Chapter Text
The first time Kon meets him it's by accident, at 6:12 am on a Tuesday morning.
Kon had been coming down to the kitchen to make some sort of breakfast out of the sparse ingredients in the shared fridge at Titans Tower, which, quite frankly, barely pass as real food.
Kon’s got a turkey ham sandwich on his mind when he turns the corner into the living room adjacent to the kitchen to see a mop of mussed black hair poking out from a blacker hoodie on the couch. Kon thought he would be the only one down here at this hour. All other occupants of the tower were still sleeping up in their rooms last time he checked.
But lo and behold, there’s a guy laying on the couch, one Kon doesn’t recognise at all. He’s wearing an obviously well-loved hoodie that has “THE SMITHS” printed across it, hood pulled up, a blanket half thrown over him with one leg hanging off the couch, his sock half off his foot. From what Kon could see, his hair was spiking out in every direction, falling into his face. He was slumped into a corner of the couch, his neck at an angle that made Kon want to go over and wake him up just to get him out of that position. There’s a laptop precariously balanced on his lap, although the screen seems to have gone dark hours ago.
Overall, the entire scene looks straight out of a coming-of-age type movie, which is a completely conventional observation and has nothing to do with the fact that the guy looks like he would be the main character in a teen romcom with his shaggy black hair and rather… uhm, well, perfect face. He looks like the epitome of ‘college kid during mid-finals’ even if the dude’s face looks like he can’t be older than a highschooler. Actually, he looks around Kon’s age. Well, his genetic age, anyway.
The guy seems to have fallen into what must be an accidental doze. Somehow, he looks relaxed in that awful position. Clearly he’d been here, awake, for a while before he fell asleep, based on those killer eyebags he’s got going.
Kon has a nagging feeling that he knows this guy, but as he studies the guy’s angular features, his high cheekbones and upturned nose, he comes up blank.
Kon’s debating whether or not he should wake the guy and ask who the hell he is and why he’s asleep on the couch rather than in a spare room, ‘cus, believe it or not, Titans Tower does actually have those, when he stirs. Suddenly, Kon has a pair of bright, icy blue eyes fixed directly on him with startling awareness for a guy who looked dead asleep not two seconds ago.
They hold eye contact for a second, before the guy’s higher brain functions seem to start kicking back in, and he looks down at himself, at his teetering laptop, then he… touches his face? Whatever he finds— or rather, doesn’t find?— must startle him because he jerks up, further tangling himself in the blanket.
“Crap! Uhm… hey?” The guy croaks in an unfamiliar accent, seemingly very unsure of what’s going on and what to do next. Kon blinks at him.
“Who are you?” Kon asks eloquently. Superboy is known for his grace with words afterall.
The guy— wow Kon really needs to get his name— doesn’t reply immediately, rather he stares at Kon for a hot second, looks around the room for a moment, then back at Kon. The question seems to confuse him, which, really dude? You’re the rando sleeping on the couch in a tower for teenage superheroes.
“Uhm, I’m uh… Tim?” The guy —Tim— stutters out. It’s more of a question than a statement.
“Don’t seem too sure of that. Wanna double check?” Kon teases with a raised eyebrow, and yeah okay maybe he’s messing with him a little. Sue him, the guy just looks so utterly lost, like he doesn’t even know how he got here, the way his eyes dart around. It’s maybe just a little funny, okay?
Tim laughs nervously, “no— yeah, I’m Tim. Sorry, you caught me off guard.”
Kon has to bite back some kind of snarky reply because, dude, what ‘guard?’ You were dead asleep and snoring. But Kon has more manners than that, thank you very much, so he refrains, opting for a half smirk and a raised eyebrow. “Uh— all good bro. But uh… What are you doing here? You a new recruit or something?”
