Taking a Shine

By Weirdness Magnet

August 31, 2006

Universe: Teen Titans/Sandman crossover

Summary: Delirium wants to give Bart an extra-special present.

Rating: 13+ for references to self-gratification.

Continuity: Takes place during issues 1-7 of the latest Teen Titans run and contains spoilers for those issues.

Disclaimers: All of it belongs to DC, including the dialogue from TT #1-7 that I've quoted directly.

**

Bart doesn’t mind field trips. He still has to pretend to pay attention, but at least there's interesting stuff to look at.

There's way too much time having to listen to a tour guide drone on and on about the context of the symbols on the mummies' sarcophagi and less time actually getting to walk around and just *look* at them. Still, it’s better than sitting in class watching the clock tick and tick and tick, and there’s less of the incredibly painful sitting still. He notices the pair of girls whispering secrets and the other boys either talking about last week’s football game or making lewd suggestions about the naked Grecian statues. They make Bart feel vaguely superior and he mentally pats himself on the back for exerting self-control.

And it’s *hard* to resist touching the art, especially the sculptures in the modern section, which are all brightly colored amorphous shapes. The larger ones just beg to be climbed.

He wanders away from the Gallery of Ancients and deeper in among the moderns, drifting away from his classmates. He doesn’t exactly get abstract art, but he thinks that might be kind of the point. Like those ink blot things doctors use to tell if you’re crazy, only Bart secretly thinks there *are* right answers to those, and if you guess wrong you get locked up in a psych ward.

He stares at a canvas with a red swath of paint dividing two larger sections of yellow and wonders what they do to you if you guess wrong about what an abstract paining represents.

He’s alone in the section, his classmates herded into the part of the museum containing ancient paintings of America’s founding fathers. Okay, not "ancient" but definitely old, and two hundred years is eternity in subjective time. But in this deserted gallery of contemporary works, he can freely zip from sculpture to painting to big block of concrete passing for artistic expression. His feet blur lightly over the hardwood floor as he circles under a huge, primary-colored mobile hanging from the ceiling, creating a breeze so it turns.

The giggle behind him shocks him into halting with a minor screech and he looks back at the blackened scuff his sneakers left on the light maple floors.

"Damn," he mutters.

The girl doesn’t seem to notice him or the scuff mark he made. She’s smiling up at the mobile twirling above them.

Bart doesn’t recognize her, but he gets an odd feeling like he’s seen her someplace before. She’s not part of his class and dressed way too strangely to go to any school he'd be allowed to attend, wearing a tattered mesh top and battered cutoffs with brightly-colored patches sewn on. Heavy boots cover striped stockings dusty with dirt. A cable-knit cardigan sweater that’s about two sizes too large droops off one bony shoulder. Her hair is a rainbow of colors, mostly bright orange that is too strange to be anything but natural. She looks like a club kid who’s seen too many late nights and not enough of a shower.

She’s still familiar, somehow.

Another giggle and she claps her hands and looks brightly at him. "Do it again."

"Huh?"

She points at the mobile. "It’s slowing down. Make it spin like before."

"Um," Bart shuffles his feet. This is exactly why Wally told him to never use his powers out of uniform.

She spreads her arms wide and twirls around and around, faster and faster, before tripping over her own feet and landing on her butt. Hopeful eyes blink up at him. "I can’t go fast like you. Please?"

He shouldn’t. He *knows* he shouldn’t and his teacher and his class is somewhere not far enough away and he should have thought of that before now. But her whole face is pleading and he’s supposed to be a hero.

"You won’t tell anyone?"

She lays a finger over her smile.

He zips around beneath the mobile, stirring the air until the collection of wires and shapes twirls at a steady, gentle pace. She stares at it, wide eyes and wide mouth and her sweater nearly covers her fingertips as she claps.

He’s never seen anyone look so *delighted*.

Bart looks up at the shapes spinning. "They look kind of like birds."

"Or butterflies," she says. "All red and gold and blue. Or maybe typewriters. Or a bus made out of a dog. I get them confused. I like butterflies. Sometimes I become butterflies and I can't remember where my feet are because there are so *many* of them."

Bart blinks at her. She just grins at him but her eyes look unfocused, like she’s seeing him and the art and things that aren’t there. It dawns on him that she’s probably high.

