Knight of Wonder

Act I

Scene 5: Morning Sunrise

The smoke and flame was almost enough to consume Bruce's entire consciousness. Against the stark industrial backdrop of the Gotham docks and the black of the night beyond, the only thing that was visible was the burning ruin of the warehouse. Bruce raced towards the destruction, sweat pouring out from beneath the mask and onto his exposed jaw. He reached the remains of a doorway and threw off a burning two-by-four with a ferocity he didn't even no he had. His body stung from the heat even through the fibers of the suit. Just as Bruce took a deep breath in preparation for a plunge into the fiery depths of the building, it was stolen away from him by another explosion that almost lifted him off the ground as he stumbled backwards and crashed into a pile of wooden crates as debris from the warehouse spewed everywhere.

Summoning what strength he had left, Bruce crawled forward, the sound of hysterical laughter once again beginning to fill his head. He screamed in agony in order to drown out the sound but he couldn't banish the awful cackle from his mind. Bruce looked up at the remains of the warehouse as tears began to fill his eyes and he let out another scream; a scream of horror.

The night that lay beyond the flames began to recede as the flames leapt higher into the air until the whole world was flame, growing hotter and brighter until Bruce woke up in a fury. He thrashed about for a moment while a firm hand on his chest held him down. Then, slowly, Bruce began to reorient himself.

The white sheets of his bed glowed in the light of the morning sun. The bedroom around him was neatly arranged and decorative, exactly as he usually left it due to his propensity to spend entire nights in the cave staring at the computer; something Alfred always gave him hell for.

Bruce looked to his immediate left and was surprised by the sight. A woman sat at the edge of his bed, her hand having moved from holding him down to caressing his arm. Bathed in the bright sunlight of the early morning, it was initially difficult to make out her face, but Bruce knew full well who this was.

As his eyes adjusted, the full image of her finally came into focus. Diana's long brown hair hung loosely about her shoulders, the soft features of her face seized with a look of genuine concern that emanated from her large brown eyes. The light brown of her skin glowed immaculate in the morning sunrise. She was wearing that gray shirt with the sheep on it that she so favored. He never said it, but Bruce always found it funny whenever Diana would lay eyes on anything sheep related, whether it was clothing on a stranger or jewelry she had just repossessed from a thief. Her eyes would grow wide and her features would light up with this child like intensity that cracked her otherwise fierce Amazonian façade, if only for a moment. The shirt combined with her bellbottom jeans and bare feet to give evidence to just how long she had probably been hanging around Wayne Manor and, Bruce thought grimly, just how long he had been out.

This brought his thoughts back to his own person. It was in that moment that Bruce realized, to his horror, that he was naked except for his underwear. He felt his eyes go wide at this realization and he looked at Diana accusingly. "Did you…"

"Alfred changed you." Diana headed of Bruce's question quickly. "Though I won't promise that I didn't help," she finished with a playful inflection.

Bruce frowned and gave a low, grumpy sounding hum as he held up the sheet to look himself over. His body was as in shape as it had ever been from a fitness standpoint. Long hours spent in the gym trying to drive out bad memories through physical exertion were to thank for that, but the scars across his arms and chest still told stories of hard lessons learned from times when he had grown over confident. This morning he observed that he might be adding one or two more as his fingers probed the bandages that checkered his body.

Letting the sheet fall, Bruce again looked at Diana and made the presumption, "I suppose I have you to thank for my present state?"

Diana tossed her hair in that way she did whenever she was about to get on her high horse. "You can thank yourself for allowing that villain to make a fool out of you last night… unless you are referring to my rescue, in which case, you owe me one now."

Bruce tried to sit up and winced in pain as he did so. Diana leaned over him and gently pushed him back down by the shoulders. "Now, now there big guy, let's not get over eager," Diana chastised her cranky looking ward. Then a look of genuine concern passed over her face as she simultaneously passed a hand over Bruce's forehead. "Oh Bruce, what did they do to you?" she asked rhetorically.

Bruce, not getting the intention of the question, chose to answer with, "They sprayed me with a chemical hallucinogen that left me effectively incapacitated. If you hadn't showed up when you did, there's no telling what would have happened to me."

"I don't like to think about what would have happened to you," Diana said as she quickly turned away a face that had grown increasingly grave. There was an awkward silence for a time before Diana finally heaved along sigh, stood up and paced over to the window. She turned the handles and flung the windows open to let in a rush of fresh, morning air. It still had the scent of last night's rain in it. A gentle breeze flowed into the room and made Diana's hair rustle gently against her shoulders as she stared out at the vast green landscape beyond the neatly manicured gardens of Wayne Manor to the miniature seeming Gotham City beyond. She placed her hands in the window sill and contemplated the world before her for a time. At length she spoke up and asked in earnest, "Honestly Bruce, what gave you the idea to go down there on your own and try to take down all those criminals by yourself?"

