(Upload) A Happy Paradox
This is aaaaall's scotchsour's fault. I had nothing to do with this, honestly, aside from providing the bunny in the first place.
This meme (and the cheery war-cry it gave me) was the catalyst for this story. I give you Aquaman/Robin III. I have a bit of a squick about young partners and much older men, but I worked my way around it… somewhat. I love Aquaman, and I find JLA: Year One Aquaman terribly endearing and sweet. So, I imagined an older, experienced Robin meeting with this inexperienced Arthur, who was totally wooed by his charm, and how that meeting changed the current Aquaman and his relationship with younger Robin. This was so confusing in my head that I hope it makes some kind of sense here. At least I tried! The bunny has been exorcised!
Fandom: DCU
Pairings: Aquaman/Robin III, Superman/Batman
Warnings: Crack. Time travel. Also, crack.
Rating: PG-13
Summary: A convoluted back-story for scotchsour's Aquaman/Robin story that was initially my fault.
Word count: 1535
AN: Beta by sasha_anu, who kindly put up with the crack.
Started on August 1st 2006 at 11:50 pm
Finished on August 2nd 2006 at 1:30 am
A Happy Paradox
After dinner, Bruce had asked Tim to help him with the dishes, which Arthur had taken as a cue to go out for some fresh air and a dip in the lake.
All things considered, Bruce hadn’t taken the news too badly. Arthur was sort of dreading the ‘If you hurt him I’m going to forcibly reverse your gender’ talk they would surely have later on, but he had also expected a lot more scowling and grunting during dinner.
Tim hadn’t even had to resort to bringing up Bruce and Clark’s relationship, which had seemed to surprise the young man. Talking Bruce into anything he didn’t want to be talked into usually required a lot of leverage. Arthur had been a little uncomfortable during dinner, even though he had wanted to hear Tim tell his mentor about them.
He had waited far too long for Tim. Too long.
As he jumped into the cool water, the images of encounters long past flashed through his mind. He was going to have to do some serious explaining to Tim, and probably to Bruce too. Arthur didn’t want any trouble with Gotham’s vigilante, in part because he could understand Bruce’s position. If someone, say, Oliver Queen decided to hit on Garth, Arthur would go ballistic. Not that he was comparing himself to Ollie, he wasn’t that much of a horndog, but he could understand Bruce’s fears and concerns.
He was a little concerned himself. Tim was young. Arthur had waited a long time; Tim was ‘legal’, as the surface people called it -though he found the term disgusting- but he was still young. It wasn’t as if at the dawn of your eighteenth birthday you were suddenly ready for the world. But Tim had been ready for years, a mixture of charming teenage confidence and problems with a deeply grounded confidence and intelligence that was purely Tim.
Arthur should know that too. He knew the man that Tim was going to become.
He had no idea how to tell Tim. Somehow, breaking the news to him like, “I met your future self almost ten years ago, and I fell for him hard, so I’ve been waiting for you to be old enough to tell you,” didn’t seem like an easy thing to say. There was a chance that Tim might not like the way that confession sounded, like maybe Arthur was going to try to use him to relive an old affair he had had with an alternate Tim, which wasn’t what Arthur was doing at all.
The Tim he had met so many years ago, back during his first years with the JLA, had told him the story of how he had first met with his Arthur.
He had been following a criminal in San Francisco’s harbor. Aquaman had helped him catch a man trying to poison a water supply. Aquaman had seemed almost eager to see Tim, and years later, the future-Arthur had confessed future-Tim that he had already met him, and fallen hard for him, in his past.
It was mind boggling, really, and it had sounded very much like a paradox to the King of Atlantis. He resurfaced in the lake, turning to float on his back, drifting in the night’s breeze while he stared at the starry sky.
So far, Arthur had figured out that every time he had met Tim for the first time -the future Tim, that was- it had been history repeating itself. An infinite loop of Tim and Arthur and Robin and Aquaman. It sounded a lot like destiny.
Future-Tim had told Arthur, many years ago, to look for him that night at the harbor. He had asked him to remember him, because what they had was good.
Tim was going to turn into a fine man, the Atlantean knew. Slightly shorter than Arthur himself, with a strong but lithe build. Smart, too, and less grim than the young man he was now. Arthur wanted to believe that maybe he had had something to do with the lightening of that darkness of his chosen partner. Maybe what they could have would be good enough, and his young Tim could smile the way the older Tim had. A smile that had charmed a younger Arthur back when everything on the surface world was confusing and he felt so out of place.
