Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

As an S-tier villain, technically the only S-tier villain ever to exist, you are used to things going your way. Certainly the fact that you have Captain Whimsy before you, armed as he is with his pneumatic harpoon, is no trouble. Quite honestly you’re looking forward to killing the man, he is… deeply irritating. Pleasingly for a man so drawn to the spotlight he is almost entirely alone. You made sure there are no cameras around and the few people lingering far off and watching don’t seem dumb enough to try to help the man.

“You think you have me, S?! Why, I have had this harpoon tipped with tritanium! It shall rip through your body like a hot knife through butter!” Captain Whimsy blusters.

It won’t, but it might actually fuck up your suit and that would be irritating.

“I don’t think so. Any last words?” you ask, preparing to vaporise him before he can get any of them out.

That was your plan, that was things going your way.

What happens is there is a blur of unexpected motion as a person bursts from nowhere and leaps for Captain Whimsy. A baseball bat collides with his head with a sick CRACK and the man topples sideways off of the pier that had been the grounds for his final showdown. He plunges into the water below with a trail of bubbles behind him.

“Oh WOW I did not think he’d go down like that.” the person before you says in amazement, baseball bat held loosely in one hand as the intruder peers down into the water.

Hhhh…they? You don’t really know enough about whoever this is right now and you’re going to fix that, but for now *they* turn around and look at you with slowly mounting alarm.

“I- uh.” they say uneasily and look back down at the water, the bubbles have stopped.

“You just killed Captain Whimsy.” you tell them flatly.

“Fuck yes, except no one saw so it doesn’t count. And also I wasn’t trying to steal your kill, that’d be a dick move, I just hate the way that guy talks and one time he crushed my car. I didn’t think he was going to just… you’re… you’re probably going to kill me for that, aren’t you?” they say as they look at you, dread mounting very clearly.

“I’m strongly considering it.” you tell them.

The newcomer nods slightly, looks down at the bat in their hand, and then back up at you. They snort and toss it into the water, it won’t do anything to you.

“Well, everyone’s gotta go sometime, I guess. Going out for that isn’t so bad.” they sigh.

You look at them for a moment. They’re shorter than you, not especially physically imposing as far as normal people go, but not obviously weak. They have dark hair and glasses and all together they don’t look like much at all. They’re not so stupid as to think they can take you on, or to think that you wouldn’t care about them stealing your kill, but they’re not whining and begging for their life either. It’s… unusual.

“Who are you?” you ask.

“I’m D.” they say.

“I have no time for aliases, if you think you’re being funny or-” you start but D shakes their head quickly.

“No, no, I mean I was in prison a while back and there was this sorcerer guy. I needed to get out and fast for reasons and he’d help me but all I had to do was to magically give him my name, so I did and now all I’ve got is one letter and a bunch of really confusing legal documents. The DMV is a nightmare which was why THAT GUY totalling my car sucked so much.” D says in a rush.

“So you saw me about to kill him and thought…” you ask, waiting for them to fill in a reason.

“Hah, I mean… ‘thought’ is kind of overstating it. I just saw a chance to get even and *whoosh*.” D laughs.

“I should kill you.” you say.

“Do what you gotta do, I guess.” D says, a little less happy now.

They are *very* weird. Actually…

“If I am going to murder you I think I’d want to be a little respectful about it, you know, if people ask me afterwards I wouldn’t want to tell someone the wrong thing. And you’re a little… ambiguous.” you say as you gesture to their body.

“That is exactly what I’m going for. We can’t all have a multidimensional form that resists the persistence of knowledge and categorisation.” D says, they must read the papers about you.

“I won’t hold that against you.” you chuckle and D rolls their eyes.

“They/them, if that’s what you’re getting at. Same as you.” they answer.

You nod and consider your options, but D obviously misinterprets that pause.

“Wait, did you think I didn’t know about you? Everyone knows about you, man. Wait, does that bother you? Things like ‘man’ and ‘dude’ don’t bother me but I know some people-” D starts to backpedal in a rush that looks more scared than anything so far.

