I never set out to be a villain.

I know, I know. That's crazy, isn't it? I'm the most deadly supervillain the country has ever seen, and that wasn't a personal choice? How ridiculous!

It's the truth, though.

I actually started my journey wanting to be a hero, despite my family insisting otherwise.

My mother will always tell the media tales of how, when my power developed, my father was hospitalized. She will not mention that he had a past history of armed robbery and assault, something she conveniently leaves unsaid. Just that I went to give my father a hug, and in the blink of an eye, we were in the hospital saying our goodbyes.

My brother will tell the media tales of how I beat him black and blue when we were in elementary school. He will not tell anyone that I was stepping between him and a smaller, weaker boy that he had shoved against the lockers, that I had gotten there before he caused any harm this time. Perhaps the boy would clear my name, but he moved away shortly after, and I never saw him again.

My sister will tell the media tales of how her first boyfriend ended up dying despite the fact I was originally proven innocent-a power accident, it was called at the time. She will not tell anyone that he was ten years older than her, and she was far from his first, and it was so strange how three of his previous girlfriends had gone missing mysteriously.

I had wanted to prove the world wrong about me, see. I had, of course, been kicked out of home at eighteen, and I was desperate for someone to see me for me. Therefore, I made the decision to take all the money I had saved up and buy a cheap hero costume, promising to myself that I would get a better one when I had a reputation as such an amazing hero-after all, I knew the truth of my powers, that they only harmed people as much as they had harmed others. Surely that would be a great power to use against the villains, right?

I still remember that first costume-it was all black with white highlights, meant to help me catch the villains by surprise. I would sneak up on them and, with a simple touch, deal damage. I even had a catchphrase in mind- "you should have known that Karma would catch up to you." That was my hero name, Karma, same name as my power.

I set out on a patrol one night, but it was no villain I ran into, but rather a hero. One that I looked up to.

Mr. Savior was my role model as a child. He was so kind, caring, and said that everyone deserves to be saved, but for safety, all villains had to be detained-but not killed.

I had been walking along, looking for a mugging-that seems like a good way to get started-when someone had run into me, my touch doing nothing to them, but Mr. Savior had been running after them-I later found out that it was a woman who had stolen a loaf of bread to feed her starving children.

I didn't know at the time what the crime was, simply thinking that, if she was being chased by such a great hero, she must have done something bad, so I held her, then held out my hand to shake my hero's, introducing myself as a rookie hero that was trying to break into the scene.

Mr. Savior had been kind to me and shook my hand...

...how was I supposed to know that he had caused such...damage? Such INTENTIONAL damage.

The woman had screamed as I stared at the bloody body of the hero in shock-he hadn't even made it to the hospital, dying on the spot.

The woman had called it in while I had simply run away, terrified of my own power-I always had been, but...surely it should have been the other way around? The woman should have been hurt, not my hero. Not my role model.

The report the woman gave called me "Death," and honestly, seems fitting for a villain. I never introduce myself as such, but now everyone calls me that, saying that Death is inevitable when encountering me. And, strangely, that's true. I have yet to meet, touch, a hero that didn't get gravely injured. Many have died, only a few surviving.

I continued to patrol, not knowing what else I could do. If I could just take down one villain-

Another hero dead.

-the public would see. They all would see. I wasn't a bad guy-

People screaming on the streets as I walked by.

-it was just...

"Stop right there!"

I turned my head, bored and tired, to see a hero, shaking and fists up, about to fight me with everything she had.

"Turn around and walk away-you're young, don't mess with me," I said.

"B-By order of the Government, you're under arrest!" the hero-ah, I knew her, Lady Amazing-said, clearly knowing that this would be her last fight. I did not want it to be.

"Turn around and walk away," I repeated. "I won't be asking again."

Lady Amazing charged at me. "It's over, Death!"

I didn't even bother trying to dodge, letting her ram right into me-

The effect was immediate, blood everywhere as she gasped for air-ah, such pain, so much damage on accident-or was it on purpose? How sad.

She was still leaning against me as the crowd all ran away screaming, so I laid her down gently, then leaned close to her and whispered.

