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The shrill beeping went off at five a.m. on the dot, just like it did every morning. And just like every other morning, Bart woke up, blearily glaring at the wall, wondering what he had ever done to deserve this. The wall symbolized the neighbor whose damn clock woke him up, every morning, a good three hours before his own. Luckily, his neighbor shut it off pretty quickly after it started and Bart found himself forgiving the person as he fell back to sleep - at least, he did until the beeping went off again, a short time later, waking Bart up. Again.
Tired, both quite literally and also metaphorically, Bart felt his body roll out of bed and shuffle angrily to the door. Enough was enough, and it was time he gave his neighbor a piece of his mind. Even though he shared his apartment with three other people, he was the only one whose room was against this neighbor’s wall, and nobody else said that the alarm had ever woken them up. Tim had said that he’d heard the alarm a few times, but only because he’d already been awake when it went off.
As such, he was the only one who had to deal with it - and even if he was only one person, his neighbor should have thought of others before getting such a loud alarm. Nobody needed a clock that loud.
And so, here he stood, outside his neighbor’s door, pounding on the door. He was still in a sleepy daze, though, so he almost didn’t notice when the door jerked open - and nearly pounded his fist straight into his neighbor’s face.
Stopping his hand in mid air, he looked at his neighbor for a moment. It was the first time he’d actually seen the neighbor, and the first thing that went through his sleep addled brain was “oh no he’s hot.”
His neighbor - name still unknown - stood in front of him, wearing only his jogging pants, chest bare. Suddenly Bart was thinking about his own attire, the lame boxer shorts and too-big shirt from his university making him much more self conscious than he would have thought.
“Yes?” his neighbor asked him, seeming surprisingly alert for someone who had just woken up. Bart tried to play keep up as he pushed his body to wake up and sound a little more sophisticatedly.
“Huh?” he said, oh-so-intelligently. Smooth going, Bart. The other man only raised an eyebrow at that.
“You knocked,” he commented, “I assume you wanted something?”
“Oh!” Bart blurted out, suddenly remembering why he was there in the first place. He tried to remember the anger that he’d felt when coming over there, but it had been too long and he had been distracted by the unexpected attractiveness of his neighbor.The anger had left by now.
“Uh, yeah. I just - I - why do you have to have your alarm go off so early every morning?” Bart said, immediately disappointed that that was the best he could come up with. It wasn’t really what he’d been planning on asking, but that’s what came out. It lacked the anger that had originally pushed him to come knock on his door.
His neighbor just smirked at Bart. “Well, I have to get up this early. Every day. I have an internship at the hospital and then classes after.” Bart just looked at him for a moment.
“Oh. Well, your alarm. It’s really loud. It wakes me up every morning.”
“Does it?” he asked, looking a bit guilty, “I’m sorry about that. I mean, I don’t know what to do about that. I need it to wake up and all.”
Bart found the anger completely gone by now. He literally just couldn’t be mad at the other guy at this point, now that he was more awake and had learned that his neighbor actually wasn’t awful. And he was interning at a hospital. Dude couldn’t be that bad of a person if he was working at becoming a doctor - or something like that.
“Sorry about bothering you,” Bart said, quickly, trying to look at his face and not his chest - which should have been easy, since Bart was just a bit taller than the other man. “I’ll let you get back to - uh - getting ready.”
“No, sorry to bother you. Wish it didn’t wake you up. Maybe I’ll find something to fix that?” the other guy said, starting to close the door. Bart suddenly realized that he still didn’t know the other guy’s name.
He stuck his foot out quickly, stopping the door before it closed. “Bart,” he said, sticking out his hand. The other guy looked a bit amused. “Sorry, I just realized we didn’t know each others’ names. My name’s Bart.”
“Jaime,” he responded, taking a hold of the hand and shaking. Bart noted the pronunciation of the name and told himself to remember that - it sounded Spanish, probably? He just needed to remember not to refer to him as “jay-mee.”
“Nicemeetingyou,” Bart slurred together before darting back into his room, maybe a little too quickly. If Jaime probably needed the time to get ready, then all Bart was doing was wasting it. He suddenly felt bad, standing in the foyer to his shared apartment. He knew it probably didn’t make sense to try to go back to sleep now, not when he had homework that he’d put off anyway. He went back to his desk and settled in.
…
The next morning when the alarm went off, Bart fell out of bed.
He meant to, of course. Not quite fall, at least, but to get out of bed. He sped into the kitchen, kicking on his speed for a moment as he started a pot of coffee. He didn’t know how Jaime would like his coffee, so he just thought he’d make it the way he liked it.
“Bart?” he heard from the couch.
“Did I wake you, Gar?” Bart asked as he waited for the coffee to be ready. He hoped it was ready in time for him to give it to Jaime, as an apology for bothering him the morning before.
“Not really,” Gar responded, sitting up and holding out his 3ds so that Bart could see it. “I was having trouble sleeping earlier so I just started playing this. Should probably try going back to sleep, huh?”
“Don’t you have a nine o’clock class?” Bart asked, and Gar rolled his eyes.
“Yeah, if only I didn’t. It’s a dumb class.”
“I feel ya, buddy,” Bart said, adding the sweetener to both of the coffee cups.
“So why are you awake?” Gar asked, looking back down at his game as he asked.
“Makin’ coffee.”
