a/n: Whoosh. It's been quite a while, and I'm terribly busy now working two jobs over the summer, so I hope you'll bear with me. Information about the triumvirates have been found mostly online, at , while the idea was got while revising for my end of year examinations.

Chapter 15

2041:

"Trinity."

"Excuse me?" Bruce looked up from the coffee machine in the pantry he had decided to try to coax for the fourth time that week. On the third time he had considered contacting the league to install one of their canteen ones, much more reliable than whatever inferior make the one he had apparently was. Naturally, he could've easily found some sort of higher grade wall installation type one, but if he were being perfectly honest, he didn't want to change anything in the pantry. The decor stood as it had since he could remember, technology only being used to maintain its appearance.

"Trinity," Terry repeated, "and I really don't know why you still keep that old thing. I keep telling you, there's this awesome one on sale, measures the exact temperature and strains with modulating nano fibres and everything."

"I like it, it works for me," Bruce replied, only half convincing himself, and not impressing Terry in the slightest. Terry pushed himself off the door-jamb he had been leaning on and walked in, reaching past Bruce towards the coffee machine. A few seconds later it was steaming nicely and the aroma of steaming coffee was wafting through room.

"Nah old man, I think it works for me," Terry grinned, nudging Bruce with his elbow. Cheeky. Anyway, the boy had mentioned something, twice now. Bruce turned an expectant look to Terry.

"Trinity?"

Terry looked over from the puffs of steam, brow creased, which promptly smoothed itself out again as he collected his train of thought. "Yeah, Trinity. Max was talking about some Freudian theory or something today, and I thought about you." He paused a moment, then with a sheepish look said, "That didn't really come out in the best of ways, did it?" Bruce chose not to respond, which Terry accepted with relief and continued, "You know that whole bit about the Ego, the Super Ego and Id? Yes, and well, it was during English." Terry's eyes roamed the ceiling now as he recalled whatever had gone on in class that day. Bruce marvelled that he was still able to keep his expressions and mannerisms so unconcealed, so... vibrantly young.

Despite the years now in the suit, and the filth he face every night, those harsh, bitter stains never seemed to leave their mark on Terry's person. This cleanness was something he had never been truly able to regain after the loss of his parents, though perhaps he had simply always been more disposed to the darker areas of his mind. The young man was leaning with casual poise against the counter now, perfectly at ease with his own skin where once Bruce had felt a constant itch that turned itself into the Dark Knight. Where he bristled with cold inaccessibility, Terry radiated comfortable openness. He wondered again at Diana's observation, that Terry was good for him, could Terry be the better him? But that would involve imposing who he was on the younger man, and Terry surely, and who was he to try what only a father would, however unconsciously? Terry was still talking, and Bruce steered his attention back.

"...We've been looking at Triumvirates in literature. I couldn't help thinking about how you and Superman and Wonder Woman used to be."

Ah. So that was what the boy meant by Trinity.

"And how would you have placed us?"

"Well, Max said you'd be the Super Ego, cold, collected, in charge and giving orders, err, Superman would be the Ego, who'd kind of hold the whole team together, and Wonder Woman would be Id, based on all those clips they like to play in history class of the time she almost broke Toyman's neck, and other crazy times where her, uhm, culturall gaffes have led to impulsive behaviour." Terry held up his hands in defence, "Max's words, not mine," he finished.

"I see." He actually did. Perhaps this had been the way especially in the beginning, that rough edge Diana had being so new to 'Man's World' as she called it.

"Uh huh, but see, I kinda see it different. I figure Superman's the Super Ego, because he's the head leading figure, what with his living for Truth, Justice, and the American Way, whatever that's supposed to mean these days. And you, you're Id." Terry couldn't help breaking into a grin here, and Bruce shadowed it with an amused smirk of his own. Id, the darker side, the primal, instinctive, perhaps, though not entirely applicable. It was close, Bruce could accede that much.

"Charming."

"I know right? And Wonder Woman's Ego. She understands both the whole immortality thing and pursuit of peace and happiness that Superman represents, but she's from an island of trained warriors, right? So your code of honour and methods she's got down pat as well. Tell me I'm not too far from the truth here." The boy was certainly not unintelligent, only Bruce now groused at the thought of the others on the old team doing similar and extensive armchair psychoanalysis of his person back in the day. "Then we got to trying to fit you guys to various elements, and it just got confusing." No, you would have to look beyond the three of them to see how each worked, there would always be a missing fourth, or fifth. Clark would be the Sun, Fire, Light, Diana the Moon perhaps, the Air, and yet at the same time, the Earth. And what was he? If the polar opposite of Clark he would be the Shadow to his Sun, Water to that flame, which worked for his mutability in stratagem and tactics, the Chinese might add metal, or not. It stopped mattering after a while. Useful when dealing with the likes of Circe or Klarion, not so much when trying to understand why and how the three of them kept coming together. A triumvirate, a troika, a trio: perhaps there was something in it.

