A/N: Most of my information will be coming from the JL and JLU cartoons, with the exception of things I've learned from various fanfictions. Spoilers for the Justice League and Justice League Unlimited cartoons at some point or another.

Disclaimer: The ownership of these characters go to their appropriate creators and I take no credit for them nor do I gain any monetary gain from this. I do gain enjoyment, but that's it. No superheroes or villains were harmed in the writing of this fanfiction.

Chapter One

Circe wasn't an easy person to capture in the slightest, partially out of her own ability to manipulate people into her bidding and another part because she could turn someone into animals with a flick of her wrist. Both deadly skills in a crowd, but Diana had spent the last two hours tracking her from a robbery in the city over to this event in Gotham and wasn't prepared to give up.

Unfortunately, her uniform stuck out, reminding her of Bruce's claim that she didn't really work for stealth missions some months ago. At the time, she couldn't see past the insult of it, as though he judged her for not stepping into the shadows like him. Now, however, she wished she had something else to change into before Circe caught wind of the circulating murmurs of Wonder Woman's arrival.

She lowered herself to the ground behind a building, hating how the darkness seemed to make her stand out more. It would have made her job more annoyingly difficult if it wasn't for Circe's musical voice coming from the speakers, too. The woman wasn't even attempting to hide from the public though, not that she needed since Diana doubted anybody here realized the significance of her appearance; they apparently didn't know what she would do if she got pissed off and Diana knew it was only a matter of time before something tipped her over the edge.

The music faded and she released a breath, preparing to take flight, and stopped at his sudden appearance behind her. He spoke in his cold, low voice; the one meant to frighten, but always failed on her. She suspected he knew that. "Princess, you're in my city."

She smiled some, hearing the real words in there: why are you here?

"Circe," Diana replied swiftly, hovering above the ground. "Shayera and I noticed her when we were out, she was up to something."

"Where's Shayera?"

"Back at the Watchtower, she went to investigate any crimes nearby where we found her. She told me about fifteen minutes ago that she robbed a jewelry store, left a trail of animals in her path," she admitted, rubbing away the chill that knowledge left. The rest of the league had laughed at that adventure, but Diana didn't and wouldn't.

Batman took this all in silently and she suspected that he wasn't going to say anything else except for her to leave, to let him handle this. She steeled herself for an argument, but perhaps guessing her thoughts, he said, "We can't get her here, she'll spot both of us coming."

"What?"

His lips twitched, but he didn't smirk or frown. "We need to draw her away."

Diana nodded, shaking off her surprise. "I don't think she'll just follow me if I appear somewhere, she'll suspect that something is up. I have no reason to be in Gotham after all." It was said as a statement, there was no unspoken question, but if there was, it didn't need a reply. He knew the answer, she knew the answer.

Yet he turned to her, his mouth twisted in a pained grimace and she responded back with a sad smile. For a long moment, neither said anything, allowing a small moment of acknowledgement for what they couldn't have. It was the only thing they would get and the music started up again, breaking them away from such thoughts to what they had to do. "That's not her," he said darkly.

"No, it's not. Let's go."

Finding her was much harder this time, even for her skills as a hunter and his as a detective. She didn't attribute this to the tension, that was in the way her hand drifted to him before jerking away and how he stood close to her when she shifted to inspect around a corner that lead backstage.

No, their difficulty was that Circe knew they were following her and Diana didn't realize it until they burst in the room with her name penciled beside it. Circe looked at them, smirking triumphantly and Diana rolled into the room to avoid a blast of something sinister going over her shoulder, hoping that Batman had moved too.

"I should've guessed you'd be in Gotham!" Circe laughed, not the least bit frightened by Diana straightening up to her full height. She lunged at her, but Circe threw another spell at her and Diana moved away at the last second, feeling the heat of it pass her shoulder and hit the wall with a sizzling crunch. "Please, are we calling this a fight?"

Diana sneered, moving deeper into the room as she spotted Batman hiding in the shadows out of Circe's sight. If she could just get the witch to turn her back on the doorway, Batman could get her with a batarang before Circe realized how futile it was to play games. "Says the one who hides behind her magic."

