❤️‍🔥

Your inhibitions had dissipated hours ago. By now, all that remained was a floating feeling that carried you in conversation. The desire for body heat brought on by being adorned in nothing but a swimsuit as the sun disappeared beyond the horizon. While the other guests, miraculously avoided drunkness; either by the metahuman blood pumping through their veins or sheer heavy weight willpower alone. They had evaded the descent into drunkeness, where you were at the very bottom of the hole—currently in the sweet spot between sharing every thought on your mind and overwhelming nausea.

You had been chatting to Ted about some doomed-to-fail endeavour with Booster until he excused himself to talk logistics with the same blonde. Really, what you should have done was find Dinah or Diana, or even a long lounge chair to pass out on, but in your inebriated state, you followed the first thing, or rather person, that your eyes landed on.

You treaded over rather ungracefully to where John and Guy were lost in conversation. Guy had been splayed out on one of the many couches— arms stretched across the back and legs manspreading wide like an open invitation to be touched— and you flopped down right beside him, your hair tickling his open arms as you did.

"Had enough t'drink yet, honey?" Guy asked, swapping his beer to the other hand so he could rest his open arm comfortably around you. "Don’t worry. Ol’ Guy will take care of you. Can't believe that rust bucket didn't cut you off."

"Mmmm no," you hummed, smushing your face against Guy's shoulder. "M'not even drunk."

Your lips pursed from where your cheeks laid squished against his skin.

Guy would never admit it— far too adamant about his nonexistent romantic prowess— but he felt his freckled cheeks inflame from your touch. As much as he 'flirted' with every member of the team, he had always had his eye on you. You were kind, funny and relatively untouched by a godlike ego that could easily take any full-time League member into its clutches. For all that you made fun of Guy or became just as exasperated as anyone else, you had always recognised his loyalty and goodness that laid beneath his brash mannerisms.

He admired you. Truly. And watching you cozy up to him so comfortably, your cold fingers splaying out against the expanse of his chest absentmindedly, he couldn't help but feel like both of you were exactly where you belonged. It made his stomach sink.

"You sure?" John asked you with a smile.

"Mhm," you assured him, nodding as you unconsciously curled into Guy's side. "I could have, like, seven more drinks."

Guy laughed, taking another swig from his beer.

"Sure about that, babe?"

Normally you would have grimaced and told him off for that. But the jovial tone of conversation and the way Guy had so easily accepted responsibility for you in your admittedly drunk state, left you feeling too warmed and cared for to mind.

"Positive."

With the buzz of alcohol quickly taking control, you nuzzled your face into the crook of Guy's neck and closed your eyes.

As your breathing slowed, Guy's quickened— shocked still for a moment from the feeling of your lips brushing his neck. You were in his arms, touching him as if you had a right to and Guy knew then that he wouldn't be able to go back to the way things were. Whether you remembered it or not when the alcohol finally left your system, drunk actions were sober thoughts, and you had now been officially solidified as Guy Gardner's girl.

As this fact registered in Guy's brain, he relaxed into your touch. In the morning he would have to worry about the logistics of it all— proving to you that he deserved to call you his, for instance— but right now, he allowed himself to focus on your warmth and affection as you breathing evened and your eyes fluttered shut.

"Go ahead and sleep, honey." Guy said wrapping his arm around your frame. "I'll take you t'bed. Don't gotta worry your pretty little head about it."

Unbeknownst to you, two of your teammates watched on from afar in a healthy mixture of amusement and disgust.

“Do you think she’s going to regret this in the morning?” Ted asked.

Dinah snorted.

“Oh one hundred percent.” Dinah assured him. “If she remembers it, anyway.”

And maybe you did wake up to a photo of you passed out, wrapped around Guy Gardner like a koala. But when you zoomed in and saw his proud, cooked smile? You couldn't find it in yourself to care.

──── .✮ ⋆ ˚｡

BRUCE WAYNE

“So,” you said, making your way down to where a familiar brunette sat on the beach. “Does Matches Malone drink?”

