Author's note/disclaimer: In the "Trinity" comic books, Diana recently admitted to having been romantically attracted to both Bruce AND Clark. That's the only reason I was able to write this chapter the way I did!
This is set sometime after Wonder Woman has been banished from Themyscira.
Chapter Three: Hopeless romantic
Her voice struck out at him as soon as his red boots touched the white marble. "Men aren't allowed here."
Clark put his fists on his hips. "Neither are you."
"This temple is abandoned," Diana replied. Her voice shrank. "My mother doesn't know I'm here."
It was morning off the coast of Greece, but the middle of the night in Metropolis.
Batman landed silently on the balcony. Effortlessly slid through the unlocked door, made his way to her bedroom. She was asleep, her dark hair beautifully sprawled across the pale pillowcase. One slender arm, outside the covers, curled to her chest. He stood back, let his cape fall closed in front of his shoulders, turning himself into a limbless black shape.
"Lois…"
Diana was in full warrior mode; broadsword and billowing cobalt cloak added to her usual costume. She was standing with her feet apart, facing a dilapidated statue of Hera in the main chamber of the temple.
Clark's forehead creased at the sight of her rigid shoulders, her bowed head. "Are you all right?"
"Don't come any closer," she warned, not moving. "I am preparing for battle."
Clark sighed. "Diana, you're overreacting."
"I've been a fool," she said, almost to herself.
Clark wasn't sure how to respond. His eyes wandered around the temple, and were drawn to the crumbling face of the statue. The goddess Hera looked angry, he realized. Angry and sad.
It had been a long time since he'd studied up on Greek mythology, but he seemed to remember that Hera was a jealous goddess, always plotting revenge for her husband's unfaithful escapades. The more he recalled about the goddess's character, the more ferocious and grief-stricken her marbled countenance appeared.
Fleetingly, Clark recalled that 'hell hath no fury like a woman spurned', and he wished that Diana had picked some other Olympian deity to call on for strength and aid.
He swallowed. "Did Bruce at least tell you what really happened? Between me and him, I mean?"
"No excuse could be good enough, so don't even try."
Clark's face flushed a bit. "He had a bad dream. Alfred usually sits up with him but Alfred wasn't on the Watchtower and I was. That's all."
In the cold silence that followed, Clark could almost hear her emotions swelling.
"Man's world has corrupted me," she muttered at last.
"Diana, no--" Clark took a step towards her, and in a blink her sword was against his throat. With a violinist's precision, she drew the blade across his adam's apple, leaving the smallest red line—no worse than a paper cut, really, but it served as a vivid reminder that even the man of steel was vulnerable to weapons forged by the gods.
Clark touched his throat, frowned at the thin smear of blood on his fingers. "I said, don't come any closer," Diana hissed. "While you are here, you will obey me."
Smiling, Clark remembered how Shayera had gone through a phase where she had referred to Wonder Woman as 'the royal bitch' behind her back. When Diana found out, she had been genuinely puzzled as to how she had earned that particular nickname, and nobody had dared to explain it to her.
And now, meeting the blaze of her fearless eyes, Clark was reminded of another pair of eyes that had almost the same shade of entitlement in them when their owner was making demands of obedience. "The Princess of the Amazons," Clark mused aloud, his smile spreading. "Definitely a good match for the Prince of Gotham."
"Enough! I will not be mocked."
Clark put his hands up. "I just want to talk to you."
"About him." She looked away, and then tilted her sword so that she could study Clark's reflection on the polished metal. The reflection shivered a bit as she tightened her grip.
"Yes. He told me you had a fight. What did he say to you?"
"It matters not. I will soon be rid of him." If she'd been wearing a helmet, she would have almost certainly punctuated that sentiment by slamming the visor closed.
The first wisp of impatience clouded Clark's demeanor. "Listen to yourself. You're talking like one of the bad guys."
A smack, loud as a gunshot. He opened his eyes in surprise, and saw tears in hers. Felt the heat rise to the surface of his skin where she'd struck his cheek.
Nothing needed to be said. His eyes held hers with a steady gaze, almost assaulting her with understanding and compassion. He stepped forward again, expecting her to fall right into the hug that was waiting for her.
And that was why he didn't even see it coming when she punched him hard enough to send him flying.
"Bruce? What are you doing here?" Lois rubbed her face, sat up, self-consciously adjusted the tank top she'd worn to bed.
"The rumor you heard," Bruce said, trying hard not to speak as Batman. "It isn't true."
"Yeah, I saw Booster Gold at the press conference," she said, unimpressed. "It was just supposed to be a joke, blah blah blah. But you know what I think?" She gave him a searing look. "I think Booster Gold is probably pretty susceptible to intimidation."
