It was mid-day. Wonder Woman was soaring over Gotham when she spotted the figure plummeting from the rooftop of the southernmost abandoned warehouse overlooking the river. She dived to intercept the oddly calm falling person, her eyes widening slightly with recognition. "Lois!" she exclaimed, wrapping strong arms around her best friend's wife. "What in Hera's name?"
Lois relaxed into the Amazon's arms. She'd seen the flash of blue and red and, for a moment, had assumed it was Clark. "Bad day," Lois replied. "Thanks for the flyby."
"No problem." Wonder Woman glanced upward as a Lex Corp. helicopter rose
from the rooftop Lois had just fallen from. "Do you want me to intercept?" she asked.
Lois shook her head as the two women landed lightly on the cracked sidewalk below. "It's nothing you should be in the middle of," she replied.
Lois had tried to confirm that a number of supposedly innocuous goods being illegally shipped from Gotham were in fact in violation of any number of drug laws. She'd tried to confirm a tie from President Luthor to the goods. She would've tried anything to even the playing field with him, to somehow diffuse the fact that she'd agreed to kill one to-be-named story on his behalf. But the warehouse had been cleaned out just moments before she'd arrived.
I honor my promises, anyway, she thought. Luthor has me, and that's all there is to it.
"Reporter business," she added, thinking of Diana's question.
There was, in her mind, no reason to bring Diana into what was her only secret from Clark. Those two called each other friends, but Lois knew they were more than that. Not quite brother and sister, more like kissing cousins. Yet she trusted her husband. And the link between him and the Amazon was there to stay; it was even necessary. The bottom
Line was that Wonder Woman and Superman would face together foes only the two of them had a real chance of defeating. Superman standing alone was more vulnerable. Lois certainly did not want to lose Clark, and a world with a Wonder Woman lowered the odds of that happening. Other wives could afford jealousy. She would be a grown-up.
Diana knew a flat-out lie when she heard it, an after effect of her days as Goddess of Truth. She still needed the lasso though because so often people shaded truth by degrees. Her fingers grazed the rope. It's none of my business, she told herself.
"What are you doing in Gotham?" Lois asked, straightening her suit jacket.
"Super-hero business," Diana replied. She couldn't help herself. "But now that you mention it, I was going to stop by your apartment later."
Lois noticed a couple of homeless men noticing Diana. They looked from her to the no-doubt alcohol-filled bottles in their brown paper bags, as if certain that only a drunken mirage could look that good and out of place. "Aren't you meeting Clark for training on the moon later?" she asked. "It's Wednesday."
Diana scanned the run-down neighborhood, listening carefully for any hint of strife or struggle. She'd finally been the one with the nerve to bring up the issue with Bruce, that bad things often did happen in the light. He'd reluctantly agreed to let her patrol Gotham between sunrise and sunset, so long as she was discrete about it. She was.
"Diana?" Lois prompted, not the least annoyed at being briefly ignored. Being Mrs. Superman had taught her that the meta humans were on constant alert, and the subject of their focus could often have cataclysmic implications. "Everything all right?"
The princess nodded, backing slowly into an alley, gesturing for Lois to follow. "Clark and I rescheduled. He has a lot to do this afternoon. It is Valentine's Day after all." She favored Lois with the smile that made Aquaman's throat go dry and the Batman's steel gaze warm slightly. "And Kal is married."
Lois opened her mouth to say thanks, but the sound died as Diana quickly began stripping off her uniform. From inside her golden belt, she produced a matchbook-sized box. At the press of the princess' thumb, the box expanded and unfolded, revealing an ankle-length black cotton dress, sunglasses, and purse. Diana tucked her trademark ensemble back into the box, which quickly shrank, and popped it into the purse. Lois noted the Amazonian figure and that Diana had kept her red boots on.
Envious, not jealous, Lois told herself. I'm human after all.
"Flash-family technology," Diana said. "Believe it. There's a rehabbed restaurant on Eighth and Canal, such a dive that it's become trendy. They have the best bacon cheeseburgers."
