I feel compelled to state once again that there are spoilers in this story, and in this particular chapter, for 'Superman Returns'.

And thanks to Jenn for taking the time to help me with this.

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Diana stood in the Batcave, totally stunned beyond rational thought by Bruce's actions and what Alfred said. "What…am I…Alfred?"

Alfred looked into the pleading eyes of Diana and nearly winced. He had seen disappointment in the eyes of Bruce's female companions far too often in his decades of service, but he fervently hoped that he would never have the opportunity to see it in Diana's eyes. It was not to be, however. As her eyes held his, he realized he had never before seen such confused devastation in any of Bruce's lady friends as he saw in the eyes of the Amazon Princess.

Alfred placed his hands gently on her shoulders and guided her carefully to the main chair in front of the computer. When she sat down, he reached over to the console and began typing commands. "Master Bruce believes his security features are known only to himself. Needless to say one does not spend as much time as I do in this cave without picking up on some things."

Diana couldn't help but smile at the undisguised smug satisfaction in Alfred's voice.

As he pressed key after key, he spoke quietly to Diana. "Master Bruce…he cares for you very much, Miss."

The comment seemed to shake Diana out of her stupor. "What? I know, Alfred. I…Alfred you know I love him. Very much."

Alfred's typing hesitated for a millisecond. "Yes, Miss...I do indeed." He stood up straight, clasped his hands behind his back and again regarded the monitor. "I just hope that you realize the true depths of his love for you, Miss, despite his unfortunate tendency for presenting to you the opposite."

Diana followed Alfred's gaze to the monitor and was shocked to see the image from the Watchtower conference room. "This is what Bruce was looking at?"

"Yes, Miss." Alfred nodded though she wasn't looking at him. "When I came down here, not long before your arrival, he was looking at this, rather intently I would say."

Diana studied the image and remembered Kal's first day back with the League. He was there along with everyone else, including Bruce. She smiled at his place in the picture, so like him to be in the background as far away as possible from the center of attention. "I don't understand, Alfred. Why was he looking at this?"

Alfred hesitated and she turned towards him. "Please, Alfred. If you know anything about why Bruce is so…" She didn't even know how to describe it. "I need to know, Alfred."

Alfred realized that she did indeed have a right to know, and he doubted very much that his stubborn master would willing, or able, to tell her. He sighed slightly and bent down to the console again, punched a few more keys and resumed his previous position. When Diana looked back to the monitor her eyes opened even wider than before. On the screen was the cropped version of the previous image made up predominantly of her and Kal. She turned to Alfred once again.

"He was sitting here, Miss", stated Alfred quietly as he looked at the image, though he could still see her out of the corner of his eye, "looking at this when he said to himself, 'There it is. The fourth reason'." He turned his head to his left to look at Diana and asked, "Do you have any idea what that might mean, Miss?"

Diana sat back in the chair. Her eyes focused on nothing in particular as she thought hard about Alfred's question. "The fourth reason", she repeated internally. "Fourth reason? For what?" She looked up and her vision came into focus on the picture of her and Kal. For a blink of an eye something inside her commented that it understood why the press, and even some of their friends, always said they were a cute couple…that they belonged together. "Cute couple?" She sat up in the chair and her eyes opened wide in realization. "The fourth reason", she muttered out loud followed by a feeble, "Hera." She felt the color drain from her face as her mind went over the information.

None of which escaped the attention of Alfred. "Miss?" Prompted Alfred after several moments without further explanation.

Diana's head shook from left to right slightly as she tried to explain. "Years ago", she began softly, "Bruce and I were on a stakeout. There was talk that Intergang wanted the Rosetta Stone. Anyway, as we waited I made a comment that…" she smiled weakly as she glanced at Alfred, "…well, let's just say that Bruce felt compelled to give his reasons against our being in a relationship." She looked at the monitor and added softly, "There were three reasons."

Understanding bloomed in Alfred's mind. Bruce believed that the return of Superman posed a threat to his relationship with Diana. "Absurd", he mumbled crossly.

