welcome to the justice lounge

“Hey Hal, say cheese.”

Hal flinched, leaning back in the driver’s seat as he was blinded by a quick burst of light.

“Ollie what the hell?!” he snapped, and Ollie laughed.

“Gas station had those one time use cameras,” the blond said, leaning on the side of the truck. “Thought it’d be fun, you know? Document our little trip.” He waggled the camera a bit, then looked it over. “I tell ya, the things we have these days. Cameras used to be a luxory item! Now you can buy them at the corner store.”

“Yes yes, truly amazing.” Hal rubbed his eyes, clearly unimpressed. Of course, the green ring on his finger made most things a lot less impressive. Oliver boxed him roughly in the shoulder.

“That’s your problem, Highball. You don’t know how to have fun. Here.” He tossed Hal the camera. “I need to go take a wiz.”

Chuckling, the blond turned and headed for the side entrance bathroom. This place was supposed to have clean restrooms, but he’d settle for not having to shoo flies just to wash his hands. Since he had a minute, he pulled out a smoke, putting it to his lips as he patted his pockets for his lighter. Just then, he heard the door open, and glanced over his shoulder just in time to see Hal snap a picture of him.

“Tell me I don’t know how to have fun,” the brunette said with a smirk. “Payback’s a bitch.”

“You ever seen Escape from LA?” Kyle asks Kate. They’re perched on the roof of Warriors; out past the moat (hey, green light bulldozer) they dug weeks ago, the undead are making the usual moaning and scratching noises. It’s something that, surprisingly, you learn to tune out. She picks one off with her staff, as it tries to float across the moat, and Kyle constructs a giant pooper scooper to dump it in the ocean. “This is so Escape from LA.”

“No,” says Kate, her tone implying a roll of the eyes that isn’t visible behind her mask. “But even so, that wasn’t zombies, ese. That was…I don’t know, mutants or whatever shit John Carpenter could dig out of his brain for a sequel.”

This is really where their conversation has ended up, these days, in banal pop culture references barely worthy of a mediocre podcast. It’s easier than talking about what’s really happening, because Kyle withdraws and then Kate’s pretty sure she’ll snap.

She’s hoping to get to Star City soon (Ollie, much to Mia’s chagrin, has mastered the art of taming messenger pigeons), once Obsidian comes through on the armored car deal, but she can’t bring herself to leave Kyle by himself. There are pockets of other survivors in LA, yeah—most of them capes or watched over by them, some just really fucking resourceful—but she knows what Kyle will end up doing.

( double tap )

16 years later:

“Damian Wayne, I said sit.” Lian was done coaxing and pleading, was through trying to be understanding about this particular inhibition. Determination steeled her voice, and she didn’t miss Damian’s small flinch at her tone.

Her husband stood before her, at least a foot taller and the broad span of his shoulders heaving with frustration. They locked eyes, and she at once recognized his attempt to intimidate her with a flint-hard glower that had long since ceased to impress her. “Sit,” she ordered again, unblinking, and the resolve on his face wavered.

His glare melted into a petulant pout, and he lowered himself upon the couch directly behind him.

“Good boy,” Lian said in playful commendation, and she left him to fetch the baby from the bassinet in the corner of the living room. “Here’s hoping that voice is as effective on our son as it is on you.”

Damian looked away as she approached with Grayson in her arms, plucking at a loose thread on the arm of the sofa. “I’ll hurt him,” he protested once more. “He’s too small.”

Lian sat down close to Damian, taking his arm and placing Grayson in the crook of it. Damian drew Grayson to his chest with considerable hesitance, Lian guiding his motions. The baby gurgled up at his father, their mirroring gray eyes studying each other with equal perplexity.

“There, Dami,” Lian said, and she received a slight smile for her encouragement. She nudged his elbow to make certain Gray’s neck was properly supported. “I knew you could do it, sweetheart.” She stood up to get a better look at the two of them together, the two loves of her life sharing the same space and breath and Damian’s face rolling with emotions that no one except herself ever got to see.

“What do you think, Batman?” she prompted after a minute, because if she didn’t joke a little she was going to cry instead. “Does your heir meet your lofty standards? Have I satisfied you at last in completing the task I was enlisted for at the ripe age of eight?”

“Acceptable,” Damian said in his clipped manner, and he caught her eye as they both laughed. He shook his head and looked back down at Gray, stretching with a yawn in his father’s arms. “No, Lian. He’s perfect. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” Lian sat back down by them, wrapping her arms around Damian and leaning into his shoulder to peer down at their son. “But you sure do owe me one.”

“An eternal debt,” Damian agreed. He turned his head, pressing a kiss to her temple. “How long must I wait before I can begin training him?”

