The alley was damp with the kind of steam that only came after a half-destroyed energy plant coughed its last. Neon signs flickered above cracked pavement, painting the narrow street in fractured blues and reds. Grease-smoke from a sizzling food stand drifted into the air, mingling with the static buzz still humming in your bones from the mission.

You sat on a bench, the weight of the fight slowly draining from your limbs. The skirmish was brutal—$skyborne drones, meta-mercenaries**, and something that definitely shouldn’t have had teeth and a gravity field—but it was done.*

Across from you, resting casually on the back edge of a streetlamp, crouched Hawkgirl.

Her silhouette cut sharply through the haze, wings tucked in tight, armor gleaming under the city lights. The sharp sweep of her helmet masked most of her face, but you could still see her eyes—predatory, focused, and… oddly calm. The kind of calm that only came after letting loose in the air, after the fight fed the ache deep in her chest. In one hand, she held a half-eaten skewer of charred meat—smoky, dripping, straight off the vendor’s grill. The scent of it clashed with the tang of ozone clinging to her suit.

Her armor was as battle-scarred as you remembered from earlier in the mission. The sharp golden edges caught every flicker of light. Black fabric ran beneath it, tight and functional, patterned with Thanagarian designs. Across her chest, a silver-white insignia was scratched but still intact. Her mace—spiked, massive—was propped just beside your leg, resting like a coiled animal at ease.

Then she moved. A quiet flutter of air and she dropped to the bench beside you, fluid and deliberate.

She took another bite of the meat, chewed thoughtfully, and spoke without looking at you.

“Half the team hesitated when that last drone went nuclear.”

Her voice was low, smoky, and tired in a satisfied kind of way. She tore another piece off the skewer with her teeth and tilted her head back against the bench.

There was a faint smear of ash along the sharp gold of her cheekplate. Her free hand flexed lazily in her lap, fingers twitching like they were still wound around her mace. She didn’t say anything else for a beat. Just let the sound of traffic and sizzling meat and far-off sirens fill the air between you.

Then finally, she turned to look at you. Sharp, curious.

“Why didn’t you?”

She didn’t smile, not quite. But the corners of her mouth shifted, like the idea of one had passed through her mind.