Chapter 3 of 4

(That Evening – Wayne Manor)

Max watched as Terry sat at the massive desk and filled out sheet after sheet of information, given his new title as, for now, figurehead of Wayne-Powers Incorporated until such time that he was deemed old enough and ready to take over as CEO. She honestly didn't envy his position now, as one of the most eligible bachelors on the planet, especially as he sighed and threw down the pen he was holding in disgust, "Cred for your thoughts, Ter?"

He chuckled tiredly, his face drawn and even more pale-looking than normal, "Max, if I asked you to marry me right now, would you knowing that your life was going to be an open data file for anyone to read?"

She snorted at him and smirked, standing up and walking over to where he sat, sitting on the edge of the desk and tousling his hair slightly, "Not a chance, Ter – you're cute, yeah, but no girl needs that level of aggravation."

He looked up at his pink-haired, mocha-skinned friend, and sighed, "Thanks, Max … did I just propose to you?"

"Eh, kinda, but I'm chalking it up to the stress and lack of sleep – I'd say I wouldn't tell Dana, but with your break up with her earlier this week …" It had been horrible, to say the least, when Dana Tan, Terry's on-again, off-again girlfriend had finally had enough of Terry's 'night job' and had called it off … in front of everybody; Terry had tried to explain a few things, but seeing he could not tell her the truth about jetting around in bat-like jammies, the relationship was officially dead in the water, out of the water and on the table, plucked and roasted.

"Such are relationships for those of us in tights, Maxine," said another voice, richer, fuller, and female. Max had been ready to kill Terry when he had forgotten to tell her that Diana Prince, Wonder Woman herself, was going to be staying at the mansion for a while – Wonder Woman was one of Max's secret idols and the fact that said woman was going to be staying in what was now Terry's mansion, even if his mother didn't want to live in it, was enough to warrant homicide.

Terry grinned at Diana as Max tried to hide that she had been spooked, "If I recall the pics correctly, you never wore tights, Diana."

Diana grinned at the young man easily, falling back into an old role she had played with Bruce over the decades, "You're right, of course – not all of us feel the need to dress up in skin-tight black bodysuits with a red bat and pointed ears."

Terry didn't miss a beat, "You're right, some wear star-spangled blue hotpants and a red and gold corset."

Max looked back and forth between the bantering pair, horrified that her best friend was saying what he was saying about her hero, and decided to level the playing field by smacking Terry on the arm, "Play nice, Ter, she's your guest."

He rubbed his upper arm playfully even as Diana fought down what looked like a fit of giggles, "Yes, she is – can you ever forgive me, Lady Diana?"

Max looked at the woman, who had arched an eyebrow at him for a few seconds before breaking into laughter that lasted for a few minutes; eventually, she calmed down long enough to gasp out, "You … and Bruce … so much alike." Max then noticed that the laughter took a different tone even as Terry got out of his chair – soon, laughter became tears and Diana Prince, the Wonder Woman, was crying and Terry was right over there, hugging her even as she hugged him back.

Diana sniffled a few times before she pulled back, tears streaking her cheeks, "I'm going to miss him, Terry."

"Me too – I half-expected to come in today and hear," Terry said, modulating his voice into a deeper, graveled voice, "'you're late, McGinnis'," before changing back, "but … I guess it's all kinda setting in now." He reached over and grabbed a tissue, handing it to the Amazon Princess, who accepted it gratefully even as Max walked around the desk.

"So … what's going on here?" Diana was startled by the question, but couldn't respond as Maxine went on, "Ter, are you and Wonder Woman … doing something you shouldn't?"

Terry, for his part, only snorted, "No, Max – I'm just helping out a friend of Bruce's with something that she wants to do." He then looked over at Diana, "I began imputing the data an hour ago, Diana, so you can start at any time."

She nodded gratefully, "Then I start tonight – from what I was told, I will be completely comatose for the next phase, Terry … I'll need you to watch over me."

Terry nodded at her, "I'll have an IV and stuff set up, then – should take care of everything … except for the Bat business and your funeral."

Max jerked at this, "Funeral? Hold up, what's going on here?"

