As they watched the two women walk towards their designated watering hole, all long legs and high heels, the two men, one super, the other just above average, pushed their hands in the pockets of their jeans, almost at the same time.
"Now?" asked Steve.
"Now, there's a nice place just down the corner, at this hour it's typically a bit crowded, but that's not a bad thing."
Steve shrugged his shoulders and they started walking in the opposite direction than where the girls went. "Less people that could hear us. I mean, I know that some crazy stuff has happened ever since… ever since my time, but I highly doubt people would take people talking about resurrection and time travel that kindly."
"Eh, I don't think so. Too many strange things have happened here, between Metropolis and Gotham, and people don't take these things that well, these days. They never did, actually."
Clark led him to a simple wooden door with a plaque reading Cluricaune Irish Pub hanging right at eye level. "Uh, literally around the corner!" he exclaimed as they entered.
"Yes! Lois doesn't like this place that much, she thinks it's too crowded, but I don't mind. Sometimes the white noise relaxes me."
They found two seats at the bar, the last two stools at the end of the long counter. The place wasn't exactly packed, but there was a decent number of patrons enjoying a cold one after a day at work, while waiting before moving somewhere else for dinner or going home altogether. It was warm enough that Steve took off his jacket and rolled up the sleeves of his shirt above the elbows.
They had barely sat down when the barman, a tall, lanky guy with long hair pulled up in a bun and a long, thick beard so long he had braided it on the chin, arrived to serve them. "What's your poison?" he asked them with a bright smile on his face.
"Uhm… beer?" proposed Steve.
"Yeah, a beer would be nice. Two pints, thank you," replied Clark, unbuttoning the first button of his shirt.
"Two pints coming up!" The barman left to get them their orders in a hurry, but not before he produced two bowls of peanuts from beneath the counter.
"Uh, nice. Back in my days, places like these were shady and barmen were usually grumpy, toothless sons of bitches that wouldn't speak a word. At least where I came from."
The barman came back with two pints of frothy, amber beer and left them on the counter in front of them, before throwing them a couple of coasters. "I just waxed the counter!" then he went back to serve other patrons.
"Cheers," they said at the same time and clinked their glasses together. Steve found himself thirstier than he had thought, and though the taste was very different from what he was used to, the pint of amber ale was more than welcome to quench that thirst.
"Ah, this is so different from the dishwater I was used to during the War."
Clark chuckled. "We still have a lot of dishwater if you want. But I kind of prefer this kind, than something closer to carbonated water than actual beer."
"The Germans knew how to make great beer. I've been undercover in their ranks for so long that I grew fond of their lagers."
"One day I'll fly there and try them. Now tell me, how are you holding up? Being shot ahead in time of ninety nine years seems quite a lot to take in!"
Hunched over the counter, Steve shrugged his shoulders and smiled, for a moment. "It is. But Diana's been helping me a lot. Way better than what I did when I was the one that should have guided her into a world she knew nothing about. She's changed so much…"
"For the better?"
He nodded. "Yeah… when I met her, she was headstrong, naive and reckless. Now she's more poised, quieter, but I can still see that fire in her, that steadfast will to do good, to be the bridge to a better understanding… whatever made me fall head over heels in love with her one hundred years ago is still there, it's just… harnessed into something that… I don't really know how to describe her, I have to be honest with you. She's just… wonderful."
Clark smiled too. "Yeah, she is. We haven't talked much but I've seen her fight. She's fierce, I tell you!"
"You should have seen her in Belgium. All alone, she drew the fire of an entire platoon of German forces hidden in the trenches, she crossed No Man's Land faster than a bullet and then some. She destroyed a machine gun with a swing of her shield and when they managed to disarm her, she fought nail and teeth with her lasso. It was magical."
"It's the same word that Lois uses to describe her. Magical."
"Hey, I had the chance to text with Lois a little bit this afternoon. She looks like a fierce one too!"
It was Clark's turn to smile and getting lost in his thoughts for a moment. "Yeah… she can be a handful, when she wants to, but there's something in her… like a fire, that's the right word, a fire that burns in her, guiding her to seek the truth and never settle for anything else but the truth. But she's also thoughtful and caring. She's not against stepping on someone's toes to reach the truth, but she taught me to always consider that whatever scoop we make, there's a chance someone innocent could get hurt, someone that's not even involved, but whose lives could be endangered by what we write. And that we should consider carefully, which paths we choose to take."
"It was something I learned on the battlefield. In boot camp they don't tell you that every bullet you fire can end someone's life. They don't tell you that ninety nine percent of the time, you'll be facing someone that didn't want to join the army, that would prefer to be back home, breaking his back in the wheat fields. We're sent over to the front, we're handed a rifle and we're told to kill as many as we can, but who are we killing?"
