Dawn of Justice Chapter 3 (MCU/DCU Commission)

Diana was picking at her breakfast. Peggy and Steven had brought her out to a pub to eat, meeting up with Bucky Barnes again to discuss the mission they wanted to undertake. Wartime rations had made British food even less palatable than usual, but Steve reckoned that wasn’t why Diana was hesitating to eat. Her mind was probably still on what she had seen him and Peggy up to the day before.

It would be a shock to see that kind of sex after being raised as an Amazon. Frankly, Steve was just as embarrassed now. He’d been caught up in the moment the night before, but… how had he and Peggy not thought to close and lock the door while they had a guest?

It wasn’t time to be worrying about that anymore right now.

“What you’re saying is that we have to run to the frontline to destroy some poison gas facility, do it without any support because our superiors don’t think the mission should even happen, and leave as soon as we possibly can?”

“I know that it’s a lot,” Peggy said.

“No, we’ve done crazier things,” Bucky said with a grin. “It’s perfect, actually. I was starting to feel cooped up.”

“You have an admirable warrior’s spirit for a man,” Diana said.

“For a man? What does THAT mean?” Bucky asked.

“Diana isn’t used to men yet. That’s all,” Peggy said. “She’s not used to anything from our world.”

Bucky squinted. “You’re making her sound like an alien. Should I be worried?”

“Of course not,” Diana said. “You are an ally. Only my enemies should be worried… and afraid.”

“What lovely confidence!” said a man with a thick moustache, arriving at their table and removing his hat.

He had a big coat on and seemed a little bit out of place in a pub like this one. Steve gave a quick salute, doing it in a way that wouldn’t attract too much attention from the other people in the pub.

“Sir,” Steve said.

“At ease, Rogers,” the man said. “I’m not here on duty. Officially, I’m not here at all. There’s no need for formalities.”

“Who is this man?” Diana asked. “He speaks as if he knows you.”

“Diana, this is Sir Patrick Morgan,” Steve said. “One of my superiors I went to visit yesterday.”

“The ones who stupidly ignored your warnings?” Diana asked.

“Hey, cool it!” Bucky hissed.

Sir Morgan merely laughed. “Not afraid to speak your mind, I see. Your assessment isn’t wrong, although I take issue with my inclusion. The council did brush Steve off. I, however, agree with you. This is a mission that MUST be undertaken.”

“What exactly are you here for, sir?” Steve asked.

“To give you what you need,” Sir Morgan said. “Your unit is allowed to move on its own when you so choose, but you lack funding. I can help with that.”

“You want to give us the money to reach the war?” Bucky asked.

“That’s exactly right, Sergeant Barnes. I believe this is a mission that you have to complete, no matter what,” Sir Morgan said.

“We—” Diana said.

“That’s alright, sir,” Steve said. “I appreciate your support, but it’s not necessary at the minute. Don’t put yourselves at risk for our sake.”

Sir Morgan froze. “It’s for the war’s sake, Captain Rogers. You don’t need to think about my reputation.”

“All the same, we’ll manage,” Steve said. “Knowing how you feel is all the support we need.”

Sir Morgan had reached into his coat to pull out a thick stack of money. He let go of the cash he’d been prepared to hand out and returned his hand to his side.

“If that’s how you feel,” he said. “I wish you the best of luck. If you change your mind, simply find me.”

He left the pub. When he was out the door, Diana said: “Why did you reject him? That was a perfect offer. He seems much wiser than the rest of that council of fake Antiopes.”

“I’m with the broad on this one,” Bucky said. “What’s going through your head, Steve?”

Steve tapped his fingers on the beer mug in front of him. “I don’t know. Maybe I’m overthinking it. It’s just… he barely spoke yesterday in the council. If he was THAT much of a supporter of ours, he could have swayed the council to support us. Coming alone, off the record, feels like a setup. Maybe I’m getting paranoid.”

“Better safe than sorry,” Peggy said. “It’s not as if we lack the means to get money.”

“Are you rich?” Diana asked, sounding excited by the idea.

Steve and Peggy looked at each other.

“We have a friend,” Peggy said.

LINE BREAK

“This is one man’s house? It’s the size of a temple!” Diana exclaimed.

They stood in front of a tall gate surrounding the grounds of a mansion. There were extensive gardens, a pond, and of course the four story sprawling house.

“It is for one man, but technically it’s not his house,” Steve said. “It’s a second home. His bigger house is in New York.”

Diana looked dazed as a servant opened the gate and bowed.

