Prompt: "Sometimes it's not about quitting. It's about knowing you can't win."
Summary: They see nothing more than triumphs lost and their twisted selves. They are blind to their own deeds and glory.
Characters: Team
Genre: Angst... well, it started that way..

He missed.

He should have know that one day this would happen, that one day his shot would go too wide or hit too high. But it's hard.It's hard to deal with it.

Because he missed.

It's not like he missed in target practice - although that's another thing he hasn't done in years. No, it's that he missed in the field, where it really counted.

He missed when his arrow flew too far, when he pulled the draw too much and the arrow didn't only pierce the aggressor's hand but the throat of the little boy he was holding.

He's misjudged, screwed up his aim.

He should be used to this, these colossal screw ups that he can never seem to avoid.

He should, but he isn't. He never will be, simply because he's just an ordinary man that can still mess up worse than the biggest superhero.

He knows that his friends wouldn't have done something like that. No, they are far better than that. It scares him, how easily this has come to him. Nothing's ever come to him this simply, this smoothly before and he can't trust it. The others seem so relaxed in this newfound way of life that he pretends he knows what he's doing, pretends that he's had some grasp of stability and reality before.

They help him out, here and there. Little words, small actions that hide from the others how easily he can screw this all up again.

They band around him and he finds himself pulling away. Day after day he lets himself be drawn back to the range by the lure of his bow. Now he can't just relax into the familiar archery - now he has to fight for it, fight to make sure every movement, every action is perfect because he can't risk letting this slip away.

They don't have to worry about this, he knows. He doesn't despise them for it, it's simple fact.

They are far greater than he will ever be.

He's not sure what happened.

One moment he's joking with a smile, surrounded by gentle laughter, and the next his teammate's slipping away, a hurt look on his face.

He's not sure what he's said this time. He's been trying, really he has, but sometimes it's hard. Sometimes it's hard to let his guard down and let them in, because he's always half expecting to be the next sacrifice made.

Except no, they haven't abandoned him yet. He's the one causing problems, he's the one tearing them apart and making them pick up the pieces. He's the one that causes the media scandals and the fights with their director, the one that stands by the sidelines and laughs.

He's the one that makes life infinitely more complicated.

Sure, he hasn't screwed up in a big way, not yet. It's only a matter of time, he knows. Lately it's been just a little every day, the deck stacked against him every time he watches one of them recoil with pain in their eyes.

He's trying, he really is, but sometimes it's hard to know where he went wrong. It's hard to know why some jokes unify them and some scar them. He isn't used to this, isn't used to caring about hurting others.

It's odd how much it hurts him in turn and strange how it makes him want to go after them and apologize. But he doesn't, he never will. He cracks his jokes because they need it, and he tries to figure out which ones tear them into shreds.

Maybe someday he'll learn. With any luck, it'll be before he pulls apart the best thing he's ever seen.

He wonders why he's the only one with this problem, why he's the only one who doesn't know when a tongue is razor sharp and when it's only mildly teasing.

He wonders why none of the others ever seem as ready to just give up as he is.

He's leading them into disaster. Every time they falter, every time they get injured he wishes he could just absorb it all away. It's his fault they're still in this cycle, hisfault that they find themselves kidnapped and tortured every few weekends.

Each time another of them goes missing, he knows it's his fault, his bad plan that's caused something to go awry. It's a miracle they still stick by him, a miracle they follow him like lambs to the slaughter.

He sits by their beds and wishes he could give any one of them the strength he has. He wishes he could trade with them in a heartbeat, so he doesn't have to sit by as they gasp for breath and bleed their last drops of blood.

He wishes that he didn't lead them into almost certain death every time he got the order to do so.

They bleed, and they'll die. He knows that, knows he'll probably be the one to outlive them all, and he doesn't want to. He should be the one to fall first, he should be the one to die if anything goes wrong.

It's not fair that they can suffer when he just bounces back as if nothing ever happened.

He wishes he could be the shrimp from Brooklyn again, because that would mean they wouldn't be willing to sacrifice themselves again and again. It is easier to live without a team, to function without his comrades.

It's a sadder, more lonely fate, but one he'd readily take over this. It doesn't seem right that he's stronger, faster, better, when others far more worthy than he were ready to fight until their last breath. People fightfor him, and he doesn't want them to.

He just wants them all to be safe, even if it means he'll be back to fighting alone.

But he knows they'll never agree, never listen if he dares voice the suggestion. They, unlike him, know of personal risk and sacrifice.

They know loyalty and bravery and mortality, and he wishes that he could slip into their ranks and be ordinary once again.

It's odd, how incredibly ordinary he feels among them.

He shouldn't feel this way, he's a god, not a puny mortal. He owns a greater, far more important existence and it somehow doesn't matter at all when he's beside them.

