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Kon had never really paid that much attention to Tim’s heartbeat before. Never in the way that his father was always listening to his mother’s. That would be too weird, and somewhat invasive. Listening to someone in a way that he wouldn’t even know he was being listened to.
Then Young Justice got sent off on a mission. A mission that wound up Tim getting trapped underneath the rubble of what was once a building.
If any of them started to shift the rubble without knowing exactly where Cardinal was, they risked accidentally crushing him. And that was a risk they couldn’t take.
So Kon listened, paid attention to Tim’s heartbeat. Properly, that was, for the first time.
Focused on it like trying to find a needle in a haystack. Found the ba-bum rhythm of it underneath all of the destroyed concrete and brick.
…Something wasn’t right.
It sounded off, Kon noted absently. Like there was a kind of echo. Or a second beat.
But he was too focused on locating just where the heartbeat was coming from to pay it too much attention just then. The thought slipped from his mind as he, Cassie, and Bart worked on clearing a path to their trapped teammate.
It wasn’t until much later, after the mission was over and that they had all made it safely back home. When Kon and Tim were standing in their kitchen working on putting together what was either a really late dinner or a very early breakfast.
All of the way back to Gotham, Kon had kept listening to Tim’s heartbeat. Heartbeats?
So much so that he hadn’t noticed Bart trying to talk to him. More than once.
Now that the adrenaline of the mission was starting to wear off, Kon had no choice but to keep listening to his boyfriend’s heartbeat (heartbeats?).
Without the adrenaline to distract him, the concern and panic made a reappearance.
“You aren’t injured, are you?” the Kryptonian asked as he washed up a yellow capsicum.
“No? Why?”
“Your heartbeat’s all weird—“ Kon’s hands stilled as it finally hit him what he had heard earlier. The water continued to gush out over the very-much-washed vegetable.
Tim took the frypan he had been using to fry walnuts off of the heat, turned around, and leaned against the counter.
“—Tim. Tim. Why do you have two heartbeats?” He rounded on his boyfriend with wide eyes. “How do you have two?” Kon added.
“Were you hit by a spell from a magic user on patrol? Or cursed by one—?“
“No! No, none of that happened. I’m fine, Kon,” Tim cut him off, a smile tugged at his lips.
“You’re not fine. There’s something wrong with you! Humans should only have one heartbeat,”
Why was Tim smiling like that? Like Kon was missing out on an obvious joke.
“Yeah, that’s true. Humans only have one heart but I don’t, I have two,” Tim told him.
So that meant Tim’s…
“So you’re—“
“—Not human. No, I’m not,” the former Robin confirms. “I was wondering how much longer it would take you to realise, given that you can hear my heartbeats,” he commented.
Kon’s brain was refusing to keep up.
“I try not to listen to anyone’s, especially yours, that closely,” the Kryptonian mumble-explains. “Does any one else know? Does Bruce know?”
“Maybe? Probably? Alfred definitely does, he’s never served me any dish with ginger in it, even back before I was adopted and only going over to the manor occasionally,” Tim says. “And he made it a Family rule that I wasn’t allowed to access the cabinets in either the Cave or the manor where aspirin is kept under any circumstance unless I had someone supervising me,” he adds.
Kon mentally files both ginger and aspirin away under the label of ‘potential allergies or potentially poisonous. Keep away from Tim at all costs’, and also makes a mental note to ask Alfred about what both of those do to Tim, and if there were any countermeasures or things that he had to do if his boyfriend ever ingested either of them. If the butler didn’t know then he would just have to find those answers somewhere else. He would have to know just what species Tim is first to do that, though.
“We’ve been dating for the past year, and friends for much longer, and you never thought to tell me you aren’t human?” Kon asks.
”No, I did; many times. The reason I didn’t tell you before now isn’t because I didn’t want to, it’s because I’ve spent so long passing as Human, it’s weird that someone else actually knows I’m not,” Tim explains. “And I’m pretty much alien only in biology and human in everything else,” he adds, quieter. “Alfred probably knows because he knows everything, but I never explicitly told him like I told you,” he says, returning to his original volume.
“I can’t really understand that, I’ve never experienced anyone not knowing that I’m half-Kryptonian,” Kon says, apologetically. “But it makes sense, why you didn’t tell me sooner,”
He turns back to the sink to continue washing and cutting up the capsicum, and Tim returns to his walnuts, transferring them from the frying pan to a bowl for later.
Days later, while they are over at Wayne Manor for Sunday lunch, Kon tracks down Alfred to ask his questions. He does not get as many answers as he had hoped to. He still needs to ask Tim what his species is, because all he knows is that his boyfriend’s also an alien, which is far too vague for his liking.