This concept came from Absurdmage (thank you for the inspiration and support). I honestly didn’t think I’d be doing something like this, but I’ve run into a bit of bad luck lately (car troubles, hospital visits, and unexpected pet bills) and it felt like the right time to give this a try.
I know times are tough for everyone, and money can be tight, so please don’t feel bad if you can’t contribute. You come first, always, and I’d never want anyone putting themselves in a tough spot to help me.
As the image says: for every $10 donation, I’ll write 1,000 words toward the fic of your choice from the list above. Each chapter I write averages around 5,000 words, so together that means every $50 in donations will unlock a new chapter and if it runs longer, you’ll still get the full chapter! You don’t have to donate the full $50 yourself, it's a team effort, and all contributions toward a fic will count toward the same chapter.
My Kofi link: https://ko-fi.com/battlemaiden13
I’m also treating this as a bit of a test run to see if people might be interested in commissions down the track, so this is a great way to gauge interest and give it a try.
If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to ask. I truly appreciate all of you from the bottom of my heart.
Bruce had no clue what was going on around him. He heard Diana ask that the goddess of witchcraft send him away and that her request was obliged. The words he wanted to say in protest felt like they evaporated in his mouth as he traveled through space and time to some foreign location.
He landed on his knees, surrounded by a crowd.
“Warriors!” a chorus of angry voices shouted as Bruce tried to recalibrate himself after such a forced teleportation.
There was the distinct shifting of armour amplified by the thousands reverberating around him, like a shockwave that was meant to knock him to his feet. All it managed to do was seize his heart with panic as he lifted his head to stare down his foes.
It shocked him more than he’d care to admit when he came face to face with an army that was made up entirely of women. Donning leather armour with ancient designs and medieval weapons in their hands, the female cavalry that threatened to skewer him with spears and swords and arrows reminded him of the costume that his so-called partner wore…
“Intruder,” roared an authoritative voice from behind the readied warrior. “Identify yourself.”
With all due respect, Bruce kept quiet while her surveyed what little terrain he could make out from the gaps in their forces. He spotted grass that was the color similar to emeralds, and trees that sway in the seabreeze. There was the sound of the ocean somewhere close but he couldn’t make out the direction it was in, meaning he had no obvious means to escape the angry women’s wrath. Carefully, monitoring them to determine whether or not he was allowed to move, he took the chance to see if he was enclosed in a circle by their army or if he was his back against a wall of some kind.
No matter which direction he cast his gaze, there were hundreds of furious glares staring right back at him.
“I won’t ask you again!” Warned the assertive voice from before.
Bruce knew that he should not press his luck any further he wanted to make it out of such a sticky situation alive, so he turned back around and replied with just as firm a tone, “Am I on the private island of the Amazons?”
Meeting their demands with a question urged the arches to pull on their drawstrings and the spear-throwers to tug their arms back. Furious, the supposed commander howled at him, “You were warned. Atta--!”
“Heads up!” Cheered a familiar, cocky, unwanted voice the second before something sharp landed in front of Bruce. The way it embedded itself into the ground was so fierce, he took a step back for fear of being associated with the soaring trident.
“Dammit,” he hissed to himself as many of the warriors turned to face the direction from which the weapon was thrown. Thinking on his feet, Bruce blurted out the only thing he could think to say in order to diffuse the arising tension. “We mean you no harm! We must speak with your queen--”
“Silence, heathen!” Demanded a woman with long brown hair, sitting on horseback and armed with nothing more than her animosity.
Bruce met her hatred with his signature indifference when a gust of wind rushed by him. “Hey Batman,” said the Flash, as chipper as ever. “Glad we got here when we did.”
Bruce had so many things he wanted to say to that, such as an inquiry about how they got to the seemingly secret island, or why he let Arthur announce their arrival like that. However, he lost his chance to when Victor landed next to him and filled in the gaps faster than the speedster. “Your magician friend really saved your ass just now.”
“You really couldn’t have picked a worse time.” Bruce said, vehemently.
Ignoring his derision, Cyborg scanned the group and whispered to him nothing more than a number, “Five thousand.”
The army was larger than he first anticipated. Unwilling to participate in a standstill any longer, Bruce kicked Aquaman’s trident down from its upright position and stood over the holes in the ground that its prongs had made. Then, he made sure that his voice carried its signature boom when combined with the distortion application in his suit as he proclaimed, “We seek an audience with Queen Hippolyta, on behalf of her daughter Diana! There are demons being made in the Underworld that threaten all of mankind, and she is down there fending them off on her own! She needs your help, now!”
The lie he told was small, but it helped to sell the emergency he was presenting to the army and their commander. As Arthur was pushed through the crowd with his hands in the air, his shirtless body offending the women greatly, Batman stood tall at the front of the haphazard Justice League in the hopes that his stoic demeanour would prove to them that his claim was legitimate and worthy of their attention.
It took longer than he would have liked - with images of Diana battling those lava rock-made demons passing through his mind at lightning speed sending him into a spiraling state of concern - but eventually, the commander spoke over the silence and the chirping cicadas to decree, “Bring them to the queen’s palace.She will know if he speaks the truth.”
Not one to bask in the feeling of relief, Bruce released an involuntary sigh when his spontaneous scheming managed to keep him alive. Considering the chaos that his involuntary teleportation caused, any turn of events that didn’t end with him being sliced in two gave him a fighting chance.
And, as a result, Diana too.
__________________________________________
The great hall of the palace was shrouded in gold, almost as if every inch of the room had been bathed in the metal. Filled to the brim with what he assumed to be Amazonian council members, none of the other women had the same presence in Bruce’s eyes as the queen herself. Hippolyta stood in front of her circular throne, appearing domineering and spiteful as she glared at the gathered members of the League.
The gathered men.
