You Are My Sunshine

Previously, Midnighter tracks Dick down in the manor where he and a houseguest, Min, are going thru her physio exercises, and since Dick won't leave Min and her very broken leg in a massive house by herself, M ends up taking them both along on said mission that ends with a hostage situation and a totem pole crashing down on the reception desk of the British museum ... which isn’t the craziest thing thats happened to Mimi since coming to Gotham. So, the next time, M offered Apollo to stick around so Dick /wouldn’t take Min with them. (Min officially doesn’t like M and this whole ‘troublesome child’ crap.) Anyway, mission’s done, they’re back, and they’re all up on the roof of Wayne manor where at least three people are enjoying the late afternoon sun, and so begins “You are My Sunshine”
Dick’s chasing Apollo around the roof with the sunscreen while the kid nests on a deck chair, glued to her phone, and Midnighter ... doesn’t /hide exactly, under the umbrella, he’s just staying cool—it’s unreasonably warm for September and he’s not de armoring in Gotham.
The kid takes a picture of the Epic Sunscreen Battle just as Apollo grabs Dick around the waist, and, curious, Midnighter connects his computer to the manor’s wifi, implements a packet scanner (and gets a brain full of “Barbie: Mariposa” so he also implements a filter for anything with “Netflix” in the name), and tunes in—except while the computer recognizes the language as Cantonese, it does an absolutely terrible job of translating the chat’s initial batch, so either the kids are using a wonky, unregistered dialect or the computer has a bug. (The computer informs him that those chances are less than one percent.) But: 
yeung_(TM): Qiqi?
gal_behind_the_curtain: zzzz—?
gal_behind_the_curtain: !!!
gal_behind_the_curtain: hws Rogue Land? 
yeung_(TM): sunny!
gal_behind_the_curtain: YAY!
gal_behind_the_curtain: lulu spilling their guts? TKT
yeung_(TM): yup :( they even kissed my forehead when they told me not to worry my pretty head this time 
yeung_(TM): wanted to scrape my skin off after 
gal_behind_the_curtain: :( 
yeung_(TM): universe have anything? 
gal_behind_the_curtain: just smugness, like, ‘wldnt uuuu like to no’
gal_behind_the_curtain: whs visiting ... 
yeung_(TM): Batman guy and a walking sunbeam
Midnighter covers a laugh with a cough.
The kid still glances at him. 
M just nods at Apollo and Dick, and calls, “Hey, hubby!”
Dick whips around—Apollo neatly steals the sunscreen.
The kid goes back to her phone.
Based off the current chat, M floats the idea that the teenage girls were previously messaging each other in Teenage Girl, and since it could be worse, he makes a note to keep his eavesdropping to himself. TKT
yeung_(TM) sent an attachment
gal_behind_the_curtain: LOL
gal_behind_the_curtain: such sunbeam!
gal_behind_the_curtain: 1 sec
gal_behind_the_curtain has changed their username to QContiiinum
QContiiinum: thts bettr!
QContiiinum: u wr askng?
yeung_(TM): <3
yeung_(TM): has N gone to bed with everyone hes worked w/ or is he just Like That
M coughs again but this time it’s part surprise—the kid’s drugged to the gills and a sheltered teenager, neither of which lent itself to being very perceptive.
“Are you okay?” the kid asks.
“Fight computer acts up sometimes.”
The kid gives him a Look.
Dick’s wrapped himself around Apollo’s head; through the ‘v’ of his knee, Apollo gives him a significant Look.
“The computer in my brain can be temperamental. Little electric shocks, spasms.” He coughs again, lightly, for good measure.
Apollo’s fighting a smile, and Dick’s propped up against his head like a teenager gazing at their crush, cheek smushed into his hand and everything.
The kid still thinks M’s nuts, but goes back to her phone, and Grayson refocuses on the 
sunscreen. 
Apollo catches his eye, mouths, ‘Rude’. 
M sprawls in his lounge chair and raises a challenging eyebrow. 
Apollo shakes his head, and tries dislodging Dick again. 
QContiiinum: XDDDDDDDDD
QContiiinum: lemme chck
QContiiinum: HEY UNIVERSE!
QContiiinum: answr mimis ? pls!
yeung_(TM): ouo
Curiouser and curiouser. Midnighter follows the phone number associated with “Qiqi” to a Weibo account for one Chu Siqi, whose profile photo is of the kid hugging and being hugged by a short high schooler with untidy dark hair and—M grins to himself—crystal blue eyes.
He makes a note to suggest them as an adoptee to Dick, just to make him screech.
Said adoptee changes tactics: Dick braces himself against Apollo’s face and hooks an ankle under his shoulder, as determined as M’s ever seen him to get the sunscreen.
As Apollo takes full advantage of his longer arms, M scans through the first couple pages of photos—lots of Qiqi and the kid, pictures of what he assumes are typical of high schooler life, weirdly empty snapshots of an apartment, and cricket games—/cricket? who the fuck plays /cricket nowadays?—and the odd ceremony of some sort—but finds nothing that hints at their “universe” contact. Speaking of ....
QContiiinum: universe says “uncertain”
QContiiinum: bt in a +itive sense?
QContiiinum: wird
QContiiinum: GO HOME UNIVERSE UR DRUNK
QContiiinum: also covr ur cute face
yeung_(TM): 👍
Tongue poking out the corner of his mouth, Dick coils.
The kid puts their phone away and shields their eyes from the sun.
Apollo glances at M with a quiet grin.
Dick springs from Apollo’s shoulders, snags the tube, yanks his Center of gravity back and up above Apollo with just his legs, throwing his arms in the air—“Victory!”
Sunscreen rains down around them—four splatters on M’s coat, one on the kid’s hand—and a distant splash as the cap apparently shot up into the air and came down through the open window and into the manor pool.
M growls, “What the f—orge, /Dick!”
The kid rolls her eyes as she examines her hand and the sunscreen.
Far too pleased with himself, Dick just pools across Apollo’s shoulders and squirts way too much sunscreen into his hand.
The fight computer offers four possibilities but M really only needs one; he calls, “Wanna know how this ends, Grayson?”
“With /someone not getting a sunburn,” says Dick, voice colored with a barely contained laugh.
To the kid, Apollo says, “I get my power from sunlight so it’s /physically /impossible for me to get a sunburn.”
M adds, “So ‘sunbeam’ is pretty apt.”
The kid’s head snaps towards him.
“I call him that all the time,” M says quickly.
Dick, resting his chin on his arms folded on Apollo’s head, adds, “They are /disgustingly in love. ‘My sunbeam’ this, ‘my sweet night’ that.”
Apollo flicks his eyes towards the window.
The kid asks, “Why’re you putting sunscreen on?”
“I’m not,” Apollo replies dryly.
“Because it’s /hilarious,” grins Dick.
“What’s hilarious,” says Apollo, flowing into motion, “is /this.” and pitches Dick through the window—
“”DREW!””
—followed by a very loud splash.
Cut: Fortunately, Dick’s still trying to get the sunscreen back by Apollo, at this point by trying to escape a headlock while reaching for the tube and squawking indignantly, so
Category:Shadow Boxing!AU
Category:Tang Min
Category:Tang Min (ficlet)
Category:Pages in need of tags
Category:Siqi
Category:Siqi (ficlet)