"So, let's recap. We have a piece of an hittite shield, parts of an hoplite headgear you found in an excavation in former Persia territory, current Iraq, then a number of fragments of Phoenician pottery gathered around areas they colonized in North Africa. And last but not least, inscribed slabs of stone from Siracusa. Oh and the Parthian cataphract you left down in storage because it's too heavy and large to take here. Am I right?" asked Diana, looking at the array of padded containers laid on her desk in her small study at the Louvre. "You need this cleaned, dated and possibly translated where inscriptions are readable by…"

"There's no rush, but it would be great if we could come and take them back by March. We're sponsoring a Middle East themed temporary exposition in Ukraine and we're going to take all the artifacts there by April to set it up," said the unexpected client that turned up that morning with all that material, a tall brunette wearing a gorgeous black tailleur and killer high heels and the brightest smile you could see in Paris before eight in the morning. The day had started early and even Diana, usually a very morning person, was still lagging, despite having drunk three cups of strong coffee already and that woman glowed like the sun that still had to fully rise. And the sun rose quite late in Paris, in winter.

Oh well.

"Right, I'll call you as soon as I'm done. Christmas is usually a very busy period here at the museum, with the surge of tourists in the city, but I'll try to be done as soon as I can. I guess…" she looked at the woman on the other side of the desk but suddenly forgetting her name. "I'm deeply sorry but I think I didn't catch your name. Talia…"

"Head. Talia Head," she replied with a warm smile "And don't worry. To be completely honest I didn't want to come this early but my flight got delayed and I have another one in a few hours to catch, I was running out of time."

Diana smiled herself. "Thanks for the understanding. We're doing some renovations in the exposed collection in preparation of Christmas and believe me, it's gruelling. Uhm, out of curiosity, who gave you my contact?"

"An old common friend, Bruce Wayne. I'm sorry now Miss Prince, I really have to go. Traffic is going to be horrible from here to the airport. If you'll excuse me."

"Of course, Miss Head. I have your card, we signed the acceptance bill, insurance now covers all these artifacts and we should be set. Have a nice flight and all call you as soon as I'm done."

The shook hands and the woman gathered her purse from the chair behind her, then she moved out the office, the click of her stilettos slowly fading in the high halls of the museum as she walked away.

"Uh… Bruce Wayne. I wonder what kind of relationship those two had," she told herself while she gathered the papers related to the artifacts she had just been tasked to examine, date and give a thorough clean up if needed, so she wouldn't lose any important document about the precious load spread in front of her. And precious it was, indeed. And she still had to see the cataphract downstairs, she hadn't seen one in ages even though they were a staple on Themyscira!

Anyway, no time for sentimentalism and getting lost in old, long gone memories. She had an appointment later that morning with a collector of antiques interested in giving parts of his extensive collection to the museum and she needed to have her desk ready for the meeting.

It took a little time and effort to clean up, considering the fragility of the items that cluttered the surface, but at least she made it in time to even deal with some of the paperwork that had amassed in her mailbox during her stay in Metropolis before said collector arrived.

One of her assistants, Etta's great granddaughter Helena, announced his arrival just a little bit after ten in the morning. The man was tall and slightly imposing, probably the same size as Arthur Curry, in his late fifties and with dark, now graying hair and beard. He surely filled the dark grey suit and as he entered the small office, Diana felt the air singe a little, in a metaphorical sense obviously. He did emanate a sense of command and authority, she could read it in his dark, piercing eyes.

"Mademoiselle Prince," he started in a slightly accented French. "My name is Alastor Nikolaides." He extended his hand and shook hers, with a tight but not uncomfortable hold. "I'm here to present you some pieces from my private collection."

Diana nodded. "Please, have a sit," she continued in Greek. "Can I offer you something? Coffee or tea maybe?"

"I wouldn't say no to a nice cup of coffee. Black, no sugar, please."

"Of course. Helena," she called her assistant. "Could you please bring us two cups of coffee, my usual and the other black with no sugar. Oh, and a bottle of water."

The girl smiled. "Right away, Diana. I'll divert all phone calls, so you won't be disturbed."