“You four are quite brave,” remarked the queen with a false tone of admiration. “Traversing the Underworld, facing off against demons while some of you are nothing more than mere mortals, staring down one of my strongest fleets and commanding them to bring you to me.”
“If it makes you feel any better,” Arthur thought it was wise to chime in at that exact moment. “I’m not mortals like them.”
Hippolyta cracked a smile, Bruce noticed, but it most definitely stemmed from her righteous sense of hatred. “I know, Atlantean. You’re merely the one who threw his weapon at my warriors.”
No one in the room spoke, awaiting Arthur’s reply. Thankfully, the silence drew out over many beats, which was music to Bruce’s ears.
“Tell the queen what you told me, Bat-man.” Ordered the general from the field. Though he’s never told her his heroic moniker, he figured that it wasn’t that difficult to identify him in such a way given his costume.
“My name is Bruce Wayne. Your majesty, I didn’t mean to randomly appear on your island.” Bruce apologized in his own way.
“No? You materialized in the very spot where a raging purple fire spawned in our field.”
Bruce used her words against her, “You said it yourself - you know I’m mortal.”
Hippolyta’s eyes narrowed as she spat, “Then who sent you here?”
“Hecate.”
The mention of the goddess sent the Amazonian council into a frenzy after a collective gasp filled the space. For the first time since he met her, she reminded Bruce of Diana. When she was too distracted by his circumstances to present herself as the matriarch of the island, she had the same emotional pair of eyes as her daughter. Her shock, her cautious joy and her immediate curiosity all fought for dominance over her expression, painting a rather human depiction of the queen of the Amazons.
“What nonsense is this!?” Screamed the general.
“Menalippe!” Scolded the Queen, regaining her composure by the time she finished saying the woman’s name.
Menalippe was taken aback, but she refused to cease her inquiry. “He mentions a goddess from our history and expects us to believe him!? What, were his friends brought here by Poseidon!? Were they flown in on the back of Zeus’ eagle!? Our gods are not for you to speak of so lightly!”
Unaware of the fact that the Amazons thought of their gods as deceased, Victor raised his hand at Bruce’s side. “No, we were brought together by the magician Zatanna. She told us that Bruce needed us, and her portal brought us here.”
“Diana and I visited her—“
“Mentioning my daughter now too?” The wayHippolyta hissed at him made it easy to compare her to what he imagined Medusa would have sounded like.
If she was real.
But she wasn’t.
Bruce hoped, at the very least.
Unafraid by the growing animosity in the great hall, Bruce approached the bottom step of the staircase that led to the infuriated queen. There were whispers that also reminded him of snakes, but he persevered. “We know your daughter. She is a founding member of our team and all we want to do is to keep this world safe. She was with me while I investigated these strange stone-made creatures that were gathering… in the North, and it led us to ask a magician I know—a sorcerer who could help me locate the place where these monsters come from.”
He expected someone to interrupt him, to insult him or question his legitimacy. When no one made a sound within a millisecond after he said his last word, he decided to keep going.
“She sent us to the Underworld, and we met a woman in a cell. She said her name was Hecate. She had no idea just how long she had been trapped down there, but Diana realized that it had to be for thousands of years based on a story you told her about a battle between your gods.”
“And somehow, only you escaped?” Scoffed the general, all while the queen tried to hide her sparkling eyes by closing them tightly.
Bruce could tell that he was breaking through to Hippolyta. Her heart was drawn to his story and desperately wishing it were true. He couldn’t guess when she last saw Diana, but—
He knew when she had last seen Hecate.
He climbed a single step, much to the frustration of the Amazonian council. Menalippe even drew a dagger out of its hilt from her back and readied herself to strike. Bruce didn’t care for her threatening behaviour, not when he had a goal. Not when he knew he was so close.
“Your majesty,” he tried to coddle her before he would have to push her back into some of her deepest memories. “You didn’t know that Hecate was alive, and she didn’t know that the war with Ares ever happened. Her last happy memory is when you dressed her for her wedding to Hades. She was honoured to meet your daughter, and now they're fighting alongside each other against Hades’ demons in the Underworld.”
He knew that what he had said was a lot to digest, and it took the queen some time to fully comprehend what he was telling her. With her eyes still shut, Bruce could still make out the pride she felt given the way the corners of her mouth quivered as they fought off the desire to smile. Her expression was so telling, the typically combative Menalippe called to her with an uncharacteristic softness. “My queen?”
Bruce climbed another step and was immediately blocked by the general’s body. She leapt down to the stair right before his and leered at him. Unperturbed, he decided it was time to get to the point.
Bruce knew that the reason why Hecate sent him here was so he could ask the queen of the Amazon one thing. “So, your majesty, I have one request of you: please... take us to the gates of hell. The same one you took Hecate through all those years ago. Let us help your daughter. Let us defeat Hades.”
Seeing if you could do prompt of them having a argument? I Miss the funny arguments that they used to had.
The night was dark, and Robin’s stories made it seem as if it was full of all kinds of terrors. As they sat in a circle on the lawn deck, with nothing but the moonlight to substitute an actual campfire, the air was tense as she focused on her tale. “Finally, that night, the husband had had enough and wanted to know the truth about the ribbon necklace his wife would never remove. So he took a pair of scissors, snipped at the ribbon…”
“And?” Luffy asked with wide eyes.
“And? And!?” Cried Usopp and Chopper, clinging to each other for support during the scary tale.
Robin let the silence hang in the air for a few seconds more just so the anticipation would seep into their bones. As Nami, swallowed up in her oversized hoodie, bit her nails with fearful desperation, she didn’t know if she could keep herself from shouting at her so-called friend either! Just as she was about to open her mouth though, Robin dropped her head slightly to the side and stated emotionlessly, “Her head fell off of her neck and landed right in his lap.”
