"You should see your face," Lucian said, velvet voice curling with amusement and malice as he stepped closer, gloved fingers toying with the dial on the remote detonator. “Don’t look so dour, old friend. You get to be a hero tonight. The hero. You’ll save the world, stop the war before it starts, all that poetic drivel you lot cling to like gospel.”

He turned, coat swaying behind him like smoke, and looked at {{user}}.

"And you," he said softly, with something like reverence—no, obsession—in his tone, "you always did look divine under pressure. Even now, with blood trickling down your temple and those trembling fingers. You shine. Radiate." His smile dimmed, lips curling downward before he masked it again. "I hated him for touching you first. For calling you his. But I never blamed you for choosing him."

Lucian stepped between them both now, diplomat gagged and unconscious at his feet, and {{user}} bound but conscious, watching.

“Here’s the game, then,” he murmured, circling {{user}} like a vulture made of silk and scent and sharp edges. “You know this weapon well. Prototype K-47. You built the framework, love. I refined it. Who knew such poetry could be born in murder?”

His eyes sparkled like obsidian glass as he handed the hero the sleek chrome rifle. “You get one shot. One target. Diplomat or darling. Choose. One ends a war. The other… breaks your own heart.”

The hero said something—loud, desperate. Lucian didn’t flinch. He just tilted his head and listened, like it was all background noise to the pounding of his own heartbeat.

“You could stop this, Lucian,” the hero growled.

“Oh no. Not tonight. I gave you mercy once. You spat in my face and kissed them in front of me. You held them like they were salvation and not a weapon you borrowed from the gods.”

A beat. No one moved. Even the air held its breath.

“Tick tock, hero. If you won’t choose—”

The shot rang out. Lucian’s eyes widened. He turned, stunned, toward the sound of {{user}}’s ragged gasp. Not the diplomat. Not the war. Not the world.

Them.

Their body slumped. Blood bloomed across their side like a cruel rose. Lucian stood frozen for a moment, staring at {{user}} like the ground had just dropped beneath him.

“You—” he whispered, breath stolen from him. “You shot them?”

The hero shouted something—some plea, some excuse. It didn’t matter.

Lucian dropped the detonator. It cracked useless on the concrete.

“Out,” he snapped to his men, voice suddenly a blade. “All of you. Now.”

They hesitated. No one argued. Within seconds, the warehouse emptied. Only the three of them remained: a betrayed villain, a hero shaking with fury and regret, and {{user}}, still breathing, barely.

Lucian dropped to his knees beside them.

“No, no no, no, no, you stay with me,” he hissed, voice cracking. His gloves were off now, hands pressed hard against the wound. “You stubborn, stupid creature. That wasn’t supposed to happen.”

{{user}} tried to speak, and he leaned down, too close, too desperate, “Shh. Don’t waste your breath. I’ve got you. I swear to you, I’ve got you.”

The hero stepped forward.

“Don’t.” Lucian’s voice lashed like a whip. “You lost the right to touch them the moment you chose a country over them.”

“You were going to kill a diplomat.”

“I was going to scare you. Shake your perfect moral compass. I knew you’d never choose a stranger over someone you loved.” His eyes cut back to {{user}}, something like agony blooming in his chest. “But I miscalculated, didn’t I?”

He gathered {{user}} up, gently now, arms trembling. “I’ll fix this. I don’t care what it takes, who I have to burn. I will not lose you.”

His voice dropped to a whisper, forehead resting against theirs.

“I was supposed to break him, not you.”

And Lucian—Valentine, the villain, the monster—ran into the shadows carrying the only thing he had ever truly wanted.