From Gotham to Miami

“Hummph, Miami.  Not as good as I expected.”

“Damian, we’ve been here for less than thirty seconds,” Jason said, lugging a luggage trunk behind him as he walked beside Dick.

“And I have concluded that it isn’t nearly half as good as Gotham.”  Damian crossed his arms and looked away from the airport.

“Come on, guys.  We’re here to stop Scarecrow from spreading his new drug, not argue about the location,” said Dick, trying to inject some enthusiasm into the affair.

“Oh yeah, I was asleep when Bruce debriefed us at the cave.  Is that what we are here for?”

Dick almost threw his carry-on luggage at his uncooperative brother.  Gritting his teeth, he ground out, “I’ll tell you once we’re at the hotel.”

He peered around at the jam packed streets, shielding his eyes with his slanted hand.  “Where is that rental,” he murmured.  “Jason, you did call and reserve a rental didn’t you?”

Jason shot him a dirty look.  “Of course I did,” he said, injecting as much indignation into the four words as possible.  “Dick, I can’t believe you don’t trust me to make a simple call.”

There was a beat of silence in which Dick’s lips parted but no words came out and Damian looked like he was trying to keep a straight face.  “Tt,” he murmured, ducking half a second later as Jason took a swipe at his head.

“Stop,” Dick hissed furiously, looking around at the people bustling by.  Not one of them paid any attention to the three of them at all.  “Well, at least wait until we’re at the hotel.”

Jason paused in his quest for Damian’s blood for a few seconds, also looking at the people around them.  “Dick, I don’t think they care.  It appears that here in Miami, people mind their own business.  I could get used to this.”

With that, he returned to the engaging battle against Damian, who nearly knocked over a newsstand as he executed a flawless back handspring to avoid Jason’s grasp.  A girl around his age paused to watch open-mouthed at the act and Dick nudged Jason.  “Look.  She’s staring at Damian.”

“What?  Who?”

“The girl in the pink shirt standing in line for a hot dog.  See she’s still watching him,” Dick pointed out in a low voice, glee evident in his tone.

Jason gave him an odd look.  “Why does this make you so happy?”

Damian brushed himself off as he clambered over to them, sticking close to Dick.  Dick caught Jason’s eye and he reluctantly nodded.  Fine.  He would play nice but just this once.  “Hey, Damian,” Jason said suddenly.  “See that girl in pink?”

“I’m sure there are many girls in pink.”

“No, the one who’s looking at you.”

“I-what?”

Jason’s green eyes glittered with mischief.  “She was impressed with your back handspring.”

Damian’s cheeks flushed slightly.  He appeared slightly flustered for a second before pulling himself back together.  “She should be.  It was perfect.  Where is she, anyway?”

His tone was casual, almost impersonal, but the tinge of pink in his cheeks hadn’t quite faded yet and his flickering gaze told both of his brothers that he was curious.  It made Dick so happy he could have danced but while Miami was more forgiving about such things than Gotham, his brothers weren’t.  But at least he’s experiencing normal stuff, Dick thought fiercely.  Good.

“Jason, call the rental again,” he ordered.  “Damian, I think she left.  She’s not in line anymore.”

Damian’s expression didn’t change but the shrug he gave was a bit too stiff to be completely uncaring.  “It doesn’t matter.  Todd, would you hurry up and call already?  It’s getting hot out.”

Jason scowled at him but dug his cell phone out of the back of his jeans pocket and placed the call.  After a few minutes, he snapped it shut and told them, “It’ll be here in five minutes.  There was some mix-up about who was going to deliver it.”

Damian gave a sniff of disapproval.  “You know, Damian, most people don’t actually have cars delivered to them.  They have to go get the car themselves.”

“I don’t qualify as ‘most people’, Todd.  You should know that.”

Seeing the look in Jason’s narrowed eyes and reading it correctly, Dick intervened before things got out of hand.  “Why don’t we sit under that nice shade over there?”  It’ll cool you hotheads down, he added silently.

He led them there, dragging the luggage as he went.  For a few minutes they just waited in silence for the rental.  But of course life can’t just leave a trio of good-looking vigilantes such as themselves alone.

Jason had just opened his mouth to ask what the time was when a girl fell into his lap.

Literally fell into his lap.

“What-”

Damian scrambled away from the unknown disturbance and hastily stood up next to Dick who helped the stammering girl to her feet.  He exchanged a bewildered look with Jason who was getting to his feet as well.

“Are you okay,” Jason asked.  He did a quick once-over of her and realized immediately what had caused her fall.  She was wearing the highest pair shoes he had ever seen paired with the skinniest heel he could ever have imagined.

“I’m fine,” she babbled nervously, her stomach doing a flip similar to Damian’s recent one as she took in Jason’s handsome features.  “I’m so sorry, someone was pushing past and-”

“Don’t worry about it,” Jason told her graciously.  He patted her on the shoulder and smiled.  “Be careful.”

“Y-yeah,” she mumbled, walking off towards her car, her mind still full of thoughts about Jason and his gorgeous face.

Jason grinned at his brothers and motioned them towards the car that had just beeped at them.  “Let’s go,” he smirked.  “Oh, and Damian?”

“Yes, Todd?”

“You might have girls staring at you.  But I’ve got girls falling into my lap.”

“Why isn’t Bruce here again?” asked Jason as he unpacked his trunk.  They had the largest suite in the hotel and Damian had called the bed in the middle.  Jason was the last to unpack as he had been the first to shower and was now tucking his swim trunks into a drawer while eating a bar of chocolate he had found on the dresser.

“He had matters to attend to, Todd,” answered Damian snottily from his position on his bed.  He was dressed in a pair of shorts and a t-shirt and was sprawled across his bed, lazily counting the threads in his blanket.

Jason rolled his eyes.  “League business?”

“Always,” Dick chimed in, stepping out of the shower and letting a billow of steam sweep into the room.  He ran a towel through his hair before tossing it over a chair in the corner.  “He’s with Diana and Clark in Siberia.”

“How do you know that,” Damian and Jason asked together.

“I hacked it out of the computer in the cave,” Dick replied, surveying the room with his head cocked to the side.  “I call the bed on the left.”

“Take whichever bed you want,” Jason told him.  “It’s all the same to me.”

“By the way, Jason, Bruce figured that you wouldn’t be paying attention at the Batcave, so he gave me this,” Dick said, pulling out a folder from his suitcase.

Jason tossed his chocolate wrapper into a trashcan before he read it.  Once he had scanned the short packet, he asked Dick, “So do we have a plan yet?”