Kind Villain - Tumblr Posts

Writing Prompt (idea, thing)

Imagine a hero gets saved by the not so villainous villain. They fumble a 'Thank you' and rush off, Unsure of what to do to repay them they send a care package to them with a bubble bath, tea tin, music box, special cookies, and a note saying "Thank you for saving me and for your care! I hope you like this take-care package. I wish you the best!" - Sincerely, Hero. The not so villainous villain is touched and lightly chuckles to them self “Oh hero, you are a wonder!”

could you write a snippet where hero and villain both show up at the same time to rescue civilian from supervillain please?

The hero’s pulse pounded in their ears, panicked and so loud–there was so much blood, oh god, they couldn’t tell where it was coming from–that they didn’t hear the villain behind them until they were slamming their elbow back into their ribcage. The villain caught it with one hand, running their gaze over the hero and their blood slicked hands as if assessing for injuries. When they did the same to the civilian, the villain went so still the hero wasn’t sure they were breathing.

The hero felt a little dizzy, actually, and they were trying incredibly hard not to cry, because that was their friend on the floor and they were never supposed to be involved in this–

“Hero,” the villain’s voice was stern, but not unkind. “Breathe.”

They choked on their next inhale, and the villain pressed against their chest with one hand until they breathed out again. There was something about the villain’s face, smooth and unyielding like stone, that pulled the hero into focus enough for them to suck in another breath.

“They need help,” they managed to gasp. The villain gave them a singular nod in confirmation.

“Yes. They do.”

“We need to–”

“You,” the villain interrupted, “need to calm down.”

“They’re dying.”

“And that’s not going to change if you’re too panicked to see straight. So take. A deep. Breath.”

Miraculously, the hero did. It was easier on the next breath, and the next, until their vision was clear and they could see the horror in front of them with all too much clarity.

The civilian was still breathing.

The villain released the hero’s elbow as soon as they realized the hero wasn’t about to panic again, grazing their fingers over the civilian’s tattered clothing in search of the worst wounds. They prodded something and the civilian winced, face bruised and entirely, blessedly, unconscious. “Pressure,” the villain gestured, and the hero. complied.

The hero knew better than to let up when the civilian, abruptly half-lucid from pain, tried to bat their hand away, but bile still rose in their throat.

“How are you so calm,” they said, and even they could tell their voice was slightly too close to hysterical. The villain glanced over at them, eyes dark, before ripping a makeshift tourniquet to tie around the civilian’s leg.

“I panicked once,” some memory, deep and dark and full of pain, flashed through the villain’s eyes. “I promised I wouldn’t do it again.”

The hero took the wad of cloth the villain handed to them, pressing it back down over the civilian’s stomach. It turned red under the hero’s fingers far faster than they would ever have wanted it to. Not that they would ever want it to, but if someone was bleeding they would at least want it to be slow–

“Oh,” they managed, voice strangled, and the villain took a moment to assess them once more. 

“Breathe,” the villain reminded. “They’re not dying. They’re beat up, but they’re stable. Emergency services are already on their way.”

The hero watched more blood well up around their hands. Pressed harder.

They would be digging red flakes out from under their nails for weeks.

“You’re normally calmer,” the villain remarked casually. If the hero’s brain wasn’t so stuck on the image of their friend bleeding below them, they would have recognized this for the distraction that it was.

“They didn’t choose this,” they whispered, throat raw. The civilian didn’t have powers, and they hadn’t chosen to use them for good or evil. They just lived, so kind and so normal.

“Neither does any other bystander,” the villain said.

“They’re my friend,” the hero willed the villain to understand, somehow, the enormity of this. The pain of knowing that it should have been them on the floor, that supervillain had done this because the civilian had been there and the hero had not.

A mistake of epic proportions. The biggest failure of their life. Not being there.

“So?”

“So it's my fault,” the hero’s voice broke, and they ducked their head down to hide the tears as they welled in their eyes. Distantly, they could pick up the barest trace of sirens, almost out of reach of their enhanced senses.

“Hero,” the villain said, voice gentle. “If it’s anyone’s fault, it’s mine.”

The hero shook their head–

“No, listen to me,” the villain’s voice gained an edge to it. “It’s not your fault. I pissed supervillain off this week. They know the civilian is my friend. This was deliberate to hurt me, and I need you to get it through your thick skull that there was nothing you could have done to stop this.”

The hero wasn’t sure who the villain was truly saying this to–the hero, themself, or the version of the villain that had panicked so long ago, and suffered for it.

