Still not ours. Still just playing.
-X- -X- -X- -X- -X-
Diana was growing frustrated.
She'd questioned the priestess Penelope, the oracle Menalippe, the historian Mnemosyne, and Philippus, the captain of the guard. Everyone had a different opinion on what could have killed their sisters. Philippus was convinced some super-powered male from the outside was skulking about and if they only marshaled enough guards, the problem would be solved. Penelope said it was the will of the gods that some Amazons die, which Diana found particularly unhelpful in light of her recent sojourn on Olympus. Mnemosyne suggested both poison and some sort of magic.
Menalippe would speak to Diana only in hushed tones, her eyes frequently darting to the side as if afraid someone would overhear. And Diana hoped for some real clue at last. But the oracle only whispered, "I know something isn't right. My sight is blinded on these murders."
"No more blinded than mine," Diana muttered. She meant her truth sense. Every one of the women believed what they were saying absolutely, but clearly their beliefs were based on assumptions, and in some cases prejudices, not facts. And facts, clues, were what Diana needed to solve this puzzle. Unfortunately, she didn't know how to find any. What good was having the ability to sense truth when one didn't know the questions to ask?
Where was Batman when she needed him?
Suspicion led her to probe Doom's Doorway, over the strangled protests of the guards and under the withering eye of the high priestess. The Doorway was the one truly malevolent thing in her homeland. It seemed natural to consider it the source of the murders. But the portal appeared as it always had. The guards surrounding it insisted they had not left their posts.
"So, no one saw anything come out of there?" she asked Aella, the guard who had escorted her down here.
"No, Princess -- at least none who survived." The woman shifted uncomfortably. "The first to die was guarding the gate, however. Since then, we tripled the guard."
A lack of witnesses wouldn't stop Batman -- but she wasn't Batman, and right now, she couldn't even contact him because she was no longer Wonder Woman with the ability to come and go as she pleased. She couldn't allow her frustrated scowl to show. She needed to be in command of the situation, a Princess, through and through.
"And none of those guards could have been persuaded to allow someone to pass, perhaps open the Doorway?"
Diana felt more than saw Aella's start of surprise. "Open it? Not I, Princess. Not ever."
That was truth. However, not I was not the same as no one. Would she have to question every guard who watched the portal? And if she proceeded with so little subtlety would she merely alert the killer she was near?
"Aella, is there --"
The guard had looked away suddenly, and pointed. "There is something approaching from the West, in the air. Look, Princess."
Diana scanned the sky, and then she saw it -- a flicker of light glinting off something metallic. She frowned. This was Themyscira, not Boston or New York, and airplanes weren't a common sight. A moment later she was airborne.
She relaxed when she recognized the device given to her by the Lansinarians, now in the form of a modern fighter jet. She smiled at her mother, Hippolyta, though the transparent structure. The queen waved back.
Moments later Diana touched down beside the jet on the field outside the palace. Then she was embracing her mother.
"Are you visiting from Olympus, Diana?"
"No, I renounced my godhood." Her mother's shock was easy to read, and Diana explained about her sacrifice and the vial. "I'm responsible, in some way, for everything Donna suffered. This is my way of making it up to her."
"Perhaps this is the reason for the dreams I've had of late," Hippolyta said.
"Dreams?" Diana could see Philippus and others waiting to greet her mother, but Hippolyta gave a slight shake of her head, and the other women fell back. Wonder Woman didn't need protection. She was protection.
"Aye." Her mother turned toward the palace, and Diana fell into step with her. "For the past week, every night I've had dreams, each more unsettling than the last. I woke from the one last night with the certainty that I had to return home."
"It is good that you've returned," Diana said as they climbed the palace steps. "There have been deaths."
"Tell me while I wash away the stink of Patriarch's World."
While her mother bathed, Diana told her mother of the murders and of her attempts at solving the mystery. She'd never felt quite so incompetent. And, as she spoke she realized the only solution to their problem. "I am a warrior, not a detective. The truth of this matter eludes me."
"Together we will find the truth."
"No, Mother, we won't." She seldom spoke so firmly to the queen, but they were alone, and this was important. "The priestesses are content to pray for help, though I know the gods have not noticed this trouble. And the others are lost. They need your leadership. And I need to be Wonder Woman again so that I can return to the outside world and bring us back the help we need."
"What help do you think we need, daughter?"
"Batman." Diana allowed the simple answer to stand. Her mother clearly understood from that one word. Bruce would respond better to Diana's plea since he had known her longer, trusted her more.
Sadness lined her mother's face, but only for a moment. The queen understood duty and responsibility all too well. "Very well."
