#fictional genocide mention

[swampy-milk]

I’m mostly unaware of your OC’s, so I’d love to meet them!

You will regret this.

(Okay disclaimer I just finished writing all this after several hours and I do not want to go back and revise/edit stuff for a tumblr ask but uhhhh..... If you wanna know more, ask more stuff, look through my art, etc...

I kind of went crazier as I went on, with each section getting longer than the last so. A. In particular, Violets in the Sunflower Patch is a setting I haven't touched in YEARS but wanna get back into, so the lore is a bit shaky and subject to change gjksdfngjdf. )

Okay here's my fucked up ramblings

So it's probably best to start with the OC that started it all.

THE WORLD ORPHAN

As much as I'd love to go into excruciating detail about every single world-building event that led to this moment, I'll try to keep things simple gkjfdnghjfd.

The Skeinkrofts are a species similar to crabs, bees, etc... They, like many other mortal species, did not naturally evolve- instead, they were crafted by a god. Though this god's name is indecipherable to all mortal tongues, the closest approximation is "The One With a Fish's Face." It's true meaning is lost, but all depictions make damn sure that that thing has a fish's face.

They call the far northern reaches Zenia their homeland- a large continent, spanning from pole to pole, home to a wide diversity of different species- though only a few mortal. These cold, frigid reaches are where the Fished Face God calls home, and where they set about creaturing the creature of their dreams. No one knows why they chose the form they did- perhaps some strange hate-love relationship with the isopod that used to live in their mouth- but they made the Skeinkrofters to be a vicious and parasitic predator. One of the older races, the other gods would eventually make their own mortals, and soon after that the destructive battlefield of divine combat would be passed down to mortals, who were far less destructive in their power-scaling.

However, as the centuries passed and gods fell from their thrones, so too did the Skeinkrofter's time approach. Pushed by a want for power, the high-priestesses of their ilk- who Humanity came to call Red Witches, due to their red coloration and trickery- pushed farther and farther southwards into the divided Human kingdoms. In a tale as old as time, the divided armies of Humanity united to turn the tide and push the Skienkrofters back. What is less romanticized in the history books is how far they pushed- going through their territory with genocidal intent.

The only thing to stop them from pushing them to extinction was a want for even more power.

Skeinkrofters are incredibly gifted magic users. Handcrafted as wellsprings of necromantic blood-magic, the Skeinkrofters were terrifying weapons- and with the right conditioning, potentially controlled.

We finally reach Igori- the apprentice. Without knowledge of who her parents were, she raised secluded in the woods under a strict tutelage of magical study. She excelled everywhere they pushed her and listened very well to her instructors, but still- she couldn't help but feel some semblance of despise. Like she was an outlier they didn't quite like having around. The way they stare at her red hair like it's toxic to be near. The way they flinch every time she tries to cast a fireball- destructive magic is forbidden, of course. The way they never let her near any dead animals at all- not even the bones in their meat. It all feels off. Maybe this is just normal for apprentices like her.

Most recent art of Igori, taken from the Inktober drawing.

(Igori was my first character :D

I've made stuff before like, as a really really young kid- but this one has stuck around the longest by far. She originally started with an idea of "what if a Lich's apprentice was still mortal, and was trying to find a way to become a Lich as well?" That idea eventually grew and shifted. She was originally a guy, but- that changed really quickly. Even before I knew I was trans, it was just a little uninteresting to me...

In fact, she's kind of the reason I started transition gkjdfnhgkfj. I was in highschool and couldn't reason like. Why, for some reason, I couldn't imagine what my future self would look like... unless I imagined them looking exactly like her gdfkjnhjfgdh. My actual egg-cracking moment came later when I first asked myself "maybe I could be a girl but only a little bit." gkjdfnhjfd.

She was my only OC for a while, until I decided I had piled way too many ideas onto just her and split her into a separate OC that was a Vampire. I wouldn't do much with her for a while outside of a concept. But what came next was years later-)

VIOLETS IN THE SUNFLOWER PATCH

Troll is a planet isolated in its own cloud of dust and debris. For a long time, the planet was host to the many different species- Elves, Timbers, Atlantians, etc... After many centuries of development, the planet reached a state of industrial revoltion. It's unique ecology- an intense equator that was near-impossible to navigate, a large central large at each pole that divided the world into two large halves, and an intense separation between the different cultures- led to a world deeply divided. This would finally lead to conflict between the central culture of each half of the world as they finally made contact. Long-standing rivalries would be formed and a constant escalation would overtake the land.

This all culminated into the space-race. A seemingly unremarkable event- people had been flying vehicles for a long time on Troll. It's low-gravity made escape velocity much easier to perform than on Earth, and would lead to a swift moon-landing, especially after learning that the moon was also habitable.

This would be rather innocuous to either empire- just more territory to conquer. Until they found the weapon caches.

Ancient weapons of untold power- locked beneath crumbling tombs, easily plundered after barrages of cannon-fire. The sudden influx of understanding led to an artificially goaded golden age. Peasants went from farming arid dirt to making e-mail accounts in just a day- and then experiencing armageddon before the end of their lifetime.

Feudal lords with the power to break cities under their fingers were unable to keep each other in check long enough as old rivalries re-sparked and new suspicion formed. A cold-war lasted just about a decade before the codes to end the world were punched-in and everyone flipped their death-switches.

As the world lit up, civilization died again. In the years after the fallout, governments grew more strict- technology was now a luxury, held only by government, the serfs even more dependent on their lords as a result. From the stars, a strange voice started humming- any radio in the world could now tune in to GODSTAR, who's randomly generated sentences held prophecies and fortunes within their many-folded scriptures. With the earth cracking, the layers of dirt crumpled away and lifted, revealing the artificial structure of the planet beneath- expanding outwards like Troll itself needed a breath after that brush with death- and from the fold, the monsters of prophetic times rushed forth and began to slaughter all. Only the technology that the lords now held for themselves could fight back, and they used the new opportunity to simply drive their mechanical-fist harder into the serf's back.

A century after the world ended, the disgraced Black Table- a brotherhood known for it's supposed acceptance and love- takes in the first ever female knights officially oathed under the Chivalric Codexes.

Most recent art of Aster (Not actually a catgirl. This was for an Inktober prompt), Sydney (On the right, shown in her Stealth Power Armor), and Devoney (FUCK I HAVEN'T DRAWN DEVONEY IN LITERAL YEARS AAAAA)

Growing up in a small village under the protection of the Black Table's knights, the three girls spent their whole lives believing the good table was protecting them with their lives. They each aspired to be knights, and would eventually be accepted in a landslide move- though, internally it was much more desperate. The Black Table needed soldiers, and anyone willing was to be chosen, and that required a sidestepping of ancient codes. A pretense of breaking the mold was a good way to sidestep any repercussions too.

Three characters this time so I get to explain each gjkdfnhkjfdgh.

Aster is an Elf! Or, in this universe, Elves are a race that lives directly over the North Pole. Once a forested land, after the nuclear winter it resembles an arctic ice-scape much more and the area around the pole had to be evacuated en-masse. Her parents were refugees that had to migrate southward into the Timberlands- essentially "baseline" humans. Fun-fact, elves can change their gender at will like clownfish. Aster was my first explicitly trans OC (during a time when I was still struggling to come out gdkfjnhkjfdg). She loses her arm and both legs pretty early on during a training accident.

Devoney is a baseline human. The daughter of a minor noble's technician, she was one of the few in the village with access to things like a working VCR and mecha anime on VHS. She grew up on great heroes depicted on the screen and aspired to be one herself. It was partly due to the pulling of a few strings that she managed to carve a little spot out for herself and her childhood friends. She would be one of the earliest to succumb to the oppressive traditions of the knights- initially optimistic in her original world-view, she quickly loses herself to a false sense of good and works to enforce chivalry.

Sydney is the final member of the trio. A delinquent child, she was abandoned pretty early on because her parents couldn't afford to keep her around. Of the three, she was the least well-off and the one with the most grievances against the current system. The Black Table was hesistant to accept her, but Dev managed to help her build up the reputation. She would constantly be scorned in the position and looked with tighter scrutiny. Ever since the beginning she questioned the true purpose of the knights, and her intentions would swiftly change from trying to change the system from within to trying to dismantle it entirely.

Sydney and Dev were originally friends. When Aster arrived, she was quickly picked out- but Dev would step in, ever the hero, to try and save her. This led to an initial divide between Syd and Aster- the former of which was concerned that Dev would abandon her if Aster got in the way. This tense relationship would only break after they were oathed in and Dev slowly started to fade out of the picture, leaving them alone together.

(Troll is a fantasy world that was brought down by old superstitions and traditions, basically. The three are gonna tear down the system one plank at a time if they have to. Dev will eventually be less of a cop and join them dw gkjfdnghkjfd

I wrote a lot for this and I might go back and write more for Igori, but. I'm like. An hour into writing dfkjgndfjhfdn

Violets originally started as a Lancer game I could play with myself. Basically, at the peak of my anxiety, I couldn't stand to be in VC with other people at all, let alone GM a tabletop campaign. I wanted to play Lancer so badly though, so I compromised and made my own campaign all for myself. Like playing with dolls, I made sprites and shit and it was really fun gkjdfsgnkdfj. Idk. Might revisit it some day...)

(okay its time to get back to the vampires-)

THE LAVENDER COURT

Varghan is a land not too far from Zenia. Long ago, the gods known only as Himself, Herself, and Themself stole away bundles of mortals from other gods in a desperate bid to appease the god's masters. However, these mortals would eventually rise up and kill the three tyrant gods and their creations with their own hands. Them fled long before the gates crashed open, Her was forced to retreat under the chaos as all their children were killed, and Him was killed by rivals who bid for his throne. On His dying breath, he cursed every mortal with a need to kill; more than a mere desire- a living, breathing, need for the blood of their kin.

Vampirism was a quiet disease, but it spread under the seams of the kingdoms of Varghan.

The kingdoms of man fell and fell again- by their own hands or invading forces- and finally, after centuries in wait, vampires went from urban legend to real kings and queens taking kingdoms in the night. Blessed with immortal life- so that the strongest may kill and kill again, fulfilling the grand tyrant prophecy told in Himself's last words- the eldest of the bloodline rose to positions of absolute power and took the wartorn Varghan into their own hands.

Lavender was a survivor of the old world- having lived through the final days of blundering Kings of Man, and the subsequent rampage of the Seven-Day War and Five-Day Occupation- her isolated village in the Silver Peaks would be taken by an emergent horde of vampires.

Taken as the bride-to-be to the Lord Skrul, she was accidentally turned into a vampire while one of the lord's court was "making his mark on her." Feral and spoiled, Skrul ordered her killed- but she managed to escape with her life by chance.

She'd spend another twenty years mastering her vampirism at Wighthold under a Lord Dimitry, where she would eventually rise to be one of his top lieutenants. After many years of conquest, a small part of her nagged still- a humanitarian soul who did not accept this direction. Her actions were flawed- guided by a primal need to overpower- and she suppressed that need as she faked her death and wandered into hiding.

For centuries, Lavender hid. She could not bring herself to a final death, unable to stop the need to eat when food was available. Still, she starved herself as best she could.

And then, one day, she found a body in the bog.

Most recent art of Black (on the left, shown as already a Vampire)

The woman was nearly dead, her heartbeat faint and her soul gripping by a thread. Lavender hungered, and yet not enough to give in to instinct. She was content to let the woman fall to her fate, or at least put her out of her misery, but she reached forward and did something else- damning her to the same curse as her.

She was appalled and angry at first, begging how the gods could condemn her to such a fate. And yet, within days, she got it. She understood it all too well- the feeding, the strength, the power. It didn't take long for her to shed her old name and take on a new identity- Black.

She was chased from her village for illegal witchcraft- a crime she had never committed. The offenses kept piling on as bitter resentment grew, and eventually she was chased out of the village- lest she be burned on the stake. On the chase, she had tripped, and the villagers chose to leave her to her fate- and Lavender soon arrived. Black's first kill was against the villagers that scorned her so. Compared to Lavender, who still starved herself and spent her days locked in her hut, Black was taking the role like she was born in the pale skin.

After a year together, their bond strengthened. Black had every opportunity to go off on her own, but she stayed with Lavender- though neither hardly knew why. It was only natural that when Black didn't return one night, Lavender would go out to find her. A far elder vampire, she was able to quickly assess that she was held in the last remnants of the Sun church.

The resulting slaughter, her first in many centuries, led to her garnering the attention of a vampire hunter- one that would manage to catch the emaciated beast after its destructive rampage. She was tortured for three days and three nights- more than just starved, the hunter lured the vampirism through her body, trying to rip it clean out. Younger vampires could be cured if the growing void in their soul was eviscerated quick enough, but one centuries old had never been cured. Lavender begged the old man to do it- to either take it all out or kill her on that rack, and the sadistic glee the paladins took in exorcising her drove her mad. With each tug of the iron and each hammer beat her blackened blood dripped and solidified- a bit of that grown monster materializing and dying. So vast was the corruption inside her that it grew and grew, becoming more and more monstrous and deformed beneath her waist where the blood pooled.

Most recent art of Lavender

As time went on, the hunter revealed more of more of his true intentions. The church had long since given up on "curing" vampires. He desired nothing more than to see her suffer as each nail was driven in, her body nothing more than a tally to see how much they could destroy and violate her body before it was entirely broken and she could only beg to be killed.

When Black finally managed to break down the walls of the fort, she already found that Lavender had broken free. Eleven hearts decorated her dripping body, one of which was still pooling fresh in her mouth. Ten dead paladins and a dead hunter, eviscerated after she finally broke free from her restraints- she could have done it long before, but she had held on for some hope of freedom from herself. Without it, she could not stop feasting.

Afterwards, she longed for death. She begged Black to put her down, but they refused. If this world was so cruel, was it not cruel to run?

If you wore the clothes of a god, would you not change the world?

Petty kings and little tyrants dotted the world over. With a body that craves destruction, you should not turn it inwards. Destroy the world around you, and pray the next is better.

And so, Lavender stood once more, and turned her attention outwards.

(And then they kissed :3 gkdjfgnbkjfnhjgf

This was the second idea I had for Igori! She would go on to conquest the world to kill every king she could find, but- alas, other plans. Other plans.

You may notice some design similarities between Lavender + Black and Aster + Sydney. They originally started as a vampire au of Aster and Sydney, but as the stories diverged more and more, I decided to roll Lavender up with my other vampire oc and merge the two. Since that merger several years ago, they've become their own separate thing. I hope their designs reflect that and aren't just copy+pastes anymore gdjfgnkjdfh)

They're gay

CURRENT TTRPG CHARACTERS

These ones I can't go into as much detail, since their stories are still being written and there's things about their backstory I don't wanna be fully transparent with yet.

Q Barghest (and Maskgirl)

A good introduction to Q would be this comic: https://www.tumblr.com/c--iiii6w6/711693697513865216/recipes-for-strawberry-jam-only-color-she-loves

Q is a Fixer in the ProjectMoon universe who is currently working in the Iris Office. She witnessed The Horrors at a young age and was shaped by it pretty intensely.

Her family was abusive and she seemed destined for a life locked away in her room until she was old enough to leave- until they were all slaughtered by a rampaging abnormality. Sparring her life, she had found a strange fondness with the very monsters that threatened all life in the City. Since then, she's grown more and more unattached from other humans, likening herself more to a presence than a person.

Some of the most recent art of Q. Maskgirl on the right.

Maskgirl was Q's only childhood friend. Calculating and cold, she could tell a person's secrets just from studying their face long enough. Q, who wore her fears and inhibitions on her face, quickly caught Maskgirl's eye as someone who couldn't help but tell the truth. The two quickly bonded, and although they're more separate now, they still remain in contact

Morg Nolastname

Another Fixer, Morg Nolastname works for Indulgence Office in collaboration with Leucotome Workshop.

Unlike Q, Morg is very private and keeps to herself. She seems aloof, only living in the present. Each day is her life- she dies at sunset, is reborn at sunrise, and her home is wherever she sleeps that night. Blinded at a young age, she sees using a spray-hose like a cane. She is a prolific sadist, finding great pleasure in the art of murder. She keeps a collection of tapes of nearly every one of her kills over the years. Those who try to pry into her past usually find themselves on tape at some point.

Some of the most recent art of Morg.

Those are all my main OC's! Of course, I have other people but- they honestly aren't as near and dear to my heart as these dummies. Or at least they aren't comin' to mind aack. I have a lot of small-time OC's that if I took the time to describe I'd be explaining every story idea I've had over the past decade dskjgnbfdkjgbndfhj

[sunflowerdales]

Encouraging everyone to continue making noise for Gaza, even after today's shutdown is over.

Spread the word, contact representatives, protest, donate to fundraisers/charities, keep the momentum going!

Even just a click can help: https://arab.org/click-to-help/

If you've ever made, or even profited off of, stories/characters revolving around freedom and fighting oppression, you have a responsibility to practice what you preach and not remain silent.

More useful links:

Donate feminine hygiene kits: http://piousprojects.org/campaign/2712

Call for a ceasefire: http://ceasefiretoday.com

Learn about Palestine: http://decolonizepalestine.com

E-sims for Gaza: http://gazaesims.com

[ask-thearchivists]

Now I’m curious, what happened last time you helped Charmer?

The Cartographer: It was during the mission with the Titans. Charmer knew it would be a lot of work to get rid of them, so she wanted one of us to help her train and command the slayers she was going to use to kill them all. Because it was anticipated to be a mission that would ultimately require Cleaning, Coordinator was busy writing down all the information on the species, societies, and food webs as quickly as possible, while Curator was expanding the Archive in anticipation of a great sudden influx of mortals. So I was the only one not currently busy.

The Cartographer: So he brought me down and explained his plans, what had happened and what was planned to happen. She explained her idea to trick the babies and children into trusting the mortals she had enlisted, by taking the skins and skulls of little Titans that had already been killed and having the mortals wear them. He wanted me to try on one that he had made so he could see how convincing it looked.

The Cartographer: I'll never forget the smell inside the skull, the way the fur felt on my arms. I had to leave immediately. I came back to the Archive. I pulled that horrible thing off me. I'm probably not allowed to tell you how else I reacted. But who cares? I got sick onto the floor. I knew it was going to happen, which is why I left, because we're not allowed to show any perceived weakness to mortals. The Coordinator was angry and yelled at me for leaving without saying anything, I think. All I remember is the way my arms were still itching from the fur, like things were crawling all over me. The Curator grabbed my hands and the Coordinator stopped yelling. I had scratched my arms until I started to bleed.

[lord-squiggletits]

It's so funny to me how mad people get about Optimus punching Prowl's eye out because 1. he didn't 2. even if he did it would've been fully deserved lmao

[ultravioart]

Ngl it's pretty tiring seeing people misinterpret Rammatra's character as a memed up "racist against humans/exterminator" bc one: yikes, and two: litterally every interaction he has shows that he respects human individuals, just not the collective of humanity's inaction to stop injustice, nor individual humans that are *actively murdering his kin.*

He is trying to prevent omnic extinction, and is doing it in a way he thinks will work (in his story he tried pacifist routes, and they did not work).

Ramattra is the essence of "He is bad guy, but not bad guy." because his story is about war and trauma and how the horrors of war breaks a person. You can understand how he got to where he is, even if you don't agree with the radicalized viewpoints. And I don't mean the "stand up and fight omnic genocide" viewpoint, that is not radical, that is logical.

The major pushing point from freedom fighter to "uh what are you doing" is that Ramattra is willing to hack/take control of sentient omnics and force them to fight and die in war against thier will if it means they can win the war and prevent omnic extinction. His rushed desperation and willingness to deny an omnic's free will is what lost Ramattra his dearest team mates in NullSector, isolating him even further, (isolation which may or may not lead to more radical views down the road). From what we know NullSector still only uses drone (nonsentient) omnics, but that could change, now that NullSector joined Talon.

Ram is defaulting to his R-7000s programming due to trauma. Exactly what Bastion went through in the animated short, but instead of choosing nature and connections with others, Ramattra is pushing away all interpersonal connections and defaulting to artificial base programming: which just so happens for R-7000s to be leading omnics into war against humanity. But on top of that Ramattra also has an authentic take of: Winning, no matter the cost, as soon as possible, to save as many omnics as possible. It's a desperate attempt to save his people, because at the end of the day he was never fighting for himself. He is fighting for his people's future.

TDLR; Ramattra doesn't want human extinction, he wants to prevent omnic extinction. VERY different things.

[dizzyhslightlyvoided]

discussion of fictional racism/genocide and how it reflects real-world racism and genocide, in the context of a current popular anime:

"Your friends matter, and you shouldn't take them for granted!" "Sometimes the journey is more important than the destination!" "Murder is okay as long as it's someone who was born into a category designated as 'evil'!" "Make the most of the time you have, even (or perhaps especially) when you have a lot of it!"

ehhh.

not to yuck on anyone's yum (hence why I'm being a bit coy about which anime I'm talking about), and maybe it's just the fact that it's been a long time since I've engaged with a hero-versus-the-demon-lord story which actually played the premise straight instead of subverting it somehow (and/or the fact that the more prosaic version of my sona is a demon), but like ... when your melancholy travelogue manga starring an adorable twintails elf has a major setting-detail and recurring plot point that "there's this category of sapient beings who 'aren't actually people' and they're always unequivocally evil, they 'prey on people' but we won't depict it or even make it clear what they're actually doing outside of their direct conflicts with the protagonists, they're always lying especially when they're pleading for their lives, and it's always morally good to kill them", it's Kind Of Yikes, especially in light of current events (this post was written on October 26-28, 2023). and that's before you factor in the fact that every single proper noun except "El Dorado" is in German.

like, you cannot have a "race which it is ontologically Always Okay To Kill" without directly reflecting real-world racism and justifications of genocide, full stop. i'm not saying the author is an actual nazi or intentionally repeating the kind of things a nazi would say, nor that the fans are necessarily racist or anything either. but every time a protagonist says "you're nothing but a monster that preys on people", they sound like a villain whose shtick is Fantasy Racism, and every time someone kills a demon who appears to be begging for mercy, they look like the most unredeemable kind of turbo-evil bad guy -- everyone wants to live, right? you can't "in-universe justification" your way out of that, no matter how well the fiction supports itself.

[mephitsguidetothemultiverse]

Catalogue No.: Omicron-XK9732331-C0-P5-12, Media Type: Textbook Excerpt, Title: On the Subject of Ley Travel (Earthling Edition) - "Introduction and a Brief History of Ley Particles," Author: Bosun Dal Tremor of the Cartographic Flotilla, Additional Text: Margin Notations by Mephit

Before one can properly discuss the nature of how Ley Particles and their confluences into Ley Paths allow for FTL travel without the requirement of opening a wormhole or draining a sun, it occurs to me that the reader should have a brief history of our discovery and naming of these particles to grasp onto.

This sentence has been circled with an arrow drawn from the below note to the sentence

Mephit here, yes that was a single sentence. Bosun Tremor, Dal to his friends, can be a bit long-winded at quite inconvenient times. He is, however, possibly the best Ley Cartographer who will ever live in his universe, so bear with it. I'll throw in a joke or two to keep you entertained. On with the knowledge!

As with much of this book, the scope of such discussions will be in relation to earthlings as this version is translated into Earth languages for training earthlings on Ley travel. If you were wanting more information in regards to a different collection of sentient species or a particular culture or culture cluster, please contact the Cartographic Flotilla Library Vessel on its service line and ask about an edition of my book for the pertinent species. That being said, let us continue.

Bright red underlining on the last sentence.

He only talks like this when he has to sound smart, way less formal after a nice wine. Feels like he has to be a fuddy-duddy to be respected, poor thing.

Humans first discovered an unorthodox particle they could not explain on deep space scanners in the Earth year 2350. By that time, enough deep space probes had been launched in order to more quickly achieve a relay time of only 17 years, 92 days and 15 hours from furthest probe to Earth using Colonel Alvin McTalbot's, of the Independent Scottish Navy's Communications and Navigations Division, then famous "Informational Railgun" technique of near-simultaneous blitz uploads across a series of satellites or other terminals/relay points. As completely useless as this would be today for communicating from even just Sol System to Alpha Centauri, It was brilliant for picking up never before seen data in almost-real-time.

Another underline, this time on almost-real-time. Angrier looking underline.

I checked all 977 pages and the reference material and additional guides, Dal you scatterbrained little shit! NOT A SINGLE MENTION OF WHAT THIS MEANS. Had to have a foreword about the history of particles, can't be arsed to mention time-slippage. Time slippage happens across any amount of space-time that is being warped by an object that warps or bends space-time itself. This includes black holes, but in Universe-78735-Zala, aka the Prime Ley Path Universe, Ley Paths also do it. Dal explains enough to see why that's important to know but never actually mentions that almost-real-time means that time slippage was at least 99% overcome if any occurred. In other words, they saw 2 minutes worth of footage without going over 2 minutes 3 seconds in terms of human time measurements. Carry on.

This data was incredibly strange and difficult to even fully process on standard equipment, leading to then United Nations of Earth Second Chancellor Harlan Quell to propose a plan to use an improved relay to search for the source of such particulates and additional information. The initial Long Chain Project was signed into Earth policy in Earth year 2352 and would set off almost 450 years of intergalactic discovery in an attempt to do so. Of the many discoveries made by the LCP of 2350, as it came to be known, one which was noteably missing was a source for the mysterious particles. Instead, in 2807, when the LCP took was starting to take almost 30 years to get information from the furthest satellite to Earth, near lightspeed travel became possible with the invention of the Horace-Lader drive and its use of near-perfect reclamation of the photoelectric effect and the underlying continuous yet infinitesimal breaks to space-time involved to power vehicles travelling at approximately 2.88x10^8 m/s, closer than any human would ever achieve prior to joining the IULPS (Intergalactic Union of Ley Path Societies).

Another underline starting at with many exclamation points and an expletive followed by the word

SPOILERS!!!!!

This same year, First Chancellor of the United Nations of Earth Malia Varayev championed a new plan that left behind the continuing updates to the Long Chain Project and instead called for a one way manned flight by volunteers towards the newly predicted center of these particles (at this year commonly denoted McTalbot's Particles or Fairy Particles due to the former being responsible for the method of discovery and the latter being what humans thought they resembled). This operation was highly contested and debated for almost a decade until on December 12, 2816 of the Earth calendar The infamous Operation Heaven's Darts was signed into policy and launched. It would launch one of the darkest and most brutal periods in Earth history, so much so that to this day all Earthlings, humans included, hold a month long vigil starting on December 12 every year to commemorate the Month of Peace, the first month of Heaven's Darts in which no genocides, mass murders, forced disasters, or any other large scale death toll or oppression took place for the last month until the year 3030.

A simple arrow points to this last sentence.

I wish I could say that Dal was kidding or exaggerating, but he is actually going easy on the matter. There was a continuous series of horrific disasters and poverty crises forced by corporations who took advantage of Clause 19 in that policy that started almost exactly a month later. They only hit other humans at first. Dal says more, but he is kind to his reader. He doesn't wish you to have to dwell on the darkest portion of human depravity most members of the multiverse have ever seen in order to understand Ley particles. He simply wants to address the elephant in the room lest anyone forgets it. Personally I would go into every detail if I could, but I have actual respect for Bosun Dal Tremor. So... for gorey details see Cataloge No. Chi-JP9393321, I won't write them here. For Dal.

