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Kon-El is being followed.
Actually, that’s not entirely fair — he’s still 50/50 about whether it’s Superboy who’s being stalked, or just plain old Conner Kent, and he feels like he’s probably supposed to care more about that distinction than he actually does. Thinks that if he told Clark he was being followed, that’s the first question Clark would ask, and he’d probably be disappointed in Kon for not having an answer.
Not that he would tell Clark. Not that Clark isn’t usually disappointed in him.
He should probably tell someone, he knows, but then he’d have to explain why he didn’t say anything sooner, and he doesn’t have a good answer.
‘I kind of like it,’ definitely isn’t a good answer. ‘Having a villain who cares enough to stalk me makes me feel like a proper superhero’ is… well, he thinks it’s probably better? But still not good.
The trouble is, if he tells Clark, Clark will immediately freak out about Ma and Pa, as if Kon would ever let anything hurt them.
His shadow wouldn’t, he’s sure of that, although it’s hard to put into words why he’s sure.
Because they’re only interested in him, is the answer, but why is he so certain?
At least when someone inevitably does find out, they won’t know about the really weird shit, and won’t ask any of the questions he’d have the hardest time answering, because only a crazy person would even consider those things as possibilities.
They won’t know that his stalker comes into his bedroom when he’s sleeping. They won’t know that they steal his clothes, but never keep them for longer than 24 hours. They won’t know that his stalker is the reason he’s been doing so much better at school.
The first time he’d woken up to find a school assignment (physics, three whole pages of questions that Kon didn’t care about and hadn’t been programmed with the answers to) neatly corrected in handwriting that was almost, but not quite, identical to his own, he’d just sat and stared at it for so long that he’d missed homeroom.
The second time (chemistry) he’d been a little offended, honestly. He’d done pretty good, there had only been a couple of answers the shadow thought needed changing, which made the neat corrections feel a bit like an insult.
The third time, he’d left the half-completed worksheet on his desk deliberately, scribbled ‘I fucking hate calculus’ in the top corner in light pencil. When he woke up, every question was answered, and the note had been neatly erased.
He’d got an A on the assignment, rather than an A+, and he doesn’t know if that was because his shadow isn’t as good at calculus as physics, or if it’s deliberate, to avoid his teachers thinking he’s cheating (even though he kind of is). Either way, he appreciates the help.
It doesn’t work on everything — English homework remains stubbornly undone and uncorrected, and so does anything for Geography and History.
He leaves them out anyway, because that’s how he begins to learn, just a little, about his shadow.
Whoever they are, they don’t like the humanities, or the arts. They’re probably from Gotham, or have spent a lot of time there, because when he’d left a scribbled note on his desk (he makes them sound like they’re memos to himself, and his shadow replies the same way, like it’s a game they’re playing) asking for ideas for his history project, he’d woken up to find a copy of ‘A Brief History of Gotham’ on his desk, with little pink sticky notes marking particularly interesting sections.
It wasn’t Kon’s idea of brief, and the most interesting stuff was all things he probably couldn’t get away with putting in a high school essay, but he’d read the whole book anyway, cover to cover, just for what it told him about his shadow.
They were from, or were at least interested in, Gotham. They enjoyed reading about superheroes and magic and violence. (The last one was a little worrying, but it’s not like Kon doesn’t enjoy a good fight, so he’s prepared to work with it.) They’re willing to leave him tangible, undeniable, proof of their existence, even though they won’t speak to him directly and the notes they leave are all carefully designed to look like he wrote them, down to the handwriting.
A half-finished report on rivers for geography had netted him the knowledge that his shadow is an urbanite, a little biro sketch of a skyscraper in the corner of his post-it and the words ‘why are geography teachers all obsessed with rivers?’ beside it, which is the kind of thing only someone who’s never had to use their super-strength to lift cows out of three feet of mud after their pasture flooded would say.
(He’d looked it up, and Gotham is full of rivers, but almost never floods because it’s got swampland on one side and the ocean on the other, and between them they can absorb any rainwater before it makes it to the rivers. He’d worked that into his report, when he came back to finish it, and got an A+.)
An essay for English class had gained him his first ever communication entirely from the shadow. Not a response to something Kon had asked, but something it just wanted to say to him. He’d woken up to find a yellow post-it note stuck to the front page of his essay on morality in Jane Eyre, with ‘the moral of the story is don’t keep people imprisoned in attics unless you’re really certain they can’t get out’ written on it, in handwriting that barely looked like his own at all.
Ma and Pa had given him a cork-board to go on the wall above his desk not long after he moved in, so he’d have somewhere to put the postcards he collected during his time in Hawai’i, and he pins that note to the board, underneath a view of Kailua Beach. The next night, there’s a little smiley face in the corner of it, so small he almost misses it, like his shadow couldn’t resist letting him know it was pleased Kon liked the joke.
So yeah, Kon is being stalked, and he should almost certainly be worried about it, and he should definitely be worried about how much he likes it, but telling people would require explaining that he likes it, so he just lives with it.
Leaves out little notes for his stalker to find. Thinks constantly about whether his stalker is enjoying the show when he watches TV. Tries not to think about whether his stalker is enjoying the show when he jerks off.
Because that’s one of the many things he’s very glad Clark would never think to ask about. Maybe the biggest thing. The fact that the constant stalking hasn’t stopped him from jerking off with the curtains open.
Actually, he leaves the curtains open more often now that he used to, and sometimes the window too. And as long as he doesn’t let himself actually think about the fact that he does it, he never has to interrogate what it says about him.
It’s not like this whole thing has never impacted his sex drive. He’d basically turned into a monk when he first realized it was happening, with how completely it killed his libido.
But then it went on happening, and he realized the shadow didn’t seem to mean him any harm, and the little notes on his homework made him laugh, and he—look, he doesn’t have a good excuse, okay? A complete stranger, who he knows basically nothing about, follows him everywhere and breaks into his room at night, and sometimes Kon thinks about the fact that they’re watching when he jerks off, and it usually makes him finish in like thirty seconds flat. It’s just a thing that happens sometimes, that he’s doing his best not to think about.
It’s not like he hasn’t tried to find the shadow. He has super-hearing and x-ray vision (Sometimes. He’s still getting the hang of that one.) and he can fly and if he concentrates, he can use his TTK to sweep a pretty large area around him without needing to move. There’s no way someone should be able to follow him like this without getting caught.
One time, Kon’s certain he saw their shadow. That’s the closest he’s gotten.
After that, he didn’t stop trying to catch them, exactly, he just… well, he stopped trying very hard to catch them. They’re not hurting anyone, and Kansas can get kind of lonely sometimes, and he really does need the help with calculus.
Plus, to be good enough to hide from him, they’re definitely some kind of supervillain, and if they’re stalking him, that means they probably don’t have time to do anything particularly villainous, so when you think about it, he’s actually doing the heroic thing by letting them watch him jerk off!
Clark definitely wouldn’t accept that argument.
Which is why Kon is never telling anyone about his shadow.
Kon-El is being followed, and he’s pissed about it.
It’s not his shadow, is the thing. He has a new stalker, and they’re almost as good at staying hidden as his—if he calls the shadow his real stalker, it makes him sound insane, but it’s also pretty accurate to how he feels about this whole thing. So yeah, Kon is being followed by some rando, and they’ve scared off his real stalker, and he’s pissed about it.
The new stalker doesn’t help him with his homework, or leave him funny notes. They’ve never borrowed any of his clothes, either, and thinking about them watching when he jerks off makes him want to break something, starting with their face.
