Archive of Our Own

This evening in late February brought sleet to Gotham City.

The last two months were quiet.  They had been ever since the Battle of Founders Island shortly before Christmas, where forty-eight of the superheroes who had tasked themselves with defending the Earth gave their very lives doing just that.  

But it was the three-hundred-seventy-seven civilians who died that night that brought Gotham to a disturbed quietude.  The lives of almost four-hundred innocent bystanders were extinguished by the stony soldiers of an unhinged Greek Goddess, and since that snowy evening, the rank and file citizenry of Gotham joined the tourists in looking up at the sky on occasion.  Less in wide-eyed wonder, and more in fear of whatever divine or alien menace sought to make this dark and dreary city their playground.

The people of Gotham City had developed a thick skin over the years.  They could handle gas attacks by killer clowns. They could handle massacres by bird-themed crime lords.  They could even handle an ex-mayor coming back from the dead to hold the city hostage. 

But Greek Gods?  That pushed things too far.  The collective sanity of Gotham City was tough, to be sure, but it was not unbreakable.  And ever since the Battle of Founders Island, there was a feeling that somewhere out there, that large and unknowable thing that governed the whims and fancies of the universe entire had noticed this city, and marked it for something awful.

The sleet fell on Miagani Island, just across the bridge from Founders Island itself, which was still undergoing reconstruction.  Just off the expansive and well-attended theater district was the derelict and forgotten Ouspenskaya Dance Hall on Jezebel Street.   Construction had begun in 1944, in the waning days of World War II, and it opened at just the right moment in 1945, when all of the American soldiers who lived in Gotham City started coming home.

In 1957, it came under new management, and the Ouspenskaya was converted into a television studio where The Liberty Hop was shot.  Hosted by Gotham City DJ Graham O’Malley, producers hoped The Liberty Hop could compete with American Bandstand.

The Liberty Hop lasted just one season.

The Ouspenskaya stood empty until 1964, until it was bought by someone else, and reconverted back into a Dance Hall that hosted live acts.  It was converted into a disco in 1977, and by 1981, it was nothing at all. A cursory glance of the records at City Hall showed that, as of this writing, The Ouspenskaya Dance Hall technically did not have an owner.

But tonight, it at least had an inhabitant.

Above the shuttered glass doors of the Ouspenskaya’s entrance, there was a loudspeaker with a camera on top, clashing horribly with the faded art deco splendor of the edifice itself.

And on either side of the loudspeaker, done in spray paint, were two neon green question marks.

Across the street from the Ouspenskaya, atop an abandoned hardware store, two tall and slender figures perched beneath a blank, dilapidated billboard that shielded them both from the falling sleet.

And they both had cups of coffee in their hand.

Of the two, Catwoman was the one who always bought the coffee.  Batwoman tried one time, and the baristas at Jitters asked her who she was cosplaying.  But Catwoman? They all smiled when they saw Catwoman. Sometimes, they even asked for selfies with her.

They both took their coffee black, by the way.

Catwoman took a sip of hers and asked “Does Steph seem… I dunno… Off to you?”

Batwoman gave a noncommittal grunt.

The fact of the matter was, this past Christmas, Kate “Batwoman” Kane caught Stephanie “Spoiler” Brown making the goo-gooiest of goo-goo eyes at one Cassandra Cain, the former Orphan and current Batgirl.  Kate put two and two together, and it added up to “lesbian.”   Kate tried to comfort Stephanie in her time of need, and the two walked away with a mutual understanding that, two months later, had grown into something that looks an awful lot like friendship, if you squint at it hard enough.

Kate had deduced this.  Stephanie had not, in any conventional sense, come out to anyone, Selina “Catwoman” Wayne included.

Which meant that Kate had to play dumb with the question that Selina had just posed to her.

“Off how?” Batwoman asked.

Catwoman took another sip of coffee and grimaced in thought.

“She’s playing at a seven when she normally plays at a ten,” Catwoman said.  “Her jokes are coming about a half-beat too late. She spends more time looking at her shoes than she does than she does in front of her.”

“I haven’t noticed anything,” Batwoman said.

“You had to have noticed some thing,” Catwoman said.  “You two used to go at each other like dogs and c--”

Catwoman stopped, looked down at the skin-tight black and silver Catsuit she was wearing (optimised for the winter courtesy of Lucius Fox), and then looked back at Batwoman.

“Like dogs and other dogs,” Catwoman said.  “Now you’re downright chummy.”

“I wouldn’t go so far as to say ‘chummy,’” Batwoman said.  “We keep it light, talk about movies, shit like that.”

Which was a complete lie.  Kate wanted to impress upon Stephanie how good life could be once she was past her teenage years, which meant telling Steph everything about her relationship with Diana that she wanted to hear.

Diana, in this case, being Diana of Themyscira, Princess of the Amazons.  Batwoman had been dating Wonder Woman for the past two months.

As Batwoman took a sip of her coffee, Catwoman shrugged.

“Maybe it has something to do with Cass,” Catwoman said.

Batwoman raised her eyebrows behind her mask.  “Say what now?”

“Well, she’s Steph’s best friend,” Catwoman said, “and they haven’t been hanging out as much recently.  Not since Cass started dating Conner Kent.”

Batwoman nodded, trying to hide how relieved she was.  In an effort to guide Selina off the trail, Batwoman asked “How is Cass, by the way?  I don’t see as much of her as I want to.”

Catwoman sighed.  “Jesus, it’s like night and day.  Cass is just… smiley now that she’s going out with Superboy.  Creepy Kung-Fu Jesus is a normal teenage girl, now.  Minus the reading and speaking difficulties, I mean. And the ability to dodge bullets after they leave the chamber.”

“Good for her.”

“I mean, she’s still covering every inch of her body with clothing to hide all the scars she has from the neck down and everything… but her jeans are getting tighter and tighter.”

“Uh… huh?”

“She used to wear them, like, Aladdin baggy, but now it’s almost like they’re spray-painted on,” Catwoman said.  “Apparently, Conner Kent is an ass man. In which case I applaud him for both his culture and his scholarship.”

Batwoman nodded.  The lightness of Stephanie Brown’s mood was apparently inversely proportional to the tightness of her unrequited love’s jeans.

Yup, Batwoman thought.  That’ll do ‘er.

“So,” Catwoman said.  “How are you and the Amazon princess faring these days?”

Batwoman smiled. She started to say something, but words caught in her throat.

“Uh-oh,” Catwoman said.  “Trouble in Paradise? Or on Paradise Island, I should say?”

“No,” Batwoman said.  “Paradise is still Paradise.  It’s when my dumb ass goes elsewhere is where problems start.”

Batwoman finished off her coffee and sighed.  “I talked to Renee today.”

Catwoman blinked.  “Renee.”

“Yeah.”

“Your ex Renee.”

“Yeah.”

“Why… in God’s holy name… would you be that stupid?”

Batwoman sighed.  “Are you grilling me because you’re nervous about doing what we have to do right now?”

