maelstrom

The Bear stares at her for a minute, gauging the truthfulness of her words. “You’re off the case.”

“What? Why?” She sounds too eager, even to her own ears. She’s never been denied a case before, especially after the mark has already been revealed. And honestly?

She wants to be the one to end it. The Bear’s agents don’t fail. They are the best, and she is the best of the best. And if Diana was going to be her mark, the Bear may as well have wanted her to burn in deepest levels of hell. Cheetah has a reputation, one that precedes her and strikes fear into every target’s eyes. She wasn’t given a unique animal ranking for no reason. Her targets end up like large piles of human flesh when she was through with them. She enjoys the fear she inspires. Very few get the recognition she has, and the only other people in their Agency who have unique titles are the Bear, and an agent known as the Eagle.

“You’re too close to the case.”

She waves her hand dismissively, “She was a one-night thing.”

The Bear doesn’t relent, their voice even through their mask. “No distractions on cases.”

She snorts. “What am I going to be distracted by? A flash of thigh?”

The Bear is silent for a moment as they appraise her. The cool finality in their words that came next rung sharp in clear in the room. “You’re off the case.” There is no changing the Bear’s mind.

She grinds her teeth in frustration. If the Eagle gets their hands on Diana, Diana won’t even have a body to bury. The Eagle would destroy her inside out. Literally. Flip her, so that her skin is on the inside and her organs on the outside. Not a pretty sight. Even Barbara had shuddered when she first saw a picture of the Eagle’s victims. They had never missed a mark either. One hundred percent accuracy.

The Bear doesn’t give out random marks to their best agents. Diana has clearly done something that made them beyond mad, mad enough that they would let Barbara loose on her. But there is no disregarding the dismissal in the Bear’s voice, so she leaves the dark room. She squints at the bright light that welcomes her back into the world above the darkness and scheming.

She seethes with anger at the denial of a target. Being denied a target is humiliating and a testament to how much the Bear doesn’t trust her, even after a decade of loyal servitude. And it is servitude. The only things she gets out of this job is bursts of exhilaration, trembling fear in people’s eyes when she stalks out, and enough money to finance a small country. But she has to grovel to get even just acknowledgment from the Bear. There are parts of her, the parts that was an apex predator once, that tremble with fury and shame every time she does so.

Another part of her, is giddy with excitement at the idea of Diana and Eagle going head-to-head. The part of her that never really grew out of watching fights is jumping at the idea of a demi-god and a graced killer fighting to their deaths. Barbara has little doubt in the final outcome, she thinks it would be a sight to watch. Perhaps, she thinks hysterically to herself, she should send Diana a note and ask her to call Barbara when the Eagle finds her. Just so she can sit back and watch the fight.

Barbara was only been a match for Diana when both were at full power: Diana glowing with a celestial light in her golden armor. There was no decisive victory. It was only because Diana electrocuted Barbara that Diana prevailed. The Eagle is good, and Barbara has long heard tales of the Eagle’s mastery of the art of death. But Diana knows how to take care of herself.

Barbara finds herself glad for Diana’s kindness. She will not kill the Eagle, and they will have to come back to the Agency and suffer the humiliation of defeat and a failed mission. A disgrace.

She tosses and turns in bed for hours before giving up on sleep and going to her desk. She rubs her eyes tiredly, and tries fruitlessly to calm her racing mind. Reading about her current mark, though, only reminds her of her denied job.

She puts the reason for her insomnia down to being unsure about the Bear’s intentions with Diana. The Bear very rarely gives Barbara a mark that doesn’t deserve the fate she bestows on them. She can’t imagine Diana being on par with the scum of the Earth she eliminates. She pulls her computer to her, hacks beyond the surveillance she knows the Bear installed on all of her things in a few familiar strokes, and opens her browser. She doesn’t need the Bear to have more reasons to doubt her loyalty.

She had worked out how to hide her browser in preparation for research on her marks, but soon found it to be obsolete. The Internet can hardly yield more than the five hundred pages of information with every crook and nook of a mark’s life documented each job comes with. Besides, Barbara generally doesn’t need much information besides where the mark is, who they are, how many people separated them, and why they needed to die. The Agency isn’t squeamish about killing the innocent, but Barbara prefers not to. She has worked her way up to a point where she didn’t have to.

She pauses at the open browser. Her fingers itch to type out the name she really wants to know about, but instead she searches up her name. The news is still the same. Barbara Ann Minerva died in an apartment fire the day she left the Smithsonian. Still missing. No body. She chuckles. The Bear is thorough.

She spends the rest of her night ignoring the itch in her fingers to search the name that haunts her even now.

Barbara stares down at the golden invitation in her hands and wants to laugh. Of course the universe decides to start favoring her now.

The gold invitation shines in her room. It is simple, bold lettering telling her she’s been invited to the Gala. The name is vague enough, simple enough, that it has become fashionable. It is the only time of the year the Bear let down their guard and allowed their agents to get in one room. The Gala’s date varied so enemy agencies never knew when and where the party is. The party is open to unmasked outsiders, the affluent and the rich who paid good money to be invited into a shark pen. And of course, marks, who were invited as party games, quietly dead before the gala end. Barbara had gone once. She left immediately after she terminated her mark. She finds the Gala boring, the mingling tiresome, the people dull. The Eagle, on the other hand, goes every year. They’ve never brought a target there before.

This occasion would be the perfect playground for the Eagle. They wouldn’t have such a flamboyant style if they didn’t want to be known. The chance to terminate Diana Prince, Wonder Woman herself, at the Gala would be irresistible to their ego. Even if Diana didn’t show (Barbara has no doubt that the Bear would extend this invitation), the Eagle will be there.

She accepts the invitation to the Gala.

This is the opportunity of a lifetime. An opportunity for what, Barbara can’t say. But an opportunity nonetheless.