"You want to have lunch?" Lois asked, intrigued but mindful of her deadline on the Wayne Enterprises story that was supposedly the reason she was in Gotham. It was all ready to file except for a quote from someone high-enough up at the company to give the copy a little flash. "I have a four-thirty deadline, and nobody at Wayne E will return my calls."
"Cell phone," Diana said, extending her hand and leading Lois out the opposite side of the alley from where they'd entered.
Raising one eyebrow, Lois followed again and handed the phone to Diana, glad she'd worn the shoulder strap across her torso so her purse hadn't gotten lost in the fall from the warehouse (experience had its benefits). Generally speaking, Lois didn't particularly care for the ex-princess' princess-ish behavior, but at least she understood it was a product of Diana's childhood.
"Mr. Wayne," Diana said into the receiver, "I am here with Lois Lane of the Daily Planet. Due to vital circumstances I have no time to summarize, you will speak to her about whatever she desires so that I may employ her aid in a matter of extreme consequence." Wonder Woman handed Lois the phone.
"Bruce?" Lois asked, speeding up to keep up with the Amazon's long stride. It was worse than trying to walk with Clark, who made a real effort to seem human and had spent a lot more time with every-day people. "Are you there?"
"Lois, honey! How long has it been?" Bruce purred. "What can I do for you?"
Lois asked her questions, tucking the cell uncomfortably between her cheek and shoulder, dug a pen from her jacket pocket and scribbled the inane but highly credible quotes on her left hand. "Thank you so much, Bruce," she concluded, hanging up just as Diana pushed through the front door of Harvey's Bar & Grill. "How did you do that?"
Diana waved at the bartender and slid into the booth nearest to the back exist. "Would you believe we briefly dated in an alternate universe?"
"No!"
"Yes, unfortunately, he found out about it from an otherwise minor-league enemy of the JLA," Diana continued, "and he's been pursuing me doggedly ever since. But I am an ambassador for Themyscria, and he is a large donor to the American political party most sympathetic to our preference for limited isolation. Everything is-"
"Political," Lois finished, thinking again of her deal with Luthor.
"Well," Diana pulled two menus from the small stack behind the mustard-and-Tabasco holder. "Not quite everything."
The two women made comfortable small talk about the honeymoon phase of the Luthor administration until their lunches arrived. A bacon-cheeseburger with two orders of fries and a glass of cheap Merlot for the princess; a dry garden salad and half order of onion rings with a diet Coke for the reporter.
"Not that I'm not enjoying your company," Lois began. "But Clark's supposed to be in Egypt today, and you never stop by the apartment. So, what's going on?" Lois hoped she didn't sound rude. She wasn't well versed in Themyscrian culture or sensitivities, but from Clark, she'd picked up that Diana was generally very direct.
Diana pushed her sunglasses up for the first time since they'd sat down and regarded Lois with clear blue eyes. "I was hoping to . . . talk to you. That is, I was hoping to talk to you . . . about-" she lowered her voice "talking to Kal about talking to someone else."
So much for directness, Lois thought. She would've sworn that Diana had faintly blushed. Intriguing, at least. "Why don't you just start at the beginning?" Lois suggested. This wasn't like interviewing a hostile source. Whatever it was, Diana wanted to tell her. She just seemed to need permission to do so, and maybe a bit more of a comfort zone.
Diana took a rousing gulp of her wine, finishing it off entirely. "It's about sex," she said.
Lois didn't blink. Didn't flinch. Didn't move in the slightest. "Go on."
"You see, my protégé, Wonder Girl has developed a certain fondness for Kon. They're teammates in Young Justice, and of course they're teenagers. Hormones, battle heat, that sort of thing-"
Lois made a deliberate decision not to dwell on the phrase "battle heat." Or the image of a Wonder Girl with a Superboy.
"-and they've become . . . that's is, she talks about him quite a bit. She was in the Wonderdome, painting my nails . . ."
