welcome to the justice lounge

Kyle searches for Zee.

Zee is staying in one place, her apartment in Metropolis, to make the finding go easier.

Kyle eventually realizes she’s not in San Fran and he doesn’t /think/ she’s in Shadowcrest…he feels a slight edge of panic and calls her.

"I’m in Metropolis," is the first thing she says when she picks up his call assuming his question without giving him a chance to say it, "Remember, I got a place here too?"

Kyle ”I remember, I just - never mind. I’ll be there in five minutes.” He tries not to think too much about what he’ll do when he meets her there, and instead just hones into her coordinates from her phone signal and flies into Metropolis. He calls again and says, “I’m on your rooftop, I think.” It’s cold in Metropolis now, and Kyle restructures his body temperature regulation to compensate.

Zee listens to Kyle’s voice on the rooftop, what sounds like a light wind brushing against him as he speaks, “I’ll be right up.” she throws on a pair of sneakers and a wool trench coat to go over her pjs. She’d been spoiled hiding beneath her warm covers. She trudges up to the roof, keeping her hands shoved deep into her coat pockets when she sees him, “Hi.”

( keep talking keep talking )

Bruce doesn’t come to her in the suit. No, Batman’s presence in the days after the parade has not been as heavy as they had once been. It wasn’t to say that she had been abandoned, but whatever the dark knight had been occupying himself with in the shadow of nightfall had been too specific to make the rounds, too far gone underground, and it shows when he makes his way above it, climbs to the rooftops and across, to make his way to her Park Row apartment. He doesn’t knock, doesn’t tap the window, merely pushes it where he knows the hinge is broken, where Selina keeps it open for the cats.

Selina pets Isis, curled up on the couch across from the window. She’s not asleep, not quite— she hasn’t been able to sleep since the parade— but it takes her a moment to realize that the creature coming through her window isn’t a cat. She raises her head, eyes going wide in the darkness. “Bruce?” She’s not completely sure, but how many other people does she know that don’t use doors?

Bruce exhales, as a way of letting her know that it is him that she’s.. safe? He pauses, looking down at his suit, at the blood that slicks across the gloves and up the gauntlets. He isn’t in tatters, even if the kevlar and Nomex is, and he moves across the narrow space of her tiny flat, until he is standing in front of her, looking down at where she is curled up, from the top of her head, down to the shirt, leggings that she is wearing, and settling—strangely (or not strangely) enough on her bare feet. He doesn’t move, doesn’t budge from where he is, hands loose at his sides, looking, with no pun intended, like something the cat dragged in.

( mistress of sedge and bee )

Bruce rolls over in the bed (Ollie’s bed) in Star, checks on Shado’s movements, before he tucks a hand around Kate’s waist, drawing her closer.

Kate shifts and nuzzles into him a little, murmuring wordlessly.

Bruce smiles, and kisses the crown of her head. “..princesa.”

"Mm," she murmurs something that sounds like ‘daddy’.

Bruce exhales, and brings his mouth down to her skin. He kisses the slope of her neck, down to her collarbone, before he shifts to slip his his hands under her shirt, fingers skating up her belly to her breasts. He pushes the material up, bowing his head, kissing across her chest before he draws his lips against her nipples, opening them to pebble her areola, hands settling on her hips.

Kate shifts, nuzzles her nose and mouth down into his hair, as the pleasure of his touch wakes her more fully, stirs a low pulse of heat deep in her belly and between her legs. “Everything okay?” she mumbles, though clearly everything is or he wouldn’t be doing this.

( tangled up )

Kyle comes in through Zee’s bathroom window. No kidding; he comes actually lets himself in through the front door, buzzing up and in plainclothes like a normal person.

"Zee?" he calls and stands inside her foyer by her front door.

"I’m in the living room." she calls, curled under her blanket sitting in her reading chair. On her lap sits a thick stack of papers she’s been sifting through, clicking her pen again and again as she reads over it all.

Kyle meanders in, hovering at the entrance of the living room for a bit and looking at Zee’s back profile for a long time, before he comes around to face her. He offers up a trio of gerbera daisies for her. “Hi nena. I’m sorry I left you.”

Zee clicks her pen once more before finally looking up at him, “Hi.” she sets aside her papers and pen, looking at the bright flowers like the ones Ollie said he liked so much, “Those are nice.”

Kyle settles on the armrest of the couch beside Zee, putting the flowers on the side-table. “They’re for you…” he presses his lips together and slowly breathes out through his nose. “Zee, c’mon, please.” Kyle’s curious to see what she’s working on, but he doesn’t ask, not yet.