“I could have–”

“You couldn’t.” The villain’s stare was all encompassing. The hero wanted to believe them. “Stop blaming yourself for the pain other people are causing.”

“That’s kind of my whole thing,” the hero tried for something light, airy. The both of them watched it fall flat off their tongue.

“No, it’s not. Your thing is saving people, not beating yourself up over everything you think you could have done better.”

The hero didn’t have a response to that. Just stayed staring at the villain as the ambulance skidded to a stop, the red lights flashing off the villain’s hair and eyes.

Someone reached for the hero’s hands, still pressed tightly to the wound, and they flinched away, gritting their teeth. 

The paramedic raised their gloved hands as if comforting an animal. “I’m here to help,” they said slowly. 

It felt terrible unclenching their hands, letting the paramedic take their place, sliding the civilian onto a stretcher an unending minute later.

The hero swallowed hard, knees numb against the pavement, and let the villain hook their arms under the hero’s armpits to haul the upright.

“Alright, there we go,” the villain murmured easily. The hero tracked the paramedics as they closed the doors of the ambulance. 

“I should–”

“No,” the villain interrupted. They seemed to be doing that more often than usual, the hero thought slowly. “You need to get cleaned up, and eat something.”

“I need to go to the hospital, I can’t just leave them alone,” the hero argued. They tried to jerk themself from the villain’s steadying hold, and failed.

“Trust me, they’ve got a whole team keeping them alive. They’re in good company.”

“I’m failing them.” It was an entirely irrational thought, but it stung in the hero’s chest, burning its way into their ribs as an ‘almost’ truth.

“You’re taking care of yourself so that you are able to take care of them. You can’t pour from an empty cup, and you're at empty. So, we’re going to get you some clothes that aren’t covered in blood, a sandwich, and go from there.”

The hero realized between one blink and the next that they were exhausted–bones aching and made of stone, dragging them down further with every second. By the time they reached the villain’s car, the only thing that was holding them up was the villain; the weight of panic and a too long day spent trying to save the entire city pressing down on them.

They were dumped into the passenger seat without fanfare, and if they weren’t so tired, they would have protested about the blood, or question how the villain had gotten their car here.

The villain slammed the door, settling themself into the driver’s seat a moment later. They dug through the center console, too dark for the hero to make out what they were grabbing, before they scrubbed the hero’s hands with a baby wipe. 

They had the engine started before the hero had a chance to look down at their own–now clean–hands.

“It’s not your fault,” the villain said again. Their tone left no room for argument.

“You keep saying that,” they watched as the city lights flickered through the car windows. “Why?”

The villain’s jaw clenched in the periphery of their vision. When they answered, it was so soft and quiet the hero almost didn’t catch it.

“Because nobody said it to me.”

The hero let their head slump against the window, half-asleep as they watched the roads vanish behind them.

“Hey,” they said quietly. They didn’t have to look up to know the villain’s attention was solely on them.

Sleep pulled on them until their voice was little more than an exhaled breath. 

“It wasn’t your fault.”

The villain sucked in a shuddering breath.

“It isn’t your fault.”

Before sleep managed to swallow them whole, the hero swore they caught a single tear streaking down the villain’s cheek.

As another request, maybe the villain and hero are fighting , and the villain notices that the hero reacts suspiciously numb to his attacks. And when he taunts him about it, the hero sisimply says something to the effect of being used to it. And the villain is suspicious by the tone so he follow the hero and find out he’s abused by family . Cue villain saving the hero, comforting him and showering him with the love he never got

The villain should have known something was wrong the first time he hit the hero, and he simply braced, pain flickering along the muscles of his jaw, before hitting back. Face blank, a mask stronger than concrete. As if pain played no part, and it was just the give and return of kinetic energy, and nothing more.

He should have known when he said something so cruel it felt like graveyard dirt upon his tongue, and the hero merely stuttered for half a second, everything within him freezing, before he continued like nothing had happened. Nothing cruel in return, nothing biting in his face. Just–complete nothing.

“You never flinch,” the villain said, and it wasn’t a sudden realization, but it was close. Again, that momentary pause, like the hero had been grabbed and stopped by some otherworldly being on a molecular level. It allowed the villain to catch the next hit the hero threw at them.

“What?”

The hero, to his credit, didn’t sound upset, and in this line of work the villain was especially good at noticing the tiny pieces of that kind of thing. He just sounded confused, maybe.

“When I hit you. You don’t flinch,” the villain clarified. The hero just stared at them.

“You only really flinch if you aren’t used to it,” the hero said finally.

