Chapter Text
Tim isn’t really looking at his monitors when he catches it out of the corner of his eye. He’s trying to finish scripting the program he’s been working on for the last 3 weeks to update the batcomputer’s defenses because ever since Bruce left for his so-far indefinite batman inc. world tour, Dick has been letting it slide, and while Tim is absolutely positive that Damian is more than capable of updating the batcomputer’s defenses in Bruce’s stead, Tim also does not trust that Damian wouldn’t do it without also setting up innumerous hidden data caches reserved exclusively for whatever diabolical doing tickles his fancy on a particular day. So Tim is doing it himself. Again. And this time, he’ll make sure the brat can’t hack his way into it.
So Tim isn’t looking at his monitors. He is in fact, incredibly pre-occupied when he notices that Clark is in Kon’s bedroom at the farm, right between Steph’s living room where she has been playing solitaire alone for the past three hours at her coffee table, and the penthouse kitchen where Alfred is cooking dinner for one especially undeserving ten-year old ex-assassin.
Tim only looks up fully because Clark’s visits to the farm are rarely for pleasure these days, and because, historically, Tim knows he and Kon have not always seen eye to eye, but Tim doesn’t fully turn to face the screen until he notices Kon hunched over with his head in his hands, sitting on the side of his bed. Clark’s hand resting comfortingly on his back. Their faces are bowed, not angled towards the camera so Tim can’t read Clark’s lips, but he knows he’s talking, and Tim has never regretted not putting that mic in Kon’s bedside table lamp more than he does at this very moment, despite the violation of privacy Tim knows it would be.
It’s never been clear to Tim whether or not Kon knows about the cameras. Stephanie definitely knows because sometimes she’ll do a little stupid dance right in front of the one in her living room, or she’ll pull a dining room chair into the room and stand up on it to show Tim some rude comic she’s drawn, usually either about himself or Damian. One time she put on a puppet show from behind the couch for nearly a whole hour. But Kon had never shown such obvious awareness, and so Tim was never sure, despite the fact that he did seem to sometimes make faces directly into Tim’s cameras, and once when Cassie had been over Tim swore Kon had winked at the camera behind Cassie’s back while they were making out; an act which Tim deliberately ignored and paid no attention to what-so-ever.
To be honest, Tim is surprised he hasn’t caught Kon and Cassie in the actual act yet, considering how promiscuous Kon is. The thought gives Tim pause and he takes a moment to think maybe Kon does know about the camera and that’s exactly why Tim has never caught him and Cassie really going at it, but it’s out of his head as soon as he looks back up at the monitor where Kon is now enveloped in Clark’s arms, shaking. Tim can see where Kon’s hand is clutched in Clark’s flannel shirt and Tim’s first instinct is to check on Martha, which he does. He finds her standing in front of the kitchen sink, peeling potatoes. She glances at the stairs once and then back to her work. His second instinct tells him to check on Cassie. Steph seems to be doing just fine in her solitaire game, so he switches her off the screen and brings up Cassie’s kitchen. It’s empty, but the lights are on, so he switches to her room where he finds her laying on her bed reading a comic book.
A huff escapes Tim, unbidden, and he brings Stephanie back up on the monitor. It’s still early, Dick and Damian probably haven’t even left for patrol yet, so Tim feels relatively justified in using his comm. to call Steph. He watches her blindly reaching for her phone somewhere behind her on the couch before bringing it to her ear.
“How’s the game going?” Tim asks before she can speak.
Stephanie groans and Tim watches her turn her head and glare at the camera. Then she says, “Is it cheating to shuffle the deck when you can’t make any more moves?”
“Yeah,” Tim says. “Pretty sure it is, Steph.”
“Hmm.” She pins her phone to her ear with her shoulder and Tim watches her shuffle the deck. “Oh well.”
“Have you seen or talked to Kara lately?” Tim asks.
Stephanie takes a moment before responding, adding a new card to one of her piles. “Yeah, couple days ago, actually. Over the weekend, she came into town to help with Mxyzptlk. You were with the titans, I think.”
“Did she say anything to you?” Tim asked.
“She said many things to me, Tim.”
Tim groaned. “Anything important?”
Stephanie also groaned, and Tim felt that it was distinctly mocking. “I don’t know, what fits your particular definition of important today, Timothy?”
“Anything regarding current events in the Kent family?”
“Clark’s birthday is coming up,” Stephanie says.
“No.”
Stephanie turns to look at the camera again and flings her arm out. “Yeah, it is Tim. You can’t just decide Superman’s birthday isn’t happening. It is. Have you even gotten him anything yet?”
“That’s not what I meant, Stephanie. What else did Kara say?”
A loud, static sigh bursts through Tim’s ear piece and Stephanie turns fully on the couch to face his camera. “I don’t know, Tim. Maybe it would be a little bit easier for me to help you out if you told me what kind of information you’re actually looking for.”
“Something’s up with Kon. I don’t know what’s going on, I’m just trying to make sure it’s nothing serious.”
“Aww, that’s so-,”
“Stop. Stephanie, just. What did Kara say?”
“Okay, okay, hold on, let me think for a second.” Stephanie turns back around and crosses her legs, elbows on her knees. She doesn’t move for a minute, then says, “She did… mention something about one of the furies showing up again? I guess Kara said they thought she’d been killed, but she seemed pretty out of it when they found her and she’s already in lockup again, so. I don’t know, that’s probably not it…”
“No, you might be onto something. Did Kara say which fury it was?” Tim asks.
“Um… Blackout, or Rockout or something?”
Tim takes a moment to put his head in his hands and says in a monotone, “Knockout, Stephanie?”
Stephanie laughs loudly and says, “Got it one, boy wonder!”
“She… could have something to do with this…”
“Yeah?” Stephanie has gone back to her game. “They have dealings or something?”
