maelstrom

She shakes off the feeling of déjà vu as she walks into the Gala. She shouldn’t have chosen a black dress, tight around her curves, heels that feel suspiciously like the ones she had worn to the Smithsonian Gala. But she didn’t think it through.

Or the feeling might have to do with seeing Diana again after a decade. The Cheetah mask on her face, cool and smooth, soothes her. She had the Agency’s craftsman make the mask especially for her. It covers every inch of her face, beautiful and awe-inspiring. On her, its golden gleam and diamond teeth are terrifying. The juxtaposition of beauty and terror delights her. She is the cheetah: terrifyingly beautiful, feared yet worshipped.

Some things had changed since her stint at the Smithsonian. She is no longer the woman who self-consciously runs her hands down the sides of her dress. She hardly notices the crowd parting for her as she saunters up the stairs at the entrance of the Gala. The eyes run up and down her body as she walks past the masses of unimportant people crowded on the first floor don’t embarrass her anymore. At the entrance, she is let in without showing her invitation. There are very few people in the Agency who have not heard of the Cheetah.

The people near the entrance are small fish Barbara has no intentions of wasting her time on. She makes note of everyone subconsciously, cataloguing their clothing, analyzing potential hidden weapons and the danger each of them might pose to her, seeking out, by force of habit, potential exits in the case of an emergency. She scans the people around her almost absently, doesn’t see the Eagle, and moves to go deeper inside, where everyone of note would be.

She side-steps a man who looks like he is coming her way. Smirks as she sees him in the reflection of her champagne flute looking confused at her sudden disappearance. Barbara Minerva doesn’t miss anything. Not anymore.

She proceeds up the glass stairs of the building. The Gala is jungle-themed this year, and those with titles could wear their animal ranking with pride if they chose to. She knows most wouldn’t, ashamed of their low rankings. Dog masks are ugly, anyway, she thinks as she accepts a glass of champagne she will not drink. She wears her cheetah. She wants the Eagle to seek her out. She is sure they will wear their animal too.

Once she descends the top floor, the music gets louder as masses of masked people dance to songs she cannot name. She trades in her untouched glass of champagne from the first floor for another, offered to her by a waiter dressed in the customary tuxedo, his mask a forgettable plain black. She refrains from eating or drinking when she has things to do for fear of drugging. Regardless, this is her territory as much as the Bear’s. Besides, very few dare try anything at the Gala. Those who did still hang in the dungeons of the Agency, a reminder and a warning. So she takes the glass with a nod of thanks, and takes a sip. It tastes bitter.

The champagne is cool in her hands. She sits down at a jungle-wood table. It is only half past ten when she checks the clock on the wall. The night is young, so she melts into the background, content to watch and wait.

At around eleven, a person slips into the booth next to her. She hasn’t even noticed that someone else was near her. She mentally reprimands herself before she turns, her body tensing. She catches a wisp of the person’s perfume and suddenly the entire room seems to blast in color. Though the golden, winged mask the woman across from her wears covers her entire face, Barbara knows immediately.

Diana.

“Hello, Barbara Ann.” Diana’s low voice manages to pierce through the music playing and reach Barbara’s very core, soft and elegant. Dangerous, too. Diana crosses her legs underneath the table, the slit in her red dress revealing precisely what Barbara had mocked to the Bear only a few days prior. ‘A flash of thigh.’ Barbara had said it mockingly then, but she feels her eyes drifting down and her breath catching, hopefully quietly enough that Diana didn’t notice, and she curses Diana’s proximity but can’t bring herself to move away.

“Diana.” She tears her eyes away from the dangerously low neckline of the red dress to look into Diana’s chocolate brown eyes. The nickname stumps her. “How did you recognize me?” Barbara’s voice sounds a little off to herself, but she shakes her head and tries to ignore the heavy feeling she feels. It’s only her, she tells herself sternly. It’s only Diana.

