Knight of Wonder

Act III

Scene 1

The rhythmic beeping and whirring of the medical devices served to allay the troubles in Bruce's mind to a degree. It still wasn't enough to lull him off to sleep, but at least he could relax a little bit as he sat there in the hospital room of Gotham General, looking fixedly at the now gently slumbering Barbra Gordon. For the first several hours he had spent in that room, the images that flashed through Bruce's mind of the horrible atrocities of the last few weeks came like a barrage upon his conscience. How could he have been so reckless? He had to have known that this was the only logical end point in taking her in as his apprentice. Everyone else figured The Joker's attack was motivated by an ultimate design on Commissioner Gordon, and while that was indeed part of the story, Bruce knew the whole story.

For some reason, he still remembered with fondness the first time she dawned the cowl, with the special cutout in the back to let out her long red hair. The thought made the edges of his mouth begin to curl with the beginnings of a smile, but it quickly died when Bruce remembered the recent news. As he had walked in for yet another visit to this room, the big story on the eleven o'clock news had been the assassination of Black Mask, the disappearance of Red Hood, and the inexplicable return of The Joker; mere weeks after Bruce had thought he had put him away for good. The thought made his hand curl into a fist around the stems of the flowers that he had brought to add to the already substantial collection arrayed around Barbra's bed; donations from her friends at college and her family. It was then that Bruce came to wonder if his recent recollections of Barbra and his fondness for those recollections made him some sort of twisted creature. Was he acting out of concern for the city and recruiting another ally for the cause, or was he, in fact, a recruiter of child soldiers and a careless father figure as some of his enemies had charged?

Just minute later, Bruce was brought out of a sleepy stupor by a couple of pained groans. Bruce quickly snapped his head back up and looked to his side to see Barbra grimacing as she opened her eyes. His hand shot over to hers as she stirred and asked in a voice husky from disuse, "Where am I?"

"You're at GGH. You're safe now," Bruce explained in as steady a voice as he could muster. His breathing had grown shallow and ragged as he felt his emotions begin to roil.

"Where's Dad?" Barbra asked.

"He's… He's fine. I imagine he's still at the office, knowing him," Bruce answered as he glanced at his watch. It was a quarter after two in the morning, but Bruce still meant what he said. With Joker back out on the loose, there probably wasn't a force on Earth that would make Jim Gordon sleep before he was found.

"Bruce… Bruce," Barbra tugged needlessly at Bruce's sleeve while the man had to choke back a small sob. "Don't blame yourself… huh… don't take it so…" but before Barbra could fully articulate her thoughts, she drifted back off to sleep.

For a while, Bruce just sat there with Barbra's hand in his as he looked at her resting body with eyes red from fatigue and sadness. At length, he let out a sharp breath and buried his face in the blankets at the side of the bed.

Before long, Bruce had regained some measure of his composure. He set his flowers into the arrangement at Barbra's bedside and, after rearranging and throwing out some of the older flowers to make the display look much neater, he gave the slumbering Barbra a gentle pat on the arm and said with urgent sincerity, "Hang in there kido." Then he grabbed his coat and hat and headed for the door.

As he started down the hall, however, Bruce soon found himself slowing to a halt near the reception desk as the statuesque figure of a woman he knew caught his eye. She was leaning against the desk while the receptionist was away. Her arms were folded over one of the three sheep printed on her gray sweater. Her long brown hair was up in a bun tonight which was a sure sign that this was certainly not a social call. The look of concern on her face was almost more than Bruce could bear. He was sure that he made quite a sight right now, his clothes a mismatched patchwork and his eyes milky and red. Nevertheless, he stopped to great his friend in his most sociable voce, "Diana Prince, as I live and breathe."

Diana uncrossed her arms and stood up from the desk. "I trust your friend back there is doing the same," she ventured in a voice full of sincerity.

Bruce let out a heavy sigh and said with a pained smile, "Indeed she is. She stirs occasionally, asks for her father or if we caught her attacker, but she usually keeps drifting back to sleep before we can make any real talk."

"Still, that's progress right?" Diana asked optimistically.

Bruce swayed where he stood as he looked at his feet and said, "Yeah, I suppose so."

They both stood there silent for a while, Diana looking concernedly at Bruce while the latter avoided her gaze and stared at the floor. At length, Diana choked out "Oh Bruce!" before she wrapped him in a tight embrace that made him have to shift his balance a little awkwardly. He blushed as he realized what was happening while Diana whispered in his ear, "I'll always be here for you."

"Uh, thanks," Bruce said awkwardly as he squirmed free from Diana's hug. He fixed his shirt collar needlessly as he continued, "But it's not me who needs the support right now."

