Desmond, quite frankly, feels bad for the pair of police officers that show up maybe half an hour later. It seems like every cop in the city has been called into the crater that had been a working hospital earlier that day- most of them are working on evacuation or coordinating rescue efforts, but after Desmond's impromptu press conference someone decides to send a couple guys over to try and contain (to use the officer's words) "whatever the fuck is going on over there".
They have not been adequately prepared. One of them makes a strangled noise of surprise, and the other one stops in his tracks so quickly he actually falls over backward. By this point, the whole group is back together, Ezio having finally shown up again after getting slightly lost and then distracted by a bunch of hospital patients trapped under some of the rubble. But they're all back together now, eight winged humans (plus Rebecca), most of whom look ready and able to kick the ass of anyone that happens to get on their bad sides.
They don't know how much time they'll have before Juno shows, but Desmond guesses it's probably not going to be long. Juno is going to be pissed when she realizes her bomb completely failed to kill every single person she was aiming for, and she's not going to waste any time in trying again. They're right in the middle of a hurried conversation about tactics and strategies when the two cops show up. Altair turns around and glares.
"What?" he snaps.
"Um…" the younger of the two cops- although they both look very young at this moment, and very scared- adopts a deer in headlights look. "I think- I don't know, they just sent us here to figure out what was going on." He gulps, and adds, "Sir."
"Are we being arrested?" Ezio asks, sounding more curious than worried. "I haven't been arrested in ages-"
"Ezio," Shaun interrupts. "Stop being excited."
"Breaking out of prison is fun."
Shaun rolls his eyes. "When have you ever been in prison?" he demands.
"Actually…" the second cop goes pale as a sheet as everyone suddenly focuses on her. "I don't think having wings is a crime in any jurisdiction, so I mean it's weird but I don't…" She makes a complicated face. "I really just don't know what's going on here."
"You get used to it," Shaun says, and lets out a sigh of long suffering exasperation.
"Oh come on," Ezio says, nudging him. "You know you like it. And anyway, we have to worry about killing an all-powerful and possibly unkillable woman from before the dawn of human civilization, so…"
The cops look at each other, and the first one says- "Yea, we'll just be over there. Staying out of the way."
"Good thinking," Altair says, and the group conference picks up again as though they hadn't been interrupted in the first place. "So she's going to come soon, and she's going to be angry. The most important thing we need to do is get her away from these crowds. We cannot allow any innocents to be harmed."
"We can lead her away," Ezio says. "She'll have to follow wherever we go."
"They're cordoning off the whole neighborhood," Connor says. "A couple blocks north of here it's all businesses, and they've all been evacuated because of the bomb. We'll probably do some pretty serious property damage, but no one's going to get hurt."
"Sounds perfect," says Altair. "Yes. We'll do that. And then…" he sighs, shakes his head. "I don't know. We'll throw everything we have at her. She looks human, so maybe she can be killed like one. So far she's been one step ahead of us the whole time, but now she'll be angry. She'll make mistakes. This is our chance."
There are nods and words of agreement from the others, and the meeting starts to break up. Then Minerva speaks. "She wants to travel back in time."
So far she's been standing between Shaun and Ezio, arms wrapped around herself like she's trying desperately to keep warm- actually, she probably is. She's still wearing her open backed hospital gown, and it's cold here. But she steps forward anyway, looking up at the others through eyes dimmed by the memory of some recent misery. "She told me all about it when she- when I was…" She takes a deep breath. "Anyway. She wants to go back in time to before the precursors died out and change history somehow. Kill all the humans, I guess."
"Can she do that?" Edward asks.
"No idea," Altair says. "Let's not risk it."
And this time they do split up, not really going their separate ways but drifting into smaller groups as they wait for Juno to show. Desmond's not expecting Rebecca to seek him out, but to his surprise she does. And there's something like pity in her face that he doesn't like seeing. "What's wrong?" he asks, before she can get so much as a word out.
"It's… I left something out about the bomb," Rebecca says. "Because there wasn't time to explain everything before it went off."
"What?" Desmond asks. "Is there another one, or something?"
"No," Rebecca says. "I mean- I hope not, I don't know. But see… I only found out about the bomb because your father was there looking for it first." Desmond suddenly stops breathing, and his entire body freezes up as he processes exactly what that means. "We found the bomb and he stayed behind to try and disarm it."
"So he's-"
"Dead," Rebecca says. "I'm sorry. I didn't see it myself, but I know he wouldn't have given up trying to disarm the bomb until the last possible second. He would have been right on top of it when he exploded, so there's just no chance that he could have-"
"Alright," Desmond interrupts. "I can imagine it myself, thanks." He shivers, suddenly cold. "I just can't believe…" his relationship with William Miles hasn't always- hasn't ever- been easy, but that doesn't mean he wants the man dead. Especially not like this, so suddenly and violently and horribly, with no warning and no chance to say goodbye.
