Author's Note: Near as I can recall, there were never any occasions in any DCAU cartoon in which we saw Diana and Tim Drake participating in the same conversation. I know Diana has visited Wayne Manor at least once before—back when the League needed a secret rendezvous point during "Starcrossed." But I don't remember seeing Tim hanging around the Manor at the time!

So I am working on the theory that, prior to this chapter, these two characters have never spoken to each other! But of course Tim will recognize Wonder Woman's face right away from news coverage (since she never wears a mask), and I also assume that somewhere along the line Batman has told Diana that the current Robin's real name is "Tim Drake."

Second Conversation: Diana and Tim Drake

Twenty-three hours after Batman had announced he was on the sick list until further notice, a raven-haired young woman in a burgundy jumpsuit came jogging up the road to the cast-iron bars that formed the front gate of Wayne Manor. In mid-afternoon the gate was closed but not locked, so she opened it by hand and then let it click shut behind her.

The driveway wound back and forth, near the edge of a cliff, all the way up to the main house. Diana wasn't worried about that—and wouldn't have been even if she couldn't fly—but she imagined it must get on the nerves of any visitors who weren't accustomed to mountain sports.

She hadn't tried to teleport directly from the Tower to Wayne Manor for two simple reasons: First, it would be rude, and second, Batman had once told the other founding members that his home now had state-of-the-art shielding hidden within the roof and the walls to prevent any such intrusion! So Diana had elected to be beamed down into a grove of trees a few kilometers away, and then to travel the last bit on foot.

In deference to Batman's concerns about "secret identities," she had placed her boots, tiara, and lasso in a backpack, and concealed the remainder of her usual costume beneath this brand new jumpsuit. She'd also tied back her hair in a ponytail. Anyone seeing a woman jogging along the road would've had no reason to think anything extraordinary was occurring . . . such as "Wonder Woman" paying a social call on a teammate!

Double doors facing the front porch. Old-fashioned iron knockers mounted on each door, but there was also a button at waist just right of the doorframe, so Diana pushed that instead of pounding on the door.

No one answered the doorbell right away.

After two minutes, her patience was slipping. Diana gently tested the knob of the right-hand door and found it was locked, then tested the left-hand door and found it wasn't. She took that as an invitation for friends to stroll right in, so she did, arriving in an entry hall that had considerably more floor space than most people's entire residences.

Still no sign of anyone . . . she untied her sneakers, slid her feet out of them, shrugged off her backpack, then yanked a zipper down the front of her suit so she could peel it off.

That was when a voice from somewhere above said, "Hey! What are you doing in—"

Diana finished tugging the last bit of the suit off her right leg before she looked upward to see a dark-haired teenage boy peering down at her from a balcony. Either her face or her now-revealed costume must have served as adequate credentials; instead of further challenging her right to be here, the lad gulped audibly before saying, "Wonder Woman!"

"The door was open, so I let myself in," she called up to him as she bent over to open the backpack. "I want to see . . . Bruce." (She'd nearly said 'Batman,' but thought better of it. That looked like the current Robin with his mask off—Tim Drake, in other words—but there might be guests in the house who didn't know all the family secrets.)

She had pulled her tiara and lasso out of the pack, restored them to their rightful places, and was working on the second boot when Tim arrived on the ground floor.

"Well, it's a pleasure to meet you," he said now that they were on an equal footing. "You can speak freely; there's only the two of us up here. Bruce and Alfred are down below."

"How is he?" she asked immediately, deciding to postpone any getting-to-know-you small talk.

Tim appeared to be fine with that decision; he ran one hand through his hair and said, "'Still unconscious, but all vital signs stable.' That's the word as of four hours ago, when I saw Alfred at lunch. If anything had gone wrong since then, I'm sure he would have yelled for help."

She chewed on the implications of that status report. "'The word'? You mean you haven't seen for yourself?"

"I haven't laid eyes on Bruce in a couple of days," Tim nodded. "I wasn't around when he went after Doctor Death, and Batman doesn't want me coming down there to pester him or Alfred if I'm not needed. He may not be contagious, but he wants it treated like a quarantine ward down there. For the time being, Nightwing and Batgirl are working out of a smaller 'cave' located under Wayne Enterprises HQ, downtown. Unlike Nightwing, I still sleep under this roof, but I was going to meet them there tonight and get all suited up. Near as we can tell, the underworld hasn't figured out Batman is out of action, and we want to keep it that way."

