May 27th
Greenup Kentucky
2235 EST

Deke was sitting on the couch, absently obliterating a bag of pork rinds and watching cartoons. Aasha was asleep next to him, and Barbara wasn't much longer for the waking world either on the other side of him. As she'd hoped, he'd been perfectly happy to give her a go, and they'd taken their good sweet time about things, which had suited Aasha just fine because her artist's eye was working overtime. She'd taken a few pictures of them and had actually passed out doing some mid-sexytime drawings based on those photos. If the early sketches were any indication, the final product proved to be both hot, and beautiful. Of course, it meant Barbara could never show them to her dad, but the GCPD's general lack of interest in art meant she wasn't likely to be ratted out either.

When his phone buzzed, he beckoned it to his hand and saw there was a text from Liho. Barbara leaned up, adorably feigning being nosy, but when he made no move to conceal it, she let herself become legitimately nosy. "What's Liho got to say?" she asked, wondering. She knew he was with the Atlanteans in Gotham, where she needed to be too, and would have been if Bruce hadn't actually respectfully asked her and the rest of the Birds to take the full day to rest and heal, and let him handle the light work.

"Dunno." Deke replied, and opened the message. "Hey bro, got big news. I'm supposed to tell you face to face. Are you gonna be in Gotham tomorrow?" he said, reading the message aloud, subconsciously mimicking Liho's accent.

"What?" He asked, when Barbara started giggling at him. "What'd I do?"

"Nothing baby. What do you think it is?" She asked, her detective's mind already starting into speculation and theory.

"Hell, I dunno." Deke mused, sitting his phone down and leaning back into the couch. "His spelling says he was excited as hell. You think he managed to help Batman out more?"

"I would have heard something. The Birds haven't been listening as dutifully as I've been, one of them would have told me if he'd taken anyone else high profile down." Barbara replied, reaching beside her and handing Deke one of the throw blankets, and gesturing towards Aasha.

Deke took the offered blanket and tossed it into the air, using his powers to spread it out and cover their girlfriend up within it carefully. She was resting properly for the first time in weeks, not just passing out from exhaustion, he'd be damned if that was getting interrupted. "Speaking of high profile, has that tracking algorithm pinged on my clone?"

"Cowboy, if it had, you'd know. I'm not even supposed to tell you that either. Batman's words were, and I quote, 'Superman, Captain Marvel, or Wonder Woman can handle Mustang's clone. He's too involved.'" Barbara said, similarly mimicking Batman's gruff tone, though she was fully conscious of the fact, and was doing it to try and distract her boy.

"He's not wrong. I want another shot at him. I got stupid the first time, let him outthink me." Deke groused. "I tried to just fight him, instead of setting him up, feeling him out, and letting him give up information in the process."

Barbara smiled at him, and put a hand on his. "Baby, if I wanted to marry Dick, I would have gone on more than one date with him. It is nice to see you thinking things through though."

Deke grimaced sheepishly, having been called out on what could best be described as being Bat-lite. "Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's true though, I got him out over water and stopped thinking. I can do better, and I need to."

"Cowboy, you did just fine. As far as we know, he thinks you're dead. Last thing he said to you involved wanting Superman. Right now, you have him where you want him, whether you like it or not. He's gone to ground, and he's not bothering anyone." Barbara said, taking a stronger tone, effectively putting a lead on him. He'd definitely named himself appropriately.

"This is how you felt after Hush, huh?" Deke asked, standing up and offering his beloved a hand. She took it and rose to her own feet, and followed him through the kitchen and out the back door.

"It really is. Frustrated and stymied. Why did we come outside?" She asked, walking with him down the stone paver walkway into the backyard.

"It's a pretty night." Deke said, stepping behind her and putting his chest to her back before wrapping his arms around her, right below her breasts. "I just wanted to share it with you."

"Oh, that I can handle." She said, leaning her head back into his shoulder, enjoying the kiss on her temple she'd all but set up running lights in signal for. "Is that all though?"

"No, that's not all. Are we going to tell Ash tomorrow about what we'd talked about the other day?" He asked, still just holding onto her under the stars of his home, feeling right with the world.