-X-
It was all Barbara could do not to call out the Justice League, the Titans, and the entire Green Lantern Corps when she and Mouse finished talking. That she had the most powerful people on the planet on speed-dial helped counter her instinctive panic. But, responsibly, she would not call any of them until she'd compiled and verified all the data. She was the Oracle. She would do her job correctly even though the preliminary conclusions made her skin crawl.
Doing the job correctly meant following up on the information she and Mouse had found with a call to Dick.
He wasn't in his apartment in Bludhaven, and the tracker in his Nightwing suit was inactive, which meant he wasn't wearing the uniform at the moment. For a moment, panic clutched her heart. What if he'd been unable to escape the mine? The old mine's collapse had made the evening news yesterday. If Dick had still been inside when that happened, he would be dead.
But, that was impossible. Alfred insisted "Miss Troy" would rescue him. Barbara thought back to the last image she'd seen of them together at his apartment. They'd been kissing on the video, right before the screen went dark. Her thought then had been that Donna could well be the right woman for Dick. He'd had lovers -- Starfire, his college girlfriend Lori Elkins, Huntress -- but he'd never let any of them as close to him as Donna Troy. Not even Starfire, who had shared his life in the Titans just as Donna had. It had always been Donna whom he trusted with his secrets and his fears, maybe even some he didn't share with Barbara.
No, whatever happened, Donna Troy wouldn't let Dick die -- or if she did, it would only be because she died first.
She sent a coded message to his cell phone. It was her least favorite method of contacting anyone, because it meant she had to wait for them to return the contact. Dick, at least, was usually prompt with such return calls. That was little comfort as she watched the minutes tick by, minutes she could use only to stare at the rumors and legends she'd compiled into a nightmare.
Finally, around nine in the evening, her communication line flickered to life. Dick's handsome face filled the screen, along with his bare chest. "You called, Oracle?"
His use of her code name told her she shouldn't deactivate the Oracle icon now displaying on his screen. He wasn't alone.
"This is getting to be a habit," she muttered.
"What's that?" he asked, casually shifting in the chair he'd drawn up backward to whatever table his communicator rested on. The chair's back was intricately carved, delicate, nothing Dick would own. The room behind him clearly was not his apartment. She wondered who he was with now.
A thousand cynical comments occurred to her, followed by a dozen more motherly questions and admonitions concerning his emotional well being. But the strongest, and most surprising was, if he's screwed things up with Donna, I'll make his life hell.
The intensity of that response surprised her, perhaps more than it should have. Applying her analytical skills to her reaction, she realized she wanted Dick to be with Donna. She wanted to share her newly discovered courage with him, If he were with Donna, then he wouldn't think it meant something more.
An instant later, as if summoned, Donna Troy stepped into view behind Dick. She draped her arms around his shoulders, kissed his ear lightly, and set a coffee mug at his elbow. Barbara read the love in the other woman's eyes.
Relief flooded her, and she allowed herself the smile that he wouldn't see. "Sorry. Talking to myself."
"And you got tired of talking to yourself so you called me?" That was Dick, always finding humor in the situation.
Barbara shook off the odd comfort she took in seeing Donna with Dick. Her disturbing conversations with the hacker Mouse over the last few hours threatened far too many dangerous possibilities to be forgotten in a morass of romantic speculation.
"I called because I need information." She saw his eyebrow lift and his unconscious caress of Donna's hand where it rested on his chest. "When you were in the mine with Deathstroke did you see a silver arrow, looks largely decorative?"
Both Dick's and Donna's faces went grim. "What about the arrow?" Dick asked.
All right, Dick had seen it, discussed it with Donna, and they were both concerned about it. Useful, if not particularly comforting, information. "My sources on it are convoluted and complicated. I've been chasing down legends and myths from the life of Alexander, as in the Great."
"I think that arrow was older than Alexander," Dick cut in. "From the markings on the shaft."
"That fits the more disturbing interpretations of my data." Barbara tried to keep the fear out of her voice, to sound every bit the unflappable Oracle. But, every time her comfortably technological world collided with the mystic and divine, particularly the malevolent variety, she lost her cool.
"It's Kreder's death weapon, isn't it?" Dick sounded certain.
"Maybe. I need to confirm a few things," Barbara hedged. She wasn't ready to give in to the existence of a god-made weapon hanging out in Bludhaven just yet.
"What do you know, Oracle?" Donna asked, calm like the sky at the center of a hurricane. Of course she was, Barbara thought. She was an Amazon, and likely well versed in the very details of Greek culture that Barbara was fuzzy on. Her presence, far from a detriment, was an asset to the investigation.
