30. Profession

"He has my DNA."

Diana stared at Bruce. "What?"

"McGinnis," he clarified. "He has my DNA."

Diana slowly moved over to the computer and stared at the screen. Terry had left not long ago, after she had helped patch up the cuts and bruises he'd received after dealing with Mad Stan. Bruce had taken the opportunity to put the boy's DNA into the computer.

Her fingers clenched around her cane. "How?" she demanded. "How is that possible? He's what? Seventeen?"

Bruce nodded, his eyes going back to the screen. "No accusations of me having an affair?" he asked wryly.

Diana snorted. "Please, as though you'd be that stupid." She cocked her head. "Besides, seventeen years ago I could barely get you to leave the grounds. When would you have found the time?"

He didn't argue with her, and she grinned inwardly. Then she turned her attention back to the issue at hand. "Again, how is this possible, Bruce?"

"I checked the kid's records, and his family's. Terrance Patrick McGinnis was born at Gotham General, the son of Warren and Mary McGinnis, nothing out of the ordinary."

Diana nodded absently, but her mind was racing. What could be gained from someone doing this? By the time Terry was born, her and Bruce's daughters were already teenagers. They had decided against having anymore children after Elizabeth's difficult birth nearly killed them both, even with the wonders of modern medicine.

Well, more like Bruce had put his foot down, but Diana had seen the look in his eyes. He had feared to lose –

Diana's thoughts were cut off when the vidphone blared, echoing loudly in the cave. She looked up at the screen again and promptly raised an eyebrow.

Waller, Amanda. 633-552-1990.

Bruce pressed a button, opening the line and allowing Amanda Waller's face to appear. Time, Diana noted, seemed to have been kind to the other woman. Her hair grey, but some strands of black still remained.

"Hello Bruce, your Highness," Amanda greeted, eyeing them both carefully.

"Waller," Bruce replied shortly. Diana nodded.

"Not much for small talk, even now, are you?" she asked, chuckling. "Fine, fine, I'll get straight to the point. When I heard about Batman suddenly reappearing in Gotham to put fear of God into people, I figured I owed you a call."

"Why would you think so?" Diana asked.

Amanda stared at her and Diana thought she detected a hint of nervousness around the other woman's eyes. "Probably because of the story I saw a few days before the reports started," she said. "The one about Warren McGinnis' death."

How is that for timing? Perhaps the gods are trying to tell us something, Diana thought. Something inside her shifted uneasily.

"Hurry it up, Waller," Bruce snapped irritably. "I don't have all night."

She eyed him for a moment, and then nodded. "All right then. I assume you've put the kid's DNA through every possible test imaginable? I know why his Y chromosome matches yours, Bruce." She paused, took a deep breath, and then continued, "It's because I made it so."

Diana's eyes widened and her fingers clenched around her cane yet again. She barely heeded the sound of cracking wood. "What?" she hissed. "Why?!"

"Because the world will always need Batman," Amanda replied. "Neither Penelope nor Elizabeth seemed interested in taking up the roll. Elizabeth never got involved in the superhero business at all, and Penelope preferred the Oracle route. Since you weren't having any other children, I took things into my own hands. Long story short, I overwrote Warren McGinnis' reproductive material with Bruce's. Terry McGinnis was born a little over a year later."

It was as though a dam had broken inside of her. She'd been remarkably calm since Bruce had first spoke up, but now, hearing what Waller had done, it was too much. What was left of her cane crumbled in her grip.

"How dare you," Diana hissed. She had never regretted her decisions that had led her to this point in her life, being an old married woman with two grown daughters that had left Gotham behind and rarely returned to it. The reason for her decision to forsake the immortality gifted to her by the gods was right beside her, had been so for decades. She had no regrets. Their family, while far from perfect, was a great and cultivated treasure. That Amanda Waller had dared to interfere in such an intimate way… it incensed Diana.

She wanted to break something. Preferably Waller, but there was surely something here that would do for the time being –

A hand resting carefully on top of hers brought Diana out of the haze of rage that had engulfed her. Swallowing hard, she looked down into Bruce's eyes. He said nothing, but held her gaze firmly, and Diana could feel herself beginning to calm.

Diana didn't know how long they stayed like that, but eventually Bruce broke away and turned back to the screen, where Waller was still waiting. He glared at her menacingly. "Tell me everything," he growled.

He never released Diana's hand through the rest of the call.