Oh, You Make Me Live

by Duckkey

Summary:

“Oh, so this is my fault?”

“You wanted to be in charge,” Superboy said. Robin couldn’t see him from behind but he could certainly hear the shrug in his voice. Maybe that’s an exercise for him, trying to see how many times he can shrug “nonchalantly” in a day. Maybe he was hoping his shoulders would fill out more from the movement and he would be able to match up to Superman's one day.

The thought made Robin snicker to himself as he retorted with an eyeroll, “I’m not the ‘one-in-charge’ I’m the ‘one-who’s-supposed-to-be-here.’”

“Do you roll your eyes so much to make them stronger?” Superboy asked, “So you can find clues as easy as the big bat one day?”

~

In a world where Young Justice takes a bit longer to form the young heroes find themselves falling together while having a few more years' experience under their belt. They didn't set out to form a team and Robin certainly didn't anticipate how deeply he would grow to trust his friends. Superboy, although annoying, was quickly becoming one of the most important people in Tim's life. Robin was used to being prepared for anything (to an extent which could be called paranoid), but Superboy was beginning to make him reckless.

Chapter 1

“What’re you doing out of Gotham, Boy Wonder?”

 

The sudden voice was recognizable, but not exactly welcome. Surely his position, their position, was now recognizable to any others in the vicinity thanks to Superboy's not-quite-whispered greeting. Robin didn’t roll his eyes, if only because he was scanning the room for-

 

-There-

 

Robin lunged to the right, striking out with his staff to block the incoming drone from its path towards where Superboy was now floating next to him.

 

“Right now?” Robin forced the annoyance in his voice to sound louder than the strain of physical exertion that presented as he pivoted to strike down the second security drone which was locked in on Superboy. With both immediate threats handled he leveled Superboy with a flat look and finished his comment, “Saving your ass.”

 

Superboy didn’t bother holding back his eyeroll. He just reached a hand out and grabbed a third incoming drone, halting it just before it reached Robin. As Superboy crushed it, leading Robin to flinch backwards from a wire that sprung out and nearly slapped him across the cheek, he gave a cocky grin and informed Robin, “You missed one.”

 

“Watch it,” Robin stepped backwards with a glare, pushing away Superboy’s outstretched arm holding the drone that got too-close-for-comfort in the process. He pushed down his annoyance at the other young hero as much as he could while he continued speaking in the most serious tone he could muster, “When was the security system updated?”

 

“Huh?” Superboy only blinked with confusion.

 

Robin pointed to the shattered drone Superboy was still holding and asked again, this time with more words because apparently Superboy needed extra support, “There should only be two security drones in this building. When did they get an update?”

 

“Probably around the same time the warehouse shipments doubled in size,” Superboy said as if it was obvious. Then, in a tone of annoyed disbelief he continued, “I thought the bats were supposed to be geniuses or something, why is your info bad?”

 

Robin ignored the question to retort, “The shipments increased two weeks ago, I would have realized-“

 

“You mean two days ago,” Superboy pointed out. 

 

“No, I mean- Wait, how long have you been watching this warehouse?” Robin’s frustrations were momentarily giving way to curiosity. 

 

“Dude, like, two weeks. After…” A realization passed over Superboy’s face, “Oh. I guess shipments did boom two weeks ago but two days ago they doubled it again.”

 

That was… certainly useful information. Robin cast a questioning glance at Superboy as he asked, “Why are you watching the warehouse?”

 

Superboy crossed his arms over his chest and threw the question back at Robin, “Why are you watching the warehouse?”

 

Robin mirrored Superboy’s defensive stance and very maturely pointed out, “I asked you first.”

 

“Yeah, well-“ Whatever dignified, intelligent, thoughtful comeback was about to be spoken by Superboy was interrupted by the crunch of a fourth drone being struck down by Robin’s bow staff. 

 

“Whoa, nice shot!” Superboy complimented with a grin, “But check this out.”

 

His expression gave way to a smirk as he rose a foot or two higher in the air. He snatched another drone out of its flight path and threw it across the room to where two more drones were incoming. Robin wouldn’t admit it out loud, but the guy had surprisingly good aim. The drone-turned-projectile ricocheted off one incoming drone and into the other, rendering all three disabled. Superboy raised his eyebrows at Robin and flexed his hands outwards as if to welcome in feedback, praise specifically. 

 

Robin rolled his eyes and secured a line to grapple off the catwalk and onto the warehouse floor.

 

“Come on,” Robin instructed, “We don’t know how many more of those are coming.”

 

“Who put you in charge?” Superboy asked with an expression of distaste, but still followed after Robin.

 

“Can you hear any heartbeats or are there only drones here?” Robin asked. If superboy was here anyway there was no point in not using his enhanced skillset. The two young heroes have run into each other before, on occasion. They worked well enough together, Robin supposed. He’d consider the other hero a colleague, an acquaintance even. Welcome to collaborate with, but only while their interactions were kept to small doses. The pseudo-clone of Superman certainly had a knack for getting on Robin’s nerves.

 

“Whaddaya mean?” The boy asked.

 

“Are we alone or are there people here?” Robin reiterated.

 

“Well, as far as I can tell we’re alone,” Superboy shrugged nonchalantly.

 

“As far as you can tell?” Robin could feel his eye beginning to twitch.

 

“As far as I can tell,” Superboy repeated a bit more sternly. He nodded his chin towards the shipping containers that filled the warehouse and explained, “Those all seem to be lead lined though.”

 

“Why would someone lead line crates of drops?” Robin asked.

 

“Drops?”

 

“The drug,” Robin explained, “It’s a big deal in Gotham, but we had intel that some big players were looking to start marketing beyond Gotham. Tracked a smugglers operation here, I was looking for confirmation of contraband tonight.”

 

“Yikes,” Superboy said, “I thought these dudes were smuggling alien shit.”

 

That had Robin pausing for a moment. He cast a glance back at Superboy and questioned “What do you mean ‘alien shit?’”

 

“Uh…” Superboy shrugged. He furrowed his eyebrows together to think up an answer, “Like space tech. Artifacts. Hopefully not kryptonite.”

 

Robin stared pointedly, “Hopefully?”

 

“Well, I mean… Lead,” Superboy gestured back at the shipping containers as if it were obvious, “I can’t be sure.”

 

“Are you supposed to be in a warehouse packed full of ‘hopefully-not-kryptonite’ right now?” Robin asked incredulously.

 

Superboy flashed an easy grin, “Oh, no. I was supposed to stay outside and observe. See if any big moves were made or if there were hints of kryptonite anywhere.”

 

Robin could feel a headache coming on. He asked once more, but with a newfound urgency, “Why are you here?”

 

Superboy shrugged again, “Honestly, watching this place just feels like busywork from Big Blue so he can say I have experience with stakeouts or whatever. Low risk enough he doesn’t even need to supervise or-”

 

“Why are you inside?” Robin clarified.

 

“Well, I saw you go inside. Figured I’d check in.” Superboy spoke as if he was slightly bored.

 

“And blow my cover,” Robin spoke sharply, “And risk exposure to kryptonite. Do you even know how you’d react to-”

 

“Hey,” Superboy cut in, “Maybe if you were stealthier sneaking into the building in the first place I wouldn’t have caught you and followed you in.”

 

Annoyance flared once again as Robin began to move his way around the shipping bin closest to the two of them. He kept his eyes focused forward, listening for more drones, but he couldn’t bite back the remark of, “Oh, so this is my fault?”

 

“You wanted to be in charge,” Superboy said. Robin couldn’t see him from behind but he could certainly hear the shrug in his voice. Maybe that’s an exercise for him, trying to see how many times he can shrug “nonchalantly” in a day. Maybe he was hoping his shoulders would fill out more from the movement and he would be able to match up to Superman's one day.

 

The thought made Robin snicker to himself as he retorted with an eyeroll, “I’m not the ‘one-in-charge’ I’m the ‘one-who’s-supposed-to-be-here.’”

 

“Do you roll your eyes so much to make them stronger?” Superboy asked, “So you can find clues as easy as the big bat one day?”

 

Robin glared, turning around to face the boy as he insisted, “I am a good detective.”

 

A cautious smirk spread across Superboy’s face, “Then why didn’t you know about the security updates? Or the alien shit, for that matter.”

 

“Potential alien shit,” Robin reminds Superboy. Judging by the snort the other hero let out Superboy was under the impression he was winning the argument. Which, honestly, Robin was begrudgingly able to admit that maybe he was. This is a far larger operation than anticipated, with seemingly unknown smuggling elements occurring as well. He let out a sigh and began walking towards where the “office” area of the warehouse should be, assuming his map wasn’t outdated too.

 

“Where to now?” Superboy hovered right behind.

 

“Hopefully to find an inventory list,” Robin responded, reaching the small office area and beginning to use his lock pick to get them inside.

 

“You ever done that with a hair pin?” Superboy asked, almost distracting Robin from hearing the final click signaling the door unlocking.

 

With a flat glare he answered with another question, “Do I look like I pin my hair back?”

 

“I mean…” Superboy reached out, seemingly on instinct, to touch Robin’s shaggy hair and almost absentmindedly begin playing with it, “I think it’s almost long enough that you could-”

 

“Would you cut it out,” Robin swatted Superboy’s hand away. He could hear a whirring of fans growing closer now, no doubt a randomly unlocked door signaling their location. He spoke seriously to Superboy, “I’ll get the info, you handle the drones.”

 

“Why do you get to make the plan?” Superboy scoffed.

 

Robin was all but gritting his teeth. They didn’t have time to argue. He hissed out the question, “You wanna poke around the office or do you wanna smash the flying robots?”

 

Just then Robin could see at least four drones incoming towards them, flying out from behind various shipping containers, locking into their location.

 

“Fine,” Superboy conceded, “At least I get the fun job.”

 

Robin rolled his eyes and pried the office door further open. He clung to the shadows casting over the dark room. A camera in the corner, disconnected after only a minute. A camera on the computer, shorted out before clear evidence of his presence could be recorded. Robin -no matter what Superboy said- was extremely good at stealth. He was also a pretty good hacker, fairly well versed with technology. The academics, investigation skills, coding, those all came more naturally to Tim than the athletic skills from the time he first began working as Robin.

 

It wasn’t that he wasn’t a skilled combatant. He has had a few years under his belt by now, and his combat experience under Batman’s leadership was only further refined by sparring with Dick whenever opportunities presented.. He could hold his own in battle, he could fight and he could win, but his true edge that left him two steps ahead of any adversaries was inarguably his mind.

 

While downloading whatever files he could manage onto an external drive he scanned the room, looking for anything else that might be useful evidence. The drive was almost finished with it’s download when he heard the clashing sounds of metal and fighting outside the room grow a little louder. Through the door he could hear Superboy call out, “Hey, Rob! You almost done?”

 

Robin kissed his teeth in annoyance. He almost had all the information.

 

A loud clatter rang out and Superboy could be heard calling, “Seriously!”

 

The drive lit green, signaling the download complete. Robin began to eject the device and scrub any trace of his and Superboy’s presence tonight from the system. If they were lucky, the only evidence they were ever there in the first place would be the broken drones they leave behind.

 

A loud chorus of beeping suddenly rang out through the building. Over the high-pitched, irritating sound Robin could clearly make out Superboy exclaiming “Oh shit!”

 

The door was slammed open and Superboy was very suddenly at Robin’s side speaking in a rushed voice that could rival a speedster, “WeGottaGo!”

 

Robin tried to brush off the grip on his shoulders and insisted, “One minute.”

 

He continued his typing and Superboy gripped onto his shoulders once more. He whispered harshly, “You got like 20 seconds.”

 

“Hang on,” Robin insisted. Finishing the last few steps in leaving no digital trace. He could feel Superboy’s hands tensing on his shoulders and began to feel concern about what had the guy so worried. Not to mention the distinct lack of drones that followed him into the room. Robin turned to give him the all clear but he only managed to get out, “Okay, let’s-”

 

Superboy’s grip tightened on Robin as the Boy Wonder was picked up off the ground and flown out of the room. He couldn’t help the yelp of surprise that sounded as Superboy carried him, rushing up towards the catwalk and the skylight Robin had used as an entry point. They were moving fast, so fast that Robin was barely able to catch a glimpse of the sight that filled the warehouse. Drones, easily a hundred and probably more, clinging to the walls, floors, ceilings, all blinking red and beeping loudly. A mass self-destruct sequence. Shit.

 

Superboy carried them higher and out of the building. In a few seconds they were on top of a hill overlooking the factory, but in the next moment there was no factory to overlook, only a smoking pile of flaming rubble.

 

“Shit,” Superboy hissed out, watching the flames. 

 

“We are so dead,” Robin matched his tone.

 

Suddenly a voice was crackling to life in Robin’s ear, “Robin! Come in! Report!”

 

“Oh, uh,” Robin cleared his voice as he moved to respond, “We’re not dead. We’re fine. We just-”

 

“We?” The low grumble of Batman was clearly confused and unimpressed.

 

“Well, you see-”

 

“Superboy!” A whoosh and an exclamation announced Superman’s arrival to the scene.

 

“Hey…” Superboy said slowly, with a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes.

 

“Robin?” Superman questioned, “Does Batman know-?”

 

The whir of an engine announced the arrival of the bat-plane landing behind them.

 

“Here we go,” Tim grumbled.

 

“Robin,” Batman called, exiting the plane. He redirected his focus on the supers next to him almost immediately then asked directly, “Superman, what is going on?”

 

Superman crossed his arms, casting a glance over to the smoldering remains of the warehouse before looking back to Robin and Superboy while answering, “I was just about to ask the same thing.”

 

“There were no people inside,” Superboy is quick to insist.

 

“What?” Superman asks.

 

Superboy is still insistent, “Honest. Only heartbeats inside were mine and Rob’s! No one got hurt.”

 

“And what were you doing inside?” Superman questioned Superboy with a glare that could rival Batman’s. Maybe that’s why Robin found himself speaking up, all too familiar with the discomfort of a mentor wearing that particular expression.

 

Robin was smart. Robin, Tim,  was able to figure out the identities of Nightwing and Batman and Robin when he was only a kid. He was smart and he knew it, only sometimes the instinct of a teenage boy took over and he would find himself doing something as stupid as lying to Superman, which is what happened in that moment when Robin said, “I called him in.”

 

“You called him in?” The man of steel cast a disbelieving look towards Robin. Batman was suddenly wearing the same unapproving glare Superman was just seconds ago, it was obvious even behind the cowl.

 

“Robin,” Batman Grumbled, “Report.”

 

Robin let out a sigh, casting a look towards Superboy who seemed to be staring at him in surprise. Robin turned back to Batman and began to spin an explanation, sticking as close to the truth as he could for both his and Superboy's sake.

 

“The mission was going according to plan, only once I got inside it became clear that our knowledge of the security measures were outdated. Superboy has been surveilling this building, so I called out for him for backup while I obtained evidence of the shipments.”

 

“You called for him?” Batman cut in.

 

“Superhearing!” Superboy cheerily cut in, pointing to his own ears.

 

“I see,” Batman grumbled, clearly unimpressed, “And how did you know Superboy was actively surveilling tonight?”

 

“Uh,” Robin paused. Hesitation was not good.

 

Thankfully Superboy seemed eager to jump in and corroborate the story, probably realizing it was his best chance at minimizing the scolding from Superman he was in for.

 

“He’s a really good detective,” Superboy said with a smile. For a second, Robin was pleasantly surprised at the compliment. Then Superboy continued, “Seriously, you should see his eye exercises.”

 

“Knock it out,” Robin nudged his elbow into Superboy, who was now rolling his eyes in circles as if displaying an example. Superboy didn’t move as Robin’s elbow hit him, but did stop rolling his eyes as he cast a teasing grin in Robin’s direction.

 

“How was the explosion caused?” Batman’s question brought both boys back to focus.

 

“Oh, like a trillion security drones went into self-destruct mode all at once,” Superboy answered.

 

Batman shifted his gaze towards Robin, clearly needing a better answer than that. Robin sighed, “A bit over a hundred. Plus more in the shipping containers, probably chain-reacted.”

 

He held out his wrist to show Batman a small screen where he was pulling up the inventory he gathered from the warehouse while he kept explaining, “Barely any drugs are moving through here, most of what’s being dispersed are high grade security systems and weaponry. And any drugs are moving in to Gotham, not out of.”

 

“Hmm,” Batman began reading into the new information Tim was presenting.

 

“So that’s what happened?” Superman said skeptically, “You both decided to work together, adapted to the situation as needed?”

 

Decided to work together was the word that was tripping Robin up, still, he nodded.

 

“Your heartrate’s pretty fast,” Superman pointed out. Shit. He did not want to be caught stretching the truth in front of Batman. 

 

So Robin shrugged and pointed a thumb over his shoulder towards Superboy, “I’ve never flown away from an impending explosion. Definitely gets the adrenaline flowing.”

 

Superboy, the bastard, gave a cocky grin as he threw an arm over Robin’s shoulders and teased, “Thank you for choosing Superboy Airlines. As your pilot today, I gotta say-”

 

“Dude,” Robin interrupted as he shoved his way out from Superboy’s arm.

 

Superman, still with his arms crossed, turned to Batman and asked, “Do you believe them?”

 

Both young heroes froze, attention snapping sharply towards Batman as if his verdict held all the answers.

 

“I think,” Batman spoke carefully as he passed the information Robin recovered over to Superman for inspection, “That the boys did good work here today. While the outcome is a little more destructive than should occur for a recon mission, they had to -as you said- adapt to the situation as needed. I am trusting them to learn from their mistakes and never get caught up in such a foolishly reckless and destructive situation again.”

 

“I think that’s the biggest compliment I’ve ever received,” Superboy whispered to Robin.

 

Superman snapped his attention to the kid, then finally dropped his arms to his side and nodded. He took one more glance to scan over the information in front of him then conceded a nod and agreed, “He’s right. You boys did good work.”

 

He took a step forward, placing a gentle hand on Superboy’s shoulder, “Next time just give me a heads up of a plan changing.”

 

“What,” Superboy asked, “Am I supposed to just assume you were listening and-?”

 

“Of course I was listening,” Superman insisted, “How do you think I knew the place blew up?”

 

“Oh,” Superboy seemed a little at a loss for words after that.

 

“I just didn’t realize I should’ve been listening for the both of you, or for you talking to anyone for that matter. It was risky going inside,” Superman reiterated before casting his gaze towards Robin, “We didn’t know for certain if this was a smuggling route for kryptonite.”

 

“Superboy told me there was risk of that but by then we were both already inside and already fighting off security measures,” Robin hoped that letting superman know that Superboy informed his spontaneous partner of potential field hazards would get the guy a few brownie points at least, “Besides. Inventory confirmed no alien shhh-tuff.”

 

Superboy snorted, “Nice one.”

 

“These drones,” Batman’s voice cut through, “What can you tell us about them?”

 

Robin grinned towards Superboy and said, “Superboy was able to get real up close and personal with ‘em. I’m sure he could write a more comprehensive report than I could.”

 

“Dude,” Superboy scoffed, “Are you trying to pass on your superhero homework to me?”

 

“Might not be a bad idea,” Superman cut in with a grin, “Splitting up the work, I mean.”

 

“Splitting up?” Superboy questioned.

 

“Well you write the report on the drones,” Superman explained, still smiling wide despite Superboy’s groan, “While Robin writes the report on the mission itself and the intel you collected.”

 

“I mean, I’m more than happy to just give you a copy of the intel,” Robin tried.

 

“I’m sure a proper debrief and summary of findings would be greatly beneficial,” Batman said, flicking the corner of his mouth in the closest he gets to grinning behind the mask. 

 

“Fine,” Robin huffs out. It seems even if they did “good work” he and Superboy would both be receiving the punishment of paperwork for going off script tonight. He pointedly did not roll his eyes as he relented, “We better get back to the cave then.”

 

“I’ll see you around, Boy Wonder!” Superboy declared it as fact with a cheery grin.

 

“See you around, Superboy,” Robin echoed. Despite himself he felt the corner of his mouth flick into the ghost of a grin. Small doses. He can handle the annoying, arrogant, overexcited kid in small doses. Tonight was even… kind of fun. All things considered.

Notes:

I haven't written in a bit and needed to just tell a story for nothing but my own enjoyment lol. This is so not compliant with like any comic storyline but I just wanted to have fun with the characters. Sharing in case anyone else wants a non canon compliant alternate universe getting-together AU <3.

Chapter 2

Tim wasn’t antisocial by any means. Sure, he wasn’t attending parties or making many weekend plans with his peers, but that was because his nights and weekends were pretty booked with patrols and missions. He got along well with others when he was in school, fell into easy conversation when he did find himself with enough time off to kill an hour or so at a skatepark, and even found himself working well with other young heroes when missions happened to align.

 

It was infrequent, teaming up with others, but that was probably for the best. He’s been doing this, the masked vigilante thing, for a long time. Most of the other young heroes he came across didn’t exactly love the way his experience and training led to him calling most of the shots. Superboy in particular came to mind. But the way other heroes his age pushed Tim, took his sarcastic remarks in stride and threw back their own, it was good for him and helped drive him to be a better Robin. 

 

Still, he preferred his team-ups to be discussed in advance. He was always at his best when he had prep time for any situation. And more, he really was only used to dealing with one younger hero at a time. Basically, if Robin were to choose, a team-up would happen with at least a week of prep time in advance and consist of at most one other younger hero.

 

Robin rarely was able to choose, though.

 

“Whoaaaaaaaa,” A young voice exclaimed excitedly, “What is that thing?’

 

“I dunno,” Was the response, “But I’m calling dibs.”

 

“Hold up!” Robin called out, causing both people to turn around, “No one is calling dibs.”

 

“Robin!” Impulse, a young speedster Robin had crossed paths with once or twice before, wrapped Robin in an embrace faster than the boy genius could blink. Caught a little off guard he felt himself tense in the speedster’s arms while he threw a questioning glance at Superboy. Robin and impulse have worked together before, sure, but Tim hadn’t realized they were at the hugging  stage of camaraderie just yet.

 

Superboy just smiled and floated over, taking in the sight of the hug as if nothing were out of the norm and greeting, “Whatcha doin’ here, Robbie?”

 

Robbie? That was new, too.

 

Grabbing the speedster’s shoulders to push Impulse backwards, Robin stepped out of the embrace and answered Superboy’s question, “Batman asked me to investigate the anomaly. What are you two doing here?”

 

Superboy shrugged, “We were hanging out. I heard a bang. We thought we’d see what’s up.”

 

“You were hanging out?” Robin questioned.

 

“Yup,” Superboy answered with his usual smirk.

 

“In your field outfits?” Robin pressed on, nodding his chin at where the two other heroes stood fully suited up.

 

“Not like it takes long to change,” Superboy said with that same cocky grin.

 

Impulse, on the other hand, wore a much more genuine grin as he chirped up, “Hey, next time you should hang, too, Robin!”

 

The pity invite would’ve been a little offensive if it weren’t for the undeniable excitement shining in Impulse's eyes. Robin decided to take a somewhat neutral stance and respond, “Yeah, maybe,” He shifted then, refocusing on the crater the three stood behind and instructed, “You  guys should head back to your hang out, I got this from here.”

 

“Whoa,” Superboy cut in, pointing at the metallic sphere glowing in the middle of the crater, “No way I called dibs.”

 

“I was sent here by Batman,” Robin reminded him.

 

“And here is outside of Gotham,” Superboy retorted, “Plus it’s obviously some kinda alien shit, pretty sure that makes it my kind of situation.”

 

“First to touch it wins it!” Impulse yells, already having ran down the crater and jumped up onto the sphere, “Whoa. Guys this thing is warm.”

 

“You can’t just run up and touch an unknown alien shit!” Superboy exclaims. Robin is almost surprised at the chastisement. His surprise grows into a pleased amusement when Superboy turns to him and with a sigh complains, “I love Imp, but do you ever feel like working with him is kinda like a parenting gig.”

 

Superboy has always had a special gift of knowing how to push Robin’s buttons without trying, so when Robin sees him nearly twitching his eye in annoyance at Impulse’s impulsivity he feels a satisfying gratification and finds himself holding back a snort. Should Impulse have just run up and thrown himself on the sphere? No. But what’s done is done and thankfully it didn’t cause anything weird to happen yet. 

 

“Well, I know who’s who,” Robin lets a bit of teasing slip into his voice. He can’t help but add a wink towards the floundering hero as he begins to climb down the crater himself instructing, “Come on, momma bird. We better keep him from hurting himself.”

 

“What?” Superboy sputters as he flies down the crater too, “I am not the mom, I’m totally the dad!”

 

He’s still is insisting, despite Robin’s soft snickering to himself, when the two of them reach Impulse and the sphere, “If anything momma bird makes way more sense to be you. You’re already a bird, Robin.”

 

“What are you guys talking about?” Impulse blinks up innocently at the two. He’s sitting crisscross on top of the large metal sphere that’s emitting a soft hum.

 

“Don’t worry about it,” Robin answers, still grinning.

 

“Would you get off of that thing?” Superboy fusses, very maternally if Robin were to judge it. 

 

Superboy reaches to grab Impulse and tug him off, but Impulse had already moved to be standing besides Robin. The absence of the speedster led Kon to lose his balance and fall directly onto the sphere with a loud clang.

 

“Wha- Oof!” Superboy let out before he planted both his palms on it and began to push himself up and remarked, “Hey, she is really warm.”

 

“She?” Impulse asked, rushing forward to peer at the sphere, “How do you know it’s a she?”

 

“I was just-” Superboy starts.

 

Robin cuts him off, “Be careful, both of you.”

 

Robin reaches his hand out, approaching gently and softly feeling the metal sphere for himself. It certainly was warm, almost unnaturally. Robin went to move his hand away, but then the sphere made a sound which almost came across as a chirp and began to morph around his palm.

 

“Whoa, hey! Cool!” Impulse called.

 

Superboy had a more appropriate response, laced with a little concern he asked, “Hey, what did you do?”

 

The sphere enveloped Robin, so much for it not responding to touch. He felt the warm machinery -was it machinery?- surround him until he was pushed upwards and found himself sitting on… a bike seat? Holding handlebars? Now much different than his own motorcycle, though the body of the bike was much larger and seemed to have room for multiple passengers. It almost looked like a primitive design for one of Batman’s vehicles with how advanced the design and gadgetry of the thing was.

 

“How did you do that?” Impulse exclaimed, running up to join Robin on top of the bike. He turned to nod energetically at Superboy, declaring, “Yes. Definitely a she.”

 

“Damn,” Superboy flew up and let out an appreciative whistle, “We should call her the supercycle!”

 

“No way!” Impulse immediately stuck his tongue out with a disgusted face, “I made it here first, I should name her. How about the speedcycle?”

 

The bike let out two low beeps, and Robin found himself feeling the rejection of the name coming from the bike. He spoke up cautiously, “I, uh, I don’t think she likes that name.”

 

“Oh no,” Superboy cut in, “You already have a bike, up on top that hill, even. You do not get this one too.”

 

The cycle below them buzzed to life at Superboy’s words, levitating a little bit off the ground.

 

“Whoa,” Impulse grabbed onto a seat, “How are you doing that?”

 

“I’m not,” Robin insisted, “I think it’s- Whoa!”

 

The cycle lunged upwards and rushed towards where Robin’s own motorcycle was indeed sitting just outside of the crater. All three boys were exclaiming various outcries while the cycle herself seemed to be beeping …angrily? No, not anger.

 

“I think she’s jealous!” Robin exclaimed. The cycle was currently circling Robin’s own motorcycle, beeping loudly.

 

“What, she’s jealous of your motorcycle?” Superboy cried out in disbelief. Almost laughing he continued, “That junk’s got nothing on the supercycle, baby!”

 

The cycle -the supercycle- chirped again. Robin could tell it was pleased, it’s spinning slowing considerably.

 

Maybe the others could feel it too, because Impulse chimed in while petting the seat in an almost comforting gesture, “Yeah, you’re so much cooler!”

 

“Definitely cooler,” Robin agreed, more out of fear and lack of control than anything else.

 

It seemed to be working, until Impulse added on, “You’re so cool, Speedcycle!”

 

The bike slammed down, beeping almost angrily again. Robin was quick to remind, “Not that name!”

 

“You don’t even need a bike,” Superboy pointed out, “You just run everywhere.”

 

“But I can’t fly,” Impulse argued.

 

“Hey, Wonder Boy,” Superboy pokes Robin’s shoulder, “How are you flying this thing?”

 

“I don’t know I-”

 

“Can I try?” Impulse interrupts Robin, trying to elbow his way into the seat. 

 

“She won’t exactly let me go,” Robin groans out, not budging against Bart’s poking, prodding, and shoving.

 

“Why does she like you so much?” Superboy asks with a grimace, notes of jealousy lacing his voice. His eyes were raking up and down Robin, almost as if he were inspecting the boy wonder.

 

“Maybe,” Robin rolls his eyes, “Cuz I’m the only one who didn’t immediately slam down on top of her.”

 

“Hey that was an accident-" Superboy started while at the same time Impulse was calling out, “I didn’t know she was alive!”

 

Suddenly the cycle chirps to life again, hovering above ground while all three boys exclaim their own variations of “Whoa!” and “Hey!”

 

“Supercycle, what are you doing?” Robin tries to ask the bike directly.

 

“Supercycle?” Superboy echoes with a bit of amusement returning to his features.

 

“Supercycle?” Impulse echoes as well, though he seems to be asking with flat disbelief.

 

Robin turns to Superboy, offering a slight smile despite the situation’s chaos and explains with a half shrug, “She likes the name.”

 

Superboy’s smirking grin fixes itself more surely on his face and for once Robin isn’t dreadfully annoyed by the expression. His own smile grows a little more relaxed in response until suddenly the supercycle is jolting forward, upwards, then somehow even under the Earth.

 

The following adventure was certainly not the way Robin had anticipated his evening going. Firstly, he didn’t anticipate Superboy and Impulse being there with him while he investigated the anomaly. Then, he didn’t anticipate the anomaly being a sentient motorcycle which seemed to instantly pack-bond to Robin. Further, he didn’t expect a quest to free the motorcycle from her former master, requiring the three boys to work together to take down …a seven foot tall Apokoliptain whose downfall seemed to be his inability to process rejection.

 

The evening took them traveling and running themselves ragged trying to figure out a cohesive dynamic between the three boys. Superboy was, of course, resistant to Robin’s natural leadership for much of the start. Impulse seemed to act quicker than he could think. Robin himself would snap or grow short with his companions, frustrated and annoyed by at least half of their antics. The other half of their antics, though? Robin found himself smiling, almost laughing, as they seemed to play out.

 

Bonding with the supercycle seemed to be what the boys themselves bonded over quickly. Superboy, ever the charmer, seemed to get on the supercycle’s good side fairly quickly. Robin and Impulse took the opportunity to tease Superboy about the way he was practically flirting with the bike. The bastard took the teasing in stride, though, clearly having had his ego fed by the supercycle having let him name her.

 

Impulse was having a harder time winning her over, clearly struggling to slow himself down long enough to get intune and connect with the supercycle’s feelings. Feelings was a strong word, but there were definitely impulses, sentient desires that sure felt emotionally charged. Regardless, Impulse moved quickly and struggled to connect. His pouting and frustration with this led to a few more teasing remarks between Robin and Superboy that they were acting as parents to the kid.

 

Of course, Robin couldn’t escape himself being teased by the others either. Superboy commented that the soccer mom would drive the minivan, therefore Robin was so more the mom since he was the one driving. Impulse had thrown out his Batman impersonation a few times, chastising Robin for “reckless driving” in the moments the supercycle seemed to have a mind of its own.

 

All three of them laughed together, smiling the brightest after they realized if Robin whistled for the supercycle it would respond much like a dog. They took to praising it like an adorable and obedient pet and the supercycle seemed to revel in all the joy from those moments.

