“Fuck,” the hero muttered, heart clenching. “Fuck.”

They were crying by the time the villain appeared next to them, and it took everything in the hero not to punch them.

“I don’t know why you do this to yourself,” the villain said, eyeing their tears.

“What, love?”

The villain tipped their head slightly. “No. Love things you can't keep.”

The hero was sure it would kill them this time, the heartbreak. They had thought after enough centuries, enough people loved, enough funerals attended, death would be an old friend and not a bullet wound. They had hoped it would hurt less.

But it still hurt, and death was chronic.

“What, you expect me to be you? Cold, killing people for fun?”

The villain raised an eyebrow at their tone.

“I don’t kill people for fun.”

“Don’t you?”

“No,” the villain shrugged a shoulder. “I just don’t care if there are casualties. Besides, not everyone is a good person in the first place. I’m doing the world a favor, half the time”

“How can you say something like that,” the hero hissed. “Do you hear yourself? Do you hear how awful you sound right now?”

The villain gave the hero a long look.

“Hero. You fight the worst people this world has to see for a living, and you’re standing here saying they deserve a second chance?”

“Yes,” the hero snapped. “I am.”

“You are a bleeding heart,” the villain observed. “It’s amazing you haven’t turned into me.”

“You and I, we are not the same.”

The villain half-smiled. “Aren’t we?”

“Shut up,” the hero looked away, chest tight. “These people, these lives, are so precious, so, so fragile, and you take them away like it is nothing.”

They were shaking, and they weren’t sure if it was rage or fear or something else. They couldn’t stop. The hero wondered if this was what death felt like. If this is what it felt like to have your body betray you, longing for the ground and solitude of a grave.

“I am not going to stand here and debate morality with you when you are breaking apart at the seams.”

“I’m fine,” the hero managed. They willed themself to stop crying.

“Death is inevitable, and you are hiding from the truth of that.”

The hero’s throat closed before they could respond.

“Your friend is dead, and no matter how much you fight, you will not win the war against death a second time. Do you hear me? You and me, we already won. We are time’s children. We will be here longer than ‘here’ will be. Death has no claim to us, and yet you keep pushing, and pushing, and pushing, because you cannot bear the weight of this gift.”

The hero’s knees gave out, and the villain caught them.

“Stop letting the guilt of being alive break you.”

“I don’t want this anymore.” It was a pitiful thing as it fell from their mouth. Something broken, worn out and tired.

The villain rested a hand on the back of the hero’s neck. “You cannot undo this any more than you could the last time you tried. I promise.”

It almost sounded like an apology.

“I am tired of loving precious, fleeting things.”

“So don’t,” the villain said easily.

The hero closed their eyes. “How?”

The villain hummed, voice soft. “Love me for a while. Until the burden of existence fades. I won’t leave.”

“You say that like loving you is easy.”

“It isn’t. But you’ve done it for centuries–what’s a few more?”

“You kill people.”

“No. I just don’t save them, and I don’t carry the guilt of not saving them, because it isn’t my job.”

“Yeah.”

“It isn’t your job either.”

The hero had known that, centuries ago. Somewhere along the way of funerals and eulogies, it had been hard to keep believing it wasn’t their fault when they were always the one left alive.

So they had stopped.

“Promise you won’t leave?”

“I couldn’t leave you if I tried.”

“Liar.”

“Yeah,” the villain agreed. “But never to you.”

Just like the hero had known it to be true when they were both fifteen, mortal, and wild, the hero knew it was true now.

And so, like every time this had happened before, across centuries and continents and deaths, the villain brushed away the hero’s tears; and they went home.

Six months ago, when the protagonist had first appeared in the middle of the villain’s compound, scrawny and half feral, the villain hadn’t thought much of it.

And then it happened again.

And again.

The villain thought something of it.

“Let me work with you,” they had begged. The villain was almost certain the protagonist was homeless. “Please, I have powers, I can—”

The villain said yes.

Maybe it had been whatever remnants were left of the villain’s stupid heart. Maybe it was the chocolate donut they had that morning. Maybe it was the desperation coming off the protagonist in waves.

Maybe they were just bored.

They paid it no mind.

The protagonist did have powers, but they were minor. The kind you see in small children, the first in a bloodline to mutate powers. Their great grand children would wield enough power to level buildings, be heroes and villains and everything in between. But for now, they sat in preschool classrooms and summoned the tiniest spark of flame.

The protagonist, trembling like a fawn, sweat slicking their brow, seemed to be one of those children. Albeit an older version.

