May 22nd
Greenup Kentucky
1700 EST

"So, where was Big Blue anyway? I really didn't wanna stick myself in that coma. I knew I wasn't coming out any time soon." Deke said, upon completing the story of how he got his ass kicked so bad he had to push himself almost to death to keep from dying.

"Grundy was running wreck in Metropolis." Barbara replied offhandedly. "But he just did that air rending thing you do? Did you know it could hurt someone that bad?"

"Yeah, which is why I don't swing for the fences when I use it. Someone on Superman or Captain Marvel's scale, yeah, I'd kinda have to, but on most people it's too dangerous. It's why I don't even try to Sectumsempra anything alive, regardless of how tough they seem." Deke explained, catching a snicker from Aasha. "What's so funny?"

"Potterhead." She accused. "Now, please be kind, but I cooked dinner for us. Are you able to eat?"

"Hell, even if I wasn't, don't let that stop you." Deke said, lightly brushing Aasha's silky hair with his fingertips. "But I could definitely try to eat something."

"I'll fetch it and bring it here for us then." Aasha said, rising to her feet and padding her way into the kitchen to begin doling out salad and baked chicken for everyone. While she was in there, Barbara cuddled into her boy.

"I saw the video from your glasses too, babe. He was a dead ringer for you. What's your feeling on that?" Barbara asked, her own theory having been formulated a few days ago, upon seeing who he'd scrapped with.

"That lawyer managed to get the scraps they pulled out of me when the mountain blew up. I'm guessing they were able to get viable genetic material from it. I was only fifteen, so I still had active stem cells working in my body. I think I was cloned, and I kinda don't like being cloned into such a douche." Deke replied honestly. He really felt like he'd been done a disservice.

"I agree with the cloning. Probably Cadmus, they're the top cloning lab, and it's nearly impossible to get anyone or anything into their labs to find out what they're up to." Barbara replied. "How'd he fly, by the way?"

"Clumsier than me, slower too. His telekinetics were vicious, and we were on par telepathically, but he couldn't even tell I'd played possum, so his psychometabolics were nowhere near mine, but he had something active, that first shot I gave him should have floored him and he was running with his pain receptors turned off. You could tell he'd honed his offense and little else." Deke said thoughtfully, replaying the fight in his head with an analytical mindset, a trait he'd learned from his love.

"So, crappy flier huh?" Barbara asked, her gears turning quite obviously. She saw her boy's face split into an almost predatory grin when he realized what she was getting at.

"Yep, which means he's still generating turbulence when he flies. He's not pushing far enough forward on the plane so he can't maneuver for shit. We can track him the way Checkmate was tracking me, and I know for a fact I broke his arm, he had to go to ground to get some help or heal himself." Deke answered, following the path she'd set out for him.

Barbara gave a knowing nod, proud of her boy. "We'll need to be able to find him quick. If Checkmate knew as much as they did about you, it's fair to assume Cadmus was able to get the information, one way or the other. It's only a matter of time before he comes looking again. If it helps, so far he hasn't shown back up anywhere that we know about yet."

"Next time, we'll all be waiting." Aasha said, bringing the baked chicken salads in and setting them down in front of her lovers. "There's homemade lemonade in the fridge as well, shall I bring us all some?"

"Bless your heart Ash, yes please." Deke said, sitting forward carefully and grabbing his bowl. "She's such a dear."

"I know, right?" Barbara said, winking at the blushing woman. "This is a good thing, because she's volunteered to take care of you for a few days. I have to get back to Gotham to help with things and talk to school for you. You uh, you got hurt when a wall fell on you by the way." Barbara explained.

"Can't even properly heal without more Xenobiology homework." Deke muttered around a mouthful of salad. "I'm glad you talked me into sitting down and doing the paperwork for our engagement now too."

"Babs knows best Cowboy. At least in cases like that anyway. Oh, one other thing, The Dark League put some wards on this house, Mami and Papi's house, and their cars, as well as the Chevelle, it should block them from most any means of detection outside of actually physically laying eyes on. They're carrying, Ash, what'd Zatanna call them again?"

"Hex bags love." Aasha said, bringing in the pitcher of lemonade and some glasses. "I've got ours. Can't leave the property without them, not till we're all better anyway."

