[fic] Surrender Your Clothing (Dick/Steph/Tim genderfuck, adult)
Title: Surrender Your Clothing
Characters: Dick, Steph, Tim in various genderbent ways and combinations.
Setting/Timeline: ROBIN, pre-"Unmasked" and OUTSIDERS, pre-"Insiders". Some halcyon period when Kory's with the Outsiders but Kon's eyes are still blue and he's got a full head of hair.
Summary: Tim has boundaries. Steph and Dick are...flexible.
Rating: Adult
Disclaimer: DC writes the official crack.
Notes: Title from the Pansy Division song.
Notes, again: Right. Well. Yesterday morning there was this girl!Dick/Kory ficlet from Ny and then I beta'd The spot you missed for Petra and then lots of stupid crap happened. To cheer myself and my lovelies up, I joked about girl!Dick meeting boy!Steph. Then it became...not so much a joke as a story (with their permission). This won't make much sense if you don't read Petra and Ny's work first. This is, obviously, for them, and katarik beta'd like a champ.
The social benefits of heterosexism are not to be downplayed. In Tim's opinion, that is, because his girlfriend Steph would never have been allowed to stay the night, even if he'd thought to ask. But his new buddy Steve, rangy in his Green Lantern t-shirt and pukka bracelets and worn black cords, is more than welcome.
Dana even made them popcorn.
It's cold, the butter congealed, because Tim can't seem to keep his hands off Steve.
And Steve groans when they kiss, butts his flat chest against Tim's, and rocks his hand just *right* over Tim's dick.
So. Benefits. They're good.
"Who's your friend, Tim?"
As Steve's mouth slides down Tim's neck, slowly matching the rhythm of his hand over Tim's dick, it takes all the will Tim possesses to pull away and look at the intruder pulling herself through the open window.
That voice is a rich contralto, as lush as the woman's curves and spill of dark hair. Her black halter top clings tightly over high, round breasts; her worn jeans ride low on her hips. She's -- *beautiful*.
Her grin, however, is all too familiar.
Tim closes his eyes and tries to wake up.
But since he's being ridiculous and this *isn't* a dream, or a nightmare, everything's still here when he opens his eyes.
Steve has slipped his hand out of Tim's pants and is poking him in the ribs. "Is that Troia? Isn't she..."
Wincing, Tim swallows hard. "Nightwing," he says and steels his voice. "I - ah. You've met --"
"Steve. Also, Spoiler." Steve shakes his shaggy blond hair out of his eyes, swipes the hand he had on Tim's dick over his thigh, then shakes his - her - Dick's hand. "You can call me Steve."
Dick's eyes widen.
"He's really enjoying this a little too much," Tim says helplessly.
Dick tosses her hair -- it must be a wig, because hair-growth has not been reported by any field agents, whether DEO or STAR, as among the effects wrought by the chromosomal anomalies -- and grins again. She's wearing lipstick, and it gleams, and Tim's head is starting to hurt.
"What's not to enjoy?" Dick's saying as she shakes Steve's hand. "I mean, walking on the wild side --"
"Playing for the other team," Steve adds, cutting a teasing glance over Tim.
Dick's laugh is higher now, and her breasts somehow *rise* and jiggle with it. She slips her arm through Steve's and shakes her head. "Exactly. Never hurt anyone to push their boundaries. Did it, Timothy?"
Tim steeples his fingers and rests the tips against his nose. It's a protective gesture, he knows that, one he hasn't used since Young Justice.
Back then, he'd never have imagined that anyone could irritate him more than the Impulse/SB tag team.
Dick-with-breasts and Steve, however, are a reminder that Tim ought to be a little more...*circumspect*.
"No way am I calling you Nightwing," Steve is saying, holding Dick at arm's length and walking slowly around her. "Not looking like *that*."
"How about Dick?" Dick feints a grab at Steve's crotch and, laughing, Steve dances out of the way.
"Mary." Tim drops his hands to his side and lets a mean little smile cross his lips. "Call her Mary."
Steve guffaws. Dick manages to look thoughtful, raise an eyebrow at Tim, and smile, all at once. Her lips are softer, Tim thinks, plumper, and it isn't as if Dick's mouth was ever less than...
"I like it," Mary says. "It's --"
"Highly appropriate," Tim replies. "Yes."
Tim sits there against the wall, knees up, while Mary and Steve chatter and laugh. They're fast friends and he really shouldn't be surprised. There are few people other than Dick and Steph who could take what's happening to them with a grin and readiness to make the most of it.
Steve hasn't met many other anomalies, and the ones he *has* have annoyed him. "Blah blah what's gonna happen to my marriage blah blah I'm not a dyke blah de *blah*," he said when he cut out of his first and last support-group session. "Please, like this is some kind of catastrophe."
They're fooling around, knocking each over, Steve with Mary in a headlock, Mary's long, thinner fingers scrabbling at Steve's narrow hips.
"Did Batman make you jerk off?"
Mary twists, her new girlish leanness only adding to her characteristic flexibility, and flips Steve onto his back. "What do you think?"
Steve grins. "Did you edit the tape afterward?"
Mary shrugs and the effect on her breasts is -- *interesting*. Given the slight smirk on his face, Tim's pretty sure that Steve's looking, too. "Added some sound effects, you know. A little jazz, some power ballads..."
As Steve guffaws again, then grunts, trying to flip Mary off, Tim tilts his head against the wall and tries to think calm thoughts. He's been so busy the last 48 hours, transporting anomalies to safe houses, checking on reported sightings, fielding panicked calls from Smallville ("Dude. If it was gonna happen, it would've happened already, right?" "Yes, Kon." "You sure? There's not, like, delayed --" "Gratification?" "...*dude*."), that this is the first time he's been able to spend more than ten minutes with Steve since it all happened.
He hasn't let himself think about Dick. He's barely let himself think about Steph. Or Steve. With his new shaggy hair and wide shoulders, tapering waist and the trail of fuzz from navel to crotch.
He certainly hasn't had the time to evaluate what these chromosomal changes mean for --.
His relationship.
"-- and Kory won't leave me *alone*," Mary says, false pain brightening her voice. Truly tragic, such a burden, Tim is sure. "I won't even get into Arsenal's sudden interest --"
Steve pats Mary's shoulder sympathetically. "You'd think it wouldn't matter so much, but..."
Tim pushes himself to his feet. "I'll just leave you two. Alone. I --"
"No way!" From a crouch, Mary springs and gets Tim around one knee, yanking him down to the bed. She smells different, lighter and sweeter, and her stomach, pressing against his side, reminds him of Steph's body. Solid, but somehow *soft* at the same time.
"Listen to your big sister," Steve says and nods.
"You're both insane," Tim manages.
