Chapter 13: Memory Lane

A/N:

Right, bear with me, I haven't completely forgotten what's been going on, nor is this a randomly inserted flashback. And I haven't completely lost my marbles either, I know exactly where I left 'em. This will make sense being here come Chapter's end. Trust me. Please?

I had felt both the cheekbone and the nose cracking beneath my fist as I slammed it down against the brute's face. The guy was tall, significantly taller than me, despite me not being short myself. I had had to leap into the air to get the right purchase with my fist, but I had done it, dodging the mighty sledgehammer that the brute had swung my way at the exact same time.

But the punch hadn't been the true objective of my attack. It had been the distraction, the means of making sure that even if this guy had managed to block what he saw as my move then the real assault could get through. It just so happened that both had gotten through.

The guy had been so tough, and likely had been pumped with enough drugs that he had hardly even felt the damage that I had just done to his face. He had begun trying to swing the weighty hammer back my way barely the second after I had landed again just to the side of him. It was easy for me to roll away beneath that swing though, particularly as I had been both expecting it and planning the manoeuvre regardless. As I had nimbly jolted back up to my feet and turned back to face the enforcer at the same time, I had seen that I was now a couple of metres away from the guy, just as I had planned to be.

And it was then that I had flipped the switch.

I watched as the enforcers face suddenly changed from pure rage to utter shock. He had desperately scrambled to reach for something on his back, even throwing the hammer down to go at it with both hands, but it had already been too late. The pad I had attached to his back had already been sending enough current through him that there had been no stopping the imminent unconsciousness. And the pad was on a low, standard human setting. It could have gone up much higher if it had been a meta that I had been dealing with.

The thug's entire body had soon been convulsing. Seconds later, he had hit the ground. Hard.

"New toy?"

The voice had spoken from the shadows, but of course I hadn't been surprised to hear it. My training meant I had known when he had arrived, even if I hadn't directly spotted him at the time. And besides all of that, I had invited him there in the first place. It had been a part of what I intended to do, what I needed to do, a key step on the latest aspect of my endless mission.

"Relatively," I had growled in reply as I had spun to face Nightwing, my former protégée, stepping out from the shadows behind me. "Recent events made me realise it could come in handy."

I hadn't been in that warehouse by accident. I had planned this, planned it from the moment I had learned of this place the night before while interrogating a lowlife dealer I had intercepted on the streets of the Narrows. He had been trying to sell some very dangerous drugs to some kids who shouldn't have even been out that late, especially in that part of the city. The criminals and mobsters were determined not to give up their hold over my city, despite all that I had already done to drive them away. They just kept trying to worm their way back in, or find some way to hold ground. They were a cancer, a cancer that kept spreading some place else every time one tumour was removed. But I was the surgeon determined to get rid of it all.

That warehouse had been exactly one of those situations. It had been a drugs den, operated by the Russian Mafia. It had been the place in Gotham where the drugs where shipped to, before being sent out onto the streets with all manner of goons or easily manipulated crack heads looking for a pay day to get their next fix.

And the Mafia had been determined not to lose it to me as they had their previous effort to bring narcotics into my city. They had brought in some extra help, someone they had thought might have been able to bring me down, someone that I hadn't already proved myself against. I hadn't known the guys name then, but soon afterwards I learned it to be Diniyar Ryzhkov. The guy was quite well known in the underworld back in Russia, or at least his legend was. He had been a mob enforcer and assassin for years. He was the type of man his enemies feared, if they ever had the chance to know he existed. He had been big, bulky, bald, the type of guy who thought himself to be so tough that he walked around shirtless at all times as if to flaunt his strength. He had also been very eager for a shot at bringing down the legendary Batman when the Mafia had tried to dispatch him to Gotham.

And he had been that man that I had just been knocked out cold with the shock pad that I had gotten on his back. He had proved to be nothing I couldn't handle, especially when you considered all the people just like him – or even stronger – that I had dealt with over the years. Of course, he hadn't been the only one there either, but all other enforcers or workers not smart enough to run had been taken down even earlier than Ryzhkov. I had shut the drugs den down, and taken another step on the endless road to healing Gotham.

