"Ouch!" He snaps at her less than gentle probing hand.
She swats his hand away and continues, "Oh, I'm sorry did that hurt?" She asks sarcastically.
He turns his head to look at her with a perturbed expression, "Don't give me that look. You go off on your own, almost get yourself killed in the process and with no way to contact you. Sometimes, Bruce, you are the biggest idiot in the world."
He grunts, discounting it.
Diana pinches him angrily.
"Ouch!" He jumps, "Princess, I don't know if you know this, but you have to factor in your strength when you do that."
"Maybe next time you'll remember that and stop going off alone on me." She growls.
He stands up, and she's unable to finish. He folds his arms across his chest, taking it all in, "I didn't know you cared so much, Princess."
"I…I… think you're a valued and productive member of the Justice League." She tries to play it off.
He narrows his eyes, "Sure." He breaks out into a grin.
She mirrors his stance minus the grin and just glares at him.
"Umm…hello?" Steve frowns, looking at them both.
Bruce turns his attention to the guest, "Why, is he here?"
"You're seriously worried about your identity? Here?" Diana asks exacerbated with a tipped eyebrow.
Bruce answers that with a "duh" glare, as though it's completely natural to be worried about your identity in another dimension.
"No one knows who you are?" She exclaims annoyed.
Bruce shakes his head and starts to walk out the door.
"Ummm…where are you going?" Diana asks, her voice seeming to border on furious.
"I have a theory I need to test, alone." He adds that last word with force.
Diana rushes over to the door and stands in front of it, "No, you're not going anywhere, you're injured, and you could be jumped again."
"Princess, please," He grabs his bag of clothes and starts to put on clothes as he speaks, "do you really think that I, the Batman, could be that easily subdued. You don't think I developed plans within an hour of figuring out where we were, yesterday." He explains.
She snarls in anger and her eyes grow wide, "You planned that attack."
"Well, yes," he answers as though that's been painfully obvious.
"I should throttle you for that, you come in here, looking all pathetic. Steve and I were having a conversation, and you…" She stomps her foot and Steve, who now feels all but forgotten looks around in alarm as everything shudders for a moment afterwards, "Come on, Steve, you and I are going to spend the day together." She announces.
"I don't even know you all that well." He tries to say as he stands.
"Sit down. I have things to discuss with you." Bruce growls and for some reason Steve doesn't have it in him to defy his order.
"No, you got to spend the day yesterday doing what you wanted, so now I'm going to do what I want to do today." Wonder Woman says, hands on her hips.
"Princess, this is getting us nowhere." Bruce growls in annoyance.
"You should have thought of that then." Diana narrows her eyes and responds in the same tone.
"Thought of what. I work best alone!" Bruce points out as he ties his shoes and stands up.
"Oh, yes, alone, let's not forget that. The great batman can never be in a relationship, that's why he has Bruce Wayne, playboy, billionaire." She mocks.
"It's an identity, I can't be the same person as Batman and Bruce Wayne." He says tonelessly.
"I have a question, Bruce, and I want an answer, an honest, and truthful, to the point answer." She says, folding her arms across her chest again.
He eyes her warily, with half a mind to run out the door to avoid this, but he stops and gathers himself, because he's the goddamn batman, he doesn't run, at least not yet.
"When you asked me to dance with you in Paris, did you do that for your playboy image or for a different reason altogether?" She asks, genuinely wanting an answer to this question.
His eyes grow wide with surprise, and he opens his mouth to speak, but nothing, not a sound leaves.
She shakes her head, disappointed, but he can see the hurt in all of it, "Come on, Steve, let's go. You can show me around this dimension's New York."
Bruce doesn't stop her as she and Steve exit the room. Once they leave and shut the door behind them, Bruce hangs his head and buries it in his hands in annoyance and frustration, "Why couldn't I have said something?" He mutters to himself.
However, after a moment he quickly recovers, because he has things to do, and according to his findings last night, a certain agency director owes him some answers. He decides to bury his emotions of disappointment in himself and goes to work on how to find her and approach her, because one thing is for sure, this world is going to be seriously screwed if these two are working together.
AN: Yes, I know this is short, but I wanted you to know that I am not dead and haven't given up on the story, but between my 19 credits this semester, my job, chores, and other commitments, I am swamped, but I do want to continue to post, so let me know what you think. Oh, and the amount of reviews I receive will be an indicator for how much motivation I should have for this story, so it is something to think about. Should my motivation wait until May, after the semester's out or will I post more this month? Hmmm...it's a quandary. I'm serious about the reviews, but I just hope you are enjoying the story. Thank you for your support so far. I own nothing, and I think that's rather obvious considering the fact that I am writing on this site. Oh, and anyone who wants to flame me, go right ahead, I'll just take it as you care that much to read my story and tell me what I can improve on, not that I have any, but any review is a review, thank you.