"*Now* you're getting it!" Mary gives him a lopsided grin and pecks his cheek. "Smart boy, isn't he?"
"Smartest," Steve agrees and -- there's nothing gendered about the look in his eyes, the softness of his smile as he looks down at Tim. It's Steph, and Steve, and *them*, so fond that Tim has to fight not to look away. Run away.
They go back to chattering, comparing notes and *fashion advice* and how to count and ration orgasms, while Tim lies between them and tries not to --.
"You ever miss your..." Mary circles her hands an inch from her breasts and looks over at Steve through lashes as long as they ever were.
Steve shifts, throwing one leg over Tim's knee. He's taken to sprawling like he has basketballs in his pants, and won't listen to Tim's advice on how that's pointless. "Yeah, okay, Freak Wonder. Like I'm really gonna take advice on gender presentation from *you*."
Tim supposes that ought to have stung. He hadn't meant to stand as an authority on masculinity; he's just always found that sort of macho posturing to be rather, well, *crass*.
"Sometimes, sure," Steve tells Mary. "But then it's just a quick gets-your-rocks-off and there you go."
Mary shifts against Tim, her hair brushing his cheek, his elbow starting to dig into her side. Her breast is resting on Tim's arm, pressing slightly, a warm curved weight that --.
He sits up.
Mary's as strong as Dick, however, and she grabs the back of his shirt and yanks him back down. "Why, Timmy, do I make you *nervous*?"
His arm's between her breasts. Steve's laughing at him. Mary's -- *eyeing* him.
"No," Tim says firmly. "Not nervous."
"Annoyed?" Mary asks.
"Pissy?" Steve asks.
"Irritated?"
"Aggravated?"
"Bitchy?"
"Good one! Mad?"
"...confused," Tim finally says so they'll shut up. Honesty can act as a diversion, too. When Mary kisses him, she puts her hand on his neck and the calluses, at least, are familiar.
"Wow." Steve breathes the word out against the nape of Tim's neck, his big hand - still soft, though - going around Tim's waist, under the hem of his shirt. "You --"
Mary's eyes flutter open as she pulls back. "Sorry, I got --" she says to Steve. "Sorry."
"No, it's okay, it's --" Steve rests his chin on Tim's shoulder.
The sensation that he's trapped in more ways than one is not unfamiliar. It isn't *pleasant*, either. Tim tries to concentrate on his breathing, but his hand has found its way to Mary's right breast and he's cupping it, weighing it against his palm, and Mary's lashes darken her cheek as she bites her lower lip.
"It's just --" Tim says, more helplessly than he can accept, twisting around to find Steve's eyes. "See --"
Steve cups his dick and Tim can't stop the jerk of his hips. And again, when Steve bites his shoulder. "If you say this is 'research', I'll cut your balls off."
"And yours don't grow back," Mary says with something like satisfaction.
"I --" There's heat in his throat, unfamiliar (though it shouldn't be, it really should be --) and Tim hunches his shoulders. "I think. I. I'm just going to watch."
Steve's laugh clangs in his ear and Mary cocks her head, long hair falling over one eye like something from Hollywood. She starts to nod slowly, then pats Tim's knee. "You're going to watch?"
The thing about both Steve and Steph -- and, he reminds himself firmly, the distinction is merely convenient, not innate and certainly not *prescriptive* -- is how well they move. Tim slides down, off the edge of the bed just as Steve turns his hand toward Mary and touches her breast, just where Tim's (empty now, a little aching) palm had been.
"I miss mine sometimes," Steve is saying dreamily, fingers curling into the fabric of Mary's shirt. Mary's looking down at the touch, arching her back to press into it, then looking at *Tim*.
Tim doesn't look away.
"Then again," Steve adds, "getting to touch others is..."
Mary gives Tim a flicker of a smile before reaching behind her neck to untie the halter. Her elbows rise like wings, her breasts move up, and Steve -- Steve's not looking at Tim, hasn't for a while.
Steve's digging one knee into the mattress and landing on Mary, face between her breasts.
Steve's pragmatism is of a different sort from Bruce's ruthlessness. Tim admires and fears them both, however, as he rises until he's kneeling, hand braced on Steve's bony hip.
To *see*.
See Mary's head thrown back, something glorious on her face that Tim has only ever seen when Dick is jumping, her fingers in Steve's hair, her nipple red as her lipstick under Steve's white teeth. Steve's ass is clenching under Tim's hand, driving forward, and Mary is moaning, musical and endless, her knees fanning open, then squeezing around Steve's hips.
Tim's hand gets knocked -- free. Away.
And he could watch, or run, or *study*. He could do anything of those things, but he's pulling himself up behind Steve instead, knocking a pillow, then the bedside lamp to the floor as he flattens himself on Steve's back.
Steph is about his height and width; Steve, however, is a little bigger all over, particularly through the shoulders, and he feels -- harder. Ropier and flatter, and Tim's got his arms under Steve's now, face buried in the sweaty hair on the back of Steve's neck, and he's pulling.
He doesn't want them to stop, though he sees the doubt darken Mary's dazed face for a moment. He wants -- he doesn't know.
Steve flicks his thumb over Mary's left nipple, then pushes his hand down her slightly rounded belly. "Would you --" He tosses his head, banging into Tim's nose and laughing a little. "He's kind of got this oral fixa--"
Mary's grin is, like always, like it can't be anything *else*, dazzling. Her voice, though, is gentle. Kind of private. "Is that so, little brother?"
Tim closes his eyes, then more tightly when Steve wriggles back, right into his groin, and kind of *switches* his hips against Tim's hard on. "Yeah," he says, because he can't leave this all up to Steve. He's done that for way too long. He opens his eyes and sees Mary leaning forward, breasts swinging heavily, her fists planted on either side of Steve's hips. "Yeah, I --"
Mary's smeared mouth curves up briefly. "Don't have to explain."
Steve rests his head against Tim's shoulder, tugging Tim's hands around his waist. "What's it mean," he asks, slurring a little, giggling lowly when Tim unbuttons his fly and reaches into his boxers, "that this is my first from a girl?"
"That you're near the high end of the Kinsey scale?" Tim suggests.
On the floor, Mary pushes apart Steve's knees and laughs. "Could you two analyze this later?"
Her face is narrower than Dick's, softer in the cheeks, *finer*, somehow, all over. Tim's fingertips graze her cheek, down her nose. Mary opens her mouth and licks them, quick as a cat, winking at -- Steve? Maybe both of them, when Tim jerks his hand away.
"Take care of your --" Mary shrugs one shoulder, and what was reckless on Dick looks elegant on her. "Friend."