"Yeah… it's crazy but for, for example, for each corrupted government agent we manage to uncover, there are at least ten others ready to take his place, and they are ready to cut some throats and spill some innocent blood to get there. They don't care, it's just cannon fodder for their crooked ends."
"That's something I wouldn't be surprised to hear coming from Diana."
Clark shrugged his shoulders. "I guess we're more alike than what I thought. Out of curiosity, how did you two meet?"
"I was a spy, during the war. I was infiltrated in a German weaponry plant in the Ottoman Empire and I had stolen important intel, so I… borrowed an Eindekker and flew away from Turkey. Problem was… I was shot down. I crash landed in Themyscira, in the sea just fifty meters or so from the shore and… she saved me. I was sure I was going to drown in that cockpit, I looked up one last time towards the surface and there she was, standing on the wing of the plane, one of the few things that were still floating. It was probably the lack of oxygen but in that moment, blurry and unfocused, she looked like an angel, ready to take me home, wherever home was. Instead she dove, she pulled me out of the cockpit and dragged me ashore. That's how I met her, on the rocky beach of Themyscira, wearing a German uniform that didn't belong to me, and Diana looming over me. The rest… I guess it's history."
"A nice history indeed. Meaningful. Definitely beats mine. Blowing up in a giant ball of flammable mustard gas, before Flash came to your rescue of course, is more… heroic, in my book."
"From what I saw on TV and what Diana told me, yours was pretty heroic too. I mean," Steve took a short sip of beer. "I mean… you owe us nothing, from what I saw, you could be a God among us."
"I owe you guys everything. You adopted me, gave me a home, loving people that cared after me," said Clark with a sad smile twisting his face, almost to a painful grimace. "Thing is, I don't want to be a God. I crash landed on this planet, like you did on Themyscira. For all I know I'm the last one of my kind, with a biology that would allow me to draw energy from the sun and become… and become Superman. It's the sun that gives me superpowers, I'm not like Diana. Take me away from a yellow sun and I'm like anyone else. I was brought up in Kansas, my mom still lives there, my dad died in an accident with a tornado and… for a while I thought I was just a freak, that I had no reason to be here. But then I saved someone from certain death. And someone else after him. Then I allowed people to safely evacuate an offshore oil plant surrounded by flames and… I never stopped, and people started talking. The cape and the costume, the name… that came only by accident. I… never intended to be the hero the people want me to be. I don't want to be a hero, I'm the son of a farmer from Kansas and the fiance of a Pulitzer worth reporter, then and only then I'm Superman."
Steve barely managed to contain a mirthless laugh. "That makes me the unsung hero and you the reluctant one? Nah, it doesn't work like that. You believe in what you do. Last year you could have flown away, instead you went on, you charged that… monster. You knew you were going to die, like I knew I was going to die when I left Diana on that damn airstrip. I didn't want to go, but I had to, just like you did. We believe in what we do, that's it."
"And that makes us what?"
"Heroes. Sung, unsung, reluctant or willing… We're heroes. But the people out there… they don't need to know that we are. I don't care if my name isn't printed in history books as the guy that sacrificed everything to end the Great War, I don't care. I did it because I believed I could make the difference, and it broke my heart to do so, but I did it nevertheless. Did you do anything different?"
Clark shook his head. "I guess not."
"See? The cape, the costume… the superpowers… they don't matter! From the son of a farmer to another, the true hero is the boy from Kansas."
Three pints each later, Steve felt a buzz in his body, a pleasurable tingling sensation in the tips of his fingers and his head swayed from time to time, but the moment he finished a glass, a new one came to quench a thirst he had no idea he felt. Clark was a nice guy, if a little broody, but hey, he had just come back from a rough year of roaming around the world completely amnesiac after a terrible, experience of prolonged near-death.
Had it happened to him, Steve thought he would be kind of broody too.
"Speaking of merrier matters…" he mumbled, a little confused for a moment. "I truly hope you haven't been moping around the last couple of days I mean… To me Diana is the most beautiful woman in the whole universe, but hey, Lois' a nice catch too!"
Clark laughed so hard he had to set the glass on the table, or he risked to pour the remains of his bear on the newly polished counter, or break the glass altogether. "Of course not Steve! Come on, I come home to the woman I wish would marry me, what do you think happened?"
"Let me guess, you two have left the bed only to eat and go to the bathroom?"
"Close enough. She had to go to work too. I guess it wasn't too different for you."
"Eh, there were other things in the middle but yes… it has been an interesting couple of days now, if it wasn't for…"
He trailed off, as he suddenly recalled Diana's panic attack the night before. It had hurt him, deeply, to see her like this. He wished she could have all the joy in the world, and he was ready to do the unthinkable to make sure she was safe and happy, but God yesterday… never in his wildest dreams he would have had imagined that she would fear mortality, his own mortality to be precise, so much.
