Prompt #2228

Scene Prompt

“Just sit down! I’ll bandage you up,” the ex-villain said, gesturing to the chair.

“I can do it myself,” the hero grumbled, swiping the first aid kit and grudgingly sitting.

The ex-villain pursed their lips. “Hey.” The hero ignored them, cracking open the kit. “Hey,” they said louder and caught the hero’s chin between their fingers, gently tipping it up so their gazes met. “Needing help doesn’t make you weak.”

“I can clean my own wounds.” The hero jerked their face from the ex-villain’s grip and began to swipe a disinfecting wipe along their arm, grimacing at the sting.

“That’s not what I’m talking about, and you know it.” The ex-villain plucked up the ointment and applied it to the hero’s scrapes in wake of the wipe. “Needing my help during the fight today doesn’t mean you’re any less capable.”

“I shouldn’t need anyone, and especially not you,” the hero hissed, fingers digging into the arms of the chair.

The ex-villain flinched at their harsh tone but began to wrap a bandage around the hero’s arm nonetheless. A trickle of guilt seeped into the hero at how their former enemy simply took their words and didn’t lash back, and the fire in their chest dimmed.

They cleared their throat. “I-I shouldn’t have said that. You were just trying to help. I’m not angry at you. I’m angry at me,” the hero confessed.

Smiling sadly, the ex-villain said, “I’m not new to self-loathing either, especially given my past, but that’s something we can both work through. Together, if you’d like.”

- Lynn

Request for “former villain taking care of the hero when a new threat is too much for them to handle” by mudnight_writer

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So while I really loved s4 of Carmen Sandiego, and I enjoyed the finale, it felt more like a season finale than a series one. While the last episode was great, I felt the last ten minutes felt very rushed. So here’s some things I would’ve done different if there was a season 5 

Highlights include: tons more of Player interacting with everyone (more Player and Carmen friendship, Player being in danger from VILE), Gray officially joining Team Red, Zach and Ivy joining ACME having more build up, etc. 

Season 4 

Carmen and Player’s first in-person meeting is shown in FULL like cmon

Have Carmen’s brainwashing last much shorter, only about a month at most (you cannot expect me to believe Team Red would let it go on for seven months) 

Carmen never joins VILE’s faculty, but we do see her being quite cruel on cases, and Gray’s growing concern and guilt 

Team Red teams up with ACME, desperate to get Carmen back and willing to do anything 

Like in the show: VILE lies to Carmen about Shadowsan and she goes after him. Gray realises how wrong all of this is and turns himself over to ACME to try and save Carmen

There’s a big Team Red/ACME vs VILE/Carmen fight. Gray tries to get the headset on (we’re keeping the “please come back” line because it broke my heart) but she realises he betrayed her and shocks him. It’s a big fight between Shadowsan and Carmen, he gets the headset on her and her memories start to come back, but she destroys it before it can work completely. Shadowsan is down, and Carmen’s about to take him out when…

Player shows up! 

He’s been beside himself since she went missing. When he finds out about the plan to save her, he says he’s coming with them. The rest of the team thinks it’s a bad idea, that it’s too dangerous, but he says it’s worth any risk to save Carmen. “She’s my best friend! My first real friend! I’d do anything for her, please!’ 

Player’s always been Carmen’s secret weapon, even back on VILE island. He was her first real friend too. Even if they erased all those years of Carmen Sandiego, even if they took away her heart, Player’s always gonna be in there. 

Player tries to talk her down, tries to remind her of their time working together, tries to get her to leave Shadowsan alone - ‘Come on, Red. You gotta remember, please! Remember me, remember who you really are!’ She’s confused, conflicting memories tearing her apart. But she still refuses to listen and maybe pushes him away (he is still a kid, even without empathy, I doubt she’d just attack him). Carmen goes to take out Shadowsan with the crackle rod and Player puts himself between her and Shadowsan. 

Carmen demands that he move out of the way. She’s starting to cry, starting to break. Player refuses. ‘I told you, Red. I’m not going anywhere.’  

And it all comes back to her at once. She remember everything, her life, her friends, what happened when VILE kidnapped her. She’s overwhelmed - relieved, heartbroken, confused. Player just hugs her, so happy to have his best friend back. 

As they start to pick themselves up after the battle, Carmen’s heartbroken at everything she’s done. She tries to apologise, but all her friends refuse to hear it, just glad to have her back. 

When Gray wakes up in the hospital, Carmen’s already there waiting for him, to make sure he’s okay and to apologise. But he just apologises for not doing something sooner. They call it even. The Chief shows up to tell Gray ACME’s not after him. Carmen offers him a spot on her team, but he says he’ll have to think about it. 

Team Red officially teams up with ACME, of course partnered with Jules and Devineaux. Jules is continuing to look into the mystery of Carlotta Valdez, and everyone’s ready to work together to take down VILE. 

