TITLE: Remind Me

AUTHOR: LOTSlover

CHARACTERS: Batman / Wonder Woman

RATING: M

WARNINGS: Author Chooses Not to Use Warnings

DISCLAIMER: I love Justice League, but especially Batman and Wonder Woman. Unfortunately, I do not own the characters and, if I did, things would be much different for them.

SUMMARY: Bruce has a recurring dream that only Diana can help him get past. (Episode: Epilogue) BMWW

Remind Me

The dream starts again just like it has every other time that it's invaded his sleep like unseen, unfamiliar fingers reaching deep into his psyche to push the perplexing scenes to the forefront of his mind. It's a dream that has left him unsettled…lost, but it's never as disturbing, though, as the nightmare that had begun the night his life had ended.

It feels as if he is nothing more than an observer in an audience, watching a movie as it plays out before him. Other times, it feels as if he's almost an active participant, standing at the periphery of each scene just waiting to be drawn into it though unwillingly.

He has no choice in this. The dream started five nights ago, beginning the same way every single night after finishing patrol. It always begins with some young man named Terry McGinnis silently slipping inside the home of Amanda Waller…only Amanda Waller isn't the woman that he has come to know.

This Amanda Waller is older, her hair more gray than black. There are more wrinkles at the corners of her eyes and around her mouth. She still holds that same smug, abrasive attitude that always manages to further annoy him, giving him great pleasure when he's able to wipe that arrogant smirk off her face. He's been able to do that more than once.

"I've been wondering when you were going to show up," Waller states. "Terry McGinnis or do you prefer being called Batman?"

It's always moments like this when he's nothing more than a silent observer standing in the shadows, watching and waiting and trying to process the fact that Amanda Waller has violated his life in such a deceitful manner. It eats away at his pride, prickling his ire.

Amanda is detached…almost flippant about the fact that she has messed with his life, taking his DNA and creating another human being with it. She's never sorry about it, never once apologizing for ruining this young man's life…for playing with fire…playing God. She had no right.

Bruce's fingers curl into the sheets beneath him, caught in the throes of his recurring dream. His rage swells like a thunderhead, resentment building to unbearable levels. He doesn't appreciate being used like this…being played like a pawn in one of Waller's manipulative games.

Sweat glistens on his brow, his head rolling from side-to-side in defiance as she explains why she did what she did as if any answer she could possibly give will make what she did all right. Her explanation gives him little relief, not an ounce of solace. It only makes his disgust for this woman grow with every passing night.

Terry McGinnis slams his fist into the grandfather clock that conceals the entrance to the Batcave, allowing him to descend into the dark domain to find Bruce Wayne typing on his computer system. "How could you do it to me, Bruce?" he yells as fury pumps through his veins.

"The only thing that matters is the mission," Bruce coldly states as he turns his chair to look at him. "You know that."

"What about people, Bruce?" Terry demands to know. "Dick, Barbara, Tim, Selina? They all loved you but eventually every single one of them left you. Ever wonder why?"

"Not for an instant," Bruce growls. "They quit because when it came down to it, they didn't have the heart for the mission. Are you about to quit too? It doesn't really surprise me."

"It doesn't?" Terry exclaims.

Bruce is shocked all over again by how frail he looks. He's just a shell of the man that he once was—an icy, empty husk. He's nothing more than skin and bones…piss and vinegar running though his veins. The muscle mass that he'd worked so hard to maintain was gone, the black hair now white. Countless wrinkles adorn his face, making him nearly unrecognizable.

He's full of anger and bitterness, not an ounce of the compassion that he'd once held seen in his words, his actions, or the lifeless eyes that look back at him. It's nothing but the mission. The mission is what had started this descent into madness. Years of focusing on nothing but the mission, blocking and locking out everyone that ever meant anything to him. It had hardened him, his heart like stone and his soul vacant.

There was him and the mission and nothing else. It left him feeling cold and hollow, so very alone with no hope of anything more in his future. Nothing good or pure or bright in his life…no Diana. Where was Diana? Had he driven her away too just like everyone else?

Panic surges through his veins like an electrical current, a livewire threatening to stop his heart altogether. He wishes that he knew what he'd done to lose her so he could stop it from happening. He couldn't lose his princess, couldn't turn into the heartless monster that had haunted his dreams the last several night.

"111 to 1," Bruce states.

"Yah," Terry confirms.

"So, you ran a DNA test?"

"Once I worked up the nerve," Terry replies. "I was sixteen years old when you started training me, Bruce. A punk kid with a smart mouth and the potential I didn't even suspect. I may have pretended otherwise, but I looked up to you…worshiped you."