The party continued to thrum on behind you. The farther you got, the more the sound of splashing and your teammates' chanted dares faded, replaced instead with the soothing waves of the ocean as the sun hung low in the sky. Framed by the sunset, Bruce squinted as he looked up at you.

He smiled softly.

“He can be convinced."

You took your place by Bruce's side in the sand, offering him your second mojito.

"I think I like Matches," you said with a smile. "He's a lot more fun than this other guy I know."

As Bruce accepted the spare glass from your hands, his fingers brushed yours.

With anyone else, it would have been an accident. But you knew him both on and off the field and recognised that 'accident' and 'Bruce Wayne' rarely belonged in the same sentence. With him, everything was purposeful… calculated. The fact that the two of you had even been sitting on this beach was likely a result of his own, careful planning to get you alone.

Rather than say anything, though— a part of you always too intimidated by Batman even when the cowl was off— you watched as he took a sip from the glass. His adam's apple, coated in a sheen of sweat from the day's events, bobbed as he swallowed and against all reason, you found yourself lost in the sight. That was, until, the uncomfortable heat of Bruce's gaze caught you staring.

"Sorry," you coughed out, turning back to stare at the ocean.

Bruce's eyes, however, didn't leave your form.

"Don't apologize," he said. "You're allowed to look."

Whatever air of casualty that you had attempted to display, dissipated as you went still as stone.

Bruce Wayne always knew how to surprise you. Sure, the relationship that the two of you had always bordered on flirtatious and other members had gone as far to comment on Batman's suspiciously indulgent nature when it came to you, but Bruce had yet to ever cross the boundary so boldly. To some extent, you assumed you had imagined the longing stares and rare laughs shared because he had never given you more.

But now, there was no doubt. Bruce made decisions, not accidental inferences. He decided that you were allowed to look; and you knew him well enough to understand what that really meant: he was allowing himself to be yours.

A part of you felt ridiculous at the way you unconsciously batted your eyelashes as you smiled up at him, but who could blame you? The big, bad Batman, called 'spooky' by some of the same men who made intergalactic threats shake in their boots, was flirting with you.

Taking a page from his own playfulness, you feigned nonchalance.

"Thanks, Matches," you said. "But my heart belongs to someone else."

The corner of his mouth quirked upwards.

"Yeah?" He asked.

The last glimmers of sunlight were reflected in his eyes as he stared down at you.

"Yeah."

Bruce nodded, a smirk grazing his lips as he stared back at the ocean.

"He's a lucky man, then."

You took only a moment to consider your response.

"Bruce?" You asked.

"Yes?"

You realised then that during the time you had spoken, your bodies had gravitated towards each other. As he turned his attention back towards you, away from the sea, his nose brushed against your own.

You cleared your throat, feeling his warm breath against your lips.

"Just kiss me."

A part of you had expected him to reach over like a man starved, but you should have known Bruce better than that. The hand that had been supporting his weight, trailed up your arm— leaving goosebumps in its wake— until he reached your cheek. His thumb laid against your chin, teasing the edges of your lip before he tilted your face upwards and met your mouth with his.

Bruce Wayne smelt like cologne more expensive than your car and kissed like a man who didn't worship at an altar, but at the feet of the woman he loved. For all his tenderness, Bruce was quick to deepen the kiss, slipping his free hand around you until his palm rested against your back, pulling you towards him. The movement made you gasp and he swallowed the breath eagerly.

It was moments until your hands had found the way to his hair, tugging at its ends as Bruce's tongue massaged yours in a way that was heinous for a man who looked, and frankly was, so good. It was only mere seconds later, that his hands had gravitated from your waist to your thighs, pulling you into his lap.

At the same time, across the beach and desperate for a moment to catch his breath, Clark stumbled onto the sand. Unfortunately for Clark, that breath was not caught when instead of a rejuvenating conversation with his friend, he was met with the sight of Bruce palming your breast beneath your shirt as you left sucked on the tender skin of his neck.

Red in the face and covering his eyes like a repentant child, Clark turned back towards the pool party, but not without shooting his friend a hesitant thumbs up.

──── .✮ ⋆ ˚｡

CLARK KENT

"Really, Clark," you assured him. "I can carry my own stuff. It's no big deal."

