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Hereafter	By : HeyBats Category: DC Verse Cartoons > Justice League Views: 12126 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Justice League, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
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Part II – The Aftermath

Diana stirred in her bed the next morning. She stared at the ceiling for a few moments, contemplating the effects of a hangover resulting from the Jack Daniels, but also thinking about the tension in her body resulting from the lack of sexual fulfillment from the night before. Her muscles were tense and there was an ache, or more like an echo, she thought wanly, of unfulfilled desire. She shook her head in exasperation as she pictured his hands running rampant on her body, shivering despite herself with excitement about the events unfolding the previous evening. Feeling the ache of desire, Diana contemplated pursuing her own gratification but the anger of Batman’s rejection of her overcame her want and she rose off the bed.

She searched thru the room for some clean clothes but only fouome ome nightshirts and workout shorts which would fit. The difference between her physique and Supergirl’s was going to be a problem, she realized. They were tight but ‘beggars can’t be choosers,’ she thought, shaking her head in resignation.

Diana found Batman in front of the computer monitor, working at a speed reminding her of Flash. He ignored her for a minute, then pointed to a canteen and stack of Flash’s energy bars from the bag he’d carried with them from the desert. “Breakfast of Champions.” He noted wryly.

He continued working for another minute before pausing a second time, then turned to her. “It may not be convenient, but I’d like to see what happened to the Batcave. I’m still getting a signal from it.”

‘He intends to pretend like last night never happened.’ She noted in amazement. She looked at him with pity as he’d completely retreated behind the mantle of the Bat again and shrugged her shoulders with indifference.

“I’m ready whenever you are,” she said. “what do you want to take from here?”

“That depends on how you’re feeling, doesn’t it?” he asked, watching for her reaction.

“I still can’t figure out why I was so weak yesterday,” Diana said. “Maybe I should test myself before we get too far ahead of ourselves.”

They walked outside thru the landing bay doors, pausing as one of the animals in the area bellowed, but it sounded relatively far away.

Diana prepared herself, then soared into the sky, managing to take flight but it was obviously a strain. She set herself back down on the ground after a few seconds, dumbstruck by her lack of power. She looked at him in alarm as they walked back into the landing bay. “I’m so weak. What’s happening to me?”

“I’m not sure you want my answer.” He said gravely.

“Any explanation you can provide is better than what I have.” She noted, trying to wear a brave face but still frustrated by her loss of power.

“Your power is derived from the Gods, more accurately from Gaea, the living spirit of the Earth, correct?” He asked. Diana nodded affirmatively, wondering where he was going with his explanation.

“Savage’s gravity weapon obviously wounded the Earth…the sun and the planets in the Terran system for that matter. Gaea was likely wounded as well. If so, your powers are decreasing commensurately with the damage to the planet.” He concluded.

Diana’s eyes widened in shock at the theory. “That would explain it!” she agreed. “But how much weaker am I going to get?”

“Let’s not waste any time trying to find out.” He said. “The Batcave is a farther flight than where we started. Do you think you can get us back to where we started yesterday? We might be a bit heavier. I’ll probably bring a few gallons of water for emergencies.”

“I’ll try.” She promised valiantly. “But I’ll make sure to fly low, just in case anything happens.”

Their departure from the Watchtower was a sad affair to Diana. Bruce had seen her hesitation in leaving its familiar confines however he misinterpreted her hesitation, dismissing the significance of the moment by saying “it’s power systems are almost completely gone – it’s useless to us.”

“It’s not that, you obstinate piece of crap.” She said icily. “That was my only home I’ve known besides Themyscira. That’s where I met my friends. Shared victory celebrations after our battles. I can’t just coldly walk away from it without feeling something.”

They stared at each other for a second before he nodded. e yoe your time.” He said. “but not too long.”

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Diana was flying the two of them, along with the increasingly heavy bag of items Batman had taken from the Watchtower. He’d borrowed some extra clothes from Superman’s room as the other male teammates clothes were too small from him while Diana had scavenged some clothes from Hawkgirl and Supergirl. eforefore, they were flying in tandem, however she made sure to stay a few feet off the ground whenever possible, lest her powers suddenly give way and have them plummet to the Earth.

