me, color-picking the blog shades from my header image: ah yes... this will create a visual that is so .... coherent ....
hi hello yes i will be editing this multiple times but i wanted to make A Post so this isn't just an empty shell of a blog lmao
i'm hyacinth! i'm in my 20s. according to my niblings that means i am chopped and also unc, so. doin' great.
this is my dc tk fic blog! that's it, that's the only fandom here
various sundry important things:
🪻 this is a strictly SFW space
🪻i do not ship batcest. any interactions between the batkids & bruce are PLATONIC/FAMILIAL.
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🪻this is a sideblog, not my main, so i can't follow you back from here
🪻 prompts are welcomed but i reserve the right to reject them for reasons ranging from "not my thing" to "realistically will not get around to it in this millennium" depending on what life looks like at any given moment
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Kon can struggle all he wants with Clark and not worry about hurting him there's no escaping his arms
See EXACTLY
and maybe the first time Clark really Gets him, Kon's so used to holding back that he does it instinctively until Clark teases him like "so glad to see you're enjoying yourself, hon" and Kon suddenly remembers he can thrash around as much as he wants
a/n: this one has been in progress for a while and I'm yeeting it into the void at midnight without editing because that's how we roll on hyacinthanon dot tumblr dot com. it was NOT supposed to be this long but these guys wanted to yap
summary: When Kon crashlands at his apartment after a bad fight with Clark, Dick looks at him and goes "is anyone going to brother that or"
lee!Connor Kent|Kon-El // ler!Dick Grayson
Dick hadn't been trying to add yet another teenage hero to his squadron of younger siblings – really, he hadn't – but thanks to Tim's earnest puppy dog eyes and his genuine concern for a friend, Dick was now standing in the doorway to his Bludhaven apartment at three forty-five in the morning of his night off blinking blearily at Connor Kent.
“I'm sorry,” Kon said, the words coming out cracked and strained. Not looking Dick in the eye, he shifted his weight and shoved his hands into his pockets, hunching his shoulders up. When he spoke again, it was in clipped bits and pieces, like he was forcing words out through gritted teeth. “Fight. Bad one, with…. with Clark. Didn't know where else to go.”
In the apartment hallway's dim lighting, Connor looked pathetic enough to tug a little extra on Dick’s heartstrings.
So, he ruthlessly stifled a yawn as he stepped back and tugged his door all the way open. “Come on in, kiddo.”
Connor shuffled inside, still holding himself unusually stiff, and hovered just inside the threshold. It took a second for Dick’s still-restarting brain to process why the kid was just standing there – Jason or Tim would've been in the process of helping themselves to the contents of Dick's fridge by now. Then he remembered that Kon was probably as out of his depth as Dick felt. Believe it or not, this was the first time a teenager who wasn't related to him showed up on his doorstep in the middle of the night.
“Make yourself comfortable,” Dick said after a couple seconds, gesturing to the couch.
When Connor started that way, Dick turned towards the kitchen. “I'm going to make some tea, if you want any.”
“Sure,” Kon said quietly. Then, quickly, “thank you.”
“No problem.”
Once the water was set to boil, Dick leaned his elbows on the countertop and let his head fall into his hands.
Okay. This wasn’t too out of the ordinary, as a situation, just the first time this happened with Connor – Connor, who had barely come around to the fact that Dick did actually like him and wasn’t pity-mentoring him, so…no pressure, there. Or from the fact that Kon was one of Tim’s best friends and his teammate, so Dick screwing this up could easily trickle down to Tim’s personal and vigilante life. Great.
The electric kettle started to hiss as bubbles formed against the inside of the glass. Dick rubbed his face and straightened up to get two mugs from a nearby cabinet. Mediating disputes between his own family was familiar, comfortable territory. Dealing with someone else’s family dynamics was another thing entirely, especially when it was Clark’s family. It felt much more like figuring out how to diffuse a bomb that he could only see half of.
Part of him desperately wanted to call Bruce for advice. Surely, B would know what to say, but…well, Kon probably wouldn’t appreciate that.
God, was this how Clark felt all those years ago? After a particularly bad knockdown, dragout fight with Bruce, Dick had grabbed a duffle bag and hopped on the nearest train to Metropolis. He’d turned up on Clark’s doorstep with no warning, expecting to have to beg for asylum, but Clark had just smiled and invited him in like it was just another ordinary evening.
Shit, speaking of Clark –
Dick fumbled his phone out of his pocket and fired off a quick text to the thread with both Clark and Lois, letting them know that Kon was with him for the night.
His phone buzzed in response but he placed it facedown on the counter without checking either of the messages. Right now, there was an overwrought teenage Kryptonian on his couch in desperate need of some older brothering.
“Kon, is peppermint good?” he called.
The pause before Kon replied was just long enough for the barest hint of a sniffle to echo into the kitchen. Oh, poor kid.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
“Do you want to talk about it?” Dick asked.
They’d been sitting in silence on his couch for about ten minutes. Kon was cupping his mug in an obvious attempt to ground himself, both hands wrapped tightly around the ceramic. His posture was still all lines and edges, and Dick was itching to wrap a blanket around him – wait, that was a good idea. He hauled one of the fleecy blankets over from the pile on one of the armrests and tossed it over Connor’s hunched shoulders.
Kon blinked at him for a second, surprise flickering across his face, before the tension in his shoulders eased up by a fraction. Well, better than nothing.
“You don’t have to,” Dick said in reference to his earlier question. He settled sideways, facing Connor. “Family fights suck. Sometimes you just need a good, long, stare at a wall to process.”
Kon huffed with what may have been amusement, then he also scooted back against the cushions, settling against them. The blanket stayed with him. His mouth twisted like he was thinking about saying something, but he frowned and remained silent.
After years of dealing with recalcitrant younger brothers who would rather take an escrima stick to the kneecap than talk about their feelings (Jason) – and having been a teenager himself – Dick’s instincts nudged him into giving Connor a gentle push.
“It’s not about hero stuff, is it?”
With a sigh that sounded way too despondent to be coming from a fifteen-year-old, Kon shook his head.
“Family stuff?” Dick guessed.
Kon’s brows knitted together. He let go of his mug long enough to make a waffling motion with his hand.
Ah, Dick thought he knew where this was going. “Connor-and-family stuff?”
“Yeah,” Kon whispered, practically clutching the mug again. He shifted in his spot. “I’m – I’m not–I’m not him, I’m not. But – but I–” His hands shook.
Luckily, Dick had plenty of practice in this area. After setting his own mug on the coffee table, he glanced over at Kon and lifted his arms in invitation. Kon only hesitated for a couple seconds before shifting closer to lean into the offered hug, slumping against Dick’s chest.
DIck wrapped his arms around Connor’s frame. He didn’t say anything else for a long while.
Of all people, Dick knew what it was like to have that desperate urge to get out from someone else’s shadow, to prove that he was his own person, not just a factory-reset version of someone else. For Connor, who’d literally been created to be a clone of Superman…yeah, that had to be painful in an entirely different dimension.
“I just,” Kon muttered eventually. “I hate this. I hate feeling – feeling like–” He trailed off with a groan that sounded more frustrated than despairing, which was probably a good sign.
“Feeling like you’re just a worse version of the person everyone else expects you to be?” Dick asked. He unwrapped one of his arms to free up a hand to start scratching over Connor’s shoulders with the gentle, soothing motions that Tim usually enjoyed. He wasn’t expecting Connor to absolutely melt into the soft touches like he did, but it thrilled Dick that Connor was allowing himself to be this comfortable.
“You’re not Clark,” Dick murmured, resting his chin on top of Kon’s head. “And trust me, Kon, he doesn’t want you to be him. He wants you to be you. The part that sucks is having to figure out what being ‘you’ means. Personally, though, I think you’re off to a great start.”
Kon hummed something that Dick couldn’t parse.
“And, hey,” he added, grinning. “It’s Clark’s first time with any of this. He’s got no idea what he’s doing, just like you. Trust me, kiddo, being the first kid is mostly about discovering adult neuroses you never knew existed. Like, did you know that Bruce was terrified to take me to get my driver’s license? Or teach me how to drive? I’d been Robin for half a decade by that point, but the thought of me behind the wheel in Gotham traffic nearly gave him an aneurysm. He wouldn’t let me drive beyond the neighborhood for months.”
That story made Kon laugh, and seeing a smile tugging at his mouth sent a rush of relief and affection through Dick’s chest.
“Didn’t you have a Robin motorcycle before that?” Kon asked.
“Oh, yeah. That didn’t matter.”
Kon snickered again, probably at the image of the mysterious and mighty Batman wringing his hands in the waiting room of a DMV office.
“It’s not that he didn’t trust me,” Dick added, taking a stab at what he thought might have been part of Connor’s argument with Clark. “It’s part of being a parent. He got – okay, honestly, gets – so neurotically paranoid about things happening to me because he cares. So much. And, for a long time, I couldn’t get that. It took a while.” No, that was not a lump in his throat, thank you very much. “But...it won’t be like this forever.”
For a good several minutes, Kon stayed quiet as he – hopefully – chewed through Dick’s words, as best he could at this hour.