Catwoman frowned, and looked across the street at the Ouspenskaya.  At the two green question marks on either side of the loudspeaker.

“Jesus,” Catwoman said.  “I haven’t seen Eddie in years.”

Batwoman surveyed the troubled look on Catwoman’s face.  “I’ve never gone up against The Riddler. What’s he like?”

“Smart,” Catwoman said.

“I gathered that.”

“And bratty.  I refuse to team up with him back in the day, and a week later, a rumor starts up that I slept with Poison Ivy and Harley Quinn on a road trip we took to Arizona.”

Batwoman raised her eyes again.  “That’s a hell of a rumor.”

“It’s just a rumor,” Catwoman said.  “I’m not the road trip type.  I’m not the Arizona type.  And one touch from Poison Ivy would kill me.”

“And Harley?” Batwoman asked.

Catwoman rolled her eyes.  “I do not stick my tongue in crazy.”

Batwoman reckoned that she could easily bring up the fact that Selina was married to Batman and they don’t get much crazier, but opted to let it slide.

“Well,” Catwoman said.  “Let’s get this shitshow over with.”

Catwoman loosed her bullwhip from the narrow belt around her waist.  With a high, satisfying crack, it wrapped around the top of a light post, which she used to swing down.

Batwoman, for her part, just used her cape to glide down to the street, her red wig flowing behind her in soggy strands wet with rain.

Their boots crunched the gravel on the poorly maintained street until they made it across the way, in front of the Ouspenskaya, in view of the camera above the doorway.

A voice came from the loudspeaker.

“Finally,” a man’s voice said, “I was afraid I’d wait all night.  Now then, Dark Knight, do you…”

The voice stopped for a moment.  Batwoman folded her arms, until finally the voice from the loudspeaker asked:

“Who are you?”

“You know who I am, Eddie,” Catwoman said.

“Not you,” The Riddler said.  “You.”

Catwoman looked at Batwoman and grinned.

“I’m Batwoman,” she said.  “I saved the multiverse a couple of months ago.  It was in all the papers.”

The Riddler sighed over the loudspeaker.  “So in my city, we have a Batgirl, a Batwoman, and a Catwoman operating at the same time.  I can keep them all straight, but I fear for the garden variety steakheads who take up space in Gotham.  Where is Batman?”

“None of your business,” Catwoman said.

“Oh I believe it is,” said The Riddler.  “I don’t get out of bed just to match wits with any Janie-Come-Lately.  I’m in the Major Leagues.”

“You robbed the Gotham Museum and stole an Edvard Munch painting,” Catwoman said.  “And judging from all the unconscious security guards on site, and the fact that security cameras got footage of you, you did a piss poor job.  You wanna talk about what you won’t get out of bed for? Well, if you want Batman to get out of bed for you, you best aim higher.”

Catwoman took a step toward the loudspeaker.

“Now look,” Catwoman said.  “I bet it’s been an age since you used your vast intellect to embarrass someone so you can feel better about yourself.  Why not us? If you like, you can pretend we’re the girls from high school you lusted after but could never get. How ‘bout it?”

A long pause from the loudspeaker.

“Very well,” The Riddler finally said.  “Three riddles. Each escalating in difficulty.  Riddle… Me… This.”

Batwoman unfolded her arms and bobbed up and down on the balls of her feet slightly, trying to get herself as awake as she could.

“Savanarola has this burning desire in common with a wolf,” The Riddler said.  “What is it?”

Batwoman had only begun to ransack her brain when Catwoman spoke up.

“The Bonfire of the Vanities,” she said.

A brief moment of silence, before The Riddler flatly asked “What?”

“The Bonfire of the Vanities,” Catwoman said again.  “I answered your riddle, Eddie, now open the Goddamned door.”

The Riddler didn’t say anything.  He just audibly shuddered as the locks behind the boarded up glass doors of the Ouspenskaya unlocked with a Thunk.

Batwoman looked at Catwoman.  Catwoman looked back.

“The Bonfire of the Vanities,” Catwoman said.  “Girolamo Savanarola’s burning of objects that he thought led to sin in Florence in 1497 shares the same name with the Tom Wolfe novel from 1987.”

“How… on Earth… do you know that?”

“Catholic upbringing,” Catwoman said.  “And... just... an atrocious taste in literature when I was in my twenties.  So you talked to your ex today?”

“Yeah,” Batwoman said.

“Paint me a picture.  How did that go?”

THAT AFTERNOON

Kate texted Renee last night, asking if they could meet at that Italian cafe on the edge of Otisburg on Founders Island that they used to go to.

The ambience wasn’t what it used to be at Renata’s on Latimore Street.  The construction on Founders Island was loud, and it was a miracle that Renata’s was one of the few places that was still open.

Kate stood next to the entrance in a pair of jeans and a red sweater beneath a black peacoat, the late February wind trying and failing to make movement in the short scruff of red hair atop her head.

A few minutes later, a green late model Miata pulled up to the curb.

Apparently this was Renee Montoya’s Lyft, because she stepped out the back, her black hair in a tight bun.  Blue slacks and a white button-up beneath a blue blazer.

She must have just gotten off of work.  Was she still working nights?

Her brown eyes locked onto Kate’s green, and they just… beheld each other for a spell.

The Dance of the Ex-Girlfriends is a complicated one.  To look upon each other is not the simple survey of another person, no.  Every inch is real estate, rich with history and trivia. That elbow got sprained when they fell on the bathroom floor.  That forehead had a habit of sweating while cooking dinner. Those were the arms that held her. That was the place where, when kissed, elicited giggles and curled toes.

“Hey,” Renee said when they were done, a second or an eternity later.

Kate said “Hey” back.

Then silence, because of course.

Renee rubbed the dark skin of her forehead, and then looked at Kate soberly.

“I came here,” Renee said, “because I think you needed to hear this in person.  We’re…”

“Not getting back together,” Kate said.  “I know.”

Renee furrowed her brow.

“I’m seeing someone,” Kate said, not feeling a particular need to say more.  “You’re not in any… y’know… I’m not gonna beg you to take me back, or anything like that.”

Renee sized Kate up, her slight frown advertising skepticism.  Which caused Kate to rankle internally, as though the prospect of her finding someone was to be met with the same level of doubt as crop circles in some Nebraska farmer’s field.

“Do I know her?” Renee asked.

She’s Wonder Woman.

“Not personally,” Kate said, letting discretion be the better part of valor.  “I just thought I’d get that out of the way to put your mind at ease. I’m not here to be ugly or mean at you.”

“Then why am I here?” Renee asked.

Kate raised her eyebrows like she did back when she and Renee were dating.  When Kate’s headstrong nature led her to step in some shit.

“Dammit,” Renee said.  “You know what I mean. Did I leave some of my things at your place?  Because I can’t find my curling iron, and--”

“No,” Kate said.  “I, uh…”

She put her hands in the pockets of her peacoat.

“I owe you something,” Kate said.

“What do you owe me?”

Kate pointed to the direction of her building.  “Walk with me.”

“Kate, I--”

“Just… walk with me.”