Tim seems thrown by this question, shockingly, looking around and frowning for a second, before looking back at Kon almost disbelieving. Kon almost wants to speed to a mirror real quick to check if he’s got a parasite stuck to his face or something, the way this guy keeps looking at him as if he’s unsure whether Kon is real. Maybe he’s a fan? After all, it’s not the first time he’d have left someone speechless because of his presence alone.
Finally, Tim fumbles out an answer “Oh no— I’m just… helping out with a case! I’m from Gotham and uh, the Bats sorta— recruited me to help with this… thing.” He looks up at Kon with a tense smile, like he’s unsure of what he’s doing himself.
Kon eyes him suspiciously for a moment, but Tim is slowly starting to look less freaked so, whatever, maybe he’s being legit. “Rightttt, well. I’m Superboy, but just call me Kon. So uhm, why exactly did the Bats have to bring you to San Francisco to help out with this ‘case?’” Kon asks, because suspicious behaviour or not, the concept of this teenage Gothamite civilian being brought to the Tower, where heroes hang out unmasked and unguarded, is still a tad dubious.
“Oh I just needed the uh… well the Tower network runs passive packet collection across multiple secured data streams you know?” Kon does not know, but he keeps that to himself. “It’s got industry trade logs, customs databases, all that jazz.” Kon nods along. He knows of jazz, yes, of course. That jazz? Well… “Most systems don’t have the RAM clearance to collate that without freezing up, but here? I can run predictive analysis across shipment paths and detect where any of the missing tech I’m supposed to be locating is being rerouted— or quietly offloaded before anyone, uh, notices.” Tim pauses and sucks in a breath, ceasing his rambling and looking up at Kon with a vacant smile.
Kon thinks he may as well have just explained in Norwegian. He stares at Tim for probably a second too long, he’s got freckles, before catching himself and realising that actually, that was in english, and he was probably supposed to take that as a proper, understandable explanation.
Kon nods gravely. “Right. Got it.”
Tim smiles a little more authentically, probably realising that Kon got absolutely nada, apart from ‘missing tech,’ which does sound very Gotham. “Also, the East Wing coffee machine connects to the same internal subnet. Which is... terrifying, really. You may want to get someone on top of that.” Tim supplies helpfully. Maybe Kon nodded too gravely, seeing as this Tim guy seems to think that he understands what an internal subnet and a coffee machine link up would mean.
“Uh huh, sure. I’ll uh— let someone know.” Kon replies, because really, he gets Gotham is weird, but is everyone from there some black-haired-hyper-intelligent-slightly-off-their-rocker? And he’s not just talking about Robin here— Nightwing, Batman— hell, even Orphan when you really look closely. He wonders if Robin knows this guy. They seem like they’d get along. Although, Robin usually includes a simpler explanation of whatever ‘Robin Crap’ they’re dealing with (Robin Crap is, in fact, the team’s official term for anything that only someone like Rob would know).
Kon decides that it is actually too early for this, and he does just want his sandwich. His story sounds strange, but not entirely impossible. In Kon’s opinion, the amount of times civilians get roped into cases is much higher than you’d expect. Well, usually they just need to be questioned or sanctioned, and that typically happens in their own city but, whatever. Gotham, he muses, always something. What is strange is the Bats asking some civilian for ‘help,’ in a case no less. But, oh well, this Tim guy would have had to have been authorised to get in here, and he doesn’t seem threatening at all. Kon has long since learned that the Gotham crew’s business is the Gotham crew’s business, and one should not meddle if they are currently enjoying their life.
“Well, uh— if you need anything just let me know or something?” And really, what was he saying about grace with words? Nailed it.
His fumbling attempt at hospitality and pleasantries seems to do the trick though, seeing as Tim nods jerkily, unwraps himself from his blanket cocoon and scurries up the stairs.
Strange guy, Kon thinks to himself as he moves towards his original destination.
But while Kon is layering turkey ham on stale bread, he can’t seem to get the image of this Tim dude’s wide, blue eyes framed by his messy black hair out of his head.