"M'gann, M'gann!" Zatanna says, hands on the Martian's shoulders. "Calm down. Everything's fine."
She lowers her head to look into the hyperventilating woman's eyes, brushing her head back.
"It's okay, M'gann."
"N-No, it's n-not!" M'gann says through the hitches, putting her own hand's on top of the magician's. "The cake is wrong, the stripper got sick, the balloons all popped, and this place is flooded! This is not 'okay'!" Tears well up in her eyes. "This is an omen!"
Zatanna shakes her head and sighs.
"Honey, bad stuff happens. There's no getting around that; I'm sorry. But you and Conner aren't making a mistake, do you hear me?"
The redhead can't contain her sobs any longer at that and presses her face into her hands.
Oh, shit. Zatanna guides her friend to a nearby penis-shaped chair, pressing M'gann's head to her shoulder. Where is everyone?
Dinah would know how to calm her down.
"You and Conner love each other more than anybody I've ever met," she tries again. "Now, one could argue that you're already pretty much married and that, given your history, a piece of paper isn't likely to change things, but, hey, haters to the left, right?" Zee chuckles quietly to herself. "But if that's what you want, then I will say with all the confidence that I have—which, as you know, is a lot—that there is no downside to this. You guys are perfect together and, if you're already basically married, then there's not a whole lot that can change. Okay?"
M'gann wipes her tears into Zatanna's shirt and nods silently.
"So stop with this 'mistake' stuff. The first thing you said when we saw this place was that you're calling the whole thing off," Zee mutters. "Why is that, by the way? You've been a solid rock all these months; why the waterworks now?"
"Because," M'gann says through a sniff, "I've been looking forward to my Earth bachelorette party for… uh…" She frowns, counting. "For almost forty years. I grew up dreaming about it."
"Huh," Zee mutters. "That's a new one." She chuckles, pursing her lips. "Wait, seriously? A bachelorette party?"
"Oh, I never knew what a wedding was until I came to Earth. But Megan went to her cousin's bachelorette party once and it looked like so much fun to share with her friends and get into situations even stranger than her everyday life, and I just… I wanted that for myself. A real Earth bachelorette party." Her lip trembles again.
"That makes sense," Zatanna allows, "but, honey, you're an alien marrying a clone of half-alien origin. A real Earth bachelorette party isn't exactly appropriate, don't you think?"
"I guess. I just really wanted it." M'gann casts her eyes down.
"Well, hey." Zatanna grimaces; she just can't find the right words today. "Look, there's lots of ways us Earthlings have parties, y'know," Zee says. "There's no 'one way'. Remember what Artemis did for hers? How happy she still is with it?"
"Yeah, that was a great night."
"There you go. Plus, you said it yourself that you just wanted to have fun with your friends and do stupid things—I'm just assuming here that by 'strange' you meant 'stupid'—and I can make all that happen easily, okay? I'll text the girls and we'll meet up at this club that I think you're gonna like."
"Really?"
"Sure." Zatanna smiles and pulls her friend closer, wiping all the remaining liquid off her cheeks. "It's gonna be a great night and in ten years you will laugh about your eighties' themed dreams. Or, like, this moment right now when you still have no idea how much fun you'll have. Because you do really love your eighties."
M'gann flips her long hair back behind her shoulders and smiles wide at the magician. "All right. Thank you." She takes a deep breath. "I guess I just thought I'd planned everything to perfection. How could it go so wrong?" she wonders, face falling just a little.
"Hun, if it's a bad omen to anything, then it's to 'regular Earth parties' 'cause they're outdated and tacky and I'm gonna whip you up something much better, I promise."
"Dude, are you punching out your nerves?" Wally asks, zipping to Conner's side in the crowded gym.
"No," the Kryptonian says, fists colliding with the bag hanging from the ceiling, "I just like doing this."
"You are toooootally punching out your nerves. Hey, Superman! Come give your bro a pep talk!"
"You're married," Conner says with a grunt. "Why don't you give me one?"
Wally stars guffawing heartily, putting a flare of exaggeration on it when he doubles over and slaps his knees.
He wipes a tear when he straightens and then chuckles once more.
"Yeah, no. Our wedding was— Well, you remember. And marriage is still a mistery to me. Hey, Superman, where are you?" he calls over to Clark, whose name he still doesn't know. "Did you not hear me the first time?"
"I'm coming, I'm coming," Clark mutters, abandoning his weights and coming over to his little brother as Wally salutes and rushes off to join Bart on the treadmill. A race is about to begin, apparently. (The redhead's been getting faster every month since returning from the speed force and now he's pretty evenly matched with the rest of the speedsters.)
The older Kryptonian stands behind the bag made special for those with superstrength and keeps it steady as Conner pounds at it.
"What's on your mind, Kon-El?" he asks.
"Nothing," Conner replies. "I wish people would stop asking me that. I just need to burn off some steam; that's all."