Barbara let her mind slip back to the conversations with Mouse. The young hacker had explained using a modified image recognition program to compare Slade's picture of the arrow to other representations on the vast internet. "About five years ago an archeological excavation on the island of Delos turned up an important fresco depicting the Battle of Issus."
"Delos, that's where Kreder found his temple." Dick was already putting clues together.
"Right," Barbara confirmed. "Same place, different excavation. Anyway, the fresco was probably created by one Philoxenos of Eretria, and quite famous in antiquity. Famous enough to be reproduced on a sarcophagus purported by some to be Alexander's." Barbara called up an image of the relief carved on the sarcophagus and displayed it on Dick's screen.
"I don't see any weapons," Dick said.
Barbara glanced at the now well-studied image herself -- a typically stylized Greek battle scene, it showed fighters with arms raised in active combat, and at their head, Alexander atop his famous horse with his own hand held above his shoulder grasping what should have been a long lance or spear. "The weapons were probably metal, gold or silver, and stolen ages ago. But, on the fresco, it's clear Alexander is holding a silver arrow."
She switched the screen image to show the painted version. In it, Alexander's silver weapon had been elongated to the size of a spear, but the distinctive fletching at the ends marked it as an arrow.
"That's just…" Dick frowned, "…odd." He leaned closer to the display, studying it hard. As he did, his expression grew more grim.
"Is that the arrow you saw with Slade?"
"Yes." He flexed his fingers as if gripping the shaft as Alexander once had. "I'm certain. I held the thing before Slade took it."
"It's one of the Arrows of Artemis," Donna said. "In legend, they're called Arrows of Strife or Arrows of Sorrow. They can kill instantly, and they can also make anything they touch more deadly."
Barbara's stomach knotted. She'd barely been willing to touch that possible conclusion while Donna grasped it immediately. "How are you so certain?"
"We have paintings and sculptures on Themysrica, Oracle. I've seen the Arrows of Artemis depicted many times."
Dick's jaw tightened. "How does something like that wind up on Earth?"
"That's where the legends come in." Barbara checked her notes before continuing. "Apparently, one of these arrows was given to Alexander of Macedon on the eve of the Battle of the Hydaspes River in 325 BCE, possibly by the goddess herself. With it, he defeated King Porus of Pauravas and won the day. He should have returned it to the gods at that point, but instead kept it for himself, probably because his army was exhausted and mutinying."
Dick nodded, encouraging her to continue. Still, his thumb stroked Donna's arm. Barbara would bet good money he had no idea he was doing it.
"At this point the stories diverge. Some say the gods punished Alexander by sending a disease down that killed him. Others say that at a banquet given by his friend Medius of Larissa, Alexander brought out the arrow to show his friend and, drunk, he accidentally nicked his finger. That small wound caused him to sicken and die. After that, his generals saw the arrow as cursed and hid it in a temple on the island of Delos."
"Where Kreder found it in his search for occult weaponry," Dick concluded for her.
"Correct, if the legend is true," Barbara cautioned, though it was formality now. The facts were lining up too straight to be denied. "Apparently, Deathstroke has the legendary arrow, and he seems to believe it has magical properties, but I need you to verify if you saw--"
"It's as deadly as you imagine." Dick's voice was dangerous as his frown, and Donna hugged him a bit tighter, a comforting motion. That confirmed Barbara's instincts. Donna could be what Dick needed. And what Barbara needed him to have -- a woman who would never be jealous of Barbara's own relationship with him, who would be glad he had Oracle's infallible information even as she provided what Barbara could never give.
Even had Joker never shot me, Donna still would be better for him, Barbara thought. I once had his back. I never would have been able to soothe what frightens him to the point of violence.
She might have wandered a bit farther down that mental path if his next words hadn't diverted her thoughts.
"I killed Blockbuster with it." Then, slowly, he explained the details of Desmond's death.
Barbara couldn't speak, and was grateful that he couldn't actually see her face. If her expression carried the shock she felt, it would be a caricature. Her surprise came partly from the thought Dick had caused someone's death, but the greater part came from how perfectly his description matched the legends of the arrow.
The very presence of the arrow was believed to create corruption in a community, one brittle academic had written of Alexander's time. And Kreder's diary, transcribed and uploaded to a blog by an admirer with a love of spider-web motifs, echoed the same sentiment -- it's wholly evil, wholly wonderful. It makes killers lust more for blood, it gives me grand ideas. If only I could carve it into pieces and make a million tiny, evil darts.
