Disclaimer: Everything belongs to DC et al. Except for the pseudo-science. That stuff is alllll me.

Diana of Themyscira, known to most of the world as Wonder Woman, was not having a great day.

She and some of the other founders had stayed overnight on the WatchTower after an accident in one of the station's laboratories had pushed back their regularly scheduled meeting and it had run late. As a result Shayera had bunked with John, whose cabin happened to be next to Diana's. As the Green Lantern and the former Hawkgirl were still in the honeymoon period of their reconciliation, Diana was excruciatingly aware of the dearth of sleeping that was happening in the next cabin over, even through the reinforced steel walls (a necessity on a ship full of metahumans who were disconcertingly fond of throwing each other about).

To escape, she set to wandering the halls of the station. In the old days, she would have sought out J'onn, who had always kept odd hours and been a reliable companion in her occasional insomnia. But J'onn was with his wife in China, where he spent most of his time. She wandered down to the training rooms, where she found Black Canary pummeling a helpless bag. It wasn't the first time Diana had come across Dinah in the gym in the middle of the night, so she wasn't surprised when the other woman invited her to spar. Dinah was a favoured sparring partner, as Diana had to focus as much on her restraint as she did on her reflexes, a constant mind exercise. Black Canary was no Batman, who had honed his reflexes to practically superhuman speed, but she kept Diana on her toes nevertheless. And since Bruce never stayed overnight on the Tower-unless he was unconscious-Dinah was the best she was going to get.

Eventually the two women, satisfied with their mutual pummeling, parted ways. Diana, rather than go back to her cabin, found herself on one of the observation decks, looking down at Earth. Eventually, she drifted off on one of the benches. Which is where Flash came across her the next morning, quite by accident.

"Diana, hi! Good morning! I was just making the rounds. A little jog, no barriers broken." He paused to breathe and idly shook the iced latte he held. "Did you sleep here?"

Diana liked Wally, but he was a lot to take when she was at her best, and sleep-deprived with a crick in her neck was far from her best. She rolled her shoulders and fought the urge to grunt in response. "Yes."

When she failed to offer an additional explanation, Flash blinked. "Oh. Okay." He shook the cup he held again, rattling the ice.

Knowing their shared fondness for iced mochas, Diana focused greedily on the cup. "Is that for me?"

"What, this?" He looked down at it in surprise, as if he'd forgotten he was holding it. "Oh, yeah. I mean, no. I mean, shoot, Diana, I already drank half of it." He sounded genuinely distressed.

"That's alright. I'll go to the commissary and make one." Diana stood and stretched. She was still wearing the stretch pants and top she'd sparred in the night before, she realized blearily. She'd need to go by her cabin and change. She tried to be as professional as possible on the station.

"Actually, um." Flash cleared his throat awkwardly.

"You used the last of the syrup."

"I'm sorry! I thought you were already up. You're always up before me. Why weren't you up before me? Why were you here?"

"I couldn't sleep, that's all." Diana started back to her cabin.

Flash tagged along. "But you were sleeping. I saw you."

"Flash." Diana heard the warning in her voice, and winced. Although it rarely seemed to bother him, Flash got a hard time from a lot of his teammates, and she'd made it a personal rule to always be patient with him. She really wasn't at her best. Oh, how she wished there was a mocha on the other side of this morning fog.

Her friend stepped back, his hands raised in apology. "I know, I know. Too much Flash, too early in the morning. Bats has already grunted as much at me."

"Batman is here? But it's...daytime." It wasn't, not really. They were in space, after all. Well, low-Earth orbit. But based on the home cities of the majority of their human members, and for ease of scheduling, they kept the Watchtower schedule synced with the United States Eastern Standard Time. Which meant it was arbitrarily...Diana glanced at a nearby wall-mounted clock...8:30 am. Late for her to be rising, but definitely early for Batman.

"Emergency meeting. Haven't you checked your comm?"

Diana spread her arms, indicating her workout clothes and clear lack of communicator.

"Oh. Right." Flash slurped his drink, having seemingly forgotten his mocha-related mental anguish of only moments ago. "Superman called it. There have been rumblings of the Secret Society sort," Flash paused, relishing his alliteration, "sssssso I hear."

"Lovely. When's the meeting?"

"9 o'clock. So you better hurry!" With a final slurp of his mocha and a jaunty salute, Flash dashed off.

