In the Middle of a Broken Constellation

Pairing: WonderBat (Wonder Woman x Batman)

Rating: T / 14A

Universe: N/A - Reader's Choice

Victor's sigh sounded like a sudden rush of static during their call, crackling in Diana's ear unforgivingly. "Although we don't have proof one way or the other since they haven't responded to my calls," he began, starting from a logical point before facing her claim with his heartfelt concern. "We also can't rule out that what you're suggesting is possible."

Unwilling to appear as though she was merely an unhinged theorist, Diana delved into her thought process. But first, she snuck into a supply closet that was marked 'Nurses Only', imagining that she would have the greatest chance of privacy in there. "The rumour that Oracle has become one of these creatures makes sense, given that we have yet to see any headway on a potential cure. I'll re-confirm with Nightwing tonight that she is in fact missing, but it lines up with what could have happened with Arthur and Barry as well."

"I put out the call as soon as possible last night, but I haven't heard back. We've all lost contact during missions before, so that isn't necessarily a red flag." The way Victor tried to play the devil's advocate to her suspicions was fair and genuine, and yet, it sounded as though he had left his remark open to a rebuttal, like he wanted her to challenge his caution.

Sadly, Diana knew that she could. "But everyone that we know of who has come in contact with this sludge has disappeared right after. Whoever is operating it is either incredibly fortunate to have taken the people they have, or they know who exactly they are targeting."

Then, to her surprise, the one applying pressure to her ideas in the hopes of seeing them crumble suddenly reinforced her fear with a claim of his own. "And everything is connected back to Bruce."

The shock made Diana grab onto one of the metal bars of the many different shelving units in the closet. "What?"

As Victor now divulged his own hypothesis to her, the awareness that he was potentially revealing their villain's entire strategy washed over her with a grim sensation pooling in her gut. "The sludge infested three cities. The first was Gotham, but the other two are hometowns to other members of the Justice League - a group Bruce helped form. Assuming he went missing shortly after our last discussion with him, and that Barbara was taken around that time as well, you'd think that the sludge would have continued its infestation unhinged but instead-"

"It stopped."

"Right. And thanks to your efforts, we found out that aside from his brain trauma and his oddly specific amnesia, he's no longer playing the role of Dark Knight but he seems to be right as rain."

"Because he's only Bruce now. He doesn't have to choose between two worlds anymore." Speaking those words saddened her greatly, to think that Bruce was no longer apart of the world he helped bring her into, that he had unknowingly abandoned the life of a hero and left a massive blank space in the League. With a name that revolved around 'justice', only Bruce could challenge her on upholding the value of that word so fiercely before.

Being a pillar to their team without him felt somewhat hollow now, which was something she could only admit to herself.

Carrying on, unaware of her inner turmoil, Victor asked the most obvious question, "Do we think they're connected now?"

Diana nodded at a room full of blankets and toilet paper. "Only in finding the perpetrator can we figure out what this plan accomplishes. If they removed Batman, why haven't they done anything since?"

Victor chimed in to remind her of a rather blatant clue, "Except for unleashing the sludge monster that Arthur and Barry went to fight."

Now she felt completely thrown. Out of all of the things that this evil doer could have done, why did they put their nefarious scheme on hold for a month, then summon a monster off the shore of Maine? Was the goal to simple force Aquaman into a fight? Would they all be challenged and confronted with sludge monsters to battle, unable to take them down without being taken themselves?
Scrubbing her face with her free hand, Diana stood tall and let her confusion transform into a type of anger that would move her into action. "All we can do is keep trying to contact them, but I don't think we should count on them for anything until we know they are safe."

"Agreed." Was Victor's firm reply.

Diana wasn't sure what to say next, given that there wasn't anything to really take away from their talk. After all, all they had done was recognize the possible route of their villain's thought process, but they had no way of predicting when or where they would strike next. They only common factor was Bruce, and all Diana truly knew was that she made the right choice in coming to Gotham.

