Marry The Knight Ch. 03

Blackfire managed a few words of English when she wasn't spewing alien curses. "Perfect little Kory with her perfect wedding and her perfect lovers. How many do you even have?"

"Six."

"Greedy--!" Blackfire cried, as Kory gave up and manhandled her through a doorway.

In the other room, Barbara waited behind a wall as Kory forced Blackfire into the isolation-pod designed for high-risk metahumans captured in Gotham. As soon as Blackfire was sealed in, unable to see the outside world, she wheeled herself into the prison chamber. It probably should've been further away from the living quarters, but when Barbara designed the Clocktower, she hadn't foreseen the Birds sprawling throughout the complex like in-laws who never left.

Kory looked on as Blackfire, now uncuffed, pounded on the one-way glass, shouting muted threats. "Siblings," Barbara said, taking place beside her. "Why do they always have to copy us? It's not like becoming supervillains is so much more original than being a superhero..."

Kory looked at her, vast green eyes taking Barbara in as a warm friend rather than as a rival. It took getting used to for both of them. "Thank you for using your own uncomfortable circumstances to try and cheer me. I'm afraid it is still less than effective. I believe I will go beat some rocks, if criminals are unavailable, and then go to Donna for sex."

"Okay," Barbara said, as always, a little put-off with Kory's unconventionality. "Have good sex."

"Always."

Kory walked around the room, took a last look at Blackfire, then crossed her arms and came back to Barbara. She said nothing, but Babs could've smiled. It was nice to realize that whatever kind of home this was, Kory didn't want to leave.

"So how's The Real World?" Kory asked. So the girls had taken to calling Bruce's living arrangements with Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy.

"Pretty good. More kinky bondage sex—"

"I had wondered where Dick got a taste from that," Kory ruminated, Barbara making a face.

"And now Bruce is off doing an interview with the Gotham Gazette. First one since the honeymoon. They're paying him a cool hundred thou, which is going straight to the Policeman's Ball.

Kory's thick eyebrows raised. "We should check on the criminals. As part of our duty, of course. Who knows what they might be getting into on their own?"

"I think just each other," Barbara said wryly.

Kory innocently kneaded her hands behind her back. "I believe Batman would want us to be one hundred percent certain!"

"We've gotta do something about these voyeuristic tendencies of yours."

"I have a voyeur habit? My bathroom has cameras in the showerhead and drain."

Barbara blinked. "I'm sure those were there before you moved in."

"I'm not angry, Barbara. I would simply like a little warning the next time I try to use the massaging showerhead."

"Yeah, the camera's—camera's not built for that."

***

Harley made pancakes for breakfast. Perhaps she also made a bit of a mess, but that was why God invented butlers. When Ivy came into the kitchen, hair still a frizzy mess from her sleep, Harley was quick to slide a tall stack of wheatcakes before her. Unfocused, Ivy sat down before it.

"Eat up, honeybun! Harley Quinn is serving up tasty and dishing out nutritious!"

Ivy watched dispassionately as Harley drowned her pancakes in maple syrup, topped with a stick of butter that floated forlornly atop the Canadian tide. She'd clothed herself in tree-bark armor, covering all but her face with prickly wood. Harley didn't notice or didn't mention it.

Taking a fork, Ivy neatly pared a square of pancake out of the stack and ate it. Her gums smacked. She looked at Harley with bleary eyes that still managed to be accusatory. "Where were you last night?"

"I wuz thinking, Red. I was thinking—"

"What were you thinking?" Ivy interrupted, her tone taking Harley off-guard.

"Well, just that—" Harley pressed her forefingers together, bending and straightening them against each other. "Brucie's like the richest guy ever, and if we take him out, there's gonna be all sorts of people going after his dough. He adopts kids like I catch Pokemon. They're all gonna say we killed him."

"They'll never be able to prove anything," Ivy said, simple and cool, her eyes locked on Harley.

Harley winningly brought her a cup of tea, freshly brewed. "Yeah, but, but, they won't have to. They'll just smear us and do a lawsuit and BOOM, there goes our inheritance! Then all we'll have to show for this is some really great sex."

Ivy stared harder at Harley. Her eyes were like pits being dug deeper and deeper into the earth. "If you like that sort of thing," she said dangerously.

"Hear me out," Harley pleaded, picking up a platter of bacon from beside the oven. "What if, instead of bumping him off like everyone's expecting us to, we get knocked up!"

"We?"

"Me. I mean me. I'd be a great mom." Harley cupped the bacon in her arms like a bundle of joy.

"Some greedy little monster always demanding attention and the right to suck on your tits?" Ivy mused dismally. "It'll be just like having the Joker back."

"Hey, I never thought of that! We could name him Jay!"

"Go back to being pregnant," Ivy said. "That's your Plan A?"

"How hard can it be? You eat as much as you want, you lie around all day, everyone treats you nice and tells you how pretty you are, then you take a bunch of drugs and pop the little jerk out!"

"You've put some thought into this," Ivy said sarcastically.

"Yeah! And with a biological child in our pocket, they'll have no choice but to give us all Brucie's dough when he kicks it!"

Ivy nodded along with the far more enthusiastic Harley. "Well, Harl, I've always held that great minds think alike. Apparently yours does too, because I had the exact same thought during the night. When I was alone." She smiled icily. "Unable to get to sleep."

