April 3rd
Destin Florida
0423 CST

It was close to four in the morning when Maddie came down the stairs in a deep blue satin robe, and only wearing that because she wasn't sure how Ingrid or Pacifica felt about another woman's tits. Everyone else here had already seen them so it meant nothing to her.

"Recognize Mustang E zero three." The Zeta system called out. Surprised, she turned and saw her teammate stepping off the platform, a bit unsteady on his feet.

"Where've you been?" Maddie asked, her head cocked to the side. There were scorch marks on his coat and singes on the brim of his hat, and he looked like he'd gone a few good rounds while he was at it. "You look beat to hell."

He nodded as though she'd discovered some great secret. "Heatwave, and before him, a bunch of Kobra douchebgs. I really have a problem with tactics." He grumbled. "Don't tell Babs that last part please."

When the realization of what he'd said hit her, Maddie paused. "I was on standby. Heatwave should've been mine."

"Mads, while I know what went on in your room in a very general sense of the word, I really still don't know exactly what it was, but you were actually happy." Deke said, hanging his coat and hat up with a yawn. "So no, Heatwave was never yours."

"You took a beating because I was happy?" She asked, still not really piecing the situation together. "Why?"

"Because you were happy Mads, why are we still havin' this conversation?" he asked, wandering into the kitchen. He was running on low after Kobra, but Heatwave had put him on empty.

"Mustang, you big dumbass." She said, pushing him lightly. "I see why they love you so much."

He shrugged at that, before grabbing three protein shakes from the fridge. "Ohana Mads." He said, popping the lid off the first one and downing it in one go. "You ain't had the fairest hands dealt to you lately, I sure as shit wasn't about to interrupt you. I dunno what that boy did but I'm glad he did it."

"Made me feel needed." She said in a small voice, something so unlike her that it paused him halfway into opening the second bottle. "Liho never treated me bad, don't get me wrong, but it was just convenience for us, you know?"

He nodded and finished cracking the bottle. "Yeah, I get it." He said, acknowledging her words and letting her get back to talking.

"Well, Will actually treated me like I was kind of special. I mean, I was in Queen of the Whores mode from moment one, because I thought he was cute, but he never noticed. I'll know tomorrow if he meant it or not, but for right now, I'm taking the win."

"You deserve it Mads." Deke said, taking three drinks to kill the second bottle. "If that was just a game for him, I'll handle his hand to hand training for a while."

"Don't worry about it. I'm a big girl. Speaking of all this, can I ask you something?" She requested, hoping to finally get an answer to a question that had been burning within her for a couple of years now.

"Shoot. I'm too tired to argue anyway." He drawled, realizing he'd slugged those two shakes too quickly, and he'd pay for it later.

"Why Aasha, with you two? I legitimately want to know, it's not me just being pouty about it. I'm legitimately curious." She said, following him to the living space and sitting down on her legs. (just because he'd seen it didn't meant she needed to just put it all out on display after all)

"Well, she just sorta happened to be there at just the right time I guess. She caught us in the middle of something we'd started after we thought she was asleep, we caught her catchin' us, and next thing you know, it happened." He said, trying to spare as much personal detail as possible.

"Okay, well, I've been in that position more than once, I get that, but, still, this goes on? I see how Ash looks at the both of you, and the way you both look at her." Maddie said, trying to get more detail out of her exhausted teammate.

"It's Aasha, how can you not love her?" He said with a shrug. "Gotham's still a shithole for the most part, and it's gonna be for a real long time. She's kinda the opposite of that for Babs I think, and I really need to stress that this is just what I think."

"So, me pushing it all the time?" Maddie asked, and this time she wasn't insinuating anything. This time.

"Yeah, just set her off wrong. I mean, you were basically asking to go to bed with me, and I'll be honest here, you had better options." He said distantly, sipping his last shake.

"Shut up. Give your girl more credit; she accepted your ring didn't she?" Maddie pointed out. That same serenity continued to radiate from her, a sensation all too foreign to Deke. He didn't know quite what to make of it. He did know if Fujin had played her, he really would kick the boy's ass.

"Yep."

