A/N: I apologize in advance for some of the activity herein and Bruce's attempts to forget Diana by engaging in some very stereotypically male behavior. It's a little cliché as well and maybe a little bit OOC, so again, apologies. As for the OOC, imagine the possible reactions to discovering the person you were in love with had been lying to you for years and then just up and left town.

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.

HAUNTED

He knew that Shayera had returned to the Watchtower. From the cave, he had been tracking the GPS on both the Javelin and her communicator since she had left two days ago

In spite of himself – and quite out of character – two days ago he began to experience a new emotion. Hope. He wanted to see her. If she came back, it would mean….well he didn't know what it would mean. But he needed to see her.

After waiting an hour with no communication, he called up to the Watchtower. Flash had the misfortune of being the only founder in the communications room when he made his call up to the tower.

"Flash." It wasn't a question, but rather a command - a demand for undivided attention.

A pause. "Ummm, yes?"

"Shayera's back."

"Well, yes."

"Did she return alone?"

"No, but Bats – "

"Batman out."

Flash stared at the camera on the observation deck now focused on two women standing together looking out the window – one petite redhead and one tall raven-haired beauty. "Crap," he uttered. Several junior Leaguers turned to look at him sympathetically. He shook his head, then punched the secure codes into the computer that would disconnect the video feed. He didn't need to see this. Nobody did.

Batman materialized in the transporter room several minutes later, still tracking Shayera's location in the Watchtower on his PDA. As he stalked down the hallway, heroes jumped to the side to let him pass. He was headed toward the observation deck.

Shayera was coming out the door as he approached it.

His stoic expression met her still-angry one.

"Is she in there?" he asked.

Cocking her head to the side, her expression changed to something that could best be described as a sadistic grin. "She is," she said as she stepped aside. As he passed by, she followed him back into the room and waited for the scene to unfold.

She was wearing the familiar red, blue, and gold uniform. Her long, dark hair spilled over her shoulders. Wonder Woman stood at the window, with her back to the door. Her arms were crossed in front of her as she stared out at the view of the Earth below.

Batman walked over to her and gently touched her elbow. She turned to look at him. Blue eyes that were Diana's…but not Diana's, stared at him. Actually, glared at him.

He stood silently looking at her, for what Shayera could swear was a full minute.

"You're not Diana."

"No, I'm not."

He looked at her for a few more seconds before he turned and walked toward the door. As he reached the exit where Shayera was still standing, a voice came from behind him. Similar, but still different from hers.

"Hera I hope you give me a reason to kick your ass."

It only lasted a split second before the mask of the Bat wiped it away, but even with the cowl Shayera could have sworn she saw him flinch. Maybe she was wrong, but she was trained to closely observe behavior – and she was extremely good at it. At that moment though, she wished she wasn't. Suddenly, she wasn't angry anymore. She turned and followed him out.

He went directly back to the transporter room. He punched in the coordinates to the cave, setting them to erase as soon as he dematerialized. This was standard practice for both the cave and Superman's Fortress, as only a select few League members had access to either place.

The second he finished entering the numbers, Shayera landed on the platform, assuring that she would transport down to the cave with him.

The second their molecules reassembled in the cave, Batman turned to her. "Get out."

"No."

He glared at her. Fiercely.

She crossed her arms in front of her, her eyes meeting his. "I'm not sure if you've noticed, but that has never worked on me. Two of my closest….friends…. are miserable and damn it, I want to know why."

He turned his back on her and walked down the steps towards the supercomputer and sat in his (new) chair.

"Bruce, what the fuck is going on?" She followed him to the computer bank and stepped between it and him, forcing him to push his chair back away from her. "The two of you are determined to destroy this team and the rest of us deserve to know why."

He abruptly froze. After a moment, he pushed back his cowl. The last few weeks had taken its toll on his handsome face. His eyes were bloodshot, like he hadn't slept in days and didn't bother to try and hide it.

"My God, Bruce. When's the last time you slept?"

Not surprisingly, he ignored her question. "She didn't tell you?"

"No, she didn't." Shayera sat on his desk and looked at him with concern. When he registered her concern, he looked away. "She told me that it was between the two of you. She told me that you didn't want the League to know."

"That's it?"

"No. She also said that it wasn't your fault, it was hers. She said your reaction was understandable and that we shouldn't blame you for her leaving."

"She said the same thing to Alfred."

"When I went back to get her, she asked what you had said – word for word – about wanting her to come back. If she hadn't threatened to use the lasso, I would have said whatever was necessary to get her back here. 'The League needs Wonder Woman' just wasn't enough."

"So, she sent…her sister?"