Diana never looked at Alfred, though she agreed with his statement wholeheartedly, and then some. Reaching over and hitting the necessary button, she brought the first image back up on the monitor. She studied Bruce, noticing for the first time the hard set of his jaw, the narrowed white eyes of the cowl and the fact that his cape was drawn tightly around him. Knowing him as well as she did and with the understanding of what he might have been thinking, she'd be willing to bet her lasso that his hands were closed into white knuckled fists underneath the cape.

Finally, she looked up to Alfred.

"Where is he Alfred?"

Her voice failed to restrain the anger and disappointment she felt for both Bruce and herself, causing Alfred to flinch at the sound of her voice. Guilt and remorse overrode her anger, but just for a moment. It was just too strong to be kept at bay for long.

Alfred hesitated for a moment, gauging the situation as he had done countless times before to see if any good could come from what was apparently a no win situation. Finally he reached over and searched for Batman's locator beacon. Alfred had been around heroes and villains long enough to know his limitations. In his final analysis, a seething Amazon was a force that was beyond even his ability to successfully deal with.

Alfred's mouth formed a tight line, separating only enough to tell Diana the bare minimum of what he saw on the screen. "It appears, Miss, that he has disabled his personal locator beacon."

Diana's blood was boiling. Struggling to keep her composure in front of Alfred, she took a deep breath and was disturbed by the very un-Amazon like shudder that accompanied the action. She attributed it to the blazing fury that she felt at the moment, but deep down in a place she rarely let herself visit rested the fear that something had happened to him. He hadn't been gone long enough for anything to happen, her mind tried to tell her, but she knew that in his line of work it didn't take long.

"Please, Miss", Alfred placed his hand on her right hand, as he spoke reassuringly, "it is not an unusual occurrence." When Diana turned to him with her eyes full of worry he continued. "Master Bruce occasionally turns of his locator if he is meeting a", he hesitated for a moment, "sensitive informant." She still didn't look convinced. "Master Bruce's paranoia, for lack of a better term, demands that he protect his informants, Miss Diana. He believes that, despite his numerous precautions, there is the remote possibility that an outside source may be able to tap into his signal."

She sat motionless for a moment and thought about Alfred's explanation, and it sounded like Bruce for sure. Besides, she had never known Alfred to lie to her, never known him to sugar coat anything. "Did he have any such appointments tonight, Alfred?"

He had hoped she wouldn't ask that question. "Not that I am aware of, Miss, though with the master one hardly knows for certain."

"What about the Batmobile, Alfred?"

Alfred leaned forward and punched a single button, then stood back to allow her to read the information.

Diana placed her hands on the computer console and said to Alfred, "Thank you, Alfred", then pushed herself up out of the chair. She walked in a strong and steady stride the turntable that was the Batmobile's usual resting place then lifted into the damp air of the cave. She glided up to the takeoff tunnel reserved for the Batwing and flew into it. She knew the tunnel intimately having used it before on many occasions and had no concern at her velocity. The runway lights flashed in her eyes at an increasing rapidity as she pushed herself to go faster, and seconds later the chilly night air greeted her as she zoomed up into the dark Gotham skies.

Diana took a calming breath, got her bearings and headed to where the Batmobile was parked.

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"They still haven't fixed it", thought Batman as his gauntleted hand gently ran over the rough surface of the statue. He was somewhat surprised by the discovery. The gargoyle whose head Diana crushed with only her right hand was still headless after six years.

He looked over to the Natural History Museum and remembered that night, the night he gave Diana his reasons for not pursuing a relationship. He almost smiled as he remembered the look on her face that night just after decapitating the gargoyle. She looked at him as though he hadn't stated anything important, let alone relevant to their discussion. Dating within the team leading to trouble, immortality and issues, and concern for her safety. They were the best reasons he could come up with, the ones he kept telling himself whenever his desire for her reared its ugly head. She spent the next few months proving that he hadn't said anything that mattered; that his excuses were hollow attempts at keeping her away from him. Her tenacity finally wore him down. It was one of her attributes that endeared her to him.

"The fourth reason." The mantra echoed through his mind during the entire drive from the cave to his staging point. It even rang out as he aimed and fired his grappling line up to his first target.

