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“Stop being a fucking incompetent child!”
Well, Dick couldn’t say that this was the absolute rudest thing someone ever said to him, but then again it wasn’t the best either. He stared up the guy standing right in front of him, and because he was the little shit he was, he grinned, because he just loved when Midnighter was annoyed by him. Others had normal hobbies, but seriously.
Normality was so overrated.
“I am not,” he said simply, through his grin, and he was deeply satisfied when the other run one of his hands through his longer hair right in the middle of his otherwise shaved head.
“Look, it’s not like I want to do this, okay? I don’t want to do a chemistry project with a dumb idiot either,” Midnighter started but before he could’ve said anything else, Dick cut in.
“Excuse you, but despite the common belief, I am not a dumb fucker.”
“You aren’t.”
“No. If you want to know I am a straight B, when it comes to chemistry. I just want to do it with Wally, because then I don’t have to work that much,” he shrugged, and he could see on M’s face that he didn’t believe him. Well, okay. That might have hurt a bit for some unknown reason. It’s not like Dick wasn’t used to be seen as an idiot. He was flamboyant, and he didn’t give two shits about what was happening around him. He was fairly sure that he was the current recorder in getting detentions. But, that didn’t mean he had bad grades. He actually had pretty good ones.
But people were mostly interested in his face, and he didn’t do anything about enlightening them when it came to his brain, or grades, or interests, or like anything else really that didn’t have anything to do with his body or looks.
“Yeah, sure.”
“Look, you don’t have to believe it. I will still ask the teacher to put me with Wally after class, it isn’t fair that the two masterminds can work together anyway. Also, then you can be miserable with A for another couple of hours, and who am I to ruin your… thing?” he asked, smirking again.
“If you ask her, we will be written down as people who can’t work in teams and that looks really bad when you’re applying to college,” M pointed out.
“Ah,” Dick said folding his arms in front of his chest. “I’m still not sold. You hate my guts, and even though I do enjoy our little banters, I am in no way interested in listening your salty remarks about my brain capacity for two freaking weeks. I want to do it with Wally.”
“As I said: stop being a fucking child.”
“Ask nicer,” Dick said grinning like the idiot he was.
“Stop being a fucking child, please .”
“I’m flattered,” Dick sighed, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “But since you want it so badly , I guess we can work together.”
Midnighter rolled his eyes at Dick, because ninety percent of the times, this was the only reaction he could give in the other’s presence.
❂❂❂
Dick hated chemistry. Like, it was so boring, he honestly had no idea why Wally was so into it. He wasn’t interested in experiments, he didn’t care what would come out, if he combined two things together. He couldn’t care about colorful flames either. But, here they were doing an assignment with M, the only person in their year who hated his guts. Dick didn’t know why, though. He seemed to be okay with Wally, and his not-boyfriend, Apollo, was a sweetheart to everyone.
They agreed to meet at Dick’s place, because as M said, in the children’s home you just couldn’t focus on anything, because the kids wouldn’t leave them alone.
“This place is huge ,” Midnighter said, when Dick let him in and led M to the library.
“Yeah, it was hard to get used to it,” he shrugged, but didn’t elaborate, and Midnighter didn’t press on the matter.
“Are you alone?”
“My brother is out with his friends, Bruce is working, and our butler-”
“I don’t know which one is more shocking: that you have a brother, or that you have a butler,” M cut in and Dick grinned.
“You know my brother, tho,” he said. “ Everyone knows him. He’s a sophomore, real hot stuff, with these eyes, and white in his hair…”
“Your brother is Jason Todd ?”
Dick opened his arms as a sign of disbelief.
“How can you hate me so much, when you don’t know shit about me?” he asked, but didn’t expect an answer, so he just waved to a chair, and M could sit down. They didn’t talk much after that, but focused on their assignment, and that was okay, it was less awkward than Dick expected it to be. Especially, when Midnighter closed his notes and looked at him.
“You are not that horrible,” he said with knitted brows, like that fact somehow hurt him.
“Nah, I just tried not to be a fucking incompetent child,” Dick said with a shit-eating grin. M rolled his eyes.
“You know what, just forget that I’ve said anything at all,” Midnighter snorted.
“Too late, I’ll cherish your words FOR EVER,” Dick said, and laughed at the face the other boy showed. For some reason, Dick wanted M’s attention. For some reason, he wanted to be liked, or maybe even loved by the other one.
It was a foreign feeling; one he couldn’t quite understand. He almost never felt like that around guys, and rarely around girls. Not this intense anyway. Was he attracted to M? He didn’t even want to think about it. It was already weird as it was on his side, and it took all his power to hide it away.
M was like chemistry: you combine things together, and you get beautiful, colorful flames.
Flames that burnt your skin and insides mercilessly.
Oh, how Dick hated chemistry.