"Thanks. Now, Mister Nikolaides. What brings you here?"

The man leaned slightly on the armrest of his chair and folded his hands in his lap, a bit like a classic marble statue. "Well, I have to say my collection is starting to burst and I have no idea where to put stuff. You see, I come from a long family of entrepreneurs with a keen interest in the history of our nation so we've been financing excavations ever since archeology has become an almost exact science. And as you know very well, not every piece you dig out ends up in a museum, sponsors most of the time keep the best pieces for their collection, and that's what happened."

"So, you hoarded artifacts and now you don't know where to put them," she joked and he chuckled.

"Pretty much. Rumors have it that you are the most competent curator in any museums in the world, even more qualified than the team of curators of Athens Archeological Museum and they literally live among Ancient Greek culture from the day they're born. So I thought, who would be more qualified than the most revered curator in the circle to appraise my collection and see if there's something worth of being put on exposition here."

"Well, you flatter me now, Mister Nikolaides," she told him as Helena quickly and silently walked in the office with a small tray in her hands, bringing their beverages. "I had no idea I was revered in the circle. I had no idea there was even a circle!"

"Oh yes, curators tend to check out the accomplishments of their colleagues, and according to the people down in Athens, you're currently the best of the best on the market. The Louvre surely hit the jackpot, when they managed to secure your services." He took the cup of espresso and the plate and turned the dark liquid with the spoon for a moment. "Now, I don't have all the pieces I wanted to submit with me, because they're are too many, but I assume you'll be interested in taking a look at them in a way or another."

He produced a thick, bound book from his case and set it in front of her. As she opened it, she couldn't help but admire the great quality of the photographs and the printing, that showed each piece from multiple angles. Not to mention the detailed descriptions of everything pictured in the thick book.

"I also have more pictures on a pendrive, in case you want to see them."

"Oh, give me some time with this and I'll get there," she replied. "You certainly have an extensive collection, for sure. This comes from Schliemann's excavation, doesn't it?"

He leaned closer to take a better look at the picture she was pointing at. "Oh yes, I actually bought it, for a hefty sum I have to say. You know, the Trojan War has always fascinated me and I wanted a piece of that excavation in my collection. Truth is… I may have bought one too many of those and I need to get rid of some of them."

"Oh, you're free to take a look at our storage room, I think we have more than one piece that might interest you."

"Uhm," he mused. "Do you trade, by any chance?"

She laughed. "I think we can arrange something. There are some very interesting items in here, I think we can come up with some good deals."

He let examine the rest of the book in silence, but keeping a close eye on her every second. She felt his eyes on her as she flipped through the pages and looked at each artifact in his collection and for the first time, she felt a little uncomfortable. His stare was almost like a woodpecker, he was boring inside her soul, judging every move and every movement of her eyes over the pictures of his collection, and it was kind of awkward.

And it was escalating, because as she moved forward in the book, the artifacts depicted there started increasingly reminding her of the Amazonian weaponry she had grown up with, up until a full armor turned up, rusty and with the leather withered to the point it was almost nonexistent, photographed on a mannequin inside a huge display case. Said mannequin sported other Amazonian equipment, like sword, shield and gauntlets, not to mention the long spear, that was clearly a replica though, leaning on a stand beside the figure.

"Seen anything interesting?" he asked.

"Yes, something I haven't seen in a long while." She flipped the page again and felt her heart skip a beat or two, when she found herself face to face with a picture of six Amazonians headgears, covered in rust, scratches and bumps from countless battles. Each of them different, each of them belonging to a sister fallen in battle.

"Those are incredibly rare," he explained. "Archeologists and historians are still baffled by those, that's why I keep them for me, but I think it's time they are admired by more people than just an old man with a fascination for Greek myths."

Diana bit her tongue, hard, to stop herself from shouting that the Amazons weren't a myth. "I see. Let me be honest with you, this full battle set seems incredible, I've read of this kind of equipment only related to the myths of the Amazons."

Nikolaides gave her a small nod. "Indeed, that's my theory. For a long time I thought that the items depicted in those photographs where the solid evidence of the real existence of the Amazons, but I never felt confident enough to release them."

