Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Chapter One: Introductions

Lieutenant Olivia Benson adjusted her glasses and studied her pamphlet on the Met’s exhibit. Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination. Years of practice helped her to school her features into interest as she looked up from her pamphlet into the glass box housing a golden sheath evening gown sporting a large, paler gold cross in the center. She cocked her head, pretending to appreciate the lines of the Versace gown and consider how it glamorized the priestly robes that women in the Catholic church as yet could not wear.

“It seems kind of blasphemous, don’t you think?” Detective Sonny Carisi’s thick New York accent came through the earbud hidden in Olivia’s ear; she didn’t react to it. Nor did she grin, like she wanted to, when she heard Detective Amanda Rollins shoot back, “Only if you’re talking about how the most well-known religion in the known world only allows men to be ordained. That’s blasphemy.”

“Shut up, both of you.” That would be Sergeant Odafin "Fin" Tutuola. His voice hissed through the earbud; she glanced over to the corner where he stood in his museum security uniform. His face was blank as he pulled his mouth away from the radio on his shoulder. His eyes scanned the room, passing over her on his sweep without pausing. He blended well and had pitched his integration into museum security with his own unique brand of persuasion. As much as it still baffled him, SFin wore the rank well.

Instead of shutting up, Carisi wondered, “How is it that we ended up in the van on this op, anyway? They outrank us. Rank gets to sit in the van.”

“He already knows your faces, genius,” Fin muttered.

“Oh right. I knew that. It’s this weird pope fashion exhibit,” Carisi protested. “Throwing me off.”

Rollins shot back a retort (something something altar boy), but Olivia let it slide over her. She moved to the next case, a Dolce and Gabbana gown with three quarter sleeves designed to mimic ancient mosaic icons. She pretended to study it, but she was watching the reflection of museum goers behind her in the case’s mirror. Her mark wore a Yankees baseball cap that didn’t cover his dead-giveaway red hair. He shifted, nervously, reaching to remove his sunglasses before changing his mind and pushing them further up on his nose instead. She glanced at her watch, and then said softly, “Six o’clock.”

“LT’s spotted him behind her,” she heard Carisi say, all business now. “There. Yankees hat, black hoodie, looks nervous as a sinner in church. Which, considering this exhibit, is kind of fitting.”

“Har har,” Rollins said. “I sent a screenshot to museum security, but this is the exhibit he picked. Liv was right.”

Olivia coughed into her hand as her eyes tracked the mark, one Corey Schiller, suspected serial rapist recently released from questioning thanks to high-powered lawyer dad. Not enough evidence to charge him, Stone said. Even though they knew he had a pattern, that he took a victim every three days.. Erin was his third, and she was an art student; she drew a sketch herself. It matched the police sketches from Jane and Layla.

The Met was the common denominator between all his his victims. Jane was a tourist from the UK, taking in the sights; she’d been assaulted at her Airbnb shortly after leaving the Met. Layla volunteered there on Tuesdays and Thursdays when she had the days off from her nursing job. And Erin, of course, was an art student at Hudson taking in the newest exhibits. The Catholic fashion exhibit was a few months old, but Liv had a hunch; she followed it. Good for her team to see she was right, she thought. And good to be in the field; rank did keep her at her desk more often than not, but this was why she became a cop.

She moved on to the next glass case, tracking Schiller behind her. He was holding a pamphlet that he didn’t glance at once; he ignored the exhibits. Instead, she knew, he was looking for a target. He liked brunettes. When she was younger, she would have gotten a morbid thrill trying to lure in a target like him; now, with Noah at home and William Lewis occasionally still lurking in her dreams, she wasn’t cavalier with her own life anymore. If one of her squad or an innocent person was in danger, then she wouldn’t hesitate. But otherwise, caution was the name of the game.

Besides, she thought, okay to acknowledge that she was older than his victim type. The others-- she recited their names in her head because she always remembered them-- Jane, Layla, Erin, had all been between 22 and 32, tall, trim, long dark hair. Now, Lieutenant Olivia Benson took great pride in still being street fit, but she didn’t consider herself trim, exactly. And she hadn’t been 32 for twenty years, not that anyone was pointing that out. Her team understood the game-- track Schiller, prevent him from attacking someone else.

Schiller moved; she saw it where he was headed and adjusted so that she could track him in the mirror even as Rollins reported it in her ear.

“On the move, Liv. Seems like he’s heading toward the exhibit help desk,” she said.

“Bastard’s going to be 18 inches away from Fin, so we’re still good. Who’s he going for?”

Olivia shifted, craning her neck, as if she was studying the intricate bead work on the mosaic dress rather than watching Schiller in the mirror behind the gown. She saw two women at the help desk, both wearing museum nametags. Both women, she noted, were young brunettes. The younger woman sitting at the desk was a multiracial female, early twenties, with wild brown curls that bounced when she talked. Probably a student volunteer, considering her wardrobe and the way she was chattering at the older woman with a mixture of fear, glee, and awe.

The older woman didn’t appear to be much older; early thirties perhaps, her age was obscured. The woman’s angular features, black-rimmed glasses, glamorous red dress pair with a white blazer, and immaculate updo hairstyle made her look older. Yet her olive-toned skin was flawless, making her look younger. Consequently Olivia didn’t know if she was 25 or 45, but either way, she was striking. She could be the target, Liv thought. She made her way to the next piece, tracking Schiller in the mirrors as she feigned interest in the gown; she didn’t notice this one.

“Could be either woman at the desk,” Carisi considered in her earbud, echoing her thoughts. “My money’s on the beauty in the red dress.”

“Think again,” Rollins scoffed. “Watch.”

As all four of them watched as the woman in the red dress gently interrupted the student’s excited chatter, delicately adjusted her glasses, and excused herself to confront an Asian tourist who was breaking the exhibits “No Flash Photo” rule. She walked with perfect balance on her ankle-breaker stilettos, and her those legs were defined with just a little more muscle than was typically feminine. Olivia returned her eyes on Schiller-- he hadn’t moved, still fidgeting near the help desk--but she could hear the woman unleash her scolding in perfect Cantonese, her tone cool and polite, brooking no refusal.

“Look at how nervous he is,” Rollins continued. “Schiller wouldn’t touch that woman with a ten-foot pole. She’s fierce, and he’s ready to wet himself. That’s why he usually goes the GHB route because he’s a fucking coward. Nope, he’s casing the student. Here, let me zoom in.... name tag says Brooklyn Ramirez. Our multilingual ball crusher is Diana. Diana Prince.”

“Staff records say Prince is a higher-up in the Met,” Carisi reported. “But this isn’t her usual department; she’s an expert on Greco-Roman artifacts. Ramirez is an intern, and a recent art history graduate from Hudson. Yeah, Loo, I agree with Rollins. Brooklyn here is in danger. Especially since I think Schiller here is more than just nervous; I think he’s on something or jonesing to be.”

Olivia nodded to show that she’d heard them, that she agreed, but didn’t speak. Too many people around.

“He’s coming over,” Fin murmured. Olivia adjusted, turning to track Schiller head-on now that his back was to her. She moved to the next row of glass cases, meandering closer to the glass cases. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she noted that these cases held actual priestly raiments rather than modern fashionable interpretations of them.

The team was mostly quiet as Fin’s mike picked up Schiller’s stammering question about the exhibit and Brooklyn’s enthusiastic answer. All the while, Olivia moved closer and closer, closing in. Drugs, she knew, made people unpredictable.

Schiller complimented Brooklyn’s hair and wondered when she got off shift. Brooklyn’s smile dimmed into vivid discomfort, and she opened her mouth to answer. Olivia was right behind him now.

“Excuse me,” came a feminine voice with a musical accent. Greek, perhaps. “Please do not interrupt my employee’s work. She doesn’t come here to get hit on. This is not a bar. It is a museum. So please, keep your questions relevant to the exhibits, or you will be escorted out.”

Failing to hide his grin, Fin approached. “Security, is there a problem here?” He got into Schiller’s personal space, forcing the other man to stumble back a step.

“Not at all, thank you, Officer,” Diana Prince said. “Mr. Schiller was just leaving.”

Olivia froze. The radio went silent. Schiller’s color bled out of his face.

“That’s right,” Diana Prince said, lowering her voice to quiet steel. “I know who you are. I read about you, and I know what you’ve done. I will give your photo to every member of our staff, every officer in our security. The police will find enough to arrest you, and until then, you are not welcome here at the Met.”

Olivia was debating the legality of that when she saw him draw the knife. She screamed it, “Knife!” at the same time as Fin did, and she dove, she was closer. She tackled Schiller as he lifted it over his head. He struggled, so Olivia drove her knee into his back. He yelped, but she held him down while Fin cuffed him.

“Oh, you’ve made this so much easier. Corey Schiller, you are under arrest for attempted assault with a deadly.”

“Go to hell, pig bitch!” he screamed, attempted to head butt her. She dodged easily, smiled. “And resisting arrest. You have the right to remain silent.”

Carisi and Rollins came jogging in. “Good timing. Read him his rights, take him back to the house,” she ordered.

“You got it, LT,” Carisi said, grabbing Schiller.

“Remember me, kid?” Rollins said, grinning into his face, laughing when he lunged at her. “You have the right to remain silent.” Together, they hauled him out.

Olivia brushed herself off and pulled out her badge, letting it dangle from her neck. “NYPD, everything’s under control,” she announced to the gawking crowd. Museum security, in on the operation was gathering too. “Go about your business.”

With that, she turned back to Fin and Ms. Diana “Ballbuster” Prince. The lady was dropping the knife into a plastic bag Fin was holding open for her. Olivia’s eyebrows shot up; when had she grabbed the knife?

“Thanks,” Fin was saying. “That was fast. You must have some training.”

“Some combat training yes,” Diana answered in that musical accent of hers. “Martial arts is a hobby of mine.”

Olivia came to stand beside Fin. He pocketed the weapon. “Sergeant Tutola,” he said by way of introduction. “This is Lieutenant Benson”

Diana held out her hand, shook with them both. “The creme de la creme,” she said in a perfect accent. “How lovely. I am grateful you were here to prevent that man from escalating. I read about him in the paper; someone could have been hurt.”

“Just doing the job,” Fin said. “Excuse me, I’m going to connect with Museum security, get the tapes, return the uniform. Meet you back at the car, Liv?”

Olivia nodded, turning to focus on Prince. With the up close and personal view, Olivia felt a sense of dejavu pass over her. Diana Prince looked impossibly familiar. “It’s not a bad idea,” Olivia said, “to warn your staff about Schiller.” She pocketed her glasses and said nothing else; the investigation was ongoing, after all, and though she hoped today gave them enough to remand him while they built the rape case, his lawyer dad was scary good.

“I will do that,” she said. “I am Diana Prince.” She walked, leading Olivia into a more private corner behind the held desk. As they passed, she patted Brooklyn on the shoulder to offer reassurance, saying, “Everything is fine, Brooklyn. You are safe here.” Another museum security officer had already replaced Fin, Olivia noted, appreciating the efficiency.

“This isn’t my department,” Diana continued, gesturing to a bench. They both sat. “Normally I am in the back, evaluating artifacts. But I am Brooklyn’s mentor, and she loves this exhibit. I am glad I was here.”

“So am I,” Olivia said. “You handled him well out there, when he was harassing your employee. Risky, though. Perhaps next time you might consider calling security when a man under the influence is making trouble.”

Diana smiled, putting Olivia in mind of cat. Olivia still thought the other woman looked familiar, but she couldn’t place from where.

“I am not in the habit of letting others fight my battles any more than you are, Lieutenant Benson. But I appreciate your concern for my safety.”

“It’s the job,” Olivia echoed Fin, leaning back into the bench. She hadn’t tackled a suspect in a few weeks yet; she rolled her neck. “I prefer if vigilantes remain in Gotham until such a time the NYPD finds itself unable to keep up.” She slid her gaze at Prince, interested to see that the other woman was bristling. “Ms. Prince, would you mind coming to the station to make a statement? We can have an officer drive you back.”

“Please, call me Diana,” she said with a cool smile. “Yes, it will be my pleasure, Lieutenant.”

Olivia stood again, seeing Fin approach. “Excellent,” she said.

XXX

Diana Prince gave a succinct statement full of gratitude and complimentary assessments of the NYPD team. She offered her contact information and assured Olivia that she would be happy to cooperate further in any ways necessary, that she was had no trips for work coming up at the moment. All in all, she was ruthlessly polite yet that strange fire that had lit with the mention of vigilantes was still there in her eyes. Olivia noted this, amused and fascinated that a gorgeous museum curator in mile-high red stilettos would get her back up over vigilantism. Or was it just the one in Gotham that that had her on the defensive?

Oh, she wanted to know. Olivia stood, offering her hand to Diana, who stood as well. “Thank you so much, Diana, for coming in. If you see anything suspicious at the Met in the coming days, I hope you will give me a call.”

Her grip was tight; Olivia approved. She snagged a business card from her desk, circled her cell number and office line, then offered the card to Diana. She thought her detectives would be surprised; she didn’t give it out to just anyone these days what with trying to maintain a healthy work-life balance.

Handshake completed, Diana shouldered her bag, a small practical piece in white leather that looked to cost more than Olivia’s best suit. She slid the business card into an inner pocket and zipped it shut. “Of course,” she said. “I hope if Mr. Schiller is released on bail or if there are any other developments that may put our employees and patrons at risk, that you will let me know.”

“Certainly,” Olivia agreed. She stepped around her desk to the first uniform she saw. “Carmichael,” she called, and the young officer snapped to attention, her face eager.

“Ma’am.”

“Drive Ms. Prince back to the Met, would you?”

“Absolutely, Lieutenant. Ma’am, right this way.”

Olivia meant to watch them leave, so she wasn’t embarrassed to be caught looking when Diana turned back around three steps from her office door to call out, “Until next time, Lieutenant” with a red-lipstick smile, cool and sharp. Yes, she knew that face, that smile... but from where?

Everyone’s eyebrows shot up into their hairline but for Olivia, who didn’t react. As soon as the door shut behind Officer Carmichael and one Diana Prince, Olivia turned to Fin.

“Run her,” she ordered.

Chapter Text

Chapter Two: Developments

“She won’t find anything you don’t want her to find.”

Bruce Wayne’s voice came through the secure video feed into Diana’s earbuds with bored certainty. Diana leaned back in her office chair and studied him. He looked more tired than usual; she wondered what crisis was happening in Gotham that hadn’t hit the papers yet, what was keeping him busy. He wouldn’t tell her if he asked; she have to wait him out. Or go see him. She was leaning toward the latter option since the more she studied his face, the more she wished she was there to caress it.

“The electronic history we crafted for you, the identification documents, all of it will pass every level of scrutiny. An NYPD police run won’t give her anything other than a couple speeding tickets and the history we crafted.”

“It is a great car. Very fast,” Diana said, thinking of the Mercedes she’d bought from Bruce. Sure, he only meant for her to borrow it while she was tracking down Victor in the fight against Steppenwolf, but she’d gotten a taste for it. “I was a good driver before I saw you careening around in your toys. It inspired me.”

Bruce smirked. “You can fly,” he reminded her. “But it’s for the best anyway. You don’t want to be too squeaky clean; that’s a red flag in itself. The run isn’t going to be a problem, and you’re right, she’s definitely going run you. I looked her up. Benson has multiple commendations, cracked cold cases, and she’s survived several high profile hostage situations or attempts on her life. She’s impressive.”

Diana might have been jealous of the grudging admiratino in his voice if he’d given her a chance to indulge, but Bruce continued without a pause. “The problem, Princess,” he said, with the first hint of censure, “is that video of you snatching the knife out of Schiller’s hand with preternatural speed, which, even though I could make it disappear, Benson and her division have already seen it.”

“So have you, apparently.”

He gave her a bland look. “So. What are you going to do?”

Exasperated, Diana crossed her arms and indulged herself in a baffled sulk. “How does Clark make this all look so easy?!”

Bruce grinned. “The boy scout does boggle the mind,” he said, then sobered again. “But seriously, people do most of the work for him. They see what they expect to see. And he wants, as much or more than he wants to save the world, to have a normal life. No one expects Clark Kent to be anything other than what he appears to be. The same goes for me, Princess. No one expects Bruce Wayne to be anything but a rich lout.”

“I do,” she said with some heat. He smiled, then, a tender smile that he rarely offered.

“Yes, you do, don’t you?” he murmured. His gaze poured into her, and she felt every mile that separated their cities in her gut, knew she could fly there in minutes. “The point is,” he said after a moment, “is that it may work in your favor too. People see what they expect. Maybe Benson will too.” But he sounded doubtful.

“Either way,” Diana decided, “I will deal with it. I won’t lie. Perhaps we can help each other, this lieutenant and I.”

Bruce leaned to the side, thoughtfully resting his chin on his fist. “It is sometimes helpful,” he said slowly, “to have a connection in law enforcement. In our line of work.”

