Chapter Text
SUNDAY
Their apartment was pretty nice, but not too nice for a couple of college kids. Not being Tim or Gar, both millionaires in the public eye, Jaime and Bart had to maintain some kind of cover. It wasn’t like they were swimming in cash, anyway. Gar did give them really great Christmas presents every year, which was how they wound up with a TV that Jaime postulated was visible from space. (It wasn’t; they verified from the Watchtower.)
Apartment 307 was up three flights of outdoor stairs—so fun in the summer—in a smaller complex a couple miles from Rice, but just far enough from campus to avoid being a party-pad kind of place. The exterior was the same taupe stucco of every apartment built in Texas since the early 2000s. The interior matched it in the form of textured paint and cheap carpet.
At 7:30 on Sunday morning, Jaime was gathering up all the towels, single socks, t-shirts, and underwear that sprang up like mushrooms in the corners of their bedroom, bathroom, and under the bed every week. He’d already stripped the sheets off the bed and dumped them in front of the laundry closet off the kitchen. Their combined hoodies thrown over the back and arms of the couch, he didn’t bother with.
He popped his head out past the laundry closet doors; the slatted kind for ventilation, made of hollow whitewashed wood. “Seriously, I know I say this every weekend, but we need to figure out where we’re gonna live. My residency’s over in a few months. You know you’re gonna get offers right after your internship,” he stressed. Again.
Bart shrugged like he always did. Like the question was unimportant, and the answer obvious. Jaime wanted to ball up a sock and throw it at him.
“Central City.”
“Okay, but why? Barry’s on top of it, and you can run anywhere you want in….” He sighed at his own mistake.
Bart, who had already passed by the laundry closet on his way to the fridge, backed up a few steps in order to smirk at him. “Say it.”
Jaime rolled his eyes, long-suffering. “In a flash.”
Bart leaned in to peck him on the cheek—“That's my boyfriend”—and then continued on his way.
“We should at least move closer to a zeta entrance. And I needed to start looking for a job yesterday ,” Jaime reminded him.
“We kind-of have part-time jobs already,” Bart called back, accompanied by the sucking sound of the fridge door opening.
Jaime could feel his brows knit. “No, I have a very risky side gig. Besides, half the people we know have day jobs and alternate identities.”
He pulled the liquid laundry detergent off the top of the stacked washer/dryer. As was their habit, he depressed the button and eyeballed the amount, not bothering with the little cup they’d lost again and didn’t care about anyway. Water set to hot, lid closed, he backed out and shut the closet door. “And after 11 years of no sleep and constant stress, you better believe—”
Bart had already stepped away from the counter where he’d (gently) placed their egg carton and (haphazardly) tossed his morning protein bar so he could frame Jaime's face in his hands. “You’re right. Hey, we can move wherever you want. All I care about is that you’re happy.”
If it were anyone but Bart, Jaime would have suspected a ploy to stop his mini-tirade.
Bart moved around him to pull a spatula out of the dishwasher. “And hey, maybe we could get a house or townhouse or something, and maybe one of those dogs that does agility courses? Or one of those big fluffy cats with huge paws? Or both? I think I’d like a parrot, actually.” Predictably, his eyes widened. “Wait, you don't have allergies, right? HowcanInotknowthis?”
Jaime reached over to take his free hand and reign him in early. “No allergies. Milagro brought home all sorts of strays when we were kids.”
Bart exhaled with relief. “Then I stand by what I said, amigo. The world is your cloister.”
“Oyster.”
“Oyster,” Bart echoed. “Wow, that makes so much more sense now.”
“How do you know you're not allergic to animals?” Jaime asked.
“Gar,” Bart answered simply, tearing open the wrapper of his protein bar. “And Dox. I know that’s only two data points but it's a start. Plus I’ve been around cats before at Cassie’s place.”
“I don’t think Gar counts, but I’ll let you collect more data,” Jaime said, shaking his head fondly before positioning himself unignorably in Bart’s direct line of sight. “But first things first, we have to at least narrow down where we want to live.”
Bart considered it, hip leaned against the counter. “Are you still thinking Southwest?”