Despite the fact that you were both guests on the island, Clark had been nothing but a thoughtful host.

The moment that your jet landed, Clark had been waiting on the tarmac to greet you. He held the keys to a borrowed SUV in his hands and had pulled your luggage from the cargo hold before you even had a chance to ask for help. Even the drive to the house had honestly been too short for your liking. The windows had been rolled down— only after Clark had asked, of course— and what had seemed to be a playlist of your favourite songs were ringing out over the radio.

Not to mention that there were moments you turned to look at Clark, only to be met with his soft, blue eyes already on yours. You couldn't help but smile, then, at the blush that coated his cheeks as he bashfully turned his attention back to the road.

Now at the house you'd both be staying at the next few days, Clark had yet again took it upon himself to carry your luggage: an ever dutiful knight in a linen button-down.

"Don't be silly!" Clark argued, "I'm happy to help."

And with the bright smile he flashed you, you had a difficult time denying him.

Later that afternoon as the backyard— if you could even call four acres of land that— came alive with the arrival of more guests, the party was officially in full swing. The chlorinated water of the pool thrashed with the playfulness of its inhabitants and the thrum of the speakers reverberated through the tiled floors surrounding it. In the corner just beyond the patio of the house, Clark stood at the grill, using his laser vision to cook burgers to perfection.

"And to think we were wasting your powers on saving cities," you joked.

Clark smiled at the sound of your voice; although when he turned to meet your eyes, he froze.

Between now and the last time he saw you, you had changed into your swimsuit— a one piece that managed to accentuate all your best features while leaving just enough to the imagination. You had been friends, you had always been friends, but he rarely saw you out of uniform. To lay his eyes on you dressed so casually felt like a gift. Like you had crossed the borders of formality into familiarity in a way that made his cheeks burn.

"Are you going into the pool?" He asked.

With a spare glance at the pool, you shrugged.

"I don't know," you said. "I was thinking some place quieter."

Clark let out a strangled cough.

"Quieter. I like quieter." He agreed before waving down a nearby member to take control of the grill. "Lead the way."

The hot tub had been tucked away from the noise party. Ever the gentleman, Clark was the first to step inside, but was quick to hold out his hand for yours to steady your own descent into the water.

He stripped himself of his shirt, folding it neatly against the railing like a boy-raised-right, but it grew more and more difficult to focus on his manners as he turned around. People often commented that Superman was the most muscular man in the world, and although that may have been true to a certain extent, they had failed to realize how soft their man of steel really was. You couldn't help but admire the view— the small bit of tummy over his swimshorts, a stretch of curly hair over his chest, the way his arms flexed to make them look even larger than when he had held up an entire building.

You were oggling. And as much as Clark would never admit it, ever the polite man his mother raised him to be, he knew. He could hear the way your heart rate accelerated as your eyes raked over him, and honestly? He loved it.

"I like the quiet," Clark said, sliding onto the tub's bench beside you. "It reminds me of home."

"Only you could be on a billionaire's private island and be thinking of Smallville," you joked. "I'd love to see it someday."

"Ma would love that."

He hadn't considered the implication of what he said until the words had already tumbled from his lips.

"Why's that?" You asked.

Clark weighed his options. He could fib. He could tell you that his mother was just happy to host or a fan of his team members. However, as he looked back at you— at the way that you stared up at him with nothing but fondness and a warmth that seeped into the limited space between you— he decided that he didn't have to. You would accept Clark as he is.

"Well, she asks about you a lot," he replied. "She uh… she thinks you're my girlfriend."

If he thought your heart rate was fast before, it now rivaled a speedster's.

"Why?"

Clark considered the pep talk he had received from a particular playboy earlier in the day, and despite all alarms warning him that it was too forward… unwanted… he stretched his arm along the length of the hot tub's rim to brush your hand.

"Because I talk about you a lot," he said. You felt your heart skip a beat, knowing the strongest man on earth spent his phone calls with his mother talking about you of all things. "About how smart you are… and funny. How you're brave and kind… and beautiful."

Clark shyly stared off to where his hand met yours.

"You think I'm beautiful?"