 

Overall, the night was amusing. Robin could admit that despite all the teasing and occasionally snarky comments, the three of them were having fun. He was even getting the hang of being in control of the supercycle more than letting the bike fly them, phase them, and drive them wherever it pleased.

 

He was a bit lost in his own enjoyment of the night when the static of his comms cut to life and he could hear Batman’s voice coming through, “Robin? Robin, where are you?”

 

“Oh, uh,” He cleared his throat and answered into his comms, “Hey, B. We ended up, uh…”

 

“We?”

 

Oh boy, Robin wasn’t quite sure how to explain the evening’s adventures and spontaneous team-up.

 

“Uh,” Robin answered very eloquently, “We’re kinda close to Happy Harbor, actually. How soon can you meet us there to explain?”

 

A grunt, which was pretty much Batman’s equivalent to an exasperated sigh, could be heard before the question, “And ‘we’ is?”

 

“Oh,” Robin grinned, seeing both heroes next to him who were each wearing their own expression of confusion and apprehension, “Superboy and Impulse.”

 

“Dude!” Superboy slapped his arm.

 

“Did you just rat our joyride out to Batman?” Impulse asked, looking almost like he'd seen a ghost.

 

“It wasn’t a joyride,” Robin pointed out, “It was a spontaneous mission rescuing the supercycle from Mr. Whiney Muscle Man. A spontaneous mission that I’m gonna need to write up a report on anyway.”

 

Impulse threw his arms back and groaned something that sounded like, “Max is gonna kill me,” while Superboy’s frustration seemed to shift into satisfaction the second the words “spontaneous mission” left Robin’s mouth.

 

Explaining the events of their day to Batman, Superman, and Max Mercury ended up going surprisingly well. The three mentors seemed almost proud of the way the boys told of their teamwork and showed off the features of the supercycle and explained their efforts to free the living machine. 

 

It was when Batman approached the supercycle and reached out to touch it that the vehicle collapsed back into a sphere and rolled sharply towards Robin, nearly knocking the boy over when she landed at his side with a chirping beep. Superman, clearly far more amused with the three boys than the other two mentors, let out a loud laugh at Batman stumbling backwards and throwing a questioning glance at Robin from behind his mask.

 

Superboy let out a laugh too, although Impulse still seemed too intimidated by Batman to risk the chuckle he clearly wanted to let out. Superboy threw his arm around Robin’s shoulders with an easy grin and told the mentors, “Yeah, she bonded pretty quickly to momma bird right here.”

 

Robin scoffed and shrugged free of Superboy’s arm while Impulse turned to Max and complained, “They keep making jokes like that, I don’t know what they mean.”

 

“Will it be coming with us to Gotham, then?” Batman asked.

 

The supercycle let out a chirp. It rolled a lap around the three boys then seemed to jump, landing in front of Superboy with a thud.

 

“You wanna come with me?” Superboy asked.

 

Again the chirp rang out. This time it was followed by two laps and two jumping thuds. It landed next to Impulse this time, leading both Robin and Superboy to share a skeptical glance.

 

“You want to,” Impulse paused, genuinely stopping to pause and think. It was startling to see. Robin peeled his eyes from Impulse back to Superboy and, yeah, Superboy was just as confused at the sight as Robin felt. After a moment Impulse’s eyes suddenly lit up and he exclaimed, “You wanna stay here!”

 

The supercycle beeped in what the boys have figured out is its way of communicating an affirmative.

 

“Hey, you got in touch with her afterall,” Superboy cheered, giving a proud high five to Impulse. He turned to Robin and sported the same wide grin, “What do ya say, split visitation?”

 

Robin turned to Batman. He asked the question with his eyes, though not without just a little bit of pleading slipping through. Batman, in response, turned to glance at Superman and Max Mercury who nodded and shrugged respectively. 

 

After a beat he turned back to Robin and conceded, “Alright. The …supercycle… can stay at the old HQ. Do you need a ride back to Gotham?”

 

“Oh, uh,” Robin blinked a bit in surprise at how easily that seemed to go, “I still need to get my bike by the crater, actually.”

 

Hopefully it was still there after all its time.

 

“I can fly ya, Wonder Boy,” Superboy offered easily.

 

“I can run you there faster,” Impulse explained, rushing up to Robin’s side before quickly reconsidering, “Or we could take the supercycle!”

 

“And let her get all jealous again?” Superboy asked.

 

Robin was about to cut in about how Batman could easily just stop over the crater in the batplane before heading into Gotham, but when he caught Batman’s eye his mentor was visibly fighting against an amused grin. The others probably couldn’t tell, maybe except for Superman, but Robin sure knew that expression.

 

“You and your friends did good work today, Robin,” Batman declared before turning to enter the batplane, “I’ll meet you back in Gotham.”

 

“Oh, uh…” Robin blinked in disbelief.

 

“Hey! Next time we hang out we should ditch the masks,” Impulse exclaimed.

 

“I don’t wear a mask,” Superboy pointed out.

 

“You know what I mean,” Impulse groaned, “Like we hang out but I would be Bart and not Impulse.”

 

“You are Bart and Impulse,” Superboy huffs with a laugh.

 

“I am not telling you my civilian ID,” Robin answered coolly, “Besides, Superboy doesn’t have one.”

 

“Sure I do,” Superboy laughed, “Did I not tell you?”

 

“You- What?” Robin blinked. He has seen Superboy’s file, the clone boy had never been given an identity beyond being Superboy and as far as Robin knew it was a bit of a sore subject. Now, however, Superboy sat there with a grin that was much gentler than the usual smirk he sported. The soft smile suited him.

 

“Superman decided it was about time I got a name of my own,” Superboy said, offering his hand out to shake, “Kon-El. Kon. At your service.”

 

Robin took his hand and shook it, almost amused at the action. He introduced himself back despite them having already met a few times now, “Robin.”

 

“Oh come on!” Impulse -Bart, though Robin already knew his civilian name before this it was still kind of the speedster to offer it up- groaned.

 

“You really won’t tell us?” Superboy -Kon- asked as he took his hand back.

 

“It’s not just my secret,” Robin nodded his chin towards where the Batplane was flying off. He ignored the eye rolls from the other two boys and instead tried to save the mood of the situation by leaning into their mutual competitive natures.

 

“Come on, Kon,” Robin linked their arms together, “Think we can beat Imp to my bike at the crater?”

 

“No way!” Impulse yelled, barely letting the words get out before speeding off in what was probably the right direction.

 

Robin let out a laugh and Superboy -Kon, the guy finally had a name so Robin should probably get used to using it, even in his head- shot Robin a wicked grin and teased, “You are a terrible influence on our son.”

 

Robin laughed louder, letting his weight shift into Kon as the two rose  into the air. He did, however, remember to call back, “Bye supercycle!”

 

“Oh, bye!” Kon called back, too. Maybe it was silly to talk to a machine, but it definitely seemed to blink positively at being acknowledged. Kon then added on, “By Kal, by Max!”

 

Oh, right. The other two mentors were still here, watching the boys interact. Robin blushed a bit as he managed to get out, “Bye guys!” before Kon was rushing off after the direction Impulse ran.

 

Bart beat them to the bike, of course, but it was a fun chase anyway. Without the stress and confusion of an impending explosion, Robin found the experience of being carried through the sky by Kon’s TTK to be much more enjoyable than he remembered.

Notes:

I love headcanoning the Supercycle as acting like a sassy and entitled pet cat who’s spoiled into getting anything she desires

Chapter 3

Tim was one of the most clever people on the planet Earth. He was under no delusions that he was the most intelligent person to ever exist, nor did he think he was undoubtedly the smartest person in any room he walked in. Just… most rooms. He may not be the smartest person of all time, but he was clever and was probably within the top 50 most clever people. 

 

Top 20. 

 

Top 10, 5 when he was feeling cocky. 

 

He connected the dots between Nightwing and Dick Grayson as a child. He has been trained by Batman, the World’s Greatest Detective himself, on how to fine tune his cleverness and harness it into sleuthing and critical thinking skills. He was a strategist, a tactician, a detective and a businessman. He was clever in a way that was nothing short of instinctual at this point. 

 

Sure, he was still young. At times he will begrudgingly admit he’s found himself to be overconfident or underprepared, but in those situations he tends to prove himself adaptable and flexible. He’d never admit those moments might stem from “youthful naivety,” as Alfred and Bruce so often suggest, and would instead chock them up to reminders that Tim is human and therefore can’t be completely infallible. 

 

He’s clever and he understands this and he’s proud of it. 

 

He’s clever, so despite the fact Kon has never mentioned having a civilian secret identity Tim is sure that he does. 

 

Tim just needed to figure it out. 

 

He’s heard the “stalker” jokes before, but it’s not like Dick or Bruce or any of the bats really have any stones to throw from their own glass houses. Sure, Tim might have had the instincts to figure out and to follow and to learn embedded within him from before he even reached double digits, but they all were a bit paranoid and have all had their shining moments of hyper fixating on a mystery. 

 

Most times it would be a case. 

 

Sometimes it was one of them trying to deduce their way out of an interpersonal conflict with a teammate. 

 

Right now, for Tim, it was figuring out who Kon-El is when he isn’t wearing that S shield. 

 

Bruce probably had the answer already. It was probably updated into Kon’s file, which if Tim didn’t still have unrestricted access to he could easily hack his way into it. But something about that just felt too easy. 

 

He was Tim Drake. He clocked Dick from a fancy backflip he recognized from a traumatizing circus performance he repressed most memories of (except for when the memory of the first deaths he ever witnessed came to him vividly in an occasional nightmare). He could figure out who Kon was without cheating. 

 

He wasn’t exactly sure why he decided checking Kon’s file would be cheating. Most days he was grateful for the batcomputer being such a resource for him. For this, though, it felt like a fun exercise and a matter of his own pride to prove he didn’t need it. 

 

It hardly took any time at all, just two visits where he and Kon both showed up at Mount Justice to check in on the supercycle. Bart was normally there, too. They didn’t even end up doing anything besides hanging out and bonding with the supercycle, teasing and annoying each other in a way that made Robin often question if they really were friends after all. But each hang out ended with smirky grins and a “See you next time” instead of a “Bye.”

 

Those first two visits Tim paid attention to where Kon was coming from, if any of his personal items ever had any identifying features, things like that. He debated planting a tracker on him to figure out where he was living, but then decided once again that was too close to cheating. Tim wanted to deduce this with as little technological assistance as possible. Plus, that probably wouldn’t help with the “stalker” jokes.

 

It turned out not to be too hard to figure out after all. Clark Kent of the Daily Planet had a cousin Conner pop up out of the blue. Tim had figured out Superman’s secret identity when he was still fresh into the Robin role -seriously, it wasn’t hard with how often he was ‘interviewing’ himself before publishing the story- and drew the connection between the two.

 

Kon-El went by Conner Kent when he wasn’t in his costume. Tim scowled when he realized it took him two weeks to figure out what was essentially just an additional syllable and a pair of glasses, but he figured he could cut himself some slack seeing as he’d never met Conner Kent, only ever Kon.

 

He and Kon -and Bart, too- have been hanging out more recently. Tim never told Kon that he figured out his civilian identity since he was fairly confident that that would launch them both into another argument about how Tim wouldn’t reveal his own, but he felt satisfied with himself that he was able to figure it out anyway.

 

The three boys even found themselves on an occasional adventure. Often it was the supercycle who took over control and transported them into trouble. Their cooperation was still rough around the edges, they still would bicker and annoy each other throughout any quest, but Robin found himself trusting the others more and more as each impromptu mission succeeded.

 

Bart had begun trying to convince the others to have a sleepover in Mount Justice at some point, spending more than a few hours hanging out. Kon seemed right on board. Tim wasn’t… opposed, per say. He just had to reiterate to Batman that they were not a team or some rebrand of the Titans, they were just young heroes who got along well. They enjoyed each other’s company and could handle missions as the supercycle brought them up, but that was all. They had independent responsibilities and argued enough that pretending they really were a team would have been impractical.

 

---

 

They’ve been using she/her pronouns for the supercycle, the same way most people would for any car or boat or impressively gorgeous vehicle. She had a level of sentience, obviously, and was rather attuned to struggles that would directly affect the boys. Maybe, just maybe, she was also over mount justice being such a boys’ club. It’s not like she really had a gender herself, but that was one of the only reasons Robin could think of for the supercycle to drag the three boys over to one of Wonder Girl’s problems.

 

Okay, maybe it had more to do with the artifact Wonder Girl found herself coming across, some sort of alien tech that was going a bit haywire. It wasn’t Apokalyptian, as far as Robin could tell, but it was leading the three boys plus Wonder Girl on a cross country chase while the device which appeared to zoom about in whichever direction it pleased with little regard to any civilians in its way nor the damage it may leave behind.

 

“Where did you find this thing again?” Robin gritted the question out as the Supercycle took a sharp turn upwards, chasing after the device.

 

“I swear it was a normal yard sale!” Wonder Girl is insisting, “I thought it was a paperweight until the circle fell out of this.”

 

“Whoa!” Impulse snatched the box out of Wonder Girl’s hand and was at Robin’s side with it in an instant. Robin could barely take his eyes from the view in front of him, wrestling with who is really in control of the chase between himself and the supercycle.

 

“What are the markings?” Robin is asking, leaning into another sharp turn. He could barely make out abstract shapes carved into the wooden boards. 

 

“It says,” Impulse pauses, twisting the thing in his hands while dragging out the sound, “Uhhhhhh…”

 

“It doesn’t say anything,” Wonder Girl climbs over a seat in the supercycle to snatch the box back, “as far as I can tell these are runes which probably kept the damn thing asleep.”

 

A sharp turn to the left had all four heroes exclaiming and grabbing for balance. Robin tightened his grasp on the handlebars. Impulse grabbed onto the seat behind him. Wonder Girl and Superboy each grabbed onto each other with one hand, the other reaching out to brace against the supercycle’s walls. 

 

Robin really couldn’t afford to be looking away from the path in front of them but for some reason the sight of them clinging to each other caught his attention for longer than expected. 

 

Wonder Girl called out, “Careful with this thing!”

 

Robin leveled a glare and informed her tensely, “She kinda has a mind of her own half the time.”

 

“She?” Wonder Girl questioned. Based off the tone in her voice she was likely casting a disbelieving eye at the supercycle. 

 

“Careful,” Superboy warned with a slightly teasing voice, “You’ll hurt her feelings.”

 

“Are you boys that desperate for girls to be around that you pretend your pet spaceship is one?” Wonder Girl snarked. 

 

The supercycle beeped loudly, taking another harsh turn in its chase. The angry sound seemed to catch Wonder Girl off guard as her eyes widened.

 

Impulse threw himself onto the wall of the supercycle, rubbing calming motions while defending, “The supercycle is not a pet.”

 

“You’re petting it right now!” Wonder Girl snapped back, though she was eyeing the bike warily now. 

 

“We need to get that thing back in its box,” Robin cut off the bickering, “We can cut it off by-”

 

“Hey!” Superboy yelled, “Why are you in charge again?”

 

“I don’t hear you coming up with a plan,” Wonder Girl says in Robin’s defense. It’s a little surprising, though not unwelcome. Robin hadn’t crossed paths with Wonder Girl too many times in the past. He knew of her, of course, but these days working with any one who wasn’t a bat, Superboy, or Impulse was a rare occurrence. He had nothing against her, and she’s certainly being more proactive of a problem solver than Impulse has ever been when he gets their group into trouble, and yet there was still the feeling of annoyance gripping his chest he found himself resisting every now and again. Probably due to the way Superboy is keeping his eyes on her. Even as she's coming to Robin's defense, Superboy's jaw is beginning to clench and Robin can't discern what she did to warrant that look. Maybe he just wished he were the one on the receiving end of her leadership endorsement. 

 

Wonder Girl continued while holding the box out to Robin, “You were saying?”

 

Robin felt himself grow pleased and took the opportunity to call out the order while he reached out with one hand to retrieve, “Impulse, since it’s at ground level I need you to run in front of it to block its path. Then-”

 

“Got it!” Impulse jumped out of the supercycle and ran ahead to cut off the device’s path. 

 

“Shit,” Robin exhaled. Of course the kid didn’t wait for the rest of the plan.

 

“Now what?” Impulse yelled the question, though he was so far away the voice was faint.

 

“You two fly up to cut it off when it tries to go up to avoid Impulse, I’ll follow underneath you on the supercycle to catch it, just be sure to send it straight down,” Robin rushes out the rest of the orders.

 

“Alright, Wondie,” Superboy says in a tone that leads Robin to believe he’s wearing that dumb smirk of his. Robin’s about to chastise him for wasting time since Bart’s already in position, but when he glances back Superboy is looking at Wonder Girl and launching into the sky with a call of, “Let’s do this!”

 

Wonder Girl smiles and flies up after him.

 

Right. Wondie. Wonder Girl. Not the boy wonder.

 

That frustrating annoyance was back for some reason, but Robin shook it away and focused on accelerating the supercycle. There was no time to waste on petty annoyance over a stupid nickname anyway. The weird space orb reached Impulse and for a terrible second Robin thought it might cut to the side instead of launching straight up. Wonder Girl seemed to have anticipated this too, though. While Superboy flew up above them she flew closer to ground level, boxing the orb in between Impulse and herself so it would have no choice but to launch straight upwards. 

 

When it did launch straight up, Robin sped up again while tightening his grip on the strangely marked box. The orb was quick, speeding towards Superboy who was spread out like he was preparing to belly flop, minimizing the space the orb would be able to whizz around him and maximizing the chance it instead tries to go straight down. And it does try to launch itself straight downwards, but Robin is hovering just underneath on the supercycle and it manages to fly directly into its box. The force of its momentum knocks Robin out of his seat on the supercycle but he’s quick to cover the open end of the box to prevent the orb from rolling out as he falls to the floor.

 

“Rob!” Superboy calls out, rushing down to meet him in the supercycle. He catches himself in a hover just above where Robin is lying on the floor.

 

“I’m fine,” Robin huffs out, holding the box out for Superboy to take, “We got it.”

 

“Nice,” Superboy’s worry is immediately replaced with that same cocky smirk he always wears. He takes the box in one hand but uses his other to reach out and lift Robin to his feet.

 

“I could’ve gotten up myself,” Robin rolls his eyes as he feels a light blush begin to dust his cheeks. It was always a little embarrassing when he was lifted up by Kon after taking a tumble.

 

“Thank you, Superboy,” the hero himself mocked in a sarcastic tone, “You’re so cool and helpful with your tactile tele-”

 

“Please,” Robin cut him off while climbing into the seat and beginning the supercycle’s descent to where Impulse and Wonder Girl were waiting below, “Do not get started again.”

 

“All I’m saying,” Superboy starts saying as they’re coming to land next to the two other heroes, “Is that if I can get my TTK to be a little stronger-”

 

“No,” Impulse groans out, flopping dramatically onto the grass as soon as the supercycle touches down, “Not the TTK talk again.”

 

“TTK?” Wonder Girl questions, glancing skeptically between the boys.

 

Superboy’s eyes lit up as he jumped out of the supercycle. Robin tried to reel in his glaring at Kon while the other boy cheerily began to explain, “Tactile telekinesis. It’s a super cool power I have where-”

 

“That was a good call boxing it in on the ground to ensure it went up,” Robin said to Wonder Girl. He ignored Superboy’s protest at being interrupted while he climbed out of the supercycle for himself. Superboy could have plenty of time to brag about himself to Wonder Girl later.

 

“Yeah, well,” Wonder Girl shrugged but she wore a self satisfied grin nonetheless. She let the words hang in the air for a second, clearly not wanting neither to brag nor dismiss the compliment before she turned to look at the box Superboy was still holding and asking, “So, do any of you guys know what this thing is?”

 

“Yeah, what is it?” Impulse asks. He zips up to Superboy and snatches the box to hold himself. He looks at it for only a moment before he abruptly sneezes and nearly drops the box. Robin sees Superboy and Wonder Girl tense as much as he does, all three of them reaching out towards the falling box. Thankfully, Impulse’s speed allows him enough time to recover and grab the box before it crashes to the ground or the orb can roll free again.

 

They all stand there for a second, frozen, watching to confirm that the orb is still trapped before letting out a collective exhale of relief.

 

“Some team you got here,” Wonder Girl comments, taking the box out of Impulse’s hands.

 

“We’re not a team,” Robin corrects, taking the box for himself. He begins to look over the etchings on the wood, seeing they do indeed match with some he can now make out on the orb.

 

“Yeah, we just share custody over the supercycle,” Superboy confirms, moving over besides Robin to grab the box himself. Then, a little quieter but while wearing a teasing grin he adds on, “And Impulse.”

 

“I mean, we’re kinda like a team,” Impulse shrugs. He goes to peer over at the box but Superboy holds it far out to his other side.

 

“Oh, no,” Superboy starts, “This is clearly alien shit. Alien shit means I get dibs.”

 

“Actually,” Robin grabs the box back much to Superboy’s obvious displeasure, “engraved runes on a wooden box able to trap a flying sphere seems more like magic artifact shit than alien shit.”

 

“So?” Superboy huffs.

 

“So,” Robin turns politely to Wonder Girl and holds out the box, “I think you’re our best bet at figuring this out.”

 

“She’s not even on the team!” Superboy exclaims. He shifts to position himself between Robin and Wonder Girl, taking on a strangely defensive tone.

 

“We’re not a team,” Robin reminds him.

 

“You should totally join our team,” Impulse cheers loudly, speaking to Wonder Girl.

 

“We’re not-” Robin tries again.

 

Wonder Girl is quick to cut off his protest with the question, “Why not?”

 

“I-” Robin starts, then pauses. They kind of are like a team by now. They meet almost every weekend, they improve on their teamwork constantly. Honestly, the biggest thing separating them from other superhero teams is that their missions seem to be more spontaneous -being whatever the supercycle finds for them that day- and they don’t do any preparations or training together. Maybe they should start. Maybe leaning into the whole “team” thing would help them smooth out where their cooperation was still rough around the edges.

 

Robin sees the other three blinking at him, waiting for a response. He lets out a little sigh and meets Wonder Girl’s eyes to say, “We normally meet up at Mount Justice on Saturdays.”

 

He’s aware he just deflected the question instead of giving his reasonings for keeping their little group from being considered an official team: the Justice League would be more involved in supervising them, they would be compared to the Titans, he would be compared to when Nightwing was starting out with the Teen Titans, etc. Luckily, the distraction seemed to take.

 

Impulse let out a loud “Whoop!” and Superboy turned to give Wonder Girl a high five with a cheer of his own. He was a bit tense in the shoulders, but still grinned widely at her. He seemed almost nervous. It was seeming more and more likely that he had developed a bit of a crush on Wonder Girl -Wondie- in this brief interaction they shared. That would... complicate... team dynamics. Robin swallowed down discomfort at the thought, things would be fine. They're still not a team -not officially- anyway.

 

“I’m Bart, by the way,” Impulse informs Wonder Girl.

 

“Cassie,” She responds, matching his grin.

 

“I’m Kon,” Superboy chimes in.

 

He’s also Conner, Robin can’t help but think. There’s a strange sense of pride that he knows Kon’s civilian identity when Cassie doesn’t, but it’s diluted by the slight guilt that Kon didn’t tell Tim what his civilian identity is. He probably would have, if anyone asked. He almost definitely would right now if Cassie asked. Whatever. Asking would’ve been cheating. He figured out Kon’s identity all on his own. It doesn’t make sense to feel frustrated about this. 

 

Robin realized Wonder Girl was looking at him expectantly, so he rolled his eyes and introduced himself, “Robin. And all of you should take the whole secret identity thing a little more seriously.”

 

“Don’t mind Rob,” Superboy said while nudging Wonder Girl, “He’s allergic to friendship.”

 

“I am not-” Robin tries to defend himself.

 

Bart moves quicker though, rushing up to Cassie’s other side and beginning to say in a stage whisper, “I heard if you learn his real name then Batman swoops out from the shadows and kills you.”

 

“Batman doesn’t kill,” Robin argues while rolling his eyes.

 

Superboy ignored him and leaned into the teasing, nodding along and stage whispering, “If he even told you his initials it would already be too late.”

 

Wonder Girl is laughing while the other two boys are trying to reign in their snorting.

 

“Whatever,” Robin says, ignoring his own soft smile. He makes his way back over to the supercycle and comments, “We should be getting back.”

 

With a woosh Impulse is at his side and a moment later Superboy is floating into a seat behind them. The three boys turn to glance at Wonder Girl standing off to the side.

 

“You coming?” Robin offers, pointing to the still empty seat next to Superboy.

 

He sees Cassie grin a blinding smile before she’s climbing into the supercycle after them. He tells himself it's good she's coming, that his lingering annoyance when she slides next to Superboy's side is surely some kind of fluke.

Notes:

I hope you all enjoy the story so far <3

Chapter 4

Occasionally, Tim would have the opportunity to patrol alongside Dick. It was nice to share these nights, racing through the rooftops alongside his brother. Sure, they had some bonding time with Tim stopping by Dick’s apartment to share a movie night with cheap take out, but he preferred feeling the breezy chill of the air as he jumped and grappled from roof to roof, racing Nightwing as they both kept an eye and ear out for trouble.

 

“So,” Nightwing broke the relative quiet between them when Tim came to a pause on one rooftop, “B mentioned you started your own team. You think you’re too good to join the Titans or something?”

 

Robin could hear the tease in the question but chose to ignore it. Instead, he scoffed and insisted yet again, “We’re not a team.”

 

“I dunno,” Nightwing flashed him an easy grin, “Sounds like you guys meet up pretty regularly, get yourselves up to a good bit of trouble.”

 

Tim shrugged. He was running out of excuses to not declare them an official team.

 

Nightwing didn’t let Robin’s silence last for more than a few beats before he was asking, “Do you guys have a name yet?”

 

Robin snorted, “What? Like the ‘Teen Titans?’”

 

“I stand by that name,” Nightwing crossed his arms defensively.

 

Tim shook his head, “No. We don’t have a name. We aren’t a team.”

 

“Then what are you?” Nightwing asks as he tips his head in confusion.

 

“We’re just… us,” Robin shrugs, “Not much more to it than that.”

 

“Justice, huh?” Nightwing asks.

 

“No-” Robin sharply turns to him before this can spiral into a terrible name.

 

“You guys need, like, a qualifier too though,” Nightwing nodded to himself, “What about Junior Justice?”

 

Robin hits him in the shoulder, scowling at the jazz hands Dick is making when he says the name. He shakes his head and complains, “We’re young but we’re not some junior level-”

 

“Young Justice, then,” Nightwing nods with a smile, “That has an alright ring to it, too, don’t ya think?”

 

“Absolutely not,” Robin is saying.

 

Nightwing is ignoring him, though, plowing on with, “Of course, now that you have a team name you’ll need to schedule more time to train together instead of just jumping onto your magic motorcycle and finding missions willy-nilly.”

 

Robin lets out a groan.

 

Nightwing smiles brighter, “Plus, the Justice League should be supervising you guys more carefully. I hear Red Tornado might be free to play den mother at the mount.”

 

“This,” Tim hisses out, “Is what I was trying to avoid.”

 

“I knew it,” Nightwing says while giving Tim a playful smack to his shoulder, “All this ‘we’re not a team’ crap was you being allergic to adult supervision.”

 

“We’ve been doing fine on our own!” Tim protests.

 

Dick is shaking his head, fond but worried, as he says, “Yes but you could be doing better with a little guidance.”

 

“And how much guidance did you have when the Titans first started?” Tim found himself snapping.

 

“Not as much as I should’ve,” Nightwing says solemnly. He’s doing his whole ‘I’ve been where you are, learn from my mistakes, there are things I wish I knew, blah blah blah’ older brother act and Tim is holding back from trying to throw him off the roof.

 

“It’s not like we’re a bunch of thirteen-year-olds who are new to the game,” Tim points out, “We’ve been in the hero scene for a while.”

 

“But it’s different when you’re with a mentor or a single partner. Navigating team dynamics with peers is a whole new skillset,” Nightwing explains in his I-know-better-than-you voice. Then, he continues with a smirk, “Maybe some shifting dynamics with Wonder Girl tagging along?”

 

“She’s not ‘tagging along,’” Robin points out flatly, “She’s able to hold her own.”

 

“Oh, is she?” Nightwing is wearing a domino mask but Tim can see its movements signaling the way he’s wriggling his eyebrow, “Tell me more.”

 

“Stop that,” Tim warned.

 

Dick just shot back a disbelieving look and asked, “You really expect me to believe nothing changed for any of you guys after a girl joins the team?”

 

“I’m half convinced Impulse is oblivious to girls and romance or anything like that,” Robin offered with a shrug.

 

“What about you?” Nightwing prompted.

 

Robin leveled a glare, “I think she’s a capable ally and an asset to the team.”

 

“So you admit it’s a team!” Nightwing smirked as he pointed at Robin, a “gotcha!” expression on his face.

 

Robin just rolled his eyes and gave up resisting it once and for all, “I thought we settled that already.”

 

“Yeah, yeah,” Nightwing dismissed the notion with a wave of his hand, “Okay so we’ve established you are a team,” He began counting on his fingers, “Impulse is girl-blind,” Another finger flicks up, “You’re too much of a mini batman to flirt with Wonder Girl, or at least you won’t talk to me about it,” he raises a third finger, “But what about Superboy?”

 

“What about Superboy?” Robin asked back.

 

Something in Tim’s voice must have piqued Dick’s interest because a new rush of excitement clearly washes over him as he asks, “Are there some shifting team dynamics going on between Superboy and Wondergirl?”

 

“Why do you care so much about my friends’ love lives?” Robin tried to shift the focus of conversation back to Dick. 

 

“Oh, there so is!” Nightwing reveled in glee at his own conclusion.

 

“You don’t know that,” Tim argued.

 

“Do you know it?”

 

Robin shifted uncomfortably, frowning when he admitted, “No.”

 

“No?” Nightwing questioned, “You’re not sure?”

 

“No,” Tim reaffirmed through gritted teeth.

 

Nightwing whistled lowly before asking, “What’s that about?” At Robin’s questioning glare, he elaborated, “The whole pissed-off vibe you got going on now.”

 

“It’s just frustrating, I guess,” Robin shrugged his shoulders in a calculated movement. He used to to feign indifference while forcing a bit of the tension and “pissed-off vibe” out of his shoulders.

 

“Frustrating that they like each other?” Nightwing asked.

 

“Frustrating that I can’t tell if they’re more than just friends,” Robin elaborated, “I mean, I’m a detective. It shouldn’t be so hard to figure out. Plus if they are something more than friends then it doesn’t make sense for them to not tell Impulse and I. Like, one moment Superboy is giving her his jacket after she fell in some water, but then she’s giving it back as soon as we're back at Mount Justice. And then he’s jumping into every conversation I’d have with her, but if she walks away he won’t follow after her. Or she’ll be laughing at his jokes but then she's saying she’s glad to be friends with all three of us guys. Or-”

 

Nightwing chokes on the sound of a muffed laugh, causing Robin to snap out of his spiraling ramble and glare at him once more. Tim pushes as much venom into his voice as he can manage when he hisses the question of, “What?”

 

“You’re jealous,” Nightwing points out, a smile on his face. He says it without question, as if there’s no possibility that Tim could not be jealous which leaves Tim taken aback.

 

“What?” The question is no longer a hiss, but now a shocked exclamation. Tim was not jealous of Kon and Cassie. He didn’t even have interest in Cassie, besides platonically and as teammates. Kon and Cassie could date. That would be fine. Sure, the thought of it made discomfort swell in Tim’s chest then sink deep in his gut, but that was only because romantic entanglements would surely complicate existing team dynamics, which would definitely be stressful. It’s already complicating existing team dynamics because Robin’s so frustrated over being confused about their relationship status. 

 

“I bet Superboy sees you as a threat, that’s why he’s putting himself between you two,” Nightwing nudged Tim with his elbow and adds with a smirk, “I bet you got a chance with her.”

