Keep 'Em Flying

May you live as long as you want, and want to as long as you live. 

[blackhawkwings-blog]

punishcrcastle:

“Been decent at it so far,” Frank snorted, though it wasn’t entirely true. Throughout his life, he’d been shot more times than most, including the bullet to the head he’d taken the night his family was killed. It was to the point that close range gunfire like he was ducking around now was familiar, as natural and easy as breathing. Truth be told, environments like this with bullets whizzing by his head and men intent on putting him down felt more like home than the warehouse he’d been squatting in, more comfortable than his empty house had felt after his family was gone. 

Maybe Frank had always belonged in places like this. Maybe he’d always been a man built for war, a being made for violence. Maybe he needed it, craved the war the same way his buddies overseas had craved cigarettes, the same way Maria used to crave her morning coffee. He’d been at war since he was eighteen, after all, been fighting to survive since he signed his life away to the Marines just before high school graduation. The one time he’d stopped, the one time he’d tried to be through, it had ended in that bloody mess at Central Park and, fuck, Frank had learned his lesson.

There wasn’t the barest hint of hesitance about him now, wasn’t the slightest amount of restraint as he went at the men in the warehouse. They seemed to see it in his eyes, seemed to understand that the only way this ended was with either him or all of them dead and buried. They were fighting for their lives, and Frank knew that their fight wasn’t gonna be enough. Frank didn’t die, was never the one to go down. He lived and he lived and he lived even when he wasn’t much interested in living. 

Lady Blackhawk, she didn’t seem to get that. He heard a hint of fear in her voice as she said his name, a hint of worry. Frank wondered if she was concerned about his safety or that of the men he was after, but he couldn’t pay much mind to it now. He kept firing, gun sweeping through the crowd of men in front of him, mowing them each down in turn.

Hearing a curse somewhere behind him, Frank whirled around just in time to see his ally’s(?) head snap back with the force of a punch. Quickly, he shot down the men who were on her, letting out a grunt as he worked his way back towards her, tackling the nearest man still standing to the ground.

When Zinda woke up, she first made sure she wasn’t dead. It was a habit she’d formed awhile back. Step one, look around and make sure she hadn’t bled out or exploded or destroyed her organs with liquor, and that whatever room she was in wasn’t really heaven (or...well). Step two, check if she could still move and avoid getting killed. By the time Zinda could register the bullets landing themselves squarely in the chests of the bad guys (right, bad guys, she was fighting for her life before she was out cold) she was firmly in step two. She always imagined Ol’ Peter to at least list her sins before activating the trap door straight to hell. Her mama woulda washed her mouth out with soap if she ever heard her say that, but there it was. 

So Zinda was alive, thanks in no small part to the man a few feet away, dismembering whoever was stupid enough not to play dead. Her mouth was dry and her vision was double and for half a second she was tempted to just lay there, let Frank go ahead and rip the rest of them apart. But if there was anything Zinda believed in it was watching her man’s back, no leaving anybody behind. Even if they were homicidal maniacs. Truly, if Frank turned out to not be enhanced in any way, Zinda would eat her hat. 

With a grunt she rolled over to her stomach and crawled on the blood stained floor, leaning heavily on her left side to avoid the injury on her right. There was a gun laying in a dead man’s hand and she’d set her sights on it. Clenching her jaw she shimmied her way over bodies, watching Frank out of the corner of her eye. 

This part was easy because if you couldn’t find it in yourself to hold it together long enough you were toast. She snatched the gun, raised it. The last man fighting Frank fell. Simple. 

For a long stretch neither of them said anything, just panted, lungs working overtime. Zinda hauled herself to her feet and then immediately regretted the decision. She’d been knocked over the head a fair amount in her life, and one of these days her brain would get scrambled and stay like that. She was starting to worry today was that day. 

The floor was definitely the better bet, and she stumbled to the ground after taking a few steps towards Frank. She looked all around them and well, if this was actually hell, she can’t say it’s anything she hadn’t seen before. 

“I’m Zinda,” she said finally, smiling through blood stained teeth. 

[blackhawkwings-blog]

thatclownlady:

Surprisingly, things like these didn’t happen to her very often anymore. If she were to start over in Gotham, she probably would have been stopped and yelled at at every corner of the city, everywhere she went - but here, she could even work at the clinic without getting pestered every chance people got. But she wasn’t that lucky today, so it seemed. She didn’t remember this chick, although they had probably crossed paths some way or another the way she spoke to her. It was impossible to remember the names of all these self-righteous vigilantes that had tried to put an end to her and the Joker, to their genius plans and hilarious jokes, and so, the closer she looked at the other blonde, the less familiar she seemed. Maybe it was because she was so out of the loop.

No matter who this was, she wasn’t very friendly - in fact, she was pretty aggressive and that didn’t sit right with Harley, not today. There was a little voice that immediately got louder once she was grabbed like that, screaming for her to just flip this girl upside down and punch her in the gut. She was really, really trying to right that voice, but it was kind of hard ignoring it when you were grabbed by the arm and dragged outside with a bag of candy in her hands. “Let me go, ya’ weirdo! Let me go!” The blonde tried to wiggle out of her grip, but this chick seemed to mean business, because her hand didn’t move an inch.

“What’s wrong with ya’, huh?!” She yelled when they were outside, struggling harder now. Then, finally, she sighed and stared her right in the face, extending her index finger, placing it to the other female’s chest, poking her with every word she slowly uttered. Maybe se needed to say it more clearly or something. “I - don’t - know!” Another sigh. “Ya’ hear me, toots? I have no idea where he is because we’re over for good! Ya’ really think I would look like this if I still had a man, huh?” Her face was slowly turning red with frustration. “One more time, for the back row, I ain’t with him anymore, I dunno where he is, now would ya’ take ya’ hands off’a me?” She shook her head. “If I still wanted ya’ wanna be batsies ta’ still bother me I would be paintin’ the town, but ya’ don’t seem to read the news lately, sugarplum, becase I ain’t in it! I changed.”

In the split second from Zinda’s question to Harley’s answer, Zinda’s mind supplied her with a thousand terrible possibilities. She was too late to stop whatever they were planning, and while she was dragging Harley out into the open the Clown Prince of Crime was surely wreaking havoc somewhere in the city, maybe in that very store. This was the absolute very last thing New York needed, but it looked like that was exactly what they were getting. She had to get Harley to talk and get her to talk fast but the sidewalk was not exactly the proper place for an interrogation. And then there was the task of getting the grocery store evacuated, cornering off the block, getting a team to check the entire city because who knows what these two had in store? 

Still no reply from her comm. Well, shit. Sure, let the sheriff handle the jail break. Of course, the sheriff had no superpowers and hardly any weapons on her and no backup. And the prisoners were two of the most notorious criminals on the planet. Oh, and the jail was less of a jail and more of an absolutely unsecured public place, with hundreds of civilians every which way you looked. Beads of sweat were starting to form on Zinda’s forehead. Harley squirmed and Zinda’s grip tightened on her arm. God but she wanted to clock her. 

