Chapter Text
It all burned to the ground, all of it. Everything in his path, he destroyed, everyone in his way, he gored. Blood splattered all over his blank expression. Nothing mattered anymore, not since HE was taken from him.
Mark Grayson, the maskless one, invited among other variants to this Mark's dimension to wreak havoc and sully the reputation of this specific version of them. Maskless himself didn't care much for the cause, he was just happy to finally let loose. To be let out of his cage. Back home was miserable, cold and dark.
Back in his dimension, Maskless was reduced to a government weapon to be deployed whenever there was an issue threatening planet earth. He would take care of whatever monster or villian or rogue viltrumite still trying to reason with Maskless to join their shitty empire and then just sulk back to the Pentagon, back to his cell. Surprisingly, he was there on his own free will…mostly. Ever since William died, it was as if Mark had lost his spark. His smile, his cute nose, his laugh, his grey-ish eyes, just gone and out of the picture forever.
He let himself fly all the way up to the stratosphere and just free fell all the way down to an empty field, leaving a crater in its wake. The GDA found him hours later, laying there, both legs broken with a dislocated shoulder but still alive. It was scarily easy to take him in and after some evaluation, he was deemed borderline catatonic. Since then, Maskless could only bring himself to respond to calls for duty, it gave him something to do.
One day, Angstrom strolled into his room, bathing him in green light, offering him whatever he wanted. At first, he didn't know what to say, then he said what was on his mind all this time.
“I…I miss William.”
That's why he was here, mowing down everyone in sight without a care. Soon, he recognized the campus of Upstate. For the first time in a long time, Maskless stopped and thinked. He felt himself float towards where he remembered William’s dorm to be, where they used to laugh, hang out, talk about whatever. He heard the laughter above all the screams, roaring of flames and crumbling rubble around him.
Then, when he floated up the stairs, turned a corner and settled his tired eyes down a hallway, he finally saw him.
The building was intact, Maskless had not blown it to pieces yet, people still had a chance to evacuate before being crushed like bugs by Variants far less hesitant than he was. Among the crowd, opening doors and ushering people out, was William himself, in the flesh, a determined look on his face. It was a face he thought he would never see again, even with Angstrom's deal.
Maskless tilted his head one side, then the other as he floated closer and closer to him, his mouth hung open. For the first time in forever, his cold heart beat against his chest, his cheeks warmed, his body drawn towards the other like William was a magnet and Maskless was but a humble stick of iron.
William was so focused on crowd controlling his fellow classmates that he didn't notice a variant floating towards him, staring straight at him. It was cute, William always was the type to get lost in whatever task he locked in on.
Finally, William reached the last dorm, holding the door open and ushering whoever was there out, then he turned down the hallway and saw the face of his best friend, soaked in blood, inches from his face. Those Doe eyes widened, his lips twisting into a trembling whimper as his eyes darted to his left, towards the room he had just opened.
Maskless saw him back up and in his lovesick nativity, he stepped after him, positioning himself right in front of the open door. Maskless opened his mouth to say something, to sob, to cry, to pounce on William and take him home right then and there, but then that mouth that he loved so much uttered another man's name.
“RICK! NOW!”
Maskless was too shocked to react the way he was supposed to. Too slow to stop the impact of a punch hitting the side of his head. It made him stumble to the side, blood dripped down to the ground but who knows if that came from him anymore. Maskless snapped his head towards the direction of the assailant, his face contorted into one of rage.
The man who dared stand up to him was average at best, standing in a fighting stance like he had any chance against Maskless. In his immediate rage, Make grabbed the door and slammed it shut, right onto who he assumed was ‘Rick’s” stupid face. It knocked him back into the room as the door exploded into splinters.
The variant turned his attention back to William, who had just stood there and watched the display, those pretty eyes blinking away tears as his mind ran through so many scenarios of how this could go. Willy was always the overthinker between the two of them.
When Maskless took another step, William flinched. Another hesitant gasp from Not Mark before he felt a body weigh down his back, followed by punch after punch to both sides of his head this time.
“William! What are you waiting for?! Run!” Rick screamed, making William flinch again before he finally turned tail and ran. Maskless took the punches for a bit, watching the love of his life look back at them before he struggled to skid around a corner.
cute.
Just as cute as he remembered.
Maskless had no time for this. This barely even hurt when he expected it. This Rick guy was screaming at him but the variant couldn't be bothered to listen.
Mid-rant, He reached back, grabbed ahold of one of Rick's legs and pulled him off of him, slamming him to the ground. When that didn't get Rick to stop trying to fight him, he held his leg straight lifted his foot and stepped on it, breaking it, bending it the wrong way. His expression was back to being blank, unreadable, not at all like it was when he finally saw William again.
Rick screamed, then sobbed, feeling his leg detach from it's socket, then, instead of muscle, bone and nerves, he saw metal, padding and wires. Stupid fucking Reaniman. Cecil’s little army puppets.
Maskless threw the detached leg aside and found himself taking much more pleasure in breaking the other the same way, straightened it, stepped on the knee, bent it wrong, metal bones snap, padding ripped, wires cut.
It didn't matter when Rick screamed and tried to crawl away with no legs, he flipped him onto his stomach, held onto both his arms and ripped them off, an evil grin showing on his face as he proceeded to beat Ricks upper body with his own limbs until they were both soaked in artificial blood. Until the screaming stopped, until Rick went limp.
He discarded the arms to the side, floating off Rick's corpse. Right as he turned towards where he last saw William, his brown eyes met pale grey ones, red from tears, hand over his mouth, face peeking around the corner.
Silly, silly boy, he didn't take the chance to leave. He must have really wanted to see this guy live.
Upon eye contact, William made a gasping noise and quickly made himself scarce, like that was gonna do anything. Maskless was at the end of the hallway in seconds, just in time to watch William stumble forward on all fours and throw up.
He's shaking, crying, over what? Some guy? Maskless had already forgotten his name, it was just them now.
William froze when he saw the unmistakable shadow mimicking the silhouette of his childhood friend. He tensed when Maskless draped his body over his, hands over his. He flinched away when the blood soaked face of the imposter rubbed against his, even daring to leave a couple kisses on his cheek down to his neck.
Maskless wrapped his arms around William's torso, snuggled up to him from behind as if the shorter hadn't just barfed in response to seeing someone die. It didn't matter, nothing mattered anymore, William was here, in his arms again.
He planted a few more kisses, then brushed his lips against his ear.
“I missed you, William.”