Arthur wanted to be the reason Tim would smile like that. He wanted to be the recipient of those smiles. He had it bad for the young Robin in all his past, present and future incarnations. It was just that the situation was a little hard to explain.
“Hey, Arthur,” Clark greeted him from the pier. Arthur looked up, and sighing to himself, he swam towards his friend. He put his hands on the wet wood and held on there, waiting for Clark to sit down.
“You’re gonna give Bruce an ulcer, you know.”
The Atlantean chuckled. “Bruce gives himself ulcers without my help. He’s just pissed because he didn’t see it coming.”
Clark took off his glasses, and azure eyes met green ones with reproach.
Arthur didn’t look away, but he bit his lips thoughtfully. “Okay, maybe he’s understandably worried. But tantrum or not, I’m with Tim. He can’t change that.”
“True,” Clark agreed. “You looked worried earlier.”
This time, Arthur did look away, up into the sky. “I hate time travel,” he stated with frustration.
Clark looked up, following his gaze, probably thinking that the reason for him saying that had materialized above them. “Uhm, okay,” he said once he couldn’t find anything but stars and some wispy clouds. “It’s not my favorite thing either.”
“It messes with your mind,” Arthur continued, getting angrier. “This is a no brainer: I like him, he likes me, we’re together as long as we’re happy.”
“And there’s time travel involved with that?” Clark said, his voice suddenly dead serious. Arthur grinned at the concerned look the Kryptonian was giving him.
“Are you worried about your boyfriend’s boy and the evil alternate Aquaman from a future timeline?” the Atlantean teased.
Clark opened his mouth to answer a couple of times, each time closing it again without saying anything. He looked flustered. “He’s not my boyfriend,” he finally managed.
“Really? What are you boys calling it now, then?”
Clark looked down, a light blush in his cheeks. Arthur gave him a small wet slap to the face. “Surface dwellers are so stupid. I said it was a no brainer: You like him, he likes you, you’re together as long as you’re happy.”
“Or until I go rogue and he has to kill me, or he freaks out and throws me out, or he dies, or the world ends, or an evil alternate Aquaman from a future timeline tries to take him away from me.”
“Evil alternate Aquamen from future timelines have better judgment than that. They don’t like to be beaten to pulp by scorned boyfriends.”
Clark laughed. “You better not hurt Tim, Arthur…”
“Or you’ll forcibly reverse my gender?”
“Worse. I’ll sic an angry Alfred on you. You wouldn’t want that.”
Arthur gave the idea some thought until understanding dawned. “No! Did Alfred give you the ‘You better not hurt Master Bruce’ speech?”
Clark couldn’t help but chuckle. “Of course he didn’t say anything. But the way he looked at me…”
Arthur didn’t know if Clark’s shudder was real or a feigned effect for the joke, but he knew the bat-family caretaker well enough to guess that it was probably real.
“I’m not going to purposely hurt Tim,” he assured the Kryptonian.
“Yeah, I know.”
They both remained silent for a couple of minutes. Arthur didn’t want to think about the infinite number of ways to tell a story that was so convoluted that it made his brain hurt, but lately it was one of those things his mind kept going back to whenever he spaced out.
“So. You and Tim and time travel?” Clark inquired again.
“Let’s not go there,” Arthur said with finality. He wasn’t going to tell Clark before he told Tim. It was complicated enough without…
“Time travel?” Bruce’s voice was terse and clipped. The waves of danger that were emanating from him should have been a dead giveaway of his presence on the pier, but of course, neither of them had noticed Bruce *and* Tim walking towards them. There was no natural way they should have been able to do that, not on a wooden pier over a lake. It was just not possible.
“Time travel?” Tim asked, his voice less clipped but just as dangerous as Bruce’s. Neither of the bats liked time travel, it seemed.
Arthur sighed, and glared accusingly at Clark.
Taking a deep breath, he decided to dive right into it. Ride the high tide and be done with the stupid reeling over paradoxes and the past. Hadn’t future-Tim said that what they had was good? Surely it couldn’t be good if he didn’t survive this night, so his future self must have come out of this in one piece. It would be all right.