She stood quietly while Harley went on her tirade, looking for traces of lies (and more importantly, hidden truths) that she could decipher from her rambling. As much as Zinda wanted to tell her to shut up, that she had one more time to evade the question before things started getting painful on her end, she paused. As much as it confused her, Harley had a point. Her style was much more flashy, her attacks simultaneously coordinated and executed with wild abandon. It didn’t make sense, was the thing. If Harley was going to debut her talents in New York she’d go in with a bang. 

“Birds, canvas the area for signs of the Joker. I’m following a lead. I’ll check in.” she muttered into her comm, declining for now to mention that she had Harley Quinn with her. She raised her eyebrow and began walking briskly down the street, Harley’s arm firmly in her grasp. She could walk or be dragged, Zinda didn’t care. “You’re coming with me. And I hope you’re telling the truth, for your sake.” 

[blackhawkwings-blog]

scvietwinter:

There were times when memories came to him slowly, like developing pictures. There were other times, times like this, when it felt like getting hit in the chest with a truck, probably because he hadn’t been expecting it in the slightest. Bucky had spent all morning in the New York public library trying to piece together bits of his own chronology and those that had been close to him, and he assumed that the second he walked out onto the street that headache would be over. He had gone for some Cuban coffee, the stuff that he liked the most as it turned out, and that was when he saw her.

A flash of blonde hair. A grin, clinking beer glasses together in a bombed out pub, cheapest drinks this side of Paris Dum-Dum had said. The roar of fighter jets above them, and then laughter, his own mixed with a group’s, as they recounted tales of the front, as if they weren’t all terrified. She had never showed it though, had always had a smile on her face, that easy way of speaking.

Bucky did what Bucky had always done. He ran. He slipped from the back of the line and made his way down the sidewalk, weaving in around people, keeping his head down. First rule of Moscow: never look back. It makes you look paranoid. It makes you look like you’re hiding something.

Still, he could hear footsteps. Someone running. This wasn’t paranoia, this was instincts. Bucky waited for a few moments, continued to walk with the same purposeful speed, and then ducked into an alleyway out of sight of the street. If he was followed there, well, then he’d figure out where to go.

She almost missed him. Zinda was losing steam fast, doubt making her steps falter. She should really stop, regroup, maybe go home for a minute. This poor sap wasn’t anyone to her. What did she think New York was, some kind of misplaced veteran meet up? There was her and Captain America, that’s all that was left from that era, and she was setting herself up to be sorely disappointed if she thought every other dude flew with her in London. Her feet were taking awhile to catch up with her brain though, and she continued to zip through the streets, chasing ghosts. 

She almost didn’t see him slip away, was the thing. She raced right by the alleyway before she fully processed what she saw. That dark hair, longer than she remembered but dammit it was still the same somehow. Dancing to the static-y sounds of a radio, cleaning their knives by a creek, the glint in his eye when she asked him what he was doing after the war. He’d been so charming, teased her so easily, that it wasn’t until later that she realized he hadn’t answered her question at all. 

If she had moved any faster, the soles of her boots might have caught fire. Usually her heart only beat this hard when she was getting shot at. She couldn’t stop in time to not crash into the wall, and her fingernails scraped against the brick as she gained her balance. 

“Barnes,” her voice was hoarse. She jogged the rest of the way to him. There was no questioning it now, she was sure of it now that she got a good look at him. “Barnes....You got a LOTTA nerve pal, making me run all over God’s creation,” she furrowed her brow, equally parts stunned and pissed off and delighted and not sure what to do about all that. “Didn’t even give me a call to tell me you were in town. Asshole,” she grinned, her voice cracking just a little bit.

[blackhawkwings-blog]

heartcfiron:

@blackhawkwings

Heroism was sort of… complicated. Riri didn’t realize it until after she’d started, didn’t realize it until she was out in the world in a metal suit of armor fighting against demons alongside people who only knew her as Ironheart. In this moment, she knew it pretty well. Lady Blackhawk didn’t know Riri Williams but, today at least, she knew Ironheart. They’d fought together against a large group of demons until Riri thought she might honestly collapse, and when it was all said and done, she’d gained an invite back to the woman’s jet to discuss upgrades. It didn’t take long for Riri to become very distracted.

She was in the cockpit, helmet still on – secret identities were seriously important, no matter what Tony said! – looking over the controls with excitement. “I’ve never been in the cockpit of a jet before,” she said, and she was pretty sure she’d mentioned that before a time or two, but it seemed worth repeating. “Oh my god, this is cool. Can we — We should fly somewhere! Can we do that? I, um, it would help me. Yeah, it would help me figure out the upgrades!” It wasn’t necessary to figure out the upgrades, and Lady Blackhawk could probably infer that, but Riri was hoping she took pity, anyways.

Zinda grinned ear to ear watching Ironheart fiddle around in the cockpit. It’d been a long time since she had stepped into a plane for the first time, confusion and awe mixing in equal portions. Her daddy had taken her up to look at the Texas plains and that had been it, she’d needed to know anything and everything about flying from then on. She’d have been content to stay up in the air forever. 

“Ain’t she a beaut? Best thing I ever stole,” she said fondly. “Sure, we can take her up. You’re the expert––whatever it takes to see how we can add some of those neat propulsions of yours.” Zinda had trained a pilot or two in her day, and truth be told, she was itching for the chance to again. And with someone as bright as Ironheart, no doubt. Her quick thinking had saved them a whole lot of trouble with the demons. And after they got to talking, Zinda realized that Ironheart’s intellect stretched to her tech. Wasn’t a costume someone made for her, that’s for sure. 

“Now, I had it in mind to go check out the border of whatever nonsense the city’s been transported to. That good for you?” Zinda slid into the seat and placed her headset on, leaving one ear exposed so she could hear Ironheart. “The thing about jets is that they accelerate real fast, so you gotta think a little bit more ahead than you would other kinds of aircraft,” her hands flew expertly over the controls, flipping switches, pressing buttons, checking pressure. “The engine is actually easier to manage than pistons or turboprops. Basically once you get her in the air she’s just fine. Of course, in my line of work once I’m in the air people are usually trying to shoot me down!” 

[blackhawkwings-blog]

supersoldierwithashield:

Steve, instinctively patted his pocket, searching for a handkerchief so she could wipe her face. But of course, he hadn’t carried one since 1943. Another change in the future that he hadn’t been totally prepared for – but seeing her here, looking exactly the same, just like he did, it’d taken him straight back to the past.

They’d found her during a routine scouting mission. The Commandos were just looking for another Hydra base, when they’d seen the smoke, and decided to investigate. Right from the get-go, she’d been plucky. That was Bucky’s word for it, and honestly, Steve was surprised she didn’t smack him right away for it. They weren’t exactly used to seeing a lot of women on the battlefield, besides Peggy of course, but she’d always been an exception. And exceptional. After one conversation though, Steve had realized that Zinda, too, was pretty damn exceptional. 