“AHHHHHH!” Screamed the entire crew. Even Brook threw his hands up in the air as if he had no control over his own body due to fear. Nami squeezed her legs to her chest as she sobbed silently, imagining the horrifying image at the end of the story, despite how desperately she wished she couldn’t! It was absolutely a bloodcurdling thought that someone’s head could just fall off of their body–
Unless you were Roronoa Zoro apparently.
A uninhibited yawn managed to reach her ears beneath all of the terrified screams that rebounded off of the lawn deck. Nami glanced over at the swordsman and gawked at his lifeless response to such a chilling story! How he could sit there and look as if he was about to fall into one of his famous deep sleeps was beyond her! Even without all of the work she had to do tonight, she doubted she’d get a wink of sleep after Robin’s creepy tale–!
“W-Well, I think it’s about time I get to charting those maps.” Nami lamely explained her reasoning for ejecting herself from the circle as she jumped to her feet.
“Aw, but things just got scary.” Luffy pouted at her, completely unaware that he was stating the very reason she was ready to escape her roommate’s spooky fables.
“Want me to walk you to the library, Nami-swan!?” Sanji, as if he wasn’t just cowering and staring at his own lap moments ago, was flailing about as he offered to be her escort.
Nami smiled nervously. “Th-That’s okay Sanji-kun. If anything, I’d love a cafe latte to keep me awake while I work–”
“Of course!” Was his immediate response before swiftly twirling his way towards the kitchen, even managing to spin himself around as he went up the stairs.
“Well, have a good night.” Came the chilling voice of the storyteller herself, and Nami shivered violently. She looked back at the courteous smile on Robin’s face and couldn’t help but think that there was something haunting in her expression.
Nami knew she wouldn’t make it through the night if those images in her mind wouldn’t stop flashing by. In need of some kind of protection from the possible horrors that the darkness of the night could bring, Nami leaned down and whacked Zoro on the shoulder. “S-Sure, you too. Now come on, Zoro.”
“What?” He asked her rather aggressively, his sleepy state making him rather crude.
Nami made sure to let a fire - fueled by her need to feel safe - burn behind her eyes as she stared him down. “Didn’t you say you wanted to take a bath?”
“No I didn’t!” He missed her secret message and yelled back at her.
With no other choice, she bopped him on the head without any remorse. “Yes you did! If anything, you need it. Let’s go!”
“Hey!” Angered and awake, Zoro leapt onto his feet and looked as if he was prepared to stomp after her.
Which was exactly what she wanted.
Walking away with a sigh of relief hidden from the crew, she yelled back at him. “Someone has to tell you!”
“Yeah, right! I showered three days ago!” Was his unintelligible retort as he followed her up the stairs towards the upper deck. She felt his presence behind her as they went and even though he was not at all happy with her, Nami couldn’t help but feel comforted by his grizzly energy.
Without missing a beat but all while trying to stifle a laugh at his expense, Nami replied, “That’s why you need one now! That bathing schedule of yours is ridiculous!”
Then, he did the cruelest thing he could do to her: he voiced her intentions aloud. “Tch, yeah right. You’re probably just too scared to be alone in the library at night now, so you’re making me babysit you.”
“Babysit!?” She shouted at the top of her lungs, despite how embarrassing the word was. They stopped around the back of the kitchen, just before the ladder that would take them to the library. Nami whirled around and stood her ground against such a rude claim, meeting Zoro’s skeptical expression and his crossed arms. It was so rude of him to presume he could stand toe to toe with her!
“You do not need to babysit me!” She countered angrily, the rage bubbling beneath her skin.
Zoro arched a brow in a knowing way, “Oh yeah? Then what would you call it?”
“I’d call it you being sensible!”
“I see. And when I’m done my bath?”
Nami’s quick wit stalled at the thought of what would happen after he was done. Knowing him, he only sat for about five to ten minutes before he thought he was clean enough. Then, he’d be off to either work out some more or he’d nap at some odd location on the ship. “Th-Then, you could just pass out anywhere. You could even sleep in the library, since it’s right there–”
Zoro just chuckled at her response. He had the audacity to find amusement while she was suffering! Her mouth flew open faster than it ever had before. “–or you can pass out on the bathroom floor! I don’t care! Just go get clean!”
“You don’t need to be so mean about it!” Irked by her ruthlessness, Zoro lost his air of coolness and shouted in her face in order to defend himself.
Nami pushed forward, ready to reclaim and maintain the high ground. “If you go take a bath, then there’s nothing for me to complain about, so come on!” Feeling as though she had won, Nami spun around on her heels and continued her journey to the ladder that would take them to the library. She placed her foot on the first step and was more than prepared to climb upwards.
But then, Zoro gasped behind her and whispered a spooky, “Oh no.”
“Oh no!?” Nami repeated and looked at him as she remained frozen on the ladder. She imagined that she looked much like a cat stuck on the side of a tree, but for Zoro to sound so fearful of something, it stunned her all too quickly.
“Nami,” he spoke slowly, with a forced calmness, all while looking towards the ground. “Don’t freak out.”
“WHAT!?” She cried, unable to take the roller coaster of emotions she had just been through in the last few minutes.
She watched as Zoro slowly let his gaze roll up her entire body, his brows shadowing his expression as he murmured to her, “Don’t your sandals have ribbons around your ankles?”
“Wh–!? Oh…! Zo-RO! How COULD YOU!?” Nearly in tears, she jumped off of the ladder just to pound her fists against him, seeking revenge against his cruel teasing.
I had the incredible privilege to work alongside @maidenoftheworld for @zonamievents ‘s BANG BANG! Event!
I illustrated the last scene from a story she wrote called: Warmth Over Flowers
Thank you for giving me a chance to participate in such a lovely event! Show some love by clickin that link <3 It was an honor to collaborate with such an amazing writer~
WonderBat: A re-imagination or an expansion of the "One More Day" scene from JLA #90
It probably had ended like a Greek tragedy.