"Lotta fuss." Deke said, beginning to really understand how Babs had felt when Batman had tasked Artemis to follow her when she was healing up from Brick, what felt like so many years ago. "Is there someone following me too?"

"No, just Ash. Swamp Thing took up residence on the rooftop garden of the Hacienda, to keep an eye on Kris though." Barbara said, making a peculiar face. She'd never met him, and had only heard of him secondhand through Zatanna.

"Okay, sure, why not?" Deke complained, not really tracking this level of redundancy. "I guess I can write some thank you e-mails till I get my homework though."

"It'd be nice." Barbara said, perfectly understanding where he was coming from. "While I'm gone, just do me a favor and don't hurt yourself, okay? I know you're going to work yourself out, and you need to, but be smart, please?"

"I'll make sure of it." Aasha said with a firm nod. "No sex if you hurt yourself being a stubborn mule."

"Ash honey, the way I'm feeling, it's no sex if I don't hurt myself." Deke said with a regretful frown. "I'm still torn on who hit me harder between him and Darkseid."

"That's bollocks." Aasha said, looking forward to having a night with him. Since being allowed to do so, she'd been dreaming up things she wanted to try, when it was just the two of them. "But I might be getting ahead of myself too. I'm still so tired all the time."

"Well, if you do, have fun." Barbara said, munching on her salad thoughtfully. "Take pictures for me. I left the Firefly bluerays here too, and she hasn't seen them yet."

"That's probably way more likely to be the thing that happens." Deke replied, glancing at the women in his life. For a minute, he pondered whether or not locking them into his thoughts before he'd shut himself down was what had allowed him to survive the sudden and brutal onslaught Sawyer had visited upon him. Barbara was, and would always be his first love, the woman he wanted to have children and a life with. Aasha had started as happenstance, and looked like she was perfectly happy in their arrangement and so had never decided to leave. Completely ignoring sex, she was still incredible to have in their life. "When were you planning on taking off?"

"After I eat, sadly. I have to Zeta to Metropolis and take the ferry across the bay. Hopefully we'll have Zeta access to the city itself soon, but that work has to be done in a clandestine fashion, for obvious reasons. Our Q-Core stuff is all satellite uplinked to the Watchtower though, so I'll be able to call and everything." Barbara replied, not wanting to leave, but also not wanting to waste any time in setting up the tracking algorithm.

Batman had been right to be wary of her boy. She detested that her integrity had been compromised to do it, but developing real world skills over his powers had been a good idea in retrospect. Getting too powerful too fast could lead to trouble, which had been made perfectly evident. Catching the clone before he got the wrong idea in his head was absolutely necessary.

Barbara banished that line of thought, especially since she was sitting quite literally hip to hip with her boy, and she didn't want to burden him with her negativity or make him feel like she was leaving him out. Instead, she ate quietly, not so much having a meal but fueling up. With Gotham in the state it was in, she couldn't take the time to fully heal her leg, instead working alongside the Birds of Prey to make sure she had backup at all times.

There was a lot of upheaval, and despite all the help they'd received, and quickly, Gotham was not in a good state. "Over two million people are homeless now." She said quietly, trying not to dwell on it, but failing. "Metropolis, New York, Boston, Fawcett City, and Star City are already in the process of putting together refugee housing. Central City's finished already, not that that's a surprise. Another eighty thousand dead, or missing and presumed and that number's climbed a whole lot more than it's fallen. That number did rise though recently. A football player touring colleges was recovered, though the poor kid's never going to play ball again."

"Damn. At least Atlantis is helping." Deke said, surreptitiously pulling a kale stem from his mouth and tucking it away to toss when Ash wasn't looking. Love her heart she tried though.

"Atlantis is helping big time. Mera is set to speak before Congress in a couple of days, she's convinced she and the other sorcerers can raise a fourth island to handle some of the spill-over. Speaking of Congress, Ash, don't you have a citizenship test to study for?" Barbara said, poking the other girl in the shoulder lightly.

"Bloody hell I do, but all of my material was in the apartment." She whined. "That's two months straight of studying right down the loo."

"Go to that review site I sent you. It's a shame you can't say you were helping with the situation; that might score you some serious points." Barbara said, patting her on the shoulder.