“Used to it?”

“You heard me,” the hero replied, and this time, there was irritation behind his words.

The villain tossed the hero’s fist down, and the hero stumbled back.

“And you didn’t answer my question.”

“I wasn’t aware there was one.”

“Are you intentionally being annoying, or is it just natural for you?”

The hero’s breath shuddered.

“Sorry.”

“Sorry–you–I don’t want an apology,” the villain sputtered. This conversation felt above his pay grade; and he wasn't entirely sure why, either, which irked him, itching under his skin.

“So–” the hero snapped his jaw shut around the rest of the word, and it looked like he was doing everything in his power to stop himself from finishing it.

Before the villain could prod further–about the flinching, or any other confusing aspect of it–the hero blew out a breath, and said, “I’m done here.”

The villain blinked.

“You can’t just decide when a fight is over.”

“Watch me,” the hero said, but his voice didn’t have the heat that usually went along with that phrase.

“You’re a hero, isn’t this kind of your entire job? Finishing fights, not walking away from them?”

“I said, I’m done,” the hero snarled, and it was the first hint of emotion he had shown the entire day, explosive and aimed entirely at the villain. The villain was taken aback for a moment.

The hero turned and left before the villain could even think of a response. He didn’t look over his shoulder.

Of course, the villain followed him home.

The fact that he had been able to at all was something to be worried about.

He watched as the hero entered, shutting the door behind him. Heard the sound of his bag hitting the floor, his jacket being hung up. Normal, quiet little things. Shuffling through the kitchen, making a cup of tea. A quiet conversation with his mother.

The villain was about to leave when he heard the slap.

He was through the door before he realized he was moving, leaving the handle to slam into the wall.

He caught the barest edge of a conversation as he rounded the corner–a curse word, then a vile sort of thing that was somehow worse than anything the villain had managed to say in his entire life–and slotted himself neatly between the hero and his mother.

The villain caught her wrist before it could touch any part of the hero. His grip was too tight to be anything but painful.

The hero’s mother gaped at them.

A bruise was beginning to bloom across the hero’s cheek.

The hero was shaking, slightly, face tense and drawn as he stared at the villain. Like the villain was the unnerving thing in this situation, and the hand his mother still had raised was the normality.

A rage, raw and unfathomable, ravenous within him, descending down so deep into the white hot of fury that it passed anything that had a name, uncurled itself along his bones.

“Touch him again,” the villain seethed, voice shaking with all that feral untamed mess within himself, “and you lose the hand.”

“Villain,” the hero said quietly, and the villain had never heard him so meek.

How long did it take for a person to learn that kind of quiet?

“Villain, leave it.”

The villain didn’t release the hero’s mother’s–no. The woman in front of him wasn’t a mother. She was something twisted, and broken, and cruel, upper lip curled with displeasure. Not that the villain was within her kitchen; but that he had stopped her from hitting her child.

The villain wanted nothing more than to vomit on her spotless white tiles.

Maybe in another life she would have been the kind of person the hero, with his kind heart, would have saved before it got to this point.

Maybe in another life the villain would have let the hero try.

But that was not this life.

And there was a bruise blooming on his hero’s cheek.

“You have no right–”

“Did I not make myself clear?” He said, and it was black and poisonous in the air.

The woman in front of him swallowed, and for the first time, fear flickered across her face.

Good.

“Villain,” the hero said, voice strangled, and the villain turned to look at him.

“She’s hurt you before,” the villain said, and it wasn’t a question. The hero looked at him wide-eyed, and he wondered how many times the hero had walked into a fight with him with pre-existing injuries. Injuries he would pretend later that the villain had given him.

The hero swallowed, hard.

“Yes,” he whispered, and that was all the villain needed. He turned back around.

“The only reason you are alive right now is because I think killing you would upset him,” he informed her, and he watched her face pale. “That, and getting blood out of shoes is a bitch. Isn’t it, hero? See, you wouldn’t know. Nobody’s ever made you bleed, I’d wager, because if they had, you would understand it isn’t the kind of thing you do to someone you love.”

He grinned, feral.

“You’re going to leave,” he continued. “Matter of fact, you’re going to vanish. And you’re going to do it so well that if he wants, he’ll never have to think of you again. The only way you’ll ever see him again will be because he wants it to happen, do you understand me? If you don’t, we’ll make you vanish my way.”

The hero made a choked noise behind him. “I don’t think you’ll like that very much,” the villain confided in a whisper.

He wasn’t sure the woman in front of him was breathing.