Kreder couldn't figure out how to cut the arrow up, but Barbara easily imagined Slade Wilson would work out the process. The metal itself killed, which meant a thin foil of that silver over the tip of a bullet could kill. More ingeniously, a bit buried in the halls of Congress would corrupt every politician -- even more than they already were, Barbara added wryly. Kreder must have thought he could make another Hitler. Perhaps, in fact, he would have been on the way to such evil himself were he a man of higher ambitions. If it were sold to someone like Lex Luthor, or shot into the chests of the most powerful superheroes, the ways in which this arrow could be used to destroy were limited only by the creativity of the one who possessed it. Deathstroke was a creative man.
Barbara's panic choked her, flooded her senses, and she missed Dick's explanation of how Deathstroke wound up with the arrow.
"I didn't mean to kill Blockbuster," he was concluding when Barbara managed to focus on his words again. He sounded steady now, almost casual. Barbara knew he was anything but. "I swear I only meant to disable him so I'd have room to move. I didn't know what the arrow would do to him."
"I'm sorry," she said, though her fear of what could happen next didn't really allow much room for sympathy. She understood Dick must be torturing himself about the killing. That was a line he'd been taught never to cross. But, as far as Barbara was concerned, the man was a monster and probably deserved worse than he got. That was an older fear talking, but she didn't care.
"Don't want to talk about it, Oracle." He closed the topic firmly. "That arrow is more important. I need to know everything you have on it."
"There's no time for full disclosure. I have to call Superman, the Justice League …." She began tapping in the numbers as she spoke. "This is too dangerous not to act immediately."
"No." The tone of command in his voice startled Barbara more than his confession moments ago. Her fingers stilled half way through the call to the League.
"But, Dick --" too late, she realized she'd gone personal instead of professional. At least slipping in front of Donna wasn't a disaster.
"No," he repeated. "That arrow is deadly, and Deathstroke's the best there is at killing. I already know where Deathstroke will be tomorrow afternoon. He's already agreed to do an exchange. I'm the best one to get the arrow back, and I'll do it."
Barbara took a breath. He was so like Bruce, sometimes, so stubborn and determined to do things his way. "Slade Wilson is faster than you are, stronger, maybe smarter. You need backup."
"I'm going alone," Dick said. "He may be faster and stronger, but we understand each other."
"At least take Troia," Barbara pleaded.
Behind Dick, Donna was shaking her head. "He already refused."
"I know what I'm doing," Dick insisted. "Slade will honor his exact terms as long as I follow his instructions. They're the standard 'come alone.' I'm going to do that."
Her gut clenched. "And that gives him all the advantages. Would you advise a blackmail victim not to call to the police?"
"Ask me that when I don't live in Bludhaven," he shot back. "Think for a minute. You assume you'll call Superman and that will make everything safe and okay. But, this is a god's weapon. What possible assurance do you have that it won't kill Superman as quickly as it did Blockbuster? You can't make this a safe operation, Oracle. But, you can allow me to do my best to beat Deathstroke on his own terms before you send others off to risk their lives."
Barbara swallowed. "I don't like it," she said.
"It's not your decision." That tone told her why he'd been the unquestioned, unchallenged, leader of every team he'd belonged to.
"Dick," she began, her tone pitched to be soothing, even though the voice scrambler in his computer wouldn't carry the effect to his ears, "if this is atonement for killing Roland Desmond, you don't need it. You don't have to die just because--"
"It's not that," he snapped. Barbara had the feeling that if Donna hadn't had her hands on his shoulders, he'd be up and pacing. "This is the right tactic. I get that I'm not guilty of murder. It was at worst an accidental killing and certainly self-defense. Do I feel bad about it? Yes. Am I going to beat myself up for not realizing the arrow could've been more than it appeared? Probably, at some point. But I'll deal with all that when the danger is over. Right now what's driving me is a simple question -- what's the best way to get that arrow back without risking more lives?"
"But--"
"There is no but. I have to do this. And I'm telling you not to get in my way." Though the words were harsh, she could see from the way he bent closer and the softening of his expression that he understood she was afraid for him. Maybe he understood how she was afraid for herself as well. He finished with, "If I fail, you'll have more information that might help the others."
She didn't have to like his argument for it to be right. "All right," she said finally.
No one who didn't know him well would've noticed the slight easing of tension in his shoulders. "Transmit everything you've got on that arrow," he said. "And I'll call you after the meeting with Deathstroke."
"You'd better. Oracle out."