They've given up so much and him so little that it seems as though he can never match the deeds they fight for with every scrap of their being.

The deeds of mortals have always been greater than that of the gods. It is a sad, strange fact, but one he knows well to be true. The gods can fight their wars, can fight for eternity if need be, but the mortal are like the bright racing stars. They are always so ready to fight, so ready to die that he wishes he could show them how fleeting their existence truly is.

Maybe that's why he's stayed - because he isn't a prince here, he isn't one immortal among crowds of them. He's part of a strange, interlocked web of allies and friends and he rather enjoys it. It is no longer war for the sake of war, war for the sake of honor and foolish pride, but a war that means so much more than he ever imagined it could.

Yet it's him that's the weak link. He's the odd one out, but he doesn't mind that. It's when he interrupts the cadence, disrupts the profluent actions of the others that he minds. He belongs, but he doesn't.

It's the little things that let him know that he's the badly picked warhorse - sometimes it's just the language, if he's lucky. Other occurrences it is his foolish, obtuse understandings that harm the others. They never blame him, not really, but it is easy to look down upon their injured bodies and reflect that it was his mistake, his misjudgment that felled them.

He sometimes wishes that he was more like them. He is a simple warrior, not a thinker. His brain does not fly this way and that way as it weighs possibilities against possibilities against possibilities. No, he is a fighter, nothing more. It is what he will always be.

He wishes he was less of a pampered princeling and more like them, more like one who knew what it was like to fight for every scrap that is gained.

Trainwreck. Loose cannon.

All apt, all fitting.

He's rather used to it by now, he likes to pretend. But sometimes he can't delude himself any longer, sometimes he has to strip away the blinkers so he can look in the mirror and see the truth of the monster.

He envies them, with a fierce, inescapable longing that turns into self-disgust every time without fail. He can't help but look upon them and envy their anger - yes, they might throw things, might break things but they never terrorize others.

They never have to watch others flinch back and pull a gun when he snarls in rage.

Yet somehow, they stick by him all the same and defend him without fail. He is an outsider no longer, but he watches himself always.

One slip, one moment of harsh relaxation, and it'll all be over. The warmth and friendship in their eyes will turn to revulsion.

Or even worse, pity. They'll look past the monster and see the man trapped inside and pity him for it. He should have quit long ago, should have tipped his hat and given them a solemn farewell so he could part on amiable terms and one day come back.

Except maybe this time it isn't about knowing when to quit. It's about knowing he cannot win.

He knows they will follow him, find him if he disappears. He knows that they won't let him abandon them, won't let him abandon what they've worked for.

He knows it's why he cannot leave, but it's also why he cannot stay.

Because he'll destroy it. He's done it before, he will do it again. it is only a matter of time, only a matter of the seconds ticking down before he goes postal. It's a matter of the wrong words at the wrong moment at exactly the wrong place.

Then it'll be over and they'll be scattered to the four winds.

And he can't ruin that, he won't ruin it. He can't let himself be the reason this group of people - this band of heroes - is discredited and flung apart. They used to be lonely, used to be broken, and they're just now starting to heal. They are all so much better, so much better than he will ever be.

He won't be the death of this circle.

She's a fighter, she's always been.

It's why it's so hard to fall into this comfortable rhythm of things that no one except her seems to struggle with. They've fallen into the pattern of give and take, ask and receive.

It's strange and unsettling how they hardly need to ask anymore.

She isn't used to this, isn't used to this amiable bond that keeps them together. She's used to a 'so long, see you next time we're lumped together' at the end of a mission before she goes off onto the next one.

It's easy to miss life when it was just one long string of missions tied together. Now she has to adapt, she has to change.

She has to grow comfortable.

It's not going to last, it never does. She's fought and she's failed, and each time there's a hefty price. It's why she must be faster than the others, better than the others.

One slip, one mistake and she's out. She's a women, she's the strange divisor, and then she'll need to go.

But she's used to this fighting, used to the constant scrapping and ready turf wars over the smallest things. It's worrying how comfortable she's with this new pattern, with this new sense of belonging.

But she can't grow used to it, she mustn't grow used to it.

She isn't an archer, who is expected to miss occasionally. She has no automatic targeting system, no genetic engineering.

She simply has honed talent, sharpened skills, and a team who won't hesitate to stick their next with her.

She's trying to learn, really she is. But it's hard to let go of her survival instincts, to change the screaming urge to protect herself and the mission at all costs into the howling command to make sure that her team made it out.

They handle it so efficiently, so effortlessly, that she wonders if it's not something that can be learned. She struggles, slips, but they never point it out.

She falls into the role because she must, she falls into it because she can't let something like this go after she's already started to let it change her.

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