“Okay,” he said at last, then yawned.
Dick smiled and briefly tightened his arm around Kon’s waist in a hug. “Let’s get you to sleep, yeah? Growing Kryptonians need their rest. We can talk more tomorrow, if you want.”
“Mmph,” Kon replied, pressing his face into Dick’s shoulder again.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
In the end, Dick practically drop-kicked Kon into his bed and crashed on the couch. He slept for another couple hours, woke up to his usual alarm long enough to call off work, then went back to sleep for another hour before getting up for good. It seemed like Connor was still dead asleep, so Dick set about making two of the three items in his non-cereal breakfast repertoire. He’d flipped two omelets onto his last two plates next to generous stacks of French toast by the time Connor shuffled back out into the living room, squinting blearily.
“Hey, kiddo, food and coffee.” Dick held out a plate and pointed to the coffee maker.
Blinking, Kon took the food and sat down to inhale it like some kind of alien vacuum cleaner as Dick finished pouring himself coffee.
They ate in silence – well, Dick ate while Connor stared mournfully at his empty plate.
“There’s cereal, too,” Dick said around a mouthful of French toast.
Faster than he could blink, Kon zipped away and returned with the milk and a box of Cheerios. Hm. Maybe he had a higher metabolism, or something. It would make sense with all his extra abilities.
Once Dick finished eating, he set his fork down. “Alright. Whaddya want to do today?”
Kon gave him a weird look. “...Don’t you have work?”
“Called off,” Dick replied. “Family reasons.”
“Is everything okay?”
Dick stared blankly at him until Connor’s eyebrows flicked up in a moment of realization, that was immediately followed by a faint blush breaking out across his face.
“Oh.”
“Yeah, dork.” Dick winked so Kon would know he was being teased rather than actually insulted. “How about you go find something to watch while I clear the table?”
Kon pushed his chair back. “I can help.”
“Nah, I got it.” Saying that with his arms full of dishes and silverware probably didn’t help his cause, but oh well.
Since Connor wasn’t easily dissuaded, he trailed after Dick. “Seriously, let me do something. Go sit down.”
“I think I can handle it,” Dick said dryly. “I’m not that old, Connor. One night of weird sleep isn’t gonna do me in.”
Kon rose to the bait and smirked. “Sure you are, I can hear your joints creaking from over here.”
The dishes clattered as Dick dumped them into the sink, then spun back towards Kon. It was good to see him closer to his usual self, hopefully that meant that there wouldn’t be too much lingering damage from yesterday. And, hey, Dick hadn’t been lying when he’d said he called off for family reasons. Maybe it was time to give Kon a heaping spoonful of older-brothering.
“You cannot,” Dick replied. He smirked as he took a few, slow steps forward.
Kon’s expression did an odd spasm as he tried to hide the genuine smile that was trying to show through. “You sound like you need a gallon of WD-40 or something.”
Normally, with Jason or Tim, Dick would draw it out a little longer and banter with them as he waited for the right time to strike. With Kon, though, it was close enough.
In a move that Kon absolutely could have dodged if he’d wanted to, Dick dove at him and tasered into his sides, right below his ribs.
“DICK!” Kon squawked, the word choking off into some kind of sputtering cough as he lurched backwards and managed to stumble over his own two feet. He clumsily brought his hands up in front of his torso. “Who–what–why–”
“You gonna go for ‘when’ and ‘where’ too?” Dick teased. It was too easy to take advantage of Kon’s flustered state and dart forward, tasering into his sides again. With another cut-off protest, Kon twisted to the side, an inelegant movement, and suddenly he was floating a couple inches off the ground.
“Who told you?” Kon asked, and Dick was pretty sure that he wasn't imagining the hint of giddiness hiding between Kon's whining pout. No wonder he and Tim got along so well.
“A little bird,” Dick replied, which was true. Tim had let something slip one evening – to be fair, it had included Bart and Cassie, too, but Dick had already known about them.
Before Kon could say anything else, Dick tackled him to the ground and – yup, sure enough, Kon went down way easier than normal. Dick sat on his thighs and placed his hands on Connor’s sides again, squeezing just enough to make him meep.
“I heard a lot about you,” Dick said in his best conversational tone. “Like how here–” he abruptly shoved his hands up under Kon’s arms and dug in, earning a wild bout of screeching cackles for his troubles. He’d have to apologize to his neighbors later. “Is a really good spot.”
“Hey!” Kon gasped, practically beaming even as he laughed. “I’m – gohahad, Tim’s gonna die for this one, he’s – Dick nohohohnono, wait – hopeless!”
“Oh, you're not hopeless,” Dick said, deliberately misunderstanding, and grinned down at him. A few pulses of his fingers sent Kon tumbling into another fit of strangled laughter. “You're just ticklish, Connor.”
“Shut up!” Kon cried, blushing all the way up to the roots of his hair. He shifted around on the floor, not quite squirming, more like he was – oh, like he was testing how much he could wriggle without tossing Dick off. Adorable. “Don’t – don’t say it, shit!”
Pointing out that Kon could get away pretty easily probably wouldn’t land right just yet, and Dick didn’t want him to feel self-conscious enough to actually free himself and disappear – that would defeat the entire point of the exercise, which was to give the sputtering young Kryptonian a giant dose of older-brothering.
“Say what?” Dick asked.
Kon’s face twisted in an exasperated grimace, or as close as one could get when fighting back snickers. “You know, you –”
Taking advantage of the fact that he was distracted trying to answer, Dick wormed his fingers under Kon’s arms again and dug in, pressing his thumbs into the center spots.
Kon jerked, his eyes widening in surprise and ticklish panic. “eh-HEY! heyheyheyNOHOHOHO!” He arched up and flailed out with his hands, slapping and grabbing at the floor beneath him as waves of increasingly desperate laughter took over any of his attempts at talking.
Dick didn’t let up, and after a couple more seconds Kon’s head thunked back against the vinyl. He let out a giggly groan, clamping his arms to his sides, and Dick hadn’t realized how wide he was smiling until the muscles in his face twinged.
“Giving up already?” he teased. “I heard this was a good spot, but man. You really are ticklish, huh? Oh, right, I’m not supposed to talk about that –” Kon shouted out something garbled that was probably a protest, and Dick shushed him “–ssshh, ssh. If you can lift your arms all the way up, I’ll switch spots.”
Okay, maybe it was a tad mean to take advantage of the fact that Connor didn’t have much experience with these kinds of games, and thus didn’t know what awaited him, but hey. He had to learn eventually, right?
“Whaddya think, Kon-El?” Dick scritched his fingers over the outer edges of Kon’s armpits, digging into the centers with his thumbs again. “Wanna try?”
Shrieking, Kon frantically nodded as he started cackling hysterically again, his eyes squinching up. “OkokOKAHAHAY!”
It was sweet, really, how willing he was to play along. Dick smiled as he shifted into a different gear of older brother tickle monster mode. “Alright, great! Whenever you’re ready.”
Kon gulped down another wave of laughter and tried to inch his arms upwards. As soon as the pressure against Dick’s hands lessened, he started tickling faster, chuckling as Kon’s eyes bugged out of his head and he snapped his arms back down to his sides.
“Che-heheater!” Kon gasped, trying to hold back his laughter.
Dick winked at him. “I never said I wouldn’t tickle, Baby Supes, just that you gotta get those arms up.”
A hilarious range of expressions contorted Kon’s features into different shapes, until he finally settled on ‘righteous indignation’. It would’ve felt more real if stray laughter hadn’t been leaking out around his attempted glower. “You’re such a jerk–”
“Aw, c’mon, you can do it!” Dick fluttered his fingers again just to make Kon sputter and squirm. “I believe in you!”
Kon rolled his eyes, huffing, as he visibly made an effort to still himself. He bit down on his lower lip and hesitantly lifted his arms up again, just a fraction of an inch. When Dick didn't immediately start tickling him again, Kon glowered and stretched a little further upwards.
Dick twitched his fingers, barely, but it was enough to make Kon yelp and slam his head back.
“You suck,” Kon whined, as if he wasn’t grinning through his snickers.
Dick tried to defend himself. “Hey, I barely did anything.You almost had it.”
Blinking hard, Kon squinted up at him. “H-how far?”
“Hm?” How far, what?
“How far?” Kon repeated. He knocked his fists against the mat. “How far is ‘up’?”
Ah. Okay, this was going in Dick’s mental archive of adorable little brother moments that he revisited on the bad days. In a moment of heroic self restraint, he held himself back from cooing and instead just reached up to smooth some of Kon’s wayward hair away from his face while he pretended to think hard about the question.
“I think you can get your hands over your head,” he said, poking Kon in the upper ribs. Where Tim would’ve screeched loud enough to echo off the walls for ages, Kon just flinched and let out a quiet snicker.
Dick crawled his fingers upwards again and Kon practically snorted as his snickers turned into louder laughter. “And, hey. I’ll be nice this time.”
The skeptical look that Kon gave him made Dick laugh out loud because – yeah, fair. But, hey, if Kon was still up for playing along, he couldn’t be that exasperated.
