Author's note: Hey guys, I just wanted to thank those of you who are still around for your support, it means everything :) We're almost done, I promise. Only a handful more chapters left :)
Also, some of you asked me not to do something, and I kind of did it anyway. But, everything in this story has a purpose so, please bear with me.
There were a lot of things that Steve remembered about his first war. More than he wanted to, for sure. Things that had left him with bittersweet memories of courage and fear and bravery beyond anything he could ever imagine. Things that were haunting him still, stuff that he thought no one should have to live through in this life or any other.
However, what really stuck with him was the level of self-preservation that would kick in when he least expected it. Sleeping while standing up, running faster than his body seemed to be capable of, enduring heat and cold and hunger – it was a matter of survival, and an essential one, at that.
Now, on a cold November night in Gotham, he remembered what it was like to wake up in an instant, alert within seconds, his mind sharp despite the frantic hammering of his heart. Something was wrong, but he refused to think about it just yet. Not until he had to. Right now, he needed to focus on the task at hand, namely – find a shirt and a pair of pants, his hands going through the motions with military efficiency.
Across the room, Diana was putting on her armour. "No point in bothering with anything else, I suppose," she had said a minute ago, her movements as practiced and as easy as his.
Steve paused for a moment, watching her, their unfinished conversation still hanging between them. He wanted to crawl back into bed and pull her there with him, to put his arms around her and say something that would make her smile. He wanted to fall asleep with her body cradled against his. Instead, there was the wail of the alarm and the darkness outside the window and god only knew what else on the agenda.
He sighed and walked across the room, still barefoot. He fastened the last clasp near the base of her spine that affixed the armour firmly around her body. A practiced gesture done so many times before.
Diana turned around, a silent question in her eyes. She didn't say anything, though. For a second, Steve's palms lingered on her waist but he didn't allow his mind to wander. Instead, he reached for her hand and then picked up a thin leather strip from the dresser and wrapped it expertly around her hand before snapping one of her gauntlets in its place around her forearm.
She didn't need his help, Steve was very much aware of that. She could do it herself, and she could probably do it faster on her own. She let him help anyway, her eyes cast down and following the swift motion of his fingers.
"You're good at this," Diana said softly, a smile that didn't match the gravity of the situation in her voice.
"I think I'm better at taking them off, but, you know… later," he muttered, offering her a half-grin in an attempt to mask a flurry of worry in his chest.
She was the first one to look up, and when Steve lifted his gaze, she was studying him with an odd mixture of pride and panic in her eyes.
Lex Luthor was only a man. Even with the magical war gauntlet, he was still just a man, and there were six of them to take him down. Steve had had worse odds. His mind jumped back to that one bar fight in Brussels at the beginning of his service, shortly after he had met Sameer, when it had been the two of them against two dozen drunk and armed men. Somehow, they had managed to escape with only a black eye (Sameer's) and an expanded array of swear words under their belts.
Steve didn't dare bring it up though, all too aware of how rarely it was that simple, and being a mortal didn't necessarily mean that one would be easy to defeat. Diana already knew that.
He reached for the second wrap, but she stopped him, lifting her hand to cup it over his cheek and turning his face to her. Her thumb stroked his stubble, eyes searching his.
"Like good old times, huh?" Steve attempted a smile that didn't quite get there.
She moved closer to him until their faces were almost touching. "I love you."
His throat grew tight. For a moment, he just stared at her, unable to look away, and then he tipped his head and pressed a kiss to her forehead. A corner of his mouth curved upward when he drew back.
"It's gonna be fun," he promised. "I bet it'll take you five minutes to end it all and then Barry will whine that we pulled him out of bed for nothing."
At that, Diana laughed, although without much conviction, and shook her head. She took the wrap from him. "I'll finish this. You should probably…." She trailed off, her eyes dropping to his bare feet.
Steve cleared his throat. "Right." He grinned at her.
By the time he had found his socks and pulled on his shoes and grabbed his jacket from where it was draped over the back of the chair, Diana's greaves were on, the Lasso coiled at her side. With her shield and sword in hand, she looked every inch the goddess that she was.
Steve paused. The light reflecting off her diadem winked at him. In that moment, he couldn't imagine a single thing in this world or any other that she couldn't conquer. The sheer power of her very essence was a force to be reckoned with; equally breathtaking and lethal.
The tightness in his chest eased enough for him to take a proper breath, at last, his world shifting back to its proper axis. He didn't like the idea of dealing with Lex Luthor any more than he liked posing as one of Ludendorff's men, or sneaking into the German High Command during World War II. Or a million and a half other things that felt like walking the line between life and death. But he didn't doubt Diana, not even for a moment, and that thought alone made a comfortable kind of calm settle over him.
With any luck, they would be back in an hour or so, and he would tell her in great detail how watching her wield her sword like it was an extension of her arm, graceful and deadly in equal measure, never failed to take his breath away. And maybe some other things, too, he decided.
He refused to think of the dream that she had but had never told him about.
The alarm cut off as suddenly as it started when they reached the steps leading down to the Batcave.
Downstairs, everyone appeared to have had the same idea as Diana. Bruce was wearing his bat suit, sans the cowl. Same went for Barry who was fidgeting with his mask in his hands. Even Victor abandoned the pretence of normalcy that the loose jeans and jerseys allowed him, his metal body gleaming in the fluorescent light. Of them all, only Alfred looked like his ordinary self, wearing the robe that Steve had seen a few nights ago atop dark blue pyjamas. Somehow, the older man was the one who looked out of place. Then Steve glanced down at his own clothes and decided that, essentially, that made two of them.
"What's going on?" Diana demanded, and four pairs of eyes turned to them instantly.
Bruce raised a finger to his lips, and that was when Steve noticed a voice coming from the loudspeakers. Something that he had taken for a conversation between the members of the League was actually a man speaking, his voice, previously drowned by the wailing of the alarm, suddenly clear.
"…so I assumed that after you missed our rendezvous earlier today, it would be only polite to reschedule, wouldn't it, Bruce?"
Steve's brows pulled together. He watched Diana approach the screens, pausing next to Bruce whose eyes were locked on one of them.