The process began by designating a number of private organizations that were not under direct governance of the UNE as targets for incentives to aid in the search for volunteers under what is now infamously known as Clause 19. This clause left a number of openings that led to private organizations propping up the efficacy of the UNE and the ability to make incredibly powerful actions and decisions with next to no oversight as time went on. Humans, as of 2817, were the only large population sentient species as cohabitant species would not be discovered until the 2900's and engineered species were in their infancy. As such, these organizations used economic, social, political and environmental data to ensure large swaths of human volunteers. Over time the UNE would, far too late, recognize its mistake and begin to further and further curtail harm that could be done to humans in order to receive incentives to generate volunteers. In 2873, the human population began to suffer greatly from the now 56 year process of volunteering to be shot into deep space and never heard from again in a single human lifetime. Human colonies on Mars and the Moon were beginning to finally show promise of true self-sustainability at this time and freight relay to colonies outside the asteroid belt were capable of helping there be a Sol System for humans to live and claim as home rather than just one or two planets and planetoids, however it was determined that it would not be enough to save the human race from extinction in the next few decades without serious action. This led to the UNE, slowly becoming the United Planets and Colonies of Sol behind the organizations' backs at this point, made its firmest action to prevent human harm with the Humanity Welfare Act the same year, a policy designed to stop rampant harmful genocides and environmental disasters in their tracks. Instead, it only directly protected humans and, as engineered species were no longer in their infancy, led to the private sector of Heaven's Darts to begin committing slavery and genocide on inorganic sentients such as androids, genetically modified sentients such as Siriusians (named for Sirius, the Dog Star), and genetically engineered sentients such as homunculi in order to achieve their continuingly less realistic incentives goals. When subterranean reptilian species Homo Herpetus aka Tariks were discovered in the early 2900's, and later the semi-aquatic species known as the Meeri in 2940 and the smaller mammalian species called Mauskin in the 2990's, they, too, became part and parcel of the actions of these organizations. The latter was folded into the private sector's "volunteer searches" shortly after the passing the Anti-Deification Act of 2989, an act which the beginning to burgeon UPCS passed to put incredibly strict guidelines on the production of engineered sentient species and the rights inherent to these species as sentient beings. Finally, In the Earth Year 3028, The UPCS announced its official status and separated itself from the entity known as the UNE completely, leaving behind only those most loyal to private sector causes, and led a 2 year military campaign alongside all species, cultures and races of sentient people in the known Sol System against the United Private Militaries of Earth and Allied UNE forces. It was an incredibly one sided affair that ended unilaterally in the UPCS's favor and led to the complete dismantling of Heaven's Darts and all of its components and constituencies on Earth Date May 19, 3030. This date is now known as Mayteenth across all Earthling colonies and is celebrated with planetwide feasting and partying in honor of the end of progress at any cost as well as the beginning of the unification of the Earthling species.

Mayteenth is circled.

You have no idea how many jokes you will have to hear about 3030 vision that day. It's beyond obnoxious but the wine and music and drugs and food are to die for. Hell, even homunculi like Dal whip up amazing libations for Mayteenth, and they don't have a sense of taste. Some places it can be quite Bacchanalian in fact, I recommend at least visiting once for it.

Not three months later, the first ever transmission to return from a Heaven's Darts vessel was received on what all Earthlings refer to as Contact Day. The transmission was a recording of the third crew to leave Earth, a hundred-person cruiser named Zephyr 1 captained by Marla Moore, announcing the playback and data of a received transmission along with a large file of all notes. A second recording arrived a few days later detailing even more information that showed many references to the Fairy Particles in the received transmission as well as new study data on the particles themselves. 3 weeks later Zephyr 1's third and final transmission arrived detailing how it would be the final transmission ans Quartermaster Alan Moore (Captain Marla Moore's brother) detailed he was the last surviving crew member and would be jettisoning beacons until the ship decayed due to local time slippage in order to aid further vessels in finding it. QM Moore also detailed the last of the notes and how he intended to set up all data to be able to be collected by the LCP relay as quickly as possible with the aid of further ships. Over the course of the next 35 years, all information from every ship that made contact with one of QM Moore's beacons or those of his eventual successors. The original transmission received by Zephyr 1 itself was returned in full with no corruption as the final transmission by any Heaven's Dart vessel, along with the signoff "So long and goodnight everyone, the stars are calling me to the airlock."

The quotation is underlined with a doodle of a grimacing emoticon face next to it.

Dal doesn't always understand just how grim some things sound, this included I think. I think he just thought this would give a final feeling to the Heaven's Darts era. I honestly couldn't tell you if he realizes that person decided to take a long spacewalk without a helmet. Either way, bit of a yikes yeah?

This final transmission in 3065 marked the beginning of the Era of Cryptography for all Earthling species as the UPCS scrapped all non-localized space travel programs to instead focus on strengthening all Sol colonies and the decryption of the Deep Space Transmission Alpha (we now of course know Zephyr 1's discovery as the Ley Protospecies Transmission). It would take until the year 3315, almost 250 years to the day of receipt of final transmission, before retired UPCS Starfleet Commander and veteran of the Sol Unification War Dr. Sparky 'Sparks' McGruff and his team of the brightest minds of all of the Earthling species cracked the transmission wide open to reveal astounding information all about the then mysterious particles. It contained details from some sort of Protospecies about how these particles could be measured and why current equipment would have had trouble measuring them. It contained the name for what they were, calling them Flux-Oriented Aspatial Achronal Metatransitive particles when translated to English. The name became shortened to FOAAM Particles, however the name didn't translate well into other languages and presented a problem for communications. When the section detailing that these particles had a tendency to confluence into various sized flows both terrestrially and celestially was released, scientists quickly also discovered how to see such confluences on planetary surfaces and were startled to see they looked exactly like old human descriptions of Ley Lines, a phenomenon that had since spread to the consciousness of all Earthling species. As a direct result, all Earthlings now call these particles Ley Particles and their confluences as Ley Paths to ease communications. The most important section detailed how to use these Ley Paths to travel by charging them in specific ways to allow travel in directions along these paths only available by warping space-time. In 3363 Arcturus Fran became the first person to perform Ley-Flight in a single-person probe vessel that completed a path from Earth to Jupiter and back in less than an hour in local space-time. Most exciting of all, the pilot, also the Chancellor Adjudicator of the UPCS at the time, came back unharmed, the same age, and with almost minimal fuel costs. The Chamber of Chancellors of the UPCS immediately began a race to be able to use Ley-Flight for deep space travel in order to find the source of the Transmission or Ley Particles themselves. This would last for almost 900 years while Earthlings and now Solians, as sentient species who were non-native to Earth had long ago been discovered and created by accident by Earthlings, expanded the UPCS to achieve the resource load necessary to make the First Ark.

First Ark circled.

This time he's not mentioning it because everyone knows about it there. Big effing ship that transported a bunch of Solians to The Convergence and got the UPCS accepted into the IULPS. You know, the spoiler from earlier that still hasn't been explained? Anyways, the project is interesting and its development and broader context can be found in Catalogue No. Chi-SPT999332.

The remainder happens quickly as the First Ark finalizes building in 4212 and launches 10 years later with over 2 million Solians on board carefully selected for research and contact purposes. In 4224, The Convergence, a massive asteroid turned into a house of government for the IULPS. Solians expected to be met with the Protospecies but instead were met by hundreds of societies who had all discovered The Convergence as a result of some version of the same transmission. Ever since, all Earthling, and further Solian, species have been working with each other, the IULPS and the Cartographic Flotilla, and the Archivist Scionate to attempt to catalogue and discover the many nuances of Ley Path science as well as any information discoverable about the Protospecies that seems to have put everyone else on the right path for Ley-flight so many eons ago. As a scientist and Ley-cartographer, I recognize that this has little to do with the scope of this book and discussing aspects of Ley-flight, Ley travel, and the Ley Paths and science that make both possible directly. However, as a PERSON first and foremost as well as a Bosun with a duty of care to other people in this universe, I must reject this notion entirely. These discoveries you will read were not made in a vacuum and they instead exist in the context of countless choices of endless historical figures who worked to make them. Some of these discoveries were paid for in countless lives and dignity, others in a near resource collapse from overzealousness. Some were even paid for in sheer good luck, as in the case of Arcturus Fran's first flight. And yet others were paid for in kindness and care and unity. We people make decisions as to the context of the research we make, the maps we draw, the flights we take and so much more, and for ill or for good it will always change lives, potentially for generations. As my last thought for this foreword, I implore that, as you read and educate yourself all about Ley travel, you also educate yourself with a duty to use that information to do no harm. Thank you, and enjoy the book.

The last paragraph is almost illegible without aid from a layer separator program removing Mephit's edits as it is covered in various scratchings and scrawlings of laughter onomatopoeia (haha, hoho, etc) with a paragraph beneath it all.

Oh Dal, how hopeful you can be sometimes. And yet I know you are not reading this edit calling out how hopeful you are. I wonder why that might be? Ah well... end of notes.

Instead of a name, Mephit signs off with what appears to be a symbol of a smiling set of jaws.

[cicadaknight]

Rehashing a pain point with the Horizon franchise…

Why is there no mention of any real tribal nation in the game? No reference at all. The erasure of APOLLO didn’t remove the visions at the Grove, or any of the artifacts Aloy finds in her exploration. You’re telling me it makes narrative sense to have 30 minutes of Dutch artwork analysis and its historical significance, but not a single mention of any indigenous society? There are ZERO datapoints or ruins related to native people throughout the entire world that could have influenced Horizon-era culture?

😒 SIDE EYE 😒 It is that way because the devs made it so. Everything in a narrative is a choice.

[quietwingsinthesky]

oh good lord i do believe that post is gaining notes at an alarming rate

[griseldagimpel]

Killing John Gaius

I’ve seen a lot of posts in The Locked Tomb fandom about how this character will kill John Gaius or that character will kill John Gaius. I’ve even see fans go as far as to say that killing John Gaius is the whole point of the series. Which made me think, who realistically might kill John Gaius? What would that mean, both in terms of in series consequences and thematically? Let’s examine.

To start, killing John Gaius creates (best case) a solar system’s worth of refugees and (worst case) a solar system’s worth of corpses. Thus, killing John Gaius would be a pretty grim action to transpire in the series.

Secondly, we know that the only way killing John Gaius would impede the Empire’s actions is with the solar system’s worth of refugees/corpses mentioned above. John regularly disappears to the Mithraeum for long periods of time, and the Empire continues running just fine. Most of the Cohort is out in space, and we know that there are military bases on the various Shepherd Worlds.

Alright, so who would kill John?

The most obvious answer is Alecto, who stabbed in him at the end of Nona the Ninth. However, it’s been established that John and Alecto’s lives are intertwined. If Alecto kills John, she dies, too. Thus, an ending where Alecto kills John is an ending where the planet earth dies for good. That’s honestly kind of bleak. The series isn’t exactly sunshine and flowers, but the books have tended towards more bittersweet than downer. For example, Gideon the Ninth has Gideon and Harrow reconciling. Nona the Ninth has Nona successfully argue against Varun eating New Rho.

Another possibility is Kiriona. Right now, Kiriona and her dad seemed to be getting along pretty well, with her doing secret missions for him. But, okay, let’s say that something happens that makes her decide to kill him in Alecto the Ninth. That results in an ending where Kiriona kills her own father (making herself an orphan again), which also kills the planet Earth, which also creates a solar system’s full of refugees/corpses. Not only is that bleak - the same as Alecto killing John - but at the end of Nona the Ninth, Kiriona killed Crux (whom she hated) and was distraught to find that revenge didn’t feel good. Thus, Kiriona killing John also runs a strong risk of being thematically inconsistent.

What about Pyrrha? She mentions wanting to shoot John with a Herald bullet, although she had to have known that that wouldn’t kill him. Besides being a bleak ending for all the reasons named above, Pyrrha’s thing is being jaded in disillusioned. She doesn’t seem situated to lead a grand killing effort.

The last possibility is Crown (or another member of the Blood of Eden). Since killing John would kill the solar system that produces necromancers, this would allow the Blood of Eden to complete it’s genocidal aims. Which, okay, I guess that is an ending. Doesn’t strike me as a very satisfying one, though. 

[butchladymaria]

Sorry for ranting but that post really resonated with me,thank you! it aways seemed so weird how everyone was ignoring these themes and focusing only on what they considered badass about the lore. When playing i could clearly see facets of the suffering that afflicts mainly women on each female character,like the old lady who mistakes you for her kid and gives you sedatives to make you forget,implies that "your fathers blood" is to blame when you atack her and remarks that "you were aways the brave one" when the player has no woes to share... it instantly reminded me of stories from older women about what life was like with abusive husbands and sedatives being prescribed freely due to their stress at home with no way out. Adellas negative levels of self esteem due to church brainwashing (that mirrors Adelines) and the presence of the female rivalry that is instilled in many of us,Ariannas entire questline and the questions it makes the player ask themselves in the end, and finally the doll and Marias whole THING,especially if seen through the lens of a lesbian or GNC woman! like how can people be so blind and not realize how womanhood is a core theme here?? I get disagreeing with individual analysis but to outright deny that there is something there is bonkers to me

okay but seriously, all of these insights are SO important!!! the women of bloodborne are so much more complex than people seem to give them credit for. the old woman and adella especially so clearly have biases. but what really gets me is how realistically those are portrayed: tools of the power structure they were born into which serve to separate and isolate each of them in their subjugation.

this got Insanely long… under the cut it goes!

i mean, seriously though. the women of oedon chapel are very different, each from a different marginalized background of their own. in addition to what you described, the old woman lives in central yharnam — which the church has essentially thrown to the dogs. arianna is a so-called “vileblood” who is forced to the margins of society because of that and her (presumed) identity as a sex worker. adella has been groomed within the church (a word which specifically implies a process beginning in childhood) to see herself as nothing but a worthless vessel for “lowly blood”. these women are all subjugated by the church in different ways, and in an ideal world, they would realize they have much more uniting them than they do separating them.

which is exactly why the church has invented scapegoats to prevent that from happening. the church tells the old woman that it isn’t them who has reduced her home to ruin and likely sent her son to die in the hunt; they tell her it’s foreigners and their tainted blood. the church tells adella it isn’t their fault of that she is treated worse than dirt and has no one to turn to when she is abducted and nearly murdered by a branch of the church itself no less; they tell her she deserves it, because she’s only worth how much she can be bled out for others. they tell her it’s the fault of “vileblood” taint turning the world mad, not their own poisoned healing and insane experiments. i mean seriously — the parallel between arianna’s (implied) “vile” blood and adella’s self-described “lowly” blood is not lost on me.

and arianna, who is wholly innocent yet painfully aware of how isolated she is in that chapel, is left to stumble into a sewer and left with nothing but madness and isolation and the wretched thing she birthed when she is raped by a god and forced to bear its child… and based on how we see the upper ward of the church positively crawling with the exact monsters that she was forced to birth, i’m willing to bet that this is exactly what the church wanted.

bloodborne illustrates how prejudice is ultimately used to subjugate and silence all but the upper echelons of the powerful; and how it is the most vulnerable in society who are left to suffer the worst of it, utterly alone and alienated from their would-be allies. it shows how a class of the oppressed can be so purposefully be driven apart, so their oppressors remain unchallenged. it shows how even those like adella who play a crucial role in their grasp on power are still treated like scum. their oppressors enable, orchestrate, and weaponize the pain these women suffer and force them to bear it all alone.

and as for maria & the doll — again, i COMPLETELY agree. lesbianism aside, maria is undeniably, fundamentally gender nonconforming, especially when compared to the other NPC women. the relationship between her and gerhman is something i plan to go more in depth on in a later post — but i will say that i actually see gerhman as more of a paternal/protective figure. that is to say: i think gerhman in the text represents the gender role of men as a protector of women taken to its natural conclusion; not as a role made for service or assistance, but rather for ownership of the woman under protection. he’s an incredibly tragic and twisted man. i want to poke him like bug under microscope etc.

i am so glad my post resonated with you!!! these are honestly the kinds of conversations i want to have with other fans — because they’re so damn INTERESTING to me to pick apart!!!

tl;dr: The Girls Should Unionize.

[ask-thearchivists]

hey. why. why do you do that.

The Coordinator: It is in the guidebook. We cannot not Collect from a planet that has life, but if the mortals are hostile to our presence, fighting us at every step, attempting to harm us, even. It is simply easiest to commence a Cleaning instead of attempting to make peace with a species that will likely not change their minds and allow us to freely Collect, let alone assist us in our mission.

The Coordinator: Us being on our own to Collect is not something we are unfamiliar with, since most planets lack intelligent life that we can enlist; but a continual, aggressive interference would slow us down too much. The longer we take on a planet the more likely it is we will be too late to Collect from another. It has happened on a few occasions that we have discovered a planet that encountered some cataclysm before we arrived, which nearly or completely wiped out all life. We study what we can, but the notes are cursory at best, mostly theoretical, and based on previously encountered species. Not to mention it is only on the most prevalent species that we can quickly find examples of, if we can find any examples at all.

The Coordinator: Though it means less work for me to do, it is truly sad when we are too late. Which is why the cataloguing of a species' behaviors, societies, and everything else is so vital before a Cleaning. It's very unfortunate when it has to happen, but as long as it is written in our books, and the specimens stored in our Archive, they shall be preserved for eternity.

[baticorngirl]

Title: Stares, Gazes, and Peers

Rating: K+/PG Fandom: Batman/DC Relationship(s): Bruce Wayne/Talia al Ghul, Bruce Wayne & Clark Kent, (Minor) Bruce Wayne & Diana Prince, Justice League & Bruce Wayne, General Justice League Friendships, Brief mention of past Bruce Wayne/Diana Prince, Characters: Bruce Wayne, Talia al Ghul, Clark Kent, Diana Prince, Arthur Curry, Barry Allen, J'onn J'onnzz, Oliver Queen, (Minor) Dinah Lance,

Summary:

In an alternate earth where Ra's and Bruce's allyship (as appearing in Batman: Son of the Demon) works out, Bruce is currently at a Justice League meeting. Everything is normal enough, until, of course, he gets invited to their Justice League Valentine's Day Event, or the "Double Double Date" as Clark likes to playfully call it. When speaking about it, Bruce accidentally slips up and mentions being married. Now, his friends (who he'd avoiding this conversation with for so long) are making a huge deal about it, until in the end he has no choice but to give in and attend the Dinner so they can meet Talia and possibly forgive him for keeping the information from them for so long.

Maybe he can get through this without any hiccups or information-spills, he tried to reassure himself before the event. But god was he wrong.

(For @brutalia-week Day 1: Justice League Finds out)

A/N:

12:54 AM on Day 2.... basically still Day 1, right? Timezones exist haha.

In my defense, I had to spend a ton of today just finishing the writing for it (look, I wasn't accounting for it to be this long, okay?) and then I definitely wasn't expecting the editing and summary-writing to take so many hours, either. Anyway, I shouldn't write much here even though I wanna give a ton of unnecessary disclaimers, but I have no time! I would like to mention, though, that it's definitely less thoroughly edited than ideal because of I was trying to get it in before midnight so, sorry for that.

I tried. It's 36k words. I'm overwhelmed. Help. I have no fics for any of the other days because I spent so long on this. I'm screwed in every possible way.

Anyway, enjoy!

-----------------------------------------

Everyone was looking at Bruce.

Not just peering slightly, but outright staring. It couldn't have been more than two minutes since the Justice League meeting started, yet at least ten other members already had their eyes glued to him. Granted, they always seemed to look at him a bit funnier than everyone else. But they were used to those odd behaviors at this point. This time, however, the expressions were not quite weird out— simply puzzled.

Funnily enough, Bruce was quite confident he was acting much, much more 'normal' than he even usually did. He acted like them, almost. When people got side-tracked by anecdotes about their families and whatnot, instead of lecturing on focus during meetings, he kept to himself. They should've been happy.

But instead, they stared. He was just about ready to go straight back to the scolding if they kept this up.

As Bruce huffed at the main lookers, he heard his name loudly called to by a fellow Justice League member, and with almost uncomfortably-perfect posture, his head popped up at the first syllable. His eyes immediately clicked on to the person responsible, watching them give their contrastingly-casual instructions.

Clark vaguely gestured a finger towards him. "Batman over here missed our last meeting, so he's going to be giving slightly longer updates than the rest of us. We also need to make sure that he's caught up, so would anyone like to show him our notes from the meeting he missed after this?"

"Don't worry about it. I'm pretty sure I can find them on my own." Bruce swiftly replied, waving his hand to the side in a declining gesture.

"We know, Bruce. You're not incompetent, you work best alone, you're way too stubborn to let anyone help you…." Barry rolled his eyes. Even if he refrained from speaking it, Bruce could see him mouthing "blah"s to himself. "I hope you realize it actually wouldn't be a problem if you weren't constantly grumpy."

"I'm not grumpy," Bruce stated, "I'm simply, as you said, competent."

"Sure you aren't," Barry rolled his eyes again. Bruce crossed his arms in return, but neglected to answer the petty sarcasm. In the long run, he really didn't care in the slightest how grumpy Barry thought of him. He also didn't care that the rest of the Justice League, with their staring in mind, had likely sided with Barry in their minds.

Regardless, Diana was quick to attempt to cut off the argument before it started. She leapt up from her seat with her arms planted firmly on her hips, and pointed very directly at Bruce, as if waving words right out of him with her fingers. As she made the odd gesture, she spoke quickly.

"Come on, Batman. How are things going with Gotham? It's been a while since we've heard. Have you had any new full villain-takeovers lately? If so, how many and who was the culprit?" She questioned. But her questions were packed together so tightly that even as he opened his mouth to answer, Bruce didn't have a mere second. "If not, has Gotham's crime rate been getting any better?"

Gotham. The city he'd only stopped by once in the last three weeks. Bruce gulped. He could feel stutters itch at his throat, nearly coming out in chaotic little sounds, but he forced them down. What he couldn't control, however, was his face— which was unfortunately turning bright red right in front of his team mates.

"Oh, Gotham's…. Fine." He answered.

"Can you elaborate on that?" Diana's eyebrows furrowed. In fact, several other members gave him just as puzzled looks. She was still standing, and even scooted her chair backwards slightly with the back of her foot. "I asked you a lot of questions, and I don't recall any of them being whether Gotham is 'fine'. I mean, Gotham's obviously not 'fine'. It's never fine. Don't lie to us, Batman. We're not trying to start small talk over here."

It felt as if the staring, which was already very persistent, had gotten a million times worse. As if that weren't bad enough, with each growing moment of silence, everyone's eyes got wider, as well. Returning the uncomfortable eye contact, Bruce glared back at all the wide eyes on his back.

"I'm aware," Bruce nodded along slowly, "You're right, Gotham's not fine, exactly. But, for Gotham, it's doing fairly average. It's…. Not getting that much worse, I believe? As I already said, it's doing fine."

He was frantically trying to think back to his one visit back, even if he was also frantically trying to hide that fact. But with a hundred millions eyes continuing to stare, it was very hard to hide. So, with the feeling of everyone knowing of his fibs, he started to get defensive. His head cocked back and forth in aggravated agitation.

"Are you sure you don't have anything more to add?" Diana asked, still clearly very skeptical of the entire ordeal. "That's still incredibly vague. Especially considering this isn't just for one meeting, but making up for two ones. I'd expect it to be quite detailed…. Well, knowing you, at least."

Bruce nodded again and again to each of her words, "That update was fine."

Slowly, and still extremely uncertain, Diana tugged her chair into place and sat back down on it. Batman breathed a harsh sigh of relief, glancing downward as he did so. He hardly even noticed as they moved to the next person, and he was hardly listening to what that person was saying, either.

The next person was Aquaman, who had quite the endearing story to tell along with his update. It wasn't particularly important. It was quite unimportant, even, but most of them seemed quite captured by his descriptions of it nonetheless. Most of the time, this was yet another thing Bruce would've tried to hurry them through, but right now, he simply let the relief from his last turn wash over his body until he was relaxed. Relaxed for him, at least.

In fact, once he had gone back to listening normally, Bruce's own eyes were just as deeply fixated on Arthur.

"...So then the fish got back to the school it was with before, but the dolphin was still all alone. You'll never guess what happened next, though. We see this kind of little splash in the water, and then there's a bit of a figure in the distance. Except guess what?" Several of their heads bobbed up and down, signaling for him to continue the story. Many were grinning, but none as much as Arthur himself.

Bruce didn't bob his own head around, as he was still figuring out exactly what was going on, but this picture of such a small, sweet baby dolphin was forming in his mind. It was something that they needed to be sophisticated to handle, yet it made Bruce feel a burst of unnecessary warmth. It was a good feeling, he reluctantly admitted to himself, albeit a technically unhelpful one. At least they weren't on any kind of important, life-threatening missions at the moment, so with that in mind, he let the emotional thought stay strong in his mind. Now, as it lingered, he slowly started picturing him and Talia's future baby instead. With this thought getting bigger and bigger in his head, he let a slight smile peak out.

Everyone should've been too focused on the story to notice. Yet, judging by the array of cocked eyebrows, squinting and even shaking heads, they most certainly were not.

Arthur continued his story without so much as a pause, though, "That figure was really, really near dolphin shape. We headed in that direction to check out the scene, and we found another dolphin. This definitely wasn't her mother, but they were communicating quite positively, and as I investigated closer, I pretty quickly discovered that this other dolphin was going way out of his way to help the baby! Isn't that endearing?"

Everyone nodded profusely. Several others were smiling much more obviously than Bruce. He also noticed that, unlike him, nobody was staring at their expression at all. Finally getting rid of the smile, he frowned.

"It really just goes to show why we're doing so much to protect the world from threats. We need to protect not just that innocent baby, but the kind yet less powerful helpers, too. We need to protect that good in the world, if you get what I'm saying." Arthur explained. His smile had faded slightly at the end of his story, but he was certainly still happy. Just perhaps in a quieter, more serious way.

"Oh, exactly," Black Canary agreed. She was on the other side of Aquaman, but had her chair turned to face him fully due to the interesting tale.

"There's so much good in not just dolphins, but mankind, as well. Man's world is flawed, of course it is, but…. Now that I've lived here for so long, I truly understand how much more there is to it than that. How much everyone is so willing to assist, for one." Diana added. She was leaning into the table, as was Dinah, in pure intrigue.

"Definitely," Aquaman nodded, "Anyhow, with the help of that other dolphin, we managed to find another one. I didn't recognize this one either, but with a bit more communication, it turned out this dolphin wasn't her mother, but her father! The point is, they got reunited and I'm quite certain that the baby's doing well now, safe with both her parents."

Bruce still had his own unborn child on his mind, quite strongly. His imagination wasn't making thoughts of dolphins at all at this point, but was simply clustered with thoughts of the cutest baby possible. This baby, just like the story he was hearing, was safely returned to the arms of its loving father— him.

He was smiling about it again. Not just subtly either. This time, the smile was wide, and gradually grew wider by the second.

So wide, in fact, that he hardly even noticed all of those crooked looks popping back on his teammate's faces. At the very least, he certainly didn't care what they thought of it. For, with this smile still showing clearly on the lower half of his face, and his body filled with excitement, he responded to the story.

"That's the sweetest story in existence," he commented. "Has anything else like that happened lately? You should share more of those baby animal stories."

It just came out. Like a wild river, the words uncontrollably gushed from his mouth.

He tried to get their stares away, he tried to get his smile to hide, and he tried to correct himself. Focusing on his face muscles, he pushed the corners of his lips downwards abruptly, but the movement was uncomfortable. Therefore, he blushed. Needless to say, that was not about to help his situation. He pushed himself to the back of his chair, as if hiding from embarrassment.

Which, yet again, did not help.

Instead, he decided to fix it verbally, "—But not during our important meetings. Keep them in mind for one of our annual potlucks, not this. Some of us have more important things than to hear about some random absolutely adorable little baby dolphin successfully finding its way back to its alive, loving parents."

