Fic: A Match Made in Heaven, Chapter Two
Time for more fic-posting! Yay! I had some trouble with the font sizes on the one. Also everything I try to do is delayed and takes a moment to show up in the edit screen here. *glares at lj* So if it looks weird, I'm sorry, and I'll try to fix it.
Title: A Match Made in Heaven
Rating: As G as you can possibly get.
Characters: Dick Grayson/Robin, Roy Harper/Speedy, Victor Fries/Mr. Freeze, Donna Troy/Wonder Girl, Wally West/Kid Flash, Bruce Wayne/Batman
Disclaimer: See Prologue.
Synopsis: See Prologue.
-
The Asahi was in a nice little building in a nice little part of town. It was located on the corner of Robinson Avenue and Sprang Street. The sign on the front of the building was softly lit and had the name of the restaurant as well as a picture of the sun rising up from behind a flat bit of ground with a single tree on it. The sectioned front windows revealed a series of long, low tables made of dark wood. Plush, navy blue cushions and different colored blankets surrounded each table, the walls were painted white with gold flecks and the floor was of a light-colored wood.
Roy thought it was an interesting place.
He would have preferred the local Taco Bell.
“You couldn’t have picked a more romantic-looking place?” the red-head grumbled. “This isn’t exactly screaming ‘passionate love-making’ to me.”
“Roy. We’re rich. We’re not supposed to make sense. Now shut up and hold my hand.”
Gulping noisily, Roy took the shorter boy’s outstretched hand. Dick was the only person he knew who could make a romantic gesture like holding hands sound like a threat. But he eventually got enough of his courage back to ask, “Hey, why isn’t Wayne doing this with some random girlfriend? He’s rich, and any romance involving him is bound to be high-profile.”
“Because he was Freeze’s first victim, and we’re not sure if he’d target the same guy twice,” Dick explained. “We don’t want to take any chances, so here we are. And don’t worry if Freeze shows up: Batgirl’s around here somewhere keeping an eye on things. Now let’s go in-it’s cold out here.”
Well, he couldn’t exactly argue with that. His ears were practically falling off. He really should have worn a hat.
Slowly, they entered The Asahi. A few heads turned at the sound of the door opening, and some of them practically stared at the pair as a pretty young hostess approached them. Out of habit, Roy prepared to put the moves on her. Dick gave him a warning look that was completely ignored.
“Hello, I am Yukiko,” the hostess said with a pleasant smile. Roy smiled back. A little too pleasantly.
“Hello…!” the red-head said eagerly. Dick’s glare intensified, and he squashed Roy’s hand viciously as a painful reminder.
This bites… Roy thought, annoyed, as he winced at the squeeze. The place is overflowing with hot chicks, and I’m stuck holding hands with the Pun Master!!
Meanwhile, Yukiko continued, “Please, remove your shoes here, and I will take you to your table.”
“Our shoes?” Roy asked in surprise. Yukiko was busy getting their menus, so he turned to the aforementioned Pun Master. “What, do we have to go through customs before we eat?”
“It’s Japanese tradition, you idiot,” Dick hissed back, already bending over to remove his footwear. “Now do it. And quit flirting with her. You’re with me, remember?”
“Okay. Now you’re scaring me. And they’d better be careful with these shoes. They’re genuine Italian leather-hundred dollar shoes!”
“Well, gee, shouting the worth of your shoes to the entire restaurant is guaranteed to not get them stolen, Roy.”
Roy froze in the act of untying his hundred-dollar Italian leather shoes and glanced around suspiciously, as if expecting someone to come charging at him to take his precious shoes.
The only person who approached them was Yukiko. She had two menus tucked under her arm. She also had some numbered tags on little bits of strings-undoubtedly to tie onto their shoes and coats so Roy and Dick could get them back; it was the same system used with people’s things at fancy parties, as both boys knew well.
As soon as their shoes were taken care of, Dick and his ‘boyfriend’ followed Yukiko to an empty table. Unfortunately, Roy had a terrific view of the woman’s… back end… from where he was, and Dick had to squeeze his hand four or five times before they made it to the table.
Now my fingers are gonna be stuck this way…
Yukiko handed them their menus, but Dick quickly said that they’d only need one.
“We’ll share,” he told her.
Boy, this guy isn’t missing a trick! Roy thought in amazement as Yukiko withheld one of the menus. She gave them the tickets for their things and said that a waiter would be with them shortly. Both boys thanked her as she left.
“Quit staring at her, Roy, or my motorcycle stays mine,” Dick growled.
“Okay, okay…” the archer mumbled, turning his attention to the rather unique table before them. It was low to the ground, as expected, but there seemed to be a blanket sandwiched in between the tabletop and the rest of it.
“What’s this thing?” he wondered.
