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Now, normally, Kon would love to have his reading for Molecular Cell Biology interrupted. Wouldn’t even be too picky about what that interruption was; sixty pages into a badly written textbook by his mediocre professor was enough to get him ready for anything from a cat up a tree to three rounds with Darkseid himself. Anything. Anything at all.
And Tim Drake slamming his bedroom door open should have been just what the doctor ordered.
“Kon,” he stage-whispered, on the verge of panic, “is Bart hot?”
Should have been. Kon eyed the textbook, wondering if the escape was worth it.
“Alright then,” he muttered, “let’s do this.” He turned to Tim with his brightest superhero smile. “Timothy,” Kon said in his most encouraging ‘rescuing a small child from a burning building’ voice, “are we having a difficult day?”
Because the thing was, Tim coming out of the closet had done wonders for him. He’d always projected confidence, but there was something about more completely knowing yourself that just boosted your self-assurance like nothing else. But a revelation like that was a double-edged sword, because a mind as analytical as Tim’s couldn’t help reevaluating past events in light of the new knowledge, and that usually meant realizing that at some point Tim’s feelings for whatever random acquaintance he was thinking of hadn’t been quite as platonic as he’d previously believed.
Bunker. Anarky. Danny Temple. It was becoming a long list, and Kon had been there for almost every post facto freakout, holding Tim’s hand and assuring him that yes, he probably had wanted to hit that, and no, it wasn’t weird, it was just an occupational hazard of making friends with attractive people.
(He was not looking forward to the day Tim regained his memories of the cloning incident.)
“We’re hanging out at Sundollar,” Tim said into the middle distance, “he just runs his fingers through his hair, and then I think to myself, ‘wow, I’d sure like to run my fingers through his hair’, and then… gah! Tim threw himself face-first into Kon’s bedspread, one cheek slamming directly onto the discarded textbook. “Ow.”
“There, there,” said Kon soothingly, as he gently freed the book from beneath his bestie’s face. “It can come as a shock at first, just don’t fight it.” Honestly, Kon sympathized. He’d been there. Cissie and Anita had been there. Eddie, M’gann, Jaime, Jackson, Amy… Rose had been there, and Kon hadn’t even known she had moods besides ‘I’m gonna kill you’. “Bart has that effect on all of us at some point.”
Tim gazed up at him imploringly. “But…when? When did Bart Allen get hot?”
Kon tried not to be offended on Bart’s behalf at Tim’s incredulity. “I’m not exactly sure,” he said with a shrug. “I noticed it when I was…sixteen, I think?” He gave it a little more thought. “Or two, I guess, if you wanna get all chronological about it.”
Tim’s eyes widened to the size of dinner plates. “Kon, that was four years ago! ” Tim looked like a kindergartener who’d just learned the moon wasn’t actually made of cheese. “It can’t be,” he murmured to himself. “Who is responsible for this?”
“Jeez, it’s a guy being cute, not the invasion of the body snatchers.”
Tim sighed in despair. “Wish he’d snatch my —” He slapped a hand over his mouth, looking guiltily at Kon like he’d accidentally stepped on Krypto’s tail.
Kon personally didn’t see what Tim's big deal was. He was pretty sure that everyone even slightly into men was into Bart at least a little at some point, no need to make a thing of it.
“Go ahead,” he said, “get it all out of your system.” Extending his aura outward, Kon discreetly pulled his phone to him. As Tim lay there contemplating his fate, he typed out a quick message. ‘Gonna need a rain check for that cram session. Little situation here.'
Cassie must have already had her phone out, because it was only a few seconds for the reply to flash on his screen. ‘Is it a punchable situation? Because I would also like to not be studying if it’s at all possible.’
‘I wish. Tim knows Bart’s hot.’
And Cassie, one of the very few of Kon’s friends to have never had this crisis, on account of the extreme good fortune known as ‘being a lesbian’, chose to rub that luck in Kon’s face with a simple, elegant ‘LMAO’ .
“Nmmmrrgh,” Tim groaned into the quilt. “This is the worst. I wanna kiss him on the mouth.”
“Uh huh,” Kon agreed, “that’ll happen.” At Tim’s alarmed expression, he added, “the wanting to, I mean. No guarantees about any actual kissing.”
(Although, Kon had, one particularly eventful Saint Crispin’s Day. Solid 9/10, would recommend, but maybe not the best thing for Tim to hear in his current state.)
“Look, would it help if you said all the things you like about him? Like, talking about it might make it more manageable?” Kon knew— knew —that he was putting himself in psychological harm’s way here, but crushes were inherently flimsy things, and tended not to hold up under close scrutiny. And scrutiny was something Tim excelled at, so directing that skill to the matter at hand might just solve the problem.
And if not, well. Kon wasn’t looking forward to having to choose whose best man he was going to be.
“I don’t even know!” cried Tim. “Where to start!?”
“Well, you…mentioned his hair?”
“It’s just so silky,” Tim said dreamily,“ and the way it catches the light when he moves is…” He sighed. “Like a chocolate fountain.”
‘Oh boy,’ Kon thought, saying nothing.
“And his eyes, like big yellow sunflowers.”
‘Sunflowers are often yellow, yes.’
“And have you ever slowed down footage of him running up a wall?” Tim asked, which, no? Who would? “Because the way that costume clings to his—”
“Okay,” Kon said loudly, “that’s maybe enough sharing for today.” Yep. There was that psychological damage, he did not need to know which body parts Tim liked wrapped in spandex, thank you.
“Uuuuhhhhhh,” Tim rolled onto his back, dramatically throwing one arm across his eyes and the other to hand over the side of the bed. “Kon, I think I’m in too deep.”
And Kon knew, suddenly, with instant clarity and despair, what had to happen next. He was regretting it already, before his lips even started to move, but there was no choice. The setup demanded it. Kon was but a vessel.
“And what you really want is to have Bart in deep?”
An overpriced bio textbook slammed into Kon’s face at a speed that would have impressed the object of Tim’s affection, had he been there to see it. Kon pulled back to try and soften the blow, even as he cringed at the sound the cover made on impact.
As Tim grabbed a pillow to scream into, Kon watched his book fall to the floor. It had contorted to the exact shape of his jaw. He would not be reselling it at the end of the semester.
Well, nothing for it. Kon grabbed the other pillow and, in the spirit of camaraderie, joined Tim in his screaming.