retirement
Synopsis: Lou Ranger, aka the young superhero Nebulous, faces an early end to her career.
Content Warnings: superhero whumpee, female whumpee, captured, drugged, stripped, auctioned off, threatened nsfwhump
Author’s Notes: Super whumpee! I do love a fucked up auction 🥰
Read on AO3
“You can’t afford to be captured. If even one villain ever finds your identity, you’ll never be able to work as a super again. Not unless you’re prepared to lose everything.”
The words of her former mentor, Red Sand, were the only cohesive thought Lou could manage to hold onto in her head. Everything else slid in and out of her head as soon as she could attempt to conjure it, slippery as eels and set loose by the suppressants that her captors had fed to her.
Captors.
"You can't afford to be captured."
Captors.
Failed step one, was all Lou manage to string together in her head as meaty fists gripped her bound arms and began to bodily drag her onto the stage.
It would be a long time before Lou would fully be able to understand how she had been captured in the first place. Her actual memories had been irreparably damaged already by the blow to the head she had suffered during the encounter, then further distorted by the drug she'd remained heavily dosed with ever since.
She would not be allowed to know how heavily the deck had been stacked against her from the start. How this had been planned weeks in advance. Scheduled for a day where Lou would be patrolling far out of range of anyone else in her league. Arranged to be found in a low-ceilinged apartment, cleared of any loose items, where her powers would be nearly useless. Having the best Mancini Family goons set on her to overwhelm her with sheer brute strength, and backing them with Dog Star, the notorious villain for hire, to ensure the job got done.
There was a lot that had been, and would continue to be, kept from her.
All she would know was that her career as a superhero had just barely started before Lou heard its death knell, and now -
Lou's eyes were already welling up with tears as she was thrown down onto the floorboards.
Red Sand was going to be so disappointed in her.
A chorus of gasps rose from the audience before her as Lou came into view. With the stage lights glaring down at her, blinding her to anything beyond her immediate surroundings, it was impossible for her to make out any faces, but their voices, quickly changing from shocked to joyful, mocking, cruel were clues enough of their presence.
There was an understanding in Lou's brain, drilled into her by her former mentor, that she should be paying attention diligently - trying to pick out voices she may recognize, listening for key phrases that may provide a hint for where she was, even just trying to figure out how many voices were out there. Anything that may be useful if her captors slipped up for even a second, giving her even the slightest chance for escape.
But the chemical fog in her brain was too much for her to contend with. There was no chance for her to count her enemies. She heard them laughing at her and all she could see was a shadowed, many-voiced monster waiting in the darkness before her, here to witness her fall.
Lou was left to flounder alone in the spotlight for a few seconds before a new figure approached her on the stage. She barely had time to acknowledge the shiny dress shoes and the well-pressed suit pants beside her before there was a hand, calloused and stubby-fingered, grabbing her thick, black hair and painfully dragging her up onto her knees.
As Lou gasped in pain, the audience gave a raucous cheer, and she felt like she was going to be swallowed whole by its sadistic joy.
Continuing to hold Lou in place with a hand on her scalp, the man beside her began to speak, his high-pitched, charismatic voice amplified by a microphone.
"And here she is - the star of the hour!" the man called out. "Everyone give a big round of applause for the superhero 4 Nebulous!"
The audience exploded with applause at the MC's call. In vain, Lou tried to look up - tried to get a glimpse of the face of her captor - but he held her too firmly for her to crane her neck up. At most, she caught sight of one of the figures who had dragged her onto the stage who had left to wait out of the limelight. He was unnaturally broad, and the parts of his skin she could manage to see looked ragged and stone-like.
At least one meta-human on stage with her. That...that probably wasn't good.
"I'd like to say she needs no introduction - especially for attendees of this particular event - but just in case," the MC carried on. He jerked Lou's head back and forth, allowing the audience to see all the sides of her face, bruised but with the blood cleaned up from her initial capture. "Nebulous here is a member of the Eton-Randall League of Heroes, and real up-and-comer in the Newton City heroing scene. Notable for her fancy little anti-gravity powers. Just under three years on the job, and she's already saved the city from an artificial meteor created by Doctor Ignis, broken up the Mancini Family uplotonium smuggling ring, and still finds time to volunteer at the Ridley Street Animal Shelter on the weekends. Doesn't it all just make you sick?"
Laughs, boos, and now, actual items were hurled at Lou at the MC's words. She flinched as a can struck her shoulder, spraying her face with the dregs of the thrower's beer and spilling them down her chest over her supersuit. It was more an insult than a true attempt to injure her, but her face flushed with an almost child-like distress nonetheless as she struggled and failed to understand why and how any of this was happening. Because -
Because the MC was right. Lou was Nebulous. She was a superhero. She had worked so hard to do good, and to right wrongs where she saw them, and - and even if they had gotten the drop on her this once, she had friends. She was supposed to be backed by ERLOH.