Diana runs her burning gaze up and down Barbara’s body before answering, her voice pleasant. “You haven’t changed much.”

“Neither have you.” Barbara squirms in her seat, uncomfortable at the way Diana looks at her but unwilling to walk away. Her face is getting warmer, she can tell, and is glad for the mask that hides what is likely a deep blush on her face by now. “You didn’t follow the dress code?” A stupid question, but stupid questions are how Barbara deals with uncontrollable situations.

Diana laughs, a honeyed sound that warms Barbara head to toe. “Jungle, you mean?” She pauses, hesitating as she takes in Barbara’s mask as if noticing it for the first time. She shifts closer to Barbara, her bare arm brushing Barbara’s. There is a gleam of predation in her eyes, and Barbara shivers. For a moment, she sees under the kindness Diana wears like armor. She sees something deeply possessive and longing. It shouldn’t thrill her. It does.

Diana leans down, whispers. Her breath is hot in Barbara’s ear: “I prefer to tame the wild.”

Diana’s shapeless golden mask swims in Barbara’s view. She still hasn’t moved away, though she knows the Bear sees everything going on. She is putting Diana in more danger than Diana probably knows with every second she allows herself to linger. She doesn’t notice how her sole thought for someone other than herself in a decade is for Diana Prince. Her mind still feels heavy, and she can’t bring herself to turn away from Diana, can’t stop her mouth from whispering back, her voice dipping dangerously. “I seem to recall the wild taming you the last time we met.” Her words are slurred and her staring is obvious, but she’s too lost to stop herself from biting her lips, the sharp shock of pain doing nothing for her sluggish thoughts.

Diana laughs, low and deep in her chest, and Barbara curses her in her mind for seeming so unaffected. Diana reaches out to brush aside a piece of blond hair that had fallen in front of Barbara’s mask, a habitual gesture. “So it seems.” She moves, if possible, even closer to Barbara, until Barbara can hear Diana’s heart and the heat radiating off of her is nearly suffocating. The lights of the party are suddenly too bright and the darkness behind the lights is suddenly so extremely contrasted with the red on Diana that it becomes darker, and flashes of light swim together in a haze of color against a darkened background.

She’s glowing, some part of Barbara’s muddled brain mumbles to her. She wants to rub her eyes, but remembers her mask at the last moment and leans back into Diana’s arms unconsciously. Why are the lights so bright all of a sudden?

Some part of her brain connects two and two, and so instead of pulling Diana into a bathroom like her body is screaming for her to do, she tries to focus her gaze on Diana’s face and whispers, hysterical and slightly crazed: “You have to leave. The Eagle wants you.”

“The Eagle?” She would have missed Diana’s eyes tightening, her eyes flashing in the dark before softening again, if she hadn’t been closing paying attention to the eyes peeking out behind the golden mask. “What do they want me for?” Diana trails her fingertips lightly up Barbara’s arm as she speaks, and Barbara shivers despite the sweat beading on her forehead.

“Dead.” Barbara whispers. She pulls back suddenly, stunned that she just gave away another killer’s mission. But she can’t seem to stop the words forming. “They want you dead, Diana.”

Diana stares at her for a heartbeat. Her voice is warm. It does nothing to melt the ice growing in Barbara’s heart. “Don’t you trust me?”

She is about to answer in the affirmative when a man, dressed like the waiter who had given her her champagne, approaches their booth. She springs away from Diana, glad to find her body still swift and her mind not completely off. Turns towards him.

“Miss? The Bear would like to see you.” He says, bowing low. She doesn’t understand the shakiness in his voice until she sees the tremor in his hands. It’s funny. She laughs quietly to herself.

“Where?” She says, her voice still sounding off, the man’s face covered in a shapeless black mask that she can’t seem to make shape out of. ‘He’s scared of you,’ a voice sings in her head.

“The Dark Room.”

