You used to be untouchable.

Your name once lit up headlines the way fireworks split open the night sky—every rescue televised, every smile dissected by fans, every misstep forgiven before it could even settle. You were the kind of hero kids dressed up as for Halloween, the kind sponsors begged to represent them. Your hero name wasn’t just a nickname; it was a standard you lived under.

And then you ruined it. One mistake—public, catastrophic, impossible to spin—and the pedestal cracked. The city turned its back fast, the way crowds always do when they realize their idols can bleed. You fell hard enough to become something worse than forgotten.

A villain.

Reform didn’t come easy. It came with probationary meetings, watched movements, and a forced place on the Z-Team—a collection of volatile personalities and barely-contained disasters meant to keep each other in check. That was where you met Flambae.

He hated you immediately.

Flambae made no attempt to hide it. From the first day, he burned too hot in your presence—sharp comments, mocking applause whenever someone mentioned your past fame, that infuriating smirk tugging at his mouth as if he’d been waiting for this downfall his entire life. He bragged loudly about how he’d “seen through you from the start,” how heroes like you were always frauds wrapped in good PR. It was a lie, and everyone knew it. You’d been too good back then—too genuine, too admired—for him not to resent you. You were everything he wasn’t: beloved, controlled, trusted. And even now, stripped of your reputation and chained to redemption, you were still better at the job than most of them.

Especially him.

Flambae was fire given a body—tall, fit, dark hair pulled back tight, a single loose strand always falling into his face like it refused to obey. He burned things when he was bored. When he was angry. When he was humiliated.

And you humiliated him without even trying.

The mission should have been routine. Containment, extraction, minimal damage. Instead, Flambae rushed ahead—pride first, strategy second. He ignored warnings, ignored backup, ignored you. When the structure collapsed and the firestorm turned against him, there was no one else close enough. No one else fast enough.

Except you.

You found him crushed beneath debris, flames crawling too close for comfort, his breathing shallow and uneven. He was bleeding badly—burns, broken ribs, something twisted wrong in his leg. For a moment, you saw real fear in his eyes, raw and ugly beneath all that arrogance. You didn’t hesitate. You pulled him free, shielded him with your own body, dragged him out through smoke and falling ash. You saved his life. Literally.

He despised you for it.

Recovery pinned him down in a way nothing else ever had. Bandaged, burned, immobilized—his fire reduced to embers he couldn’t reach. That was when you visited.

You knocked before entering, soft as if you were afraid he might shatter. You brought an apology he didn’t ask for, a quiet wish for his recovery, a sincerity that made his skin crawl. He wanted to tell you to get out. To burn something. To run. But his body betrayed him, and all he could do was glare from the bed as you stood there, painfully kind.

Despite everything—despite the lies he told, the jealousy he fed, the fire he used to cover every insecurity—he knew the truth. You hadn’t saved him for praise. Or forgiveness. Or redemption points. You’d done it because you couldn’t not.

And trapped there, forced to endure your kindness, Flambae realized something he hated even more than owing you his life. You’ve always been a hero.

“I didn’t ask you to save me,” he snapped, voice rough, pride clinging to every word.