"Lex," she said impassively.
Bruce nodded curtly.
"I know your friends are listening," Lex continued, his voice filling the space, uncomfortably loud and echoing under the high ceiling of the Batcave. "So how about this? How about you all swing by and we can make a night out of this?"
"Can he hear us?" Barry whispered loudly.
"No," Victor shook his head, his hands moving ever so slightly as if he was flipping through an invisible book as he scanned the matrix of the systems connected to the Batcave, his expression pensive. "But he bypassed the firewall."
Steve's frown deepened. "That's not possible."
Victor glanced at him. "He didn't hack it, per se. But he found a loophole."
"Where is he?" Diana turned to them.
"City Hall," Bruce responded. He jerked his chin towards one of the screens showing the feed of the CCTV camera, dark and grainy, but unmistakable, nonetheless.
Barry scrunched his face, puzzled. "Turning himself in? The area must be teeming with the police."
"Perhaps not at this time of night?" Alfred offered.
Bruce shook his head. "No, Barry is right. Something is not right here."
"There is only one way to find out," Victor noted.
Diana turned to Bruce. "Clark?"
"Will meet us there," he explained.
"…and don't think that I will wait all night," Lex's voice filled the silence that fell between them. "You don't think that I have no other matters to attend to, do you, Bruce?"
"So, what's the plan?" Steve asked.
He walked over to the workstation and peered at the monitors, finding the one that was hooked to one of the cameras at the City Hall square – grey and grainy, it showed a man with short-cropped hair standing in a pool of pale streetlamp light. He didn't look like much. Didn't look like anything at all, really, and yet there was a gnawing feeling in the pit of Steve's stomach that something was off. That he wasn't, in fact, handing himself in, so much as luring them into a trap.
By the grim expressions of the people around him, he knew that they had also figured out as much.
"We need to evacuate the area," Diana was the first one to speak.
"It's a business district, no one should be there this late at night," Victor said.
Bruce shook his head. "We're not taking any risks. Lex is up to something." He looked at Diana. "Five blocks?"
She nodded and glanced at Steve who nodded without hesitation. He hoped that Victor was right, and there was no one left there to evacuate at half past midnight. What bothered him more was that Lex had managed to bypass the firewall that was supposed to be impenetrable. That had been impenetrable until now. It spoke of planning and resources, and in Steve's book, neither of those things boded well for anything.
Which got him thinking what else that man might have up his sleeve. Which left him with the gnawing foreboding in the pit of his stomach.
"What about Arthur?" Barry asked when Bruce started to pull his cowl on, already on the way to the Batmobile.
"If he didn't miss his flight, it will land tomorrow morning," Alfred responded.
"We can't wait," Bruce said over his shoulder.
"He's gonna hate this," Barry muttered. He pulled his mask on and smoothed it over his head. "He hates missing out on stuff. So, what's the plan?" he repeated Steve's question.
The plan was fairly simple – to go there and see what Lex Luthor wanted. To seize him and turn him over to the Gotham police. None of them mentioned that they all knew it was going to be more complicated than that. The CCTV feed picturing Lex appeared to be the only one still active in a several-block radius – he must have disabled the rest of them, effectively rendering them blind. Powered down, they were of no use to Victor who could have accessed them otherwise, serving as their eyes.
God only knew what was waiting for them there.
That neither of them expected this scenario to play out without a hitch was obvious but whatever their concerns were, no one spoke of them.
"I'm coming with you," Steve said softly, leaning closer to Diana. "Alfred can take care of the evacuation."
She looked up at him, her expression changing almost instantly from a decisive determination to a haunted panic he seldom saw in her eyes.
This was different, Steve realized. This was not the two of them laughing, and making love, and trading stories and confessions under the cover of the night, wrapped in each other's arms and cut off from the rest of the world. This was not them walking hand in hand along the streets of Paris, dry foliage crunching beneath their feet, their faces pink-cheeked from the cold. This wasn't even them trying to find the stolen artifact.
No, this was real. Life as Diana knew it more often than not.
She wanted him to stay back. Deep down, Steve knew that if she asked him to, he would. He also knew that she was not going to, not when she knew that it would kill him to watch her do her thing from the sidelines. The words he could all but hear swirling on her tongue were not going to be spoken. It was easy, in a way, to slip back into the relationship that they had both figured out decades ago. Well, maybe not easy, but it was simple. The steps of an old dance; familiar and rehearsed and repeated multiple times before. Muscle memory, if nothing else.
This? This was not. They had to learn how to do this again, work together the way they used to all those years ago when fighting by each other's side came as easy as breathing. When they had no one to rely on but one another.
Steve wondered if she knew how much he missed it.
He watched Diana open her mouth to protest, could almost hear the wheels turn in her head, trying to come up with a reason, any reason, to have him wait for her here. Safe. He wouldn't have blamed her if she tried.
But in the end, she only nodded. There were different ways to let someone in, and Diana was very clearly trying to do it as best she could, given the circumstances. It was an effort, an effort beyond anything he had expected from her, and he was grateful for it.
His hand brushed against hers as he mustered a small smile. "It will be alright."
Diana nodded once more, her fingers squeezing his. "It will be."
"Are you done making the rest of us feel inadequate?" Barry asked, walking past them. He shook his head, his expression mock-disgusted.
"It only takes one phone call, Barry," Diana turned after him.
"Yeah, yeah…." The young man waved her off.
"Leave them," Victor said, a corner of his mouth curling into a grin.
"Are you ready?" Bruce asked, one foot already inside the Batmobile, ignoring the banter entirely.
Steve let go of Diana's hand.
She nodded, her eyes still locked with his.
xoox
That he ended up in yet another dark alley so soon after his last traipse through the dingy underbelly of Gotham didn't surprise Bruce. He had spent so many nights in the past twenty years fighting off the smell of rotting garbage that he'd long since stopped taking it as some sort of personal insult. Some joked that he knew every rat from the sewers, and there were moments when he could hardly argue with this less than flattering comment.
Right now, though, it was the reason that had brought him here that filled his veins with fiery rage. So much so, that by the time he had pulled the Batmobile to a stop in the narrow passage between the old buildings framing the plaza before City Hall, there was fury pulsing in his ears, his teeth gritted together.
