Chapter Text
Tim knows the universe hates him, but this is another level. The universe really, really despises him.
Why, one may ask, does the Great Tim Drake think this?
Because there is simply no other explanation for why he has been made to sit through his best friend— and (unfortunately) long-term crush— talk about how ‘cool’ and ‘pretty’ his civilian alter ego is, and pretend like he cares and knows nothing.
“You guys don’t understand! He was just… he had these eyes— they were so blue, but also kinda gray…” Kon says for about the fourth time today, recounting his wonderful meeting with ‘this Gotham civilian’ to the team.
“Oh wow, you hear that guys? He had eyes.” Cassie snarks from her relaxed position laid across the couch. She is, understandably, a little sick of hearing Kon ramble about Timothy Drake-Wayne for, also, about the fourth time today. Bart sits on the floor in front of her, both had been watching (read: making fun of) some action-romance movie, while Tim had been going over some case files on his laptop, before Kon came in, started floating around, and talking about the mysterious rich civilian he met yesterday. Again.
It was another kind of torture.
Each time Kon decides to go over his description of Tim— some flattering comment about his eyes, or his hair, or— he’s had to try and find something to subtly distract himself with, so he can appear to be busy enough to not participate in this conversation. It’s been going okay so far, and it helps that currently Tim is actually working, and has been for the past two-ish hours.
Well, he had been working.
Now, Tim stares at his laptop with as much feigned focus he can muster as he can't help but listen to Kon describe his eyes for the third time in the past ten minutes.
“You guys suck. He was seriously just— something else.” Kon pouts, then flips over mid-air to lay with his front facing down, chin propped up on a hand as he gazes wistfully out the window behind Tim.
Cassie rolls her eyes exasperatedly. “For all this talk about this rando, Kon, you haven’t actually said anything about your actual meeting apart from the fact he was pretty.”
“He wasn’t just 'pretty—’” Kon interjects, before being interrupted by Cassie again.
“Right, of course, he was sooooo much more. Words couldn’t even begin to describe it, and all that. But did he even have any personality?” Cassie now appears to have finally given up on the movie as the fifth car-flipping-exploding-fire scene plays out (and really, the car was not going anywhere near fast enough to flip that many times).
Kon appears puzzled by the nature of her question, so Cassie elaborates. “Like, he’s filthy rich— Bruce Wayne’s kid for crying out loud—” This discovery had been shocking to everyone, except Tim, obviosuly.
“Adopted!” Bart interjects, very helpfully. Because Tim actually wasn’t aware he was not Bruce Wayne’s biological son. He had been under the impression that Bruce had actually birthed him, via cesarean. Thank you, Bart.
“Yes, whatever, same difference,” Cassie continues. “I’m sure he gets the trust fund either way.”
Which— is partially true, but Tim doesn’t quite appreciate his entire adoption process and status being reduced down to a trust fund (that he doesn’t even need or want, if he may so add). “And! Isn’t he the one that was already rich?”
“Yeah his biological parents owned this medical company or something. But that’s not the point!” Kon counters, and really, when did he get to know so much about Timothy Drake-Wayne? Last he'd noted, the team only knew of the Waynes because— well, who didn’t? They never seemed to know much more than the bare-minimum simplified gossip.
Has Kon been… researching?
“The point is,” Kon carries on, “despite the fact that most people with that many zeros in a bank account, since they’ve been in the womb, usually have the personality of dry wall, he was so down to earth!”
Cassie snorts, “Suuuure, ‘America’s richest under-18’ for the past 3 years is totally down to earth. Really knows about the nitty-gritty bits of life.”
Ouch. Tim was totally in touch with society, and had actually been among the people of Gotham that were the furthest from glamour and wealth possible. Which, it was at night dressed as a bird-themed vigilante, but still! His friends could have a little faith.
“Have you ever seen any of his interviews? He’s totally hilarious!" When had Kon seen any of his interviews? "Like there is actual personality and substance behind those pretty eyes and perfect bangs. Hey, d’ya think he could give me some hair styling tips? Because every time I see a photo or anything of him, his hair is always falling perfectly.”
The tips were, unfortunately for Kon, expensive shampoo and genetics. He had his mother to thank for both.
“And when exactly, are you planning on asking him this? Your next date?” Cassie remarks, clearly enjoying the teasing.
Kon just huffs in response.
“How did you two actually… y’know, ‘meet?’” Bart questions, seeming to also be tiring from the movie, to absolutely no one’s surprise. It’s a miracle he had been actually watching for this long.
“Well, I was just flying around Metropolis yesterday, looking for some damsel in distress or whatever, when I heard about this high-profile robbery thing going on in Gotham. And— by the way, Rob, I’ve been meaning to ask you about this—” Oh god, no, now Tim has to join the conversation. “It had been like, over an hour and there were hostages and injured civilians, and the Bats hadn’t shown up yet. So I decided to see if Superboy could help out. But what were you guys doing?”