You threatened to murder them and they’re more concerned about upsetting you by calling you the wrong thing.

“It doesn’t bother me. Listen, I don’t think I’m going to kill you, D.” you tell them.

“Great!” they say, their face lighting up and then, “Wait, shit, I just threw away my only baseball bat for no reason then.”

You watch as they look glumly at the water. Out of, what you’re going to say is curiosity, you telekinetically pick their bat up out of the water and drop it into D’s hands. They seem *delighted*.

“Hey, thanks!” D beams at you.

“No problem. You should go.” you suggest.

D nods and then with a friendly wave they run off into the night, leaving you quietly confused.

A couple of weeks later you see D again, or more accurately you could say that D sees you.

“Hey!” D says brightly, making you look up.

You’d been sitting entirely innocently at some outdoor seating in front of Starbucks (because you do appreciate large scale evil), having a coffee and minding your own business. Most importantly of all you’re wearing your disguise glasses, but that doesn’t seem to stop D at all.

“Are you doing something around here, S?” D asks and the two men behind them get that confused and then subtly mind-altered expression that happens when anyone sees you in your disguise and starts to think about who you really are.

Anyone, that is, except D.

“How do you know who I am?” you hiss at them.

“You’re just wearing glasses, it’s not rocket surgery.” D says.

If you had all day to explain why that was wrong you still wouldn’t have enough time.

“I’m only asking because me and the boys are going to go hold up a store down there and we always get pastries before just in case we get arrested and then it’s ages until we eat something good again. But if you’re here to level the city block or something then I’m not gonna bother. Though that would make it harder to dust for prints…” D says thoughtfully.

“I’m here for lunch.” you say slowly.

“Fair enough then. Hey, I got an extra one, do you want one? It’s a pecan and maple twist thing.” D tells you and offers you the white paper bag with the pastry inside.

You’re starting to feel a little like you’ve lost control of your life.

“Wait, you’re not allergic to nuts or anything, are you?” D asks, suddenly snatching the bag back.

“I am the most powerful being on this entire planet.” you growl at them.

“That’s not how allergies work.” D tells you.

You stare up at them and they look down at you. You’ve got half a mind to slide your glasses down enough to stare at them properly with your reportedly unsettling eyes, but that’d just cause problems and it wasn’t like it seemed to work much before.

“I’m not allergic.” you finally bite out.

D holds the bag out for you once more and you pluck the last pastry from it.

“Ok, gotta go!” D says brightly and walks off with their henchmen following them.

You watch as they leave and then nibble at your pastry, it is nice. Your hearing is incredible, just like the rest of your senses. So it’s no problem to hear the alarm go as the heist goes off, but it’s also no problem to hear the cop car that was unluckily very close by to D’s little crime scene.

Too bad that all of its wheels just exploded out of nowhere. You lick the crumbs of your pastry from your fingers as you listen to D’s distant voice yelling at their henchmen to run.

What an incredibly strange and interesting person.

Chapter Text

You find that D is on your mind for a while, you mention them to one of your highest ranking minions offhandedly the night that Captain Whimsy was murdered, and again on the day of D’s heist. You’re mostly just baffled by them. It’s not like they’re to stupid to know that you’re dangerous or so cocky that they think you can’t hurt them, but yet they still act the way they do.

A week or two later you run into them as they’re picking the locks on car doors downtown.

“What’re you doing?” you ask them.

“Hey, S! Just a little breaking and ruining.” D says with a smile.

“You’re just inventing new crimes, then.” you say, amused despite yourself.

“Meh, I’m not a lawyer. The point is this car belongs to a detective who *really* fucked one of my henchmen over, or not even him really. The cops know who my henchmen are and this guy went after his kid on some bullshit charge just to try to extort him.” D explains and pops the car lock open.

“Oh.” you say as D opens the car door and leans in to fiddle with the panels inside.

You watch with interest as D pops something open and connects a small canister up to a tube inside the panel via a little straw and presses the button on the top with a pressurised hiss and holds it down.

“So what’re you doing?” you ask.

