DC: One for All Chapter 5 — A Job Well Done (Patreon)

"My fellow Americans."

"Three days ago, our world was attacked. An alien force of unprecedented scale descended on our cities, our towns, our homes, and came with the intention of ending us. Not as a nation, but as a species. What they brought was not a war but an extinction event."

"Across the globe, in the days since the attack, we have confirmed the deaths of millions of people. Millions of mothers and fathers and children and friends who were taken from us in the space of hours. Metropolis, Star City, Central City, London, Tokyo, São Paulo, dozens of cities bearing scars that will take years, perhaps decades, to heal. The scope of what we have lost is still being measured and may never be fully known."

"But I did not come here today to speak only of what we lost. I came here to speak of what we found."

"When this evil descended on our world and it seemed like nothing could stop them, people saw that evil and they said no."

"Not on our watch." 

"Not on our planet."

"Not while we're still standing."

"They rose up and placed themselves between everything we are and everything that would destroy us."

He turned slightly and gestured to the side of the stage where six figures stood in a line, each of them in costume, each of them bearing the visible injuries of the battle they'd fought days earlier.

"It is my honour, and the honour of this nation, to introduce to the world the individuals who saved it."

"Superman."

 "Batman." 

"Wonder Woman."

"The Flash."

 "Green Lantern."

"And Cyborg."

"These extraordinary individuals, have done more than save our planet. They have made a commitment to continue protecting it. They have combined their resources, their abilities, and their resolve, and they have formed a coalition dedicated to ensuring that what happened three days ago never happens again."

"Ladies and gentlemen, it is my privilege to announce the formation of the Justice League."

...

David turned away from the TV, no longer interested in the presidents spiel. What was far more interesting now was lunch was being served and he was never one to turn down a free meal. Though the smile he had on his face soon melted away when he saw his dessert. 

"This pudding isn't chocolate."

David was sitting up in a hospital bed wearing a gown that was too short and too thin and tied incorrectly in the back, his torso was wrapped in so many bandages he looked like a half-finished mummy, his left arm was in a sling.

The nurse, a stout woman with short grey hair, glanced at him from where she was adjusting the IV drip of the man in the bed across the room. "The boy in the bed next to you got the last chocolate one," she said. "I'm sorry about that. You've got banana."

"Banana," David repeated, as if she'd said the pudding was made of asbestos.

"Banana," she confirmed, already moving on to the next patient.

David sighed and then turned his head to the left where a boy of about nine or ten was sitting cross-legged on the bed beside him, a cast on his left arm and a bandage on his forehead.

"Hey kid," David said. 

The boy didn't look at him.

"Hey kid. You wanna swap puddings? I'll give you this banana one and you give me the chocolate."

"Shh," the boy said without turning his head. "Superman is on the tv."

David pouted slightly as he followed the kids gaze."Superman's not that cool," David said.

This got the boy to look at him. "Superman is the coolest person alive!!" the boy said with absolute conviction.

"Debatable," David said. "Come on, give me your dessert. You're a kid, you don't care what flavour it is, you just want sugar, right? Banana, chocolate, it's all the same to you."

The boy looked at David, then looked at his chocolate pudding, then looked back at David. "The chocolate is mine," he said.

David leaned his head back against the pillow and stared at the ceiling. "I'll give you five bucks for it."

The kid actually laughed at that. "Five bucks? I heard the doctor talking and you don't even have insurance, dude. Where are you getting five bucks from?"

The man in the bed across the room snorted. The woman two beds down let out a laugh that she tried to suppress behind her hand. Even the guy in the corner who had been sleeping opened one eye and grinned.

"I'm self-employed," David said defensively, sitting up straighter, which was a mistake because his ribs immediately reminded him of every one of their current breakages. "Lots of self-employed people don't have insurance, it's a systemic issue, it's not—"

"My mom says people without insurance are irresponsible," the kid said, spooning another mouthful of chocolate pudding into his face.

"Your mom sounds like a real gem," David muttered.

"She's a insurance adjuster," the boy replied.

"Of course she is."

"Maybe if you had a real job you could afford chocolate pudding," the man across the room offered, and the woman two beds down laughed again, louder this time, and even the nurse who was now at the door suppressed a smile as she left.

David looked around the room at all the people who were apparently finding his suffering hilarious, opened his banana pudding, and ate it. 

It tasted exactly as terrible as he'd expected.

"Unbelievable," he muttered around a mouthful of it.

On the television the speech had ended and the broadcast had cut to a news studio where two anchors were sitting behind a desk with a graphic that read. 

