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"Well, well, well... look who we have here! Mr. Scar Goodtimes. Fallen for my trap."
Scar glared at Doc from behind a row of iron bars, eyes following his pacing. He didn't quite know what to do with himself, not when his situation was so unclear. Had he been found out? Was this just another one of his overcomplicated cartoon-villain-esque plans that somehow always seemed to work out? Was Scar meant to play the part of a terrified civilian or the unfazed hero?
"I know that you're associated with Hotguy, you can't deny that, Scar." So, the former, then... Maybe this could be fun, he thought, but he didn't let his internal grin show on his face.
"Oh no! The great and mighty hero Hotguy!? I don't know anything about him, you evil villain, let me go!" he exclaimed, pushing himself up against the bars of his cell.
"Uh-uh-uhh! Not so fast! I have proof of the two of you conspiring together. He wouldn't leave such a good friend in the hands of a supervillain now, would he?" Doc smirked, and it took Scar all of his willpower not to start giggling madly.
"Of course not! He is the greatest, kindest hero that this city has ever seen! He wouldn't leave a poor guy like me to rot in a cell with a stinky goat guy as the guard." Doc gasped, reaching through the bars to grab Scar by the collar and pull him up against the wall. Scar wiggled around, just to give the illusion of trying to escape his grip.
"Listen here, you little shit. You do not want to be messing with me. I could keep you locked up in this cell for your whole life if that's what I wanted." Scar tried to hide his laughter behind a noise of panic as he slipped the cell's keys from Doc's lab coat into his own pocket. "I'm keeping my eye on you. But don't worry! Hotguy should already be on his way, and I'll be waiting to greet him!"
Doc shot him a final, nasty grin, then walked out of the room, footsteps echoing down the hallway. With the way the sound carried down the row of empty cells, Scar could tell that he hadn't gone far. Over to the adjacent room, at most. But all Scar really needed was for him to be out of sight, so he pulled the key ring from his pocket – he wondered how Doc hadn't noticed that before, its outline was quite clear against the fabric of his pants – and quietly clicked the lock open. For good measure, he pulled the key off of the ring and stuffed it into his sock before slipping out of the cell on silent feet.
He wondered how Doc could have possibly become a supervillain as he walked into the next room without any trouble. He just continued working on whatever super evil device he'd last designed, completely unaware of a new presence in the room.
After a long moment of staring at Doc's back and listening to him hum quietly to himself, Scar figured that if he hadn't noticed yet, he wouldn't anytime soon, either, so he looked around to inspect the room instead.
Machinery of glinting metal lined the walls, some that he recognized from earlier fights, but most that were completely new. Some hung from hooks, some were propped up against the wall, and yet again some had shelves mounted on the walls just for them. All those elaborate mechanisms made Scar's head hurt a bit, so he elected to turn away from those walls and instead go sit down on an old, curiously stained couch that was pushed into the middle of the room next to what looked like an upgraded version of a mini-fridge.
He scooted to a less... worn side of the couch and laid back, making himself comfortable to watch Doc at work. At first, it was sort of interesting, the professionalism with which he was assembling the arm-length device – some type of gun, perhaps? – but what was even more fascinating was the fact that he did not notice Scar for what felt like hours, though was probably just a quarter. He'd even turned around at one point, making Scar tense, ready to continue the game and get yelled at, and he still saw nothing.
Scar was getting frustrated, and more importantly, bored out of his mind. He cleared his throat quietly, breaking the silence that had settled over the room.
Doc whipped around, the device in his hands pointed straight at Scar, laid out comfortably on the couch. He had a hilarious look of surprise on his face, and this time, Scar could not keep himself from laughing out loud.
"How did you get out?!" he hissed, storming over to pull Scar off the couch with an iron grip, dragging him hastily through the door and back toward the holding cells.
"Oh, you know, it was just getting a bit boring, waiting for my handsome saviour to arrive, I thought I'd get a little look around in the meantime!"
"How. Did you. Get out."
"He's really taking his time, isn't he? One would think he'd come as fast as he could if a poor, innocent civilian got locked up in his arch-enemy's secret lair."
Doc didn't even try to stop him from continuing to talk as he shoved him back into the cell and pulled the door closed, inspecting the lock, presumably to check if it was broken.
"He must just have some other really important hero business to be attending to."
Doc's hand fumbled around in his pocket, searching for his keyring, and Scar could see the realization dawning on his face as he furiously patted down every one of the nooks in his – quite flimsy – outfit.
"How did you take the keys," he didn't wait for an answer to his growled question before stepping into the cage himself and slamming the door shut behind him, backing Scar into a corner to search him for the stolen keys. It got caught on the fabric as he tugged it out from his pants' pocket, but he paid no mind to Scar tripping after him as he wrenched it free and stormed back out.
“Hey, now! It’s not very nice to go around tearin’ the pants of people. And these weren’t a cheap pair, either. Quality corduroy in this color is very difficult to come across these days, I’ll tell yah, very difficult indeed.” Doc was searching through the keys by muscle memory, glancing down in surprise once he found that the correct one was missing. His frustrated gaze flitted up to meet Scar’s entirely too jovial one.
“Give me back the key, Scar.”
“Oh, but that would be very counter-intuitive to my goal, wouldn’t it? I mean, I’m aiming to get out of this nasty old basement, not get locked up in it again, as I’m sure you’ll understand. The decor in here is quite outdated, is it not? Who even uses iron these days? Could be switched to a nice light blue concrete… perhaps even wool would look good, though that’d make breaking out a whole lot easier, wouldn’t it.”
Doc let out a deep, exasperated sigh and proceeded to bang his head against the iron bars of the door. Scar counted three times before he brought his hands up to bury his face in them.
“You are–,” he started, but as soon as he looked up and caught sight of the cheerfully grinning Scar, he had to interrupt himself with another frustrated noise, “I cannot deal with you. My nerves can’t handle this.”
Scar’s grin widened impossibly further, his eyes sparkling as he stepped closer to Doc.
“You know, there’s a very straightforward solution to your problem. Really, to both of our problems! I’m sure you know what I’m talking about. Now don’t get me wrong, I just love being bored and hungry in a cold, empty holding cell, but I’ve got things to do at home! Jellies to pet, Jellies to feed, Jellies to snuggle, you get my gist. I see this as an entirely win-win situation for the both of us!”
He’d been slowly approaching Doc while he spoke, and by the time he finished up his grand speech, he was standing just a step away from the other man who was still leaning up against the bars of the cell. He regarded him with narrowed eyes for a long moment before rubbing his face with a sigh a throwing the door open.
“Fine! Fine.” The blindfold from earlier was still tucked away in his pocket, which he pulled out to tie onto Scar’s head again to safely lead him out of his secret lair. Scar followed along willingly, a skip in his step even as he stumbled after the tugging hand through never-ending hallways and winding flights of stairs.
Well, he thought, that was certainly a fun way to spend an afternoon!