love at first sight

[temporal_affairs]

Nathan tires out his mate and leaves him asleep in his room. He goes downstairs to see what there is to see.

Oh. She's still there.

Well. He's not going to leave. She can leave. Fuck her. He's not going anywhere.

Comments

[pythbox]

A few seconds after Golden finishes writing, a young woman in a tank top and yoga pants with her hair in a ponytail emerges from the stairwell.

[temporal_affairs]

Nathan's nostrils flare.

"That's her, that's fucking her," he snarls.

[luminous_regnant]

"Is it?" Golden asks, and she crushes the note-in-progress in her hand. "I won't have to leave this, then."

And she stalks towards the uncostumed Bat, making no sudden moves more because she wants to be trackable than anything else. She's not scared. She's decked out in defensive stars.

[pythbox]

She freezes on the spot, looking from Golden to Nathan and back again.

[manofmyword]

"...Of course it is," the Joker murmurs, wrapping his arms around Nathan again and leaning into him. "Hah."

[luminous_regnant]

"You murdered my friend," Golden says in her pleasant bell-like voice, just shy of a purr. "You murdered a man with a three-week-old son at home. You murdered one of the people who, at significant personal risk and cost, was essential to my deposing a government that was responsible for the deaths of thousands of people per day. The only reason he's alive again is that I pulled out all the stops and deployed a level of magic that has been used exactly once before. Would you like to explain to me why I had to do that?"

[pythbox]

She glances between Golden and the Joker, then apparently gives up on maintaining the masquerade.

"Your 'friend' told me explicitly and repeatedly that he wanted to kill me," she says flatly. "And then he made a threatening move. I didn't want him dead, just incapacitated. But I didn't have a lot of time for finesse."

[temporal_affairs]

"I stood up," Nathan growls. "I got out of my seat. I wasn't going to kill you because that would've made him upset. And you started the conversation."

[pythbox]

She ignores him.

[luminous_regnant]

Golden wishes for the Bat's remaining hex or hexes.

One appears in her hand. "I don't think I can trust you with this," she says. "Maybe you can talk Stella into replacing it in spite of the note I'm going to leave in the Belltower. Maybe not. I really doubt she'd like it if she heard that she went to all the trouble of negotiating the Joker's move to my world and then you murdered his reason for going so nicely. Of course Nathan wants to kill you. You compromise his mate's attachment to him. I don't employ vampires who are incapable of wanting to kill someone and not doing it. I certainly don't employ vampires who are stupid enough to verbally announce their intention to kill someone who may or may not have the power to stop them before they do it. He was never going to kill you."

[temporal_affairs]

"It'd be fair, at this point," growls Nathan. "Turnabout."

[manofmyword]

"Sweetie," the Joker sighs. "Sweetie, no."

[pythbox]

...The look she gives them is composed of equal parts puzzlement and loathing.

[temporal_affairs]

Nathan hides his face in the Joker's shoulder. "She'd've half-orphaned our baby," he mumbles.

[luminous_regnant]

Golden wishes the hex onto her bandolier. "I think I'm going to stand here until you or they leave," she says mildly to Roberta.

[pythbox]

She looks at Golden, and looks at Nathan, and looks at the Joker.

(She looks at the Joker longest.)

Then she heads for the front door, and leaves by it.

[manofmyword]

"I know, honey," the Joker says soothingly. "But you're fine now, and I love you, and I don't want you to hurt her. Okay?"

[temporal_affairs]

"Can't now, anyway," mutters Nathan, "she's gone. God. I love you."

[manofmyword]

The Joker hugs him some more.

"You wanna go upstairs again, or go back home?"

[temporal_affairs]

"Not home, not yet, I need a while," Nathan says.

[luminous_regnant]

Golden teleports up to the Belltower to write in the note.

[manofmyword]

The Joker teleports himself and Nathan back to his room and snuggles into bed.

[temporal_affairs]

Nathan just holds his mate quietly.

[manofmyword]

The Joker curls up with him, wishes away his clothes and knives as an afterthought, pulls up a blanket for extra snuggle factor, and settles into comfortable silence.

[temporal_affairs]

"How can you love her? I don't understand it," mumbles Nathan.