He has to give them some credit, though. When he decides that he wants answers more than he wants a secret identity, and uses every ounce of super-speed he has to follow the feeling of watching eyes back to its source, when he grabs them by the arm and wraps them up so tight in his TTK they can’t even move, they play it surprisingly cool.
“Hi,” the guy says. He’s about 6 foot, broad shouldered, with the kind of softness around his middle that Kon’s learned the hard way is usually covering serious muscle. The leather jacket and featureless red helmet he’s wearing cannot possibly be comfortable at midday in July, but Kon has to admit that they do look kind of cool. “I was not expecting you to catch me this quickly. Good job.”
“What did you do to my shadow?” Kon asks, and then belatedly remembers that he’s trying not to be insane, and adds, “Who are you? Why are you following me?”
“Your shadow?” the guy asks, ignoring the other, more reasonable questions. “That’s what you’ve been calling him?”
Him. His shadow has pronouns. His shadow has pronouns, and this jackass knew them before Kon did, which feels wildly unfair.
“Do you know him?”
“Do I—? Yeah, man, obviously I know him. Why do you think I’m here? My boyfriend up and vanishes for three months, which, to be fair, is not out of character, but then I find out he’s been spending that time following Superman’s mini-me around like a puppy and leaving him cute little notes? Obviously I had to come get a proper look at you.”
“Your—your boyfriend?!” He should probably be more worried about the fact that this guy knows who he is than about whether his stalker is single, but it’s… Well, it’s just that it has honestly never, not even once, occurred to Kon that his stalker might have a boyfriend. Or a girlfriend. Or any kind of romantic partner. It had never really occurred to him that he might have friends, even, or any kind of life outside of following Kon around.
It’s stupid to feel hurt about the boyfriend thing, but he kind of does.
Okay, scrap the ‘kind of’. He’s hurt. He’s really fucking hurt. And knowing it’s insane to feel that way doesn’t actually make it hurt any less.
“Yeah, boyfriend,” the guy says, tipping his head to one side like he’s trying to figure Kon out. Kon wishes he could see his actual expression instead of only his helmet, so he could at least know if he’s just confused, or if he’s actually pissed and not saying so for some reason.
If Kon’s boyfriend disappeared for three months to stalk someone, he’d be pretty pissed. Although probably more with his boyfriend than the person being stalked.
“We’re not exclusive,” the guy says, which does at least hopefully mean he’s not here to fight about it. “I’m not here because I think he’s cheating or anything like that. He’s allowed to stalk superheroes if he wants to, and normally I’d just be glad he’s found a hobby. But you somehow got him to willingly leave Gotham for more than 10 minutes, which has happened exactly twice in the entire time I’ve known him, so naturally I had to come find out what all the fuss was about.”
Kon has no idea what his face is doing, but the guy must think Kon’s still worried he’s here to fight him, because he sounds like he’s genuinely trying to be reassuring when he adds, “I swear, I don’t care about you fucking him, or falling in love, or whatever is going on here. I only care that this whole thing hasn't been leaving him any time for me." He shifts in Kon's grip, and then adds, a little begrudging, "Or for his family and stuff, too, I guess.”
His stalker has a boyfriend, and a family, and—“Wait, did you just say you don’t care if we fuck?!”
“Yeah? Wait, are you not? Did—oh Jesus, you’re not from Gotham. You have absolutely no idea what’s going on here, do you?”
It feels a little bit like a trap, but it’s not like he’s wrong. Kon has no idea what’s going on, and maybe if he admits that, the guy will actually explain, since he seems to be the one with all the answers.
He shakes his head, and the guy sighs, loud enough to be heard even through the helmet, and says, “Shit. Man, I’m sorry. I would have explained better if I’d realized.” He wriggles a little against the TTK, like he’s testing Kon’s strength, and then adds, “I’m Jason, by the way.”
Kon’s so shocked to have been given a real name that he drops him.
“Why the hell did you bother wearing a mask if you’re just going to tell me your real name?”
Maybe it’s not a real name? I could be some kind of code-name.
Except Jason uses his newfound freedom to reach up and press a carefully concealed button on the side of his helmet, and it hinges open like a crocodile’s jaws, revealing his bare face, no mask to protect his identity.
He’s handsome in a very masculine way, strong jaw and a nose that’s been broken too many times, but his eyes are startlingly blue and rimmed with long dark lashes that soften his features enough that Kon can imagine the shadow describing him as pretty. His hair can’t make up its mind if it’s curly or wavy, and there’s a single streak of white among the dark, even though he can’t be older than his mid 20s.
Even his smile is attractive, warm and sincere, like he’s somehow happy to be here, talking to the guy his boyfriend has been stalking.
“Hey, I might be in town on personal business, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to pass up the opportunity to spread the legend of the Red Hood. All publicity is good publicity, and all that. Although saying that, it’s been fucking killing me in this heat, and I’m so sick of stake-out energy bars. You want to talk about this over lunch?”
Jason stashes his helmet and leather jacket in a compartment on the back of his motorbike. (He has a motorbike. It’s red and beautiful and Kon has no idea why the hell anyone with a boyfriend who owns a bike like that and also looks like Jason would be spending their time helping him with his chemistry homework instead of constantly making out with the guy. Not that he’s jealous. Much.)
Without them, Jason looks almost normal. The black shirt he’s wearing is some kind of weird mesh material that reminds Kon of the bullet-resistant alloy Cadmus used to dress him in before he got the hang of his TTK, and he’s pretty sure Jason is wearing body armor underneath it, but it just about passes as one of those overpriced tops some guys wear to the gym, the ones they always advertise as being made with non-specific ‘sports technology’. His jeans look completely normal, no sign of any body armor except maybe a cup, and his boots are just black leather work boots, the kind with steel in the toes that Pa wears for working on the tractor, so those aren’t going to raise any eyebrows.
Kon takes him to the diner, because there are only a couple of places in Smallville which do lunch, and he doesn’t think Jason’s a coffee shop kind of guy. Also, he figures anyone with arms like those must know how to pack away the calories, so Mrs White’s catfish and collard greens will probably go down better than the fancy sandwiches they sell at the Talon.
The special today is meatloaf, Kon’s favorite, and he warms up a little to Jason when he says quietly, “This is my treat, kid. I don’t know how much food someone with your abilities needs, but order as much as you want, yeah?”
Kon still has to worry about people in Smallville realizing there’s something weird about him, but the Whites' daughter, Lorna, just smiles and says, “Growth spurt, huh?” when she takes his order of meatloaf and fried chicken and an extra-large milkshake, and laughs when Jason says, “I do not miss being that age. Felt like I was constantly hungry from puberty through to at least 19.”
Jason doesn’t get the meatloaf. He gives Lorna this smile that makes her blush to her roots, says he’s never been to Kansas before and what would she recommend? She tells him he has to try a loose meat sandwich before he goes home, so that’s what he orders.
“I thought she’d say barbeque,” he comments, when she’s gone to get their drinks. “Isn’t that the thing Kansas is famous for?”
“Wrong season,” Kon tells him. “Pigs go to slaughter in the fall, at least around here.”
“You don’t have freezers in Kansas?”
“Sure, but the best barbeque is made fresh. Anyway, everyone knows about Kansas barbeque, so no one bothers telling tourists about it. It’s not like you’d send every person who asked what they should try in Gotham for—wait, what food do you have in Gotham?”
