Choices, a justice league fanfic

All non-original characters property of Warner Bros, as is point form dialogue at the beginning of the story. All other characters and story property of the author.

Green Lantern: Anyway, why are we always talking about my love life? What's going on between you and Diana?
Batman: Nothing. She's a respected colleague.
Green Lantern: Uh-huh . . .
Batman: I don't have time to pursue a relationship. My work is too important to allow other distractions. Diana is a remarkable woman, she's a valued friend. She's...standing right behind me, isn't she?
Wonder Woman: Don't let that stop you - keep digging

Batman winced at the sound of her voice, causing Lantern to laugh. Diana sat down beside Batman. She looked at Lantern.

"So, how are things between you and Vixen?"

Lantern decided the best bet at this point was a tactical retreat. So he stuck his sandwich in his mouth and took a large bite, rendering himself incommunicado. Diana grinned at him, even as she addressed Batman.

"You were saying, Batman? Something about a 'remarkable woman' being a distraction, I believe?"

"Diana, I meant what I said, about you being a valued friend, etc. But we've been through this before."

"Oh, you mean that night outside the Iceberg, when you were about to have your suppositions challenged, but then Circe appeared? Or the morning in Toronto, or Metropolis, Washington, London? Each time we've started to talk, some disaster has struck. It's like your summoning them."

Lantern had to laugh at that, but then, seeing the patented Bat-Glare, and knowing that, while not in her sites yet, Diana could be just as frosty in demeanour, he decided he wanted to be somewhere, anywhere, else. Even though it meant missing out on seeing the Bat squirm. He left the table with a chuckle. "You two have fun now. Try to play nice."

Batman tried to derail her train of thought. "Diana…" She cut him off. So much for that plan.

"Don't even try to get out of this. I know for a fact you're not on monitor duty, and you don't patrol Gotham during the day. Frankly, I'm surprised an alarm hasn't gone off yet. Now you've clearly laid out your reasons why a relationship, beyond that of friends, won't work. The least you can do is listen to my thoughts on the merits of those reasons."

Batman had to admit she had a point. And given his druthers, an alarm would have gone off as soon as he found out Diana was standing behind him. Ideally something minor, like someone playing with his spare utility belt or something. He wasn't sure why that particular idea had popped to mind, maybe because it was mostly empty at the moment, meaning an alarm that didn't signify anything like the end of the world… His mind was wandering. She had a very… disconcerting effect on him at times. Anyway, since there was no way out of it…

"Okay, you have my undivided attention." He looked her straight in the eye, trying to both hide his discomfort at the idea of where this conversation might lead, and avoid letting her physical beauty undermine his willpower.

"Thank you. So to recap what your reasons were for not getting into a romantic relationship with… me, they were, and I quote, 'One - dating within the team always leads to disaster. Two - you're a princess from a society of immortal warriors, I'm a rich kid with issues - lots of issues', and the third was something about you worrying your enemies going after me to get at you. I miss anything?"

Batman's stomach wrenched when she said 'me'. He had hoped to try to make his reasons universal, but the second reason… Well, he'd goofed there – it couldn't be anything but specific to Diana, and he'd known it at the time. He'd just hoped – he had to admit he didn't know what he hoped. He only knew that he and Diana wouldn't, couldn't, work.

He looked at the far wall. "Yes, that was what I said."

Diana grinned, although something about it resembled the look of a shark closing on its prey. She knew what she wanted to say, and was pretty sure Bruce would have no real response to it.

"I'll start with the last reason, since I think you know that that reason is rather, umm, make that extremely weak. Do you really see one of your opponents looking at me as the easy way to get to you? I'm not exactly the damsel-in-distress type, in case you hadn't notice." The last sentence dripped with sarcasm.

He had known that night, specifically when she crushed a stone gargoyle with one hand, and without any sign of effort, that argument number three was doomed. While she had looks that would leave any supermodel a shade of green any Lantern would approve of, she was also likely second only to Superman in terms of strength within the Justice League. No, he would have to admit it.

"Diana, I know how powerful you are. But it wouldn't stop me worrying…"

"Damn it Bruce!" Her voice was quiet but sharp. "If you are going to worry about me, start now. Just an update – all of us put our lives at risk every time we go into action! So give it up – that argument doesn't hold water."

Remarkably, his admitting defeat on that point had ended up getting him in deeper. 'Keep digging', indeed.

"You're right. It wouldn't be a lot different from what you face now. I admit that, but what about my first point, 'dating within the team always leads to disaster'?"

He thought this would be a more difficult barrier to overcome. It made sense, since a fractured relationship could make it uncomfortable for those around them. And it wasn't like he was the first one to point that out. It was basically common sense.

Evidently her idea of common sense was different. "I would wonder what Green Arrow and Black Canary would have to say about that?"

"What about the Lantern, Shayera, Vixen situation?"

"What about it? You saw the after-action report from New Orleans. All three of them were there, and no problems. And issues can exist between team members without any need of romantic involvement. In case you haven't noticed."

"Shayera. And you. Still."

Diana nodded, but Batman noticed the look on her face. It spoke less of anger, and more of sorrow and loss. Maybe the time was drawing nearer when the two members of the original League could end their cold war. As he was thinking about this, the thought pooped to mind that this might provide an out from a conversation that wasn't going the way at least a small part of him wanted.

