Without You

by Skalidra

Barry has a good thing going. He's married to a woman he loves as much as life itself, Iris, and maintaining a no-strings-attached relationship with Hal on the side, as stress relief. Until Barry wakes up in a world shockingly different from the one he knows. No Crime Syndicate, no powers, and none of the people he calls allies have even met him before. - Earth-3 connected universe

1. Chapter 1

This is part of a larger continuity of stories. Please consult my profile for the master reading list if you want to read them in order.

Welcome! So, this is another piece of my Earth-3 Storyline. It's basically Flashpoint as told in an Earth-3 perspective (fair warning I'm basing most of this off of the animated movie Flashpoint, as opposed to the comics, because that's what I know). I've got three chapters of it done, but there's more past that. Hope you enjoy!

Warnings this chapter for: Explicit sex, and cheating with an established secondary partner.

---

The blood is what really makes it for me. His costume's already red, where it's not streaked across with the dirt of our run through my city, but the rips through it and the darker red where he's bled onto it aren't nearly as rare as he'd like. Or as many as I would.

I can feel his pull on the speed force, and I reach for it as well and slip sideways to dodge the heel aimed at my calf, yellow lightning following my movement and red his. Then he's off again, running, and I draw more heavily on the humming force in my veins and chase after him. I draw up to his side more easily than I thought I would, ducking in low over a wide sweep of his arm and ramming my shoulder into his side. It knocks him sideways, where his hip clips a parked car we're passing and he spins and slams to the ground on his stomach.

I skid to a stop to reverse direction, and he's starting to get to his feet but not fast enough to stop me grabbing the back of his shoulder and dragging him up against the metal of the car. He glares at me, lashing out a punch towards my face that I jerk out of the way of.

"What's wrong, Reverse?" I say with a laugh and a grin. "You're off your game today."

"It's not a game," he spits back, knocking my grip loose and snapping a kick at my chest to force me to back off. I do, but only long enough to jerk to the side and then go back at him.

"What, you don't like to play?" His teeth grit as he ducks away from my punch, which hits the glass of the window behind him — hard enough to break it, but we're still so far in the speed force it only just starts to shatter — and shoves off the car to tackle me to the street. I can feel the friction against my back, but I roll with it and get my legs between us to kick out and send him flying along with his momentum.

He smacks into the other side of the street, landing at the curb, and turns to meet me as I get to my feet. "How can you not see the kind of damage you're causing, Quick?!" he shouts. "Innocent people are getting hurt!"

Reverse is always so serious, no matter what direction our fights take. Always so horrified over any civilian that gets in the way, or any cop I take out, or any passing blow I might deal to a hero as we run by them. He spat his backstory at me the first time he ever showed up — I admit, he got the better of me that day; I wasn't used to fighting other speedsters — and it, honestly, makes me pretty damn proud.

He's from the future, with the ever so helpfully unique name of 'Eobard Thawne,' and apparently I'm such a famous villain in the future that when he got his own connection to the speed force — that part, he won't tell me — he came back in time to stop me from doing the worst of it. It seems like a flawed plan to me, but time travel isn't my forte and I don't really know the rules. I avoid it as much as I can; it's got a nasty habit of making the speed force try and eat you alive, and I'm not so interested in ending my own career like that. No matter how much fun it might be to mess with time.

"Again with the speeches!" I push off the concrete, he does the same, and we're running again. "What makes you think I care, Reverse? I think we've done this dance before, and you never win." I speed up for a second, pulling on the speed force and pushing harder, faster.

I start to gain and then Reverse turns on me, arm swinging low as he skids to a dead stop. I don't have the time or the warning to get around it, and the best I can do is slow myself down by shoving my feet against the asphalt, but it's not nearly enough. His arm slams into my chest — more accurately, I slam into his arm — and my momentum flips me halfway into the air before crashing me onto my back on the asphalt, trying to breathe through the painfully accurate blow to my solar plexus and everything around it. I'm pretty sure he broke some of my ribs, but on the plus side, I'm pretty sure it broke his arm in return.

He'll heal, so will I, but I'll take broken ribs over a broken arm any day.

"You're right," he says from above me, as I pry my eyes open and gasp for some kind of air. "This is never going to end."

There's the distinctive whoosh of displaced air and the sizzle of lightning, and I feel the speed force tell me someone else is using it, and I watch the aftershocks of red lightning as he takes off down the street. It's only a few seconds before I catch my breath and drag myself up to my feet, but he's long gone. A few seconds is more than enough time for one of us, and he could be miles away by now, or a block and in hiding. Pretty much impossible to find unless he wants to be, I've been down that road. I've wasted time trying to hunt down Thawne before, and there's really no point. It's not like he's going to do anything that I might actually care about without me there; he's pretty much fixated on me.

You'd think that he would have killed me when he's had the chance, if he's really concerned with whatever I do in the future, but then heroes don't kill now do they? They're never going to beat us as long as they aren't willing to put us down. I mean, really, what prison could ever hold me?

I roll my shoulders back, ignoring the pull of whatever's broken in my chest as it heals together again, and the ache of having my breath knocked out of me. It won't take long to be gone, an hour at the absolute most since it's not any larger broken bone, or some kind of impalement. Running might sting for a bit, but it's not that big of a deal, and pain's not that big a deal. I feel it, of course, but it won't be there long. I can just weather it until it's gone, or crash for a nap and be just fine when I wake up. Although, after this fight with Thawne — we must have been running around for at least fifteen minutes, in normal measurements — I could use a good amount of food. Lots of food.

I flash a grimace, glancing around at the street and then almost laughing at the frozen citizens. Not from my use of the speed force, but their own fear. It's not such a bad consolation prize for Reverse getting away, again, and it relights the part of me that — even though I just got the wind knocked out of me — is having a good day.

I drop out a mocking salute, reach into the speed force, and run.

---

"Iris, you home?"

She should be; it's her day off and she didn't tell me about any plans to hang out with any of her friends, or chase a story off-record. Usually she lounges at home on days off, and takes the opportunity to catch up on any shows she might have missed, or personal business she hasn't had time for. That, or corner me to ask me about stories and check facts of my fights with other people.

My Iris, the reporter.

"Here!" she calls, and I resist the urge to reach for the speed force and run through our house to find her. Doing that while I'm in civilian clothes tends to set them on fire, which is not so fun.

I head for her voice, tracking it to the living room. She's lying back along the couch, her head up on one arm and her feet almost touching the other, and she's in her comfort clothes. Very comfortable pajamas that she wears whenever she's convinced that she's not going to be doing anything that requires her to leave our house, or have anyone else over. They're just plain, dark blue, but they're about the softest things we own. Sometimes I almost get jealous that I don't have a pair myself, not that I'd ever get the chance to use them.

There's no such thing as a day off for me, not really. If heroes are working I'm at least on call, if not actively out there trying to kill them. Sure, I could throw on pajamas, lounge around, and pretend that a day was going to be all relaxation and laziness, but the chances that it would actually happen? Not high. Besides, technically, I'm supposed to supervise the operations that happen in my city, in case of heroes that aren't as totally fixated on me as Reverse is, and will actually go after just the business. If I slack off too much, the rest of the Crime Syndicate will have my head. Owlman, especially.

The bastard.

I push the thoughts away and circle the couch, sliding my leg onto it and between hers. "Hey," I say softly, with a small grin. She pauses whatever it is that's playing on the TV — I really don't care enough to look and figure it out — and gives me her attention, setting aside the remote as I brace my hands on either side of her head on the couch's arm, carefully avoiding the spread of her brown hair.