Putting on her armor always seemed to wake her up, but Diana was still disappointed to discover that no new bottle of syrup had miraculously appeared in the commissary. Since she abhorred coffee unless it was liberally laced with chocolate, she settled for brewing herself a cup of strong tea and mixing in as much honey as she could find. It was nowhere near the quality of the honey they harvested back home on Themyscira, but it would have to do.

She ran into Batman on the way to the Founder's Room. He grunted at her. She grunted in response. He paused infinitesimally, and she thought he regarded her with something like shock. Not that one could really tell while he was wearing the cowl, but years of practice (and a fair amount of close, un-teammate-like perusal of the lower half of his face) had educated her in the ways of the Batman's expressions. She understood his surprise. He was the Night. He was not a morning person. Diana usually rose with the dawn, wherever she was.

She shrugged slightly, and cradled her tea closer to her chest. "Insomnia."

Batman considered that. "Did Shayera stay with John?"

Diana smiled, despite herself. "That, too." She sipped her tea, savoring the honeyed warmth. "Mmmmm. Do you know what this is about?"

"What?" She glanced at Batman, who was suddenly expressionless. And not his normal, Batman dispassionate nothing, but a studied lack of expression. He looked away.

"The meeting," Diana pressed. "Do you know why Kal called it?"

"Yes."

Far from off-putting, Batman's laconic response was comforting in its familiarity. "Feel like sharing?"

"In the meeting." He stopped walking. They'd reached the Founder's Room. He keyed open the door, then gestured briefly for her to proceed him inside.

They were the last to arrive, which was highly unusual for both of them, but no one commented on it as they took their places in their usual seats. Even J'onn was present, which provided something of an explanation for the unusually early hour of the meeting. It was nighttime in the small village in Northern China where he now made his home. This was probably the most convenient hour for him to meet with them.

Diana smiled across the table at her friend. "Greetings, J'onn. How is Zhi?"

The Martian smiled and inclined his head in response. "Zhi is well, Diana. Thank you." While J'onn's wife was aware and accepting of his true identity, J'onn wanted to protect her from any repercussions of having married a founding member of the Justice League, so none of his teammates had ever met her. Diana, however, was fascinated by the human woman who had soothed her friend's terrible loneliness, and asked him all about Zhi whenever they were together.

"In fact," J'onn continued, "she's partially why I called this meeting."

Flash glanced around in confusion. "I thought Supes called the meeting."

Superman nodded. "At J'onn's request."

"Zhi noticed that the plants at the edge of our garden, nearest to the river, were dying, and oddly. The plants turned purple, pulled their roots out of the ground, and then died. I brought samples when I visited last week."

"Last week? Then why are we only hearing about this now?" John asked.

"Because it showed up in Gotham." Batman spoke up.

Flash blinked. "In...Gotham?"

"Or something like it did. I came across an abandoned warehouse looking not-so-abandoned on patrol. Someone was using it to store cannisters of something I didn't recognize. I took a sample, ran it through my system, and got a ping from the Watchtower sample library."

J'onn took over the explanation. "The material Batman found appears to be a distilled version of the toxin contaminating our river."

"Wait," Shayera spoke up. "Is this the stuff that got out in the lab last night?"

The night before, a liquid had unexpectedly turned into a gas during a routine lab test, and the lab itself had gone into automatic quarantine.

Batman nodded. "That was the sample I brought up. In its base form, the toxin doesn't appear to be designed to react that way."

Diana leaned forward in her chair, catching onto the urgency of the matter. "So someone designed this thing so it would go from liquid to gas on command?"

Batman turned slightly in his chair to face her. "Looks that way."

"And this is the same toxin that caused your plants to die, J'onn? I assume you tested the river water for it?"

"I did."

"How much was present?" Superman asked.

"Only the barest amount."

"So in its distilled form, like what Batman found, it's-"

"Incredibly deadly." Batman finished Diana's statement. Diana swallowed hard. She didn't like the idea that any amount something so deadly was in Gotham. She didn't like that it was anywhere.

"J'onn, have you determined how the toxin was getting into your water?" Superman's question pulled Diana back to the issue at hand.

"I have. It seems the toxin comes from a rare plant that grows at the base of Mount Tai Shan. On its own, it has some small healing properties, but is otherwise benign. It is certainly not deadly. Somehow, another chemical became introduced to the plant-whether by accident or design, I do not know. Possibly due to run-off from a nearby factory. However it happened, someone other than my wife has discovered its destructive properties."

"And encouraged them, it seems." John commented.

