On the other side of the world, in Paris, Diana Prince stood before the floor-to-ceiling window of a luxury apartment in the 16th Arrondissement. She held a cup of tea that had long since gone lukewarm and gazed at the skyline, painted orange-red by the setting sun.
Behind her, the screen of her phone glowed on the coffee table, automatically refreshing Twitter's trending topics.
The two topics about "Wonder Woman fleeing the battlefield" and "If you only want to beat up weaklings, don't be a Superhero" still sat at the top. Below them stretched an endless flood of comparison images, screenshots, accusations, and mockery.
Someone had posted a blurry surveillance image of her in the Tower's shadow yesterday, captioned: "She really showed up, then! Really! Turned! Around and! Left!"
Others dredged up her past, saying she charged in faster than anyone against petty criminals but vanished the moment she faced Kryptonians.
As Diana read the posts, her fingers tightened slightly around her cup. A faint ripple spread across the surface of the tea.
She was a War Goddess. She did not pick on the weak and fear the strong!
But when she had rushed over yesterday, she had found Yongye sweeping the field. Then he had stood on the rooftop, waving at a Quinjet and shouting, "Avengers Alliance, get down here and clean up the mess!"
That arrogant, overbearing man had made her feel that showing herself would only add an unnecessary footnote to his list of achievements.
She had turned and left because she refused to accept the humiliation of cleaning up after him.
Yet now everyone thought she had left because she was "afraid to die" and "picked on the weak but feared the strong."
She set down her cup and picked up her phone. Her fingertip hovered