"You okay, man?" Victor asked, casting an odd look at Bruce from the passenger seat.
Bruce forced himself to unclench his fingers curled around the steering wheel.
Lex Luthor was hardly scraping the surface of sane in the rare moments when he was in his right mind, and that was hardly the case right now. All the pent-up guilt and self-loathing that had been eating up Bruce for months on end were currently bubbling up at the surface, looking for a convenient release. Lex Luthor sure as hell was it.
Deep down, Bruce always knew that it would come to this, sooner or later, and yet the reality of it still caught him off-guard.
"Let's just get this over with," he muttered through his teeth as he pushed his door up and climbed out into the freezing night, a veil of mist that threatened to turn into full-on rain hanging around them.
He didn't turn to see if Victor followed him.
His jaw started to ache from Steve Trevor's annoyingly precise swing, a dull throb just below the surface that he wished he could claw from under his skin. As if his fuse wasn't short enough as it was. He wished he'd taken that Advil.
His boots squeaked a little on the wet pavement as he walked closer to the alley opening.
Some two hundred feet ahead of him, Gotham City Hall was towering over a circular plaza lined with street lamps, their dim light casting misshapen shadows on the ground. Above the plaza, the massive building acted like a giant guarding the city, one that looked like it had existed for thousands of years and would live on for thousands more.
Bruce's eyes narrowed when he spotted Lex Luthor sitting on the steps leading up to the main entrance, hidden behind a row of thick columns. For a man who had spent the past several days hiding in underground bunkers after escaping from an asylum, Lex didn't appear to be particularly concerned about being spotted in the middle of the city. That fact alone made something snap loose inside of Bruce, the anger that had been brewing in his blood since their last encounter unfurling in his chest.
His fists tightened as he watched Lex study the metal glove that hugged his right forearm, flexing his fingers a little now and then, the light of the streetlamps reflecting off of its golden surface.
"That's it?" Victor asked, pulling Bruce out of his thoughts, and when he turned, he found the Cyborg study their enemy du jour, entirely unimpressed.
"Don't underestimate him," Bruce muttered.
His eyes darted around, taking note of the dark windows and deserted streets around them. If nothing else, Lex certainly got points for picking a part of town that inevitably ended up being empty and forgotten at night. Government bodies and private businesses lined the streets on both sides of City Hall and turned into a ghost town after dark, the impression amplified by the silence that had settled over the area. This late, they were not likely to be interrupted, not even by a stray car, lost in the maze of narrow alleys snaking around the old business district.
Behind him, a whoosh of air and a soft thump announced Diana's arrival.
She stepped forward, pausing between Bruce and Victor, her eyes also sweeping over the plaza, taking in the shadows gathered out of the reach of light.
"He is not hiding," she observed, and there was something about her voice that told Bruce that she viewed it as bad news.
"He's the one who called for the rendezvous," Victor pointed out.
"Whoa, is this the thing?" Barry breathed out, materializing beside Bruce in a rush of wind that brought a faint scent of ozone with it. He peeked over Bruce's shoulder, eyes wide with curiosity. "It's shiny."
"He's not hiding because he thinks he has already won," Bruce said quietly.
Diana reached over her shoulder to pull out her sword. "We'll see about that."
"And what about her?" Victor asked, jerking his chin in the general direction of Lex, and for a moment, none of them knew what he was talking about.
It took Bruce a second to zero in on the figure huddled on the side of the steps, just barely within the reach of the light. And another one to recognize Amanda Waller's familiar frame. From this far away, he could not read her face, but her arms tied behind her back were a dead giveaway of her involuntary participation in this meeting.
Beside him, Diana swore in Greek under her breath.
"He's not alone," Victor added after another half a minute.
"Yeah, we kinda see that," Barry muttered, nodding towards Waller.
"No." Cyborg shook his head. "Rooftops, all around us. Multiple heat signatures."
"Alfred?" Bruce called, speaking into his earpiece. "Status on the evacuation."
"The area should be cleared," Alfred responded immediately, sounding concerned. On the other end, Bruce could hear his fingers tapping on the keyboard.
"It's not," Victor pressed.
"Snipers," another voice said quietly. "Or something of that sort."
Of course, Steve Trevor would know.
Bruce tried not to notice how visibly relieved Diana appeared to be when her precious Captain hopped off his motorcycle and walked over to them, his eyes sharp. Pretended he didn't see the slight brush of hands and how Steve leaned into her and whispered something into her ear.
"At least two on every roof," a voice came from above. "And here I was thinking you've changed your ways, Bruce."
"Get out of here," Bruce grunted. He didn't even need to look to know that Selina was perched on the rusted fire escape clinging to the side of the brick building, annoyed by her presence, and more so by that pang of relief deep inside of him. He didn't want to want her to be there, dammit.
"Well, that would explain why he feels so bold," Diana muttered.
"Something's wrong with that thing," Victor said quietly, eyes trained on the gauntlet. "I can feel it, it's like… like it's running interference with something inside of me."
"Should we reboot you or something?" Barry piped up.
"Hey, Bruce!" Lex drawled, standing up, his voice loud and clear, carrying across the plaza. "I know you are here… somewhere," he added, a manic smile appearing on his lips. "I mean, the drive isn't that long."
"I'll take care of the snipers," Steve said to no one in particular, hand reaching for his handgun.
"Piece of cake," Selina echoed.
"I told you to get out of here," Bruce repeated, walking briskly back to his car. He rummaged through the trunk, appearing with the crossbow, his blood running so hot that he feared he might melt it with his hands.
She ignored his snarl, her eyes on Steve, one eyebrow lifted.
"You take east, I take west," Steve said after a moment of consideration, his head tipped up.
"Do I look like a GPS to you, darling?" she scoffed.
"Left and right. Is that okay?" Steve's lips quirked as Bruce slammed the trunk shut.
"Clark—" Diana started.
"Will have to join later," Bruce interjected, walking back to them. "Stuck in traffic probably," he muttered - a joke that fell flat. "Alfred?"
