Chapter Text
Blades of wet grass flattened under a blanket of blood. His blood. Coated by the splatter of crimson gore and chunks of scattered sinew. He laid where the road ended and the field began, pebbles of brick and fragmemts of metal slicing through the leather layers of his jacket, overwhelmed by the might of an enemy they were unprepared for.
Hours prior, Mister Terrific spent the entirety of his afternoon evaluating the areas where the rift had run through, scouring the environments potentially altered by the cataclysmic event. Since, according to Superman, his repair was a little, "off."
The clearing he surveyed changed quietly with the setting sun. Soughing of wind rustling through the branches that remained. Beeps and chirps, a welcomed chorus amongst each device he set out. A sign of human touch crossing into the realm of life outside the city. The meters and monitors he brought stood like beacons, scattered about in the patches where grass had yet to regrow.
And without fail, tainting the tranquility of what nature made after war, came a shift in the electromagnetic frequencies. His mask picked up on it first. Then followed the deafening scream of a building falling, the outcries of civilians too far to hear at full volume, but close enough to bolster his speed of putting a halt to his research. His T-spheres heeded his call and dispersed into the tall grass until all of his equipment was packed away.
By the time he reached his car, the area was cleared. He spared a glimspe at the field with a wistfulness in his eyes. What he hoped to be a day off, became what he always expected deep down. A man in his position was never bestowed the pleasurable leisure of missing work.
The purr of his classic beauty thundered to life at the press of a button, a voice of machinery woeful on his ears in the current circumstance were it could not be fully admired. A relic of its time, too old and slow for the dire situation presented to him; loaded with tech too heavy for its carriage.
A heavy heel pushed the engine to its limit, a roar to be heard echoing through the concrete walls of the overpass leading back to Metropolis. He kept an eye on the threat with the aerial footage provided by one of his spheres that he sent ahead of him—showed the live capture of the two LordTech veterans, and their new recruit, already at the scene before him. They were going toe to toe with what looked to be an orange, faceless goliath.
And when he arrived, they were compromised. Guy, the last man standing, significantly injured.
The giant grew in size, traded blows with the Green Lantern, and seemingly on the precipice of victory. If it were not for the bowl cut wearing brute's stubborness, he could have called him via comm link and tackled things a different way.
Instead, he rushed in with no plan and left him in the dark about the whole thing.
Leader of the 'Justice Gang'. What a damn joke.
He was deeply disappointed by the man's dentrimental confidence.
Yet, despite his mountain of mistakes, he followed Guy anyway. Mostly out of contract bound obligation but, he believed in the idiot for some reason outside of those binding words from Maxwell Lord. Reasons he definitely knew and ignored for his own sake. To admit Gardner was more competent than he openly gave him credit for? To say the 'leader' who partied too hard, and worked too little, was decent enough for the job? He would never hear the end of it. Even on a day like today, he fought well enough to hold the fort. Some intelligence certainly needed to pull that off.
He felt his body sigh at the budding stress, the beginnings of a long night presented before he arrived.
Mister Terrific did not often throw caution to the wind, nor intervene when he knew the odds were not in his favor thanks to Guy's ineptitude, yet, something over came him the moment he exited his car and bore witness to the sight of his teammates strewn about.
Hawkgirl, curled in on herself a few feet away, sat shielded by her shredded and broken wings. Her mace was wedged deep in the splintered tree bark above her head. Metamorpho, while not particularly in a worse state, had spread himself too thin. Abilities overused and exhausted. A shade on the ground by a slab of abandoned rooftop.
Guy on the other hand, held out for the team. Pulled out every thing in his arsenal to temper the beast, only to fall short anyway. His prized possession, emobidment of his own will packed in the band of a singular ring, began to falter. Drained from its prolonged exertion. The window of time it granted to save the day, dwindled in his hand. Anxiety evident in the twisted tilt of his lips and furrowed brows.
Green constructs held down the being with no face, massive sheets of metal bent over its arms and legs, skewered by manifested purlins and rebar. A hail mary that failed upon the ring's second shuttered pulse. Its emerald Glow finally spilling out of it like a falling star. Its wielder too, falling out of the sky. Disoriented and dazed, struggling to rise back to his feet.
"Gardner!" Terrific shouted. The unsuspecting Lantern was two seconds away from being fried by a wave of electricity, the enemy's body pulsating with a luminated glow. He felt it shake the ground, his T-spheres frantically blaring out warnings.
