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seriousficTitle: Get Me To The Church On Time
Rating: PG
Characters/Pairings: Dick/Babs, Cass, Steph, Wally, Roy, Dinah, Helena, Bruce
Warning: None
Word Count: 2,170
Summary: On the eve of their wedding, Dick and Babs ponder the important questions with a little help from their friends.
Barbara wasn’t quite sure if this was her life.
Not being in a wheelchair, she’d made peace with that a long time ago. But the steady rise and fall of Dick’s surprisingly slender chest as he laid next to her at night, the way Tim would occasionally refer to her as “sis,” even the way Bruce had warmed up to her like she was Batgirl to his Dark Knight… it felt addictively right.
And best of all, she was sure, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that it was real. She could walk through her photographic memory with precise, measured steps, following the engagement from Dick’s slowly reawakened interest in her, to the skilled courtship, to the night he’d asked her to be his wife, the ring, the whirlwind of telling everyone the good news (in what many had come to think of as by far their strangest Oracle transmission by far), and sex. Lots of sex.
Now there was just the small matter of what Cass was doing in her bedroom.
“C… Batgirl. Trust me, he’s not a White Martian. I checked for distinctive marks and trust me, they’re all there.”
Batgirl cocked her head to the side, casting a confused glance at Dick’s naked torso before Barbara pulled the bedsheet over him possessively. Batgirl looked back at Barbara.
“Get dressed.”
“Why? Where are we going?”
“Shopping.”
***
Aside from a rather regrettable sugar high Dick had developed during wedding cake testing (“I LOVE THIS LADY!!!!” two-thirds of Gotham was now aware), the shopping had been altogether hassle-free. Dinah had volunteered the floral arrangements, the caterers were vouched for by Ted (“I asked Booster, he says they’re just about to go big. You’re going to get them before they turn into Starbucks.”), and Helena had been impressively supportive when Barbara confessed that she wanted a very white wedding dress.
(“It totally counts if you’ve only had sex with the guy you’re marrying… recently.”)
Maybe Barbara was just a tad bit innocent, but she’d never considered shopping for lingerie.
“Statistics show that a good sexual performance on the honeymoon yields a ninety percent return on the first year of marriage,” Steph said, in her Robin-y tone of I know what I’m talking about, I’m a sixteen-year-old blonde girl.
“Statistics, huh?”
“Yes. It’s all very scientific. Question it at your own peril.”
Cass held up a skimpy teddy, rubbing the gauzy translucency of the material between her fingers. “This clothing does not look very warm.” She held a plunge bra up to her chest. “I have been informed that exposing these body areas was inappropriate. The wires are good for self-defense, though.”
Barbara snatched it away from her. “I hardly think I’ll be defending myself from Dick on our honeymoon. Whose idea was it to bring her along?”
Steph handed the plunge bra back to Cass. “Try it on, Cass. Those B-cups need all the help they can get.”
Barbara glared at Steph as the other woman headed for the dressing room. “I thought we were shopping for me.”
“Don’t be selfish. We’re shopping for Dick.”
Suddenly there was a crash from the dressing room, followed by an invocation to the League of Assassins and some general kung-fu noises. By the time Barbara and Steph had gotten there, Cass was topless and her assailant had been strangled with her bra.
Cass turned to Barbara and informed her “My inappropriate body areas are exposed.”
Steph kicked the body. “Well. He died happy.”
“Very. Happy,” Barbara said.
Steph looked where Barbara was looking. “I heard that happened when you got strangled, but I never actually believed it.”
The assassin coughed.
“Oh, wait, he’s coming around!”
“Heaven… I was in heaven…”
***
The burger joint was eternal. It had done through a few names since the sixties, from Hal’s Happy Hippie Hang-Out, to Steve’s Slamming Seventies Swingers’ Club, to Dave’s Disco Den, to Happy Burgers, and finally to Burger-palooza.
Bizarrely, the owner’s name was Phil. And always had been.
The malts were just as good as Dick remembered and the burgers and fries were in big enough proportions to salve even Wally’s hunger, while tasty enough to satisfy Garth’s discriminating palate. Roy would eat anything, so the fact that he wasn’t eating off the floor made the place high dining.
