A/N: Thank you for the reviews! I had an anonymous one from 'Dark Knight and Justice League' that I wanted to answer, so the rest of you skip down ;)
Firstly - thanks for the constructive criticism, it's always useful, and I'm very happy that you liked 'Empathy'. Honestly I hadn't been aware that it seemed like I was drifting away from the show with my characterisations, so thanks for the heads up and I'll try to rein it back in.
I do however want to take issue with one of your points - about me portraying Diana as a victim and Bruce as cruel. In a story like this one then because of the storyline of the 'Once and Future Thing', Diana has to be somewhat of a victim - she doesn't remember any of it, so to a certain extent she's dependent on someone else to fill her in. I wouldn't say that Bruce is being cruel, since I agree with you; he isn't at all. I'd be interested to know where you saw cruelty?
In regards to Wonder Woman being a 'sweetheart' that everyone loves...sorry, but what's wrong about that? As far as I know in the show, it's only Shayera who seems to have a problem with her by the time we get to the end of JLU, and that's only just after 'Starcrossed'.
Of course Batman cares deeply about her - no one's questioning that. I wonder if you really have read my stories as closely as you think you have, because to be honest I think it's pretty clear that Bruce the way I write him does feel something for her, if not is in love with her. Yes he tries to hide it, which as far as I'm concerned is in keeping with his character on the show. He tries to hide the fact that he was the one digging her out, and he obviously wasn't the one to tell Diana he'd sung for her with 'This Little Piggy'. You're right when you say that Bruce has had a lot of tragedy in his life, and one of the lessons he's pulled from that (rightly or wrongly) is that caring too much about people leads to pain or something happening to them. He's not being cruel - if anything, he's doing the opposite.
Anyway, that's what I'm trying to get, sorry if it's not clear to you. Anyway, thanks for your thoughts, and like I said, constructive criticism is always appreciated. Hope that answered your points!
Here's the new chapter, so enjoy!
Chapter Fourteen - Two Apologies
He had no idea what Alfred was playing at. Were it not for the fact that he had to come up to the Watchtower at some point anyway he would have just refused. He was the Batman for Christ's sake. This was almost humiliating.
He'd arrived home from Wayne Enterprises to find Alfred with dinner waiting and with a box of home-baked chocolate chip cookies for him to take up the Watchtower for J'onn. Bruce had looked at the box with a dubious eyebrow raised. "Why?"
"It's his birthday, sir," was the smooth reply.
Martians didn't have a tradition of birthdays as far as Bruce knew, and J'onn had never mentioned anything like it before. But then there was the fact that Alfred never lied. Twisted and was economical with the truth maybe, but never outright deception. "What are you playing at?" he asked his surrogate-father.
"I'm quite sure I don't know what you mean, Master Bruce."
"I'm sure you don't," Bruce muttered, lifting the lid on the box. Just to check. Nope, just chocolate chip cookies. Looking a lot like Oreos, which fitted with the idea of them being intended for J'onn. During his stay at the manor after the first Watchtower had been destroyed, Alfred had almost taken it as a personal insult that J'onn kindly declined every culinary masterpiece the Englishman could come up with. Now it seemed he'd taken to making his own Oreos.
So, here Bruce was, an hour later, onboard the Watchtower acting as delivery boy. J'onn was in the commissary, about to bite into an Oreo. Bruce stopped next to him. "J'onn, is it your birthday?"
The Martain looked amused. "Martians have no concept of birthdays, Batman."
"That's what I thought." He put the box down in front of J'onn. "From Alfred." Before his friend could reply, he'd left the commissary, wondering what on Earth Alfred thought he was doing. He missed J'onn's eyes glowing orange behind his back.
Batman got in the elevator made his way down through the Watchtower, intending on heading back to Gotham and starting his patrol as soon as possible. He was the only one in the lift, but for some unknown reason it kept stopping at every floor, with no one else getting on. Must be a glitch in the system. He'd review the programming when he had time.
When the elevator reached dormitory deck A, Bruce exited. His supply of batarangs in the Cave was running low, but he kept more here. After re-stocking his belt, he left again, purposely avoiding looking at the empty room two doors from his. The still-empty room.
No - plane, Gotham, patrol. That was it. No thoughts other than-
"Batman?"
The voice – that sorely-missed, much-loved voice – made him stop in his tracks, then spin around. Even in the harsh, fluorescent light on the hallway she was heart-stoppingly beautiful. She glowed with life, fertility. Were it not for the fact that his feet seemed to have been cemented to the floor, he would have gone to her and kissed her the way his every cell was begging him to. He'd thought he knew how much he missed her, but now she was here, and longing made him feel weak.
Her hands moved, automatically it seemed, to her stomach. Demeter in living form. His eyes glued to her bump. My God.
