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Dick brought his hands together in a slow clap as he leaned against the open door to Superboy’s bedroom. There was a smile teasing across his lips that he couldn’t keep down as he watched Superboy wipe over his face with a towel that he tossed into the wicker basket by his bedroom door, his chest still heaving.
The training session had been intense. Dick had gone back and forth with Kaldur for a bit, but eventually they’d all gathered around Black Canary and Superboy to watch them go at it. Superboy had ended up on his back every single time, but by the end, he was lasting much longer than his first few rounds with her earlier that day.
Dick was really impressed. So impressed he’d only laughed a few times! So impressed that he was here, drawn in by Superboy in a way he wasn’t able to explain, not even to himself.
Superboy turned to look at him, and the Superman logo stretched out across his shirt made him smile. Dick might not be as showy about it as Superboy, or even Wally were, but he did have a Batman key ring he’d been using for years.
“Don’t mock me,” Superboy snapped, his back going rigid as he looked up at Dick with a glare.
Whoa, that wasn’t the welcome he was expecting. Someone was under whelmed.
Dick raised his hands in surrender, trying for an easy smile that felt a little forced. Jeez. “Whoa Supey, I wasn’t mocking you.” He forced himself to sound chipper as he said, “I’m feeling the aster for you!”
The pout on Superboy’s face melted from something angry into something confused. Oka-ay, not quite the reaction to their inside joke he wanted (did Superboy even remember using the term back at him?), but better than outright hostility. Small wins?
“Why?”
Dick snorted at the single syllable as he moved to cross his arms over his chest, raising an eyebrow and hoping he looked cool. “Uh, did you miss the training session we just had? You rocked it out there!”
He was expecting Superboy to laugh, but he only frowned harder.
“Robin...”
“I’m not mocking you!” Dick exclaimed, feeling exasperated. He flicked his eyes to his feet before pushing them back up, feeling wrong-footed in the same way he always felt wrong-footed around the larger boy. “Jeez Supey, I was being serious. Maybe you didn’t do so well at not getting beat up, but even being willing to learn is a huge step!”
Superboy stared at him heavily for a moment that seemed to stretch on into an eternity. It felt like Superboy was looking for something as he looked at him, but he wasn’t sure what the clone was hoping to find. Dick had his domino mask on, but he’d thrown on civvies after a quick wipe-down in the change rooms, since he hadn’t been too gross.
Despite wearing a hoodie and a jacket over a long-sleeved shirt, he still felt exposed, out of the uniform that felt more like a second skin than a pile of latex and body armour.
He felt especially exposed as he stood still under Superboy’s watchful eyes, keeping a small smile on his face and breathing evenly to ensure that his heartbeat would be steady even as his palms got clammy. It wouldn’t do to show how nervous he was in a way the other boy would be able to tell.
He didn’t like it. Didn’t like how it felt when Superboy looked at him, and how his heart always wanted to race.
Eventually, Superboy huffed out a long breath and then dropped onto the edge of his bed in a way that made a noisy creak. His shoulders crept up towards his ears, like he wanted to hide himself away. Dick felt something impossibly big climb up from his stomach, something he didn’t want to name, as he watched Superboy try to disappear into himself.
There was a reason that Dick had sought him out, and it wasn’t just to congratulate him on his sparring. What was bothering him?
“I... am sorry,” Superboy told him slowly, his eyes stuck on the ground and his hands resting, open-palmed, against his thighs. “Thank you.”
Dick smiled widely at the stilted apology. He was so proud of how far Superboy had come in only a month, especially with expressing his feelings. Dick liked to think that he had a pretty big part to play in that, and so he mentally patted himself on the back for a job well down as a smile crept across his face. “It’s okay, Sups. You really were doing awesome out there!”
Superboy nodded at him, and a small, barely-there grin flashed across his face. Score! That was definitely a point in Dick’s favour.
But Superboy didn’t say anything at first, so Dick waited him out. He wasn’t always a patient person, but over the last month of... observing Superboy (on Batman’s orders, of course! He wasn't just watching him or anything!) he’d realized that it took the clone time to work through his thoughts and longer still to vocalize them, and that he got really bothered if he was rushed. Dick got it—he could only imagine how frustrating it had to be for someone to cut you off while you were just trying to express yourself just because you couldn’t find the words!