For Diana to be the one to counsel him on the reasons why they wouldn't last, something must have devastated her love for him. They couldn't work, but to stand there in the dark after she left the room, after she spoke the words he wished she hadn't had the confidence to say, it--
"Can I have one more day?"
"Every one I have left. My life is yours."
The Transconsciousness Articulator hummed behind him, with his voice and hers...and it was then that Bruce realized he was the one left devastated.
Here's just a thought, Bruce who has been awake for days refusing to go to sleep. Diana sick of arguing with him picks him up and carries him to bed, Imagine her walking by Alfred while Bruce squirms and demands to be put down,
The punching bag reacted to Bruce’s punches like it was frightened by every hit, but he refused to stop his assault on the leather-bound bag. Every time his knuckles collided with it, the sound challenged every grunt that came out of his mouth. Teeth gritted and brows knitted, he was nothing more than a wild creature slugging a stationary enemy, channeling all of the anger and pain that was threatening to swallow him whole for the past week and a half. In the comfort of his BatCave, where he didn’t need to wear any kind of mask as a hero or a man, it was the only catharsis he knew.
“Bruce,” he heard a familiar voice hum his name and it rang within his soul. She possessed the dangerous gift of silencing parts of him that he wasn’t always comfortable letting go of, so when Wonder Woman surprised him with a visit at such a late hour, Bruce wasn’t at all amused.
He went so far as to pretend he didn’t hear her over the smacking sound his punches made. So desperate to avoid her, he moved faster, throwing all of his body weight into every hit like the punching bag would dare to hit him back the moment he was distracted. Unfortunately, Diana took his coldness as a challenge and approached him with her warm heart on full display. She grabbed the bottom of the bag when it swung back and refused to release it from her Amazonian grip. Then she stared him down and offered him another chance to address her properly.
Bruce didn’t say a word until she arched her brow at him. Recoiling slightly, he muttered, “It’s late, Diana.”
“Luckily for me, I was given the access codes to the mansion, so I can come and go whenever I want.” she reminded him cooly.
“Thanks for reminding me, I need to change those tomorrow.” Bruce bit back. The flush of heat from his workout had nearly fallen to a simmer and he refused to let that happen. Lifting his fists up to his jawline, he arched his brow at her as an informal invitation to give him back his punching bag. Though she refused to release it, he was shocked to see her lower it enough so that he could resume his training.
She was offering to spot him, but didn’t need to announce it to him. Instead, she sparred with him verbally and said, “I’ll be sure to get them from Alfred in the evening, then.”
Bruce threw an unprofessional punch forward as an immediate reaction of disfavor regarding her words. He felt a jolt of pain in his thumb due to his haste yet he refused to show the discomfort on his face. Instead, he threw out his other hand in a tight first and moved with more caution. Diana’s presence was much too distracting for his liking and he was more than prepared to ask her to leave.
“Can I do something for you?”
“You can,” she admitted calmly, then paused before telling him what it is. “You can tell me what’s bothering you.”
The fact that she would think it was her place to ask him such a personal question motivated him to fire off a few more swings, regardless of how proper his punches were. “You did not come here just to chat.”
“Maybe I did.” Though she didn’t say it, there was a question that sounded like it needed to be tacked on to the end of her sentence: what are you going to do about it?
The urge to swing at her face came to mind, if only to distract her with a sparring match and keep her out of his head. However, he knew how cunning Diana liked to believe that she was, meaning she’d most likely attach a bet to their match and demand he confide in her if she won. It was much too early in the morning to deal with her sentimentality, so Bruce decided he’d move on from the punching bag altogether.
Turning away from her, he shouted over his shoulder without considering his volume whatsoever, “Wonder Woman’s time could be better spent somewhere else, where she’s needed.”
“I decide where I am needed, Bruce.” Diana informed him with a snap in her tone. She made it clear that she was not a fan of his dismissal of her, but she still refused to leave.
Spinning around at his waist, Bruce glowered at her and bellowed, “And it’s not here. Go home, or go find someone else to play charity case with.”
“If you actually tried to have a normal conversation with me, instead of biting my head off without even trying to be civil,” Diana warned him of his missteps as she walked towards him. She stopped herself from reaching him by planting her feet into the floor a few feet away from him, providing them both with some necessary space. “Maybe I would have left by now. But you’re much too proud to let that happen.”
Her boldness matched his own and it dismantled his confidence somewhat. Normally, he had to rile her more for her to pick up the gauntlet of a hostile conversation. Instead, at such a late hour on a rather stormy night, Diana was having none of his backtalk. Whatever the goal was in her mind, it only put him off of speaking to her even more.
“Go home.” He ordered her bluntly, unconcerned with how she’d take it.
Bruce turned away and took a step toward his weights, only to hear her drag her one of her Wonder Woman boots along the cemented floor behind him. Curious, he walked forward again, and the same noise followed him. He didn’t know if it was her own pride that was causing her to stick with him or if she was actually as benevolent as she claimed to be, but he was having none of it.
Not tonight.
Not after what he had been through, the haunting memories keeping him awake until the early hours of the morning, punching the anxiety and regret out of his soul with evident futility.
His fists acted like nothing more than dead weight when he felt his body fly backward suddenly, the years of physical training he’d suffered through rendered useless when he was at the mercy of an impatient Amazon. Bruce knew he had been tugged by the collar of his shirt, but he was caught off guard the moment his boots left the ground. “Diana!?” He screamed, both reprimanding her and demanding an explanation.
She didn’t offer one, though. Instead, she chucked his two hundred and fifty-pound body over her shoulder and left the BatCave’s training space without any type of warning. Furious, erratic, he tossed and squirmed uncontrollably as he fought her clutches to the best of his mortal ability. Nevertheless, nothing he did slowed her down. She carried on with her unannounced trek from his at-home gym, to the staircase that would take them upstairs, through the secret entryway and into his front hall.