“Well, she sort of mentored him early on, I think, but he put her away after she killed a cop. He mentioned her once or twice back when we were in Young Justice, but if her revival is what this is about, his reaction seems… disproportionate.” Tim says, and looks back to Kon’s screen where he is slouched in on himself, no longer being hugged, but nodding slowly to something Clark is saying.
“Maybe it’s something else then,” Stephanie says and stands up. She leaves the room.
“Like what?”
“I don’t know, ask him.”
“I don’t think this is that kind of a situation, Steph.” Tim says, watching Clark rise to his feet with a hand on Kon’s shoulder. When he finally leaves Kon’s room, Kon seems to cave in on himself and Tim feels something in his chest twinge a little bit. He ignores it and looks back to Stephanie’s monitor in which she has just reappeared holding a bag of chicken whizzies. “I need more information.”
“No, Timmy,” She says, “Little Timmy Tim Tim,” she looks at the camera. “Literally every situation is that kind of a situation when it involves your friends. If he doesn’t want to tell you what’s going on, then he won’t, and you’ll leave him alone because it’s none of your business. Okay?”
For a moment Tim stays silent, until Stephanie says, “Okay?” and Tim feels the corner of his mouth quirk.
“Yeah… Okay.”
“Good,” Stephanie plops down on the couch and crams a hand full of whizzies into her mouth.
“But, Steph. If you call me Little Timmy Tim Tim one more time, I’ll never speak to you again.”
“Whatever you say, Little Timmy Tim Tim.”
Tim disconnects his comm. to the sound of Stephanie’s boisterous cackling and tries to re-focus himself on the task at hand and not Kon’s monitor where he is laying on his bed with his back to the camera.
÷÷÷÷÷÷
Two weeks later, after he’s finally finished writing and uploading his scripts onto the batcomputer’s mainframe Tim decides maybe, just maybe, he could casually head over to Titans Tower and offer to do the same for them.
Tim figures it must be a quiet weekend at the tower when he walks in on Bart and Gar going at it on the big screen in Mario Kart. Gar greets him without looking away from their game but Bart abandons it entirely, speeding over to grab Tim’s shoulders with little to no warning. “Tim,CassieandKonarefighting!”
“Um,” Tim says.
“They can’t fight, Tim!” Bart says, this time slow enough that Tim can actually understand him without straining himself. “I need them to be together, I live vicariously through their stable relationship!”
“Bart,” Tim says.
“You live vicariously through Superboy and Wonder Girl’s stable relationship?” Gar asks, having just won their half abandoned round of Mario Kart. Tim silently congratulates him for asking the important questions.
“First of all, you should stop doing that,” Tim says to Bart.
“Why?” Bart asks.
“Because it’s not healthy.” Tim gets an incredulous look from Bart and, yeah, okay, Tim can take a hint, but he adds, “And it’s not really our business anyway,” just for good measure. “Maybe they just need space.”
After a moment, Bart’s hands leave Tim’s shoulders and he says, “They’ve been in Cassie’s room for hours, Tim. Like, actual hours.”
“Come on, Dude,” Gar says and pats the couch cushion next to him. “Sit back down, play another round of Mario Kart with me. I’ll even let you be Birdo this time.” Then he looks back at Tim and says, “You want in on this?”
Tim shakes his head at the same time Bart zips over the back of the couch. “I’m just here to update theTitan’s mainframe and security systems.”
“Ahuh,” Bart says. “God forbid you stop by just to visit.”
Tim glares halfheartedly at the back of Bart’s head as he walks past the couch. “I’ll be around for a while. I can do both.”
“Dinner’s at seven!” Gar calls after him, Tim’s already rounded the corner of the hallway leading to their private rooms, but he makes a mental note.
If asked, even under duress, Tim swears he is on his way to his own room when he hears Cassie’s voice through the door to her bedroom. He also swears that training and instinct is the only reason he stops walking when Kon says, “It’s not like that Cassie,” and Cassie replies with vitriol, “Oh, okay. Tell me what it’s like, then, Kon.”
The silence goes on just long enough for Tim to question what he’s doing before Kon speaks again and Tim gets sucked back in, “It’s… look, Cassie you know I love you I just… I don’t think I’m in love with you… anymore. I can’t really be sure about anything I’m feeling right now, to be honest. So this is just… it’s for the best. Probably.”
“Probably,” Cassie says.
“Yeah.”
“That is the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard you say. And I’ve heard you say a lot of stupid stuff over the years, Kon.”
There’s a short pause and then Kon says, “That’s just how it is. You’ve gotta believe me. It’s not y-,”
“I swear to the Gods, Conner Kent, If you say ‘it’s not you, it’s me’ I will punch you through this wall.”
“Well,” Kon says after a moment of silence. “That’s fair.”
“You can say you’re not in love with me anymore all you want, and maybe… I don’t know, maybe it’s even true and I just don’t want to believe it. But you’re kidding yourself if you expect me to believe that’s all this is about.”
“You’re… not wrong.” Kon says.
“So?” Cassie’s voice has softened immensely. “What is this about, then? This whole – all of this, it’s not like you.”
“I just can’t do this – relationships, right now. With anyone. I need to figure some stuff out first, I guess.” Kon says.
“So… this is just temporary? We’re not actually breaking up.”
“No,” Kon says almost immediately. And then, “Maybe. I don’t know. I can’t make you any promises right now.”
There is another long pause and Tim can almost hear Cassie taking a breath. Maybe he just imagines it. “I’m incredibly angry with you, right now.” She says. “But okay.” And then with slightly more venom, “Fine.”
“Cassie, come on,” Kon says. “Please don’t be like this. I’m sorry.”
“Yeah, Same.” Cassie says, and Tim barely has time to arrange himself into a non-conspicuous position before she storms out of the room. If she sees him she gives no indication.
Kon follows shortly after, floating sadly and starting when he sees Tim. “Whoa,” he says. “Where did you even come from?”
Tim points his thumb in the direction of the rec room and says, “I’m just here to update the security systems.”
