[fic] Participant Observation (Bart/Tim/Val, adult)
Title: Participant Observation
Characters: Bart, Val, Tim; various combinations
Rating: Adult
Spoilers/Timeline: FLASH #8, ROBIN OYL.
Anti/Warning: This is not your mama's conduit fic.
Summary: "I'm having sex! Regularly, in lots of different positions!"
Disclaimer: DC owns all; I, nothing.
Notes: Thanks to katarik and jubilancy for assorted inspiration and handholding. This is for oneangrykate, who is much loved and whose comments on FLASH #8 inspired this; one of them forms the epigraph. <333
I always sort of put [Bart and Tim] the same category as being Weird Quasi-Gendered Virgin Things, but now the world's gone all topsy-turvy.
Studying superheroes has not prepared Val - in any way whatsoever - for living with one. Her research is quantitative; her dissertation will suggest a new calculus for the Speed Force. She understands probability and vectors, and spends hours mucking around in SPSS and visualizations.
Bart is, for lack of any better word, pretty intensely *qualitative*. He doesn't measure anything, he can't *be* measured. He simply moves and loves and shifts again.
Everything he says surprises her.
Today, when she leaves the lab, she stops at the slightly skeevy hair salon that a fellow grad student recommended. She returns to their apartment with a cut that makes the back of her neck itch. She can't stop touching the fall of hair, asymmetrical and jagged, on the right side, nor the neat, almost landscaped, hair on the other.
"Wow, you look gorgeous!" Bart's on his feet, grabbing her hands, spinning her around before the door closes and her backpack has thumped to the floor.
Considering the fact that last month, when she had the flu and pink eye at once, he *also* thought she was gorgeous, Val can't really credit his objectivity.
The collision of "objectivity" and "Bart" makes her head hurt, to tell the truth.
"Is it butchy?" she asks as Bart runs his fingers through her hair. "I can't tell."
She shouldn't care if it is butchy. It's not like she's ever exactly been the girliest girl anyway. But Los Angeles' smog seems to contain some kind of hyper-feminizing force that has begun to get to her.
"Really butchy!" Bart nods vigorously. "It's so butchy, it's amazing! Groundbreakingly butchy, I'd say! I love it!"
Val opens her mouth. She doesn't get a chance to say anything, though, because Bart's tilting his head and narrowing his eyes.
"What's butchy again?" he asks in a small voice.
*
She never expected to be living with someone. Not this young, not when she hasn't even started her career yet, not for a lot of reasons.
Bart has a way of making disruption feel like a gift.
The way she's settled into this highly *domestic* routine - Sunday mornings spent with the papers Bart runs across the country to buy, curled up with waffles from Copenhagen and fruit from Mali - should surprise her. Maybe take her aback.
Instead, she just kind of likes it. Her mother would roll her eyes and say "Valerie, no one needs a man to feel comfortable".
Why, yes, thank you, Mother. And the sky is blue, and Bart can run fast. Tell me something I don't know.
"What's so funny?" Bart slides down the back of the couch and ends up upside down in her lap. The Guardian crumples beneath his head.
"Hmm?" she asks, leaning over to pluck the City section of the New York Times from the top of the pile. "What?"
"You were doing that -" He traces her lips with his index finger and cocks his head. "Where you don't really smile, but I can tell you're smiling because there's something about your eyes and what's so funny? Did I do something?"
"No," she assures him.
"You sure?"
"I'm sure."
Bart sighs gustily and grins. "Good, because sometimes, see, I used to do stuff and no one told me why it was funny, they just laughed, and I'm not sure if I still do that? Or maybe they were just being mean, I don't know. Probably not mean, because they were my friends and I'd hate to think they were actually secret jerks -"
Val pushes his hair away from his forehead and smiles. For real this time. "Just thinking."
Bart does a backflip that turns into a messy somersault. He ends up crouched, arms wrapped around his knees, watching her.
He watches her a lot; she thinks she might be starting to get used to it. It started - well, probably after the first time they kissed, but the first time she really *noticed* the energy of his gaze was after their first night together.
It's nothing like the sparks that fly off the Speed Force when they're making out. Somehow, the light in his eyes when he's watching is *more* alien, more exciting, than even those are.
"Now you're thinking," she says gently.
Bart grins and starts to bounce in place. "It finally came to me! You know how I've been racking my brains, really *freaking out*, because -"
"No, really?" Val sets aside the paper. "You've been upset?"
Bart waves his hand. "Not any more! I was trying to figure out who you reminded me of, and I couldn't make it make sense in my head, and then it all came together BLAM, you know? And now I'm -"
"Blam?"
"BLAM!" he shouts and jumps to his feet. He kisses her at speed, a hummingbird pressure of heat and moisture, before drawing back. "Holy crap, Val! You're just like Robin, you know that! Same hair and everything!"
Over the course of her background research, Val has of course read about and seen photos of the various Robins. She's fairly sure Bart doesn't mean the pretty blonde one. The *girl* one.
"I look like Robin?" she asks carefully, navigating the reefs and shoals and sudden currents of Bart-logic as best she can.
Bart rolls his eyes and waves *both* arms. "Yeah, yeah, you're both really *hot*, but it's not just that - it's like, you're a *scientist*, right? And he's a *detective*, and that's pretty much the same thing, you both build models of dynamic systems in order to understand and improve them and -"
Val shakes her head. Bart is almost *terrifyingly* open about desire and sexuality these days. Perhaps it just makes sense that he was far more shy about such things when they first met - after all, she's certainly opened up a lot since then, too - but there's more to it than that. Bart seems to *relish* every chance he gets to talk about his libido, what he likes, what *she* likes, what he'd like to do.
The sense of having opened floodgates has not escaped her.
She says, a little hoarsely, "You think Robin's hot?"
But Bart's off on another vector altogether, pacing the living room until the carpet starts to smoke under his Converse and he's blurring at the edges. "He's the smartest person I know! Until I met you, and now he's a got a rival, and boy is *that* funny, if you think about it, because Robin's an *original*, despite being the third *and* fifth person to wear the uniform, he's really made it his own, and -" He takes a deep, rattling breath. "- then there's also the fact that I feel like there's a big dog sitting on my chest whenever I look at you."
Val straightens each section of every paper before she can reply. When she does, all she can do is make a joke. "Maybe you should get that looked at."
"Huh?" Bart's back in front of her, down on one knee, *watching* her.
"The dog..." Val slips her fingers through Bart's and squeezes. "Bad joke."
"Oh, the dog! Yeah, and the thing is, I never felt like that before except maybe twice." He shakes his head. "Three times. No, four." Now he's counting off on the fingers of his free hand. "When Max left, yes. When I kissed Carol, yes. When I saw my mom in the future, that's four."
"That's three."
"Right, three! And the fourth is when I used to be around Robin. So, see? It's totally obvious."
Val's cheeks are starting to ache a little from grinning. "Explain it to me? What's *it*?"
The crackle of reality wrinkling around her as Bart grabs her and starts to run is becoming almost familiar. She should probably think that fact through sooner rather than later, but she's too busy feeling the quantum winds break like music over her skin.
"You totally have to meet Robin!" Bart shouts into the sparking, symphonic *hum* of the Speed Force. "You're perfect for each other!"
No one told me why it was funny, they just laughed. Yet Val's laughing harder than ever.
*
Bart grips the handlebars on the Cosmic Treadmill tightly and rests his chin on the crown of Val's skull. "So what I'll do is work this thing, which I'm pretty sure I know how to do, whatever else anyone said that time in the creepy future and -"
Insecurities have a way of spilling from Bart's mind like snowflakes.
Snowflakes in *Arizona*, because they disappear just as soon as they appear.
Nevertheless, Val covers one of Bart's hand with her own, marveling, as usual, at just how much longer his fingers are. "It's okay."
He nods, without removing his chin from her head, so Val finds herself nodding with him. "I know, I was just filling in some backstory for you, that's all."
"Thanks?"
"You're very welcome." Bart kisses the part in her hair, then continues. "So I'll take you back to Happy Harbor - no, the Catskills - no! The *Poconos*, and you can meet Robin, and you're going to *love* him, he's so cool and freaky, really, really freaky, and -"
"Bart." She uses her mother's voice, quiet and firm, and winces. "Bart?"
"Yeah?"
"Why don't we just go to Gotham?"
His sigh sets her hair moving, tickles her forehead. She tries to turn around but Bart squeezes her waist with his elbows to hold her in place.
"We could do that." It sounds almost *grudging*.
If that's possible - Bart gets quiet sometimes, but never sounds resentful, even when he talks about the previous Flash.
"It just seems...simpler." Val tips back her head so she can see, even just a little, some of Bart's face. She smiles at him. "You know what I mean?"
"Oh, sure, sure," he says quickly. "Parsimony, totally. That makes a lot of sense, I don't -"
"Or we could just go home," she adds. It's clear as *day* that Bart doesn't want to go anywhere near Gotham.
Or is it the present he's avoiding?
*
Val employs logic, both inductive and deductive, in order to make her decisions. Many times, she's influenced in her choice by her emotions and needs, but she has, recently, learned to accept that.
Bart's decisions, on the other hand, are made outside of logic. Retrospectively, it is sometimes possible to descry the outlines of a logical progression, but not always. And in the moment, his decisions occur spontaneously, almost as confusingly and contradictorily as the behavior of particles without observation.
So, thanks to Bart's split-second decisionmaking, she ends up here.
Somewhere. She finds herself perched on the edge of an eight- or ten-story building, as Bart flickers in and out of view, overlooking a tangled urban mess. The streets and alleys are cris-crossed by wan shadows and nauseated neon - the Gotham familiar from every pop-cultural reference, as familiar as *Vegas* or London (neither of which she had visited before Bart, either). The only thing that feels off is the fact that she should be seeing this place for the first time at night, not late in the morning.
She doesn't like heights very much, so she edges back on her ass before pulling herself to her feet. Bart has changed her clothes for her, removing her Sunday-morning pajama pants and tank top, replacing them with a black sweater and snug dark jeans.
