Work Text:
Sometimes being a part of the Justice League, famed superhero team known worldwide for preventing countless crisis on local, national, international, planetary and interplanetary scale was great.
Sometimes it was the worst idea Terry had ever had in their life.
Instead of doing something productive they were stuck. Sitting here in the Batcave. Listening to Warhawk or whoever the slag was speaking- well- speak. It was like being in class but worse because they’d been the one stupid enough to willingly sign up for this. It wasn’t like they had to. It wasn’t like they attended most of these things anyway. It wasn’t like Batman, as a part-timer, had much to add to the conversation of- what were they talking about now? Budget? They didn’t even use Justice League facilitates! This had no effect on them! And they already did way too much of this at Wayne Enterprises!
They drummed their fingers on the desk and stared at the screen, ignored the window where the meeting was displayed and willed an alarm to be tripped, an alert to be triggered, a parking meter to run out of time within the vicinity of Mad Stan so that something, anything would be urgent enough to pull them away from this meeting.
Suddenly inspiration struck. They bolted upright in their seat, clicking through the computer’s menus so that they could find the channel where-
“Batman?” Aquawoman asked. The video feed showed that the Leaguers had all turned to look at their sudden movement. “Is something wrong?”
“No, no I just remembered that I-” have a project due, a new lead on a case, an errand to run for Bruce, maybe. “-have a date.”
Or that.
“Oh, really?”
“Congratulations!”
“Are they hot?”
“Ignore Micron, what are you still doing here? Go have fun!”
Huh. That was surprisingly effective.
They logged off then turned to their phone, opened their DMs with Dana and sent a message.
‘Hey babe guess what???’
–
They were in another meeting. They’d actually had a reason to be in this meeting this time. There had been a topic they’d wanted to discuss. It had been discussed. Now they’d been sitting here for the past five minutes trying to think of an excuse to get out of the rest of this meeting.
Well, actually, they’d been trying to think of a new excuse.
They had an excuse. It was a fine excuse. It had worked, even. No questions asked. The problem was trying to figure out if they could get away with using it twice in a row.
They sat deep in thought for a minute more.
Then they decided to just screw it.
“Hey all, as much as I appreciate the riveting discussion of transportation logistics, it’s kinda cutting into the time I had set aside to get ready for my date, so…”
“Of course.”
“Go get ready!”
“Are they hot though?”
–
They were in a meeting. Another fragging meeting. Against their better judgment they had showed up and now they were stuck here.
Unless…
“Hey, so, funny coincidence but-”
“Bats, you still haven’t told me if they’re hot or not.”
“That hasn’t stopped you from making hot date jokes, Micron.”
“True, but-”
They hit ‘end call’.
–
The thing about team meetings was that as long as the team was a team, they would keep having meetings. This was unfortunate for Terry, because it meant that as long as they had meetings, they would keep inviting them to said meetings. And that meant that they kept having to find ways to decline or, heaven forbid, find a way to duck out when they made the mistake of attending.
In person debriefs, video call conferences, slag, even mostly social get togethers- list it and they wanted out. It wasn’t their fault that the most convenient and socially exploitable reasons to leave was-
“Sorry, I have a date.”
“Boy, would you look at the time! Colloquially known as date time in these parts, you know.”
“It’s date afternoon.”
“Afternoon?”
“You think I can manage date nights with this job?”
-until over the years it became something of an inside joke. Which was especially useful at times like now, when their attention had simply been caught by something on the other end of the cave, but the motion of starting to rise from their seat prompted the others to smile and ask, “Hot date?”
Terry smirked. “You know me,” and signed off.
They didn’t know what Bruce was always complaining about. This team stuff was easy.
–
The group watched as Batman’s video feed cut out.
“Thirty creds says they don't even have a partner,” Micron said.
“Forty creds says it’s a different partner each time,” Warhawk offered.
“Fifty creds says they’ve never had a partner and it’s all been a ruse,” Green Lantern said.
“Hey! Who taught you to gamble?”
“Nevermind that, children on Apokalips gambled with their lives all the time. Kal, you know the Bat. You also have super hearing. Have they actually been on any of their so-called dates?” Barda asked.
Superman tilted his head (a mock gesture. They all knew he didn’t need to do that to activate his power) and paused.
Then he smiled.
“No comment.”
His teammates groaned.
–
“Oh, by the way, Batman I just have one small question,” Micron piped up, with a grin that said he was fully aware of what he was invoking.
“Oh really? A question? You're gonna drag this out like this just to spite me? I don't even have anything to contribute to these meetings, but you're gonna insist I stay here to answer your question? I put all this time and effort into being Batman. It really makes it hard to schedule dates. And you're gonna deny me my chance to make sure I'm ready to go on time? Really? That’s the route you’re gonna take?” Batman replied, not even bothering to keep a straight face.
The others pretended not to laugh with varying success.
“It’s incredibly important, I swear, please-”
“Just let me log off SuperZoom already. This could've been an email."
Warhawk and Aquawoman were the first to break.
–
“Hey Batman, welcome-”
“How dare you. How fragging dare you. Schedule a meeting when you know I’m gonna have a date! The nerve! I can’t believe you people! Homewreckers, the lot of you!”
–
“Hey, kiddo. Just calling to make sure you remember you have monitor duty tonight at Metro Tower.”
“...Would you believe me if-”
“Terry, don't start.”
–
“Okay so, we have July and his family, Nora- your roommate from college, Peanut, Wei, Miss Shan, Ahmed from the front office because he deserves it… anyone else we should invite?” Terry called out to Dana as they did another scan of the wedding guest list.
“Uhh,” she set down the fabric sample she was fingering. Terry hadn’t even known boutiques would send fabric samples to people’s houses, but Bruce had insisted on setting the couple up with the best of the best. Even after these fifteen years of being exposed to this high-lev life it still weirded them out. “What about your coworkers? Do any of them know?”
Terry shook their head. “Just Mister Kal. All anyone else knows about is the Hot Date bit. I’m not sure it’s ever been confirmed whether I’m actually in a relationship or not and… please tell me you’re thinking what I’m thinking.”
“Are you thinking invite them to the wedding with no prior context-”
“-and make them feel bad about assuming it was just a bit this entire time? Yes! I love you so much, babe!”
“I love you too.”
–
“What the…”
“What?”
Rex Stewart, also known to the world as the formidable Warhawk, found a colorful piece of paper shoved under his nose by a red-gloved hand.
It read ‘SAVE THE HOT DATE’ in a bold white font that took up half of the bright yellow page. To the side of it was written ‘For Dana & Terry’s wedding party. March 22, 2054’ most troublingly, underneath that read ‘No, Rex, this isn’t a prank. Just ask Kal, he was at the engagement party and everything.’
“Who was this addressed to?” he asked his fellow hero and friend, Micron- known to him as Brady Touati- who was giving him a very solemn look.
“There’s one for all of us.”
“And who’s it from?”
“I think you know.”
“...F*ck.”