Chapter Text
"Well, well, well", the man wrapped in a blue and purple cloak laughs maniacally. Black wings flutter behind him, shaking with his shoulders as he lands, crouching on a lone, broken pillar in the backdrop of the city. "What do we have here?"
Scar coughs from where he is trapped under fallen beams and chunks of concrete of the Hermitcraft Headquarters, green eyes filled with fiery determination glaring up at the avian, who is just out of his reach: The Watcher, a villain he's been chasing for three years now.
This is irony, isn't it?
The individual he has been trying to apprehend for so long is standing just a fingertip away but so out of his reach at the same time. It's frustrating. The villain is out of range for him to use telekinesis to grab him, and he can't risk throwing bricks and hitting an innocent pedestrian below.
The Watcher huffs. Scar thinks the man is grinning that sadistic grin of his behind that purple scarf. Hazy amethysts blink at him, pupils narrowed into slits staring at the hero's poor state amusedly.
"A little help would be nice", Scar grumbles.
His body feels numb from the waist down thanks to the beam pinning him. It's not crushing, nor excruciatingly painful so he can speak, and his feet twitch and his legs can move. He thumps a fist on the ground, then the other, in an attempt to drag himself out of the collapsing building.
The walls are creaking and groaning, steel and iron snap like mere toothpicks by the wondrous powers of the villain. The ceiling above them has caved in and its missing part is what has Scar pinned to the cracked floor, at the complete mercy of the avian who has caused all this. Sirens are blurring red and black, distorting the pure white of the standing walls. Something explodes on one of the upper floors, glass shatters, and strong drafts of wind thunder like a herd of oxen from the hole in the wall The Watcher had created upon his entrance.
The villain hums and looks up at the destroyed ceiling. Fire licks at the walls up there, and the staff is silently evacuating the upper levels. Strawberry blond locks of hair peek out from underneath the hood of his cloak, and for a moment, Scar thinks that the shade and shape of each strand is familiar.
"No can do, sir Scar", he finally says, his voice lilting with fake empathy. Feathers as endless, black and black as the void ruffle and wings spread with an elegant woosh. "I didn't trap you here just to let you go"
Scar can almost see the teasing smile on The Watcher's face. He can't do much more than sigh in defeat. The winged man has been doing this trapping thing for a couple months now. He will find the hero, push him in a corner, render him completely helpless one way or another (always harmlessly) and ask for information before finally letting him go. So, not alike those other times, Scar has no way of escaping.
The villain had attacked right as the guards were changing posts, right as Scar was left alone on the thirtieth floor of the HQ building. The hero doesn't know how the avian does it, but he seems to always know where Scar is, having bumped into each other way too often for it to be a coincidence. The earpiece in his ear is producing light static, the sort of which a student would use for white noise, a common side effect of The Watcher's presence.
"What do you want this time, Watcher? And what is so important that you're demolishing a building?", Scar asks, annoyance and slight anger evident in his voice.
The Watcher took a second to respond.
"Dunno", he shrugs. Scar's eyes widen in surprise. All this destruction... for nothing? Nothing at all? Did the blond do all this just for the fun of it? Because never has he ever not wanted something in exchange for Scar's freedom.
"...What?"
The Watcher shrugs again, trying to seem indifferent and very much failing at that.
"I just wanted to... chat, I guess?"
Scar has never seen the avian so shy and meek. The man is still crouched on his little perch (pillar), wings outstretched like he is about to flap them and take off like a skittish pigeon, shoulders drawn together and his fingers are absentmindedly playing with the black trim of his cloak, glittery violet eyes downcast as if the crumbling floor was the most interesting thing in the world.
The hero can't believe what he is witnessing, honestly. He has known The Watcher for three years and never before has he asked of such a thing. To chat. Every time it's been a small piece of information or a big bite into the files and documents of the cabinet. Every time it's been something for the villain's benefit; to have some sort of advantage in future hero fights.
"You demolished a whole building... to have a chat?"
The Watcher gives a small nod, raises his head and oh. His eyes are sparkling with something akin to hope and joy, something childish and sadistic -quite yandere in vibe. His feathers bristle in excitement, the plumage slowly settling down afterwards. Scar immediately realizes that he doesn't have the heart to deny the innocent face the man pulls.
The hero has been defeated by puppy eyes. He'll hang his head in shame later, and then proceed to never ever tell this tale to anyone.
"That-", he starts, unsure of where he is going with this. "That's, um- That's fair"
"Really?"
Scar shrugs the best he can as he is pinned on the floor. The tile near him chips and he can tell that they don't have long before the floor collapses like the ceiling had. Gulping, he makes a gesture to the debris around him and the floor that is about to be his doom, hoping that the blond will show mercy and relieve him of the future (very likely chronic at this point) back pain.
He only receives a raised eyebrow, and the unspoken words of "Really? You know I know that you'll just run away, right?"
Yeah, there is no hope for him. None. Well, he sighs, he can work with that.
