Chapter Text
When Diana Prince gets a call from Maxwell Lorenzano, to say that she’s surprised would be putting it very very mildly.
“Why are you calling me?”
“Diana, Diana, not everyone renounced their wish!”
“What on earth are you talking about? They did! I felt them! And the world healed!”
“Most people did, Diana. The presidents and the commanders did, the people who wanted their spouses dead did. But I swear I felt something, some remnant of the Dreamstone’s power. You saw my notes, didn’t you? Please, believe me, I felt it.”
“Where are you? And who?”
He rattled off an address. Diana did not bother to be careful: she was a daughter of Themyscira, and with her power restored nothing in Man’s World was going to seriously threaten her if no god was involved. And if one was, she’d rather know about it sooner rather than later.
When she arrived, it was at a beaten down hotel a little west of DC. Maxwell Lord was babbling, more than usual. “I didn’t do it, I swear, I haven’t granted a wish, just felt it.”
“Do you know who it is?”
“Yes. I was touring the hospital after my donation, and I felt a connection to one of the patients. I can’t quite explain it, but I think she held on to her wish. If I’m wrong I’m so so sorry, but I couldn’t bear to see the world destroyed again.”
“We’ll get over this ‘donation’ later: take me to her.”
-----
“I recognize you. You spoke to me, on the Day of Wishes, last year. Fuck you. Fuck off.”
“What do you mean? You’re barely surviving: just look at yourself. What could be worth it?”
“Have you been a mother?”
“No, I have never had that honor. What is this about? What did you wish for?”
“I was. Once. I loved my daughter dearly. I imagine your mother loved you. Kept you safe, raised you well, taught you right from wrong? Not perfect, perhaps, but she raised someone strong and brave, someone who protects the world. I imagine she gave you the best life she could.”
“Yes. My mother, Hippolyta, was a good woman, and a good mother. It wasn’t always easy, and I wish I’d been a better daughter for her, but she was a great mother.”
The other woman, haggard, coughs. Her skin is flaking off of her: she traded her health to Lord, Diana suspects, as the man looks even better than he did the day he met her, back at the Smithsonian.
“I tried to do that for my daughter. Teach her right from wrong. Teach her to be strong and independent. And keep her safe. I failed at the last one.”
“It is a terrible thing, to lose a child before their time. I can’t imagine your loss.” Diana struggles, really. Man's world is a dark place.
“Lose! Lose! Like some accident! like I left my handbag at the train station! I did not lose my daughter. She was taken from me. That bastard took my daughter, raped her and then made her life miserable for daring to try to fight back.” She sobs. “If only I’d taught her less well. I taught her to be strong, independent, and to try to do good. She told me it wasn’t about her, it was about every other woman who might be in danger in the future.”
“I’m so sorry. Who was it? I can bring him to justice.”
At first she’d thought the woman was old, perhaps in her 80s, but as she pays attention Diana realizes that this is a younger woman, old before her time. Maybe 50, certainly no younger, at least before she sacrificed her health to Maxwell Lord. “That’s a funny idea. He was a colonel in the air force. Took a liking to a nurse. What could I have done? I was just an old widow, surviving on a pension. I tried to go to the cops and they laughed at me. I tried to go to the newspapers and they told me they couldn’t verify my ‘story’.”
She smiles, and it is a satisfied smile, if not a pleasant one. A cat that got the mouse, and played with it as well. “I tried to go to Maxwell Lord, and from him I got what I wanted.”
A sharp intake of air. “General Smith! That was not justice! He was tortured!”
The woman snorts. “I didn’t want justice. I wanted revenge. And now I finally have it. If I traded my health away, is that not the right of the old to die for the young?”
Diana takes a step back, and then recovers her composure. Maxwell Lord is silent, stony. “This isn’t for anyone! This isn’t right. How does this help his family, his other victims?”
“What do I care? Damn the other victims. I have my revenge, and I will die happy.”
“But this isn’t right! Would your daughter want this?”
“Do not speak to me of her. Likely not: she was a good girl, a good woman. I’m just a spiteful old bitch who tried to get justice for twenty years, and was denied. Now go: I have outlived everyone else I give a damn about. I do not regret my wish.”
Diana looks at the lasso, still wrapped loosely around her leg. She could kill the woman, undo the torture, and restore everything to what it was. "Who does this help?"
She walks away.