On Flight
by Lucy Gillam 

"No."

"Aw, come on."

"I'd really rather not."

Dick flashed the faintly wicked smile Clark had come to associate with these ... meetings. "It's not like I haven't done it before, you know."

Clark raised an eyebrow. "Kory?"

"No, J'onn J'onzz." Dick rolled his eyes. "Of course Kory. Contrary to popular opinion, I haven't slept with every member of the superhero community. Now, back to the subject at hand: why not?"

"Why is it so important to you?" Clark deflected.

"I wouldn't say it's important. I just think having a ..." He frowned, and Clark could see him struggling for a word that defined their situation. "That sleeping with someone who can defy the laws of gravity ought to have a side benefit or two. It would be fun, that's all. And stop avoiding the question: why not?"

"It's complicated."

Oh, that was a mistake. Dick dropped gracefully from the back of the couch into a normal seated position. Well, as normal as he ever sat. "I'm listening."

Clark wondered sometimes if Dick knew just how much he looked like Bruce when he did that there's-a-puzzle-here-and-it-can-be solved thing. On second thought, thinking of Bruce right now might not be a good thing.

"You're not going to let this go, are you?"

"Not a chance."

Clark sighed. "I told you once that flying took some getting used to. That was a bit of an understatement." He pondered for a moment how to put this. Dick knew about as much of his life story as anyone – probably more than Clark would sometimes like to acknowledge – but what he knew were facts, no doubt first read on a computer in the Batcave, written in Batman's emotionless prose. "The truth is, I didn't deal with it very well when I first developed the ability."

Dick nodded, as if he understood perfectly. Which he probably did. Or at least, he was willing to accept Clark's assertion. There was a reason this...situation was so easy, despite all the reasons it shouldn't be.

"I'd only know what I was, or rather, what I wasn't, namely, human, for a little over a year, and I hadn't even begun to think about what that meant. It seemed every time I turned around, there was some new reminder of just how much I wasn't like the people around me. And then suddenly there was this new thing that really made that clear."

Dick nodded again. "Okay," he said slowly. "I get that. But you seem to have come to grips with it now. I mean, for as long as I've known you, you've seemed perfectly comfortable with flying. Stiff maybe," he added with a grin, "but comfortable. What's the hang-up?"

Clark reached across the sofa and gently shoved Dick's head. "Not all of us feel the need to contort ourselves into six impossible positions just to cross a room. But to answer your question, I suppose that, well, " he gestured vaguely to the space between them, "this, or, you know, this sort of thing..."

"You mean sex," Dick supplied.

"Yes, all right, sex, is something I could be, well, almost normal at. I mean, yes," he added wryly, "x-ray vision has its uses to the horny 16-year-old, but one does grow out of that eventually."

"I don't know; I could see that being a hard habit to break. Then again, I spent most of my late adolescence in Titans' Tower," Dick said, and then fell silent. The wheels were very obviously turning again, and Clark braced himself for the questions that were sure to follow. Questions, arguments, suggestions that he try desensitizing himself through repeated exposure...

"So," Dick finally said, "sex while flying is out. And I suppose that thing with the heat vision wouldn't have worked anyway. Still..."

Clark suddenly found his lap filled and his mouth engulfed and someday he would figure out how the boy moved that fast with no superpowers, but in the meantime, he wasn't complaining.

"So," Dick said as he broke the kiss, "what was that you were saying about six impossible positions?"