Disclaimers: Not at all mine.

Spoilers/Timeline: TT v3, before anything big or exciting
happened.

Summary: Bart needs a little help.

Ratings Note: Sexual content.

Author's Note: Written for Platinum Takahashi for the
JBBS challenge.

Acknowledgments: To Ruby and LC for audiencing and
helping me make this into a story, as opposed to a collection
of story-like parts.

*

A lot of things make sense, once Bart starts paying attention.

Everything -- almost everything -- is something he'd asked
for, in one way or another. The older Titans trust him to be
a speedster with most of Wally's power and none of his
steadiness. Cyborg, especially, looks at him like a work in
progress. Something with a good start that needs a lot of
editing. Something...

Something.

And that's not vague or anything, that's just the truth. He's
exactly as real to everyone -- the people who are supposed
to be his friends and allies -- as he should be. Not a person,
not Bart Allen.

Just Kid Flash -- which doesn't yet mean what he wants it to,
for two reasons:

One, *Bart* isn't sure what he wants it to mean, exactly.

Two, Impulse throws a long shadow.

That's his own fault, the good and the bad of it. That's...

It's still something he needs a little help with.

He knows who to ask.

*

He thought he knew who to ask.

The thing about Kon is that he kind of seems like he has the
opposite problem, these days. Like maybe there are things
real about him that he didn't ask for -- no, no maybes.

He watches Kon frowning at himself in the mirror, moving
from side to side until Kon frowns and uses his own speed
to stop him with one hand, while the other adjusts the little
glasses on his face.

"Stop it, B... damn. I am so not getting use to that uniform."
Kon squeezes his shoulder and frowns a little more.

Bart vibrates out of Kon's grip and puts his hands on his
hips. "This is your third -- is that really a uniform?"

"It's got the 'S,' doesn't it? And it's not like I need... fuck, I
don't know. Sometimes I feel like a jackass in a damned
t-shirt and jeans, and then I think about... fuck." Kon shakes
his head.

Bart waits for him to ask why he's there.

And waits.

And waits.

And -- "Kon?"

"Yeah? Sorry, I'm just kind of..." He starts to ball his hands
into fists -- and stops. "Damn."

The glasses are kind of mangled. "I could try to --"

Kon waves him off. "I've got about eighteen more pairs just
*with* me, man. Superman is really *focused* on this secret
identity thing."

Which means that Kon isn't focused on... much of anything
else. There *is* something else -- Bart can see it the way
he can see Kon not seeing him -- but...

"Yeah, so... anyway. What's up?"

Bart shakes his head and runs.

"Okay, sure --"

*

The first thing Tim does is shut his laptop down.

The second thing he does is fix his cape --

"Sorry," Bart says.

-- and Tim grunts a little and looks at him, in that way he
has -- always has -- which is all about paying attention to
the way his brow furrows more on one side. The eyebrow's
up under the mask.

It's as good as a question. "You know Kon's kind of..." Bart
waves a hand, making a point of moving it much, much too
slow so that Tim can see it.

"Kind of...?"

Bart rolls his eyes. "Fucked in the head. You know that,
right?"

That gets him a different look. He likes that look. It's the
fourth time he's gotten it, and it's all about the fact that
Tim's measuring him hard.

Well, okay, it's actually kind of a scary look, but --

"I'm aware," Tim says, finally.

"Okay," Bart says, and runs --

"Thank --"

*

He finds Cassie working with a really cool-looking spear on
the roof, though he can't say for sure if she's practicing with
it or practicing having it. The moves she's making are --

The word is 'stylized,' and Bart has an image in his head of
the page of the dictionary, and several pages of a book on
modern choreography, and also nineteen-no-twenty photos
of penciled representations of ancient Roman legion
formations.

He thinks it should probably be Greek, but --

No. The Romans had destroyed the Greeks.

They *hadn't* destroyed the Amazons. The Amazons had
learned faster, maybe. He could ask. Or maybe --

"Are there libraries on Themyscira?"

The spear is pointed at his chin, then at his chest, then at
the stretch of roof between them.

Bart waits, and --

"God, Bart, sorry. I was really..." Cassie shakes her head
and smiles ruefully. "The *rhythms* of what Wonder
Woman has been teaching me..."

"Kind of hypnotic? Like meditation?"

Cassie frowns, more at him than in thought.

She's seeing Impulse.