"Stay away from bullets, Master Wayne," the older man said grimly in Bruce's ear.
xoox
Diana's eyes followed as a metal rod shot through the air. It disappeared in the dark above them, and the next moment, Bruce was gone with it. One parting glance over her shoulder, her eyes finding Steve briefly, and she leapt into the air, feeling the rush of cool air on her face.
Despite the earlier turmoil stirring in her belly, it was a relief to be here, to know that one way or another, all of this would end by the end of the night. Lex Luthor didn't scare her, but his arrogance rubbed her the wrong way, making her hackles stand on end, and Diana wanted that smug smile gone from his face. Despite her concerns about Steve's involvement and the desire to keep him safe at all costs, knowing that he was around calmed her heart. It reminded her of what it used to be like, working together. Of how she always knew that she could trust him and rely on him without hesitation or a hint of doubt.
The sentiment extended to the members of the League completely, more so than she ever thought it would – trust came hard to her these days. However, Steve was Steve, no one would ever compare.
She didn't even think about Amanda Waller when she landed right in the middle of the plaza next to Bruce, her eyes trained on the man standing before them, his eyebrow raised slightly.
Her gaze swept over the gauntlet, the memory of her past encounter with its force flashing through her mind. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Barry and Victor join them, flanking Bruce on either side as Lex watched them with unmasked amusement.
"Well, well, well, look at this," he chuckled, eyes moving from face to face until they locked on Bruce's. "Branching out, I see."
"Cut the crap, Lex," Bruce muttered, and the dangerous warning in his voice made Diana tense.
This was not a rescue mission to him, but a personal vendetta against the man who had put Bruce through months of emotional hell and then had the audacity to come and rub it in his face.
Her hand tightened on the hilt of her sword, her body bracing for an attack—
A man dressed in black fell at her feet, landing on the ground in an unmoving heap.
"Found this over there," Arthur said casually, stepping forward to stand next to her, his chin jerking towards one of the backstreets. And then, for a moment, his brows creased as he turned to Diana. "Wasn't one of ours, was it?"
She shook her head a little, feeling her lips curve into a small smile. "Arthur."
"You made it," Barry said, his voice a theatrical whisper.
"You assholes can't do anything right without me," Artur grumbled. He glanced at Diana. "No offence."
"None taken," she smirked.
He leaned closer to her and whispered, "You know that there is some cat lady prancing over the rooftops, right?"
Diana's eyes flickered ever so briefly toward Bruce. Arthur's eyebrow crept up in confusion. He opened his mouth to ask a question that she was certain didn't have a definitive answer when Lex clapped his hands once, twice, three times.
"It's like the whole party is here," he observed. "If I didn't know any better, I'd think that someone broke into my files to collect the whole set of metahumans—Oh wait, this is exactly what happened."
There was a manic glint in his eyes and nervous energy to him that she didn't like. Beside her, Victor tensed, and she remembered his earlier comment about the magic of the gauntlet interfering with the workings of his mechanical parts.
It was then that she noticed the slight vibration in the ground beneath her feet, a buzz that reverberated into her feet, shooting up her spine.
Her eyes flicked briefly up, but the dark forms of the buildings around them remained still and motionless, hidden from her sight. She shifted her gaze to Amanda Waller cowered at the base of the stairs, her eyes wide and wild.
"I guess the only person missing here is…" Lex looked up, capping his hand over his eyes as he peered into the black sky. "Wait, is it a bird? Is it a plane?" His lips stretched into a thin smile. "It's Superman," he sing-songed.
Diana saw him then too, they all did. They watched as Clark made a wide arc, and then shot down, aiming for the still grinning Lex Luthor.
"Finally, everyone is here," Lex announced with a short laugh.
His hand curled into a fist, the light bouncing off the gantlet.
The sonic boom of the impact had her shielding her face from the force of the blast wind that sent everyone but her and Arthur flying. Behind her, Barry groaned when he landed on his back, the echo of the collision ringing in her ears.
When she lowered her arms, Arthur was standing beside her, his trident poised for the attack. What she saw next did not surprise her, but her heart sank, nonetheless.
Lex Luthor remained standing where he had been a minute ago, whereas Clark had been tossed into the outer wall of City Hall, the stone façade crumbling around him, his face contorted in disbelief and discomfort.
When Lex saw her watching him, he grinned. "Well, this was almost easy."
Diana took a breath and surged forward.
xoox
The rusty rungs of the fire-escape scraped Steve's hands as he climbed up, his muscles straining against the effort, but his mind remained pleasantly blank, fully focused on the task at hand. It was easy to slip into combat mode, the memories from the time long gone taking over, pushing him forward.
By the time he had reached the roof, his lungs were burning, his breath coming out in short, shallow exhales, and the wind that greeted him when he landed softly on the flat surface fresh on his face.
He could hear the voices below, could hear them in his earpiece, hoping to catch Diana's familiar cadence, but they did not feel like an interference. On the other side of the plaza, a row of similar houses was shrouded in darkness, and he had to put it on good faith and a great deal of gut feeling that Selina Kyle knew what she was doing. And that she could be trusted, for that matter. This far away from the light of the street lamps, the darkness was almost absolute, and he wished that he had thought to bring night vision goggles. Or better yet, that he had Victor's ability to read heat signatures.
Yet, it didn't change the fact that his blood was flowing in earnest and his heart was beating faster, and for all his talk about a simpler life with the woman he loved, he had indeed missed the thrill of a good fight.
The first two men went down without any effort on Steve's part. He knocked them out and bound their hands behind their backs, tossing their weapons out of their reach. The third one put up a fight, leaving Steve with a bleeding lip and a metallic taste in his mouth, his fist that had already seemingly filled its punching quote for the day when it had landed on Bruce Wayne's face several hours ago throbbing after another round of quick jabs.
He almost missed the moment when the building shuddered beneath him, like an earthquake, too busy incapacitating yet another one of Lex's henchmen. Yet the tremor was too strong to ignore it entirely.
He looked over the edge of the roof, his eyes widening at the sight of Lex Luthor tossing Superman away as if the latter was nothing more than a rag doll. Chest heaving, Steve scanned the plaza, finding Diana, the sight of her leaving him awash in relief, however brief.