Even though Dick stayed true to his word and didn’t actually tickle, apparently the pressure of his fingers resting right above Kon’s ribs was enough to keep Kon in fits of panicked snickers – probably because whenever he moved his arms, he shifted against Dick’s hands, which made him flinch, which made hissed laughter sputter out from his clenched teeth.
Dick couldn’t help but chuckle. “I’m not even doing anything, kiddo, this is all you.”
“Shut up!” Kon gasped. “Don’t talk, don’t say ahahanything!”
As funny as it was to watch Kon work himself into a mess of badly-hidden laughter and panic, Dick figured that the poor kid had served his time. Right as he started to sit up and push himself to his feet, Kon summoned the wits to fling both of his arms up over his head.
Dick, as promised, lifted his hands up and grinned. “Hey, there you go! I knew you had it in you.”
“I–you–” Kon blinked rapidly like his entire train of thought had crashed, then he tucked his elbows back to his sides and clasped his hands over his chest. He shook his head, speechless.
“Don’t worry,” Dick said, lowering his voice as he reached out to ruffle Kon’s hair. “You won.” He paused for a few seconds as Kon caught his breath, waiting until he made eye contact to continue. “That just means we can figure out where else you’re ticklish.”
Kon’s eyes widened and he yelled out something unintelligible as Dick shot his hands down to squeeze and knead at his sides. Whatever Kon had been trying to say dissolved in breathless, high-pitched laughter.
It turned out that Kryptonians were just as susceptible to the “fingers hovering right above a tickle spot but not touching” tease as humans were. When Dick held one of his hands over Kon's stomach, Kon sucked in a gulping breath and tried to wriggle away until he broke down into panicked, snickering snorts.
“You're so dramatic,” Dick said, tsking. “Your belly isn't even that ticklish.”
“I can't hehelp it,” Kon replied as he forced himself to still.
Instead of pointing out that Kon could very much help it if he so chose, Dick just scrabbled across his upper abs again, drawing out another round of light laughter.
“Whatever you say, bud.” It was hard to believe that the puddle of laughter in front of him was the same Connor who’d been curled on the couch like the world’s saddest shrimp last night.
“You know,” Dick started. “Clark is also a huge tickle monster, so you’d better watch out.”
Kon smacked his hands over his face. “Don’t tehell him!”
“Don’t tell him what?” As he teased, Dick started poking randomly all over Connor’s stomach and sides, getting a flurry of yelps for his troubles. “That you’re ticklish, but he can’t talk about it ever?” Dick slid his hands underneath Kon’s sides to scritch over his lower back, see if he was ticklish there like Jason.
Maybe it was the lighter tickles, but instead of yelping or snickering, Connor immediately slipped into stuttering giggles. Oh god, how sweet.
“C’mon, I gotta tell him about this,” Dick said. “Your tickly-giggles are adorable.”
Whatever Kon started to whine out – probably a pointless protest about how he wasn’t adorable, which, lies – was interrupted by a knock on the door.
“Looks like you’re getting off easy this time.” After another quick ruffle of Kon’s hair, Dick hopped up to see who was there.
For the second time in less than twelve hours, a Kent was standing unannounced in his doorway. This time, though, it was Clark, and he wore that pinched expression that only appeared when he was truly worried.
It occurred to Dick that maybe he should’ve checked his phone last night. Or earlier that morning.
“He’s here,” Dick said, offering Clark a reassuring smile. “And he’s fine.”
Some of the tension left Clark’s face, and he nodded once. “Thank you for taking care of him, Dick.”
Dick stepped back so he could come in. “Anytime.”
Maybe Dick was imagining it, but Clark’s movements seemed hesitant as he started towards the living room.
“Oh!” Dick grabbed Clark by the sleeve. “He’s, uh. He’s in the kitchen. Sort of.”
Sure enough, Kon had made no effort to get up. In fact, he’d curled in on himself, still hiding his face in his hands.
“Shit,” Clark murmured. He’d crossed the room in two strides and fell to his knees next to Connor, reaching out to place a hand on his head. “Connor, are you alright?”
Disoriented, Kon stared up at him through watery eyes. “Clark?”
“He’s fine,” Dick cut in to head off any more misunderstanding. “In fact, Uncle Clark, did you know that he’s insanely ticklish?”
The glower from Kon could’ve curdled milk, but Clark visibly relaxed and shot Dick a tired, grateful smile. “Ah, that would make sense.”
“I’m going to grab Thai for lunch,” Dick said. Leaving now would give them a chance to talk in private, and himself the opportunity to call Bruce. “You’re both staying, right?”
“Yes,” Connor replied immediately.
Clark looked down at him with an impossibly soft smile, then nodded to Dick.
“Great. I’ll be back in thirty.” Dick barely remembered to grab his keys as he scurried out the front door. He had his phone out and calling Bruce’s personal cell before he was halfway down the stairs.
Bruce picked up halfway through the second ring. “Dick? Is everything alright?”
“Fine,” Dick replied. He dodged a lady with a stroller and jumped the last five stairs, landing with a satisfying thud. “Did I ever apologize for all the stuff I did as a kid?”
In answer, Bruce let out a long, deep laugh that warmed Dick down to his toes. “You don’t need to, Dickie. I wouldn’t want you any other way.”
Seeing a notification from your blog of a new fic being posted causes me to react like a dog seeing their favourite person come home from university
The new one was so fricking wholesome Hyacinth!! How you write dialog feels realistic and fits every scene perfectly. I love Dick adopting little brothers like they're Pokémon in the wild 💙
Pray tell, is Kon going to get a certain little bird back for letting such 'sensitive information' slip? His ability to use TTK might put Dick and Jason's to shame when it comes to wrecking Tim...
Hope you're having a splendid week lovely!! ♡
SHDJFHGJDK thank you so so so much <3 <3 <3 (no emojis for me on the web version lol) Dick's gonna catch 'em all, just you wait.
You and Elliott (@elliott-puppet ) are on similar wavelengths and I love it. I do think Kon is going to have to get a certain someone back because otherwise Tim will be an insufferable little brat about Kon clearly having a blast whenever Dick gets him (the call is coming from inside the house but ssssh). Kon's TTK does present many possibilities... especially for ranged tickle attacks lol
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HIII I just read ur new fic and I loved it so so much and it spawned a tiny idea in my brain that I need to get out now - would’ve put it in my reblog but I prefer putting these in asks agfifjsnc
sooo Kon (or any of the core four rlly I’ve decided Dick is all of their older brothers) finding out Tim let some things slip about them and they want to get back at him so they go ask the resident tickle monster to help :D Dick ofc says that he’ll show them bc why wouldn’t he want his little brother to get tickled silly that’s his job but but but his only condition is that he shows them where Tim is ticklish by tickling them
so we get Dick tickling them silly while narrating over the top how Tim’s super ticklish there and it makes him want to turn into a burrowing little gremlin, while also teasing whoever he’s tickling because whoops he’s gained 3 more little siblings
and now Tim has to run because all his friends have been Dick-trained in turning him into a pile of mush and giggles :D
okok short one today I loved your fic sm I’m gonna go reread it now byeeee
-Elliott :3 (@elliott-puppet)
Ahhh Elliott hello hello!!
THANK YOU FOR SHARING THIS SHDVHSDJFD I love the concept of Dick just going "well I think experiential learning is best, actually, c'mere" and yoinking a YJ member for demonstration purposes like "well first off, Tim's really ticklish here and - oh, so are you, that'll make this easier, great!" Meanwhile they all realize real quick why Tim's usually all like "yeah you guys can't do shit I live with Dick." Ofc Tim realizes his impending doom and tries to hide with Batman, expecting that since it's. Y'know. Batman. His teammates won't try to mess with him. Bruce promptly plops Tim down in front of them and returns to work.
a/n: this one has been in progress for a while and I'm yeeting it into the void at midnight without editing because that's how we roll on hyacinthanon dot tumblr dot com. it was NOT supposed to be this long but these guys wanted to yap
summary: When Kon crashlands at his apartment after a bad fight with Clark, Dick looks at him and goes "is anyone going to brother that or"
lee!Connor Kent|Kon-El // ler!Dick Grayson
Dick hadn't been trying to add yet another teenage hero to his squadron of younger siblings – really, he hadn't – but thanks to Tim's earnest puppy dog eyes and his genuine concern for a friend, Dick was now standing in the doorway to his Bludhaven apartment at three forty-five in the morning of his night off blinking blearily at Connor Kent.
“I'm sorry,” Kon said, the words coming out cracked and strained. Not looking Dick in the eye, he shifted his weight and shoved his hands into his pockets, hunching his shoulders up. When he spoke again, it was in clipped bits and pieces, like he was forcing words out through gritted teeth. “Fight. Bad one, with…. with Clark. Didn't know where else to go.”
In the apartment hallway's dim lighting, Connor looked pathetic enough to tug a little extra on Dick’s heartstrings.
So, he ruthlessly stifled a yawn as he stepped back and tugged his door all the way open. “Come on in, kiddo.”
