DIANA AND FLASH WERE ALLOWED TO STAY HOME FROM SCHOOL. Rosie tried to convince Jesse to take a day, but the girl, true to her nature, didn't want to let her father's actions hinder her from going on the school field trip she had been excited about for the past few weeks.

"Screw dad, I'm gonna go to that field trip and enjoy myself," she announced before closing the door and heading to school by herself.

Flash smiled at the ceiling as the conversation they had been listening to finished. "She's the strong one."

Diana frowned and moved closer to him, holding onto his arm. "You're both strong, shut up."

He didn't reply and instead turned onto his side to face her and closed his eyes, the two quickly falling back to sleep, not waking up until the afternoon.

º º º º º

Diana woke to the sound of Flash's crying and the news of the Staten Island Ferry.

In the living room was Rosie playing the news loud enough to be heard over her ironing, the sounds of the reporters giving a breaking news report on local Queens hero Spider-Man trying to save a ferry and being aided by renowned hero Iron Man.

Next to her was Flash who was still asleep. He wasn't loud like he used to be, but was quiet. If she hadn't been straining to her, she would have missed it entirely. She shook him awake, watching as he jolted away from her, hands going up to his face before lowering, recognizing her.

"What's up?" he coughed, wiping away the stray tears from his cheek.

"Spider-Man," she breathed, already on her phone and looking at all the articles explaining in detail about what had occurred those hours before. She took a deep breath and sighed. She screwed up. She decided to sleep in and wasn't there to stop him or to do anything. "I gotta go."

"What?" he asked, sitting up, watching as she jumped to her closet, pulling out the first set of clothes she found. "Where are you going?" He looked away as she began to get dressed, throwing her her deodorant that was on her desk.

"Nicky's," she breathed, adjusting her sweater, then moving to pick up her earrings from the desk.

"Wait, wait, wait," he said, standing up and grabbing her shoulders, forcing her to look at him, "Why?"

"Why what?" she asked, avoiding his eye.

"Why are you always going over there, what's he gotta do with Spider-Man?" He shook his head. "What have you been doing, Diana, you're always over there."

She shook her head, pulling away. "It's hard to explain..."

He frowned. "Try me." He let her move away, but crossed his arms, knowing she wouldn't just leave.

She sighed, her leg shaking; she needed to leave. "Flash, please, there are just some things I can't tell you. It's not you, it's me."

He scoffed. "You did not just use that line on me, I'm your brother, not your ex." He sighed. "Does it have anything to do with your family?"

"You are my family," she replied immediately.

His expression softened only slightly. "You know what I mean."

She pursed her lips. She had still been talking to Daisy and Danny, though she found that she liked talking to them less and less as time wore on. Still, London was a possibility she was still considering. "This doesn't."

He nodded and moved back to the bed. "Okay. You'll find me here."

She sighed and moved forward to hug him. "I'm sorry, Flash. I'll be back soon. Promise."

"Yeah, whatever, have fun," he yawned, closing his eyes and resting his head on the pillow.

She looked down at him, pursing her lips. She wanted to tell him. It wasn't to the extent of Peter wanting to tell Liz, but she wanted to tell Flash because maybe then he would understand that she cared for him as much as he did for her. He was the one who introduced her to Spider-Man in the first place, he loved Spider-Man. If he knew it was Peter, maybe then there would be a level of respect.

But it wasn't her secret to tell. So she would just have to live with her choice.

Pocketing her phone and sticking in her earrings, she walked out the door, grabbing her keys. Rosie asked her where she was going and she called back a short 'out!' before exiting the apartment and running to the elevator.

She needed to see Nicky.

º º º º º

She fumbled with her key as she reached their floor, bursting into the room, breathless; she had run from the station all the way to their building, barely stopping as she unlocked the gate.

"Diana?" Nicky exclaimed, standing up from the couch, "What're you—?"

"I need the weapon," she announced, moving to stand in the middle of the room, "I need it."

He shook his head. "No. No, no, no, no, no, Diana, we talked about this—"

"No, you talked about this," she interrupted. She had never spoken with this much sureness and conviction in all her years of living. "You and Rhett talked about this, now it's my turn."

He paused, shocked. Then he found himself and waved his arms. "No. No, Diana, this isn't up for discussion, you can't have it—"

"Why not?" she demanded, "Look, it's a weapon designed for me, I should have it because you made it for a reason. I understand the reason."

"Do you?" he shouted, "Do you really? Because I don't think you do. You didn't when I first tried to give it to you and you were the one who said you didn't want it, what changed your mind?"

She threw her arms to the side. "The fact that Flash nearly died! Twice! The fact that Peter nearly died saving him the first time, then nearly died earlier today! You said my job was to keep me and Peter safe, I can't do that without it."

"Yes, you can," he said, trying to placate her, "You've done it for this long, you can just keep doing it." She opened her mouth to argue, but he held up his hand. "No, let me talk. You've been doing it for so long and you're just afraid you can't keep up, but you can. Diana...we're not supposed to have weapons. That's not how we're supposed to do it."

"Who is this we?" she demanded, "And how did 'we' decide that we don't need weapons."

"You can't always put the safety of the people in the hands of giant weapons!" he exclaimed.

He sighed and rubbed his face. "Sometimes, you need to use other means."

"But I've already used the other means," she pressed, "And they still work! But you need to look at other alternatives. You can't just keep staying in one place."

