smash_logs | We're going down together I'm the elevator man

Falcon was like 'wow I bet this is a trap' and didn't show up.

So this was definitely a trap.

He couldn't be sure if Black Shadow was involved or this was some kind of attempt on Blood's part to handle things All By Himself, but Falcon was pretty certain that the Emperor of Evil would have a little more finesse when it came to luring him out.

Either way, it was stupid.

Falcon was very good at escaping death traps, but he wasn't very good at not walking right into them, intentionally or not, which meant, of course, that he was totally going up to the roof. Blood seemed to want him to take the elevator, even, and though his better judgement told him that the elevator was probably rigged to drop him to his death, he managed to tell himself that Blood likely wasn't smart enough to think of that.

It was an opportunity to get him (or both of them, he didn't know), and Falcon was going to take it. So, armed and ready, he stepped. Into the elevator.

Inside the elevator, there was seemingly no one. The doors closed and a pleasant ding signaled the start of the decent.

What actually descended was Blood's feet, swinging out in an arc from the ceiling he had precariously braced himself against until Falcon walked in.

Wow look at this completely empty elevatBOOT TO THE HEAD.

Falcon had to admit he was sort of expecting something like this, but he went down anyway. Instantly his reflexes sprung into action, attempting to fling Blood off of him and get as much space between them as possible--something fairly difficult, given the fact that they were in an elevator.

And speaking of an elevator, the impact of all two-hundred-something pounds of Blood hitting the floor caused it to shudder

and come to a stop.

It shuddered and creaked and the lights flickered ominously while Blood scrambled to detangle himself from Falcon's body. It was chaotic to say the least, but that was just how his chaotic evil clone liked it.

"Collar's off." He announced with a toothy grin. "You know what that means!" It meant another assault a tiny space, fist first.

"I have… seen things you people wouldn't believe," said Falcon. "Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-Beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments...will be lost in time. Like...tears. In rain."

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"Time to die."

And then a blood hawk flew up into the sky.

Falcon knew what that meant, of course, and even if he didn't, the fist rapidly approaching his face would have give him a clue. With so little room to maneuver, he ate the hit, still trying to throw the clone off him. He managed to kick up, hoping to nail Blood right in the stomach.

The collar was off--he'd expected that, and come armed and in combat gear, evidenced by the thunk of his helmet smacking into the elevator floor. If he could get Blood off him, he could get to his gun.

He didn't wait for the maneuver to work, throwing all his weight into an attempt at a roll.

Up he went, shoulders awkwardly banging in the corner of the elevator but no sooner than that thunk resounded did that of his helmet and then followed by both bodies tumbling to the floor.

The elevator shuddered and creaked again, though Blood paid it no mind. He was utterly focused on taking advantage of the fact that two Falcons were trapped in here, and he intended on being the only Falcon to leave.

With a growl his legs twisted with the roll, quickly catching the wall of the elevator and he pushed off it, like pushing off the wall of a pool to propel him helmet-first into his opponent.

As soon as he felt the weight leave him he sprang to his feet, falling back against he wall of the elevator and using the rail to brace himself. There was not, however, even time to breathe before Blood was launching himself toward him again.

Falcon sidestepped, putting his lightning-fast reflexes to good use. By now it was apparent that there wasn't a way out of this elevator--at least not yet, so he'd have to try and make this as quick as possible, swinging a flaming punch.

He expected one of those eventually. Blood's reflexes easily rivaled Falcon's, but given the unforgiving tiny confines of the elevator, it was all he could do to raise his fist in a brilliant effort to defend himself by meeting fist-to-fist with a punch.

It of course hurt like a motherfucker--fire and all especially--and he felt wetness form inside of his gloves that was undoubtedly his blood, but the stinging pain only seemed to motivate him all the more. A punch would beget a kick, the tip of his boot just barely scraping by a wall while it swing around to try and clock Falcon in the head good.

Falcon may have been able to do ridiculous things like punch through concrete, but fist-on-fist colliding hurt like a bitch, and he gritted his teeth in response, fighting back a grunt. It occurred to him that although his pyrokinesis gave him a very real advantage over his clone, in such an enclosed space the only thing it was really good for was putting some extra power behind his blows.

Not that it was necessarily a bad thing.

Such an enclosed space also meant less room to dodge, and Blood's foot connected, sending him to the ground once more.

Blood would not be Blood if he couldn't take a beating. While tactical fighting wasn't his method (ever), and instead moved more like a frenzied animal with fangs and a bad attitude, he wasn't above and beyond fighting dirty when an opportunity presented itself. As if luring Falcon into a tiny, questionably stable elevator wasn't dirty enough to begin with, Blood threw himself to the ground but shoulder-first.

Spikey stabby shoulder pauldron kinds of shoulder-first.

