The Stolen Child (3/4)
a Justice League story
by Merlin Missy
Copyright 2005
PG-13
Part Three
Against his better judgement, Dick poked his head into the dining room. Yep, that was a boatload of superheroes sitting at the table where he used to do his homework. Clark smiled and nodded at him like an equal. Bruce gave him an update with just a raise of his eyebrow: new development regarding the kids, Tim still the same.
"Afternoon, all," Dick said. "I met our new guests. Taking the 'Robin' thing literally this time, are you Bruce?"
"They're not Robins and they're not staying. Do you have any good ideas for trying to hide two half-alien children?"
"Make the wings go away on the little one," he said.
Hawkgirl glared at him. "No."
Dick shrugged; he'd fought dozens of Thanagarians in Bludhaven. "Your call. But he's going to draw attention anywhere he goes otherwise."
Clark looked at her. "What have you told Carter? Your Carter," he amended.
"Nothing. This doesn't involve him."
"Oh really?" asked Vixen. Dick nodded to Bruce and passed through to the kitchen before they could start fighting. When Bruce is the most emotionally stable person in the room, you know you've got serious problems.
Alfred was already there, topping some ravioli with some of his homemade sauce. Dick decided Tim could wait a few minutes, and sat at the kitchen table as Alfred put the plate down.
"Where's Babs? She called me."
"Miss Gordon has work today, I believe."
"It's Saturday."
"Not everyone works Monday through Friday, Master Dick," Alfred admonished, rolling up his sleeves and walking to the sink. Dick got the hint.
"Good stuff, Alfred," he said, cleaning his plate. "So," he said, sitting back while Alfred loaded the lunch dishes into the dishwasher. "How are things really?"
"The same." He wiped a plate. "Aside from the obvious. I believe Master Tim's nightmares are getting worse."
Dick took a sip of milk. "Is the doctor going to sedate him at night again?"
"Perhaps." Dick observed Alfred, using the skills Bruce had taught him over the years. There were lines on Alfred's face that had not existed a year ago, a curve to his otherwise rigid spine that suggested not only age, but a great weight on his shoulders.
They all blamed themselves for what had happened. Had one of them done something different, called Tim home earlier, gone on patrol with him that night, anything, he might not be in his room now locked inside his own head.
"I'll be upstairs," he said, standing.
"Yes, sir." Alfred continued with his housework. They all had coping mechanisms, Dick supposed..
He went out of the kitchen the back way, so as not to bug the Leaguers, and up the back staircase. He knocked on Tim's door. "Hey, little brother, you in here?"
"Very funny," said Tim from inside.
Dick went in without an invitation. "Brought you something." He pulled the game out of his pocket.
"War Machines III. Cool. Thanks." Dick was just as glad he didn't smile. He'd been there the last time Tim had tried.
"I thought maybe we could get in a couple of rounds this afternoon."
"Kind of tired," Tim said. "Got another shot."
"All right. Well, maybe we can just sit and talk."
"Bruce gave me the Talk years ago, Dick."
"Fine. So we can sit here and stare at each other."
"Dipshit."
"Dork." He smiled as he said it. He and Tim had their own pattern of interaction, and it worked for them. He'd never had a brother, never wanted one really, but Tim made a reasonable substitute in what passed for Dick's family. "Alfred says you're having more nightmares."
"I'll live. I'm good at that."
"Yep." Dick looked around, noticed both game controllers were out. "Going ambidextrous?"
"You said it's better when you've got two hands to choose from."
"Tim."
He shrugged; with the sedative still in his system, it was a clumsy movement instead of the old grace. "The plebes were in here playing."
"Plebes?"
"Bruce's new recruits."
"He's not recruiting anyone."
"Sure."
"He's not. Babs is his partner now." Funny. It used to hurt to say that.
"Whatever." Tim rolled over in his bed and closed his eyes. "Go downstairs with the sane people, Dick."
"Dude, do you know who he's got for company today? 'Sane' isn't even on the guest list." He hoped to get some touch of amusement from Tim, but there was no reaction. "All right. I'll be here until late tonight. If you want to talk, come down and see me."
"Funny guy."
"At least open your windows sometime today. Your room reeks."
"Go. Away."
Dick left him still lying there and went back downstairs. No one was around. Weird.