"Well hello there, Barry." Her smile is as soft as my voice, and she reaches up and twines her hands through my much shorter hair.

I all but melt into her when she starts scratching, sinking down and fitting myself into her curves, my head down next to her neck. "Unfair," I murmur, and she gives a chuckle.

"Says the Syndicate member. All's fair in love and war, sweetheart." I make some kind of protesting noise, but my mouth curves in a smile I can't control and I press my mouth in against the side of her neck. She's warm, and soft, and everything that it's amazing to come home to, and god I love her.

I'd tear apart worlds for her, if she asked. Not that she would, and that's one of the best parts. I don't have to worry about her trying to take advantage of my speed for anything more important than a late-night run to a store right before it closes. Well, that and the tricks I can do with it in a bed, but those I would use even if she never asked me to just because it's fun, and it makes me happy to please her. The only thing that could stop me is if she didn't like me using my powers when it's just us, and if that was even remotely the case I wouldn't love her half as much as I do.

I am Quick, literally and figuratively, and I refuse to separate that piece of who I am out to make the people I'm with comfortable. I'm an all or nothing kinda guy, most of the time. If they can't deal with everything I am, they shouldn't be with me to begin with. Especially not if they're going to be scared or uncomfortable with who I am and what I can do if I want to.

I stir and lean into her, making a soft noise that's got just a little more intent in it. I would like a bit of fun. I've got some kind of debrief meeting later, with the whole Crime Syndicate, but that's not for hours, and hours can be a long, long time. Especially with me.

She gives another chuckle at my noise, but her hands don't stop. "How was your day?" she asks, with a hint of teasing.

"Good," I manage. Her hands pause long enough for me to finish up the train of thought, and let me say, "Had a fight with Reverse."

"You're alright?" is the immediate question, her left hand leaving my hair to stroke down the back of my neck and over my shoulders. Checking for anything that doesn't feel right, like she always does.

"Nothing that hasn't already healed," I reassure her, and then press my mouth a little more deliberately against the side of her neck. I lean into her, pressing small kisses down the line of her throat, only barely grazing my teeth—

"Barry Allen!" I jump a little bit, jerking my head up to stare at her. There's a tone I don't hear much. Her eyes are narrowed, warning. "If you give me another hickey that I'm going to have to cover up tomorrow, there will be pain. You understand me, mister?"

Oh, alright, yeah. No actual threat or anger, okay. Had me worried for a second there. "I'd never ignore a threat from the amazing Iris West," I tease in turn, with a smile. "I'll behave, promise."

She arches an eyebrow and spreads her hand out against my scalp. "Yeah? Can I get that in writing?"

I lean down, kissing her, and she makes the softest pleased noise. It's just perfect. Her left leg rises up against my hip, the hand on my back curling enough that I can feel her manicured nails through the thin fabric of my collared white shirt. I keep my feet off the couch — she will snap at me for putting my shoes up here — and my weight at least mostly supported on my knee and braced arms, but she tugs my head down and keeps it there, my mouth pressed to hers.

Finally she pulls back to breathe, and I push up into her hand and smile down at her. "Say the word and I'll have it in your hand. Written proof that the great villain Quick promised not to leave anything visible, just for you. Though I'm definitely not keeping my hands to myself."

"I'd be disappointed if you did," she counters. " 'Great villain,' huh? You are in a good mood."

"Well my business is running by itself, my heroes are quiet, and I get to come home to my beautiful," I press my lips to the side of her neck, "smart," and lower, "talented," just at the edge of her top, "amazing wife on her day off."

She gives a bright laugh, hand flexing in my hair as she tilts her head back. "Flatterer," she accuses, and I pull back just enough to meet her gaze with a crooked grin.

"Well, they're just facts."

"Come here," she demands, rolling her eyes and tugging me down into another kiss. I go totally willingly, her hands smoothing out across my back and curling in my hair. It's warm and soft, amazing, and I brace more of my weight on my right arm so I can lower my left and find the edge of her top. She makes a small noise into my mouth when I slide my fingers beneath the fabric and stroke up her side, enjoying the touch of skin as soft as hers, with no scars disrupting the surface.

It's an eternally new feeling to me, somehow. She's so different from everyone else.

From Hal, a traitorous part of my mind whispers, and I shut it away. Hal has no place in my time with Iris, not even just the thought of him. She's my wife, and even if I'm not being totally honest or faithful to her all the time, I can be faithful while she's in my arms. Anything else isn't just terrible of me, it's unfair to her.

Besides, Hal is passionate, and good at what he does, and he can take everything I can dish out, but he's not anything more than casual. Neither of us wants more than that, and I would never allow it even if we did. I love Iris; I don't have to think about that.

She's wearing one of her utility bras — I know the feeling of it, bare of any of the lace or patterned stitching of the rest — and I let my fingers slide beneath the straps for a second before pulling back to cup the side. She makes another noise, and I mentally curse that I didn't have the sense to take my shoes off before I started this. I should know better, I really should. How many times before have I done this, and then gotten stuck right here? Not willing to step back and get rid of clothing while I'm touching her, but not able to go much farther until I do.

Things are so much easier when I'm in my suit and I can just vibrate straight out of it and be done.

She takes pity on me, fortunately, and lets go so she can move both hands to the front of my chest and push me back. "You are released," she declares, imperiously but with a smile. "Shoes and socks, and relocating to the bed. I am not risking stains on the couch."

The grin splits my face, and I climb back up and off of her. "Yes, Ma'am." I affect a very serious expression, kneeling at the side of the couch and flinging out my arms. "May I have the honor of carrying you, Ma'am?" I can't hold the seriousness for more than a second, especially not once she starts laughing, and I crack a grin and then join in her laughter.

Her hands cup my face as she leans in, her mouth still curved in a wide smile even as she kisses me. I resist reaching for her any more than the single hand I raise to comb through her hair, back along her scalp and pulling the brown strands away from her face as gently as I can. It's not like she's fragile, but she's fragile compared to me, and it's really easy for me to hurt people. I never want to hurt her, even accidentally.

Iris pulls back a bit, fingers stroking along my jaw as she lets go. "Yes, oh 'great villain,' you may have the honor." She sounds a step away from another laugh, and the rising warmth in my chest promises that I'm not far from another one either. Her blue eyes are still one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen, and I impulsively lean forward to brush my lips over hers just one more time.

Then I shift forward, sliding my arms beneath her shoulders and her legs, and lift her weight as I stand. She's not that heavy, and I've got plenty of strength, so spinning on my heel to carry her off to the bedroom is a very easy thing to do. Getting the mostly-closed door open is a little harder, but I manage it by balancing on one leg and nudging it open with the toe of my other shoe. It's just one moment of awkwardness in what's otherwise a smooth operation, including laying her down on the side of the bed, and that's a small price to pay.

Besides, we have both done much more awkward things in the course of our marriage, and made total fools of ourselves on more than one occasion. This is nothing.

I have to push away the urge to reach for the speed force; I will not set any of my clothes on fire by accident, even if that would get them off faster. It's not guaranteed to happen, but sometimes I happen to move in just the wrong way, with the wrong friction, and then there's fire. Iris doesn't appreciate it.