"Yeah," Steve says, grabbing Tim's wrist, and he may have a taste for those un-fussed by gender fluctuations, but he also, it would seem, likes those who know what they want. Steve's hips jerk up, pushing his dick into Tim's hand, as Mary's head drops. Like they practiced this, like --. "*Fuck*."
Mary pulls back. "You --"
"Good, good," Steve says quickly. "Just --. Good. More?"
And they're actually doing it. Tim pushes Mary's hair out of the way (if it's a wig, it's a very good one, just as silky as Dick's hair) and runs his other hand up and down Steve's narrow chest. Watches as Mary's face distorts -- still beautiful, very intent, but *distorted*, her mouth pulled wide and tight, her eyes hooded. Watches as Steve nearly bounces against him, lip caught in his teeth, hand gripping Tim's knee, dick shining with Mary's spit, streaked with her lipstick, on every upstroke.
Steve keeps twisting sideways, mouth on Tim's neck, teeth scraping, even as his hips try to pump forward, deeper. Mary's cheeks are pink and sweaty when Tim touches them, and when he wraps his hand around the base of Steve's dick, Mary sucks Tim's thumb into her mouth with the top of the shaft, and --.
Steve drives back against Tim, huffing out breaths. Mary's mouth is -- deep, and wet, and *sweet*. Though the last is only imaginary, it's a powerfully imaginary thing, as Steve's cock throbs against his palm and he crooks his thumb deeper, rubbing Mary's cheek from the inside, watching her eyes roll back as she pushes down, deeper, and Steve jolts forward, grabbing a fistful of Mary's hair and *shoving*.
Tim's own dick is soaked already, jittering against his zipper, watching. He comes, in his pants, absurdly, when Steve heaves forward again and Mary bends back, and back, neck arching like a sculpture, an aqueduct, ancient and right, breasts falling to the sides.
The body that falls back against him, struggling for breath, is Steph's. The extra weight, sweaty and overheated, crawling up Steph's body is Mary, and they're kissing, Steph giggling at the taste in Mary's mouth and kissing harder.
Kon will kill him, immediately and without second thought, if he ever finds out that Tim had a ringside seat to -- this.
He can hear the spluttering indignation already: "Two chicks, man! *Two*. *Chicks*. And they were naked?"
Yes, Kon, they were naked, Tim thinks, and notes that Steph is just as interested in Mary's breasts as Steve had been.
(Because the distinction is false.)
Steph's face is a deep pink when she finally breaks the kiss and looks over her shoulder at Tim. "Too many vaginas here," she says, and cups Mary through her jeans.
Mary...*peers* at both of them even as she lifts her wide, flaring hips and shimmies the jeans down. "Is that even possible?"
"For some of us," Steph says, and pulls Mary's jeans all the way off, "apparently so."
Mary's underpants are skimpy, like a bikini bottom. They have little stylized yellow *bats* on them.
The sight is horrifying and enthralling at once.
"Um -" Tim touches a bat and can't, quite, look at Mary.
"Roy," Mary says simply.
"Ah."
Mary's skin is warm under the thin fabric, the same shade as Dick's, but there's no heavy dark hair around his groin, stubbling his thighs. Just a fine down, hardly more than a shadow, that prickles against Tim's palm.
"Huh," Steph says. She grins when Tim looks at her questioningly. "Nothing. Just trying that monosyllable thing you guys have down pat."
Either Mary moves, or Steph knocks Tim, or some combination thereof, but Tim's hand slips over Mary's small mound and --. Stays there.
"Warm," Tim says after several moments.
"Ni-ice," Mary breathes, her thighs opening.
"Huh," Steph says again. She wraps her arms around Tim's waist and digs her chin into his upper arm. Tim's hand has curled automatically over the mound, his thumb rubbing the elastic on one leg. "Wanna explain this sudden interest in girls, Gay Wonder?"
Everything goes very quiet then.
Melodramatically, that's the case. *Technically*, there is still plenty of ambient noise coming through the window, and the catch to Mary's breathing is quite loud, and the mattress is making odd groans beneath the three of them.
But inside Tim, it's very quiet. Not frozen, not quite, but *still*, the sort of stillness meditation seeks.
This isn't meditation, however. This is fear.
Tim clears his throat and pulls his hand back into his lap. "Sorry."
"Don't be," Mary says, because she's still Dick, and Dick cannot let anyone be guilty if he can help it.
"Yeah, don't be," Steph says, and *that's* the surprise.
She's not quite smiling when Tim turns to her, but she's holding him, and her hair is falling over his face, and she feels -- good. Solid, warm, *secure*, and she smells like Steve and Mary and herself.
"Really don't be," she whispers against his cheek as she pats his back.
"I should --" Mary starts, but Steph pulls away to take her hand.
"Don't," Steph says, and then she's looking between Mary and Tim, a serene and unreadable expression on her face. "You guys are --"
"Not a guy," Tim says hoarsely, and then, when Mary punches his shoulder, "Ow?"
"Ex*cuse* me," Mary says, "I am. I am vast, I contain --"
"Dork," Tim says and Mary punches him again.
"Right," Steph says, pushing back her hair and rolling her eyes. "Why do I feel like I'm babysitting?"
"Because you are?" Tim asks, shaking Mary's grip off his arm. His groin is cold and sticky and he really needs to do something about that before either one discovers it and proceeds to tease him until the end of time.
"If you are," Mary says, arm going around Steph's waist, cheek against her hair, "you're the naughty babysitter in every porn movie *ever*, I hope you know that."
Tim is never going to know quite *how* Dick, or Mary, does that. In the past, Dick has protested complete ignorance -- "I don't flirt! I just like people, what, is that a *crime*?" -- and, right now, Tim is inclined to believe him. Steph, too, has this sort of irrepressible quality, a flexibility that Tim will never achieve without screamingly hard work, a willingness to twist in Mary's arms and kiss her again. Push her down next to Tim and slide down the length of her body until she's kneeling between Mary's legs and smiling up at Tim.
"Do whatever you've gotta do," Steph says.
Tim chokes a little as Mary touches his inner thigh, then pushes her hand up under his shirt. "I --"
"Or don't, whatever," Steph says. "But I'm gonna, okay?"
He can't say no to her. He -- it wouldn't occur to him *to* say no to her, regardless of his feelings. "Right, okay," he says and chokes again when Mary finds his nipple and circles her nail around it. "Steph, I --"
She glances up, already rolling her eyes. "Love you, too."
"Aww," Mary says, her free hand on Tim's elbow, yanking him down until they're nose to nose. "Young love is so *cute*."
Tim snorts. "So says the old lady."
"So says --. Oh!" Mary's head falls away, her throat exposed, like she *needs* to be kissed there, so Tim complies. Out of the corner of his eye, all he can see is the crown of Steph's blonde head, one of Mary's long legs hooked around Steph's back. Mary's face veers back into view and she bites Tim's cheek, hard. "Your girlfriend knows what she's doing. *Damn*."
