Hand
It certainly wasn’t the first time in history that two former allies had faced each other on the battlefield. Caesar and Marc Antony. Darth Vader and the Emperor. Draco Malfoy and Voldemort. (Right. Hasn’t happened yet. Wishful thinking.)
Warren Peace and Will Stronghold.
Best friends they’d been once, but before that, they’d been archrivals. Technically speaking, things had just come full circle.
“You could come back, Warren,” Will was saying, anxiously, circling carefully, rocking on the balls of his feet so he could move on the drop of a hat.
“It’s not Warren to you, not anymore, General,” Warren sneered, circling in the same manner as Will, like two predators trying to figure out which of them was going to rule the pack.
“Would you stop calling me that?!” Will yelled, disgusted. “What is it with you, Warren?! First it was always Stronghold, now it’s always ‘General-this’, ‘General-that’. I thought we were friends, Warren.”
“Were.” Warren shrugged, smirking. “Once. Then your father tried to put my mother in prison.”
“Cause...” Will blinked, confused. “Because she tried to break your father out. It’s... kind of against the rules, Warren.”
“Not my problem.” Warren reminded him.
“Yeah. Pesky little things, morals.” Will shook his head, looking away, then before Warren even knew what had hit him, he had dashed across the short distance between them, and tackled Warren around the waist.
“The fuck are you doing, Stronghold?!” Warren yelped, twisting away from him, though Will had managed to knock Warren to the ground.
“Oh, so it’s Stronghold again, is it?” Will snorted, and slammed the ground with his fist. Rocks and bits of metal and the few cars still on the street all bounced about three feet off the ground, and the pavement splintered out and away from his fist, stopping even Warren as he moved back.
“You’re stronger.” Warren blinked.
“I’m stronger.” Will nodded, and slammed his other fist down. The cars went four feet this time, and Warren felt the ground entirely shift under him, as though he was falling through it, which made no sense.
“The fuck...”
“Subway.” Will smirked, and slammed his fist down again.
This time, the pavement, the steel and metal girders and support under them, and the tiles on the ceiling of the underground subway station collapsed, sending both of them plummeting down towards the tile floor. Fortunately, the bystanders had had enough sense to get away from the cracking ceiling, and Will could fly, so really, it was just Warren who got hurt, landing with a heavy thud amongst falling debris, letting out a pained cry when his spine made unpleasant introductions with a steel beam. But Warren could take a hit, after all, and he would have been up again in five seconds, were it not for the fact that nanoseconds after he made impact, Will was straddling his waist, super-strong hands wrapped around his throat, cutting off his air.
Warren let out a chocked gasp, staring up with wide-eyed disbelief at his former best friend. Was Will Stronghold seriously... no way....
Will’s dark eyes were cold and dangerous as they peered back at his arch enemy and best friend through his black harlequin mask. (After all, he didn’t have glasses, so he had to hide his identity somehow.) “I’m not like my father, Warren. Either that means that you shouldn’t be targeting me because of what my father did, or, if you decided not to cooperate, it means I won’t put you in prison. I am willing to do what I have to do, Warren. I still of think of you as my best friend. If I have to do so posthumously... I guess that’s the way it goes, huh?”
Warren’s eyelashes flickered. His lungs were burning now, just like they normally did when he lit his whole body on fire, like when he flew. Just like they had that time Speed had created a vortex, and he had thought he was going to die, until the next thing he felt were Stronghold’s powerful hands on his neck.
“Warren?” Will pressed, leaning closer, looking closely at the other’s face. “Warren? Are you even going to try to answer me?”
Warren smiled, reaching his hands up to set them, deceptively gently, on Will’s forearms.
“What? Warren?” Will didn’t let up his grip at all, but he did lean back a little, confused. Until he leaned back far enough that something else made it’s presence known, and his eyes got so big, they looked like they might fall out of their sockets.
Then they narrowed again, and he leaned forward, whispering in Warren’s ear, “You like this, don’t you?”
The puff of air blew across Warren’s face, only serving to further the knowledge of the complete lack of oxygen in his own lungs, and Warren’s eyes rolled back in his head, and he barely managed to make his head, which felt 50 pounds too heavy, to nod.
“Interesting.” Will mused, then leaned back, removing his hands.
Warren’s lungs reacted immediately, sucking in a sweet lungful of dusty, dirty subway air, but it could have been imported from somewhere exotic and warm, the way it surged through his lungs, filling him completely, it seemed. Like an empty vessel, filled all at once. Panting and gasping, he could only lay there, eyes half closed, looking up at his own eye lids, mouth hanging open. That had to have been the most erotic thing he’d every experienced in his life. And it was so at the hands on his arch enemy.
Whoops.
He tried to bolt up, to sit, but the second he tried, a single powerful hand encircled his neck again, and he paused, watching Will warily, not liking the small smirk or the way the fingers just loosely sat there. “What?” he rasped, voice rough.
“I think I understand your mother now,” Will said suddenly, oddly. He was smiling.
“What?”
“Why a superhero can fall for a supervillain.” Will smirked. “They can take anything you can dish out. And they don’t complain... they think it’s sexy.”
Warren blinked. “What?” That seemed to be his new favourite word.
“Everyone else is scared I’ll kill them,” Will mused. “You aren’t, are you?”
Warren coughed, then examined the other’s face thoughtfully. “You’re too noble to kill anyone.”
“Sure about that?” Will asked, and his hand twitched, just enough that distinct pressure was placed across Warren’s windpipe, and when he swallowed, he could feel the thumb pressing against it. Power of life and death rested in those hands.
“No.”
Will smirked, tilting his head to the side a little. “Good.”
And his hand tightened.
And Warren couldn’t be happier.
Go back to Sky High.