16. Do you…?
Summary: Opportunity comes knocking at your door. What do you do?
"Yes."
Diana's mouth fell open in shock at the answer she received for her question. She was sure that Bruce would response in a denial, in a 'No' and not in an affirmatory fashion.
How could she have missed this?
Standing there next to the bat-computer, staring at the profile of the man who's hands had stilled their typing, his jaw muscles tightening at some emotion he was trying to pull back in, one that had slipped through the crack that her sudden question had caused to open up in impassive armor, her thoughts went back to the reason she asked….she steeled herself to ask that question. The reason for her coming down here, to the Bat-Cave, at this time of the night.
Her conversation with Donna.
----
/Flashback/
"What is going on between you and Batman?"
"Wha… (cough, cough)." Diana chocked on the piece of chicken she had just bit into, going into a bout of coughing as she cleared her throat and reached for a glass of water. "….ack. (cough) ….ugh…What do you mean?" She finally asked, rubbing her throat to clear the scratchy feeling. (cough)
"You know what I mean," Donna gave her a quirked eye, one that she perfected over years of association with the then Kid Flash and Speedy, the current Flash and Arsenal, Wally 'Wallace' West and Roy 'Stud-Pony' Harper.
"I-I…." Diana's first response was to pretend ignorance. However, knowing her sister, she was sure that it would not satisfy Donna. In fact, the very reason she had put forth that question, meant Donna knew something to support her suspicion. Then again, why not tell the truth. Nothing. After all, it would not be a lie. There wasn't anything going on, as her sister so eloquently put it, between her and Batman. "There is nothing going on between me and either Batman or Bruce Wayne," she deliberately covered both bases.
"Oh, I know nothing is going on between Diana of Themiscyra and billionaire playboy Bruce Wayne," the younger Amazon flipped her hand, reaching for yet another helping of the heavenly spread that Alfred had set out for them. "I meant between Wonder Woman and Batman."
"Is there a difference?" Diana wanted to chuckle at the irony of the situation, Bruce Wayne and Batman, two completely different people sharing the same body. Their dichotomy was something Diana had thought about more than a few times in her years of association with either man, even before she came to know that they were one and the same person. Yet, here was Donna, not only putting up the same representation for Batman but for Wonder Woman too. How easily she had split them into two different, seemingly unrelated entities….and that too without the use of a secret identity to differentiate the two.
"Is there a difference?" Donna tried her best to look surprised at the question. "Duh. What do you think? Okay, don't answer that," she quipped, even before Diana could get a word in. "Answer my first question, truthfully."
"Donna!" This time it was Diana's turn to bring out the theatrics, her food forgotten. "Do you think I'd lie to you? Hera, I would never…."
"Uhn-Hn," Donna shook her head and washed down her rice with a gulp of water. "I didn't say you were lying."
"Then…."
"I only meant you were bending the truth to suit yourself."
"What makes you so sure that there is something between me and Bruce?"
'Bruce, huh,' Donna checked of a point on her mental chart. Bruce. "Oh, nothing," she appeared to be fishing for details. "Just what Dick told me."
"Nightwing?" Diana was surprised that Dick Grayson was involved in….then again she was not. "What did he say?"
"Oh, nothing. Just that when you guys came back from the past, from Atlantis, (JLA: Obsidian Age) Batman looked almost happy to be alive."
This did get Diana to retaliate. "Why wouldn't he be happy? He got to come back and be with his family, do his work…."
"Okay, okay. Sheesh. No need to bite my head off." Another check on aforementioned chart. Near combative response. "No, not almost happy to be alive, but, hmm, what was it," she tapped her chin to give a deep thinking look, all for Diana's benefit. "Yeah, relieved. That was the word. Like he had discovered something and had missed a chance to do or experience it before being sent back to Atlantis. Like he was looking forward to that thing now…or person." She let it slip in towards the end.