"Yeah, thanks for waiting until I could be there too. I want to see her face when we tell her we want her to live with us." Barbara said, enjoying a sequel to the kiss she got on her temple. "It makes so much good sense, I don't know why we didn't discuss it sooner."

"It's kinda a big deal, we're inviting her to live with us babe, on the permanent. I knew she wasn't going to try to keep dating in earnest, she was sabotaging everything she was aiming at, but she needed to admit it to herself first." Deke said thoughtfully.

"I agree with you. Right now though, I'm not even sure what Gotham's going to look like by the time we get married. Bruce is doing everything he can, and Oliver is helping, but so is Lex, and where they go, Kord is going to follow, and a dozen other companies. Did you ever read any of those Gibson or Dick novels I suggested?" Barbara said, reluctantly extricating herself from his embrace to lead him to the old swing in the corner of the yard.

"Yeah, dystopian cyberpunk. Kris actually hounded me to read them harder than you did. You driving at the corp city vibe in the books?" Deke asked, sitting on the two person swing with her.

Barbara nodded, staring up at the stars and enjoying the cool evening breeze that carried the scent of night flowers and honeysuckle. When she'd smelled them the first time, it reminded her of what he'd once said to her, right after their first kiss, and ever since then, the scent on the wind brought an involuntary blush to her face. It would have been nicer if they weren't on this particular topic of conversation. "That's exactly what I'm driving at. LuthorCorp in Gotham was something Bruce fought hard against. His father too, actually, when Lionel Luthor was at the helm, before Lex took over."

"LuthorCorp had a building in the city already." Deke said, not entirely certain what she was driving at. He very well understood how bad of news Lex Luthor was, but she was heading to a point he wasn't seeing.

"Yeah, there was one building, just one, and it wasn't even that big. It was satellite offices for the Metropolis branch. Lex Luthor is dangerous, and on a whole other level than the Joker, or Poison Ivy. It's going to drive Bruce too hard, and he's only barely tolerating the Birds. I'm worried the city's going to get a shiny new façade and be even worse under the shell, with not enough people to do anything lasting." Barbara said, genuinely worried about her home.

"Babe, you need to run for office, the way you love that city." Deke said, trying to help her work through her concern for Gotham.

"I can't." Barbara replied, showing her boy the tip of her tongue. "Not corrupt enough. Politics requires what Bruce called the 'acceptable level of corruption' in order to function. I'm just too honest a girl for it."

"You're too honest a girl huh?" Deke asked, turning to put his back against the armrest of the swing so he could better look at her. "Okay, too honest a girl, answer me a question. Is this thing we've got keeping you happy and satisfied?"

"Cowboy, you know for a fact it's keeping me satisfied. If you went back in time and told fifteen year old me that I'd be engaged and discussing with my fiancée our decision to lett our shared girlfriend move in with us, I'd call you a liar and probably punch you for even suggesting it." Barbara said with a giggle. She turned, matching her boy's movement, and put her feet into his lap, using the motion to give her time to formulate the rest of her response.

"Am I happy? Baby, I really am. I've got two lovers who fulfill my very specific needs outside the bedroom. You've been the perfect man for me, and I've never tried to make you that way. Ash is exactly what I'd want from a girlfriend too. I'm gonna flip this on you though and ask why you wanted to know." She added, tickling his abs with her toes.

He snickered and shied away the best he could, before taking her feet in his hands to absently rub, which immediately elicited a happy coo from her. "Just checking babe. I can't fix Gotham, or any of the problems that came with it. If you weren't happy here, that's something I could act on. If I can't hero around for a spell, I can at least boyfriend around with some measure of skill."

"I can get behind that." Barbara replied, relaxing at his touch. "So, while I was gone, did you and Ash get to bond? I noticed she was cuddlier with you when I got back from my Gotham trip."

That caught Deke off guard. He hadn't actually noticed much difference. "She's a cuddlebug at the Hacienda. As much as I had to play the tough guy when Maddie spilled it, she wasn't lying. I guess at the apartment, the furniture didn't really play well for it. It was kinda nice getting a few days though, especially with us too wiped to do anything. Down in Florida, she's got to be a different Ash around people, and the dynamic is different when we're all together, so seeing the real woman was good. The DC trip was fun too, I'm glad Liho mentioned he was gonna be there."

