A/N:

Howdy friends! So I got roped into the latest WonderBat event organised by the wonderful LadyLiteration on the Twittersphere, despite having not even finished the last event or updated "Shadows in the Dark" for ages... So here it is! Part 1 of 5. The rest should follow over the next couple of weeks.

But just who is the lucky nominee that I got told I had to write for...?!

1: …Unless Home Is The Mouth Of A Shark

The clicking of cameras, the flashes of bulbs.

The gathered masses aligned up the ornate, stone steps.

The baying mob, the hurled questions.

The accusations, the doubts.

The harsh truths.

…

"Have you any idea what you're going to say to them?"

…

Words spoken many hours earlier still rattled through her mind. Words that still resonated. Because, even stood there, closing in, she still didn't have the words.

…

"All I can do is speak from the heart," she had replied, a bit of a shrug and a shake and a sigh accompanying her voice. She'd took a sip from the mug, the morning coffee he'd given to her. It was about as far as he ever went in the kitchen, but in their current state of propriety, Alfred rarely made his presence known until later. "And hope that it's enough. That the people are prepared to listen."

…

"Wonder Woman, are the reports true of what you're going to say in your speech?"

"-expect only others to bear the burden–?"

"When is Themyscira going to open its borders to these people–?!"

"-practise what you preach-!"

"-hypocrite-!"

…

He too had sighed. "If only this world was ready for your optimism… Diana, the world has been arguing over this for a long time. Even when they can see the right thing to do is. But unless the grounds are inarguable, no one wants to be the one left to bear the weight. They're afraid."

"Afraid?" She hadn't expected him to use that word. These people…they were broken. Running. Scared. Trying to survive.

"Yes, afraid," he had reiterated. "They're afraid of the corruption these people are running from, that the darkness they came from could spread. A fear that blinds them to how real that threat actually is. Afraid of the effort they might have to put into helping these people. Afraid of the change. Of anything different. Of sacrificing their own prosperity. Of sharing it."

"Even if it can help others?"

She had spoken with incredulity. The resultant smile on his face was the last thing she'd expected.

"Having the League be the first people of Man's World you met might have left your standards a bit too high, Princess."

…

Diana paused, unable to just march straight through the masses watching her go. Her head dropped, looking down at the stone steps beneath her feet, ignoring the ongoing sounds of whirring cameras. At least there was a silence to the endless barrage of questions being thrown her way as the gathered world media stopped in anticipation of her answers.

But for a while, Diana only looked down. When she did look up, it was only to look to the sky. The beating of the Sicilian sun, the beauty of this island she had seen on her way here… In its own way, it had been somewhat reminiscent of Themyscira, of paradise. But then, that was part of the problem… Sometimes this world was more like home than Diana cared to admit.

…

"People don't like being told what to do either, Diana." He had also said that to her, back in the kitchens of the Manor. Back in the morning of that day, when there had been nothing but the two of them and the thoughts of what was to come. Back when this moment had been one of ideals and desires and not the pains of reality. "Especially when it's something they're looking for any and all excuses not to do. When they don't want to sacrifice. They're going to resist you. Hippolyta's ways…"

He hadn't had to finish that sentence. It was a notion she had already considered. Her mother. The mother she loved. The mother who had served the Amazon people so well for millennia. Whose policies had been born of necessity and lived to see the Amazon's prosper.

A prosperity unshared…. Just as he had said. But one of necessity…

"I know," was all she had been able to say in response to him. Her heart was torn. Her eyes were opening. On Themyscira, everything was bright and full of colour. Everything was so clear. Perhaps, ultimately, that was the only real difference to Man's World. Because here, everything was all lost in the shades of grey. "The use Themyscira's isolation against me. Against them."

…

"Wonder Woman? Those who made the journey across the sea… The issue. What is your message to the people? What are you here to tell the assembly?"

The sound of her moniker made her finally look away from that sun, from the skies as blue as home. She looked across to the speaker, the nearest of all the reporters stood on the stone steps to the Catanian basilica. To all the other crowds around the renaissance era square. To the protestors, the proponents and the opponents. To the law enforcement officers manning the barricades to keep the peace. The force of strength keeping the public voice in its place…

Whichever way she looked at it, whichever way she looked she was seeing people opposing one another. A people far from united. No, she was wrong earlier. There were more differences between this place and Paradise. There were just less of them than she had previously ever wanted to admit.

