Batman
She hates that she doesn't get to sit with Dick, she has to sit at the head table between Madison and a window that looks out at a surprisingly tasteful courtyard.
"You have a good time fucking the idiot?" Madison hisses under her breath, during dinner, and she has to focus really hard on the fact that Madison's speech about Ryan and Lauren had made her cry.
She knew them like she never had and she both hated and respected her for it.
Somewhere underneath the seething bitch was a heart that cared deeply for their shared siblings.
"He's not an idiot." She counters, looking up at Madison trying to see through the obvious walls she's throwing up between them.
Something changes in Madison's eyes and she seems to be judging her. It feels like eighth grade gym class all over again.
She makes a sort of soft snort in the back of her throat, "That's how it is, huh? When is your flight?" She changes the topic like she's trying to avoid a fight and maybe she is because she hasto know that she can't win now.
"Seven o'clock Monday morning."
"I'm surprised you managed to make it to the reception then, only one day left to meet your needs before you go off to frigid New York."
"I came back for the wedding not to find a fuck buddy." She takes a long drink of her champagne. She points her glass at a waiter and hopes that they get the point. She does not want to see the bottom of this glass tonight.
She turns back to lay into Madison about being a bitch, but she has her back to her now, pulling Benny up into her lap.
Not fair, using her adorable kid as a shield.
It was like she didn't even care if she got the last word anymore and the way Madison bounced the boy on her lap and clapped his hands made her feel juvenile for wanting the last word so badly.
The plates are cleared and the lights dim a little more, a string section starts up in a balcony she hadn't even noticed before.
We have all the time in the world
God, she loves that song and by the reaction it gets from Lauren there's something special about this song because she buries her head in Ryan's chest and she can hear this happy sounding, sputtering cry.
Ryan points out into the crowd and following it she finds Dick raising his glass to him.
God was Dick somehow the best frat brother?
He had to be doing everything he could to make up for failing the first time around.
Ryan and Lauren make their way to the dance floor and the entire room kind of hushes and her breath catches.
Rye has learned how to dance. He had always been really competitive and athletic, but the dancing shifts from a display of skill into something private as he clutches Lauren's hand, and she's sure she's on the verge of tears again.
Lock down.
Keep this shit on lock down, Mackenzie. That's who you are, you are a Mackenzie and we don't cry unless there's a broken bone or someone's going in the ground.
She looks up and her father, her realfather, Sam Mackenzie is doing everything in his power to keep it on lock down, too.
Several songs go by, including one where Lauren and Ryan dance with Mr. Sinclair and her mom, and she hasn't moved from her seat at the head table. She has, however, transformed her napkin into two floppy and sad cranes and one excellent boat.
"You know this is a party, right?" Dick asks, folding his arms over the high table, resting his chin on them and doing that thing where he looks right into her.
"I'm aware."
"Do you want to dance?" He asks and when she looks at him again he's fiddling nervously with the corner of her boat napkin.
She was supposed to be careful with him, she wasn't supposed to lead him on or let him think that there was any possibility that there was going to be anything between them after her plane took off Monday morning.
"No."
"No?"
"No."
"You can't dance, can you?" He's biting back his smile. He has to know that there's no way she can let that stand. Of course she can dance. Any idiot could dance, but she had also read romance novels before and watched television. This was a classic rom-com trope.
She would declare how great she was, he would goad her until she had to dance with him in order to prove herself right. Well she wasn't going to fall for it.
"Okay, fine. I can't dance."
His smile softens and he holds out his hand for her, "I'll show you." She watches his fingers wiggle at her. She's sure that there's subtext there, but when she looks up at him he doesn't look brazen like he should, he looks soft, nervous and wholly invested in what she has to say.
She makes a show of sighing, but she puts her hand in his and gets up from her corner fortress.
Dick leads her to the dance floor and, once there, he moves her hands to the correct locations while pulling her in close. There's only a couple inches of space between them.
He's holding her firmly, with a strange kind of authority that shouldn't belong to him.
"You ready?" He asks with a smile, but doesn't wait for her response. He starts and she can recognize that this is a proper lead and she may be a little hot for him right now.
A string section in the balcony is playing 'Naive Melody' and she looks up at Dick who's biting his lip and looking down at her.
