Dick smoothed down an errant lock of hair, then thought better of it and mussed up his slicked-back hairdo. He wiped his feet on the fire escape, then came in through the window. Compared to the Clocktower in Gotham, this… hotel was child's play. He'd just finished a team-up with Clark and a generous offer to stay for dinner (which, knowing Lois, would consist of ordering two pizzas instead of one) but had declined. This was better.

"Hey, Babs," he called out. "I was in town and I just dropped in for some verbal jousting and possibly a hasty, ill-advised sexual encounter."

He turned the corner to see a handsome man in the kitchen, wearing a kimono and cooking eggs. It took the stranger a moment to notice Dick's stare and then meet it.

"Oh, don't mind me, go right ahead with the sexual encounter. Eggs?"

He held up another egg, took Dick's silence as consent, and spilled it out onto the skillet.

"Honey? Did you know there's a half-naked man cooking you eggs and it isn't me?" Dick yelled through Barbara's closed bedroom door. She made a sleepy "go away" noise and Dick could picture her rolling over.

After transferring the skillet to one hand, Scott held up the hand with his wedding ring on it. "Relax, I'm not on the market. Besides, Barda would trounce her if she thought about it."

"Yeah right. Barbara would kick Barda's ass."

"It's so nice of you to stick up for her, when you must know that Barda would ball up that wheelchair and throw into her head like a basketball."

"Barbara would smack her with the law degree she got when she was bored."

"Barda would drop an Amazon girdle on Barbara's head that she won when she was bored."

"Barda won an Amazon fighting tournament?"

"She was bored."

"Congratulations."

"Thanks. Catch."

Scott Frisbee-ed a plate to Dick, then volleyed some of the boiled eggs to them. Dick caught both.

"Glad to see you didn't get egg on your face," Barbara said as she came out of her bedroom, still putting on an earring as her wheelchair glided forward.

Dick picked up a pair of handcuffs from between the couch cushions. "Trying to send signals?"

Barbara grabbed them from him and tossed them underhand to Scott, who caught them behind his back.

"It's Scott's. He and Barda are staying here until they can find an apartment."

"New Hampshire to Metropolis. It's a hell of a commute. Besides, Superman's hometown." Scott tossed the eggs up and caught them in the skillet. "Good change of scenery. New blood in the act. You think I can get that Steel guy to design me a walking suit of armor/trap?"

"Do you ever put pants on?"

"Not before I've had my coffee."

Scott was busy with some project that seemed to entail turning the entire apartment upside-down, so Dick and Barbara adjourned to the balcony. At this time of morning, there were no Super-watchers lurking around the rooftops. They had the skyline all to themselves.

"I do believe you said something about a hasty, ill-advised sexual encounter?" Barbara said.

"Oh, that? I was just joking. Our run-ins come in two flavors, so I'm also offering 'blow up at each other and swear never to speak again.'"

"You saying we've fallen into a rut?"

Dick leaned against the railing. "I don't mind when it's the hasty, ill-advised sex rut, but yeah, ever since we called the marriage off our interactions seem to go one of two ways."

"It's practically Starfire-esque," Barbara needled.

"Don't bring that up, okay? She never picks the 'blow up at each other and swear never to speak again' option."

Scott opened the sliding door and poked his head out. "Hey, Barbara, did you sign for a package yesterday? Because Amazon shipping said they delivered it."

"You shop with ? I can recommend at least three better online retailers."

"No, Themysciran. They said they'd have the girdle ready for Barda by today. It's very heavy." Scott cast a glance at Dick. "Would make a big bump if it landed on someone's head."

"Say, Babs, how up are you on the escrima sticks?" Dick asked casually.

While Scott tried to figure out how to present the girdle to Barda and keep track of the pot roast at the same time, Dick had stripped shirtless to spar with Barbara. Gratuitous, sure, but he knew the whole glistening pecs thing was a turn-on.

Of course, it helped to have a sparring partner who stopped kicking your ass long enough to notice.

"That's how up I am on the escrima sticks," Barbara said as Dick collapsed to the floor in a bruised heap.

"Oww."

"Come on, you've had worse."

"Not since the last apocalypse. Oww."

"Poor baby…" Barbara taunted, helping him up. "Want me to kiss it and make it better?"

"Ah, could you?"

Barbara looked at him for a moment.

Dick looked back at her and realized she wasn't joking.

Barbara kept looking at him and realized it wasn't a question.

Scott poked his head in. "Hey, Barbara, you keep any whirled peas around?"

"Check the pantry," Barbara gritted out.

"I did check the pantry."

"Well, that's where we keep the whirled peas, so if there aren't any there, we don't have any!" she snapped.

"Excuse me for thinking you might have some back-up whirled peas. I guess I'll just go to the store!"