Val crosses her arms over her chest and waits.
While time passes, slowly, she does algebra problems in her head.
Bart's the first person who failed to make fun of her for this habit when he heard about it.
Soon enough, a stiff breeze from the south-southeast rocks her back on her heels, followed almost instantly by a blur of red.
"Found him!" Bart announces, spinning around with one arm outstretched, like Vanna White.
He's pointing at a *kid*.
Well, not exactly a kid. A young guy of medium-height with short dark hair and an odd, quiet set to his expression. He's wearing clothes like the ones Bart's been favoring lately - old-man grampa sweater vest and jeans - but on him, they look *right*, somehow.
"Hi?" Val tries.
"Hi," the kid replies and shakes her hand. His palm and fingers are rough, a strange contrast to the smoothness of his face, the *youth* of everything about him. "Valerie Pérez? You can call me -"
"Not Alvin!" Bart shoves a shoulder between them, flinging his arms around their necks. "Anything but Alvin."
"Robin," Valerie says and smiles. It's easy, sometimes, to forget that Bart aged while in the Speed Force, but confronted with a kid about her height, she has to remember. This is Robin? she thinks, *Really?*. "Hi. Um -"
"Call me Rob." There's a movement in the corners of his mouth that might almost be a smile. "I've heard a lot about you." He glances up at Bart and the corners deepen, briefly. "In the nanosecond I had between pulling on my sock and coming here, that is."
"He didn't even have time for a disguise!" Bart says proudly.
He tightens his arm around Rob's neck, releasing Val to wrap the other one around his shoulders. Rob remains still, his face hidden against Bart's chest, as Bart rocks from one foot to the other and back again.
Val suddenly feels as if she should not be here. It's one thing to have Sunday dinner with the Garricks and watch Joan shoot fond, inquisitive looks at Bart, see Jay squeeze Bart's shoulder whenever he passes - that's what families do.
Or so she's heard from television.
But the way Bart's holding Robin, with Robin almost folded up against his body, crumpled and bent, dark - that's beyond family, well beyond friendship.
*
Rob takes them to a safehouse, explaining, "So we can talk -" He glanced at Bart and stressed the next word, "- *relatively* freely." The word "safehouse" made Val picture a narrow bolthole, stocked with canned and freezedried survival fare, but the nicely-appointed apartment in an old Beaux Arts building is nothing like that.
No one actually lives here, but the illusion - framed snapshots on the mantel, squashed throw pillows, coats in the hall closet - is almost enough to make her doubt that. They order in Malaysian curries and coconut rice, six for Bart and one each for Val and Rob, and settle in the living room.
She slowly loses her initial shock at meeting *the* Robin. The longer he talks to her, charming and as intelligent as Bart always said, the less she can believe that he's actually sixteen or seventeen. Like the gap between Bart's apparent age and actual time spent alive, Robin's maturity does not map to any calendar.
He can discuss the relative strengths and irritating flaws of *Matlab*; he questions her about her research, neatly diagnosing her supervisor's criticisms of her modelling as hide-bound and overly reliant on an outdated adherence to the principle of parsimony - which, as he points out, neatly plucking three grains of rice off the table with his chopsticks, is "understandable for someone trained at CalTech - I presume that's her background?"
Val nods and lets Bart take her unfinished bowl from her hands.
"Told you he knew everything." Bart's own chopsticks are flaking and peeling as he wields them. "*Especially* about superheroes and everything like that."
Rob ducks his head fractionally when Val looks at him. "I was something of an amateur at one time."
He isn't a kid, Val thinks. She's not sure *what* he is, but a child is definitely not among the possibilities.
When the food is gone, when even the profiteroles Bart dashed down to New Orleans to pick up are polished off, Val leans back against the sofa's arm and groans softly.
"Still getting used to cuisine a la Bart?" Robin asks with another of those tilting non-smiles.
"I cook a lot!" Bart pauses in his whirlwind of clean-up and pushes his bangs out of his eyes, "And not just Interlac stuff, either. There's a whole slow-food movement going on and it's got some really interesting -. What?" When Robin snorted, Val's giggles got going. Bart looks back and forth. "You like my cooking!"
"I do," Val says between the giggles. She can't explain why she's laughing - not at Bart, she knows that, but with Robin. The difference is clear, if impossible to define.
"Does it really count as cooking if it results in charcoal?" Robin asks.
She doesn't say anything else, as Bart tries to tip Robin out of his wing chair and wrestle him to the floor. Every time the conversation slides near the *fact* that she and Bart are a couple - a fact that even she doesn't quite comprehend, not fully - she feels the urge to duck. Cut her eyes away, to apologize.
Robin, however, has not done what most people do - he's not treating them as some kind of two-headed unit. He's also been talking to Bart about his forensic research - that Robin knows a lot about forensics isn't a *surprise*, exactly - but it's gratifying all the same that he's talking to both Val and Bart as individuals; he has not shown any of that social anxiety that Val's observed from a single person confronted with a couple.
So it's her issue, really, this slight discomfort about being a couple. It has everything to do with how guilty she knows Bart feels about Superboy's death, with his strange reluctance to come visit the person he calls his best friend, with facts about Robin she probably should not know. According to Bart, everyone Robin knew has died, save for someone who's his foster-brother.
Robin extricates himself from Bart's attempt at manic tickling, smoothes down his shirt and hair, and perches on the couch - near Val, but with a cushion's length between them.
Bart's face blurs as he looks back and forth between them, grinning. It's an optical illusion, Val knows, simply the persistence of vision, that suggests that Bart's grin is independent of his face, floating brightly before them. And yet she can't help but grin back.
"You guys *rock*!" Bart says, flopping down into the wing chair. "*Such* a relief that you like each other, you know? Big-time relief."
Rob glances at Val. "You're not here to ask for my permission, are you? Bart's hand and all that?"
Bart shakes Val's arm to get her attention as he hoots with laughter. "Rob was *always* the dad, so that'd totally work!"
"These days you're a little too big to put over my knee," Rob says lightly.
Bart goes quiet at that, his cheeks pinker than usual, and looks away. Val swallows, trying to think of something to say, but Bart's already recovered. "Anyway, we're totally living in sin, so it doesn't matter. I - we - Rob!"
"I'm listening."
"I had sex!" Bart's leaning over, one hand braced on the coffee table, shaking Robin's left knee for emphasis. "*Sex*."
Robin unfolds his arms. His hands stay at his sides. "So I gathered."
"It's amazing! I mean, the whole *thought* of sex used to totally gross me out, you know, like all the *stuff* that Kon would -" He stops short and grabs at the nearest thing within reach - a throw pillow - and hugs it to his chest. "Um."
Robin clears his throat and says, softly, "Girls are wonderful creatures, chum."
The sudden rigidity passes from Bart's face and body. "*Exactly*. Remember how gross Kon could be, like - oh, man, that time he dared Gar to turn into Big Barda and -"
"Kon," Robin says to Val, not turning his head, "was Superboy - Superboy's name."
"One of them, anyway," Bart puts in. "And Val knows, I told her lots -"
"Of course you did," Robin says. Tonelessly.
As she stands up, Val rubs her arms against an imaginary chill. "Bathroom?"
"Down the hall, second door on the right." The look Robin gives her is almost *naked* - shining blue eyes, pale face - with gratitude.
Val hasn't made it out of the room before Bart throws himself on the couch beside - partly on top of - Robin, talking all the while. "...and sex is just amazing, it's like I can feel my whole body, and someone else's body, too! Intimate, right? A real kind of connection and..."
She waits in the bathroom for as long as she can, drying her hands on a velvety towel, poking through the medicine cabinet that no one uses. There's toothpaste and gauze, a few prescription bottles for muscle relaxants and anxiety in the names of Robert Malone and Cathy Whippes, a box of condoms and unwrapped soaps.
She doesn't think she's hiding in here - not quite, anyway. When it feels like she's given them enough time alone, Val eases open the door and pads back down the hall.
She hears Bart's high, excited voice well before the living room comes back into view and stops there.
"- got to thinking, hey, Tih-*Robin*'s never gone all the way -"
"How do you know that?" Robin asks quietly.
When he replies, Bart sounds offended. "You *told* me."
"I...when?"
She hears a muffled fabric sound and realizes it's probably Bart socking Robin in the shoulder. Or the ribs. Maybe the thigh. "The campout! Remember?"
"Bart, that was -. A really long time ago."
"I *know* that," Bart says, impatient and affronted. It's been longer for him than anyone.
Val remains in the hallway, looking blankly at pictures of people who don't live here, pictures in heavy silver frames of affluent white people, dark-haired and smiling.
Bart adds, "But if it had changed, you would've told me, and you haven't, so -. Rob! You would've told me, right?"
There is a long pause, during which Val traces the floral damask on the wallpaper, making a loop of an entire bouquet, before Robin clears his throat. "Of course."
"Same as I'm telling you *now*. Because you're my best friend, always will be, you and Val and -"
"That's what friends do." The way Robin says it, it's not a question.
Bart, however, seems to think it is. "Yeah!" He must be shifting on the couch, getting more comfortable, because it's a long moment before he says, a little shyly, "So."
"So." Robin sounds as calm as ever.
"So! So I had sex! I'm *having* sex. Regularly, in lots of different positions!"
"I'd heard as much, yes." Robin might be amused; Val doesn't know him well enough to decide if he is. But she shares with him, she suspects, the fond exasperation that comes from following Bart's loops and knots and *whorls* of logic.
"You did? Wait, did *Val* tell you?"
In the hall, Val opens her mouth to protest, but Robin snorts and says, "We've covered this, Bart. And, anyway, when you show up with a pretty girl who you're calling your girlfriend, it's fairly easy to assume that -"
"But *you* had girlfriends," Bart says. Val can see as clearly as anything the mulish set to his jaw and his eyeroll.
"Yes."
"But *you're* a virgin."
"Yes," Robin says. Val *knows* she shouldn't be surprised at that, but -. Well. She is.
