About an hour later, Kala finally came out of the kitchen looking triumphant, and the razzing had died down enough by then that no one wanted to start it up again. Dick, however, sat up with a grin, and Jay rolled his eyes, knowing what was coming. "Now that we have both our resident singers in the room, I propose we go caroling."
"Jesus fuck," Jay groaned. "No. I am not standing around in the snow singing to people in Bristol. Fuck that."
"Language," Donna said, frowning despite Lian not being in the room. Jay stuck his tongue out at her and repeated the sentence in German just for the hell of it.
That perked Kala right up, tilting her head curiously. He'd forgotten she hadn't been with them long enough to have really gotten a good grasp of all their backgrounds. "We have another resident singer? You guys have been keeping secrets."
"I never told you that?" Dinah said, smiling. "I used to be a lounge singer. There's a reason my code name is Canary."
"Seriously?" Kala brightened, grinning back, and Jay knew they were stuck with singing. If he was lucky, they'd keep it indoors. Dick saw his opportunity, and turned up the radio. Jay managed not to get roped in, going to help Alfred make hot chocolate for everyone instead.
In the kitchen at least, there was peace and quiet. "Have you had a good Christmas, Master Jason?" Alfred asked him, taking milk and cream from the fridge.
"Best one in a long time," Jay replied, deciding to be honest because it was Alfred asking. "I get to be home, and see you."
Alfred smiled, his eyes twinkling, and handed Jay a chopping block and several bars of fancy Belgian chocolate. "If you would be so kind as to chop those while I begin warming the cream and milk? And as much good as it does me to hear that I've made this Christmas a good one for you, Master Jason, I do believe much of the credit goes to Miss Kala."
"Well, yeah, it's partly because she's here, but I can't deny that it's good to be home," Jay said, pulling the chef's knife from the chopping block. Alfred had let him do this, the last few years before his near-death, and he knew the routine well. The recipe for hot chocolate – never cocoa – began with good chocolate bars, both dark and semisweet, chopped finely. Alfred set the kettle on as he measured and poured the dairy ingredients into a pan, warming them gently. Jay would pour a small measure of boiling water over the chocolate and quickly whisk it to melt the fragments, and then Alfred would add the hot cream and milk. Jay would whisk the whole thing together with some vanilla extract, a pinch of salt, and a little sugar, while Alfred whipped up a batch of fresh cream. Each cup would get a portion of rich, creamy, delicious hot chocolate, a mound of sweet whipped cream, and a tiny drizzle of chocolate syrup to top it off.
"It is very good to have you home," Alfred said, his voice quiet but full of emphasis.
"Careful, people will think you missed me," Jay warned.
"I wager everyone who spoke with us in the years of your absence knew we missed you," Alfred informed him. The kettle whistled, and Jay reached across to pour the boiling water into a measuring cup, then add the right amount to the chocolate. Watching him, stirring the warming dairy ingredients, Alfred mused, "It is one of life's ironies that you, who needed to know it most, were perhaps the only one who did not realize how deeply we mourned."
"I should've known you would," Jay said, feeling obscurely guilty as he whisked the chocolate. "The Lazarus Pit tends to make you believe the worst, though."
Alfred turned to him, his gaze serious. "I never meant to imply you were at fault. You cannot be blamed for misapprehension. It is Christmas, Master Jason. Let bygones be bygones, and let us enjoy this season together, rather that mourn the ones we lost."
"That sounds like good advice," Jay admitted, and focused on the hot chocolate.
"Of course it is. It came from me," Alfred teased gently.
…
Talia put down her thermal scope with a sigh, continuing to look in the direction of the faint heat signature she'd been tracking. Cain and Brown had chosen a good location, but they would need to move soon. Shiva's men – and the League's own – were patrolling the area with some regularity. So far the two girls had stayed out of trouble by being extremely careful; they would need luck on their side to continue remaining undetected.
It still rankled with her that Barbara Gordon had the unmitigated gall to ask her to look after them. She was not one of Bruce's soldiers, nor one of Oracle's birds, and not some mercenary either who could be bought with the right bribe. Barbara had appealed to her on the one level she could not deny; these were mere girls, treading in far deeper waters than they knew. Talia herself had already killed, more than once and not only in self-defense, by the time she was their age. Yet she recognized that her childhood had prepared her for the life of an adult warrior far better and far earlier than most. Even Cain, shaped like a weapon by her own father, likely still enjoyed an innocence that Talia had lost by the time she was seventeen. Brown was a liability here, remaining only because of her personal loyalty to Cain. That one had had a normal upbringing, or as normal as one could get in Gotham.