The very end of the season is VILE faculty talking with the Troll. He’s got the security footage from when they lost brainwashed!Carmen. The know everybody in the footage except for one. The piece they were missing from the puzzle. They zoom in on Player. 

Season 5 

With Team Red and ACME working together, they finally start to take down VILE. They still don’t know their new Headquarters, but they start to take out VILE strongholds, like Doctor Bellum’s lab. 

Zach and Ivy start working closely with ACME, realising their skills and what the might want to do in the future.

Carmen’s pretty shaken by what happened to her. She’s terrified of being captured again, haunted by what she was forced to do, but refuses to let on that anything’s wrong. Eventually it all builds up and she ruins a mission. She and Shadowsan talk things out, have a wonderful father/daughter scene and Carmen slowly starts to heal as she realises she doesn’t have to take on the world herself. 

Even without the need for revenge, there’s some tension between Carmen, Shadowsan and the Chief. They slowly start to trust each other and gain more respect. 

We get some great team ups: Jules and Carmen get to work together! Also the chaos that Devineaux, Zach and Ivy would wreak as a team, or Devineaux and Shadowsan trying to work together - think of the potential! Also we get a callback to the first episode - Devineaux yelling ‘where in the world is Carmen Sandiego’ during a caper, but it’s waiting for her to come and help him

Gray of course joins the team, changed by Carmen, her faith in him and the remorse after what happened with Carmen’s brainwashing. Parts of the team don’t trust him right away, but he proves himself. 

We get some backstory on Player! Apparently he became a hacker to try and find his father after he left, but is now happy with his mum and stepfather (this was in a tie-in novel?). But we see this! We get to see Player’s family! How much they love him, why they’re so overprotective. He’s still happy and comfortable in his room but his experience with school and finally meeting Team Red makes him want to push outside of his comfort zone. He tries to make some real life friends (joins a pride group, or a coding club or something). And if I’m writing this, what the hell, he also gets a boyfriend. 

But of course, VILE has their sights set on Player. Now that The Troll has a target he’s been trying to track the kid, and finds him through security cameras. Player’s having dinner with his family one night when a knock comes at the door. It’s Coach Brunt. She bursts in, Player recognises her and tries to go for his room to call Carmen but Tigeress cuts him off. He’s in big trouble.

They take Player and his family hostage and Player’s parents finally find out what he’s been up to. 

‘Wait, you were helping take down an international crime organisation!?’ ‘Yes mom, I told you that!’ ‘I thought you were playing a video game!!!’ 

VILE uses Player and his family as bait to try and finally take out Team Red. Of course they fail, everyone is literally ready to Kill to save Player. Carmen is more furious than we’ve ever seen her. Player gets to do something cool like knock out Tigeress with a computer screen or something. ACME takes Coach Brunt and Tigeress into custody (continuing the fall of VILE). 

Player’s parents get to see that their son is friends with bunch of secret agents and ex-criminals. They also see the big sister/little brother relationship between Carmen and Player. He talks about her all the time and they’re really happy to finally meet her, and she becomes an honorary member of the family. They’re still worried about Player’s involvement, but they see how much it means to him (and with ACME assuring their safety) agree that he can continue. 

Jules finally finds Carmen’s mother. She brings her the information and Carmen admits that she’s afraid to go and find her. We find out a bit about Jules, how she’s not that close with her own biological family, and how much this new team has meant to her. How family is who you choose. Carmen is comforted by this. She decides to set aside her mother until she finishes up her business with VILE.

They’re building up to the final fight, they’ve found the location of the headquarters. Carmen recruits whoever wants to join (Team Red, ACME, different friends from their journey like Sonia). There’s a big battle, bringing back different VILE characters (Mime Bomb, Flytrap, Spinkick, etc.), gadgets and robots vs the new team. 

Of course they defeat VILE, finally bringing them out of the shadows and taking them in. 

The Chief officially offers everyone on Team Red places with ACME. They all talk, and Zach and Ivy decide to accept. It’s not Carmen, Gray or Shadowsan’s thing, but they agree to stay on as consultants. Shadowsan decides to retire and go home to his brother. The team “splits up” but promise to see each other again soon. 

Carmen gets permission to take Player sightseeing over the summer, so he can get out and go see the world like she did. 

Carmen goes to meet her mother, encouraged on the phone by Player and his family (because he’s not sitting alone in a diner, he’s hanging out with other people, showing his character growth). 

There can still be a timeskip, but it’s where everyone’s still working together to take down any last traces of VILE

“Oi, Hero.”

Oh no. Please no.  Not now, not now…

“Hero, what are you doing?”

Hero ignored them, curling up into a ball and covering their head with their hands.  They closed their eyes, tears sliding down their cheeks.

“Stop ignoring me.” Hero ignored them.

