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Diana leans over the railing of the boat, watching the stars ripple away into the dark depths of the ocean. The world is beautiful, still, in a million tiny ways, every time she takes the care to look. She has been looking somewhat less frequently these days. It is an awareness that had hit her, surrounded by the laughing, smiling people on the cruise ship. She has allowed herself to become unmoored, distant, fixed by neither place nor time. Diana Prince has a job and an apartment and enough money to live comfortably without much trouble, but she barely qualifies as a real person all the same.
It is not a problem that she is certain that she knows how to fix. She still cares, she still has love to share for people as a whole – a generous and nonspecific love that doesn’t need to be tested by closeness or personal shortcomings. It might have been enough, if she hadn’t once felt more. If she hadn’t once been more. But being more again would hurt and Diana has learned that pain could last for a long time. Heartbreak can linger for far longer.
She has seen what this kind of distance could do – what it could allow one to justify doing. Or to look away from. She has never wanted that to be her. She had never wanted to look away before. Time has changed her, too.
A sliver of yellow artificial light cuts through her thoughts before it disappears with the click of a door latch. She hears heels tap along the boat's deck but doesn’t turn to look. It’s too late an hour for the sea to draw the crowd that it does in the daylight, but it still has its share of admirers. In fact, she thinks nothing of her near-silent companion until she watches something slip past the side of the boat to splash into the dark water below.
Diana’s heart pounds in her ears and she is frozen with indecision for a crucial moment, half turned toward the cabins, mouth open to call for help. It’s too far – help won’t arrive in time. With a movement so practiced it sleeps deep within her bones, she slides the lasso from where it’s concealed underneath her dress and lashes it to the railing of the boat. And then she is leaping overboard.
The chill of the water hits her like a slap. Even with the lasso providing a halo of light, it’s almost impossible to make out anything in the dark water. And then, floating a little ways below her but sinking quickly, she sees a waver of red and she moves. She doesn’t allow herself to think of anything but the task at hand as she wraps one arm around the still body and uses the other to bring the lasso taught and haul them both toward the surface. It’s hard work, even with her strength, but success is the only option. It’s the only one she’ll allow herself.
After an eternity, she rolls them both onto the security of the deck, gasping harshly at the air. They are alone, the rest of the boat carrying on with the evening, oblivious to the tragedy that almost took place. Coughing, she turns to the drowned body beside her – a young woman, dark red hair nearly covering her face – and rolls her quickly into the recovery position, soothing a hand over her back as she chokes on water. The woman’s breath eventually settles, but she makes no effort to move from her position, eyes closed. Diana similarly makes no attempt to take back her hand, maintaining silent vigil until she can be certain that her rescuee is in no further danger.
At last, the young woman cracks one eye open, gazing blearily at her. “Did you kiss me?” Her voice is barely more than a croak, sore-sounding and breathy.
“No.”
“Oh.” The woman blinks slowly. “I wish you had.”
Diana lets amusement and relief warm her smile. “Maybe later.”
Throughout the rest of the week, Diana keeps her eye out for red hair on the deck of the boat. It’s not an unpopular colour this season and it’s in fashion for women to wear their hair long and loose. She watches a red haired model exchange stories for drinks at the bar. She chats politely with a red haired college student on spring break at lunchtime. She listens to a group of men in polo shirts and expensive watches laugh about the red haired socialite who’s drunkenly losing at some manner of game.
She wonders if maybe everyone is as lonely as she is.
Diana keeps the hood of her cloak pulled over head despite the seasonally warm Parisian weather. She makes little effort to stick to the shadows, barely pays attention to where her feet lead her – she has the luxury of carelessness. Her fingers catch on the embroidery at the hem of her cloak, thumb rubbing at the thick thread absently.
It doesn’t have to mean anything if she doesn’t want it to.