Most irksome of all was that Talia would look after them, whether Oracle had asked her to or not. They were both important to Bruce, and Talia herself had not developed her father's objectivity. She could not see the loss of two bright young women as mere counters in a greater game. For her, it would be personal, as Jason's death had been personal. As all of it was personal, no matter how skillfully she denied it or how little her Beloved believed it.
Oracle knew, or thought she knew, and Talia ground her teeth to have her weak sentimentality exposed. At least she was presently getting some use out of it. Thanks to Oracle, she now had access to Shiva's emails, but they were damnably generic; she didn't even know for certain if Shiva knew what the prize in the Tibesti compound truly was. Talia hoped that Shiva remained in the dark, and that the men posted there would remain loyal.
She knew better than to trust in hope, however. Adem had infiltrated Shiva's ranks, but he wasn't trusted enough yet to get Talia the information she needed. Shiva's forces were planning an assault, but they were damned slow about it, content to watch and wait. It seemed more and more like they knew what the mountains held.
That was knowledge Talia would kill until her sword was dyed red to keep hidden. She hadn't even told Adem, but then, he understood that some secrets were too dangerous to hold. He knew better than to expect Talia to tell him everything she knew; their relationship, at its core, was business first.
With one more glance down the valley toward where Oracle's girls were camped, Talia slipped back inside the shepherd's hut where she was hiding. Adem would be calling in, shortly, and she could not afford to be in the open when she was even slightly distracted. Talia knew perfectly well that any hint of her presence here would alter Shiva's plans significantly. She was too valuable a hostage to ignore, and she knew far too much.
Which was why Adem also did not know that she was already up in the mountains. He thought she remained in Sabha. And there was no good reason for her not to answer her phone at the prearranged time, if she were still holed up in their rooms in the city. Not telling him that she'd moved was another piece of insurance. If he were discovered and tortured – or if Shiva managed to suborn him – he couldn't reveal her to her foes.
The phone rang precisely on time, and Talia answered. They were following a prearranged script to avoid suspicion, and she spoke jovially. "Hello, little brother. How is your new job?"
"I keep telling you, I'm not little anymore," he replied in scolding tones, which was their code to inform her that he was all right and no one seemed to be listening to his end of the call. "It's lonely out here, but the pay is good."
Which meant he still hadn't been accepted to Shiva's inner circle, but the prospect of doing so still looked good. Talia had expected that answer. She continued with a line of desultory small talk that was mostly not code, just filler to deceive anyone listening in to either end of the conversation. One of the reasons Adem was her lieutenant was that he was good at such improvisation. Too many of her father's men required detailed instructions for everything. Any of them with too much initiative, however, tended to try to betray the Demon's Head, and died for it. Talia thought she had struck a fine balance with Adem; he had wit and drive enough to be useful, and she'd taken measures to keep him loyal.
Eventually she closed with, "Baba wants to know if you've met a girl yet." That was code for the central question: had he learned what Shiva wanted from the Tibesti compound? If he did know, he'd have to work out a way of getting that information to her, since Talia hadn't told him what was there. She assumed he could figure out some code – or be smart enough to realize that she knew what the most important thing in the compound was, once it was revealed to him.
Adem laughed warmly. "Tell him no, I'm too busy working. There's no time to meet women."
That meant no, of course, and Talia laughed back in the same casual tone. "Of course not. He'll be disappointed. You know Baba." More filler, they didn't need any further codes for this exchange.
Adem, however, had something else to say. "Don't worry, little sister. You're still my favorite girl."
Talia pulled the phone away from her for a moment to stare at it. Please let that be a reassurance of loyalty, and not some ridiculous sentiment. "You only say that because you miss me," she told him, and signed off the call, shaking her head at the folly of men.
…
Jay walked out of the kitchen with a tray of hot chocolate only to realize that caroling had become a duet between Dinah and Kala. On, of all things, that damn song Baby It's Cold Outside. He knew nothing about vocal registers or range, only that they sounded good together – even if Kala was somehow singing the man's lines.