 

“I’m not looking for a chance with her,” Tim said while he crossed his arms defensively.

 

“Hey, come on, man,” Nightwing complained with a slight whine to his voice, “You gotta give me something here. We haven’t talked about girls in so long. Talk to me Baby Bird.”

 

“I cannot stand you,” Robin stated with a flat expression.

 

“Liar,” Dick said as he shoved Tim’s shoulders lightly.

 

Tim stood his ground and stated, "You're so annoying."

 

"You love me," Dick said in a sing-song voice while he attempted to shake Tim's shoulders again.

 

This time when Nightwing pushed him, Robin let his body sway with the force. Clearly showing increasingly unimpressed glares was not going to get Dick off his back, so Tim decided to lean into his dramatic side and lamented with a sigh, “I used to be an only child.” 

 

“Not this crap again,” Dick immediately grumbles.

 

Tim cuts him off with more overdramatic complaining, “I used to be a rich only child.”

 

“You’re still rich,” Nightwing said with an unamused flatness in his voice.

 

Tim dramatically gestured to the city lights as he spoke, “I was running around unsupervised. Me and my camera against the world.”

 

“Having a family who cares about you is not a bad thing,” Nightwing says with a huff.

 

It worked to break Tim out of his theatrics. Robin crossed his arms defensively while raising an unimpressed brow and stating, “Two of our brothers try to kill me on sight,”

 

“They don’t-!” Dick seemed to pause before he changed directions and said, “Well, Damien isn’t sharpening his knives for you anymore. What did you do that’s got Jason so pissed off again?”

 

Tim snorted to himself and put a bit of pride in his voice as he explained, “Last time he called me ‘replacement’ I told him he should’ve tried not being so replaceable.”

 

“That’s… not so bad,” Nightwing stated with a skeptic raise to his eyebrow. 

 

Tim sat under his gaze for a moment before he let his smirk grow fractionally and with a casual shrug continued, “I also told him that Robin’s greatest magic trick was making him disappear.”

 

Nightwing blinked for a moment before exclaiming rather loudly, “He died, Robin!”

 

Tim shrugged and waved a dismissive hand, “He got better. I think he’s more pissed that I reminded him that he used to enjoy being Robin than anything else.”

 

“Oh my-” Nightwing started to sigh.

 

Tim rolled his eyes and pointed out, “Didn’t you once tell him to dress up like a crowbar if he wanted to channel his fears?”

 

“How do you even know about that?” Nightwing asked in exasperation.

 

“I know things,” Tim shrugged, “I’m smarter than you, backflip boy.”

 

“I miss when I was an only child,” Nightwing grumbles. Robin finds himself laughing at the sight.

 

“Yeah, yeah,” Robin rolls his eyes and points to where a group of men wearing face paint were walking the street below. One only had a face half-painted. Potentially, this was a gang initiation. When Nightwing peered over to look, Robin asked, “You know where they’re going?”

 

“I thought you were the smart one,” Nightwing huffed.

 

“Twenty bucks they try to rob the ATM two blocks down,” Robin smirked.

 

By the end of patrol that night Robin returned to his room twenty dollars richer. He also found a missed text in the groupchat he, Kon, Cassie, and Bart had formed.

 

Cassie:

Who tf named our team Young Justice

 

With a sigh he typed back a quick message:

 

Robin:

Technically, Nightwing.

 

Kon:

And you let him choose that????

 

Robin:

It was that or Justice Juniors guys I really did my best

 

Bart:

Does this mean we’re officially a team??????

 

Kon:
If you admitted we were a team months ago we totally could’ve chosen a better name

 

Cassie:

It’s too late, Wonder Woman says the Justice League has Young Justice as the name on file

 

Bart:

On file for what?

 

Bart:

Are we getting official missions?

 

Bart:

This is so cool

 

Robin:

I’ll see you all this weekend. I believe Red Tornado will have more information for all of us.

 

Kon:
That’s it?

 

Cassie:
For real?

 

Bart: 

Hell yeah!

 

Tim placed his phone to the side as he made his way to the shower. He could deal with all of this after a few hours of sleep and touching base with Bruce. If they already had a file set up in the league database, Bruce and Dick have probably been planning on cornering Tim into officially declaring the team for a while.

 

He picked up his phone again while he was toweling his hair dry and found a private message, outside of the groupchat.

 

Kon:
This is why im in charge of naming things

 

Tim snorted as he send back a text.

 

Robin:
You're right. It takes an artist to come up with a name like "the supercycle"

 

Kon only took a minute to respond.

 

Kon:

its amazing how i can hear your eyes rolling through your texts

 

Robin:

What's amazing is your terrible sleep schedule for someone who's solar-powered

 

Kon:

how many rem cycles do you get in a given night asshole

 

Robin:

Tell me what REM stands for without looking it up

 

Kon:
Rob Enjoys Murder

 

Kon:
booooooo does batman know u enjoy murder rob???? 

 

Kon:

smh i expected better from u

 

Robin:

That's the best you could come up with?

 

Kon:

shut up im tired

 

Robin:

Goodnight Superboy

 

Kon:

see ya this weekend wonderful

 

Tim sighed as he dropped his phone onto his pillow. Laying down in bed, he found he couldn't help the small smile tugging at his lips. It was just so easy to talk to Kon, to laugh and joke and tease back and forth. It was in the softness of his joy that Tim allowed himself to shake away all of his apprehensions of officially declaring himself and his friends as a team. How bad could it be? 

 

---

 

It turns out, not so bad after all.

 

Being officially part of a team really wasn’t the worst thing in the world. While Red Tornado was reporting back to their mentors and the rest of the league about how Young Justice was doing now, overall not much has changed. Now weekend meetups were typically overnight stays. The four young heroes would train together, polish up roles and dynamics, and of course still find themselves in impromptu adventures sorting out whatever chaos the supercycle has found that week.

 

It’s been nice to have Cassie around. Robin finds her to be less annoying than Kon and Bart manage to be. Really, she only manages to dig that tight and annoyed feeling out of him when she’s around Kon. She’s funny and clever and can take a joke as well as she can tell one. She fits in well. Hell, they all fit in well together.

 

It only took a few weeks for Robin to realize the other three were probably the best friends he’s ever had, the headaches they cause him do nothing to belittle the way he’s begun to value each of them. Even though he sometimes wants to scream with frustration while dealing with Impulse’s inability to slow down, or from watching Kon and Cassie’s confusing will-they-won’t-they dance, he’s grateful that recognizing Young Justice as a team has allowed Tim the opportunity to stop holding back around his friends.

 

He found himself missing their companionship throughout the weekdays. Which, perhaps, is why he stopped Superboy one week as the team was all saying their goodbyes and see-you-laters.

 

“Hey, Kon, wait up a second,” Robin said with what he hoped was a light tone.

 

“Everything okay?” Kon pauses on his way out the mount to throw a confused look at Robin. Damn, maybe Robin should be hanging around the team at more of their “social down times” if Kon thinks he’d only stop to chat if something was wrong. It really wasn’t his fault though, he was just usually the one writing reports for the league -and, more importantly, for Batman- about the team’s missions and any progress through their training. He was busy, but doing the paperwork was the best way to keep Kon off his ass about who should be considered team leader.

 

“Yeah, fine,” Robin clarifies, “I’m just wondering if you remember that security drone shipment we busted up a few months back.”

 

“When we blew up a warehouse full of a million dollars worth of smuggled killer robots?” Kon asked with a smile and a raised eyebrow, “Yeah, dude, I remember.”

 

“It was only a million?” Tim can’t help the question. He could have sworn it would’ve been more. Two or three million at the least.

 

“Only?” Kon balked, “Man, I swear sometimes you have no concept of money.”

 

“Whatever,” Robin dismisses that thought with a wave of his hand before Kon could linger on that particular thought for too long, “Have you done any follow up on the crew since then?”

 

Kon shrugged and admitted, “Not really. Why?”

 

“Batman and have been tracking their movements. They’ve been rebuilding, from what we can tell. Pretty sure they're looking to be settled by this weekend in another warehouse of about the same size,” Robin explains. He’s been using his standard ‘debriefing voice’ as Dick calls it, but takes half a second to pause and force himself to sound more casual as he asks, “Wanna scope it out with me on Friday?”

 

Kon seems a bit surprised by the question, his eyebrows shooting up while he blinks owlishly. “You mean, like,” As he speaks, his eyebrows furrow like this could be a trick question, “Like, call the team in a day early?”

 

“Oh, uh,” Robin paused. He was prepared for a simple ‘yes’ or ‘no,’ not whatever was currently going on in Kon’s mind. He felt confusion form on his own expression as he conceded, “I guess we could do that.”

 

“Wait,” Kon suddenly looked excited, “Did you mean just you and me?”

 

Robin shrugged, embarrassed for seemingly no reason. He felt the need to explain himself, “I just figured… I mean this time it should actually be in-and-out, stealth and recon. We shouldn’t really need the full team. But maybe it would be a good exercise for-”

 

“No way,” Kon cut him off, grinning wildly. It seems genuine, hardly teasing, when he throws an arm around Robin’s shoulders and declares, “Just you and me, Rob. Been too long since we’ve hung out just us two.”

 

“I already regret inviting you,” Robin said as he stepped away from Kon’s grasp, but he’s smiling when he says it and the shake of his head is coming across a little more fond than annoyed.

Notes:

The feedback from readers has all been so sweet, thank you <3 I hope you enjoy this chapter too :)

Chapter 5

Notes:

CW: Slight self harm in the form of digging nails into skin to ground oneself.

“Hey, Boy Wonder,” Kon greeted as Tim climbed off his motorcycle at their meeting point. He seemed to be letting his gaze linger on the act of dismounting until he realized Tim was throwing him a quizzical look. He nodded his head at the bike and pointed out, “You didn’t take the Supercycle.”

 

Robin shrugged, supposing it had been quite some time since Kon has seen him drive anything besides the supercycle, and dismissed it as irrelevant when he said, “Felt weird to, without the whole team.”

 

“She’s gonna be so jealous,” Kon teased in a singsong voice.

 

“Shut up, she is not,” Robin said with an eyeroll, though he could feel the smile tugging on the corners of his mouth in response to his friend’s teasing.

 

“Who do you think will be worse,” Kon started to ask, “The supercycle when she learns you were taking joyrides on somebody else, or Bart when he finds out you and me are hanging out without him?”

 

“We’re not ‘hanging out,’ we’re following up a joint mission,” Robin pointed out. He almost ended it at that, but decided to continue with saying, “And the supercycle is a vehicle for Young Justice, obviously I don’t take her out without the team.”

 

“Does she know that?” Kon is asking with a smirk.

 

Robin thought back to the first time he, Kon, and Bart found the supercycle. He remembered the strange mechanical jealousy radiating off the supercycle when she grew near Robin’s personal bike. For a moment, he was actually entertaining the idea that the supercycle would be offended, then he shook his head and insisted the idea was ridiculous by responding, “She is a machine.”

 

Kon let out a low whistle and placed a hand over his chest, imitating an emotionally painful blow. He gave Robin a playfully wounded expression and said, “Damn, Rob. If that’s all you view her as, I might be inclined to rethink our joint custody agreement.”

 

“Maybe we should have invited the whole team along,” Robin voiced with exasperation, “You and Impulse could keep each other entertained while Wonder Girl and I actually got the info we needed.”

 

Kon crossed his arms suddenly, “Hey, I can be a way better help on this mission than Cassie.”

 

“Names,” Robin chastised, gesturing between them to emphasize the fact they were both suited up.

 

Kon, however, paid him no bother and continued with his point, “I’m the one who’s gone after these guys before, remember?”

 

The defensiveness caught Robin off guard. Maybe Kon had recently gotten into another disagreement with Superman over what he was capable of in the field. Robin was no stranger to those, having had plenty of his own with Batman, but if Kon was going into this mission even more cocky than usual it could pose its own set of dangers. He decided to try and keep Kon humble when he flatly responded, “You mean when we got a building blown up?”

 

“You invited me here,” Kon said while taking a step closer to Robin. He had an intensity behind his eyes. The pinched expression and tension in his shoulders should have been intimidating, he looked like he was itching for a fight, but more than anything else it just left Tim confused.

 

“Did…” Tim decided to speak slowly, carefully choosing his words. Kon’s attitude changed after the others were mentioned. No, after Cassie was mentioned. Kon was the one to bring up Bart and it wasn’t a problem, but when Tim brought up Cassie… He fixed his gaze, locking onto Superboy’s eyes, and asked the question, “Did something happen between you and Wonder Girl?”

 

Kon’s jaw clenched, just momentarily, before he asked, “What do you mean?”

 

Robin sighed, “Look, normally I’d say whatever’s going on between you two is none of my business, but if it’s going to be affecting team dynamics then I need to be kept in the loop.”

 

Explaining it brought a bitter feeling to Robin’s core. He knew he should be happy for two of his closest friends, but whenever he saw Kon or Cassie making the other laugh, leaning into each other’s space, even just high-fiving after a mission done well, then Tim would feel an uneasy wave of annoyance welling up inside him. It must be anxiety, concern over how their impending romantic relationship would affect the team dynamics. Clearly he had a right to be worried. Cassie and Kon’s little flirtationship was now affecting Tim and Kon’s dynamic when Cassie wasn’t even present, which was the worst possible outcome. Now Kon wouldn’t have his head on straight and the whole time he would be on mission with Tim he would be distracted by whatever drama was brewing between him and Cassie and-

 

“Wait, what’s going on between me and Cassie?” Kon cut off Tim’s spiral with seemingly genuine confusion.

 

Great, Kon wasn’t even aware of his crush on Wonder Girl and here Tim was, pushing them together. Part of his thoughts were insisting you’re supposed to be happy and supportive of your friends though all he could manage was throwing a disbelieving glare at Kon and grumbling out the reminder, “Names.”

 

Kon blinked, dropping some of the tension from his shoulders as he insisted, “No, really I…” He paused and deflected his gaze away from Robin’s eyes and gave a soft sigh before continuing, “I wouldn’t do anything to come between the two of you. I thought you knew that.”

 

“Between…” It was Robin’s turn to blink in confusion, “Between me and Wonder Girl?”

 

“Come on, Rob,” Superboy was still avoiding his gaze as he spoke, “You give her way less shit than me or Impulse on missions, you helped her with that extra training the other week, it’s pretty obvious that you like her.”

 

“As a friend, sure. As a teammate, absolutely. You’re the one who likes her romantically,” Robin crosses his arms as he speaks.

 

Finally, Superboy meets his gaze again, eyes shooting up to lock onto Tim’s and immediately defend, “I don’t like Wonder Girl. Romantically, I mean. Of course, as a friend-”

 

“Oh, please,” Robin cut him off a little bitterly, “What else could possibly be why you’re acting so wound up right now?”

 

“There’s nothing going on between you and Cassie?” Kon asked, apparently ignoring their previous conversation which clearly outlined that fact.

 

“Names,” Robin chastised, again. By now he was feeling far more annoyed.

 

“Fine, whatever, but there’s nothing going on between you and Wonder Girl?” Kon insisted on the question one more time, though this time he was pouting as he used Cassie’s alias.

 

Robin couldn’t help the frustrated glare he gave Kon as he gritted the answer through his teeth, “No. I have no interest in Wonder Girl beyond a purely platonic and professional relationship. If you were worried about ‘stealing her’ from me you wouldn’t be. Even if I was interested, she can make her own decisions. The two of you are my friends and I want to support you, but if this kind of drama is going to keep wasting my time-”

 

“Whoa, whoa,” Kon cut off Robin’s rant by grabbing onto his shoulders and squaring them both to be looking into each other’s eyes, “I’m not gonna ask out Wonder Girl.”

 

“Then what-?”

 

“Rob,” Kon moved his hands from Robin’s shoulders to slide down onto his arms before giving a slight squeeze and continuing, “I’m not interested in Wonder Girl.”

 

His voice sounded as genuine as he looked, pleading into Tim’s eyes as if this was a very important fact. It was reassuring, if nothing else, to hear that Kon wasn’t actively pursuing Cassie. Tim accredited the relief of hearing this to the light feeling rising from his chest. There was no chance for messy team dynamics stemming from Kon and Cassie beginning to date.

 

“I believe you,” Tim said, meeting Kon’s gaze. This felt important. Why was Kon treating it like it was important?

 

“You asked me to partner up with you tonight,” Kon pointed out. Tim felt a slight headache forming from the abrupt change in conversation.

 

“We’ve worked together dealing with this crew before,” Robin pointed out the same reason for being there Kon himself had brought up before.

 

“Is that it, though? I mean, you haven’t teamed up with anyone outside of group Young Justice settings since months before our team even had a name,” Kon stated.

 

Robin’s inability to follow this conversation was leaving him confused and frustrated. Is what “it?” Kon was making less sense than normal and it was keying Robin up in a more frustrating way than the team usually does. Hell, Robin was more frustrated than the last time he and Kon were doing recon on this gang of smugglers. 

 

They had work to do tonight. Then they had a full report to write up and then a full day of training in Mount Justice tomorrow, assuming the Supercycle didn’t find them any trouble to get into which would mean another report. Tim was tired and frustrated, which must be why he slipped up. When he spoke he said, “Kon, what-”

 

“Names,” Superboy cut off with a smirk.

 

“Your kryptonian name is different from a secret identity,” Robin defended, though Superboy had a point. Robin shouldn’t be calling him Kon in the field. 

 

“Who says I have a secret identity besides my kryptonian name,” Superboy gives a slightly teasing grin. Still sitting in frustration, Robin hardens an unimpressed look at Superboy. Kon must see something in Tim’s eyes, however, because he takes a step back -Tim tries to ignore the sudden cold he feels where Kon’s hands drop away- and questions, “Wait do you know my secret identity?”

 

Tim stayed absolutely still, willing not a twitch of muscle movement to pass through any part of his expression or body language. He was nothing but a living poker face.

 

“Oh my god!” Kon exclaimed, “You so do. Did Batman tell you?”

 

“I figured out Batman’s identity when I was a little kid, I didn’t need him to tell me Superboy ended up being Superman’s little cousin,” Tim said after letting out a defensive huff. He crossed his arms to try and bring some warmth back to them.

 

“You know Superman’s identity?” Kon blanched.

 

Tim grimaced. There wasn’t a trace of his poker face left, not that it was working in the first place. Kon had a gift for reading Tim. Tim, however, felt his frustration turn away from Kon being difficult and instead direct inwards at his own letting information slip. He tried for the honesty approach, hoping Kon would be receptive, and admitted, “I’m pretty sure I’m not supposed to, actually. So don’t tell him. Or Batman.”

 

“Can I know yours?” Kon asks with a raised eyebrow.

 

“Superboy…” Robin begins with a sigh.

 

“Hey, you know mine! And Superman’s apparently!” Kon lists off his apparent reasoning to try once again to have Tim reveal his name.

 

“Superboy I can’t,” Robin dropped his arms and shifted to look at the building they were supposed to be already inside of by now. He tried to let his regret leak into his voice when he continued, “Batman and-”

 

“Batman shouldn’t-”

 

“Superboy, we are here on a mission,” Robin slipped easily back to the role of stoic leader, a firmness hardening his voice as he spoke and asked, “Can I trust you to have your head on straight?”

 

“I’m not the one with trust issues here,” Superboy mumbled.

 

“You just used Wonder Girl’s first name multiple times and-”

 

“Oh, please, no one is around!” Superboy exclaimed, “Do you actually think you can’t trust me? Even if Batman gave you permission you still wouldn’t trust me, do you?”

 

“Superboy,” Robin snapped. He was very quickly feeling very, very angry. Having his trust called into question after months of working together, of showing up for each other. Kon still doubted the trust Robin extended to him? Maybe Dick was right, maybe Tim was in over his head trying to navigate team dynamics with peers. Robin wanted to yell and escalate the fight further but instead he paused to let out a sigh and suggested, “Maybe it would be better to wait to come back with the others tomorrow.”

 

There was real weight in the suggestion for the first time. A heaviness that seemed to settle onto Kon as he asked, “Because you don’t trust me?”

 

“I invited you here,” Robin said with a glare, speaking a fact Kon had brought up before but was seemingly disregarding the weight of now.

 

Reminding Kon of it, of the fact that Robin wanted Kon to join him tonight, therefore he clearly trusted his friend to be here, seemed to sober Kon from his bitchy attitude, just slightly. He looked at Robin, waited for the other to meet his eye, before speaking with an obvious lingering tension he was doing his best to ignore and saying, “I’m good. You good?”

 

Robin was not good. He was pissed and confused and sick of feeling like he was always missing some key piece of information during every interaction he’s been having with Kon recently. There was still a taught lingering tension in the air, but Kon seemed perfectly content to ignore it. In effort not to be shown up on his bat-hardened compartmentalization skills by a super of all people, Robin squared his shoulders and lied, “I’m good.”

 

Kon nodded and began to move towards the warehouse but only got a step before Robin called, “Hey.”

 

Kon turned around, raising an eyebrow in question.

 

“Are we good?” Robin asked. 

 

Kon’s eyes softened, just for a moment. He gave a soft smile that still didn’t reach his eyes when he answered, “Yeah. We’re good.”

 

Robin nodded sharply, moving to enter the building when he pretended he believed Kon. The tension was lingering between them still, but they had a job to do.

 

---

 

Superboy wasn’t exactly the stealthiest hero. He was the kind of guy who welcomed flashing cameras and fawning women with a cocky grin. Robin had worked with him enough now that he knew a lot of that was for show. Sure, the guy was overconfident and egoistical and a flirt and all kinds of things that drove Robin insane, but he was also a competent and capable hero. He was, occasionally, very good at stealth when the situation called for it. Right now -despite the fact the situation did certainly call for it- he was being a little bit too good at stealth.

 

He was quiet, more than normal. It felt almost unsettling to Robin as the two of them crept their way over to the warehouse, avoiding cameras or any other potential surveillance measures. Tension from their argument still lingered and yet somehow the boys moved seamlessly together. Part of it could be credited to experience working together, of course, but there had to be a lot of credit given to the act of formalizing the team. Significant time training together allowed them the skillset of operating fluidly and with focus in almost any environment, even an environment of stubbornly suppressed mutual frustration towards the other. 

 

Robin hasn’t felt this annoyed with Kon since… since before Young Justice had its name. Maybe that was the problem, maybe Robin couldn’t stand Kon without the others around. Maybe Robin wasn’t fit for working in partnerships besides missions with other bats. He worked well with Batman, patrolling with Nightwing, but Robin had been trained to work with them specifically. Robin was able to be a strong teammate, when many people were around to bounce dynamics off of. 

 

When it was all four of them, they’d be moving with several different parts. Everyone had different powers and abilities and skillsets. Everyone balanced the others. Maybe Robin had gotten too used to that, too comfortable. Maybe he had been taking it for granted, the way that a team dynamic kept everyone else too busy to realize how frustratingly secretive and strange and obsessive Robin really was at his core. 

 

Kon was being so uncharacteristically quiet that Robin didn’t realize how the building itself was uncharacteristically quiet too. He was too caught up in the practiced movement of Kon wrapping an arm around his shoulders and flying them up to the roof, next to a skylight. Any other day there would be a teasing comment. A smirk as Kon asked, “Going up?” or a joke of, “You should be called Kiwi or some other flightless bird.” Today there was no joke, no tease, not even a soft smile. There was one moment of Robin being next to the building, and then the next he was placed down on top with nothing more than a head nod in acknowledgement. 

 

Robin returned the nod and began to carefully, silently remove a window pane in the skylight as Superboy watched over his shoulder. On another night, Robin would’ve asked Superboy to see if he could see or hear anything inside the dark building, but tonight he fell into muscle memory of moving in silence and trying to ignore the thick atmosphere weighted between them. He turned to Superboy when he was finished and finally broke the silence between them asking, “Ready?”

 

Superboy nodded, still quiet. Robin tried not to let the nonverbal response refuel his frustrations all over again. Instead he allowed Superboy to once more hold an arm around his shoulders and fly them, landing softly in the surprisingly open floor of the warehouse.

 

The vastness of the empty building was Robin’s first hint that something was wrong. Kon didn’t seem to realize, immediately taking a step away from Robin as they landed. He glanced around the dark, same as Robin, but looked almost disinterested.

 

Robin, however, was focused. Too focused to linger on how Kon moving to the side seemed to take all of Tim’s warmth with him. Instead he noticed the lack of shipment containers, the lack of anything besides dark shapes turning slowly from the door. A soft mechanical sound accompanied a few red lights shining on the two of them.

 

“Shit,” Robin mumbled.

 

Kon looked genuinely confused and began to ask, “What-?”

 

Robin didn’t have time to explain, he was moving on instinct and jumped behind Kon to grab onto the back of Superboy’s leather jacket and hiss out the instruction, “Fly.”

 

“What?” Kon asked again, more insistent this time. He was trying to glance over his shoulder to where Robin was clinging to his back when the first shots started to ring out.

 

The gunfire clearly startled Kon, the bullets beginning to fire rapidly from the mounted security guns along the walls. Robin used his grip on Kon’s back to push upwards to signal to the skylight they had entered from as if he could push Kon into flying them out of there while he yelled over the gunfire, “Up, up and away! Let’s go!”

 

Finally, Kon got with the program. It was just in time for the aim of the mechanical guns to finally lock onto the two of them in the dark. Robin could feel Kon’s shoulders tense as the impact of the bullets pushed against him slightly. He could count the times he felt signs of Kon being impacted: one… two… three… four shots hit as he flew the two of them back out of the skylight. Robin wanted to be sick.

 

It was a trap, of course it was. Why wouldn’t it be a trap? Somehow the smugglers of this tech must’ve realized they were being surveilled -again- and this time they decided to fight back intentionally, rather than losing product. Robin didn’t see the trap coming and then he just… he let Superboy take on gunfire for both of them. 

 

This was sloppy work. It was nothing short of pathetic. Maybe Robin needed to take a leave of absence from the team. Clearly, he was growing too reliant on others around him. Tonight, Superboy was flying them out safely, but what about the next time? He felt furious with himself and was practically shaking with a gross cocktail of guilt and self hatred and disgust coiling in his gut while Superboy flew them quickly, all the way back to where Robin had left his bike earlier in the night.

 

They landed, Superboy facing the bike, and Robin took a sharp step backwards. He let his hands fall from clinging to Kon’s jacket to being curled as tense fists at his sides. Stupid, he was so stupid. He-

 

Robin’s thoughts were cut off when Superboy turned around with an almost unreadable expression on his face. He was eyeing Robin with worry, an expression that looked cautious and bewildered. Fuck, if he was hurt after all Robin would never forgive himself.

 

Tim felt nauseous again but swallowed it down to carefully ask, “Are you hurt?”

 

Kon just blinked at him in response.

 

“Superboy, are you-”

 

“Did you just use me as cover from gunfire?” Kon cut off Robin, suddenly seeming downright offended. He had every right to be pissed, of course, but Robin spent so much of the night arguing with Kon that the sound of his yelling made Robin’s own defenses flare up again.

 

He knew it was a stupid, reckless action to jump behind Kon, but he didn’t need to be called out on it. Batman was sure to chew his ear off about this entire night as it is, Robin really didn’t need to hear it from Superboy, too. So, Tim responded by crossing his arms and stating the fact, “You’re invulnerable to gunfire.”

 

It was the truth. It was why Robin’s instinct was to jump behind and not in front of. He knew Kon’s capabilities and obviously he shouldn’t make a habit of letting Kon take a hit for him -tonight alone was distressing enough- it would have been stupid for Robin to jump in front and start bleeding out instead of trusting Kon to get them out of there. Really, if you thought about it, the only reason any bullets hit Kon at all was because he was too slow to follow Robin’s orders to get them the hell out of there. So, in essence, it was kinda Kon’s fault he got shot, and it was definitely  his fault that Robin was too pissed and confused and wound up emotionally to focus and think of a better plan than having Kon lift them both out.

 

Kon matched his stance, crossing his own arms and arguing, “Batman would rather bleed out three different ways than let Superman take a hit for him.”

 

Tim felt furious for a few reasons. Firstly, because Tim wasn’t Batman and he wasn’t Nightwing and Kon sure as shit wasn’t Superman so comparing either of them to anyone else was completely irrelevant. Tim fucking hated when other people compared him to someone else, he did enough of that himself. 

 

Secondly, Tim was furious at Kon’s argument because Superman would let himself be hit by several bullets to keep any nonpowered member of the Justice League safe, especially Batman. And even if Batman didn’t like it at the end of the day the logical decision would always be to let the bulletproof individual block the likely fatal projectile, so Tim started to argue back, “Don’t be ridiculous, if the situation required it-”

 

“What if they had been kryptonite bullets?” Kon cut Tim off with another question.

 

“They weren’t,” Tim gritted his teeth as he answered. He began to dig his fingernails into his arms to fight back another surging sick feeling.

 

“And you knew that before you jumped behind me?” Kon’s tone of exasperation was still ringing loud and true in his voice.

 

“Yes.” Tim all but hissed as he dug his nails harder, using their pinch in his arms to try and ground himself. Kon was right, of course. Tim didn’t know for certain the guns were charged with regular ammo. Sure, he had seen the types of weapons these smugglers had been working with, and sure, he recognized the design of the weaponry, but these guys have gotten the jump on him twice now. He was confident, but not positive. If anything, he was overconfident in Kon’s ability to get them both to safety no matter the unknown variables that could have presented.

 

Superboy was still standing between Robin and the motorcycle, still looking at Robin with an expression of confused disbelief, as he said, “This just doesn’t seem like the type of thing you’d normally try to get away with.”

 

He was right again. This was too reckless. Robin knew this and he knew it was a terrible course of action but he had acted on instinct and already felt like shit about it and nothing could be done to change that so he still attempted to defend, “Well we got out.”

 

“But what if-”

 

“Are you serious, Kon?” Robin cut off with a louder voice. 

 

“Names,” Kon sneered.

 

Robin saw nothing but red. He was too pissed at himself, at the smugglers, at the tension between him and his friend. He couldn’t listen to Kon keep talking, keep voicing back to Robin all of his own self criticisms spiraling in his head. Kon, who any other day would be oozing confidence, would be bragging about being able to keep Robin safe, would be insisting they could go back inside right now and take out those guns and any other traps set up. Robin wanted that Kon, so he didn’t hold himself back as he let the words fall out of his mouth, “We were dead open with no other cover. We’ve seen their weaponry before and know they don’t have access to kryptonite. I had assumed you were tough enough to handle five fucking seconds of gunfire -which you’re invulnerable to- while you got us the hell out of there! So I’m sorry but it wasn’t like you were coming up with any better plans!”

 

Robin looked at Superboy, waiting for another argument to be spat back at him, but Kon stayed quiet. He was being so quiet tonight. He was looking at Robin with an expression that was a little close to shock, but had evidence of confusion clinging to it. Kon’s arms were loosening visibly, almost dropping to his sides, but he stayed quiet and just looked at Robin.

 

Robin felt another swell of nausea, guilt and insecurity, churning in his gut. 

 

“Listen,” Robin began, speaking softly and easing the pinching grip he had on his crossed arms. It was time to deescalate, “I should’ve thought of another plan, something smarter. These D-List smugglers just somehow keep getting the jump on me and things spun out so fast and-”

 

“You trust me,” Kon cut off Tim’s explanation. Robin froze with his mouth hanging open, whatever words he planned to say abandoned when he stared at Kon with wide eyes. Kon took the silence as a cue to further explain, “You only did that because you trust me.”

 

Tim stayed quiet another moment. He felt his eyebrows pinch together in confusion, were they really circling back to the trust argument again? When the silence grew uncomfortable to sit in, Robin spoke plainly, “Obviously.”

 

“You, like,” Kon had a hint of a smile growing on his lips and Tim tried to ignore how much relief the sight of it brought him, “You really trust me though.”

