#ratherbeme

Clark just wants to help his pup, but sometimes he’s not sure Kon even considers himself his pup, even just as an objective fact. It’s one thing that Kon doesn’t want to nurse from him, but . . . 

But he also doesn’t want to nest with him, or anyone else in the pack. Doesn’t want to scent his room as a den. Doesn’t want to talk about vulnerable things with them or show them any sign of weakness or even ask them for help with his homework.

Being a regular person is hard ALL the time

He knows Kon is fine, because the kid’s passed out like this plenty of times before and no doubt will again, but his inner omega still wants his stressed and exhausted and underfed pup curled up safe in his nest with Jon and Lois and this same silly cliche movie that Jon’s made them watch a good dozen times. He wants . . . 

Got anything for Tim Drake?

The lab is shattered.

There might be better descriptors for whatever happened to the place, but not more accurate ones.

"Shit," Tim says, staring at the mess. The whole basement looks like something exploded in it, except for the total lack of any scorch marks or smoke damage.

If he didn't know better . . .

He hears a low, slow scraping sound. A ragged little inhalation.

Someone's down here.

Tim grabs his staff reflexively. Snaps it out to full-length on the same reflex.

Hears a whimper.

. . . pauses.

That was a child. Unmistakably a child.

There is absolutely no reason whatsoever that a child should be down here.

"Please don't be mad," a very young voice pleads, and then a little kid steps out of the shadows in the back of the lab.

The kid is . . . small. Young, again. Eight or nine, maybe? Ten at max. And completely naked, with messy black curls brushing his shoulders and half-covering enormous too-blue eyes that are currently very, very wide and very, very frightened. His hands are fisted at his sides and his body is just barely trembling.

Said trembling is very obviously not because he's cold or injured.

"Oh," Tim realizes with distant horror, and the kid immediately bursts into tears.

"I'm sorry!" he sobs in obvious terror, hiding his face in his hands, and the bottom drops out of Tim's stomach. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I messed up, I don't know what I did! I was–I just woke up and got really scared and everything broke!"

Fuck, Tim thinks, and collapses his staff. The kid lets out another sob.

"Please don't be mad, Robin," he begs again. "I didn't mean to wake up, you can put me back and finish me, please don't be mad. I can still–I can still be Kon, I can. I won't mess up again!"

Tim wants to vomit.

Or maybe, like, throw himself on the mediocre mercy of Arkham Asylum. Maybe that.

“This is trespassing! Breaking and entering!” Desmond snaps. Clark doesn’t take his eyes off Conner; doesn’t validate the man with any kind of response or acknowledgment. Desmond is the last person he wants to acknowledge right now. Or ever, in fact. 

He never actually met the man properly; he only actually knows his face because of files and reports he’s read that included photos of it. “Blockbuster” is the only face he ever saw in person. 

Clark rips out a few more generators, freezes a few more than that, and keeps thinking the whole time. This is too obvious, something in the back of his head thinks. Too obvious, too big and flashy and messy, too . . . 

There is absolutely about to be another problem here, Clark realizes with the benefit of hard-earned experience. 

“Superboy,” he says. “I’ve got a bad feeling about this. Keep evacuating the civilians, but keep your guard up.” 

“Yes, sir,” Kon says exactly the same way he said it before, tone for tone and beat for beat. He doesn’t ask for details. Clark–it’s convenient not to have to explain, technically, but . . . 

He wishes the kid would ask for details. Just . . . any time. Ever. Also, sometimes the details might be necessary, depending who he’s in the field with.

Then again, for all Clark knows, Kon asks everyone else he works with for those, and it’s just him he never says more than the bare minimum to. 

He really needs to stop dwelling on this. Especially right now, with people in danger. Kon’s cleared out the immediate area pretty efficiently, and Clark can only hear a few more heartbeats and bodies in it, but there’s still people in the blast radius and still work to do. If they’re lucky, there won’t be a blast to escape, but that’s only if they’re lucky. At this point, Clark knows the other shoe is going to drop before this is over, and–

Ah, he has time to think in the instant between spotting the bombs concealed in the ceiling support beams and the bombs concealed in the ceiling support beams going off. 

That’d be that other shoe, then. 

Clark doesn’t have time to stop the crumbling ceiling and couldn’t catch all of it even if he did–it’s going to come down in pieces, he can already tell–but Kon’s cleared out almost all the civilians, so if he just–

The ceiling stops collapsing, looking like a frozen jigsaw puzzle, and for a moment Clark doesn’t understand. Then he jerks his head around and finds Kon with both hands slammed up against the far wall, a pair of terrified civilians crouched underneath him and his shoulders trembling as he holds up the whole damn ceiling and probably the whole damn building with his TTK, down to the last piece. 

Ah, Clark thinks, and then tears his way through the rest of the plant, grabbing every single heartbeat left in the place and getting them all out. He can hear Kon’s ragged breathing, and wants to say something to him but doesn’t want to distract him either. The TTK takes focus, and interrupting it doesn’t always end well. 

Usually doesn’t, in Clark’s experience. 

And he doubts Kon wants to hear him fussing right now either way, considering. 

So Clark clears out every single heartbeat, double-checks with a sweep of X-ray vision, and then stops beside Kon. 

“Kon,” he says. Kon grunts. “Everyone’s out. You can let it come down.” 

“Yessir,” Kon croaks, and then he does that. He does that very, very slowly. He doesn’t just let go of everything at once and let the building cave in on itself; he sets it all down, piece by piece. It’s the slowest collapse Clark’s ever seen, even counting his perception when he’s at his fastest. 

He resists the urge to lay a hand on Kon’s back or shoulder, because again, he doesn’t want to distract the kid. He just watches, very carefully, and keeps an ear out just in case he somehow missed someone or in case someone tries to approach. 

Then Kon sets down the last pieces of the building and he collapses right where he stands. Clark catches him, obviously, and scoops him up into his arms. Kon doesn’t move or make a sound; just breathes raggedly into his neck. 

“Good job, kid,” Clark murmurs. Kon still doesn’t move or make a sound, but his breathing gets a little more uneven. Clark’s chest aches, both from wanting to scent the kid and wanting to feed him and just wanting to goddamn hug him. 

He’d say at least Kon was letting him hold him right now, but he doesn’t even know if the kid’s got the strength to support himself after that display. The TTK really takes it out of him sometimes, and with something that big . . . 

Clark’s chest aches a little more, and he holds himself back from nuzzling Kon or fussing over him while the kid’s too out of it to pull back from him if he doesn’t want the attention. If he doesn’t want–

“This way, if you please, young sir,” Alfred says, gesturing towards the door. He doesn’t offer to take Carl’s bag or the linens, for obvious reasons; he’d just get his scent on them if he did, after all. He does look mildly pained not to make the offer, though. Bruce is just mystified by how Carl hasn’t dropped any of it. 

Or Lor, at this point. 

Well, no. Bruce is pretty certain Carl would drop anything but Lor, at this point.

“This place is real fucking old-school, huh,” Carl observes, peering down the hall curiously. “I’ve never seen a den with this much fancy shit in it.” 

Travers looks agonized. Bruce quietly enjoys it, if only for the little taste of schadenfreude. Sue him, but she has been just shy of unbearable this entire visit. 

“Family heirlooms, mostly,” he says with an easy shrug. “Sentimental, you know how it is.” 

“Not really,” Carl says with a shrug of his own, and Bruce remembers–stray. Right. 

Well, he didn’t forget, just . . . didn’t think, he supposes.