“Two words,” Roy said, then held up a forefinger on each hand as he spoke: “Bachelor. Party.”
“Roy, you have a daughter. Wally, you’re married. Garth…” Dick looked closer at Garth. “I haven’t been keeping in touch with you, actually. Are you gay?”
“Dick, I was married!”
“Like that stops people from saying you’re gay,” Wally grumbled.
“Wally, is there anything you’re wearing that wasn’t designed by a man with a one-word name?” Roy asked.
“I like looking pretty. It’s not a crime.”
“We need to talk about strippers,” Roy said as he shoveled a chicken nugget coated in ketchup into his mouth.
“Do we? Do we really?”
“First off, will Batman be there? Because I can get Batman-quality strippers.”
“I don’t even want to think about what that would entail.”
“I do,” Wally said. “Catwoman. Just saying. Catwoman.”
“I know you think it’s all hilarious to discuss my father figure and mentor’s sexual proclivities in front of me…”
“You think we could find a stripper in little green short-shorts?” Garth asked.
“Dude!” Roy said.
“Not cool,” Wally said.
“Why do you have to go there?” Dick said.
“What, I thought we were… I mean…”
“You would not think it were so funny if you had to sit through Ollie Queen explaining the facts of life,” Roy said bitterly. “’Kiddo, some people are gonna think we go for each other, what with me being so hot and you being a nubile little kid. If any of them do, you tell me and I’ll shoot ‘em in the butt with an arrow. Now get to class.’”
“I got that talk,” Dick said.
“Hussy.”
“You guys think it’s funny to grouse about tuna,” Garth groused.
“STRIPPERS!” Roy announced in a commanding tone. “How many, how many, and how many?”
“I thought we were trying to settle if there were even going to be strippers,” said Dick.
“And it’s settled. Wally?”
“Aye.”
“Garth?”
“Aye.”
“I vote aye as well. Sorry, Dick, majority rules.”
“It’s my bachelor party!”
“You’re not gonna enjoy it, you’re getting married!”
“I can have a good time.”
“Babs,” Wally said.
Dick let loose a dreamy sigh.
“That boy, ah say, that boy is a fool for love,” Roy said in a pretty good twang.
“That was a pretty good twang,” Garth said.
“Thanks. I practice.”
“Dick, c’mon. Do you really think Barbara isn’t going to have a wild bachelorette party?”
***
“BOY STRIPPERS!” Helena announced in a commanding tone. “Barbara, this may be the most important question of your life. Themed strippers: Cops or superheroes?”
They were hanging around the Clocktower, in various degrees of not watching Deal Or Not Deal, while grinding coffee (Dinah), doing something incomprehensible on her laptop (Barbara), or thinking about boy strippers (Helena).
“No,” Barbara said in a tone that would be included in the next Merriam-Webster dictionary under the word ‘firm’.
“I think superheroes too. It’ll be ironic.”
“You don’t even know what that word means.”
“Well, if it were to rain on your wedding day…”
“Babs, let Helena have her boy strippers,” Dinah interrupted. “Can you find me a non-cheating Green Arrow stripper?”
“You mean Conner? For you, I’ll find two,” Helena promised.
“I don’t want superhero strippers!”
“Then what’s with all the plushies?” Helena asked, throwing one at Barbara’s head. Barbara dodged, Matrix-style. “C’mon. Indulge your fetish for ordering around pretty men in skintight spandex. Once you marry Dick, you won’t be able to do that… to more than one guy. And speaking of plushies, have you considered upgrading for the new millennium with…” Helena reached into her purse and came up with a plastic, six-inch version of herself in costume, “action figures!”
“Are those anatomically correct?” Barbara asked suspiciously.
“Look, I’m poseable! On top, on bottom, sort of a globe…”
“Is there really a market for people who want to enact sex scenes with toys?” Dinah wanted to know.
“Why don’t you ask Mini-Canary?”
Helena handed the Black Canary action figure to Dinah, who promptly removed its pants.
“Heh. They think I’m a natural blonde. Tools.”
***
Later, there was a bachelorette party.