It had then been time for something all the more personal.

"You sure that you actually want to do this?" Nightwing had asked at that point, sounding dubious. "I mean, I'm glad you are doing it, but its just so... unlike you. Don't let me be the cause, I just thought I'd better check that you haven't changed your mind about this. You haven't have you?"

"No," I had very simply responded to that, typically gruff. "This has to happen. I need to go, and I need someone I can trust to help Jim watch over Gotham. That someone has to be you."

"And Tim and Barbara?" Nightwing had asked, though he certainly sounded proud of what I had just told him. Especially as I had meant every word.

"They can help, but they haven't your experience, or your training," I had answered truthfully. "I need someone who can watch over them as well as the city while I'm away."

"Sure thing, Batman," Nightwing had replied, this time with a smile to show his pride. As he had spoken, sounds had emerged in the distance. They were the sounds of sirens. The police were on their way, on their way to formally arrest the Mafia scum that I had just brought down, to see that they would meet proper justice. Nightwing had looked up at the sound of them, both out the windows to see the distant blue lights blaring and to look across at all the fallen mobsters. "So is there anything else I should..."

But Nightwing's last question had trailed off then. He had been halfway through his sentence when he had turned back to face me, only to find that I had gone, disappeared into the shadows in that brief moment when his eyes had been off of me. Not only that, I had already been on my way secretly out of the building. However, before I went I had heard Nightwing's parting words.

"Good luck out there, Bruce."

And with that I had waited no longer.

I had a plane to catch.

I had spent three months away, but as my private plane had touched down I was certainly glad to be back in Gotham. It meant that I could return to the mission that so defined me. Despite trusting Nightwing, I knew that Gotham still needed me.

And it meant that I was getting ever nearer to the day that all I had been doing during those months had been for.

I had travelled far. As far as the world knew, I had been on a business trip to Japan, trying to sell the latest Wayne Enterprises gadgets to the prosperous Asian market, only to then disappear on a month long soiree as only a billionaire playboy could. The truth had been quite different, however. Ever since the moment when my resolve had been set on this goal, I had known that it was something that I would have to do. There had been weeks when I had been training myself in the Cave in between patrols and my daytime facade, but I had always known that to truly accomplish what I desired I had to get away from it all. I had known that I would need to have some time away from the darkness of Batman to truly master this latest aspect of training. In turn, that had meant that I had known I would have to spend time away from Gotham. Far away. Its call was too strong otherwise. And so there had only been one place where I had desired to go.

Yoru Sensei had been more than happy to take me in once again. His dojo had offered me a place to get out of my head and all the paranoid thoughts that always fester there, allowing me to lose myself in training. Months of that allowed me to change my mindset in a way, to partly alter how I think. Not entirely of course, no where near, but subtly, and enough. And with Yoru Sensei watching over me, a man who had proven more than once before the depth of his knowledge, Japan had certainly been the right place for me to train.

But I had definitely been glad when it was time to return home again. Gotham would always be where I belonged. And being there, being Batman again, also meant I would also be closer to a certain other person...

Of course, Alfred had been at the airport, ready and waiting for me when I landed, but I had also known that when he inevitably asked the question I would only be telling him that there would still be a way to go. At that point I still hadn't been ready yet. I had trained my mind to ready myself for the day, but I still had to make sure that it would apply in the real world. I had to make sure that everything was right.

Even if it took time, I had been determined that everything would be perfect when the time came.

"It's been a while since I've seen you at one of these parties, Bruce."

"I've been back a couple of months now Ronnie. I can't help it if our trips abroad wound up back-to-back."

It was true. I had been back a while, and it had just so happened that for all that time Veronica Vreeland had been away travelling again. That meant that I had been spared from one member of Gotham's social elite I so often had to mingle with to maintain to idea that was Bruce Wayne. That night's party, however, had been different. It was the one at the Gotham Observatory, the charity bash that the Wayne Foundation had held there to once again pry money for the needy out of the richest of Gothamites. Of course Vreeland had been there now that she was back. She couldn't resist a party.

"Still... I've heard from some of the rest of the crowd. They say that even when you've shown up they've not seen you with anyone at one of these shindigs for a while. You're slipping up, Bruce."