Finally, her eyes settled on that first reporter again, looking her square in the eye. To truly get her message across, she had to make sure she was heard. Here on the steps was not the time for speeches. That would come later, inside the basilica to the assembled representatives. And later still to the people, if needs be. For now, what she needed was impact, to grab people's attention. To make them want to here. She needed brevity as she finally gave her answer. Because if there was one thing she stood for above all others…

"The truth."

…

The story had been playing on the news reports again. It was on in the background as they had enjoyed their breakfast together. But it was a report slipping to the background too often. Too often the stories were told. Too often people had ceased to listen. Too often had they become numb to its message. Too often had they allowed themselves to forget the pain of their fellow men, of their fellow women, of their kindred children. Too often had they accepted this as a normality. And, as a result, too often had they convinced themselves that nothing must be done.

But the latest crisis amongst the crises had been too much.

Nairomi. Stuck out on the Eastern Horn of Africa, it was a desolate land that had been besotted by war for as long as Diana knew it existed. Warlords, generals, factions of their own military splintered against each other. It was always Nairomians against Nairomians. And it was always oh so savage. The UN, the Western world, any kid with a keyboard, everyone denounced what happened out there, but an internal conflict with the worlds leading powers each backing different sides meant that ultimately no one could do a thing. Even the Justice League were powerless, unable to interfere in such political turmoil lest sacrifice their necessary role as impartial defenders of all the Earth.

Which meant the people on the ground were left to suffer. And suffer they did. Some of the stories that came out of that country were truly heart-breaking. The barbaric assaults, not caring which civilians got caught in the middle. The criminality of soldiers allowed their immorality in exchange for selling their souls to the fighting. The minefields, devoid of any sense of guilt or innocence in their destruction. The crops stolen or burnt, leaving people starving and broken, fed only by desperate supply runs from the outside. Famine, and the spread of disease. Civilians, men, women, the innocent, the peaceful. Children. No one was spared the turmoil, the anguish.

There was only one escape. To flee.

And the people of Nairomi, the people fed up with the fighting, had done that in their hundreds. If not their thousands.

But that was not the end of their torment. Because in leaving their homes, they had to find new ones. But in order to achieve that, they needed somewhere to go. Somewhere to take them in. A place where they could find a new life. A better life. A life of hope, and health, and prosperity, and chance. Some had stayed in Africa fleeing simply to the neighbouring nations. But the rest, the many, had fled north, to the Mediterranean and across the sea.

The crossing was dangerous, though. Very dangerous. Without legal charter, they travelled however they could, on whatever boats would take them. Several were known to have sunk to the bottom of the sea, taking all hands with them. Others washed up on the European shores in pieces, leaving already weak and sick passengers even closer to the edge.

But even those who did make it across in one piece didn't achieve the dream they sought. Deemed illegal entrants but the situation in Nairomi leaving the nations unwilling to extradite, migrant camps had sprung up across Europe, places where all the people found arriving on the shores were put, left and abandoned. Infrastructure was severely lacking to provide anything better, in part due to how stretched the countries were by other issues, in part due to simply unreadiness. And so the camps had been the quick and dirty answer. Camps which, by all accounts could oftentimes be no better than the villages these people fled from. Cramped conditions helping spread disease, minimal clean water, food spread thin, poor sewage facilities, homes little more than old storage containers, tents or assembled junk. Not all of them, of course, plenty of places and people did want to help how they could. But without full government backing, without acceptance of these people to their land, there was very little that the good people could do.

Which meant that hundreds, if not thousands of migrants were left locked in the camps. These people had fled war, and found themselves treated like criminals.

Of course, some actually were. A balanced view had to be maintained, and in some incidences it was true. Not all, not even most, but some. It happened when people were desperate. The measures those few would take to get away, the extreme lengths they would go to did not paint their fellow refugees in good light. Hijacking, kidnap, smuggling, drug trafficking, in some cases even murder. Whatever it took to get out of Nairomi, but often exactly the kind of thing that could prevent anyone else accepting them in. Because the most desperate of times had been known to show what was truly in one's soul, who they really were. And those isolated few were letting the majority down big time. Providing exactly the kind of justification why other nations would not wish to let all refugees through unconditionally. The reasoning why, above all, the course of law must remain.

But finding the right balance between the law and morality was always easier said than done.