INVASION AFTERMATH

"In related news," the male anchor said, "there are unconfirmed reports of an additional individual involved in the Metropolis battle beyond the six heroes announced today as founding members of the Justice League. Several eyewitness accounts and this footage, which we should note has not been independently verified, appear to show a seventh figure engaged in direct combat with the entity identified as Darkseid."

"While these reports remain unconfirmed," the female anchor picked up, leaning forward slightly, "multiple witnesses at the scene have stated that the individual they observed bore a strong resemblance to Paragon, the hero who disappeared from public life three years ago following what has been referred to as 'the Gotham Incident.'" 

A file photo appeared on screen, an older image of David in his Prime form. "For those who may not recall, Paragon was widely regarded as the successor to All Might and operated primarily in Gotham City before the incident that resulted in significant civilian casualties and property destruction. An investigation was launched at the time and many public figures, including several members of Congress, called for criminal charges, though none were ultimately filed. Public opinion, however, was largely negative, and Paragon ceased all public hero activity shortly after."

The male anchor nodded. "The question many are asking tonight is whether this represents a return for the controversial hero, and if so, what his intentions may be. Was this a one-time appearance prompted by the severity of the invasion, or is Paragon back for good? And if he is back, should the public be concerned given the circumstances of his departure?"

"Ugh," David grunted and he turned to look for the nurse. "Hey, can someone change the channel?"

"No!" the kid said immediately, his spoon freezing halfway to his mouth. "I want to watch the heroes!"

David sighed and pushed the blankets aside and swung his legs over the edge of the bed. The movement pulled at the stitches in his stomach and roughly a dozen other things, but he gritted his teeth and stood up anyway, grabbing the IV stand beside his bed and pulling it with him as he shuffled toward the door.

His legs worked but they worked reluctantly, his knees were stiff and his calves torn, and the stab wound in his abdomen throbbed like a motherfucker. The Omega Beam burns across his chest and shoulders couldnt really be treated with conventional medicine so he'd just have to wait for One for All to help with that. He wheeled the IV stand alongside him with his good hand and made his way out into the corridor.

The moment he stepped out he was almost knocked to the ground by a nurse rushing down the corridor. She said a quick apology before heading on her way. He couldn't blame her, the hospital was in chaos at the moment. The hallways were packed with gurneys that lined the walls, some with patients on them, some recently empty and awaiting another occupant. 

The invasion had filled almost every bed in the hospital and then filled the corridors and then filled the waiting rooms and now the overflow was being directed to temporary facilities that had been set up all across the city.

David weaved through it and headed downstairs. He might as well get some work done while he was here. Though he could also go for a drink, but he doubted he'd be able to find any alcohol here apart from shit they clean with or sterilise equipment with and he wasn't that desperate yet. 

He passed a vending machine in an alcove near the elevator bank. stopped and looked at it. He checked his gown for pockets. No pockets. No wallet. No money. He looked up and down the corridor and waited until the nearest person, a nurse pushing a cart, had turned the corner and disappeared.

[One for All: 0.01%]

A tiny spark of gold lightning, barely visible, arced from the tip of his index finger to the coin slot of the vending machine. The machine buzzed, clicked, and the display flickered. David pressed the button for a Sprite and the can dropped into the collection tray with a satisfying thud.

"That is a flagrant misuse of your power One for All was not passed down through nine generations so you could steal soft drinks." Fourth spoke

"Give me a break," David muttered as he cracked the can open and took a sip. "I already helped save the world. What more do you want from me?"

"He's got a point," Seventh spoke

"HAHA! Indeed he does! A man deserves a refreshment after a job well done! Enjoy it, Young Beckett!"

"Thank you," David said, raising the can in a toast to the voices in his head and kept walking.

He sipped the Sprite as he made his way down two floors via the elevator, navigating through corridors that were progressively less crowded as he moved away from the main treatment areas. While the alien invasion might be over and the portals might be closed and the Justice League might be having their moment on national television, none of that changed the fact that David Beckett was still a private investigator with an open case and a client who was waiting for answers. 

He still had a girl to find.

Batman and Cyborg had managed to free a significant number of the people who had been kidnapped by the parademons and taken through the portals to Apokolips. The rescued civilians had been brought back through during the brief window before the portals closed, all of them in various states of injury and shock, and they had been distributed across every medical facility in Metropolis. The influx of rescued kidnapping victims on top of the already overwhelming number of invasion casualties had turned every hospital in the city into something resembling a warzone triage centre.