Unfortunately, instead of getting the usual groans and complaints of him being a 'party pooper', everyone just continued staring. Everyone except Arthur who, of course, was looking to the side as he visibly held back laughter. Bruce tried to force out a glare, but it didn't feel nearly as natural as usual.

"Well, that was quite a quick turn of emotions. Glad to see you're not actually going to stop being unreasonably serious from now on, Batman." Arthur stated. He'd managed to keep the laughter in, but just barely. "But not to worry, I'll be sure to tell more stories of babies with 'alive, loving parents' at our next potluck, if that's what you so wish. I have plenty more, not to worry, I'm sure I can entertain you."

"I don't want to hear them," Bruce corrected, "I want you to get them out of you at a place where I can leave whenever I want without missing anything actually important."

"Why are you so defensive?" Plasticman chimed in, "Don't worry about it, Batman. We know you, and we know how much you hate socializing. Just because today you've smiled a few times over things you usually hate doesn't mean we're completely going to think you've changed as a person. We get it, Bats, people go through phases and it doesn't necessarily mean they're being posed by imposters… Unless–" His eyes got larger. Literally.

"Wait, Aquaman. Batman may be acting extremely weird today, but he's got a point. You should think of some more stories like that." Clark interrupted. His chin was held high, as if bouncing from the ground with this sudden remembrance. "We have a pretty long break between our start of dinner and bowling on Saturday, so we'll be definitely doing plenty of talking while we eat, and saving dolphins would definitely be an entertaining conversation."

"Oh, that's a good idea," Arthur nodded back, "I have plenty more of them, you'll be happy to know. In fact, there was this one seahorse the other day that—"

Suddenly, Bruce shot up from his seat and turned to Aquaman. Before another word of his story got out, he loudly shushed him. His hand even swatted towards Arthur's mouth, nearly covering it. Arthur's jaw dropped in surprise, but fortunately, it did work to cut off his story. Many people were visibly judging Bruce. Bothersome enough, though, there was somehow still less staring than at the previous smiling.

"You need to wait. We still have more updates to get through, and don't you think one useless story was enough for today?" he snapped. "Or if you seriously can't wait until….whatever you're doing with Superman on Saturday, just post it in the group chat that I definitely won't read."

If he was going to be completely and utterly honest with himself, Bruce may have wanted to read just a little bit of it. But it did not mean that he didn't want to get out of there, and all the unpleasant staring, as quickly as possible. Back with Talia, where he could at least show a single smile without getting imposter accusations thrown his way.

"I admit you're probably right, Batman. Thank you for catching that for me," Aquaman replied. "I can get excited about my animals, sorry. I'm perfectly capable of waiting until Saturday. Pretty much everyone who's most invested in my stories is already planning on coming, anyway. I'm sure they'll be appreciated then, and I wouldn't want to run out or anything." He smirked slightly at the thought.

"Really?" Bruce scanned over the room, noticing all the many members who were more than ready to spend forever and more hearing a second story of his. He didn't need to count them to be surprised by just the thought. "This is quite the get-together you're having this weekend."

"Clark's the one planning it, not me. But yes," Arthur nodded. "Did no one tell you?"

"Tell me what?" Bruce clarified. His white-covered eye holes slanted as he quickly thought back to any invitations he'd reluctantly received from other league members. Despite having an extraordinary memory (even for unimportant things like these), he couldn't think of a single thing about bowling or dinners this Saturday.

"The double-double-double date," Clark answered. He was smiling as he said the words, but half out of mere nerves at how Batman would react. "It's for Valentine's Day. You know how people go on double dates with their friends and their significant others? That's the idea, except everyone in the entire team who's interested, going on a giant date. It could be even more doubles than that, for all we know."

Bruce instantly shook his head, "That's ridiculous. Assuming you even get that number, it would be a sextuple or octuple date, depending on what you mean by double double."

"That's… really not the point. I actually just call it the group date most of the time. I was just trying to make a kind of joke on it." Clark sighed. The previous excitement in his eyes had quickly drained, and so had his smile. "The point is that we discussed it last meeting, so I guess you weren't told. But you can still definitely come if you want! I'd appreciate it if you let me know by tomorrow evening, though…. So I can plan correctly…"

Bruce slowly and carefully nodded. His vision was pointed at Clark, but aside from that, the focus of his eyes went visibly beyond him, to nothing but a wall. He looked intently at it, but also intently evaded looking at Clark. Wheels were turning in his head. He thought of Talia, again— his significant other, of course. If he were to go, she'd obviously be his date, and the two of them would enjoy the night together.

He had nothing wrong with that.

In fact, it sounded kind of fun. Previous to their marriage, he may have had different feelings, but now that he was getting used to having a loving wife who he really couldn't avoid spending time with even if he tried, it was appealing. The only issue was one thing— they would be together, but this was a double-double-double date, not just a date. It would not only be them. He'd also be spending time with his friends.

He also had nothing wrong with that. On its own, at least.

But mashed together, with his abundance of secrets about Talia and her large kill count in consideration, it sounded much less fun. He most certainly did have something wrong with that. In fact, just the thought of such a horribly awkward situation made him begin to feel dizzy. His focus started to shift from Clark even more, so much that everyone else even began to notice.

"Batman, are you okay?" He heard someone ask, "There isn't anything wrong, is there?"

Bruce blinked rapidly and shuffled his neck around, quickly shaking off the uncomfortable daze. He calmly nodded, as certain in the movement as he could get himself to be, but everyone was still a bit concerned on the matter nonetheless. Silence took over the room for a solid five seconds before another question, this time much more specific and thus more sensitive, came out.

"Oh….Are you upset because… Do you…" Martian Manhunter quickly trailed off. He glanced downward as he spoke, with his voice no higher than a whisper. "Bruce, do you not have a date?" Both the stuttering and the whispering was quickly replaced by a much bolder tone.

Bruce neglected to answer, with his eyes growing wide at the accusing question.

Unsurprisingly, everyone took this much differently than he meant it. The silence nearly took over again, but instead of a complete lack of noise, there was nothing but a few whispered choruses of 'oh's throughout the rest of the room. Dismayed by the response, Bruce's mouth now dropped open— not out of embarrassment, but out of mere surprise and disappointment. Not that the rest of the league knew the difference.

"You are a mind-reader," He stated dryly, "Yet you can't seem to realize that not only I am not upset in the slightest, but even if I were, it would have absolutely nothing to do with my romantic life. I don't mean to be rude, J'onn, but that's a bit pathetic." He rolled his eyes.

"It's…It's alright, Bruce. We're your friends. You can be honest with us." Clark's voice was soft and completely light in tone. He gave Bruce a look that nearly resembled pity at this small –or really non-existent– problem. "In fact, if you're feeling lonely, we can even try to help you find someone! Probably not by Valentine's Day, but we can still—"

Bruce let out a loud, exasperated huff of air, "Clark. I am not looking to cheat."

"Oh," Clark's eyebrows furrowed, considering this answer. "I just… didn't quite realize…. Well, considering your whole reaction, I thought there was… something wrong, as far as that. Something you were upset about." He trailed off, glancing towards a random wall to the left of him nonchalantly.

"My reaction?" Bruce stared, in almost disbelief. His jaw was dropped open as well, making it more than clear to the rest of the league how he felt on this entire matter. "I didn't even have a reaction. You've known me long enough to know that I sincerely do not care whether or not you have some fancy double date."

"I know, but you've been acting very odd today." Clark remarked. He was still glancing at the random wall every few seconds as he spoke, pausing for that time as he got lost in thought. "Between your reaction to Aquaman's story, your short reports, the smiling but also the slight defensiveness…. And then the look you got on your face about the date, looking almost nauseous…. Is everything going alright with you, Bruce?"

Bruce nodded, "I smiled. Last I checked, that's generally considered a good sign."

"Good," Clark nodded in return, signaling an acceptance of the answer. "I just wanted to be sure. Smiling can mean a lot of different things than just happiness, especially when it's uncommon for the person doing it. Joker is one of your villains, after all." He stopped looking at the wall and made direct eye contact with Bruce.

"I understand," Bruce replied, but his tense expression said otherwise. It almost always said otherwise, though, so Clark shrugged it off.

"So… who's the lucky lady?" Oliver asked curiously. He was seated quite far from Bruce –nearly exactly the other side of the table— but he still looked over with great intrigue. His eyebrows were raised, and his eyes were wide as they peered at Bruce. "You're usually so secretive about your love life, asiding from dating other members, so it's hard to guess."

"Oh, it's…" Bruce's head was quick to cock over to look at Green Arrow, but once it got there, his eye contact was much less strong. Like bouncy balls or even race cars, his eyes kept looking at different things around the room to avoid any uncomfortable staring sessions with Oliver. "She's…"

"Go on,"

Bruce took a deep breath, and forced his eyes to align with Oliver's as he answered. He also forcefully held his face muscles in the most default expression he could manage, as well as making sure the rest of his body was still and not twitching with discomfort. Lying to his friends, especially considering some of their powers, was not a fun nor easy task. He had to keep everything he'd learned over the years in check, criminals or not.

"You… You wouldn't know her. No one here would. It doesn't matter."

It didn't seem like it worked.

Bruce was starting to realize he might be a bit out of practice with this whole 'hiding his feelings' thing. Everyone in the room was staring at him for what must have been at least the third time that day. Their sight felt like it was going right through his body, and not just as a matter of X-ray vision, but in a way that pierced through him and all of the secrets hiding in his brain and heart. It wasn't a good feeling, to say the least.

"What was Superman saying about your defensiveness again?" Oliver rolled his eyes, but let out a slight chuckle to himself. "Obviously we don't know her. We would probably know you two were a couple if we knew her. But that doesn't mean you can't at least give us her name…." He pointed out, shrugging. Bruce gulped.

"Do you… usually judge someone by their name?" Bruce quickly countered. Yet his voice was wavery, mostly uncertain with just the slightest tint of forced confidence that everyone in the room could easily detect. "That seems a bit presumptuous of you." Oliver was not the only one rolling his eyes this time.

"I'm sure none of us do… but you could tell us about her personality, too." Diana chimed in. She pushed her arm outward, with her palm up, gesturing the idea towards him.

Bruce side-eyed her, watching closely. His mouth was not just tense anymore, but almost scrunched up; his lips resembled a pout and his eyes were narrowed in a way that wasn't anywhere near as sophisticated as his usual bat-glare. They really were trying to wear him out today, it seemed. Or perhaps Clark was right. Perhaps Bruce was really acting this weird, considering he was usually monotone for almost every sentence through these things, and that certainly wasn't the case anymore.

"She's hard to explain. She's unique like that." Bruce managed to come up with. With his mind still racing, he sucked air in through his mouth and pushed himself upright. His expression faded back to the neutral monotone he'd previously mastered, and fortunately, that did finally seem to help slightly with the huge amount of suspicions and skepticism filling the room.

Still not enough, though. At this point, nothing would be enough.

"Ah, so we need to meet her to understand her?" Martian Manhunter clarified. J'onn had his hands intertwined together formally, and to Bruce's relief, the current tone seemed far from accusing. Simply curious— genuinely.

Bruce swiftly nodded, "She's a great woman, of course. But I wouldn't want to describe her incorrectly…. So I believe it best if we move off this topic and focus on more—"

"Well, that's completely understandable, but the good news is that we won't have to wait long either way." Martian Manhunter cut him off just as swiftly as the nod. He wasn't completely smiling, but seemed happy enough with this idea. Too happy, in Bruce's mind. "After all, won't you two be wanting to go to Clark's giant double date plans?"

"No, we won't." Bruce immediately shook his head profusely.

His eyelids were fluttering wider and wider, just as his pupils seemed to do the exact opposite. Although he wasn't moving much in the first place, this assumption made him stop in every one of his tracks. In fact, he was hardly breathing; even the breaths that did come out were uncomfortably short and harsh, leaving him nearly gasping for air.

"Why?"

"Be— Because…." Bruce stuttered. Although he now realized it was foolish, part of him sincerely expected them to just take no as an answer. He hoped they would just assume he had plans, or that he simply didn't feel like going. His hands were now clenched tightly, and his eyes nearly shut due to his tense emotions, but he kept thinking and thinking until eventually, after what felt like an eternity to him, but merely a couple seconds to the rest of them, he thought of something.

"Tal– I mean, my wife hates bowling."

Silence took over the room. Uncomfortable, awkward silence. Shocked, speechless silence. Breathtaking silence. Painful silence, even.

Bruce let go of his fists. He let go of the harsh breathing, and his tense eyes. It would be considered relaxation, on the surface –or at least, he hoped it did– but it was not. His shoulders and back not only stopped tensing but fully started slouching; in all reality, it was not relaxation, but defeat.

"Your… your wife?" Clark spoke slowly, letting the words that everyone was thinking hang in the air.

"Sorry, I meant girlfriend," Bruce answered as quickly as he possibly could. His brain and tongue scrambled together to come up with the perfect excuse. "I don't know what I was thinking, we're not even that serious yet. It was just… a slip of the tongue, that's all. I'm not marr—"

"I'm… not sure I believe you about that." Clark's words got faster, but only slightly. The deep eye contact he was sharing with Bruce still felt quiet, in its own way. Connected, but perhaps too connected, at least from Bruce's perspective. "Unless you're at least engaged, it seems a bit hard to believe you'd slip up on that. Bruce, please, why didn't you invite any of us to the wedding? I just…. Thought… I thought since we were your friends… and I'm your best friend ..."

Bruce quickly cut off the eye contact. He crossed his arms and peered downward. Each breath had become slow, yet in a way that bothered him even more than the fast ones. His elbows rested on the edge of the clear, glossy table, with the glass feeling cold under his skin. He certainly wasn't sad, but simply very, very exhausted.

Clark paused before he finished, "I was hoping I could've been your best man."

Bruce rolled his eyes, "Clark. Please. I didn't even have a wedding to invite you to."

"Oh," Superman quickly relaxed. His emotions quickly transformed from sad to neutral to annoyed until eventually, all these upset, negative emotions gave way and shifted into mere amusement. His laugh wasn't loud, but it was audible and more than obviously from his mouth with the cheerful expression that suddenly took over his face. "Do you mean that you eloped, or are you still denying that you even have a wife?"

"Neither,"

"Neither?" Clark's amusement grew even more. He let out another small chuckle at the thought. To his dismay, Bruce stayed serious, and silent, as well, leaving the answer where it was. Clark's eyebrows furrowed. "What is that even supposed to mean? Do you have another ridiculous explanation?"

"Well, you see," Bruce began, "There was definitely some kind of wedding. It was a small one, though. Nobody even invited any friends. But I would've at least invited you, Clark, except it also wasn't really my wedding. In fact, I didn't even know I was invited until the last second! I got married at that wedding, though. I just didn't have anything to do with the planning, and considering the entire situation, I didn't even consider it real. It was a joke to me, at most. But I changed my mind later on, and now we're married."

"Wow," Diana stared at him blankly before dramatically rolling her eyes in a mix of sarcasm and simple disbelief. "This all makes so much more sense now that you spoke gibberish for a minute straight."

"No, you don't understand. It wasn't my choice to go to the wedding. As I already said, I have nothing to do with the planning and…" Bruce leaned into the table, throwing his arms up in chaotic motions as if it could possibly help his overcomplicated story make any more sense. "Well really, it was my wedding in the way that it was about my wife and I getting married, but it also wasn't mine because I didn't—"

Eventually, he sighed and let his arms drop.

"Nevermind. We basically just got eloped."

"O…kay," Diana slowly nodded, even though her eyebrows were furrowed in lasting confusion. "How long have you two been dating? This just seems very sudden. I could've sworn you mentioned going through a mild breakup with someone else only maybe five months ago? Your love life is almost never empty –we all know that, Bruce– but getting married? That's a big decision. You can't just get married to anyone who you experience feelings for."

"I've known her for several years now, and we've been dating for a lot of it. Well, loosely dating, at least. We had some kind of romance going on, is what I mean." Bruce explained. He had to take a deep breath every few seconds to keep him from chickening out on telling them. "But the romance was on-off. It was difficult to stay together for so long and honestly, I figured it would never work out. Once things started going the right direction, though, we had no hesitation to get married."

"Oh, that's sweet," Diana replied, "But why haven't we heard anything about her if you loved her so much?"

"While I loved her, there was no hope of it ever working out –until now, I mean– even at the very beginning, so why would I have told you? It didn't make any difference." Bruce stated matter-of-factly. He shrugged. "You don't need to know every detail of my life just because we're friendly to each other."

"I… suppose that makes sense?"

"Sure, but that still doesn't explain why he didn't tell us even once the two of them got engaged. If you've had enough time to get married, then I think you've had enough time to mention the woman of your dreams to us." Oliver pointed out. He was laying back, almost lounging on the back of his chair. Despite this relaxed position, though, he was crossing his arms at Bruce. "How recently did you two even get engaged?"

"We–" Bruce flopped over, letting his neck droop so far that his head nearly touched the table. Slow in each movement, he rubbed his temple. "Look, Green Arrow. I have tried to explain what happened with the wedding once before, and based on everyone's complete lack of comprehension over the completely basic situation, I will not be trying again."

"Alright then, Batman," Oliver shrugged, somehow managing to lean back even farther than he was already. "But don't expect us to forgive us for something you haven't even fully apologized for."

Bruce grimaced, but reluctantly nodded along.

"Perhaps meeting this wife of yours might ease our anger at you," J'onn suggested. His voice didn't get higher in any kind of specific excitement about the idea, but he was smirking enough to make it clear that he was hoping Bruce would agree. "So far, all we know about her is that you love her, and she… hates bowling? This all might make more sense if we got a chance to actually meet her."

"Yes, she hates bowling," Bruce replied in nearly a monotone, with just the slightest hint of irritation. "That's why you're not meeting her. I'm not going to make her do something she hates just so you get a chance to interrogate her."

"That's only one activity. Superman has at least one more scheduled, expecting that for reasons like these, not everyone will go to both. One is still better than none, Bruce." Although still completely calm, J'onn was certainly persistent. "What do you have against it? The other one is simply dancing, I believe. It seems like with all your galas, you should be good enough at that."

"My wife isn't good, though." His voice croaked with a tint of guilt at this lie.

Before J'onn could even open his mouth, Clark himself responded, "If she… really doesn't enjoy dancing either, regardless of skill, I still have the basic dinner scheduled. That, in itself, should be plenty of time to get to know her." He raised a single eyebrow. "Don't tell me she hates eating, too."

"Of course she doesn't hate going out for dinner. You say that as if the rest of what I've been saying are some kind of ridiculous lies, as well." Bruce rolled his eyes not once, but two times to get his point fully across. But to be extra safe, he added, "Which they most certainly are not."

"Oh, so you two can come for the dinner portion? That's great, I'm sure we'll all be looking forward to meeting her. Based on what you've said so far –aside from her hatred of bowling– she sounds like a wonderful woman." Clark gave almost no space between each sentence, even flashing a quick thumbs-up at the end of his full statement just to press the assumptions in place.

"That's not what I said. We… we actually… um, we're meeting someone else for dinner that day. I'm sure she'd love to come, but there's simply no way we could fit it."

"Are you sure that's the truth? You've been speaking a lot of suspicious nonsense today, Batman, so I think you might want to think it over for another second before you leave us with another complete and utter lie." Diana warned, "If you had plans, why didn't you start with that? It's a much easier explanation than this whole 'she hates bowling' excuse."

"It's not a lie," Bruce argued. He'd finally managed to get the hang of his batglare again, which he used strongly on Diana, on top of tightly crossing his arms. "We have plans for dinner, but not the bowling time."

"If that's the truth, who is it you're even getting dinner with? Do we know the person? If not, what relationship do you have with them? Friend, family member, co-worker…" Diana asked. Her eyes were direct and determined in expression. "All I ask is a quick, but decent description."

"I– Errm– Um–" Bruce let out an embarrassing amount of croaking, fumbles, and stutters before he realized that there was nothing they would truly accept as an explanation besides merely an unchangeable kind of stubbornness. "That's not your business. I'm allowed to have my own life outside of the League, and you're just going to need to accept that. I'm not canceling my other plans for this one double-date event."

This stubbornness was unfortunately also met with more stubbornness from the other side. In fact, everyone began to come up with so many arguments and questions that they not only stopped giving Bruce time to answer, but they stopped giving each other chances to talk, either. The words overlapped and interrupted one another, getting louder by the second.

"These excuses are getting embarrassing, Batman. Superman wasn't kidding about your defensive attitude…"

"...know, we'll stop being nosy if you stop being suspicious with every…."

"...just answer the question, Bruce…"

"...guessing you don't even have a wife, or a girlfriend. This is quite the hoax you've come up with. Next thing we know, you'll start saying she lives in Canada and doesn't like to travel, and that's why you can't take…"

"...seems above all this, with all his training in mind. But that just makes this even more suspicious. If this is what he'll slip up on and let us know, who knows what he's focusing his actual energy on keeping secret. It's getting on my nerves to just think about what he might be…"

"...wondering why the two of them didn't work out in the first place, if he loves her so much. It's quite concerning, especially since Bruce seems like he could be prone to…"

"...who is this woman and why does she hate bowling? Who hates bowling? If that really is true, it's a huge red flag about her as a person. I'd assume she's probably going to make Batman's life terrible and then try to keep him from getting a…"

"...could even have some kind of child together that he's keeping secret because it's part vampire, just like his wife…."

"...frankly, I'm really disappointed in you, Bruce…"

"...Bruce has enough issues as it is, he doesn't need any kind of abusive wife in his life, too. I just hope that everything really is as innocent as he claims, and that there isn't anything he's hiding for self-protective reasons, like perhaps…"

"...probably have a quite ugly baby that he wants to keep hidden, too…"

The noise had gotten very, very bad. Bruce's head hurt from all the complicated, sometimes-even-upsetting words coming through his ears, and this headache kept getting worse and worse with every moment more that he let this mess go on. Exhaustion, almost like a large weight, pushed down on his muscles. As if things weren't bad enough, the slightest bit of nausea then started coursing through his stomach. He couldn't take it anymore.

"FINE!" He yelled into the large room. A similarly loud, long echo followed.

Every single train of aloud thought instantly stopped in its tracks. Aside from the dwindling echo, the entire room fell completely and utterly silent in a matter of milliseconds. Everyone looked to Bruce, waiting impatiently for him to elaborate on his sudden, loud, but still undeniably cooperative scream. Their eyes were still, but their bodies were not– some tapped the table anxiously, while others almost vibrated in place (mostly Barry for the last one).

"Perhaps…. Perhaps we can reschedule with the other person and go, just for… part of the dinner, at least. Perhaps we can make it work if it means that much to all of you to meet her." Bruce gave in. His face lacked any kind of emotion at all, with his mouth lips straight and his eyebrows relaxed. "But, that is only if you all promise to quiet down and keep going with the important parts of the meeting, aside from asking me meaningless questions."

He gently shut his eyes, closing off this worrisome world out of his view, but he could still hear the other Justice League members thrilled cheering. His frown, which was already exaggerated beyond belief, deepened even further.

Needless to say, he was not looking forward to that Saturday.

On the way home, as he silently steered the batplane around the skies, he considered how he was going to pull this off. Talia generally acted normal enough, he figured, but she was still not on the same page as him with all the many, many lies he'd told in the last hour, and he would rather avoid having a conversation about those lies, either. He rubbed his chin, considering which would be more awkward– having his lies revealed, or telling Talia just how much he lied to his friends about her. At least his friends were already used to it.

That was only one of his many worries, though, and the most insignificant if anything. Talia hopefully wouldn't speak about her job as an assassin, but even if she was trying to keep it a secret, occupations were quite a common conversation starter, especially when they were only just now meeting her at a very long dinner gathering.

He made another swerve, heading closer to the League of Assassins hideout, until he could nearly see it out of the bottom edge of his window. He began to head downward.

Bruce knew Talia could lie, and most likely quite well, but these were not average civilians. In fact, even though Martian Manhunter was usually quite considerate about privacy concerning the whole mind-reading situation, he could technically rat out any lie in a matter of seconds. In that circumstance, Bruce sincerely doubted Talia knew any of the same mind-blocking techniques that Bruce would use.

A gulp formed in his throat. If only he'd been a little more honest at the beginning about the less important matters, Martian Manhunter would have much less reason to attempt to read Talia's mind. As much as he'd tried to evade everything successfully, all he'd ended up achieving was a worse situation.

At this point, he was almost to the landing area of their hideout, but still very lost in thought. Nonetheless, Bruce carefully maneuvered himself downward and landed.

The more he thought about it, he realized that he should've told them he'd gotten married –eloped, specifically– immediately to make them believe it had been so recent that he simply hadn't had any kind of chance to tell them. That way, everything would've started on good, non-suspicious terms. But it was too late to change anything now, he knew, so his mind trailed off to what times he might be able to teach Talia mind-blocking methods. They still had four days until Saturday, which was time, but not nearly enough to have her master it. If she hadn't mastered it, her attempts could even make it worse, and they had way too much suspicion on them as it was.

Bruce continued rubbing his chin with these bothersome thoughts, even as he exited the plane and strolled right into the door. His feet plotted along heavily, growing more heavy with each and every new concern that popped into his head. The headache from before was still there, and it was getting worse.

But fortunately, when he finally got to his and Talia's room, he forgot nearly all those previous concerns.

This was not because he'd found any kind of solution, though– quite the opposite, as a matter of fact. For, the second his eyes met Talia, he realized those issues, though prevalent, were not nearly as bad as what he was currently looking at. Bruce had been so eager for developments in Talia's pregnancy before that everything seemed to come so slow, so Bruce figured it was still slow. But now, with a different perspective, this was clearly not the case.

Although only three months in, Talia was very, very visibly pregnant.

Bruce put a hand to his forehead, wiping away sweat. This Saturday would not just be awkward with how many secrets would no doubt be revealed to his lovingly-concerned friends, but at this point, he was starting to wonder whether he'd have any friends at all by the end of it. Even Talia might be angry at him. Like some kind of bad cramp, he felt overwhelming pangs of dread push against his heart.

"Hello, Beloved," Talia greeted. Unlike his solemn, deep frown, she was widely grinning.

"H….ello," Bruce slowly replied. He glanced around himself and the rest of the room, clearly distracted. Talia took a few steps toward him and furrowed her eyebrows at his odd behavior. Seeing this, Bruce quickly shrugged. "The Justice League meeting went fine, plenty of other members' cities have been improving. It reminded me, though— I should really be keeping a closer eye on Gotham. It made sense to be taking a break back when we were dealing with Qayin, but the fact that I still haven't moved back after defeating him a few weeks ago isn't doing well for the city's already terrible crime rate, I'm sure."

"Oh yes. Of course…" Talia nodded, but her voice was uncertain, and even slightly timid. She loosely wrapped her arms around herself. "What does that mean for you and my father's allyship? It'll continue regardless, I presume? …But more importantly, what about…. Our… oh, you know what I'm saying here. We're married, and that's why I figured you were still living here."

"We'll figure something out," Bruce answered. He bit his lip, now changing his thought train to figuring out this problem instead. It was easier to think about than the others, at least. "Just on a theoretical level, how do you feel about moving to Gotham yourself? Obviously we're going to continue living together no matter what happens, especially for our future child, but I can't let the city down…"

Talia bit her lip, as well, "I guess I don't exactly have anything against moving to Gotham. It could be nice, but I'm not sure how my father would feel about it."

"...Right," Bruce blinked at the mention of Ra's. He tapped the back of his cheek in some futile attempt to spark more ideas that wouldn't cause such a problem with Talia's work life. "I forgot about your League of Assassins duties for a second there. But I'm sure we can figure out something…"

With both still biting their lips and tapping different body parts to stir more thoughts, the room fell silent. Both were undeniably anxious about every word, and thus, the words ceased. Bruce was much more anxious overall than Talia, though, still almost shaky from the whole situation with the Justice League's group date, and the growing necessity to inform Talia of that situation.

