Work Text:
Accelerated Aviation Affection
It wasn't the heated argument that brought a half-dressed Robin out of his room to referee - an average of three point seven such verbal fights happened per day at Titans Tower, and very few of them actually needed any kind of interference to be resolved (unless one of Kory's plants or Vic's techno-bits were in jeopardy) - but the oddness of the words being yelled. "Speed's better!" Bart declared. "No, flying!" Kon contended, hovering a few inches off the floor (whether on purpose, or just from a lack of concentration due to anger, Tobin couldn't tell). Bart gritted his teeth and spat out, "Speed!" before spinning around and causing a mini-tornado that knocked Kon out of the air and onto his butt. Looking more pissed off than the time Supergirl had beaten him - not once, not twice, but four times - in an arm-wrestling match, Kon floated higher and said, "Flying!" "Speed!" "Flying!" "Speed-speed-speed-speed-speed!" Bart shouted vehemently, slowly (for him) stamping one foot repeatedly in an exaggerated show of petulance. "No matter how fast you go, you'll still never get off the ground, Bart," Kon said meanly, floating over Bart. Bart giggled as Kon's head impacted with the light fixture. "Supers may fly, but speedsters don't get sucked into jet engines," he replied triumphantly. "Yeah, but I've never accidentally run into, oh, say, a giant redwood because I wasn't paying attention to my surroundings," Kon shot back, ruffling his hair back into place. "Trees don't grow that tall here on Earth." Bart growled, and opened his mouth preparatory to launching some scathing bit of vitriol, when Tim stepped in. "Guys, what's going on?" Tim asked, plastering on Bemused Expression #6: 'No, really, I don't know what's going on.' It was almost too innocent to be believed - coming from him anyway - but hopefully his two friends were too angry to take notice. Kon and Bart swung around to face Tim, abashed. "Er..." Kon mumbled, seemingly at a loss for words. "Umm..." Bart agreed, toeing the carpet absently with one booted foot. After listening to the two of them hem and haw for a few moments, Tim's legendary fortitude started to frazzle. "Yes...?" he said with pointed encouragement, tapping his foot with not-entirely-feigned impatience. "We were just...um..." Kon started, then looked helplessly at Bart. "...having a bit of a spirited debate?" Bart offered, giving Tim a rueful grin. Tim crossed his arms over his chest and gave the two of them his best Bat-glare, eyes narrowing visibly behind his mask as the white-out lenses were down. "Debate over what?" he asked testily. For all that they were two of the fastest teens in the known world, Kon and Bart were certainly slow at spitting the situation out. At least, when it most probably involved them getting into trouble. Kon scrubbed a hand back over his buzzcut and sent a sheepish smile Tim's way. "We were, ah, sort of arguing over..." Halfway through his proposed sentence, he once again flailed for the finish. "...whose-powers-you-like-better," Bart ended in a rush, flushing dark enough to match his Kid Flash costume. Tim blinked. "Whose powers I like better?" he asked, bemused. What possible reason could they have for fighting over his opinion of their respective powers? ...Oh. That. For some reason, when he'd considered all the possible and probable pitfalls that could plague their little threesome, jealousy of each other had been rather far down on the list; somewhere between, 'Dick will tease me mercilessly when he finds out,' and, 'Batman will be unbearably smug if Superman and Flash have a coronary over this,' with the former being rather more likely to occur, and also less amusing, since Dick never knew when to let a joke die. "You don't honestly think that I love you just because of your powers, do you?" Tim asked, not even bothering to script his reply. He'd found that, when having heart-to-heart talks, it was best to actually talk from the heart, not from whatever his head had deemed the most logical response. "Well, no..." Kon waffled. "Not exactly..." Bart said. "It's just that-" they said not quite in unison. Tim interrupted them both, glaring them into submission to his will. "Do. You?" he demanded through gritted teeth. "No?" they both asked in answer. Now Tim was honestly worried. And ticked off. "The two of you cannot possibly believe that I chose to enter into a relationship with two of the most lovable yet annoying, kind yet frustrating people I know, simply because I like the fact that one of you is a living vibrator-" here Bart smirked in triumph at Kon, who scowled, "-and the other has a very interesting take on the Mile High Club?" "Well, I kinda thought you had a thing for my TTK, too..." Kon said with a smirk, silencing at Tim's glare. Tim shook his head, smiling ruefully as he walked forward to envelop them both in a hug. "You're both idiots, but I love you anyway," he mumbled into their combined hair. "Love you, too, Rob," Kon mumbled, the heat of his blush seeping through the thin cloth of Tim's undershirt. "Love both of you," Bart added, snuggling even deeper into their tangled embrace. They were also both normal insecure teenagers, just like he was, despite all the evidence to the contrary. And he loved them for that, for being the two most normal, wonderful people in whole abnormal life.