Chapter Text
Don’t think.
Don’t wonder.
Ignore the ringing of bullets and echoes of his screams replaying in your head.
Don’t think.
Don’t wonder.
Don’t remember the way his hand would graze yours every time he passed by.
Don’t remember him scolding you for forgetting something again, unable to hide the smile tugging at his lips.
Don’t remember his voice, or his face, or his waist.
Don’t think about how much you miss him.
Don’t wonder if you could’ve saved him.
Don’t remember him.
🍃
End of January, 2025
Insistent knocking pulled him out of what he would consider a peaceful slumber, and an annoyed groan escaped his lips. He glared up at his poster covered ceiling as the knocks continued, getting louder by the second.
“Yes ?!” He practically yelled as he pushed himself up into a sitting position, immediately regretting his tone as his boss entered the room. “...Sorry. What is it ?”
The man standing before him simply smiled, placing a plate of breakfast on his desk. “Good morning to you too, Eli.” The calm tone in which he said it made Elijah feel even worse for snapping at him as he uncomfortably looked away. “I have to talk to you about a mission, or well, the start of a mission. Come join me in the main meeting room when you’re done eating.”
He could only nod as his boss exited the room, quietly closing the door behind him, but not without flicking the light on.
Elijah sighed, scooting close to his desk, and reaching over to take his plate as he inspected the meal. It was simple, plain, as usual. An egg, 2 pieces of cold bacon and a piece of dry white bread.
“At least the egg is still warm…” He whispered to himself as he began eating.
He thought over what mission could Boss be talking about. They had recently been discussing a potential secretary that used to work for unregistered heroes, and wondered if some information could be found in her belongings. However, that was mentioned a week ago and never brought up again. So there was a decent chance this was the mission Boss was referring to. Either way the only way to know was to head down to the meeting room.
He swallowed the last piece of bacon and placed his plate back on his desk as he began changing. Removing the old t-shirt he used as a pajama, he slipped on his binder and began looking for his favorite henley shirt. A dark red, semi-baggy one, to which he let the two first buttons open. And threw on a random pair of black jeans with some dark red socks.
His gaze met his mirror and his jaw clenched. He stared directly at the scar decorating his jaw, sliding up his cheek. A sharp huff broke the tense silence as he reached for a bandaid, using it to cover his scar as he usually does.
He picked the white plate back up and began walking down the corridor. He barely glanced at the doors of all the other rooms, hearing some shuffling in almost every one of them, guessing that most of them were just now waking up. Lucky them, waking up at whatever time they want…
A warm breath of air escaped his lips as he headed down one of the many stairs of the building.
He walked his way to the kitchen, placing the dirty plate in the sink, before trotting over to the main meeting room, labeled as “MEETING ROOM N°01”.
He took a deep breath as he stood in front of the door, before knocking two gentle times. “Come in !” Could be heard from the other side of the door, so he pushed it open and entered the room.
His boss was sitting at the very end of the pale, glassy table, leaning back on his seat while an open file laid before him. The room was eerily quiet, the white walls, undecorated apart from the plants reaching them, staring back at him as the morning sun partly lit the place, warming his skin as it hit it. His boss’s hand lifted in a quick motion, gesturing for him to come over. And he did, he took a few steps until he was standing by the table, and took a seat next to him.
“Enjoyed your breakfast ?”
“Sort of.”
An amused smile crossed the older man’s lips at Elijah’s answer, before he sighed.
“I’m assuming you guessed it already, but this is about the woman we talked about last week. Her name’s Ann Wilson.” He started explaining, Eli nodding along. “From what we’ve been able to find, she’s still working for an unlabeled hero, which is supposed to be related to the organisation we’re looking for.”
“Supposed to ?” He asked, an eyebrow raising. They needed certainty, not suppositions. His boss pressed his lips into a thin line.
“Supposed to, yes. That’s why we need to confirm it. Lucky for us, this unregistered hero happens to throw a lot of parties. His name is Anthony Park, and a recent email Ann received is telling us she’s given the role of organizer for a party happening this weekend.”
“So I need you to watch the place for a couple of days, spot Anthony’s office and his room. And then, snoop through everything when you’ll attend the party with Oliver-”
“With Oliver ?!” He interrupted, mortified at the mere idea of working with Oliver. That boy was a reckless idiot that didn’t know how to do anything apart from diving straight into a fight that wasn’t even supposed to happen. Needless to say, that foul was not cut out for a mission that consisted of subtlety and quietness.
“Yes, with Oliver.” His boss insisted, his tone was firm but not unkind. “He needs the training, and you're most appropriate to go with him. You’re my best agent, Eli.”
“But, Boss, that’d be- Stupid. At least! He’s not ready for those types of things, every single time he just looks for battle ! You can’t- I can’t bring him there, he’ll fuck it up, I just know it !”