Zee kicks off the blanket, reaching for the flowers as she stands, “What? You want me to kiss you and say it’s all better?” she shakes her head, taking the flowers over to the kitchen sink, grabbing a vase from a cabinet overhead. “These are from Earth right? I don’t want any weird moon rocks floating around when I’m not here…”

"They’re from that flower guy down the street," Kyle answers first, still sitting. Then he gets up and follows Zee into the kitchen, watching her fling open the sink faucet and cram the vase under it. "And no I don’t wanna kiss and make up right now. What I want is to talk and for you to forgive me. Whadda you want, Zee?"

( our worlds at war )

His fingers drift over Oliver’s eyelids when the man is back in the bedroom. Damian had returned to the bungalow with Dick, the other room was cleared out, and so, the structure is still and empty. The air was baked stale with a lack of airflow during the highest point of sun for the day; no one had been inside.

Bruce had opened the window in the bedroom, and slowly, the breeze stirs the curtains as Bruce pulls the sunglasses. Removes them from Oliver’s face, to inspect the damage.

"You removed them yourself," he murmurs, his voice running along the edge of the bed before it lifts to the archer’s ear.

"I did." Ollie’s answering before he even realizes he’s talking; the warmth of the air is soporific, heavy and golden as honey, preserving him in its amber. His mind seems to tick along a half-beat behind his mouth, his heart, his blood. "I didn’t have much else of a choice."

He opens his eyes to look at Bruce and it’s an unctuous, greasy slide, what with the melted ointment and the swollen skin of his eyelids. But that’s better than the grinding bits of dried blood and lymph, the way his lashes had been caked with blood. There’s still beads and spots of it, here and there. Blood running along the line of his lashes to drip from the tips when he blinks.

"Mar’i helped me clean and salve them," he says, turning towards Bruce to be more closely inspected. "I think they’ll be okay. I’m just gonna look like a freakshow for a few days while they heal."

An understatement. He looks horrendous. He’d caught a glimpse of himself in the long closet mirror and almost fallen onto the bed in disgust.

( in the still )

Oliver stalks across the camp, noticing Clark and Zatanna up on the tower — that doesn’t matter to him, as long as it’s not Mia up there haunting it, little round-faced girlghost — and heads into Bungalow 2, into the bedroom he shares with Bruce.

Bruce is in the room, poring over a book on illness and disease, a refresher more than him actually learning anything, and doesn’t look up when Oliver enters. He remains where he is, standing by the window as he looks down at the medicines and supplies he’d been sanitizing, holding the book with one hand as his other checks the seals on the bottles and vials.

Oliver kicks off his shoes, letting them heap against each other. “Come here,” he says. “Put that shit down and come here, Bruce.”

His voice flat, he speaks over his shoulder: “Busy.”

Oliver laughs, but it comes out serrated. “You know all that shit inside out. Learned it dandling on your father’s knee, ain’t that how it goes? Thomas Wayne, the greatest surgeon of them all, and you — Gotham’s your patient, right? That’s how you carry on daddy’s legacy.” He’s getting faster, louder as he talks, the words spilling out over themselves, tumbling down atop each other in an untidy pile. “We all got fucking legacies to carry out, one way or another.”

Bruce looks up from his book, and over at Oliver, looking unamused. Well.. Moreso than usual. He remains silent, staring at the other man, unblinking.

"Come /here/. Christ, is a simple request too much for you? Do I need to submit it in writing? Scream? Holler? Beg?"

Bruce exhales, closing his book. Slowly. “What happened?” Then, after a beat, he adds: “In writing, but on carbon copy paper.” He sets the book down and folds his arms, taking a step towards Oliver. Then, perhaps the motion, pushing him from his place, or maybe something shifting under the archer’s skin catches Bruce’s eye, because he repeats, frowning. “What happened?” The words are softer, but not gentle. He unfolds his arms, the stance aborting mid-motion.

Oliver moves forward, meeting Bruce, and pushes one hand against Bruce’s face, drawing fingertips across his forehead, thumb down along the bridge of his nose, an arc over the cheekbone and a pull down to the lips, Bruce’s chapped lips, his strong, familiar chin. He exhales, a long slow relieved breath, then pulls back his elbow and drives his fist forward, crunching it against the side of Bruce’s face. His knuckles pop open, two of them, on that hard wing of cheekbone, and Ollie’s mouth drops open slightly in pleasure, making a pattering, sticky sound.

( heureux, heureux a en mourir )

[ENCRYPTED TEXT] Is there anything you can tell me about the case the city of Los Angeles is bringing up against Promethean Arms Development?


He sends the next message almost immediately after the first; it’ll arrive as she’s reading the first.

[ENCRYPTED TEXT] Good afternoon, Kate.

TXT: And good afternoon to you too.


TXT: "Anything" is damn vague, Bruce. Narrow it down for me.

[ENCRYPTED TEXT] Who CI #9854 is.

Kate heaved a sigh, rubbed the bridge of her nose and her brow between two pinched fingers.