"Yes, I have no doubt that in order to achieve the toxicity of the material Batman found, someone much have deliberately manipulated it."

"Great." Shayera's tone summed up the feeling of the room.

Superman sat back, in a move that Diana had come to realize he did in meetings when he was mentally moving onto the next topic. "Determining what this toxin can do and what we can do to combat or neutralize it should the need arise will be top priority."

No one said anything for a moment. It was assumed the need would arise.

Batman was the first to move, rising from his chair. "If that's all?"

Superman nodded. "It is. Let's keep an eye out for this. Its potential is unthinkable."

Batman nodded once at the room at large, then turned to leave.

"Wait-I thought this meeting was about the Secret Society," Flash spoke up.

"I've heard rumors. Nothing concrete," Batman said, before striding out the door.

"Double great," muttered Shayera.

Diana stood as the others did, sent J'onn a quick mental farewell, received his nod in response, and followed Batman out.

When she reached the hall, she couldn't remember why it had seemed so important that she speak to him, but she spotted his cape as it fluttered around the corner and pursued.

"Batman!"

He slowed his pace slightly as she jogged up beside him, but did not stop or otherwise acknowledge her presence.

"Exactly how many cannisters did you find, exactly?" He hadn't specified, and it was such an obvious oversight that it had to have been deliberate. Kal hadn't pushed him on it, which made Diana think that he already knew the answer to the question.

"Only a couple dozen." Alarming, but not as potentially catastrophic as it could have been. Still...Batman was often brusque, but Diana had learned the difference between when he was simply being succinct, and when he was holding something back. Right then, he was holding something back.

"But...? There's something you're not telling us."

Batman stopped and turned to face her. They were around the corner from the teleporter. "But there was evidence that more had recently passed through the warehouse."

She took an involuntary step towards him. "How many-"

"I don't know. I don't, Diana." He cut her off before she could press him. "It's why I need to leave. I have leads to follow."

She searched his expression as best she could with the cowl shielding his eyes, then nodded and took a step back. "Alright. But Batman-" she reached out to touch his arm as he turned to go. She barely made contact, but he froze. "I know how you feel about having us in Gotham. And I understand why you do." She allowed herself a small, wry smile. "Sort of. But if this toxin is as bad as we all fear, if there's as much-"

"I'll call. The people of Gotham are worth more than my pride."

She drew her hand back. "Good. Be careful."

He nodded, then made for the teleporter.

Bruce Wayne, playboy billionaire by day and masked vigilante by night, wasn't having a great day, either.

He'd contacted J'onn as soon as he'd made the connection between his warehouse cannisters and J'onn's tainted water, but the couple of hours of sleep he'd caught between then and the early morning meeting had been fitful at best.

A chemical agent, in Gotham. At that quantity and potency. It disturbed him, far more than he'd let on in the meeting (although he thought Diana may have figured it out).

And then there was Diana herself. He knew the rest of the team had had a late night on the Tower with the incident in the lab, but he'd never seen her look so...rumpled before. Wally had mentioned finding her asleep in her sparring clothes on Observation Deck B, and Bruce hadn't been able to decide if he was gratified or disappointed that he'd missed that. When she'd moaned while drinking her tea, he'd nearly turned around and headed back to the transporter, emergency meeting be damned.

They'd always been flirtatious, the two of them, bantering and teasing while on the job. It worked for them. Diana had indicated, quite directly at times, that she'd be open to pursuing a romantic relationship outside of their work. Bruce had been tempted, nearly to the point of succumbing, especially after their run-in with Circe. But in the end, they were too different, their lives and missions too far apart, even on their shared heroic spectrum.

Then there was J'onn. As genuinely glad as he was for him, seeing J'onn's happiness in his simple, human life (as well as Diana's pleasure in their friend's contentment), reminded Bruce of all that he was deliberately locking out of his own life. Even knowing his reasons were good, and reminding himself of them, repeatedly, didn't quell the desire that was a seemingly constant thing within him.

He pulled the cowl off and dragged his hands through his hair, hoping if he used enough pressure, he could physically push his thoughts away. It didn't work. He poured himself a cup of coffee from the silver pot Alfred had left in anticipation of his return. He didn't have time to dwell on what-ifs and maybes and his own godforsaken love life. He had work to do.

A/N: Hi. This is my first story even remotely comics-related. My only real familiarity with the DC verse is through the animated Justice League, so adjust your expectations accordingly!