Literally Pirateninja (shadowcat) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2018-06-23 18:00:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, diana prince (wonder woman), kitty pryde (shadowcat) |
Who: Kitty and Diana
What: Diana dreams of the fight below the harbor and Kitty has to be the positive one
When: Recently
Where: Diana's
Status: complete
Rating: PG-13
Diana’s anxiety of late over Steppenwolf hadn’t really eased, even if she and Bruce had recruited some help in their attempt to stop the ancient evil from destroying the world. But even so, she charged head on into battle, even fighting with Steppenwolf himself as well as taking down some of his Parademons. However, Diana wasn’t unscathed in the battle, having been rammed into the concrete walls twice and landing hard on her stomach. Of course the tunnel ended up flooding, but luckily Arthur showed up and held the water at bay long enough to help them escape.
Waking up, Diana groaned a bit, her body feeling sore as though she’d been rammed into concrete herself. She sat up and grunted a bit in pain. Her back felt like it was one large bruise, and that was pretty accurate. The bruising was still forming, but there was enough to suggest she’d taken quite a hit. She also just generally ached like she’d been in a fight. Diana rolled a shoulder, then rolled her neck a bit, trying to stretch some muscles a little, but a hot shower sounded really good to her right then.
Kitty mumbled something in her sleep, rolling onto her stomach and tossing her arm across Diana’s chest, as if sensing somehow that she was about to get out of be and Kitty was going to Have None of That.
The only time she could sleep through the night lately was with Diana in her bed. She couldn’t explain why, but she generally felt safer that way, and the gaping hole in her heart from so much loss was a lot harder to feel.
Diana managed to not say ‘ow’ but she definitely flinched in pain when Kitty’s arm fell across her chest. Okay, so the front of her was also a little sore where she’d fallen hard during the fight. Of course, her armor had more than helped keep her from getting too injured, but she was still sore.
So Diana carefully laid back down on her side because that at least wasn’t trying to bruise and didn’t hurt as much as her back did. Part of her did wonder if she’d cracked a rib when getting tossed around like she had, but she would just suck it up. Whatever pain she had now would be gone in an hour or two anyway. Her back was to Kitty and she was trying not to get too worked up about Steppenwolf and how he’d attacked and killed several of her Amazon sisters.
Kitty’s nose nuzzled into the back of Diana’s neck. She could feel herself waking up bit by bit, and then she noticed how tense Diana was. She sat up, groggily askin, “You awake?”
“Yes, I am,” she responded, turning her head to gaze at Kitty over her shoulder. Diana was quite thankful for her fast healing ability, but she did wish that it would kick in sooner than she knew it would.
“You’re tense.” Kitty ran her hand down Diana’s arm. “Dream?” It was a good guess, all things considered. She peered at Diana’s face and then added, “Fight dream?”
“Yes, we fought Steppenwolf in a tunnel beneath Gotham Harbor. Though if you think the front of me is bad, my back may be worse.” Of course, Diana couldn’t see her back, but from the way it felt? It must’ve looked worse than the front of her.
“hmm.” Kitty pulled the sheet back, and gently touched her fingers to a bruise. That had to be a hell of a fight, and Kitty’s body suddenly ached in sympathy. “You look like I would if I went a few rounds with Magneto, solo.”
“Considering I fought Steppenwolf solo, then got blindsided by a Parademon after Steppenwolf threw me into the wall, I know how that would feel.” Diana took a breath. “I ache so much right now. I don’t think I broke anything, but my body is not happy right now.”
“Let me draw you a bath,” Kitty suggested. She slipped out of the bed, stealing one of Diana’s shirts to wear as she disappeared into Diana’s bathroom. She returned a moment later. “I added bubbles.”
When Kitty went to run the water, Diana sat up and rolled her shoulders, again starting to stretch some of her aching muscles. When Kitty came back in, she stood up with a smile, moving over to pull her into an embrace. “You are absolutely wonderful,” she commented.
“I totally am, you should do something about keeping me around.” Kitty winked, then snuggled into the embrace for a few moments. “All right, lets get you all wet.”
“I just might,” Diana responded with a smile, rubbing Kitty’s back a bit. “That sounds positively divine, I have to say.” The water was going to feel amazing as far as her sore muscles were concerned.
“Oh, I wasn’t talking about the bath,” Kitty joked and pulled Diana into the bathroom. In the light there, she could see the bruises easily and clucked her tongue. “You’d think you’d bruise less, with your powers.”
“Neither was I,” Diana retorted with a smile. She took a breath, glancing down at herself once in the bathroom. “My powers do not protect me from injury. I still bleed just as easily as anyone else. It is just harder to kill me.”