“You’re doing this mission with Oliver. That’s the end of the matter.” The man cut in, the gentleness of his voice now gone. Clearly, he didn’t have a choice.
So he clenched his jaw and swallowed the rest of his protests.
🍃
“So… Who we fighting ?” Oliver asked with that annoying smirk of his as he leaned against the counter of the kitchen. Eli scrubbed the plate harder and harder the more Oliver’s grin widened.
“Nobody. We need to keep it low.” He sharply said, giving him a pointed look. To which Oliver just rolled his eyes, grin intact.
“Am I supposed to come with you to watch the place ?” He asked, serious for once, walking over to Eli.
He shook his head. “No you don’t have to. It’d be better if I’m alone anyway.” The explanation was simple, and partly true. Even though the superior reason was just him not wanting to spend more time than necessary with an annoying pest chewing his ear off. He got along with most of the people here, he grew up with them surrounding and supporting him, however… There were exceptions, and Oliver was one of them.
“Oh thank god. Watching missions are so boring…” The relief in his voice was so obvious it was almost funny. Almost.
🍃
The screen of his computer lit a small corner of his room as he scrolled through various information about Anthony Park, and the place of the party. From what he found, it appears to be his third residence, because of course this guy is rich enough to have three residences, including one he rents… Rich pricks imma right ?
…Well anyways.
The security doesn’t seem too complicated, the idiot probably considers himself good enough to do the protecting job on his own. There are, however, camera logs registered on a sketchy website and a record of him hiring two guards for his parties. Guess he’ll have to hide some weapons inside the building before the party, since searches will probably be initiated.
A sigh escaped him as he pushed himself away from his desk, chair rolling as he looked around his decorated walls. Then, his eyes settled on the walkie-talkie used for emergencies, and, as if summoned by his gaze, crackles were starting to be audible, before a clear enough voice broke through.
“Backup needed ! East of the second SafeHouse, 3 unregistered heroes showed up during training.”
Without hesitation he stood up and grabbed the walkie-talkie, talking through it as he grabbed his tactical pants. “AE3 Here. Give me 5 minutes.”
And in a record time of two minutes, he got changed into his “suit”. Above a black compression shirt whose sleeves reached right below his elbow sat a flexible yet effective, slightly darker bulletproof vest. Tranquilizing bullets smugly stored in his belt as he clipped a silencer on his gun, before slipping it into its holster.
“On my way, arriving in 3.” He talked one last time into the walkie-talkie before attaching it to his belt and getting out. He practically jumped off the stairs, running to the door of the building, his motorcycle was already prepared, probably by workers alerted by the walkie call.
He hopped on the bike and turned it on, immediately getting on the offside road. The tracker indicated 2 minutes left until he arrived at the training grounds.
2 minutes is too much.
He thought, deciding to accelerate despite not having put on his helmet.
Lucky for him, he arrived there intact, in barely a minute. He jumped off his motorcycle and eyed the situation. From the gunshots ringing loud enough to be heard from the other side of town and the flashes coming from the second floor of the training house, he guessed that they only had about 7 minutes before the cops, or an actual hero arrived. Running up the stairs would make him lose around one to two minutes of that precious time, so instead he decided to go for the quicker route. He ran up to the side of the building and pushed a button on his wrist device, which shot up a grappling hook that immediately attached itself to the edge of a window. Then by pressing a second button, the line connected to the hook retracted, pulling him up in the process. He grabbed the edge once it was in reach and cut off the rope to allow himself to roll into the building, landing on his feet.
Two tranquilizing bullets shot out of his gun right into the first two unregistered heroes’ necks, before he ducked beside Oliver, noticing straight away the blood staining his suit. Before he could speak up and ask what happened, a bullet ricocheted against the flipped metal table they were hiding behind. He poked his head to see 3 more unregistered heroes shooting at them.
“Only 3 you said ?!” He snapped, hiding his head once more.
“I got shot in the thigh-” Oliver managed to choke out, holding onto his thigh as he looked up at Elijah. “And my walkie-talkie got all messed up when they showed up.”
He glanced at where Oliver was nodding, only to see a fucked up, crackling walkie-talkie.
“Shit.” Eli mumbled, pulling out his own walkie to request backup, describing the situation before turning back to the problem at hand. “Did you hit them ?”
“Twice- In the legs, but I don’t have my-” A whimper of pain escaped him before he could finish his sentence. And Eli guessed he was about to say tranquilizing bullets.
“Do you have any smoke bombs ?”
“...No.”