Like Commissioner Jim Gordon, Diana thought. She smiled, enjoying the comparison. “My life here has been quiet so far. I have enjoyed working here at the Met, and I love New York. Today’s excitement with the police sting was the first action I have seen since that trouble in Central City.”

Bruce snorted. “Barry didn’t need our help. He just wanted to get the gang back together--” Bruce said this part in a dramatic mimicry of Barry’s voice, “--and he knew we shouldn’t just show up for brunch. Or at least, he knew Arthur and I wouldn’t.”

“I like brunch,” she said. “I had brunch with Clark the other day.” Diana tapped on her laptop’s touchpad, opened her work calendar and studied her to-do list. She added a note to herself to check on Brooklyn tomorrow, see how she was holding up after the morning’s excitement.

“Oh did you,” Bruce said flatly.

She hid her smirk with her hand. “Of course! I was in Metropolis, negotiating a purchase for the museum. I couldn’t leave there without saying hello to him and to Lois. You know he’s going to ask you to be his best man.”

Bruce reared back, appalled. “Why?”

“I was supposed to keep it a secret, but I knew you would react like this.” She noted the time of her upcoming appointment-- a good half-hour to finish her emails and let Bruce accept reality. “Honestly, Bruce. He’s your friend. You saved his mother, family farm, and against my initial instincts, his life. He’s grateful, he forgave you, and perhaps most baffling to you, he likes you.”

“But--”

“Lois asked me to be a bridesmaid. It will be fun.”

“It will not be fun.”

“And she said I could bring a date.”

“Pictures and mediocre food and gifts no one ever keeps--”

“I thought perhaps Arthur would join me.”

“...bad champagne-- wait, what?”

Diana studied her nails, then typed a disinterested response to an inquiry from the Chicago Art Institute. “I said I thought perhaps Arthur would join me.”

He stared at her. “I heard you.”

She sent the email, moved to the next. This time, her eyes gleamed as she read the response to her inquiry about the Greek sculpture she’d been trying to secure for the Met from a family estate. “Excellent,” she murmured. To Bruce, she said, “These are your rules, yes? That we cannot be seen in public together, that tongues may wag too much, that one such as myself doesn’t deserve the careless treatment of your alter-ego, and so on?”

“I said that, yes. Arthur may bring Mera.”

“I will ask, just in case she prefers to stay below surface. You know Barry would come with me.”

“Yes, but you’ll give the kid a stroke.”

“Oh, or perhaps Lieutenant Benson would be my date! She’s lovely and fierce, and you said she was single.” Oh yes, the sculpture would be an excellent acquisition and would do nicely as the centerpiece for the Greek theatre exhibit she was planning for the winter. Dionysus in all his glory--though she knew from personal experience that he was more likely to sleep than dance. Too much wine and two left feet.

“I said that too, damn it. Diana, you don’t even know if she’s...never mind. Alfred misses you.”

Diana smiled, as much at the price the dealer wanted as at Bruce. “Does he?” she wondered. “Do you think he should be my date?”

Bruce coughed, finally breaking a smile. “No, I think you should come for a visit.”

Diana noted the dealer’s phone number, sent back her response with glee. The task complete, she looked up at Bruce again. Yes, she was satisfied all around. “I think I will. A celebration is in order. And it won’t do to have bad champagne.”

“Of course not, Princess.”

XXX

“Liv, here’s what we got so far.” Fin propped his feet up on his desk, gestured at Carisi and Rollins. Rollins flipped him off, but Carisi hopped up and stood next to the big touch screen.

“Right,” he said. “Okay, so Ms. Diana Prince, age 33. Recently transferred over from The Louvre in Paris; she was a part of their Greco-Roman team too, worked there for the past ten years; listed as fluent in four languages-- Greek, French, English, and Spanish.”

“And Cantonese,” Olivia interrupted, remembering the woman’s dressing down of the tourist taking photos. “Or at least close to it.”

“Impressive,” Amanda murmured, crossing her arms.

“Right.” Carisi continued his reciting, pulling over a different page on the screen. “Graduated from Oxford with a degree in art history. She was orphaned at the age of 10 in Greece. Her affluent parents died in a car accident, leaving Diana with no other family to care for her. They left her an inheritance which remained in trust until she was 18. She grew up in a Catholic orphanage which has since closed in small rural town not far from Athens, Greece. Used her trust fund to pay for her college, and has been working in museums ever since the first internship she held as a college student. She’s come highly recommended from Paris, and she’s never had a blip on her criminal record unless you count her most recent speeding tickets. New car.... nice one,” he muttered. “She’s been residing here in New York for over a year now, all the proper paperwork filed with immigration. She’s clean as a whistle.”

“Makes for a good witness in that sense,” Fin observed. “What’re you thinking, Liv?”

Olivia crossed the room, studied the screen, reading over a few things for herself. A moment later, she stepped back. “I don’t know. I think she’s hiding something.” She made a split-second decision, lightening her tone. “But hell, who isn’t. The point is, she’s going to be an unassailable witness.”

“If we even need her with the camera footage and testimony from you and me,” Fin said. “What about Schiller?”

Carisi sat, brief completed. “Stone’s going for remand on the kid in the morning at the indictment; he added on the rape charges to the attempted assault with a deadly.”

“He said we didn’t have enough evidence for that as of this morning,” Amanda noted, defensiveness souring her tone.

“Well , we didn’t, especially with no complaining witnesses, but now both Layla and Erin are agreeing to testify.” Carisi glanced at Olivia, who offered them all a grim smile.

“I talked to them,” was all she said. It was all she needed to say. “Okay,” Liv announced, louder now, all business. “The rest of this is in Stone’s court, he’ll call if he needs back up on his end. Good work everyone.” She glanced at her clock, saw how 5pm was creaking closer. “Unless you’re on the roll for tonight, go home.”

With that, she turned on her heel and headed back into her office. Pleased with her praise and with the day’s work, her team packed up and headed out. Fin considered, just for a moment, going in to push her on what she was hung up on with the museum gal, Diana Prince, but he decided Liv’s hunches usually needed time to simmer. And he was having dinner with his son, son-in-law, and grandson tonight. Maybe he’d even ben on time. So he headed out too.

Olivia Benson pushed her arms through the sleeves of her coat, slung her bag over her shoulder, palmed her cell phone. “Lucy,” she said into it. “Can you push dinner back a tad? I’m making one more stop before I head home. Yes, I’m already leaving. Give Noah a kiss for me, I’ll see him soon.” And with a few words of encouragement for the night team, the lieutenant strode out with purpose in her steps.

XXX

Diana enjoyed evenings alone. She took the L train back to her condo in the West Village, enjoying a book on the ride. She greeted the afternoon doorman-- it was Frank tonight, a second generation Italian-American man.

“Francisco,” she greeted, and in Italian, asked how his new baby granddaughter was doing. “She’s an angel, Miss Diana, a gift,” he gushed. His Italian had faded some after his parents died, he’d told her once, so she always used it when they spoke so he could practice. He’d never told her, certainly, but he looked forward to these conversations every evening he worked. She remained at the door chatting until she sensed someone else behind her, then wished him a good evening. Since it was Thursday, many of her neighbors appeared to be heading back out for cocktails or cheaper shows before the weekend. But Diana took comfort in riding the elevator up to her floor, letting herself in, and sliding out of her heels. She passed a small shrine to Hestia, a custom one Bruce had commissioned for her, and offered a prayer of gratitude for her home.

The evening’s routine varied; tonight, as she’d already spoken to Bruce, she began with putting on water for tea and then made herself a salad to go with a slice of yesterday’s quiche. She matched it with a chamomile, a favorite, and settled on her dining room table with classical music and her book. She’d nearly come to that magical point of losing awareness as the story took over when a flash of golden light to her left flickered in her peripheral vision.

She stood and whipped around, knife in hand, if only to drop it and shift to attention. “Hermes!” she cried, offering him a salute--fist over her heart and a short bow-- before moving in for an embrace.

“Ah my sister,” the golden haired god of traveler’s sighed. “It has been too long.” When they pulled away, he surveyed her dinner. “And look at you! Champion of the Amazons and yet tame as a doe tonight. What would your mother say?”

Diana waved that away. “Mother enjoyed peace and quiet and red wine; she would understand. Please, sit!” She sat back down once he did, ever respectful. “What brings you here?”

“A message of course!” he said gleefully. “What else? Please eat, do not mind me. Clearly you don’t, as I don’t see a shrine to me in your home. No, no, I jest. Yes, I am afraid I am here to disrupt your peace, Diana.”

“You are too late,” she said, amused. “I already had a run-in with the police today. My life is becoming exciting again.”

Hermes scoffed. “Humans. As if they are exciting. My news, on the other hand, concerns a decidedly inhuman development.”

Diana’s fork paused on the way to her mouth before she completed the bite and set her fork down. After a sip of water, she focused on Hermes. “Then, please my Lord, do share.”

Hermes floated over to the chez lounge in the corner, spread himself out and got comfortable. “I like it here. This city, I mean, but with you too, of course, sister. They say New York never sleeps, and it’s the most famous city in the world.”

Diana counted to ten in her mind, then said, “Yes, I’m quite fond of it here.”

“With Gotham and Metropolis nearby, you’re in a mystical triangle for crime and the supernatural, it seems. It’s like a beacon, attracting all sorts of villainy. And I’ve just had word from our uncle in the underworld.”

“Hades.” One of the few ancient Greek deities Diana hadn’t had occasion to meet, and she was grateful for it. “What does he say?”

Hermes tapped his chin, grinning. “First, he says he is very grateful for your kind treatment of Cerberus when you came to Olympus two years ago.”

Diana remembered that battle perfectly, but the moments afterward were a bit hazy; Cerberus’s tail was a live serpent, and in her attempts to peacefully subdue the hound of hell, it had bitten her. She’d nearly died, and would have if not for Apollo’s healing magic, who said he couldn’t have summoned enough power to save her life if not for the force of Bruce’s belief in Diana. She wouldn’t have done anything different--Diana was not a creature prone to regret-- but the memory of Bruce’s panicked voice saying her name and the way he cradled her as she faded into unconsciousness was one of the few clear impressions from the experience, and it was seared into her mind. And, apparently, his own; she’d woken him from a nightmare once, a dream where she hadn’t survived.

“I am glad Cerberus was not harmed,” she said; that part was true. “What else does Hades say?”

Hermes recognized the shift in her mood and sobered. He sat up, leaned forward on the chez. “There has been a breech, and someone escaped the underworld.”

Diana sat up straight, squeeze her fork so hard it bent then snapped. “Ares?”

Hermes shook his head. “Ares is still secure. And at least he would be predictable; the first thing he’d do is try to find you and kill you. Predictable.”

Diana stood, throwing away the remains of her fork and retrieving another one. She settled back in her chair, allowing the relief she felt to crest, and then settle. “So who escaped?”

“Diana, what have you heard about Circe?”

Before Diana could answer, the doorbell rang.

Chapter Text

Lieutenant Olivia Benson leaned on the wall of the elevator, smiling at a photo of her son, Noah. His nanny Lucy sent it with the caption, “Noah says he loves you, see you soon!” She’d be later than she guessed originally since Diana Prince lived out in the West Village. She typed back a message, snapped a selfie of herself making a silly face and sent the reply before pocketing her phone.

Thanks to the talkative doorman-- a true gift from the Divine, in Olivia’s mind, at least when it wasn’t her own doorman-- she knew Ms. Prince was fluent in yet another language. He’d fairly gushed about Ms. Prince once Olivia shared that Ms. Prince wasn’t in any trouble. He demonstrated some of his Italian prowess, and Olivia, who had decent Italian in addition to her fluent Spanish and conversational French, answered him in kind, delighting him.

Prince was a quiet resident, she’d learned; new to the building in the past year and half, and not one for the nightlife or throwing parties. She didn’t go out again after coming home very often; she liked quiet and guarded her privacy. This, Olivia pondered, as the elevator took her nearly to the second highest floor of the building. But, she wondered, why not list all of her languages with The Met, which it would only make her an even more desirable employee? Why keep it to herself if she knew additional languages?

She found Prince’s unit and rang the doorbell.

It took a few moments longer than normal for the door open, but open it did, revealing Diana Prince, still in her clothes from work but with fluffy white bedroom slippers instead of the heels. This put them at a similar height, Olivia noted; she’d always been taller than average. Though the doorman had indicated that she had no company and had only just returned home, Diana appeared slightly harried, her lips pursed in confusion.

“Lieutenant Benson. To what do I owe the pleasure?”

Olivia glanced behind the other woman; she saw only an empty foyer leading to the kitchen and the corner of a dining room. She heard nothing but soft classical music playing from the dining room. “I’m sorry to interrupt your evening, Ms. Prince,” she began.

“Please, call me Diana.”

“Diana. Thank you. I wanted to come by to thank you in person for your time and assistance today. We believe you and the rest of the Met will have no further issues with Schiller.”

“Will he remain in custody for trial?” Diana wondered. “Are you permitted to tell me?”

“We hope so,” Olivia offered. She felt some of the soreness from her tackle this morning beginning to creep into her bones, and she shifted her weight, annoyed by the discomfort. “I will call you if he is released, as agreed.”

“Thank you.” A pause. “Lieutenant, you could have said this over the phone.”

Olivia smiled, showing her teeth. She switched to Italian. “Sure, but then I wouldn’t have met Francisco or seen how devoted he was to you for helping him with his Italian. I’m a cop; I like learning about people. I’d like very much to learn about you, I think, Diana. Maybe learn why the Met doesn’t have all the languages you know on file. Or learn how you were able to move so quickly. Do you have a martial arts master here in the area?”

Diana’s face gave away everything, Olivia appreciated, watching the surprise then the annoyance and guardedness pass over her face until her features settled into curiosity. “I spar sometimes with good friends,” Diana allowed, also in Italian, “but my mentor died back home years ago. I haven’t taken another teacher since then.” She paused, stepping back from the door and opening the door wider to reveal the rest of the dining room where dinner and a book waited. Olivia swore she saw the other woman glance off to the side before saying, “Would you like to come in?”

“I wouldn’t want to impose.” Olivia said, this time in Spanish. She enjoyed Diana’s expression of surprised respect. “You dodged the question about languages. I think you are keeping secrets, and sometimes, that is a lonely business, whether it’s my business or not. Maybe, since you have my card and my cell number, you’ll call me if you want to share them. Have a nice night, Diana.”

“Buenas noches, Olivia,” Diana said. Olivia felt the other woman watching her as she walked down the hall. She was still watching as the elevator doors closed between them. Olivia considered what she’d learned, and again, felt the nagging sense that she’d seen Diana Prince somewhere else before. She couldn’t touch the memory yet, but she would. She always did. She texted Lucy that she was on her way home as the elevator chimed its descent.

XXX

“Who was that?” Hermes asked, blinking back into existence as the door closed. “She was beautiful; you should have invited her in!”

“She certainly is and I know you heard me offer, Lord Hermes,” Diana said. She walked back to the dining room, attending again to her salad with a huff. “I don’t think she was here for a social call, exactly.”

“Maybe she suspects that you run around fighting crime in Amazonian armor in your free time.”

Diana shrugged. “She suspects something, but I couldn’t say what. I don't think it’s that. I haven’t made any headlines yet here in New York. My work with the Justice League has been mostly centered in other cities or in relief efforts around the world. I’ve been photographed in those places, certainly.” She resumed eating her salad, her thoughts swirling around this new detective and of course, what she would tell her favorite detective in Gotham.

“The Wonder Woman, they call you.” Hermes grinned. “It fits.”

“Tell me about Circe, my Lord,” Diana prompted him. She sipped her tea, lamenting that it was cold now, before continuing. “I know the myths. She is a cousin of the sirens, a sorceress. She transformed Odysseus’s men into pigs and can alter her own appearance or manipulate the minds of humans.”

“Yes,” Hermes agreed. “But we think that she will come looking for you, my dear sister, since she cannot seek revenge on your mother. Even Circe can’t get to Themyscira.”

“My mother?” The familiar ache throbbed in her chest. “What about her?”

“Hippolyta is the one who accused Circe of crimes against mortals, declaring her an enemy of the Amazons before the Amazons retreated to Themyscira. That proclamation got Athena’s attention, and Athena sent Circe to the Underworld. Athena was Odysseus’s patron, after all. She took offense at Circe’s interference in her hero’s quest.”

Diana pondered this. “So she escaped and you think she may attempt to take her revenge on me since she cannot reach my mother. What would the gods have me do?”

Hermes stopped floating and settled into the chair across from Diana. “Capture or kill,” he said bluntly. “And of course, keep yourself and the mortals safe from her wrath.”

“As you say, my lord.”

XXX

The next morning, Diana showered--indoor plumbing was perhaps her favorite part of man’s world after ice cream-- and dressed for work. She wasn’t surprised to discover that she was not alone in her kitchen when she set about making her tea. Kal-El was many things, but quiet and sneaky were not among his attributes.