D makes a noise of concentration and then disconnects everything and puts it all back where they found it, they get out of the car and pull their latex gloves off, leaving the small canister in them.

“I was putting this into the air conditioning system, you have to top those up, a lot of people don’t know that. You shouldn’t top it up with this but, hey. Don’t get that on your hands by the way.” D warns you, since you’d already started reaching for the gloves and canister within.

“Nothing you have is going to hurt me.” you scoff and D shrugs and starts locking the car back up.

You peer at the canister in the gloves.

“Liquid Ass?” you say and try to move the gloves to see if you can read the fine print, but no sooner than you’ve done that does the SMELL hit you.

You stagger backwards and gag loudly, only just remembering to not *crush* the canister in your hand which would no doubt make things infinitely worse. D is shaking with laughter, their head pressed to the door of the car they’re trying to reverse lockpick.

“I warned you!” they laugh.

You throw the gloves and canister off into the night, probably a good twenty miles away where it’s about to be someone else’s problem. D finishes laughing at you and locking the car and stands up, hands in their pockets as they face you without any obvious fear despite the fact that you’ve killed people for far less than making you smell something that bad.

“Wanna go for a drive or something?” they ask.

“I’m not really doing anything, so… sure.” you shrug.

“Pick a car, any car. Just not that car.” D says, like they’re a gameshow host.

You do pick one and the two of you get in with D driving. It’s… pleasant enough but still deeply odd. D talks to you pretty happily and it’s surprisingly easy to talk to them, but the whole thing feels wrong. This isn’t how people are with you, even your minions show a sensible amount of consideration to your obvious gap in power compared to them. You’re not the kind of villain to kill your own staff on a whim, but they still know you *could*. But not D.

You tense when D pulls over so you can both eat and asks a particular question.

“So, why *are* you in the villain game then?” they ask, unwrapping their burger.

Was this the angle? Some attempt to change you? Is D some double agent and everything with Captain Whimsy was fake?

“Why are you?” you ask sharply.

“Mine’s probably pretty boring to you. Bad kid, bad crowd, I mostly have a problem with authority. That’s what all my school reports said. Don’t like being told what to do, and why should I follow the rules when it’s clear that the whole game is rigged and the system’s fucked up? So I just like doing what I want. Not to mention planning crimes is fun, it’s not your league of crime but it’s still fun.” D shrugs and takes a bite of their burger.

That sounded honest. You think it did at least.

“You don’t have to tell, I was curious is all. You’re like the *most* powerful, you know? You could have everyone worshipping you if you wanted, right?” D adds, their mouth half full as they talk.

“That sounds boring.” you sigh and look at your own burger, you take a bite and think.

This doesn’t seem like a trap and if it is then… then you could kill them.

“Everything is pretty boring when you’re me, when you’re S-tier. Being a hero would be dull, at least this way I can have a master plan, I can have opponents that can at least try to stop me.” you say softly.

“Like… like if you were playing a game and you and the other players got told all of the rules, except the rules only apply to them and not you. If everyone else is playing chess and trying hard to win but you can win by frisbeeing the board across the room it’s not going to feel like much if you win the tournament against them.” D says slowly.

No one has ever described your life so accurately.

“It’s exactly like that.” you whisper, staring at D in shocked amazement.

D has another bite of their burger for a moment and thinks.

“I kind of like games like that, though. Like Animal Crossing.” D says.

“What.”

“Animal Crossing, it’s a Nintendo game. You can’t win at it but you just do stuff, live a little life on an island with animal people. People play it all sorts of ways, they try to make their island a certain way or collect all the things or… or all sorts of stuff. There’s no way to *win*, there’s not really a lot in the way of rules but it’s great, I like it. Have you played?” D asks and you shake your head in bewilderment.

“You should, it’s good.” D nods.

D eventually ditches the car and burns it, the two of you watch the flames for a bit before D says they need to go home and walks off with a friendly wave. You stand by the burning car for a good while after that, trying to work out how they understand you like no one else ever has.

You return to your secret lair in a shell shocked kind of puzzlement. You ask a few of your minions if they’ve ever heard of D before, but no one has.