“...” He held back any snarky comments that rested on the edge of his tongue, and instead ripped a bit of tissue from Oliver’s shirt to wrap it around his thigh in a tourniquet to stop the bleeding. Then he waited for the “heroes” to need to reload, giving him an opportunity to take down two of them, putting them to rest in two clean shots. He looked at the window and noticed two more unregistered heroes running over to the building. His jaw tightened and just as he was about to take down a third one that was running straight towards them, an arrow flew in front of him right into the man’s thigh, electricity bursting through his body as it hit.
“Fuck.” The word escaped Eli’s lips before he could actually register what just happened.
“Fucking Hawkeye’s here ?!” Oliver announced in disbelief.
Well now they’re in the shit.
He let his head fall against the metal table in annoyance before he went back into movement, Hawkeye now standing before them, shooting arrows at the rest of the unregistered heroes with impressive ease. He noted that none of the shots were actually lethal and only meant to disable the person as he shot at one of them that was about to shoot directly at Hawkeye.
“I thought he was retired ?!” Oliver stated, grabbing Elijah’s walkie-talkie to yell at the backup, who were still on their way. “Would you guys get your asses over here already ?!”
“It’s not the guy.” Eli corrected, watching as the “heroes”’ backup started filling the room. He counted 10 now. 10 vs 3, because Hawkeye didn’t seem to be attacking them just yet. “It’s the new one.”
“The girl at the christmas mess ?”
“Would you stop asking questions and focus on not dying ?!” He snapped, barely glancing at the man next to him as he continued shooting. He looked away from Hawkeye for approximately 7 seconds when he heard a grunt.
Everything happened in a flash. She had her shot aimed right at an enemy’s shoulder, but a buff looking man tackled her right as she released the arrow, causing the shot to deviate and now be about to hit the hero in the neck. Before he could think, he raised both his hands, one aiming his gun at the standing hero, a tranquilizing bullet shooting right into his ribs, while the other threw a knife at the arrow, cutting it in two right before it could hit the man.
He snapped his head back towards Hawkeye as she wrestled with the man on the floor, she seemed to have the upper hand for the first 8 seconds, so he let her manage as he shot the last two unregistered heroes standing.
But then he saw her kick the man off of her with her legs, his gaze instantly falling on the knife planted right in her stomach.
He ran to the man when he saw him pick up a gun and kicked it out of his grip before knocking him out by hitting him with the back of his own gun.
And this was the moment the backup decided to finally arrive. He shot them a glare.
“You’re a bit late don’t you think ?!” He scolded. “Go take care of Oliver, he’s shot in the thigh.”
The backup, which consisted of three fully geared agents he recognized as Ayla, Marc and Riley, trotted over to Oliver to assess his current state, apart from Ayla who stayed next to him.
“Are you hurt anywhere ?” She asked, and Eli looked at her in confusion, eyebrows furrowed.
“My ears are ringing. I can't hear a shit you’re saying.”
“Ah.”
He sighed and turned his head towards Hawkeye, who was looking at them, trying to understand what the hell was happening while attempting to sit up.
Which she succeeded at until the corner of her vision suddenly started to blur and darken. She gritted her teeth, and despite the dizziness, continued to push until she was sitting straight enough on the floor. She glanced around to try and spot where her bow was, before glancing down at the knife firmly planted in her stomach. Her ears were ringing and her breathing was ragged as she started pulling the knife. Even through the high pitched sound echoing in her ears she could hear someone yell to not do that, but before she could look up to see who, she lost all vision and collapsed on the hard ground.
“Fuck.” Eli cursed under his breath, walking over to the now unconscious Kate. He crouched next to her and placed two fingers on her throat, feeling the heartbeat against his skin.
“What do we do with her ?” Mark asked, a wincing Oliver on his back.
“I vote we leave her here. She’s a hero, not our problem.” He looked up right as Riley said that, and even though he agreed that heroes were not their problem, Boss’s words stayed still in his mind.
“Like Boss says, we don’t kill, we don’t let people die. Alya, bring her to the safehouse we use the least, I’ll go get a medic and join you there. Mark and Riley, get Oliver to HQ as quickly as possible.”
“As you wish then…” Alya said, joining Eli at Hawkeye’s side to pick her up. A sigh escaped Elijah before he spotted Hawkeye’s bow and with a roll of his eyes, picked it up and tossed it at Alya’s free hand.
“Take this with you. Keep it out of her reach.”
Alya just nodded, swinging the bow over her shoulder as she exited the building. And soon enough, he was alone in the ruins of what was memories. Breathless and exhausted from losing so many things to the heroes, air coming out of his parted mouth in small gasps, he could only look around, gazing at the destroyed walls, the dust covered, half burnt equipment, and the trails of blood.
Just another thing they’re taking from us.
The thought engraved itself in his mind as he clenched his jaw, swallowing any remnants of tiredness before heading out. He needed to get that medic, and the heroes were soon to wake up.