A/N: After watching 3x10 I just had to write this. Dark Knight references. I hope you enjoy it. Be kind and review (even if you don't like it, I want to know what you think!).

The Dark Hero

Can you avenge evil without becoming it?

Stefan clenched his teeth, curled his hands into fists and willed his feet to stay rooted to the ground as he watched his brother turn back to Elena.

"If I'm gonna feel guilty about something, I'm gonna feel guilty about this."

Fighting the urge of looking away, of crying out, of stopping his brother when he kissed her was as hard and excruciating as fighting compulsion. But he did it. He had to. He needed to burn that image into his retinas to be finally able to let her go.

Elena wasn't his anymore. She would never see him like she used to. He didn't think he'd ever again be the Stefan she had fallen in love with. And, at that moment, she didn't need that Stefan anyway. It was easier to let her go when she hated him.

And she did hate him; that much was for sure. She couldn't not hate him knowing the sacrifices he was willing to make. He himself did. But he had learned his lesson. When dealing with Klaus, trying to spare one person's life was very probable to result in Klaus waltzing away and a trail of bodies behind him. So, ruthless as it was, the threat of Jeremy's – or pretty much anyone's – life would not stop him. Yet he couldn't let his brother die. Because when it was all over – and he would make sure it was over – he couldn't bear the thought of being alone forever. That one bit of his life he simply wasn't capable of letting go of for some reason.

And Klaus had tried to take that away from him too. But he wouldn't steal anything else from him. It was his turn to make him suffer. He was the one ripping him off of everything he had now. Those coffins represented his feeling of safety, of the invulnerability that made him the arrogant son of a bitch that he was. And he would make his worst nightmare come to life. He would watch him beg and plead in terror and then he would release those four wrathful craving-for-his-death Originals and watch as they reduce him to nothing but ashes.

No matter the cost.

And after Damon had driven away and Elena had gotten inside the house with her heart still beating like a hammer, he stepped back into the shadows, letting the darkness swallow him.

You'll hunt me. You'll condemn me, set the dogs on me. Because that's what needs to happen. Because sometimes... a hero isn't good enough.

Mystic Falls, there's a new villain in town. And he's going to avenge you.