The TSATS easter egg was; Jess, the gossip writer Cleo kicked out of the conference, is the same Jess from Juice With Jess, a tv segment that likes to take aim at Jason and Venus!

This chapter is probably my favourite so far.

◊◊

He sighs heavily, then he's leaning over the car centre to kiss me.

Uh. 

I eagerly kiss back, probably looking a little too thirsty with my hands going straight to his face. His arm curls around my shoulders. 

I draw back, "That is not an ans-"

"I missed you." He's short of breath, but keeps talking, "I wanted to kiss you the moment I saw you, I swear, but Damian and Bruce and Babs were there and I knew they'd make assumptions and ask questions. I just wanted it to be simple, like this."

He goes back to kissing me. I nearly get lost in it before I remember how angry I was.

"Wait," I push him back. He looks confused, "You were acting weird and silent on the way here because of that?" 

"Yeah?"

"You are literally a dick- I thought you were pissed at me or something!"

"I couldn't kiss you while you were driving!"

"No but you could have said you were going to and that you missed me!"

Before he can respond I pull him back in, kissing him harder. I pretty much drag him over me and pin myself to the driver door. I did not realise how much I missed this. I tangle my hands in his hair, his hands slide up my back underneath my shirt.

He moves down to my neck, kissing rather than the usual love bites.

"I missed you too," I mumble.

It feels unbelievably good to have him close again. The way he smells, tastes, the sound of his voice speaking lowly into my skin, the movement of taught muscles beneath my hands- which I can't keep off him.

Judging by the way he clutches at me, digs his fingers into my skin and can't resist moving up to my ear to whisper sweet things, he's as lost in me as I am in him.

"Thought about you every second," he says at one point. It's so intense, too much, too much for just an arranged marriage- and so perfect.

In that moment, without a drop of alcohol or loss of inhibition, I feel like baring everything to him. He stops, a moment of stillness, and smiles. I must look as messy as he does, hair all over the place and clothes crumpled and crease. With a gentle touch he brushes some of my hair to the side.

"Amazing," he murmurs. Even in the dim I can see those crystalline eyes mapping out my face. I reach up and hold the hand by my head and smile back. For that moment, all I see is him.

Eventually, I let go, and he slides his hand up my back and raises me, tugging off my blazer with my help. He practically tears open my shirt and does away with that as well.

"You were amazing up there," He says, shuffling back over to the passenger side. I kick my heels off into his lap and he places them in front of the seat. "Not just beautiful-" My slacks join my shoes and he looms back over me, "Powerful."

I don't know what to say to that, so I lean up and kiss him hard. I can't get my arms around him the way I want. I want to push his jacket off his shoulders so that I can get at his skin properly.

"Fuck I wish we were in my car," I whisper against his lips. He smiles, sitting up to take the jacket off himself. "Don't steal my job," I complain.

He grins and ignores the last comment, "Why your car? Not willing to do this in Mai's?"

Before he can get his hands on his button down, I reach up and pull him back in, "No, stupid," I say, "Because my car has more room." I undo them messily, aching to see those glistening muscles. With the insane heat of the car right now they'll be shining. "You think I'm stopping now just because it's her car? No way," when I finally have all the buttons undone I shove it over his shoulders, lean up to his ear and whisper, "I want you."  Too far gone.

Within the next few seconds I'm laughing, almost evilly as he lays me down across the back seat. My head hit the roof of the car and one of my legs got caught on the front seat, but we get there thanks to my enthusiasm and his instantaneous reaction to it.

Finally his shirt is off.

"Your wish is my command," He grins, leaning back to undo his belt. I bite my lip, running my hands over his abs, not shifting my eyes from his.

Something feels like it should be said in that moment, in the dark of the carpark beneath our apartment building. The car is steaming, moving in a way that would make its owner cringe, being defiled, or perhaps blessed, by something that feels...extraordinary.

◊

◊

"He looks like he's going to shit his pants."

Ethan rolls his eyes and elbows Demitri hard. The older brother winces, caving into Fantasia behind him.

"Get your ass off me," she complains. She steps aside and Demitri falls to the ground. 

They continue to watch their father scream down the phone in a rage and storm around his glass-walled office. His secretary is mysteriously on a break, so he is unaware of the children observing him from around the corner.

"The company took a big hit from this," Ethan says, "He didn't expect it to be a business so close to us."

