I’m sorry Anon! I don’t even have any good excuses, my land is not flooded, my home was not destroyed by fire, my people were not killed by disease, college is just kicking me to the curb this semester--fortunately that is where trash is supposed to be....So I have that going for me I guess.
Here is the continuation of Whumptober #10 that you asked for, with a bit of a prequel to show what happened exactly that messed hero up so badly.
It’s really long, but I hope it’s worth the wait? However I’m also a realist, so....
They sat with them for the rest of the night, as they had the other nights, at one point they fell asleep, their head resting on the hospital bed next to hero’s shoulder.
At around three in the morning they were ripped from sleep by the sound of the window shattering.
The antagonist jumped to their feet, chair knocked to the floor in their haste, not even fully awake as they tried to focus bleary eyes to locate the source of the noise. When they do manage to see clearly, their heart hammering in their chest, they see the other Villain’s sidekick looking at them quizzically as they climbed into the dimly lit hospital room from the shattered window.
“You’re the last person I expected to be here,” Villain’s sidekick said blandly, shaking broken glass off of their jacket, “Trying to get to them before we did?” They chuckled almost conspiratorially, ambling easily over to the other side of the hospital bed, picking up one of the extra pillows brought in by well meaning team mates as they went.
“Uh, yeah,” their voice is raspy with sleep, they can’t believe they’d fallen asleep! They clear their throat, “And I was here first so...” They hope that it will be enough for sidekick to leave--honor among killers and all that.
“Sorry,” sidekick smirks, not paying them much mind, “I’ve got orders to follow, you know how it is,” they shrug, like they’d gotten the last maple scone at the coffee shop.
But the antagonist did not know how it was, not even a little, they went cold when they realized what sidekick was going to do with that pillow.
Sidekick stood over the helpless hero for a moment, not even looking at them, but checking their texts casually holding the pillow in their other hand.
The antagonist had to do something, but this wasn’t Villain themselves, Villain they could take, sidekick was a trained killer, cold and unrepentant, not to mention deadly, their panicked eyes scan the room frantically looking for something that they could use to knock them out. Knowing that they had no chance in hand to hand combat, but also knowing that they would have to try if it came down to it.
“I’ve been fighting them longer,” they start, hoping their voice doesn’t give away their nerves, “So I think it’s only fair that I get to finish them,” but sidekick only shoots them a confused glance before placing the pillow over hero’s pale bruised face--and pressing down.
“That’s not how this--” Sidekick starts to say, but the antagonist acts without thinking, they pounce on sidekick, wrenching them away from hero, wrapping their forearm around their throat from the back and squeezing as hard as they can. Sidekick is momentarily taken by surprise, the antagonist wasn’t known for their violence, they weren’t expecting an attack, they choke, hands scrambling at the antagonist's arms as they attempt to break their hold. The antagonist squeezes their eyes shut and focuses on holding on, if they lose their grip they’re done for--and so is hero.
Sidekick rams them against the wall and all of the breath rushes from the antagonist's lungs in a painful wheeze, they struggle to draw air into their burning chest, but find themselves unable, their vision explodes with bright light as sidekick repeats the action and their head thumps sickly against the wall, but they can’t let go, sidekick shifts gears, elbowing them in the side, the antagonist grunts sharply but doesn’t let go, they can feel sidekick weakening in their arms. Then sidekick pushes back unexpectedly, breaking their hold as they fall on top of them.
Sidekick gasps, coughing and sputtering, but they don’t give the antagonist a chance to regroup, turning sharply they grab their shoulders and smash them into the floor savagely, the antagonist’s head bounces off of the tile, they grunt as the action is repeated three more times in rapid succession. Only when they are too dizzy to sit up, fighting their unfocused eyes from slipping shut, blood pooling in a crimson halo around their head does the sidekick stop, panting, they release the antagonist's shoulders.
“What the fuck are you doing!” They shout down at them both angry and confused, “Trying to save them? You’re the one who put them here!?”