The next day when your mind is still preoccupied by D you decide to pay your longest serving minion a visit. Technically speaking you never hired Glitterati, she just showed up. At one point in her life she wandered between planes of reality and came back incredibly changed and completely unhinged. Her body is made of hard light and to your superior vision she is neon in a way that makes lisa frank art look beige, her entire body glimmers like a shitty text filter. She is distressingly chipper and depressingly unkillable. Oh, you can destroy her body, but she explodes into about ten kilograms of ultra fine glitter and reappears by the next sunrise. She decided one day that she wanted to work for you and, after a few weeks of attempting to clear ultra fine glitter from your secret lair after every time you killed her, you gave up and let her.

You still try to avoid her company too much in case you start developing a migraine but she is the most reliable person you have.

You walk into the part of your base that’s typically her domain and find her leaning over a vivisection table that currently has a man strapped to it.

“My liege, what a pleasant surprise!” Glitterati chirps in her most upsettingly chipper customer service voice and turns around to look at you.

“Glitterati, do you know about D?” you ask her curiously.

“I absolutely do, your evilness! How funny you should ask now of all times! Yes, I do know about them! I heard that they had crossed your path and I took the liberty of going ahead and looking into them for you, oh dark master!” she beams, it makes your eyes hurt.

“What did you find?” you ask.

“Well, not a lot to be honest, your heinousness! I’ve got a full report that’s nearly finished, but I can certainly give you the headlines now! It’s pretty standard low level stuff, but to D’s credit they are tangling with lower level heroes and anti-heroes these days but no one really worth paying attention to! I had been wondering if they were some kind of double agent or perhaps that they were being coerced into interacting with you to find out some weakness, but I’ve found no evidence of that either!” Glitterati lists off cheerily.

“I had HackerDan look into D’s computer as well as tapping some contacts close to the various hero leagues but there’s nothing to suggest they were being made to contact you! In fact, your wickedness, it seems that D has quite the bee in their bonnet about loyalty! They’ve never ever *ever* made a deal with the police that compromised their henchmen or other criminals and whenever they’ve found out that someone they know has made a deal like that then they drop them! To me that says that it’s highly unlikely that they’d be a double agent!” she goes on, waving a pair of bloodied pliers in the air as she talks.

“So… they’re legitimately who they say they are?” you ask uncertainly.

“Well, mighty S, destroyer of worlds-” she starts.

“Ok, these are just getting longer now. I’ve told you before you don’t have to call me all of that.” you sigh.

Glitterati giggles like a children’s cartoon character and the motion makes them strobe and sparkle. Sunglasses, you need to invest in sunglasses when you come in here. Maybe welding goggles, actually.

“I can’t help myself, oh infinite evil one!” she laughs brightly.

“Do you have a list of these or- actually, never mind. Tell me about D.” you order.

“Certainly! So I don’t think there’s mind control going on there either, I snuck into their apartment and stared into their mind last night and couldn’t see anything untoward, my tyrannical desecrator!” Glitterati continues, motioning the pliers in the air as if ticking off a point on a list of things she has to say. There’s still a tooth in it.

“Don’t… don’t do that.” you sigh.

“As you wish, my lord! So it’s a no on the mind control and double agency, so my next thought was that they were trying to climb the rungs! But aside from looking at the news online when you make the main page they don’t go out searching for news about you, or not before Captain Whimsy had a long walk off of a short pier at least! I think that was more them checking that no one saw them, though! So I wouldn’t say that they seem interested in trying to work here and they can’t be stupid enough to think you’d take them as a partner in crime, you don’t even need that and even if you did any of us at the lair could beat him one on one so he wouldn’t be an equal to us, let alone you!” she laughs.

She’s right of course, you don’t have anyone working for you that isn’t at least C-tier. Even the robots who clean your base are equipped with the kind of arenal that makes them weapons of mass destruction. You doubt D could defeat anyone here.

“So… so they’re just… them?” you say quietly as the idea sinks in.