And then there was a hand on his shoulder that spun him around, followed by a blow, and then another one. Steve's breath wheezed out of him. He was certain that he had heard the very distinctive sound of one of his ribs cracking, but this was hardly the time to pause and contemplate that unpleasant possibility.
The next few minutes were a blur of grunts and punches. And when his opponent was finally face-down on the cold roof with his hands zip-tied behind his back and Steve had a chance to wipe away the blood collecting in the corner of his mouth, his attention was too far gone to remember the almost impossible image of Lex Luthor wielding a power beyond anything known to man.
At least, for the time being.
The sound of gunfire came next, making his ears perk up, followed quickly by a loud curse in his ear, but Steve couldn't recognize the voice through the throbbing of blood rushing through his head. And then it was cut off just as quickly.
Below him, pandemonium had erupted, his eyes following the swirl of red and gold for a long moment, Diana's Lasso glowing brightly in the night, its shimmer amplified by the light drizzle. There were now more people now there, as Lex's goons had joined the fight. They were nothing against the League in terms of strength, but they made up for it in numbers, persistence and tenacity.
"Victor, how many—" Steve started.
"Four more on your side," Cyborg responded immediately. "Three down in the alley here, if you could… Shit!"
"On it," Steve said. "You alright?"
There was nothing but muffled noises on the other end of the comm for a few moments, but Steve's feet were already moving in the direction of his next target. And for the first time, he wondered where the hell were the police, but the thought didn't linger, his calves aching and the handle of his gun slipping in his hand. He knew now that rib was broken alright, but he would have to pause and think about it some other time.
When an explosion coloured the sky orange, the force of the aftershocks making the roof dance beneath his feet, it took Steve a moment to recognize it for what it was. And then another one followed, and another one. Loud laughter erupted in his ear, Lex's voice faint but clear.
"Thought it was getting too crowded here," he mocked.
Someone with the comm must have been close to him, Steve thought.
The distraction allowed him to take down the next man without much effort, and he was grateful for the adrenaline rush pumping through his blood. A much-needed boost to carry him through the rest of this mess.
"Status," he demanded, heaving himself onto yet another awning, fingers clawing against the weathered stone.
Everyone seemed to be speaking at once, a cacophony of words that he couldn't make any sense of.
"What the hell—" Bruce demanded, cut off by a growl of exertion.
"Get down!"
Diana.
Steve snagged a few words. Explosives and Three and Diversion.
Well, Lex Luthor sure knew how to have fun, Steve had to give him that.
"We have to—" Clark started.
"Go!" Diana snapped, and even like this, her voice was the one thing that Steve wanted to hear. "Arthur…"
"On it."
With the last of the henchmen down now, Steve started to climb yet another fire escape, but this time down, at last. His breath was short and ragged, his hands slipping on the metal rungs and his broken rib aching with every move he made that wasn't thought through carefully. He gritted his teeth when he reached the end of the ladder, the five-foot drop to the alley below him not at all inviting.
"Trevor!" Bruce barked in his ear, making Steve wince.
"Yeah."
"Go with the Flash," Diana said.
Steve landed gracelessly on the wet pavement, cursing under his breath when a jolt of sharp pain shot through his ankle. He had no time for that.
"Copy that." He straightened up and trotted awkwardly towards the dim light coming from the plaza. "Where to?"
"The docks, to the south-east—" That was Barry, speaking rapidly.
"I know where it is," Steve interjected, safe under the cover of the shadows. He peeked out of his hiding spot, eyes scanning the space before him. "Meet you there."
"Aquaman, Cyborg, you take the north-west. Superman…"
Steve tuned them out after that.
He had managed to circle around the massive City Hall, but now his bike was on the other side and he was running out of time. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught a blur of red and blue soaring into the sky. Had to be Clark. He didn't pause to think about it. They all knew what needed to be done, his own task clear in his head.
He was halfway to his destination when something popped up in the periphery of his vision. Someone.
Amanda Waller was still crouched where Steve had last seen her, her eyes wide with a primal, consuming fear. She didn't appear to be hurt, at least not badly, but he couldn't be sure from his spot some thirty feet away from her.
Steve's eyes moved to the side, finding Diana in the middle of the plaza, her sword and shield in her hands, her gaze locked on Lex Luthor standing unharmed before her. Around them, several men were sprawled on the ground. For a second, Steve thought that they were all Lex's goons but then he caught a glimpse of a familiar cowl.
Bruce.
Steve's jaw clenched, a flutter of panic coming to life in his chest. She could take that lunatic down, he knew that, but he did not like the thought of Lex intentionally driving the rest of the League away, separating them from one another.
Steve could hear the quiet wail of the police sirens now, but they were too far away, and he doubted they were coming this way. Not with three bombs having been set off not five minutes ago and their hands as full as they were.
Diana's eyes moved almost imperceptibly to Amanda Waller, and it hit Steve then. She couldn't use her full power with the civilian around, one that could get hurt.
"Steve?" Barry's voice came up in Steve's ear but he ignored the speedster, his mind reeling.
If he could get Waller out of the way, it'd give Diana an opening to take down Lex without endangering anyone. She could do it. He knew she could do it, he had seen her go against worse things than a man with a metal glove. Without risking anyone's life—
His feet started to move before the thought formed fully in his mind. Crouched low to the ground, grateful for Lex having his back to them, Steve all but crawled to where the Director of A.R.G.U.S. was sitting on the cold steps, his gaze trained straight ahead. He couldn't afford to look at Diana, not now. Not when a distraction could be deadly. (He wanted to though, badly.)
Waller's eyes widened when she saw him, and Steve pressed his index finger to his lips, indicating for her to keep quiet. He sliced easily through the duct tape holding her wrists behind her back with his pocket knife and yanked her up to her feet, taking note of how unsteady she was. How her whole body appeared to be shaking. He doubted that it had anything to do with the cold.
"Go," he mouthed, pushing her to keep moving.
He could see a flicker of lightning shooting around Diana's gauntlets, a sign of the storm to come.
For a moment, he allowed himself to look at her, find her eyes, feeling his lips tug slightly upwards because heaven help him, she looked every inch the goddess that she was, and he simply couldn't look away.
