K. Kane

     she pulls the steaming  mug  of  caffeine to her lips, green eyes not lifting      from her  quiet  scrutiny  of her nephew’s veneer as though if  she  stared      any longer with that usual dark intensity of hers, she’d break through. 

           “so, pride huh?”

“mmm, I smell, yes please,” she only has to open a couple doors before she finds a mug and pours herself a cup. she takes hers black, blowing to cool it when she’s not speaking, “everything’s fine– quiet, but fine. definitely a change of pace,” she admits before taking a sip. in truth, though she was absolutely ready for this change, but that didn’t stop her from being unsettled by just how quiet her first night had been.

“i guess i didn’t realize how many people i knew would be here,” she leaned herself against the counter, looking over kate in an assurance that she indeed was okay, “talk about a blast from the past,” she smirks, though silently thanks that there is a part of her past that isn’t strictly darkness anymore.

       yeah. it was easier said than done  when kate upped and left gotham        to the syndicate of bats,  never having  felt truly quite like one of them,         nor felt like the perfect  soldier she wanted to be.  paragon  was  nice,         clean, everything  her father and her wanted it to  be when they spent        sizeable chunks to the creation of the academy. but it isn’t something        that satisfied her, no matter how  much  of  a storm she is, thundering        through the  halls.  there’s  a  certainty  in  her, knowing that xi felt the         same way too. gotham forces  you  into a certain lifestyle that you can        never quite leave behind. 

       soft eyes raise to  meet her daughters, a wry smile playing on her lips        at the  mention of the myriad  of  people  they’ve  both  met  here.  of         course  her  daughter  didn’t  need  to  know   about all the other past         women, past exes, or flings, she’s run into here.

There was something about the woman that caught Samara’s eye. Something that tugged at her instincts. It made her distinctly uncomfortable. When their eyes met, it didn’t become any clearer, but Samara got the feeling that she knew those eyes. @ktekne

     kate had always been an intuitive person. sharp and clear,  and when       someone  starts staring, she’d feel their gaze as a quiet tingle  on the       back of her neck.  and  you’d think, with her name she’d get  used to      the staring. for a brief second her gaze flickers and it clicks. snaps to       the woman whose eyes seemed to pour straight into her soul. 

     and there’s a curiosity  to  it,  behind  those lenses, and kate  swears       she’s met her before. 

she’d told kate she was going to visit that evening, but she’d woken up early and had her breakfast and simply wanted to see her mother. so, here she found herself quietly making her way inside, “mama?” she called out the name that, though it was perhaps softer than one may expect if they knew the nature of the two women, it was what xi feng had decided kate would be called early on. it was a name she never purposefully used for talia, “i decided to come early, are you home?” [ @ktekne ]

        “hey kid.”

    if there was a  single phrase her ears were attuned to, it would’ve been the      gentle lilt of the way xi held the word mama in the air so softly spoken. she     would never have expected to have this  long  a  time  with another human      who thought she truly deserved the mantle. but she did. as unorthodox as     she was. 

    the word kid flies right past her lips just like her father  used  to shoot back     at her  whenever  she  came  crawling  to  him  with  a  hey  colonel. it’s an      affection she had always wanted to  share.  the  mug is warm in her hands,      but the heat barely bothers her as she takes the time to stir in the sugar. 

“Please tell me there’s some decent pizza around here.” Wally could technically run anywhere to get it, but that wasn’t the point. “I’ll take anything at this point, what’s good?” 

“is that the best you got?” bucky grinned slightly at the other. “if that’s working hard then the fate of the world is screwed.” he bit down a laugh, rolling his shoulders back as he sat up on the bench, crossing his arms. 

      her lips curl to a wry smile. of course she’d get judgement in a gym for        supers  and  mutants.  but  then again, she wasn’t exactly working out        was she?

head tilts to the side, taking in the woman’s observations and gauging them against his own. the passerby did lack a look of warmth that would suggest a cuddler and the economics book she had been carrying might have been a sign of plenty of boring conversations to come. “fair enough,” he concedes. “but now that i have parameters i can do a better job.” he’s smiling just before her words on the girl’s age catch him attention and he zeroes on the subject of their conversation. “she’s cute. very cute. but we’re not about to try and find me a girlfriend,” he laughs. now, that would just be a disaster waiting to happen. his eyes linger, though, maybe she could get her number anyway —nothing wrong with keeping things casual. “so, cuddlers,” he turns back to the redhead. “i’m gonna be honest, this might not be the best place to find those.”