Not useless, exactly. They had a startling affinity for picking locks—which explained the ability to get into the villain’s compound—a willingness to fight anyone, and a lack of fear. But they weren’t exactly the most useful sidekick the villain could have picked.

The villain wouldn’t trade them for anyone else, though.

Their stupid, half dead heart, it seemed, cared for the protagonist.

So, when the hero set out to kill the protagonist, the villain knew they would do anything to keep them safe.

They caught the hero’s hand, twisting to shove them backwards a step, and they felt rather than saw the protagonist wince.

“Violent today, aren’t we?”

The hero was seething, and it unsettled something in the villain. The hero was unstable, yes. But the villain had never seen them try to kill someone before; they hadn’t even considered the hero might try.

They dodged another blow, the hero’s power blasting apart a building behind them. Their spine prickled, and they dropped to avoid the next hit.

“Just itching to go to prison for homicide, hm?”

When the hero didn’t even attempt to respond to their half-assed banter, the villain’s gut roiled.

“Protagonist,” they said between breaths. “Leave. Now.”

“No.”

They managed to throw the hero to the ground, risking a glance at the protagonist. They were covered in dust, supersuit dirty and torn across one calf, but their feet remained planted, shoulders set. “You heard me. Go back to the compound—“

The protagonist’s eyes widened, and the villain knew they had turned away for too long.

The villain went down hard, ears ringing, as the hero shook out their fist.

“Stop it,” the protagonist’s voice cracked. They took a step forward, wavering like they weren’t sure if they should run or fight.

“Go,” the villain coughed, and the protagonist flinched. They rolled onto their back, struggling to stand as the hero’s power flickered dangerously.

The villain knew, innately, that the next hit would kill them.

The villain sucked in a painful breath.

The hero lunged.

And the protagonist, voice wrecked with fear, screamed, “Dad.”

The villain’s heart stuttered.

There was a flash of light.

In front of them, panting for air like they would never get enough, was the protagonist. The hero’s fist was planted against their chest still, and the villain could tell it had been a death blow. Anyone, even the villain, wouldn’t have survived.

And yet—

The protagonist stood, unharmed.

“Dad,” they said again, and the hero didn’t quite flinch, but it was close. “Stop.”

The silence was deafening.

Something in the hero’s jaw tightened.

“Move,” the hero said lowly. The protagonist didn’t falter.

“No.”

“Don’t make me say it again.”

“What exactly will you do to me if I don’t listen,” the protagonist gave a sharp laugh. “Hit me? You tried that already.”

The hero sucked in a breath.

“I am your—“

“You are my nothing,” the protagonist corrected. “Certainly not my father. You lost that right when I was eight.”

The villain managed to push themselves to their feet.

“That was stupid,” the villain murmured, but it didn’t have any heat to it. “You couldn’t have known that would work. You had no idea if you could survive a hit like that.”

The protagonist very pointedly did not turn around, shoulders tense.

“I did,” their voice was strained. “He lost the right to fatherhood when I was eight, remember?”

The hero didn’t say anything, but the villain thought that might have been shame creeping its way across their face.

Oh.

Oh.

The hero—

The villain had been harboring the child of the most powerful being on the planet for six months. A child the hero had tried to kill, or at the very least, hurt.

Their heart stuttered.

They had been harboring the most powerful being on the planet, their mind corrected. A drop of blood slid its way down their spine. Power grew with every generation, and with the hero already so powerful, any child they had would be something close to a god.

“You said you had mild telekinesis,” the villain said numbly. The protagonist half turned to look over their shoulder, eyes shiny.

“My mom,” the protagonist. “I got it from her. The rest…”

From the hero.

The protagonist scanned the villain’s face.

They were searching for signs of violence, the villain realized. The protagonist wasn’t afraid of the hero anymore; no, the protagonist had seen the worst they could do. But somehow, the protagonist had begun to care for the villain. And they were terrified the villain—the person they trusted the most—was going to hurt them over a secret. The villain could see it all, scrawled across the protagonist’s face clear as day.

The villain was going to kill the hero. Painfully.

“Protagonist,” the villain kept their voice even. Gentle. Slow. “I’m not mad. And I’m not going to hurt you.” Their eyes slipped past to the protagonist to the hero.

“Him, however, I will be.”

The protagonist worried their lip between their teeth, and the villain watched as their power—their true power—sparked along their shoulder blades.

The villain stepped forwards—

“Don’t,” it was little more than a whisper.

The villain stopped.

The protagonist slid in front of the villain once more. “Just,” they raised a hand, as if taking a moment to choose their next words. “Stay.”

The villain stayed.

