- 1 -
Having a jet aircraft land in the large parking lot next to this particular truck stop diner in rural Iowa should have been a once-in-a-lifetime event yet now, only two weeks after the first, a second had appeared. It descended vertically, the super-heated air blasting out of its engines melting the snow on the ground below as it settled next to an eighteen-wheeler. Unlike that earlier aircraft, this one was dark and bat-winged. No sooner had it landed and its engines begun powering down than its costumed pilot slid back the cockpit canopy and leapt down to the ground, the snow crunching beneath his heavy boots, cape swirling about him. This early in December everyone was inside the diner keeping warm, so there was no one to disturb him as he pulled a small metering device from his utility belt and set off round the edge of the lot, eventually stopping at a particular point and frowning at what it was showing him. A few seconds later he returned the device to his belt and headed for the diner.
When he marched through the door the half-dozen or so truckers eating within fell silent, eyeing him nervously, but then Batman was used to that reaction from ordinary people. What he was less used to was the steady gaze of the only woman in the place, the stout middle-aged waitress who watched him unflinchingly as he strode towards her.
"Margaret Jones?" he growled.
"I prefer Maggie, like it says on my badge. I'm guessing you're not here because you've heard great things about our coffee."
"I'm here about your son."
"Frank? Why? What's he done?"
"That's what I'm hoping to determine. I know he and Wonder Woman met here two weeks ago. There's no point you denying it because I've detected traces of the unique energy signature of her invisible jet in your parking lot."
"Why would I deny it? Yes, she and Frank met here and Frank introduced us. She was a nice young woman - very generous."
"Why were they meeting?"
"I don't know. You'd have to ask them that."
"You didn't eavesdrop?"
"No, I didn't. They were having a private conversation and I respected that."
Batman stared at Maggie silently and intensely for several long seconds. This was a ploy that frequently resulted in people blurting out things they might not otherwise have revealed. Not Maggie. She stared back at him calmly, completely unintimidated by the tactic.
"Hurm," he said eventually, "Thank you for your time, Ms Jones."
And with that he wheeled about and was gone.
As the door closed behind him so Burt, the diner's short-order cook, emerged from the kitchen.
"Wait, was that Batman?"
"The very same," said Maggie, eyes narrowing as she watched her former JLA colleague tramp through the snow to his waiting jet.
"Goddamn it! That's the second time I've just missed a visit by a superhero! Why did it have to be while I was on the can? Think we'll get a third one visit us, Maggs?"
"I hope not," replied the former Wonder Woman. "They've no business coming here and disturbing our nice little world, none at all."
- 2 -
It was late afternoon the following day that Bruce Wayne rolled up to the gates of a large Hollywood mansion in his Ferrari. At seventy degrees fahrenheit it was pleasantly warm and certainly much preferable to yesterday in Iowa when even the insulation in his Batman costume had not been enough to stop the cold from seeping in. The mansion was owned by Preston and Lavinia van Persie, a fabulously wealthy couple Bruce had met on several occasions at various charity functions. It was one of the finest in the area with glorious landscaping and magnificent views. However it was not the van Persies he was here to meet on this occasion because, to the surprise of everyone, they had suddenly backed out of all their forthcoming commitments a few weeks ago and decided to take a year-long vacation in Europe.
"Bruce Wayne to see Princess Diana," said Bruce, speaking into the grille on the gatepost.
"Do you have an appointment, Mr Wayne?" replied a male voice.
"No, but if you tell her I'm here I'm sure Diana will agree to see me."
"Very well."
Bruce waited impatiently until, a few minutes later, the gates swung open.
"The princess has agreed to see you," announced the voice.
Bruce put his foot down, gunning his Ferrari's engine and speeding up the driveway faster than was strictly necessary, screeching to a halt in front of the mansion. Sometimes it was good to play the irresponsible playboy. The front door was open and a besuited man who was presumably a butler of some sort stood in the doorway. He appeared to be in his late twenties, had a bushy beard, slicked back hair, and hooded eyes.
"Mr Wayne, I assume," he said, holding out his hand.
His own butler, Alfred, would not have offered a visitor his hand but they were less formal about such things on the west coast, so Bruce took it and they shook.
"John Montague," said the butler. "I'm employed by Mr and Mrs van Persie but at present I'm working for the mansion's current resident, Princess Diana of Themyscira."
"And where is Princess Diana?"
"Her royal highness is waiting to receive you. I'll take you up to her."
Montague led Bruce up the sweeping staircase to a room a few doors along from its top.
"Mr Bruce Wayne, your highness," he announced, opening the door.
Bruce was ushered into a luxuriously appointed dressing room where Diana was sitting at a vanity table applying her make-up. She was dressed in a long evening gown with a split up almost to her waist, silk stockings, and four inch heels, all black. She turned as Bruce entered, Montague closing the door behind him as he departed.
"'Your highness?'" he said.
"I am a royal princess, so that is the correct form of address," said Diana, smiling, "I'm just a lot less formal with my friends. It's good to see you, Bruce. I was wondering when the League would send someone to check up on me. It makes sense it would be Batman."
"You were expecting me?"