She tells herself this even as she stalks the street at night, face hidden, thoughts filled with images of red capes and flight envy. The news in the past week has been illuminating. She is not so exceptional after all; it’s a strangely liberating thought. So, she walks and she hopes for…she doesn’t know. Something. An answer. A reason to throw the hood off and stand for something more than years of quiet seclusion. An end to mourning. A reason. She wonders how the Superman found his.
Paris is beautiful in the evening time, but she’s had a hundred years to learn its dark secrets – to find the entrances to the parts of the underground that tourists are not allowed to tread, to learn the history of its walls. Maybe it’s her dark thoughts that pull her there, but it’s a shout that slices through them and drives her forward. No one should be in the catacombs; she should have been alone.
There is a young woman sprinting down the tunnel, flyaway strands of hair plastered to her forehead, arm clutched at an angle that gives her gait an awkward looking slope. There are men following behind her, looking fresher, like they’ve barely started the chase – their faces are hidden behind masks. There are two of them. They’re both armed.
Diana barely takes a second to think before she’s slipping past the young woman and shoving one of the men into the nearest wall, hand splayed over his sternum. He grunts at the impact, chest flexing underneath the weight of her force. She feels a sting across her bicep – the other man’s billy club. He had hit her hard; if she had been anyone else, he would have broken her arm. She turns slightly, eyes narrowed, and catches sight of the young woman creeping carefully forward. Her teeth are gritted and when Diana looks, she can see a loose piece of the stonework gripped in her good hand.
Diana turns her attention back to the man at the wall. She places her hands on his face and, with exceptional care, knocks his head back against the wall. When she releases him, he slumps to the floor, where his fellow is already lying. Diana turns back to the young woman and slowly extends a hand. “Are you all right?”
The woman is breathing hard, hunched as defensively as her hurt arm will allow. She's clearly beautiful, even with the bruises and the exhausted puffiness of her face. Her eyes flash with something fierce and dangerous and for a moment, her fingers tighten around her makeshift weapon before she finally allows it to tumble free. “I’m fine,” she says. And then, with a strange lack of gratitude: “Thanks.”
“You’re injured.”
“I’m fine.”
“At least let me look at your arm,” Diana says, because how can she not. The woman stands staring at Diana’s still outstretched hand, jaw stubbornly set. “We don’t have to go far – I just want some light to get a better look.” The woman looks away for a moment and Diana fears that she intends to run, but then she reaches out with her free hand to grasp Diana’s own, a spasm of pain crossing her face. Diana smiles and leads her into the light.
The woman’s injuries look at once both worse and better in the street light as they sit together on the curb. Her arm is not broken as Diana had first feared, merely sorely putting weight on a dislocated shoulder. The woman is quiet as Diana sets it, offering only a pained hiss of breath; Diana comes to realize it’s not the first time she’s done this. Under the tatters of her shirt, Diana can see fresh-if-sloppy-looking stitches – hurried, rough, and self-imposed if she’s judging by the angle. The fabric of the shirt sticks stubbornly to the woman’s back and Diana fears forcing it further, doing more harm to the damage that she can’t see. Most alarming of all is the raw, bruised skin that encircles each of the woman’s wrists; it makes goosebumps alight on Diana’s own skin.
“You could probably see better,” the woman says, “if you removed that hood.”
Diana’s thumb pauses where it is mapping out the bones of the woman’s wrist. She extracts her hand delicately. “And you would be better off getting your injuries seen to by a doctor.”
The woman shrugs, but Diana can read her answer well enough in the stubborn set of her shoulders. They are at a stalemate and Diana will not try to break it by forcing her any more than the woman will reach over and try to yank her hood free. “I bet you’re pretty under there. You’ve got a nice jawline.” She punctuates the line with a winsome smile – clear habit, but no less charming for being so well-worn.
“Thank you,” Diana says, feeling her lips stretch into something that’s almost a smile. “Are you sure you won’t let me walk you home?”
The woman pauses, gaze lingering at the edge of the street, breath even. “No,” she finally says, “but I’d better leave all the same. It only gets harder to go back the longer I wait.” She stands and though it must be painful, her back is straight and she rolls the injured shoulder under the palm of her hand, testing it. “Thank you again,” she says, “for not looking away.”
