1. I still do not own Batman, Wonder Woman, Superman or anything associated with them or the Justice League.
2. Thanks to Alittlesummerwine who corrected a few things for me and made some wonderful suggestions.
4. Any feedback, be it positive, negative or indifferent, would be most appreciated.
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A loud rush of hot wind and a flash of fiery red light signaled the appearance of his visitor. The master of the realm was not happy to see his 'guest'. The agreement they had made not so long ago weighed on him like Atlas' burden, and it was undoubtedly because of that agreement that he was here now. There would be no other reason.
"How goes my little project?" asked the newcomer, getting straight to the point.
"It is going," he responded tersely. "That is all I can say."
"Really. Have the nightmares recommenced?"
Such evil in that voice. "They have."
"Excellent. You do realize that the sooner the Amazon breaks, the sooner our arrangement will end and you will be rid of me?"
He let loose a grunt of morbid laughter at the condescending tone used by his visitor. "No one is more aware of that fact than I."
"Good." With another flash of light and heat, the visitor was gone just as quickly as he had arrived.
Morpheus, the god of dreams and son of Hypnos, the god of sleep, walked slowly to his dream pool and looked into the crystal clear water. The pool itself lay inside a large basin made of marble he fashioned himself. The heavy basin, in turn rested upon four thin legs made of gold, forged in the fire pits of Lemnos by Hephaestus himself.
The last time Ares had come to this sanctuary was not long after the Justice League defeated Darkseid…and not long after Diana found personal happiness in the heart and arms of another. Morpheus had since realized that this is what had irked the god of war and prompted Ares to deceive him in the fashion that he did, not the original reason that Ares spoon-fed him like he was an infant.
Morpheus placed his hands carefully on the edge of his dream pool and grunted. Yes, Ares was (how do the mortals say it?) a smooth talker. He remembered how the god of war came to him, moaning and whining like a spoiled child, telling of how Diana had meddled time and again in the affairs of the gods, even ruining one of his pet projects. On and on went Ares about the superiority of the gods and about how the Amazon had encroached in their domain too often, daring with unspeakable audacity to involve herself in their business.
How gullible he had been, as Ares demanded that Diana pay and that he, Morpheus, was the one with the means to ensure that the sanctity of their realms be protected. Indeed, he bought the entire story, hook, line and sinker…oh, those wonderful mortals and their colorful sayings. Yes, he had been so taken in by Ares that they had even sworn an oath together to make certain Diana learned her place and was suitably punished.
And to that end, for many months now, Morpheus had visited Diana's dreams, learning what dreams affected her the most until he finally found the key to her defeat, so to speak.
Batman.
Ares wanted her destroyed, emotionally if not physically, and Morpheus had found a way to do it, constantly bombarding her with crushing dreams about her loved one dying horribly. It would erode what was between Diana and Batman; turn everything they shared into a shadow, until she would be forced to leave him for both their sakes…leave happiness and love.
Morpheus sighed and once again chided himself for letting Ares talk him into tormenting the Amazon champion in this fashion. Diana had done nothing to him personally, and anything she did to Ares and Hades was apparently well deserved, if Hermes was to be believed, and Hermes was not prone to exaggeration or lying. He was the messenger of the gods, after all. Clarity was to be expected.
Curse Ares and his flattering and deceitful tongue!
Morpheus sadly shook his head as Diana's beautiful image came into view in his pool, asleep in the bed of this…Batman. Morpheus repressed a shudder at the thought of the Batman. The only time he had tried to enter and influence the dreams of that mortal, he received a headache that lasted for three days, and would have had nightmares himself if he were not the god of dreams.
He wanted nothing more than to leave the beautiful champion alone, to let her dreams unfold of their own volition, but the die was cast. He had sworn a godly oath with one of his own, and he could not, would not, break that oath. Only Ares releasing him from his promise could save Diana's happiness now.
