Untouchable
Bruce Wayne had just come from a routine appreciation luncheon in Metropolis. Before leaving the city, he asked his chauffeur to drop him off Central Park. He no longer visited the area often, and he was in the mood to reminisce. He walked leisurely, taking in the sights. He combed a wrinkled hand across his forehead as a breeze mussed his thinning white hair. His other hand gripped a cane, which he leaned on every now and then. It was a beautiful day.
Additional physical therapy had been Dana's—Mrs. Terry McGinnis—idea. The better to bounce his grandkids on his knee, she said. He was reluctant at first, but now glad he took her advice. The therapy worked well. He still required daily medication, but he was no longer as dependent on his cane as he once was. To his surprise, he discovered that playing with the grandkids indeed made him feel younger, as if the children had given him a new lease on life.
He arrived at the Hall of Justice. Seven colossi greeted him in the front of the building. Cold, silent and unmoving, they gazed down at him with sightless eyes. The Founders of the Justice League. At the center stood their trio: Superman, Batman to his right, Wonder Woman to his left. He had once looked like that. A symbol of fear that cut through the hearts of wrongdoers in the night. A lifetime ago.
It has been many decades since he had last contacted the League. He read about them on the papers and TV, of course, but he didn't delve into their affairs other than what was public knowledge. They did fine—better than fine, really—after he was gone.
His gaze lingered on Diana's statue. He knew he had hurt her, for a while, when he left. He suppressed the ever-present wave of regret. Things were better his way. An immortal amazon had no use for mortal relationships. He looked at how the artist had captured her hair, her nose, the curve of her jaw. No stone however precious could capture her eyes. Immaculately perfect. To the bat, the billionaire and the broken man, she was his untouchable.
He heard the projectile before he saw it. Age-old instinct kicked in, and he had enough time to warily move himself away from the point of impact. It crashed spectacularly in front of Diana's statue. Through the dust he could see a person. Movement from the other side of the park. A Lexcorp automaton hulked towards its target, lasers shooting continuously. The silhouette blocked each shot, in a stance that was vaguely familiar.
The other didn't need his help, he was certain, but he'd be damned if he just stood there like an invalid. He scanned the automaton for weak points. Quickly finding one, he threw his cane. His aim was true. The robot fizzed with a small explosion before dropping inert. He turned his glance towards his rescuee.
The statue's original stood before him in the flesh. The uniform was different. She wore pants—an improvement, he thought—but otherwise she hadn't changed. At all. He knew she would be like this, untouched by time. Knowing beforehand did not make it any less uncanny.
She looked around, puzzled. She saw the cane protruding from the automaton's joints, and her eyes followed its trajectory to where he stood. He knew the instant she recognized him. But she didn't gape at how much he had changed. As if she saw him as he always was, how he used to be.
"Batman," she greeted warmly.
He barely put his hands up in time to prevent getting bear-hugged. "None of that, princess." Her short laugh in reply electrified him.
Sirens blared in the distance. "That's the cavalry. They'll clean up here," she said as she dusted her hands off. "Let's go. What luck, I was just about to look for Terry, but you'll do. The League is a little short-staffed since everyone who's anyone is helping with the Scadrial post-war business."
"What post-war business?"
"I'll tell you en route."
Before he could protest, she swung one arm across his shoulders, another under his knees. She bodily picked him up like he weighed nothing. She gave him a dazzling smile as they shot off to the sky.
Bruce desperately tried to catch his bearings as they landed at the Watchtower. Wonder Woman actually forgot he couldn't breathe in the upper atmosphere without the batsuit. For once, he was grateful that a curse of being old was having to carry an emergency oxygen canister at all times. Damn metahumans.
Unlike Diana, Superman had not been immune to the wear of time. He had salt-and-pepper hair, but was otherwise hale. She walked to him, waving an envelope. "Here are the files from Lexcorp. I got careless on my way out, but nothing to worry about. And I brought a guest," she gestured.
Superman looked up from perusing the Monitor Womb consoles. His shock was evident on seeing his old friend, quickly suppressed. Not quickly enough. "Bruce. It's good to see you," Superman's handshake was firm. Of course.
"I'm surprised you're here, if there's an interplanetary war going on," Bruce observed.
