Chapter Text
“Why are you being all weird?” Lia asked.
Logan paused in his grading and frowned at her from across the table. They were seated in “The Hideout” at one of the tables with 200 exams between them. “What do you mean?”
“You’re acting all cagey. You keep looking around and you’re rubbing at the sleeve of your sweater like you do when professors are handing back assignments you struggled with.” Logan stopped the indicated action and placed his hands resolutely on the tabletop.
“I’m fine.”
“Too many people?” she asked. “We can go to my apartment if you want. Greg won’t mind.”
“No!” he said, perhaps a bit too enthusiastically judging by the odd look she gave him. “I quite enjoy this coffee shop.”
“…What’s your deal today Logan?”
“I am simply stressed at the number of final exams we have to grade by tomorrow.”
“I don’t know if I believe you.”
“That is not my problem,” he replied and took a sip of his coffee before going back to his grading. He still couldn’t stop his eyes from going to the door every so often.
It was about 15 minutes later when the bell over the door chimed and Logan’s hand went still when his eyes found “The Hideouts” newest patron. They met eyes briefly and Patton immediately corrected his course toward the table.
“Hi Logan,” he said with a smile, stopping about a foot away from where Logan sat.
“Hello Patton,” he replied. “How are you today?”
“Oh, I’m good.” They made eye contact for a couple of moments longer before he seemed to register Lia’s presence. “Oh, um. Sorry if I’m intruding.”
“You’re not,” Lia said before Logan could say anything. “Hi, I’m Lia,” she said offering her hand. “And you’re Patton if I heard right.”
He shook her hand with a smile. “I am. It’s nice to meet you.”
“It’s nice to meet you too. How do you and Logan know each other?”
“We’re just both regulars here and I almost poured a cup of coffee on him about a month and a half ago.”
“Wow,” she responded and then turned her eyes on Logan with some sort of untrustworthy twinkle in them. “Wow,” she repeated.
“Lia and I,” Logan said turning to Patton, “were teaching assistants for the same course this semester and are now grading the student’s finals.”
“I see. Well, you’re obviously busy so I’ll just let you…”
“Oh, you like Mind of Mystery?” Lia suddenly interjected.
Patton looked at her in surprise and then seemed to remember something, looking down at one of the pens on his bag. “Oh!” he said. “Yeah, I do.”
“You know, I love that show. Logan have you ever watched that show.”
“Uh… no.”
“Well that sucks. Now I kinda want to talk about it. Hey, grading doesn’t really take much brain power. Why don’t you grab a coffee and come sit with us? We can talk about the show. It will keep my mind off this mountain.” She waved to the stack in front of her.
“Oh, I,” he said, biting his lower lip. “I wouldn’t want to intrude.”
“It’s fine,” Logan said instantly.
Patton looked at him and smiled widely before looking away. “Okay then,” he replied. “I’ll go get some coffee.”
He watched the other man walk to the counter and then turned back to Lia. “What?” he asked at the strange look on her face.
“Oh my god,” she said and reached over to give him a punch on the shoulder. “You didn’t tell me you had a cute coffee shop boy.”
“I don’t have him Lia.”
“Have you asked him?” Logan felt the tips of his ears heat. “And don’t think I didn’t notice that you didn’t argue that he’s cute.”
“Well that is an objective fact.”
“Oh, is it now?” she asked. “Is that what Logan’s calling objective now?”
“He is clearly aesthetically pleasing. I am simply stating fact.”
“So, there’s no bias there?”
“Not at all, you noticed yourself did you not?” She rolled her eyes.
“Logan,” she said. “My dear friend, co-teacher, and office mate, if you don’t ask out the cute coffee shop boy who is clearly into you, I will slightly move every single one of your pens in the office.”
“And then I will throw your desk out of the window.”
“Come on, Logan,” she groaned. “He’s as cute as a button and is making heart eyes at you from the counter.”
Logan craned his neck backwards and Patton was indeed looking at him. He looked away when he met Logan’s eyes. Logan turned back to Lia, his blush now fully formed.
“Please,” she whisper-chanted. “Please, please, please, please, please.”
“Why are you so interested in my dating prospects?” he hissed back.
“Because you’re my friend, you were clearly hoping he’d show up, and you lit up like a Christmas tree when he came in. You have to ask him out.”
“I’m not interested in dating at this point in my life,” Logan said. “I’m quite busy with my studies and teaching. There is no room for such frivolities.”
“Logan I’m getting married this summer.”
“Yes, and that is you. Not me.”
“Believe it or not, academia and relationships are not mutually exclusive.” That was likely true, Logan knew. It was also not the problem.
The problem was his ability to move things with his mind, a blue suit he kept in his bag, and the mountains of red files he kept hidden in his apartment. No one knew that Logan was Bluebird, the cities resident superhero. He hadn’t even told his parents and he wasn’t planning on doing so. Sharing such a secret with anyone was a danger to everyone involved. He refused to do so.
At the same time, he knew that starting a romantic relationship with anyone who didn’t know the truth, was unfair to that person. Inevitably they would find out and there would be a disastrous fallout, but beyond that, starting a relationship on a foundation of lies was a horribly cruel thing to do to another person.
These two conflicting rules Logan followed had never posed an issue for him before recently, but…
But he did like Patton.