The clock was just that touch askew; no one not from the household would have noticed, but Dick figured whoever'd gone down last wasn't familiar with the closing mechanism. He opened it and went down the dark stairs into the Cave.
"Bruce?"
"Over here."
He saw the Leaguers spread out in various parts of the Cave, apparently looking for something. Bruce was investigating the southern stalagmite formation with a high-powered flashlight. "What's up?"
"Flash lost Carter."
"I didn't lose him," protested the redhead he'd met at the front door, zipping up to him. "He's just hiding somewhere."
"You weren't paying attention," said John.
"Rex and I were talking. Right, Rex?"
"I guess," said the boy sitting in Bruce's chair at the computer. His face had "taking a time out" written all over it.
"About what?" Dick asked, ducking his head under the workout equipment to see if the kid had squeezed in over there.
"Stuff," said Rex.
Flash said, "I was asking Rex where Carter got his name."
"Subtle," said Hawkgirl irritably from above them, systematically searching the stalactites.
"I was just asking."
Green Lantern continued to shine his ring into various crevasses. He asked casually, "What did he say?"
"Over here!" said Rex, and jumped out of the chair. Moments later, he was tugging Carter from behind the Bat computer. The rest of them gathered around.
"Are you all right?" Lantern asked, kneeling down and brushing him off. Dick didn't see any actual dirt on the kid's clothes, but he supposed there were some things people just did when they found lost children.
Carter nodded. "I'm okay."
Bruce demanded, "Why didn't you come out when we called for you?"
"I dunno. Can we go upstairs? I don't like it down here any more."
Bruce pointed up the stairs, and the boys led the way back up. Bruce and Dick lingered in the Cave, checking for anything moved or damaged. Nothing was out of place, even behind the computer. Dick wished that made him feel better.
"They can't stay, Bruce."
"They're not going to."
"Keep telling yourself that." Bruce looked at him, really looked at him, and Dick saw the lines on his face, too. He also recognized the look in Bruce's eyes. "You can't fix them. Not here."
"I know."
Dick wasn't sure he did. Every time Bruce met a kid like Dick, like Tim, a kid whose circumstances mirrored Bruce's own, the Batman and the billionaire both went away, and were replaced by the eight-year-old. And Dick knew that child would do anything to undo what had happened.
The two little boys upstairs had lost their parents, but they had come to a place where duplicates of their parents lived, and Dick knew a part of Bruce would be soothed if the children got back even a simulation of the family they'd lost.
But it wasn't real.
This Cave had been a second home for Dick when he'd been a boy. The shadows in the corners fed into darknesses in the soul. He'd escaped, eventually, touched by the night and named by it, but not tamed to its bidding as Bruce had been. He knew its allure and its dangers, too tempting for the broken children Bruce brought to his side, even for Bruce himself.
Wayne Manor was not a place people came to heal; it was a place, at best, where people came to find others with whom they could heal.
The kids had to go, before they were as trapped as the rest of them.
Diana and J'onn showed up in time for dinner. Wally half-expected one of the others to leave, just to keep the balance, but they all managed a meal, League and Batclan alike, with the three youngest people in the house up in their rooms.
This place makes its own wacky.
"I have spoken with our members with magical abilities," said J'onn. "Dr. Fate has offered sanctuary, of course. Zatanna believes she can cast a glamour on Carter to disguise his wings, but it would be temporary at best."
Diana said, "I've talked with my mother. If the children were female, she'd allow them to come, but she won't budge."
Shayera asked, "Why did you even ask her?"
"I thought she might say yes. She likes you."
"She loves you but she banished you for letting the men follow you to Themyscira."
"Give her points for consistency, then," Wally said.
J'onn turned to GL. "Have you contacted Oa?"
"Not yet. Why?"
For once, Wally thought he knew where things were going before they got there. "That'd be the easiest thing, right? Get reassigned to another sector, or just move to another planet in this one. I mean, what does it matter what these two look like when all the other kids in school are purple?" He grinned.
He realized he was the only one grinning. The rest of the crew looked more serious than usual; Vixen's lips were pressed so tight together they made a line. Wally realized he hadn't heard her say anything in quite some time.
"Okay, maybe not."
"No," said John. "It's not a bad thought. I just didn't want to consider it."
Batman asked, "J'onn, did you get the paperwork?"
J'onn nodded and handed over a stack of official-looking documents. "You were correct. The Question did have the expertise to forge the necessary forms."
