CW for implied underage drinking
Forty minutes into the party the hero disappeared. The villain found them alone on the back porch, surrounded by other people's discarded red cups and cigarette butts, staring up at the moonless sky. They did not turn, even as the villain slid the door shut with a whoosh and a click on the noise of the house party.
"These people are weird," the villain said.
The hero laughed, but hollowly. "I'm pretty sure it's you and me that are the weird ones here."
"Oh no," the villain said, leaning against the railing beside them. "I've checked it out thoroughly. We're the normal ones. Everyone else is strange."
The hero glanced back. "I was wondering when you'd come looking for me," they said softly.
"You could have found me," the villain protested.
They shifted, letting their shoulder just brush the hero's sleeve. Once the hero would have tossed the villain 30 feet for daring to come so close. Now they didn't so much as flinch, eyes locked on the sky.
"Do you miss it?" the hero whispered. "Flying?"
"Don't bitch to me about it," the villain said, with more snap than they'd intended. They took a swig from the bottle of something they'd picked up inside. It was awful, just like everything else. "This is the world your boss made. No more powers. No more battles. You and me, free to be normal teenagers."
The hero looked down. "He wouldn't have done it if your boss hadn't murdered me."
The villain choked mid-sip. The hero gave them a sideways glance. "You didn't know? I mean, maybe I flatter myself, but it was the last thing I remember before everything changed. What it felt like to die."
"Shit," the villain said weakly, for lack of anything better to say. "Huh. Congrats on having the universe rewritten to bring you back?"
"Thanks, I hate it." The hero took the bottle, took a swig and gasped. "That's foul," they sputtered, wiping their mouth. "Speaking of bosses, you seen yours?"
"No. Well, yeah. Sort of." The villain grabbed the bottle back. "She's some kinda CEO now. Said I'm worthless to her now, she has no time for sniveling children, blah blah blah. Normal stuff. You?"
The hero shook their head. "He might be hiding. Or. He might. Be gone," they said, voice disjointed and jumbled. "There was a reason he didn't rewrite the universe everyday."
Silence fell between them. Inside, a new song had come on and the other kids were screaming along to the chorus. Something about being a teenage dirtbag, baby.
The hero looked over to the villain, tears in their all-too-human eyes. "I'm not going after her. If that's what she sent you to find out. I'm not gonna try and arrest her or attack her for killing me in an alternate timeline." They raised their hands, laughed again. "What could I possibly do now?"
"Hm. Well, finance undergrad, law school, government service, take over the SEC, give it teeth, and then in just 15 years you're primed to use teeth to rip your enemies apart where it hurts- their bank accounts," said the villain promptly. "Just to spit ball it out there."
The hero looked at them - actually looked at them - for the first time. "Oh damn," they said. "You hit the ground running."
The villain leaned in again, dropping a hand over the hero's. Sort of to hold them in place. Sort of just to hold them. "Join me. Or don't. We can make this, like, normal teenagers hating each other if you're more comfortable than that. We can fist fight right here."
The hero looked at the villain like they'd lost their mind, tried to pull away. "What is wrong with you?"
"Same thing that's wrong with you." The villain held on. "You're the only other one who remembers what we were, what we did. I don't want to be alone. And, God, you died? Do you want to go somewhere talk?"
The hero looked down at the protagonist's hand on their theirs. "Yes," they said, in a high, broken whisper. "Let's get out of here."
After that they were inseparable. At least, until the world changed again.
