"Just so you know, guys don't really like it when girls wear sweatpants every day to class."
I was so exhausted, I didn't realize I was being spoken to for a long moment, or rather, at, in this case. Sel's benefit for arts in schools hadn't ended until one that morning, which meant I climbed into bed around two-thirty. My husband climbed into bed about half an hour later, the first time in over a week, since he had been helping Queen Audrey kick Vandal Savage out of her country (again). I'd probably gotten about three hours of sleep before having to get ready for my eight o'clock class, halfway across Gotham from our apartment, with rush hour traffic. The dudebro talking at me (who I vaguely remembered being called Chad, for some reason), was lucky I had even showered that morning. Between my very full-time job and my last three classes needed to graduate, I barely had time to eat.
Squinting up at him, since I'd been too tired to put contacts in and my glasses were at least three years past their expiration date, I propped my head on my right hand and pushed back my hair with my left. That had the added effect of making the large sapphire on my third finger entirely visible. "One guy does," I yawned at him. "It means he can get away with wearing sweatpants, too. And I haven't spent the last three and a half years working my butt off in classes to impress random guys. Good luck with that pickup line on the next girl."
Dudebro Chad gaped at me for a moment, flushing just the tiniest bit, before stalking across the room to an empty seat there. "Um, bae, can I marry you? Well, obviously not, since you're already married, and we swing for the same team, but girl, you're a rock star! You just shut down Chad before finishing your morning coffee!"
I nearly snorted on my morning coffee as Etienne, one of the few friends I had made at school, gushed at me from the seat behind me. After I stopped choking, I turned back to him. "I didn't say anything that wasn't true."
"Yeah, but hon, you shut him down hard! He has walked all over this campus for the past five years like he's some sort of god just because his daddy owns a bank," Etienne continued.
"Well, my father-in-law owns Wayne Enterprises, so I probably own stock in that bank," I replied without thinking.
Etienne shook his head at me, puppy eyes coming out. "Oh, hon, I see you in your giant hoodies and grungy sweatpants, and I think impoverished college student like the rest of us. Then you go and say something like that to remind me of just what family you belong to."
"Sorry, I didn't mean-" I began to apologize, but he waved it away.
"I know you didn't mean anything by it. And no, you can't help me out. Remember, I'm going to be working for a charity; I am not a charity case myself. But I wouldn't say no if you wanted to give me a ride to work in your gorgeous car after the library."
"I just heard Sam and Mason cackling about you shutting Chad down hard. Was that true?" Simone, my other friend in school, barged in, throwing her stuff in the seat next to me.
"It really wasn't-"
"Oh, it really was! It was the best thing I've seen all week, and that includes Channing Tatum's abs," Etienne exclaimed. He then started into a play-by-play of the whole interaction, dragging a maybe sixty second conversation out to a five-minute replay. Or, it would have, knowing him, had our professor not walked into the room at that moment, already rambling his lecture as he entered.
After class, the three of us headed to the library to work on our thesis projects. "I am just so stuck on this thing," Etienne moaned, dropping his head to the table, and not even bothering to pull anything out of his bag. "I have no idea what to do! Something meaningful, and something original, and something that can actually be implemented in the real world. Ya might as well ask me for Batman's real identity."
Thankful I'd finished my morning coffee, I managed to keep from saying that I could help him out with the Batman thing, at least. "I know. How am I supposed to come up with an idea for a charity that hasn't already been done? There's charities for everything," I grumbled, then thought about what I'd said. "Which is a good thing in the real world, but sucks in academia."
Etienne laughed at me, and ignored the dirty look he got from the librarian for doing so, but Simone glared playfully at me. "You don't even need to stress about this. You've already got a job with one of the most successful nonprofit organizations in the world. You just decided to be an overachiever and get a degree, too."
"Well, it does help the Wayne Foundation to look more legit," I started to explain, but they both just laughed at me.
"Girl, the Wayne Foundation is so legit, pure gold looks fake next to it," Etienne said.
I blushed a bit. "So maybe I wanted to prove to myself that I could do it, okay? I honestly didn't expect to even graduate from high school, so the fact that I am eight credits away from my master's is a huge deal to me."
"And you have kicked butt to get here. I've decided I want to be you when I grow up," Simone grinned at me.
We eventually each started working on homework, somewhat lacklusterly, but none of us could really concentrate on it. "I need a thesis idea," Etienne said, punctuating each word with a drop of his head to the table.
Somehow, that shook loose an idea for me. Or really, the beginnings of an idea, which was a start. "We can work together on this, right?" I asked, mostly for confirmation. When they both nodded, very slowly, I went on. "And we're supposed to do something that actually means something to us, right?" The nods were a bit faster. "Okay, so Simone, you want to work with education on sustainable farming, taking care of the environment, and Etienne, you want to help feed the homeless."
"And you want to do something to help the kids in the system," Simone continued.
"And those that slip through the cracks," Etienne added knowingly.
"Exactly. So, what if we combined them all into one project?" I asked, getting a bit excited.
They were a bit more skeptical. "How exactly would we do that?" Simone questioned, wrinkling her nose in confusion.
"A greenhouse," I explained, feeling the idea expand the more I talked. Almost like someone was pouring the plan into my head. "We build a greenhouse, and Simone uses it to teach school groups about sustainable farming. And the food goes to a food bank, one that is privately funded, so no probing questions get asked to spook kids who need the food."