Kon squints. “Didn’t Vic just…” he ducks his head and holds up a hand. “You know what… Nope. Never mind.”
“Are you okay?” Tim asks and knows it was the wrong thing to say as soon as he sees the way Kon is looking at him.
“I don’t know.” Kon says, and Tim can practically feel Kon’s anger in the air around him, squeezing his chest. “You’re the boy genius, you tell me, Rob.” Actually, Tim thinks maybe he can literally feel it. “World’s greatest detective teach you how to read facial expressions yet?” Yeah, Tim is definitely having trouble breathing, just barely, but it’s noticeable.
“Kon,” he says, and Tim’s slightly breathless tone seems to wake Kon up. The feeling of his TTK compressing Tim’s chest disappears, and so does Kon. Tim watches him glide down the hallway and around the corner to his own bedroom. Admirably, Tim doesn’t jump when he notices Victor’s immense shadow looming over him.
“Updating the security systems, huh?” Vic says.
Tim turns to face him and says, “You can never be too careful.”
“Next time you want to visit, just visit, okay?”
“Sure,” Tim says and Vic sighs.
“We’ve got trouble.” He says. When Tim looks back towards the hallway where Kon disappeared, he adds, “I think we should leave those two out of this one. It’s nothing we can’t handle, just Dr. Light terrorizing civilians again.”
“Right,” Tim says and follows Vic back to the rec room where they find Bart face down on the couch literally vibrating with laughter, and Gar waddling in a circle around the coffee table after apparently having managed to shapeshift himself into a green version of Birdo. “Jesus,” Tim says and doesn’t know what he’s more disturbed by: the fact that Bart is potentially literally dying of laughter, or the fact that Birdo counts as an animal in Gar’s quite frankly inconsistent archive of fauna.
“Don’t lie to me,” Vic looks down at him with his one human eyebrow raised. “You miss this.”
“Maybe,” Tim says and smiles.
÷÷÷÷÷÷
After a thoroughly boring confrontation with Dr. Light, Tim decides that maybe he should make good on his excuse for coming to the tower, so while Bart opens the fridge to begin his customary post-battle one man eating contest and Vic goes to his room to perform routine maintenance, Tim heads down to the computer room.
Most of the scripts he’s written already for the batcomputer can be adapted for Titans Tower, but he’ll have to run a few diagnostics to make sure none of his code contradicts whatever security measures Vic already has running throughout the tower. The process will take some time, but Tim’s involvement will be minimal, so he sits back in the chair and decides to call Stephanie on his comm. to let her know her plan was crap and completely backfired on him, and also, she is horrible at giving advice.
He’s about to say these words almost exactly after she picks up, but switches gears at the last minute when he notices her breathing is heavier than usual and there’s a small amount of background noise coming through the comm.
“Are you on patrol?” he asks, and wheels his chair back from the computer a few feet to notice that it has in fact started to get dark outside the immense windows on either side of the mainframe, which means that back in Gotham it’s prime time for patrol.
“Yeah,” She says, “What’s up.”
“I can call back later-”
Stephanie cuts him off with a rude noise and says, “Please. I can multitask. What’s up?”
Tim is quiet for a moment and then says, “Can you?”
“Boy Wonder I swear to Bat-God, I can and will kick your ass all the way back to Gotham if I have to. What. Is. Up?”
Tim snorts and says. “I just wanted you to know your brilliant plan nearly got me a broken rib.”
“What?” Stephanie yells, and then, “Wait, wait, hold on a second.”
Distantly, Tim can hear her yelling at someone who he thinks at first might be a criminal, but when the words, Brat, knife, and demon oompa loompa, come through the comm., he realizes instantly that it must be Damian.
“Sorry, I’m back.” She says after the commotion has died down.
“Is that Drake?” Tim can hear Damian clearly now in the background. “Tell him to stop playing child’s games with his joke of a team and start pulling his meager and pitiful weight here where it is actually needed!”
“You weigh less than he does, Robin.” Stephanie says.
“And I pull five times the weight, as is expected from someone of my advanced abilities!”
Stephanie sighs and says, “R.R., Robin says he loves and misses you, and hopes you come home soon.”
“I know that’s not what he said,” Tim says, at the same time Damian screeches on the other line, “That is not what I said!”
“Anyway,” Stephanie says, and Tim can still hear Damian grumbling something through his comm. but it’s too drowned out for Tim to decipher, which is probably for the best. “What’s this about you sabotaging my brilliant plan with your poor people skills?”
“I didn’t sabotage it,” Tim says. “It was a bad plan. I asked Kon if he was okay, and he freaked out.”
After a long and drawn out groan, Stephanie says, “What was the context, though? Did you just go up and randomly ask him, or what?”
“He was - I don’t know, he had just had a fight with Cassie. I think they broke up. So when he came out of her room, I asked him if he was okay.”
“You - wait, hold up. So you’re telling me you basically stood outside Wonder Girl’s room and eavesdropped on her and Superboy breaking up, and let’s not forget Superboy has super hearing, so he probably knew you were there the whole time, and then you asked him if he was okay.”
“Yeah?” Tim says.
“Oh my God.” Stephanie’s voice is muffled and Tim can perfectly picture her standing on some rooftop with her head in her hands. He mentally adds Damian in the background, glaring uselessly.
“What?” Tim says.
“You are the stupidest boy genius I’ve ever known.”
“What?”
“I know you’re not this socially inept when you’re undercover.”
“Stephanie.” Tim says, and glances at the monitor. It’s going to take all night for these diagnostics to finish running.
“Look,” Stephanie says, “I’m sure you meant well, but think about how Superboy probably feels. He’s obviously messed up about something right now, then his best friend eavesdrops on him breaking up with his long-term girlfriend and turns around and plays dumb about it.”
Tim looks at the screen, thinks about the lump in his chair, and stands up. If anything goes wrong with his scripts, he’ll just fix it in the morning.
