Disclaimer: I do not own DC or any of their associated characters
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If she ever had experienced a longer two days Diana could not remember when.
She felt like she thought the sacrificial animals of her homeland and childhood must.
Isolated and unchanging the Amazons had never had much cause for sacrifice. They no longer had to implore the Gods for assistance in battle and their blessed isle had never known shortage. But there were still yearly festivals where the tribute offered to the Gods who kept them safe was cased in flesh.
And they had always known.
The beasts; sheep, goats on occasions of great importance bulls could not have understood their fates but they knew something was wrong as they were garlanded and led to temples.
Diana had watched them as a child straining a their ropes, longing she had thought to be back in their calm pastures. Only the sharp, expectant gaze of her Mother had been able to get her to force down the charred organ meat when the rite was done. Even as an adult she had taken no joy in the meal as many of her sisters did, eating only enough to not displease the gods.
Like the poor creatures being led to slaughter Diana knew something terrible awaited her and like them she didn't know what.
She wouldn't have minded this blanket of unease if it hadn't seemed to only settle across her. Watching Bruce remain as calm as ever was downright infuriating.
He hadn't so much as acknowledged John's words after his, Shayera and Wally's departure. Instead he had gone right back to measuring the rooms dimensions and various furnishings and when at last he did speak it was to ask if she liked any of the colours lining the wall in particular. Or what did she think of the furniture suite? He was thinking of commissioning an entirely new set to match whatever colour they settled on.
Diana looked at the rows of paint running up the wall and didn't care about them.
She looked at the nursery furniture and didn't care about that either.
She looked at Bruce and didn't care for his apparent nonchalance most of all.
Essie was a warm weight in her arms, solid and present. And Diana knew that as much as she could go on if that warm comforting little weight were taken from her she didn't want to have to.
The idea of a life without Essie now seemed as absurd as the thought of having a child had been barely four days ago. It might not have been the path she would have necessarily chosen had she been given her pick but now that she was on it she was determined to stay the course. Not just for the sake of stubbornness but because now that she was here she wanted with all the excitement that preceded a festival to see just where the road went. There were countless winds and turns before her and she longed to see just what lay beyond each one.
She would not leave this path, she would not give up her child and for the Gods sake would Bruce put that damn tape measure down!?
Bruce turned to her at her outburst, still infuriatingly unphased. His expression seemed to suggest there was nothing of note going on and he couldn't understand what had gotten under her skin. Which made Diana seethe. She would not be made to feel unreasonable.
Bruce kept her gaze and laid the tape measure and pencil down on the displaced dresser all the while regarding her as if she were a misbehaving child. Which did nothing to help her temper.
Were they going to fight? Diana felt certain they were, which was fine by her, she was suddenly spoiling for one. Only the warm weight of Essie belatedly reminded her it wasn't a good idea. And because he always seemed to be able to gaze straight past her eyes and through to her thoughts Bruce knew that. He drew up the battle lines carefully;
"Not in front of her."
Diana looked down at Essie, as aware that something awaited her as she was. Essie however, unlike Diana, was easily distracted from her uncertain fate by Alfred, responding to his Master's call with silver rattle in hand. He spirited her quickly away to a warm corner of the house where she would be cloistered completely from raised voices and harsh words.
"You're overreacting," Bruce said calmly once he was certain Essie was well out of earshot. He had no intention of losing his composure but Diana wasn't exactly known for her emotional restraint. The way her eyes narrowed at his words made him wish they were in the cave but his terms of Essie being removed had been met so Diana got to pick the battleground.
"Overreacting?" Diana repeated her voice barely more than a hiss.
"Our teammates, our friends threaten to take our daughter away and you think I'm overreacting?"
Taking his life into his hands no more than he did each night Bruce kept his face and voice blank as he rebuffed her;
"John didn't threaten anything, all he did was call for a vote,"
"To decide Essie's fate,"
"We already decided, she's staying here."
He made it sound so simple that Diana wondered if he had misunderstood and didn't fully grasp the circumstances they were in. Unaware that Bruce considered the same of her.
"Diana," He said, "It's not going to come to a vote, if it does it will be in our favour and if it's not there's not a damn thing any of them can do to enforce the outcome,"
"They could take her from us,"
"They could try."
