Wish Granted

This was my most popular drabble on tumblr so it gets to be the first one I post over here. Hope y'all enjoy it too.
CW: Restraints, mind control

Hero growled and tested their bonds. They didn’t find a way out. They squirmed and pulled at the restraints anyways, not willing to give up easily.

They’d been captured. They were in the hands of Villain, a supervillain with poorly understood powers and challengingly high competence. Hero had been trying to combat them, and ended up tied up instead.

“Do you know what my power is, Hero?” Villain asked, tone more conversational than anything else.

Hero glared at them. “We’ve been trying to figure it out. You seem able to influence reality in some way, but exactly what you do seems pretty random from one case to another.”

“I grant wishes. Never my own, and I can only directly affect the person whose wish it is. But it’s enough. Because I can grant them in a way of my choosing, and the best part: they don’t have to be said aloud.”

“Isn’t that, like, a cardinal rule of wishes? You have to say…y’know.”

Villain smirked at Hero’s hesitance to say I wish. They weren’t trying to trick Hero, but if they were it would certainly have proved difficult. “I’m not a genie, I’m a superhuman. Presumably the rules would be different.”

“But how would you be able to defeat heroes? They’re against you, not hoping for your success.”

“Well, that’s the delightful part, really. Your own Agency practically hands you to me. It works you lot into the ground. I can look in their heads and pick and choose the wishes that suit my needs. When Hero B silently wishes it was her day off and she was back with family, I can grant that in such a way that sends her home without adding a replacement for her, and I’m conveniently left unchallenged. When Hero C wishes they had a good excuse to take a break, I can incapacitate them for a while. When Hero D wishes he didn’t have to fight today, I can whisk him out of my way.”

“Now that we know, it won’t be so easy for you,” Hero said.

“You’re under the mistaken impression you’ll make it back to them.”

“I’ll get free eventually.”

Villain’s tone shifted subtly, their eyes no longer quite focused on Hero’s. “You wish there was a way for you to rest. You wish you could give up heroing without having to feel guilty about it. You wish it was out of your hands.”

Hero’s eyes widened. “No! Get out!” They struggled anew against their bonds.

“You wish you could be done without it being your fault. You wish you didn’t have such mixed feelings about it. You wish you were happier.”

“Stop it! I just wish to escape and go back to my duty.”

“But you wish it wasn’t your duty,” Villain continued. “You wish you could be free of the responsibility.”

“But I’d never wish for my relief to hurt people!”

“I don’t hurt anyone, not really.”

“What you do still isn’t right.”

“I can twist it so it’s enough. I get to interpret the wish, remember?”

“No! Stop!”

Villain ignored them, suspended in concentration. Then they smiled. “Gotcha.”

Hero felt Villain’s power flood into them. At first it was just the rush of power entering. Then it moved to their head. Their thoughts scrambled.

When Hero’s brain righted itself, things were different. Hero rested: not bodily, but in their own mind. It was like all the autonomous parts were comfortably sitting back or sleeping, while what remained was left to Villain’s direction instead of having to be self-powered. No longer burdened with responsibility, there was a new lightness in their readiness to do whatever Villain said. The conflict was gone: their devotion to Villain was single-minded. Guilt wasn’t even a question: this was what they were supposed to be doing. It felt right.

And they were happy. Bliss wrapped around their entire brain like a blanket, warm and comforting, muffling anything that might have seeded doubt.

In short, the wishes of Villain’s selection had been granted, in what the old Hero would have called all the wrong ways. But they were no longer in any state to be unhappy about it.

“Thank you,” Hero said to Villain, with a loving, genuine smile. They’d do anything Villain wanted, and they’d like it.

Villain’s grin was a little more wolf-like. “My pleasure.”