She’d laughed off her (very serious) injuries, updated them on the mission, and asked for a plane to fly. Steve had blinked, gotten her looked at, and then called in a favor to actually get her that plane. Because any soldier that could come out of a wreck like that and still want to go back in? That was a soldier worth having by your side. 

“Yeah, you missed it by a few thousand miles,” he quipped, slipping off his jacket, and wrapping it around her. “You mind cluing me in on a couple things?” he asked, utterly gobsmacked that she was really here. “Like, what a cancer stick is. And how you’re here,” he said, just staring. Drinking it in. “I – I didn’t think I’d ever see you again.” 

“It’s a cigarette!” Zinda said, amused. Didn’t seem to matter what year she was in, people around her frequently raised an eyebrow when she spoke. Her boys used to poke fun at her and try to guess at what she meant, and more than once Dinah had just laughed at her and asked her to translate it into English. “I know, I should really stop. These things’ll kill you, and I wanna make sure my second death is as newsworthy as my first.

“Speaking of which...” she shivered, even though she had Steve’s jacket around her. “Routine supply run,” she began quietly. “Clear skies, everything was fine. And then in a flash the sky got dark. Biggest storm I ever saw. I went down and I...I drowned. Woke up on the shores of Gotham. Never did find that plane. 

“I wandered around for awhile until an operative by the name of Black Canary came to me, told me there was still a fight for me. I’ve been flying for the Birds of Prey ever since. This was all a few years ago,” she sighed, too weary to just have said a few words. There was a reason she rarely talked about that crash, though she had no problem telling Steve the truth. She had a feeling she’d be telling him a few other things before it was all said and done. 

She hadn’t been too shocked to see Steve, since he was all over the news the past few years and she’d kept up with him when she could. But Steve hadn’t had any idea she was alive, and the way he stared at her made something in her chest twist. 

“Come on, it’s almost bedtime,” she said, throwing a glance at a guard. She placed a hand on his arm. “I need me a bandaid and something with some liquor in it. And I owe you an apology, if you’ll let me.” 

[blackhawkwings-blog]

blxckcanarycry:

“All men are the exact same, aren’t they Blackhawk?” Dinah sighs annoyedly as she slows to a stop in the alleyway, rolls her eyes. She’s not at all nervous, with the entire city literally thrown into chaos, being back to back with Zinda surrounded by bad guys is the most natural thing in the world. They could fight this fight in their sleep, they’ve already fought this fight a hundred times over. “They’ll fake anything just to get a woman alone in an alley.” The kid looks smug from where he’s leaning up against the wall, obviously having performed this bit before to what must have been resounding success. Dinah cracks her knuckles and spares a glance at Zinda, smirks and gestures towards him. “Consider this your word, but I call dibs on our poor demon victim.” 

They spring into action without ever having to say a word, and Dinah cracks one head against her kneecap before slamming his useless body against another. The kid looks scared now, Dinah watches his eyes scan the alley looking for an escape route, but that’s the thing about alleys–they’re corners you should never back yourself into. “Wait, I wanna hear the rest of the story–” she calls, throws a punch that sends a resounding crack through the air and him careening towards the ground. “Who showed up? Should I be offended that someone else is taking my job of pulling your gorgeous geriatric ass out of scrapes?”  

Zinda gave a good old fashioned war cry and sprang into action, absolutely gleeful to see the first man’s fear in his eyes right before she grabbed him. She had an arm around his neck and threw him on his back in about two seconds flat. He whimpered and unsuccessfully dodged a kick to the side. Served him right for trying to get the jump on them. 

As for Dinah, Zinda guessed that the poor saps would have preferred to scrap with demons. Canary really was a one woman army all her own, and Zinda had half a mind to just stand back and watch the show. Wouldn’t do for her to not pull her own weight, so she kept the elbows flying and the fists at all the soft spots. 

“Ha! You should be worried. This gal can finally get me that AARP membership I’ve been trying for. It was Wonder Woman, Canary. Wonder. Woman.” Zinda paused, taking a hit to the chest before shoving the assailant back. “I’m talking armored mini skirt, lasso, tiara, the whole nine yards. I think I died and went to heaven. Took those dudes out before they could say Pollyanna. I’m joining the Justice League.” 

[blackhawkwings-blog]

oflove-andwar:

“There are some choices that I cannot understand,” Diana said softly. When she looked at the fallen fighters, it wasn’t with anger or hate, but with pity. To be brought to a state where they cared not at all for the lives of those around them, and would do harm for just a tiny shred of betterment that wouldn’t last long…she couldn’t begin to imagine it, and she felt sorry for these people who lived that way. “Can’t they see the consequences their actions will have?” If everyone chose to stoop to robbery in back alleys, the city would never be able to save itself.

She’d been saving a bottle. For Diana. Someone she’d never had any guarantee of meeting, not even any likelihood of meeting if it came down to that. That alone was intriguing enough that she was inclined to accept the offer of a drink, just to find out why. And it wasn’t as though it would be putting her in any danger, she rationalized, nor was it the first time she’d rapidly befriended a stranger.

“Well…all right.” What was the worst that could happen?

Thankfully, she didn’t get the worst. Not this time around. Instead, she got a rooftop seat, and enough of a drink that she would be walking, not flying, when it was time for her to turn towards her home. And on top of it all a story that, if she hadn’t already had experience with travels through time, she might have found impossible to believe.

“And now you’re here,” she said, acknowledging the end of Zinda’s story with a slight nod. “Another soldier pulled out of time and place.” If she hadn’t known better, she would have begun to suspect the hand of the gods. There were too many of them, here and now, who had somehow lived beyond their time. But the gods were dead, and she supposed an embattled city would draw the sort of people who knew a worthy fight when they saw one. After all, it had drawn her, hadn’t it?

“To peace,” she responded softly, raising her own glass in response. “For all of us.”

Zinda grinned. “Heh, sure. That too,” It was just as she had pictured it. None of her boys had believed her, when she told them she was going to meet Wonder Woman one day. And well, she’d made it work out some kind of way didn’t she? Nevermind the fact that she was seventy years too late. She tried not to feel bad, not to let the date get to her right now. Sure, she could never let her pa know she really got to meet Wonder Woman, or brag that Hendrickson owed her two bucks, naysayer that he was. She sighed and looked up at the sky, at the stars that looked harmless from all the way down there. This was about the nicest time she could have thinking about the past like this, and she wasn’t going to ruin it by being a sad sack. 

She took another sip and thought she was going to mess around and end up falling off the roof if she wasn’t careful. Then she chuckled to herself. She couldn’t fall off the roof because Wonder Woman was here to catch her. Wonder Woman. 

“I need me one of them,” she sighed, looking covetously at her lasso. She didn’t reach out to touch it though. She may be a little drunk but she wasn’t an idiot, and she really did like her hand right where it was attached to her body. Lord knows she was territorial enough about her own weapons, and none of them had ties to Greek mythology. Was it mythology if it was real? Huh. 

“How do you get it to gl––wait a second,” she tilted her head. “‘Another soldier out of time and place?’ There really ain’t that many of us, sister. Me....Captain America...Who else are you talking about?” 

