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Frankly, Goliath assumed it was a trap.
They'd been sparring for only a minute or so, and the battle hadn't yet warmed up. He'd thought, in a vague sense, as he folded his wings and dodged Xanatos' attacks, that his enemy was unusually toothless today. None of his blows came close to landing; all of them seemed atypically low-power, not the type of laser strike or inventive new missile that would damage the city around them to any significant degree.
Xanatos was close now. He raised his wrist, the metal cuff around his forearm blinking with a red light. Instinctively Goliath dodged to the side, but no blow came — and the dodge brought him closer to Xanatos, opened him up. He tried to get his arms in front of him in time — to block the next strike or to counterattack before Xanatos could kill him — but he wasn't fast enough.
The cool metal of Xanatos' exo-frame touched Goliath's skin. Something cracked against his skull, left him dazed and blinking; solid arms wrapped around his chest and held him still, stomach-to-stomach with Xanatos' armor.
"I yield," Xanatos said.
Belatedly, Goliath remembered to unfurl his wings. Their descent slowed to a leisurely glide— the best he could do with Xanatos clinging to him, with his thrusters turned to their lowest setting.
"What is this?" Goliath asked. He tried to twitch away, but Xanatos held him tight. "What are you doing?"
Xanatos' helmet was gone. He'd left it on a rooftop somewhere, as he always seemed to when he fought Goliath — abandoning safety for the chance to look his enemy in the eye. There was a ragged cut above his left eyebrow, fresh blood streaking his face.
It took Goliath too long to realize that the cut came from his own horns — that the object that collided with his head was Xanatos' skull.
Goliath's lips twitched into a frown. He wrestled his arm out of Xanatos' grasp and wiped the blood away with the pad of his thumb, the open flesh of the wound stretching when he touched it — and Xanatos closed his eyes, winced a little, but his expression ... features relaxed, no lines on his face, no tension in his jaw ... he seemed almost relaxed.
"What manner of trick is this?" Goliath asked, losing patience. He tugged at one of the arms around his waist, but Xanatos didn't budge. His body pressed against Goliath's — mid-air, like he used to fly with Demona in private, wrapped around each other — before the death of the clan, before her betrayal. With gritted teeth, Goliath tugged at Xanatos' arm again.
"Not a trick," said Xanatos calmly. "I said I yield."
"Yes, I heard you the first time."
"So what are you going to do about it?" Xanatos' eyelids fluttered open. His eyes, normally so dark, were a light, warm brown. They trailed over Goliath's face, from the blood-flecked horns on his brow to his lips. "What are you going to do with me, as your prisoner?" Xanatos asked.
Oh.
Suddenly Goliath had all the strength he needed in order to dislodge Xanatos' grip and push him away. For a few meters, Xanatos plummeted straight down to the streets, the weight of his exo-frame dragging him down and his laughter bubbling up through the air currents. By the time he got his thrusters going and stopped his descent, casual as could be, Goliath was already flying away.
And if his cheeks were a darker purple than normal, there was no one there to see it.