Work Text:
From: [email protected]
Subject: be my fuck buddy
if you had to fuck me to save my life, would you
Kon stares at Tim’s email and feels so many things at once that it evens out to a state of pure, empty shock. For a second. Then his brain finishes its complete reboot, and he’s back online.
There has to be context for this. Is Tim drunk? Tim doesn’t really go for alcohol. He bends a lot of rules, as one does when they’re a vigilante and also a Robin/ex-Robin under Batman, but that’s one he hasn’t particularly been interested in playing rope with. Something about having his faculties inhibited, or whatever. But Kon is at a loss for other explanations.
An all lowercase email? Really? That’s how Tim’s… propositioning Kon? Through their official Titans work emails? Kon doesn’t buy it. He can’t for his own sanity, especially considering the particularly unhinged subject line that he will… not be counting as a genuine question.
Oh, but the answer is yes. Obviously.
It’s only been a bit over half an hour since the email landed in his inbox, five minutes since Kon actually first saw it, and he sends his answer.
From: [email protected]
Subject: Re: be my fuck buddy
uhh. hi. care to elaborate on that, rob?
also of course?? anything to save your life.
Kon thinks he played that well enough. It’s pretty much entirely genuine, just… without being revealing. Or at least, he does until it’s been an hour and Tim still hasn’t responded. There’s a moment where he wonders if he should go through with what he sees as the obvious next step, but yeah, no, Kon’s getting his answers.
Good thing he’s been hanging in Metropolis today. Instead of the hour or so from Smallville, it’s less than ten minutes before Kon is at Tim’s swanky apartment window. Does it really count as an apartment if he secretly owns the entire building? Kon doesn’t really know. It is definitely swanky, though. He could’ve knocked at the front door, but he didn’t fly all the way to Gotham to be ignored. Given that Kon’s here, hovering by the third floor instead, Tim’ll actually answer in three… two…
“Conner!” Tim hisses as he opens the window. “What are you doing here? Someone’ll see you!”
Kon grins. “I guess you’ll have to let me in, then.”
Tim scowls, hesitates, but ultimately shifts to make room for Kon to get inside. Kon does so with both familiarity and smugness. Tim pointedly shuts it harshly as soon as Kon slips through, hands casually stuck in his recently-recovered jacket’s pockets. It’s not the same one he wore in his earlier days, he’s been capable of aging and growing too long for that, but it’s a replica of sorts. He’s not in his old suit quite yet, literally or in design, but Kon’s just playing with having the jacket over his tee at the moment. Seeing if he’s looking for a reboot.
“So, Rob, best buddy of mine,” Kon starts as he strolls further into the apartment. It’s mostly dark, only one or two lights on to combat the slowly approaching nightfall. While most of the Bat-equipment isn’t on these floors, Tim still has a killer civilian PC setup that’s secure enough for some vigilante business. Kon came in through the hallway window right next to the office, so it doesn’t take more than a few strides to see it all.
On one monitor there’s a bunch of coding gibberish that’s completely lost on Kon. Another monitor, Kon recognizes, is open to the Bat-Server email software that they all use versions of. He’s just started to read the last email on the open thread, which is just one unprofessional all-caps sentence, when Tim slides between him and the desk with his arms crossed. As Kon falls back a step so they’re not standing so damn close, he realizes he never finished his sentence since he got distracted by the computer. Tim doesn’t give him the time to finish it, either.
“What are you doing here?” he asks.
Kon raises a brow and crosses his arms too. “What do you think?”
Tim winces. “I can… explain that.”
“Go ahead, then.” Kon makes a please-go-on gesture with his hand.
“So…” Tim leans back, lowering his arms so he can prop his hands on the desk. “You know how I just turned eighteen?”
Kon can’t suppress his grin. “Don’t tell me your asking to lose your virginity to a close friend to get it out of the way.”
Tim sighs, but his face is bright red. “I don’t even know what you’re referencing, it could be way too many things. But no—” he gives Kon a pointed look, “—that is not what I’m saying. Turning eighteen meant that I got given this new form through the Bat-Server—”
“I stand by it being hilarious that you guys got so much of the hero community on those ‘Bat-Servers.’”