"You're right," Bruce said, stepping forward. "I told him exactly what he would and wouldn't say."
"Uh-huh. And you're here now to tell me to put a lid on this whole mess at the Daily Planet. Probably already paid a 'visit' to some of the other major media corporations too."
"Wrong." Bruce came even closer. "I'm here because you need to know what happened. Last night I couldn't sleep. Nightmares. Had them all my life. Superman couldn't stand the sound of them, said I was keeping him awake."
"So he came over to comfort you? That's your story?"
"He did this," Bruce said, a little too gruffly, and Lois flinched as he reached out—and turned on the lamp on her nightstand.
A soft cozy glow filled the room, rendering the dark shape of the Batman abruptly finite and obvious.
Lois marveled at the change. Suddenly Batman barely existed, leaving just Bruce Wayne in a costume. She narrowed her eyes at him as he finished recounting his tale.
"He turned on the light, and sat with me until I fell asleep. I didn't ask him to, didn't want him to. But that's what he did."
Lois searched the blank eyeholes of his mask. "The only reason I believe you is because that's one of the most pathetic stories I've ever heard," she grumbled at last. "If you'd been making it up, you would have added at least one scene of you beating the tar out of him."
"Hmpf." Bruce pressed his lips together, and Lois could've sworn he was fighting back a smile. When he spoke again, he sounded distinctly amused. "Actually, I just didn't mention that part. While we were disagreeing over whether the light would be staying on or off, I knocked him down. Booster Gold happened to be passing by, and he interpreted what he saw according to his own prerogative."
Lois rolled her eyes. "Wow. That's one heck of a misunderstanding."
"Not compared to what happened in the morning…"
Diana's relentless attacks took them high above the island, until, dwarfed by the sky, they looked like two red-and-blue hummingbirds suspended over the turquoise sea.
"How many hearts has he broken, Clark?!" She emphasized her words with savage slashes of her blade, Clark just barely managing to dodge out of the way. "Has he broken yours yet?" Immediately he thought of Lois, felt sad. And decided that Diana's rampage had gone on long enough.
He caught her wrist. She fought, futilely, to get free, crying out in disgust and rage as he caught her other hand. She was trapped now, unable to wield her sword or her lasso, and Superman was dragging her out of the sky, bringing her along as an unwilling passenger on a gradual, feet-first descent back to earth.
He thought the fight was over. He was trying to talk to her, to reason with her. She was his prisoner. Her eyes flashed, angry fireworks. And with all her strength, she kicked him in the balls.
"Hoh," he coughed, and his grip on her arms tightened. He looked up at her with respect born from pain. "Ouch."
Smashing both of her wrists together in one of his hands, he whipped her around until he got hold of both of her ankles in his other hand, and then draped her body across his shoulders. "Now where did you learn that?" he asked good-naturedly as she continued, furiously, to struggle against him. "That was literally below the belt."
"Black Canary," spat Diana. "She recommended that technique as a last resort."
"Brutal," Clark commented. "I'll have to warn Ollie."
"I don't understand," Diana said, her voice cracking a little. "Why do they do things that hurt each other? Why do people in love always hurt each other?"
Clark stepped down out of the sky at the entrance of the abandoned temple where their short-lived battle had begun. He could feel her breaking down, shuddering against his shoulder as she started to cry.
"I don't know, Diana," he said, voice and expression solemn. He let go of her wrists and ankles and lifted her, gently, over his head. But instead of setting her on her feet, he slid one arm under her knees and the other around her shoulders, and cradled her against his chest.
She wiped her eyes and looked up at him. "You're treating me like a child," she accused.
He smiled. "Actually, I'm treating you like a girl. Is that okay?"
She had to think about it for a moment. At last she nodded, and closed her eyes against the top corner of the shield on his uniform.
"I can just picture it!" Lois was laughing. They had moved their conversation to the kitchen and now faced each other over steaming mugs of coffee. "Supe--superman—Superman waking up, being all like, 'oh, good morning, Wonder Woman'!" She burst into a fresh fit of giggles that left her gasping for air.
"I'm glad you find it so amusing," Bruce muttered.
"And- and- and can you imagine how poor Wonder Woman must've felt? God, Bruce, that would be like-- like if I showed up at Wayne Manor one morning and found you in bed with, with— Clark Kent!"
"Yes, it'd be just like that," Bruce said flatly.
"Hmm." Suddenly Lois had a certain gleam in her eye. Bruce had seen that sort of gleam before, usually when Selina Kyle had her whip wrapped around his neck. "That reminds me." She looked down into her coffee and then sat up very straight, peering intently at Bruce's masked face. "Just how well do you know my old friend Clark?"
"I know who he is," Bruce said, his tone carefully measured.