“God, I love you,” Kitty breathed. She shrugged off the shirt and ran her hands back across Diana’s bruises. “I think you’ve got some cream I can rub into. Should make this a little less painful.”
“I love you, too,” Diana responded. Not wanting to get her hair wet when she got into the tub, she grabbed a hair tie and pulled it up into a bun. “That would certainly help. You do have an excellent touch.”
“Okay then. Now tell me all about it.” Kitty sat on the edge of the tub and started to rub the cream into Diana’s muscles, where the bruising was most obvious, but also in a few spots she knew were likely sore, just from experience.
Diana groaned a bit as the water started to soak into her body, and also as Kitty rubbed the cream into her muscles. She closed her eyes and took a few moments to relish the feeling, even if it also hurt a bit when Kitty went over her bruises. “There were people being kidnapped, and they all worked for S.T.A.R. Labs. We discovered where they may have been taken, which was a place under Gotham Harbor. Bruce, Barry and I were prepared to go in ourselves, but Victor showed up as his father had been one of the people kidnapped. We went and confronted Steppenwolf, who called his Parademons off of me so he could fight me one-on-one when he recognized me as an Amazon.”
Diana frowned a bit. “He taunted me, saying his blade was still slick with the blood of my sisters. Fighting ensued, and Steppenwolf also somehow realized that I had the blood of the old gods in my veins as well.”
“Barry is Flash, right?” Kitty asked. So like Quicksilver or a couple of other people she knew. Super speed, and very handy. “But the way you fight was probably obvious. Plus the super strong thing, too. And the taunt about your sisters, that’s villainy 101.He wanted to make you lose your cool.”
Diana glanced back at Kitty, a bit of a confused look on her face. “Yes, he is. How do you know that?” Diana was fairly certain she hadn’t mentioned that before, especially considering she’d only just met Barry a dream or two before the one she’d just woken up from.
“You said something about that before,” Kitty replied smoothly. “I sometimes have a better memory for your dreams than I do about my own.”
“I see.” Diana wasn’t completely convinced of that, but she quickly moved on anyway. “Of course Steppenwolf caught a missle that had been fired from Bruce’s machine, the Nightcrawler, and used it to blow a hole in the wall of the tunnel we were in. Which led to the water of the harbor start to rush in. Luckily, Arthur showed up in time to hold the water at bay long enough for us to get far enough along that we weren’t drowned.”
“The nightcrawler?” Kitty’s hands stopped at that. “My friend would find that really funny. His codename is Nightcrawler. But I’m glad Arthur arrived in time to help. I don’t think even you could survive that kind of drowning.”
“Don’t look at me, Bruce named it.” Diana shrugged a little. She didn’t know why he named things what he did, but it wasn’t her place to question it. “No, I don’t think I could survive that. I do need to breathe like everyone else.” She may be a demigoddess, but she was still able to be killed easier than a full-blooded god was.
“It could be worse. It could be something like bat-shark-repellent.” Kitty shifted around a bit, leaning down to kiss Diana’s shoulder. “Things are getting serious. What do you think your odds actually are? At beating him?”
Diana snorted a bit at that. “Somehow I don’t think that would be up Bruce’s alley. He’s rather broody.” Like she was one to talk about brooding. “Considering the last time it took the armies of men, Amazons and Atlanteans to stop him? The odds are stacked against us. The Amazons cannot leave Themyscira. The Atlanteans were driven under the sea. And mankind have long forgotten about Steppenwolf. There are only five of us to stand against Steppenwolf and his endless throng of Parademons.”
“He’s broody, says Ms. Broodypanties?” Kitty kissed her shoulder again, then trailed her fingers down her sides. “There’s no such thing as impossible odds. Just long ones. Five people can save the world if they work together.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Diana responded with a little roll of her eyes, though it was playful. Diana just really wished her dream self would let go and stop brooding sometime soon so she could stop feeling it. After all, she had no reason to brood in this life, and yet she was. “So long as we form our own unity and do not let petty squabbles pull us apart, we have a chance. For this to work, we need our own unity to stand against Steppenwolf’s.”
“So some kind of superhero team? Like the Avengers?” Or the Justice League, but Kitty wasn’t going to say that out loud. Something compelled her not to, kept her mouth shut. Besides, she didn’t want to be sassy right now when Diana needed her support.
“I think you can make anyone follow you.”
“I suppose that’s one way of looking at it, yes.” Diana responded. She hadn’t thought about it that way. All she knew was that she and Bruce needed help to stop Steppenwolf. But she was very hesitant to ask people to join their cause for fear of risking their lives.