"Good, that's what I wanted to hear. She didn't take you getting beat that well, this time, or with Darkseid either. I'd always assumed she'd told you but I'm starting to think maybe she didn't." Barbara said after a moment's reflection.

"No, she never did. You gotta tell me though." Deke said, pausing his rubbing of her feet, an act of extortion that she certainly wasn't a fan of. When she gestured to continue, he did, and in exchange, she fulfilled his request.

"Cassie had to drag me off of the Rescue Jumpers, you knew that. What I don't think you know is, when I was sedated to get my arm reset, Ash actually threatened an orderly about Liho's size when he didn't want to let her into your room." Barbara said, and grinned at the surprised reaction on her boy's face.

"This is no joke babe, that orderly was pushing Liho sized, and he wouldn't let her into your room. She floats three feet into the air and said, and this is according to Zatanna since I was still doped out, 'If you don't let me in there, I will pull the air from your lungs and refill them with a fire hot enough to properly reflect how much I don't want to put up with your shit.'" Barbara continued, once again breaking out her Aasha impression, her voice rising in register and annoyance appropriate to the illustration.

"No, you're pullin' my leg. She didn't." Deke argued. He could believe she'd use her big girl voice if she needed to, as he'd seen it, but a threat of that level of violence seemed well beyond her.

"She did. Like I said, this is Zee who told me, but Black Canary wound up backing her off the orderly and she confirmed it. That orderly wound up clocking out for the night after that too; and apparently used his personal time to avoid her, since nobody ever saw him at the same time she was around again. When you woke up ornery, she almost tripped over those scrubs she was wearing when she tried to come and get me too." Barbara said, trying to suppress a giggle at the memory. In retrospect it was good comedy, but the situation hadn't been.

"Where were you anyway? I didn't care because you got to my room so quick, but now that we're talking about it, I'm curious." Deke asked, hoping he hadn't asked already and forgotten the answer.

"I was visiting Oliver, two rooms down. I wanted to let him know I wasn't the biggest fan of him telling the doctors that I was the person to consult if you didn't wake up. Ash came running in, skidded across the floor and nearly tripped over one of her pant legs when it had come unrolled. She wound up having to catch herself midair. If I hadn't already been sleeping with her for a couple of years, I would've started crushing then and there, she looked so adorable floating in the middle of the room, her hair everywhere and such a surprised look on her face." Barbara replied.

"Thanks for remembering it." Deke said, catching the thought on Barbara's mind. She was absolutely right too, the way she was floating on her stomach with her hair halfway in her face and hanging to the floor, arms and legs splayed out, and looking like a cat that had gotten caught was heartwarmingly adorable. "Yeah, I never knew she took it like that."

Barbara nodded. "That's kind of why I was so insecure about letting you two have alone time. I don't know how we look to other people, but I could see you both with my own eyes and it was so damn cute."

"Well, now you know there's nothing to worry about babe." Deke said gently, still a bit overwhelmed after hearing the story and feeling a whole lot better about himself.

"I knew it then. It's like you'd said, what you really wanted from her, you were getting before sex entered the equation, but people are allowed mistakes, even me." Barbara said sassily, showing him the tip of her tongue.

"Speaking of mistakes, and Aasha. If we let her sleep on the couch all night while we actually go to bed, she's going to, what'd you say? Pull the air from our lungs and refill them with fire?" Deke said, the hour wearing on him after the day's, ahem, exercises.

"Yeah, that. Let's go to bed Cowboy, apparently we're going to Gotham tomorrow morning. I want to get dad a treat too, so we're going to have to hit the Big Belly Burger in Metropolis before we board the ferry, or were you going to fly us?" Barbara asked, spinning back around on the swing and coming to her feet lightly.

"Nah, we'll go the old fashioned way. We can hitch a ride with one of the Atlantean work trucks; you said they've been really cool about giving people lifts." Deke said, already thinking about Big Belly Burger. The chain hadn't gotten around to Kentucky yet, so he had no way to satisfy his cravings for it since he'd had to be home.