"Mm," Tim says, because -- well.
He expects that she does, and if she doesn't, Steph learns and adapts very quickly.
He would consult Bruce's footage of Cass's patrols if he really wanted to know.
He doesn't.
Want to know, that is. He does, for some reason, want to kiss Mary again.
First, however, Steph's thumping his leg and muttering 'pillow', so Tim hands her one and watches her work it under Mary's hips. And then he just watches, because Steph's elbow is working like a slow piston, her chin buried between Mary's dark lips, and Mary's breasts have fallen to either side, one hand reaching down to stroke Steph's hair.
It's a picture that Kon, at least, might appreciate. Tim is not immune to the innate *beauty* here, nor the -- the sensuality, especially not the humming moans that Steph's making and the way Mary's head is thrashing, her hair spilling out in every direction, whipping against Tim.
Mary lifts her head, eyes bleary, her face stained with a deep flush, and grabs for Tim's arm, raking her nails down to his wrist. "Tim, *please* --"
What she wants is obscure, although, Tim suspects, only to *him*. That doesn't stop him from lying next to her, folding her arm up between them and squeezing her hand, kissing her warm, open mouth.
He's never kissed Dick. He knows the truth of that fact, incontrovertible and *unyielding*, but doing this feels --. Right, somehow, and very sweet, no matter how dirty the sounds of Steph and slurping and *cursing* are, no matter how Mary's sucking on his tongue, almost *fellating* it, rising up and pushing her breasts against him. His tongue aches, his jaw aches, and he's getting hard again in the stiff, sticky mess of his pants as he holds one breast, flattening it and working his thumb over the nipple just as hard as he's worked the head of his cock, of *Steve's*.
Mary yowls into his mouth and, far away, Steph is grunting, and there's no way to track the time passing, not like this. So it is either all too soon, or exhaustingly later, that Tim realizes he's kissing Dick. His mouth is just as deep, but his lips are thinner against his teeth, his tongue *bigger*, and the grip he has around Tim's waist is stronger. The hand he's using to cup Tim's dick is bigger, too, and stronger, and Tim shudders hard when he looks down to see that.
"Huh," Dick says and looks up at him through his lashes. "Jumped the gun, did we?"
Tim shoves at Dick's shoulder and hears Steph laugh, feels her small hands on his waist as he wrestles Dick onto his back, clambering on top. Beneath him, Dick stretches like a cat -- Tim's noticed that about Steph, too, how there's often a few moments where they settle back into their new bodies, pleasurably, as the chromosomes either knit or split, go from X to Y or back again -- then settles his hands over Steph's, on Tim.
For a moment, it all feels right. Right in the way of Steph's embrace, of Dick's laughter and flexing, mobile tongue, of pieces that come together and fit, however briefly.
Tim neglects to enjoy that moment, however, before the alarm sounds on his computer.
To anyone else -- to Steph, who's still giggling and tickling his arm as Tim pulls away and pads over to the monitor -- it sounds like an instant message.
He touches the space bar and the screen fills with Kon's panicked face. "Emergency! SOS! S-O-freakin'-S, dude!"
Tim rakes one hand through his hair. "What's going on?"
There's a streak past Kon, fast-moving skin and a high-pitched giggle. "This," Kon says when he reappears, Bart wiggling under his arm like a kid who escaped the bath. Kon holds Bart up. "This is the problem."
"Hey!" Bart covers her small, perky breasts with one arm, then waves with the other. "Hi, Tim!"
"Hello," Tim says carefully. He hasn't received reports of Bart undergoing the anomaly. Surely Oracle, if not Batman, would have known...? "What seems to be the problem?"
"Nothing!" Bart squeaks. His voice is a little higher than usual, but the change isn't nearly as marked as it is with Steve and Mary.
"He decided to skate near the site in Golden Gate Park," Kon says darkly and yanks Bart up all the way. "*Look* what happened."
"Oh," Tim says. From the bed, Dick's trying to muffle his laughter in Steph's shoulder. "Bart, you --"
"I change too fast!" Bart says with something like *pride*. "Look, I've still got my thing, but boobs, too!" He wriggles free of the TK and plants his hands on his hips. "Kon says I'm a freak and you have to come fix it."
"I can't --"
Kon shoulders Bart out of the way. "Dude, *look* at him."
"I can see that --" Tim tries.
"He's wearing his grandma's dresses! You have to do something."
"Yeah," Dick says and tosses a pillow at the back of Tim's head. "Fix it, bro. Crossdressing's totally your thing."
Steph is laughing helplessly.
Kon peers into the camera. "Are you *naked*?"
Tim crosses his arms. "Not really."
"Who's with you?"
Tim hits the key to cut video and says, "I'll talk to Batman. Just --. Keep an eye on him, will you?"
"Dude, I --" Kon gets out before Tim closes the connection and sighs.
When he gets the energy to turn around, Steph is whispering in Dick's ear and Dick is nearly *spewing* laughter. They look like best girlfriends, whatever their current chromosomal states, and Tim feels suddenly more tired than ever.
"He didn't!" Dick says.
"He did!" Steph fake-glowers at Tim. "He doesn't believe me."
Tim sags in his desk chair. "Doesn't believe what?"
"You're a bad boyfriend," Dick says as seriously as he can. "You threw out her S-shirt?"
"I --" Tim squeezes shut his eyes. Steve had shown up at the intake center for anomalies, wearing a tight black S-crest shirt that showed off his six-pack and dark jeans. Seeing that, Tim stabbed an elderly woman named Maury with his pen and had to take a break.
He needs to keep certain distinctions in place. He can no longer work with the perfect, unbreachable boundaries he once used; when Bruce let Steph into the Cave, he broke them *all*. But certain distinctions remain...useful.
He loves Steph, but he's more attracted to Steve. Steve cannot play Kon, but Tim suspects he wouldn't mind if Mary donned the green short-shorts.
He knows none of the boundaries is necessarily fair, to himself or to other people. None of them, as a matter of fact, make very much sense at all.
They are illogical and occasionally unjust, and he needs to deal with that.
Later, however.
"Hey, hey," Dick is saying, kneeling in front of Tim's chair, familiar hand squeezing his upper arm. "Just kidding."
"Here," Steph says from the other side. "Have some popcorn."
"Popcorn?" Tim asks faintly.
They exchange a glance. "Gotta keep your strength up," Dick says. He might be leering, or the angle might be at fault.
"Listen to him," Steph says gravely.
That's definitely a leer from Dick.
"Right, okay." Tim takes a deep breath and straightens up.