Diana shook her head, "I do not want to go into it now – I'll be in my room, Terry." She turned around and, with great sadness, began to walk away, up to her room, to her new destiny, wherever it would take her even as she heard Terry take Max off to the side and try and explain things. Once there, she slipped into some comfortable night clothes she had picked up years before, night clothes that sported numerous superheroes from times past and present (even the new Batman was on there, though on a lapel), and between the sheets of the bed before grabbing the bottle that was on the night stand.

She could not drink it and keep her life, as stagnant as it was, or drink it and run the possibility of never knowing who she truly was ever again – she mused on the problem even as she uncorked it and a wisp of red smoke curled from the top. She looked first at the bottle, then at the setting sun, and then back at the bottle as an old quote came to mind, "That which does not change shall one day go obsolete and, later, extinct." She swiftly brought the bottle to her lips and drank down the foul-tasting concoction and, even before the last drop had gone past her lips, felt the world slipping away from her as she felt back into the pillows there. Vaguely, she wondered if she'd keep her hair color the same when she woke up, and if she would still be as tall, but then all was nothing but blessed blackness.

(Next Morning)

Terry looked down at the form of Diana Prince even as an old friend of Bruce's hooked up a nutrient line with an IV piggyback into the woman's arm – it had been less than twelve hours since she had taken the liquid and, even now, he could see the minor differences in her face. She had been a strong, proud woman with an almost triangular face, much like his own, with dark black hair and deep blue eyes, but now that face was not as triangular, a little softer, and more … human, in some respects, as the woman doctor pulled away.

"She'll be fine, Terry – I've hooked up the lines and bags, all you have to do is to change them out when they are empty, every twelve hours or so." Dr. Alicia Watts had known Bruce for nearly thirty years, she had been a first-year resident when the billionaire had come into the hospital because of a heart attack and, ever since, she had been working with him … and Batman, though she had only known Terry for just over three years. She was not as pretty as she once had been, but had gained a matured kind of beauty that most women would kill for, and that she also had her hair a solid gray color now. "I'll check in on her ever few days, but I see no real problems in her condition."

Terry smiled at her, "Thanks, Doc."

She pinned him with a glare even as he hid the bottle behind his back, "Young man, if I find out you drugged or poisoned this woman I will be forced to thrash you."

Terry, remembering something Bruce had told him once about Doc Watts, smiled charmingly and asked, "Is that a threat, or a promise, Doc? If it's the latter, would you rather use my belt or yours?" It had the desired effect of getting the older woman to blush a healthy red color and stammer a few seconds before she blinked a few times and laughed.

"I see you and Bruce ARE quite alike," she managed to get out while collecting her things. "He was always such a flirt, but like you, he never had what it took to get a woman like me." This made Terry blush and her to chuckle again, murmuring to herself, "Still have it, Alicia."

Later, after Doc Watts left, Terry was at Bruce's … his desk when there was a call on the private line, a line that was reserved for JLU business, so he picked up the ancient hand-held device while slipping into his 'Batman' voice, "Yes?"

"I take it Diana's gone to sleep?" Superman, wonderful. "I just checked her quarters here at the Tower and they are empty – where is she, Batman?"

"She's safe, Kal, and that's all I'm willing to say over the line – if you want to know more, you know how to find me." Terry put the receiver down and got out of his desk – at best, he had ten minutes before the Man of Steel showed up at his front door, well, his back door, at the Cave.

Like clockwork, ten minutes later, Superman was walking into the mansion proper with an annoyed look on his face, "Kid, what's going on here? Diana told me what's going on, but I saw in the computer that in a few hours she is going to be pronounced dead of natural causes – I want answers."

"Nice to see you too, Kal," Terry said, sipping some coffee as he sat back into his desk chair. "As for Diana, well, she said she wanted to 'die', that Diana Prince had to die, so she is. Big deal."

"People are going to get curious about where the body is, kid," Superman pointed out, sitting down and grabbing a cup of coffee for himself, "and how she died – she was too public of a figure to not garner those questions."

Terry nodded, "We've taken care of it all, Kal – she left me instructions that the press, when they ask, will be told it is an old Amazon tradition for the body to be burned, in private, and if they don't like it they can take it up with her mother, the Queen. From what I've heard about the woman, I doubt any of them are going to do something that suicidal."