"You should have known that Karma would catch up to you."

With that, I put my hands in my pockets and continued walking-I was tired of all this, and I just wanted to sleep.

(this got away from me and the prompt quickly, but not gonna lie, love the direction it went, so here you go!)

"Could you repeat that, darling?"

"Ox blood," Valerie said desperately. "I really want ox blood-now."

"Alright, I'll go grab some," I said, glad that I had some stored as I hurried down the stairs and to the blood cooler in the basement.

Now this was something I could never explain to my human friends-a cooler of blood in the basement, that sounded...kind of serial-killer-y. But anything for my wife.

I quickly dug through the blood bags and pulled out a bag of ox blood and ran upstairs, carefully handing it to her-

"Can you get some ice cream?" Valerie asked quickly. "To mix the ox blood with? Blood flavored ice cream sounds so good-"

"That one might take a bit," I said, remembering that she had eaten the last of the ice cream this morning. "I'll make a quick trip to the store-"

"I'll come with," Valerie said, standing up-

"Woah, woah, easy now-remember why you don't leave when pregnant?" I asked, and we both winced slightly at the reminder. Valerie had smelt a mugging happening, and...well, we're lucky there were no cameras around to see what happened. And that I'm so good at getting blood out of my clothes...and that she didn't kill me when her thirst hadn't been quenched from drinking the blood of four humans-three muggers and one victim...twice victim, none of them walked out of there after that.

"Be quick?" Valerie asked.

"Of course, love," I said, giving her a quick kiss on the cheek as I hurried down the stairs, grabbing my coat and wallet before dashing out the front door and to the nearby convenience store.

I stepped inside the store-

-and immediately froze as I saw a robber holding a gun to the sobbing cashier's head.

Well, this wouldn't be easy.

"The f**k you doing!" the robber snapped, waving the gun at me, probably meaning to intimidate me, but that's rich-Valerie's father's shovel talk made me scared of nothing else-I just need that ice cream.

"Getting ice cream," I said as I took a step forward.

"Don't you take another step!" the robber snapped, fully pointing the gun at me. "I'll shoot!"

"Try me," I said.

The robber clearly looked surprised at that, which gave me just enough of a chance to rush forward and tear the robber's finger away from the trigger, then the full gun, then I flicked the safety on before tossing the gun to the side and punching the robber square in the jaw, causing him to stumble away and let go of the cashier, who collapsed to the ground and scrambled for her phone.

I grabbed the robber's wrists and spun him around, shoving him to the floor face-down.

"Grab me some rope!" I said as the robber kicked and screamed-but I've had to hold Valerie back from attacking humans before, I'm not gonna budge.

"R-Right!" the cashier squeaked, rushing into the aisles and grabbing some cords and tearing the package open, handing it to me.

I quickly knotted the robber's hands and feet together as the cashier picked up her phone and called the cops, then I tied some rope around the robber's mouth to keep him from talking too much-or, well, to at least muffle him a bit.

"Now that that's settled," I said, standing up and dusting off my hands, "ice cream."

"Sir, you'll have to stay-" the cashier said, shaking and gesturing with her phone, already on the phone with 911.

"I see..." I said, then held out my hand. "May I?"

The cashier handed me the phone, and I held it to my ear.

"Sir, I need you to stay on the scene-" the operator started.

"I'm only here to buy vanilla ice cream, my wife prefers flavor red," I said, saying a code I know that any operator would know well-let me go about my business, or my vampire wife will not be happy. (How odd that so many people-officers, doctors, emergency staff in general-know about vampires, and yet the general public is oblivious.)

"...I see," the operator said. "Hand me back to the cashier-but first, name?"

"Owen Popplewell, I live at XXXX Eastern Maple," I said.

"Alright, Mr. Popplewell, hand me back to the cashier," the operator said.

I did so quickly, then grabbed a bunch of tubs of vanilla ice cream before walking back to the counter, where the cashier looked confused, but, on the insistence of the operator, rang me up and checked me out.