"And do you honestly think I don't?" Lois asked, and then her voice turned serious. "I've known for years. But don't tell him. I don't want him to get out of telling me himself."
"How'd you figure it out?"
She shrugged. "Called him Clark once, purely by accident, and he answered before I could correct myself. The funny thing is, while I was standing there with my jaw on the floor, he didn't even realize that he'd given it away."
"Typical."
"Since then, I've grown disturbingly fond of torturing him."
There was a smile in his voice, if not on his face. "Don't worry. He'll forgive you."
When Clark finally put her down, she still clung to him, her face pressed to his chest. He kept his arms around her, glad that she already seemed to be recovering. He considered it an honor and a privilege to be a friend for her, just to stand there and hold her so she knew that he cared about her, no matter how angry or horrible she was feeling. He knew that his shoulders were very good for crying on.
But then, out of nowhere, he felt Diana's lips brush his neck, and the entire world changed spectrums.
His whole body grew still. The air in the temple instantly turned to lead.
She hated him. Hated him for being stronger, for being better, for being closer to Bruce. For being on Bruce's side, for understanding him in a way that she could not. She hated him because she knew that Bruce loved him. And most of all, she hated him because he was exactly what she needed.
She waited for the eternity of three seconds for the response that he wouldn't give her, and then tried again.
If that first kiss had frozen him, the second thawed him out again. He brought his hands to her shoulders, held her in place while he stepped back. "Diana, no. Bad idea," he told her, as kindly as he could.
Her eyes were fierce. "You disapprove of my motives?" she asked coolly, resuming her regal manner.
"Probably, yes. And definitely yes if it's about some kind of revenge against Bruce."
"What if I'm just curious?" she asked. She could have said it coyly, but she didn't. She was being completely straightforward.
Clark shook his head. "Still a bad idea," he told her. "You can be curious with Bruce. Not with me."
She turned away, shrugging off his hands. "I didn't tell you what our fight was about."
Clark looked at her, worried, but hopeful that they were getting somewhere. "Would you like to?" he asked at last.
She sighed, and unfastened her cloak, folding it in her arms. Clark couldn't deny that seeing her bare shoulders again made him freshly conscious of her beautiful figure. He hoped she knew how pretty she was; he didn't want her to think he'd pushed her away because he found her unattractive.
"I'm not good enough for him," she said, bitterly matter-of-fact. "Or rather, I'm too good for him, as he put it. But I know what he meant."
"I meant I'm not going to risk ruining her," Bruce said. Lois nodded and tapped her finger against the side of her mug, as if the reporter in her was impatient to be taking notes. "She's… inexperienced," Bruce continued. "Innocent. She wouldn't understand. I'm the wrong person to teach her about love."
"Don't be so hard on yourself, Bruce." Lois leaned back in her chair, sipped her coffee. "Even if she is perfect, that doesn't mean you have to be. You're not bad at being romantic, you know. Roses, champagne, all that—you'll have no problem sweeping her off her feet."
"That's what I'm afraid of," Bruce replied. "She's already fallen for me. If I reciprocate, she might never recover. Diana talks about 'Man's world' as if she were just visiting. I'm only good for women who've been saturated by 'Man's world' and aren't impressed with it. Women who know how to handle disappointment and rejection and betrayal in a relationship. Women who know how to land on their feet."
Lois looked down at her coffee and smirked. "Women like me," she summarized.
"Yes," Bruce said simply. "Like you and Selina and a dozen others, who knew how to play the game."
"So you didn't have to worry about hurting our feelings when it was over," Lois realized.
"I knew you could take care of yourself, yes. And I mean that as a compliment," Bruce said sincerely.
Lois gave him a bright smile; she was in on the secret now. "Thanks," she said, and leaned forward across the table. "But you still said you were sorry, the next time that you saw me. And so now Iknow that you're a hopeless romantic, Bruce Wayne," she said. "And I mean that as a compliment too."
For a golden moment they regarded each other across the table in absolute empathy, neither one regretting what had once been between them, and both completely over it.
"So," Bruce growled. "What are you doing for dinner?"
It was a joke and she knew it, so she laughed. "Don't tempt me," she joked back, rolling her eyes. "It's getting so bad at work that some days I just want to molest him in the elevator. If I was just one tiny bit less proud of my professional image, I swear I would hide under his desk and give him the surprise of his life."
Bruce grinned at that, and the open display of emotion on his face encouraged her. "Wait right here," she said, jumping up. "I want to show you something."
She disappeared into the bedroom and came back a moment later holding a pair of dainty white cotton panties. Bruce quirked an eyebrow as she turned them over to reveal, written in permanent marker across the back: I know who you are, CLARK!!