Bruce’s could feel the blood that rushed into his face when he roared, “Put me down, NOW!”
“You’re only making my job that much easier when you flail like a child.” Warned Diana. She sounded exhausted from her efforts of transporting him from the basement to the upper level of his house, but he had never asked her to handle him like a brute. It felt like his personal coping mechanism was being scolded, making him believe that she saw him as inferior when stacked against her eternal wisdom. The longer he was in her hold, the angrier he became.
When they reached the hallway leading to the bedrooms, Bruce heard a door open and knew at once that Alfred had been awakened by his wailing. “Alfred!” He called to his butler with a tone so desperate, it embarrassed him. He felt even more foolish than he already did when he blurted out, “Stop her! Do something!”
By the time they passed by Alfred’s door, it was magically closed, and his so-called friend was nowhere in sight. “Traitor!” He condemned his butler, nearly seething by the time they reached his bedroom door.
To his dismay, Diana predicted his attempt at an escape and flattened his wrists against his sides so he couldn’t cling to the doorframe. He had handled villains with more respect than she was showing him at that moment when she went so far as to throw him down onto his bed. If there was one thing he hated, it was losing control of any situation. Glaring at her from his sprawled out position on his own mattress, it took everything he had left in his weary body not to tackle her to the ground and fight her right then and there. “Don’t ever do that to me again!”
She couldn’t have looked more repulsed by his behavior in the darkened state of his bedroom, with nothing but the moonlight coming in through his open window highlight the scowl on her face. Still, she pretended that she wasn’t wearing her heart on her sleeve and inquired, “Are you trying to manage your stress or overwork yourself into the grave? Sometimes, I can’t tell the difference with you.”
Those words struck him as if she had sent his punching bag right back at him. It felt like her voice was a can opener and his heart had been forcefully exposed when she dared to mention death around him. There was the typical reason as to why he loathed discussing grief, and then there was his newly founded reason.
Jason.
Bruce felt sober all of a sudden. All of his efforts to expunge the hurt from his heart were revealed as completely fruitless under the careful eye of Diana, Wonder Woman, friend to all and savior to some. Her entire energy was such a shift from those people who lived in his city and were trapped by its demons, she had the force of an earthquake behind her when she tried to move his mind into perspective. He was just so rebellious to any way of doing things that weren’t his own, but the resurrection of his ward was something that he had the skill set to handle.
The way Jason yelled at him as he walked away from the chance to kill the Joker proved that to him.
Shoulders sunken and breathing shallow, Bruce glanced at Diana’s shadowy form and told her the truth. “Neither can I.”
He feared she would let a pause sit between them and emphasize the deplorable authenticity to his words. Instead, she graciously carried on like his admission wasn’t horrifying. “A great midway point is going to sleep.”
“How do you figure that?” Bruce said, stunned.
“Because,” she was humming again, speaking softly to him as she approached the bed. Diana dared to even sit on the edge of it when he had been rejecting her the entire time she’d bee with him that night. Impressed by her bravery, he said nothing when she made herself comfortable. “Sleeping replenishes the energy that stress can steal away, and when you’re asleep, the world doesn’t exist.”
“Sleep doesn’t exist in Gotham.” explained Bruce in a monotone voice.
To his surprise, Diana’s delicate touch grazed his forehead. She had leaned in while he rebutted her and brushed his hair off of his forehead carefully, tenderly. She maintained her gentle composure when she responded, “It will, once you close your eyes.”
“Diana–”
“You’re the most powerful man in the city. You can schedule in sleep if you need to, and I’m saying you do need to.” decreed Wonder Woman. She still managed to appear almighty while speaking to him in the softest tone of voice he’d ever heard. He had witnessed her transform from a domineering dictator to an amicable ally within the time span of mere minutes. Nevertheless, he knew that both sides of Diana were based upon the respect she had for him.
Even when he didn’t deserve it.
A heavy breath escaped him while he summoned the courage to admit his agreement to her, both rising from deep within his gut, “I’ll try to sleep. I won’t make any promises though.”
He didn’t need to see her clearly to know that he had just made her grin. Diana lifted herself off of the bed, bringing herself to stand tall next to the bed as she praised him, “That’s all I needed to hear.”
“Wait,” Bruce exclaimed rather threateningly when he saw her turn to leave. After everything was said and done, he felt uncomfortable to have her usher him to bed and then depart. “You can stay here, in the manor, for the night. You never even told me why you stopped by but we can discuss it in the morning.”
A beam of moonlight landed on her shoulder when she stopped in her tracks, and it traced the length of her collar bone as she turned back around. When she faced him once again, she explained, “I came here to check on you, Bruce. I was worried about you. So long as I know you’ve rested - even a little bit - I’ll take my leave knowing you’re taking better care of yourself.”
Bruce felt himself becoming unhinged again at the suggestion. “There are more rooms in this house than I know what to do with. Just take one of them for the night. Please, Diana.”
“That’s not necessary–”
Bruce jumped out of bed in an obvious attempt at protesting her rejection of his offer. Before a single word of argument could escape that mouth of hers, he poorly veiled an order as a suggestion, “Either you stay the night, or I’ll just go back downstairs. You know I will.”
“Your stubbornness truly knows no bounds, does it?” It was not a compliment that she was giving him, but he took it was one to know he could get under the skin of a literal goddess so easily.
The idea of getting under something inspired him to find a compromise between both of their motivations. The king-sized bed next to him was so foreign to him at this point in his life that it wasn’t truly his own, so he thought it was fair to divide it between the two of them. “Stay here tonight. I’ll sleep, you’ll sleep. Deal?”
She didn’t even hesitate to add her one clause to their agreement, “I claim the side closest to the door, then.”