"What do you wanna talk about then?", the hero asks, crossing his arms underneath his chest in an attempt to lean up.
"Have you seen the new Star Wars movie?", the villain immediately asks.
And that's how the two ended up talking about Star Wars for half an hour. Even in that small time frame, they had talked about a lot in the end: about the many theories and speculations on the internet, theorizing about what the next step for the Mandalorian dude was, what they liked about a certain character, about the new series that's on Netflix.
Scar found that the person in front of him, a ball of bubbly energy and humor, was not what he had portrayed him to be. The Watcher was not selfish, he was not cruel; he was just a dude who caused chaos for a reason and watched Star Wars. Really nothing that bad -if you don't count the many, many times he has back Scar into a metaphorical corner into their little fights (in which, yes, they have drawn blood).
The blond was eerily alike his friend, Grian.
"I believe he will then travel back with-", before Scar can finish, after those thirty minutes, he draws in a quick breath.
The floor below him is cracking and splitting. He tenses up, immediately tries to hold the tiles together with his mind but it is too much. There is so much ground he needs to cover, so many little details he doesn't know if he can keep track of, and the different solids in the concrete are causing him a headache.
The Watcher sees it immediately -how could he not with that alias?- and tenses on the pillar. Wings flare wide from where they had dropped behind him, and suddenly the world seems to slow.
The floor caves in; tiles crack and break, dust is falling in heavy clouds, and with it falls Scar. The hero is exhausted, The Watcher can tell, as he was trying to hold things together earlier. He had probably been holding the floor together the whole time they were chatting.
Scar tries his darn hardest to catch himself on a platform, or on one of the slim ledges of giant windows but he can't. He can't move living things, only objects, and as he is falling, he can only see the ground, nothing there to stop his fall. He tries to manipulate his clothes into pulling him upwards, but with nothing stable under his feet, his work is in vain.
Maybe he would live; perhaps, he could somehow survive like those heroes in the movies. That would be nice. He has lived a good life, he thinks, though he screams through the fall.
And who wouldn't? I mean, come on, you'd probably scream too if you were suddenly plummeting to the pavement.
Through the rushing wind, he hears something. Wingbeats, he realizes, and before he can attempt to look up, arms are tucked under his armpits and swooping him from his freefall. Hands, dark and clawed, wrap around his chest and situate him so he wouldn't hinder the flight. The screaming stops as an overwhelming wave of relief rushes over the hero.
The Watcher is above him, giant wings beating to gain lift and maneuvering through television antennas until they are high above the city. Scar thinks he hears the avian let out a relieved breath of his own, though he is not sure why. He doesn't even know why he's been saved in the first place.
Maybe this is what a natural hero-villain relationship feels like. Like the ones in the many comics he had read as a kid, where the hero and the villain of the story fight and fight, until they both get tired and realize that fighting is pointless. Is that what the two of them have been doing all along?
The Watcher seems to think so, because instead of dropping him, he carries him to the cleanest rooftop he can find in a city full of NOVA plates and prickly antennas. The hero is set down carefully, and after two beats of wings and a flurry of obsidian feathers, the villain is standing in front of him.
And the amethysts shine with... worry? Scar can't quite place his finger on it.
"I'm not letting you die on me", The Watcher says with such confidence and assurance that his chest puffs up like a lion's. It sounds more like a promise.
"Well, thank you for not letting me fall to my doom", Scar huffs an adrenaline-fueled laugh, "That's appreciated"
The Watcher nods his head, a boot-covered leg lightly kicking a stray rock... Why is there a rock on the roof of a skyscraper? Nevermind, that doesn't matter.
For a long moment, none of them speak.
"I had fun today", The Watcher admits. Scar perks up at the mention of today. "Haven't met another Star Wars fan in a while"
"Must come with the field", the hero jokes. The villain giggles awkwardly at the truth of the statement.
Not too many villains have the time to watch the whole Star Wars saga these days.
"Yeah. I'm guessing that it's the same for you"
That's- that's true, honestly. The whole of Hermitcraft HQ is drowning in paperwork day in and day out, and one too many talk shows send special invites to heroes. But...
"How did you know?"
The Watcher chuckles at... Scar guesses his ignorance.
"Watchers watch, sir Scar" -indeed, that they do- "Nothing escapes my eyes"
"Well, that doesn't sound creepy at all"
They both laugh at that, though they both comprehend that the statement holds true. The villain basically admitted to stalking people, how can that not be creepy?
"I'd like a repeat of this", the villain says with a questioning gaze. Somehow, Scar understands the quiet question.
"I think I'd like it too", he decides, "Though, maybe don't destroy the Hermitcraft HQ next time?"
The Watcher shakes his head with furrowed eyebrows, as if offended by the mere hint of hindering his destruction. Welp, Scar tried.
"So..."
"..So?"
"Truce?"
Scar takes a moment.
"Yeah. Truce"
And truce it'll be.