TXT: From DA office scuttlebutt? one of their exec engineers randomly grew a conscience. All I know is a he, he’s got a partner and child that are already in DWP and a male lover under police protection, and he’s a smug asshole regardless.


TXT: if that narrows it down. their senior mgmt is about 150 ppl & 95% dudes.

One hour later, after several deleted drafts.

TXT: did you want me to find out names or were you planning on doing that yourself, querido?
[ENCRYPTED TEXT] More than enough information for me to go on. You’ve saved me a lot of time.

[ENCRYPTED TEXT] Thank you.

Ten minutes later.

[ENCRYPTED TEXT] When can I see you?

( billable hours )

The Abigail Horton Charity Ball was not one of Star City’s more glitzy or titillating yearly events. Instead, it was a sort of party anachronism, a perfectly and unchangingly orchestrated snobfest that had somehow endured in a city increasingly derisive of any social caste system. One of the reasons for this longevity was most likely the continued and considerable support from Oliver Queen, who had dutifully attended the Ball almost every year since its inception.

This, however, was the first year he’d actually brought somebody with him.

“Did you get a look at the cloakroom?” Ollie nudged Kate as, coats checked, they strolled through to the cocktail area of the enormous venue. “There was so much fur in there it was like some Guy Maddin windchime, all those little fox paws knocking against each other. The saddest clapping in the world.”

A waiter whisked a gleaming tray of champagne flutes in front of them, and Ollie swiftly appropriated one for each of them before the waiter disappeared again, having said nothing at all. Ollie grinned at Kate, resisting the urge to loop an arm around her, kiss her perfect hair. They had the whole party to ride out, after all; he needed to pace himself. Instead he gestured around with his glass before sipping from it. “I know you’ve been to some upscale soirees, Katie, but I’ll bet you’ve never been to a real dyed-in-the-silk, old money, pearl-clutching and monocle-popping kinda gig. Get ready to be scrutinized from stem to stern by every wealthy family that’s creaked out of the crypt and gussied up to be here.”

Apart from the waiters, they really were among the youngest people in attendance.

“You totally just brought me along so you’d have someone to snark to, didn’t you,” Kate murmured back in Ollie’s ear. She’d mastered the fine art of holding a pleasant-yet-uninterested expression a long time ago (it was sort of a job requirement), and she kept hers on even while making observations like this.

Ollie could get away with being overheard. Kate was many things that he wasn’t that made her only on the edge of suitable for attending, not to mention female as well. The expression wasn’t quite a mask; it was, she figured, what would be construed as civility…even if behind it, she was anything but. Or maybe it was from some bone-deep sense of self-preservation. Or both. It was hard to say.

Gently putting her hand on his shoulder, to turn a little, she took a sip of her drink and noted, still sotto voce, “To be honest, I’m stunned the animal-rights activists aren’t camped outside, because this would be seriously easy pickings, especially for Star City. Or am I missing the discreet police presence keeping them 100 yards away?”

( high society whirl )

By now, Kate can read Ollie like a book—which for Kate means not just like a book, but like a well-thumbed copy with notes in the margins, marked up with highlighter, spine gently cracked, and liberally spiced with flags made from little torn pieces of Post-It. (This is, incidentally, how a good chunk of Ollie’s library looks, but that’s neither here nor there. Kate doesn’t mark her books with pen or pencil, but the metaphor still stands.)

The look when he wants to taste her was something she figured out fairly early on, and by now it’s so obvious to her that she wonders why no one else has noticed by now. The usual dark flash of his eyes and underhand glances of covert desire, sure, but in this case it’s accompanied by sucking in just faintly on his lower lip, running his tongue over it, then pursing his lips. Said look has been followed by more than one instance of stunningly amazing oral sex.

( mistress of sedge and bee )

(hanging out at ollie's place, and kate is packing under her jeans)

KATE: *pulls away, turning so she can sit up on the counter, only her eyes giving away the fact that she's playing a part* You're not taking me seriously, Ollie. If I was un hombre, if my dick were real? You'd be fighting me already.

OLLIE: No I wouldn't. *moves in, touching the sides of her knees* If YOU were un hombre, Kate? I'd already be on my knees.

KATE: *bites her lip for a second, then plants her foot in his solar plexus and shoves him to the floor* You bastard.

OLLIE: Ollie slides back, honestly astonished to find himself on his ass. "Honey, I ..." he starts, then wrinkles his forehead, looking unsure. "I'm taking you very seriously," he says finally. "But I want what I want."

KATE: *cocks her head, letting him know she's playing still, that it's not really her* *slides down off the counter*

OLLIE: Smiling at her for a second or two, Ollie tips his head slightly to reassure Kate he's playing along before sprawling back some more, watching her approach. "I usually do get what I want, Katie," he drawls.

( and what's that? )