Freak, Wally thought, but in a kinder way than he would have once.
John came up behind Bats and read them over his shoulder. "These are good. Just one set?"
"For the moment," said J'onn. "We can arrange appropriate documentation for Carter at a later date, should the need arise."
"That just leaves ... " The doorbell chimed.
"Who else are you expecting?" Supes asked Batman. "From the front entrance?"
Bats got one of those little smiles he did when somebody was about to have a bad day. J'onn's eyes glowed, and then he stared at Batman. "This is not your best idea."
Bats ignored him, shutting the door behind him as he went to greet whoever it was in the entrance hall.
J'onn lightly grabbed Shayera's wrist. "You should come."
"Why?" Her eyes widened. "He didn't."
And sure enough, moments later, Bats brought Carter Hall into the dining room with the rest of them.
"Uh, hi," he said, obviously only recognizing about half the people in the room. Spotting his girlfriend, and pointedly not walking past her ex to reach her, he gave her an unsure smile. "You didn't tell me you knew Bruce Wayne."
"Nobody really knows him," Shayera said in a brittle tone. "For example, I had no idea until just now how big of a horse's ass he is."
Nightwing coughed to hide a laugh. Superman smirked. Carter just looked confused.
"Take him upstairs. They should still be in Tim's room," Bats told her. "Like it, don't like it, he's involved in this too."
"Fine," she said. "And the next time you think about getting involved in my personal life? Don't." She grabbed her boyfriend's hand and dragged him out of the room and up the stairs.
"Was that necessary?" Superman asked when they'd gone.
"He has to know."
"Why?" asked John. "She's already said she doesn't want to be involved. No reason for him to be here at all." Wally hadn't thought Vixen's mouth could go even tighter, but apparently he'd been wrong.
"Because Carter, little Carter, still thinks that she's his mother. That makes the other Carter involved too."
"Could we possibly call them other things?" Wally asked. "That's going to get confusing fast."
There was a shout from upstairs. Wally paused for half a sec, then zoomed up the stairs, knowing the rest would get there eventually. In Tim's room, Rex stood trembling in the middle of the floor, staring at his brother's namesake. Said little brother was nowhere to be seen.
"Everything okay up here?" Wally asked.
"It will be," said Tim, "as soon as you all get the hell out of my room." Tim looked terrible: pale, thin, dark circles under haunted eyes. Kara had told Wally that Batgirl had said he'd been completely bugshit insane when they'd brought him home. Wally could believe that.
"You're dead," said Rex.
"This is a different universe, kid," Wally said.
Shayera got to her knees. "It's all right. This isn't the big Carter you knew."
"No," said Rex again, still trembling. "I saw you die. Go away. GO AWAY!"
So. Two bugshit insane kids in the room. Fantastic.
"Come on," Shayera said, getting to her feet and grabbing her boyfriend's hand again. "We'll talk to Carter. I mean, little Carter."
"Out," Tim said to Wally.
"Okay. C'mon, Rex."
"He can stay." Rex crawled up on the edge of Tim's bed and huddled there until Wally left.
Out in the hallway, he saw the door to the boys' bedroom open. Shayera and big Carter were inside, looking for the smaller boy. GL was at the top of the stairs but came no closer to either door.
"Hiding again?" Wally asked.
"Guess so," said Shayera. She didn't stop searching.
"He'll come out when he's ready. Probably just scared."
"Yeah," she said.
"I'll look," John offered, and started focusing with his ring, bathing them all with the weird green light.
"You'll just scare him more," she said. "Anyway, he likes me better."
"No accounting for taste."
"Please," said big Carter. "Will somebody explain what exactly just happened?"
"I hate dimensional travel," Hall said.
"Amen," said Lantern, in a rare show of agreement. Carter had eventually been located by his brother — napping in a closet in the East Wing — and they'd been sent to bed. Rex still didn't want anything to do with Hall. Bruce had grilled Flash on exactly what had been said, but he wasn't sure yet what he would do with the information.
Perhaps Ms. Fowler had been right, and a session or two with Dr. Nichols was exactly what Rex needed. Tim had improved during his time under the man's care, relatively speaking. He hadn't tried to hurt himself in over a month.
"We're open to suggestions on how to proceed," Bruce said.
"Proceed?" Hall looked at his hands on the table. "You're asking me?"