Renee almost seemed to peer into Kate, attempting to suss ill intent.  Apparently finding none, Renee simply nodded in something that almost looked like defeat.

It was five blocks to the RH Kane building, outside of Otisburg and on the outskirts of Ryker Heights.  It was an old building that the Kane family owned, and in which Kate lived alone.

That five block walk was almost performed in silence beneath the slate gray sky.  Almost.

“How have you been?” Renee asked.

I got Swamp Thing to help me destroy the rock monsters that were threatening Founders Island a couple of months ago, Kate thought.  It was a trip.

“Oh… y’know… surviving.”

When they finally got to the front door of the RH Kane building, Kate opened it for Renee, and beckoned her inside.

Sheltered from the cold February wind, Kate pointed down the narrow brick hallway to the elevator.

“Go in there,” Kate said.  “Hit the button for the sub-basement.  At the end of a long hallway, there’s a door with a keypad.  Seventy-two, twenty-four, twelve. Can you remember that?”

“Seventy-two, twenty-four, twelve,” Renee said.  “What’s down there?”

“You’ll see.”

“And you’re not coming with me?”

Kate sighed.  “Let’s just say that what’s down there should come with as little… editorializing on my part as humanly possible.”

Renee tried to peer into her again.  Whatever she was looking for, she apparently didn’t find.

But Renee found it within herself to at least smirk.  “Okay,” she said. “Weirdo…”

Kate smiled at that.

Renee walked down the hallway, into the elevator, and went down.

And Kate waited.

Whipcracks, crunching metal, and sparks.

Catwoman was fighting Riddler-Bots.

They weren’t the most elegant things.  They were made from what could be scrounged up from a landfill, or ripped off from a construction site.  One of the five Riddler-Bots with which Catwoman was doing battle was partly made of a Stop sign and some chain-link fencing.

The interiors of the Ouspenskaya had been bisected by a thin wooden wall, in the middle of which was a locked door.

But on this side of that wall, the five Riddler-Bots (apparently well-constructed, despite their cheap materials) fought Catwoman…

...while Batwoman stood at the far wall, staring at eleven black tiles beneath the boarded-up window.  These black tiles had bright green letters on them.

O  O U  S W T  D N E J  R

The Riddler’s riddle had been:

“These letters spell just one word.  What is it?”

Batwoman took some time from trying to conjure the solution to this to curse The Riddler.

Because this wasn’t a riddle.

As Batwoman thought long and hard, Catwoman wrapped her whip around the throat of one of the Riddler-Bots (the head of the robot, in this case, being an old Xbox 360 console).  She yanked on the throat of the thing, and the head fell right off.

But the now headless Riddler-Bot kept coming.

The Riddler’s voice came from another loudspeaker above them.

“Seriously Catwoman?  Do you seriously think I’d put my robot’s CPU in the head?”

Catwoman got herself into a corner, and brandished her whip at all five advancing Riddler-Bots, creating space.

“How are things going over there?”

Batwoman felt sweat form beneath her mask.  “I’m trying!”

“Hey, it’s not like my life depends on it or anything!”

Catwoman rebounded off the wall and drove her right boot into the chest of the headless Riddler-Bot.

Batwoman stared… and stared… until it finally clicked.

“Jesus,” Batwoman said.  “I’m an idiot.”

Catwoman ducked the blow of a Riddler Bot whose chest was made from the inside of a tumble dryer.  “I’m not arguing that!”

Batwoman yanked all eleven letter tiles off the wall, dropped them on the floor, and started picking them up and putting them back in the slots on the wall.

The riddle had been:

“These letters spell just one word.  What is it?”

So Batwoman rearranged all eleven tiles so that they spelled:

J  U  S  T  O  N  E  W  O  R  D

With all eleven letters firmly in place, the Riddler-Bots powered down.  Catwoman coiled her whip and put it back on her waist.

From the loudspeaker above them, The Riddler let off a sound that came as close as it could to a harrumph!

“Fine,” The Riddler said.  “Stopped clocks are right twice a day, and even two ignorant pea-brains like yourselves can figure out a riddle!”

“Puzzle,” Batwoman said.

“What?”

“This was a puzzle, jagoff, not a riddle.   I gotta say, for all the stories I heard about you, I expected a bit more than this.”

A long silence, as heavy as an aircraft carrier, followed.

“When you die,” The Riddler said, “I will stand over the red paste that used to be your body, and laugh!”

A click as the loudspeaker cut out.

“Okay,” Batwoman said.  “I’m gonna go out on a limb, here.”

She pointed to the loudspeaker and asked: “Incel?”

Catwoman wiped some sweat from her brow.  “If it weren’t for Query and Echo, I’d say yes.

“Who are Query and Echo?”

“Two henchwomen he had,” Catwoman said.  “Fishnets, domino masks, bright green leotards.  They still team up from time to time.”

“And you think, what, they sleep with him?”

“Why else would they be caught dead with someone like Edward Nygma?” Catwoman asked.  “It’s not like they were MENSA members or--or Rhodes Scholars. They were a biker and a dominatrix before they teamed up with Eddie.”

“It could have been the money,” Batwoman said.  “Maybe that’s why they teamed up.”

“How successful do you think The Riddler is?”

“Good point.”

Catwoman sighed.  “Echo was fine as hell, though.  Asked her out back in the day, but she was straight.  Go figure.”

“Was Echo the biker or the dominatrix?”

“The biker.”

“I’d have figured you’d have gone for the other one.”

Catwoman looked down at what she was wearing, at the whip on her waist, and looked back up at Batwoman with one eyebrow raised.

“I have problems with authority.  Both the giving and receiving parts of it.”

“Objection noted,” Batwoman said.

They both looked at the door leading to the other half of the Ouspenskaya, and presumably the next section of The Riddler’s game.

”So what did your ex say?” Catwoman asked.

Batwoman looked at her.  She wished she could do that eyebrow thing that Selina did.  But even if she could, her mask covered her eyebrows anyway.

“You do know The Riddler can hear us, right?”

“Which is why I didn’t use her name,” Catwoman said.  “What did she say?”

“Don’t we have a final riddle--puzzle, whatever--to get past?”

“No one’s in danger, Eddie can wait, and you left me on a cliffhanger,” Catwoman said.  “What. Did. She. Say?”

THAT AFTERNOON

Renee was down there for twenty minutes.  Down there where Kate’s Batwoman stuff was.  The suits, the gadgets, the motorcycle, all of it.

And for that twenty minutes, Kate paced back and forth along the entry hall of the RH Kane building, wondering if her breathing had always been this shallow.  If her heart rate had always been this elevated.

And at the end of that twenty minutes, she heard the elevator move within the shaft.  A few seconds after that, the elevator dinged, the door opened, and there was Renee.

Her dark eyes were staring at her shoes.  Her brown skin had gone a bit paler, though that could have been the light.

Kate fought off the urge to say “Well?”   For all of the shit that Renee had gone through while Kate kept her secret identity, she had earned both the first and the last word on this one.