Clark nodded. "You are beautiful."

You weren't sure if it was because of Clark's own bashful demeanor or because he had just confessed in his own way how he felt about you, but a surge of confidence ran through you. You slipped your hand out from underneath his and squeezed it fully. Your free hand that had until this moment been gripping your thigh to ground you, reached out to hold his stubbled cheek.

His blue eyes, pupils blown, met yours and you smiled.

"Why don't we get out of here and have our first date?" You asked.

You watched as Clark's brain slowly registered what you had just said. A slew of mismatched syllables flew out of his mouth as he stumbled over his words. Once he composed himself with a cough, the cheesiest smile you had ever seen spread across his cheeks.

"I thought you'd never ask."

──── .✮ ⋆ ˚｡

The night before your wedding is a dusk of a chapter that ends specific storied part of your life: there is no doubt that there will be anxiety before. It’s customary for anyone to walk that final day before the exchange of vows with a degree of nervousness that clouds the mind, that worries the heart.

You just didn’t think that you would feel like this; like you’re sitting on the precipice of something so very wrong.

That’s why you haven’t been able to go back to your hotel room, in this gorgeous getaway resort, with bowing palm trees and lush, sandy beaches illuminated by stunning sunsets. Granted, you and your soon-to-be—well, you don’t want to preoccupy yourself with that—were arranged different rooms for the night to avoid breaking with tradition.

“Don’t want to jinx it,” He murmured in low intonation to the nuance of your temple, “And put any bad luck on it before tomorrow.”

The gentle kiss that he pressed against the crown of your head seemed to leave scorching afterimage as you stared into the blue yonder, consumed by thought.

“Yes,” You replied in blank overture, “We wouldn’t want that.”

Staying in your room, by yourself, with nothing more than claustrophobic thought, hampered by bad decisions—that seemed a mountain far too great to ford. So instead, you do what any person should do the night before their wedding: you drink.

Not in your room, of course, not when this resort has so many incredible amenities: you take advantage of the great yawning pool under-lit by soft teals and brooding aquamarines. Letting your feet make lapping concentric ripples that fade into nothingness in the great unerring meniscus of the pool.

Watering yourself with heady swallow straight from the bottle of Hennessy that the waiter eyed you warily with as you accepted vessel of drink—but declined the glasses.

Not like anyone can see, anyways: you sit behind the privacy of empty cabana to conceal your need for a stiff drink.

And so you sit, looking at the tropical jungle that extends in vast landscape beyond the boundaries of the pool. Watching as gusting breeze makes sonorous tune through lush coniferous leaves, doing little to summon goosebumps up the length of your arms.

You take another sip, enjoying the sting. It’s long since scalded the way it had with the first sip: the water feels quite tepid under your feet, which means that you’re most likely on the cusp of making a bad decision. At least you’re alone.

“You know, they say to never mix drinking and swimming together,” A familiar voice in dulcet tones carries across air in your direction. You turn, not afraid of the figure who approaches—you know him as well as you do your husband.

“I’m just getting my feet wet,” You say to Dick as he nears—he’s dressed in black compression shirt that frames rigidity of hard-earned muscles.

Wearing shorts that seem ill-fitting on him, although perfectly suited to the environment of the locale. Hair wet and spit-curled around the framing of that handsome face that beams down at you.

“Yeah, I can see that,” He chuckles in jovial manner—there’s a grunt of game exertion that he makes as he settles himself down on the marble perimeter of the pool besides you. “Mind if I join you?”

You think that the suffused lighting of the pool sets the noble features of his face into such wonderful quality. He carries such classically handsome features it’s unfair how there are other people that can walk around with such beauty.

You realize that you’ve been staring far too long at that lock of hair that darts down over the ridge of his eyebrow. That hangs, suspended in air, coaxing you to admire rest of aesthetic perfection.

“No,” You say, a second far too delayed, “I don’t mind.”

“You gonna ease up on the alcohol?” He asks, a wry tease to his grin—he doesn’t care. “Don’t think Bruce wants you to be nursing a hangover when you walk the miracle mile.”