It would be.
“So, Tim. Have I ever told you about the first time I met you?”
This meme (and the cheery war-cry it gave me) was the catalyst for this story. I give you Aquaman/Robin III. I have a bit of a squick about young partners and much older men, but I worked my way around it… somewhat. I love Aquaman, and I find JLA: Year One Aquaman terribly endearing and sweet. So, I imagined an older, experienced Robin meeting with this inexperienced Arthur, who was totally wooed by his charm, and how that meeting changed the current Aquaman and his relationship with younger Robin. This was so confusing in my head that I hope it makes some kind of sense here. At least I tried! The bunny has been exorcised!
Fandom: DCU
Pairings: Aquaman/Robin III, Superman/Batman
Warnings: Crack. Time travel. Also, crack.
Rating: PG-13
Summary: A convoluted back-story for scotchsour's Aquaman/Robin story that was initially my fault.
Word count: 1535
AN: Beta by sasha_anu, who kindly put up with the crack.
Started on August 1st 2006 at 11:50 pm
Finished on August 2nd 2006 at 1:30 am
A Happy Paradox
After dinner, Bruce had asked Tim to help him with the dishes, which Arthur had taken as a cue to go out for some fresh air and a dip in the lake.
All things considered, Bruce hadn’t taken the news too badly. Arthur was sort of dreading the ‘If you hurt him I’m going to forcibly reverse your gender’ talk they would surely have later on, but he had also expected a lot more scowling and grunting during dinner.
Tim hadn’t even had to resort to bringing up Bruce and Clark’s relationship, which had seemed to surprise the young man. Talking Bruce into anything he didn’t want to be talked into usually required a lot of leverage. Arthur had been a little uncomfortable during dinner, even though he had wanted to hear Tim tell his mentor about them.
He had waited far too long for Tim. Too long.
As he jumped into the cool water, the images of encounters long past flashed through his mind. He was going to have to do some serious explaining to Tim, and probably to Bruce too. Arthur didn’t want any trouble with Gotham’s vigilante, in part because he could understand Bruce’s position. If someone, say, Oliver Queen decided to hit on Garth, Arthur would go ballistic. Not that he was comparing himself to Ollie, he wasn’t that much of a horndog, but he could understand Bruce’s fears and concerns.
He was a little concerned himself. Tim was young. Arthur had waited a long time; Tim was ‘legal’, as the surface people called it -though he found the term disgusting- but he was still young. It wasn’t as if at the dawn of your eighteenth birthday you were suddenly ready for the world. But Tim had been ready for years, a mixture of charming teenage confidence and problems with a deeply grounded confidence and intelligence that was purely Tim.
Arthur should know that too. He knew the man that Tim was going to become.
He had no idea how to tell Tim. Somehow, breaking the news to him like, “I met your future self almost ten years ago, and I fell for him hard, so I’ve been waiting for you to be old enough to tell you,” didn’t seem like an easy thing to say. There was a chance that Tim might not like the way that confession sounded, like maybe Arthur was going to try to use him to relive an old affair he had had with an alternate Tim, which wasn’t what Arthur was doing at all.
The Tim he had met so many years ago, back during his first years with the JLA, had told him the story of how he had first met with his Arthur.
He had been following a criminal in San Francisco’s harbor. Aquaman had helped him catch a man trying to poison a water supply. Aquaman had seemed almost eager to see Tim, and years later, the future-Arthur had confessed future-Tim that he had already met him, and fallen hard for him, in his past.
It was mind boggling, really, and it had sounded very much like a paradox to the King of Atlantis. He resurfaced in the lake, turning to float on his back, drifting in the night’s breeze while he stared at the starry sky.
So far, Arthur had figured out that every time he had met Tim for the first time -the future Tim, that was- it had been history repeating itself. An infinite loop of Tim and Arthur and Robin and Aquaman. It sounded a lot like destiny.
Future-Tim had told Arthur, many years ago, to look for him that night at the harbor. He had asked him to remember him, because what they had was good.
Tim was going to turn into a fine man, the Atlantean knew. Slightly shorter than Arthur himself, with a strong but lithe build. Smart, too, and less grim than the young man he was now. Arthur wanted to believe that maybe he had had something to do with the lightening of that darkness of his chosen partner. Maybe what they could have would be good enough, and his young Tim could smile the way the older Tim had. A smile that had charmed a younger Arthur back when everything on the surface world was confusing and he felt so out of place.