"What do you know Donna?" Diana finally gave in, relenting in to the knowledge that her sister knew quite a bit about her short lived…..she still had no name for it, except for pre-pseudo-semi-romantic excursion.
"I know that something went or is going on between you and Mr. Scare-tha-Crapola Knight of Gotham. Now, what is it and when did it begin….and…" she spoke in continuation before Diana could begin her response. "Don't give me that, nothing is going on, response. I have seen the look on your face when she," Donna pointed a finger in the ballroom turned medical-center's general direction. "When she was talking about hers….also the way YOU talk about him. Not like now, but like you were when she was telling her tale."
"And what kind of look is that?" Diana asked in mock frown.
"Like someone gave you a puppy and you lost it on purpose."
"Puppy?" Wonder Woman blurted out. "I am sure Batman will like you comparing him to a puppy."
"Diana. You know what I mean. Stop beating around the bush and give me the details….ALL of them."
"Donna…"
"Speak."
---
Letting out a 'giving in' sigh, Diana began to tell her story, starting with the first time she actually felt something, clearly felt something towards the Dark Knight.
"It was during a training exercise we were running in the watchtower…."
"Training exercise?"
"No powers sparring," Diana clarified.
"You mean courting for people like you and Batman," Donna snickered at the mental visual. "Or even foreplay."
"We were in the watchtower," Diana neglected her sister's comment, especially the foreplay part. "When something happened. I had just knocked Batman onto his back and…."
"Ooh, on top, best pose, getting in dee…"
"Onto his back and had my spear positioned right over his forehead, his one Escrima stick at my throat and the other ready to follow through, when…he smiled.
"He WHAT!" Donna exclaimed not believing her ears. Batman smiled. Nope. N-uh. Couldn't have happened.
"He smiled at me," Diana repeated herself.
"That's what I thought you said…and what did you do?"
"I smiled back."
"And then…" Donna wanted to get back the school-crush smiling and onto the juicy adult rated details.
"Then nothing."
"Huh," all the air in the Bats-Wondy float she had been building in her mind, fizzled out. "Nothing. Nothing at all. Not even a little, teensy, just m-waah…."
"His beeper rang," Diana added as an after thought, completing her tale.
"Is that like his cell-phone rang, his pager vibrated? Some kind of codeword that the league uses in place of the, are you happy to see me or is that a batarang in your pocket."
"No Donna," Diana smiled and held her head as a slight blush came over her. Leave it to Donna to spice up the most mundane of stories. "His Justice League beeper rang."
"Oh. Phooey." Donna's sail dipped even lower. "Then what?"
"Then…" Diana mused for a couple of seconds. "The next time was when we first ran into the Shaman, Manitou Raven. He had cast a spell on the league, knocking all six of us out and was getting ready to sacrifice me…"
"Sacrifice?" Donna echoed. "As in to the gods? Well his gods, but, like finito, end of story?"
"Yes. He was just about strike when a batarang interrupted him."
"But didn't you say that they were all knocked from a spell?"
Diana nodded at her sister's question and went on tell he about how breaking the spell required more than strength of will and how, when she questioned Batman about it, even if it lasted for an instant, the Caped Crusader looked flustered, struggling to explain himself.
"That's all fine and dandy," Donna flipped her hand, wanting to get to the more, hmm, interesting bits. "When did things get all hot and heavy between you and Mr. Nightwing Sr?"
"They never got, as you put it, hot and heavy," Diana chuckled. "But they did get tense in an interesting sort of way."
Following that remark, she narrated all the events of their travel into the past to save Aquaman.
----
"I finally understand this. Its sympathy." Squeezing the excess water, Diana placed the cool cloth against the forehead of the stripped to his waist, burning with fever Batman. "You expect sympathy from me the next time we spar."
"F-Funny," Batman's voice was barely above a whisper. "I forget you can be funny."
"Then we are even because there are times I forget that you are HUMAN, Bruce."