“It’s a kotatsu,” Dick replied with a touch more patience than he had used when explaining about the shoes. “It’s a special kind of table with a heater attached to the bottom and a blanket to keep people warm during the winter months. It’s sort of traditional…”
“You mean like the ‘no-shoes’ thing?”
“Yup.”
Then they turned their attention to ordering. Roy had to lean way, way over to be able to read the tiny black typing on the menu, making it look like they were cuddling together purposely. That earned them some looks, but Roy just smiled briefly at the busybodies before attempting to read the menu again. Lucky for him, it wasn’t just in Japanese, so he’d be able to avoid the surprisingly extensive number of dishes involving tofu, seaweed and octopus.
“Fugu… hey, I can’t read what it says there. What’s fugu?”
“It’s pufferfish. And if you suddenly decide you like seafood after all and want to eat it, you better have brought a pen with you.”
“…Why?”
“You’ll need to sign a waiver first.” Dick stared at Roy’s blank expression and elaborated, “Long story short? If they prepare it the wrong way, you die.”
Roy leapt about ten feet in the air at that bit of news and immediately scanned the list for something that wasn’t life-threatening.
“I think I’m gonna have the nikujaga,” Dick announced.
“…As appetizing as that sounds… what else is there?”
That was the exact moment when another young woman, even prettier than Yukiko, approached the table. Her nametag said ‘Aya’ and her hair was in a ponytail, but the nametag and the hair were the last places Roy was looking.
Aya seemed to notice that.
And didn’t mind a bit.
Dick, however, did.
“Have you decided what you want to drink?” Aya asked, looking directly at Roy with a smile even pleasanter than the one Yukiko had been wearing.
“I’ll have the, uh…” Roy quickly scanned the list in the menu. Sensing the red-head’s confusion, Dick jumped in with his own order of a blended tea drink called jurokucha. Roy eventually settled for a glass of water, mostly because that was the only thing he was sure he could pronounce (besides sake, but that would be illegal).
“One cup of jurokucha, and one glass of water,” the waitress repeated. She wasn’t really looking at the notepad where she had been absentmindedly scribbling their orders. Or whatever it was she’d been scribbling. “I’ll be back soon to take your orders.”
Aya and Roy stared at each other for a beat longer before the dark-haired woman slowly turned and headed for the kitchen. Roy turned his head to follow Aya’s path, a dreamy smile plastered onto his face… until he ended up face to face with his rather irate date.
Embarrassed, Roy quickly turned around on his cushion and played with his chopsticks.
Dick gave him a dark look and grumbled, “Just wait’ll Bruce gets here and finds out you’ve been flirting with every female in the-why, Bruce, what brings you here??”
Roy’s head jerked up in panic, hoping that Dick was just bluffing to scare him into behaving. That probably would have worked… except Dick wasn’t bluffing.
And how’d the birdbrain know Wayne would be here, anyway?
Several more heads turned at the sight of the billionaire-Roy figured it was because the guy was actually smiling. That alone was worth staring at, but with Wayne, Wayne’s ward and a stud like himself all in one place, Roy wasn’t surprised when a few paparazzi from outside began snapping photos of them through the window.
Meanwhile, Bruce completely ignored the flashing bulbs behind him and answered Dick’s question, “Well, I was just passing by and saw you two through the window…”
“Spying, huh?” Dick replied with a mischievous grin.
“Shamelessly. Mind if I join you for a minute?”
As if things couldn’t get any weirder. Here he thought that this was supposed to be a ‘romantic’ dinner, and now Dick was letting his legal guardian join them?!
Bruce sat on a spare cushion as Aya returned with their drinks. She asked Bruce if he wanted something as well, but he politely declined the offer, so she took the boys’ orders instead. Dick asked for the aforementioned nikujaga, and Roy finally settled on a deep-fried pork dish called tonkatsu.
As soon as Aya was out of earshot, Bruce leaned closer.
“How’s it going?” he questioned, voice low.
“It’d be going better if Roy wasn’t making goo-goo eyes at everybody except me,” Dick grumbled under his breath.
Both Bruce and Dick turned to glare at Roy, who was… grinning stupidly and reading a piece of paper that had been tucked under his water glass.
Quicker than lightning, Dick snatched it away from him, read the paper and glared some more.
“I don’t believe this. That waitress knew you for all of a minute and she’s already given you her phone number?!”
“That’s not a phone number! That’s a, uh, a… a… oh shoot.”
“Gesundheit,” said Dick.
“Look, Harper,” Wayne ground out. The creepy smile was long gone, making him look a lot more serious and a lot… less creepy, actually. “I know you’re not enjoying this. Dick and I are about as thrilled about this as you are, but unless a major lead turns up out of the blue, it’s the only chance we have at catching Freeze. Do not mess this up or someone could get killed. Do you understand me?”
