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"Do your best every day, and don't be a slacker," Dick's foreman had told him, either two years or a lifetime ago. So when the Army asked for volunteers, men willing to hand themselves over to the Strategic Science Reserve, Dick had raised his hand. Now, while the plane speeds on a locked course toward New York City, loaded with its deadly cargo, Dick thinks about that day, and about what came after: the serum, the shield, the spotlights and the secret missions. The plane is going down, but not anywhere near people because Dick did his job. It's been a long war, a tough war, and he couldn't save everyone, couldn't finish the war, but he did the best he could. He supposes that's all you can really ask for. He sends up a quick prayer, and hopes they break it to his mother gently.
The crash into the icy water is very loud, and then it is very cold, and then there is nothing at all for a very long time.
Lewis Nixon III's childhood was neatly segmented by the various trips his father made to the last known location of Richard Winters' plane, searching through the deep waters to bring American's hero home. His father had created Winters and even decades later, he seemed to feel a sense of ownership, a slow burning sense of rage or loss that drove him north time and again.
He missed Lewis' birthday one year, his graduation another while he searched with ships and planes and satellites for a plane, and a shield, and a man long dead. When Lewis was younger, he read every book he could find, watched all the movies, the cartoons and the fictionalized dramas and the endless documentaries. He played at being Winters, the long halls of his parents' house transformed into French and German forests, a pillow for his shield. Other times, an imaginary Winters was his confidant and friend, and Lewis complained to him about the kids at school and shared his dreams as he sprawled in bed before he fell asleep.
Then, for a while, he hated Richard Winters, for being perfect in ways that Lewis already knew he could never achieve, first among them Winters' ability to gain his father's attention, respect, even love. So what if Winters was perfect? Winters was a science experiment. The rest was likely propaganda. Teenaged Nix learned cynicism.
Adult Nix was no less cynical, but Stanhope Nixon, he eventually realized, had never loved Winters. Stanhope had lost his greatest achievement, seen his magnum opus crashed into an ocean, and it was that that drove him back to the north Atlantic, over and over. Nix learned, as he grew older, that earning his father's pride was a possibility, one he perhaps even attained, after two engineering degrees and his own line of weaponized avionics. But love had never been on the table, for him or a dead man who had been so much more than Stanhope had ever credited.
And when his father finally drank himself into an early grave, Nix hesitated but approved the continuation of the Arctic missions. His father had searched for the wrong reasons, but that didn't mean that Richard Winters didn't deserve to be brought home. Nix wouldn't be the man to give up on him.
When the Nixon Industries ship pulled Richard Winters out of the ice, frozen but miraculously alive and unaged even seventy years after the crash, Nix was the first to see his face. And when Winters finally woke up, Nix looked into blue, blue eyes and thought to himself, I have been searching for you my whole life.
When Winters finally woke up, he was in a different century and his war was over but things were somehow even more complicated. He technically still has his rank with the army, but mostly the Strategic Science Reserve has been absorbed into the Agency, and their concerns have gotten much stranger, because there are more soldiers like him out there, super soldiers, and mutants and monsters and aliens and people with powers that even Sink admits might as well just be magic. Nix himself has a robot suit, but considering Dick was freely given a videophone with an encyclopedia, radio, flashlight, and timer all built in, and it fits easily in his pocket, he's not sure he's as impressed with the suit as Nix seems to think he should be. Though the suit does have a lot more firepower than his phone, or a Sherman, for that matter.
Dick doesn't understand half of Nix's jokes, but it hardly matters because while everyone else around him treats him like he's a child or an idiot, Nix tosses him the phone and mocks him mercilessly, then programs his number into the first speed dial and shows Dick how to call him. And when Dick bites the inside of his lip at Sink's patronizing speech about wars and duties and true soldiers in the new Agency, Nix just rolls his eyes over to him, nudges him like Sink isn't standing right there, and Dick doesn't smile, but it's close.
Nix leans in too close and touches him too much when he tries to explain phones and elevators ("We had elevators in the 40s, Nix.") and laptops and tablets (which they most certainly did not have, and despite carrying phones everywhere, people somehow seem, to Dick's despair, to type more than ever) and coffee machines. ("We had coffee machines," is also true, except Dick has to eat his words over that one when he pokes the wrong button and it makes a hideous hissing, shrieking sound at him instead of making a cup of coffee. Nix introduces him to the Keurig, and to a French press, and finally it's Lipton who brings him a machine with only two buttons, Brew and Off, setting it on his desk with a sympathetic look.)