Even through the silence, Bruce opened his mouth a few times and clicked his tongue. He'd sincerely tried to get the words to come out, but they were difficult, to say the least.

Eventually, he managed at least part of it, "Talia. To be completely frank with you, not everything at the Justice League went well. Or even decent. Some of it was quite bad, as a matter of fact, and quite worrisome, and…." he trailed off.

"And?" Talia looked up from her thoughts, a concerning expression on her face.

"Well… Look… See, they were starting to—" Bruce stumbled over each and every one of his words, until eventually he sighed. With this breath, the situation came spilling out. "Talia, we have a problem. I forgot to tell them we were getting married, and I ended up accidentally mentioning it, so now they're suspicious of why they weren't informed sooner. In fact, they're doubting whether I even have a wife or partner at all. Basically, they wouldn't leave me alone about it, especially since one of the members has some kind of… double-date event scheduled for this weekend, on Valentine's Day. They wanted me –and more importantly, you– to come."

Her eyes opened wide at the abrupt information. "Well….other than the fact that your friends are most likely going to be berating me with suspicious questions, that sounds…. pleasant enough? Where would we be going for dinner?" She asked. Lingering unevenness from their previous topic still held in her voice, on top of the extra worry of this new information.

"I don't even know," He frowned. Pivoting on his heel, he hurried out of the room to find his communicators.

Talia waited patiently and silently as Bruce got the communicator. Her eyes were still wide open, staring at the door in front of her. Near her hips, she started to tap her fingers in some quiet attempt to pass the time. During this entire period, her eyes stared at the door, and they continued to even as he walked in.

Once he'd sprinted back through the wide, fancy, grand doorway, he was quick to answer.

"Some place in Star City. They're doing this to make it easier for Green Arrow, apparently, since the rest of them have super powers to aid their arrival," he informed her of this information calmly, but then rolled his eyes and got frustrated in tone. "But of course, since they forgot to tell me until now, they made the decision before we were even part of it, and then they forced us to go, too…. Ugh."

"At least we have planes. Does Green Arrow even have planes? I don't know a ton about him, but I've never exactly heard of an 'Arrow Wing'." Talia pointed out in response.

"I… don't think he does," Bruce admitted, but he quickly rolled his eyes again. "In fact, I've been telling him constantly, over and over again, that he really needs to get one if he wants to be a helpful member of the Justice League. But every time, he rejects it! I probably shouldn't be telling you this, for his identity's sake, but he's just as much of a billionaire as I am, so there's no excuse there."

"But we already have them. It's fine, Beloved. I don't think either of us have anything planned that day. We'll have plenty of time to fly over and fly back." Talia shrugged. She paused for a second, before narrowing her eyes. "But next time, you should really consult me beforehand. I could've had something, for all you knew."

"I know!" he sighed. "I didn't have a choice, I'm sorry."

Talia nodded, "Well, either way, we'll make the most of it. I am… ashamed to admit I don't have a ton of friends of my own, courtesy of my… constricting life-style as a League of Assassins member. It might be nice to at least become friendly with yours." A small smile flashed onto her face.

"I… guess so," Bruce nodded, but his eyes directly stared at his floor. His pupils seemed to almost waver in place, completely unsure in every regard.

Talia, on the other hand, was staring at him. She observed his entire expression and position— his forced composure, mixed with his undeniable uncertainty and clear anxiety. The more he thought and dreamt about what might happen when they arrived at the dinner, the more it made him dizzy. For the second time that day, he completely lost focus and fumbled backwards.

"Are you alright?" Talia grabbed his arm, helping him stabilize himself. Her jaw was wide open, as were her bright eyes.

"Yes, yes. I'm… fine. Only a bit overwhelmed, at most. I simply got a bit too lost in thought and lost track of what was going on around me, including… standing, I suppose." He glanced around himself, quickly grounding not just his body, but his mind, as well. His eyes blinked, over and over again, until he was fully back into his conscience. "Anyhow, I should let them know that we really will be coming, for certain…"

"Well, you have the communicator right there," Talia nodded and jolted her head towards Bruce, specifically towards his hands, which grasped his walkie-talkie firmly. Her mouth now resembled an eerily straight line, but her eyes were dilated with eagerness. "Go ahead, Beloved."

Bruce lifted his arm upwards, bringing his communicator up to his chest simultaneously. His eyes didn't close or blink in the slightest as he did this movement, staying right on the bright blue object. The overall focus of his expression made it look, from Talia's perspective, like he was trying to initiate some kind of deep staring contest with his communicator. The staring contest lasted long, too— bothersomely long. His arm was steady, but very, very slow.

It eventually got up there nonetheless. But only for his finger, right next to the on button, to take even longer.

Talia's head leaned towards it again, desperately urging him to get over this worthless behavior and simply let his friends know, so they could inevitably move on with their lives. She tapped her foot against the wood floors, getting more and more impatient. After another couple seconds, she couldn't help but roll her eyes.

At the same time, Bruce's mouth popped open, "...Unless you might have some kind of good, solid excuse we can use instead."

Talia let out a loud, impatient, exasperated, and even outright aggravated breath, edging between a loose huff and a very harsh sigh.

"Didn't you already try that when you were there?" she pointed out. "At this point, at least, I'm guessing they're not exactly about to accept excuses, no matter how well-made and plausible they are. Besides, frankly, I don't see what's so bad about spending a few hours with them. As I already said, it sounds pleasant enough."

"Of course you would think that," Bruce muttered to himself, low enough to hope she wouldn't hear. He clenched his hands around the communicator even tighter, nearly into a fist-like shape. "You're not the ones who has any friends at stake here. Especially not any important ones, who you need to keep to save the worl–"

"What was that?" Talia raised any eyebrow, making it more than clear she'd heard.

With this remark resting deeply in his ears, and more importantly, his mind, Bruce felt his face turn bright red in sudden embarrassment. His body froze otherwise, with even his eyes not daring to shift from position. But slowly, in some attempt to ease the embarrassment, he put his finger back on top of the ON button.

"Oh, erm…. Nothing, Talia. You're right, they're most certainly not going to take any more excuses. I should just speak to them right now and let them know."

Talia nodded, but even as she went back to her previous impatient urges, Bruce still hadn't moved an inch, or even so much as a centimeter. There he was, hesitating and avoiding the situation yet again. From Talia's perspective, it hurt to watch so much that she shut her eyes tightly in annoyance. The lack of pressure from her staring did the opposite of hurrying him along, though.

"Hmmmm. We're sure there isn't some way I can explain everything I said earlier, on top of a current excuse, right?" he considered, still clearing stalling. "Something they'd believe?"

With her eyes now closed even tighter, squeezing so much they ached, Talia firmly nodded. She pulled her arms into a frustrated cross over her chest— which did no more than make Bruce's face fade into a bright blush again. Eventually, as she could still hear absolutely no movement on Bruce's part, she opened her eyes again.

"Go ahead, Beloved," Talia spoke in a less than friendly tone. Bruce nodded.

But then he went back to staring, and staring, and staring. It was getting a bit ridiculous, as he fumbled around with the communicator, in some quite futile attempt to make it seem like he simply hadn't good grip and thus had no choice but to stall as he got it back in position. Talia sighed, over and over again at each of these attempts.

"If you can't do it, give it to me. They wanted to meet me, no? Well, if I speak for you, that's simply a head start." she suggested. Her arm was extended out in front of her, a mere few inches away from stealing it right out of his hands. "Come on. No point in stalling even longer, Beloved."

"Oh?" Bruce's eyes finally looked up from their nearly unbreakable gaze. He blinked at her, as if the chance in focus somehow startled him. "Well…. Doesn't it seem like they might benefit from a surprise? As long as they'll be meeting you anyhow, I don't see any reason it needs to happen sooner… Spoilers do nothing but disappoint people, of course…."

"I would agree with you," Talia commented dryly, "but it's pretty obvious that it's either coming out of my mouth, or not at all."

Bruce's face somehow managed to turn even more red this time, almost the shade of a tomato. For a moment, his fingers shook in place.

"I was just about to, if you'd given me a second longer to come up with my exact wording, Talia." He explained, still visibly nervous even as he tried so incredibly hard to act completely calm. "But if you insist on being the one to inform them, I really couldn't care less. Here you go. Just press the big red button when you're saying something, and stop holding it when finished."

He slowly reached over and placed it in the middle of Talia's palm.

Within a millisecond of getting it into her hands, she'd already pressed the button and started talking. "Hello, this is Batman's wife. I'm contacting his league to let you know that he told me about the whole double-date event, and it sounds very fun. We'll be coming along, not just because of your insistence, but out of our desires…."

Bruce gulped at her words, "Don't… don't overplay it, Talia. Then they might think we'll be coming to all the events, and… Well, even aside from the general displeasures of that scenario, I already got an imposter accusation today. I'd rather not get another."

She paused, suddenly pulling the communicator away from her mouth to fully look at him. "You've changed lately, though. They should be able to understand that."

"Except they won't! At least not this suddenly, anyways…. And I have absolutely no issues keeping up my previous behaviors. In fact, it's probably for the best." Bruce countered. His eyebrows were tense and stern. "We have plenty of other things we could attend, especially considering my alias as Bruce Wayne… not that you should probably show up for those, either…"

"You're overthinking this," she insisted, upturning her chin in a slightly stubborn manner. "Just let me finish."

They heard some staticky, but undeniably positive responses from the other team members, many of which joyfully commenting on an eagerness to meet this new wife of his. It made Bruce's stomach twist into a strict, uncomfortable knot. But he held back those emotions and simply kept quiet as Talia responded.

"That's very nice of you all. Thank you for the invitation, and I'm sure we'll all have a great time. That is all, Goodbye."

As that topic's chatter quickly died down, she swiftly handed the communicator back to Bruce. He grasped it back again quickly and tightly. The second it was resting between his fingers, was the same second in which he spun around and tried to hurry out of the room, in hopes of getting it put back in its place before he forgot. But as his side of his foot nearly brushed against the door frame, he felt a hand grab his arm.

Talia nudged him back over to her. She placed her hands on both sides of his neck, with her fingers reaching back around his ears in a firm but gentle manner. Her thumbs, which titled the opposite of the rest of her fingers, softly massaged his lower cheeks. She held him there with this hold, in utter silence, for several seconds before she spoke.

"Listen to me, Beloved," Talia whispered. She pulled him closer, leaving his lips less than a millimeter from her own. "You need to take a deep breath. You need to remember that these are your friends, not any kind of enemies with invisible traps laid in front of you. Just relax, please. It's going to be fun."

Then, with her comforting words still hanging in the air, she kissed him.

"You don't know what happened there, Talia…." Once her lips were off of his, he instantly shook his head. Bruce's eyes softened slightly, but only out of more worry, certainly not a lack of thereof. He'd hardly even noticed her physical attempts to sooth him. "Trust me, I have many reasons to be concerned on how this will end."

"To be fair, I'm quite confident you, out of all people, could find reason anywhere if you put your mind to it." Talia went back to massaging his cheeks. Her eyes were wide, peering into his in a way that almost made him uncomfortable. "As I already said, you need to relax. Stressing won't help either way."

"If I can use my stress to come up with a solution, it will, actually," Bruce pointed out.

Talia was quick to open her mouth, nearly beginning to argue back, but Bruce was even quicker. He spun right back around, smooth on the ball of his foot, and jogged out the door. Talia's arms reached out —or more accurately, were already extended in his direction, which she continued— but he ignored her. In fact, Bruce didn't even do so much as glance backwards before he'd completely left the room, and likewise, abandoned Talia.

Now alone with nothing but her frustrated thoughts, she sighed.

Until Saturday, neither of them spoke of the double-date again. From Talia's perspective, this evasion was due to a constant desire to keep Bruce from stressing out over it again. But unsurprisingly, he was still stressing over it plenty— only managing to do a better job being silent about it than before. He was still avoiding the verbal topic altogether himself, though, out of some kind of attempt to at least forget about it part of the time.

That morning, on the other hand, the double-date was the only thing they would speak of at all. At lunch, Bruce simply would not shut up about what they would do for certain questions, or suspicions, or just any kind of bizarre situation that he'd worried into existence. Talia listened along, half humoring him, and half genuinely starting to join him in worry. Spending an hour listening to a frantic man's ramblings wasn't calming, to say the least.

"Beloved, please," she reasoned. Her hand reached over to touch his, in some futile attempt to provide him with some mild physical comfort. "Don't you think your friends grabbing me and locking me up in order to spend hours reading my mind in order to find out all our secrets is a bit… unlikely?"

Bruce sighed, "...You're right, they wouldn't do that."

He sat still, staring down into the reflective center of his plate, as he thought more potentially detrimental situations over. The white dish was smeared in green vegetable juice, as well as the slightest bit of red meat residue, but aside from that, he could see his own face clearly enough inside it. It distorted Bruce's features, of course, but one thing was obvious— he looked very, very pale from the lost sleep of the night before.

Talia was sitting slightly less still, a few feet away; her hands gently tapped her fork to her dish every few seconds in a slow-but-nervous kind of fidget. On the glamorously large table, Ra's' spot was usually on the other end as Bruce, so she always took a spot not too far from the middle of the sides, but still leaning significantly closer to the latter. It was just the two of them at the moment, though.

"Unless…" Bruce's head suddenly popped back up, losing sight of the plate. His voice was loud and almost excited, echoing around the large dining room. "Unless there was some mind-control involved. They did seem like they were a little bit off last meeting, now that I think about it… Perhaps I shouldn't be so quick to assume that they were just–"

"Are you sure? Or are you just searching for things wrong or suspicious again?" Talia asked. She side-eyed him, with one eyebrow raised in subtle amusement. "This is not the first time we've ever met. I know you, and I know the way you act about these things. I've said it a million times just today I'm sure, but you need to relax."

"Relaxation never did anyone any good when their lives were in potential danger," he stated matter-of-factly. "You need to work hard, get to the bottom of it, and defeat the threat at hand, not just 'relax'."

"Except we're not in danger," Talia's head already hung low, but it was getting lower by the second.

"You don't know that for sure," Bruce countered, sticking his finger into the air with his point. His eyebrows furrowed, still lost in thought (or worry, specifically) about that evening. "As I already said, there's a good chance we're dealing with mind-controlled super-powered heroes, which is extremely dangerous, on the contrary."

"That is a theory… and one that you only came up with when specifically searching for the worst possible outcome, may I add." At this point, her head wasn't just drooping, but had fully dropped onto her hand in a momentary facepalm. "By that logic, we're always 'in danger' to you. You'd have to spend your entire life worrying! Constantly!" She picked her head back up to look him in the eyes as she exclaimed the last couple sentences.

"Exactly," he nodded confidently, with his arms crossed in an almost smug gesture. "I thought you said you knew me. If you knew me, you'd know that ever since I was 8-years-old and my parents were gunned down in an alleyway, I have spent my entire life worrying… constantly."

Talia stared at him in response, but slowly nodded, "I… can't even argue."

He stared back at her after this, until eventually, it became nothing but awkward. The silence was even worse, though, as Bruce's worrying kept him stuck in his head, and Talia's exhaustion from his overwhelming worrying kept her from bothering to open her mouth another time. Until, of course, she did. This time, her voice was in nothing but an almost meek kind of whisper.

"I…. suppose I just kind of thought you were feeling better about that now. Between our marriage, you and my father's allyship, and of course, our precious baby on the way, I figured maybe you were beginning to feel…. Happier." Talia admitted. Her shoulders were tense and shrugged upward in an uncomfortably strict way. "In my mind, that included less worry."

As these quiet, almost depressing words filled Bruce's mind enough to even start pushing out his previous worries, he reached over and grabbed hold of her hand.

"I was feeling happier, I promise," he stated. A small smile began to peak out from the corners of his lips, quickly contrasting the previous mess of emotions. Simultaneously, he gently squeezed her hand. "And overall, I still am. This thing with my friends has just… gotten me in a bad state, I guess. Once I fully make up with them, I'll be happy again."

Talia began to smile back at him, "Good, because this has been giving me a headache."

With the mention of her experiencing any kind of pain at all, Bruce's jaw dropped wide open. He got up from his chair, nearly flinging it backwards with his speed, and rushed over to Talia's direct side. He looked over her, inspecting every little red spot or mild bruise, especially near her head and face. But even as he did this, Bruce continued holding her hand, although admittedly, the action had become more of an attempt at comforting her or soothing her out of her headache than just a general affection.

"I'm so sorry!" he exclaimed. There was clear worry in his voice, with it low and wavery, nearly sounding like he was about to cry. The worry was quickly escalating into full on panic as he gently touched her forehead, hoping to not feel any kind of fever. "I didn't mean to make you stressed with all my fretting. I was just trying to sort it out for myself… I'm so, so sorry. Are you alright? Is the baby alright? I didn't hurt it, did I? Or you?"

His hand now quickly changed to touching her belly, yet again hoping to not feel anything wrong.

Talia stared at him blankly, "You're doing it again."

"What?" Bruce didn't even bother to look up from his fretful little inspection as he said the word, clearly already much too occupied to listen to her exasperated, but truly more and more accurate complaints.

"Worrying so much that you give me a headache," she swiftly specified, "Or, since I already had one, this change of worries certainly doesn't change the fact that it's getting progressively worse with each of your ridiculous questions." Her smile had disappeared just as quickly as his, replaced with a very annoyed expression directed at the top of Bruce's rapidly-moving head.

"I'm— I'm sorry…" he fumbled with his words. With every last second of Talia not answering those 'ridiculous questions,' he was losing his cool even more. "But please, is the baby okay? I promise I'll stop soon, but if the baby feels even the tiniest bit wrong, we should get you rushed to a doctor, and then get—"

"Beloved," Talia facepalmed again, "As soon as you stop freaking out, both the baby and I will be completely and utterly fine. It's just one mild headache. Please calm down– if not for the headache, then for the bare bones of my sanity."

His overprotectiveness had gotten to the point that he was no longer holding her hand or gently touching her belly. He'd determined those small actions completely futile against this growing, although completely imaginationary, sickness that was in the process of destroying every organ inside her body. Instead, he was outright hugging her; he held her against him in a way that was half endearing, and half just plain overdone.

"But don't you think, just to be safe, the doctor should know about this? You never know what a headache could mean," Bruce insisted. He used his hold on her to start to nudge her out of her chair to do just that. "The head is a very important part of the body! What if you have a brain tumor? Not only would that quite possibly mean the baby was doomed, but if we don't get it diagnosed, you could be, too!"

"As the one with a medical license here…" Talia stated firmly, "No."

"Why?" he argued. The hugging was getting tighter and tighter, making it more than clear just how genuinely scared he was from these made-up worries. "Is there some reason it could do the opposite of helping? Oh no… has your doctor been hurting you? Is she secretly a sadist who uses her patiences as test for her mad scientist–"

"I need you to listen to yourself for a moment, Beloved," she said, reaching her arm around Bruce's to pat him on the back.

"I need you to listen to yourself, too, Talia!" Bruce frantically exclaimed. Fortunately, he loosened his grip slightly, but only so he was far enough away to push her face over to look at him, directly in the eyes. "If you or the baby gets hurt, well…. I don't know what I'd do with myself. I don't think I could live with myself knowing I let that happen, frankly."

"I know…." Talia let out a loud sigh, but a mere second later, let a smile drift onto her face. For the third time, they joined hands, after she slowly shifted her own hand back to the top of his. "And that's really, really, sweet of you. But it's also unnecessary, and way too much. We already talked about this around a month ago, remember?"

Bruce squeezed her hand again, tight in ways that gave Talia the urge to squirm away, but he eventually nodded. "I know. I'm sorry."

"Thank you," Talia squeezed back, although a much more reasonable amount. "As much as I love you, I can handle both myself and the baby I'm carrying on my own, and your overprotective behaviors often create more problems than solutions."

Bruce cocked his chin up and down in a small, but accepting nod.

"Why don't we get up either way, though?" he suggested. This time, he refrained from anything other than lending out a single one of his hands to help escort her up from her seat. "We've —or really, I should say I've— spent so long talking over the dinner tonight that we have less than three hours left until it starts."

Talia kept quiet, but showed clear agreement by instantly taking his hand and waltzing out by his side. Her face continued displaying a complete and full smile, seeing as Bruce had managed to not come up with any more reasons to ruin it. The couple strolled back up to their bedroom, where they had more discussions about it, but fortunately more relaxed ones, and ones that did get side-tracked to more pleasant topics plenty. These only lasted just over an hour, though, before they got up once again.

"Oh," Bruce glanced at the clock on the wall. It had a lavender rim, matching the room's general pastel aesthetic. He popped up from the light yellow chair he'd been sitting in, and quickly hopped a few feet towards the door. "With time for the plane ride, we should be going soon. The Bat-Plane may be fast, but Star City is pretty far."

While he was still in the middle of making this remark, Talia got up from her own seat. She did the action slower than him, but still at a decent pace. By the time he'd finished explaining, she was standing right next to him in front of the door. Now, Bruce opened the door, only to take a step to the side while using his foot to prop it open. He gestured Talia forward with a soft smile, which she returned.

He did the same thing with the next door, and the next one. Talia was starting to wonder whether this was another protective situation; perhaps he really thought the door would hurt the baby, with the way he'd been acting lately.

But it didn't exactly matter, and either way, they eventually found themselves both standing in front of his plane, still with time to waste. For the millionth time, Bruce hurried up to the door and swung it open. It was a bit more awkward this time, considering it was a plane door and not just a house one, but through every discouraged grunt, he stubbornly persevered. It would've been much easier for him to just let her do it normally, but it seemed there was no end to his old-fashioned chivalry.

Nonetheless, once it was time for them to start flying, everything was situated and ready.

They took off into the sky, leaving a big black blur in their trail. It was a boring, mostly silent plane ride, with Bruce busy driving as well as just much too lost in his anxious thoughts to speak, and Talia simply not feeling like starting a conversation at the moment. It went quickly, though. As it would turn out, dreading something did very little to make the time beforehand last longer. But what did last long, however, was Bruce's slow, hesitant steps into the restaurant.

He was still quick to open the door for Talia, though. He couldn't possibly let her be forced to do it herself, no matter how nervous he was. Then, behind her, he carefully tip-toed inside.

A few of his fellow Justice League members had already arrived and were currently sitting on a bench, patiently waiting for the rest. Many had their eyes softly drifting downward, but all of them popped back up at the sight of another member's arrival. Yet, as this happened, their eyes opened wide not in excitement, but in astonishment. In the same moment, shock took over his own face.

There had definitely been some miscommunication– he knew that much.

In front of him, the fellow Justice League members he was staring at were not in their uniforms at all; they were unmasked, normally clothed, and in Superman's case, had the secret identity glasses on. Batman, on the other hand, was very much not normally clothed, or unmasked. He looked so very wrong compared to them, and everyone was staring at him very, very peculiarly.

With this revelation, he ran out of the restaurant as quickly as his feet would carry him, grabbing Talia and pulling her alongside.

"I apologize, this is the wrong place!" He loudly remarked, looking much more at the host and other guests than the partner he'd realistically be speaking to. Talia was squinting, completely unaware of what he was trying to achieve or say with this, considering someone of her profession could more than tell it was performative. Nonetheless, Bruce continued, "We should go find the right place!"

Once they were outside, he took her over to the side and spoke to her in a swift, hushed whisper. His hands grasped both of her arms tightly, holding her in place right in front of him. In fact, as much as he tried to refrain from it, he slightly shook her in his panic.

"Did you see them? They weren't wearing suits! Just normal civilian clothes!" he stressed, glancing downward to his own unfitting, elaborate costume. It was bad enough to be wearing it at all, but the fact that he'd already entered, too, made him worry for his own secret identity when he would inevitably have to re-enter dressed like Bruce Wayne. "I… I don't even know whether I have any change of clothes with me…"

"Why didn't you ask them about that before? With all due respect, that seems like quite the thing to assume, Beloved…." Talia was looking right at his Bat costume as well, with her eyes wide.

"I know," Bruce's head leaned slightly to the side, but even more drastically, leaned directly downward in regret. Only a second later, though, he started to make his way back to the batplane at a swift sprinting pace. He continued looking and speaking to Talia as he did so, raising his voice to let the words travel. "I was just so focused on making sure things didn't go wrong with you that I forgot other things could go wrong, as well!"

"Well, I must say," she commented sarcastically, subtly rolling her eyes. "If this was secretly your elaborate plan of an excuse to get out of going, then it's certainly an impressive one, albeit quite amoral. They saw it themselves, after all."

"It's not, I promise. I may not be the… most honest person in the world, but that's just plainly too much, even for me." Bruce's eyes opened wide at even the suggestion of such a secretive, complex plan all to avoid this one dinner gathering. He may be stressed, and maybe a little bit desperate to keep his marriage to an assassin from destroying all his friendships, but not that desperate.

"Fine, fine," Talia sighed. "Just go search for the change of clothes, and if we don't have it, well… we'll deal with it then."

Bruce nodded, but the second he was done, twirled his head back around and ran off. His feet took the swift sprinting pace back up, and he was certainly quick as he jumped from one foot to the other, and then to the first one again. Even though the Bat-plane was in a hidden spot, fairly far away from the restaurant, he'd arrived at it in no time.

But when he was on his way, his mind was, of course, bustling with thoughts, worries, connections, and most of all, solutions. Talia had a point– if they really couldn't find a change of clothes, it would be the perfect excuse, as well as completely truthful. With this thought, nearly all his previous worries were quickly diminishing. No questions, all proof, and even with a slight bonus of them already having seen Talia, which may help them be more patient as far as her appearance to future gatherings. In the meantime, perhaps he could even sort out more plans.

The more he thought about it, the more he realized that this was not the panic-worthy mess he'd originally thought, but rather, a glorious opportunity. To procrastinate, that was, but an opportunity nonetheless.

At this point, he was standing in front of the Bat-plane, hesitating to take even a single step forward. If he had the outfit, his opportunity was gone. On a technical level, he could always lie to everyone else that it hadn't been there, but at this point, he'd told enough lies that his guilty complex would certainly benefit from avoiding that. Besides, as he'd said before, it was simply another level of trickery than the white lies he'd sputtered out at the meeting; it wasn't something he was going to get into, for the moral element if nothing else. Hence, he really, really wished it could be nothing more than the truth.

With his hopes getting higher and higher, the prospect of this opportunity disappearing was starting to make him outright nervous. Bruce gulped.

He still forced himself to find out soon enough, though, as his hands quickly fiddled around with the luggage compartment door until it was wide open. Now, with that previous nervousness and reluctance sucked up in a big, loud breath, he threw his hands into the trunk and began to search through all his many kits and pieces of gear for the dreaded outfit. Eventually, to his dismay, his fingers felt the gentle texture of a cotton shirt. Just underneath, was the texture of a slightly stiffer type of fabric in the form of pants.

Bruce groaned, but pulled it out.

Now, the only thing getting in between his complete lack of an excuse was a private place to change into this outfit. This was a populated city, after all, not some kind of hiding-spot-ridden forest. Even a public bathroom would be difficult, seeing as his secret identity was such delicate information.

But, at the end of the day, having to change secretly like this was a dilemma he faced daily, if not hourly. Normally, he might try to have one piece of clothing underneath the other, for easiness purposes, but seeing as sometimes that wasn't an option anyway, he'd still had more than enough experiences to know that this wasn't going to end up being a valid excuse. Not towards the Justice League, and certainly not to himself.

