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It's not even noon when Kendra Saunders says, "oh, just kiss already" in a tone so dryly amused you could sand a table with it.
You risk a glance at Guy Gardner—Green Lantern, the first, the loudest, and arguably the weirdest of the Justice Gang—half-expecting him to blush, half-expecting him to turn you into a petri dish with that snappy ring of his.
But Guy just scowls, which in Guy-speak is somewhere between a declaration of war and a marriage proposal.
"You wish," he fires back, lobbing a soggy nacho at Kendra's helmet where it sticks. "I've got standards."
You take a few seconds too long to respond, which is enough for Mr. Terrific to roll into the fray.
"Guy's right," he says, lamely. "He's only dating his hair these days."
To illustrate, Mr. Terrific mimes combing a pompadour so large it threatens to consume all the justice in the room.
You don't mind their banter, not really, because somewhere beneath the roasting and the relentless chain of heroics, there's something like family here. And you, a lowly tech consultant from the Gotham-forged badlands, still can't believe they let you hang out. Even with the world in flames most days, you've started to imagine this skyscraping lair with its fridge full of generic carbonated beverages might qualify as home.
"Don't look at me," you say, clearing your throat in an attempt to mask the smile you're wearing. "I don't date men who comb their eyebrows with laser focus."
Guy, predictably, grins through the attack.
"That's what it is, isn't it? You're intimidated by the Lantern brows. I get it, they're a force unto themselves. Let's face it, you couldn't handle the real thing."
"I could bench-press your ego," you deadpan, and for a split second, Guy's expression softens.
Not a smile exactly, more like a quick twitch around the corners of his mouth, as if he's genuinely pleased with your ability to keep up.
Kendra peels a nacho off her helmet and flicks it at the nearest recycling bin, which accepts it with a wet slap.
"Look, I've died before, and this is way more entertaining. We could just let them spar all day and get paid overtime."
Mr. Terrific nods, fingers steepled.
"How does the phrase go? If they start fighting, they start kissing two minutes later," he says.
"In Guy's case, he'd rather just fight," you reply, and toss a folded napkin grenade at Green Lantern's chest.
He bats it away with a construct—something small, a green baseball bat, which he spins absently before banishing it.
"She's not my girlfriend," he clarifies, as if the notion is too horrifying to be left unchallenged. "We're just—"
"Collaborative professionals," you finish, and then, because you can see the twinkle of mischief in Kendra's eyes, you tack on, "though sometimes I use him for power tool access."
There's a beat as the three of them absorb it, and then Hawkgirl lets out a snort so sharp it could cut diamonds.
"Is that what the kids call it now?"
Mr. Terrific chimes in, "I bet you have a checklist, right? Guy, please pass the sonic-saw and also the wine, I have to recalibrate the—"
"Oh, I believe it," Kendra says, climbing onto the scarred tabletop and crossing her legs. "You should see the way she looks at his ring."
Guy gestures in exasperation, palms up.
"I don't even like her that way," he says, and instantly you're a little more annoyed than you have any right to be. "She's just—she's fine. She's good with computers, that's all."
"Sure, sweetie," Kendra says, patting him on the back with a clawed gauntlet. "Everyone's good with something."
There's a moment where they're all looking at you. Waiting. Judging. If you were the type to flinch, this would be the time, but you just purse your lips and let the silence hang. Metropolis is built on accusation, but so are you.
"You should see what he does when he thinks nobody's watching," you say finally, smooth as old bourbon. "He polishes his ring and practices his hero walk in front of the mirrored windows. He even does finger guns."
Guy makes a choking sound.
"Lies! Defamation!"
Kendra leans over, conspiratorial.
"I saw him do that once. Swear to God."
"I'll project the footage if you want," Mr. Terrific offers, already half-tapping at the T-spheres orbiting his shoulder.
Guy laces his fingers behind his head and grins, unrepentant.
"Fine. I've got a better walk than any of you. I'm just saying, if one of us is getting memed for it, it should be her, not me."
Hawkgirl shrugs expansively.
"I didn't realize memeing was part of the job description."
You lob a can of Pibb towards Kendra, who snatches it midair with, okay, a certain undeniable panache.
"It's always been part of the package," you remind her. "They just let you in on the second round."
There's another silence, this one easier. The lair's ancient HVAC rattles overhead, and for a moment you're all just people, not vigilantes.
"So are you two gonna publicly admit it or what?" Kendra asks, turning the can in her hands. "It's weird, all this denying. Like, we know. Gotham knows. Even the guy who delivers the mail knows."
You glance at Guy. He's blushing, but only a little, which you count as progress.
"We're just seeing where it goes," you say, and let that be the end of it.
Mr. Terrific makes a show of checking his phone, as if the matter's become tedious.
"The denial, it's almost ... Shakespearean. Get thee to a nunnery, Lantern."
"I'm just saying—" Guy starts, but you fix him with your best I-know-what-you're-doing look, the one you perfected in your teens when you babysat your little brothers and they tried, time after time, to sneak out and climb the fire escape.
