"Sidekicks is mostly what the villains called us or the newspapers, and sometimes it was what we called ourselves," he explained, because this was easier to answer than her other question. "It's something we called ourselves when we were together as a group, a way of expressing the frustrations that came with being the junior partner. Bruce expected a lot out of me, including one hundred percent absolute unwavering loyalty. Bemoaning 'sidekick syndrome' helped us keep going when praise was thin on the ground."

It was a strange thing to be explaining to Diana, but maybe if she ever had a chance to talk to Donna, she'd remember what he'd said. Of all of them Diana had always been the kindest, but... "And it's hard when the entire world is comparing you to someone like him, or you."

He shrugged easily, but his smile didn't return to its fullest wattage. "I don't regret a second of it. Without his training, I'd be dead hundreds of times over. Which probably tells you a lot about how much worse it's gotten. There aren't two teams, but ten or even more. When the League and the Society get together, we spend a lot of time talking about whether we haven't made the problem worse instead of better. Because the stronger and smarter we get, the better they get trying to beat us."