The nurse who found her hiding in the closet did not appear to agree, though. "Um, excuse me?" The question was fair, as was the shock in the young woman's voice.

Instinct compelled Diana to hold up a finger to the nurse as she continued to pretend that the call she was on was taking place on the phone she was holding to her ear. "I have to go now, but I'll be in touch after my meeting with the chief physician."

"Copy that." Victor acknowledged her sudden shift in tone with a brief goodbye before signing off of their communication link. His sudden departure forced his friend to slip out of the closet rather quickly, for fear of losing her facade of a busy business woman and needing to further justify her hiding spot. As fast as her heels carried her did Diana race back to the Isolation Ward in the hopes that the older nurse had found her someone to speak to.

Bounding around the corner, she felt held breath vacate her the moment she say a man in a white lab coat speaking to Clark and Lois. As her fellow metahuman met her gaze the moment she appeared in the ward, he gave her a slight nod, which she took to mean that he had indeed heard her phone call with Cyborg. But just as quickly as she saw his gesture, it was replaced with a shocked expression and a call out of her name. "Diana!" He even raised his pen in the air as if he had to get her attention.

At once, Lois and the doctor turned around to witness her return. While Lois looked just as determined as she had left her, the doctor looked as though he could match her. Tall, a wide build and a rather serious expression that looked as if it was chiseled into his features, the man looked like a bouncer at a club that refused to let Lois and Clark in. Seeing the displeasure on his face, Diana knew she needed to once again whip out her ID badge if she wanted to get anywhere. "Hello. I'm Diana Prince from the Wayne Foundation."
"Ah yes, you're the one I was called to speak to," Contradicting his persona, the seemingly confident man faced her with an outstretched hand and looked as though he wanted to avoid her gaze, despite the fact that he was wearing some sort of protective eye gear that was apparently going to remain on his face while they spoke. "Dr. Hunt."

"Thank you for meeting with me so suddenly. I apologize, I thought Dr. Thompson was still here." she divulged her original intention in the hopes of communicating to him that she didn't mean to pull him away from his work.

Her mention of Dr. Thompson seemed to wind him up ever so slightly. "She decided to leave us for her old clinic in the city, last I heard. But I'm here now, and I'm interested to know what Mr. Wayne is intending to do by sending you down here."

'Help' was the single answer that sprang into her mind, but Diana tried not to be show the doctor any sass, given how serious he appeared to be. "This is a passion project of mine personally, and it's something that Mr. Wayne believes in. As the new Community Outreach Specialist, I want to know what it is that the Isolation Ward needs and what I can do to help."

An awkward, intentional, unnecessary pause was difficult to digest as Dr. Hunt examined her in front of Clark and Lois. She couldn't determine if his hesitation came from the fact that he was so found of Bruce but was left to deal with a woman of lower rank in the company, or if he was naturally this off-putting to anyone who visited him at work, but Diana figured she had wasted enough time in Gotham General already. When she had decided that the silence had gone on long enough, she broke it by gesturing to the hallway that was behind Lois. Then, she beckoned to him with a simple, "Shall we?"

As she turned to begin their walk down into the heart of the Isolation Ward, Diana couldn't help but notice the smirk of approval she received from the fiery Lois Lane. Just as she was passing her by though, she heard Dr. Hunt grumble, "No reporters." Then, he stomped over to her side with an air of disdain. Having endured worse than an unhappy aura, she decided it was best to dive into her purpose for being there the instant they were walking in synchronization.

"How many patients would you say you have in this ward that are victims of the sludge infestation?"

"Fifty, or so." Was the surprisingly lackluster answer from the chief physician.

"There isn't an exact number?" Diana felt she had the right to ask.

Dr. Hunt clasped his hands behind his back and walked with a straightened spine, opposed to the dissatisfaction of her question with his ornate dignity. "After corraling them all into the ward, we haven't been able to properly do a head count. They're all pink creatures that constantly look as if they are melting and they don't care for each other's personal space, so they're almost always on top of one another. They're literal monsters."