This time the frown on Bruce's face was one of guilt. "It was something I needed to prove to myself," he mumbled as he glowered at the floor, knowing it was impossible to tell her everything, even if he wanted to do so.

Diana curled her hands into fists. "What! What could you possibly be trying to prove to yourself?" she asked rather harshly as she suddenly spun around to catch the look on the face of the man she had rescued the night before as he answered for it.

Bruce could feel the muscles in his neck tighten as he struggled to find the appropriate response. He took a furtive gulp and responded, "I don't know… I think I just needed to see if I could do just as much to save this city without my money as I have tried to do with it."

Diana caught herself tapping her foot and forced it to rest. She crossed her arms as she reprimanded, "What gave you the idea that you needed to do that?" she demanded, keeping up her forceful tone. When Bruce looked up at her with an expression of pure uncertainty and gloom, however, Diana could feel her resolve melt away. This was a man who was tortured, she realized. How could she demand to know why he would try to take on those thugs last night when the answer was obvious, and yet, beyond her understanding? Bruce Wayne had watched his parent's get gunned down with his very eyes. She had no idea what kind of effect that might have on a person, but in that moment, Diana felt more pity for the man than she ever had before.

For his part, Bruce hated being pitied, and he could sense it starting to come over Diana. His jaw clenched in frustration just before he confirmed what Diana had been thinking. "I don't expect you to be able to understand," was his clipped response.

The Amazon felt her breathing grow shallow. The emotions inside her were starting to boil together and they were threatening to overflow; anger at Bruce's stupidity, pity for what he had to be going through and her inability to fully empathize with it, and the overwhelming urge to just rush over to the bed and hold him were tearing at her insides with enough ferocity to give her a slight feeling of dizziness.

She was rescued from this dilemma when both she and Bruce her the knob on the bedroom door start to jiggle. Taking advantage of Bruce's temporary glance at the door, Diana whirled around and leapt out of the window.

Bruce knew she had gone without having to look. He had pulled just the same move on Gordon countless times whenever someone sought to interrupt their planning sessions. So it was without apprehension that he greeted Alfred as he entered the room with a breakfast tray.

"Oh, I see you're already awake sir," the butler delighted chimed as he crossed the room and delivered the tray to Bruce who sat up painfully to receive it.

"Thanks Alfred, yes I am awake, fortunately. How long was I out?" Bruce asked meekly.

"About a dozen hours," Alfred answered dismissively. "A very good night's rest, I dare say. What really gave us a scare was how you just turned up on the door step, unconscious, with a few rather nasty chemicals running through your system, all before I had managed to get the car back to the house. Someday you'll have to tell me how you achieve these things."

Bruce grinned at his butler's persistent sense of humor. "There are some secrets I can't even tell you, I'm afraid," Bruce replied just before he ate an orange slice. As he chewed, however, he started to frown and he felt compelled to ask, "Wait a minute, who is this 'us' you talked about?"

"That would be me, Mr. Wayne," came the smooth baritone voice that could only belong to Lucius Fox, CEO of Wayne Enterprises. This was confirmed when the imposingly tall African American man in the tan blazer walked in carrying a briefcase.

"Lucius, how are you doing this morning?" Bruce asked, delighted to see his good friend and confidant again.

"To borrow a phrase from Alfred here, I dare say a lot better than you," Lucius quipped as he drew up alongside the bed and set his briefcase down on the nightstand and clicked it open. "You know me Mr. Wayne. I've always respected the confidential nature of your nocturnal wanderings, but something tells me that you've been hanging out in the wrong clubs."

"Something or Alfred?" Bruce asked as he gave his butler a playfully accusatory look.

"Well I just want you to know how hard it was to isolate the chemicals in your system and determine the antidote for it," Lucius said as he withdrew a long syringe from his briefcase and filled it with a clear liquid contained in a glass bottle he had set out on the night stand a moment earlier.

Bruce held out his hands in an innocent gesture. "Ah, you know how these things go Lucius. You're at a party, you've had a couple of drinks, somebody starts passing around a chemical hallucinogen…"

Lucius chuckled and answered, "Whatever the case may have been, I'm afraid I'm going to need you to give me your arm. This could hurt a little."