Spherica’s little heist that day had gone off without a hitch– that is, her parts had. A few pieces of the heroes’ equipment, just to give her engineer some more things to work with, and a file or two from their surveillance records, so she could ensure that the heroes didn’t actually have any leads as to where her base of operations was. Nothing too difficult to get in and get out with alone, especially when she knew the place, and when everyone present was too distracted by her associate to question the presence of someone who looked exactly like her hero sister. (Until they realized that “The Comet” was on patrol at that time, but by then she would be long gone.)

Heatwave’s little distractions were always done at the same intensity, whether he was covering for subtle reconnaissance or for a multi-stage bank robbery, and that was no different today. Luring the patrolling heroes into chasing him around, playing his games, keeping everyone at headquarters busy with updates on the fight and damage control reports. This was his specialty and nobody could deny that he was very good at it! But there was one little thing she had heard over their comms that had her worried.

Not that he was cooperating enough to tell her what it was.

“I’m fiiiiine, I’m telling you! It’s not the first time somebody’s landed a hit,” his voice came into her ear while she paced in the rendezvous point.

“But it is the first time that a hit has made your communicator go static for over twenty seconds. Just– tell me, is there blood?”

The length of his pause was not reassuring in the least.

“Nooo…” and that just about confirmed it.

“I’m getting the first aid kit.”

“Wh– hey, I said there wasn’t any!” It may just be her, but she could swear she was picking up on a pained undertone now, underneath his usual lighthearted overconfidence.

“Are you applying pressure? Keep your hand on it until you get here, how close are you? Who was it that–”

“Hey, heyyy, it’s fine, stop mother-henning, I’m almost there!”

“That is not a real word, and I will not stop demanding updates until I know you aren’t bleeding out over the city, Heatwave.” Fortunately, this mini-hideout wasn’t just stocked with one of those dollar store kits; she’d had the foresight to add actual bandages and gauze, though now she wished she’d raided some of the hero headquarters’ quick-treatment items while she was there. “Are you feeling lightheaded at all?”

“I mean, like, only a little biiit?”

Spherica took in a steadying breath, and switched the channel she was speaking through.

“Moth.” Ignored the startled squeak from the other end that told her she’d interrupted something. (Not anything too important, since there were no following sounds of clattering or explosions.) “Are the connections secure?”

“They should be?” A short pause let her hear the sound of things being shuffled around and some light typing. “Yeah, yes, mm-hm they’re completely secure right now. Why?”

“Thanks.” Valorie switched back to the first channel. “Damien–”

“ACK–”

“–Damien if you pass out from blood loss you’re off missions for a week–”

“I’m fine Val–!”

“You don’t know if the connection is secure!”

“You said mine! And everyone knows your real name anyway! Whoa-aah okay that was, hahaa–”

“Are you passing out right now? How close are you?”

“Gimme like ten seconds I’m on the fire escape!” To corroborate his story, she could indeed hear some footsteps echoing up from outside the window. Irregular and unusually heavy footsteps for how Damien normally moved.

“I’m letting you in, do not try to climb through the window yourself or blood loss will be the least of your problems.” Gauze, bandages, things to clean the wound with, and she was just hoping there wasn’t too much in his hairline, both to keep treatment simpler and to avoid his complaining about not being able to use all his various products on an injured area. She tuned back to their general comms channel and muted, just in case anyone else developed head wounds they wanted to downplay to her.

Hewas trying to climb through the window himself, which didn’t seem to be going well, but more importantly, Valorie could see that this was not just a flesh wound. Even taking into account the fact that cuts on the head always bled more than one expected, and even with Damien’s efforts to keep pressure on it, it looked like he had lost a lot. A significant amount more than he’d been trying to let on.

“Damien you idiot I said don’t try to– Give me your arm– Not that arm keep applying pressure, the other arm, I said not to climb in by yourself! Are you sure you weren’t followed? Damien?” There were no clear signs of pursuit outside, but she took one hand off of him to shut the window and pull the curtain shut, just in case. After guiding him two steps in, she had to stop and brace them both as his weight increased, no longer holding himself up. “Damien!”

“I actually kinda feel lightheaded now that you mention it actually?” Fortunately, he was still maintaining pressure on the source, though it seemed like it was taking all of the effort he could’ve been using to keep himself upright.

“It might get worse before it gets better, I’ll have to look at it in a– not right now, put it back, wait until you’re sitting down!” Seeing him wince, she took a breath, trying to even it out and focus as she lowered him onto the old couch. (Heedless of the blood that would get on it, because it wasn’t the first time this couch had gotten stained in this manner and it wouldn’t be the last.) “Volume, I apologize. Alright, let me see it?”

“Y’know that new guy?” Damien started, keeping his head turned so she could work but reaching up to pull his mask down around his neck. It didn’t look like anything was wrong with the rest of his face, though the contrast of everything under his mask being clean made the bleeding area stand out much worse.

“Tigerblaze?” Carefully pushing hair out of the way with one hand and holding a bit of gauze in the other, she had started dabbing at the area around the wound and resisted the urge to reprimand him for snorting at the name, as the immediate wince seemed enough to indicate his regret.

“S’that really his name? Like on the real records and everything?”

“Yes, and he’s not new, he’s in from Maryland until Sunday.” Fortunately, it didn’t look like there was anything stuck in the cut that she would need to get out the tweezers for.

“Ooohhh that makes more sense, I thought he was, like, a sidekick, but then we got a little 1v1 before ‘Thena showed up and it was like, dang bro– ow– it was like daaang bro that guy hits waaay harder than I thought, yknow?”

“Mm, I know it’s hard for you, but I’m going to have to ask you to stop talking while I work on this. Your head is moving too much.” He grumbled but complied as Valorie tried to gauge whether he would need stitches for this. It was an irregular shape, not deep or dirty enough to cause severe problems, but not shallow enough to trust it to heal well on its own. Her observation that it did, in fact, extend past his hairline was not encouraging.

“Okay, I think we’re going to put something over this to stop the bleeding, then get back to main base and put in stitches.”

“It needs stitches? But it’s not that bad–! Ow ow ow quiet okay yeah,,”

Surprisingly, he managed to keep quiet for the remainder of her bandaging process. She would have to keep him away from mirrors for a while, so he couldn’t discover how poorly his hair looked after all this…

“Stay here, try to get out of your suit, carefully, and I’ll get everything else ready.” Starting with washing her hands, wondering how bad it was going to be to get all the blood out of the Heatwave getup, gathering up their civilian disguises and definitely keeping blood from touching those…

“Siren, I have the record you asked for–”

“What did you just call me?” The man or perhaps woman turned from examining the contents of a shelf to give Valorie a bit of a Look.

“Siren.” She cocked a hip and placed a hand on it, doing her best to return the Look without craning her head weirdly, considering that she was a bit too short to look down at her client. “Your street name? With the likelihood of this place being tapped by about twelve different interested groups since the last time you dealt with them, I’m hardly going to use your givenname.”

“That’s not the one you used last time, Spherica.” Sass for sass, she had to respect it.

“You have several names out there. Do none of your clients tell you about them?” It seemed that this record was not going to be accepted immediately, so she walked further in, setting it on a table and lowering herself into an armchair. “There’s enough aliases floating around that I have to go overtime just to verify whether a mention of you is you or just some upstart, or someone from out of state, and that on top of the potential for imitators…”

“Siren’s a bad one, there’s already a mermaid themed cape using it. Did you steal this, by the way, or do your identity theft thing?” Not-Siren came closer to inspect the record, picking it up and turning it over, probably looking for a price tag.

“In Philadelphia?”

“What?”

“Is the mermaid-themed Siren operating in Philadelphia? I should have heard of it if there’s a new one, for any affiliation.”

“Still on that, huh? No, Siren’s out in… Lancaster?” The record was removed from its case and examined under the light. “Hey, this is fresh! I thought you’d be going for secondhand.”