Roy nodded. As much as he hated pretending to be in love with Dick (even if the jerk was his best friend, supposedly), he was still a crime-fighter. It was his job to protect people… even if it meant leaving Aya’s phone number in Grayson’s custody.
Besides, he really liked the R-Cycle.
“Good.”
With that, Wayne finally stood to leave.
“You boys enjoy your evening,” he said in a normally-pitched voice. “Just be back by eleven, okay, Dick?”
“Okay.”
“You know, you two picked a nice place. Quiet, out-of-the-way, nice atmosphere…” Returning to his covert whispering spy-type voice, Wayne added softly, “No chairs to get in the way if you wanted to cuddle up to someone…”
Dick’s eyes lit up.
“Good idea!”
“It is?!” Roy said, horrified. “Um, I mean, yeah. Right. Brilliant.”
--
The next morning, in Kid Flash’s bedroom at the Titans’ Tower…
The Flash’s trusty sidekick woke up at about ten o’clock that sunny Sunday morning to make up for all the rest he’d missed the past couple of days. He had actually wanted to stay asleep even longer-maybe until noon like those rich people in the movies-but his stomach had different ideas.
With a yawn, Wally got up and put on some casual clothes. As he slipped into his jeans, he vaguely wondered if Robin had regained his senses since yesterday. Wally certainly hoped so. He liked a good practical joke as much as the next person, but he was really beginning to get scared now.
The first thing that caught Wally’s attention when he entered the kitchen was the piece of paper on the refrigerator door. The note was held in place by a magnet shaped like Barney the dinosaur that totally did not belong to Wally. He got closer and read:
Hey Titans!
The restaurant Speedy and I went to last night was really good, so we brought some leftovers for everyone to try. It’s Japanese stuff-there’s beef and potato stew in the white container, deep-fried pork in the blue container, some Japanese sponge cake things on the metal tray, and poisonous pufferfish in the freezer (that last one was a joke to prove to certain skeptical speedsters I know that I do too have a sense of humor. Ha, ha.) We also have a truckload of white rice and miso soup, if anyone’s interested. Please say you are. Because I never want to see either one ever again. The miso soup should be of special interest to Aqualad because it has seaweed in it. I found that out the hard way. Enjoy, fellas.
-R
P.S. The first person to find this message (a.k.a. YOU) should tell the others about the food, but please take this paper and shove it down the garbage disposal. Or throw it out an airlock at the Satellite. Whatever. Just make sure Speedy doesn’t get it because there’s some random waitress’s phone number on the back of here; it’s the only way I could think to hide it from him. Speedy’s mine until further notice, so I don’t want him making dates with random waitresses.
Wally snatched the message off the fridge and looked at the back. Sure enough, there were seven digits written there as well as the words ‘Aya Nishi’ in that annoyingly curly almost-illegible-because-it-was-so-neat writing that females used because they thought it looked cute. Must be the random waitress’s name, Wally figured.
That was when it clicked. Loudly.
Turning the paper over again, Wally reread the letter. Or, more specifically, the parts where Robin had talked about going to a restaurant with Speedy. And that Speedy was his.
“You’re dating SPEEDY?!” Wally howled at the paper and shaking it vigorously. The paper didn’t answer, so Wally continued yelling, “How can you be dating SPEEDY! He’s a total DORK!! What is wrong with you?! I thought you had brains!! And since when are you two gay, anyway?!”
The paper still didn’t talk, so Wally crumpled it up ferociously and threw it into the garbage can. Feeling somewhat satisfied and still hungry, he pulled the blue container out of the fridge along with a container of white rice, per Robin’s request. It was actually pretty good, and he took his spoils over to the computer to play a few games online. Maybe it would distract him from this rather disconcerting mess.
Once again, he didn’t quite make it. Robin had programmed all the computers in the Tower to each go to different news sites whenever someone logged onto the internet. And before he could plug in the name of his gaming website, another picture caught his attention.
Wally hastily clicked on the corresponding article and…
“I don’t believe this…”
The headline basically said what Wally already knew-that Dick and Roy had spent last evening at a Japanese restaurant.
It was the picture that had caught him off guard.
The two boys were sitting at one of those chibi Japanese tables with a sky blue blanket tucked around them. And Dick was practically in Roy’s lap. And they were making goo-goo eyes at each other. There was also a rather ticked off waitress with a ponytail in the background, but Wally was too busy staring at his supposedly sane friends to notice.
“What is going on here?” the speedster muttered, confused. “If they wanna go out together, then fine… but they don’t have to act all weird about it!”
The door opened, and Wally logged off the same instant. For some reason, he felt dirty looking at that picture and didn’t want anybody else finding out what he’d been up to.