"No, we're not," said Lantern.
"Ideas are ideas," said Diana. "None of ours are completely workable."
"I mean," Hall said, oblivious to both of them, "I could see Shay and I adopting Rex, no problem, but not Carter."
"What's wrong with Carter?" both John and Shayera demanded of him at the same time in the same tone.
"Dear, he has wings. People already hate you on sight. They see a child who's obviously a human and Thanagarian cross, they'll go postal. What's that you said about magic?" He was surprisingly blase for having just discovered the secret identities of half the founding League members.
Diana explained the glamour to Hall while Bruce observed the others in the room. John and Shayera were still fuming at Hall, though Bruce suspected his off-hand remark was just the easiest target for their general irritation.
"We should go," Vixen said suddenly. "It's getting late. We can come back tomorrow and see the boys when they're awake."
John stood but stayed where he was. "We still need to figure out what we're doing with them."
"I know," she said. "Goodnight, everyone."
John hesitated for a moment. "See you tomorrow," he told the rest of them, and followed her out.
Bruce had spent a lifetime tuning his body to be the perfect instrument for his work, and yet there were reflexes he could not control. He chose to believe one of those led him to stare at Diana until she turned her head to watch him back.
This is why, he thought at her. Please show me you understand.
He thought maybe he saw an answering glimmer of comprehension in her eyes, let it warm him for a fraction of a second, until he heard the clock open. A few moments later, Barbara let herself into the dining room. Diana's gaze hardened and she looked away from him.
Mari put the hotel room on her card. It made sense to stay close; they all had their communicators in case of a League emergency anyway. John brought up the two small bags they'd packed and placed them on the bed.
Mari looked around, breathing in the hotel's scent. She was used to sleeping in strange rooms, found that the best way to make it not-strange was to get accustomed to the odors of the fabric cleansers, scented oils and candles, and recirculated, conditioned air particular to every place she stayed. This room had vanilla tones, with honeysuckle. Fresh flowers filled the vase on the table: lilies, chosen more for their beauty than their scent.
"We should have stayed longer," John said.
"No, we shouldn't." The last thing I want to see is you getting into another pissing contest with Carter Hall.
John went into the bathroom while Mari took off her shoes and rubbed her feet. She'd worn stupid shoes today. She didn't always dress up when she knew she'd be in the same room as John's ex. There usually wasn't much of a point, and anyway, her costume was more than good enough to remind John of what he was getting.
He came out of the bathroom, delightfully naked, and let her have her turn. Part of her wanted a bath but more of her wanted a cuddle, and she could shower later.
She watched him watch her appreciatively as she came out of the bathroom in just the complimentary robe, tied to give him a good view of everything. Sometimes, putting on a little bit of a show was half the fun. Then John drew her to the bed and really, the show hadn't been even a tenth of the fun, considering.
After, though, after was her favorite part, when she lay snuggled in his embrace while he nodded off, snoring in fits and then waking with an apologetic squeeze. This was when she was certain John loved her, here within his arms. It was a feeling she tried to hold onto, because it lasted only until she finally, regretfully, rolled out of bed and headed to the bathroom for that shower.
He was still asleep when she came back out, moist and glowing from the heat. She wanted to wake him up, talk to him, but instead she sat in one of the room's plush chairs and watched him as he rested. He was at his most vulnerable like this. She couldn't imagine not loving him, seeing him spread out under the blankets without guile.
She glanced at her ring. He'd let her do most of the shopping for it, bowing to her much better taste in these things. She knew he'd wanted to buy it himself so she'd kept her choice to something simple: a small diamond, two tiny sapphires to either side. It had more glitter than substance but she liked the way it sparkled, and wore it whenever she wasn't actually on the runway.
On the car ride to the hotel, John had started talking about setting a date.
Eight months they'd been engaged, and even then "engaged" wasn't quite the right word. He'd never asked her, not properly, say after a bottle of good wine, under an appropriately starry or moonlit sky. She'd simply remarked one day, partly as a joke and partly as a hint, that it wasn't fair that he was the only one with a ring on his finger, and he'd taken her out the next day to look for one. However, he hadn't actually proposed, and there had been no further action from either of them to make either the engagement or a marriage official.
And she thought she finally understood why. He'd seen Rex, some version of Rex, in a future he admitted didn't even really exist, and he'd spent the past eighteen months since then believing he would someday lose or leave Mari and take up with Shayera again.
