Chapter Text
November 8, 1994
Goddammit, Barbara Ann looks gay, doesn’t she? She knew she shouldn’t have cut her hair this short. Now she looks like she wants to rip off Wonder Woman’s clothes and eat her out live in this studio for the whole world to-
Barbara Ann wrenches her thoughts out of that direction. There are countless eyes in this room let alone the whole world, and she refuses to let them see her salivating with dilated pupils. That’s all Barbara Ann’s ever wanted, really, eyes on her. And she can’t ask for more eyeballs than the ones glued to The Ava Duffey Show. America gazes in unison at the couch on which Barbara Ann’s skinny arse now rests.
Barbara Ann fights the urge to fuss with her painfully short hair live in front of the nation. It’s as good as it’ll ever be. God knows the Themysciran publicity agency spent enough hours on it. Not to mention Barbara Ann's makeup, her manicure, and the dress pants which, she reminds herself, straight women do wear. Heterosexuality is delicate. Push it too far, and Barbara Ann simply looks like the femme in the relationship.
It takes little imagination to see Diana in the opposite role. The sleeves of Diana’s jet black jacket are rolled back, proudly showcasing the trademark bracelets over her bulging arms. She looks chiseled, sculpted with nothing but hard edges. No matter the situation, Diana’s presence is always felt. She sucks up the couch’s space, leaving the scraps for Barbara Ann and Ava.
This is why, ultimately, it doesn’t matter how Barbara Ann dresses. There are eyes, yes, but not on her. Never on her. Barbara Ann wouldn't even be here if Diana hadn’t asked for it. What good is an Amazon historian when an actual Amazon has manifested before you?
Diana tells a joke. The audience erupts, leaving Barbara Ann little choice but to laugh along. That’s how it always is with her and Diana.
As the chortles die down, Ava says, "It was ten years ago to this day that Wonder Woman first appeared on the scene, foiling a terrorist plot against the United Nations." She pauses for the applause. "And then winning our hearts by rescuing the orphaned Donna Troy from an apartment fire and making her into an Amazon princess." She pauses for the d'awws. "So what’s next for Wonder Woman?” The hostess is another competitor for the audience's eyeballs. Ava doesn’t take kindly to usurpers on her home turf, after all. Her dress suit is a bold, bright red, and it goes a long way towards putting her on equal footing with the superheroine. “There's no shortage of other terrorists out there. I hear you’ve been fighting in Kandahar. Why there, out of the whole globe?”
Diana’s answer is slow: “The Amazons know what it is to be men’s slaves.”
“So I take it you’re trying to nip that whole Taliban thing in the bud?”
“Trying to reopen the Afghan embassies.” Diana answers with none of the bravado the host was obviously fishing for. She sounds haunted, which serves to pull the hushed audience even further under her spell. “Dealing with all the supervillains sticking their noses into the situation. Disarming militants when I can. I’m not bulletproof—I don’t bounce them off my bracelets for show.”
“I was wondering about that.” Ava nods to the aforementioned accessories. “Those are made of indestructible Amazonium metal, right? Why not make a full suit of armor out of the stuff?”
Diana shrugs. “Too heavy.”
“Sure, but most soldiers don’t run around with their arms and thighs out like it’s a day at the beach.”
“Most soldiers can’t run faster than a car,” says Diana.
Barbara Ann leans forward on the couch, her voice a note higher than intended: “The Amazons’ modern day armor may look like what the Greeks wore, but under the hood are tremendous advancements.” She’s been waiting for a chance to interject about something, anything. “Even as far back as the Persian Wars, theirs was a cut above.” Barbara Ann left a breadcrumb there, unelaborated details to pique the imagination.
The breadcrumb goes uneaten. “So you do a lot of running over there?” Ava didn’t even turn to look at Barbara Ann.
Diana slaps a hand to her thigh, miming as if her legs are killing her this very moment. “More than you can imagine. I wouldn’t be here if there weren’t a break in the action. I’m reconvening with Steve’s envoy in the morning.” After Wonder Woman announced her intervention in the Afghan Civil War, the US sent a few soldiers to keep an eye on her.
“Naturally, naturally. We wouldn’t want to keep Steve waiting.” Ava says Steve’s name in a breathy, teasing voice. It earns whoops from the crowd. Paparazzi caught Diana and Steve holding hands, and the public’s been losing its collective mind ever since.