"Of course. When I announced that I was quitting the Justice League, giving up crime-fighting, and then started acting in ways that must have seemed out of character to you, I'd have been shocked and a little hurt if they hadn't sent somebody. You must have wondered if I was being mind-controlled or maybe even an imposter. It's reassuring to know you're worried about me, and very sweet."
"According to the report you filed with the League immediately afterwards, your last case as Wonder Woman involved the Red Dragon, a would-be conqueror who was smuggling weapons into Communist China in order to destabilise that country before taking power. Given that your boyfriend, Steve Trevor, was mind-controlled by the Red Dragon, you can understand our concern that either the Dragon or the Communists might have done the same to you."
"'The Amazonian Candidate'," said Diana, giving an amused chuckle, "wouldn't that be something? Also, Steve Trevor is my former boyfriend."
"Yes, and that's something else," said Bruce. "In your Diana Prince identity you were serving in the Pentagon as adjutant to Col. Trevor in the Special Assignments Bureau, a military intelligence unit tasked with nipping global crises in the bud before they develop any further. Out of the blue, you suddenly decide to break up with Trevor and to resign from the SAB as Diana Prince."
"I recently realised I was staying with Steve for no better reason than that relationship's comforting familiarity," said Diana. "He still loved me, but my passion for him had faded. I was just going through the motions and that was unfair to both of us, so I ended it. And with the changes I planned on making in my life it was also time to retire Diana Prince."
"So Diana Prince is dead, long live Princess Diana?"
"Exactly."
"Hmm. Before coming here I visited your manager's mother."
"Maggie? But why?"
"As you pointed out, your behaviour of late has been strange enough to warrant investigation, but before confronting you directly I decided to check out any new elements in your life that could help account for it, which led me to Frank Becker. Your new life and him becoming your manager happened almost simultaneously. I learned he had travelled to a truck-stop in rural Iowa on Thanksgiving weekend, a truck stop where his mother worked, and that you had left DC at the same time."
"How did you...? Wait, never mind. This is you we're talking about. What did you make of Maggie?"
"Unfit, should have made more of her life. Also quite disconcerting."
"'Should have...' Really? I think your class prejudice is showing, Bruce. Waitressing might be beneath you, but it's something Maggie clearly enjoys and is good at. She's done the best she could with her limited skills and lack of education and is obviously happy with her life. Waiting tables at an out of the way truck stop is a lowly job, I grant you, but she deserves our respect for finding good, honest work. As for her being 'unfit', Maggie seems very comfortable in her skin. Yes, she's overweight, but I won't judge her for that."
Diana took a cigarette from the pack on her dressing table, lit it, and inhaled deeply.
"So you're a smoker now, Diana? And you claim you're not being mind-controlled, or an imposter?"
"Bruce, I've been a smoker for years!" she said, exhaling a stream of smoke. "None of us shares everything about our private lives with our colleagues in the League. Because it's frowned on in someone expected to be a role model, my smoking is one of the things I chose not to share with you. I also like single malt whiskies, preferably at least twelve years old, something else you never knew about me. I acquired a taste for both as a result of my mission, not long after arriving in man's world."
"Your mission? I don't understand."
"My people, the Amazons, were out of contact with the rest of humanity for millennia. I was sent as an ambassador to man's world and charged with experiencing all aspects of your culture and reporting back on how it had changed in that time. I explored smoking and whiskey early on and discovered I enjoyed both. My time as a superhero was also part of that cultural exploration, one I have nothing more to learn from. So it was time for me to move on, and I have."
"To go from being a crime-fighter to this is quite a change," said Bruce, his tone conveying his disapproval.
"Yes, it is. You and the others never much cared for celebrity. You saw your fame as something to be endured, an unfortunate consequence of what you do. Not me. Though I never said anything, I was intrigued by it. I was particularly intrigued by celebrity culture and wondered what it would be like to be one of those wealthy young women who are always in the news for their 'celebrity lifestyle'. And it looked like fun, which is something that's been lacking in my life for far too long. Since we don't have anything like it on Paradise Island, I decided exploring the celebrity lifestyle should be the next phase in my cultural mission here. Which is why I contacted Frank Becker. He seemed like someone able to get things done so I approached him to be my manager."
"Why meet at the truck stop diner in rural Iowa where his mother works?"
"If we'd been seen together in public in Washington DC, news of our meeting and speculation about what it meant would have been everywhere in no time," said Diana, pausing to take a long drag on her cigarette. "I wanted to release news of my career change in my own time, to 'control the narrative', as Frank would put it, so our meeting had to be away from the major cities. It was he who suggested the diner. He wanted me to meet his mother, to show me his humble beginnings in order for me to be confident as to what kind of man he was. At first Maggie was overawed at meeting a superhero in the flesh, and a bit shy around me, but I soon put her at her ease. We actually had a long, quite profound conversation, telling each other all about our lives, and we connected on a deep level. I really like Maggie. She's a simple woman leading a humble, largely uneventful life, who's happy being who she is. I think I can honestly say that that meeting changed us both for the better. I came away from it feeling envigorated and absolutely convinced my plan to quit the League and adopt the new life I have was the right decision for me. After that, signing with Frank was a formality. He set up Wonder Woman Enterprises and is negotiating various deals that should make me the wealthy woman I need to be now. It will take a while for the money to start coming in, of course, so in the meantime he convinced the van Persies to loan me their lovely home while they're away and to support me financially until that time. They're nice people who appreciate all I did as Wonder Woman, and they were happy to do so."