"Yes mum." Aasha said, sticking her very long tongue out at her girlfriend. "And you're right, it's a shame indeed. I could say 'Excuse me sir, but I'm a bloody superheroine, could you just expedite this whole process please?' and I bet Homeland Security would just snap right to that."

"Are you being bratty with me right now? This is not a good time for that Ash." Barbara reminded her, returning visible tongue with visible tongue. "Never mind that it's the State Department that handles all of it."

"Now who's being bratty?" Aasha asked, her eyes narrowing.

There were definite perks of resting up back in his family home. Knowing the place inside and out was one, having his bed to sleep in was another, and the fresh country air was a third. There were downfalls to it though, like having a normal tank style hot water heater and forgetting that it could run out after so long. It left him rinsing his hair out with chilly water, and putting a pause on shaving his beard. Though, maybe that wasn't such a horrible idea.

"Hey Ash, you busy?" He called out, sticking his head outside the bathroom door and listening for her.

"No love, do you need help?" She asked, stepping out of his bedroom, a facial mask coloring her face mint green.

"No, just an opinion." He said, trying not to snicker at her. She was extremely shy about her beauty routines, all of which were perfectly foreign to him anyway. "I'm debating the beard, not sure if I wanna keep it or ditch it."

It was a reasonable request, so far as Aasha was concerned. "It's your face, but all the same," she said, and put a hand to his cheek, feeling the hair there. "It's awfully prickly. It looks handsome on you though, it's very distinguished." She said after a minute, trying to figure out how best to word it.

Still behind the bathroom door, Deke pulled some boxer briefs on and opened the door fully, inviting her in. "Well, I'm not trying to attract a mate, so I don't need a display. You said it was prickly?"

Aasha nodded. "Yes love, your body hair is very pokey and sharp." She said, glad he trimmed the hair around his tool on the regular.

"Okay then, that's all I needed to hear." He said, and picked up his trimmer. He flicked it on, and then turned it immediately off when she put a hand on his and gave him a warm and endearing look.

"Please, let me." She asked, batting her eyelashes. "You know how our legs feel, I've been handling them for the past bit." She said, reminding him of the silky smooth skin her own hair removal techniques provided.

"Don't gotta ask me twice." He said, and gathered his hair in a quick and messy ponytail, before sitting on the edge of the tub to give her room to work. She made a loose fist and snapped her fingers open, a web of energy crisscrossing her hands like an electric spider had something to prove.

"It tickles, I promise it doesn't hurt though." Aasha said, and began gently stroking his face. As expected, he snickered and jerked around, trying to ignore the tickling feeling and the burning hair smell. Seeing his face, and noticing it herself, Aasha nodded. "Yeah, smells a bit when the hair's that long."

She kept it up for maybe a minute and a half, just gently touching his face, dragging the electricity in her hand across every spot where it was necessary. When she was finished, she banished the electricity and used her bare palm to stroke his face. "I know I'm satisfied with my work. Take a look and a feel." She said, and stepped back to give him room to stand, frowning at him having to brace on the sink to get to his feet.

That frown disappeared when he patted his cheeks and felt all over his face with a beaming grin. "Ash, you're badass." He said, and placed a kiss on her. "If you ever decided you're done with the hero gig, you could make a fortune running a spa, or salon, or whatever."

"I'd actually considered that for about a minute." She said, testing the edge of her facial mask to see if it had dried enough to wash off. She'd handily forgotten to set a timer. "I don't know that I want to be the first powered person to monetize their abilities though. Something about that just seems so wrong."

"Right?" Deke drawled, gingerly pulling on a pair of basketball shorts and turning back to the mirror to get a brush through his hair. "Black Canary talked to some people on the League a while back, and any time there's a big demolition project in underdeveloped places, I get a call. It's a lot of fun, but I'd feel like a dick trying to get paid to do it. It'd be like Superman sending you an invoice after catching your car after it fell off a bridge."

Aasha giggled at the mental picture and squirmed her way around him to take a seat on the closed toilet. "So, I heard something, and I'm probably not supposed to say this, but nobody told me not to. Want to hear it?"

Pausing his brush, he looked at her for a second. The facial mask made reading her features tricky, but her expression was mischievous, not malicious or worried. "Sure, fire away." He said, waiting to pick his brush back up.

"I heard Pacifica tell Liho she loved him." She said, her voice sounding dreamy.