"Yeah, Donna. I didn't know she had a sister. At least a real one…or close to a real one."

"I knew."

"Of course you did. And it never occurred to you that she might send her sister back instead?"

"No."

"She loves you, you know?"

"I know."

"And you love her, you know?"

"I know that too."

"But you aren't going after her are you?"

"No."

"You men really are jackasses sometimes."

*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X

He was trying very hard to forget about her. She haunted him. Every minute of every day. Even if he would ever be good enough for her though, there was just too much to overcome now.

To forget her, he needed to become less himself – less 'Bruce' – the person that loved and missed her desperately. That meant, to everyone's misfortune, that he needed to embrace the hard, cold, logical Bat or the shallow, womanizing, playboy Bruce Wayne. Depending on the time of day, he did both. Both were needed, since every time he went to sleep, he became 'just Bruce' and dreamed of her. So, he became Bruce Wayne twelve hours a day and Batman the other twelve. He took on both roles with reckless abandon.

Bruce Wayne was certainly on the prowl. He was attending far more charity and society events than usual. As was customary for Bruce Wayne, he had a different beautiful woman on his arm at each one. What was unusual was the pretext of seduction that was nearly always an act, became less of one as he tried to put Diana out of his mind.

Each night he tried to access something inside that would trigger the desire to lose himself in one of these women. Each night he tried, but by the time room keys were slipped to him or he found himself alone with a woman in the back of a limo – his well practiced response kicked in and he dropped back to the old list of excuses he used to escape. Too much alcohol – he wasn't feeling well. Too much alcohol – he was unable to perform. Ironically, he still didn't consume a drop although he was quite adept at acting intoxicated. A less common excuse – a Wayne Industries crisis to attend to. This was always less believable though.

At one particular function, Bruce found himself drawn to the beautiful woman he was with. He tried not to think about it, but it would be obvious to anyone why he was.

She was dressed in red, her long, dark, blue-black hair hung well below her shoulders. She was tall – but not as tall. She was beautiful – but not as beautiful. But then, nobody was as beautiful as Diana. For awhile though, he let himself get lost in the fantasy that it was her.

The charity function took place at the Gotham Hotel. Coincidentally, she was staying at the hotel. At the end of the evening, he walked her to her room. When they arrived at the door, she turned and looked at him expectantly. She reached up and slid one hand behind the back of his head and pulled him toward her. He closed his eyes and let her. After a few seconds he gave in and began to respond.

She pulled him into the dark room. He spun her around and pushed her back against the door. He continued to kiss her as he reached a hand under each of her thighs and lifted her up, wrapping them around his waist.

He got lost. For a few seconds he forgot who he was and who he was with until suddenly the lights flipped on. He felt himself being pushed away from the warm body in front of him. The woman – whom he had almost used in an attempt to forget how miserable he was – stared at him in disbelief.

She reached out one hand and with her index finger brushed the wetness from one cheek. Her look of disbelief changed to one of sympathy.

"Why don't you tell her?" she asked.

"Tell her?" he responded, not meeting the blue eyes that weren't her blue eyes.

"Diana."

His head jerked up and he stared at her. She really didn't look like her at all, he thought.

"You just said her name."

He closed his eyes. "Excuse me, I shouldn't be here."

She stepped aside and let him pass. As he entered the elevator to the parking garage, he thought 'What's happening to me? '

X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X

With Bruce Wayne lacking the necessary control, he became Batman nearly full-time. Except that the League began to back off calling him in on missions unless entirely necessary. It started off by being selective about what missions he was assigned to. The Founders soon realized that being on a mission with the new Wonder Woman was a disaster in the making.

They had expected hostility between the two and got it. At least partially. Donna had been extremely professional at first - at least after it was explained that she would unlikely be able to kick Batman's ass without extensive use of her powers and that was expressly forbidden. Her professional behavior quickly went by the wayside after her first mission with him, however.

It wasn't an unusually dangerous mission. Several of Gotham's criminal underworld had the good sense to go on the road since Batman seemed to be putting everyone in the hospital for extended stays before being transferred to Blackgate Prison or Arkham Asylum. What wasn't good sense though, was relocating to Metropolis, and risk the wrath of Superman. Not to mention the fact that it was quite likely that Batman would show as well, given that the city was just across the bay from Gotham.

So, since Harvey Dent was currently secured in Arkham, four of Two-Face's thugs decided to make a few bucks in Metropolis. Superman had brought along Wonder Woman for training purposes. The henchman were attempting to knock over a bank and had taken three tellers hostage.