"Or, is it your girls? My threesome experience is kind of limited to random fun times. I'm seriously curious about this." Maddie asked, verbally poking at him. She'd had enough multi-person encounters to fill an internet porn site, but that was purely physical.

"Kinda. Babs calls Aasha her girlfriend, and vice versa. They play a lot without me, or just lettin' me watch. Me and Ash on our own is still a really new thing that we're not even always sure we're cool with, y'know? I love them both though." He said, trying to avoid getting too comfortable in his seat on the couch.

"How'd Ash take you proposing? I didn't want to ask her in case it was something sore for her. I know what you mean about loving her, she really is that kinda chick." Maddie asked, finally getting details, and realizing she was finally asking the right way.

"I told her before I did it, at the League Christmas party. We stepped aside and talked about it, hell, she was almost as happy as Babs was. Before you ask that next question, yeah, we'll still have a thing going on after the wedding, she's pretty much a part of our lives till she decides she wants out." He said with a shrug and another yawn.

"Even after kids? I at least got that much out of Babs, that she wanted them and all." Maddie said, remembering she still needed to woman up and have that talk with Drew. Braeden hadn't been lying when he'd said he'd told Drew that Maddie was his mom, not his sister like he'd grown up believing.

"Yeah, probably. We're not thinkin' that far ahead Mads. Hell, we're still fine tuning the guest list for the wedding, and that's been a nightmare and a half." He said with a dejected sigh.

"You need a planner. I know one, actually." Maddie offered, and this change in her was becoming more and more profound as the moments ticked on. "Second best in the Hamptons."

"We looked, they're expensive in Gotham, I'm afraid of what they run in the Hamptons." Deke said, remembering that particular afternoon of checking out websites and being nearly sick to their stomachs at the rates.

"She's second best because she worked for the best, Deke. Me. I actually had a day job for a while. Well, it was more of an internship in middle school for college applications, but we parted on good terms, I know she'd send me some advice if I needed it." Maddie said, telling more about herself in that one moment than she had over the last three years.

"I'll tell Babs, you know I won't agree to anything without her, but you might have just saved our bacon." He said, finally polishing off his last shake. "I'm going to bed, if Aasha hasn't claimed it all, but seriously, you're in a good place right now, and I'm glad you are."

"Thank you Deke." Maddie called after him, having totally forgotten what she'd come downstairs for in the first place.

"You're welcome Mads." He replied, trudging up the stairs tiredly.

April 3rd
Gotham City
1150 EST

Sitting in front of her laptop, crunching lines of code into yet another worthless and ridiculous count to adhere to the regulations of the assignment, was one Miss Barbara Joan Gordon. The tv was on and set to the Indie rock music station, and there was a half-eaten and completely ignored bowl of quinoa and baked fish next to her.

She looked up, ears perked, when the door opened. "Hello you!" she called out in a perfectly chipper voice, seeing her fiancée walk in the door. He couldn't help but smile at her, despite still being extremely tired from the previous night's work.

She got up and went to him, her movements liquid and smooth. "I missed you." She said, standing on the steel toes of his boots and placing a kiss on his nose. He wrapped her into a tight hug, twirling her in the air slowly while he did so, and kissed her back.

"Missed you too." He said, and held onto her a while longer. "You busy?"

"Yes and no. We were given our final project for coding and programming four oh five already, since he expected us to take a while on it, and I've been trying to knock it out while the rest of my classes aren't so slammed." She said, enjoying the warmth of his body. Gotham was starting to shake the chill, but it wasn't enough.

"So, you got a minute then?" He asked. When she nodded at him, he walked into the bedroom with her still perched on the toes of his boots. The look she gave him when she realized where they were headed was one of mild disappointment.

"I have a minute babe, not long enough to do anything worthwhile in here." She argued gently. "Which is a shame of course, because I heard what you did to that Kobra unit last night and I'd love to show you how proud I am of you."

"You're dating a psychic, you don't have to show me, and I'm too pooped to pop anyway." He replied. He wasn't looking to get her naked and into bed, just into the bed itself. "I just wanted some company while I pass back out."