“Hero,” he said after a long minute. He was going to leave bruises on her wrist. She was shaking, and it soothed some of the yawning rage within him. “Pack a bag.”

The hero vanished into the halls of the house.

The villain didn’t say anything, just stared at the woman in front of him, as if he looked long enough he would be able to see the rotten core inside of her that had made her this way. Turned her into something violent. Or perhaps, the thing that had been inside her since birth, broken and seething. Inevitable.

He didn’t like to believe people could be born evil.

He would make an exception.

The hero appeared back behind him as silent as a wraith, far faster than the villain had expected, duffel bag in one hand.

He wondered how long the hero had had a bag tucked away, packed and ready to run if it got too bad.

He wondered what the hero considered ‘bad enough’ and his jaw clenched hard enough he could hear the bones creak.

“That all you need?”

The hero nodded, mutely, and the villain finally dropped the woman’s hand. She pulled back, hissing as she rubbed her arm, but she had the sense to not glare at the villain.

He tipped his head towards the door.

“Let’s go,” he said, as gently as he had ever heard himself.

The hero followed him out, and they didn’t say anything until the villain’s apartment door locked behind the both of them.

The villain blew out a shuddering breath.

The hero looked like he wasn’t entirely there, eyes glassy.

“Hero,” he said softly, and the hero’s gaze snapped to his face. He stopped himself from reaching for him, a helpless effort to do something, to fix it. “Can I touch you?”

He made sure it didn’t sound like a demand, because if the hero said no, the villain would die before crossing that line, no matter how much it stung. A moment later, to his relief, the hero gave a jerky nod.

He moved slowly, a gentle palm on the hero’s jaw to tip it up, inspecting the bruise with pursed lips. He brushed away the tear that slipped down the hero’s cheek with his thumb, and left it there.

“It could be worse,” the hero offered quietly.

“The fact that it exists at all is worse enough,” the villain murmured, tipping the hero’s head back down. “I’m so sorry.”

The hero blinked, brow furrowing. “For what?”

The villain shrugged one shoulder. “That it happened. That it has been happening. That I didn’t notice.”

“I’m good at hiding it,” the hero said, like it was supposed to make the villain feel better.

“You shouldn’t have had to learn how to do that at all,” the villain said, and the hero’s lip wobbled.

The hero wavered slightly, like he didn’t know what to do with himself. He carried himself like the entirety of his body was an open wound, every second spent breathing a second spent in agony.

The villain couldn’t pretend he knew what this felt like, but he could do his best to soothe it as much as possible.

“Come here,” he said softly, and the hero melted into him, shaking as he tried to cry quietly and failed. He tucked the hero against his chest, and hand coming to curl into the hero’s hair as he let out a desperate keening noise.

He rested his chin on the top of the hero’s head. “It’s going to be okay,” he whispered. “It’s not right now, but it will be, I promise. Even if it takes a while.”

The hero shuddered against him, then nodded, just once.

It wasn’t okay, but it would be.

The villain had promised.

And he never broke a promise.

Hello! i love your cat villian one so much maybe do more??????

but ignore if not (AMAZING BLOG EVER)

The protagonist was dying. They were sure of it, they could feel it, this all consuming terror and in the way they couldn’t draw a full breath into their lungs, like it was funneled through a straw and it was killing them–

Their vision went blurry and they crumpled against the wall, curling into a half-hearted ball over their knees against the baseboard. There was blood splattered over their hands. They just–if they could just–a tiny bit of air–

A hand, warm and gentle, appeared at the nap of their neck, tipping their head up to look at their face.

The protagonist blinked, and the villain was there, and they were watching them die, and oh god they were going to get fired–

“Breathe,” the villain said, and it sounded like they were under water. A million miles away. Point Nemo. Their sister had told them about that once, in the middle of the night as they sat on the roof.

It must be so lonely, she had said, head tipped to the stars. To be so far from everyone else.

The protagonist had wanted to say, I don’t need to be far from everyone else to feel lonely. I’m Point Nemo, can’t you see? But they hadn’t, had just hummed something in agreement, and the villain was telling them to “breathe,” again.

I’m trying, the protagonist wanted to sob. I’m trying, I’m trying, I’m trying.

“Protagonist,” the villain cupped their face in their hands, and through the blurring of the protagonist’s vision, they looked absolutely terrified.

Which didn’t make sense, because the villain always knew exactly what to do in every situation. It was comforting to be in the shadow of someone who knew exactly how they fit into the world.

The villain said something, and the protagonist blinked.