“I have no wish to be a leader. I’m not going to make people follow me. I would prefer to do this without risking people’s lives, but given it is war, that cannot be avoided. But I am no general nor do I wish to be.”
“Sometimes the best people to lead are the ones who don’t want the job,” Kitty replied. Her tone was as gentle as her touch on Diana’s bruises. She spoked from experience. “Sometimes the best leaders are the ones that can inspire people. I know that… it doesn’t look good, and you’ve been through hell, but you inspire me.”
Diana let out a little sigh and closed her eyes, soaking in the water and Kitty’s touch. “Perhaps, but I do not like being in charge and being responsible in that way. As for inspiring people, I haven’t inspired anyone in a century because I’ve kept to myself. Though at least I inspire you. That means a lot to me.” And it did. She was trying to fight through the overwhelming brooding her dreams had inflicted upon her, but it was difficult some days. It was easier when Kitty was around.
There was a considering silence, then Kitty slipped into the water with Diana. She pulled her in, even though Diana was the larger of the two, and cradled her head against her chest. “Being a hero should come with a warning label.”
Diana snuggled in against Kitty, letting out a content little sigh. “Yes, it should. It is not always glamorous.” Not that Diana had ever thought it was, but she’d had an idealistic view of it before the events of World War I had blown that to hell, literally.
“It’s messy.” Kitty wrinkled her nose. “And half the time everyone hates you, like five seconds after you save their lives. But you keep doing it anyway because it’s the right thing to do.”
“Precisely. Doing the right thing is more important than being liked by those being saved. Or even being liked by the people who stand by and do nothing.” There were plenty of people in the world that would just stand and watch without lifting a finger to help others.
“There are points where I’ve literally saved a life and they treat me like… well words I won’t repeat here.” Kitty grimaced, “Most of them I don’t regret actually saving, but you can bet there are people I’d let die. And have.”
It was a stark admission, but she was feeling honest this morning.
“Clearly the people that act like that lead miserable lives if they can’t be thankful that they’re alive.” Diana hadn’t had any encounters like that yet, for which she was grateful, but she knew it wasn’t out of the question to have them in the future. Assuming she survived the coming fight with Steppenwolf, of course. “Some people deserve death, though I could never leave someone to die. Not without trying to save them.”
“It’s not common. We’re talking genocidal maniacs and unrepentant murderers. If they were on a space station slowly falling into the sun I’m just going to let that happen.” Kitty moved her fingers through Diana’s hair, “For better or worse, most of the time, the X-Men tend to give people second chances. Sometimes that … doesn’t go so well.”
How many times had they given Mystique chances? And yet, it had worked for Rogue, and Gambit, and so many others. “A lot of the time it does.”
“It may not always work, but second chances are worth the trouble. I know I for one do not wish to fight someone without first extending my hand. At least when they aren’t someone like Ares or Steppenwolf, of course.” Normal people, Diana liked to give the benefit of the doubt to. Or try to, at any rate.
“Strike only after your hand is slapped away?” Kitty asked.
“Yes. I also do not kill if I can wound or otherwise knock someone out.” After all, when she’d been attacking the Germans that were in the city of Veld, she never killed any of them. She also never killed any of the soldiers that she attacked in a fit of rage after she saw Steve die.
Kitty nodded. The X-Men, with one or two exceptions, were the same way. They avoided killing if they could help it, but sometimes, you couldn’t help it. “There’s a reason I love you.”
Diana lifted her head to look at Kitty. “And what is that?” She asked. Of course she could guess, but she wanted to hear it. It could do her some good to hear it considering her mood of late. And the dream she’d just had.
“Your first reaction is peace. To hold out your hand. It may not always work, but there are times when that’s all that’s needed to deescalate a situation.” She was aware of the irony, considering her big blow out with Esmeralda, but she thought both things could coexist. Reach out to those whose opinions can be swayed, punch the rest.
“Yes. The world needs more diplomacy. After all, how can you expect others to listen to your opinion if you will not listen to theirs?” Diana said. While people may not always agree and may never fully see eye-to-eye, there was still room for civil discourse. And Diana welcomed that because she knew she would never sway everyone to her line of thinking, but she would at least try to hear what others had to say before she made a judgement. After all, if one just leapt to judgement, that was prejudice and Diana wasn’t one who wanted to be prejudiced if she could help it.
Kitty leaned her head against Diana’s, deciding that she didn't particularly wish to leave the tub just yet. She closed her eyes, “The world needs more you.”
Diana smiled, also content to simply remaining in the tub for a while longer. The aches were subsiding, no doubt a combination of Kitty’s touch, the warm water and Diana’s fast healing abilities. “Perhaps it does, but it can wait for the time being. I’m content with where I am right now.”