"Scadrial has a red sun so I'm useless there. Then they figured, since I'm holding the fort, everyone else could go."
"What about you?" he turned to the girl.
"I was hurt pretty bad before the war ended. I had to recuperate on Themyscira." She pulled down her uniform to show him a large, healed gash over her left breast. "I don't normally scar this long. I'm fine," she said, as Bruce unconsciously reached for her.
He couldn't hide his frustration. "Alright, why am I here? Need I remind you all that I'm retired?"
Superman went straight to the point. His fingers deftly tapped the console, and a hologram of the earth materialized in front of them. "There's an anomaly in the earth's crust, Central Brazil, 20 kilometers underground. All our sensors indicate a wormhole." He typed again. Earth zoomed out, replaced by a map of the galaxy. "The other end is here," he indicated to a mostly empty patch of space, with a single star. "A pulsar. Its gravity is sucking out mass from this end."
"Do we know anyone behind it?" Automatically, he had donned the Batman persona.
Superman shook his head. "I don't think so. For one, we don't know of any being who could manipulate spacetime in this manner. I think it's a fluke. Like the K-T extinction event."
"This is far worse than the meteor that wiped out the dinosaurs. If that wormhole doesn't snuff out, Earth is going to implode."
"So, what do we do about it?" she asked.
"Wormholes are unstable," Bruce explained. "Remove the stabilizing field, the wormhole goes away."
"You mean, blow it up with a bomb?"
"Incredulously, yes. Needs to happen on the other side. In this case, since the cause is a pulsar, a resonator could work too. Redirect enough of its energy away." He pursed his lips in thought, "I may have something in storage that we could use."
"Right," Superman enthused. "Then I could fly through and—"
Bruce interrupted. "With the other mouth so close to the pulsar, it's a guaranteed one-way trip no matter who goes. We need to use a drone, and neither of you possess the precision to control one. Where's Cyborg?"
"He's still off-world," she answered. "Everyone is."
He sighed in resignation. "I'll have to do it."
Superman nodded, and zoomed in on Earth again. He pointed at the map. "Here are mine shafts that should lead straight to the wormhole. Who do you want as backup?" he asked. In missions like these, Superman and Wonder Woman were often interchangeable. It irritated him no end, although he'd admit it only after hell froze over.
She spoke first. "I'll go with Batman. Kal, we need you to monitor the situation from here." Her tone had no room for argument.
"Then it's settled."
Bruce stood by a wall-high window while he waited for Wonder Woman to get ready. The northern jet stream was clearly visible from his vantage point. Breath of the planet. Superman stepped beside him. He offered a cup of water, politely refused.
Clark addressed the elephant in the room. "You knew we dated for a while, right? A few years after Lois died."
Of course he knew. It was all over the tabloids. "I'd punch your face right now, if I thought you could feel it."
Superman was not apologetic. "I tried to be good for her. I really did. Although, even had I gotten over Lois by then, I don't think I could have made Diana happy. Funny how that worked out. No matter how much you pushed her away, even after she thought you betrayed her, she never stopped carrying your torch. I admit, I'm truly jealous. So much that I'd punch your face right now, if I thought you could survive it."
He placed his empty drink cup down. Except, the little lump of metal could no longer rightly be called a cup. Without another word, he turned and walked out.
The caverns were deep, dank and foreboding, so he felt right at home. The suit he wore was almost like full-body armor. The enhancements in this version functioned more for life support than anything else. The mask completely covered his face.
"You seem troubled," Wonder Woman said offhand.
He shrugged. The speech regulator installed in every batsuit lowered his speaking voice. "Everything just feels contrived, like I'm in the middle of a poorly-written fanfic. With so many megalomaniacs we've faced over the years, I never thought I'd go out with a bang fighting against..." he searched for words.
"A natural phenomenon?"
"The laws of physics and probability."
She smirked. "It is rather fitting, isn't it? Batman doing the impossible, up until the end."
The rest of the way down went slowly, but uneventfully. He ran diagnostics every kilometer. At fifteen kilometers, he didn't like the sensor readings. She didn't, either. "Those look much higher than Kal's estimate."
He agreed. "This could become catastrophic really quickly. We should hurry."