“I couldn’t have.”
“You could.” The woman smiles, bitter and brittle. “People do all the time.”
“I couldn’t,” Diana says. This time she’s certain of the answer.
“Listen, I’ve tried every art related pick-up line I know, only to realize that most women at this party know way more about art than I do, so I’m going to be upfront about it. Hi, I’m Kate and you are very pretty.” Kate is, as it turns out, a well-built woman. Tall, though still shorter than the height granted by Diana’s heels. Unlike most other women at the party, she has foregone the customary handkerchief hemline and plunging scoop at the back, trading them in for an expensively tailored pantsuit. Diana accepts her offered hand, smiling as Kate brings her hand to her lips, punctuating the movement with an extravagant wink. One never entirely tires of being wooed by pretty young things.
“Diana,” she says. “Thank you, Kate. That’s very sweet of you to say.”
“No, thank you. Your lovely company is keeping me clear of my wicked stepmother for the evening.”
“Catherine is trying, Kate.” Bruce gracefully swoops in between them, handing Diana a refilled glass of champagne – ever the gentleman, when it suits him. Kate’s eye widen slightly, darting in between them.
“You know each other?” Bruce’s face remains smooth and unbothered, but Diana hides a smile behind her glass. She sounds so disappointed.
“Professionally,” Diana says. Bruce quirks an eyebrow.
“Ouch,” he says. “Cruel of you to shoot me down when I’m not even trying.”
Kate lightly smacks Bruce’s arm, face taking on a truly beguiling expression of mock hurt. “Why didn’t you introduce me?”
“You said all my friends were boring.”
“I never said that.” Kate turns back to Diana, taking on an air of grave sincerity. “I never said that.”
Diana smiles. “Bruce finds Bruce’s friends boring.”
Bruce’s lips lift slightly, a humbler, more honest expression than the charming grin he’d masked himself with all night. “Present company excepted.”
“Of course.”
Kate watches her, something thoughtful settling into her gaze. “No,” she says finally, “I don’t imagine I’d find you boring.”
Bruce asking for help is no small thing. It’s not that he doesn’t trust the team, doesn’t value them – Diana knows he does, never it doubts it for a second. Truth be told, they all have their problems with sharing burdens. Each of them has come by their solitude honestly and the League is still in its infancy; letting go is easier said than done. The difference with Bruce is that he wears his seclusion like a shroud, wrapping it around himself, making it a part of his personal identity. It frightens her sometimes and she can see the way that worry is weaving itself into the others’ faces, though not yet deeply enough. Clark, brows so often pinched in frustrated concern, is more observant than Bruce gives him credit for and seems determined to figure Bruce out before long, but even he doesn’t yet mark the way that Bruce’s age bows his shoulders when no one is looking or fully understand the way that he orbits his life – structurally and metaphorically – around a loss he hasn’t learned how to properly grieve.
Diana recognizes it easily enough. It’s a chilling mirror of what she might have become given enough time and loneliness. The years come much faster for Bruce. So, Diana worries and she fears because one day Bruce might break under the strain of it all and he might not let anyone stay close enough to save him.
It is this understanding that drives her footfalls as she runs, alone, into the underground bunker. Because just this once, Bruce has asked for their help, asked them to come to Gotham and stand with him against his foes, and failing him is too costly to be allowed. Scarecrow is not an unfamiliar name to any of them, though they’ve never had the dubious pleasure of a meeting – a regular in Batman’s rogues gallery, someone Bruce would ordinarily handle himself. That he had called for the full force of the League had boded ill even before he had explained the toxin filled zeppelins coasting over Gotham’s sky. Even before he had explained Diana’s current mission.
A partner. Leverage. Someone who, if cut down now, Bruce might never recover from the loss of. Diana could not allow it.