"For what?"
"Nothing it's just… Yesterday Diana had a little bit of an emotional meltdown when she realized that one day I would grow old and die. You know, normal things that happen to us humans."
"Oh man, I imagine she didn't take it well!"
Steve shook his head and sighed. "No. She had a full blown panic attack in her bathroom. It was stuff from my worst dreams of nights in the trenches, with fellow soldiers crying in their sleep or crumbling in the mud during guard duty, wrecked by hallucinations and stuff like that. it was… horrible." He shivered at the memory. "And I fear it will happen again, somewhere down the line. And it breaks my heart to even think about see her like that again."
"And you don't mind? Knowing you would die, one day or another?"
He watched a droplet of condensation fall down the glass and onto the cardboard coaster. "I already died Clark, and someone literally moved back in time to rescue me just because he thought it would be nice to bring me back to Diana… I know I'm going to die, I already came to terms with it. But Diana's immortal, she can only be killed in battle. She grieved my death for nearly a century and as it is now, she will have to do it again, somewhere down the line. And it breaks my heart, knowing that she took my death so badly she still hurt, after so long."
Clark said nothing, they just remained in silence for a long moment and they finished their beers.
Almost immediately, two freshly pulled pints were presented in front of them. "Hey guys, why the long faces?" asked the barman. "You two were laughing your asses off a moment ago!"
"We're pondering the inevitability of death, my friend," said Steve, in a gloomy tone.
He shrugged. "Ah, a staple among conversations, past a certain degree of inebriation. What happened? Close friend died recently?"
Clark shook his head. "No, it was us. Big car accident, we nearly blew up… crap like that. I banged my head so bad I had traumatic amnesia for nearly a year. We're coming out of it just now."
Steve couldn't help but admire Superman's quick thinking.
The barman grimaced. "Ouch… that's bad! You should be celebrating life, not brooding over death. Come on, let's revive the night a bit."
The man, with a wide, jovial smile printed on his face, produced three shot glasses and a bottle of an unidentified liquor, still capped with a thick red wax seal. "Your girlfriends should be happy you made it through in one piece," he said, uncapping the bottle and pouring the liquor. It looked like whisky and surely the powerful oaky scent that came from the bottle made Steve think it was indeed some kind of whisky, but there was something else in the mix that he couldn't really pick up.
"Yeah," he replied. "They are. They're out partying on their own, they hadn't seen each other in a while and they wanted a girls only night out."
The barman smiled again. "That's the spirit. I've heard of way too many men not allowing their girlfriends and wives to go out on their own, almost stalking them with their control freak attitude. Heck, that's the best way to fuck a relationship up. Look at me! My wife lives in Europe half a year, we've been married for decades!"
Clark's face scrunched up in a puzzled face. "Decades? How old are you?"
The barman laughed, stroking his long beard and twirling the tip of the braid between his fingers. "Way older than I look. I don't know if it's the little sun exposure I get or the great beer I drink that keeps me young, but I'm way older than I look." He poured the liquor in the shot glasses. "This is on the house. To cheating death!"
"To cheating death!" they exclaimed as they clinked their glasses together.
The strong spirit nearly singed his nostrils, when Steve brought it to his lips and inhaled, before he drank it in one single gulp.
If the scent was strong, the taste was even stronger. Sweet, woody, with the tangy note of smoke to complete a bouquet that had also some vanilla in the background and a hint of licorice. It was strange, but not unpleasant, thing is it burned like hell. He coughed and sputtered a little bit as the liquid settled in his stomach, burning his way down his throat down to a pleasant warming sensation in his gut.
"Goddammit what is this?" he asked, gasping a little.
"I have no idea but it's great!" replied Clark.
The man behind the counter chuckled. "Technically it's moonshine and it's very illegal. My brother makes it, and I keep a bottle behind the counter for special occasions. Up to now, I haven't found a reason to break the seal, and I opened this bar fifteen years ago. But you two, I think you deserved it."
Steve shut his eyes tight as his head started spinning. "What the hell…" he murmured. "Oh God Diana will be so pissed…"
"About what?" asked Clark.
"You promised her I wouldn't get smashed drunk. You failed, and she hates when someone breaks a promise!"
The barman groaned. "Oh, don't worry about my niece, she'll be just fine." He poured himself another shot of liquor and, completely unfazed, downed it. "It's time we did something for her, after she got rid of Ares in our stead."
"Excuse me?" grunted Clark as he tried to keep a now very drunk Steve Trevor sitting up on the stool. "Your niece?"
