DISCLAIMER: The Justice League of America
characters are the property of DC Comics. The story contents are the creation and
property of Djinn and are copyright (c) 2006 by Djinn. This story is Rated R.
Lament of the Meta
by Djinn
"This is it?" Diana
threw the last issue of her comic book at the couch, where Bruce and Kal were
watching Wild Things. Again.
"Yeah, pretty stupid way
to go out, huh?" Bruce glanced over at her, then back at the set. "You
think those lips are real, Clark?"
"They're pretty
consistent. That's the key."
"Can't you use your
super pervo-vision and see?"
"Bruce, it's on film. It's
not a real person. If I look past the image, I'll be staring at the TV's
innards."
"Oh. Right."
"Hey!" Diana said,
lobbing some of their titles at them since she only had the one. "The
focus is on me, fellas."
"But this movie has
girl-on-girl stuff, hon'." Bruce took one look at her face and turned off
the TV. "Don't worry," he whispered to Kal, but she heard him anyway,
"I'm TIVOing it."
Bruce
was getting generous with the gizmos and gadgets. The outside world was too
crazy, so he was making their inner world fun. Although Diana was having less
fun than the boys were.
"Will
I still be here if they kill me off?" She began to pace. "Will I even
matter?"
They
didn't answer.
"Do
I matter now?"
"You
matter to us, baby." Kal held his arms open.
She
ignored him. "But to anyone that counts. Do I matter to them?"
"I
think we count as people you should matter to," Bruce said.
Kal
nodded, a peeved look on his face, as he said, "We could be watching Neve
and Denise, my friend. I'm just saying."
"Damn
it, you two. Listen to me. This is a travesty."
They
both sat back, sighing with identical sighs, arms crossing in a way that would
make the U.S. synchronized swimming team envious. Bruce and Kal
looked like they'd heard this all before because they had—she knew she'd been
going on and on and on.
"I'm
a broken record, aren't I?" She walked over and picked up the last issue. "They've
been assassinating me for months. Why should I be surprised?"
"I
just don't understand why they had to go and put Clark in it like they did. And
then leave him out at the end."
"Because,"
a new voice said from the door, "they don't want to have him make a
choice. They just like to tease." Lois walked in, dressed in head-to-toe
black leather. The jacket was unzipped enough to show she had a red, push-up
bra on underneath. And nothing else.
"Mrrroooww," Bruce said, smiling at her. "Holy
God, you look hot."
"Ooh,
that's my wife. See my wife all in leather?" Clark grinned at her. "Cheer
Diana up, Lois, will you? She's down in the dumps."
Diana
thought Kal looked concerned about her, until she realized he was making subtle
hand signals at Bruce that had to mean he wanted him to turn the TV back on.
"Wild
Things?" Lois asked Diana.
"Wild
Things." Diana handed her the comic. "Did you see this?"
"Yeah.
You are so toast." Lois looked bitchily pleased. Then she put it down on
the table, and pulled Diana close. "You're still the only superheroine for
me, toots." She kissed Diana, the black leather shifting softly, the
silver zipper pull tapping against golden armor.
"Hey!
We've got our own girl-on-girl action happening here," Bruce said, and
Diana heard the sound of a human elbow hitting Kryptonian ribs.
Lois
pulled away. "What's the idea putting my man in your book, though?"
"Like
he mattered," Diana said.
"You
know it boosts ratings," Lois said.
"Except
for those who want her with me," Bruce pointed out, his mouth turning up
smugly.
"Actually,"
Kal said, "they buy those ones, too, 'cause they want to make sure I don't
steal her away from you."
"As
if," Bruce said, the perfect little valley boy. "No way you could
steal her away from me."
"No
way you'd care if he did. You're more interested in gizmos than me," Diana
said. Then she smiled, remembering her little pink rabbit. There were times
when she was more interested in gizmos than in them.
Lois
had a satisfied smile on her face—she'd apparently gone to a nice sex-toy
place, too.
"Not
like Bruce isn't getting the action," Kal said. "Selina.
Sasha."
"You
see the problem?" Lois winked at her. "If you were Siana, you'd do much better."
"Funny."
Diana sighed. "I think they're going to kill me."
"They're
not going to kill you. You have a movie coming out." Lois walked over to Kal, letting him pull her into his lap.
"We've
tried that one, cupcake." Kal nuzzled her neck. "The
logic train doesn't end up where you think it will."
"The
Whedon factor," Bruce said, nodding sagely,
valley boy giving way to the great detective. Until he began to search the
couch. "Where's the damned remote?" A few seconds later, he found it
pushed down between the cushion and the side of the couch. He dug it out and
set it on the side table.
Diana
stared at him for a moment, vision going all fuzzy as she considered her
options.
"Hon?"
Bruce started to get up, but Diana shook her head. "Don't think so hard,
Diana. You'll hurt yourself."
Lois
giggled, but Diana couldn't tell if it was at what Bruce said or because Kal
was slowly unzipping her jacket while breathing super-cold breath gently onto
her chest. Bruce noticed the action, too, and seemed to become enraptured at
the effects of cold air on mammary endpoints.
"I'm
going to boycott the movie," Diana finally said, when she could pull her
own attention away from Lois's endpoints. "No Whedon
for me."