"I'm just playing my strengths," she replied cheerily. Diana didn't like how happy the witch was and she tried to communicate that unease to Batman, but even she couldn't decipher what the twitch in his mouth meant. "C'mon, dear, I'm on soon, let's put an end to this!"

Circe turned to her, turning her back to the door and two things happened simultaneously: an electric batarang pierced the air silently, hitting Circe in the back and a spell of a wicked purple color shot out, striking Diana in the chest. Her knees gave out on her, colliding hard with the floor as Circe screamed in pain. Diana tried to get up, legs like lead, fearful that the witch could withstand the electric shock when Circe shuddered before collapsing, but Batman strode into the room, motioning with his hand for her to stay still as he inspected the witch.

"She's out," he announced, his jaw clenched with anger as he pulled cuffs from his utility belts. She watched this warily, letting herself fall on her bottom, her head pounding ferociously in her skull. What had the witch done to her? She didn't think something that had looked so sinister could simply supply her with shaky legs and a headache, not when Circe specialized in turning people into animals.

She looked at her hands, her thin fingers spread wide and flexing, fearful of being turned into hooves or talons. When they didn't change at all except to begin shaking too, she swallowed hard, relieved.

"Diana," he said sharply, drawing her eyes to him. His cowl was still on, but his worry showed in the hand on her chin, turning it to him with a gentleness that would have shocked any other leaguer. She felt more than saw his eyes combing over her face for any sign of what Circe could have done, but when he found nothing, his jaw tightened even more. "You've been staring at your hands for a while, but they aren't changing, I don't think that's what she did."

This wasn't reassuring, but it did work in snapping her out of her shock. She let out a shuddering breath, forcing away that stubborn niggle of anxiety, accepting his outstretched hand to get to her feet. His fingers tightened on hers even when she gathered herself, sending warmth shooting through her and squeezed back thankfully, trying to smile. He didn't smile back, but his lip twitched and that she understood.

"Let's get somewhere else, we need to talk to her before we send her to your people," he said, releasing her hand as though shocked and crouching to pick up the witch in a fireman hold. At her questioning look, from the witch to him, he explained, "We don't know what she did yet, save your strength in case you need it. I can handle her. Batman to Watchtower, three for transport to holding cells."

J'onn came through after a second. "Transporting in five seconds. Medical assistance needed?"

He looked at her in question and she shook her head in response. "No, but contact Zatanna and have her meet us in five minutes."

They disappeared in a flash of light seconds before security rounded the corner to inspect the reported scream.

After Circe was contained, Batman swept through the corridor in a foul mood, though Diana noticed his gaze flickered to her more than once as she followed behind him. People avoided them, fearful of his cold expression and, to some extent, the tension on hers. This worked in their favor as they reached the infirmary in record time, where Diana spotted Zatanna in uniform.

A flair of jealousy hit tore at her stomach at the fond expression Zatanna shot him, but Diana forced it down, ashamed. Not only was Zatanna a close friend of his, but she had always been polite to her without motive and didn't deserve ire for being a good friend and skilled magician. By the time Zatanna turned to look at her, only a few seconds had passed since their arrival, but Diana knew her expression had changed as she forced her negative feelings away, smiling in greeting. She wouldn't let a foolish emotion like jealousy dictate her feelings for a person.

"You're hardly the type to stop for pleasantries, what can I do for you?" Zatanna asked, a raven eyebrow raising in question. He had been watching her, she realized, feeling his gaze move from her to the curious magician. It left her cold, but pleasantly so, like she had been cuddled warm under a blanket and kicked her feet out to feel the air.

"Circe got Diana with a spell." He said and when Zatanna opened her mouth to question him further, he cut her off, expecting it, and went on to explain what happened, ending with what the spell looked like: a sickly purple, it looked like rope before it hit her and then seemed to explode and fade.

Diana cut in, annoyed at him speaking as though she wasn't there. "It didn't seem to do anything though."

"Nothing glaringly obvious. We can't rule it out as harmless yet," he said sharply.

