Young Justice: Solstice

Nineteen

"So how was your date with Tim?" I asked, sitting on the floor of my room with my back against my bed. Cassie sat on top of the covers, twisting my hair into a braid.

"He is so cute!" She squealed. "He got vanilla ice cream in a cup with strawberries, and I got a strawberry cone with chocolate sauce, and we walked along Gotham's main Street with our ice cream, just talking, and when I got ice cream on my nose he wiped it off with his sleeve." She giggled, and I shook my head.

"Sounds like a blast," I told her. I meant it, but it must not have sounded that way, because Cassie dropped my hair and leaned forward so her head was upside-down above mine, looking me in the eye.

"Are you jealous?" She asked.

"What? No!" I insisted.

She smirked wickedly. "I've seen the way you look at Aqualad."

"Cassie, stop!" I moaned, grabbing a silk yellow throw pillow and shoving it into my face.

"Oh come on!" She threw another pillow at me. "You're just mad that I can finally tease you about liking a guy!"

"Am not!" I denied, now in a fit of giggles as I launched both pillows at her.

She blocked then similarly to moves she used with her silver cuffs. "Are you gonna let me braid your hair or not?" She asked, holding her hand out towards my mess of hair.

"Fine." I pretended to be reluctant, settling down in front of her again. We were both silent until she had finally finished.

"Do you like him though?" She asked, pulling her own hair back in a ponytail as we stood in front of the mirror, hanging above my desk and all my writing notebooks and pens.

"I guess," I told her. "He's super nice, and he pays attention to me..." I paused, frowning. "I really need to elevate my guy standards if that's my only criteria for them."

"Are you kidding?" Cassie squealed. "Kaldur is the standard for guys. At least that's what Tim told me when I told him he was the nicest guy I've ever met." She shrugged. "I guess I don't know AL well enough to judge."

"Wait, so Robin's name is Tim?" I asked.

Cassie's face went pale as she tried to apply her lip gloss. "Oops."

"It's okay, I won't tell anyone." I promised.

"So, uh...tell me about Kaldur then. What do you know about him?"

Cassie took out her ponytail, replacing it with a partial ponytail. "He's from Atlantis- well duh, you already know that- he was undercover for maybe a year with the Light- that's the bad guys we mostly fight, by the way.

"He's super polite and patient with us, even when we as a team make him put up with all our crap, and he mostly works here at the Watchtower. He doesn't really go home anymore. I don't know why."

"Does he have a room up here?" I asked.

Cassie shook her head, running the brush through her hair to make it shine. "I know Gar's got a room up here, and La'gaan's got a room up here, and so do Mal and Connor, but I don't think he's got one. I do know that Bart's found him passed out on the couch in the lounge like fifty times."

"Is he coming to the thing tonight?" I asked, before remembering the reply that he gave Batgirl just a couple days ago.

Mal and Karen were taking the team out for a night to relax: no missions, no training, no bad guys, just fast food and roller skating at the arcade in Happy Harbor, where the team used to be based.

"Why don't you ask him?" Cassie asked, capping her mascara. "He'd totally say yes to you. He turns, like, this unnatural shade of red whenever you enter the room and Superboy is worried that he's got a fever."

I laughed.

"Oh wait, you're... you're serious?" I asked, looking at her face in the mirror.

"Would I lie to you?" Cassie batted her eyes innocently.

"I don't know...you've got this pretty evil glint in your eyes..." I trailed off suspiciously.

"Come on!" She groaned impatiently. "What's the worst that could happen? He says no? Look, I told Tim that I liked him by kissing him."

"Wait, what?"

"Yeah, it was right after Kid Flash died, and so I was like "what the heck, life is short!" and so I kissed him." She admitted, her cheeks pinker than she intended her blush to be.

I exhaled to calm my rapidly beating heart, staring down myself in the mirror.

"Okay. I'll tell him."

"Yes!" Cassie hugged me tightly. "Meet you by the zeta-tubes!" She flew out my door and down the hall, leaving me to figure out what I'd just gotten myself into.

I checked the cafeteria, and found Lagoon Boy showing off his new glamor charm from Zatanna to Bart, Tim, and the guys. It let him look more like a normal human than a fish-man, so it wouldn't attract as much attention.

Jaime informed me that he's seen Aqualad take a cup of coffee to the lounge a minute ago, so that was the direction I headed, passing Artemis and Batgirl, who both asked me if I was ready for the "team night out." I insisted that I was, and hurried on to the lounge.

Kaldur was sitting on the couch, mug already half-finished, with a holographic computer screen floating in front of him similarly to the ones that were always popping up in the mission room a couple floors above us.

"What's up?" I asked, leaning against the lounge doorway facing him.

"Solstice! I mean- Kiran-!" He stood up quickly, the screen disappearing,and nearly spilling his cup of coffee.

I grabbed it for him before setting it down on one of the nearby coffee tables, intended for such purposes.

"How many of those do have?" I asked, looking him up and down. I'd just now realized that I had never seen him in anything but the wetsuit with the red shirt, black pants, and black accents. Sometimes, like now, he took off the backpack with his water-bearers, but he always kept it close by, as I noted it resting on the other end of the couch.

"I-I have several," He admitted. Cassie was right. His face was brighter than a ripe tomato.

"Are you doing anything tonight?" I asked, looking around the otherwise abandoned lounge. "You shouldn't have any mission reports to file or anything, I know that no one's been on a mission today."

He sighed, and I knew I'd caught him. "No, I did not have plans for tonight."

"Well then why aren't you coming with the team? We're all gonna eat too much decadent food and play video games until our brains rot and then we'll attempt to skate around the roller rink until we're bruised black and blue." I grinned, and he did laugh.

"I appreciate the offer, Kiran, but I do not believe the team would appreciate my particular company." He explained, turning back to his coffee and his computer work.

"Is it because of the undercover thing?" I asked. "Because I highly doubt that they hate you for that."

He shook his head, not believing me, and I bit my lip to keep from sighing.

"Well I don't hate you." I told him suddenly. He froze, but you could barely tell, the cup tilted at his lips to let in just a bit more coffee than he planned.

"I don't hate you," I repeated in a quiet voice, more for myself than for him, "And if you come along, I'll type up all your mission reports for you.

Now I had his attention.

I smiled as he slowly set aside his cup and dismissed the computer screen yet again, the tiniest of smiles on his lips.

"If you'll excuse me, Kiran, it seems that I do have plans for the evening."

I grinned after him as he went to get changed, and I flew all the way to the mission room to tell Cassie.