A/N: Well, I knew I was going to end up with at least one one-shot that became a two-shot. I feel obligated to have a sadness warning.

~Goddess~

The wind whipped around them, cutting through like knives. Batman paused to wipe the sleet and water off his face. Shattered glass from skyscraper windows littered the ground and his ears popped with another pressure drop.

"Do you see them?" Superman was barely twenty feet away from him but needed to use the comlinks to be heard over the howling.

Stormclouds cracked overhead. Somewhere up there was Weather Wizard. Bruce wasn't so worried about him. He was at best a third-rate supervilliam. No, Bruce was worried about his team, which included two sociopaths (Icicle and Killer Frost), Black Manta, and Parasite.

Diana touched his shoulder and dropped an unconscious Black Manta on the ground with a grin. She leaned close to him. "I bet you I'll get one of the ice villains before you do."

He pulled a grappling hook from his belt. "What do I get if I win?"

She smiled, coy. "You'll see." Then she leapt up into the stormcloud.

Clark looked at him and rolled his eyes. Bruce hooked a line on a building's flagpole. Diana and Weather Wizard were clashing in the eye of a convalescing hurricane. Once they got rid of him the others wouldn't have cover.

The storm got darker. Diana cracked a good left hook across Weather Wizard's jaw, and was nearly struck by lightning in return. Batman pulled out a batarang and tossed it up, smacking Wizard in the back of the head. Wonder Woman caught him as he fell.

"Nice shot," she said, and tied Weather Wizard to an electrical box on the roof of the building.

The storm started to dissipate. Clark, hovering thirty feet up, yelled something but Bruce couldn't make it out. Then the ground fog cleared.

Icicle and Killer Frost stood on top of a mountain of ice, policemen's bodies frozen inside, all grotesquely broken Parasite was crouched by the base of it, hunched like an animal while he sucked the life from a white-haired woman. Scattered around the villains likes flies were black-eyed Lexcorp drones.

Bruce froze. The air went dead still.

Superman swept down, knocking Parasite onto his back and tearing the woman from his grasp. Bruce swung down and narrowly missed being turned into a Batman-popsicle by Killer Frost. She giggled, a high maniac squeal that freakishly reminded him of Harley Quinn. He yanked out a batarang and started climbing up the ice.

Diana grabbed one of the robots by the skull. Lasers shot from its eyes and singed her hair. Bruce was going to have to pay Lex a little visit when this was done. The leech would have some story about how the bots were stolen, of course, but oh Bruce would give him something to think about.

Clark was still tangling with Parasite. His heat vision was flickering, He'd already had some of his energy stolen.

Icicle leapt down at Batman. Bruce parried a blow and knocked Icicle's feet out from under him. Killer Frost glanced down, still icing over innocent civilians, but he hand to take care of the other one first. Icicle scratched him across the face and it felt like his blood was freezing. He knocked Icicle away and the man skidded back along the ice shelf.

Diana had two robots smashed beneath her feet. Four left.

Clark got a good blow in on Parasite. The mutant fell back, stunned. Clark stood up, shaky, pausing for just a second in the replenishing sunlight.

And that was when it all went to hell.

Icicle slashed him across the legs and Bruce tumbled backward down the mountain. Killer Frost kept laughing. He cracked his head on one of the outcroppings and for a good half-minute everything spun.

Parasite leapt up. He'd only been playing opossum, and dove not for Clark but for Diana, wrapping his arms around her neck and she screamed as he drained her.

Killer Frost grinned—huge, wicked, insane—and fixed her hunger on the group of terrified civilians huddling in the sparse shelter of a laundromat's door.

Clark saw her intentions and went from them but Parasite dropped Diana emptied onto the ground, and grabbed him by the ankle. Clark fell.

Bruce leapt to his feet but he was fifty or sixty meters away and he didn't have superspeed.

Killer Frost focused on the small blond girl who'd gotten away from her mother, dragging up a sharp blade of ice fine enough to piece skin, tendons, bones.

Clark got free of Parasite and she hit him with a blast of ice that froze him quick. The little girl started screaming.

Killer Frost shot the blade with a burst of devilish glee. From the corner of his eye he saw Diana move, up somehow and then in a split second everything was red and he was running to her.

Blood everywhere. The little girl was curled against the wall, sobbing. Killer Frost howled with laughter. He touched Diana's shoulder and turned her over as gently as he could. The ice had torn through her like a cannonball. Red bubbles popped on her lips. He didn't want to look at her side, just brushed her hair away from her eyes.

She focused on him for a moment, and tried to say something, but she went limp and her head fell against his chest.

Something cracked behind him, the sound of Clark finally breaking free, and finally Killer Frost stopped laughing.

****#****

Clark and John were in the meeting room, boxing up the last of Diana's things to go back to Themyscira. They hadn't asked Bruce if he wanted to help. It hadn't seemed like a good idea.

Clark had expected him to go crazy, try and break Killer Frost's nose or something. But he hadn't even reacted when Clark tied her up and dumped her on the concrete. He'd stayed kneeling there in the rubble, cradling Diana's body.

When the medics had tried to take her away from him he hadn't let her go until Clark had taken him by the hand and pulled him away.

And now, five days later, they were barely seeing him. There hadn't been a funeral, of course, not in the Christian sense. They'd been allowed on Themyscira for the funeral pyre, when the Amazons let their princess's body out to sea in Viking fashion. Bruce hadn't spoken to anyone. Alfred had kept a hand on his shoulder through the entire ceremony.

"Have you seen him?" John asked. He and Shayera had been talking a lot lately.

"Only afterwards and at the funeral," Clark replied. If only he'd been a second faster. If only he hadn't fallen for Parasite's playacting. Diana would still be alive. "But according to Robin he hasn't even put on the costume since."

"I was kind of expecting him to storm in here and breaking something. Not…" John waved his hand and trailed off.

Someone knocked on the door. John opened it and in came Wally without any of his usual bounciness. He pointed towards the hallway. "Hey, um, Supes? Bats is here."

"He is?" Clark dropped the box he was carrying.

"Yeah. In Di's room."

Clark didn't wait to hear anything else.

Bruce was standing in the middle of Diana's emptied-out room. He was wearing jeans and a t-shirt and it didn't look like he'd brushed his hair. Either he didn't hear Clark come in or he didn't care, but he didn't turn from the window.

"Looking for something?" Clark asked, cautiously.

Bruce turned around slowly and shrugged. "No. I don't know." He looked like he didn't entirely know how he'd gotten there.

Clark touched his shoulder. Bruce glanced at his hand and murmured, "Everyone keeps touching me."

"It's supposed to be comforting," Clark said, and decided to bit the bullet and ask. "Are you doing all right?"

Bruce only shrugged again. Clark waited. Finally he just shook his head a little. "I miss her." His eyes sparkled and he turned his face away like he didn't want Clark to see. Clark hugged him and for once Bruce let him, didn't even resist.

If Clark had been any worse a man, he would have murdered Killer Frost.

They just stood there together for a few minutes, looking out the window at the earth that was going on mostly untouched, until Bruce's comlink beeped. He took a breath, answered it, and hung up without a goodbye.

"Who was that?" Clark asked, thinking Alfred or one of the boys.

"Philippus."

"Hippolyta's second in command?" Clark frowned. "What did she want?"

Bruce's eyes wandered towards the part of the globe that shrouded the Amazons' island. "The Queen wants to see me."

**End Part One**