The post battle care scheme (Patreon)

After battles, the villain uses the hero’s injuries and their intimate knowledge of the injuries to keep the hero for a while. The villain lovingly fits the incapacitated hero (temporarily paralyzed? Injured?) with restraints.

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“Shh, shh.” The villain stroked the hero’s sweat-damp hair back from their forehead, lowering their body carefully back down on the bed. “Don’t try to move – you don’t want to end up permanently broken, do you?”

The hero stared at them, wide-eyed, the distress still caught up in their throat. Their tongue was cold and heavy in their mouth. Words felt difficult. Yet, the hero felt as fragile as glass; one hard tap and they’d shatter. Such was the villain’s power, their ability to transform one substance to another. Stone to water. Dust to gold. A hero into…well.

The villain was a minor villain, in the scheme of such things. The hero had fought them maybe once or twice before, when the villain had been trying to complete such idiotic devastating ideas such as turning an entire office block into molten lava to demonstrate how the company who owned the building deserved to burn in hell for their dodgy ethical policies. Still. The two of them had never been what one might call ‘close’, by the standards of enmity. The villain had never been the sort to flirt, and crash a dinner date with a knife-sharp-smile and an offer of ‘the enemy of my enemy…’

Pain pulsed through the hero’s body, throbbing in all the delicate joints the villain had changed into something useless.

In short, the hero had not expected this.

“That’s it,” the villain crooned. They reached into their bag, pulling out an array of objects that the hero’s eyes strained to see in their fixed vantage point, staring at the ceiling. “Nice and easy. Hey, you look so pretty like this, you know? Sweet. Don’t get me wrong, you’re quite something, but you can be so aggressive! It’s very intimidating in a live specimen.”

“Whaa-“ Even such as a simple word, the most basic question, came out slurred. Raw anger muted. Then their mouth turned icy, as they felt their tongue freeze completely.

The villain smiled at them, taking one of the hero’s clammy palms in theirs and squeezing gently. “Don’t wake up the neighbours. It’s rude. People are trying to sleep.”

I was trying to sleep!!

It was the middle of the night, and the battles of the day were supposed to be over. The hero gone home, for the love of everything. They’d gone to bed.

“Oh, don’t glare at me.” The villain fitted something over first one of the hero’s wrists, and then the other. It felt soft, padded, and tight. “We both know you don’t take care of yourself properly. I was watching your fight today, and you should be in a hospital. But no. You limped back home, and you’re probably going to do it all again next week. Hell, tomorrow, if today was anything to go by! So you really only have yourself to blame for this.”

The villain reached for their bag again, returning with a collar they fixed securely around the hero’s neck. They continued speaking as they worked.

“You need time to properly recover,” the villain chided, like the hero was a child who’d made a dumb mistake or thought they could take the last cookie from the jar without anyone noticing. “Honestly, who takes care of you? Nobody, as far as I can tell.”

The villain brought the hero’s arms to rest up in an X against their torso, and the hero heard a click as their newly cuffed wrists were attached to the band around their throat.

Cold dread clamped In the pit of the hero’s stomach.

“You’re not invincible,” the villain said. “Like, you made this super easy. Anyone could get at you. You’re lucky it’s only me.”

The hero did not, in that moment, feel especially lucky.

“That rich creep you’re always fighting,” the villain shuddered, “would take complete advantage of you if they ever got you like this. I know you’re only appeasing them by flirting back, but it encourages them, you know? People like that already think they own the world and everything in it.”

No, the hero definitely didn’t feel lucky. They felt like they’d mis-stepped onto quicksand, the ground beneath them and everything they knew sliding away. How many times had this villain observed them fighting someone else? Made notes? Made plans? How many times had the villain been in their house before, because they seemed utterly comfortable with their surroundings?

The villain moved onto their knees, buckling them together out of sight.

“Let me know if it’s too tight, yeah?” the villain called up to them, as if the hero could say anything a all. “I don’t want to cut off your blood circulation or anything. We wouldn't even need the restraints if you weren't so...you know. Scary.”

The hero concentrated on breathing, on getting their heavy tongue to work, or their fists. Anything, really. Their own super-power was one of incredible healing, which was probably why they weren’t having an immediate major medical emergency from having parts of their body changed into a new material.  It did nothing to help them get out of their current predicament.

All that came out was more muffled rage, more impotent terror.

The villain had improved, since their last fight, that much was clear. The hero didn’t remember them outright turning people into anything else before. How long had they been able to do that?

The villain rolled the hero over onto their side with the same tender care of all of their movements, in order to next attach the hero’s ankles to the backs of their knees, making another soothing sound of their own.

“Don’t be scared,” the villain said. “I’m not going to hurt you. I’m not a monster. I’m not like you. You’re going to get some time to rest, and then I’ll let you go. Probably.”

Probably!?

The villain moved back in their line of sight again, crouching down in front of them with some more material crumpled in their hand.

“Depends, I suppose,” the villain said, “If you’re still really angry. You look quite angry.” The villain bit their lip. “I am only trying to help you, you know. I know it’s quite normal to push away the people who care about you, but you do push quite hard. It hurts.”

The hero tried to communicate ‘oh, you’re really going to find out what hurts if you don’t let me go right now.’

The villain flinched at whatever murder they saw in the hero’s eyes, and quickly moved to wrap the material in their hand – a blindfold – over the hero’s face. It was soft and impenetrable.

“That’s better,” the villain said. “Zen, right? No need to rush off and get yourself hurt because you can’t, so you can’t feel bad about it.”

The villain sounded very proud of themselves. The hero felt the villain’s fingers entwine into their hair again, stroking it back.

“God,” the villain said, in a tone of awe. “You really are very pretty when you’re not about to punch my lights out. You should re-consider that career choice. It makes you seem like a not very nice person, and I know you’re such a nice person, in your heart. I've seen you. Anyway.” The villain continued to ramble as they rolled the hero into the bag they’d brought with them, now empty. “We should go. You’re probably exhausted! I’m totally keeping you awake, sorry. You can nap on the way, okay? I don’t mind. We've got quite a drive.”

The last thing the hero heard was the sound of the zip being pulled up.

The villain started turning up a lot after their battles, after that.