Bruce held up his hands as his answer. Then, he crawled over to the side of the bed she hadn’t declared as her own and fell against the headboard in a slumped over position. His back had been facing her for no more than a few moments, but she had already climbed into the bed and laid down flat on her back. Dressed in her armor still, he realized quickly that he should present her with some time of sleepwear as well. Leaping out of bed and seeing her rise from the corner of his eye, he latched onto the handles of his wardrobe and threw it open in order to find her a long shirt of some kind.
The mattress didn’t creak as he searched, proving to him that she was merely observing him as he scavenged through drawers that he hadn’t looked at in months. As he dug for something appropriate, he came across an old t-shirt that was gifted to him years ago. It was a group he never listened to, but they were a favorite of the person who gave it to him. Seeing the red letters sprawled out on the black fabric even reminded him of the colors associated with…
“Jason.”
“What?” Diana asked.
“It’s… It’s Jason,” Bruce fought the lump in his throat and forced the name of the revived Robin out of his body like he wanted to exorcize the evil energy attached to it. He threw the shirt back into the drawer, fuming. Refusing to relive the shock once again, he ground out the words he needed to say in order to supply her with context. “He’s back. From the dead.”
Diana didn’t say anything right away. In fact, she didn’t utter a single word until he decided upon a shirt and turned around to toss it at her. When she caught it, it was almost as if she had grasped the concept of what she wanted to tell him.
“Not in a way that benefits him, though.” Diana implied with her tone of voice that she assumed she was correct but was still open to hearing him divulge his point of view.
Bruce returned to the bed just as she stood up and began to unclasp her Amazonian girdle. In order to give her - and himself - some privacy, he faced the alarm clock on the nightstand next to him and fiddle with the alarm he’d need to set for the morning. “It isn’t how he’s back that’s the problem. It’s what he’s wasting his second chance at life on, and what he wanted me to do, to repent.”
He heard the fabric of his shirt being moved around as she surmised his meaning, “Revenge.”
“Murder.” Bruce clarified.
“One of your villains?”
“Yes.” He grumbled.
The bed dipped next to him and he almost didn’t turn over to face her. He felt absolutely stranded in the uncharted territory of their conversation, even though he had been the one to start it. Opening up about one of his greatest shames wasn’t easy, to the point that his chest tightened like it was compressing his heart to keep him for admitting to anything else he kept locked within his heart. His body was a cage for so many atrocities that his personality, his essence was so easily skewed by everything that was trapped inside.
The moment Diana touched his shoulder and grazed her fingertips against his sternum, Bruce felt a shiver rattle his spine. He threw himself into the middle of the bed to keep her from feeling the way his muscles shook, only to be met with the most understanding and empathetic expression he’d ever seen on her face, the face of Wonder Woman herself. Then, she pressed him further for more information, “But you didn’t do it.”
“No.” Was his instantaneous reply.
She didn’t look relieved or shocked. She looked exactly the same. She never expected anything else from him and that unspoken confidence touched him, even though he felt disassociated from the warmth it provided him with. “Then the only thing you can do” - she inhaled while processing what he had told her, trying to come to grips with what his life was truly like, most likely - “is hope that he sees the meaning behind your choice, and seek you out once again.”
“Right, but he might not–”
“He just might,” Diana said plainly. Bruce heard the finality of her statement and knew that it wasn’t meant to cause an argument. Instead of challenging his pessimism, she unintentionally pointed out an important piece of the puzzle: he no longer knew what this Jason was capable of. Perhaps he could travel down a darker path, becoming an adversary for the Batman rather than a partner in crime. Or, maybe all he needed was to face his inner demons to see what he was capable of when given the chance to live again.
The high risk-high reward lifestyle was nothing new for the Batman. As he grew older though, Bruce secretly wished that he could play the odds less and less. More and more people were coming into his life through the Justice League meaning there was such a greater chance of loss. It wasn’t something Jason had toyed with when he was his partner, however. It was the Batman’s game, not Robin’s. Witnessing the cruelty of Jason’s circumstances after Dick’s desertion prior, it felt like his teammates were nothing but weaknesses to him at times.
Then, there was Diana with all of her godly might. She had stayed with him even when he hadn’t deserved it, which he could easily blame on her immortality and thousands of years of life, where she had been encountering prideful people for centuries in order to prepare herself for his ego in the present. Her fortitude wasn’t always something he admired, a fact that she knew all too well. Tonight, however, it was the only solace he’d had in far too long. Her companionship was the balm he had never even dared to ask for. Still, it was always there to try and minimize the damage done to his soul.
“He might,” Was his whispered response to her after the long pause he introduced into their conversation. Unable to give her anything more for the night, he reached for the bed sheets and tugged them up over their bodies. They had fallen asleep together on missions before in grassy fields, in caves and other uncomfortable places. Sharing his bed with her felt just as intimate as unveiling his grievances. Overwhelmed by the amount of exposure he’d given her in one night, Bruce muttered an incoherent, “Good night.”
For the last time that evening, she hummed to him like she was using his name to sing him a lullaby, and he swore to himself that he’d never tell her the immediate sense of calm it provided him with to hear her serenade him to sleep with nothing more than a few simple words, “Good night, Bruce.”
Theme: Passion
Rating: PG / T
Word Count: 2,620 words
NOTE: As this is set in the DCEU, I imagined Zatanna as Lyndsy Fonseca, but feel free to imagine whomever you choose!
“I had no idea you knew someone who was well versed in magic.” Wonder Woman remarked, lurking in the shadows of the balcony of the Bewitched Club. At her side, Batman frowned at the spectacle that was being performed on the stage down below. The audience was enamored with the floating lights and the levitating man being presented to them as some kind of inconceivable phenomenon.
In his eyes, Bruce saw magic as nothing more than child’s play.
Grumbling low enough for only the two of them to hear, he said, “There are many different kinds of people in Gotham.” He hoped that by the roughness of his tone of voice that Diana would know to leave the matter there.