“Don’t get me wrong,” Stephanie adds after a moment of Tim’s silence. “It sounds like he way overreacted. But you probably could have been a little more tactful, considering you already know something is wrong.”
“Sure,” Tim says, and then, “Can you hold on a second? I’m going to my room, I don’t want to have this conversation while I’m walking through the lounge.”
“Yeah, fine,” Stephanie says. “I think we just found our guy anyway.”
Tim listens to the sounds of Stephanie and Damian chasing someone down as he rides up the elevator. Somewhere in the back of his head he wonders if it’s a bad thing that he finds the ambiance of it comforting, but then he hears Damian’s vulgar and descriptive death threats after they finally catch their perp and Stephanie’s borderline Joker-laugh echoes loudly in his ear, and Tim almost feels sorry for the guy.
“Alright!” Stephanie says just as Tim gets to his admittedly dusty and largely unused bedroom. “Nice work, Bat Brat. Time for Waffles.”
“Finally.” Damian’s voice huffs distantly.
“Sounds like you two are getting along pretty well,” Tim says, and pulls his laptop out of the duffle bag he’d tossed halfheartedly onto his bed when he had arrived.
Stephanie makes an unidentifiable noise and says, “We have our ups and downs.”
“Correction,” Comes Damian’s voice, strangely louder than it had been before. “I have ups, only you have downs.”
“I wasn’t talking to you, Robin.” A sound comes out of Stephanie’s mouth which Tim knows instinctively is always paired with her tongue sticking out at someone. Damian, in this case. “Oh hey,” she says. “Is that ice cream?”
The comm. is quiet for a moment and Tim sits back against the headboard of his bed and links his laptop up to the Tower’s Network. The brief silence is peaceful until Stephanie makes some kind of horrible gagging noise and says, “Why did you lick it? You’re sick!”
“It’s a raspberry freezie pop.” Damian says.
“God. Oh my god.” Stephanie makes another gagging noise, and then says, “Must be Jason.”
“Could be Dick,” Tim says. “He eats those on patrol constantly.”
“Nah,” Stephanie says. “He’s taking care of some business in Bloodhaven tonight. Why do you think I got stuck babysitting the Brat?” She ignores the offended noise that Damian makes and then says, “Whad’ya say, Robin? Should we track him down?”
“Absolutely.”
“What?” Tim says. “Stephanie, no. Do not go looking for Jason.”
“Too late.”
“Stephanie, I’m serious. He’s dangerous.”
“Didn’t seem too dangerous in my bed last night.” She laughs and then says, “Wink.”
It takes all of Tim’s combined training to keep from choking on his own spit.
“Good god,” Damian says in the background.
“Kidding!” Stephanie says. “I’m kidding.” When Tim still isn’t capable of responding she says, “Tim I’m kidding. It was a joke. I haven’t been sleeping with Jason Todd, I swear on my life.”
Finally Tim manages to let out a long and agonized breath.
“We may have run into each other at Starbucks the other day, though.”
“Stay away from him, Stephanie!” Tim says.
“Listen,” Stephanie laughs. “About Superboy: just give him some time to cool off okay?”
“Stephanie do not change the subject.”
“You guys are literally the reason the word bromance exists. And that’s not necessarily a compliment, but regardless, you’ll be fine.”
“This is not a joke, he’s crazy Steph!”
“Hey, I gotta go, I think I see Red Hood’s big red head.”
“Don’t talk to him, Stephanie-!” She disconnects her comm. before he can say anything else and Tim has half a mind to leave the tower right now and fly all the way back to Gotham just so he can kick the shit out of Jason’s tight pant wearing, name stealing, ass, except when he looks up Kon is standing in his open doorway.
“Somethin’ up with Batgirl?” Kon asks.
It’s a normal enough question that Tim forgets Kon is supposed to be mad at him and says, “Yeah, everything. She’s been hanging out with Jason. Casually!”
“Is that the one with the shoulder wound fetish?” Kon moves further into the room and Tim can see his miffed expression clearly in the glow of his bedside lamp. “Didn’t he… break into the tower once and try to kill you?”
“In my own costume, yes.”
“Jesus.”
“Yeah.” Tim says, and stares angrily at his computer screen.
“Guess I’m not much better than him, huh?” Kon says and Tim’s head whips to the side.
“What?” He says. “Why would you say that?”
“Well.” Kon laughs nervously and ruffles his hair into a mess. “I did kinda nearly choke you to death this afternoon.”
“That…” Tim says, “Is a gross exaggeration.”
Kon shrugs and refuses to meet Tim’s eyes. “Not from where I’m standing.”
“I could breathe just fine.”
“It didn’t sound that way.”
“Kon, trust me. I was in absolutely no danger of losing consciousness. You were just mad, I shouldn’t…” Tim turns back to his computer, bites his lip, and says, “I shouldn’t have been listening in on your fight.”
This, Tim realizes belatedly, may not have been the best thing to say because it seems to remind Kon why he was angry in the first place and he says, “Yeah dude. You really shouldn’t have.”
Tim chews some more on the inside of his lip and says, “I know. I’m sorry.”
“And you gotta get those camera’s outta my house before I start punching holes in the wall trying to find them.”
“They’re for emergencies.” Tim says.
“Yeah, but, dude!” Kon throws his arms out to the side. “Come on! I get that it was hard for you after Bart and I died. I get that you were born a paranoid freak and you can’t help it, but my whole life can’t be on display twenty-four/seven for you to snoop around in just because you’re worried I’m going to randomly die again.”
Tim doesn’t say anything in response to this and the silence between them stretches on for so many miles even Bart would have trouble running it straight without stopping to rest. Eventually Kon moves to sit down on the edge of Tim’s bed and says, “Look. The point is I’m sorry I freaked out at you earlier. Potential attempted murder aside—,”
“You didn’t,” Tim says, and glares to get his point across. The cowl probably makes it more intense that it’s meant to be, and honestly his head is starting to get really sweaty, so he reaches up to pull it back.