"Oh Bruce, look at yourself!" Diana chastised as she gestured to his disheveled appearance. "When was the last time you slept? In fact, don't answer that. Bruce, you're barely taking care of yourself anymore. I'm worried about you. You need to stop!"

"Stop what?" Bruce asked incredulously as he screwed up his face in a confused expression. "Stop hunting the man who does these kinds of things to people like my parents? Stop seeking justice for Barbra? Diana, I can't change who I am. This has been my whole life since my parents died. To go back now would be a betrayal not only of my principles, but of the ones I love."

"And what about the ones who love you?" Diana fired back with tears welling up in her eyes. She held out her hands in a desperate gesture as she pleaded, "Can't you see, by continuing down this path, you're hurting everyone else around you. Bring it to an end before you get yourself killed!"

Shaking his head in dismissal, Bruce began to walk away towards the hospital exit. "I have to try, Diana," he said in earnest. "Otherwise I'll never be able to live with myself." He could see her reflection in the glass of the doors as he approached them. She had covered her mouth to conceal the sound of her cries. He shook his head again and told himself she'd be alright as he pushed his way through the door and out into the cold, rainy night.

After spending a solitary hour walking briskly down the rain soaked streets of Gotham, Bruce turned down an alley and pulled out a small, black, pen shaped device. He clicked the end and the cloaking system on the car disengaged. A second later and the door to the back slid open to deploy the robot arms that efficiently changed Bruce into the suit that had given him the name of The Batman. Once he was fully armored, he swung himself into the cockpit of the car and brought it roaring to life.

Minutes later and Bruce was tearing through The Narrows on his way to Crime Alley, the very place where it all began. It was all thanks to the message The Joker had left for The Batman on the corpse of Black Mask. "Come to the place that created you so I can unmake you." It had been all over the news and various talking heads had struggled to puzzle out its meaning, but the answer was simple for Bruce.

As the car trundled up to the end of the alley, Bruce ejected himself and glided in gracefully to the street. Then he strode into the alley, eyes and ears enhanced by the suit's sensors, alert for the certain danger that was to come.

Two manholes blew their covers and dispensed a couple of hooded thugs while more masked villains descended from the buildings on either side. At last, there it was, the all too familiar sound of that low, rhythmic chuckle as an inhumanly large silhouette cast from the light of a street lamp mixing with the fog from the manholes loomed over The Dark Knight as he remained near the end of the alley, standing resolute as though he were carved from granite.

The Joker looked as though he had aged heavily in last few weeks since Bruce had seen him last. The madman's bleached white face looked haggard like a well-worn baseball glove as bloodshot eyes leered at him. Joker's figure was hunched and his stride had been reduced to a quick, shambling walk.

All manner of questions raced through The Dark Knight's mind as he tried to use his keen ability for deduction to ascertain just what had happened to this man since he last apprehended him. It didn't take Bruce long to figure out the answer, but by then The Joker had already launched into his typical taunting spiel.

"Well, well, boys look what we have here. A bat has come to nest in our fair corner of the city. Don't get to close. He bites… hard." The Joker ruefully rubbed a spot on his wrist where Bruce had bitten him to get free of a headlock a while back.

"I don't know what they did to you in that prison, but taking me down isn't going to make your jailers go any easier on you," Bruce said in a growling reply.

The Joker held out his hands in that typically pleading way of his. "Now what makes you think that I did any kind of deal that involved them letting me off easy? If you must know, I didn't get out so quickly on my own account."

Now that was baffling. The Joker was a textbook narcissist who never did anything for anyone other than himself. "Care to elaborate?" was all that The Dark Knight asked since he didn't expect a response.

His assumption was proved correct when The Joker wagged a finger at him and said in an overly dramatic tone, "Ah, ah, ah, a magician never reveals his secrets." Then he clapped his hands together and his men charged.

Bruce blocked the club of the first attacker with his arm, turning it so that the blades on his gauntlet sliced the club to pieces and disarmed the opponent. He next attacker was careless and while Bruce fended off the first, he delivered a swift kick to the gut that sent the man reeling to the moist pavement.

As the rest of the men all fell in quick succession. Bruce was starting to wonder why The Joker still bothered with rounding these guys up out of the bars and clubs of Chinatown. As he delivered an elbow to the face of the last attacker, however, Bruce suddenly heard a crackling, electrical sound. He spun around to see The Joker with a black, sleek looking rifle. "Smile!" the Clown exclaimed as he fired the device that sent a beam of energy arcing into The Dark Knight. Bruce let out a yell of pain as the energy coursed through the suit and into his body. By the time Bruce was able to catch a breath, he had fallen to his knees, unable to move the suit. Somehow The Joker had gotten ahold of some kind of technology that made his suit freeze up.

