❝ 𝘳.𝘦.𝘮. ❞ [ Pedro Pascal characters x reader ]

nemesis | bittersweet

prompt: (Y/n) used to be Marcus' nemesis, but he retired, so now what?

warning: strong language, implications of suicide, and there's a needle at the end

word count: 2057

pronouns: gender-neutral

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second-person point of view. . .

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The memory replayed in your mind over and over again. You would never forget that day--that spark. Your whole body had felt on fire in the best way possible and you had not been able to shake that grin off your face. It was as if a new life had been breathed into you that night, on the rooftop of one of the tallest buildings in the country...

With a loud rattle, the machine you had worked on for weeks came to life. That box of bolts was the key to your entire plan so you were ready to protect it. No doubt, some battalion would be sent by the Heroic, even if it was your debut as the world's latest threat. Instead of a chorus of soldiers, it was only him that came.

At first, you were insulted that they thought you would be defeated so easily. But then the combat began and you realized just how formidable this single foe was. With two katanas and the ability to wrap metal to his will, fighting the leader of the Heroics was far more satisfying than an army of nameless troopers.

With every clanking of his swords against your armored forearms, your excitement grew. You were equally matched, which made the fight a close, and entertaining, match. You saw him grow more and more intense and purposeful in his strikes, and he saw you grow more and more fanatic as your delight became uncontainable. No one has ever come this close to besting you, so you were going to savor every moment of that fight until you won.

But that time never came. In a ditch effort to distract you, he used his powers to tear your machine apart. When you turned to assess the damage, he used the opportunity to overpower you and click those handcuffs around your wrists.

"I win," he said breathlessly.

"You'll never really win." you had told him with a laugh. "Trust me."

But that had been years ago. Your first encounter with the great Marcus Moreno that day was one of many. After he had escorted you into a prisoner transport van, he had made the mistake of not seeing the rest of the journey through. You had escaped with ease.

He had been the reason for your enthusiasm--your new spark. You had wanted to beat him; to one day have him on the ground and say, "I win." That day would be hard fought for, you had known that much, but that had been what made it exciting. You had grown to be one of the most feared villains in the world, and he had been your nemesis.

He had arrested you a dozen times, though you promptly broke out, and you had narrowly escaped at the end of every other encounter. Each time you had gotten closer to victory, it had always been just a hair out of reach. 

You had given him plenty of new scars, and he had beaten you out of commission for weeks at a time. You both had learned each other's patterns, almost as if you had been old friends. Some of your more elaborate plans had been able to accurately predict his response to almost everything.