“Pizza,” Jason says, immediately. “Never believe a New Yorker who tells you they have the best pizza, New Jersey is where it’s at. And meat pies. I do not understand why nowhere else in America does meat pies. Like, don’t get me wrong, I love me a sweet pie. Apple, cherry, banoffee, whatever. They’re basically all great. But a proper steak pie? There’s nothing like it.
“Oh, and there’s this thing they do Downtown called Xongbu, it’s like the Chinese version of brisket basically, because that part of town is like one third Ashkenazi jews, one third Chinese, and one third original Gothamites, so you get this kind of German-English-Chinese fusion food. That’s the thing I always tell tourists to try. No one outside the city knows about it, and it’s so fucking good. Chinatown is the complete opposite end of the city from where I live, and I still end up trekking out there at least once a week for Xongbu Mi Fen in the winter.”
“Wow, you really like food.”
“Growing up, I—let’s just say I spent a lot of my childhood hungry. Nothing like not knowing where your next meal is coming from to make you really appreciate food when you get it.”
“Oh man, I’m sorry.” Wait, should he be apologizing? Should he even be feeling bad, when the guy’s been stalking him for a week and a half?
Jason makes a dismissive gesture. “Nah, don’t be. It’s fine, not like it’s the worst thing that ever happened to me.”
If anything, that just makes Kon feel worse, but he doesn’t want Jason to think Kon’s pitying him or anything, so he changes the subject.
Also, he’s been trying to be polite, since Jason is buying him lunch, but if he doesn’t get some answers about his shadow soon, he might actually explode from curiosity.
“So I’m hoping you’re planning to explain what’s going on over the food?” he says, and leans back out of the way as Lorna sets their drinks down in front of them. “About—” He can’t say stalker, not in the diner, surrounded by people who know Ma and Pa, and he’s not 100% sure saying boyfriend is a good idea either, so he settles on, “the shadow.”
“Right, yeah. Man, I have no idea how to begin this conversation. I was not prepared to find he’d never even spoken to you. He hasn’t, right?” Kon shakes his head, and Jason sighs. “Of course not. Fuck, where do I even start?
“He already knew his girlfriend before I properly met him, and the other… Doesn’t matter. Point is, he doesn’t do this kind of thing a lot, and especially not with people who don’t already know his deal, so I’ve never had to do this before.”
Kon knows he has kind of a weird attitude to a lot of sex and relationship related stuff, courtesy of having most of his knowledge on the subject programmed into him by mad scientists instead of learning it the normal way, but it’s still—
He knew polyamory existed, and that there was nothing morally wrong with it, and he even knew it was an idea he vibed pretty hard with, but it still feels kind of huge to be sitting here listening to Jason talk about how his shadow has both a boyfriend and a girlfriend like it’s the most normal thing in the world.
Feels a bit like it did when he heard Knockout talk about having dated both women and men, and he realized he was meeting another bi person for the first time.
Not like he’s learning it’s okay, because he already knew that, but like… like some part of him had needed to confirm it was real and not just something that existed in whatever sex-ed text book the scientists had been cribbing from.
It’s probably making him more forgiving of the stalking than he ought to be, although the fact that Jason seems like a genuinely nice dude is also helping with that.
“Maybe start at the beginning?” Kon suggests. “Or just tell me who he is and what the hell he’s been doing in Smallville?”
“No, see, that’s the bit I’m having trouble with. I’m not going to just give you his name, that’s like—rule one of this shit.”
He’d given Kon his own name, easy as anything, which heroes are usually pretty skittish about, but a face covering mask and an understanding of the importance of code-names only means one thing, in Kon’s experience.
Maybe he doesn’t mind giving out his name because he already knows that Kon is Superboy?
“You’re a—” Kon lowers his voice to a whisper “—hero?”
That makes Jason laugh. “No, man. Kind of the opposite. Sorry, I assumed you knew.”
“Right. Okay.” He should probably be more bothered by that, but it’s not like he hadn’t already been assuming his shadow was some kind of supervillain. It makes sense that his boyfriend would be too. “So, is he going to try to kill me? Are you going to try to kill me?!”
“Would I have bought you lunch if I were here to kill you?”
“I don’t know! You’re from Gotham. Everyone knows the bad guys there are weird!”
“Okay, yeah, that’s fair. No, I’m not going to kill you. As long as you treat him right, I’ve got no problem with you. You seem like a nice guy, and he could use a few more of those in his life.”
“Do—” another whisper “—supervillains like nice?”
“Depends on the person. It’s not like we’re a separate species or anything. And Spider’s… well, it’s more complicated than just villain, these days. Which is actually another reason I’m here. The Bats are freaking out about him vanishing like this.”
“The—oh my God, did you just say—?!”
Jason holds up his hand to silence Kon as Lorna returns with their food, gives her another of those smiles that make her blush and asks for refil of his beer.
He stays silent until she brings it over, and Kon has no idea what they’re waiting for, so he just sits and eats his fries and thinks about the fact that his shadow is apparently friends with Batman. Actual factual Batman.
Also, he has a name, which is cool. Spider is presumably a code-name, but it’s something Kon could call him, if they ever manage to have an actual conversation.
Maybe he’ll try it out on a note first, just to be sure.
Lorna brings the beer, and Jason thanks her, and waits until she’s back at the counter before he puts down a silver something on the table between them.
It looks a bit like one of the little dictaphones Clark and Lois use sometimes for recording interviews, and when Jason presses one of the buttons, there’s a sound like a whole sofa cushion being sucked into a vacuum, sort of sssssssshhhhhhhrrrr-florwp, and the chatter from the other patrons goes abruptly quiet and fuzzy.
“Localized sound disruptor,” Jason says. “Nothing super fancy, but it means we don’t have to worry about being overheard unless someone gets within a couple of feet of the table.”
“Oh wow. You really are a supervillain.”
“More of a mob boss,” Jason says, but he’s grinning, pleased and just a little smug. “Technically, this is Bat-tech, but there’s no way Batman doesn’t know the Cats steal his tech, and he hasn’t tried very hard to stop them, so I assume he wouldn’t care that I have it.”
“What Cats?”
“Catwoman? Please tell me you’ve heard of Catwoman. I know this is the middle of fucking nowhere, but surely—”
“I’ve heard of Catwoman.”
“Oh thank God. Okay, so you know who Batman and Dragon are, right? Or Batman and Nightwing now, I guess. Still haven't gotten used to that.”
“Yeah, of course. Batman’s basically Superman’s best friend.” He tactfully doesn’t say anything about Nightwing. He’s pretty sure Clark wouldn’t want him repeating some of the stuff he’s heard him say about Batman’s kid. Especially because he wasn’t actually saying them to Kon. He was saying them to Lois, and Kon had just happened to be within super-hearing range.
“Okay, well Batman and Catwoman have… kind of a thing? It’s complicated, and to be perfectly honest, I don’t actually care enough to figure it out. But it’s definitely some kind of thing. Catwoman’s son Feline has a thing with Nightwing. That’s less complicated, but thinking about Nightwing having sex makes me wish I didn’t know what sex is, so I try to ignore it.
“But the combined things mean that they keep letting members of the Cat-family close enough to touch, which for Cats means close enough to empty all of your pockets before you’ve even realized they’re there. So then obviously Catwoman and Feline hand out toys to the rest of their family, which means they give them to Spider, and he loves me very much, so then he gives them to me.”
“So Spider is a thief?”
“No, but he’s Feline’s little brother. And kind of Catwoman’s kid? But not really. Spider—he used to go by Protégé when he was younger. He doesn’t talk about his past, and I respect him way too much to go digging, but for whatever reason, he decided when he was like 13 that he was going to save Gotham, and since the bad guys usually seemed to do a better job of changing the city than the good guys, he was going to do it by becoming a supervillain.”
