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It is nearing half past nine in the morning when Tim opens his front door to find Bart Allen doing his level best to vibrate through a cardboard box of Splenda packets.
“Hiya, Timmy!” Bart says. As if on cue, several sugar packets vibrate through the bottom of the box and land on top of his shoes. Or maybe there’s just a hole somewhere. Impossible to tell really.
All he knows is it’s way too early for this.
Oblivious to Tim’s mental anguish, Bart cranes his neck to see around him into the apartment beyond. Except it’s Bart, so what that really means is he leans his whole body forward, shoulders oddly stiff in that particular way that means he’s trying his best not to vibrate out of his shoes. “So…” he says expectantly, “you gonna let me in, or what?”
Tim blinks muzzily, one hand still on the door. Then, for lack of anything to say, he bends over and checks the bottom of Bart’s box for any Splenda-packet-sized holes.
Vaguely dubious, Bart pokes him in the calf with the toe of his sneaker. “Uh. Are you okay? Are you having a stroke?”
There are no holes in Bart’s box. Tim goes back to his original hypothesis of Bart just being a morning person and straightens up. He makes sure to keep a firm hand on the door. “It’s just…” He rubs at one eye, yawning. “It’s really early, Bart.”
Infuriatingly, Bart flashes him a smile. “Oh, good,” he says, shifting the box to one side. “I was worried for a second.”
“Cool. Well, uh. Thanks for stopping by.” Tim makes to close the door, only for Bart to catch it with the toe of his sneaker, smile flickering into something more determined. Tim barely has time to react before he’s ducking under his arm at subsonic speeds; the tracest flicker of lightning later, and he’s already in the entryway taking off his shoes.
Somehow, the Splenda box has ended up awkwardly cradled in Tim’s arms.
“That’swhyI’mhereactually,” Bart says from the ground. He’s undoing his laces at normal speed for some reason, that determined, half-set expression Tim glimpsed earlier evaporated into mile-a-minute chatter like it’d never been there in the first place. “We haven’t seen you in ages, and Cassiesaysyou’vebeenweird about team meals ever since Batman got lost in time and came back to life or whatever so IjustfiguredI’dkilltwobirdswithonestone and make you breakfast!”
Tim blinks down at the box in his hands, brain still chugging along at half speed. Down on the floor, Bart, unbothered, has gotten started on his other sneaker. The laces on this one are a different color than the ones on the floor. Purple polka-dots to his right foot’s traffic-cone orange.
After a couple more seconds’ buffer time, something finally connects long enough in Tim’s brain to form a coherent thought. “…You know how to cook?”
Bart pauses for a beat, just long enough to give Tim a withering look through his fringe. “I’m sorry,” he says haughtily, “between the two of us, which one has actual, real-life experience being an adult with a job?” He thinks for a second, lips pursed in mock consideration, before removing his sneaker with a flourish. “Oh, wait! That’s right: me.”
A smear of lightning later, and he’s on his feet, sneakers lined up neatly against the wall. “Where’s your kitchen?”
Tim points, mutely, and before he can lower his arm again, Bart’s already blinking into the kitchen in a smear of yellow-gold lightning.
For a second, Tim just stares down at the Splenda packets, alone in the dim lighting of his entryway. This has to constitute cruel and unusual punishment; humans just weren’t meant to be up this early on a Saturday.
As if on cue, Bart blurs back into the foyer. “Hey, Tim,” he says, his socked feet squeaking against the hardwood floors, “where do you keep your electric stand mixer?”
Tim blinks. “I don’t… have one?” he offers weakly. Then, abruptly, his brain switches on again, and he shoves the sugar packets back into Bart’s arms. “Hey, wait a minute, your year as the Flash definitely doesn’t count—I mean, was it even technically you that experienced it—?”
“Okay, one, it absolutely counts, don’t talk like you know how the speed force works, and two—” Bart sticks his tongue out at him, shifting the box to his hip again, “—you have like a bajillion dollars and still don’t own a stand mixer, so your opinion matters even less to me.”
“You don’t get to act like you know how appliances work. I’m not the one who washed Speedy’s glue arrows and broke the washing machine.”
