WIP excerpt for π¦ behind the cut; βobligatory sugar baby Konβ. ((Β chronoΒ ||Β non-chronoΒ ||Β AO3Β ))
"Oh my god, Ciss, chill, it was a joke. Dunno about you, but I only play dress-up for my sugar daddy," Kon snickers as he leans back casually against the bottom of the couch and shakes his head without taking his eyes off the stalker vs. werewolf confrontation that's currently happening onscreen. Unsurprising, given said confrontation is happening on a rainy football field while Wendy is wearing a sequin-bedazzled white cheer uniform and doing a lot of very acrobatic kicks and flips. She's also cracking a genuinely disrespectful amount of "wet dog" one-liners at the werewolves, though Tim thinks he can safely assume that part's less attention-grabbing for Kon, even with as much as the guy likes a terrible one-liner himself.
Unfortunately, objectively breaking down the "so-bad-it's-worse" movie scene piece by piece does not actually help Tim not feel like an insane person about what Kon just actually said.
Cissie pauses mid-push, stopping halfway through getting out of the chair, and Bart and Suzie both visibly perk up in curiosity. Tim decides he just must actually be an insane person and that he's just experienced an auditory hallucination, and therefore will not be reacting to any of said hallucination.
Cassie just falls off the couch again.
Honestly, that's really the only valid reaction to be having right now, Tim can't help feeling. If he had another laundry pile to slither under, he'd probably join her.
"'Sugar daddy'?" Cissie repeats incredulously, which does not bode well for any previous statements being any kind of auditory hallucination.
"Yeah, he's weirdly into buying me shit, but like he's especially into buying me clothes," Kon replies with a casual shrug. Tim has no idea how that's what he thinks Cissie was asking about, but is too busy attempting to disassociate to really focus on figuring out the other's logic there. "He got me this shirt, actually."
"What about the shorts?" Bart asks with a concerningly attentive expression. Tim silently resolves to find a fourth redundancy plan to back up the base's data on.
ASAP.
"Oh yeah, and those," Kon says, then thumps a heel against the floor once with another shrug before tilting his knee from side to side with apparent intent to show off his . . . something? His . . . ? "Actually he got me the boots too. They're pretty sick, right?"
The boots. Right. The boots make sense for Kon to be showing off.
"Okay," Bart says as he watches Kon tilting his knee with a both very clear and unfortunately understandable lack of interest in anything about said boots. "Hey you should get him to buy you more clothes while your laundry's all sprocked-up, then."
"Oh, that's a good idea!" Suzie says brightly, clasping her hands together in excitement and beaming at Kon. "Those ones look so pretty on you!"
"Suzie!" Cassie hisses, sounding horrified. "Don't call a guy that! Guys aren't pretty!"
"That's what pretty is?" Bart asks, looking Kon up and down with literally zero shame about it. Tim has no idea how, but once again Kon apparently just . . . doesn't notice him doing it? Somehow? Which is sort of psychologically fascinating and psychologically depressing, considering everything he actually knows about Kon's literal entire personality. And life experience. Andβ"Huh. That explains some stuff. Actually that explains a lot of stuff, wow."
"I thought people wearing makeup meant they wanted to be 'pretty', though?" Suzie asks with a frown. Tim, again, decides to believe he's having auditory hallucinations. A potentially-brewing psychotic episode would genuinely be less of an issue to handle than thinking through any of the implications of anything that is happening in this conversation.
"'Makeup'?" Cassie repeats blankly, then flicks her eyes towards Kon's face and immediately turns absolutely crimson. Tim assumes she wasn't previously registering the eyeliner and nail polish in self-defense, since they're not especially subtle.
"It's whatever, but he's into it, so . . ." Kon shrugs dismissively, then smirks smugly back over his shoulder at Cassie. "So hey, Daddy thinks I'm pretty."
Cassie hasn't actually made it back onto the couch yet, so mostly just falls off the floor this time. If he were capable of higher thought processes or literally any thought processes whatsoever, Tim would empathize.
He mostly just keeps telling himself that he's having auditory hallucinations, though, because Jesus Christ.
"And . . . 'Daddy' would be . . . ?" Cissie trails off meaningfully as she raises an eyebrow at Kon, which is the kind of question Robin should be asking Kon right now, because admittedly a teammate who's a fellow teenager explicitly using the phrase "sugar daddy" in cold blood would normally be something that Robin would need to be concerned by. Though in this situation the only actually concerning part is the part where Kon's using the phrase "sugar daddy" in front of other people, which is really not something Tim wants to encourage and definitely wasn't something he'd expected Kon to ever actually do. "Like is this a guy from Cadmus or . . . ?"
