Holy shit.
If Dianna didn't know better, this was a gunshot wound.
Dianna leaned closer, ignoring the warmth bleeding off Roxie's skin. Swelling. Slight discoloration. Bruising in the subdermal layers, but no laceration, no bleeding. No penetration. No way.
"Looks like blunt force trauma from the inside out," she murmured. "Localized. But not from a fall—there's no radial pattern, no abrasion. This was high velocity. A fast, compact impact."
Her thumb traced gently just under the mark. "No fracture," she added under her breath. "Thank God."
Roxie didn't flinch, not quite. But she didn't meet her eyes either. That told Dianna more than a pulse check ever could.
She ran the checklist anyway. Reflexes. Pupil dilation. Tracking.
"You're not concussed," she said aloud. "Somehow."
No response. Just that maddening, stubborn silence. Like Roxie was willing herself to be furniture. Like being still could undo whatever had happened out there.
She grabbed an ice pack from the little freezer drawer, cracked it, pressed it gently against the bruise. Watched for a wince. Found one.
Dianna sat back on her heels.
"Even a .22 would punch through," she said, mostly to herself. "But this? This looks like it hit you—and then changed its mind."
And then it happened. Roxie looked at her.
Not a glance. Not a flinch. A look.
Those impossible eyes—green like deepwater glass, like moss after rain, like every damn metaphor Dianna hated herself for thinking—all at once locked onto her, and Dianna forgot how to breathe.
It cut straight through her. Through the armor, the attitude, the bullshit. All of it.
Because in moments like this, when Roxie let her in, Dianna could feel the shape of the pain under her skin. The symphony of bruises. The way she carried herself like she didn't deserve to be mended.
And it wasn't just her hands that wanted to fix her.
"I know trauma," she whispered. "I know what it looks like when it's old. When it's layered. When someone thinks if they don't name it, it stops being real."
No answer. Just that too-wide stillness.
And Dianna—who didn't sit still, who never shut up, who went through life like it was daring her to blink—found herself soft.
Not weak.
But soft, like the calm in a crash.
"Don't lie to me," she said. Not sharp. Not demanding. Just quiet. "Not about this."
She didn't mean to sound like she cared. She just… did.
Roxie's breath hitched. Just for a second.
----
Roxie stared at her knees. Her vision was clear. She wasn't in *that* much pain. Just the ache under her skin and the deeper one under that.
She wanted to tell her.
God help her, she wanted to tell her everything.
That it was a bullet. A hollow point, fired point-blank by a man who'd already decided she was myth until she proved him wrong. That it had cracked her visor, fractured the helmet, and kissed her forehead like a curse. That she hadn't even blinked. That she'd closed the distance before he could scream.
That she was Titania.
That she didn't ask for this. Had never wanted to be a symbol, or a frontline anything. That she'd begged God for peace, for anonymity, for anything but this impossible calling. And that when the fire had found her, when her body remade itself into something monstrous and holy and indestructible, she'd wept.
Because turning away from that gift would have been blasphemy.
So she bore it. As penance. As devotion. As duty.
And now here was Dianna.
Fiery, foul-mouthed, chaotic Dianna. In bike shorts and a sports bra, all gentle hands and sharp instincts, treating her like something fragile, not invincible. Touching her with a reverence that had nothing to do with awe and everything to do with care. And Roxie wanted—so badly—to collapse into her. To rest her head on Dianna's lap, feel fingers in her hair, and cry. Just cry. Let go of all of it—the pain, the weight, the mask.
And worse—worse—she wanted to stay there.
To stay in that softness. In that touch. In those eyes that saw her, not the Cape. That didn't ask her to bleed for the world, just to be.
She wanted to kiss her.
Not in the heat of desperation or the rush of battle. But now. Here. In this terrible, quiet stillness. She wanted to abandon every teaching, every warning, every catechism that told her this was wrong. She wanted to drown in this girl—this beautiful tornado of contradictions. Fiery and gentle. Rough and kind. A punk-rock guardian angel with chipped black nail polish and the hands of a healer.
She wanted to fall. Into sin. Into grace. Into Dianna.
But she couldn't.
She couldn't.
She couldn't.
Because to do that would be to put herself first. And she had already been given more than she could carry. She had to bear it. She had to be strong. She had to be alone.
So she said nothing.
Let the silence settle like ash.
And when Dianna brushed a thumb over her temple, barely touching the bruise blooming there, Roxie didn't move. Didn't lean in. Didn't cry.
She just closed her eyes, breathed in, and endured.
Like always.
Dianna, still crouched in front of her, exhaled through her nose. "This is insane," she muttered. "You should be in a hospital. You should at least be yelling at me to go get ice or morphine or whatever Americans use instead of actual healthcare."
Roxie smiled faintly. "I'm fine."
"No, you're not," Dianna snapped. Then—softer—"But you will be."