But David didn't think he'd have too much trouble finding one specific person. Not if the hospital kept decent records, and this was Metropolis General.

He rounded a corner and walked directly into a doctor who was coming the other way reading a chart, their bodies colliding at a speed that was frankly embarrassing for two adults in a corridor, the doctor's chart went flying and David's Sprite splashed across the front of his gown.

"Watch where you're—" the doctor started, bending down to pick up his chart, his face flushed with irritation. He straightened up and looked at David, at the bandages and the sling and the burns and the general state of him. "You need to get back to your bed, you should not be wandering the halls in your condition."

"Yes sir," David said, giving him a crisp salute with his Sprite can. 

He turned and walked off in the opposite direction, and as the doctor bent down to pick up the pen that had also fallen, David's hand dipped into the man's coat pocket and came out with a staff ID badge which he palmed against his hip and kept walking without breaking stride.

The records room was on the basement level, a small windowless office with rows of filing cabinets and two computer terminals that looked like they hadn't been updated since the previous administration. David swiped the stolen badge through the card reader on the door, heard the lock click, and let himself in.

He sat down at the nearest terminal and then he started searching. The hospital's admission database was organized by date, which helped, and he narrowed the search to the last seventy-two hours, then filtered by the category that had been created specifically for this situation: "Portal Rescue — Apokolips Returnee."

He typed in the name. Vanessa Chen.

The system thought about it for long enough that David considered hitting it, and then a result appeared. 

Vanessa Chen

Sex: Female

Age: Twenty-four 

Condition: stable, dehydrated, minor lacerations, moderate psychological trauma. 

Current location: Temporary medical tent in Julia Park opposite metropolis General.  

David sighed, closed the database and pushed himself up from the chair. At least she wasn't too far away, once he located her he'd get her in touch with her family and cha ching, get his money and maybe a couple chocolate puddings. 

He left the records room, took the elevator back up to the ground floor, and started making his way toward the hospital's main exit, weaving through the crowd of patients and staff. He was about thirty feet from the front doors when the commotion started.

It began as a murmur then quickly turned into full on excitement as people brought their phones up for record and everyone started screaming as if their favourite boy band was here. David looked over toward the main entrance where the shouting was loudest and saw her.

Wonder Woman walked through the front doors of Metropolis General Hospital. She was in full armour the same outfit she wore when he'd seen her last and every single person in the lobby had stopped what they were doing to stare at her. People crowded toward her excitedly asking for autographs and pictures. She had just been on the news so naturally people knew who she was. 

"Wonder Woman, why are you here?"

"Can I get a picture?"

"Are the parademons coming back?"

"My daughter wants to say hi—"

Diana smiled at all of them with her natural warmth that didn't even seem like it was fake or practiced. "I am here to visit a comrade in arms," she said. "One who fought alongside us against Darkseid and who is now recovering from his injuries. I wish to see that he is well."

She turned to the front desk where a receptionist was sitting with her mouth slightly open. "I am looking for a patient," Diana said. "His name is David."

David's blood ran cold.

The receptionist started typing and Diana waited, and while she waited her eyes moved across the lobby, scanning faces, and David tried to turn away but he was too slow. Her gaze found him standing near the corridor in his hospital gown and her entire face lit up like a sunrise.

She raised her arm fully above her head and waved it back and forth like she was hailing down a fucking ship. "DAVID!" she called across the lobby, and every head in the room turned to look at where she was waving.

"Ah fuck," David whispered.

He looked at the morphine drip attached to his IV stand. He looked at the side exit fifteen feet to his left. He looked back at the morphine drip.

"I'm sorry," he said to it sincerely, as he disconnected the line from the port in his arm. "You were the best thing that ever happened to me. I'll never forget our time together." He set the IV stand against the wall, turned, and slipped through the side exit.

The door led into a narrow service corridor that connected to a secondary entrance on the east side of the building, and David moved through it as fast as his injuries would allow. But every step without the morphine was a fresh reminder of exactly how many things were wrong with his body.

He made it to the secondary entrance and pushed through the door into the daylight outside, the afternoon sun hitting him in the face, and he got about twelve steps down the sidewalk before a shadow fell across him from above and Diana landed in front of him. "David Beckett," she said, and there was a note of amusement in her voice alongside genuine confusion. "Why are you attempting to escape from me?"

"I'm not escaping," David said, which was an obvious lie. "I'm... going for a walk.... The doctor recommended it."

"You disconnected your pain medication and fled through a service corridor," Diana observed. 

