Work Text:
Scar couldn’t believe he’d actually hit him.
It had been almost a month since the new winged vigilante had come on the scene, and Scar wasn’t really sure what to make of him. His outfit was vivacious to say the least, his charisma and talent were the real deal, and honestly, the fact that the Council was foaming at the mouth to bring him in was rubbing Scar the wrong way.
For as frustrating and beguiling as he was, Scar couldn’t claim he disliked this so-called Cute Guy.
Which is why when he’d been in pursuit over the city skyline after the black-and-pink clad vigilante had swooped in on a monster outbreak from a rift, firing the strange energy bolts from his pink pistols, Scar had found a moments hesitation when he’d drawn back his bowstring.
Yet still, he’d activated the biotech grafted into his eyes, seamlessly communicating with his visor, taken his aim, and fired.
Hot Guy rarely missed a shot when he was truly trying to hit it.
The arrow exploded open into a cable net, and his eyes widened when it successfully ensnared Cute Guy, pinning one of his wings, wrapping around him tangling up his arms and legs. The pitchy scream that escaped him made Scar’s stomach plunged somehow, and his bracers hummed as he hurtled the distance between the two tall buildings and landed just as the vigilante came crashing down. He hit the cement rooftop hard and cried out again, unable to brace himself against the impact while tangled in the net. He rolled several times from the momentum, winding up crumpled in a heap with his one free wing collapsed out to the side. For a few moments, he lay prone, and Scar felt his breath hitch, speeding up to approach him.
“Stay away from me!” Cute Guy screeched, his free wing slamming down against the rooftop to launch him backward into a half sitting position. The cable of the net caught against his bare skin, of which he showed frankly quite a lot considering his risqué costume. He thrashed one arm out, the force he put into it leaving angry red marks where the rope rubbed his skin raw, but he managed to free a hand enough to pull one of his pistols and aim it at Scar’s chest.
Scar put his free hand up. “Hey, I’m not gonna hurt you.”
“You just shot me!” Cute Guy shrieked at him. His voice was shrilly. Scar couldn’t see much of his face through the shifting shadowy substance that concealed his identity, the only evidence visible was the incredibly purple glow of his eyes.
“With a net arrow!” Scar tried to defense lamely, before he puffed out his chest and planted his free hand, the one not holding his bow, on his hip.
“Listen, rookie, you’re doing good work, I’m not gonna pretend you aren’t.”
“Rookie!?” Cute Guy hissed even as he continued struggling with the net with his other arm. But it was pinned tightly against his side, his hand stuck at an awkward angle near his hip, and he wasn’t able to get any leverage. His legs and one wing still tangled also meant he had no real ability to free himself up unless he lowered his pistol to use his one freed arm. Scar withheld the pang of sympathy he felt when he recognized the hot red markings showing up along his bicep and across his forearm. Rope burns from how violently he’d thrashed against the ropes to get his arm free before Scar could get close to him.
“Yeah, rookie! You’ve been at it a month, I’ve got twenty years under my belt!”
“I don’t care, Old Guy! I’m doing just fine, so leave me alone!” Cute Guy shouted back, and Scar huffed.
“Would you quite with the ‘Old Guy’ thing!? Also! You’re not allowed up here!”
“And why is that!?”
Scar felt a frustration boiling in the pit of his stomach.
“Why do you wanna be up here so bad?” The words left his lips before he could stop them.
Cute Guy was nearly hyperventilating. His eyes were glowing so bright through the shadowy haze, purple that seemed to pierce Scar’s soul.
The noises of the city surrounded them. It was a place Scar knew so well.
Cute Guy tucked his chin down defensively, the arm holding his pistol out quaked as he tightened his grip on the weapon.
“Sun is nice. Sky is nice. Life is easier. Not like you’d get that.”
It was different from the typical cadence Cute Guy’s quips carried, in the month or so that Scar had known him. If you counted the odd back-and-forth they’d been doing as ‘knowing’ each other, that is.
Scar drew a breath, prepared to point out the laws passed by the Council banning under-city folk from emerging above bedrock, or citing the constant monster outbreaks through the rifts for how the non-humans beneath his feet clearly had it in for the city above, but he found his tongue growing heavy.
Scar knew the city so well.
Yet he didn’t know the world beneath their feet.
Whoever Cute Guy was, he clearly did. And whatever world he knew must be much crueler.
For a few tense seconds, Scar continued to stare across the rooftop at Cute Guy, his grip on his bow firm, his muscles taunt, and he knew this was his best opportunity. He could dodge whatever energy bolt was fired, get around him, and disarm him pretty easily. From there, the vigilante that had been a headache for the Council and a rapidly ballooning city-wide heartthrob would be defensively, and Scar could take him in. That was his job, after all.