“No, secondhand’s worse quality and hurts small businesses.” There was a little bowl of hard candies within arm’s reach of her, but she was refraining from getting too close to them immediately.

“So you did steal it.” That was absolutely correct, but,

“I never said that. It would be pretty suspicious for my sister to be out secondhand record shopping when it’s currently her night shift, though, wouldn’t it, Dr Diva?”

Judging by the sound that followed this, if Not-Dr-Diva had been drinking something at the moment, that drink would have found itself quickly airborne and splattered over the wood floor and probably some of the furniture.

“They call me what,” came out strangled enough that Valorie could believe they had been choking just a second ago.

“That or Diva Doctor, nobody’s entirely certain which order it ought to fall in.”

“I’ve never even considered that many years of medical school, not– Not all healing types are medical types, all I do is sing!” Strangely, but in a way that was thoroughly in the norm when one was used to dealing with Not-Diva-Doctor, that raised voice managed to be soothing instead of grating.

“Then maybe you’d prefer Songbird?”

“That one’s taken by at least one person per state and you know one of the new sidekicks is looking at it for their temp alias.” Not-Songbird carefully slid the record back into its case and moved to line it up in an empty space on their shelf. Then turned around, giving Valorie a suspicious once-over. “You don’t have any more for me, do y–”

“Now that you mention it, Mx. Minstrel–”

“Oh not another–”

“–you wanted tabs kept on the requests, and I have one asking if you do rap?”

“Badly.” 

“More of a demand than a request, really, but they won’t be able to back it up with anything substantial so I’m sure they’ll take whatever you want to give…” she paused as though not quite finished, just for the few seconds of tense, anticipatory eye contact before her next, “…Supercore.”

“That one’s not even a name! It’s not related to singing or healing, who came up with that one?”

“It’s the name of a niche aesthetic and music genre started onli–”

“Started online, of course it makes no sense.”

“A lot of my information comes from online sources, you know. Aside from the public hero profiles. People post a lot of footage, say a lot of things in supposedly-secure chatrooms…” The bowl of candy was calling to her too strongly to refuse by now. She casually selected something with a pink wrapper and passed it between her fingers for a minute before acknowledging it any further.

“Good thing we have our little arrangement, so the only thing I ever need the internet for is…” They paused when Valorie tapped one finger to her ear with a glance around, a reminder that the place was probably tapped. “…Alright, you know I make a whole deal out of not caring how my recordings sound, but I’ll admit that I know how to look up video tutorials.”

“Remarkable.” Finally looking at the candy, she found that it had a picture of a strawberry, and the label and ingredients were written in Hangul.

“I’d think you would agree with me about how nonsense the aliases that come from the internet are, all things considered, Spherica.”

“That was from the press,Balladeer. Where did you get these?”

“H-Mart had some on sale. Upper Darby, if you’re interested in identity theft this weekend.” They started rearranging the throw pillows, seemingly just for something to do with their hands, but possibly to annoy anyone with too poorly-placed of a recording device. “Balladeer?”

“I swear that some people just looked up synonyms for ‘singer’ for thirty seconds before picking one they thought was interesting.” Instead of tearing the wrapper open like a regular person, Valorie decided to see if she could get this one to pop by holding it just so and squeezing between thumb and curled forefinger.

“Interesting is a stretch. I know I’ve done some Johnny Cash covers, but that’s hardly my specialty… Spherica. Dear. Why did you… perk up like that, when I said Johnny Cash?”

“It turns out,” Valorie started, still wrestling with the surprisingly thick wrapper,

“Oh no.”

“…that some people decided to refer to you by other singers’ names. Mr Cash.” With a pop, the candy was freed.

“No.”

“Or would you prefer Mariah Carey, ma’am?” It was going to be difficult to keep a straight face with candy in her mouth while also pestering her client who was most certainly not Mariah Carey, but Valorie would manage.

“Nooo… That was one time.”

“Other options include–”

“Stop this at once, young lady,–”

“–Idol.”

“Too short, and I’m not famous enough.”

“I may contest you on the fame, Composer.”

“I have never composed once in my life since the day I was born.”

“Serenado,”

“No,”

“Seranada,”

“I’m sensing a pattern,”

“Serenadie,”

“Was this from the same people that came up with yours?”

“No, but it was used in the same circles that used The Vocalist.”

“With a capitalized ‘The’? Really?”

“I’m afraid so, Melody.”

“That one’s already taken at least twenty times, with a wait-list.”

“That’s rather unfortunate, Singster.”

“You’re making these up now. By yourself. In your head, right now, you’re making it up.”

“You have no way of proving that without using the internet, Doc Ditty.”

“Don’t ever say that in my office again, young lady.”

“It’s a deal, Caroler. Or Carol if you prefer.”

“And don’t say that one too much or you’ll summon… Her.”

“Word on the street is she’s been gone long enough to likely be dead by now, actually.”

“And? Word on the street is also that she’s too evil to die.”

“Just keeping you up to date, Cold Canary.”

“That sounds like turn of the century slang.”

“…I’m not certain it isn’t.” The candy was very good, she noted, even though she’d been talking around it since she put it in, not quite a realistic strawberry flavor but it certainly tasted very pink. “You know, I found a thread about you where they were trying to come up with an alias that would evoke a speakeasy lounge singer.”

“Who is ‘they’?”

“Teenagers, most likely, working on rumors and nothing else. I gave it a quick look into, no real information breaches. The most they got to was Speakeasy Singer before deciding it was too long and returning to calling you Dr Lullaby, which you may note is the same number of syllables.”

“Why’s everyone convinced I’m a doctor? I’m not even a trained nurse!” Not-Dr-Lullaby and Valorie both glanced around in what had become their usual ‘cursory wiretap acknowledgement’ way with that last sentence.

“Easier shorthand, I suppose. Though that does remind me of a couple more of your nicknames…”

“Are you ever going to run out of those?”

“Perhaps next time. I do have to leave soon, I have… another appointment, you could say.” Standing, she used the rustle of her clothes to mask the sound of her pulling out a folded note, holding it out between two fingers.

“I see, I see, you stick around exactly long enough to bother me but not long enough for me to dish any back, ah?” They stood, doing the same sound-masking trick while accepting the note but not unfolding or giving it a real look just yet.

“Someone in my line of work always knows when to retreat. And I don’t want to be stuck around here when you deal with your potential surveillance. I know you could fix any physical damage after the fact, but I would much prefer to keep my eardrums in a continuous state of…” The wording was going to be awkward, she realized now, but she pressed on, already waving a hand as if to dismiss the way it was phrased. “…remaining unbroken.”

“I’ll tell you if I start calling myself anything silly while you’re out, so you can throw out all your painstakingly collected lists.”

“I’ll make sure it gets laughed off the forums when you do, Beyonce.”

“That’s it, out–”

The truck gang had left Hailey alone for a minute, probably to debate their next move, maybe just to test how long she would put up with sitting there and growing increasingly less comfortable before she tried to call them in to let her shift positions. And, unfortunately, the restraints did not seem to be giving way any time soon, no matter how much she tested it while she was unobserved.

It was difficult to resist the urge to try blasting an energy beam again, as if it would just work this time, as if the ability hadn’t been taken.

The worst part was that she couldn’t tell anyone– at least, not anyone who could actually do anything to help. Or maybe the worst part was that now she could think of somany ways that she might have been able to avoid it, if she’d known what was coming or if she’d acted on her misgivings or if she’d just timed her day differently. Maybe the worst part of it was the aftereffects, and she might have been able to deal with it better if she hadn’t been left sick for days and if her hands didn’t still feel cold and shaky 24/7 no matter what she tried to help it.

Somehow, the worst thing was not the fact that it had been some of her own fellow “superheroes” who had roped her into this situation. Or blackmailed, technically. Coerced, even.

(Man, she’d really been left for over ten seconds while awake, restrained, and unsupervised, and her go-to mental exercise was flashbacks? Maybe it was a side effect of being unconscious for so long.)