The Antagonist remembers, remembers how the hero had shown up to stop them like always, but how they’d been more quiet than normal, hands trembling almost too badly to fight, how they’d taken cruel advantage of that weakness. How they’d laughed at them, and beaten the far too easily, taking a few cheap shots at them, kicking them when they were down... stifling the growing concern when the hero had barely fought back, groaning at every landed hit, and taken that damned shot....a shot that wasn’t ever meant to hit it’s target, a shot that hero should have--and had in the past-- easily dodged--but this time they hadn’t, the shot had hit them right where the antagonist had been aiming--and they’d never felt more evil than they did when hero’s suit had started growing crimson and they’d collapsed, their blood staining the floor. When they’d ripped away hero’s suit--trying to get at their injury better--they’d seen the deep purple-black of their rib cage that moved at the wrong times when they breathed, their gaunt pale frame, the poorly bandaged stab wounds.
What in the world had they been doing? Their team couldn’t have known about their wounds and let them out to fight could they? It had to be another Villain, the antagonist hadn’t done this, not that it really mattered, it didn’t change what they had done...
Sidekick shook their head in disgust, letting the antagonist slump to the ground, “I don’t get you guys,” they mumble angrily to themselves, knowing the antagonist can’t hear them above the ringing in their ears. Sidekick returned to their duty, replacing the pillow and smushing it to hero’s face, they are blindsided by a punch to the side of their head.
The antagonist's brain is working sickly, but they know that they have to get up, they have to stop Villain’s sidekick--no matter what.
Sidekick whips around, more than a little surprised to see the antagonist swaying heavily, barely on their feet, their hair slick with their own blood. The antagonist reaches out and clumsily, with shaking hands rips the pillow off of the hero’s face and tosses it across the room--the motion throwing off their balance, but when they manage to turn back to the shocked sidekick they strike a fighting pose, swaying so badly that it looks like they’re drunk.
The sidekick laughs darkly, and punches them across the face, the antagonist’s head snaps to the side, they groan as their legs fold underneath them. Sidekick waits patiently, watching in amusement as they struggle to their feet again, panting and bleeding, their eyes dazed and unfocused.
Sidekick is so focused on the antagonist's struggling that they don’t see hero’s partner sneak up behind them with a taser, sidekick doesn’t even know they’ve been beaten until they are writhing on the floor as the electricity surges through them.
“What the fuck are you doing here” The hero’s partner shouts at the antagonist after sidekick has passed out on the floor, they grab the front of the antagonist’s bloody shirt and yank them close.
Someone has asked them that before, recently? The antagonist can’t remember who, they can’t think, their head hurts, pounding with splitting agony on every heartbeat, “M’helpin’,” They try to explain holding up their trembling hands, even as they sink to their knees with a groan.
“Helping?!” Partner growls in disbelief, “I’m going to kill you for what you did!”
The antagonist isn’t sure of what they did, but they know that they do bad things, look at what they’d done to hero--plus someone was bleeding, there was blood all over the floor, they think that that is probably their fault--that they probably deserve whatever partner is going to do to them. They can only ever remember the first time partner hits them, how it makes the pain in their head even worse somehow, something enormous, they can’t take it. They go limp in partner’s bruising grasp, their eyes rolling back in their head--not that it stops partner.
When leader rushes into the room a few minutes later they have to pull partner off of the antagonist, throwing them onto their backside on the bloody tile floor.
“Shit!” They exclaim, feeling nauseous as they look at the bloody mess of the antagonist, panic building in their chest, leaning closer searching for a pulse--when they find one, feather light and far too fast, they glare at the partner, “Hero okay?”
The partner nods sullenly, their eyes are still full of murderous intentions, “I’m going to kill them, I promised hero.”
“Do you even know what happened here?” They ask incredulously, gesturing to Villain’s sidekick unconscious on the floor, “Or did you just see red, huh?!” Leader is angrier than partner has ever seen them before, “We don’t beat people to death! Hero wouldn’t want that!”
“H-he d-def-definitely w-wouldn’t,” Hero agreed shakily from the bed, leader and partner jumped to their feet, rushing over to hero’s bedside.
Hero smiled up at them weakly, their eyelids heavy, their eyes met their partner’s blearily, “D-don’ K-kill them...” they murmured, “W-were go-gonna need th-them.”
“Need them for what bud?” Leader prompted gently, but hero doesn’t answer, their eyelids slip closed again, leaving behind more questions than answers.
Partner met leader’s eyes over the bed, “What was hero up to before the bastard shot them?”
Leader shook their head, starting to gather the antagonist into their arms, “ I don’t know,” they admitted, “But whatever it was it must have been something big.”
