When Dick saunters in for the night, he nearly kicks over a paint bucket. Muttering an ungraceful fuck under his breath, he fondles the air for the light switch and finds a hand at his wrist—
“Hey, Dick Grayson! Dick Nightwing Grayson! DeeGee!”
The hand brushes Dick’s wrist for only a moment before the owner flees. Lights turn on after that, and Dick twitches. His room is barren of all the furniture (which explains why he scrambled through the dark without bumping into anything) and his floor is covered in tarp.
Dick is four steps away from a puddle of green-and-orange paint goop, which is moving around dangerously like slime.
On one wall is a perfect rendering of the Mona Lisa—in neon colors. Against another is a mural dedicated to his face—ranging from a Bruce Wayne-esque grin to Robin, Boy Wonder in cat ears. His infiltrator keeps speeding around the room, paint showering from a brush in hand and staining the tarp in an ugly array of colors.
“Bart,” Dick starts.
Bart stops immediately. He grins up to Dick, Kid Flash uniform caked with red around his thighs (Dick hums) and purple tapering down his chest. Bart pushes his goggles up above his face, revealing the only strip of tan skin that hasn’t been tainted by the storm of colors in the room.
“What are you doing?” A tired smile etches against the corner of Dick’s lips and he toes around the paint puddle to meet his boyfriend.
“Remodeling!” Bart reports, and Dick may just be tired, but Bart looks like he’s spitting out paint when he talks. “Surprise! Isn’t it crash?”
“It’s a big change of scenery,” Dick notes. He scans the room again and finds tiny little flowers have been painted on his window. How on earth did he miss that?
“Do you like it?” Bart asks with a tone of voice that mirrors when he’s at the peak of his impulsiveness. Home brims at the very core of his question, and Dick can’t ignore it.
He thumbs Bart’s face, smearing a blotch of blue that happened to drip on Bart’s cheek. It flattens beneath the pad of his finger, bright as ever, and Dick quickly molds his hands to the rest of Bart’s jawline. He looks down to green eyes beneath his opaque lenses, and watches Bart’s enthusiastic façade drop for only a moment. “I love it.”
Bart keens before they even kiss, and he rolls to the tips of his feet to stand at eye level with Dick. (Because even at 20 and 25, Bart is short. All lean muscle with a personality that just makes him even younger.) He slaps his arms over Dick’s shoulders, and paint gushes as it meets Dick’s Kevlar, and Dick knows that’s going to be hard to wash out in the morning, but kissing Bart is definitely worth it.
Bits of paint somehow get into Dick’s mouth, but he ignores it in favor of nibbling Bart’s lips. He feels fingers pinching his Kevlar-colored skin, hears Bart whining, and wraps his arms around Bart’s waist so he can prop Bart up and higher into their kiss.
“Bed,” Bart breathes out, and he’s dangling in Dick’s grip. “Bedbedbed—”
“You got rid of it,” Dick points out. He points to the rainbow void known as his room and reaches for the zipper at the back of Bart’s uniform.
“Oh.” Bart frowns. “I’m fine doing it here.”
“I’m not,” Dick says, but his cold hand is now touching the warm bare skin of Bart’s back and Bart gasps and Dick feels the need to buck against him. “I’m tired.”
Bart pouts. Which is the worst argument ever. He proceeds to yank at the zipper on the side of Dick’s uniform, and Dick only rolls his eyes.
“We’ll get dirty,” Dick points out.
“I’m already dirty.” Bart sighs this time and tosses his head back.
“Bart,” Dick chides.
“Dick,” Bart mimics, and wow, when did he learn to do that? God, that’s hot.
They stare at each other for a while (which is more like a relative five seconds for Bart and even longer for Dick) when a drop of purple paint drips from the ceiling and lands on Bart’s face.
Bart uncharacteristically yelps, and the blotch completely coats his hair. He stretches out of Dick’s grip and falls to the ground with a THUD.
Dick laughs.
(Later that night, they’re too tired to put Dick’s bed back in its place. They have to take six showers before all the paint is officially cleansed off their skin.)