Instead I kneel, tugging one shoe off and then the other, and follow it up with peeling off both socks. Those I know better than to leave lying on the floor like my shoes, and I fling them towards the hamper in the corner. I admit to giving a mental cheer when they actually land in it, and not on the floor beside or behind the plastic bin. From there it's a test of how fast I can move up onto the bed, and with Iris, without actually using any of my speed.

It feels slow to me, considering what I've got waiting for me up there, but I'm sure it's pretty quick to a normal person. My sense of speed is pretty twisted, like my usual sense of time.

Her hands immediately fall to the buttons of my shirt as I slide between her legs, undoing enough that she can push it halfway off my shoulders. Her hands stroke up what skin is bared, along both sides of my collarbone and up to the back of my neck, and I lean into her touch. It's second nature to repay her by dragging both my hands underneath the hem of her pajama top, pushing it up her waist to bare her stomach and ribs. I sharply resist the urge to lighten my touch and tickle her, mostly because I know it will get me banned from touching her again for at least a half an hour.

That's a long time for me, and she knows it.

She pulls me down on top of her, lips meeting mine as her legs rise and squeeze in on either side of my thighs. Both her hands lower to the rest of the buttons, undoing them one by one, and—

The abrasive, shrill ring of my phone shrieks into the room, and we both freeze for a second. Until it gives a second shriek, and I bite back a curse and straighten up. It's the Syndicate ringtone, which means I have to answer it or risk pissing my nearly-allies off. Tempting as that can be, especially right now when I was so close, it's not worth it.

I irritably wrench my phone out of the pocket of my slacks, flick it on, answer the call, and raise it to my ear. "This better be really important," I snap, raising my gaze to the ceiling so I'm not glaring down at Iris.

"Catch you at a bad time, Quick?" Owlman, of course. With just enough dry sarcasm to be irritating without letting me really call him on it. "We have a team of heroes launching simultaneous strikes across the country; get to Star City and back up Green Lantern."

He hangs up without another word, and I have to swallow down another curse and just drop the phone back into my pocket. It's a civilian phone, he shouldn't even be calling me on it. I rub both my hands over my face, and then aim a small, regretful grin down at Iris. Who I want to stay with, and make love with, and just enjoy the sight and touch and feel of, damn all the Crime Syndicate business.

"Go on," she says, only looking a touch disappointed and not actually angry. "You've got work to do."

I lean down and give her a quick kiss. "Don't know how late I'll be—" I start, and she shakes her head.

"I'm meeting friends at the paper later, in a couple of hours. We should be out pretty late, and I'll be tired when I get back. Take as long as you have to."

"I might stay at the Tower, depending on the fight," I warn her, as I get to my feet and shed my shirt all the way. I wait for her acknowledgement, a nod and a smile, before continuing my change. I activate the ring on my finger — designed to look like one of the cheap ones they sell at Central City souvenir shops, with Reverse's color scheme of my symbol on it — to push out the compressed folds of my suit, and slip into the speed force to get into it.

I shed the rest of my clothes first, then grab the expanding suit from the air and yank it on. It's anything but graceful, even with the practice I've had, but it's fast and that's the important part. I drag the zipper up, reach back and tug the cowl over my head, and take one stretch to make sure everything's in the right place. It is. Then I let myself fall back out of the speed force, tossing my clothes to the hamper and turning to Iris.

I lean down over her, brushing my glove across her cheek and pressing a soft kiss to her lips. "Love you," I murmur, with a crooked grin. I'm gone before she can answer, snagging my goggles and the Syndicate earbuds from the stash near the back door and putting them both on as I run.

Almost immediately I can hear Hal's voice in my ears, snarling something about heroes and their aim, and I let a grin curl my mouth and speed up a bit.

Star City's not that far.

---

"You are such a fool," Super Woman sneers, hands braced on the table.

"You got me shot," Ultraman growls back, looking beyond pissed off.

I shift my arms behind my head, both my feet propped up on the table, and settle in to watch the escalating argument. I can be gone before either of them gets around to actually doing any damage, and this is way too entertaining to let go. Hal — sitting across from me — looks a little wary, and there's a glow to his ring that says he's ready to spin a construct at the slightest notice, but he's not backing off either. Not yet.

Sea King looks unimpressed, as always, Grid is a silent figure at the control console behind the snarling pair of the alien and amazon, and J'onn is still but impossible to read. I guess he can just phase out of existence and sink through the floor if things turns nasty. The way more unusual thing is that Owlman is silent.

He's watching the two of them, one hand on the table and body mostly facing them, but he's not interfering. Usually the bastard noses in when any of us look like we're going to get physical about things; reminds us all that we might not like each other, but we're still publicly a team. I can't remember or count how many times he's cooled down a fight among us with just a few words, or a command. Ultraman might be the big badass, but even he backs off when the Owl gets involved.

Which he's not doing. I guess even Owlman isn't immune to a bit of petty manipulation, and is willing to let the two of them fight. After all, everyone knows the Owl is screwing Super Woman behind Ultra's back. Even Ultraman knows, but whatever our strategist bastard of a shadow-leader has on the alien it's enough to keep him from wiping Owlman off the face of the Earth. Or maybe he's just not dumb enough to try challenging the nastiest guy on our 'team,' even if the guy is just a human in a suit.

"It is not my job to watch your back! Perhaps if you didn't charge into every battle, expecting everything to bounce off your skin, you wouldn't get shot!"

Owlman's mouth flickers in a tiny smirk — sometimes they're gone again so fast I'm really convinced I'm the only one who catches his tiny reactions — but he stays absolutely still apart from that. I glance over at Hal, but he's too focused on the two of them to spare me any attention. I don't like not being the center of his focus, but I don't blame him. Since he can't move as fast as me, I guess he'd need to keep his attention on the two of them to have any chance of dodging stray blasts of lasers or shockwave from the super-strength both of them.

"Not your job?! How would you react if I got you shot?!"

Oh, dangerous territory there. Super Woman's eyes narrow, hands digging into the table hard enough the metal screeches. The rest of us automatically lean back a bit — Hal and Owlman pull their arms away from the table, and I drop my feet back to the floor — in case she decides to rip it out of the floor and swing it at her publicly obvious lover. Privately, they're nearly always at each other's throats, but nobody sees that but us.

"I would not get shot, and if I did I wouldn't blame my own lack of attention on someone else!"

Ultraman puffs up in offense, scowling, and his eyes glow red for a second before returning to blue. "You are such an unbelievable—"

"Be careful how you finish that sentence, male!"

Hal looks decidedly uncomfortable now, and his ring is nearly bright enough to have actually made a construct. From what I remember he hasn't got the greatest track record against Ultraman, though he was definitely beating Super Woman in the fight I can remember happening a few years back. Before, of course, Owlman interrupted. Both times. Still, trapped in a room with an angry amazon and Kryptonian looking to tear each other's throats out isn't great if you can't dodge at superspeed.

Well, this is kind of a waste of my time anyway. I suppose I can rescue Hal just for the benefits. It's been too long, Iris won't be up for anything, and I'd like the end of the day to be as good as the rest of it was. Hal's always a good time.

I push away from the table and get to my feet, and immediately both Ultraman and Super Woman's heads snap towards me. I give them both a sharp grin. "Your problems aren't mine," I point out, "and I've got better things I could be doing." To make it a real, blatant, invitation I turn towards Hal and raise one shoulder in a shrug. "Fight was boring, spar?" Paraphrasing, and total lies — well, the fight wasn't any kind of challenge, but it was also long and tiring — but it'll do.