Dick never had a shortage of words, but sometimes he wished people would listen to him a little more closely, too.
So he let the older (or... younger? Dick did not want to think too deeply about Superboy’s age) boy take all the time he needed, waiting patiently as he watched Superboy watch his hands. He was handsome, in the same way that Superman was handsome, but... there was something that drew Dick in and in, something that made it hard to pull his eyes away from the sharp jut of Superboy’s jaw and the wide width of his shoulders.
He’d never felt like this for anyway, and it... well, it was pretty disconcerting.
After a few minutes Superboy cleared his throat loudly, and hesitantly said, “You did well too.”
“Thanks! Were you watching my moves?” Dick asked, pushing back to teasing as a sly smile crossed his lips while he let his eyes quickly run up Superboy’s frame.
Superboy, whose cheeks went pink. It made Dick’s heart skip, and he cursed himself when his breath hitched.
He knew Superboy could hear him.
Did he want Superboy to hear him? What if Superboy heard him and knew what it meant?
“We were training,” Superboy’s said, a cute crease forming between his eyebrows that drew Dick’s attention back to him. It was the same one he always wore when he knew there was something going on that he didn’t quite understand. “We are supposed to watch.”
Well, so much for that attempt at flirting. Maybe flirting with a one-month-old wasn’t the best idea he’d ever had? Or, worse, maybe Wally had been right (gross!) the last time they hung out and he really was bad at this.
While he wasn’t totally sure that he wanted Superboy to know that he was flirting with him, he also didn’t want Superboy to not know that he was flirting with him!
Wait, what?
“R-Right,” Dick mumbled under his breath, feeling his ears get warm as embarrassment flooded his belly at his failed attempt and the absolute confusion he felt. He hated feeling out of his depth. “Right, you were watching to improve.”
“I need to do better,” Superboy growled in agreement, but there was something in his voice that Dick didn’t like.
Dick... didn’t think this was just about training. Superboy was really upset, and while Dick knew just how shitty it felt to get your butt handed to you time and time again, Superboy didn’t seem like the type to get too beat up over getting beaten up. Did something else happen?
Well, there was only one way to find out, right?
“Hey... what’s really bothering you?” Dick asked in a fit of crazed bravery, and he told himself he was only asking because Batman would want to know. Quieter, he added, “It can’t be Canary making you this upset.”
Superboy shook his head and hunched even further forward, his knuckles going white around his knees. Dick bit into his bottom lip and let himself weigh the cons for exactly thirty seconds before he pushed through the threshold to Superboy’s room and went to sit on his bed.
He ignored the pounding on his heart and slipped on a confident smile, hoping Superboy wouldn’t call him out for being so nervous even though it kind of felt like he was going to have a heart attack.
Instead of calling him out, the bigger boy looked up at him in shock, hunched so far over that Dick, sitting with his back straight, had to look down to meet his eyes. Another thirty seconds, another list of cons he decided weren’t important enough, and Dick let shaking fingers settle feather-light against Superboy’s forearm, before he trailed his fingers down to wrap around the girth of his wrist.
Deep breaths. Really deep breaths!
“You don’t have to tell me,” Dick said softly, wondering what he was doing and knowing exactly why he was doing it. His voice shook as he said, “But maybe you should tell someone? Take it from someone who knows—bottling stuff in doesn’t make it go away. No matter how badly you might want it to.”
Silence rang out through the room, deafeningly loud. Dick felt like he was going to lose his mind, sitting on Superboy’s bed and holding Superboy’s wrist, staring at Superboy’s face with only inches between them as he listened to Superboy breathe. He could feel the heat Superboy let off, even more than Wally, feel it through his jeans and—
He felt like he was going to shake out of his skin even as he kept himself stock-still, deep, even breaths keeping his heart from racing as badly as it wanted to but still beating too fast with exhilaration.