He'd never told her, never told either of them. Shayera had moved on, and Mari had gotten stuck in this not-engaged place with him, until he'd found a new way to get that son. So now it was okay to get married. It wouldn't interfere with his plans now, should they get married.
But he hadn't asked. John never asked: he assumed, he planned, he teased, he arranged, and he always accepted "No," with or without an explanation. She knew he respected her opinion when she gave it. She liked it when he took control of things, and she did tell him when she disagreed. Usually. Eventually.
But it would be nice if he'd ask her what she thought, what she wanted. Just once.
John let out a large snore and woke himself up. He saw her watching him and sat up, the covers puddled around his waist. "Hey. What time is it?"
"Late," she said.
"Why aren't you asleep?"
"I was just ... " She stopped, and started again. "You love those boys, don't you."
"Of course I do." He rubbed the sleepy creatures from his eyes.
"And you love me."
He smiled, the way that warmed her inside and made her glad she had so few shifts with the Martian. "You know that, too."
"You ever think about having kids? Other than Rex."
"Sure. I suppose. I mean, not right now. The boys are going to need a lot of care, and I wouldn't want them to think they were getting replaced with a new baby as soon as they got settled in." He yawned. "Maybe a couple of years down the road."
"But you do someday, right?"
"I guess so. Once I met Rex, I stopped really thinking about it, and starting thinking about him."
"Remind me. When did you have your future trip?"
He shrugged. "Week after Shayera rejoined the team."
And see, Mari had a lot of reasons to be glad she wasn't working with a psychic all the time. She'd probably drive him crazy with the thoughts she had, like the fast and not especially hard math to tell her she'd been dating John for about a month when Shayera had come back. So that made what? Five weeks into her relationship with him, and he'd seen something to make him stop thinking about maybe having kids with her, and start thinking about a son he was going to have with Shayera.
She wanted to tell him all these crazy thoughts, wanted to drag out of him a "yes" or "no" on so many things it made her head spin.
She rubbed the bridge of her nose. "I hate time travel."
"We all do," he consoled.
Not the way I do right now, she thought at him.
"I'd think you'd be happier about this," he said. "Now we've got a couple of kids, you didn't have to go through childbirth or worry about losing your figure." She glared at him. "Not that you would," he hastily amended. "You'd be gorgeous pregnant, all round and pretty and ... I should have shut up about thirty seconds ago, shouldn't I?"
"You really should have."
"Sorry."
"Don't be. Just leave the modeling stuff to me, all right? You're not very good at it."
"That's fair." He smiled again. Her heart ached.
"You know, Flash seems to like the kids a lot. Maybe you should marry him instead." She added a chuckle to make him think she was kidding.
"Mari."
Come on, tell me it doesn't matter. Tell me you're past all the rest of that crap now. Tell me you love these kids, fine, but that you wouldn't mind one or two more, and for God's sake, tell me you want me to be their mom, not just the stepmom to a couple of kids you never had.
Please, John. Tell me.
"Are you okay?" he asked her, leaning over enough to take her hand. "What's wrong?"
I want you to be psychic right now. Tell me the things I need to hear.
"Mari?"
"It's nothing," she said, allowing him to pull her from the chair back to the bed, where he continued to hold her hands. "Just. I'm not moving off-world."
"I don't want to move off-world either. You have to know it's always a possibility, though. The Guardians send us where we're needed."
She nodded. "I understand."
"But I'm not moving, not that far. I like it here, and anyway, the kids need to be near Shayera."
Not: "I wouldn't want to ask you to come away from Earth." Not: "I know you've got a life here, a career, your home." Not: "I want to stay here with you."
"Of course," she said, and laughed lightly. She'd practiced this laugh in a mirror, back before she was a name, when she had to fight for work. "I shouldn't have worried." She forced a smile on her face as he drew her back to his chest for a kiss, and she kept it pasted on as she let him tug away her towel so his hands could travel down her body.
Just because it was "good-bye" didn't mean it had to be bad.
"You're pissed at me." Hall tried not to sound too upset, tried to keep his voice light, jovial, even.
"I'm not." Shayera continued to stare out the car window. It had started to rain, so she couldn't see anything. She was just ignoring him.
"Sure you're not. You've said maybe ten words to me since we left Wayne's place."