With a remorse filled sigh, Morpheus reached into the pool, and into Diana's dreams…
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'That was the last of my useful armaments. I can't do anymore.'
Even after his voice left the communicator in her ear, she knew better…he would still find a way to do something to help them be victorious. She drove her fist through another mechanical spider and was jumped by two more when his voice filtered through her earpiece again.
'Batman to all points. I could use some air support…since I can't fly…at all.' There was a short pause. 'Now would be good.'
His voice was calm as he fell to the Earth. It was a calmness that was the essence of Batman. He was in control, and even if he couldn't control the situation directly, he had confidence in his abilities to figure it out. More than that, and more to the point in his current situation, he had confidence in his teammates to back him up. She wanted to go to him and save him, but the spiders wouldn't let her. Fortunately, Superman, already carrying the Atom, swooped in like a guardian angel and caught him before he impacted the ground.
She stood there a short time after that call with him, the Atom and Clark as Atom gave them the information they needed to defeat their enemy. Like the field general that he was, he issued orders to the league, tasking her with transporting and protecting their best weapon, the Atom, and telling the rest of them of the plan. He was confidence personified. She could think of no other who exuded such a sense of resolve in the face of overwhelming odds and impossible situations. Not Hector, nor Achilles. Not Jason, nor Theseus. No one.
After he sent her, Superman and the Atom towards the mother ship, he stayed, directing them as he fought. And when his voice rang out in her ear calling for air support for her, it was calm yet commanding…and obeyed immediately by their teammates. She managed one glance back in a second of reprieve from the mechanical onslaught. Metas with powers beyond the comprehension of most were losing ground against the mechanical spiders and tigers, or at the very least just barely holding their own. Yet there he was, running right into the middle of a sea of motorized monsters inflicting severe punishment on them with only two elongated batarangs and his years of expertise in using them.
She managed to catch another couple of glimpses of him as she took the Atom to their destination, and more than once, her heart skipped a beat at the sheer hopelessness of his situation. She didn't have time to dwell on it, however. His orders, his plan, his mission was to be completed. Eventually she delivered Dr. Palmer to his target and turned her attention to the horde of tigers and spiders that were intent of overtaking the League. They had to hold on and give the Atom the time he needed.
More than once she tried to locate Bruce on the battlefield, to no avail. She was still looking for any sign of him when a gigantic spider charged at her. She tried holding it at bay, but the creature ended up pushing her back until she fell. She recovered just in time to avoid being impaled by one of its legs by blocking it with her bracelet and then, out of the corner of her eye, she saw a bluish purple liquid erupt from the mother ship just as the spider reared its leg back for one more strike. Instead of coming down on her, the leg fell back harmlessly, as did the spider itself a moment later.
She and Clark found the Atom a short time later in a pile of goo that oozed out of the war machine, but through the elation that Dr. Palmer's appearance brought there was the worry that came with the realization that there was no sign of Batman.
Seeing that Dr. Palmer was none the worse for wear, she lifted off into the sky, and from her elevated vantage point she surveyed the land below, looking for the familiar dark, scalloped cape that would tell her where Bruce was. Several moments passed with no sign of Gotham's protector, when something caught her eye near the spot where she last saw him. What drew her attention to that place was a circular gathering of Justice League heroes, apparently looking at something of great importance or interest. As she neared the assemblage of Leaguers, she could see that some of her comrades had an air of defeat about them; slightly slumped shoulders, deflated postures and deathly silence.
She took in the sight of several scenes where Leaguers appeared to be comforting each other, one of them being John embracing a teary Vixen, though she couldn't understand why. Perhaps the most poignant image for her as she approached the gathering was the sight of Sir Justin, kneeling down on his right knee with his helmet gathered underneath his right arm and his head bowed as if in prayer.
She began to gently push through the crowd, most of whom seemed to be in too much shock to even register that she was trying to pass. Finally, she made it to the center of the gathering and saw what had so deeply affected some of the Earth's greatest heroes, and her heart broke.