They ran out of tunnel at seventeen kilometers. She scooped her elbows under his armpits to support him, and she flew them down the abyss. At eighteen kilometers, the electromagnetic field readings went off the scale. At nineteen kilometers, all their sensors were shot.
Then they saw it, a gaping maw to nothingness. Air currents pulled them into the vacuum, and it took a lot of her control to keep them from getting sucked in. Indeed, the wormhole was already much larger than they expected—already large enough to fit a tank, not the size of a regular door like initially calculated. Too close, and they wouldn't be coming back.
He released the drone. It hovered shakily, waiting for his commands. He sent it down. About halfway to its destination, the turbulence was so bad he had to pause. They couldn't afford to mess up.
"Princess, smash some stone into fine dust and throw it towards the vortex." She did as he told. The sound of grinding rock was weak in the thin air of the cavern. He shone a light at the dust as it followed the air currents. He noted the areas of turbulence while searching for the clear pathway that would take the payload to where it needed to go.
He fiddled with the remote. The drone refused to turn. "The EMFs are interfering with the controls. Need to get closer. Move us closer whenever you see it wobble." She squeezed his chest gently in affirmation. Slowly, carefully, they flew deeper towards the vortex. The drone moved again.
Finally, after several agonizing minutes, he managed to settle the drone into the correct air current. He hit the auto switch. If he calculated correctly, and he always did, nothing should happen on this side. No spectacular explosion. The hole would just close in on itself. It was anticlimactic, really.
"You got it! Time to get out of here," Wonder Woman said enthusiastically. As if in answer, his arms went limp, and his entire body slumped like a deadweight.
"Batman?" She shook him. No response. She couldn't feel his breathing. "Bruce? Great Hera, NO!"
She carefully balled his body up in her arms and flew like a madman.
He awoke. He had half-expected not to. He sat up gingerly. His cowl was off, but he wore his complete suit otherwise. A quick assessment showed that his suit's body enhancements were fully functioning. Likely a factor why he was in the medbay and not the morgue.
The bed's headboard exploded. As splinters settled across the blankets, he found himself staring into a pair of very stunning, very angry blue eyes.
Hell hath no fury. "I thought you had died in my arms. Your life support had been cut off by EMFs even before we jumped down that last chasm. You knew—Of course you knew! You let me take you down there with everything but your oxygen shut down! How dare you—" She seethed, "Did you expect me to grin and bear it if I had flown you to your death?"
She glared at him for the longest second, and then her expression crumbled. She broke apart, a lone sandcastle standing tall at noon until it dissolved against the tides at dusk. Strong shoulders sagged, and her tears fell unchecked. He panicked.
"Shhh, Diana," he cupped her cheeks. "I'm still here, alright? I'm not going away for a while yet." Probably true, considering his recent track record. He used his thumbs to wipe at her tears.
She moved closer to him. Too close. A soft hand caressed his chest, tracing the symbol there. Her breath was warm on his neck. He couldn't stop himself. He claimed her mouth with his.
How could he have spent all his years without this? "Diana, I—"
Breathless. "Yes?"
"You make me want to kick my thirty year-old self in the butt."
She covered her mouth to hide a very unladylike snort, followed by unabashed laughter. "I prefer the current version. You've grown a sense of humor." Her mirth disappeared, and she took his hands earnestly. Twice she opened her mouth to speak, but no words came out. He started to pull away, but she held tight, frantic.
"Marry me," she pleaded.
That was the last thing he expected. Uneasiness crept into the pit of his stomach. The obvious reply, that she would be a widow very soon if he did, remained unsaid. He respected her too much to bring up petty arguments—the same ones he had told her, oh, so long ago—certainly she knew them before she had asked. Already it was too late for them. About time he stopped running away. It was the least he could do.
He gazed at her unchanging face, and the fates sealed around him like a coffin. He loved her. He almost cursed by the ten thousand gods he didn't believe in.
He said yes.
They were married at a non-denominational chapel in a park just outside of Gotham. It was a very private affair. Clark was present as a witness and his best man, naturally. He considered inviting Terry but decided against at the last minute—the teasing would only test his patience.