"Now, Ronnie. You've been in the game long enough to know that one should never listen to rumours," I had said with an enforced wink, continuing to live up to the persona I had forged.

"Oh, so those nights haven't been lonely after all then? Or is it that you've actually got someone special that you're just keeping from us? Ooh, now that'd be a juicy rumour! Come on, Brucie. What's the lucky lady's name?"

I had flashed her that trademarked playboy grin then, but I kept my true feelings hidden. I couldn't let her know just how close to the truth that was, and how much that had affected me. "Not a chance, Ronnie, not a chance. How would the rest of Gotham's women population react if that was true? I couldn't have all that on my conscience."

And with that, to make sure my words had the maximum effect, I walked away from her, still hiding how I was truly feeling, how much she had made me wish my exiled training could be done. But I had still needed time. Not much, only a matter of days, but everything had to be right.

To try and ease my mind, I had wandered away across the Observatory. And it had been then that I had first learned about the energy cloud.

Alfred had given me until the following evening before he had once again decided to chastise me for my ongoing delay, as only he could. Thankfully he had at least allowed me some time to get to work first. I had spent most of that day down in the Batcave, actually. Feigning an extreme case of after effects from the raucous party, I had not bothered to go into the office that day, instead using the time for a far more worthwhile pursuit. I had been spending my time investigating the energy cloud I had learned of at the Observatory, knowing that my evening would be instead spent ensuring that Two-Face's latest scheme would not see the light of day.

I had long since established a covert connection to the Watchtower with the Batcomputer, ready for any eventuality. For a long time I had used that connection to keep tabs on the League when I wasn't actively with them, both to make sure that they weren't becoming dangerous and to make sure they didn't – inevitably – need me to help them once again. And I had long since used that link to keep a watchful eye over one of them in particular...

But I hadn't used it for that for a long time. It had always been hard, but I had to resist. I had to learn to cope with the risks, to trust that she would be safe without me. To accept that.

It had been very hard.

It was even harder when for the first time in a long time I had been forced to re-activate that connection. I had needed access to the Watchtower's computers, to the database it had of alien knowledge and phenomenons. I had needed to learn everything I could about this energy cloud, and to start thinking up a plan to stop it should the need arise. But I had thought I had days to achieve that, not hours. It still wasn't much, it still meant it was high priority. It had still meant that dealing with the cloud was something I had to do before the day I had awaited could come, but I hadn't given it all the focus I should have done.

Otherwise we wouldn't be in our current mess.

"I hope you'll not be tied up in that all night, Sir," Alfred had spoken from behind me as I had sat at the computer, studying data J'onn had stored in there years ago without a seconds thought. "The preparations are nearing their completion for your other other activity. Though I must stress again that from everything I have seen of Her Highness you needn't be going through all of the bother."

"I've made her wait this long, Alfred," I had responded without looking away from the data. Thanks to my training, speaking of her didn't mean she so completely overrode my thoughts as she used to. But she still had a very firm hold. She always would. That was why I was putting myself through all I had been doing these last months. "I owe it to her to do things right. She deserves that much after all I've put her through – all I will put her through."

"Master Bruce, you always were one to overcomplicate these social matters..." Alfred had said with a sigh at that. "I know you're trying, Sir, and I commend you for that. Lord knows I've been trying to get it out of you for years. Its about time you finally listened to me."

"Who said it was you that I listened to?" I had returned with a mock comment. Alfred, of course, hadn't taken offence. In fact, he just twisted it to help further his own point.

"Heavens, of course such a notion is ridiculous. Forgive me. It is obviously her that you finally listened to. The Princess must be an extremely angelic creature to have finally melted your heart, Sir. The kind of creature who shouldn't be left waiting for too long. She'll hardly need a lavish display to know how you feel. Just get back up there and tell her."

"Alfred, I know what you're saying, and I understand your point," I had answered, finally looking away from the screen, unable to even pretend to focus on it any more. "From the looks of this thing, I'm probably going to end up seeing her very soon, but things will be kept professional until everything is ready. If I'm letting her in properly, I can't do it as Batman, or as Bruce Wayne. I can't do it while we're both working. I have to do it right. This has to work, it has to last. It just has to Alfred. I love her. I really do."

