DISCLAIMER: The Justice League of America characters are the property of DC Comics. The story contents are the creation and property of Djinn and are copyright (c) 2006 by Djinn. This story is Rated R.

Lament of the Meta

by Djinn

"This is it?" Diana threw the last issue of her comic book at the couch, where Bruce and Kal were watching Wild Things. Again.

"Yeah, pretty stupid way to go out, huh?" Bruce glanced over at her, then back at the set. "You think those lips are real, Clark?"

"They're pretty consistent. That's the key."

"Can't you use your super pervo-vision and see?"

"Bruce, it's on film. It's not a real person. If I look past the image, I'll be staring at the TV's innards."

"Oh. Right."

"Hey!" Diana said, lobbing some of their titles at them since she only had the one. "The focus is on me, fellas."

"But this movie has girl-on-girl stuff, hon'." Bruce took one look at her face and turned off the TV. "Don't worry," he whispered to Kal, but she heard him anyway, "I'm TIVOing it."

Bruce was getting generous with the gizmos and gadgets. The outside world was too crazy, so he was making their inner world fun. Although Diana was having less fun than the boys were.

"Will I still be here if they kill me off?" She began to pace. "Will I even matter?"

They didn't answer.

"Do I matter now?"

"You matter to us, baby." Kal held his arms open.

She ignored him. "But to anyone that counts. Do I matter to them?"

"I think we count as people you should matter to," Bruce said.

Kal nodded, a peeved look on his face, as he said, "We could be watching Neve and Denise, my friend. I'm just saying."

"Damn it, you two. Listen to me. This is a travesty."

They both sat back, sighing with identical sighs, arms crossing in a way that would make the U.S. synchronized swimming team envious. Bruce and Kal looked like they'd heard this all before because they had—she knew she'd been going on and on and on.

"I'm a broken record, aren't I?" She walked over and picked up the last issue. "They've been assassinating me for months. Why should I be surprised?"

"I just don't understand why they had to go and put Clark in it like they did. And then leave him out at the end."

"Because," a new voice said from the door, "they don't want to have him make a choice. They just like to tease." Lois walked in, dressed in head-to-toe black leather. The jacket was unzipped enough to show she had a red, push-up bra on underneath. And nothing else.

"Mrrroooww," Bruce said, smiling at her. "Holy God, you look hot."

"Ooh, that's my wife. See my wife all in leather?" Clark grinned at her. "Cheer Diana up, Lois, will you? She's down in the dumps."

Diana thought Kal looked concerned about her, until she realized he was making subtle hand signals at Bruce that had to mean he wanted him to turn the TV back on.

"Wild Things?" Lois asked Diana.

"Wild Things." Diana handed her the comic. "Did you see this?"

"Yeah. You are so toast." Lois looked bitchily pleased. Then she put it down on the table, and pulled Diana close. "You're still the only superheroine for me, toots." She kissed Diana, the black leather shifting softly, the silver zipper pull tapping against golden armor.

"Hey! We've got our own girl-on-girl action happening here," Bruce said, and Diana heard the sound of a human elbow hitting Kryptonian ribs.

Lois pulled away. "What's the idea putting my man in your book, though?"

"Like he mattered," Diana said.

"You know it boosts ratings," Lois said.

"Except for those who want her with me," Bruce pointed out, his mouth turning up smugly.

"Actually," Kal said, "they buy those ones, too, 'cause they want to make sure I don't steal her away from you."

"As if," Bruce said, the perfect little valley boy. "No way you could steal her away from me."

"No way you'd care if he did. You're more interested in gizmos than me," Diana said. Then she smiled, remembering her little pink rabbit. There were times when she was more interested in gizmos than in them.

Lois had a satisfied smile on her face—she'd apparently gone to a nice sex-toy place, too.

"Not like Bruce isn't getting the action," Kal said. "Selina. Sasha."

"You see the problem?" Lois winked at her. "If you were Siana, you'd do much better."

"Funny." Diana sighed. "I think they're going to kill me."

"They're not going to kill you. You have a movie coming out." Lois walked over to Kal, letting him pull her into his lap.

"We've tried that one, cupcake." Kal nuzzled her neck. "The logic train doesn't end up where you think it will."

"The Whedon factor," Bruce said, nodding sagely, valley boy giving way to the great detective. Until he began to search the couch. "Where's the damned remote?" A few seconds later, he found it pushed down between the cushion and the side of the couch. He dug it out and set it on the side table.

Diana stared at him for a moment, vision going all fuzzy as she considered her options.

"Hon?" Bruce started to get up, but Diana shook her head. "Don't think so hard, Diana. You'll hurt yourself."

Lois giggled, but Diana couldn't tell if it was at what Bruce said or because Kal was slowly unzipping her jacket while breathing super-cold breath gently onto her chest. Bruce noticed the action, too, and seemed to become enraptured at the effects of cold air on mammary endpoints.

"I'm going to boycott the movie," Diana finally said, when she could pull her own attention away from Lois's endpoints. "No Whedon for me."