“Seriously?”
“Oh, that’s not the wild part. The wild part is that he decided the best way to become a supervillain was to learn from the best, so he started just turning up on villains' doorsteps and telling them he was their new intern/side-kick, and they basically all just went along with it.”
“What? Why?!”
“Because they’re mostly narcissists, and it was flattering, I think. Also, I know people use the phrase ‘scary smart’ about civilians a lot, but Spider is terrifyingly smart. Like, the kind of smart all sane people are actually afraid of. But that made him a very efficient side-kick.”
“Man, I knew he could have been getting me better grades if he wanted!”
“He—what?”
Oh. That probably wasn’t what Kon was supposed to take away from that story. “He kind of… helps me with my homework sometimes? Like, if I leave it out, he’ll correct my answers. Only for math and science, but I usually only get B’s and C’s by myself, and straight A’s with his help.”
“Weren’t you programmed with knowledge by mad scientists? Why the hell are you failing math?”
“You know about that?”
“I’m a supervillain and you, admittedly accidentally, stole my boyfriend. You absolutely don’t want to know how much I know about you.”
Well, that’s mildly terrifying. “Dude, that’s fucked up. And I’m not failing, I just—I know so much stuff about science, but the stuff they teach in school is totally different. It’s like—I think they teach the simplified version and I know the complicated one, maybe? I’m not sure. I just know I can’t turn the stuff I know into the stuff teachers want me to put in exam answers.”
“Oh yeah, that makes sense. I mean, I’m pretty fucking good at practical chemistry, but I’d definitely fail that class if I went back to school. The Joker is a surprisingly good teacher when he’s in the mood, but he’s not really a ‘show your working’ kind of guy.”
“You were taught chemistry by the Joker?!”
“He’s sort of my—God, I never fucking know how to describe it. I was his kid sidekick for a bit, basically.”
Kon doesn’t know a lot about Gotham’s heroes or villains, but he knows enough to be absolutely fucking horrified at the idea of the Joker having access to a kid.
Jason must misinterpret his expression, because he says, “Yeah, you'd never know it too look at me now, but I really did used to be Prankster, back in the day.”
“Why would Joker want a side-kick? Why would you agree to be his sidekick?!”
“He got pissed off Batman was paying more attention to Dragon than him, so he basically kidnapped me. And I agreed because saying no to the Joker is extremely bad for your life expectancy, and no matter how shitty things were for me back then, I didn’t want to die before I even hit puberty.”
His voice is tight, like he’s upset and trying to hide it, which makes sense because that sounds—it sounds like the kind of awful Kon can’t imagine going through now, never mind as a human child. “Oh my God. That's—are you okay?!”
“Not even remotely,” Jason says, and then shrugs. “It is what it is. I didn’t come here to talk about how my kidnapper slash adoptive father beat me to death that one time.”
Kon really wants to ask about ‘to death’, given that he’s pretty certain ghosts can’t drink beer or eat sandwiches, but he also understands enough about human (probably human? Maybe not. Maybe that’s the explanation behind the not being dead thing?) interactions to know that’s not the sort of thing he should push Jason on, especially when they’ve known one another all of half an hour.
Technically it’s been a week and a half, if you include the stalking, but Kon doesn’t, even though he absolutely would if it was Spider sitting opposite him in the booth.
Either way, not nearly long enough for Kon to ask about his tragic backstory. “You were telling me about Spider?”
“Right, yeah.” Jason takes a bite of his sandwich, frowns like he’s thinking really hard about something as he chews, then says, “Man, that’s actually pretty good.”
Kon hasn't lived in Kansas long enough to have any state pride, but he figures he can at least have a bit of Smallville pride, so he grins and says, “I know, right?”
“Not as good as a Gotham meat pie, but still pretty good. But yeah, Spider. Basically, he decides he’s going to be a supervillain and starts doing a bunch of what are essentially apprenticeships. Learning the stuff each villain does well, combining them all in that beautiful horrifying brain of his into supervillain Voltron. He started with Riddler, I think mostly because Riddler is very suceptible to flattery and was pretty unlikely to murder a kid, then he moved on to Catwoman.
“I honestly don’t know why she said yes, when she’s like… 50% less evil than Spider is. 30%, at least. But I guess she had Catlad’s old costume lying around since he grew out of it and started going by Feline, and Dick—that’s Feline’s real name, he’s on the most wanted list in like seven countries so he won’t care if I use it—he’s a big softie who loves kids, so the minute he saw Spider in his old duds, he decided Spider was getting a big brother, whether he liked it or not.”
“Hence the Bat-tech.”
“Exactly. Then after Catwoman, Spider worked for Hatter for a while, and I’m going to go to my grave pissed that I didn’t know him then. I mean, Spoiler’s shown me the photos, but it’s not the same. The costume had bunny ears. And a stupid little floofy tail on the back. Which obviously he immediately turned into a bomb, because that’s the kind of person he is, but honestly, that just makes it funnier.
“Anyway, that’s when he met Spoiler, who’d been on the streets for like half an hour at that point. She’s basically the only vigi on the planet with some actual common sense, so she decided to start small, which was smart. Only, she decided that starting small meant Protégé, which is one of those ‘clever on paper, stupid in real life’ decisions. He was a kid side-kick in a goofy costume, and he’d spent most of his career up to that point working for Catwoman, who’s pretty chill and really just wants to steal shiny stuff from rich assholes, which is a cause anyone can get behind. He should have been exactly the kind of harmless small-fry it was safe for a baby vigi to practise on.
“Trouble is, even back then, he was still him, you know? It turned into a massive fight, way bigger than she was prepared for, but like I said, she’s pretty smart, so she just brained him with half a brick, and then made fun of him when he threw up into his own top hat because of the concussion.”
“And that was smart?”
“Right, yeah, sorry. I was forgetting you haven’t actually ever spoken to him. It was very smart, because Spider is insane about absolutely everything but especially violence, and immediately decided anyone who’d do that was one of his favorite people on the planet. Eventually, she figured out that stalking and random violence is his love language, rather than a sign he wanted her dead, and made him go on an actual date with her.”
If Kon thinks too much about ‘stalking is his love language’, he’s going to explode. Or spontaneously develop heat vision. Definitely one of the two. “So they’re dating?”
“Kind of? It’s complicated. He says yes, she says no. Also, he’s like 99% gay, so that’s a whole thing. They’re something, though. Honestly, I kind of think they might be soulmates.”
“And you don’t mind?”
“Why should I?” Jason looks honestly baffled by the question. “She makes him happy, and his happiness is pretty much the most important thing in the world to me.”
“Wow. That’s, uh… That’s actually really sweet. So she didn’t mind when you two hooked up?”
“That’s her story to tell, man,” Jason says, around a mouthful of sandwich, which makes Kon realize he’s been so absorbed in the conversation he’s forgotten to actually eat, so he picks up his fork and makes a start on the meatloaf. “It was kind of a mess for a while, honestly, but we figured it out in the end. And to be fair, the mess was only partly the poly thing, and more the thing where I nearly beat him to death the first time we met, and then when he got out of the hospital, he blew up my favorite safe-house with me inside.”
“What the fuck?!”
“Yeah. It was—he was working for Joker when I first met him, and I was… I was not okay. Even more not okay than I am now. Seeing another kid in Prankster’s colors, it—yeah. I knew the Joker was a piece of shit who didn’t give a fuck about me, but Harley was, is, family. Way more than the Joker ever was. Getting back from death and jail and all that shit to find she’d got a new kid brother was not what I needed.
