#steve starter

He screamed as the plane exploded around him. A flash of heat, burning scraps of metal and plastic digging into the thick coat of his stolen uniform and into tender flesh. The parachute was too delicate to handle the blast let alone the shrapnel, and he was racing toward the ground. He’d been prepared to die, to save the day, but even so that didn’t stop him from screaming as he fell. But the screaming stopped when a much larger piece of debris stuck him in the head, rendering him unconscious.

Thick trees broke Steve Trevor’s fall to earth. The silk of the chute ripped to shreds that caught onto the branches he’d snapped on his way down. He was yanked to a stop that snapped his entire body like a whip a few feet from the tangled roots of the tree.  

He hung there while the flaming gas gave way to fresh air. While a goddess fought a god and won. While his friends and Diana mourned his sacrifice. If he’d been awake, he would’ve cried out to them that he was all right.

Note: Please read my rules please

A trickle of sweat ran down his spine, joining countless others that had made his shirt stick to his skin. It could’ve been worse, Steve mused, he could still be wearing his tactical gear but Barbara Anne took care of that. She liked to play with her prey, and the Kevlar was in the way. His left shoulder was on fire, deep furrowed scratches from her claws made short work of fabric and flesh, and every time he shifted to keep the flies from landing on the wound it’d bleed a little bit more. Then there was the indignity of her using his own zip-ties to bind him in place.

“Do I get dinner, or isn’t this that kind of date?” he asked the Cheetah as she paced around the small circle of heavy trees she’d chosen to display him in.

“Shut up, Steven,” she growled, the velvet fur that ran along her feline nose wrinkling with a sneer.

“Oh, I’m sorry. Are you trying to think?” Pushing her buttons was stupid. He knew that was past experience, but he couldn’t help himself. It didn’t matter who had him tied up, he’d get defiant, make jokes, and do everything he could to throw them off balance. And catlike grace or not—it wasn’t hard to knock her off kilter.

“I’m trying to hear her.” The cat woman stalked toward him, one hand reaching forward while a single long claw was used to tilt his face back as she pricked at the skin beneath his beard. “She’ll come for you.”

“That’s a given. Was thinking about shaving the beard off…do you think I should?” He knew Diana was out there in the dark. Knew he wouldn’t hear her coming. Not until her sword sang or her boots hit the abomination using him as bait, and he knew that the longer he kept Cheetah talking, the harder it’d be for her to hear the attack coming. “Diana says she likes it, but she might think that I like it. You know how that is.”