The impact more than winded him, and this time he did make noise, a sharp hiss and shout as the spikes sunk through his flight suit and into his shoulder.

It made him angry, and, momentarily blinded by pain, could only think to slam his head forward in an effort to connect and stun him.

Gratifying as puncturing flesh and muscle was, it wasn't enough, so Blood put as much of his weight into it as he could after connecting, twisting and grinding his shoulder deeper into the other man. This left Blood wide open for a retaliatory headbutt which hit him hard, and at just the right angle to jostle his helmet looser than he would have liked; leaving his visor akimbo on the bridge of his nose, ringing in his ears and stars in his vision.

He grunts and attempts to half-flail, half-slap at the Captain's face.

Once he'd successfully stunned Blood, the next order of business was to get out from underneath him. He kicked upward, trying to force him off, scrambling onto his feet and feeling the warm trickle of blood from his shoulder where the spikes had pierced him.

He was angry--angry that the life he'd built for himself at the school was in danger again, angry that he was in pain, and mostly angry about his clone's existence in general. This was beyond settling it on the track.

Falcon grabbed Blood by the back of the collar, hoisted him up, and made to slam his face against the wall of the elevator.

Blood was thrown off with a dull whud and was still reeling from the world's worst headache to avoid kissing the wall. To be fair, his jostled helmet was still serving its purpose but the cushion inside was twisted around and the edges of the visor cut against his skin. It was difficult to brace himself against the rear-ended assault. His poor, beautiful face!

He probably got said beautiful face slammed a good extra time or two before he was able to throw his head back far enough in a backwards headbutt. He arched with such ferocity and velocity that the helmet made its final journey off his head. He didn't really care about that though and used his feet to kick off again and throw his entire body weight against Falcon yet again.

"I'm through fucking around. I'm going to break every bone in your body!" THRASHING INTENSIFIED.

"So do it, asshole," he growled, bracing himself against floor as Blood attempted to physically dissuade him from continuing to slam his face into the wall. With the helmet off, it was even more satisfying.

What was the most satisfying, however, was the knowledge that no one was as good at being him as he was. The fact that Blood had gotten the jump on him and still couldn't do more than mildly injure.

"You've been doing a great job so far."

He articulately growled in response, like a disgruntled animal. He thrashed and rolled, doing everything in his power to at least keep Falcon on the floor and as prone as possible. It was consequently incredibly difficult for him to get up on his own two feet as well, but between exchanging elbow jabs and knee kicks--some hit, some miss and banged loudly on the floor--he finally saw a great opening.

He faked a punch to the face but veered to the side so he could plunge and twist two of his fingers deep in the fresh wound on Falcon's shoulder. Blood brought his thumb into play and seemed to think the clavicle was as good as any bone to start with and make good on his threat.

Really, Falcon should have expected something like this, but there really was no good way to prepare oneself for having someone plunge fingers into an open wound, let alone attempting to physically grab a bone. That, he supposed, was just a testament to how fucked up Blood really was.

Not that he was doing much supposing, giving the current situation. Nearly blinded by pain, he thrashed, probably the worst thing he could possibly do. The only thing he could think was that he had to alleviate the pressure no matter what, before something snapped.

His first instinct (besides violently kicking in an attempt to nail Blood in the stomach), was to ignite, hoping it would force him to let go.

Thrashing of course did Falcon little good and it didn't take much pressure for Blood to to feel that satisfying snap of bone between his fingers. He had little time to enjoy it however as he was violently thrown off his opponent, and with flare. Literal flare and fire.

The kick spared Blood any prolonged burning but knocked the wind out of him and the blast of heat signed his skin. The rim of his collar was on fire but was smothered out by the skin of his neck when he rolled on the floor, groaning and clutching his stomach. It was hard enough of an impact to cause the familiar taste of iron to pool in the back of his throat. He righted himself as quick as he could, leaving a long smear of blood on the wall in his wake while he spit and added his own pallet. Falcon's blood ceremoniously also splattered all over Blood's face in the skirmish, and collected in a straight line that cut through his left eyebrow.

And he stared. Despite being a clone there were still measurable differences between the two men, and Blood was just as infuriated by it as he was proud--the fire thing being one such prominent example. Blood couldn't do that. He didn't need to do that, or so he convinced himself, despite beads of sweat on his brow and the pungent odor of burnt space spandex filling his nostrils. Even if he could to it, he'd ignite bigger and brighter and do it better, he was so sure, as well as compared to everything else in Falcon's life he held so dear. The competitive streak and unrelenting desire to be first stared him down in the face.

For only a brief second Blood wondered how long he'd really enjoy that satisfaction of his imagined victory, once he'd accomplished all he dreamed and had nothing left to fight for.