David looked at her, at the full Wonder Woman regalia catching the sun, at the people on the sidewalk who had already noticed her and were pulling out their phones. He grabbed her arm, which was like grabbing marble, and pulled her around the corner of the building into the shadow of an overhanging ledge where they were at least partially hidden from the street.

"Keep your voice down," he said, letting go of her arm. "I'm keeping a low profile okay? Nobody can know I was involved in what happened, and nobody can know I'm Paragon."

"If you show up at my hospital bed in full armour and announce that you're visiting your 'comrade in arms,' every reporter in the city is going to be outside my room within the hour."

Diana looked at him with an expression that was equal parts bewilderment and something that might have been offense. "But why would you hide what you did? You were the most incredible warrior I have ever witnessed." She stepped closer, her blue eyes intense. "When you transformed and faced Darkseid alone, when you stood between him and all of us, you were truly like a hero from the ancient myths. Like Heracles. Like Achilles. What you did should be celebrated, David. Songs should be written about it. You should have been on that stage with us today."

"I'm not really a stage kind of guy," David said.

"But the people deserve to know who saved them! They deserve to know your name and your courage and—"

"Diana." He said it firmly enough that she stopped talking. "I appreciate what you're saying, I really do, but the answer is no. No publicity, no stage, no songs. I did what I had to do and now I'd like to go back to my life, which involves no one knowing who I am or what I can do."

Diana was quiet for a moment, her brow furrowed, clearly wrestling with a concept that was fundamentally foreign.  Then her expression cleared and she clapped her hands together with a sound like a gunshot, making David flinch. "Ahh," she said, nodding slowly, a knowing smile spreading across her face. "I see. You are humble. Like the great heroes of old who performed their deeds in secret and refused the laurels of fame. Yes, I understand now."

David opened his mouth to argue that it wasn't humility so much as self-preservation and a deep-seated desire to be left alone, but arguing with Diana's interpretation seemed more exhausting than accepting it, so he just sighed.

"Why are you here, Diana?" he asked. 

"I told you," she said, as if the answer was the most obvious thing in the world. "I am here to see you. To know you better. You fought alongside me and you saved my life and I know nothing about you." She crossed her arms, and her expression shifted to something slightly accusatory. "I asked Batman for information about you and he was not forthcoming. He said, 'Ask him yourself.' So here I am."

David stared at her for a long moment, then he sighed again. "Fine," he said. "But you cannot walk around with me looking like that." He gestured at her armour. "I don't want to bring any attention to myself, so go grab some regular clothes, whatever you were when you're not Wonder Woman.."

Diana's face brightened immediately, a smile breaking across it that was so genuine and so delighted that David felt something in his chest do an uncomfortable thing. "Of course!" she said. "I will return momentarily!"

She launched herself into the sky, fast enough that the displaced air ruffled David's hospital gown, and she was gone.

David stood in the shadow of the building and counted to thirty, he was going to leave at the minute mark. He'd gotten to forty-seven when she landed in front of him again. She was wearing a white sundress with thin straps over her shoulders, simple brown sandals, and her dark hair was down around her shoulders instead of pulled back under the tiara. She had a small leather bag over one shoulder and no visible weapons, although David suspected the lasso was in the bag.

She looked like a normal woman. 

A staggeringly beautiful normal woman who could bench press a tank, but normal enough that she wouldn't cause a riot on the sidewalk. "Does this outfit please you?" she asked, though there was something slightly performative about the question. 

David's mouth opened, then closed before he cleared his throat, adjusted his sling and tried again. "It's, uh... it's fine. Yeah. That's fine. That works."

He shook his head to clear whatever had just happened inside it and turned toward the street. "Come on," he said, starting to walk. "I've got somewhere to be."

Diana fell into step beside him, matching his pace, which given his injuries was considerably slow. "Where are we going?"

"To find someone," David said.

"Find who?" Diana asked, tilting her head slightly as she walked beside him. "Do you need my help? I am quite skilled at finding people, on Themyscira we had hunting parties that could track a deer across solid—"

"I already know where she is," David said, cutting her off gently as they waited at the edge of the crosswalk for the traffic to pass. "About a week ago a woman hired me to find her missing daughter and the trail led me into the Gotham sewers which is where I ran into one of those parademons and then into Batman and Green Lantern. The whole Darkseid thing was just..." he waved his good hand vaguely, "a side effect of me doing my actual job."

Diana looked at him with an expression of wonder that he found slightly uncomfortable. "How fortunate!" she said. "It seems the gods were watching over us. We may very well have lost without your assistance."