Diana ignores the remark. “Afghanistan’s in a delicate situation. All the power in the world won’t stop insurgents from arising. The only true solution is to change people’s hearts. The Amazons’ focus is on protecting as many Afghan lives as we can—we will never act as aggressors. We have hope for diplomacy.”
“That’s beautiful.” Ava’s voice has progressed from breathy to airy-fairy. “Stopping a war with love.” Her show thrives off the touchy-feelies.
“Quelling a handful of violent extremists is the least of what we offer,” Diana continues. “It’s one thing for Clinton to talk about universal health care—it’s another for the world to see it, to know what good can come of it, what miracles the Amazons have created in a civilization untouched by war. We’re done operating in the shadows.”
For millennia, the Amazons secretly monitored and protected humanity as best they could. This century, recent advancements in their techno-magic have made the Amazons safe enough to reveal themselves, an initiative which Diana led. The Amazons have few weapons greater than swords and spears, so they’ve long feared being conquered again.
“Well, you certainly wasted no time entering politics after stopping those terrorists,” Ava shoots back. “I suppose that would be the perfect chance to get people’s ears.”
Those hard edges on Diana’s face? They turn jagged in an instant. “I despise that word, ‘politics.’ Too often, it’s used to dismiss basic empathy for our fellow people. Governments have the power to protect and care for those in need. Love should be at the heart of everything they do. That’s why we have governments.”
“Yes,” says Ava, “and Themyscira sure has a powerful one. That’s the queen's role in it, right? An all-powerful caretaker for her people?”
Diana gives a wide and endlessly patient smile. “I understand ‘queen’ is the word the English-speaking media latched onto for her, but the Amazonian term is far more nuanced. Hippolyta’s authority exists purely through the trust and adoration of our people. As I said, a government bound together by love.”
“A loving authority is an enticing notion, I’ll admit.” Ava glances into the camera. “I can see the appeal, never needing to let go of Mommy’s hand.”
“Do you see the appeal?” Diana leans forward, knees spread apart, her voice echoing despite this set being designed to prevent exactly that. “Because I’ve observed time and again how people’s fleeting lifetimes in Man’s World can limit their imaginations. America has more than enough insulin for its citizens, but it doesn’t distribute it. And the Amazons could end the AIDS crisis tomorrow if your governments would only cooperate with us!”
Ava answers the fervor with solemnity. “That would be a beautiful world.”
“It would, and it’s at your doorstep.” The couch proves unable to contain Diana—she rises from it. “If you want to let it in-” Diana jabs a finger at the camera. “-then get out there tonight and vote!”
Barbara Ann tries to picture the telly's screen, the behemoth of a woman crushed inside a rectangle. The way Diana must appear on there, the studio lights falling on her skin. Does it make her cheeks sunken? Does it make her eyes sallow?
Barbara Ann has been given space now on this couch, and she responds to that space by shrinking herself even further. Barbara Ann shuts her eyes and listens to the applause peter out.
***
An amendment to Barbara Ann’s prior statement: she wants eyes on her, but not on the way up the stairs to her flat.
Of all the features Barbara Ann appreciates about Diana, foremost among them is her invisible jet, one of numerous “Robot Planes” the Amazons apparently possess. As the Amazons' champion, Diana was gifted an especially fancy model.
Barbara Ann and Diana, from the perspective of any potential onlookers, materialize on the sidewalk and are halfway up the stairs before a crowd has time to even consider forming. Most paparazzi probably think they’re still in the States—the jet got the pair here within two and a half hours.
After disembarking, Diana mentally commands the jet to perch itself on a rooftop where passersby are less likely to break their necks tripping over it. Barbara Ann doesn’t want to think about the attention that would draw to herself. Barbara Ann’s flat is a mere block away from the university where she teaches, and the last thing she needs is for anyone to spot her and a musclebound Amazon princess entering Barbara Ann’s home together at this time of night.
Halfway up the stairs, Barbara Ann says, “Well, that was painful.”
“Your knee again?” Diana turns, blocking the way up. “If you’d just let us use a Purple Healing Ray-”
Barbara Ann bats her self-appointed caretaker away with her cane. The aforementioned knee got crushed during an archeological expedition. If that stone had been a second slower, Barbara Ann would have gotten out of there with the artifact intact. Another example of the universe having it out for her.