“Shake what your mother gave you!” Helena ordered as she stuffed a twenty into Bat-stripper’s utility belt.
“I touched my mother’s breast. It bled on me,” said Bat-stripper, who was in actuality more along the lines of Batman. He resumed his search for Barbara, passing Mr. Miracle as he escaped from his clothes.
Scott Free always loved being the center of attention, and being the center of attention while in the middle of a room full of women also seemed nice.
“Say, is that a Mega-Rod in his pocket or is he just…”
“Mine,” Big Barda said, cutting Dinah off at the pass.
At long last, Batman found Barbara, born aloft on a sedan chair of (stripper) Robins. One might be forgiven for thinking that her next words would be “Look upon my works, ye mighty, and despair!” instead of a hastily contrived excuse for someone (who was definitely not Bruce Wayne) to be seeking her out at a bachelorette party. She did have the courtesy to look mildly abashed as the strippers dropped her off somewhere she could talk with Bruce in private.
“Dick’s been arrested at his bachelor party. Your father was the arresting officer.”
***
Really, Barbara had expected something like this. In fact, she found it commendable that Commissioner Gordon had restrained himself for so long before derailing her plan to marry (by turn) a lay-about, rogue policeman, male model, and (as conventional wisdom would have it) emotionally stunted man-child. Therefore, she resolved to leave him the use of his testicles. Fortunately for Barbara’s chances of ever having a younger sibling, Batman talked her into a merely verbal confrontation. Shame-faced, Gordon ordered the entire bachelor party released from their cells. Just in time, too, as Connor Hawke was jailed with a quite amorous biker character.
The positivism of this was somewhat marred by Kory, who had deigned to dress not in different articles of clothing but in different flavors of dessert toppings, leaping into Dick’s arms.
“I was unable to call your lawyer,” Kory said, oblivious to Dick’s polite attempts to cease and desist all bodily contact. “However, I see things have worked out quite well despite all that!”
“Yes. They have. Haven’t they,” Barbara said, with the cadence of an atomic bomb about to explode.
Roy stepped forward, managing to remain upright while falling on his sword. “It was my idea, Barbara. Dick had nothing to do with it. But come on, it’s his last night of freedom! If that doesn’t call for a striptease from a nymphomaniac ex-girlfriend, I don’t know what does.”
“I am not a nymphomaniac!” Kory paused while Dick whispered what a nymphomaniac was into her ear. “Okay, not clinically a nymphomaniac. I’ll grant you that it could be hard to tell the difference.”
Barbara was staring intently at Roy, who was beginning to understand how a canary might feel under the watchful gaze of a cat. A really, really angry cat… with a chainsaw.
“Oh, what are you gonna do, download a virus onto my internets? I don’t even own a computer!” Roy screamed.
“Me? I’m not going to do anything.” Barbara held out a cell-phone. “But I told Lian here allllllll about what you did before Uncle Dick and Aunt Barbara’s wedding.”
Roy looked at the cell-phone as if it might suddenly explode. “You are the devil,” he said to Barbara, who nodded.
***
“We should’ve eloped,” Dick said at long last as they laid in bed, Barbara doing further incomprehensible stuff on her laptop.
“I don’t think so. I kinda like all the mini-disasters. They make it seem real.”
“Easy for you to say. You didn’t get thrown in jail.”
“I talked to daddy and I’m 99% sure he won’t do it again.”
Dick rolled over and shut Barbara’s laptop. “You really want to go through with this?”
“Of course I do! You could get a thousand lapdances from a thousand not-clinical nymphomaniacs and I’d still want to marry you… but don’t test that theory.”
He kissed her cheek. “I won’t. But I really do like hearing you it. Not the lapdance thing, before that.”
She set her laptop aside. “Yes, I will marry you,” Barbara said, just before rolling on top of him. “By the way, Stephanie wants to be flower girl and she’s demanding Tim be ring-bearer.”
“She can fight Lian for the job.”
Barbara chuckled. “Honey, don’t take this the wrong way, but I cannot wait until our wedding is over and done with.”
“Would that be when the honeymoon is? Because if so…” Dick waggled his eyebrows, “neither can I.”