This might be the most perfect moment of her life.
She smiles up at him and he folds her in closer, the proper waltz steps degrading to a lazy kind of sway.
"Go on, say it." He whispers into her hair.
"Say what?"
"You totally want me right now, don't you?"
She shrugs, "I don't know... I mean it's okay..."
"Okay?" He grumbles and, with a determined, smoldering look on his face, spins her out and when she comes back she practically falls into his arms in the best executed dip she has ever been involved with.
She's looking up at him with wide eyes, his face is close and yeah, okay, she totally wants him.
"How bout now?" His voice is dark and low, and rushes through her body.
She nods slightly and his brazen smile is back as he pops her back upright.
God, when can they leave? How long does she have to wait before she can high tail it back to the penthouse and just have sex until she can't walk or use sentences?
An hour?
No seriously.
Someone taps on Dick's shoulder and, startled, he turns around. It looks like he means to tell them to shove off, but it's her father.
"Sir." Dick nods and hands her over to him.
"Dad?" She means to ask what's wrong, but he just shakes his head and leads her away from Dick.
"Your mother is worried that you're mad at her." His voice is gruff and wraps around her like a favorite blanket.
"I'm not."
"She's worried that her spending time with Madi and Benny upset you."
She wishes that she hadn't twitched when her father had called Madison Madi, but she can't take it back.
"I'm not going to throw a fit if mom wants to spend time with her grandkid, Madison just comes with him. Whatever." She tries to wave it away, but hers father's stare strips away the white lies, "Okay, I'm a little upset that you guys never bothered to mention it. I mean... going to Madison's wedding? Come on."
"We love you, Cindy." He tells her firmly.
"I know that..."
"We love you." He tells her again, harder this time, like he's trying to get a point across and maybe he does because something in her crumbles and she folds herself into her father's arms.
"I love you, too."
"We good?" He asks softly, patting her hair down.
"Yeah."
"Good. Now go see your mother and brother and get out of here."
She pulls away to look at him, surprised.
"What?"
"The entire room knows you want to get out of here, now go see your mother before I bring out your baby pictures as well as Ryan's."
"Okay okay." She holds her hands up in surrender and weaves through the groups of people to where her mother is sitting with her grandfather and a half empty bottle of wine.
"Mom?" She sits down next to her and notices the other empty bottle of wine. Oh no, make that two.
She looks around the room and can tell that this is about to turn into a proper Mackenzie wedding, it was about to get rowdy.
"Cindy!" Her mother wraps her arms around her and pulls her close, almost pulling her off the chair, "I love you so much, sweetheart!" She seems to be exploding. The wine on her mother's breath is toxic.
"I love you, too, mom." She pats her arm softly and untangles herself from her. Her grandfather tatters a little when he pushes himself up from the table and, God, she hopes he isn't wearing the kilt traditionally.
"Really?"
The heartbroken tone her mother's voice suddenly pulls all of her attention to the tall, blonde woman she had wanted so badly to look like.
"Of course I do. Always. I'll see you in the morning for brunch, right?"
Her mother waggles her eyebrows at her, "Going upstairs?"
"Mom..."
Her mother looks across the room to where, oh God, her father and Dick appear to be having a serious discussion, "He is very nice to look at."
"Mom!"
"What? I have eyes Cindy."
"Gross, mom. Gross."
Natalie's bright, drunken smile softens and she runs a hand through Mac's product stiffened hair.
"You should come home more often..." Her mother's hand is against her cheek and this seems like such a private conversation to be having in the middle of a ballroom filled with her drunken relatives, "We love you here." She pats her cheek and looks right into her.
She really wishes people would stop looking so deeply into her.
"Nat! Get over here!" Aunt Frankie yells from across the room. Oh god, is that a line of shots!?
Her mother kisses her on the forehead before she dances her way over to her sister.
Yeah, now is a good time to make a quick escape.
She searches out Ryan and Lauren, the new Mr. and Mrs. Mackenzie, and makes her way through the crowd to them.
They look tired, happy and exhausted.
She drapes her arm over Ryan's shoulder, "Better be careful. Mom and Auntie Frankie have started shots."