"I
don't think you can boycott." Lois giggled again. "I mean, it's not
like it's really you out there, is it?"
"Good
point. Okay then, maybe I'll be the one to show up. Not some docile Diana. It'll
be me, warrior woman!"
"Lasso
lady," Bruce chimed in.
"Dangerous
dame," Kal said, smiling at Lois.
"Butch
bitch," Lois finished for them.
"Oh,
like you mind." Diana glared at her, laughing as Kal looked a little
jealous. "Getting back to my point, I'm done with the movie. That'll teach
that Buffy man to mess with me."
"Sweetie,
you're meta." Bruce frowned. "I mean not meta the way DC means meta,
but, you know, outside the realm of reality. Or unreality. Hell, what do I
mean?"
"As
if we ever know?" Lois shot Bruce a nasty smile.
In
retaliation, he pulled off her very sexy boots and tickled her feet. She
squealed. Then she glanced over at Diana. "Toots, there's nothing you can
do about this. Come over here and have some fun."
Diana
shuffled over, feeling about five years old.
"Oh,
poor little thing." Lois nodded at Bruce, as if telling him to cuddle up.
Bruce
drew Diana down, but he didn't try to cheer her up.
"The
whole world's falling apart," Diana said.
"Yep,"
Kal answered, his eyes glued to Lois's zipper.
"Not
just the world—all the worlds. They're all coming back." Lois frowned. "Why
the hell are they bringing them all back? It's confusing as hell."
"At
least we're all still friends in our world," Bruce said, pulling Diana
down for a kiss.
She
felt Lois's gentle touch on her hair, Kal's heavier hand on her back. It was
comforting, familiar. Her friends. Her more than friends. Her partners in crime—so
to speak.
"And
soon the stories will be set one year later." Lois smiled at her. "See
how chicken they are? It's not just you they don't want to deal with. They're
going to pick all of us up, but only once we've had a chance to deal with their
infinite crisis, only after we've found a new set point."
Kal
looked like he was having a little trouble following her and the complex—at
least for their room—thoughts.
Diana
was having a little trouble, too, but, once she got it, she decided she wasn't
buying it. "Yeah, but you guys all get to start out a year later right
away. I don't get a new book till summer."
"JLA
doesn't have a book, either."
"They
have that other one. Where reality never seems to matter," Kal said, then
grimaced at her glare. "Sorry, not the way to cheer you up."
"And
there's still the TV show," Bruce said, pushing Diana's hair off her face.
"It's
been cancelled, I think," she said.
"It'll
never die. Not as long as Bruce has TIVOed every
episode," Kal said with a grin.
"I'll
go the way of all those other heroines," Diana said, and she could hear
the pathetic-ness in her voice. "Jaime Sommers. Buffy Summers."
"Hey,
they have the same last name," Bruce said.
"No
getting anything past you," Lois muttered.
"It's
spelled differently," Diana said, not willing to be diverted from her pity
parade. "And there's Xena."
"Xena wore leather, too," Kal said, his hands going all
over Lois's leather pants.
"Ooh,
what about the Bride," Bruce said, and they all
went to a nice—if bloody—Kill Bill place.
"Forget
Kill Bill. They're going to kill me. I just know it," Diana said,
pushing herself violently out of Bruce's lap.
"Ow!
Mind the family jewels, Diana. Yeesh."
"What
about my family jewels?"
Three
sets of eyes were suddenly glued to her crotch.
"I
meant that figuratively."
They
all looked very relieved, which was silly, because they'd all seen her naked. But,
given the way things were changing in their universe, she guessed she couldn't
blame them for being worried—or thinking things might have altered a bit since
they last groped her.
"Diana,
come sit down and forget about them and what they're doing. You're you. They
can't change that." Bruce gave her the winning smile she never could
resist.
She
walked back to him and let him pull her into his lap again.
"Besides,"
he said, "look how many new fans I've got thanks to a new movie."
"And
soon we'll be able to say the same thing," Kal said, winking at Lois.
"No,
Clark," Bruce said. "I don't think so."
"Will,
too."
"No."
"There's
no way you've seen a sneak preview of our new movie."
"No
way, huh?"
Diana
glanced over at Lois.
"Wild
Things," Lois mouthed.
Diana
reached behind her, grabbing the remote and hitting the button that would bring
the screen back to life. She hit buttons at random, turning the DVD player on
and off, disengaging the satellite television, finally causing an alarm to go
off somewhere deep in the interlocked system.
"Give
me that," Bruce said, pushing a new combination. TIVO sprang to life, and
he did something to get the menu, then handed the remote back to her, the
cursor sitting on Wild Things.
She
pushed the button, and the movie resumed. Out of the corner of her eye, Diana
saw the last issue of her comic book lying on the floor. She kicked it under
the couch. Out of sight, and someday out of mind —if she was very lucky and
survived the rest of the damned arc DC was so hot on.
If
any of them did.
"We'll
prevail," Lois said softly, running her bare toes over Diana's thighs,
causing tingles to run down Diana's spine.
Kal
and Bruce couldn't seem to decide if the movie or the action right in front of
them was more interesting.
"You
know...if we taped this..." Bruce's eyes had a faraway look.
Diana
suspected a videocam was in their future. Their immediate future, anyway. What
the rest of the future held was anybody's guess.
FIN