She gave him a slight shake of her head, and Steve watched her fingers adjust on the hilt of her sword.
He nodded curtly, about to step back and retreat, to go help Barry like he was supposed to—
A push in the back had him stumbling into the plaza.
xoox
Steven Rockwell Trevor watches a bird soar across the vast expanse of pristine blue sky, so bright that it almost hurt to look. The summer day is hot but the breeze that smells of freshly mowed grass makes it a lot more tolerable than it would have been otherwise. It touches his cheeks and ruffles his hair. His blue eyes follow the bird until it turns into a tiny dot and then disappears.
Last night at dinner, his father took his prized watch off and let Steve study the white face beneath the thick glass and the circle of numbers. He had asked him what Steve wanted to be when he grew up.
Steve hadn't had an answer then but he has it now. He watches the sky and thinks that he wants to change the world. Wants his life to amount to something.
People can fly now. Steve reads about the first successful flight in a newspaper and his heart thuds with excitement in his chest. The photo on the front page is smudged and grainy, and he can't make out the faces of people crowded around the metal bird but he knows that they are smiling. Looking at them, he smiles too.
WHen the time finally comes, boot camp is an adventure. The drills are exhausting and tedious and they leave him with sore muscles for weeks on end, his body covered with bruises in places he didn't think could bruise, but the evenings in the barracks are exciting. Cards and beer and talking about war. It is easy to imagine effortless victory when the realities of brutal carnage are nothing but fantasies for them all.
This is the first time he is far away from home for this long and the feeling is intoxicating. He writes to his mother every week even though there is not much to say, his days are too much alike and she can't understand the things that make his blood flow faster. He misses the quieter life, simpler life but he doesn't want to go back. He misses his father, gone too soon, but the watch that is permanently strapped to his wrist dulls the ache of loss, somewhat.
The plane rattles and shakes beneath him the first time Steve sits behind the yoke, and, for a moment, he is scared. He thinks that the whole thing is about to fall to pieces beneath him and he will drop to the hard-packed dirt below. He holds his breath and waits, but nothing happens. At last, the engine settles into a softer, steadier, purr.
He smiles; his hands close tighter around the yoke.
He is ready.
His first flight feels like nothing he has ever experienced. There is trepidation coursing through his veins but as the ground and the buildings scattered over the camp below grow smaller, his lungs expand and exhilaration fills his veins. He cries out in delight, nearly losing control of the rattling machine but this far from everything, it doesn't feel frightening. It feels like a dream.
Steve is not allowed to fly for the rest of the week for being so reckless. He is lucky to not be kicked out, his sergeant tells him.
News of the impending war first appears two years later, and while it is all they can talk about in the barracks – that, and an ongoing card game that they have to hide from the officers – it doesn't feel real. Europe is so far away it feels like a whole different planet, a world out of their reach.
Steve laughs and nods and jokes about how even Titanic couldn't reach it, and maybe the newspapers are blowing everything out of proportion. But something stirs in his chest every time the subject comes up. Something that doesn't have a name yet. He tries to ignore it.
Then the war breaks out in earnest and though it still doesn't feel real, it is not funny anymore. Somewhere across the ocean, real people are dying. Real people with dreams and hopes and expectations.
Steve waits. He waits for the news to come that it was a misunderstanding, after all. That they are signing the peace treaty and going back to their lives and their homes and their families. He grew up playing war with his friends. He pretends to be dropping bombs and shooting other planes from the sky when they do the drills because there is no harm in pretending. He still can't imagine doing it for real.
He waits but nothing changes. They call it The War To End All Wars, and he hates it. He doesn't see how fighting can end fighting, but then again, none of this makes any sense. He thinks of his father and something he said to Steve a long time ago. You can do nothing or you can do something. Steve no longer remembers what they were talking about but the words have stuck with him. He misses his father but he is glad that he's not here to see the world tearing at the seams.
He knows he will go there, join the fight even though America is not part of the war yet, not officially. He sees people leaving every day, though. Not many come back.
Steve doesn't want to go, doesn't want to become another name on a long list. But he has to. He knows he won't be able to live with himself if he stays. It's inside of him, a calling he can't resist, something he can't get from under his skin. He wonders if he is making a mistake. Looks at the people who stay and is overcome by a fit of sudden jealousy, but by then it is too late. He has joined the American Expeditionary Forces and there is no going back.
The war is nothing like what Steve ever imagined it would be.
It is worse.
So much worse.
It is ugly and vile and cruel in so many ways that he can't wrap his mind around them. By then, it has been going on for over two years. He is sent to France and the first week in the trenches strips him of whatever naiveté he's still been carrying inside of him. He can't imagine living like this for more than a day. Some of these people have been doing it from the start. They are broken beyond repair and he can barely stand looking at them. He knew what he was doing when he chose this path, but he also didn't. He doesn't want to become one of them, but after a month he can feel the dread start creeping in.
He tries to tune out the world outside of the present moment. Things done to him, things he does to other people, things he sees – he tries not to remember them. Tries not to register them fully. He can't survive this if he allows himself to feel. He meets Sameer in a bar in Paris. And Charlie. And then Chief. His life still feels like a never-ending nightmare but it is a relief to have friends.
As word gets out about him being a pilot, they pluck him from the trenches and train him to be a spy. He is fluent in French by then, his German is not as good but it is only a matter of months before he is ready. He doesn't believe that he is but it's not like a war could wait.
His mother passes away while he is in Europe and he doesn't learn about it until it is too late to make it to her funeral. Steve doesn't think they would have let him go, but if there was any possibility, he would have at least tried. He has a few of her letters but when he moves to be stationed in London and work with the British Intelligence, he leaves them in his room, unable to burn them or throw them away but not wanting to bring them with him. That part of his life is over.
The spy life is more civilized than the trenches. Steve gets a small apartment in London and a secretary who he suspects considers him helpless. He can't help but smile every time she finds him exasperating. Between his boys and Etta, it feels like he has a family again. It is easier to fight the darkness closing in on him when he has something to fight for.