Connor shuffled inside, still holding himself unusually stiff, and hovered just inside the threshold. It took a second for Dick’s still-restarting brain to process why the kid was just standing there – Jason or Tim would've been in the process of helping themselves to the contents of Dick's fridge by now. Then he remembered that Kon was probably as out of his depth as Dick felt. Believe it or not, this was the first time a teenager who wasn't related to him showed up on his doorstep in the middle of the night.
“Make yourself comfortable,” Dick said after a couple seconds, gesturing to the couch.
When Connor started that way, Dick turned towards the kitchen. “I'm going to make some tea, if you want any.”
“Sure,” Kon said quietly. Then, quickly, “thank you.”
“No problem.”
Once the water was set to boil, Dick leaned his elbows on the countertop and let his head fall into his hands.
Okay. This wasn’t too out of the ordinary, as a situation, just the first time this happened with Connor – Connor, who had barely come around to the fact that Dick did actually like him and wasn’t pity-mentoring him, so…no pressure, there. Or from the fact that Kon was one of Tim’s best friends and his teammate, so Dick screwing this up could easily trickle down to Tim’s personal and vigilante life. Great.
The electric kettle started to hiss as bubbles formed against the inside of the glass. Dick rubbed his face and straightened up to get two mugs from a nearby cabinet. Mediating disputes between his own family was familiar, comfortable territory. Dealing with someone else’s family dynamics was another thing entirely, especially when it was Clark’s family. It felt much more like figuring out how to diffuse a bomb that he could only see half of.
Part of him desperately wanted to call Bruce for advice. Surely, B would know what to say, but…well, Kon probably wouldn’t appreciate that.
God, was this how Clark felt all those years ago? After a particularly bad knockdown, dragout fight with Bruce, Dick had grabbed a duffle bag and hopped on the nearest train to Metropolis. He’d turned up on Clark’s doorstep with no warning, expecting to have to beg for asylum, but Clark had just smiled and invited him in like it was just another ordinary evening.
Shit, speaking of Clark –
Dick fumbled his phone out of his pocket and fired off a quick text to the thread with both Clark and Lois, letting them know that Kon was with him for the night.
His phone buzzed in response but he placed it facedown on the counter without checking either of the messages. Right now, there was an overwrought teenage Kryptonian on his couch in desperate need of some older brothering.
“Kon, is peppermint good?” he called.
The pause before Kon replied was just long enough for the barest hint of a sniffle to echo into the kitchen. Oh, poor kid.
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“Do you want to talk about it?” Dick asked.
They’d been sitting in silence on his couch for about ten minutes. Kon was cupping his mug in an obvious attempt to ground himself, both hands wrapped tightly around the ceramic. His posture was still all lines and edges, and Dick was itching to wrap a blanket around him – wait, that was a good idea. He hauled one of the fleecy blankets over from the pile on one of the armrests and tossed it over Connor’s hunched shoulders.
Kon blinked at him for a second, surprise flickering across his face, before the tension in his shoulders eased up by a fraction. Well, better than nothing.
“You don’t have to,” Dick said in reference to his earlier question. He settled sideways, facing Connor. “Family fights suck. Sometimes you just need a good, long, stare at a wall to process.”
Kon huffed with what may have been amusement, then he also scooted back against the cushions, settling against them. The blanket stayed with him. His mouth twisted like he was thinking about saying something, but he frowned and remained silent.
After years of dealing with recalcitrant younger brothers who would rather take an escrima stick to the kneecap than talk about their feelings (Jason) – and having been a teenager himself – Dick’s instincts nudged him into giving Connor a gentle push.
“It’s not about hero stuff, is it?”
With a sigh that sounded way too despondent to be coming from a fifteen-year-old, Kon shook his head.
“Family stuff?” Dick guessed.
Kon’s brows knitted together. He let go of his mug long enough to make a waffling motion with his hand.
Ah, Dick thought he knew where this was going. “Connor-and-family stuff?”
“Yeah,” Kon whispered, practically clutching the mug again. He shifted in his spot. “I’m – I’m not–I’m not him, I’m not. But – but I–” His hands shook.
Luckily, Dick had plenty of practice in this area. After setting his own mug on the coffee table, he glanced over at Kon and lifted his arms in invitation. Kon only hesitated for a couple seconds before shifting closer to lean into the offered hug, slumping against Dick’s chest.
DIck wrapped his arms around Connor’s frame. He didn’t say anything else for a long while.
Of all people, Dick knew what it was like to have that desperate urge to get out from someone else’s shadow, to prove that he was his own person, not just a factory-reset version of someone else. For Connor, who’d literally been created to be a clone of Superman…yeah, that had to be painful in an entirely different dimension.
“I just,” Kon muttered eventually. “I hate this. I hate feeling – feeling like–” He trailed off with a groan that sounded more frustrated than despairing, which was probably a good sign.
“Feeling like you’re just a worse version of the person everyone else expects you to be?” Dick asked. He unwrapped one of his arms to free up a hand to start scratching over Connor’s shoulders with the gentle, soothing motions that Tim usually enjoyed. He wasn’t expecting Connor to absolutely melt into the soft touches like he did, but it thrilled Dick that Connor was allowing himself to be this comfortable.
“You’re not Clark,” Dick murmured, resting his chin on top of Kon’s head. “And trust me, Kon, he doesn’t want you to be him. He wants you to be you. The part that sucks is having to figure out what being ‘you’ means. Personally, though, I think you’re off to a great start.”
Kon hummed something that Dick couldn’t parse.
“And, hey,” he added, grinning. “It’s Clark’s first time with any of this. He’s got no idea what he’s doing, just like you. Trust me, kiddo, being the first kid is mostly about discovering adult neuroses you never knew existed. Like, did you know that Bruce was terrified to take me to get my driver’s license? Or teach me how to drive? I’d been Robin for half a decade by that point, but the thought of me behind the wheel in Gotham traffic nearly gave him an aneurysm. He wouldn’t let me drive beyond the neighborhood for months.”
That story made Kon laugh, and seeing a smile tugging at his mouth sent a rush of relief and affection through Dick’s chest.
“Didn’t you have a Robin motorcycle before that?” Kon asked.
“Oh, yeah. That didn’t matter.”
Kon snickered again, probably at the image of the mysterious and mighty Batman wringing his hands in the waiting room of a DMV office.
“It’s not that he didn’t trust me,” Dick added, taking a stab at what he thought might have been part of Connor’s argument with Clark. “It’s part of being a parent. He got – okay, honestly, gets – so neurotically paranoid about things happening to me because he cares. So much. And, for a long time, I couldn’t get that. It took a while.” No, that was not a lump in his throat, thank you very much. “But...it won’t be like this forever.”
For a good several minutes, Kon stayed quiet as he – hopefully – chewed through Dick’s words, as best he could at this hour.
“Okay,” he said at last, then yawned.
Dick smiled and briefly tightened his arm around Kon’s waist in a hug. “Let’s get you to sleep, yeah? Growing Kryptonians need their rest. We can talk more tomorrow, if you want.”
“Mmph,” Kon replied, pressing his face into Dick’s shoulder again.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
In the end, Dick practically drop-kicked Kon into his bed and crashed on the couch. He slept for another couple hours, woke up to his usual alarm long enough to call off work, then went back to sleep for another hour before getting up for good. It seemed like Connor was still dead asleep, so Dick set about making two of the three items in his non-cereal breakfast repertoire. He’d flipped two omelets onto his last two plates next to generous stacks of French toast by the time Connor shuffled back out into the living room, squinting blearily.
“Hey, kiddo, food and coffee.” Dick held out a plate and pointed to the coffee maker.
Blinking, Kon took the food and sat down to inhale it like some kind of alien vacuum cleaner as Dick finished pouring himself coffee.
They ate in silence – well, Dick ate while Connor stared mournfully at his empty plate.
“There’s cereal, too,” Dick said around a mouthful of French toast.
Faster than he could blink, Kon zipped away and returned with the milk and a box of Cheerios. Hm. Maybe he had a higher metabolism, or something. It would make sense with all his extra abilities.
Once Dick finished eating, he set his fork down. “Alright. Whaddya want to do today?”
Kon gave him a weird look. “...Don’t you have work?”
“Called off,” Dick replied. “Family reasons.”
“Is everything okay?”
Dick stared blankly at him until Connor’s eyebrows flicked up in a moment of realization, that was immediately followed by a faint blush breaking out across his face.
“Oh.”
“Yeah, dork.” Dick winked so Kon would know he was being teased rather than actually insulted. “How about you go find something to watch while I clear the table?”
Kon pushed his chair back. “I can help.”
“Nah, I got it.” Saying that with his arms full of dishes and silverware probably didn’t help his cause, but oh well.
Since Connor wasn’t easily dissuaded, he trailed after Dick. “Seriously, let me do something. Go sit down.”
“I think I can handle it,” Dick said dryly. “I’m not that old, Connor. One night of weird sleep isn’t gonna do me in.”
Kon rose to the bait and smirked. “Sure you are, I can hear your joints creaking from over here.”
