Wee Small Hours
Meg Brown
phoenyxphiyre/Andromeda Valentine
FANDOM: Birds of Prey (comic)
PAIRING: Huntress/Oracle
RATING: PG
DISCLAIMER: I only wish they were mine.
FICATHON: for dogged_by_muses's Fragments Of Sappho Challenge-a-thon by ShatterStorm Productions.
Requestor: mrswoman
Prompt/Wordcount:: chase, heatwave, 1,050
Fragment: not one girl, I think, who looks on the light of the sun will ever have wisdom like this.
SPOILERS: Up through issue 98, maybe 99.
SUMMARY: A quiet moment in the wee small hours...
AUTHOR'S NOTE: I am *so* sorry this is so late. It took the girls and I a little while to start communicating properly again...
ARCHIVING: Crimson Redd
E-MAIL: andromeda.valentine @ gmail.com or feedback at phoenyxphiyre's LJ @ http://phoenyxphiyre.livejournal.com/159698.html.
"God, what a day..."
Barbara just looks up from setting dinner out and gives me one of her usual wry smiles - the kind that makes my pulse race every time.
Though, truthfully, after the day we've all had, I think the food on the table is almost as luscious a sight as Barbara in her silk robe. Almost.
As if reading my thoughts, Barbara just smiles at me again. "I had Suze and Roberto send up some dinner - chicken scaloppini marsala. You're lucky you got out of the shower when you did - I was almost going to eat it all myself."
I give her my most imperious look as I sit down. "You wouldn't dare insult a Bertinelli by starting a meal without them, Gordon - you know better."
There's that smile again - the one I can't get enough of. I'd say the world doesn't see it often enough, but I'd miss knowing it was mine alone if that happened...
We make small-talk about our day as we eat - if discussing the effects of heat waves on the crime rate and laughing at the utter idiocy of a goon trying for a car chase in rush-hour traffic can be called talking about work.
It's so...cozy and domestic - something I'd never really known before. As much as I love being Huntress, these are the moments I live for now - sitting here talking quietly with Barbara over a late dinner, watching the dimmed lights reflect off her hair and skin as she smiles at me.
The only way it would be better was if I'd actually cooked dinner myself. The Fieris make wonderful food, but there's just something I love about cooking for Barbara - more of that newfound domesticity, I guess.
Of course, even all of that can't compare to having her in my arms at night as I drift off, or to the sound of my name on her lips when we make love.
She's a fierce one in bed, my Barbara, once her guard is down - not something I ever would have guessed from her cool exterior, though I think I should have. There's a beauty in that contrast - fire and ice - that I just can't get enough of...
"You haven't heard a word I just said, have you?" Barbara's voice, coolly amused, breaks into my thoughts, and the smile on my face deepens.
"I'm sorry, cara mia. What was it?" I manage to sound properly contrite, and Barbara just smiles at me again before repeating herself.
"I want to tell Dinah about us - before Cindy or Zinda beat us to it. I'm pretty sure they know."
My chuckle confuses her, and her eyes crinkle up adorably as she tries to sort it out.
"I'm pretty sure Dinah knows, sweetheart, even though she's been away." I explain. "She was the one who told me to ask you out the first time."
Barbara just looks at me, green eyes bemused. "Is that so? I wondered."
I can't help chuckling again. "It was right before she left for Asia. She called me on the fact that I'd been mooning over you from afar and told me to do something about it. Not in so many words, of course - it was all in Dinah-speak."
Barbara smiles nostalgically at that. "You asking caught me completely off guard - I remember that. I should have guessed Dinah pushed you into it."
Then she starts laughing again. "God. Some first date we had..."
I groan at that, even as I laugh too - Murphy's Law had totally ruled that day, and that date. First, the restaurant we were supposed to go to closed down due to a kitchen fire. Then, Barbara happened to be allergic to the flowers I brought her - just enough to cause a sneezing fit before they had to thrown out. But the icing on the cake was that the art gallery opening I worked so hard to get us into turned out to be just too tempting for a band of would-be robbers, and I'd ended up having to sneak out and then come busting back in as Huntress with Zinda and Cindy to break the robbery up.
It wasn't a total loss, of course - watching Barbara take out two of the goons single-handed was hotter than I'd ever realized it could be. It had quite the effect on her, too, because breaking up that robbery wasn't the only action we saw that night.
Waking up beside her that next morning has got to be one of my favorite memories...
And since that morning, things have been...different. I'd never expected that Barbara and I would be so...perfect together, not with as tense as things always were between us. Heh - maybe it was just sublimated sexual tension after all.
Because God knows we can't seem to keep our hands off each other anymore - and I'm not complaining in the slightest.
It isn't just sexual, either - it's just that we're both so reserved normally that the need to touch each other now that our guard is down is damn near constant.
Like now, when I can't help reaching out to toy with a stray lock of her hair, watching the coppery color change with the light.
Barbara, obviously amused by my reverie, clears her throat and insists on continuing our conversation. "About telling Dinah...?"
"We'll tell her in a couple days." I decide, smiling. "I think I'd like to keep us to ourselves for just a little while longer before we let Dinah start shouting it from the rooftops with an 'I told you so' besides."
"Keep us to ourselves, huh?" she echoes, with a smile that means only one thing.
Later, afterwards, as we just lay in bed enjoying the quiet of the wee small hours, Barbara curls a lock of my hair - she loves my hair - around her fingers.
"So Dinah really pushed you into asking me out?"
"Yeah, she did." I answer, smiling. "We should probably buy her flowers for it or something."
Barbara just gives a sleepy chuckle, and I send Dinah a silent 'Thank You' before drifting off myself.
She's a damn smart girl, our Dinah...
FIN