Title: A Midsummer's Night Dream Author: Agarwaenloth Rating: PG-13, maybe R Pairings: Clark/Oliver, Bart/AC, Victor/Dinah, with Clark/Bart and AC/Dinah Summary: Bart loves AC, who's with Dinah to make Bart jealous, but Bart finds comfort in Clark, who loves Oliver, who has recently acquired a new team member in Dinah, who has fallen for Victor but can't break his shell. Add to that Clark's Kryptonian heritage is making itself known in a way he never expected...

Chapter One

It all began with the Black Canary. Dinah Laurel Lance was not the type anyone would peg as a crimefighter. With her volumptuous curves, long legs, and impossibly high cheek bones, she was far more likely to be a pampered catwalk model. Her classic ice-blonde hair and saphire eyes also lent her little credit in the fighting evil department. However, Oliver had seen her fire in her eyes, not to mention she came with excellent recommendations from Gotham.

As soon as she was introduced to the team, she immediately set her sights on Victor. 'No,' she thought. 'That sounds wrong. It sounds as if I am hunting him like I would a prey.' But, in a way, that's was how she operated. Huntress would laugh if she could see her now, telling her that it was useless to deny who she was. But somehow, Dinah didn't believe that Victor would mind her unorthodox approach to romance, but she couldn't get him to come out of that damn shell of his! So she had set her eyes on AC.

Not that she got over Victor, oh no, she was too stubborn for that. She just figured that she and AC could help each other out. She had seen the pining looks sent his way by Bart, looks that she was sure the aquatic man had failed to notice if the painful longing in his eyes whenever he looked at "Impulse," as the super-fast man was dubbed. She just wanted to help them both, and maybe in the process help herself as well...

She could just hear the laughter of Huntress. "You want to help them, how sweet. You know, Dinah, you mean well, and you're a good person, and a damn good fighter, but you don't fight for others. You fight for yourself. You feel the need to validate yourself."

Of course, Huntress would say that, and she would, of course, be right. She knew her better than anyone after all. She knew that Dinah would never feel as if she had proven her worth until she obtained the approval of her mother, an approval, she knew, would be long in coming, if it would ever. It's not that Dinah Drake Lance, the former Black Canary, did not love her daughter, it's just that she felt the world had become far too dangerous for her little girl compared to the days when she kept the nights safe as the Canary. But Dinah could not get her daughter to understand that was the precisely the reason she had to fight.

But that was besides the point. The point was that she had completely ruined the relationship between Bart and AC. As soon as she had come to an agreement with AC and begun their pseudo relationship, Bart had changed. Not noticeably, of course, because he was very good at hiding things. But he would disappear during downtime that the team got and his smile did not seem to reach his eyes at times.

She sighed. She did not know how to fix this. She didn't even know if she could.

Clark sighed as he looked down at the nude young man lying beside him in the loft. His mom was in Topeka for the week, organizing a huge fundraiser for the American Heart Association. They would have never let themselves settle into this compromising situation if there was any chance of them getting caught.

It wasn't that he didn't care for the man lying next to him. He cared for him a great deal, but he did not love him, could not, if what Jor-El said was true. His soul had already committed him to another. Oliver...

He so wanted to tell him how he felt, but he was deathly afraid, and for good reason, it seemed. Jor-El had made it perfectly clear what rejection could mean for him, and as miserable as he was without Oliver, being driven to suicide was not something he could afford, for his mother's sake, and the entire world's, seeing as how he had to get rid of the Zoners.

So when Bart had come to him, looking for comfort and a distraction from his doomed love for AC, he had reluctantly agreed. They needed each other. They were a lot alike, he and Bart. Both good at hiding their true feelings, both putting on a front of invulnerability, both used to being alone, and both helplessly in love with men that would never be theirs. Clark knew that his-bond or whatever-that he shared with Oliver thanks to his Kryptonian legacy would not allow it to continue, but he needed something to keep him grounded at the moment, and Bart was willing to help.

tbc...

Raise your hand if you want this story to include mpreg!