Having been alerted by Oracle, Batman arrived on the scene just as the four men attempted to make a break for it. A spray of automatic gunfire erupted in Wonder Woman's direction. Batman, acting on instinct, jumped at her, knocking her behind a garbage dumpster and out of the line of fire. Unfortunately, this resulted in his taking two bullets in the shoulder.

He had landed on top of her, so she pushed him off and sent him flying twenty feet.

"Easy Donna," said Superman. He had already knocked the four offenders unconscious and disabled their guns by the time she got to her feet.

"What the Tartarus was that?" she asked him, pointing at the masked vigilante lying on the ground face down. She was pissed off.

"I don't know. Wait – he's bleeding."

They walked over and rolled him onto his back. He was awake and glaring at them both.

"Batman? You know that was unnecessary. She has all of Diana's weapons."

Just before he passed out from blood loss he said, "Diana would want me to keep her safe."

After that, the League made sure that Batman and Wonder Woman were not assigned to the same missions.

A few days after having the bullets removed from his shoulder, Batman went back to hospitalizing the few unlucky individuals he discovered still committing crimes on the streets of Gotham City.

X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X*X

A week ago, Alfred drugged his coffee. Bruce was out cold for 36 hours and was fit to be tied when he finally woke up. He hadn't slept since.

If it were possible, he had become even more withdrawn. He was patrolling alone and taking unnecessary risks. He was exhausted and the nightly abuse to his body was taking its toll. They were all worried.

He'd gone through loss before. This was worse. To those that knew him best, it was more than Diana having left. That loss was compounded by the fact that he now questioned whether he'd have this mission if it weren't for the manipulation of her Gods - either by using Diana to push him towards it or – worse.

If those two things weren't bad enough, Bruce was finally beginning to see that there was a significance to his connection to Diana. With her gone, he felt like a piece of himself was too. It wasn't something he could have realized until she did leave. A void had been filled the moment she had come to 'Man's World'. Now there was practically an empty shell. He didn't understand it and he didn't like it. When she had been here, it had made him more dependent on her and that was unacceptable. So now he pulled away from everyone else that much more.

Batman was preparing to go out on patrol when the call came in from Oracle. The Batsignal was up. Bane broke out of Arkham. By the time he got to the Batmobile, Robin was already sitting in the passenger seat.

"Get out."

"Fuck that, Bruce. I'm going too. You are exhausted and beaten up. In case you've forgotten getting your back broken - Bane is tough on a good day. Tonight you'll just get yourself killed. If you don't want me to help, that's just too damn bad."

"Fine." Batman slammed the car in gear and tore off out of the cave.

Alfred, who had witnessed the exchanged from the video-cam feed from the car's interior, picked up the phone.

"Could you come to Gotham? I'm afraid he might actually get himself killed tonight."

Reports at GCPD headquarters were that immediately after his escape, Bane had grabbed a male and female college student off of the street. Ten minutes later the male was dropped in front of GCPD Headquarters with a detailed message about what specific things he would do to the girlfriend if Batman didn't get to the docks – quickly.

Twenty minutes later after leaving the cave, the Batmobile was rolling silently between storage containers on the Gotham docks. That an ambush was planned was not in question. The only question Batman had was whether Bane had another purpose tonight or if he simply wanted to kill him.

The Batmobile pulled into an open area between some of the industrial sized containers used on cargo ships. Batman hit the break as Bane emerged from the end of one container dragging the girl behind him by her hair. Batman and Robin cautiously exited the car, staying close to afford them whatever protection it could.

Bane tossed the girl toward them by her hair, causing her to roll several times to land at Robin's feet. He bent down to check for a pulse.

"She's alive."

"Of course she is," said Bane. "But she needs medical attention. Soon. The boys were kind of rough on her." He chuckled as his thugs emerged from around the containers. There were four of them. "The boy wonder there can take her in the car for medical attention."

Batman nodded and looked sideways at Robin. "Go, get her some help."

"No way, I'm not leaving you here alone with this psychopath. This was planned – you know it was."

Bane shook his head in mock disappointment. "You're wasting time boy. She most likely got some significant internal bleeding. The boys had a good hour alone with her before you arrived." More chuckled came from behind him

The girl was beginning to gain consciousness and began to cry quietly as she lie on the pavement.

Batman had enough. "Get her out of here, now."

"They could shoot you as soon as I leave."

"They could shoot us all right now if they wanted. They haven't. He wants to beat me with his bare hands. Now go."

Another voice came over the communicator. "Little brother, take her. I'm above you. I've got this."

If Batman had heard Nightwing's transmission, he didn't let on.