I don't delude myself into thinking the expression on Hal's face is gratitude, but he does pretty much instantly take my offer of a way out. "Sure," he agrees, standing from the table and heading towards the opposite end of the table from our furious teammates, towards the exit.

"Yeah, better things to do," Ultraman snarls, emphasizing so there's no mistaking what he means.

I can see Hal's shoulders stiffen, and then he starts to turn around. I flash a sharp grin and face our Kryptonian, making my tone as mocking as I possibly can. "Absolutely. You should try it sometime, might help with the rage issues you got there." A pointed look at Super Woman, and then I finish the jab up with, "But maybe not tonight, hm?"

His eyes snap to red, I grab for the speed force, and his lasers slice through where I was standing and burn two neat scorch marks onto the cement floor. I'm nice enough to make sure my dodge doesn't make me end up next to Hal, even though that's my first instinct. He probably wouldn't appreciate me putting him in the line of fire, especially not if that fire is Ultraman's lasers. The big idiot will never hit me with them, but the best Hal can do is throw up a construct and try to hold it. Plus, Super Woman doesn't look that pleased with me either, and she's harder to deal with than Ultra-idiot over there.

"Enough," Owlman snaps, finally intervening. "Quick, Lantern, go."

I give a mocking salute to the bastard and turn my back, heading for the exit. I don't trust Ultraman not to shoot me in the back, but Owlman wouldn't let him. Ultraman is a moron, but he's not that dumb. It takes a special kind of stupid to fuck with any of the Owls, and he's just a regular kind of stupid. Big, strong, and willing to try and solve anything with strength and then some more strength. He's lucky he's pretty much invulnerable too, or he'd be really dead by now. And we're all lucky he's not smarter, or we'd be the dead ones.

Hal never actually turned all the way around for whatever aggressive, defensive thing he was going to snap at Ultraman, and after a second's pause he resumes his trek towards the door and falls into step beside me. He's tense, shoulders raised defensively, but his ring isn't glowing and his expression isn't any more pissed off than usual. Hal's pretty prickly, most of the time, and he gets even worse about it when other people start implying things about the two of us. Personally, I think he needs to suck it up and get over the idea that some people are going to think — not totally inaccurately — that I'm fucking him and not the other way around. What does it really matter who enjoys what?

Though I do like being reminded, from those comments, that this isn't a one way street. It's a damn good thing that Hal isn't one of those guys that's so set in their ways and bullheaded that they won't ever switch the roles up, because damn is he gorgeous underneath me. Louder than I ever thought he'd be too.

When the door slides closed behind us, Hal turns his head and glares at me. "I can defend myself just fine, Quick." He doesn't stop moving, but he's not taking a swing at me or stopping for the confrontation, so he's not really angry. More like irritated, probably.

"Defending you?" I counter as I keep pace with him, grinning as I meet his look. "I was taking a shot at Ultraman, you're just good ammunition." I take a quick glance around to see if any of the lower Syndicate members are hanging around — they've got their own base, but sometimes they end up here — before taking my next step diagonally to get closer to him. Not quite close enough to touch, but enough to make him feel crowded. "You're welcome for getting you out of there, by the way."

"What are you expecting, a thank you?" He snorts and shakes his head, but the glare fades into his normal, neutral expression as he turns his head forward and away from me. He's still a bit irritated looking, but if you know him it's just the equivalent of a blank slate. "Not gonna happen, Quick."

I roll my eyes. "If you don't want to thank me, don't. You're not the center of my universe, Lantern, and I so don't need your approval or your gratitude." I'm so far from dependent, and Hal's just casual anyway. Needling his pride is fun, but I really don't care if he actually appreciates me getting him out of uncomfortable moments or not. I like him where I can actually play around, not stuck in a meeting with the rest of the Syndicate. If I was going to 'need' anyone's approval it would be Iris, but I don't.

Hal shifts to walk closer to me, leaning in to say, barely above a breath and right into my ear, "Just other parts of me, huh?"

It's so unexpected — Hal never makes comments like that outside of whatever locked room we end up in — that I freeze up for a second in surprise, and promptly trip over my own feet. He laughs at me as I fumble to catch myself, having to use a bit of the speed force to make sure I don't end up on my face, and doesn't slow down to wait for me to get my feet back under me. So when I finally — by my standards — get my balance back, I reach back into the speed force and use it to cross the distance he's put between us and get back that spot right next to him.

"I wouldn't say 'need,' " I hedge, but I also make sure that my shoulder brushes briefly against his. He doesn't move away, and I count that as a victory. " 'Like' is really more accurate. You're good, Lantern; you're not that good."

Hal's mouth curves in a small grin, and I almost pull back when he leans back in towards me — I'm not real interested in tripping over my own feet again, though I am more prepared this time — but decide not to. There's the barrier of my suit between his mouth and my ear, and he doesn't quite touch me but his voice is low and purposefully rough and it doesn't even matter that my suit is in the way.

"Liar."

I swallow, and before he can pull away again I turn my head and catch his mouth. He startles, jerks away almost immediately with a scowl, and I let him. The brush of lips is enough, and if he gets to play in somewhere semi-public and not safely behind the door of a private room, so do I. He should have considered that before he started this.

"Prove it," I challenge, with a wide grin, "and don't start things you don't want me to finish, Lantern."

He scowls for another second, and then shakes his head. "Do you think everyone knows about us?" It doesn't sound like he really likes the idea.

"Yes," I answer bluntly. He grimaces, and I snort and nudge my shoulder into his. "Come on, Lantern. The only dumb one in that room has super-hearing, and not every wall in this place is soundproofed. They're a bunch of assholes, not idiots, and it's close quarters. Doesn't matter how subtle we are, and we're not that subtle."

"God, we're not as obvious as Owlman and Super Woman, are we?" he asks, sounding absolutely disgusted with the idea. I can't help laughing, the sound bursting from my chest and tilting my head back for a second.

When I calm it back down I flash him a wide grin, a wink that he probably can't see behind my goggles, and counter, "Haven't gotten caught yet, right? We both know the Owl is just shoving it in Ultraman's face anyway."

"True."

Hal's quiet for a few seconds, enough that I look over to see why. He looks like he's considering something, and I'm not too much a fan of the interruption of what was definitely headed towards something fun. I push my shoulder into his again — and for some reason he's not reacting to that, even though it usually pisses him off to be crowded — and ask, "What's up?"

"Just thinking," he answers, and it sounds completely automatic. Then he draws to a stop, and I do the same as I glance around, recognizing the crossing corridors we're in. Rooms are to the right, training areas straight ahead, and the left leads out to the hangar and storage areas.

We should be heading off to our claimed room, unless I totally misread everything — not likely — or he got sidetracked thinking about something he needs to do. Instead he's looking towards the training areas, and he's still got that expression that makes me think, somehow, there's something I said or did that dragged his thoughts off in some other direction than the really great sex we were going to have.

"So—"

He turns on me, and I jerk backwards a little bit in surprise, but it doesn't feel like a threat, so I don't wind up twenty feet away and with the speed force humming in my veins. His hands drag along my cowl, thumbs brushing my cheeks, as he pulls me forward and leans in, and I'm really not expecting the press of his mouth to mine but it's not such a bad surprise. His teeth graze against my lower lip, his tongue forces its way into the seam of my mouth, and he steps forward and drops his right hand down to the small of my back so he can pull me up against him.