For the first time since the others departure emotion filtered into Bruce's voice in the form of icy rage that gave Diana the oddest sense of deja vu. As if they had both had this conversation or at least something similar to the same ends before. Bruce seemed to experience it to some extent as well because he tilted his head and looked around the room and at her as if he were trying to reinforce where he was.
He didn't comment on it though instead he used the natural break in the tension to effortlessly change tack.
"You're acting as though there are consequences here when there aren't," He told Diana and if his voice wasn't exactly gentle and placating it wasn't completely devoid of such nuance either.
"How can you say that?" Diana implored.
"J'onn, Superman and Flash are all on our side that's 3 against 2 but even if we didn't have the numbers are you really going to stand by their decision?"
"Of course not!" Diana proclaimed offended at the very notion.
"Then what's the problem?" Bruce asked.
"What will we do if it comes to that? We won't let Essie be taken away but if it goes against the League what will we do?"
"Quit."
Bruce really did make it sound so simple and Diana supposed that for him it was. He had only ever been a part time member and his work in Gotham had always come first. Diana had no such back ups.
While she hadn't been a complete rookie as John had alleged on arriving in Man's World she had still been new to saving people and heroics. Being Wonder Woman was something she needed to do. To not use her abilities to help others when she could would be a travesty and she wasn't sure how she would do that outside the League.
She wasn't like Batman, Superman or Flash with a city of her own to patrol and protect, or John who by authority of the Guardians had an entire galactic sector. She wouldn't even know where or how to start. Her hearing while enhanced was nowhere near the level of Kal's she couldn't fly around waiting for calls for help. Without the Watchtowers systems she would hear about disasters long after the League did.
With a spark of inspiration she remembered Bruce had his own monitoring systems in the cave, which many of the Watchtower's had been based on. It was extinguished though with the realisation he didn't have a teleporter. She could fly fast but nothing trumped instantaneous transmission.
Bruce sensing her unease and uncertainty took pity on her and once more tried to reiterate,
"It's not going to come to that Diana."
But she found she couldn't make herself believe it even as cold logic said she should.
The two days stretched before her and even as Diana busied herself through them and tried to settle into a facsimile of daily life more often than not she found the hours dragging around her in sluggish melancholy. Her thoughts were labyrinthine, curling around and around and back over themselves, weighed down and forlorn.
She wondered for the very first time how her Sisters had borne it, the ones who had been unfortunate enough to have sons, sending them away to their Fathers. A son, she knew now, could not be all that different from a daughter.
On the day of the meeting she was done being forlorn and arrived at the stage of pulling at her ropes as the animals she had witnessed throughout her life had. She didn't know what awaited her but she would not be led to it docilely.
With an anger that rather than singing through her veins like fire left her feeling cool she donned her armour. Her back remained ramrod straight as she marched through the halls of the Manor to the cave where Bruce waited.
Alfred had once more been called upon to distract Essie from their absence and had done such a fine job holding her attention she hadn't even noticed each of them slipping away to change and prepare.
Bruce had never once abandoned his stance over the two days but in a rare show of solidarity, approaching comfort he took her hand and squeezed it as he called for transport. It was released just as the beam pulled them away.
Diana knew that no one outside of the founders knew of Essie's existence much less her spot in their upcoming meeting's agenda but she still couldn't help but hold everyone she passed somehow culpable. Fortunately they were all too busy ducking out of Batman's way to notice her own expression was equally stony.
They were the first to arrive at the inner sanctum. A tactical decision on Bruce's part, everyone would have to face them as they entered. Their seats taken and their faces set they waited.
J'onn was the first after them to arrive, taciturn as always he remained silent as he took his seat giving no indication that he knew of the proposed vote one way or the other. Diana knew better than to ask and focused on keeping her hands still.
She was glad to have expended the effort as Shayera was next to enter. Only the mind she had been paying the task was enough to keep her hands folded demurely on the table before her. Rather than curling into fists or stretching of their accord to claw out Shayera's eyes. Eyes she was darkly thrilled to see couldn't meet hers.
Diana, the favoured daughter of the Gods had never gone a day without the presence of her patrons resting on her shoulders. But now the Goddesses had been usurped and in their place the Erinyes coiled at her neck. Only too happy to ignore the charge Athena had once given them in favour of calling for blood.