 

“Of course I trust you,” Robin said. He continued, words falling out of his mouth before he could think twice about them, “You’re, like, my best friend, dude.”

 

Superboy’s smile brightened immediately. His eyes widened with excitement as he spoke, “I’m your best friend?”

 

Robin glared, but he could tell it wasn’t carrying much heat at the moment. Kon was clearly taking the label of ‘best friend’ as the highest praise of honor possible. Tim could practically see Kon’s ego growing, confidence healing his previous sour mood the same way that Kon could be caught ‘recharging’ in the sunlight sometimes. Still, after all the arguing and emotional discomfort he had to deal with today, Tim couldn’t find it within himself to take it back. Instead, he doubled down on repeating a fact they’ve both brought up earlier in the night, “I invited you here tonight, didn’t I?”

 

“Of course you did,” Kon was practically glowing as he spoke, “Who doesn’t love a good late night mission with their best friend?”

 

Robin rolled his eyes, but once more didn’t deny it.

 

“You trust me so much,” Kon said. The tone was teasing but the light behind his eyes shined as though he was a little in awe.

 

“Can I trust you to shut up?” Robin asked, shifting uncomfortably where he stood. He was glad he had spent so much of the night in anger. Hopefully the high blood pressure worked in his favor to hide the embarrassed flush settling onto his cheeks.

 

“Robbie,” Kon grinned as he stepped forward to sling an arm over Robin’s shoulders. He didn’t firmly hold Robin or wrap him in TTK like he had when he flew them somewhere. Instead it was like a relaxed and casual point of contact, though somehow it left Tim feeling warmer than any other point of contact between them that night. Kon spoke with a cocky smile, “You can trust me to take a bullet for you.”

 

Tim let his head fall backwards in a groan, but didn’t try to step out of Kon’s touch. Instead he let the contact remain as he lamented, “Writing this report is gonna suck.”

 

“Be sure to include plenty of details on how heroic your best friend was, saving your life and all,” Kon said with a smile.

 

This was the confident, cocky Kon that Robin had been missing only a few minutes ago. Part of Tim was glad to have his friend acting normally, but another part was too stubborn to feed Superboy’s ego any more. Tim stepped out of Kon’s hold, moving towards his bike as he asked, “Are we in agreement that we really should bring the team in on this? Go over our possible next steps with the others tomorrow?”

 

“Oh, for sure,” Kon nodded, “Don't worry, I’ll keep the ‘us being best friends’ thing lowkey around the supercycle. She’s feisty when she’s jealous.”

 

Robin rolled his eyes while he put on his helmet.

 

Kon kept talking, “Do you think we should make bracelets? Do we need a secret best friends’ handshake?”

 

Tim was shaking his head, grateful that his helmet was masking the fond smile Kon’s ridiculous antics were causing Tim to form. He climbed onto his bike and called over his shoulder, “I’ll see you tomorrow, Clone Boy.”

 

“Bye, Bestie!” Tim could hear Kon yell after him as he began to speed away.

 

He ignored him and started to head back to the cave, thinking about how he could phrase the events of the night in a way that would minimize the lecture he got from Batman after the old man read the report.

Notes:

What if... next chapter... Kon-centric???

Chapter 6

Kon was, admittedly, a pretty unserious person. He could take important things seriously, of course he could. He understood the weight of being one of the few individuals on earth who had the skillset and abilities needed to fight the good fight, Clark was sure to drill its importance into him. Kon wore that “S” shield on his chest, that’s a pretty big deal and Kon knew how to take it seriously, but that didn’t mean Kon had to be a serious person at his core. 

 

Honestly, part of it is self preservation. He wasn’t born so much as he was harvested, created in a lab to take the place of a dead superhero. Then, the Superman wasn’t dead anymore and, while by now he’s grateful for Clark’s mentorship more often than not, Kon had to wrestle with the fact he’s just a government-issued “Plan B” if things go tits up for big blue. For a bit there we genuinely thought he would be sixteen forever, letting himself slip so far into denial he almost believed he wanted to spend eternity trapped in a hormonal prison of a manufactured body. The relief of being able to age was greatly overshadowed by his brush with death a small while back. If Kon sat and dwelled and ruminated then he’d drive himself mad with depression, so instead he allowed humor into his life. 

 

Kon would flirt. He’d flirt with women far too old for him, he’d let them fawn over him and take the compliments and revel when he could make them blush, but it was never serious. 

 

He’d tease others. If a mission seemed to be weighing down those around him with feelings of deep rooted stress or apprehension then he’d use his charm and wit and confidence to try and remind everyone else that just because they were superheroes didn’t mean they weren’t allowed to enjoy it. 

 

Somewhere along the way Rob became his favorite person to try and rile up. 

 

It happened as an accident, more or less. For a while Robin was just someone Kon knew about through hero gossip and background chatter. Then, he was someone Kon would see on occasion if a threat was big enough to call multiple heroes and young heroes to the scene. They didn’t interact much, back then collaborating with Robin was pretty much a package deal with Batman or Nightwing and they were a pretty self sufficient group in and of themselves. Robin was cool though, objectively, and Kon couldn’t help the way he was drawn in with curiosity and interest. 

 

Things didn’t actually start to change until their first “small job” together. Kon saw Robin, alone, slip into a warehouse he’d been stuck watching as busy work for way too long. That was interesting, so Kon took the opportunity to follow him in. Admittedly, there were some low points to the night: Kon immediately blowing Robin’s cover, both of them being underprepared, blowing up the building full of expensive (yet not legally registered) security equipment. 

 

But parts of the night went well, went really well. Sure, he and Robin argued, but it was fun to bicker back and forth with someone who could dish it out as well as they could take it. Not to mention the highlight of the night: Robin standing tall and lying to both Superman and Batman, pretending he called Kon in to help in a clear effort to minimize how much trouble Superboy would get in. Robin probably got plenty of lectures from Batman and knew the pain of a mentor’s disapproving lecture, but something about the way he stood up for Kon and then was able to turn around and tell Superboy to shut up within the same breath had Kon hooked. 

 

For a small while Kon wasn’t sure they’d cross paths again without requiring some level of intervention. Either the world would need to face a terrifying threat, or Kon would need to venture the terrifying endeavor of asking Clark if he could ask Batman for a way to contact Robin. Kon would probably prefer the first option if he were being honest. 

 

Then, they met again by chance. Kon and Bart had been hanging out, doing what used to be their sorry excuse for “training” without adult supervision, practicing working with their powers. Kon heard a crash, he and Bart raced there, only for Robin to pull up being sent to investigate it himself a few moments later. Suddenly, they had an excuse to see each other every so often since they shared custody of the supercycle (and Bart, Kon would often snort and add). 

 

Somewhere between weekends at Mount Justice, between arguments and food fights, between laying the foundation of a superhero team, the fantasy of “Robin-the-boy-genius-who’s-super-cool-and-fun-to-mess-with” began to fade and instead Kon began to see Robin as who he really was. 

 

Robin was an idiot. 

 

Sure, he was smart. Coordinated. Strategic. He was everything Kon would’ve expected from someone who had Batman and Nightwing as mentors, but he was also one of the most emotionally out-of-touch people that Kon has ever met. 

 

It took months of meeting at Mount Justice, months of writing field reports for Batman and the league, expanding their group to bring in Cassie, and an intervention staged by Nightwing before Rob would finally -finally- admit they were a team. The dude has a serious case of lone wolf syndrome. It’s pretty annoying, actually. 

 

He’s also pretty fucking oblivious.

 

Sure, stick him at a scene of a crime or an anomaly and the guy will spot clues Kon wouldn’t have even thought to look for, but god help the poor soul who tries to flirt with him. God help Kon’s poor soul as he tries to flirt with him. Robin was at least able to tell that flirting was happening, only he thought that Kon was targeting Cassie. Which, at least in learning that Kon was able to learn that Robin himself wasn’t interested in Cassie beyond teammates and friendship either. 

 

It’s hard to pinpoint when Kon’s feelings for Rob started to grow beyond friendship. At first, it was just run to tease and bicker with Robin. The guy was clever, witty, and sarcastic. He was cool without even trying, even when doing something objectively uncool or nerdy. It was easy to poke fun at him, to fall into banter back and forth. At some point during weekends at Mount Justice Kon realized that he wasn’t just saying his jokes to Rob, he was actively looking for the slight blush Rob would fight tooth and nail to keep off his face. He realized he stopped using the excuse of trying to count how many times in a mission Robin would roll his eyes, and simply was watching his eyes and taking in the way that they’d fill with passion and determination. He realized that Bart was his friend, but Robin wasn’t able to fit into that category in his mind the same way the speedster could. It didn’t feel right.

 

Then Cassie came along. Cassie was smart, capable, a creative problem solver. She was pretty and strong and powerful and Kon couldn’t escape the sound of alarm bells whenever Rob was left alone with her for more than a few minutes. Sure, Kon had the genetics of Superman on his side, but he was also a rather “strong” personality. He didn’t like being serious all the time, and Robin was a pretty serious guy. Kon might find it fun to rile Rob up, but that doesn’t mean Rob enjoys it the same way.

 

For a while Kon was worried that maybe Rob was just straight, maybe Kon had no chance at all. But then Rob will watch Kon just a little too long during training or his heart will speed up just slightly when Kon throws an arm over his shoulder, or he’ll laugh a little too hard at a joke that’s a little too dumb and Kon will be confident once more that Robin isn’t necessarily straight. He’s just oblivious.

 

Ironically, getting “friendzoned” was Kon’s biggest clue so far that his crush may not necessarily be unrequited. He’s spent so long agonizing over if Rob saw him as “just” a friend that learning Rob considered him his best friend made his stomach swoop. Rob had said it in a rush of anger, exasperation, and exhaustion. He had said it like he hadn’t even meant to speak the words, but they were so natural to say he didn’t even need to think about it being anything other than fact as the label “best friend” slipped past his lips. He invited Kon to the first non-Young Justice and non-Batfamily team up Rob’s had in months. To Kon’s knowledge it was the first team up Rob had willingly planned, maybe ever. He tried not to brag about that, but it was hard not to let the pride warm his chest and fuel his grin.

 

Honestly, the partnered mission with him and Rob was a rollercoaster of a night. It started out normal, enjoyable banter flowing easily between them. Then, they fell into argumentative tension fueled by jealousy and a lack of communication. Then, there was this moment. One moment when Kon was so, so sure that they were getting somewhere. A moment of understanding that apparently they both were needlessly jealous over Cassie, that they both wanted to be on that mission together as just the two of them, but then Rob’s eyes never seemed to finish putting together the puzzle where they were searching Kon behind his mask. It occurred to Kon that there is a real possibility that Rob never realized either of them were feeling jealous in the first place. So the tension lingered and the mission continued. When the mission went wrong Kon’s instinctual reaction was to lash out in confused frustration.

 

The first thing all night to go right, really go right, was Robin declaring Kon was his best friend. Not only that, but he showed Kon a ridiculous amount of trust. Kon may not know Robin’s real name -which was frustrating and oftentimes difficult for Kon to accept- and he may not know what Robin truly looks like behind the mask -which surprisingly never did much to take away from Kon’s attraction to the boy wonder- but he did know that Robin trusted him in a meaningful way.

 

So Kon swallowed back the bitterness of not knowing Robin’s eye color and told himself he was fine with being trusted to protect the fiercely independent young hero.

Kon wasn’t obsessed with Robin. He wasn’t. He had a well rounded social life, which mainly consisted of Young Justice who Robin was a member of, but still. He had friends. He had his pseudo-apprenticeship with Clark and even Kara sometimes. He went on solo missions, listened to music, played video games. He had interests and hobbies and even would let himself flirt and be flirted with as he showed off his talents. He wasn’t always thinking about Robin… He just happened to have a lot of free time to think when he was alone in his room and away from all his friends and missions and interests and hobbies.

 

So, alone in his room, Kon thought of Robin. He thought of everything he would give up to be trusted with the sight of Robin without the mask on. He thought about the shade of pink that Robin’s cheeks would turn when Kon told a joke so lame it was funny. He thought about the hint of red Robin’s face would turn when Kon pushed his buttons just a bit too far. He thought about how “best friends” sounded nice, but “boy friends” sound better. Then, he thought about the way Robin’s arms flexed as he spun his bo staff during training last week (after they debriefed the rest of the team on their investigation into the weapons strugglers) and Kon decided he would gladly settle for “friends who also made out.”

 

Maybe the special brand of flirting he and Robin had cultivated between them was too subtle. Maybe Kon could start to hint a little heavier. As fun as it is to pull on each other's pigtails, it wasn’t exactly yielding the results Kon had hoped for. Namely, making out and holding hands and admitting there was something between them that the label “best friend” failed to fully capture.

 

He sat, alone, a week from the day he heard Robin say “best friend” for the first time, and plotted how he could show Robin they were something more. He sat there and was perfectly content to spend his afternoon planning how to win the heart of the boy wonder until he heard some rapid beeping from outside his window.

 

He drifted over to the window, more curious than confused, and caught sight of the supercycle outside. It was hovering a few feet below his window, whirring and beeping with intensity. It was slightly concerning to see the vehicle acting so… concerned, but it was more concerning to see the vehicle with an empty driver’s seat. The supercycle had the autonomy to drive, of course, but it always went to Robin first to drive.

 

“Hey, girl,” Kon called as he opened the window, “Where’s Rob?”

 

The bike revved it’s engine twice in quick succession. Kon was normally pretty attuned to understanding the meanings that the supercycle tried to convey, but he had to admit he was a little lost here. It almost sounded like the supercycle was frantically growling.

 

“He piss you off?” Kon asked.

 

There was a shake to the wheels and handlebars accompanying the next rev, an action the bike had learned to mimic shaking a head “no.”

 

“You just miss me then?” Kon asked with a slight grin, it was amusing to talk to the bike sometimes, “You know, we’re all meeting up at the mount again tomorrow, right?”

 

The supercycle revved its engine particularly loudly as beeping sounds and blinking lights rang out across the console. Kon knew this one: get in now!

 

“Okay, okay,” He held his hands up in surrender as he spoke, “I hear you. Lemme suit up. 30 secs.”

 

He did, in fact, move as quickly as he could to pull on his “S” shield, leather jacket, and black pants. The longest part of getting ready was the moment he took to send out a text to the secure Young Justice groupchat Robin had set up.

 

Kon:

the sc showed up i would be ready in case shes scooping us all

 

Pocketing his phone, he climbed out the window of his room and landed in his usual seat in the back of the seating area. The supercycle tilted in the air, forcing Kon to stubble forward as it wagged the handlebars and beeped once more.

 

“I’m driving?” Kon asked with suspicion, then with excitement as he questioned, “For real?”

 

The supercycle beeped and whirred loudly again until Kon sat in Robin’s usual seat with a placating “Alright, alright, I get it.”

 

The jolt of speed the supercycle took off with almost sent Kon falling out of the driver’s seat. Fixing his grip, he tried to straighten out her path, but she kept tugging until Kon found the balance between holding on for his own sake and letting her steer. Honestly, rigging in the driver’s seat was bringing Kon a newfound respect for Rob’s driving abilities. He may have been slightly too hard on the guy in his teasing if this is how the supercycle always drove. 

 

When they finally came to a stop they were outside the house of Max Mercury. Before Kon even had the chance to take his phone from his pocket and message Bart that he was outside, a whoosh came pouring out of the house and Impulse was standing at Kon’s side.

 

“Why are you driving?” Impulse asked with confusion.

 

“She wanted me to,” Kon shrugged as he answered. Then, before the bike could begin beeping too harshly again he instructed, “Sit down.”

 

“Right,” Impulse nodded, and in a blink he was sitting. It seemed to be within the same second that the supercycle took off again.

 

“Whoa!” Impulse called, grabbing onto the seat for extra security while Kon gripped the handlebars even tighter. He called out loudly, yelling over the wind, “Jeez, man! Where’s Rob?”

 

“She got me first,” Kon called back, still not understanding why.

 

“She never gets you first,” Impulse pointed out.

 

“I guess she finally realized she likes me more,” Kon yelled back with a smirk.

 

“Or she knows he’s busy,” Impulse said in a tone that suggested he thought his explanation was far more likely.

 

Kon couldn’t fight back the scoff he let out before saying with a disbelieving tone, “The sun is barely setting, you seriously think he’s busy on patrol already?”

 

“Most of our missions are in the daytime,” Impulse points out.

 

“Yeah, but Robbie works at night whenever he can help it,” Kon argues back.

 

“Sorry,” Impulse apologized sarcastically, “I forgot you know him best. So where is he?”

 

“We’re probably getting him soon,” Kon said. He was grateful for the loud rush of wind, the way it likely drowned out the tone of uncertainty in his voice.

 

“Why isn’t he responding in the groupchat, though?” Impulse asks next.

 

“He’s not?” Kon was a little surprised. When a potential call for a mission came through Rob was usually first to respond. Actually, he was usually the one messaging the rest of them about the mission.

 

“Duh, check your phone,” Impulse said.

 

“Dude, I’m not gonna text and drive!” Kon exclaimed in exasperation, “I can barely hold on as it is.”

 

“Well, yeah, ‘cause Rob is our driver,” Impulse circled back to the main point.

 

Kon was letting out a groan as an abrupt stop forced both him and Bart to jolt forward in the seats. Looking up, Kon saw Cassie already moving out of the door to a house and running to hop into the supercycle.

 

“Okay, okay, let’s go!” She’s crying out before she’s even fully seated in her usual seat. The supercycle seemed to agree with her urgency and launched to fly immediately.

 

“Are you okay?” Bart asked her, ignoring the frantic way she moved to clutch at her seat.

 

“Jeez, SB! We need to move fast, not so much furious,” She exclaims.

 

“Why do we need to move fast?” Bart asks her. Kon finds himself hoping maybe she has some idea what’s going on.

 

“Uh, because my mom is going to kill me!” Cassie says in a tone as if it should be obvious, “I mean, seriously? Pulling the supercycle up to my house and having me run out in costume before it’s even dark? No way Rob would approve this shit.”

 

“Have we had any word from him yet?” Kon asked, still unable to check his phone.

 

“You mean you haven’t?” Cassie asked before the supercycle takes a sharp turn and she shifted to grasp tightly to her seat and exclaim, “Jeez! We better find him soon, why is Superboy driving?”

 

He felt his defenses flair at the reminder that this was far from their smoothest ride and reminded them both, “You know, Rob wasn’t too good at controlling her either when he first started driving the supercycle.”

 

“Yeah, well luckily I missed that part,” Cassie huffed before she added on, “When you find him, maybe he can give you driving lessons.”

 

“Why am I the one finding him?” Kon asked with a slight blush, “Shouldn’t we all be trying to find him?”

 

“Because you should already know where he is,” Cassie called back.

 

Kon felt himself bristle as he insisted, “I’m his best friend, not his keeper.”

 

Bart let out a loud groan upon hearing that. It was hard to make out over the wind, but Kon’s superhearing didn’t let him miss the way the speedster grumbled, “I swear he talks about being Rob’s best friend more than he ever bragged about his TTK.”

 

“Have you tried calling him on comms yet?” Cassie asked.

 

“Huh,” Kon turned to Bart to share a brief glance before refocusing on trying to steer, “Why didn’t we think of that?”

 

“Because you boys are useless without me,” Cassie answered. She powered up the comm system before either Kon or Bart could argue her point and began to speak, “Robin? Robin, this is Young Justice. We’re -Whoa! Watch it, Superboy!- We’ve each been picked up by the supercycle. Do you copy?”

 

“Hey guys,” Kon calls out, “I think we are getting Rob. I mean, we’re entering Gotham.”

 

“Are we allowed in Gotham?” Bart asks in a tone that makes it hard to tell if he’s nervous or excited.

 

“Almost definitely not,” Kon answers, trying and failing to steer the supercycle in another direction.

 

“Rob, she’s taking us into Gotham. You better be masked up, because someone has superstrength and still can’t steer her well at all,” Cassie says into comms.

 

“She’s got a mind of her own!” Kon yells in his own defense. Cassie had a good point though. As much as Kon wanted to know Robin’s secret identity, the supercycle showing up to his civilian self would be a surefire way to piss Robin off. 

 

“I can’t believe we’re in Gotham!” Impulse cheered, excitement clear in his tone this time. In an instant his tone shifted to concern, though, as he tacked on, “Batman is going to kill us.”

 

“Batman doesn’t kill,” Kon reminded Bart, “But if we blow his secret identity, Robin might.”

 

“He wouldn’t kill his best friend,” Bart said in a clearly teasing tone.

 

Kon remembered the way he and Robin argued a week ago, he remembered the tense air between them and the way Robin stoically shut down colder than he had in months. If he was forced to out his identity the whole team would probably suffer from moving three steps backwards in terms of Robin trusting them. Even Kon, regardless of his status as Robin’s best friend.

 

“Superboy?” Cassie prompted. Kon realized he let Bart’s tease linger in the air without response. He didn’t have it in him to tease back about it, though.

 

“I think we’re slowing down,” Kon pointed out instead. He could practically feel Cassie and Bart sharing a look of confusion behind him, but he didn’t call them out on it. Instead, he focused on the way that they were, indeed, slowing down. They came to a hover just before landing on a Gotham rooftop and across the flat roof a looming figure was glaring at them angrily.

 

“What are you doing here?” Batman all but growled.

 

“Uh…” Kon started. He looked at the others behind him. Bart looked slightly terrified while Cassie looked lost in confusion. She sent Kon a shrug and gestured for him to talk. Kon turned back to Batman with his own confusion plain on his face and finally answered, “Maybe you could tell us that, actually. What’s going on?”

 

“Did Robin call you?” Batman continued his interrogation.

 

“You’ve heard from him?” Kon felt himself perk up, just slightly. He finally moved, climbing out of the supercycle to stand in front of it as he asked, “Is he here? He hasn’t been answering us.”

 

“So you decided to come to Gotham?” Batman stepped forward in a stance that was intimidating, but frankly Kon was too worked up for it to have its desired effect.

 

Instead, he huffed in annoyance and crossed his arms before he rattled out an explanation as best he could, “Look, the supercycle shows up? We get in. That’s been, like, our whole deal even before we were a real team. So she showed up, and we got in, she took us here. Only weird thing is that it isn’t a Saturday, and she didn’t get Rob first. So I’m gonna ask again, man, is Rob here?”

 

If Batman was annoyed, frustrated, even possibly impressed with the way Kon spoke to him his demeanor gave nothing away. He held his gaze on Kon for a second before letting it scan over to Cassie and Bart, moving to stand at his side in support, then finally returning to Kon.

 

“No,” Batman answered. His eyes moved to glare at the supercycle with skepticism.

 

“Then where is he?” Kon asked.

 

Before Batman could answer Cassie spoke up, “At least tell us what’s going on that would lead the supercycle to bring us here.”

 

 Batman was quiet, watching the young hero team for just a moment before he cleared his throat and spoke, “Red Tornado has mentioned the… supercycle seems to have a good intuition of getting Young Justice where you need to be. This time, it’s wrong. You kids can’t be here.”

 

“Bullshit,” Kon spoke before he could stop himself, “If there’s nothing going on then why are you here?”

 

“I didn’t say there’s nothing going on,” Batman growled out. Even with a mask covering most of his face Kon could tell he wore an angry expression. He continued, “I said that you three can’t be involved.”

 

The supercycle revved its engine in the same imitation of a growl Kon heard earlier. Batman snapped, glaring at Kon, “Don’t do that.”

 

Kon lifted his hands as if to surrender as he explained, “That was all her. Mind of her own, remember?”

 

“She’s stubborn,” Cassie chimed in, “Best chance we have at controlling her and making her leave when she wants to be somewhere is Robin. But he’s not here, apparently, so you might as well tell us what’s going on.”

 

Batman took a second to just stare at them all. His heartrate sounded steady, his breathing even, even with all his supersenses Kon couldn’t make any guess on what he was thinking or feeling at the moment. Eventually, and much to Kon’s surprise, Batman actually started briefing them on the situation.

 

“Oracle,” Batman spoke, pausing for just a moment before he continued, “Link Young Justice to our comms.”

 

In just a second there was a robotic voice in their ears confirming, “Link is secure B.”

 

“Yike!” Bart jumped at the sudden comm call, as if Batman hadn’t just announced it was to happen. Cassie rolled her eyes and slapped his shoulder lightly, signaling him to be quiet.

 

“The building across the street,” Batman directed the collective gaze of Young Justice, “That bank is under an ongoing hostage situation. Assailants are heavily armed, but any exits are blocked by Gotham PD already. Negotiations are underway.”

 

“Then why are you here, if the cops are taking care of it?” Cassie asked.

 

“Insurance,” Batman answered, “In case things go south.”

 

“And where’s Rob?” Kon insisted once more.

 

“On a mission,” Batman explained in the least-detailed way possible, “Radio silent for the time being.”

 

“Rob’s on a mission, and you’re staking out a hostage situation, playing understudy for Gotham PD?” Impulse asked. If Kon had asked, the question would have been covered in a clear layer of disbelief, but Bart genuinely sounded as if he was ensuring he had all the facts lined up. He perked up, “Hey, now that we’re here why don’t we move in?”

 

“They’ll shoot,” Batman growled out.

 

“I’m faster than their guns,” Impulse bragged before gesturing towards Kon and adding, “And SB is bullet proof!”

 

“I’m aware,” Batman spoke gruffly. Superboy felt his cheeks heat slightly at the realization that Batman likely received a full debrief on last week’s mission failure for him and Robin. He couldn’t linger on the thought for too long, though, because Batman continued, “There are too many variables. Your team is not known for its stealth.”

 

“So what-” Cassie started to ask before they all launched forward at the sound of a loud BANG!

 

Suddenly multiple gunshots were ringing out and Batman called to the younger heroes, “Move in!”

 

The four of them rushed into the bank as the crew was beginning to clear out.

 

“Two are exiting the back fire exit, shots fired at GCPD officers,” The robotic voice came through comms again.

 

“I can-” Impulse started, but Batman cut him off.

 

“23 hostages. Ensure each one is alive,” He instructed.

 

“But-”

 

“Focus on the hostages,” Batman reiterated.

 

They made it through the doors and Batman immediately caught the barrel of a gun and pushed it upwards. Glass from the skylight rained down and bullets shattered through it, Batman engaging in actively disarming the two men from the heist crew. While the bat took care of them, the Young Justice members moved further in. 

 

“Impulse, if they’re uninjured, rush them outside,” Cassie called out, “Kon and I will see if any of the injured need a backboard or if you’re good to carry them out, too.”

 

The scene was bloody. It was a mess. Kon didn’t like to take himself too seriously, but this was one of those moments where there was nothing to do except be serious. The air carried with it a sting of gunpowder and iron, a sharp and suffocating stench that Kon often wondered about. Was it his supersenses that made it so nauseating, or did gunpowder and fresh blood smell so overpowering to everyone?

 

“I need to get you out of here,” Impulse insisted to a woman who was refusing to leave. God, was she pregnant? Even if she didn’t look ready to pop, Kon could clearly hear two heartbeats coming from one person.

 

“No, no!” She cried in hysterics, “He jumped in front of me! He just… Help him!” 

 

“I got him,” Cassie told her, moving to check over the wounds of the younger guy with dark hair that was bleeding on the ground. 

 

“Help!” A man sobbed out. Kon left Cassie to the young man as Bart carried the pregnant woman away from the scene. 

 

“Sir,” Kon greeted as he approached.

 

“My leg!” The man yelled, “My leg, I-”

 

“Can you sit up?” Kon asked as calm as he could.

 

“My leg was hit, I can’t stand. I can’t. I can’t. I can’t-”

 

“I’m checking for head or spinal injury before we can move you,” Kon cut him off with the explanation as he began to hold pressure to the bleeding wound on the man’s leg, “I have a friend who can get you to a hospital real quick, I just need you to let me know if you can sit up, Sir.”

 

“Good idea, Superboy,” Cassie broke out of her steady stream of gentle assurances to speak though the comms. For a moment Kon forgot others were listening in. Cassie spoke through the comms once more, “Batman, Impulse can get the injured to a hospital faster than any ambulance. Is there one he can start taking them to?”

 

“Mercy Hospital has been notified to prep OR’s,” The voice -Oracle, Kon remembered- came through their comms, followed quickly by Batman asking, “How many injured.”

 

“Uh,” Impulse paused, “I carried 13 out, uninjured, so ten gunshot victims, Batman, sir.”

 

Batman’s voice came through once more, “Do you have a visual on the uninjured, Oracle?”

 

“Bodycam footage from outside shows me 13 uninjured,” Oracle confirmed, “But I really think we should get everyone injured immediate help.”

 

Kon felt like he was missing something. Obviously it was important to get the victims help, the whole Young Justice -save for Robin- was put on triage for that reason. Something about the robotic voice seemed to carry a particularly insistent edge to the tone.

 

“Impulse, transport the injured now,” Batman confirmed the order.

 

“Hey, this guy’s pretty bad,” Cassie waved him over, “Start here.”

 

“Why him?” The man in front of Kon asked.

 

“Keep pressure on this,” Superboy instructed, “It missed any major arteries. You’re gonna be just fine.”

 

Cassie, who had moved on to continue triaging victims, called out, “Hey! I think I got a spinal!”

 

The assailants must have all been apprehended, or at least the scene was cleared by GCPD, because some officers and paramedics began to filter through the door.

 

“Hey, bring a backboard over to Wonder Girl!” Kon called out.

 

The next few minutes moves quickly, but felt long and drawn out. His hands were sticky with blood, he felt nauseous from the stench of it all. Impulse carried the injured one by one to the hospital after Cassie, Kon, or a paramedic applied a tourniquet or other equivalent. Two injured left in ambulances, injuries too close to the spine to risk a young speedster rushing through the busy city streets. By the time the last of the victims were cleared from the scene, it felt a little too overwhelming to stand in front of smeared puddles of blood and piles of glass shards. 

 

“Take the back fire exit along the western wall,” Oracle’s voice came through, “Now that the victims have been tended, if you stay any longer you’ll be accused of contaminating the crime scene.”

 

“Right,” Cassie nodded as she spoke. Kon moved alongside her, running out of the room before any of the Gotham police could think of attempting to get a statement from either of them. Oracle directed them: A block over, up an alley fire escape, across a few rooftops until they landed back at where the supercycle parked herself. Impulse was already waiting there, grinning at Batman with an attempt to look totally-not-nervous.

 

“All of the victims have arrived at Mercy,” Batman said instead of a proper greeting.

 

“Confirmed,” Oracle’s voice chirped in, “And it seems like they’re all expected to pull through.”

 

“Good,” Batman affirmed.

 

“Disconnecting YJ from comms now. Good work today, guys,” Oracle said.

 

“Yes,” Batman agreed. Then he turned and seemed to be speaking almost directly to the supercycle as he growled out, “But from now on, you are not to enter Gotham without my explicit permission. Understood?”

 

The three young heroes nodded, but Batman seemed most concerned with the way that the supercycle’s engine seemed to hum in agreement.

 

“Good,” Batman declared, “Now if you’ll excuse me, there’s somewhere I need to be.”

 

It was as if between one second and the next, Batman was gone off the rooftop. That, in itself, wasn't surprising. What was surprising was the way he seemed too much in a rush to be bothered grilling out the team in a substantial way.

 

“Creepy,” Impulse commented, then turned to Kon and ask, “Do you have to be the one to drive us home?”

 

“What do you say, girl?” Kon asked the supercycle herself, who seemed to beep and chirp happily. Bart groaned.

 

“Rob better be back tomorrow, I swear,” Cassie complained as she reluctantly climbed into her seat.

 

“Oh, he’s gonna be so mad he missed us all being in Gotham,” Kon added his comment with a grin.

 

He couldn’t wait to see Robin tomorrow. He couldn’t help but to have missed him all night.

