I own nothing.
Alfred catches her one evening when she's not careful, pressing down on the bruises that bloom along her skin, until little fireworks of pain burst behind her eyelids.
"Your highness?'
She jerks, just barely, but she can tell by the shrewd look that flashes across Alfred's face that she's given herself away. She says nothing, just holds out her arms and lets him clean up the worst of the cuts and scratches.
"Did you get there in time, Miss Diana?"
"No. But perhaps fewer died than if we hadn't gotten there at all," she says dully. Her fingers rest on the edge of a jagged burn, and they itch. She knows how sharp and sweet it would feel, little aftershocks of pain running through her until she can breathe again. But Alfred's watching now.
He dabs alcohol on a deep laceration on her right shoulder, and the sting of it braces her, like a long pull of Bruce's favorite whiskey.
It's become a ritual of sorts, since she's come to the manor, waiting for the Watchtower to finish construction. Teleporting down after missions, bruised and bloody - Alfred's specialty - and letting the old man put her back together. The shared ease is a respite to them both.
"There," he says, stepping back to admire his handiwork. "That should heal nicely. But then, you always do."
"I wish I could scar," Diana confesses. "Then maybe I wouldn't have to carry it all inside me."
It's four in the morning, and Bruce is waiting outside her bedroom door.
When she first moved in, after the invasion, they fell into each other - too-close quarters after too much tension. He came without a pattern, often without warning. Sometimes still masked in cape and cowl. He touched her with reverence, and kissed her with abandon, strange, startling interludes that seemed like fever dreams in the cold light of morning. Bruce's logic was cold, too.
He looks through her one morning, and the smile dies on her lips, because all of a sudden she knows she's ceded too much. She expects pain with her clarity, the lasso had taught her that; she only feels a blessed numbness. She starts locking her door. They never talk about it.
He still waits sometimes, leaning heavy till the frame creaks. They both know she's awake. They both wonder how long she'll last.
Gotham is grey and heavy. The light filters through the haze of smog and shadows, it never feels like enough. She's thirsty for sunlight. Sometimes the longing becomes so acute, she starts to feel a little wild, like her skin doesn't fit. On those days she runs until her lungs burn, through the woods until she's far enough away to shoot straight up into the sky, piercing through the cloud cover and drinking in the light.
"I thought you would be more pleased, Diana." Her mother's face on the console is tentative, the happiness in them dimmed slightly from Diana's muted response.
"I am honored that the council has seen fit to lift the exile, my queen." Her formality wounds Hippolyta, and once again Diana sees clearly how torn she is, between monarch and mother, the way she has always been. She has been careful to keep that balance always; Themyscira is not without its political infighting, and Diana could easily become a pawn - or worse, an excuse. She knows this, even as the old litany starts up in her head you don't belong you don't belong. She can't turn off the console fast enough, she shakes too much on her first try. She breaks it on the next.
The roses grow wild near the edge of the gardens, where they border the woods. Their blowsy heads rise over the brambles in a riot of color - ruby and mandarin and vein-blue. Their thorny stems slide beautifully under her bracers, relentless little stabs throughout the day.
She brings Alfred the blooms, emptying her arms of roses like a priestess scattering rods. Divination wasn't one of her goddess-gifts, she thinks idly, crushing petals between her fingers.
Bruce seeks her out in the library one day, in the small alcove she has claimed, and where he rarely trespasses. Discomfort spirals off of him, she can read it in the furrows of his brow, the way he uses his bulk, crowding her out in her own space.
"Are you alright?" he asks, but her thoughts feel too loud for her to answer. "Diana," he tries again, gently, and she focuses. It's been harder to focus, lately. "Are you angry at me?"
"Why would I be angry?" Her surprise is genuine. Their conversations have been civil, bordering on friendly.
"You've given up on me," he says, and she feels a familiar flare of resentment in her chest. I could knock over these shelves. Her hands twitch. It would be glorious, crash after crash echoing to the high, arched ceilings. Thousands of pages rustling through the air, falling open in heavy wings.
"There wasn't much to give up on, Bruce," she says, as lightly as she is able. "You made that very clear." She watches the blood rise faintly to his face, under the tanned skin - artificial, the color still several shades lighter than her own.
"And if I said I didn't want you to?"
She tries to remember if she's walked away from him before.
She volunteers for more missions. Things are clearer on the field, the adrenaline sharpens her senses. Here she has purpose, responsibility. Even the emotions are simpler - elation and anger and very little in between.
"You're not healing as fast," says Kal, and he grabs her as she tries to brush it off and walk away. He doesn't do that to her often, doesn't use his strength against her to make a point. "Diana," he pleads, "tell me what's wrong. You've been pushing yourself too much this last month. You need to take a break."
"Kal, I'm fine. I'm just tired." She wrenches her hand away, knowing he won't hold her when she's clearly unwilling.
"Diana."
"I'm just homesick," she says, and it's the right thing to say. His eyes soften in understanding. "I just feel so cooped up in Gotham. I need something to do."
"Come to Metropolis sometime, I know Lois would love to see you."
She agrees easily. She thinks she might even mean it.