Kal entered next, likely all to aware of the tension that had begun to rise, a man who could read radio waves could hardly claim to be unable to read a room but he chose to ignore it with cheerful greetings. They unsurprisingly were not returned.
Then it was John's turn. Diana may have been able to keep her hands still but she couldn't keep the anger from her face even as Bruce, well practised at it, could. John unlike Shayera could meet her eyes but kept his face as blank as Bruce's.
Wally was the last to arrive zipping into the room with none of his usual fanfare and glaring as Diana had at John and Shayera.
Everyone assembled the meeting began.
Diana couldn't say she paid it much if any attention. Kal could've been bringing the items on the agenda up in Kryptonian for all that she understood them. She was aware of Bruce commenting on what pertained to him, ongoing investigations and upgrades as if they were in a normal meeting and found that even two days later his behaving as though nothing were the matter still infuriated her.
"And finally," Kal said just as Diana was about to demand to be put out of her misery. Was this how the sacred beasts had felt too? Eager for anything to happen even if it meant the end?
"John you had a motion you'd like to bring to a vote?" He looked up from the tablet holding the agenda, unaware Diana realised, of what was going on as concern came across his face when Wally in an uncharacteristic display of churlishness crossed his arms and glaring across the table muttered darkly;
"Yeah does he?"
"Actually," John spoke firmly, meeting first Bruce's lenses and then Diana's eyes, "I'd like to rescind my proposal."
"Uh OK, if it doesn't need our attention," Kal looked around the room clearly trying to get some kind of clue about what was going on that he didn't know about.
"It doesn't." John's voice was final.
"Well then, motion withdrawn,"
"And stricken from record." Came Bruce's voice drawing everyone's eyes to him.
"Bruce we can't go altering agenda's. You know how important it is that we keep accurate records,"
Kal spoke placatingly hoping to imbue how vital it was that everything they did be as above board as it could in a world of secret identities and intergalactic politics. He liked to think that they had all learned that at least from Cadmus.
"And. Stricken. From. Record."
"Really?" Wally to everyone's shock spoke up, "After what he suggested we're just going to sweep it under the rug and forget about it?"
"After who suggested what?"
"Yes." Said Bruce.
"What!?" Wally exclaimed, his voice however was drowned out by Diana's proclamation of the same word as her anger at last bubbled over.
"How dare you suggest we ignore what he threatened to do!"
"So there's a threat now...?" Poor Kal looked back and forth bewilderedly like he was watching a tennis match.
"Nothing came from it," Bruce spoke evenly.
"So? He still said it!" Wally broke in stubbornly.
"I shouldn't have," John put forward apologetic and remorseful but still a note of finality remained.
"Yeah but you did." Diana had never had cause before to realise just how staunch of an ally could be found in Wally.
Shayera had but now she found herself opposite his benefaction, nevertheless she forged ahead without it,
"We were wrong."
Even those who couldn't claim to know her as the six people she was sharing a room with would have known it was a difficult admission for her to make. Furthering her supplication she finally met Diana's eyes.
"What I said was wrong and I'm sorry,"
"I'm sorry too," Said John also catching her gaze.
Both he and Shayera seemed appropriately penitent and Diana found she didn't know what to do with that. She had spent two days waiting for the axe to fall and now realising that it had been laid aside left her feeling hollow. As though she had been denied something.
She had, the Erniyes brayed with glee, for two days she had suffered and for what? So those who threatened her could take their threats back with pithy withdrawals and offer her nothing but apologies in return.
Where was her retribution? The Erinyes demanded at her neck, not guiding as the goddesses did from her shoulders but choking. She had suffered and those who had made her should suffer too. Suffer as she had, the uncertainty, the trepidation, everything she had bought on herself;... she had bought on herself.
The realisation came upon her with a startling flash. The Erinyes grip at her throat slackened and the Goddesses were rightfully reinstated. They patiently reminded her she could have listened to Bruce but chose not to, she could have had faith but shunned that too. She had surrendered herself over to misery and anger on no one's bidding but her own.
With Goddess given patience and a little wisdom courtesy of Athena, who would no doubt get back to the Erinyes for falling into their old ways sooner or later, Diana considered the situation; a threat had been made but not only had it not been carried out it had been regretted and taken back.