“That *is* the conclusion that I’m coming to, but I’m just currently crossing my i’s and dotting my t’s! Or the other way around! See, my last thought is that D could be specifically engineered and spliced together to be someone who would get your guard down and they obviously have managed that to some extent if you don’t mind me speaking so candidly, my magnificent terror! You wouldn’t be asking about some nobody if they hadn’t had some impact on you! But I’m not really that much of an expert in the whole cloning and splicing thing, Mad Mike was the expert in that but he’s on paternity leave right now, so I brought in an expert!” Glitterati says brightly and slaps her hand on the chest of the man who’s strapped to the table.

“Ah, and how’s that looking?” you ask curiously and peer at the sobbing man on the table.

“Please, I don’t know anything!” the man wails.

“I bet you say that to all the girls.” Glitterati hisses gleefully as she whirls around and looms over the man, you’re not sure if you’re getting a migraine aura from being around her too much or if she’s just doing that to the air around her body.

“Mmm, well, let me know.” you grimace as Glitterati looks up at you and smiles sweetly, her teeth shining like floodlights.

“I’ll have a report on your desk lickety split, and I’ll email you a copy as well so that you can read that after you habitually set all the paperwork on your desk on fire without reading it! Oh and don’t forget, your deviousness, I’ve organised a little leaving do for Aquaria on Friday since she and Starkiller are taking that two year trip to Europa to set up their colony of void-sharks, it’ll be in the laser lab!” Glitterati says and yanks a tooth free of the scientist’s head and then turns to you to point at you with it, “I have also taken the liberty of getting a very thoughtful gift for you to give them!”

“It’s not teeth, is it?” you ask with a wince.

“Oh, you’re so funny, my lord! No, it’s the still beating heart of the head of the president of Seaworld!” she laughs.

“That is thoughtful, Aquaria hates that guy. Thank you, you did a really good job.” you tell her.

“Aw, boss! You’re gonna make me blush!” Glitterati says sweetly, pressing her hands to her face and smearing blood on her cheek.

“...Sometimes you’re terrifying even to me, Glitterati.” you say quietly and now she does blush.

Which is to say that they light up bright red and then start shifting past the visible spectrum of light. You decide to leave before she accidentally microwaves the scientist next to her.

You go back to your personal quarters to think. It seems like there’s nothing sinister- well, ok there are plenty of sinister things about D. There’s nothing *unexpectedly wholesome* about D beyond what you can see on the surface. Which leaves you without much explanation as to why they’re able to come out of nowhere and be so interesting to you, to understand you so easily. After many, many, years of working together you have a good understanding of Glitterati, you appreciate her, and you like her to a degree. But she’s not your friend, she’s not interesting, it’s nothing personal against her. You like her more than you like most people but that’s not saying much. So… so what’s different?

Hours later one of your minions knocks on your door and informs you that a package was delivered for you, they’ve already checked it over and it doesn’t seem to be anything dangerous. You sit back on your sofa to inspect it and once you reach into the bag you find that there’s a cardboard box inside, one that says ‘ANIMAL CROSSING EDITION NINTENDO SWITCH’ on the outside. You open it and find that it contains exactly what it says it does and on the inside of the box is a handwritten code with ‘add me’ next to it and a message.

‘Don’t worry about the cost! Five finger discount -D’

They… they got you a gift. With little else that you can think of to do you turn the console on to play it.

Chapter Text

Living with S was fine. It was good, great, in fact. As long as you weren’t a fridge, at least. S was a little bit of a weird roommate, having clearly never lived with anyone else as a roommate so it took a bit of time for them to get used to things like where they could leave their stuff or what things of yours they could use without asking. It was kind of sweet to watch, like a baby bird learning to fly.

A baby bird that could destroy a planet at will, but still.

The point is that living with S works, it’s nice and comfy. They’re not always up in each other’s business, they go and do their separate villain stuff and even at home you can go a few hours with S reading something or playing on their switch and you doing other things without really talking much. You talk plenty of course but it’s not like they’re a guest that you have to entertain, they’re your roommate.