"You—you did?"

"Yes. That's why I laced the ink of Wayne's morning paper with a potent aphrodisiac. Forget about the Rihanna nonsense. The next time he sees you, you're getting a baby." Ivy got up to pet Harley's hair. "But I'm so glad we're on the same page now. It'll make things so much simpler."

Harley's eyes clicked around as the meaning of Ivy's words occurred to her. That meant—Ivy had wanted her to be a mommy all along! She really was a good friend!

"Oh, Ivy, I'm so happy for us!" She pulled Ivy into a hug. "I can't wait until he gets home."

"Gets home?" Ivy repeated.

"Yeah! He went out to get interviewed by some reporter lady. He's been talking about it all week. Don't you remember?" With wide-eyed innocence, Harley continued. "Of course you remembered. It's not like you'd make some silly little mistake. That's what I do. You wouldn't be so rude with me if you made mistakes too..."

Ivy sipped her tea. "It's part of a larger plan. Which I won't tell you about because you're being so horrible."

Harley turned on a dime, hands clapping together in prayer and eyes going full Bambi. "Aww, c'mon, please!"

"No."

***

Kory pursed her lips thoughtfully as Harley and Ivy continued to bicker over the open line.

"So, does Bruce know he's going to have a chemically enhanced erection while he's being interviewed?"

Barbara kneaded her temples. "No, Kory. I think it's safe to say he would've rescheduled if he were aware of that. Unfortunately, eavesdropping only works if our bad guys talk about their nefarious schemes, not if they just do them."

"Then you should call to tell him. He'd probably like to know."

"I've been calling him. He's not picking up. The interview must be underway already."

"Well, the interviewer will probably understand. Gar used to get erections around me all the time when we were teenagers, I never held it against him."

"Bet he wishes you had," Barbara mumbled, trying Bruce's number again.

"I just mean to say, the man interviewing him most likely won't think it's that big a deal."

"He's being interviewed by a woman, and I've seen him naked. Trust me. It's a big deal."

"What woman?"

***

Vicki Vale walked the length of the room. Her attention never strayed either to the amazing view the fifty-five-story windows gave of Gotham's skyline or to the flawless reflections that greeted her in her apartment's ample supply of mirrors. She was entirely focused on the Dictaphone she spoke into as combination self-affirmation and first draft of her coming article.

"I walk. No, hell, I strut. And with every step, I wonder what my life would be like if that skank Lois Lane wasn't so jealous of me and I'd gotten that job at the Daily Planet."

Her sashaying strut carried her to the far end of the room, where the window's one-way glass picked up her reflection. A cavewoman at heart, she'd entered into a state of undress as soon as she'd gotten home. Her stockings were still on, as were her panties, but she'd pulled her bra out from under her cotton shirt and now it plainly showed her nipples. Her blonde hair was almost long enough to cover them. Interesting idea for her next byline photo.

"It's just that Metropolis has a Man of Steel—a Boy of Steel for those who like their meat a little tender—even a Girl of Steel. If you like that sort of thing."

She cocked her head, tossing her hair at her reflection. Her reflection looked stunning. As always.

"Even Lex Luthor, if you're not too particular about hairstyles. And what do we have in Gotham? A handful of furries and Bruce Wayne, who is now taken."

She did a model turn and strutted in another direction, watching her reflection on its way to meet her in another mirror.

"Hey pretty. You know what you've got? Yeah you do."

She turned to look over her shoulder, eyes on her reflection's ass. Shameless, the way it looked in that thong. She kept walking, wishing she could see how it looked as she walked away, but too restless to really care.

"You have my sympathies, ladies of Gotham. We're all in the same boat. But where the Highfather closes a door, he opens a window. At least we get to gossip about this clusterfuck. And Gotham's most eligible bachelor shacked up alone with two very wanted criminals? Oh yes, clusterfuck is the right word."

Her lovely face turned, her hair flowed, as the apartment's buzzer went off. She hated that. Made her want to jump out of her skin like a reject from the Teen Titans.

"Why do they have to make door buzzers so loud? What's wrong with this town? No decent men, no decent anything."

But at least it meant that Bruce Wayne had arrived to pick her up. And as much as she sassed him like it was her job—which it was—the man was roughly as hot as the sun. The thought of him made her skin melt. In certain places.

"Bruce is here to give me all the juicy details himself. He's waiting downstairs right now, which means I have thirty minutes to get ready. On behalf of the women of Gotham, let's pay him back for all the sexual frustration he's given us over the years."

Leaving the Dictaphone spooling on her coffee table, Vicki went to work. She fussed through clothes as she applied mascara and lipstick as she ditched clothes she didn't like as she fussed through clothes she did like as she checked herself in the mirror as she thought of what to say. She was a multitasker. You had to be, surviving in this town.

Finally, she'd accomplished her mission. Let Ivy have her pheromones and Harley do anal. She knew she looked good. She knew she looked hot. And she was ready to prove it.

Turning off her Dictaphone, she packed a few last essentials into her handbag, set her phone to vibrate, then sent one last tweet. Having a date with Bruce Wayne how cool is that :)

Dress zipped up, bag closed, body perfect as always, she calmly walked to the elevator. She had a feeling this would be a night Mr. Wayne would never forget.