          “--- what, why? i mean we can always look at boys too but i’m not sure              if i’ll be any good at that. it’s been a while, y’know?” 

      she doesn’t pause for a second to catch the way his eyes lingers on her anyway,       finding herself stumbling through free flowing words far to quickly to stop. family       has only ever  been  the  only  place  she finds herself nesting in, the children, in       particular too.

the sound of the shots still rings loud in her ears even though it’s been — minutes? hours? she’s not sure. all she can see in her head are flashes of the joker’s alabaster skin as she feels her pulse climbing, almost jumping out of her skin.

she should be better than this. she’s been trained for combat, trained to survive much more than just witnessing a damn gunshot but her body is frozen, sent hurtling back in time to the moment life as she knew it ended. the only thing that pulls her back to reality is a crowd jostling against her chair, almost tipping it over in her daze.

                                                  “s-sorry, ‘m in your way…”

        “woah hey--- - babs, its just me.”

    an arm flies out  just as she almost collides into the familiar ginger,      reaching at nothing, trying to catch them both from a nasty tumble     in this crowd. problem with being in a school of  heroes  is  that  --      well -- they’re  mostly trained  to  run  toward  gunshots, not away.      but there’s a look  in  her friend’s eyes that didn’t seem to hold the     same spark. 

@ktekne !

Jason is against the registration, but he was mostly here to keep an eye on family. He wanted to be here if something goes wrong. Somehow he has ended up with a couple different buttons on his leather jacket, including a rainbow one. He approaches Kate when she was spotted in the crowd, smiling as he pulls his hands out from his pockets. “Hey, everything alright over here?”

        “come on over.”

    she spots the familiar face in the  crowd.  she never quite fit in with     the bat family and the corporation of blah but if there was anything     that she could  love  more  than her night-time  career,  it  would’ve      been the people  that  came with it. family that she never expected     herself to  have.  those  bright  green  eyes  sport a shade of eager     excitement as she practically hauls him over to her little station. 

         “i’ve made strawberry daiquiris, and i got us deck chairs.           open for anyone to join us -- it’s a hot day out today.”

       ah, there it was. eventually, a bat will break their brooding and actually move. beside that, dinah was snickering to herself. she was used to people staring ( what did you expect when you kicked literal ass in fishnets? ) but she wasn’t expecting kate to be so close. it felt a bit like electricity, but she tried to not let it show just how much it was affecting her. then there was the hands on her waist, and she wanted to melt. still, she held her resolve ──

      soft spoken words with a voice made of amber honey. a kiss with soft lips, brushing her cheek. making her eyes flutter shut momentarily. she enjoyed the brief contact far too much, and when she opened her blues again, she quite liked the pair of them in her vanity mirror. made the corner of her lips turn up into a suggestive smirk.

      but then, ❝ a lamborghini?! kate rebecca kane ── yeah, i do my OWN investigating ── you brought a lamborghini?! what model? year? how many cylinders? please tell me it’s a v12. oh god, we’re not even going to make it to the date before ── ❞ dinah caught herself then, biting her lips shut as a rare blush tinted her cheeks. way to lose your cool, lance. really not that surprising all things considering when everyone knew just how much dinah loved vehicles.

      ❝ you should get the car warmed up, ❞ she dismissed, turning away to grab the perfect shade of red for her lips.

      this is where  they  are  now. her  mind, glued to the multiple possibilities of        where this night  would take her,  the flexibility of the present. still there was       a dark corner, quiet and still  like she was sitting in an empty movie theatre,       unmoving,  untouched,  as the only thing on the reels that keep replaying is       the way her cheeks would form little craters  as she smiled, and how she’d       throw her head back as she  laughed.   really laughed. and as kate draws a        smile of her own on her face,  she wishes  that she  had  been  more  drunk       through the time she  spent with renee, just so she wouldn’t  have to watch       the  memory  reel  of  her in the recesses of her brain every  single time she        tries intimacy once more with another human, reminding  her  of the  things       that just couldn’t be. 

      her fingers run down the frame of the blonde, as if in just one motion she’d       come undone  as kate  would had the situation were reversed. perhaps the       only difference was  that  kate’s a bag of broken battered chattering pieces       of herself.  and  fingers reach to the length of dinah’s waist, before drawing       back  to  her  own,  fishing  swiftly for the keys to her pretty car as her date       leans over for  lipstick. her heart’s  racing,  she’d  confidently  agree.  thank        god her adrenal  nerves are fried from being batwoman, or she’d be a sorry       mess  of a gay woman. not after catching the way her date’s clearly just as       flushed as she is. 