I take in a sharp breath that tastes and smells and feels of him, automatically reciprocating by reaching forward and gripping his upper arm, stroking my other hand up the center of his chest. He nearly growls into my mouth, pushing his right leg between mine.

I break away long enough to get out, "You do remember we're in the middle of a corridor?"

"To hell with it," he snarls in answer, dragging me in again. "You're the one with a wife; do you care, Quick?"

For a second I think of Iris, and Owlman's knowing smirks, and Ultraman's glares, and then Hal's lips are pressing into mine and I throw it all out the window. No, I don't care. Everyone already knows, and Iris isn't here. Even if she were, she's not everything I need. I love her, but she can't hurt and push and fight me the way Hal can. She doesn't need to know, and I couldn't care less about what the rest of my barely-allies think of me. I'm already a murderer, why should I care if the other murderers around me know I'm cheating too?

"You're not fucking me in the middle of the corridors," I manage to get out in between us, but I'm really not sure how much of it gets lost in the press of his tongue and lips.

Enough, apparently, for him to hear it and pull back an inch or so to answer, "Showers sound better?"

My grin is sharp and sudden, and I flex the hand on his arm and push my hips up against his leg. "Much." I start to lean back in, brush my lips over his, and then hiss, "Better hurry, Lantern."

I reach for the lightning in my veins and jerk into speed, ducking down and away from his grip before he can react. He's just starting to move — all in slow motion to me — as I pivot on my heel and take off down the corridor to the right. Towards the rooms, and the communal showers all the way down at the end. I do us both a favor, and slip into our room on the way past to grab the necessary condoms and lube. I always end up being the one to fetch things, and I don't really want to run naked through the base.

The showers are built as individual rooms. Partly because it can be a bitch to get a suit clean of all the grime, but mostly because stalls aren't as anonymous as your own private room. Nobody wants to sling their suit over a door and rely on people's decency not to peek underneath and figure out an identity. So the individual rooms have a benched section for suits, weapons, etc., and then a wall that extends three-quarters of the way across and blocks off the actual shower portion.

The water pressure is fantastic, and they're not huge rooms but it's more than enough for one person. Or two.

I slip into one of the rooms and start the water, using a bit of my speed to get back around the wall before the first spray even hits the ground. I set the condoms — it could be more than one time, and I'm not running for supplies in the middle — and lube as close to the divider as I can get them, and tug the goggles off my head.

Those I toss into the corner, before I reach into the speed force and close my eyes for a second. Vibrating through solid objects isn't hard, exactly, but I need to be pretty deeply connected to the speed force, and in tune with what's around me. It's just a certain kind of movement, a specific feeling, and it was a pain in the ass at first but I got much better at it over time. These days, it's pretty much just a blink and a second away from the right state. The trick is holding it for long enough to get through what I want to.

In this case, that's just a few seconds of holding the vibration and feeling the suit slip down and through me, piling on the floor. I step out of the pile and let myself snap back to the normal world, crouching down to grab my suit and fling it up next to my goggles. Then I turn on my heel and head back around the wall and into the shower itself.

The heat feels amazing, and the beat of the water against my scalp and down my shoulders is just as good. Plus the showerhead is actually tall enough, which is a rare thing. Pays to have a team full of tall people, everything gets built to cater to our height. It's nice to not have to bend my knees and crouch a little bit to get underneath the spray.

I turn around, tilting my head back and letting myself arch as the spray hits between my shoulder blades and across the back of my neck. Both of my hands come up, raking over my face and getting rid of the excess water before continuing up through my hair, combing the wet strands back across my skull. I let my shoulders ease down and my mouth part in a soft sigh of simple pleasure.

Sex is one kind of pleasure, but a good shower is an entirely different one. Sometimes, a better one.

I can hear the door open, close, and footsteps that circle closer. I flick my eyes open, my mouth curling in a small grin. "Took you long enough," I tease.

Hal stays still for a second before moving forward, and there's the whine that comes with the glow of his ring. I watch in appreciation as the suit dissolves off of him, including the domino mask that's all that covers his identity. He's got bruises here and there, but nothing nasty and nothing that looks really painful, so nothing I have to worry about. I can just enjoy all of his bare skin and the slightly narrowed, heated look in his dark brown eyes.

"Some of us can't move fast enough to break the sound barrier," he counters, stepping up in front of me. His hands raise, catching my wrists where my hands are still in my hair, and pushing forward to force me back.

I flick my eyes closed as I pass underneath the water, and he presses me back against the wall of the shower, pinning my wrists above my head. I look back up as he pushes close, warm and wet from his own trip underneath the spray of water. His left thigh finds its way between my legs, and I shift my stance a little wider to make room as he leans in and kisses me. Hot, passionate, but there's no violence in the flex of his fingers around my wrists or the push of his tongue into my mouth. Just lust, and that I can get behind.

I raise my right leg and hook it around the back of his knee, dragging him in closer and definitely using it to press him harder in against my crotch. I'm not completely hard, not yet, but I'm getting there and the wet slide of his skin is definitely helping.

I can hear the sound of his ring activating, and after a few seconds where I don't feel the energy touch me I crack one eye open to figure it out. I trace the line of green back around the edge of the shower wall, and then watch it reappear with the supplies held in a large green hand. I let the single eye close again, and twist my wrists against his fingers just to feel it. His hips push forward against mine, and I can feel him make some small noise that's lost underneath the sound of the water.

His mouth pulls away from mine, and immediately turns to the side and starts pressing small, biting kisses down my jaw and the side of my neck. His teeth graze against my ear, lightly come down on the shell, and it drags a groan from between my teeth.

"Keep your arms up there," he orders, and I arch my neck a little bit but force a snort out.

"What's in it for me?"

I can feel his mouth twist in a grin, and his fingers loosen and slide away from my wrists. I keep them where they are to wait for his answer, which I get when he presses a last kiss to the side of my throat — that one will mark for at least a little while — and then sinks to his knees in front of me.

Oh, that's rare. "Yeah?" I ask, pretending the sight of him looking up at me — water darkening his hair nearly to black and rushing down his back — doesn't steal a little bit of my breath.

His grin is small, but knowing and not in the slightest bit hesitant. "Deal, Quick?"

I twist my arms and curl my fingers into loose fists, grinning down at him. "Deal; consider them glued to the wall."

His hands are on my thighs, and I can feel his fingers press in a little bit as he leans forward. I keep my eyes open, my head tilted down, so I can watch every second of the moment his mouth parts around the head of me. Of course it sucks the air right out of me, and my hands tighten into real fists, but I wouldn't miss a damn second even if I had to fight Owlman for the sight. Not ever.

Hal pretty much never does this. He got around to letting me fuck him, and even to letting me — if he's in the right kind of mood — take him on his knees or stomach, but this is still pretty much the one thing that's still completely off the table unless he makes the first move. That, and he's gotta be getting something good in return. It's the last vestiges of his male pride, or something. I don't know, and honestly, as long as I get to see and feel his mouth around me every once in a while I don't care. I get the anticipation and the absolutely amazing bit of knowing that he's doing something that's totally just for me, without even complaining.

Way too good for me to actually stop and think about why he doesn't do it more often. I'm not pushing that boundary anytime soon.

I hear his ring activate, and out of my peripheral vision I can see the band of green reach for the bottle of lube set to the side, but I don't tear my gaze away to actually look at it. Instead I bite back a curse — at the cost of letting out a moan — when his tongue prods into the sensitive bits of me with a skill he really shouldn't have. I can't be the only one he's done this for, if he's this good at it. Right?

