Superman

It was commonly thought amongst his friends that Agent Washington was only attracted to those both beautiful and broken.

An intake of breath through clenched teeth, a darkening gaze, crimson tears weeping through abused skin, or ragged air yanked through lungs of shattering glass. So many different types of broken; and David, with his mind of mirrors, saw clearly through their smoke.

She was the first one David saw, her disguise wavering as she tried vainly to hold it up before her pain.

Armor clung to her frame, bulky and possessive, until it claimed all but his memories. Angled, piercing, her mask would not be forgotten by him. Yellowed eyes followed his every move, subtly, until one day he no longer felt their weight resting between his shoulder blades.

(Later, he would find himself strangely disappointed. Maybe he had wanted her to watch him with the incautious scrutiny he did her.)

When the day came that they received their gifts, David found that he disliked the one she had been given. Dumb, obedient, it stared blankly around the room with forced interest and ran headlong towards whatever danger it was prodded in. Holograms, he had been told, were useful for distracting opponents, deceiving them into thinking your numbers were doubled – he had first thought them smart, clever. Strange inventions, and useful in a pinch or with cold calculation. Not so appreciative were his thoughts when her hologram burst into being.

He disliked hers because he found no resemblance to the short, brown-haired girl that liked to curl in his arms when she was tired. Warm eyes from behind gold mirrors stared with no life whenever she conjured her not-so-identical twin. Her rounded face was empty inside a shell of brown, and though it moved with careless surety, David found he preferred her dedicated grace.

She left him. The Staff of Charon had welcomed the brown Freelancer with open arms, and Agent Washington was left alone, grieving for the woman who had parted with him long before she took a single step in the direction of her sure and undeniable sense of morals.

(She did not remain with either of them for long, and when he was told David had broken down in the haunting silence of her empty room. The man in grey and yellow was not the Freelancer in his armour of dedication while he grieved until much later, when the wound had begun to close and Agent Washington found he could once again look the Director and his Councilor in the eye.)

His heart had nearly fallen from his chest when she had died. Washington would always wonder if she would still be alive, had he caught her when she had fallen from grace. David was broken, his heart exposed in his chest, but with affection he did not know she had contained, the blonde twin of heat and anger had stolen it. And he did not know she had not taken it, but been given it, until his tears had dried and his posture had once again straightened, though his ideas of right and wrong had been fractured.

She had surprised him, the girl with shards of blonde hair jaggedly framing her face. Eyes of glinting silver peeked out from beneath lowered lashes; eyes that could flash from fire to ice to a strange, steadying warmth in the space of a heartbeat.

Her moods were erratic, leaping up and down and shattering and building, until David was left spinning, breathless, in her wake. She burned like no one else had; her flames were both motivating and self-destructive. She shone with the fury of the sun, and the brilliance of a star – but as she had told him, once, in the quiet and safe darkness that enveloped his room, she was but a candle to the splendor of a firework, larger and more impressive than her dot of wavering light. She swayed, pushed down by wind and power, while he burst through the sky as though the universe had made room for him to shine.

(She was left to carve her own nook under the heavy gaze of all those with their own cathedrals in the sky.)

He was not sure how much he believed, but he knew she was broken and David did his best to pick up her shattered heart and piece it back together. (Yet, hearts of stone are not easily fractured, but even that task was nothing compared to the painstaking care put into healing them whole.)

David was nothing if not skilled in the art of salvation; his words and hands healed what others had broken. He lost no respect for the man who was her twin; calm, understanding, compassionate and aflame in his own way, the older twin was deserving of his friendship. But he began to see the purple and green Freelancer in a new light, and as he saw the man, he saw the ugliness that dwelt behind him. Men of honour and compassion were rare in this world, and he should not have been connected to the large and dominating Project, they were undeserving of such dedicated Agen-

We need to save the Alpha!

For a long time, David lost himself inside Agent Washington.

The grey and yellow armor hid his pain, his suffering; he began to see what made the physical barrier so appealing to those with shattered souls.

But Epsilon had no armor, no wall to hide behind and no mask to scream in. The Artificial Intelligence unit was shoved into the world without so much as a safety net, and Washington underestimated the power of such things. Epsilon was in pain, suffering, and yet Washington could to nothing to heal the hurt while the AI bucked and screamed, strapped to the harshness of reality with the industrial strength mentally imposed on the weak by those with domination and power oozing through their veins.

After all, Epsilon had no body and so he could do nothing to fight the agony that ripped through him whenever he thought of-

ALLISON!

The name tore a hole in Agent Washington's armour and he crumpled to the floor. Hands of unbelievable strength threw his helmet aside, hoping the voices would cease with the separation of his helmet's inner speakers. They did not, and Epsilon wailed through David's mouth.

Footsteps, running. The floor shook beneath the weight of an army as they bore down on the pair. Agent Washington cried out in fear – he did not know these people. That man with sunlight bursting from his head in tendrils of curling blonde was a stranger. That woman, clad in green and purple with hair that brushed her chin was unknown to him. The man with a scar tearing through his eye – who was he? And the British man, and the short fellow in blue, and the man with gold curving around his helmet-

Epsilon screamed in fear, and recognition snapped in Washington's eyes. Torturers, all of them, oh God, had they killed Allison?! He screamed, the sound ripping his throat with pure terror.

Hands reached towards them and he scrabbled at the floor. They cried to each other, anxiety evident in their tones. But their fear was incomparable to that of the man who writhed on the floor, one hand crushing his forehead while the other hauled himself to his feet. He ran the other way as fast as he could, stumbling, crashing into walls as Epsilon screamed at him to flee.

Alpha. Allison.

The names blurred together in his mind until Washington's mind collapsed. His soul began to fracture, and Epsilon reminded him of the pain daily. Fragmentation, the AI whispered, disjointedly. His mind was tearing itself apart in a final effort to survive the AI's onslaught and David was powerless to stop his mind from self-destructing alongside with Epsilon's.

Finally, David was gone, and the only man left standing in his place, a fresh scar along the back of his neck as he woke groggily in the medical bay, was Washington.

The reunion of the girl with blonde hair brushing her chin, and the boy now with circles under his eyes and an old scar paining his back did not go so well as either of them may have planned.

She lay on the ground, a discarded doll, and crimson blood seeped through the gaps in her armour that his companion had so efficiently shot through. Her breathing came in small gasps, and her fingers tightened over the hole in her thigh.

Washington walked towards her slowly, leisurely – relishing in the fact that the small girl held no candle to his brilliance, now. He, Agent Washington, was the one shining. A twinge of pain spiked up his back, and he hissed quietly through clenched teeth. Agent Washington would have his revenge for all the agony she had put him through.

Their short, sharp conversation was of little importance. It mattered not what she told him. Agent Washington had made up his mind long ago – in fact, he had made the decision while lying motionless, bleeding, on the floor of the abandoned base he had sought to rescue her from.

And so, when Delta echoed his suggestion, Agent Washington wasted no time in raising his pistol. A whisper echoed in his mind. Superman ain't saving shit.

Oh, come on, Wash. The Agent took a deep breath and steadied his aim. His vision narrowed. What are you going to do, shoot-

"Yes."

BANG!

A/N: This was semi-based upon the song by Eminem, called Superman. Or at least, a couple of lines from it anyway. The idea has been swirling around in my mind for a while now, it's a relief to finally get it out.

Also, please forgive me any mistakes, as this was written late at night. Also, the lack of naming any character besides Wash was intentional. As was several other things, but they shall remain nameless. I want to see if you guys noticed it.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed it :)