Everyone else just looked captivated, even Donna seeming impressed. Babs was trying not to laugh out loud as Kala leaned into Dinah's shoulder, expression mournful as she sang, "Think of my lifelong sorrow."
"At least there will be plenty implied," Dinah sang back, her natural range sounding higher than Kala's.
"If you caught pneumonia and died," Kala answered, voice low and warm and rich as ever. So what if Jay had heard every song she'd ever recorded? That was research.
"I really can't stay…"
"Get over that hold out…"
And then they joined voices to harmonize on the last few lines of "Baby it's cold … Baby it's cold, outside…"
Dick applauded first at the end of it, followed by the rest, and Babs finally laughed out loud as Kala grabbed Dinah's hand and they took a bow. "Thank you, Gotham, you've been a great audience," Kala said, laughing.
"It's been a long time since I tried to hold a note that long," Dinah said, smiling. "And I thought you sang higher than me."
"You're good," Kala told her, as everyone moved toward Jay and Alfred with the chocolate. "I'm really a lyric mezzo-soprano, I've just had the training to support my voice outside my tessitura so I've got a three-octave range. The highest I can hit is E6, but it gets damn sharp."
Jay raised an eyebrow at her. "I knew some of the words in that sentence."
Dinah chuckled at him. "So did I. Kala, I never went to school for singing. I just know I'm a soprano. And I can break a glass without my powers."
"Oh great, I just went full art-school geek to no one that gets it. Fabulous," Kala laughed. "Tessitura just means where you're comfortable singing. Mezzo-soprano is halfway between soprano and contralto. In opera, they get the 'witches, bitches, and britches' roles: supporting roles, villainesses, and male roles played by women in pants. Heroines are usually sopranos. Did you see the glass-breaking trick on Mythbusters? Putting the straw in it to find the right resonant frequency really helps."
"I did," Dinah admitted. "You did it too?" The doorbell rang, and Alfred set down his tray to answer it.
"The whole band tried it. Actually pulling it off takes a lot of strength to hold the right note long enough. Which, probably part of the reason I can do it is the super-lung-capacity." Kala shrugged, looking a little embarrassed.
"And now I'm afraid for my windows," Jay muttered to Kala's absolute death-glare.
"Just replace them with reinforced acrylic like I did years ago," Babs said dryly, and when they all looked at her, she kept her expression completely deadpan. Dinah managed not to blush, focusing on her hot chocolate.
Kala just continued to glare at Jay over the rim of her mug. Yep, still getting used to having everyone know their business. "If I haven't blown out your windows by now, obviously I'm not going to."
He just shrugged, egging her on. "It's a legitimate concern, K, super powers considered. I mean, that one night…"
"If you're going to show out for company, need I remind you that you're louder than I am?" she grumbled, brow raised evilly, and that peevish expression of hers just made him want to kiss her until she smiled again.
"We know," Selina said, smirking at them both. "At least, those of us who were inside and on the east wing know."
"You shoulda been outside playing in the snow with everyone else. That's your own problem," Jay said, not even a little embarrassed.
Bruce, who hadn't participated in any of the silliness, turned toward the hall with a smile. Alfred returned with Doc Leslie at his side, and she unwound her scarf as she walked. "Clinic's finally closed for the night. That's another quick check that turned into three hours. I hope you pack of hyenas saved me a plate."
"Leslie!" was the unanimous cry, even though except for Kala, they'd all seen her earlier today. Jay grabbed a mug of hot chocolate for her, as pretty much everyone mobbed the poor woman. They'd all resented the fact that she had to leave on Christmas Day, but Leslie had given as many of the clinic staff the day off as possible, and she'd needed to drop in for a little while anyway.
Jay put the mug into her hands, and touched Kala's arm gently. "Doc, I don't think you've met Kala yet. Kala, this is Dr. Leslie Tompkins, best general practitioner in Gotham, resident medical authority, one of the very few people who can tell Bruce what to do and maybe be obeyed."
"That's a stretch," Doc Leslie said, shaking Kala's hand.
There was the smile they'd lost a while ago, his girl warming immediately. "Hi, I've heard a lot about you," Kala told her. "All of it good bordering on hero-worship. Obviously you taught this pack of lost boys some respect. Which is saying something and trust me, I appreciate it."
