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It had taken Tim and Kon over an hour to get out of bed from the first kiss.
Thankfully, the world seemed to be on their side for once and no one bothered them.
Unfortunately, the second Tim stepped out of Kon's room, he was immediately pulled away, literally, to deal with something for some case.
By the time he'd finished, Kon has already been dragged off to who-knows-where.
It's not until the end of the day that they see each other and Tim struggles to think of the appropriate way to greet him before Kon pulls him into his room.
Tim inspects the space around him; it hadn't changed from when he left this morning and he wondered if that was intentional or not.
"So..." Kon starts, and Tim almost laughs at his lack of a plan after dragging Tim in here.
"So?"
Kon smiles. "So, I was wondering, multiple things. For starters, I wanted to know if we're gonna put a label on this. I don't want this to be one of those things that we kinda did or do and just ignore because then we'll end up on different pages and it never works out."
Tim stays silent for a second, he wants to think about this very carefully. He slowly weighs the pros and cons on each side.
Not putting a label on whatever they're doing could potentially keep Tim's heart protected. If they were just 'having fun' or whatever they'd call it if they weren't dating then Kon wouldn't catch on to just how much Tim really likes him. It could, in theory, be safer.
On the other hand, Tim really likes Kon, and starting off any form of anything with him without letting on some sort of sign to acknowledge it probably wouldn't help any future relationship. Plus, Tim could think of a lot of things that are worse than officially dating Conner Kent.
"Yea. Yes, we can officially date. That is, if that's what you want, of course," Tim's confidence slowly fades as he goes on, even though Kon was the one who had asked in the first place.
Tim looked down slightly, silently pleading for Kon to respond soon before his thoughts wandered too much.
He instead, received a kiss, and he thankfully got the message.
Kon pulls back slowly, and a somewhat sheepish, somewhat arrogant smile forms on his face.
"Okay, next order of business," Tim snorts at Kon's tone. "Now that we have a shiny, brand new, and fancy label, would you like to tell the team?"
The weight that had just started lifting off of Tim's shoulders seemed to be settling back in.
"What do you want to do?"
Kon looks around for a second, seemingly going through the things he could say. Tim's pretty sure Kon's aware that he could convince Tim to do whatever he wants. He had had that power before they had kissed.
Kon connected his eyes to Tim's again, apparently settling on something.
"I would love to be able to kiss you in front of the team. In front of the world for that matter. But I want to make sure that you're 100% comfortable with it and that it's something that we've both thought through. Plus, you know, Batman," As Kon waits for Tim's response, he leans his forehead to Tim's, gazing at his eyes through Tim's bangs.
Tim bites his lip and leans forward into Kon, letting his eyes flutter closed in thought.
The two of them stand in a comfortable silence as Tim seems to think.
A whole 2 minutes pass by before Tim's eyes open and he shifts back to meet Kon's eyes.
"I think I wanna wait to tell the team. At least for a little bit," Tim says, his self-consciousness clear in his eyes.
"Not to be self-centered or anything, but our friendship is part of what drives the team. On the off chance that this doesn't work out, I don't want it to more awkward than it has to be. Like people choosing sides."
Kon continues to look at Tim, rolling the idea around in his head. "Yeah, I get that. We can do that."
Tim lets a small smile fall onto his face, wanting to be able to express his gratitude to Kon without having to say it. "I think 2-4 weeks is a sufficient amount of time. Plus, I honestly think that the longer we can milk time together without the team's teasing the better."
Kon smiles and places a soft kiss on the corner of Tim's mouth, before leaning in for a short, sweet kiss on Tim's lips.
When he pulls back, he replies. "You're right. The amount of comments that will come from Bart and Cassie. I don't think I'll be able to live it down."
Tim chuckles, leaning for one more kiss.
"I think you'll survive that. What you might not survive, however, is whatever happens once my family finds out."
Kon freezes. "Do they have to know? Because I think I'm perfectly happy not knowing all of the creative uses your brothers can think up for Kryptonite."
Tim smiles. "Yes, they have to know. As much emotional distress that my family has caused me, this is something that I want to tell them about if it works out. Also, as great as we, mainly I, am at stealth, we're a family of detectives. I would hate to see what would happen if they found out on their own."