She beckoned, then disappeared in her quarters. He followed swiftly, and found her sitting on the edge of her bed. In the deepening silence, Bruce pushed his cowl back, then moved to her side.
"Diana- When- How are you?" he asked finally.
She nodded. "Well." A pause. "You?"
He didn't mean to say it, but the words came out anyway. "I miss you."
"Bruce…"
Feeling it was now or never, he took her hands. "Diana, I'm so sorry. I was totally wrong not to tell you, not to come after you-"
She shook her head. "Bruce, don't. Don't start apologising, not now."
"Princess…I need you to forgive me."
She pulled her hands back. "And I want to," she said. "Really, I do."
"But?" he asked sharply, tone dropping into the Bat.
"But…I need time. And I know I've had the last six months. I need more," she said simply, shrugging. "And there are things I need to tell you."
"Like?"
"Well…the first thing is that it's twins."
"Twins?" he repeated stupidly.
She nodded. "Yes. And you're their father, whatever we decide will happen with us."
He was silent for a long time, his eyes still not leaving the curve of her abdomen. "Can I...?"
"Of course." She smiled, as if she knew he'd been longing to for the past six months, and put her hands by her sides. He didn't try to conceal the fact that his hand was shaking, just a little, as he pulled his gloves off and pressed his palm gently against the bump.
She watched, trying not to feel a warm glow at the rapturous expression on his face. She felt one of the babies move, then a dull pain in her kidney that she winced at. Bruce looked up at her as she shifted slightly. "Kidney shot," she explained.
The corner of his mouth curled upward, but then he felt a thud against his palm, swiftly followed by another. Diana chuckled. "They say hello."
"Do you have names picked out for them?" he asked her.
She shook her head. "I don't know what gender they are, Bruce, how could I have names for them already?"
"True. I just wondered if you had any ideas," he mused, still running his hand lightly over her stomach.
"Do you?"
He took his hand away quickly, as if suddenly the curve of their children burned. "I think I've lost all right to ideas, Princess."
"Bruce-"
He stood. "Maybe...maybe I should go."
Diana stood too. "Don't you dare."
He blinked. Diana advanced. "I've spent the last six months thinking about this moment, about whether or not you'd run away from this, about how to approach you, about whether I should allow you a place in the lives of my children - and the only conclusion I came up with was that if nothing else then you are their father. Now I had hoped that you would accept that and at least give them a place in your life, but if you're not going to at least be brave enough to offer that-"
"It's not a question of-"
She fixed him with a glare to rival his own. "I'm not finished!"
Bruce shut up.
"I don't care what we did in Oklahoma," she said. "I don't care if you weren't intending to ever tell me that we'd made love, and I don't care if you want to run away from me, but you will not run away from them!"
Her hands were on her swollen belly as she spoke. She knew that it was only Batman retreating temporarily - once he'd collected his bearings and analysed the situation of course he'd be back, but Diana wasn't prepared to wait anymore.
"Now, since it's not something you're prepared to offer without help, I'll dictate terms to you!" She held up one finger. "One, the children live with me. Two, you get to see them according to visiting hours we'll work out together and three, you will see them and be a presence in their life and Hera help me if I have to enlist Alfred and Dick and Tim and Barbara and the Joker to make you then I will!" She stopped, still glaring. "Is that understood?"
He nodded numbly. "Understood."
"Alright then. I'll call you tomorrow and we can work out the details. Now you can go, because I'm tired, my back hurts and I need to pee."
Still in a state of slight shock, Bruce left.
---
Just after Bruce had left, there was a knock on the door. "Come in," Diana sighed. She was feeling drained after her confrontation with Bruce, and she hadn't lied; her back really was hurting, and she needed to nap.
The doors hissed open, and John came in. "That was harsh."
She frowned. "What?"
"I heard you yelling at him down the hallway," he said. "You were really harsh on the guy, you know."
Her mouth fell open. "I thought you were on my side in this!"
He shook his head and sat down. "Diana, this was never about sides. You're both my friends. While Bruce was being an ass, yeah, I was pushing him to tell you, but now...you're being a bitch."
"What-?"
"Diana, the man hasn't seen you in six months, and in that time you seem to have forgotten who he is."
She frowned. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"Come on, Diana, this is Bruce. There's no way he'd abandon his kids, you know that! How could you think he would?"
"He never said a word-"
"Did you give him a chance to?" John asked. "Like I said: you've been gone months and you didn't give him a chance to react. There are some things that even Batman can't do immediately."
She blinked, but couldn't reply before he'd carried on. "And all this 'allowing' him a place in the lives of your kids? Diana, you don't have the right to keep him from them, however you might feel."