"They're smart enough not to annoy the person who puts them back together," Leslie said, smiling. "And you're the Blur. I've heard a lot about you, too. You get automatic approval because you haven't landed in my clinic yet."
"Oh, to be fair, I probably should've, over the summer," Kala admitted. "Both fortunately and unfortunately, in this case, I have a cheat code. Significant doses of sunlight fixes most of my problems, though. Family trait."
"If only that worked for the rest of these death-defying adrenaline junkies," Leslie sighed, and Jay smiled. Of course Kala liked her and it was mutual.
He could see where this was all going. They'd get settled in, let Leslie eat, and then Dick's idea of family time would come into play again. Jay wanted to avoid that, if possible. Kala might be down to play charades, but he damn sure wasn't.
"Hey, K," he said, pulling her slightly aside. She looked up at him with those gorgeous eyes shining happily – until she remembered the whole thing about breaking glass, and frowned at him.
Jay could only chuckle. "Listen, the diner's open today. Once we're done with the chocolate, what do you say we go in for coffee and tip people their rent? I hate that they have to work. Someone should at least make it worth it."
She paused for a minute, just looking at him with a critical eye. Kala had to know why he wanted a breather; now it was just a case of getting her to agree. Thankfully, that smile flickered again, and she nodded. "Okay, fine. Sounds like a great idea," she told him, only lightly teasing. "Even if it's just an obvious excuse for you to get me alone again. I have to hit an ATM though, I don't carry that kind of cash."
"Shit, I'll pay, I've got it all squirreled away in the apartment. And of course I'm trying to keep you all to myself. That's what I do."
She shook her head at him in amusement, her smile going affectionate then. "So the Amazon says. Cool it, Jaybird, you've got me for a whole week. Three days in, you're not even gonna know what to do with me."
Jay put his arm around her shoulders, and kissed her temple. "Trust me, I know exactly what to do with you."
Kala turned and whispered in his ear, "We can't spend the whole week entirely in bed, no matter how much you missed me."
Snickering – because that was high on his list of 'Things to Do' since they hadn't seen each other in a while – Jay replied, "I also need to update you on everything going on here, and I wanna know how Carl and Julio are doing. So I figure we can actually talk a little bit. With clothes on, even. And away from witnesses. I like this crowd, but there's a lot of them."
She raised an eyebrow at him. "So, we're leaving your family Christmas to go to a diner and be normal? You sure you feel okay?"
"Normal people don't leave thousand-dollar tips," Jay pointed out. "C'mon, there's only so much togetherness I can handle. Besides, we'll patrol later. Hopefully Santa saved a mugger or two just for us."
Laughing softly, Kala leaned up and kissed him. "Just for that … no, I won't embarrass you in front of them. But I have reason to know you'll want to stay another hour, at least."
"An hour?" Jay asked, frowning a little. What could be happening in an hour?
She leaned up, her breath tickling his neck as she whispered in his ear, "In another half hour, the peanut butter cookie dough Alfred and I made will be chilled enough to start baking. I know you wouldn't miss that for the world."
Jay knew his eyes had gone comically wide, but damn, if Alfred had made the cookies with her, that meant he'd finally parted with at least some of the famous secret recipe. Maybe even all of it. Which said a lot about how Alfred felt about Kala. Jay couldn't help regarding her with awe, now. "You're right, we'll wait, I'd never miss that," he murmured, pulling her into a hug.
She really was absolutely fuckin' perfect.
…
Some hours later, after Kala and Jay had slipped out with their pockets full of cookies and the rest of the family retired for a post-dessert nap before rounds, Bruce sat up in bed. He didn't need an alarm, he always knew when he wanted to get up, and somehow managed to hit that mark every time. As always, he took inventory of himself first; a shoulder injury from the previous week was still sore, but he was fighting fit in all other respects.
He looked toward the window; it was full dark now, a few stars showing in the cold night sky. Time for rounds. Even on Christmas Day, the work never ended.
As Bruce stood up, Selina rolled over into the warm spot he'd left behind, pulling the silk sheets closer around her. "Be safe out there, Bat," she murmured.
"Always," he told her, watching with amusement as Miss Kitty stalked up the bed and settled herself on Selina's hip.