"I know you do, Sir," Alfred said again, though this time he actually sounded proud. "Though whatever you did to deserve Princess Diana I shall never know..."

With that Alfred had walked away, heading back up into the Manor proper. In turn, I had returned back to the computer and my research on the cloud, knowing that in only a couple of hours I would be heading off to foil the Penguin's goon and then the energy mass itself.

However, my mind still hadn't been fully focused. The thought of how little time I had left to research hadn't helped. It meant that I was closer to seeing her again, but also closer to having to act like doing so wasn't the one thing I now wanted most in the world. But things had to be done right. Once they were, she would understand. After all, she had said it before, on that night, that precious night in the cave, that she loved me, Bat and all.

Alfred's parting words had also rang in my mind. He hadn't been serious of course, saying them with a note of sarcasm as a final attempt to change my mind. Nevertheless, they resonated, and though I didn't say it aloud, a reply had very definitely formed on my tongue.

"I don't know either. I'm just glad that I have her."

And I was, even if my self-enforced exile had meant that she and I had been forced apart. The day that that could change was a day I yearned for. Because, despite all of my darkness, there was one light in my life that I couldn't bare to have a future without.

Wonder Woman. Diana.

The woman I love.

Wonder Woman saw it all, and it made her heart swell. If she wasn't so busy saving the world, she knew she would be dragging Bruce into the deepest, warmest, most loving of embraces right now. Her own paranoia about Bruce's desires had been false. She saw that now.

He truly did love her. He truly was coming back to her.

And she had seen Bruce's thoughts to prove it.

All of those memories and more had rushed into Wonder Woman's head within less than a second. Immediately she had known exactly what they were, having no doubts at all about the truth of them. It was as if her mind and Batman's were becoming one, like them both being connected to the core of the energy cloud was causing a merging of their mental signatures into a single mind. And, despite it all, that was a big problem.

Knowing what Bruce was thinking had relieved her worry, had even perhaps made her day, but this was too much. No wonder Bruce had warned her not to join him in the core. It was bringing about such intense pain and desire that Wonder Woman knew that she and Bruce had to extract themselves from the cloud's core, and fast.

Just as soon as the cloud had moved away from Metropolis. Wonder Woman continued to focus on what she was doing, casting the pain aside. Those people still needed to be saved. They still had to complete what they had come here to do. But once that was done, she also knew that they couldn't delay. Once the people of Metropolis were safe, anything other than a rapid exit from the core could have serious consequences. The pain in her head, the same pain Batman was feeling, made that very clear. But the distraction of Bruce's guarded memories was still very hard to fight off.

And the distractions were about to get worse. Bruce's memories relating to his latest exile may have been the ones that had hit the forefront of Diana's mind first, but there were others, a whole lifetimes worth. And so many of them were not ones to be relived. They were the sort of memories that gave Wonder Woman an even deeper, clearer understanding of everything about Batman than she had ever had, the kind of memories that made her want to break down in sorrow for all that Bruce had had to go through in his life. They were memories that were incredibly hard to shrug off, no matter who you were.

At long last the moment came when she could tell the cloud was leaving Metropolis, when Superman and the others had clearly got the message that Batman and Wonder Woman were jointly sending him. At long last the moment came when she could stop the pain, when she and Bruce could pull out of the core, when they could stop their minds from becoming one.

But right up until that moment, and even after, Diana could see it in her mind's eye. She knew that all of those painful memories would be burned in her mind until the end of her days, but one in particular stood out as bad. One memory in particular had hold of her mind, meaning that Diana couldn't feel even a seconds worth of joy that they had saved Metropolis.

It was the memory that would haunt her the most, the memory that would forever haunt Bruce. It was the memory that could even make her forget about the revelation, the confirmation of Bruce's love for her.

The memory of that night all those years ago...

The man had stepped out from the shadows. My parents and I had been too happy to notice him at first, too lost in the adventure of the film we had just watched and the joys of being together in our perfect family. As soon as I had spotted the gun gleaming in his hand, I had halted, my joy dissipated. I had gotten scared of what this man was going to do. I was only eight years old after all, and a long way from being Batman. But I had had my parents to protect me.