"So it's not a given, Tim! You can't just *assume* things without, without - *evidence* and confirmation and all of that. Kon was right, you know, you -"
Bart just said what must be Robin's real name.
Val's head swims a little at that, the *fact* somehow more shocking than the virgin thing, more than - let's be honest, Valerie, shall we? - eavesdropping on her boyfriend's face-burningly clumsy attempt to seduce his best friend.
Maybe the Batman has a pill to make her forget. Maybe there's some kind of self-hypnosis she could do...
She knows better than that, however. Once Val *learns* something, she can't give it up; she needs, in fact, to know more, learn more, *acquire* more.
Everything's quiet out in the living room. Val steps forward, coming up to toe the light from the far window, and the first thing she thinks when she sees Bart splayed over Robin, hand on his hip, kissing him enthusiastically, is, Hey, go you!
Sometimes hanging around so much with Bart makes her feel all of twelve, right down to the diminution of her vocabulary.
Robin's hand is in Bart's hair; at first, that's all Val can see of him, before he grips Bart's shoulder and eases him back. "Your girlfriend -"
"That'd be my cue," Val says, then feels about as cheesy as Hugh Hefner or something. She shoves her hands into her back pockets. "Hi, guys."
Bart is breathing heavily - she knows, bodily at this point, just how intensely worked-up he can get in the space of a heartbeat. She tilts her head, smiling at him, getting that same *fizzy* sensation down her back and up her chest that she gets when they touch, then glances at Robin.
He's pulling himself back up, straight-spined and alert, one hand combing back his hair. His preppy button-down shirt, however, is pushed up on one side, where Bart's (fast, insistent) hand had been, and his mouth looks redder than it had been.
"I -" Robin starts, presses his lips together, then tries again. "This feels like a set-up."
"It totally is!" Bart crows at the same time that Val says, "No, no, I -"
Until Bart clapped his hands just now, Val is sure she had no idea where this was leading. A good percentage of Bart's ideas, once voiced, flare out like the speed force's sparks; it's never easy to tell when they might catch and take hold.
Bart drags her across the room, her toes snagging in the carpet, and pushes her down onto the couch, right up against Robin. "It's not like -" she tries to say.
"I think you'll like it," Bart says loudly, over her own words. He's sitting on the edge of the coffee table, one hand on Robin's leg, the other, mirroring perfectly, on Val's thigh. "I *know* you'll like it, sex is just mindblowingly *fun*, and it's way past time that you let yourself go. So, here's what we're going to do -"
Robin holds up his palm. "Do I get a say in this?"
"Do *I*?" Val asks.
Brow furrowed, his jaw working restlessly, Bart looks back and forth. "You want to *discuss* this? What, like negotiate boundaries? I don't think we'll need a safe word or anything, even if Bats *are* freaky, your first time out, I wouldn't recommend -"
"Bart," Robin says.
"Yes?"
"This isn't a good idea." This close to Robin, Val can feel his thigh tense up against her own, rock-hard and immobile. His elbow is sharp when it brushes her waist. "No offense, Valerie, I -"
"It's all right," Val says and turns her hand palm up to grasp Bart's wrist. "Bart, it's -"
"It can work!" Bart insists and reaches over to them, pushing their shoulders together. "Wow, you two look *great* together, I mean - I *imagined* it, but there's nothing like -"
"You imagined what, exactly?" Robin's voice sounds - not hoarse, nothing so obvious, but dry. Dry around the edges.
Bart huffs and starts to draw back his hands. He seems to think better of it, though, and brushes Val's hair behind her ears as he runs his knuckles down Robin's jaw. "You know," he says dreamily. "Like, *you*. And Val. And me with you. And I miss -"
Val thinks that there's a moment, a half-moment, during which Robin looks at her. She can't be sure, however, because Robin's leaning forward, like a *blaze*, small white hands gripping Bart's knees, spreading them apart, as he cranes forward and up to kiss him.
"Mmph," Bart says. One arm flails free, hitting the couch cushions, the corner of the coffee table, the couch again, before Val can grab his hand and squeeze. Robin's shirt is hitching up in the back, exposing pale, scarred skin, as his shoulders tilt and twist. She catches a glimpse of one of Bart's eyes, shocked and wide, *shining*, before the lid drifts closed. At the same moment, he laces his fingers through Val's.
Robin shudders, briefly, when Val touches the small of his back. She's not sure what she's doing, nor why, or - *anything*, really, but her hand casts mercury-dark shadows on his skin, and she traces the scars with her nails to feel him shudder again. She pulls one knee up to her chest and slides behind Robin until he's between her legs and she's got one hand on his back, the other on Bart's thigh. Under her mouth, the nape of Robin's neck is cool, much smoother than the scarred skin of his back. The bristles of his cropped hair buzz against her lips.
He doesn't seem to mind her touching him, holding him like this, but when she slides her palm around his waist and pets his chest - so much *narrower* than Bart's, with so many more scars that it makes her eyes sting - Robin tenses. The tension is a minute shift, a change in the rhythm of his breathing and a stiffening of the muscles under her hand, but it's notable all the same.
He relaxes again when she touches his arm instead, then Bart's, her palm curving around Bart's neck.
Bart breaks the kiss, eyes unfocused and mouth hanging open. "Oh my *god*," he breathes, and drops a peck on the tip of Robin's nose. "You, Rob - *wow*. Val!"
"Here," she says, resting her chin on Robin's shoulder. He's breathing heavily, too, and she's torn between wanting to kiss him and sensing that he needs a massage, a cuddle, and a gallon of good hot soup.
But Bart's the cook here, and he's rubbing his face against Robin's other shoulder and squeezing Val's hand almost painfully.
Robin turns his head, mouth finding her ear. "This - this doesn't feel right."
"It's okay," she whispers back and can't stop herself from wrapping her arm around his waist and squeezing. He tenses again, then exhales, and she's almost sure he's *willing* himself to relax. "I - yeah. It's okay."
"What're you talking about?" Bart's still breathless, so his voice is high, as high as she remembers it being when he was Kid Flash. "Also, you two should totally kiss. You're both really good at it!"
Against her cheek, she feels Robin's eyes close, and she squeezes him again before saying to Bart, "I don't think -"
But Bart's leaning back, pulling off his shirt and sweater, tossing them behind him. "C'mon, c'mon," he mutters, plucking at Robin's shirt and Val's pants. "*C'mon* -"
The topology of this is all wrong: Robin between them, one point with two links. She can't help seeing this as a graph that needs to be redone, rearranged, for optimal efficiency.
Nor would it be better if she was in the middle, bracketed by the guys; though that's been her experience before - one man, bracketed by two women, admittedly, but the graph is the same, whatever the genders - because Robin is not *interested* in her. Responsive, yes, and polite to a fault, and he looks *lovely* with his cheeks flushing and lips a little swollen, but he isn't here for her.
Like Robin, Val cannot reasonably expect Bart to understand that. He's pulling off Robin's shoes, tugging Val's shirt off, and, in his eyes, everyone probably is as flexible, as full of affection and desire, as he is.
She wishes, for Bart's sake, that the world was half as good as he believes it is. Despite everything, every loss and pain he's ever known, he cannot seem to help believing that everyone loves as purely and thoroughly as he does.
And this is where the graph is Val's mind falters, starts to break down and flake away, because Bart's *not* a point, cannot be reduced to a single datum.
"Here, let me help," she says and leans back, tugging Robin's shirt over his head. "Bart? C'mere, okay?"
"Sure!"
He's shirtless, a little sweaty already, his tanned skin pulled tightly over the long cords of his muscles. She pulls him close, kissing him as she pushes his hair back, biting his lower lip when he gets one knee on the couch between her leg and Robin's.
"Oh," Robin breathes, and she's not sure what he's responding to, but she feels his hands on Bart's waist, skating up his chest, and knows this arrangement is better.
Between them, Bart's arching and grunting a little, his lip caught in his teeth, his hips moving jerkily but aimlessly. He doesn't seem to know where to go, whether to butt against Val's hand or back into Robin's chest.
He settles, eventually, for kissing Val while he grinds back against Robin's chest. He's *gulping* in the kiss, murmuring in the speedster language, cupping her breasts and gasping. When Val tugs open his fly, in the single space of a break for breath, she considers grabbing Robin's hand and pushing it inside.
She doesn't like herself very much for ignoring that idea, but then Bart shimmies his hips and the pants slide down his thighs anyway.
She has limits, just as Robin does, and she can *aspire* to be like Bart - though the idea terrifies her - but she's not there, not nearly, not yet.
Bart doesn't curse, even in the heat of the hottest moment; what he does - as he's doing now, when Robin *does* touch him - is throw his head back and babble in Interlac and kind of *gasp* with his entire body. Val licks down the long prominence of his collarbone, then around one nipple - I don't know why they say men shouldn't have nipples! That feels *amazing*, do it harder! - watching Robin's white fingers wrap around the base of Bart's dick. Swollen dark as beef, it stands out hugely against the narrow, pale fingers, even the pink thumb as Robin strokes the head.
He catches her eye and gives her one of those tilting non-smiles, before his gaze flickers away. Bart throws his arm around Robin, yanking him close, kissing him hungrily as he tries to shove his hand down Robin's pants.
Val can't stop thinking. She can't, quite, lose herself entirely, even during sex, even when it's just the two of them. She's always *studying* Bart, even against her better instincts, and she's watching them, *analyzing* them, now.
Robin is made up of sharp angles and white lines, like origami, intricate and *secret*, against the golden, flushed expanse of Bart. She knows Bart's body very well, but that familiarity hasn't seemed to dull her love for it, her interest in its responses and capabilities; she doesn't know Robin's body, except as a collection of nearly-untouchable turns and joints, and that novelty makes her fingers itch and mouth dry.
She doesn't want to be the director here, and she definitely doesn't want to retire gracefully and leave them be. Not with her groin already throbbing - every time she shifts, she rocks a little against the gathering wet, and her clit's got to be swollen *already* - not for anything.