As for those healing rays, well, Diana's been desperate to put them to at least some use. A few years back, Themyscira came within inches of inking a deal that would have installed purple bulbs into every light fixture in major hospitals the world over. They had to cancel, though, after a CIA whistleblower leaked a document titled, “If the Purple Healing Frequency Exists, so Too Must the Purple Harming Frequency.” Queen Hippolyta decided that the pros of healing the sick and wounded did not outweigh the cons of the mortal governments having free, unlimited death rays that can't be guarded against.
“I meant the interview. If that lady said the words ‘peace and love’ one more time, I’d have screamed. Wish you could have been on one of those episodes where she promotes the latest health craze.” Barbara Ann cackles at the thought. “You’d have torn her to shreds.” Among many things, Diana is one of Themyscira’s sharpest scientific minds.
“Satisfying as that would be, I couldn’t waste this chance,” says Diana. “My agent worked herself to death to get me on the show right before the elections.” One of Diana’s first actions in “Man’s World” was to hire a publicist. The princess is a savant at political science, which is a big part of how she became the Amazons’ champion. It wasn’t through brute strength alone—the tournament also involved written exams. “I have to get through to Americans. The US has always been the greatest obstacle to the Mission.”
Barbara Ann fights the urge to roll her eyes as she fiddles with the door key. She swears she can hear the capital M.
The interior of Barbara Ann’s flat utilizes a nonstandard organization system of her own design, i.e., Barbara Ann and Diana have to step over a few stray books and documents to get through the front door. Diana’s eyes skim the living area. Those books and documents are its primary features, though there is also a dusty shelf, which is in theory where the books are meant to go.
In lieu of furniture, a stack of tomes crawls up the far wall. Atop it rests what appears to be a model of a Greek temple. That wouldn’t look so out of place here, given Barbara Ann’s line of work. What is unusual though is the viewscreen affixed to this device, as well as the wire running out to a circular headband. Diana wades through the sea of research so that she can wear that band.
The headband is in fact a receiver for what the Amazons call a “Mental Radio.” The moment the receiver touches Diana’s skin, an image winks onto the viewscreen: the Amazon queen, visible from the torso upwards. With her curly black hair, flowing purple cape, and golden tiara, there’s no mistaking her. Queen Hippolyta beams into the non-corporeal camera. On her lap sits a hyperactive eleven year old in Wonder Woman-themed jammies.
The first words out Princess Donna's mouth are, “You were incredible!” Diana's family promised to watch the whole interview. Hippolyta has no television, but she does have a Magic Sphere. It picks up a few channels.
Diana gives a hesitant smile. “I got more skepticism than I expected.”
Immortal though she may be, Hippolyta smiles with wrinkled cheeks. “It’s tremendously less than I received during the Red Scare, I assure you.”
The mother and daughters chat while Barbara Ann makes tea. At some point, Diana calls out to the kitchen, “Do you want to come say hi?”
“My social battery’s shot,” Barbara Ann calls back. “Maybe next time, love.”
Barbara Ann lingers in the kitchen, watching the steam rise from the tea kettle and banishing the idle chatter of a loving family to the outskirts of her consciousness. Eventually, she hears the conversation die down, and so Barbara Ann returns to the living room to deliver the tea. It’s room temperature.
If that bothers Diana, she keeps it to herself. Her exterior is pleasant and perfect as always. “Hey, Barbie, can I steal your bed?” As she speaks, she removes the headset and returns it to the book-tower-acting-as-furniture.
“Oh? You’re not rushing back overseas to snuggle up in Steve’s barracks?” The apartment door is locked tight. All those glances Barbara Ann couldn’t steal back at the studio, she can now utterly abscond with.
Diana’s gorgeous, chiseled face is softened by hesitation. “Things were…” She chooses her words. “...nonstop over there for a while, and then I came straight to America for the show."
Without turning, Barbara Ann grasps for her cane, which she left leaned against the oven. “Ah, what the hell. Go ahead, spend the night. Everyone already thinks we’re fucking.” The tabloids assume all Amazons are gender-blind horndogs.
Barbara Ann’s remark was flippant. She didn’t intend it to have any weight, and yet now the air is heavier. Barbara Ann’s hand pauses mid-grasp.
“It hardly seems fair, doesn’t it?” Diana is the first of the two women to unfreeze herself. She takes a step forward. Her posture is transformed suddenly, awkward yet somehow also terrifyingly confident. A big, blunt wrecking ball of a person. “We suffer all the consequences, and we don’t even get to enjoy the sin.” Diana closes the space between them—so fast, she nearly bumps a light fixture. Barbara Ann couldn't brush that lamp with her frizzy hair even if she jumped.
