Stains.
When the ringing on their ears subsided, and they were once more aware that they needed to breathe, the blood was still there. On their hands and their clothes, staining the white collar of their shirt, and embedded in the fibres of their wool sweater.
It would never wash off, they knew.
There was a sting too, right under where their fingernails rested, and they wondered where it had come from, they were never hurt that day, even when red painted their hands and stained all their clothes. Yet it hurt, it hurt in their arms, a sharp pain pulsating from where some droplets of blood emanated.
They didn't understand what ached.
“Stop love, stop,” a voice called softly, barely a whisper but told so near they could hear it loud and clear “you’re hurting yourself.”
Wide eyes with trembling pupils lifted to meet the other one person in the room with them, blurry with tears and barely focusing on the face of the one holding their arms by the wrists.
One hand shifted to grapes both hands with one of the other, allowing the other to travel to the trembling Hero’s face, wiping a tear, then, the blood from around their mouth.
“Oh my dear, dear love, what have they done to you?”
And Hero wanted to explain, they wanted to tell the stranger that it hadn’t been them, that they remember not what had happened to their team, what had happened to the generals and the high commanders. They knew not what they were doing there, stained in cold blood on the concrete floor of that place.
Nothing but a whimper left their mouth, and all that sounded well-thought and eloquent in their head, came as a cry out, as a mumbling of unintelligible words.
The stranger laid the Hero’s hands back to their lap, and lifted their face cupping it gently.
“Do you need help? Do you want my help?”
Defeated, Hero nodded. Snorting back their tears,
“Please.” their voice trembled.
“Then you shall have it love, my love.”
The wet sound of feet against the stained floors echoed across the then empty room. A hand entered their view, and from their knees, Hero looked up.
“Give me your hand,” the stranger said, “ I’ll take you somewhere safe.”
And with a grateful nod, Hero took it.
Villain was grateful, then, warmth filled their chest. They would never have had the heart to give Hero the serum, bit their own team had had it, and that made everything all the easier.
_
Masterlist