Actually, it was slightly weird, both of the very bad things that had happened to her in the last few weeks that involved her being taken somewhere against her will had happened right before she had a date scheduled. And the last time it had happened, she had texted home that she was just going to be a little late, only to be dropped off at her apartment hours later with a case of the worst… just the worst in general. And this time, she’d texted home that she was just going to be a little late, and now it was hours later and…

Was it better or worse that, this time, the only one that had betrayed her was herself?

(Well, her own incorrect assessment of her ability to handle a situation, but that didn’t sound nearly as poetic or dramatic, now did it?)

There was nothing quite like waking up to the feeling of being crushed and having no idea how one had gotten there, when the last thing in memory was a casual morning commute.

Car crash? Building collapse?

Something shifted and Mel was aware of a dull pain in his legs. Were his eyes closed?

There was a distant siren. There was shuffling, voices… actually kind of… familiarvoices…

“Over here!” Very familiar. Not from his family, though, or his friends or workmates or the guy he’d started dating– The familiarity was on the same level as someone from… TV? Was he hearing things?

“Excuse me, are you conscious? Good, please stay awake, you’ll be okay, we’re here to help,” the familiar, somehow soothing voice was saying through the pounding in Mel’s head. It was interrupted by a horrible metallic screeching. (Already-mangled metal door being torn in half by bare hands.)

That sound was too much.

He came to again with a gasp. Various voices were having quick exchanges. His legs felt a lot worse suddenly, not being crushed anymore but like they were… loose? Weirdly? Falling apart. Bleeding? The siren wasn’t distant anymore.

Hands were grabbing him and he wasn’t sure if he needed to get away or try to make things easier–

“Please don’t move!”

Mel’s eyes opened to see a familiar face hovering over his, haloed by angelic yellow light with pulses of flashing red from one side. Brown skin, dark freckles, beautiful hair that he wouldn’t dare touch even in his dreams, deep brown eyes that were even more earnest and mesmerizing in real life and possibly a little bit more due to what might be blood loss. Blue fabric tight across a muscular chest. Halcyon.

“Okay,” he faintly heard himself say without much thinking about it.

Something obviously happened, because Halcyon was a superhero. He was being rescued. By Halcyon. The superhero. Was he carryinghim?

Halcyon was saying something else, maybe explaining something, but Mel’s moment of clarity was fading fast. Everything was moving again. He held still as best as he could and Halcyon smiled reassuringly and, honestly, he felt kind of reassured.

((Continuation of day 2))

The last thing Hailey remembered clearly was choking, and seeing light fly into the distance as her lifeline of a phone call was snatched away.

There had been something after that, less clear, where she was pretty sure she’d tried to make a break for it, but had been slammed into something and… knocked out again? She hadn’t been able to fly away, or she had but someone had stopped her, or she had been too disoriented and smacked herself directly into a wall (she would hope it wasn’t that last one just for dignity’s sake).

When she came to now, the first things she registered were the headache and the general discomfort in her whole body. She was propped up against a wall, arms at her sides, legs splayed out, head hanging forwards. That explained the strain in her neck.

Trying to take a deep breath in, she realized that there was something solid wrapped like a harness around her upper chest and shoulders. Her chin was resting on it. It felt like concrete, which was weird because concrete didn’t normally come in that kind of shape, but then she remembered the woman with the stonelike manipulation power from the night before.

Was it the night before?

How long had she been out?

A soft groan escaped her when she picked her head up, feeling like it was full of lead, and rested it on the wall behind her. (It was probably also concrete, but she wasn’t proficient in identifying materials only by putting the back of her head on them.) There was some kind of light on the other side of her closed eyelids. There was also the sound of a door closing and some voices starting up. It took her a second to catch what any of them were saying.

“…hold out for that long?” That was a raspy voice, not one she had caught before.

“Are you doubting my stoneworking?” That was Concrete Woman from before, and ‘stoneworking’ sounded like it may be shorthand for her superpower.

Hailey noticed a weird ache in her arms, up on the deltoid on her left but closer to the tricep on the right. It could be the aftermath of something from the fight or from the failed escape attempt, but it felt a lot more weirdly specific in its familiarity. Not just normal scrapes, cuts, bruises, or mild stabs.

“Are you saying you’ve used it to hold down a superhero before,” came another voice. Deeper, slightly familiar, as if she had heard it for a second but didn’t remember when or what it had been saying.

“I’m saying it worked on her legs yesterday.”

So that had been the night before. Or, wait, it had been after midnight when all that happened, so was that a “few hours ago” yesterday or a “over twenty four hours ago” yesterday?

“And I’m alsosaying–”

There was a skin-on-cloth slap, like someone hit someone else’s arm to get their attention.

“She’s waking up,” came the raspy one. There was the sound of several people turning in seats, probably to look at Hailey. She probably couldn’t put her head back down and pretend to be unconscious to keep listening in now, she should have thought of that before picking it up.

“Itold you the doses were fine–”

“Shut it and flank.” Concrete Woman sounded like the leader so far.

Hailey opened her eyes to look up at Concrete Woman, who was, as she had demanded, being flanked by two of the taller people from the truck. No new faces, so they were probably still just the smaller group, hadn’t handed her off to anyone else yet, and may not have met up with whoever they were delivering to yet. Or they had finished that trade while she was unconscious (for less than twenty four hours, hopefully), and were now just dealing with her…

“So I’m guessing I can’t, like, pay you to let me stand up,” she said after a second of eye contact and a breath in. The solid binds around her chest were just loose enough to let her breathe in most of the way, but got uncomfortable when she tried to fill her lungs too far. There was something holding her arms down, too, her hands feeling borderline numb against the probably-also-concrete floor.

That actually got a laugh out of Concrete Woman, one single bark of it.

“She thinks she’s funny,” she said to her goons, as if she hadn’t literally just laughed at Hailey’s very funny opening line.

The room they were in looked like a partially-constructed house’s sparsely furnished basement or some kind of empty storage room. Details were blurry past a certain distance, which she hoped was just a temporary just-woke-up kind of thing and not some kind of long-lasting side effect.

“Tough crowd, huh? You must hate stand-up night.” Hailey rolled her eyes up and closed them again. Talking was making her head hurt worse but she didn’t want to let them know that. “I’m going back to bed, wake me up when you’re laying out your whole evil plan in extreme detail.”

That one got a light chuckle out of probably the raspy-voiced one, which stopped after another sound of a skin-on-clothed-arm slap.

“We ain’t the supervillains from newspaper comics, kid,” the raspy-voiced person sounded like they had just started to laugh and then been reprimanded via slap and were trying to get some dignity back by defending their group’s honor. “We know how to keep our mouths shut around nosy hero types.”

“Got a lot of practice with that?” Hailey was about to go on, but when she cracked one eye back open for a Look, she saw that Concrete Woman was stepping in closer to her space, crouching down closer to eye level. “H-hey, personal space, girl,” she said, but wasn’t able to keep it casual enough to cover up her nerves, or hide the fact that she reflexively attempted to shift backwards.

“We moved past personal space, girl, when you decided not to mind your own business,” Concrete Woman said with a malicious smile. Hailey couldn’t decide if the smiling was worse or better than if she had said that exact same thing with a serious face. She watched with barely contained alarm as Concrete Woman reached for her neck–

Oh, actually just the restraints.

Testing them? It sounded like they weren’t all completely sure it would hold up for long, which would be great for Hailey. But, then again, she was a fairly well known superhero, and they seemed to know about her so they might just be concerned that she could energy-blast her way out of this. Probably better not to let them know she was stuck without that ability at the moment, if she could avoid it…

“If we’ve moved past minding our own business, too,” she said to distract from how she started to get tense when Concrete Woman’s inspection moved to the stuff around her arms and hands, “y’know I’ve gotta ask what exactly the plan is, here.”

Catching movement, she glanced up and saw Raspy shifting their weight and rolling their eyes, opening their mouth to presumably restate the thing about not being newspaper comic supervillains.