Satisfied, Jaime got out the butter. “West or Southwest, yeah.”
“Of the U.S.,” Bart verified. “Oh, right, you can’t practice in other countries.”
“Most of our family and friends are here anyway.” Jaime tossed a knife’s curl of butter into the skillet and flipped on the element. “No word from Lockheed?” He asked, even though the question was most likely redundant. Bart would have said something the second he found out.
“Not yet.” Bart frowned at the box of eggs still on the counter. It wasn’t like him to look at food that way, even uncooked. “Vic’s gonna talk me up to someone at Boston Dynamics, but that would mean, y’know, staying local to make it seem realistic. Waltham is a long way from Houston or El Paso.”
Jaime bit the inside of his bottom lip for a second. “An internship there would be, what, three months?”
“Normally, yeah, but Vic said given my background and being done with my masters, they’d probably want to keep me longer. More like six,” Bart said, somewhat glumly. He’d started rapidly flipping the egg carton’s lid open and closed in response to the conversation and his usual energy. Like so many other things he did, it caused a slight localized breeze.
Jaime’s heart sunk, too, but he didn’t want to let on. “We could make it work,” he said, tugging the carton out of Bart’s grasp and plucking six eggs from it. With three in each hand, he turned to the skillet on the stove. “If Vic comes through and it looks good, you should do it.”
Bart shrugged one shoulder. “I guess I could get a place out there and not stay there much. Commute in the morning.”
Commute. Right. “Well, Boston does have a zeta for me,” Jaime pointed out.
Bart still looked downcast. “I don’t know, the idea of keeping separate places again just feels weird. Even if it’s just for show.”
Yeah, it did—enough that it caused a twinge in Jaime’s chest. “Well, if your internship goes well—”
“If I even get it—” Bart interjected, notably more practical than usual.
“If you get it and you like it, there’s nothing to stop us from moving to Massachusetts. Other than it being freezing and the insane cost of living.” Jaime finished cracking the eggs and tossed the shells into the trash.
“What about how far it is from your family?”
He wiped his eggy hands on the damp towel Bart held out to him. “We’ll deal with that if it comes up. From what you’ve told me and the YouTube videos, Boston Dynamics seems like a really cool place, and even if it takes some work, I’m sure I could find a short-term rotation out there.” He set the towel on the counter, hesitating before adding, “Maybe a long-term thing, if you—if we like it.”
Bart stretched his arms out across the counter, parallel to the cabinets in order to accommodate his long limbs. He bent to rest his forehead on them. “This is so moded.”
That was a twist. “Why aren’t you being optimistic? I rely on you to be optimistic,” Jaime intoned.
“Adulting, Jaime. But you’re right,” Bart sighed and stood up straight. “This is nothing. It’s great. We’ll make it work. We’ve got it easy compared to most people, most couples.”
“In most ways, yeah. ...I wouldn’t mind not getting shot at—”
“Lasered.”
“— Shot at once a month. I’m not arguing semantics for the second time this week.” He turned off the stove and grabbed two plates from the dishwasher, handing one to Bart.
Monthly was only a minor exaggeration, and only because Jaime was last on the roster. Everyone knew not to call him up unless it was truly dire, because he’d be sleep deprived and just maybe pissed enough to let Khaji Da have his way. (Jaime refused to let the scarab cheat on his exams, though.)
Their spatula handle had partially melted when it fell through the dishwasher racks onto the heating element, but it held up just fine under Jaime’s average-human scoop of eggs. As usual, Bart tipped the skillet upside-down to scrape the rest onto his plate, burnt bits and all.
For once, they had a reason to sit down at the little wooden table in the kitchen, almost exclusively used when they had guests over.
“I know we’ve talked about it before—more than once—but be honest with me. Right now, do you want to give it up?” Bart asked, his voice softer than his intense gaze.
Jaime speared a chunk of rubbery egg with his fork and pushed it around a bit. Finally, he sighed. “I still don’t know. I feel guilty even thinking about it.”
“Don’t,” Bart replied quickly. “C’mon Jaime, don’t feel guilty.”