And that was all without accounting for how the countries these people were fleeing to already had their own to look after. People who they already had a duty of care to, and who meant they couldn't always pick up the slack where others had failed. While the economic arguments had always been nothing but the foolhardy greed of man to Diana, she at least understood that the system left them with limitations, not to mention the resource constraints. Especially when it was only a select few being asked to carry the weight amongst so many more. In a time when nations increasingly stood alone, it seemed like only a united world could truly solve such crises. All of which meant that, no matter how strong the humanitarian pull may be for the nations of the world, it made it even more impossible for the Mediterranean nations to provide the sanctuary those migrants desperately sought.

All added together, there were all kinds of arguments that could be made. Regardless, what was happening wasn't right, it couldn't be the final answer. There had to be a better way, a way to do right by the innocent merely seeking hope, for the chance at a decent life again. Another fact recognised the whole world over. But finding the answer wasn't as easy as it would sound. The entire United Nations were coming together to try to find that solution. The conference in Sicily had been called, with Diana herself set to represent Themyscira during the talks.

Her chance to solve a crisis with words instead of fists, to be an emblem of peace instead of a tool of war. Only she didn't know what to say.

Fear. That was what he had called it, the source of the problem, the reason why the Nairomians were not being automatically accepted as fellow men and women in a new land. There were a lot of complexities sprouting from it, but at the base of them all was a fear. Just as the fleeing migrants were afraid, the developed world was afraid of what letting these people into their nations could do. Of sharing their individual prosperities. Of risking even a fraction of the chaos of Nairomi spreading to their lands with the Nairomians.

A fear that Diana simply couldn't argue with on its fundamental levels, not with it being underpinned by the very same feelings that had kept Themyscira isolated for so very long, surrounded by the ultimate of walls. An isolation her mother had already taken steps to reaffirm in spite of the current crisis.

But it was a fear Diana couldn't simply stand by and accept when it left hundreds if not thousands of people in those camps. When she so desperately felt the need to tear those walls down and build the bridges needed to help those people.

Hence her conflict. Her hypocrisy. Her inability to find the words she so desperately sought. Her heartbreak.

…

"And what is that truth?!" The question was hurled at her from the crowd again, Diana needing a moment to identify the journalist amongst the mass of media people. Stood at the bottom of those stone steps, it was a man whose face showed strong aggression. Höveling, the name on his credentials. A desperation and a frustration the feelings bubbling from his heart. But both born of a sadness. Several of the baying mob seemed out for blood. This man seemed like what he really wanted was to help, like what he had seen had broken him. And had made him forget decorum and patience. "When Themyscira takes in no one begging for help. Not even the children. When the land you present as Paradise, as the light, as the beacon to follow, closes itself down to the world. What is the 'truth' you've come here to spread? What are your lies?! How are you actually going to help these people?"

"Wait, let's not sanctify these people before we begin!" Another voice called out from the crowd before Diana could answer, another pause to pick out the speaker, another set of media credentials acting as a name tag; Gallois. "Don't forget, they have broken the law. Just in getting here without proper visas and travel documents, they have broken the law. Not to mention whatever else they may have done to get here. We've heard the stories of the lengths some of the migrants took to get away. We've seen the official reports. There are criminals amongst them. And what is happening in Nairomi can only be systematic of its people. There is the question of what such people could do to the harmony of the lands they now impose themselves upon. Not to mention the economic pressures it will put on all nations who agree to help, who are already taking in as many refugees as they can bear from across the globe. The welfare state is not what it was in many countries, the biting of unemployment and austerity. In fact, I think only a paradise could truly help these people without cutting off their own hand to do it. So, Wonder Woman, I too echo my esteemed colleague's question, only my tone is different. How are you going to help all the people, and not just the ones from the boats?"

Again, though, the worlds failed her. She had no response. She could not respond. She could only feel the weight of the world get ever stronger on her shoulders. She could only feel the ever so faint welling in her eye. People were hurting, or people were angry, or people were lost in all the chaos. Or a bit of all three. And none were right for the world. But she didn't know how to stop it. How to fix it…

Her head bowed momentarily, again looking to those steps, as if to find solace in the coldness of the grey. As she looked up again, it was only to briefly look Höveling in the eye, then Gallois in turn. To say just three simple words before turning on her heel and once again traipsing up towards the Basilica and the meeting that lay beyond.