Missions come and go. When he is asked to infiltrate General Ludendorff's troops, he doesn't think much of it. Everyone knows that the key to ending the war lies with the Germans, one way or another. Maybe he's going to be lucky enough to make a difference at last.
He doesn't expect to end up at the gas factory, doesn't plan on coming face to face with Isabel Maru, doesn't plan on stealing her notebook. Everything snowballs from there, his heart hammering madly in his chest as he begs his plane to go faster, higher, away. They have never come closer to having some answers. He needs to make this work.
When his plane is hit, Steve thinks that there is some awful irony to dying in the sky, the only place that has made him feel like he belonged. And then he crashes into the ocean, and he realizes he'd rather choose the sky. The water fills every crack and crevice of the metal carcass. He forgets about his pursuers when it wraps around his body, inching up fast. His leg is stuck under the torn metal, his arms pinned to his body by the bent frame. He is trapped.
When the water closes over his head, he looks up at the bright sun shining above the surface and thinks that it will be the last thing he will ever see. Panic rises inside of him in waves as his lungs start to fill with seawater. Panic not over dying but over everything he will never get to do.
The world is black and silent, and then suddenly it's not. His lungs explode and his body jerks as he coughs out the salt water that makes his throat feel raw. He blinks his eyes open. His head throbs, his body weighed down by his soaked clothes. The sun is shining in his face and his eyes sting from the salt water. Someone is above him, watching him. A woman, a very beautiful woman. He thinks, for a moment, that he is dead.
She is not alone, but he is not either. He has to give it to the German army – they are persistent. When the women leap down from the cliffs above the beach, all Steve can do is stare. The fight is fast and brutal and bloody, and the warriors in leather armour win almost without effort. There are casualties, and he is overcome with shame. He had never meant to bring death on them.
Steve doesn't have time to contemplate this guilt when they turn on him as well. He can't blame them. The woman who dragged him out of the water speaks for him, but looking at the fierce faces around them, he is not hopeful.
He is more confused than scared, though. A part of him still believes that this is a dream. There is a rope wrapped around his chest that glows bright and burns through the fabric of his shirt. His mind turns foggy but he can't understand why. He looks around and dozens of stern faces stare back at him, their eyes grim, their lips pressed tight. They study him like he is an oddity; he is not stupid enough to tell them that that's exactly what he thinks of them.
For the second time in as many hours, Steve thinks that he must be dead but it doesn't add up, either. Bad as his situation is, in his understanding, Hell still must be worse than this. Yet being bound and interrogated can hardly be called Heaven, either.
He chooses to focus on…. What did they call her? Diana. The daughter of the Queen. The one who saved him. His mind is reeling and he swallows uneasily. Looking at her helps. She is his anchor in this sea of the unknown. When they ask him questions, he tells the truth and hopes for the best. None of this is under his control and that is what makes him feel so uneasy.
When Diana comes to break him out of his confinement in the middle of the night, Steve knows that it is probably not a very good thing. He is worried that if they are caught, he might actually get killed instead of being treated and sent to rest in the caves. He shouldn't trust any of them, but of them all, he trusts her the most.
He can't make up his mind about her. She is beautiful and fierce and fearless and an excellent warrior. His heart skips a beat when she climbs into the boat after him, her mother and the guards left behind on the rocky shore awash in the pale moonlight. He doesn't believe that this is not a trap until the island is swallowed by the darkness and she turns around to face him, and it is only the night and the gentle rock of the boat on the waves that binds them together. His heartbeat settles at last. He likes her smile, likes the sound of her voice. He tries not to think too much about either.
Diana is the first to fall asleep on a pile of bags and blankets, her back turned to him and her breathing deep and even. Steve suspects that her bed in the palace is more comfortable than this, but she doesn't complain. Something warm stirs in his chest but he ignores the feeling. He almost died at least a dozen times in a span of a few days. His mind is playing tricks on him, surely.
Steve doesn't believe her. Doesn't believe that the God of War is walking the Earth and wreaking havoc and making people turn on one another. He doesn't, but he has made a promise to take her to the front, and it has been a very long time since his word was worthy of anything. For reasons he can't explain to himself, he doesn't want to disappoint her. Doesn't want to see disapproval in her eyes again. He has no idea what he is doing and Etta is making big eyes at him, Charlie is laughing and only Sameer, who is charmed beyond measure, seems to get it, behind the veneer of humour.
He doesn't have it in him to try and explain.
Steve's heart drops into his stomach when Diana climbs up the crudely made ladder and steps onto No Man's Land. He saw her people die under a rain of bullets. For a moment, he waits for her body to fall back into the trench, shredded into nothing by the enemy's fire. And then a moment passes and it doesn't happen. And then he is climbing out of the trench after her, his mind oddly blank. He can't imagine not following her. The thought scares and exhilarates him, at once.
Later, the town square is filled with people who have long lost hope. He watches them dance and laugh and drink sour beers, and an odd kind of comfort settles over him. He thinks back to the days in the camp, to his first flight, to the life that felt as unreal then as it feels like a fantasy now. Thinks that he wouldn't want to trade this moment here and now for anything else.
He glances at Diana from the corner of his eye. She is watching the villagers celebrate their freedom, her mouth curved into a small smile. There is something different to her, he thinks. Peace that has not been there before. He doesn't think she truly understands what she has done for them all, and he can find no words to express it. One day, he hopes, he will.
The steps creak beneath their feet as they climb to the upper floor of an old inn. The grateful innkeeper gave him three rooms – one for him and Sameer, one for Charlie and Chief, and one for Diana. He can't thank her enough. The building is old and drafty; it smells of chimney smoke and cooking oil and dust. After sleeping on the cold ground last night, Steve thinks it is pure heaven. His muscles ache and the thought of sleeping in a real bed, no matter how stiff and old, is overwhelming.
He pushes the door open and steps inside before making room for Diana to pass. It's been a long day. He should leave her to her devices, he knows, and go get some rest. Diana turns around and he forgets how to think. He doesn't remember closing the door behind him, doesn't remember crossing the room, but suddenly she is right there and it's all that matters. Her lips are soft on his, tentative but sure. His chest constricts. She is so beautiful it hurts—it hurts to feel so much. More than his heart can bear, it seems.