“That I can see,” Gar answered, “But why? You don’t have to get up for several hours.”
“Apologizing to Jaime,” Bart hummed as he finished both of the coffees.
“Oh, you mean Hottie McHotpants who can actually make you of all people get up at the asscrack of dawn?” Gar asked, trying to stem his giggles. Bart’s answering blush didn’t help his case.
“Hush, you. I’m just. Apologizing.”
“You wanna get in McHotpants’ pants,” Gar sing-songed.
“Shut up before you wake Cassie,” Bart answered, picking up one of the coffees, “You know what she’s like if you wake her up before she has to be up.”
Gar snorted but left well enough alone. Bart walked this time to the door, trying not to spill the coffee out of the mug he’d put it in. He walked out of his apartment right as Jaime was locking his door on the way out.
“Ah!” Bart said, and Jaime jumped a bit, “Jaime, here! I made this, sorry about probably making you late yesterday with my complaining. Thought you might want some.”
“You made coffee for me?” Jaime asked, holding out a hand.
“Yeah, I didn’t really know how you liked it so I just made it the way I do,” Bart said, shoving the mug into his waiting hand. Jaime looked at it for a moment before taking a sip and then making a face.
“Are you sure there’s any coffee in here? It tastes almost entirely like sugar,” Jaime asked, grinning at him.
“You like your coffee black?”
“Not black, just - somewhere between this and black. But thank you for it. It really is appreciated,” Jaime told him, taking another sip and not making a face this time. “Thanks, Bart” he said with a smile as he walked quickly down the hall outside their rooms to the stairs.
Bart stared at him as he walked away, not even worried about Jaime noticing, since his back was turned to him the entire time. He tried his hardest not to sigh,
“Dude, you so want into his pants,” Gar said from somewhere behind him, and Bart just turned around and started to push him back into the apartment.
“Don’t start with me, Logan,” Bart told him, trying his best to seem threatening. It didn’t seem to work, since Gar only giggled at him and walked back to the couch.
…
The next morning he allowed himself to sleep in, but the day after that when he was awoken by the shrill noise of the alarm next door he did his best to drag himself out of bed and over to the coffee maker. Thankfully, Gar was actually asleep this time and couldn’t make any sly comments about making him some more coffee - even though this time he just wanted to try to make some that Jaime actually liked. Jaime had probably just dumped the one he’d made for him the other day, so Bart wanted to actually make some he’d want to drink.
Looking over into the room Tim and Cassie shared he spotted the light of a computer, which was probably Tim. He was known to keep some weird times, and all that time as Robin had kinda warped his sleep schedule. Luckily, Tim was likely not going to say anything to Bart to avoid waking Cassie, sleeping in the bed next to him. He probably would mention it later, but that was in the future, and now he was trying to figure out how much sweetener to put into the coffee. He stopped about halfway through what he would personally want in his coffee, then hastily put the lid on the container and moved achingly slowly to the door.
When he opened it and Jaime wasn’t already leaving his room, Bart assumed that he’d missed him. Moments later, however, he heard a noise from Jaime’s apartment that sounded like something dropping and loud swearing - or what he assumed was swearing, since it seemed to be Spanish. It sounded like swearing though. It was in that tone that typically signified swearing.
Moments later the door opened and Jaime looked out, making Bart take a quick step back. Jaime looked a bit confused when he saw Bart.
“Hello?”
“Yeah, sorry, I thought I’d try to make you coffee again since you didn’t really like the first try. I think I probably got it closer to the way you like it,” Bart said, holding out the cup to Jaime. Jaime looked even more confused, and also something that looked like embarrassment. Bart suddenly hoped he wasn’t coming on too strong.
Not that he was hitting on Jaime, or anything.
Okay, he was totally hitting on him. But that’s beside the point.
“Thanks,” Jaime said, grabbing the cup and smiling at him, “I thought you didn’t like being woken up by my alarm?”
“I don’t,” Bart said, leaning against the wall. “But hey, you gotta make the best of bad situation, y’know? I’m getting a ton of homework done, getting up earlier.”
“Good way to think about it,” Jaime said, then looked a bit confused, “Wait, do you go to the university?”
“Yeah, what, don’t tell me you thought I was a high schooler,” Bart answered. Jaime took a sip of the coffee and looked a bit surprised.
“No, I mean - I didn’t really know what age you were,” he said, taking another sip.
“Sophomore. You?” Bart said, trying to contain his excitement that they were actually talking - about something other than alarm clocks or coffee, at least.
“Med school. First year,” Jaime said with a smile, “I’m 23.”
Bart tried not to squeak too much when he said, “Oh. I’m 19.” It’s not like their ages even mattered at all. Still, the fact that Jaime was 23 and in med school made Bart realize just how unlikely it is that anything would happen - and that’s completely leaving out the fact that he’s probably straight. Bart tried not to grimace at his internal musing.
Jaime looked ready to respond when he looked down at the phone and said, “Shit! I gotta go, sorry,” before dashing down the hallway. Bart tried his hardest to resist the urge to hit his head against the door frame.
“Ughh,” he moaned, instead.
…
The next time Bart saw Jaime was actually that weekend, and it wasn’t in the hallway outside their room. Bart was sitting alone, eating his lunch and trying not to look too many people in the eyes - he always hated sitting alone and eating, but it couldn’t be helped. Tim and Cassie were on some sort of date-thing, and Gar had a group project that was meeting then. So, eating alone.
