Greed God chapter 171

April 3rd 2016 Brightedge City 12:00 PM EDT

Since  I'm not a fucking idiot, I did NOT bring the spawn of Batman into my  house and leave him alone to plant cameras or some shit. Admittedly, I  considered it for the sheer shock value. Letting him plant them and then  detecting them would have let me stage a threesome with Barbie and Zee,  just to show him I was doing it right where he had fucked up. In the  end though, it would have been a huge security breach for momentary  amusement, and even my hedonistic ass couldn't justify that.

So  I led him to a nearby warehouse, with Amy clinging happily to my arm. I  caught him looking and just kind of sneered. "Oh, right." I said with  amusement. "I should introduce you. This is Amy, my wife. Amy, this is  Nightwing. He and Zatanna go way back." Zee vanishing when we did would  have been noticable. We couldn't acknowledge Barbie here because it  would have let on we knew who he was, but Zee was open with her powers  and identity in every facet of her life, so it was still within bounds  for her to mention him in his hero guise.

Nightwing's  eyebrows went up in surprise. "Wow, wife? Aren't you like, eighteen? You  must care about each other a lot. Congratulations." I appreciated the  sentiment, as did Amy, who preened and thanked him, clinging to me even  tighter, every inch the blushing newlywed bride.

Being  around Nightwing was weird for me. Not because I hated him or some  nonsense, but because I really didn't. If anything I was grateful he was  a scrub who couldn't handle his women, or I wouldn't have two of my  best girls. That did not, however, stop my draconic instincts from  treating him as a potential challenger, no matter how impossible I knew  it was for him to take either of them.

It ended up with a  weird conflicting mental state where I was predisposed to like him while  also wanting to rip out his throat with my teeth. I was able to contain  the latter easily enough with my bodily control, at least enough that I  didn't think he noticed it. I wasn't willing to let my instincts rule  my decision making, so I decided to be at least friendly to the guy.  Plus if Zee and Barbie found out he was hanging around, I knew them well  enough to predict a ton of PDA from at least my redhead, and that  sounded like fun.

When we got to the warehouse, Nightwing  took up a position in the shadows, staring out at us dramatically from  the darkness like a total showboat. Batman had clearly taught the guy  bad habits. Clearly feeling more comfortable, he sized us both up, and I  kept my damn mouth shut. I had no fucking clue what the League did and  didn't know, so it was best to be evasive and selective about what I  said.

Finally, after a minute of silence, he cleared his  throat and spoke ( a clear breach of Jack Donaghy's rules of  negotiation). "So, our sources near the river noted you and an unknown  blue female in..." He glanced at Amy sideways, noting how she was  clinging to me. "Less than ideal condition. Arrive on the scene.  Doctor's Gotham and Fate were seen making an appearance there slightly  afterwards. While there are no cameras and there weren't any witnesses  at the river itself, the timing of the incidents was close enough  together that we suspect you may have seen something crucial."

Ah,  that wasn't as bad as expected. Also kudos to him for purposefully  editing his commentary about Leslie's state of dress to something that  made me sound heroic for the missus. He could have blown the whistle on  me easily. Granted, she already knew, but he wasn't aware of that. There  were no accessible cameras within any reasonable distance of the  Palace. Not ones accessible to anyone but me anyway. One does not hack  an E-ranked security system, especially not one designed to obscure  things like remote viewing, both magical and mundane.

I  took a second to structure my comments to be as open seeming as possible  while being completely unhelpful. "Oh, definitely." I said with a  rueful smile. "I rescued that girl on the way to the river by  distracting her captors. She had like...electricity powers or something,  and she was able to get loose when they were paying attention to me." I  had gone from flight to coming out of an alley, so there was no way  they could really connect me to anything supernatural. I'd gotten REALLY  lucky. Some of it was caution, mind you, so I wasn't too pissed at  myself, but I really needed to remember that Earth was covered with  cameras. Wearing my mask on jobs was going to be a necessity.

Nightwing  gave me an easy smile. "Ah, we were curious how you managed that, but  that makes sense. Good work, not many people would try to intervene in  something like that." I got the impression that the bodies hadn't been  there when they ran across the scene if they even had. The merge  probably took care of them. Seriously. I had so many bad habits to  unlearn. Barbie was going to bitch me out for an hour when she heard  about this, and rightly so. Ugh. I missed Gemworld already.

He  waited patiently after my comment, showing that he was at least  competent enough not to interrupt and give me more distractions, so I  continued as vaguely as possible. "The run to the river was kind of  crazy. I'd talked to Doctor Fate about meeting there when I got back, we  escaped from Doctor Gotham's big party a few months ago and I figured  he would come after me. The big lightshow and then the fight were both  pretty jarring though. I have no clue what happened really. That whole  experience was kind of surreal."