 

---

 

Saturdays have become Kon’s favorite day of the week. Some of them were dreadful, between training and Red Tornado’s progress reports and needing to catalog every action with more detail than he ever had to debrief Superman before. But even on those days, he was with a solid group of friends. There was something therapeutic to being around other young heroes. There was something meaningful about the friendship they all shared.

 

Since yesterday involved a spontaneous mission, there’d likely be a bit more downtime at today’s meeting. Kon couldn’t wait to give Robin shit for missing the one mission Young Justice had in Gotham.

 

Entering Mount Justice, Kon saw the supercycle before anyone else. 

 

“Hey, girl,” He greeted with a grin. She purred her engine and beeped in greeting, but Kon’s smile started to drop when he got a better look at her. He moved closer, noticing the dark color staining her back seat.

 

“Is that…” He started to ask, then took a step closer, “You don’t bleed, do you? That can’t be from yesterday, could it?”

 

There was too much blood, too much to have been carried over from Cassie, Bart and him riding the supercycle home after triaging the victims. What’s more, it still carried that metallic tang of being somewhat fresh.

 

Kon felt a rush of air being displaced next to him and turned to find Impulse standing there. The speedster greeted, “Good, you’re here. Come on!”

 

“Whoa,” Kon raised his hands as he spoke in an attempt to signal Bart to slow down before he asked, “What happened?”

 

“Come on!” Bart insisted again. He began to pull Kon down the hall by his arm.

 

“Is Cassie okay?” Kon asked as he glanced back to the bloody supercycle while letting Bart pull him forward. They were heading towards the MedBay. 

 

“It’s someone else,” Bart said in a tone which sounded a bit too excited when Kon considered the amount of blood sitting in the supercycle. 

 

The MedBay doors opened before Kon could ask for further elaboration. The metal voice of Red Tornado greeted him, “Superboy, you’re late.”

 

He was, but only by a few minutes. Certainly not late enough to have missed an entire mission, which -given the bloody blonde girl sitting masked up in red white and gold- seemed to be a solid possibility. Kon has never been more confused in his life.

 

“Who’s that?” He asked instead of commenting on his lateness.

 

“Who’re you?” The girl asked. She let her eyes rake up and down Kon and wore a smirk that could’ve been lazy, but Kon had a feeling the lax expression had more to do with blood loss than suave charm. Flirting was fun, Kon knew how to flirt. She was pretty, even pale and wounded as she was, but Kon was still a bit too lost to play the flirting game right now.

 

He looked down at the “S” on his shirt then back up at the girl. With crinkled eyebrows he asked her, “You don’t know who I am?”

 

Cassie let out a scoff and rolled her eyes. She turned to the girl on the table and informed her, “Ignore Super-ego over there, he gets testy when he’s going through Robin-withdrawal.”

 

“I do not-” Kon began, but Bart cut him off.

 

He sped over to the table and gestured to the girl. Bart smiled widely and announced, “This is Arrowette, she’s gonna be our newest teammate!”

 

“Oh?” Kon asked. He scanned the room to look for Robin to confirm, but his absence was apparent. It made Kon a little uncomfortable, Robin was never late. Robin was normally chewing Kon’s ass out for being late, or god forbid Bart show up late despite his superspeed.

 

“Well, we never said that,” Cassie chimes in, raising a bit of a skeptical eye at the new girl.

 

“Oh come on,” Bart whined, “The supercycle picked her up! That’s gotta mean something.”

 

“It means she was poking around one of our cases when she nearly got herself killed,” Cassie shot back.

 

“Untwist your panties, Princess,” The girl -Arrowette- said as she shot a glare at Cassie, “I’m not gunning for your spot as queen of the boys club.”

 

“That’s not-!” Cassie cut herself off. She let out a breath and spoke in a much calmer tone, “We just met you.”

 

“You joined the team the first time we met you,” Kon spoke up, mainly just to watch Cassie get more worked up. He didn’t like being the only one who was confused, he could at least wind up Cassie as consolation.

 

“Rob said we weren’t a team yet back then,” Bart pointed out.

 

“Rob was full of shit back then and we all know it,” Cassie argued.

 

“Speaking of Rob,” Kon began, “Where the hell is he?”

 

“I’ll check the door!” Bart barely managed to finish announcing before he zoomed out of the room.

 

Red Tornado didn’t sigh, but only because he couldn’t. Annoyance was plain in his robotic tone as he informed the room, “Robin will not be joining us today.”

 

“What does that mean?” Kon asked with a glare.

 

“See, testy,” Cassie mumbled to Arrowette.

 

“It means,” Red Tornado spoke in a tone that implied he wished he could glare back, “That he will not be here today.”

 

“But why-”

 

“Why don’t you know where he is?” Cassie asked Kon, cutting off his question.

 

“Why do you think I always know where he is?” Kon snaps the question. She and Bart seemed to have expected Kon to know everything about Robin’s whereabouts yesterday, too.

 

“Because you’re, like, obsessed with him,” Cassie responded with a shrug.

 

“What?” Kon asked, though it was more of an aghast exclamation.

 

“Don’t worry,” Cassie dismissed with a wave of her hand, “It’s cute.”

 

Bart was zooming back into the room as Kon exclaimed, “I am not obsessed with him!”

 

“Are we finally talking about Superboy’s crush on Rob?” Bart asked.

 

“What?” Kon’s question came out as more of a shriek this time.

 

“Don’t worry, he’s not here,” Bart said with a dismissive hand of his own.

 

“Red T says he’s not coming,” Cassie told Bart.

 

“Oh,” Bart acknowledged before turning to Kon and asking, “Where is he?”

 

“I’m not his keeper!” Kon exclaimed, “I just his-”

 

“His best friend,” Cassie and Bart finished with Kon. The knowing look they shared between each other made his eye twitch a bit.

 

“Oof,” The new girl spoke up again, “Friend-zoned.”

 

“I am not friend-zoned,” Kon snapped before he could think better of it. Seeing the amusement grow on Bart and Cassie’s faces, he quickly thought to try and take the comment back, “I mean… That’s not what I mean. I am his best friend. Which is why I’m concerned about him going MIA.”

 

“So call him and see what’s up,” Cassie suggested with an eyeroll.

 

“Why haven’t you called him?” Kon asked for no reason other than to be argumentative.

 

“Been busy,” Cassie said in exasperation, gesturing to the new girl once again.

 

“Right. Right, sorry,” Kon turned to Arrowette again and asked, “Are you okay? And, like, how did you get here?”

 

“I’m fine,” Arrowette began, but Red Tornado cut her off by saying, “Arrowette has suffered from a large amount of blood loss due to an abdominal wound.”

 

“I’m fine now,” Arrowette clarified with a glare towards Red Tornado. She continued to explain, “I was at a warehouse looking into some weapons smugglers. Their tech was a bit higher security than I expected. By the time I was hit, your guys’ spaceship-buggy was pulling me out of there and dragging me here where robo-doc was able to patch me up.”

 

“We think it’s the same smuggler gang you and Rob briefed us on last week,” Cassie informed Kon, “It would explain why the supercycle was tuned into the location and knew to jump in when Arrowette got hurt.”

 

“Or,” Bart cut in with a grin, “She just knows Arrowette is meant to join Young Justice!”

 

“You talk about that thing like it has a mind of her own,” Arrowette raised an eyebrow at Impulse.

 

“She does,” Kon, Cassie, and Bart replied in unison.

 

They sat in the quiet for a moment before Cassie turned to Kon and all but ordered, “We should call Rob. We need to at least try to fill him in, especially if we found a new team member.”

 

“So now I get your vote of approval?” Arrowette asked with a skeptical raise to her eyebrow.

 

“It’s occurred to me that the only other ‘girl’ on the team is a semi-sentient alien car,” Cassie answered with a shrug. 

 

Kon hesitated. It took him a moment to realize the other three young heroes, along with Red Tornado, seemed to be looking at him expectantly. He willed himself not to blush as he rolled his eyes and took out his phone to be the one to make a call.

 

It rang three times before Robin answered with an almost groggy, “Hello?”

 

Kon ignored the way Bart turned to the girls and commented, “I told you he’d answer him.”

 

Kon also ignored the way he’s never heard Robin’s voice sound like that, like he was tired but not like he was skipping sleep to stay out on patrol or like he was running ragged after a fight. It sounded like he just woke up too early from a sleep that was too shitty. Weird.

 

“Hey, Rob,” Kon greeted back, “You’re on speaker.”

 

“Hey guys,” Robin said. It sounded like he was shifting to sit up in bed. He spoke with a soft casualness in his voice and Kon ignored the way it warmed him as Robin said, “Didn’t Red T tell you I won’t be in this week?”

 

“Are you still on your mission for Batman?” Bart asked.

 

“Something like that,” Robin said with a slight sigh.

 

“Wait,” Arrowette spoke up, “It’s really Robin? Like Batman-and-Robin Robin?”

 

“Who’s that?” Robin asked. His voice was suddenly much fuller, more like he sounded when he was out in the field or conducting training.

 

“The supercycle found us our newest member!” Bart cheered.

 

“What?” Robin asked. Kon could imagine the way he would be sending Bart a confused glare from behind his domino, Robin always hated when he was out of the loop.

 

“Arrowette was picked up by the supercycle last night,” Cassie spoke up to explain, “She was injured while investigating those weapon smugglers that keep getting the jump on you and Superboy.”

 

“Oh,” Robin’s short response came through the phone. For a moment, no one said anything. Finally, Robin’s voice came through the speaker again and asked, “Did she bring you any new information on the weapons stashes?”

 

Always focused on the mission.

 

“She barely brought any of her own blood with her,” Cassie said.

 

“Hey!” Arrowette cut in, but Cassie ignored her.

 

Wonder Girl continued, “We are a little more focused on physical recovery before we grill her for a full mission debrief.”

 

“Right,” Robin’s voice said curtly. In an almost bitter tone he continued, “Recovery is important.”

 

“Indeed,” Red Tornado cut in, speaking up when he usually would let the Young Justice members talk amongst themselves. 

 

“Indeed,” Robin echoed, almost petulantly, but he plowed onwards anyway, “Well, Arrowette, I’m glad to hear you’re okay. If you’re serious about teaming up with Young Justice then-”

 

“Wait, you’ll let her join?” Bart cut in with excitement. Then, he added with suspicion, “But you don’t even know who she is.”

 

“Arrowette,” Robin began, “Trained by Miss Arrowette, though I’d say she’s surpassed her mentor. She’s mainly worked alone for a few years, but has teamed up with Impulse before. Right, Imp? She-”

 

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Arrowette piped up, “How do you know all this.”

 

“I’m a detective,” Robin spoke flatly.

 

“He’s kinda creepy, but he means well,” Cassie said while giving Arrowette a soft nudge.

 

“So Arrowette really gets to join the team?” Impulse asked while he practically vibrated with excitement.

 

“I’ll be back next week,” Robin said in place of a clear answer, “We tend to meet on Saturdays.”

 

“Next week?” Red Tornado uncharacteristically spoke up again, “I was under the impression you would not be joining us again until next month.”

 

“Two and a half weeks until I’m back in the field,” Robin explained, “But there’s no reason I can’t rejoin investigations at the base next week, especially if we’re making new progress with the weapons smugglers.”

 

“Batman informed me-” Red Tornado began.

 

Robin cut him off, “Who are you gonna trust to know my limits, me or Batman?”

 

“Batman,” Red Tornado responded flatly.

 

“Wait, Rob, what’s going on?” Impulse asked.

 

“Are you okay?” Cassie asked as well.

 

“I’m fine,” Robin insisted, “I’ll fill you in when I see you next.”

 

“You will not return to Mount Justice without medical clearance approved by Batman,” Red Tornado said.

 

The pieces were starting to fall into place, confusion clearing in Kon’s mind.

 

“Medical?” Bart yelled the question, concern in his eyes.

 

“He’ll approve me,” Robin said with a determination, “And until then Wonder Girl is in charge.”

 

“Why does she get to be in charge?” Impulse asked with offense, concern leaving his expression and tone. Another day, Kon would be jealous alongside him, but he currently wasn’t able to stop the ringing of alarm bells in his ears.

 

“According to the Justice League, I believe I am always in charge,” Red Tornado said. He should update the lights behind his eyes to be able to show when he wants to roll them.

 

Robin ignored Red Tornado and informed the rest of Young Justice, “Because she’s least likely to blow up Mount Justice before I get back.”

 

Cassie looked a little smug, but also confused. She asked to clarify, “You sure you’re good, Rob?”

 

“Yeah, I’m good,” He assured, “I’ll talk to you all-”

 

“Wait, wait,” Kon cut him off.

 

Robin sighed and started to say, “Kon, if you’re not in charge you won’t have to do the paperwork.”

 

“I have to do paperwork?” Cassie wrinkled her nose.

 

“No, it’s not that,” Kon insisted, “It’s-” He paused and turned to Arrowette, “Do you have superhearing?”

 

“Uh, no?” She answered.

 

Kon nodded, “Be right back.”

 

He clicked the phone off speaker and left the room, ignoring all the questions calling after him. Walking down the hall, away from the MedBay, he raised his phone back to his ear and told Robin, “You’re off speaker, it’s just us.”

 

“Kon, what’s going-”

 

“You were there,” Kon cut him off.

 

Robin hesitated just a moment too long before asking, “I was where?”

 

“The bank last night. When we showed up in Gotham you were-”

 

“Why were you in Gotham? Young Justice isn’t cleared to-” Robin tried to cut Kon off.

 

“Don’t bullshit me right now, Rob,” Kon barely held himself back from yelling.

 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Robin tried to insist, but he was missing the sharp edge his voice normally carried.

 

“Okay,” Kon laughed without humor, “Then why don’t we talk through it? The supercycle picks us up on a random day, each of us but not you. She takes us to your city, when she’s always attuned to us being in danger or needing help, but doesn’t take us to you. Even though you’re her favorite.”

 

“I am not her favorite,” Robin tried to cut in. It was a stupid thing to say, they all knew he was her favorite and normally Rob would take that title with pride. 

 

Kon didn’t call him out on the ridiculous statement, instead he continued to ramble, “No, she takes us to a random hostage situation where Batman was already on the scene. Batman, the Batman, supervising a scene the police were already set up at. Because Robin was trapped inside, in his civilian persona.”

 

“That’s ridiculous,” Robin started to say.

 

“You were shot, Robbie,” Kon couldn’t help but raise his voice this time, “You were shot as your civilian self which is why you’re on medical leave. You were shot when we were right outside and now you won’t even own up to it.”

 

“Kon,” Robin’s voice sounded tired, “It’s not like that.”

 

“Stop lying to me!” Kon clenched his fist so hard he could feel his nails pinching into the palm of his hand.

 

Robin didn’t respond. The call was quiet, save for the sound of his breaths on the other end of the line. After far too long Robin spoke up again, “What do the others think?”

 

“Seriously?” Kon wanted to punch something, “What do the others think?”

 

“I’m not saying I was there, but-” 

 

“Are you kidding?” Kon let out another humorless laugh, “You won’t even fucking admit it?”

 

“Kon-”

 

“Don’t, don’t. Don’t you fucking dare,” Kon refused to let Robin get a word in edge-wise, “The fucking supercycle knew you were in trouble as your civilian self. She gets to know when you’re in trouble? She gets to know who you are? But not me? I’m supposed to be your best friend.”

 

“She’s a machine, Kon,” Robin growled out.

 

Wrong answer. Kon’s fury ignited tenfold as he snapped back, “She is more than that and you know it!”

 

“You’re being insane,” Robin bit, an almost desperate sound to his voice.

 

“Oh, I’m insane? No. What’s insane is the fact that I have smelled your blood pouring from a bullet wound but I wouldn’t have been able to trace the scent back to which of the ten bleeding bodies was you,” Kon cried out. He was being a bit hysterical, but it was justified.

 

“I didn’t realize different people’s blood smelled distinct,” Robin retorted dryly.

 

“That’s not the point!” Kon argued. He was pissed to the point of tears heating behind his eyes.

 

“Then what is?” Robin asked, having the nerve to sound exasperated, “I thought we were past this. I thought you trusted the fact that I trust you even if I can’t tell you my identity.”

 

“This isn’t about your trust,” Kon snapped.

 

“Bullshit,” Robin countered.

 

“How the fuck can I trust myself to keep you safe if I don’t even know who you are?” Kon yelled. 

 

Fuck.

 

The question hung in the air. Kon was practically panting, though he could feel his anger melting from a righteous fury to an exhausted cocktail of sadness and frustration.

 

Robin broke the quiet, a soft voice as he said, “You know me. You know the parts that matter.”

 

“All of you matters," Kon said, a little too raw, a little too broken.

 

“I don’t need your protection,” Robin said with an almost empty tone.

 

“We’re teammates,” Kon countered, “We’re friends. You trust me in a reckless, let-me-take-a-bullet-for-you kind of way, but when you take off your mask I don’t know who I’m supposed to take the bullet for.”

 

“You’re not supposed to take a bullet for me,” Robin said.

 

“No, I’m just supposed to triage you without even knowing it,” Kon said dryly.

 

“Kon-”

 

“Do you know Arrowette’s civilian name?” Kon couldn’t help the question.

 

Robin was quiet. The hesitation was enough of an answer but Kon still waited until Rob spoke again anyway, “I saw it when I pulled up Batman’s file on her. I didn’t mean to see.”

 

“I said to stop lying,” Kon reminded him with a bitterness in his voice.

 

“I really didn’t,” Robin tried to insist.

 

“Like you didn’t check in my file?” Kon asked sarcastically.

 

“I didn’t check your file,” Robin argued.

 

“You just actively figured it out?” Kon shook his head despite Robin not being able to see him as he asked, “You realize that’s sort of worse, right?”

 

“Kon…” Robin trailed off after the name.

 

Kon swallowed around the lump in his throat before saying, “Get some rest, Robin. Recovery is important, right?”

 

“Kon, wait-”

 

Kon hung up the call. 

 

For a moment, he stared at the phone in his hand. 23 hostages. There were police reports. 10 injured. There were hospital records. It’s a small pool of names. How many of those names would match Robin’s description? Young male, late-teens, dark hair, pale skin.

 

It wouldn’t be hard to figure out.

 

Robin had found the name Connor Kent without Kon’s permission.

 

There was probably a news story. Maybe all it would take was a single search online.

 

Kon pocketed his phone. He didn’t snarl at the thought, and if he did then no one was around to hear him. He walked back to the MedBay with his fists clenched and his frown cemented on his face.

 

“Are you okay?” Cassie asked when Kon stood in the doorway.

 

“Fine,” Kon snapped.

 

“Dude, you sure?” Impulse asked. He seemed to be taking Kon in. Kon felt the way his posture was hunched, felt the glare he couldn’t shake from his eyes. He probably looked like shit, but he didn’t want to drag the others into it. Instead, he hummed in affirmative.

 

“Right,” Arrowette said, eyeing him with suspicion of her own, “Anyway… You missed my formal introduction. I’m Cissie.”

 

Kon looked up and saw that now, she was sitting without the mask on. She was grinning next to Bart and Cassie, tentatively as if Kon was liable to lash out.

 

Kon clenched his jaw at her easy introduction. It wasn’t her fault that she trusted them with her identity while Robin still didn’t. He knew that, but it still made the anger bubble up in his gut once more.

 

“Kon,” He introduced himself, then knew he had to leave the room, “I’m gonna clean the blood out of the supercycle.”

 

He walked away and pretended he didn’t hear Arrowette -Cissie- say to the others, “He is testy.”

 

He knew they would follow after him soon, probably Bart before the girls. But he’d have a few minutes, at least. Just a bit of time to calm down, maybe come up with a lie about whatever he and Robin talked about that made him so pissed off in the first place.

 

Kon’s phone was still in his pocket.

 

It would be so easy to figure out the name under the mask.

 

He steeled himself and focused on finding some rags and bleach instead.

Notes:

Took a hot sec to write this chapter since I've been visiting my partner lol. It also ended up being a couple thousand words longer than anticipated. Anyway I hope it was worth the wait <3

Chapter 7

Getting shot was, at first, a minor inconvenience. The whole hostage situation was seriously frustrating, but it wasn’t going to be anything more than ammunition for his siblings to tease him about getting wrapped up in for a week or so. Then, Young Justice showed up and things got complicated.

 

Tim hadn’t even been on comms. He hadn’t even known Bruce was outside, let alone his teammates. He had enough sense to know there were too many eyes on him to make any moves, he had to keep his head down and play helpless civilian. While it would wound his pride, he’d survive it. He could keep an eye on everything and hunt the bastards down later that night on patrol. But the assholes got spooked by the news of an alleged sighting of meta heroes entering Gotham. Shots rang out quickly and all Tim could do was throw himself in front of the lady next to him and ensure she wasn’t hit.

 

He couldn’t save everyone in that room, there wasn’t time, but he could save her. Two bullets hit him as the scene grew more chaotic. One moment, he was on the ground as he heard the sounds of screams and fighting break out around him, the next Wonder Girl was above him accessing his wounds.

 

For a second he thought he hit his head on the fall, or maybe blood was spilling out of him faster than he realized and he was going delirious. But Cassie was there, pressing against his bleeding torso while Bart rushed civilian after civilian out of the bank.

 

He had to orient himself. He was Robin goddamnit, he could figure out what was going on around him. He could deduce why the fuck his team was in Gotham all of a sudden. Scan the area. Look for cues.

 

Only his vision caught on Kon.

 

Kon was there. Of course he was, their whole team was there, but Kon was there when Tim got shot. He was… arguing? With a different man bleeding on the ground. He was clearly mustering all his strength into being patient and attempting to have empathy for the rich gothamite who had the glint in his eye that indicated he would try and find any reason to sue Young Justice over “mishandling” his rescue.

 

Tim’s eyes were glued to the sight. He should’ve been trying to figure out what was going on, he should’ve been trying to slow his bleeding, he should’ve been trying to grasp onto the words that were being spoken around him, but all he could do was watch Kon give a fake smile through thinly veiled impatience while interacting with an ungrateful civilian.

 

It looked like Kon was refusing to lift the man up, making the geezer sit up for himself. Good, Kon must’ve seen the lawsuit threat the same as Tim did. The victim was flailing his arms, crying out about an injured leg that Tim could already tell, even half delirious on the ground where he was laying, was most likely a superficial wound he would fully recover from. Tim was extra confident the man would be just fine by the sight of Kon’s face trying to pass off an annoyed grimace as a reassuring grin.

 

Tim snorted at the sight. It was funny to watch Kon struggle a bit with the difficult patient. The snort didn’t come out sounding quite right though, it sounded a little choked and launched him into a thick cough.

 

“Hey, this guy’s pretty bad,” Cassie was commenting above him. It took him too long to remember his teammate was there, looking at his maskless face. Did she know? Did they all know? Cassie gave the order to, “Start here.”

 

Then, Tim was in the hospital. The superspeeded rush was even more disorienting than normal, thanks to the blood loss and general confusion Tim had been feeling the past few moments.

 

The hospital was the second to last place he wanted to be.

 

A hospital meant a paper trail of recorded injury Dick and the other bats could tease Tim about. A hospital meant real doctors taking stock of his body, littered in questionable wounds and scars, and Tim would really need to lay it on thick saying growing up in Gotham left a mark on even the rich brats. A hospital meant it would be longer before Tim could sit in the cave and figure out why the hell his team was pulling him out of a run-of-the-mill Gotham bank robbery gone wrong.

 

But, a hospital meant he wasn’t in the MedBay of Mount Justice. A hospital meant that Timothy Drake was dropped off in the same location as all of the other victims. A hospital meant his team was still none the wiser about who Robin was under the mask.

 

Bruce filled Robin in as best he could after pulling some strings and getting Tim released back into his care, a feat that included Tim reassuring a CPS worker that the “alarming” amount of scars and previous injuries the doctor found were not Bruce’s doing. Of course, he ended up with one of the “good” workers. Someone a little too young, a little too much hope in their eyes, too much spark that hasn’t burned out yet. He blamed his wounds on his totally-real-uncle, the once savior of his independence being twisted into a horribly abusive character in Tim’s life. Bruce saved Tim from the man, actually, so he was totally safe to go home with.

 

Eventually, the worker bought the story. Thank god.

 

Bruce informed Tim that Young Justice’s presence on the scene was a direct result of the supercycle gathering them all and dropping them in Gotham. The knowledge brought with it conflicting feelings. First, there was a sense of apprehension. If the supercycle felt as if it was okay to bring Young Justice members to Gotham whenever she pleased, that was sure to stir up a conflict between her and Bruce at some points. Then, there was frustration. His teammates have witnessed Tim shot by some low-tier robbers, even if they didn’t know it, and it was a blow to Tim’s pride.

 

Then, there were the warmer feelings. The sense of connectedness between Tim and his teammates. Dick and his friends had their clingy “Titans Forever!” mentality and Tim had never really been pressed to relate to that feeling. Now, though, after his closest friends rushed into active gunfire to save him -and they didn’t even know he was one of the people they were saving- Tim got it. There was no one Tim felt safer with than Young Justice. Not even Batman. Not even Nightwing. Cassie, Kon, and Bart. And the supercycle.

 

Tim also felt a warm pride in being someone the supercycle kept tabs on. Wanting a semi-sentient machine to like you was a weird feeling for any member of Young Justice to describe. Lucky for Tim, he’s always been the favorite. He’s never had to try very hard to win her favor. In fact, if she’s rushing into Gotham with the rest of the team in tow whenever Tim is around some sign of danger then maybe she likes him a little too much.

 

There’s that apprehension again.

 

Tim was having an exceptionally hard time keeping a grasp on his swirling feelings. Probably due to the pain meds the doctor forced him on. Bruce had given him strict orders of bedrest and recovery for the next few days. Actually, Bruce said for the next “few weeks” but Tim was confident he could talk him into a shorter time frame. That, or Tim could “break out” of the manor. His pain meds were inspiring an incredible plan that involved an electric guitar, funfetti cupcakes, and potentially-illegal fireworks. He’d need help to pull it off, but it seemed like the right type of crazy-ass plan that Duke would throw himself into.

 

He’d revisit the plan when he was sober.

 

He slept pretty well that night, considering the two bullet wounds he was sporting. When he woke up, he barely had time to collect his much more coherent thoughts before his secure phone was ringing.

 

He should’ve let it ring until it sent itself to voicemail, but it was Kon. Kon was Tim’s best friend, so Tim picked up.

 

He missed his friends, hearing them all talk over each other to give information in the least-straightforward way possible only cemented his determination to return to Mount Justice as soon as possible. He needed to, if things were picking up with those weapon smugglers. He double needed to if Arrowette would be sticking around as a more permanent member of the team. 

 

And then, his heart sank. 

 

Kon knew. Kon knew.

 

He knew Tim was there at the bank. He knew he had been injured. Kon was one game of ‘Guess Who?’ with Mercy Hospital records away from knowing the name Timothy Drake, and he had hung up on him.

 

The week of radio silence from Kon did nothing but feed Tim’s nightly anxiety spirals. There wasn’t even the outlet of patrol to occupy his mind. There were just late nights, the memory of Kon hanging up on him, the feeling of guilt/anger/despair/paranoia, and silence from his best friend. 

 

The worst part is, the others still messaged him like everything was fine. Cassie had a question about how to complete training reports, Bart had an unavoidable need to spam him about the details of the newest video game series the speedster was working his way through, both Cassie and Bart had insisted he add Arrowette to the secure Young Justice groupchat. Cissie even introduced herself a little more officially over text.

 

None of them thought anything was wrong. None of them knew. Kon had figured it out and was keeping it to himself.

 

God, of course he was. Even pissed off, he was the most trustworthy person Tim knew. He had asked Tim, as Robin, in that terrible phone call full of anger and sorrow how Kon was supposed to trust himself to keep Tim safe without knowing who he was under the mask. It was such a dumb question with such an obvious answer. Kon was Superboy.

 

He was amazing. He was smarter than anyone gave him credit for, he cared with his whole ever-bleeding heart, he built a trusting relationship with Robin that became so engrained into Tim’s bones that a week without hearing from his friend is making him angry enough to let tears fill behind his eyelids at his weakest moments alone at night. He was pissed at Robin, for something that was entirely not Robin’s fault, and yet he was still keeping this secret away from even their closest friends.

 

Kon’s absence from Tim’s life felt like an aching pain. It must’ve been because of how unsure Tim was about where they stood with each other now that Kon knew his real name. It must’ve been because of the lack of closure after that phone call.

 

Kon was an asshole for hanging up on him.

 

---

 

True to his prediction, the next week Tim was allowed back to Mount Justice for non-physical vigilante work. Between him going stir crazy at the manor and threatening Bruce with a “Jason-level” dramatic plan to break out, he pretty much annoyed Batman into telling Red T that Tim was allowed back at the Mount as long as he didn’t engage in physical training.

 

Walking out of the Zeta-tube and into the mount, Tim felt a relaxing sense of relief when he caught sight of the supercycle.

 

“Hey, girl,” He greeted.

 

She beeped but didn’t rush over. Weird.

 

He walked closer to her anyway. Laying a hand on her he whispered, “Thanks for the rescue.”

 

She… paused. Her engine rumbled it’s not-quite-purr but she was definitely missing her usual excitement. He couldn’t think about that for too long though.

 

He felt arms around him, squeezing him tight, before he even processed the familiar feeling of air being displaced next to him at superspeed. He sucked in a breath through his teeth, the squeeze being an abrupt reminder of the fact Robin was still healing.

 

“You’re back!” Bart exclaimed, nothing but joy in his voice.

 

“I’m back,” Robin wheezed out, easing himself out of Bart’s grip. 

 

“You’re back!” Cassie’s voice was next to call out. She was just a few seconds behind Bart, rushing into the room.

 

A second pair of footsteps followed her and Robin braced himself for the sight of Kon. Where did they stand? Would he be happy to see Robin? Rob probably couldn’t hope for the same tight embrace Impulse greeted him with, but surely Kon might spare him a smile? Maybe?

 

“Thank god,” A less familiar voice groaned. Arrowette, not Superboy, followed Cassie into the room. No smile for Robin, then. Kon wasn’t in any rush to greet him. Robin tried to will himself not to deflate, to focus on Cissie where she approached with an outstretched hand, “I’m Cissie. Nice to meet you in person.”

 

“Robin, and likewise,” Robin said as he accepted the handshake. He gave a polite but tense smile as he tagged a tease on the end, “Though, I gotta say I didn’t expect the new girl to be the one thanking god for my return.”

 

She shrugged and rolled her eyes. She answered in a lighthearted tone, “I hear your boyfriend is easier to deal with when you’re around.”

 

Cassie was quick to elbow her in the ribs. Robin furrowed his eyes and asked, “Boyfriend?”

 

“We didn’t explain the you-and-Kon-being-Bart’s-parents joke to her very well,” Cassie spoke quickly with a strained smile, shooting Cissie a pointed look.

 

What the fuck?

Kon being Robin’s… boyfriend? That’s what she thought the joke was?

 

Robin was blushing. It was a dumb misunderstanding, there was no reason to blush over it.

 

He and Kon were friends. Good friends. Best friends, even. That’s all there was between them. Besides, Kon was annoying and knew exactly how to push each one of Tim’s buttons. He was far too loud when he needed to be stealthy and then deathly quiet when Robin needed to hear his voice. He was cocky, overconfident, sarcastic at even the worst moments, funny, caring, surprisingly competent, trustworthy…

 

Fuck.

 

Nope.

 

Bart broke Robin out of his thoughts, thankfully. The speedster spoke with a petulant whine, “Wait, what? I thought the custody jokes were over the supercycle, not me!”

 

“Both of you,” Robin explained. His voice was steady, giving nothing away, but he raised an eyebrow at Cassie in an effort to signal if you wanted to make a further comment you’re welcome to. Please. Please give me more context.

 

“Aw, what?” Bart crossed his arms and wrinkled his nose in distaste.

 

Cassie did not give more context.

 

Tim looked back to the door to the room, still empty. He was enforcing that same faux casualty as he questioned, “Superboy’s with Red T?”