"You're assuming he's already a suspected dealer. Did Cleo find anything damming?" Fantasia asks.

"I don't know, haven't heard from her yet. I'm sure she'll let us know if she finds anything implementing him. Either way the company will survive. If he's taken in as the culprit then the Wayne's will come to the rescue."

Alan hangs up, slamming his hands on his desk and leaning over it, huffing and puffing.

"What about Cleo?" Demitri asks, grasping Fantasia's fur coat- much to her anger -and dragging himself up.

"What about her?" Ethan responds.

"If she keeps building this strong image like she had at the Wayne conference, she might be enough to keep our investors and the stock market happy. Then we won't need the Waynes."

Ethan shrugs, "It's Cleo. We can never tell what she's going to do until it happens. It'd help if she kept us in the loop now and then instead of sending one sentence messages once a week."

"Pfft, you just miss her," Demitri snorts.

"You do too, asshole."

"Wanna' hug it out?"

Before Ethan can escape, Demitri wraps his arms around his little brother's head and proceeds to mash his knuckles into his scalp. Fantasia rolls her eyes and sighs over their grunting.

"Isn't she beautiful?" 

Their mother, Brittany, walks into the office with her eyes glued to her tablet. Logan, Ignatier, Klover and Jeremy walk in behind her.

"My baby looks so radiant," she turns the screen around and shows them the video of Cleo addressing the public.

"We know mom," Fantasia rolls her eyes.

Demitri finally lets Ethan go, behaving in the presence of their mother.

"How is she your baby?"

"You're all my babies," she winks at her second eldest daughter, reaching out and brushing her jaw with a finger. "Is your father done throwing his tantrum yet?"

Everyone turns around to see Alan collapsed in his chair with a glass in his hand. Brittany takes in the scene silently and notices he is drinking his more expensive scotch, a sign she has come to know as grave.

Her tone shifts, "All of you go and sit in Cleo's office. Now."

"What?" Demitri complains, "We're not-"

"I said now!" 

The change in her exterior is frightening. Her usual graceful smile disappears from her face, replaced by something stoney.

She pushes them towards the door and everyone, including the older siblings do as they are told, dumbfounded by this rare side of their usually calm mother. 

Brittany marches into her husband's office with purpose.

◊

◊

When Dick wakes up, he's more comfortable than he's ever been. The bed feels softer, the blankets warmer. The room isn't too bright or dark and he doesn't feel the messy haze of waking up, but rather an ebbing consciousness.

The weight on his arm is the best thing. He looks down at Cleo, whose head and hand both rest on his outstretched bicep.

He kisses the top of her head with a smile.

Barbara's words echo in his head, "You're in pretty deep huh?"

He pushes it out of his mind, focusing instead on getting up without disturbing Cleo. He lifts her head gently with his other hand and pull his numb limb out. Cleo frowns, buries her face into her pillow, but stays asleep. Dick smiles.

In the shower, he can't help but reminisce. In April they were apprehensive of each other, suspicious and detached. In May they were tolerant, using each other, trying not to settle. And now...

Now he's wondering when Cleo is going to wake up, hear him in the shower and join him. Knowing the author it's exactly what's going to happen.

It feels exponentially different. When they first slept together, drunk and in Paris, it wasn't meaningful. It was just a bodily reaction. Two attractive people without inhibition and void of argument.

Another time that stands out is when Cleo used sex with him to distract herself from whatever horrors she was mentally reliving. He didn't mind that, didn't mind undressing her on her desk, knocking things onto the floor every time he moved.

When they had dinner at the manor with the Merrybrooks and the O'hares, he saw a fiercer side of her, one that saved Tim from ridicule and prevented Damian from exploding when Merrybrook suggested he marry his daughter.

That time, it was lust. He was instantly drawn to the real side of her that cared about what was right, that cared about people. She wasn't putting up a dismissive or cynical façade. When they got home from that dinner, laughing, and she wrapped her arms around him and they kissed, it was desire.

Last night felt like 'the big one'. Neither of them were drunk. No one was trying to escape a nightmare. They hadn't been building up to it over a few days.

They had been apart and missed each other.

Even though he had found out she was engaged, the moment he saw her it all left his head. The only realistic cell left in his brain reminded him to keep it together for the sake of their onlookers. Rather than a short-lived reunion that will be inevitably brought down by his family's observation, something secluded suited them much better.