"And if the kids want to help in the greenhouse," Etienne continued, a bit slowly, but definitely catching the idea, "they would have a safe, and warm, place to be, at least during day time hours."
"And what if the greenhouse didn't just support a food bank, but an orphanage?" Simone suggested, catching the drift with a huge smile. "But an orphanage that puts the kids first. We have certified caretakers, ones who actually like kids,-"
"And doctors or nurses on staff, twenty-four-seven," Etienne added, bouncing in excitement.
"And we have lawyers whose sole jobs are to find good homes for these kids," I kept going. "And PIs to find and investigate any relatives, and any potential people adopting, try to get these kids into good homes."
"And help these kids get good educations, tutors on staff," Etienne added. "Scholarships to college or trade school."
"Wait, wait, wait," I said, pulling up a blank document on my tablet. "Okay, give me all those ideas again, but slowly."
Thankfully, I had plenty of practice typing quickly, because we could not slow down. I wouldn't even finish getting one idea down before the next one was coming, but we didn't care. We were so excited, and the ideas just kept coming.
Finally, Etienne looked at his phone and jumped. "Ladies, I've got to be to work in twenty-seven minutes," he said, throwing his stuff into his bag. "I'm so glad you're giving me a ride, Gen."
"You won't be late, I promise," I told him, also throwing my tablet and books into my bag, knowing Tim was probably cringing somewhere reflexively at my treatment of the electronic device.
The three of us piled into my car, Simone grumbling as she climbed into the back, and I sped off to get Etienne to work on time. About five minutes away from his convenience store, I said softly, "You know, we could do this for real."
"I've been thinking that since the moment you said a greenhouse to support kids," Etienne replied. "We write this plan out, graduate, and then make our little baby charity."
"I know you promised you'd help us get jobs at the Wayne Foundation after graduation, Gen," Simone told me, and I could hear her grin even without looking away from traffic to see it. "I just never thought it would be on our very own charity under their umbrella."
…
Three months later, I walked across a stage to very large and incredibly noisy applause. All the Waynes were there, including Duke, our newest member, as were Artemis and Wally. The Kents came in from Metropolis with a sign bigger than Jon, who I swear grew every time I saw him, and Dinah came with an apology from Ollie, since he had an emergency board meeting he couldn't reschedule. The check he sent with her made up for it, though, especially since it was made out to the charity of my choice. And Alfred made all my favorite foods for the party afterwards, with representation for Etienne and Simone, too.
The party lasted for hours, with Dick embarrassing me with loud proclamations of how proud he was of me nearly every ten minutes. Thankfully, Bruce sent us "young folks" out to a club to celebrate, on his dime, so that the rest of the family could go on patrol without raising any suspicions for my two school friends. And given that I hadn't really gone out that much since I'd started school, and neither had the other two graduates, we enjoyed it immensely.
Sel gave me the day after graduation off, which was good, since both Dick and I woke up with hangovers, and Etienne and Simone snuggling on our couch and Artemis and Wally in our guest bed. We lounged around all that day, eating as much greasy food as Dick could summon. But when Sunday morning dawned, we three graduates were ready with it.
"I know Sundays are usually lazy, so thank you both for being willing to meet with us about something work related," I began, facing Sel and Bruce in their home office, Etienne and Simone at my side.
"Anything for you, Precious," Sel grinned, and Bruce nodded in agreement.
"Okay, well, we have a proposal for you two, a new project for the Wayne Foundation," I said. I had to force myself to speak slowly and clearly, because I was so nervous, I wanted to throw up. Even though I knew Sel and Bruce would never be rude if they didn't like our idea, but this was my baby. Well, mine shared with Simone and Etienne, of course.
Over the next half hour or so, the three of us laid out our plan that we'd spent months perfecting. Every word had been practiced and polished, every point in its perfect order. And when we finished, I nearly cried with relief that it was over.
Bruce and Sel did that thing where they communicated without saying a word. It took way too long, or at least it seemed like it did, but Sel finally turned to me. "Well, Precious, I really hate to lose you like this. And I hate looking for a new assistant."
My heart literally stopped. I couldn't move. The words "new assistant" kept ringing in my ears, over and over and over.
Simone had no such qualms. "You're going to fire her over having a good idea?!" she screeched.
"One that will help people, like your whole foundation is supposed to do?" Etienne also didn't have a problem expressing himself. "You are a terrible-"
"Only because she's going to be too busy starting up this home with you two," Sel continued, looking way too satisfied with herself.
All three of us stared at her. Bruce sighed and shook his head. "What my wife is trying to say is that this is a phenomenal idea, and we would be happy to sponsor it."
My heart started pumping again as my brain tried to comprehend just exactly what my ears had heard. Etienne threw his arms around me, squealing, as Simone jumped up and down, screaming "Yes!" over and over.
Sel grinned at me. "We'll start tomorrow. We've got a lot of work ahead of us, Precious."
AN: Sel really likes to mess with people, especially Gen :) There will be maybe two more chapters continuing on from this one, but there won't be a sequel. The home was my entire idea for a sequel, and I realized it wasn't really long enough to be its own story, so that's really the whole reason for Catnip. But I hope you enjoy, and a big thanks to ZlieRacer for your lovely reviews!