Unwilling to comply with his wishes, she chose to address the matter while they witnessed the floating patron descend to the floor and the standing ovation that followed. “And you don’t trust any of them?”
“Not explicitly.” Was his blunt answer.
“Why?” Her curiosity was palpable, even as he turned away from her and walked towards the fire escape. They needed to reach the dressing rooms without being seen, meaning that exiting the club was more important to him than divulging his inner workings to her. He slipped through the open window without any intention of responding to her, which was why he wasn’t surprised that she probed the matter further the moment he felt her boots rattle the iron staircase. “You trust the people you gathered for the League.”
“Heh.” He released a single cackle, admittedly amused.
Diana, unimpressed with his behaviour, challenged him. “For a man who claims to love his solitude, you have a habit of reaching out to others more often than most.”
“I know who to contact when I need an ace up my sleeve.” Bruce explained as delicately as possible. He knew that he could run the risk of offending her again as he had on the plane trip back from Russia if he wasn’t careful with his words; she had already expressed her disdain for the way he made use of the Justice League, herself in particular, and if she thought that he considered her a tool more than a comrade, he wouldn’t have her at his side when they descended.
And he knew he’d need someone who accepted magic as a vital possibility while he groaned internally at the concept.
When Bruce reached the rooftop of the club, he apologetically turned around to offer a hand to Diana. But once again, the thundering of her boots landing behind him proved that she would forever be hot on his trail if he didn’t smarten up. Under the bleak shade of a dark and stormy night in Gotham, he stared at Wonder Woman through the lenses of his cowl, taking in the smug tilt to her grin. Proudly, she proclaimed, “From the moment I stole that flashdrive from you at Luthor’s party, I’ve never been your ace. If anything, Bruce, you’ve been mine.”
The thundering he felt next came from the building, as it rattled when the storm overhead threatened to come crashing down on them. He quietly cleared his throat before finding his footing to say, “I’ll take that as a compliment, Wonder Woman.”
His sarcasm amused her for the first time ever. “As you should, Batman.”
“Emoc ot em, sredurtni.”
A familiar, feminine voice whispered in Bruce’s ear without warning. He witnessed the panicked look in Diana’s big brown eyes, however, he wasn’t able to warn her of what was about to happen as it all occurred too quickly. He recognized the style of the spell he heard a fraction of a second before they were snatched off of the rooftop and teleported into a compact dressing room. Lush in its decor, reminiscent of old Hollywood glamour, he knew they ended up in the right place even if he wasn’t a fan of how they arrived.
“I thought I saw you lurking in the background during my show.”
Bruce steeled himself before he faced the magician in question. “Zatanna.”
Standing with her arms crossed in the middle of the room was none other than the woman he’d been looking for, and then one he scowled at for using her spell to relocate him against his wishes. Still dressed in her corset and fishnets and her sparkly blazer, she looked like she stepped off the cover of a pin-up magazine from the fifties, with her top hat punctuating the look even while she held it in her left hand. It even sounded as if she was continuing her act when she faced Wonder Woman and interrogated her with her showman voice, “And what’s your name?”
“You may call me Diana. Bruce brought us here because he believes you’re the only one who can help us.” admitted Wonder Woman, offering a hearty handshake to the magician as a goodwill gesture.
Zatanna eagerly accepted the gesture the second she learned that he had put an ounce of faith in her. “Did he now?”
“I’ve been looking into a horde of monsters,” Bruce began to clarify immediately. “No matter how we analyze the sample I collected, I can’t pinpoint their origin.”
“We were hoping you might be able to tell us something about it.” Diana implored.
Despite their request, Zatanna refused to say a word while she studied the two of them. Her signature blue eyes hopped back and forth between the two of them, as if they were asking her to decipher something found in their auras or some other magical nonsense. Bruce was not amused by her scrutiny in the slightest, gritting his teeth for as long as he could in order to keep himself silent.
When that failed, he asserted, “We wouldn’t have come if--”
Zatanna cut him off with a toss of her hand through the air. “If you had any other possible option. I know you aren’t a fan of what I do, Bruce, so you’re lucky that I’m even considering this. Though I suppose the people of Gotham say cruel things about you all the time and you still keep them safe, so...” Her disinterest in his civility was made abundantly clear when she placed her top hat on her vanity’s table. Once it was out of her hands, it began to rattle ferociously in place and even started to hiss.
“What is in there, Zatanna?” Bruce demanded as he bent his knees ever so slightly in case her captive suddenly became free.
Sighing, the magician refused to reveal her secrets to them. Instead, she held out her hands and urged them both, “Give me the sample you brought, quickly.”
With his hands already near his belt, Bruce removed the thin glass case from one of the compartments along his backside and placed it in her open palms. Bruce felt Diana move closer to him as they awaited for their own private magic show to begin. He could have sworn he felt an almost excited energy coming from her despite how foolish that seemed.
Bruce ignored his hunch so that he could lend all of his attention to Zatanna as she closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Her brows knitted together over the bridge of her nose as she spoke her spell aloud, “Wohs em erehw uoy emoc morf.” Her voice was powerful, commanding for the cooperation of the darkened jagged rock formation he presented to her.
Then, the world went silent.
After that, there was nothing but chaos.
Zatanna returned to them when she threw her eyes open and gasped as though she had been suffocated by her astral trip. So startled by whatever it was she saw, she nearly toppled into Diana’s arms.
“Are you all right?” Diana panicked at the sight of her evident fright.
“What did you see?” Bruce tried to remain calm for Zatanna’s sake, all while the fear inside of him grew. Every other trial had brought them nowhere near a possible answer as to who could be in control of the army of monsters, but when the source was located through magical means, it appeared to be a force strong enough to push the most powerful magician he knew off of her feet.
“Y-You’re not going to believe me.” whimpered Zatanna.