“Good morning, Kal,” she said, and once the kettle was on, she turned and held up her cell phone as it if were one of the precious artifacts she maintained at the Met and she was displaying it to a clueless tourist. “Is what I would have said if you simply called me. Would you care for tea?”

Clark Kent sat at her kitchen table, fidgeting with a somewhat soggy copy of The Daily Planet. He tossed it aside as she came in. “Oh yes, please, it was a bit of a wet flight over. Diana, why don’t we fly together more?”

She chuckled quietly, snagging a second teacup from where it hung over the counter. “Well, I did spent most of my very long life without the ability to fly and believing I was made from clay. So I’m used to staying close to the earth.” She sat, offering Clark some tea. He sniffed it with a dubious look.

“This isn’t coffee,” he observed. Diana smirked, then make a show of cupping her teacup with both hands, enjoying a steamy inhale of the aroma, before taking a delicate sip. He laughed, pushing at her leg with his toe like he would a sister.

“I didn’t know I was having company,” she told him. “So you get what you get.”

Clark seemed to hunch a little under the teasing reprimand and obliged her by taking a sip. He considered the taste as if working a math problem, then shrugged giving up. “Thanks. So. He freaked out, didn’t he?”

Diana smiled over the cup. “Define ‘freak out’ because when does Bruce ever really do that? He was surprised, I’ll say. You knew I’d tell him?”

Clark shook his head. “Lois told me you would because it’s what she would do.”

“Smart woman”

“What’s the big deal?” Clark wondered. “We’re friends. Good friends. He saved my farm, my family’s home! So we fought, and I died a little, and then he pressured you all into resurrecting me so we could beat Steppenwolf. Whatever. It was years ago.”

“Barely two,” Diana reminded him over her teacup, grinning at Clark’s summation of his strange relationship with Bruce.

“Things have been mostly normal since then!” he protested. “Alfred likes me. You like me. Dick and Barbara like me. We have guy time. What else does he need?”

Diana laughed. “You sound like you want him to marry you instead of be your best man, Kal.”

Clark waved that away. “We’re friends. Friends stand up for each other when they get married. It's not that big of a deal. You can come together!”

Diana finished her tea, poured herself a second cup and set about scrambling some eggs. “No,” she said, spraying the pan. “we cannot come together. As a couple that is. It’s one of Bruce’s rules. Eggs?”

“Sure. It’s a stupid rule. Bruce Wayne the playboy could finally grow up. It’s not that difficult of a sell. Men do that. They’re jerks for a while, and then the good ones grow up and settle down.”

Diana smiled. Centuries had passed her by, more would come, and yet men would always surprise her. “What a waste of time,” she observed, adding a touch of milk, salt pepper, and paprika to her eggs before beating them. “Yet you are not wrong; it is a viable path his alter ego could take. Perhaps you may mention this to him when you are having-- what did you call it?-- guy time.”

“What does he expect you to do, Diana?”

Diana poured the eggs into the pan, enjoying the sound of them hitting the heat. She stirred. “We have few expectations of each other at this point, Kal. What is Lois always telling me to do? DTR. Define the relationship. I don’t see anyone else, but Bruce has never asked me not to. Or vice versa. Though,” she said, smiling. “I did meet this beautiful police lieutenant. And he didn’t like that I called her beautiful or that I thought about taking Arthur as my date to your wedding.”

“You’re both weird,” Clark declared, rising to get orange juice from her fridge, right at home. “My best friends in the world are weird and in a weird relationship. Take the cop, if you want, but dear God, don’t take Arthur as your date to my wedding, Diana, I’m begging you. It would drive Bruce insane.”

“I know,” Diana said, grinning. She plated up the eggs with a sprinkle of microgreens that Clark didn’t recognize or care about, offering him shredded cheese as well.

“They’ll kill each other, and then Lois will kill them again. Then she’ll kill me. Which cop did you meet?” Clark covered his eggs in cheese, dove in.

Diana savored the eggs, sprinkling only a tiny bit of cheese on hers. She eyed the clock, thanking Apollo that she woke with the sunrise and could spare the time without being late to work. “Lieutenant Olivia Benson,” she told him. “With the NYPD.”

Clark’s eyes shot up. “Whoa. Di, we’ve done stories on her. So has the Times, obviously, and the New York Post, and she’s in the rags sometimes too, but none of that is worth reading. She has reporters who literally just listen for her name on the police scanners and try to find her on scenes. She’s always big news. Climbed the ranks, had a few close calls as a detective and a sergeant. She survived being tortured by a serial rapist, William Lewis. She’s straight as an arrow on paper, but she’s gone rogue a few times when it mattered. Legendary advocate for victims. How did you meet?”

Diana had heard some of this from Bruce, of course, but his retelling had lacked Clark’s obvious awe. She told Clark about the sting in the Met, about how Olivia was still sniffing around after seeing the video clip of Diana’s meta-human speed. Then, since they were on the topic of business, shared that she had a new mission-- capture or kill Circe.

“I need to call a meeting, brief everyone on her,” she said. “Tonight.”

“Good,” Clark declared, finishing his eggs. He stood. “Bruce and I can have it out about the best man thing afterwards. And then you can hook me up for an interview with Lieutenant Benson. Thanks for breakfast, Di.” He walked to her window, considered the bright morning sun. It’d been dark when he arrived, and it wouldn’t do for Clark Kent or Superman to be seen flying out of Diana Prince’s apartment. He shrugged, walking to the front door. “I’ll take the train,” he said.

“It’s a beautiful day,” she agreed, kissing his cheek. “He’ll say yes, Kal. Eventually. See you tonight.”

Kal hugged her, thrilling, as he always did, that he’d managed to find a kindred spirit in the Amazon princess. A sister who would also live for many years. Though he was still on his first lifetime, he took comfort knowing that, if God saw fit, neither he nor Diana would be alone as they outlived their friends. “

“Take care, Di,” he implored. “Watch out for evil sorceresses.”

“I always do,” she answered with a gleam in her eyes.

XXX

Olivia still enjoyed her time in the field, but over the years, things had become more and more unusual. A vigilante ran around in a batsuit in Gotham, and rumor had it he had a contact in the Gotham PD. And a practically invulnerable alien was flying around Metropolis catching planes and going to Senate hearings and rising from the dead. Central City had the one than ran around at the speed of sound in a red suit. A woman in colorful armor that reminded Olivia of Xena popped up in Paris, and some Khal Drogo looking guy in Maine was glimpsed surfing with a huge trident. It was weird. Luckily, they mainly stayed out of New York and kept to their own cities, which suited Olivia fine. She missed the normal days, when her worries were just about people-- not aliens or invasions or metahumans. That shit should have stayed in the movies.

So this morning, when she found herself in the middle of a Manhattan office building studying a section of cubicles that looked as if they had been destroyed by a rabid cougar, she was not amused. She stared at the security officer then decided he was just doing his job and leveled her gaze at the uniform that had called her in. “Officer Martin,” she said, in that sharp, deceptively calm voice that had the uniforms at her own cop shop snapping to attention. “Why, on God’s green earth, did you call me for this? Is there a sex crime here that I’m missing?”

Martin looked to be about 12, she thought. The rookies looked younger and younger to her these days. Shockingly red hair buzzed under the regulation cap and honest to God freckles, Jesus. And he looked terrified of her, which she found both satisfying and annoying. “Lieutenant, my partner and I called you because of... well, come on around. Jimenez is with her. We wanted you to see it all first before... just take a look.”

Eyebrows raised, Olivia glanced at Fin, who shrugged, and they followed the uniform. They walked around the demolished cubicles to the far side of the room facing the window. As they turned the corner, Olivia’s gaze hardened. She heard Fin swear, didn’t fully hear him as she took in the scene.

First, her eyes went to the woman. Dead, that much was obvious, and very recently. She pulled on sterile gloves, knelt by the body. Still warm. Dressed in business clothes that also looked like they’d been sliced up by the claws of a wild animal, leaving ragged gashes in the woman’s skin. Her breasts and bra were exposed, and her panties-- sensible but pretty black-- were at her ankles. The strange angle of the woman’s neck gave a hint about cause of death, but she’d leave that to the ME.

Olivia squatted, gently moved the woman’s hair with her gloved fingers to expose the name tag pinned to her shirt. Alyssa Nelson, she noted. Marketing Director. She snapped a photo of the name tag, leaned back on her on her heels. “What the hell happened to you, Alyssa?” she murmured to herself. The other uniform she recognized as Henry Vargus-- an experienced street cop she’d go through a door with any day; he’d been photographing the scene and stepped back when Olivia turned the corner to let her take it in.

She turned to him. “Vargus, did you get enough photos of her for now?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Good. Martin, get something to cover her up.”

“Liv.” He’d waited as long as he could, letting Olivia do her thing. Any victim, even a dead one, was always first for Olivia, no matter what. He loved it about her, but...

“Yeah, Fin.” She stood slowly, flexing out the kinks in her knees, glancing over at him. He was staring at the window, so she followed his gaze. There, on the huge window overlooking the city, written in a dark red that she feared would be Alyssa’s blood, was a message.

Tackle me now, pig bitch Benson.

Fin was already on the phone, she heard him shouting at Stone. “Fuck the ankle bracelet,” he said. “You were supposed to get remand.” To Olivia, he said, “The judge and Schiller’s dad go back, so he gave Schiller house arrest just this morning at the indictment, even after the attempted assault at the museum. The monitor says Schiller’s at home.”

“I want Carisi and Rollins at the Schiller place now,” she ordered. “I’m calling Prince at the Met, and I want unts on standby there too. Do it now.” She dialed, and as it rang, she said, “Vargus, call the ME and CSU, tell them I said it was urgent.” She looked at the wild scene, taking in all the animalistic damage even as Martin gently covered Alyssa with a sheet. “Corey Schiller did this, somehow.”

When the melodic Greek voice answered, Olivia barked, “Get your security on alert, Diana. Schiller got house arrest, and if he can find away, he’s going to come there.”

Voice hard, Diana Prince answered, “We will be ready here, and I hear sirens outside. Your people?”

“Yes.”

“Thank you for keeping your word, Lieutenant. If we see him, we will call 911.”

“Do not engage,” Olivia warned, hearing that cold determination in Prince’s voice.

“We all do what we must,” Diana answered. “I’ll call 911 then you. Thank you, Olivia.”

She hung up. Fin was still snarling at Stone; Olivia snatched his phone from his hand so she could do the same.

“A woman is dead, Peter.” She cut him off. “Meet us at Schiller’s place. This was him, somehow, and we’re going to figure out how.”

XXX

Chapter Text

Chapter Four: Corey

When Fin pulled their cruiser up to Schiller’s place, they found it swarming with cops. Rollins waved them over, and the crowd parted like butter as Olivia crossed the yard to the brownstone.

“He’s gone,” Rollins announced. “The ankle bracelet is here. It’s sitting in the middle of his bedroom. Liv... the scene is weird. You gotta see it to believe--”

“Slashed up like a wild cougar or something went at it?” she guessed.

Rollins gaped. “Yeah. How’d you know?”

“That’s how the murder scene looked,” Fin said, voice grim. “Schiller left a message for Liv.” Though Olivia hissed in protest, Fin showed Amanda a few pictures on his phone.

“Classy,” Rollins observed. “It’s not exactly a threat, is it?”

“Not overtly,” Olivia said firmly. “It’s not an issue. We need to find him now. I have units sitting on the Met, in case he tries to go back to his old territory, maybe take another swipe at Diana Prince or Brooklyn Ramirez. He’s on something, I think-- the escalation, the reckless slashes. PCP, maybe. Something.” She waved Carisi over, grimaced when she saw Peter Stone with him. They shifted directions to approach.

“Rollins, take Carisi and figure out how our victim Alyssa is connected. Fin’s been to the scene, CSU’s is on it. Fin, take over this scene, then meet me at the Met. My gut says that’s where he’ll go. I’ll handle the ADA.”

They all broke away from her, Amanda snagging Carisi on her way back to their cruiser. So, when Peter Stone came surging up to her, she was alone. She crossed her arms, studied him. He looked hot under the collar; Stone wasn’t one to avoid using his own connections, but when someone else did, it irked him to no end. He’d been venting about Schiller’s lawyer dad since the they first liked the son for the first rape. She had to admit that as much as she butted heads with him, he looked impressive. Tailored suit, muscles carved from stone, that square jaw and the striking blue eyes. She’d noticed, of course, since she wasn’t dead. Nothing more than pheromones, she knew. Ever since she’d ended things with Tucker.... it’s been a while, she realized; otherwise she wouldn’t be thinking about what the ADA looked like naked.

“Peter,” she said neutrally in greeting.

“Don’t give me that look,” he snarled, and if she was 20 years younger she would have eaten him up right then.

“This is just my face, Peter,” she deadpanned.

“Listen, I tried, Olivia. You know I did. This kid’s dad...”

“I know,” she interrupted. “My DB, Alyssa-- she’s not on you. Do you hear me? It’s not on you. It’s on Schiller if he did it, and I know he did. I’ll prove it, and you’ll lock the son of a bitch up. Okay, Peter? It’s done. I’m going to the Met. He’ll go back there, and we’ll be ready.”

With that, she turned on her heel and strode away.

XXX

At the Met, Diana waited. She’d informed security, as well as her superiors, and personally spoken to Brooklyn, who’d decided, with Diana’s blessing, to ride back to the police station with an escort. Business ran as usual in the museum, her superiors demanded that much, but with extra security and police--both uniformed and plainclothes-- supporting them.

Diana was impressed with how quickly they’d all arrived. She didn’t imagine this kind of firepower was usually expended in effort to catch rapists, but Schiller, she’d overheard, was now a suspected murderer. She considered her blessed armor, her lasso, sword, and shield. And she decided that for one human, the police likely wouldn’t need her assistance. She wondered what Bruce did in such situations, when he was in appearance as Bruce Wayne and trouble erupted. Clark Kent had this hilariously terrible timing that frequently caused him to miss the action, one that Lois said--with glee-- only enhanced his innocently blundering boy scout reputation. Bruce, on the other hand, could probably fake passing out as much as he pretended to drink. Or just leave since he was a well-known flake.

She missed him.

Diana blinked, focusing. She’d sort it all out later, she decided; if later came, and the Wonder Woman needed to make an appearance. It might not, she considered, watching Lieutenant Benson-- Olivia-- march up the front steps to the Met, expression flat and determined. Diana intercepted, pleased the Lieutenant had come herself.

“Lieutenant Benson,” she called. “Thank you for coming. As you can see, our security is prepared, and your reinforcements have arrived.”

Olivia nodded sharply. “Good. Ms. Prince... Diana.” She considered something for a few seconds, glancing around to see who was in earshot. Then, she shook her head. “I know this all may seem like overkill, but we have reason to believe that Corey Schiller is escalating and may be responsible for another violent assault earlier today. This victim did not survive. We haven’t found a connection to the Met or to Schiller, but I think we’ll find one of the two.”

“A murder,” Diana repeated, feeling the sorrow of it settle on her shoulders. “Are you allowed to tell me what happened, Lieutenant?”

Olivia considered this for a moment and, with no small amount of regret, shook her head. “Not yet. Active investigation, and so on. But the attack was.... unique. Elements of it appeared personal. I am not optimistic that details won’t leak.”

Diana gestured for Olivia to follow and led her into the museum towards the security office. “Personal how?”

Olivia bared her teeth in frustration. “It doesn’t matter. Not yet. I’m going to brief your security team and the higher ups on Schiller and apprehension procedure should he show up.”

They came to a stop outside of the security office, where Diana badged them in. She brought Olivia to a conference room, where, as promised, all available security team members not actively patrolling or standing watch at an exhibit were gathered. Olivia held court there in a way that reminded Diana of her long lost aunt, Antiope-- fierce, no-nonsense, without hesitation. She shared what she felt she could share about the case, distributed photos of Schiller, as well as photos of Sergeant Tutuola and a few other NYPD officers would would go undercover as museum security. She answered questions brusquely yet completely, and she thanked them all with obvious sincerity before dismissing them. Diana watched it all with admiration.

As they walked out, she asked Olivia, “What would you have me do, Lieutenant?”

Olivia offered her a sideways look as they walked. Despite being statuesque and dressed like a model, Diana Prince looked very prim. Her hair was pulled back into a tight bun and rectangular glasses sat on her nose. “Does your job normally involve overseeing operations?”

Diana smiled. “Yes, though generally those operations are confined to the Classical Arts wing and usually more along the lines of supervising volunteers, curating, and soliciting additional artifacts and art pieces. My superiors decided it would be best if you had a dedicated contact though, and they decided it would be me.”

Olivia shrugged. “Works for me.” She barrelled her way through crowds of staff until they reached the lobby and Diana badged them into the back office behind the ticketing booth. Fin was waiting there, suited up as museum security again. He sized up Diana with a clinical glance, then turned to his friend and Lieutenant. “We’re ready to go, Liv. If he comes here, we’re ready.”