             “well-- i was thinking you could figure that out yourself, if you               wanna drive it, dinah  laurel  lance.  a grey roadster’s never a                bad look for anyone.  ”

      kate exhales. her  mind quiets. she’s counting the paces for her heart in her       head. the memory reel stops. but none of it is expressed on the cheeky grin       or twinkle in  her  eye  ---- -- this  is  kate,  it’s  what  she does best. keep a        modicum of a facade to get through every minute. the soldier backs away       as she continues saying - 

*/ @ktekne  said: “ she’s cute, but she’s just not really my type. not because she’s black. i love black women. not like, you know, i have a thing for black women, i just, i just, i just love all women. ”

“yeah, yeah, i get it, aunt kate. you’re not racist or fetishist, but you’re super gay,” he chuckles, eyes remaining ahead and at the people passing by. “i stll think it could have been a good match. what about that one?” he points to yet another woman. he isn’t sure how he ended up in a game of swipe right or left with the woman, but he’s not complaining. he feels more relaxed than he has in the past couple of days and it’s nice. then again, it usually is easy with kate. 

       good god, it’s almost been twenty five years since she had been forcibly        and very publicly outed, all to  do  with  her  family  name  and  constant         controversy that surrounds her. and kate, for months  back  then,  hated         her own  skin, hated the names they called her, hated who she was. she        hadn’t  had  time  to  be  comfortable  with  who  she  was,  only  having         admitted who she was the very  moment she decided to pronounce  her        guilt of being  gay in  west  point.  the  label  had  only  just  been freshly        printed in her mind when she  was  sent  packing  out  of  the  academy         when the very next day her name makes headlines yet again. 

                                   KATE KANE A LESBIAN?

        she was  asking  the  very  same fucking thing herself that morning she          made news. but  look where  she  is now. look at how those green eyes         trail the  attractive  women that passes them by, without a hint of regret         or shame. she  isn’t  sure  how  she  and  her  nephew  (a label of quick         convenience)  ended  up  partaking  in  real life tinder, but hey-- at least         they’re getting some fresh air and some sun.  a  rare  commodity  these         days. 

       “well you best believe it kid. i don’t want to see you out there          swinging around in bat-wear and not knowing the first thing          to do when trouble  calls.  hell, i don’t even want to see you          out there at all.”

    but adella was a wayne, and in some parts of her, she was a kane. and     everyone  knows  you  can never stop a  kane  from  serving.  the  only     question that begged at her was why. over the past several years, kate     had taken adella  into  her  arms,  as  though the young child had been      her own, knowing that if not her  real  mother,  she  was about as good      as addy  could  get  of  a mother  -- --  and  god  would  she  never  let      another child,  not  in  the generation beneath hers, in this goddamned     family,  to  feel  like  she  did  when she lost the only family she had. so      kate had a choice: to help  adella  in  her  venture and watch her bleed     like she had watched cousin bette do so whilst  training  under  her, or     let her be and get hurt anyway. 

    either way, it’s gonna fucking suck. 

          “did i ever tell you what happened to my last partner?”

    kate  kane  was never  a  perfect  hero,  she  disliked  the  taste of  the      word  in her  mouth.  she  wasn’t  a  bat,  who  fit  in with  all  the other     wayward  bats  in her cousin’s roundtable  ---- she was  a soldier, who     made calls  and   decisions  half  of  them  wouldn’t  because she was     trained to think  like a soldier.  to  serve  gotham  above  all else. but it      was that, that left  her prey to mistakes, to flaws  that  she wishes she     could  erase  from   memory.  the  red  head shuts her eyes, for a brief     moment,  tilting  her  head  back to rest  on  the back  of the couch as     visions  of  beth, of bette, of  maggie,  of  renee  ----  all  of them, kate      could  only  wish  she  had  done better. addy, could be her chance to      do better.