The jungle gave way to the savannah plains, which then changed to the desert. Diana noticed a herd of buffalo below them was being chased by a pack of wolves, which efficiently cut out the weakest animal in the herd and took the animal down with a quick bite to the neck.

Diana concentrated on keeping them in level flight. She was straining with the effort and sweat was trickling from her every pore with the effort. Batman was navigating their way as before, calling out the directional changes if she veered off course, however an hour later they touched down on the desert floor next to the pile of cars Toyman had transported with them into the future.

Batman led Diana over to the front seat of the large convertible, then strung his cape above her in an attempt to provide some relief from the hot sun. She sipped from a canteen then looked at him gravely. “I’m not sure I can fly us to the Batcave.” She said. “I feel like Superman just hit me with a left hook.”

“We’ve got some transportation right here.” He observed. “Rest. I’ll put together what we need.”

Batman realized that their first priority would be to establish some sort of shelter during their stay in the desert. He parked the cars in a rough circle then instructed her to rip out some of the rear seat cushions from some of the cars, making a bed for her on the ground. He managed to find a tarp, stringing it over the bed for protection from the sun. Diana gratefully collapsed onto the cushions and fell off into a deep sleep. She woke a few hours later as dusk settled in and found Batman, less shirt and cape, ripping out the car batteries, electrical components, computer chips, radios and antennas from the cars surrounding them. He carefully piled the most valuable components into the car trunk then resumed his task, pulling out parts which she couldn’t even identify but which seemed important to him.

He noticed her stir off the makeshift bed then seout out making a fire from the flammable parts of the wrecked cars around them. “Hun“Hungry?”

“Starving.” She responded immediately, immediately regretting her reply as she was looking at the sweat glistening on his chest when she said it.

He turned back to the fire and skewered what looked like a jackrabbit, at least a mutated jackrabbit and put it on a spit over the fire, roasting the flesh 12 inches above the fire. Diana saw a trashed SUV nearby, ripped two of the bucket seats out of the front, then plopped them down a few feet from the fire.

“Are we ever going to talk about last night?” she asked him as she settled into the seat.

“What about it?” he responded in his deepest timbre, his eyes narrowing at her.

Diana refused to be intimidated by his callous response. “We…were on the verge of being intimate. I think we should discuss the situation.” she stated firmly.

“What’s to discuss? We had too much to drink. We’re 30,000 years in the future and all of our friends are dead. It’s natural that we’d rely on each other, we just took it one step farther than we should have.” He observed flippantly.

The casual way he made the remark sounded too rehearsed to her ear but she let it go. “If you say so.” She allowed slowly. “I just don’t want to be uncomfortable around you, that’s all. After all, it looks like its just going to be the two of us for awhile.”

“We’re fine.” He stated brusquely, then carved off a strip of meat with a batarang edge and placed it into a plate in front of her. The plate was actually part of an intake for an air filter, but he’d cleaned it up for her.

“Thanks.” She said kindly. “This is the first time a man has ever cooked for me.”

He ate the rest of his meal in silence in the car seat next to hers. She caught him stealing a glance at her once but they studiously avoided eye contact for the rest of the evening. He scraped off the plates as well as he could then went back to the cars after the sunset, working under the light from a car-dome light he’d modified during the day, powered by the setup of car batteries he’d turned into his workshop during the day.

Diana watched him work for a few minutes, then settled back down on the bed and listened to the sounds of the desert around her. She stared at the unfamiliar stars for a few minutes, falling into a restless sleep for the next few hours. She stirred at one point and looked for Batman, but he was nowhere to be seen. She searched about the campsite, growing concerned about his absence when she caught the silhouette of his seated figure a hundred meters away. She watched, fascinated as she realized he was committing the Sin of Onan. She smiled in surprise that the Dark Knight had to sneek away to find an outlet for his sexual frustration, then remembered she had considered the same act that very morning. The act of watching him was arousing in itself she realized, and her body quietly ached the rest of the night as she tried to get back to sleep.