"Oh, that I can do." She said pleasantly and stepped off his feet so he could get undressed. As he tossed his clothes into the hamper, she observed his body, looking for signs of lingering injury. Bart had texted her to let her know he'd tangled with Heatwave too, and word from Central City PD was that he was sitting in jail talking a good game about how much pain he'd put on the cape that had left him there.

Satisfied that there wasn't anything obviously wrong, she scooted over and let him slide into bed. "Is Aasha still down there?" she asked, wondering about their girlfriend. She'd become such a fixture in their lives that the small one bedroom apartment seemed empty without her there too.

"Yeah," he replied, yawning, before reaching up and putting an arm around her to pull her down to a laying position with him. "She's on hot standby today with Ingrid." He explained, nuzzling into her. Barbara would be lying if she said she didn't love every bit of it.

"Kris called me earlier this afternoon and warned me you'd be sleepy. Why'd you take Maddie's spot for her?" Barbara asked after a minute of getting warm and comfortable. She had to be careful not to get too comfortable, though, she still had classes.

"I wanted to talk to you about her actually. I took her gig because apparently, our new guy was what she needed in life. I didn't wanna be the interruptus to their coitus."

Barbara giggled at her boy and rolled over to look at him, careful not to press her breasts into his chest and stir up something she didn't have time to finish. "That was thoughtful of you, but why'd you want to tell me about that? Maddie's pretty fond of reminding everyone about how much coitus she's getting at any given moment."

It was Deke's turn to snicker at that. "Not that babe, dude apparently said or did something that just, I dunno, worked for her. Hell, when I got up this morning he was taking her breakfast. Anyway, when I got in this morning from Central, she was up, and we talked for a little bit. Long story short, she apparently used to intern for a wedding planner in the Hamptons, she volunteered to help plan ours, pro bono."

That was certainly unexpected. It was hard consolidating that image of Mads with how she usually thought about her. "If she's willing, I'd be happy to let her plan the second one."

"Second one?" Deke asked, confused at what Barbara was saying. "We're getting married twice?"

Barbara nodded and kissed her boy on the forehead. "Well, if you like the idea, yeah. There's a non-traditional student in my math class, and she was talking about her wedding. Apparently, she and her husband went to city hall and got the quick civil version this morning, and they're having the big one this summer. It got me thinking, since we have two lives, why not two ceremonies?"

"Little family one for the legal business and then extended and friends in the big one?" Deke asked, tracking where she was headed with it.

"Exactly. My dad and Bette, Mami and Papi, and that's it. There's a small chapel across the street from the city building just for it. I can't get married and not let my dad see me in my dress after all." Barbara replied.

"And once again, Barbara Gordon detectives the hell out of something." Deke replied, his body starting to wind back down.

"I'd hardly call it detective work, just a little problem solving. It's one more thing out of the way too." She replied. "Bruce still wouldn't show up to either unfortunately, unless everyone on our list is League by then."

"If you ask Fractal, we'll be League by next year. He's got a bug up his ass out of nowhere about it." Deke said. He understood completely how important it was for Bruce to be there for her. She'd made an off-the-cuff comment to Ash one day about having Batman give her away if her dad couldn't, which then turned into a pencil sketch of him in the costume, with a bowtie and utility cummerbund.

"It's hard to say why, but Kris is driven when he wants it. I wouldn't put it past him." Barbara said, stifling a yawn. "Sorry Cowboy, but I can't stay here any longer or I'm going to fall asleep."

"It's cool babe, thanks for this." He said, and kissed her again, more fully, but careful to keep it sweet. She giggled and kissed him back, before slipping out of the bed to return to her homework.

Before getting started back on it, she tossed her food in the microwave for a few seconds to warm it back up, and shot Maddie a text. As much as she wanted to say she was happy for her, since Deke hadn't said how confidential that information was, she kept it to accepting her offer for help and thanking her for it.

Once she pocketed her phone and collected her re-heated lunch from the microwave, Barbara sat back down to her computer, but not before casting a glance into the bedroom to see her boy sleeping peacefully. "I love you." She whispered to him, a soft smile on her face.