Lois glanced at the Amazon's hands and realized for the first time that they were blue and red, alternating. It matched the uniform, she supposed. Lois had never thought about Diana hanging out and having her nails painted by a teenage girl.
It made her like Diana better.
"I don't know," Diana went on. "I just thought that . . . and I'm not even sure this is an issue, but all those public service commercials say to talk to kids . . . well, do you think you could ask Kal to talk to Kon about Wonder Girl and about responsibility and . . . am I making any sense at all?"
Lois smiled. It was all very charming and refreshingly human. "You want Clark to have The Talk with your . . . protégé's . . . potential boyfriend?"
Definitely a big sister complex, Lois thought, wryly recognizing it from the relationship between Lucy and herself.
"Yes. If you wouldn't mind. I, I promised her mother to look after her. And she wouldn't even have met Kon if she hadn't become Wonder Girl .... "
"I'll take care of it," Lois promised, signaling the bartender for the check. "I'm assuming you're going to talk to Wonder Girl?" She felt sort of ridiculous spelling it out to the feminist icon. "A young girl needs information about her choices and options, too."
Diana didn't answer. She just stared at her fingernails. "I can't."
"You can't?" Lois asked, not sure this was entirely her business but Diana had come to her for help. "What do you mean? You're her ultimate role model."
Diana's voice was clear and strong, though too soft to be overheard from any distance by a regular human. "I don't know anything about it. Not ... really."
Lois blinked. She flinched. She felt every muscle in her body twinge slightly. "By anything, you mean…anything?"
Diana nodded. She didn't trust her voice. Being the most powerful woman and arguably beautiful on earth didn't make it any less frustrating to be a twenty-eight-year-old virgin because of lack of opportunity. She blamed Orin and his ex-wife. She thought briefly of Bruce and his inner demons. Comparing the two, she wondered if there was a difference.
"That's…" I'm way out of my league here, Lois thought. "That's a valid consideration," she finally said, deciding to maintain the focus on Wonder Girl. "Assuming Wonder Girl would find your going to her mother a violation of trust, is there anyone else who could have TheTalk with her? Someone else in your ..." Lois' mind flicked back to Diana's earlier reference about her clothing-related technology. "Wonder family who could talk to her for you?"
"My sister!" Diana exclaimed, remembering Donna's rather revealing conversation with a fellow Titan at a recent party. "Yes! Thank the goddesses, I have a sister who can handle that just fine. She's more ... knowledgeable about the ways of Man's World than I am."
Lois slapped her gold card down when the check appeared, and the bartender swept away with it instantly. "Outstanding," Lois said. It made suddenly sense that, best friends or not, Diana didn't feel comfortable talking to Clark about sex if she herself was so inexperienced. What was the saying? If you can't talk about it ....
In any case, Lois was pleased to have helped. And a little flattered to have been asked for help. She felt like quite the woman of the world.
Diana felt no need to explain to Lois that it was practically impossible for her to discuss sex with Kal in light of the fact that they'd virtually but not really made love in the Wonderdome's alternate reality and that, after a thousand years and millions of side-by-side nights together, he'd turned down the only proposition she'd ever dared to make.
Diana also had made a deliberate decision not to dwell on the phrase "battle heat." Or the image of a Wonder Girl with a Superboy.
She liked Lois, and she was pretty sure Lois liked her. It was a subtle shift in their relationship but a significant one.
After finishing off the last of the french fries, the onion rings, and generously tipping the barkeep, the two women left Harvey's and hugged goodbye for the first time just outside the door.
Lois wanted to say something encouraging to Diana, something about finding the right man someday. But she just didn't have any words that wouldn't sound artificial or awkward. "Happy Valentine's Day," she finally said. "From your best-friend-in-law."
Diana laughed, delighted at the reference, and replied, "Happy Valentine's Day."
***
In the men's bathroom of the bar & grill, the bartender slowly wiped away the make-up covering the savage-scarred side of his face. He reached into to the front pocket of his 501s, retrieved a coin, and flipped it into the air.
[
Next Thread |
Previous Thread |
Next Message |
Previous Message
]