“Who said you had to?”
Rating: PG
Characters/Pairings: Dick/Babs, Cass, Steph, Wally, Roy, Dinah, Helena, Bruce
Warning: None
Word Count: 2,170
Summary: On the eve of their wedding, Dick and Babs ponder the important questions with a little help from their friends.
Barbara wasn’t quite sure if this was her life.
Not being in a wheelchair, she’d made peace with that a long time ago. But the steady rise and fall of Dick’s surprisingly slender chest as he laid next to her at night, the way Tim would occasionally refer to her as “sis,” even the way Bruce had warmed up to her like she was Batgirl to his Dark Knight… it felt addictively right.
And best of all, she was sure, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that it was real. She could walk through her photographic memory with precise, measured steps, following the engagement from Dick’s slowly reawakened interest in her, to the skilled courtship, to the night he’d asked her to be his wife, the ring, the whirlwind of telling everyone the good news (in what many had come to think of as by far their strangest Oracle transmission by far), and sex. Lots of sex.
Now there was just the small matter of what Cass was doing in her bedroom.
“C… Batgirl. Trust me, he’s not a White Martian. I checked for distinctive marks and trust me, they’re all there.”
Batgirl cocked her head to the side, casting a confused glance at Dick’s naked torso before Barbara pulled the bedsheet over him possessively. Batgirl looked back at Barbara.
“Get dressed.”
“Why? Where are we going?”
“Shopping.”
***
Aside from a rather regrettable sugar high Dick had developed during wedding cake testing (“I LOVE THIS LADY!!!!” two-thirds of Gotham was now aware), the shopping had been altogether hassle-free. Dinah had volunteered the floral arrangements, the caterers were vouched for by Ted (“I asked Booster, he says they’re just about to go big. You’re going to get them before they turn into Starbucks.”), and Helena had been impressively supportive when Barbara confessed that she wanted a very white wedding dress.
(“It totally counts if you’ve only had sex with the guy you’re marrying… recently.”)
Maybe Barbara was just a tad bit innocent, but she’d never considered shopping for lingerie.
“Statistics show that a good sexual performance on the honeymoon yields a ninety percent return on the first year of marriage,” Steph said, in her Robin-y tone of I know what I’m talking about, I’m a sixteen-year-old blonde girl.
“Statistics, huh?”
“Yes. It’s all very scientific. Question it at your own peril.”
Cass held up a skimpy teddy, rubbing the gauzy translucency of the material between her fingers. “This clothing does not look very warm.” She held a plunge bra up to her chest. “I have been informed that exposing these body areas was inappropriate. The wires are good for self-defense, though.”
Barbara snatched it away from her. “I hardly think I’ll be defending myself from Dick on our honeymoon. Whose idea was it to bring her along?”
Steph handed the plunge bra back to Cass. “Try it on, Cass. Those B-cups need all the help they can get.”
Barbara glared at Steph as the other woman headed for the dressing room. “I thought we were shopping for me.”
“Don’t be selfish. We’re shopping for Dick.”
Suddenly there was a crash from the dressing room, followed by an invocation to the League of Assassins and some general kung-fu noises. By the time Barbara and Steph had gotten there, Cass was topless and her assailant had been strangled with her bra.
Cass turned to Barbara and informed her “My inappropriate body areas are exposed.”
Steph kicked the body. “Well. He died happy.”
“Very. Happy,” Barbara said.
Steph looked where Barbara was looking. “I heard that happened when you got strangled, but I never actually believed it.”
The assassin coughed.
“Oh, wait, he’s coming around!”
“Heaven… I was in heaven…”
***
The burger joint was eternal. It had done through a few names since the sixties, from Hal’s Happy Hippie Hang-Out, to Steve’s Slamming Seventies Swingers’ Club, to Dave’s Disco Den, to Happy Burgers, and finally to Burger-palooza.
Bizarrely, the owner’s name was Phil. And always had been.
The malts were just as good as Dick remembered and the burgers and fries were in big enough proportions to salve even Wally’s hunger, while tasty enough to satisfy Garth’s discriminating palate. Roy would eat anything, so the fact that he wasn’t eating off the floor made the place high dining.