“Sorry, I can’t hear you to, Monsieur Mixer-less.”
It is at this point that Tim makes the executive decision to give up. He strides into the kitchen. “What do you even need an electric mixer for anyways?” he calls over his shoulder as he grabs a Zesti out of the fridge door. “Aren’t we just doing eggs or something?”
Another blink, and Bart’s dumping out the box of Splenda on the kitchen island. “No, because we’re not boring. We’re making Sugar-Blasted Brunch Casserole, as seen in Episode 211 of the hit Disney series Sick Life of Jack and Brody.”
That… takes a second to register. “Um,” Tim says blankly, and does his best not to stare at the avalanche of Splenda packets spilling onto his tile floor. “…What?”
Bart, meanwhile, continues to charge forward, unabated. “I even made sure to bring fake sugar sowecankeepinlinewithyourBat-diet!” he says, gesticulating wildly with one hand as he goes through every single one of Tim’s cabinets at lightning speed. A blink, and there are half a dozen eggs cracked open and with yolks and whites separated neatly between two glass mixing bowls.
Tim resists the urge to sit down, and just scruffs a hand through his hair, trying to track Bart’s movements through the kitchen as his speed ramps back down to just past human-normal. It’s a bit like trying to track the blades of a jet engine.
It’s… odd. Bart’s always had a bit of a hyperactive streak, but this single-minded intensity is new. Tim’s not sure what to make of it.
“Bart,” he says slowly. “Are you, like. Okay?”
Bart skids to a stop in front of Tim, golden eyes crackling. He puts his hands on Tim’s shoulders and proceeds to make extremely heavy eye contact, face grave. “I am so good,” he enunciates forcefully. “Do you know how to make meringue?”
For the second time that morning, Tim gives up and flops down on one of the bar stools at the kitchen island, chin propped up on one hand. “Probably?” he tries.
Bart examines him for a moment, then shakes his head. “Nah,” he decides. “I’ll put you on vegetable duty instead.”
Tim stares at him. “Vegetable duty?” he repeats back.
A flash, and an entire ripe zucchini is in front of him, along with a small knife, both precisely positioned atop an artisanal wooden cutting board Alfred gifted him for his last birthday. Tim hadn’t even known he’d owned a zucchini. Slowly, he picks up the knife and begins to slice into the zucchini, carving it away into clumsy cross-sections. “I thought you said this was a dessert thing,” he says. “What do we need vegetables for?”
“No, I said it was a brunch thing,” Bart corrects. “Get chopping, Wonder Boy.”
…
“How do you not have any wooden spoons?” Bart says, aghast.
“I just don’t?”
“Well, what do you do when you have to stir things?”
“I use a regular spoon?”
Bart points at him with the tip of his soup spoon. “You are a horrible, horrible little man, and I respect it.”
…
“Ooh, waitwaitwait, what if we cut the ice cream sandwiches into little stars! Tim, TimTimTim—where’s your butter knives?”
…
“Say, you got any roast duck?”
Tim continues cutting his vegetables, unphased. “Afraid we’re fresh out.”
“Hm.” Bart thinks on that for a moment, pensive. Then: “Maybe Jay and Joan have some we could borrow.”
…
“I said stars, Rob, not sad triangles, jeez.”
…
“Okay. Okayokayokay. I think we’re done.” Squinting, Bart stands back to admire their handiwork on the counter, framing it between two hands like a director adjusting a shot. “Beautiful. Masterful. Bespoke.”
It really is a thing of beauty, if only on a physics basis. Eighteen layers of laminated pastry form the base of it, making it look almost more akin to a tiered wedding cake than the casserole it’s named after. It’s a miracle they managed to get it upright in the first place; all the vegetables and star-shaped ice cream sandwiches piled at the top makes the whole concoction slope alarmingly to one side.
Tim’s a little worried it’ll fall over but by this point, the call of his bedroom door is almost too enticing to ignore. Stationed atop the island, he swings his legs back and forth and does his best to yawn as theatrically as possible.