[blackhawkwings-blog]

supersoldierwithashield:

There was a restlessness in the city – or maybe, Steve was just projecting. Because ever since Doom had set the curfew, he found himself out on the streets, night after night. Worried that whatever was lurking on the borders of the city might take the empty and the quietness as an invitation. Steve wasn’t about to let that happen, even if most nights, his patrols were fairly quiet. A few would-be thugs, sometimes a demon that got too close to a civilian, but no bigger fish yet. 

So, mostly he roamed. In his street clothes, shield strapped to his back in case he needed it,. He covered with a cloth that probably was about as effective a disguise as his own hat and sunglasses. Tonight seemed even quieter than usual, though he couldn’t shake the restlessness. It was like the air was charged with electricity, it buzzed in his veins, and his thoughts were relentless as he walked.

He got lost in the questions of what next? What was coming? Who was responsible for transporting a whole city into a pocket-dimension – and how did they put it right? At least the heroes of the city, registered or not, weren’t at odds anymore. Nat had assured him that Doom’s suggestion to come forward had been nothing more, and so far, he hadn’t seen anyone being forced to give themselves up to the government. That didn’t make him trust the president’s plan any further, but with the Panel in good hands, that was one less worry.

Still, things were more complicated than ever. It was getting harder and harder to keep track of all the available assets he could rely on, harder still to keep track of where that firepower should be directed. Did they keep fighting the demons, even on their home turf? How were they going to figure out who was behind this whole mess? What was the end goal – for the heroes, and the ones they faced? 

He was coming up on an alleyway, when a voice cut through his swirling thoughts. At first, he was confused, and his brows furrowed. “Cancer stick?” he repeated, the slang new to him. He glanced down at the woman, eyes growing wide for two reasons. One, she was beat to hell and still smiling, and two – “Zinda?” he said, blinking. “I – how – is that you?” he sputtered. He knelt down, looking her over. “What happened to you?”

Zinda had an easy retort ready. Sure, cancer stick, coffin nail, I got a lighter, we could even share. Or do people really not smoke anymore? There was a split second though, when his eyes widened and Zinda felt a little sorry for bothering the guy. Maybe he was really against cigarettes and didn’t appreciate Zinda’s presuming. Maybe her face looked worse than she’d thought, and she was freaking the poor sap out. She moved her jaw. Nothing felt broken, but she was mighty bloody, and––

That was her name on the stranger’s lips, and he looked at her with such concern and it wasn’t 2018 anymore, and Zinda was in a tent thanking her lucky stars she hadn’t gone and got herself killed this time.

“Zinda” came the same voice, and she struggled to sit up, mad as a hornet in a coke can. A good knock over the head had caused her to pass out, and there was an awful pain in her side. She wasn’t sure if it was from a bullet or what, and she really didn’t give a damn at the moment.

Before her stood Captain America himself and a couple other Howling Commandos. Her eyes narrowed and she swore she was seeing red at what had happened earlier. They’d shot her plane right out of the sky, shot at her on her way down and shot some more as she tried to run off. Lucky someone had found her before she did something stupid like bleed out.

“Don’t worry about me fellas. Give me a can of spinach and I’ll turn into a regular Popeye,” she winked at Dum Dum. She stood, sucking in a breath as she reached for her gloves and snapped them on. “Now, before my plane got blown to pieces I spotted something. I need me a map Captain, Hydra’s position might be different than we thought,” she tugged her cap over her head. “Oh, and something to fly too, if you can spare it.”

Zinda laughed, deep and full, and threw her arms around Steve.  “Guess I took a wrong turn heading to Berlin,” she snorted. “Damn but it’s good to see you Captain.”

[blackhawkwings-blog]

@theoriginalbatgirl

“Hey Skipper!” Zinda swept into the room, hair tousled from the helicopter. For a woman who spent months in the 21st century completely lost, unsure of where she could take up space and when, Zinda sure could make herself known in a room. In moments, little traces of Zinda were deposited all around the space Barbara was working: her booming voice echoing off the walls; the way she nudged some of the stacks of books on the floor out of her way with her foot; the plastic bag set on Barbara’s desk; the vial of nail polish that appeared as she sank into the sofa, preparing to give herself a fresh coat. 

“You eat anything yet? Eat something, I got you some tamales. There’s a lady right down the street who makes some incredible ones. She lets me hang around all day and calls me chica ruidosa. Says I remind her of her daughter,” she grinned. The woman was another member of her increasingly growing web of folks to protect from Doom’s guards and all the demon bullshit, but that wasn’t what she needed to talk to Barbara about today. 

“So I’ve been thinking,” she said, casual as anything, “Bout this little Doom situation we got ourselves,” she screwed open the nail polish and began to apply it, even with the awkward angle of her draped over the sofa with her leg thrown over the armrest. One thing she’d mastered during her years with the Hawks was doing the necessary primping while in flight, and could do her hair and nails and shoot down a couple nazis all at the same time thank you very much. Olaf had told her it was the first time he’d realized she was nuts. 

“Pretty damn obvious this man’s hiding something,” she said, preaching to the choir. “And I keep hearing all this buzz about people wanting to make their move. But I’m thinking, why don’t we find out what his deal is first? What does he actually know, what’s he in control of? I got a friend in the Panel, real top notch gal,” she hadn’t told Sharon about her idea yet, needing to clear it with Barbara first. But putting the best damn hacker with the best damn spy, and Zinda with her eyes on the sky, they had to come up with something. 

“She might be interested in helping us. So Babs, you ever spied on a president before?” 

[blackhawkwings-blog]

@blxckcanarycry

“...So I’m goin’ after them right? They’re good, but not that good. DUCK!” Zinda hollered, pulling her gun and hitting a man square in the chest as Dinah lunged out of the way. Sometimes the bad guys really gave ‘em what for, but things were going pretty smoothly for now. So smoothly that Zinda felt she might as well catch her friend up on how her weekend went. 

They were on a mission to get a key piece of info for Barbara, and they’d got their file. Now all they had to do was work through the goons down each level of the skyscraper. They moved in sync, Dinah taking out the men and women with expert skill, Zinda blasting her way down the staircases with force. 

“So after awhile I whittle it down to just three: Big, Dumb, and Ugly. I don’t know how the hell it happened, but while I was taking care of Dumb, Big got the jump on me. And I mean he got me good. There I was, with a gun pointed straight at my face. Not the first time it’s happened, but I prefer to be on the other side of the barrel,” as Dinah kicked a man in the head, Zinda grabbed him on the way down and tossed him over the stairwell. 

Few more punches here, couple of kicks there, and they were stumbling out into the evening light. Zinda double checked to make sure the file was in her pocket and followed Dinah to her bike. 

“And then, just as I’m trying to figure out how to make it out of this in one whole piece, guess who showed up? Just out of the blue, oh my god I––”

“HELP! DEMONS!” 

Zinda whipped her head around to see a boy, couldn’t be out of high school, screaming from across the street. That was more than enough to catch her attention, and after shooting a glance at Dinah she raced through the traffic to follow the boy. 