It’s not unusual for S to arrive into your apartment loudly, sometimes the whole super strength thing and your ‘flimsy’ doors make a bad combo. You don’t generally get twitchy about your door being slammed open unless the words ‘POLICE, PUT YOUR HANDS UP’ precede it.

It’s also not usual for S to come home covered in blood, and since it’s basically never theirs you’re not concerned usually. Mostly in that instance you’re more concerned for your flooring.

But there’s a certain combination of things that clues you into something being wrong.

S bursts in the apartment, door bouncing off of the wall loudly. You turn and see them dripping in blood and the occasional unfortunate… chunk of something. They stare at you, wide eyed, their yellow stare freezing you in place where you’d been unloading the dishwasher.

“...S?” you say uneasily.

They go from by the door to clutching you to them, quietly chanting the letter that remains as your name.

“S? S, what’s wrong? Are you… hurt? What’s…” you whisper as your hands come to their sides, their clothing is ripped and ragged and drenched in blood.

“D. D, D, D…” S whispers against your neck as one hand slides into your hair and holds it tight enough to be almost painful.

“What’s going on? Talk to me, man. Please.” you beg and then yelp in alarm as they slump to the floor, taking you with them.

You’re in a tangle of limbs and there’s blood soaking through your clothes now. Whatever has happened means that S clearly isn’t capable of talking right now, or at least saying anything that isn’t ‘D’. You can squirm your hands free and start quickly checking over as much of S as you can, checking for anything that could have done this. They have a few injuries but they’re not that bad and certainly don’t account for all of the blood, besides which S is made from tougher stuff than that.

“S, please!” you say a little louder, trying to shock them out of whatever this is.

S has super hearing, there’s no way they can’t physically hear you. All the same it’s a surprise when S bursts through the front door. Again.

You stare up at S, who is standing in the open doorway and staring back at you. You know, the you currently being held in the arms of S, the one covered in blood.

“What the fuck?” you whisper helplessly.

S narrows their eyes and takes a few steps closer to you before slowly nodding.

“They’re from an alternate reality, they jumped from theirs to ours. This isn’t a shapeshifter situation.” S reassures you.

“You can jump between REALITIES? Actually, I don’t know why I’m even asking, your superpowers are basically ‘yes, and’ to anything. Look, I don’t know if they’re hurt but I can’t get anything out of them beyond my name and there’s a *lot* of blood but I can’t find a source for it. Also how come you’ve never taken me to another reality if you can do that?” you ask.

“It’s hard to do. Not physically but you have to be really desperate to mentally make the jump, so I’m told, I’ve never actually done it but I’ve just talked to other versions of me that have. We have an arrangement. Hey, *hey*, you know about the deal, right?” S asks, loudly directing that last part to their double.

For a moment other S squeezes you tight enough to force the air from your lungs but eventually loosens their grip enough to pull their face from your neck and look at your S, they don’t let you go completely but it’s something. The look on other S’s blood smeared face is haunting and you have no idea what could make them jump between realities but clearly it was traumatic.

“You know about the deal, right? Did you bring everything you need?” S asks them and they nod, once.

“Ok, we need to get to the lab in my lair then. Come on.” S says and starts to pull their double to their feet and you with them.

“Your lair’s destroyed! You told me it was!” you squawk.

“It *is*, just not the indestructible lab beneath it.” S says, like that’s obvious.

“If you can make your lab indestructible then why didn’t you make the whole lair indestructible?” you ask.

“Is this going to be like the black box recorder airplane conversation again?” S sighs.

“APPARENTLY!” you shout.

S leads you both over to the window, although you’re not walking there so much as being carried by the other S. Your S grabs the other one by the sleeve and climbs out of the window, leaving you one horrified second to realise what’s about to happen and zero ability to do anything about it.

S *can* do one of those speed of sound jumps and hold you at the same time, but it’s not exactly… good for you. The point is when you get to S’s lair you end up hunched over, hands on your knees, as you loudly gag and try to not lose your lunch. After about a minute of that you finally stagger upright again, eyes still watering, to take in the devastation of S’s former base. There’s rubble everywhere and it basically looks like a nuke went off here.