"Nah," David said as the crosswalk signal changed and he stepped off the curb, Diana matching his pace beside him. "You guys would've been fine. Especially once Superman got back in the fight, the guy's basically a walking nuclear deterrent with a cape. He would've handled Darkseid eventually."

"Maybe so," Diana said firmly. "But it was you who defeated Darkseid while the rest of us could not. Superman is powerful, yes, but he was beaten. Green Lantern was beaten. I was beaten. You were the one who stood and fought when none of us could any longer. That is not something to dismiss with a grunt and a shrug."

David grunted and shrugged.

Diana narrowed her eyes at him but let it go.

They walked in silence for a moment before she spoke again. "David," she said. "May I ask you something?"

"You're going to whether I say yes or no, so go ahead."

"Why are you staying at this hospital? Batman was very generous in providing private medical care for all of us after the battle, the finest doctors, the best facilities, everything one could need to recover properly. He would have done the same for you. Why did you refuse?"

David stopped at the crosswalk on the far side of the street and waited for the signal, his eyes on the traffic rather than on Diana. "Bruce offered," he said. "I told him no."

"But why?" Diana pressed, genuine confusion in her voice. "After such a battle you should have had access to the best care available. Your injuries were severe, David. The sword wound alone could have—"

"A lot of people got hurt by what happened," David said. "Regular people. People who didn't have powers, who didn't sign up for any of this, who were just going about their lives when the sky opened up and everything went to hell. Most of them are in beds just like the one I was in, eating the same terrible food and dealing with the same overworked nurses... I didn't see why I should get anything better than them."

"But you saved them," Diana said still not fully understanding. "You put your life on the line so that they would not become an enslaved race. Does that not entitle you to—"

David turned to her and stopped walking. "No," he said simply. "It doesn't. That's kind of the whole point, Diana. Being a hero doesn't put you above anyone, it doesn't entitle you to better treatment or special privileges or a nicer hospital room. The moment you start thinking that saving people means you deserve more than them is the moment you stop being a hero and start being something else. People shouldn't have to pay for the privilege of feeling safe and I shouldn't get rewarded for doing what anyone with this kind of power should be doing anyway."

Diana looked at him for a long moment, her blue eyes focused intensely on his face, and something shifted in her expression. 

David cleared his throat and started walking again, uncomfortable with the way she was looking at him, and changed the subject. "What about you? You said you're from Themyscira. I've heard the name but I don't know much about it, where is it exactly?"

Diana's posture changed, straightening slightly with pride as she fell back into step beside him. "Themyscira is an island, hidden from the world of men by the gods themselves. It is home to the Amazons, a race of warrior women created by Zeus to protect humanity. We have lived there for thousands of years in peace and prosperity, training, studying, perfecting ourselves." She paused then, and some of the brightness left her voice. "I was its princess. Daughter of Hippolyta, queen of the Amazons."

"Was?" David asked.

Diana was quiet for a few steps, her eyes on the path ahead. "I was banished," she said softly. "A man, a soldier from your world crashed on our shores. He was injured and lost and I helped him escape the island, helped him return to his world, and in doing so I violated our most sacred law. No man may set foot on Themyscira, and no Amazon may aid one in leaving it." She was quiet again. "My mother had no choice. The law is the law, even for queens and their daughters."

"I'm sorry," David said sympathetically

Diana shook her head slowly. "I was sad for a time," she admitted. "Angry too. But eventually I decided that if I could not return to my home, I would dedicate myself to the world I had chosen. To making it a peaceful place, the way Themyscira is. Where people do not fight and kill each other over land and power and fear. That is my purpose here."

David nodded. "That's a good goal," he said.

They passed through the park entrance, the temporary medical tents visible through the trees ahead.

"Can I give you some advice?" he asked after a while. "About your goal?"

Diana looked at him with interest. "Please."

"Themyscira, from what you're describing, it's one people, one culture, one set of laws, and everyone agrees on what peace is because they've all been raised the same way for thousands of years. This world isn't like that. There are seven billion people here and they all speak different languages and worship different gods and have different ideas about what justice is and what fairness means and even what peace even looks like." 

He stepped around a section of damaged path and continued. "Not all of them are going to want what you're offering. Some of them will fight you on it. Some of them will hate you for it. Some of them will smile to your face and work against you behind your back. That's not because they're evil, it's because people are complicated and change is terrifying and most of them have been taught their whole lives that the world works a certain way and they're not going to let someone tell them otherwise."

Diana listened without interrupting.

