Part Thirteen of Marcia's Nose

Diana stared dumbfounded out of the Batmobile's windshield. She'd been staring, dumbfounded, since Batman had thrown her over his shoulder, dumped her in the passenger seat and roared off toward his cave.

She'd finally figured out the other possible meaning to 'let's get it on,' and couldn't exactly say that she was displeased with how things had turned out. The Amazon motto was, after all: make love not war. Therefore she should hit the bed, not the floor.

And now they were driving, driving in his car, speeding so fast it felt like she was drunk. The city lights spread out before them, and his arm felt nice around her shoulder. And she was feeling like she belonged; she felt like she could be—

"Bat-damn."

She turned to him; he was looking into the rearview mirror, a scowl on his face. "What is it?"

"We've got a bunch of thorny vines chasing us down the highway. They are coming up behind us very quickly. It must be Poison Ivy."

Diana shifted in the seat, looked out the back window. She gasped; it was if the Amazon jungle (the other one) had picked itself up by its roots and decided that Batman was its mortal, chainsaw wielding, slash-and-burn enemy.

She'd never seen vines squirm so fast before, and she'd been attacked by a lot of vegetation in her life.

"You've got a fast car," she said. "Is it fast enough so we can fly away?"

Batman grimaced. "I've been thinking about putting a jet engine and hidden wings into the Batmobile, but I hadn't made a concrete decision about the modifications yet." At her withering look, he added quickly, "What? I've got the Bat-Jet. A Bat-Jet-Mobile seemed a little extravagant."

"Well, you've got to make that decision, because if we don't leave right now we're gonna die this way."

He didn't answer, except to Bat-Grunt. He pulled his arm from around her shoulder and pressed down on the gas.

**********

The Flash leaned back in his chair, whistled a little tune. His date with Linda had gone amazingly well, if he did say so himself.

And now Monitor Duty was almost over, and he had twenty-four hours to kill. Twenty four hours – to Flash, that was almost like a lifetime.

The door to the monitor womb opened and Shayera came in. The Flash sat up straight, decided not to say anything. It was four o'clock in the morning; if he said anything, anything at all, Shayera would likely ram her mace up his—

His thoughts ground to a sudden halt as he realized that Shayera was humming something. Shayera. Humming.

And it was a love song that he vaguely recognized, but couldn't remember the name of, or the lyrics.

Well, hell—if Shayera was humming a love song, then maybe she wasn't in such a bad mood after all.

"Hey, Shy, whatcha singing?"

Oops. He watched as she seemed to realize that she had been humming something, as she seemed to realize what it was, and then proceeded to stare at him as if he had just killed a puppy.

He backed away. "Oh, hey never mind. I'll just take off. It's sunny in Australia right now, so that's where I'm spending the day. Yeah. IthinkI'llgoforawalkoutsidenowthesummersun'scallingmyname." He edged toward the door, careful not to move too quickly. "Ijustcan'tstayinsidealldaygottagetoutgottagetsomeofthoserays."

"Everybody's smiling," Shayera growled.

"Sunshinedays," Flash replied, grinning uneasily.

"Everybody's laughing," Shayera scowled.

"Sunshinedays." Just two more steps, and he'd make it to the door.

"Every body feels so happy today." But not me, Shayera thought. No, not only are both men I've been in love with jerks, but now I'm humming that damn song.

It used to be their song. She and Katar had sung it to each other every night while they were dating.

Flash, who wasn't telepathic, didn't know anything of what Shayera was thinking at that moment, and he valued his life too much to hang around and find out about it anyway. He took off at near the speed of light, skidding past the transporters and coming to a stop near the kitchen.

And he realized that the song Shayera had been humming had found its way into his head.

"Arrrgh!" he cried out, as the lyrics popped unbidden into his mind, the chorus recycling over and over internally.

Love lift us up where we belong
Where the eagles cry, on a mountain high
Love lift us up where we belong
Far from the world we know
Up where the clear winds blow…

The Flash knew that once a song got stuck in his head it often took a day to get it out. And for someone like the Flash, a whole day could be a lifetime…