INFINITE ✶ Steve Rogers

Prologue

"Grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change,
courage to change the things I can,
and the wisdom to know the difference,
living one day at a time;
enjoying one moment at a time;
taking this world as it is and not as I would have it."

— Reinhold Niebuhr

✶

THE SUN SHINED BRIGHTLY in the sky for the first time in two years, but the air was intoxicated with ash, the ocean's waves didn't lap like they usually did, and the winds carried a chill that shuddered Brooklyn's spine.

The brunette tugged her leather flight jacket closer to her. To say that the world she stood in was twisted was putting things lightly. She was facing an apocalypse, one that she and her team sentenced this Earth to years ago.

They were hailed heroes, called the "gods among men". They protected the world from threats civilians could not even begin to comprehend. At least, they were supposed to.

The day of their defeat never left her memory, constantly repeating itself as though it happened yesterday. Brooklyn wished she could say she fought valiantly, but frankly, she was not even present in half the battle. Before more blood than flesh was seen on the field, a boom tube had appeared below her. The brunette recalled searching frantically for the source— Victor Stone— and instead, she caught a glimpse of her friends being massacred, eaten alive by hellsent Paradooms.

From that moment on, Brooklyn wished nothing more than to have just died with them. Defeated, deceased, but at least free from having to live in the nightmare they left Earth in.

The brunette's thoughts constantly mentioned "them", but really, her subconscious only focused on him— Hal Jordan, the intergalactic space cop whose ridiculous, blinding green light matched his arrogance.

A small smile tugged at Brooklyn's lips, thinking back to her first impression of him, because there was no telling that this was the guy who managed to steal her heart.

She always knew her life needed some light, having grown up in Gotham, but she did not imagine that it would come literally— a chattering Glowstick who made her life a hundred times brighter.

They had practically said goodbye before heading to Apokolips. She held onto their last moments together just as tightly as she held onto his jacket on her shoulders, refusing to let the years take away her memories of him like Apokolips took him from her.

"The Justice League doesn't quit," She heard. "If we work together—,"

Brooklyn intentionally stopped listening to the voice. Being Superman, Clark Kent still held onto the hope that his symbol stood for, but it was clear to everyone present that any effort was ruled futile at this point.

The Justice League doesn't quit, but the Justice League was reduced to nothing now. They were cut in half, others quite literally with animatronic parts replacing their once-flesh anatomy, and they were thousands of feet deep into a pit they dug for themselves. There was no bringing back the lives they lost, the people they've failed...

Certainly, the remaining members had regrets of their own, but Brooklyn could not help but feel like this was on her. She should have told the team of her vision, should have stopped them from storming Apokolips.

It would have saved their lives, changed their course, but now their blood was on her hands. Her love's blood was on her hands.

If Hal were there with her, reading her thoughts, he would tell her it wasn't her fault. But he wasn't anymore. And it was her fault.