"We'll start with the pretty pearls around the lady's neck. Now." Those were the words the man had growled at us, the harrowing words.

As if to symbolise his demands, the rough looking man had his gun pointed right at my mother's chest, aiming for her heart, just beneath the pearls he desired to take. But I had been so sure that Dad would handle it, that even if we had to give this man what he wanted, we would be all right. I had been so sure that nothing could break my family apart, that my parents were indestructible, omnipotent.

Dad had stepped forward at that. I could tell even as a kid what he had been doing. He hadn't liked the fact that this would-be thief had a gun pointed at his wife, and could easily do likewise towards his son too. Dad had simply been trying to put himself between us and the gunman, had simply been trying to protect us. And then, once he had us both shielded from the man's aim, I knew that he would have done what it would take to keep the man happy, to get us all out of there in one piece. Dad was a very good man, far better than I could ever be.

But the gunman hadn't known him, hadn't known what Dad was doing. Even if he later realised it, he hadn't known in the one second that truly mattered. He had panicked, a terrified instinct when he thought that Dad was about to attack him.

He had pulled the trigger.

That was the loudest bang that I had ever heard, and it was also the longest second of my life. It was the moment, the exact instant when my childhood ended. Everything had gone in slow motion from that point. I had been too young to instantly accept the truth. I had held on to hope that the guy had missed, that Dad was fine and would fend the man off. I had believed he would save us.

But then his corpse had fallen. His face was completely lifeless.

And barely a second afterwards, before full comprehension or grief had hit me, it had happened again. At what she had just seen, Mom couldn't hold back an anguished cry, a cry of such intense sorrow, a cry of great volume. It was a cry that had every chance of being heard away from the alley way we had believed would prove simply a short cut. It was a cry which could have attracted outside attention.

That meant the gunman had panicked again. With another bang, Mom was collapsing too.

I could hardly move. I couldn't even scream myself. I couldn't even wipe off the blood that had splashed across my face as the bullets had struck. This time I did understand what I was seeing. Both of my parents were dead.

I didn't care what happened next then. I had believed that my world was already over, and I had fully expected to hear a third bang from the gun at any second. But it never came.

The gunman was no killer, not really, not intentionally. He was just another victim of Gotham City, a man brought to such desperation he had turned to a life of crime. He had stolen from people before, he had hurt them before to get what he needed, but he had never killed anyone until my parents. Realising what it was that he had just done had been too much for him. The gunman had ran, leaving me standing there, completely alone.

And I would stay that way for a long time, until the Policeman summoned when people reported hearing gunshots could finally drag me away. But really, they never managed it. Really I never left that alley. Really, Bruce Wayne as he had been had died there with my parents.

Every time I close my eyes I still see their cold, lifeless bodies. And I will to the end of my days. People talk about moving on, about time being a great healer, but there is no moving on from that night. There is no healing. There is only the pain. There is only the grief. There is only the anger.

I have to make this world a better place. I have to bring about justice. I have to make sure that no one else ever has to suffer, as they suffered, as I suffered. No matter what it costs me, I have to do whatever it takes to make things better.

For them.

He didn't just exit the core once it was clear Superman and the rest were letting the cloud back away in one piece, he was pretty much flung from it. He had known from the moment that she had entered it too that they both had to get out of there. He didn't blame her for coming in after him, in fact he was relieved that she had. Loathe as he was to admit it, but it had become clear to him that he wouldn't have succeeded alone. He needed her strength in there with him to broadcast the message, to get the signal out to Superman that it was safe to allow the cloud to back off on its own, that there were people still alive within it. And they had done that. They had saved those people for now. Together.

And they had gotten out of there before it was too late, before their minds were irreparably blended. It was a side effect of what was essentially a telepathic being, particularly the core where mental signatures were brought together to provide control. Batman had known that that was a possibility. In fact, that was why he had told Wonder Woman not to follow him into the core. From the moment she had joined him in there he had felt the pain, the unbearable urge to get out of there, but he had had to resist it until the citizens absorbed by the cloud were safe.