“Bart?”
Jaime’s voice was not something that he’d expected to hear there, pretty much because the only times he’d heard it had been in the morning, in the dingy hallway outside their apartments. Jaime just didn’t seem real to Bart, not quite yet.
“Oh, hi, Jaime!” Bart said, looking over to where Jaime was approaching him with food in hand and a friend trailing behind him.
“Could we sit with you? Jaime asked, standing next to his table.
“Uh, yeah, of course,” Bart said, hastily moving some of his trash off of the table. Jaime and his friend sat down across from him.
“Ah, Bart, this is Tye, Tye, this is Bart. He’s one of our neighbors,” Jaime introduced them, directing the last part at Tye.
“You have roommates? How do you not wake them up with that alarm?” Bart asked, seriously wondering. Tye laughed at him.
“I’m not in the apartment when he gets up in the morning. I work nights, so I actually get back to the apartment well after he’s left for the day. And it’s just the two of us,” Tye answered, looking over at Jaime.
“How many roommates do you have?” Jaime asked Bart.
“Three. Tim, Cassie and Gar. I’d be eating with them now if they didn’t all actually have a life,” Bart remarked, “Even if Tim and Cassie are technically doing something together, so I don’t know if that counts as a life. And Gar is just working on a group project.”
“And you’re the one left to eat lunch alone,” Tye commented, “Poor thing.”
“Oh, you don’t even know my pain. Eating here, all alone, dealing with all the pitying looks from the people who get to eat with their friends. It’s nearly too much,” Bart said, dramatically putting his hand up to his forehead. Tye just looked over at Jaime with a questioning look, which Jaime didn’t meet.
Jaime snorted at him, “It’s a wonder you didn’t manage to rope some random people to sit with you.”
“And why’s that?” Bart asked, sandwich thoroughly forgotten now that Jaime was sitting across from him.
“You’re a friendly guy,” Jaime told him, “Or else you wouldn’t have interacted with me.”
“I talked to you because I was pissed that you kept waking me up, and morning-me isn’t the best decision maker. Or afternoon me. Evening-me is actually pretty bad at decision making, too,” Bart said, and Jaime laughed at him.
“Are you saying that talking to me was a bad decision?” Jaime asked him.
“Well, the reason for it, yes, it was dumb of me to barge over there and complain about your alarm. But, like, meeting you was pretty crash,” Bart responded.
“Crash?” Tye asked, reminding Bart that it wasn’t just Jaime sitting across from him.
“Ah, yeah. Crash. It’s a good thing,” Bart explained, “I forgot that not everyone knows all of my awesome phrases.”
“Crashing is a good thing?” Jaime asked him.
“Not crashing, but crash is- okay, really, I’d have a hard time explaining it to you. It’s just something I say,” Bart said, reaching over to take a gulp of his drink and realizing that it was empty.
“Be right back, need to fill this up,” Bart said, standing up and remembering as he stood up that he really needed to slow himself down. He walked, excruciatingly slowly, over to the drink fountain to get more soda. As he walked back he noticed Jaime and Tye whispering and then some elbowing going on both directions.
Right after he sat down he felt elbows rest themselves on his shoulders. “So who’s this, Bart?” Gar’s voice came from somewhere behind him. Bart didn’t even try to fight rolling his eyes.
“This is Jaime and Tye, they live next door to us,” Bart told him.
“Oh, so this is Jaime. Nice to meet him. You too, Tye,” Gar said, drawing it out when he commented on that being Jaime. Bart jerked his elbow back into Gar’s ribs, causing him to groan, but he didn’t move from his position.
Jaime’s eyebrows rose. “Have you heard of me?” he asked.
“Well, yeah, from Bart. But mostly it’s just because it’s noteworthy any time Bart here gets up before noon, let alone at 5,” Gar commented, “We’ve all wondered who could be the person he feels it worthwhile to get up for.”
“Gar, shut up,” Bart hissed, the blush on his face likely matching his red hair. Tye only seemed more amused than he had before, and Jaime looked like he was lost for words.
“Well, we’ll leave you to that,” Jaime told him, not really meeting Bart’s eyes, “Tye and I were going to be meeting some friends soon, so we should probably head out.” He and Tye both got up and started throwing their stuff away, with Jaime waving at them as they left.
“Idiot,” Bart said to Gar, before the other boy burst into laughter.
“Dude, you couldn’t be more obvious,” Gar said.
“When you say things like that of course that’s what it seems like, oh my god,” Bart said, putting his head in his arms.
“Don’t worry, dude. He seems to like you well enough,” Gar commented, patting his friend on the back.
Bart just groaned.
…
The next time he saw Jaime, he didn’t even realize that was who it was at first.
“Alright, this better not take too long, guys,” Robin said through their rudimentary comm system, “I have a paper due tomorrow that I really need to work on.”
“Oh, come on Robin, live a little,” Wonder Girl said, from her spot on the other side of the courtyard, “We’re just stopping a robbery.”
“A robbery at a hospital, of all places,” Beast Boy commented, bored.
“There are important things in a hospital,” Bart responded, and he could feel the collective intake as the three of them all started to respond to him.
“Yeah, important things, right, Impulse?” Wonder Girl said at the same time Gar said, “You certainly think so, huh.”