Bruce—You don’t mean to grimace but you do as you think of your handsome fiancee, who has been nothing but perfect. Nothing but yours. Nothing but loyal, but faithful, but unerring in his way—

“Not all of us can go without a drink,” You reply in as best of impartial tone as you can muster, “And besides—I don’t have to worry.”

“Yeah? Why’s that?” Dick asks, and there’s a cant of mischief to his face as he regards you. As he watches the way that your hand lazily crooks around the neck of waxy bottle: and proffer it up to him.

“Because,” You smile crookedly, “I have a designated driver now.”

There’s a flicker of amusement that darts over those blue eyes made iridescent in the lapping waves. “Oh, so you want to make me accomplice to the crime?”

“No use in being a bystander,” You display your teeth in bared exhibition, pushing it into his chest. Watching as the muscle draws tight and flexes. “Might as well dive in.”

“Yeah,” Dick says—and his eyes dart down the length of your legs, your feet that are gently making unending ripples that dissipate into larger body of water. “Wouldn’t want to miss out before the big day.”

The big day—how the phrase carries such reverb in your head. There’s a wave of fearful nausea that invokes itself from pit of stomach to bile that collects in your throat, choking any meaningful breath from your body. And you suddenly feel the same encroaching claustrophobia you feared that you would, were you alone in your room.

You have to do something. Your words, stilted and halted, come at uneven tempo when you speak them: but if you don’t now, you fear that you never will.

“Dick—”—You pause; in your periphery, your partner-in-crime finishes heady swallow and places the bottle by your hand propped on slick stone. You don’t acknowledge the way that his fingers brush against yours, nor the heat that lingers in space elapsed when he pulls away.

“Yeah?” He asks, and his voice is hoarser, carrying scratchy depths spurred on by the drink. “What’s up?”

“Am I—”—It feels terrible to seek counsel from Dick of all people, son of your fiancee—but what other choice do you have?

You turn to look up at him, wide-eyed, heat collecting in splotchy panic, dotting underside and underbelly of your body. “Am I making a big mistake?”

“Doing what?” Dick asks—and then comprehension takes slow-rooted foundation, dawning like day on his expression. “Oh—”

You’re too far in your cups to notice the depth of emotion that casts itself over his face—and Dick disguises it by deciding to take secondary swallow of Hennessy. It’s schooled away by the time you’ve turned back to the pool, continuing your diatribe.

“I just—”—You pause—“—Do you think that Bruce and I are a good fit?”

This question hangs heavy, arterial, exposed like an open wound—it’s an ugly, dirty question to ask on eve of such prosperous arrangement.

Dick besides you coughs, making you look back up with bleary vision to that handsome face once more. Seized in between a rock and a hard place as he looks at you.

“I don’t think it matters what I think,” Dick says, “It matters what you think.”

You feel something draw taut in the plateau of your chest, your shoulders as you stare back at him, sans answer.

“Do you want to marry him?” He asks, his voice trying to cut to heart of the matter that you’ve avoided. There’s a deliberate to the question as he tries to push you to provide response.

“Everyone thinks that we should,” You return shyly, glancing back to the honeyed amber of the bottle, reflecting deluge of greens and blues in its gleaming surface.

“Uh-uh,” Dick asserts with directive—you finally drag your vision back up to him, to face the music. “That wasn’t what I asked.”

He leans in to you, so that you can taste mote of alcohol that hangs in crystalline air between you both. “I asked if you want to marry Bruce.”

You stare at his eyes; it’s involuntary, the way that your eyes slink down to those full-bodied lip. As you look at that pink of his tongue that darts out to wet them: and something in you says that you are approaching danger.

You finally shore up enough willpower to look back to those eyes that are staring at you. That are far closer than they were at onset of conversation. “I don’t know.”

Dick is silent, watching you—an internal conflict roiling within him so visually dictated by the way that he considers in the minutiae of your face.

“Okay,” He says, and there’s something scored in his voice. Something that is coming to fruition in the cant of his tone. “Then don’t.”

You chuckle to the water that unerrs in its tidal pull. “It’s not that easy.”

