19. Regrets

"Tonight we meet the others"

"Br….Batman," the soft voice echoed slightly in the vast empty space.

"Wonder Woman," the caped crusader acknowledged the presence of the Amazonian princess. "Did you need anything?"

"No," Diana shook her head in reply even though they were not facing each other. "I…I wanted to thank you."

"Thank me," his gravelly voice didn't betray surprise at her words. "For?"

"For today," she referred to their meeting. "For putting your trust in me…..even now," she ended in a whisper.

"I have always respected your ability as a warrior," Batman stated clearly as he turned his chair to face her. "I trust you to fight till the end."

"Oh," Diana felt both happy and sad at his remark. '….as a warrior.' "Even after…" she started.

"What happened in the past is gone," Batman looked up at her. "Everyone makes mistakes, but not everyone learns from those mistakes. I made a mistake, paid for it and learnt my lesson."

"What mistake?" Diana asked softly, a sinking feeling in her heart.

"I let things get personal," Batman's words cut right through her. "I let the trust grow from a professional level to a personal level. That was my mistake. A mistake for which the whole world had to pay for…. which it is still paying for. But I also learnt my lesson."

"Lesson?" Diana steeled herself to maintain eye contact.

"No personal trust for anyone," although he generalized, from Diana's perspective it might as well have been 'YOU'. "Especially not for people who don't trust themselves."

"What do you mean?" Diana knew that the last words had been for her.

"You know what I mean," Batman swung his chair back towards the computer.

"No, I don't," Diana answered forcefully.

"I know about what happened at Themiscyra." The words had barely left his mouth, when his chair was swung back causing him to jerk forward, his cold white eye slits inches from the fiery blue eyes of an angry Diana, her hands grasped around his wrists, pinning them to the arm rests.

"You. Know. Nothing." Diana emphasized each word.

"I know that everyone on your island was killed by the attacking forces," Batman stated calmly. "I know that their bodies were mutilated and cut up…even those who were already dead."

"Don't…." Diana gave a last warning.

"I know that all of their brains were removed…" Batman noticed the flinch in Diana's eyes. "…and eaten by the attacking parademons."

"SHUT UP," Diana yanked the chair off the ground, chucking it and the seated Batman towards the far. "Shut up…please…I don't…" she fell to the ground. "I don't…I cannot…"

"What cannot…?" Batman wiped the blood off his grazed chin. "You cannot hear it? Cannot face your demons? Cannot learn your lesson? What can't you do?"

"You….don't….know," she knelt on all fours. "You….don't know."

"What don't I know?" Batman pushed forward. He knew that he would have to do this. He and J'onn had had their talk. J'onn had informed him about the turmoil he sensed within Diana, when he had scanned her to confirm that it was actually her and that she wasn't under any sort of external control. "Don't I know that you spent weeks trying to gather and match them together? That you blamed yourself for their deaths…."

"….that you are still doing that."

-----

"I told you Diana, that I cannot trust anyone who doesn't trust themselves. You can blame yourself all you want; it will not change what happened in the past. It will not bring back the league…and it most definitely not bring back your family," with that he started walking away.

"What about your family?" Diana's voice was barely a whisper. "What about them? If only I…."

"If only what?" Batman's voice finally cracked some emotion. "If only you had voted the other way. Is that what you want to say? You and I both know that you couldn't…..you wouldn't. Because deep down you know that some part of your agreed with me and what I said, but that belief wasn't big enough or strong enough for making you go against the league….go against YOUR Kal," Batman spat the words out.

"You had a choice to make, and you did. He was light and I darkness. He was revered, worshipped, both of you were. Me, most people didn't even know if I existed. He was good and I evil. It was never even a competition. I knew about your choice even before you made it. Even if the personal….the emotional….the human part of me let itself believe that you might change your vote, logic knew you wouldn't. It was J'onn and Flash I had counted on."

Diana heard silently as Batman drew the truth out into the light. He was going to cauterize the wounds of the past.

"None of us could have changed who we were. We made choices and dealt with the consequences. My parents died, I became Batman. Krypton was dying, Jor-El sent his son to earth. He became Superman. You came to man's world, you became Wonder Woman. We voted, the League broke, war began. A war in which we all lost family and friends," Bruce took a deep breath to calm himself. "As for the loss my family, I do blame myself for what happened to my sons. A part of me still believes that I caused it….and it will for the days to come. It will remain like that, till the day I die."

"No," Diana shook her head wanting to say that it was she who caused it. It was her choice that changed the fate of the world.

-----

"Knowing and believing are two different things," Batman stepped back towards her, keeping a respectable distance.

"You can believe that it was you broke up the league. It was you who caused the destruction of Atlantis. It was you who caused the death of all the members of the league, including my sons. It was you caused the death of all you sisters," he counted off all the major reasons. "You can believe all you want. But if you look deep down inside yourself, you will KNOW the it was just the luck of the draw that you were the one who voted last. It could just as easily have been Flash, Lantern or J'onn."

Coming near her, offered her a hand to lift her up. "Get up."

Diana silently top his offering and rose from her knees to face him, his face almost completely hidden in the shadows.

"Shayera had once said something to me," his voice grew soft with emotion as he recalled the words of his wife. The words she has spoken the morning after their first time together. "Accept what has already happened and continue with your life or regret it and keep wallowing in the pain."

"You have been regretting your actions for the past fifteen years, its time to move on. If you cannot realize that, you cannot trust yourself as a person. And until then don't expect anyone else to do that either."

"Especially not me"