Bruce is waiting for her when she gets home, wearing the crooked, hesitant smile she loves best. She can't help but smile back, the first real warmth she's felt in days.
"Diana," he calls out. "Sit with me, please."
The cowl is off and his face is more open to her than it's been in all the months she's lived under his roof. She's terrified.
He gets up, tugs her gently back to the seat beside him. "I haven't been fair to you," he says, not letting go of her elbow. "I've been keeping you at arm's length, we both know that, but I haven't...I can't seem to let you go, either." Every sound seems more fragile in the cave, crystalline and cold, little echoes shivering down her skin.
"Bruce," she says, eyes shut. "We don't need to have this conversation again. I don't want to have it again. I've been trying to stay out of your way, but I'm happy to find somewhere else to stay until the Watchtower is finished. I am not without resources."
"This isn't the same conversation, Diana. Or it is, but I'd like it to have a different ending." She could drown in the tenderness she sees in his eyes. He places a warm hand on her cheek, tracing the bones with the pad of his thumb. Her chest hurts, though with fear or happiness she can't tell. Likely both.
"I don't understand. Nothing's changed."
"You've been so withdrawn. I know it's my fault, but it shook me, still." He shakes his head. "I hate it. I don't want that with you. I want more, even if I shouldn't." He turns to the computer, starts to pull up files. "I know you can't trust me, not yet, but I want to show you that I mean it. I took the liberty of coming up with some plans. It would all have to be carefully orchestrated, of course."
Diana watches him grow more animated, more confident now that he has variables he can control. Her Gotham debut, the careful public presentation of her relationship with Bruce Wayne, when and where it would be acceptable to use her powers. There's even a mock-up of batsuit, clearly modified for a tall woman. She watches it all with a rising sense of panic. She loves this man, she tells herself. She has loved him for so long. She should be happy. She should be able to breathe.
"Bruce," she whispers. "Please, I can't - I can't talk about this now." He turns to look at her, alarmed and reaching for her, but she can't let him touch her, she'll start weeping if he does.
Her commlink beeps. "Wonder Woman, can you - "
"I'm coming," she says, too quickly. She risks a glance at Bruce, who sits with a shuttered expression on his beautiful face.
Diana feels like she's moving through concrete, nearly doesn't catch the child darting into the path of one of Luthor's latest robots. Not fast enough not good enough you don't belong you don't belong -
She sets the child down safely, and steps back. She hears Kal cry her name before the world goes black.
When she opens her eyes, Lois is peering down at her with concern and no small relief.
"Hey, Di," she says cheerfully. "Welcome back. Clark said you might drop in but I was hoping it would be for wine and not literally."
Diana tries to answer, but her body suddenly catches on that she's awake, and the pain hits her all at once. "What happened?" she finally manages.
"What happened?" Kal suddenly moves into her field a vision, hovering just behind Lois. "What happened is that you stopped a two ton robot with your body. What happened is that you've been punishing yourself, and your body's breaking down on you because you haven't taken a break in weeks. What happened, Diana, is that you've been lying to me and that's the one thing I never expected from you." His voice has steadily fallen to a hush, quiet and intense and sharp. She must look as stricken as she feels - Lois reaches out to grab her hand, a little squeeze of sympathy against Superman's wrath.
"I spoke to Hippolyta," he says stonily. "Maybe it wasn't my business, but I thought maybe I could help. We both felt like idiots when we realized you hadn't told anyone."
"I don't belong there anymore," she says, unable to meet his eyes. It's easier to look at Lois, pretty and warm and expecting so little of her.
"Diana -"
"I'm so tired," she says, tears leaking at the corners of her eyes. "I'm just so tired."
Lois searches her face, biting her lip thoughtfully. "Rest," she commands softly. "We'll be here when you wake up."
They let her sleep the first few days. Sometimes she wakes to Clark and chicken soup (Ma's secret recipe), other days Lois sneaks her greasy Chinese food and reads aloud from trashy magazines.
She stares at her hand, flung out on the couch, willing it to move. Her wrists are smooth, unblemished. Kal won't let her wear her bracers until he can trust her not to keep hurting herself. She tries to explain she doesn't want to do much of anything at all.
"This isn't the first time," says Lois, on the couch behind her, brushing her long, snarled hair.
"No," Diana admits. Lois has taken to treating her like stray cat, with small, careful attempts at domestication. She finds it soothing.
"Do Amazons even have a word for depression? Does it even exist?"
"I suppose the closest translation would be melancholia. That's what we called it, anyway. Or that's what Melanippe used to call it, my attacks."
"What passes for Themysciran prozac?"
"There are different options for treatment - certain herbal concoctions, counseling with our healers, regular exercise."
"Did it work for you?"
"Yes, after a time." She pauses, unsure. "The Amazons are slightly more accepting of mental illness, but we're a warrior culture. Given my origins, and my place in the succession...my mother did not wish my weakness widely known. It would have led to even more speculation as to my fitness."
"Your origins?" Lois' hands stilled.
"I was shaped of clay. My mother blames herself, that there was some imperfection in her act of creation."