Because of that, there had been no stopping the beginning of the merger of their minds. No manner of mental prowess or discipline would change that, despite Batman's efforts. More than not wanting to invade the privacy of Diana's inner most thoughts and memories, he didn't want to subject her to his. He didn't want to force her to experience his time in hell.

But the sharing of memories had happened. The link was now broken, but memories couldn't be so easily forgotten. Batman had been hit by them, by memories of countless years of life in paradise and of her time of the Justice League, of her time with him. He was hit by the memories of recent weeks and months, recent hours. He was hit by the guilt of his decision to wait until later to truly give Diana the reunion she clearly wanted by seeing how upset that had made her. However, he was also sure that he was right in his decision there, that they needed a proper reunion between them more than just across the teleporter room, or on the battlefield. As he had thought, he was far more guilty about what his memories had just put her through.

Knowing that the Imperium would be far too busy with their new "batteries" and hence they had a safe window of time, Batman looked across at Wonder Woman. She too had stumbled backwards out of the cloud's core, so that now both of them were a good few metres away from the still glowing core. However, they were also still right next to each other. Wonder Woman had clutched his hand when she had joined him in the core, and she was still clutching it now, despite the act of being thrown out of the core. In fact, she was clutching it tightly, almost as if she was scared to let go. Batman quickly looked at her face. He knew that she would now have no doubts about his feelings, even if he hadn't literally expressed them. He knew that she would have no doubts that he still meant everything he had said back in the Batcave eight months ago. But he also knew that there would be no smiles. Indeed, she wasn't even looking at him. Instead, her eyes were focused purely off into the distance, gazing at nothing in particular, a haunted look etched across all of her face.

"Diana," Batman breathed her name, trying to rouse her from it. He knew that they had time before they would be having to act again, knew that they would be safe to take some of it, and knew that they had to take that time. He knew that because of his memories Wonder Woman would have just practically lived all of the worst days of his life.

He knew that she was strong, remarkably strong. She would be able to cope with that, to fight on more than many would be able to. The problem was that she was also so incredibly compassionate. If it had been just her involved then Batman knew that Wonder Woman would have been able to make the enforced grief wait until the fighting was done, or even twist it to encourage her to fight even more. Of course it would still hurt her, but it could have waited. But with it being his memories, with her compassion particularly strong where he was concerned, things were different. Hell, if roles were reversed then Batman knew that even he, cold as he could be, would struggle to cope if Diana had had such hellish times in her life. Thankfully for both of them, a life in paradise had spared her from such times.

"Diana," Batman said again, more forcefully this time after she had continued to just stare into the distance the first time. This time it did work. This time she did hear him, slowing turning to face him. There were tears formed in the corners of her eyes.

"Oh, Bruce..." she breathed. "How...? How did you go on?"

"Because I had to," Batman replied honestly. "Diana, please. Let it go. I can't. I never can. But you have to. You have to."

"Bruce, how can I?" she quickly countered. "I'd heard the stories. Since I figured out who you were, I've heard so much about what happened. I never talked to you about them because I knew that their loss had already made you suffer far more than enough. I knew that their death hurt you deeply, that it drove you towards the darkness. But now... Bruce, now I understand you better than ever before. Now I really know why you find it so hard to let anyone else in. I'm... I'm sorry I pushed you so hard."

"Diana, stop," Batman quickly countered her, actually throwing back the cowl as he did so. He couldn't let her talk like that. It was he who was the broken one. He would not let seeing moments of his life break her too. She was far too good for that. "I don't regret anything that you did. If anything, I only regret that I wasn't more responsive, that you didn't push me harder. Diana, you saw the last few months too. You know how I feel. You know how I've always felt. Don't you go changing because of me. The world needs your light, Princess. I need your light. I need you. And you know how hard it is for me to say something like that to anyone, so you know that I mean it. Now, please. Let it go."

"Bruce, I... " she began to argue again, but this time Batman was having none of it. Convincing her with words wasn't working. She was as stubborn as he was, more so some times. But there were times when actions spoke louder than words. This would be one of them, his action stopping her mid-sentence before she could truly get going.