To protect the city.
Which city? From what?
Scar loosened his grip on his bow.
“Listen. You need to stop this.” Scar said, trying to keep his tone as level as possible.
Cute Guy’s eyes widened, Scar could tell from the shift of the purple glow.
“What?” He asked quietly, and his voice tanged somewhere sweet and familiar, and even if he couldn’t place it, it made Scar’s decision concrete.
He compacted his bow and clipped it to his harness over his back.
“You’re playing with fire. The Council isn’t exactly forgiving, and you’re just lucky the institute doesn’t seem to have any interest in you…yet.” Scar trailed off awkwardly. He didn’t know much about the newest head of the Biotech Institute, and considering how much he hated that place, he didn’t exactly intend on dropping by.
“I’m not stopping.”
Scar’s shoulders sagged. “You’re gonna get caught.”
“I don’t care. You’ve caught me now, haven’t you? But you’re letting me go.”
Scar scoffed. “Letting you go? Oh, no, no, I’m just…y’see it’s, it’s a warning! Yeah, warning! I better not see you flying around again, or else I’ll really have to take you in!”
There was zero bite behind his words, and somehow Scar understood that they both knew it. Whatever this was, he wasn’t sure, but he didn’t think he could address it.
In the haze of city lights, Scar could see the red lines against Cute Guy’s skin from thrashing against the cable netting. He could tell he was terrified, and yet his jaw was set, and he was obviously resolved.
Scar shook his head slightly to himself. “…forget it.”
He turned on his heel and started toward the edge of the building. “This is your warning, remember! Next time I’ll bring you in!”
“Yeah, sure you will!”
“Don’t test me, birdie!”
He could hear the scratching of his boot heels on the cement, even as he drew his bow again, intending to fire a grappling arrow and continue his patrol. In a billowing whoosh, a blur of black-and-pink hurtling past him, nearly knocking him off balance from the force.
“Hey! I was being nice to you!” He shouted, shaking a fist, but somehow…the blur was gone. Not even fading away over the skyline, not even flitting in and out from the buildings just…vanished.
Scar heaved a sigh.
…what am I dealing with, this time?
Grian.
Grian scrabbled for his window, left unlocked on the seventeenth floor, and pushed it open. Completely invisible with glamor, he was able to slip inside without anyone knowing, and he slammed the pane shut hard enough it rattled. Locked it, drew the curtains shut, then crumpled to his knees, buried his face into his hands, and wailed.
The fear he’d pent up as being captured released in a violent rush, hot tears poured down his face as he let the shadows of illusionary glamor over his eyes fade away. His whole body was trembling, his hands pressing to his face as the heat of the rope burns over his arms and parts of his back prickled against him. Hiccuping, sobbing, shaking, he pedaled his heeled boots against the floor of his apartment and pressed into the back of his couch, his wing roots aching from the force behind it as the massive limbs spread to either side behind him. The black and pink evaporated, changing into red, yellow, and blue banded in a haze like heat on tarmac.
Grian spent several minutes sitting there, trying to decompress, calm himself down. In those few moments he’d thought Scar was actually going to capture him. He’d even considered for a few terrifying moments allowing the glamor to disappear from his face, revealing his identity in the hopes it would help the superhero understand.
That hadn’t been necessary.
Did he understand?
Grian wasn’t sure.
He couldn’t claim he knew exactly what went on in Scar’s head, because both of them hid such big secrets from each other, even if Scar had no idea that Grian already knew his.
The avian slumped against the back of his couch, eyes stinging and bloodshot, quaky hands wrapping himself in a hug as he brought his wings around to hide in a cocoon of brilliantly colored feathers.
I’m hiding so much…but what choice is there?
There was no guarantees in any of this.
Grian had known that going in, but this had been almost like a reality check. Perhaps it should’ve been enough to convince him quit. Like living up here hiding his hybrid status while working his job as an architecture professor wasn’t already hard enough.
But he’d seen the pang of sympathy, the sparks of understanding that had lit when he’d told Scar such simple reasons for wanting to put his life on the line.
He lifted his head and stared through the smallest crack left in the curtains from how he’d sloppily, frantically drawn them closed.
The vaguest glimmer of stars in an inky black night, something he could’ve never seen anytime he felt like from the under-city.
The rope burns felt hot and he knew they’d be painful and itching for days, but at the same time, he knew he wasn’t quitting.
For the smallest sliver of a chance, just like that sliver of the stars, he was willing to keep trying.