Dick might be thirteen, but he knew enough about himself to know why just holding onto Superboy’s wrist made him feel like he was flying, and he knew it wasn’t anything good.
But... he didn’t care.
Before the silence got long enough that he started freaking out too badly, Superboy let out a long breath and his entire body seemed to relax at once, until he was slumped into himself. Dick wasn’t sure if it was any better than the sharp lines of tension that had decorated his frame, and he made a sympathetic noise without meaning to as he stared at the sharp cut of Superboy’s cheek.
“Superman hates me,” Superboy whispered in a tone of voice that was so heartbreaking Dick let out a whimper before he could bite it down.
Oh god, did he really feel like that?
He squeezed the bigger boy’s wrist tightly, wracking his brain for something to say and coming up with nothing. Dick had always prided himself on being good with words but now, with his heart racing and his blood burning, everything he could think of sounded stupid! Before Dick managed to say something, Superboy started talking again. “He’s the only one. Batman likes you. J’onn loves M’gann. Aquaman treats Aqualad with respect. Superman... he won’t even look at me.”
Superboy’s voice cut right into his heart and made it ache. Holding his breath, Dick slid his hand forwards and slipped his fingers between Superboy’s hand and his thigh, his heart speeding up to racing as Superboy let him. Then he completely lost his breath, because Superboy flipped his hands upside down and laced their fingers together.
Oh my God.
Okay. Okay, Dick, stay calm. You’ve fought villains! Super-powered villains! You could hold a boy’s hand. Pulling gently, Dick cradled Superboy’s hand between both of his and rested all three limbs in his lap, his heart in his throat. Okay, this was really holding a boy’s hand, but... well, he’d never been one to do things halfway.
“I am so sorry,” Dick said softly, wishing Superboy could see the truth in his eyes and hoping against hope that it was coming across in his voice. “It isn’t fair that he treats you that way.”
“I didn’t ask to be made!” Superboy growled loudly, but his hold on Dick’s hand remained just as gentle as it was before his breath was heaving with anger. He squeezed Dick’s fingers, a little, but not enough to hurt. Dick squeezed back. “I didn’t ask for this! I know he doesn’t want me, but—”
Superboy cut himself off with a sharp noise. In an act of bravery or stupidity, he wasn’t sure, Dick tugged Superboy in until the clone slumped against Dick’s side, completely crumbling into him. Without prompting, Superboy’s head came to rest on his shoulder, and Dick stopped moderating his breathing and controlling his heart rate—it didn’t seem fair, when Superboy was all but bleeding in front of him.
So Dick let his heart race. He let himself feel the heat on his cheeks, and the way a shiver raced down his spine. Goosebumps, all over, rose across his skin and Dick let them.
When it became clear that Superboy wasn’t going to say anything else, Dick whispered, “Thank you so much for telling me that, Superboy,” and slowly, so slowly, tilted his head to rest his head against Superboy’s. “I don’t have an answer or reassurance. I can’t make it better. But I can listen, if you ever want to talk, okay?”
Dick didn’t know if it was enough, but it was all he had even though he wanted to give Superboy everything.
Superboy nodded, but he didn’t say anything else. Dick didn’t mind, not with the way that Superboy tightened his hold on Dick’s hand and seemed to sink even further into Dick’s side. He knew that if Batman found him like this he would be dead, but... it was worth the Bat’s wrath, if Dick could make Superboy even feel a little better.
Even with the long, long list of cons, there was something about the boy that was worth it all.
It was probably really, really stupid, but Dick kind of wanted to be stupid. Just this once. Just for Superboy.
After seven minutes and eleven seconds, Dick let the ticking clock that ran in the back of his head stop, and allowed himself to enjoy Superboy’s easy, quiet company with nothing else. He let himself stop thinking, stop worrying, stop counting, and he focused on how soft Superboy’s hair was under his temple, and how warm his hand was, cooling the ever-present chill in Dick’s fingers.
There would be time for talking, for training, for figuring out just what Super meant to him—or, more aptly, figuring out how much Superboy meant to him—later. For now, Dick let himself soak up the easy silence, a genuine smile twisted across his lips in a moment that lasted for an eternity.