Dick doesn't mind the touching or the leaning. Nix is brilliant and sarcastically funny and mostly doesn't treat him like being frozen for over half a century made him an idiot, just entertains the possibility, aloud, that Dick might genuinely be an idiot with regard to a wide host of specific realms of life. In the face of otherwise ceaseless adoration, Dick finds Nix's good natured teasing and endless arguments calming, and Nix seems delighted to share his decidedly opinionated views on anything about the modern world Dick chooses to ask, and oddly keen to hang on Dick's less verbose observations and discoveries when he chooses to share in turn. There wasn't really time to explore anything of a romantic nature in the army, but Dick was already 27 by the time he dove his plane into the frozen ocean, and he'd been to college; he knows himself well enough, and he knows that he wasn't the only man in the army who didn't mind the lack of female companionship once they set off. Nix has dark eyes and capable hands, and Dick likes the way he can read Nix's mood in the set of his shoulders.
And it doesn't take long in this century to figure out that noticing such details isn't so forbidden anymore, which is actually quite the load off. So when Nix catches him walking out of Sink's office one day and says, "Hey, let me take you to dinner," Dick agrees with hardly a thought.
Dinner is pleasant for a while, though Nix seems nervous for some reason and drinks too much. But his driver is waiting out front when they finish, Nix walking somewhat unsteadily and guided by Dick's hovering hands. Dick has to maneuver him into the car and the final drop is undignified, but then they're safely ensconced and on their way back to the tower. Dick settles into the seat, pressed solidly against Nix's slanting body.
Nix raises a clumsy hand to pat Dick's cheek. "You're not fair," he complains in a mumble, and Dick frowns at him.
"Nix?" he prompts, when Nix closes his eyes and falls silent instead of continuing. "How am I unfair?"
Nix opens his eyes again. "You're perfect," he sighs, looking heartbroken about it. "You're fucking perfect, Dick."
Dick catches Nix's hand before he can smack him in the face again. "You know I'm not," he points out, vaguely annoyed. Nix is usually the one person who doesn't treat him like a folk hero.
"You are though," he disagrees. "You don't take crap from Sink, and you can't text to save your life, and your hair is just..." he reaches out with his other hand, and strokes it through Dick's hair. Dick lets him, peevishness dissipating with the warm touch of Nix's fingers on his skin. That was sort of his hope for the night anyway, and he's oddly more comfortable with Nix's complaints than his praise. He adjusts his hold on Nix's other hand, rubbing his thumb over the bumps of his knuckles.
"Why'd you have to be from the forties?" Nix muses sadly, and Dick frowns, annoyed again.
"I don't know what you mean when you say things like that," he crabs. "I'm not an alien."
"Aw, don't be mad," Nix soothes him, still playing with his hair. "I'd just do... God, Dick. So many things to you, if you were real."
"I'm real," Dick argues, stung.
"You know what I mean."
Dick really, really doesn't.
There are agents aplenty. Dick isn't sure what all of them are for, but they rotate him through various agents — handlers, Nix sniffs derisively — until he's lost track of half of them. A few seem solid, but the majority are exhaustingly polite to his face and seem to think he's some of kind tactical savant: worthy of near worship in the field but unable to navigate the city by himself or perform basic tasks like grocery shopping. Not that it matters, because between the agents and Nix's constant company, he's rarely alone.
Nix is suspiciously good at finding him, either in the small, furnished apartment the Agency provides for him with miraculous timing or even appearing over his shoulder when he's around the city, once his handlers — Nix is pretty on the nose about that — decide he's capable of such excursions on his own.
"He probably bugged your phone," Harry offers, his feet up on Dick's coffee table. Harry is by far Dick's favorite handler, mostly because he seems to show zero interest in handling Dick at all. He treats the endless debriefs like the same chore they appear to Dick, and is happy to shirk both their duties for an hour or two every other afternoon. They walk to the ice cream stand at the park down the street, and Dick enjoys the flavor of the day while Harry dotes on his girl, who sneaks long lunch breaks herself to join them. Dick likes Kitty, too, who is clearly more enamored of Harry than Dick's legend status, but still insists on Dick joining them most days.
