Title: Homemade Volcanoes Fandom: DCU (Teen Titans v1) Summary: How Robin and Speedy completely failed to win first prize at the Des Moines, Iowa Science Fair. Pairing: Dick/Roy Rating: I always feel silly calling teenage hijinks-smut Adult. Author's Note: Thanks to Betty for audiencing and to Ny for a quick beta. For Kayim in JBBS 2005. The call for the Teen Titans couldn't have gone out at a more inconvenient time. Donna's doing some Amazon thing with Wonder Woman for the weekend and the Flash is sick, which means that Wally's home taking care of his city by himself, plus it's a national holiday in Atlantis, so there's no way Garth can make it. That means that Robin gets to the rendezvous point -- in Iowa, of all places -- at the same time as Speedy, and they kind of look at each other. "Hey," Speedy says, "didn't we used to have, like, superheroes on the team?" He's kind of afraid that Robin will take it the wrong way, but it's cool. Robin laughs and punches him in the shoulder. "Sure, but they're all busy. So it's just us heroes, I guess." Heroes. Something like that, yeah. "Against -- what was the call?" "A big slime monster that dissolves cars. Attacking parking lots in Des Moines." "Parking lots?" Speedy rubs his hand across his face. "I'm not sure I have an arrow for a slime monster." Robin nods. "Maybe we need a big saltshaker arrow, or, um, baking soda grenades, if it's an acid monster." "Wait, no," Speedy says, trying to think of the chemistry he knows, "because what if it's a caustic monster?" "Then the problem, at base, would be --" "Oh, ow." Speedy glowers at him. "So we need vinegar or something." Robin nods. "We should bring both." "Where do we get baking soda and vinegar in huge quantities?" "Um --" Robin taps his fingers on his armor. "Maybe a restaurant supply place." He looks around. "There's a phone booth." He takes off. "Great!" Speedy follows him, and it should be weirder to be running down a street in Iowa following a kid in a bright yellow cape, but life's like that. "Gonna change clothes and come out as Superman?" "I wish," Robin says, and he flips through the phonebook at top speed. "Restaurant -- supply -- got it. We'd better call ahead." He opens a pocket of his utility belt and pulls out a dime. Speedy shakes his head. "Man, I gotta join your home-team, Robin-o. I have to bring my own petty cash half the time." "Shhhh," Robin says, and then, "Hello? Oh, good, I got the right number. This is Robin, of the Teen Titans. We're here to help with the slime monster. Can you deliver, um -- all the baking soda and vinegar you have to the affected area, now, and charge it to us? Ha! In separate cars, yes. Please -- thank you very, very much." Robin hangs up. "They said about ten minutes. We have to get there." Speedy nods, and then he thinks of something super cool. "Hey -- if you get to make the phonecall, can I fly the jet?" "Okay, okay." Robin tosses him the keys. "Here." "Neato!" On the way back to the jet, Speedy says, "So what's the plan?" Because sure, he could probably think of something, but it's Robin, so -- "Well, first we'll try the baking soda, because it might help, and if that doesn't work -- well, then the vinegar." Speedy wrinkles his nose. "I hope the baking soda works, because otherwise this town is going to stink to high heaven." Robin swings into the co-pilot's seat and fishes in his utility belt again. "Here -- noseplug." "It has a bat on it," Speedy says, but he puts it on. It pinches, but it doesn't hurt. He kind of wishes he had more Arrow toys, or at least better designed ones. "I feel like I should be talking like Ollie's friends, all snooty and stuff." "I know," Robin says. "All 'Daaahling, so glaaaad you could be heah,' and they're not even English. Just from Boston." "So the baking soda -- we should -- shake the box really hard?" Robin thinks a few seconds. "We can drop the crates out of the jet." "But that's a really small hit, maybe. How big is the -- oh god." The slime monster is bright orange and it's covering about half a parking lot. Robin whistles. "I wish Aqualad were here. He might be able to dilute it." "I wish Kid Flash were here," Speedy says. "He could get it all swept up." "But it's us." Robin puts his