"Harry Potter, Ronald Weasley, Hermione Granger. Frodo, Sam and Gollum. Neo, Trinity, Morpheus. Leia, Luke, Han Solo."

"The Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Zeus, Poseidon, Hades. Arthur, Gawain, Lancelot. Religion, myths, legends. What's your point?"

"Good things come in threes," Terry said. At Bruce's pointed silence he then amended, "or at least, power is formed in threes. It's embedded in our cultural consciousness. We recognise it, and in some ways, we conform to it. I mean, it's right there in all that Lit.

"Oh. And Dana mentioned a Chinese one."

"Yes. From the Three Kingdoms: three sworn brothers."

"You know?"

"Liu Bei, Guan Yu, Zhang Fei."

"And they still figure heavily in their everyday life, especially for that middle one, Guan Yu. Like all those little alters behind their stalls? It's mostly him they pray to for good business and all that, these days even."

"Cultural consciousness, you were saying?"

"And beyond."

Jimmy Lin, clad in a pin striped suit, collar already drooping into a lapel that shouldn't exist, stood tweaking the smarmy points of his moustache. Though pin pricks of sweat were beginning to collect on his brow, his hair: slick, greased back, announced the smugness that ran through the rest of his demeanour. The twitchiness he was often known for only manifested now in his right hand, subtly in the trigger finger. That finger now was placed on the plasma screen panel. A sickly pale glow grew before the whole screen flickered into life. An imposing shadow loomed at the other end. The shadow spoke.

"So, Jimmy, how does it feel to be top dog now?" the shadow asked, a low, rich rumble which ran like black tar and cooling lava. It cut through the smog of the room, a mixture of joss stick incense and cigarette smoke, neither of which was able to eliminate the stench of human sweat that permeated its corners. Jimmy Lin gave an ingratiating smile and bowed low at the waist, palms placed together, eyes lowered.

"Oh, Great One," he said, wheedling voice reaching up through the air, "I am not worthy."

"Ah, Jimmy, Jimmy," the voice came again, singed with mirth, "I'm sure you deserve everything coming your way." Jimmy scraped even lower in response, and if it weren't for the thick coat of gel layered through his hair, the ends would have brushed the grimy floor at his feet. "I trust everything is proceeding as planned?"

"Naturally, sir, apart from a few run ins with Batman-"

"Batman," the shadow cut in, grinding out the two syllables in distaste. "Why do these aberrations insist on continuing their existence? Are they not tired of being so constantly annoying? Well? What of this Batman?" it spat from beyond the screen. Jimmy's smugness shrank a notch along with his posture as he gave the screen an apologetic grimace.

"He- he is... he is not an issue, sir."

"Well, then squash him like the mosquito he is the next time he attempts to interfere. Minor inconveniences should not hinder the schedule."

"Yes, sir, and we are progressing within the timeline."

"Of course you are. Am I not the great master strategist of this operation?" the shadow condescended. Jimmy bowed low once again.

"Yes, oh great Guan Gong. I am but your ignorant servant."

"Well," chuckled the shadow, "I suppose your ignorance is justified."

December 2005:

Batman had a headache. A headache that seemed to start at the points of his cowl's ears and extend all the way through his cape. He knew that was just his imagination, because this headache had a name: Wally West. The Scarlet Speedster, apart from being the fastest human being alive was currently also the most aggravatingly migraine inducing one. Not once had he seemed to have taken a breath from the moment Batman had entered the Watchtower till now as he sat at the control centre. The Flash had exhausted any available Leaguers in the canteen and had been making his way round the docks. Feeling his patience running thin, but somehow unable to bring himself to glower Wally's exuberant repetitions of his Christmas plans for this year (one Linda Park figuring heavily in them) into submission, he all but ripped himself away from the console after a nod at Mister Terrific, then stalked down the corridor to the viewing gallery.

Not for the first time, he wondered if he was slowly losing it by believing that he would be able to find some peace and quiet in a place such as the Watchtower. There was already someone there, staring out into the vast outer expanse, back to the room's entrance, silhouette edged out softly by the glow of space. His red cape floated slightly towards the left, but in the room's darkness he could have been a still mannequin of alabaster stone, an Apollo realised on earth, or in its orbit, depending on how one saw it. Picture perfect. Of course, Batman scoffed to himself internally. If only he would just remain that way. But no, the head dipped in recognition, and worse yet, Bruce could see that Clark was in one of his contemplative moods again.

"Quiet here, isn't it?" Clark asked, still looking out the windows.

"Not as much as I had hoped," Bruce muttered.

"You know," Clark said as he turned now to look at Bruce, who had half the mind to retort immediately 'not really, no', "Sometimes I ask myself even as I'm standing here while I'm here and not at my fortress instead. Solitude's not exactly the easiest thing to go for when you know a hundred other people are a mere speaker away."