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The next three days were quiet as he scavenged the pile of cars for anything worth saving. Batman selected the convertible due to its storage capacity, then found a tool kit, jumper cables and gas can from the SVU Kalibak had damaged during the battle. He siphoned the remaining gas from the SUV then took out the gas tank a few hours later and placed it in the backseat of the convertible. He connected the new gas tank to the existing one, providing the convertible with 75 gallons of gasoline capacity. He repeated the siphoning process from the remaining cars, finally topping off the massive tank he’d constructed. In the process, he decided to borrow the SUV wheels, shocks and struts and place them on the convertible in case of difficult terrain, which meant he needed a few extra days before they attempted the next leg of their journey.

Diana assisted him when she could. Despite the loss of some of her Amazon powers, she still retained some of the enormous strength she’d originally possessed. She estimated that she was probably weaker by half or even more, but that didn’t prevent her from turning over a car chassis when Batman asked so he wouldn’t have to spend the day working underneath a car. He also taught her how to use his batarangs to kill the animals in the desert that they needed for sustenance, some of which were too quick even for her to catch on foot alone. She enjoyed the hunting and tracking oe ane animals and spent good portions of the day away from the campsite and usually returned with an animal carcass in hand.

Diana also noticed the changes in temperature for the first time in her life. While the days were hot, the nights were cool, prompting unfamiliar shivers from her skin against the cold air. Bruce had improvised a means to sew the pieces from the seat-cover materials from the cars into a set of blankets, which he promptly gave to her despite her protest that he should have one of them. She noticed that he always waited until she fell asleep then he would slip onto his own makeshift bed on the ground a few feet away from her, uncovered with the exception of his cape.

He seemed to be immune to the cold but on the fourth night of their stay at the camp she woke up in the middle of the night and found him shivering on his bed, his cape lying on the ground next to him. Diana picked up her blankets, walked over, then settled in next to him, sharing her warmth. He mumbled something in his sleep incoherently, then turned over and spooned her. She smiled to elf elf as she felt his involuntary physical reaction suddenly poking at her bottom, then shifted her body even closer to him before falling back asleep.

Diana woke with a start as she felt the cold eyes of the Bat upon her. The sun hadn’t yet crested the horizon when she looked into his face, which was already evidencing a full beard. He looked at her empty bed a few feet away then looked back at her accusingly.

“You were shivering last night.” She said in protest to his hard expression.

“Don’t. Do. That. Again.” He hissed, then turned away from her quickly as he realized the physical manifestation of his attraction to her had sprung up on its own volition. He walked away with a slight limp as a result of his condition while Diana collapsed back onto the ground in exasperation at his behavior.

Despite the cold, Diana was glad when the sun went down every night as Bruce’s obsession with building them a new all-terrain vehicle meant that he didn’t talk much during the days. The long silences during the days, and her inability to provide much value except for serving as the occasional car lift, meant that she had plenty of time to contemplate their evolving relationship.

Bruce was a man full of surprises she thought. His engineering skills were a marvel to her and she enjoyed watching him work, especially when he removed his shirt and his muscles were rippling with sweat. Like the rest of the League members, Diana had quickly come to rely on his brilliant mind to provide critical intelligence for their missions. Despite his brilliance, he was aloof, sometimes arrogant and largely dismissive of his fellow Leag. Gi. Given his pride, he seemed to wear the burden of his lack of special powers on his sleeve. He had saved them all many times over, especially Diana, but she wondered if she really knew the real man hiding behind the Bat. Batman was a creation of his mind to rid Gotham of criminals and his mission had extended beyond Gotham when the League was formed, but now that the world had moved on she wondered if he could move on as well.

Diana felt a restless energy from him for which she could provide no outlet. The lack of available entertainment, coupled with his propensity to minimize their conversations, quickly resulted in a sense of loneliness, despite his proximity. She decided to attempt to engage him in conversation that night, no matter how brusque he acted towards her.