“I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

He trembles, and bows his head even lower so that his voice comes out muffled. “They want you there now.”

She sighs, more out of frustration than anger, and the waiter flinches. “Fine. I can get there myself.”

He bows again and scurries off, his retreating figure screaming relief. Her delighted but small smile is hidden beneath her mask, and she turns back towards Diana, silent by her side. “See you around.” The words feel like a farewell in her mouth, and Diana’s gaze makes her think she feels the same way.

The brown-haired woman nods and gets up to leave. “Come see me again, Barbara Ann.” She whispers as she brushes by Barbara, and then she is gone, fading into the throes of color and shadow in the room, leaving Barbara with a mess of confusion and a thudding migraine.

She makes her way to the elevator, hidden behind an obscene display of various jungle animals, snorting to herself as they jump at each other and try to pry fruit from each other, the fruit seemingly conjured up out of midair. The elevator button is decorated as a beetle, but as soon as she presses it it starts moving around. She squishes it without a second thought and steps into the elevator.

The elevator is crowded, but the hum of speech lulls to a complete stop the moment she steps on it, with everyone turning in unison to look at her, eyes hostile and cold. She ignores their eyes, used to looks of disgust and antagonism, though not usually so blatant and foreword. She presses her fingers to her temples, trying to get her head to stop screaming, and hears a small voice laugh maniacally in the back of her head. She’s losing her mind, she thinks, and turns to scan her keycard. The bottom floor button becomes a beetle, which she squishes it again, her ears still ringing with the laughter that is so loud she wonders how no one else hears it.

She’s never seen this elevator so crowded, especially since it is meant only for members of the Agency. She turns her body subtly, breathes evenly as she notes all of the people in the elevator wearing the same suits with different animal masks. The masks all look like they are made of cardboard instead of precious metal like hers. One wears a cheetah mask, and she is almost shocked enough to turn around and ask the person how dare they wear her animal. Before she can, the elevator stops at her floor and ten pairs of hands push her out without fanfare. She lands on the concrete floor on her knees.

She steadies herself before she turns back, her eyes ablaze, thoughts of how people treated her before her wish searing in her mind. But before she can say or do anything, the elevator closes, and the people are gone. Shucks to that, she thinks to herself, her anger seeping away from her. She is less fazed than she should be, but once the anger faded it is more shock that keeps her on her toes, shock that anyone would dare to treat her like that when she had cultivated her reputation to avoid precisely these interactions.

She shakes her head to clear it, and moves forward in the darkened halls, noting the animals moving on the jungle wallpaper. Odd. The Bear doesn’t decorate the interior halls of the Agency for the Gala.

She checks her watch, and realizes after reading 2:10 AM on its face that she didn’t wear a watch to the Gala. More pressingly, however, she is sure she left Diana at around 12:00 PM.

She sucks in a deep breath. The watch is cool under her touch, and the walls don’t spin. Surely she isn’t having a stroke. That wouldn’t be possible, she reassures herself as she ventures forward to find the Dark Room. She pushes open the door, allowing the feeling of deja vu to wash over her as she steps inside.

The room is dark. Hysterically, she wants to make a joke about it. The barely concealed rage in the Boss’ voice interrupts her. “How kind of you to join me, Cheetah.”

“You’re welcome.” She says, and her brain reacts a second later. She must have lost her mind. It’s the only reason she would react with snark when the Bear is already unprecedentedly angry.

“Excuse me?”

“Forgive me, I wasn’t thinking. I’m apologize for making you wait.” She grits her teeth in frustration. The Bear’s vagueness is grating on the best of days, and her self-control is slipping too far tonight. She regrets the glass of alcohol she drank.

‘You shouldn’t apologize, you know.’ A voice whispers in her ear, clear as day. She whipped her head around, but there was no one behind her. The generic female voice continued. ‘Honestly, they don’t deserve your apologies. Have you met yourself?’