“I mean,” Hailey plowed ahead, “congratulations, you managed to kidnap a superhero, not exactly easy to do, but that’s also not a normal kind of crime, like, what are you gonna do now? Do you know what the protocol for this stuff is?”

“Sounds like something you could fill us in on, doesn’t it?” Apparently satisfied with whatever she was checking on, Concrete Woman sat back, still a little too close for comfort but no longer completely up in Hailey’s personal space.

“Ha, no, sorry, that’s a little bitsecret.”

“So I’m guessing we can’t, like, pay you to talk about it.” And that phrasing was definitely an imitation of her, not helped by the grin or by the un-reprimanded chuckles from the goons.

“It’s only not funny when I say it?” Hailey managed to put on an air of offense, and when she noted that nobody was looking, dared a second to strain her forearms upwards and find no give. “I’m starting to think you guys have some double standards in here.”

No give on her arms, her hands were starting to shake again, barely helped when she subtly clenched them into fists, flying wasn’t going to help if she couldn’t get out of these restraints, and she wasn’t sure she could rely on it not holding out.

“You really do think you’re funny, huh,” Concrete Woman said in a tone that made Hailey think that perhaps she did not, in fact, like it when the note of humor was gone. This was doubly confirmed when, a second later, she seized a handful of Hailey’s hair and forced her head back against the wall.

“Yeah–” she hissed through her teeth, blinking back spots that were a little concerning because the force of that should not have been strong enough to make spots show up in her vision.

“It’s ‘cause I am funny, keep up.” Even though she was trying to keep up the banter, there was no hiding the pain in her voice now. Better to let them know she experienced pain than to let them know she was presently experiencing a rising panic.

“Keep telling yourself that. It’s a good question, though.” The grip in her hair tightened and pulled her head to one side. “What are we gonna do with you, huh? Like you said, you’re not exactly a normal hostage.” Hostage? That had some more connotations than just captive or kidnapee, with some pros and some cons attached to those connotations. “Wonder what they’d do to get you back with all your limbs attached.”

“Sure you want to find that out?” Hailey did not regret the fact that this one got her head bonked back against the wall again.

“She said they have protocols,” said the deep voiced probably-man. “It might be a risk to contact them.”

“What? No, it’s actually a great idea,” Hailey assured. Another tug on her hair and another crack to the back of her head, a little harder this time. Self preservation should dictate that she stop talking now to avoid getting a concussion or something, but also if she didn’t say anything, she may not be able to manipulate (mansplain malewife–) her way around these guys.

“No suggestions from the peanut gallery,” Concrete Woman said, sounding amused.

There was a second or two where nobody talked. Hailey was starting to wonder how hard the next head bang would be, weighing it against how funny it would be if she timed another quip just right after an extended awkward silence.

“What about Spherica?” Raspy suggested after a second. Hailey’s eyes darted to them, widening for a second, then back to Concrete Woman for a second as she prepared to cover that up by shooting a Look around as if judging all of them. This Look was made a little more difficult by the fact that Concrete Woman had started contemplatively pulling her hair again to make her head tilt the other way. This was all getting very uncomfortable.

“Is that Heatwave’s… mmmanager?” asked Deep Voice. (His confusion was understandable, because nobody was entirely sure what was up with Heatwave and Spherica’s business relationship, probably not even them.)

“More importantly…” Concrete Woman brought her other hand in to push up on Hailey’s jaw for a second or two, both making it harder for her to talk and presumably framing her face for the others. (Yeah, yeah, she and her sister were identical, everyone been knew.) “Comet’s twin sister.”

“I bet she’d like a family visit,” Raspy’s statement was heavy with implications.

(They weren’t exactly wrong.)

It was a nice night out. She preferred the cooler air, although it didn’t do much to help her stinging skin. And this was California, so it was only ‘cool’ compared to how hot it had been a few hours before. (Not that she’d been outside a few hours before, or very much at all in the last few days.) She would probably have been fine in just the threadbare clothes she’d been wearing during most of her latest infiltration, but the scarf and jacket she’d stolen (violently) on her way out was a welcome addition. It concealed most of her exposed injuries and some of the blood stained on her shirt, leaving anyone who saw her only able to wonder about what was up with the top half of her face.

A pretty normal sight, all things considered, to any experienced night guard at the building she was approaching now. The two at her preferred entrance melted out of the shadows as she approached, having definitely seen her coming from a distance.

“Excuse me, ma’am, what is your business at this…” one of them started, trailing off when she pulled the scarf down. She would like to think that it was just because they recognized her and not because the bruising had gotten that much worse since the last time she saw her reflection.

“Friendly afternoon visit,” she said with a winning smile, ignoring how stretching those facial muscles made her want to wince.

“…Can you tell us the date, ma’am?” the other one asked after a second of staring.

“November 3rd, 1923,” she said, still smiling, without skipping a beat.

“Past midnight it’s November 4th, ma’am.” The second one said evenly.

“Of course, the late hour must be getting to me.”

This passed quickly, like two actors going over their thoroughly memorized lines. After an exchanged glance and a pause that would have made anyone else start to doubt their delivery, the first guard nodded, pressed something on their communicator, and stepped back to get the door for her.

Not bothering to pull the scarf back up now, she walked confidently into the dimly lit back entrance area, making a beeline for where she knew the elevator was. There was a special code in here, too, to make it to the penthouse, but she had that one memorized as well.

Leaning back against the support bar for a minute was nice, though she had to position herself carefully so as not to let it dig into her back or side in a bad position. Closing her eyes on the ride up, she hummed slightly in appreciation of how smooth the elevators were here. No jittering to worry about, just a soft whirring and the slight feeling of vertigo as it came to a stop many storeys up in the air.

The more steps she took to get into one of the most well-defended areas of this place, putting a set of barriers between her and anyone who might have been in pursuit, the more tension bled out of her shoulders.

As soon as she stepped out of the elevator, she was met by the familiar face of the butler, who had evidently seen her coming and had already known that it was her, rather than the one other person who was allowed in that elevator with any regularity.

“Hey, Ash,” she said casually before they could get through a more formal greeting, raising one hand in a lazy wave and holding back a wince as it reminded her of a hit she’d taken to the shoulder earlier.

“Good evening.” They sounded as proper and English as ever, and she didn’t miss their perceptive eyes zeroing in on every unusual detail about her current appearance, not only the injuries but definitely also the ill-fitting clothes and hair in desperate need of a wash.

(She’d been lucky no one had decided an impromptu haircut was in the cards. She wouldn’t have been able to stop them without breaking cover, but that would have been a little more awkward to explain to her sisters than the usual aftermath of a prolonged fight.)

“…Victor won’t be in for another week, I’m afraid, but the room is open to you as always,” they said with the air of someone who was giving the usual pleasantries only as a precursor to a more serious subject change, and was not trying to hide it. “Are you alright?” And there was the serious part.

“Yeah,” she shrugged, rolled her shoulders, and this time could not stop a wince. She merged it smoothly into a more joking sort of smile-grimace. “It’s just from the job I’ve been on, there were a couple of “complications,” you know how it is. No death traps in the kitchen tonight?”

The attempt at changing the subject again was not successful, as Ashton followed her into the kitchen and shooed her away to wait on a barstool while they got her a glass of water with exactly one cube of ice. Or, a sphere of ice, because the fridge here was massive and fancy and had both a cube and a sphere option for how the ice could come out.

The water was wonderful to her parched throat, and she held the glass up longer than necessary to let the ice rest against the split in her lip for a few seconds. It was always nice to spend a few minutes after one in the morning sipping water with a tall British person in a suit and pencil skirt hovering over her every move.

“Need something?” she asked with a look over the lip of the glass.

“Are you sure you’re alright, Ms Roxanne? You don’t need… medical attention?” Right, yeah, they were a highly skilled government agent before they became a butler. Definitely had some good first aid training from all that.

“Just some bandaids and a full night’s sleep… And, again, you can call me Roxy.”