Bart has twisted around, flopped back between them; even with his mouth latched to Robin's, their hands on each other's cocks, he finds Val with his free hand and tugs her closer. She swallows against the rush of heat and *gratitude* and peels off her pants. She can hear Bart suck in a breath and giggle against Robin's mouth when she straddles his arm and his palm curves up against her crotch.
Bodies, especially *genitalia*, make him giggle; he's never going to get over that. She doesn't want him to, not really.
Val braces one hand on the back of the couch and touches Bart with the other, as the boys - she should really think of them as guys, lest her old cradle-robbing guilt return, but they *are* boys right now, flushed and grinding against each other, their lips and cheeks bitten and shining red as washed apples. Bart's thumb buzzes against her clit's shaft as two fingers twist and cross inside her, and she's very glad - as she always is, just a thousand times more so - for a boyfriend who's also a human vibrator.
He's blurring at the center of her vision, his hand moving fast enough that the friction spreads into a flare inside her, up into her gut, spilling out from her mouth in gasping cries, in *Spanish*. Bart arches off the couch, almost floating - though that, too, is an optical illusion; he's simply thrusting so fast that she can't see - and he comes in a heaving series of slowing jerks.
"Oh. Oh. *Oh*," Bart says, kissing Val and working his fingers deeper, then kissing Robin and staring down at his dick. "Oh, *guys*, see -. That was -"
"Ssshh," Robin breathes, as Bart sucks a line down the side of his throat, and he catches Val's smile.
Bart's always a little lost, gobsmacked and intensely, almost painfully, *grateful*, just after orgasm. *She's* usually the one who shushes him, pets his back, but she just nods at Robin and slides off Bart's hand. She rubs a little, fast, against the heel of his hand before sliding back.
She's good and buzzed now, her nipples aching as she brushes her knuckles against them and works her hand between her legs.
"Rob!" Bart whispers urgently, from a point about eye-level to Robin's sternum. "Rob, I -"
Robin spread his legs and stretches out his neck. He glances at Val, one eyebrow sliding up interrogatively, and she shrugs. "What, Bart?"
"Can I, I want to, see -" Bart tries to catch his breath, and looks back at Val. His chin planted on his shoulder, his back twisting and sweaty, his hair falling in his eyes, he looks like - well, like *Bart*, excited and ablaze and nearly incoherent with lightspeed thought and emotion. His tongue flicks the corners of his mouth and a red, twisting *sizzle* runs down Val's back, arching it and twisting her hand, at the sight. Bart's eyebrows jump up in surprise and he grins before looking back at Robin. "Rob, I gotta. I *have* to, I want -"
She's half-surprised at how gently Robin brushes his fingertips over Bart's cheek. Then she's all the way surprised - and not a little turned on - at how Bart goes up on all fours and *bites* Robin's index finger.
"If you can't say it," Robin says drily, "you shouldn't -"
Bart shakes his head like a dog with a bone and pushes Robin back into the corner of the couch. For several moments, all Val can see is Bart's much bigger, more muscled body pinning Robin's, and then Bart slides all the way down until his face is in Robin's lap and Robin's head is thrown back, exposing his throat as his chin works and he groans.
Val tries quietly to shift onto her knees, behind Bart; there isn't much room, but neither of them notices her changing places, not Robin, his torso extended and bone-white, hands clamped in Bart's hair, and not Bart, murmuring and *slobbering* as he opens Robin's knees wider and bobs his head.
Bart has been very *oral* from the start; that night in Vegas, he spent what had to have been, for him, a decade between her legs, tasting and giggling and trying different methods, until she was so sore and *tight* from coming that she had to push him away. And then she spent half an hour explaining that she wasn't *mad* at him, just that there were many other things they could try.
She crouches behind Bart, head resting on his back as it heaves and moves, arms wrapped around his waist. Her feet are digging into the space between the couch's arm and the cushion, and she's starting to fear for the poor couch's springs. Bart shines under, before, her, and he's already hard again - an adolescent at super-speed's refractory period is, really, nothing less than astonishing. And frequently exhausting.
Bart pushes into her hand, rubbing himself on her and the upholstery, as Robin drops his head forward, his eyes narrowed and intent. Intent on Bart, his lips a little parted as he works his hips up and down, breathing raggedly.
Val stretches as far as she can, until she can whisper to Bart, her teeth grazing his earlobe. "He likes it, sweetheart. He likes *you* -"
And Robin couldn't have heard that, but he's nodding and his hand is clumsily petting Bart's hair and now Val's, and he's saying, "Yes" and "Oh", and Bart is - humming. A hum that turns into a giggle as he shifts around, bringing one hand to his mouth and sucking his fingers before returning to Robin's cock.
Val pulls back when Bart looks up at Robin and says something in Interlac, something that Robin understands, because his eyes go wide, his breath catching, before he pulls one knee up to his chest and exhales slowly as he lies back.
Val speeds her strokes on Bart's dick, twisting up to the head, as she pushes up onto one knee. She wants to see, she wants to *feel* it, as much as she can. The muscles in Bart's arm stand out like naval ropes; she can't see his hand, but she knows he's running his fingertips around Robin's hole, the way he's done to her several hundred times, vibrating slowly as he sucks and enters and Robin *yowls*.
Bart bucks, knocking her back against the arm of the couch, almost *over* it, and Val ends up with one foot on the floor, the other leg extended in the well of the couch, toes tickling Robin's waist every time he twists in that direction. She scissors her first two fingers around her clit, soaking her entire hand, rubbing and watching and rubbing harder, watching more closely.
You're the best de-virginizer *ever*, Bart gasped to her when they woke up in Vegas. She'd laughed then, because the word made her sound like a professional, or a machine. She's pretty sure now that, as she's watching now as the flush spills and deepens down Robin's chest, as Bart's head stops bobbing and slows into an intense suck, it's *Bart* who excels at this.
She comes against her hand once and keeps rubbing, curling her second finger into her hole, fucking herself with what she thinks of as Bart's rhythm.
"Christ, *Bart*, I'm -" Robin's words shatter and he tries to hold himself still, but Bart is nothing if not *diligent*, and soon enough Robin's body starts to fold up like a jack-knife before extending again and shuddering.
Val has come three times before she pulls her hand away, and by that time, Bart is trying to worm his way up Robin's body, patting him and kissing in a random pattern.
"Did you like that? Was that good? I think that was pretty good, it was a hard time finding the prostate, but I did it, I think I found it -"
Robin's eyes flutter open, and his gaze lands on Val first. "Yes," he says, hoarsely, then works his jaw until it pops. "You, um. Found it."
"Good! I couldn't find Val's G-spot the first couple times I tried, that's a tricky little thing, but when I did, it was -"
Val kicks her leg free from under Bart and Robin's combined weight, then pokes Bart in the waist with her toes. "It's not *that* hard to find."
Bart sticks his tongue out at her. "Says you."
"Says me," Val replies.
Robin's watching them and she can't begin to read the expression on his face. There's no expression, or a very intense one, but whichever it is, there's no middle ground.
"I should wash up!" Bart rolls over Robin to the edge of the couch and jumps to his feet. "You guys talk, okay? I'll be right back."
Val smiles vaguely at Robin, who returns the close-mouthed, almost *shy*, expression. Digging his elbows into the cushions, he hauls himself backward until he's sitting opposite her, one leg drawn up, arms folded against his chest.
"I -" he starts to say, then looks away. "'Thank you' sounds. Weird."
"Nah, not weird." Val bends over to pick up the scattered clothing. She hands Robin his shirt, but he's still not looking at her, so she drops it against his leg. "I feel like I should apologize, so -"
The hinge of his jaw shifts under the skin. "For what?"
Val snorts and shrugs one shoulder. "Don't know. For being a girl, or something."
"You -"
"But I'm not," she says quickly. "Sorry about that."
"Back!" Bart announces as he skids off the parquet floor in the hallway, getting tangled up in the edge of the living-room carpet. He puts his hands on his hips as he *beams* at both of them. God bless him, but he's already half-hard *again*. "This is *way* better than I thought it'd be! And I had pretty high expectations to start with."
"Good," Robin tells Val, finally looking at her. His eyes look almost hollow for a moment before she nods. He glances at Bart. "Hey."
"Hey!" Bart bounces onto the couch between them, then grimaces. "Eww, wet spot."
Robin swings his feet onto the floor and retrieves his pants. He knew, Val realizes, exactly where they'd fell. "I should get to work pretty soon," he says, pulling them on.
"Really?" Bart asks and sounds so forlorn that Val links her arm through his and kisses his bare shoulder. "That sucks."
Robin zips up his pants and pulls on his shirt. Before he starts buttoning it, however, he tilts his head and stares at Bart. "You're welcome to come, you know."
"On patrol?"
Robin nods. "On patrol."
"But what about Batman? I'm not allowed in Gotham, am I? I'm pretty sure I'm not."
Robin sits down on the coffee table. "You're already *in* Gotham."
"True, true." Bart's vigorous nod makes Val's cheek slide up and down his arm.
"And he's been asking about you, so -"
Bart pulls away from both of them, and blurs out; he next appears on the far side of the room, at the front door. "Get out! What's he want to know? What did you tell him? You didn't tell him anything bad, I hope, because I've changed *a lot* and -" Another blur, and he's suddenly on his knees in front of Robin. "You're not going to tell him about this, are you?"
For the first time, Val sees Robin laugh. It's a real laugh, showing teeth, sounding right, and she joins in. "Not about this, no. But he's -. Supportive. Of you."
*
Val takes a nap in the apartment's nearly-untouched master bedroom. The Flash and Robin left via the fire escape soon after dusk fell; she ordered dinner, poked around the apartment, and ended up crosswise on the bed, coverlet wrapped around her.
Without Bart around, it's always a little too quiet. But she needs that, sometimes, the quiet to think and remember who she is. Now, she's sleepy and too full and she's not remembering much of anything. Just luxuriating on her back, flipping through the television - who pays for premium cable in a fake apartment, anyway? - and dozing.
Other people get jetlag. She has Flash-lag, and it's just one more thing she's gotten used to without even trying. Nothing makes the kind of sense she's used to, but, right now, that's less a worry than one more datum.