"I'm not saying we do, but there were no immediate effects." Except her headache, she added silently, her eyes narrowed on him.

Zatanna spoke before he could reply, her gaze staring at Diana critically but kindly. "I haven't heard of a spell that did nothing, especially by someone as skilled as Circe. She could have lost her concentration when you hit her, but, just to be sure…." She pulled her wand from seemingly nowhere, turning it on Diana with an apologetic smile when she flinched at it. "Sorry, it won't hurt at all. Lleps eht laever."

Diana shuddered, something cold starting at her head and drifting all the way down to her toes, like somebody dumping water down her neck, but when she looked at her hands again, there wasn't a single thing there to tell her about the spell. She wondered if that was meant to happen until she caught sight of Zatanna's frown and Batman's scowl, a tendril of fear forming in her gut. "What?"

"I'm not sure. It's… I can see the spell, but…" Zatanna hesitated, leaning her chin on her palm, studying Diana intently to the point that she felt a little like a grotesque experiment. Sensing her impatience, she continued, "This is hard to explain so stick with me, but the spell is stuck in one area of the body. Now, this could just be your own physiology trying to contain it or…"

"It could be the intention of the spell?" Batman finished for her.

She nodded, eyes narrowed thoughtfully. "Yes. Look, let me look into this, there's no way I can even attempt to beat it without knowing more about it. In the mean, I don't think it has changed anything physically, but get checked out to be safe and I'll check in with you later when I know more."

It was such a dissatisfying answer, but at least Diana could be confident that nothing was wrong. She was a warrior, she knew her body and how to assess for injuries, there wasn't much of anything that could happen that she wouldn't be able to figure out herself. Except for the one's a certain someone inspired, but Diana had deciphered those very quickly by comments from Shayera and Wally with the former being a touch more subtle about explaining than Wally's comment of "His little, dark heart has captured yours". Hopefully Batman never heard that, she didn't want to imagine what he would do.

"You should go to the infirmary," he said suddenly, making her jump. She imagined that's where Flash would go, but he couldn't possibly read her thoughts to know what she was thinking, even the mighty Batman didn't have such an accurate ability to read people. A second later, she realized that she was staring at him stupidly and his lips twisted into a concerned frown.

"I'm fine," she said once it occurred to her that he wasn't responding to her thoughts, but to Zatanna's suggestion.

He gave her a batglare, but such a look had never been effective on her and she put her hands on her hips stubbornly. This didn't deter him either, while her royal princess stance seemed to get most people, it didn't even cause him to blink. She didn't know this exactly, having never done it when his cowl was off, but she could just tell. "Humor me," he replied with a smirk.

As it turned out, her assumption about nothing being wrong was completely right. She was in peak condition physically, to the point that even Superman couldn't detect anything being out of place or different compared to normal, but her victory didn't last long.

Once she was cleared medically, she got back into her uniform, unsurprised to see Batman waiting in the corridor for her to arrive. He started walking and she fell in step beside him, hands behind her back as silence stretched between them that she decided to break. "Should we go talk to Circe?"

He grunted a "no" in response, but didn't continue, leaving her puzzled. He explained at her annoyed sigh, "She's still out of it, Dr. Fate has been keeping a watch on her and will inform us when she wakes. There is nothing we can get from her until then."

"What until then?"

"Patrol."

"Didn't you already do that?"

"I was when I heard that Wonder Woman was at the carnival. I called Robin to cover while I went to investigate," he said slowly, as though guessing how much he could tell her without revealing something he shouldn't.

Diana wanted to press for more, like why he hadn't made her leave when he learned about Circe or why he had bothered to check for her instead of asking over comm-link, especially in the middle of patrol, but sensed that he was closing himself off now. He turned his body away from her, maintaining the distance between them that had seemed to grow littler the longer they walked and she realized suddenly that they were heading for the transporter. She caught his arm before they went in, smiling as he removed her hand, but still stopped. "I'll see you later then?"

He didn't respond and she didn't expect him to either as he turned to go into the room so she was surprised when he turned to say, a smirk playing on his lips, "I've got to see why Circe was in Gotham so I imagine so."

