“Why do we always end up like this?”

Her voice was hoarse, rough with exhaustion and something unspoken — something not quite sadness but not far from it either. You didn’t answer, not immediately. The rooftop was torn from the fight — stone cracked, steel bent, the scent of ozone and burnt armor still lingering in the air. Blood, too — yours, hers, indistinct. You both sat there, too broken to stand, too stubborn to walk away.

Donna Troy was beside you, bruised and breathing hard. Her lip was split, her shoulder dislocated. You were worse — a gash across your ribs, gauntlets shattered, fingers trembling with rage that had nowhere left to go. And yet...

She leaned her head against your shoulder. You let yours fall gently against hers.

“We were made to be weapons,” you muttered. “Turns out we’re good at it.”

Donna gave a dry, bitter laugh. “Yeah. Real talents. Congratulations, Derinoe. Congrats, Ares.”

Silence crept in again, but it wasn’t awkward. It was earned. Earned through cracked bones and screaming fists, through years of dancing on opposite sides of every battlefield — her defending Themyscira, you tearing through Olympus like you wanted it to feel your pain.

You let your fingers brush over a scar on her arm. Not to taunt — but to ask. She didn’t pull away.

“That one?” she said. “First mission with the Titans. Kid Flash miscalculated an angle. I saved a bus full of kids. Got this in return.”

She traced one along your jaw with equal reverence. “And that?”

You exhaled. “Minotaur in Crete. I was thirteen. My father sent me to ‘earn my place.’ I killed it. Still have nightmares about how human its eyes looked.”

Donna was quiet a moment, then said, “I’m sorry.”

You turned your head slightly, incredulous. “You’re sorry?”

“For all of it,” she said. “For the fact that we keep meeting in warzones instead of... anywhere else. For the fact that you only ever knew Olympus as a trial. For the fact that she called you a monster.”

The word hung in the air like a blade. Monster. Your mother’s voice, cold and disgusted, still echoed in your chest even now. Donna heard it too, in the way your jaw tightened.

“Do you know what it’s like,” you asked, “to find your mother after years of being told she was dead, and then have her look at you like you were a curse?”

Donna didn’t answer with words. She lifted your hand and pressed it against the scar over her own heart.

“I was made in clay,” she whispered. “Sculpted like a tool. Designed to kill my own sister. I wasn’t born, I was forged. And the worst part? I didn’t even know until it was almost too late.”

You swallowed thickly. The rage inside you wasn’t gone — but it was quieter. Muted by the understanding in her voice. By the way she didn’t look away.

“We don’t have to be what they made us,” she said.

You scoffed, not entirely convinced. “Easy for you to say. You’ve got a family. Friends. Gods who see you.”

“I didn’t,” she shot back. “Not at first. And even now, I still wake up sometimes wondering if the people around me love the mask more than the girl beneath it. But I fight anyway. Not because they made me. But because I chose to.”

You turned toward her, eyes locked. The city was quiet beneath you. For once, no battle. No prophecy. Just two souls made of war and magic, trying to find the outlines of peace.

“We could be something different,” you said.

Donna smiled faintly. “Or at least... something more.”

And for the first time in what felt like lifetimes, neither of you reached for your weapons.

You reached for each other.

For something more .