Diana had her hair tied in a knot, and wore a flowing white dress with a high gold belt in the style of ancient Greece, courtesy of her mother. Despite the short notice, Queen Hippolyta came prepared, bringing the complete set of ceremonial relics—sacred dagger, hunting horn, cornucopia. Diana balked when she suggested they perform a blood compact. Bruce suspected the queen was kidding anyway, if the subtle twitch of her lips was anything to go by.
The formal ceremony was over quickly. An exchange of vows, with the Themysciran custom of sharing wine between the couple. Bruce produced a ring—not a heirloom, as he had passed most of the family jewelry on already—but a simple piece, Martha Wayne's favorite aquamarine. He smiled, a genuine smile, as he slipped it on Diana's finger.
To those who didn't know them, they were a skewed pair. An octogenarian groom with a post-adolescent bride. Those who did know them knew the bride was by far the older.
He couldn't bring himself to be with her on their wedding night, despite her desire for him. Not that he physically couldn't. She may be able to look beyond his decrepit body, to see the man he once was—but he could not.
Diana didn't force the issue. She would take whatever little he could give her. It was enough.
They spent their following days in the manor, just being lazy. Wonder Woman had taken an indefinite leave from her league duties because of the wedding. Things were slow, and as more leaguers returned from off-world, she hadn't been needed.
Bruce surveyed the manor grounds, as he did every morning at sunrise. Diana was likewise awake, roaming the manor for some new diversion. It warmed his heart a little to know she enjoyed being in his ancestral home. He chuckled at how events have come to pass. Married to a demigoddess, his princess perfect. How lucky could a man get.
A stab of guilt. He ought to take her on a real honeymoon. Somewhere nice. Dancing. She liked that. He could manage a waltz, right? Maybe she'd meet another dance partner, someone more suited to her… His mood swiftly turned black. What a farce of a marriage they had. He never should have agreed to this.
He clenched his fists as he let his emotions tumble over him. He frowned. Something felt odd. He raised his fists to look at them. His hands were steady. His hands had not been steady in years.
He searched for a mirror, and found one near the end of a hallway. His hair was growing back, the roots black. His age spots were gone, and he could swear he had less wrinkles. He took a deep breath. His leg didn't ache. He hadn't taken any medication in days, yet none of his joints gave him pain. He couldn't remember the last time he used his cane.
A sinister thought began to gnaw at the back of his mind. No… no way. What was happening to him?
I think I'm getting younger. Unnaturally.
He remembered Queen Hippolyta's vaguely quizzical glance during the wedding as he took a sip from the Themysciran cornucopia. His thoughts clicked. He walked briskly through the mansion in search of his wife. He found her at his study desk in the library, deeply immersed with a copy of Hamlet.
"Princess."
Diana looked at him inquiringly over reading glasses. She put her book down and walked over. She sensed his apprehension. "What is it, my love? Are you unwell?"
He shook his head. "I'm not unwell. In fact I am getting too well. Tell me, princess. The ceremonial ambrosia. Was it just ceremonial?"
Realization came upon them both, like the shock of freezing water. "Ambrosia from the Gods. I know of the stories. You'll grow young until you're in your prime years again. You won't age, but you can still be killed. I didn't… didn't think the stories were real." She reached hesitantly to her newly immortal husband. The changes happened so gradually that she hadn't noticed, but now that she knew to look, she could see the signs in his physique.
"Bruce, I'm so sorry…" she trailed off softly. Slowly, her semblance hardened, and she looked straight up at him. Her voice trembled, "No, I'm not sorry at all. You have the rest of eternity to take it out on me."
He gripped her face, fingers shaking in an unbidden rage. For many years he had resigned himself to the inevitable—a violent death, if not succumbing to sickness or old age. He had fought an impossible battle against his degenerating body. It had taken decades for him to make his peace with the world. He was ready to die, but that choice had been taken away.
He belonged to the night. The night would be—must be—his undoing. He didn't want this. He didn't deserve this. A man like him didn't deserve… what? What was he so desperate against? Happiness?
She was the sun. She was too good for him. Polar opposites. White to his black. Light to his darkness. Incomparably splendid. Strong. Brave. Beautiful. Perfect.
Untouchable.
He saw infinity in her eyes. An infinity that loved him—the bat, the billionaire, and the broken man.
His misgivings faded away. He kissed her fiercely, letting himself fall into the eternal maelstrom that was her.
"You are all I ever wanted."