“Guys, pick on Impulse some other time, I see them,” Robin broke into their chatter, “We need to do this carefully. We don’t know what they’re taking, and we have to treat them with caution.”
“Yeah, cause that’s this team’s forte,” Beast Boy commented.
Robin ignored Beast Boy’s comment. “Alright, Impulse, you and I are going to go in. BB, Wonder Girl, you two are our back up out here. We’ll try to get them to drop their loot and flush them out towards you two.”
“Impulse? He’s not cautious at all,” Wonder Girl said, annoyed.
“Yeah, but as BB said, none of this team really is,” Robin responded calmly.
“Except you,” Bart responded.
“Yes, except me,” Robin told him, without a hint of humor. “Now, come on Impulse, let’s go. Carefully.”
Robin disappeared from the rooftop he’d been set up on, appearing to Bart’s eyes only once he was close to the windows near where the culprits had been spotted. Bart waited until he’d undid the cover for the window so that he could get in before he sped over to where he was and entered the window right behind him. He followed behind Robin quietly, as best he could.
They actually did pretty well until they actually got to the thieves. And it wasn’t by any fault of theirs that it messed up then. When they’d gotten to the men there was already someone else confronting them. He was holding up his arm, a laser pointed at one of the men.
“Put down whatever you’ve stolen, and you’ll get away from this unscathed,” the blue suit said - Bart recognized him as the Blue Beetle, but hadn’t really been expecting him here, of all places.
One of the thugs laughed - the one with the cannon being held up to him - and said “There’s only one of you, and 5 of us. Hardly seems like fair odds.” Bart noticed one of the thugs behind Blue Beetle pull out a gun and start to hold it up where Blue Beetle couldn’t see it.
Before Robin could say anything to him, Bart shifted into high gear and left their hiding spot. Before anyone else in the room could think he had incapacitated both of the thugs behind Blue Beetle, throwing the gun that had initially been brandished at Blue Beetle to the floor near his feet.
“How about three to two? Are those odds a bit better for you?” Bart asked the thug who had spoken earlier. There was a bit of fear in his eyes then, when he realized that Bart could probably do the same thing to him. One of the other thugs started to draw his gun, like an idiot, but before that could become an issue he was incapacitated by Robin coming out of the shadows, while Bart took the initiative and sped over the two left and knocked them out. The entire thing took only a minute.
Robin held the comm in his ear, “Sorry guys, looks like you don’t get to see any action today. Something happened and we had to take them out.”
“Something happened? Robin, come on, it’s been so long since we got to do anything, would it have hurt you to just let us have some action?” Wonder Girl moaned over the comms.
“It wasn’t my decision - Impulse made that call,” Robin said.
“Don’t put this on me, that dumb lunk pulled a gun on Blue Beetle,” Bart said over his comm, looking over at where Blue Beetle was staring over at them, surprise apparent on his face. “It just made more sense for me to take them out while they were distracted.”
“Blue Beetle’s in there? Don’t let him go anywhere, I want to meet him!” Beast Boy yelled over the comm, making both Bart and Robin flinch. Robin rolled his eyes while Bart turned and looked over at Blue Beetle.
“Nice to actually meet you - not that I really expected to see you here. Didn’t really think about you operating in this city,” Bart commented to him. He looked down to where the medicines had been dropped on the floor. “You probably coulda handled this on your own, I know, but I just felt the need to make sure. Not sure what to do about the medicine, though.”
“Police are coming,” Robin said from behind him, “They can figure out what to do about it.”
“Awesome,” Bart responded, “Glad we don’t have to deal with that.” Blue Beetle still hadn’t said anything. Bart turned back to him. “Yo, you in there? You haven’t said anything yet. I’m Impulse, by the way. That’s Robin, but you probably know of him.”
“Bart?” Blue Beetle said, and of all the things that he had thought to hear from Blue Beetle, that was not what he was expecting.
“W-what?” Bart asked, wondering how his cover could have been blown like this. How could Blue Beetle have known his name? And what about the mask, it works for everyone else, why not him?
“Dios mío,” Blue Beetle said, and Bart didn’t realize that Blue Beetle spoke Spanish - but then again, he didn’t know much about Blue Beetle, of course. That whole secret identity thing.
“Um,” Bart said, instead of intelligent speech, but instead of having to grapple for something to say, Blue Beetle answered it for him by retracting his faceplate so that Bart could see him.
“Jaime?” Bart said, incredulous. Behind him he heard Robin start laughing. Moments later Beast Boy and Wonder Girl came in through the same hallway Robin and Bart had entered through.
“Where’s Blue- Jaime?” Beast Boy said, running into the room and stopping in his tracks when he noticed that Blue Beetle’s faceplate had been retracted.
“What- Jaime, you’re Blue Beetle?” Bart asked him, only for Jaime to look around.
“Police are coming. We might want to clear out here before they try to talk to us about it - I take it you guys work a little more under the radar,” Jaime told them, somehow knowing that the police were close.
“We try,” Robin commented dryly, “Come on guys, let’s get out of here.”
Robin disappeared then, somehow, and Wonder Girl and Beast Boy followed after him to the window they’d already opened up.
Bart stayed there, looking back at Jaime. “What about you?”
“I’m more of a public hero than you guys - I’ll tell the police what happened. I won’t say who you guys are but I won’t take credit for it, don’t worry,” Jaime told him, his faceplate coming back over his face as he was talking.