There was a beat. Just one. The air between them still.
And then Dianna leaned back on her heels, rubbing a hand over her face. "God," she grumbled, "what's that stupid thing they say? That He doesn't give people more than they can carry?"
Roxie's eyes opened. She looked down at Dianna—sharp, beautiful, furious Dianna—who said it like she was picking a fight with the sky.
And she said, gently:
"First Corinthians. Chapter ten. Verse thirteen."
Dianna blinked up at her, surprised.
Roxie's voice was soft, but steady. "He will not let you be tested beyond your strength… but with the testing, He will also provide the way out so that you may be able to endure it."
A pause.
She swallowed.
"That doesn't mean it's easy," she added, quieter now. "Doesn't mean it doesn't break you open. It just means you can. Even when it feels... Sisyphean. Like all you're doing is pushing the same boulder up the same hill with the same bleeding hands."
Her voice trembled—but she didn't.
"It's not a promise of peace," Roxie said. "Just a promise that you're not alone."
Dianna stared at her. Something in her bristling tension cracked. Not with sadness. With awe. Like for one moment she saw the cathedral beneath the armor. The whole world of quiet faith Roxie carried around like Atlas.
And then Dianna said, deadpan, "Okay, well... that's slightly better than the fortune cookie version."
Roxie laughed, once. Shakily. "You're the worst apostle."
"I'm the punk rock apostle," Dianna said. "I swear and drink and hit on saints."
The look they shared after that was long.
Full of pain and longing and unspoken things.
And when Dianna pressed their foreheads together—no ceremony, no grand gesture, just contact—it didn't feel like temptation anymore.
It felt like grace.
---
Dianna didn't push. Not after that verse. Not after the look in Roxie's eyes—raw, worn thin, but steady. She hadn't lied.
She just… hadn't said anything.
And that silence? It was progress.
Roxie Shapiro, who could quote scripture with tears in her eyes and tank a goddamn bullet to the skull (something close enough) without flinching, had chosen not to lie to her. Had let Dianna sit beside her in the quiet and tend to her like she mattered.
Like she trusted her. A little.
And Dianna could've stayed there all night, curled around the ache of wanting more than that silence. But then she looked at Roxie—at the swell of exhaustion in her shoulders, the purpling bruise that had spoiled the night—and something inside her snapped.
Because this wasn't how it was supposed to go.
She'd had a whole plan.
She wasn't going to say anything. Just steer Roxie toward her room after dinner, casually open the closet, pretend it was no big deal. Let her find it on her own.
The full custom wardrobe. Tailored. Thoughtful. Bold. Everything Roxie was too shy or too selfless to ever buy for herself. Power pieces. Soft ones too. A dozen little declarations of: I see you. I care. I want you to have nice things because you're allowed to feel beautiful.
And now?
Now the surprise was ruined.
Dianna would never forgive that bruise for taking that moment from her.
But she wasn't giving up the night.
No more of this routine. No more quiet martyrdom between classes and god-knows-where bruises. Roxie needed out. She needed loud, messy joy... Like the kind she had seen on that first night when she had danced. She needed bad singing. Stupid laughter. Friends. Drinks. Maybe a flirt or two from strangers she'd never notice, because Roxie was too damn noble to realize how blinding she was.
Dianna stood with sudden, violent purpose and stalked to the hallway.
Roxie blinked up at her. "Where are you—?"
"You're going to karaoke."
"I… what?"
"Roxie." Dianna turned, hands on her hips. Her tone didn't rise—but it got sharp. Razor-smooth. "You are leaving this apartment tonight. You are going to sing badly and drink something ridiculous and laugh with people who like you. Or I swear to God, I will drag your skyscraper ass out by the hair."
A beat.
"You have new clothes," she added, bitterly. "A whole closet of them. You just didn't make it far enough to see them because of that thing—" her voice cracked into anger and grief for a second "—but you're going to wear one. Tonight."
Roxie looked stunned. "You… did all that?"
Dianna rolled her eyes so hard it was practically an exorcism. "Yes, Shapiro. I bought you pants. And maybe, just maybe hoped you'd dress up for me."
She marched back over, grabbed Roxie's hands—carefully, always carefully—and yanked her to her feet. "Now pick a vibe. Sexy librarian or tragic immortal goth. You've got options."
"…I don't know if I can."
"You can. Because I'm not asking you to explain. I'm not asking you to confess. I'm just asking you to let me steal one night back from whatever the hell keeps breaking you."
And maybe—just maybe—in the fragile lift of Roxie's lips, Dianna saw it.
That crack of light again.
That little yes.
Not surrender.
But trust.
A seed of it, anyway.
And Dianna Rodgers knew how to make things grow.
Especially when backed by alcohol, terrible music, and the righteous fury of a girl who refused to stop loving someone who kept trying not to be loved.
She had made a vow to Bernice's ghost, and by hook or by crook she would keep it.