The suite at the Ritz-Carlton on West 3rd Street was dead quiet except for the low hiss of the heating unit tucked beneath the window. Outside, a late-autumn drizzle was streaking the glass, blurring the orange sodium lights of downtown Cleveland into dull smudges.
Daniel sat at the heavy mahogany desk in the corner of the living room, wearing a faded gray cotton t-shirt and dark sweatpants. An ice pack was wrapped tightly around his left forearm with an elastic bandage—a parting gift from a stunt setup four hours earlier where a breakaway car door hadn't broken away quite fast enough.
In front of him sat an open laptop, an encrypted audio bridge software glowing on the screen. Beside the keyboard rested a thick leather-bound volume with gold-leaf lettering worn down by decades of handling: The Fellowship of the Ring.
Daniel reached out, tapped a key, and initiated the call.
The audio line clicked twice, a low burst of static running through the desk speakers before settling into a clean, transatlantic hiss.
"Hullo? Am I through?" a voice crackled through the speakers. It was younger, thick with a scruffy, breathless New Zealand cadence, accompanied by the distinct sound of wind rattling against corrugated iron. "Bloody hell, these satellite links are a marvel, aren't they?"
"You're through, Peter," Daniel said, leaning back into his chair. "I can hear you clearly."
A second line connected with a soft chime. A rich, warm, melodic voice chimed in, carrying that unmistakable, resonant Mexican accent that sounded like it belonged to a man telling ghost stories by a fireplace.
"Hola, Daniel. Buenas noches. Well, buenas tardes for Peter, I suppose. What time is it down there, my friend? Tomorrow?"
"It's tomorrow morning, Guillermo," Peter Jackson chuckled, the sound of tea being stirred audible in the background. "And it's pissing down rain in Wellington, as per usual."
"It's raining in Cleveland, too," Daniel said with a faint smile. "Thanks for getting on the line, both of you. I know the time zones are a nightmare."
"When Daniel Miller calls your private workshop directly, you pick up the phone," Guillermo del Toro said plainly. He didn't sound starstruck; he sounded like a craftsman who was profoundly curious. "Though I have to admit, my friend, when your assistant told me you wanted both Peter and myself on the same line, I spent two hours pacing my library trying to figure out what madness you have cooked up. We are not exactly the names people bring up when they want to make an easy Hollywood picture."
"That's putting it mildly," Peter muttered, letting out a self-deprecating laugh. "Universal wouldn't even return my agent's calls about that haunted submarine treatment last year. Said my stuff was too greasy, too much mud on the lens."
Daniel adjusted the ice pack on his arm, listening to them.
Neither of them was a global household name in this timeline. They weren't the multi-billion-dollar titans who had redefined high-budget cinema. In the current landscape of the industry, both Peter Jackson and Guillermo del Toro were fiercely respected, highly idiosyncratic indie filmmakers who lived entirely on the fringes of the festival circuit.
Peter had made The Forgotten Valley, a brutal, rain-drenched sixteenth-century historical drama shot on a shoestring budget in the New Zealand bush, where the actors wore real iron armor that rusted in real-time, and the camera stayed low in the muck during twenty-man skirmishes. It had won awards in Berlin, but the major American studios had looked at it, deemed it uncommercial, and passed on funding his next three scripts.
Guillermo had built his underground reputation with The Clockwork Labyrinth, a haunting, melancholy Spanish-language dark fairy tale set in the ruins of an abandoned cathedral, featuring practical prosthetic beasts made of foam latex and decaying clockwork that had made critics weep and studio executives squirm.
They were outsiders. They were obsessives who cared more about the tactile weight of a prop than a quarterly earnings call. And that was precisely why Daniel had tracked them down.
"I didn't call you to make an easy Hollywood picture," Daniel said, his voice level and steady. "I called you because I just spent eight months and several million dollars fighting legacy publishers and literary estates in London to acquire the complete global film, television, and merchandising rights to J.R.R. Tolkien's works."
The line went completely, utterly silent.
The wind in Wellington seemed to fade out. The slight ambient rustle of papers in Guadalajara stopped dead.
"Daniel," Guillermo spoke first, his tone dropping from casual warmth into a low, stunned gravity. "Are you telling me... you hold the rights to The Lord of the Rings?"
"The trilogy," Daniel confirmed. "All three books as well as the prequels. Uncontested, fully cleared, sitting in the Miller Studios vault as of last Tuesday."
Peter Jackson let out a sharp, choked breath that sounded like he had been punched in the solar plexus. "Jesus, Mary, and Joseph... You bought the Professor's books? All of them?"
"I did," Daniel said.
In this world, Tolkien's epic wasn't a modern cultural juggernaut. It hadn't been turned into lunchboxes, video games, or theme park attractions. It existed as a dense, heavy, somewhat obscure literary classic—beloved by scholars, fantasy obsessives, and counterculture intellectuals, but considered entirely untouchable by Hollywood. The prose was too sprawling, the poetry too long, the geography too complex. Every major studio in Century City that had ever glanced at the rights had taken one look at the sheer scale of the battles and the lack of a modern, fast-paced narrative structure and run the other way.
"They wouldn't touch it," Peter whispered, his voice trembling slightly with an emotion he wasn't even trying to hide. "United Artists had a hold on the option years ago, and they let it lapse because some bloody executive in a three-thousand-dollar suit told them people don't want to watch elves and dwarves walking through the woods for three hours."
Peter paused, the rattle of his New Zealand workshop returning as he shifted in his chair.
"Daniel... I read those books when I was eighteen years old," Peter said, the words spilling out of him with raw, vulnerable honesty. "I was riding a train across the North Island, sitting on a hard bench with a battered paperback. I read about the fires of Amon Amarth, about the horns of the Rohirrim blowing in the morning mist. That book is the reason I bought my first 16mm Bolex camera. It's the reason I spent ten years in the bush learning how to shoot practical miniatures and build fake chainmail in my mother's shed. It has been my lifelong dream to bring that world to life. But I couldn't afford it. Nobody would give a bloke like me forty million dollars to make a high-fantasy movie. They're too busy hiring music video directors to shoot glossy studio comedies."
"I know," Daniel said softly.
"So why are you telling us this?" Guillermo asked, his voice sharp with cautious disbelief. "Daniel, my friend, you are currently wearing a Captain America suit and directing the most anticipated movie of the decade. You have the power to direct whatever you want. If you own Middle-earth, why are you on the phone with two eccentrics who build monsters in their garages?"
Daniel smiled in the dim hotel room. He leaned forward, resting his elbows on the desk, looking at the worn gold lettering on the book cover.
In his mind, the answer was entirely obvious.
Daniel was a great director, but he was also a realist. He knew his own strengths, and he knew his own bandwidth. He was currently directing the most logistically complex superhero ensemble in the history of cinema. After this, he had the sequel slate, his own original projects, and the studio empire to run. But more importantly, The Lord of the Rings didn't need Daniel Miller's clean, modern visual polish.
It needed something wilder. It needed dirt.
If you gave this project to a standard Hollywood hack, they would shoot it on a sterile soundstage in Atlanta, cover it in smooth digital effects, dress the Elves in shiny nylon, and make the Orcs look like cartoon video game bosses. It would lose its soul.
It needed Peter Jackson's unhinged, obsessive tactile grit. It needed Peter's understanding of ancient landscapes, his ability to make mud look heavy, his mastery of large-scale practical miniatures, and his deep, reverent love for the geography of the Shire.
And it needed Guillermo del Toro's twisted, gothic, deeply empathetic horror. It needed Guillermo's eye for the grotesque. Guillermo wouldn't make the Nazgûl look like dudes in black cloaks; he would make them look like ancient, rotting kings trapped between life and death. He would design Orcs with real foam latex, jagged bone armor, and genuine physical deformity that made the audience recoil in their seats. He would make the mines of Moria feel ancient, damp, and suffocating.
Together, they were the only two men on Earth who could pull it off.
"I'm calling you," Daniel said, letting every word carry absolute certainty, "because I don't want to direct it."
Peter choked on his tea. "You... what?"
"I want the two of you to co-direct it," Daniel said.
Silence slammed down on the line again.
"Co-direct?" Guillermo repeated slowly, tasting the word like an exotic spice. "A trilogy of this magnitude... with two distinct directorial voices? Daniel, that is either the most brilliant stroke of producing in the last fifty years, or it is total, unmitigated lunacy."
"It's both," Daniel said. "Listen to me, both of you. Peter, I watched The Forgotten Valley. The battle in the third act—thirty men hacking at each other in a freezing peat bog, the camera right in the dirt, the sound of steel against bone—that is how the battle of Helm's Deep needs to feel. It cannot look like a glossy commercial. It needs to feel like real men dying for their homes."
Peter made a soft, breathless sound on the line.
"And Guillermo," Daniel continued, pivoting smoothly. "I saw The Clockwork Labyrinth. The creature in the crypt—the way you designed the rotting skin over the brass gears, the sadness in its eyes while it tore through the stone—that is Gollum. That is the Witch-king of Angmar. That is the Balrog. You understand that monsters aren't just things to be killed; they are tragedies that have lived in the dark for three thousand years."
Guillermo let out a deep, trembling sigh. "Ay, carajo... Daniel, you see directly into the marrow of the work."
"I don't want a CGI showcase," Daniel told them, his tone hardening with purpose. "I want New Zealand. I want practical sets built into the sides of real hills. I want real blacksmiths forging real broadswords. I want tens of thousands of real prosthetics, miniature photography that fools the eye, and an orchestra that records with wooden flutes and heavy bronze drums. I want the world to feel like it has ten thousand years of history behind every rock."
"And the budget?" Peter asked, his voice barely above a whisper, terrified of the answer. "Daniel, to do what you're describing... across three films... it would cost hundreds of millions of dollars. No studio board would ever—"
"I don't have a studio board, Peter," Daniel cut him off, completely deadpan. "I am the studio. Miller Studios is privately owned. I write the checks. I fund the productions out of my own pocket."
Daniel paused, letting the reality sink into their brains.
"You won't have executives from Century City visiting your set telling you to make the Hobbits more relatable to teenagers," Daniel said. "You won't have marketing managers telling you to cut the runtime so theaters can squeeze in an extra screening. You will have total, absolute creative freedom. Peter, you handle the sweeping scope, the landscapes, the logistical warfare, and the pacing of the journey. Guillermo, you handle the creature design, the dark corners, the practical prosthetics, and the ancient, gothic visual texture. You balance each other's blind spots."
The line was dead for five seconds.
Then, Guillermo began to laugh. It started as a low, rumbling chuckle in his chest, growing into a loud, joyous, booming belly laugh that rattled through the speakers.
"Madre de Dios," Guillermo wheezed, clapping his hands. "He is an absolute madman! An absolute, beautiful madman! Peter, do you hear this? The man is handing us Middle-earth and telling us to go play in the mud!"
Peter was sniffing, openly clearing his throat on the line. "Daniel... I... bloody hell, mate. I don't even know what to say. If this is real... if you're truly willing to put the weight of your studio behind this..."
"It's real," Daniel said. "My friend, Marcus, is already drafting the contracts. I will wire the initial development funds to Wellington and Guadalajara by Friday. I want you both in Los Angeles next month to sit down with Dante Ferretti and start mapping out the production design."
Peter took a long, shaky breath. "I'm in, Daniel. With everything I have in my soul. I'm in."
"Me too, cabrón," Guillermo declared, his voice thick with unbridled excitement. "I will start sketching the Orcs tonight. We will make them terrifying, Peter! Real monsters! Real earth!"
"Let's make history, gentlemen," Daniel said, feeling a deep, profound satisfaction settle in his chest. "I have to get some sleep. We're blowing up another street at sunrise."
"Good luck with the bombs, Captain," Guillermo chuckled warmly. "Buenas noches."
"Cheers, Dan. Truly," Peter added softly.
"Goodnight, guys."
Daniel tapped the keyboard, disconnecting the call.
He leaned back in the heavy desk chair, staring at the darkened window. He felt a quiet, electric hum buzzing through his veins. The pieces were falling into place. While the rest of Hollywood was cannibalizing itself over short-term franchise extensions and terrified of making a bold move, Miller Studios was quietly laying the foundation for the greatest cinematic achievements of the century.
A sharp, firm knock echoed against the heavy wooden door of the hotel suite.
Daniel blinked, checking the digital clock on the desk.
11:42 PM.
He stood up, carefully unstrapping the ice pack from his forearm and setting it on the blotter. He walked across the hardwood floor of the entryway, pulling open the heavy door.
Standing in the dimly lit hallway was Scarlett Johansson.
She was leaning casually against the doorframe, her hip cocked to one side, looking like an absolute vision.
The practical dirt, the fake soot, and the damp, utilitarian Kevlar of the Black Widow suit were completely gone. She wore an oversized, impossibly soft cashmere trench coat in a deep charcoal gray, left unbuttoned down the front. Beneath it, she wore a simple, bias-cut silk slip dress in a pale champagne color that ended mid-thigh, the delicate fabric clinging to the curve of her hips and chest. Her red bob was dry, falling in soft, tousled waves around her face.
She carried a half-empty bottle of vintage red wine in one hand and two heavy crystal tumblers dangling from the fingers of the other.