"Oh god, I told the staff not to let them do shots." He sighs heavily and drops his head onto her shoulder, "I'm so tired. There are still only twenty four hours in a day, right? Or did they change that and just not tell me?"
"Still twenty four as far as I know, Rye bear."
She watches him scrunch his nose unhappily at the ancient name, she does the same thing and it warms something in her.
He pushes away from her and looks at her properly, "You're bailing?"
"I am."
"To spend the night with Dick? Seriously? I mean... I love Dick, he's my brother, but he has the world's worst track record with girls, or rather girls have a bad track record with him."
"It'll be fine." She looks over and finds that Dick's talk with her father now involves her grandfather and he's getting flustered, "Now give me a hug so I can get out of here before Uncle Steve starts breaking things."
Ryan's hugs had always been too hard, like he was trying to squeeze the life out of you, but she welcomes his too tight embrace this time.
"I love you, little brother."
"I love you, too, spaz."
Lauren turns away from her conversation to pull Mac into a hug. Her hugs are softer and she smells like clean linen and sparkling wine.
"Please come visit us. I know Neptune isn't as exciting as New York, but we do have better winters." She pulls out of the hug and she's reluctant to let her slip from her grasp.
She smiles at her, soft like she has a secret; she leans in, "Ryan misses you." She tells her and it lodges something in her chest.
"I'll see what I can do." She turns back to look at Dick, to signal that they are leaving, but he's already making his way to her.
She doesn't wait for him; she slips out into the quiet hall and tries to pull herself together.
She was a Mackenzie in everything but blood and the bond she had with them she had let slip into disrepair.
She had ran across the country with Veronica, trying to get away from everything that Neptune held for her, sure that it was just ruin waiting for her here.
It was looking more and more like that wasn't true at all.
She wasn't staying.
She was going back to New York where she had a life and a business and an apartment.
She and Veronica were supposed to go and adopt a dog when she got back.
She had a life in New York, Neptune was the mind killer.
"Hey, you okay?" Dick asks softly, his hand on the small of her back leading her carefully towards the elevator bank.
She focuses on the click of her heels on the shining floor and the heat of his hand pulsating through the silk of her dress.
"Of course I am."
Dick raises an eyebrow like he knows she's full of shit, but he seems to be letting her have this one.
"What did you and my dad talk about?"
"My intentions with his 'way too smart for me' daughter." Dick is forcing down a smile and creating this strangely adorable smirk thing.
"Oh and what are those?"
He presses the call button and pulls her into the elevator.
She's against the wall of the elevator, his hands on her face, and he's kissing her like it's the last kiss he'll ever have, its deep and spreads a warmth through her that makes her weak in the knees.
She throws out a hand and reaches desperately for the penthouse button because she needs him right, the fuck, now.
His mouth leaves her and air rushes into her lungs, leaving her light headed. His mouth is on her neck, his fingers flitting across the fabric of the dress searching for skin, or maybe a weak point since he had promised to rip it off of her.
"Dick-" she moans out and it creates an echo of a moan in him, vibrating against her neck.
"Yeah?"
"You have to pick a floor, I can't reach." He pulls away to look at her fingers stretching and falling short of the penthouse call button.
The laughter that falls from him as he pulls away from her to press the button is rich and natural, a sound she would very much like to hear more often.
They stand there holding hands trying not to break down and just have sex in the elevator. Another thing she's never done, but, unlike car sex, is a lot further down on her comfort zone scale.
Plus she spotted the security camera the second she got in the elevator and she is not willing to have Veronica's Neptune Grande contacts sending her that particular video.
"Slowest elevator ever." She grumbles, jumping a little, impatient.
"It's not that slow." He tells her smiling and squeezing her hand as the doors finally open.
They make it halfway down the hallway before Dick sweeps her up into his arms.
"Dick!"
"You might want to save your voice." He tells her, digging his keycard out of his pocket and kicking the door open.
"Oh? Am I going to need it?" She asks impressed with how dark and wanton her voice could even get. Dick seems to have trouble swallowing.
He sets her down on the floor in front of the bed.
"Fuck yes you are." His voice is a growl of low noise that shakes her to the core. God, she hopes that he doesn't notice that he's turning her on with his voice alone, "Don't move." He tells her, voice firm again, and now she's having trouble swallowing.