Characters: Bart, Val, Tim; various combinations
Rating: Adult
Spoilers/Timeline: FLASH #8, ROBIN OYL.
Anti/Warning: This is not your mama's conduit fic.
Summary: "I'm having sex! Regularly, in lots of different positions!"
Disclaimer: DC owns all; I, nothing.
Notes: Thanks to katarik and jubilancy for assorted inspiration and handholding. This is for oneangrykate, who is much loved and whose comments on FLASH #8 inspired this; one of them forms the epigraph. <333
I always sort of put [Bart and Tim] the same category as being Weird Quasi-Gendered Virgin Things, but now the world's gone all topsy-turvy.
Studying superheroes has not prepared Val - in any way whatsoever - for living with one. Her research is quantitative; her dissertation will suggest a new calculus for the Speed Force. She understands probability and vectors, and spends hours mucking around in SPSS and visualizations.
Bart is, for lack of any better word, pretty intensely *qualitative*. He doesn't measure anything, he can't *be* measured. He simply moves and loves and shifts again.
Everything he says surprises her.
Today, when she leaves the lab, she stops at the slightly skeevy hair salon that a fellow grad student recommended. She returns to their apartment with a cut that makes the back of her neck itch. She can't stop touching the fall of hair, asymmetrical and jagged, on the right side, nor the neat, almost landscaped, hair on the other.
"Wow, you look gorgeous!" Bart's on his feet, grabbing her hands, spinning her around before the door closes and her backpack has thumped to the floor.
Considering the fact that last month, when she had the flu and pink eye at once, he *also* thought she was gorgeous, Val can't really credit his objectivity.
The collision of "objectivity" and "Bart" makes her head hurt, to tell the truth.
"Is it butchy?" she asks as Bart runs his fingers through her hair. "I can't tell."
She shouldn't care if it is butchy. It's not like she's ever exactly been the girliest girl anyway. But Los Angeles' smog seems to contain some kind of hyper-feminizing force that has begun to get to her.
"Really butchy!" Bart nods vigorously. "It's so butchy, it's amazing! Groundbreakingly butchy, I'd say! I love it!"
Val opens her mouth. She doesn't get a chance to say anything, though, because Bart's tilting his head and narrowing his eyes.
"What's butchy again?" he asks in a small voice.
*
She never expected to be living with someone. Not this young, not when she hasn't even started her career yet, not for a lot of reasons.
Bart has a way of making disruption feel like a gift.
The way she's settled into this highly *domestic* routine - Sunday mornings spent with the papers Bart runs across the country to buy, curled up with waffles from Copenhagen and fruit from Mali - should surprise her. Maybe take her aback.
Instead, she just kind of likes it. Her mother would roll her eyes and say "Valerie, no one needs a man to feel comfortable".
Why, yes, thank you, Mother. And the sky is blue, and Bart can run fast. Tell me something I don't know.
"What's so funny?" Bart slides down the back of the couch and ends up upside down in her lap. The Guardian crumples beneath his head.
"Hmm?" she asks, leaning over to pluck the City section of the New York Times from the top of the pile. "What?"
"You were doing that -" He traces her lips with his index finger and cocks his head. "Where you don't really smile, but I can tell you're smiling because there's something about your eyes and what's so funny? Did I do something?"
"No," she assures him.
"You sure?"
"I'm sure."
Bart sighs gustily and grins. "Good, because sometimes, see, I used to do stuff and no one told me why it was funny, they just laughed, and I'm not sure if I still do that? Or maybe they were just being mean, I don't know. Probably not mean, because they were my friends and I'd hate to think they were actually secret jerks -"
Val pushes his hair away from his forehead and smiles. For real this time. "Just thinking."
Bart does a backflip that turns into a messy somersault. He ends up crouched, arms wrapped around his knees, watching her.
He watches her a lot; she thinks she might be starting to get used to it. It started - well, probably after the first time they kissed, but the first time she really *noticed* the energy of his gaze was after their first night together.
It's nothing like the sparks that fly off the Speed Force when they're making out. Somehow, the light in his eyes when he's watching is *more* alien, more exciting, than even those are.
"Now you're thinking," she says gently.
Bart grins and starts to bounce in place. "It finally came to me! You know how I've been racking my brains, really *freaking out*, because -"
"No, really?" Val sets aside the paper. "You've been upset?"
Bart waves his hand. "Not any more! I was trying to figure out who you reminded me of, and I couldn't make it make sense in my head, and then it all came together BLAM, you know? And now I'm -"
"Blam?"
"BLAM!" he shouts and jumps to his feet. He kisses her at speed, a hummingbird pressure of heat and moisture, before drawing back. "Holy crap, Val! You're just like Robin, you know that! Same hair and everything!"
Over the course of her background research, Val has of course read about and seen photos of the various Robins. She's fairly sure Bart doesn't mean the pretty blonde one. The *girl* one.
"I look like Robin?" she asks carefully, navigating the reefs and shoals and sudden currents of Bart-logic as best she can.
Bart rolls his eyes and waves *both* arms. "Yeah, yeah, you're both really *hot*, but it's not just that - it's like, you're a *scientist*, right? And he's a *detective*, and that's pretty much the same thing, you both build models of dynamic systems in order to understand and improve them and -"
Val shakes her head. Bart is almost *terrifyingly* open about desire and sexuality these days. Perhaps it just makes sense that he was far more shy about such things when they first met - after all, she's certainly opened up a lot since then, too - but there's more to it than that. Bart seems to *relish* every chance he gets to talk about his libido, what he likes, what *she* likes, what he'd like to do.
The sense of having opened floodgates has not escaped her.
She says, a little hoarsely, "You think Robin's hot?"
But Bart's off on another vector altogether, pacing the living room until the carpet starts to smoke under his Converse and he's blurring at the edges. "He's the smartest person I know! Until I met you, and now he's a got a rival, and boy is *that* funny, if you think about it, because Robin's an *original*, despite being the third *and* fifth person to wear the uniform, he's really made it his own, and -" He takes a deep, rattling breath. "- then there's also the fact that I feel like there's a big dog sitting on my chest whenever I look at you."
Val straightens each section of every paper before she can reply. When she does, all she can do is make a joke. "Maybe you should get that looked at."
"Huh?" Bart's back in front of her, down on one knee, *watching* her.
"The dog..." Val slips her fingers through Bart's and squeezes. "Bad joke."
"Oh, the dog! Yeah, and the thing is, I never felt like that before except maybe twice." He shakes his head. "Three times. No, four." Now he's counting off on the fingers of his free hand. "When Max left, yes. When I kissed Carol, yes. When I saw my mom in the future, that's four."
"That's three."
"Right, three! And the fourth is when I used to be around Robin. So, see? It's totally obvious."
Val's cheeks are starting to ache a little from grinning. "Explain it to me? What's *it*?"
The crackle of reality wrinkling around her as Bart grabs her and starts to run is becoming almost familiar. She should probably think that fact through sooner rather than later, but she's too busy feeling the quantum winds break like music over her skin.
"You totally have to meet Robin!" Bart shouts into the sparking, symphonic *hum* of the Speed Force. "You're perfect for each other!"
No one told me why it was funny, they just laughed. Yet Val's laughing harder than ever.
*
Bart grips the handlebars on the Cosmic Treadmill tightly and rests his chin on the crown of Val's skull. "So what I'll do is work this thing, which I'm pretty sure I know how to do, whatever else anyone said that time in the creepy future and -"
Insecurities have a way of spilling from Bart's mind like snowflakes.
Snowflakes in *Arizona*, because they disappear just as soon as they appear.
Nevertheless, Val covers one of Bart's hand with her own, marveling, as usual, at just how much longer his fingers are. "It's okay."
He nods, without removing his chin from her head, so Val finds herself nodding with him. "I know, I was just filling in some backstory for you, that's all."
"Thanks?"
"You're very welcome." Bart kisses the part in her hair, then continues. "So I'll take you back to Happy Harbor - no, the Catskills - no! The *Poconos*, and you can meet Robin, and you're going to *love* him, he's so cool and freaky, really, really freaky, and -"
"Bart." She uses her mother's voice, quiet and firm, and winces. "Bart?"
"Yeah?"
"Why don't we just go to Gotham?"
His sigh sets her hair moving, tickles her forehead. She tries to turn around but Bart squeezes her waist with his elbows to hold her in place.
"We could do that." It sounds almost *grudging*.
If that's possible - Bart gets quiet sometimes, but never sounds resentful, even when he talks about the previous Flash.
"It just seems...simpler." Val tips back her head so she can see, even just a little, some of Bart's face. She smiles at him. "You know what I mean?"
"Oh, sure, sure," he says quickly. "Parsimony, totally. That makes a lot of sense, I don't -"
"Or we could just go home," she adds. It's clear as *day* that Bart doesn't want to go anywhere near Gotham.
Or is it the present he's avoiding?
*
Val employs logic, both inductive and deductive, in order to make her decisions. Many times, she's influenced in her choice by her emotions and needs, but she has, recently, learned to accept that.
Bart's decisions, on the other hand, are made outside of logic. Retrospectively, it is sometimes possible to descry the outlines of a logical progression, but not always. And in the moment, his decisions occur spontaneously, almost as confusingly and contradictorily as the behavior of particles without observation.
So, thanks to Bart's split-second decisionmaking, she ends up here.
Somewhere. She finds herself perched on the edge of an eight- or ten-story building, as Bart flickers in and out of view, overlooking a tangled urban mess. The streets and alleys are cris-crossed by wan shadows and nauseated neon - the Gotham familiar from every pop-cultural reference, as familiar as *Vegas* or London (neither of which she had visited before Bart, either). The only thing that feels off is the fact that she should be seeing this place for the first time at night, not late in the morning.
She doesn't like heights very much, so she edges back on her ass before pulling herself to her feet. Bart has changed her clothes for her, removing her Sunday-morning pajama pants and tank top, replacing them with a black sweater and snug dark jeans.
Val crosses her arms over her chest and waits.