“If that’s what you want to do. Just - just know that I’m gonna come talk to you about this,” Bart told him, then sped out of the room following his teammates.
…
After that things changed a little bit for the both of them. Jaime met the rest of them - though Tim didn’t like the fact that his identity was blown by things outside of his control, the rest of them were pretty chill with the whole thing. It didn’t make them stop teasing Bart by any means, but Bart got past it.
Bart got into the habit of, once a week, getting up and making coffee for Jaime. It got the point that Bart had literally no better explanation for Jaime than “it’s something nice to do.” Bart talked to him at other times too, which he thoroughly enjoyed because they could actually talk. Of course, everything was going smoothly for Bart, he could ignore the dumb feelings that he had for Jaime (and the fact that they were getting worse as he hung out with him more.)
Until one day when he was coming back from class and Tye stopped him outside the apartment.
“Bart, hey,” Tye said, walking up next to him. Bart startled a bit, but slowed down to talk to him.
“Oh, hey Tye. What’s up?” Bart asked him.
“I was kinda wondering that, actually,” Tye started, “I was wanting to ask you something.”
“Um, alright then. Shoot,” Bart responded.
“So it seems to me kinda like you might be hitting on Jaime, or something like that, and I was wanting to know if that’s what was going on,” Tye asked Bart, completely blindsiding him.
“Uh.”
“I’m not planning on telling him anything, I’m asking because I’m curious,” Tye clarified, but Bart still wasn’t too sure. Realistically, though, Tye had already called it, so why not.
“Okay, I - I mean, I wouldn’t say I’ve been ‘hitting on him’ but I do definitely, uh. I am interested in him, definitely,” Bart stammered out, “I’m under no impression that I’m not obvious, my roommates all tease me about it constantly. But I wasn’t really trying to put any moves on him or anything.”
“Thought so,” Tye commented, smirking a bit, “and I have to second that idea about you being obvious. In that case, I’ll also have to give you a hint. Jaime won’t realize you’re hitting on him unless you’re really obvious. Really, really obvious.”
“Wait, you - are you pushing me to be more obvious?” Bart spluttered out, trying to squash the hope in his stomach from what was implied by Jaime’s best friend hinting to him to try hitting on him more obviously.
Tye started laughing at him. “I can’t really say, I mean, I don’t know, but in the case that you do want to try and actually make a move, I just thought you could use some advice.”
Bart smiled back at him hesitantly. “Well, thanks, I guess?” he responded, looking down.
Tye clapped his hand on Bart’s back and said, “Good luck, dude,” then turned and walked right into his apartment. Bart looked after the closed door for a moment before walking into his own apartment and trying not to sigh.
“Tim?” Bart called as he closed the door and toed off his shoes, throwing his backpack into his room as he passed by. He stepped carefully through the clutter that was the living room, with all of Gar’s stuff spread haphazardly around the couch. Gar himself was not back from his classes yet, which was lucky for Bart - this conversation was going to be bad enough with just Tim. Even though Tim was usually the most mature of the four of them.
“Yeah?” Tim called from his room, where Bart had already assumed he would be. He stepped cautiously into the room, hoping he wouldn’t step on anything small and sharp - not that he had in the past, but it was definitely a possibility. Cassie’s stuff was intermingled with all of Tim’s stuff, though she also wasn’t in the room. She would probably be getting back from class pretty soon though.
“I was wondering if I could maybe get some advice,” Bart said with some slight hesitance, though he decided that was stupid pretty quickly after he realized that was a thing. Tim looked up from his work with an eyebrow cocked upward.
“Alright, shoot,” Tim told him, putting his pencil down. At least Bart knew he had his complete attention.
Bart suddenly realized that he didn’t really have any single question to ask of Tim, but rather a muddle mass of multiple bits and pieces of questions and feelings. Fighting the need to facepalm, he took a shot with one of the most obvious questions.
“What do you think I should do about Jaime?” Bart asked him. If possible, Tim’s eyebrow shot even further up on his face.
“That’s a pretty broad question. I mean, the answer to that lies more in you than anyone else,” Tim told him.
“Well, okay, what would you do? I mean, Tye just stopped me in the hall and told me that if I want to get Jaime’s attention I have to be more obvious with my affections, but I don’t know if I want to be more obvious. I have no idea what Jaime thinks of me,” Bart told him, rambling on as he thought of things.
“I don’t really know Jaime like you do, so I can’t really judge what he thinks of you, but my thought is that your chances aren’t awful if Tye is nudging you to be more obvious,” Tim told him, taking the question completely seriously.That was one reason why he’d thought it would be a good idea to ask Tim. That, and Tim had a girlfriend, so he probably knew more about this sort of thing. Then again, by that token, he could have just asked Cassie. Anyway.
“I definitely like him, I just can’t - I can’t really imagine him liking me. I mean, he’s so great - he’s so smart and witty and he’s older and I must seem so immature to him -”
“Bart, stop. I understand what you mean. I had the same thoughts myself. Or, well, similar at least. You’ll never know unless you try, really,” Tim told him.
“Aw, Tim, that’s sweet,” Cassie said from the door, holding her backpack on only one shoulder and smiling at the other boy. She walked further into the room and dropped the backpack next to her desk space and walked over to sit next to Tim on the bed, who only flushed and looked unlikely to say anything for a couple minutes, at least. “Alright, Bart, I think you should go for it. Live for today, you know? Like Tim said, you’ll never know till you try.”