"Not thinking about trying to get out of the conversation by say, using another issue altogether as a smokescreen." She was looking right at him. He wondered what she would do to him if he tried to get out of it. He looked right back at her.

"I wouldn't dream of it, Princess." He gave her a half smile, intended to signal his acquiescence. He realised his heart was less and less in this battle. But he was increasingly aware of the attention the two of them were drawing from the rest of the room. He noticed Kara, with her super-hearing, sitting with a smiling Flash and Green Arrow on the other side of the room. When she realised he was looking at her, she blushed. Then he went from looking at her to glaring. "On the contrary, I think it might be an idea to go for a walk as we discuss matters, lest some people who are too nosy for their own good learn something that might not be in their best interests."

The look on his face as he said it prevented her taking any offence at his calling her 'Princess', a name he usually used to make a sarcastic point of one sort or another. She followed his gaze to the other table, but couldn't keep herself from blushing when Arrow winked and smiled at her. Flash had one of his trademark grins on his face, and Kara was turning an interesting shade of red. Evidently she realised she'd been found out. Diana was going to have some fun at her expense later. Her blush disappeared, and she smiled evilly at the other table. Flash's grin disappeared, but Arrow just smirked.

"Let's go." She said as she stood. "Your room or mine?"

Batman, in the middle of getting up, stopped dead. Kara's face, already red, reached a shade of burgundy that shouldn't have been humanly possible. Flash fell backward off his chair, and Arrow lost it, laughing at the top of his lungs. Batman had regained his mobility, and the glare that was his initial response to the question was replaced by a vicious smile.

"How about the upper observation deck – nobody uses it, and the benches are padded."

At this, Diana's blush reappeared, Kara relayed what he'd said and vacated the room at speed, and Flash and Green Arrow added to the confusion of everyone else in the cafeteria, not blessed with a super-hearing table mate, by laughing even harder.

As Batman and Diana exited the room, Vigilante looked at Steel and asked, "What in tarnation was that all about?"

Upper observation deck

Diana sat down when she reached the observation area, then stood again and walked to the three-inch thick window, leaning lightly against the guard rail that horizontally bisected it. Batman stood near the far wall. She could tell he was thinking. She was surprised they were still talking, that he hadn't come up with some excuse to leave, to avoid the whole issue. This was by far the furthest they'd gone in actually confronting their reality.

"Bruce?" She didn't usually refer to him by name when he was in the suit, but there was no one else within hearing, super or otherwise, and she knew it was easier for Batman to push her away than it was for the real man, Bruce, to do.

"Yes." His voice was different, lighter, not the guttural monosyllablism that was the Bat's usual means of communicating. It suddenly hit her that he'd been using the 'Bruce' voice even in the cafeteria. Not the Bruce Wayne, get drunk and burn down your own home voice, but that of the real man behind the two facades.

"Can you honestly say that the idea of a relationship, between you and me, is of no interest to you?" It was a dangerous question, she realised, but the words of a song had popped into her head as she stood by the window.

Nothing worth having

Comes without some kind of fight,

You've got to kick at the darkness

'til it bleeds daylight…

The title of the song had brought a smile to her face – "Lovers in a Dangerous Time". How apropos. She had kicked at the darkness, now to see if it could bleed daylight. She waited, it seemed a long time, before Bruce finally spoke.

"No. If I said it was true, I'd be lying. And I can't do that to you."

"Forget me for a second – how could you lie to yourself? I can't let you do that to yourself." Her voice betrayed the extent of the emotions she felt. She looked at the floor as she considered what to say next. When she looked up again, he was standing just out of reach of her.

She stepped up to him, her near six feet of height still leaving her looking up at the cowl that covered the upper half of his face. She reached out, putting her fingers on the sides of his face, her thumbs under the cowl, and lifted it up and over his head, where she let it drop, leaving it to hang from where it attached to the rest of the uniform. Now she could see his eyes. She could see the pain in them, in the way the skin around them wrinkled.

"Bruce, you said we were too different, that I was an Amazonian princess, and you were a rich kid with issues. Are you worried that I'd hurt you, or that you'd hurt me." His reaction told her the latter was his concern. She thought for a minute.

"Bruce, don't worry that you'll hurt me – I'm not that fragile. Your 'issues' don't scare me, except insofar as they might keep us from even giving a relationship a chance. That bothers me. A lot. But ultimately, you have to make a decision – do you want to take a chance, and maybe find something wonderful, or let your issues rule you, play it safe, replace the possible pain of a failed relationship with the definite pain of not even trying. I choose to try, to risk. I'm going to go now, and let you decide what you choose." Her voice was a whisper.

She stepped to the side to walk around him and out of the room. Part of her hoped he'd stop her, that he'd decided already that the potential reward outweighed any risk. But that was her heart talking. She knew it might be a while. She sighed as she entered the elevator, pressing the button that would direct it to the cafeteria level. She needed an iced mocha.

Dialogue at the beginning from the Justice League Unlimited episode "The Once and Future Thing, Part 1", property of Warner Bros, with dialogue taken from website.