He stormed off.

Dick watched him go. "He's going to the store."

"We have the apartment all to ourselves."

"So… wanna blow up at each other and swear never to speak again?"

"The other thing."

Scott ran into Barda as he was coming out the door. He smiled at her, one of those involuntary reflexes, and kissed her cheek, which was slightly more voluntary.

"Hey, hon. I'm going to the store for some stuff, can you keep an eye on Dick and Barbara?"

Barda cocked her head to the side. "Are they sick with something?"

"They've been on the verge of blowing up at each other and swearing never to speak again all morning. I've had to step in to defuse the tension a few times. Just make sure they're not going to fight."

"So you want me to spy on them?"

"No, no…" Scott shook his head, then turned it into a nod. "Yes."

"Okay. If you're going to the store, pick up some whipped cream."

"Will do."

Barda slapped his ass as he went. She was really in the mood for whipped cream.

"So which is this?" Barbara asked as Dick's back hit the exercise mat.

"Huh?"

"Is this more hasty or ill-advised?"

Dick tried to sit up and Barbara pushed him back down. He couldn't talk for a few seconds, which had nothing to do with the fact that Barbara's tongue was in his mouth for half of them.

"That's like Sophie's Choice." He rolled over on top of her, leaving an outline of sweat on the mat. "I don't think hooking up with you is ever a bad idea, but sometimes…"

"Sometimes what?"

"Sometimes I wonder if I've caught you at the wrong time. You're this great, amazing, funny girl."

"And?" Barbara prompted, holding him at bay when he moved in for another kiss. The hand pressed against his chest was far from playful.

"And sometimes it seems like whenever I enter the room, I walk in on this uncompromising—"

"Guys, you have got to see this!" Barda said as she charged into the room.

Dick detangled himself from Barbara, who refused his help in getting back in her wheelchair. They followed Barda to the TV room, named for the monstrous 52-inch plasma screen TV. Barda, holding the giant satellite/cable/DVD/VCR/stereo/everything

remote, unpaused the Tivo. On screen, a great white shark unfroze and ate a hunk of meat. Dick and Babs winced at the chomp.

"It's Shark Week!" Barda said excitedly. She thought sharks were cute and would make for great pets if they could live in captivity. "Barbara had it saved!"

"You taped Shark Week?" Dick said.

"I knew you probably wouldn't have time to watch it and thought we could watch it together the next time you were over. Then we broke up and I kinda forgot about it." Barbara, embarrassed, tucked a loose lock of hair behind her ear. "I was just about to delete it."

"I'm glad you didn't." They were just about to have, or perhaps were having, A Moment (Barda understandingly had her hands clasped together), when Dick smelled his armpit. "I need a shower. How about we get some popcorn popping—"

"I could do that!" Barda volunteered. She was eager to practice using her Mega-Rod's heat on popcorn kernels.

Barda left them alone and Dick backed out of the room, not wanting to take his eyes off Babs. He had thought she was hypocritical in her consideration of him, always deriding him as insensitive to the fact that she wasn't Batgirl anymore, while never taking into account his feelings. He had always been there for everyone, but there were times when she had left him high and dry. How could he trust someone who wouldn't be here when he needed her?

But she had taped Shark Week for him, without even being asked.

He backed into a wall.

"Shower's that way," Barbara said, pointing the way. Dick followed her finger down the hall.

Barda returned, a gargantuan bowl of popcorn in hand. Barda was a woman who never did anything small. "On Apokolips, he would be punished severely for such a display of emotion. It is one of the stronger reasons that I now call Earth home."

"What emotion?"

"Are you blind? He looks at you with the heat of a Fire-pit, the lust of an uncastrated Parademon, and the affection of my own husband."

"You Fourth Worlders are a bit given to hyperbole, aren't you?" With Dick gone, Barbara changed the channel to a news channel and watched the scrolling headlines.

"True. No force in the universe could eclipse Scott's love. But yours gives it a run for its monies."

"My what?"

"Husband, of course."

Dick stood under the shower stream and thanked whoever was listening that Barbara had finally fixed the water heater. Or maybe the cold shower every morning had been meant to send him a message.

He guzzled shower water, but couldn't get the taste of Barbara out of his mouth, or the scent of her out of his nostrils, or her touch off his skin. If he came out of the shower like this, he would be paying a lot more "attention" than necessary to Shark Week.

One hand wrapped around his johnson and the other clinging to the showerhead for support, he took care of business.

"We're not married," Barbara said, carefully neutral, a teacher correcting a math problem.

"Not by this planet's petty laws. You are bound by a more primal authority. Do you lie with others?"

"He does," Barbara growled with arms crossed, remembering Kory greeting her at the door in very mentionable unmentionables.