And there was the cave. Why wasn't he at the cave?

"Then I realise after a while," Clark continued, turning back to the windows, "It's different up here." No kidding, Clark. "It's the perspective. I get to see myself as smaller, tiny, if I stand here long enough. You can lost in the stars, and more than the stars, the spaces between the stars." Micro in the cosmic universe they lived in. "You know what I mean?"

He did. But that still didn't explain his own reasons for choosing the corridor to gallery over a teleporting pod. If anyone asked, he would say it was to enable him to be at easy reach just in case, that constant teleportation did not agree with him. It was true, but not true enough. Why was man fascinated with the beyond? He had been to New Genesis, he worked with a Martian. Man had had more than enough contact with other spheres and yet, the unknown still beckoned, constantly. The stars, the galaxies, the thought and now the knowledge that there was something more, that there was more than just Gotham and its grime and soot and spittle, that for every hurt and tragedy, perhaps somewhere out there a happy ending was on its way to completion. Batman rarely indulged in idle, wishful thinking, but 'tis the season' after all. His silence seemed to satisfy the Kryptonian, and now they stood side by side, one looking further and further, the other's eyes roaming the curtain of black with swirls of dots sweeping through it.

After a moment he sensed that Clark's thoughts had wavered into the less than wistful. "Where do you think they are?" Superman's sure voice felt like it was straining to hold an invisible heaviness.

"I don't think about it."

"You? I don't believe that."

"I don't. Could you or I truly quantify what we saw? Would anyone of us, or even any of the New Gods, know where they went?"

Clark was silent. Bruce continued, "I plan for contingencies. I plan for their eventual return. I do not plan for search parties to retrieve unwanted foes."

"You think they'll come back?" weariness now, and Bruce felt it too, spreading across his shoulders and past his torso.

"Don't they always?" he permitted his normally straight back to sag forward slightly at the thought.

Clark gave an extended sigh. "I feel like Sisyphus." Bruce imagined if anything, even with his burden, it would have to be bigger, more epic. Atlas perhaps, holding the world on his back through eternity. He was not sure what was lulling him into this conversation. Perhaps the cause was the relative silence this past quarter since they had last seen Luthor and Darkseid, till the next time. Alfred's voice sounded in his head with the reminder that amiability was not a cardinal sin, nor a crime. Bruce decided to keep that in mind.

"And who would I be?"

"Odysseus," a voice spoke from behind, smooth alto bouncing lightly off the walls. Diana edged in, her circlet a faint shimmer in dark. She crossed her hands behind her back and stepped towards them. "On a long journey home."

Bruce felt his cowl loosen about his jaw as his face slackened, softening. "And here I thought it would be Thanatos," he said, Inclining his forehead towards her.

"The deity and harbinger of death? I think not, Batman," Diana teased. Bruce appreciated that she was careful not to use his name even in the privacy of the almost empty gallery. The earth seemed so whole and complete from here, even with half of it cast in darkness. Almost as if Clark could read his thoughts, the man sighed for the second time that night.

"Once, I chased the sunset for a whole day," he said, "I'd watch it go down past the horizon, then fly fast enough to watch it all over again. Ma got so worried when I didn't come home for dinner that night. It was just a week before I set off for college, too.

"Anyway, what are your plans for Christmas? Ma would really like the two of you to come by, if you could." Oh Clark, not again. Every year the invitation was extended, and each year Bruce declined.

"Monitor Duty," he grunted, drawing his cape towards himself.

He the light press of Diana's fingertips on the back of his shoulders as she laughed softly, "Oh Bruce, don't tell me you've signed up for that again. I'm sure Orion would be glad to take over for a night."

"You sure you won't join us? We'll be watching 'It's a Wonderful Life'." Batman let his upper lip curl slightly at the thought. One of the last few times he remembered watching that had been because of Dick, and even then it had been delayed by the Joker rampaging through the city. The first time after Dick had left, he couldn't bring himself to even look at the television that Christmas, sitting and with blank eyes towards the fire till Alfred roused him. Now Dick was trying to get Tim into the 'tradition', as he liked to call it, and Tim and Barbara were heading to Dick's loft that night as he came into town for a few days. Also just a call away if they were needed, they'd said.

"Monitor Duty," he repeated, "from the Batcave. I'm routing League feeds to my computer for the next forty-eight hours." That was, however, still a good half an hour away. With Tim and Barbara on duty, and now Nightwing in the area, Gotham would be fine for that time.

There was still time to stand a while, surrounded by a sea of lights floating in the further reaches of the galaxies. Christmas really was getting to him. No matter. They fell into a comfortable silence, shoulders barely touching, yet tied by the same invisible strands that pooled each collection of stars together on the dotted canvas they viewed.