Finally, Renee looked at Kate with unreadable eyes.

“I need a drink,” Renee said.

Kate fought off the urge to say something else, chiefly that it was two o’clock in the afternoon, but that passed as well.

She got into the elevator with Renee, and pressed the button for her floor.

The elevator ride was bereft of conversation, save for one word apiece.

“Batwoman?” Renee asked.

“Yeah.”

And that was that.

The elevator door opened, and they walked down the narrow hallway to Kate’s apartment, the sole one on this floor, or in the building for that matter.

They reached the apartment.  Kate opened the door…

...and immediately knew this whole thing was a bad idea.

In the ensuing months since the Battle of Founders Island, Garth of Shayeris, Ambassador to the United Nations for Atlantis, current superhero “Tempest,” former superhero “Aqualad,” and founding member of the Teen Titans, filed a grievance against the island city-state of Themyscira.

It was the official view of the Kingdom of Atlantis that The Battle of Founders Island was, indeed, the fault of Themyscira, as two of the Olympian deities, Harmonia and Nemesis, were responsible.  Atlantis needed some redress, after all, as the Battle of Founders Island had claimed the life of King Orin, known to surface-dwellers as both Arthur Curry, and “Aquaman.”

But it was the view of the United Nations that Themyscira was not at fault for the Battle of Founders Island.  The Gods and Goddesses of the Olympian Pantheon were not the recognized governing body of Themyscira. Queen Hippolyta was, and she gave no order that resulted in any loss of life, be it in Gotham City or anywhere else.

Garth of Shayeris was not dissuaded from his stance, however, and threatened Atlantis’ withdrawal from the United Nations unless some form of redress was made.

And this redress came in the form of the resignation of Princess Diana of Themyscira from her post as Themyscira’s UN Ambassador.

Which not only meant that Wonder Woman had lost her lodgings at the Themysciran embassy in New York City, but that she also had a bit more free time on her hands.

Free time that was spent mostly lounging around her girlfriend’s Gotham City apartment.

For as Kate opened the door to her apartment, and saw that the television was both on, and tuned to an old episode of one of the Star Trek shows, she knew that Diana was home.

“Good afternoon, Kate,” Diana said, as she sat up on the couch.  I hope your d--”

Diana stopped.

She stopped because she saw Renee.

And a small voice got on a very large microphone in the empty amphitheater of Kate Kane’s mind.

Oh, shit…

“Oh,” Diana said.  “Hello. I didn’t know anyone was coming over.”

Diana rose from the couch.  She was wearing a pair of jeans, as well as Kate’s old baggy Ramones t-shirt.

Or rather, the Ramones t-shirt was baggy on Kate.

Diana was six-two in her bare feet, broadly and muscularly built, and that black Ramones t-shirt, faded and softened from repeated washings over the span of ten years, clung for dear life to every bulging, grabbable, squeezable, lickable, kissable, massageable, touchable, caressable square centimeter of Diana’s upper torso.

Kate had told Renee that she was seeing someone.

But this was rubbing it in.

Diana extended her hand to Renee.  “I’m Diana,” she said. “Pleased to meet you.”

Renee took Diana’s hand, with a half nod.  “Hi, Diana. I’m Renee.”

Kate knew what that half-nod meant.  She was doing social math. She was realizing that this wasn’t just any tall, muscular woman named Diana.  This was friggin’ Wonder Woman.

Diana tilted her head as she shook Renee’s hand.  “Ah,” she said. “Welcome.”

And Kate knew what that head-tilt meant.  This wasn’t just any Renee. This was Kate’s ex.

The handshake broke, and Renee put her hands inside the pockets of her jacket.

“Uhh… Hate to cut and run,” Renee said, “but I, uh… I really need to go.”

“I see.”

“It was nice meeting you.”

“You as well.”

Renee gave that half nod again, turned right around, and went back out through the apartment door.

“I’ll see her out,” Kate said, a little too loud.  “I’ll be right back.”

Kate walked, a little too fast, out of the apartment and into the hallway.

Renee was standing with her hand on the white wall, above the metal slot where the fire extinguisher used to be.  She took a deep breath, and let it out.

Kate stayed silent, trying to figure out what to do with her hands.

“Wonder Woman,” Renee said.

“Yes,” said Kate.

“You’re Batwoman, and you’re dating Wonder Woman.”

“Yes.”

“You’re a superhero… and you’re dating all three entries on my list.”

A memory came back to Kate.  Of the two of them, in their underwear, on the couch in Renee’s apartment.  Playing footsie on the ottoman, and watching a Friends rerun.

It was the one where they all made a list of the famous people they could take a shot at, and their significant others couldn’t get mad.

So Kate and Renee had decided to make their own lists.

Kate for her part, picked Tracee Ellis Ross, Becky Lynch, and Chrissie Hynde.

But Renee, scamp that she was, picked Wonder Woman, Wonder Woman, and Wonder Woman.

Kate, that memory fresh in her mind, tried to think of something reassuring to say.  Her mouth opened before she had a firm grip on anything, and all that came out was:

“Uhhhhh…”

Renee straightened up, and looked at Kate, her face passive, but her eyes alight.

Kate had seen Renee mad.  She had seen her throw stuff and swear.  But when Renee Montoya truly went nuclear, she got quiet.

Quiet like she was right now.

“Why did you do this, Kate?” Renee asked.  “Why did you tell me?”

“You left me because I was private,” Kate said.  “Secretive. Stayed out all night, and didn’t tell you where I was.  Now you know. I owe you that.”

Renee closed her eyes and let out her breath through her nose in a hiss.

“For damn near a year and a half,” Kate said, “I carried a letter in my utility belt addressed to you.  You were supposed to get it if I died. But--”

“Shut up,” Renee said softly.  “Stop talking.”

And Kate did so.

Renee rubbed her face, loosening a stray wisp of black hair from her hairdo.

“A problem I have,” Renee said, “not the biggest problem, but a problem, is that I’m gonna go home after this.  Maggie’s gonna see that I’m pissed and she’s gonna ask me what’s wrong, and… and I can’t tell her. I have to keep a secret from the one person I don’t want to keep secrets from.  You did that to me.”

Kate looked down at the floor.  Maggie Sawyer was the woman Renee was seeing right now, a fellow cop in the GCPD.

“But the biggest problem I have,” Renee said, “the biggest one is this…”

Renee took a step toward Kate, and Kate dared to meet her fiery eyes.

“This is a world with superheroes,” Renee said.  “And I knew… I just knew… that somewhere out there, these people had significant others who weren’t in on it.  Who didn’t know the people they loved where putting on stupid costumes and fighting bad guys in the street, and I thought… I thought they were the dumbest fucking people on Earth.”

Renee took another step forward.  They were just a foot apart, now.

“I’m a cop, Kate.  I’m a detective. I’m the one who finds clues and puts the pieces together, but I’m apparently too dumb to see that my ex was a superhero.  Now that? That I’m having a hard time forgiving.”

Kate looked back down at the floor again.  Shame felt like an itchy suit.