Ashton did not look convinced, and then they turned to where she knew the painkillers and general medications of varying strengths were stored. There was no stopping them from this now, but she could try anyway for the principle of the thing.

“I’ve done this before, Ashton, it’s not that bad.”

“To put it lightly, Ms Roxanne, you look as though you tried to fight a team of superheroes. Or, if I were inclined to be generous, won a fight against an entire street gang.” Maintaining stern eye contact, they set down a couple of pills and a cookie.

“Not as wrong as you could be.” Roxy picked up the cookie first, searching both sides with suspicion. It was the imported kind that was labeled ‘biscuit’ instead of ‘cookie’ and which everyone knew she secretly liked but pretended to be suspicious of anyway. Because they were in the US, so being suspicious of England was funny. “What’s this, weird, British thing– trying to poison me?”

“Would you like me to put the biscuit away and let you have an upset stomach? Please pardon me for assuming you haven’t eaten in the last hour.”

Not feeling up to a prolonged bit at the moment, Roxy caved and ate the ‘biscuit’. After swallowing the painkillers with the second half of her water, she let the ice sit for a moment again. It turned out talking too much made the split lip hurt worse, who could’ve guessed?

“I notice you snuck some melatonin in there,” she observed.

“To help you sleep. Pardon me again for assuming you may have some trouble, otherwise,” they paused and looked her up and down again, “considering.”

“Fair,” she admitted.

They sat in silence as she finished off the water one sip at a time. She debated waiting for the ice to melt enough that she could take another tiny sip every several minutes, just to see how Ashton would react, then decided against it and crunched what remained of the ice sphere.

Getting to bed wasn’t too much of a hassle. Ashton followed her to the master bathroom, because of course they did, but left her to go inside by herself. She only heard them step in once she was in the middle of showering, presumably to put some things on the counter and whisk away her dirty and one hundred percent stolen clothing.

Hot water would be nice and she happened to know for a fact that it was literally unlimited here, but she kept it to a mild, lukewarm temperature as she carefully cleaned everything she could currently reach without wincing, and let soap and water wash down her back unassisted to at least get the worst of it off back there. Drying off was a little bit of an ordeal, but the towels were very soft and she didn’t have any head wounds to stop her from wrapping up her hair. Everything she couldn’t get for the risk of aggravating some injury or another could just air dry while she went looking for first aid supplies to use on her face.

When she turned around to see how her back looked, she let out a low whistle. Who knew whips could do that when you weren’t being nice and responsible with them? (Probably every single person who’d ever been remotely involved with the “market” that her latest job had had her infiltrating.)

There were two options here. One, she could put on the silky robe Ashton had left hanging up for her and go to bed without dealing with all that yet, and probably wake up really sore and maybe with some kind of infection. Two, she could get some help tending to it and go to bed with some level of reassurance that it was fine, but at the cost of Ashton knowing exactly how bad it looked.

With a towel around her waist, she cracked the door and summoned them. Their face remained carefully neutral even after they saw, which definitely meant that they thought it was incredibly bad but knew that Roxy would not be taking constructive criticism on the choices she made that led up to it. That, or, they just didn’t want to get into it right now, in favor of getting her into a bed at some point during that melatonin’s window of greatest effect.

There was a lot more stinging disinfectant and a lot more bandaging going on back there than Roxy would have thought necessary, herself, but she wasn’t going to complain. Anything touching the whip marks directly was incredibly Bad with a capital B, but she had to admit to feeling a lot better once they were all cleaned and wrapped up.

The one joke she cracked about how it wasn’t as bad as it could be because she didn’t have any broken bones did not seem to go over well, so she conceded and didn’t say much until they were done. Ashton helped her into the robe and left her to get some pajama pants on by herself, continuing to hover and help until she was safely tucked in between Victor’s silk sheets.

It was still uncomfortable to lie down in most positions she tried, but, then again, that melatonin really was having a window of greatest effect.

- - -

Predictably, Roxy woke up sore. The painkillers had worn off at some point, so she got the full experience of throbbing and stinging and every attempted movement making her limbs want to go on strike. They had not yet managed to achieve independence from the rest of her, however, so when she decided it was time for them to get her standing up, they obeyed. The blackout curtains did their job well, so she had to pull one back slightly if she wanted to see by anything other than the soft, slightly futuristic floor lights on the edges of the room.

Taking stock, she determined that this was actually better than a couple of the times she’d come out of a mission injured. When her hair fell into her face for want of a headband, it was soft and light from being cleaned with incredibly expensive, high quality rich-people products, and she knew her back would have been a lot worse without Ashton’s help.

Speaking of Ashton, they seemed to have woken up before her, because she could smell something cooking. Possibly more than one something, which would make sense if they still felt like hovering but hadn’t come in to wake her up yet. There was the almost-imperceptible sound of voices, as if they were talking to themself or perhaps playing a video. Cooking tutorial, maybe.

The stolen clothing from the night before was nowhere to be seen; either it was waiting to be washed or Ashton had burned it. Roxy wasn’t worried about what happened to most of it, but it would be nice if the bloodstained parts had been saved in case she felt like getting them tested for genes.

Leaving the robe on the bed, she stretched her arms as much as they dared as she made her way to steal one of Victor’s shirts. They were long enough that she had gone around the penthouse in one with no pants before (but she would rather get stabbed again than get out of these soft pajama pants before eating something). There were no headbands to steal in Victor’s bedroom, and she didn’t feel like scavenging the bathroom for elastics, clips, or pins. So, with her hair loose, wearing no more than pajama pants, bandages, and an oversized button-up shirt, she pushed her hair back and stepped out.

Ashton was, indeed, doing their thing in the kitchen, wearing pants today along with an apron that looked a little too professional for someone making relatively normal breakfast in a non-restaurant kitchen. More curtains kept the floor-to-ceiling windows in the main area from letting in too much light, but from the angle and brightness she could still estimate that it must be later than she usually woke up. And from a glance at the clock, she could confirm that it was almost nine in the morning. She had reallyoverslept.

As she nosed her way into the cooking space, she found them carefully transferring what looked like small fried pies out of a skillet. Uncooked ones waited their turn on a plate nearby.

“You need a little more oil,” she observed, her voice coming out a little more thick and sleepy than she would have liked. Actually wait, hold on, she hadn’t seen anyone making these since the last time she visited family. “You can make spanakopita?” The question came out sounding like an accusation.

“I can make anything, given a good recipe, Ms Roxanne.” So that probably had been a cooking video she’d heard before. Ashton removed the last one from the pan and reached for more oil, but refrained from putting any new ones in until they had turned to shoo her away from the barstools. “I would invite you to wait in the living area,” was their way of banishing her, possibly to avoid having their cooking process nitpicked again. Possibly also to keep her from seeing them pull up a tutorial to nitpick their own cooking process with.

When she stifled a yawn with the back of her hand, she was reminded of her shoulders’ present desire to complain about everything but especially movement. Sitting down in a chair that had a soft back would be pretty nice…

The living area was surrounded by sliding walls that could be used to keep it more or less separate from the adjacent sometimes-areas sometimes-rooms. At the moment, it had a wide doorway on one side, a deployed wall opposite the full length windows, and a view into Victor’s office area and the back of his tall spinny chair. Were she feeling inclined to snoop, Roxy would have looked into there, but was distracted easily by the setup surrounding one of the lounge chairs. A side table held a full glass of water with exactly one sphere of ice, a small pitcher with more water and no ice, and a tall mug of steeping tea. The matching table on the other side held a very inviting plate of buttered toast, with a fried egg sitting on top of one piece. 

For a second, she thought about draping herself over a couch instead of taking the obviously intended seat, just to see how Ash reacted. But her desire for water and toast outweighed her desire for mischief at this time, so she sank down into the black leather and took a second to close her eyes and breathe in and will her strained muscles to relax. It wasn’t like the guys she’d been spying on could make it up here, even if they had somehow tracked her all the way to the building. And her next information rendezvous wasn’t until that evening, so she could take a minute to chill.