“Mr. Rogers, Ms. Carter. Right this way. He is expecting you.”

The trio, who had parted ways with Bucky at the pub so that he could gather the Howling Commandos, followed the servants up to the front door and entered.

Diana kept looking around the entire time, amazed and often befuddled by the opulence surrounding them. When they got deeper into the building, the typical rich person amenities like chandeliers and priceless artwork disappeared in favor of wires, discarded hunks of machinery, and guns with strange attachments on them.

The servant who was leading them stopped and held out his hand toward a closed door. After bowing, he left quickly. Explosions could be heard inside the room. Diana lifted her enchanted bracers defensively, but Steve and Peggy went inside without thinking twice.

There were ten times more inventions inside the room than there had been outside. It was supposed to be this mansion’s dining room, designed to accommodate tens of guests. The house’s current owner said fuck that, cleared it out, and filled it with firing ranges and mechanical equipment and prototype bombs.

Someone in a welding mask holding a gun in his left hand and a blowtorch in his right hand popped up from among the inventions. He was so excited to see Steve and Peggy that he accidentally pulled the trigger on the pistol he was holding, emptying a live round into the floor.

“My favorite people came to visit! Is this my lucky day or what?” His voice was muffled until he tossed away the gun and blowtorch and flipped up his mask. A handsome moustached face was underneath. “Get over here! This calls for a group hug I say.”

To Diana’s surprise, Steve and Peggy actually did it. The man patted them both on the back… while running his hand over their lats, feeling up Peggy and Steve in equal amounts.

“There they are. Those muscles!” he said. “You don’t get shapes like that without the power of science.”

“Excuse me… who is this?” Diana asked. The man was giving off an odd feeling. His personality was as bright as the sun.

“Owner of this house. Millionaire inventor and world’s brightest mind. Oh, the name’s Howard Stark,” said Howard. “And if you’re wondering how I know these two, it's because they're the canvases for my greatest work! Although…” Howard lost his smile. “That work was only half mine at best.”

Peggy and Steve became solemn as well. 

“Speak plainly. What are you referencing?” Diana said.

“An old story we don’t need to worry about right now,” Howard said. “What matters NOW is that these two knuckleheads came here. And I didn’t even need to send anyone to kidnap them! Not that anyone could, of course, but still, it’s weird that they’re here on their own.”

“We need help, Howard,” Steve said. “The fate of the world might be at risk.”

“When is it not, these days?” Howard smiled cockily. “I can’t imagine that there’s much you and your merry band couldn’t handle that I could help with. So… money?”

“Just enough for one mission,” Peggy said. “Two thousand would be plenty.”

Howard looked at her. His face went completely blank. Diana feared that he was going to throw them out for asking too much.

“There is no way I’m sending you out of here with less than ten thousand,” Howard said. “Anything under that would hurt my pride. You know what? Just take fifteen thousand. My butler will set you up with what you need.”

“We really don’t need that much,” Steve said.

“So what? If you’ve got leftovers buy yourself something nice. Maybe a lifetime's supply of star spangled underpants?” Howard proposed.

“I’ll pass on that,” Steve said. “But the help is appreciated.”

“Any time, any time,” Howard said. “So… who’s the new girl?”

“I am Diana,” Diana said. “Warrior princess of Themyscira. It is an honor to make your acquaintance, man of money.”

“Man of money. I like the ring that has,” Howard said.

He leaned over to Steve, nudging Steve’s chest with his elbow. “It hasn’t been THAT long since we saw each other, but now you’re running around with TWO beauties like this? If I did that, everyone would keep calling me a playboy. Why don’t you get accusations like that?”

Steve shrugged. “Maybe I do. I don’t pay attention to things like that.”

“Well I DO pay attention to them,” Howard said, “and I’m telling you, you don’t. I wonder what the difference is. The Boyscout vibe, maybe?”

BANG!

Howard flinched. One of the many prototype weapons he had sitting around experienced a sudden and catastrophic error. It was some kind of massive engine, but the top part was blown off with an incredible amount of force. Howard actually looked concerned.

“Get down!” he yelled. “You’re in its path!”

A hunk of metal was blown with the force of a cannon ball directly at Diana. She turned her head as it shot at her. Howard squeezed his eyes shut and Peggy tried to run to Diana. Only Steve wasn’t worried.

Thunk!

Howard cracked his eyes open. Diana was holding the metal that had shot at her. She caught it like a basketball.

“That stung my palms,” Diana said. “What amazing force. Oh, let me return this part.”