“I thought they’d have repaired it more by now, was it *worse* before?” you say in shock.

“No, it just takes time to get assessments done. You can’t hurry evil OSHA, no matter how many cursed blood omens you send. This way.” S sighs and walks off into the rubble.

You jump a little when you feel the hand of the other S curl around your arm, their other hand is clenched tight and shaking. Their expression is still clearly locked in numb terror from whatever trauma they went through and just looking at them makes your heart hurt.

“Hey, we’re going to fix this, ok?” you say softly and pat their hand a few times.

Thankfully they go along with you as you start to walk, which is good because there’s no way in hell you can make any version of S do anything they don’t want to. Or not physically anyway, you do seem to be able to talk your way into getting the good spot on the sofa when they’re in it and you want it, but then again S is really a pretty agreeable person in general.

You follow the path that S has made through the devastation, catching up to them as they effortlessly flip a huge slab of concrete off of the floor like you’d move a stray amazon box at home. Underneath there’s a solid trap door that S somehow unlocks and then opens. They lead the way down and you take your bloodied alternate S down with you.

“Here we are. Sit there and I’ll get this started.” S says, gesturing to a lab table.

You get S to sit on it but it doesn’t do anything to get rid of the thousand yard stare they’ve got going on. Looking around the room you see a sink off to the side of the lab, bracketed by shelves of glass beakers and other sciencey shit.

“That’s water coming out of that tap, right? Not lava or bees or something, yeah?” you check.

“How would I even plumb in bees?” S asks, looking up from some inscrutable machine.

“If anyone could, it’s you.” you shrug.

“It’s water.” S says slowly.

“Cool. Be right back, ok?” you tell the other S quietly and hurry off to the sink.

There’s a few drying rags and cleaning cloths here so you grab those and fill a large beaker with water, then return to the other S. Whatever traumatic thing they went through it definitely won’t be helped by sitting there covered in blood. With your supplies in hand you turn back to see your S walking away from the other one with a swab in hand, maybe they’re testing the blood or something?

“Hey, let’s get you cleaned up, ok?” you say softly to the other S.

Carefully you start cleaning their exposed skin as best as you can and it seems to help, by the time you’re at their hands they’re able to look at you and give you the impression that they’re actually seeing you. There’s not much you can do for their clothes or the occasional small… bits of whoever this was before they were all over S.

“Almost looks like one of your mugs, right?” you joke weakly, holding up your bloodied beaker of water as you go to get a clean rag.

The other S doesn’t laugh.

You move onto their other hand instead and start clearing the blood off of that, they’ve still got it clenched into a fist but you’re doing your best. When gold shines through after you pass the rag over you freeze. That’s a ring, that’s a *wedding ring* on their finger.

“You’re married?” you whisper as you look up at them.

Something in the other S breaks, their face crumpling as tears start to stream down their face.

“They- they said it was for tax reasons but I- we were-” they choke out in a strangled voice.

Their hand uncurls and in the palm of their hand is one lens and part of a frame of a pair of glasses. The same pair that you’re wearing right now. This- their D is dead, that’s why they came to you. Oh shit, this is YOUR blood that you’ve been cleaning off of them, isn’t it?! You stare up at the other S in horror and nearly jump out of your skin when your S puts a hand on your shoulder.

“Just need to borrow them for a second.” S says politely and pulls you away to the machine that they’re working on.

“S, S their D is-” you hiss.

“I know, that’s why they’re here.” S says back quietly and psychically pulls a chair over and nudges you into sitting on it.

“That’s MY blood, isn’t it?!” you demand as quietly as you can, not wanting to make a scene and stress the other S out even more.

“Most of it is. It’s ok, we’re going to bring other you back to life.” S reassures you.

You stare up at them in complete confusion. S sighs and runs a hand through their hair, looking in the direction of the machine instead of at you.

“You remember that conversation we had before, about what you’d do if I died and what I’d do if you died? Well, that’s something of a constant between realities, there’s a huge number of them where that conversation comes up or something like it. We call them the Nintendo realities and we have this contingency plan going.” S explains.