When her eyes opened, it was to the realization that her current seat was centered perfectly behind Victor’s chair, brought to her by the realization that said chair was slowly turning around.

Of the two supervillains that she was familiar with, she knew that one of them participated in dramatics mostly because it helped with the stress of the job, and partly because it was fun. Victor Stirling, on the other hand, having inherited quite a few things from his supervillain parents including a general style of mannerisms, was probably not doing the chair spin reveal thing ironically.

Before he came to a stop, facing her head-on, Roxy put together that Ashton must have called him about her condition either while she was in the shower or after she had fallen asleep last night. If he hadn’t meant to come back for another week, very few other things could have summoned him on such short notice.

She prepared a smirk and a tease about him being predictable, but both died before making it out when she met his eyes.

“So I’m not known for cutting business meetings short.” Starting off strong with a non sequitur, classic. Roxy’s smile started to edge back on as she watched Victor stand up from his seat.

“Catch you in the middle of one?” she asked, then remembered her voice wasn’t great at the moment and she would be partaking of some water before saying anything else.

“No, I was just starting the day in Spain, actually,” he answered while watching as if worried that she might have trouble drinking water, of all things. And without waiting for another response, he launched right back into… Ooh, he was monologuing.

“Allow me to paint a picture of it for you. It was past ten in the morning, I had completed much of my less savory business the night before, and had the entire afternoon ahead of me booked with meetings on the more savory side of things, when suddenly I find I’m receiving a call from my good, trusted friend Ashton, whom you may be aware I’ve expressly told to call me only in the circumstances of an emergency.

“And, upon answering this call, what should I hear them say, but that my girlfriend arrived at a late hour and is much worse for wear.

“Now, I know that my dear, competent, intelligent partner is experienced and knows how to handle herself in her work, so if Ashton is calling my emergency line, the situation she finds herself in must be truly dire, no? Certainly not the usual bouts of combat –which I am well aware you can normally teleport out of the moment they become too much– and certainly not gained from your usual heists and espionage, no, I was told that you seem to have been whipped?”

The worry in his voice was clear, and would have been clear even to someone who didn’t know him well enough to read him. As he drew closer, having apparently vented enough of his feelings for the moment to move to the next stage of his presentation, Roxy saw that his suit was rumpled and was probably, in fact, the same suit he had put on before 10 AM in Madrid. Had he slept at all? Maybe on the couch she had been eyeballing a second before this began. If anyone had gone into his bedroom while she was asleep, she probably wouldn’t have stayed asleep for very long.

“And I don’t mean to put down your skills, it would be foolish for anyone in my position to suggest that you aren’t a professional, or chose your mission poorly. But your present state is…” He broke eye contact to look down at the gauze covering her torso through the gap in the stolen shirt. He probably knew that it was there for everything on her back, but he wouldn’t be wrong to wonder if it was also hiding any bruises over her ribs or stomach area. She knew there was a pretty bad one peeking out by her collarbone.

“Roxanne. Roxy. I know that in our… business relationship, I tend to be the one who calls on you for assistance in these underground affairs, but you must know that you can call on me when something is… of a caliber where you may want my assistance.” He stopped a couple of steps in front of her, giving another up and down look. “You mentioned you were going into something undercover.”

“Deep undercover,” she confirmed. When he kept looking expectant, she continued, leaning forward to get to business, “It wasn’t in the cards to go in on the same level as the higher-ups, and we needed to confirm how exactly they get the victims and transport them. So I posed as one.”

Victor was quiet for a moment, his crossed arms rising, then falling as he took a breath and let it out.

“You remained just long enough to get the necessary information,” he assumed, and she nodded. Letting out another breath, he closed the distance and half-knelt in front of her in one smooth motion, reaching up to put a hand gently under her chin, moving it to cup the side of her face. “Then I hope you’ll be able to tell me,” his voice was softer now, not that that in any way concealed the dangerous undertone as his eyes lingered on her split lip, black eye, the faint bruise left from a harsh slap, “who did this to you?”

The superhero Comet was the best flier in the city, the only one who didn’t need support items to get or stay in the air and wasn’t a villain. Even with her other power of energy beams …not available to her at the moment (her hands were still so cold) she was capable enough to get by, focusing on rescues and playing support in fights.

The thing about being a superhero was that there wasn’t always someone to fire energy blasts at, but there was always someone who could use the help of someone who could fly. She hadn’t even risen… that much concern or suspicion, probably, since the second power had been taken. Just a look or two when she kept wearing gloves even outside of costume and a couple of comments about how her hands kept shaking. It was fine, anyway, when she was in costume and in her headquarters’ jurisdiction and could rely on backup at any second.

The superhero Comet was not in costume and was not within her headquarters’ jurisdiction. Hailey Park was outside her city’s limits entirely, all of her armored Comet costume was at HQ, and the backup set was in her apartment where her boyfriend had been waiting for their date that night.

She was going to be a little late.

Mildly suspicious activity wasn’t enough to make a call on, but she’d gotten a feeling on the way home, when she saw the truck being loaded across the street. Suspicious truck loading plus a feeling of pure instinct still wasn’t enough to call headquarters or the regular police, and she had told herself she would only follow for a minute to see if they did anything outright illegal or went somewhere completely innocuous and she could call to sheepishly explain that she’d been held up on the date by her own baseless paranoia.

Flying made it easy to move quietly and keep up, and to find the truck again after losing its tail once or twice. (Even though it felt weird to be doing this in sneakers and her boyfriend’s affectionately stolen jacket, without any extra eye protection. At least she knew to keep her mouth shut so she wouldn’t swallow any bugs.)

She’d been following for more than a minute, they had left the city, the sun was going down, and she still couldn’t shake that feeling that something was wrong here. Something familiar about the boxes they’d loaded… she couldn’t get close enough to verify that without being seen herself. Once they were out of city limits, they got moving too fast for her to get a good moment and shoot off a text with more elaboration, she had to keep her eyes on them and stay moving constantly to keep up. (Which sucked, because she was starting to think that the quick [Checking something out, won’t take too long <3] sent an hour ago wasn’t going to cut it at this point.)

They were in another town. She hadn’t caught the name. The truck had pulled into an area that wasn’t quite a parking lot, but also wasn’t small enough for Hailey to want to call an alleyway. Sheltered by buildings on all sides, nowhere high profile enough to have a night guard, just workplaces whose occupants had all gone home by now.

It was behind one of these buildings that Hailey had touched down and leaned as close to the corner as she dared, peeking out through a shadowed area.

The truck’s occupants didn’t seem to be unloading yet, almost as if they were waiting for something. They all seemed pretty distracted talking to each other, and their conversation wasn’t damning outright but it also wasn’t reassuring her. They spoke roughly, though only one of them looked rough enough to match. Whatever was in the boxes was important, somehow, but she couldn’t tell whether they were trading them to someone else, waiting for some kind of signal, or just stopping for the night. It was getting a little late, but they hadn’t been driving for that long since loading up…

“Did you ding up my truck?” rang out louder than everything else, coming from a shorter but muscular woman who had just walked around to the passenger side, where Hailey couldn’t see from her current vantage. The others swarmed to look, several of them taunting the one who seemed second tallest out of the group.

Hailey didn’t like not being able to see them all clearly, but the bonus here was that they couldn’t see her either so she could lean out a little more to get a better look at the boxes, finally catching a glimpse of the symbol on the side of one–

Eyes widening, she heard herself gasp, then drew back immediately and would have scolded herself if it wouldn’t definitely give away her position.

Someone needed to know about this, now.

After a few seconds of holding still, with her heart racing in her ears, it… didn’t sound like anyone had raised an alarm.

Not wanting to risk being heard moving, she floated herself a few steps farther back before taking out her phone, gripping it tightly so her shaking hands wouldn’t drop it again.

Had it not been silenced that whole time? (It was on vibrate, sure, so it wouldn’t be blasting pop lyrics unexpectedly, but she took an extra second to make sure its sound was completely off, and turn down the brightness for good measure.)