"Liar," Selina told him, opening one eye. "Just try not to get yourself killed on one of the few nights where you know I'll be here waiting for you when you get back."
He bent to kiss her cheek, Selina purring softly. "I never take that for granted."
"Don't get used to it, either," she warned. "Once you put that freak back behind bars – or someone finally caps him – I'm moving back to my own place."
He regarded her with fond exasperation. Selina more than treasured her independence, she was obsessive about it. Any time she had to rely on someone else, it grated on her. Never mind that he also refused to rely on others, or that he had his own cherished obsessions. It was always easier to see others' blind spots.
"You don't have to," was all Bruce said.
Selina gave a throaty chuckle, smiling at him. "It'd almost be worth it to play Lady Wayne for a while. I can fake my way through high society. But think about two things, my dear sweet romantic flying rodent. One, can you imagine how many cats I'd have with this much space?"
"As long as they're all fixed, it's not like I can't afford to take care of them," Bruce told her, gently teasing.
"Mmm. With your acreage, I could bring home big cats. You were worried about Franklin; I get along with tigers." Selina stretched, without jostling Miss Kitty, and then narrowed her eyes a little. "Besides, I doubt the wife would be happy to find me living here. Speaking of which, have you heard from Talia? She still hasn't been back to London, and I'm worried she'll think I rolled over."
"I told Barbara not to call her, which means she did," Bruce replied. "Talia won't allow Stephanie or Cass to come to harm if she can help it – but she'd take offense if I asked her. As long as it comes from Barbara, without my approval, she'll do it without complaint."
Selina sat up then, Miss Kitty jumping down. "You are so goddamn manipulative. Tell me, Bruce, how can you know her so well and still piss her off so much?"
"Says the woman who started a prank war with her," Bruce pointed out. "And angering Talia is unfortunately inevitable, given who we both are. I know that. I assume she does, too."
"And you think I'm playing with fire because I pranked her. She's more likely to take a chunk out of your hide than mine." Miss Kitty rubbed against Selina's arm until she petted the cat, who purred at the attention. Selina sighed and shook her head. "Never mind. I know you won't change. The difference between me and Talia is, I can accept that."
Bruce looked at this woman he loved, and thought – not for the first time – that she saw him too clearly for comfort. And yet she didn't see that changing one's self, something Selina found simple in most respects, was almost impossible for him. She might say she accepted him as he was, but Selina still resented parts of his essential nature. Especially the part that wanted her to stay here and be safe.
She'd told him once that she would love to live with him in the mansion, like a fairytale ending … but that she wouldn't be able to live with herself if she did that. All of it tied in to her independence; she wouldn't even take sides in Gotham, preferring to call herself 'freelance' rather than admit to being a hero or a villain.
Most of the time, Bruce loved that about her, little as he could admit. He knew he had a tendency to see things in black and white; Selina not only brought out all the shades of gray, she gave him color, too.
He leaned down to kiss her again, and Selina snapped her teeth at his cheek before relenting and kissing him. "At least be careful. No one else in town is as much fun to run with. Or from."
That, he could promise.
…
Kala and Jay ended up going on patrol first, planning to hit the diner around their usual post-patrol time. She followed his lead, feeling a little chagrined. "I have to give you your presents tomorrow."
"Hell, having you here is present enough," Jay said staunchly. "C'mon, I wanna show you something."
He took them both deep into the Bowery, stopping at a dark alley that was suspiciously clean. "Check the wall."
Kala did, and frowned. "A harlequin pattern? Is Harley trying to get herself killed?"
"It's not her," Jay said, and gave her the quick rundown of all the incidents since the pimp had been killed. He finished with, "This one was an attempted rape, two nights ago. Woman's going home after a long night at work, guy follows her into an alley, pulls a knife. I got the transcript of her statement; she froze, at first, but when he yanked her blouse open she decided fuck it, he'll probably kill her afterward anyway, she might as well fight back. Kneed him in the balls, got the knife, and slashed his face open. Stabbed him in side when he tried to run. He turned up at the ER and the cops picked him up; his DNA matches a couple other incidents."
"Good for her," Kala said, feeling heat prick at her eyeballs. "Who did the graffiti?"
"No one's been caught yet, but it's popping up everywhere. Probably not one of the regular taggers, all of them look amateurish. The whole East End feels different, K. Like people have decided they're not gonna take this shit anymore. And they're making Harley their symbol."
