There was only one other instance in his misspent life that Bruce could point to should anyone inquire if he had ever experienced a similar mélange of acute want and abject panic.
It had occurred five months after the shooting of his parents, at the posh preparatory school his legal guardians had mandated he attend by way of discharging their duties with regard to his care and education.
Bruce had been hauled up to the headmaster's office with two other boys on the pretext of instigating a fight between them. As he sat on the hard surface of the stool dragged out for him – Headmaster Perry never quite entertained more than two at any one time – it was on the tip of his tongue to say, that no, he did not start the fight.
Though he did end it.
The other two boys sat with their heads hanging in contrition, hands folded neatly in their laps. Bruce merely maintained the relaxed posture he had adopted since he entered the office, waiting for the reprimand to end. Perhaps it was not fair for him to be scolded as well – after all, all he did was enter the melee and shove the larger, older of his fellow pupils away from the other and pin both down before the violence escalated.
But then life was not meant to be fair, was it?
Headmaster Perry took a deep breath upon the conclusion of his admonishment; the cost of his tirade a shortness of breath that demanded he pause for a while as he sought to regain his composure. His eyes narrowed. "I have informed your parents," he said. "They'll be arriving presently."
The other boys started, their nervousness seeping out from their every pore like a pox upon their abilities to keep from squirming. As the door opened and two sets of parents rushed in, Bruce watched grimly as furious and concerned fathers and mothers approached their children.
Headmaster Perry turned to him then – his face the picture of pity.
At that moment Bruce was filled with an intense desire for a different reality, one in which he would have gladly beaten up every single boy in his school to rile his parents into a similar state of frenzy. He bit his inner lip, because he was ashamed at the vehemence which the yearning took him, and that the little boy he was before the incident happened could still affect his consciousness, despite his telling himself every night that the world was harsh and Bruce would cling to innocence no more.
He had never spoken of how he felt then to anyone, not even Alfred. Headmaster Perry saw nothing but a sullen, proud boy perched upon the stool in his office, inasmuch as the boy was telling the part of himself that still dared to hope to perish all such thoughts.
Bruce made a vow to himself that evening, one to join the previous one he had made at his parents' funeral. He would never ever again linger on what he could not and must not have. And if he was to make the cold, cruel world he had been inducted into something else like he had promised his parents, then he had to relinquish all traces within his heart that spoke of something more with someone else.
That vow guided him as a persevering call throughout his years of learning, the truth that he could admit to himself. There was, of course, the corollary to that, which he denied all knowledge of except in moments of absolute weakness: he did not think he could bear the loss again if he tried.
But the Batman never dwelled on the maudlin.
This was his first contention as he stood, mute and unsure of how to react, as the feelings he thought he had buried so deep within himself they would never emerge again suffused every single one of his senses. He felt want. He felt a wash of terror at admitting he wanted. And the eight year old boy that refused to completely expire within him whispered, home.
He had done his research on her – file after file cataloguing her strengths and weaknesses and every damn sighting that had ever been reported. He had charts and diagrams analyzing her fighting style, her modus operandi. He even had a set of weapon designs specifically to counter her abilities.
That was not quite enough to buffer the impact in his heart upon meeting her in the flesh. She had smiled – a wide grin that spoke of her approachability and which combined with the intelligent expression of her eyes to produce a stunning effect. She was beautiful, but not so much from the tilt of her eyes or the way she carried herself, but from the innate compassion and goodness that radiated from her very being. Superman had made the introductions. Bruce barely noticed what was ensuing around him as he kept his eyes on every single aspect of the room but her, the force of everything he had never allowed himself the luxury of coveting shaking his grip on composure.
He was undone. The Batman was undone, if he ever thought of being honest about what he felt about her. She stood for truth; he spent every waking moment lying to himself and compartmentalizing every aspect of what little feelings he retained so he could focus on his vocation. She was charged to inspire the creation of an ideal world; he was the unholy defender averting destruction in a grim reality.
It could never be: if he even thought to touch her he would drag her into the labyrinthine mire of his darkness and forever subsist with the weight of the knowledge that he had destroyed the single best person he knew.
She was the sort of woman who inspired even the recesses of his depraved soul. She was his heart, and the one he could not allow himself to want, because while he never doubted her ability to love and save him he was desperately afraid of what his love would do to her. Bruce knew, and yet his traitorous self thought to resent the fact each time he came within her presence and heard her speak.
Diana of Themyscira was his sliver of light, his every hope, his final vesper when his mind strayed from the goal he had willed himself towards. And Bruce would love her till the day he died.