Her smile widened, but the door closed before she could audibly respond.

Later wasn't very long, ending at the same time that her moment of victory over being right did. She knew when he had left the Watchtower, could feel it in the sudden empty feeling that threatened to expand across her entire being. For a moment, she felt ridiculous for feeling such an attachment to him now when she had never before until it became apparent that something was very, very wrong. Her head spun, something sharp stabbing her chest and twisting until the rest of her body felt numb, tingling to the point of pain.

Someone touched her arm and her world exploded.

Her veins must have been on fire, that could only explain the sudden agony that brought her to her knees, trying to claw at the prickling feeling in her chest, to get as far from her as possible before she burst. She could hear somebody calling her name, could hear the anxiety pouring off somebody as they kneeled beside her, but couldn't move or respond as she slowly died, bringing a horrible, spine-tingling scream from her lips. Then, something pinched the skin of her neck, the sensation of burning faded to ice that crept down her body and froze everything until the world went dark around her.

"...lost it, started screaming…" She couldn't even detect who was speaking, their voice just a flickering whisper against a sea of rhythmic beating that sent her to sleep.

"...had to sedate her… should wake up soon…" Where was she? She frowned, fighting against her drowsiness, trying to get her eyes to open up. Her limbs were heavy and she struggled against it, panicking when she realized they were strapped down by something that she couldn't break. The beeping nearby increased until someone caught her hand, squeezing it reassuringly and far too briefly for what she preferred.

"She'll wake up soon, Flash. Stop complaining," John said sharply, followed by a grunt from Wally. She imagined that the Green Lantern had elbowed him, but as her eyes were still closed, she couldn't be positive.

"She doesn't need anymore beauty sleep at least," Wally joked when there was another long stretch of silence. "Isn't that right, Ba- er, John?" He changed direction swiftly, no doubt feeling the full force of Batman's glare. It may not have worked on Diana, but she didn't doubt how well it worked on their friend.

Before Batman could do something, John replied: "I wouldn't poke at him too much, Flash. We don't need another member of the League trapped in here for a while and I guarantee it'll be a while if you keep pressing his buttons."

Wally chuckled weakly, trying to play it off, but didn't get the chance to finish when Diana finally pushed the last of her grogginess away and opened her eyes. For a moment, her eyes locked with his concerned brown ones, the light from the rest of the room blinding her to everything else, but when Wally whooped in victory, she broke away, blinking rapidly.

"Where am I?"

"Infirmary," Four voices chorused and she turned her head to spot John, Shayera, Flash, and Kal looking at her with concern too. She moved to ask another question when Kal started to speak, looking uncomfortable. "You've been in here for a while, Di. How are you feeling?"

She blinked again. Despite being awake, her thoughts felt rather muddled, like she was trying to push through quicksand and it delayed her ability to tell if anything felt different. That, she thought, was different enough. "Groggy," she admitted reluctantly, trying to shift into an upright condition only to find that her arms were strapped down. Just like I imagined, she thought, staring at it harshly as though she could burn through it and she turned an accusing glare to them with an iciness that would have made Batman proud. "What is the meaning of this?"

Kal held his hands up in a pacifying motion, but he wasn't the one to reply. Batman spoke calmly, unflinching when her anger shifted to him, "I imagine you'll break through these in a few minutes when the last of the medication fades and you gain full strength."

"Why am I chained like… some sort of animal anyway?" She demanded, voice rising.

"Because it was the only way to guarantee you wouldn't keep attacking yourself," he said bluntly, leaning forward in his seat, his eyes flashing with anger, concern, and something like hesitance that made her draw back her fury. He collected himself again, the emotions vanishing behind cold, icy eyes as the Batman took place of Bruce. Still, there was a gentleness in the way his fingers moved over the titanium straps, removing them from her carefully and passing them off.