The tone of his voice implied that all of his words could have been summarized by a meager 'duh'. The deeper they went into the ward, the greater her distaste of him grew. "Have anymore been brought in since the original wave?"

Again, his response was easily summarized by a single notion, and this time it was a shrug. "I believe there was one or two in the week or so after the original group of them arrived here, but since not all of them were brought in with their original identity known, I can't say how many John and Jane Doe's are in there."

At least he was providing her with some useful information now. "So you are aware of some of the citizens that are locked in here?"

"If they were transformed at home through their own plumbing, than yes, their loved ones could tell us who was infected. But looking into the room, you cannot tell one monster apart from another." To prove his point, Dr. Hunt stopped near the end of the hallway and took his chance to guide her towards one of the last doors on the left hand side. Feigning gratitude, Diana opened the door and was met with an almost closet-like space on the other side. She looked back at him curiously before she heard a ruckus through another door that was inside the closet-sized room.

Stepping inside nervously, she just happened to peek through the slit of a window inside the other door's body and felt her eyes grow wide as she realized where she was.

"That's...them?" She asked without a real need for clarification as she stared into what could only be described as the holding cell for all fifty of the sludge creatures being held within Gotham General.

She noticed that the sound of the door closing behind them was gentle, almost as if they had snuck into the sterilization room between the hall and the monsters' hiding place. Gazing at them for herself, she could understand now why it was so hard to keep tracking of them all, as there was barely enough room for them all to fit within the space. Mindlessly wandering around the room, they all looked so helpless, as if they truly reflected the way that the people encased within the sludge were feeling. The room was even tinted with a flesh-like tone, given how much of their secreting mess had covered the floors and walls.

Perhaps too desensitized to their plight, Dr. Hunt looked on with her while donning nothing more than a factual perspective. "They've been here for a month and we aren't any closer to figuring out how to cure them, or if it's even possible to do so."

As childish as it sounded, Diana felt that her blunt question was warranted after witnessing what Dr. Hunt was dealing with. "So what is it you need from us? What can we do to help?"

"Money. We need to funnel money into this specific and vicious illness. We need to pay researchers, we need to create a safe method to examine this sludge and then we need the time to test out cures. We may even need to use some of the infected as test subjects, since we don't have the opportunity to do studies in a lab. This is a highly volatile situation, Miss Prince."

He spoke as if she was protesting his methods without saying a word, and a piece of her was. Experimenting on the helpless people trapped in these sludge bodies had the potential to be cruel if there weren't ethical practices in place to protect them, but was there really any other option?

Diana realized that all she could focus on at that very moment was getting the funding for the research secured, as they had already lost an entire month of work due to the confusion that Bruce's situation had cost them. It was time to move forward at an accelerated pace if they wanted to save these people from-

The door that stood between them and the isolation room suddenly hissed, startling her so much that she clutched at her chest. In shocked disbelief, confused and growing fearful, Diana watched as it began to slowly crane itself open as if someone had given them access to go inside the monsters' space. Like entering the labyrinth and facing fifty minotaurs, only neither Diana nor Dr. Hunt had ever desired to go inside.

Somehow, they had been granted access without any protection or sterilization. While trying to fathom what had caused such a horrific miscalculation in that very moment, Diana felt a sense of dread crawl up her spine when she noticed that the monsters on the other side of the creeping door froze when they heard the air escaping. The sound had alerted them in what appeared to be a primal way and the fear that was instilled in her suddenly could only be described as reactionary as she tried to assess the situation with little to no information gathered on these creatures.

Then, next to her, she heard a whimpering voice cry, "R-R-RUN!"

And in that moment, all hell broke loose.

Author's Note:

Ooh, things are about to get insane! The monsters are being let out!? By who!? And how will Diana face them if she can't touch them!?

Come back next Monday to find out! ~ Maiden