A/N: We're going for a walk down memory lane with this one. Bear with me, I feel like I need to tell it this way to establish how the 'connection' played into actual JL storylines, as well as explain why Diana and Bruce then behave as they do later in the story.

Major spoilers for 'The Brave and the Bold'; 'Fury'; 'Savage Time'; 'Starcrossed'; 'Maid of Honor'

Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.

ILLUSION

Wonder Woman sat looking across the table into kind blue eyes. She lifted the steaming mug up to smell the aroma of the hot beverage inside. After taking a sip, she looked down at the cup as she sat it on the table and began to trace the rim with her index finger.

"I feel like I need to tell you everything. I am afraid that if I don't, you'll never know the truth. You should know – it involves you too. But he's not going to tell you. Now that I am here though, I'm not exactly sure where to start."

"Why don't you just start at the beginning?"

Which beginning? She nodded though and prepared to tell him everything.

When she had first left the island, she knew no one and knew almost nothing about man's world. She had never been there before, at least not physically.

Having spent her whole life on an island inhabited only by women, she had no experience interacting with men. Each man that she encountered after her arrival was a foreign being to her. In the beginning, their presence made her uneasy. Except for him – somehow he felt familiar and comfortable to her from the moment they'd met. At first she tried to ignore it. Feeling comfortable with a man just wasn't the Amazon way.

Of course, she didn't know who he was then; he hadn't willingly shared his identity with any of them. Superman was the only person who knew Batman's true identity before the Justice League was formed. She subsequently learned that this knowledge wasn't given freely by Batman out of trust – it was simply happened due to a lack of lead in the lining of the cowl. Something that Batman had quickly rectified. Even beyond the knowledge of his identity, trusting Superman came slowly for Batman. Beginning, in fact, long before the Justice League was formed. It evolved over years.

Not so was Batman's trust of her.

So, even though she didn't know the man under the cowl, there had always been some special connection between them. It developed quickly from familiarity and comfort, to trust, then into something was difficult to describe. It had been there for her almost immediately, which had been very disconcerting, given the fact he was male.

During those first few months in man's world, Wonder Woman developed a true respect for all of her colleagues, male and female. With Batman, though, it was more than just respect. There was an admiration, an attraction, and simply a peace that she felt whenever he was around. Diana didn't know what it was or why it was – just that it was.

It wasn't long before she began to sense that he felt this bond too. She didn't understand why that would be, any more than she understood her own pull towards him. At first it had just been a suspicion – a feeling – that it was the same with him; however, it wasn't until their trip to Gorilla City that she knew for certain that there was something – unexplained – between them.

He had been covered in dirt. She had noticed that right away. She had immediately thought how sweet, albeit illogical, it had been for him to even try to dig her out from under a missile. Back then, none of them really understood exactly how strong she was.

J'onn had told her about it – how he had to go down into the crevasse created by the missile and stop Bruce from continuing with a futile effort to dig her out.

Shayera had a lot more to say about it than J'onn had. She told Diana about how he had behaved when that missile landed on top of her. Rational thought had apparently left the most brilliant mind on the planet. Shay described how he had leapt into the hole, calling her name and pulling rocks and boulders away from the body of a rocket filled with alcohol-water and liquid nitrogen. He could never have pulled her out, but he tried to anyway.

As it turned out, it hadn't really been sweet of him at all. Instead of 'sweet', Shayera used words like 'irrational' and 'desperate'. This from one of the most unemotional males Diana had met in the world so far.

They had never spoken of it – why he had done it remained an unanswered question.

At this point in her story, Diana paused. She'd been staring down at her empty cup while she spoke, explaining the beginning – or what she thought had been at the time – of her….association….. with Batman.

She looked up again at the blue eyes across the table from her. He hadn't said a word the entire time. He didn't now, either. He simply looked at her with warm, kind eyes and picked up the teapot to pour her another cup. She smiled sadly at him.

"I will miss you when I go," she sighed and continued with her story. "Then he did it again. When my Amazon sister decided to annihilate the entire male population on the planet, he pushed me out of the way of that damn bus and nearly got himself killed. At the time, it just made me angry. I watched him struggle needlessly to save the driver when I could have stopped the bus with one hand." She smiled again, with a little less sadness this time. "He was magnificent to watch though. By the time he collapsed in my arms from the effects of the virus, I was no longer angry. I was terrified."

"Looking back, there were so many things that should have caused me to realize the reason for our connection. The fact that Batman's parent's had been killed in Vandal Savage's altered reality, was just one example. He was so hopeful that we could go back in time to save his parents. When Superman told him that he couldn't promise we could – I immediately knew that Batman's parents must have been killed in our reality too. Still, I didn't make the connection. It took so much effort to dive into the portal and leave him behind."

"But you still didn't know why?"

"No." She shook her head, raven tresses swinging around the melancholic expression on her beautiful face. He was being so patient, she thought, as she looked at the man across the table from her. He was allowing her to explain things in her own way, at her own pace, without interruption. It was finally time for her to confess exactly what had happened all those years ago.

"Then Paris happened," she said.

Bruce had rescued her from the crowd and had asked her to dance. At first she thought that the feeling of recognition was simply the realization that the man she was dancing with in Paris was Batman. Especially when he appeared in her hotel room later. The next morning she knew the man she had danced with was the same one that sat before her. She even felt a little…smug, having figured it out. After they took down Vandal Savage, she tried to nonchalantly tease him into a confession by insisting that he owed her a dance – but of course, he had 'no idea what she was talking about'.