"Well, kind of...? I guess. What were you asking?"

Bart shakes his head and zips for a closer look at the spear.
"Nothing important. I was just thinking the Amazons
probably have a lot of stuff you can't get in regular libraries."

Cassie snorts. "You're telling me. Queen Hippolyta keeps
threatening to have me flogged for not learning Ancient
Greek yet. Diana *says* she's joking, but..." Cassie sighs
and tucks the spear into a loop on the back of the leather
armor she's wearing. "Sometimes I think the rest of the
metas in the world have it so *easy*. You guys just have
to have powers, *I* have to --"

"Live up to a legacy of living and dead heroes?"

She frowns again.

That was probably a little -- a little more than 'blunt.' At
least in his tone, or -- what had his tone been like?

She's still frowning, and it feels like the world has gone slow
on him, but it hasn't. This is where Max would --
deliberately -- not do so much as blink, just to make it really
obvious that Bart was moving 'too fast,' even though the
subjective time would be hurting *him*, too.

Max had bloodshot eyes a lot.

He wouldn't if Bart had been Kid Flash, instead of Impulse,
but Max isn't here and Cassie is. Bart smiles and zips close.

"Can I play with the spear?"

This frown is an easy twist of her mouth as she pivots to
face him entirely, and keeps pivoting, using some of *her*
own speed.

Kon's faster than she is. Neither of them are as fast as he
is --

"Quit it, Bart --"

Good enough.

*

Tim almost never used to meditate around them. He *did*
it, but not that much. He also didn't used to train that much
around them, period.

Bart wonders how much is the fact that Cyborg had built a
gym fit for Nightwing, and how much is just...

Everything that had happened since Troia and Omen had
been killed. He isn't sure. And --

"A minute, Bart," Tim says, eyes closed and voice quiet and
slow and not very Robin-like, when he thinks about it.

And he *does* think about it, because Tim doesn't mean
'a minute,' the way other people do.

He means sixty seconds to slowly stiffen up until the
position he's in stops looking natural and starts looking like
just a non-standard ready position.

He's pulling on Robin again, just like there really is a Tim
Drake out there -- in here -- somewhere, like maybe there
*can* be in the Tower, the way --

Bart stops, and remembers coming back from Apokolips,
and everything had been really crazy and fucked-up and
crowded, everyone had been *messed-up*, but Tim had
been smiling.

Because they all knew his name. Which is... hunh.

Bart takes a few of the last seconds to search everything
that isn't locked and alarmed really a lot in Tim's room, but
there's nothing there but weapons and spare suits and
stuff. Robin-things. If he *was* being Tim Drake here,
wouldn't there be other things?

Would they really be locked away?

Wouldn't that kind of be against the point?

When he stops, Tim is looking at him, leaning back against
the headboard with his legs out straight. Waiting.

Bart grins. People don't wait for him enough.

Tim does the eyebrow thing, and --

And Bart remembers why he's here.

"Cassie," he says.

Tim waves his right hand between them in a really good
impression of the move Bart had used before.

Heh. "Yeah. Just checking --"

"To make sure I knew." The corner of Tim's mouth twitches.
"Doing my job, Bart?"

That's -- Bart blinks. "I'm not checking up on them. Well, I
wasn't. Do you think I should be?"

The eyebrow again. "I was joking, actually. Stalking all of
you *isn't* really my job."

And that's another part of the whole Apokolips thing, Bart
thinks. Something maybe *Tim* had asked for, but only
because he's Batman's partner, but --

"Did you really think it was?"

But Tim had used the word 'really' twice.

There were lots of psych texts out there -- and books about
gambling -- which talked about 'tells' and things and... Bart
looks at Tim.

He's not wearing goggles anymore, so he knows the look
is -- should be -- registering as a *look*.

Of course it would, anyway, because it's Tim, but --

Tim snorts, humorlessly. "Fine. It's my job. But I don't
always take orders when they're given to me."

"From Batman?"

Tim leans back against the headboard and smiles with
*both* sides of his mouth. "He's the only one who gives
me orders, Bart."

"And what about suggestions? Requests? And --"

Tim is looking at him, and it's a little like the looks Kon and
Cassie give him, now, and a little like the ones Cyborg gives
him, but it's also better than the former and worse than the
latter.

Tim's looking at him like a stranger. "Should I go?"

