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Red Robin was widely known among the hero community to have many and varied skills. All of the bats were, to some extent, but Red Robin was the one capes went to when they were desperate, hoping for a Hail Mary, and he generally had a pretty good chance of knowing either what they needed or how to find out. Over the years, this began to apply more and more often to situations outside of superheroing, which is how he ended up in this situation.
“I’m sorry, you want me to do what?” Tim Drake, in civilian clothes, in his civilian office, asked Lois Lane, who was sitting across from him, on behalf of fucking Superman.
“Pierce Clark’s ears,” Lois fucking Lane replied, “Also, maybe his tongue, depending on how the ears go.”
“I,” Tim started, “You’ve been talking to Conner.”
“Yup. Clark mentioned having always wanted a few piercings a few weeks ago, Conner came over a few days later, I asked where he got his and he got all blushy and refused to tell me, probably because of the nipple piercings or possibly another that I don’t really want to think about. So naturally, I assumed it must be you, his multitalented boyfriend that he goes to for everything and who could probably get access to everything he would need to get the job done.” She gave him a pointed look at the thinly veiled reference to kryptonite and red sun lamps.
He sighed. “Clarks birthday is next week, isn’t it.”
“Mmhm.”
Tim considered her for a minute. “I have a project I’ve been working on that I need a bit of good publicity for, but for all Bruce’s influence, the reporters in Gotham are decidedly skewed toward the dramatic. You write and publish piece for me, unbiased, and I’ll do the ears and tongue if he wants it. Anymore and we’ll renegotiate based on trauma accumulated.”
Lois grinned.
Tim Drake showed up at the Kent farm on Clark’s birthday with a lead-lined briefcase and a tin of cookies from Alfred. Martha gave the boy a big hug and told him to put it on the usual shelf and set up in the living room.
Clark, who did not know why Tim Drake was at his parents house on a regular enough basis that Ma would send him into the kitchen unaccompanied, nor what he would be setting up, furrowed his eyebrows as Conner followed him into the kitchen, also apparently not having expected him. Lois, though, seemed to have expected him, which was maybe worrying because that indicated scheming, but not too worrying because Pa didn’t seem anxious, so Clark decided to just lean back in the porch swing and go with it.
Twenty minutes later, an ecstatic looking Conner came out to pull Clark from the porch to the living room where Tim had set up a chair and a red sun lamp next to the coffee table with a few needles, a suspicious looking box, and…
“Happy Birthday,” Lois said, smoothing a hand down his back as Clark processed what was happening. His Ma was watching interestedly with Jon on the couch, who was asking all sorts of questions to Tim, who appeared to be sterilizing a needle.
“Is this—“ Clark asked, because as often as he’d seen Conner’s piercings, he’d somehow never anticipated actually being able to actually get some himself.
“Yeah,” Tim replied, “Happy Birthday. I brought choices.”
Because apparently, piercing a Kryptonian’s ears was a lot more complicated than just shoving a kryptonite needle through them and hoping for the best, it was a process.
First, one needed to crush an extremely small amount of green kryptonite up and melt it into a much larger amount of a very specific alloy that apparently mostly nullified its affects, then shape that into earrings, then use that same metal to make a needle that could then, under a red sun lamp, pierce the skin and replace it with an earring, then have the newly-pierced Kryptonian stay under a red sun lamp for at least a few hours while slowly lowering the output of radiation, then do the whole thing once a week for three weeks, then every two, then once a month for the next year.
Clark stared at him, open mouthed. “How in Rao’s name did you figure that out?”
Tim gave him a deadpan look. “Trial and error. I have stuck a ridiculous amount of needles in that idiot over there.”
Conner looked like he was going to defend himself for a moment, then shrugged. “Yeah. It’s been like, several years since he finally managed to make the first one stay in longer than a week once I developed the invulnerability, and I still have to get most of ‘em redone once a year. We just make a day of it.”
Tim hummed in agreement. “So, Clark, can I call you Clark?”
And it was in that moment that Clark realized that this was the Robin that he had a) never spent enough time with for him to have called him anything other that Superman, b) no idea when or how this one had gotten to know the rest of his family so well, and c) maybe not seen or spent time with outside of apocalyptic events since he had gotten Bruce back from the time stream and proven Clark wrong. And yet here he was, on his birthday, having spent a lot of time (and money from the looks of some of those earrings) and flown out to Kansas for his birthday.
“Y-yeah, of course.” He stammered.