The dishes clattered as Dick dumped them into the sink, then spun back towards Kon. It was good to see him closer to his usual self, hopefully that meant that there wouldn’t be too much lingering damage from yesterday. And, hey, Dick hadn’t been lying when he’d said he called off for family reasons. Maybe it was time to give Kon a heaping spoonful of older-brothering.
“You cannot,” Dick replied. He smirked as he took a few, slow steps forward.
Kon’s expression did an odd spasm as he tried to hide the genuine smile that was trying to show through. “You sound like you need a gallon of WD-40 or something.”
Normally, with Jason or Tim, Dick would draw it out a little longer and banter with them as he waited for the right time to strike. With Kon, though, it was close enough.
In a move that Kon absolutely could have dodged if he’d wanted to, Dick dove at him and tasered into his sides, right below his ribs.
“DICK!” Kon squawked, the word choking off into some kind of sputtering cough as he lurched backwards and managed to stumble over his own two feet. He clumsily brought his hands up in front of his torso. “Who–what–why–”
“You gonna go for ‘when’ and ‘where’ too?” Dick teased. It was too easy to take advantage of Kon’s flustered state and dart forward, tasering into his sides again. With another cut-off protest, Kon twisted to the side, an inelegant movement, and suddenly he was floating a couple inches off the ground.
“Who told you?” Kon asked, and Dick was pretty sure that he wasn't imagining the hint of giddiness hiding between Kon's whining pout. No wonder he and Tim got along so well.
“A little bird,” Dick replied, which was true. Tim had let something slip one evening – to be fair, it had included Bart and Cassie, too, but Dick had already known about them.
Before Kon could say anything else, Dick tackled him to the ground and – yup, sure enough, Kon went down way easier than normal. Dick sat on his thighs and placed his hands on Connor’s sides again, squeezing just enough to make him meep.
“I heard a lot about you,” Dick said in his best conversational tone. “Like how here–” he abruptly shoved his hands up under Kon’s arms and dug in, earning a wild bout of screeching cackles for his troubles. He’d have to apologize to his neighbors later. “Is a really good spot.”
“Hey!” Kon gasped, practically beaming even as he laughed. “I’m – gohahad, Tim’s gonna die for this one, he’s – Dick nohohohnono, wait – hopeless!”
“Oh, you're not hopeless,” Dick said, deliberately misunderstanding, and grinned down at him. A few pulses of his fingers sent Kon tumbling into another fit of strangled laughter. “You're just ticklish, Connor.”
“Shut up!” Kon cried, blushing all the way up to the roots of his hair. He shifted around on the floor, not quite squirming, more like he was – oh, like he was testing how much he could wriggle without tossing Dick off. Adorable. “Don’t – don’t say it, shit!”
Pointing out that Kon could get away pretty easily probably wouldn’t land right just yet, and Dick didn’t want him to feel self-conscious enough to actually free himself and disappear – that would defeat the entire point of the exercise, which was to give the sputtering young Kryptonian a giant dose of older-brothering.
“Say what?” Dick asked.
Kon’s face twisted in an exasperated grimace, or as close as one could get when fighting back snickers. “You know, you –”
Taking advantage of the fact that he was distracted trying to answer, Dick wormed his fingers under Kon’s arms again and dug in, pressing his thumbs into the center spots.
Kon jerked, his eyes widening in surprise and ticklish panic. “eh-HEY! heyheyheyNOHOHOHO!” He arched up and flailed out with his hands, slapping and grabbing at the floor beneath him as waves of increasingly desperate laughter took over any of his attempts at talking.
Dick didn’t let up, and after a couple more seconds Kon’s head thunked back against the vinyl. He let out a giggly groan, clamping his arms to his sides, and Dick hadn’t realized how wide he was smiling until the muscles in his face twinged.
“Giving up already?” he teased. “I heard this was a good spot, but man. You really are ticklish, huh? Oh, right, I’m not supposed to talk about that –” Kon shouted out something garbled that was probably a protest, and Dick shushed him “–ssshh, ssh. If you can lift your arms all the way up, I’ll switch spots.”
Okay, maybe it was a tad mean to take advantage of the fact that Connor didn’t have much experience with these kinds of games, and thus didn’t know what awaited him, but hey. He had to learn eventually, right?
“Whaddya think, Kon-El?” Dick scritched his fingers over the outer edges of Kon’s armpits, digging into the centers with his thumbs again. “Wanna try?”
Shrieking, Kon frantically nodded as he started cackling hysterically again, his eyes squinching up. “OkokOKAHAHAY!”
It was sweet, really, how willing he was to play along. Dick smiled as he shifted into a different gear of older brother tickle monster mode. “Alright, great! Whenever you’re ready.”
Kon gulped down another wave of laughter and tried to inch his arms upwards. As soon as the pressure against Dick’s hands lessened, he started tickling faster, chuckling as Kon’s eyes bugged out of his head and he snapped his arms back down to his sides.
“Che-heheater!” Kon gasped, trying to hold back his laughter.
Dick winked at him. “I never said I wouldn’t tickle, Baby Supes, just that you gotta get those arms up.”
A hilarious range of expressions contorted Kon’s features into different shapes, until he finally settled on ‘righteous indignation’. It would’ve felt more real if stray laughter hadn’t been leaking out around his attempted glower. “You’re such a jerk–”
“Aw, c’mon, you can do it!” Dick fluttered his fingers again just to make Kon sputter and squirm. “I believe in you!”
Kon rolled his eyes, huffing, as he visibly made an effort to still himself. He bit down on his lower lip and hesitantly lifted his arms up again, just a fraction of an inch. When Dick didn't immediately start tickling him again, Kon glowered and stretched a little further upwards.
Dick twitched his fingers, barely, but it was enough to make Kon yelp and slam his head back.
“You suck,” Kon whined, as if he wasn’t grinning through his snickers.
Dick tried to defend himself. “Hey, I barely did anything.You almost had it.”
Blinking hard, Kon squinted up at him. “H-how far?”
“Hm?” How far, what?
“How far?” Kon repeated. He knocked his fists against the mat. “How far is ‘up’?”
Ah. Okay, this was going in Dick’s mental archive of adorable little brother moments that he revisited on the bad days. In a moment of heroic self restraint, he held himself back from cooing and instead just reached up to smooth some of Kon’s wayward hair away from his face while he pretended to think hard about the question.
“I think you can get your hands over your head,” he said, poking Kon in the upper ribs. Where Tim would’ve screeched loud enough to echo off the walls for ages, Kon just flinched and let out a quiet snicker.
Dick crawled his fingers upwards again and Kon practically snorted as his snickers turned into louder laughter. “And, hey. I’ll be nice this time.”
The skeptical look that Kon gave him made Dick laugh out loud because – yeah, fair. But, hey, if Kon was still up for playing along, he couldn’t be that exasperated.
Even though Dick stayed true to his word and didn’t actually tickle, apparently the pressure of his fingers resting right above Kon’s ribs was enough to keep Kon in fits of panicked snickers – probably because whenever he moved his arms, he shifted against Dick’s hands, which made him flinch, which made hissed laughter sputter out from his clenched teeth.
Dick couldn’t help but chuckle. “I’m not even doing anything, kiddo, this is all you.”
“Shut up!” Kon gasped. “Don’t talk, don’t say ahahanything!”
As funny as it was to watch Kon work himself into a mess of badly-hidden laughter and panic, Dick figured that the poor kid had served his time. Right as he started to sit up and push himself to his feet, Kon summoned the wits to fling both of his arms up over his head.
Dick, as promised, lifted his hands up and grinned. “Hey, there you go! I knew you had it in you.”
“I–you–” Kon blinked rapidly like his entire train of thought had crashed, then he tucked his elbows back to his sides and clasped his hands over his chest. He shook his head, speechless.
“Don’t worry,” Dick said, lowering his voice as he reached out to ruffle Kon’s hair. “You won.” He paused for a few seconds as Kon caught his breath, waiting until he made eye contact to continue. “That just means we can figure out where else you’re ticklish.”
Kon’s eyes widened and he yelled out something unintelligible as Dick shot his hands down to squeeze and knead at his sides. Whatever Kon had been trying to say dissolved in breathless, high-pitched laughter.
It turned out that Kryptonians were just as susceptible to the “fingers hovering right above a tickle spot but not touching” tease as humans were. When Dick held one of his hands over Kon's stomach, Kon sucked in a gulping breath and tried to wriggle away until he broke down into panicked, snickering snorts.
“You're so dramatic,” Dick said, tsking. “Your belly isn't even that ticklish.”
“I can't hehelp it,” Kon replied as he forced himself to still.
Instead of pointing out that Kon could very much help it if he so chose, Dick just scrabbled across his upper abs again, drawing out another round of light laughter.
“Whatever you say, bud.” It was hard to believe that the puddle of laughter in front of him was the same Connor who’d been curled on the couch like the world’s saddest shrimp last night.
“You know,” Dick started. “Clark is also a huge tickle monster, so you’d better watch out.”
Kon smacked his hands over his face. “Don’t tehell him!”