The first thing she saw was the last text window, now with several increasingly concerned follow-ups from her boyfriend. Her index finger hovered over the quick call button, but… she couldn’t risk it right now. She’d just hide its light against her shirt, float back to make sure she could still hear a casual conversation, there wasn’t a need to fly straight up and hit the panic switch. She could hide again and start to type, quickly not even fixing the mistakes caused by shaking or by fingertips being a little too cold for the touch screen to read immediately.

(A tiny smile couldn’t help forming when she saw [Hot HotBaby <3 is typing…] pop up on his side of the texts just a few seconds after she started. It was also a relief to know there would be a quick response.)

He knew about her… situation, with her power being “confiscated” and how it had happened, so he would know the urgency of getting this news out just as soon as she could tap out something at least slightly intelligible–

There was a face reflecting behind hers in the darkened glass.

With the phone against her chest again, she jumped forward, turning midair just in time to see something crash down in the space she’d just been occupying.

“Caught a little birdie over here~!” Called out the muscular woman from before, who was perched in a windowsill on the building Hailey had been using for shelter. How had she gotten there so quietly?

The thing that had crashed looked like it was made of the same concrete as this exterior wall. Some kind of material manipulation power? Specifically stone-like materials, or–

Whatever it was, Hailey was getting out of there immediately.

Two things happened before she could get more than an inch or so off the ground: Something heavy slammed into her from behind, and something solid caught around her ankles, trapping them in place. She was able to use the leverage from being stuck to keep from getting completely bowled over, but that would’ve been easier to recover from if she weren’t being held down and kept from getting any altitude. Arms came around and she realized the weight was a person (and that there were now several more people in the alley than there’d been a second ago).

This may have just gone from a situation to a Situation.

Fortunately, she had finely honed reflexes for just this sort of unexpected combat situation. Unfortunately, those reflexes relied on a power that she did not currently have.

Instead of a blast of cyan energy weakening the concrete bonds or making her assailant rethink their current course of action, what she got was a sudden icy numbness shooting from her fingers and palm up through her entire arm as her hand’s shaking intensified. That made it harder to try to wrestle them off manually, especially since she was still reserving one whole arm for protecting her phone and trying to hit the call button without looking.

Things were escalating a little too quickly. She managed to clumsily grab, twist, and throw them off before bending down to pull at the things wrapped around her legs, willing her fingers to keep working through the feeling of being frozen from the inside. (The phone was kept hugged to her chest– the less attention she drew to the light it let out and the attempts she was making to call for backup, the more likely it would be to do something.)

“Think you can break concrete? Good luck with that.”

There was a snort, then someone’s hand in her hair. They got her head pulled back before she could duck to the side and bring her forearm up to knock them away. All but one of the people from the truck was now clustered around her, as casual as if looking at a cool bug someone had found instead of a person who’d just caught them transporting–

“Hey hey wait is that Comet. You got heroes on our tail?”

“No way, Comet would’ve blasted–” The hand was back in her hair and the only reason she hadn’t lost her balance and fallen was that she was technically still flying right now. At least now she was wearing more of a glare than a look of wide-eyed panic. “Holy–”

For the first time, Hailey had a moment of second-guessing her decision to be a more publically open hero.

“Back off or I will start blasting,” she said, straightening up suddenly, and with enough force that there was actually a pause as wary eyes went to her hands… 

And just enough quiet that the pre-call dialing sound could be heard from her phone.

“Shut her up.” Concrete Woman snapped and the group jumped into action.

It wasn’t the most choreographed assault Hailey had ever witnessed or been the target of, but it was still difficult to fight off four people with one arm that refused to respond consistently or register when it was touching something, while stuck to the ground. Before the dialing could finish, she found her arms being wrenched out of her control and someone behind her again with a forearm pressing sharply against her neck. She could get out of this hold if she had both hands free, but she refused to let go of the phone yet, she wasn’t confident enough that she could get out of this without any backup.

When she heard it pick up, the only sound she could get out was a –literally– strangled gasp, to which she felt that chokehold tightening further. None of the others spoke. Through wavering vision, she caught a couple of nods and jerking of heads in lieu of verbal communication.

‘Hailey?’ came the sound of her boyfriend’s worried voice, sparking off a fresh round of struggle as she turned her head and yanked her hand back, trying to get a less dangerous angle in the chokehold so she could get out one word, and trying to keep any of them from hanging up on him before he could hear it.

For her troubles, a hand pressed in over her mouth and nose and someone twisted her arm painfully, digging their nails into her skin, until the phone clattered to the ground.

Some of her muffled cries must have been heard, because she could hear her name being repeated more urgently, then breaking off into something she couldn’t quite catch because either he’d gotten quieter or there was a little too much blood rushing in her head.

Her eyes had been squeezed shut with effort, but even when she opened them everything was getting a lot darker than it really should be, and she was having trouble making sense of what she saw. Having gone still for a second, the hold stopped getting tighter and she was able to make out the rectangular glow, someone had picked it up, then another glow like it was being surrounded by some kind of energy… The form of someone drawing back to throw at maximum strength.

With whatever breath she had left, she screamed against the hand as loudly as she could, cut off after less than a second when it felt like her neck was suddenly crushed.

Voices picked up again as the spot of light sped into the distance and disappeared, but everything was already going black.

And finally, the civilian identities of these heroes: (1)(2)

Tristan and Izzy are at their loneliest point when they find each other…but neither of them yet realize they’ve already met.

The villain turned on their side to face the hero. “That was nice, but I thought you hated me.”

“I guess I hate myself more.”

The prison cell was deigned to be perfectly secure. The only place on earth Supervillain couldn’t break out of.

Unfortunately, it was so secure that the guards couldn’t figure out how to open it to get them inside.

“I could have saved you,” the hero said.

“I wouldn’t have needed saving if it wasn’t for you,” the anti-hero replied.

“You were supposed to love me,” the villain whispered.

“You were supposed to be lovable,” their soulmate whispered back.

“That was your last chance,” the hero threatened.

“And that was your last breath,” the villain replied with a serene smile.

Looking to develop your villain further? Trying to build a villain for the first time?  Look no further for here is a simple guide to building a fearsome villain for your story. Disclaimer: I’m a fantasy writer, this will be fantasy based. 

Step 1: Choose a Motivation

While this can be anything, some common motivations are: Power, Legacy, Revenge, Respect, Protectionism, Hate, Love, Indifference, Drive for Utopia, and Infliction of Pain. Now you might be thinking I can understand why the last one is villainous, but some of the others seem okay! Remember, a villains motivations should be understandable, and their goals can be noble, but it is the means that make them “bad.”

Step 2: Decide if They Really are “Bad” 

Despite my previous statement, some villains are just trying to achieve noble goals by noble means. This is actually a really good way to get your audience thinking about your theme if it ties in well. The flipside of this is my personal favourite – make the heroes bad too. 

Step 3: Design Their Personality 

There are a few traits you’ll want to consider in particular and in the extremes. Make sure to chose the side that your hero will struggle with more. Villains should be handcrafted challengers, designed to ruin your hero. 

• Intelligence vs Stupidity - A villain who can scheme intricate plots is terrifying, but extreme stupidity leads to recklessness and unpredictability, good for control freak heroes. 
• Short Temper vs Controlled Emotions - Short tempered villains are a threat to anyone close to them, while those that can control their emotions can be highly manipulative. 
• Calculated vs Irrational - This again leans into the trade off between the unbeatable factor and the unpredictability factor. Both are equally fearsome.
• Charismatic vs Black Seep – Why do their followers believe in them? Is it because they can talk the hind legs off a donkey or was your villain an outcast come to take their revenge. 

Don’t underestimate the stupid, short tempered, irrational black sheep. They often have intelligent advisors pulling their strings while their stupidity causes chaos like no other. 

Step 4: Ask Yourself Why? 

