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In the end, it’s just the two of them again.
Steve jumps over another groaning pile of half-conscious guards and bursts out onto the roof, cold night air slapping him in the face and making the cape of his uniform whip.
“Munson!” he barks.
He is standing by the edge of the roof, a black cut-out against the starlit sky. As Steve stalks closer, he can see the smile curling at his lips, the amusement glinting in those dark eyes.
“Stevie,” he greets, like they’re two acquaintances who’ve just met on the market square - not the new Captain of the Guard and the city’s most wanted criminal. “My, don’cha look strapping in the new get-up. Congrats, I bet daddy’s mighty proud.”
“Shut it,” Steve growls, ignoring the way Eddie’s eyes linger on his golden breastplate, the way it makes a treacherous heat prickle at his neck. “Flattery will get you nowhere. Now give it back!”
He jerks his head at the necklace clutched in one black-gloved hand. Eddie pouts.
“Don’t wanna. It’s shiny.”
Steve groans. It’s like talking to a five-year-old. A five-year old clad in black armor who’s versed in combat magic.
“It is a priceless magic artifact that’s been in Lord Carver's family for generations-”
“Yeah, and what a load of good they’ve done with it,” Eddie sneers. “High time it got into the hands of someone who actually knows what they’re doing.”
“Oh, and that someone would be you?”
“Look at you,” Eddie winks. “Pretty and clever. Now if you’ll excuse me, I gotta-”
“You’re not going anywhere!” Steve snaps. His sword slides out with a high, metallic sound.
Eddie raises his hands. “Woah, big boy. Careful now, you don’t wanna-”
Steve roars and lunges.
Eddie skips out of reach, but not quite fast enough. A lock of curly hair floats to the ground.
“Oh sweetheart, you're gonna regret this,” Eddie purrs.
And all hell breaks loose.
The air crackles with the taste of ozone, a blinding light erupts from the artifact, and Steve just barely manages to parry. Something whirrs through the air, glides off his blade and a sharp, hot pain explodes all over the side of his face. Something warm trickles down his cheek.
“Hell yeah,” Eddie whoops and comes flying at him, giant shards of solid magic whirling around him, eyes eerily alight with their glow. “That's what I'm talking about!”
The world blurs into a frenzy of movement and adrenaline. Attack and parry, dive for cover behind the towers and turrets and battlements of the roof, attack again. It’s almost comforting in its familiarity, this dance of theirs. Steve knows all of Eddie’s little quirks, the subtle twitches of his face that indicate his attacks before they actually come. They’ve done this so often, he can read him like an open book.
The problem is, Eddie knows him just as intimately. Steve screams with rage, forces his aching limbs to go faster, harder, but it’s no use. Every blow that he tries to land, Eddie blocks, every twist and turn he makes, Eddie’s already there, always with that infuriating, dimpled grin, that amused little quirk of his brow.
Until Steve’s foot lands on a wet patch of moss and he slips.
It all goes so fast he has no time to be terrified - just feels the horrible sense of vertigo as the world tilts and the cobbled street jumps at him. Then, before he can so much as scream, there's arms wrapping around him and he's being hauled backwards, back pressed flush against another body. His blade goes clattering into the shadows.
“Whoops,” Eddie chuckles into his ear. Steve can feel his chest rising and falling with exertion, can feel his hot breath clouding against the shell of his ear. “Thought I told you not to fall for me.”
“Shut up,” he snaps, tries to struggle free, but Eddie has one arm around his chest, the other flush against the hollow of his throat, and he can't go anywhere. “Don’t give yourself too much credit.”
“Oh, do I?" Eddie’s lips twitch into a smirk against the nape of his neck. “Then why were you holding back?”
“Fuck you!” he grits out, but all it earns him is a low tut. “Now release me.”
“What, without a reward?” Eddie’s voice tingles down his spine, sweet and potent like poisoned mead. “You know how I am about pretty things. And you wouldn't wanna deny the victor his spoils, would you?”
“Asshole!” Humiliation coils hot and heavy in Steve’s abdomen. “Stop joking and-”
Eddie snarls against his ear. “I've told you a million times, honey. I'm not joking.”
Steve’s world spins again, breath punched clean from his lungs as he is flipped around and slammed against the nearest wall. Eddie doesn’t leave him any time to recover, just surges in with a hungry growl and crashes their lips together. When Steve tries to struggle, he bites down on his bottom lip, uses the pained gasp it earns him to lick into his mouth.
Someone moans, but it takes Eddie running his tongue over the roof of his mouth and pushing a leg between his thighs before the sound tumbles out again and Steve recognizes his own voice. They only break apart when they run out of air, both flushed and struggling for breath.
And that is when the door to the roof slams open and Lord Carver and his men push through.
“He went this way! Seize him!”
Eddie lets out an annoyed huff and leans in for one last peck against Steve’s lips.
“Sorry, darling. Gotta go, y'know how it is. See you next time.”
He steps out of his space and the night air hits Steve like a bucket of ice water. Eddie winks at him and steps over the edge of the roof.
By the time Carver and his guards arrive, the night has long swallowed him.