 

“He’s not here yet,” Cassie answered.

 

Okay. So, Kon didn’t rush to greet Robin to welcome him back with the others, but he wasn’t necessarily avoiding Robin. He was just late. Maybe Robin would even bite back a lecture on punctuality as a show of good faith. A sign that he wanted to resolve their conflict still lingering from that phone call and find a way to be friends again. Friends. Friends.

 

Cissie was ridiculous for even suggesting anything else.

 

Tim liked girls. Women. Ladies. That was his type: hot girls who were usually somehow wrapped up in questionable situations like the mafia or a gang war or having a supervillain dad. There was a smaller voice in the back of Tim’s head pointing out that Lex Luthor was an unwilling donor of Kon’s genetic makeup. That was different. Mainly, because Kon was a guy. Frankly, a guy Tim was a little pissed at.

 

Like, seriously? The guy figures out Tim’s identity, then just ghosts him? While he knows Tim is recovering from gunshots? Who the hell was Kon to get so pressed over digging into Tim’s identity anyway? All these circular arguments, bullshit about “trust” that Tim can never successfully prove is there, and now Kon is avoiding Tim?

 

The sound of a zeta tube whirred to life. Kon stepped out. He looked… like he wasn’t fit to be wearing his outfit, actually. He was running a lazy hand through his messy bedhead when he paused, eyes locked in on Robin.

 

“Hey,” Kon greeted, giving Robin no reassuring smile. No smile. No look of trepidation. No sign of emotional turmoil behind his eyes. Just an empty word and a vacant nod of his chin upwards. Like things were good. Like he could be allowed to play it nonchalant and casual after a week of ghosting his supposed best friend.

 

Fuck an olive branch. Robin steeled his expression and pointed out the obvious, “You’re late.”

 

“My bad,” Kon said with a shrug. He put his hands in his pocket and began to walk over to the rest of the group. He wasn’t even gonna try to bait Robin into a deeper argument? The fuck?

 

“Come on, SB,” Bart threw an arm over Kon’s shoulder and grinned in encouragement, “Why the long face? Rob’s back!”

 

“Not for field missions,” Kon pointed out.

 

“I’m fine,” Robin emphasized, “And we have plenty of investigating to do on the weapons smuggling case.”

 

“Sure,” Kon said. No argument. No tease. Nothing. Robin gritted his teeth.

 

The supercycle beeped, chirping to life, really. It rolled forward, softly bumping into Kon’s knee. The movement finally got Kon to pull his hands out of his pockets and gently begin to pet the bike. He smiled for the first time since walking through the Zeta and greeted the supercycle with a soft, “Hey, girl.”

 

Seriously? She got a smile? Not his best friend who just got back from being shot?

 

“It’s good to see her happy,” Tim commented on her flashing lights and positive beeps while he crossed his arms and tilted his head to the side, “She seemed a little down when I first got here.”

 

Kon’s eyes flicked towards Tim with the slight approximation of a glare as he replied, “Well, maybe you hurt her feelings.”

 

Tim snapped his head straight and asked in an incredulous tone, “I hurt her feelings?”

 

“So now she has feelings?” Kon asked in mock confusion, “I thought she was just a machine.”

 

The supercycle’s engine revved in a pouty sound, almost like a sigh of discontent. Robin all but snarled at Kon.

 

“She’s not just a machine,” He said first to Kon, then turned to the supercycle herself and emphasized, “You’re not just a machine!” He lifted his eyes back to Kon once more and took a step closer to insist, “I never said she was just a machine. She is a machine, though! That’s all I said, I cannot believe you’re trying to turn her against me.”

 

“Oh, was I not supposed to tell her what you said?” Kon crossed his arms and asked in that same mocking tone from before, “I thought you didn’t care what she knew about you?”

 

“You are unbelievable,” Robin declared. He raised a hand to poke against Kon’s chest but Superboy caught his hand before he could complete the movement.

 

“Careful,” He said with a stupid cocky voice. He held Robin’s hand firmly in place and flicked his eyes down and up Robin’s body once. He leaned closer as he found Robin’s eyes once more and nearly whispered as though it was a threat, “You’re still recovering.”

 

Robin was furious. He was fuming. He’s never been more pissed off at his friend in his life.

 

He kinda wanted Superboy to kiss him just then.

 

Fuck.

 

Nope.

 

Nope!

 

He’s pissed. He’s confused at where he and Kon stand as friends and pissed about Kon causing a scene and pitting the supercycle against him.

 

Kon, though, just dropped Robin’s hand and stepped away. Hands back in his pocket he moved to leave the room calling out a casual, “I’m gonna check in with Red T. Call me if any of you guys need me.”

 

All Robin could do was stare after him as he left.

 

“I thought you said Robin would fix him,” Robin could hear Cissie hissing out under her breath. 

 

“No, that was weird,” Cassie hissed back. 

 

“Are you guys fighting?” Bart asked Tim at full volume. 

 

Tim kept his eyes on the doorway Kon just walked through, refusing to look at the others as he answered through gritted teeth, “No.”

 

“Really?” Bart asked, rushing to Tim’s side once more. 

 

“Yes,” Tim hissed back. 

 

“Because it looked like-“

 

“We’re not fighting, Impulse!” Tim snapped. 

 

He didn’t look back at the others as he walked out the room after Kon. He didn’t need to in order to know they didn’t believe him. 

 

Fuck. 

 

Fuck. 

 

What the fuck was going on?

 

---

 

What was going on was Tim’s patience was being tested. 

 

Kon would more or less avoid being in the same room as Tim. If they had to talk, Kon was short and snappy. His sour mood, however, only seemed to exist around Tim. With Bart and the girls, he’d still joke and jest and borderline flirt half the time, but if Tim stepped within a three yard radius Kon would shut down colder than ice. 

 

The first week, fine. Tim let it slide. The rest of the team seemed to be slightly walking on eggshells around them, but they mainly amped up their own joking teases to ignore the situation. They actually ended up focusing on the investigative part of the case pretty well that week. Cissie brought with her some solid information about the movement patterns of the smugglers the rest of them hadn’t realized before. 

 

The second week, it was less fine. Tim was still “benched,” for lack of a better term. Kon was playing his same freeze-out-Tim game and Tim was sick of it.

 

So was Cassie, evidently.

 

“Hey, Rob, help me with something in the training room?” She asked. Honestly, it was an innocent enough question.

 

“Robin is not to be training,” Red Tornado called from the computer, not bothering to look up from whatever data points he had loaded on the screen.

 

“Doesn’t mean he can’t correct my form,” Cassie dismissed Red Tornado and was already beginning to pull Robin out the door while she added on for good measure, “I’m really close to landing this one move I want his advice on.”

 

Robin waited until they were halfway to the training gym, well away from the Tornado’s prying ears, before he asked, “Do you really need feedback on your form? From me?”

 

“Yeah, sure,” Cassie said with a shrug. She was being incredibly agreeable and open to corrections. Robin didn’t buy it, but he was curious to see where this would lead, though, so he let it slide.

 

Cassie broke the silence that stretched between her and Robin for a few steps too long by dragging out, “So…”

 

“So?” Robin questioned.

 

“You left me in charge when you were… on leave,” Cassie stated.

 

“What, you want a grade? You did fine,” Robin said with suspicion.

 

“I did great,” Cassie countered with a huff and an eye roll, “I just meant… Look, I know you trust me, you know you trust me, do we really need to do the whole ‘you can trust me with anything’ convo or can I just ask you what the fuck is going on between you and SB?”

 

Robin let out a deep sigh and stared at the ceiling while he responded, “Nothing is going on between me and Superboy.”

 

“You say that like it's not the problem,” Cassie countered. At Robin’s questioning glance, she rolled her eyes and proceeded to explain, “Nothing, nothing, has been going on between you guys. You’re barely talking! Dude, a few weeks ago you had a wonderful bromance. You were all buddy-buddy, going off on missions just the two of you, texting all the time. Don’t deny it! Kon would brag all the time about being your best friend, about being the one of us you would text outside the groupchat, about being able to tell the difference between your ‘I’m pissed off’ glare and your ‘I want to laugh but Batman’s around and I need to pretend I’m serious’ glare. Like, all either of you would talk about was each other. Then, all of a sudden, Kon can’t stand to be in the same room as you and he’s angrily deep cleaning the supercycle at least once a week while cursing your name.”

 

“I knew he was shit-talking me to the supercycle,” Robin grumbled.

 

“Oh, be serious,” Cassie pleaded, “He’s venting. And he won’t vent to any of the rest of us! And you won’t even vent to the supercycle, you’re just letting it all fester bottled up inside. What’s gonna happen when you pop, Rob?”

 

“I don’t ‘pop,’” Robin managed to mumble, taking all the guilt/anger/sadness he felt and shoving it lower in his chest.

 

“What about the rest of us?” Cassie countered, “This is affecting team dynamics. Bart is acting like a child of divorce. Cissie is too new to know who’s side to take, leaving her looking at me to figure out who’s side to take, and honestly I’m on my side: The side that says both my friends are being dumbasses and need to get over themselves. Seriously, whatever happened, or didn’t happen between you, you guys are too good of friends to let a little drama get between you.”

 

A little drama. That was almost laughable. A little drama was the way that the word “boyfriend” had implanted itself into Robin’s brain right next to the name Kon since Cissie had mentioned the ridiculous idea. A little drama was the way Robin didn’t feel too uncomfortable with the idea of a boyfriend instead of a girlfriend when he tossed the word around in his mind. A little drama was the fact that it was even easier to imagine himself liking a boy if he imagined that boy was Kon. His impromptu sexuality crisis and wrestling with confused and complicated feelings, that would be a little drama.

 

But what was going on between Robin and Superboy, it wasn’t a little drama. It was the discovery of Robin’s secret identity, and probably all the bats subsequently. It was the fact that Kon had this dangerous knowledge and kept it dangling over Tim, refusing to talk to him. It was the fact that his “best friend” was shutting him out so thoroughly it was a miracle he showed up to Mount Justice at all.

 

“Kon won’t talk to me,” Robin finally responded to Cassie.

 

“I know,” Wonder Girl conceded, slowing to a stop just outside the gym. Then she nodded her head inside and offered, “You ready to help me?”

 

“Yeah,” Robin nodded. He walked into the gym, grateful to be free from talking about Kon any more. But, then there was the woosh of familiar lightning and wind rushing past him and the door to the room was slammed shut.

 

“Then help me by fucking talking to each other!” Cassie called through the door.

 

Robin looked up, unsurprised to see Kon alone in the gym.

 

Kon, however, did look surprised and annoyed so see Robin alone in the same room as him.

 

“Come on, Imp!” Kon called out while stepping up to the door. He tried to tug it open, but it barely shook. 

 

“Talk!” Bart’s voice yelled back through the door.

 

Kon tried again to pull the door open. Kon, who has superstrength, was trying to pull open a very expensive door on the old Justice League headquarters.

 

Robin broke the stalemate of neither of them talking to the other. He did it very gracefully, only slightly letting chastisement into his tone as he said, “Don’t break it.”

 

Superboy shot a glare quickly in Robin’s direction as he snapped back the tastefully original comeback, “Don’t tell me what to do.”

 

“Huh,” Robin let out a contemplative sound while he crossed his arms and tilted his head to the side, “I think I was beginning to forget what your voice sounded like.”

 

Superboy scowled and rolled his eyes, finally dropping his hands from the door but making no move to respond verbally.

 

Robin kissed his teeth and tried to egg him on further, “It was a very peaceful few weeks.”

 

“Don’t let me ruin that for you then,” Kon retorted, taking a few steps away from Robin.

 

“Kon, come on,” Robin started.

 

Kon waved a hand dismissively. For some reason, that was the action to push Robin over completely.

 

“Seriously?” Robin yelled out. 

 

“What?” Kon asked in an annoyed tone, but he didn’t match Robin’s yelling. The fact he was still “playing it cool” just got Robin even more worked up. 

 

“Talk to me!” Robin was practically pleading. He felt angry, but his voice came out strained and pathetic. 

 

Kon didn’t even look to meet Robin’s eye as he asked, “What’s there to talk about?”

 

“You know who I am!” Robin exclaimed, throwing his hands in frustration, “And we haven’t talked about it, or if you figured out the other bats, too. Or if I need to tell Batman! Or if i need to lie-“

 

“Whoa, wait,” Kon finally turned to look at Robin. He was confused, clearly, but there was something more there too. Weariness clung to his features, a sag pulling on all his energy, it looked like he spent a week straight avoiding exposure to sunlight. He also looked like he wanted to punch Robin, just a little bit, and he said something Robin would have never expected, “You think I know your identity?”

 

“You…” Tim blinked at him in shock, “You don’t?”

 

“No,” Kon responded while his face hardened into an angrier glare, “I don’t.”

 

“But…” Tim trailed off. His face was contorted into pinched confusion. Kon was a dumbass, but he wasn’t stupid. He had all the puzzle pieces well within his grasp and yet he still hadn’t clicked them together yet. 

 

Kon let out a scoff before saying, “Just because I can figure it doesn’t mean I did. Or that I should.”

 

“So you just,” Robin blinked again in shock, “didn’t?”

 

“No, I didn’t,” Superboy confirmed. 

 

“Why not?” Tim couldn’t help the question. 

 

“Why do you care?” Kon snapped back. It was a stupid deflection. Of course Robin cared, this was his secret identity after all, but instead of explaining Robin did very much care he decided to come back with a different question, too. 

 

“Why have you been avoiding me?”

 

Superboy leveled a flat, unimpressed look. Robin felt scrutinized, judged by his best friend, he hated the feeling. Still, Superboy blankly asked, "You seriously don’t know?”

 

“I thought it was because you knew my identity,” Robin explained with a shrug, “That you were pissed you had to keep it secret from the rest of the team, too.”

 

“You couldn’t make me keep it a secret,” Superboy pointed out. 

 

“You would though,” Robin countered, “You haven’t even told the others I was one of the people shot that night.”

 

“I still could,” Kon argued. 

 

“You won’t,” Robin spoke firmly, not an ounce of doubt in his voice, “You would have already. I thought you did weeks ago, you know. But you didn’t. So you won’t.”

 

Kon locked eyes with Robin and Tim felt his heart begin to beat faster under the intensity of the stare. When Kon spoke again his voice was steady but he sounded so damn tired, “I’m pissed at you. You trust us, trust me, but keep so many fucking secrets I want to strangle you. You’re one of the strongest and most capable people I know and then you let yourself get shot at a bank robbery gone wrong. One minute we’re best friends and then the next we’re barely coworkers and you are so fucking inconsistent it drives me absolutely insane.”

 

“You are my best friend,” Robin insisted. Listening to Kon he felt his anger bleeding away. All that was left was this desperate need to be back on good terms with the boy in front of him. 

 

“You thought I would’ve looked you up,” Kon said it like it was an argument, like it was proof that Robin didn’t know him half as well as he claimed. 

 

“It’s what I would’ve done,” Robin admitted softly. 

 

“It’s what you did do,” Kon snapped back. 

 

“Right,” Robin conceded, unwilling to look Kon in the eyes. Kon’s tired demeanor heated back up into anger again. They were talking in circles, no closer to resolving this than they had been at the start of their conversation. In fact, Robin was left with more to think about than he entered the room with. Kon hadn’t known his identity after all. Even with it well within his grasp, Kon chose not to figure it out. Even pissed off in a way Tim had never seen before, Kon would not betray Tim’s trust. 

 

Tim didn’t feel like he could handle the weight of that. Kon was so good. He was literally charged by sunlight meanwhile Tim had always worked best while he was masked with shadows and the dark of night. How could Tim even be worthy of being considered Kon’s friend again? Let alone anything further. How was Tim able to become Kon’s best friend in the first place?

 

Nothing but silence moved between the two of them for a long few minutes until Red Tornado opened the door to the gym and asked what the two of them were doing. 

 

Kon was walking away already, refusing to answer, while Robin was beginning to hear a lecture on how Batman gave very specific instructions that Robin was not to be physically exerting himself. He didn’t even try to defend himself, he just let RT waste both their time with an unneeded speech while he sulked in his own inadequacies. 

 

---

 

The third week, things still weren’t better. Robin was feeling desperate. All of the teammates were acting weird around him and Superboy still. Kon was still snappy but it was more reserved somehow, as though Robin was easier to ignore than to pick a fight with. 

 

Cissie was clearly awkward about the whole situation. Robin felt a bit guilty for making it all the more difficult to bond with the team, especially considering she helped them all link the smuggled weaponry to an ongoing leak of ARGUS tech information that seemed quite obvious in hindsight. She was smart, funny, but clearly starting to get fed up with walking on eggshells. 

 

Cassie was about to snap. Since locking him and Kon in a room didn’t work, Robin was worried about what she might try next. 

 

Bart was beginning to avoid both Robin and Kon, ridiculously insisting that he refused to take sides so he couldn’t be seen aligning himself with either of them. 

 

Even Red Tornado had tried to stage an intervention, asking Robin and Superboy if they needed to engage in “mediation training.” Needless to say, it was already bad but now it was getting worse. 

 

Tim was worn thin. He was practically ready to call up Dick, ask him for advice on dealing with drama within a team. It would be a worse blow to his pride than getting shot was, but it was seeming more and more necessary if Tim wanted to keep Red Tornado from getting Batman involved. 

 

Tim’s attitude wasn’t helped by how restless he was. He was healed enough to be back in the field, just not according to Bruce. Which was dumb, especially considering the fact that Bruce had taken even less time to let himself heal after being shot in much more life threatening places before, but Batman was adamant that Robin would not return to the field for another week at least. 

 

He couldn’t even spar with the others. Tim couldn’t help but think that half of the fight between him and Kon would be resolved if they just got on the mats and tried to beat each other up a little bit. Emotions were too high, they needed a physical release. Tim needed that release to involve throwing punches and not whatever his subconscious has rudely been dreaming up when Tim’s asleep. 

 

He was restless and keyed up and beginning to crack from all the stress when finally there was the promise of relief. The supercycle beeped frantically, signaling she found somewhere Young Justice needed to be. 

 

“Thank god,” Robin sighed out. 

 

“Where the fuck do you think you’re going?” Kon pulled Robin backwards by the cape before he could walk even a few steps toward the supercycle. 

 

“She’s in a rush,” Robin gritted out through his clenched jaw, hoping whatever argument Kon was trying to pick would be ignored in favor of the urgency of the mission. 

 

“And you are benched,” Superboy said casually as he floated himself over to the driver’s seat of the supercycle. 

 

“That’s my seat,” Robin blinked in disbelief, he’s never seen the supercycle let anyone else sit behind the handlebars. 

 

“Not while you’re benched,” Superboy flashed Robin a cocky grin while he placed a gentle hand on the supercycle and she let a purr hum out of her engine. 

 

“Does SB not usually drive?” Cissie asked Cassie, who elbowed her in the side and gave her an expression that clearly read not now. Robin felt an eye begin to twitch.

 

“I am healed enough,” Robin insisted. 

 

“Not according to Batman,” Superboy countered. 

 

“I know we’ve been fighting but that doesn’t mean-“

 

“Is it that hard for you to believe that I’m worried about you?” Superboy snapped suddenly. His knuckles were white from how hard he was clenching the handlebars of the supercycle. Robin was even a bit worried she might be hurting under the force of his super strength, but all he could do was stare with wide eyes. 

 

Superboy kept his head hung low, staring down with his chin tucked firmly towards his chest. He let out a sigh and visibly relaxed his grip, but didn’t look up as he spoke, “You’re cleared for field work next week again. Just trust us to take this one without you, yeah?”

 

Robin hesitated, feeling the weight of all eyes on him as he stared only at Kon. Finally he spoke, “Yeah,” and then insisted, “I trust you guys.”

 

Kon nodded, but still didn’t reach Robin’s gaze. 

 

He cared about Robin. That’s what he had said. That’s why he’s been being so difficult for damn near a month while Robin healed from a wound that Kon couldn’t have protected him from. 

 

The cemented realization left a faint blush growing on Robin’s cheeks. 

 

He didn’t need to call Dick for help, Tim decided. Kon still cared about him. He could still salvage this himself. Hopefully, soon. 

 

---

 

Four weeks. It took four weeks of Robin being back at Mount Justice before he was cleared to be in the field. Bart, somehow, seemed to rival Tim’s excitement for the occasion.

 

“You’re back!” Robin was greeted with a tight hug and an exclamation.

 

“I’ve been back,” Tim responded with a fond grin despite the roll to his eyes.

 

“But now you’re back back!” Bart cheered.

 

“Which means today’s mission paper work is all yours!” Cassie sang as she approached him and Bart, a slight skip to her step.

 

Cissie and Kon were trailing in behind her. Cissie was the one who spoke up, nodding a greeting while teasing, “It’ll be nice to actually see you do something for once.”

 

“I’ve done plenty setting up our move today, thanks,” Robin retorted.

 

“You sure you’re good?” Superboy asked, still lingering in the doorway.

 

“It’s just recon,” Robin said, barely masking his frustration with the notion he should be kept on the bench more.

 

“It’s never just recon,” Kon countered.

 

“You know, my only ‘just recon’ missions that don’t end up as ‘just recon’ are the ones you get involved in,” Robin said flatly. Then, when he saw the way Kon clenched his jaw in frustration he took a moment to remind himself that the reason Superboy was being so difficult was because he cared in his own idiotic way. Tim kept talking so as not to directly antagonize Kon, accepting his statement wouldn’t really be true without adding on, “Or Impulse.”

 

“Whatever,” Superboy dismissed, entering the room and further approaching the supercycle, “Are we all ready?”

 

The rest of the team, fully suited up, nodded in affirmative and moved towards the supercycle as well. Things were still slightly tense, but it felt almost normal. At least until Robin reached the driver’s seat of the supercycle and she let out a deafening, high-pitched whir. 

 

Robin recoiled, stumbling backwards. He exclaimed, “Seriously?”

 

Kon had the nerve to laugh. Full, rich, smiling with his eyes for the first time Robin had seen in a month, he laughed as he moved towards the driver’s seat and asked, “You want me to drive, girl?”

 

She began to purr her engine and Robin was left gawking. 

 

“No,” Cassie groaned, flopping dramatically into her usual seat. 

 

“I’m gonna need a barf bag,” Cissie grumbled, seeming to agree with Cassie’s agony. 

 

“Shotgun!” Impulse cheered, as if he ever sat in any other position. 

 

Robin opened his mouth to complain, not at Impulse calling shot gun but at the supercycle’s insistence to let Kon drive them all, but he froze when he caught sight of Superboy smiling at him. Okay, he wasn’t smiling at Robin, he was smirking with a cocky confidence that presented the idea Kon was winning an unspoken competition between them, but it was the closest Robin’s had to Kon smiling at him in a month. 

 

“Fine,” Robin put his hands up in surrender and accepted his fate, sliding next to Cassie in what was previously Kon’s unassigned-assigned seat. He went over the plan one more time before take off, “The mission is in and out recon. We just need to confirm the factory is replicating the stolen ARGUS interrogation tech from last month. Bonus points if we can tie shipments to or from any known warehouses used by our smuggler friends.”

 

“Yeah, yeah,” Superboy gripped the handlebars of the supercycle and she purred as she lifted to take off, “Just recon, right? It’ll be fine.”

 

---

 

It was not fine.

 

Robin was glad he didn’t put money on the mission being “just recon.” Kon was right, it was stupid to think that it would be. 

 

“This could be worse,” Cissie says in a way that is unclear if she is trying harder to convince the others or herself.

 

“How the fuck could this be worse?” Cassie snapped at Arrowette. She looked, briefly, like she wanted to slap the other girl.

 

“I mean, we got the info we came for,” Cissie stood her ground, “Shipments linked to known and previously unknown warehouses. Plus this is definitely replicated ARGUS tech.”

 

“ARGUS tech which just literally blew up in our faces!” Cassie all but screamed back.

 

“Oh god, what did we breathe in?” Impulse asked with a shaky voice, “Was that poison? Oh, I think it was poison. I can’t believe I’ve been poisoned! I always thought I’d die fighting an asteroid, poison is so boring!”

 

“How do you fight an asteroid?” Cissie asked.

 

“You think you’d lose a fight with an asteroid?” Cassie asked, seemingly less entertained by Impulse’s ramble than Cissie was.

 

“It’s not poison,” Robin interrupted Impulse’s spiral, “It’s synthetic truth serum.”

 

“As opposed to organic?” Superboy sarcastically asked under his breath. Robin heard him anyway, but chose to direct his glare at Bart instead of the mouthy clone boy.

 

“It was in the file I sent out in preparation for this mission on Wednesday with the specific instructions not to expose the containers to the speedforce,” Robin said pointedly to Bart.

 

“You said that stuff was green in the file!” Impulse said, his only defense.

 

“That is green!” Robin argued.

 

“It’s a sickly yellow!” Impulse hissed back passionately.

 

“Whatever color it is, we should get out of here while the place is still empty,” Cissie said pointedly, “As someone who’s been on the wrong end of this gang’s weapons before, I do not want to wait for the security system to turn on.”

 

“Agreed,” Kon said with a firm nod, already climbing into the supercycle. The rest of the team followed him immediately, save for Robin who was studpid enough to hesitate.

 

“Rob?” Impulse asked, “Why are you just standing there?”

 

The answer, the truth, poured out of Robin before he could think to stop himself, “My feelings are hurt that the supercycle wants Kon drive instead of me.”

 

Robin felt his eyes go wide. He saw the others gawk back at him. It occurred to him at that moment that there was a very real chance his teammates had never heard him willingly talk about his feelings at all, much less admit to his feelings being hurt. Kon’s expression slowly began to morph from portraying shock to his signature smirk. Bart was slowly beginning to grin in excitement, too.

 

“Right,” Robin said as he cleared his throat and began to climb into the supercycle, “It seems there is a compulsion to answer questions along with the inability to lie. Let’s be careful with our words until we can figure this out.”

 

The flight back to Mount Justice was silent in terms of verbal conversation. It was, however, full of pointed looks sent back and forth, silent challenges, wordless threats. It was clear they were all on edge at the thought of being compromised.

 

The supercycle parked and yet the young heroes all sat, unmoving, having their silent conversations for another two minutes.

 

Finally, Cassie threw up her hands and sighed. “Fine,” She groaned, “I guess we should call Wonder Woman.”

 

“Whoa, what?” Impulse shot to his feet as he asked.

 

“You’re just gonna call Wonder Woman?” Kon asked, just as confused.

 

“Uh… Unless you were planning on calling Superman instead,” Cassie said with a pointed raise to her brow, “the whole honesty thing is kinda Wonder Woman’s deal, though.”

 

“So we’re just gonna…” Kon hesitated before asking in disbelief, “Willingly call the justice league for help?”

 

“Aren’t they your mentors?” Cissie asked.

 

“Well, yeah but no one actually calls their mentor for help unless it’s a last resort,” Impulse said in a tone that implied he was fighting the urge to tack on the word “Duh.” “I mean,” He continued, “Do you ever call up your mentor for help?”

 

“My mentor went to prison for child endangerment,” Cissie said, deadpanned, without missing a beat. It took two seconds for her to appear shocked that she spoke at all. She blinked then, and added on, “She’s out now. She’s-”

 

“Easy on the questions,” Robin reminded Impulse before he turned to Cassie and asked, “You think Wonder Woman can help?”

 

“I think it’s worth hearing what she has to say,” Cassie shrugged, “Instead of the five of us who all know incredibly dangerous secrets being stuck with an inability to lie.”

 

“Four of you,” Kon cut in.

 

“What?” Impulse asked with his mouth hanging open in shock.

 

“The sky is green, seven is the first letter of the alphabet, Rob’s cooler than me,” Superboy flicked up his fingers with each statement said in a nonchalant tone while he lazily smirked, “I can lie just fine.”

 

Robin should have been annoyed. He should have tried to tell Kon off for teasing. But Kon just called him Rob instead of Robin for the first time in a month and he felt a stupid sensation of butterflies in his gut.

 

“How?” Bart asked.

 

“Kryptonian DNA, probably,” Kon said with a shrug before he added on, “You know, I’m surprised your speedster metabolism hasn’t burned through that stuff already.”

 

“The sky is green,” Bart rushes to say, then smiles brightly and cheers, “Hey, you were right!”

 

“Three of us, then,” Cassie says while crossing her arms over her chest.

 

“You sure?” Bart asked, “What about you?”

 

“What about me?” Cassie echoed the question back to him.

 

“Are you human? Fully?” Impulse asked. Someone else asking would’ve come across as rude, but the speedster sounded genuinely curious.

 

“Eh,” Cassie shrugged with a so-so motion to her hand.

 

“Well, can you lie?” Kon asked her.

 

“The sky is,” Cassie paused, seeming to choke on her own words before the truth poured out of her with a heavy sigh, “blue.” She turned to Robin and suggested, “We could always call Batman, if you guys didn’t want to drag Wonder Woman into this. He’s good with wacky serums, right?”

 

“I would rather get shot again than ask B for help on my first mission back in the field,” Robin said without thinking.

 

“You got shot?” Impulse exclaimed. He was staring at Rob, same as Cassie and Cissie. Rob was staring back, biting his tongue firmly before a rambling answer to that question poured out of him.

 

Kon looked between them all. Maybe he pitied the near-sick expression on Robin’s face, or maybe he remembered he really does care, but whatever the reason he thankfully spoke up and redirected the conversation.

 

“I always thought you were being dramatic when you said things like that,” Kon told Robin, “Like, you talk like Batman isn’t even human half the time.”

 

“Superman is more human than Batman,” Robin stated simply. It was a sentiment he knew Dick agreed with as well. Nothing against Batman, really. It was more of a statement about how human the kryptonian was. He was the farm-fed poster child for being a good person. Batman, on the other hand, was the personification of an urban legend.

 

“Are you sure you can’t lie?” Kon asked skeptically. Robin tried not to put too much thought into the way this was the first time Superboy was making sustained eye contact with him in way too long.

 

“Positive,” Robin confirmed. For good measure he tacked on his own test, “The sky is… blue. The sky is blue.”

 

“Call Wonder Woman,” Kon told Cassie, “In the meantime…”

 

He trailed off then, clearly unsure what next steps should be.

 

“Blood samples,” Robin filled in the blank, “All of us, just to cover our bases.”

 

“Fine,” Kon agreed. Bart agreed as well, but he was a little more whiney when he sighed a long, dragged out, “Fine.”

 

---

 

“Thanks for making the time for us, Diana,” Cassie said to Wonder Woman as they sat alone around the table at the old Justice League headquarters. 

 

The amazon sat in what must’ve been her official seat, once upon a time. The seat with her emblem on the back. The seat that Cassie felt belonged to her, but at the same time felt too big whenever she sat in it. 

 

She didn’t know how Superboy did it, how he flew around wearing that “S” shield with pride. Or how Robin could snicker as he taped a poorly-drawn bird over the bat symbol on the chair he normally sat at. Neither boy seemed to care too much about the weight of carrying on the legacy of their mentors and Cassie would admit, only in the privacy of her own thoughts, that she was jealous of them for that. 

 

Then again, Superboy looked downright constipated whenever the team interacted with Superman and Robin had inarguably been telling the truth earlier when he said he’d rather be shot than ask Batman for help. So, maybe holding a little bit of awe for her mentor still wasn’t so bad compared to whatever those idiots were doing.

 

“I am happy to visit Young Justice’s base of operations,” Wonder Woman grinned at Cassie as she answered. 

 

“It was your base first,” Cassie dismissed with a shrug. 

 

“Yes, well,” Diana looked around the room with a glint of her eye that seemed to be a fond nostalgia, “I’ve been meaning to check in on the new team for some time now.”

 

“Why?” Cassie looked around the room with far less wonder, willing herself to catch a glimpse of the same spark behind her eyes. 