“They’re useful, you know, securely and efficiently designed. There’s a lot more to hero/vigilante work than— You know what? Not the point. The point is that I got an email, and I’ve spent the whole day trying to figure out who I’d ask to— with me— in the case of an emergency because—” Tim pauses to scrub a hand down his face, and Kon marvels at seeing his long-time friend struggling so much to explain something. That’s usually, like, his favorite pastime. “Okay, you know how we have Poison Ivy here? When one of us— Wait, do you count as a minor?”
“That’s a big can of worms, Rob,” Kon says a little warily. “Let’s just say that I’m around your age.”
“But aren’t you younger than me? Biologically… When are you actually not a minor? Would we just go with what’s on your papers?”
“Does— Why does this matter?” Kon’s voice raises at the end, and Tim relents.
“Alright, fine, whatever, it’s not like you’re inexperienced about this,” Tim says, waving a hand and then visibly steeling himself. “It matters because we fight Ivy a lot, and she has these… pollens. They can have some weird effects and there’s a… phytoaphrodisiac. So. When you’re a minor, everyone else gets you out of there ASAP. But now that I’m an adult, there’s a bit less priority for me and thus a higher risk, especially since it’s springtime, and for safety’s sake there’s a… a prior consent form. That we need to fill out. Of people to… call, if we get… if we’re under the influence of one of her aphrodisiacs and we’re not… fully lucid.”
Kon blinks. “You’re talking about… sex pollen.”
Tim deflates. “Yeah.”
“And you gotta find some volunteers to ‘give you a hand’ if you get all… pollen-ed up.”
“Yes, I have to identify ‘Candidates’ who will assist in my ‘Treatment’ given a situation where I am in a state of ‘phytoaphrodisiac-induced delirium.’” Tim sounds dead inside at this point, both from tone and his usage of what Kon suspects are the official Bat-terms used in whatever weird document Tim’s trying to fill out.
“This is really killing you,” Kon observes, half wanting to commiserate for Tim’s sake and half wanting to laugh at his best friend.
“I have been here all day trying to figure out who the hell I can possibly ask to fuck me in the event of an emergency. I tried to ask Dick for help but, and this is kind of fair, he didn’t want to talk about that shit with me at all. So I asked Steph—”
“Ooh, talking to the ex, bringing out the big guns.”
Tim shoots Kon a glare but gives it up pretty much immediately. “Yeah, she’s at the top of my list right now. She gets it, she had to do this too last year. Also, I figure that if I’m making a list… like this, it’s probably good to have someone that knows at least a little about what they’re doing with me on it.”
Kon nods along to what Tim’s saying. Then he reconsiders. “But, isn’t she dating—”
“What? She’s dating someone? Who?”
“I— I’m not one hundred percent sure, and even if I was I probably wouldn’t be supposed to tell anyone, so—”
“Who is it.” Tim’s eyes have narrowed into slits and he leans forward dangerously.
“She— It’s— I’m not…” It’s Kon’s turn to hunker down and avoid Tim’s searching gaze, but Tim’s an infamous detective for a reason. He has the thread, and it doesn’t take long for him to trace it.
“Shit,” Tim says. He straightens up, giving Kon his space back, and that glazed look that means he’s going over his information fades. It’s replaced with a sort of petulance. “I should’ve figured that one out myself. Really Steph? My sister? Oh, that’s why she said that.”
“Said what?” Kon feels vaguely guilty for inadvertently outing Steph and Cass, but Tim hasn’t skipped a beat.
Tim returns to the present with a huff. “When I was getting that advice from Steph, I asked who was on her list. She said it was no one I’d want on mine, and if Cass is on it then that makes sense. I mean, it could also make sense even if that wasn’t the case, but I just know that that’s what she was talking about. God, I’m gonna talk to them when they get back from Hong Kong. Why the hell did neither of them tell me? Why do you know?”
Kon thinks about confessing to Steph in a despairing moment of weakness, fresh off of a battle that Tim almost died in. Bad move, yeah, telling your best friend’s ex about your feelings for your best friend, but she took it well. It’s not like he expected her to be homophobic—the hero community and who they associate closely with are by nature usually very progressive—but he’s kind of new to realizing himself and has had run-ins with homophobes before. At the time he’d been defending someone else, not himself, but Kon’s admittedly carried that reaction with him; the disgust aimed at someone who’d been supposedly trusted and loved before coming out. Steph saw the small spark of fear in him and was kind enough to share her own queerness in a show of solidarity. She hadn’t exactly told him who she was dating right then, but he found out as Kon started to become better friends with her and Cass.