“What?” they managed. The villain snapped their head to look up at them.

“I said, I’m calling your mom.”

Abruptly, terror was flooding their veins again, and they slammed the phone out of the villain’s hand and onto the concrete.

The villain just watched them, concern stark on their face.

“Protagonist–”

“You can’t call her,” they gasped out, chest tight. “She’ll worry and–I can’t do that to her, not after my sister, she can’t do that again.”

Point Nemo. One million miles away.

Really, though, just six feet down.

It felt the same.

“Okay,” the villain said, low and soothing, like they were a scared child. They were. “Okay, I won’t call her, but I need you to breathe,” they emphasized.

“I’m trying,” the protagonist bit out, sucking in air that didn’t seem to be doing anything. How could it not be doing anything? This was one of the worst things that could be happening to them, let alone in front of their boss. They were supposed to be stronger than this, they were stronger than this, so why were they shaking against the baseboard in the hallway of their base. Idly, they looked down at the blood coating their arms, and couldn’t remember whose it was.

“I don’t know how to help you,” the villain admitted, voice breaking.

The protagonist couldn’t get their hands to stop shaking.

If they could just draw a breath–

Blood is harder to get off than you would expect. It clings and clings and clings–

The villain followed their gaze down, and a moment later, they had a wet wipe in their hand, wiping down the protagonist’s hands with an efficiency they could never hope to imitate.

They flinched away from the cold of it a second too late, and the villain frowned.

“You’re okay,” the villain promised, and the protagonist wanted to believe them.

They still choked on the next breath they tried to take, and it hurt and was miserable and the protagonist just wanted it to stop.

The villain said something that sounded like their name again, and they wanted to respond but felt the words get caught in their ribs, and the villain vanished and–

They were holding a cat.

Their shoulders untensed immediately, hands curling softly into the fur, as softly as they could manage while shaking, and they bit their lip to keep from crying at how useless they felt. How could they not figure out how to use their own hands? They bit back a sob, because nothing was working and they couldn’t bear to hurt a cat.

The cat curled itself further against the protagonist’s chest, tucked into their arms in the hollow between their knees and their abdomen.

The villain was–oh.

Oh, the protagonist was so stupid.

The villain was kind, kinder than they deserved, probably, turning into a cat just to make the protagonist stop having a meltdown in their hallway.

The protagonist just needed to get their legs to stop being numb, and then they could stand up and go hide in the bathroom until their body remembered how to do its job, and stop bothering the villain with their stupid problems and panic.

And then, abruptly, the villain began to purr, rumbling into the protagonist's chest.

Some knot deep inside of them that they hadn’t realized existed uncoiled, and they sucked in a breath so deep they thought it would never end. They choked on it on the way out, but the villain simply kept purring, so they tried again, and again, until their vision unblurred and the ache in their lungs had vanished.

“Okay,” the protagonist murmured to themself. Sometimes, they could trick themself by talking in the tone they used on frightened children when out on patrol. “You’re okay, I’m okay, everything is fine.”

They moved to set the villain down, but the villain dug their claws into the protagonist’s arm, nudging their face into their bicep.

Are you really okay? They seemed to ask, and the protagonist didn’t have an answer to that. They could breathe, and feel their toes, and they could remember–oh.

They could remember.

Blood on their hands.

The villain started purring again, and the protagonist burst into tears, burying their face into the villain’s fur. The villain let them, nudging the side of the face every so often in a reminder to breathe.

They stayed like that, until the protagonist’s tears had dried, and their heart only panged a little bit when the villain jumped down out of their arms and onto the floor in front of them.

A blink, and the villain was in front of them again, eyes filled with concern as they grabbed onto the protagonist’s elbows.

“You’re okay,” the villain breathed, and then the protagonist was pulled into a hug so warm they never wanted to leave. “You’re okay.”

“I’m okay,” the protagonist agreed, face tucked into the villain’s chest.

The villain simply hugged them tighter.

Point Nemo had never felt further away.

Please write a chef! Villian who adores to cook for their people, literally. They even cook for their sidekick and their henchmen. But never ever for their oh so devilishly beautiful and just as infuriating hero. (whom they have SWORN to never cook for)

But once when hero's parent falls ill, villian is the one who cooks for them so they can get better. However, they are unable finish all of the food, thus ask their kid (the hero) to have the leftovers

Hero, (who unbeknownst to villian was literally starving for days as they were busy) loves the little bits food they had and when they tell that to their Villian, their faux cold demeanor breaks down completely..... And fluff happens next?????