 

“You are the next young generation of heroes who will uphold the drive for truth and justice,” Wonder Woman explained, then she let the corner of her mouth flick up into a sly smile as she added on, “Though, I must admit, I didn’t expect my first collaboration with your new team to be helping you all regain an ability to lie.”

 

“It’s not about lying,” Cassie rolled her eyes, “It’s about keeping secrets. Secret identities, secret missions, secret-“

 

“Would it be so bad for your team to have no secrets between each other?” Wonder Woman asked, interrupting Cassie but seeming genuinely curious about what she would think. 

 

“Between each other, we’d probably be fine,” Cassie admitted, “I mean, Rob would probably vomit over outing his civilian identity to us, but other than that we’d be fine. The main concern was always what would happen when we’d go back to our civilian personas.”

 

“Well, rest assured, the three of you should be free from the effect of the serum within twenty four hours,” Wonder Woman said with a reassuring smile. 

 

“Right,” Cassie nodded, “Thanks.”

 

She expected that to be all. Wonder Woman confirmed that they’d all recover, she did a brief check in on the situation, why else would she stay around?

 

“It took Superman and I many years before Batman trusted either of us with his legal name,” Diana said after a moment’s consideration, “For so long he introduced himself as Batman and it was his truth. It is probably still his truth.”

 

Cassie said nothing. She just looked at Diana, waiting for her to continue. 

 

“I mean to say,” Wonder Woman placed a reassuring hand on Cassie’s shoulder, “I’m not surprised to hear his protege guards his given name closely. This does not mean he doesn’t trust you.”

 

“I know he trusts me,” Cassie says confidently, “He trusts all of us. I don’t need to know his name to know that. He probably feels more like himself when he’s Robin than when he’s whoever-he-is underneath the mask, anyway.”

 

“Is that how you feel when you use the name Wonder Girl?” Diana asks. Again, the tone is of genuine curiosity but the question is one that leaves Cassie feeling vulnerable, especially while under the effects of truth serum. 

 

“I feel… not more like myself when I’m Wonder Girl. Just, an authentic version of myself,” Cassie tried to put her thoughts into words. She must’ve done an alright job, because Wonder Woman nodded contemplatively and accepted the answer. 

 

“If it is not distrust in your teammates,” Diana spoke up after another moment of quiet, “Then what is it that troubles you?”

 

“I don’t know what you mean,” Cassie responded, grateful for the truth serum because it meant her statement couldn’t be considered a cop out. 

 

“You’ve been… tense,” Diana explained, “It hasn’t gone unnoticed.”

 

“The boys have been fighting,” Cassie said, “Not Impulse. Robin and Superboy.”

 

“Do you know why?” 

 

“No, not really. Something happened a few weeks ago that set them off. Might have something to do with Rob’s recent injury, a gunshot apparently,” Cassie answered. Apparently, speculations could be talked about as long as she was honest about her thoughts. Good to note for the report. She continued with a dismissive wave to her hand, “They’re talking more, slowly. Hopefully the overnight stay tonight only helps.”

 

“I see,” Wonder Woman says, “So their conflict isn’t why you’ve been tense, then.”

 

“What?”

 

“You seem to think it will be resolved shortly,” The amazon observes. 

 

Cassie let out a sigh, “No, that’s not why I’ve been tense.”

 

“What has?” Diana asked, no room left for nonsense. 

 

“Arrowette,” Cassie admitted, “She’s joined the team.”

 

“And that is a problem?”

 

“No,” Cassie answered honestly, “It’s not a problem, it’s just a change.”

 

“A bad change?”

 

“A change change,” Cassie wrinkled her nose as she explained, “Like… Ugh. I do want another girl on the team, okay? Did I tell you the guys once tried to pack fifty boxes of tampons onto the supercycle for a ‘short term’ stock? And then the next month  they showed up with fifty more? I don’t even want to know how they guessed my cycle, I keep telling myself it was dumb luck but I feel like the supercycle tipped them off somehow after I complained to her.”

 

Diana blinked at Cassie with wide eyes but her smile revealed her amusement. Stifling a laugh, Wonder Woman asked, “Having another young lady around must be refreshing, then?”

 

“I guess,” Cassie admitted, “It’s just also, like, intimidating. Like, I’ve been the only girl around for so long, you know?”

 

“I must admit, I cannot relate to that,” Diana sounded genuinely apologetic, “I come from an island of all women. I was more than happy to welcome more female heroes into the Justice League when the time came.” 

 

“Superheroics are a bit of a boy’s club,” Cassie admitted. 

 

“Even still,” Wonder Woman agreed before offering some advice, “I would not compare yourself to Arrowette. Not as women. Consider each other first teammates, peers, that is what you are. As young women heroes, the two of you may be able to support each other in a way your male teammates cannot.”

 

“Yeah,” Cassie agreed, “You’re right.”

 

They sat in the moment for a bit, Diana letting the conversation settle into Cassie as the young hero did her best to internalize the fact there was no reason to be intimidated by Cissie. Arrowette was not a threat, not to her. 

 

Eventually, a knock rang out as the door was pushed open. None other than Arrowette herself walked through with the greeting, “Hey, I have a question.”

 

“Hello,” Diana greeted brightly, “Has something happened?”

 

“Oh, no,” Cissie blinked in surprise at Wonder Woman before turning to fix her eyes more solidly on Cassie, “I have a question for Wonder Girl, if that’s alright.”

 

Cassie paused herself, just for a moment, before she gave into her curiosity and asked, “What’s up?”

 

“What’s your address?” Cissie asked almost sheepishly. 

 

“I want to know why you needed to ask me that,” Cassie rushed out, eyes wide. The good thing about Robin being batshit crazy paranoid was that he figured out early on all the little loop holes in the truth serum. Conversation could be redirected, it was important to keep quick and simple truths at the forefront of your mind. A compulsion to answer a question could be repressed as long as another truth was spoken in its place. 

 

“I told my mom I was having a sleepover with you tonight,” Cissie said, “It’s technically the truth. We still need to be honest in texts. Crazy, right? Anyway, now she’s asking where you live.”

 

“But you are spending the night at Mount Justice, not Wonder Girl’s house,” Diana observes. 

 

“Yeah, but my mom didn’t ask where we were sleeping, she just asked where Wonder Girl lived,” Cissie said with a slight shrug. 

 

“Why not tell her you are staying at Mount Justice, though?” Diana asked. 

 

“There are boys on the team,” Cissie stated. 

 

“I don’t understand,” Diana admitted. 

 

“I do,” Cassie said with a slight grimace. 

 

“Is a co-ed sleepover something your mother would be concerned over?” Diana asked, though it was unclear which girl she was asking. 

 

“I am so glad you stopped by to help us, Wonder Woman,” Cassie rushed to fill in a truthful statement instead of either of them answering Diana, “Seriously, thank you.”

 

Then, she turned to Cissie and snatched the phone out of her hand. She pulled Arrowette out of the room with her, each of them waving a slightly flushed, nearly sheepish goodbye to Wonder Woman who still sat a little perplexed and a little amused in Cassie’s chair. It was Cassie’s chair now. 

 

Typing in her address she turned to Cissie and said, “We should try this on my mom, too. Normally on overnights I say I’m with school friends, but she’s gotten close to catching me a few times.”

 

Cissie laughed and agreed easily. Maybe an overnight stay would be good bonding for them. Maybe the girls needed this as bad as Robin and Kon. 

 

---

 

They settled into a room, just the two of them. Munching on slightly-burnt popcorn and talking about anything that came to mind, Cassie found herself enjoying Cissie’s company more than she ever anticipated. 

 

“You know,” Cissie said while throwing a piece of popcorn into Cassie’s mouth with startling accuracy, “I don’t know who I pity more. On one hand, Robin is stuck with the other guys while being the only one drugged up on honestly. On the other hand, Bart is stuck with Rob and Kon and their whole situation.”

 

“Oh my god,” Cassie laughed out, “Do we need to rescue Bart?”

 

“He may be the only reason the other two haven’t punched each other yet,” Cissie suggested. 

 

“He may be the only reason they aren’t defiling each other right now,” Cassie added on. 

 

“Oh, gross!” Cissie exclaimed, but she was laughing. Cassie felt proud of herself, to be able to make her new friend laugh. They were friends. Teammates. Peers. Cassie was glad to have a friend like Cissie on the team after all. 

 

---

 

“I didn’t realize you were so scared of needles,” Bart said as the boys unfolded some sleeping bags. They elected to allow the girls to take most of the proper bedding that was stored at Mount Justice. Screw what Cassie said, they were plenty chivalrous. 

 

“I’m not scared,” Kon argued with his mouth twisted distastefully. 

 

“You were squeamish,” Bart said with an obliviously bright smile. 

 

“You try having a concentrated red light purge the yellow solar radiation out of your arm to let the needle through,” Kon huffed out, “It’s not exactly fun.”

 

“You know what isn’t fun?” Bart countered, “Superspeed healing around the needle before we even start pulling it out.”

 

“I’d take both those options over being truth-bombed,” Robin added his opinion. 

 

“That’s because of your trust issues,” Kon said flatly. 

 

“I don’t have an issue with trusting you,” Robin snapped. Then, he rushed to add to Kon and Bart both, “I do trust you guys.”

 

Kon shifted a little uncomfortably then, properly lost for words. 

 

“Come on, guys,” Bart spoke up as he flopped down onto his sleeping bag, “Enough of the fighting. Tonight’s like… like the start again. The three of us besties against the world!”

 

“Yeah, sure,” Robin mumbled. 

 

“So you admit we’re your best friends,” Bart wiggled his eyebrows as he spoke. 

 

“Obviously,” Robin answered as he rolled his eyes and plopped down onto the sleeping bag. 

 

He caught Bart glance towards Superboy, a smirk growing on the speedsters face, before he asked, “Who’s your best best friend?”

 

“Kon,” Robin answered quickly. He snapped his jaw shut the second after the name escaped, but he could feel a heated blush rising on his cheeks. God forbid he kept talking and revealed he’s more than open to being more than best friends. 

 

“I knew you’d say that,” Bart said softly, pumping his fist in victory like he just got and A+ on a quiz. He didn’t even seem put off by Superboy outranking him as Robin’s best friend. 

 

“Really?” Kon asked Robin, blinking a little owlishly. 

 

Robin flushed once more under his gaze and tried to offer a casual shrug as he said, “I’ve told you that before.”

 

“Yeah but that was…” Kon paused, “That was weeks ago. Before…”

 

“Yeah, well,” Robin willed himself to plaster his poker face back on and stop seeming so goddamn emotional, “What can I say? I’m stubborn.”

 

“Yeah,” Kon let out the breath of a laugh, placing his sleeping bag down closer to Robin’s than Tim had expected, “Stubborn’s one word for it.”

 

“We should play a game!” Bart piped up. 

 

“I don’t know-“ Robin started. 

 

“Truth or dare!” Bart all but clapped his hands in excitement. 

 

Robin’s poker face fell, completely. He gawked at Bart with an annoyed expression that surely looked hysterical given the loud snort of laughter Kon let out. In no uncertain terms Robin told Bart, “We are not going to play truth or dare while I’m drugged up on truth serum.”

 

“Why not?” Bart crossed his arms as he asked. 

 

“I want you to think about that and see if you can answer it for yourself,” Robin rolled his eyes. 

 

“What about never have I ever?” Kon suggested. 

 

“No,” Robin said firmly. 

 

“Come on, Robbie,” Kon said with a slight tease to his voice, “What’s a little slumber party game between best friends?”

 

“Oh, nicknames,” Bart observed, “That’s evil.”

 

“I-“ Robin started. He wanted to say a lot. He wanted to say he didn’t like Kon’s nicknames for him. He wanted to say they didn’t affect him at all. He wanted to say it’s no different from Bart calling him something other than Robin. He couldn’t get any of those words out, choking on the lies in his throat. Finally, he sighed, “Fine, we can play,” and gestures lazily with his hand as if to say get on with it. 

 

“Never have I ever drank alcohol,” Kon started. 

 

“Wait, really?” Robin asked as he put a finger down.

 

“Metabolism. No point in drinking for me,” Kon shrugged, before pointing to Robin’s four remaining fingers, “But you have?”

 

“I’ve built up a high tolerance for most toxins and poisons,” Robin said with a shrug, “Alcohol included.”

 

It was a technical truth, not the full story. No word on the rich kid tradition to have a glass of wine during holiday dinners, no insight into how Tim was a curious kid left alone in a big empty house with an unlocked liquor cabinet. 

 

“That sounds wildly irresponsible,” Bart pointed out, still holding five fingers proudly raised. Robin wasn’t sure if Bart never drank because of his metabolism or because he was so high on life all the time he never felt the need to experiment. 

 

“We run around in colorful costumes and fight crime in our spare time,” Robin pointed out, “Anything can sound wildly irresponsible without context.”

 

“Never have I ever…” Bart began his turn next, pausing to settle on a prompt, “Been in a serious relationship.”

 

Again, Robin dropped another finger. Again, Superboy called him out on it. 

 

“Seriously?” Kon seemed genuinely taken aback. 

 

“I mean,” Robin shrugged, “As serious as teenage dating can get, I guess.”

 

“I didn’t know dating was something you did,” Kon said, noticeably avoiding eye contact with Robin. 

 

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Robin asked, a little forcefully. 

 

“Not everyone dates,” Bart says with a shrug. 

 

“Well what about you?” Robin ignored Bart to gesture at Superboy’s dropped finger, “I’ve never heard about your ex.”

 

“I don’t like to talk about it,” Kon’s shoulders shift just slightly tenser, just a little higher. 

 

“Yeah, well, maybe I don’t either,” Robin countered. 

 

“Did you guys end on bad terms?” Bart asked, pure curiosity in his voice. 

 

Tim’s most serious ex, of course, was Steph. They’d almost had a baby together. Not Tim’s baby, but still. So, she was who he was referring to when the honest truth spilled out of him, “No, we’re still friends.”

 

“Then why wouldn’t you tell me about your love life?” Kon threw his hands as he asked the question. 

 

“It never came up,” Tim said, “Never seemed relevant,” Tim continued, “Never mattered,” Tim rambled on, “Plus I’m not sure I’ve fully wrapped my head around the bisexuality thing yet so I’ve been trying to avoid talking about romance at all, recently.”

 

Fucking truth serum. Fucking false-sense-of-security while talking with friends, making Tim let his guard down and not think about the words pouring out of his mouth. 

 

Bart and Kon were staring at Tim. 

 

Kon was staring at Tim. 

 

Kon’s voice was high pitched and squeaky when he echoed the word, “Bisexual?”

 

“Never have I ever eaten five large pizzas in one sitting!” Tim abruptly called out. 

 

“What, but-“ Kon started. 

 

“We’re playing,” Tim said, “I’m playing. Let’s play.”

 

It was a clear challenge, a dare not to speak about Tim’s previous statement. The other two boys shared a look, looking like they were floundering on what to say next. Tim prompted them again, “Never have I ever circumnavigated the planet.”

 

“This is starting to feel targeted,” Bart observed. 

 

Kon, thankfully, caught the hint to ignore what just happened and keep on with the game. He said, “Never have I ever been sunburnt.”

 

“Yeah?” Robin challenged, “Well, never have I ever been to Antarctica.”

 

“Never have I ever driven the supercycle!” Bart loudly jumped in before celebrating, “Bam! Both of you at once!”

 

Robin and Superboy shared a look. A questioning glance met by a smirk of confirmation. 

 

Kon spoke first, “Never have I ever had so much static electricity built up I was chased around the dollar store by balloons.”

 

Robin was quick to follow, “Never have I ever hit my head so hard I genuinely believed I was Batman.”

 

“Hey, that was-“

 

Kon cut off whatever Bart was about to say by saying, “Never have I ever mistaken hotel soaps for candy.”

 

“They were shaped like-!”

 

Robin spoke over Bart, through his own laughter, as he said, “Never have I ever called Red Tornado dad.”

 

“I hit my head!” Bart tried to defend himself. 

 

Kon hollered out a laugh, remarking, “Oh my god, do you remember the look on Mercury’s face?”

 

Robin nodded and laughed along, “I thought he was gonna fight Red T over Bart.”

 

“And Red looked nauseous,” Kon continued, “How does a robot even look nauseous?”

 

“You guys suck,” Bart groaned as he flopped back on his beanbag. 

 

“Never have I ever been named Bart,” Robin teased. 

 

“Never have I ever lost a game of never have I ever,” Kon stated with a grin that rivaled Tim’s own. Then, with faux innocence he turned to Bart and said, “Hey, I think that’s another finger down for you, bud.”

 

“You’re the worst,” Bart groaned in exasperation. 

 

“Yeah, love you too, man,” Kon said with a wink. 

 

“We should play a different game,” Bart decided. 

 

“Never have I ever been a sore loser over a sleepover game,” Robin stage-whispered to Kon. 

 

“I miss when you guys were fighting,” Bart grumbled. 

 

“No, you don’t,” Robin called his bluff. 

 

“No, I don’t,” Bart admitted with a sigh. 

 

Kon chimed in, softly kicking Robin’s foot to catch his attention and saying in no uncertain terms, “Me neither.”

 

“Yeah,” Robin nudged him back. Unable to lie, he agreed, “Me neither.”

 

They boys kept talking, really talking. Laughing and joking and playing games like old friends. They were old friends, and this was the first night in far too long they were actually acting like it. 

 

Bart was the first to fall asleep, twitching and snoring and restless even in his most relaxed state. Of course he did. Robin was hardwired to be borderline nocturnal by now, and it was still unclear if Superboy actually needed to sleep at all or if he just chose to indulge in it.  At the sound of a particularly loud snore, Superboy spoke up, “I swear he’s as bad as a tractor.”

 

Robin laughed lightly, offering his own observation, “I feel stupid for even thinking he would look uncharacteristically peaceful as he slept.”

 

“You’re not stupid,” Kon chastised. 

 

“I know,” Robin agreed easily, “I said I felt stupid. I know I’m smart. Really smart, actually.”

 

Kon snorted and said, “Well, gee, tell us how you really feel.”

 

“Confused,” Robin stated truthfully before he could stop himself. 

 

“Confused?” Kon echoed. 

 

Robin could shut down the conversation, Kon would let him. But they had been doing so well today, talking and working together instead of chewing each other’s heads off. Robin could be brave, he could handle a little deeper conversation. 

 

“I don’t understand why no one has asked me my name,” Tim admitted in a soft voice. 

 

Kon sounded confused as he responded, “That would be, like, the quickest way to get you to hate one of us.”

 

“I wouldn’t hate you guys,” Robin said, an easy truth. 

 

“You would resent whoever asked,” Kon said with a firm confidence, as though he was stating an inarguable fact. 

 

The two boys lay there in their respective sleeping bags, each staring at the ceiling and listening to Bart’s periodic snoring. 

 

Eventually, Tim found the strength to ask, “Is that why you never figured it out? You think I’d resent you for it?”

 

“Wouldn’t you?” Kon asked plainly. 

 

“I don’t…” Tim was incapable of lying, “I don’t know.”

 

“You would,” Kon stated. 

 

“I don’t know,” Tim emphasized again, “Sometimes, I think it’d just be easier.”

 

“Easier?”

 

“If you figured it out on your own,” Tim explained, “Or if you asked me now when I’d be compelled to answer. Easier if you found out and it wasn’t my fault.”

 

“You figured out how to curb the compulsive answers,” Kon pointed out, “If I asked you and you answered, you’d still be letting it happen.”

 

“Maybe,” Robin agreed, “But I’ve definitely let out a few truths by accident today.”

 

Kon was quiet, for a moment, letting the rumble of Bart’s snores hang between them. Eventually, he asked, “Are we gonna talk about it?”

 

Robin sighed and relented, “Might as well.”

 

“We don’t have to,” Kon insisted, “I’m sorry you told us before you were ready.”

 

“It’s not that I’m not ready,” Robin clarified, “I’m just still figuring it out, I guess.”

 

“I get that,” Kon says, and he sounds so earnest it makes Robin want to snort. 

 

How could Kon-El of all people “get” a sudden bisexuality crisis sparked from realizing he had feelings for his best friend who happened to be a fellow superhero and also was so perpetually annoyed and pissed off at him they couldn’t make it through a single conversation without arguing?

 

“You get it?” Robin asked, disbelief evident in his tone. 

 

“I really do,” Kon said in a soft voice. Open, honest, vulnerable. 

 

Oh. 

 

That’s not the tone a straight person uses to say they empathize with their friend’s sexuality crisis. 

 

Suddenly, Tim didn’t want to talk about this anymore. Crushing on a “straight” Kon was bad enough. Crushing on a “potentially not-straight” Kon? That might be Tim’s breaking point. He’s been trying really hard recently to respect Kon’s privacy and not overstep any boundaries. Investigating his best friend’s sexuality would not only be a sure way to overstep boundaries, but it would probably drive Tim insane throughout the process. 

 

“Anyway,” Tim shifted slightly uncomfortably where he laid, “I’d rather out myself than out my identity, so this night could’ve gone worse.”

 

“Do you want us to know?” Kon asked. 

 

“That I’m bi?” Tim asked back. 

 

Kon clarified, “Your identity.”

 

“Oh,” Tim hesitated. The answer was, as all things, complicated. Unfortunately, he still wasn’t able to lie. He answered, honestly, “I want you to know.”

 

“But you won’t tell us,” Kon stated. It wasn’t a question but an observation. His tone was somewhat guarded. 

 

“Us” Kon had said. “You” Robin had said. Kon didn’t seem to realize Robin wanted Kon to know him in a different way than all the others. 

 

“I’m sorry,” Tim said softly, an honest and heartfelt apology. There was the weight of deep emotions carried by those two little words. Then, even softer, he added on, “Sometimes I really wish you just looked me up.”

 

“I want you to want to tell me,” Kon said. 

 

“I do want to tell you,” Tim reminded him.

 

“I want you to introduce yourself,” Kon tried again. Then, almost hopefully, he added on, “And you will, one day.”

 

“You already know me,” Robin admitted, “I like myself better as Robin than the name I was born with.”

 

“Course I know you,” Kon scoffed in his typical cocky way, “I’m your best friend. Doesn’t mean I ever wanna stop getting to know you better.”

 

Tim’s cheeks were burning. He’d never blushed so hard in his life, it was a miracle the blood rush didn’t make him go dizzy. He was eternally grateful that he and Kon were both looking at the ceiling, unsure how he’d be able to explain away the rosiness of his cheeks. The moment stretched between them, comfortable, simmering, and warm. 

 

Then another loud snore rumbled out from Bart’s chest, lasting no shorter than twenty seconds. It was impressive, if not slightly concerning. 

 

Tim couldn’t hold back his laughter when the sound finally quieted. He whisper-laughed to Kon, “He really does sound like a tractor.”

 

“I know!” Kon laughed along, “Dude’s got, like, sleep apnea or something.”

 

“You know the sound the supercycle makes when she’s revving her engine to give an angry growl?” Robin asked. 

 

“Yes!” Kon barked out then tried to stifle his laughter, “Yes, that is exactly what he sounds like.”

 

“I am never gonna be able to fall asleep tonight,” Robin groaned. 

 

“You hardly ever sleep anyway,” Kon argued. 

 

“Sleep is important,” Robin said. It was a simple truth, a statement he could get away with saying. He didn’t want to risk choking on an argument that he got enough sleep on a regular basis. 

 

“It’s not so bad,” Kon said in reference to Bart’s snoring, “Some people would say the sounds of a dying whale are extremely relaxing.”

 

“Dude, shut up,” Robin giggled in his response. 

 

“Yeah, whatever,” Kon said with a light laugh still in his voice, “G’night, Boy Wonder.”

 

“Good night, Kon,” Robin answered softly. 

 

He fell asleep, eventually, but he’d always been a light sleeper. Bart’s snoring woke him up frequently. The only solace Tim found was that almost every time a loud sound ripped him from sleep, Kon was glaring at Bart with equally bleary eyes and tugging at his bed head in frustration. At least Tim wasn’t alone.

Notes:

Again, this chapter ended up way longer than I originally planned, thank you for your patience lol! Shoutout to user @Jessica_cruz for commenting and inspiring a little interlude scene between Cassie and Diana. I must admit, I don't read too much Wonder Woman comics so I hope she wasn't too fanon-y, but I've always loved Cassie's independent nature and how it leads her to have somewhat of a different relationship with her mentor compared to some of the other Young Justice members.

Happy early Halloween, I hope you've enjoyed reading <3

Chapter 8

Since the team's overnight stay at Mount Justice two weeks ago, things between Tim and Kon have been better. Tim was willing to bet it was largely due to the truth serum thing. Was it an invasion of privacy? Well, yeah, but it was also a reminder to Kon that even though Tim kept secrets he didn’t really lie to his friends all that much. 

 

He just spoke skillfully, redirected conversation and carefully avoided certain topics. He was good at talking about what he wanted to talk about and avoiding what he didn’t. Except, apparently, his sexuality. Still, Kon seemed genuinely empathetic to that little truth slipping out before Tim could stop it. In fact, he was a little too empathetic. 

 

His glances at Tim were soft and lingering, almost cautious at times. He was very concentrated, almost always, like he was holding just as much careful control over himself that Tim normally carried himself with in front of Bruce. Every glance also held a thought process behind Kon’s eye. Every action he naturally set out with was almost immediately doubled back on and replaced with a more intentional one. 

 

It was a little bit like torture.

 

Kon, who had always been loose and carefree with simple touches, like an arm thrown over Robin’s shoulder, was now freezing up and correcting any time he touched Robin. If Kon’s arm was on his shoulder it would only take a moment for Tim to feel Kon tense up and remove it. If Kon placed his hand on the small of Tim’s back to guide Tim out of Kon’s way while moving through mount justice, it would take two steps before Kon’s eyes were blown wide and the guy was practically tripping himself to put a bit of space between them. 

 

At first, Tim was certain it was because Kon still felt the need to tread lightly after the month they spent pissed off at each other. He tried to snap at Kon about that towards the end of last week. It was just the two of them cleaning up the training room. It was nice, banter loosely flowing back and forth between them, but when it came time to wipe down the mats they both reached for the sanitizer at the same time. Their fingers brushed and Kon jolted backwards sharply. 

 

Robin blinked at him in question and asked, “You good?”

 

“Yeah,” Kon pushed the word out with an inauthentic smile, “Yeah, all yours man.”

 

“What are you doing?” Tim finally chose the direct approach and asked Kon with an unimpressed tone. 

 

“Cleaners all yours,” Kon insisted, then added on with a quick wink and smirk, “I’ll just point out if you miss any spots.”

 

“I meant,” Tim all but growled as he clenched the trigger of the spray bottle to spritz Kon for being an ass, “What have you been doing? The flinching, the tripping, the jumping.”

 

“What are you talking about?” Kon asked. He was grimacing as he tried to wipe the spray off his face. 

 

“Dude, you freaked out over high fiving me earlier today,” Robin stated plainly, “You know what I'm talking about.”

 

Kon stayed quiet, shifting uncomfortably where he hovered in the air. Robin took it as a cue to continue, “Do you think I’m still mad or something?" Then Robin paused and reconsidered, deciding to ask a new question, "Wait, are you still mad at me? I thought we-“

 

“We’re good!” Kon rushed to insist, “‘Course we’re good. We’re great even.”

 

Robin raised a skeptical eyebrow and asked, “Then what’s your deal?”

 

Kon shrugged then mumbled, “Just trying to make sure I don’t make you uncomfortable or anything.”

 

He at least had the nerve to look sheepish, because hearing those words had Robin downright pissed. 

 

“Are you kidding me?” Robin seethed through his teeth, “You’re freaking out because you found out I’m bi?”

 

“Whoa!” Superboy snapped wide eyes to meet Robin’s glare and ask, “Who said that?”

 

“Come on, dude. ‘Make me uncomfortable’ my ass,” Robin argued, “You’re just freaking out over how I’m not straight.”

 

“Well, how are you not?” Kon finally stopped denying and threw his hands in exasperation. 

 

Robin gave a scoff of disbelief. 

 

Kon, to his credit, did rush to recover, “No, I just… Not like that. I mean, like, how are you not freaking out?”

 

“Not everyone goes into a fucking panic because they realize they’d be down to bang a dude,” Robin retorted with crossed arms. He pointedly ignored the fact that he did have a slight crisis himself because the “dude” he was crushing on hard was his best friend and closest teammate. Robin did not ignore the slight rosy blush growing on Kon’s cheeks as he listened to Rob say he’d be “down to bang a dude.” He noted that bit of information secure in his brain next to the memory of the empathetic way Kon declared he “got” Robin’s bisexuality crisis. 

 

“Yeah?” Kon challenged, “Well, not everyone comes out to their friends while trying to fight off truth serum, either! Most people get to come out on their own terms.”

 

“That’s why you're being weird?” Robin asked in disbelief, “You think I’m uncomfortable with you guys knowing?”

 

“Well, I don’t know. I just-“

 

“Stop it,” Robin interrupted Superboy with another spray to the face, “You’re being dumb.”

 

“Can you not-“

 

Rob sprayed twice more and reminded Kon again, “I told you, I trust you guys. Pretty sure the girls already suspected something anyway.”

 

“Why would they-?”

 

Robin cut off the question with another squeeze of the spray bottle sprayed in Kon’s direction. 

 

“Would you stop that?” Kon finally snapped and grabbed onto Robin’s wrist to keep the spray bottle pointed away from him. 

 

Robin glanced down to the point of contact before meeting Kon’s eyes with the hint of a smile. “Look at that,” Robin teased, “You can touch me without catching cooties.”

 

“You’re an idiot,” Kon said, but his voice was missing its usual edge of bite and his eyes were trapped on that one point of contact between them. 

 

Robin twisted the spray bottle in his hand to point at Superboy once more, and with a final spray to his friend’s face he said, “You’re an idiot. Stop being dumb.”

 

It didn’t get better, Kon being antsy and flighty when he was around Robin, but Tim grew more intentional about watching him. He caught the light blush that would rise on Kon’s cheeks, he noticed the way that Kon would trip over his words instead of his usual smooth talking, he noticed that the only way to get Kon to relax was to keep pushing until they fell into a familiar back and forth banter.

 

Tim was clever. He can read between the lines. Kon was freaked out that Tim was bisexual, but not in a bigoted way. He was freaked out in a shy, blushing, awkward kind of way. Tim couldn’t help but feel hopeful that maybe Kon’s awkwardness was less from nervousness and more from anticipation. Cissy had thought that he was dating Kon just as much as she thought Kon was dating him.

 

The thought of being anything official still scared the shit out of Tim, though. How long could they last with the imbalance of Kon not knowing Tim’s real name? How could Kon be willing to try and build a deeper intimacy when they still need to navigate that secrecy?

 

Tim would never push Kon for more, and Kon would never initiate the first move. At least, Tim had always assumed he wouldn’t. Then, he received a text from Kon asking if Tim could show up to the Mount early on Friday so the two of them could talk. His heart definitely skipped a beat or two.

 

“You’re late,” Tim greeted Kon as he stepped out of the zeta tube. He tried to keep the bitter anxiousness out of his voice as he waited for Kon to finally take the weight of “We need to talk” off of Tim’s mind.

 

Kon just shot back the defense, “The others still won’t be here for over an hour.”

 

“And you told me to show up 15 minutes ago,” Tim reminded him before asking, “How do you manage to be late while being early at the same time?”

 

“It’s a gift,” Kon shrugged, clearly not raising to keep arguing in his own defense.

 

“You sure are special,” Robin offered with a sarcastic roll to his eye. 

 

“Oh yeah?” Kon challenged, “Tell me more.”

 

Kon was smirking at him from overtop the red lenses of his stupid glasses and Robin felt slightly caught up in the gaze. 

 

After clearing his throat and looking away from Kon's teasing eyes, Robin asked, “Why did you want to talk?”  

 

Kon let out a sigh, heavy and somber. All at once, he was stressed. It was clear he was reluctant to be there at all, but he began to walk closer to Robin anyway. Hands in pocket, eyes glancing low, he began to talk, “I’ve been figuring things out.”

