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Abolish was mid-sentence when an ear-shattering shriek echoed in the distance. His students, who had previously looked tired—it was a 9 am class afterall—had flinched into alertness, and were now looking around anxiously. Abolish recognised that awful sound—he had the absolute pleasure of hearing it on a weekly basis.
He immediately understood the wordless request and quickly opened the classroom window just in time for a massive white bat to fly right into his chest, throwing him back on top of his desk.
The students were absolutely paying attention now. Everyone in New York recognised that bat; it was the infamous Count, one of the city's most feared villains. He had powers that were so similar to that of a vampire that he had completely redefined modern vampiric media.
"Get off me you big oaf." Abolish groaned.
In an instant, The Count was standing in front of him. He had stunning blood-red eyes that were rumoured to hypnotise anyone who dared look into them. His hair was a perfect white that stood out against his dark attire. The Count was wearing a long coat that floated behind him in a way that mocked the capes some heroes wore, the sides sliced to mimic bat wings. It was black on the outside, with a bright red inner lining, and golden trims along the collar. The coat had a gold embroidered bat on the left—near his heart—and The Coven's sigil on the right arm, both of which were Abolish's work. He wore a black choker with golden details, and was adorned with more gold jewellery than Abolish thought was safe. He had long, black pants and fancy heeled boots that clicked whenever he walked. The Count wore a dark grey waistcoat and a black belt which held a gun and a knife. His most striking weapon was the claw-like blades that sat on the knuckles of his right hand. Abolish thought them to be dramatic and impractical, but he couldn't deny that they worked. A fancy black, red and gold bat-shaped mask sat upon his face, obscuring his identity from the world.
The Count stood there, silently contemplating something. The class was frozen. The villain was always animated and dramatic; to see him so still was very unnerving. Abolish took this moment to stand up and make sure he wasn't injured. The Count grinned at him slyly as he came to a decision.
"Angel, could you help me out here? You see, I have some horrible heroes on my tail. They just refuse to give up," The Count said, drawing his words out in a way that appeared lazy, though Abolish could hear the urgency in his tone.
"Storage closet. Take a left. Green door." Abolish handed The Count a piece of paper from a hidden pocket in his coat.
"Eat it?" The Count asked, looking down at the note.
"Yep," Abolish replied, then clicked his tongue twice.
"This is why I love you," The Count said and kissed Abolish on the cheek, before dragging his claw-blades down Abolish's left forearm, leaving bloody gashes that looked very gnarly, but weren't all that deep.
The Count turned towards the students, bowing dramatically then gracefully sprinting out the door.
The class sat there in shock for a moment. The only sound was the ticking of a clock that hadn't read the correct time for as long as Abolish had worked as a professor. A brave student spoke up.
"... Eat it?"
Abolish paused. "Dispose of the evidence," he responded after deciding that they were less likely to cause him problems if he proved himself a competent threat.
The student clearly wanted to ask another question but decided against it.
"Sooo... Are you two... Together?" another student questioned. Right, gossip.
Abolish paused, debating for a moment whether he should admit that the man was his husband, before staring pointedly at his class and stating "I have never met him before in my life."
He turned back to the white board to continue his lesson when the classroom door flew open. It was the aforementioned heroes. Standing before the class was Kestrel and Archer. Abolish, through his own tech-based powers, also knew them as Miss Apo Kuna and Mr Martyn Woodhurst.
Kestrel stood tall. She had large reddish-brown feathered wings folded behind her back and long tail feathers trailing behind her, almost touching the floor. She wore a simple dark red dress—rather impractical for fighting Abolish thought—that was slightly shorter than her tail. Her mask looked to be entirely made of feathers the same colour as her wings, surrounding her rose eyes and reaching down to the tip of her nose. Kestrel wore reddish-brown leather shoes with tall padded soles that allowed her to easily take off and land without injuring herself. She held a well-crafted halberd—a long weapon with an axe and a spike on the end—that she held upright like a guard might hold a spear.
Archer looked like he was ready to draw his bow at any moment; hand on the weapon and feet planted to keep himself steady. He had very long blonde hair that appeared intentionally messy. He wore an olive green short-sleeved shirt that was padded around the torso to defend him from wayward shots, and a belt which held numerous hunting knives. Under it, Archer had a padded leather kilt and fancy running shoes, allowing him excellent dexterity so he could climb and hide just about anywhere. His mask was a forest green, adorned with leaves and barely reaching the bridge of his nose. Fastened above his ears were some very strange bones that were shaped like sticks, resembling horns. He had a powerful green bow and a quiver of arrows slung across his back. It was rare to see anyone use any ranged weapons other than a gun but Archer's arrows all had different effects when they hit a target—from explosions and fire, to healing and speed—making him an unpredictable threat.
"Where is The Count?" Kestrel demanded.
"I don't know. He's gone," Abolish replied in a bored monotone.
"Do you know where he could be headed?" questioned Archer.
"Nope."
"He's lying," A little snitch said. "He knows The Count." Someone's failing the course.