And it repeated itself now as the memories played themselves out.

Batman sighed heavily, just as the alarms went off. His head snapped to the Natural History Museum just in time to see the all too familiar silhouette of his nemesis bolt through the side door.

He pulled out his grapple, aimed and fired as he mumbled, "Joker." He jumped off the building even before the grappling hook hit its target. As soon as it did he hit the high-speed retractor and he sped through the night sky to land silently right in the middle of the Joker's escape route.

Joker was looking behind himself as he ran down the alley and didn't see Batman blocking his path, that is until he turned just in time to see his least favorite bat in the world. He swerved to avoid hitting the Caped Crusader, only to have Batman throw a bola around his ankles. Joker crashed to the ground, his loot, a variety of very rare Spanish doubloons, flew out of the makeshift sac the Joker had in his hands and began spinning all around him.

Batman slowly walked up to the super villain. "Gold, Joker?" The right side of his mouth lifted just a little bit. "You must be running out of original ideas to be resorting to petty theft."

Joker untied the bola and lifted his right knee up to rest his elbow on it. As he laid his chin on top of his hand he responded. "Even I have to pay the bills, Bats." His hand left his chin and he wiggled his index finger at Batman as he added sadly, "First-class henchmen don't come cheap you know!"

Batman was expecting something more. Some sort of unflattering dig; a question about how Batman knew to be there at the right time; even the usual 'You're despicable'.

Nothing.

Nothing except the slow expansion of an evil looking smile (was there any other kind of smile for the Joker?) on his face. Batman's eyes narrowed and he stepped quickly to his left just in time to avoid the Batman-sized wooden mallet of Harley Quinn.

He had to duck to avoid the mallet again and it went crashing into the wall causing a significant hole in the brick facade. Harley tried to pull the mallet out, but it was wedged in the hole it had made too tightly. Forced to abandon the mallet, she turned and put up her hands in the classic karate starting position.

Batman lifted an eyebrow and quickly scanned the area. No more henchmen were around, and Joker had taken the opportunity to make himself very scarce.

"Arkham is waiting, Harley", Batman stated in his gravelly voice, "and Joker has abandoned you." He narrowed his eyes at her and intensified his scowl.

She was unfazed by his effort.

"Not a chance, Batsy! Let's go…my puddin' is waiting for me." Harley tried a spin kick to his head with her right foot, which he easily avoided. She charged towards him and he simply moved out of the way, slapping one side of a set of Batcuffs onto her right wrist. She came to a skidding halt and watched the cuffs dangle from her wrist in astonishment.

She growled and came at him again, and once again Batman deftly avoided the charge. Harley tripped and began a fall towards the wall and she managed to twist enough to avoid going face first into the wall. Instead she hit the wall back on with a resounding and very painful thump.

Harley shook her head to clear away the stars that had magically appeared around her head when she realized that both her wrists were now connected to each other via a set of Batcuffs. Her eyes bulged open as she looked up to see Batman slowly approach her.

She didn't have time to come up with a witty barb, biting comment or plea for mercy. Just as she opened her mouth a very small piece of debris hit the top of her head, followed quickly by a larger piece that hit her left shoulder. Harley Quinn saw Batman smirk ever so smugly, and then tipped her head back to look up to find the source of the falling objects. Her eyes focused just in time to see her mallet dislodge itself from the wall and descend rapidly towards her head.

All she had time to say was a very soft, "Uh oh", before her lights were turned out.

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Thirty minutes later two of Gotham's finest led a conscious Harley Quinn past Batman and Commissioner Jim Gordon.

As she passed by him, Harley smiled and said in as cheerful a voice as he had ever heard, "We'll see you soon, Bats."

Batman narrowed his eyes. As he stepped forward he growled, "Wait." The guards stopped and faced him. Batman walked up to face Harley, then shot a menacing glance to each of the guards who simultaneously swallowed and backed off.

He relaxed his posture minutely and his voice was a gentle baritone when he spoke. "Why?" His jaw twitched as he thought for a moment about the wisdom of having this discussion with Harley Quinn. "He abandoned you tonight."