Around twenty minutes later, he was standing in front of Talia, in civilian clothes and with his perfect excuse completely out of the realm of possibility. Yet again, he was quietly groaning to himself about it, but Talia, on the other hand, was quite pleased that things had worked themselves out. She held a small smile on her face –although one that was barely even visible– and, as if contrasting him, was nearly relaxed in posture. Not hunching, but not straight-spined, either.

Talia quickly took Bruce's hand, and together, they entered for the second time. By now, they were definitely late, which Bruce felt his hand clench at the thought of. Even if he did have a valid excuse for that, it bothered him to think that they might believe it was a purposeful delay in their meeting of Talia for even a brief second. For what must've been the millionth time that day, a gulp coursed through his itchy throat.

Nonetheless, once they found their way to the Justice League's table, he was quick to greet his friends, "Hello, Clark. Hello, Diana. Hello, Oliver, and Barry, and ..." Unfortunately, he was also quick to give up on greeting every single one, with his worrying having resulted in a slight fatigue.

"Hello, Bruce. Come sit next to me, we saved you and your wife spots." Clark greeted him back, instantly pointing to a couple chairs near him and Diana's. He patted the one closest to him with a quite eager kind of firmness. "We've been waiting for you, but Arthur already told the rest of us of your little… issue before, so it's fine. I'm the one that should've clarified."

Bruce slowly sat down, as did Talia.

Everyone's eyes were on her— despite there being less people than at the Justice League meeting, the staring on her was even more prominent now than the staring on him had been back there. Each eyeball looked like a marble, swelled and dilated with undying interest in every single word or movement or hers, which at that point, had been nearly none. They didn't even know her name or anything.

"Hello," Talia finally spoke. The eyes, already so captivated, widened with the greeting. With this movement, she was clearly starting to notice their overwhelming stares. Her eyebrows were furrowed, extremely unnerved by this strong behavior. She quickly turned to Bruce. "Beloved, can you introduce me to all your friends? I'm afraid it's difficult to speak to them when I don't know any of their names."

"Of course," Bruce nodded without hesitation, but was just as unnerved by their stares as she was. His eyes were wide and antsy, flickering open and closed just as quickly as they bounced around, changing what they were looking at constantly. "This is Clark. He's my…. My, eerm, closest…. Well, in basic terms, I generally spend the most time with him here. That's Arthur, Oliver, Barry, Dinah…Oh, and that's not to be confused with Diana, who's right over there and near Clark in the time I spend with her, and…"

Talia leaned her ear towards Bruce, listening carefully to every single one of the names. He leaned his mouth closer, as well, in a way that made their actions resemble a kind of distanced whispering, except with a completely normal speaking-level despite it. The restaurant was loud, bustling with activity at every corner, so it did well to make sure no names were misheard.

Once he'd finished, Talia nodded in return, "Thank you. It's nice to meet you all. Bruce has told me about, erm… some of you, so it's… nice to put a face to the name."

Bruce watched her say these words with his eyes now frozen in place. Deep inside the tissues of his chest, he could hear his heart beating faster and faster with each word, for seemingly no reason at all. But Bruce was certain that, with seemingly no warning, Talia could say something that ruined all his friendships in a matter of seconds. It wasn't her fault. It was his, truly, but it didn't mean he wasn't feeling a slight level of distrust in her at this moment.

This unfortunately continued for nearly every single sentence of hers throughout the conversation. Even a few words could destroy his friendships, too, if it was bad enough.

Fortunately for him, most of the conversations began with nothing but mere small talk, speaking of the weather in Star City, and what food they were thinking of ordering. Tones as dry as Bruce's thought, entwined in words and phrases as bland and meaningless as the glasses of water in front of them. Despite being an introvert, in this anxious situation, Bruce found himself comforted by these discussions; with every new relaxed, bland word, his body relaxed more. His heart almost calmed down for a second.

But they only lasted so long. They were anxious to learn more about Talia, of course— almost as anxious as he was about them doing so. Thus, his relaxation lasted about three calm minutes before his relaxing heartbeat suddenly sky-rocketed. Someone, from the other side of the table, asked her a question.

"Hey, um… you, over there. I don't think you ever told us your name."

An outstretched finger directly pointing to her was stuck up in the middle of the table, unwavering in its stance. Barry was the one holding it, looking at Talia in a way that was nothing but light-hearted. He was smiling in genuine curiosity. Bruce certainly didn't notice, though. Although merely a meaningless question in the grand scheme of things, it made his stomach knot up.

"Talia," she answered nonchalantly.

"Hello, Talia," A chorus of un-coordinated greetings filled the air, building off one another in a growingly loud volume. Nonetheless, these voices were accompanied by harmless grins and timid waves, all of which cleared out in a quick matter of time anyways. Talia smiled back, completely content with everything, as a matter of fact.

Then, just as Bruce was blowing out a gigantic, frantic gust of air in some attempt to collect his cool, they returned to the small talk. Now that she herself was here, Bruce found they were much more reserved– an observation that he was more than pleased by. No offensively overwhelming interrogations at all. He took another deep breath, this time succeeding in partially calming himself. Perhaps they truly would get through the evening without any catastrophe.

But, yet again, it was only a few minutes before there was another question about Talia hanging in the still air. Fortunately, it was also another fairly easy-to-answer one, with little to no secrets hiding in the shadowy details.

"Bruce. Talia," Diana abruptly cocked her head towards their direction, calling out their names to get them to lock eyes with her. "How did you two even meet? I've heard it was a while ago, but none of us know almost any of the details about how you two got… here. Married. I believe I'm probably not the only one who's a bit curious how you two originally found each other."

Before Talia could even open her mouth, Bruce answered for them, "Several years back, I was tracking down a criminal in another country, and I got knocked out and captured. When I awoke, Talia was in the same cell as me. She had apparently been abducted by the criminal as well, and was being held hostage at the time, so through a variety of fights, I saved her."

"I… I helped too," she frowned, crossing his arms in mild but obvious annoyance. "It was a team effort if I remember correctly, Beloved. You make me out like a damsel in distress."

Now, as he could feel these words and the implications held within them, was the moment when his heart truly went out of control. His chest, controlled by a rapid diaphragm, went up and down, up and down in a pattern so fast it hardly appeared to have any kind rhythm at all. On its own, they could know she was an excellent fighter, but they could not know the answers to the questions that would come alongside that knowledge.

Regardless, he let himself nod slightly, "Of course, Talia. You were very resourceful, which was certainly helpful to our escape. I apologize for minimizing that effort, considering you are completely and utterly right. The help you gave was extraordinarily impressive for an amateur such as yourself."

"Amateur?" Talia's jaw dropped in pure shock, clearly offended by the statement. "Amateur?"

"Yes. Compared to all the complex training I've had, at least," he forced himself to continue. Each blunt lie made his stomach twist tighter into its aching knot, but not nearly as much as Talia's own body winced at the words. It made her angry– clenching her fists, gritting her teeth– to an extent that left her almost fuming.

It made Bruce wince at his own words, in return, "You're, erm…. You're still excellent…You just–"

Talia whipped her body around, and in the same speedy movement, put a single finger to Bruce's lips. Although on a logical level, he knew she'd never dare do a thing to hurt him, Bruce had to admit the expression on her lips was certainly intimidating. It was a scowl, deepening with every seething breath.

"Sssh," she whispered in a purposefully raspy tone, eyes narrowed. "I shall show you, whether you like it or not, just how professional I am if you don't care to believe me. But I think we both know how that would end, so I would hush if I were you, Beloved… Although this'd be in sparring of course, so I wouldn't hurt you physically, please… Spare your ego."

Bruce's eyes did the opposite of hers, widening and raising in position. The pupils inside seemed to compress as well, thinning into just a small, oval-shaped dot right in the middle of his iris. Simultaneously, he pulled his neck backwards in a slightly cowardly manner, with his entire body shifted to face further away from her. Needless to say, her response was a little startling, especially when he was already filled with nerves.

But, only a second later, he pulled back against his original instincts; his neck straightened, eyes relaxed, and his body returned to the previous default. In fact, he now leaned into her, instead.

Bruce's body continued coming closer, until eventually, his hands softly cupped around her ear. A frantic, swift whisper tumbled from his mouth, with his lips nearly touching her ear the entire time. Gradually, his hands pulled even closer together in their cupping. Despite Talia not even trying to pull away, he held her head in place.

"They shouldn't— You can't—" Bruce stuttered, until eventually he sighed, letting that breath flow uncomfortably close to the inside of her ear. "We need to talk. Privately."

Without a single movement from her mouth or lips, Talia nodded to this request. She finally let her face loose its menacing expression, partially from a mere lay of tiredness of having to hold it up so long, but also partially from a slight assumption that her Beloved surely had to have some kind of explanation for this nonsense. He'd gotten protective of her due to the pregnancy, of course, but beside that, he knew full-well of her outstanding capabilities– or so she hoped, at least.

Thus, she followed him out and over to the bathroom.

"Beloved, what was that?" Talia questioned. Just because her scowl had dropped, did not mean she wasn't still very, very angry and endlessly offended. "I'm as professional as it gets, frankly."

"I know," Bruce nodded over and over and over again, as if it might make her forgive him for the entirety of his condescending and outright dishonest words. He grabbed her hand, squeezing it in a desperate attempt to soothe her anger. "I'm so, so sorry. You're completely right, and you can beat me in sparring as much as you want later for this…. Or, you can just beat me up because I'm obviously not about to lay a hand on a pregnant woman, but–"

Talia pulled her hand away from his, only to rest it on his mouth in a shushing gesture, "I know you wouldn't, and I understand why, but in this situation… you're not helping yourself by saying so, Beloved. Please." Bruce continued nodding, somehow getting even more extreme with them, to which Talia lowered her hand.

"I'm sorry," he was now bobbing his chin nearly high enough to point to the ceiling. "The point is, you can do whatever you wish to prove yourself a better fighter later, but right now, you need to pretend to be an amateur. I know that your dignity is at stake here, but there's a lot more than that on the table if you don't. You do realize what could happen if they find out you're an assassin, right?"

"Oh," Talia's eyes widened for a moment, but then shifted focus to the calming pattern of the bathroom floors. The white and grey tiles presented a blank canvas around her feet— the complete opposite of what he mind had become as she thought over Bruce's words. He had a point, as much as the self-righteous, hard-working martial artist and swordsman inside her hated to even consider it.

Bruce placed his hand loosely on the left side of her shoulder, "They… could arrest you. Especially if all they understood was your assassin career, not your specific morals."

She was still deeply frowning. Small pieces of evidence of her previous harsh scowl remained visible, but to Bruce's delight, at this point, her frown had mostly transformed from angry to disappointed and even mere thoughtful. He patted her shoulder a couple more times before she nudged his grip off and finally replied. Unlike before, her voice was completely and utterly calm.

"We all only do what we must then, I suppose," she shrugged. Her hand swiftly took Bruce's and the two went back to holding hands, with Talia securely twisting his fingers around her own. "Come along, Beloved."

Bruce sighed, "Thank you for understanding."

She nodded, and they exited the bathroom hand-in-reluctantly-loving-hand. It looked picture perfect (or so Bruce hoped) to the Justice League, relentlessly affectionate and gloriously, undeniably normal. The first was completely true, of course, even if they currently weren't in the best mood with each other, but the latter was the real struggle. All the recent staring had made him self-conscious of it, which only made him nervous and fidgety in ways that were yet again not normal.

At the current moment, that was exactly what he was doing; itching at his arms, twirling his fingers, and tugging at the cuffs of his shirt.

Meanwhile, Talia had forced even the slightest bit of resentment from the earlier condescending remarks to disappear like they'd never existed in the first place. To emphasize it even more, she made her smile bright, displaying her teeth like trophies in the flickering artificial light. It made the corners of her lips feel sore, ever so slightly, but that certainly didn't stop her.

"I'm sorry. I believe there was just some… miscommunication," she explained cheerfully, saying the words with minimal hesitation. Bruce appeared to have forgotten that when she was trying, Talia wasn't exactly a bad liar.

"Yes," he instantly agreed with her. Smiling wouldn't work on him, though, so he kept blank to hold up his grumpy reputation. "Talia and I talked, and we've still come to the consensus that she is still an amateur, but not to worry— a very, very good amateur at that, of course. She's just not, you know…" He held back from finishing the sentence in such a public environment.

Talia's smile was starting to fade with the unfounded statements, but nonetheless, she forced her chin into a tense, unnatural nod.

"O….kay," Diana slowly processed the vague conclusions and the suspicious journey to get to them. It was more than clear how skeptical it made her, with one eyebrow raised significantly higher than the other one. "That's… good. That you two are finally agreeing about her skill level now."

In unison, both of them nodded. From each of their peripheral vision, they eyed each other, not in a way of glaring, but in the complete opposite. They looked to each other unsurely, as if signaling for some kind of psychic communication to discuss and answer those large, overbearing uncertainties pondering both of their minds. But this staring was quickly interrupted by another Justice League member's quick, curious question– to which they searched for a quick, curious answer for.

"If she's not a… well, you know, then what is it that she does? Even if she's a civilian, like it sounds like she is, then surely she must have some kind of job. What do you do for a living, Talia?" was the question. It came from the left of them, spouting out of Clark's frowning mouth.

"Oh, I…." Talia stuttered. It was the same dilemma as before, it became clear. Talia could not get arrested, and so, could most definitely not afford to give even a mildly truthful answer. It was imagination against the passing time at this point.

Bruce also had wheels turning in his head, just in case he could interrupt and answer for her— not only out of practicality, but to swipe the stress off of her and their unborn child as quickly as possible. Underneath the table, where no one could see or judge, he tapped his fingers together in a thoughtful gesture. Speaking of their unborn child, he was also just waiting for them to bring her visibly-dilated belly up, although hoping they could possibly be too polite for those accusations. Not that he was counting on it, at all. The wheels in his brain turned just as fast with possible answers to that situation.

Eventually, he came up with something, "She's a… doctor. She works at Gotham General Hospital most of the time, but sometimes also works with just simple out-clinics." It wasn't a complete lie, after all, but simple and easy enough for them to fully believe.

Unfortunately for him, even though a perfectly good answer in and of itself, Talia just so happened to come up with something at the exact same time. Their mouths both opened and spoke at the same time right down to the nanosecond, copying over one another's words in a manner that was not just confusing from the overlapping, but from the contradicting answers, as well. Everyone at the table's eyebrows immediately rose.

"I work as an animal-trainer and scientist at an animal rescue research-zoo combo center, sometimes also working as a martial arts teacher in my free time. That's why I thought myself to be at least somewhat professional, even if as my Beloved explained, I don't specifically have the experience of using my martial arts skills in… that kind of way." Talia had said.

"Okay," Clark looked from Bruce to Talia, back and forth. Slowly, he found himself nodding to both of their statements. "I take it that Talia, here, works part-time at a zoo, part-time as a doctor, and also part-time as a martial arts teacher…" From the uncertainty in his words, though, he clearly did not believe a word that came out of his mouth.

Bruce and Talia, on the other hand, both nodded with forced confidence. Talia pushed her previous large grin back on to her face. Neither action seemed to help in the slightest, though, with Clark still giving them a puzzled look in return.

"Great Scott, your life must be unimaginably hectic and busy! I'm sincerely surprised you had time to come visit us. Or even get married, for that matter."

Talia continued nodding, "It is. But I happened to have a break just at this right time, just like the fates wanted this to all work out. It's really wonderful to think about it– the fact that it all just wildly happened to work out. I'm incredibly happy it did, though. This has already been wonderful." The smile kept growing until the soreness came back.

"Good," Clark let out a smile, too, and luckily, his skepticism was beginning to fade.

Their food arrived after only a moment longer, breaking up any lingering awkwardness. Everyone was quickly swept up in trying the dishes, completely focused on that instead of bothering to question Talia and Bruce's ridiculous answers or ask them another difficult-to-answer question. Talia was quick to relax due to this, focusing her own attention to the food, as well. Bruce, on the other hand, with his general nature, was not.

"Mmmm," Talia slid the spoon into her mouth, instantly pleased. Bruce did so, as well, but was silent in reaction. The food was good, but not good enough to force him to express any kind of joy in this solemn, constantly-worrisome moment. Nonetheless, tons of the other people were repeating Talia's delighted sounds and exclamations, leaving Bruce alone in his frown, but as per usual, they hardly noticed the stark contrast at all.

For a good few minutes, everyone simply kept slurping up their food with great-but-bland excitement. These kinds of things made Bruce roll his eyes, which he was not about to hold back, but either way, they were a distraction. That, on the other hand, helped him relax, if only slightly. Eventually, they even made it back to the small talk, giving him even more time to relax. Overall, he got nearly a full fifteen minutes of a mix of small talk and simply unrelated discussion and topics before anything else nerve-wrecking happened.

But when it happened, it certainly happened significantly.

Yet, the discussion started off just as normally and dully as any of the other ones, if not more. The server had come around, asking if any of them wished to have a little something to drink— one member, most likely Clark, had generously bought the group a bottle of wine to share, and thus, it was being offered around to each and every person at the table.

That included Talia. Normally, it would mean nothing at all. Normally, she'd say yes most likely, or even if she said no, it still wouldn't have meant anything, either. But, as Bruce peered down at her belly nervously, he knew this would not be that time. It wasn't about her being an assassin, of course, but that did not mean it couldn't possibly destroy his friendships in a matter of seconds.

Unsurprisingly, when the server swiveled his head around to look directly at Talia in an offering gesture, she shook her head immediately. Then, just as unsurprisingly, her eyes glanced downward, vaguely close to where the baby's womb sat within her. A joyful, soft expression took over her face as she spoke her yet again expected, delicate answer— and from Bruce's perspective, quite a painful one.

"No thank you," she said. Her words were not loud, but they were certainly not quiet, either; everyone in remotely close vicinity could hear every single revealing, shocking word, even through the quite calm tone. "I'm pregnant."

Bruce buried his head in his hands, feeling not just his face, but his entire body become hot and bright red in overwhelming embarrassment.

Talia shifted herself to face him in response to the large movement, but her gaze was nothing compared to everyone else's speechlessly surprised stares at her, and even more boldly, the swelled belly below her. Her hands were softly wrapped around it protectively, quickly noticing the looks. Her own expression was starting to turn just as embarrassed as Bruce's, although not as extreme movement-wise.

"You're…. Pregnant?" At least four different people asked at the exact same time. Clark was definitely one of them, as was Diana, but Bruce was far too upset to even bother sorting out the other speakers.

Talia kept her eyes and head downward in a self-conscious manner, but slowly and uncertainly nodded. Every few seconds, she glanced upwards, though, just to give Bruce a frustrated, confused, and even slightly angry expression. He evaded looking back, though, already able to sense those strong, piercing emotions on the back of his neck. Even when he started forcing his body to pull itself up from the hunch, he kept his eyes from shifting to that dreaded corner.

"Privacy," Bruce spoke the word as if it was new and fresh to the listeners' ears, but in a condescending way, as if it was still old as any other to his own. His previous forced confidence was quickly flooding back into every element of his position. "I, as do the rest of you, and even more than that, Talia, deserve privacy. Friends, best friends, or even family are all well and good, but no matter who you are, privacy is a, erm… constitutional right."

Clark shook his head nonetheless, "That doesn't mean we're not allowed to be a little hurt that, on top of the whole getting married situation, you also didn't mention a single thing about how you're expecting a little baby. Even after we expressed our feelings about the first thing! It's not that– I mean– Bruce, my friend, please–"

There he was, getting emotional again. Bruce's eyes softened for a second, only to later become annoyed. He rolled them.

"Talia's the one that's pregnant." Bruce explained, sighing in a purposefully loud volume. He leaned into the table to look at Clark more directly, forcing them to make an eye contact so strong that both of them felt silently uncomfortable. "She doesn't know any of you. It would be rude of me to give out her health information without consent, after all."

"Then," Diana pointed out calmly, "Ask her for that consent."

"That would be rude, too." Bruce replied, quickly crossing his arms. He held his chin high in a way that was growing less and less confident and more and more stuck-up, with his frown also growing more and more into a pout. "She still doesn't know you. Why should she let strangers know of her intricate health information? And you want me to pressure her, too? Shameful."

A very similarly exasperated expression took over nearly every single person's face, other than Bruce's, including Talia's own. Bruce kept his own the same, pretending to not notice or care, but inside, he timidly gulped.

"That's a very unfair way of describing the very insignificant thing we're asking. We're not strangers to you, and you trust us, even if she doesn't necessarily." Diana reasoned, gesturing around with her palms facing the ceiling openly. "It's not like we're asking to know the details, either. We'd just be interested to know –Clark and I specifically, not even the less familiar members of course– when you're having giant, life-altering events in your life. Like, say, getting married… or having a baby…"

Talia sighed, "Beloved. I literally wouldn't have had a single issue with you telling them if you'd just, as they suggested, asked."

Meanwhile, the server was still there, standing right in front of Talia, watching the entire conversation go down awkwardly. His body was completely frozen in place, too unsure to make another move or go, but also too unsure to try to continue what his job from before. His arm was starting to get exhausted from holding up the order writing-pad and bottle of wine for so long. With this getting worse and worse, he eventually came up with the courage to interrupt.

"Hi, um…. I'm sorry, but could I possibly ask you whether you'd like any wine?" He was looking at J'onn now, who nonverbally signaled a gentle rejection of the offer.

Despite the fact that on a technical level, Bruce had been next, it seemed that was a person the waiter was purposely avoiding. This just made Bruce more annoyed, while also much, much more self-conscious. He finally took a deep breath and let the overdone confidence and stubbornness slip into neutral expressions, although still not loosening his body position otherwise.

"F…ine," he let out with that slow, calming breath. "I'm sorry."

Fortunately, this seemed to work well enough to calm the other member's nerves and frustrations, as well as Talia's. Their expressions softened slightly, as did their crisply tense muscles and clenched fists. They still weren't happy at all, but they were beginning to forgive and forget, it seemed.

Thus, he forced his mouth to continue, "If it means that much to you all, and if I'm upsetting you so much, I guess I can… try to get a little better about communicating and sharing important moments in my life." But suddenly, he started to pout again, changing the tone in a second. "Only you two, though. Not the entire league. I still need some boundaries and privacy, after all."

Clark nodded, "Thanks for at least making an effort now, Bruce."

Then, the cheerful, comfortingly bland tone took back up. Even if the lack of information was certainly an annoyance to Clark and Diana, beneath, they were overjoyed to hear that Bruce was going to have a baby. In fact, everyone there was quick and content with their 'congratulations'. Overall, everything was quite happy again. Everyone was happy again, specifically.

Including the waiter. He was finally able to comfortably ask the rest of the group, including Bruce, and swiftly move on to his next table.

"When's the due date?" Oliver asked, with his eyebrows raised curiously. He looked very directly at Talia, eyes locked with hers as he spoke the small, casual question. "Or, what month will it probably be in, if you don't know or don't want to give the specifics yet. Or even if that is too much for Bruce privacy-crazy Wayne, do you have any name ideas?"

Talia answered quickly but calmly, "The baby is going to be born around July or possibly late June, depending on how early or late the baby decides to start fighting its way out. But personally, I haven't given much of a thought to baby names yet. We still have plenty of time to decide at this point, of course. I'm only, I believe now around…. Four months in? We definitely have time."

"I've been thinking about it," Bruce stated the second she finished. "Even if we haven't really discussed it yet, I have plenty of ideas, Talia…. Or, well, I have one for male and one for female. Good ones, though. In fact, you don't really need to bother thinking it over yourself, Talia, because I'm sure we'll both agree to these." His tone was nearly monotonous through every word and sentence, but well-dictated nonetheless.

"What… are they?" Talia tilted her body in his direction, looking towards him in half curiosity, and half mild confusion. She waited patiently for his answer, which he hesitated no more than a second before saying.

"Martha," he answered, still in a strong monotone, "or Thomas."

"Oh," Talia's eyes widened at the quite familiar names, which he already talked about constantly without them even needing to have a baby named such things. She considered the concept of them, biting her lip as she did so. Her necklace, which strung low on her neck, felt cold against her fingers as she fiddled around with it aimlessly.

"Of course," Oliver mumbled from the other side of the table. His eyes widened slightly as well, although not nearly to the same extent as Talia's did. Clark and Diana's eyes did the same as his, while everyone at the table processed the obvious meaning behind those names— the very depressing, but also undeniably endearing, meaning.

As this was happening Talia slowly gave Bruce her hand. She gently slid it underneath his, wrapping her fingers around the middle of his palm. Then, she began to squeeze it; her grip was secure, and very heavy, but careful to still leave his hand enough space to rest comfortably. At this point, everyone had nearly completely forgotten about his previous actions and secret-keeping, replacing any annoyed expressions with looks of pure sympathy. Pity, Bruce worried some were.

"Beloved, I….Well…. that's a good idea. Those are good names," Talia reassured, squeezing his hand another time, but a kind of heistance was still more than clear. "We should probably look into more names than just that, though, of course. We can… think about it more, over these next few months. Maybe look through some baby names, to see one that has a good meaning, or a good ring to it. Something the baby will enjoy carrying with them. Which… your parents names could already serve as, of course, if that's… well…" Talia had begun to stutter.

"Hmmm?" Bruce quietly hummed a questioning sound.

"Oh, nothing. They're perfectly good names, and they mean a lot to you, and that's… sweet." Talia shrugged, "But I just think that, perhaps, once we get home we should talk about whether or not that's maybe… too much. For you." For the third time, her grip on his hand strictly tightened.

"What do you mean?" Bruce asked, finally opening his mouth again to verbally express his questioning emotions. He considered pulling his hand away from hers dramatically, but eventually found it pointless to do so, seeing as she still hadn't even answered. "That's not too much. Nothing with the memory of my wonderful parents could be 'too much'."

"Of course not," Talia smiled and nodded, only to then shake her head, "But this is… our baby's permanent name. Forever. That you'll be calling them. Forever."

Now was the moment that Bruce went through with his original idea of dramatically pulling his hand away. He crossed his arms and tucked it between them firmly, away from where Talia could reach or grab or futilely attempt to comfort. Despite this, though, he stayed fairly calm in tone when he replied. A little annoyed, sure, but still calm enough to not spark any concerns on Talia's side.

"No, they're the perfect names and there's no question about it. I don't know what you're thinking anymore, Talia. What could you possibly have against it?"

"Beloved, I…." she stuttered, feeling itches creep at the back of her neck. Talia now went straight back to fiddling around with her smooth, cold necklace pendants. "I just think that maybe dedicating your entire life to two people is maybe…. Enough? Forever? Even if they're your parents? It's not that the names are out of the—"

"Um, excuse me," Bruce interrupted. He somehow crossed his arms even tighter, huffing at her as he did so. "But my parents' names are literally the best names in the world. Did you even hear me? Thomas? Martha? Aren't they just beautiful? Don't they just fit our beautiful perfect endlessly happy future baby perfectly? As I already said before, Talia, you must be out of your mind if you think otherwise. Have you been feeling okay?" His expression quickly transformed into genuine worry with this last question. He not only let her take his hand again, but nudged her over to do so.

"Yes, I've… been feeling very good lately, actually. Very minimal morning sickness."

"Hmm," Bruce considered. His eyebrows instantly furrowed severely, and in the same motion, he leaned towards her protectively. "Could that be a bad sign somehow? Isn't a certain degree of those side effects normal and expected? I don't know about this. It really seems like maybe—"

"As the one with the medical license here," she repeated from their previous conversation. "No."