He smiles at the memory.

It was uncomfortable now that he thinks about it, hunched across the front of the car, trying not to crush her, taking their clothes off. When they were holding hands in that brief moment of tenderness, he felt something he hadn't in a long time- or maybe ever. It didn't decrease- if anything, it increased -when the sweet moment turned sultry and she straight up told him she wanted him. He knew she did and she knew he wanted her just as much, but hearing it is a whole new feeling he can't wait to explore.

Especially if things are always going to be so extraordinary. He closes his eyes.

In the back seat her hands are on his face, holding him close as they move in sync, their gasps and sounds creating their own unique harmony. The lack of space, the possibility of being seen, the fact that it was Mai's car, the tiny this is dangerous voice in his head, got smaller and smaller the more he pressed his head to hers and held tighter.

After, when the heat of the car should have been suffocating and their skin unpleasantly damp, it just wasn't, as he lay his tired head on her heaving chest and shut his eyes. They didn't move until he could be bothered to make a titanic handprint joke about the fogged windows, which earned him a playful flick to the head. The compose themselves and get up to the apartment.

Things were not any calmer when they got there. It just heated up again, a result they were both aiming for, it seemed.

Dick's hands fall over his face under the water. It all feels so overwhelmingly emotional, even recalling it makes him wish she was next to him even though she's just on the other side of the wall.

Without turning the shower off, he pushes open the glass door, walks across the bathroom and opens the door to the bedroom.

Cleo is sitting up with the sheet covering her, rubbing her eyes, "The shower pipes are so loud. You woke me u-"

When she sees him, dripping wet on the carpet without a towel, she snorts.

"You're an idiot."

"Come have a shower with me?" He asks, though it doesn't quite come off as sexy as intended. More like a plea.

"As nice as that sounds," she points to herself, "tired."

"Nothing like a shower to wake you up," he responds, but she ignores him and lies back down, pulling the sheet over her head.

Without much more of a choice, Dick decides to be playful. He confidently walks through the room towards the bed, the padding of his feet on the carpet alerting Cleo of his approach immediately.

"Dick, I swear to God-"

"What?' I'm just getting back in bed with you."

Cleo tries to escape but Dick is already flying onto the bed. He wraps his arms around her, getting the blankets and his wife wet as they both laugh, though Cleo is also shrieking at the rude awakening while Dick is struggling to hold onto her. 

She hits him with pillows and kicks, suppressing her powers so she doesn't hurt him. Dick bows his head and shakes it, spraying water everywhere and grossing Cleo out enough to rocket herself onto the floor with a thud. The sheets land on top of her.

"You're so childish," she complains, grabbing one of the pillows and throwing it at him. Dick deflects it mid laugh. Even though she has been rudely dragged out of bed, Cleo can't help but chuckle back.

Dick is too busy smiling and watching her try to flick her hair out of the way to notice anything happening around him for a moment.

So neither he, nor Cleo, notice Tim and Jason appear at the bedroom door they forgot to close after they stumbled in the previous night. Their laughing had masked the ding of the elevator. It does not, however, mask the sound of Mai arriving.

When the elevator rings again, Dick's head snaps up to see Tim and Jason staring at him with wide-eyed shock.

Naked, frozen, on a bed with nothing to cover himself since everything is covering up Cleo who is just a still as he is, all of Dick's body, including his name sake and other assets are on full display.

"What the fuck did you do in the backseat of my ca- AAAH!" 

Mai had rounded a still-stunned Jason and entered the scene, immediately screaming at what she is met with. It launches everyone into action- Dick falls backwards off the bed, hiding behind it just as Jason slams the door shut, once Mai had stumbled out looking ill.

The doctor can still be heard screaming, which is very unlike her.

Dick is as red as he has ever been. Sure, they shower together, but he was on full display- practically posing! He'll never live this down. It will never end. Jason and Tim will tell everyone- Bruce, Damian, Duke, Cass, Steph, Alfred, Babs, Roy, Wally- he'll have to move and change his name, dye his hair, get plastic surgery!

His panic simmers when he hears a quiet giggling from his left. He lowers his head so that he can see under the bed. Across it, the floor on the other side, Cleo is covering her eyes and trying to contain her laughter. 

It causes his chest to jump and for some reason, he starts laughing too.

"It's my car now," she manages to say, which only makes them both laugh harder.

Another one of their unique harmonies.