They weren't allies anymore.
They hadn't been for years, but now the boundaries blurred too quickly, too much. The elemental trials had tempered power in all of us, but power always had a cost and mine was past due.
It began when Zatanna kissed me.
No ritual, no magic. Only a desperate, wordless moment at the end of her trial by fire. Her lips seared with the taste of flame, but her eyes… her eyes had gone soft. As if she'd discovered something in me to hold on to. I didn't stop her.
I didn't stop Diana either.
She arrived later, quiet and authoritative, blood and dust still clinging to her skin from fighting with the living ground. She didn't beg. She simply took. A kiss crafted of war and princess and pent up hunger. A warning rather than love.
And Raven… Raven never required words. Only closeness. Only that eerie, fractured glance which saw too much. When I found her staring, I didn't look away.
None of it remained a secret.
The team had gone back to the Watchtower to sleep, but tension seeped into every hallway like poison gas.
It started with a look.
Zatanna entered, unrolling scrolls of old Atlantean script. Her actions were quick, precise. Too precise.
Diana stood in the hall across from her, arms crossed. "You've been mighty close to him lately."
Zatanna did not blink. "Perhaps because I trust him."
"And you don't think I do?
"I think you hold on to leadership like a shield. And perhaps you're too arrogant to acknowledge when your feelings get in the way."
The air grew heavy. I could sense it across the deck, even before Bruce grumbled, "They're going to break something."
I got there too late.
Zatanna had already conjured a flame barrier between them. Diana had unsheathed her sword not to kill, but not to play either.
"Enough," I snarled, inserting myself between them.
Neither dropped their weapons. That's when I knew this was no longer about me.
It was about them. About what I stood for. About what we'd all pretended wasn't there.
Raven stepped in last. Silent. Observing. But her eyes said what she wouldn't speak they're not the only ones with feelings.
I let out a sigh. "This ain't the battlefield. If you want to fight, fight in the arena. Otherwise, we're finished."
Zatanna's magic flared, but she dampened it. Diana holstered her sword more slowly than she needed to.
I exited.
Later, I stood by myself on the observation deck. Stars twinkled back at me in silence. The void of space was more comfortable than moving through the mesh of hearts that I'd ensnared myself in.
I detected soft footfalls. I didn't need to turn.
"You're eventually going to have to make a choice," Raven said, her voice like velvet over shivered glass.
"I didn't ask for this."
"No. But you let it happen."
I gazed at her. She didn't smile. Didn't judge. Just. existed. That was worse.
"Do you love any of them?" she asked.
I hesitated. "Maybe. In different ways."
She nodded once. "Then fix it before it breaks them. Or you."
She disappeared, leaving me alone with truth.
I didn't sleep that night.
The next morning, Zatanna avoided me. Diana addressed me only in mission briefings. Raven didn't appear at all.
And then came the report: a surge of chaotic energy near the Source Wall.
A threat was rising.
The team wasn't ready.
Not because they lacked strength but because I'd let something fester right at the heart of us all.
And I'd have to clean up the fallout. or let it burn everything down.