But fortunately for Bruce, that firm statement was quickly accompanied by a developing smile on Talia's face. As if she didn't quite think it was funny, and certainly not enough to laugh, but amusing enough to give her a light-hearted smile. Seeing this, Bruce started to feel it rub off on him; a developing smile was creeping onto his own face, as well, although much slower and more reserved than Talia's. Instead of continuing to argue, he planted a small kiss on her right cheek.

"Sorry. I need to stop worrying so much about it, I know. I just don't want anything bad happening to you… or the baby… you know that," he whispered. It was a loud whisper, granted, but still low enough to keep anyone too far away from processing any of his words. "But I'm working on it. I promise, and… well, it's probably best that I wait to convince you to officially go with Martha and Thomas until we're home, in better privacy.

"Of course," she replied happily, and his exaggerated confidence only made her amusement grow. Thus, her smile widened, and likewise, so did her husband's. They looked into each other's eyes lovingly, with their hands still firmly locked together in affection. It was a wonderfully positive, light-hearted sight, with all evidence of the previous argument disappearing.

Unfortunately, just like at the Justice League meeting, Bruce's smile was met with many less than content looks from his teammates.

Regardless, they went on with the dinner as usual. The topic quickly steered away from Talia and her relationship with Bruce now that they'd begun to get to know her, and instead, Arthur finally got to share his fish stories. Talia was a little confused, to say the least, but she kept quiet despite the many questions about how and why he was communicating with fish pondering her mind

Eventually, they also strayed from that topic, and the topic after that. Everyone had a good time, and a quite talkative time, but even more importantly than that, Bruce was starting to relax again. He'd gotten over the worst of it with Talia, it seemed. His friends had forgiven him. With every breath, this knowledge got lodged deeper and deeper into his brain, letting them get slower and smoother through his lungs. His guard was starting to fall, as well, if only a little. Then, he started to genuinely enjoy himself just the slightest bit. Not much, but even a slight bit was a surprise in this situation.

Until another lie came up, that was. Then, his breathing outright stopped, and his heart rate got faster and faster with every single one of the doomed words. It was casual, though. Bothersomely casual.

"Wow, time flies when you're having fun, right?" Clark peered through his dark brown-rimmed glasses at his watch, strapped on the end of his left wrist. "It's almost time for the bowling already. I guess we should probably start working on our last bites of dessert and get a move on. We don't want to run out of time there. It only stays open so long after dinner time, after all."

Talia's reaction, though discrete, was certainly there. She opened her mouth to speak, of course, but then opened it even wider than necessary to display a bit of surprise. Her eyes fluttered wide, as well, only to then squint in mild confusion. Bruce was staring at her this entire time, noticing every one of these quiet movements, and his own expression mimicked it. In fact, it was possibly even more surprised than hers.

"Oh," she commented. Her tone did not sound upset, fortunately, but Bruce found his body shaky from even the first word regardless. "I didn't realize there was anything other than this dinner. That's all Bruce mentioned. But, I suppose we didn't talk about it too much, so I can't really blame him for the lack of a warning. Besides, going bowling doesn't sound like a bad thing…"

For a moment, she considered these words. Her eyes squinted even more.

"Actually, I don't think I've ever been bowling," she admitted. Her pupils drifted to the side of her eyes, spontaneously peering to a wall. "It should be an interesting enough experience."

On its own, that reaction was fine, Bruce knew. Better than expected, if anything. But now it was the Justice League, especially Clark, who had to react to these statements— the ones that he had very bluntly, explicitly contradicted only a few days earlier. Needless to say, their expressions resembled more than just confusion. Any suppressed lingering frustration from the other secrets revealed earlier that conversation was spilling back out like an over-filled drink, filling the room with a kind of thick tension.

Clark's eyebrows furrowed, "Bruce."

It was said loudly and firmly, as if a signal of attention, yet even before it, Bruce had already had his eyes silently locked on Clark's. It carried much more than a call, of course, especially as their eye contact stayed so strong. Bruce kept rolling his eyes, over and over again, to distract Clark. Nonetheless, Clark's eyes narrowed in deep frustration, not at all taken back.

"Hmph," was the only verbal answer it seemed Clark would get from Bruce, and even it was barely audible above the restaurant's bustling noise.

After a few more seconds, Clark repeated himself, this time even louder, "Bruce. I think we both, as well as everyone else sitting at this table, know what's going on here. Especially you, actually. I think, probably, that's why you're rolling your eyes right now. You know what I'm talking about." Then, he leaned slightly closer to his friend. "You know exactly what I'm talking about."

"Alright, fine," Bruce grumbled. It was still barely audible, but at least fuller than his previous nonsensical noises. "Maybe, just maybe, I exaggerated the situation between Talia and bowling. She doesn't… actively dislike bowling, but she also doesn't like it, of course. Hardly a lie, if you ask me."

"That's… because I've never actually tried it… Beloved," Talia intersected. She crossed her arms, though very loosely– too tired to be overly firm with these constant frustrations. "I haven't exactly been given the chance to like it or dislike it, have I?"

"I… suppose if you try to look at it in a way that is biased against me, you could argue such a thing. If you thought about it too hard," he said, still grumbly in tone.

"I am saying this as the person you were… erm, fibbing about. What you said wasn't true. I wouldn't ever say that I disliked bowling, just that I had absolutely no experience… Which I've also never even told you. We've never talked about bowling with each other in our lives!" She exclaimed, letting her voice quickly rise in volume. "That was just a lie… to get out of going to this in the first place, I assume."

Abruptly, Bruce grabbed her hand out of its crossing, and held it tightly. So tightly, in fact, that it was obviously out of very little affection and more out of the mere desire to hold, in general. With his other hand, he reached behind one of Talia's ears. Simultaneously, he quickly leaned over mouth-first to whisper several rapidly-spoken, frantic sentences into the middle of her ear.

"Talia, Love, can you calm down and stop treating this like it was morally incorrect of me to do? I understand you have to make yourself seem as least suspicious as possible, but the way you're talking is only going to encourage their suspicions on me." he asked. "I obviously had no choice but to tell them those lies, considering at the time, the goal was for none of this to happen."

"But I want to go bowling," she complained in return, "and you're taking away this opportunity." They'd switched roles now, with her gently cupping her hands around his ear and talking into it, instead.

"That is not worth making me out to be worse than I am, Talia." His already-stark frown was deepening by every millisecond. "To put together a proper lie, especially when you're doing it with a companion like in this scenario, it's absolutely vital that you encourage them to think as lowly of everyone involved's suspicion as possible. What you're doing here is taking away from our entire plan, as well as making the–"

"I was… also genuinely upset with you, Beloved."

"Why?" One of Bruce's eyebrows immediately stuck up in a mix of confusion and a slightly offended expression. They were still holding hands, so he decided to discreetly pull his own hand away, if only a couple centimeters. "I was just trying to help keep everything at peace here, and that would generally mean desperately avoiding confrontations at all costs. Do you want them finding out that you're one of the FBI's most wanted, or not?"

"I'm actually not very high on the list," she corrected. The switching was getting a little bizarre now, with their swiftly-swiveling heads and necks, as well as the rapidly-dropping arms and uncurling fingers. It was getting tiring, as well, but still certainly not tiring enough for them to suddenly stop. Thus, Talia curled her fingers over his outer ear even more. "My father simply is, and I suppose I could be considered guilty by association."

"That's not very fair," Bruce quickly changed the conversation– a conscious, purposeful choice of his, even. Talking about his little whites lies was certainly not a very pleasant conversation for him, and this was definitely a good way to avoid it (just like he'd very unsuccessfully avoided this whole dinner). "You didn't choose to be his daughter, after all."

"Well, from the FBI's perspective, even if I didn't choose my blood relation to such a criminal, I did 'choose to work for him'." Talia explained, "But even that, considering what a young age I started working for him, and just the… general situation, is arguably still untrue."

"Plenty of people choose to work for him. Thousands, I'm guessing." Bruce pointed out, still persistent in both changing the topic, and genuinely defending Talia against the law enforcement's extreme views. "But you, I'm sure, are singled out merely for that blood relation. The majority of his other employee's have no-doubt committed worse, or at least more frequent, crimes than you have."

Clark, Diana, and the rest of the Justice League members surrounding them had already been suspicious enough from the lying, and to Bruce's dismay, him and Talia's constant whispering was doing very little to help the matter at hand. Although much too invested in the conversation to notice too many of them, Bruce was getting tons of increasingly-upset expressions from his teammates.

They continued anyway.

Talia nodded, "It's my power in the League, I'm guessing. I may have less blood on my hands than many of them, but I also know a lot more intricate details about my father and his plans than they would." Bruce nodded, but still didn't have them switch again, so she continued. "Knowledge is power, of course, regarding both my status and the FBI's own abilities. If they were to capture me, like they want to so badly, they could possibly wreck the entire organization– provided that they somehow managed to get me to crack and spill the information they would need. And, they can of course justify this under the premise that 'murder is murder' even if the amount and type of victims vary."

Bruce kept listening and listening, until she eventually temporarily ran out of thoughts on the topic and naturally came to a bit of a pause. Now, he ceased in his own nodding, and turned to face her. His eyes met hers, and with this clear cue, she let her cupped-hands instantly drop. Then, just like every other time, he swiftly responded.

"They do have a point," Bruce stated, "Killing is always very wrong, even if the focus is a bit arbitrary considering you're definitely not one of the worst killers out there."

Despite some possible bit of offense on Talia's side, that statement itself was all well and good. His wording was fine, the topic was related, and it made his point quick and clear to his one listener. Except, of course, that it was not one listener he had anymore– in fact, he had at least eight. Everyone at the table, to be exact.

Somehow, in their grand scheme of whispering and swiveling heads, Bruce had gotten just a little too tired of it, and somehow, as he listened to Talia's long answer, he'd completely forgotten about it altogether. Therefore, somehow, he'd ended up announcing Talia to be a 'killer' in front of every single one of his friends.

At this point, the Justice League giving him weird looks would be a gross understatement. They sat in rageful awe.

"Wow, that sounded terrible out of context," he quickly remarked, in some desperate attempt to soften the blow. Talia put on a small nervous smile, as well, but less to agree with him and more out of sincerely timid emotions. Bruce, on the other hand, simply forced himself to keep calm. "I'm sorry, we were just talking about the edicate of a certain… What do the children call it? Niche video game? Indie?"

"Whatever the word is," she instantly agreed, though still keeping her awkward expression. "It's a game where you can kill people, but just like in real life, if they are your allies or friends, it's considered quite... dishonorable. Although, unlike real life, where killing is very, very morally incorrect and none of us would ever do it…. Especially me, may I add… killing your enemies is a simple, necessary aspect of the game. My Beloved was simply stating that, regarding your own allies, killing is always very wrong. You'd need the context."

Diana facepalmed, "And some people say Clark's methods of secret-keeping are absolutely ridiculous."

"At least they work," Clark muttered to himself, but the second he'd finished speaking those first few words, he abruptly heightened his voice to directly speak to Bruce and Talia. "This, on the other hand, is never going to work. I know you think we're gullible, Bruce, but this? Really? You think we're not a little suspicious of the fact that you've been coming up with half-baked lies this entire dinner, and then, when you explicitly describe your wife as a murderer, you come up with an even less-baked lie."

"Are we really going to do this?" Bruce asked, forcing exaggerated frustration and annoyance into his voice. "Frankly, I'm offended that you assume everything I say is a lie. That's much worse than whatever 'suspicious' behaviors you think I'm exhibiting. People say that I'm the one that's distrustful, but it seems like it's pretty obviously you."

"Bruce, please. Video games? You?"

"My wife got me into them. I'm just trying to make her happy, alright? It's a multiplayer game and she didn't have anyone to play with. What was I supposed to do? Just leave her hanging?" Bruce swiftly fibbed. Fortunately, his lies finally started to get a bit more smooth– or the defensive excuses for them, at least. "Besides, Dick also likes to play it, so I already knew some about it from him."

Unfortunately for him, from the other side of the table, a deep voice spoke. As if things weren't bad enough, as he spoke, J'onn slowly began to raise his fingers to the sides of his temples and firmly tapped.

"I'm getting tired of this," he loudly announced, tapping his forehead a couple more times. "Normally, I would refrain from breaking anyone's privacy who wasn't a supervillain, but… I believe we're all starting to doubt that second part already." Then, with those last words haunting Bruce's mind, he shut his eyes.

"Go ahead," Bruce quickly suggested, "read… my mind. I have nothing to hide." In a completely opposite action, he instantly began to mediate himself into putting up a blank mind trick for Martian Manhunter to see instead. At the same time, he still watched J'onn carefully, begging him to follow his words.

"Alright,"

For a second, Bruce sighed. For no more than that second, though. The next, he found himself struggling to make even the shakiest of breaths. J'onn was not finished agreeing— not at all.

"But, since I assume then neither of you have anything to hide, I'm going to stick to just reading your wife's direct mind. She's the one we're most suspicious of, after all." he said, with his eyes still tightly shut and his mind still deeply focused. "Which I'm sure will not be a problem, since according to you, there's nothing sinister, secretive, or otherwise suspicious going on here at all."

Talia immediately spun her head around to look at Bruce. Her eyes were wide but still, staring at him in petrified worry. As much as he tried not to, seeing as it would only hurt them, Bruce found himself returning that terrified look back at her. Surely she knew some kinds of meditation that she could use to slightly clear her mind, but specific mind-blocking ones he doubted, especially considering that reaction. The League of Assassins rarely fought any kind of meta-humans at all, and certainly not telepaths.

Bruce was really starting to regret pushing away the idea of even attempting to teach her a simple mind-trick of two.

Talia was instinctively trying the meditation, though. It was better than nothing, after all. Each breath going in and out was slow and calculated, and internally, she frantically attempted to use that calmness to think about nothing but those breaths. Unfortunately, with the worries still escalating by the second, all it achieved was her thinking about why she was doing this meditation in the first place.

Martian Manhunter got his answer almost instantaneously upon entering her mind, and he was not pleased.

He opened his eyes, and dropped his arms and tapping fingers, as well as his entire focused state. As he spoke his next sentence, he barely managed to stay calm; the anger, shock, and overwhelming disappointment in his voice battled against each other to make a perfectly default volume, though. Similarly, it came out as an almost bland, dull monotone from that same overwhelming mix of emotions.

"From what I can see, your wife," he declared, "is a professional assassin."

"—In the video game? Of course I am. But fiction is very, very different from reality. Surely none of you are foolish enough to genuinely believe otherwise." Talia corrected, frowning. "I'm sorry for any of the miscommunication that has gone down tonight, but that doesn't mean you can accuse me of murder over it. It's not my fault I happened to be thinking a lot about the video game when you decided to read my mind."

But the entire Justice League was already staring (and glaring) at her, absolutely speechless.

"I'm not that bad of a mind-reader, Miss." J'onn sighed, before quickly hardening his expression at her into much more clear, obvious anger. His voice rose. "You are Talia al Ghul, daughter, employee, and second-in-command to the international mass-murdering supervillain by the name Ra's al Ghul. It's quite difficult for you to hide your entire life, isn't it?"

She sighed in defeat, "...yes,"

Clark got up, and then Diana got up, and then everyone began to get up, still glaring harshly at Talia. She took several deep breaths, but was clearly struggling to stay calm with this entire Superhero team suddenly on her back, without the least warning or time for preparation. She now got up herself, only to take a few fumbling steps backwards, so distracted that she nearly tripped on her chair.

Talia opened her mouth again nervously, half just stalling, "You might be surprised to learn, considering how confident you are of your telepathic skills, that what you just said is partially untrue, though. You described me as his second in command, which I am certainly not, despite my familial connection to him."

"I… don't think that, on its own, is really going to help with—" Bruce started to whisper, only to be swiftly interrupted.

"Actually, now I'm curious," J'onn's eyes narrowed and squinted slightly in reserved but distinct curiosity. Now, he was standing, with his arms crossed firmly over his chest, but his voice and tone had become surprisingly normal despite it. "If not you, who possibly would be the second-in-command? Does he have some kind of friend, or just a fellow highly-skilled assassin?"

"My husband," Talia pointed to Bruce, who was already bright red in embarrassment.

"WHAT?!" Clark, without missing a beat, exclaimed. He stomped right over to look Bruce directly in the eyes. "Let me get this straight— You, my closest friend in the entire world and solar system, are working for and with Ra's 'murder all humanity' al Ghul, as his second-in-command of all things?!"

He spoke these extremely concerning words loud. Very loud, in fact. Bruce had already been worried enough when he realized that everyone at that table was going to learn about Talia's criminal deeds, but the second he'd realized that would likely expand to the entire restaurant, his fear was unimaginable. Though the expressions were mixed (fear, confusion and anger being the main three), everyone in that room was eyeing them.

"I can explain—"

"Can you?" Clark countered. He kept getting angrier and angrier by the second, with his eyebrows slanted downward at Bruce, and his fists tense. "This is a serious betrayal! He's not just any old enemy, he's a full-fledge, world-threatening, extremely murderous and absolutely pure evil supervillain! You can't just come up–"

"Excuse me," Talia poked her finger upwards as she interrupted his angry words. Then, as everyone finally looked at her, she tightly crossed her arms and stuck her chin up high. "My father is not world-threatening. He is humanity-threatening. Technically, he's never tried to hurt the earth itself, and in fact, quite loves the planet and everything on it… except humans. But even then, he's not 'murder all humanity', he's 'murder nine-tenths of–"

"Talia, please," Bruce reached around the right side of Clark, weaving his hands until they gently touched the tip of Talia's. With this touch, he attempted to calm her. "You're really, really not helping."

"Is this your type, Batman?! People who defend not just murder, but near omnicide?" Clark asked accusingly. "Because if so, you have a very bad type, and I know I said before that I'd help you find a new date if you ever ended up lonely and single, but honestly? This…. I don't think I can work with whatever this is."

"That's alright, I'm already married without any help needed." Bruce shrugged, only to then tense up again. "But you know what it isn't alright?"

"What? The fact that you willingly joined a supervillain just because you thought his daughter was very attractive?!" Clark boomed. His face was scrunched up in a way that was half intimidating, and half just looked like he was about to start tearing up. "You're right, it's not alright. We thought you were a genuinely good person, Bruce, but now… I'm really starting to doubt that, okay? Was your non-killing rule even a real thing?"

"I… was actually more thinking the fact that you're spilling everyone's secret identities, but sure."

"Oh," Clark finally looked around himself. His cheeks began to heavily blush until, with the more he observed, his entire face had the heavy red tint covering it. Everyone was still very much staring and many were even slightly listening. They were already completely and utterly screwed, far before Bruce got the slightest chance to make a comment on it. The same extreme look of worry that had been often plaguing Bruce and Talia's faces quickly came over his own.

The poor waiter had come back to check on them again, hoping they were still calm like when he'd left, but now, he stood in even more shock and discomfort than with the previous argument. The situation between Superman and Batman was clearly bothering him, but nowhere near the fact that he'd also overheard their conversations on Talia— he stared at her, but once she'd returned the glare, he immediately twisted his head back to completely miss her. The server was absolutely terrified.

"Beloved, I, erm… think we should probably get going?" Talia suggested, glancing around herself anxiously. Her arms were wrapped around her body, squeezing the other side's shoulders and rubbing up and down the opposing forearms. "I'd rather avoid dealing with… any of this. At all. Your quite angry friends, the confused crowds, the… just everything."

"So would I," Bruce agreed, but he neglected to nod or move an inch towards the door. His eyes were glued on the people around them, now tilting away from Clark. A few of those people were starting to look a little bit angry, as well. "But… I think we have to. They heard us, and I'm certain even when I walked in, plenty of them recognized me as the celebrity I am."

Clark took several feet away from Bruce. He was doing the same as Talia; glancing around, scanning the other tables for hints and social cues, and doing so in swift nerves. His face was still very, very red, but as their fates settled deeper and deeper into his thoughts, it began to fade. Hopelessness at its finest, no doubt. Yet, on the other hand, his redness did nothing to spark hope either– it just emphasized the suspicions for the spectators. This in mind, Clark took his eyes off those spectators, and looked to Bruce. He put a firm, grasping hand on the man's lower left shoulder.

"I'm sorry," Clark gulped, hardly noticing the movement. "As much as I think your wife needs her crimes revealed and to be punished so she won't take any more lives, I guess I got a little too caught up in being angry. I forgot we were in public, and I definitely, definitely forgot to control my voice and words accordingly."

"It doesn't matter now— apologies aren't going to clean this up for us."

"I'm not sure there is any hope of cleaning this up!" Clark said it in an exclamation as far as expressional tone, but still made sure to limit his true volume this time. He glanced downwards shamefully, biting his tongue so hard it began to sincerely feel sore from it. "If we could just erase little bits of people's memories, or if I could try flying backwards around the earth super fast, or… just, anything, but I'm not sure those would work or are really possible at the moment."

"Perhaps we don't need magic, then." Talia pointed out. She rubbed the bottom of her chin in deep thought. "Hmm… over the many years of my father's life, he has kept many secrets from the entirety of society, and I'm sure has had many slip-ups similar to these, but he always figured them out, despite his lack of powers. I wonder what worked so well for him. Surely, there's—"

"Murder," Both Bruce and Clark answered in unison.

"—Which we're definitely not even considering doing, especially not on this many people. Innocent people, may I add." Bruce finished, profusely shaking his head at the mere concept of such a terrible crime. He began to rub his chin, as well. "Hmmm…"

"Obviously not," Talia slowly nodded, "But that wasn't what I was thinking of. I'd expect Clark to think that lowly of me, considering our lack of familiarity, but Beloved, please. I'm not that murderous— and you're right, this is a very large crowd. That means we've got to make an excuse that every single one of the people will fully believe, which obviously will not be easy."

Oliver took several steps towards them, nodding along to Talia's words, "There's plenty of amnesia methods out there, that technically we could widely disperse, though. The main issue there is that it could most likely be dangerous or overactive to some of the people we'd have to give it ..."

"Or even deadly," Dinah, right behind him, added.

"Although you're right on that, we're starting to run out of choices." J'onn stated, pointing to the many puzzled, scared, intrigued and even shaky observers. He vaguely scanned his finger over the whole area to illustrate just how many there were. "Took a small peak into just a couple of the civilians' minds, and let me just say that it appears they're definitely not about to immediately accept some half-baked excuses."

"But their lives are a million times more important than our secret identities, frankly. It's not their fault that they ended up in the wrong place at the wrong time, and it's certainly not their fault that Clark got so emotionally reckless." Bruce gave Clark a quite unpleasant look from the corner of his eye. "We're not going to endanger anyone's safety— at all, and that's the end of that. Whatever that means for us, we're just going to have to deal with."

"I'm still confused about your non-killing rule…" Clark gave the exact look directly back. His hopeless remorse was starting to wear off, perhaps a little too much. "You're a member of the League of Assassins, an organization full of, as the name suggests, assassins and not really anything else, yet you claim to be completely against murder. Probably the most of all of us, if anything. It makes no sense. How have you managed to keep up your duties as Ra's' second in command without—"

Bruce interrupted him, intensifying his own glaring, "Oh, shush. I'm not the one that may or may not have just destroyed almost all of our lives."

"Well, I can try the whole unwinding the Earth idea to fix it. I promise, I'll do whatever it takes, and that idea has got to at least be worth a try, even if it doesn't end up working." Clark thought aloud. He quickly became the third person to start rubbing his chin. "If turning one way goes forward, turning another way goes backwards."

"I'm… pretty sure that's not how that works." Diana squinted her eyes, frantically attempting to grasp where Clark had even come up with such a bizarrely unscientific conclusion. "Considering it's definitely not going to work, and the civilians are already waiting for some kind of answer, I believe it's best if you don't fly off to do it. The more we wait, the more everything gets very, very suspicious."

"Perhaps we can just come up with an excuse, though. If we pull it off well enough, that is. Which is unlikely, but we're desperate enough that it's probably worth a try… more tries than Clark's spinning-earth-back idea, at least." Bruce muttered. Clark pouted at the last part.

Then, just as he was finished suggesting the extremely vague, half-baked idea, they all heard a voice, audible yet meek, coming from just to the left of their large table. At the exact same time, everyone turned over to look at the speaker. Matching the small voice, he was quite short, as well. Not extremely short per se, but a tad off average, and certainly small compared to Superman and Batman's tall, dynamic figures.

The waiter, it seemed, had finally worked up the courage to say something.

"We all… We all heard you guys when you mention that, um… she, over there," he stated, pointing directly at the middle of Talia's torso, "Is an, um, killer. Brutal Murderer. Professional assassin, whatever you called it. And, erm… I think I might call the police." He took a few steps back at the last sentence, still looking fearfully at Talia, silently begging for her not to kill him.

"Please," Talia instantly pulled herself together, letting the anxiety drain from her face and general stance. Now, her body tensed with a quite different kind of emotion, directed right at the poor server. "Listen to me— I only mean this as a simple warning. If I were you, I wouldn't be calling anyone. Not on me." Slowly and methodically, she took a step towards him.

With these words, the waiter's expression somehow got even more absolutely terrified, nearly reaching the limit of eye-widening that his face could even go.

Seeing this, Talia turned back to the group, her own eyes widened, "Whatever it is we're going to do, we need to do it fast. The longer we wait, the worse it gets, and the more stressed and ill-headed we become, as well. We need to think of something now, especially considering I would be very, very surprised if that poor boy was the only one scared enough to call the police."

"Yes, obviously," Bruce and many of the other Justice League members were still tapping their chins, forehead and whatnot, while silence suddenly took over. They needed a solution now, but the pressure did no more than make them fidget, shake, and vibrate with nerves, instead of making them think harder at all. The amount of upsetting, noisy exclamations from the on-lookers getting louder and louder by the second didn't help the situation, either. Thus, this lasted much, much too long. The exclamations were absolutely booming by the time anyone spoke again.

"I have an idea," Talia said.

"Do you?" Clark raised an eyebrow in disbelieving amusement, but a moment later, went back to deeply frowning. "Does it involve a lie as ridiculous and dumb as the one you are your husband just told a few minutes ago, or is it a genuinely good plan that won't get us in even more trouble."

"Well…" she stuttered, glancing side to side nervously. "It's still an idea."

"At this point, any idea at all is good… or at least, more than worth a try. We're running out of options here, Clark." Bruce reminded him. He then turned to Talia and firmly nodded his head in encouragement. He softly smiled at her. "Go on, Talia. Show us your plan, and even though he's a bit grumpy, I'll make sure Clark follows your every word, alright? Just go ahead and I'll—"

The minute the smile had started coming on, everyone was already getting bothered by Bruce's emotions enough, but when he started accusing Clark of being the grumpy, pessimistic one, their stares turned into mildly astounded expressions. Nonetheless, seeing as no one else had ideas than Talia, none of them bothers to comment on it— except Clark, of course.

"Hey, Bats," he whispered, "for the record, I am not grumpy. I am simply rightfully suspicious and skeptical of her, the murderous criminal you call your wife… And by the way, if any idea at all is good, why was my idea about turning the world backwards so quickly shut down? That idea was as good if not better than hers is, I'm sure."

"You're right," Bruce rolled his eyes. "I mean to say, 'any idea within reason'."

Clark's jaw dropped open at the insulting words, clearly resisting the urge to argue back. But, unfortunately for him, before he got so much as a word out, Talia had already started running up to the front of the restaurant. Standing tall and projecting her voice to the fullest extent, she began to go through with her spur-of-the-moment plan, and aside from Clark, all of the Justice League was following her.

"It is very clear that many of you, ease-dropping or not, heard the commotion that my table and I were making. I'm very, very sorry for the inconveniences that may have caused any of you. I'm also aware that some things were said that may come off as odd or even disturbing to those who heard it without context, but I assure you, there is nothing sinister going on her at all– and I'm definitely not a murderer… in real life, at least. I'm not some kind of… crazy person. I promise," she began.