“Course, I found out later that Spider gives her the creeps, and Joker taking on another kid was enough for her to finally start planning ways to leave his crazy-ass for good, but we didn’t have that conversation until after everything went down.
“I should probably have been more pissed about the bomb, and like, it’s not like I wasn’t pissed at all. I lost a bunch of my stuff, and the family who lived next door absolutely didn’t deserve to lose their house because of our beef. But after what I did to him, I was expecting some kind of retaliation, and it could have been way worse. So then—
“Nightwing is a way better dude than you’d think from the way he talks most of the time, but he’s been through some really messed up shit, and Batman categorically should never have been allowed to raise a kid, so he’s a lot fucked up, and he never learned how to make friends. But for some reason, Dick fucking adores the guy, so he decided he was going to start basically forcibly socializing him, like—I was going to say a puppy, but it’s Dick, so like a kitten. Just picking him up by the scruff of his neck and dragging him into social situations.
“Me and Dickie have known each other for years, because when you’re the kid side-kick of a supervillain, there aren’t a lot of people you have shit in common with, so he invited me, and Nightwing—only he was still just Dragon back then—invited Oracle, and Oracle invited Spoiler, and Spoiler invited Spider, and next thing I know, I’ve got the world’s most terrifying teenager following me around the city and breaking into my safe-houses to leave me creepy-ass notes about how he wants to fight me to the death.”
“Which was… flirting?”
“Now you’re getting it! I figured some of it out, then Spoiler got sick of watching Spider mope over me and filled me in on the rest, and like, I’m pretty sane by the standards of supervillains. I like to think I'm pretty sane full stop, all things considered. But I was raised by the fucking Joker, so obviously I’ve got a few screws loose. Enough to find all the threats of murder actually kind of hot. So I smashed all the surveillance devices he’d left in my apartment, waited for him to break into my bedroom to replace them, drugged him, tied him to my bed, explained that dating only works if he actually talks to the people he likes instead of just stalking them, and the rest is history.”
“He’s never threatened to kill me,” Kon says, a little hurt, and then, “Wait, did you say surveillance devices?!”
“He’s still feral enough that Selina calls him her little stray, but he did eventually figure out that threatening to kill people only works as flirting if the person he’s talking to is the exact same flavor of crazy as him,” Jason says. “Why? Worried he doesn’t like you back?”
“I’ve never even spoken to him,” Kon says, because that’s less insane than ‘yes’. “Go back to the surveillance devices.”
“You didn’t know? Shit. Dickie said you guys have, like, x-ray vision or something, so I figured you knew and didn’t care. He’s got your room wired up better than the Pentagon.”
“What the actual fuck?! And wait, do you mean better than the CIA wired up the Pentagon, or better than Spider did?”
“Yes,” Jason says, unhelpfully. And then, “Actually, I have no idea if he’s spying on the government. I just kind of assume he’s spying on everyone, because it’s usually a safe bet, but he doesn’t give a damn about anywhere that isn’t Gotham, so maybe not?
“Then again, he lived through No Man’s Land, and it’s not like anyone in Gotham trusts the Government after that.”
Kon has read about No Man’s Land, reading ahead in the textbook when he was bored in History class, and even that, a single page of dispassionate facts, was horrifying. Thousands of people sealed into the ruined remains of Gotham and left to starve, no food or clean water, no medical supplies, no kind of law. “Did you—?”
“No, the prison I was in back then was on the mainland. That was—I’m not going to say it was worse, because I know way too many OGs to ever think that, but being stuck on the inside, watching my city dying on TV, unable to help, unable to do anything, it—it sucked.” He picks up his beer, stares at it for a long silent moment, then drains most of it in a single draught and says, “Time for a subject change.”
“Sorry.”
“Nah, you’re all good, man. I’m just—like I said, I’m kind of fucked up. We all are, that’s why we ended up all being friends. Me and the other kid side-kicks, I mean. Even though half of us are heroes and the other half are villains, it turns out there isn’t actually all that much difference when it comes to the shit that life does to your brain.”
“You said Spider—you said he’s not really a villain, but everything you’ve told me about him is about him trying to become the world’s best supervillain.”
“Right, yeah. So he—he left. Said there wasn’t anyone in Gotham who could teach him the next stuff on his list of supervillain skills, so he fucked off to Saudi Arabia, and joined the League of Assassins.”
“And that’s the bit that’s supposed to make me think he’s not a supervillain?!”
“No, that was pretty text book supervillain shit. He—I don’t know most of what he did while he was out there, and I don’t want to. I know he has Lex Luthor’s personal cell number, and Ra’s al-Ghul was the one to give him his new name. Said he was too old and too talented to keep calling himself Protégé, so he named him al-Eynkabut. The Spider. I think you probably know enough about the world to guess the kind of shit you have to do to get a cool code-name bestowed on you personally by the Demon’s Head, yeah?”
His tone is light, but his expression is serious.
It’s a warning, Kon realizes abruptly. Maybe this whole thing is, everything he’s told him. This isn’t just about Jason wanting to scope out the guy his boyfriend has been fixating on, or maybe it was once, but it stopped being that when Jason figured out that Kon didn’t know who Spider was.
This is Jason trying to make sure Kon knows what he’s getting into.
That’s… A part of him wants to be offended, like Jason doesn’t think he’s strong enough to defend himself, but he’s not actually an idiot. Impulsive, sure. Inclined to maybe overestimate his own skills just a little, sure. But not an idiot.
The person Jason’s been describing is… He sounds fascinating, and Kon is dying to finally meet him for real, but he’s also undeniably dangerous. And the fact that he maybe likes Kon, maybe even likes him a lot, clearly isn’t any kind of protection against him doing some incredibly fucked up shit.
His bedroom has been bugged this whole time. Maybe the whole house. Spider hasn’t just been following Kon around and helping with his homework, he’s been spying on Ma and Pa too, even if it was only incidental to his spying on Kon. He’s been violating their boundaries without them having any idea, and that… That makes him feel a bit sick, honestly. Makes him angry with both Spider and himself.
But it’s still not a deal-breaker, even if it probably should be.
“I hear you.”
Jason studies him, blue eyes searching Kon’s face, and then nods. “Yeah, I think you do. That’s good, because the next bit is—I didn’t want to tell you until I was sure you understood how dangerous he is, because to be honest, the story of how Spider left the League is fucking adorable, and I didn’t want you thinking that meant he was safe or anything.”
“He bugged my home, Jason. You just got done telling me how your meet-cute involved him blowing up some totally innocent person's house just because they happened to live next door to you. He willingly joined the League of Assassins. Nothing you tell me could make me think he’s safe.”
“Good. You seem like a nice kid, honestly, and the world needs more superheroes who aren’t sanctimonious pricks. I’d hate for—well, I’d hate for Spider to happen to you. Also, Spoiler would kick my ass if she found out I hadn’t prepared you properly. She’s going to be pissed when she finds out Spider’s never even introduced himself, and even more pissed that I’m doing this without her. She’s convinced I’m too in love and too evil to actually understand how screwed up he is.”
“Are you? Evil, I mean?”
“Eh. A bit, probably? I got into this business to protect people, not hurt them, but it’s not like I don’t do a lot of shit to earn my spot on the Gotham Most Wanted list. Morality is a lot more complicated than people like Superman want to admit.”