"If you want to change the world," David said, "you need to become more than just a hero. You need to become a symbol, something that represents the change itself. Something people can look at and believe in even when you're not around. Because you can't punch everyone's problems away. But if you can change what people believe, if you can change what they aspire to, if you can make peace and justice something they want instead of something they're told to accept..." he trailed off and then finished, "then you can change their hearts... and thats... thats change...."

Diana was quiet for several steps and then she turned to him with an expression of genuine admiration. "You are very wise for your age, David Beckett," she said.

"I'm not that young," he replied.

Diana considered this. "I am three thousand years old," she said.

"I'm not that old either," David said.

Diana laughed and smiled at him which he tried to ignore. 

They reached the entrance to the medical tent where a nurse in scrubs was standing with a clipboard, checking visitors in. She looked up as they approached and gave them the once-over. "Are you family or friends?" she asked.

"Friends of Vanessa Chen," David said.

The nurse ran her finger down the clipboard, found the name and nodded. "Section C, bed fourteen. Visiting hours end at five."

They ducked through the tent flap and into the interior, which was larger than it looked from outside, the space divided into sections by hanging curtains with beds arranged in rows on either side.

Diana's steps slowed as she took it in, her eyes moving from bed to bed, face to face, her expression shifting from the brightness of their conversation to something sadder. Many of the patients had bandages and casts and IV lines, the standard injuries of a disaster, but some of them had  burns, and some of them had the hollow distant look of people who had been taken through the portals and had seen the other side.

"There are so many of them," Diana said quietly.

David glanced at her. "Yeah," he said. "It's the part most heroes don't see when it comes to what they do. When you're fighting Darkseid and throwing punches and blowing things up, you don't think about the people in the buildings. You can't afford to, because if you stop to think about it you freeze, and if you freeze more people die. But afterward, when the fight's over and the cameras are gone, these are the people who are left. We destroyed a good part of Metropolis doing what we did and with that always comes casualties."

Diana looked at the rows of beds and the people in them. "Do you think we are to blame?" she asked, and there was real uncertainty in her voice.

David shook his head. "You can't save everyone. You can only try and limit the destruction. And with situations like Darkseid, sometimes you can't even do that. If we hadn't fought him, every single person on this planet would be a slave right now. The people in these beds are alive because we made the choices we made. The cost was terrible, but the alternative was worse. So in the end you can only carry that weight and keep going."

He started walking again, moving down the rows toward Section C, and Diana walked beside him in silence for a few steps before she spoke again.

"David," she said. "Why did you stop being a hero? With your power and your experience, it seems such a shame to have lost someone like you. The world clearly needs people who think the way you do, who fight the way you fight. I cannot understand why you would walk away from that."

David's jaw tightened slightly as they passed bed after bed. "I don't talk about that," he said quietly. "If you really want to know, it's not hard to find out. But I'm not going to be the one who tells you about it."

Diana opened her mouth to respond but David had stopped walking because they were at Section C, bed fourteen, and lying in the bed in front of them was a young woman with dark hair and a face that matched the photograph David had been carrying in his pocket for a week.

She looked different from the picture. Thinner, paler, with dark circles under her eyes and a bandage on her forehead and an IV in her arm and the hollowed-out expression. 

But it was her.

"Vanessa Chen?" David asked, standing at the foot of her bed.

The woman blinked and looked at him, then at Diana, then back at him. "Yeah," she said, barely above a whisper. "W-Who are you?"

"My name's David Beckett. I'm a private investigator. Your family hired me to find you." He reached into the pocket of his hospital gown and pulled out a phone he'd taken. He dialed a number, waited for it to ring twice, and then held the phone out to Vanessa.

She took it with a hand that was shaking slightly and held it to her ear.

David heard the voice on the other end pick up, a woman's voice and the moment Vanessa heard it her face crumpled. Her eyes filled and spilled over and her mouth twisted and a sound came out of her that was half sob and half laugh, and then she was speaking, not in English but in rapid Mandarin, the words pouring out of her in a torrent that was equal parts tears and relief. 

David stepped back from the bed and stood there with his hands at his sides, watching Vanessa cry into his phone while her mother cried back at her from however many dozens of miles away, he didn't say anything because there was nothing to say. This was the part of the job that made the rest of it worth it. The pudding and the broken ribs and the nights spent in parked cars watching motel rooms, all of it led to this, a mother and a daughter hearing each other's voices when both of them had started to believe they never would again.

Diana stood beside him and watched the same scene, her hand resting over her heart, and then she looked at David slightly enamoured. 

Eventually Vanessa's words slowed down and her breathing steadied and she held the phone out to David with both hands, her eyes red and her cheeks wet. "She wants to talk to you," she said.