He does just that, ramming his fists into the leather until his shirt is entirely soaked with sweat.
There's commotion around them—Gar, Tim, and Dick seem to be in the middle of a parkour standoff while Kaldur and Mal spar, La'gaan tries out his skills against Jaime, and the two Roys try to use combat techniques the other wouldn't immediately predict. Defense against Luthor or something.
Eduardo, Tye, and J'onn are off to the side, chatting up Jonathan Kent, who so rarely goes anywhere that isn't Smallville, and there's voices and thuds and information everywhere and Conner can't turn any of it off.
Oh, and now Wally and Bart are attacking the stack of pizzas. With terrible table manners.
Seriously, didn't they ever learn to chew with their mouths closed?
The men gathered in the large gym at the moment haven't gotten the chance to train all together in a long time. The League's expanded more and more (as well as the covert team, which is filled with a bunch of Youngsters Conner barely even bothers to get to know because they're always shipped off to other parts of the world), so them doing this together, like old times, is… Well, it's a regular party over here.
Almost makes him forget that he didn't even want a party and this was the only thing he could think of that would be halfway tolerable. Except he's still not in the mood.
"You know," Clark starts casually, "the first time I found out how long Kryptonians usually live—how slowly I age—I vowed to never fall in love. Ever."
Conner only grunts in response, his punch particularly strong this time.
"But love's a funny thing," the man continues, tightening his mouth. "It has a way of sneaking up and taking you by surprise and then you never want to let go. And if the universe decides that it's real and is meant to last… It will work itself out, complications be damned. Technologies are advancing at a phenomenal rate and the universe is full of untapped potential, and one day we might be able to stop aging altogether."
"That's great for you and Lois. But you're forgetting," Conner manages, punching, "that I," punch, "won't live," punch, "to see that. Despite how good I look for my age." He glares up at his biological father.
"Right." Clark sighs. "M'gann's gonna outlive you."
"Yeah, by at least a century." Conner whips around and kicks the bag with his foot in a high kick. "And that's assuming neither of us die in action first."
He rests his forehead against the leather, panting heavily. Why now? He and M'gann have been mostly together for well over a decade. Why's he getting pissed over this now?
"It might not be easy, yes," Clark starts. "But if you trust each other to make both of you happy and try not to worry about what might come before it comes, you might have an amazing lifetime waiting. You've made it this far, haven't you?"
"Only barely," Conner mutters against the leather. "And superheroes is who we are. Risking our lives everyday is who we both are How do we live with that?"
"I told you; love will find a way."
It's late and dark when Conner and M'gann enter their small apartment almost simultaneously.
She she stops sneaking as her gaze lands on him, smiling; he leans against the wall in response, embarrassed.
"How was your party?" he asks.
"Uh… not what I expected," she says, hanging up her purse. "Zatanna cleared out this entire floor of this club and we—uh, it's not that important. How was yours?"
"Okay, I guess." He shrugs. "The guys had fun."
"But did you?" she asks with a frown.
He sighs. "I was too busy thinking about the future to have fun."
"You got cold feet, too, huh?" she mutters, walking over to him and wrapping her arms around his torso to feel the warmth she's become addicted to in recent years. Heat is deadly to her, but sometimes her skin gets so cold. He's not as flaming as a regular human and his heat is never anything but pleasant.
Anything but amazing.
"Not really." His arms wrap around her back. "What do you mean, 'too'?"
"Uh. Nothing." She chuckles quietly at her own behavior. "I'm told it's a rite of passage," she explains. "And it passed right away. But do you still have it?"
"No, that's not it," he repeats. "I think it just finally clicked that we're making a commitment for 'as long as we live'. Which…" He sighs. "Which might mean two very different things."
She blinks. "Oh."
"And, again, my human side gets in the way." He casts his eyes down, gritting his teeth. There's something stuck in his throat and he's only felt it a few times in his life, and his indesctructibility should prevent these kinds of things, but still it crawls up and nearly prevents him from breathing. "I'm sorry I couldn't be more for you," he chokes out.
The woman draws back with startled eyes and links their minds automatically to feel him. They've become accustomed to talking even then because putting in the effort to say the words somehow makes them more special, but their voices echo in both minds.
"Hey, look at me!" M'gann touches his jaw with her fingertips, support emanating from her in waves. "I love who you are. Right now, right at this second, I love you," she says. "If you were a full Kryptonian, you wouldn't be you. And I wouldn't love you like I do now." She runs a hand through his short hair. "Which do you want more? Really?" she asks, already knowing the answer.
Man, does Conner love it when she whips out logic on him. A small smile spreads on his face.
"You," he says with a kiss. "I will always want you."
A/N: check out my profile for more prompts in this series. And if you want to know what happened at Artemis' bachelorette party, go check out the second chapter of my Spitfire story With You.