"No," Tim says -- quickly for a human -- and then holds up
a hand. And cocks his head. "If you weren't doing my job,
then what were you doing?"

"I had..." Bart frowns at the floor and moves to the window
and the door and back to the bed.

Tim does that thing where he's kind of radiating 'you have
no idea how patient I'm being right now' until it's almost a
smell in the room.

Tim almost never makes Bart feel like he's moving too fast.

"I didn't want to talk about it with you, yet."

"Really."

"Yeah. I'm going."

"All right --"

*

Cassie's still on the roof, and Cyborg and Beast Boy are in
the TV room, and Starfire is doing that thing where she
makes gardening look like something that should be on the
channels Jay and Joan don't actually subscribe to, but the
next door neighbors do.

He helps until he gets tired of being told about how it's not
work as opposed to meditation, and so she doesn't *need*
suggestions on how to do it faster, even though Bart was
planting things as slow as he could.

San Francisco is right there, though, and he's figured out
how to run slow enough across the Bay that he doesn't
leave scorch marks for almost two full miles once he's in
the city proper.

He argues about boot-design with two guys who run a
leather shop, which is a little annoying -- it's not like they've
ever had to really think about friction and wind-resistance --
but it's also kind of cool, too.

He's too good these days to get tripped up by freaking
marbles and things, but the guy with the shaved head
sketches out some really cool-looking alternate tread
designs -- *with* lightning bolts -- and Bart thinks it
wouldn't hurt to bring them some of the materials he uses.

Then there's a fire, and by the time he finishes getting all of
the people out of the apartment building, Starfire, Cassie,
and Kon are holding up fire-fighters to help them aim the
water blasts, so they don't have to wait for the cranes.

The fire-fighters wave them off when they offer to help with
the investigation -- it really does look like one of the old
gas stoves in the building had blown -- so they all make a
quick run past the hospital where everyone had wound up --
no serious injuries -- and then they head back to the Tower.

Bart gets there first, of course, and Tim's waiting on the
roof. Probably for Kon -- of *course* he knew Kon was
messed-up in the head -- but it'll take Kon at least another
two minutes, so Bart runs up the side.

"Is it 'yet,' yet?"

Tim is making one of those kind-of-mean little Robin jokes,
but he's also being serious. Bart likes those, now that he
gets them.

Thinks he gets them.

He tugs Tim's cape back into place, and waits for Tim to
do that thing with his shoulders that makes it *really*
right --

"Bart."

"It's not yet, yet, no. But I know why it isn't."

"Oh?"

Bart cocks his own head in the smile he's starting to think
of as the Kid Flash smile. Impulse never really had one of
his own, which maybe implies that *this* smile shouldn't
feel as real as it does, or --

It does. He can go with it.

And it makes Tim raise a different kind of eyebrow.

"It's because you already know I'll come back. Just like you
already knew I was fucked-up about something, just like
you probably already knew what the something *was* --"

"Bart --"

"Because even though you're not following anyone's orders,
you're still *you*."

And he goes, thinking about running the Pacific so that
he'll maybe be tired enough to crash when everyone else
does, and then --

"Kid Flash."

He still has the comm in. Kid Flash doesn't take it out, but --

"You're still you, as well," Tim says in his ear.

And there's enough time for Bart to have the last word,
there always is, except when it's Wally or Jay (or Max, but
not anymore, not) --

"Robin out."

He's not sure what the last word should be.

*

It's pretty much completely a whim to drop in on Cyborg
after they all -- *except* for Cyborg -- eat, because it's not
like he has any plans to whine at *him* at all, about
anything.

Cyborg's already heard him screaming.

Nobody should --

But still, he *had* also been kind of avoiding Cyborg since
then, and even though Cyborg isn't really a friend, yet, he's
also been in the game for more than twice as long as Bart
has been alive.

Avoidance is a tell.

Cyborg smiles at him when Bart slows down enough to be
seen. It's that warm smile which Bart's pretty sure makes a
lot of people hurt when they think of all the metal. "What
can I do for you?"

Bart shrugs and moves -- carefully -- around the room.
There are a lot of things in here which he can't even really
*guess* at, but -- "Are any of the cybernetics papers
you've written in hard copy?"

Cyborg gives him a thoughtful look while kind of... hanging
himself from the ceiling. "I don't really have a lot of
*papers*, as opposed to notes. I don't publish. And no, I
don't keep hard copies."