The fact that they're beaming identically at him ought to make him take a step back.
It doesn't.
[end]
Characters: Dick, Steph, Tim in various genderbent ways and combinations.
Setting/Timeline: ROBIN, pre-"Unmasked" and OUTSIDERS, pre-"Insiders". Some halcyon period when Kory's with the Outsiders but Kon's eyes are still blue and he's got a full head of hair.
Summary: Tim has boundaries. Steph and Dick are...flexible.
Rating: Adult
Disclaimer: DC writes the official crack.
Notes: Title from the Pansy Division song.
Notes, again: Right. Well. Yesterday morning there was this girl!Dick/Kory ficlet from Ny and then I beta'd The spot you missed for Petra and then lots of stupid crap happened. To cheer myself and my lovelies up, I joked about girl!Dick meeting boy!Steph. Then it became...not so much a joke as a story (with their permission). This won't make much sense if you don't read Petra and Ny's work first. This is, obviously, for them, and katarik beta'd like a champ.
The social benefits of heterosexism are not to be downplayed. In Tim's opinion, that is, because his girlfriend Steph would never have been allowed to stay the night, even if he'd thought to ask. But his new buddy Steve, rangy in his Green Lantern t-shirt and pukka bracelets and worn black cords, is more than welcome.
Dana even made them popcorn.
It's cold, the butter congealed, because Tim can't seem to keep his hands off Steve.
And Steve groans when they kiss, butts his flat chest against Tim's, and rocks his hand just *right* over Tim's dick.
So. Benefits. They're good.
"Who's your friend, Tim?"
As Steve's mouth slides down Tim's neck, slowly matching the rhythm of his hand over Tim's dick, it takes all the will Tim possesses to pull away and look at the intruder pulling herself through the open window.
That voice is a rich contralto, as lush as the woman's curves and spill of dark hair. Her black halter top clings tightly over high, round breasts; her worn jeans ride low on her hips. She's -- *beautiful*.
Her grin, however, is all too familiar.
Tim closes his eyes and tries to wake up.
But since he's being ridiculous and this *isn't* a dream, or a nightmare, everything's still here when he opens his eyes.
Steve has slipped his hand out of Tim's pants and is poking him in the ribs. "Is that Troia? Isn't she..."
Wincing, Tim swallows hard. "Nightwing," he says and steels his voice. "I - ah. You've met --"
"Steve. Also, Spoiler." Steve shakes his shaggy blond hair out of his eyes, swipes the hand he had on Tim's dick over his thigh, then shakes his - her - Dick's hand. "You can call me Steve."
Dick's eyes widen.
"He's really enjoying this a little too much," Tim says helplessly.
Dick tosses her hair -- it must be a wig, because hair-growth has not been reported by any field agents, whether DEO or STAR, as among the effects wrought by the chromosomal anomalies -- and grins again. She's wearing lipstick, and it gleams, and Tim's head is starting to hurt.
"What's not to enjoy?" Dick's saying as she shakes Steve's hand. "I mean, walking on the wild side --"
"Playing for the other team," Steve adds, cutting a teasing glance over Tim.
Dick's laugh is higher now, and her breasts somehow *rise* and jiggle with it. She slips her arm through Steve's and shakes her head. "Exactly. Never hurt anyone to push their boundaries. Did it, Timothy?"
Tim steeples his fingers and rests the tips against his nose. It's a protective gesture, he knows that, one he hasn't used since Young Justice.
Back then, he'd never have imagined that anyone could irritate him more than the Impulse/SB tag team.
Dick-with-breasts and Steve, however, are a reminder that Tim ought to be a little more...*circumspect*.
"No way am I calling you Nightwing," Steve is saying, holding Dick at arm's length and walking slowly around her. "Not looking like *that*."
"How about Dick?" Dick feints a grab at Steve's crotch and, laughing, Steve dances out of the way.
"Mary." Tim drops his hands to his side and lets a mean little smile cross his lips. "Call her Mary."
Steve guffaws. Dick manages to look thoughtful, raise an eyebrow at Tim, and smile, all at once. Her lips are softer, Tim thinks, plumper, and it isn't as if Dick's mouth was ever less than...
"I like it," Mary says. "It's --"
"Highly appropriate," Tim replies. "Yes."
Tim sits there against the wall, knees up, while Mary and Steve chatter and laugh. They're fast friends and he really shouldn't be surprised. There are few people other than Dick and Steph who could take what's happening to them with a grin and readiness to make the most of it.
Steve hasn't met many other anomalies, and the ones he *has* have annoyed him. "Blah blah what's gonna happen to my marriage blah blah I'm not a dyke blah de *blah*," he said when he cut out of his first and last support-group session. "Please, like this is some kind of catastrophe."
They're fooling around, knocking each over, Steve with Mary in a headlock, Mary's long, thinner fingers scrabbling at Steve's narrow hips.
"Did Batman make you jerk off?"
Mary twists, her new girlish leanness only adding to her characteristic flexibility, and flips Steve onto his back. "What do you think?"
Steve grins. "Did you edit the tape afterward?"
Mary shrugs and the effect on her breasts is -- *interesting*. Given the slight smirk on his face, Tim's pretty sure that Steve's looking, too. "Added some sound effects, you know. A little jazz, some power ballads..."
As Steve guffaws again, then grunts, trying to flip Mary off, Tim tilts his head against the wall and tries to think calm thoughts. He's been so busy the last 48 hours, transporting anomalies to safe houses, checking on reported sightings, fielding panicked calls from Smallville ("Dude. If it was gonna happen, it would've happened already, right?" "Yes, Kon." "You sure? There's not, like, delayed --" "Gratification?" "...*dude*."), that this is the first time he's been able to spend more than ten minutes with Steve since it all happened.
He hasn't let himself think about Dick. He's barely let himself think about Steph. Or Steve. With his new shaggy hair and wide shoulders, tapering waist and the trail of fuzz from navel to crotch.
He certainly hasn't had the time to evaluate what these chromosomal changes mean for --.
His relationship.
"-- and Kory won't leave me *alone*," Mary says, false pain brightening her voice. Truly tragic, such a burden, Tim is sure. "I won't even get into Arsenal's sudden interest --"
Steve pats Mary's shoulder sympathetically. "You'd think it wouldn't matter so much, but..."
Tim pushes himself to his feet. "I'll just leave you two. Alone. I --"
"No way!" From a crouch, Mary springs and gets Tim around one knee, yanking him down to the bed. She smells different, lighter and sweeter, and her stomach, pressing against his side, reminds him of Steph's body. Solid, but somehow *soft* at the same time.
"Listen to your big sister," Steve says and nods.
"You're both insane," Tim manages.
"*Now* you're getting it!" Mary gives him a lopsided grin and pecks his cheek. "Smart boy, isn't he?"
