does she play the viola? does she embroider? - [Fic: DCU] Five Times Booster and Beetle Were Found Out (Booster Gold/Blue Beetle)

Title: Five Times Booster and Beetle Were Found Out
Author: quirkytaverna
Fandom: DCU
Characters/Pairing: Booster Gold/Blue Beetle
Timeline/Spoilers: Spoilers for Infinite Crisis and Booster Gold’s last arc, but nothing major at all.
Disclaimer: Not mine, no gain, don’t sue please.
Rating: There’s nothing here to write home about. Uh, if home is Bill O’Reilly’s house. And if it is, what are you doing living there?
Summary: The title is largely self-explanatory.
A/N: 1,600 words. Came out of nowhere, never written before, etc etc.




“So this is a date, right?” Ted asked hopefully, barely noticing the setting sun against Gotham's crowded skyline, the way the shadows were starting to creep out and take over.

“Oh, Ted,” Babs began, her hand reaching for Ted's, smiling fondly.

Ted grinned.

“… No.”

“Wounded!” Ted cried, wrenching his hand away from Babs and falling to his knees beside her chair. “Shot through the heart!”

“And I'm to blame?” She smiled. “You're spending too much time with Booster Gold.”

“We're not gay, if that's what you're saying!” Ted said quickly. And then laughed. Hysterically.

“I was saying you’ve lost your sense of humor,” Babs corrected, reaching down to haul Ted back up on his feet. Ted would later tell anyone that might have seen this that he helped her with the follow-through, but the truth was that Bab’s upper-body strength was phenomenal. Way better than his own.

Not that he was going to compliment someone who had basically just told him that he’d suffered a recent amputation of the funny bone. After all, he did have a heart condition, no wonder she was stronger!

“I have not,” Ted began with an air of superiority once back on his feet, “I have not lost my sense of humor. It has become more refined-“ Babs laughed “- refined by matching wits with that witless Booster Gold. Stop laughing.”

“I’m sorry,” she said, still laughing. “I just can’t help it.”

“Yeah, well, it’s a good thing you’re pretty,” Ted said. “I can forgive you. Especially if you’re going to put out. Uh. Don’t tell Nightwing I said that. You two are off again, right?”

“Ted…”

“Right? Oh god, you’re on again. You’re on again and – and we’re on his home turf, he’s going to jump me! Why would you do this to me!?”

“Ted.”

“IT’S INNOCENT,” Ted yelled to the sky, arms spread wide, “WE’RE JUST FRIENDS.”

“Ted,” Babs repeated again, patient, and Ted finally stopped and looked her.

“Yeah?”

She took his hand again, and Ted smiled, sheepish.

Babs tilted her head up to look into his eyes, a movement so well-practiced for her by now, and said: “I’m going to ask you something: are you and Booster an item?”

Ted stared at her.

Babs waited.

He began to laugh, but cut himself off.

Babs waited.

“… Yes.”

And Babs smiled, tugging his hand to bring him into a hug. “Thank you for telling me,” she said, and she noticed that when they pulled back, Ted looked utterly serious.

“He’s important to me.”

“I know, Babs assured him, touched by his sincerity.

Which lasted for all of a minute before he re-arranged his features into a mock-doleful expression. “I came on too strong with you, didn’t I?”

“Sorry.” She grinned. “It was clear. You were trying too hard. Ted? You never have to do that.”

Ted smiled back – silent, for once, and content to be so.

And that was how Barbara Gordon became the first person to find out about Booster and Beetle.

*

The second person (though 'person' is such a limiting term) was Skeets. It was less of a discovery and more of an in-full-view revelation.

He doesn’t like to talk about it.

*

Booster was in their Super-Buddies headquarters with his feet propped up on the couch, drinking a beer and doing absolutely no sort of work whatsoever when person number three came into their knowledge.

“You think Superman sits around JLA Tower with a beer?” Sue asked with a wry smile as she walked through to find him there, reaching down as though to ruffle Booster's hair.

“Don't,” Booster commanded, pointing a finger at her, “Touch the hair.”

“I forgot. You're such a god, Booster Gold.”

“See that you don't forget again! I'd offer you a beer, but we don't want to cause damage to Baby Dibny.”

“I'm not pregnant.” Memories like elephants, their team, Sue thought wearily, so long as it was jokes they were talking about.

“Isn't it time you accepted your condition?”

“Isn't it time you accepted yours?”

“Being gay is not a condition!”

Sue raised a brow. “I'm pretty sure I was talking about your narcissism. That's a personality disorder.”