He was powerless as he watched The Joker slink towards him. The clown bent over so he could look The Dark Knight in the eye and say, "You know, I've always fantasized about you this way… on your knees." Then The Joker delivered a roundhouse kick to the head that sent The Dark Knight sliding across the ground. The Joker quickly ran up and continued his assault as he said between strikes, "And… I... was… just… starting… to… like…"

But before The Joker could finish his sentence, a familiar white blur came from nowhere and sent the clown flying into a pile of rubbish. Bruce was barely able to look up and see Diana standing there, her left arm clenching her battle shield which was extended since it had just bashed The Joker almost ten feet. It was only a momentary glance, however, as Diana quickly charged forward.

Bruce faded in and out of a consciousness that was punctuated with The Jokers pained grunts and the sounds of fists smacking flesh. At length, Bruce was finally able to summon enough strength to physically lift himself and the suit, and he was able to crawl to the nearby wall and prop himself up.

The Joker was sprawled on the ground. His face was a bloody mess and getting bloodier as Diana continued to wail on him without mercy. So it was that Bruce, against everything his emotions were telling him, had to live up to his principles and take pity on his enemy. "Diana… Diana! Stop!"

A wild eyed Diana looked up and quickly spotted Bruce slumped on the wall. All she could do was breathe heavily as Bruce warned in a ragged voice, "You'll kill him."

"Why shouldn't I?" Diana cried. "He was going to kill you!"

"I know you're better than that," Bruce said in an appeal to her sympathies for him. He struggled back to his feet and continued to brace himself against the wall as he continued, "Besides, I only just put him away weeks ago. The only way he got back out is if he was allowed to. Someone else wanted him to find me. We need what he knows."

For a moment, Diana's grip loosened. Then it grew firm again as she turned her face back to The Joker. "Why are you here?" She yelled at him. "Who sent you?"

The Joker held out his hands for mercy. "It was for Harley," he gargled through a bloody mouth. "They were going to hurt Harley."

Well, well, it turns out there was a soul inside the Clown after all, Bruce thought. "You see," he said to Diana. "There's more to this story than last time. Let him talk."

Diana turned to listen to The Dark Knight's words and then turned back to Joker. "You heard the man… talk," she said in a voice dripping with implied violence.

"It's all rather over my head buuuut…" The Joker said in a mock British accent which quickly evaporated to speed talking when Diana raised her fist. "But, but, but, sheesh it's like I'm viewing the underside of a public bathroom ha! But it was all something about a deal made at some high level of government."

"What deal?" The Dark Knight growled as he finally stood up on his own and drew closer.

"A deal made to let me and some other less than desirables go if we helped the government. Of course I have no particular love for Ole' Uncle Sam so I refused and they got well… testy."

"Who's they?" Diana demanded.

"Suits of some kind," The Joker responded. "Looked like they were probably FBI or something. They wanted us to knock off you and the rest of your Justice League pals with state support."

"So that's how you got the technology to deactivate my suit," Bruce wondered aloud.

"Rightio Batsy!" The Joker announced just before he coughed up a little more blood.

"But why would the authorities want to take out the League by force when we've already agreed to stand down of our own accord?" Diana asked with a sense of true puzzlement.

At this question, The Joker threw a knowing glance at The Dark Knight and said in a low, ominous tone, "It looks like the powers that be are starting to see your kind as more of a threat than mine." He then broke into one of his characteristic maniacal laughing fits just before Diana delivered him a knockout punch.

The Amazon then rose to her full height and spun around to look at The Dark Knight again, but instead she was met with an empty alleyway. Her lips curled into a frown which was not long in dissipating as she whispered to herself, "Oh no you don't."

A little while later, as the Batmobile flew through the waterfall concealing the entrance to The Cave and came screeching to a halt on its platform, Bruce ejected and glided down near the walk path which efficiently began disassembling his suit. Waiting for him at the end of that path was an irritable looking Diana, her arms folded and her foot tapping impatiently.

As Bruce stepped off the walkway he brushed past Diana with only a passing glance before walking off towards the computer. He could feel the slight itching feeling on the back of his neck that was a sign that Diana had turned to bore a hole in his back with her gaze. So upon reaching the computer Bruce finally deigned to say, "Don't give me that look. I had everything under control."

"Hardly," Diana said as stiffly as the meaning of the word itself. "If that's what you call control then I would hate to see what you would call out of control."

"Yes I think you would," Bruce replied smartly. Before he could reach out his hands to the keyboard of the computer, however, he quickly found his view obscured by shining Amazonian armor as Diana dropped in between him and the device.

