Bad memories...

She was sitting on a chair in a room at a hospital, the sounds of heart monitors going off in the room while soft lighting kept the single bed illuminated but dark enough to give its patient well deserved sleep. There was a smell too, something tinged and muted like soap that made her scrunch her nose. Antiseptics, they called it. She didn’t like it. Reaching out to the man lying in the bed, she gently squeezed his hand which was wrapped in a thick white cast, noticing the stubs of his fingers twitch as if to try and squeeze her hand back.

“Hnngh… Diana?”

“Hi Steve.” Diana smile sadly. “They said you have a few broken ribs to go with your broken arm and head trauma.”

Looking up at her with blurry vision, he looked around and didn’t know where he was for a minute until he finally registered, he was in a hospital somewhere. “How bad do I look?”

Pausing, she gave the man a look over, seeing his face bruised over and barely recognisable, his one eye bruised shut and his lip swollen. “You look fine…” She smiled, putting up a strong front before deflating. “Sigh… This was my fault.”

“You’re not doing this AGAIN, are you?”

“You nearly died, Steve.”

Frowning, Steve Trevor sat up as best he could, staring back at the woman sitting next to him.

“I’ve nearly died a HUNDRED times, Diana. I’m a government agent for the U.S. I’ve been out protecting the world YEARS before I crashed on your front door.”

“But THIS time you were tortured, beaten, and almost killed! All because of our relationship...”

Sneering at the word, Steve gripped the gurney with his good hand to sit up straight. “Our relationship? WHAT relationship?! You ENDED it! You threw it AWAY.”

“You’re still too close to me Steve. If we were still together, it could have been worse. A LOT worse.”

“Close? The only time I’ve seen you in over a year is on a computer screen.” Coughing with a clenched mouth, Steve’s hand shook keeping him up. “This is why I joined Argus and became a liaison for the Justice League.” Losing the energy that got him to sit up, Steve slowly slumped back down on the bed, vertigo written on his face as the beeping of the heart monitor was all he could hear. “I wanted to protect you. Not from the things you could handle, but the things you COULDN’T. The red tape, the bad PR, the lies and bullshit every time there was an incident where you had to save the day… As screwed up as it sounds, even now I just want to see you safe…”

Narrowing her eyes, Diana answered almost sternly. “I do not need protection.”

“Heh… The hell you don’t, it’s because of my efforts the League doesn’t have an angry mob at its front doors demanding answers you can’t give them. For a time, I protected you from that ugly side of people…” Exhaling deeply, the man closed his one good eye. “Then I read you requested a new liaison. You wanted me gone, didn’t you?”

“Steve…”

Turning to rest on his good shoulder away from Diana, Steve closed his eyes and pulled the blanket over himself.

“Please, Diana. Just go. I’m tired. I’m really tired… And I don’t want to talk anymore.”

Heartbroken, Diana stepped out of the room and left the hospital, garnering some shocked looks from those waiting in the lobby and the paramedics pulling in when she left the door and took off into the air. Wandering, she eventually perched herself on top of the roof of the Lincoln memorial and looked out over the park from her vantage point. Not staring at anything, just… Out. She didn’t know how long she had been sitting there in the dead of night, she almost didn’t register the gust of air behind her until she heard a gentle voice behind her.

“Diana?” Smiled Superman, hovering close to Wonder Woman a few feet up in the air from her. “How’s Steve?”

Exhaling, Diana pulled her knees closer to her chest as she looked down. “Angry.”

Looking out onto the park at night, Diana appeared wistful. “Steve… Brought me to this park on the first day I arrived in man’s world. It was such a shock to find that men and women were not at war like I had been told growing up to believe. They were in relationships, couples, families. I thought they were so simple to be a part of; relationships I mean. But… I was wrong.”

Exhaling himself, Clark looked out to where her eyes gazed over, his understanding smile still present. “Relationships are complicated, even mine with Lois. But… We make it work.”

Turning to see him, Diana’s face was still pained, but calmer. “Why do you do it? Act the reporter around them?”

“It’s who I am, Clark Kent, reporter for the Daily Planet and occasional coffee boy when Jimmy gets sick. It’s who I grew up as, it’s me. It’s the man Lois fell in love with when we married.”

“Aren’t you scared that she’d be threatened or harmed because of your lifestyle?”

Chuckling somewhat, Clark scratched his fingers through his hair before shaking his head. “ALL THE TIME! But she’s not in danger because of me, she’s in danger because she’s a reporter. And that’s the life she chose, she stuck with it even after she knew both sides to me.”

“Then why keep her close? Why the deception?”

Making a hurt face, Superman took the same pose she did overlooking the park. “It’s not a deception, it’s who I am. I can be Clark Kent for when Lois needs me, and I can be Superman for when everyone else does.”

“And its worked?”

Thinking on the question, Clark looked back at her. “So far… I keep secrets from others, I don’t tell them everything, which really makes how close I am to everyone debatable. But it’s a far cry from being Superman twenty-four seven. If I was, I’d go insane!”

“What do you suggest I do then?”

“Wake up!”

*

“Your highness, wake up, you must come see this!”

Gasping alert and raising her head from the table in her personal quarters, Diana found the storm outside had dissipated, the scroll Alexa had given her was near her, already having been read and Areto was gently shaking her awake by pressing her knotted, withered hand against her shoulder. Blinking awake, Diana quickly sat up to stand to her feet, addressing the elderly looking amazon who wore a sash around her face and a hood over her head. Even so, Diana was able to recognise her as part of her mother’s royal guard.

“Areto, what is it?”

“The guards at the shores have found more intruders to our island, three of them, I had thought best to inform you of the…”

“More people? How?” Confused how anyone could find the island again so quickly, but too fearful of a repeat of yesterday, Diana took to the air and flew out from the open window of her room to fly to the beached shores of her island before it was too late. “Please, please do not let me be too late.”