“Do not show up late and disrespect me.” The Bear’s voice is irritated, cutting short the soft crooning of the voice in her ears.

“My apologies.” She knows she sounds short. “What is it you wanted to see me about?” Her voice is callous and uncaring, a far cry from the turmoil inside. The Dark Room’s animal wallpaper leaps and struts on the wall. She misses it in her attempt to regain control.

The Bear is cold, calculated. “I believe you assured me the target was a ‘one-night thing.’”

Diana. Of course. It always comes back to her, doesn’t it?

‘Of course it does. Why are you trying to fight it?’ The voice behind her whispers again. Barbara is beginning to feel the room spin. The bear mask is grinning wide at her. How had she never noticed how condescending it smiled down at her?

“Stop. Laughing.” The growl rips out of her before she can think better of it.

“Excuse me?” The Bear stands up. Absently, Barbara notices that they’re shorter than her in her heels.

The mask laughs harder.

“I said. Stop. Laughing.” She’s baring her teeth under her mask. Her hackles rise, and she’s not sure where the animosity and anger comes from but it overtakes her fast.

‘That’s right. Tell it to them straight.’ The voice whispers fast, excited now.

The Bear’s eyes are appraising her, and their mask keeps chortling and chuckling. Its laughter is twisted, mocking her, taunting her, flaying out all her weaknesses, and the voice keeps whispering faster and faster, ‘tell them tell them tell them tell them’. The Bear is taking off their gloves and the animals on the wallpaper are dancing and juggling and suddenly a whip is in the Boss’s bare hands, tipped with gold and shaped like claws (how had she never noticed this before?). She knows what that whip is for, has been on the receiving end of its power many times. The animals keep dancing and singing and the Bear’s eyes are concerned now, flickering over her, their deep gruntled voice asking, “Cheetah, what is going on?”, and the bear mask keeps laughing and the voice keeps whispering ‘tell them tell them tell them’ and—

Barbara pounces.

Time slows down. She watches as though from outside of her body as she falls on the Bear, no match for her agility and speed. She watches her hands tighten around the bear mask, watches the Bear’s eyes bulge and their hands claw at hers, her dress sleeves turning to tatters. The bear mask keeps laughing, and she keeps choking, harder and harder. The Bear’s face is red in the holes in their mask, their eyes frightened, a foreign look on a familiar face. She tightens her grip, and the Bear’s eyes widen. They choke out, a muffled murmur, “Eagle?”, and then they go limp in her hands.

She doesn’t let go until the mask stops laughing, the animals stop dancing, and the voice fades. It laughs in her ears one last time, ‘You’re free now. Free.’

She lowers the limp body to the ground, breathing deeply. She is tired, and the beautiful black of her dress is marred by red when she looks down. Deep red lines scream from her hands when she turns them over. Blood, hers and the Bear’s, the mentor and the mentee, mixed one last time, she notes dumbly.

She sinks to the ground, the Bear’s dead body discarded behind her, and she lies down next to it. She could have laid there for seconds, minutes, or hours, until a pair of shoes enter her peripheral. They are high, impractical, much like her own. They’re pointed, covered in cheetah print. She stares at the shoes. They are eerily familiar, and a moment later her other senses catch on. The same perfume that has haunted her for too long floats down, and the person wearing is kneels down with it. Diana’s warm brown eyes are scared, concerned, and uncertain all at once.

“Barbara Ann?” She doesn’t answer. She just stares at the leopard print shoes and wonder how she got here. Diana gathers her in her arms as though she weighs nothing and stands. She lets Diana carry her, bridal-style. “Let’s get you out of here.”

She suddenly remembers the shoes. “Barbara Minerva,” she murmurs into Diana’s blouse. “Geology, gemology, lithology, and part-time cryptozoologist.” Diana hums in confusion. She continues. “I like those. Animal print. Rawr.” The world goes black. She catches Diana’s huff of recognition.