"Diana," he pleaded, "We don't use weapons. We don't need them, not for what we do!"

"Well, maybe we need to start doing more!" she exclaimed, "Maybe we should stop waiting for the aftermath and work for prevention, not just cleanup. You already do!"

He just sighed. "Why do you need it? Why do you want it so badly?"

She held her ground. "Because my world changed without me. It's time I caught up."

º º º º º

When Nicky entered the room, it was revealed that Rhett had been listening in and playing epic fight music. Nicky just threw his phone, scowling when the older man gave Diana a thumbs up.

"I swear, I'm dealing with children," Nicky grumbled, searching around for the box, unused to Rhett's hiding places.

"What happened to you?" Diana asked, "You used to be the child, what happened?" She had barely seen much of him, but every time she did, he seemed to be aging drastically.

"Life and responsibilities that come with being someone like me," he said, finally digging out the box, "Someone who tries to use his skills for good, but ends up trying to be exploited by people who aren't. Someone who just wants to do the right thing and keep a teenage girl out of a fight that's bigger than her. But I'm just a guy who doesn't want to hurt people. Maybe that's my problem."

"You're not the problem," she said, crossing her arms, "They are. Standing by what you believe in isn't easy. They're gonna want you to move, but you have to stand your ground and tell them to move."

"Then what are you doing?" he asked.

She licked her lips. "Just because you're holding your ground doesn't mean you can't do things to make it easier to."

Nicky smiled softly, looking at Rhett. "Look what I did. I made a hero."

Diana smiled. "A hero of heroes. Just like you."

He shook his head. "No. No, you're not like me." He reached down and opened the box, pulling out the smaller case, handing it over to her. "You're better."

"She's the new generation," Rhett piped up, "She can't do things the same way, the world just won't allow it. But she's still like you. Believe me, I know generational gaps."

Nicky just smiled and motioned for her to open the box. "Go on. You wanted it this bad, don't get cold feet now."

She moved to sit down next to Rhett, opening the box. Inside was a bracelet that was a little too large for her wrist. It was rose gold, same as her earrings, but didn't have anything blue on it. She glanced up at Nicky who motioned for her to put it on.

She did and noticed that it was more of a bangle than anything else. "It's pretty," she said, because she couldn't think of anything else to say.

"Okay, hold on, I'm going to get the other one," he said, walking out of the room and into his own.

"Other one?" she asked, looking at Rhett who shrugged.

"I made another one in case I didn't like you just having one and I'm glad I did because I was right, I hate it not being symmetrical. Here, can you put this one before I break my wrist?" He handed her another bangle, shaking out his hands.

"So what do I do?" she asked, slipping on the other one.

"Well, you don't need to use the other one to use one," he began, "But all you gotta do is push it inwards. Like this," he reached over and placed his thumb and forefinger on either side of the bangle and pushed inward. Suddenly, it contracted and clung onto her wrist, the material expanding outwards towards her hand, encasing it in a metal. He quickly did the same on her other hand, the same process occurring.

She gasped and stared at her hands in shock. They were pink gauntlets with joints mimicking those of her wrist and knuckles. She turned her hand around to stare at the blue circles in her palms, the same color as the buttons of her earrings.

"They're hooked up to your earrings which have actually been adapting to the sensors I injected in you when you fell asleep that one time while you were doing homework."

She whipped her head up to stare at him. "You did what?"

He smirked. "Feels weird, doesn't it? You helped me figure out how to track Peter, actually, his is less extreme than yours, but I had to do some tweaking for his. You see, it basically adapts to your entire body to the point where, if I wanted, I could make your body self destruct and kill you from the inside out."

She moved closer to Rhett who was shocked as well. "Is this a threat?"

He shook his head. "No, it's an explanation. This is a lot. You can basically control how this works by thinking. Of course, I had to program it a certain way to do certain things, so it's not as if you're all powerful all of a sudden, you just have to focus in on the commands that I've programmed. So we're going to have to work to get you to control these right."

Rhett grinned. "You're gonna train her?"

Nicky shrugged. "If I'm not, who is? Besides, who else am I gonna give all the junk I made to?"

"You made me other stuff?" she asked, eyes brightening.

He snapped his fingers. "Don't even think about it, you need to figure out how to use these first, got it?"

She nodded eagerly, taking a deep breath. "Okay."

"It's nice to meet you..." He smiled and glanced over at Rhett. She could see the giddiness in his eyes. This was the Nicky she knew.

"Iron Maiden."

AUTHOR'S NOTE

( 08.08.17 )

Don't you like the way Diana sorta resents Tony yet she based her name off of him? Doesn't that show her feelings towards both him and herself? Isn't it great that I accidentally did all of this with that throwaway line during that one chapter? Isn't it great?

I also based Nicky's line about the "you can't hold the safety of the people in the hands of weapons" off a line from a line from Voltron Season 3, if no one caught that. It was a magnificent line, watch Voltron so you can hear it it's lovely.

I also based his need of symmetry off of my own need for symmetry, complete with the hands waves because that's how I feel whenever things aren't even.

We're nearing the end, you guys, I might cry. I am going to cry. We've come so far, you guys. This is making me so emotional. But I love this story and I love Diana and for those wondering, there won't necessarily be a sequel until Infinity War comes out, but she will appear in Past Lives and hopefully in the Sam Wilson fic I have planned with Nicky as the main character. So you'll see her again.

So yeah! Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed!