#bbts extras

Tim: so I'm robin

Kon: I'm sorry bu- wait what?

Tim: I'm robin

Tim: what were you going to say?

Kon processing the guy he made out with yesterday is also the teammate he just realised he has a crush on an hour ago and that he was just about to break it off with the guy he made out to ask his crush out so was about to break up with and then immediately ask out the same person: ...nothing.

in the au where tim spoke first, kon’s brain would go static for a very long stretch of seconds and he would vaguely consider that he was being pranked (tim somehow? figured out kon’s feelings for robin before kon did and is pulling some sort of? joke??) and tim would be like [fond sigh] you like pineapple on your pizza and you and bart are currently tied in your competition to see who can sneak attack me in uniform and the shampoo at the Tower always makes your hair extra fluffy which you only pretend to hate and also— [launches himself right at kon to springboard off kon’s shoulder in a patented robin battle-and-also-reaching-tall-cupboards move]

kon: [automatically catching him] okay okay OKAY just hold on i’m—

tim: [settling on kon’s shoulder] sure, yeah, take your time

kon: shut up i’m—you’re—the whole time?

tim: unless you think i’m some sort of shapeshifter—

kon: obviously i know you’re not a—are you. a shapeshifter

tim: if i were a shapeshifter i would’ve shapeshifted myself taller than bart by now

kon: fair enough. okay. so you. so i. so we.

tim: [nodding] getting there

kon: so that’s why you were so weird around nightwing

tim: okay, he deserved it

kon: oh my god, i yelled at superman about you. in front of batman and nightwing.

tim: ah. about that…

kon: and that’s how you’re friends with red hood—

tim: mm, i don’t know if i’d go that far

kon: and why superman was so stressed out when you were kidnapped—holy shit. and—

tim: listen i promise you can ask all the questions you want and i’ll be so very thorough and honest about it but if you’re not mad at me—

kon: i’m not mad, i’m processing

tim: okay great. do you want to maybe make out more while you process

kon:

tim:

“I know,” Tim says. He keeps looking for another moment, oddly intense. Then he takes a bite of churro and his eyes widen. “Oh shit, these are really good.”

soo deeply curious about tim's thoughts/pov here. i have my suspicions but i would love hearing it from the tim oracle (and author)

imo tim’s thoughts are whirring like an overheated laptop here; some of the more coherent threads are:

being very aware that kon has hung out In The Sky with other friends of theirs, and has never done this with robin, so there’s like 5% of his brain running the calculation of like “does kon just bring anyone up on a sky picnic and not robin for some reason, or is tim an outlier, and if so what specifically sets tim apart—”

still feeling pretty smug about getting that movie taken down (knowing the context behind “disney-free zone”)

kon’s knee is approximately .5 inches from mine and i’ve never been more aware of a half inch of space in my life

saying “i know” while trying to telepathically beam the subtext that He Really Does Know and he Really Does Trust Kon and watching kon for any hint that he’s caught on because maybe that’s why kon brought him up here? and in any event, if kon figures it out himself then it’s not tim’s fault, so—

i have these all linked in the endnotes on ao3, but i wanted to compile them in one post as well!

chapter 1:

superboy & tim in the cellar by stick-art-fan-art

"you came." by clambuoyance

chapter 2:

kon & tim at the harbor by caytoniales

the piggyback ride by 90kon

"he's not actually a crocodile" (comic!) by cicadabeats

chapter 3:

sleeping tim + the post-it by beccadrawing

kons! and clark and kon! by januariat

kon finding tim in the fitting room by tiffycat

kon comforting tim by suedeuxnim

gotham political cartoon by mouser26

kon confronting clark (comic!) by tiffycat

"You're a good person." by adinbain

"you said he was good!" (comic!) + pt 2 + pt 3 + pt 4 by azul-is-a-frog

chapter 4:

tim in kon's jacket by suedeuxnim

the breakup by tiffycat

timkon kiss by 90kon

timkon on tiktok by ask-me-why-i

kon’s indecision by elenaf-m

sky picnic churros by souuular

chapter 5:

clark holding kon by Suedeuxnim

clark and kon and kryptonite by januariat

tim’s moment of triumph by oneswordstyle

overall:

the latter! tim is bi; carmichael is using gay as a catch-all term and just doesn't know/care enough to differentiate.

on this topic, please enjoy @cairoscene and @tigerjpg's contributions from earlier today:

thank you so much! my goal will always be to make shenanigans shenaniganier and heartwenching moments heartwrenching...ier...by contrast with each other, and i'm really glad to hear that balance worked for you.

and yes i do have some extra kon pov snippets to share! below are some bits from the latter half of the chapter; these are parts that were more thoroughly drafted before the pov revision, and also sections i liked/felt were distinct enough to share.

outside the hotel, reuniting from kon's pov:

“We broke up, that’s what happened.”

It’s Tim; of course it’s Tim, making his way down the stairs toward Kon and somehow moving gracefully even with a crutch tucked under his arm. He’s in a suit—a different one than he wore at the zoo, this one a velvety black with a subtle shimmer around the lapels, some sort of fine embroidery. His hair is sleek and styled, cutting a smoother silhouette against the entrance lights than Kon has seen from Tim or from Robin.

Kon’s mouth goes, impossibly, even drier.

“And even that is an exaggeration; it’s not like we were going steady, this isn’t the 1950s,” Tim continues, cool gaze locked on the reporter. “We had a bit of fun, broke it off, hardly an earth-shattering concept. Honestly, Vicki, I’d expect this gossip-hungry lack of tact from the Weekly, not from someone who claims to be a serious journalist.”

There’s a small, indignant Hey! from one of the nearby reporters. The one from the Gazette—Vicki—gives Tim a tiny, razor-sharp smile. “Superheroes aren’t gossip, Mr. Drake, they’re public safety concerns. Especially when they tangle with us mere mortals—as I’m sure you know.”

Tim responds with a sharp smile of his own. He must be wearing makeup—the cut on his forehead is barely visible.

He still hasn’t looked at Kon.

inside the hotel; realizations are had

“Oh.” Tim winces, then draws himself up. He looks so uncomfortable—in a way Kon can only see because he knows what Tim looks like when he’s relaxed and happy—that Kon almost abandons the whole thing. But he needs to hear this. And he thinks Tim needs to say it. “Okay. Of course. But, um, this time if I could maybe…I mean, I had a whole speech planned. It was supposed to be at the Tower, with cue cards, and—I understand if you don’t want to hear it right now. And I’ll respect that. But before we get into it I want you to know the gist, at least, which is that—” Tim pauses for the barest moment. When he speaks again his words are clinical, precise. “I trust you. I showed it poorly, but that was never in question. I was trying to balance protecting my—the others, their names, and the collective agreement I have with them, but also I know you can be trusted and it was never a reflection of that. And I understand that intent and outcome are different, but just so you know I’m planning to tell Bart and Cassie too, and I’m going to do everything I can to make sure something like this doesn’t happen again, so—”

Kon is listening—he’s listening harder than he’s listened to almost anything recently, enhanced hearing or not. But he’s also looking. And he sees the determined set of Tim’s shoulders, the carefully natural expression that only wavers at the edges, and only because Kon is watching for it. He sees it clear as daylight: This is Robin talking now. It’s not the same dual glimpse he got before, back in that basement lab—Tim was disheveled then, so clearly in mission mode, and he was everything all at once. But now, even under this polished Tim Drake exterior, Tim is trying to slip into Robin mode.

It’s not the full effect, though. If they were having this conversation at the Tower, Kon thinks, it would feel different. It would fully feel like a mission debrief, a Superboy & Robin operational update. It would be so easy to make everything about the logistics, the fallout, the team, and not about them.

Here, though, Kon can see Tim’s eyes.

He thinks about the folded invitation in his hand. About Bruce Wayne’s insistence that Kon meet Tim here, the subtle way Mr. Wayne didn’t exactly lie but certainly implied this was part of Tim’s plan so Kon would go along with it, and Kon takes a moment to appreciate that Robin definitely learned his conniving skills from Batman. This was totally a setup, but not for Kon.

And because they’re here, and not in the Tower or the field or talking over the phone or playing whisper down the alley with a bunch of vigilantes, and because Kon knows Robin, Kon can hear what Tim is actually saying. Which is—

“Wait.” It takes Kon a moment to understand that was him interrupting Tim; Tim gets there faster, snapping his mouth shut. “Wait, wait.” Kon is still arriving at a conclusion, which is:

“You’re not upset with me,” Kon realizes.

“What?” Tim looks thrown. “No? Of course not? No. I’m the one who lied about my identity, you’re the one who should be—”

It clicks all at once.

“Oh,” Kon says. “You’re not upset with me, and I’m—oh my god, Rob, I’m not mad that you didn’t tell me. I’m mad that you almost died.”

on the roof, talking 2.0

“So,” Tim says, tipping his head back. His gaze stays firmly skyward, snowflakes swirling between them. “You were in love. With Robin.”

Kon braces himself. He hasn’t come this far—said what he’s said, and felt what he’s felt—to take the easy way out now. And whatever the fallout is, he’s more sure than ever that they can handle it. “Am,” Kon says. “I am in love. With Robin.”

He expects Tim to have some sort of reaction to this either way—discomfort, possibly, if he isn’t into Kon anymore, or maybe happiness if Kon’s lucky and reading this the right way.

Instead, Tim’s expression barely flickers. He swallows. “Kon,” he says. “I can’t be Robin all the time.”

“I…know?” Kon says. He gestures at Tim. “You’re not wearing the mask right now, obviously.”

“No, I mean.” Tim draws his unbroken knee to his chest and wraps an arm around it. Kon can see the shape of him, can see details if he focuses, can feel the exact balance of Tim’s body on his TTK cushion. Most of all, he can hear how fast Tim’s heart is beating, even as Tim holds himself so very steady. “I can’t always be…that is, sometimes I’m just. Tim.”

bonus: near the end

“It’s just a prototype,” Tim adds in a rush. “That’s why it’s all shiny. I’ll make more subtle ones for the active set, but—”