"Desmond?" Altair says, and Desmond looks up to see the older man watching him from next to Rebecca. He hadn't even noticed him come over, but there he is, just like he's been there every single other time Desmond's needed him. "Are you-"
"I'm fine." He's not. "Let's just make sure we get it right this time, okay? Juno has to die."
-/-
She comes not long after that, appearing from out of the crowd like a ghost. No one stops her, no one even notices her passing. She's dressed in blue jeans and a forest green sweater, hair just slightly out of place and covered in dust. If not for her bright red aura (like flame, like blood, like death and the end of the world) in eagle vision, she would have looked completely ordinary.
But she's not ordinary. Not by any stretch of the imagination. For a minute, nobody moves. They just stand there, waiting for something to happen. Then Juno laughs, and walks toward them with a quick but careless stride that projects absolute confidence. "This is rather foolish, isn't it?" she asks. "We all know how this will end. How it must end."
"You're outnumbered," Altair growls.
"For the moment," Juno says, and holds one hand up, clenched in a fist. Desmond tenses, expecting some kind of weapon, but when she unfolds her hand there's nothing in it but a key, thick and ancient looking, worn down by time. Just looking at it gives Desmond a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach because it feels wrong, like it's disrupting the entire world simply by being there.
Minerva lets out a defeated groan when she sees it, and Juno smirks at her. "Yes," she says, and then the whole world seems to shatter and explode- Desmond flashes back to what Juno had said earlier, about time travel, and at first is almost too surprised to do anything. It's just them and Juno, surrounded by nothing. Or by everything, maybe, all of time. There's a brilliant golden light emanating from the key in Juno's hand, so bright it's literally blinding.
But Desmond has been blind before- a long time ago, as a child- and he doesn't even stop to process this. Even eagle vision is useless with this unnatural light everywhere, but it's not difficult to figure out where Juno was, and he hasn't heard anything to suggest she's moved since. He moves forward and there's a body there, right where he expects it- Desmond is breathing quickly, mind filled with all the terrible consequences of what might happen if Juno's allowed to get away with this.
But something stops him as his hidden blade slides out, some niggling fragment of doubt that this he's got it wrong. He can feel that the person under his grasp is about the same size as Juno, but Rebecca is almost exactly the same height and weight, Shaun's only a little taller, and-
And, and, and- the longer he hesitates, the higher the doubts start to pile up. He can't stand the thought of accidentally murdering a friend in cold blood, but if this is Juno and he doesn't act, every human that ever has or ever will exist will be dead.
He stabs. It's quick, clean, and better than Juno deserves, but Desmond doesn't have the time or the patience to do anything else. The feel of metal in flesh is brutally familiar after his time in the animus, and Desmond prays as he pulls the metal out, prays that he's guessed right and this is Juno, and not one of his friends.
But as the body in his grasp goes limp and cold, the light fades out and the world comes back- it's just as they'd left it, exactly the same down to every detail. Except that Juno is dead. Desmond drops her, tosses her away like a pile of garbage. The key, still glowing and dangerous, drops from her hand with a dull thud.
"What just happened?" Shaun demands. "What-"
"I killed her," Desmond says, staring at the corpse on the ground. "I can't believe- it's not supposed to be this easy, is it? After everything she's done, she's just…" he looks up at the others. "I thought it would feel better than this."
Altair bends down and very gingerly picks up the key- it vanishes into a pocket, presumably to be dealt with later, away from prying eyes. "Revenge never feels as good as it's supposed to," he says. "But this is about more than revenge."
"We saved the world," Desmond says.
"You saved the world," Altair corrects.
"I guessed right."
One of the cops coughs loudly from behind them, and Desmond remembers suddenly that they never actually left. "Sorry," she says. "What just happened?"
-/-
It takes a very long time for life to get back to normal, or something that passes for it, at least. They spend months dealing with the police, half a dozen government agencies, the media, and everyone else that gets close enough to ask questions. It's impossible to avoid attention after everything that's happened, but they manage to get through it all without mentioning time travel, assassins, templars, or the first civilization. It's a truly impressive piece of storytelling, especially considering that they're more used to avoiding the police than working with them.