Kon’s serious expression breaks for a brief moment and he snorts and says, “Stunning.”
Tim continues to glare and Kon manages to regain his sobriety.
“The point is,” he says again. “I’ve been freaking out every other minute lately, and I guess it’s been pretty obvious. I just can’t handle the surveillance right now, okay? So can you please get rid of the cameras?”
“I can disable them for a while, sure.” Tim says.
“No,” Kon shakes his head and looks caught between annoyance and fondness. “No, Tim I need them gone. Like, one-hundred-percent, never coming back ever again, gone.”
Tim blinks. “Kon-,”
“No, no ‘Kon’. You can’t ‘Kon’ your way out of this,” Kon says, and Tim knows something really is wrong when he doesn’t pause to laugh at his own joke, might not even be aware he made it. “Normally I would totally love to let you creepily watch me sleep and jerk off into my trashcan on the daily-,”
“I do not-,”
“But,” Kon stresses the word. “I just – I’ve got so much shit swimming around in my head right now, if I have to worry about you watching my every move at the same time I’m going to lose it. I am seriously, really going to lose it.” Kon shakes his hands in a throttling motion for emphasis but Tim doesn’t need the visual aid to hear the way his voice trembles slightly.
“Yeah,” Tim says. “Okay. I’ll stop by Monday.”
The sigh Kon lets out is so big that Tim thinks for a minute it might be the start of latent ice breath powers before he hangs his head and says, “Thank you. Thank you.”
“Sure,” Tim says, debating with great turmoil whether or not he should put a hand on Kon’s shoulder. He thinks he should. It feels like that’s the sort of thing you do when your best friend is obviously in some kind of emotional distress, but Tim’s not sure how Kon would take it. “It’s no big deal,” He says. He’s being stupid. Kon would take it fine. Kon would probably appreciate it. Kon’s a big dumb goofball who gives out free hugs like a broken slot machine that won’t stop spewing coins. Kon would definitely be fine with Tim putting a comforting hand on his shoulder.
“Yeah it is,” Kon says, and sits up and grins. The moment is over. It would absolutely be weird if Tim put a hand on Kon’s shoulder now. God. “If you were anymore paranoid you’d be Batman himself. I know you, man.”
“Is that supposed to be insulting?” Tim says.
Kon snorts. “Of course not. No, it was totally a compliment.” He beams and Tim thinks he may be getting whiplash form the one-eighty Kon’s emotions are doing right now. “So, we’re cool?”
“I wish you’d tell me what’s going on, but, despite common believe I’m not actually as paranoid as Batman. Not even close. And I do trust you, Kon. So, yeah,” Tim says. “We’re cool.”
“Cool.”
÷÷÷÷÷÷
Kon spends a lot of that weekend moping around Tim’s room, watching him write scripts and complaining loudly that he can’t freely roam the tower while Cassie is on the war path. Whenever he gets too pouty about it Tim reminds him whose fault that is and Kon settles down. Rinse and repeat. It’s a process.
Bart brings them meals a couple of times – or he tries to at least, there’s not much left of them by the time they actually get to Tim’s room – but aside from a small hostage situation that the swat team has mostly dealt with when the Titans show up, it really is a quiet weekend.
When they all finally depart on Sunday, Tim swears to Kon he’ll be at the Kent farm bright and early on Monday morning. Kon points at him and tells him six a.m. sharp. Tim hums and says maybe more like eight or nine. They smile and scoff at each other. It’s almost normal.
As it turns out, it’s actually about ten fifteen when he lands the bat jet behind the barn. It was barely a few months ago now that he and Kon managed to cajole Clark into letting them build a bunker for it to be stored in during visits. The cloak worked well enough in the past, but it wasn’t going to be fool proof if the Kent’s had visitors while Tim was over and someone drove their truck into a forty-five ton invisible jet. Besides, Martha loved having the extra space to store her salt and pepper shaker collection, which Tim admires with great familiarity as he ascends the stairs of the bunker.
Kon is waiting for him upon his emergence from the ground hatch with an irritated expression and crossed arms. “You are so late.” He says.
“Something came up that needed my attention.” Tim says.
Kon’s eyes narrow. “Yeah like what?”
“Sleeping.” Tim says and smiles when Kon groans loudly and throws his arms in the air, floating upwards several inches.
“Breakfast is over, Tim!” Kon says, flying backwards in front of Tim as they approach the front of the house. “I had to eat all six of your pancakes myself.”
“What is it they’re always saying about supers and martyr complexes?” Tim asks.
Martha Kent is waiting for them when they get to the front porch, smiling easily. “It’s so good to see you again, Timothy.”
“You too, Mrs. Kent.”
Martha makes a noise of endearment and opens up her arms, “Come here, you.”
“Oh--,” Tim says as he is hugged around the chest by Martha Kent, who, despite her short and stooped stature, rivals Kon’s hugs in terms of strength. “—kay,” It dawns on Tim for perhaps he first time that the famous Super family bear hug may not actually be a Kryptonian thing so much as it is a Kent thing.
“Don’t tell Conner, but I stashed a few pancakes in the oven to keep warm for you,” She whispers in Tim’s ear before letting him go.
“Hey!” Kon says.
“Thanks Mrs. Kent, but I ate just before I left. I’m really not too hungry.” Tim says, following Martha past the porch and into the kitchen. “Maybe Krypto will want them?”
“Maybe I’ll want them,” Kon mutters.
“You,” Martha says, picking up the newspaper on the kitchen table and swatting Kon’s elbow with it, “Do not need any more food!”
“I’m a growing boy!” Kon says.
The snort that comes out of Tim is meant to be derisive but it abruptly turns undignified without his consent, and a short, loud laugh bursts out of Kon. Tim pretends nothing happened, and Martha points her newspaper at Tim and says, “One of these days I’m going to get you to sit down for a full, home cooked meal and you’re going to eat your fill or I’ll sick Clark on you!”