When the protagonist’s attention turned back to the hero, it was bloodthirsty. It spoke of war, and hatred, and revenge.

“You’re going to leave,” the protagonist’s voice was sharp enough to cut skin. “And you aren’t going to come back. I don’t care if it’s because you don’t want to, or because you know that if you do, I will kill you and I’ll like it—you won’t come back.”

The hero swallowed.

“The city needs me.”

“You are a plague to this city, and I am ridding it of you. Get. Out.”

The hero stumbled a step backwards, as if they had been hit. Their expression twisted.

“You wouldn’t.”

“I would,” the protagonist seethed.

They all knew the protagonist meant it.

The hero was halfway down the block, news vans and reporters scrambling their way onto the scene with cameras raised, when the protagonist called after them.

“Oh, and Dad?” The cameras snapped to them, and the protagonist grinned. It was vicious—it looked like the villain’s. “Parents who abuse their children don’t get to be heroes. Especially not you.”

They waited a beat, two, three.

The press exploded.

Above the din, power crackling around them, the protagonist mouthed two words.

“I win.”

I love your blog so so much, everything you write is amazing, idk if reqs are open, if they arent, im sorry and feel free to ignore, but could i request a second part of that prompt you wrote where the villain poisons their little sibling hero w/o knowing its them, i just loved that prompt and how you wrote it SO SO much, i think i must have read it about 20 times just these last few days, you can make the second part however you want, sad ending, happy ending, its up to you!!! thank you a lot

Part One (Thank you so much Anon!)

The villain hated hospitals. There was always the threat of exposure—the promise of a fixed wound never meant just stitches. Inevitably, it meant the police.

But really, the villain hated hospitals because they had almost watched their sibling die in one, three years old and a stomach full of cleaning products. They had sworn their sibling would never, ever get hurt again.

Now here they were. Watching the painful rise and fall of their sibling’s chest, oxygen mask hissing alongside the beeping of a heart monitor.

The villain scrubbed a hand over their face, covering their mouth.

Their sibling—the hero—was so small. So pale. And it was their fault.

The villain was going to vomit.

The heart monitor stuttered, and the villain snapped their eyes to the bed. The hero blinked back at them, clammy and bleary eyed.

The hero blinked at them once, before clumsily dragging their oxygen mask off their face.

“You need that,” the villain said gently. The hero eyed the mask with distaste, before dropping it beside them.

“Okay.” But they didn’t pick it up. Their eyes dragged around the room, not quite conscious yet—before landing back on the villain. “What happened?”

“You don’t remember?”

The hero’s brow wrinkled, then eased.

“I don’t feel bad?”

The villain laughed slightly. Their chest panged. “Yeah, that’s the morphine. They have you on the good stuff.”

The hero frowned.

Absently, one of their hands reached for their IV, and the villain caught it, settling it back by their side before they could rip it out.

“You’re an obstinate little thing, aren’t you,” but it was fond.

Their sibling grinned at them, and god, how had the villain not known? The hero had smiled at them, that exact smile, hundreds of times. Maybe thousands. And somehow, they hadn’t stopped to think it looked familiar. They hadn’t questioned that they had the same power.

They hadn’t bothered to wonder if the hero they were fighting was their younger sibling.

How many times had they hurt their sibling and not known?

“You love me anyways.”

The villain’s throat tightened.

“Yeah,” They choked a bit. “Yeah, I do.”

The hero frowned at them again.

“Are you okay?”

The villain cleared their throat. “Of course. It’s you who isn’t.”

The TV on the wall switched to a news segment, and they both watched with detachment as the reporter discussed the political climate surrounding powered people. The hero fidgeted slightly as they aired clips of the two of them fighting.

If their sibling didn’t remember anything about last night—

“The hero always loses,” the villain said slowly. They waited for the hero to look at them. “Why do you think that is?”

The hero bit their lip, anxiety creeping around the fog of pain medication.

“Because they’re weaker, I would think.”

The villain tipped their head a bit. “I don’t know about that. They always hold their own.”

Their sibling shrugged one shoulder, trying for casuality and failing. “Heroics and all that. Busy. Maybe the agency has orders…?” They trailed off, and oh, wasn’t that a terrible thought? Their sibling being ground into dust in the machine of the government.

“They never catch the villain, either,” the villain pressed. One of the hero’s hands squeezed into their blanket.

They stared at each other. The heart monitor beeped. Someone called for a code blue.

“You never catch me.” It was little more than a whisper, but the villain knew their sibling caught it. The hero went still, a deer in headlights.