"What you wanted from me I couldn't give to anyone," Bruce reveals.

"Tell me something I don't know," Terry yells. "My dad wasn't a superhero…he didn't save the world from the near apocalypse of o-nine…he never went toe-to-toe with Mister Freeze, but he was a good man just the same.

"After he and mom got divorced, he always tried to do the right thing. My brother and I were always provided for. When mom couldn't quite make the bills, he always helped out. He tried to teach me right from wrong, would've too if I'd ever listened…and he never laid a hand on me although Lord knows I was asking for it."

"What's your point?" Bruce grinds out the words like broken glass.

"What's my point?" Terry exclaims, incredulity coloring his voice. "My point is I never once doubted that he loved me with all his heart. My point is all those warm feelings I had for my dad turns out they were just another lie. Another in a long list of things that you've stolen from me. The point is I just found out that Warren McGinnis isn't my father. You are!"

"What do you want from me?" Bruce asks with a menacing glare.

"I want to know the whole truth," Terry states.

"Sounds like you already do," Bruce points out, sitting forward in his command chair.

"I guess I didn't want to believe you were so incredibly arrogant that you thought that the world couldn't go on without you," Terry shot back.

"Or someone like me," Bruce reveals. "It's not arrogance. It's fact."

"You set the whole thing up."

"How?" he demands to know. "You were already a teenager when I first met your mother."

"I don't know," Terry angrily retorts. "Maybe you dug up some of that old Cadmus nanotech…used it to have my genes rewritten to match yours."

"That technology has been illegal for over forty years," Bruce points out to him.

"Didn't stop the Joker from using it on Tim Drake," Terry accuses. "All right…low blow. Because you'd never lie to me, right?"

"Fine…believe what you want, but you know as well as I do accident or not, it's a good thing you're almost a clone of me," Bruce snaps. "The world does need a Batman and it always will."

Bruce clutches his chest as pain lances through it, forcing him to reach for the bottle of pills that sits on the table beside his chair. "The mantle of Batman is an honor, Terry," he continues as he tries to open the bottle. The bottle slips from his arthritic hands, capsules spilling all over the cave floor.

"You know what, old man," Terry growls. "All those years turns out everybody was right. You are insane. Being Batman is no honor. It's a curse."

He watches as Terry storms away, his gaze falling on his elder clone as he falls to his knees, reaching for his pills lying scattered on the cave floor like some pathetic invalid. Overwhelming grief rises up inside of him along with a myriad of other emotions that are coming at him too hard and too fast for him to give names to. It's like an avalanche threatening to crush him.

All he knows is that he doesn't want this life that he has seen playing out for him the last several nights. He doesn't want to be that heartless old man…the same rancorous, sanctimonious person that he had met when he, John, and Diana had chased Chronos into the future.

He hoped that allowing Diana into his life has changed that future, altering the dreadful path that he'd been hurtling down for far too long. Now, he feared that he might never escape such a fate. Was he doomed to be alone for the rest of his life…resentful and full of so much rage?

"You're in my chair," Bruce tells him.

"Yes, I guess I am," Terry admits.

"Where the devil have you been?"

"Just had some stuff to take of," he replies.

"Enigma is overrated…especially at three am," Bruce says. "You could've called. I made you some soup, but it's cold."

"Sorry, didn't mean to worry you," Terry apologizes.

"I was worried about Gotham," Bruce tries to tell him as he pulls out his pill bottle. "If Batman's not around…"

Terry takes the bottle from his hands and opens it for him, handing him his pills. "I've got it covered…always."

"Kent called…nothing apocalyptic…he just wants your opinion on a case he's working," Bruce reveals. "Said you could meet him at the Metro Tower."

"Right…better suit up," Terry agrees as he runs towards the grandfather clock.

"You should eat something first," Bruce tells him. "Keep up your strength."

"When I get back," Terry tells him.

"You're a stubborn piece of work you know," Bruce utters with a scowl.

"Just like my old man," Terry softly says to him.

Bruce can't help the sense of pride that floods him as he watches Terry disappear behind the grandfather clock to carry on the mantle of the Batman. It's something that he always thought that Dick or Tim would carry on, but he had obviously driven them away, turning them against him.

He shoots forward out of his dream with a heartrending cry, gasping hungrily for air. His body is trembling, his chest heaving as sweat trickles down his back and chest. He quickly whips the sheets off of him, moving to sit on the edge of his bed to hold his head in his hands as he struggles to gather himself.