Tim beams at her and says, “Yes Ma’am.”
Martha swoons just a smidge and Kon groans and says, “You didn’t used to be like this. I remember you when you were an uptight, shorty, nerd!”
“Conner!” Martha says, “You shouldn’t talk about your friends like that. Tim has always been charming.”
Tim turns his smile on Kon who rolls his eyes and says, “You didn’t know him, Ma. He was not charming.” When Tim gives no response besides his continued grinning, Kon makes a noise of disgust and says, “Cut it out, you’re giving me the creeps! And you’ve got work to do, dude.” He claps his hands twice. “Chop, Chop!”
Tim stops smiling. Honestly it’s a relief, his jaw was starting to hurt. Smiling for extended periods of time is not something Tim is exactly practiced at. “Alright. We’ll start in the living room.”
It takes them at least half of the day to even get to Kon’s room. Drilling through the walls to remove the devices is time consuming enough, but caulking, sanding, and re-painting takes even longer, even with Kon’s help.
Around Two-Thirty Kon has mentioned his Kryptonian metabolism at least four times in the past half hour, and his complaining to working ratio is at about 70/30 so Tim sets his tool kit down on the floor in the doorway of Kon’s room says, “Okay, I’m starting to get a little hungry too.”
Kon immediately replies, “God,” And all but drops the bucket filled with Tim’s camera parts on the ground. “I’ll go see what Ma’s got cooking,” he says, and takes off down the stairs. Tim figures Kon will bring something up for him when it’s ready and decides to keep working. Mostly because Tim is pretty sure Kon knows about the camera above his door but not the one in his closet which isn’t actually imbedded into the wall, and Tim wants to get it out before Kon has the chance to notice it.
It’s a blessedly quick job and Tim has the camera out in less than a minute. He’s pulling his head out of Kon’s curtain of flannel shirts when he notices something leather stuffed onto the far end of the rack. He reaches for it, mostly just to satisfy his own suspicion, and says, “Huh,” When Kon’s old Suberboy jacket comes off of its hanger. “He just keeps it in his closet. Literally anyone could see it in here.” Tim shrugs the jacket on, partially because he’s starting to get goosebumps from Martha’s army of air conditioners currently at war with Kansas’ late August heat wave, and partially because he wants to torture Kon.
Speak of the devil, Tim thinks when he hears Kon choking on something behind him. Tim turns to see Kon standing in his doorway, holding a half-eaten hot dog in one hand. His cheeks are puffed out and there is a distinctly red tint to his whole face. He coughs once more, swallows and says, “Dude!” He sets the plate of hotdogs he’s holding down on his dresser and crowds himself into Tim’s personal space, looking frantic. “Take it off, where did you get that?”
“I’m cold.” Tim says. “And your closet.”
“You were going through my stuff?” Kon almost looks angry, but he mostly looks skeptical.
“No,” Tim says. “I was cold. I was looking for something to wear.”
“And you picked that?” Kon is hissing at him now and Tim mostly tries to stop his mouth from quirking up at the corners but fails pretty spectacularly anyway. “Oh my God,” Kon says. “You’re doing this on purpose.”
“No.” Tim says.
“I hate you.” Kon says.
“You should let me keep it. You never wear it anymore.” Tim says.
“Only if you wear it in the batcave.” Kon says.
“Hmm, that’s not going to happen.”
“Then you can’t have it.”
Tim huffs and tugs on the lapels, heading over to his tool box to start working on the camera above Kon’s door.
“Dude, seriously take it off.” Kon says. “You’re gonna get sanding dust all over it. That thing’s real leather, you know.”
Tim turns around and squints at him. “You used to fight slime monsters and giant robots in this thing and you’re worried about me getting dust on it?”
“That was back when I had Rex to order me twenty more if one of them got wrecked. That’s the last one I’ve got!”
“Hmmm,” Tim says.
“I am dead serious, Tim. If you mess up my jacket I will pound you into the ground.”
“Oh,” Tim says, pulling a power drill out of his box and revving it. “You’ll pound me into the ground, huh?”
“Jesus,” Kon says. “Jesus, Tim!”
Much to Kon’s immense displeasure, Tim continues to wear his jacket for the remainder of their work. It’s a little bit weird, Tim thinks, almost like they’ve switched roles from their old Young Justice days, and Tim’s not used to being the instigator of trouble, but as much fuss as Kon puts up, Tim can tell he’s enjoying himself, so Tim keeps the jacket on.
They’ve just finished painting over the last of the camera holes in the hallway when Tim hears the screen door creak open downstairs and Clark’s voice echoes through the house.
“Oh God,” Kon says, hovering near the ceiling with his paintbrush dangling dangerously just over Tim’s head.
“I didn’t know Clark was coming,” Tim says, stepping to the side and out of the line of fire just as a drop of pale yellow paint hits the rags they have laid out on the floor.
“Me neither.”
“What’s for dinner?” Clark asks Martha, both of whom Tim can see through the railing of the stairs.
“Belinda,” Martha says, and holds up a golden brown chicken in a glass pan. Her oven mitts also have chickens on them. “It’ll be a few minutes before she’s ready to serve, so I hope you’re not too hungry.”
Tim takes a moment to shudder at what passes for normalcy in farm country, and if the look on Kon’s face is anything to go by, he does too. “I think I can wait a little while,” Clark says.
“Good. The boys are upstairs if you want to say hi,” Martha says and turns back to the counter and out of Tim’s sights.
“Boys?” Clark asks.
“Tim’s here, helping Kon remove all those cameras.”
“Ah,” Clark says.
Next to Tim, Kon makes a despairing noise and loses several inches of altitude at the same time Clark’s footsteps can be heard pounding up the creaking staircase at a jovial pace. He arrives at the top and peers down the hallway at the two of them, smiling. “Conner, Tim,” he says. “How’s the re-modeling going?”