Of course he doesn't. It would be just as inefficient as Bart
trying to survive the processing speed of their computers,
but... "Why don't you publish?"

"I... I'm not sure, actually." Cyborg laughs a little and
presses a button which... causes robotic arms to come
down from the ceiling and start taking him *apart*.

Jeez. Kon had *said*, but -- Jeez. "Can I help?"

The smile gets a little sharper, but not cruel. "Not until
after I print a few things out for you, Kid."

Bart can hear the capital 'K.' He likes hearing it, even
though it sort of makes him want to look for the Kon who
used to wear garters.

And Cyborg... there are two thighs -- human thighs -- being
tucked away. There's a part of him which wants to ask how
much of Cyborg *is* still organic, but it doesn't really feel
like a question worth asking, especially since that so-deep-
brown-it's-almost-black eye is still focused on him, amused
and friendly.

He's willing to bet too many people ask that question.
There are others, though.

"Cyborg..."

"Yes?"

"Do you ever... not want to be Cyborg?"

The laugh becomes a digital simulation as the robotic arms
remove his torso and tuck it away.

It's actually a pretty *good* simulation, even though it
seems to be coming from everywhere but Cyborg's mouth.

"I'm Vic Stone all the time, Kid," he says, and smiles again.
"Whether or not anyone notices."

*

Tim can make the Tower look -- *feel* -- wrong, but he
doesn't usually. It's just times like these, when Tim's internal
clock is probably saying 'time to patrol,' even though most
of the Tower is passed out.

He's making the ledge of one of his windows look like a
really pathetic gargoyle, and he probably doesn't appreciate
the wind Bart's causing by circling him, but...

He's not ready to sit down yet.

He runs around Hawaii a few times first, borrowing diving
gear from a sleepy-looking resort.

Swimming in general -- when there are humans around to
complain about waves -- doesn't do much for him, but
actually diving...

When he's deep enough that there are thousands of tons of
water separating him from the surface, the world is almost
normal. Moving at speed is *totally* exhausting, too, and...

And, after twenty minutes, he's ready to sit down.

Tim sniffs the air when Bart sits down next to him, and
nods, mostly to himself.

"Do you write the notes you take down?"

"Only when I have to."

Bart frowns and drums his feet against the outer wall of
the Tower a little bit. "Isn't that dangerous? What if you
get a traumatic brain injury?"

Tim gives that completely honest and kind-of-mean smile. "I
have to quite a lot."

Heh. "You totally think the League was wrong to be pissed
at Batman for making all those plans."

Tim looks at him steadily for a really long moment. Beyond
subjectivity long, even, but it's not the kind of thing Bart
thinks it's worth interrupting.

Even if the waiting is driving him a little --

"What do you think?"

-- crazy. Well... Bart makes a point of biting back the first
seventeen or so things which come to mind, even though
they're all true.

And Tim nods at himself again, just as if Bart had said
something, but --

He hadn't, dammit. "I was thinking... Batman probably had
you making those kinds of files before you even met us.
Like, on your family."

"You're not wrong."

"And you were really pissed at us for thinking you would,
but..." Bart frowns. "I'm not sure. Why were you pissed? I
mean, when I think about it... I kind of think *I* should
have files like that on everyone. I think we *all* should,
and --"

"I was angry because of the way it was thrown at me as a
question of trust. The fact is, I should've had files of that
sort. The fact that I didn't was a weakness, and a mistake.
Just as it was a weakness and a mistake for Batman to
have his own files where they could be accessed by
anyone not himself. And --" Tim stops, and looks at him.
No eyebrow, no twitchy smile. "This isn't what you wanted
to talk about."

"No, but --"

"Bart --"

"-- it's *important*," Bart says, and bangs his fist between
them a few dozen times and stops. "I have to know. I have
to understand. *Why* did you make the mistake?"

"I..."

Bart reaches beneath the cape until he can find Tim's wrist.
"Please?"

Tim looks down at the bulge in the otherwise perfect fall
of his cape. "Two reasons. First and foremost, it felt like
the sort of rebellion which I could get away with without
causing damage. I was wrong, of course."

Bart thinks of Secret -- Greta, now -- and winces. "I... I
guess so. But do you really think you could've stopped the
thing with Secret somehow? I mean, wasn't it kind of all
*about* who you were? And what's the other reason?"

Tim twists his wrist in Bart's grip until Bart lets go, but...