“Two words,” Roy said, then held up a forefinger on each hand as he spoke: “Bachelor. Party.”
“Roy, you have a daughter. Wally, you’re married. Garth…” Dick looked closer at Garth. “I haven’t been keeping in touch with you, actually. Are you gay?”
“Dick, I was married!”
“Like that stops people from saying you’re gay,” Wally grumbled.
“Wally, is there anything you’re wearing that wasn’t designed by a man with a one-word name?” Roy asked.
“I like looking pretty. It’s not a crime.”
“We need to talk about strippers,” Roy said as he shoveled a chicken nugget coated in ketchup into his mouth.
“Do we? Do we really?”
“First off, will Batman be there? Because I can get Batman-quality strippers.”
“I don’t even want to think about what that would entail.”
“I do,” Wally said. “Catwoman. Just saying. Catwoman.”
“I know you think it’s all hilarious to discuss my father figure and mentor’s sexual proclivities in front of me…”
“You think we could find a stripper in little green short-shorts?” Garth asked.
“Dude!” Roy said.
“Not cool,” Wally said.
“Why do you have to go there?” Dick said.
“What, I thought we were… I mean…”
“You would not think it were so funny if you had to sit through Ollie Queen explaining the facts of life,” Roy said bitterly. “’Kiddo, some people are gonna think we go for each other, what with me being so hot and you being a nubile little kid. If any of them do, you tell me and I’ll shoot ‘em in the butt with an arrow. Now get to class.’”
“I got that talk,” Dick said.
“Hussy.”
“You guys think it’s funny to grouse about tuna,” Garth groused.
“STRIPPERS!” Roy announced in a commanding tone. “How many, how many, and how many?”
“I thought we were trying to settle if there were even going to be strippers,” said Dick.
“And it’s settled. Wally?”
“Aye.”
“Garth?”
“Aye.”
“I vote aye as well. Sorry, Dick, majority rules.”
“It’s my bachelor party!”
“You’re not gonna enjoy it, you’re getting married!”
“I can have a good time.”
“Babs,” Wally said.
Dick let loose a dreamy sigh.
“That boy, ah say, that boy is a fool for love,” Roy said in a pretty good twang.
“That was a pretty good twang,” Garth said.
“Thanks. I practice.”
“Dick, c’mon. Do you really think Barbara isn’t going to have a wild bachelorette party?”
***
“BOY STRIPPERS!” Helena announced in a commanding tone. “Barbara, this may be the most important question of your life. Themed strippers: Cops or superheroes?”
They were hanging around the Clocktower, in various degrees of not watching Deal Or Not Deal, while grinding coffee (Dinah), doing something incomprehensible on her laptop (Barbara), or thinking about boy strippers (Helena).
“No,” Barbara said in a tone that would be included in the next Merriam-Webster dictionary under the word ‘firm’.
“I think superheroes too. It’ll be ironic.”
“You don’t even know what that word means.”
“Well, if it were to rain on your wedding day…”
“Babs, let Helena have her boy strippers,” Dinah interrupted. “Can you find me a non-cheating Green Arrow stripper?”
“You mean Conner? For you, I’ll find two,” Helena promised.
“I don’t want superhero strippers!”
“Then what’s with all the plushies?” Helena asked, throwing one at Barbara’s head. Barbara dodged, Matrix-style. “C’mon. Indulge your fetish for ordering around pretty men in skintight spandex. Once you marry Dick, you won’t be able to do that… to more than one guy. And speaking of plushies, have you considered upgrading for the new millennium with…” Helena reached into her purse and came up with a plastic, six-inch version of herself in costume, “action figures!”
“Are those anatomically correct?” Barbara asked suspiciously.
“Look, I’m poseable! On top, on bottom, sort of a globe…”
“Is there really a market for people who want to enact sex scenes with toys?” Dinah wanted to know.
“Why don’t you ask Mini-Canary?”
Helena handed the Black Canary action figure to Dinah, who promptly removed its pants.
“Heh. They think I’m a natural blonde. Tools.”
***
Later, there was a bachelorette party.