Without looking behind him, Bart jabs a finger in his direction. “You, shush,” he commands. “I’m busy being self-congratulatory. I won’t have you derailing it with your terrible sleep schedule.”
Tim scrubs a hand across his face halfheartedly. “S’not my fault bats are nocturnal.”
“You are a regular human man and your circadian rhythm is an affront to God. Eat this.” Without waiting for a response, Bart shoves a Splenda-coated spoonful into Tim’s mouth.
It is, unsurprisingly, completely disgusting.
Grainy and aspartame-bitter, the artificial sweetener merges with the pumpkin pie seasoning and roast duck to form something far worse than the sum of its parts, mutating the whole of it until it’s almost radioactive in its monstrosity. Caramelized onions swirl in and out of the ice cream sandwiches, making horrible mutant food babies against Tim’s teeth.
Even worse, the meringue is decidedly overwhipped.
Bart smiles at him expectantly. Tim forces himself to swallow.
“Wow, uh. That’s—that’s really something, Bart.”
Immediately, Bart’s smile falls flat. “You don’t like it.”
“I didn’t say that!” Tim scrapes another spoonful off the top and takes a miniscule bite, fighting down the urge to gag. “See?” he says, trying and failing to not make a face. “It’s good.”
A blink, and Tim’s spoon vanishes from his hand just in time for Bart to scoop a heaping sample for himself. Forcefully, he shoves it into his mouth, and for the briefest of seconds, he just holds the spoon there, buffering. Then, the taste sets in. Milliseconds later, he’s spitting it into Tim’s sink. “It’s horrible!” he wails.
It’s way too early for this. Tim scrubs a hand down his face, biting back the irritation swimming in the back of his throat. “Bart, it doesn’t matter—”
“But it does matter,” Bart says, whirling on him. Set deep under the shadows of his fringe, his eyes seem almost preternaturally golden. “Jack and Brody lied to me.”
“Look,” Tim says, defaulting, on instinct, to that sympathetic, distant-but-encouraging tone Cassie always takes with the new heroes these days. “I really think you’re overreacting here. It’s just breakfast.”
As soon as the words leave his mouth, he knows it was the wrong thing to say. Imperceptibly, Bart’s jaw tightens, his socked feet vibrating near-soundlessly against the tile floor. He turns away.
“Please don’t do that,” he says, staring down into the sink. His lips are chapped, but then, they always are. Frayed at the edges from the constant high-speed air blasting against his face. “I’m not—you don’t have to handle me like I’m some kid throwing a tantrum.”
Still operating entirely on instinct, Tim takes a step forward—although whether it’s to set a hand on Bart’s shoulder or just to apologize, he doesn’t know. Either way, he doesn’t get the chance to decide; a crunch of eggshell underfoot, and Bart shivers. In the space between one millisecond and the next, he’s off like a shot.
The gust of wind leaves Tim blinking furiously, eyes watering from the leftover ozone in the air. But after a beat, he retracts his outstretched hand, taking the briefest of moments to pinch the bridge of his nose.
He should’ve trusted his instincts earlier; something is definitely, definitively wrong.
Hopefully Bart just wants to sulk in private and didn’t speed off to who knows where. If it's the second, Tim’ll have to call Cassie and see if she can muster up some of the old Titans to go search the Tower for him.
Fortunately, however, luck seems to be on his side, because he finds him curled up on the couch in the next room, pressing his face into one of the beaded novelty pillows Dick got him for two birthdays ago. In bright neon orange lettering, the beads spell out “Woah, man, I love being born” right over a crudely photoshopped screencap of Keanu Reeves from Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure. The cheap plastic beading is going to leave an imprint on Bart’s forehead if he’s not careful.
Hesitantly, Tim sits down beside him, careful to keep a hand’s breadth of space between them on the couch. Inside though, his mind is racing, the same thoughts caught on a loop like a broken down record player.
Bart has moments like this sometimes. Moments where he gets quiet and small and pillbuggy—where he flinches away from the slightest of contact, where normally, he’d be the most tactile out of any of them.