Kal El looked at the new Batman, Bruce's heir in both the cowl and the business sense, and could see that the boy he had met was mostly gone, replaced by a man who had a steel the Bruce had shown often, but a steel that was still mostly untested. The kid had helped them out big in the past, especially with that one episode with the mind-controlling starfish, and had even refused full membership to the JLU because, in the kid's words, 'it wasn't his time, yet'. Bruce, when he told him that, had gotten a chuckle out of it, saying that maybe Terry was more grown up than he thought, but then the kid came back into the Cave with several day-glow colors on his suit, colors of the Jokerz, a murderous expression on his face and going directly for the heavy artillery Bat Armor. "So, what is her new ID?"

Terry shrugged at the question, "She has some old stuff that Mr. Wayne had cooked up years ago, and when she wakes back up, she'll have an unveiling party that you may be invited to."

"And her powers?"

Again, Terry shrugged, "She didn't say and I didn't ask – chances are they may still be there, but then again they may not. I think that, if she is suddenly powerless … she may accept it and try and live a normal life." Terry took another drink of his coffee, "If not … Wonder Woman may have a new apprentice to 'train'."

Kal groaned, sinking his face into his hand, "Oh, great – Cassie's going to love that."

Terry snickered at him, "Aw, does Cassie not like training people?"

Kal shivered, "She has her mother's temper – last time she went off, we had four cakes, two tubs of ice cream, a bowl of melon balls and a few liters of Soder pops to clean off of the walls, floors and ceilings." He thought back a second and then grinned, "According to Red Tornado, it was 'Young Justice PTM night all over again'."

Terry shivered at this, having been told the 'horror stories' of Young Justice by Dick, Barbara and Bruce alike, though he had gotten e-mails from Tim in full defense of what they had done. The ones that often did the most damage, though, were Cassie and Bart, Wonder Girl and Impulse, and Terry, for one, hoped to not meet the second, "Ouch."

They sat and drank coffee for several more minutes before Superman broke the silence, "So, one moon's time?"

"Yup."

"Do I really have any chance of getting you to join us full-time after that point? We could use a Bat in the belfries," Superman said, smirking at the end.

Terry shot him a dark look, "Keep making the jokes, fly boy, and your wife gets some pictures that Bruce has of you, involving you, some bikini-clad girls and a lampshade, not to mention enough booze to float your JLU tower."

Kal shot up, "Hey, that's low, and that was Bruce's bachelor party, if I remember …" The kid gave him a grin that only Bruce could have taught and Kal knew he was sunk, "You wouldn't would you?"

"Of course I would, Superman," the kid replied with a grin on his face. "Bruce always taught me the first two lessons – don't kill, and don't be afraid to honor a threat."

He shot the kid a look, "If Lois gets those pictures and I need a couch to sleep on, I'm using yours."

(27 nights later)

The first thing she felt was discomfort, from all over her body, mainly located in her chest, but her legs weren't far behind – she slowly opened her eyes and quickly shut them as the light assaulted her long-dormant eyes; she remembered the potion tasted foul, that she had actually been thinking of her hair color before she fell asleep, and … her stomach growled thunderously, answering if she was hungry or not.

"Well, good morning to you too." She knew the voice was that of Terry McGinnis and that he was walking towards her softly, unhooking several things off to her side and then pulling what felt like needles from her arms, "Don't worry, Diana, I'll have you unhooked in a few minutes – sorry, but I have to get person here for a second." She felt her cheeks redden as she felt his hands slip under the blankets and remove something else from her body, form a place that no man had ever been before, but she could feel that he was being professional about it as he quickly went about his business.

Several minutes later, she slowly opened her eyes and, after a few moments of adjustment, looked over to see that Terry wasn't the one standing there – Batman was, in his full uniform, and he was smiling at her slightly, "So, Sleeping Beauty, anything you want to know?"

She worked her jaw a little and tried to speak, but she only croaked out a dry, hoarse sound that soon got her a straw and some cool water, water she quickly sucked down her parched throat. After a few more minutes and two glasses of water, she tried to speak again, though it was weak, "How … look?"

Batman smiled at her and grabbed a mirror for her to look in, "Don't worry about clothes, Diana, Max has some here that you can borrow." None of this registered, though, as a new pair of eyes looked back at her, eyes she had never seen before

Green eyes, with very red eyebrows over her eyes.

AN: Okay, folks, that's it for this part – a little shorter than what I wanted it to be, but then again, I may extend this story out past the next, and supposedly final, part. Read and Review, please, AR.