Great. A whole art museum and he’s found a homeless high person. He should have stayed with the tour. On the plus side, no one will believe her if she blabs about his powers.

"Are you okay?" he asks tentatively.

"Hm? Me? Yes. Almost always, I think. It’s hard to remember sometimes." She cocks her head and jumps to her feet. The painting that has grabbed her attention is a mishmash of purples and dark greens. She points at it and looks at Bart. "What do you see?"

"I don’t know. Kinda looks like flowers, maybe." A field with purple flowers, sort of. That blob in the corner looks like either a gazelle or a Volkswagen. "I don’t really get modern art," he admits.

She nods a little, turns her head this way and that as if a different angle would make sense of the abstract image. "I once had a garden filled with flowers that grew only on dark thoughts," she says, turning around and bending over and looking at the picture upside-down through her legs. "But they need constant attention, and I have other things to do." She points through her legs. "What's that one?"

He follows her finger to a huge block of polished stone with holes carved through it. "That? Is concrete Swiss cheese." He laughs. "Really, I have no idea what that one's supposed to be. It's titled... True Love's First Kiss?"

The girl shakes her head, still upside down. "That's a lump of whatever's most difficult for you to carry, and you'll carry it with you everywhere you go until you decide that's exactly what you want to do most and then it won't weigh a thing anymore."

Bart finds himself studying at her instead of the statue. She’s got to be high or schizophrenic or some other mental illness Bart doesn’t really understand but he’s heard about on TV. At the same time, she's so... "innocent" isn't the right word, but it's the first one that comes to mind. She twists her head and looks up at him from between her legs. "Do you like frogs?"

"Um. Sure?"

She rights herself and opens her palm. In the middle of it sits a bright red frog with blue markings on its back. It makes a trilling sound and hops off her hand and onto the concrete block.

"Cool. How'd you do that?" Bart says as he watches the frog.

It trills as it bounces from one chiseled opening to another. Then there’s a second trill, and another, and Bart watches several more frogs appear in the statue’s holes. Bart takes a few steps back and watches the little creatures hop all over the statue, singing and chirping to each other. He takes in the effect. It reminds him of a skyscraper that's been blunted and worn after the apocalypse, and the frogs are nature reasserting itself and singing a victory tune.

"It looks better like that," Bart says. "Gives it color."

"That's not what you were thinking," she says idly.

A frog hops off the statue and heads for the door to the next gallery. Bart zips over and scoops it up, holding it between cupped hands. "Not so fast, you." The frog lets out a muffle chirrup between his hands.

The girl laughs again. "What?" he asks, turning around.

Only the frogs are gone. He opens his hands and finds them empty.

"Hey, how’d you *do* that? I've met magicians, but they never showed me how to do anything like that one."

She twirls a strand of purple hair and doesn't answer. "I like your eyes," she says instead.

"Really? Um, I kinda like yours. I’ve never met anyone with one blue eye and one green eye before."

She smiles and presses her hand against her cheek. She closes her eyes and she looks sweet and innocent and that’s somehow *wrong* when matched with her rainbow hair and vagabond clothes.

"You’re nice. I want. I want to give you something. You swung the swingy thing around and you liked my frogs and *nobody* likes my frogs. What would you like?"

"I don’t... you don’t have to give me anything."

"I want to. Hmm. Want. Want want want want. That’s a funny word. ‘Vitreous humor’ is a funny word too. But maybe that’s two words. Or five. I don’t know. You should want things. My sister-brother says so."

"Your who? Never mind. I don’t really want anything."

"I bet my sister-brother could think of something you’d like. Maybe I should ask."

"Ask who, what?" a voice from behind him asks.

Bart turns and sees the poster child for Hot Topic stroll into the gallery. The girl has black hair and black clothes and a shiny ankh, but unlike most Goth kids he's seen, she's smiling cheerfully. She playfully swings an old-fashioned umbrella that has a hook for a handle, like he's seen English people carry in old movies. Bart feels like he's seen her somewhere before, too, but can't place her. She looks kind of like an artist. Maybe she is one, Bart thinks, and she's working out a deal to display her work.

"Um..." The Club Girl, as Bart has dubbed her in his head, chews on her sleeve. "Thinking. Of something. I was going to do something... important. I think. Was I?"

"You were going to ask your sister or brother to think of something I'd like," Bart blurts, then immediately curses himself. He isn't *supposed* to be reminding the crazy girl of her brilliant ideas.

