Diana woke up and glanced at the little glowing clock by her bedside. As expected, it was six o'clock in the morning. Even when she wanted to, she couldn't seem to stay asleep past six. Apparently, a thousand years or so of having Philippa wake her up promptly at six every single morning couldn't be unlearned, even after a very late night of fighting another madman in a power suit in Kasnia.
With a sigh, Diana rolled over and found a better position. She really wanted to go back to sleep. She closed her eyes and took deep, slow, relaxing breaths.
Unfortunately, her brain seemed perfectly content with the mere two hours of sleep that she had gotten and, despite the protests from her sore muscles, had moved on to other things. In this case, the "other thing" was the dark, mysterious Bat with piercing blue eyes and a deep, velvety voice who had helped her in Kasnia.
Giving up on the dream of more sleep entirely (at least for the moment), Diana flopped ungracefully onto her back and stared up at the ceiling. She let her mind wander freely back to the puzzle of the Batman. He was certainly tall and handsome and his dedication as a warrior for the side of justice was unquestionable, but he was also prickly, antisocial, and arrogant. Not to mention the distressing "playboy" persona that he so carefully cultivated for Bruce Wayne.
In truth, that alter-ego thing was part of what she found so confusing. Cognitively, she understood why Bruce maintained such a strict separation between his Dark Knight persona and his millionaire businessman person. That didn't make it easier for her to accept it on an emotional level, though.
Diana was used to a world where everyone was exactly who they appeared to be. Not that Amazons didn't lie and deceive as much as anybody else, because they did, but at least you knew who was lying to you. Bruce didn't work that way, though. He would be chatting with her on a rooftop one night and pretending to be just meeting her for the first time the next day. So, did he like her or not? Or did the Bat like her while Bruce Wayne was uninterested? And how was she supposed to know when he refused to talk about anything of the sort?
She could go in circles with this train of thought forever. She had. It was likely she would again, probably many times. This was becoming a very real problem, but she had no one to discuss the problem with.
Heaving herself out of bed with screaming sore muscles, Diana made her way over to the shrine she had built on one side of the room. She may not have a proper temple to the Gods anymore, but that didn't mean that she couldn't ask for their aid. Sinking before it into a reverent pose, she let the candles and incense.
"Goddess Aphrodite, I ask you to guide me in all your wisdom …"