On steady feet, he rushed towards Guy. His arms reached from behind, hands locking around his waist. Michael's chest bumped against the back of Guy's soot coated jacket, almost suplexing him out of harms way. Their bodies tumbled, the impact violent, yet his hold was firm. They fell onto a patch of leveled concrete and tree roots raising through the cracks.
He stayed above him. Used his body as a shield and put his T-spheres on offense to do the heavy lifting.
"Hey! What the fuck do you think you're doing?!"
"Saving your ass."
He responded, voice unaffected by the natural rush of adrenaline pumping into his bloodstream, standing up to face the encroaching creature.
He dusted himself off, all T-spheres regrouping at his signal. "Focus on getting the people to safety." He motioned his bots to descend upon the threat. "I already phoned Superman; he should be here shortly." The faintest hint of doubt followed his words, not so much in his pessimistic belief of the boy in blue not showing up, but more in the fact he might come too late. Knowing full well that the man of hope was dealing with a matter outside of earth.
"Like hell I am! This thing is my problem. Not gonna let you take all the credit—" His voice faltered at the piercing brown gaze of Mister Terrific. His irritation no longer stuffed behind his common show of indifference.
"Does it look like I give a damn?" He snapped. Faced him with his glazed over optics, challenging the slightly older man. The glow of his white eyes shone harshly under the rising moon and vanishing afternoon sky. Behind them echoed heavy footfalls that crushed the road and waved away the thin veil of intermission they shared. A standoff, pointless admist a fight, where any minute wasted, costed lives.
Guy's mouth partially opened to say anything to re-establish the truth of the matter; that he was the leader and his word was final. But Terrific did not care to appease the man with a dick measuring contenst when lives were at stake. He followed him when it mattered, and diverted when it posed an unnecessary obstacle. He also simply enjoyed pissing him off.
In another shaky breath, he watched him wisely shut his mouth, and Michael turned away.
His gloved hand raised into the air, swept off the ground by one of his spheres flying towards the curve of his open palm. He glanced at Guy, who disappeared beyond the pillars of smoke shrouding his vision. The crash of collapsing infrastructures barred him alone. Isolated from any semblance of knowing help was one shout away. Pushed to confront the mysterious being of orange skin and pointy ears, with a look of false confidence on his own.
The world fell quiet around him. Body and mind on autopilot.
Twenty minutes passed before Superman finally arrived.
Twenty minutes of radio silence, close calls, and being pushed to the brink of exhausting every tool at his disposal. Twenty minutes of being reduced to using illegal, yet to be approved tech. He did what he was good for, that's what mattered. Damage control.
He confined the mysterious entity who ventured past the stars, in a district still vacant after the rift event. Trapped himself inside his own tomb to bring it down with him. If he had to die for the safety of others, so be it. His hopes of surviving all but diminished when he got smacked into the ground. Diminished once he realized he might be a stain on the pavement before Superman swooped in.
Air rushed harshly out of his lungs, the ability to take in any oxygen rendered too strenuous. His bones begged for relief, nerves burned from too much exposure to the electric and thermal conduction coursing through the alien's limbs. It held him for too long after being scooped off the ground in its calloused hand. Dragged him to the tallest point in the sky, body changing form, almost as tall as the Daily Planet.
"I came here for what I was owed." A shadow of a voice rang inside his skull. Smooth. Threatening. "Your fighting is pointless. Pathetic." The creature's words weighed heavy, a presence not easily comprehended in the current state he was in. "Who...are you?" Terrific spoke to the voice in his head. Took the chance of feeding his possible delusion caused by blood loss, to get answers.
"Who I am, does not concern your kind; the fragile flesh and water that you are. I am here for only one thing."
"...And what might that be?"
"Glory." He paused, "and I'll make you one of my trophies, intelligent one."
His vise-like grip squeezed harder, to the point that he could feel his blood begging to be released. Limbs breaking. Whatever he wanted to say, died on the wave of anguish taking over all his senses, teeth clenched and eyes closed to the inevitable.
Terrific's hands did not tremble with the strength of a demigod, he could not create masterpieces by sheer willpower alone, or fly to the high heavens thanks to the innate factors of forced evolution. No, he had his smarts and accolades. Relied on statistics, facts, and engineering. His mind was his power. But, despite his skills and confidence in his own abilities, there remained an unpredictable facet of life he factored in quite often before every mission.
Death.
It was the utmost incalculable variable in any situation.
He accepted such an objective fact a long time ago. The buzz of rain and the groan of old organ's keys still faint on his ears after all these years. Figured, soon enough the same tune would be played for him.