“Good.” He passed her a tote bag, and Olivia tied back her hair, tossed her blazer in the tote bag, and donned a college hoodie, put her hair up in a beanie, and donned tinted reading glasses with red frames. She finished the look by tossing a camera around her neck. Fin stashed the tote back in a locker, then studied her.

“You’ll do,” he declared. “He’s seen us both now, but he’s not exactly the smartest perp we’ve ever crossed. Don’t let the camera become a weapon.”

“It’s broken,” Olivia answered grimly. “And the strap is break away, so I’ll toss it if need be.”

“Good.”

“Okay. Rollins and Carisi are taking over the crime scene then heading back to the house to coordinate. So, let’s do this. Ms. Prince.” And with that goodbye, Fin took Olivia by the arm and began the show of escorting her to the lobby. She began to fire out nasally protests in Spanish as they exited the office door into the lobby.

“Cut it out,” Fin said. “I know you speak English, and you know there’s no flash photography. This is your last warning, miss.”

Olivia huffed, muttering under her breath in Spanish, and stalked back towards the lobby to sulk at the doorway. Fin took his place on the wall, and Diana settled in to watch it all, briefly amused. She took her place in the lobby behind the customer service desk to watch. In the back of her mind, she consider how quickly she’d be able to disappear as Diana Prince and reappear as an Amazon warrior.

Meanwhile, Olivia, committed to the charade, pulled out her phone and began ranting into in Spanish from the front steps of the museum. Her gut said that Schiller was too stupid to try something covert. He’d come barging right in for his revenge, and she wanted to see him first. Wanted him to see her first. The message on the wall suggested he might, and that would keep the civilians inside the museum safe. She trusted Fin and the rest of the plainclothes team to watch her back.

Strange nostalgia came over her; she didn’t do this kind of thing voluntarily anymore. There was the hostage situation back when she called Tucker to help negotiate her out of it... she’d been a sacrificial lamb then, sure, but she hadn’t had much choice about it. It was priority of life; those kids needed to be saved before she did. She’d put measures in place to take care of Noah if anything ever happened to her, but she’d wanted to make damn sure it didn’t, hence setting up the kidnapper to be sniped. Maybe she should feel some guilt about that, but she didn’t.

William Lewis, now, that was a long time ago. The serial rapist had turned into Olivia’s own personal deranged stalker, kidnapper, and torturer. And she hoped never to repeat that experience or anything like it if she could help it.

She settled herself, leaning on a column outside the door. She could make several of her plainclothes officers, and several patrol cars with uniforms were parked at various points around the block. Schiller, she thought, was stupid enough to try something anyway, especially if he was still high as a kite on PCP or whatever it was that led him to wreck that office building.

Olivia turned when she heard screaming. She lifted her cell phone to her ear so she could say into her sleeve mic, “Fin, we got something happening out here.” A shape was running down the street, sending civilians toppling over and drawing uniforms out of their cars with shouts.

Olivia thought, fuck it, and yanking out her badge so it could be visible on the chain around her neck. She drew her weapon, keeping it pointed low to the ground as she approached the street. The blurred shape was running on all fours, a strange grotesque warping of man and beast, a ripped shirt stretching over orange and black fur and bulging muscles. Long claws stuck through the creature’s shoes and from its fingers. Claws, Olivia realized, that could have done the damage to the victim and the office building.

Olivia recognized that the creature was wearing the same outfit Corey Schiller had been photographed in this morning. As it crashed towards her, her mind remembered that the world had invulnerable aliens and bat vigilantes that fought metahuman creatures, and that this was life now, so why not a were-tiger or whatever Schiller appeared to be.

“Freeze!” Olivia screamed, aiming her weapon at the creature. “Freeze, Schiller, I know it’s you.”

“BENSSSUUHHN.” The sound that creature made, part growl, part hiss, chilled her to the bone. He slowed, bearing a terrible smile full of fangs and promise. Then he lunged, and Olivia fired.

XXX

Diana’s hearing picked up Olivia’s voice on Fin’s radio. When Fin strode out the front doors, she went to the window of the front lobby. She saw the horrible creature and remembered how Circe could turn people into animals. This could be her magic. Diana Prince, museum curator and martial artist, would not be of use here. She cursed Bruce and Clark for encouraging her to keep a secret identity.

As screams and running and chaos broke out, Diana tried to disappear into the crowd, letting some of her speed take over. She knew every corner of the museum that was free from security cameras, but she cursed the delay. She heard a gunshot, and prayed she wouldn’t be too late.

XXX

Oliva dove and rolled and swore to send her trainer a gift. She wasn’t fast enough to avoid the claws entirely, but they dug into her leg instead of her gut. Limping a little, she whirled to watch the creature, raising her gun again. He was hissing and clutching at his shoulder with his deformed hand. Paw?

With a roar, the creature launched at Olivia again. She fired again, center mass, but he was too quick, and the shot grazed the Schiller’s side. He roared, and Olivia felt the sound rattle her guts. He lunged at her again, and rather that lunge on a leg quickly giving out, she set her aim and prepared to fire a head shot.

Before she could, a golden rope looped around the creature, pinning its arms to its side and pulling tight, yanking him to the ground. Olivia lowered her gun, mouth agape. A tall woman with flowing brown hair and a red, gold, and blue armor reminiscent of Xena herself held the other end of the glowing lasso. She held fast, digging her legs into the ground as the creature howled and yanked at the bindings.

Screams went up in the crowd. “Wonder Woman!” they cried. “It’s the Wonder Woman!”

Right. The metahuman Amazonian woman who’d been spotted thwarting bombings and fighting crime in Paris, Gotham, and Central City. Looks like the weird had finally made its way to New York.

Great.

The Amazon let out a war cry as she yanked hard on the lasso, forcing the Schiller-creature to kneel. “The lasso reveals the truth,” she said, loud enough for Olivia to hear. She limped closer, every nerve taut. And before their eyes, the monster roared and then melted back into the shape of Corey Schiller, serial rapist, who know sported two gunshot wounds in his side and shoulder.

“Call a bus!” Olivia shouted, but she could already hear Fin ordering it on the radio. She limped over, slapping cuffs onto Schiller as he lay there in the lasso, eyes glassy. Considering the glowing rope and the pronouncement that it “reveals truth”, Olivia shot a quick glance at the Amazon who held the rope tight. A sense of deja vu filled Olivia, but the yellow glow obscured the woman’s face.

“Ask your questions quickly,” the woman advised, her accent thick.

So Olivia demanded of Schiller, “Did you kill Alyssa Nelson?”

“Yes,” Schiller moaned. Then he passed out.

“Holy shit, Liv, your leg. Here.” Fin ran up to her, pulled one of her arms over his shoulders to support her weight. Olivia glanced down; her pants were slashed and her calf and shoe were soaked in blood. She’d left a trail of it and now stood in a small puddle of her own blood. Pain began to scream and throb up from her toes to her spine.

“I’ll live,” she said. “So will he, it looks like.” But the golden light from the lasso was gone.

Olivia glanced to her left; the Amazon woman had vanished. Olivia whirled--nothing. “Fuck me,” she muttered, feeling dizzy from how fast she’d whipped her head around.

“She FLEW off, Liv,” Fin said, pointing up. Olivia didn’t look, feeling the approaching nausea and fuzziness that warned that she’d lost too much blood. She squeezed her eyes shut, but the imprint of the street, covered in her cops and people holding up their phones and recording lingered there on her eyelids.

“Fin, I swear to God if I pass out in front of these people...”

He grunted a laugh in her ear. “Pretty sure it's allowed.” She felt him waving over the medics. “Schiller did; you popped him twice and it was like he barely felt it when he was.... Hulked out. What the fuck, Liv?”

“Hell if I know.” Dizziness churned, and she kept her eyes shut, breathing deep through her nose. “He was like a tiger monster, and then a flying Xena saved me and changed him back. The world is weird now, Fin.”

“Nah.” He lifted her onto the gurney, helped guide her to laying on her back. “It was always weird, Liv.”

“I don’t need to be transported,” Olivia said to whichever medics were trying to stab an IV into her; they got it on the first try. “Tape me up.”

The one by her leg hissed. “Sorry, Lieutenant. Your leg is well and truly fucked. I see muscle, tendon, and bone. You’re going in.”

“Shit,” Liv said.

Fin said, “I’ll handle the scene, and I’ll have Rollins call Lucy for you. We got it, Lieutenant.”

Liv stared at the ceiling of the ambulance. “Well.... thanks. Call me. If I don’t pass out and they don’t knock me out, I’ll answer.”

Fin grinned. “Sure, Liv. We got you.”

The door shut, and Olivia closed her eyes. Before she finally did pass out, she thought, That Xena woman looked familiar.

XXX

At Wayne Industries, Bruce Wayne leaned back in his chair, feet resting on his desk. He was tempted to doze off since he’d been up all night last night. First, listening to Diana’s warning about Circe, and then listening to Alfred’s lecture about how he better agree and “be civil to Master Kent when he does you this extraordinary and inexplicable honor.” And then the rest of the night he’d spent chasing Harley Quinn back into her cell. He’d not slept before coming here to zone through a board meeting before escaping to his office, and he was tired.

Bruce smacked a button that closed the automatic blinds on his office, and said into the intercom, “Helen, hold my calls.” And he leaned back again to close his eyes.

Some time later, maybe a minute or an hour, a voice buzzed in his ear.

“Master Bruce, you might want to turn to CNN,” Alfred announced from his earpiece without preamble.

Instantly alert again, Bruce swing his legs back to the floor and said, “Screen on, CNN.”

The flatscreen on the wall blinked on; Bruce watched, expression flat, as Diana lassoed some sort of humanoid tiger creature. Shaky cell phone footage also showed the creature attacking Lieutenant Olivia Benson, which seemed to be almost as newsworthy as Wonder Woman appearing in New York for the first time. In front of the Met, no less; Bruce felt certain Diana wouldn’t bother with the secret identity bit for much longer. It wasn’t in her, and Diana Prince was already involved with the police. It wouldn’t take long for Benson to connect the dots.

Bruce felt a little lurch in his chest, as he always did when she was fighting a battle without him; irrational, perhaps, but unavoidable. This one was over in seconds, and Diana didn’t even break a sweat. She used the lasso on the guy--who, the press revealed was serial rapist Corey Schiller--to turn him human, and then flew away before cameras could clearly zoom in on her face.

He tapped the earpiece and said, “Alfred, get a message out to the team; we’re meeting tonight at the Hall. Everyone who can be there needs to be. Diana will want to brief us.”

“Very good, sir.”

Bruce typed a combination on his desk then pulled out drawer and studied his preliminary plans for the Watchtower. Something to think about if Diana blew her identity wide open. He remembered the guest room in Wayne Manor that he’d made over for her, down to a shrine to Hestia, goddess of hearth and home. He considered his tendency to sleep in that room even when Diana wasn’t there. All of this information he filed away, knowing that soon, Diana might have to give up that West Village condo she loved for something more secure.

Fully awake now, Bruce stabbed a button on his phone and hailed his secretary. “Helen, get me a list of our biggest New York partners and all the fancy functions they’re holding in the next week. I feel like a trip to the Big Apple.”

Chapter Text

Chapter Five: Peter

Peter Stone, the Assistant District Attorney in charge of prosecuting Manhattan SVU cases, wasn’t above throwing his weight around. He was dropping identification and legalese on anyone who would stand still long enough to listen as he demanded to know where Lieutenant Olivia Benson had been taken. All of her detectives were either at the station or one of the two crime scenes; they hadn’t been able to check on her yet. She’d called Fin a half hour after the ambulance took her away that she was going into surgery, and that was 3 hours ago. Lucy, Olivia’s nanny, had Noah and was able to keep him for the night, that much he’d checked on.

But he wanted to see her for himself. The footage was running nonstop on CNN and MSNBC; Fox aired the clips too with significantly more screaming and paranoia about metahumans. Peter ignored it all; he didn’t need a second or third viewing to make him remember how terrified he’d been to see Olivia injured.

The police lieutenant had 15 years on Peter, and she was ruthlessly professional. Still, he’d yet to cease being aware of his attraction to her. It simmered always even though he mostly ignored it. Peter had tossed Olivia a couple hints early on with no response, and one doesn’t prosecute sexual assaults without learning how not to be a creep. So he tossed no more hints and followed Olivia’s lead, keeping things professional between them. He valued her deeply as a colleague and a friend; he’d wept in her arms after the death of his sister, after all.

That, more than anything, is what rattled him when CNN’s ticker screamed “NYPD SVU LIEUTENANT HOSPITALIZED FOLLOWING META-HUMAN ATTACK: WONDER WOMAN COMES TO THE RESCUE.”

He tried not to look at the TV while the unit admin attempted to discern where Olivia was in the hospital. “The lieutenant is listed as a VIP patient; that means we screen her visitors even more intensely than normal, and you know normal is still intense, don’t you, Counselor?”

“I’m on the list.”

She scrolled for a bit. “Ah, here’s an intake form; she’s got a half-brother listed as next of kin and several others on the go-list for receiving updates on her condition.”

He flashed his ID again. “Peter Stone, I’m on it.” He suddenly wondered if he was lying, but she nodded, sending relief flooding into his body.

“Yes, I see that you are.” She lowered her voice, and he leaned in close. “I’m sorry, Mr. Stone, but you can’t see her as yet. The Lieutenant is in recovery; she’ll be moved to a room on the Trauma ICU for monitoring tonight, and likely moved to the step-down unit shortly after barring any complications.”

“When can I see her?” he demanded.

“It depends on how quickly we can move her from the PACU to the TICU. She’s ready at this point; just waiting on a bed.”

“I’ll wait,” he said. “Right here.” And he strolled back to a chair closest to the desk and sat, still desperately trying to ignore the footage rolling on the waiting room TVs.

The Wonder Woman’s presence in New York was vaguely interesting to Peter. He had colleagues in Gotham, Metropolis, and Central, all with varying opinions about metahumans and vigilantes running around protecting their city. Some would love to bring them in and prosecute them; most looked the other way on things that skirted the line of legality in gratitude for service rendered. He’d thought that this Wonder Woman, an immortal Amazon if the rags were to be believed, lived in Europe.

The item she was using, that glowing lasso, interested him more than anything else. Apparently, according to the Amazon herself and everything he’d read online, her lasso could compel people to tell the truth. He was willing to bet that would interest Olivia too. Once he could see her, he’d bring it up. He glanced at his watch, then sighed and pulled out his laptop. He didn’t plan to leave, so he might as well multi-task.

He lost track of time responding to emails, but his sharp hearing picked up another person at the desk asking for Olivia Benson. He looked up to see the unit admin frowning deeply at a tall woman wearing a gray suit and sporting a tight bun. Her back was to Peter.

He heard the woman say, “Okay, I understand. I will wait for news from her colleagues then.” What was that accent? Greek?

He was packing up his laptop and following her before he realized what he was doing. “Excuse me,” he said. “I’m Olivia’s colleague. May I ask who you are?”

It came out more defensive than he intended, but the woman paused and turned. She was a striking figure, lovely under those rectangular glasses, studying him steadily.

“I am Diana Prince,” she said. “I work at the Met; the Lieutenant and I had been collaborating in her efforts to apprehend Corey Schiller. I was concerned for her; I saw what happened.”

She was still wearing the museum badge identifying her as a curator, and she did look concerned. Still, Peter was inclined toward suspicion. “I’ll let her know you came by,” he said.

The woman nodded deeply. “Thank you,” she said, then turned on her stilettos and strode out.

XXX

The Justice League convened at the Hall in full regalia this time, since it was the evening and many of them, like Batman, tended to be busier at night assisting with crises around their city. This meeting included Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, the Flash, Cyborg, and Aquaman.

In case they went long, Bruce had asked Nightwing and Oracle to keep a sharp ear out and handle things until he was free. He avoided sitting at the head of the table on purpose; so had Barry and Victor, who huddled on the other side of the table facing him, talking low enough that he couldn’t make out every word. Clark, Diana, and Arthur were chatting at the head of the table, where there were three empty seats. Bruce saw some money flash and realized the younger team members were taking bets on which of the three biggest personalities in the room sat at the head of the table. He hit a smirk.

“My people had no dealings with her that I’ve heard of; sorry.” With that, the newly-minted King of Atlantis flopped into a chair next to Batman and propped his feet up. He sent Bruce a sly look as he did so; Bruce rolled his eyes.

Now, all eyes were on Clark and Diana; arguably, the two most powerful members of the team as far as brute strength goes. Despite how Clark had managed to subdue Diana when he first came back from death, angry and disoriented, Bruce would put his money on Diana every time in that fight, if it ever really needed to happen. Diana had been holding back, not wanting to hurt Clark. Clark probably had an edge on the physical power but Diana could balance that with her warrior’s mind, ruthlessness, and divine lightning. Plus, the Kryptonian had a glaring and well-known weakness in the form of a certain shiny green rock; Diana did not.