Robin picked up the beaten and bloodied girl and loaded her into the Batmobile. He quickly jumped behind the wheel and took off the way they had come in.

"B," came the voice from above. "The Batboat is sitting at the end of the dock. The Batwing's ETA is three minutes – it's been commanded to cloak and hover above the scene. Two points of escape if you need them. Do you want me in there with you?"

Batman gave a slight shake of the head to indicate negative.

With a roar, Bane came at Batman, full force. Ten minutes later, Batman was embroiled in a no-holds barred brawl with Bane. Batman got in one good hit between every two of Bane's Venom - enhanced blows. It was clear to both men that if it continued to the end, Batman would be badly beaten if not completely broken by Bane. Again.

Unfortunately, nobody had been convinced lately that Bruce would work that hard to save himself. Nightwing was ready to make a move to get him out of there.

He put in the call, "Alfred?"

"Yes, sir?"

"Did you reach our backup?"

"Yes sir, he's on his way."

Nightwing looked back down at the scene. Bruce could barely stand. All of a sudden a dozen more henchman appeared. He were badly outnumbered, so jumping in at this point would likely get them both killed. He would if he needed to, but he hoped Bruce would choose the alternative and get out of there..

"B, the Batwing is hovering overhead. Shoot your grapple up and get out of there. I'll take the Batboat back to the cave."

"Acknowledged."

Nightwing sighed with relief. As he ran toward the boat, he looked back just as he jumped in to see Batman shoot off his grapple toward the plane. The claw latched on, but as soon as Batman began to lift off the ground, Bane picked up a huge, solid, steel beam and swung until it connected with Bruce's head. Hard.

As he jumped into the boat, Nightwing again turned just in time to watch in horror as Bruce went limp from the impact of the steel beam to his head. The plane began to pull away and Batman could be seen dangling below the plane, hanging limply from the zip line. Fortunately, Bruce had the good sense to engage the safety line on the grapple to his utility belt, otherwise he would have dropped thirty or more feet to the concrete below when he lost consciousness.

Nightwing looked back to the docks. One of Bane's henchmen had pulled out a grenade launcher. He shot the grenade into the opening of the Batwing where Batman's grapple held on. The Batwing had just taken off on automatic pilot to return to the cave when the grenade exploded. The plane didn't blow up or go down, but it began to fly slowly out to sea, smoke billowing behind it.

"Oracle!" Nightwing screamed into his communicator, "Run diagnostics on the Batwing!"

"Remote guidance system failure. Autopilot system failure. Various other electrical systems in imminent failure. Is he on board? It will need piloted manually."

"Not exactly. He's hanging unconscious from the bottom of the plane attached with the zip line. I have no way of getting to him. Right now he's flying in the general direction of the Atlantic Ocean. Remember that call we made? Now would be a good time! I'm following him in the boat."

"Copy!"

Dick waited, following the plane and helplessly watching his mentor and father figure hanging lifelessly above him. The radar on the boat picked up something moving at fast speed, from the general direction of Metropolis. He breathed a sigh of relief.

The blue and red blur slowed at it approached. Bracing Batman with one arm, he gently disconnected the grapple line from the utility belt so not to pull down on the airplane at the other end. Superman lowered to the boat, lying Bruce on the floor. He was bleeding profusely from the head.

"Take him to the cave," Superman orders. "I'll get the plane."

A few minutes later, Nightwing, Alfred, and Superman were collected around Batman in the infirmary area of the cave. The beep… beep… beep… of the heart monitor could be heard. Bruce was unconscious, but alive.

Robin barreled into the cave in the Batmobile, barely stopping the car before he jumped out and ran to where his mentor lied unconscious on the table.

"He's-" begins Dick.

"I know," Tim cut him off. "Barbara already filled me in."

Dick nodded. "How's the girl?"

"Traumatized, but physically okay. He's in pretty bad shape, then?"

Superman sighed and took control. "I'll take him to the Watchtower infirmary. I've already alerted J'onn that he's on his way. As soon as he's settled, I will come back to go after Bane and his thugs."

This elicited a small grin from Tim. "Can you make it hurt a little?"

"No problem there. I can see serious head trauma, but the extent of the damage will be hard to determine until we get him to the Watchtower. He should have someone with him. The Founders will be around a lot, but they won't be able to stay with him the whole time. Normally, it is impossible to pull Diana away from the room when he's in sick bay, but since she isn't here…. Dick, you can come up with him. I'm sorry, Alfred. Not everyone in the League knows Batman's identity. If you went it would be pretty easy to figure out. You are almost as famous as Bruce Wayne."

"I understand, sir. Just please take care of him and let me know what I can do."