“So what changed?” Renee asked.  “You went from a letter to be delivered to me if you died, to just telling me in person.  How did you get from point A to point B on that one?”

“I owed you,” Kate said.  “I put you through a lot, and--”

“BULL… SHIT!” Renee said, the volume echoing off the confining walls of the hallway.

Now Renee looked down, clenching and unclenching her fists as her anger radiated off of her.

“I love you, Kate.  There will always be a part of me that loves you, just like I know there will always be a part of you that loves me.  But I know you, Kate. Inside and out.”

Renee finally looked at Kate again.

“This is about you,” Renee said.  “Always has been, and always will be.  You wanted to unburden your conscience so you could move on.”

“That’s not--”

“So you could move on,” Renee said.  “Not me. I already moved on.  I was fine until today. But that wasn’t good enough for you, was it?  You wanted to unburden your conscience so you could screw Wonder Woman and actually feel like you deserved to.  Doesn’t matter who else gets inhaled into your drama, because you’re the only one that matters in any equation you find yourself in.”

Kate blinked.  She could feel sweat forming on her forehead.

“Wonder Woman is a superhero who can bend steel and fight Gods,” Renee said.  “Never thought the day would come when I felt sorry for her, but here we are.”

Renee backed up, still keeping her eyes on Kate.

“You shouldn’t have told me, Kate,” Renee said.  “You really shouldn’t have told me.”

And with that, Renee Montoya, turned around and left.

Kate stood there in that hallway for an epoch marked by its coldness and its lonely feel.

Until finally, Kate walked back into her apartment.

Diana was still standing where she was, arms folded on her chest, a look of concern in her glacial blue eyes.

“I feel as though I have made things worse,” Diana said.

“No,” said Kate.  “How could you ever do that?”

“You would be surprised.”

Kate sighed, and after a moment, she said:

“I think I suck.”

“At what?”

“The whole… y’know... being a person thing?”

Diana slowly blinked, and walked to Kate, her bare feet thickly padding on the hardwood floor.

She wrapped Kate in a snug, nearly suffocating hug that Kate felt she didn’t really deserve.

“Jesus,” Catwoman said.  “That’s rough.”

“Yeah,” said Batwoman.  “But this might be rougher.”

The riddle was scrawled on the wall in neon green paint.

Poor people have it, rich people don’t, and if you eat it, you die.

And beneath it was a box built into the wall.  The object of the riddle was to place the solution into the box and press the red button above it.

Neither could see the floor for all the loose, unassorted objects that littered it.  Among their number, presumably, was the object that provided the solution to the riddle.

And above them, taking up the length of the ceiling, was a steel plate with embedded spikes that was slowly coming down to the floor.

Failure to answer the riddle would result in their slow, mashy, stabby death.

Getting the answer wrong by putting the wrong object into the box on the wall, however, would result in their immediate mashy, stabby death, as the plate would just drop.

As Catwoman and Batwoman sifted through the junk on the floor, the spiked plate was a mere four feet above them.

“The clock is ticking, ladies,” The Riddler said over the loudspeaker.  “After that, skewered Bat and Cat are on the menu.”

Batwoman tossed aside a rubber chicken.  “How the hell does this guy get the time or the materials to build all this shit?”

“Well,” Catwoman said, throwing an empty beer can over her shoulder, “back in the day he had Julia Duffy build all of his traps for him.”

“That name sounds familiar.”

“Yeah, she has a show on HGTV.”

“Oh, that’s right.”

“We called her The Carpenter back then,” Catwoman said.  “And again, in lieu of money that Eddie doesn’t have, I’m advancing the theory of sexual favors.”

“Please,” Batwoman said.  “The concept that The Riddler is the player to end all players is the goofiest thing I’ve heard in I don’t know how long.  His dick could have the cure to cancer inside, and I still wouldn’t buy that any beautiful woman would be caught dead with him.”

Catwoman groaned.

“You got the Avatar of the Green to destroy a green stone and put an end to an army of rock monsters sent to destroy the world by a crazy Goddess,” Catwoman said, “and that is the goofiest thing you’ve heard?”

“Yes,” Batwoman said.  “Yes it is.

Batwoman peered down at the blanket of trash at their feet.

“Wow,” Batwoman said.

“What?”

“Is that… It’s an Atari 2600!   If we live, I’m taking that with me.  Mine broke.”

Catwoman stood up straight, both brows down, and mouth open.

“Huh…” she said.

“What?”

Catwoman marched as quickly as she could, sidestepping the more cumbersome bits of garbage, towards the box on the wall with the button above it.  She reached out.

“Selina!” Batwoman cried out in terror.  “What are you…”

Catwoman pressed the button.

Batwoman closed her eyes.

But instead of the instant death that Batwoman was expecting, there was the screech of the giant spiked plate grinding to a halt, before moving back up into the ceiling.

Batwoman looked at Catwoman, who was smiling.

“Poor people have it,” Catwoman said, “rich people don’t, and if you eat it, you die… It’s nothing.”

“Ohhhhhhh,” Batwoman said.  “So if we just pressed the button as soon as we got in here, we’d have had this done before it even started.”

“Pretty much.”

Batwoman nodded, not wanting to reveal how silly she felt.

Then she looked to her left.  At the door on the other side of the room.

It said “Stage Manager,” but that was covered up by a neon green question mark.

Behind that door lay the lair of The Riddler.

“Any advice?” Batwoman asked.

“Usually,” Catwoman said, “at about this time, there’d be a whole host of ‘Curse yous’ and ‘You cheated’ coming out of his mouth…. But he’s not saying anything right now.  Eddie is furious.”

“Watch my guard?” Batwoman asked.

“And I mean it, too,” Catwoman said.  “An angry Riddler is an unpredictable Riddler.”

“Got it.”

Batwoman and Catwoman walked to the door, and opened it.

It was bigger than a manager’s office should be, leading Batwoman to believe it was converted from something else.  Both walls on the side were bedecked with shelves, all of them overflowing with tools and objects in various states of assembly or repair, and nearly all of them smeared with neon green paint.

And near the back, beneath Edvard Munch’s painting The Sick Child, which he had stolen and hung crookedly on the wall, was The Riddler himself, with his back to them.

His suit jacket and pants were neon green, as well as the bowler hat atop his head.  Every article of clothing was festooned with black question marks.

The Riddler was… mumbling to himself.  From what Batwoman could hear, it didn’t sound like it was in English.

And it was angry.

“It’s been fun,” Catwoman said.  “But we got past your riddles. Give us the painting, or I’m gonna have to come over there--”

The Riddler whipped around.

And he was holding an AK-47, with mania in the eyes behind his green-framed glasses.

“SHIT!” Catwoman yelled.

She hit the deck.  Batwoman produced some red Batarangs from her utility belt.  But it was too late.

The Riddler pulled the trigger.

Or at least… he tried to.

He pulled and pulled on the trigger with strain in his eyes, until there was a muffled thunk!