“How long do you want to go before your son finds out just how hard I can kick his father’s ass?”

Damian grimaced. “I suppose we can settle the semantics later. There are other considerations besides the mission in ensuring he has a full childhood, after all.”

“Yes,” Lian echoed, tears stinging her eyes once more. She squeezed Damian tight and smoothed her fingers against the downy-soft threads of fine hair on Gray’s scalp. “I can’t tell you how glad I am to hear you say that.”

The baby’s eyelids fluttered as sleep crept upon him, and Damian watched the transition into slumber as if it fascinated him more than anything he’d ever seen. “My brother made sure there was more to my youth than chasing criminals. I promised him I’d do the same for his namesake.”

If there was anything good about the Dark Knight ban on outsiders entering Gotham, at all, Ollie was starting to think it was that now his favourite people tended to come to his beloved Star City a lot more.

He could have met Dick in Bludhaven, but they’d both tacitly avoided suggesting there as a meeting ground. It was still too close to Gotham, and it was too close to … other complications. So instead they’d met up in the bustle of the Starborside Quay and filled a leisurely lunchtime with the kind of affable, looping chatter that both of them enjoyed so much and could perform without the least bit of effort. Dick’s company always had been a pleasure, even when he’d been a tiny, excited parakeet of a child, eager to copy anything the grownups were doing. And as he’d gotten older, he seemed to become more and more a delight to be around, something accepted as general consensus even among the most sharp-tongued of Leaguers.

You talked to Dick and there was something about him — the compelling familiarity of his laugh, the absolute candor of his blue eyes, the stain of sadness that made his compassion so palpable — that left a person feeling like they’d just met the *one* guy in the entire world who’d think they were lovable no matter what.

( we can steal the towels, too )

The first thing they’d done was all shave their hair off.

It helped them to look identical to the eyes of people they’d meet on the road — threw the strangers off, made them think maybe there was a bigger force to face than three blonde girls. Nobody took teenaged blonde girls seriously. They’d learned that back in Topeka, in a swampy hurricane of wild-eyed dirty ravenous attacks that Mia still couldn’t believe they’d managed to fight free of.

Sometimes it was like the remaining living humans were more threatening than the zombies.

Mia shifted her quiver along her shoulder as she watched Steph stand on a burned-out SUV, shading her eyes with her hand as she stared down the road. Cassie came running back from scouting in the other direction and Mia absently admired the high, straight lift of her knees, the way she wasn’t out of breath when she joined Mia in the shade of the overturned pickup she was leaning against.

“There’s a big dugout concrete pipeline in that direction,” Cassie said. “We can hole up there for the night, it’d be good shelter and it’s out of the way.”

“Sounds good to me,” Mia said. “Since we live like rats anyhow.” Cassie rolled her eyes, but the look quickly turned to concern.

“That’s hurting you,” she said, touching her fingers over Mia’s on the strap of her quiver. Mia’d made it herself ages ago, fashioned it from a messenger bag, but the wide nylon strap had so much sand and sweat in it now that it was rubbing her raw. Cassie’s fingers were cool, for a moment, and it was only as they heated up that Mia hissed.

Cassie gave her a hard look. Then she bent over, untied one of the multiple strips of rag she had wound around her legs, and proceeded to wrap it around Mia’s quiver strap. “You’re so dumb,” she said softly, as Mia tipped her head to allow better access. “You push and push yourself and never say when you’re hurt.”

“Don’t notice half the time,” Mia said, letting her voice roll out laconic and raspy. “Everybody’s got shit they don’t talk about, Cass, don’t you know that by now? Maybe I *like* feeling that strap biting into me. Maybe it reminds me that feeling it burn me is better than getting my skull cracked open and my brain scooped out.”

“Still going above and beyond in filling your role as The Cynical One, I see.” Steph hopped down from above them; she was terrifyingly quiet when she wanted to be. Cassie finished wrapping and stepped back, her pretty mouth turning an interesting dark pink, and Mia filed that away for later as she re-hefted her quiver and nodded at the new feeling.

“So, girlies,” she said. “Let’s go kill us some motherfucking zombies.”

"What would your life be like if your dad had died instead of your mom?"
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“Come on, we’re going to be late to Freshmen orientation!”

“Oh my god, mom! We’re not going to be late!” Mia said rolling her eyes as she ran out of her room with the last of her suitcase and headed out the door past her mom and to the car. “Come on Mom! We’re going to late!”

The blonde woman rolled her eyes and headed out of the house locking the door before getting into the passengers seat of the car, since her daughter decided she was going to be the one driving.

Mia reached down and turned on the radio and pulled out of the driveway. She sang along for a while before her mom turned the music down. “Mom! I’m driving, turn it back on.”

“Honey…”

( first day )