Now, Dick frowns at his phone, instantly suspicious. "How?"
Harry shrugs. "I don't know. But he's Lewis Nixon, Tech Genius, and he's your fucking shadow, Dick. He's too lazy to stalk you without the aid of technology."
Dick sets the phone on the table, vowing to ask Nix about the matter later, and settles on the couch next to Harry, who pulls over his files and sets up his laptop for the next round of interviews. "Harry," Dick asks, eyeing the tools of his gentle but neverending interrogation wearily. "Is there actually a point to all this?"
Harry hesitates, then grins and closes the laptop again. "Okay. You didn't hear this from me, right? They're forming a team."
When Spiers walks in the room, the agent behind the desk has a thick binder next to his folded hands. Spiers knows from long experience it's his own file, the things the Agency knows he's done, and the things they only suspect. Spiers himself can only guess at all of its contents. None of it would surprise him, but there are so many blanks over the years that the sections of his file he has been allowed to access read like a novel of someone else's life. The individual chapters, except for a select few, hardly matter. It is all true, in some sense. Whether he was in Ukraine or Uzbekistan, Turkey or Tangiers, it's all awash with blood. If not him, a copy, one of the Red Room's other subjects.
His defection is the first choice he can remember that is sure he made wholly under his own volition. He holds onto that through the long hours of interrogation, the training sessions that have nothing to do with his ability to pass Agency standards for fitness or field readiness and everything to do with studying him in action, testing him to see if this is simply another elaborate mission on his part. There is no Red Room here, but he knows as well that he will never be allowed to walk away. Not that he has any desire to walk away. That lack of choice doesn't bother him. The Agency may yet be a cage, but it is a cage he chose, and he remains himself within it. No one here has any idea how much that is worth.
The other agents look on him with distrust, and he doesn't blame them. It's hard not to cultivate it, in fact, after a life on the other side. His enjoyment in their fear is petty but the advantage it affords him is real; his reputation works for him. And he must have satisfied someone, because he has finally been assigned a partner, and now Lipton studies him with a placid, frank expression.
Spiers nods toward the file. "Some light reading before accepting your new charge?"
Lipton shakes his head. "I read the New Testament section." He smiles. "Might have only skimmed the rest."
Spiers is taken aback, but he only raises an eyebrow.
"You're a talented agent, Captain," his new handler says seriously. "The stories from your past... they're not what makes you valuable to the Agency. Your actions now do that. We're lucky to have you."
Spiers cocks his head. "They say you're pulling together a team. No more solo missions."
"It was Sink's idea," Lipton demurs, and Spiers steps forward, tapping a finger on the desk and drawing Lipton's eyes up again.
"The way I hear it, Sink may have had the idea, but you're pulling the men together for it."
Lipton doesn't respond for a minute. Spiers waits him out. "Nixon and Winters," he finally comments. "They take care of themselves. But the rest of the men. They need a leader."
"I'm not much of a team player."
Lipton smiles, and the look is oddly boyish on his serious face. "I think you just need the right team."
Spiers leans forward, elbows on Lipton's desk. Lipton doesn't lean back. "What I'd need is the right lieutenant."
Lipton only blinks at him, still smiling, and Spiers grins.
"Shit, there's a Witch around the corner... Aw, fuck, what did I just say?" Liebgott snarls, and hammers on the attack buttons as the TV suddenly pours out attack music and sound effects.
"I was already around the corner!" Webster cries. His attack is mostly just button mashing, and he gives up after a minute, slumping back against the couch. "Give me some warning next time."
"Well, keep your eyes open!" Liebgott lowers his controller as the horde of zombies pulls him to the ground, gnawing at his pixelated face. "Ah, fuck."
The game reloads, and they start over again. Liebgott sighs, as he's reaching the point where he can do the first half of this level in his sleep.
"So," he starts, and then glances sideways. Sometimes Web sets them off at the first stairwell, but he's staring at the screen in concentration, mouth slightly parted, and he sneaks past the first bunch of waiting zombies without disturbing them. Liebgott continues. "Doc's a healer and Babe's got wings." The other two men don't look up from where they're hunched over a crossword puzzle on the coffee table, ignoring the videogame carnage unfolding onscreen. "You've got a ring that lets you talk to fish or some fuckin' thing." At that, Roe and Babe glance up, but only to share a knowing glance with each other. Liebgott knows too, and sure enough, Webster shoots him a scathing look, taking his eyes off the screen.