He believed his time had come, until the whine of an object flying too fast whistled by his ringing ears. It broke through the static, shook the world. A sonic boom that freed him from the clutches of the alien digging around in his head.
The impact sent him free falling back down to earth, with the crackle of Guy yelling over comms keeping him conscious. He was looking for him—sounded like a worried kid trying to downplay how scared he felt.
A smile ghosted the corners of his mouth, facing the sky and the increasing loom of concrete empires above him.
A strained chuckle, bubbled up past his painted lips, rough on his vocal cords. The blood trickled down the side of his face. Delirium had begun to set in. Made the pain somewhat tolerable to his jumbled nerves, thinking about how much he started to care for his stress inducing coworkers.
And the repeated call of his wife played heavenly in his mind. Her laughter and kind eyes coaxing him away from the light. Telling him that he had more life to give. More people to save.
Guy knew his thing with sports teetered the line of being a bit much, but no one could judge him for all the creative ways he managed to incorporate it into his fights. It came in clutch ninety percent of the time. Saved his ass more than he could count. And it made for some real flashy work.
In about ten minutes, it would once again prove to be the perfect fixation to rely on in a moment's notice.
Embers of burned wreckage crackled below. Silence filled the ruins of more damage done to a city yet to recover from the last incident. People slowly spilled out onto the streets, and from where he stood, the threat seemingly disappeared. And so too did any sighting of Mister Terrific. Completely offline aside from the others who bumbled about, tending to the people in spite of their injuries.
He called over comms again and again, in hopes of breaking the silence, met with static each time.
His skin was claimed by a nervous sweat. Blunt fingernails digging into the meaty part of his palm. An itch of guilt grew at the base of his neck. Suddenly too alone and too aware that the possible funeral to follow, and press coverage from the daily planet, were going to drag his ass.
He looked towards the sky, for reasons unknown, and caught a glimpse of blue and red whizzing by. The blur of color was followed by a deafening explosion about four miles out, drawing his attention down the road.
The sound was one thing, but the object falling from the clouds of smoke is what grabbed him. Matter of fact, when he squinted a bit more, the object resembled a man. One who concerningly adorned the same colors of his terrific, mean mugging friend, who tackled him nearly half an hour ago before running off to play hero.
And he kept falling. Any machines of his were missing from his fit frame. Vulnerable like a hermit without its shell.
Guy hesitated for another drawn out second before it fully registered, the man in black and red, was a sneeze away from becoming a bloody heap of popped organs and fragmented bone on the asphalt below—because superman, who should have reached him first, failed to. Caught up in a scuffle then smacked across the sky by the size changing aggressor who looked to be on its last leg thanks to Terrific's efforts.
With Hawkgirl grounded and Metamorpho guiding civilians with his floating head, he had little time to reach him and a sip of energy left in his ring to properly cushion his fall. But he had to do something.
He sprinted through the crowd of flipped cars. Bobbed and weaved through the mess of knocked down streetlights and ripped apart utility poles. The distance too great for any of the power in his ring to cover the area with a stable construct. Yet, if he stopped for even a second, the nightmares to come after witnessing Michael splatter would haunt him. He boasted about living without fear, but some days that was a straight up lie.
Stumbling forward, the Lantern raised his fist and waved it in the air, forcing his ring to hold on a little longer. Focused all his might until a gigantic pitcher's glove stretched out ahead of him.
He quickly lowered it to the ground, barely able to hold it steady, and watched it dissolve atop the dirt. Watched it give way to a limp Michael Holt who settled atop a particularly wide patch of grassy sidewalk at an odd angle, part of his body sagging off the small curb. A river of his blood flowed down to the drain beneath him.
He slid to where he was sprawled out over the smushed grass, stricken by an intense, unfamiliar panic working itself into his nerves.
Guy had a quip for everything, hurled friendly insults like his life depended on it, and yet, whatever he planned to say, soured instantly on his tongue. Preoccupied by his hesitance to find out if whether or not the man he loved to annoy, had died.
Even though Lanterns dealt with death all the time, knew it like the backs of their hands, it never made it easier. And thankfully, Terrific hadn't died. Yet. The stuttering rise and fall of his chest said enough.
Although, just about every limb of his, might as well have been in the grave with how mangled he looked.
His T shaped mask glistened red, a chunk of it missing in line with all the cracks creeping down the black material. The Fair play jacket he cherished, surpassed a state of repair, much like the rest of his uniform. Tattered and burned beyond recognition. He breathed too slow, too shallow. And it was all his fault. Kind of.