“Don’t tell him what?” As he teased, Dick started poking randomly all over Connor’s stomach and sides, getting a flurry of yelps for his troubles. “That you’re ticklish, but he can’t talk about it ever?” Dick slid his hands underneath Kon’s sides to scritch over his lower back, see if he was ticklish there like Jason.
Maybe it was the lighter tickles, but instead of yelping or snickering, Connor immediately slipped into stuttering giggles. Oh god, how sweet.
“C’mon, I gotta tell him about this,” Dick said. “Your tickly-giggles are adorable.”
Whatever Kon started to whine out – probably a pointless protest about how he wasn’t adorable, which, lies – was interrupted by a knock on the door.
“Looks like you’re getting off easy this time.” After another quick ruffle of Kon’s hair, Dick hopped up to see who was there.
For the second time in less than twelve hours, a Kent was standing unannounced in his doorway. This time, though, it was Clark, and he wore that pinched expression that only appeared when he was truly worried.
It occurred to Dick that maybe he should’ve checked his phone last night. Or earlier that morning.
“He’s here,” Dick said, offering Clark a reassuring smile. “And he’s fine.”
Some of the tension left Clark’s face, and he nodded once. “Thank you for taking care of him, Dick.”
Dick stepped back so he could come in. “Anytime.”
Maybe Dick was imagining it, but Clark’s movements seemed hesitant as he started towards the living room.
“Oh!” Dick grabbed Clark by the sleeve. “He’s, uh. He’s in the kitchen. Sort of.”
Sure enough, Kon had made no effort to get up. In fact, he’d curled in on himself, still hiding his face in his hands.
“Shit,” Clark murmured. He’d crossed the room in two strides and fell to his knees next to Connor, reaching out to place a hand on his head. “Connor, are you alright?”
Disoriented, Kon stared up at him through watery eyes. “Clark?”
“He’s fine,” Dick cut in to head off any more misunderstanding. “In fact, Uncle Clark, did you know that he’s insanely ticklish?”
The glower from Kon could’ve curdled milk, but Clark visibly relaxed and shot Dick a tired, grateful smile. “Ah, that would make sense.”
“I’m going to grab Thai for lunch,” Dick said. Leaving now would give them a chance to talk in private, and himself the opportunity to call Bruce. “You’re both staying, right?”
“Yes,” Connor replied immediately.
Clark looked down at him with an impossibly soft smile, then nodded to Dick.
“Great. I’ll be back in thirty.” Dick barely remembered to grab his keys as he scurried out the front door. He had his phone out and calling Bruce’s personal cell before he was halfway down the stairs.
Bruce picked up halfway through the second ring. “Dick? Is everything alright?”
“Fine,” Dick replied. He dodged a lady with a stroller and jumped the last five stairs, landing with a satisfying thud. “Did I ever apologize for all the stuff I did as a kid?”
In answer, Bruce let out a long, deep laugh that warmed Dick down to his toes. “You don’t need to, Dickie. I wouldn’t want you any other way.”
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a/n: this one has been in progress for a while and I'm yeeting it into the void at midnight without editing because that's how we roll on hyacinthanon dot tumblr dot com. it was NOT supposed to be this long but these guys wanted to yap
summary: When Kon crashlands at his apartment after a bad fight with Clark, Dick looks at him and goes "is anyone going to brother that or"
lee!Connor Kent|Kon-El // ler!Dick Grayson
Dick hadn't been trying to add yet another teenage hero to his squadron of younger siblings – really, he hadn't – but thanks to Tim's earnest puppy dog eyes and his genuine concern for a friend, Dick was now standing in the doorway to his Bludhaven apartment at three forty-five in the morning of his night off blinking blearily at Connor Kent.
“I'm sorry,” Kon said, the words coming out cracked and strained. Not looking Dick in the eye, he shifted his weight and shoved his hands into his pockets, hunching his shoulders up. When he spoke again, it was in clipped bits and pieces, like he was forcing words out through gritted teeth. “Fight. Bad one, with…. with Clark. Didn't know where else to go.”
In the apartment hallway's dim lighting, Connor looked pathetic enough to tug a little extra on Dick’s heartstrings.
So, he ruthlessly stifled a yawn as he stepped back and tugged his door all the way open. “Come on in, kiddo.”
Connor shuffled inside, still holding himself unusually stiff, and hovered just inside the threshold. It took a second for Dick’s still-restarting brain to process why the kid was just standing there – Jason or Tim would've been in the process of helping themselves to the contents of Dick's fridge by now. Then he remembered that Kon was probably as out of his depth as Dick felt. Believe it or not, this was the first time a teenager who wasn't related to him showed up on his doorstep in the middle of the night.
“Make yourself comfortable,” Dick said after a couple seconds, gesturing to the couch.
When Connor started that way, Dick turned towards the kitchen. “I'm going to make some tea, if you want any.”
“Sure,” Kon said quietly. Then, quickly, “thank you.”
“No problem.”
Once the water was set to boil, Dick leaned his elbows on the countertop and let his head fall into his hands.
Okay. This wasn’t too out of the ordinary, as a situation, just the first time this happened with Connor – Connor, who had barely come around to the fact that Dick did actually like him and wasn’t pity-mentoring him, so…no pressure, there. Or from the fact that Kon was one of Tim’s best friends and his teammate, so Dick screwing this up could easily trickle down to Tim’s personal and vigilante life. Great.
The electric kettle started to hiss as bubbles formed against the inside of the glass. Dick rubbed his face and straightened up to get two mugs from a nearby cabinet. Mediating disputes between his own family was familiar, comfortable territory. Dealing with someone else’s family dynamics was another thing entirely, especially when it was Clark’s family. It felt much more like figuring out how to diffuse a bomb that he could only see half of.
Part of him desperately wanted to call Bruce for advice. Surely, B would know what to say, but…well, Kon probably wouldn’t appreciate that.
God, was this how Clark felt all those years ago? After a particularly bad knockdown, dragout fight with Bruce, Dick had grabbed a duffle bag and hopped on the nearest train to Metropolis. He’d turned up on Clark’s doorstep with no warning, expecting to have to beg for asylum, but Clark had just smiled and invited him in like it was just another ordinary evening.
Shit, speaking of Clark –
Dick fumbled his phone out of his pocket and fired off a quick text to the thread with both Clark and Lois, letting them know that Kon was with him for the night.
His phone buzzed in response but he placed it facedown on the counter without checking either of the messages. Right now, there was an overwrought teenage Kryptonian on his couch in desperate need of some older brothering.
“Kon, is peppermint good?” he called.
The pause before Kon replied was just long enough for the barest hint of a sniffle to echo into the kitchen. Oh, poor kid.
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“Do you want to talk about it?” Dick asked.
They’d been sitting in silence on his couch for about ten minutes. Kon was cupping his mug in an obvious attempt to ground himself, both hands wrapped tightly around the ceramic. His posture was still all lines and edges, and Dick was itching to wrap a blanket around him – wait, that was a good idea. He hauled one of the fleecy blankets over from the pile on one of the armrests and tossed it over Connor’s hunched shoulders.
Kon blinked at him for a second, surprise flickering across his face, before the tension in his shoulders eased up by a fraction. Well, better than nothing.
“You don’t have to,” Dick said in reference to his earlier question. He settled sideways, facing Connor. “Family fights suck. Sometimes you just need a good, long, stare at a wall to process.”
Kon huffed with what may have been amusement, then he also scooted back against the cushions, settling against them. The blanket stayed with him. His mouth twisted like he was thinking about saying something, but he frowned and remained silent.
After years of dealing with recalcitrant younger brothers who would rather take an escrima stick to the kneecap than talk about their feelings (Jason) – and having been a teenager himself – Dick’s instincts nudged him into giving Connor a gentle push.
“It’s not about hero stuff, is it?”
With a sigh that sounded way too despondent to be coming from a fifteen-year-old, Kon shook his head.
“Family stuff?” Dick guessed.
Kon’s brows knitted together. He let go of his mug long enough to make a waffling motion with his hand.
Ah, Dick thought he knew where this was going. “Connor-and-family stuff?”
“Yeah,” Kon whispered, practically clutching the mug again. He shifted in his spot. “I’m – I’m not–I’m not him, I’m not. But – but I–” His hands shook.
Luckily, Dick had plenty of practice in this area. After setting his own mug on the coffee table, he glanced over at Kon and lifted his arms in invitation. Kon only hesitated for a couple seconds before shifting closer to lean into the offered hug, slumping against Dick’s chest.
DIck wrapped his arms around Connor’s frame. He didn’t say anything else for a long while.
Of all people, Dick knew what it was like to have that desperate urge to get out from someone else’s shadow, to prove that he was his own person, not just a factory-reset version of someone else. For Connor, who’d literally been created to be a clone of Superman…yeah, that had to be painful in an entirely different dimension.
“I just,” Kon muttered eventually. “I hate this. I hate feeling – feeling like–” He trailed off with a groan that sounded more frustrated than despairing, which was probably a good sign.