Her knees began to wobble, and only for the physical support of the Vigilante who held her upright by placing his hands securely upon her shoulders, she would surely have fallen to her knees.
Diana felt the unfamiliar sting of tears as they filled her eyes, and she shrugged out of the Vigilante's steadying grasp and took an unsteady step towards the object of everyone's attention. She nearly fell after that first step, but her tremendous will kept her upright and she took another step towards it, then another, and another until she was next to him. It was then that her awesome physical and mental strength abandoned her simultaneously, cowardly deserting her in the face of the devastating grief the sight before her brought, giving her no choice but to collapse to her knees beside him.
She forced herself to look at him, at Bruce, lying on his back with the razor sharp leg of a mechanical spider protruding out of his chest. The analytical part of her mind, the deductive side of her that he himself had helped to mold and train, told her that he was dead, that the metal spider leg had pierced his heart. The eyes of his cowl were wide open and fully white, though that same logical side of her mind knew that his eyes were probably closed, and if not, open yet lifeless.
None of that stopped her from hesitantly reaching over with her shaking right hand and feeling the exposed part of his left cheek.
His skin was already cold.
A sob started in the deepest recesses of her soul and worked its way up to her mouth, sending into the hot sunny day a moan the likes of which few had ever heard before. It was the release she needed to be able to reach over and gather him into her strong arms. Hugging him tightly against her, she rocked him back and forth, letting her tears fall freely and whispering his name over and over again.
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Her eyes shot open, and for the second time that night, she tried desperately to focus on her surroundings. She was on her right side, nearly in the fetal position, hugging a pillow, one of his pillows, to her stomach, hugging it so fiercely that it had nearly succumbed to the pressure her powerful grip was putting on its seams.
Still holding the pillow in her iron grasp, Diana gently rolled over onto her back, then, gingerly, as though she wasn't sure if the action would be painful or not, lifted herself into a sitting position.
Diana turned her head to look to the other side of the bed. Seeing that Bruce still wasn't there, and hadn't been by the look of it, she turned with a mixture of disappointment and relief to the nightstand. Her sigh betrayed her fatigue as she realized that it was still only two in the morning.
Diana took a deep breath and tried some relaxation methods ingrained in her psyche from her extensive training on Themyscira. Five minutes of deep breaths and a total evacuation of negative thoughts, combined with a steady internal healing chant, finally calmed her enough to release his pillow.
The pillow fell onto the bed near her right leg, and deciding that peaceful sleep wasn't to be had, Diana put her slender legs over the side of the king sized bed and let her feet rest on the carpeted floor for a moment. After another deep sigh, Diana reached down to the bottom of the bed to where both hers and Bruce's robes lay, picking up her own and pulling it up over her arms as she stood up and tying it tightly around her waist.
Suddenly chilled, she walked over to the opened window and closed it gently, then looked out over his, and lately, her city. She had indeed come to love Gotham despite what most would consider its ugliness, but she had come to discover the most precious thing in the world within its boundaries: love.
Diana smiled at the thought of Bruce, and easily pulled over the large, over stuffed leather armchair that Bruce kept in the room. She had asked him once why he kept such a piece of furniture in his bedroom, and he told her how he sometimes liked to look out this window at the city. She had done it several times since then, and it only took the first time to figure out why Bruce liked doing it. The sparkling lights of the usually dark and dreary city could be mesmerizing.
Once she had the chair in position, she sat down and got comfortable, then let her gaze wander to the twinkling city lights. "Like diamonds," she thought wistfully.
Diana reached behind her to the top of the chair and pulled down the throw that habitually rested there, throwing it down to cover her entire length and reveling in the scent she found on it…his scent.
It would still be hours before he came home; hours before she would know for certain, with her own eyes, that he was safe; and hours for her to dream more of those terrible, soul-suffocating dreams.