He’s waited long enough that Tim decides to take his lack of a response as an answer. “My friends and my sister, hiding shit from me… I wonder who else knows. Maybe Dick. B has to know.”
It’s the same unwarranted worry Steph had seen that prompts Kon to prod a little. “And they’re all— They’d be okay with that?”
Tim’s eyes refocus on Kon. “‘Course they would. It’s the same for everyone I’m sure, but relationships are messy and we’re all used to it at this point; just look at Dick and Jason’s dating pools. If I don’t throw a fit about it then no one will hold any grudges.”
“Not about— I mean, with them both being girls.”
Tim snorts. “They will. I don’t know if a single Gotham-based vigilante isn’t queer in one way or another.”
A little jolt shoots through Kon’s gut. The email had been promising, but that’s confirmation, right? “That’s— good.”
Kon’s words don’t seem to register; Tim’s on a roll now. “I’m actually relatively sure that almost every hero is. I’ve learned about so many torrid affairs and you know what? I think that it’s just impossible to be a hero, hang around the both hottest and most proactively upstanding people ever, and not come out attracted to at least one person who you happen to share a gender with.” Tim sobers a bit and looks up at Kon, a hint of trepidation peeking in. “Well, I’m being a bit hyperbolic. I’m not saying you’re— you know.”
“No,” Kon says, feeling like he’s being strangled and also like he’s swallowed something bright and glowing. “No, you’re— It’s not wrong, for me. I’m also. You know.”
Tim just stares at him, and Kon resists the urge to shuffle his feet. Instead, he turns to look at the wall straight on, avoiding Tim’s eyes. “You—” Tim starts, but Kon’s already speaking over him.
“So, wait, you went to Steph. You put her on your list because emergencies are emergencies so it’s not really about who she’s dating, that’s great, and then what?” Kon may have gotten sidetracked, but he still does need to know how the hell this led to the email Tim sent.
Tim pulls a face at the reminder of the whole sex-pollen business. The face is both frustration and flush. “She said to find someone who’s stupid enough to say yes immediately, someone who’ll do it because they care about me enough to, and someone who— who I just ‘really want to have sex with,’” Tim says, using his fingers to illustrate the quotation marks at the end.
“That’s pretty solid advice, actually,” Kon says, genuinely impressed. Nice going, Steph. He couldn’t have come up with something better himself, and he never says that lightly. “I get the context of why you needed to email me, but I’m not seeing why you’d send me that message. Come on, ‘be my fuck buddy?’ There had to be a better way to phrase that.”
“I didn’t mean to send that email,” Tim grouches.
“What do you mean you didn’t mean to? Tim, when was the last time you got more than an hour of sleep?”
“I got revenge hacked!” Tim says, throwing up his hands and moving aside. Lo and behold, the last email on the thread that Kon hadn’t been able to read before echoes exactly what Tim’s saying.
From: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Assistance Requested
BARBARA DID YOU REVENGE HACK ME
Kon doesn’t even try not to laugh this time. It’s funny enough to smother the faint brush of disappointment in his chest. Tim sulks, re-crossing his arms and muttering under his breath about “traitors” and “no empathy.”
“That was one of my email drafts,” Tim manages through his grit teeth, “I wasn’t gonna send it, but she picked the one that she knew would fuck with me the most.”
Kon snorts and takes a breath, tamping down on his laughter. “It was something to see that in my inbox. Why’d she do that?”
Wincing, Tim says, “I did kind of violate Bruce’s privacy by hacking into records to see his list… and sending it to everyone else.”
Kon’s known for a while that Tim’s kind of vicious, but wow. “That’s… brutal. I probably shouldn’t ask who was on the list. I don’t even know if I even want to know.”
“I… Yeah. Sure. Probably for the best.” Tim drops his head into his hands. “Sorry. Today has been such a fucking mess.”
“Hey.” Kon comes over so he’s side by side with Tim and bumps their shoulders together. “At least she only sent the one, right? No one else got any fuck buddy invitations, so it’s all good.”
With a huff, Tim opens his face up so he can run his hands through his hair, mussing it all up and relaxing a bit at Kon’s words. He likes knowing that there were worse outcomes that didn’t come to be, Kon’s learned. His hair is even longer than it was when Kon came back and made fun of him for it, and Kon feels suddenly grateful that Tim hadn’t listened to him and cut it off. It’s long enough that it really brushes his shoulders now.
“Yeah,” Tim says, “at least there’s that.”