"I can't talk to fish, Joe. And it's a ring from Poseidon—"
"Or some fuckin' thing," Liebgott stresses, and pistol whips a zombie until it goes down in a bloody heap. "Keep your eyes on the screen. Winters is some freaky army experiment from the 40s that actually worked, and Nix has more money than God."
"I think he's on the team because of the suit," Webster argues, but most of his attention seems to be back on avoiding detection from the shambling zombie hoards.
Liebgott snorts scornfully. "I think it still comes back to 'more money than God.'" Webster scowls but doesn't reply. "And Lip keeps all us ducks in a row. So what's Spiers' deal?"
"What do you mean?"
"I mean what's his deal? He's got about a dozen guns and twice that many knives on him at any one time, but does he have any special powers at all?" All three of the men are looking at him now, and Liebgott raises his eyebrows. "Well?"
"He's scary as shit," Babe offers, and Liebgott shrugs.
"Still ain't a superpower."
"Neither is more money than God," Webster points out drily, and Liebgott makes a dismissive face.
"Kind of fucking sheltered life did you live, Web? Course it is." Webster just sighs. "Hey, watch the stairs, the stairs! Webster, you piece of shit."
Webster throws down his controller as the zombies swarm him yet again. "Babe, Doc, either of you want in?"
"No time," Spiers' voice behind them makes them all jump, but he only raises his eyebrows when they all turn sharply. "We've got our first mission."
"Seriously, lizard people? I gotta tell you, Dick, this is not what I pictured when I graduated MIT."
Dick smiles up at him, closing his phone from Lipton's summons. "What did you picture?"
Nix ponders. "Actually that night is pretty much a blur." This is true, but what Nix does remember, but chooses not to share, is that the summer after MIT was the first Arctic trip he ever organized on his own to look for Winters — Dick. It's becoming harder to reconcile the hero from the old news reels with the man who perches now on a stool at Nix's kitchen island, who didn't blink when told to gear up to fight lizard people — armed lizard people, of course, because it would be too easy, otherwise — and who just before that had inhaled a plate of pasta and chicken parmigiana because he thought it was reasonable to run the six miles between the Agency and Nix's tower building.
The man is more charming than the legend, but the real struggle is separating the real person sitting in front of him, a blob of marinara on his cheek, from the imaginary Winters who sat next to him every night when he was a young boy, who knew everything about him and never flinched, who told him to "hang tough" with every confidence that Nix could. Nix had warned himself not to mistake the two, but he's growing more terrified by the day that the real Dick might not be so different after all. It was one thing to be in love with your imaginary friend. It was another to do so with the man Nix is pretty sure has rapidly become his his best friend.
Dick shakes his head, standing. "Come on. It sounds like this one isn't a drill."
Nix catches him by the arm. "Hang on." He pulls Dick in front of him, close enough that their feet bracket one another, Dick's running shoes alternating with Nix's socked feet. He reaches out, rubbing his thumb over Dick's cheek where some errant sauce must have escaped his otherwise tidy lunch. It wouldn't do for America's national hero to go to war with pasta sauce on his face. It doesn't quite come off, a faint orange stain remaining, and Nix frowns at him in concentration, staring at the spot just left of Dick's mouth. Dick leans forward, and Nix would swear that until Dick's lips actually close on his, he has no idea what is happening.
For the second and a half that it takes Nix's world to tilt and reset, they are kissing.
Then Nix sucks in a breath, backing away in surprise. "You have no idea what you're doing," he warns shakily.
Dick reaches out for him, and since Nix has already backed himself against the kitchen counter, Dick takes his hand easily. "I think I'm finally figuring it out," he disagrees. "Are you in?"
Nix just shakes his head, but even he has no idea what he's objecting to, and he hasn't dislodged Dick's hand, is in fact squeezing it tightly.
"Okay," Dick says quietly. "We'll work it out, Lew." And then both their phones go off, and he looks down, struggling to silence his. "After the lizard people."