Judging by his grimace,  he believed me. He probably figured one of the Doctors had been behind  the merge. I was basically a nobody as far as everyone else was  concerned. Mammon was quickly making a rep after my activities last  night, but the mask prevented anyone from connecting us, so there was no  real way for him to know I was anything special. He could probably link  me to Barbie, but if anything, he probably thought she and Zee had  protected me while we were gone.

He rubbed the bridge of  his nose and sighed. "That's what I was afraid of. We think Doctor  Gotham did something to merge the two cities as a last ditch effort to  stop Doctor Fate. Fate hasn't exactly been helpful about this whole  situation. He's had some plan cooking for months but has refused to  elaborate. Sorry you got caught up in it. If you're back, does that mean  Zee and...Miss Gordon, are back too? They vanished at the same time,  and even with the city under siege we were able to confirm commissioner  Gordon was staying at your home. Great security by the way."

I  grinned internally. Zee and Barbie had been in masks when we patrolled  last night, and it appeared they knew their shit enough to avoid  detection. Externally I gave him a shaky smile. "Of course. We only got  back because of them. I don't know what would have happened if they  hadn't been with us. They really saved my ass over there." I put on a  fake shudder. "I don't want to talk about what happened though, you can  ask them. They handled that whole thing a lot better than we did." I  pulled Amy against me. "I'm just lucky I met my wife over there. I'd  have gone crazy without her."

Amy just about glowed at the  praise, and I could see Nightwing trying to decide what to say. While  he most likely knew nothing about my criminal activities, he almost  certainly DID know that I had impregnated Black Canary. He probably  thought it was awkward to bring up, and I didn't do it for him. I wasn't  supposed to know she was a superheroine. She and I had gotten past that  while I'd been gone via long range communications, but as far as he was  concerned I was an innocent if slightly baller civilian with an evil  dad.

He just shook his head. "Well, I appreciate you  letting so many people stay at your place. We saw more than a few  refugees holing up in there. Even if you weren't home at the time, the  people you left watching it probably saved a lot of lives, including the  commissioner, which I'm sure Miss. Gordon appreciates. I'm also glad  she was helpful to you wherever you ended up. Her father has trained her  extensively from a young age. She's a very impressive young woman." His  voice held notes of regret and relief, and I figured he was thinking of  their breakup.

He seemed to lost track of what he was  saying for a minute, before shaking that off. "In any case, now that  you're back, I was hoping you might be able to put up one more. One of  our retired members, Troia, is a close friend of Barbara. Her home was  destroyed during Doctor Gotham's occupation and she was forced to flee  the city. She was the one who connected your appearance to Barbara's  possible return. She asked me to pass on her request to stay with you  for a while, alongside another young amazon she's recently started  training. She said you'd met and you knew she could be trusted."

I  didn't know anything of the sort. I DID however, know that she was  basically blackmailing me with knowing I was a methuman. It was  irrelevant anyway though, a rematch and an opportunity to fuck that  greek bitch into the pavement was more than worth a new house guest.  Amazons weren't Batman. I wasn't worried about cameras, and I wanted to  put my hands on that tight little oiled up ass again.

Once  he finished asking questions that I mostly avoided answering, he left  and Amy and I were alone in the warehouse. I groaned and pinched the  bridge of my nose. Amy cooed in sympathy and rubbed my back. "What is it  baby? Are you upset you agreed to let the Amazons stay? I don't  remember much about them, but I don't think they'll be too big a  problem. From what I remember they tend to be thugs and they like women.  We have plenty of those in the house to keep them occupied. I can have  Emerald make friends with them if you want?"

I tried not  to get hard at my wife's willingness to whore out her best friend, but  that wasn't my issue at the moment. I just shook my head with a sigh.  "No. I'm just thinking shit is going to get complicated with the junior  Justice League around. They'll be a pain in the ass to avoid, but  engaging directly is a bad decision considering their connections. I  don't know when they big dogs are getting back, but it has to be soon. I  need to develop some kryptonian countermeasures before Superman gets  back."

Actually, that made me think of Kara. I doubted she  was listening in on me right now, considering everything else going on,  but once she was reminded of me it would be something I would have to  handle. The Palace would block her hearing, and the mask would make it  impossible to connect my identities, but I needed to arrange some sort  of artifacts to prevent any sort of long range detection.

After  a few minutes of talking over strategy with Amy in vague terms  (thinking about kryptonians made it clear I needed to get into the habit  of watching what I said at all times) we headed out to check on the  territories we had grabbed up. I kind of wanted to just go home, but it  wasn't an option right now. We had things to do before I could head back  to the house. Once that was done though, we needed to start preparing  for guests. I should make sure we had enough olive oil stocked in the  kitchen.