Claire admittedly felt a bit shaky getting off of a boat for the first time in months, since she'd first taken one to the island where she had been training.

It was also the first time in months that she knew exactly where she was - she, followed by Arthur Curry, disembarked the boat sent by Bruce Wayne and stepped onto the soil of a private dock in the Netherlands.

"I ask to have a conversation with the guy and we have to make an overseas trip," Claire said snippily, holding onto the rail as they descended and attempting to look more balancing and less nauseous than she actually felt. "Go figure. I don't know if I've ever met a bigger diva in my life."

"Of course," Arthur said brusquely. "He wouldn't have come to us. Mister Wayne can't properly brood on a white sand beach on a tropical island."

Claire had been around Arthur enough at this point to know that despite his dry tone, this was a joke. Or, perhaps, it was half a joke - he never seemed to have completely accepted Bruce Wayne as someone to take seriously. Regardless, Claire walked down the dock, but let out a small groan when she realized there was a figure waiting there to greet them who was not Bruce Wayne at all.

"What is this, some kind of welcome-back-to-civilization party?" Claire asked with a dry smirk at the sight of Diana Prince in front of her. The statuesque woman held out a thick coat, which Claire accepted happily and immediately pulled on her shoulders. "Not that it isn't a hoot to see you, but I came here to see -"

"Bruce is waiting for you," Diana said with a slight sigh of her own. "But you know how he is - paranoid as ever. He thinks he may be recognized out here. Come with me."

Diana placed a hand on Claire's shoulder and directed her towards the car parked a short walk away before turning to great Arthur with a nod. "She's in good hands now. Thank you."

"She's different now. You can see it," Arthur said, his eyes darting briefly to Claire before coming back to Diana. "I don't suspect Mister Wayne will find her nearly as malleable as before - she'll be far less easy to fit to whatever he has planned. He won't be able to manipulate her so easily."

"He's assured me that he doesn't intend to do any manipulating this time, my friend."

"That sounds familiar, doesn't it?" Arthur asked dryly before turning and walking back to the edge of the dock, then diving artfully back into the sea. Diana gave a slight groan and pinched the bridge of her nose. There were times, she had to admit, that it didn't seem very much like they were forming a team at all. But they would need to, if things continued as they had been - if new threats and new questions continued to arise. This was why she had walked away from the world of men - their fickle, divided nature, their tendency towards war and brutality. And now, here she was, relying on better from them.

Shaking off the disdain, Diana turned to follow Claire to the car and got into the backseat with her, only to find that the driver of the car had already engaged her in conversation.

"That's bad ass," Barry chuckled, having apparently already squeezed some extent of an update out of a very tired-looking Claire who was now looking surprisingly comfortable in the back seat while she spoke with him - the first normal conversation she was likely to have had in months. "Like, Rocky training sequence bad ass."

"I don't think it was anything like that," Claire chuckled sheepishly. "But it was... an interesting few months."

"So now what?" Barry asked just as Diana was closing her door. "Do you... do you stay out there still? Come back?"

"That's what she and Bruce are here to discuss," Diana interrupted, cutting off the potentially awkward response. She turned to look at Claire, and as expected, the woman's expression had very clearly soured. "Mister Wayne is troubled."

"I'm hoping he has a stronger explanation for me than that," Claire said shortly, leaning back in her seat and crossing her arms over herself.

"Hey," Barry said as they began making their way down the road. "You know, Mister Wayne's been putting in a lot of work. It's been rough. I don't think he's really got this whole teamwork thing down just yet, but I think he always does what he thinks is the right thing."

At this, Claire felt her iciness melt away slightly - Barry Allen had a way of dissipating tension even if only for the mere fact that he had such a boyish charm about him. In any case, it was enough to stop the awkward trajectory of the conversation and allow the car ride to continue mostly in silence until they pulled into a nearby town. Barry pulled the car up in front of a pub and inn, glancing over between Claire and Diana. "This the right place?"

"It is," Diana nodded graciously before looking back at Claire. "Bruce will be waiting for you inside. He thought it would be less overwhelming if the two of you spoke alone."

"Good of him to suddenly decide to care what I'd find overwhelming," Claire said with a slight sneer before opening the car door. "Thanks. I guess."

The walk from the car into the pub was just long enough to allow Claire to feel her insides beginning to writhe and twist and sear in a mixture of emotions. Anxiety. Anticipation. Readiness to let Bruce Wayne finally get an earful of what was coming to him. However, as she got inside and immediately saw the older man in all black seated alone at a table at the far corner of the pub, she couldn't help but note how much older he looked now, just a few months after she had last seen him. She walked slowly but steadily in the direction of the table and placed her hand on the chair across from him to get his attention.

"So," she said with an irk of her eyebrows as Bruce looked up from his seat at her. "Where are the cameras this time, Mister Wayne?"