Dick's hands are hot and large against her, these powerful rough things running across her, fingers scratching at the fabric.
His fingers find the zipper and she clucks her tongue. He freezes.
"That's cheating." She tells him and he hisses, a string of swearing fills the room before he pulls away.
"Did NASA make this fucking thing?"
She's a little disappointed and it must show because he stops her hands from seeking out the zipper.
"I said don't move." He growls and, God, it does something to her, she bites her lip and watches him disappear from the room.
He's gone a good three minutes and she's getting nervous, but he returns holding up a pair of scissors, triumphantly.
"Dick, no..."
"You trust me?" He asks, pushing her down onto the bed and pulling her up so she's lying on the bed beneath him, the scissors in one hand and a grin on his face.
"Yes." She tells him plainly, surprising them both. Dick blinks a couple times before his grin turns into a bright smile.
He leans down and presses a quick kiss to her mouth before he moves down, trailing the blade of the scissors down her breast and stomach towards the hem of her dress.
He takes his sweet ass time cutting her dress open, it's like he's savoring it, and every piece of new skin exposed gets his attention.
Licks and nips driving her insane, his fingers trailing heavily across her skin, she can see how hard he is, feel it as he leans into her to snip the last bit of fabric holding her together.
She arches up into him, desperate.
"How much do you want me right now?" He asks with a smirk before running his tongue across one breast, his hand soft, too soft, on the other.
"God... Please Dick..." She grabs a hold of his belt and absolutely despises the fact that he still has his pants on, "Please..."
"Please what?" He asks, barely lifting his mouth from her skin. He must plan on getting the most out of her slightly intoxicated state.
"In...inside..." She is begging, she knows she is, and maybe he's giving her a taste of her own medicine from earlier. She doesn't care, she just needs him.
"Inside?" He questions as he pulls away from her and the whine she makes at the loss of him pressed against her is obscene.
He presses her pelvis down to keep her from moving as he carefully cuts her underwear away. Two careful cuts up from her legs through the elastic, he tosses the scissors away and pulls the flap of fabric, that used to be her underwear, down.
"Fuck..." His voice is a groan of noise. He looks her up and down, her legs on either side of him, her dress cut out away from her and she doesn't feel the tiniest bit nervous or embarrassed. She wonders if he is made of some sort of confidence magic.
She's been pretty confident in her sexuality for a while now, but it's been a long time since anyone has looked at her like that. Hell, she doesn't think anyone has ever looked at her like that.
She's about to tell him to get on with it already when he undoes his belt and wriggles out of his pants. She does her best to help, but her heel gets caught in the stitching. She thinks she hears seams ripping, but Dick doesn't even pause.
His pants and underwear are across the room and he's sliding, hot and hard, into her. He presses in deep and waits there, deep, his hands slipping under her arms and hugging her close.
They stay like that until Mac writhes under him, forcing movement.
It's not quiet the slow, loving thing from earlier, but it's not that hot, crazy thing they had done yesterday or in the car.
It's hot, absolutely, but there's this comfortable knowledge to the movements, that strange intimacy that he was able to bring out in her with the smallest touch.
He pushes her over the edge twice before he finishes filling her.
She presses soft kisses against his skin before he rolls off of her and they lay there naked and sated and quickly cooling.
She rolls over to do something she can never remember doing, snuggling. To her surprise, Dick drapes his arms over her and holds her close, pressing a kiss to her hair.
"So, you like me a lot, don't you?" Dick's voice is this heavy, velvety thing in the dark.
"Dick..." She yawns, sleep is weighing down heavily on her, it's been a very long day.
"On like a scale of one to ten," he continues, "One being 'eh he's alright' and ten being..." She can hear his heart pick up under her ear, "love..." He finishes and the word trembles in the air.
Veronica makes her do this all the time. She likes to throw her off by saying things that aren't on the scale at all, like eggplant for below one, shopping cart wheel for something low, Batman for over ten.
She yawns and rolls in his loose embrace until her back is against him, "Batman." She tells him softly, grabbing onto a blanket and throwing it over them both.
"What the fuck does that mean?"
She's asleep before she can even think of a response, or really think about what she's said.