A calloused hand places itself on Barbara Ann’s upper arm. “I’m so thankful you were here with me today, Barbara Ann. It was harder to book us both, but… I couldn’t do it without you.”
Diana’s eyes are gray, the color of Athena’s. Barbara Ann wonders if they were always like that or if they changed once she won the tournament. Blessed with the power of the gods. Barbara Ann stands on tiptoe, tries to ascend.
Diana sees the struggle, and she lowers herself. Their lips meet in the middle. Diana tastes like the salty air in the Black Sea, where Barbara Ann spent so long hunting for islands. She tastes like a history unearthed, something that’s been here all along, waiting to be uncovered.
At some point, self-preservation kicks in, and the two detach themselves so they can inhale. “Praise Aphrodite.” Diana is grinning. Barbara Ann hasn’t seen her smile like that since the two of them were on a naval base in California and Barbara Ann managed to speak a sentence in perfect Amazonian. “I’m not usually this impulsive. I was so worried I was… That is, I thought you and Etta might be-”
“It’s complicated. We’re not exclusive.” Barbara Ann’s impressed with herself for managing to string that many words together. “I thought you and Steve…”
Diana laughs. “Yes, we’re about to get hitched and have two-point-five kids any day now. Come on, Barbara Ann, you know the Amazons better than that.”
Barbara Ann knows Diana is teasing, but she can’t help but feel slighted. Barbara Ann is the world’s leading expert on Amazons, thank you very much. Diana must detect the displeasure because the next instant, she traps Barbara Ann in the warmest of hugs. Barbara Ann finds herself quite literally swept off her feet. Her knee-high boots dangle in the air.
Barbara Ann is helpless in these arms. They might as well be made of solid steel. She finds herself pressing her head into Diana’s torso. She feels like a baby bird in a nest. “D-Don’t you have any terrorists to be fighting right now?”
“Steve will Mental Radio me if anything happens. He wants me to rest a few hours.” The jacket starts to fall off Barbara Ann’s torso. Diana helps it along.
“You call this resting…?”
“Like I’d get any sleep, waiting for election results.”
Barbara Ann tries to say something else, but her protests are quelled once a pair of chapped lips find their way onto her bare shoulder. This flat may lack furnishings, but it does have one essential feature: a bed.
The last time Barbara Ann did this, she was in her fourth year of university. The other girl was a first-year, so blushing and timid that she made Barbara Ann feel like a rock star. The girl’s own personal goddesses. Is this how she felt? Like a being from on high has deemed you a worthwhile amusement?
Eventually, there comes a lull in the action. Barbara Ann sits up, propped against a pillow. Long, dark hair is strewn about near Barbara Ann’s left hip. She suspects Diana came close to passing out a couple times there. Poor pretty princess, she really has been in need of sleep.
In movies, women clutch bedsheets over their chests, but Barbara Ann does no such thing. Her teeny, misshapen boobs hang free.
There is at least one other piece of furniture here, and so Barbara Ann retrieves a cigarette and lighter from her nightstand. She fiddles with them for a moment.
“Wish you wouldn’t…” Diana murmurs from somewhere around Barbara Ann’s thighs.
“Even you can’t expect me to abstain after that.” Not everyone’s a perfect little Amazon.
As she smokes, Barbara Ann glances at the clock on the far wall—just enough lamplight to make it out—and then reaches for a twelve-inch telly atop the nightstand. It hums to life. Onscreen, a BBC anchor is speaking with a fervor reserved only for American politics. Barbara Ann clicks her tongue.
Diana’s eyes go straight to the election map. This telly is a touch washed out, so all that red looks like pink. “Suffering Sappho!”
“This is bullshit.” Barbara Ann flicks ash in the telly’s direction. “How could anyone listen to Gingrich? He doesn’t even wear a tiara!” She has to take a few puffs to calm down. It’s the same shit across the pond. The same assholes who spent the 1980s making Barbara Ann’s archeological career into hell. “If you were Wonder Man, voters would be hanging onto your every word.”
“It’s not too late.” Diana smirks. “The Amazons have a way to change that.”
“Necessity really is the mother of invention.”