“Shake what your mother gave you!” Helena ordered as she stuffed a twenty into Bat-stripper’s utility belt.
“I touched my mother’s breast. It bled on me,” said Bat-stripper, who was in actuality more along the lines of Batman. He resumed his search for Barbara, passing Mr. Miracle as he escaped from his clothes.
Scott Free always loved being the center of attention, and being the center of attention while in the middle of a room full of women also seemed nice.
“Say, is that a Mega-Rod in his pocket or is he just…”
“Mine,” Big Barda said, cutting Dinah off at the pass.
At long last, Batman found Barbara, born aloft on a sedan chair of (stripper) Robins. One might be forgiven for thinking that her next words would be “Look upon my works, ye mighty, and despair!” instead of a hastily contrived excuse for someone (who was definitely not Bruce Wayne) to be seeking her out at a bachelorette party. She did have the courtesy to look mildly abashed as the strippers dropped her off somewhere she could talk with Bruce in private.
“Dick’s been arrested at his bachelor party. Your father was the arresting officer.”
***
Really, Barbara had expected something like this. In fact, she found it commendable that Commissioner Gordon had restrained himself for so long before derailing her plan to marry (by turn) a lay-about, rogue policeman, male model, and (as conventional wisdom would have it) emotionally stunted man-child. Therefore, she resolved to leave him the use of his testicles. Fortunately for Barbara’s chances of ever having a younger sibling, Batman talked her into a merely verbal confrontation. Shame-faced, Gordon ordered the entire bachelor party released from their cells. Just in time, too, as Connor Hawke was jailed with a quite amorous biker character.
The positivism of this was somewhat marred by Kory, who had deigned to dress not in different articles of clothing but in different flavors of dessert toppings, leaping into Dick’s arms.
“I was unable to call your lawyer,” Kory said, oblivious to Dick’s polite attempts to cease and desist all bodily contact. “However, I see things have worked out quite well despite all that!”
“Yes. They have. Haven’t they,” Barbara said, with the cadence of an atomic bomb about to explode.
Roy stepped forward, managing to remain upright while falling on his sword. “It was my idea, Barbara. Dick had nothing to do with it. But come on, it’s his last night of freedom! If that doesn’t call for a striptease from a nymphomaniac ex-girlfriend, I don’t know what does.”
“I am not a nymphomaniac!” Kory paused while Dick whispered what a nymphomaniac was into her ear. “Okay, not clinically a nymphomaniac. I’ll grant you that it could be hard to tell the difference.”
Barbara was staring intently at Roy, who was beginning to understand how a canary might feel under the watchful gaze of a cat. A really, really angry cat… with a chainsaw.
“Oh, what are you gonna do, download a virus onto my internets? I don’t even own a computer!” Roy screamed.
“Me? I’m not going to do anything.” Barbara held out a cell-phone. “But I told Lian here allllllll about what you did before Uncle Dick and Aunt Barbara’s wedding.”
Roy looked at the cell-phone as if it might suddenly explode. “You are the devil,” he said to Barbara, who nodded.
***
“We should’ve eloped,” Dick said at long last as they laid in bed, Barbara doing further incomprehensible stuff on her laptop.
“I don’t think so. I kinda like all the mini-disasters. They make it seem real.”
“Easy for you to say. You didn’t get thrown in jail.”
“I talked to daddy and I’m 99% sure he won’t do it again.”
Dick rolled over and shut Barbara’s laptop. “You really want to go through with this?”
“Of course I do! You could get a thousand lapdances from a thousand not-clinical nymphomaniacs and I’d still want to marry you… but don’t test that theory.”
He kissed her cheek. “I won’t. But I really do like hearing you it. Not the lapdance thing, before that.”
She set her laptop aside. “Yes, I will marry you,” Barbara said, just before rolling on top of him. “By the way, Stephanie wants to be flower girl and she’s demanding Tim be ring-bearer.”
“She can fight Lian for the job.”
Barbara chuckled. “Honey, don’t take this the wrong way, but I cannot wait until our wedding is over and done with.”
“Would that be when the honeymoon is? Because if so…” Dick waggled his eyebrows, “neither can I.”
“Who said you had to?”