He kissed her. A long, deep kiss. A kiss that he had been waiting for for eight bloody long months...

When the kiss finally ended, when he finally pulled away, Wonder Woman's eyes stayed closed for a few seconds. When she finally opened them, Batman decided to push his position home.

"Princess, please, don't feel sorry for me. Don't ever feel sorry for me. I do enough of that for myself. If you really want to do something to help the pain, just be you. That's all I need. That's all I'll ever need now. That's what the world needs, and it's going to keep needing if it's ever going to truly get better."

"You mean it don't you?" Wonder Woman returned, though the sorrow that had overwhelmed her voice just seconds ago was leaving it. In fact, a faint smile had actually formed at her lips. She even let out a very small laugh, though one clearly out of relieved happiness. "Hera, Bruce, when did you develop a soft side like this?"

"I told you I needed your light, Princess. It's what you do to me. Perhaps its what your memories have done to me," Bruce replied, a rare smile of his own forming. "But it's for your eyes only. One hint of this to anyone, even Superman – especially Superman – and I will have to take you down."

"You could try," Diana countered, still smiling herself. And with that, without warning, she flung herself at him, arms wide, dragging Batman into a tight embrace, though thankfully she held her incredible strength at bay. Batman could practically feel the relief, the love pouring out of her as she grasped him. He couldn't resist putting his own arms around her in return, though he was slightly slow on the uptake. The Imperium could go on waiting to be dealt with. The two of them needed this moment, and not just for their own sakes.

"I'm sorry I put you through all that, Princess. All of it," he spoke into her hair, not letting her go.

"Bruce, it's not your fault." Wonder Woman had pushed herself from his chest as she had spoken so that she could look him in the eye. She didn't have to push back far, being so very nearly as tall as he was. "You did tell me not to follow you into that core..."

"No, I didn't mean that," Bruce quickly cut her off. "My memories are my burden to bear, and no matter what they should stay that way, but it was a good thing that you followed me in there. Without you everyone in this cloud would be dead, properly dead. You did the right thing, as usual. And yes, I am sorry that you had to feel my pain, but I was talking about something else. I was talking about what I've been putting you through."

"What you've been putting me through?" Wonder Woman repeated, sounding confused.

"In the past weeks," Batman explained. "Don't forget I've just seen your memories as much as you saw mine, Princess. I saw how my exile was affecting you, how my return has been affecting you. I know that you're too proud to admit it, especially now that you've seen how I feel, but I know. And I'm sorry for that."

Diana smiled again, playfully slapping him on that shoulder. "Bruce, there's no need to apologise there! I knew you needed time, I was prepared to wait. I might have missed you but so did everyone. I wanted you back, yes, but I could cope, because I knew that one day you'd come back. I knew. As for these past hours, think nothing off it. Count it as another effect you've had on me. I'm developing a bit of your paranoia! That's all you need to apologise for!"

Batman could see that she was still smiling, like now she knew the truth all of that meant nothing to her. Normally that wouldn't stop him feeling the guilt. Guilt was something that he had felt for a long time, something he felt often, whenever someone got hurt that he could have somehow helped, no matter how realistically. But with her smiling at him, even Batman couldn't hold off some light-heartedness, especially when doing so was in a typically stubborn manner. As if to further that, he even pulled the cowl back over his head.

"I believe I just did, Princess."

She slapped his shoulder playfully again at that, her smile not fading. She continued playing the game that had just begun. "You arrogant man! How on Earth did you of all men ever manage to enter the heart of a proud Amazon warrior?"

"Simple," he grinned. "I'm Batman."

If anything, Wonder Woman's smile broadened, but the joking was over. "And so much more. You're Bruce. And that's all I'll ever need. All I'll ever want. But Alfred was right you know. I didn't... I still don't need the 'perfect' reunion. I love that you so want everything to be right, I love that you so clearly care, but all I need is you. It's not exactly like I've got – or ever will have – a different 'first date' for you to live up to."

