Title: Body Language
Author:
bastet_in_aprilRating: R
Characters: Cass/Jason/Steph
Word Count: 1220
Summary: After Poison Ivy is captured, Cass, Jason and Steph have clean up duty.
Notes: Written for
coldfiredragon's Summer of Clichés Fic-a-Thon.
Batgirl could see the faintly luminescent images, like pale green shadows all around her, crowding in, in neat rows, limbs reaching out like pleading arms. The dim shapes of plants visible in her starlite lenses were her only companions in the dark greenhouse built on the roof of a now-transformed warehouse where a popular herbicide had once been bottled.
Cass’s nose wrinkled under her cowl, glad that she had been given the greenhouse to search, whereas the warehouse had been left to Red Hood and Spoiler; the acrid scent of the now absent chemicals clung stubbornly to the building that had formerly housed them. Poisin Ivy had appropriated the warehouse and transformed it for her own use, thinking it poetic justice. She had been bioengineering a fast-growing vine that was strong enough to crack cement and produced hard little seedpods, which displayed limited explosive properties when broken open. Thankfully, Ivy had given herself away before she’d fully finished what she’d been trying to accomplish in the warehouse. Batman and Robin had successfully captured her earlier in the evening, while she had been in the process of breaking into a lab containing toxic botanical material she had intended to try to graft onto her plants. Batgirl, Red Hood and Spoiler had been called in for clean up duty, while Batman and Robin made sure Ivy was securely deposited with the proper authorities.
Cass doubted they would find much here. Ivy had, to all appearances, been working on her own, other than a couple of confused young lab techs she had forcibly drafted into her efforts. There was always a possibility that Ivy had left something dangerous behind however, so it was better that they find it and deal with it before the GCPD got there.
Here, up on the roof, in the greenhouse, she could no longer smell the acrid scent of the chemicals, instead there only the heavy, moist smell of steam, greenery, and warm earth. She half expected to see condensation forming on her costume. It would have been pleasant, had the greenhouse belonged to anyone other than Poison Ivy.
Most of the plants were still spindly, young-looking things, but Ivy’s altered plants tended to reach a mature state far more rapidly than most plants did in nature. She saw a few buds, still thankfully tightly closed, and a plant that had wicked looking bright red thorns, sharper than needles. Cass gave them a wide berth. She frowned. The air felt suffocating. She could feel perspiration beading on her forehead, chest, and hands under her costume. Surely, the air hadn’t felt so hot and thick a moment ago? She was nearly finished, though. She completed her careful loop through the building. Faint green and yellow reflections of city lights making the glass panels gleam sharply whenever she turned her head.
When Cass opened the greenhouse door and stepped back out onto the roof, the windy cold of the night air hit her like a slap to the whole of her body. She could feel herself shiver. Soon, she could hear Jason and Steph at the top of the stairwell, tossing friendly insults back and forth between them, the cadence of their brash voices tumbling over one another and bouncing strangely up and down the stairs, as the door opened and they tumbled out, a blur of purple, red, and smoky shades of gray, their smiles sharp and their posture strong and stubborn. Cass felt her body curve in their direction, almost of its own accord, welcoming. As they reached her, they slowed, their boisterousness falling away, something changing in their demeanor as they approached. There was curious interest in Jason’s hands and a building fascination in the tilt of Stephanie’s head.
“You finished with the greenhouse?” Jason asked. Cass thought she could feel the rumble of his voice in her bones. She nodded, shifting again, closer to them than she had been before.
Steph was watching her carefully, something about Cass’ movements and the entire situation stirring her to wariness, even as Steph was utterly distracted by the desire to just watch Cass for the sake of watching Cass. Steph frowned. It made Cass want to trace the little line between Steph’s eyebrows that Cass knew had appeared underneath the black material of Spoiler’s mask.
“Cass… Your costume…” Steph sounded like she felt obligated to be more concerned by what she had observed than she actually was.
Jason jerked back to awareness. He had been staring at where Cass’ costume molded itself against the sharp line of her collarbone and the curves of her breasts. He focused on the material of the costume reluctantly, rather than the way it hugged Batgirl’s body. There were smudges of yellow dust clinging to the black material of Batgirl’s costume, barely visible in the darkness of the night.
“Damn,” Jason muttered. The eyes of the three met in realization from behind opaque lenses. There was a moment of silence, while the voices of their bodies fought to be heard, over the increasingly muffled voices in their heads that reminded them how awkward this was and what a bad idea it would be to kiss that spot where Steph was biting her lip, or to make Jason’s voice go rough as he cursed and urged them on, or to trace the graceful arc of Cass spine with their tongues. Jason swallowed thickly. Steph watched the movement of his throat, the lines of her body speaking of hunger to Cass. Sweat beaded on Jason’s forehead over the crimson domino.
Cass watched Steph and Jason as their bodies twisted themselves up into uncomfortable knots with want and with the refusal to be the first to concede to it. She frowned. Slowly, she peeled her cowl away, slipping her gloves off. Jason’s eyes fixed almost desperately on each inch of new skin she revealed, as she began to disrobe. Steph made a noise in the back of her throat as her hand jerked in an aborted motion of reaching out. Cass felt warmth curl in her stomach, heavy and damp, like the air in the greenhouse. She read the victory of the pollen in the bodies of her two companions as she lost the last of her costume. The cold of the night air chilled the perspiration on her body, even as Cass felt further heat stoking in her belly and underneath her skin.
The tension in their bodies shifted from self-restraint to hunger and Jason grinned, running warm hands up her back, kissing her thoroughly. He laughed lowly, “Well, if you’re okay with this, I’m not going to argue.”
Steph had buried her face in Cass’ hair, breathing in the smell of it and leaning down to nip at the side of Cass’ neck, having carefully peeled up the bottom portion of her mask. Her teeth were very white against the red of her lipstick as she smiled over Cass’ shoulder at Jason. “Obviously, Cass has more sense than either of us. We’re still wearing all our clothes.”
“So, take them off,” Cass said, and they did, the pollen making everything dissolve into a haze in which thought fell away, and their bodies did all the talking, each sensation as sharply vivid as the line of a finger dragged through the condensation on a greenhouse window.