Not just Why did my villain set out on this path? orWhy don’t they see the harm they’re causing? but also Why have I reached the end of a post specifically using ‘they’ pronouns and imagine a white man with black hair and dark eyes? Because many of you will have done just that, particularly for the intelligent, manipulative villain with more power than you could ever imagine. Ask yourself why intelligent, charismatic villains with goals outside of revenge and love need always be a man. Some villains are just heroes who don’t understood the cost of their actions. Ask yourself why they shouldn’t be diverse and stereotypical caricatures. 

This post is quite long enough. I reckon I’ll do a part 2 if you guys like it :) 

[If reposting to instagram please credit @isabellestonebooks] 

Prompt #260

Civilian looks down in horror. The body of Hero lies broken against a pile of rubble in the aftermath of a battle against Supervillian.

How will the city survive without their protector and figure of hope?

Clenching their jaw, Civilian gently brings the fallen Hero to a more private, dignified place. It wouldn’t do for the rest of the public to come upon this scene and lose hope.

With Hero properly laid to rest, Civilian looks down at the torn cape cradled in their hands. The city needed a new protector.

Prompt #258

“For the love of all that is evil—if you touch that one more time you will most certainly regret it!”

Prompt 361

“Now love, don’t do that.”

The hero jolted. Hair forgotten, their scissors dropped from their hands to the sink. “Who are you? How did you get in here?”

The villain ignored the question. “Such perfect hair is hard to come by.” Their eyes made the hero’s stomach turn.

Prompt 360

“How did you get these plans?” The sidekick’s eyes shined in admiration.

The hero puffed out their chest. “Careful planning, keen observation, the sheer force of raw intelligence-”

Their coworker interrupted with an unimpressed eye roll. “{Villain} plans all their bases in a public Minecraft server.”

Prompt 359

“Did you know that five people a year die from lamp-related injuries?”

The hero glanced at their friends and laughed. “Wrong. How stupid can you be?”

“Really? Huh,” the villain’s gaze flicked between the five heroes and the lamp beside them. “That’s fine. I’ll fix it.” They lept.

Prompt 357

“I feel stolkholm syndromed!” The villain pressed their face against the bars. “There’s only one cure. Let me out so I can take you to dinner. I totally won’t escape.”

The prison guard sighed.

Prompt 356

“How much longer do I need to stay here?” The hero asked, eyes scanning the barren landscape. “I miss my city.”

Unbidden, a smile formed on the villain’s face. “Darling, if you’re fine with making me angry, you can leave whenever you want.”

Prompt 355

“No.”

The villain’s face fell and their flowers dropped. “Is it because of my criminal background? I’d give it all up.”

“There’s nothing wrong with you,” the hero answered with a sigh. “It’s me.”

Adoration and praise sprung to the villain’s lips, but the hero cut them off. “I don’t age.”

“You-”

“I’m not getting older. I’ll be here long after you’re dead.” Forgetting himself, the hero laid a hand on the villain’s cheek. “A sunset gone too soon.”

Prompt 354

“My only regret is ever being your friend.”

Prompt 353

Dear Santa, the hero wrote, Please give me a villain with brains this time.

Prompt 352

“Doc,” the villain looked at their therapist, eyes wide in realization. “I might have a thing for capes.”

Prompt 351

“I’m moving up your essay due date.” The professor announced, voice rising over the chorus of groans. “Get it in by tomorrow.”

The hero laid their head on the desk with a frown. They were supposed to be on a stakeout tonight! The timing couldn’t have been worse.

The professor smothered a grin.

gingerly-writing:

nuttynutcycle:

Prompt 350

“Darling, I knew you were lying. I’m the most powerful person in the city.“ The villain said matter-of-factly. “No one dates me without trying for a taste of it.”

“Why- why would you….” Their lover stumbled over their words before adding quietly, “Why didn’t you break up with me?

The villain gave a sad smile and glanced down. “I hoped that your love for me trumped your lust for power.”

“Lust for power? I don’t- I don’t want to be powerful. That’s your job- thing. Your thing.” He shifted nervously, foot to foot. “It looks good on you. I wouldn’t suit it.”

“A lust for my power, then. Much the same, if only not requiring my disposal.”

“Disposal?! No, I- that’s not what I-”

“Wouldn’t suit your plans?” The villain’s gaze drifted down, swept back up again. Searching.  No. Dissecting. “So I am alive for a reason. Nice to know.”

Their lover spluttered. “I don’t killpeople-”

“I do.” Their gaze sharpened, their words a whetstone. “Ah. So that’s it. You wanted a killer on a leash. A pet rottweiler.”

“I hardly thought you’d let me leash you. You much prefer to be on the other end.”

“So you hoped I would leash you. A favoured lapdog.” They stepped forward, cape swirling around their ankles. “Defended, protected. Which means you must have other enemies?”

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Prompt 350

“Darling, I knew you were lying. I’m the most powerful person in the city.“ The villain said matter-of-factly. “No one dates me without trying for a taste of it.”

“Why- why would you….” Their lover stumbled over their words before adding quietly, “Why didn’t you break up with me?

The villain gave a sad smile and glanced down. “I hoped that your love for me trumped your lust for power.”

Prompt 349

The villains eyes raked over the hero’s brightly colored outfit and limply dangling cape. Their mouth twitched when the hero’s legs shook visibly. “Oh darling, you’ve walked into the lion’s den smelling of fresh meat.”

Prompt 348

“Rule of thumb: the more primary colours a super hero wears, the more likely they are to use ‘friendships as a power.’”

“And if it’s a supervillain?”

“…more likely to be a killer clown.”

Prompt 347

“If capes were a family, we’d be more incestuous than the Brady Bunch cast.”

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“I won’t let you do this.”

The villain laughed at that. “And what could you possibly do to stop me? Die?”

“If I have to.” The hero’s voice was calm, their heartbeat steady, their eyes set with determination.

“Oh, no,” the villain grinned, plucking the sword from the hero’s hand like it was nothing as pure chaos swirled in the depths of those dark eyes. “No, you’re much too precious for that.”

“Miss me?”

A crooked grin spread across the villain’s lips at the sight of their hero standing before them once again.

“Yes,” the hero whispered, without hesitation. Their voice was small and weak, but their heart warmed at the sound of the villain’s voice, tense shoulders slumping in relief as they met the villain’s eyes. “Yes.”

The villain’s face fell into a frown, eyes flicking up and down the hero, taking them in—they were thinner than before, tired and bruised and beaten, their eyes empty and broken—the villain’s heart cracked at the sight of it.

“Come on in, then,” the villain said, voice soft as they stepped aside for the hero. “I’ve missed you too.”

“How does it feel?” the hero grinned, voice dripping with venom. “To be powerless?”

The villain strained desperately, helplessly, against the chains that bound them, reaching inside theirself for the magic that should be thrumming through their veins, for any hint of their power, but they were empty. Trapped.

“Please,” the villain whispered, voice cracking.

“Not so fun, is it?” The hero flashed a wicked smile, cruel delight shining in their eyes as they leaned over the villain, trailed a finger down the villain’s shoulder.

The villain flinched at the touch, at the hero’s closeness, thrashing wildly against bonds they had no hope of breaking—not with their power gone, stripped away by the hero. Panic hit the villain in full force, blurring their thoughts, burning in their chest, crushing the air from their lungs.

“Please,” the villain whispered again, a soft, broken plea. “I’ll do anything.”

“Oh, darling,” the hero sighed, nails digging into the villain’s skin as they stood to tower over their prisoner.

“It’s too late.”

“You really thought you could get away with this?”

The hero towered over the villain, strong and composed even as their hands shook with the pain of the betrayal. Their eyes shone not with anger but with pity, disappointment, and the force of it hit the villain like a brick to the chest. They wished the hero would cry and rage and scream, wished they would just explodewith anger at what the villain had done, but the hero only stood there, tall and silent and so very, very disappointed.

“No,” the villain whispered, head bowed, eyes locked on the ground, cheeks flushed with shame.

“But I didn’t see another choice.”