A choked laugh claws its way out of Nix's throat, and he takes the phone from Dick's fingers, sliding away the alert and handing it back. "After the lizard people," he agrees. He's glad when the suit locks into place around him a few minutes later. Nix built his better nature out of steel and chrome and lots of firepower. He's vastly better at this than talking.
There’s a creature heading straight for Dick, and Nix swoops down, grabs him by the bracket for his shield, and is speeding off by the time the asphalt where Dick was just standing explodes into fragments.
“Going my way?” he asks, voice robotic through the suit's speakers, and Dick cranes his head back, grinning.
“Oh, if you’re taking passengers,” he yells over the rush of wind. He's going for nonchalant, which is tricky when the wind is screaming around him and his stomach is clenching up in a mixture of fear and delight as Nix does a barrel roll away from another explosion. Nix grins behind his mask.
“Where to, Cap?” Dick points to where Spiers is defending an entire subway entrance by himself, and coming under heavy attack. “Right.”
“Spiers, coming up on your six,” Dick says into his com. “Nix, you go back for the big guy, help them hold the line into midtown. Webster's got the rivers on our side, so let's—”
An explosion far too close jerks Dick's attention east even as Nix rolls again, dodging flying debris and pulling Dick closer to his chest, for protection or aerodynamics even Dick isn't sure. Through the cloud of smoke he sees the gleam of Agency uniforms, scurrying in the street, and he tries to figure out whose team should have been on that block. "Report!" he barks into his com, and waves Nix down with a sharp gesture. "Martin?"
"They've got some kind of self-destruct mode," Martin's voice comes back, strained. "Took out half the building. I'm still — I need the doc," he interrupts himself. "Now!"
"On our way!" Babe calls in, already in motion from the sound of the wind whipping across his mic.
"Drop me," Dick says sharply, but Nix's hands only tighten. Dick wishes he wasn't dangling from Nix's hold so that he could look him in the eye. He flicks off his mic. "I need you to tell me what's going on, Lew, and I need to be down there with the men. If those creatures break through the line we're done. So drop me."
Nix hesitates for one second longer. "I'm bringing you backup," he promises, and releases Dick before he can respond. He curls his body into the curve of the shield and lets himself fall, landing heavily and rolling. Nix is already a distant missile streaking across the sky by the time he looks up again.
Babe skids to a landing, tripping and half-dropping Roe as he struggles to maintain his footing in the rubble that chokes the street. But Roe is already moving, leaping toward Martin's eager hands and barking questions, asking where, and who.
Jackson is laid out on the ground, surrounded by his team, but they all scatter back, hurriedly making room as Roe drops to his knees and lifts his hand, hesitating. Jackson's face is raw and bleeding, shrapnel embedded in the skin, and Roe tries to find a place to lay his hands that won't cause more pain in the interim. In the end, he slides his hand under Jackson's head, another against the unbroken skin of his wrist, murmuring quietly. "You're okay, just keep breathing," he assures him.
Martin lets out a breath of relief, and for a moment, even the battle seems to still, an unnatural quiet in the midst of all the tumult as the men watch Jackson's mangled face and panicked cries, and wait for the miracle.
Roe clenches his jaw. Jackson's cries don't abate, a choked series of screams that make all the men gathered shift uneasily. "Come on," Roe mutters, and ducks his head. Babe edges closer even as the other men start to exchange glances. Jackson struggles, thrashing, and Babe hears Roe whisper, "Please." Jackson lets out a final, gargled gasp, and falls still, eyes open and staring.
The silence lasts only a moment before there's the renewed whine of energy weapons and sharp spatter of bullets against the adjoining building, and Martin curses. "Let's go," he says shortly, and stalks to the door. The men follow only slowly. Babe waits, hanging back. He has other duties.
Cobb is the last to turn away, and instead of turning toward the battle, he looks down at Roe. His face is twisted, ugly with pain. "That's your big power?" he asks, and Babe bristles, but Roe just keeps his head down. He's still holding onto Jackson. "Hey," Cobb says, and kicks at Roe's bent legs. "Where's the show, Doc?" his voice grows louder. "You're supposed to fix this shit!"
"Sometimes it doesn't work!" Roe snaps, and when he looks up, his eyes are red but his voice is fierce. "I don't know why, but it doesn't!"
"Then what good are you?" Cobb yells back, and Babe is already stepping forward when Martin pushes back into the room.