Kon opens his mouth, to defend Clark or explain that he and Kon aren’t the same, he’s not sure which, but Jason beats him to it. “Not an insult. The world needs heroes like Superman. Like you. It’s just that it needs people like me as well, however much you hero types don’t want to admit it.” He stops, takes a breath. “Anyway. We were talking about how Spider left the League, yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“Right, so Ra’s al-Ghul has a daughter, Talia. She’s—she’s a lot of things, honestly, but one of them is absolutely fucking obsessed with Batman. Steal his DNA and make herself a clone-baby obsessed.”
“Oh my God.”
“Yeah. So Spider’s creeping around the League base, getting into places he shouldn’t because that’s what he does, and he finds this one door with the most insane security he’s ever seen on it. And Catwoman might not technically be his mom, but she’s close enough that he’s never going to leave without finding out what’s behind it. So he spends like 3 months doing his thing. Memorizing guard patrols, hacking surveillance systems, stealing passcodes, all that spy shit he’s good at. And he finally gets through the door and finds…”
Jason pauses, seemingly just for the drama of it, and then says, “A nursery,” in this big ominous voice, and grins at Kon’s expression. “Yeah. All that security and months of planning, and there aren’t even any diamonds.”
“Does he like diamonds?” Kon’s never tried, but he’s pretty sure he could make one if he wanted. It’s just heat and pressure, right? Kon can do heat and pressure. It definitely seems more possible than him ever being able to afford to buy one.
“He’s a Cat, so yeah. He’s a lot subtler about it than Catwoman or Dick—Dick always says he takes after their uncle Thomas, which doesn’t seem very fair to Thomas, frankly—but he’s still a sucker for anything shiny.”
“But there were no shinies?”
“No shinies. Just a toddler, who’s thrilled to meet a new person, because he’s basically been kept in a vault all his life. And Spider is—I always want to say he’s bad with kids, because he is, but in this way that kids kind of like? I think it’s because he just treats them like unusually short adults, and they like feeling grown-up? I have no idea, but even he’s not so much of a dick that he’s just going to walk out, not when the kid is so excited to see him, so he hangs out for a bit, tells him some stories. Knowing him, ones that were not even slightly child-appropriate, but Te—the kid was being raised by the League, so probably not worse than he’d heard from his mom, honestly. Immortals are usually real bad at grasping the concept of ‘child-appropriate’, in my experience.
“Anyway, he starts telling the kid about Gotham, and the kid just lights up, so fucking excited, and asks if he’s ever met his brother or his dad. And Spider’s not stupid, he’s figured out what’s probably happening, but he still asks, ‘who’s your dad?’ Just to be sure, you know.”
“And the kid says Batman?”
“Bingo. He’s got a million questions about Batman and Nightwing, what they’re like, if they’re nice, if Spider thinks one day the kid might get to actually meet them. And Spider—you don’t run away from home at thirteen to become a supervillain if you had a good childhood, so obviously one of the many things he’s fucked up about is family. He’s also—he’s kind of low-key obsessed with Batman. Always has been, since he was a kid. So this whole conversation puts the ‘neglected kid’ bit of his brain on a direct collision course with the ‘Batman is the coolest guy ever’ bit of his brain, the resultant explosion pushes all rational thinking straight out the fucking window, and next thing we know, he’s calling Dickie, literally the first time any of us have heard from him in like 2 years, to say he’ll be landing at Gotham airport in 6 hours, and Dick has that long to find a motorbike helmet that will fit a four-year-old.”
“And the League let him go?!”
“Not willingly. Neither him nor the kid will talk about how they got out, so it must have been pretty awful. He looked like he’d been through a mincer when he got back. I’ve never seen him with that many bruises the whole time I’ve known him, and I’m including the time I beat him half to death in that.
“We were all worried about retaliation, obviously, but Talia turned up in Gotham a couple of months later. I don’t know what Batman and Nightwing said to her. Maybe nothing, and it was just seeing how happy her kid was to have an actual family that got through to her. I don’t know. But she left without killing Spider, and so far as I know the only contact he’s had from the League since are the birthday presents Ra’s sends him. Which feel like a threat to me, but Spider says it’s chill, and I’m about 80% sure he’s not lying to me, so I try not to worry about it.”
“And that’s what made him stop being a villain?”
“No, his time with the League really didn’t teach him anything except a lot of terrifying and really hot fighting stuff. But the kid, Batman’s kid, I mean, he basically imprinted on him. He loves his dad and his big brother, obviously, and all kids love Dick, but Spider… The kid has nightmares, bad ones. Way worse than a child that age should have to deal with. And for months after he got to Gotham, Spider was the only one who could calm him down after.
“The only things on his list of supervillain stuff Spider hadn’t really had the chance to learn properly yet were all tech-related, and everyone knows Oracle is the best in the business, whichever side of the moral fence you’re on, so he kind of joined the Birds of Prey. Only, like, semi-officially, because the Birds are way more chill than most heroes but they are still heroes, and he’s still not, but he goes on missions with them, sometimes, works with Oracle as much as he can, and then spends half his free time at Batman’s house being, like… kind of like a weird cousin, I guess, to the kid, none of which leaves him much time for being a supervillain.
“Plus, Batman must know he’s being manipulated, but for some reason he’s let himself be manipulated into making Spider basically his emotional-support villain.” Kon just stares, and Jason laughs softly at his expression, and says, “Yeah, I know. I honestly have no idea what the fuck their relationship even is these days. Like, I thought Batman was basically trying to turn him, maybe make him his new side-kick since Nightwing finally aged-out, but then he got an actual new side-kick, and also one time I watched him, like, stroke Spider’s face and tell him how much he looks like Batman’s mom? So, yeah, not touching that whole thing with a ten-foot pole.”
“I—” Kon opens his mouth, tries to form some kind of sentence, even just ‘what the fuck’, but can’t. His shadow, the guy who’s been leaving him cute notes and helping with his homework, the guy Kon’s been trying and failing not to think about when he jerks off, the guy Jason came here to give Kon some kind of weird shovel talk over, is possibly in a pseudo-incestuous, ambiguously sexual, relationship with the fucking Batman.
And also had abandoned said ambiguously sexual relationship with the Batman to come to Kansas to stalk Kon.
There’s a lot of shit he’s dealt with since he woke up that Cadmus failed to properly prepare him for, and he’s usually kind of annoyed with them about it, but he really can’t begrudge them this one. He’s not sure there even is a way to prepare someone for this.
“And you’re sure he’s—? I mean, you said when he stalked you, it was basically his version of flirting, so—?”
He can’t make himself ask the question straight out, but Jason just nods. “Oh, he’s crazy about you. And don’t ask me how or when that started, because I have no idea. He’s not…
“Look, I think you already figured out why I’m here, yeah? You know I didn’t just come all this way to give you the ‘hurt him and you die’ speech.”
Kon nods, and Jason nods back, and finishes the last of his beer.
“I mean, don’t get me wrong, I am fully willing to kill you if you break his heart, and if I can’t figure out how to kill a Kryptonian then Batman, Dick, Nightwing, Spoiler, and Black Swan will be forming a queue behind me. Did I mention Black Swan yet?”
“No.”
“Oh, she’s awesome. The Court of Owls sent her to kill Dick, because they have this whole prophecy about him being Gotham’s Gray Son, whatever the fuck that means, but it turns out she actually hates killing people, and had just been waiting to be sent on a proper field mission so she could get free of them. She couldn’t talk yet back then, but her and Dick understand one another just fine. And he used to have this thing with Oracle that’s left him basically convinced she’s the next thing to all-powerful, so when he has problems he can’t solve, like what to do with a pacifist assassin-baby who’s never tried making her own decisions before, he just assumes she’ll know what to do. He basically just dropped her on Oracle’s doorstep with a ‘please look after this kitten’ label around her neck, and now she’s one of the Birds.”