It was almost like the villain could see them remembering the night before—the gala, the poison. Their big sibling, hurting them.

But they didn’t look at the villain with fear.

“No,” the hero said, and it was the firmest the villain had ever heard their sibling. “I don’t.”

Something began to burn in their gut.

“What were you thinking?” The villain hissed. The hero stared, stony eyed. Their lip quivered, just slightly.

“I was thinking that I love you too much to watch you die on the news.”

The villain jerked a hand through their hair, pacing to the other end of the room. The door snapped shut with a flick of shadow, the curtains following suit.

“You’re sixteen,” the villain snapped. The hero was fighting off tears, pressing their lips together like they were trying to hold in a sob. The villain had seen them do hundreds of times over the years.

“And you’re all I have left.”

The villain forgot how to breathe. Their sibling was trembling, just slightly.

“I’d never leave you,” the villain promised, voice cracking.

The dam broke, and a tear slipped down the hero’s cheek.

“But what if the only part of you left to stay is your ghost? I don’t—I can’t-“

And then their little sibling was sobbing. The villain tucked them into their arms between one second and the next, cradling them against their chest.

“It’s okay, I promise, it’s okay.”

“Don’t leave me.”

“I won’t,” the villain carded a hand through the hero’s hair. “I won’t.”

Their sibling was too young for this.

The villain was too young for this, too.

Being a villain paid the bills—but was it worth it?

The hero sobbed again, and the villain knew.

No.

It wasn’t worth it. How could anything ever be worth hurting their sibling?

It wasn’t worth their sibling almost dying, it wasn’t worth the heart ache, it wasn’t worth the pain.

But it was worth a month’s rent. It was worth school supplies and food on the table. It was worth a life.

Maybe not theirs—no, theirs was ruined already.

It was worth their sibling’s.

That was what mattered.

The nausea was back, deep in the villain’s stomach.

“Stop fighting me.”

The words stung on the way out, cutting the villain’s tongue. The hero jerked out of their arms as if scalded.

“What?” Their voice was rough with tears.

The villain swallowed, and it took everything in them to keep their face blank.

“Stop playing hero. You’re going to end up dead.”

If the villain couldn’t hear the heart monitor beeping, they would have thought their sibling’s heart had stalled in their chest.

“It won’t happen again,” they fisted their hands into the blanket.

“You’re right,” the villain agreed, and it hurt. “It won’t.”

The hero gaped at them.

“You don’t get to do this—“

“I do.”

“Stop it,” their sibling hissed. “Let me talk, I just want—“

“I want you alive.”

The hero went silent.

“And I want you happy, and warm, and well fed, because I love you, and it is my job.”

“Isn’t me being a hero to protect you the same thing? It’s love, not hatred or stupidity, can’t you see that?”

The villain could. They could see all of it. They could see their sibling, just a younger version of themself, desperate to keep their last loved one safe. They could see their sibling, helping the city because they cared too much with a too big heart.

They could see their sibling choking on poison, hunched over a toilet.

“I can’t let you keep fighting me.” The villain held the hero’s gaze. “I won’t, do you hear me?”

Their sibling was crying again, silently, chest heaving.

“I’ll fight you anyways,” but it was weak, and they both knew it.

The villain gave them a long look.

“You’re going to let the nurses help you. You’re going to get better. And then we’re going to go home, and you’re going to go to school, and I’m going to pay the bills, and put money on the table, and you’re going to pretend you don’t know how.”

The hero let out a shuddering breath, jerking their eyes away. Their jaw clenched.

“Do you hear me?”

“Fuck you.”

“Hero.”

“Yes,” they sobbed. “Yes, I hear you. Yes, I’ll watch you die and bleed out and I’ll do my math homework and pretend I don’t know why there’s blood stains in the bathroom.”

The villain wished they had been shot. It would have hurt less than this.

“Good.”

The hero shot them one last, desperate look. Like they had expected the last bit to mean something. Like they had hoped it would. Like they had needed it to.

Their sibling was just shy of hyperventilating when the villain tucked their oxygen mask back over their face. They brushed a piece of the hero’s sweat soaked hair out of their face, softening their eyes a fraction.

“I love you.”

The hero just blinked at them as the villain slid off the bed, tucking the blankets back around them.

The villain hesitated, just barely, at the door.

“Don’t—Don’t do this,” their sibling was crying again, voice wet with tears as they shook. Like the villain had grabbed something within them and broken it, something vital, and their sibling no longer knew how to be still. “Please don’t do this.”

Whatever they said next was a mangled sob.