"I don't think you can boycott." Lois giggled again. "I mean, it's not like it's really you out there, is it?"

"Good point. Okay then, maybe I'll be the one to show up. Not some docile Diana. It'll be me, warrior woman!"

"Lasso lady," Bruce chimed in.

"Dangerous dame," Kal said, smiling at Lois.

"Butch bitch," Lois finished for them.

"Oh, like you mind." Diana glared at her, laughing as Kal looked a little jealous. "Getting back to my point, I'm done with the movie. That'll teach that Buffy man to mess with me."

"Sweetie, you're meta." Bruce frowned. "I mean not meta the way DC means meta, but, you know, outside the realm of reality. Or unreality. Hell, what do I mean?"

"As if we ever know?" Lois shot Bruce a nasty smile.

In retaliation, he pulled off her very sexy boots and tickled her feet. She squealed. Then she glanced over at Diana. "Toots, there's nothing you can do about this. Come over here and have some fun."

Diana shuffled over, feeling about five years old.

"Oh, poor little thing." Lois nodded at Bruce, as if telling him to cuddle up.

Bruce drew Diana down, but he didn't try to cheer her up.

"The whole world's falling apart," Diana said.

"Yep," Kal answered, his eyes glued to Lois's zipper.

"Not just the world—all the worlds. They're all coming back." Lois frowned. "Why the hell are they bringing them all back? It's confusing as hell."

"At least we're all still friends in our world," Bruce said, pulling Diana down for a kiss.

She felt Lois's gentle touch on her hair, Kal's heavier hand on her back. It was comforting, familiar. Her friends. Her more than friends. Her partners in crime—so to speak.

"And soon the stories will be set one year later." Lois smiled at her. "See how chicken they are? It's not just you they don't want to deal with. They're going to pick all of us up, but only once we've had a chance to deal with their infinite crisis, only after we've found a new set point."

Kal looked like he was having a little trouble following her and the complex—at least for their room—thoughts.

Diana was having a little trouble, too, but, once she got it, she decided she wasn't buying it. "Yeah, but you guys all get to start out a year later right away. I don't get a new book till summer."

"JLA doesn't have a book, either."

"They have that other one. Where reality never seems to matter," Kal said, then grimaced at her glare. "Sorry, not the way to cheer you up."

"And there's still the TV show," Bruce said, pushing Diana's hair off her face.

"It's been cancelled, I think," she said.

"It'll never die. Not as long as Bruce has TIVOed every episode," Kal said with a grin.

"I'll go the way of all those other heroines," Diana said, and she could hear the pathetic-ness in her voice. "Jaime Sommers. Buffy Summers."

"Hey, they have the same last name," Bruce said.

"No getting anything past you," Lois muttered.

"It's spelled differently," Diana said, not willing to be diverted from her pity parade. "And there's Xena."

"Xena wore leather, too," Kal said, his hands going all over Lois's leather pants.

"Ooh, what about the Bride," Bruce said, and they all went to a nice—if bloody—Kill Bill place.

"Forget Kill Bill. They're going to kill me. I just know it," Diana said, pushing herself violently out of Bruce's lap.

"Ow! Mind the family jewels, Diana. Yeesh."

"What about my family jewels?"

Three sets of eyes were suddenly glued to her crotch.

"I meant that figuratively."

They all looked very relieved, which was silly, because they'd all seen her naked. But, given the way things were changing in their universe, she guessed she couldn't blame them for being worried—or thinking things might have altered a bit since they last groped her.

"Diana, come sit down and forget about them and what they're doing. You're you. They can't change that." Bruce gave her the winning smile she never could resist.

She walked back to him and let him pull her into his lap again.

"Besides," he said, "look how many new fans I've got thanks to a new movie."

"And soon we'll be able to say the same thing," Kal said, winking at Lois.

"No, Clark," Bruce said. "I don't think so."

"Will, too."

"No."

"There's no way you've seen a sneak preview of our new movie."

"No way, huh?"

Diana glanced over at Lois.

"Wild Things," Lois mouthed.

Diana reached behind her, grabbing the remote and hitting the button that would bring the screen back to life. She hit buttons at random, turning the DVD player on and off, disengaging the satellite television, finally causing an alarm to go off somewhere deep in the interlocked system.

"Give me that," Bruce said, pushing a new combination. TIVO sprang to life, and he did something to get the menu, then handed the remote back to her, the cursor sitting on Wild Things.

She pushed the button, and the movie resumed. Out of the corner of her eye, Diana saw the last issue of her comic book lying on the floor. She kicked it under the couch. Out of sight, and someday out of mind —if she was very lucky and survived the rest of the damned arc DC was so hot on.

If any of them did.

"We'll prevail," Lois said softly, running her bare toes over Diana's thighs, causing tingles to run down Diana's spine.

Kal and Bruce couldn't seem to decide if the movie or the action right in front of them was more interesting.

"You know...if we taped this..." Bruce's eyes had a faraway look.

Diana suspected a videocam was in their future. Their immediate future, anyway. What the rest of the future held was anybody's guess.

FIN