I shove that thought away — thinking of Hal with anyone else, but especially the bastard that is Owlman, is a sure way to make me jealous and generally pissed off — and get back to watching, feeling, and enjoying. The touch of his fingers to my thighs, gripping hard enough to hold me still as long as I don't fight, but not enough to bruise, is a solid grounding point, but the touch of his tongue, the heat of his mouth, the very careful avoidance of his teeth — that I know are sharp and very capable of a lot worse than the bites he sometimes leaves — is enough to get me to fully hard fast.

Just the sight is more than enough, honestly. I could have a total lack of sensation and the sight of Hal kneeling in front of me, head ducked between my legs, would still make me hard. I'm almost sure enough of that to bet on it.

His hands leave my thighs, sliding down and then pulling away, and it is beyond tempting but I don't push my hips forward and take advantage of the lack of restraint. I might push and fight and generally challenge him everywhere else, but this is different. He'll back off and leave me hanging in a second if I do something he doesn't like, since this is something that he's so questionable about doing in the first place. It's a much better idea to fight my own reactions and make it as smooth and easy for him as possible; maybe convince him it's worth doing more often.

My eyes flicker closed at a particularly perfect stroke of his tongue, another groan clawing its way out of my throat, and when I open them again his left hand is bracing at the back of my right knee. He glances up at me, not pulling back and god that's a sight I'll dream about, and slowly pulls my leg up off the floor. I'm not going to say it, but I appreciate that he moves my leg slow enough to make sure I can keep my balance on just my other one.

Sure, he takes some of my weight, but with the distraction of his mouth I really, sorta, need it to be slow so I don't fall over. Especially since I'm not allowed to use my hands during this whole thing, not if I want to keep our deal.

I swallow down a moan when he braces my leg over his shoulder and lets go again, and only a tiny bit of that moan is from the heat of the water being on my leg. I can feel him smirk around me, right before he draws me deeper into his mouth. I almost — but not quite — miss the touch of fingers back further, hidden as it is underneath the lightning that spikes up my spine and into the center of my gut, but I really don't miss the finger that slides inside me. The other hand — his right one, I think — slides around the back of the leg I still have on the ground, fingers kneading into my skin. This time, I can't stop the moan.

I twist my hands against the smooth surface of the wall, fighting to keep them exactly where they are and not lower them, like I really want to, to curl in Hal's hair. It's hard, and restraint has really never been my thing, but I just concentrate on how this feels, on how amazing it is, and the fact it will stop if I let my hands come down. I might really want to touch him, hold him, curl my fingers through his hair and ask for more, but this right here, with his mouth around me and his fingers busy farther back, is more than good enough. I'm not going to risk it just because I want to touch.

I'm not.

I have to tilt my head back and stop watching, my throat arching as I press my head back hard against the wall. I keep my eyes open, but I'm not really seeing the fall of the water in front of me or the metal of the showerhead that's about a foot and a half above my head. How could I focus on that with Hal between my legs and working like he is? I am not that good at multitasking.

Not with this, anyway.

My breath comes a little short, my leg pressing down over his shoulder because I need some way to vent all the movement that I'm not letting myself have. I'm not used to being still, it's not natural for me, and even this kind of stillness is ridiculously hard. I swear to god Hal must know that, even though I've never told him. Why else, every time we make one of these kinds of deals, does he focus down on making me hold still or keep my own hands pinned down somewhere? He's got to know.

I wrap my hands around my own wrists, digging my nails in to try and ground myself, to focus on anything that might make this last longer. It's not the best angle, and there's not enough support for me to really relax even if I were capable of that at the moment — which I'm so not — but Hal's in the middle of pressing a second finger in to join the first. His free hand releases the back of my thigh to slide around to the front press my hip back against the wall, which gives me just enough warning to strangle back the automatic cry that almost leaves me when he drops his mouth open and manages to get all of me inside.

I'm not small — smaller than Hal is, but that's not the point — and I really don't want to think about where Hal got the experience necessary to ignore a gag reflex like that. I try really hard not to think about what other guys Hal's slept with, I do, but my thoughts always come back to wondering when he has experience I know he didn't get from sleeping with me.

How come I've never heard of him sleeping with anyone else? (Except Owlman, but I try to ignore that ever happened and as far as I know it was only once, which doesn't explain anything.)

His hand is hard against my hip, anticipating the twist and forward buck of them that I can't even start to control, and I slam my eyes shut and drag in a breath. My back arches off the wall, but he keeps me pinned where it actually counts and doesn't let my reactions pause any of what he's doing. It makes me grit my teeth, my breath coming faster and only my will keeping any sounds buried and stuck at the bottom of my throat.

I can feel the coil of release low in my stomach, back near my spine, and it's sooner than I'd like but there's nothing I can do about that. When I'm in control I can delay it, hold myself back by doing things just a little off, a little wrong. Not any way that would make him notice, but just enough that it isn't amazing for me. But with him in complete control over my sensation, the only exception being if I let my hands down and cut it all off? No, there's nothing I can do to stop the feeling, and no way to make it last longer.

It's rare I ever last as long as Hal does — comes with the speed, and I recover in a quarter of the time so why should I care? — but sometimes I can get close, and then sometimes there's things like this. Then again, Hal seems to like it when I'm wiped out and pretty much at the mercy of whatever he wants to do to me. Usually, that means finishing whatever kind of preparation and fucking me.

If I'm going to be honest, I like it too. There's something absolutely fantastic about him sliding inside me, hard and hot and nowhere near satisfied, when there's nothing I can do about it. When everything is just a little too sensitive, and there's no chance of me getting hard again for at least a good handful of minutes.

These were really not the things to think about if I was going to even try and hold on any longer.

His fingers slide easily, playing with the sensitive nerves around the rim, and then pushing farther in. I can feel him reaching, knuckles pushing up against the outside of me as his fingers slide further and then curl inwards. I give him what he's looking for, crying out and bucking forward against the hand on my hip. Not enough to move it, he knows my reactions too well to let that happen.

I give a second, sharper cry when he makes some kind of noise around me. It's a smaller version of my trick, but I'm never going to know exactly what it feels like to have a vibrating tongue down there so I can only really guess at the comparison. All the other speedsters are either family or my enemies; not going there.

My grip on my own wrists hurts; sharp pinpricks of pain where my mostly blunt nails are digging in. Not enough to bleed — oh, I know what that feels like — and doing completely the opposite of what pain really should. The tiny edge of it in my wrists is just enough to push me a little farther, a little harder, and add into the crackle of lightning through my veins.

I don't know — I don't think I ever will — why the speed force is linked so closely to my own feelings, and how good I'm feeling. Stress and fear push it away, make it harder to get ahold of, but when I'm riding high on endorphins, pleasure, joy? It's a second away, humming just beneath my skin and riding through my veins with the sharp crack of lightning. It feels incredible; being that close to the speed force, that buried in it and soaked through, always feels incredible.

I've never tried describing it to anyone, not even Hal or Iris, but I'm not sure I could without it sounding, well, pornographic.

I twist and give another cry that bounces off the close walls of the shower, clenching my teeth harder for a moment before forcing them apart so I can gasp, "God, Hal."

He makes another sound, and the coil in my stomach pulls tighter, my back arches a little farther. The leg I'm bracing my weight on trembles, and Hal rolls the opposite shoulder forward so my leg can fall off of it and give me more to stand on. I drag in a strained breath that I don't manage to get all the way into my lungs, and then a second that meets the same fate; caught somewhere in my throat as the tide of pleasure draws back like it's about to become a tidal wave.