“Feeling like you’re just a worse version of the person everyone else expects you to be?” Dick asked. He unwrapped one of his arms to free up a hand to start scratching over Connor’s shoulders with the gentle, soothing motions that Tim usually enjoyed. He wasn’t expecting Connor to absolutely melt into the soft touches like he did, but it thrilled Dick that Connor was allowing himself to be this comfortable.
“You’re not Clark,” Dick murmured, resting his chin on top of Kon’s head. “And trust me, Kon, he doesn’t want you to be him. He wants you to be you. The part that sucks is having to figure out what being ‘you’ means. Personally, though, I think you’re off to a great start.”
Kon hummed something that Dick couldn’t parse.
“And, hey,” he added, grinning. “It’s Clark’s first time with any of this. He’s got no idea what he’s doing, just like you. Trust me, kiddo, being the first kid is mostly about discovering adult neuroses you never knew existed. Like, did you know that Bruce was terrified to take me to get my driver’s license? Or teach me how to drive? I’d been Robin for half a decade by that point, but the thought of me behind the wheel in Gotham traffic nearly gave him an aneurysm. He wouldn’t let me drive beyond the neighborhood for months.”
That story made Kon laugh, and seeing a smile tugging at his mouth sent a rush of relief and affection through Dick’s chest.
“Didn’t you have a Robin motorcycle before that?” Kon asked.
“Oh, yeah. That didn’t matter.”
Kon snickered again, probably at the image of the mysterious and mighty Batman wringing his hands in the waiting room of a DMV office.
“It’s not that he didn’t trust me,” Dick added, taking a stab at what he thought might have been part of Connor’s argument with Clark. “It’s part of being a parent. He got – okay, honestly, gets – so neurotically paranoid about things happening to me because he cares. So much. And, for a long time, I couldn’t get that. It took a while.” No, that was not a lump in his throat, thank you very much. “But...it won’t be like this forever.”
For a good several minutes, Kon stayed quiet as he – hopefully – chewed through Dick’s words, as best he could at this hour.
“Okay,” he said at last, then yawned.
Dick smiled and briefly tightened his arm around Kon’s waist in a hug. “Let’s get you to sleep, yeah? Growing Kryptonians need their rest. We can talk more tomorrow, if you want.”
“Mmph,” Kon replied, pressing his face into Dick’s shoulder again.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
In the end, Dick practically drop-kicked Kon into his bed and crashed on the couch. He slept for another couple hours, woke up to his usual alarm long enough to call off work, then went back to sleep for another hour before getting up for good. It seemed like Connor was still dead asleep, so Dick set about making two of the three items in his non-cereal breakfast repertoire. He’d flipped two omelets onto his last two plates next to generous stacks of French toast by the time Connor shuffled back out into the living room, squinting blearily.
“Hey, kiddo, food and coffee.” Dick held out a plate and pointed to the coffee maker.
Blinking, Kon took the food and sat down to inhale it like some kind of alien vacuum cleaner as Dick finished pouring himself coffee.
They ate in silence – well, Dick ate while Connor stared mournfully at his empty plate.
“There’s cereal, too,” Dick said around a mouthful of French toast.
Faster than he could blink, Kon zipped away and returned with the milk and a box of Cheerios. Hm. Maybe he had a higher metabolism, or something. It would make sense with all his extra abilities.
Once Dick finished eating, he set his fork down. “Alright. Whaddya want to do today?”
Kon gave him a weird look. “...Don’t you have work?”
“Called off,” Dick replied. “Family reasons.”
“Is everything okay?”
Dick stared blankly at him until Connor’s eyebrows flicked up in a moment of realization, that was immediately followed by a faint blush breaking out across his face.
“Oh.”
“Yeah, dork.” Dick winked so Kon would know he was being teased rather than actually insulted. “How about you go find something to watch while I clear the table?”
Kon pushed his chair back. “I can help.”
“Nah, I got it.” Saying that with his arms full of dishes and silverware probably didn’t help his cause, but oh well.
Since Connor wasn’t easily dissuaded, he trailed after Dick. “Seriously, let me do something. Go sit down.”
“I think I can handle it,” Dick said dryly. “I’m not that old, Connor. One night of weird sleep isn’t gonna do me in.”
Kon rose to the bait and smirked. “Sure you are, I can hear your joints creaking from over here.”
The dishes clattered as Dick dumped them into the sink, then spun back towards Kon. It was good to see him closer to his usual self, hopefully that meant that there wouldn’t be too much lingering damage from yesterday. And, hey, Dick hadn’t been lying when he’d said he called off for family reasons. Maybe it was time to give Kon a heaping spoonful of older-brothering.
“You cannot,” Dick replied. He smirked as he took a few, slow steps forward.
Kon’s expression did an odd spasm as he tried to hide the genuine smile that was trying to show through. “You sound like you need a gallon of WD-40 or something.”
Normally, with Jason or Tim, Dick would draw it out a little longer and banter with them as he waited for the right time to strike. With Kon, though, it was close enough.
In a move that Kon absolutely could have dodged if he’d wanted to, Dick dove at him and tasered into his sides, right below his ribs.
“DICK!” Kon squawked, the word choking off into some kind of sputtering cough as he lurched backwards and managed to stumble over his own two feet. He clumsily brought his hands up in front of his torso. “Who–what–why–”
“You gonna go for ‘when’ and ‘where’ too?” Dick teased. It was too easy to take advantage of Kon’s flustered state and dart forward, tasering into his sides again. With another cut-off protest, Kon twisted to the side, an inelegant movement, and suddenly he was floating a couple inches off the ground.
“Who told you?” Kon asked, and Dick was pretty sure that he wasn't imagining the hint of giddiness hiding between Kon's whining pout. No wonder he and Tim got along so well.
“A little bird,” Dick replied, which was true. Tim had let something slip one evening – to be fair, it had included Bart and Cassie, too, but Dick had already known about them.
Before Kon could say anything else, Dick tackled him to the ground and – yup, sure enough, Kon went down way easier than normal. Dick sat on his thighs and placed his hands on Connor’s sides again, squeezing just enough to make him meep.
“I heard a lot about you,” Dick said in his best conversational tone. “Like how here–” he abruptly shoved his hands up under Kon’s arms and dug in, earning a wild bout of screeching cackles for his troubles. He’d have to apologize to his neighbors later. “Is a really good spot.”
“Hey!” Kon gasped, practically beaming even as he laughed. “I’m – gohahad, Tim’s gonna die for this one, he’s – Dick nohohohnono, wait – hopeless!”
“Oh, you're not hopeless,” Dick said, deliberately misunderstanding, and grinned down at him. A few pulses of his fingers sent Kon tumbling into another fit of strangled laughter. “You're just ticklish, Connor.”
“Shut up!” Kon cried, blushing all the way up to the roots of his hair. He shifted around on the floor, not quite squirming, more like he was – oh, like he was testing how much he could wriggle without tossing Dick off. Adorable. “Don’t – don’t say it, shit!”
Pointing out that Kon could get away pretty easily probably wouldn’t land right just yet, and Dick didn’t want him to feel self-conscious enough to actually free himself and disappear – that would defeat the entire point of the exercise, which was to give the sputtering young Kryptonian a giant dose of older-brothering.
“Say what?” Dick asked.
Kon’s face twisted in an exasperated grimace, or as close as one could get when fighting back snickers. “You know, you –”
Taking advantage of the fact that he was distracted trying to answer, Dick wormed his fingers under Kon’s arms again and dug in, pressing his thumbs into the center spots.
Kon jerked, his eyes widening in surprise and ticklish panic. “eh-HEY! heyheyheyNOHOHOHO!” He arched up and flailed out with his hands, slapping and grabbing at the floor beneath him as waves of increasingly desperate laughter took over any of his attempts at talking.
Dick didn’t let up, and after a couple more seconds Kon’s head thunked back against the vinyl. He let out a giggly groan, clamping his arms to his sides, and Dick hadn’t realized how wide he was smiling until the muscles in his face twinged.
“Giving up already?” he teased. “I heard this was a good spot, but man. You really are ticklish, huh? Oh, right, I’m not supposed to talk about that –” Kon shouted out something garbled that was probably a protest, and Dick shushed him “–ssshh, ssh. If you can lift your arms all the way up, I’ll switch spots.”
Okay, maybe it was a tad mean to take advantage of the fact that Connor didn’t have much experience with these kinds of games, and thus didn’t know what awaited him, but hey. He had to learn eventually, right?
“Whaddya think, Kon-El?” Dick scritched his fingers over the outer edges of Kon’s armpits, digging into the centers with his thumbs again. “Wanna try?”
Shrieking, Kon frantically nodded as he started cackling hysterically again, his eyes squinching up. “OkokOKAHAHAY!”
It was sweet, really, how willing he was to play along. Dick smiled as he shifted into a different gear of older brother tickle monster mode. “Alright, great! Whenever you’re ready.”
Kon gulped down another wave of laughter and tried to inch his arms upwards. As soon as the pressure against Dick’s hands lessened, he started tickling faster, chuckling as Kon’s eyes bugged out of his head and he snapped his arms back down to his sides.
“Che-heheater!” Kon gasped, trying to hold back his laughter.