"Room service in Cleveland leaves a lot to be desired," Scarlett murmured, her voice carrying that low, signature rasp that felt entirely too loud in the quiet hallway. "So I had to bring my own supplies."
Daniel stood in the doorway, his eyes traveling slowly down the silk dress, taking in the long, pale line of her legs, before drifting back up to meet her hazel-green eyes.
A slow, amused smile touched his lips. "It's almost midnight, Scarlett. We have a five-thirty call sheet."
"I know," Scarlett said softly, not stepping back an inch. In fact, she stepped forward.
She placed the flat of her palm against his chest, right over his heart, feeling the heat radiating through his cotton t-shirt. With a gentle, deliberate shove, she walked into the suite, forcing him to step backward into the living room.
She reached behind her with her foot, kicking the heavy door shut with a solid, definitive thud. The latch clicked into place.
"I don't care about the call sheet, Daniel," Scarlett said, turning around to face him. She walked past him to the desk, setting the wine bottle and the crystal glasses down right beside the copy of The Fellowship of the Ring.
She turned back around, leaning her lower back against the edge of the mahogany desk, crossing her ankles. The silk dress pulled tight across her thighs.
She looked at him with an expression that held zero hesitation, zero professional distance, and absolute, magnetic confidence.
"You blew up four city blocks today," Scarlett said softly, her eyes tracking the broad cut of his shoulders in the dim suite lighting. "You jumped over a car to shield me from actual fire. Then you took two minutes to tell the entire internet to stop being bullies, and you looked absurdly desirable while doing it."
Daniel walked slowly toward the desk, stopping just two feet away from her, towering over her slight frame. "Just another day at the office."
"Don't do that," Scarlett murmured, tilting her head up, a small, wickedly alluring smirk playing on her lips. "Don't act like it's normal. Because it isn't. You aren't normal, Daniel. And I have spent the last three weeks on that set watching you run an army, and I am completely done pretending that I only came to Cleveland to shoot fake guns."
"Is that right?" Daniel asked, his voice dropping into a low, quiet register, his gaze fixing onto her mouth.
"That's right," Scarlett whispered.
She reached up, her manicured fingers curling into the collar of his t-shirt, pulling him down toward her.
Daniel didn't resist. He reached out, his large, calloused hands finding her waist beneath the open trench coat, his fingers pressing into the warm, silk-covered curve of her hips.
When their mouths met, the lingering professional restraint of the last month simply evaporated.
It wasn't a tentative, testing kiss. It was deep, hungry, and entirely possessive. Scarlett let out a soft, sharp gasp against his lips as Daniel pulled her flush against his body, lifting her slightly so her thighs pressed against his hips. Her hands moved into his thick hair, gripping tightly, matching his intensity stride for stride. The taste of red wine and vanilla hung between them, rich and intoxicating.
She broke the kiss for half a second, breathless, her forehead resting against his chin, her eyes dark and heavy with heat.
"Bedroom," Scarlett whispered against his skin, her breath hot on his neck. "Now."
Daniel looked down at her, feeling the rapid, heavy thud of her pulse beneath his fingers, the unspoken chemistry that had been simmering between them since the Sunset Marquis finally boiling over into reality.
He didn't say a word. He just slid one arm beneath her knees, lifting her effortlessly off the floor, and carried her through the darkened doorway of the master bedroom, kicking the door closed behind them.
The rain continued to beat softly against the Cleveland glass, entirely forgotten.
---
At 5:45 AM, the harsh midwestern dawn was struggling to break through the thick, gray industrial haze lingering over Lake Erie.
The temperature had dropped overnight, hovering just above freezing. A sharp, damp chill hung in the air, biting through the parkas of the production crew as they hauled heavy sandbags, routed high-voltage generator cables, and cleared the overnight moisture from the camera lenses on East 9th Street.
This was the final day of the Cleveland practical unit.
The street was set up for the climactic, ground-level standoff—the moment where the shattered remnants of the local police force, Captain America, Thor, and Black Widow regroup amidst the smoking ruins of the city before the final push toward the alien portal.
Dante Ferretti's team had outdone themselves. Three entire blocks looked like the aftermath of an artillery strike. The facades of the bank, a luxury department store, and a coffee shop were scorched with practical burn marks, their structural beams exposed and twisted. The overturned taxi from two days ago had been supplemented by two crushed city buses, their windows completely blown out, resting at violent, jackknifed angles across the median.
Daniel stood in the center of the intersection, fully strapped into the modernized Captain America tactical suit.