While time passes, slowly, she does algebra problems in her head.
Bart's the first person who failed to make fun of her for this habit when he heard about it.
Soon enough, a stiff breeze from the south-southeast rocks her back on her heels, followed almost instantly by a blur of red.
"Found him!" Bart announces, spinning around with one arm outstretched, like Vanna White.
He's pointing at a *kid*.
Well, not exactly a kid. A young guy of medium-height with short dark hair and an odd, quiet set to his expression. He's wearing clothes like the ones Bart's been favoring lately - old-man grampa sweater vest and jeans - but on him, they look *right*, somehow.
"Hi?" Val tries.
"Hi," the kid replies and shakes her hand. His palm and fingers are rough, a strange contrast to the smoothness of his face, the *youth* of everything about him. "Valerie Pérez? You can call me -"
"Not Alvin!" Bart shoves a shoulder between them, flinging his arms around their necks. "Anything but Alvin."
"Robin," Valerie says and smiles. It's easy, sometimes, to forget that Bart aged while in the Speed Force, but confronted with a kid about her height, she has to remember. This is Robin? she thinks, *Really?*. "Hi. Um -"
"Call me Rob." There's a movement in the corners of his mouth that might almost be a smile. "I've heard a lot about you." He glances up at Bart and the corners deepen, briefly. "In the nanosecond I had between pulling on my sock and coming here, that is."
"He didn't even have time for a disguise!" Bart says proudly.
He tightens his arm around Rob's neck, releasing Val to wrap the other one around his shoulders. Rob remains still, his face hidden against Bart's chest, as Bart rocks from one foot to the other and back again.
Val suddenly feels as if she should not be here. It's one thing to have Sunday dinner with the Garricks and watch Joan shoot fond, inquisitive looks at Bart, see Jay squeeze Bart's shoulder whenever he passes - that's what families do.
Or so she's heard from television.
But the way Bart's holding Robin, with Robin almost folded up against his body, crumpled and bent, dark - that's beyond family, well beyond friendship.
*
Rob takes them to a safehouse, explaining, "So we can talk -" He glanced at Bart and stressed the next word, "- *relatively* freely." The word "safehouse" made Val picture a narrow bolthole, stocked with canned and freezedried survival fare, but the nicely-appointed apartment in an old Beaux Arts building is nothing like that.
No one actually lives here, but the illusion - framed snapshots on the mantel, squashed throw pillows, coats in the hall closet - is almost enough to make her doubt that. They order in Malaysian curries and coconut rice, six for Bart and one each for Val and Rob, and settle in the living room.
She slowly loses her initial shock at meeting *the* Robin. The longer he talks to her, charming and as intelligent as Bart always said, the less she can believe that he's actually sixteen or seventeen. Like the gap between Bart's apparent age and actual time spent alive, Robin's maturity does not map to any calendar.
He can discuss the relative strengths and irritating flaws of *Matlab*; he questions her about her research, neatly diagnosing her supervisor's criticisms of her modelling as hide-bound and overly reliant on an outdated adherence to the principle of parsimony - which, as he points out, neatly plucking three grains of rice off the table with his chopsticks, is "understandable for someone trained at CalTech - I presume that's her background?"
Val nods and lets Bart take her unfinished bowl from her hands.
"Told you he knew everything." Bart's own chopsticks are flaking and peeling as he wields them. "*Especially* about superheroes and everything like that."
Rob ducks his head fractionally when Val looks at him. "I was something of an amateur at one time."
He isn't a kid, Val thinks. She's not sure *what* he is, but a child is definitely not among the possibilities.
When the food is gone, when even the profiteroles Bart dashed down to New Orleans to pick up are polished off, Val leans back against the sofa's arm and groans softly.
"Still getting used to cuisine a la Bart?" Robin asks with another of those tilting non-smiles.
"I cook a lot!" Bart pauses in his whirlwind of clean-up and pushes his bangs out of his eyes, "And not just Interlac stuff, either. There's a whole slow-food movement going on and it's got some really interesting -. What?" When Robin snorted, Val's giggles got going. Bart looks back and forth. "You like my cooking!"
"I do," Val says between the giggles. She can't explain why she's laughing - not at Bart, she knows that, but with Robin. The difference is clear, if impossible to define.
"Does it really count as cooking if it results in charcoal?" Robin asks.
She doesn't say anything else, as Bart tries to tip Robin out of his wing chair and wrestle him to the floor. Every time the conversation slides near the *fact* that she and Bart are a couple - a fact that even she doesn't quite comprehend, not fully - she feels the urge to duck. Cut her eyes away, to apologize.
Robin, however, has not done what most people do - he's not treating them as some kind of two-headed unit. He's also been talking to Bart about his forensic research - that Robin knows a lot about forensics isn't a *surprise*, exactly - but it's gratifying all the same that he's talking to both Val and Bart as individuals; he has not shown any of that social anxiety that Val's observed from a single person confronted with a couple.
So it's her issue, really, this slight discomfort about being a couple. It has everything to do with how guilty she knows Bart feels about Superboy's death, with his strange reluctance to come visit the person he calls his best friend, with facts about Robin she probably should not know. According to Bart, everyone Robin knew has died, save for someone who's his foster-brother.
Robin extricates himself from Bart's attempt at manic tickling, smoothes down his shirt and hair, and perches on the couch - near Val, but with a cushion's length between them.
Bart's face blurs as he looks back and forth between them, grinning. It's an optical illusion, Val knows, simply the persistence of vision, that suggests that Bart's grin is independent of his face, floating brightly before them. And yet she can't help but grin back.
"You guys *rock*!" Bart says, flopping down into the wing chair. "*Such* a relief that you like each other, you know? Big-time relief."
Rob glances at Val. "You're not here to ask for my permission, are you? Bart's hand and all that?"
Bart shakes Val's arm to get her attention as he hoots with laughter. "Rob was *always* the dad, so that'd totally work!"
"These days you're a little too big to put over my knee," Rob says lightly.
Bart goes quiet at that, his cheeks pinker than usual, and looks away. Val swallows, trying to think of something to say, but Bart's already recovered. "Anyway, we're totally living in sin, so it doesn't matter. I - we - Rob!"
"I'm listening."
"I had sex!" Bart's leaning over, one hand braced on the coffee table, shaking Robin's left knee for emphasis. "*Sex*."
Robin unfolds his arms. His hands stay at his sides. "So I gathered."
"It's amazing! I mean, the whole *thought* of sex used to totally gross me out, you know, like all the *stuff* that Kon would -" He stops short and grabs at the nearest thing within reach - a throw pillow - and hugs it to his chest. "Um."
Robin clears his throat and says, softly, "Girls are wonderful creatures, chum."
The sudden rigidity passes from Bart's face and body. "*Exactly*. Remember how gross Kon could be, like - oh, man, that time he dared Gar to turn into Big Barda and -"
"Kon," Robin says to Val, not turning his head, "was Superboy - Superboy's name."
"One of them, anyway," Bart puts in. "And Val knows, I told her lots -"
"Of course you did," Robin says. Tonelessly.
As she stands up, Val rubs her arms against an imaginary chill. "Bathroom?"
"Down the hall, second door on the right." The look Robin gives her is almost *naked* - shining blue eyes, pale face - with gratitude.
Val hasn't made it out of the room before Bart throws himself on the couch beside - partly on top of - Robin, talking all the while. "...and sex is just amazing, it's like I can feel my whole body, and someone else's body, too! Intimate, right? A real kind of connection and..."
She waits in the bathroom for as long as she can, drying her hands on a velvety towel, poking through the medicine cabinet that no one uses. There's toothpaste and gauze, a few prescription bottles for muscle relaxants and anxiety in the names of Robert Malone and Cathy Whippes, a box of condoms and unwrapped soaps.
She doesn't think she's hiding in here - not quite, anyway. When it feels like she's given them enough time alone, Val eases open the door and pads back down the hall.
She hears Bart's high, excited voice well before the living room comes back into view and stops there.
"- got to thinking, hey, Tih-*Robin*'s never gone all the way -"
"How do you know that?" Robin asks quietly.
When he replies, Bart sounds offended. "You *told* me."
"I...when?"
She hears a muffled fabric sound and realizes it's probably Bart socking Robin in the shoulder. Or the ribs. Maybe the thigh. "The campout! Remember?"
"Bart, that was -. A really long time ago."
"I *know* that," Bart says, impatient and affronted. It's been longer for him than anyone.
Val remains in the hallway, looking blankly at pictures of people who don't live here, pictures in heavy silver frames of affluent white people, dark-haired and smiling.
Bart adds, "But if it had changed, you would've told me, and you haven't, so -. Rob! You would've told me, right?"
There is a long pause, during which Val traces the floral damask on the wallpaper, making a loop of an entire bouquet, before Robin clears his throat. "Of course."
"Same as I'm telling you *now*. Because you're my best friend, always will be, you and Val and -"
"That's what friends do." The way Robin says it, it's not a question.
Bart, however, seems to think it is. "Yeah!" He must be shifting on the couch, getting more comfortable, because it's a long moment before he says, a little shyly, "So."
"So." Robin sounds as calm as ever.
"So! So I had sex! I'm *having* sex. Regularly, in lots of different positions!"
"I'd heard as much, yes." Robin might be amused; Val doesn't know him well enough to decide if he is. But she shares with him, she suspects, the fond exasperation that comes from following Bart's loops and knots and *whorls* of logic.
"You did? Wait, did *Val* tell you?"
In the hall, Val opens her mouth to protest, but Robin snorts and says, "We've covered this, Bart. And, anyway, when you show up with a pretty girl who you're calling your girlfriend, it's fairly easy to assume that -"
"But *you* had girlfriends," Bart says. Val can see as clearly as anything the mulish set to his jaw and his eyeroll.
"Yes."
"But *you're* a virgin."
"Yes," Robin says. Val *knows* she shouldn't be surprised at that, but -. Well. She is.
"So it's not a given, Tim! You can't just *assume* things without, without - *evidence* and confirmation and all of that. Kon was right, you know, you -"
Bart just said what must be Robin's real name.