Harley looked into the cowl-covered eyes of Batman and answered his question like it should have been obvious. "I love my puddin'."

"Love isn't always enough." Batman took a quick breath, narrowed his eyes and added harshly, "He left you here tonight to take the fall. Betrayed you. That doesn't bother you?"

"No, Batman…it doesn't." She leaned in closer to Batman and whispered with as much sincerity as he had ever heard from her, "Because no matter what he does, he comes to get me or he waits for me." She looked him square in the eye. "And I know he needs me."

She stepped back and Batman couldn't help but marvel inwardly at the confidence in her voice. To her he adopted a cynical expression. "He hurts you and you still love him? That doesn't make sense."

Harley Quinn smiled widely, winked and gave Batman her musical response. "Maybe, but no one said love's supposed to make sense."

Batman's white eyes narrowed again and he stepped back. He motioned with his hand for the guards to escort Harley to the waiting police van, and as he watched her go Gordon stepped up beside him.

"What was that all about?" asked the commissioner.

"Interrogation", came the monotone response.

Gordon's eyebrows rose in surprise. He kept his eyes on the van as the guards closed the doors. "Get anything out of her?"

Batman cast a sidelong glance at Gordon and hesitated only a second before saying truthfully, "More than I expected."

That got Gordon's attention. He turned to ask him what he had discovered only to find himself alone in the alley. His lips tugged downward into a frown and he ran his right hand through his gray hair. "I really hate it when he does that."

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"What now?" Diana thought dejectedly as she waited not so patiently.

Diana found the car right where the Batcomputer said it would be, in a darkened alley that she could easily tell was used infrequently at best. She never approached the car knowing that its owner would have its security systems enabled. The last thing she needed was paralyzing gas, electrical charges and Hera knew what else hitting her.

Instead she waited on the roof of a nearby building to wait for Batman to return. Diana stood near the edge of the building closest to the Batmobile, leaning over enough to rest her hands on the waist high wall running along the perimeter of the roof. She looked up and scanned the surrounding rooftops, waiting and hoping for Bruce to get back soon. There was no sign of him anywhere.

Of course she realized that if Bruce didn't want to be found, she wouldn't be able to find him.

Diana let her head drop, her chin nearly resting on her chest, and sighed. The flight from the manor to the alley gave her just enough time to calm down enough to keep from doing damage to anyone or anything. Now, as she stood waiting, she had time to think.

She thought back to their adventure with Circe and the talk they had before Circe made the unfortunate change in her appearance.

Diana couldn't help but smile at the memory, even though smiling was the last thing she wanted to do. It was an interesting conversation. She flirted with Bruce and he went all 'Batman' on her, as Wally would say, methodically recounting his reasons why they shouldn't get involved.

His three reasons. They didn't hold water as far as she was concerned…a point she made when she crushed the gargoyle's head in her hand. She was sure she heard and saw him gulp when she did it, and his repeated denials whenever she mentioned it since only served to reinforce that opinion.

The dreamy smile she wore as she reminisced flattened out and a sad hue filtered into her blue eyes. Now that she thought about it, maybe that gulp wasn't a sign of nervousness or awe after all. Maybe, he was trying to tell her something else. Maybe he was going to tell her his fourth reason. Maybe…

Her head rose towards the heavens. "Enough maybes!" she shouted into the night. After the small echo of her words faded she scrutinized the rooftops again in search of Batman. Again she found nothing.

"The fourth reason", she muttered incredulously. And of all the reasons he could manage, or invent, that was the most ludicrous one. Certainly when she first joined the League there was an attraction to the Man of Steel, but so was there an attraction to the Dark Knight. Over time the attraction to Bruce grew, while the attraction to Superman changed into friendship…a very strong friendship, but a friendship nonetheless.

There was something about Bruce that she naturally gravitated towards. She had tried to pinpoint it over the years but there were so many reasons to love him that she decided that finding just one was futile. The most obvious attraction to Bruce was his warrior spirit. He had no super powers, only his intellect and his force of will. He was who and what he was, as formidable a force as any other League member, because he had made it so. For that he earned her respect…and eventually her love.