"What are you even fighting for? Just die!" He blurted, then launched back on the offensive, aiming a boot to Falcon's new weak shoulder.

It would take more than one broken bone to stop him entirely, but that didn't mean it wasn't excruciating. There was also the bonus of a broken collarbone rendering his arm nearly useless, unless he felt like powering through the aforementioned excruciating pain.

Given Blood's apparent tenacity, he imagined he might have to.

Despite being nearly crippled with pain, he managed to duck under the kick, countering with a sharp elbow to Blood's side. All he had to do was buy time, perhaps exhaust the clone and worry about finding a way to open the elevator doors after that. Asking Falcon to die, however, was something that wouldn't ever be on his agenda, and he almost laughed.

"What then, huh?" He spat, bracing himself on the wall of the elevator with his bad arm, the other reaching up to tear off his own helmet, letting it fall to the floor with a thunk. "What do you do after that?"

Doubled-over again, Blood wheezed and tried not to think about the sharp, pinching sensation in his side that could easily be a broken rib. He had so many more bones to break in Falcon and he didn't want to stop at just one.

It was, however, immensely jarring when Falcon took off his helmet and caused Blood to stop right there. He already knew what his adversary looked like; he saw him in the mirror every god damn day, shadowing his every movement. This one did not. This one even dared to fucking question him.

He frowned and crinkled his nose, like the question itself was an much of an offensive assault on his being as was his elbow or his fiery kicks. It got under his skin and he answered by growling and raising his fist.

"Shut up!" He tried to furiously land a hit on his bad shoulder again, as if he could punch away the need to think about a question he knew he didn't have an answer to.

Edited 2014-11-28 06:12 (UTC)

There had been a time where seeing his clone face-to-face nearly immobilized him with anger and disgust, but this was less like looking into a mirror than it was looking into a mirror some years ago. It was certainly disconcerting in its own right, but somehow less so, knowing how much older he was and all the subtleties of the ways they'd differentiated themselves.

What mattered was that he'd apparently hit a nerve, which meant he had to keep striking. An angry opponent was a sloppy opponent. He ducked the hit, putting his back to the other wall in the process.

"Do you really think Black Shadow will have use for you after I'm dead? The only reason you even exist is because he couldn't kill me himself."

It was kind of amazing what kind of difference six years can make. Those were six years Blood grew up in the Shadow of Black, knowing only evil and darkness, sharing a life through Falcon on DNA and racing alone. Blood did not share the history engraved in Falcon's skin in the many mottled marks and scars, (ones he desperately hoped he could add to), and he did not share the experiences that made the men so terribly different.

But not completely different.

"Shut up!" He howled again, throwing another frenzied punch. "I'll kill him after I kill you." It was an empty threat. Sort of. Blood wasn't above and beyond the thought, but that necessitated a good reason. Falcon had a good reason. Falcon simply existed. Falcon needed to stop existing and stop making him question his existence.

"Yeah?"

Falcon was trying very hard not to pant, not to give any indication of how injured and in pain he really was, but it was difficult to disguise the raspy quality of his words, the gasp in his breath. He did not, thankfully, eat the punch, though he felt it whizz by him as he ducked and countered.

With one arm essentially useless, he attempted to fell his clone with a sweeping kick.

Hearing Blood say that he'd kill Black Shadow was both unexpected and undeniably interesting. Falcon had to admit that he didn't think very hard about their strange relationship often, but now he wondered why he hadn't considered this before. It was clearly upsetting his clone, which meant he had to continue pursuing this line of discussion.

"And then?"

Knuckles cracked as they hit the elevator wall, though Blood seemed to not be deterred at all by the searing pain of that, or of the perfectly fist-shaped indent he left in his wake. Maybe he'd come back here, stand in the shambled, canted elevator and admire it, imagining how much better it'd look if it had left the same kind of indent on the intended target instead.

It was difficult to think of that now as his intended target continue to evade him and cause continued upset all in the same raspy, ragged breath.

Blood managed to negate the kick with a kick of his own, resulting in a mirror-matched leg-to-leg gridlock until he kicked away, putting distance between them. He still hadn't thought of a good answer.

"What do you care?" Really, what would Falcon care of whatever happened to him? Any of him? All of hims? Falcon would surely be just as content to never see Blood's beautiful face ever again.

Right?

He cared, of course, because this was distracting him, and the more angry and distracted he was, the easier it would be for Falcon to find a way out. At this point, however, he wouldn't have been surprised if they snapped the cable--he wasn't certain how many floors they'd climbed before Blood's ambush, but it couldn't have been very high. The elevator shuddered.

"You really think you could kill him?"

Falcon faked left and threw a punch with his good arm, hoping to get Blood into a position where he could keep him down.