“I know I said it in my email, not that you replied,” Kon says, jabbing Tim with an elbow and earning a disgruntled glower for it, “but you can put me down on the list too. You’re my best friend, of course I’d help you out if you were literally gonna die—”
“Gee, thanks,” Tim interjects sarcastically.
“Yes, you’re welcome, Rob. And I know you’d do the same for me.” Though he did mean it, Kon pauses and re-thinks what he just said. Tim seems to come to a similar conclusion, because he gets a considering look on his face.
“When would you ever run into a situation like that? Outside of Gotham, who else deals with…”
“Sex pollen bullshit,” Kon finishes for Tim. “I mean, we have people going into space all the time. There’s probably alien aphrodisiac out there.”
“Yeah, but not often enough for there to be paperwork about it. And you haven’t been doing too many off-world missions, right?” Tim asks.
“Yeah, I haven’t.” Even though it technically had still been on-this-world, Kon’s revival in the 31st century has made him a bit more into the idea of staying… relatively grounded. In a sense of the word, of course. He’s not quitting flying anytime soon.
“We both know Ivy’s plants can influence you, but with your biology, if it’s anything like how alcohol doesn’t affect you, normal human-made aphrodisiacs might be less effective.” Tim’s got one elbow propped on the other arm braced across his chest, hand on his chin and mind visibly whirring.
Human weaknesses tend to not be much of a problem for normal Kryptonians, and Kon usually gets most of those perks too. He goes over some of the regular Kryptonian weaknesses—so, in other words, he goes over strains of kryptonite—internally, now curious himself if he’d ever have to worry about a Super’s version of the Bat’s apparently pretty intensive sex pollen situation.
“I can’t think of anything that I’d need your ‘help’ on,” Kon says, emphasizing the “help” so Tim knows exactly what he means.
Tim rolls his eyes, so Kon knows he got the message, but doesn’t look to have come up with anything himself. Kon’s just about to make a routine jab about Gotham being fucking bonkers bananas when he remembers something.
“Actually, there might be one thing.”
“Well? What is it?”
Kon tries his best to remember the details of one of the million different kryptonites they deal with. “Red Kryptonite does different things, but generally it makes us more aggressive and… What’s the word? More likely to just do whatever we want, consequences be damned.”
“Loss of inhibitions,” Tim says strangely slowly.
Kon snaps a finger gun at him in confirmation. “That’s the one.”
“I guess that might lead to some kind of… encounter… but I don’t see why you’d need my…”
That’s when Kon realizes his grave mistake. “Oh— Ah, yeah, that wouldn’t make any sense. I was just— Forgot about that part, I was just thinking about, you know, people and their inhibitions and that’s usually a sex thing, so—”
It’s no use. Once again, Tim’s a detective, and Kon’s obviously flustered, so he’s... To say he’s boned would be a little too accurate. Screwed? That’s almost worse. Why is everything a euphemism? Kon usually loves those, but right now they’re kind of making everything worse.
Before Kon can bolt, Tim‘s hand shoots out and captures his wrist. Kon could get it off of him in an instant, but the touch makes him freeze up.
“Conner Kent,” Tim says, and that really can’t be a good sign. “Are you saying that, in a situation where you would be stripped of your inhibitions, you’d…?”
“I would— You wouldn’t— I wouldn’t force you to do anything!” Kon understands how that’s contradictory right after he says it and rushes to amend himself. “I mean, I wouldn’t normally, but if I were— I know you’d probably be able to make me stop, so, you don’t need to worry, promise.”
That does not sound comforting, like, at all. Kon cringes and drops his head so he can resume avoiding Tim’s eyes. Shit, it’s times like this that encourage him to keep growing his hair out. He can’t hide behind anything now.
Unnecessarily gently, Tim tugs Kon’s wrist to pull him closer. It startles him into looking up. It’s different, being okay with someone being gay and being okay with someone gay being into you, but Tim doesn’t look like he’s feeling anything Kon could have—has—irrationally worried about. No, he looks… If Kon’s not just being too hopeful, then he looks…
Tim releases his wrist, but lets his hand travel up Kon’s arm, his other hand joining on the other side. They slow on the curve of Kon’s shoulders, and ever so carefully land on the crook of his neck. Tim tugs Kon forward again. Mystified, Kon lets him.