“Hero, you’re so annoying, I swear to-” Villain started, walking around and crouching in front of Hero.  Villain’s voice broke off, clearly seeing the expression on their face.  Hero’s hands shook as they sobbed uncontrollably, not even caring that their nemesis was standing in front of them.  They knew how they must have looked- completely devastated, eyes red and puffy and hands trembling.  Hero looked up.  Villain had an unreadable expression on their face.  Hero sighed, shaking their head in annoyance.

“Well, just do it, then.” they spit.  “I’d rather get this over with.” Hero sighed, placing their hands on the ground next to them and closing their eyes, preparing for the final blow.  Villain nodded, crouching down in front of them.  Hero felt dread rising in their stomach, but they tried to ignore it, instead waiting patiently.  After a minute, they opened their eyes, looking at Villain in confusion. Why were they hesitating?

“Hey, come on-”

Arms suddenly wrapped around them.  Hero blinked in confusion, trying to push away.  Villain grabbed onto them, holding them tight.  Hero felt what little emotional control they had left completely break, and they started crying again.    They clutched Villain’s shirt desperately, leaning into their shoulder.  Villain’s hand coursed through their hair, and they whispered reassuringly. 

“Better?” Villain asked, some time later.

“Better.” Hero replied.

Outcast Heroine x her rival

The thought of inviting her, 

it didn’t even cross their mind, did it?

Heroine stared at the rest of her team, who never seemed to notice her existence. By the loud laughs and noticeable drop of seriousness, they were heading to the bar. Leaving her to be the only to work on their shared case. Again.

Who cares.

She will be the one who laughs at the end.

She might be the outcast here, but it only proved her worth. She works harder, she is more serious, she will solve this case. I will get to see the shock of her so-called teammates as she stares with cold, satisfied eyes.

She just needs to wait patiently until that happens.

Yet it somehow still hurts. And unwillingly, she caught herself stealing glances at the noisy group. Especially at one she thought would act differently. Her rival. 

He laughed with the others, seemingly forgetting her existence. He just never acted that way. He always argued with her, competed against her, sent her way his grin when he cracked a case and eye rolls when she beat him to it.

Called when she was sick, noted her insights, listened to her

But apparently there was a company he liked better.

Heroine’s tension calmed a bit when the noisy group finally left. She went over her suspect’s files again, looking for a loose thread. Loneliness was her curse, but mysteries her blessings.

The man she suspected was a history professor.

He is known to lock himself in his apartment and write books, rarely interacting with his colleagues and students.

The victim was a writer who’s newly published first book became the crowd’s favor immediately.

The two have barely known each other. 

But Heroine knew how deep jealousy could go. There were days she planned in her mind how she would hide the bodies of her teammates.

He had sent to someone else, the victim’s advisor- several ‘erroneous’ emails. They were clearly separated by words, but each was complete gibberish. 

Still, it seemed too weird, and she never saw an ‘error’ such as that.

She had earplugs, a workspace all of her own, and the calming feeling of unveiling another secrecy. 

Nothing could invade the mind, 

block any worries  and make someone forget about their existence like a good mystery.

She didn’t know how long she was in peace, until someone coughed from the other side of the room.

Rival stood there, with a lopsided smile, holding two cups of coffee.

“Something interesting?”

He walked to her desk and placed one cup beside her, having some awkwardness in his movements.

It was a cold coffee, with little milk and ice cubes.

He remembers-

“Oh, umm, thanks.”

Heroine cleared her throat.

“I have a hunch,”

She said, then questioned his motives.

“but it’s just a theory.”

He nodded slightly, getting the hint. But didn’t go yet.

“Well, you, want some quiet or-”

“Aren’t you going with the others?”

He blinked. Then shrugged, still having some awkwardness.

“I can’t let you be the only one who stays over. It makes me look bad.”

“Don’t blame your ugliness on me.”

“Ouch.”

He gave her a half-laugh, and sat in his place. There was silence for a little while. Heroine continued to go over emails, silently listening to Rival unpacking his equipment and playing with his pen.

“So, wanna share some ideas?”

He said it trying to sound unintrested, she noted.

Is this why you stayed?

“What’s it to you?”

“My job, actually.”

He expected a reaction for a moment.

Rival cleared his throat.

“I won’t take your credit.”

Heroine crooked an eyebrow.

“Promise. I wanna catch this bastard as much as you.”

Another’s comments may be helpful, and Rival, as cocky as he is, always kept his word.

“Come take a look.”

He came over, a little too quickly. Then leaned into her desk, right next to her chair. close

“The emails. There are several supposedly emails with errors, they make no sense and only contain one line or so, but there are too many of them.”

Heroine completely immersed herself in the mystery, trying to ignore the warmth she sensed from Rival.