She sighed, now looking at her hands. "That's just it though...how I feel is changing moment to moment. I know that Bruce would never do that. It's just sometimes I think I'll be raising these children alone - which doesn't frighten me in itself, but I wonder if they will suffer for it."
"Hey, you said it yourself. Bruce would never do that. You won't have to do it alone."
She nodded. "I know. I also know that I need to apologise to him," she added before he could say it.
John nodded and got up again. He'd really had enough agony-aunting today. Time to find Flash and do something very male. "Alright."
"Thank you, John," she said, suddenly (despite her size) looking very small and very guilty.
---
It was rare that patrol was actually what Batman would call 'fun'. But tonight he had a lot of anger and confusion to work off, and beating criminals to a bloody pulp did not require much thought. It helped that the villains who did require thought were mostly in jail for the time being. So, if asked, then yes, he was having fun.
However, that only lasted as long as he was actively beating them up. In between bad guys it was easy to lapse back into the anger of earlier. What did she expect him to do? She must know that he wouldn't turn his back on her or the children. Hadn't he said in that same conversation that he'd missed her? For God's sake, she was the one who'd changed her mind halfway through the talk, not him. Damn woman.
Another siren wailed past. Batman smirked grimly, shot out a grappling hook and followed.
Fortunately, it took him a good hour to sort that mess out, and it was three am when he handed the members of the drug ring over to the police. Time to head for home. About fifteen minutes later, the Batmobile pulled into the Cave, and Bruce got out, looking forward to a warm bed. He updated his logs and took a hot shower, welcoming the pounding of the water on his sore muscles, then wearily climbed the stairs up to the manor.
He stopped when he pushed open the clock in the library - there was a reading lamp on in the corner. Moving silently, Bruce shut the clock and walked closer. Whoever it was was seated in the armchair facing away from. When he saw who it was, he relaxed slightly.
Diana was curled up in the huge leather seat, a blanket laid over her, fast asleep. From the slightly pained look on her face, it wasn't a comfortable slumber. Why was she in the manor? Whatever the reason, Bruce couldn't resist the opportunity to pick up where he'd left off earlier that evening. His palm was being gently laid over her stomach before the decision had been made. It was so warm. Under his hand, there was a flutter of movement, softer than the earlier kick he'd felt, but it made him reflexively look up at Diana's face. She was still breathing slowly and deeply, but the frown had smoothed out, and her expression was serene. The corner of Bruce's mouth curled up. He'd forgotten how beautiful she was.
The movement changed again to a thump, at which Diana stirred. He moved back and stood up. "Princess."
She opened her eyes and focused on his face. "Bruce, you're back."
"What are you doing here, Diana?" He was annoyed when his growl didn't come out quite as menacingly as he meant it to. In fact his tone was almost gentle. He put it down to her carrying his children. Had to be it.
"I..." She trailed off, looking almost sheepish. "I came to apologise."
He raised an eyebrow in silent invitation for her to carry on. Diana raised her chin slightly. "I'm sorry. I came into your life after six months of being absent, very heavily pregnant, demanding something of you that I didn't give you time to process, and...it wasn't fair of me." She took a deep breath. "I know that you would never...abandon your children. I treated you dishonourably, and for that I am sorry. You're one of the most - if not the most - honourable man I've ever known. I trust you, and I treated you like the lowest criminal." She looked up at him, her mouth set unhappily. "I am so sorry, Bruce."
He didn't say anything for a moment, but finally nodded once. "Apology accepted."
She returned the nod, then looked away and stood. "I should go."
"Don't." He stood, glancing at the clock. "Princess, it's three am. You can stay here." The corner of his mouth curled up at one corner. "It's not like I'm short on room."
She smiled, the stiff line of her shoulders softening as she relaxed. "Thank you. I am tired, I have to admit." She ran a hand over her stomach. "They're quite active at night."
Without thinking, he put his hand on top of hers. "Take after their dad you think?"
"Hera help us," she smirked.
He took her hand. "Come on. I'll show you to your room."
They headed through the silent manor together, both of them enjoying the quiet and the small contact with the other. Diana smiled at him when he wasn't looking. It had really been too long. He stopped outside a heavy oak door. "I'll get Alfred to bring you breakfast in the morning."
She nodded. "Thanks. Um, I'm having a scan tomorrow. At two, J'onn's doing it, to determine the general health of the babies. You're welcome to come- I mean..." She swallowed and cursed herself. The Wonder Woman, stammering? "I want you to come."
He nodded. "I'll be there." He paused for a moment, then kissed her cheek briefly and softly. "I missed you, Diana."
She touched his face. "I missed you too. Goodnight, Bruce."
"Sleep well, Princess."
---
A/N: It's just occurred to me that I'm really just using John as a drop-in plot device aren't I? Oh well, he'll get his own little bit eventually (right, AQ? ;) ). Review please!