Arthur wanted to be the reason Tim would smile like that. He wanted to be the recipient of those smiles. He had it bad for the young Robin in all his past, present and future incarnations. It was just that the situation was a little hard to explain.
“Hey, Arthur,” Clark greeted him from the pier. Arthur looked up, and sighing to himself, he swam towards his friend. He put his hands on the wet wood and held on there, waiting for Clark to sit down.
“You’re gonna give Bruce an ulcer, you know.”
The Atlantean chuckled. “Bruce gives himself ulcers without my help. He’s just pissed because he didn’t see it coming.”
Clark took off his glasses, and azure eyes met green ones with reproach.
Arthur didn’t look away, but he bit his lips thoughtfully. “Okay, maybe he’s understandably worried. But tantrum or not, I’m with Tim. He can’t change that.”
“True,” Clark agreed. “You looked worried earlier.”
This time, Arthur did look away, up into the sky. “I hate time travel,” he stated with frustration.
Clark looked up, following his gaze, probably thinking that the reason for him saying that had materialized above them. “Uhm, okay,” he said once he couldn’t find anything but stars and some wispy clouds. “It’s not my favorite thing either.”
“It messes with your mind,” Arthur continued, getting angrier. “This is a no brainer: I like him, he likes me, we’re together as long as we’re happy.”
“And there’s time travel involved with that?” Clark said, his voice suddenly dead serious. Arthur grinned at the concerned look the Kryptonian was giving him.
“Are you worried about your boyfriend’s boy and the evil alternate Aquaman from a future timeline?” the Atlantean teased.
Clark opened his mouth to answer a couple of times, each time closing it again without saying anything. He looked flustered. “He’s not my boyfriend,” he finally managed.
“Really? What are you boys calling it now, then?”
Clark looked down, a light blush in his cheeks. Arthur gave him a small wet slap to the face. “Surface dwellers are so stupid. I said it was a no brainer: You like him, he likes you, you’re together as long as you’re happy.”
“Or until I go rogue and he has to kill me, or he freaks out and throws me out, or he dies, or the world ends, or an evil alternate Aquaman from a future timeline tries to take him away from me.”
“Evil alternate Aquamen from future timelines have better judgment than that. They don’t like to be beaten to pulp by scorned boyfriends.”
Clark laughed. “You better not hurt Tim, Arthur…”
“Or you’ll forcibly reverse my gender?”
“Worse. I’ll sic an angry Alfred on you. You wouldn’t want that.”
Arthur gave the idea some thought until understanding dawned. “No! Did Alfred give you the ‘You better not hurt Master Bruce’ speech?”
Clark couldn’t help but chuckle. “Of course he didn’t say anything. But the way he looked at me…”
Arthur didn’t know if Clark’s shudder was real or a feigned effect for the joke, but he knew the bat-family caretaker well enough to guess that it was probably real.
“I’m not going to purposely hurt Tim,” he assured the Kryptonian.
“Yeah, I know.”
They both remained silent for a couple of minutes. Arthur didn’t want to think about the infinite number of ways to tell a story that was so convoluted that it made his brain hurt, but lately it was one of those things his mind kept going back to whenever he spaced out.
“So. You and Tim and time travel?” Clark inquired again.
“Let’s not go there,” Arthur said with finality. He wasn’t going to tell Clark before he told Tim. It was complicated enough without…
“Time travel?” Bruce’s voice was terse and clipped. The waves of danger that were emanating from him should have been a dead giveaway of his presence on the pier, but of course, neither of them had noticed Bruce *and* Tim walking towards them. There was no natural way they should have been able to do that, not on a wooden pier over a lake. It was just not possible.
“Time travel?” Tim asked, his voice less clipped but just as dangerous as Bruce’s. Neither of the bats liked time travel, it seemed.
Arthur sighed, and glared accusingly at Clark.
Taking a deep breath, he decided to dive right into it. Ride the high tide and be done with the stupid reeling over paradoxes and the past. Hadn’t future-Tim said that what they had was good? Surely it couldn’t be good if he didn’t survive this night, so his future self must have come out of this in one piece. It would be all right.
It would be.
“So, Tim. Have I ever told you about the first time I met you?”