It's really thanks to Ezio that the whole story works so well. He does a spectacular job of playing the role of worried father, explaining that Juno had kidnapped Minerva and held her hostage for months, until finally the girl managed to get free and call for help. He explains that Juno was a deeply troubled woman (possibly the only true part of his story) that had found about the wings (there's no point in hiding those now) and become absolutely obsessed with them. First she'd kidnapped Minerva to try and find out how they worked, and then she'd followed the girl to the hospital to kill her. When that had failed, she tracked down Minerva in the rubble and tried again- Ezio claims he'd killed Juno to protect his daughter, and no one dares doubt him.
His story very neatly explains away everything the world at large is aware of, apart from the wings. Whenever that subject comes up- and it comes up very often- Ezio only shakes his head sadly and says he has no idea. At first, most people seem to doubt that part of the story, but then someone on the internet suggests that there could be secret conclaves of bird people living all over the world, and the media grabs hold of that and runs with it.
It looks like they're having fun.
Within six months, there's more rumor than actual fact on the actual affair, and some celebrity sex scandal takes everyone's eyes off the assassins. The cops look for a way to pin something on them for a while, but they have no proof about anything and there's nothing illegal about being not quite human. As soon as everyone's forgotten about them, the assassins skip town.
They go home.
And amazingly, life goes back to normal. There's about a weeks' worth of interest when the people in the neighborhood make the connection between them and what they've been seeing on the news, but it dies down quickly, and soon enough no one gives them a second look, even when they walk down the street with their wings out.
It works for everyone. Ezio, Shaun, and Minerva settle down into something like a happy family- every once and a while, Ezio will get bored and wander off to some distant corner of the world in search of adventure. Shaun will complain and grumble about it for a while, then pack up Minerva and go after him. He always finds him quickly, and Desmond has an idea that Shaun doesn't actually mind as much as he says he does.
Although Haytham manages to more or less stay out of the spotlight during the whole hospital bomb fiasco, the templars decide he's too much trouble and cut him loose. At first, they try sending men to take him out, and ensure he won't spill any of their secrets- but after five of them fail to return, they admit defeat and stop bothering him, and Haytham is finally able to move in with Rebecca. Roughly a year later she gets pregnant. Haytham later says that if he hadn't been asked roughly a thousand times if they were going to name the kid Connor (Ezio in particular thinks it's hilarious), it would have been one of the best times of his life.
The child ends up being a girl, and they name it Jenny, for Haytham's long dead sister.
Edward drifts around aimlessly, for a while, looking for a place to settle. He's still not entirely readjusted to being human after so long as an eagle, and there are a lot of things he still needs to catch up on. He goes almost everywhere, tries almost everything- he's probably the worst of them all at staying in one place, but the wandering keeps him happy, and he always goes home in the end.
Desmond expects Connor to wander as well, but there he's surprised. Connor seems perfectly content to stay where he is- it's probably the only place in the world where he can fly as much as he wants without attracting stares, so maybe it's not that surprising. And, as Connor points out when Desmond finally gets around to asking, his family is there.
Altair flat out vanishes for a few months, and then returns without Juno's key. He never says whether he'd destroyed it, or only hidden it somewhere, and no one ever asks. Some secrets are safer if they're never told at all. After that, he goes back to writing, and to playing peacekeeper to the rest of his large and prone to be stubborn family. It suits him well, and sometimes Desmond can't help comparing this version of the man to the one he'd seen in the animus. He thinks this one is happier.
And as for Desmond himself…
The first thing he does when he gets home is bury his father. Technically, there's nothing left of William to bury, but Desmond decides it's important that the man has a grave, some way of marking his passing. After all, William had done the same for him when he'd thought Desmond dead in the temple in New York.
Then, he moves on. He finally gets the degree he's just barely missed out on before being captured by Abstergo, gets a real job, and starts remembering how to live like a normal person. It's not as difficult as he would have expected- or maybe the definition of normal has simply been changed forever, after everything that's happened. Either way, Desmond is left with his entire life still in front of him, a future he never expected to have, and the freedom to do whatever he wants with it.
All in all, things could have been a lot worse.
-/-
I have a big problem with endings. They're very hard to write, especially when I'm trying to sum up a trilogy almost 150,000 words long. I really tried to make the final showdown with Juno longer and more dramatic, but I've been working on this every day for the past three and a half months, and I'm just 9000% done. There was a point when I really considered having someone just shoot her in the first paragraph because I was so ready to move onto something new. I'll probably end up writing another wingfic in the future because wow this series has been fun, but I really need a break now.
But yea! It's been a fun ride, and I'm honestly grateful for everyone that took the time to read/review/favorite/follow. I particularly enjoy it when someone tells me I've made them cry, because I am in fact a terrible human being. ;)
(Seriously though, you guys are awesome, thanks for reading... the end)