It wasn’t quite a repeat of the last time they talked about it, but it wasn’t that far off.
“Khaji Da wants to keep going. You all chose to keep going,” Jaime said, still looking at his plate.
Bart sighed. “KD aside—’cause I know you have to decide together,” he directed his words half at Jaime and half at the scarab. “Just because some of us are sticking with the hero gig doesn’t mean you have to. Besides, do you think I want—” He glanced away for a moment. “I don’t exactly love the potential for you to get hurt.”
Jaime finally leveled his own Look at his boyfriend.
Bart’s eyeroll was almost too fast for Jaime to catch, but you didn’t live with (and love) a guy for nearly three years without picking up on his cues. Even if he was a speedster. Not that he’d ever tell Bart, because Jaime’s last few ‘surprise’ birthday parties had gone considerably better thanks to finding out in advance.
“Okay, you feel the same way, that’s fair. All I’m saying is, you get to decide, and you know everyone will support you, no matter what.” Bart inclined his head. “Plus, it’s not like you can’t change your mind later.”
The wooden chair creaked as Jaime leaned back to consider things; they needed to tighten the screws again. Bart spider-crawled his fingers across the table. “You gonna finish that?”
Jaime nudged his plate the rest of the way toward him, feeling a familiar little smile bloom. “So...when do you think you’ll hear back from Vic?”
“Hopefully in the next week,” Bart answered, using both their forks as a makeshift shovel. It wouldn’t take him more than a bite or two; Jaime had eaten some of his own breakfast, after all.
Jaime regarded him, still leaning back. “...You really want a dog? Hard to have a dog in an apartment near Boston. Rent’s nuts there already.”
Bart ignored the direct question, scraping his own chair back to take both their plates to the sink. “We could live pretty far out.”
He turned to give Jaime a long, pointed look as he began unloading the dishwasher. The remaining clean dishes clinked while he stowed them in the cabinets at almost standard speed. The whole thing was clearly a demonstration for Jaime, who only nagged Bart about like one or two things, thank you very much. The dishwasher was one.
The silverware basket rattled as Bart tugged it free from the tines. “Oh, and Gar’s got this cool brush he uses to get fur off the furniture whenever Perdita’s family is coming over, because I guess her cousin is allergic, and even if it’s just Gar and not a real cat, I think it’s a psychosomatic thing, so—.”
“You actually do, don’t you?” Jaime interrupted him fondly. “You’re not scared of them anymore.”
“Hey,” said Bart, briefly pointing a clean fork at him. “I was never scared , just appropriately cautious. They bite.”
Bart had gotten over a lot of the things he didn’t talk about—things Jaime had picked up on or inferred over the years. Most of them, he didn’t pry into. Roving packs of feral dogs, he could guess at. People in collars and wild dogs without them .
It’d taken Jaime a year or two to stop retreating when his lingering feelings of unease and guilt swelled—when he imagined the future Bart didn’t talk about. He might finally be able to accept that it wasn’t his fault, but nobody liked thinking about their loved ones hurting.
“Hey, what do you want to do with your unexpected day off?” Bart asked brightly, triumphantly slamming the dishwasher door shut.
Jaime just opened it again a moment later to slide the dirty plates from the sink into the bottom rack. To do otherwise would be to risk Bart just rinsing them off and calling it good. “Park? Movies? I guess we should work out at some point,” he replied.
“Leg day!” Bart exclaimed with his fists in the air. As if he’d ever had to do a leg day in his entire life. He didn’t even know what the retro phrase meant; he just liked to say it. “You know if we work out, we’re just gonna get called up anyway. Lizard guys, or something. They’re always more active in the spring.”
Jaime thought for a moment, looking out at the beautiful late-April day through the little kitchen window. The park, the movies, that was all boring town stuff. They had the whole day together. “What would you say to heading out to Mustang Island and doing the cheesy beach picnic thing?”
“Well now,” Bart said from just behind him. When Jaime turned, Bart’s left eyebrow was raised, and the glass-bottle green of his eyes was clearer and brighter in the morning sun. “I do like cheesy.”
Jaime knew.