"Thanks, ma'am," I said, then dashed home-

"Ah, ah, ah," I said as Valerie opened the door to greet me, clearly about to have walked to the store herself. "You know better, love-let's go in-we won't be running out of ice cream for a few more days."

"You took so long," Valerie pouted.

"I got a little...held up-but enough about that," I said. "Ox blood mixed with ice cream?"

"Yes!" Valerie said, beaming at me.

(I decided to go dark :)

"Who are you, really?"

"What, sweetie?" "Dad" asked, giving me a confused look, but I knew better. "It's me, Dad-"

"That's bull," I said. "I know you aren't really my Dad. His friends and coworkers won't know the difference, I'll give your acting that, but us kids do-I'm just the one brave enough to say something."

The lookalike gave me a surprised look, then sighed, sitting down in the armchair. On instinct, I tensed up, but I relaxed easily, knowing that he won't hurt me as I dared to take a step forward.

"I should've guessed you'd be smart enough to see through it," the lookalike said. "Very well. My name's Mark. I'm not your father, but-"

"I'm still gonna call you Dad," I blurted out.

He gave me a confused look. "... huh?"

"You're nicer," I shrugged. "You...you aren't gonna hurt me-you haven't even tried."

"Of course I-geez, what?" Mark asked. "According to my Intel, I'm acting just like him-"

I snorted. "He would've beat me black and blue for daring to speak like this, but you just sat down and decided to have a serious conversation-you aren't lying or anything, either. Intel, though? You some kind of secret agent or something?"

"...yes," Mark said. "A spy-your family is my cover identity for the time being. My mission is supposed to last a few years-"

"Then you're going home?" I asked.

"I'm afraid I have to," Mark said. "Your...would you be fine if your father was released after that?"

I shrugged-I knew the answer, but...

Mark clearly knew what I meant, and he sighed. "I see. Then I suppose, when I'm done, there will be an...accident of sorts." He paused. "Wait, is...is this why everyone's acting like nothing's different?"

"Oh, definitely," I said. "I've just never been afraid to take the beating-I punch back and know where to aim."

Mark smiled as he stood up, and I tensed up on instinct-

"Yeah, you're a tough kid," Mark said. "Can I give you a hug?"

Now...that's a weird question, coming from someone that looks just like him.

But it's not him.

I nodded slowly before just going for it and moving forward to give him a hug, and Mark gave me a gentle hug back as tears came to my eyes-this was so nice, I'd always wanted this-after Mom's "accident," I'd been the oldest sibling, even if just by a year, so I never got these protective, gentle hugs-I'd given them, not...

Not...

"You know," Mark said quietly as I sobbed into his shirt. "It's just you and your siblings...when your father's officially gone, you'll be alone. Would it be weird if you suddenly got adopted by a certain spy?"

"I don't understand, Captain. Why do we fear humans? They live such short lives-"

"Exactly, Lieutenant," the Captain said. "For you and I, we can expect to live a couple thousand years-any injury we get, we have to deal with for the rest of that time. Any grudges we have, we have hundreds of years to get over it. We grow into maturity into our two hundreds and spend that entire time learning the basics."

"I...I am aware of how our species works, Captain," the Lieutenant said.

"Then understand that humans don't have that kind of time," the Captain said. "Within one year of life, most humans can talk and walk. Within five, they are developing most of their motor skills. At eighteen? Many have decided or are deciding what they will do for the rest of their lives."

"Which are only a hundred years if they're lucky-" the Lieutenant started.

"As for grudges and wars?" the Captain said. "We can last hundreds of years and don't have to act upon it. Humans?" The Captain fully faced the Lieutenant. "They don't have that, so they take care of it. Immediately. Usually with explosives, weapons, nukes."

"I-Immediately?" the Lieutenant asked, turning slightly pale.

"Yes," the Captain said with a nod. "We can live for thousands of years and spend time thinking decisions over. Humans don't have that time and instead use their power to grow fast to cut our lives short-so listen closely, Lieutenant. NEVER cross a human, for while they die soon to us, they can make it so you will die sooner and not have to live with the guilt."