Indeed, the elevator was very probably hanging precariously by a single cable, canted and unstable with every kick and swing.

"Of course I do!" That was his ego snapping back at him through grit teeth, of course. Put into practical application, Blood would probably not last long if he approached the same way he was now--angry and unstable. It would take a very calculated assault to be successful--Blood would certainly have the element of surprise--but Black Shadow just wasn't at the top of his to-murder list right now.

As much as he loathed to think of it, an unfortunately intrusive thought wormed its way into his formerly skull-adorned head: they'd definitely be able to take Black Shadow out together. This he didn't doubt.

It made him sick.

It also made him eat a punch he wished he hadn't. His shoulder hit the back of the elevator hard, and cables snapped audibly. The lights flickered and metal screeched within the elevator shaft. It was on its last strings, quite literally. Blood was pretty sure his patience was, too.

His body was twisted in a way that made it difficult to further defend himself or go for another cheap shot on Falcon's shoulder, but he was able to reach out for the limp arm itself. He squeezed hard and twisted, like he would pull the whole thing out of its socket if he could.

"I was made to do this! And you were made to die! You can't do this forever!"

Falcon was quite sure, by this point, that their time was incredibly limited, if only because the elevator wasn't going to last much longer with Blood stomping around in it. Those were definitely cables snapping. This was about to go from bad to worse--for a split second, he wondered if he'd managed to make his clone too angry.

It was up to him now to keep his cool, even as Blood was literally threatening to tear his arm out of his socket. He cursed himself for being sloppy, trying to formulate a new plan through the pain that threatened to make everything completely incoherent.

In lieu of responding (Falcon was not, he'd argue, made to die, but that would have to be verbalized later), he raised his foot and stomped right on Blood's instep, following it up with a sharp jab with his elbow--hopefully right to the face.

Something definitely crunched at that moment and Blood was pretty sure it was one of his metatarsals, even through the thick of his boot. He howled, almost louder than the very snap and crack of the elevator cable finally giving way from all that downward force. Almost.

The lights went out and everything seemed to happen in slow motion. The momentum of the fall made the elbow miss its mark. His hand clamped around Falcon's wrist but no longer for the purpose of hurting him but because he had nothing else to hold on to as gravity gave the duo a grand fuck you inside their tiny box entrapment. He knew a lot of things were probably going to hurt much more than his foot in a few split seconds.

Falcon knew it was coming, but he didn't expect it to happen quite like this. His stomach lurches and he slams against the wall as the elevator falls a floor and crumples around them. The impact knocked him out entirely, and he spent the next minutes drifting in and out of consciousness until he finally came to underneath rubble.

He could, at least, see light from the crack in the elevator door, just a few feet above them, and the first thing he did was throw metal sheeting off of him, trying to stand in order to haul himself upward, to the exit.

There was blood, and he was sure things were broken, but that didn't matter right now--what mattered was that he got out.

A gloved hand shot out from underneath the rubble and weakly grabbed on to his ankle. It wasn't enough to pull Falcon down but he did try to keep him from at least leaving so easily.

"Noggh--" Blood's voice was gurgled, no doubt labored with his own namesake. He strained to get up on his hands and knees, managing to slump back down belly-first. His hand never left Falcon's ankle. He wasn't even trying to weigh him down so much anymore as he was simply refusing to let go.

"Where do you think... you're going..."

Now that the entire elevator had literally collapsed around them, Falcon was not at all concerned with Blood, or with Blood's grip on his ankle. He was, at this moment in time, completely occupied with getting out, and he jerked his leg in an effort to wrest it from his clone's grasp.

Blood was not, of course, light, but Falcon pressed upward anyway, grasping the rim of the door and hoisting.

~~blood took his boot off~~

He shifted under the rubble, as much as manageable, anything to keep from letting him go so easily. Somewhere between the adrenalin finally wearing off and the stabbing pain radiating from his foot upwards and all over, he realized he lost. His hand trembled and struggled to pull him down but eventually he stopped, opting to limply hang on for just a few seconds longer. His hand was leaving a bloody print around his ankle; he couldn't tell who's it belonged to, and ultimately that didn't even matter. It was all the same.

"You can't keep doing this forever." He repeated.

For an addled moment, he thought he almost said 'we', and realized that wouldn't have been entirely inaccurate either. This would stop the day one of them died.

He let go. That day just wasn't going to be today.

"Neither can you."

Falcon certainly wasn't going to give up, but although he knew full well that no human could do this forever. One day, they'd kill each other. It just wasn't today.

With Blood's grip around his ankle gone, he could hoist himself up onto the narrow ledge, prying open the elevator door with no small amount of force. He cast one glance down into the rubble and then was gone.

He did, however, leave the door open.

We're going down together I'm the elevator man

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