The feel of a gentle hand on his back causes him to momentarily tense only to relax as she begins to stroke along his spine. It's the first time that she has been present for this particular dream, having been gone on an away mission for the last two weeks and just returning this evening. He's not sure if he's relieved or fearful that she's here with him to witness the sweaty, shuddering mess that the dream reduces him to every time.

"Bruce…are you all right?" she softly asks, sleepiness invading her voice.

"Yah…it's nothing," he tries to brush it off, but she's not so easily dismissed.

"It's not the same dream, is it?" she gently probes, moving to sit behind him. Her chin comes to rest on his shoulder as her other hand tenderly caresses the nape of his neck.

"No, it's not," he confesses as guilt fills his throat and chest, making it more than difficult to breathe.

"Talk to me…please," she softly pleads.

Several long moments pass before he finally responds to her request. "Remind me, princess," he simply says instead, catching her off guard.

"Remind you of what?"

"Remind me why you're here with me," he clarifies. "How can you love someone like me?"

Diana thinks about it for several moments, the prolonged silence causing panic and dread to churn in the pit of his stomach like sharp pieces of gravel. Each second that passes feels like an hour as he nervously waits on tenterhooks for her answer, his worst fears threatening to become a reality.

"I don't even know where to start," she thoughtfully tells him as she continues to stroke the nape of his neck. "There are so many reasons why…so many things that I love about you."

"Remind me…please," he chokes out, his voice raw and thick with emotion.

"I love how brave and selfless you are," she begins, the love that she feels for this man saturating every single syllable that she utters. "I love your fierce determination and your unyielding commitment to Gotham and the promise that you made to your parents. I love the way that you look at me as if I'm the only woman in the whole world…how you make me smile without even trying.

"I love the way that you love me, how you give me every part of yourself when we make love despite how difficult it is for you to let me in. I love that you try so hard to let me see the real Bruce even though you've spent years trying to lock him away.

"I love how your blue eyes twinkle with amusement when you try your hardest not to smile at something I've said. I love how much you care about your family even though you try so hard to hide it. I love how your eyebrows furrow when you're brooding…the way your jaw tenses when you grind your teeth. I love the little sound of your snores at night when you sleep."

Bruce shivers as her hand reaches around to caress along his jaw, her lips replacing her fingers on the back of his neck. She places slow, sensual kisses on his nape, taking her time to worship the muscles that lead to his shoulder. He gasps softly in response, his heart racing for another reason now.

"I love how incredibly handsome you are...how your black Kevlar uniform hugs your muscular frame," she continues with a sexy lilt to her voice, pausing to plant more kisses along his collarbone. "I love how generous you are…always giving of your time and money to others. I love how sexy you look in a tuxedo and how you hold me in your arms when we dance."

"Diana," he murmurs her name as if a desperate plea for salvation, to take hold of him and never let him go.

Her hand gently turns his head to look at her, her thumb caressing the side of his face. "I love the way you make my heart flutter when you walk into a room…how the tiniest of smirks settles…right here…in the corner of your mouth when you tease me," she tells him, pressing her lips to the very spot on his mouth that she loved the most.

"But most of all, I love your heart, Bruce," she says, her forehead coming to rest against his cheekbone and her hand on his chest over his heart.

"It's so scarred and damaged," he quietly argues, his eyes falling closed as they share the same warm breath.

"Yes, but it's the heart a true warrior who has done countless battles and has survived it," she reassures him. "You have the heart of a man whose compassion extends even to his enemies. I heard what you did for Ace, sitting with her on those swings when she died. I couldn't be prouder of you, Bruce. You're a true hero in every sense of the word."

He tilts his head, his lips repeatedly ghosting over hers. "I'm so afraid of losing you," he finds himself confessing.

"Bruce…what was your dream about?" she presses, her nose nuzzling his.

He releases a ragged sigh as his eyes fall closed. He finally turns his body to face her, his left leg bending to rest on the bed between them. "It's been the same dream the last six nights," he admits to her, his voice taking on a haunted tone.

"So, it started not long after Ace's death?"

"Yes," he confirms with a nod. "There's a young man…Terry McGinnis."

"Do you know him?"

"No, I've never seen him or heard the name before the dreams started," he replies, running a hand over his mouth. "He…he's my son, Diana."

He reaches out and takes her hand in his, lacing his fingers with hers. He shakes his head as he tries to find the words to explain it all to her. "He's my biological son, but not the way that you think," he tells her, not wanting her to get the wrong idea. "In my dream, Amanda Waller gets a hold of my DNA. She uses her ties to Cadmus to obtain the technology necessary to overwrite Warren McGinnis's reproductive DNA with mine by using nanobots, making me Terry McGinnis's biological father."