His hair was slightly damp from the morning mist, the cowl pulled back off his head, resting against the nape of his neck. The heavy vibranium shield was buckled securely to his left forearm, the silver star on its face scuffed with practical soot and simulated carbon scoring. He looked completely alert, entirely energized, his posture commanding and immovable despite having had less than four hours of sleep.
Walking up beside him, carrying a pair of prop tactical stun batons, was Scarlett Johansson.
She was fully suited in the Black Widow uniform, her twin holsters strapped down, her hair styled into that fierce, wind-tousled red bob. She moved with an effortless, fluid grace, her boots crunching lightly over the pulverized concrete and safety glass on the road.
As she stopped beside Daniel, her shoulder lightly bumped against his armored bicep.
She didn't look at the crew. She didn't look at the camera cranes. She just tilted her head slightly, glancing up at him from beneath her eyelashes, a faint, razor-thin, intensely knowing smirk playing at the corner of her lips.
"Morning, Captain," Scarlett murmured, her voice carrying a quiet, purring warmth that was distinctly different from her usual on-set sarcasm.
Daniel glanced down at her, his expression calm, professional, and entirely unbothered, though a subtle, private glimmer of amusement danced in his eyes.
"Morning, Romanoff," Daniel replied in a low voice. "You're moving remarkably well for someone who complained about their call sheet five hours ago."
Scarlett let out a soft, breathy chuckle, casually adjusting the leather strap of her left thigh holster. "I have exceptional stamina when properly motivated. You should know that by now."
"I took extensive notes," Daniel countered smoothly, not missing a single beat.
Scarlett bit her lower lip slightly, her gaze lingering on his jawline before she looked forward toward the camera track. The electric tension between them hadn't dissipated after the night in the suite; if anything, it had solidified into an easy, grounded intimacy that made working together on the cold street feel almost completely effortless.
From across the intersection, the heavy, rhythmic thud of combat boots approached.
Chris Hemsworth walked into the clearing, wearing the full Asgardian armor, the red cape billowing slightly in the Lake Erie wind. He was holding Mjolnir in his right hand, swinging it in lazy, rhythmic circles, but he was walking with a slight, noticeable stiffness in his lower back.
He stopped near Daniel and Scarlett, looking at the decimated street, then looking at Daniel with a mixture of awe and profound physical exhaustion.
"Dan, mate," Hemsworth groaned, letting out a cloud of white breath into the freezing air. "I say this with all the love in my heart, but if you make me swing this bloody hammer more than three times this morning, my rotator cuff is going to detach and fly into Lake Erie. My forearms feel like they're filled with wet cement."
Scarlett laughed out loud, leaning against the hood of a dusty cruiser. "Oh, poor Thor. The God of Thunder has a sore arm. Should we call the makeup trailer to bring you a hot water bottle, Chris?"
Hemsworth gave her a wounded look. "I'd like to see you swing ten pounds of solid aircraft aluminum in thirty-degree weather, Scarlett! The vibrations alone rattle your teeth out!"
"I carry two nine-millimeter Glocks and my own dignity," Scarlett grinned, tapping her holsters. "Much more efficient."
"Alright, break it up, kids," Daniel interjected, his voice slipping seamlessly into director mode. "Save the banter for the take. Chris, your blocking is simple. You drop in from the camera left crane step, land beside the bus tire, and summon the lightning plate. Bob has a high-speed shutter on the main lens, so when the practical flash pots go off behind you, you have to hold the pose for three seconds before turning to face me."
"Got it," Hemsworth nodded, rolling his shoulder to pop the joint. "Hold the pose, look menacing, don't drop the hammer. I can do that."
"Scarlett," Daniel turned to her, pointing toward the shattered entrance of the bank. "You're coming out of the bank with the two surviving officers. You push them behind the barricade, reload on the move, and step into the pocket between Chris and me. We form the three-point wedge."
"Understood," Scarlett said, her eyes locking onto his with sharp, professional focus.
Tom jogged up from the basecamp tent, holding a megaphone and wearing a thermal balaclava pulled down around his neck.
"Dan, the police department has cleared the last intersection," Tom announced, his voice carrying over the low hum of the generator trucks. "The crowd behind the perimeter is pushing past six thousand people. Every office window along 9th Street is packed. The local news is flying a traffic helicopter three miles out trying to zoom in with a telephoto lens."
"Let them watch," Daniel said calmly. "Just make sure the helicopter doesn't drift into our airspace and ruin the audio track."
"Air traffic control has our flight restriction locked," Tom confirmed. "We're clear. Whenever you're ready, boss."