Lois snorted. "Tell her to get in line. For every screwed up kid, there's a mom with enough guilt to suffocate them both. If anything, this might be proof that you're a real girl, after all."
"Diana," says Clark gently. "There's someone here to see you. He won't get through Lois if you really don't want to see him, but I think you should."
Her heartbeat picks up. She nods, mouth suddenly dry. She's still not ready when he appears in the doorway, so warm and real and solid. The expression on his face is so careful, she almost reaches out to him.
"Can I sit?" His voice is low and gravelly, and he steps into the fading light as she beckons forward. He looks ridiculous, seated on the edge of narrow twin bed, too big not to press against her legs. She's missed the contact. It's hard to keep from wrapping herself into him, finding the relief of his warm skin against hers.
"Is this my fault?" he asks, and she can't help the soft laugh that escapes, nor the faint bitterness.
"No, my love." She makes herself look at him, at the rough shadow on his cheeks. "This is one of my own demons. I underestimated it."
He nods. "How are you feeling now?"
"Still not myself," she says. "I'll probably go back to the island, now that they've lifted the exile."
"I heard. Will you come back?"
"Of course," she says absently.
"No," he says, reaching for her hand. "Will you come back to me? I know I don't have any right to ask, and I know we've got a lot to talk about if this is ever going to work, but I can't lose you without a fair fight."
"I don't know how to answer that, Bruce."
"You love me." He searches her face earnestly.
"You've always known that."
"You don't trust me."
Finding words, finding the right words, feels so difficult. She wants to close her eyes and just bask in his nearness. "I trust you with my life, Bruce. And yet, I find myself unable, unwilling perhaps, to pursue this relationship on your terms alone. I won't be your bat-wife."
"I have an identity to protect, Diana. Several identities. You know I can't afford to take unnecessary risks."
She sits up, rests her her on his shoulder. "Do you know what the true tragedy of Persephone and Hades was?"
"She was kidnapped and tricked," he replies, impatient.
"No, that's where the myths get it wrong. I know Persephone. The real tragedy is that she fell in love with Hades, and ate the pomegranate seeds of her own volition. Six months of the year, she can be true to her nature, at one with sunlight and flowers and growing things, but with half her heart ripped away where she cannot see or hear or feel it. The rest of the year she is with her love, but still not whole, still with parts of her soul left withering on the earth's surface. Her joy is measured, and it has a steep price. All joy has a price."
Bruce is quiet, gripping her wrists so tightly she can feel her fingertips start to tingle. "What is it that you need from me, then? What do you need that I can give you?"
"Just space, for now." She smiles, means it to be reassuring, but fails miserably. "I will come back, Bruce. I won't leave this unfinished between us."
"Kiss me goodbye, at least?"
"Not goodbye," she says, but she does kiss him, slow and soft and sweet.
Themyscira is always infinitely more breathtaking than she remembers. The white sands fairly glitter in the sunlight, pale as the foam on bright, blue waves. In the end, it was easier coming back than she expected. A smooth landing, a heartfelt welcome. Simple happiness had done much to soothe old hurts.
"You are looking more like yourself, my daughter. I confess, I am not convinced Man's World has changed for better, that it should use you so ill."
"It was not Man's World, but my own folly, my queen. I thought I could outrun it."
"I couldn't, either."
"Mother?"
Hippolyta's back is straight as an arrow, she walks through the sand effortlessly. "I'm so sorry, Diana. Such terrible gifts for a mother to give her child - sorrow and exile, for all I tell myself I had little choice in the matter." She holds out her arms beseechingly. "I should have protected you more, my sun and stars. Be angry at me, but don't shut me out now that I've gotten you back."
This too, is almost easy, falling back into her mother's strong embrace.
The Themysciran Embassy will be beautiful when completed, hopefully in just a few short months, if Diana has anything to say about it. She's excited and nervous about her new role as ambassador, but it's been wonderful just to really be feeling anything at all, to be looking forward to something again. She's still not at her best, but she's taking Menalippe's herbs daily, and she's been training hard to get back into fighting condition. Lois assures her that finding a therapist will be the best way to fit in with New Yorkers. She still hasn't called Bruce, but she's not wholly surprised when he finds her.
"I missed you," he says without preamble, taking her arm and leading her down a less crowded park path.
"I missed you, too," she admits. "I'm sorry I didn't call. I've been meaning to, if that helps."
"A little." His lips quirk, ever so slightly. "I decided I was done thinking."
"And what were your conclusions?"
"That I'll eat the seeds with you."
"Bruce?"
"I love you, and I'm willing to pay the price for that, even if I don't know exactly what that will be."
She stops abruptly. "I can't make you any promises, Bruce."
"I'm not asking for any," he says gently. "I just need you to know that I'm finally ready to meet you halfway. And it's fine if you need more time or space, but I will be here waiting, and we can decide what's best for us, together."
"I might get sad and disappear again."
"And I'll wait until you come back to me. Or maybe you'll let me wait it out by your side."
She kisses him, all her little broken pieces matching up with all of his, and it tastes of pomegranate, sharp and bright, a hint of bitterness making it all the sweeter.
Leave a message at the beep.