She rotated her wrists, surprised at the ligature marks where they had been. Had she been struggling so hard that they had ripped at her skin? No, they were already healing in some places and fresher in others, like it had happened far more recently. Guarantee you wouldn't keep attacking yourself, she recalled, frowning as she shifted up, feeling a tug on her chest and she pulled the gown away some, glancing down at herself to spot numerous marks across her chest from her nails digging into flesh. They were healing slowly and she wouldn't even see them in a couple of days, but right now they looked ghastly, like she had been mauled by some animal.

"What happened?" She said slowly, looking up at Batman. There might have been others in the room who could explain it delicately, but she only had eyes for him and what he knew. He wouldn't lie to her, never saw the need of hiding things that affected her like this had, and she didn't want warm, fuzzy lies, but the cold, hard truth. She trusted him to do that.

"Leave," he told everyone else sharply, his eyes not moving from her. They grumbled, particularly Shayera and Wally, but didn't protest as they left the room, the door hissing shut. "Security protocol Delta, sector medical zeta, permission 001." Once he finished speaking, Diana looked up to notice the cameras turning to face the wall, powering down and the door clicking as it locked.

She didn't think he was doing that for his benefit completely. After all, he wasn't wearing his cowl when she woke up so there wasn't anything the security camera could reveal that wasn't already known. Worry increasing, she looked back at him, unsurprised to find that he was watching her. "Is it that bad?"

"We'll find out. The others would have went to watch the live tapes while they had the chance, I didn't think they needed to hear this conversation," he said, sighing and rubbing his eyes wearily. It was then that she noticed how ruffled his clothes were, looking as though he had slept in them, and the dark rings under his eyes, too pronounced for even him. Concerned, she reached out and took his gloved hand, squeezing his fingers and relishing the sudden calmness from this contact. Even he seemed to relax some.

"Is it Circe?" She suggested, thumb stroking across his knuckles.

"Circe is gone. Shortly after they told me about you, they went to find Circe, but she wasn't there, overpowered Dr. Fate and got away, we think she was playing possum and waiting for a moment to strike," he said, watching their hands with something like suspicion. "Unfortunately, we can't pinpoint where she is now and we don't know if she is the reason this happened."

"But you don't believe in coincidences," she pointed out, frowning. "What is this then?"

Bruce pulled his hand from hers and she felt a pang of loss that grew more profound as he got to his feet, walking across the room away from her. Her head started to hurt like tiny, sharp fingers were poking at her brain. Perhaps she wasn't as healed as she would have liked, but the headache was easy to push aside, to stare in confusion at the pained expression on his face. If he wasn't going to explain it to her, she thought, narrowing her eyes at him, then she would have been better off asking someone else.

"You've been here for three days." He stated, seeming to avoid the obvious question playing across her face. As he spoke, he took the seat beside her again, where his hand seemed to twitch as though he was moving to take hers. It didn't and she thought it was her imagination. "When they first brought you in, they couldn't figure out what was wrong, you looked like you were fighting something. Naturally, they assumed it was Circe's spell taking effect, but there still wasn't anything wrong physically. They kept you strapped down when you started to hurt yourself. When I came back after being informed, you were calming down, everyone figured it was over."

She didn't like where this was going, she had too many fresh cuts and bruises for it to have ended two days ago. Hera, she thought with a shiver of fear, she had slept for three days without even knowing. Never in her life had she taken such time to recover from an injury and to think she had needed time to recuperate from a lack of one wasn't just worrying, but embarrassing. Bruce had stopped speaking, she realized, noting that Batman had faded away to bring the real Bruce that was neither the Bat nor the playboy. She cleared her throat, "But it wasn't?"

His gaze stayed on her a moment before he nodded, the Bat flickering into his matter-of-fact voice while his eyes stayed Bruce. It was unnerving to watch, but easy to ignore when he started speaking again, his voice low. "No, it wasn't. You were stable for a while, didn't flinch or move, just slept and I.. we continued on like normal. I left and then they called me, said you were having issues again. I returned once I could and it stopped. I left again, they started again. You said I don't believe in coincidence, you're right, I don't and this was too much of a serious situation to brush off."