The Riddler had not successfully secured the banana clip to the underside of the rifler, and the gun jammed, sending the clip clattering harmlessly to the floor.

Batwoman reared back, ready to fling her Batarangs, but she stopped.

She stopped because she heard something that she genuinely did not expect to hear.

It was a low moan, like a door with rusty hinges slowly opening.

And as Edward Nygma lowered his head, revealing to her the dome of his bowler hat, Batwoman knew what it was.

The Riddler was crying.

Batwoman lowered her Batarangs as Catwoman made it back to her feet.  The looks of confusion on both their faces were nearly identical.

“Does he… usually do this?” Batwoman asked.

“No,” said Catwoman.

“I mean… I mean I’d beat the shit out of him, but I’d feel really bad about it.”

Catwoman tilted her head as The Riddler sniffled, and wiped his eyes.

“Eddie?” Catwoman asked.  “You, uh… You okay?”

Outside the Ouspenskaya, the sleet had tapered off.

Batwoman and Catwoman sat on the curb with The Riddler between them.

Edward Nygma, his bowler hat on his lap, rubbed his red, raw eyes and began to speak.

“Let’s go down the list, shall we?” The Riddler asked.  “Let’s do the rollcall.”

He held up a finger.

“Joker?  Dead. Has been for five years.”

He held up two more fingers.

“Two-Face, Clayface, and Victor Zsasz were murdered by The Undying… Or Zatanna while she was being controlled by The Undying.  I’m not sure how you count that.”

“We don’t,” Catwoman said.

The Riddler dropped his hand, not even bothering to count anymore.

“Scarecrow’s body was found on the construction site of that new GCPD monstrosity they’re constructing on this island.  Shot in the chest… and missing a toe, for some strange reason.”

Batwoman winced inwardly.  She had it on good authority that Doctor Jonathan Crane had been murdered by a Fifth Dimensional recreation of a slain Robin named Jason Todd, who had been working for Harmonia and Nemesis in a plot to destroy the multiverse.

Life was weird.

“Bane moved back to Santa Prisca,” The Riddler said.  “Turns out overthrowing a Central American dictator while beating a chemical addiction takes years.  Talia al Ghul has gone dark for the past couple of years. Ra’s al Ghul’s gone dark nearly as long, presumably to look for her.  The Undying doesn’t have a power base anymore. He’s just a crazy old man in Arkham. And as for Killer Croc? He disappeared when Batman took his three year hiatus.  Went into the sewers, and never came back out. Which leads me to believe that he either swam out to sea… or he found something bigger, and it ate him.”

The Riddler huffed.  “Harley Quinn is apparently a white hat now.  And because she’s a white hat, and is plucking Pamela Isley’s petals regularly in Arkham, that means Poison Ivy is effectively neutralized.  She’s not going to hurt anyone if Harley’s there to make sad eyes at her if she does.”

He turned to Catwoman.  “And then there’s you.”

Catwoman rolled her eyes.  “Yeah, yeah.”

“The point I’m trying to make,” The Riddler said, “is that this city used to have names.  If it weren’t for the big names who got in early and fought Batman, then this city would only be famous for a man who dresses like a flying rodent, and our truly abysmal baseball team.  Of the names?   The big ones?  The ones who did it best?  The Penguin and I are the only ones that are left.”

Batwoman blinked.  “So you’re saying Gotham City lacks bad guys to fight?”

“I didn’t say that,” The Riddler said.  “I’m saying that an F-Lister is going to try to make themselves a kingpin, and they’re going to take it too far into a dark place.”

The Riddler rubbed his face again.

“Look at me,” he said.  “All I want to do is prove my intellectual superiority to the poorly-ascended cavepeople that live in this city.  Do you know what that is?”

“Something that requires years of therapy?” Catwoman asked.

“That,” The Riddler said, “is purity.   My motives are lacking in both blemish and flaw.  Deep down… I really don’t want to hurt anyone.”

Batwoman blinked again, this time in disbelief.

“Over two-hundred people have died because of the deathtrap bullshit shit you’ve pulled.”

“Well that’s a reductive way to think about it,” The Riddler said.  “I prefer to think of it as two-hundred people who would still be alive if they were just a hair smarter.”

“So… what?” Catwoman asked.  “You steal a painting, take out a couple of superheroes, and that makes you the kingpin?”

“I had to try,” The Riddler said.  “There are worse things than me being the biggest villain in Gotham.  Professor Pyg, for example. Or the Mad Hatter. They’re disorganized, but even at The Joker’s height, those two gave him a run for their money in The Crazy Bowl.”

“What about Hush?” Catwoman asked.

“A single target psycho,” The Riddler said.  “He only wants to kill your husband.”

“The Victim Syndicate?” Batwoman asked.

“They haven’t been around for a while.  A shame. I really liked them.”

“Killer Moth?” asked Catwoman.

“I’m sorry,” The Riddler said.  “I thought we were being serious.”

“Mister Freeze,” said Batwoman.  “Villain-wise? Name-wise? It’s you, The Penguin, and Mister Freeze.”

“Oh,” The Riddler said.  “You haven’t heard.”

“Heard what?” Batwoman asked.

“He cured MacGregor Syndrome.”

Catwoman’s eyes went wide.  “He did?”

“Yes,” The Riddler said.  “It took him well over a decade, but he finally did it.”

“So his wife’s gonna be up and running around?”

“The clinical trials will still be going for a few months,” The Riddler said, “but all signs point to yes.  And with his wife cured, I don’t think he’ll be one for nefarious exploits of the criminal variety.”

“Huh,” Catwoman said.  “Good for Victor.”

The Riddler slumped some more, and Batwoman knew that Selina had just made it worse.

“How’s legitimacy?” The Riddler asked.  “I haven’t been in so long.”

“Who says I’m legit?” Catwoman asked.

“I do,” said The Riddler.  “You’re married to Bruce Wayne.  You have billions of dollars at your disposal.  You never have to steal anything ever again.”

“Not if the billions of dollars is the con,” said Catwoman.

The Riddler looked at her, perking up.

“I don’t think you understand how persuasive I can be, Eddie.  He didn’t sign a pre-nup. You know why?”

“Why?”

“Because I didn’t want him to,” Catwoman said.  “All I have to do is call some of my old contacts, manufacture some evidence of infidelity that’ll hold up in court, and clean Bruce Wayne out in the divorce proceedings.  I walk away with a few billion. Biggest heist in history.”

“And then what?” The Riddler asked.

“And then,” Catwoman said, “I’m going after Batman again.  You know how some people are made for each other?”

“But… he’s incorruptible!”

“Honey,” Catwoman said, “no one’s billions of dollars incorruptible.”

Batwoman had to stifle a giggle as The Riddler, riding the wave of a fresh onslaught of tears, cried out “THAT’S SO ROMANTIC!”

He wrapped his arms around Catwoman and sobbed into her shoulder until the cops came.

As two uniformed officers led him to the squad car (and while a third officer went inside the Ouspenskaya to get the Munch painting that he had stolen), The Riddler turned his head and called to Batwoman and Catwoman.