She threw what she had caught back at the engine. Her throw was so powerful that the device partially caved in, the metal she threw embedding into it. Diana smacked her hands together to clean them of grease.

“Sorry, Steve,” Howard said. “I always thought you and Peggy were the scariest people I’d ever seen. As cuddly as teddy bears when someone gets to know you, but scary as hell nonetheless. But somehow, you found something even scarier.”

Diana was looking curiously around the room.

“Do you have anything else that can muster a similar amount of force?” Diana asked. “I think that might be exactly what I need to warm up before going to war!”

LINE BREAK

The Howling Commandos set out for France the following morning. They used a boat just for them, procured with a fraction of the generous funding from Howard Stark. Diana’s mood was good that morning. She spent the morning engaged in boisterous conversation with Dum Dum Dugan, the only one from the Commandos who was similarly cheerful. The rest were more grim as they headed toward the war.

“It will be good to finally fight,” Diana confessed at one point to Steve.

“I’m always happy to fight,” Steve replied. “But beware that you’re going to see some things out there. They won’t make you want to stop fighting, but they’re going to hurt.”

Diana hadn’t understood what he meant. Not yet.

They landed their boat on French shores and traveled deeper into the country. The laboratory that they were targeting was in the country, only about a day’s trip from the coast where they landed. Immediately, security was tight. Planes flew overhead and guard patrols rolled around the roads on military vehicles.

“Shall we fight?” Diana asked eagerly.

Peggy stopped her with a hand on her shoulder. “We have to pick our time, dear. We can’t cause a scene yet.”

Disappointed, Diana let go of the hilt of her sword that she had grabbed. The Howling Commandos had been so conditioned by fighting beside Steve and Peggy that they didn’t even question a woman going to war with a sword and a shield as her weapons. They just assumed she knew what she was doing.

Because of the intense security, they had to travel slowly. It took them longer than expected, and they made a call to blend in with a local village rather than camp outside.

Gabe, one of the commandos, put his French to work speaking to one of the locals. Soon, they were hiding in the man’s barn, tucked away for the night.

“The people are on our side?” Diana said, sitting on top of a bail of hay. “Our cause must be righteous.”

“This country was taken over,” Steve explained. “The people here hate the enemy as much as we do, or more. They’re afraid, though. They can’t resist by themselves. They’re not soldiers.”

“The enemy, these Nazis, would harm those who cannot fight back?” Diana asked.

Bucky laughed bitterly. “It’s their favorite thing. They want to wipe out everyone who isn’t like them, one life at a time.”

“Monsters!” Diana said.

“That’s why we’re fighting,” Steve said. “If we succeed in this mission, we’ll be saving millions of lives from them. We can’t fail.”

It had gotten dark. The group went to sleep, choosing to leave two awake for a night’s watch. Diana and Peggy took the first shift, sitting high in the barn’s loft.

They didn’t talk. Diana was mulling over what she had heard, trying to grapple with a reality so horrible that she couldn’t imagine it. Her sheltered upbringing was so far removed from the things Steve talked about.

CRACK!

Diana flinched. She knew that sound! It had claimed the lives of her friends and siblings on the beach of Theymscira. A gunshot. More quickly followed.

“An attack!” she said.

“This isn’t normal,” Peggy said, grabbing her Union Jack painted shield. “There shouldn’t be any fighters here. Perhaps the resistance is active in the village.”

“We must help!”

“Wait—” Peggy said.

Diana had already vaulted through the barn window and plummeted to the ground below, sprinting away.

“Let her go. We’ll just have to follow,” said Steve.

He and the others had been woken up by the gunshots. He was already standing up and strapping his shield to his arm. The Howling Commandos checked their weapons and clicked off the safeties.

“If we fight now, the mission might be compromised,” Peggy said.

It was a reasonable thing to point out, although she hated being the one to do so.

“We’ll fight here and we’ll still stop their plan,” Steve said. “We just have to find a way to do both. Like we always have before.”

It sounded idealistic, but in the past, Stever Rogers had proved he had the skills to pull it off time and time again.

The Howling Commandos set off, following the trail of their newest member.

LINE BREAK

Diana ran with the speed of a lion. She quickly reached the village. They had seen it in the distance earlier, during the day.

It was on fire now. Two of those large armored cars were sitting in the village, one with a large gun mounted on the back. Soldiers were all over, lighting fire to houses and shooting their guns. There were so many screams. For a moment, Diana’s head spun. 

Steve was right. This was many times worse than what she had seen before. It was awful. People were running away and being shot in the backs. Soldiers were laughing. A body hit the ground to Diana’s left.