“Marry me.” Dick says—and you feel as though something plummets into the housing of your ribs, deep into hellish depths below. Your feet draw still in inertia of water as lock eyes with those blue ones that seem so alert, so greatly alight with passion once gone.

“What?” You ask, feeling traitorous for even considering this. For even daring to hear this out and not leaving with immediacy. But you can’t: not when that face grins back at you, appealing to a darker nature.

“You’re too young for Bruce anyways,” Dick says with lilting tone to his voice, “And too good for him, anyways.”

“Dick—”—You begin, holding up your hand, trying to stabilize the chaos of thoughts that are growing cacophonous in the housing of your head. “I—I don’t understand—”

“You don’t understand,” Dick says with such gentility that you are almost tempted to push yourself against the plateau of his chest, “But you still asked me if you should go through with it.”

And you can find nothing to say, all words bereft: lost at this. You summon the only answer that you can find. “I didn’t ask if I should marry you.”

“Well,” Dick says, “You can’t blame me for trying.”

He makes a rough chuckle, something bitter and melancholy in the delivery of it. “But I bet I’d be a good husband.”

It’s the alcohol that dulls your senses: that make you think of this idyll that he presents to you.

That makes you think of waking up to sleepy-eyed Dick Grayson in the comfort of shared bed, of the inanity of having breakfast with him, leaning on crooked shoulder—sharing the heat of his body with him—

His voice is crooning, malicious temptation in the shell of your ear: you don’t know when he drew so close, but you let him approach anyways. “I’m not him: you wouldn’t be wondering if you matter more to me than the job.”

Bruce and his patrol: the unending service he makes to a thankless city. You let this register in your face, in the reflection that you see staring traitorously back at you.

“And I’d actually remember to smile once in a while,” Dick says, returning back to that cavalier attitude that you’re so accustomed to—the change is so smooth that you can’t help but surrender a laugh.

“And,” Dick says—and his hand ghosts at the curve of your jaw, gentle, sinful, desirous, “I bet I could kiss you better than he does.”

He’s so close now, the breath of his exhale ghosting over the territory of your lips. You want it—you want to taste him. You want to see whether his boast is founded in truth.

You throw up one final bastion of defense. “Dick, you’re drunk.”

He chuckles, and the noise is husky and attractive and sends of jolt of need to your legs. “So are you.”

Those eyes are so very oceanic in demeanor and twice as inviting. His thumb presses against the underside of your jaw.

“So we shouldn’t—”—You say, but you’re already leaning in. Already closing the distance, letting that scrape of his mouth groan against yours.

“So we should see,” Dick says before he closes the elapsing of space between you, “If I’m right or not.”

And there’s something so careful, exacting about the way that his hands draw up the sides of your face— and his tongue draws carefully against the seam of your lips, requesting the wet heat of your mouth. As you let your lips draw open so that Dick can swipe his tongue down the flat muscle of yours, scrape it along the nuance of your teeth.

So that his hands can slide down to your hips, finding purchase to access the warmth of flesh denied him—when you suck on the full of his tongue, he exhales sharply, a needy, arrested moan humming into you.

You take the taste of this as you do the rest of him—and let your hands continue up the toned flat of his stomach. As you try to claim what has been in front of you the whole time.

You don’t know when he coaxed you out of the pool, crawled the meter of his perfect body over you, devoted himself to the process of sucking a bruise into your collarbone. His hands tug the hem of your shorts down, and when he finds purchase over the junction of your legs—you both break away for necessary air.

His hand takes careful posture over your heat, feeling the interest that is there: the same starved lust that you’re certain is in his eyes. That you’re certain you stare back at him with, as you both wallow in sin together.

But when he smiles—all that goes out the wayside, this beatific, gorgeous face the only thing preoccupying your thoughts.

“So?” He teases, his voice crooning in velvet manner that makes you rock your hips into his hand. That makes him stifle a groan he can barely keep at bay.

“Am I the better kisser?” He asks—and it’s made clear from the way he stays his hand that he won’t proceed unless you do.

“Yes,” You give as means of admission. And it’s all he needs, before he makes self-satisfied sigh and claims your mouth once more. And the two of you cross out of Eden together, wrapped in the pleasure of each other’s bodies.

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