"About time," Kala said, and heard the coldness in her voice, making sure to check it. The Empress was a survivor, first and foremost. They didn't need anarchy in the streets, but a few more women who learned how dangerous they could be when cornered wasn't exactly a bad thing. It might give pause to some of the slimier predators in Gotham.
"Yeah, I've only got one concern. This has gotta be driving Joker bugshit," Jay said. "He got his ass kicked by his girl, and now she's the symbol for everyone who decided they're not gonna be doormats anymore? It's not just his reputation on the line now. It's every thug in the city."
"Is Harley still in Gotham?" Kala asked, her gut churning at the thought of what Joker might do to reassert his supposed superiority.
"Near as we know. She and Ivy haven't been spotted leaving, and they haven't popped up anywhere else. Selina swears she doesn't know where they are, but Bruce thinks she could find them if she had to. Speaking of which… "
Kala's jaw dropped as Jay explained the whole situation with the Southards. "That can never get back to Jokes. I hope the girl never finds out, honestly. Pretty sure Bruce and Babs are gonna be tracking her, from here on in, but so will I. Genetics aren't everything, and she might end up okay, but none of us are gonna let anything happen to her if we can help it."
She nodded. Clearly there had been a lot going down since she'd been out; Jay had hinted at it several times when he called, but it was obviously a little deeper than had been implied. Too much was going on on tonight to dig more, but she'd corner him and get the lay of the land tomorrow, as long as it didn't crop up in things during rounds. Instead, she responded, "Because protecting the innocent is the first thing on your list. Speaking of which, I enlisted my cousin to tutor Carl. He's doing really well. Mom went over there to deliver Christmas gifts. Carl and Julio are still cautious as ever, but they're starting to relax."
Jay scoffed. "Those kids were never innocent, in one sense at least. They're all as jaded as I ever was. But as long as we keep 'em on the right track, they'll turn out fine. What'd you send 'em for Christmas?"
Kala smirked, knowing he was going to roll his eyes. "X-Boxes, for everyone. Plus hair dye for Carl. What did you send?"
"Stockings full of cash," Jay laughed back. "I wonder who they think spoiled 'em more. C'mon, let's go knock some heads in, then we'll go over to the diner and make Mary's night."
Just the thought of going out after all this time sent her blood to humming. It had been weeks since she'd been able to get out here and do her share of clean-up. The part of her that lived for the fight rose, all too ready to go. Kala gave him a low, husky laugh. God, she'd missed this. "I dunno, I might be a little rusty. Still want me to play?"
Jay made a disbelieving noise. "I'm always up for playing with you, in every possible interpretation of that sentence. You'll get back into the swing of it pretty quick, I'm sure."
They shared a look then, both of them grinning. Yeah, there was nothing else in the world like this. Arching a brow, Kala told him, "Let's go find some trouble, Red."
…
Patrol on the night of Christmas day was fairly quiet. Even criminals had families, and most people were tired and mellow after the holiday. People who didn't celebrate were taking it easy, too, since most places were closed on Christmas.
That didn't mean they could entirely skip patrol, though. There were always a few who took advantage of the lull in watchfulness to prey on others. Dick took Donna with him, and it was like the old Titans days again. They made a circuit of the city, putting a stop to what they could, and got back home at a reasonable time. He decided to make a Grayson Special leftovers sandwich, made even more fantastic by using holiday leftovers.
Donna followed him into the kitchen, bemused. It was dark and quiet, except for the radio playing softly on the window sill. Christmas music, of course. "Still eating those five-thousand-calorie sandwiches, huh?"
"I burn it all off," he said, smiling as he put bread in the toaster. "You want one?"
"I shouldn't. We ate like kings not all that long ago." But she smiled, watching him.
"You do want one." Dick beamed at her, that old cajoling smile, and started setting things out to make them each a sandwich.
Donna leaned on the counter, looking thoughtful. At last she asked, "Did the lovebirds make it back in?"
Dick laughed. "Last I heard, they weren't coming back until tomorrow. Probably went to his place. She's enough security – if Joker came at him tonight, I don't think we'd find enough to bury."
"You're being flip, but you know that's true," Donna pointed out.