"Wait a sec…" Despite his numbed brain, his memories of elementary school and Greek Mythology were still quite vibrant. "If Diana's your niece, that means… you're either Poseidon or Hades!"
"My seafaring brother has a great seafood restaurant on the coast of Amalfi, in Italy. You should try it, I bet he's gonna give you a consistent discount."
"Holy flying fuck!" Both Steve and Clark gasped when they realized who they were talking to. Drunk as he was, Steve thought it was funny, considering he was a pilot and Clark… well, Clark could fly on his own.
"Hey, don't worry about me. Worry more about your girls, they're drinking at the bar owned by Afrodite, I wouldn't be too surprised if they'd come back completely smashed tonight."
Right on cue, Clark's phone rung. To Steve, the otherwise melodic tune sounded like the shriek of an anti aircraft alarm. "Hey Lois how… Oh Diana, everything alright? What? Crap, even Steve is soaked. Alright, I'll see you home." He slid his thumb over the screen and closed the call. "That was you niece, my fianceè is smashed drunk, after a shot like this, what the hell was that?"
"Just something that will solve a little problem. Nothing dangerous, just… strong. He'll have a bad hangover tomorrow, nothing that a gallon of room temperature water and some Tylenol can't cure. Same goes for Lois. Let's say Diana won't have panic attacks anymore."
"What?" Steve shrieked. "You mean I'm immortal?"
Hades hesitated. "Eh, not really. You're more… unable to age? I mean, you can die, you know, if you decide it would be a good idea to pilot a damn German bomber full of cans of mustard gas and blow it up, with you still inside it, yes, you can die. You just won't age, at least until you and Diana are together. This thing… it's powerful stuff, but it's no miracle worker, it works in different ways and in this case we thought it would be best if we sort of tied your fate to Diana's," he explained.
"But… how does it work?"
He twisted the tip of his beard again. "Listen, it's weird stuff. This comes from an age when Gods and Goddesses had children with mortals and they wanted their kids to have an edge. We can't make him a god, but this is the thing that made Achilles nearly immortal, if only Peleus had let Thetis do her friggin' job with that child! Damn those heels. Sorry, I digress. Boy, we would have done this ages ago, if only there had been a full body to use as a vessel for your soul. You can't remember it now, but when I saw your soul on my domain's doorstep, I freaked out. My brother… I mean, Diana's father, he was really rooting for you two and then all that crap happened, my nephew was an idiot we all know that… and you were blown to pieces. It took us decades, literally, to find a way to make this work, to get someone that would look just like you to pour your own soul into him, then your friend… Flash, goes back in time and solves the issue. No reincarnation crap needed! Now boy, listen to me." Steve had a hard time swallowing a thick lump that had formed in his throat. "Go home, nurse that hangover, and make my niece happy. She's seen some bad crap through the years, and she deserves everything you can give her and then some. Got it?"
"Yes sir!"
"Spare the sir for my brother. Now go, before he passes out and he's dead weight in your care. And yes Clark, I know you're superstrong and stuff, just… be careful!"
"But how do you…"
"Oh for Tartarus' sake, who do you think kicked your butt out of the Underworld and back into your body? Dude! Give me a little credit! I might look like a hipster, but I can kick some major ass when I want to!"
Clark nodded. "Alright, I'll take him home. Let me just…"
Hades grabbed his wrist before he could reach for his wallet. "On the house. The whole thing. Just go home and keep a bucket close to him."
A very quick rundown on Greek Mythology mentioned in this chapter. First, forget the Hades from Disney's Hercules. As fun as it was, Hades has never been like this, in Greek Mythology. He's always portrayed as quiet and even kind. His rule over the Underworld, also known as Hades itself, is stern and just. He has no cruel inclinations, contrary to his younger brothers Zeus and Poseidon. So… yeah, no James Woods-like character, Hades is kind of altruistic, despite modern more fearmongering characterizations. In the Wonder Woman comic book canon, characterizations of the gods vary from writer to writer. Azzarello has most of the gods act like rebellious, spoiled children, others, like George Perez (my favorite Wonder Woman author) wrote them as a closer counterpart to the original mythology, while being heavily influenced by the Victorian concept of the Reaper. I'm mixing a little bit of original mythology and comic book canon, while leaning heavily on the mythos because reasons.
As for Achilles and his immortality, there are different myths about it. First, the most common and widely spread, has his mother Thetis dip him as an infant in the River Styx, holding him by his heel, so it becomes his only weak point. The second, less known but more interesting on my part, has Thetis bathing him in ambrosia and then "cooking" him over an open fire to "harden" him and give him immortality. Peleus, his father, sees what she's doing and, scared to death, stops the process before the last part, his heel, is made immortal.
And suddenly 5 years studying ancient Greek don't seem like a waste of time!