"An open relationship," Barda misinterpreted, nodding. An elegant solution to one partner having more of a sex drive than the other. "Scott and I tried that once. He couldn't find anyone who could… thrill him, as I could, and I almost got us into a threesome with Amazing Grace. Thank the Source for the Forever People rescuing us…"

"You were saying about Dick and I being common-law married?" Barbara said quickly.

"This trumps any… informality in your legal status or living arrangements: Melt your wedding ring, burn your certificate, but what makes you husband and wife is that you do not hold anyone else so near your heart… and although he doesn't know how to say it, neither does he."

Dick was thinking of Barda. And her Mega-Rod. And what she could do to Babs with that Mega-Rod. And what Kory would think about it.

Then he was thinking of Misfit and his frantic masturbation reflected in her camera lens. That killed his erection faster than any orgasm.

"Dinah was right!" Misfit cheered as Dick lunged at her.

Although that might be fun under other circumstances, she teleported away. Dick landed in a tangle of shower curtains and towels before wetly sliding into the clothes hamper, which toppled over to spill its contents all over him. He was just pulling one of Dinah's fishnets out of his hair when Scott walked in. Dick covered his shame with Helena's cape.

"Does Hel know you're borrowing one of her costumes for sex games?" Scott asked, apparently used to finding wet, half-naked men cross-dressing in his bathroom. "Because Diana found out about Ted doing that and she freaked. Well, as much as Wonder Woman ever freaks. Oh, have you met Ted? He's the Q to our Jane Bonds. In case you were wondering, I'm Bosley. Whoa, crossover."

"Out! Out! Out!" Dick chanted like an exorcist.

"But I need to use the…"

Dick snapped a towel at him.

"Stupid prudish Earth nudity taboos." Scott's voice was muffled by the door that was closed between them.

Dick washed up and dried off and found his clean clothes right where they used to be. He was half-dressed before he sat down and opened the next drawer. His clothes. More of his clothes.

Sometime after he'd left, Barbara had done the laundry and put his clothes away, just in case he needed something to wear the next time he came over. And he'd trusted her to have some ready. He dug through the clothes and found something nicer. The shirt she'd bought him in Little China. Jesus, it'd been a while. But it fit good and felt good and he wondered if she got the message if he wore it.

He wore it.

Barbara got the message. As a character actor portentously narrated about how effective a shark could kill you, she sat on the other side of the couch from Dick. He was sprawled across two cushions, using the armrest as a pillow.

On the loveseat, Scott and Barda were enthusiastically talking amongst themselves about the sharks. Barda would complete facts for the narrator and Scott would tease her and mime shark bites to the nape of her neck.

Barbara settled against Dick. He didn't say anything, neither of them had to say anything, as he opened his arms and she let herself be wrapped up into him, sheltered and warmed and buried in him.

"I want that," Barbara said, because some things should be said.

"Huh?"

Barbara nodded at Scott and Barda, who were now wrestling each other around so hard they were rocking the loveseat.

"That couple thing. I want someone to be waiting for me at the door, someone to pick me up when I'm down and smile with me when things are up and hold me when I need holding and kiss me every day and look at me like I'm the greatest thing in the world and I want that someone to be you."

Dick looked around. "…me?"

"Yes!"

"Just making sure. I thought you might be on the comm with Jason Bard or…"

She whooped him with the nearest cushion and he wrestled her until he had her arms trapped over her head and her lips all to himself.

"You want to spend the night, boy wonder?" she asked when he was not quite done, but at least on break.

He really, really did.

They had absolutely no idea why Barda and Scott did miniature high-fives, but they were aliens and thus probably didn't know much about Earth life.

It felt good to be sleeping in the same bed again. Even though Barbara wasn't in the mood (something about a hot coffee spill earlier in the day), it felt good just to hold her and listen to some music on the clock radio. Tiredness entered their voice, distilling their conversation down to basic affection, and he throttled down the volume on Regina Spektor as her breathing stilled.

Then they learned that just because they weren't in the mood, didn't mean that everyone was.

Barda was very enthusiastic.

"Once you get used to it," Dick weighted in, "it's actually somewhat arousing…"

"No."

"We could try to out-"

"No."

"Or we could…"

"No."

"Or all four of us could…"

"No. Unless I get drunk and think it's a good idea."

"We could start a drinking game. Every time Barda says some weird New Gods shit, take a shot."

Drinking seemed like a good idea. "Every time she orgasms, take two."

Barbara pulled a bottle of scotch from under the bed. Dick pulled shotglasses from the bedstand.

"I'll go first," Barbara said.

"YOU HAVE PENETRATED MY SOURCE WALL! IT IS PENETRATED!"

Dick poured for her. "Bottoms up."