"I'm not feeling chatty tonight." More staring.
He wasn't insecure. He knew he wasn't insecure. Hall had no problems being seen in public with Shayera. When she got that "fight or flight" look in her eyes, he made a point of grabbing her hand and dancing her around until she laughed; every time, he tried to think up new ways to tell her people just stared because they couldn't figure out what such a gorgeous woman was doing with a gargoyle like him.
Hall was even okay with the fact that she still worked closely every day with her ex. He knew there was some unresolved stuff between them. He'd been through a couple of bad breakups in his youth, and none of his had been under public scrutiny or involved the safety of the planet. He had all the slack in the world to cut her. He knew he was the one she went out with, the one she came home with, the one she was eventually going to admit she loved. Lantern could keep his supermodel; Hall had the real thing and knew it.
So he could ignore the squirming in his guts, the feeling that said her thoughts were on her ex right now.
He could.
"Etruscan hemidrachm for your thoughts."
"Idiot," she said, not unkindly, and she did smile. "Thinking about the boys. Wondering what possessed the other me to have not one but two half-human babies."
"Condom malfunction," he said, realizing a second too late this might not have been the best comment.
"Maybe. I could see one by accident. I mean, I didn't know until just now that it was possible." She glanced at him. "But by the second one ... "
"Guess they liked Rex so much they wanted another." God knows why. Kid's a freak.
"I guess."
"But you know," he said, slowing down a little to be more mindful of the slick road, "since it is possible, maybe we could start thinking ... "
"Thinking about what?"
"You know. Couple, three kids, your brains, my good looks." He polished his fingernails on his shirt.
"So you're dooming them from birth."
"Could be fun," he said. And yes, since it was apparently possible, they'd just been damned lucky so far. He wondered if that was part of the reason she was so withdrawn tonight.
"No. It wouldn't. They'd cry and scream, and want to be held and changed, and they'd be messy, and I'd have to quit the League, and I couldn't go on expeditions with you, and there is nothing good about any of it." She kept staring into the rain.
That was unexpected. "You don't want kids?"
"Can we talk about something else? Or can we just not talk?"
"All right, all right. Not saying another word. Me? Strong silent type from here on out. Not a peep. Zip. Zilch. Nada."
"Carter."
He shut up. She was in a mood. He could ask her about it in the morning.
Ten miles later, she demanded, "And what do you mean, your good looks?"
"It was a joke, hon."
"You want children."
He thought about it for a few seconds. "Yes."
"With me."
"You're the only current candidate."
"Fine. Mental exercise time. Tell me what our kids would look like."
"You just said you didn't want any." Besides, I figured we'd have to adopt.
"Tell me."
"Fine." Had he not been driving, Hall would have closed his eyes. Instead, he tried to keep an eye on the road and also form a picture in his head. Child. His and Shayera's.
"She'd look like you. Happy?"
"Describe her."
"A cute little green-eyed redhead. I'll have to lock her in the house until she's thirty just to keep the boys away."
"What else?"
"She's smart. Maybe not Batman-smart, but you know, smarter than the rest of the kids in the class."
Shayera was quiet for a long time. "What about her wings?"
Hall shrugged. "Doesn't have any. I mean, Rex doesn't either, right? That's what she gets from me."
"Rex's wings were amputated when he was a baby."
"Oh." He wasn't sure how to respond.
"This little girl in your head. If she was born without legs, you'd be okay with that?"
The mental image was immediate, and painful. "It's a risk everyone takes, even in the same species. I've got this one cousin ... "
"Carter, I'm not a human with some wings tacked on. I'm a Thanagarian."
"I know that, hon."
"Stop the car."
He found a shoulder and pulled over. She opened the door. "Where are you going?"
"I need to clear my head."
"It's dark out, it's raining, and we're in the middle of nowhere."
"I'll get a beam."
"Get back in the car, Shay."
"I'll call you later." She shut the door and walked away. As he opened his own door to go after her, she touched her ear and said something, and she was gone.
Hall looked at the spot where she'd stood, then punched the top of the car.
Shayera watched the interior of the Watchtower materialize around her. The tech on duty nodded to her from the controls. She smiled back.
"Hey, Fred. Who's on duty tonight?"
"Gypsy, Vibe and Elongated Man."
"Thanks. Any noise?"