The rest of them timidly nodded along to her words, now standing just to the stage-left of her. At the same time, they all watched her, impatiently waiting for whatever it was she had up her sleeve.

"The real situation, and what we were talking about with those bizarre remarks, was simply us being a bit rude to each other at most. A bit too sensitive on one side, but a bit too offensive on one. Not murderous or criminal, though." Then, she took a deep breath, before finally starting to state her explanation.

"We were just talking about video games."

Many audience-members let exhausted, frustrated, or even scared expressions take over their faces at the ridiculous claim. Many of the people beside her, in fact, did the same. But no one, in the entire humongous room, had quite as upset of an expression as Clark did. It half resembled a scowl, and half just a look of complete and utter disbelief. He leaned over and stuck his mouth near Bruce's ear.

"You have got to be kidding me," he whispered, still scowling harshly at Talia from the side. "You can say whatever you want about my quite complex, well-thought-out idea, but this? Do you really think this is an improvement? The same excuse that already didn't work and, for all we know, someone could've already heard get debunked."

"Oh shush, at least it has a chance of working."

Right on time to prove him completely and utterly wrong, a quite vocal spectator suddenly jumped up from her chair and responded to Talia, in a completely and utterly frustrated, angry tone. The person was crossing her arms as tight as they would go, and same as Clark, was scowling at Talia.

"Miss, are you joking?" she exclaimed. "We heard the conversations between you. We heard the talk of murderers and criminals in a terribly realistic light. We heard the genuine anger in your friends' voices. The betrayal. People don't act like that over simple, fictional video games. It'd be ridiculous if they did— those things are just for fun. But the taking of a real person's life? That's not fun, is it?"

"I–" Talia was quickly caught off-guard by the argument. An uncomfortable blush took over her face. "Well, obviously, someone does. They're just very invested, that's all… Just, as I already said, quite sensitive."

"See?" From the side, Clark quietly whispered to Bruce in an annoyed tone yet again.

Meanwhile, Talia continued talking, as well. With each word, she began to grow confidence. Forced confidence, somewhat, but visible confidence nonetheless. Her blush was beginning to fade, fortunately, and her arguments were coming together a little bit, though admittedly not a huge amount, or enough that Clark wasn't still rolling eyes at every single turn.

"Are you shaming them for that?" she asked the woman, eyes narrowing accusingly. "Are you shaming them for having fun with a harmless video game? For getting interested in it? For their emotional attachments to it? Because even that seems a bit ageist, don't you think? Everyone should be allowed to have fun with fiction…. Or honestly, are you really shaming them for their emotions overall, not even just the attachments to this game? They're mostly men, too. Do you believe men should not express emotions, lest they are 'ridiculous'?"

"That's clearly not what I'm saying," The woman replied. Exasperation taking over her voice, she quickly and dramatically facepalmed at Talia's points.

But surprisingly, especially to Clark (who had rolled his eyes at least three times in the last ten seconds), not everyone had that same reaction. Some of them, in fact, had the opposite look— slowly, a small table from the book, filled entirely with men, nodded along righteously. One of them, who was even wearing a video-game-themed shirt, steadily pushed himself off of his chair and opened his mouth wide, preparing to yell out his own words.

"She's right," he agreed. "Who are you to tell these people how they can and can't interact with the things they enjoy? Who are you to call them 'too old' or 'too sensitive' or 'too ridiculous' or 'too genuine' or even 'too much'? Who are you to shame or criticize them for anything at all?" He crossed his arms.

"I never shamed them for any of that, I simply explained that it seems unrealistic that it's what's going on here. I don't think I used a single one of those words, as a matter of fact. I was just talking about the way they put the specific things which are being questioned here, such as her being a murderer, and how they seemed very serious on it."

"Oh, so now you think they're 'too serious' about their interests? You think they should put the parts of the game in a different way just so they adhere to your own preferences?" he argued, before Talia even had the chance to get her own thoughts on the matter. She blinked as she watched him just keep fighting this argument for her. "You shame others for so many things but you know what? I think that's the most shameful thing of all."

The poor woman facepalmed again, but fortunately for Talia, many other people were nodding to the man's loud, accusing questions and bold statements. Without her needing to do a single thing more, most started to believe her– or at the very least, were too focused on the argument going on to pay attention or remember the fact that there was still a murderer standing right in front of them.

"You really shouldn't celebrate before you've even won, Clark." Bruce eyed Clark, mumbling the words just loud enough for him to hear.

"There was—" Clark's eyes were wide, still only beginning to process the scene in front of him. He could barely get a word out of his mouth, absolutely astonished that they weren't still getting screamed at. He looked back and forth from Bruce to the crowd, faster and faster each turn. "That… How did that work?"

"Talia's just that good, apparently," Bruce shrugged. A strong, wide smirk covered his face, directed precisely towards Talia's direction, although even she had an expression extremely similar to Clark's at this point. "You shouldn't judge a book from the cover. Just because she's a little… morally ambiguous, so to speak, does not mean she's not a lovely, intelligent woman."

"But how?!" Clark whined. Bruce neglected to respond, though, simply turning around and following the rest of the League towards the door.

But of course, before they left, they made sure to come by their table not just to pay the check adequately, but also leave the waiter a very, very big tip. Fortunately, the look on his face upon seeing it almost completely covered the previous terror in his eyes. To say he was overjoyed would've been a huge understatement; his excitement was unbelievable.

Once they were outside, everyone immediately began to discuss the bizarre situation. Clark and Talia had much to discuss, mostly. Clark was still very, very bitter over her ridiculous win, and Talia was still a bit nervous about the murderer reveal. Thus, both had their heads low, and their voices even lower. Eye contact, likewise, was absolutely non-existent. Bruce, though, was in a surprisingly good mood after Talia had somehow fixed Clark's petty mistake.

Bruce tapped Clark on the shoulder, and then pointed to Talia, "You should thank her. You could've doomed us there but she, being the gloriously intelligent woman I chose to marry, managed to clean up your mess. Wasn't that nice of her? To use her smarts to pick up the downfall of you, the person who was so rude to her before, of all people?"

"That was… That was luck, Bruce. She's clearly not that smart if she thought there was even a good chance of that working– if she even had the confidence to do it." Clark argued, but he still kept the arguments to a volume that only Bruce could hear, clearly avoiding Talia for either reaction.

"Fine then," Bruce shrugged, letting his smirk grow even more, pure amusement plaguing his every move. "If you want such an intelligent assassin on your back."

"I'm Superman," Clark muttered, very very low this time to be sure they didn't have a repeat of what happened last time they were having this kind of conversation. "I can defeat her— easily, probably. Whatever happened here has nothing to do with her assassin skills, or her intelligence. Luck, Bruce. Luck."

"Sounds like somebody's in denial. Seriously, Clark. Grow up. Talk to her. She's not that bad of a person once you get to know her. Not as murderous as it sounds like she'd be, given her quite… dubious ancestry." Bruce turned his head to look at Talia, subtly narrowing his eyes at her with that last thought. "Although granted, even Ra's isn't quite as bad as you'd think he'd be based on some of the descriptions people like us throw on him."

"Okay. Maybe you could be slightly right about your wife, since this is the first time we've met, although I wouldn't be surprised if you're just biased, but him? I've met him. I know from personal experience that he is that bad." Clark crossed his arms, and with that movement, let his voice rise, growing in confidence. "Sure, it was a very brief meeting, but you could just tell. He's got evilry in his eyes. You can tell by just a glance, and I'm betting that some of that evilry has spread to the woman you call your 'beloved'."

"Wow," Bruce rolled his eyes. His smirk quickly transformed into a deep, frustrated frown, while his eyes quickly turned back to Clark to direct it right at him. "You're just making less and less scientific sense by the moment, aren't you, Clark?"

"She's just… bad. Alright? And I'm not going to let my conscience surrounding that be diminished by some lucky 'intelligence'." Clark deeply frowned back at Bruce. "It's really, really unfair to the other villains. The way you're acting is even more unfair, though. You're suddenly alright with murderers if they're pretty and smart enough to marry? Is that how this works now? You know, we never actually discussed the whole 'Ra's' second in command' situation. I thought you had a no-killing rule! Are you just saying this because you're just as much of–"

"No. Of course not, Clark. You can't seriously think that low of me." Bruce shook his head over and over again, quicker each time. "I, as a matter of fact, have been in the process of teaching his 'assassins' not to kill. It's actually working quite well for some of them, aside from the really dedicated killers, and Ra's himself doesn't seem to mind. I'm not sure he actually knows I'm doing it, though, and I'm not exactly about to bring it up. I've still got to keep my marriage intact."

"Yes, yes," Clark nodded along sarcastically, "Because your marriage to this murderous assassin is more important that your morals."

"Are you implying that my keeping this from her father to stay married to Talia is a matter of morals? You did realize the person I'm… sort of lying to is even more of a murderer than the person I'm married to, right?" Bruce cocked an eyebrow, amused by these thoughts. Clark, on the other hand, was less than pleased.

"That's not what I mean. You know that's not what I meant."

"How would I? That's what it sounded like you were saying. What other morals am I breaking by reforming brainwashed assassins? Or former assassins, I should say, for the cooperative ones. Some of them are really working out, I'm telling you! Believe it or not, Talia's definitely not one of the uncooperative ones, either, although I don't really even have the power in the League to boss her around. She's just not that bad in the first place— That's what I've been trying so hard to tell you."

"I have a hard time believing that. Are you sure you're not just biased, or even lying to my face just to get me to be kind to your terrible wife?" Clark's voice was starting to raise even more, to the extent that Talia could make out some of the things. She tried to hold back a bitter glare.

Bruce's voice was raising, as well, "She's not terrible, if you'd only listen to me. She's just complicated."

"That sounds like quite the avoiding excuse. She's a murderer, Bruce! A murderer! She's as bad as the villains get! She's working with someone who has committed genocide, even. For all we know, she could've committed genocide before! What is wrong with you, thinking that kind of person is just 'complicated'?"

"I'm quite confident she's never committed genocide before. That seems like something I would've figured out by this point in her relationship, being the world's greatest detective and all. Honestly, that's ridiculous. I've seen her cry over killing people so many times, and you think she has the guts to commit genocide? Really?"

"Yes yes, of course she would force tears on to her face when committing murder in front of her anti-killing beloved."

Fortunately, there wasn't anyone around other than their one group, and as Clark noticed that, he'd started completely disregarding any attempt to not scream out each word. It was more than clear that, despite his momentary change of focus, he was still just as angry at both Bruce and Talia as he'd been earlier. His arms were crossed, his face was tense, and every so often he would even stomp or loudly tap his feet in anger.

"She wasn't faking it," Bruce argued. Now, he felt his own feet stomp down in return. "As I already said, I'm the world's greatest detective, and I also know her exceptionally well. She's not nearly as bad as you think she is. I don't like her murderous tendencies any more than you do, trust me, but she still still deserves credit where it's due— the only reason she's a murderer is because her father is, not because she is naturally sadistic." He could feel low, grumbly huffs of air escape from his lips the second he was done talking.

Talia, on the other hand, had managed to hold in any arguments with Clark, or huffs of air at the insults he'd persistently thrown at her. She was unhappy, of course, and barely resisting, but her visible expression was fairly calm despite it. However, she eventually grabbed Bruce's arm and tugged him over to where they could have a conversation in slightly more privacy. Once there, her eyes lit up with a mix of anger and just general upsetness.

"Beloved, I—" She took a big deep breath. "I really, really think we should start heading home now."

Bruce paused before answering, simply looking at her blankly for a moment. His mouth lay in a fairly neutral position, or at the very least, did not move much from where it had been before. Nonetheless, after that moment began to stretch in a minute, he took a deep breath himself. "I…. suppose you're probably right. This has definitely gone on too long."

They stood together, still listening to the Justice League's loud arguments in the background. Some of their poor civilian dates had finally begun to say their own opinions on the matter, with the previous shock, startle and discomfort starting to wear off and escape from their frazzled minds. The arguments were heated to say the least, with everyone's voices even higher than their stress levels, but they seemed to be coming to a consensus.

"Talia al Ghul is a murderer. A dangerous criminal. Whether she's Batman's wife or not, we can't just let her go." Diana was currently pointing out, with her hand stretched out in a suggesting gesture. "It could cost people's lives. People with loved ones devastated, even innocent people. People who we'd be letting down. Especially by letting her go for such an insignificant, meaningless reason."

Many of the others were quick to nod along to this statement, with some even adding on to it with their own, only to be agreed with just as thoroughly.

"Will Clark… Will any of your friends, actually…" Talia spoke the words slowly, as if the wrong one next could shatter both of them like fragile glass. "Will they even let us go? We talked so much about the prospect of my arestment if we messed up, and clearly we did mess up. How powerful are your friends? Do you think we could defeat them? Do you think they're alright with angering my father, on top of me and my own power?"

"Frankly, I wouldn't be surprised if plenty of them had already angered your father. By existing, even. By being a superhero, or perhaps, by even being a human." Bruce's words had slowly as well, though not nearly as much as hers. "Obviously, not as much as they would be by capturing you, but they're not exactly about to care about what danger they're getting in with a supervillain. They find it routine, same as I do."

"But are they powerful enough to even do it in the first place?" she asked. Her right arm was wrapped around her shoulder, slung over it in a manner that was half aimless and half very carefully nervous.

Bruce glanced backwards. He looked at the many members, and he thought of their powers— especially Wonder Woman's, and her pure lack of a kryptonite. He internally calculated the elements, until eventually, he looked back to Talia. Her unsure, careful eyes were nothing compared to the left hand, so tightly clenched in a strong fist. But nonetheless, he was not happy with what he found when computing her own abilities with theirs.

"...Most certainly," he answered, with his own expression already saddened by his own words.

"Do you think we could just sneak out now?" Talia was quick to absorb the words, letting questions fall out of her mouth the second they'd come into her ears. "If not, can we at least fend them off for a bit while we come up with a plan? How much better are they than us, really? Do you think we can outsmart them, if we're good about it?"

"Unsure about the first one, maybe, a lot, and possibly but probably not," Bruce was careful to answer every one, but his answers were more than vague. Similarly, his voice wavered in tone every millisecond, and the tone was completely and utterly unsure.

Another pause in speaking took over their conversation. The Justice League was getting more and more sure that arresting Talia was the correct solution, leaving them with less and less time to sort all of it out. Their feet tapped against the ground lightly through the thoughtful but undeniably unpeaceful silence. They both gulped, over and over again, the more they thought.

"Maybe we can convince them you're not as bad or dangerous as they believe? That you're not a bad person, deep inside. That you're often a hero, on top of the less… morally-correct areas of your brain." Bruce eventually suggested. He was still much less than certain, though. His voice was still wavery.

"Well, that's a bit insulting," Talia remarked. Her frown hardened at him.

"You know I still love you. I wouldn't have married a murderer if I didn't really, really love you. We'll always have our differences though, of course. I can't pretend to love the fact that you have blood on your hands, Talia." he nonchalantly explained, unfazed by her reaction. "Surely you can't expect me to love you for the worst part of you, simply love you unconditionally despite it."

"There were maybe one or two sweet statements in there, but for the most part?" Talia's frown managed to harden even more, turning into an almost grimace. "You're really, really not helping yourself. I know you love me, but it's still insulting and kind of offensive to talk to me that way."

"Talia, calm down. I'm just saying that everyone knows that murder is wrong but you… don't seem to? Not entirely, at least."

"I know some kinds of murder are wrong. I know genocide is wrong," she stated. She crossed her arms and took a step towards Bruce, but in a much less than loving nature. Her feet were loud as they hit the ground. "I know murder without reason, or of complete utter innocents, is wrong. I know you committing any kind of murder would be wrong, because you're so strongly against it. But… wait, haven't you murdered my father before?"

"That was…" Bruce stuttered, caught off guard by the point, "Is murdering your father really murder, though? It's hardly worse than putting him unconscious. All it does is give him a… little break from life?" Even once he'd calmed the stuttering, he found himself saying every sentence like an unsure question, to which Talia seemed to answer 'no' to without saying a single word.

She was quite clearly not pleased. In fact, her eyes looked at him in a slight glare.

"I'm… sorry about saying it in that way, though, Talia. Also sorry about killing your father. It was just that in the moment, it seemed like that was the only way to save everyone from him." Bruce put a gentle hand on her shoulder, carefully rubbing it. "I don't think he deserves to die, because I don't think anyone deserves to die. I just thought the innocent people he threatened deserved to die less, if you get what I'm saying."

He now lifted his other hand, as well, and rubbed both shoulders. Every ounce of his expression was quick to soften the more he spoke, and the tone in his voice followed. His eyes were deeply relaxed, though still saddened emotionally. A pause in his voice crept in. Talia was still visibly upset, though, so he continued only a bit later.

"You… You don't deserve the pain of losing him, though. I know that much. No one deserves the pain of losing a loved one, especially someone as close as a parent." The last word tightened his jaw, making a small cracking sound. His head lowered at the mere thought. "But Talia, you… You, with your soft smiles and your strong determination and your brilliant thoughts. You, with your tender love and your loyalty to that love no matter what…."

Talia began to slowly nod, still a little frustrated, but beginning to let the actual anger diminish. Her glare lifted, and she finally let her arm loosely drop to her sides.

"You, with your stunning beauty but most of all, your strength in fighting to do what is right despite your, erm, questionable raising, and your willingness to go against that murderous life, which I hope you know, though I failed to say it, was what I truly meant with my… less than happy thoughts on your previous murders…You, my beloved wife…"

Then, he took a step towards her, letting his arms bend further as they stayed on her shoulders. But only a second later, moved them; now, instead of only touching her shoulders, they touched her back. His arms, on the other hand, were wrapped around her entire body in a soft, affectionate embrace. Fortunately for him, even Talia's mild frustration was beginning to fade at this point.

"The only thing you deserve is the world."

Talia, still fully leaning into his hug, kissed him. She strung her own arms over his, hugging him back closer to his shoulders and neck, while he ended up merely touching her lower back. They held this position for a good minute or two, just enjoying the entire emotion of holding one another enough to not bother moving another muscle. The soft glow of moonlight spilled over their backs, casting shadows on one another. Still, they did not move, until eventually Talia shifted herself just a couple inches back to open her mouth and reply to his love-filled statement.

"And you, My Beloved," she said, "when you're not being rude… deserve the entire solar system."

Bruce smiled, fully and unrestrained. His back was turned to his friends at the moment, and besides, he didn't exactly care if they saw, or gave him odd looks, or even began to outright judge him for the expression right now. Not anymore, not when everything had already fallen to pieces until all that was left was Talia, safe in his arms; perhaps for the moment at most, but for now, she was there, and he was in front of her. For now, their perfect happily after seemed just within the arm's reach, and the light of their life, their unborn baby, was right beneath Talia's own smile.

They kissed again, this time with Bruce being the initiator. He rubbed her back, gently, and now, they were seemingly planning on keeping this going for even longer. Perhaps, every few seconds, taking a short break from the actual kiss, but with their minds finally distracted and hence at some momentary peace, they weren't about to break out of the general embrace. Even as the winter chill crept down their spines, and the moon got higher in the sky, they stayed— in fact, it only brought them closer, with each other's touches only warming them from the chills.

It amounted to only a few minutes at most in reality, but the feeling in their soul lasted a million years. It was perfect, relaxed, content, and even more than that, happy. Uninterrupted, quiet joy….

Until, of course, it was interrupted. Quite loudly, in fact.

"Talia al Ghul," Diana called, her voice booming with a strict, harsh tone. She stood behind the couple, specifically on Talia's side. In those few minutes, she'd already completely changed uniforms, just to be safe with the secret identity situation; her bright red shirt nearly luminated against the dark nightscape surrounding. "We are hereby apprehending you and will furthermore be handing you over to the authorities unless anything changes, for your many, many crimes of first-degree murder, most likely kidnapping, and I'm sure tons and tons of breaking and entering. Not to mention just general trespassing."

Talia's eyes were wide, glossy with overwhelming startle. Her head turned around in under a nanosecond, instinctively looking at Diana. But Diana, also without missing a beat, grabbed her arm before she could do a thing. Then, she tugged it backwards, away from Bruce. His expression was just as shocked as Talia's; the second Diana's had started to speak, his shoulders had abruptly tensed up. Now, he quickly grabbed Talia's other arm in some desperate hope to at least force Diana to pause in her movements.

"Diana, please," he pleaded, "just listen to me. Give me a second to talk to you, to explain this whole situation better, and before I do, please, please don't do anything with her. She's… she's not… doesn't deserve to… She's still a good person, Diana. A hero, even. I stand by that she is a big dubious in the moral area at most, not a terrible, evil person like you seem to think. As I already said, just listen to me."

"It's hard to listen to you when I have much more reasons to believe what you're saying are lies than the truth, Bruce," she sighed, but tightened her grip on Talia. "Not even just because it contradicts what I've heard, believe, and even know to be true, but you've also… not exactly been acting like the most trust-worthy person lately, have you?"

"I know," Bruce admitted, "but she shouldn't have to pay the consequences for my mistakes. I'm the one that lied, not her."

"As endearing and romantic as that sounds…" Diana rolled her eyes. Twice, even. "She did lie, actually. Several times, as a matter of fact. Sure, you were probably the one that told her to lie, but that doesn't change the fact that what you just stated is literally not true, Bruce." With her other hand, she pulled Talia's opposite shoulder backwards.

Bruce could feel Talia get farther out of his grip. Now, all he held onto was the end of her palm, rather than her actual arm. It made him frown– pout, even. Despite it being at an awkward place now, he curled his fingers further, until he could see Talia visibly bothered by both of their strong grips. She shuddered, which inevitably forced him to loosen. Only as much as was necessary, though; he still held on undeniably tightly.

"But– but as you just said, it was still only because of me…" he argued, his voice getting quieter and more unsure with every word, or even syllable. "For me, I should say. Talia only lied out of love for me and I wish for the best, which surely you can respect, can't you? It's Valentine's Day, for goodness sake."

Diana shook her head without even a bit of hesitation, "That's a pathetic excuse, Bruce. Especially coming from you. I thought you, being, well… you know what I'm taking about, would be able to come with a better excuse than 'it's Valentine's Day,' as if that arbitrary holiday means a single thing compared to first-degree murder."

"I just think he's saying that we'd rather not have our love, and more importantly our lives ruined," Talia protested, "on Valentine's Day of all days, that's all."

Diana shrugged, "Then I'm afraid you shouldn't have committed murder, or any of the other crimes I listed before. It's not that hard to just not be awful and villainous, and generally works out better for you, too. Have you ever heard of the saying 'the good guys always win'? It could apply here." Then, she turned back to Bruce. "And you shouldn't have married a bad guy, because 'guilty by association' is also an applicable phrase."

"But you don't even know the specifics! You've never even seen her commit a crime before! You can't arrest her just because you don't like her." Bruce argued. "That'd be almost just as morally incorrect as committing murder itself."

"Not…. not really, though?" Diana gave him an odd, confused look. She squinted her eyes as she considered his claims. "Imprisoning someone and taking away their freedom unrightfully is one thing, but taking away their entire life? That's a completely different level of morally incorrect. That's evil, in its purest of forms. Besides, I'm not imprisoning her unrightfully either way– I don't need to have seen her commit murder to know she's a murderer. You, yourself, mentioned having seen her do it. Witnesses are fairly solid evidence, especially considering it's not exactly like your wife has been trying to deny a single part of this."

"As much as I hate to say it, Beloved, she does have a point. I don't really think pleading innocent to my very clear, well-known crimes is going to work for me in this case." Talia said. "But you have a point about her, specifically, not being a witness or knowing any of the specifics to the situation. That could still work…"

"Well, the few times I've been a witness to your murderers…" Bruce began, first looking and directing his words to Talia, but then quickly changing to Diana's direction mid-sentence. "Here's the thing, Wonder Woman. The first one I ever saw her do was in complete and utter self-defense… Or just defense, at least. It was either us or the man she killed, and so, she chose the villain, only to immediately after break down crying about it. Frankly, at the time, I had no reason to believe she had any connection to murderers and I hope you can see why I felt that way. Anyone can end up with blood on their hands through self-defense, civilians included."

"You basically just gave yourself the answer to what my reaction to that is going to be," Diana argued. "You said that you didn't know she wasn't a civilian, and therefore I'm sure she wanted, due to her situation regarding the authorities, for you to continue to believe that as long as possible. So she put up an act, and still couldn't resist a well-excused killing. It doesn't mean a thing."

"It was genuine, I promise," Talia quickly said. "Not that you'll believe me on that or any of this, but I really don't enjoy killing. Not even to people like that man, truly. I'm not a sadist… to most people, at least." She nervously thought back to her killing just a few weeks ago, of Qayin of all people.

"The bare minimum," Diana remarked coldly. "Murder is still murder, no matter what you were feeling at the time, how many tears you wept, or… Well okay, fine, if it really was in self-defense, I suppose that's a valid excuse. But I have reason to believe that's not the case for many of your murder cases."

Now, she grabbed Talia's forearm above the arm that Bruce was still firmly holding, and shoved it backwards until it was completely out of his grip. But in response, Bruce jumped forward and grabbed it again. Unfortunately for him, this led to Diana simply stomping over and prying his fingers off of it. Then, before Bruce had the chance to try again, she quickly pulled Talia several feet away from Bruce. She paused there, yet that still only lasted a few seconds— Bruce ran over to Talia again, causing her to suddenly spring up into flight, holding Talia ten feet in the sky where Bruce had no way of reaching.

"Diana, I just ask you to listen to me!" Bruce yelled upwards.

"I did listen to you," she countered, "but I quite quickly found that you had nothing worthwhile to say, other than things that were clearly biased for your wife. I'm not going to listen to biases. It's my job as a superhero and warrior not to, and to simply protect those who deserve protection, which unfortunately is not her."

"How would you know that?"

Although each and every attempt was futile and as good as failed the moment he started, Bruce jumped up and down, pushing against the ground ever so slightly closer to Talia and Wonder Woman. The black, dark pavement and pebbles laying on top of it skidded roughly against his shoes. Each and every jump ended with a loud thump, as well, right in correspondence with his feet feeling that rough surface underneath, only to shove them against it once again.

"Because I have common sense," Diana replied, still watching him hop around like a tiny rabbit. She sighed, purposefully loud in order for Bruce to fully hear the reaction. "You look so foolish down there, Bruce, and you're going to tire yourself out like that. You and I both know that it doesn't do a thing. Please, it hurts to watch."

"...I guess you're right," he begrudgingly admitted. Finally, he ceased the jumping, and accordingly, the loud, annoying thumping ceased, as well. Now, he stood still and silent, with his arms crossed and his eyes staring up at Wonder Woman, filled to the corners with anger.

"If you want to fly up with the two of us, Bruce, you need only say so." Diana offered, sighing loudly again. "I'm perfectly capable of holding the two of you, and besides, there's plenty of other Justice League members that could help if I wasn't. I know you don't usually enjoy being carried by the rest of us, but clearly, you're currently much more upset than you would be at that. I can see that look on your face, Bruce."

"Really?" Bruce's eyes lit up at the thought, nearly glowing bright blue in the nighttime lights. "You'd do that? You'll let me come help deal with the entire situation? You're not going to lock her up all alone and break us up permanently, not to mention take away my dear Talia's entire life?"

"Well," Diana shrugged. "I'd be happy to apprehend you for the moment too, seeing as you're currently a fellow accomplice to one of the worst criminals on the planet."

"Oh," his eyes faded back to normal, and now even tilted towards the ground beneath him. It was still so black, especially in the shadowy night, almost like a blackhole that his black shoes were escaping into. But then his eyes abruptly shifted back up, positioned right back to look at Talia. More importantly, she was truly escaping into the sky.