“Mythology wasn’t my favorite subject in school,” Superman said apologetically. He took the seat on Bruce’s other side, and so, without fanfare, Diana took the spot at the head of the table, to almost no one’s surprise. Some money changed hands between the two youngest, with Victor looking disgruntled. Bruce didn’t bother hiding his smirk this time; don’t bet against the Amazon Princess who’d been alive for hundreds of years.

“Thank you for coming on such short notice,” Diana began. “I received warning from Hermes that the sorceress Circe has escape from the Underworld. Today, I believe I saw the first signs of her presence.”

Bruce tapped on a tablet he had, and a screen on the wall displayed slowed footage of a mutated Corey Schiller attacking Lieutenant Benson and Diana’s intervention with the lasso that changed him back to his true form.

“This is one of her best tricks,” Diana said. “She turns people into animals. I don’t know if this... mix between man and tiger was on purpose or accidental, but it was effective.”

“Is Benson okay?” Clark wondered. “Lois is on that story, but she was still in the OR as far as Lois had heard.”

“That is all I was able to learn as well,” Diana said. “I did hear the medic say the wound in her leg was severe-- exposed bone and tendon.”

“Ouch,” Barry observed. “I’d like to avoid that if possible.”

“You should be faster than one measly tiger monster,” Victor said.

Diana smiled at them, amused, continuing without comment. “I don’t think Circe will make a move on any of you or your cities. She is focused on me; I’m a stand-in for her revenge on my mother, who brought on Circe’s banishment to the underworld.”

“So she’s gunning for you specifically?” Arthur frowned, finally pulling his legs off the table so he could lean over it. “That’s bad news. But why send a lacky after the cop if she wants you?”

“Schiller already had a grudge against the Lieutenant; I’m betting she couldn’t overcome that urge when she transformed him.”

“Or,” Bruce said, “Benson just got in his way and distracted him from his primary goal of ripping you apart.” His words had a bit more heat than he intended, but then again, he had strong feelings about Diana not being ripped apart.

Diana shrugged. “Perhaps the police will let me ask him if he survives.”

“So what do you need from us?” Clark asked.

“Keep an eye out for her; I won’t say do not engage since I know you, but be wary. Legends say she can influence minds. Call me immediately if you see any sign of her or humans being turned into creatures. Circe is my responsibility; the gods bade me capture or kill her.”

Clark squirmed at the k-word; Bruce didn’t squirm, but he felt the difference between Diana and many of the rest of their team. She was a soldier, a warrior; she fought to preserve life at all costs but when that failed, she would not hesitate to kill. She’d killed Ludendorf without hesitation or regret, he remembered. She’d thought she’d killed Ares too before learning that she’d sent him to Tartarus. Bruce wasn’t completely clear on the difference.

“So.” Clark clapped his hands, looking around at everyone. “Keep your coms on, and contact Diana if you see any sign of Circe. Any idea what she looks like?”

“Not yet.” Diana shook her head and outlined what she’d heard from Hermes and the various myths attached to Circe. When she was finished, Bruce said, “If she’s the daughter of Helios, Titan of the Sun, and Perse, a water nymph, then she’s a demigoddess. Like you.”

He remembered their trip to Olympus; Diana had nearly died from a bite from Cerberus. These mythological beings were much more of a threat to her than many of the League’s enemies.

Diana followed his train of thought. “Perhaps in some ways, we would be equally matched,” she mused. “But Circe is not a warrior. And her powers are about illusions, which the Lasso of Hestia is capable of dispelling. I will be cautious, but I think I am a match for her.” She grinned. “And if I am not a match alone, then I am not above asking for help.”

“Unlike some people,” Clark muttered under his breath. Bruce stared at him without blinking as Barry struggled turn his laugh into a cough.

“Good, are we done here?” Arthur demanded, pushing back from the table. “I’ve got a storm to keep an eye on back in Maine, so if we’re done...” He stood and started inching toward the door with a deferential glance toward Diana.

Diana stood too. “I will walk you out to the Cave, Arthur.” A secret smile danced on her lips before she said, “I have a particular question for you.”

“Wait--” Bruce said, but they were gone. He moved to follow them but Clark snagged his arm and pulled him back into the chair. Bruce stared at his hand, but Clark didn’t let go.

“Hold on, Bruce. I have a question for you.”

“Oh my God, he’s going to do it,” Barry whispered.

“That’s our cue. Come on, Bug Duty,” Victor said. He casually threw Barry over his shoulder and carried the Flash out to the Cave where the transporter waited, the Fastest Man Alive whining the whole way.

When they were alone, Clark released Bruce’s arm. Bruce didn’t rub it, though he wanted to. Instead, he hissed, “Diana is going to ask Arthur to be her date to your wedding! ARTHUR.”

Clark met his gaze steadily. “Serves you right since you think your alter-ego still can’t grow up. Now, speaking of growing up, I know you--and everyone else apparently...”

“Barry is a horrible gossip,” Bruce said.

“...already know what I’m going to ask, so the question is, are you going to do it?”

Bruce couldn’t help but stare. “Why me? I kind of caused you to die and then I resurrected you and--”

“Things were weird for a while, yes,” Clark said, interrupting. “But I’ll just clarify that I’m glad you brought me back because being alive is better than being dead. Plus, I get to marry Lois like I wanted to. Anyway, we understand each other now. We’re friends. You saved my home, my mom’s life, me. I’m grateful. But it’s not about that. We’re friends,” he repeated.

Bruce met Clark’s earnest gaze, then looked away, discomfited. “What do I need to do? Bachelor party? Speech?”

“Lois is famous, in case you forgot, so we’re staying really small, just close friends and family, no press presence.” Clark grinned. “But I wouldn’t say no to a party and a speech. But all that’s optional, you know. It’s symbolic. That’s what matters to me.”

And Bruce could see that it did. That if all Bruce did was show up and stand next to Clark and hand him the ring, the Boy Scout would be happy.

“Okay,” he said finally. And Clark grinned.

“Great. Don’t ruin it by trying to murder Arthur for dancing with Diana, because you know he will, as her date or otherwise.”

Bruce huffed, and with a swirl of his cape, swept from the room to chase after Diana. Clark’s laughter followed him out.

When he got to the Batcave, neither Arthur nor Diana were anywhere to be seen. Barry and Victor were hovering with Alfred over a computer, chatting. Bruce coughed.

Alfred turned, looking smug. “You’ve just missed Her Highness, sir. She received a phone call that Lieutenant Benson was awake and has gone to check on her. The Princess did say that we should expect her to return in the morning once you’ve finished your patrol.”

That was something at least. Bruce resisted the urge to yank off his cowl and pull his hair out. “And?”

“And I believe Master Curry left to check on vessels caught in tonight’s storm.”

Barry snorted, then wilted a little under Bruce’s stare. “Oh fine,” he declared. “We’ll put you out of your misery. Arthur had to say no because Mera had already agreed to be his date to the wedding. She doesn’t come to surface as much, and she’s excited.”

Bruce relaxed.

“But Arthur made sure Diana agreed to dance with him at least once,” Victor said. “She was pleased. She likes to dance, you know,” the younger man said as if he was telling Bruce a secret he really should have figured out by now.

“Don’t you guys have cities to protect?” Bruce demanded.

They glanced at each other. “Pizza first,” Barry declared. Victor agreed, and they transported out.

Bruce looked at Alfred, who’d managed to school the smugness out of his expression. Impeccable, as per usual.

“What?” Bruce demanded. “She can’t go asking Lieutenant Benson to be her date. The woman’s in the hospital and there’s a homicidal demigoddess lurking about.”

“One can only hope, sir,” Alfred said.

XXX
When Diana knocked on the wall outside of Lieutenant Benson’s hospital room, she could already hear other voices inside. Still, she knocked, holding her offering tight in her other hand. She managed to wash both hands with the hand sanitizer while she waited for an answer.

“Come in!” said Olivia from behind the curtain. Diana slipped through, then gasped in true delight.

“This must be your son!” Diana said, setting her bag on the nearest table so she could wave at Noah. Noah waved back with gusto; he looked about 4 or 5 to Diana, but she hadn’t yet learned to guess the age of children very well.

“Yes,” Olivia said, smiling. “Noah, this is Diana. She works at the museum.”

“Cool!” the little boy declared. Then his gaze latched onto the bag Diana had brought in. His eyes got wide as saucers. “Did you bring DOUGHNUTS?!”

Diana flashed an innocent smile to the room. She noted a few other familiar faces from the first sting, including Fin, Rollins, Carisi, and Peter from the waiting room this afternoon. “I heard a rumor that police officers like donuts.”

“Yes, they do,” Fin declared and reached for the bag. “What about ADAs, Stone?”

“I don’t know if we have a standard snack reputation,” he said. “But if we’re talking about all lawyers, then probably the blood of our enemies or something.”

“Har har,” Olivia said. She gave her son a speculative look. “If you’re going home with Lucy tonight then maybe you can have half of a doughnut.”

“Awesome!” the boy declared, and jumped off the bed to bound over to Fin and the bag. While they completed negotiations, Diana walked over to a chair near Detective Rollins. The blond woman watched her intently to the point where Diana was nearly sure she was about to be outed as Wonder Woman. Instead, Rollins said, with feeling “Where did you find those boots?”

Diana laughed, relieved. She named a store that made Rollins sigh in longing. “Liv, can I have a raise?” she asked.

“I’d love to support your boot habit, Rollins, but you gotta send that request up the chain. Maybe try the mayor.”

Rollins groaned good-naturedly.

“How are you feeling, Lieutenant?” Diana asked, though she glanced significantly at Noah, to communicate that she knew she wouldn’t get the whole story in front of the little boy. Olivia nodded, and said, “Docs had to repair a severed tendon in my ankle and stitch me up like Frankenstein--”

“EW!” Noah declared gleefully.

“But I’ll be good after a few weeks. I’ve informed the team here that I’ll be taking my frustration out on them until I can ditch the crutches.”

“Which is different from normal, how?” Carisi wondered, grinning.

Olivia threw an extra pillow at him, which he caught, before chasing Noah around with it. The little boy howled, taking his donut and running. Carisi chased him out the door. In unspoken Mom camaraderie, Rollins followed them to keep an eye on things.

Now alone with Olivia, ADA Stone, and Fin, Diana lifted her eyebrows. “How are you really?”

Olivia sighed, sagging a little in the bed. “It’s bad. I won’t be able to put weight on my foot for 6-8 weeks, which is bad news in the force. PT will be a bitch, but I’ll have to go all out on it, demonstrate a full recovery and complete range of motion to get reinstated. And I’m old enough to worry that they’ll just make me take early medical retirement.”

Fin’s eyes shot up. “Shit, I didn’t think of that.”

Peter’s gaze turned calculating. “And you don’t want that?” he confirmed.

“No, I don’t.” Olivia’s voice was sharp and steely. “When I go out, I want it to be because I chose to, I aged out, or I’m dead. I’m not anywhere close to 63, and I’m not dead.”

“That’s cheerful,” Fin grumbled, crossing his arms.

Peter grinned, then. “Your union rep any good?”

Olivia returned the wolfish expression. “They better be.”

Diana began to feel as if she was intruding, but she pressed on. “I just wanted to come by and check on you, Lieutenant. I saw that creature attack you, and I was so concerned. How are you, really?”

They all glanced toward the door, but they could all hear Noah’s laughter as Rollins and Carisi entertained him. Olivia considered the question seriously for a moment, then said, “It’s hard to land on one thing. I’m pretty upset to be laid up like this, but I’m glad to be alive, glad to have Schiller in custody, glad no one else was hurt other than Alyssa and myself.” She glanced at Peter. “The Wonder Woman showing up was...interesting. Pretty sure I owe her one. But...I doubt the confession she got from Schiller will be admissible, considering there’s no precedent for confessions induced from magical items.”

“We’ll put him in the box, Liv,” Fin said. “He seems like the type who wants to confess.”

“Only if his father isn’t a good enough lawyer to prevent it,” Peter shot back. “I wouldn’t count on confession, but it’s worth a shot. Even his attack on Liv being on camera is going to be sketchy. What’s a jury going to do with a tiger-monster? We have no idea what happened to him or if he could help himself when he attacked Liv.”

“I don’t care about that,” Olivia said. “We also have the murder and the string of sexual assaults, and he wasn’t messed up when he did those other rapes before Alyssa. That’s what we were trying to bring him down for in the first place. Surely we can get something to stick even with all this supernatural crap.”

Peter nodded. “You know I’ll try.”

Olivia leaned back into her pillows, wincing a little as she adjusted got comfortable. “What I wouldn’t give to talk to this Wonder Woman. She shows up around the same time my perp gets turned into Franken-tiger? She knows something.”

Diana raised her eyebrows. “You would want to work with her?”

Olivia shrugged. “Maybe it wouldn’t work, but I think we could trade information, for sure.” She glanced at Peter. “What’s the precedent?”

“Gotham is well-known example. Friend of a friend knows their ADA; I happened to know that Commissioner Gordon of the Gotham PD words with the Batman on a regular basis.”

“Hmmmm.” Olivia steepled her fingers thoughtfully. “I don’t think we can put up a Wonder Woman spotlight. But I bet if she wants to be found, she will be. She showed up today, after all.”

Diana said, “I suppose you won’t be needing to set up anymore stings at the museum for the foreseeable future.”

Olivia laughed. “I’m sure your bosses are happy about that.”

“All publicity is good publicity,” Diana quoted with a sly smile. “But I suppose my involvement in all this is done for a while, yes?”

“Until we need you as a witness, yes,” Peter said.

“Then, considering I’m a temporarily uninvolved civilian, I’ll get out of here and leave you to it. I wanted to see how you were recovering.” She stood, crossing the room to Olivia’s bed and handed her a card. She leaned down a little, her expression earnest. “And, just returning the favor, Olivia. This is my personal cell phone number; maybe if you need some help while you’re recovering, or you want to get out for coffee or dinner, you’ll call me. I would like that. And perhaps I’ll tell you some of my secrets.” With another smile, Diana Prince excused herself and swept from the room.

Once the sound of her heels clicking had faded, Fin grinned. “I think she was flirting with you a little bit there, Liv.”

“She was,” Peter agreed, looking disgruntled.

“Don’t sound so jealous, guys,” Olivia said, and slid the card into her bag. “What kind of legal precedents exist in Gotham for collaboration with the Justice League? Since this Wonder woman is here, I’m not above using her help to get criminals like Schiller off the street. And we’ll need her if any more of them sprout claws.”

XXX

Diana had her cab drop her off several blocks from her building so she could enjoy the walk. Once she got home, she planned to head back to Gotham and spend some time with Bruce after he got off patrol. Dusk was approaching; the time in between day and night had always held a special allure to her. She enjoyed the cool air and the sounds of the city as she walked.

She found herself feeling genuinely concerned for Olivia; the Lieutenant obviously felt some anxiety about her healing and whether she’d recovery soon and well enough to keep her job. And though she found the other woman attractive and interesting, her thoughts didn’t go much further than that; Bruce had taken up residence in her heart for the foreseeable future. That didn’t mean she wouldn’t tease him, though. Never that. If anything, she hoped to make a true friend out of Olivia, maybe a partner in keeping New York safe.

Her cell phone interrupted her thoughts. The readout said, “BLOCKED.” With a smile, she answered, “This is Diana.”

“Why aren’t you home yet?” Bruce’s voice demanded.

She laughed at him. “Passed off your work to the kids tonight, did you? Thought you might drop in on me before I could drop in on you? What a delight.”

He harrumphed, but she heard his pleasure at her quick deduction. “Where are you?”

Kind of him to ask when if he wanted, he could pinpoint her location at any time using the micro-tech League comlink she always wore. She obliged him. “I decided to walk the last few blocks. I’ll be there soon.”

“How’s the Lieutenant?”

Diana opened her mouth to answer, but a sultry voice from behind interrupted her. “Yes, how is Lieutenant Benson? My little test subject certainly tore a chunk out of her.”

Still holding the phone to her ear, Diana turned slowly. A tall woman emerged from the shadows of an alley; she had violet hair, pouty lips, and wore a glittering floor-length mermaid-style dress nearly the color of the shadows.

“You must be Circe,” Diana said. From the phone, she could hear rustling sounds; perhaps Bruce was gearing up to join her. She lowered the device to her side but didn’t disconnect the call. “The gods warned me you had escaped.”

Circe bared her teeth, tossing her hair. The gesture was more animal than woman. “And they think that you can bring me down when the very walls of the underworld couldn’t keep me in?”

Diana reached into her coat with her free hand, curling her fingers around her lasso. “It seems they do,” she said. “Why don’t we find out?”

Chapter Text

“You must be Circe,” Diana said. From her phone, she could hear rustling sounds; perhaps Bruce was gearing up to join her. She lowered the device to her side but didn’t disconnect the call. “The gods warned me you had escaped.”