"Smartest," Steve agrees and -- there's nothing gendered about the look in his eyes, the softness of his smile as he looks down at Tim. It's Steph, and Steve, and *them*, so fond that Tim has to fight not to look away. Run away.
They go back to chattering, comparing notes and *fashion advice* and how to count and ration orgasms, while Tim lies between them and tries not to --.
"You ever miss your..." Mary circles her hands an inch from her breasts and looks over at Steve through lashes as long as they ever were.
Steve shifts, throwing one leg over Tim's knee. He's taken to sprawling like he has basketballs in his pants, and won't listen to Tim's advice on how that's pointless. "Yeah, okay, Freak Wonder. Like I'm really gonna take advice on gender presentation from *you*."
Tim supposes that ought to have stung. He hadn't meant to stand as an authority on masculinity; he's just always found that sort of macho posturing to be rather, well, *crass*.
"Sometimes, sure," Steve tells Mary. "But then it's just a quick gets-your-rocks-off and there you go."
Mary shifts against Tim, her hair brushing his cheek, his elbow starting to dig into her side. Her breast is resting on Tim's arm, pressing slightly, a warm curved weight that --.
He sits up.
Mary's as strong as Dick, however, and she grabs the back of his shirt and yanks him back down. "Why, Timmy, do I make you *nervous*?"
His arm's between her breasts. Steve's laughing at him. Mary's -- *eyeing* him.
"No," Tim says firmly. "Not nervous."
"Annoyed?" Mary asks.
"Pissy?" Steve asks.
"Irritated?"
"Aggravated?"
"Bitchy?"
"Good one! Mad?"
"...confused," Tim finally says so they'll shut up. Honesty can act as a diversion, too. When Mary kisses him, she puts her hand on his neck and the calluses, at least, are familiar.
"Wow." Steve breathes the word out against the nape of Tim's neck, his big hand - still soft, though - going around Tim's waist, under the hem of his shirt. "You --"
Mary's eyes flutter open as she pulls back. "Sorry, I got --" she says to Steve. "Sorry."
"No, it's okay, it's --" Steve rests his chin on Tim's shoulder.
The sensation that he's trapped in more ways than one is not unfamiliar. It isn't *pleasant*, either. Tim tries to concentrate on his breathing, but his hand has found its way to Mary's right breast and he's cupping it, weighing it against his palm, and Mary's lashes darken her cheek as she bites her lower lip.
"It's just --" Tim says, more helplessly than he can accept, twisting around to find Steve's eyes. "See --"
Steve cups his dick and Tim can't stop the jerk of his hips. And again, when Steve bites his shoulder. "If you say this is 'research', I'll cut your balls off."
"And yours don't grow back," Mary says with something like satisfaction.
"I --" There's heat in his throat, unfamiliar (though it shouldn't be, it really should be --) and Tim hunches his shoulders. "I think. I. I'm just going to watch."
Steve's laugh clangs in his ear and Mary cocks her head, long hair falling over one eye like something from Hollywood. She starts to nod slowly, then pats Tim's knee. "You're going to watch?"
The thing about both Steve and Steph -- and, he reminds himself firmly, the distinction is merely convenient, not innate and certainly not *prescriptive* -- is how well they move. Tim slides down, off the edge of the bed just as Steve turns his hand toward Mary and touches her breast, just where Tim's (empty now, a little aching) palm had been.
"I miss mine sometimes," Steve is saying dreamily, fingers curling into the fabric of Mary's shirt. Mary's looking down at the touch, arching her back to press into it, then looking at *Tim*.
Tim doesn't look away.
"Then again," Steve adds, "getting to touch others is..."
Mary gives Tim a flicker of a smile before reaching behind her neck to untie the halter. Her elbows rise like wings, her breasts move up, and Steve -- Steve's not looking at Tim, hasn't for a while.
Steve's digging one knee into the mattress and landing on Mary, face between her breasts.
Steve's pragmatism is of a different sort from Bruce's ruthlessness. Tim admires and fears them both, however, as he rises until he's kneeling, hand braced on Steve's bony hip.
To *see*.
See Mary's head thrown back, something glorious on her face that Tim has only ever seen when Dick is jumping, her fingers in Steve's hair, her nipple red as her lipstick under Steve's white teeth. Steve's ass is clenching under Tim's hand, driving forward, and Mary is moaning, musical and endless, her knees fanning open, then squeezing around Steve's hips.
Tim's hand gets knocked -- free. Away.
And he could watch, or run, or *study*. He could do anything of those things, but he's pulling himself up behind Steve instead, knocking a pillow, then the bedside lamp to the floor as he flattens himself on Steve's back.
Steph is about his height and width; Steve, however, is a little bigger all over, particularly through the shoulders, and he feels -- harder. Ropier and flatter, and Tim's got his arms under Steve's now, face buried in the sweaty hair on the back of Steve's neck, and he's pulling.
He doesn't want them to stop, though he sees the doubt darken Mary's dazed face for a moment. He wants -- he doesn't know.
Steve flicks his thumb over Mary's left nipple, then pushes his hand down her slightly rounded belly. "Would you --" He tosses his head, banging into Tim's nose and laughing a little. "He's kind of got this oral fixa--"
Mary's grin is, like always, like it can't be anything *else*, dazzling. Her voice, though, is gentle. Kind of private. "Is that so, little brother?"
Tim closes his eyes, then more tightly when Steve wriggles back, right into his groin, and kind of *switches* his hips against Tim's hard on. "Yeah," he says, because he can't leave this all up to Steve. He's done that for way too long. He opens his eyes and sees Mary leaning forward, breasts swinging heavily, her fists planted on either side of Steve's hips. "Yeah, I --"
Mary's smeared mouth curves up briefly. "Don't have to explain."
Steve rests his head against Tim's shoulder, tugging Tim's hands around his waist. "What's it mean," he asks, slurring a little, giggling lowly when Tim unbuttons his fly and reaches into his boxers, "that this is my first from a girl?"
"That you're near the high end of the Kinsey scale?" Tim suggests.
On the floor, Mary pushes apart Steve's knees and laughs. "Could you two analyze this later?"
Her face is narrower than Dick's, softer in the cheeks, *finer*, somehow, all over. Tim's fingertips graze her cheek, down her nose. Mary opens her mouth and licks them, quick as a cat, winking at -- Steve? Maybe both of them, when Tim jerks his hand away.
"Take care of your --" Mary shrugs one shoulder, and what was reckless on Dick looks elegant on her. "Friend."
"Yeah," Steve says, grabbing Tim's wrist, and he may have a taste for those un-fussed by gender fluctuations, but he also, it would seem, likes those who know what they want. Steve's hips jerk up, pushing his dick into Tim's hand, as Mary's head drops. Like they practiced this, like --. "*Fuck*."