He paused to meet her gaze. "Yeah, I do. And I've made my peace with it. I don't want to see Supergirl turn killer, but I'm about done with Joker. I won't weep for him, that's for sure."
She shook her head. "Neither would I, to be honest. You know Diana doesn't have quite so many recurring rogues, because she puts hers down. I know it bothers Bruce and Clark, and we all know we can't just kill everyone who steps out of line, but there are some…"
"I know," Dick said quietly, thinking of his own confrontation with Joker, after Jay's apparent death. Worse than the grief and the guilt and the sick helpless rage had been Joker's cruel taunting. If Bruce hadn't stepped in to stop him, Dick might've ended it right then. The only reason he didn't regret letting Joker live was the memory of how broken he'd been when Blockbuster died on his watch. And how delighted Joker would be, to know that even in death he haunted the Bat-family.
It was a shame, really, that Harley hadn't just killed him outright.
Donna jostled him out of his thoughts with another question. "Jay and Kala … are they always like that?"
"What, viciously protective of each other?" Dick asked.
"No, I mean…"
She trailed off, and he grinned. "Cutesy?"
Donna smiled. "Yes. It seems so odd for Jay. I mean, I know he has a gentler side, but this is … very sweet, even for him."
"Please don't tell me how sweet Jay is," Dick teased, and she swatted at his shoulder, blushing. "Also, you weren't here for the beginning of it. I honestly thought they were gonna maim each other. She broke his nose, the second day they knew each other. And he broke her ribs training her. For a while there she looked like an ad for the women's shelter."
"I know there was some antagonism at first. He likes a little conflict in his relationships," Donna said blithely. "But this? They're adorable. When they aren't sneaking off to go at it like bunnies."
Dick couldn't help it. He tried to smother his laughter, but come on – Kala and Jay? Described as bunnies? Even though they likely deserved it – he hadn't forgotten the dawning horror of realizing just why they'd snuck out of the snowball fight, everyone glancing at one another and not saying anything in front of Lian. Ultimately he'd just shaken his head and tried to ignore the implications, even as Donna with her sensitive hearing had frowned and looked pained.
Donna just shrugged, and he controlled his hilarity long enough to give her a real answer. "They are pretty cute. Honestly, I never thought I'd say this, but they're good for each other. And it's nice to see Jay backing down from trying to be a stone-cold badass twenty-four hours a day. I don't know why he's decided to change that now, but I like it."
She looked a little reflective, perhaps a little sad. "Yeah … it's good to see him happy."
Watching her, Dick saw the hurt she was trying to conceal. He knew Donna very well; when she loved, it was forever. And she hadn't stopped caring about Jay when they split up. Perhaps she'd thought there could be some kind of reconciliation this Christmas, that she and Jay could figure out what went wrong and fix things between them. Not that she was looking to get him back, she would never trespass on an existing relationship. But she wanted some kind of closure.
Jay had surprised them both by being willing to simply forgive and let go. He was fine around Donna, no awkward tension left there, and he was so completely enamored of Kala that everything else seemed to fade into the background. Dick knew there had been at least one serious conversation between the two exes, but now that Kala was here, Jay was content to enjoy his time with her. He'd never been so relaxed.
And Donna seemed surprised to find herself a bit hurt by that. Jay didn't find peace in rehashing their past; he'd found it in moving forward, moving onward. It wasn't that Donna meant nothing to him now, but she clearly no longer occupied the pedestal he'd put her on through much of his time in the Titans.
Dick stepped closer to Donna, forgetting the sandwiches for a moment. He took her hand and pulled her into a hug. "You're still important to him, Don."
She leaned into his shoulder, her hair smelling faintly of rose. "I shouldn't care. I should be happy for him – and I am, I always knew he could find his way back here and be happy. I just…"
"Thought he'd find that with you?" Dick suggested, and Donna nodded silently. He sighed, shifting his hands slightly, and began to dance with her to the song currently playing on the radio. "He'd be a lucky man if he did."
"He's a lucky man anyway," Donna said, following along with a slight smile.
Dick didn't have an answer for that, but just being close with her always managed to cajole Donna out of her somber moods. Slow-dancing in the kitchen in the middle of the night, the music faintly scratchy, with sandwich-makings spread out on the counters and abandoned as the two of them swayed together. All sorts of tender feelings woke in Dick's heart; Donna was the only relationship in his life he'd never accidentally burned down. She'd been hurt often enough, by circumstances and people. He didn't want to add so much as a single moment of pain to that.