“I tried to check some simple ciphering methods. The thing is, some words make sense when decoding them using straightforward letter-shuffling. But in each email there’s at least one word that never makes sense after deciphering.”

She passed him her papers, and he tilted down to examine it. For a moment, she could see his face from so close. Her gaze immediately turned to the printed emails.

“I highlighted these words. They are the only ones with special characters. If we decipher them, we might have proof that the suspect purposely wrote these emails to hide messages.”

“hmmm…”

His hand was quite close to hers, she realized, some part of her wanted to touch it. Learn exactly how warm he is.

Heroine took her coffee and drank almost all of it in one slip.

“He is not a mathematician, isn’t he? or a puzzler?”

“An historian.”

“It’d be tough to convince he made up a cipher.”

“True.”

“What did he research?”

“He had a fondness for royal families. He’d write about grand schemes and falls and such.”

“Did he write anything about Mary, queen of the scots?”

She tilted her head, trying to remember if she read about such character. 

“She’s been the queen of Scotland since she was six, but also wanted England. She got imprisoned and plotted to assassinate Elizabeth the first from a cell.”

“Well, you are knowledgeable, I’ll get you a paper star later,”

Rival rolled his eyes.

“but how does it help us?”

“She communicated her plot using a cipher.”

Heroine’s eyes widened.

“What kind?”

“Quite simple, but hard to decrypt- she used letter switching like you did, but she also made special symbols to refer to people.”

“So if we try to assign to each special character a possible name-”

“We’ll reveal the message.”

She was smiling. This mystery could be solved. Her hunch might be right. Oh, the looks on her teammates’ faces will be wonderful

“This is so much better than a drinking night.”

Rival chuckled, probably amused by my rapture as always.

Only now she noticed that he was smiling brightly, too. But it looked different. It looked softer.

She cleared her throat.

“We should get into it. I made a chart of how the letters shuffle, here, take, just think of things he’d want to hide and see if the texts make sense.”

She leaned over her desk, making a list of possibilities that jumped into her mind.

“Mind if I’ll work here?”

“Sure”

It only took an hour.

Heroine eagerly showed Rival her findings. A possible interpretation of the messages, in which the victim’s name and the place of the murder had code words.

Her hand rushed to her cup, only to see that it was empty long ago.

So this was it. She looked at Rival, and and he seemed a bit saddened, too.

“You can take some credit, you know.”

He waved his hand dismissively, packing his things.

“Nah. You’d figure it out anyway.”

“Oh, absolutely.”

Heroine started packing as well, already realizing she’ll immediately miss… whatever this is that they have now.

“Still, we… we did this together.”

Rival froze for a moment, staring at her with something akin to… awe.

“It’s yours,”

He smiled, incitement returning to his features.

“the fun is enough for me.”

They started walking together towards the door.

“More fun than drinking night?”

“Much more.”

Fortunately, their cars were in the same direction. There was still one more mystery.

“Why did you stay?” “Hm? I told you-”

“Seriously. You never stay overnight. You could actually be drunk right now, with, you know…”

The more amusing parts of our team

There was silence for a few moments, growing more noticeable every second. Rival was rarely out of words.

“It’s kinda nice when it’s just us”

Heroine stopped mid-walking and stared at him. It was her turn to be speechless. Is this…? Is he really…? 

“It is”

She agreed, eventually. Both of them stood on the road, blushing.

“We can… um… be tog- ”

She took a big breath.

“We can hang out the office. If you want.”

A small smile came back to Rival’s face.

“Yes. Sure. Great.”

MUCH better than drinking night

Prompt 185

"I know you miss me," they spoke carefully, each word a double-edged sword. "But you can't keep calling me whenever you feel sad, okay? It's time for both of us to move on."

The hero nodded numbly, hand clenched tightly around the phone. "Yeah, I know. But please wait. Don't hang up. I... I messed up."

“Don’t even think about telling me what to do.” Hero said bitterly, pulling on their mask. “I can do what I want, even if it means saving others in exchange for my life.”

Villain held onto Hero’s hand, not letting go anytime soon. “And you’re just going to leave me here?! Let me come with you!” They pleaded with them. “If you should die, let me die with you!”

“Get off me.”

“No.”

“I said— Get off me!” Hero kicked them away, regretting it almost instantly. “! Wait... I didn’t mean to!”

Villain slowly got to their feet and smiled. “Please, let me come with you.”

Reluctantly, Hero let them.

// hello let me feed all of you with some good ol’ sadness ig //

Drew my friend as his favorite anti-hero, he's gonna get crazy over it when I'm finished. #drawing #drawyoursquad #portrait #sketchbooktour #sketchbook #sketch #sketching #artoninstagram #art #artwork #fanart #venom #venommovie #venomverse #marvel #marvelfanart #marvelfan #antihero https://www.instagram.com/p/B-aCt7MBizL/?igshid=9avr86wvt3a9