Circe bared her teeth, tossing her hair. The gesture was more animal than woman. “And they think that you can bring me down when the very walls of the underworld couldn’t keep me in?”

Diana reached into her coat with her free hand, curling her fingers around her lasso. “It seems they do,” she said. “Why don’t we find out?”

“Oh? I thought you were maintaining some sort of double-life. I thought, how quaint. Daughter of Hippolyta and Zeus blending in with these animals.” Circe’s laugh chilled the air. “You’ll have trouble blending in if you take that lasso out here on the street. I’ve seen it on the screens; your cute little double life will be done.” Circe gestured to the streets, which, though not busy, sported pedestrians, open windows, street cameras. Being New Yorkers, most of them ignored Circe and Diana; they’ve seen stranger things.

“There are more important things than anonymity,” Diana said, hoping Bruce could still hear her. “What are your intentions, Circe? I saw your handiwork on the human boy.”

Circe stalked Diana with leonine grace, reminding Diana of her old foe Cheetah. She felt compassion for Barbara Ann Minerva; for Circe, finding compassion at the moment was more difficult, especially with Benson’s injury and Corey Schiller’s mutation fresh in her mind.

“Did you like it? I had heard you enjoyed battle with half-human, half-cat creatures.”

“The young man is a criminal and a rapist,” Diana replied, watching her foe and turning slowly to keep her in sight, predator to predator. “But his punishment is not for you to decide. The humans are under my protection.”

Circe laughed. “So I have heard. How noble they think you are, but I know the truth.”

Diana narrowed her eyes, tightening her grip on the lasso; she felt it warm to her touch, and the soft glow cast some light into the alley, throwing shadows over Circe’s face. “Do you now,” Diana murmured. She led Circle, them circling each other, further into the alley and away from the main street.

“Yes.” Circe spat the word. “The daughter of Hippolyta and Zeus, a kindly protector. What a joke. You are a monster, bred from monsters.”

“You’re angry.”

Another bitter laugh. “I am. I will have my revenge. It’s no matter that I cannot get to Hippolyta to kill her; I will kill you. And that will break her.”

Circle lashed out with a blast of purple energy; in a flash of golden light (with some regret about clothes she’d been fond of), Diana tore out of the fabric and emerged in her armor, deflecting the attack with the lasso. She flicked her wrist behind her back and pulled her shield out. Her sword rested on her back, waiting.

“I’m impressed that your mother let you take the blessed armor from its place in the tower,” Circe sneered.

Diana smiled, showing her teeth. “I stole it.”

“Typical.”

Circe lashed out again, but Diana deflected this attack with her shield, sending the purple blash back at its mistress.. “You are no warrior, Circe,” she said. “Let us talk this out, as women do.”

“I am not here to treat with you, Princess,” Circe said, spitting the title. “And you’ll find I had plenty of time in the Underworld to learn some new tricks.” With that, the sorceress, muttered something in Greek too low for Diana to hear and with a flick of her hands, cast a spell of purple fog that filled the alley and bled outwards. Diana heard male and female shouts of surprise that melted into animal sounds.

“Enjoy, Diana,” Circle said, and in a flash of light, disappeared.

“Now that would be a convenient ability,” Diana muttered. She readied her lasso, gathering a length in her hand and running into the fog. When she emerged from the alley, and the fog cleared, her jaw dropped open. She saw at least three exotic animals roaming the streets of the West Village-- a giraffe, a wolf, and a huge golden eagle attempting to figure out the mechanics of flying.

Diana swore in Greek, then let her lasso loose at the wolf first, triaging the danger in her head. The wolf made to leap at the giraffe and she managed to catch it around it’s middle so that she didn’t have to jerk it by the neck or leg. The lasso glowed for a moment, wrestling with Circe’s magic, and in a flash of light, a confused young man in a tracksuit sat tangled in her lasso.

“Are you alright?”

He nodded, looking dazed.

“Good. Take cover.” She turned her attention to the giraffe, currently stopping traffic on her street. A car slammed on the brakes, nearly causing an accident. Diana lassoed the giraffe; with a flash of light, the majestic animal disappeared, leaving a tall woman behind. “Take cover!” Diana repeated, then flew off to chase the eagle which had finally managed to take wing. She called to it, trusting in her gift from Artemis to calm the creature. It cocked its head, listening, and allowed her to gently pluck it from the air. She leaned back and allowed it to close it's massive wings and then carried it carefully to the ground.

“Perhaps this will be easier for you, my friend.”

Diana transferred the eagle to her bare shoulder, wincing a little as the talons dug in, then set the length of her lasso on the ground. She then knelt, and with some coaxing, convinced the bird to hop down from her shoulder and land on the gathered circle of rope. In another golden flash, a teenage boy was sitting on her lasso. He stared at her with his jaw agape.

“Oh my god,” he said. “I always knew my spirit animal was an eagle and Wonder Woman was real.”

Diana grinned. “You’re safe now; take cover.”

He ran off, and Diana took stock of the street. Traffic had resumed its normal flow; it took a lot more to get New Yorkers to pull over and gawk after all. Most people had resumed their business, though she did spot a few smartphone cameras aimed her way. Seeing this, Diana gathered her lasso and flew to the top of the nearest building. She took stock of the scene from the shadows. No one was hurt; most people set about their business now that the excitement was over. There was no sign of Circe.

“What are you up to, Circe?” Diana wondered aloud. “What’s the point of all this?” Then, she jumped a little when tiny claws dug into her shoulder. She turned her head and took in sight of a large brown bat, perched on her shoulder like a morbid parrot. It looked right at her with eerie intelligence.

“Oh! Did I miss someone?”

The bat gently butted its head against her hair, then stared at her face. An impossible hunch made her grin, and Diana tossed her lasso to the ground. Without any prompting from her, the bat flew down and landed on it.

In a golden flash, Batman stood before her, looking surly. He stepped off of her lasso, gathered it, and passed it back to her. Diana accepted it, desperately pressing her lips into a thin line to keep her laughter at bay.

He crossed his arms. “We will never speak of this again.”

She couldn’t help it; she laughed.

XXX

Later, once Bruce and Diana had traded their armor for comfortable clothes, she passed him a cup of tea, and they settled on the sofa in her front room, letting their legs entwine under the blankets. Bruce held the saucer and delicate handle of his teacup, sipping carefully. She made his tea strong and dropped in one sugar cube, just as he liked it. He suspected Alfred had told her, but it was just as likely that Diana was simply observant.

“I was going to come see you in the morning,” she said, enjoying the feel of the tea’s steam. “Yet here you are.”

“It’s not dark in Gotham yet,” Bruce said.

Diana glanced out the window, noting the last threads of daylight fading into the deep blue over New York. She happened to know that Gotham was in the same time zone, and knowing this, raised an amused eyebrow.

“And, I called in some favors so I could spend a few days here,” he finished, studying the skyline as she had. “There’s a fundraiser tomorrow night-- a masquerade gala benefiting The Lost Angel’s Society--youth homelessness, you know. One of the charities I sponsor.”

Diana nodded, enjoying the feel of his legs resting next to hers. She let her eyes close, leaning back into the pillows. “A fun night out, a generous donation, good publicity--and who will get to grace the arm of Bruce Wayne tomorrow night then?”

When no answer came, she sat back up and opened her eyes. “Bruce?”

Bruce turned his gaze on her, serious and focused. He realized that even though he was the one that had set this precedent--aggressively and deliberately in fact-- it began to bother him that she was no longer bothered by his other dates. He’d once thought that if he could only get her to understand that their lives could never fully overlap, that he’d finally be comfortable in their relationship. Everything would be neat and tidy and separate; no one would associate him with Diana Prince or Wonder Woman with Batman. His routines as the Batman and Bruce Wayne could both continue on with minimal disruption, as they had for the last two years while he held Diana at arm’s length. She’d pushed back a little at first then contented herself with the arrangement. The Amazons didn’t have marriage and were not especially prudish about enjoying sex. Plus, Diana had never had enough time with Steve Trevor to negotiate the finer points of defining exclusivity in relationships. He had no idea what relationships, if any, she’d had in the century since his death.

Yet now that Diana seemed unbothered by their arrangement, Bruce discovered he didn’t like it. He thought he was the one that needed the space; he was wrong. Bruce was the one who hated imagining her dancing with Arthur. He was the one consumed with jealousy as she debated who to take as her date to Clark and Lois’s wedding, even though he knew she would be open with that person that it was for fun, not for romance. On the other hand, Bruce had carried on blithely flirting with his revolving door of women whose names he forgot, and yet Diana had tolerated it. He didn’t like that she tolerated it. She deserved better. She deserved for him to be better.

Damn, he realized. Alfred was right. I’ve been a hypocritical ass.

He sucked in a deep breath, remembering Clark’s suggestion that Bruce Wayne, the affected persona, could grow up. He wondered if his alter-ego was the one that actually needed to mature as he spoke.

“Diana...I thought.... if you wanted to, that is... Damn it.” How long has it been since I did this and really meant it?!

Frustrated, Bruce stopped, sat up, and took a moment to carefully set his teacup and saucer on the coffee table and set his feet on the floor. Then, he leaned in and reached for her hands. He held them gently, and, voice serious as ever, said, “Diana. Would you give me the joy of your company at the gala tomorrow night?”

Diana blinked in surprise; and guilt flooded Bruce. Then, the surprise in her expression turned to delight. She squeezed his hands back, gently, always careful of him.

“It would be my pleasure,” she answered, beaming. “But you know, Bruce... you do not have to do this. I understand about the risks and why things have been as they have between us.”

Bruce considered his words carefully, idly tracing circles on the top of her hands with his thumbs. “Sometimes,” he said, “actions are worth their risks.”

He’d calculated plenty of the risks; catastrophizing was a particular strength of his. Among the top risks: someone could discover his secret identity through his connection to Diana. This risk grew in his mind each day because each day, Diana grew more and more annoyed with maintaining her own alter-ego. It grated on the part of her that was an emblem of truth.

Another risk was that his enemies could target Diana in effort to get to him; love was a vulnerability. Jason’s death and Barbara’s paralysis always reminded him. Yet, unlike Jason and Barbara, Diana was nearly invulnerable; her enemies were literal gods; Bruce imagined that she could handle his.

Another risk was loss of the status quo in Gotham-- no metas, he’d always said. Once in a while, Alfred went over his head to summon Diana or Clark to help, but most of the time, Bruce and the bat clan did not need anyone’s help. Yet, one day, he yearned for Diana to move in to Gotham manor. What would that do to the balance? It was a risk. Maybe Gotham would attract meta-level enemies. Or perhaps Gotham’s human criminals would be more wary.

Would it all be worth it, if he and Diana could be together, at least for a short time? He was aware and untroubled by his own mortality; he would likely not live long enough to feel uncomfortable by Diana’s agelessness. And like any scientist, Bruce knew that it was useless to hypothesize without experimenting. This seemed logical enough to voice aloud.

“And... there is little use hypothesizing without experimenting.”

Diana, who’d sat patiently during his long pauses and inner dialogue, smiled. “A logical thought,” she said. “Perhaps I’ll have some motivation not to cast my own secret identity aside. In the name of scientific inquiry, of course.”

He offered her a rare grin, leaned over her and brought his lips within a hair’s breadth of her own. She sucked in a quick breath, waiting, and when he did not complete the kiss, she took his upper arms in her hands, and brought him the rest of the way. Experimentation ensued.

XXX

Later, Bruce startled awake from a warm and satisfied doze, suddenly aware that Diana was not in the bed next to him. Even as he cursed the irrationality of it, his chest tightened.

“Diana?”

“Here, Bruce.” Her voice came from the next room. He pulled on his lounge pants and padded around the corner.

Bruce found her kneeling on a pillow before a shrine with small figures of her patrons from the Greek pantheon. He’d recognized a statue of Hestia over her hearth, but here all of her patrons rested, each with its own tea light and stick of incense. She’d lit two, and the flickering glow of the candles gave enough light for him to make out the figures. One showed a man with an aloof expression, holding a lute: Apollo. The second was a woman in silver armor with a red shield and a red plume of feathers in her helmet.

Bruce appreciated the likenesses in the figures; he’d met all of Diana’s divine patrons, after all; the resemblance here was uncanny.

“Are you alright?” he murmured.

She nodded. “I awoke and couldn’t sleep. I was praying to Athena for wisdom and to Apollo, for healing.”

He almost asked if she was injured before he remembered. “For the Lieutenant?”

She nodded. “”I visited her. She worries that she will be forced into medical retirement.”

“A travesty for New York if she is,” he said. “She doesn’t have mandatory retirement until she turns 63. She has a decade to go at least.”

“I admire her,” Diana said. “She has an Amazonian spirit. Though, if she identifies me as the Wonder Woman, it may cause...us... some difficulty.”

Bruce settled onto his knees next to her, aware that he shared that anxiety, especially after last night’s step forward. He put an arm around her waist and reveled in it, just a little, when she leaned to rest her head on his shoulder.

“Let’s not borrow trouble. We will face things when they come.”

Diana breathed out a laugh; he felt her body move with it and held on tighter. “This from you, Bruce Wayne?”

“What? I can change. Maybe.”

Diana closed her eyes and murmured a prayer in Greek. She blew out the tea lights and drew in a long inhale of the incense. When she opened her eyes, she smiled at him. “Perhaps you can. Even so, I love you just as you are.”

Because she meant it and it still amazed him, he pulled her to her feet and into a kiss.

XXX

In Olivia Benson’s hospital room that night, while the evening nurses enjoyed the quiet in between the vital checks and medication delivery, a man sat in the window sill of the room where he could bask in the light of his twin sister’s moon. He yawned; the night was her domain. But one of the few people who still prayed to him had asked for aid. Her belief, along with several of her friends who’d seen him, gave him enough power to manifest here and consider how he might be of use to Diana’s friend.

The injury was brutal; the humans had attempted to repair a severed tendon and the surrounding vessels and nerves; it was good work but he could sense, already, an infection setting in. Apollo, bathed in moonlight, began to hum. The song cast a gentle golden light onto the woman. He continued to hum, focusing his power on the injury, speeding healing and casting out the infection. He could not completely heal it, it was beyond him in this place so far from Delphi, but he could help her along. And as his magic searched for other injuries to tend, he hissed suddenly through his teeth.

Heartbreak. Oh, it was deep-- a great sadness wrought from seeing too much suffering in the world, and yet, beneath that dull, constant heartache, his magic found a broken heart, poorly mended by time.

In her sleep, alone in her room, Olivia murmured, “Elliot.”

Apollo closed his eyes, empathizing with the pain of it. His magic could not heal wounds of the heart; that was not his gift. Even so, he pushed a little harder towards the wound in her leg. Apollo remembered heartache. The light in the room grew brighter as he sang.

Later, when Olivia’s nurse opened her door, sure he’d heard someone singing in there, he found nothing amiss. The Lieutenant was resting peacefully, her vitals steady; the room was empty. When the time came to handoff to the day-shift, the evening nurses reported that every patient on the floor was sleeping well, and some even seemed to be getting better.

XXX

Chapter Text

Chapter 7: Elliot

“Well, Lieutenant, to be honest, we don’t have a medical explanation for this. Your wound care team changed your dressing and your surgical site looked remarkably more healed than it should. So, the surgeon ordered another MRI, and your severed tendon and damaged muscles also looked much better than is expected following the sort of operation you had so recently.”

Olivia blinked. “So what are you saying?” 

The doctor shrugged, tucking dark hair behind her ears. “You’re better than you should be. Your wound looks like it is months further along in the healing process than it actually is. I’m ordering PT and OT to come look at you and depending on their recommendations, you might be able to do some minimal outpatient therapy and get back to work much sooner than expected. Wound care will also come teach you about dressing changes, and after that, I think we can discharge you tomorrow.”

Medical impossibilities fell to the wayside with that news; Olivia leaned back in her pillow, pleased. “That’s great news. Maybe the monster or whatever-the-fuck didn’t get me as bad as we thought.”

“Oh no, it definitely did.” Dr. Chung opened the blue folder under her arm and produced printed images-- photos of her wound and sutures as well as MRIs. “These are from yesterday,” she said, pointing. Olivia didn’t shudder looking at the gruesome wound in her leg, swollen around sutures. The MRI didn’t mean as much to her, but the doctor pointed at her severed tendon. “And these are from today.” The new photo showed skin with far less bruising and swelling, the sutures appearing to hold together a pink scar that had already closed. 

“We’ll take the sutures out, obviously. You don’t need them.” The doctor still sounded baffled. “And this is the MRI from this morning. Look, right here-- your tendon is whole. Honestly, if I felt I could take any kind of credit for this, I’d be begging you to consent to my writing it up for a journal. I still might. I’m ordering some labs, but honestly, Lieutenant, I can’t think of any logical explanation for how quickly you have healed.”

“Doc, a crazed rapist who’d been turned into a tiger monster did it; we’re already beyond logical explanations.”