“You’re going to wish it was me,” he said.  “You’re going to wish I was the one at the top of all this.  The next guy won’t be so nice.”

Diana got back to the apartment while Kate was in the shower.  She came out of the bathroom in a white cotton bathrobe to see that Diana’s Wonder Woman armor and boots were were placed on the chair next to the closet in the bedroom.  Her sword and shield leaned on the wall next to it. 

Diana called out to her from the living room.

“What on Earth is this?”

Kate smiled, as she knew exactly what she was talking about.

“It’s an Atari 2600.”

“A what?”

“A, uh… A video game console.”

“Oh.”

“The Riddler gave it to me.  Technically.”

“The Riddler?”

“Technically.”

Kate got into a pair of black underwear and a red and black plaid flannel shirt with gray snap buttons, before plopping down on the right side of the queen sized bed.  She stretched out as Diana came in.

The Princess of the Amazons was wearing a gray camisole that gently hugged her upper body and (in the most truly shocking bit of wardrobe that Kate had seen on her) a pair of canary yellow basketball shorts that must have come from the early eighties, because the last time she saw shorts that short for athletic purposes, they were on Larry Bird.

Not that Kate was complaining about the snugness and briefness of this article clothing on Diana, mind you.  They didn’t leave much to the imagination, but what little there was left to imagine was the basis of some of Kate Kane’s most fulfilling thinking.

Diana walked toward the bed, and knelt on the mattress, causing the damn thing to slightly groan under the brawn of her.  She knelt over Kate, and their lips met.

It was a kiss that was equal parts soft and hungry that would have been paradoxical in anyone else, but fit Diana of Themyscira to a tee.  Kate Kane knew that there was a passionate and lewd way for a woman to peck her on the cheek. Kate Kane knew that there was a sweet and tender way for a woman to jam her tongue into her mouth.  Kate Kane knew these to be facts, for over the course of the past two months, Diana had done them both.

The kiss ended, too soon as always, and Diana stared down at Kate, her long black hair falling, almost tickling Kate’s nose.

“How was your day?” Kate asked.

“I portaled to the Watchtower to check in.  Other than that, there is not much to say.”

“How are things up there?”

“That depends,” Diana said.  “Would you like to hear how the Justice League is striving to make the world a safer, better place?  Or would you like to hear idle gossip?”

“The second one, please.”

Diana got out of her kneeling position and lay next to Kate on the bed, above the covers.

“Let’s see,” Diana said.  “The courtship of Ryan Choi and Dinah Lance continues apace.”

“The Atom and Black Canary.”

Diana turned her head on the pillow to look at Kate.  “I take it from your tone that you have an opinion on this matter.”

“Dinah just seems… I dunno… a little on the forceful and volatile side to be seeing someone as dweeby as Ryan.  I mean, her ex-boyfriend is Oliver Queen.”

“Ryan Choi is a nice man,” Diana said.

“He is,” Kate said.  “What is it about Dinah Lance that says ‘Nice guys apply here?’”

“I asked her as much.”

“Did you, now?”

“Yes,” Diana said.  “Do you know what she said?”

“Sure.”

“She said that Ryan is simply happy to see her,” Diana said.  “That the first time he sees her in a given day, he has this look upon his face as though his life has gotten better by her mere presence.”

Kate thought that was just adorable.  She felt a smirk growing on her face, her brow lifting as though it was tied to helium balloons.

Diana looked over at Kate again, briefly examined her face, and said “Yes, something like that.”

Kate actually blushed.   For someone who hadn’t been on a date for almost thirty years before they started going out, Wonder Woman was smooth.

“But even this is not the oddest news of a romantic nature I stumbled across today,” Diana said.  “For that, we must look elsewhere in the Birds of Prey.”

“What do you mean?” Kate asked.

“Picture, if you will, a potential romance between Helena Bertinelli… and Eel O’Brian.”

Kate got on her right elbow to look over at Diana.

“Huntress and Plastic Man?”

Diana nodded.

“Seriously?”

Diana nodded yet again.

Kate flopped back down on the bed.  “Wow,” she said. “I… I don’t even remember seeing those two in the same place at the same time before.”

“I’d ask them what they see in each other,” Diana said, “but some things scare even me.”

“Yeah, I--I know Tim Drake has, like, a Plastic Man phobia , but…”

Kate just trailed off.

Thus passed a moment of silence, bound in confusion and no small amount of terror.

“Oh,” Diana said.  “And Lois Lane is having twins.”

Kate didn’t even bother pondering this.  This just bypassed her higher functions, and she just started laughing.

“Oh…” Kate said.  “Oh, wow. I… I just imagined Lois and Clark trying to change the diapers of the two strongest infants on Earth.”

And now Diana started laughing.

“How would the diaper situation even work?” Kate asked.  “Anything those kids are gonna produce is gonna go right through them.  Jesus, they’d have to be lined in lead!”

Another fresh wave of laughter from both of them.  Once it died down, Diana spoke again.

“Before I ask what I wish to ask,” Diana said, “I want you to know that this question is in no way leading or cloaked in any kind of expectation.  It’s just a matter of simple curiosity.”

“Okay,” said Kate.  “Shoot.”

“Have you ever given any thought to having children?”

“I don’t have to give any thought to having children,” Kate said.  “Apparently Selina and I are sharing custody of Stephanie Brown.”

Diana smiled.  She turned over on her side to look at Kate.

“I have noticed that the two of you have been spending more time together.”

“That we have,” said Kate.

“Might I inquire what changed between the two of you in the last couple of months?”

“I think it’s better if she tells you herself.”

The most tempted Kate had ever been to out someone without their consent was the prospect of telling Diana that Steph was into girls.  As she knew that Diana would be an implacable wall of unfailing and unconditional love and support that Kate knew Stephanie Brown desperately needed right about now.

That, however, was not how the game was played, and Kate held her tongue. 

“But she trusts you?” Diana asked.  “She sees you as a friend?”

“Sure,” Kate said, wondering how loaded this question was.

“Then she sees at least a tenth of what I see.”

Smooooooooth.

But seeing even this sliver of naked adoration knocked Kate back to memories of this afternoon, and she felt her own expression darken.

“Is something wrong?” Diana asked.

After a few seconds, Kate said “I’m… not sure I deserve you.  I, uh… I feel like I’m having impostor syndrome in my own bed.”

Diana’s face fell slightly.

“I take it that this is about this afternoon?” Diana asked.  “About Renee?”

Kate nodded.

“What happened?” Diana asked.

And Kate told her everything.

Diana was quiet a moment, before she said “I’ve a question, if I may.”

“Okay,” Kate said.

“I fear that I know little of Renee,” Diana said, “but I must ask… if she found out you were Batwoman another way, in a way that had nothing to do with you… do you think she would still be upset?”

Kate thought about this for a moment, before she said “Yeah.  She would.”

“So she is mad that you told her, and she would hypothetically be mad if you had not.  I hardly see a way to win in this situation.”

“Is it about winning at all?” Kate asked.

