***BARRY***
I'm actually surprised Kara asked me to sleep with her tonight. I mean, I came prepared. I usually do. But still, I didn't really expect her to make that proposal. Although I'm glad she did, because I wouldn't have wanted to make it myself. I think she's the kind of woman who wants to be in control, who wants to make as many big relationship decisions as possible.
That's the kind of woman I'd always run to, not from.
Tonight, I find myself using my speed to sneak into Kara's room before Conner or Alex can catch me. Yes, you read that correctly. "Sneaking." I know we're both responsible adults, but the both of us being first-timers, I can't help but feel like a teenager. Hell, it really does remind me of when I was a teenager. In senior year, my first girlfriend and I, we came very close to swiping each other's V-cards. But then her parents came home, and I spent almost an hour hiding under her bed because I was so scared of what would happen if I'd gotten caught. I ended up breaking my curfew that night, and so Joe caught me anyway.
Yeah, what Lauren Williams saw in me, even for that month or so, I still have no idea. I remember after I came home to find Joe waiting for me, I told him that I was going to break up with her because I felt there was something wrong and I couldn't put my finger on it.
"Let me ask you something," he'd said. "Does she look at you like you're the only guy in the world?"
I shrugged. "I...I don't know. I don't even think I know what that looks like."
"Then this girl's not right for you, Bar." He smiled ruefully. "Truth hurts, I know."
"Not that much," I said, and it was true. I didn't feel such a powerful pang of heartbreak then. "Honestly, I think her type is more jock than nerd."
"But she must've seen something in you," Joe said. "See, you're not so hopeless with the ladies after all. And hey, when a girl gives you that look I talked about...trust me, you'll know it when you see it."
When Kara comes into her room and drops onto the bed next to me, she holds my face in both hands and gives me what can only be described as "that look." She gazes into my eyes, and hers are watering just a bit. Not to mention fluttering. I'm not kidding. Though to be fair, I think mine are too. Fluttering, that is. And watering for sure.
This isn't the first time I've spent the night in her bed. This isn't the first time we've kissed each other to sleep. This isn't the first time we've fallen asleep in each other's arms.
But this is the first time we've seen each other in fewer threads than what we'd wear on the street.
I think Kara's nervous, but if so, she does a damn good job of pretending otherwise, projecting an aura of confidence I'm not so sure I can match. She gets my hoodie and shirt off and pins me down to the mattress, kissing me slowly and teasingly while she reaches for the iPod dock by her bed and turns the magic on with her favorite song, "Adventure Of A Lifetime." The tips of her hair touch my shoulders, and she runs her fingers in warm trails over my chest and sides. I'm aching to lose myself in her...and I'm literally vibrating with excitement.
Oh no. Bad Barry. This is no time to speed through life, not when you're about to make sweet love to the sweetest woman you've ever known. Savor every moment, boy!
(I don't know why, but I hear all that in Cisco's voice.)
I clench my fists, then relax. Rinse and repeat for about half a minute, then I stop vibrating. Still, though, my entire body is taut, wound up tighter than a guitar string. When I hook my fingers under the neckline of her shirt and pull it over her head, I feel her skin and sense that same tightness in her. She's running hot, dying for me to join with her. I'm surprised she doesn't light my jeans on fire when she tugs them off my legs - hell, she barely even thinks to unbuckle my belt first.
"You ready for this?" I ask, reaching for the back pocket of my jeans, pulling out my wallet and extracting a goldenrod wrapper from within it.
Her hands journey lower. I feel the heat in her fingertips through my boxers. "Yes," she whispers. She closes her eyes, no doubt imagining where we'll be going in the next few minutes. "I want this. I...I want you."
I sit up, wrapping both my arms around her and laying another slow, deep kiss on her mouth. I then break away from her long enough to say, "I want you too, Kara." That's when I turn the tables and lay her on her back. I leave a string of kisses all down her torso, even giving her a couple of hickeys on her flat, goosebump-covered stomach, each one roughly in the shape of a butterfly. Thanks to her healing, they vanish almost instantly, but not quickly enough that I can't get them memorized.
Okay. No more teasing. I'm going to light her up like a Christmas tree.
Five minutes later, we're wrapped in a sweaty embrace, still kissing even after we're both spent. It's hard to believe our day began on such a down note, but we ended it as happily as two young lovers possibly could. Someone has to prove there's still joy in the world, and both of us, we're always game for that.
The last thing I say before drifting off to sleep at last is a sentence in Spanish, of which Kara's been teaching me bits and pieces she remembers from high school. "Eres un ángel."
The last thing I hear is her response of "Y tú" as her fingers trace the scratches she left on my back. Right near my shoulder blades. I bet they really do look like wings now, even if they're healing up super-hella-fast. For once, I wish they wouldn't...although when I feel Kara's hands rove over me one last time, she hits raised sections that interrupt my otherwise mostly-smooth skin.