"Yeah! They're booyyfriieends," Another voice piped up.
Abolish's eye twitched. Husbands. The heroes looked at him very suspiciously; Kestrel's expression was full of anger, Archer's of disbelief. This was fine, he could do damage control, and a bit of stalling. He gave a dramatic sigh.
"Seriously. You wear a punk outfit once and suddenly you're fucking a villain," someone choked at that, "I left the window open, he flew in, attacked me, and ran out. Pay no mind to the playground rumours."
Kestrel's eyes widened as she saw Abolish's injury.
"Shit! Are you okay? How are you so calm?!"
"I've been injured worse by rogue balls."
Someone snickered. "I'm sure you have."
Abolish gave his class a very stern look.
The heroes no longer looked suspicious of him; they instead looked deeply unimpressed at his students.
"Right. You should go to the nurse, or call an ambulance; that looks nasty. Now, does anyone have any more information?" asked Kestrel.
"The Count went into the storage closet," one of the snitches blabbed.
Abolish gave them a look, and watched them flinch as their laptop gave them an unpleasant electric shock. He raised an eyebrow at them before turning back to the heroes.
"We heard the door to the storage closet open after The Count left, but there's no exit from that room. He's got no reason to be in there." Abolish clarified.
The note that he'd passed to The Count had contained instructions and a code that could be inputted into what looked like an old calculator to unlock a hidden trapdoor which led to what were probably meant to be service tunnels of some sort, though nobody ever used them. The mechanism auto-locked—they wouldn't find The Count, Abolish had set it up for exactly this scenario.
His class was silent now. Good.
"Right." Kestrel ran a hand down her face in annoyance. "Thank you for your time."
And with that, the heroes walked out of the classroom.
Abolish stared down his students for an uncomfortable amount of time before grabbing a bandage from his bag and wrapping up his still-bleeding arm. It had stained his shirt and gotten onto his desk, which was annoying. His class watched him in complete silence as he retrieved some cleaning supplies and removed as much blood as he could from his desk.
He sighed before continuing the lesson like nothing had happened.
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Abolish leaned against the door, letting out a long sigh. He had been getting stares all day—thankfully most had the sense to not ask any questions, and those who did got a very disappointed look that Abolish found shut just about anyone up—even his fellow staff members.
He took a moment to just breathe in the silence before he strode further into the house.
Scott was draped across the couch on his phone—probably updating The Count's social media. Most villains didn't have any online presence; The Coven was an exception thanks to Abolish ensuring that their devices couldn't be tracked. This made them very popular, despite being evil villains who routinely took lives—even though it greatly upset Shelby.
The moment Scott saw Abolish enter the room, he lazily sat up and patted a spot on the couch right next to him. Abolish placed his bag at the foot of the couch and flopped down next to Scott, who immediately started tracing circles in the shoulder of his injured arm.
"Sorry about this morning Angel, I didn't think you'd have students so early in the morning. I would have kept running if I'd known. Will it cause you trouble Darling?"
Abolish sighed.
"Nothing moves faster than gossip. Everyone will have heard it by tomorrow. Thankfully, no one will believe it. I'll fine. It's a ridiculous rumour."
Scott relaxed a little bit at Abolish's words and began to undo his bandage to inspect his wound. He gave a quiet hiss when he saw the injury before he leaned down to run his tongue along the dried blood.
"Freak," Abolish muttered, though he made no move to pull away. Scott grinned up at him.
"You love it," he purred, before he continued licking along Abolish's forearm.
Scott's tongue numbed the dull ache that had been present the whole day, the repetitive, soothing sensation causing Abolish to sigh in contentment and involuntarily relax. He gave a non-committal hum and let his eyes close.
They stayed like that for a few minutes until Scott had cleaned off all of the blood from the wound and it looked significantly less inflamed. By the time the villain lifted his head to look at his husband, Abolish was completely boneless against his side.
Scott sat up and pulled his husband onto his lap and manoeuvred Abolish's head until it sat in the crook of his neck.
"I love you," he breathed.
Abolish mumbled something unintelligible before he started to press gentle kisses along his husband's throat, who tilted his head to give him better access. Scott brought his hand up and began and started running his fingers through Abolish's hair, purring gently.
They stayed like that for a while, trading kisses and gentle touches, until they were just holding each other, slowly drifting off. Abolish sighed.
"Love, I need to wrap my arm again," he murmured.
Scott responded with a whine, squeezing his husband tighter and pressing a kiss on into his hair before letting him go.
Abolish wobbled to his feet, making his way to the bathroom and quickly rebandaging his wound.
When he made it back to the couch, Scott was laying down again. Abolish padded over and laid down on Scott's chest, nuzzling into the villain's neck as he wrapped his arms tightly around Abolish, causing him to immediately relax with a content hum.
"We should move to our bed," Abolish mumbled.
Scott growled, hugging Abolish even tighter.
Abolish couldn't help but agree. He said a silent apology to the rest of The Coven.
His consciousness slipped away from him, relaxed in the purring arms of his husband.