And just as luck would have it the alley gave way to an empty lot, and they found themselves surrounded. Zinda whistled low. “Well looky there Canary. Seems like the ol’ bait and switch to me. Just give me the word.” 

[blackhawkwings-blog]

@scvietwinter

“I’ve got a dark roast for a...Linda? Linda? Dark roast for Linda?” The barista left the coffee on the counter with a shrug. Meanwhile, the rest of the folks in the cafe turned to see a woman running outside like a maniac, right into traffic. Then they collectively shrugged and turned back to their bagels, because it was too early for this bullshit. 

“It’s too early for this bullshit,” Zinda moaned, turning around in a half circle as she stumbled across the street. Now she was truly halfway to panicking, because she’d lost him. The dude’d been right there and she’d lost him. 

She jogged down the street and tried to get the events clear in her mind. One minute, she’d been waiting for her coffee, the next she’d seen someone. Someone that she knew. From before, dammit, and she’d let him get away. That profile, she knew it, recognized him even down to his walk. So why couldn’t she figure out how she knew him? 

He wasn’t a Blackhawk, that was for sure, cause she’d have passed right out if Hendrickson or Olaf had come stomping by here in the future. Was he...Could he be a Shark? Zinda wrinkled her nose and turned a corner, squeezing inelegantly through crowds of people who were just trying to get started with their day. Why couldn’t she remember what the hell was going on? 

She kept looking, hair flying in a golden streak behind her, until she saw him again. This time that feeling only got stronger, but she decided to hang back, keep a healthy distance. Middle of the street before eight am probably wasn’t the best time for a reunion. Especially if you couldn’t figure out who you were reuniting with.

[blackhawkwings-blog]

@supersoldierwithashield

It was late, and people were trying to get home. The time on Zinda’s watch read 10:28, cutting it awful short to curfew, and by now there were few people who wanted to take a chance with Doom’s guards. The city hummed with a solemn efficiency; everyone had accepted the night was over and it was time to hole up. But as far as Zinda was concerned, her night was just getting started. 

The fight had been brutal by design. Zinda went into the dimly lit bar by herself, kept her eyes sharp until she found who she’d been looking for. Everything had happened quickly after that. She let them corner her, think they’d won, and took them down one by one with their own weapons and her two good hands. The police got to take a key figure of a human trafficking ring into custody, and Zinda got to wear the evidence of her victory all over her: a blood stained jacket, a light limp, bruised jawline and a sprain in her shoulder. It should have been enough to get her to sleep, but she roamed the streets not really sure what she should do with herself. 

Problem was she’d spent too many years on Gotham time running around in the dead of night, carrying out her missions like everyone else did under cover of darkness. The problem was sometimes she just couldn’t sit still, couldn’t call it a night when there were still so many criminals out there doing god only knows what to innocent people. Tonight didn’t feel like much of a win at all. 

So she walked, keeping to the shadows so as not to startle anybody, taking the long way home. Wondered if the muggy air and the city lights could get some of this anxiety from underneath her skin. She was practically buzzing with it. 

The street had thinned out even more by the time Zinda slumped against a wall, resigned to let her time run out before racing home. She watched people pass by, making sure to notice if anyone needed help. But as she watched, she could feel her hands shake some, her aching jaw start to clench. She needed to calm down. 

Her gaze zeroed in on a man who had paused within earshot. He sure didn’t look like he needed any help if she was reading his posture correctly. And maybe he’d be able to help her out a little, what the hell. 

“Hey pal,” she drawled, wiping at the blood on her face (which only caused it to smear), “think I can bum a cancer stick off of ya?” a smoke might be just the thing she needed. 

[blackhawkwings-blog]

agcntcxrter:

blackhawkwings:

Sharon had spent the grand majority of her life ensuring that her actions could not be predicted, that people didn’t know her too closely, that her weaknesses were well guarded behind brick walls and iron fortresses. She wasn’t a soldier, and even if she was she knew that she would be wildly outmatched in a world of demigods and men in metal suits. She was a spy, and she had always been a spy. Her legacy was built out of SHIELD, and even though the organisation had fell and she was not a part of the newest incarnation, that didn’t mean that its teachings hadn’t been something Sharon had taken entirely to heart. There was a part of her that always yearned, though, to be trusted, to have people look at her and see a hero like Captain America or Black Widow, and with Zinda, she had found that. Letting her down was the last thing that she had ever wanted, especially when the amount of true friends she had was slim to none, but it was what she had been forced to do while the Accords were happening, and something that she had kept with her until she was sure they were in the clear.

A lot of hard decisions had been made during the years she had spent in espionage, and Sharon was not naive to the fact that there would be a lot more. The world was only growing more and more complicated, the issues that they were facing were more dangerous than ever before, and she knew that retirement was not going to be an option. Hiding away from people, not letting them get close, that was how she had survived up until this point, but now she needed to adapt. She needed people she could rely on, needed people that would watch her six in a fight and allow her to grow as a person, and Zinda was all of that and more. The fact that she could finally reveal the truth and feel confident in the fact that it wouldn’t cause her life to come crashing down around her was a relief, a weight off her shoulder, and that was needed when she knew yet another war had to be on the horizon.

When Zinda grinned with wild abandon, Sharon couldn’t help but laugh with her. “I’m always full of surprises, you knew that already,” Sharon teased. “I believed in the Accords, still do, but I know why people didn’t. I know the Panel was ran by aliens - twice, actually - but now, things are different. We’re not forcing anyone to sign, which means that you don’t need to run scared anymore.” Sharon had spent a lot of time on the run over the years, and she knew how exhausting that had to be. “We can resume our Friday night Netflix binge sessions, too. I mean, if you want to.”

Zinda’s hand on her shoulder was warm and comforting, and Sharon found herself letting out a breath she hadn’t realised she had been holding. “That means a lot, Zinda, really. You’re amazing. Anyone ever told you that?” She had to have heard it a million and one times before - if she hadn’t, Sharon was going to fight everyone who refrained. They deserved it! “Well, that depends on how much she wants to do,” Sharon said with a smile. “I’m the espionage wing of the new Panel - my leadership is lowkey, and I think I’d like to keep it that way - so you can run some missions with me, like old times.”

Zinda had seen the inside of many a prison. First had been the county jail after a night of a little drunk and a whole lot of disorderly––a childhood buddy bailed her out after the sheriff refused to take pity on her. They’d tried to be discreet about it but in Hitchcock, Texas rumors spread like a tomcat with his tail on fire and before the night was through her daddy knew about it. They’d orchestrated a whole song and dance so her mama wouldn’t need to know, and though she never mentioned it, Zinda suspected she found out anyway. 

The next came in Morocco with the Blackhawks. She prided herself on being harder to catch than the rest of her men, slipping out of the nazi’s grasp and rescuing the team. But it still happened here and there, Zinda left in the dark and cold, with nothing but the growling in her stomach to keep her company. They roughed her up a bit, but it was nothing she couldn’t make herself forget. 