"All right," he relents, "maybe she's got potential, but she's still on the waitlist."
You scoff.
"After last night? I'd say you're the one on probation, Guy."
Kendra makes a show of choking on her own laughter, wings rustling with cartoonish delight.
"What did he do?" she asks, all eager malice.
Tell them? Not a chance. You keep your reply slow and measured.
"Nothing," you say, but you know your face is doing that thing where it telegraphs the thing.
Guy pounces. Or rather, he makes a classic 'Guy move', popping the tab of the weird, off-brand energy drink you keep in the mini-fridge almost exclusively for its radioactive danger to human tastebuds.
"Nothing," Kendra mimics, but in a voice two octaves higher. "Guy, our girl shows up with three fresh bruises, one of them a perfect imprint of your jaw? Did you guys spar in a zero-g disco, or what?"
Guy, caught mid-swig, snorts the energy drink through his nose.
"Okay. Her story is, she tripped over a Roomba. My story is, she tripped me over a Roomba while I was—"
"—trying to demonstrate a hero walk," you finish, unable to stop the traitorous curve of your lips. "He kicked the Roomba into a wall and then blamed the wall."
It's like a swarm of sharks around a clownfish buffet now, and you're the fish—if the fish's only superpower is sarcasm and a D&D-level resistance to group pressure.
Mr. Terrific waggles a T-sphere at you, the lens focusing, whirring like a documentary crew at the world's dumbest nature preserve.
"We have the receipts, you know. The sensors flagged a collision event in the lounge at 03:21. Want to explain what you were both doing there?"
You hold up your hand in a mock oath.
"I was patching a firmware update on the T-spheres. Guy was, shockingly, bothering me in the name of teamwork."
Guy grunts. "And by bothering, she means ensuring the mission-critical security of our entire base."
"Which got a Roomba murdered in the crossfire," Kendra points out, idly picking nacho debris from her wings. "You're supposed to be the responsible one, Gardner."
Guy pivots, jabbing an accusatory finger at you.
"You're in no position to judge, not-girlfriend. I saw your workstation after, what is it—Tuesday? Wires everywhere, monitor half-melted, some kind of disgusting drink oozing into the cooling fans."
"That was water. And I work under realistic conditions," you say, and for effect, drag a cord from your pocket, the end wrapped in a cheerful washi tape featuring small lanterns and, pointedly, several owls. "It's called chaos theory, Guy. Look it up."
Kendra cracks a smile.
"I like her. She gets it. Sometimes I leave my feathers in the air ducts just to see how long it'll take maintenance to notice."
The storytelling god throws you a bone; Kendra's wrist comm lights up, and within ten seconds the room's banter shivers apart. Someone's abducted a biotech heiress in the Upper 80, and Hawkgirl and Mr. Terrific arm up with the kind of grim, pre-game focus you'll probably never get used to. They vanish in a chaos of wings, T-spheres, and banter—Kendra pilfering the chip bag as she leaves, Michael barking, "don't wait up", like he's just bailing on a dinner party, not flying into a meta-human hostage scenario.
Guy waits for the clatter of boots in the corridor to fade before letting his façade slip. He rakes a hand through his hair, and the green of his ring flickers low, suddenly sheepish.
"You know you're supposed to back me up in front of the bird and the brain, right?"
He says it as a joke, but you can see the twitch of uncertainty in the set of his jaw. Your mouth's already halfway to a retort when he leans across the table, hooks his hand around the back of your neck, and pulls you in.
Guy's taller than you, and broader, and probably has never slouched in his life. His tongue flicks over your lower lip, patient but insistent, and you snort into the kiss just to remind him who he's dealing with. That's when he goes from zero to nuclear—one hand sliding down your neck, the ring buzzing faintly against your carotid, the other jerked so deep into your hair you can feel every callus on his fingers. It isn't subtle, and it sure as hell isn't professional, but you've always loved an honest mess.
You break the kiss first, mostly because you have to breathe, and partly because you suspect Guy would just keep going until one of you forgot your own name. His eyes glint as he wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, then smirks like he's already seen tomorrow's headlines.
"Not bad for a guy who peaked in the eighth grade," you say, trying and failing to keep it light.
Your lips still buzz with the aftershock of how much he wanted it; you could practically taste the competitive streak, the sharp bite of artificial lime from the energy drink, and some deeper, hungrier thing beneath.
He pops upright, palms on the table, looming.
"Is that a challenge, techie? Because I could go again, and that time you won't be walking away," he says.
You roll your eyes, but your pulse jumps in your neck, traitorously loud.
"You kiss like you're trying to win a custody battle. You ever think about dialing it down to, I don't know, misdemeanor levels?"
He grins, taking the barb as a compliment.
"I leave the boring kisses to the D-list Lanterns. You get the A-game, sweetheart," he says.
He says 'sweetheart' the way most people say 'drop dead', and it's so perfectly, bafflingly Guy that instead of recoiling, you lean in, bracing your elbows on the scarred tabletop.