“So, Clark,” Tim repeated, ignoring Clark’s awkwardness, “You have some decisions to make here, the first being, is this needle going in you or Kon. Or Jon. I’m not picky, but I came here to stab someone, so I’m gonna stab someone.”
“I, yeah, I want my ears pierced,” he decided, over the sound of Jon whining something to the same effect, only to be largely ignored.
“Alright. Next decision, how many?”
“Um, lets just start with one in each earlobe for now?”
Tim nodded. “For the earrings; I’m thinking studs, cause it’s your first time, but I’ve got an assortment here to choose from, so, come take a look.”
After a few minutes, Clark settle on a small pair of diamonds that Tim assured him were actually just recycled crystals from the last chandelier Dick broke before Alfred just had all of them reinforced. Clark was fairly certain Tim was lying through his teeth and that one of the bigger ones could pay to replace the tractor, but Conner gave him a look that told him to drop it, which he didn’t often do, so Clark obeyed.
Then, before he knew it, Tim had marked where he was piercing, double checked that Clark was happy with the placement, and just, did it. Clark didn’t realize he was grinning until he looked in the mirror.
Tim smiled a bit at the look on his face. “Now, you just have to sit there for a few more hours—“
“Incubate?” Kon suggested.
Tim rolled his eyes and otherwise ignored him, “—while I turn down the lamp, or else your earlobes will heal too quickly and split the earrings in half.” Having apparently finished speaking to Clark, Tim then flopped down next to Kon on the couch and started talking to Lois and Jon about maybe piercing Jon’s ears for his own birthday in a few months and spending the first few days they were healing at Wayne Manor with Damian.
Clark tuned out of the conversation for a while after that, at least until they started talking about the other piercings Tim had given Conner and how many iterations of the process they had tried before landing on the one Clark was using.
“Yeah, we tried all sorts of stuff,” Conner explained, “kryptonite needle, kryptonite earrings, a few days under Tim’s sun lamp—“
“You spent a whole few days sitting like this?” Clark asked skeptically. It was a pretty small lamp, small enough that if he leaned forward more than a few inches it would probably significantly decrease the effect.
“Nah, I just hung out in Tim’s room.”
Eyebrows raised all around the room, except for Tim’s. He just buried his face in Conner’s shoulder.
“And why does Tim have a red sun lamp in his room?” Lois asked, looking amused.
Conner seemed to realize his mistake, then promptly decide that he didn’t care. “I wanted to bottom and Tim made it happen. How else do you think that would work? It’s also nice to not have to hold back so much all the time.”
“Konnn,” Tim whined into his shirt, “Stop talking about our sex life in front of your family!”
Jon was the brightest red that Clark had ever seen him, but he hesitantly raised his hand. Tim, without looking or pulling his face away from Conner’s shoulder, waved him off. “Damian’s got the same set up, but I told him I wouldn’t unlock it until I had your and your mother’s permission.”
Lois, whose hackles had started rising immediately once Jon’s hand raised, then lowered once Tim mentioned the locks, seemed to consider it for a moment. “Not until Jon turns sixteen.”
“But Moomm—“
“Jonathan, that is two months away and you just found out about this, calm down.”
“Wait,” Clark asked, “You two are together?” He asked Tim and Conner.
Tim and Conner gave him identical unimpressed looks, which he supposed was proof enough.
“Clark,” Kon said calmly, “We’ve been together for five fucking years. How did you not know this? I know you know I moved in with him years ago?”
“I thought you were just roommates!”
There was silence for a long moment.
“Oh my god,” Tim mumbled. “Did we tell anybody? Did we ever tell Bruce? He must know, right?” Without stopping to consider the potential consequences, Tim dialed Bruce’s number. Before Bruce could do more than grunt a hello, Tim was asking, “You know Kon and I have been dating for five years, right?”
“…”
“Seriously, B, did I never tell you?”
“…”
“Oh my fucking god, Kon, did we tell anyone? I thought we were being obvious but were we not?”
“No, you are,” Lois reassured, Clark and Bruce are just oblivious.”
Tim relaxed into Conner’s side. “Oh, thank fuck.”
There was silence for a bit, then Conner asked, “Did you bring any more needles?”
Tim looked up at him skeptically. “Where exactly do you want me to stab you this time?”
Kon pulled out his phone and stared at himself in the camera for a minute. “Another helix below the one on the left and a tragus on the right?”
“Hm. Lucky you, I actually brought the stuff to do those. Let me get the other lamp out of my car.”