Teamup Wonder Woman

Once upon a time, a letter arrived at Titans Tower on an ordinary Thursday morning.

This is worth noting, because extraordinary things very often arrive on ordinary mornings. They do not wait for special occasions. They simply appear, written on thick paper that smells faintly of sea-air and old stone, in handwriting that is precise and unhurried and signed: Diana of Themyscira. Wonder Woman.

Robin read it aloud to the team. When he finished, the room was quiet for a moment.

"She needs Raven's help," Cyborg said.

Raven looked up from her book.

The situation was this: an ancient being called the Dreamwarden had escaped its containment somewhere at the edges of dimensions. It could breathe out a fog that trapped entire cities in looping, confused dreams — people walking the same streets endlessly, always arriving at the same corner, always feeling peaceful and unaware that the same half-hour was repeating around them. It could not be fought with strength. There was no body to wrestle, no energy beam to block. What was needed was someone who could enter the dreamscape and navigate from inside, holding a feeling without being held by it. Someone who could be fully present to emotion without being swallowed by it.

Wonder Woman had read about the Azarathian monks and their ancient practice of witnessing. The letter said: I believe I know who that someone is.

They met Wonder Woman the following morning at the dimensional threshold. She arrived exactly when she said she would — which is the only way Wonder Woman does anything — Lasso of Truth coiled at her hip, expression calm and serious in the way of someone who has done many difficult things and is prepared to do one more. She greeted each Titan warmly, with the particular attention of someone who values people. Then she looked at Raven.

"The monks of Azarath believed that a dream-state is navigated best by someone who can be fully present to a feeling without being captured by it," she said. "I believe that is you."

"It is," said Raven.

Inside the fog, the world looped. Streets repeated. The same three pigeons crossed the same stretch of sky over and over. The light through shop windows never changed. It was peaceful, the fog — deceptively, dangerously peaceful. Raven moved through it with her eyes half-closed, following the Dreamwarden's emotional signature the way you follow a thread through a maze. It felt heavy and old, like a worry that had been sitting in one place so long it had forgotten what it was worrying about. She had felt things like this before. She knew how to follow them.

She found it in a plaza. A carved stone, about the size of two fists together, set into the ground. It hummed faintly — not with sound, but with a vibration she felt in her chest, in the same place she always felt the feelings of others. The anchor. The thing holding the whole fog together.

Outside, Wonder Woman kept the Dreamwarden occupied. CLANG — her Themysciran bracelets deflecting a tendril of dream-energy. WHOOSH — the Lasso of Truth catching a column of fog and pulling it away. She was magnificent. She was also buying Raven exactly the time she needed.

Raven sat before the anchor stone, folded her cloak around her legs, and breathed.

She could feel the knot. Not with her hands — with the part of her that had been trained in Azarath to feel the shape of things. To break it would be fast, but the dreaming people would wake too hard. What was needed was patience. Finding the one thread holding all the others. Loosening it gently, the way you untangle something precious rather than yanking it apart.

Twenty-two minutes.

And then — the knot came free. WHOOOOSH. The fog lifted all at once, rising like a long-held breath finally released. Streets uncurled. The three pigeons flew off in new directions. The people of the city blinked at the real afternoon sky.

Wonder Woman stepped through and looked at Raven.

"You have remarkable control," she said.

"I have practice," Raven said.

Wonder Woman smiled — warm and genuine, reaching her eyes. "Those are the same thing."

They walked back to where the Titans waited. Beast Boy had urgent questions about whether any dreams were animal-shaped. Cyborg looked at Raven and said quietly, "You okay?" She said yes, and meant it fully. He nodded.

They went home.