Besides, Kal had Lois…

Diana's hands suddenly crushed the bricks of the wall she was leaning on and her heart was beating so fast it felt as though it were trying to win a race against Hermes himself. She stood up and looked at her hands, which had turned into fists of their own accord, and realized that she was grinding the remnants of the brick into her palms. She couldn't feel it.

She took a deep breath, let it out slowly and tried to get her heart rate to slow down. It took several moments but she finally calmed down enough to open her hands and let the dust fall to the rooftop. She never even bothered to wipe the rest off and her arms fell to hang limply by her sides.

"Lois." Now she understood, partly at least, what brought this night on.

Lois and Kal were finished…for now. Diana believed in her heart however, that that was only temporary and that the Pulitzer Prize winning reporter still loved Kal. They would reunite, she was certain of it. Especially once their child needed his father…

Apparently Bruce didn't share that belief.

Diana walked a few steps to her left to get a better view of some movement on a far off rooftop, only to catch a glimpse of two lovers showing each other how much they meant to each other. Diana smiled and moved another few steps so that she wouldn't be intruding on the intimate time.

As she leaned over and put her hands on the wall again she thought about the last time she was with Bruce in that fashion. The more she thought about it the more she realized that it had been a while…a very long while compared to how often they usually made love. Her brows knitted together as she tried to figure out what was happening.

She hadn't even seen Bruce in a while, now that she thought about it. She had been spending most of her time lately on the Watchtower, but Bruce seemed to be spending most of his time in Gotham, with limited visits to the tower.

A pervasive emptiness settled into her stomach, a feeling that something had been missing for a while. It dawned on her that the realization that she hadn't been with the man she loved for so long might have something to do with it. Her right hand left the top of the wall and rested against her abdomen, as though trying to reassure it that everything would be as it should; that Bruce still loved her and that they would prevail over…

Over what? Kal?

She shook her head slightly in disbelief over the idea. For years they had been together through it all, especially the absence of their friend and de facto League leader. When Kal left it was up to her and Bruce more than anybody to keep the League together and functioning properly. It even had the fortunate (for her) result of making Bruce spend more time aboard the tower.

Anger began to swell beneath her breastbone and she could hear the telltale whistle of fury in her ears. Diana stood up, never noticing that her hands clenched into diamond hard fists, and glanced around the rooftops again before lifting up into the dark skies of his city.

She'd had enough waiting around. It was time to take the Minotaur by the horns and deal with this situation. She flew around to some of the places that she knew he frequented. He had a number of different patrol routines and she had no way of knowing which particular one he was using, or if he had something special planned.

While she flew she tried to decipher why she was so furious at Bruce, besides the fact that his current attitude was a shining example of why perhaps the Amazons had the right idea after all, keeping away from men. It was more than that.

His earlier wordless and rapid departure from the Batcave wasn't the cause of her anger, though it was a symptom of the underlying problem to be sure. Bruce believed that she had feelings for Kal, even now after all they had been through together, as friends and as partners in every sense of the word. That angered her.

Bruce hadn't talked to her about any of it…Kal's return, or his thoughts or his fears. Granted, getting Bruce to talk about his fears was slightly less perilous than pulling a tooth from Cerberus, but it had happened.

Then again, she knew that Bruce wasn't a touchy-feely and forthcoming man…it was another one of the things that she loved about him, his dark side. She loved that she had to work to get anything deeply personal from him, as the results when she succeeded always far outweighed the hardships she endured in getting them. She was always overwhelmed when he opened up to her, for once he opened up she experienced something that perhaps no one else had ever seen before, and they were always better off for going through it.

Still, he should have talked to her about Kal.

The anger began to subside, began to be replaced by sadness over his inability to trust her enough to talk to her, and worry that they may not be able to overcome this crisis, just as she finally found the man she sought as he stood on the roof of Wayne Enterprises. His hand to his ear indicated that he was talking on his communicator so she tried successfully not to intrude by listening. She waited, floating a few feet above the roof and behind Batman with her arms folded across her chest.

Batman finally brought his hand down, and when she saw his hand move in a fashion that she had learned was to retrieve his grapple, she landed on the roof to talk to Batman…Bruce…her love.