He just catches Bart's hand in his own, instead. "Tim --"

The smile on his face is too sad to be mean. "If I'd
presented Batman with concrete, well-thought-out theories
on how I could improve the efficiency of Young Justice by
deliberately presenting myself as a *part* of the group...
well."

"You never would've stopped leading us."

Tim raises an eyebrow. "That wasn't what I was trying to
say, no --"

"But it's true. We would've trusted you even more than we
did. Sure, we also would've *known* you -- Secret
would've known you, and maybe wouldn't have..." Bart
shakes his head and squeezes Tim's hand. "It's not the
point. It's not even close to the point."

"Really, Bart...?"

"Yes, *really*, and don't --" Bart pulls his hand back. "God,
don't do that thing where you act like I don't get it just
because it's kind of ugly. You fucked up because you
wanted to be our friend as much as you could, and it's
*all* about the ugly stuff, and yeah, this is what I wanted
to talk about, kind of, because --"

"Bart --"

"Look, Tim, just... would you do it the same way all over
again? Or -- if you wouldn't, if you *did* try to get Batman
to let you..." Bart bites his lip and drums his feet a little
more. He's hungry. He has to focus. "You know that this --
all of it -- is part of why Young Justice fell apart."

"And if we would've fallen apart, anyway...?"

Bart bangs his head back against the wall. "Look, don't get
me wrong, it's really cool that you're willing to talk about,
like, *philosophy* with me, but -- can we just skip to the
part where you *know* that one of the reasons why I like
you is that you're kind of a total asshole, even when you
don't want to be?"

Tim's laugh is one of the quiet -- real -- ones. More of a
hum than anything else, with a smile that looks painful.
"You can understand, I think, why I'd have my doubts
about how far an attitude like that goes."

He -- "Okay, but it's been *months*."

This laugh is real, too, which is impressive, because it's
also not very quiet.

"I mean, Tim... I *want* you to have plans to take all of us
down. I want you to *be* that guy, because... because you
can be, and other people can't."

Tim smiles at him, turning his head to do it really thoroughly.
And Bart...

Bart swallows. "I really -- I really like that about you."

"Okay."

"I mean -- I need that. About you."

"There are things I need, too, Bart."

And he's still *looking* at Bart, and Bart thinks about the
way Tim's gauntlet had felt against his own, and about --

And about all the ways subjective time is really going to kill
him, one day, and possibly even tonight, because he needs
Tim to be on the "let's kiss" page at least thirty seconds
ago.

If he isn't even on the "guys are hot, too" page, yet, Bart
thinks he's going to need to --

*Focus*. "What do you need?"

The smile shifts on Tim's face to something wider and harder,
and Bart has way too much time to think about that, and
about words like 'harder,' because Tim doesn't say anything
while he's tilting his head, and his nostrils flare a little
because Bart still smells like some of the cleanest seawater
around this whole continent, and his tongue --

He touches his tongue with his *teeth*, and Bart knows this
isn't really sixteen hours of homoerotic torture, but knowing
things doesn't really *help*, and if there really was a
benevolent deity -- as opposed to kind of an ignorant asshole
deity like the Amazon ones, and he's never saying that out
loud around Cassie ever -- then someone would've *told*
him that before he used the San Francisco Public Library to
fuck his whole head over, and --

"First of all, Bart, I need you to talk to me about what's
wrong with you right now."

Of course that's first. Of course -- wait. "What's second?"

"Bart --"

"I wanted to know how to stop making people think of me
as Impulse, as opposed to as Kid Flash or just Bart, but I
know that's going to take forever, because you're absolutely
right that if people like Kon or Cassie knew that you really
thought it was a good idea to keep files on how to take us
all down -- whether you did or *not* -- they would be
freaked, and I get that it's just one of the things which will
take time, okay, so what's second?"

If it was anyone else -- possibly even Batman -- Bart would
be sure that Tim was blinking at him behind the mask.

It's Tim, though, so Bart thinks he might just be looking.

Studying. *Knowing*.

Bart wants -- "I want you to know me. And I think you do."

And the smile is back. It's...

It's slow and only sharp because it's Tim. It's actually kind
of sweet, and Bart's getting hard, and --

"Coincidentally enough," Tim says, "I want the same thing.
And I think the same thing."