"Why do you think she would do such a thing?"

"To make sure there would always be a Batman long after I'm unable to do it," he informs her.

Diana cradles his face with her hands, her gaze full of compassion as she stares into his eyes. "You don't think it's just a dream…do you?"

Bruce should've known that Diana would understand. She understood him better than anyone save for Alfred and Dick. "No, I don't," he murmurs, his fingers wrapping around her wrist. "It's been the same dream every single night for six nights in a row now…always the same down to the minutest details. There has to be a reason for it. What do think it could be?"

"I think it's message from the gods," she reveals. "I think it's either a warning of a future event or it could be a vision of an event from an alternate universe letting know this could possibly happen."

"So, you don't think I'm crazy?" he asks her, his lips twitching in that way that she adored.

"Well, I didn't say that," she teases him, squealing as she suddenly finds herself on her back in his bed, looking up into the handsome face of her lover poised above her.

"I'm only crazy about you," he flirts, kissing her deeply.

"That's an answer that I love to hear," she admits with a grin.

"Thank you, princess," he replies as his face grows serious. "I love you."

She reaches up, brushing a lock of hair off his forehead. "Remind me," she tells him, her lips quirking into a mischievous smile.

His lips crash into hers in a heated kiss, more than desperate to show her every bit of his love for her. This woman was his saving grace, the one who had rescued his heart from becoming what he'd seen in the future. For that alone, he would be eternally grateful, and he intended to show her just how grateful he was to her.

XXX

The sound of Amanda Waller's heels clicking against the linoleum flooring echoes down the dimly lit hallway as she makes her way towards her office. Another long day has lasted long into the night, another secret plan in the works that will hopefully see the light of day sooner rather than later.

Entering her office, Waller makes a beeline for her desk, sitting down in her chair. She is instantly startled out of her thoughts as she notices an unwanted shadow among the shadows…the shadow in the shape of a very forbidding bat.

"What do you want?" she snaps, opening a drawer and pulling out a bottle of alcohol.

"I know what you're planning, Waller," he rasps something otherworldly that causes the fine hairs on the back of her neck to prickle.

"I have no idea what you're talking about," she calmly counters, doing her best to appear indifferent to his presence. "Now, get out of my office. I have work to do."

Batman crosses the room and closes the distance between them in less than a heartbeat, seemingly carried on a tidal wave of fury. She unconsciously sits back in her chair in an attempt to escape him, her hands inching closer to another drawer, one that holds her gun.

"Don't even think about it," he growls, his gauntleted hands coming to rest on top of her desk as he leans in close to her.

She instinctively jerks her hand back as if burned, her anger evident in the glower that veils her face. "I should have you—"

"I know about your little Batman project," he reveals, intently studying her face for any indication that she knew what he was talking about.

The flicker of shock that flits across her face is confirmation enough for him. Her eyes immediately narrow, her lips curling into a sneer. "Your paranoia is getting the better of you," she snidely states. "There is no Batman project."

"I know you're planning on using my DNA to make sure there will be another Batman long after I'm gone," he reveals. "I'm warning you right now. If I find that you're going ahead with this ludicrous plan, I will bury you so deep you'll never see the light of day ever again."

Waller begins to chuckle as she glares back at him. "That's quite a scheme you've concocted in that suspicious brain of yours, Batman," she replies. "I have to admit it does sound like a good plan, but how would Wonder Woman feel about it?"

Batman stiffens with her mention of Diana, but he hides it well, keeping his face expressionless. "Wonder Woman has nothing to do with this."

"I'm sure she'd be hurt to hear that, Bruce," Waller responds. "If two were to have a child…well, there would be no need for this so-called Batman project of yours now would there be? Just think—a child born of Batman and Wonder Woman. Now, that would be something. He or she could be the hero this world needs."

"Don't even think about it," he hisses, irate with the thought of this woman ever getting her hands on a child that he and Diana might someday have together.

Waller tilted her chair back, mirthless laughter spilling from her lips as her eyes momentarily fall closed. "I believe I hit a nerve," she begins, opening her eyes to find herself all alone in her office.

Waller looks about the large room, wondering where he could've gone. She pours herself a drink, taking her time to down the glass of alcohol. Putting the bottle and glass away, she pulls out a key and unlocks a secret drawer, pulling out a file—Project Batman Beyond.