The ‘anybody else’ turned out to be Wonder Girl.
Just about the last person Wally wanted to see.
It was fairly common knowledge (meaning that the entire superhero community knew about it) that Wonder Girl had feelings for Speedy-feelings that Wally had always thought Speedy returned. But now Roy was going out with Dick… had he told Donna? Did she know? Should he be the one to break it to the Amazon if she hadn’t heard the news?
Let’s see… Wally thought sarcastically. Do I tell a girl with a super-lasso, enough strength to squash a rhinoceros and a really scary older sister that the guy she likes is seeing one of her friends and that they’re both as straight as telephone cords… or let Speedy do it himself?
Yeah.
“Hey, Wondy!” Wally greeted her happily. “When did you get back?”
“Just this morning,” replied Donna Troy, smiling back. “I know how Robin likes keeping track of where we all are, so I thought I’d come here right away to let him know that Diana and I have returned.”
“Well, I think I’m the only one here right now…” Wally muttered as he scratched the back of his neck and glanced around the room, like he was searching for his other teammates. “But I’ll be happy to tell him if I see him before you do.”
“Thank you… what’s that you’re eating? It looks delicious…”
“Oh, this? It’s pork, according to Wonder Boy. I think they did something weird to it, though. He picked it up at this Japanese restaurant he and Roy went to last night…”
“Really?” Donna said, raising an eyebrow. Wally managed to resist the urge to slap a hand over his stupid mouth… but he was still panicking on the inside.
Okay. Waaaay too much information there, West…
“I’m glad to hear that Robin has been keeping Speedy company while I was away,” the girl declared. “Roy really does spend much too much time alone.”
“He does? Oh… right… I guess he does…”
Fat lot you know.
“Do you mind if I share that pork with you? I haven’t eaten Earth food since I don’t know when!”
“Of course. Siddown. Then we can go find Robbie for ya…”
“And Speedy, too,” Donna reminded him. Wally gulped at the funny look in her eyes as soon as she spoke the archer’s name. “I really want to see him.”
“Yeah…”
Wally gulped again.
He was in big trouble.
--
Meanwhile, Robbie and Speedy were congregating in the Boy Wonder’s room, where several newspapers were laid out on the floor and open to the gossip pages. Robin’s laptop was also on, and the two boys were crowded around the glowing screen, looking at multiple news sites at the same time.
Four out of five featured an article about their date at The Asahi.
“Enough publicity for ya, Bat Boy?” Speedy asked with a grin.
“Just about. Everything’s going great,” Robin asked. He was obviously in a good mood, so the Boy Bowman decided to say, “Hey, mind if I ask a question?”
“No. Doesn’t mean I’ll answer, of course, but ask away.”
“What was the big idea of telling the papers that Ollie knew and approved of our relationship at the party last week? You never got the chance to tell Ollie anything because he was out of the country until last night!”
“I had to tell them that. If Freeze thought there was any chance of us being broken up, he’d go target some other couple.”
“Well… why did Wayne show up last night? Last time I checked, having your parental figure show up in the middle of dinner isn’t romantic, if you don’t mind my saying so.”
“Yeah, I know,” answered Robin, rolling his eyes a little. “But we needed a bit of insurance to make sure the paparazzi got lots of pictures of us, and that was the only way we could figure to do it subtly.”
“Oh.”
“Besides,” Robin added, logging onto yet another news site and smirking triumphantly upon seeing the two of them on the front page, “we figured we’d have a little trouble with you in the beginning and wanted to make sure we kept you on the straight and narrow… well, on the narrow and off the straight, if you know what I mean.”
“Yeah, I know what you mean. But that’s the worst pun you’ve ever made.”
“I try. Now listen close, I’ve got Phase Three all mapped out…”
--
Meanwhile, back at that same building on the outskirts of Gotham…
Dempsey stood behind his boss’s chair and watched as Freeze scanned the webpage, absorbing the latest information on the apparent romance between two of the richest heirs in the country.
“Sure looks promising, doesn’t it, Boss?”
“Perhaps,” the other man admitted. “But they’re young-only boys. I’m sure you were quite fickle with your ‘love interests’ at that age.”
A somewhat boastful grin came to Dempsey’s face at the memories his boss’s simple statement brought back to him.
Freeze stood and paced the room as he continued to reason, “This affair of theirs could end as quickly as it started. And while I highly doubt that either one of them would refuse to pay my ransom even if they did end the relationship… it is much more fun watching the desperate looks on their faces when they hand over the money and beg for their lovers’ pathetic lives.
“Tell the men to wait a little longer, Dempsey. In the meantime, continue to watch the Maypont couple, in case Grayson and Harper don’t turn out the way we hope.”
-
Another chapter finished!!