She was frozen, staring at him. He seemed to understand the feeling because there was an unamused smirk on his face as he took her hand, squeezing it lightly and breaking her out of the shock. Bruce waited until she was focused on him again before continuing, "It wasn't just your pain happening whenever I left that clued me in, I noticed other things too. I felt pain here, the second time I left. There was nothing there, but I could feel… something. I came back and that's when you got this one, in the same place," he said, voice lower and softer as his fingers brushed tenderly across a cut on her throat that she hadn't noticed. She swallowed hard, resisting the urge to take his fingers and kiss them.

He let his hand drift down her neck before yanking it away, staring at his fingers harshly and accusingly, like they had betrayed him. They had, they had given away the emotions he'd been denying, rekindling something they both tried to lay dormant, but it was hard to lock your heart away once it made contact with someone else's. Impossible even, she thought with sadness.

"I'm sorry," she said softly. For making this difficult for both of them or for making him feel her pain, she wasn't sure, but it went for both.

"Don't be, it isn't your fault," he replied immediately, sounding stern and then letting out a sigh. "I'm not omniscient, I couldn't have known exactly where that pain was or known later when I left the very last time that you were in pain again. So I had J'onn check, he found it immediately. A tiny piece of you inside my head stood out," he chuckled with disbelief.

Diana tried not to sound skeptical considering she didn't have a reason to doubt J'onn and his ability now. Still, her eyebrow arched, bringing a wince when it moved a small cut on her forehead that she hadn't noticed. How badly did she beat herself up? She wanted to know, hoping she didn't look like she had taken a round with Cheetah blindfolded. "There's a piece of me, in your head?"

"Well, those emotions and thoughts weren't mine."

"You can read my mind now?"

"I could probably have already done that, your face is an open book," he admitted then turned serious. "Do you want me to guess what you're thinking then?"

She gave him a look, but agreed, still skeptical of what he was saying. She trusted Bruce more than anybody, but even she couldn't readily grasp the idea of him having a piece of her soul. Or, well, not like this at least. She imagined that if he held her heart already then it shouldn't be surprising that he held some of her soul too. Curse Circe, it had to be her, there was certainly no one else who could have done this and it certainly hadn't been there before she had thrown that spell. Oh, she hoped Zatanna had learned something about this.

"Zatanna hasn't had much luck finding anything, especially since Circe did her spell silently, so she's getting in touch with a few others in her profession to see what they know. She left yesterday and hasn't been back yet," Bruce said suddenly, picking up on the end of her thoughts. He sounded awed about something and she desperately hoped he didn't hear anything about owning her heart, she certainly didn't want that out there in the open for him to potentially crush. "And, no, I can't really hear everything going on, just fragments and pieces. Don't forget the part about being an open book."

"Hera, what do we do? I can't stay stuck in bed with medication all day, my physiology will eventually become resistant to it and you can't stay with me all the time. Certainly pushing through will work now that I know what to expect," she said, moving to get out of bed only for his hand on her shoulder stopping her. The warrior side of her didn't want to be contained here any longer and glared at him.

"You can't stay on the medication forever, no, and I certainly can't stay with you all the time, yes, but I don't know if pushing through is the safest thing to do." He pulled his hand from her shoulder, standing up and grabbing some clothes nearby to deposit in her lap. His eyes were watching her again, looking hesitant and determined in the same instant. "You'll have to come with me until we know what to do."

"What do you mean?"

"Gotham needs me," he said seriously. "I need to help you. The only way those both work out is if you stay with me until we know more, until we can find a way to stop it."

I need to help you, not you need me to help you, she thought, staring at him again. No other man had the ability to surprise her as he did, she should have been angry at him for commanding what to do and she would certainly be getting him back for bossing her around, but too large of a part rejoiced at his words against her will, her heart beating rapidly in her chest. She grinned to cover it up, teasing, "Why, Mr. Wayne, do you offer all the women you want to help a place with you?"

The victory was hers again when he rolled his eyes.

A/N: This was originally a one-shot idea, but I've got a few ideas I want to use. I can't imagine it'll be very long, maybe a few chapters, but we'll see. Next chapter will be up soon! Review please!