David took the phone and put it to his ear. "Mrs. Chen."

The voice on the other end was emotional but she was quickly able to form words. She thanked him in a rush accented English. David gave her the hospital address, the tent location, the section and bed number, and told her the visiting hours and the name of the nurse at the entrance who could help her when she arrived. 

Then there was a pause on the other end.

"The payment," Mrs. Chen said. "I've transferred it to the account you gave me. Please check when you can."

David nodded even though she couldn't see him. "Thank you, Mrs. Chen. I'm glad I could help. Take care of your daughter."

He ended the call and put the phone back in his pocket.

Vanessa was wiping her eyes with the edge of her sheet, struggling to pull herself together. "T-Thank you," she sobbed. "Thank you for finding me. I didn't... I couldn't remember anyone's numbers and I didn't have any money and I didn't know how to reach anyone, I've been lying here for two days not knowing if my family even knew I was alive—"

"They knew," David said, slightly awkwardly. "You're going to be okay. Get some rest."

He turned to go.

Diana leaned down and took Vanessa's hand in both of hers and squeezed it gently. "I am glad you are reunited with your family," she said.

Vanessa managed a small smile at that and Diana squeezed her hand one more time before releasing it and turning to follow David who was already halfway down the row.

She caught up to him outside the tent and immediately noticed it, the change in his walk, the set of his shoulders, the way his chin was up instead of down, a lightness in his body that hadn't been there before.

"You look happy," Diana said, smiling at the sight because she realized she'd never actually seen David happy and she saw how it changed his entire face.

"It's payday," David said, and there was a grin on his face that was genuine and looked about ten years younger. "Finally. After over a week of work, getting shot at, getting stabbed, getting punched by an alien, sleeping in my car, getting critically injured, eating banana pudding, I finally found Vanessa and her family just wired my payment."

"That's wonderful!" Diana said, matching his energy. "How much did you acquire from this task?"

David scratched his chin as they walked, doing the math. "From this job in particular... two hundred dollars."

Diana's brow furrowed and she went quiet for a few steps, her lips moving slightly as she ran the number through her mind and converted them. She had been in man's world long enough to understand the basics, that paper money had value and that more of it was generally better than less of it, but the specific scales were still somewhat foreign to her.

She arrived at her conclusion. "That seems... like a rather low amount," she said carefully, "for the amount of work you described."

David walked out of the tent entrance and into the sunlight where he squinted slightly, he stood there for a moment just breathing. "The price varies," he said. "Some jobs pay more, some pay less. Vanessa's family isn't wealthy, her mom works two jobs and her dad drives a taxi, so I wasn't going to bankrupt them for wanting their missing family member back. You charge what people can afford and you do the job."

Diana smiled at him again. "That is very noble of you," she said.

David just hummed, a noncommittal sound that was his default response to compliments, and then he looked at her. "You want to get something to eat? I'm still starving."

"I would love to," Diana said softly.

They found a diner about two blocks from the park that was open despite the general state of the city, a small place with outdoor seating and a menu written on a chalkboard and an owner who was clearly operating on the principle that Metropolis needed food now more than ever. David ordered a meat plate and a coffee and Diana, after studying the menu with the intensity of someone deciphering an ancient text, ordered one of everything.

"One of everything?" David repeated, looking at her over the top of his coffee.

"I wish to try it all," Diana said, as if this were the most logical thing in the world, and when the food arrived in waves, plate after plate covering the small table, she ate with a focus and pleasure that suggested she'd never eaten food before. 

While they ate Diana asked him questions. Where did he live, what was his apartment like, how long had he been a private investigator, what was the strangest case he'd ever worked. David answered freely enough when the questions were about his current life, describing his apartment in Gotham which was small and poorly furnished and had a leak in the bathroom ceiling that he'd been meaning to fix for six months. He talked about cases he'd worked, the missing persons jobs and the insurance fraud investigations and the one time he'd been hired to follow a woman's husband only to discover the husband was actually following the wife who was following the husband's business partner who was following the husband.

Diana laughed at his storiesand was an attentive listener in a way that David wasn't used to, leaning forward, maintaining eye contact, reacting with her whole face. It was disarming and he found himself talking more than he normally would, sharing details about his day-to-day life that he wouldn't have volunteered to most people.

But whenever Diana's questions drifted toward his past, toward Paragon, toward the years before he became a PI, his answers got shorter and vaguer and eventually she learned to read the boundary and stopped pushing in that direction.

They were halfway through the baklava when a familiar figure walked up to their table.

