Tickets (DCAU)

"I just want…no, wait! You don't understand," Diana tried again only to find herself talking to a dial tone. She growled angrily, a flurry of Greek curses filling the air. "I swear to Hera! Dealing with Hercules was easier than this!"

"Maybe you should try TixEx," Flash said from his seat across the table from her.

"What's that?"

"It's a new ticket broker agency," he told her. "They might be able to get you the tickets you want."

"I guess it's worth a try," she replied in exasperation. "I have one other option. If this doesn't work out, I'll have to try it. I'm running out of time."

Batman swept into the Monitor Womb at that moment, his black cape fluttering behind him. He immediately noticed Diana sitting at one of the tables with Flash. He quickly plastered on a façade of indifference despite the way that his stomach fluttered involuntarily with the sight of her. He silently cursed his lack of self-control around the Amazon princess as he silently slid into a chair at a computer station, ignoring Flash's amicable greeting.

"Have you tried a scalper?" Flash suggested, piquing the Dark Knight's curiosity despite his best efforts not to care.

"What is that?" Diana asked, confused.

"It's someone who resells tickets for a quick profit," he explained. "You may have to pay a fortune for it so it depends on how badly you want them."

Diana wrinkled her nose as she dialed her cell phone. "It doesn't sound very ethical."

"Well, it's mostly considered illegal, but I guess it just depends on desperate you are."

Diana cast a sidelong glance at Batman who was sitting silently at a computer with his back to them. She wished that he hadn't chosen this precise moment to show up, but she couldn't worry about that right now. She had bigger things to worry about than what Bruce thought of her current predicament.

"I don't think I'm that desperate yet," the Amazon princess said with a frown as she got out of her seat to begin pacing. She didn't like the idea of doing something illegal. It wouldn't due for Wonder Woman to be seen meeting a shady character in a dark alley to buy tickets at an exorbitant rate. "Yes! Yes, I'm here. I'm in dire need of two tickets to…what? I didn't even tell you who I needed tickets for! Oh…you already know. Okay…well, thank you for your time."

Deflated, Diana's head fell back as she closed her eyes with overt frustration. "I swear the gods are against me! I'm just not meant to get these tickets!"

"What are you trying to do, princess?" Batman rasped without turning around.

Diana sheepishly looked his way, biting at her bottom lip. "It's nothing really," she admitted. "It's just tickets to a concert."

"Rolling Stones?" he asked.

"Yes, but it's proving to be a futile endeavor," she groused as she flopped back into her chair once more, setting her cell phone on the table. "Wait…how did you know that was the concert."

"It's the biggest concert of the year," Bruce told her. "They're playing at Madison Square Garden."

"I don't get why it's so big that they're playing in a garden," Diana replied with a huff of annoyance.

"It's not a literal garden, princess," Bruce informed her, an amused twitch on his lips with her naivety.

"It's where the New York Knicks play basketball," Wally said.

"If you call that playing basketball," Bruce sarcastically remarked.

Wally laughed in response. "Yah, definitely hasn't been their best season."

"Well, I'm not about to give up yet," Diana resolutely stated. "I will find a way to get those tickets."

"I'm telling you…call TixEx," Wally told her.

Batman snorted in amusement. "It's not a very reputable company. Did you try StubHub?"

"That was who I just hung up with," she replied. "The concert is completely sold out. There is not a single ticket out there."

"I didn't know you were a Stones fan, princess," Bruce said, a note of approval and appreciation in his voice.

"There's a lot you don't know about me, Dark Knight," she flirted.

"Call TixEx already," Flash insisted.

"Fine," she grumbled in aggravation, looking up the phone number before calling. "I'm on hold."

"Probably because everyone else in the world is trying to get tickets to the concert," Wally told her.

"You're not helping," she ground out as she got up to resume her anxious pacing.

"Why don't you just tell them who you are?" Batman asked her as he typed up his mission report.

"I don't think it's very fair to use my status as a founding member of the Justice League in order to get tickets," she stated. "It just seems underhanded somehow."

"Desperate times call for desperate measures, princess," Bruce reminded her. "Tell them you're Wonder Woman and be done with it already."

"I will not," she adamantly insisted. "It's not fair to other people are trying to get…Yes, I'm trying to get two tickets to the Rolling Stones concert please."