Val's head swims a little at that, the *fact* somehow more shocking than the virgin thing, more than - let's be honest, Valerie, shall we? - eavesdropping on her boyfriend's face-burningly clumsy attempt to seduce his best friend.
Maybe the Batman has a pill to make her forget. Maybe there's some kind of self-hypnosis she could do...
She knows better than that, however. Once Val *learns* something, she can't give it up; she needs, in fact, to know more, learn more, *acquire* more.
Everything's quiet out in the living room. Val steps forward, coming up to toe the light from the far window, and the first thing she thinks when she sees Bart splayed over Robin, hand on his hip, kissing him enthusiastically, is, Hey, go you!
Sometimes hanging around so much with Bart makes her feel all of twelve, right down to the diminution of her vocabulary.
Robin's hand is in Bart's hair; at first, that's all Val can see of him, before he grips Bart's shoulder and eases him back. "Your girlfriend -"
"That'd be my cue," Val says, then feels about as cheesy as Hugh Hefner or something. She shoves her hands into her back pockets. "Hi, guys."
Bart is breathing heavily - she knows, bodily at this point, just how intensely worked-up he can get in the space of a heartbeat. She tilts her head, smiling at him, getting that same *fizzy* sensation down her back and up her chest that she gets when they touch, then glances at Robin.
He's pulling himself back up, straight-spined and alert, one hand combing back his hair. His preppy button-down shirt, however, is pushed up on one side, where Bart's (fast, insistent) hand had been, and his mouth looks redder than it had been.
"I -" Robin starts, presses his lips together, then tries again. "This feels like a set-up."
"It totally is!" Bart crows at the same time that Val says, "No, no, I -"
Until Bart clapped his hands just now, Val is sure she had no idea where this was leading. A good percentage of Bart's ideas, once voiced, flare out like the speed force's sparks; it's never easy to tell when they might catch and take hold.
Bart drags her across the room, her toes snagging in the carpet, and pushes her down onto the couch, right up against Robin. "It's not like -" she tries to say.
"I think you'll like it," Bart says loudly, over her own words. He's sitting on the edge of the coffee table, one hand on Robin's leg, the other, mirroring perfectly, on Val's thigh. "I *know* you'll like it, sex is just mindblowingly *fun*, and it's way past time that you let yourself go. So, here's what we're going to do -"
Robin holds up his palm. "Do I get a say in this?"
"Do *I*?" Val asks.
Brow furrowed, his jaw working restlessly, Bart looks back and forth. "You want to *discuss* this? What, like negotiate boundaries? I don't think we'll need a safe word or anything, even if Bats *are* freaky, your first time out, I wouldn't recommend -"
"Bart," Robin says.
"Yes?"
"This isn't a good idea." This close to Robin, Val can feel his thigh tense up against her own, rock-hard and immobile. His elbow is sharp when it brushes her waist. "No offense, Valerie, I -"
"It's all right," Val says and turns her hand palm up to grasp Bart's wrist. "Bart, it's -"
"It can work!" Bart insists and reaches over to them, pushing their shoulders together. "Wow, you two look *great* together, I mean - I *imagined* it, but there's nothing like -"
"You imagined what, exactly?" Robin's voice sounds - not hoarse, nothing so obvious, but dry. Dry around the edges.
Bart huffs and starts to draw back his hands. He seems to think better of it, though, and brushes Val's hair behind her ears as he runs his knuckles down Robin's jaw. "You know," he says dreamily. "Like, *you*. And Val. And me with you. And I miss -"
Val thinks that there's a moment, a half-moment, during which Robin looks at her. She can't be sure, however, because Robin's leaning forward, like a *blaze*, small white hands gripping Bart's knees, spreading them apart, as he cranes forward and up to kiss him.
"Mmph," Bart says. One arm flails free, hitting the couch cushions, the corner of the coffee table, the couch again, before Val can grab his hand and squeeze. Robin's shirt is hitching up in the back, exposing pale, scarred skin, as his shoulders tilt and twist. She catches a glimpse of one of Bart's eyes, shocked and wide, *shining*, before the lid drifts closed. At the same moment, he laces his fingers through Val's.
Robin shudders, briefly, when Val touches the small of his back. She's not sure what she's doing, nor why, or - *anything*, really, but her hand casts mercury-dark shadows on his skin, and she traces the scars with her nails to feel him shudder again. She pulls one knee up to her chest and slides behind Robin until he's between her legs and she's got one hand on his back, the other on Bart's thigh. Under her mouth, the nape of Robin's neck is cool, much smoother than the scarred skin of his back. The bristles of his cropped hair buzz against her lips.
He doesn't seem to mind her touching him, holding him like this, but when she slides her palm around his waist and pets his chest - so much *narrower* than Bart's, with so many more scars that it makes her eyes sting - Robin tenses. The tension is a minute shift, a change in the rhythm of his breathing and a stiffening of the muscles under her hand, but it's notable all the same.
He relaxes again when she touches his arm instead, then Bart's, her palm curving around Bart's neck.
Bart breaks the kiss, eyes unfocused and mouth hanging open. "Oh my *god*," he breathes, and drops a peck on the tip of Robin's nose. "You, Rob - *wow*. Val!"
"Here," she says, resting her chin on Robin's shoulder. He's breathing heavily, too, and she's torn between wanting to kiss him and sensing that he needs a massage, a cuddle, and a gallon of good hot soup.
But Bart's the cook here, and he's rubbing his face against Robin's other shoulder and squeezing Val's hand almost painfully.
Robin turns his head, mouth finding her ear. "This - this doesn't feel right."
"It's okay," she whispers back and can't stop herself from wrapping her arm around his waist and squeezing. He tenses again, then exhales, and she's almost sure he's *willing* himself to relax. "I - yeah. It's okay."
"What're you talking about?" Bart's still breathless, so his voice is high, as high as she remembers it being when he was Kid Flash. "Also, you two should totally kiss. You're both really good at it!"
Against her cheek, she feels Robin's eyes close, and she squeezes him again before saying to Bart, "I don't think -"
But Bart's leaning back, pulling off his shirt and sweater, tossing them behind him. "C'mon, c'mon," he mutters, plucking at Robin's shirt and Val's pants. "*C'mon* -"
The topology of this is all wrong: Robin between them, one point with two links. She can't help seeing this as a graph that needs to be redone, rearranged, for optimal efficiency.
Nor would it be better if she was in the middle, bracketed by the guys; though that's been her experience before - one man, bracketed by two women, admittedly, but the graph is the same, whatever the genders - because Robin is not *interested* in her. Responsive, yes, and polite to a fault, and he looks *lovely* with his cheeks flushing and lips a little swollen, but he isn't here for her.
Like Robin, Val cannot reasonably expect Bart to understand that. He's pulling off Robin's shoes, tugging Val's shirt off, and, in his eyes, everyone probably is as flexible, as full of affection and desire, as he is.
She wishes, for Bart's sake, that the world was half as good as he believes it is. Despite everything, every loss and pain he's ever known, he cannot seem to help believing that everyone loves as purely and thoroughly as he does.
And this is where the graph is Val's mind falters, starts to break down and flake away, because Bart's *not* a point, cannot be reduced to a single datum.
"Here, let me help," she says and leans back, tugging Robin's shirt over his head. "Bart? C'mere, okay?"
"Sure!"
He's shirtless, a little sweaty already, his tanned skin pulled tightly over the long cords of his muscles. She pulls him close, kissing him as she pushes his hair back, biting his lower lip when he gets one knee on the couch between her leg and Robin's.
"Oh," Robin breathes, and she's not sure what he's responding to, but she feels his hands on Bart's waist, skating up his chest, and knows this arrangement is better.
Between them, Bart's arching and grunting a little, his lip caught in his teeth, his hips moving jerkily but aimlessly. He doesn't seem to know where to go, whether to butt against Val's hand or back into Robin's chest.
He settles, eventually, for kissing Val while he grinds back against Robin's chest. He's *gulping* in the kiss, murmuring in the speedster language, cupping her breasts and gasping. When Val tugs open his fly, in the single space of a break for breath, she considers grabbing Robin's hand and pushing it inside.
She doesn't like herself very much for ignoring that idea, but then Bart shimmies his hips and the pants slide down his thighs anyway.
She has limits, just as Robin does, and she can *aspire* to be like Bart - though the idea terrifies her - but she's not there, not nearly, not yet.
Bart doesn't curse, even in the heat of the hottest moment; what he does - as he's doing now, when Robin *does* touch him - is throw his head back and babble in Interlac and kind of *gasp* with his entire body. Val licks down the long prominence of his collarbone, then around one nipple - I don't know why they say men shouldn't have nipples! That feels *amazing*, do it harder! - watching Robin's white fingers wrap around the base of Bart's dick. Swollen dark as beef, it stands out hugely against the narrow, pale fingers, even the pink thumb as Robin strokes the head.
He catches her eye and gives her one of those tilting non-smiles, before his gaze flickers away. Bart throws his arm around Robin, yanking him close, kissing him hungrily as he tries to shove his hand down Robin's pants.
Val can't stop thinking. She can't, quite, lose herself entirely, even during sex, even when it's just the two of them. She's always *studying* Bart, even against her better instincts, and she's watching them, *analyzing* them, now.
Robin is made up of sharp angles and white lines, like origami, intricate and *secret*, against the golden, flushed expanse of Bart. She knows Bart's body very well, but that familiarity hasn't seemed to dull her love for it, her interest in its responses and capabilities; she doesn't know Robin's body, except as a collection of nearly-untouchable turns and joints, and that novelty makes her fingers itch and mouth dry.
She doesn't want to be the director here, and she definitely doesn't want to retire gracefully and leave them be. Not with her groin already throbbing - every time she shifts, she rocks a little against the gathering wet, and her clit's got to be swollen *already* - not for anything.