“I'm not – I mean – ha ha ha – I mean - “ Booster started, leaping to his feet and scrambling, Sue noticed, for his wits, senses, and words all at once. She arched a brow. Grinned.

“How did you know?” Booster finally demanded, and Sue decided that she liked it when he perplexed; it was a nice, unguarded moment. She did like Mr. Gold over there.

When she didn't say anything, Booster continued. “Was it Ted? Did Ted tell you?! That's so like him, always wanting sympathy, heart condition this, no superpowers that, I'm going to teach him to keep his mouth shut! Was it him?”

“No,” Sue said, grinning, “But you told me just now.”

Booster stared at her. “What? - I -”

“Thanks!”

His mouth dropped open. A pause. Sue eyed Booster. Booster eyed Sue.

“ARRRRRGH!”

*

Sometimes, they got to play with the big guns of superhero crime fighting.

Well, not really, but sometimes they ran into the Justice League on the job. Or, even, on the street while not on the job. Still in costume. And okay, so maybe that's what happened on this particular occasion.

Booster and Beetle had been undergoing some serious recon (recon that may also be known as tonsil hockey, using the technical terminology ) in an old warehouse in some typically dank and dark side-street in Gotham City. It belonged to a subdivision of Kord Industries that had obviously fallen into some kind of disrepute; it was all but abandoned.

And Ted was curled around Booster with an accidentally-gentle hand curving his cheek, and Booster's eyes were closed, and it really was thoroughly enjoyable, the kissing, and it was something they should have looked into earlier – no wonder people dated if they got to do the kissing thing.

And that's how they were, just like that, when the door was suddenly, spectacularly, flung open - judging by the leading foot - with some kind of flying kick.

And then in strode the Batman.

With a shriek that was manly, really, and could have belonged to either Booster or Beetle (but did, in fact, belong to Beetle), they pulled apart and straightened up. They were fast and they even allowed time for a quick, satisfied nod at each other before turning back to Batman right in front of them.

Who, it seemed, was just giving them a bored and exasperated air (you could tell, even with the mask, Booster would say later).

“Batman! Hey!” Booster said, rather unnecessarily.

“You two need to find somewhere else for your coupling,” he said, annoyed. “What are you even doing here?”

Booster and Beetle looked each other, and Booster surreptitiously straightened his costume.

This time, Batman sounded exasperated. “I know that. I meant why are you doing it here?”

“You know?” Ted asked, stupidly. “How do you know?”

“Yeah! You don't know,” Booster chimed in. “How do you know?”

And Bruce just leveled a look at them. “I'm Batman.”

*

The fifth and last person to find out about Booster and Blue Beetle was the next Blue Beetle, Jaime Reyes. Being the third guy to hold the Beetle mantle was pretty cool, except for when you realised that the Beetle before you died.

Jaime liked it when Guy Gardner talked to him about Ted Kord. It didn’t happen very often, because Guy wasn’t a guy who enjoyed getting down with his emotions, but when it did happen, Jaime hung off every word. At first, the thing that amazed him most about Ted Kord was that he didn’t have any superpowers, didn’t have a scarab-thing in the way Jaime did, since it wouldn’t work for him; Ted was just a really smart, really brave guy, and Jaime was blown away by that.

Then the thing that amazed him most was the loyalty of Ted’s old friends. A lot of them had come to his aid: Guy, Oracle, and Booster Gold – well, okay, not really Booster Gold, but they had worked together. Even Batman had helped him out because he wore the Blue Beetle mantle. He was lucky.

But the latest thing to amaze Jaime about Blue Beetle number two, Ted Kord, was a picture he’d found hidden in one of the science texts Guy had given him. He’d already felt lucky to own a piece of Ted Kord, basically his hero, and when a picture fell out, he was overwhelmed.

It was obviously self-taken; Ted’s hand stretched out the foreground of the picture, holding the camera. His other hand was at the back of Booster Gold’s head, pulling him in for a kiss.

He hadn’t known that Ted Kord had been in love.

Jaime stared. He was pretty sure no one knew about this. Guy hadn’t told him Ted was – not that it mattered that he was – he just didn’t know, and suddenly everything made sense. No wonder Booster Gold was so weird about him being a Beetle and having the scarab. No wonder he’d tried so hard to bring Ted back.

No wonder Jaime would never live up to the Blue Beetle name in Booster’s eyes.

Jaime didn’t hold on to the picture, and he didn’t pass it on to Booster, either; he simply slipped it back into the text, where Ted had wanted it – close to his heart, between two well-worn pages littered in sketches of the Bug.

*

fin