"Didn't your mom teach you not to insult a girl while you're making out with her?" you ask.
Guy tilts his head, mock-thoughtful.
"Nope. She said only to date people who hit back. You're the one who keeps up. Rest of the world just folds," he says.
He's right, in the worst possible way. You know you should drop it, get back to the mission logs or at least your tragic backlog of security patches, but Guy has anchored the room with that impossible, idiotic charisma. Even now, ring-hand drumming a cavalier tattoo on the table, he's so present you could trace his outline in the air.
"Get it out of your system," you say, eyeing the door to make sure Kendra or Michael aren't about to double back for a forgotten cell or sandwich. "I don't want you pouting through the next op because you didn't get to prove yourself."
He slouches in, impossibly close.
"You saying I need permission?" he asks.
You exhale heavily. "Guy—"
He cuts you off, not with words but with a low, growling chuckle that starts in his chest and vibrates out through the table.
"I want you, and you want me. I'm not gonna make it weird. I just want to see what happens if we drop all the shields for five minutes."
It would be easier if he didn't mean it. But he does, and you can't pretend otherwise. You half-expect him to pin you, but instead he lets his ring-hand hover, a breath away from your cheek, and waits for you to close the gap.
You do.
This time, you're the one to press forward, and he meets you in the middle, foreheads knocking. The kiss is messier and hotter, and you realize you're halfway to climbing over the table, hands braced for leverage, when Guy—damn him—lets out a sound that's one part satisfied growl, one part challenge. He opens for you, greedy and explicit, so your tongues slide and tangle, not in the way of romance but in the way of two people both convinced they could win an Olympic gold for kissing, if the Olympic committee ever got its collective shit together.
His mouth tastes like spearmint, and he says, against your lips, "better dig in, techie, or I'm gonna take you apart right here on this table."
Your insides drop and clench, because he's not the type to bluff.
And maybe it's the pressure of his hand on your skull or the heat rolling from his body, or maybe it's the fact that, for once, there's nobody in the lair but the two of you and eighteen different types of surveillance device—and you know how to blind every single one, you're not a rookie—but you surrender, just for a second, to being wanted this much. You thread your hands under his t-shirt, and you revel in the way his abdominals twitch under your fingers, as if you've lit a firecracker just beneath his skin.
It's during the third dangerous kiss—hands in unfamiliar territory, context vanishing fast—that you spot, in the upper left periphery, the careful shudder of a T-sphere camera blinking through its privacy mode. For one beautiful second you think it's just the old power surge on the fritz, but the tremble's algorithmic, a signature you could read in your sleep.
You break contact so violently you almost bite Guy's tongue, and he glares, wounded. But there's a red dot blinking now, the narrative's cruel little laugh. You point, and with your voice suddenly on loan from a mortified teenager, hiss.
"We're being watched."
Guy blinks upward. The color drains from his face so fast it almost goes infrared.
"Shit," he says. "Kendra's still logged in, isn't she."
You reach for a console, hacking the feed with a practiced flick. The screen above the fridge lights up with a VGA-resolution window where Hawkgirl and Mr. Terrific are both visible, Kendra's face split in a manic grin, Michael's brows forming a kind of existential parenthesis around his entire world-wearied face. Kendra's munching on popcorn—literal, you-didn't-know-the-lair-had-that popcorn—and Terrific's T-sphere flashes a ':o' emoji, cycling between shock and glee.
You don't scream, but you definitely consider it. Guy doesn't even bother putting space between you, just folds his arms as if issuing a challenge to the universe.
"You perverts," he shouts towards the feed.
Kendra blows him a kiss.
"You're welcome," she says. "This is better than daytime TV. We had bets on how long it would take."
Michael's T-sphere cycles to a ';-)' and he says, "technically, this is a violation of protocol. But if you two want to have an awkward relationship-defining talk, we can mute ourselves for the next, say, twenty minutes?"
You want the floor to open and swallow you. You want the entire lair to detonate, gently, and for your molecules to be reconstituted somewhere with less surveillance and fewer opinions.
Guy just laughs, and you feel it, the enormous release of shame, because if he can shrug about it, maybe so can you.
"You got your show," he says to the screen. "Now go save the city, or whatever it is people without game do."
Kendra's wings fluff in approval.
"Fine, but I expect a wedding invite," she says.
Terrific salutes you both, and the feed snips out, but not before you catch the timestamp. You've been at this for six minutes. Feels like a lifetime.
You slide down from the table, rediscovering your dignity somewhere near the floor tiles. Guy offers you a hand up, and doesn't let go even when you're upright. For a second, you almost say thank you. Then you remember who you are, and who he is, and you elbow him in the ribs instead, gentle but pointed.
"Nice going, Lantern. Now the entire Justice Gang knows we're a cliché," you say.
He gives you a look so tender it almost undoes you.
"We're only a cliché if it doesn't work out," he says, voice gruff at the edges and startlingly sincere in the middle.
"But I figure—hell, if Superman gets to date a civvie, why can't I?"