"No cameras," he said - and even his voice, at this point, sounded wearied and rusted. "Please. Sit down."

At this, Claire blinked incredulously. Please? This had to have been the first time in her recollection that he'd actually made a request of her - not a demand or an order, but a request. Dumbstruck, she took a seat and again crossed her arms over herself. This, she realized, was uncharted territory. Things were different. They were different.

"So, I heard you've been doing -"

"I don't want to talk about how I've been doing, Mister Wayne," Claire interrupted. "I don't want to have a chat over whatever you're drinking and catch up on things. I want to know why I've spent months on a desert island trying to avoid a danger that wasn't even real -"

"They told me you and Luthor ran into each other," Bruce said, spark finally returning to his demeanor when the time came to discuss Lex Luthor's role in all this. "And I don't know what he said to you, but -"

"You took me away from my home because you said he'd be afraid of me!" Claire said, the volume of her voice remaining low, but her expression showing her outrage at the feeling of having been manipulated. "You said it would destroy him, that we'd all be in danger and that it was a risk we couldn't take."

"And now that we don't have eyes on him anymore, we don't know what that risk is anymore," Bruce said through gritted teeth. "That's the thing about risks, Claire. They aren't guarantees. You're smart enough to know that, I think."

"Save it," Claire said sourly, shaking her head. "All I want to know now is what happens to me. I did what I said I would. I learned to how to control my abilities on that island, and I don't want to go back."

"And I won't make you. I'm going to make things right. I made deals with you that I plan on keeping, because regardless of what bad blood we may have, we're better off as allies than enemies," Bruce explained evenly. "If you want to come back to Metropolis, you can come back to Metropolis. But you know as well as I do that your life can't go back to what it was."

Before Claire could protest any further, Bruce Wayne reached over to the leather suitcase he had on the ground next to him and produced a folded copy of the Daily Planet, sliding it across the table to Claire. Emblazoned across the front page was a photo of large flatbed trucks in the back loading bay of LexCorp Headquarters, all bearing large objects covered in large tarps and drapes. The headline over the photo read, Something Luthor This Way Comes.

If that wasn't a Lois Lane headline, Claire thought with a fondness that she found surprising, she didn't know what was.

"He's been working on something. We don't have intel on what that might be, but it's been ever since you disappeared - and the day after the incident at the LexCorp island site, he's been moving ahead full steam," Bruce said. "He's got something up his sleeve, and I don't think he's as stable as you're making him out to be."

"I never said he was," Claire said, her voice quiet as she stared down at the newspaper, her brain churning and grinding away in vain as she attempted to piece together in her mind what Lex in fact could be doing. "But I don't see -"

"Look. I'm trying to make things right here," Bruce said, finally finding himself growing frustrated with Claire's obstinance. "And I think the last thing you want is to end up getting sucked into another plan that you didn't ask to be a part of. Because that's what this is," Bruce sneered, somewhat harshly slamming his palm down on the newspaper sitting on the table between them. "I don't know what the plan is yet, but Lex Luthor is planning something. And I don't think he's the only one. I think there's trouble coming, and I need my team to be ready," he finished vaguely. For the first time, however, Claire had the weird feeling that Bruce Wayne included her in the statement - in his team. "I told you, we're going to make things right, but I need time. I'm going to set you up temporarily in Central City, get things squared away. And then we'll get you set up back in Metropolis. We're going to make sure you get to go home, but I need time," he repeated. "Can you give me that?"

"So now you're asking for permission? Now, I have a choice? Now that I'm one of them, like Diana? Like Barry?" Claire asked, though much of the edge had dissolved from her voice. "Not that I'm not grateful that you've come to your senses and all, but where was my choice when I was just a person?"

"I thought we were on the same page here, Claire," Bruce said, pouring a little more malt liquor into the emptied scotch glass in front of him and taking a healthy swig. "You always had a choice."

Claire gave a slightly bitter chuckle, scratching the back of her neck gently and pushing her hair off to one side. "Right," she conceded.

"I'm going to make sure you get your life back," Bruce said, sensing her skepticism in his ability to remain true to his word. It wasn't as though he could blame the younger woman - Bruce Wayne did not necessarily consider himself a man of his word either. "In whatever way I can."

"I'll believe that," Claire said, "when I see it."

A/N

A bit of a transition chapter, setting up what's to come! Next chapter, we will finally be back in Metropolis to shake things up yet again.

I know I have been on hiatus for a good while! As of this update, I am currently 36 weeks pregnant and finally on maternity leave since my doctor put me on bedrest. So, while I finish up the last few requirements of my masters degree, I also have a little bit of time to sit and write. Things have definitely been crazy, and it's nice to have a nice period of calm. I'm hoping the wait before the next chapter will not be nearly as long, as I already have some of it written. Wish me luck! Until next time, cheers!