She looked down at it… and kept looking down. They were tiny. A child, no older than ten, was laying there bleeding. They weren’t moving. Diana looked up to see the soldier who had done it.

“Pretty,” he said in German. He pointed his gun at Diana but pointed down on purpose, aiming at a part of her body that wouldn’t kill her or harm her looks.

He pulled the trigger. Diana’s bracer deflected the bullet straight back at him, puncturing his skull.

She drew her sword. Leaping forward, she ran through the village, falling back on her training. There was no time to freeze. 

She couldn’t consider these things to be people. She had to think of them as training dummies that could be cut down without a second thought. If she hesitated even the slightest amount, it could cost someone else their life.

Diana’s sword was soon red. No one could stop her. She blocked their bullets and reached them a hundred times faster than they could run.

She became so engrossed in the one sided battle that she didn’t notice a soldier going for the mounted machine gun on one of the vehicles until she heard it whir as it warmed up.

She spun around in time to block the bullets it spat at her with her bracers. However, the bullets kept coming in a constant stream. While deflecting them all, she was temporarily stuck, giving an opening to the soldiers around her. This heavier gun had enough power within it that even Diana would be hurt if its metal rain struck her skin.

For a moment, she felt trapped. Bullets wouldn’t kill her, but they could injure her in high enough quantities. The soldiers she hadn’t finished off yet aimed carefully at her head with their rifles.

Two shields flew out of the dark. One hit the gunner on the machine gun in the head, slumping him. The gun tilted back as his body sagged, unloading its rounds straight into the air.

The second shield hit all five soldiers who had been aiming at Diana, ricocheting back onto Peggy’s arm when it was done. The Howling Commandos flooded into the village, systematically putting down any soldiers who were still twitching.

“We’ve got your back,” Steve said.

Diana stared at him and Peggy. She was breathing hard from the things she had seen and the exertion of facing the heavy gun. 

This was not the kind of war that she expected. But at least, within it, she was finding the kind of allies she always fantasized about.

People emerged from around the village. Suddenly, strangers to Diana ran to her and hugged her. She dropped her sword to keep from accidentally hurting someone. 

“Merci! Merci!” said adults and children, swarming around her.

They were grateful to her for saving them. Diana managed to hug them back.

Steve had been right. This was worse than anything she imagined. And yet, she was glad she had come. 

She wanted to make a difference, and this was the place that she could do it.

LINE BREAK

Over time, with the help of Gabe as their translator, they managed to glean why the village had been attacked.

There was no reason. None. Except for the fact that they were too close to Hydra’s hidden factory. A breakthrough must have been close, just as Steve had feared. The Axis Powers were taking extra steps to make sure that their secret work wasn’t discovered, clearing out the surrounding area.

Maybe because they felt like they had nothing to lose, the village chose to throw a party. They did not have much available to them, occupied as they were and in the middle of a war. Half the village had burned down. Yet they found food to feed their saviors and everyone helped bury the bodies. Less had died than Diana first thought, due to how quickly she got there.

The locals showed her things she didn’t understand, technology that mortals had created. Among these things was a camera; something that could freeze a moment in time as a solid object.

“Let us take one!” Diana said. “Please?”

Which was how the Howling Commandos grouped together, squeezing everyone into the frame with Diana, Steve, and Peggy in the middle. Peggy and Steve were on either side of Diana, their hands over her shoulder. They made sure that when the photo was developed, there would be enough copies for everyone present.

“What is the plan now?” Diana asked, sitting with Peggy and Steve as the night calmed down.

“We attack the factory. Wipe it out, along with whatever superweapon they’re developing in there,” Steve said. “When these soldiers don’t come back, they’ll know that something is wrong. They’ll probably be expecting an attack, but they won’t be expecting us.”

“This has become an exceptional group, hasn’t it?” Peggy said.

“A group of true warriors!” Diana said.

She had seen how the Howling Commandos fought and dealt with a tragedy without flinching. Although they were not superhuman, they were all exceptional men, just as trained and hearty as the Amazons back on Themyscira. They were well worth fighting alongside.

Meanwhile, about a mile away, a man standing on top of a jeep lowered a pair of advanced binoculars. He had sharp eyebrows and a receding hairline, wearing a Nazi officer’s uniform. His face didn’t move much to show his displeasure. Which made sense given that it was nothing but a mask over his true face.

“It seems that insects have crawled into our home,” he said in a German accent. “They will have to be crushed. The question is, what tool to use?”