Bruce almost laughed.
"The man has x-ray vision, does he not?" Lois demanded, as Bruce tried to drown his near-laughter in his coffee. "Well. I wore these one day and kept my back turned to him all day long, confident that he'd get the message. And what does he do? He comes up to me all repentant and sad and asks me, seriously asks me if he's done something to offend me and if we could please talk about it. With those blue eyes of his behind those ridiculous glasses—ugh! I just wanted to scream!"
"You should've known that wouldn't work," Bruce scolded fondly. "He'd never peek, not in a million years. He's too good for that. Besides, if he did, he'd never get any work done."
Lois blushed a little and stuffed the panties into the pocket of her bathrobe. "You're right," she sighed, sitting back down at the table. "He is too good for that. Sometimes, I think he's too good for me. Kind of like your problem with Diana."
Bruce nodded thoughtfully, and Lois's eyes locked on his like a steel trap. "Let me ask you something, Bruce." She carefully rested her elbows on the table, interlocking her fingers. "If you're so sure that you're not the right person to teach Diana about love, then who do you think is qualified for the job?"
His answer was gruff. "Somebody better."
"Better than you. Right." There was no masking the sarcasm in her voice.
Bruce sighed. "Somebody…warmer," he said reluctantly. "Kinder. More compassionate. Somebody without a dark shadow over their soul."
Lois raised an eyebrow at him. "Poetic," she deemed. "And you realize, of course, that you're talking about somebody exactly like Clark."
He sat there, momentarily stunned, and didn't reply. Lois judged his lack of reaction accurately, and shook her head. "And if it only took me five minutes to think of that, how long do you think it'll take Wonder Woman?"
"He actually told you to find someone else?" Clark was baffled. Diana was pacing in front of him, relating what she and Bruce had been fighting about. Now she nodded.
"And I told him there was no one else. That was the end of it." She stopped pacing abruptly, turned her head to look over her shoulder at him. "But now, I'm reconsidering. Maybe Bruce was right. Maybe I do need someone else at first."
"And you've decided on me?" Clark asked.
"You'll do," she said, moving closer. "We're already friends; we'd stay friends. We could enter a relationship based on mutually understood conditions--"
"Wait, wait. Time out." he gave her a genuinely concerned and uncomfortable look. "You aren't talking about a physical relationship, are you?"
She blinked, and Clark got the disturbing impression that either his question had been too direct for her to answer, or that it had gone right over her head. "What you said before inspired me," she told him. "You can teach me what it means to be treated like a 'girl', and how I ought to treat a man. Once I've learned the basics, I can go back to pursuing a relationship with Bruce, and he won't be able to cite my lack of experience as a reason to deny me."
"This is one of the craziest schemes I've ever…"
"Will you at least give it a try? As a favor to me, as a friend? Please." She touched his arm, and ran her fingers up to his shoulder. She bit her lip, and looked at his mouth, and he knew she meant to kiss him.
He brought a hand up to the side of her face, smoothed her hair back behind her ear. There was no doubt in his mind.
"Diana, I can't."
She let out a breath. "Why not?"
"It doesn't feel right. I feel like I'd be kissing my sister."
"That's absurd."
Clark's expression was grave. "Think about it. You're talking about a completely fake relationship. It'd be wrong. Just think about it and tell me… could you really go through with it?"
Intuitively she knew the right answer, knew what he needed her to say. But desperation and anger too recently spent made her eager to consider the alternative.
Her eyes swept back and forth across his face, then dipped to admire the smoothly curving lines of his body. Naturally, she liked what she saw, as did most women. There were a few who were turned off by sheer mass, by muscle. Diana wasn't one of them. And, though she felt guilty for even thinking of it, it wouldn't require much imagination to visually substitute Clark's body for Bruce's in any of her fantasies.
The physical attraction was there. She didn't understand it exactly, but it was there.
And, deep in her heart, she knew that it wasn't important.
Bruce was what was important to her. He was what mattered. And even though he had a nearly perfect track record of being right, this time she would prove that he was wrong.
"…No," she answered at last. "No, I couldn't. But Bruce probably thinks that I could."
Clark smiled at her. "Then he doesn't know you well enough. And you should fix that."
"Don't worry," the Princess said, lifting her chin a little. One hand came to rest on her hip, just above her lasso. Her eyes cooled to sapphires. "I intend to."
to be continued!
Author's note: I am not completely sold on the whole BM/WW phenomenon… but I am, of course, a huge fan of Clark/Lois. Don't worry though, in the next chapter this story gets back to being about Batman and Superman and how cute they are together.
I know this was a long chapter, so thanks for sticking through it! And thanks again everyone for the awesome reviews. I love you guys!!