"I know that realistically it's important to you so, therefore, something I can deal with, but Timmm, it's the Bat Family. Jason and Damian will probably bond over dismembering my body. And I don't think Dick will physically attack me or anything, by you know he's gonna try to give us a sex talk and at least two boxes of condoms."
Tim's face reddens at Kon's statement but he smiles knowingly. "Well, I'm not going to be the one with Kryptonite shoved up my ass so it's fine with me."
"Aren't you supposed to reassure me that your family won't actually hurt me, or something?" Kon asks.
"Do you want me to lie to you?"
Kon just sigs before falling back into the bed looking up at Tim.
"Stay here again tonight?"
Tim smiles, starting to remove his cape and tunic, leaving him in his undershirt. He sits on the side of the bed to remove his shoes as Kon takes him off with his TTK.
"You know, if I keep sleeping in your room, we won't have 2 weeks."
Kon waits till Tim is done partially undressing before pulling him backwards into the bed.
"Just shut up and cuddle me."
The next few days, Tim felt noticeably happier than he had in a while.
Tim is thinking about this very fact while writing a case report when something else hits him.
A realization. Something Tim isn't sure how he didn't notice before.
Tim needs this relationship to work. For more reasons than he can count.
For starters, Tim wasn't lying when he said that a big part of the team's dynamic is their friendship.
Tim is already so far gone for Kon that he isn't sure if he could handle being around Kon, or even on the team if they broke up.
Even worse, Tim just got Kon back. He can't lose him again because Tim was being selfish and wanted something more than friendship.
Plus, dating Kon would make it harder for Tim to date other people in the future. Not even considering how much Tim already likes Kon, dating Kon is almost as perfect as a situation can get when dating as a hero.
Kon already knows Tim's identity, so Tim doesn't have to lie and try to hide it and Kon could probably survive whatever his brothers will do to him when they find out.
The only thing that could be a problem was the 'No Metas' rule, but Tim is sure that Bruce will make an exception if Tim begs him for long enough.
So, long story short, Tim needed to do everything that he possibly could to make sure that this relationship works out.
This led Tim to a lot of different websites about dating.
Like what he was currently on: "Is Your Boyfriend Actually A Good Boyfriend?" by, you guessed it, Buzzfeed.
Tim spent about half an hour on the quiz before clicking off.
It was filled with questions that he felt didn't work with him being a hero, for example, Does he text you back within a few minutes? A few hours? Or just kind of inconsistently?
The thing is, Tim was often busy with a case or on patrol when Kon texted, so his responses were always late. But that didn't count, Kon understood.
Other questions just couldn't really be answered, even if he included Kon, which he absolutely refused to do. Like Does he plan all the dates? and Does he make an effort in bed?
Tim and Kon have only been dating for a week, they haven't really had enough time to go on a date yet and they definitely haven't slept together.
Finally, the last problem with the quiz is that Tim didn't know how to respond to some of them. He wanted accurate results and that required not guessing what Kon would put.
Tim doesn't know if he made Kon 'truly snort-laugh', if he's ever made Kon feel like he couldn't trust him, and Tim, most certainly, has absolutely no clue if Kon was in love with him.
That's right. The final question on the quiz of determining if your boyfriend is a good boyfriend is whether or not you're in love with him.
All of this thinking has started to make his head hurt.
Once the tab was closed and his computer was shut, Tim started to feel slightly better.
It's only a small difference, but it helps Tim's thoughts to clear, allowing him to actually process what he's feeling.
The quiz wasn't helpful to Tim as a quiz, but maybe Tim could take some pointers from the questions.
There was a clear implication of which situation would lead to a higher score, so all Tim had to do was do the things from the quiz.
He couldn't really text Kon back faster, but he could get around to planning that date.
Kon and he already shared the same interests: fighting crime, playing video games, hanging with the team, and watching Wendy the Warewolf Stalker, but Tim could work on making sure that Kon always felt like he could trust him, or try not to make Kon feel like he needed to impress Tim.
As Tim kept making plans based on what he'd read, he allowed himself to take a deep breath and relax.
He finally had a plan.