The women watch for a while until Barbara Ann can stomach no more and turns the telly off. Then she puts out her cigarette and joins Diana’s head back on the pillows. “I’m so sorry, Diana. I really am.”
“It’s alright.” Diana trails an idle finger across Barbara Ann’s forearm. “The Soviet Union only recently fell. The longer people live through peacetime, the more receptive they’ll be to the Mission. War’s days are numbered.”
***
April 1, 1997
Barbara Ann sits at a booth in her favorite diner. She hasn’t been here in a while. It’s near her university, from which Barbara Ann has taken a leave of absence. She’s got more important things to focus on lately, such as cross-referencing maps of Bwunda against ancient sightings of human-animal hybrids. She’s gotten a tad unused to leaving her apartment.
Diana slides into the booth across from her. Barbara Ann can’t help but smile every time she sees Diana in the clothes of so-called Man’s World. In her guise of “Diana Prince,” Diana hides her arms in poofy sleeves, wears the flattest shoes Barbara Ann’s ever seen, and even has on a bit of makeup. It’s a deceptively radical transformation, and one that only accentuates the beauty that Aphrodite gifted her.
A pair of specs are the final ingredient, and they’re even bigger and dorkier than Barbara Ann’s own. It’s remarkable how unrecognizable a person becomes with the addition of spectacles and a ponytail.
The pretty princess greets her with a hug and a kiss on the cheek. “I’ve missed you so much!” They’ve hardly gotten to see each other lately.
Barbara Ann cheek-kisses back. “Wish we could hang out more, but this is no time to quit while I’m ahead.”
The waitress comes by, and the friends order right away. After that, Barbara Ann can restrain herself no longer. She slaps her palms on the table and says, “Veronica Cale is funding the entire Bwunda expedition.”
Barbara Ann has spoken of little else for months now. This will be the first ever look inside the temple of Urzkartaga himself. He’s an ancient plant-god, a pillarstone of Bwundan culture, and all signs point to Urzkartaga being as real as the Amazons’ own goddesses. The archeological community has spent the last fifteen years sneering at Barbara Ann, but this time she will make them acknowledge her. This will be the greatest addition to humanity’s understanding of the world since the Amazons announced their millennia-long secret existence. And the best part is, it has nothing to do with the Amazons whatsoever. This is all Barbara Ann. If anything, Barbara Ann is helping the Amazons—even if, she’s sure, Diana does resent being the helped and not the helper.
The world continues to mock the notion that ancient mythology could be real, even after Diana brought a chimera to a zoo. This Bwunda expedition will put the doubters to rest once and for all. Barbara Ann only wishes her old man were alive so she could see the look on his face during her press conference.
Once Barbara Ann scientifically proves that gods exist, the public will take the Amazons seriously, and they’ll be ready to fulfill “the Mission,” i.e. bringing about the Amazons’ gay socialist utopia or whatever. Really, Barbara Ann is doing all this in the name of peace and love. Diana ought to be on her knees thanking Barbara Ann.
The words are met with silence. In the distance behind them, on a telly mounted above the dining area, a news commentator raves, perfectly audible: “Desalination? Yeah, right. More like the Amazons are spiking the world’s water supplies to turn us docile! You scoff, but is it really more outlandish than a Purple Healing Ray?”
Finally, Diana speaks: “That’s unexpected.”
“No, please, try and contain your joy,” says Barbara Ann.
Diana places a hand over Barbara Ann’s own. “I am happy for you, Barbara Ann. I am.” The thing about Diana is, she’s a terrible liar. “I’m sure it’s a relief, being free of that financial pressure. There is no money on Themyscira, so perhaps I struggle to relate? For that shortcoming, I deeply apologize. You deserve to be celebrated.” She’s doing what Barbara Ann calls her “politician thing.” Saying what Barbara Ann wants to hear.
Soon enough, the waitress comes by with the chow. Diana picks at her eggs. She doesn’t eat meat, and Diana is growing increasingly reluctant even to eat animal byproducts. She’s been complaining lately about the condition of chickens in factory farms. It’s a waste of money, but Barbara Ann hardly cares. Her expedition was funded the other night in one fell swoop—she can splurge on a meal.
Barbara Ann tries to feel that celebration Diana mentioned, but it’s tough when the princess is sitting there pencil straight, radiating anxiety. Barbara Ann finds herself saying, “Diana, I’ve been in and out of lost temples for decades now. What on earth are you so afraid of?”