Daniel reached down, pulling his cowl up over his head, fastening the tactical chin strap with a sharp, mechanical click. He adjusted the shield on his forearm, feeling the familiar, heavy balance settle into his muscles.
He looked around the decimated intersection.
The burned-out cars. The smoking debris. The cold, gray midwestern sky. The hundreds of crew members standing poised behind the massive camera rigs.
This was it.
"First team to marks!" the First AD bellowed through the bullhorn, his voice echoing violently off the stone facades. "Quiet on the street! We are going for picture!"
The crowd of thousands behind the barricades down the block went dead, breathless silent.
"Roll sound!"
"Sound is rolling!"
"Cameras set!" Bob Elswit shouted from the dolly platform.
Daniel took his position in the center of the road, boots planted wide in the shattered glass. He felt the cold air in his lungs.
He didn't flinch.
"Action!" Daniel commanded.
The street erupted.
Practical spark charges detonated along the bank facade, sending showers of bright white fire cascading over the sidewalk. Scarlett burst through the shattered glass doors, her boots sliding through the debris, moving with lethal, terrifying speed, guiding two shell-shocked extras in police uniforms toward the cover of a tactical van.
Simultaneously, Hemsworth vaulted onto the hood of the crushed cruiser, raising Mjolnir high above his head as two massive, high-intensity xenon strobes flared behind him, simulating the blinding, concussive crack of Asgardian lightning.
Daniel vaulted forward, his boots hitting the pavement with a heavy, concussive thud, bringing the heavy shield up to cover Scarlett's flank as she slid into position beside him.
They locked into the three-point wedge.
Thor on the right, hammer raised, breathing heavy. Black Widow on the left, pistols up, eyes scanning the perimeter. Captain America in the center, shield held forward, immovable as a mountain.
The Technocrane arm swooped down from twenty feet in the air, the massive 35mm lens skimming inches above the shattered asphalt, curving in a sweeping, heroic semi-circle around the three heroes.
The dust swirled around their boots. The smoke from the burning taxi drifted through the frame.
Daniel held the position, his jaw locked, eyes burning with quiet, righteous fury, looking down the empty street at the imaginary army falling from the sky.
Beside him, Scarlett didn't blink. Her shoulder was pressed firmly against his side, her weapon steady, her presence anchoring the frame.
The camera completed its rotation, catching the scuffed silver star on the shield, the dirt smeared across Daniel's cheek, and the sheer, undeniable cinematic power of three mythologies colliding in the middle of an American street.
"Hold it..." Bob Elswit called from the monitor. "Hold... hold..."
"And cut!" Daniel yelled.
The silence held for a single, stunned second.
And then, Bob Elswit stepped out from behind the monitor, ripping his headset off, a massive, unvarnished grin breaking across his weathered face.
"Check the gate!" Bob shouted. "Gate is clear! That's a wrap on the Cleveland practical unit!"
The street exploded into a deafening roar.
The hundreds of crew members dropped their gear, cheering, whistling, and applauding. Down the block, the crowd of six thousand spectators behind the barricades went completely unhinged, their cheers echoing through the downtown corridor like the roar of a packed football stadium.
Hemsworth let out a massive, booming laugh, tossing the heavy aluminum hammer onto the hood of the cruiser and throwing his arms around Daniel and Scarlett, pulling them both into a massive, rib-cracking bear hug.
"We bloody did it!" Hemsworth shouted, his Australian accent booming over the noise. "We survived the midwest! Bloody hell!"
Scarlett laughed, wriggling out of the chokehold, her red hair wild, her face flushed with adrenaline and cold air. She looked at Daniel, her eyes sparkling with pure, triumphant delight.
"Not bad, Miller," Scarlett said, stepping close, her voice cutting through the cheering crew. "Not bad at all."
Daniel smiled, unstrapping the shield from his arm and handing it off to the waiting prop master. He pulled his cowl off, letting the freezing Lake Erie wind cool his sweat-damp hair.
He stood in the center of East 9th Street, looking at the smoke clearing over the buildings.
The street was decimated. The city was exhausted.
Cleveland was officially in the can.
Tomorrow, they would pack the trucks, board the private transports, and head back to the massive soundstages of the San Fernando Valley to finish the interior work. And halfway across the world, in the misty hills of New Zealand and the gothic workshops of Mexico, two visionary eccentrics were already sharpening their tools to build Middle-earth.
-----
A/N: Read ahead on Patreon: patreon.com/AmaanS