Tim smiles back and says, “We’re almost done.”
“Finally,” Kon adds. “We should have invited Bart. Would’a taken a couple hours at most.”
“Yeah,” Tim says, “And all my cameras would be trashed.”
“Great,” Clark says, either oblivious to their banter, or ignoring it completely. “You boys want to finish up and then come down to help me set the table?”
“Anything to get me away from these paint fumes,” Kon says, and sets his brush down on the open paint can.
“Um,” Tim says, “I should probably get back to Gotham.” The twin stares he receives from both Kon and Clark after saying this aren’t exactly unexpected, but they are certainly undesired and, quite frankly, disturbing. It’s never been more apparent that they’re cut from the same genome than it is now.
“Tim,” Kon says.
“Nonsense,” Clark says. “Stay for dinner. Stay the night!”
“I – no.” Tim shakes his head. “I really can’t. I’ve got patrol tonight. Thanks, though.”
Clark smiles at him knowingly, and Tim is incredibly relieved that he won’t have to push this any further, but then Clark says with undue cheer. “I won’t have it. You’re staying for dinner.”
“I-,”
“And then you’ll stay the night. I’ve already talked to Dick. Says you haven’t taken a night off in weeks.” Clark gives them a little wave and says, “I’ll see you boys downstairs!” And then he’s gone.
“What…” Tim says and turns to Kon who is frowning at him, arms crossed.
“I can’t believe you tried to ditch me with Clark.”
“What just happened?”
“You don’t deserve to wear that jacket,” Kon says.
When they do get downstairs the table is already set and Martha is just putting the roast in the center of it. Clark is grinning at them from across the room, oven mitts on both hands, holding a steaming serving dish filled with green beans. He doesn’t even need oven mitts, Tim thinks. It’s not like a hot dish could burn Superman.
Everyone Tim knows is always going on about how manipulative Batman is, how smart, and sneaky he is about getting everyone to do exactly what he wants without having to even lift a finger. Nobody ever mentions Clark Kent’s unassuming, easy smile, or the way his eyes crinkle behind his glasses just slightly when everything goes according to plan. Honestly, as far as Tim’s concerned, Clark Kent is way more intimidating than The Batman has ever been.
“I’m so glad you’re going to stay, Tim,” Martha says, sitting down next to Clark. “One of these days we’ve got to have a Wayne-Kent family dinner. A real big one, we can have it outside in the yard, barbeque style. Oh!” She says, unfolding her napkin with a flick, “We can have Stacy! She’s getting old, I was going to use her for jerky and bacon, but she’d make great pulled pork sandwiches!”
Kon sends Tim a horrified sideways glance and mouths, “I like Stacy.”
Tim nearly laughs.
“There’s an idea,” Clark says. “But good luck getting Bruce to show.”
“Oh,” Martha waves her hand at Clark. “Give me five minutes with the man, he’ll be begging me for an invitation.”
“You may be able to take Bruce,” Tim says, “But I don’t think even you’re ready to handle Damian.”
“Please.” Martha cuts off Belinda’s perfectly roasted wing. “I raised Clark, didn’t I?”
Clark sputters and turns an obvious shade of red. “Ma!”
Dinner progresses at a pleasant place with no shortage of easy banter and friendly mockery. Tim doesn’t realize how long it’s been since he’s had something like this until it’s over and he’s helping Martha bus dishes. It’s nice, and Tim knows that despite the bullying he probably needed this, but it also makes him ache for that short period of time in his life when he had a family to sit down and be normal with. It’s not as though he doesn’t think of Bruce and Dick and Alfred as his family, it’s just that when the Bats do normal, it feels like an act. When the Kent’s do normal, it feels real somehow. Tim’s not entirely sure what the difference is, but he knows it’s there.
Clark sets up the blow up mattress in Kon’s room, on the wall opposite his bed, just beside the door, and Tim helps him get sheets and blankets on it while Kon takes a shower. They work mostly in silence until the end when Clark claps his hands on his knees and stands up, smiling at Tim like he can read minds.
“Um,” Tim says.
“I know it’s already been said, but thank you for staying, Tim.”
Tim nods. “Sure.” Then he says. “Clark, is everything okay?”
Clark sighs and tilts his head back to gaze at the glow-in-the-dark stars stuck onto the ceiling of Kon’s room. Tim’s pretty sure they’ve been here as long as Clark has. “I think things are going to get worse before they get better,” Clark says. “But they will get better.”
“And you call Bruce cryptic.” Tim says.
Clark smiles at him. “You’re a smart kid, Tim.” He says. “Quite frankly, you’re brilliant. I know that if you really wanted to you could figure out everything that’s been going on in Conner’s life recently, and more. The fact that you’re waiting for him to tell you himself says a lot about what kind of person you are.”
Tim’s not quite sure how to take that until Clark walks over and abruptly hugs him, and the squeezing is definitely a Kent thing.
“You’re a good friend, Tim. Conner’s lucky to have you.” Clark lets go, says goodnight, and leaves the room just as Kon is coming in, wet hair sticking up in three-thousand different directions, and looking like he’s just stepped onto the set of the Twilight Zone.
“Were you and Clark just hugging?” Kon asks.
Tim holds up his hands and says, “He hugged me, I did not reciprocate.”
Kon frowns and sticks his head through the open doorway to yell at Clark, “Don’t hug my friends!” Tim can hear Clark’s laughter floating up from downstairs.
After borrowing a pair of pajama pants and one of Kon’s Superboy shirts to sleep in, Tim and Kon both settle into their respective beds, and Tim thinks, listening to Kon yawn goodnight, that maybe Clark’s weirdly vague comments were just that. Maybe Tim has blown this whole thing out of proportion, because quite frankly, Kon has been his normal, regular self the entire day. Whatever it is that got him to break up with Cassie and ask Tim to remove all of his surveillance equipment, it’s obviously not a big enough deal to effect Kon on a daily basis. The thought allows Tim to relax somewhat. He feels almost like a muscle he hadn’t realized he’d been clenching is finally uncoiling itself and he actually doesn’t realize it when he falls asleep.
