His Speedster

Speedsters and Their Food

(this whole idea came from some other fanfiction i read on archive, but i don't remember what the fic was so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯)

The mission had finished without too many bumps along the way. They met at Mount Justice together just for recon before Nightwing dismissed everyone. All of the non-residents had left within thirty minutes except for Blue Beetle. He had a question. Nervously, he walked up to Nightwing.

"Hey, Nightwing? You busy?"

Nightwing looked up from his digital clipboard. "No, not at the moment. What's up?"

"Can I talk to you for a sec? It's kinda weird, so you don't have to if you don't want-"

"I'm all ears." He set down the clipboard and turned to give him his full attention.

"You were pretty close with Kid Flash, right?" Jaime asked.

"Yeah. He was my best friend."

"Did..." Jaime ran his hand through his hair and exhaled nervously. "Did he ever, like, feed you?"

"Feed me?"

"You know, like leaving snacks around for you. Or insisting on paying for food. Or just bringing extra food. You know what I mean?"

"Yeah, yeah. I get it. That's funny you say that, actually. Wally was just like that. He always left granola bars in my robin pockets," Nightwing said with a fond smile.

Jaime felt himself relax, seeing Nightwing react positively. "At first I thought it was a future thing, but he always goes on about 'scavenger rights' and all, so it doesn't make any sense."

Nightwing raised his eyebrows and smiled like he knew something. "Yeah, it's a speedster thing, I think. I talked to Iris about it once, and apparently Barry is the same way."

"So he just-" Jaime started, not sure where he was going with that. Actually, he knew where he was going, he just didn't want to say it out loud.

"It's just their way of showing they care, Blue. Food and energy is really important for speedsters, so I think they just want to make sure the ones that they care about always have food too."

"Oh." He was relieved. "That makes sense. That's very nice of him."

They were both quiet for a moment. Jaime could tell that Nightwing wanted to say something, but it took him a moment to get it out. "Y'know, Jaime, speedsters seem to be very specific about who they choose to share with. Especially Impulse because like you said, his 'scavenger rights' are so important. You must mean a lot to him."

Jaime looked into the whites of his masks, wishing he could see Nightwing's eyes. He wanted to hope that Nightwing was suggesting that maybe Bart liked him in a non-platonic way, but he also knew that it would have been silly of him to assume that he was worth that much. "Bart's a handful sometimes," he said with a chuckle that was mostly just built up stress.

Nightwing laughed, and it made Jaime relax a little bit. "Oh, I'm sure. Kid Flash was spastic enough for me. I can only imagine that Impulse is even worse."

"Well, thanks for letting me ask about it. I know it's weird, I just figured that you would know best."

"It's not a problem at all. You've brought back some very fond memories."

Jaime nodded with a small smile. "See you tomorrow, man."

"You too."