Kon understood it better than Tim or Cassie ever had. He’d explained it to them once, hushed over a team meal Bart never ended up joining. His time in the cloning tube getting pumped full of secondhand knowledge wasn’t exactly the same as spending your formative years inside a videogame, of course, but it came shockingly close when it came to things like this. Something about how growing up in an artificial world makes actual touch too much and not enough all at once.
It'd been why Kon had usually been the one to comfort Bart when he got like this. Why Cassie and Tim always hung back.
But then—then Kon had died. Then Bart had quit the team. It makes Tim wonder what Bart had done, in those hazy, grief-filled months between Kon’s death and his own.
They’re both back now, of course. Both alive and running around like nothing had happened at all. But that doesn’t change the two years they weren’t.
Hesitant, he licks his lips, then makes a face when his tongue catches on a stray granule of Splenda on his upper lip. “It’s—it’s really not a big deal, Bart,” he tries again, careful to keep his voice level this time. “We can just order a pizza or something.”
It’s not the right thing to say. Bart only confirms it when he shoves his face deeper into the pillow’s beading.
And Tim… Tim doesn’t know what else to do. Kon’s always been better at this sort of thing.
But it’s not Kon on the couch right now. Tim’s just gonna have to suck it up.
Hopefully, if he gets enough air flowing, the right words will spontaneously appear. That usually seems to work when he’s fighting Penguin goons at two in the morning.
Squaring his shoulders, Tim opens his mouth again, shifting towards Bart in an effort to channel his inner Kon, only for Bart to cut him off before he can get out a single word.
“…S’not about the casserole.”
The words are quiet, barely audible from where Bart’s face is mushed up against Keanu Reeves’ ironed-on fringe. But the room is quiet too.
On a hunch, Tim scoots closer to Bart, until the edge of his thigh is just brushing Bart’s socked feet. “I’d, uh. I’d kinda already figured that, Imp.”
If this had been Tim and Bart from two years ago, he’d’ve followed it up with a dig: ‘You’re really not as slick as you think you are.’ Then Bart would’ve made a face and sped over to flip his cape over his head, and they’d’ve been laughing it off two minutes later.
But this is now, so instead, Tim just bites his tongue and sets a hesitant hand on Bart’s ankle.
A second later, he’s rewarded when Bart wiggles his toes against his thigh. Thank god. His face is still pressed into the pillow, but at least he isn’t trying to run away again.
Angling his voice softer, Tim tries again, aiming for Kon over Cassie this time. “You wanna tell me what’s really going on?”
Mutely, Bart shakes his head, shoulders bunched. It makes the beads on the pillow rattle.
Tim rubs a thumb across the narrow strip of exposed skin between the top of Bart’s socks and the bottom of his jeans. “You want me to leave?”
Another head shake. The beads rattle. The Keanu Reeves iron-on patch looks on from just over the smear of Bart’s hair, the pink background behind him tinting the red-brown hair strands neon.
“Okay,” Tim says. “I’m just gonna stay here then, all right?”
No response.
Tim keeps his hand on Bart’s ankle and waits.
Fortunately for him, Bart’s never been one to sit still for long, even in crisis.
After about thirty seconds, he breaks, tugging his ankle out from under Tim’s palm. “It’s just—” He cuts himself off, fidgeting with a loose string on the pillow. Keanu’s face warps. When he tries again, his voice is lower, mumbled and flat. “…was tryin’ to make it easier.”
Tim blinks. “You… what?”
Bart shifts again, and between one blink and the next, he’s sat up straight, legs folded up into a pretzel on the couch cushion. He clutches the Keanu pillow to his chest. Still, he doesn’t look at Tim. Just stares at the floor in front of him, eyes gone red and puffy under the wild brown of his fringe.
There’s a few grains of Splenda tangled into his hair. Tim resists the urge to brush them out.
“The whole—” Again, the beads rattle as Bart squeezes the pillow tighter, Keanu’s face warping under his fingers. “The thing with the casserole. I was trying to make it easier.”
Tim stares at him for a second, brow furrowed. “…Make what easier, Bart?”
Bart’s face contorts, then flattens out again in the span of half a second. “Cassie said you weren’t eating right. Y’know. Back while we were still… gone.”