"Naw, he's an out-of-towner," Kon replies with another shrug, twirling his ring and index finger through the back of his undercut. Tim is briefly incredibly distracted by the visual of the other's chipped black nails and fingerless gloves twisted through his own curls and arched over his own curls, and wonders ifβ"Met him when he was in Metropolis for a thing that went south and he was very chill about things while I did the superhero shit about it. Bought me coffee after to say thanks, then we just started hanging out after that."
"Ah-huh," Cissie says, eyebrow staying raised. "And 'coffee' involved him buying you . . . clothes, somehow?"
"I mean, he used the coffee to con me into letting him buy me clothes, so kinda?" Kon says, then rolls his eyes with a snigger. "Dude never met a check he didn't wanna cover, I swear. Pretty sure it's the only way he actually knows how to flirt but it's kinda cute, not gonna lie. Last time we went out he bought us fifty bucks' worth of grilled cheese sandwiches to split and then took me to the skate park, and the time before that he got us into an after-hours event with fake IDs and got me the fanciest Japanese food I ever had in my life."
Note to self, Tim reflexively thinks: take Kon to fancier restaurants. He still feels like the buffet tour angle has promise, but he's sure he can find some high-end options for all-you-can-eat restaurants if he looks around a little, so thatβ
"Aβguy took you to the skate park?" Cassie says in a slightly weird voice, which makes Tim realize just how much Kon's actually said about this already, which is . . . weird, definitely. Likeβyeah, he didn't mention that the "after-hours event" was a sensory exhibit at a museum and "the fanciest Japanese food I ever had in my life" is a very subjective description that people can interpret to their own personal scales of "fancy", but maybe that's deliberate obfuscation or just Kon trying to sound cool and keep up his image, and both of those options would make sense.
Then again, he did admit he wasn't the one who paid for any of that, so . . .
"What kind of parks have skates?" Suzie asks, looking puzzled. "I thought you had to use those in rinks?"
"You can just use a lake, actually, but the weather's not that great for it right now so I don't know why you would unless somebody'd fought Captain Cold or Mr. Freeze or whoever lately," Bart says. "I guess then it'd be whatever."
"A skateboard park, you weirdos, oh my god," Kon says with a snort of laughter. "Daddy's into that, he's real good at it. Showed me some tricks and everything. Even taught me a couple, it's way different from surfing. But he's cool like that, he's a real funny dude. Likes photography and museums and classy shit like that but is also totally down for, again, grilled cheese at the skate park."
Is Kon rambling a little, Tim wonders? He can't tell if Kon's rambling a little. He's not sure why Kon would be rambling, but also he has an all-hands-on-deck Arkham breakout going on in his brain right now and it's making it very difficult for him to concentrate very well on the conversation. Justβwhy is Kon talking about Tim Drake this much, that makes absolutelyβoh wait, okay, he gets it. Duh, him. Kon's just still trying to sound "cool" about this, that's why he's describing Tim Drake like he thinks he's cool.
He'd really assumed Kon was going to be keeping this whole arrangement under the radar and spare his sanity, though, because he is not prepared for anything that bears any resemblance to Kon liking Tim Drake enough to tell people about Tim Drake. That might make for some secret identity issues, for one thing. But in his defense, in what world was Kon ever going to like Tim Drake enough to tell people about him? Seriously! In what world does that happen?!
Aside from this one, apparently. Which still makes zero sense to Tim but is apparently just . . . a thing that is happening, he guesses, and therefore a thing he's going to have to work around.
Justβwhatever, Kon's done weirder, he guesses. Probably. Probably crushing on the tiger prince/king guy and regularly hanging out with a war hero circus act who happened to be a dog at a rave were weirder things than just mentioning he has a sugar daddy in casual conversation. Like . . . somehow. Somehow those things are probably weirder than this, Tim figures.
He can't actually figure out how they're weirder things than this, but he really needs to keep telling himself they are anyway.
It'sβokay, it's fine, Tim tells himself. Kon's just . . . making small talk. About Tim Drake. Instead of paying attention to the movie he was really excited about Suzie bringing tonight. That's . . . perfectly normal and not-weird and very Kon-like behavior, and he is perfectly capable of handling that perfectly normal and not-weird and very Kon-like behaβ
"He's also real good in a hostage situation and I swear the dude will roll with anything, no matter what, I dunno how anybody's that chill," Kon continues as he inexplicably keeps rambling to the point of practically gushing. "And he's so hot when he's got a plan and so cute when he blushes and it's like, fucking ridiculous, I swear, like what even is this dude and why does he wanna buy me coffee?"
Tim's train of thought crashes through the subway wall head-first into a generator and blows up about thirty-five percent of his mental downtown. Emergency services are stuck in traffic.
