browngirl

Because today is Bartday , and how could I not do something for Bart?

Title: A Theory of Tickling
Fandom: DC Comics
Characters: Tim, Bart (Robin, Impulse)
Rating: PG at the outside, but not quite G.
Based on: General YJ or maybe early Teen Titans.
Disclaimer: Not mine, I just love them.
Dedicated To:

glossing, with all love.

"Did you know---"

As Tim looks up from The Way We Live Now he braces for impact. Those words have been coming out of Bart's mouth more and more often lately.

"---you can't tickle yourself?" Bart has a white softcover book in one hand and one of Tim's gauntlets in the other, as if he's about to start juggling. "How come?"

Tim tosses his other gauntlet to Bart, who does start juggling in a cascade pattern. "It has to do with surprise, I think. Surprise, danger, and control."

"Surprise? How can you surprise yourself?" Bart switches to a box pattern, the book spinning back and forth between his hands, Tim's gauntlets sailing up and down. Tim's had more difficult weeks, but he is tired, and the effect is still mildly mesmerizing. "Unless maybe if you were hypnotized, or---"

"That's the point." Tim doesn't have to raise his voice over Bart's these days. "You can't."

"Not ever?" Bart adds the TV remote, crisscrossing it with the book. Each object can still be seen, but he's probably using his speed to toss the book and the remote simultaneously. "What if you were by yourself and wanted to be tickled?"

"Well..." Tim considers this, for no good reason. "There is one way to tickle yourself, with your tongue and your palate. It's the danger of choking."

"So tickling is dangerous, the fun kind of dangerous." Bart spins his juggling into a shower, the items making a white-black-green wheel in his hands. "But you can only do it to yourself with your tongue. Can you tickle someone else with your tongue?"

Tim blinks, and visualizes, and his homework falls to the floor. Bart's still talking, the things he's juggling a uniform whitish-green blur. "Can you tickle someone invulnerable? Hey, do you think Kon's ticklish?" Tim catches his gauntlets before he sees them; Bart's breeze ruffles his hair and the book on his lap, and there's shouting in the rec room.

Which is okay, really. Tim's still stuck on the image of tickling with tongues, and the shouting from the rec room really doesn't sound unhappy. He really is distractable today.

He doesn't have time to properly meditate, but Tim is just succeeding in calming his pulse when another gust of wind accompanies Bart back to his room. "You totally can!" he announces. "Tickle someone invulnerable. Even through TK if you go fast enough. But--"

Bart vanishes. Tim strikes in the most likely direction, but Bart's arms wind around his waist from his other side; his stealth is improving. "I still don't know if you can tickle someone through armor." Bart snickers in Tim's ear, fingers buzzing over Tim's ribs.

He really can feel Bart through his suit, vibrating, well, ticklishly, no matter what way he twists. "Don't try ih---" is as far as Tim gets before he loses it laughing, which has to be an all-time low. He's really not focused today, and at the moment, as Bart laughs and keeps up the tickle attack, Tim can't quite make himself mind.