"Cobb!" he says sharply from the door, and Cobb turns. "Get to work." But he doesn't wait for a reply, and he doesn't look at Roe as he heads off with the remainder of his men, back into the fight.
"Web?" There's no answer, and no sign of the man himself, but there's a blue glow shining from over the wall into the river, and Liebgott picks up his pace again to a light jog, approaching the water. "Webster!" he yells when he's still a few yards away, but he's sure he's down there. "Hey, fish boy!"
"Christ, Joe, what?" Webster finally snaps back. When Liebgott approaches the pilings that line the water, he can see that Webster is oddly suspended in the water, higher than a normal person would float, about waist high when the water is easily ten feet deep. In front of him, the water forms a bowl seemingly without any container to hold it, and in it the normally murky water of the East River reflects a perfect miniature of the city. Every so often Webster squints or gestures at the image, and waves erupt from the rivers and docks, dragging the tiny enemy combatants down. If Liebgott squints, he can see the real thing happening whenever one of them wanders too close to the eastern edge of the city. The light he'd used to find his way to Webster is emanating from his thick banded ring, bathing the scene in the soothing, shifting blue of light through water, even though everything but Webster's legs are actually above water and also it's broad daylight.
But then, this is nothing Liebgott hasn't seen in training, albeit not quite on this scale. Nothing he's seen measures up to today's events. "You stopped answering your radio," Liebgott reports calmly, squatting down on his heels.
Webster glances around distractedly, as if his radio will be floating in front of him. His face is creased and haggard. "I took it off," he finally seems to remember. "Everyone was yelling. I couldn't concentrate."
Liebgott rolls his eyes. "Well half the Lower East Side's in flames; I wonder why."
"I can't reach that far," Webster grits out, even though Liebgott hadn't actually meant to direct criticism his way for once. Webster's the only reason the whole East Side isn't on fire. "Do you need something?" Webster demands, and peers back at the reflected city. "I'm actually still working here."
"Yeah." Liebgott waits. Webster will figure it out eventually. Liebgott checks his watch, and listens. He hardly needs the reports over the radio. He won't miss it.
"Holy shit," Webster breathes, and Liebgott grins. There it is. "They're all coming this way. Why are they all coming this way?"
Liebgott shrugs. "Maybe they hate bridges." The real answer, of course, is that they're being shepherded this way, by more Agency members than Liebgott had even known existed, even outside their more elite group. This is where they plan to finish things.
Webster looks back and forth between Liebgott and the city in his — well, Liebgott's pretty sure scrying bowl isn't inaccurate. "I can't take that many," he protests. "I can get some of them, but I'm not — I need backup!"
The sounds of the battle in the distance are growing noticeably louder. The airships Nixon had called in from God knows where buzz back and forth, targeting the enemy with laser precision, herding the enemy south and east, even closer. Liebgott won't mind the help that's supposed to be coming their way either, but he only kisses the air in Webster's direction. "That's what you got me for." Webster's face is priceless, and the farthest thing from reassured.
"Joe." He sounds more bewildered than anything. "I don't even know what you do."
The first of the enemy pours into sight down the streets. The only team member he can make out from here is Nixon, a bright red blur raining energy blasts down from above, but he trusts the others are there too. "Well, it unnerves some people," he admits. He looks back down into the water. "Can you come up here a minute?"
Webster is obviously completely distracted from his river scrying now, but since the enemy is in normal sight now, he must realize that part of his job is over. So he obliges, the water rolling up in a gentle wave to raise him to Liebgott's level on the edge of the river walk. Liebgott leans forward, pressing their lips together in a brief, hard kiss before he breaks away and scrambles to his feet.
"Joe!" Webster yells, somewhere between scandalized and furious, but Liebgott hadn't missed the way his eyes had fluttered shut for that short moment, the answering press of lips. "What the hell, Joe?"
"For luck." Liebgott crooks a smile, though his eyes are drawn to the enemy rushing ever closer. "And because not everybody can handle my thing. But you... I think you might get a kick out of it. You might actually like me when I'm angry."
"You're always angry," Webster protests, though he, too, is eying the oncoming hordes and pulling back, starting to whip the river into white capped waves.
Liebgott shakes his head, and he can feel the change starting, sees his vision start to go green around the edges. "Web, you ain't seen nothing yet."