"It's a controversial topic." Again, she had to refrain herself very hard not to say something really stupid about it. "Not many historians seems inclined to acknowledge their existence, given the lack of hard evidence, beside the myths."

"Too bad. Fascinating culture. The hard evidence that men, as in chromosome XY, cannot live in peace."

"You really think so?" she questioned, intrigued by such a bold statement.

"Well…" he started, rolling a chromed case about the size of a book in his hands before setting it in front of her. "You tell me, Diana. You're the one that left Themyscira a bit over nine hundred years ago."

What the… She grabbed the case, flipped the latches and snapped it open.

She froze, and then she started shaking.

It was the hilt of the Godkiller, the sword she had stolen from the armory back in Themyscira and that Ares had destroyed like it was made of clay and not solid steel.

"Where did you get this?"

"Where you left it. In Veld, a small village in Belgium. Come on Diana," he suddenly shifted to ancient Greek, rather than modern. "I cannot really believe that Hippolyta's daughter hasn't realized who I really am yet. You're built like you're mother, but damn you got all my colors!"

Suddenly the overly heated room became cold as the North Pole.

Damn, she should have guessed it. Alastor… it was one of the many epithet given to the Father of the Gods.

"Zeus?"

The man shrugged his shoulders and smiled, briefly. "It's nice to meet you, finally."

"Really?" Diana felt the anger surge from the pit of her soul and burst like a firework. "After all this time? After nearly a century, you come to see me? And under this stupid pretense?"

"Would you believe me if I told you I was scared?"

She let out a frustrated grunt. "You? Scared? I'm sorry but I find it very, very hard to believe!" She shut the case, closed the hatches and pushed the container on the desk, towards him. "Come on, why? Why now?"

She saw the doubt screw up his face and his composure, very statuesque up to that point, falter. "Diana I… really, I was afraid. I was afraid you wouldn't understand what your mother and I wanted for you, or why I couldn't kill Ares and stuff. I…" He took a long pause, twisting a strand of his thick beard between his fingertips as he looked outside the window. "I'm being sincere, Diana. I was afraid you would have lashed out. I never wanted for you to do anything you did. I truly hoped Ares would never pop up again, so you would have never needed to leave home and…"

"And?" she prodded him, barely containing the rage coursing through her veins.

"And lose everything!" he snapped. "Because you did lose everything, that night at the airstrip. Like we almost lost everything that day, so many years ago, when we tried one last time to stop him from destroying the world. We almost failed, we came out nearly dead, all of us. Even your mother, and your aunt! We almost lost that day, and you succeeded when we failed, but for Olympus' sake you lost everything else!"

"You mean Steve, don't you?"

"Yes!" He was slipping into an even more archaic language than Ancient Greek, reverting back to proto-Indo European language. Probably his native tongue. "And your hope in humanity! Diana, that day… that day you lost so much more than what we ever had, and I was afraid to meet you because… because I never wanted this to happen and I'm too much of a coward to face you. That's why."

He seemed sincere, but she couldn't really believe him. Not with that timing.

"Let me get this straight… you never even dared to come and explain yourself after I managed to do what you couldn't for reasons I still don't understand and you haven't said yet, and you come to me now to tell me that you were a coward? You? The mighty Zeus, father of all Gods?"

"I'm inexcusable, I get it." He took a long, deep breath and blew it out with a hiss. "Alright Diana. You clearly have no interest in getting to know so I'll leave you be. By the way, the artifacts are real, if you want them, they're all yous."

He stood, gathered his things and, with a curt nod, walked towards the door.

And Diana found herself doing the last thing she thought she would do in such an occasion.

"Wait!"

Zeus stopped, one moment away from shutting the door behind his back.

"Listen, I have work to do, but I can meet you for lunch. I had an appointment but I can cancel."

"Is Steve coming here?" he asked, not turning to face her though.

"He was, but I can cancel. I'll see him home tonight."

Zeus nodded. "Alright. I'll try my best to explain."

She leaned back against the chair and folded her arms across her chest. "You better."