Dick winked at him. “I never said I wouldn’t tickle, Baby Supes, just that you gotta get those arms up.”
A hilarious range of expressions contorted Kon’s features into different shapes, until he finally settled on ‘righteous indignation’. It would’ve felt more real if stray laughter hadn’t been leaking out around his attempted glower. “You’re such a jerk–”
“Aw, c’mon, you can do it!” Dick fluttered his fingers again just to make Kon sputter and squirm. “I believe in you!”
Kon rolled his eyes, huffing, as he visibly made an effort to still himself. He bit down on his lower lip and hesitantly lifted his arms up again, just a fraction of an inch. When Dick didn't immediately start tickling him again, Kon glowered and stretched a little further upwards.
Dick twitched his fingers, barely, but it was enough to make Kon yelp and slam his head back.
“You suck,” Kon whined, as if he wasn’t grinning through his snickers.
Dick tried to defend himself. “Hey, I barely did anything.You almost had it.”
Blinking hard, Kon squinted up at him. “H-how far?”
“Hm?” How far, what?
“How far?” Kon repeated. He knocked his fists against the mat. “How far is ‘up’?”
Ah. Okay, this was going in Dick’s mental archive of adorable little brother moments that he revisited on the bad days. In a moment of heroic self restraint, he held himself back from cooing and instead just reached up to smooth some of Kon’s wayward hair away from his face while he pretended to think hard about the question.
“I think you can get your hands over your head,” he said, poking Kon in the upper ribs. Where Tim would’ve screeched loud enough to echo off the walls for ages, Kon just flinched and let out a quiet snicker.
Dick crawled his fingers upwards again and Kon practically snorted as his snickers turned into louder laughter. “And, hey. I’ll be nice this time.”
The skeptical look that Kon gave him made Dick laugh out loud because – yeah, fair. But, hey, if Kon was still up for playing along, he couldn’t be that exasperated.
Even though Dick stayed true to his word and didn’t actually tickle, apparently the pressure of his fingers resting right above Kon’s ribs was enough to keep Kon in fits of panicked snickers – probably because whenever he moved his arms, he shifted against Dick’s hands, which made him flinch, which made hissed laughter sputter out from his clenched teeth.
Dick couldn’t help but chuckle. “I’m not even doing anything, kiddo, this is all you.”
“Shut up!” Kon gasped. “Don’t talk, don’t say ahahanything!”
As funny as it was to watch Kon work himself into a mess of badly-hidden laughter and panic, Dick figured that the poor kid had served his time. Right as he started to sit up and push himself to his feet, Kon summoned the wits to fling both of his arms up over his head.
Dick, as promised, lifted his hands up and grinned. “Hey, there you go! I knew you had it in you.”
“I–you–” Kon blinked rapidly like his entire train of thought had crashed, then he tucked his elbows back to his sides and clasped his hands over his chest. He shook his head, speechless.
“Don’t worry,” Dick said, lowering his voice as he reached out to ruffle Kon’s hair. “You won.” He paused for a few seconds as Kon caught his breath, waiting until he made eye contact to continue. “That just means we can figure out where else you’re ticklish.”
Kon’s eyes widened and he yelled out something unintelligible as Dick shot his hands down to squeeze and knead at his sides. Whatever Kon had been trying to say dissolved in breathless, high-pitched laughter.
It turned out that Kryptonians were just as susceptible to the “fingers hovering right above a tickle spot but not touching” tease as humans were. When Dick held one of his hands over Kon's stomach, Kon sucked in a gulping breath and tried to wriggle away until he broke down into panicked, snickering snorts.
“You're so dramatic,” Dick said, tsking. “Your belly isn't even that ticklish.”
“I can't hehelp it,” Kon replied as he forced himself to still.
Instead of pointing out that Kon could very much help it if he so chose, Dick just scrabbled across his upper abs again, drawing out another round of light laughter.
“Whatever you say, bud.” It was hard to believe that the puddle of laughter in front of him was the same Connor who’d been curled on the couch like the world’s saddest shrimp last night.
“You know,” Dick started. “Clark is also a huge tickle monster, so you’d better watch out.”
Kon smacked his hands over his face. “Don’t tehell him!”
“Don’t tell him what?” As he teased, Dick started poking randomly all over Connor’s stomach and sides, getting a flurry of yelps for his troubles. “That you’re ticklish, but he can’t talk about it ever?” Dick slid his hands underneath Kon’s sides to scritch over his lower back, see if he was ticklish there like Jason.
Maybe it was the lighter tickles, but instead of yelping or snickering, Connor immediately slipped into stuttering giggles. Oh god, how sweet.
“C’mon, I gotta tell him about this,” Dick said. “Your tickly-giggles are adorable.”
Whatever Kon started to whine out – probably a pointless protest about how he wasn’t adorable, which, lies – was interrupted by a knock on the door.
“Looks like you’re getting off easy this time.” After another quick ruffle of Kon’s hair, Dick hopped up to see who was there.
For the second time in less than twelve hours, a Kent was standing unannounced in his doorway. This time, though, it was Clark, and he wore that pinched expression that only appeared when he was truly worried.
It occurred to Dick that maybe he should’ve checked his phone last night. Or earlier that morning.
“He’s here,” Dick said, offering Clark a reassuring smile. “And he’s fine.”
Some of the tension left Clark’s face, and he nodded once. “Thank you for taking care of him, Dick.”
Dick stepped back so he could come in. “Anytime.”
Maybe Dick was imagining it, but Clark’s movements seemed hesitant as he started towards the living room.
“Oh!” Dick grabbed Clark by the sleeve. “He’s, uh. He’s in the kitchen. Sort of.”
Sure enough, Kon had made no effort to get up. In fact, he’d curled in on himself, still hiding his face in his hands.
“Shit,” Clark murmured. He’d crossed the room in two strides and fell to his knees next to Connor, reaching out to place a hand on his head. “Connor, are you alright?”
Disoriented, Kon stared up at him through watery eyes. “Clark?”
“He’s fine,” Dick cut in to head off any more misunderstanding. “In fact, Uncle Clark, did you know that he’s insanely ticklish?”
The glower from Kon could’ve curdled milk, but Clark visibly relaxed and shot Dick a tired, grateful smile. “Ah, that would make sense.”
“I’m going to grab Thai for lunch,” Dick said. Leaving now would give them a chance to talk in private, and himself the opportunity to call Bruce. “You’re both staying, right?”
“Yes,” Connor replied immediately.
Clark looked down at him with an impossibly soft smile, then nodded to Dick.
“Great. I’ll be back in thirty.” Dick barely remembered to grab his keys as he scurried out the front door. He had his phone out and calling Bruce’s personal cell before he was halfway down the stairs.
Bruce picked up halfway through the second ring. “Dick? Is everything alright?”
“Fine,” Dick replied. He dodged a lady with a stroller and jumped the last five stairs, landing with a satisfying thud. “Did I ever apologize for all the stuff I did as a kid?”
In answer, Bruce let out a long, deep laugh that warmed Dick down to his toes. “You don’t need to, Dickie. I wouldn’t want you any other way.”
Tim and Steph send a 67 meme to the family group chat and two minutes later everybody hears the sound of Dick's footsteps thundering across the floor. Then a few more minutes later they hear Tim and Steph screaming before they start laughing because Dick finally snapped and decided to punish them.
SDHGJDLJG they both have a "last thing you see before you die" moment but it's just Dick coming at them like that DEATH FROM ABOVE meme
lmao, I can imagine Tim and Stephanie flooding their group chat with 67 memes and that causes Dick to go after them saying stuff like: “wanna know how many minutes you’ll get tickled? 67!!” or “how many raspberries am I going to give you? 67!!”
Damian and Jason totally support his act of rebellion against that meme
HE WOULD AND HE'D BE RIGHT TO
The way I can picture this so vividly,,, actually this would vibe well with another request i have. Much to consider.....
I'd like to imagine that Damian thinks he's immune to 67 but he's surrounded by his classmates and other kids his age who embrace the brainrot, and he slowly becomes acclimatized to it, and then. THEN. There comes a day where Damian just automatically joins in on 67 without thinking about it.
And that will be the day Damian dies inside.
YES lol I watched this happen in real time with one of my nephews. Even the best of us fall eventually lmao
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I'm hit with the sudden realization that Damian would likely know about the 6 7 meme
Anon how could you do this to me
(Damian knows about it and hates it with a visceral passion. Duke quotes it specifically to piss him off. It's a contest between Stephanie and Tim to see who can work it into casual conversation around Damian the most, like saying "hey we need more milk the last gallon is about,,, six sevenths full." Somehow they're both winning but Damian takes L after L. Jason doesn't fucking want to know but he's heard it from kids in the Alley. Dick deleted TikTok and Instagram from his phone for 3 weeks after he got eight 6/7 posts in a row, he doesn't have the patience for this, he lived through the mustache finger tattoo phase and has served his time. Cass doesn't use social media but she looked up a video essay on the origin of the meme and watched it with Bruce one day in his study, after which he silently went over to the decanter on his bookshelf and poured them each a glass of sherry.)