÷÷÷÷÷÷
Tim wakes to a high pitched ringing sound that he thinks must be Kon’s god awful alarm clock, going off at unholy hours in the morning as Tim knows it does because Kon lives on a farm and has chores. It’s not until he hears the loud crack of splintering wood and plaster being blown apart, and a sharp yell to his right that he realizes the ringing is not Kon’s alarm clock. It’s his heat vision. Tim sits up instantly and looks at Kon’s bed where Kon is sat bolt upright. The beams of red streaming from his eyes have already blasted a hole in the wall across from him, and the room is bathed in sinister light.
“Kon!” Tim yells at him, and Kon flinches but doesn’t react otherwise. “Kon, close your eyes!”
Not even a second goes by before Clark is in the doorway, yelling Kon’s name, and finally, Kon closes his eyes with a shuddered intake of breath and the light disappears.
“Shit,” Kon whispers, and buries his face in his hands. “Shit.”
“It’s okay,” Clark says and moves swiftly to sit beside Kon, resting a hand on his back. “Conner, it’s alright.”
“Shit.” Kon’s voice is pitched high, and shaking, and Tim watches silently as he leans forward and rests his forehead on his knees. “I’m sorry,” he says.
“It’s fine, Conner,” Clark murmurs.
“Shit, I’m sorry…”
“We can fix the wall, nobody’s hurt, everything is okay.”
Kon peeks at Tim through his fingers and takes a shuddering breath. The dawning realization that all Kon had to do was look at Tim by accident when those lasers were beaming out of his eyes and Tim would be maimed or dead hits Tim at about the same time it hits Kon, who takes another deep breath and says, “Oh fuck,” and then he sits up and breathes again, or tries to. It gets caught in his throat and comes out as a rasp.
“Conner?” Clark says.
Kon’s chest is now actively heaving with the effort of trying to take in breaths that don’t seem to like they want to enter his lungs, and he may not know exactly how to deal with rampant heat vision, but if there’s one thing Tim Drake is a pro at, it’s suppressing panic attacks. He kicks off the thin blanket covering his legs and scrambles across the room and onto Kon’s bed.
“Kon,” Tim says and holds his hand out between them. “Take my hand. Squeeze it.” Kon looks at it for a moment like its kryptonite, but grabs on after Tim shakes it at him. “Breathe with me,” Tim says, and starts to make a show out of taking deep, even breaths.
It takes a few agonizing minutes, but Kon manages to catch on and starts breathing normally again.
“I’m fine,” Tim says. “Ma’s fine. You did good.”
Kon nods, still breathing heavy. “Yeah,” He says. “Sure. Blew a fuckin hole in the wall.”
“It’s not even that big.” Tim says. It’s about the size of a basketball.
“We’ll have it patched in less than a day,” Clark says. He rubs Kon’s back comfortingly and says, “You going to be okay?”
Kon nods.
“I’m going to get you a glass of water. I’ll be right back.” Clark says and heads towards the door. When he gets there he looks back and says, “Tim?” Jerking his head towards the hallway.
Tim looks at Kon who rolls his eyes and says, “Yeah sure. Go talk about my latest emotional episode in the kitchen together. It’s not like I have super hearing.”
“Conner.” Clark says.
“What?” Kon says and spreads his arms out.
Clark sighs and Tim looks at Kon one last time before following Clark out into the hallway and down the stairs.
“What happened?” Clark asks.
“Um,” Tim says. “I don’t know exactly. I think he had some kind of night terror? Or so I would assume. He was non-responsive until you showed up.”
Clark nods, pulling a glass from the kitchen cupboard.
“Has he had panic attacks before this?” Tim asks.
“No,” Clark says. “This is the first.” He pulls a pitcher of water from the fridge. “I’m glad you were here. Honestly I’d have had no idea what to do.”
“You’re Superman,” Tim says. “I think you would have figured it out.”
“Saving people from burning buildings is one thing, Tim. Helping them on the road to recovering from their trauma afterwards is another thing entirely, and one I can’t say I’ve ever actually dealt with.” He sighs and hands Tim the glass of water. “Would you take this up to Conner? Make sure he’s okay?”
“Sure,” Tim says.
“I’m going to go check on Ma.”
“Hey, wait.” Tim says. Clark pauses just before he reaches the stairs and turns to look back at him. “I know it’s not really my business, but… I want to make sure,” Tim sighs. “Whatever’s going on, it - it seems serious, so… I just want to make sure Kon’s, if he needs to, that he’s, you know, seeing someone. A therapist.”
Clark nods. “He is.”
“Okay… okay, good.” Tim watches him ascend the stairs and follows shortly after. When he gets to Kon’s room, the light has been turned off and Kon’s laid back down, facing the wall.
“Hey,” Tim says. He walks towards the bed and sets Kon’s water down on his nightstand. The bed is literally so small Tim can’t even sit on it without bumping into Kon’s back.
After a few long seconds Kon says, “Clark tell you all about how messed up I am now?”
“No,” Tim says. “He didn’t tell me anything.”
Kon snorts.
“I thought you had super hearing,” Tim says.
“I didn’t really want to hear anything,” Kon answers.
“If you want to tell me-,”
“I know,” Kon says. “I can.” He takes a deep breath. “Is it okay if I don’t want to?”
“Yeah,” Tim says. “That’s fine too.”
“Kay, cause I don’t.” Kon says. “No offense.”
Tim looks at Kon’s profile in the muted light of the moon streaming through his window. This time, Tim does put his hand on Kon’s shoulder. “None taken,” he says, and then he stands up and heads back to his own blow up bed.
“Goodnight,” Kon says. “Again.”
“Night, Kon.” Tim says, and knows he’s not going to go back to sleep.