When the battle is over, they begin to pick up the pieces. Roe tends to those that need it, the power flowing freely and largely uselessly now that the city's EMS are also swarming the broken ground. He finally slumps on a curb, bloodstained hands folded on his knees, and Babe finds him there, sitting down beside him. "It wasn't your fault, Gene."
Roe closes his eyes. "I don't know why it doesn't work sometimes," he admits, voice rough. "I wanted it to work; I always want it to work."
The helplessness in his voice undoes something in Babe, and he scoots closer, searching for something to say. "I know. Hey, I know." Babe puts his arm around Roe, who leans into him slightly, then shakes his head, looking around. Babe's other hand is resting in his lap, held at an awkward, ginger angle, a red-stained bandage wrapped clumsily around his palm.
"Babe. What happened there?" Roe asks.
Babe looks down. "I don't know. Piece of shrapnel during the fight, I guess. I'll get it checked out when we get back.
Roe sighs a little, looking down at the tattered edges, and reaches over, picking away at the bandage until it loosens. "Gene, it's okay," Babe tries to assure him, though he doesn't pull his hand away. Roe doesn't answer, intent on his task. Babe hisses a little when the bandage comes free, brushing the torn skin and the deep tear on his palm. Roe grimaces in sympathy, and touches his fingers lightly to the edge of Babe's palm. The skin's edges pull together, and Babe has to look away, unnerved. It doesn't hurt anymore, but it feels weird as hell, and watching only makes it worse. He watches Roe's face instead, focused and sad, and knows it's done when the doc's face eases.
He risks looking back down. There's still a red stain on his palm, brown toward the edges, but the skin is unbroken and unscarred. Roe traces his finger down the natural crease in Babe's palm, and he tries not to shiver. Roe smiles down at his work, but Babe thinks he looks almost sadder than he did before. Babe understands. He feels guilty himself now, his hand whole and unbroken while Jackson lies in headquarters somewhere, unmoving and forever beyond the doc's touch now. Roe's face crumples further, and Babe searches desperately for something to say. "You called me Babe," he blurts out, and Roe looks up, surprised out of his reverie.
"I did? When?"
"Just now," Babe tells him, and Roe considers.
"I guess I did."
"Come on," Babe says, turning his newly healed palm and grasping Roe's hand. He stands and pulls Roe with him. "Let's go home."
Nix rolls his eyes as the waiter leaves, and Dick braces himself. “Seriously, that Agency apartment? It’s awful, Dick, please don’t do that to yourself. I have a hundred floors at Nixon Tower, you can have at least a few of them.”
Dick fiddles with his napkin, which had been folded into some kind of bird before he sat down. He wonders if Lew even notices the sumptuousness of the restaurants he frequents so casually. It’s one thing to accept dinner, it’s another to move in to the building he owns — not to mention the other implications that surely come with that. “The apartment isn’t a burden. It’s nicer than I had before—“
“It’s soulless, and by 'before,' you mean 'during the Great Depression.'"
“—if a little plain,” Dick admits, just so Lew will let it go. “But more importantly, I work for the Agency; it’s appropriate for them to offer me housing.”
“Well, then, come work for me.” Dick fixes him a look, and Lew relents. “Okay, no, that’s a terrible idea, don’t work for me. But you work with me! I work for the Agency. Well, no, I don’t work for anyone, but I contract with the Agency.”
“Lew,” Dick says patiently.
“What I’m saying is, we work for the same company, you could move in, it wouldn’t be weird.”
Dick tilts his head. “So this is all work related.” He doesn’t miss the way Lew picks that moment to take a quick swallow of his drink. “Not about the other thing at all.”
Lew grins, hard. “Makes the other thing a lot more convenient, doesn’t it?”
Dick leans back, trying to read Lew’s face. Lew blinks at him for a minute, and finally loses his nerve and ducks his head. “If you want me there, would you just say so?” And Lew looks back up, mouth parted in surprise. “I don’t want your pity, and I don’t want to be convenient, for work or for the other thing. But if you want me there — you, Lew, just you — I’ll come.”
Lew’s eyes are wide and very soft. “Yeah,” he says, voice a little cracked. “Yeah, I want you." He seems to run out of steam then, and Dick reaches under the table, gripping his knee.
"Okay."