Lantern business landed him in this mess of a tragedy. The rift caused such a disturbance that he had been tasked with taking care of the things that spawned from it. Dirty work per usual. The Faceless Hunter being one of those heathens from over yonder that the corpsmen had tangoed with before. A real threat that he may have been a little too drunk for.
Now Michael paid the price for his error.
The man's eyes were closed, skin caressed sweetly by the earth's touch. A sight impossible to turn his gaze down to. The pool of red that crept under his knees and the pain displayed over his ash coated features, as equally painful to watch.
They were the Justice Gang for crying out loud! And he was Mister Terrific! He didn't get bested by dangers above his pay grade. He got things done. Solved things without breaking a sweat. Almost one upped him in every way besides style and getting laid—which no one could goad that truth out of him. Yet, there he remained, motionless, holding on for dear life. Just a man. One who could die in the presence of a dude who didn't honestly know a damn thing about him. He pretended he did; even believed there existed some semblance of a friendly rivalry between the two. But seeing him now, he realized he knew nothing. A complete stranger who kept people at a safe distance to avoid exaggerated goodbyes for situations like the one they currently found themselves in.
Guy wasn't blind. He saw the signs. Read his cool, calm, and collected persona like a book. Aside from Clark—who overshared way too much—the same could be said for any of them. Kendra and Michael, in spite of the friendly banter and sometimes too much information about personal troubles, were simply coworkers. People who could die at any moment and he wouldn't be able to mourn them for who they truly were. Would they even feel the same if the roles were reversed?
Trying to ponder the sudden epiphany, tugged oddly at the migraine slowly developing in his head.
Gentle as can be, reminiscent to how he handled the kids he coached a long time ago, he finally turned him over.
He pulled him into his lap, hands shaking, and gave him a once over. His grime covered fingers burrowed against the taught muscles of his neck, in search of a pulse beneath all the blood.
The silence flooded in again. Stuttered flaps of wounded wings and the soft echo of a cape flowing in the breeze filled his ears at a distance. Consumed by the need of keeping a body from becoming a dead one, to fully pay attention to his surroundings.
"He's suffered multiple fractures," came an exasperated deduction from Superman who landed perfectly by his side. Full of concern, regret. "And has internal bleeding." He continued, covered in his own scrapes and bruises. The Faceless Hunter's body, now at a reasonable height, collapsed at his feet. Defeated, but breathing.
"How the hell do you kno—you got x-ray vision or something?" He quirked a brow to stare at the man standing above him. "...No. Just uh, an educated guess..." He countered. "A general assessment." He said after a beat, rather defensively. Seemingly too scared of Guy's steadfast insistence on figuring out how his hypno glasses functioned, to try putting up with coming clean about another—slightly intrusive—ability not listed in Terrific's many files.
He eyed him suspiciously before returning his attention to the task at hand. "Uh-huh. Sure. And suddenly your last name is House." He said it under his breath, but Superman heard it anyway. So did Hawkgirl who staggered forth past the people who swarmed them, Metamorpho on her heels. She leaned on Clark for support.
"Shut up will you?" She coughed up a mantra only he ever heard. "...Now's not the time for your shit jokes. We need to get him back to base." Her reasonable cadence nagged at him. She was clearly on the verge of puking, and her irritated attitude drove home how starting a fight over her tone would look childish on his part—especially in front of Clark and Rex.
His teammates, looked like shit. Performed like shit. Oh, and on top of everything else, Lord would most likely deduct the damage done to Metropolis, their mutilated uniforms, and all sustained injuries, from his paycheck. Progressively making the day go from bad to worse.
Which in hindsight, wasn't necessarily true. The person having the worst day, laid unconscious between his legs and couldn't protest the fact he was the one holding him of all people to do so.
He grimaced at the low groan that escaped Michael when he started to lift him. The pressure he applied to the wounds—the ones he could cover—was meaningless in the grand scheme of things.
He stole glances at the body strapped down to a gurney on their way back in one of LordTech's many evac transports. Waited for a smart, curt retort to shut up his mindlessly, mumbled pep talk. But only the howl of the city getting back on its feet answered him through the ajar windows—and the half hearted conversation Clark managed to dole out in place of Hawkgirl, who currently slumped against his shoulder. Metamorpho sat quietly off to the side, rebuilding his body in the seat next to him. All of it a strange hollow sense of company in comparison to the few conversations a day Terrific used to offer. His presence, awake, more enjoyable than whatever the hell he had to deal with now.