Mary pulls back. "You --"
"Good, good," Steve says quickly. "Just --. Good. More?"
And they're actually doing it. Tim pushes Mary's hair out of the way (if it's a wig, it's a very good one, just as silky as Dick's hair) and runs his other hand up and down Steve's narrow chest. Watches as Mary's face distorts -- still beautiful, very intent, but *distorted*, her mouth pulled wide and tight, her eyes hooded. Watches as Steve nearly bounces against him, lip caught in his teeth, hand gripping Tim's knee, dick shining with Mary's spit, streaked with her lipstick, on every upstroke.
Steve keeps twisting sideways, mouth on Tim's neck, teeth scraping, even as his hips try to pump forward, deeper. Mary's cheeks are pink and sweaty when Tim touches them, and when he wraps his hand around the base of Steve's dick, Mary sucks Tim's thumb into her mouth with the top of the shaft, and --.
Steve drives back against Tim, huffing out breaths. Mary's mouth is -- deep, and wet, and *sweet*. Though the last is only imaginary, it's a powerfully imaginary thing, as Steve's cock throbs against his palm and he crooks his thumb deeper, rubbing Mary's cheek from the inside, watching her eyes roll back as she pushes down, deeper, and Steve jolts forward, grabbing a fistful of Mary's hair and *shoving*.
Tim's own dick is soaked already, jittering against his zipper, watching. He comes, in his pants, absurdly, when Steve heaves forward again and Mary bends back, and back, neck arching like a sculpture, an aqueduct, ancient and right, breasts falling to the sides.
The body that falls back against him, struggling for breath, is Steph's. The extra weight, sweaty and overheated, crawling up Steph's body is Mary, and they're kissing, Steph giggling at the taste in Mary's mouth and kissing harder.
Kon will kill him, immediately and without second thought, if he ever finds out that Tim had a ringside seat to -- this.
He can hear the spluttering indignation already: "Two chicks, man! *Two*. *Chicks*. And they were naked?"
Yes, Kon, they were naked, Tim thinks, and notes that Steph is just as interested in Mary's breasts as Steve had been.
(Because the distinction is false.)
Steph's face is a deep pink when she finally breaks the kiss and looks over her shoulder at Tim. "Too many vaginas here," she says, and cups Mary through her jeans.
Mary...*peers* at both of them even as she lifts her wide, flaring hips and shimmies the jeans down. "Is that even possible?"
"For some of us," Steph says, and pulls Mary's jeans all the way off, "apparently so."
Mary's underpants are skimpy, like a bikini bottom. They have little stylized yellow *bats* on them.
The sight is horrifying and enthralling at once.
"Um -" Tim touches a bat and can't, quite, look at Mary.
"Roy," Mary says simply.
"Ah."
Mary's skin is warm under the thin fabric, the same shade as Dick's, but there's no heavy dark hair around his groin, stubbling his thighs. Just a fine down, hardly more than a shadow, that prickles against Tim's palm.
"Huh," Steph says. She grins when Tim looks at her questioningly. "Nothing. Just trying that monosyllable thing you guys have down pat."
Either Mary moves, or Steph knocks Tim, or some combination thereof, but Tim's hand slips over Mary's small mound and --. Stays there.
"Warm," Tim says after several moments.
"Ni-ice," Mary breathes, her thighs opening.
"Huh," Steph says again. She wraps her arms around Tim's waist and digs her chin into his upper arm. Tim's hand has curled automatically over the mound, his thumb rubbing the elastic on one leg. "Wanna explain this sudden interest in girls, Gay Wonder?"
Everything goes very quiet then.
Melodramatically, that's the case. *Technically*, there is still plenty of ambient noise coming through the window, and the catch to Mary's breathing is quite loud, and the mattress is making odd groans beneath the three of them.
But inside Tim, it's very quiet. Not frozen, not quite, but *still*, the sort of stillness meditation seeks.
This isn't meditation, however. This is fear.
Tim clears his throat and pulls his hand back into his lap. "Sorry."
"Don't be," Mary says, because she's still Dick, and Dick cannot let anyone be guilty if he can help it.
"Yeah, don't be," Steph says, and *that's* the surprise.
She's not quite smiling when Tim turns to her, but she's holding him, and her hair is falling over his face, and she feels -- good. Solid, warm, *secure*, and she smells like Steve and Mary and herself.
"Really don't be," she whispers against his cheek as she pats his back.
"I should --" Mary starts, but Steph pulls away to take her hand.
"Don't," Steph says, and then she's looking between Mary and Tim, a serene and unreadable expression on her face. "You guys are --"
"Not a guy," Tim says hoarsely, and then, when Mary punches his shoulder, "Ow?"
"Ex*cuse* me," Mary says, "I am. I am vast, I contain --"
"Dork," Tim says and Mary punches him again.
"Right," Steph says, pushing back her hair and rolling her eyes. "Why do I feel like I'm babysitting?"
"Because you are?" Tim asks, shaking Mary's grip off his arm. His groin is cold and sticky and he really needs to do something about that before either one discovers it and proceeds to tease him until the end of time.
"If you are," Mary says, arm going around Steph's waist, cheek against her hair, "you're the naughty babysitter in every porn movie *ever*, I hope you know that."
Tim is never going to know quite *how* Dick, or Mary, does that. In the past, Dick has protested complete ignorance -- "I don't flirt! I just like people, what, is that a *crime*?" -- and, right now, Tim is inclined to believe him. Steph, too, has this sort of irrepressible quality, a flexibility that Tim will never achieve without screamingly hard work, a willingness to twist in Mary's arms and kiss her again. Push her down next to Tim and slide down the length of her body until she's kneeling between Mary's legs and smiling up at Tim.
"Do whatever you've gotta do," Steph says.
Tim chokes a little as Mary touches his inner thigh, then pushes her hand up under his shirt. "I --"
"Or don't, whatever," Steph says. "But I'm gonna, okay?"
He can't say no to her. He -- it wouldn't occur to him *to* say no to her, regardless of his feelings. "Right, okay," he says and chokes again when Mary finds his nipple and circles her nail around it. "Steph, I --"
She glances up, already rolling her eyes. "Love you, too."
"Aww," Mary says, her free hand on Tim's elbow, yanking him down until they're nose to nose. "Young love is so *cute*."
Tim snorts. "So says the old lady."
"So says --. Oh!" Mary's head falls away, her throat exposed, like she *needs* to be kissed there, so Tim complies. Out of the corner of his eye, all he can see is the crown of Steph's blonde head, one of Mary's long legs hooked around Steph's back. Mary's face veers back into view and she bites Tim's cheek, hard. "Your girlfriend knows what she's doing. *Damn*."