Even then she still didn't know was who it really was that she had danced with in Paris. Looking back, she realized that it was his eyes that brought her that feeling of recognition – of familiarity, in the Paris ballroom. She knew those eyes, although she did not yet realize that she did. She had learned since then that when he became 'Bruce Wayne, playboy billionaire', there was a different look about them. His eyes were darker, less…genuine. Although you couldn't see his eyes with the cowl, you knew when Batman was looking at you. You could feel it - feel the heat. At least she could. Perhaps if he'd looked at her in Paris like he had in that restaurant during the Thanagarian invasion, she might have caught on more quickly. She didn't though – not until her own dreams forced her to make the connection.

She had stayed behind with Audrey to help rebuild Kasnia. She dreamed of Bruce, Batman, or both nearly every night. One night her dream was different. She was a child in this dream. He was a child in this dream. In her dream, his eyes gave it all away. It had been a long time since she thought about that time in her childhood. Now she remembered it all quite clearly

Diana noted the look of confusion on her companion's face and took a deep breath, preparing herself to tell him the story. "This is the hard part, Alfred."

He reached across the table and clasped one of her hands. "Why is that my dear?"

She looked away. "Because I deceived you, deceived him. I do not feel guilt for having done so as it was my duty and I had given my word. I do however feel regret that I had to keep it hidden. It had been so long since I thought about that time in my childhood. I did my duty and went back to training. I wasn't expecting to encounter him again."

"Why don't you just explain to me what did happen?"

So she did. She told Alfred all about the task given her by Themis and Morpheus, because Bruce had a great destiny before him. Diana included their belief that if Bruce were to think that the path he was on hadn't been chosen by his own free will, it might put lives at risk. To prevent this outcome, she was never to tell him the truth if they encountered each other in the future.

"It truly was his choice, Alfred."

Diana gazed intently at him as he sat in silence, processing everything that she had just confessed to him. It felt like an eternity before he spoke again.

"I do not doubt that, Miss Diana. Master Bruce is not one to do anything that is not of his own free will. If I may ask, would this have occurred when he was approximately thirteen years of age?"

She nodded apprehensively. "Yes. To me he still looked eight, but I was told it had been five years since his parents had passed."

Alfred sat back in his chair. He inhaled, then exhaled deeply. "Then that explains it," he said.

Diana's forehead wrinkled. "Explains what?"

"There was a brief time when I felt that Master Bruce was finally beginning to heal. The nightmares had stopped. He began to show an interest in things again. It was an interest in martial arts and weapons, but at least it was an interest in something. Since I had formerly been a member of the MI6, I certainly wasn't opposed to letting him develop this interest. Being a Wayne, I thought it appropriate that he train with the world's finest. I possessed the necessary connections to arrange it and so we left. During our years abroad, his days were filled with studying at local universities and training. He must have earned a different degree in every city we stopped in."

"Alfred, you said that there was a 'brief time' when you thought Bruce had begun to heal?"

He nodded slowly. "Unfortunately, as soon as we left Gotham, the nightmares began again. Master Bruce continued to be driven in his studies and training, but he was different than he had been before we left. There was still that drive – but the passion, that 'spark' was gone."

"Does he still have the nightmares now, Alfred?"

Alfred sighed. "I'm afraid so. I believe that it still happens several times a week. It's hard to know for sure. He had the master bedroom soundproofed long ago so nobody who happened to be in the house would hear the screaming. Besides his nocturnal activities, I think that one of the reasons he sleeps so little is to avoid having them."

As heartbroken as she already was, this information caused her to be more so. It was obvious to everyone that Batman was still plagued by the events of his childhood. Despite this, during the time since she had realized her true connection to Bruce, she had somehow convinced herself that no matter the outcome, she had at least provided him some comfort as a child. She believed she had helped to stop the nightly torment. Now there came the realization the relief had been only temporary.

As if Alfred had been reading her mind, "It appears that the only time he ever stopped having them was during your intervention. He is different around you. That I noticed the night you came here during the invasion. I had hoped that something more might develop between you. Now knowing that you were able to comfort him even as a child, makes me desire it all the more."

Diana couldn't help but be relieved that he wasn't angry with her for not being honest about her visits to Bruce in his childhood. "I had wanted that too, Alfred. Perhaps maybe we could have. It is now an impossibility."

She blushed slightly as she began to share even more personal thoughts and feelings with the older man. "After some time, I began to get used to the idea that I had this knowledge, these memories, that I couldn't share. With the connection that I couldn't explain was now explained and over time my feelings began to grow into something more….romantic. While we were hiding in plain sight during the invasion, I was overwhelmed just being alone with him as Bruce. These were new, unfamiliar emotions for me. I – I kissed him in that restaurant to avoid detection from the Thanagarian soldiers. It was a ruse, yes, but I had also been thinking about it since the moment he removed the cowl in the warehouse. I was encouraged by his reaction and began to think that maybe everything would be fine. He didn't remember me, so I decided that when I could, I would go to the Gods and petition them to let me tell him. Eventually, I began to become more comfortable and hoped that maybe something more could develop between us."

"But my dear, if what you tell me is true why you are now leaving?"

E/N: Thanks to everyone reading my stories - although I'd really love some feedback if you have a minute.