Impulse. Yeah.

"But I don't want anything," he says quickly. "I'm good. Really."

"He *remembers* things." Club Girl squeals delightedly and leans up against him. "I feel like you're mine. Or you were mine, but now you aren't. Only you haven't been mine yet. You were someplace that doesn't exist and now you aren't, only where you weren't hasn't happened yet. But it will. I just hope I remember to find you when it does."

"I dare you to make less sense," Bart says.

Club Girl sighs. "I forget a lot. I should find someone to remember things for me. Maybe then I could remember secrets so I can keep them."

"You have Barnabas." Goth Girl taps the corner of a painting to straighten it. "And we should be getting you home to him. I'm done here, anyway."

"Oh. Okay." Club Girl gives Bart a sad look. Bart opens his mouth to ask Goth Girl if she needs any help getting Club Girl home, because she's obviously nuts and definitely a handful if she magically produces frogs, but then there's this *scream* from somewhere in the Egyptian display.

He turns at the sound as one scream becomes several. He remembers to run at human speed into the main gallery to find his classmates circled around a security guard sprawled on the floor and his teacher performing CPR.

Bart moves next to a kid named Michael whom he doesn't know anything about aside from he plays the flute and gets his ass kicked a lot during gym. "What happened?"

"Dude," Michael tells him. "I think he's *dead*."

**

"I don’t know," Desire says. "He’s doesn’t seem all that impressive."

Bart is in his room sitting at his desk. He’s supposed to be doing his homework, but like most teenaged boys, he’s masturbating instead.

Desire invented wanking, and although this boy is enthusiastic and endowed enough to one day please his partners, It doesn’t see anything special enough about this boy to warrant Delirium’s attention.

Desire watches Bart bite his lip to silence the moan It feels bubbling inside him. His head falls back as his strokes get longer, more ragged. Delirium stands behind his chair, peering at his upside-down face.

"He looks like our brother."

"Destruction? This boy is much too scrawny."

"He smiles like Death. And he has eyes like yours. Maybe he’s family."

"Doubt it. I know all our children." Desire lights a cigarette. "Why did you bring me here, little sister?" It tries not be impatient with Delirium -- she is what she is -- but she does grow tiresome, even to an Endless.

"He doesn't want anything," Delirium whines. "I wanted to give him a present and he didn't want anything."

Desire watches Bart grab a tissue from the box on his desk and wipe the come off his fingers. He zips up quickly, twirls a pencil in his hand while speed-flipping through a history book and writes several paragraphs so quickly his pencil leaves a small trail of smoke.

"What about making him think that all women look like supermodels?" Desire says. "That's a fun one. That Gwyneth Paltrow was good in the movie."

"I want him to have a present that he *wants*."

Desire exhales a puff of smoke the boy can neither see nor smell. It looks narrowly at Delirium. "You want to give him... want?"

"Yes. Maybe. I don't know. Can't you tell me what he wants? You'd know."

Desire chuffs out a breath. "His heart is very simple. He wants friends, food, sex, a respite from boredom. He's such an average teenager I can't begin to tell you how boring he is."

"He's special."

"He's a metahuman, but that doesn’t make him special, sister." Desire watches Bart turn his head at the sound of voices talking downstairs. Once of the voices isn't quite yelling, and the edge to it piques Desire's curiosity.

It pique's Bart's as well, because he shuts his books and leaves the room.

"Come, sister," Desire says, putting out Its cigarette. "This might be interesting." Family drama has always been a weakness of Desire's.

One of the nice things about being an Endless is one never has to take the stairs. Desire takes up not-space in an armchair and Delirium sits on the living room floor and turns her arm into a glob of what could be Watergate salad. The men don't notice them.

Desire lights another cigarette and watches a man in a red-cowled costume with a lightning bolt across the chest trying to reason with an older man.

"I realize you started the Flash legacy, Jay," the man in red says. "Before me, before Bart. And I appreciate what Vic is trying to do, bring the new generation back together, but the Teen Titans are my history. I helped found them. And now one of our founders, one of my best friends, is gone."

"You don’t blame Bart," the one called Jay says. There's the barest hint of protectiveness that makes Desire lean forward slightly.

Delirium looks around the room. "They don't have a dog. Maybe they should have a dog. I like my dog. He tells me secrets and reminds me of important things."