It’s somehow still a surprise when their lips press together. Kon, for all his super-senses and reflexes, only reacts a moment after with a short, sharp inhale. Tim starts to draw away, and Kon can just feel the concern radiating off of him, but Kon wants anything but for this to stop. His hands finally remember how to move, and one jumps up to Tim’s waist to keep him close as the other cups the crown of his head to pull him back in.
This time, everyone’s on the same page when they kiss, and, not to be dramatic, but Kon feels his entire life slot into place as their bodies do too. Kon hasn’t been able to figure out when exactly he fell in love with Tim, and he’s only realized he has been very recently, but he wishes intensely that they could have been doing this for much longer. It feels more right than anything Kon’s felt since… maybe since he returned from the 31st century. Maybe before that.
A Bat Tim may be, he’s still human, so he has to come up for air eventually. When they break apart, they don’t go far. Their breaths mingle in the small space between them. Tim’s hands rest on Kon’s arms, which are down so he can grip Tim’s waist. He kind of wants to squeeze it, so he does. Tim lets out the smallest gasp, and Kon grins at him. The glare Tim tries to return is weak at best, and Kon does what he’s wanted to do for a while and kisses the look right off of his face. He feels Tim smile into it, but that just means Kon’s not working hard enough to distract Tim from anything but what they’re doing, so he puts more into it and this one ends up deeper and notably more dirty than the first one. By the time Kon’s pulling away, Tim is disheveled and panting.
“W-wait,” Tim says, holding a hand up. “We should… Hah…”
Kon, no longer nervous at all, laughs and swoops his head to the side in the movement one would normally make when smacking their own forehead, just without the smacking part so he doesn’t have to move his hands from Tim’s waist. “Oh yeah, I totally forgot.” He leans in, making close, direct eye contact. “Hi, Tim. I’ve been in love with you for longer than I’ve even known about it. Date me?”
Somehow this flusters Tim more than anything else did throughout their entire conversation. If Kon thought he’d been red before, it’s nothing compared to now. Tim’s mouth opens and closes, gaping like a fish, for long enough that Kon just has to comment.
“You know, people usually say yes or no to those kinds of questions.”
Considering Tim‘s personality and their long, occasionally confrontational past, it perfectly tracks that that’s what snaps him into action. He surges forward, grabbing Kon by the nape of his neck and fingers threading through the short hair there, and kisses the life out of Kon. Once Tim’s backed off, it’s Kon’s turn to be dazed. Kon’s only been left gasping a few times in his life, usually in situations involving kryptonite. But, with what Kon must assume are magical powers, Tim has managed to render Kon completely breathless.
Tim smiles sharply, knowing he’s won. “Of course, I’ll go out with you. I’ve been in love with you for just as long.”
“But… I just said…”
Slightly pink but simultaneously going a little sober, Tim ducks his head and hair falls over his face. “I was, uh, in the same boat. I only realized why I couldn’t live without you after I was, well… without you.”
“I’m sorry,” Kon says, his heart dropping right out of his chest. If he tried even for a second to imagine what he’d do if Tim died, he thinks he’d just lose it. That’s part of why it never bothered him as much as it probably should’ve what Tim did when Kon was gone. He knows, can even somewhat understand why Tim would do such a thing. Kon would hate anyone else for doing it. It was fucked up, and should’ve tapped into his every insecurity. But it was also Tim. Kon knows his best friend. He trusts him above all else. And, somewhere along the way, Kon’d lost his ability to actually hate Tim for anything.
Tim cradles Kon’s face in his hands, one of his thumbs tracing Kon’s cheekbone almost reverently. He holds Kon like something precious, something worth handling with care. Kon’s man enough to admit that he leans into it completely. “Don’t apologize for your own death, just… don’t do it again, either.”
It’s not a promise that either of them can make. Tim knows that, and so does Kon.
“I won’t,” Kon says, covering one of Tim’s hands with his own.
Both of them lean in in tandem, this time for a much softer kiss.
They’ve migrated to the couch, and Kon’s acting as Tim’s secondary cushion. Kon’s really enjoying Tim’s back against his chest, and Tim’s head resting on his shoulder. Tim also seems content, wearing Kon’s jacket and finishing up the form that started all of this with the laptop on his lap. Kon’s a little smug to see his name at the top of the list. He cranes his neck down to press his lips to the side of Tim’s face that he can reach when Tim sends Barbara an email with the completed documents.
From: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Assistance Requested
well played, oracle.
[tdrake.pdf]