Written for The Houses Competition, Year Two, Round Six.

House: Hufflepuff

Year: 5th

Category: Short

Prompts: [Speech] "I know enough that I won't die. So, teach me how to do this."
[Character] James Potter (Marauder, not Next Gen)
[First Line] We all have (superhero) inside us, I just needed to find mine.
Wordcount: 1097 (Google Docs)

Thank you to Aya for being my beta for this silly little thing!

Title: Batman Rides a Motorbike, and So Shall I

Summary: James Potter needs motorcycle lessons, and Sirius is not amused.

We all have Batman inside us, I just needed to find mine. That's why, when Sirius came over during Easter Break, I knew what I had to do.

He wasn't even all the way inside my house before I bombarded him with my plan. "Sirius, teach me how to ride that bike of yours."

I didn't think he was expecting that. I didn't think that I was expecting that either. The words just came out of my mouth, and there it was. I think he stood in my entry hallway for a good five minutes, opening and closing his mouth until he could speak properly. I probably stared at him the whole time. That's how shocked we both were.

"I… where did that come from, James? I thought you hated my bike."

"No… I never said I hated it," I said, frowning at him. "I said that it was dangerous, and way too noticeable, and LOUD."

He eyed me up and down as if I had grown an extra set of arms. But I wasn't going to back down. I'd grown an extra set of something, that was for sure.

"Listen," I said, "I think it's time that I tried new things. I mean, I read a book about it, and it doesn't seem that hard."

"You read a book about riding a motorcycle." It was a question, but Sirius made it sound like it was the most ridiculous thing I had ever said in my life. Maybe it was.

I'd been reading a lot lately. I'm not going to go into all the details of why I was reading a lot, or why all the subjects happened to be Muggle things, or even how I'd managed to obtain a Muggle library card to get my hands on said Muggle books, but I could tell you that once I started, I had found quite a few things about Muggles that I liked.

Batman was one of them.

The Muggles, they had these picture magazines. I think they called them 'comical' books. At first, I had guessed that they were supposed to be funny or something. Well, anyway, I picked one up because it had this strange looking wizard on the front, black robe and everything, except he had this mask on with pointed ears. It looked cool and all, and I started reading it.

Then I had to check out the entire collection. Batman seemed to be my spirit animal.

I'd tell you all about spirit animals, but they were a completely different set of books altogether.

The guy was so relatable. I didn't know why wizards hadn't heard of him before. He could fly (sort of), he fought bad guys, and sometimes, he rode this two-wheeled machine that looked very much like the contraption that Sirius owned.

I very much wanted to be more like Batman. That required a set of wheels.

Sirius had wordlessly led me out to the front of my house, where his motorcycle was parked. He motioned for me to sit down, so I slung my leg over one side and settled in. The seat was warm from the recent ride, and I placed my hands on the… I guess you called them 'handlebars', and got ready for the experience of a lifetime.

Except nothing happened.

"Well," Sirius said with a smirk, "go on, then."

My friend could be a real pain in the arse sometimes. I was an expert on a broom, we both knew that. This couldn't be that complicated.

"I know enough that I won't die. So, teach me how to do this," I said.

The git smirked at me again, and climbed into the passenger car attached to the bike. Batman didn't have one of those, but I was going to take what I could get.

After a few false starts, with a lot of swearing on my part and a lot of laughing on his, Sirius actually gave me the proper set of instructions, and we were off.

The wind through my hair, whistling through my teeth as I grinned like a madman, was everything like flying, and nothing like flying at the same time. I knew that Sirius could make this thing go in the air, but I wasn't quite confident with the controls yet, and I didn't want to push my luck.

Sirius yelled something at me, and I took my eyes off the road for a second to look at him. He was waving his finger at the big candy-red button on the console. So I pushed it.

The bike lurched upwards and off the road. I swore even more, and Sirius laughed even harder.

I found out soon enough that flying the motorbike was a lot easier than driving it. There weren't any lines on the road or traffic signals to hold me back. There also weren't any other motor vehicles above the treeline. It was just like being on a broom, except that git of a friend was right next to me, cackling his head off at my insecurities.

I bet Batman never had to deal with someone like that. Oh, wait. There was this evil clown in issue twenty-four…

I was starting to feel more and more like Batman every second.

We landed soon after, and I was so thrilled that I wanted to high five my friend. He just looked at me weird and went inside.

I followed him, thinking lofty thoughts, perhaps looking into making myself one of those masks with ears so I could be more authentic for the next time I rode the thing. But Sirius wasn't in the living room or the kitchen. That wasn't like him.

"Mum, where'd Sirius go?" I asked.

She called out from the sitting room, where she was sipping her afternoon tea,"I think he went up to your room, James."

When I got up the stairs, I hadn't even made it to my room when Sirius flagged me down with one of the comical books, flashing a picture of Batman riding his motorcycle in front of my face.

"Is this why?" he almost yelled at me. "Is this why you wanted to ride my bike?"

"Umm… yeah?" I said. "Is that a problem?"

"No," he said. "It's just weird is all."

"What's weird about Batman?" I demanded.

"There's nothing weird about Batman," he said. "It's just weird that you like him."

"Why's that?"

Sirius smirked again. If he did that too much longer, I was going to charm his face to stay that way permanently.

"Batman's my favorite superhero too."