"This isn't going to work," Batman warned her.

"She's so screwed," Wally agreed.

"Never going to happen," Bruce muttered.

"Yes…two tickets. Yes, of course I want them to be together," she said with ever-growing exasperation. "What? There's absolutely nothing? There has to be…there isn't…how can that…you have to be kidding me! Isn't there anything that you…ugh!"

Diana shut off her phone, leveling Wally a glare as he opened his mouth to speak. "Not a single word," she bit out each word as if chewing on glass. "I'm going to the training room."

Wally watched as Diana stormed out of the Monitor Womb without another word. "I told you it wasn't going to work," Bruce grumbled.

"I told her to try a scalper," Flash said. "If she's desperate enough, she'll see a scalper for the tickets."

"And get arrested for it," Bruce snapped. "That'll be a nice black eye on the League."

Flash broke out into a fit of laughter, his arm coming to rest against his abdomen. "I can see the headline now," he said between bouts of laughter. "They'll have her mug shot on the front page."

"Who did she want to take to the concert with her?"

"You know I'm not even sure," Wally replied. "All I know was that she was desperate to get two tickets to the Stones concert. She's been trying for the last three hours."

Bruce frowned, his eyebrows knitting together in thought. "She's pretty determined to get them for someone," he said more to himself than to Wally.

"Well, doesn't look like she's going to get to go now," Flash told him. "It's too bad. She really had her heart set on going. She's going to be crushed."

"Yah…too bad," he murmured to himself, lost in his thoughts.

XXX

Exiting her bathroom, Diana threw on a t-shirt and workout shorts before finishing towel-drying her hair. Her forehead was creased in that telltale way that told everyone that she was trying to work something out in her head. Unfortunately, she wasn't coming up with anything and time was swiftly running out.

Tossing her towel into the laundry bin in her closet, she sat down at her desk, grabbing a piece of paper and pen to begin making a list. There had to be something that she wasn't considering…something that would be just as amazing as Rolling Stones tickets.

She thoughtfully ran her fingers back through her damp hair as she attempted to consider her options. She had hoped that an arduous training session would have helped to clear her mind and allowed her to come up with another idea. Regrettably, three hours and half a dozen destroyed training drones later and she still had no new options.

She began writing some ideas down, none of them what she truly wanted. What she really wanted more than anything was two tickets to the concert. Slamming her pen down, she leapt from her chair and began pacing the length of her quarters. The thought of meeting a scalper in some alley just to get two tickets just seemed so…so…distasteful. The fact that it could be illegal only strengthened her resolve to not sink to such a level.

She crossed her arm against her chest, her other elbow coming rest on top of it as she chewed on her thumbnail. She was blessed by Athena of all goddesses. She should be able to come up with a creative idea that would be just as great as the concert.

With a curse of frustration, Diana threw her arms up in the air. "For Hera's sake," she growled to herself. "I'm being ridiculous. If I really want these tickets, I'm going to do whatever it takes to get them."

Walking to her closet, Diana began to rummage through her things in search of the Gotham Knight's hat that she had "borrowed" from Bruce when she had lived at the Manor after he crashed the Watchtower. "There you are," she murmured to herself.

She pulled her hair into a ponytail before putting the ballcap on. Grabbing a basket, she searched through its contents till she found a pair of dark sunglasses that Shayera had given her a couple of years ago. Slipping them on, she checked her appearance in the mirror before deciding she looked fairly unrecognizable.

Heading towards her door, she hit the button, the door sliding open to reveal Batman standing at her door. He had his fist raised, preparing to knock. "Nice disguise, princess," he greeted her, the lenses of his cowl narrowing into thin white slits. "Is that my Gotham Knight's hat?"

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Where are you going?"

"I, uh…I was just going out for a little bit," she attempted to explain as she quickly turned away from him in embarrassment.

"You were going to try to find a scalper," he flatly stated as he entered, the door sliding closed behind him.

"What makes you think that?" she innocently replied, not turning around to face him.

Batman forced her to turn around to look at him. He removed her sunglasses, handing them to her. "I've never seen you wear sunglasses before."

"I have been known to…on occasion…once in a while when it's really sunny out," she claimed.

Batman gave her a look that said he didn't believe her for once second. "You're the worst liar I've ever known."