And -- he really can't. "Tim, I'm going to kiss you right
now, and I hope that saying that gives you some time to
get used to the idea, because --"

The kiss is as soft as Bart can make it, but not as slow. He
wants it to be slow, but he's trying to be a little less
too-fast-for-the-world, and sometimes that means *not*
taking his time, even though that's paradoxical and
incredibly unfair.

Tim's mouth is hard -- surprised? Pissed?

Tim's mouth tastes like coffee, because of course Tim
would make sure he'd be awake in the middle of the night,
even though none of the rest of them would be, and even
though he doesn't *have* a patrol to do.

He's Tim, and Bart wants to lick his mouth, but he's settling
for licking Tim's *lips*, and --

And he's not, because Tim makes a sound and his mouth
is open, and the ledge isn't wide enough for this, but Tim
has a grapple-gun if he falls and Bart can always catch
himself running or make an air-cushion if *he* does, so
Bart leans out far enough to make it a *good* kiss, and he
slows it down, and it takes forever for Tim to touch his
face, and it's terrifying when he does, because any
nanosecond now he might push Bart away, but he keeps
not doing it and keeps not doing it and --

He pushes.

And gasps. "Air. Bart."

"Just air? Or should I not have done that?"

Tim laughs -- and keeps gasping. "That's a -- complicated
question."

"It isn't --"

Tim stops him with a hand on his chest. "Think about it."

"I --"

And raises an eyebrow.

Okay, thinking. He can think. He can think. He -- "It's
complicated because 'should' isn't the right word for what
I'm asking. Because you didn't mind the kissing, but you're
not sure it should've happened -- okay." Bart licks his lips,
but they're already healed from the mild soreness. Dammit.
"It might have been a bad idea for..." He's not sure. "I'm
not sure why it might've been a bad idea."

The smile is back on Tim's face. The mean one, and --

And it's totally always going to make him hard now. He's
okay with that, he thinks.

"What if I wake up tomorrow morning and *decide* that it
was a bad idea?"

Bart frowns. "That would -- well, it would suck, Tim, but
why would you? You didn't mind, and you -- you liked it?"

"Yes, I did. Think about it."

He -- "I'm trying. I really am. But all I can come up with is
some old psychology stuff and romance novel stuff about
'morning afters.' That's --" Bart frowns. "I can't put you in
that model, Tim. Unless you're just figuring out that you're
bisexual or something? I mean, that would almost work,
but... it still wouldn't be like *you* to freak out that way."

Tim looks at him.

And just keeps... looking.

Usually, Bart's fine with the mask, but right now it's kind
of awful --

"Bart," Tim says.

"Yeah?"

And then Tim pushes off the ledge, shoots his line to the
roof, and climbs the line in these quick, really *strong*-
looking movements that have him basically dangling in
front of Bart.

"What is it, Tim?"

What it is --

Tim's free hand -- the one he isn't holding himself *up*
with -- is in his hair, tugging a little and Bart goes with it
and then Tim's kissing him *hard*, and suddenly it's taking
everything Bart *has* not to jump off the ledge and wrap
himself around Tim and hump, but he knows that it would
probably make Tim lose his grip, and also he doesn't have
to.

He braces himself on his hands, holds on, and wraps just
his legs around Tim, pulling him in and it's --

He's so *hard* with all the armor, and it takes another
forever to stop just getting off on that and focus on the
way Tim's kissing him, but he can, and he does, and then
it's just the way Tim's almost kind of --

Definitely fucking Bart's mouth with his tongue, and Tim's
gauntlet is scratchy on his face and scalp, and Tim --

Tim likes it that Bart knows him. Tim *needs* it, and Bart
forces himself to break the kiss.

"Bart --"

"I'm going to come really soon," he says, and leans in for
another kiss, because Tim is just that smart and just that
*good*, which means that he takes his hand out of Bart's
hair and reaches up to hold on with *that* one, too, and
Bart still has to be careful, but --

He *can* thrust a little, not as fast as he wants to but
*almost* as hard, and Tim groans into his mouth and
*bucks*, and --

And Bart hears himself yelling and he knows he's probably
clutching too hard with his thighs, but he can't stop and
Tim is still licking Bart's *tongue* --

And coming feels a little like going blind *and* falling, but
it's okay.

Tim has both of them.

"I think we should... pick a surface," Tim says, close enough
that the sentence is four or five really soft kisses, and --

"Beds. There's a bed behind us."

"Beds are good," Tim says, and also "give me a second."