Two fingers becomes three, and the coil snaps; the tidal wave crashes.

The speed force comes to life within me, slowing the world down as I arch hard enough it feels like I'm going to snap, my toes curling down into the floor, fingernails breaking skin with a sharp slice of pain that's completely overwhelmed by the pleasure. I can feel it all happening, each individual spurt and the way Hal's hand — slowly, by how I'm living time — increases the strength pinning my hip to the wall, the slide of his fingers inside me a counterpoint to the heat of his mouth. The high extends, lightning sings, and my mouth parts as I take a breath and cry out, louder than anything before.

Time snaps back, and my cry cuts off with a strangled moan at the crash of feelings I was living in slow motion. Hal's mouth stays around me for a few more moments, long enough that I come down and start to relax, and only after my head slips down from the arch of my throat does he draw off me.

It's enough to make me shudder, make my breath catch, and I don't have to open my eyes and look to know that he's spitting to the side, to be washed away by the water. I don't have to care, either. His fingers pull out of me, and both of his hands run up my sides as he moves. I can feel the shift of heat before he presses up against me, mouth finding mine.

There's passion in the kiss, and I can feel him hard against my stomach, but his touch is gentle as it gets to my shoulders and then slides up my arms. His fingers trail over my wrists, my hands, and he pulls back just enough to break the connection of our lips and say, "You know, you can let those down now."

His tone is teasing, and it takes a moment for my brain to catch up to what he's saying.

"Oh," I breathe, with a soft laugh. I let go of my own wrists, lowering my arms to fall over his shoulders and loop around the back of his neck. "Slipped my mind," I manage to get out, and then let out a soft, happy sigh and relax into the press of him. I brush my lips over his and then across his jaw, down the wet curve of his neck to where I can tuck my head down into his shoulder and just rest.

His right hand slides into my hair, and his left moves down across my skin and along the path of my spine — pressed between my back and the shower wall — right down to where it was before. I give a small noise that's muffled by his shoulder, and nearly lost in the sound of the water, as his three fingers push back into me. Not the demanding, hard fuck I was expecting out of them, but a lazy rolling thrust that's much nicer to my sensitized nerves.

I voice my appreciation with something in between a moan and a hum, pulling my right hand up to stroke my fingers across the back of his neck. I tangle them in the shorter, wet strands at the base of his skull, and part my mouth enough that I can get it around some of the skin of his shoulder. He doesn't taste like much besides the salt of sweat and the clean taste of the water, but that's good enough for me.

I feel his lips reciprocate, pressing kisses to the side of my throat, and then he exhales over my skin and presses his face in against me. "Tell me when you're ready," he says, in a low, rumbling voice that's darkened with desire and a basic, simplistic want.

I let go of his skin. "You can fuck me whenever, Hal. I'm good." My voice might sound tired, satisfied, and I'm absolutely both of those things for the moment, but the speed force is also humming underneath my skin. I'm far from fragile, and the press of teeth below my ear, as his grip in my hair tightens, says pretty obviously that he likes that.

He takes a step back from me, hands sliding away and out, and I let him go and flick my eyes open to watch. My breath catches a bit at the picture he makes, the water slicing down over his head and running in sheets down his skin, eyes narrowed and dark, focused. His teeth sink into his lower lip, gaze dragging down along me, until he raises it back to my face.

"Turn around." There's no pretending that it's a request, and I wouldn't be half as interested if it was.

I gather what strength I've got left, and what's slowly filtering back to me, and flash a smirk at him before I turn around and brace both arms against the wall, letting my legs part in invitation. As much as I enjoy the shove of thighs between them, forcing me to part them, sometimes it's nice to tease Hal with the view too. I curve my back, pushing my chest into the wall, and the strangled groan I get in response is completely and utterly worth the effort.

His hands slide over my hips, and then pull away. I don't look back, but I'm tempted to until I hear the crackle of plastic being torn. Ah, condom. Then Hal's weight is pressing into me, pushing me against the wall, and I feel the hard press of him slide against me before slotting into the right place. My back curves for real as he slides inside me, the push made easy with lube, and my throat arches back with it. His hands come back to my hips, fingers spreading wide and clenching down tight.

"Fuck," he groans, and I can feel the heat of his breath at my shoulder before his teeth find purchase in my skin. Not hard enough to make me bleed, but enough to sting and undoubtedly leave a mark. Not for long of course; my healing will take care of that.

He pauses, restraint obvious in the grip of his fingers and press of his teeth, before he lets my shoulder go and presses his forehead down against it instead. His hips draw back, and I let my head drop forward against the wall as he slides out of me, and then firmly back in. The first few thrusts are testing, slow, and then he decides on a rhythm. The hard slap of his hips against me drives a gasp from my throat, and the next thrust twists me against the wall and gets a louder noise when it pushes into my prostate. The burst of pleasure is sharp, sudden, and a little too intense to be really nice, but that's alright.

At a basic level it still feels good, and I can enjoy the press of Hal's skin and the slide of him just fine even if the jabs are too much. This part is always mostly for Hal's enjoyment, and I'm not going to try and stop him from hitting my prostate when he's fucking me after I've already come. He might start avoiding it all together, and while that would mean I would last longer it would also take that pleasure from me. A pleasure I like, thank you very much.

Besides, this is as gentle as either of us is ever going to get with each other. Asking anything more is a line we haven't crossed, and I don't mean to. This isn't about love, it's about fucking until we're too tired to move, and venting out all the violence, and the anger, and just enjoying ourselves. Asking one of us to change what they like, to make things better for the other, is not part of the arrangement. That moves things into a territory that shouldn't ever be broached, and as far as I'm concerned never will be. I don't want Hal as anything more than exactly what we have right here.

A good fuck, and someone I can really call an ally and mean it.

So I take it, pressed up against the wall and with his fingers digging into my hips, dragging them back to meet each of his thrusts. His forehead stays against my shoulder for a little bit, but then it pulls back and his mouth presses down instead, sucking marks in that will never last long enough for anyone else to see. It feels good, so I've never stopped him. If he bites, I bite back; that's the way things are between us.

He just leaves more on me than I do on him, because he knows I'll heal from it. Any mark I leave in his skin is going to stay for a while, so I'm usually fairly careful about what I do. He'd be pissed if I left anything above the line of his suit, and that's another line I've never crossed. I confine myself to the rest of him, everything below his Adam's apple that's regularly covered and free game. On my side of things, I can always just stay in a room until it's gone, though he'd have to be pretty ambitious to leave anything my cowl wouldn't cover.

He's managed it once or twice, with hickeys along the line of my jaw, but to leave anything that would even stick around past the end of sex requires him biting pretty damn hard. I don't let him bite my jaw that hard; that goes beyond 'interesting' and into nothing but straight out 'painful.'

Strength comes back to me as the fuck continues, and I brace my arms a little sturdier against the wall and tilt my head back again, giving him the line of my throat to work with. He takes advantage, of course, and his mouth sucks a string of marks up the side, to back right below my ear. It feels like a long time to me, but he must be more worked up than normal because I don't have the time to get hard again before I recognize the increase of speed and ferocity that's the first warning signs of his release.