About a year into her mission, she was captured by a nazi by the name of Killer Shark, who brainwashed her, groomed her to be his wife and kill the rest of the Blackhawks. It was there, in watery caves and bedrooms decorated in gold, that she learned what torture was. 

In the future she found herself at the mercy of Gotham’s worst once in a blue moon, makeshift prisons where she wasn’t sure if the goal was to keep her there or just drive her crazy and let her go. Her dreams gained strange colors after a few months, bright purple and unnaturally deep red. 

So the Accords? It wasn’t fun, it wasn’t pleasant but she’d survived with all ten fingers and toes and no information spilled on the Birds no matter how much they...interrogated her. Zinda was a soldier and she believed that it was fine to bleed on your brothers and sisters since most of the time they saw your pain firsthand, up close and personal. But this wasn’t Sharon’s fault, she did her part and was helping in any way she could, so Zinda decided then and there to keep her mouth shut. The whole Civil War was just another page of bad dreams in her head. No use moaning about it. 

Zinda paused when Sharon praised her. In reality, she didn’t hear it much at all outside of the Birds and before that, the Blackhawks. The world moved awful fast and had no time for someone like her. It was a wonder Dinah’d even chosen to contact her. She wasn’t sure she’d done anything special, and looked down at her boots. “Aw, hush up,” she began, grinning almost to herself. 

At the mention of a mission, Zinda could feel her heart rate pick up. Didn’t matter what year it was, Zinda Blake was not made to stay on the ground or duck out of a fight, and boy was she looking forward to working with Sharon again. “Damn good timing,” she whistled. “Birds and I’ve been talking. Heard some rumors from the JLA too. It’s about time we make our move. I’ll go with you again on one condition,” she said with mock sternness. “I wanna see some Bogart and Bacall on our movie nights. That all happened after I went down, and none of the Birds’ll sit down and watch ‘em with me!” 

[blackhawkwings-blog]

punishcrcastle:

If there was one emotion Frank recognized immediately on anyone, it was anger. He was more familiar with anger than just about anything else. He’d always had a short temper, always been quick to blow and slow to cool even before he had a million reasons to be angry. He wasn’t sure if it was watching Maria and the kids go down that made it worse or if it was the shot to the head he’d gotten to go along with the sight, but for some reason or another, his fuse was about a million times shorter now than it had been. Maybe it was just because he didn’t have much of a reason to keep from getting angry anymore, didn’t have two pairs of wide eyes staring up at him and wondering why their old man was so red in the face. He wasn’t sure.

Right now, though, this woman – Lady Blackhawk, apparently – had about as much anger in her expression as Frank saw in his own when he glanced into a mirror. She was better at containing it, though, better at keeping it from spilling over the edge. Her bomb wasn’t set to blow the way his would’ve been; Frank wasn’t sure if he was relieved for it or disappointed. He may not be in much shape for a fight, but that didn’t mean he was smart enough to not want one. 

He snorted at her response, raising a brow and shaking his head. “Whatever you say.” He wouldn’t press her on it for the same reason he hadn’t taken off Murdock’s mask any of the times he’d knocked him on his ass; he just didn’t care enough to bother. If these heroes wanted to run around with their codenames, Frank wasn’t going to stop them. Ideally, they would repay the favor by not stopping him from doing what he needed to do, either, but none of them were that understanding.

She seemed to consider his offer, and Frank watched the indecision flicker across her face. She wasn’t certain, and Frank didn’t blame her. She didn’t trust him any more than he trusted her, and she had to know he wasn’t about to tell her what she needed to know for nothing. Frank was here for a reason, and as long as there were more people affiliated with this group out there, his job wasn’t done. He was going to kill every last one of them; she had to know that already, on some level. 

“Sure,” he agreed, shrugging a shoulder. It twinged in a way that probably should have been painful, but Frank was still on a hell of an adrenaline kick and wasn’t great at recognizing pain when he wasn’t. He stopped at the sound of footsteps, turning towards the noise and raising his gun instinctively. “You expecting company?” His voice was low, quiet enough so that only Lady Blackhawk ought to be able to pick up on it.

Judging by the look on her face and the knife she pulled out, the answer was no. She made her way by him at a speed he wasn’t currently capable of thanks to the wounds he was sporting, and he grit his teeth.

“The hell I will,” he muttered after her retreating form, pushing himself forward to follow her. He moved as quietly as he could, jaw clenched tightly all the way. He was only halfway down the stairs when the firing started, and he picked up the pace as best he could.

Coming out of the shadows, he leveled his guns at the man nearest to him and pulled the trigger. “You really think I’m the ‘hang back’ type?” He asked, making his way towards where the woman was crouched. 

“Well, let’s see if you’re the ‘don’t get shot in the ass’ type,” Zinda hollered. The stairwell was cramped and dark and the shots were so loud. Within seconds it was all mixing together, the ringing of a firefight, the shocked moaning of guys who’d been hit. On the outside it looked like chaos, but it was a tempo Zinda could work with. No matter where she was (or when she was) it always slowed down to this: raising the colt at an emerging target, pulling the trigger and not bothering to check if the man was down because she knew he wouldn’t be getting up again. It was doing that over and over, having made her peace with it a long time ago. A perk of being a soldier, she hadn’t experienced the agony of deciding whether or not to take a life like some of her fellow vigilantes did. To put it bluntly, if you raised a gun at Zinda Blake but you should expect nothing less than to wake up by the pearly gates. 

The mission was so beyond ruined, Zinda could laugh if she wasn’t choking on gun smoke. She had no idea who these men were or why they were there, and with the lack of a plan (and the fact that they were trying to blow her head off) there was no way she could expect to capture one of them alive and then get them to talk. That meant hours scrounging around two crime scenes, digging through corpses before the police finally got wind that a few hundred shots had been fired in an abandoned building. She, Dinah and Babs would have to put in even more work later, and fast. The curfew was making it impossible to get things done the way they wanted, what with them being such night owls. 

And well, even if she could come up with a plan on the fly to talk to one of the assailants, Frank was not gonna let that happen. As Zinda ducked under a piece of broken furniture and tried to communicate to Frank, he barreled right past her. She got a front seat to the show, saw exactly the strength, skill, and lack of self preservation it took to run right where the guns were pointed at you. 

“Frank! Crazy bastard,” she muttered, but then ran behind him to help. The men now scattered, bewildered at what Frank was doing to them, the rate at which their buddies were hitting the ground. If anything it made it easy for her to grab one, disarm him and clock him in the jaw with one stiff blow. Everything was going fine, she could take as good as she gave, and when they ganged up on her she didn’t think nothin’ of it. Until she felt a familiar pain in her leg, sharp and momentarily blinding. 

Zinda cursed, and the glance down at the knife in her thigh gave one of them enough time to really knock her on the back of her head, made her neck snap back, exploded stars behind her eyes. 

[blackhawkwings-blog]

oflove-andwar:

Three thugs were, unfortunately, not even enough for Diana to even begin thinking about working up a sweat. Not that that was what this was about. Of course, the woman they’d been threatening was the most important thing. But she was still just a little bit disappointed as she hit the last one square across the jaw with a punch that was hard enough to send him flying. They could have at least tried to make it a challenge for her!