Cassie leaned over and pressed a kiss to Tim’s temple, and he started smiling - though he was still blushing at least a little. Bart pointedly didn’t roll his eyes; the two of them rarely acted couple-y in front of other people, so he felt no need to dissuade them from the few displays of affection they ever did show.
“You’re right, Cassie. And you too, Tim. I guess I should just go for it,” Bart said, chuckling nervously.
“Don’t do it if you don’t want to. But really, you shouldn’t be afraid to,” Cassie told him.
“Yeah,” Bart echoed, “I shouldn’t.”
…
“Hey, Jaime?”
“Oh, hi Bart,” Jaime said, looking up from the table, covered in what appeared to be work for a class. Tye sat sprawled out across from him, picking at the fries that were sitting in the middle of the table. Tye cracked his eyes open slightly to look over at Bart, as if waiting to see what he was about to do. Apparently it was obvious that Bart had something on his mind.
“You like Harry Potter, right?” Bart asked, seemingly throwing Tye completely for a loop. He opened his eyes completely and stared over at Bart.
“Uh, yeah, why?” Jaime asked him as Bart slid into the seat next to Jaime.
“Well, am I the Whomping Willow? Because when you get near me I flail around and endanger lives,” Bart said, trying to be as smooth as possible, which, considering he was trying to pick someone up with a Harry Potter pick-up line, wasn’t an easy feat. Across from him Tye looked to be doing his best not to burst into laughter. Jaime didn’t have that issue.
Bart’s face visibly fell whenever Jaime started laughing. “You’ve been dying to use that on someone, haven’t you?” Jaime asked after his laughter had died down. “It’s pretty clever.”
“Uh, yeah, I…” Bart started, looking over at Tye for help. Tye mouthed something at Bart that looked suspiciously like ‘more obvious’ and Bart could have groaned.
Instead, he stood up quickly and said, “ahh I forgot I had something to do. Somewhere else. Later!” He heard Tye start laughing as he darted away.
The only thing Bart could think was “shit.”
…
“Have you heard the reviews for that new Captain America movie? Sounds pretty good, right?” Bart asked Jaime, leaning casually, very casually, against the wall between their two apartments. Jaime looked over after unlocking the door.
“Oh yeah, it sounds cool. I’d like to see it sometime soon,” Jaime told him with a smile.
“Would you like to see it with me this Friday?” Bart asked, casually, trying not to panic at the fact that he was asking Jaime out on a date. Jaime beamed at him.
“Sure, I’d love to,” Jaime told him, and Bart nearly screamed, only to retract that when Jaime continued, “Maybe Tye could come too, he’s mentioned wanting to see it too.”
“Y-yeah, that’d be fun,” Bart commented.
“See you this weekend, then,” Jaime told him before entering his apartment.
The moment Jaime had closed his door Bart slid down the wall and sat on the floor. He flopped over on the floor, staring at the wall.
“Bro, that can’t be good. How many diseases do you think are in that carpet?” came Gar’s voice after Bart had been laying there for a minute.
“The door is unlocked,” is all Bart told him. Gar let out a laugh as he opened the door and stepped over Bart.
He waited a moment, but Gar paused after opening the door.
“He reject you?”
“I don’t think he understands what I’m trying to do,” Bart moaned.
“Then be more obvious?”
“I asked him to the movies on Friday.”
“That can be pretty ambiguous, dude.”
Bart just groaned and kicked Gar’s leg. Gar closed the door on Bart, laughing as he did.
…
Bart was fairly certain that his intentions couldn’t be missed this time. Then again, he’d thought that last time and it had turned out not to be the case. But this time he was sure it would work -- at the very least, Jaime would realize that Bart was asking him out. Whether or not Jaime accepted, Bart had no clue.
Nervously standing in front of the hospital that Jaime was interning at, holding a single rose behind his back, Bart couldn’t help but think that if anyone would miss this, Jaime might be the one. His plan was just to ask if he wanted to go eat, since Jaime was interning later this time and Bart thought that food would probably be on his mind, but this time he brought the rose to clarify his intentions a bit.
“Bart?” Jaime asked, walking down the hallway in scrubs. He waved at the woman working the desk as he walked by, and approached Bart. Bart had already had to explain to her why he was loitering the lobby with a rose, so now he tried not to meet her eyes when he looked over at Jaime.
“Hey,” Bart said, nervousness slipping into his voice. Jaime looked at him suspiciously.
“What’s up?” Jaime asked, then seemed to notice that Bart’s hands hadn’t moved his hands from behind his back and continued, “you have something back there?”
“I was wondering if you’d want to go get something to eat,” Bart asked instead of answering his second question.
“Oh sure, yeah. I’m really hungry,” Jaime said, shouldering his stuff from where he’d stored them, “let me just stop by my apartment to change and we’ll go.”
“Of course,” Bart said, looking down at the ground, “But I feel the need to clarify that I- I kinda wanted this to be a-”
The word “date” couldn’t seem to pass through his lips, so instead Bart jerked the rose from behind his back and held it out to Jaime, fairly certain that the flower matched the color of his face. Bart couldn’t bring his eyes up to meet Jaime’s, so he had no idea how he was reacting.
“Wait, do you mean for this to be a date?” Jaime asked Bart.