“As you say,” Dr. Chung mused. “Then this has to be related to the meta-humans. I’d still like to write up your case.”

“Do it, I don’t care. Just discharge me. I have work to do.” 

“Gal after my own heart,” Dr. Chung commented and swept out of the room, leaving Olivia alone again. She checked her phone; Lucy had dropped off Noah at school, and she had text messages from Amanda and Fin and Carisi. She busied herself responding, so engrossed that she didn’t notice the face peering at her through her window. When Olivia looked up from her phone, the ordinary view of the city calmed her, as it always did.

That afternoon, OT declared she didn’t need any follow up from them and the physical therapist gawked at how she walked with only the slightest limp. At the end of that session, PT presented her with a cane, saying, “I realize you probably won’t use this but maybe, just for the next couple months, when no one’s looking, you can use it and think of me. And go to your weekly sessions and get clearance before you start doing strenuous workouts or chasing bad guys.”

Olivia dutifully agreed, even intending to do most of what she said. And she didn’t protest the wheelchair when it was time to discharge. Everyone volunteered to pick her up, including Chief Dodds, but Olivia, still pondering the strange healing of her wound, wanted quiet to think. She hailed a cab.

They'd barely gone three blocks when her cell rang. Olivia sighed. "Chief, I told you it's fine; I'm already in a cab on my way home."

Chief Dodd's rough voice rumbled through the phone. "Great. Super. This isn't about that. You said OT cleared you and PT cleared you for light duty?"

Her eyebrows shot up in surprise. "Yeah... Want me to come in? Noah's already at school, I can come straight there." She couldn't help the hopeful lilt that crept into the words.

"You're too much like me, Benson." The man had the nerve to laugh at her.  "No, damn it. Go home and rest up because you do have a job to do tonight. Remember? The Lost Angels fundraiser? Homeless youth? Masquerade? Remember how you're going as an honored guest because they want to present you with an award? Remember how the NYPD could really use some good publicity right about now? Any of this ringing a bell?"

She groaned. She'd not thought about that event or the award in weeks, and had honestly planned to send her regrets. "Chief, come on. A freaking tiger-monster tried to eat my leg, and you won't let me work but you'll make me do this of all things? Come on."

"Come on nothing. You're miraculously fit for light duty, and this is light duty. It doesn't start until 8, so you'll have plenty of time with your son this afternoon after you take a nice long nap. Then you can put on a dress or your dress blues, I don't care, and you will go and accept this award because hey, you did NOT get eaten by the fucking tiger monster and, hello, because you fucking deserve it, Olivia Benson. You're a hero." 

His voice, which had grown in volume as the tirade went on, cracked a little at the end. Both of them thought of his son, killed in the line of duty, but neither mentioned Mike. 

The chief cleared his throat and pushed on. "Plus, your face has been all over CNN, Fox, MSNBC, the Times, and the Daily Planet for the last 24 hours. The people want to know you're okay, and since whatever new fuckery in the world made you better faster, you're going to go, you're going to let people say all the nice, true things about you that you never want to hear, and you're going to have fun.  And that's a direct order."

She smacked the phone lightly against her forehead a few times, then asked, "Which part?"

"All of it," the chief barked.  "Especially the fun part. There will be tons of press there. I'll see you tonight." He hung up.

Olivia stared at her phone, wondering how in the world her life had come to arrive at this moment. Then she groaned, loudly, and said to the driver, "Okay, change of plans. Drop me off at Macy's on 34th."

She hit a speed dial on her phone. "Amanda. Yes, it's me. Yes, that text was for real, they did discharge me. Listen. What are you doing right now? I need your help."

XXX

Bruce lounged on Diana's bed and watched her braid and pin up her hair in an intricate updo, feeling happier than he could ever remember feeling in his life. God, Alfred would be completely insufferable as soon as he saw the news, and there would be news. Bruce Wayne showing up with a heretofore unknown woman on his arm would make a splash on every entertainment website, and Diana's privacy would soon be a thing of the past. 

Bruce had a plan for that, of course; he was already investigating options for a security team for her. Diana had laughed at the suggestion this morning, still rumpled from sleep. "Do you think I need men with guns to protect me, Bruce?" She hadn't been angry, just amused.

"No," he'd told her, "but it would be expected that I, Bruce Wayne, a wealthy public figure, would provide additional security to my human civilian girlfriend because the tabloids will likely try to follow you around. Are you sure you want this, Diana?" 

She'd set down her coffee mug and reached across the table for his hands, squeezing them with gentle reassurance. "I have been dodging reporters and cameras since before you were born, remember? The real problem will come in 5 or 10 years when the press notices that Bruce Wayne's girlfriend is not aging as she should." Concern clouded her gaze, and her face fell. "Did you think of this? If my true identity came to light, it might put yours at risk. Are you sure YOU want to do this, Bruce? You don't have to do this. I don't need this part of you if you can't bear to give it. I love you as you are."

He'd gotten up from his chair at the breakfast nook, walked around the table without letting go of one of her hands then pulled her into a tight embrace. 

"I know you do," he'd murmured into her hair. "I know you love me. And I love you. That's why you deserve better than just half of me. If Bruce Wayne grows up a bit, the press will lose some interest in me. Part of why I'm always in the tabloids are the ridiculous things my alter-ego does; Bruce Wayne makes for splashy headlines, which means more clicks and more papers sold. It has kept me hidden in plain sight, free to be the Batman and protect Gotham the way I wanted for over 20 years."

He'd paused, realized his heart was racing, and took in a long, fortifying breath. "I'm not ready to retire the Batman, not by a longshot, not for decades more at least. But I might be ready to retire the Bruce Wayne persona everyone knows. He's tedious, Diana. I hate him, hate that people believe he's real, believe that I truly treat women or my parent's legacy with such contempt, but it protected me, made me feel safer. No one looked at THAT Bruce Wayne and pictured a vigilante crime fighter."

"He helped you hide," she'd said into his neck, squeezing where her arms wrapped around his waist.

"Yes. I want to be better for you. But you know I'll always be paranoid and obsessive and overly devoted to Gotham and my mission, perhaps more than will feel good sometimes, right? I've never been good boyfriend material."

He'd felt her smile where her lips brushed his jawline, drawing out a shiver from him. "That's okay. I have been in this world for over a hundred years and spent most of it alone, pining for a good man that I knew for only days at a time. I will not win any girlfriend prizes either. I will always be a stubborn and occasionally self-righteous Amazon princess, convinced that my way is the right way. But you'd know nothing about that," she'd teased.

He'd grinned at that, returning her embrace. "Certainly not. How will I continue to bear such a burden?"

She'd nipped at his earlobe, laughing in delight. "Stoic as a martyr, I'm sure." She'd turned from him then, and dragged him back towards the bedroom. "Let's find out."

They'd spent most of the day in that bed, talking over different scenarios that could come of Bruce Wayne's emerging maturity and watching as Saturday in New York passed by. They gave and received pleasure and dozed in each other's arms, warm and pliant and content.

Yes, Alfred will be insufferable, Bruce decided, fascinated with every strand of Diana's hair as her design took shape. But spending the day alternating between loving Diana and planning for various possible outcomes of this shift in his life had filled some deep crack within him, and now, he was watching her, standing in her bathroom, draped in a silk robe and styling her hair for their date, and Bruce felt...happy. 

The moment was so quietly domestic, without the intrusion of Gotham or Circe or the League; it almost felt unreal. Beneath the unfamiliar contentment, buried deep in his heart, Bruce feared this happiness because losing it would hurt unbearably. 

"You're thinking too much," Diana said without looking at him. She bit her lip as she pinned up the final braid. To finish the look, she used a curling iron to give the strands framing her face a gentle wave. 

"Always," Bruce agreed. "But I'm happy."

She set the curling iron down with enough force to crack something inside it and turned to him with such genuine surprise and hope in her eyes that Bruce's mouth went dry. 

"Are you, Bruce? Happy?" 

He stood, silently picking up the garment bag draped over a wingback chair. He unzipped the bag and carefully withdrew the gown, a silky black column gown with intricate beadwork in shimmering dark blues, emerald greens, and surprising pops of deep purples in a pattern that put one in mind of a peacock. He unzipped it carefully and held it so Diana could step in. Curious, she silently did so, shedding her silk road and tossing it onto the wingback chair. Bruce pulled the gown up and over her simple black lace lingerie set with something like reverence. As he guided her arms into the intricate sleeves, the falling fabric flowing from the sleeves back to the gown's back made it clear that the gown's peacock reference was not to the bird but to the Chinese peacock butterfly. 

Bruce's heart pounded relentlessly at his ribs as he slowly drew the gown's zipper up and secured it with the hook and loop fastener. When she turned around, Diana held her butterfly winged domino mask up to her sparkling brown eyes, waiting for him to speak. 

He couldn't help the wide smile as he took in yes, her beauty, but even more arresting, the joy in her eyes. "Yes, Diana. I'm happy."

The moment felt so heavy and real that even the princess of the Amazon felt a quiver of nerves dance in her belly. She secured her mask and slipped her feet into black pumps, waiting by the wingback chair.

"Where's your mask?" 

He grinned and produced an iconic half mask, securing it to his face with thin wires easily hidden by his hair. She laughed.

"Really, Bruce, the Phantom of the Opera?" 

"It's a mask," he declared. "That was the only requirement. Are you ready?"

Having done her makeup first, she was nearly there. She snagged a tiny black clutch, checked the contents and added her cell phone, then snapped it shut. "I am. Shall we?" 

He offered her his elbow, heart still pounding like a school boy with a crush, and led her to the front door. By the time she turned around from locking it, a black limo had slid into view by the street. As they watched, the driver stepped out, walked to the passenger door, and opened it.

Diana's smile was indulgent as she slid her arm back into the crook of Bruce's elbow. "I hope he's good at losing a tail," she said, descending the stairs carefully, mindful of the hem of her gown. 

Bruce huffed in mock offense. "Of course he is. What do you take me for?"

They rode in comfortable silence, sipping chilled champagne and holding hands. Both were thoroughly occupied with their anticipation, for this wasn't just a luxurious date. It was a huge step out of both of their comfort zones, made after two years as a couple in the shadows.

The event was held at the New York Public Library, and there was a red carpet entrance and press set up for VIP guests. The limo driver parked and walked around to their door.

"Last chance, Bruce," Diana whispered, squeezing his hand. "You don't have to do this for me."

He brought her hand to his lips and gently shushed her. "Quiet. This is the last thing I have to give you," he told her. "And you deserve all of me and more." And the limo door opened. Bruce stepped out, ignoring the flash of cameras, and turned to assist Diana from the car. 

She took his hand, her smile awed, and stepped out of the limo. Cameras flashed, and voices began to call out. 

"Bruce Wayne, over here!" 

"Bruce, who's your lovely date?"

"Smile for the camera, miss?"

For the first time in recent memory, Bruce Wayne ignored the press to focus entirely on his date. It had to be a slow transition, they'd decided, to be believable, though, so he did pause on the red carpet and hold out his hand to Diana. She placed hers in his own and allowed him to lead her into a slow dance turn, holding out her other arm to show off her flowing butterfly wing sleeves. A cacophony of cameras clicking erupted behind them.

He kept hold of her hand, kissed it for the cameras, and tucked it back into the crook of his arm. "Beautiful," he said, and without a single word to any reporter, he escorted her inside. 

"Oh my god," one paparazzo murmured, fanning herself with her free hand.  "Did you all see that? Bruce goddamn Wayne is in love."

Clark Kent smirked behind his glasses, lowering his own camera. "About time."

XXX

Lieutenant Olivia Benson had skipped the red carpet entrance with her trademark determination, using her cane to get a ride up the elevator at the accessible entrance. Her leg ached, and she was still limping, after all. Her only concession to the masquerade theme was a black mask fletched with black feathers to match the black feathers woven into her updo. 

Her black sheath dress featured an elegant off the shoulder neckline with feathered accents, completed by strappy black kitten heels. Rollins had helped her track down the dress and produced the mask from her own closet. In response to Olivia's amused raised eyebrows, Amanda had only said, "Some things are not for the boss to know, Liv."

Rollins had pouted about not being able to go, but she had produced a bouquet of white roses and a card signed by the whole unit, congratulating her on the award and wishing her quick healing. Both women had pretended not to notice Olivia's tears.

Now, with dinner complete and the dreaded award ("Lifetime Achievement Honoring Women in Law Enforcement", really?! She wasn't that old.) resting on the table in front of her, Olivia settled in her chair, content to watch the dancers while propping her healing ankle on a stool produced by an attentive server. She sipped her coffee and waved when Chief Dodds and his wife spun by in a surprisingly graceful waltz. Now that he'd seen her sit through the whole dinner, get the award, AND speak to a few of the journalists she recognized and liked in the crowd, she decided she could make a break here soon for it without incurring his wrath. 

One striking couple on the dance floor seemed to have attracted some attention. The other dancers gave them room as the man in a Phantom of the Opera mask led his gorgeous partner around the floor like professionals. Well, almost like professionals. Professional ballroom dancers rarely made eye contact and often leaned away from one another to emphasize the long lines of their bodies. These two had an artistic flair about their movements, but their gazes kept returning to each other, and they leaned in close to whisper in each other's ear between turns. 

Both looked familiar to her; Olivia squinted, then her eyebrows shot up in surprise. Ms. Diana Prince from the Met, yet again. And she was demonstrating yet another remarkable ability, captivating the room as she and her partner cut a spinning path around the dance floor. Interesting to run into her again.  

Her partner, the man though...the phantom mask covered both of his eyes and most of his nose but left his lips exposed. Still, he looked familiar. She frowned, biting her lip as she struggled to place his face.

"Bruce Wayne," said an unimpressed voice beside her. The sound of it sent stunned chills down her spine. "He's in the tabloids all the time; that's why he looks familiar."

Slowly, so slowly, she turned to see who had taken the empty chair next to her, convinced she'd finally cracked enough to have auditory hallucinations. 

But no. 

There he was. 

"Elliot." She breathed his name, was reaching for him before she caught herself. 

Elliot Stabler-- her partner, her best friend, the man she'd always loved who'd disappeared from her life for reasons unknown ten long years ago -- offered her a crooked smile. 

"Hey, Liv."

Then the podium on stage exploded.

Chapter Text

Chapter 8: Kathy

Almost as soon as the explosion registered in Bruce’s ears, he’d lunged forward, wrapped Diana into a tight embrace, and tackled her to the ground. It was as instinctive to him as breathing. Unlike breathing, he knew, this instinct was completely ridiculous and illogical. 

Diana let out a surprised oomph as they landed, her grip around his waist as tight as his around her. He wished he could have spared her the impact, but she could take it, and he wanted to put his back to the blast.

He ought to have let her tackle him to the ground, Bruce thought wryly, but he didn’t move. He held her tight and shielded her for another few breaths. In and out. Screams and shouts broke through the ringing in his ears. In and out. A fire alarm. In and out. She was gripping his tux jacket so tightly.

“Bruce. Are you alright?” She spoke too loudly, but with both their ears ringing, he still barely heard her.

Bruce had intentionally put his back to the tiny pieces of flying debris but thankfully had not felt the impact of anything sharp or heavy nor did he feel the bite of flames. 

“I’m good,” he murmured in her ear. “You?” He lifted himself off of her and offered an urgent hand to pull her to her feet, afraid they were about to be trampled.

“Fine. Thank you.” Diana met his gaze, alert and calm and a little chiding. Bruce could almost see the various reactions and strategies racing in her eyes as he helped her up. She gave him an exasperated, affectionate look, but she did not chastise him for his tackle, and he did not apologize for it. 

All this happened  in a matter of seconds, and as he’d predicted, panicked guests were running towards the exits. Diana’s eyes darted around, searching, conflict tightening her features. 

“Do you see Circe?” He held on to her hand, joining her in looking around the room.  They could both recognize the demigoddess now, but if she could change the shape of others, she could likely change her own shape. 

“Not yet,” she said. 

Her gaze caught on a small fire burning on the stage where the podium had exploded. No one appeared to be too hurt; there were no crumpled bodies close to the blast zone. Everyone was fleeing.

“Bruce, do you see a fire extinguisher?” 

He’d noted several as they danced, but before he could answer, a loud, female voice rose over the crowd. 

“NYPD! Remain calm and make your way to the exits. I repeat, remain calm and make your way to the exits.” 

And who was limping towards the fire, her cane long gone so she could carry the fire extinguisher with both hands? Lieutenant Olivia Benson. A tall bald man in a tuxedo followed close behind her, covering her back with a police-issue handgun, his gaze darting around the building to look for threats. The lieutenant pulled the pin from the fire extinguisher, aimed, and began to spray the foam at the blaze, sweeping the spray back and forth.

“Come on, Princess,” Bruce urged. “They’ve got this, and we’ve been very visible tonight. Bruce Wayne and Diana Prince must be seen escaping. This may have nothing to do with Circe.”

