Work Text:
It starts with running, and running, and running once more. Running from his home, from his second home which turned out to be not much of a home at all, from poverty, from his best friend; ultimately, from the cold, harsh reality that one cannot make it in this world without giving up a part of himself, and the only comfort he has is the ability to choose which part to give up.
It turns into something greater, something bigger than he ever thought he'd be. It turns into choosing which parts to keep, instead.
Scar becomes a hero to pay his bills.
He stays to make sure that other people can pay them, as well.
And so it becomes a job, but one he does with a smile on his face. A duty, even—to, with every breath he takes, every effort he makes, move towards making the world a place where no one will ever have to make that choice again.
It does not last.
It starts with whispers.
Not everyone, it seems, shares his views on what makes a world a good place to be, and what makes a person equipped to consider themselves a part of it. Some believe that it is the world that makes the person, and not the person the world. Some believe that right only exists as a mirror to wrong; some believe that Hotguy is not half the beacon of light and goodness that society says he is.
It's a fair opinion to have. It does not faze him much. People will talk; he knew what he was signing up for, and he knows how to deal with them now.
Things change when whispers find themselves attached to claims, and claims to photographs, clips, screenshots of a person who looks exactly like Scar doing everything that Scar would never do.
It starts with a game of pretend.
It takes Scar a few newspaper articles to become aware of what is happening, and only a single video seen with his own eyes to realise that his brother is the one taking his image and using it to ruin his reputation.
At first, he thinks it unreal. Then, he thinks it absurd.
His brother, gone from his life in the instant he stepped foot outside of their home in the dead of night and refused to take him with him. His brother, living god-knows-where, with a staunch refusal to contact him or answer any of his texts. His brother, pretending to be him.
The only thing that worries Scar about the entire situation is his inability to understand.
He ponders over this problem for a long time. Night after night, lying in bed as the accusations trickle in and wondering—why now? Why at all?
Eventually, the answer unravels itself in the past he tried his best to forget. Scar thinks of the boy who let him run away from home with nary an objection.
And he thinks, again, of the choice he made all those years ago. And he realises that his brother must have made that choice at some point, too, and he wonders what he had to give up.
It starts with rumours that turn into facts.
Something Scar had to learn back when he was a teenager was—if you coat the lie in enough truths, the average person will eat up the hard shell and never question the flimsy core holding it together within.
He does not pay any heed to what people say about Hotguy for entire decade that he exists.
When people turn away from him on the streets, when civilians refuse his help, when his boss ignores his protests and tells him to stay quiet, or else—for the first time, Scar has to come to terms with something he already knew—that words have power, too.
It frustrates him, he has to admit. For years, he basked in being the city's number one hero, unashamedly soaked up the popularity that came with a daily reaffirmation of his value to the people, and on this earth. He thought that would be enough—by all rights, it had to be enough.
Clearly, such was a fallacy. No matter how much one is loved, Scar thinks bitterly, his good qualities will never outnumber all his sins, perceived or otherwise.
It starts with losing his friends.
Cub never believes a single thing they say about him.
He leaves, anyway.
At the time, Scar takes several deep breaths, then locks himself in an empty bathroom and screams. And he comes home and screams again, into his pillow, this time, and then he returns back to work the next day and pretends that the man in charge of making his weapons never meant anything more.
They assign him a partner shortly afterwards, and Scar may be the elder, the more experienced, but he is not a fool—he knows that it's him who needs watching over, and this is a compromise so they don't have to fire their best hero—at least, not yet.
Still, they stay out after patrols and watch the sunsets from skyscrapers and talk. In a moment of bravery, Scar tells Cuteguy about his brother—begs him to understand that he knows what they're saying about him, he knows, but it's not him, it's not.
Cuteguy takes his hand, and says, "Hotguy. Whoever is under that visor—that's you. I see you."
Coming from him, his alias does not sound distasteful and abhorrent when it settles in the air between them.
The next day, Scar sees Cuteguy talking to him, but not. He takes him aside and yells at him and does not remember what he said—only knows that whatever words they sunk into each other, they were enough to permanently ruin late nights and city sunsets, and to prove to Cuteguy that he was every bit the man they said they were, after all.
He debates telling Grian about it. About everything. But he comes home and Grian looks tired, so tired, and Scar suddenly thinks—being Hotguy may not be the most difficult life to endure.
Rather, it is but one hardship of many. Grian does not leave him, but he gathers every little thing that hurts and stuffs it all into a box in the back of his mind, under his bed—far, far away, where it can still reach him, but at least will never touch his last remaining friend.
It starts with complete, utter, all-consuming exhaustion.
Being loved was a full-time job. Now, Scar finds that being hated is one and the same.
He wakes up, and wants nothing more than to stay in bed. He dresses himself in blue and orange, and feels like he is preparing for his own funeral. He goes to work and finds himself the brunt of scorn as never before seen, and puts it in his chest, lives with the stabbing beneath his sternum and waits for the day that he will be devoured once and for all.
Sometimes it seems as though he already is—for he goes to sleep with a headache every night, without fail. He goes to bed, and stays up until dawn scrolling through the Internet, reading every vile thing they spout and feeling like the lowest of the low, nevertheless unable to stop, to give in on his unyielding need to know.
On his worst nights, he wonders if he's one lie away from becoming what they say he is, what they think he is. He's not sure what to do with that, with the doubt. On those nights, he wants, prays for it to go away.
They call him a villain in disguise, and they call him a failure, and they call him a disgrace.
The day they call him a murderer, he comes home with a raging fever and a gash in his side.
Scar does not remember much of what follows. He recalls being helped into bed and the cool, wet press of a towel against his forehead. At some point, he thinks he recalls grabbing Grian's sleeve and crying and begging him, please don't go, please don't ever leave me alone.
In a moment of clarity, he breaks away from his fever, only to come to a conclusion that was a long time coming—he can't live like this anymore.
The next day, still with white spots disrupting his vision, Scar stands in front of a crowd in the aftermath of a failed mission. The reporters are relentless and the screaming does nothing to help his headache, and Scar thinks, stars above, why must he continue to exist, why must they continue to exist, why can't they just leave him alone—
In the end, something has to break.
It starts with whispers. It ends with a massacre.
Scar stands in a field of arrow shafts and laughs, and laughs, and laughs. Because for all that they claim to have figured him out, there is one thing that his enemies and friends alike failed to realise.
He may not be a hero—not any longer, perhaps not ever—but he's damn good at what he does.
By the time they come for Hotguy, he is long gone.
.
.
.
.
.
Somewhere in a dark alley, a man trails blood along the pavement with every step he takes. Approaching his destination, he fingers the few remaining arrows he has left. Almost of their own accord, his lips stretch into a lazy smile.
They want a villain?
He'll give them one, all right.