Her alarm clock rings at five o'clock, startling us both. Our limbs tangle together as we both scramble to shut it off, and I fall to the floor with Kara on top of me. In the dark, I hear her laugh, and she bites my ear, making me twitch and cringe even though I actually like the way it feels.
I get to my feet, looking around for my clothes in the dark. Shirt, jeans, hoodie...but where the heck are my boxers? It's only when Kara turns the lights on that I find them - the red plaid cotton peeking out from under her bedsheets.
We both get dressed at record speed. Before I leave the room, she grabs my hand and spins me around so she can hug and kiss me. "Beginner's luck?" she asks.
"Only the best for you, Girl of Steel."
She leans back with a nervous laugh, still holding me close. "I-I thought I was gonna break your..." She looks down, her face growing almost as red as her cape.
"You thought that too?"
"Oh my God, really?"
I shake my head. "No, I was afraid I'd hurt you, actually."
She jabs two fingers into my stomach. "Not every girl's first time hurts, you know!"
"I know, I know..." I half-heartedly attempt to ward off her hands, and she redoubles her efforts, launching a salvo of tickles against my abs. If she ever uses this tactic against her enemies, they'd probably all get defeated in under five seconds. Unless Kryptonians aren't as ticklish as humans? Except actually, they are. I find out by pulling up her shirt and and blowing raspberries over her stomach, and next thing you know, we're both howling with laughter.
Until Alex knocks on the door and says, "Guys, you want coffee? Or maybe not - sounds like you're awake."
With that, we jump to our feet, and Kara sends me outside while she makes the bed. As soon as I'm out the door, Alex fixes me with an icy stare, but quickly warms up and says, "It's okay, Barry. I trust you with Kara. Until you break up with her; then you'll have to face my wrath as much as hers."
Kara pokes her head out the door. "And the last guy to face her wrath lost a foot. They had to cut it off 'cause she rammed it so firmly up his ass."
"Wait, his foot?" I ask.
Alex winks. "Who else's foot would I have used?"
I follow Alex to the kitchen, where Conner sits at the table with a plate of toast and jam and a cup of coffee. He's listening to an iPod, and he's changed out of the threads he arrived in. Alex, I believe, liberated some clothes from the DEO's lost and found, and gave them to him to wear until we can give him a nicer, well-stocked wardrobe. He's got his hood up, and even under the hoodie's black cotton, he's shivering. So am I, come to think of it. Even this far south, the early morning hours are cold as hell.
"Where'd you get the iPod?" I ask, raising my voice so he can hear me.
He starts, then looks up briefly before returning his attention to his food. "It's Alex's. She lent it to me." He pauses the song he's listening to - I recognize the album art on the screen as Talking Heads - and he adds, "Do you want this back, Alex?"
"No, it's okay," she says. "Hold on to it as long as you want. You look addicted to it already anyway."
Conner breathes a sigh of relief. "You're right," he says. "Music's the only way I keep my brain functioning when there's no sun."
"Especially good music, right?" Before the display can go dark, I see that he's listening to "Girlfriend Is Better." Maybe that should have been the song Kara and I played last night? "Are you gonna take that with you when we travel?" I ask.
"No." Conner waits for the song to finish before removing the earbuds and setting the iPod aside. "Alex is right - I'm addicted to it. When Lex Luthor had me, music was always my primary reward. As much as I wanna pump up the volume all the time..." He looks longingly at the iPod's shiny green surface. "I can't risk letting it turn into a crutch."
"But for now," Alex says, "if you need to withdraw from the world..."
"Yeah," Conner says wryly. "Like last night."
Kara and I exchange embarrassed glances. "You, uh..." I force myself to speak through the frog in my throat. "What are you talking about?"
"Don't play dumb," Conner laughs. "I know you two slept together last night. I heard some things every time a song faded out on this thing," he says, gesturing to the iPod.
"Uh..." Kara's eyes flick over to her sister. "Uh, at least Alex didn't hear things, right?"
"Wrong." Alex winks. "Don't worry, I've already given Barry his ultimatum."
"Yes, she has," I say, lowering my face so nobody can see me blushing. "Kara, your sister scares the living crap out of me."
"Just showing the love for both of you," Alex says. She comes up behind both me and Kara and gives us nearly identical headlocks and kisses in turn.
Soon, we take off flying, heading east away from National City. As much as I love to run, Kara's flight is faster, and I don't get to experience it all that often. She's carried me through the air a few times, but this is only the second time we're flying such a long distance, cross-country from the West Coast to the East Coast.
Even better, we're flying east in the morning, so we get to fly into the sunrise, just like when she took me flying to Gotham. Speaking of Gotham, I have to wonder if I'll have time to look up Dick Grayson and/or Olivia Miralo. But Batman's been super busy lately, and his squad's also had their hands full, so Grayson and Olivia have been out of contact for quite a while. So I put the thought out of my mind and instead savor the long moments of this just-barely-subsonic flight. Last night, Kara had been in my arms, but now I'm in hers, feeling just as safe and secure. Hell, even more so.