"Okay, you want to play things that way," Diana forcefully intoned. "Sit down." She nodded to the nearby computer chair.

Against his usual habit of defiance in the face of orders, Bruce was surprised to find himself seated shortly. His gaze was fixed on the figure of Diana, made lithe by her armor, as she paced about in front of him, her face screwed up as she tried to think of what to say first.

"That lunatic nearly killed you," was her eventual statement.

"Yes he did, and you responded by nearly doing the same to him," Bruce calmly pointed out.

"What was I supposed to do, just let him beat you to death?" Diana asked rhetorically. "Don't answer that." Then she took a long sigh and caressed her eyebrows in that way she did when the stress of a situation was getting to her. "You're so stupid, you know that! I don't know what made you think that going in blindly to that situation was a good idea or who gave you the right, but I'm sorry. If you keep going on the way you have been, I might be forced to take drastic action."

Bruce cocked an eyebrow at this. He was beginning to think that Diana was letting her emotions get the better of her and decided to dispel her concerns categorically. "First of all," he opened. "I wasn't going in blindly. I've wrestled with Joker enough times to know he never just wants to talk when he sends you his calling card."

"I don't care if you knew it was a trap or not! You can't just offer yourself up like that!" yelled Diana in a voice that echoed through the cave and disturbed some of the distantly meditating bats.

"Secondly," Bruce continued in a slightly raised voice to indicate that he wasn't finished. "I don't need anyone's permission to pursue my own case." After this, Bruce stood up and crossed to the other end of the chair in a subconscious effort to put something between him and the fuming Diana. "No one knows The Joker like I do, and I knew the only way he'd get out after what he did was with help. Now, partially thanks to you, we know that there's a bigger game afoot. The government wants us out of the way and they're willing to recruit our enemies to see it through. The rest of the League has to be informed. It may very well be that whatever hold the President has over Clark, he might be using that to double cross him."

"Stop being so paranoid!" Diana cut in. "You always get like this when you're deep in your own cases and it's suffocating. You need to take a break and collect yourself before you lose a part of yourself that you didn't know was important to you."

"And what part would that be?" Bruce asked, as calm as ever. When Diana looked lost for a response, Bruce decided to continue. "Look Diana, the last time I took a break was when the man you just pummeled to within an inch of his life kidnapped my friend and crippled his daughter. I can't afford to take chances just as I can't afford to subordinate authority to anyone else but myself. If there's one thing I've learned in the last few weeks, it's that I can't wait to take action when needed. Otherwise the people I care about get hurt."

"If that's all you've learned in the last few weeks then you know as little as ever," Diana, said in a low, croaking voice full of emotion as she stormed passed Bruce and began to stride away. She wasn't long in changing her mind, however, as she spun back around for one last exchange. Putting a hand to her breastplate, she asked earnestly, "Am I not someone you care about?"

Bruce was caught utterly off guard by the question and fumbled audibly for a response for what seemed to him like an awkwardly long time. At last he was able to stutter out, "Um, yes I care about you Diana. We're on the same team and everything."

"And would you not go out of your way to help me if I were in danger?" Diana followed up.

Bruce straightened his posture at this next question, resolute in his answer. "Of course I would. I'd give everything to make sure you were safe, just as I know you would do the same for me."

"Then any fiction you have of being some kind of lone wolf is just that… a fiction," Diana declared as she pointed a finger at the ground in a gesture that what she was saying was fact beyond reproach. "If you really care about me that much then you do need the permission of someone else before you endanger yourself like that. You need my permission. As you said, I would do the same for you and I already have, twice. So before you go doing something as thick headed as that again, you need to wait until you have my support. Otherwise I'm not letting you leave this cave in that armor again. You mean too much to the League… and you mean too much to me," Diana finished hesitantly before she stormed off towards the exit tunnel and flew away into the darkness.

After this, Bruce was left all alone in the solitude of the Cave, but he found no solace in it as he turned over Diana's words in his own mind. The familiar voice in his head was telling him that there was no one who could tell him what he could and could not do except for himself. On the other hand, however, he could not deny that perhaps Diana had a point, just as he could not deny that he cared enough for Diana to rip the world apart to save her if she were in trouble. For the time being, however, he was content to do the unthinkable and retire from his nightly crusades as long as they were doing nothing but upsetting her. He couldn't explain why. No one else held this kind of power over him. Not even Alfred who was the closest thing he had to family in the world. As Bruce returned to the chair at his computer to begin research on the night's activities, Bruce was forced to only one conclusion. Perhaps there were more to his feelings for Diana than he would admit.