Diana let him tug her forward a few feet, still looking around for any sign of the demigoddess. She saw no purple smoke, no transformed animal-human monsters. She did note that Olivia was nearly done with the fire out while the other man-- who, despite the tuxedo, was obviously a cop based on his body language-- continued to guard her back. The man noted them hesitating.

“Time to go, Mr. Wayne!” the man shouted. At his shout, Olivia turned to look and locked gazes with Diana. Recognition dawned, and the lieutenant’s eyes narrowed.

“We’ve got this under control, Ms. Prince,” she called. 

The easy recognition from both cops finally snapped Diana back into focus. Since she still saw no sign of Circe, she let Bruce tug her a few more steps before she turned to follow him, jogging toward the closest exit. 

Bruce shoved the emergency door open and pulled Diana through. By this time, other emergency personnel were making a perimeter around the library, guiding civilians away and towards a containment area. A camera flashed, and a familiar voice called out, “Mr. Wayne, what happened in there? Do you have a statement for the Daily Planet?”

“Bite me, Kent,” Bruce threw a smirk at the camera, then continued pulling Diana towards the crowd of civilians so they could disappear into the chaos. 

In her ear, her tiny League communicator pinged as a transmission came through. Clark’s voice said, “Diana, I’ll stay on scene to take pictures and watch for Circe. You two do what you need to do; I’ll contact you at the first sign of trouble.”

“Thanks,” she replied. “I wonder if Benson was the target. She was at that podium a half-hour before it blew.”

“I had the same thought,” Bruce said, both to Diana and to Clark on the communicator. “Maybe the device was on a timer and the bomber misjudged the timing. Or maybe it malfunctioned somehow. If I could look at it, I might be able to tell.”

“You said she is targeted often, that she works high profile cases. But her last perp is the one Circe transformed and set loose.” 

“Bomb squad is going in now to check the rest of the building,” Clark reported. “If you’re going to stick around, settle in. Gonna be a long night. Over and out.” 

Gala guests were gathering on the sidewalks across from the library. Women were shedding their shoes, and men were offering them their suit jackets. Some folks settled onto the sidewalk to wait, some were talking frantically into their cell phones, and others were sneaking past the roadblock to hail cabs and call rideshares. 

“We might as well stay,” Bruce told Diana. “They’ll want to interview the guests. If we leave, they’ll just come find us later.” He took off his jacket and draped it over her shoulders with a wry smile. “This feels typical, yeah?”

Diana pulled the coat tighter around herself, matching his smile. She wasn’t cold.

XXX

“Lieutenant, we’re clear here.”

Olivia looked up from her phone, finishing her text message to Lucy and thanking God for her nanny. The bomb squad captain stood up from the remains of the podium and waved her over. She stood then winced as pain shot up her injured leg, wobbling a bit on her feet. A strong arm wrapped around her waist, and her abandoned cane appeared in her line of sight. She glanced to her left.

Yep, Elliot was still there, holding her cane. He let go of her as soon as she was steady and stepped back to give her space, still holding out the cane. He held her gaze.

“You good?”

She took it, wondering if she’d cracked her head. “I’m good.”

He’d been by her side ever since the explosion. Had taken her to the ground, in fact, and her shoulder still ached from it. And then, like the last ten years had never happened, the two of them were on their feet and straight into cop mode. Elliot had pulled his gun faster than Olivia could get her off-duty weapon from her bag, so she’d grabbed the fire extinguisher and started yelling. She’d been a Lieutenant a couple years now and even civilians responded to her LT voice. When the back up and bomb squad arrived, Elliot had pulled out an NYPD badge from under his dress shirt and identified himself as OC--Organized Crime. 

Olivia leaned a little harder on the cane as she made her way to the stage. Elliot shadowed her, still watching her back. They stopped on the edge of the stage as CSU techs began to swarm in with cameras.

“What are we looking at here, Rodriguez?” 

“Quarter pound of C4 taped under the internal shelf of the podium, rigged to a simple timer and detonator. A small enough amount that the explosion was limited to the podium, but enough to send the shrapnel from the blast into the crowd. We’re lucky no one was giving a speech at the time of the explosion.” Rodriguez looked up then, squinting at Benson through the visor of his helmet. “Chief says you stood here and said a few words earlier in the night.”

“About a half-hour before it blew, yeah.”

Rodriguez studied her. Glanced at Elliot, silent behind her, back to Benson. “Anyone else?”

“The auctioneer stood there for a while, and the CEO of Lost Angels made a speech.”

“Whoever gets the case will look at them too, I’m sure, but listen, Loo? You’ve been in the news a lot over the years. You were in the news a lot yesterday.”

“Yep,” she grumbled, popping the p at the end.

“So watch your back, huh?” He looked at Elliot as he said it, squinting again. “I know you?” 

“Detective Stabler, Organized Crime.” His voice was calm, cool. “Benson and I go back.”

Oh yeah, we go back , she thought. Seriously? Elliot was back with the NYPD in a different unit? For how long? And he’d never reached out? Fury and hurt warred inside her, but Olivia ruthlessly stuffed the pain down deep, back into the box where it had simmered for the past decade. Her expression remained neutral.

“Partners,” Rodriguez said wisely. He waved a tech over, indicating that she should photograph the remains of the explosive device before turning back to Benson and Stabler. “It’s obvious.”

Surely everyone could hear her heart pounding. “Over 12 years,” Olivia said. 

But I haven’t seen or heard from him in a decade ... those words went unsaid. 

Oh, and I was in love with him. Those went unsaid too, of course, because they always had. At least by her and by Elliot. Others hadn’t always felt compelled to such tact.

“Who’s gonna catch this?” Olivia wondered aloud instead. “Much as I’d love to horn in, I have a conflict of interest. Counterterrorism or Major Crimes, I’d guess.”

Rodriguez shrugged. “Or maybe Organized Crime?” He jerked his head at Elliot as he said it. “You caught the attention of any families lately, Lieutenant?”

She opened her mouth to refuse, then pictured Corey Schiller (before he was some kind of half-tiger monster) and his father, Benedict Schiller, the high-powered defense lawyer who had protected his son every step of the way. 

“Not that kind of family,” she murmured. Then the lieutenant pulled out her phone and tapped a contact. She glanced between Elliot and Rodriguez when the chief answered. “Yeah, I’m good, chief, thanks. I’m still here. You done with the press out there? Good. Listen, sir. I need you to keep the Feds out. No, I’ll work with Counterterrorism, Major Crimes, OC or whoever else you want in the department, but I think this is still my case.”

XXX

The New York press corp covered the event and explosion on TV, in the papers, and online, and the national networks picked up the story as well, tying in the explosion with the metahuman attack on Lieutenant Olivia Benson only the day before. Security footage and civilian cell phone camera footage from the event featured Benson, her raven domino mask long gone, limping to the stage with the fire extinguisher in her hands and fury on her face. Rumors about further commendations and pressure for Benson to take the Captain’s exam were flying around the department, according to an unnamed source in the NYPD.

As such, the news about Bruce Wayne’s mysterious new girlfriend barely made a dent in the headlines, other than on TMZ and in virtual gossip columns. With no casualties for the public to mourn, the heroic police-woman dominated the coverage of the explosion. The Daily Planet had featured a commanding front page photo of Benson, armed with the fire extinguisher, spraying the blaze. That paper had also featured a smaller photo of Wayne and the mystery woman below the fold where the more famous guests of the gala fundraiser were listed. 

In the photo, the two were gazing into each other’s eyes as Bruce Wayne led her in a graceful turn on the red carpet to show off her gown’s gossamer butterfly wings. The caption read only, “Billionaire Bruce Wayne and his date.” Both photos and the article were credited to reporter Clark Kent. 

Bruce was not amused. Diana cut out the photo and framed it. 

That night, they’d given their statements to uniformed officers and then returned to Diana’s condo in the West Village. Bruce hadn’t even changed out of his tux before firing up his laptop in order to hack into various cameras near the scene to watch for any sign of Circe.

“Bruce.” Diana had chided him from the stove where she was putting the kettle on for some strong tea. “Kal will contact us immediately. You can trust him.”

Bruce had waved that off. For some unfathomable reason, Diana’s use of Kent’s Kryptonian name always bugged him. “It’s not about not trusting him. It’s about knowing stuff before he tells me.”

Diana had rolled her eyes, amused. She’d taken a moment to change from her gown into a soft loungewear set in a deep purple. She poured two mugs of tea, added a cube of sugar to her own and gave it a stir. She set Bruce’s next to his laptop on the coffee table and settled onto the couch next to him. She leaned into him.

“I’m not sure what Circe is up to. So far, she has confronted me once, but she retreated quickly and left me with the people she’d transformed.”

“I thought we agreed we’d never speak of last night ever again.”

Diana had grinned but powered through. “I think she is connected to all of this. It’s too wild of a coincidence that the first person she transformed was the same criminal Lieutenant Benson was after. She encountered that young man somewhere to transform him. He knows something.”

“Probably.”

“Then I have an idea to run by the World’s Greatest Detective.”

XXX

By the time Olivia was done at the scene of the explosion, her foot was throbbing in time with the vicious headache pounding at her temple. Elliot, who appeared to be real and not a hallucination, kept shoving the cane back into her hands when she forgot it. That, more than anything, made it feel like the last ten years had gone by in a flash and they’d picked up right where they left off. But she knew it wasn’t so, that it couldn’t be. So much had changed. Where to even start?

Once she was no longer needed at the scene, Olivia felt a strange panic. Panic that suddenly she’d be alone with the man who’d been the single most important person in her life for over 12 years but left her without a word. 

Because he wasn’t leaving. He stuck by her side, even after Chief Dodds had reappeared and ordered her to go home. Even now, as she was walking away from the scene to hail a cab, Elliot was there. He was on the phone, updating his Sergeant. How is it he was back in the NYPD? Had he always been in New York? When had he come back to the department? 

She had the sense that these weren’t the most important questions at the moment, like maybe figuring out who possibly tried to blow her up might be more important. And yet she felt like Elliot’s answers might also be her life or death. 

“Sarge I gotta go.” Elliot hung up abruptly as a cab pulled out to pick up Olivia. “Liv, wait.” 

She waited. His eyes implored her.

“Let me see you home.”

Olivia considered. Might as well drop the biggest bomb first. “My son will be asleep by now. You’ll have to be quiet. It’s a school night.”

Elliot, to his credit, managed his surprise well, suppressing whatever other questions he surely had for her, and said only, “Okay.” And he opened the cab door for her. 

She climbed in and when he slid in to the back with her, she immediately felt crowded. her body remembered him, yes, remembered the trust and longing and presence of him, but her heart, oh... her heart hurt.

“Liv,” he said. “Olivia, I’m sorry.”

“Are you?” she wondered. “Are you sorry for leaving? Or are you sorry for walking away without giving me the courtesy of telling me?”

He held her eye contact, face resigned. He would let her say her piece. “Both,” he said.

“I had to hear it from Cragen.”

Their old captain had come to her, told her Elliot had put in his papers in. And she’d sobbed in an interrogation room. 

“Elliot. You were the single most important person in my life--”

“Olivia.” 

“--and you just...disappeared.”

He said nothing.

“Do you have any idea how that felt?” she demanded. 

“It was wrong,” he said. “I was wrong. But I was afraid.” He met her gaze, and she saw her own agony mirrored in his eyes. “I was afraid if tried to talk to you about it, if I even heard your voice... I wouldn’t have been able to leave. I had to leave. I’m sorry.”

Their last case together had been horrible, yes. Elliot had to shoot a teenage girl who walked into the police station with a gun and started firing. Sister Peg died. When the girl had turned the gun towards Olivia, he fired. And he saw his daughter’s face superimposed over the girl. 

“You walked away,” she stated. “You abandoned me. Why are you here now?” 

“To make it right. Apologize. I came to see you accept your award. It was a great speech. I’m not surprised you’re a Lieutenant. They’ll be hounding you to take the Captain’s exam, you know.”

His words barely registered. “Where have you been, Elliot?”

He sighed haggardly, turning to look out the car window at the city street. “Short version of the story? I’ve been in Rome. Working with the NYPD’s liaison in Europe, working with Interpol and tracking down mobsters. But... my mom is getting older, and Eli wanted to come back to the States since all his siblings were grown. And Kathy...” 

He turned back to her, and Olivia knew already what he would say because the unsaid words were already there on his face. The guilt, the grief, all the things they’d never said to each other, it was all there pooling in his eyes. 

“She was killed in a car bombing last year,” Elliot whispered. 

Even expecting it, the news took her breath away. “God, Elliot. I’m so--”

“It was supposed to be me,” he interrupted. It was a year old, this grief, but their marriage had been nearly 30 years running, since they were barely more than kids themselves when it started. “And without her... we couldn’t stay in Italy. It was our place, and she was gone. The NYPD offered me this position in Organized Crime a couple months ago when we got back. And I picked up the phone so many times, Liv. I was a coward. I was wrong.”

“We’re here,” the driver announced, and both cops jumped. Their eyes met again.

“You better come on up,” Olivia said.

She honestly couldn’t remember the last time Elliot had been in her apartment. She’d moved, since then. There was Brian, for a bit, and Tucker for a while longer. God, Elliot would be baffled by both of those relationships. Not that he had the right to an opinion. Not that that fact had ever stopped him before. 

She let herself in and woke up Lucy, who’d fallen asleep on the couch. God, was it really almost 4 in the morning?

“I’m okay, everyone’s okay,” Olivia whispered. She gestured to Elliot, who was trying not to loom by the front door. “This is Elliot. We used to work together.” She didn’t look at him as she said it. Those cheap words felt like a knife she’d pulled out of her back and thrown back at him.

Lucy lived with roommates on another floor in the building, so she came and went at odd hours without either of them worrying about it. Still, Olivia insisted on a text when Lucy was safe in her apartment again. 

When the door shut behind the nanny, Olivia had the strange sense of being shut into a tomb.

Elliot was looking at photos on her mantle, hands clasped behind her back.

“He’s a cute kid,” he said. No other questions, though she knew they were eating him alive. 

“Thanks. His name is Noah. Elliot, I’m sorry about Kathy.”

“It’s my night to apologize,” he reminded her. “But thank you. We were happy there, at the end. It wasn’t perfect; you know it never was. But we were happy.”

Olivia closed her eyes, picturing the sweet and surprisingly feisty blond woman. For so many years, she’d envied Kathy, resented her, even though she had also respected her. 

Now, in a deep place within her, Olivia felt the smallest spark of hope. And she loathed herself for it.

Elliot continued, unaware of the turmoil within Oliva. “My kids staged an intervention for me shortly after she died, you know. I had PTSD, everyone could see it but me. You would have been proud of them, Liv. Kathleen... Kathleen wanted to invite you, but it had been so long...”

Olivia could think of nothing to say. She did care, but she cared so much that it hurt. 

The silence between them that used to feel comfortable soured to awkwardness. 

“Fin told me about your award,” Elliot said.

Another blow. “Have you been in touch with Fin, then?”

He realized his mistake, shaking his head vigorously. “No, no. I only called him the day before yesterday. He told me this was happening. And then I saw the news, wanted to see if you were okay.” Elliot looked at her foot, still in the boot, and the cane she was gripping with white knuckles. “Do you think that bomb was meant for you?”

Olivia shrugged. “Probably. Unless the auctioneer or CEO has some kind of baggage we don’t know about. My first thought is Benedict Schiller. His son is the one who turned into some kind of monster the other day. Still, he’s a lawyer. I don’t remember anything from his background to indicate any familiarity with explosives. And it was a pretty lame attempt; anyone could have been at the podium, or it could have been empty like it was, just leaving the bomb on a timer like that. No professional would do a hit like that. Sniper would have been easier.”

Elliot flinched. She noticed.

“Listen, Elliot. It’s late. My son will be up for school soon. We don’t have time to finish this tonight.”

Elliot sighed. “You’re right.” He pulled out his phone. “Is your number the same?”

She held his gaze, not bothering to hide her hurt and anger. “Yes. It’s been the same for the past ten years.”

Elliot absorbed that barb with closed eyes, accepting it without comment. “Mine is different,” he said. “I’ll text you.”

Seconds later, a text popped up on her phone. 

This is El.

“I want to help with this case, if I can. If I can’t, I want to earn your trust back, Liv, however long it takes, and you should make me work for it. I’m going to try not to let you down again. I missed you, Liv. So much.”

He showed himself out.

“I missed you too,” Olivia whispered. 

Five minutes later, as she was making herself some chamomile to calm down, she heard a knock at the door. 

“Really, El?” she muttered to herself. She hobbled to the door, unlocked it, and yanked it open with an unfriendly, “What now?” expecting to see her former partner there again.

It wasn’t him. 

Instead, the tall woman in the Xena outfit was standing at her door, her hands lifted in the universal “I’m not a threat” pose.

“Lieutenant. Can we talk?”