“Nintendo.” you echo.

“Because DS, you know?” S flashes you a grin.

You punch them in the arm, which does nothing to them but makes you feel a little better at least.

“The point is, we’re not letting you die. But even I’m not all powerful, and no version of me that got to that point was willing to accept you dying. So some other version of me made all of this stuff and devised the plan, we can recreate any version of you from a genetic sample and a donor fragment of another D’s soul. That’s enough of a starting spark that any version of me can drag you back to how you were moments before death, so even if a version of me wasn’t able to protect their version of you it’s not forever. All they have to do is to jump to another Nintendo aligned reality and that reality’s version of me will fix them up.” S explains and gives you a reassuring smile.

“Okay, I… will work on processing the fact that I’m apparently functionally immortal now at a later time, I guess. But what’s that about a fragment of my SOUL?” you ask.

“Oh, it’s nothing. It’s like your liver, they regenerate and you don’t need all of it.” S says, waving a hand dismissively.

“I would like to keep all of my liver too, thanks!” you hiss.

“I promise I’m leaving your liver alone, I just need a little fragment of your soul. Let me get the extractor.” S says and moves away to grab it.

Your eyes drift to the other S. They’re clearly devastated and semi-supervillain or not you don’t have the heart to refuse to help them. You can’t take your eyes off of their hand though, you can’t see their wedding ring at this angle but you know it’s there. You’re sure you’re not reading into it, they are (were?) married to you, to the other you. They showed up at YOUR apartment, held YOU like they would die if they didn’t, they had YOUR glasses in their hand.

That S is married to another you. You and S… married.

Your S returns and holds a circular palm sized device over the middle of your chest, their piercing yellow eyes trained intently on it and you.

“Don’t worry, this won’t hurt at all.” S says softly and your heart rate spikes.

It’s not like you’ve never thought it. S is attractive, obviously, in a uncanny valley, not quite human, malevolent god kind of way. But also in a way where their hair is soft and you like their eyes kind of way. In the kind of way where hearing their voice makes you glow inside. But it’s- you’re *friends* and there’s never been any sign that they think about you like that or that they think about anyone like that.

“What makes the realities different? What’s different between them and us?” you ask S shakily.

“Lots of things, there are infinite realities, each one a result of a tiny decision or change done differently. But I know what reality they’re from, it’s one where you’re an antihero instead of a villain. I looked into that branch a while back, you’re not that different from you now. It’s not so much like a vigilante violence thing and more of a ‘down with the system’ and ‘disrespect your surroundings’ kind of thing. You know, like how you don’t rob mom and pop stores, but just… bigger I guess?” S shrugs.

So the difference is you, not that S being entirely different. So does that mean that your S…

You look up at them, at the way their hair falls in their face and their eyebrows make a little crease in between them as they make their focused expression. Seemingly they sense your gaze on them and they look up from the device and give you a reassuring smile, like you’re nervous about whatever they’re doing to your soul instead of *them* as a person and all of this.

There’s a sharp tug in your chest and you feel weird all of a sudden. S stands up properly and clicks the now glowing device to a new setting and nods.

“You might feel a little weird for a day or two. Side effects apparently include an avid dislike for marshmallow based candies and cereal and a possible non-ironic enjoyment for couple prank videos online.” S warns you and walks off to the machine again.

You shift your gaze to the other S. How do you tell your S that these other versions of you both were *married*? You’d not thought about you and S before because it seemed absurd, they’re basically a god and you’re lucky that they like being your friend, let alone anything romantic. And what if you tell them and your S has to tell you that they’re not interested, that this was another deviation between you and them? What do you do?

The inside of your chest feels hollow, there’s no way you can tell them. You just can’t.

“Here,” S says as they hand a glowing green orb to the other S, “this will bring them back, just follow the instructions they gave you and you’ll have D back again.”

“Thank you.” other S breathes, grabs the orb and is gone just like that.

“There. Let’s go home, you probably need clean clothes.” S says as they look you up and down skeptically and without an iota of any kind of interest that’d ever lead to a wedding band.

You can never tell them.