The lasso at her hip is a reassuring glow in the underground dark even as her eyes keep watch to the shadows. She has yet to meet anyone since breaking away from the melee at the compound’s entrance, but that doesn’t mean she is alone. As if in answer to the thought, the cavernous echo of a cry splits the air and finds that she is capable of running faster still. It feels strangely nostalgic. Once again, she is not capable of turning away.
The hall eventually ends at a dimly lit chamber and what she sees makes her breath thicken, catching strangely within her own throat. At the room’s center, barely illuminated, is the Batman. No, that’s not right. The figure is slighter with red splashed in a symbol across their chest, cascading down their back, coating one of their hands. The figure makes a low, wounded keening noise, clawing at their own face in frightened desperation. Diana feels herself moving before she has time to consider her aim, her own hands striking out to grab the figure’s wrists. She isn’t surprised when she’s met with a struggle.
“You’re safe now. I’m here to help.” Diana’s grip is inexorable and she does not have to move, but she does, allowing herself to sink to her knees even as she keeps her fingers clasped firmly around the wrists. “I’m a friend.”
The figure stills, though their chest still moves rapidly with panicked breathing. Diana can see one pale eye dart about frantically under where the mask has cracked. “Diana?” It doesn’t sound like the name is intended to be a question, but the voice wavers at the end, uncertainty warping its purpose. Diana is helpless but to answer it.
“Yes.”
A shuddering breath and the figure – Kate, Bruce’s partner, of course, it’s so obvious now – collapses forward. Diana catches her easily, wrapping one arm around her shaking back and smoothing her free hand over the mane of her hair. “You’re real. You’re here.”
“Yes.”
“Don’t go.”
Kate stinks of fear and stale sweat. Diana leans in close, presses her lips against the rapid pounding of her pulse within her neck, tries to convince her own heart that it’s not a race. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“She’s remarkably lucid.” Bruce is still in his suit, though he has removed the cowl at some point since their return to the cave. Sometimes even Diana is caught off guard by the uncanny contrast, but tonight all she can see is the dark bags under his eyes and the way he keeps rubbing at his face as if he can physically scrape the exhaustion off.
“She’s remarkable,” Diana says – both because it’s true and because it seems like the kindest response she can offer.
Bruce laughs, a small, shocky, gravel-rough sound, and falls back against one of the consoles. “She is.” He pauses, swiping a hand over his face again, letting it pull down the corners of his mouth. “I thought she was ready,” he says. The meaning between the words is plain: I thought I was ready.
“I have only met your cousin a handful of times, Bruce, but I don’t get the impression that she would have left that decision up to you.”
Bruce’s mouth twists, wry and slightly pained. “Your intuition is correct as always. She had a suit custom made before I even knew there was another vigilante in operation. Didn’t even ask me if she could use the damn symbol.”
“Hm. She sounds like she takes after someone I know.”
“Let’s hope not. Gotham deserves a better future than that.” Bruce straightens, moves to leave. Stops. He doesn’t look back at her when he speaks. “Thank you, Diana.”
“Anytime.”
Medical usually has a way of making people look smaller, Diana has found. It’s a purely psychological reaction, but it’s a remarkably consistent one. At least, it had been before Kate Kane. Kate Kane seems to only ever be consistent in being exceptional.
Dressed down to an undershirt and loose fitting pants, Kate somehow seems more substantial than she had when Diana had last seen her. Diana tries not to be intrusive in her observation but doesn’t miss the scars that Kate has collected on her body, one raised white line running where it might have been conspicuously visible through the ripped remains of a shirt. Kate doesn’t miss the way Diana’s attention catches on it. She smiles, slightly sheepish, but there’s a challenge in the hard set of her eyes.
“I told you you’d be pretty under that hood.”
“You did,” Diana says. “It seems that I am not the only one who could not look away.” Diana sees the way that Kate’s face softens, tension draining as an expected rebuke doesn’t come. The smile lightens, easing into something approaching charming and happy and hopeful.
“Was that a pick-up line? Because it’s kind of working.”
“Maybe later,” Diana says, letting a smile form on her own face. “For now, I believe we have much to talk about.”