"Not too much," the tech said, and with a wave, went back to his station. Shayera tapped her leg. She hadn't lied. She did want to clear her head. She thought about getting in a workout in the gym. Pummeling a few practice robots might be just what she needed.
An hour later, she was hotter, sweatier, and in no better mood than when she'd started. She headed for the showers, and almost ran head-first into Diana.
"Thought you'd be home now," Shayera said.
Diana replied, "I thought you and Carter left together."
"We did. You know, I used to argue with you when you said all those bad things about men. But you were right."
"No, I was sheltered."
They stood looking at each other for several long seconds. Were they different people, Shayera would have asked Diana to the mess, and they might have gossiped over drinks or ice cream, bitching about guys and enjoying each other's company.
Instead, Shayera asked, "Wanna spar?"
"Weapons or hand to hand?"
"Your call."
Diana opted for hand to hand, and they faced off. This was the workout she'd needed, against an opponent who could think and strategize, and also who could hit really really hard.
Shayera kicked Diana's knee out and landed atop her, pining her shoulders. "My point."
Diana jabbed her in the sternum with an elbow, knocking the wind from her, before a follow-up punch set her sprawling. She recovered, gathered her wits, then leapt into the air and came down with legs extended. Diana ducked, then thrust off, and the mid-air combat began in earnest.
Shayera was winded, but happy.
"Tell me something," Diana said, grabbing her from behind and pinning her arms.
Shayera buffeted Diana with her wings enough to get leverage, then smacked her with the back of her head. "Go ahead."
"John's completely in love with those kids." A punch, easily dodged. "He's pulling as many strings as Bruce can find to get custody." Knee-strike, painful but recoverable. "I'd be surprised if he hasn't already started painting their bedroom." Fists locked, against her forearm, and she landed hard.
"Ow. And?"
Diana landed beside her, waited until Shayera had rubbed some feeling back into her arm. "You're doing anything you can to be anywhere else."
"They're not my kids, Diana."
"I know. You ready, or are we done?"
"I'm ready. Unless you're getting tired."
Diana smirked and got back into position.
The blows were faster this time, and Shayera found herself parrying more than attacking. Her fingers longed for the feel of her mace, for the firm crack of Nth metal hitting flesh and bone. She kicked out wildly, was unsurprised when Diana grabbed her leg and threw her flat onto her butt.
"You should take a break," Diana said. "That was amateur."
Shayera stuck out her tongue, but took the opportunity anyway. There was water in a cooler at the corner of the gym. She tossed Diana a bottle and drank her own thirstily.
"I had a goldfish," Shayera said.
"What?"
"Before. Back in the old days. I had a place. I got a bowl and put a goldfish in it." She'd never really tried to assimilate in Earth culture, but there had been a few times she'd experimented with it. A few sets of clothes she'd seen human women wearing. Watching television in the old Watchtower, while Flash tried to impress her with his knowledge of old programs. And a pet. "It died after a few days. I fed it, but it died."
"It was a goldfish. As far as I can tell, they all die."
"Not my point." She finished her water. "I screw up things when I touch them. I hurt people when I care about them. You know that. Sometimes I think you're the only one on the team who's honest enough to say it."
Diana shrugged. "Not going to argue with you."
"Diana, I shouldn't be allowed to have a houseplant. I spend any more time than necessary around those kids, around any kids, and I'll hurt them. I might not mean to, might not want to, but it'll happen. The best thing I can do for them is get them set up with John, and then leave them the hell alone."
"So you're scared." Diana took both bottles and threw them into the recycling can.
"I'm not scared. I'm practical. I can't do this. I shouldn't do this. And I'm smart enough to know it."
"Maybe this time it's not about you." Before Shayera could come back with anything good, Diana asked, "Ready?"
She nodded, and they took position again. She struck first, aiming for chest, shoulders, knees. Diana blocked each blow, refreshed from her break. Shouldn't have let her sit down.
An uppercut, probably harder than Diana had intended, knocked Shayera's teeth solidly together and sent dark spots in front of her eyes. She fell, shaking her head. "I give. We're done."
"You okay?"
She stretched her jaw, probed with her tongue to ensure all her teeth were still in the right places. "I will be."
"Shower. You'll feel better."
Shayera made an audible sniff at Diana. "You too. Everyone will feel better."
Diana snorted, and followed her to the locker room.
