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Bart had never put on a band aid before. There was never any reason for him to try, with his healing factor his wounds closed within seconds. But when Tim fell off his skateboard and ate shit on the pavement, the only thing he could think about was that he was going to need to learn how to put one on, fast.
Fortunately, fast was his entire thing.
"Damn," said Tim when he noticed the damage that was done; it wasn't his knees that suffered but his hands. Chewed up by the concrete. He had his bloody palm in his mouth by the time Bart was back carrying a first aid kit he had easily grabbed from Jay and Joan’s bathroom. When he noticed him he took his palm out for only long enough to talk. “So that is not how you do a kick-flip, and that was the shittiest landing I ever did.”
“Kinda figured. You’re supposed to roll with it.” Bart swallowed seeing the red line between Tim’s lips as he licked his palm and moved on to other wounds. Licking, sucking. Bart wondered what it would be like to do that for him, would his saliva work like magic for him and heal each wound before their eyes?
No, that was silly. At least, no one ever tried that? Did they?
“So uh hey, I got Jay’s first aid kit. Here, lemme help?” Bart already had it opened before Tim could properly answer him.
“I think I got it,” Tim said and reached for one bandage with bloody fingers, Bart snapped the kit shut.
“Nope, not with those fingers. Joan would get real mad if you bled all over this! Let me, please?” Bart asked, eyes large but determined.
Well, Tim could never say ‘no’ to Bart no matter how preposterous the request was. At least this time it didn’t involve the Batmobile.
“Fine,” relented Tim and he moved to sit in the grass.
With an ecstatic grin Bart also sat next to him. “White mage for a day!” he boasted and opened the kit back up. “So, confession. I’ve never actually done this before.”
Tim immediately felt a spike of dread at that. “What?”
Bart already had a large bandage out and he found the edges and unpeeled it from a suspiciously yellow wrapper. “Putting a band aid on, never done it, never had to!”
“Wait, stop! I’ll need some antibiotic ointment first. I’m immunocompromised,” Tim got out before Bart could go any further and it halted him.
“Oh!” Bart fished around in the kit until he found a white and yellow very aged tube of Neosporin. Both their eyes met in uncertainty before he took the cap off to reveal a wax memory of what the ointment once was. “Woof! Madame Tussaud called and she wants this on display!”
“How old is this medical kit?!”
“Uhhhh,” Bart looked it over and frowned when he found the date. “It’s from uh… 1992.”
“Bart, that’s from thirty one years ago!” Tim put his palm back in his mouth protectively.
“Well, you know how old people hoard things. This isn’t nearly as bad as the can of beets I found in Max’s pantry, it was from the 1960s!” Bart laughed a little then at the memory. “I suggested we give it to Dr. Morlo for a chemical analysis, he might be able to make a cool gas out of it or something but, well, you know how he was.”
“I don’t actually,” Tim said as he pulled his palm out of his mouth, the wound had finally stopped bleeding. “I didn’t get to spend much time with him.”
“Right,” Bart sighed and he put his memories and feelings about Max away for later, he couldn’t deal with them now. “Anyway, the ointment is no-go but the band aid should be good, right?”
Tim weighed his options and then nodded as he answered. “For now, yeah.” He would replace it with a new one later but for now it would do what it needed to.
“Cool, now, lemme see it.” Bart got the old band aid ready as Tim offered him his chewed up palm. Something skittered in Bart’s chest seeing it, the pale skin raw and pink and the deep gouge in his friend’s flesh. When he touched him the feeling amplified, like sound waves on water and all he wanted to do was… make it better. Kiss it and make it better. The mental image was vivid as he held his hand and stared at it.
“Uh… Bart?”
“Hm?”
“You uh, going to put it on or just look at it?” Tim said and there was a slight dusting of pink on his cheeks. Bart’s hand was so… different feeling from everyone else’s that he had touched before and he couldn’t place why. It made his blood fizz in his veins like soda and something zinged in his head and tickled his skin.
“Oh grife! Sorry!” Bart swearing pulled him back and Tim watched as his friend withdrew the band aid and peeled it out of its paper. He examined it carefully, yellow intelligent eyes taking in everything about it before he took a hold of the paper wings and spread them. “Like this?” he asked and Tim nodded.
“Yeah, and you just press it on and… keep going.” Tim used to think having a ‘knot in someones throat’ was a just a turn a phrase. He was wrong because he really did feel like his tubes got tied in a knot.
“Press it on, and keep going,” Bart echoed as he did precisely that and applied the ancient bandage to Tim’s macerated palm.
Once it was on they both stared at it, and then at each other. Sunshine hovering over the Atlantic sea in Autumn.
Tim was the one who finally was able to break away. “Thanks, I’ll be good until we get back.”
“No problem,” Bart said softly and he closed the first aid kit with a snap, missing the feeling of Tim’s skin on his already. But then he rejoiced. “Thanks for letting me do that.”
“You really never put on a band aid before?” Tim asked as he got to his feet. He accepted Bart handing him his skateboard.
“Nope! No need to. Something like that would be healed within a minute,” he explained as they walked together.
Tim couldn’t imagine what it was really like to be a speedster, but he was really starting to understand why Bart claimed everyone else was the weird one, not him. He grinned and threw his skateboard down and as easily as swinging between buildings he stepped on it and rolled far ahead of his friend.
“Hey!” Bart complained hardheartedly with a smile as he loped next to him. “If you crash again and eat nass I’m not patching you up again!”
“Typical white mage, huh?” Tim bantered back and they once again caught each other’s eyes.