After three and a half hours of flight (roughly, according to my watch), we land in an alley in Metropolis. It's not the cleanest part of town, but it's not nearly as dingy as any similar place in Gotham would be. We emerge pretty quickly and find ourselves blending into a crowd of people as best we can. Wednesday workers walking through...the business district, I think? This is my first visit to Metropolis, so I'm not 100% sure. Even Conner's a little confused, because the layout of the Metropolis he came from doesn't quite match this one. But Kara, who's been here once or twice before, has a good idea of where to go from here.
"We gotta get to the Del Fuoco Arcade," she says, looking up at the skyscrapers towering above us - especially the Daily Planet, which looms largest of all about four blocks west of our current position. "Uh...this way." She turns away from the Planet and leads the way through the crowd, most of which appears to be heading east anyway. For those who aren't, though, they tend to look at us strangely, like we're intruders. Then again, we're all dressed in casual teenage-looking threads. One of us is an actual teenager, and I'm often mistaken for one because of my perpetual baby face. Still, I can't help but feel that every time someone gives me or Conner or even Kara a dirty look, they're one of those subconscious projections Leo DiCaprio warned us all about in Inception.
In which case...who's dreaming this dream?
I admit, I expect the Del Fuoco Arcade to be a house full of vintage video game boxes like Pac-Man or Donkey Kong or Wreck-It Ralph. But no, this establishment uses the other, less well-known meaning of the word "arcade." It's a pretty sprawling entertainment complex, including a shopping mall, hotel, and movie theater.
"We agreed on this place," Kara says as we step through the shiny doors at the front of this glass-walled modern monstrosity (which I mean in the nicest of ways, of course), "because it's one of the few public places in town that isn't owned by LuthorCorp."
"Good," Conner says. His eyes are drawn to a musician playing an acoustic version of some nineties rock hit - that one and only Oasis song that everyone knows, I believe - but he quickly tears his attention away and skips to catch up to us. "Anyplace where Luthor's involved, I'm gonna be chomping at the bit to get the hell away."
Our destination within the Arcade itself is the movie theater, where we buy ourselves three tickets for Mockingjay, Part 1 - the 12:15 show, not twenty minutes away - just so we can have an excuse to wait in the lobby. By now, Conner's waited long enough to fuel up again, so we head up to the food court and get ourselves some ice cream. There's only one person waiting ahead of us, a tall, beautiful brunette who orders a strawberry cone in a voice laced with a honeyed Mediterranean accent of some kind. Israeli, maybe?
I can't help but keep watching the woman, especially after I notice she's watching us as well. Sure enough, not two seconds after we take our seats with our ice cream cups overflowing with double scoops (espresso chip for me, cookie dough for Kara, peanut butter for Conner), she walks up to our table, places the cone down, and takes an unused chair from the next table over so she can sit with us.
"This," she says after a couple more licks of her ice cream, "is the best thing about this country by far. Sure, it's technically really bad for you...but not as bad as, say, cigarettes. They don't have food nearly as good as this where I come from."
"Where do you come from?" I ask.
"And who are you?" Conner asks, his voice sharp.
The woman twitches at his flash of rudeness, but she lets it slide. "My name is Diana," she says. "I'm a close confidante of Clark's...oh, and speak of the Devil." She looks over Conner's shoulder. Following her gaze, Kara and I see Clark himself coming up the top of the steps leading into the lobby from the box office. At the same time, a plane flies over the glass cube over the stairs - I hadn't realized just how close this place was to Metropolis International Airport.
"Was I supposed to get a ticket for Mockingjay or Big Hero 6?" Clark asks as Diana stands up and kisses him on the lips. "Mmm," he says. "You and your ice cream kisses."
"You can never resist, can you?" Diana asks.
I crack a smile at Kara, wondering if we'll ever be this downright adorable together.
As for Conner, he looks terrified at first. But then he stands up as well and holds out his hand. "See?" Clark says to Diana. "I'm not so scary, am I?"
"It, uh..." Conner scratches his head with his other hand. "Well, you're not the same guy they told me to fear."
Clark shakes Conner's hand. "Don't tell me - this other me was all devil-horned, red-eyed, and evil-grinned with a big hook nose?"
Conner laughs nervously. "No, he looked a lot like you...except not. Like, your hair is more curly, for one thing."
"So the other me probably looks more like Bruce Campbell, then," Clark laughs.
"But you guys have the same glasses," Conner says.
Clark hooks one finger around his thick black horn-rims and pulls them off so he can clean them with a napkin - and now I think about it, when did he have time to grab one? "You know," he says as he puts them back on again, "I think I'm starting to need these babies for real." He then gives Kara a serious Superhug before rounding on me at last. "So," he says, crushing my hand, "you're Kara's boyfriend?"
"Uh...yeah. Barry Allen. AKA The Flash."
"I've heard nothing but the best about you," Clark says, his blue eyes glinting mischievously behind his glasses. "You don't disappoint...Flash."