Plastic beads crinkle against cheap fabric. Unbidden, Kon’s voice rings in Tim’s ear, silent and solemn at the meeting table in their old Mount Justice base: It can get overwhelming sometimes. I think he forgets it’s all real until he actually goes up against something that rams it into his face.
Slowly, Tim leans forward. Props himself up, hands on his knees. Active listening, but not expectant. Close, but not touching. “Okay,” he tries. “But you’re here now. You both are.”
Another too-quick spasm in Bart’s expression. The line of his hair dips lower to cover his eyes entirely. “I don’t want you to—I know about the clones, Tim.”
Like magic, the bottom drops out of Tim’s stomach, breath turning to ice in his nose. The clones. A year in change in the Titans Tower basement, arranging and rearranging his best friends’ DNA until it came out as something that actually survived.
“I—” he blinks, hard, then scrubs a hand through his hair, fingers oddly numb and leaden all of a sudden. Get it together, he tells himself firmly. “Cassie told you?”
Bart shakes his head. “Kon.”
“Ah.” Tim swallows again compulsively. Then: “Is that why you’re angry?”
The pillow crinkles as, again, Bart shakes his head no, jerkier this time. “I’m not angry, Tim,” he starts, frustration bleeding through in his voice. “I just. I worry about you.”
“Oh.” Tim sits with that for a moment. He should probably have something more profound to say, but all he can think about is an endless feedback loop of he knows, he knows, he knows.
Then, apropos of nothing, Bart flops down against Tim’s shoulder, making him jump. “Hey, Tim?” he says. “Please don’t turn into Evil Gun Batman? I really don’t want to be the Flash again, and I don’t think Impulse or KF have enough street cred to pull the whole double agent thing off.”
It takes Tim off guard enough it actually startles a laugh, even with the leftover guilt-dread-shame still clogging his throat. “Jeez, Allen, change the subject much?” Then the rest of the sentence catches up with him, and he stops. “Hold up, that’s your issue with our evil future selves?”
“Hey, man, I wasn’t evil. Future Me was totally playing Future You Guys for chumps.”
With Bart now doing his best impression of an octopus against Tim’s side, Tim takes it as explicit permission to lean his head up against his. It makes Bart’s hair tickle against the side of his face. “Technically, it wasn’t really you,” he says. “That Flash was a clone. So was Kon. Cassie and I found out after you guys, uh. You know.”
Bart sniffs, and if it sounds a little wet, well. Tim’s nice enough he won’t mention it. “He had all my memories though,” he mutters. “That’s basically just me with extra steps.” After a couple seconds, he turns his face more fully into Tim’s shoulder, hair brushing past Tim’s nose. “I didn’t like being the Flash,” he whispers then, too quiet. “It was me, but… it didn’t really feel like it sometimes. I don’t think I’d be happy, doing it again.”
It’s the same sort of thing Dick says sometimes, when he’s feeling particularly maudlin, looking back on his time under the cowl back when they all still thought Bruce was dead. Like there’s something about a change in costume that digs down deep inside you and turns you into something else.
Privately, Tim’s not sure he agrees. At the end of the day, a costume is just clothes.
After Kon’s death, after Bart emerged from the Speedforce with Wally’s costume and an extra five years under his belt, he’d been different though. Everyone had seen it.
He’d been quieter. More focused. Less affectionate.
But then, it wasn’t like the rest of them stayed exactly the same. Cassie quit the team to join a cult. Tim started trying to clone his best friends. Raven withdrew from hero life entirely.
And Bart? Well, Bart became the Flash. Grief does funny things to a person.
But that’s one of those beliefs Cassie would call an ‘inside thought,’ so instead of voicing it, Tim just nudges Bart with his elbow, prompting him. “Yeah?”
Bart nods, nose squished up against the ball of Tim’s shoulder. Then, after a beat, he sits up just far enough to look at Tim through the blunt edge of his fringe. “I know I didn’t keep in touch much, after Kon,” he says. The ‘or when I was dead’ hangs in the air between them, unsaid. Bart fidgets with the pillow, worrying a bead between his fingers until it morphs into a dull orange blur. “I know this might be out of line, but—well. Cassie says you didn’t always seem like you either.”