Bart has twisted around, flopped back between them; even with his mouth latched to Robin's, their hands on each other's cocks, he finds Val with his free hand and tugs her closer. She swallows against the rush of heat and *gratitude* and peels off her pants. She can hear Bart suck in a breath and giggle against Robin's mouth when she straddles his arm and his palm curves up against her crotch.
Bodies, especially *genitalia*, make him giggle; he's never going to get over that. She doesn't want him to, not really.
Val braces one hand on the back of the couch and touches Bart with the other, as the boys - she should really think of them as guys, lest her old cradle-robbing guilt return, but they *are* boys right now, flushed and grinding against each other, their lips and cheeks bitten and shining red as washed apples. Bart's thumb buzzes against her clit's shaft as two fingers twist and cross inside her, and she's very glad - as she always is, just a thousand times more so - for a boyfriend who's also a human vibrator.
He's blurring at the center of her vision, his hand moving fast enough that the friction spreads into a flare inside her, up into her gut, spilling out from her mouth in gasping cries, in *Spanish*. Bart arches off the couch, almost floating - though that, too, is an optical illusion; he's simply thrusting so fast that she can't see - and he comes in a heaving series of slowing jerks.
"Oh. Oh. *Oh*," Bart says, kissing Val and working his fingers deeper, then kissing Robin and staring down at his dick. "Oh, *guys*, see -. That was -"
"Ssshh," Robin breathes, as Bart sucks a line down the side of his throat, and he catches Val's smile.
Bart's always a little lost, gobsmacked and intensely, almost painfully, *grateful*, just after orgasm. *She's* usually the one who shushes him, pets his back, but she just nods at Robin and slides off Bart's hand. She rubs a little, fast, against the heel of his hand before sliding back.
She's good and buzzed now, her nipples aching as she brushes her knuckles against them and works her hand between her legs.
"Rob!" Bart whispers urgently, from a point about eye-level to Robin's sternum. "Rob, I -"
Robin spread his legs and stretches out his neck. He glances at Val, one eyebrow sliding up interrogatively, and she shrugs. "What, Bart?"
"Can I, I want to, see -" Bart tries to catch his breath, and looks back at Val. His chin planted on his shoulder, his back twisting and sweaty, his hair falling in his eyes, he looks like - well, like *Bart*, excited and ablaze and nearly incoherent with lightspeed thought and emotion. His tongue flicks the corners of his mouth and a red, twisting *sizzle* runs down Val's back, arching it and twisting her hand, at the sight. Bart's eyebrows jump up in surprise and he grins before looking back at Robin. "Rob, I gotta. I *have* to, I want -"
She's half-surprised at how gently Robin brushes his fingertips over Bart's cheek. Then she's all the way surprised - and not a little turned on - at how Bart goes up on all fours and *bites* Robin's index finger.
"If you can't say it," Robin says drily, "you shouldn't -"
Bart shakes his head like a dog with a bone and pushes Robin back into the corner of the couch. For several moments, all Val can see is Bart's much bigger, more muscled body pinning Robin's, and then Bart slides all the way down until his face is in Robin's lap and Robin's head is thrown back, exposing his throat as his chin works and he groans.
Val tries quietly to shift onto her knees, behind Bart; there isn't much room, but neither of them notices her changing places, not Robin, his torso extended and bone-white, hands clamped in Bart's hair, and not Bart, murmuring and *slobbering* as he opens Robin's knees wider and bobs his head.
Bart has been very *oral* from the start; that night in Vegas, he spent what had to have been, for him, a decade between her legs, tasting and giggling and trying different methods, until she was so sore and *tight* from coming that she had to push him away. And then she spent half an hour explaining that she wasn't *mad* at him, just that there were many other things they could try.
She crouches behind Bart, head resting on his back as it heaves and moves, arms wrapped around his waist. Her feet are digging into the space between the couch's arm and the cushion, and she's starting to fear for the poor couch's springs. Bart shines under, before, her, and he's already hard again - an adolescent at super-speed's refractory period is, really, nothing less than astonishing. And frequently exhausting.
Bart pushes into her hand, rubbing himself on her and the upholstery, as Robin drops his head forward, his eyes narrowed and intent. Intent on Bart, his lips a little parted as he works his hips up and down, breathing raggedly.
Val stretches as far as she can, until she can whisper to Bart, her teeth grazing his earlobe. "He likes it, sweetheart. He likes *you* -"
And Robin couldn't have heard that, but he's nodding and his hand is clumsily petting Bart's hair and now Val's, and he's saying, "Yes" and "Oh", and Bart is - humming. A hum that turns into a giggle as he shifts around, bringing one hand to his mouth and sucking his fingers before returning to Robin's cock.
Val pulls back when Bart looks up at Robin and says something in Interlac, something that Robin understands, because his eyes go wide, his breath catching, before he pulls one knee up to his chest and exhales slowly as he lies back.
Val speeds her strokes on Bart's dick, twisting up to the head, as she pushes up onto one knee. She wants to see, she wants to *feel* it, as much as she can. The muscles in Bart's arm stand out like naval ropes; she can't see his hand, but she knows he's running his fingertips around Robin's hole, the way he's done to her several hundred times, vibrating slowly as he sucks and enters and Robin *yowls*.
Bart bucks, knocking her back against the arm of the couch, almost *over* it, and Val ends up with one foot on the floor, the other leg extended in the well of the couch, toes tickling Robin's waist every time he twists in that direction. She scissors her first two fingers around her clit, soaking her entire hand, rubbing and watching and rubbing harder, watching more closely.
You're the best de-virginizer *ever*, Bart gasped to her when they woke up in Vegas. She'd laughed then, because the word made her sound like a professional, or a machine. She's pretty sure now that, as she's watching now as the flush spills and deepens down Robin's chest, as Bart's head stops bobbing and slows into an intense suck, it's *Bart* who excels at this.
She comes against her hand once and keeps rubbing, curling her second finger into her hole, fucking herself with what she thinks of as Bart's rhythm.
"Christ, *Bart*, I'm -" Robin's words shatter and he tries to hold himself still, but Bart is nothing if not *diligent*, and soon enough Robin's body starts to fold up like a jack-knife before extending again and shuddering.
Val has come three times before she pulls her hand away, and by that time, Bart is trying to worm his way up Robin's body, patting him and kissing in a random pattern.
"Did you like that? Was that good? I think that was pretty good, it was a hard time finding the prostate, but I did it, I think I found it -"
Robin's eyes flutter open, and his gaze lands on Val first. "Yes," he says, hoarsely, then works his jaw until it pops. "You, um. Found it."
"Good! I couldn't find Val's G-spot the first couple times I tried, that's a tricky little thing, but when I did, it was -"
Val kicks her leg free from under Bart and Robin's combined weight, then pokes Bart in the waist with her toes. "It's not *that* hard to find."
Bart sticks his tongue out at her. "Says you."
"Says me," Val replies.
Robin's watching them and she can't begin to read the expression on his face. There's no expression, or a very intense one, but whichever it is, there's no middle ground.
"I should wash up!" Bart rolls over Robin to the edge of the couch and jumps to his feet. "You guys talk, okay? I'll be right back."
Val smiles vaguely at Robin, who returns the close-mouthed, almost *shy*, expression. Digging his elbows into the cushions, he hauls himself backward until he's sitting opposite her, one leg drawn up, arms folded against his chest.
"I -" he starts to say, then looks away. "'Thank you' sounds. Weird."
"Nah, not weird." Val bends over to pick up the scattered clothing. She hands Robin his shirt, but he's still not looking at her, so she drops it against his leg. "I feel like I should apologize, so -"
The hinge of his jaw shifts under the skin. "For what?"
Val snorts and shrugs one shoulder. "Don't know. For being a girl, or something."
"You -"
"But I'm not," she says quickly. "Sorry about that."
"Back!" Bart announces as he skids off the parquet floor in the hallway, getting tangled up in the edge of the living-room carpet. He puts his hands on his hips as he *beams* at both of them. God bless him, but he's already half-hard *again*. "This is *way* better than I thought it'd be! And I had pretty high expectations to start with."
"Good," Robin tells Val, finally looking at her. His eyes look almost hollow for a moment before she nods. He glances at Bart. "Hey."
"Hey!" Bart bounces onto the couch between them, then grimaces. "Eww, wet spot."
Robin swings his feet onto the floor and retrieves his pants. He knew, Val realizes, exactly where they'd fell. "I should get to work pretty soon," he says, pulling them on.
"Really?" Bart asks and sounds so forlorn that Val links her arm through his and kisses his bare shoulder. "That sucks."
Robin zips up his pants and pulls on his shirt. Before he starts buttoning it, however, he tilts his head and stares at Bart. "You're welcome to come, you know."
"On patrol?"
Robin nods. "On patrol."
"But what about Batman? I'm not allowed in Gotham, am I? I'm pretty sure I'm not."
Robin sits down on the coffee table. "You're already *in* Gotham."
"True, true." Bart's vigorous nod makes Val's cheek slide up and down his arm.
"And he's been asking about you, so -"
Bart pulls away from both of them, and blurs out; he next appears on the far side of the room, at the front door. "Get out! What's he want to know? What did you tell him? You didn't tell him anything bad, I hope, because I've changed *a lot* and -" Another blur, and he's suddenly on his knees in front of Robin. "You're not going to tell him about this, are you?"
For the first time, Val sees Robin laugh. It's a real laugh, showing teeth, sounding right, and she joins in. "Not about this, no. But he's -. Supportive. Of you."
*
Val takes a nap in the apartment's nearly-untouched master bedroom. The Flash and Robin left via the fire escape soon after dusk fell; she ordered dinner, poked around the apartment, and ended up crosswise on the bed, coverlet wrapped around her.
Without Bart around, it's always a little too quiet. But she needs that, sometimes, the quiet to think and remember who she is. Now, she's sleepy and too full and she's not remembering much of anything. Just luxuriating on her back, flipping through the television - who pays for premium cable in a fake apartment, anyway? - and dozing.
Other people get jetlag. She has Flash-lag, and it's just one more thing she's gotten used to without even trying. Nothing makes the kind of sense she's used to, but, right now, that's less a worry than one more datum.