“Try me.” challenged Bruce, ready to face the truth of his hunt.
Diana decided to lead Zatanna to her vanity’s seat, helping her sit down as the desperation for an answer to his statement hung in the air of the dressing room. Bruce felt very much like whatever wild entity was hiding inside of her spinning hat, failing to remain patient when trapped in some way or another by magical restraints.
Thankfully, Diana’s calm composure was the key to getting the answers they needed. “So they are born from magic then?”
Zatanna nodded once, twice, then spoke firmly so they had no room to question her. “Not only are they magic-based, but they’re being created by gods.”
An extreme case required an extreme reaction from him. “What the hell are you talking about?”
A white gloved hand slammed down on the spinning top hat before Zatanna glared at Bruce and fired her answer at him. “I’m saying that the monsters you are after are being made by the hands gods. Two, specifically, and their base of operation? The one you’re looking for that you can’t seem to find? Well, it’s hard to find what you’re looking for on Earth when you’re actually looking for hell.”
“Hell…?” Diana’s voice collapsed as she breathed the word.
Zatanna did not show her the same amount of concern as she pushed onward, “I didn’t see them being made, but when I went looking for your answers, I encountered this woman.”
“Who was it!?” bellowed Bruce so loudly, it earned him a pair of matching leers from the two women in the room.
And a rather aggressive knock at the door.
“Miss Zatara? Is everything all right in there?” asked an inexperienced security guard from the other side of the door.
Zatanna didn’t acknowledge him in the slightest. However, she did maintain her furious connection with Bruce through her gaze and quickened her retelling of what she witnessed in her search. “There was a woman being held captive in a cell deep underground. She’s very gifted in magic - she found me while I was searching and pulled me into her. Her mind guided me beyond her cell and showed me that the monsters you’re after are being made in the pits of hell, being shaped by… a higher ranking demon? Some type of evil figurehead down there?”
“No,” Diana spoke with a grave tone of voice, with nothing but certainty cementing her words. “It’s Hades.”
As if their search hadn’t taken enough turns, it took all of the Batman’s strength to avoid recoiling at the mention of such a fictitious name. Despite the fact that an Amazon from the same mythos stood by his side for the past year, it was nearly impossible for him to accept that the lord of the Underworld that he read about as a child was preparing to wreak havoc on Earth. Being a founding member of a team that compiled some of the strongest people of the planet meant that he had to digest the reality of their gifts despite how improbable it would have seemed to him once upon a time. If he was forced to accept the truth about extraterrestrial life, he knew that he’d need to leap over his disbelief and accept what Zatanna was saying along with Diana’s confirmation.
Still, he dared himself to ask, “Why him?”
Diana seemed to reflexively reach for the hilt of her sword as she divulged her thought process. “There’s no one else it could be. Think about it, Bruce: gods in hell, making a demonic army? It has to be Hades. He must have coerced another god to help him create these creatures and he plans to unleash them on mankind for some malicious purpose. Whatever he’s planning, he’s gone so far as to invite others into his domain and most likely punished the woman in the cage for refusing to help him achieve his goal.”
Another round of banging on the dressing room door cut off Diana’s speech. A rather panicked cry from the hallway replaced her voice, “Miss Zatara?!”
“I have no idea what he plans are,” Zatanna fretted openly. “But I can do is take advantage of this blind spot I’ve found and send you to her.”
Bruce concealed his worry behind his cowl. “If you transport us into this witch’s cell, how are we supposed to get back?”
Louder and louder the banging grew, but Diana had become so frightened by the enemy they were about to face that she had lost all interest in mortal matters. Instead of being bothered by the harsh sounds, she faced their magical messenger and said, “Contact Bruce’s butler Alfred and let him know where you’re sending us.”
“All right.” Zatanna swore to complete the task with a nod of her head.
When she faced him then, Bruce saw Wonder Woman. He saw the heroine that he’d come to admire standing in the dressing room with him, the very same woman who saved him from Doomsday with nothing more than her brute strength. The intensity in her eyes made him believe that she had already convinced herself that the battle with the lord of the Underworld was imminent, and she would be ready for it. With an obstinacy he’d be privately yearning to see from her, Diana dictated their next step with the charge of a warrior, “Let’s go.”
He knew in that exact moment that he had no right to seek out the logistics of their situation, that he should have checked his supposedly rational hangups at the door. If Wonder Woman was certain enough to take charge of the mission, then Batman knew where he needed to be.
“You going to be okay to handle this on your own?” Bruce wondered as he tossed his thumb over his shoulder, referring to the man who was insistently assaulting the dressing room door.
“Who do you think you’re talking to?” Zatanna scoffed at his faux worry as she rose up out of her seat. She turned her back to him and held up her thumbs and index fingers in a square-like shape. As she pulled her hands apart, a glowing yellow rectangle materialized in the room that was filled with a dark, foreboding fog inside. “Go. That will take you right to her.”
“Thank you, Zatanna.” Diana softened her battle-ready demeanor to offer her genuine gratitude to the magician.
“I’ll contact Alfred once I’m done here.” She informed them, materializing her wand in one hand while the other kept a firm grasp on her rowdy hat.
Respectfully, Bruce added a quick, “Thanks.”
“Now, go!” Zatanna shouted at the top of her lungs just as the dressing room door finally caved under the force of the punches being delivered to it. The wood splintered so hard, broken pieces of different sizes slammed into his elongated cloak. Bruce had to ignore every instinct he’d honed over the last thirty years of his life in order to charge through that portal. Whether he trusted Zatanna’s magic or not, he would never intentionally leave her to fend for herself if he could help.
But Diana was waving him into the portal, disappearing into the fog that looked as menacing as he imagined the gates of hell possibly could be.
Leave it to the Amazon to rope him into the Underworld without any precaution, any escape route or signal to the League if needed.
