Author's Note: This was written for a Bad Fic Challenge. Enjoy! (If, indeed, "enjoy" is the proper word.)

Interlude by Starlight

by Athena Phoenix

It was a dark and stormy night, but Batman and Wonder Woman were unaware of it because they were beyond the reach of planetary weather, ensconced on the Watchtower as it gracefully orbited Earth in an elliptical dance. They were unaware of pretty much anything other than their 1,007th sparring session in the training room, including the miniature camera recording their workout for Bruce's future analysis – and self-gratification.

"You know, Bruce –" Diana mused, conversationally, as she casually ducked Batman's powerful roundhouse kick.

"Batman –" he interrupted, tossing a series of Batarangs armed with explosives.

"Oh for Hera's sake, Batman, we're alone –" unaware of the previously mentioned camera, she deflected the gleaming miniature bats with her bracelets. "Anyway," Diana swung a punch toward his firm, stubborn jaw, "why don't we skip the pretense of exercise and just have sex?"

He felt her fist whiz past him, having only evaded it by a hair's breadth. "That's not the way the game is played, Princess. We're supposed to keep sparring until we're both sweat-drenched, trading sparkling innuendo between punishing blows." To emphasize his last words, he launched a haymaker at her.

"Then somehow I wind up pinning you down, we tear off each other's clothes, and go at it like crazed weasels. Of course, your blows can't be too punishing or you'll kill or maim me, and wind up spending the rest of Lois's life waiting for her to die so you can finally do the nasty with Clark."

Having dodged his last punch, Diana stopped fighting for a moment. "You've got a point – maybe I should be training with Clark instead."

She dropped her arms. "Come to think of it, why exactly do I stick around with you anyway, Mr. Stormy Dark Knight? You're an anal-retentive obsessive brooding pain in the ass most of the time."

"Because Bruce Wayne can dance better than Clark Kent." He raised an eyebrow she couldn't see under the cowl. "That's the true weakness of Amazons – ballroom dancing." Batman extended his arms invitingly in the appropriate dancing position and crooned, "Shall we dance?"

"I wouldn't try out for American Idol anytime soon if I were you," Diana retorted, somehow managing to escape the pull of his raw sexuality. "Simon's standards are higher than Circe's."

Suddenly, the training room lights went out, and the only illumination came from the lambent glow of three stars that seemed to hover over the temporarily stunned pair.

"Batman," Diana asked, her melodious voice trembling, "what are those stars doing here?"

"Calm yourself, Princess," he returned in his usual growl. "According to my observations, they are merely a –" he coughed momentarily "– literary device used when the writer has run out of ideas for a scene."

"But, their rays!" Diana protested. "They extend much farther than I've ever seen – touching, in fact overlapping!"

Batman sighed, "Then according to this would-be writer, we're star-crossed lovers."

A copious flood of salty tears welled up in Diana's luminous eyes. She sobbed, "Bruce –"

"– Batman," he corrected, heartlessly ignoring her distress.

"– Batman, does this mean we'll never be happy together?" she wailed.

Another deep, morose Bat-sigh that evoked the darkness and longings of his tortured soul escaped his lips. "That depends on the writer."

Batman fumbled through his utility belt and extracted a handkerchief, which although Diana couldn't see it clearly in the dark, was embroidered with the usual Bat symbol. She delicately honked her pert Amazon nose into it and handed it back to him. He shoved it back into its compartment with a mental note to wash it out when he got home. Although Diana was the very epitome of feminine perfection, that didn't mean that she didn't produce a large quantity of mucus.

Diana, suddenly tired from her Monitor Duty shift, mission to Kasnia to help put yet another supervillain in his place, shopping date with Queen Audrey, photo session for Glamour – being a superhero doesn't pay well and Bruce only buys me fancy dresses or sleazy lingerie, interview with Lois Lane – how did she know to ask me about my reaction to Bruce's umpteen scars?, the sparring session, and now the excruciatingly long sentence she was being subjected to, finally sat down on the mat.

Although it occurred to Bruce that the previous people to use the training room were Green Arrow and Black Canary, and God only knows what fluids they spilled here, he sat next to her.

She didn't seem cold, but something about the darkness and the starlight made Batman want to drape his cape around her bare shoulders. Diana leaned into his chest, intimately. Her hands went to his utility belt and she purred, "Batman…show me."

"Show you?" he queried, his dizzying intellect uncharacteristically puzzled. "Diana, by all accounts you're no virgin – I've deflowered you more times than I can count in fan fiction, whenever Clark or Arthur didn't beat me to it. And according to some writers, you and I give bunnies a run for their money. What on Earth do you want me to show you?"

"Your utility belt. Show me what's inside –"

"Diana, you've seen –"

She gritted her teeth, the romance of the moment escaping like air rushing headlong out of a punctured balloon. "– the compartments."

He nodded his assent, a gesture she could barely see in the dark, and took her long, tender, sensuous hands in his. "This one contains the –" She broke free and started to explore the area.

"I'm glad you're happy to see me."

"I am happy to see you, but that's my Bat-light."

"Oh," Diana replied, disappointed, and thought longingly again of Clark, the Man of Steel.

In a sudden twist of plot, the light of the radiant stars dimmed and then died altogether, symbolizing a common theme in depictions of their romance: blazing bright initially, but gradually waning until the lovers returned to the darkness from whence they had begun.

Fortunately (for Batman, the man who obsessed over every detail had somehow forgotten to change the batteries in the Bat-light), the training room lights once again shone overhead.

"Do you want to resume our workout?" The patented Bruce Wayne Leer® crossed his face. "Either one?"

Diana slowly rose to her feet. "No. And I think we may need to put them both on hold for a while." She swayed, and her lovely, radiant face turned an unattractive shade of green. "I've been comparing notes with Shayera, and I think I'm –" she ran out of the room holding her strong Amazon hands over her luscious Amazon mouth.

The only sound louder than the training room door slamming was the metaphorical sound of Batman's jaw hitting the floor.

The End