When she was finished, three groaning men lay on the pavement. She didn’t think she needed to bother to restrain them. They’d be staying put for a while. She hadn’t even aimed to seriously wound, just to incapacitate. Well, they were certainly incapacitated. Once she was certain of that, she turned towards the woman they’d been going after. “Are you alright?” She’d certainly sounded more than fine - if anything, she’d sounded positively gleeful that someone had decided to visit a little justice on the heads of her attackers. “I would have heard a gunshot but…” She didn’t think she needed to finish the thought. Most people tended to be all too aware of the myriad ways they could be hurt.

She smiled, automatically settling a little after the disappointing fight. “I’m glad I could help. Do you mind if I ask why they were threatening you?” It had certainly looked like an unpleasant situation before she’d arrived to shift the balance of the fight. Apparently the threats looming over the city didn’t stop ordinary criminals from wanting.

The woman’s offer startled her. It was so far from being the way things usually went, especially these days when as many people were afraid of heroes as were reassured by them, that for a long few seconds, she said nothing at all. “I’m sorry,” she said eventually. “Most of the time, people don’t watch me fight and then invite me for drinks.” There was something about the woman’s phrasing that bothered her. She certainly didn’t look like someone who had been saving a bottle of liquor since the second World War. But then, maybe she simply meant that she’d purchased a bottle that was that old? “You’ve…been saving a bottle for me?” It was surprising, to say the least.

“Sure have!” Zinda grinned. The fight had made her bold, watching Wonder Woman take down those jerks made her bold. Or maybe it was less about what went on around her. Her mama’d always said she was born sassy, and her mouth had gotten her into trouble on more than one occasion. The sensible thing was to thank Wonder Woman for her help, answer any questions she had, and be on her way before curfew. But what else was Zinda supposed to do, in the presence of one of her own heroes? And she did have a bottle after all. 

She nodded once, sharply, casting her eyes at the defeated men laying around them. “Small time thugs,” she began, “hoping to become big time now that the city’s isolated. Take advantage of the chaos and use their dealings in illegal military grade weapons as leverage. Mighty hard to do that when you get your lights clean knocked out though,” she placed her hands on her hips. “Now, how about that drink?” 

She asked, and Wonder Woman said yes, even though it was reluctant. Well, they were reluctant when they let Zinda join the Blackhawks too, calling her an honorary member, but dammit she’d take what she could get. On the way there she told her the story. Like most things in Zinda’s life it didn’t start with her own war but World War I, the war that was supposed to end them all. 

Her daddy’d been a Blackhawk in the war, one of the originals that made the squadron so prestigious in the first place. And while he’d never met her, and rarely spoke of her, Zinda really only needed to hear the story of Wonder Woman once for it to stick. See, there didn’t ever seem to be much excitement in Mr. Blake’s life, not by the time his daughter came along. He spent loads of time on the ranch, working on the farming equipment and not talking to anybody. He spent lots of time on the porch too, drinking, not having much to say about anything. Supposedly before the war he had been a regular chatterbox like Zinda, but whatever he’d seen had robbed him of his speech. 

He made time though, to teach Zinda how to ride horses and build an engine. How to dust the dirt off of yourself and keep going. And sometimes he’d get a faraway gleam in his eye and mention the Blackhawks. And within those stories Zinda discovered Wonder Woman. And what kind of impression it had, a warrior (Queen? Goddess) saving countless lives in the nastiest conflict the world had ever seen, and with a shining lasso to boot? 

“...Anyway, that’s just about it,” Zinda said later, when she had finished the story. Now they were on the roof of her apartment, under the stars the way Zinda liked it. The bottle was between them and she poured with a heavy hand (the bottle itself was another story from her own war, Zinda herself was made of too many stories to count). 

“To kicking ass,” Zinda beamed, raising a toast. “In this century and the next!” 

[blackhawkwings-blog]

agcntcxrter:

As much as Sharon reminded herself of her Uncle Melvin when she admitted it, she knew there was something different about her Aunt Peggy’s generation. Peggy had never been the kind of person to state that those who were young these days didn’t have perspective, or didn’t meet the mark. She was endlessly optimistic, and in that was the difference. The world was falling apart now on a near constant basis, more and more threats appearing at their doorstep, and Sharon could count on a few hands the number of people who truly had hope that everything would work out in the end. Most people fought for the moment, didn’t dare to think of the future because they knew they would be disappointed. It was different in Peggy’s time. Sharon saw that reflected in Zinda, too, that endless hope, despite everything that they had been through, despite the war that they had faced and fought in. It was something that immediately drew her to the other woman, and something that was completely refreshing as they spent time together.

“It’s a timeless classic,” Sharon said with a fond smile as Zinda laughed. “That’s good. I’m glad, I mean.” Despite their generally easy camaraderie, there was a heavier topic lingering on the horizon, the reason that they had met today, and it seemed as if that elephant had squarely placed itself in the middle of the room. “Corn,” Sharon said, looking down at how the ducks swarmed around Zinda’s feet. “That’s what you’re feeding them, right?” Of course it was. Her small talk needed a bit of work, at least when she wasn’t in the field. When she had another name, a target in mind, she could talk the legs off a donkey. As herself, it had always seemed artificial, which she tried to avoid.

Thankfully, Zinda felt the same way. Two words in and Sharon was letting out a breath she didn’t know she was holding, and that meant she could listen completely to what Zinda was saying. “I’m not here to make you register,” Sharon said finally, once she was sure that Zinda had finished. There was no part of her that resented the other woman for anything, in fact, her bluntness only made her respect her more. “We all have our ways of looking at the Accords, you know? Aunt Peg used to tell me that if you knew something was right and everyone else was telling you it was wrong, you had to plant yourself like a tree and say, ‘no, you move.’ I’ve always lived by that - I’d be a hypocrite if I tried to convince you not to.”

She chewed gently on her lip, thinking over her words more carefully than she typically did. This, though, wasn’t the Sharon that she showed everyone else, with bright, easy grins and an immediate joke. This was closer to the bone, closer to the heart. It mattered more. “I’m helping to run the Panel now,” she admitted, “and I didn’t come here because I wanted you to stay quiet. I came here because I wanted you to do the opposite, really.” At that, Sharon pulled out a burner phone, opening it up to show Zinda a variety of texts between her and someone simply labelled S.R. “When Orse was in power, he was doing some shady things. Turns out the guy was an alien, so that made sense, but it never sat right with me. I gave information to the resistance, kept them a step ahead of the government. I don’t regret any of it.”

Sharon took a breath, meeting Zinda’s eye once again. “The only thing I regret is not doing the same for you,” she said. “I’m sorry I let that happen, Zinda. If I could go back and change it, I would.”