They're swinging, and Bart looks back over his shoulder --
oh. The *open* window will be right behind him in a little
less than two seconds --

And then Tim's letting go with one hand and shoving him
back and *through*.

Which is -- probably not the sexiest thing which has
happened in the history of the universe, but Bart's willing
to lay money that it's close, given the nature of subjective
opinion, aesthetics, and the fact that the first thing Tim
does after swinging in after him is push the lenses up on
his mask and the second thing is to drop to his knees and
straddle him.

"Weren't we going for the bed?"

"You're absolutely right," Tim says, and takes off his cape.
"Should I stop?"

"Bed later," Bart says, and helps as much as he can, which
means that Tim's uniform starts making this small and
ominous humming sound until Tim presses three buttons,
two of which Bart can't even find again after Tim moves his
fingers.

Bart stops helping and focuses on getting his own uniform
off while also not moving from between Tim's thighs.

It still takes an insane amount of *time* for Tim to get his
tunic and t-shirt off and his shorts, tights, and jock out of
the way, but that just means that once he does, there's no
rational reason Bart can think of not to wrap his fist around
Tim's dick and squeeze.

"Bart --"

"Come closer, I want you in my mouth, too --"

"Oh, *fuck*, Bart --"

And Bart feels himself flushing, because every time he's
heard Tim curse before now it's been really quiet and
supervillain-related, besides, and he's moving, crawling
forward on his knees, and this time helping just means
getting his free hand on Tim's ass and being perfectly
justified in squeezing and *pulling* --

Okay, maybe too hard, because Tim has to brace himself
on his hands, but he just makes this hot, quiet little grunting
sound and his dick *jerks* in Bart's hand, and Bart gets his
lips around the head and --

"God -- *Bart*. I won't -- I won't last -- I --"

He wants Tim to last. He wants Tim to last really *badly*,
but not as much as he wants to keep licking Tim almost as
fast as he wants to, squeezing almost as hard, and making
Tim pant out these hot little groans with every breath.

Like this, he can't really feel or smell anything that isn't Tim,
and if he'd left the cape on, Bart wouldn't be able to *see*
anything, either, and he thinks about stopping to share that
thought, because if he can't get Tim to wear the cape
during sex than he doesn't know Tim at *all*, but --

"Nnn -- your tongue, oh fuck *me*, Bart, you -- oh -- oh
*God* --"

And Tim's coming, and it's so amazing that Bart vibrates a
little, trying to make it faster, better --

And he can't, but he can make Tim scream.

That's just as good.

Bart swallows and pulls back, because he knows Tim's
going to be sensitive, and waits for Tim to stop panting and
push off.

He pushes off *before* he stops panting, but... that's kind
of perfect, too.

"Robin," Bart says, before he can think. And -- "Oh, fuck,
sorry --"

"Hn. Kid Flash," and Tim is --

That's a smirk. That isn't anything but a smirk, and so Bart
can't really think of it as being 'happy,' but it's not pissed,
or hurt.

Which is... well, he thinks he *knows*, but it's still
interesting. "Why don't you mind? We just --" Bart rolls on
his side so he can gesture between them *and* look Tim
in his mask-shadowed eyes. "Everything we just talked
about. Isn't it kind of... it's not generic?"

The smirk gets a little more... smirky. "Were you thinking
about my predecessors?"

"No! They're not -- I mean, I know you get really touchy
about anyone saying anything even about the *uniforms*
they wore, but -- you're Robin. Not --"

"Someday," Tim says, and drags one finger down over
Bart's nose and mouth. He presses a little with his finger.

"Tim --"

"You said, someday Flash will be in *your* shadow." Tim
pulls his finger away --

"You should put that finger back."

Tim narrows his eyes and does it. "I believed you then. I
still do.... Kid Flash."

Bart licks his lips -- and Tim's finger. "Not generic."

"No."

He really, really likes Tim. "Okay," he says, and shifts
enough to get them pressed together again. The bunch of
Tim's tights and shorts won't let him get his knee between
Tim's thighs, but that stops mattering once Tim kisses him
again.

He still isn't -- entirely -- sure what he wants it to mean
when people say 'Kid Flash,' but he's kind of hoping that
it winds up having a lot in common with everything behind
Tim's voice when he says it.

And with everything behind the completely not-nice-at-all
smile Bart plans on kissing for a while.

end.