She borrowed one of his batarangs and had set out to find sustenance for them. Today’s result was a rattlesnake, which was surprisingly tasty. Diana had finished cooking it over the spit for their dinner when he appeared at the campfire, no longer able to work as the remaining sunlight had faded to black. He’d decided to save the power from the batteries as they were no longer in a rush to start the next leg of their journey.

“Hungry?” she asked.

He mumbled an affirmative, then waited patiently as she dropped some of the meat onto the makeshift plates he’d made. She then turned a spout on an evaporator that he’d made from an air conditioning unit from one of the cars. It collected the condensation from the evaporated water in the air into a container, providing them with over two gallons of water per day. She filled the cup then passed it over to Bruce, who nodded gratefully and continued munching on his meal.

“You look funny dressed in Clark’s clothes.” She said, giggling at the superman shirt he was wearing with a pair of boxer he’d also found in Clark’s bedroom.

“I’m glad the Boy Scout was built like he was or I’d be wearing a buffalo hide about now.” He agreed.

“Bruce, tell me about your parents.” She said suddenly.

He grimaced at the mention of his parents and looked at her coldly. “Why do you ask?”

“I… just want to know something more about you, I guess.” She said meekly. “We’ve been co-workers for awhile but I don’t know much about you.”

“They were killed by a street punk when I was eight.” He said.

“I know they were.” She said, exasperated at his minimalist reply. “I’m asking what they were like before they were killed. What were they like? What did they enjoy? Did they go dancing on Saturday nights? Anything?”

“Does it really matter anymore?” he asked, looking into the fire and avoiding her glance. “They’ve been gone for 30,000 years.”

“Of course it matters, you stupid man!” she said, rising to her feet in frustration. “Great Hera, why have you punished me so?” she yelled, looking to the sky. “I’m stranded for eternity with a man who won’t even talk to me. I’m filthy and I need a shower and to shave my legs!”

Bruce was stunned by her sudden outburst of emotion. While she had been known to have a temper by the League members, he was surprised that it had manifested itself this way. “Diana…” he began, then stopped, unsure of himself. “They were…everything to me. The last day I was happy was the day before they died. When they died, I died.”

He paused again, measuring his words to her. “Since that day, every ounce of my being went to perfecting myself in every way I could think. Martial Arts, Engineering, Languages, Methods of Escape, Evasion, You name it, I studied it. Even acting, so I could learn how to act the part of Gotham playboy to ensure no one learned of my identity. I’ve spent the last 25 years becoming Batman,” he said, “and now we’re 30,000 years into the future and Batman doesn’t exist anymore.”

Diana’s eyes widened in surprise as he admitted the inner conflict she’d sensed from him.
“Batman isn’t who you are, Bruce, it’s what you do.” She said softly.

“Do you think I just have a switch that I turn on when I put on the cowl and say ‘Now I’m Batman?’” he asked in surprise. “I’m Batman all the time. Bruce Wayne is the act. If I drop my guard for one second, somebody will die because of it.”

“My point is: you don’t have to be the Dark Knight with me. Here. Now. Look at me, I was Diana, Princess of Themyscira. Now I’m just Diana and some of my powers have deserted me. Look at what you’ve done with all of this equipment. I feel useless next to you. As an Amazon, it’s not easy to swallow my pride and defer to your judgment on these matters. What I’ve learned though is that I can rely on you despite your best efforts to make things difficult between us.”

“I’m sorry if this has been hard on you.” He said impassiv

“It can be as hard or as easy as we want to make it.” she lectured. “Just promise me you’ll talk to me more than the occasional grunt during dinner and things will be much better, I promise.”

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Two days later they packed their new belongings onto the convertible and fired up the engine. “Ready to go?” he asked.

“Yes, but I was getting attached to this place, you really can’t beat the view.” Diana said, winkat hat him.

He put his mini-computer on the dashboard in front of them, then eased the ATV forward, listening for any signs of transmission problems as he’d basically turned the convertible into a monster truck. He detected a slight groan of protest from the universal joint, then engaged a torque converter to help dissipate the strain on the transmission. The car rolled for a few seconds as he picked up speed, then settled on a comfortable pace of 30 miles an hour to make their way to the Batcave.
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Hereafter