Diana's shoulders sunk in defeat. "I just wanted to see what I could find out there," she confessed.

"I believe you are looking for these."

Diana stood in stunned disbelief as Batman pulled out two tickets. "You didn't…I mean you couldn't have… but how?" she sputtered in shock as she pulled the two tickets out of his gauntleted hand to hold before her eyes. "How on earth were you able to get two tickets? It's completely sold out."

"Really? I'm Bruce Wayne," he reminded her as he crossed his arms against his chest, his black cape draping around him like a death shroud.

"Yes, but…you couldn't…" she stuttered as she stared at the tickets in her hand. They weren't just two tickets to the Rolling Stones concert, but they were suite tickets…the most coveted and expensive of all. "Have you had these all along?"

"No," he replied with a shake of his head. "I knew you were having trouble getting tickets, so I made a phone call."

"Bruce," Diana murmured, tears blurring her vision as she threw her arms around the Dark Knight. "I…I don't know how to thank you."

Bruce returned her embrace, savoring her intoxicating scent. Her happiness created a sense of warmth that permeated his entire being. "You never have to thank—."

"I'm so sorry, but I can't accept these," she interrupted him as she pulled away from him.

A perplexed frown immediately formed on his cowled face. "Why not?" he demanded to know. "I thought you wanted them."

"I did…I mean I still do, but I can't accept them," she tried to tell him, holding the tickets out for him to take back.

"I don't understand," he stated with an annoyed grate to his voice, refusing to take the tickets back.

He watched as she moved to sit on the edge of her bed. He removed his gauntlets and cowl, tossing them onto her desk where her list still laid before walking to sit down on her bed beside her. "Talk to me, princess. Why can't you take the tickets?"

Diana looked down at the two tickets in her hand, her thumb lightly caressing the embossed finish on the coveted item. "This just wasn't the way that it was supposed to go," she softly admitted.

"How was it supposed to go?"

She glanced at Bruce out of the corner of her eye, not wanting to give away her surprise, but she knew that he deserved to know the truth after all he'd done for her. "I was trying to get the tickets to the concert for your birthday in two weeks. It was going to be a big surprise for you."

"You were going through all of that trouble just for me?" he asked, amazed.

She reluctantly nodded her head as she bit at her bottom lip. "I wanted to give you a great birthday gift."

"How did you even know I liked the Rolling Stones?"

"When I lived at the Manor while the new Watchtower was being rebuilt, I came across your IPod and I listened to what you had downloaded," she explained. "I noticed that the majority of the songs were the Rolling Stones."

"Do I want to know what else you did while you lived in my home?" Bruce asked as he reached over and removed his ballcap from her head.

Diana's lips curled into a mischievous grin as she snatched the ballcap back out of his hands. "That's for me to know and you to find out," she flirted.

"Oh, I will find out, princess," he guaranteed her.

"Well, that's all you have because now I have no birthday gift for you," she replied with a disheartened sigh. "It looks like I'll have to try to find you something else for your birthday."

Bruce smirked as his gaze fell to her lips, desire growing stronger inside of him "Well, it seems I have two tickets to a Rolling Stones concert now and no one to go with me," he pointed out. "I would consider it a special birthday gift if you went to the concert with me."

"Bruce…" she gently chided him. "That's not much of a birthday gift."

"It is to me," he confessed as he leaned towards her, his lips pressing against hers.

Diana's hand moved to cup the side of his face as she returned his kiss, readily deciding this had turned out far better than she had ever dreamed. He tilted his head as he deepened the kiss, breathing becoming a little more exerted as they lost themselves in the passion that was steadily growing between them.

Breaking the kiss, Diana smiled as she nuzzled her nose against his. "Yes, I'll go with you to the concert, but I'm still getting you a real birthday present."

"I'll buy you a Rolling Stones hat," he promised her with a smirk as he tried to take his ballcap back to no avail.

"Okay, but I still prefer this one," she insisted, waving it in front of him.

"I'm not getting my hat back, am I?"

"Not a chance, but I might be willing to share it," she teased.

Bruce growled as he suddenly pulled her into his lap, wrapping his arms around her to keep her where he wanted her. "I don't, princess," he rasped as he captured her lips once more in a heated kiss.