“Yeah, I- yeah,” Bart said, stopping himself before he started to ramble. He darted a look at Jaime, who surprisingly didn’t look upset or uncomfortable. Rather, he seemed confused, though not necessarily in a bad way. Bart tried to reserve judgement on how he felt.
“So Tye wasn’t kidding when he told me you’ve been hitting on me?”
“He told me he wouldn’t tell you!” Bart said shrilly, a little annoyed that Tye would go and tell Jaime like that, even though really he should have realized that Tye was more likely to tell his friend than keep a promise with someone he hardly knew. Bart tried to ignore the bad feeling he got from the fact that Jaime hadn’t realized that he was trying to ask him on dates before, even though he’d been warned that Bart was interested.
“If it makes you feel better, it was a while ago,” Jaime said, looking away for a moment before looking back at Bart, “Soon after he met you for the first time, actually.”
“Yeah, I’ve been told I was obvious.”
“But I didn’t notice.”
“No, you didn’t.”
“Well, I’m sorry,” Jaime said, and Bart’s heart dropped into his stomach, and he felt vaguely like he was about to puke. “If I had realized I could have said yes earlier I would have and saved you all this trouble.”
Bart was about to take his leave before things got more awkward when his brain processed Jaime saying ‘yes.’ “Wait, yes? Did you say yes?”
“Well, yeah,” Jaime said, rubbing the back of his neck in embarrassment, “I would have asked you myself, but I didn’t think you’d be interested.”
“Y-you thought I wouldn’t be interested?” Bart spluttered out incredulously.
Jaime shrugged and said, “I thought you were straight.”
“Oh,” Bart said, “No, I’m - I’m not. I’m gay. Very gay. I thought you were straight.”
“Bisexual,” Jaime said as a correction to Bart’s assumption, “And weren’t you asking me about getting something to eat? Anywhere in mind?”
“Uh, no, actually- I didn’t really plan that far ahead. I kinda assumed you’d say no,” Bart told him, trying not to scuff the floor with his foot.
“Well, I know this one really good place near our apartments, if you wanna try it,” Jaime said, leading Bart out of the lobby. Bart followed close behind him.
“Of course, yeah!” Bart said, excitement suddenly catching up with him at the realization that he was actually going on a date with Jaime. It was really happening.
“Cool,” Jaime said, smiling widely at Bart and reaching over to grab Bart’s hand as they walked back for Jaime’s change of clothes. Bart nearly squeaked at the casual way Jaime took his hand, mentally doing backflips thinking about Jaime’s hand in his. Jaime squeezed Bart’s hand and he knew he was smiling like an idiot but couldn’t bring himself to care.
…
“Wonder Girl, behind you!” Robin shouted over at the blonde, who was trying to take out two thugs who’d thought she’d be easy to fight - a third sneaking up behind her right that very moment. Wonder Girl whipped around quickly, wrapping her whip around his leg and tugging him back around to take out the two she’d been fighting previously.
“I had them, Robin,” Wonder Girl told him with a cocky smile.
“Oh really, because I-”
“Guys, quit with the flirting or arguing or whatever you were about to start doing, there’s more coming now!” Beast Boy shouted at the two of them, who jumped apart and refocused on the battle.
“Where in the world are they all coming from?” Bart said as he sidestepped one of them and knocked him over the head before he even comprehended that Bart had moved.
“I don’t know, but it would be really nice if they stopped,” Robin said, as ten more jumped off a rooftop.
“What the fuck did we do, anyway?” Beast Boy spat out, backing up a bit, “and why are we fighting in an alleyway? I know you got alleys, Robin, but I can’t turn into anything big here!”
“We didn’t have a choice, alright?” Robin told him, starting to fight three of them off with his staff. “You know that.”
“He has a point though, they’ve literally boxed us into a corner,” Bart commented, growing more and more aware of how outnumbered they were as time went on.
Robin started to say something snippy in response to him when a shot of blue light hit the largest group of them, the most recent additions to the fight. It quickly took out the rest of the thugs who weren’t already in combat. Robin took out his three while Wonder Girl took out the last one.
“Glad they were all bunched up like that,” Blue Beetle said, floating down out of the air, his armor reflecting his smile, “made it a lot easier for me. Seems I owed y’all for helping me out earlier.”
“Probably easier if we don’t keep score, it’ll just get confusing,” Bart told him, grinning.
“True,” Blue Beetle said, stepping forward until he was right in front of Bart, the armor giving him the boost he needed to be taller than Bart, so that Bart actually had to look up at him.
“Did you get that paper written?” Blue Beetle asked him, and Bart felt his body deflate.
“Dude, don’t ask about school while we’re doing superhero stuff,” Bart told him, “definitely not crash.”
“It was a conversation starter.”
“A conversation starter? Blue, there are much better ones than ‘did you finish that paper.’ Like, why were these guys trying to kill us? The answer, by the way, is ‘we have no clue,’ but it still would have been a be-” Bart told the other superhero, not even noticing when his faceplate retracted and Jaime leaned forward to press a kiss against Bart’s mouth.
“Damn, that’s a good way to get him to shut up,” Gar commented behind them, reminding Bart that they were there.
“I do not give you permission to use that,” Jaime told him, retracting his faceplate as he leaned back from Bart.
Gar made an exaggerated ‘yuck’ face and said, “Dude, no problem. That mouth is all yours.”