hand out, and Speedy gives him a high five. "We can do this." It would be lame to admit that he's kind of freaked out over a monster that thought it was a good idea to eat Buicks in Des Moines, so he doesn't. "Right. We can do this. Let's get the baking soda and go really, really high, and I'll shoot the box on the way down so it disperses a lot." "Great. Park the jet here." Speedy's landing isn't perfect, which is totally not his fault -- they should let him practice more often, and he'd be okay. The restaurant supply guys are wearing little chef hats, which makes him feel a little less conspicuous about the whole hero get-up. Not that it matters right now, because many brave Iowans are losing their cars to the Creeping Crud, and nobody's critiquing his outfit. They load up the jet with a whole lot of baking soda and a couple fifty-five gallon drums of vinegar, and it whines a little doing the VTOL thing this time, but it still goes up and up and up some more. "Okay, put on the autopilot," Robin says when the slime monster is way, way down there. Speedy sets it and they both run to the cargo area. "Okay, I'll push out the first crate of baking soda on three, and you shoot it -- um -- about three hundred yards up." "Three hundred yards." Speedy can feel the scared-part coming on, along with the excited part. "Right. I -- right." He nocks an arrow. Robin sets his shoulder against the crate. "One -- two -- three!" The crate plummets like a very, very heavy thing, and Speedy watches it, trying to get a fix. He shoots -- The crate goes into bits as soon as he shoots it, and it's snowing baking soda all over the parking lot. The slime monster is all white and fluffy, like it's Christmas in a movie filmed in southern California, but it's moving onto a Cadillac now. "Oh, man," Robin says. "I need your help rolling the vinegar, okay?" Speedy nods and helps him tip the stubborn thing over. "Same height?" "Yeah." Robin's all flushed from shoving the baking soda around, and it makes Speedy think how weird it is that Wonder Chick is the real muscle on the team, not red-blooded American boys like them -- but they can make the barrel roll, and Robin can push it by himself now that it's on its side. It falls faster than the baking soda, and Speedy has a hell of a time getting the arrow into it before it's too low. It's spinning in the air, and -- there -- The first gouts of vinegar hit the monster and there's this really high-pitched screaming noise. Then the barrel hits and bursts. The noise it makes is FWOOOOOMPH. There is foam all over Everything In The World. Or at least all over the parking lot, and all the storefronts, and it's a good thing the jet's pretty high, because it seems like it should come all the way up to them. "Um," Robin says, peering out the cargo hatch. "Is it gone?" "This was your plan," Speedy says, shading his eyes and looking as hard as he can. "I have no idea." "Well -- maybe we need more vinegar." "Okay. Maybe." They wrestle the other drum of vinegar down. He manages to shoot this one higher up, and the vinegar goes even farther, and there's another huge KAFWOOOOOM. More foam. Foam everywhere. There should be a use for all the foam. Then there's a siren, and the fire department shows up at the edge of the bubble cloud. They wade through some of the foam and find a fire hydrant. "Boy, did we make a mess," Speedy says, watching the firemen clean up. "Yeah," Robin says. "I made one of those volcanoes once and it got on the incredibly expensive Persian carpet." "Oh, man." "Alfred was pretty mad. I mean -- well, he kind of twitched his eyebrow." Speedy shakes his head. "I bet the mayor is gonna do more than eyebrow-twitch at us for this one." "Maybe," Robin says, "but I don't see the slime monster anymore." The foam is clearing -- and they're probably using all the water in Iowa to do it, and, yeah, no keys to the city this time, but there's no slime either. "You know what?" Speedy says, watching the drifts of bubbles float out of the parking lot and down Main Street. "I think we should just go home." "Yeah." Robin pulls the cargo hatch shut. "Rest on our laurels." "We can call the mayor -- later." "Next week." Speedy nods. "After all the foam is gone." "Maybe