"I take it that you've changed your mind on my offer?" Diana asked, quickly picking up on his change in expression. While still in the midst of speaking to him, she was already starting to lift higher and higher into the sky, Talia pulled along through every jump or turn. Though he was getting smaller in her vision, Bruce nodded, to which Diana kept her face neutral. "Well, that's fine. If we really need to apprehend you as well, I'm sure we'll have no trouble with it, whether you're cooperating or not."

"I… can't argue with that." Bruce admitted.

"Yes, and I'm quite confident your wife won't be a problem, either." Diana stated. She continued lifting Talia up into the air, but at a reduced rate, just to be able to successfully multitask in both flying and keeping an eye on Bruce to make sure he didn't try anything. "I really am sorry for having to do this, but as I already said, you really need to get a better taste in women if you want these kinds of situations not to arise."

"First of all, you're my ex! That's insulting yourself almost as much as Talia," Bruce called. He'd gotten desperate now, and even though he'd already fully comprehended jumping's pointlessness, he was not above the task of climbing a tree. It was a grand maple, with thick, climbable branches easily twisting out of every corner. He swiftly jumped from one to the next. "Besides, my taste in women is exquisite. Perfect. You've met my wife once, and you already dare to question that?"

"Considering what I've just learned about her, yes, I do." Diana confidently replied. She'd momentarily paused to speak to him, but even from there, the tippity top of the tree was several feet too short to reach her, or more importantly, Talia. Therefore, her posture was completely calm and relaxed. "I can't even believe you anymore, Bruce. She's a villain. Why are you dating people like her? You're too good for her… Or at least, I would've thought you were before this entire mess."

As Bruce realized his drastic miscalculations regarding the height of the tree, he spun himself around and began to climb down. Nonetheless, he snarled at Diana's words; anger swelled up in his mind and body, making his eyebrows slant immensely. He'd get to Talia somehow– he knew that much. Regardless of skill, superpowers, or experience, there was no way he was going to let this truly happen.

Meanwhile, Talia was peering at Diana with the same angry expression. Unfortunately, this was certainly not pleasing Diana. The more they looked at each other, the more both of them frowned and grunted in heated, fuming rage.

"I hope you realize the only reason I'm not fighting you right now is because we're at least fifty feet off the ground and I don't think I can survive that drop." Talia informed her, with the tone loud and harsh. "I'm not still simply trying to convince you to stop trying to arrest me, because clearly, you're much too stubborn to listen to a single word my husband or I say. The moment I get the chance, we're going down."

"I hope not literally," Diana commented. "Because unlike you, I'm not a murderer. Just because I'm trying to get you away from here, back where you can't hurt anyone, doesn't mean that I want you to have to experience that kind of painful drop, villain or not." Circling the topic of conversation, both of them briefly glanced towards the long space between them and the ground.

"Hmm," Talia considered. "I take it that you, being a non-murderer, would not let me splat out in a million pieces? You would catch me?"

Diana looked at the drop again, Talia's words forming a quite graphic image in her mind. Splat. She gulped at even the thought of such a horribly cruel fate— not just killing Talia, but handing her an incredibly painful death, as well. But she could also see the look forming on Talia's face. It was thoughtful, intrigued, and even more than that, suddenly extremely confident. It made Diana uncomfortable, to say the least. Nonetheless, she slowly nodded.

"Well… I'm a hero. I'm focused on saving lives, not just vengeance or punishment." Diana carefully said, still avoiding the slightest bit of certainty and purposely keeping the answer as vague as possible. "Even when it's the life of someone who isn't necessarily a good or loving person, I will make the choice to save the most lives possible, generally. The same as I at least thought your husband to be."

Talia's eyebrows furrowed. "So you would save me?"

"I…wouldn't not save you,"

These words, cryptic but truthfully definite, hung in the air around them. A silence took over, and a very awkward silence at that. Talia still instinctively squirmed and struggled in Diana's horridly tight grip, and Diana just held on even more painfully hard. Talia winced, before going straight back to glaring the woman down.

But even as this was happening, Talia was still eagerly pondering this new-found information. Her eyes dilated with pure, overwhelming intrigue, and her mind was swarmed with the tons of possible solutions all of this opened up. Her number of them went from about zero to at least five, most of which seemed worth a try, at the very least. So, quickly breaking the silence, she tried.

Talia struggled much, much harder. She fought Diana, as hard, fast, and fierce as she could manage. Diana grunted as she desperately tried to keep Talia securely in her arms this entire time, rolling her eyes at the attempt to escape.

"The reason you weren't fighting me hasn't changed, Talia. I'd advise you to stop right now if you don't want that concern of yours to become a reality." She warned, scrambling around with Talia's punching hands and swiftly kicking legs. "That's all you're ever going to achieve with this– your own death. Or even if you did survive, you'd achieve nothing good, that's all I know."

"Really?" Talia sighed. "You're going to expect me not to call the bluff you just admitted to? Sure, the situation has remained constant, but my knowledge on the situation has not. I'm not stupid enough to be inable to figure out what 'I wouldn't not save you' means. It means there's no danger in doing this. At all. It means you won't let me go 'splat'."

"Not– Not necessarily–" Diana stuttered, quickly trying to sort out her own words. Her throat felt slippery, like all that would come out was everything she was trying to push away from her ideas and improvisation. "I…. Well, either way it's not going to achieve anything good, alright? It's still worthless and a waste of time. When I catch you, you'll be right back here."

But, just as Diana was finishing making her point, Talia fully managed to push herself away and went falling through the cold, chilly air.

In the three seconds that it lasted, Talia felt her heart jump in her chest at the vast, though calculated danger. Even stronger than that, though, she felt her skin pressed against the fabrics of air; the speed she moved at made everything around her feel like the strongest of winds, throwing at her constantly. These winds were freezing, as well, leaving her to barely resist letting out a small scream.

Fortunately, Diana caught her quite quickly. She shoved Talia's frazzled body onto her shoulder, grunting even more than before. But, mostly unfazed, she quickly started to rise back into the sky, this time significantly faster than earlier.

"See?" Diana pointed out. "Nothing achieved. We're back where we started."

"Yes, that attempt was not successful, but perhaps the next one will achieve something. You never know, and it's not exactly like I've got much of a better escape as of the moment." Talia countered, shrugging as much as she could in the current constricted position her body was in. "I'll figure out how to escape at some point regardless, I hope you know that, but it's best to not let your kidnappers move you to a separate location, so I've heard."

"What attempt?" she cocked an eyebrow in amusement. "A suicide attempt?"

But, yet again before she'd even finished speaking, Talia had doven back downward. Diana let out a large, exasperated sigh, but going along with her word, she dove downward herself, speeding until she was right below her. Just like last time, she grabbed Talia and threw her back into her arms, but now, the movement had gotten even more aggressive.

"Alas, you attempt suicide again, to no avail." Diana narrated sarcastically. She flew back up even faster this time, gritting her teeth as she clung to Talia as tightly as possible the entire journey. "When will you ever learn? I've said it a million times now, but I'll say it again– it is completely and utterly pointless. You're just being an annoyance for the sake of it, and even more than that, a moronic fool."

Talia fought her way out again, though.

Then, as expected, Diana caught her and brought her back up, only for Talia to try again. Diana did the same again, but so did Talia. Over and over again, this cycle repeated; Talia refused to not persist in escaping Diana's grip, and Diana refused to let Talia fall to her death, whether it was practically her own fault or not.

"Isn't there a saying about this? 'Insanity is trying the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result'?" Diana remarked. Her tone was dull, too exhausted to have a real, strong reaction to what had become nearly routine.

Her expression didn't even change in the slightest when Talia, while she was still triedly saying this, pushed herself out of her hands again.

Diana grabbed her, of course, but this time, she did not just keep flying up in hopes Talia would eventually give up. At this point, she had accepted the fact that this would never happen, and Diana herself was beginning to adhere to the saying. Talia was getting the same response from Diana every time of course, but on the contrary, it could be considered that Diana was doing and getting the same, as well, and so she stopped.

Instead, she swiftly flew back to Bruce, who was now frantically trying to start the Bat-plane and go after her. With a large, reluctant sigh, Diana threw Talia down right next to the vehicle, who fortunately used her assassin instincts to effortlessly land on her feet. Diana followed down only a moment after, as well, then putting a hand back on Talia. But other than that, Talia was completely free. Her eyes were wide, startled by the sudden cooperation, but for the most part, her expression was very, very relieved.

"Bruce, get out of that plane. I am… willing to talk, now. Compromise, or whatnot." Diana gave in. She took several feet towards him, tugging Talia along in the process. Suddenly, she turned to Talia and glared, even harder than she'd done before. "Assuming your wife stops trying to fall to her death constantly."

Bruce rushed outside and ran to Talia, a concerned look on his face. "Are you alright? That kind of flying doesn't hurt pregnancies, does it? The elevation was changing so quickly there, I hope that it's not dangerous for the—"

"Yes, yes, I'm fine," Talia nodded profusely, but then quickly turned back to her captor with a large frown on her face. The arm that Diana held began to tense and clench in frustration, and her breaths were getting sharper by the second out of the same strong emotion. "I believe we have much bigger concerns to deal with at the moment, Beloved."

Bruce nodded, "Diana…. Thank you for reconsidering compromise, I'm sure we can figure something out. The only reason she does any criminal activities at all is pretty much just out of love and duty to her family, and surely can understand how important duty can be to some people, even if that still doesn't excuse–"

"Look, here's the thing, Bruce. The only reason I'm doing this is because the bowling place closes in much, much too little time from now, and the rest of them are waiting." Diana explained. She crossed her arms, finally letting go of Talia– but her eyes, so deeply focused, said everything about what would happen if Talia did try something while she had the opportunity. "Your wife sky-diving and my being forced to save her was a huge time-waster, and Clark was really excited about the bowling. He'd hate to have less than an hour there, and pretty soon, that'll end up the case."

"Ah, so it did work?" Talia's eyes curled up at the corners in subtle pleasure.

"Well… In a way, yes, but I want to remind you that I can still just miss the bowling and lock you up if I decide it's completely necessary, so you still very much need to watch yourself." Diana replied. Her foot tapped at Talia in order to lock those words in. She turned to Bruce, eyeing him in an equally strict, but slightly less hostile manner. "You mentioned that you've been reforming Ra's al Ghul's assassins behind his back, yes? So your no-killing rule is still very much a prominent part of your lifestyle?"

"Yes, of course," Bruce nodded. "I've even been hoping that perhaps I'm making a good influence on Talia's own habits, on top of the basic assassins, or even Ra's al Ghul himself's killling frequency."

"Good," She nodded back firmly, and then pushed Talia towards Bruce, coincidently ending up just putting the two of them in each other's arms, hugging similarly to how they'd been when she'd grabbed Talia in the first place. "Then here's what we'll compromise on– If Talia doesn't kill anyone, and I expected you to be watching this, Bruce, we'll let her go… temporarily. More thorough discussions of how to handle this entire situation will have to go down later, when we have the entire League here and aren't so low on time."

"Thank you, Wonder Woman." Talia begrudgingly said, glancing back at her in a way that had at least lessened into apathy. "I'm perfectly capable of going along with that, at least for the moment, although… I can't say what my father will make of it. I'll do everything I can to follow it, though, and I'm sure wherever I would fall out, my husband would pick up."

"Great, now if you'll excuse me…" Diana began to walk several steps backwards, pulling herself farther and farther away from the couple with each large stride. "I have some bowling to do. Which you two, as I'm sure have already figured out, have been uninvited to. Talia's uninvited to all our plus-one events, as a matter of fact. Not that you shouldn't have already been able to assume."

"Fine with me," Bruce shrugged. "Less events that I'll be forced to, I presume."

Talia nodded as well, and the two watched nervously as Diana made her way back to the group. Now that they were all reunited, Clark was quick to hurry them along towards the direction of the bowling alley, with a brisk speed-walking pace. Bruce and Talia, still holding on to one another, watched the crowd disappear onto another street and right out of their view. Now alone, they finally turned to look at one another.

"Considering I've gotten Qayin dead already, I sincerely don't hate this. Not much, at least," Talia began. But the moment she was saying the first part, her eyes bounced to the ground. "My father, on the other hand.. Well, that's quite a concern. I'm one of his best assassins after all, not to mention the one he holds closest to his heart. The one he cares the most about not betraying him, in any way."

"He's alright with the fact that I work for him and still don't kill. I'm sure we can figure something out with him, and once we do? Could… Couldn't this be for the best?" Bruce pointed out, raising his hand palm-up in an offered thought. "You don't enjoy killing. We both already know that, so wouldn't the complete lack of it in your life be a nice change to you?"

"It… could," Talia admitted, "but the complete inability to do so if necessary could cause many problems. Frankly, I'm just glad I can't think of anyone off the top of my head right now that I have strong reason to want and need dead which I haven't already made dead. That could change, though. Especially with the baby so close in the future, and I… I can't fail to protect our child."

"You can protect without killing," Bruce reminded her, frowning.

"Of course, but there's a certain lack of intimidation in that method. The lack of intimidation could lead to more people having the guts to lay a hand on our child in the first place, and… Well, that's even worse than the culprits not getting their proper punishment." Talia was now frowning, as well. "Much worse."

"...If you insist," he slowly, hesitantly replied. "It's worked okay for me, though. I'm sure the baby will be fine either way, so with that out of the picture, can't it be for the best? Just look at it this way– we'll have our beautiful, murder-free family, leaving us all much happier and the world a much better place, and…."

"And either way, she said she was going to reconsider with the full Justice League, which could very, very likely lead to them trying to hunt me down again, and my connection to you could put me in direct danger as far as that goes." Talia gently pulled herself out of the embrace, only to stare out into the distance from just a foot out of his touch.

"That's… definitely something we need to look out for," he agreed, taking a step towards her, while still not pulling her back into the hug out of fear there was some reason to her sudden movement. "They probably won't give us any heads-up when they've decided, either. No doubt won't invite me to the meeting where they discuss it or anything. An ambush, even, probably."

Talia nodded, taking a few steps towards the plane until she was right outside the door.

Bruce followed, "I– They can't— Well, we're not going to–" he stuttered, feeling gulps, nerves and phlegm stick around in the back of his throat, pushing him out of every single possible sentence. "We need to go over every possible place they could ambush you, don't we? Come up with plans? Brainstorm? You'll need to constantly have some way to contact the rest of us, too, so there's backup at any given–"

"Beloved, let's just figure it out once we're home, okay?" Talia cut him off. Her tone was just as nervous as his, but also eager to evade and procrastinate. She grabbed the door in front of her, swinging it open, and then swiftly hopped in.

Once seated, she looked back at Bruce, who still hadn't moved a muscle, impatiently. His mind was still coming up with those possible situations and possible solutions, making him space out for a moment instead of even beginning to get in beside her. Fortunately, once he noticed the look she was giving him, he ran around the plane and hopped in himself. But, to Talia's surprise, he still hesitated before inserting the key and turning it on.

"Am I giving you a headache again?" Bruce asked slowly.

"You were about to, with all that worrying," she answered, "if I hadn't cut you off where I did. But you… you shouldn't worry about it. You're right, some worrying is necessary, and I don't blame you for doing it. I ask you to just accept things as they are, but sometimes they simply are worrisome. I just….get tired of it sometimes, I suppose." Her eyes drifted into staring into the abyss again.

"Yes, well, I'm sorry for it anyway," Bruce said. He leaned towards her, slowly resting a hand on her shoulder. "I'm sorry about this situation even being worrisome in the first place, too. I'm sorry about my colleagues, and the way they treated you. I'm sorry you even had to meet them in the first place, even. I should've been able to lie better, being the dark knight and all."

"Their actions aren't really your fault, although… I'd like you to consider, instead of whether or not you did a good job lying, whether or not you should've lied in the first place." Talia criticized. She tightly bit her tongue as she paused in her speech. "...I… I, erm, believe you understand that some of those things were not necessary to say, or helpful, for that matter."

"I also told them you were a bad dancer, and that's why we couldn't come to the earlier activity." Bruce blurted out, feeling his mouth and throat become bothersome dry at the words. From this view, he could hardly see Talia's face at all, leaving him to only wonder her reaction. "I'm sorry."

"How dare you," Talia threatened.

Bruce's mouth dropped open, but fortunately for him, she instantly turned her head around to look at him; on her face, it was quickly revealed that her anger was quite minimal. Instead, she looked nearly happy. A playful smile began to grow on her previously-solemn lips, and her eyes, dilating with joy, looked directly at Bruce in a pleasant spirit.

"I'll have to show you when we get home," she warned light-heartedly, letting her voice dip into a purposefully fake low voice, "just how 'bad' at dancing I am."

"You're welcome to," Bruce replied, almost just as cheerfully. He felt a small smile take over his face, and with that joy filling his heart, he leaned over and grabbed her hand. He brought it up to his lips, gently pecking the top of it with a small kiss. "I'll have to see if I can dance well, too."

Talia nodded, but almost as quickly as it had come on, her smile was fading. The same solemn look flooded back in, and the skin around her eyes wrinkled slightly in deep worry and concern. After Bruce had kissed it, he'd continued holding her hand, leaving her with the perfect opportunity to squeeze his own sadly. She watched, with her eyes half-closed, as he immediately squeezed back.

"Beloved, seriously, what are we going to do about all this?" she questioned. "I know I said we should wait until we got home, and that we should keep level-headed and not get into a mess of worry like you always do, but I see why you're doing it this time– I really do."

Bruce gulped, "Well, as I already said, we can come up with situation-specific solutions, as well as just general precautions to take in the meantime. Or we can train the assassins harder, or you harder… no, not the latter, we don't want you overworking with the baby. We could also get you bodyguards constantly, but… oh this is useless, this is Justice League we're talking about. Besides, you're a better fighter on your own than those bodyguards would probably be combined. But as a precaution, just in case it could help, it could be worth a try… Although really, when you think about it, none of this…"

But, before saying another frantic word of his, he cut himself off. He was looking at her. Gazing at her, truly, not exactly any kind of strong stare, but peering and observing her every move and expression. The latter was already so hopeless-looking, so exhausted, overwhelmed, and upset. But most of all, what he noticed was that it mimicked all the ones from these rants of his before, except this time, all the negative emotions had built up; they'd seeped into her every move, leaving her more than exhausted. The sight made him frown, even more than Bruce was already.

With this in mind, he changed tone, forcing a happier spirit all the way. A smile, although at first clearly fake, was slapped on his face as he tried to carefully calm his heartbeat. Bruce tried to, at the very least, be emotionless if not genuinely happy. Even at the first peek of a smile, Talia's eyes opened wider with light-hearted curiosity.

"But, actually," he quickly switched paths at the same time as the tone, "I'm sure we'll figure it out, together. After all, we figured out this dinner, even when it seemed ridiculous. Your father has plenty of power, you yourself are an excellent fighter, everyone we know is incredibly intelligent with many likely to give good ideas, and I, well…"

Talia wasn't smiling. She most certainly wasn't smiling, or anywhere near it. But her mood and expression still vastly changed at these words; the worried wrinkles were disappearing, her mouth had relaxed, and her general movements were much less frazzled. Seeing this, Bruce's own smile became much more genuine. He squeezed her hand again, only to then take the other one, on top of it, and squeeze them both at the same time.

"No matter what, I will never ever let this family be destroyed. Understand?"

She nodded. Just the slightest bit of a smile, thought still hardly visible, was forming. Bruce squeezed her hands again, but then sighed. He slowly placed one of her hands down again, before swiftly turning back to the front of the jet. Bruce placed his one unoccupied hand on the steering wheel. Now, he grabbed the keys from his pocket and jabbed them into the lock, before turning the vehicle on and lifting off.

With that, they soared off into the night sky, still holding hands in silent love.

[nblynera]

Bugtober, day 27: Past. If you can make out a single fucking thing that’s going on here, fuck you, and also this ate roughly 99% of my time for three days. I am NOT cleaning it up, and I’m very tired.

The short fic below the cut contains some very dark subject matter - please mind the tags and watch out for yourself.

"What Do We Need With The Sun?" was a satirical performance last known to be seen in the seventh year of the roach's descent. Made and performed by the Northwestern Automeris Tribe, a clan of moths formerly living in the area that is now known as Snakemouth Path, it was reportedly a mockery of roachkind's abandonment of tradition in favor of their rapidly-advancing technology which was known to be extremely controversial in its time.

Though accounts of the performance are few and far between, they are consistent enough to confirm its existence, and signs have been found of costumes, staging, and other such artefacts in the area the Northwestern Automeris Tribe reportedly inhabited.

Though some accounts vary, some details remain the same - a single moth, dressed as a representation of the tribe's god, would dance on a multi-layered stage, in front of a large, light-emitting artefact - something which has never been found, which was now believed to be made by Giants. A multitude of moths would dance below them, dressed in outfits reportedly meant to represent varying parts of roach society. Accounts vary on these stages, but three remain consistent; at the top, the god, below her, a small troupe of mock-scientists, and on the bottom, such professions as fur trappers and law enforcers.

Reportedly, performances were at their peak in the 3rd year of the roach's golden age, but began to drop off soon after as the tribe's numbers began to thin. Notably, all known accounts from the time say they blamed this on the performance - saying the roaches disliked their song, and that deaths were rising as a result. Regardless of these predictions, they continued to perform - and their numbers continued to fall. Shortly after the tribe's last performance, what are believed to be the final members of the tribe fled the area. Of nine survivors, five perished within the hour - post-mortem analysis revealed this to be due to fungal growths in their neural tissue, likely a byproduct of breathing in spores from the cavern near their home. Three of the remaining four were rendered mute, fungal growths in their spiracles and respiratory system rendering them incapable of Bugarian speech. All bugs still capable of speech at time of retrival reiterated that snakemouth was "cursed" and brought misfortune to all those who lived near it.

The last was reported to be hysterical, seizing any bug in their path and shaking them, in a maddened haze, begging for them to listen.

"They poisoned our grubs!" she was reported to shout. "They poisoned our children, they sent them home to kill us! They put rot in their lungs, they put the rot in their bodies and they sent it to us! They let their failed experiments kill us, and they took our bodies for their wretched things!"

The moth would die later the next week, still crying her doomsaying to any who would listen. Of the remaining moths, the longest-lived would continue three more years before dying of the same fungal growths, taking all memory of the performance with them.

Though considered quite terrifying at the time, history allows us quite a valuable retrospective. Though the fear the Northwestern Automeris tribe went through is not to be belittled, the later emerg̵e̵n̴c̸e̵ ̷o̷f̸ ̸t̷h̵e̶ ̴p̵o̷p̷u̶l̵a̴r̸ ̸r̷e̸c̴r̸e̶a̵t̶i̸o̷n̶a̸l̴ ̴h̷a̸l̸l̵u̸c̸i̵n̷o̷g̴e̵n̷ ̶M̵u̷z̸e̴,̷ ̸e̵n̸g̷i̷n̶e̴e̵r̷e̷d̸ ̴f̷r̵o̶m̶ ̵t̵h̴e̸ ̸m̵u̸s̴h̵r̷o̸o̴m̶s̸ ̶w̸i̸t̶h̴i̸n̴ ̴S̶n̸a̷k̵e̷m̴o̷u̸t̴h̸ ̶D̷e̷n̵ ̸i̸t̵s̵e̷l̸f̷,̷ ̷w̸o̷u̶l̸d̶ ̴q̴u̵i̶c̶k̵l̶y̸ ̴s̷h̸i̷n̷e̶ ̵a̷ ̸l̴i̸g̷h̶t̴ ̷o̴n̷ ̸j̸u̴s̷t̷ ̵w̴h̵a̴t̸ ̴h̷a̵p̵p̴e̶n̷e̵d̴.̵ ̵T̴̢͙̪̹͍̅̅̐̔̀͝ͅh̸̨̉é̵͎͌̿̾͘ ̴̗̣͚͛͐͊͊̓̚s̴̜̀a̷̜̙̾͒͆́̎͘͝d̶̲͇̓ͅ.̶̜̻͎͜͠͠.̵̡̡̳̥̝͕̓̄̚͝.̴̲̙̗̒͊ ̵̻̺͇͉̥͎̏̈̀̊̽̎͠.̶͓̲̰̱̂͐̇́ͅ.̶͔̯͔̰̙̒̃͒.̴͈͍͖͆̐̈́̈̎̎̈́ǫ̵̡̡̦̯̯́̽͑̃̔f̵̨͍̾͆̈͐̋̐͠ ̴͉̝͔̣̖̈́̏̎́̓ṭ̶͊̌͠ͅh̷̫̟̺̓̏e̴̠͕͈͇̐́̚ ̴̲̠̑̀̈̋͜N̴̯͔͈͍͒̾̇͒ơ̸̺̖̩̑̂̆ȓ̶̨̧͎͚͕̾̐̍̈́̽́t̴̡̨̜̤̂̃̚̚ḥ̵̤̜̅̍͗́͊͠.̶̻̼͓̺̼̓͗̊̈̐͘.̴̗̼͖̰̝̺̞̅̏̇̏̈.̵̺̻͈̒̃̓͊ ̸̧̰̲͍͈͙̲͛̈̎̆͠.̶̭͇̻͓̼̟̱̊͐̉́͘͠.̷̛͍͉̪̟̈́̂͠.̵͉̹̻̬̉̈́́̊̓̓͐ư̶̡̮͈̓͊͌ą̵̟͉͎̩̈̈̑̈́̕̚b̵̭̦̪̻̓͆̊̒̏̃̽ĺ̷̺̙̖͕̈́͘͠ē̴̩̻̆̓͐͝͝ ̵̜̱̩̪͎̥̳̌̏͘l̶̛̯̑̓̏̅̇e̴̢̱̟̪̥͇͊͝s̸̯̻̰͆̈́͠s̶̱̙̤̻̦͍̈͒͜.̶̯̫͎̘̻̯̱͑.̸̧̨̡̦̰͈͖͛.̷͓̻̽ ̴̼̀̄͊.̸̙͇̃̅̐.̶̖͈̪͓̝͎̉̔̀̏͠.̶̲͎̩̲̼̊̀́̾͐͜a̵̡͚̰̻̫̯̯͌̑͂̆̽̕̕n̸̞̫͝.̶̺̯͋̒͌̌.̴͎̥̈.̶̛̰̳̬̗.̶̼̘͙͓̺͙̈́͗̎͌͑͐

(radio static)

Zalgo Text Translation:

-gence of the popular recreational hallucinogen Muze, engineered from the mushrooms within Snakemouth Den itself, would quickly shine a light on just what happened. The sad... ...of the North... ...uable less... ...an....

[avenger-hawk]

Thanks for the answer. To clarify, is Itachi ok with Sasuke leaving him and the pain he caused in a post massacre world if he wasn't dying?

Thanks for coming back and clarifying.

Everything Itachi did was to ensure that Sasuke remained alive, no matter how painful or controversial or brutal in the mind of Itachi it was necessary to keep his brother alive and as safe as he could be in their situation, which, in his mind, means being in Konoha, as a Konoha shinobi.

(it’s an in-universe analysis of his motifs, not a moral judgment, in case someone needs to see this specified)

If he thought that Sasuke was safe he'd be ok. It should be his concept of safe though, or else he'd need to "verify" how safe he is in the path he chooses for himself.

Because Itachi had chosen Sasuke's path even before he got sick.

More about Itachi. More about Sasuke. More about Itachi and Sasuke's relationship.

[theorangedead]

Often I think Tumblr is way better than Twitter, but I was just called a "genocide apologist" for mildly disagreeing with someone about Star Wars.