He tells her that and she smiles, her nose scrunching, and that is how he knows that she means it. He wants to never stop kissing her.
Steve has been with a woman before. Women. He knows what he is doing. Yet, his hands are shaking ever so slightly when they move over her body, along the lines of her armour and under her cloak. He wants to make it right, wants to make her first experience with a man a good one. She is a princess, and more, and he is just a soldier, and there is not much that he can give her, but he can do that. At least that.
Afterwards, the fire is out in the grate and the room is shrouded in darkness. The air is cool against his heated skin, but Diana's body is warm and pleasantly heavy, pressed to his, their legs tangled together, and heat thrums in his blood still. Steve turns his face and presses a kiss to the crown of her head, his fingers combing through her hair.
They talk and laugh and trade stories. Diana has a lot of questions and he wants to tell her everything. He has to remind himself to speak slower but there are too many words and not enough hours in the night. He doesn't think about tomorrow or the day beyond that. For the first time in his life, nothing beyond this room matters.
He falls asleep with his body curled around her back, his chest rising and falling against her shoulder blades. He is more at peace than he has ever been, but his dreams are not. For once, Steve is not scared of dying but he is terrified of not living and he doesn't know how to chase that feeling out of his chest. So he fills the hollow spaces between his bones with hope.
He wakes up at dawn.
Diana is already awake but only half-dressed. She walks over to the bed when she sees him watching her. He thinks he must be dreaming. It's still early and she doesn't protest when he pulls her to him again. Last night, he fumbled with the hooks and clasps holding her armour close to her body. He is hardly skillful now but it's easier the second time around. They push the morning away till the sun is properly up. Steve wishes they had more time.
Outside, the air is fresh and cold, a stark contrast to the comfort of the room in the inn. Chief glances at them and smiles, the corners of his eyes crinkling. Steve keeps a respectful distance away from Diana but it doesn't stop Sameer from giving him a knowing look. Then again, he had to have noticed that Steve never came to sleep in their shared room last night. Charlie blushes but maybe it's the cold. No one says anything and Steve knows that it's their profound admiration and respect for Diana that stops them. Had he been alone, he'd never hear the end of it.
He doesn't care. He wants to take her hand and to kiss her in the middle of the town square. He does neither because they are on a mission now. This is a different world from the one that they shared only a few hours ago.
His plan goes terribly wrong. Steve is not surprised. This is war. Nothing is ever truly right but when Ludendorff fires gas at the villagers something snaps inside of him. Life they could have saved – all gone. Diana is devastated when she emerges from the billows of orange smoke that he can't step into. She is devastated and heartbroken and mad. He has seen her happy, determined, curious, frustrated. He can't stand seeing anguish on her face. When she blames him for the deaths, he knows that she is right. One way or another, she is right.
That everything ends on an airfield does not surprise Steve. It feels like coming full circle and ending up back where he has started.
He wonders if he'd be more shocked to learn that Diana has been telling the truth all along if he had the time to think it through. But time is what they don't have. He hates leaving her, hates making a choice that is not really a choice.
Dying is so much scarier when he has something to lose.
Once, a long time ago, Steve asked his father how he was supposed to know that he was in love. He was 12 and fascinated with a girl living next door. The first one that didn't look to him like an alien species. The memory feels like something from another lifetime now. His father had laughed and said that if he has to wonder then he is not in love.
He is not wondering now. He is in love with Diana's strength and her goodness and her heart and the faith that she has in his people even after everything she has seen. He is in love with the lines around her eyes when she smiles and the sound of her voice when it drops to a whisper. He is in love with the way she watches the snow and speaks with his boys. He is in love with her kindness and determination and hopefulness. Probably because he has lost his own a long time ago.
He wants a thousand lifetimes with her but they only have minutes and he is at a loss for words because they have to matter. They have to be right.
In the end, his heart is all he has to offer. His heart and a sliver of time. It will have to be enough, somehow. He trusts her to make it right even if he is not here to see it.
The distance between them grows. Steve feels it like it's a physical cord that stretches and stretches and stretches until it snaps, and then something is missing and it is not coming back. He is not scared but he wishes that things could be different.
When it gets hard to breathe and his head fills with fog, Steve reaches for his gun. His heart is pounding fast but his hands are steady. He thinks, I'm sorry. He thinks, Please forgive me.
Aside from that, his mind is blank.
He closes his eyes and summons Diana's smile. I love you, he thinks for the last time.
And then he pulls the trigger.
xoox
Shit, was all that Steve had time to think before Lex Luthor spun around and then the next moment, his hand was around Steve's throat, lifting him up in the air and then slamming him hard into the cobbled surface with enough force to leave an imprint in the ground.
The pain exploded in the back of his skull, and when his head connected with the stones, it felt like it was cracked open. A white-hot jolt seared from his wrist and up his arm, and then he was up in the air again, his teeth clenched tight. Steve caught a shadow of another person, someone they had missed, hovering in the background but there was only so much attention he could spare before he stopped thinking altogether.
"No!"
Diana.
Dark dots dancing before Steve's eyes, he dropped his knife he'd used to cut Waller's ties and it clattered against the stones, his fingers clawing instinctively at the gauntlet in vain attempts to get Lex Luthor to ease his grip.
The other man smiled at Steve, studying him for a moment with a curious tilt of his head. Like a dog studying a new toy.
He turned to Diana then, still holding Steve in the air.
"I'm sorry, is this yours?" he asked in mock surprise.
And then with a slight twist of his wrist, he snapped Steve's neck.
A/N: Yeah, I know. I'll fix it... most likely.
What do you guys think of WW84 being pushed back again? IMHO it was inevitable but... *sigh* At least I'll kick this fic out of the way by then? I hope?br /
Also, any thoughts on Snyder's cut of JL movie? I want to be cautiously optimistic. While Whedon's version was objectively bad, I still loved the team dynamic and would love to have a better version of it. And more JL content.
I do hope you enjoyed this part. I'm feeling quite nostalgic about having to say goodbye to this story soon. As always, feedback is welcome. Personally, I quite liked writing Steve's life flashing before his eyes :)