Her neck free she regarded John and Shayera. Was it her imagination or did they seem to be just as before the axe as she had believed herself to be?
Was this how they had all spent two days; waiting to be led to the alter believing the other held the means of execution.
She had bought on herself two days of misery and anger. How much worse were John and Shayera's days of regret. Also bought on themselves but unlike her own self afflicted moods neither John nor Shayera could absolve themselves of the things they wished they had never said.
Bruce had granted not only forgiveness but was also apparently happy to forget. But then he had known two days ago that the words said would be regretted if they hadn't been already and Diana had refused to listen.
So now absolution rested on her alone.
She had forgiven Shayera an actual betrayal once, only to have it thrown back in her face by her saying she had never asked for it. Now Diana could see she wouldn't have enjoyed it all that much if she had.
That was an odd realisation, she had always thought she would have. It would be a complete lie to say she had never imagined Shayera begging the League, begging her for forgiveness. Which she, not being cruel would of course grant. Because she was forgiving and kind and Goddesses had she really been so petty?
Well if she had she was determined to not be so any more, time to let them all off the hook.
"Apology accepted." Her voice was crisp and measured. As it rang in her own ears she was startled by how much she sounded like her Mother.
Not even during her bossiest moments, she definitely knew she was that, could she recall channelling her so thoroughly.
The only sound then was a soft 'oh' from Kal as he was finally clued in by J'onn. Until Wally crossed his arms and stubbornly proclaimed;
"I still think this is bogus."
"We said we were sorry, what more do you want?" Shayera apparently hadn't abandoned her stubbornness either and Wally was not on the list of people she was prepared to prostrate for. Wally however had an easy response ready,
"Apologise to Essie."
"What!?" Several voices chimed across the table. Bruce, Diana, John and Shayera all glared at Wally and then eyed up eachother as they realised they had all spoken the same word at the same time. Wally, completely calm if not a little smug, sat back in the chair he had indeed painted his logo on and nodded with self satisfaction.
"Yep it's the only way."
"You can't be serious," Said John.
"She's a baby!" Put in Shayera.
"Well I mean if you're not really sorry..." Wally trailed off.
"Even if they're not you can't invite people round to my house," Bruce growled upping his glare to a level that would normally leave Wally quivering. But not today, today he was clearly on a mission. Diana could tell, the only other time she had seen Wally display such an energy was when he had tried to trick her and Shayera into mending fences.
"And I guess if you really aren't about to forget this..." He shrugged before Bruce.
"Uh Wally," Clark began, ever ready to be the voice of reason but before he could get to it Bruce stood with a clipped,
"Fine."
He made his way to the door in three strides before turning back to the table.
"Well?" He prompted expectantly, "Are you coming?"
There wasn't much for it but to rise and gather at the door with him, even Kal and J'onn found themselves among the throng.
Diana had never been on a school trip before so she had no idea that that was what her teammates, even J'onn and Shayera in their own fashion, were comparing their trip through the Watchtower behind Batman to.
He barely paused upon entering the monitor womb to give Mr Terrific the coordinates, who duly entered them and was smart enough to wait until he was alone to state;
"I don't even want to know."
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So it turns out, I'm uh, not great at writing conflict. To anyone hoping this chapter was going to be Glamour Slam Pt two: Diana vs Shayera, I apologise. The good news is, anyone still hanging around for the promised cuteness should stay tuned for the next chapter because I intend to start coming through on that. And who knows we might actually get to some overt Wonderbat too!
Story Notes
Literal scapegoating: Sacrifices were an important part of religious life in ancient Greece and since within the context of the DC universe the Amazon's are the last hold out it'd be a big deal to them too. They probably don't need to ask their goddesses for a whole lot since they live in a magical paradise but that just makes thanking them even more important.
The fast and the Erniyes-es: If you don't know who or what the Erinyes' are and haven't guessed from my terrible attempt at a play on words, you'll probably knew them by their more commonly used name; the Furies. The embodiment of vengeance within Greek mythology and later after Athena was done with their antics in regard to Orestes murdering his mother Clytemnestra, justice.
Anyway that's all for now as always I accept criticism of my work just keep it constructive. See you all in the next chapter!
Ari out!