I really hope you don't mind writing on this! Cooking for someone is willingly wanting to nourish them. I just wanted to see that in an enemies to lovers dynamic...

“You’re looking less terrible,” the villain noted as soon as they stepped into the living room. The hero blinked up at them owlishly from the couch, a mangled crochet project clutched in their hands. It was all so horribly mundane.

“Thanks,” the hero said dryly. “Just what I needed to hear.”

Truly, though, it hadn’t been a dig. The hero did look slightly better: there was color in their cheeks, that exhausted sheen had vanished from their eyes. Their hands weren’t shaking around their crochet hook.

“Your mom is out of the hospital?”

A shadow of that tiredness passed over the hero’s face. It was gone in a blink.

“If you don’t already know the answer to that, I'll be disappointed.”

The villain raised their hands, drifting through the living room. They peered down at a childhood photo of the hero, all toothy grin and smeared ice cream. “Just making conversation.”

The hero sighed.

“She’s home on bed rest, now,” the hero said, quietly, like they were trying not to wake her up. “She’s doing better, she is, it’s just not…” they trailed off.

“She’s still sick,” the villain supplied. The hero nodded when the villain turned back around.

“I don’t know why I expected her to be better as soon as she came home.” The hero sounded so small, in that moment. Like they were still that little kid in their childhood photo album, and not someone who saved the city on the daily.

The villain shrugged. “Because you’re human. Human’s don’t like it when the people they love are hurt.”

“Maybe,” the hero agreed.

The villain slid their gaze over the room once more, snagging on an empty tupperware container balanced on the edge of the coffee table.

Their tupperware container.

Which shouldn’t have come as a surprise, exactly. As soon as they had gotten word that the hero’s mother was in the hospital–which had been as soon as it happened–they had gathered a week's worth of meals and sent it over. And then, they had done it again the next week, and it became just one of the things the villain did. They cooked for themself, their sidekick, their henchmen, and now, the hero’s mother.

They knew the hero’s mother had figured it out, but she had known better than to say anything. The villain didn’t swear on much, but they had sworn to never cook for the hero. Even their mother was cutting it a little bit too close to that.

The hero followed their gaze to the container and blushed.

“Sorry, I meant to clean that up–”

The villain cocked their head. 

The hero stammered for a moment in the resulting silence, “Someone’s been sending my mom food. She can’t always finish it, because she’s…” they trailed off, like they couldn’t bear to say the word “sick”. “She gives me the leftovers,” they finally finished.

The villain had nothing to say to that.

“Hm.”

“Yeah, um,” the hero looked down, tossing aside their terribly failing project. “Normally I get by just fine, you know, I’m not incompetent,” the hero added quickly, like they were worried the villain would judge them for it.

The hero swallowed, and again, that yawning and endlessly exhausted look loomed over their face. The villain wanted to never, ever see it again. “But there was patrol, and then the agency wanted me to do publicity, and then I was with my mom at the hospital whenever I wasn’t working and I just–I’m just really tired.”

Seeing it on the hero’s face, in their posture as they slumped against any available surface when they had even a second to rest, in the bruises from hits they should have been able to avoid easily, was one thing.

But hearing them admit it–

“Get up,” the villain said. Something inside them felt raw at the look on the hero’s face.

“Why?”

“I’m making you food,” the villain said easily. It was anything but.

The hero froze, a deer in headlights, before glancing down at the tupperware and back to the villain.

“You’re the one sending the food.”

Even sleep deprived out of their mind, their hero had always been quick.

“And the one cooking it,” the villain added, and the hero gaped at them.

“Why,” they managed a moment later, hand clutching into the armrest of the couch like it was the only thing keeping them upright.

“I like your mother,” the villain picked up the tupperware, hero watching them the entire time. “And you’re not entirely terrible.”

The hero barked out a surprised laugh.

“I’m not entirely terrible,” they repeated.

“No, you’re not,” the villain agreed. “Now, get up.”

The hero got up.

Before the hero could do something stupid, like ask again what they were doing, or a trip over their own discarded crochet, the villain hushed them.

“I’m making you food,” they said, and the hero’s mouth closed. The villain sighed, looping their hand around the hero’s wrist. “Now shut up, and let me take care of you.”

The hero looked at them like they had never had someone do that. Like they hadn’t even considered the possibility that they might need help as much as the people they took care of did.

The villain had enough of their idiot face, turning to drag them to the kitchen.

The hero went.

That terrible, awful look never showed up on the hero’s face again.

The villain made sure of that.