 

Robin stayed quiet, though there was a solid chance Kon could hear the uptick in his heartrate. Spurred on by the silence, Kon continued, “I mean… Look I don’t want you to look at me any different, okay?”

 

“You think I ever would?” Robin asked with an eyebrow raised.

 

Kon lets out a soft sound, almost a laugh to himself, before he allowed himself a small smile and answered Robin’s question with a question of his own, “You already know, don’t you?”

 

“I know a lot,” Robin agreed with a small smirk of his own, “I’m very smart. What is it that I know this time?”

 

“Lex Luthor,” Kon’s voice dropped icy and sharp.

 

Robin felt his smile stutter at the abrupt change in the conversation’s direction. Kon was tense, not the awkward-stumbling way he’s been tense around Robin recently but a heavy set tension that seemed to weigh down on him like a great burden. Robin prompted, just to ensure they were on the same page, “What about Lex Luthor?”

 

“You know his DNA was used to stabilize Superman’s when I was growing in that CADMUS test tube,” Kon stated plainly.

 

Robin took a slow breath before confirming, “Yeah, I know that.”

 

Kon nodded to himself in a small way, mumbling under his breath almost as if it was a joke, “Of course you do.”

 

“I mean, back when I found out I-”

 

“Save it,” Kon interrupted with a flicker of a smile pulling at the corner of his mouth, “This isn’t me picking another fight about your stalker tendencies."

 

Robin bristled, defensive, but Kon kept his voice light with a tease so Tim decided to drop the matter. Instead, he asked, “Then what is this about?”

 

“I should’ve realized sooner,” Kon began to explain, “But sometimes I just get so caught up in not knowing who I’m supposed to be. I mean, Superman is Superman. He’s, like, the poster-child for all things good. But then I also come from Luthor who is this selfish, arrogant, asshole that is not a good person at all and I get terrified that I’ll end up like him. Or that I’ll never live up to Superman. Or that-”

 

“Hey,” Robin cut off Kon’s spiral. Kon met his eyes, something that wasn’t quite fear was shining behind them. Anxiety. Kon was anxious. Kon was spiraling. Robin did his best to talk him out of it, “You’re already an arrogant asshole.”

 

“Fuck you,” Kon gave a light shove to Robin’s shoulder as he spoke.

 

“Wait, hey,” Robin pushed back with a slight laugh, “I wasn’t done. You’re already an arrogant asshole. Way too cocky. Super over-confident. I mean, like, super-”

 

“I’m not sure I like where this is going,” Kon grumbled while crossing his arms.

 

“Okay, okay. I’m serious,” Robin nudged Superboy a bit to show he’s been teasing, “You’re cocky as hell and annoying as shit but," Robin paused and waited for Superboy to meet his eye before he stated with no room for argument, "Kon, there isn’t a selfish bone in your body.”

 

Superboy eyed Robin skeptically, as though he wasn’t expecting to hear that. Robin chuckled lightly at the sight and asked Kon, “How many selfish people do you know who would throw a month long hissy fit over not taking a literal bullet for someone.”

 

“Hissie fit,” Kon snarled the phrase back in disbelief. He looked like he was about to argue, but Tim moved to cut him off before he could.

 

“You always put your friends first, your team first, the rest of the world first. You’re my best friend, Kon,” Tim assured him, before trying once more to flip Kon’s perspective of his spiral, “Do you really think I would be friends with a shitty person?”

 

The question got a small huff of resigned laughter out of Kon, but then Superboy said with a somber smile, “So, what? I’m already better than Luthor, so I should stop worrying about that and focus my energy on living up to Superman instead?”

 

“You’re never gonna live up to Superman,” Robin told Kon.

 

Kon flinched backwards before blinking at Robin and telling him, “You are really bad at this, you know?” 

 

“You’re delusional if you think you’re ever gonna be the same as him,” Tim doubled down, “Look, it’s… I'm never gonna be Batman. Nightwing had to realize that once, Red Hood still needs to realize it most of the time, but they each had to take what they learned from being Robin to figure out how to fight crime in their own ways.”

 

“Wait, Nightwing and the Red Hood were each-?”

 

“Not the point,” Tim cut him off, “The point is that I can learn from Batman, I can train under him, I can work with him, but I already know I’m never gonna be him. You are never going to be Superman because he is not you. You might take up the mantle one day, just like I took up Robin, but you won’t be the same Superman, like I’m not the same Robin.”

 

Kon took a minute to sit with Tim's words, clearly letting several thoughts process before he rolled his eyes and reluctantly admitted, “Okay, maybe you’re kinda good at this.”

 

Robin shot Kon a smile before telling him earnestly, “You don’t need to worry about trying to be like Superman, about trying not to be like Luthor. Screw where you came from, what matters is where you are, who you are now. Right?”

 

Kon looked at Tim with wide, shining eyes. His smile was nothing but genuine with a light blush on his cheeks as he told Tim, “Pretty good. You’re pretty good at this.”

 

Robin matched Kon’s smile with a soft smirk of his own before asking, “Is this all you wanted to talk about?”

 

“Oh, uh,” Kon’s eyes widened as if he had momentarily forgotten the point to the conversation, “Kinda?”

 

“Kinda?” Robin echoed.

 

“Kinda,” Kon confirmed, “I’ve been figuring a few things out, but you gotta understand I’ve had these mental blocks up sometimes.”

 

“But you,” Robin hesitated then asked carefully, “You got over the block?”

 

“Yeah,” Kon sighed, “And I realized something that was really obvious in hindsight.”

 

Kon met Robin’s eye in a soft, shy way. They were standing right in front of each other now, sharing space just a step too close for “just friends” to be standing. Robin felt his heart skip a beat once more as he took a deep breath before he asked, “What have you figured out?”

 

Kon’s eyes took on a determined edge as he took a grounding breath. He spoke steadily, looking at Robin all the while, “Lex Luthor is in control of the weapons smugglers we’ve been up against.”

 

Robin flinched back in confusion before he asked, “Wait, what?”

 

“Lex Luthor is-”

 

“No, I heard you,” Robin interrupted, “Why did… How did you… Why aren’t you telling the full team at once?”

 

“I dunno,” Kon shrugged with a defensive edge to his tone, “I figured you’d know about his genetic contribution to me. And I didn’t want you to think I was trying to throw our team off his trail or anything.”

 

“You are an idiot,” Robin plainly stated while crossing his arms.

 

“Well, what were you expecting me to talk to you about?” Kon asked.

 

“I don’t know!” Robin threw his hands out in exasperation. Kon just had to come in acting all shy and talking about his identity and self image and saying shit like he’s been “figuring stuff out” only to be talking about figuring out part of an investigation that he felt like he should’ve caught onto sooner. Dramatic asshole. Robin scowled a bit and said, “Are we still not on the same page about the fact that I trust you?”

 

“No,” Kon rushed to say, “No, I know you do. I just…”

 

“You’re just an idiot,” Robin concluded for him. Insecure, stupid, Superboy. Robin managed a tight smile as he began to walk deeper into Mount Justice and said, “Okay. Give me your rundown before the others get here, we’ll debrief the team together.”

 

“What? Really?” Kon stuttered out as he began to follow after Robin.

 

“I do hope you’re at least smart enough to have brought some evidence?” Robin asked, looking over his shoulder to send Kon a raised eyebrow.

 

“Oh, yeah,” Kon agreed, “Told you, it’s obvious in hindsight. You’re gonna be kicking yourself.”

 

---

 

Robin was, in fact, kicking himself, but at least he wasn’t alone.

 

“How did none of us catch this?” Cassie asked while skimming through the file in her hand. 

 

Financial records from a company whose parent company’s parent company’s parent company was Lexcorp, background checks of employees with similar gang relations, the documented focus on repurposing reverse-engineered and stolen technology, the ever-present threat of the smugglers dealing with “alien shit.” With it all laid out in front of them, Luthor’s influence and all, it was obvious how these smugglers kept getting a leg up on Young Justice.

 

“I caught it,” Kon pointed out with that damn cocky grin.

 

Cassie shot him an unimpressed look before turning directly to Robin and rephrasing her previous question, “How did you not catch this?”

 

“You had just as much access to the investigation notes as I did,” Robin pointed out in his own defense.

 

“Didn’t you and Superboy start looking into the investigation weeks before you brought the rest of the team in?” Cissie asked, coming up behind Cassie to lean a casual arm on Wonder Girl’s shoulder.

 

Cassie, in response, sent a smirk Robin’s way while she raised a fist bump to Cissie that Arrowette met without looking away from Rob either. The girls have been closer recently. It was good, overall, for team camaraderie and all that. It was… less good… for Robin’s pride.

 

“You were looking into these guys before you even joined the team,” Robin countered to Cissie.

 

“Yeah,” Cissie agreed with a shrug before casually adding, “But I was working alone. You had Batman.”

 

“Oh my god!” Bart exclaimed, “Superboy solved a case Batman couldn’t!”

 

“That is not what happened here,” Robin turned to send a sharp glare to both Bart and Superboy before they could get any wise ideas. Seeing Kon’s blinding grin he already knew it was too late.

 

“What can I say?” Kon pretended to brush some dirt off his leather jacket, “I put the ‘fine’ in ‘world’s finest detective.’”

 

“You put the ‘dumb’ in ‘dumb luck,’” Robin corrected him, “You only found the parent company pipeline because of a sticky keyboard key.”

 

“I still figured it out!” Kon defended.

 

“Shh,” Bart began to pat Kon on the back in sympathy as he explained, “Rob’s just jealous he’s not our team’s top detective anymore.”

 

“Chin up, Rob,” Cassie nudged him in the side with a tease of her own, “You’re still the best at paperwork.”

 

“Okay, okay,” Robin clicked the remote to Mount Justice’s monitor screen and pulled up several warehouse schematics along with the rough outline of a mission plan, “We know who we’re up against now. This is what we’re gonna do about it.”

 

Robin looked around the room as his teammates slid into their chairs around the monitor table. They took in the plan and he took in the sight of them all. His closest friends, his favorite people. This was his team. It wasn’t Dick’s the way that the Titans were. It wasn’t Bruce’s the way that the mission to protect Gotham was. This was Tim’s team, Tim’s people, Tim’s missions. When he was at this table he wasn’t “Robin, as in Batman-and-Robin,” he was just himself, with his friends, doing good for the world together.

 

Bart was practically vibrating with excitement in his seat long before the others had finished reading the outline. Superboy, who had obviously been there when Robin was putting this together, was watching Bart with thinly-veiled amusement as the speedster tried to restrain himself and let the girls finished reading.

 

Cassie was the first to make a noise. She let out a low whistle and turned to Robin with her eyebrows raised before commenting, “This is a big plan.”

 

“We’re up against a big player,” Robin offered with a shrug.

 

“No back up? Just us?” Cassie looked to confirm.

 

“Just us,” Robin said with a nod, then shifted his tone to be closer to a challenge as he asked her, “You're not doubting the team now, are you?”

 

“Hold up,” Kon cut in before wrinkling his nose and repeating, “Just us,” He turned to Robin and asked in a tone of disbelief, “Is that where our team name came from? Did you say ‘oh, we’re no team, we’re just us’ to Nightwing back when you were still in denial?”

 

Robin clenched his jaw shut.

 

“Oh, no way,” Cassie barked out around a laugh, “That is so dumb.”

 

“I remind you people,” Robin gritted through his teeth, “His original idea was Junior Justice.”

 

“That’s still based on the stupid ‘just us’ word play,” Cissie said with a snort.

 

“Jeez, Rob,” Cassie wheezed out behind her own laughter, “It is not your day, is it?”

 

“Well, I like the name,” Bart tried to chime in.

 

“You also liked the name ‘speedcycle’ over supercycle,” Kon pointed out.

 

“Well, it’s clear who named her,” Cissie observed in a teasing voice directed at Kon.

 

With that stupid, beautiful, over-confident grin of his, Kon said, “She more-or-less named herself, actually.”

 

“Wait, really?” Cassie asked. At the boy’s collective nodding, she and Cissie shared a slightly impressed look between them, Cissie even acknowledging, “Good for her.”

 

“If that’s all settled,” Robin spoke up with a bit more leadership seeping into his voice, “Can we get back to mission planning?”

 

“This isn’t gonna be enough to tie Luthor to it himself,” Cassie pointed out, “Not in a court or anything.”

 

“But it’ll stop him from being able to continue doing it,” Kon said, thick with determination, “We could stop a lot of tech and weapons falling into a lot of the wrong hands.”

 

“Stopping him now is going to help a lot of people,” Robin agreed. He and Superboy shared a nod before looking at the rest of their team. Robin said to them all, “It only works if we hit all five warehouses at once. We all need to be all in.”

 

“Don’t be dumb,” Cassie chastised while rolling her eyes, “Of course we’re in.”

 

“This is way bigger than any plan my mom ever expected I was capable of,” Cissie acknowledged with a confident smirk.

 

“Oh yeah,” Bart agreed, “Let’s take big baldy down!”

 

Robin looked at his team, determined and strong, and he felt himself begin to smirk. It was going to be a good night.

 

---

 

The hardest day of the week was almost always a Saturday, especially the Saturday after a big mission. A normal Friday night consisted of Tim staying up until dawn was breaking on Saturday morning to finish up training and mission reports about how Young Justice spent their Friday. Last night was spent by the five of them launching five simultaneous attacks on the hotspots on Lex Luthor’s smuggling rings and taking down the most complicated operation Young Justice had ever faced. Then, between the nursing of minor injuries, writing of individual and group reports, and listening to the Red Tornado complain that he should’ve been looped into their ‘ridiculous plan’ before the team departed on the supercycle, Tim also had to send out all the evidence they collected linking LexCorp to the illegal weapons ring. Luthor might be able to avoid a court of law, but at least his company’s stocks might take a hit after going through the court of public opinions.

 

Needless to say, Tim was tired. He was more tired than he usually was on a Saturday. He was genuinely getting desperate for something that would get him through the day before he was able to ride the adrenaline high of patrol that night. He ended up, of all places, in a coffee shop. He was going to have to suck it up, the terrible tasting bean juice beverage, because Alfred was out of non-herbal teas and Tim was not making it through this day without some kind of caffeine pick-me-up.

 

Unfortunately, the little cafe that Tim found himself walking into in one of the “nicer” areas of Gotham didn’t have the unimpressive, overplayed, customer-friendly music that Tim had expected to hear. Instead, it was playing the news at full volume. Tim couldn’t escape the rerun of Lex Luthor’s press conference as he gave his bullshit speech, “...Promise, we are looking into the business practices of all of our subsidiaries. At LexCorp, our mission has always been to better the world by…”

 

“He’s so full of shit,” a voice grumbled out in complaint nearby. Clearly, the guy was talking under his breath, but the voice was just a bit too familiar for Tim to be able to ignore. Looking up, Tim froze at the sight of the guy.

 

Conner Kent, Kon-El, Superboy, was just a few feet away from Timothy Drake. Tim couldn’t help but stare, letting his eyes fall over his best friend who stood in a plaid shirt with black-framed glasses instead of a leather jacket and those stupid red lenses he loved to wear. He should look softer, without all the studs and punk-like embellishments that his Superboy outfit possessed, but Tim still caught sight of the sharp edge of his jawline and the nearly bored nonchalance of Conner’s stance while he waited by the pick up area for his drink. Kon had a suave edge to him that took more than a modest wardrobe and false glasses to take away.

 

The smart thing would have been to walk away. Not even order, just turn heel and head out the door while stubbornly avoiding any chance Kon could have had of seeing Tim. Only, Tim was curious down to the core of his being. He was curious as to why Kon would be in Gotham, how Kon was holding up after their mission last night, if Tim Drake would be able to get Kon to blush the same rosy flush that Robin was able to pull out of him…

 

Whatever the reason why, Tim found himself unable to avoid walking over. Conner didn’t even glance up from scrolling on his phone until Tim cleared his throat to try and catch his attention.

 

Conner flicked his eyes up from his phone screen to look at Tim. Then, he glanced behind himself and, upon seeing no one else there, turned back to Tim and offered a cautious, “Uh… Hey?”

 

It’s not an awkward “hey,” exactly. Instead, it’s the type of greeting you give when you’re confused by why someone could possibly be talking to you. Only Kon could stand in a washed-out flannel and still feel like he was too cool to be approached by a teen millionaire. Tim had the realization for the first time how it was entirely possible that, in addition to not knowing Robin was Tim Drake, Kon may barely know who Timothy Drake was at all.

 

“Hey,” Tim offered with an amused smile. He looked Kon over, not subtly, before observing, “I haven’t seen you in here before.”

 

Technically, Tim had never once in his life stepped foot in that coffee shop before today, but Kon was from out of town so as far as he knew Tim was the most loyal regular the shop had. Conner had clearly caught the way that Tim let his eyes trail up and down. Tim knew Conner wasn’t an idiot, knew that he could read between the lines and figure out when he was being hit on, but Conner didn’t dawn on a cocky smirk and dive into flirting back the way Tim had half-hoped, half-expected. 

 

Instead, Conner just shifted his shoulder in half of a shrug before saying, “I’m not from Gotham. My, uh… cousin… is here for work. I’m just tagging along.”

 

He looked as tired as Tim felt, clearly just as drained from the mission last night and still stubbornly pissed that Luthor himself was experiencing minimal fallout. Tim considered how much of Superboy’s cool and uncaring demeanor was simply the result of exhaustion.

 

The young detective was beginning to fill in a picture. Bruce had mentioned an important press meeting today. Bruce hates press events. Admittedly, Tim should’ve realized sooner that it was an excuse for Bruce to meet up with a certain investigative reporter who sometimes came all the way from Metropolis for an inside-scoop with Brucie Wayne. Likely, Clark was making Conner tag along because, of course, whenever Luthor became involved Superman became the most helicopter-parent-like-person that there ever was. Tim felt his heart twinge in sympathy, not only for Kon being kept on a short leash, but for the fact he was definitely sent on this coffee run so that Clark and Bruce could discuss their opinions of Young Justice’s big mission last night.

 

Tim was not looking forward to whatever lecture they cooked up for later. He barely kept the wince off his face when he asked, “Sent you on the coffee run, then?”

 

“Uh,” Conner shifted on his heels before agreeing, “Yeah, pretty much.”

 

Then, Conner was looking back down on his phone, still waiting for his name to be called at the pick up counter. That could’ve been it, the end to whatever weird conversation Tim was trying to force them through. The smart thing to do would be to walk over and place his order, to leave Kon alone and forget this exchange ever happened in the first place.

 

Only, Tim lingered near Conner’s side just a moment too long and when Conner glanced his eyes up from under his glasses frame to send Tim a confused glance, clearly unsure why Tim was still there at all, Tim couldn’t help but see Kon. His Kon. His Superboy. And all his Kon had ever wanted, since the pair of them had started teaming up, was for Tim to introduce himself.

 

“I’m Tim,” He swallowed his nerves and stuck his hand out in offer of a handshake.

 

“Oh, uh…” Kon hesitated before he slowly shook Tim’s hand and replied, “Conner.”

 

“Conner,” Tim echoed the name with a small smile. He was beginning to feel a little giddy. Tim Drake was shaking the hand of Conner Kent. It felt right, even though it really wasn't. This could be a once in a lifetime opportunity, Tim realized with just a bit of excitement. Curving his smile just slightly into a smirk, Tim asked, “Anyone ever call you Con?”

 

Conner tensed up, nearly snatching his hand away from Tim before answering, “I prefer they didn’t.”

 

“Really?” Tim repeated the question before doubling down, “No one ever?”

 

“Just, uh,” Kon was shifting on his feet, what was previously boredom now edging closer to discomfort, “Just close friends, I guess.”

 

“Then I guess we’ll have to get to know each other better,” Tim offered the flirt, reveling in the way Conner did, in fact, begin to blush and squirm. This was fun. This could be an incredibly fun way for Tim to get a better read on Kon's feelings. The plan was half-crafted in Tim's mind between one blink and the next. Tim could probably get away with really pushing the limits here.

 

“Well, like I said,” Conner took a slight step backwards, “I not really from Gotham, so…”

 

“You’re here now,” Tim said, then added with a burst of confidence, “Screw where you come from, right?”

 

Conner did a double take at that, it felt a lot like Tim was winning the little game between them Kon didn’t even know they were playing. Tim was eagerly awaiting whatever Conner said in response, but then their little bubble was popped. 

 

“For Conner!” The barista placed a carry-out tray of drinks down as they called out to the cafe. 

 

Conner snapped his attention over at the sound of his name, then stuttered out, “C-cool, uh, that’s me. I should…”

 

He never exactly finished that thought, just hooked a thumb over his shoulder to point out the counter before he turned around to walk over. Tim could let him leave, let him squirm in his shoes as he ran out the door and freaked out in the comfortable loneliness of his own head. Tim stood there, watching, as Conner picked up the tray of drinks and made his way over towards the door. Tim heard the little bell jingle overhead, and he was more than prepared to stay frozen as he watched Conner walk out that door. 

 

But Kon sent one last confused look at Tim from over his shoulder as he was walking away. 

 

Tim could push this more.

 

“Hey,” Tim called as he darted out the door after Conner. When Conner didn’t stop right away, and Tim knew he had superhearing so it was certainly a rude and intentional choice to keep walking, Tim called out a little louder, “Hey, Conner!”

 

Conner finally slowed and cautiously turned around to face Tim again before asking, “Uh, yeah?”

 

“Sorry, just,” Tim hesitated just a moment before asking, “Did I make you uncomfortable back there?”

 

Conner offered a stiff, but placating smile as he softly shook his head, “No, sorry. It was just… When you said… You just reminded me of a friend for a second.”

 

Kon was blushing, very lightly on his cheeks. He looked just a bit too pale in the cloudy haze of an early afternoon in Gotham. He belonged in the unshielded sun, but still Tim couldn’t help but smile at how his pale skin let the blush contrast more noticeably against the rest of Kon’s complexion. 

 

“Did I?” Tim asks with his smirk fitting back in place before he commented, “He must be nice.”

 

“He’s the best,” Conner agreed. He wasn’t looking at Timothy Drake (rich boy, social elite, young genius) standing right in front of him. Instead, Kon had an almost far off look in his eye while the blush stayed planted firmly in place on his cheeks.

 

“Yeah?” Tim asked, a little more softly than he intended.

 

“Yeah,” Conner cleared his throat after he answered, refocusing on Tim after he did.

 

Oh, Tim could have so much fun with this. He hummed a light sound, then rocked back on his heels and let his hands fall into his pockets as he asked, “So… he’s cool then?”

 

Conner snorted a bit but nodded lightly as he affirmed, “Don’t tell him I said so but he’s even cooler than me.”

 

Tim forced a false gasp of shock before he remarked, “No.”

 

“I know,” Conner played into the teasing tone Tim started, “It’s hard to believe but…” He got that far-off look in his eye as he continued, “No, yeah, he’s pretty cool. In, like, an effortless way. He doesn’t try, he’s just... smart, capable, strong-”

 

“Hot?” Tim asked, a little daring, but leaving the tease light on his tone.

 

Conner, however, seemed to freeze up all of a sudden. Not in the confused way he had when Tim quoted Robin back when they were in the coffeeshop. This time he froze like a blushing deer in headlights. Enough data collection, Kon liked him back. Time to move forward with the rest of Tim’s new plan.

 

“I’ve been there,” Tim admitted, raising his chin in a sympathetic nod towards Kon.

 

“Been, uh,” Conner blinked rapidly, “Been where?”

 

“Crushing on my best friend,” Tim offered with a casual shrug.

 

“I’m not-” Conner cut himself off with a sigh before admitting defeat, “I didn’t think it was obvious to strangers.”

 

“We’re not strangers,” Tim argued, “I introduced myself.”

 

“Right,” Kon nodded, “Sorry, Jim.”

 

Tim felt his face fall as he sent Conner an incredulous look. He reminded him, annoyance clear in his tone, “It’s Tim.”

 

For a moment, Tim was ready to abort the plan all together. Kon might like Robin, but he was evidently rather annoyed and uninterested in Timothy Drake. But then, Robin watched the shit-eating smirk begin to grow on Conner’s face, the same type of grin Kon wears whenever he believes he’s getting away with teasing Robin. The shithead was faking forgetting Tim’s name.

 

“Oh, you asshole,” Tim hit him lightly on his shoulder. Kon seemed to forget to sway a bit with the impact like someone without superstrength would. Robin would have to chew him out for that later.

 

For now, Conner just laughed, “Sorry, sorry. I couldn’t resist, Tim.”

 

It was a teasing tone, but Tim didn’t care. He liked hearing his name spoken from Kon’s voice as much as he liked those ridiculous nicknames Kon was always giving him. It was likely only due to Tim’s training under Batman that he managed to keep the blush of his face. Instead, he tried to steer the conversation back on topic. “This friend of yours,” Tim lightly treaded forward, “You think you got a chance?”

 

“Oh, uh, I don’t know,” Conner shifted slightly as he tried to direct the focus of the conversation off of himself and onto Tim instead, “What about you? You and your friend, I mean. You got a chance?”

 

“Maybe,” Tim admitted with a shrug, “Things are looking up.”

 

“What makes you say that?” Kon asked with genuine curiosity in his voice.

 

Tim had to look away for a beat, letting his smile grow just just slightly wider before he was able to refocus his attention on Conner and offer an attempt to answer, “Our mutual friends have made a few comments, jokes like we’re already together.”

 

Conner let out a huff of laughter. He nodded in agreement and told Tim, “Yeah. My friends do that for me and…”

 

Conner froze up as he trailed off. Tim was definitely  gonna chew him out for this particular near-slip-up later. For now, though, he pressed on with his plan. A casual smile was used as he told Kon, “You know, maybe he feels the same. If all the people around you keep pointing it out.”

 

Conner didn’t even try to protest, just stating in a soft voice, “He, uh, he might.”

 

“So…” Tim raised an eyebrow in question, “What’s the problem?”

 

“It’s just…” Conner looked down to the tray of drinks he was carrying and shrugged as he answered, “It’s complicated, man”

 

Tim pushed him, just a bit more, by asking, “Does it need to be?”

 

“You live in Gotham City,” Conner rolled his eyes with a light smile returning to his features, “It’s generally considered that your sense of what’s ‘complicated’ is gonna be skewed.”

 

“Bold claim,” Tim said, he could work with this still, “You know a lot of gothamites, then?”

 

“Really just my friend,” Conner admitted with a small laugh.

 

“Your cool, hot, awesome best friend that I happen to remind you a lot of?” Tim asked, practically pleading with his eyes for Kon to read between the lines.

 

“Oh, uh,” Conner was blushing again, avoiding Tim’s gaze. His eyes seemed to catch on something over Tim’s shoulder and then grow a little more confused than sheepish. He flicked his gaze back to Tim and told him, “Hey, uh… I think those girls are trying to film you? Us? You.”

 

Fucking idiot. They were so close. Okay, try again. Tim didn’t need to look over his shoulder to see whoever was trying to snatch a quick paparazzi shot of Timothy Drake outside a random coffee shop. Instead, he tried to brush it off by telling Conner, “It happens more often than you think.”

 

That was, apparently, not a normal-sounding answer because Conner furrowed his bow in confusion and asked, “Why?”

 

“Family stuff,” Tim dismissed with a small wave before he threw all caution to the wind and added, “Though, it’s been worse since I got shot the other month.”

 

“I-” Conner fully paused at this, taking a moment to look Tim over, really look Tim over, maybe for the first time. A confused focus was locked behind his eyes as he managed to force out the word, “What?”

 

“Oh, shootings rarely make the news these days,” Tim upped his faux casualness as he explained to Kon, “But you might’ve heard of this one. A bunch of supers showed up.”

 

If Robin thought Conner looked pale before it was nothing compared to now as he gawked at Tim and asked, “You-?”

 

“Honestly, it was almost worth the bullet,” Tim said with a smirk still planted securely on his expression, “Wonder Girl and Impulse saved me. They were pretty cool.”

 

“You’re... You're for real?” Conner asked, still staring at Tim in disbelief.

 

“For real,” Tim nodded, “Superboy was there, too. He was okay.”

 

“But-” Conner cut himself off with an airy laugh as a blinding grin struck out across his face. 

 

Finally.

 

Kon was still laughing, his eyes glimmering with delighted disbelief, as he echoed, “He was okay?”

 

Tim shrugged and tried to keep up his faux nonchalant tone, but his smirk was splitting into a wide grin as he told Conner, “He was trying too hard.”

 

“Bullshit,” Conner stated firmly, his own smile locked in place.

 

“It was indoors, at night, in Gotham, and he was wearing little red sunglasses,” Tim said around his own soft laughter, “He’s always wearing those dumb things.”

 

“Oh, now you got a problem with glasses?” Conner asked, taking a step closer to Tim.

 

“Not really," Tim admitted as he took a step closer to Conner. He let his eyes once more trail up and down once more before he met Conner’s eye and admitted, “I’m starting to see the appeal of a black frames.”

 

“Oh, yeah?” Conner raised his eyebrow in a challenge, the grin he wore shifting into a familiar smirk.

 

“Yeah,” Tim nodded, letting his eyes linger on that smirk he’s seen Kon wear so many times.

 

“Tim,” Conner said softly. If Tim thought his name sounded nice when Conner was joking around, it had nothing on hearing his name when Conner was sounding soft and almost awestruck.

 

“That’s me,” Tim said with a small smile.

 

“That's you,” Conner said in the same tone that was still rich with wonder.

 

God, Tim wanted to kiss him.

 

He didn’t get the chance to lean forward before Kon’s phone chimed with a text notification, the sudden sound causing both boys to startle a half step backwards.

 

“Fuck, it’s…” Conner started. He hesitated before he sent a sheepish smile Tim’s way and landed on the explanation, “It’s my cousin. I gotta…” He paused again, grin growing once more before he held his phone out towards Tim and asked, “Can I get your number?”

 

Tim had to bite his lip to keep from smiling too wide. He shook his head lightly and was still smiling as told Conner, “No.”

 

“Wha- No?” Conner seemed genuinely taken aback, “But, I thought…”

 

“No,” Tim repeated, “I, uh, I think you should talk to your friend.”

 

Conner furrowed his eyebrows in confusion, opening his mouth to begin to ask a question several times and yet floundering at each attempt.

 

Tim chuckled a bit. Taking pity on his friend, he offered more of an explanation, “You said it yourself, you aren’t from Gotham. I’m not sure Tim and Conner’s paths are meant to cross very often. But you should… you should talk to your friend. If you can handle a little bit of ‘complicated,’ I mean.”

 

“I can handle 'complicated,'” Conner insisted while sending Tim a quick wink, too.

 

“Tell him that,” Tim said, just a hint of his Robin voice coming through with the order.

 

Conner’s phone let out another ping and he cursed under his breath.

 

“Shit, I really gotta go,” He grumbled, but paused for a moment to lock eyes with Tim once more. Eyes shining, smiling wide, he spoke one more time, “It was really nice to meet you, Tim.”

 

“You too, Conner,” Tim said with a smile. Then he tacked on, for good measure, “Good luck with your friend.”

 

“Yeah, uh,” Conner let out a laugh, “Things are looking up.”

 

“Goodbye, Conner,” Tim urged with his voice Kon’s need to get a move on. One of the coffees in the tray Conner was holding was most likely for Bruce Wayne. Best not to let his drink get cold.

 

“Bye, Tim.”

 

Tim had never in his life smiled as hard as he had when Conner turned to walk away from him. 

 

Was it complicated? Absolutely. Was it worth it? Well, time would tell for certain, but things were looking up.

Notes:

The End!!! Thank you for reading a silly little nonsense story that's original file name was just "getoutofmybrain" This fic has been a nice reminder for me that things are allowed to just be fun. Thank you for the kudos and kind comments, I hope everyone finds a reason to smile today <3