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That night, she watches the fireworks from Wally's front porch. Loosely hugs a support beam, for just that. Because somewhere between the feel of the wood, damp yet rough, and the ache of the night on her too-hot skin, is a comfortless solitude that she might just drown in, if not for this one, solid tether. (Because over the years, he has become her pivot, the most real presence in their phantasmagorical world of crazed villains and diplomatic power plays. Of theatricality intermingled with staunch duty, of cowls and masks to hide some variety of sadness behind.)
She keeps her chin up and her eyes open, lest her mind turn the midair explosions of color and gaiety into the beats of bombs, the rattle of gunfire. Bialya. Armored trucks and coarse shouting in a guttural tongue. Orange dust coating her throat and mouth, blood rushing loud in her ears: survive, or go down fighting, Baby Girl. Or be swept off your feet, literally, by a speedster whose boyish charm toed the line between insanely annoying, and impossibly attractive. Whose mouth formed the words, "Sorry, they've got bigger arrows," whose cradling grip added, "Got you covered—
—get inside! I'm almost there!" Almost, almost, almost. The Arctic. Dark water on blinding white ice and snow. Toes clenching in insulated boots as she spun to face her enemy: no way would she let anyone take her from behind. Drawing an arrow even as the disintegration beam lit up, too late, too slow...
A Catherine Wheel crackles upwards, reaching an apex before dramatically erupting into shimmery strands of red and gold. Maybe it's the flamboyance of this inanimate sacrifice; maybe it's the cumulative emotion of the evening. All she knows is that for a moment, she longs to return to any of the bare, fateful landscapes in her memory. To be far away from here, because here is so far away from where he is.