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Dick’s arms were tightly coiled around his chest. In a normal man, it would just have looked like someone crossing their arms, but Diana could see the strain of the muscles, hear the rush of blood as he forced himself to remain neutral.

“Catalina Flores,” he said simply.

Diana didn’t flinch from his anger, tightly controlled as it was. “I’d hoped I wouldn’t have to earn your trust anymore.”

“Trust isn’t the same as blind obedience. Now what’s that woman doing here?”

Diana paused for one sweep of the rolling tide across the beach, watched the white foam be sucked back into the surf, then seated herself on a rounded boulder, smoothed into compliance by the punishing high tide. “Sit with me.”

“I’ll stand.”

“Dick, please.”

Teeth gritted, but with a certain looseness easing into his rigid muscles, Dick sat down beside her. He’d come expecting a fight, Diana knew. In some ways, he still thought every authority figure was Bruce.

“I’m sorry for this hardship,” she said. “You shouldn’t be subjected to it. But as an Amazon, you’re held to a higher standard. You must treat your friends better than an ordinary man. And you must treat your enemies better as well.”

“She’s not an enemy, she’s a monster.”

“You saw good in her once,” Diana pointed out.

“And you know where it got me.”

“Your mistake wasn’t in trying to ally with her, but in being too weak to be able to maintain loving authority.” Dick winced at the word ‘weak’ and Diana shook his head. “It wasn’t a moral failing. You were pushed past the point of endurance and she was able to exploit that, just as any truly weak person would. Killer Croc would’ve tried to kill you. So would the Penguin, the Riddler, Harley Quinn. But you could forgive any of them, couldn’t you?”

“It’s not the same and you know it.”

“No. It isn’t. This is a trial no mortal should bear, but it is also a flaw no Amazon can possess. Tell me, how would you fare if you fought Black Manta in battle? Or the Trickster? Or General Zod?”

“Well, if it was Zod, I’d probably die.” Dick grinned weakly. “Anyone else, I’d do what I was trained to do. Try to talk them down, but if civilians are in danger, then engage them, do whatever I can to ensure no one’s injured.”

“And if it were Flores?”

Dick was silent. It took a moment for him to even mouth the words. “I don’t know.”

“It’s very easy to talk about forgiveness in terms of people who haven’t wronged you. But the fact that she has wronged you makes it all the more important that you forgive her. If you can conquer your own rage, justified as it is, then you are Amazon.”

Dick stood up abruptly, sand skidding from his feet. Diana almost smiled. She knew he wouldn’t go down without a fight. He was Bruce’s boy.

“So, what, we give everyone a free pass? Do we rehabilitate the Joker next? Or Black Mask? Or Dr. Psycho?”

“There are those who are beyond help…”

“How do you know Flores isn’t one of them?”

“I don’t know. I believe.”

Dick pointed a finger at her, hard, cold. “You wouldn’t ask this of any native Amazon. This is all just some fucked-up test to make me prove myself to you.”

“You’ve proven yourself an Amazon a hundred times over. But an Amazon isn’t something you are, it’s something you do. Now I’ve explained myself to you. Do you wish to defy my authority or will you accept it, whatever your reservations?”

She held out her hand. Gently, forced gentleness, Dick chopped his against it in the greeting of the Amazons. “At the end of the day, you and Bruce have a lot in common, you know that?”

“I would hope so. He’s a great man. I admire him tremendously.”

“Yeah? Well, he isn’t such a good friend.”

As he left, Diana was already thinking. As angry as he was, Dick didn’t trade in falsehoods. It was very possible, at the moment, that what she was doing may have made her a good Amazon, but a poor friend. She didn’t like the idea. But this course of action had been agreed upon by Hippolyta, by Athena. She submitted to them even when she herself was unsure, the path murky.

And just as she submitted to their authority, Donna submitted to her. She was a good friend, whatever Diana was. It would fall on her now to be a friend to Dick. He needed one more than he needed an Amazon.