Zinda was no good at fighting against her friends. She had history with the Blackhawk Squadron from her dad, but she’d made her choice sitting in a base during Operation Torch, looking the men she’d saved in the face and getting an idea of what she was getting into. She’d always been a good judge of character, from turning down that creep Daryl Hinson at the spring formal dance in high school, to letting Dinah lead her to the Birds of Prey. She prided herself on it, counted it as part of her sensible southern upbringing, as though seeing into the soul of a person came as natural as making good cornbread. 

Sharon was a good woman. Zinda believed that, and that was why it had been no trouble at all serving missions together. When you were fighting with good people for the right cause, everything would work out some way, somehow. You listened to the stories, saw your buddies with their bodies blown apart, and ran into hell anyway. You may not live to see it but one day the war would be won and maybe your kids wouldn’t have to go through the same shit. Zinda wasn’t there for the end of the war herself, but when she woke up gasping on Gotham’s shore and realized people were speaking English instead of German that it was a good sign. And when she saw it for herself that they’d really won the war she drank herself silly and sang songs with strangers all through the night.

So when Sharon revealed that she had been subverting the government all along, Zinda was surprised that she was surprised. She should have known, she thought as she scrolled through the burner Sharon gave her. Didn’t take a genius to figure out who S.R. was, especially when you took into account the content of the messages. The pieces fell into place, crystal clear despite all the secrecy. Sharon ran the Panel, but she was working for the people, always had been. And whatever her role was now, she sure as hell wasn’t gonna be helping out President Doom. 

Zinda took in Sharon’s solemn expression, the unfiltered truths being told, and broke into a huge grin. “Why you lil...!” she said, delighted. “This whole time I thought you were rounding up rogues like me, whew, honey when I tell you I was prepared to get arrested today. And this whole time you had a whole resistance goin’? 

When she was through laughing her eyes became serious and she placed a hand on Sharon’s shoulder. “Nuh uh, none of that,” she said. “Ain’t nothin in the past but ghosts. Keep em there.

“Now,” her gaze drifted upwards, to the wide blue sky. In a few hours, she’d be soaring up there, but it turned out there was plenty to do on the ground too. “Where does ol’ Zinda fit into all this?” 

[blackhawkwings-blog]

punishcrcastle:

The look in the woman’s eyes when she turned to face him was a familiar one. Frank had been a soldier long enough to recognize when someone was coming back from some other place, some other time. He’d seen it in the barracks a million times, seen it in the mirror no matter how often he’d deny it. She had the look of a soldier, the tone to match, and when she spoke, he wasn’t surprised to have it confirmed. 

He was a little surprised at her newfound affiliation, though. Frank might not give much of a shit about the superhero world, but it was impossible not to have at least some familiarity with the superhero teams operating out of the city. Frank tended to keep an eye peeled for them, constantly aware that any of them might come at him at any time to stop him from doing what he was doing. “Lady Blackhawk,” he repeated, nodding. “That the name your mama gave you?” It wasn’t the worst he’d heard – wasn’t Daredevil or Spider-Man – but it wasn’t the name he’d prefer to call her, either. “I’m Frank.” He’d never had any problem giving out his real name, never made any attempt to hide who he was, and he wasn’t going to start now. He didn’t like the sound of the name the press had given him, anyways. The Punisher sounded like something out of a goddamn comic book, and Frank wanted no part in it.

“Won’t be going to war now,” he commented, kicking at one of the bodies near him. The adrenaline was wearing off now, and he was beginning to feel the injuries he’d sustained. It was hardly unmanageable pain, though. Frank had been hurt far worse than this and continued on, constantly driven forward by the need to finish what he’d started. Some days, he thought he might be too unlucky to die. “What information you after? Some people, they talk when they die. Figure it’ll save them.” It wasn’t a rare quality to have. When Frank got to someone, they were desperate to give up any secret they had. Part of him figured it was a thing of cowardice, but another part remembered propping himself up against a gravestone and spilling his life’s story to Daredevil while he bled out into the grass. He figured maybe there was a chance people just didn’t want to die with secrets untold.

He blinked as her finger stabbed into his chest, and if he’d been paying less attention, the action might’ve been enough to sway him. He wasn’t exactly steady on his feet at the moment, after all. “That man was a goddamn sack of shit,” he pointed out. “Everyone here was. What I gave them was better than what they deserved.” If Frank regretted anything about what he did, it was that he so rarely got the chance to take his time with someone. Criminals ran in packs, surrounded themselves with friends and weapons. They were easier to kill in large groups, sure, but harder to hurt. It was a goddamn shame.

“Got a bottle of whiskey and a needle and thread,” he snorted, raising a brow. “Don’t need anyone patching me up. I’ve fixed a lot worse than this.” He’d learned to patch himself up out of necessity; out in the desert with bullets whizzing in every direction, you couldn’t assume your buddies would be able to get to you in time to keep the blood in your veins. 

Zinda’s gloves were stained and she hadn’t even had the pleasure of kicking anyone’s ass yet. She dug through shredded clothes on shredded bodies, hoping to find a needle in a haystack. Instead of a needle she found a lot of ruined wallets with soggy red papers. Nothing was salvageable here. Good Ol’ Frank had seen to that. She could feel herself get more and more irritated by the second. It was bad enough she had to deal with folks from other galaxies or people who could shoot lasers out of their butts, now she had to deal with soldiers stomping all over her missions just because they could. 

By the time he prompted her to tell him her real name, she felt like a hornet in a tin can. She wanted to cuss and spit and make it known that she better not ever see the likes of him around town ever again. A distant voice rang in her mind though, soft and feminine, begging her to be polite. To not punch the walls when she got angry. For just once in her life act like a lady. 

“It sure is,” she said, sweet as a Texas Bluebonnet. Just like mama had taught her. After all, she sure didn’t want to get into a real fight with this guy, she wasn’t sure she had enough ammo for that. And maybe, once she let the anger loosen up some, she could find a way to salvage this mission. 

Frank was unfazed by her temper, and went on to offer her what he knew about the men on the floor. Zinda was silent for a stretch then just grunted, never taking her eyes off the bodies. She needed that info, but she needed to know what he wanted in return. She wasn’t willing to let him come along with the mission, and she didn’t want him going off on his own and messing it all up either. Whatever his price was, Zinda wasn’t sure she was up to paying. 

“...We can talk trade if that’s what you’re offering,” Zinda said slowly, looking him in the eye. She made a mental note to ask Barbara what she had on a crazy asshole named Frank. “We’ll need to––” she stopped, and this time the silence was heavy. A quiet shift in the air was all it took for a foxhole to become a battleground. They were faint but they were there: quiet footsteps, hushed voices. Someone was here. 

Zinda gazed at Frank and made her decision. She hadn’t been expecting this. They were either friends of the dead men or enemies looking to catch them off guard. Either way, the two soldiers’ presence there would not be welcome. 

She drew her pilot’s knife, a real artifact from the war and in pristine condition, and smiled blindingly at Frank. 

“Save me some whiskey,” she winked, and then headed downstairs. After a moment, an anguished exhale and a slump against the wall. Then a barrage of shots. Her voice rang out over it all. 

“Well come on fellas! Don’t be shy!”