"However I can…"

But even as she stepped, even as she moved to try and do the right thing, words continued to be hurled at her. She may have been dressed in her ambassadorial garb, but her armour, her bracelets, they were worn underneath. Yet even they would struggle to deflect what was being thrown at her, every last word sinking in like a knife in her spine…

…

Her ambassadorial outfit had been across the room, hung behind the door to the kitchen of the Manor, ready and waiting for her. Closer and strewn across one of the dining chairs, her armour had also been laid out for her to put on. Only the bracelets that never came off had currently been worn. The bracelets and his pressed white shirt, leaving her long, slender legs on full display underneath.

And beside her in the kitchen, he had stood there, shirtless with his garment stolen. A hangover of the night before, together in that place, in his home. Wayne Manor.

Bruce.

"Hera, Bruce. What do I do?" she had practically begged of him. It wasn't something she would normally do. She would not debase herself like that to any man. But Bruce wasn't just any man. "When you can see both sides of the argument but no answer. When you can see what's wrong but not how to put it right. I know where my mother is coming from, I understand the hesitancy, the resistance. I can't call her attitude wrong, and so neither can I objectively call the other nations wrong. But I can't turn my back on these people. So what do I do…? What would you do…?"

Bruce had taken a moment to respond, a time to gather his thoughts, but he had not taken long. His mind worked in ways different to others, quicker. Even if they weren't the words others wanted to here, he normally didn't struggle to find some. A fact Diana was envious of.

"It isn't an issue that can solved in darkness. It isn't a battle for Batman, I know that much. It must be solved from the light. But there is no easy answer, Diana. Better men than I have looked for it many times over and failed. But…you are no man…"

He hadn't had to explain a statement that could have easily been oversimplified. It was there in his eyes. He had been telling her that he believed in her. It indeed hadn't been an answer, but it had been faith. It had been confidence that she would find it. And while she had still felt the burden, it at least felt a little softer knowing that he truly believed she could carry it. That she could find a way where no one else could.

Hera, he was a good man…

She had been unable to help it, leaning in to kiss him on the cheek. But while she had done so, she had also been careful how to touch him, to not pull him where he stood. Just as they had had to be careful with him for days now, weeks. Ever since the last big assault on Gotham, ever since he had once again come so close to sacrificing everything to save her people.

The bandages wrapped around his otherwise bare torso were a painful reminder, the sling that was still pinning his right arm up against his chest. Luckily, enough time had passed for the healing to begin. The bleeding had long stemmed, his energy returning. But these had been wounds even Batman could not overcome with determination alone. Even now, his mobility was threatened, the risk of permeant damage still clinging to him. Only further surgery could prevent lasting damage to his arm and shoulder, and while Batman was a lone wolf, even he could not strive while being literally singlehanded.

"When is it you have to go…?" she had gently asked there as they had stood so close together, as they had missed out on doing for so long. As they also would be separated soon, for no matter how short term.

It was public knowledge that Bruce Wayne was going to have surgery, a clever cover story long weaved around the public since Gotham's latest reckoning. A surgery and recovery period long since planned for Gotham's favourite son. Cameras would be following him every bit as much as they had her. All in all, it not only meant he couldn't stand by her at the conference, couldn't even be at the end of the phone for most of the time. She had wished it, but he was being forced to stand her up and leave them with only upcoming silence. Yet Diana had known, in her heart, that despite the risk to his health, he would have delayed it all to be there for her today if he could. He hadn't had to say it.

"Alfred's going to be driving me to the clinic as soon as you leave. I didn't have to twist his arm too much to give us that long, at least. Bruce Wayne being fashionably late to an appointment ought to be expected by now. But if I could give you longer, Diana… I'm sorry I won't be there with you as you take to the stand, but know you'll have my full support. Whatever you decide, whatever action you say is needed. Whatever solution you deem is right and fair for all. The Justice League, Batman… They can't be political. But the Wayne Foundation is always prepared to help a good cause. I may not be with you at the conference, on that stage, but solving this crisis is not all on your shoulders. You do not stand alone."

Passion had almost taken over her again at that point. The urge to kiss him had rose up in her again and this time, while still being careful not to hurt him, she hadn't held back. His words were moving, touching, loving. Helpful.

But not the full answer.

…

The answer she still needed. The answer she hadn't been able to find, even with Bruce's promise to hand.

The answer she was desperate for.

Up ahead, the security teams at the basilica were holding the journalists at bay, keeping her a path clear to the opening doors into the basilica, to the conference beyond. To her chance to help people in need, to find hope again. The time was almost on them, even if the answer was not… Leaving Diana having to whisper the silent prayer as the building's innards loomed ever nearer like an onrushing freight train coming to try and mow her down.

"Hera, please. What do I do…?"