"Sorry, Princess, but the plan's going ahead. Like it or not, no matter what gets in the way, I will do this right. I'm not going to let this wind up like my other attempted relationships. Now that you've managed to get yourself in, as soon as we've saved the world again - if we can - I'm going to do it right. And I'm not ever going to let you go. Of course, now that you've seen everything I had in mind, I'm going to have to change the plan. You've ruined the surprise."

Wonder Woman grinned again. "Sorry. Had you really managed to get a–?"

"Yes," Bruce quickly answered before she had even finished the question. "I had."

"You old softy," Wonder Woman responded, though her grin had gotten a lot more...alluring.

"We really should be getting back to work. This fight is not over," Bruce said at the sight of it, though he was unable to move away. Those eyes staring so closely at him... They suddenly had such...warmth to them. He tried to force his mind off of them, back to the task at hand. If the situation had been more urgent he would have succeeded. If.

"You know that I'm not one to shy away from a fight, but is there really anything we can do yet?" Wonder Woman asked in all seriousness. Batman indeed knew that she was always ready for a battle, that nothing would make her shirk away from her duty, from saving people's lives. But he could also tell what she was thinking. As much as he tried to resist it, he couldn't deny that a part of him was thinking the same thing.

"Until we have a report from J'onn and Flash, I don't think so," Batman answered honestly. "I could only figure out so much from what I found in the Watchtower's database. We can be sure that the Imperium aren't done, that this thing is not over, and I can make guesses about what and how they'll strike next. However, if we can't get proper control of the cloud with the core, then we need to know more about how this thing works before we can truly fight it. For that, we need the knowledge that the Martian's in here will have gained over hundreds of years here, perhaps their abilities too. So before we can do anything, we need to regroup with J'onn and Flash to find out what they know."

"And do you know how to find them?" Diana pressed on, though Batman could see in her eyes that she already knew the answer.

"With the way the environment can change in here, without some form of telepathy it could be impossible to track down anyone," Batman told her again. "It's not like tracking down the core. There won't be a giant glowing pillar of light to show us the way. I can keep thinking for J'onn to come get us and hope he picks it up, but that's all without risking us being put well out of action."

"So in short, until either J'onn, the other Martians or the Imperium come to us, there's not really anything we can do?" Diana summarised, still looking at him deeply.

"No," he simply answered. "With no guide, there's not. No matter what the Imperium are up to right now, the two of us have no choice. We can plan as much as we can based on what we know, but all we can really do is be patient and wait."

"You know I've never really been one for patience."

It had been all the cue that Wonder Woman had needed. She didn't say anything else, she just acted. If she had followed her purely warrior instincts then she would have dived out into the realms of the cloud after the Imperium, and Batman would have had to stop her. But that wasn't the instinct that she followed, not this time, not after all they'd been through in the last few minutes. This time she was the instigator, but Batman very definitely didn't fight her.

It had been a very long eight months...

Despite what he had said, Bruce knew that this was the moment that he and Diana were finally truly reunited after his exile. It was a moment that he didn't want to end, a moment that could make even his brilliant and focused mind temporarily forget about all the dangers that were facing them and so many millions of lives right now. Even the Batman – perhaps especially the Batman – was, after all, human.

Illuminated by the bright light emanating from the cloud's core, Batman and Wonder Woman kissed again.

A kiss of deep, long built-up passions. A kiss of pure, true love, shining bright in a time of such potential darkness.

Batman knew that the moment of joy wouldn't last. He had long since learnt that they never did. He knew that when it ended they would both have to be ready for action once again. This thing was not over. There was still a fight to be had, a world to be saved, an evil to be defeated. There was still a great darkness to be defeated, and his own darkness to rise again to help him to do that.

But that didn't mean that he wouldn't be enjoying this moment that he and Diana had, for as long as it lasted. His eternal anger could for once wait until that moment was done. After all, this had hardly been an ordinary day.

Even for them.

A/N:

Told you I hadn't forgotten all about what was going on. Just had to get this bit in there since its rather important to where both characters have been going over both stories so far, and I think its the kind of thing of fair few of you have been waiting for. And as for what it was that Bruce had been lining up for Diana, I'm leaving that one up to each of you to decide for yourselves. Make of it what you will.

Anyways, please review away friends! Can never have enough of them. Ta very much. Until next time...