"Dogs in this world don't talk, sister," Desire says absently, watching the men.

"Do too." Delirium jabs her shoe in the rug and pouts. "People just don't listen."

The costumed man shakes his head at Jay. "No, I don’t. But I don’t think he really understands what happened. He still sees life as a video game. When I was Kid Flash, I took it seriously. And now I’ve grown into the role as *the* Flash. Impulse never will."

Ah. *Flash*. Desire smiles to Itself. He looks different than It remembers.

Slight breeze that Desire doesn't feel but knows existed anyway, and Bart is there, moving towards the video game console. "What?" the boy asks. "I won’t ever what?"

"Finish your homework if you keep wandering down here," Jay admonishes.

"I thought I’d take an X-Box break."

The older man shakes his head while the Flash looks disapproving. "That’s *four* X-Box breaks today. How’s the paper going, anyway?"

"All right, I guess. Did you know King Tut was only nine when he inherited the throne from Akhenaten? Ruled until he was around seventeen. Bet it was cool to have a kid as king."

Flash looks at him agape. "How’d you *know* all that?"

Bart shrugs. "I finally read my history book yesterday. It only took a few seconds, but it seemed like hours. As usual."

"You read it at super-speed yesterday? And you still remember it?"

"I remember *everything* I read." Bart's mouth quirks in a way that reminds Desire of Its brother. "Don’t you?"

"He's smart," Desire mutters.

"He's very smart. I told you he was smart," Delirium says. "Maybe we could take him to see Lucien. He likes books, too."

"Quiet, sister."

"Come on now," Jay says. "Get upstairs and finish that paper."

"All right, all right." Bart disappears upstairs.

Jay turns to the Flash. "You hear that? He has so much potential. He can do what no other speedster can."

Wally turns away and tosses up a hand. "If you want to give him the invitation, fine. He can join the Teen Titans. I like Bart. He’s a good kid... but I don’t know how much I believe in him."

Desire knows the boy is sitting on the stair landing, eavesdropping out of sight. It had forgotten the way a speedster's yearning tastes, like lightning and hunger, sort of the way a ten-shot espresso feels first thing in the morning to a caffeine addict. Desire can taste his heart now, all frustration and loneliness and *need*, and oh yes, perhaps there's something to this one after all...

"All right, sister," Desire says finally. "I'll help you with your little project."

"Really?" Delirium looks too hopeful, and Desire fears she might have already forgotten what they've come here for. Delirium claps her hands and giggles. A small red rain cloud drops from between her hands and drizzles mice on her shoes. "It will be *wonderful*. We'll give him something special and he'll always remember us, won't he?"

"Yes, sister. We're going to give him something very special."

**

Alcatraz Prison is dark, the only light coming in from high-barred windows casting crisscross shadows on the floor. The wail of the fire truck sirens is muffled by the thick walls. The smoke slowly dissipates as the young superheroes evacuate the last of the tourists.

Desire peers down from a third-floor catwalk, leaning on the railing and smoking a cigarette. Delirium sits by Its feet, dangling her legs over the edge and peering through the railing. No one can see or hear them, Desire knows, but they keep to the shadows anyway. Desire likes shadows, and prisons are full of them.

Delirium creates a tiny six-headed yellow and chrome colored giraffe and makes it salsa dance on the tip of her unlaced boot. "What are we doing?"

"Waiting."

"Oh. For what?"

"To give Bart his present."

It exhales smoke as Bart -- Impulse, they call him, and Desire prefers that name --tears around a corner to a screeching halt. "Hello! Anyone here?" he calls.

Small 'pfft' sound, and Impulse stops moving. They watch a man in blue and gold step into view. He's carrying a large gun and points it at Impulse's knee.

"Um, Des -- "

"Sh."

They watch the man lean in close to Impulse, say something too quiet to hear, and fire.

His scream echoes through the building.

"Desire? Is this the present?"

Desire lights a fresh cigarette. "Wait for it."

**

Desire won’t come inside the trauma room with her, preferring to stand in the waiting room drinking tepid coffee and watching distraught people waiting for word on their various loved ones.

Delirium likes hospitals because there are always people to talk to, so many that sometimes he feels scattered like that one time she was sunshine and was so many places at once it was hard to pull herself together. Barnabas asked her not to be sunshine too often, or rain or mist or swarms of things because it was hard to gather her up. Barnabas told her once about chaos theory and what a butterfly's wings can do and how a lot of killer storms could probably be traced back to her, so she obeyed him when she could remember but not always because sometimes it was too hard not be a swarm of something. Still, Barnabas had taken a lot of the fun out of it.