And he inevitably hurt the people he loved. Dick loved deeply, blindly, and too well. He also knew that he had problems with boundaries, with letting go, and with the difficult conversations that were sometimes necessary in committed relationships. Heck, he had problems with commitment itself. How was it so easy to dedicate his life to fighting crime, and so hard to dedicate himself to one person?
Dick regretted his past mistakes, but he'd made so many of them that he was leery of getting into anything serious again. That reputation following him around – Nightwing, ladies' man, social butterfly, great in bed but no one could keep him for long – seemed to have ruined his chances for anything with another hero. Not to mention, capes were always on somewhere, somehow, and finding time for each other was difficult. Jay and Kala were only managing it because she could fly across the country in a matter of minutes, and both of them were making the time no matter how little of it they had.
Civilians … he had a reputation there, too. Dick Grayson, son of the wealthy playboy who had a different woman on his arm every night, was expected to be as shallow as Bruce pretended to be. And no matter how relaxing it was to hang up the caped business for a while and date a civilian, he ran into the same problems everyone else did. You couldn't tell them the whole truth right away, and then any time after the first date seemed like you'd been hiding things from them, and of course the whole 'dating me puts you right in the line of fire for all of my enemies'.
Just now, he had a friends-with-benefits arrangement with a woman on the force, which for once was aboveboard and known to her other boyfriend. He traveled a lot on business, and Dick had met the guy. Luckily he knew about polyamory from dating Kori – she'd never been angry about him and Babs, she'd been angry that he didn't ask her first – and the whole thing was pretty wholesome, if temporary by nature. It served, for now, and his girlfriend's boyfriend was home for the holidays, so here Dick was, at Wayne Manor, technically single.
And currently dancing with a beautiful woman who looked up at him with the most richly blue eyes he'd ever seen.
If he was honest, Donna was another reason why his relationships tended to be short-lived. She was his best friend, the closest person to his heart outside of family, and no one he'd ever dated was a higher priority. Except maybe Babs, when they were together. If Donna needed him, he'd be there, no matter what else happened. They'd been through too much together not to be that way about each other. Babs had understood that – there was an element of it in their relationship, though after the shooting, Babs had stopped letting herself need anyone. Especially anyone from before the injury. He'd cried on Donna's shoulder over it, more than once. Oh, he understood now why Babs had needed to reinvent herself, why she'd been unable to see the difference between compassion and pity, it was just unfortunate that he'd been a casualty of her rebuilding her sense of self.
Kori had understood the Donna situation. Helena … he and Helena were a trainwreck, honestly. Not that it had stopped him two nights ago, when she'd given him that smile he remembered and told him, "The nice thing about being Catholic is that your sins can be forgiven." Then again, what he and Helena had had was more of a complicated friends-with-benefits than a relationship. They knew each other well enough to have a good time, and they both knew better than to try for anything serious.
Really, he and Helena were too much alike in some ways. They both got treated to Babs' judgmental eyebrow for their casual exploits, but he suspected she was keeping things light for the same reasons he did. Dick loved too deeply, he'd had his heart broken in epic fashion, and now he was wary of anything really intense. Like him, Helena had watched her entire family die, and that tended to give a kid serious abandonment issues already.
"What are you thinking?" Donna asked him softly.
Dick smiled at her. He was thinking about every woman he knew but her, because he knew if he thought too much about how nice it was to dance with her like this, he'd do something stupid. Like kiss her. And if he did that, he might as well just throw himself in the harbor, because he couldn't stand being the one to hurt her.
Donna was home. And Donna was the one relationship he'd never screwed up.
"Honestly? I'm thinking about that sandwich," Dick said lightly.
She laughed, and smacked his shoulder lightly. "Men. Diana always says, when you look like you're thinking deep thoughts, it usually just means you're hungry."
"Diana has a biased view of mankind," Dick said with a grin. And then he said what he could only say to her, without it triggering a whole host of other issues. "I love you, Don."
"I love you, too. Now make the sandwiches before you start chewing on my hand." She stepped back, running a playful hand through his hair.
It never would've occurred to Dick that Donna was hiding as much of what she thought about as he was.