Tim sits with that for a moment. If this had been last year, if it’d been Dick or Steph or Alfred saying it instead of Bart, he’d’ve bristled. Shone his teeth, bit back, run away in a huff to pick a fight with assassins. Truth be told, there’s still a part of him that sort of wants to.
But it’s just him and Bart on the couch right now, and Bart’s eyes are still just this side of puffy, so instead, Tim leans his cheek up against Bart’s hair and closes his eyes. “I was sad,” he says quietly. “People do weird things when they’re sad.”
As soon as the words leave his mouth, he almost regrets it. It’s too simple, too bald. He’s this close to opening his mouth to tack on something meaningless and pithy, just to soften it, but Bart beats him to the punch.
“I’m sorry I freaked out about breakfast. When Cassie said you’d been skipping out on team meals and not sleeping again, I wanted—I dunno. I guess I just panicked. I wanted to help, but I ended up making things worse. I just—I didn’t want you to go back to being that guy again, y’know?”
Tim’s breath is too shallow in his chest. Still, he forces his tone lighter. “Wow, a guy tries to clone you one time—”
“Sheezus, Rob, how many times do I have to—” Too fast, Bart shoves Tim’s arm off him, twisting around until he’s facing him on the couch. He runs a hand through his hair, frazzled. “I don’t care about the cloning, okay? I care about you. I’ve been in that place before, and it sucks.”
Tim stares at him for a second, dumbstruck. “Oh,” he manages. Then he clears his throat. “Y’know, just because I get wrapped up in a case every once in a while doesn’t mean I’m gonna go off the deep end.”
Bart squints at him suspiciously, clearly trying to gage his motives. Under his fingers, Keanu’s face flexes and crinkles.
Tim tries again. “Really. I appreciate you worrying, but I am capable of taking care of myself. I’ve been making my own breakfast since I was twelve.”
It seems to do the trick. After a beat, the tension in Bart’s shoulders loosens, and the squint turns into a mock glare. “I,” he pronounces archly, “was being helpful.”
Tim nods sagely. “Oh, sure. I feel extremely helped right now.”
“I made you breakfast.”
“To be fair, casseroles are dinner-adjacent at best.”
“I brought my own supplies.”
“Trust me, I know. There’s over a thousand sugar packets on my floor right now.”
A buzz of static, and Bart sticks out his tongue, the motion made blurry by his super speed. Then, apparently deciding to concede the argument, he flops down into Tim’s lap with a sharp whuff of displaced air.
Hesitantly, Tim sets a hand on his hair. It’s soft to the touch, but the static makes it prickle against his skin. There’s still a few grains of sugar tangled up near his scalp.
This time, Tim runs his fingers through it and fishes them out.
On his stomach in Tim’s lap, Bart wiggles for a second, getting comfortable, before he promptly seems to decide that laying on his front is overrated. Quick and easy, he flips over onto his back to stare Tim in the eye, and for a second, he just looks up at him, face oddly serious. Then, after a beat, he says thoughtfully, “The casserole was kind of gross, huh?”
Tim grins, shoulders loosening. Maybe he isn’t so bad at this after all. “Sorry, man,” he says, patting Bart’s head. “'Kind of' is an understatement.”
From his position in his lap, Bart scrunches his face at him indignantly. “It’s not my fault. I’ve made tons of recipes when I was the Flash and they all turned out fine!”
“Except for this one, apparently.”
“Hey. I got set up. Jack and Brody lied to me.”
“Yeah, yeah, that’s what they all say.” Aiming for the phone in his back pocket, Tim shifts his weight to one side, nearly causing Bart to topple off his lap altogether. Bart sticks his tongue out at him again. Tim pulls an exaggerated face at him, then swipes his phone open. “You still want pizza? There’s a place on 23rd that makes a decent Hawaiian.”
Immediately, Bart whoops and leaps off his lap, landing on his feet in the middle of the carpet. “Oh, thank God, I thought you’d never ask.” Lightning crackles, and he speeds off in a whoosh of air. Half a second later, cacophony of pots and pans erupts from the kitchen. “You’re buying!”