“That depends,” said Diana.  “Why did you tell her?”

“Because I owed her.”

“And why does she think you told her?”

“Because I thought that I wouldn’t deserve you unless I made up for the crummy way I treated her.”

“Kate,” Diana said, “neither of those reasons seem so awful to me.”

Kate looked at her.

“Either way, it is a matter of conscience,” Diana said.  “Your conscience.  And that matters a great deal.  A fundamental human requirement is self-approval.  Because you are the one you spend all day with.  Not her. And not me.”

Kate thought that Diana had a way of stating things so plainly that rendered her inner conflicts foolish.  Not in a bad way, though. In a genuinely enlightening way.

“And besides,” Diana said.  “Don’t I have a say in whether you deserve me or not?”

Kate peered into Diana’s eyes.

“Do I deserve you?”

Diana brought her broad, soft hand up, and cradled the side of Kate’s face.

“You do,” Diana said.  Her voice was soft, with an edge that only passion could provide.  “There isn’t a requirement I could come up with that you could not meet.  Your bravery. Your wit. Your resourcefulness. Your grace. Your humor. Your kindness.  Your beauty. Every last bit of it. Not all are fit for a Princess, but by the Gods I hold near, by the Goddesses who created me, you very much are.”

Kate felt a smirk growing on her own face again.  “My beauty, huh?”

Diana’s eyes dreamily narrowed.

She brought her sinewy right leg over Kate’s waist and straddled her.  Muscular as she was, Diana was heavy. But Kate thought it was the good kind of heavy.

“I seem to recall,” Diana said, “not too long ago on the grounds of Wayne Manor, you told me that you held me in such high esteem that you could not work up the nerve to have lewd and lascivious daydreams about me...  Has that changed?”

Kate needed to remember to breathe.  “Yes.”

“Tell me.”

“About… About the dirty thoughts I have about you?”

Diana nodded.

“Okay,” Kate said.  “Ummm… Like… Whenever I’m stuck in traffic, or zoning out on patrol, I have this… daydream.”

Diana unbuttoned the bottom button of Kate’s flannel shirt, exposing her belly button.  “Go on.”

“Annnnd… It’s the French Revolution.”

Diana had already undone the second button from the bottom of Kate’s flannel, but now she stopped, hands hovering above Kate’s stomach, and affixed Kate with a single raised eyebrow.

Like Selina had a habit of doing.

How do people do that? 

“The French Revolution?” Diana asked.

“Yeah,” said Kate, weighing her embarrassment against her conviction.  “I got the boots and the trousers on. Waistcoat over a white shirt. Even a bow tie.  And I’m standing there reloading my musket, and… you know that painting of the French lady storming a barricade holding up the French flag?”

“The one in the yellow dress with her right breast exposed?”

“That’s the one.”

“Liberty Leading the People,” Diana said.  “Eugene Delacroix, 1830.”

“The more I know,” said Kate.  “Anyway, that’s you…”

“Is it?”

“Yup.  Our side stages a strategic retreat, I take your hand, and we run into the streets of Paris.  We go down an alley, and you stop me. You pull me into the doorway of this tavern, yank my my bow tie off, rip my shirt open, and we make mad, passionate love right then and there.”

“Standing.”

“Yes.”

“In the doorway of an inn.”

“Yes.”

“While the soldiers of Charles X are chasing us.”

“Yes,” Kate said.  “Now you.”

“Me what?” Diana asked.

“I told you about my dirty thoughts about you, and now it’s your turn.”

Diana frowned.  “Well… mine seems silly now.”

“Silly?”

“Yes,” Diana said, unbuttoning the third button on Kate’s flannel shirt.  “Your daydream requires a screenwriter. Sets need to be white-balanced, and costumes need to be analyzed for historical accuracy.”

“What could possibly be more…”

Kate stopped.

Because Kate got it.

“You want me to dress up in a Star Trek uniform, don’t you?”

“Star fleet,” Diana said, unbuttoning the last button on Kate’s shirt.  “And yes.”  

“What is it with you and Star Trek? ” Kate asked.

“It envisions a world past cruelty and hatred, governed by compassion and intellectual curiosity,” Diana said as she folded her arms.  “Why would I, of all the people you know, not like Star Trek?”

“So it’s not just bumpy foreheads and bad acting?”

“You’d know that if you watched it,” Diana said.

Kate laughed.  “The one episode of any Star Trek show I ever watched was the one where the ship’s doctor went to Space Scotland, and got it on with the same ghost that sexed up her dead grandmother.”

Diana at least had the courtesy to close her eyes before she rolled them.  “If that was the only Star Trek episode I’d ever seen, I wouldn’t want to watch any more either.”

“What about me strikes you as the miniskirt type?” Kate asked.

“Not the miniskirt,” Diana said.  “I’m thinking more the uniform from the original cast movies.  More layers and component parts. It’s like unwrapping a present, really.”

“And I don’t have to call you ‘Captain’ or anything, do I?”

Diana let out a soft bark of laughter.  “No. It’s not about subordination. By Hera, I’m a Princess, and I’ve stopped you from calling me that.”

“Then what is it about?”

“Like I said,” said Diana.  “A better future. Think of it as working my way toward a goal.”

Kate smiled.  She thought that was adorable.

But still, though…

“If this is a roundabout way to get me to watch Star Trek with you…”

“Would that be so bad?”

“I’m gonna need some convincing.”

What appeared on Diana of Themyscira’s face was not the ghost of a smile.  More a malevolent poltergeist of one.

Without blinking, Diana put the index finger of her right hand in her mouth.  She took it out, and traced that wet finger alllllllllll the way up the narrow avenue of pale skin exposed by Kate’s fully unbuttoned flannel shirt.  From the crater of her navel, up the lean latticework of abdominal muscles, between the interior swell of her breasts, and up to the tip of her chin.

Kate unrolled her eyes, and let out a thick, shuddering breath as goosebumps arose throughout the entirety of her body.

“Okay,” said the redheaded Jewish billionaire lesbian superhero who was quite unsure of her own name at the moment.  “We’ll watch Star Trek.”  

“Was that so hard?”

Kate’s hands grasped upward, her fingers finding the straps of Diana’s camisole, and pulling them down around her tan, broad shoulders.

“I’ll pay for the uniform,” Kate said.  “Put it on my debit card. My bank will know I bought it.  The things I do for you.”

Diana smiled.  She leaned down, bringing her elbows down to the bed on either side of Kate’s ribs, and put her lips to Kate’s.  There was the brief click of their teeth making soft impact. And when the kiss ended, they let out their breath in each others’ mouths.

“I pity one of us,” Diana said softly.

“Why is that?”

“Because one of us has to get up and turn off the light.”

“Oh.”

Kate brought them both up into a sitting position, Diana’s legs wrapping around Kate’s back.  She took her flannel shirt all the way off, wadded it up, and threw it at the wall.

The shirt hit the light switch, and wrapped them both in darkness.

“There,” said Kate.  “All better.”

TO BE CONTINUED