“It isn’t an option for me at this point in my life,” Logan said.
Lia looked like she wanted to respond, but then shut her mouth and smiled over his shoulder. Patton appeared back at the table a moment later. He grabbed a chair from a nearby table to sit.
“How did the end of the semester go for you?” Patton asked.
“For the classes I took, it went well,” Logan answered. “As for the one I taught, it is not quite as over as I would like.” He gestured toward the exams stacked on the table.
“That looks like a lot.”
“Ugh,” Lia said. “It is and I’m suffering.”
Patton’s nose scrunched up a bit as he smiled. “Did you enjoy what you taught this semester at least? Calc II right?”
Lia shot Logan a look as though it were not normal behavior for someone to discuss the course they were teaching with an acquaintance or for said acquaintance to retain that information. “Yep,” she replied. “It was pretty fun. The students can be silly, but I like teaching.”
“I’m sure Dr. Stewart thought the same thing about you when you couldn’t remember the definition of a Lie group on your final.”
She stuck out her tongue in response. “Anyway,” she said. “It was a fun course to teach. It’s where you start getting mostly math majors or majors that need a lot of math and not people taking requirements. Plus, I got to work with Logan this semester so that was nice.” Logan rolled his eyes at her and hid his warming cheeks by taking a drink of coffee. “He’s great to work with, you know. The students all like him because he’s good at being patient and very thorough.” Okay, another drink of coffee. “I like working with him because he doesn’t hit on me since he’s very gay.” Logan chocked on his coffee.
“I’m,” he stopped to cough. “Unsure what my sexuality has to do with anything.”
“I’m just making conversation,” Lia replied innocently.
Patton chuckled softly and bit his lip with his own light blush on his cheeks. Oh god. He knew. If Logan had less self-restraint, he would have just thrown himself out the window and flown into the sun. Patton cleared his throat after a moment. “Didn’t you want to talk about Mind of Mystery, Lia?” he ask.
She frowned. Clearly, she did not want to talk about a television show. Yet, she was thankfully forced by social convention to discuss it with him. Logan did not have much to contribute about a television show he had never watched, but despite that, found himself unable to effectively grade. He held the red pen in his hand and hovered it over one of his students’ exams, but all of his attention was on their conversation. Patton was soft spoken usually, but his voice was always clear. That is unless he was tired. Logan secretly loved the days he came in a little sleepy even though it must be bad for the man’s health, especially as it was often during the mid-morning. His speech got a little slower and his voice went deeper. He also lost some of his sense of boundaries and got a bit touchier when tired. With most people, this would make Logan cringe, but with Patton it made his chest warm.
The conversation slowly came back around to talk about the exams Logan and Lia were grading which Logan was more prepared to be a participate in.
“Hey, what’s the answer supposed to be for 26?” Lia asked. “My answer’s not lining up with Dr. Bakers.”
“Which test form?” he asked.
“B,” she replied. “It’s this one.” She leaned over to point to a question on the blank exam she’d been using to scribble on. Patton leaned over to glance at it too as Logan wrote it down on some scratch paper to work it out. Ugh. Integration by parts. He was too brain numb for this right now.
“1/2- ln(2)/2,” Patton said after a few moments. Logan looked over at the napkin in front of him where he’d written out the steps in precise script.
Now, Logan tried very hard to not be an academic elitist. He’d honestly been absolutely obnoxious in his high school years but had taken a step back and reevaluated his attitude later in life, helped by being humbled by a few of his first-year graduate classes. He had not cared about Patton’s ability to solve calculus problems. It was not at all why the man captivated his attention in the past month. In fact, he’d been running under the notion that the man was not particularly book smart and he had been perfectly content to strike up an acquaintanceship with him despite that.
So why did he suddenly want to capitulate to what Lia had been needling him about this entire afternoon just because the man could calculate a definite integral.
Perhaps it had little to do with the equation at all.
“Pretty and smart,” Lia commented. Logan kicked her under the table and for good measure made the plastic coffee cup that was teetering on the edge tip all the way over. Lia made a noise of frustration and got up to get some napkins to clean up the mess.
“Please ignore everything she says,” he said to Patton.
“I think it’s sweet,” Patton said. “She seems like a good friend.”
“I would barely call her a friend,” Logan murmured, “She won’t even be an office mate once I manage to get her desk to the roof of the math building.”
Patton laughed, but they were interrupted by something beeping at his waist. He glanced down at what seemed to be a pager. “Oh!” he said. “I’ve got to go, sorry.”
“Of course,” Logan said, blinking at the pager. “I hope it isn’t an emergency.”
“Oh, it’s always an emergency,” Patton mumbled. “Bye Lia,” he said when she returned back to the table. “I’ve got to go, but it was nice meeting you.” He turned to Logan. “I’ll, um, see you later. Probably not today, but later.”
Logan nodded. “Have a good rest of your day,” he said and got a small smile in return.
“Bye Patton, nice to meet you!” Lia called after him, and then he was out the door.
They decided to finish grading for the day about 20 minutes later.
“Well,” Lia said chipperly when they exited the coffee shop. “That was a productive coffee shop grading party.”
Logan rolled his eyes. “Sure.”
“But… we still have over 150 exams to have graded by Monday.”
“Right,” Logan said. “Somebody kill me.”