“And she’s friends with Spider?”
“Kind of. Honestly, I don’t even know? Their relationship is weird even by the standards of my friends. He hates that she’s the one person he can’t lie to, and she hates that he’s constantly lying, and I’m pretty sure they’d both burn down the entire city to protect the other. I don’t really get it, but like I said, I don't need to understand. I just need him to be happy.”
“Even though he abandoned you for two years to learn how to kill people?”
“Jesus, you don’t pull your punches do you? Yeah, even though. It was—it messed me up, and I was angry with him for a long time, but in the end… The space was good for us, I think. I love him. I’ll always love him. In fact, he might actually be the love of my life. But our relationship before he left was all kinds of fucked up. We have, like, boundaries and shit now. Sometimes we even talk about our feelings instead of trying to kill each other when we’re upset. It’s surprisingly nice.”
“So does that mean he’s not going to try to kill me?”
“Uh… I don’t think so? Which I realize isn’t the answer you were hoping for.
“To be perfectly honest, I have absolutely no frame of reference for what Spider dating someone he’s never tried to kill would even look like, but he’s a lot more… mellow isn’t really the word, because it implies he’s not the most stressed person I know, and he is, but that’s okay because he likes being stressed. We tried going on vacation last year, and I ended up having to call Dickie to come talk him down. He needs at least 12 things to do simultaneously at all times in order to function.”
“I’m seeing why you think his brain is terrifying.”
“Yeah. And I’m absolutely not saying I think he’s learned how to have a normal relationship. But he’s a lot less… less of the bad kind of intense, if that makes sense? Like, I think he’ll probably stick to only telling me his fantasies about murdering you, rather than telling you, which is as close to normal as he’s ever going to get.”
“Does he—I mean, it sounds like violence is, like, a thing for him—”
“That’s one way of putting it, yeah.”
“—But does he also like…? Is normal stuff not….? Fuck, dude, you know what I’m trying to ask, right?”
“If you decide you want to do something about all his weird as fuck flirting, yes he will let you take him on an actual date that doesn’t involve anyone dying, and if you play your cards right, he’ll probably even let you fuck him slowly while you hold hands and stare into one another’s eyes without pulling a knife on you.”
Kon’s blushing so hard he’s a little worried he might be about to spontaneously combust. “Oh. Uh. Good. That’s. Uh. That’s good.”
“He’s definitely also going to want to fight you, just so you’re prepared, and he will get off on it. But Dickie says most heroes are also into that, and he’s screwed way more of them than me, so I’m assuming he’s probably right?”
“Um. Yeah, that’s—if it’s just, like, sparring or something, that could be…” Kon doesn’t even know why he’s still blushing. It’s not like he didn’t get hard every time he fought Knockout. It’s not like he’s ashamed of that. “I think that would be okay.”
“Yeah? Awesome! Man, now I just need to convince him to actually talk to you.”
“Is he shy?”
“Kind of? Like most things about him, it’s complicated. Spider isn’t shy, but the guy under the mask… He still doesn’t really get that people actually like him and want him around, you know? Every time he gets close to someone new, I think he just creates this little exception to the rule in his mind. Like, he knows I like him, and Steph, and Dickie, and T—Batman’s kid, but he still thinks people as a whole don’t like him, if that makes sense? No matter how many people he has in his life who care about him, it doesn’t ever seem to break through that barrier.”
“That’s fucked up.”
“If it wouldn’t involve looking into his past, and therefore breaking his trust, I’d have found his parents and killed them years ago,” Jason says, and it’s—he sounds serious, but kind of casually serious, like he knows that’s a big thing, but also doesn’t realize it’s not a normal big thing. Like talking about planning a murder is just a thing people do when they're in love.
That’s probably something Kon is going to have to get used to, if he’s actually going to do this thing. If he’s seriously about finding out if the way he feels about his shadows also applies to the actual flesh and blood probably-human who’s been stalking him.
Thinking about that note pinned to his cork board, the tiny smiley face tucked into the corner of it like a secret, it still makes his chest feel warm, still sets butterflies fluttering in his stomach. But he’s also been listening to everything Jason’s been telling him. He understands what Jason’s warning him about, and why he feels the warning is needed.
And yet—
Man, this would all be a whole lot easier if Jason was the stalker Kon was considering dating. He’s pretty easy to talk to, all things considered, and he clearly understands the importance of actually communicating. He’s even handsome, even if he is way too old for Kon.
Which--wait. Fuck. “How old is Spider? You said you’ve been dating more than 2 years, and you’re, what, 21?”
“23,” Jason says. “He’s 19.”
Kon is chronologically four, legally 16. Mentally and emotionally… it’s hard to know, but 16 doesn’t feel inaccurate. Accurate enough that 19 feels like a pretty big gap. Too big?
Jason takes in his expression, blinks, seems to process what he’s just said for the first time. “Shit, is he too old for you? Are you too young for him? Fuck, sorry, I never even thought of that. Which makes me sound like a fucking creep, but he’s—God, I don’t even have a defense. He’s him.
“He’s way too old for 19, and half the time he talks to Batman like he’s the same age as him, but at the same time… He’s young too, in some ways. Too young. He didn’t really—none of us got the chance to grow up right, you know? This life fucks everyone up, but especially kids. Dick’s the best adjusted out of all of us, and he’s still a fucking mess. And, well, I guess part of me still thinks of us as kid side-kicks, even though we’re mostly old enough to vote, and so I kind of just mentally lumped you into the same age-bracket.”
“I’m not a side-kick.” It’s not the important part of what Jason just said, but it’s the bit of it Kon actually knows how to respond to.
“No, I know. But you’re—being a kid hero isn’t actually all that different from being a kid side-kick, not in the ways that matter, except you have less backup. And probably fewer daddy issues, I guess.”
“I was grown in a test-tube, dude. I don’t have a dad.”
“Okay, so maybe more daddy issues,” Jason says, and grins. “No judgement. I’ve tried to kill my—the Joker way too many times to ever judge anyone else for being fucked up about their parents, or lack thereof. Seriously, though, if Spider being older than you skeeves you out, you can tell me, and I’ll talk to him.”
“He won’t have thought of it?”
“No. Definitely not.” Kon’s not sure he likes the amount of emphasis Jason puts on that. “But he’ll understand. He’s nuts, but he knows he’s nuts, so he lets his friends and partners kind of… set the pace, if that makes sense? He probably has some kind of attachment disorder, and he won’t even care that I told you that because if you hadn’t already figured it out from the stalking, you need to spend a lot more time studying criminal psychology, but he knows he does, at least. He’s never going to do any of that ‘I know you secretly like it, why are you fighting your feelings’ bullshit, because he’s fully aware he has no idea how mentally healthy, or even just healthier, people work. Knows he can’t make assumptions about what other people want, so he actually listens to what they say.”
“So if I tell him to back off, he’ll leave?”
“If that’s what you want, yes. Or he’s also perfectly willing to just be your friend, if you decide you like him, but only platonically.”
“He told you that?”
“No, but I know him. He’s not—he wouldn’t be doing all this if he just thought you were hot. He only stalks people he actually likes. In his head, all the following you around is basically equivalent to hanging out, and he wouldn’t have done it for this long if he wasn’t enjoying your company. Even though you probably had no idea you even had company for most of it.”
“Okay. So you’re going to talk to him? You’ll pass on a message, or whatever?”