Wearing a dark grey suit that cost more than David's annual income and a pair of sunglasses pushed up into perfectly styled hair Bruce Wayne sauntered up to their table. 

"Bruce," David said, leaning back in his chair with a piece of baklava in his hand. "Pull up a chair. Diana ordered one of everything so there's plenty."

"Bruce," Diana greeted him with a warm nod. "It is good to see you."

Bruce did not pull up a chair. He stood at the edge of the table with his hands in his pockets and looked at David. "You're supposed to be in the hospital," Bruce said.

David waved his good hand dismissively. "I'm fine. My power is good at accelerating my healing. Give me a few more days and I'll be good as new. Well, maybe not new, but good as refurbished. Lightly used at worst."

Bruce grunted, which was his version of accepting something he disagreed with. "I settled your hospital bill," he said. "The full amount. Don't argue about it because it's already done."

David opened his mouth to argue about it, saw the look on Bruce's face, and closed his mouth. "Thanks," he said instead.

"Do you have a place to stay in Metropolis?" Bruce asked.

David shook his head. "No, but I was going to head back to Gotham today anyway. I've got a case closed, my apartment hasn't been opened in over a week, and I need to replace my flask which got shot during a stakeout."

Diana looked at him with concern. "Is that wise? You still look quite injured, David. The journey back to Gotham is not short and you should be resting, not traveling."

"I just need to get home," David said. "Some rest and relaxation and I'll be right as rain."

Bruce didn't look happy about it, the subtle tightening around his eyes that was the Bruce Wayne equivalent of screaming, but he reached into his jacket and pulled out a set of car keys. "I've got a car here. I'll give you a ride."

David took the offer with a nod. "Appreciate it, Bruce. Let me go back to the hospital and grab my shit and then we can head out."

He stood up from the table, pulling himself upright carefully, and reached for the bill that the waiter had left. He pulled out his phone and paid for the food, leaving the waiter a tip that was probably too generous given his financial situation but Diana had ordered one of everything and the guy deserved it.

Diana stood as well, and David looked at her and held out his hand. She took it and they shook hands. 

"Thanks for the company, Diana," he said. "It was... nice. You're alright."

"You are 'alright' as well, David Beckett," Diana said with a smile that suggested she found his understatement charming. "I hope we will see each other again soon."

David nodded and headed toward the hospital and Diana watched him go before sitting back down across from Bruce.

Bruce watched David's retreating figure for a moment, then turned to Diana. "Why was he out of the hospital to begin with?" he asked. "He was admitted with a stab wound, third-degree burns across forty percent of his torso, multiple rib fractures, a dislocated shoulder, and what my docotors noted as 'cellular disruption consistent with unknown energy exposure.' He was not supposed to be walking."

Diana picked up the last piece of baklava and took a bite. "He was working," she said. "There was a missing girl, the case that started all of this for him. He left the hospital to find her."

"Of course he did," Bruce said.

"He found her," Diana added. "Her family has been notified and she will be reunited with them. He was quite happy about it."

Bruce cracked a small smile. It was there for about half a second, barely long enough to qualify as a facial expression, before it disappeared behind the mask. "That sounds like David," he said.

He was quiet for a moment, then looked at Diana. "Why are you here, Diana? You could have called. You could have sent a message through the League channels. Why come in person?"

Diana set the baklava down and folded her hands on the table, and there was something slightly bashful in her expression, an almost girlish quality that sat oddly but endearingly on the face of a three-thousand-year-old warrior princess. "I wanted to know him," she said simply. "The man who saved us. When he transformed and faced Darkseid, when he spoke those words and raised his fist, I felt something I have not felt before. I wanted to understand the person behind that feeling. You were not forthcoming with information, so I came to discover it myself."

Bruce hummed, a neutral sound that could have meant anything, "Superman was asking about you."

Diana's eyebrows rose slightly. "Was he?"

"He wanted to know if you were settling in. If you needed anything."

Diana smiled at that. "That is kind of him," she said. "Thank you for telling me, Bruce."

She stood up from the table with a grace that turned heads at the surrounding tables and inclined her head to him. "I should go... I hope we meet again." She walked away through the outdoor seating area and Bruce watched her go with the unreadable expression. 

Then he got up, adjusted his suit jacket, and headed toward the hospital to collect his idiot friend.

(AN: So David has completed his job and gotten paid for it, yeah yeah boy. Anyway we are back to Gotham next chapter to begin the next arc. This one won't be as flashy or showy as this one but it'll be exciting I hope. Anyway hope you enjoyed.)