“I love you,” the villain repeated forcefully, more weight on those three words than they had ever put on them. Maybe, when the hero was older and the villain didn’t need to commit crimes to keep them afloat, when there was no danger for their sibling, they would tell them they hadn’t wanted this either.

They would tell them they had wanted them to be a hero.

They would tell them they were sorry.

But for now, the villain said nothing. The door clicked shut behind them like an oath.

The villain managed to make it all the way down the hallway before they started sobbing too.

“I’ve never used a gun before,” the hero swallowed, mouth dry. They had never needed to, but now—

The villain’s head lolled over to look at them. A lazy grin spread across their face.

“Don’t worry,” they held the hero’s gaze, unflinching. “I have.”

The gun went off. Across the room, one of their enemies dropped, blood splattering against the wall.

Still, the villain didn’t break eye contact, content to shoot without looking. They hit their target every time, but still—

“Can you please look where you’re pointing that thing?”

“Why,” the villain tipped their head, and that shit eating grin was back, “Am I making you nervous, hero?”

The hero grimaced as the villain sent another target sprawling onto the floor. Surely they had to run out of ammo eventually?

When the hero didn’t respond, the villain laughed.

“Oh, I am. Well, that’s adorable, frankly.”

The hero flinched at the next gunshot, and the villain nodded their head towards the hero’s gun. “If you were to—and bear with me this is a crazy idea—help me, this would be over with way faster.”

The hero looked down to their gun, shifting it side to side in their hands. It didn’t look all that hard. Point, aim, shoot. They could do that, right?

They lifted their gun, aiming at the nearest combatant—

The villain slid to a stop next to them, tsking, and their hand settled onto the hero’s gun too quickly for them to see. “Not-no not quite like that,” they hummed in the hero’s ear, and though they couldn’t see their face, the hero knew they were amused. 

The hero’s jaw clenched with irritation.

“First,” the villain murmured, far too close, “Safety needs to be off.” They clicked something on the hero’s gun, repositioning the hero’s hands as they did. “Second,” they continued, and the hero shivered. “Don’t aim at me, love. You like me too much to kill me.”

“You’re awfully sure about that.”

The villain half rested their chin on the hero’s shoulder, batting their eyes. Their free arm jerked up, firing a shot behind them at someone who had evidently gotten too close to the two of them.

“I am,” they grinned. Their hand rested over the hero’s once more. “Now, aim,” they guided the hero’s hand towards the nearest enemy. Their finger slipped over the hero’s on the trigger. “And shoot.” They pulled down on the trigger, trapping the hero’s finger underneath theirs, so when the gun fired, they fired it together. The hero winced.

It was louder than the hero had thought it would be.

Across the room, the body dropped.

“Good,” the villain praised, voice low, and something stirred in the hero’s chest. “Again, love.”

They guided the hero through the motions once more.

By the time there was no one left to fight, the villain was staring at them with a look they couldn’t decipher. It was all encompassing. Hungry. Wild.

The hero cleared their throat, and the villain smirked like they knew what the hero was doing.

They eyed the hero, still with that look on their face.

“God, you’re pretty with a gun in your hand,” the villain cursed. They stepped closer. The hero didn’t move, holding their breath as the villain wiped a splattering of blood off their face. “Pretty covered in blood, too, but that might be a bit too insane for you, hm?”

The hero’s face went hot. It wasn’t, they thought. They wanted to kiss the villain so badly they worried it might be a sickness, twisting their mind, something terminal. But still, that smile—

The villain stepped away. They scanned the hero’s blushing face, and grinned harder at whatever they saw.

Gently, they took the gun from the hero’s hands, vanishing it behind their back.

“The next time you need someone to show you how to shoot, give me a call,” they nodded towards the hero’s hands. “I wouldn’t want someone else touching my hero, now would I?”

The hero couldn’t stop the smile that spread across their face.

The villain winked, stepped back, and was gone.

My hero.

Oh, the hero was well and truly fucked.

Hello! (Alternatively titled, send me writing requests please!)

Ok I have been absent for like….a long while, which is partly the fault of the education system. Mostly the fault of it, honestly.

Anyways.

I’ve hit spring break, so I have two weeks of freedom, and that means writing (oh my god, writing). Naturally I have more free time, but I also have several 7 hour plane rides to contend with, and I have this extreme compulsion to write when on airplanes. My notes app will never know peace.

So, to anyone reading this who feels so inclined, please send me writing requests I beg of you (no writing advice asks right now please, I cannot do critical thinking)

Heroes villains sidekicks protag and antag, literally anything. I always enjoy writing asks!

Thank you!