“Well, this seems to be all cleaned up,” Wonder Girl commented, wrapping a hand around Robin’s, “so I think it’s about time we left. Right, Robin?”
“Uh, yeah. Definitely,” Robin said, then proceeded to yelp loudly when Wonder Girl picked him up in her arms, bridal style, and flew off.
“Okay, all of you guys suck and I apparently need a girlfriend,” Beast Boy grumbled before turning into a bird - something small - and flying away from the alley with Bart, Blue Beetle and a ton of passed out criminals still standing in it.
“Should we do something about this?” Blue Beetle asked.
Bart snorted, “Nah. The police are on their way anyway. We should probably run off before we get caught here and one of my family members tells me off for superheroing while in college.”
“Do they really do that?” Blue Beetle asked.
“My cousin does. He quit superheroing when he was in college,” Bart commented, “But we really should get going. Race you to the apartment?”
“Ha, you’re on,” Blue Beetle told him, speeding off into the darkening sky. Bart gave a moment or two before darting off as well. He was going to get there first anyway, and Blue didn’t need to know that he gave him a head start.
Bart was there before Blue, sitting on the roof of their building, his mask discarded next to him. Blue landed next to him with grace.
“Bout time,” Bart told him as Jaime retracted his armor so his entire head was free of the armor.
“You haven’t been here that long,” Jaime told him, very obviously scooting closer to Bart. Bart leaned over into Jaime.
“So? You still took your sweet time,” Bart told him, petulantly sticking out his tongue at Jaime. Jaime waited for him to retract his tongue before leaning over and kissing him, this one a little bit more forceful and lengthy than the one earlier. Even though it wasn’t the first time Jaime had kissed him Bart still finds himself freaking out. His heart flutters and he does his best to return the kiss but Jaime makes it a little hard for Bart to think.
When Jaime pulls away Bart is breathing hard, even though the kiss hadn’t lasted that long. Bart looks back at Jaime a little starstruck and laughs awkwardly.
“Did I do something funny, cariño?” Jaime asked, a smirk on his face telling Bart he wasn’t annoyed with him. Bart’s heart skittered at the pet name and he wondered how Jaime hadn’t given him a heart attack yet.
“No, I just- haha, uh, sometimes I just don’t quite understand why you’re kissing me,” Bart said, “I mean, let’s be honest, you could do better.”
“Are you trying to talk me out of dating you?” Jaime asked, raising an eyebrow, before continuing, “Bart, you’re great. Better than great, even. I am so unbelievably happy that you asked me out, because I don’t know if I could have ever made myself.”
“Made yourself?”
“Gathered the courage,” Jaime corrected himself, “You should know that you amaze me all the time. And I really like kissing you.”
“I kiss like a fish.”
“A very coordinated and handsome fish,” Jaime told him, leaning forward and pressing his forehead against Bart’s. His breath caught in his throat for a moment before he managed to laugh. Bart risked pressing a kiss to Jaime’s mouth again before ducking his head down and leaning against Jaime’s shoulder.
“You know, I have to get up early tomorrow. I should probably be getting to bed,” Jaime told him, and Bart felt the vibrations as he said it.
“You’re so lame,” Bart told him against his shoulder, though Jaime must have heard him, because he laughed.
“I’m lame?” Jaime asked.
“Uhuh,” Bart murmurred. Jaime let him stay there for a moment.
“I really do need to go to bed, though.”
“Don’t go,” Bart said, looking up at Jaime again.
“You wanna sit in my room and work on your homework? You can go back to your room when you want to sleep,” Jaime offered.
“You mean I couldn’t just climb into bed with you?” Bart asked with a smirk. Jaime started to blush.
“Well, I mean. I wouldn’t wanna wake you when I got up in the morning,” Jaime told him.
“Too late. I already wake up every time your damn alarm goes off,” Bart responded. Jaime had the grace to look guilty.
“Oh yeah, that’s right,” he said, staring off into space, “well, I guess you could if-”
“Ah, Jaime, don’t feel like you have to just because I mentioned it,” Bart told him, “I was kinda joking.”
“Only kinda?”
“Yeah,” Bart said bashfully. Jaime looked back at him for a moment.
“You can if you want,” Jaime told him eventually.
“Really?”
“If you want to,” Jaime responded. Bart stood up.
“Well, you have to sleep, and I have an essay to write, so maybe we should go,” Bart told him, giving him a hand up. Jaime smiled down at him before being led insistently down to their rooms, where Bart quickly grabbed his stuff and went over to Jaime’s room. He sat and worked on his essay at Jaime’s desk while Jaime slept near him.
…
Much later that night, after Jaime had been sleeping for a while and Bart had finally finished the essay, Bart found himself wondering if he should actually get into bed with Jaime, or if he should just go back to his room. He stood next to Jaime’s bed for a couple minutes before finally deciding to slip underneath the covers with Jaime. Bart tried his best not to wake him, though he did shift a little once he was in the bed.
Bart hadn’t been laying there for very long before he felt Jaime’s arm drape over top of his stomach, and Bart knew he was blushing when he realized that they were spooning. He heard Jaime make a grumbling noise against the back of his neck and nearly melted into a puddle. He might find it hard to sleep when he was too focused on Jaime.
Whatever he did, he knew that he’d be woken up bright and early by that damn clock.