"Mm," Tim says, because -- well.
He expects that she does, and if she doesn't, Steph learns and adapts very quickly.
He would consult Bruce's footage of Cass's patrols if he really wanted to know.
He doesn't.
Want to know, that is. He does, for some reason, want to kiss Mary again.
First, however, Steph's thumping his leg and muttering 'pillow', so Tim hands her one and watches her work it under Mary's hips. And then he just watches, because Steph's elbow is working like a slow piston, her chin buried between Mary's dark lips, and Mary's breasts have fallen to either side, one hand reaching down to stroke Steph's hair.
It's a picture that Kon, at least, might appreciate. Tim is not immune to the innate *beauty* here, nor the -- the sensuality, especially not the humming moans that Steph's making and the way Mary's head is thrashing, her hair spilling out in every direction, whipping against Tim.
Mary lifts her head, eyes bleary, her face stained with a deep flush, and grabs for Tim's arm, raking her nails down to his wrist. "Tim, *please* --"
What she wants is obscure, although, Tim suspects, only to *him*. That doesn't stop him from lying next to her, folding her arm up between them and squeezing her hand, kissing her warm, open mouth.
He's never kissed Dick. He knows the truth of that fact, incontrovertible and *unyielding*, but doing this feels --. Right, somehow, and very sweet, no matter how dirty the sounds of Steph and slurping and *cursing* are, no matter how Mary's sucking on his tongue, almost *fellating* it, rising up and pushing her breasts against him. His tongue aches, his jaw aches, and he's getting hard again in the stiff, sticky mess of his pants as he holds one breast, flattening it and working his thumb over the nipple just as hard as he's worked the head of his cock, of *Steve's*.
Mary yowls into his mouth and, far away, Steph is grunting, and there's no way to track the time passing, not like this. So it is either all too soon, or exhaustingly later, that Tim realizes he's kissing Dick. His mouth is just as deep, but his lips are thinner against his teeth, his tongue *bigger*, and the grip he has around Tim's waist is stronger. The hand he's using to cup Tim's dick is bigger, too, and stronger, and Tim shudders hard when he looks down to see that.
"Huh," Dick says and looks up at him through his lashes. "Jumped the gun, did we?"
Tim shoves at Dick's shoulder and hears Steph laugh, feels her small hands on his waist as he wrestles Dick onto his back, clambering on top. Beneath him, Dick stretches like a cat -- Tim's noticed that about Steph, too, how there's often a few moments where they settle back into their new bodies, pleasurably, as the chromosomes either knit or split, go from X to Y or back again -- then settles his hands over Steph's, on Tim.
For a moment, it all feels right. Right in the way of Steph's embrace, of Dick's laughter and flexing, mobile tongue, of pieces that come together and fit, however briefly.
Tim neglects to enjoy that moment, however, before the alarm sounds on his computer.
To anyone else -- to Steph, who's still giggling and tickling his arm as Tim pulls away and pads over to the monitor -- it sounds like an instant message.
He touches the space bar and the screen fills with Kon's panicked face. "Emergency! SOS! S-O-freakin'-S, dude!"
Tim rakes one hand through his hair. "What's going on?"
There's a streak past Kon, fast-moving skin and a high-pitched giggle. "This," Kon says when he reappears, Bart wiggling under his arm like a kid who escaped the bath. Kon holds Bart up. "This is the problem."
"Hey!" Bart covers her small, perky breasts with one arm, then waves with the other. "Hi, Tim!"
"Hello," Tim says carefully. He hasn't received reports of Bart undergoing the anomaly. Surely Oracle, if not Batman, would have known...? "What seems to be the problem?"
"Nothing!" Bart squeaks. His voice is a little higher than usual, but the change isn't nearly as marked as it is with Steve and Mary.
"He decided to skate near the site in Golden Gate Park," Kon says darkly and yanks Bart up all the way. "*Look* what happened."
"Oh," Tim says. From the bed, Dick's trying to muffle his laughter in Steph's shoulder. "Bart, you --"
"I change too fast!" Bart says with something like *pride*. "Look, I've still got my thing, but boobs, too!" He wriggles free of the TK and plants his hands on his hips. "Kon says I'm a freak and you have to come fix it."
"I can't --"
Kon shoulders Bart out of the way. "Dude, *look* at him."
"I can see that --" Tim tries.
"He's wearing his grandma's dresses! You have to do something."
"Yeah," Dick says and tosses a pillow at the back of Tim's head. "Fix it, bro. Crossdressing's totally your thing."
Steph is laughing helplessly.
Kon peers into the camera. "Are you *naked*?"
Tim crosses his arms. "Not really."
"Who's with you?"
Tim hits the key to cut video and says, "I'll talk to Batman. Just --. Keep an eye on him, will you?"
"Dude, I --" Kon gets out before Tim closes the connection and sighs.
When he gets the energy to turn around, Steph is whispering in Dick's ear and Dick is nearly *spewing* laughter. They look like best girlfriends, whatever their current chromosomal states, and Tim feels suddenly more tired than ever.
"He didn't!" Dick says.
"He did!" Steph fake-glowers at Tim. "He doesn't believe me."
Tim sags in his desk chair. "Doesn't believe what?"
"You're a bad boyfriend," Dick says as seriously as he can. "You threw out her S-shirt?"
"I --" Tim squeezes shut his eyes. Steve had shown up at the intake center for anomalies, wearing a tight black S-crest shirt that showed off his six-pack and dark jeans. Seeing that, Tim stabbed an elderly woman named Maury with his pen and had to take a break.
He needs to keep certain distinctions in place. He can no longer work with the perfect, unbreachable boundaries he once used; when Bruce let Steph into the Cave, he broke them *all*. But certain distinctions remain...useful.
He loves Steph, but he's more attracted to Steve. Steve cannot play Kon, but Tim suspects he wouldn't mind if Mary donned the green short-shorts.
He knows none of the boundaries is necessarily fair, to himself or to other people. None of them, as a matter of fact, make very much sense at all.
They are illogical and occasionally unjust, and he needs to deal with that.
Later, however.
"Hey, hey," Dick is saying, kneeling in front of Tim's chair, familiar hand squeezing his upper arm. "Just kidding."
"Here," Steph says from the other side. "Have some popcorn."
"Popcorn?" Tim asks faintly.
They exchange a glance. "Gotta keep your strength up," Dick says. He might be leering, or the angle might be at fault.
"Listen to him," Steph says gravely.
That's definitely a leer from Dick.
"Right, okay." Tim takes a deep breath and straightens up.
The fact that they're beaming identically at him ought to make him take a step back.
It doesn't.
[end]