And any moment now, Captain Stormer, or Octave, or Psyche Prince would find her here, or maybe even Red Sand would notice she was gone and -
And - and they would save her.
Right?
"But what most of you know this goody two-shoes for is her part in the recent arrest of the good friend of many of you here, one Robert Redgrave," the MC continued on. "Yes, a man who'd never hurt a fly, who was one of the greatest philanthropists this city's ever known, supporter of arts and sciences alike - and little Nebulous here managed to have him thrown in jail on some frivolous charges."
The boos came again, louder still, but even in her chemically confounded state, Lou knew that wasn't right. She'd spent the better part of the past year monitoring Redgrave, even after her league had told her to back off. She'd found hints of his involvement with the Mancinis and had pursued him doggedly until she'd finally managed to catch him handing off money from one of his supposed charities to one of the most prominent judges known to handle villain court cases.
"So, since she was so instrumental in Mr. Redgrave's arrest," the MC said, "me and some friends of his decided it would only be fair for her to help out in raising the funds for his legal defense."
No! The man wasn't a philanthropist - he was actively seeking the release of villains and funding their activities when they were free. Even if it had ruffled feathers to bring charges against such a public figure, Lou had been proud to float both Redgrave and his corrupt judge to the ceiling, catching them in the act while press swarmed the scene. And she wanted to tell the audience as much - yell it from the rafters that she would do it again if given the chance -
But when she opened her mouth to try to speak, Lou found she...couldn't. She couldn't find the words.
When she tried to say what she meant, to say, "Redgrave is a crook," all that wound up coming out was a stumbling, "Rrrrrrrmm."
Lou blinked, confounded, as the audience rumbled with amusement at her noises. She tried again - and again, and again to speak, but every time her brain tried to string together a sentence, her mouth stumbled around it, unable to form anything more than loose clumps of random sounds.
The audience's laughter just grew louder and louder at her failed attempts, reaching a peak as the MC finally grew fed up her and struck Lou's head with his microphone. As Lou reeled from the blow and the shriek of feedback, the MC offered the audience an explanation.
"Some of you may also know this upstart for her love of spouting off those classic hero speeches about, you know, goodness and fairness to any captive audience she gets," he said. "So, to save you nice folk from having to endure that, we mixed in a little something extra with her suppressants to confound the speech center of her little brain. But don't worry - her mouth's working just fine otherwise."
Between the pain and the crushing embarrassment, it took Lou far too long to even begin to understand what the MC was implying with that, but as she did...her blood ran cold.
No.
No, no, no.
This wasn't - this couldn't be -
Lou's heart began to race, as nonsense sounds burbled out of her throat in a panic. She tried to tell them no. She tried to tell herself - no. How many times had Red Sand tried to warn her about this? This - this possibility? Of consequences worse than letting the villain get away? Worse than being reprimanded for property damage to the city?
And how many times had Lou ignored her, so certain something like this could never happen to her?
More insistently than ever, Lou struggled in the MC's grip, trying to get free, trying to find some well of her power they hadn't managed to smother yet. She tried to get gravity to release her, to let her float up and away from these horrors, but just like her words, it had been locked away, far beyond her reach.
The MC kicked her harshly in the side, stomping on her hip, then finally allowed her to crumple onto the floor as she shrieked in pain.
"Look at how eager she is to help, folks!" MC jeered. "Maybe there's something to that goodie two-shoes attitude after all. Now - why don't we get rid of that silly suit of hers so you can all get a look at the goods you're bidding on tonight?"
With his free hand, the MC snapped, and the meta-human to his right thundered back across the stage towards her. Within a few seconds, Lou could feel his rough hands all over her, his fingers slipping under the collar of her suit. Even the damage-resistant fabric could do little to stand up to his apparent strength as he began to tear it away from her body, piece by piece.
The purple-and-blue stars and swirls that had defined her signature look since she was 18 - the cape that had flared in the wind dramatically in all her best publicity shots - even the classic eyemask that had protected her identity throughout her career - all of it was torn away in less than a minute.
Her pride.
Her anonymity.
Her career.
All of them gone just as quickly.
Excited cheers and wolf-whistles came at Lou in wave after wave, as she was reduced from the superhero persona she had prided herself on to someone - someone exposed. Speechless. Utterly powerless.
She tried to cry out for Red Sand. For her friend, Psyche Prince. For her parents. For anyone.
All the audience saw was her crying, and it made that monster delighted.
"Now," the MC said, resting a hand on Lou's naked shoulder, "let's start the bidding! Do I hear $50k for the superhero Nebulous? And remember folks - it's all for a good cause!"
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