"But he doesn't have anything contagious, as I understand it?"

"Apparently not. Alfred's come upstairs occasionally, and he doesn't seem to be changing color or anything. He was looking a bit tired, last I saw, though, but that's no surprise."

"Then why did Bruce put himself in what amounts to quarantine?"

Tim shrugged. "We've talked about that—us younger folks, I mean. Nightwing thinks it's a matter of pride, mostly. As in: Bruce just can't stand the thought of us seeing him looking so unconscious and vulnerable, so he made sure we wouldn't. Batgirl's theory is a little different: She thinks he's doing it for our own psychological protection, so that when we're out fighting crime on his behalf we won't constantly be getting distracted by worries about how bad he looked the last time we saw him!"

"And which side do you favor?"

"I think they could both be right! Barbara has a darn good point: It's easier not to obsess over something messy if you haven't seen it with your own eyes, even though intellectually you know it's still happening."

"Out of sight; out of mind?" she asked, and Tim nodded while carefully keeping his eyes focused on her face.

Diana had long been amused by the effect she tended to have on young men meeting her for the first time. You'd think they had never seen a woman before—which was ridiculous in a world that had over three billion female inhabitants. Tim was doing a much better than average job of not letting his gaze linger on her chest. In fact, she was tempted to congratulate him on that achievement, but refrained for fear he'd probably assume she was mocking him instead of meaning it most sincerely as a tribute to his good manners and self-control!

Brushing that thought aside, she steered the conversation toward the essential point. "Tim, I'll be frank with you. I plan on going down there and seeing with my own eyes just how your mentor is doing."

The lad appeared to be gazing off into the distance as he said reflectively, "I'm sure Bruce wouldn't object to you, or any of his fellow 'founding members,' hanging around as a guest up here in the house. But in case I didn't make it clear: He left strict instructions that he didn't want anyone but himself and Alfred going down there into the Cave without dire necessity . . . and not going into the hospital area at all, unless and until we were specifically invited."

She paused, unsure how to take that. "Are you saying you'll have to try and stop me if I break Bruce's current rule by heading down into the Batcave right now?"

Tim was the very picture of wide-eyed innocence. "Stop you? What for? I just thought I'd mention it."

Diana had been a rebellious adolescent, once upon a time—and not all that long ago, either. She only needed a moment to reverse-engineer the logic. "You mean that this way, when Batman asks if you informed me of the current No Visitors Policy, you can truthfully say that you did?"

"Bingo!"

She smiled warmly. "Well, now that we've gotten that formality out of the way, check me on this. I've only been here once before. From where we're standing: If I want to visit the Manor's library, I should go down that corridor, turn left . . ."

"Then take the second door on the right, and you've found the library!" Tim agreed. "And if you want to borrow a book, that's fine, but whatever you do, while you're in there you absolutely should not walk over to the big grandfather clock, reach into the front of its case, feel for the hidden switch about six feet above the ground on the right-hand side . . ."

He continued describing what no one was allowed to do at this moment in order to quietly open the secret entrance to the Batcave without triggering an alarm!

"Got it," she said briskly when his lecture was done. "If anyone asks, I'll say you gave me fair warning! Good luck patrolling the streets tonight! If you and your friends happen to need some heavy-duty backup, I'll probably be hanging around Gotham for a while. Just scream in agony over the airwaves and I'll come find you in a jiffy!"

"I'll try not to take you up on that," Tim said with a grin.

Author's Note: I'm a great admirer of the sage advice which Alfred Pennyworth once gave to Dick Grayson (Robin) and Barbara Gordon (Batgirl) in "The Joining," the final episode of the fourth season of the animated series The Batman. After Bruce had given them an order which struck them as an Incredibly Bad Idea, Alfred offered the following pep talk:

"There are times when I, too, disagree with Master Bruce's decisions. And when that happens, there's something I do that never fails to lift my spirits. I disobey him."

Of course you know and I know that The Batman wasn't a DCAU series, so that adventure never happened to any of the characters in this fanfic . . . but I figure the basic principle still applies! It's quite possible that this timeline's version of Alfred has said much the same thing to one or more of Bruce's proteges (such as Tim), somewhere along the line, in a scene which we simply never saw!