Barbara disconnected the call and sank back into her chair. Numb. Impotent. She couldn't quite believe she was going to let Dick do this by himself. But, he hadn't given her the details of his meeting with Deathstroke, and he'd cover his movements to prevent her from tracking him.
All of which left her alone with the terrifying possibilities should Dick fail. Those fears prowled like wolves in a new den. They roused the other fears already dwelling inside -- the fear of her identity being exposed, the fear of another bullet.
Realistically, she told herself, the arrow would not corrupt the world in the next few hours. It had been on Earth for millennia, after all. And yet, had it not spent most of that time buried in a region of the world known for violent upheavals? And since its discovery, it had been kept in Bludhaven. Was there a worse city in the country for corruption and violence? Maybe there was very little time.
She needed to follow Dick's example in this, confront the fear in a way she'd always refused to do before. He had to know there was a serious chance of dying, but he'd rather go down fighting. Wouldn't she? Yes, Barbara decided, she really would.
In a way, she'd begun when she'd called Mouse. She'd allowed a link to a criminal, to someone with the skills to track her down and rip off her Oracle mask. And yet, rather than a threat, she'd found an ally -- temporary, perhaps, but an ally all the same. The fear of exposure whimpered at that realization.
Mouse had told Barbara that she and Giz were going straight, heading for Hawaii to find a beach as far away from an internet hot spot as they could. She'd invited Barbara along. It was impossible, of course. Oracle couldn't visit with criminals, even reformed ones. Could she?
Certainly she couldn't while the arrow was still a danger, while the Justice League might still have to be called in, while her skills might yet be needed. But after? Of course she couldn't. It was absurd. However, Dick was moving on with his life. He'd maybe found what he'd been looking for in Donna. Barbara decided she could at least check the price of airline tickets.
-X-
Donna watched Dick's computer screen go dark and straightened, her hands still resting on his shoulders. She wanted to massage them, to ease his tension, but his bruised shoulder suggested that doing so might cause more pain than pleasure.
Instead, she said, "You were a little harsh with her."
Dick turned in his chair, pulled her into his lap. "Her? What makes you think Oracle's a her?"
Donna rolled her eyes. "Please. Aside from the fact that almost every oracle mentioned in history is female, it's obvious from how she talks."
He chuckled. "You're a better detective than you've let on. Why didn't you help me more all these years?" She knew he was jesting to ease his own tension. She felt the tightness under his skin.
"She cares for you," Donna said. It wasn't a question, but he could take it for one if he chose.
"We've known each other a long time," Dick admitted. He hesitated, and Donna had the sense that he was deciding how much to say. Finally he added, "I even thought that we might be more than friends, once. That didn't work out."
"I'm sorry." That it hadn't worked out had hurt him. Donna could hear it in his voice.
He shrugged, trying to be casual. "I'm over it, really. She'll always be a friend, but never anything more. Yet another failed relationship." Dick looped his arms around her waist and rested his head against her chest. "At least we're still friends."
"You and Kory are still friends, too," Donna had to point out. That was something they had in common, the two of them -- a string of failed romances that remained friendships.
"Are you and Kyle?" For once when he said Kyle's name, his voice wasn't controlled. She heard a hint of jealousy behind the words, and realized she liked that he felt it.
"Yes." That, at least, she was certain of. She took a breath. "Terry and I weren't, at the end. I've always regretted that."
His arms tightened around her. "I'm sorry."
That was a topic best avoided. "Oracle's scared for you -- and so am I."
He brushed fingers lightly over her wrist. Another man would have patted her hand and patronized her. Not Dick. "I need you here, Donna. If I die, if I fail to get that arrow back from Deathstroke, I need to know someone I trust will be here to lead the next attempt."
"Batman could do that. There are lots of people who can."
"But nobody I trust more." He met her gaze squarely. "You've been my second in the Titans since the team re-formed. You know what we're facing. You can keep calm in a crisis. And you lead gently where others lead with force."
She kneaded his neck carefully, avoiding the shoulder she'd inadvertently bruised. She'd rarely argued his logic before, and she couldn't now. Whether she'd agreed or not, she'd followed his orders since they were children. Being his lover didn't change that truth. Every time the team had deviated from his plans, they'd lost. She thought about the horror Raven's father had released on Earth and, not for the first time, wondered if that would have turned out better if they'd trusted Dick's cautious approach instead of listening to unproven prophets.
"I won't second guess you now," she said. "I just want you to know, I want you to come home."
Dick wrapped his arms against her and held her close, his head tilted back to look up at her. "I can't think of any better motivation to come home than if you'll be waiting for me."
She bent to kiss him. "Let me give you more motivation."