next month, then," Robin says. "But not right now." Speedy starts for the cockpit again. "No." Robin is right behind him. "We could go home and make a baking soda volcano." Speedy snickers. "Haven't you had enough messy explosions for the day?" "Your hands were shaking when you fired the first shot." Speedy turns around and stares him down. Sometimes it's the best thing in the known universe to be taller than Robin. He at least wins that battle, even if he loses at everything else, including being cool. It stinks to be less cool than a guy wearing pixie boots. "I still made the shot," Speedy says, and he can look down his nose at Robin if he tilts his head back enough. "Yeah. You were so -- so focused." Robin is staring at him. Staring -- at his mouth. One of those days. "I -- um -- oh --" Speedy's not winning this one. Not at all, unless you count being pinned against the wall of a jet and kissed hard as winning. It's really weird how much Robin doesn't smell like sweat until Speedy remembers the noseplug and pulls it off. Then everything smells like vinegar and like sweat, and Robin's laughing and kissing him again. "You sure you're done with explosions for the day?" "Not yet." Speedy pushes Robin's trunks down and groans when Robin fights his tights down, too. "Oh -- god you feel good." Robin tosses his glove aside and wraps his hand around both of them. Speedy feels his eyes roll back in his head at the feeling -- his dick, his fingers, everything's just so hot and his hands are shaking, again. Robin kisses him again and says, "God, touch me -- oh --" Robin's hands are shaking, and Speedy is winning this one -- especially because he's thrusting into their hands and against Robin, and the adrenaline from earlier is just making him pant harder, but he's not the only one, and Robin's as red as his uniform. "That's -- right there --" Speedy says, and he really, really doesn't want to live up to his codename, because that's not how you win this game, but Robin's thumb right behind the head of his dick makes him shout and shudder. His muscles are buzzing like he got baking soda and vinegar in his blood and they're mixing now. He comes hard, trying not to make any more noise than he has to, because making noise means not hearing Robin. "You feel so good," Robin says, and Speedy has to kiss him before he says anything else, anything more than an incoherent moan while he tightens his hand and jerks himself another couple of times and comes all over Speedy's shirt. "Oh, man," Speedy says, and they let each other go fast. "I guess it's our day to make a big old mess, huh?" Robin's blushing and not quite meeting his eyes. "I guess." Robin looks at his hand ruefully and wipes it on his tunic, which is way sticky anyhow. "Good thing I've got a spare uniform in the hold." "You've got what?" Speedy stares at him. "That is so not fair." Robin shrugs. "They get ripped all the time. You know." "Yeah, but --" Speedy rolls his eyes. "I have to mend mine, most of the time, and I don't want to come to a Titans thing looking all hand-me-down." "I've got a set of civvies, too," Robin offers. Speedy laughs. "They're so not going to fit. You're all -- skinny." Robin sticks his tongue out at Speedy. "I'm wiry, you jerk." "Right, but -- just -- and I'm taller than you." Robin snickers. "By what, a quarter inch?" "Way more than that!" "Fine, you can't borrow my pants then." Speedy sniffs. "Like I'd want to anyway." Robin kisses his cheek, too fast to dodge. Well. Probably it would have been, if Speedy had bothered to try. Robin offers, "You can borrow my varsity jacket, too." Speedy grabs him in a headlock. "Take that back so we can get home." "Aw, come on!" Robin trips him and they roll around on the floor until they end up kissing again. "I want your class ring." "Oh." Speedy laughs. "You gonna put it on a necklace?" "Maybe. It might even fit me." Speedy takes his hand and laces their fingers together while he pretends to be gauging the size of Robin's fingers. "Maybe." "Only one way to find out." Speedy kisses him. "I'll bring it next time. If you bring your jacket." Robin grins. "You're on. But we'd better get home." "Yeah, we'd better."
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