"Hmm," said Bruce, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. "That actually all makes sense."
"Of course it does, because it's the truth."
Diana placed her cigarette in the ashtray, stood up, and took hold of Bruce's shoulders, causing him to wince. Her strength was nothing to be sneezed at.
"It's me, Bruce, it really is. I'm showing you a different side of myself, that's all. I'm still the same Diana you've always known, still me. I could tell you that Superman is Clark Kent, Green Lantern is Hal Jordan, the Flash is Barry Allen, and so on. I could also give you chapter and verse on all the cases we worked on together, but what is your gut telling you? Am I the real Wonder Woman or aren't I?"
He stared into her eyes for a moment, then let out a sigh.
"You are," he said. "I almost wish you weren't because then it would be possible to get back my JLA colleague. But it's not, is it? You really are serious about your retirement from crime-fighting."
"I really am. You do know that everyone in the League will eventually quit, either for family reasons or because of age and infirmity, right? I got out while I was still young enough and healthy enough to have a chance at another life. And I'm enjoying myself more than I have in a long time."
"I don't think I'll ever quit."
"No, I don't think you will either, Bruce. You'll keep going until it kills you."
- 3 -
After Bruce Wayne had left, John Montague joined Diana in her dressing room.
"That went well," he said.
"Yes, it did," said Diana, taking a last, appreciative drag on her cigarette before stubbing it out, "very well. So you can take off that ridiculous beard now."
"Glad to," he replied, peeling it from his face. "Thing itches like hell."
"I'm sure it does, but Wayne was already suspicious of Frank Becker so you couldn't appear to him as yourself. He might never have taken your hand if you had. I'm just glad Maggie gave us a heads up."
"That shows the importance of planning ahead," said Frank, casting the beard aside. "When she was filling you in on her former life as Wonder Woman and giving you the real names of all the Justice Leaguers, I realised they might want to investigate their colleague's retirement and instructed her to let us know if anyone came nosing around."
"I'm still amazed that Bruce Wayne is Batman. I mean the guy's a billionaire."
"That was a shocker alright, though less of a surprise if you think of it in terms of a one percenter getting his rocks off by beating up those poorer than him. Do you want to hear the recording?"
"Of course I do, Frank," said Diana, squeezing his shoulder affectionately. "I love listening to you do your thing. It makes a mother proud."
Frank took a small recorder from his pocket and turned it on. His was the first voice to issue from it.
"John Montague," said the butler. "I'm employed by Mr and Mrs van Persie but at present I'm working for the mansion's current resident, Princess Diana of Themyscira."
"And where is Princess Diana?"
"She's waiting to receive you. But first you need to listen carefully to what I say. Despite your doubts, you will be convinced by what Diana tells you and will not question her in depth about your past encounters. You will accept she's still the same woman you've always known and will take her story back to the Justice League. Any messages to yourself you recorded before this meeting against the possibility of being mind-controlled you will realise were unnecessary and will delete. You will similarly discard any other precautions you may have taken or provisions you may have made that question the truth of Diana being Wonder Woman in any way. You will now forget we ever had this conversation and I'll take you up to her."
With that, Frank turned the recorder off.
"It's fortunate the JLA sent Batman to investigate you, as we figured they would. He's their great detective so he was the obvious choice, but if they'd sent Green Lantern or the Martian we'd have been in trouble. Either that alien ring or the telepathy the green guy's rumoured to possess would have exposed you. Now when Batman reports back to them with the tale you told him they'll accept it, because he does. That's why it was important to carefully work out a plausible story that made sense."
"Which it totally does. I'd have bought it," said Diana, watching with interest as Frank finished peeling off the last of the mini-prosthetics that had enabled him to fool Bruce Wayne into thinking he was the entirely fictional John Montague.
"We're lucky there were so many world-class make-up artists here for me to chose from," he said.
"And none of them could refuse you. Your ability to make someone do whatever you want and have them believe it was their own idea is astonishing. With that and your other ability to switch minds you could rule the world if you wanted to."
"I don't want to, any more than you do. Who needs all that grief? Also, it would make me a target and I can be killed by an assassin's bullet just as easily as any other man. No, better to work quietly behind the scenes and not let anyone suspect what I really am. I got myself into a lobbying firm to work out how I can most effectively manipulate the levers of power in Washington. When I know how it all works I can then start making a difference. It's about time all those mealy-mouthed politicians in congress stopped sucking on the corporate teat and started working for all the little guys who elected them. I'm going to do my best to see that they do."
While they talked, Diana had been standing in front of the tall, free-standing cheval mirrors arranged so that she could view her beautiful body from every angle, marvelling at her reflection as she had so often over the past few weeks.
It was an activity she didn't think she would ever tire of.
*******
The End
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