Then it's the abandonment of my skin between his teeth, his mouth still hovering over my throat but just to breathe. The air's hot against me, and I can feel through the pattern of its presence and the press of his chest against my back that he's breathing hard, fast, with a strained edge to his sounds that makes me absolutely certain he's clinging on. Ready to tip over at a simple push.

My mouth curves in a grin. Or a shove.

I reach into the speed force, concentrating for a moment through all of the sensation, and vibrate.

He freezes for a second, fingers clenching hard enough to bruise, and then gives a strangled, gasping cry and pushes hard against my back, like he's somehow trying to get more of himself inside. I let the vibrations go as he starts moving again, all but slamming me into the wall, and hold myself steady so he isn't actually knocking me into it. I can't help the breathless laugh that escapes me, and I think the bite to the side of my neck is some kind of payback but it doesn't hurt enough for me to care.

He goes for maybe another minute — my sense of exact, normal time is always kind of fuzzy — before releasing my throat and pushing hard into me. The shout he gives is muffled against my shoulder, but more than loud enough for me to hear and enjoy as he shoves as far into me as he can get. I can feel him throbbing through the barrier of the condom, feel his heartbeat pounding against my back and the tension in his muscles. I might not have had that much to do with it, but it's still a boost to my pride that I can make Hal shout like that when he's with me. Louder too, if I'm the one fucking him.

Then he slumps forward against me, and it forces a grunt out of my chest at the sudden weight pressing me into the wall. I don't dislike it enough to make him get off, or hint that I want him off by rolling my shoulders back — he learned to take that hint after I smacked him in the face with my shoulder a few times — but it's not entirely comfortable. It's only the heat of his body, the wet slide of his skin against mine — still nice, even if there's an ease between us that makes me think this isn't going to have a second round — and the knowledge that even if I did try and get him to move he probably couldn't that makes me hold that impulse back. Though the pants of his breath against the top of my shoulder are pretty nice, and so is the way his hands slide forward from my hips and loop both arms around my waist.

"Enjoying yourself, Hal?" I ask, teasing, and I get a snort against my shoulder.

"You're comfortable," he answers, tired and satisfied and everything that I was just a little while ago. He'll take longer to come out of the glow.

"You're heavy." I get a noise of agreement, but absolutely no change in the press of his weight or his loose grip. No surprise. "Alright, let me at least turn around. You can push my back against the wall all you want."

That gets him moving, slowly, but it's better that it's slow because the slip of him leaving my body drags a shudder through my shoulders. His arms loosen and pull away, and I get enough room between us to push away from the wall and turn around. I do it in time to see the removed, tied condom being tossed to the corner, before Hal steps forward and back up against me. His leg fits between mine, arms circling around my waist again, and his head finds the join of my neck and shoulder and buries itself there.

With him safely distracted I don't have to hide the smile that curls the corner of my mouth. Hal in sex is one thing, but him afterwards, when he's all loose, pliant, and relaxed, is just as good.

I slide my hands around his shoulders and run them down his back, stroking idly as I close my eyes and lower my head. I turn it to press my nose in against his neck, breathing his scent in and letting myself drift for a little bit. The background noise of the water, the rising steam, and the even pattern of his breathing so close to my ear is just about the perfect mix of sensation. It's comfortable, and now that he's not pushing my face and chest into the wall so is the feeling of him pressed up against me.

Contrary to what people think, I am occasionally capable of staying in one place and enjoying a few minutes of relaxation. Just not often, and I have to be in exactly the right mood for it. Otherwise I just get antsy and bored, and then anyone trying to make me stay gets hurt.

For now, I'm alright with just standing here and enjoying this. For now.

Hal moves before I get fidgety enough to tell him to, mouth pressing small kisses up the side of my throat that don't even have any teeth behind them. I draw up, pulling out of the relaxation to raise my head. His arms pull back, hands loosely gripping either side of my waist, and his mouth meets mine. Soft, slow, with no hint of tongue and none of the raw desire from before. He makes a noise that's something like a moan into my mouth, but much quieter, and I pull my arms a little tighter around his back.

"Careful," I say, against the press of his lips. "You're going to get me riled up for a second round, Hal."

He gives a quiet laugh, hands flexing on my waist and his thumbs rubbing small, idle circles into my skin. "How about some sleep in the middle there, speedster? Not all of us can go from zero to four hundred in ten seconds."

"I'm offended you think it takes me that long." My mouth curves in a grin, and I lean in to kiss him again. I keep it as soft and slow as he started, and slide my hands away and down his sides, letting my fingers curl around his hips. It's a convenient place to leave my hands, and it could go either way, depending. Though really, unless he keeps touching, stroking, and kissing the way he is, I'm not going to get anywhere near worked up enough to really go after a second round.

There's something soft between us that I'm not willing to break, not this time.

"Never said it was your best," he counters. "So?"

I consider for a second, a long second, and then give a nod that bumps my nose against his. "If you stick around and take the actual shower with me. I'd like to be clean."

His laugh is a little brighter, and I flick open my eyes to meet the brown, lazy, satisfied — a part of me says happy, but I push that away — gaze not even a foot away from mine. "Barry, you're crazy if you think — even as tired as I am — that I'm missing the sight of you all wet and soapy. Totally crazy."

A grin widens my mouth, and I give him a small shove away from me with my grip at his hips. Not enough to move him if he doesn't want to go, but he follows my silent request. "Sounds like a deal then, Lantern."

He steps back underneath the spray of water, and as my hands fall away from his hips he lets go of my waist and catches my wrists instead. Interested, I let him pull me forward under the spray and up against his chest. The hot water against my back feels heavenly, and I tilt my head back and give a small moan at the feeling of it beating against my neck, scalp, and shoulders. There is no other shower I know of in the whole world with water pressure like this, or such perfect temperature control.

Hal pulls my wrists upwards, and I look back down at him, reluctantly, as he presses a kiss to the underside my right wrist, and then my left. "I reserve the right," he starts with a tiny quirk of one side of his mouth, "to decide I have more energy than I thought, and pin you down to fuck you again when we're back in our room."

I laugh — not mocking, but just because — and tug my right wrist free so I can loop it around the back of his neck and tug him in for a kiss. When I pull back I let my mouth curve in a smirk, and answer, "And I reserve the right to decide I do want more, and work you open so I can fuck you and make you shout for me."

I can feel the tiny shudder in his shoulders, as he swallows. "And what happens if we both cash those rights in?"

"I guess we'll just have to do them both." I grin, he snorts and shakes his head.

"So, I guess sleep was just a fantasy?" He doesn't sound upset, or disappointed, just kind of amused. That's good, because I'm starting to think I might really want to actually do this. Especially considering that I'm probably going to spend the whole shower watching him, like he'll be watching me.

"We can sleep," I allow. "I don't think either of us said we had to do all of this tonight. We can always get back up, and there's always the morning."

"Who gets to do things first then?"

"May the best man win," I offer, and I can see the flicker of challenge in his eyes before he smirks and leans in.

I expect him to kiss me, and my eyes flick shut to accept it, but then he pauses a breath away and says, "I'll take that as a surrender."

My eyes snap back open. "Oh, you jackass." He looks very pleased with himself, and I laugh and then give a sharper grin. "I remember making you shout my name more than once, Lantern."

"Please," he says, smirk widening a bit to show a hint of teeth. "I've made you scream, Quick, and I dare you to top the time I made you black out."

I swallow at the memory, but immediately respond to his challenge by spitting, "You're on."

He does kiss me this time, for just a second, and then he gives an amused huff of breath. "Good."