Left sitting on the couch, Tim abruptly decides not to care. He sits up straight and cups a hand over his mouth. “There should be a coupon on the fridge!”
“Sweet.” A blink of an eye, and Bart reappears on the living room rug with the coupon in hand, socks smoking slightly. “Okay,” he says, eyes bright and wild. “I cleaned the kitchen. Now, c’monc’monc’mon let’s go already!”
“Yeesh, rush a guy much?” Tim says, but obediently, he gets off the couch and starts to toe into his slides. Another whoosh of air, and Bart’s sneakers are double-knotted and ready to go on his feet. Showoff.
But just as Tim makes to open the door, Bart grabs his hand, yanking him back into the main room.
“Seriously though,” he says, fixing Tim with that brown-gold stare of his. His eyes are oddly solemn, that little worried crease between his eyebrows. “You’re really good? Not feeling any weird, Not-Tim urges?” He pokes him in the side with the prick of his pointer finger. “No homicidal thoughts?”
Despite himself, Tim rolls his eyes. It’s a good-natured sort of roll though; somehow, he can’t fight the smile stretching across his face. “Unfortunately, your terrible casserole has made me rethink all my core beliefs,” he drawls. Between them, their hands swing free, fingers still intertwined. “Our next stop after this is the Batcave.” He waits for a second, then clarifies: “I’m stealing the gun out of Bruce’s display case, just to be clear. That’s why we’re going to the Batcave.”
Bart steps forward, too fast, cheeks ever-so-slightly pink. “Aw, Wonder Boy,” he says, “don’t be like that.” Then, quick as a flash, he darts across the rest of the distance between them and pecks a kiss onto the very tip of Tim’s nose.
Then, just like that, he’s back to standing in front of him, that hesitant, too-nervous smile still plastered firmly across his face.
Oh. Oh.
Slowly, fingers shaking slightly, Tim reaches up to touch his nose. The moment he makes contact, the leftover static electricity shocks his fingers, making him jerk. “Um,” he says, staring. Their hands are still linked. His face feels like a cherry tomato.
Bart’s nervous grin, if anything, grows wider, and he tries to pull away, hand sliding out of Tim’s. “Sorry,” he says quickly. “Thatwasdumb you probably hated it. I don’t know why I—”
Instinctively, Tim’s grabs his hand again, halting him in his tracks. He swallows. “You—” he starts, halting. Thinks about the words he’s about to say. Then, quieter: “I didn’t hate it.”
For a second, Bart just stares down at Tim’s hand, still wrapped around his. Then the half-manic smile slides off his face, falling into something more genuine. “Oh,” he says. “Cool.”
Tim blinks. Feeling somewhat put out, he tries to put his hands on his hips, only to realize belatedly this would necessitate letting go of Bart’s hand, and has to settle for just the one. “Seriously?” he says. “That’s all I get? Cool?”
The grin that broadens across Bart’s face does so a little more hesitantly than usual, but when it does, it’s just as bright and toothy as it always is. “Sure,” he says with a shrug, deliberately nonchalant. “I mean, you’re a pretty cool guy.”
Manfully, Tim resists the urge to grin like an idiot. If the look on Bart’s face is anything to go by, he fails spectacularly.
“That’s it,” he says. “I changed my mind, I’m becoming Evil Batman for real this time.” He makes to yank his hand away, but, as if sensing it, Bart’s fingers tighten around his and hold him firm.
Then, still a bit more hesitant than usual, Bart pulls out the pizza coupon and waggles it in front of Tim’s face. “Haven’t you been listening? No murderous thoughts before breakfast.” A beat, then his grin turns decidedly shit-eating. “You’re not you when you’re hungry.”
Tim stares at him, aghast. “That was terrible,” he says. “I can’t believe I’m still buying you pizza.”
Bart grins. “Crash. Love it when that happens. I’m ordering one of everything.”
This time, Tim doesn’t even try to force down the dopey smile spreading across his face. Instead, he just squeezes Bart’s hand, and opens the door.
After all. They’ve got a pizza shop to terrorize.