"Heh…. 'Only Human'" Bruce reached up and stilled Diana's hand, holding it with the last bit of his fading energy. "Prone to crippling sickness and raging acts of ego. Not perfect….beautiful….."
With that, he lost consciousness, uttering just two words as he slipped into the darkness.
"Beautiful Diana…."
----
"Wow," was all Donna could say as her sister finished speaking. Who would have thought…? "Then what happened?"
"Then we battled with the Atlanteans, Bruce and I kissed, we died, we….."
"Whoa, Whoa, Whoa, peddle back, peddle back. Did you just say that Batman and you kissed?"
"Yes." Diana nodded, knowing that another explanation was on its way.
This time however Donna did not even say a single word. The look on her face was enough.
"It was during our last battle in the past. Superman, Flash, J'onn and Plasticman had already fallen. Green Lantern was trying to face the attackers while keeping the innocent civilians safe. That left only Batman and me. He knew, somehow, he knew, we would have to die to come back. It was then, just before we broke off for one final time, that was when he…we kissed each other."
"We?" Donna caught onto the subtle shift from 'he' to we. That meant Diana acceptance and equally responded…maybe even initiated, what could just be a parting between two friends, two warriors...or two lovers, who knowing that their time together might be up, gave into years of feelings and frustration and poured their love into that one final act.
"Yes. We."
----
Silence reigned between the two until….
"Diana, what happened then? You both came back. I even heard rumors and then….nothing."
"We…." Diana deliberated, searching for the correct words. "We decided to stay friends."
This time however, the 'we' did not carry the same sound as earlier. "We?"
"Hmm," Donna waited as Diana collected herself, her internal turmoil clear on her face. "Lets just say, we could have been wonderful together….and there was an equal possibility that it would be just as big a disaster." Diana did not reveal the details about how she reached this decision, about the Martian Dream Chamber and the various possibilities she saw there….just as she neglected to mention the non-date she and Bruce had at stately Wayne Manor.
"What does that mean?" Troia didn't seem convinced. To her it sounded like a 'Dear John' letter even before the relationship began.
"We are lifelong friends, confidants, and allies, but the risk of seeing if there' more to us, it was…."
"Oh, my god," Donna slapped her head as a realization dawned on her. "You guys chickened out."
"What?"
"Chickened out," she repeated. "As in yellow. The whole risk and worth and possibilities….hah, to me it seems that both of you were confused and maybe looking for a way out and that one of you gave it. Who was it? Don't tell me it was you."
"Oh Rhea," the younger Amazon exclaimed at her sister's silence. "It was you, wasn't it?"
"Yes."
"Why Diana?" The question was asked in a serious, tell me now, tone.
"I don't know." Diana shook her head.
"Is it because of Superman?" Donna pushed forth. She could not understand why her sister had let go of such a chance. Agreed, Batman wouldn't be her personal choice, but from what Diana just told her, to her it seemed that the both of them were going along just fine until they deliberately pushed their cart off the rails.
"What? No. Of course not," Diana denied vehemently. "Kal is just a friend. A dear friend…my best friend. But that's it."
---
Once again, both women were silent. There were millions of questions teeming in Donna's head, millions more ready to take their place. Yet, there was only one question she finally asked.
"Do you ever wonder about what might have been….had you two decided to carry on with your more than friendly relationship…to a romantic level?"
/End Flashback/
----
Standing now, in front of Batman, Diana's ears were ringing from the response she got when she asked the same question to Batman.
"Bruce, you ever wonder about what would have happened, had we not decided to end whatever was going on between us and just remain friends and teammates."
"Yes."
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Note: Okay, not a lot new stuff in this chapter. However, this is for the benefit of those readers who don' t have a comics background….to get them up to speed with the whole Bats-Wondy thing (only in the JLA comics).
Special thanks to 'Lena' for bringing this to my attention.
Spoilers: JLA #61, #70, #74, #80, #90