"Just cut it again," the doctor says irritably.

"But doctor -- "

The doctor picks up something sharp and shiny. "No time for hesitation."

Delirium stands at the head of Bart's bed. The doctors and nurses can't see her but she can see them, and she can hear them and everyone in the whole hospital and Bart is in pain and trying not to scream and sort of succeeding and she can hear Goofing off. Don’t you do that enough, Impulse? Just don’t tell the Flash I messed up. Help out, Impulse. Bart’s a good kid--But I don’t know how much I believe in him.

Death isn't here. She knows that's a good thing, even though she'd like the company.

Delirium frowns. This isn't a very good present.

**

Being Endless means they can be everywhere in the Universe all at once and other places too. That does not, however, make it easier to keep up with a speedster on a mission.

They catch up to him just as he's beating the blue-and-gold man senseless, chattering all the while. "Isn’t this overkill? I mean, you’re using a nitro express cartridge with a velocity of two thousand F.P.S. and a striking energy of four tons. Totally wrong caliber to go hunting with." He moves too fast to see and only after he's disassembled the hunter's weapon do they realize what he's done. "I read it in a book."

"Impulse?" the one in green and red asks.

"No. Kid Flash!"

Desire and Delirium stand off to the side, watching Kid Flash punching the hunter while spewing facts about the man's California penal code violations, and Delirium scratches her head. "Is *this* the present?"

Desire produces a bag of popcorn from nowhere and munches, watching the fight. "Yes. You're not enjoying it?"

"He... wanted to read books? We could have taken him to Lucien for that. He's got books that haven't been written."

Desire sighs. "It wasn't about the books, sister. He moves with a purpose, now."

"He's mad at that man for shooting him."

"That's not the point."

Delirium watches him move in a blur of red and gold. It reminds her of something she can't remember. "It isn't?"

"No," Desire says. It watches him trying to be a hero, trying to be *good* at it, and closes Its eyes at the taste of his heart.

**

Robin and Kid Flash walk in the garden outside the Tower. The bright colors of Kid Flash's costume show clearly under the full moon. Robin is cloaked in his black cape, blending in with the night even as he walks beside his friend.

"You really think it’s best to follow their lead on tracking Raven?" Bart asks.

"I think so, Bart," Robin says. "But we’re going to have a talk about teamwork first. What’s with the new look? And the codename? 'Kid Flash.' You got shot, you... read a bunch of books. But that wouldn’t make me become Nightwing."

Bart nods. "And you aren’t going to be Batman either. It’s not what you want. But I’ve been ignoring the future, Tim. One of these years, who knows when, I will be the Flash. Like my grandfather was. And I’m sick of everyone treating me like I’m an impulsive idiot."

Robin looks grave. "Doing this... You’re going to be in the Flash’s shadow, you know."

Bart smiles. "You got it wrong, Robin. The Flash is going to be in *mine*."

"Male bonding is just so touching," Desire says through an exhale of smoke. Delirium stands next to It, watching them walk slowly towards the Tower. Desire fondles the petals of one of Kori's alien blossoms. "Do you understand now?"

Delirium twirls a green strand of her hair. "No."

"We gave him *direction*. He wants to be a true hero now. Not just powers and costumes, but the stuff of legend and movie licensing."

"We gave him... we gave him a dream, didn't we?" Delirium smiles and rubs her cheek, leaving a trail of colored ribbons and moths. "I didn't think to ask Dream for help. He'd have helped. He likes giving people dreams."

"You know how he hates dealing directly with humans. He hasn't done that since our bet over the Emperor of America." Desire pats Delirium's shoulder. "Better you came to me."

"He wants to be a hero," Delirium says absently. "He has a dream and he'll dream it all the time and never ever stop and he’ll work hard and make it real, won't he? He wants it so much to be real."

"More than anything in the world."

Delirium chews her lip. "This is... this is a good gift. Isn't it?"

Desire smiles through a cloud of smoke. "Oh, yes, little sister. This is very good gift."

Delirium giggles and turns into a swarm of butterflies fluttering in the moonlight, all red and gold and blue.

~end