"I didn't know you dated guys," Bart says. "Given the twenty-first century being grifin' weird and also, like . . . literally everything I know about you and every single time we've ever talked. Ever."
"Yeah, well, the going-whatever-ways thing is admittedly not a conversation I ever really wanted to have with Superman, but fuck it, Daddy's the best," Kon replies with a shrug, digging out another lollipop from somewhere Tim chooses not to think about and twisting its wrapper open. Going for another lollipop seems like a very mean thing to do, in his opinion. "So if Superman actually cares about me hooking up with a dude then he can go get super-fucked."
. . . what the hell, Tim thinks blankly. Is he feeling feelings right now? Like what, some kind of dumbass twelve year-old who isn't even an emotional support sidekick yet? That's not in his fifteen-year plan!
"Anyway, it's whatever," Kon says, paying a very unreasonable amount of attention to the process of unwrapping and rewrapping the same lollipop and for some reason only looking at the lollipop. "I know you guys don't care if I have a boyfriend, so why should anybody else?"
. . .
. . . . . .
. . . . . . . . .
Tim finishes running through the mental exercises to rule out various forms of mind control, hallucination, and auditory processing failure. None of the options appear to currently be a concern. Kon appears to be genuinely displaying actual vulnerability to the team, and also there is no level of Bat-compartmentalization that Tim can shove all this down into becauseβbecause what does Kon mean, "BOYFRIEND"?!
Does Kon think they're boyfriends? Does Kon think Tim Drake is boyfriend material? In cold blood and without even any "shared near-death experience emotional confessions" being involved? When no one's even been maimed or anything, even?! Is that a thing Kon thinks? Is that a thing they, likeβare?
"Of course we don't, have as many boyfriends as you want," Cissie replies dismissively, waving him off, which is definitely her being the closest thing to an emotionally intelligent person they have available right now. "As long as they're not Bart, anyway. Bart would be an awful boyfriend, even your horndog ass deserves better than Bart for a boyfriend."
"Oh I absolutely would, yeah, date literally anybody but me," Bart agrees with a nod.
"Well don't date, likeβI dunno, Harm," Cassie says, looking torn somewhere between flustered and discouraged.
"Definitely don't date Harm," Cissie agrees.
"Boyfriend away, yeah," Tim belatedly realizes he should be saying before an awkward pause happens, because basically everyone else has said something at least obliquely supportive of what is, he is very belatedly realizing, Kon actually coming out to them. Like . . . deliberately, and again, without any maiming or near-death experiences being involved.
He is so confused right now.
He really, really hopes his domino is enough to hide the blush he can feel on his face.
"Okay, cool," Kon says, looking very unsubtly relieved and very unsubtly grateful for just a moment before quickly hiding the expression behind a deliberately casual one. "Likeβyeah, obviously I can have a boyfriend. Duh, I know that."
Tim is fairly certain that Kon did not, in fact, know that, but really doesn't have the glass houses to spare for throwing stones right now.
"Yeah, umβas long as you feel, um, safe dating a civilian instead of another superhero orβI mean not that that's not safe, just I meanβI meanβ!" Cassie cuts herself off, looking mortified. Tim sympathizes, and will also not be opening his own mouth for literally anything aside from being directly addressed in conversation.
"It's okay, Robin's girlfriend is a civilian too!" Suzie says. "If Robin doesn't worry about dating civilians, it's fine."
"Robin's WHAT?!" everyone else yelps at the exact same time, all whipping their heads around to stare at her.
"Um . . . girlfriend?" Suzie repeats, looking nervous. The heads all whip towards Tim instead, all of them looking incredulous.
"You have a girlfriend?!" Cassie demands in disbelief. "Since when?!"
"An actual girlfriend, or is this an undercover thing?" Cissie asks suspiciously. "An actual on-purpose girlfriend, even?"
"Yes," Tim says, because that does unfortunately count as being directly addressed.
"And she's not secretly an evil telepathic ninja who's gonna eat your brain waves and kick your butt?" Bart asks.
"Not to my knowledge, no," Tim says resignedly, because that also unfortunately counts as being directly addressed.
". . . are you sure?" Kon says skeptically.
Tim is not actually sure what it says about him that every single one of their team members is apparently significantly more shocked and alarmed by the concept of Robin having a "girlfriend" than they are by Superboy getting a boyfriend.
Is that something he should be looking into about himself? Is that something he should be concerned by?
. . . maybe he'll pencil it in for when he's a supervillain and has more downtime to spare for that kind of thing. Being a supervillain is definitely going to leave him with a lot more downtime than being an emotional support sidekick has.
It'd be hard for it to leave him with less, considering.