“Anything you want. Seriously, anything. The whole spectrum of possibilities from ‘I want to throw you into a volcano and watch you burn’ through to ‘be naked in my bed when I get home’.” He pauses, a moment of silence while Kon tries to figure out what the hell he’s supposed to say to that, and then adds, “I should probably warn you that if you go for that first one, he will think it’s hot, and he may decide he should become your nemesis so you can fight about it, and I might not be able to talk him out of it.”
“No, that’s okay. I... This whole thing is a lot. You get that, right?”
“Yeah man. I’m crazy, but I’m not that crazy.”
“But he’s—I mean, if you kept watching me, you must have thought…” He stops, takes a breath, forces the words in his head into something like a coherent order. “You stalked me too. Got to see what I’m like, the kind of person I am. If you thought we’d make each other miserable, I’m guessing you wouldn’t have stuck around?”
“Honest answer?”
“Please.”
“I think you could be good for each other. You’re a lot like Spoiler, but more… You’ve got a lot of the qualities that he likes about her, but you’re less—jaded, I guess? And he could use someone like that in his life. And there’s a lot of stuff he could teach you, stuff you’re going to need to learn if you’re serious about being a hero. Starting with why letting trained assassins stalk you is a terrible fucking idea, no matter how cute they are about it. Supers are a lot less breakable than Bats, but even you guys need a little bit of paranoia if you want to live long enough to legally drink, and there’s no one like Spider for making a guy paranoid.”
“Paranoia? Seriously?”
“Hey, I’m just trying to look out for you,” Jason says, tone light and teasing. And then, more seriously, “I know he makes you laugh. I’ve seen the note you saved. And please don’t be embarrassed about that. It’s really rare to find anyone who enjoys his fucked up sense of humor, and even rarer that he meets anyone who he relaxes around enough to make actual jokes.
“I’m not going to pretend I’m all that invested in your happiness, because you’re basically a stranger, and also I try not to lie to people I respect, but I’m not so much of an asshole that I’d try to push you into something I thought would harm you, or make you miserable, no matter how much Spider wanted it. If I thought you’d hate him, or that he would hurt you, I’d have shot him full of tranquilizers and dragged him back to Gotham days ago.”
That’s a bit terrifying, but also kind of sweet, in a very supervillain sort of way. And actually really reassuring. “Thanks, I think.”
“Any time. I accepted a long-ass time ago that stopping him doing shit he’d regret later is part of my job as his boyfriend. Still not sure why he outsourced his moral compass to me and not Spoiler, but I do my best to keep him… balanced. So yeah, I’m here having lunch with you because I think you could be good for him, and because I think you could have fun together. Whether it could be anything more than that…” He shrugs. “When it comes to relationships, there’s always a leap of faith to be made, no matter how much you try to predict the future. Eventually, you have to just say fuck it and jump, with all the risks that entails. You can’t control for people’s emotions.”
“Is that what Spider’s been trying to do, following me? Control for emotions?”
“See, I knew you were smart.”
“So stalking me is like—like a relationship where he doesn’t have to worry about rejection?”
“He’s special, and a special kind of crazy to boot, but he’s still only human. I know I’ve been talking about him like he’s, I don’t know, larger than life, I guess? And in some ways he is. But he’s also just a fucked up teenager who struggles to accept people might actually want him around. It’s the same shit as all the kids in the world who are too nervous to actually talk to their crushes but still stare at them in class, just taken to an insane new height.”
And the thing is… The person Jason’s been describing, he’s—he’s frightening, the kind of frightening Kon’s never really had to deal with before, and he’s fucked up in ways Kon can’t imagine not causing massive problems for everyone close to him, no matter how much Jason insists Spider will respect his boundaries.
But he also sounds… well, sweet, honestly. Weird and violent and scary, but sweet. He risked his life just to make sure a toddler could have the family he didn’t get, and he’s clearly got a lot of people who care about him, including people on Kon’s side of the moral fence. And however creepy the stalking is on paper, Kon’s never actually minded it, and he minds it even less now he knows it was all just Spider being too shy to actually talk to the guy he has a crush on.
“Is he hot?”
“God yes. Or, I don’t know your tastes, so maybe not to you, but I think he’s one of the hottest people on the planet. And even putting aside my bias here, he’s objectively a pretty handsome dude, regardless of whether he turns out to be your type.”
“I don’t know if I have a type. I—I think I just like people, you know? I like people who are interesting, and make me laugh.” He considers everyone he’s felt that way about, or thought maybe he could learn to, if he had more time. “And I guess being able to hold their own in a spar is nice too.”
Jason grins, showing teeth that are surprisingly white, considering Kon can smell cigarette smoke on him, but otherwise look exactly like you’d expect for a guy who’s spent most of his life being punched in the face by Batman. “Oh, you’ll definitely think he’s hot, then.”
Kon shouldn’t do it. He knows he shouldn’t. This whole conversation has been an entire field of red flags. And yet…
“Can you give him a message from me?”
“Course.”
“Tell him to nut up and actually fucking talk to me,” Kon says, and laughs a little when Jason does. “I don’t know what happens after that. I won’t know until I meet him properly. But that’s where we’ll start.”
“I’ll tell him,” Jason promises, and reaches out to turn off the sound-dampener. “You want dessert?”
Kon’s almost asleep, drifting on the edge of consciousness, when the sound of his bedroom window being carefully eased open wakes him all the way up.
He’d found the bugs, after his talk with Jason, crushed every one in the rest of the house without any hesitation and with no small amount of malicious pleasure. But the ones in his bedroom…
He’d debated with himself over those, for way longer than he probably should. What convinced him, in the end, was Jason’s story about how he and Spider finally got together.
Destroying the bugs is uncomfortably ambiguous, as declarations go, but he trusts Jason to have passed on his message, so he’d gathered them all—and taken a minute to be impressed and horrified at just how many of them there were—and then systematically destroyed every single one, chatting loudly as he did it about how bugging someone’s house instead of just talking to them was a lame move.
Even if Jason hasn’t passed on the message, that was pretty clear, right?
He doesn’t mean to hold his breath as the window eases open, he’s just—nervous, maybe? Excited? Worried this is all a big misunderstanding and Spider’s here to kill him?
All of the above?
He lays there, still and quiet, eyes tightly closed for reasons he’s not quite sure of, listening to strange sucking sounds he can’t place, and then suddenly can, because they're coming not from beside him, but above.
Someone is using some kind of suction cups to crawl across his bedroom ceiling, for absolutely no reason Kon can think of except that it’s more dramatic than walking in normally, which finally kills his last lingering worries that it might be anyone other than Spider.
He opens his eyes when he feels the air moving right in front of him, to find a skinny guy with dark hair and a pointed chin hanging upside down from his ceiling, watching him with eyes that are probably blue, but look black in the twilight, huge and just a little too intense.
“Hi.” Kon’s grinning like an absolute idiot, but he can’t make himself stop.
“Hi,” Spider says, still staring. And then, “I’m Tim, by the way.”
His smile looks like he’s had the concept explained to him but never actually attempted it before, and Kon probably shouldn’t find that as charming as he does.
But then, he probably shouldn’t have invited a supervillain into his bedroom in the middle of the night either, or agreed to get lunch with a mob boss, or started leaving little notes out for his stalker to read, so…
It’s like Jason said. Sometimes you’ve got to take a leap of faith.
“It’s so cool to finally meet you, dude! Do you want to watch a movie or something? Like, in the same room for a change?”
And leaps of faith are a lot less scary when you know you can fly.