Tim remembers that afternoon vividly. Mostly because he spent an hour and a half kneeling at gunpoint. And wondering if the contingencies they had for a situation exactly like that one were playing out okay. He didn’t even want to go do the damn museum-opening-ceremony, which was just an excuse for Gotham's wealthiest to get dressed up to drink and dance, but some of the artefacts being put on display had been uncovered by his parents, and it would’ve been the high-class-equivalent of spitting on their graves if he hadn’t shown. And of course, that meant Bruce had to come, lest the gossip types (cough, Vickie Vale, cough) get some idiotic idea of Bruce being jealous of Tim’s biological parents into people’s heads, or something equally absurd. What pained Tim the most is that that statement had genuinely come out of an article after Vale had dug up some past drama about Bruce Wayne never attending a Drake event, even though he hadn’t even known Tim publicly at the time.
But yesterday, some of the richest people in Gotham were all in one place, highly televised and live streamed, surrounded by priceless artefacts. It was always bound to end in some kind of transgression.
Tim was just glad Bruce had the sense to agree with Tim and have Nightwing as backup.
Although he was less thankful for the fight Bruce and Dick had gotten into a few days prior, meaning Nightwing had decided to show late for the sake of pettiness. Why he had to get Tim involved in their squabbles forever pained him. He also damned Dick's experience because he, too, knew that the actual thieves had no intention on getting the blood of the wealthiest families in Gotham on their hands.
But of course, he couldn’t share any of this with the team… so.
“Uh, something else came up. Nightwing was on his way, but took longer than… anticipated.” Well, that was all technically true. Go Tim, minimal lying so far!
“What? Something the Bats were unable to anticipate? Unheard of!” Cassie jibes, an evil smirk on her face.
“Yeah, were you sick or something? Did your fortune telling powers malfunction?” Bart jokes, and Tim hates the other for tainting him. Bart used to be on his side for this stuff.
“No, it was just… nothing. It all worked out. Even if Kon decided to break Gotham’s singular rule.” Tim grumbles, because although he loves his team, the 'no-metas' rule was broken once by them and now Tim’s best friend was unknowingly raving about the type of blue Tim's eyes were to him.
“But Rob, it all worked out! The hostages were saved quickly and everyone was okay! I even saved you guys some work,” Kon counters, always so earnest and positive it makes Tim want to throw up and kiss him. Though hopefully not at the same time. Or in that order.
“Yeah, and Kon met the love of his life! Who woulda guessed the Gotham boys did it for him?” Cassie quips evilly. So evilly. She’s actually the worst and Tim hates her, and now she’s looking at him like she knows something.
“Hey Kon never finished telling us how they actually met. I want to hear about this teenage-billionair’s awesome personality,” Bart complains from his blanket pile on the floor. And although Tim has kind of been dying for the entirety of this conversation, he is a little curious to hear what Kon actually thought of him, outside of his appearance.
“Oh yeah, well. I swooped in all heroic and whatnot, knocked out some baddies, untied some hostages, and there he was, front and centre. One of the thugs had hit him on the head,” Tim remembers this vividly as well, partly because he still has a minor headache from trying to work on his computer for the past two hours. But then again, that could just be because of the current conversation topic, not the minor concussion.
Kon continues. “So I stopped to untie him and check if he was okay, and uh… I kind of forgot what we really said after that, ‘cuz he looked up at me a little dazed but still ridiculously—”
“Kon, if you start talking about his face again, I’m actually going to punch you and it’s actually going to hurt,” Cassie threatens mildly.
“Right, yeah, sorry. Uh, anyway, we were waiting for the PMs to get there and we kind of just talked a bit. But he was just… seriously different, like he didn’t seem to care that I’m a literal alien with superpowers and like famous or whatever—”
Bart snorts. “Humble,” he murmurs snidely. Kon just throws him a glare and continues.
“But he was funny, and smart, and just a little bit mean, but in a super hot way…”
“Superboy has a degradation kink, confirmed?” Cassie calls out, in a falsely shocked voice, and Tim can’t help but laugh quietly, causing Kon to go from indignation to betrayal, and start whining about ‘being ganged up on’ and ‘not taken seriously.’
Tim apologises quietly and tells him to continue, and Cassie decidedly does neither.
After a brief pause in the flow of the conversation as Kon finishes his story, Bart suddenly speaks up.
“Hey, has Rob ever met Kon’s celebrity crush?” Annoyingly, now Tim has to take part in this conversation again.
“He’s not my ‘celebrity crush,’ but yeah, have you Rob?” Kon turns to him with a newfound interest, and it makes Tim’s stomach twist a little. For reasons he does not want to examine further, he’s embarrassed enough as is...
Is it possible to be jealous of yourself?
“Uh… maybe seen him a few times from a distance? Rich types like that tend to get into trouble a lot, evidently. ‘Specially in Gotham.” Tim mumbles, and there’s really no way to go through the less guilt-inducing path of ‘lying by omission’ rather than just flat out making shit up, sadly.
“So you’ve never really talked to him?” Kon asks, sounding slightly disappointed. Tim… doesn’t know how to feel about that, really. This whole situation is just completely ridiculous and there is no section in ‘Vigilantism 101’ that covers how to act in a situation like this. In fact, there isn't even a ‘Vigilantism 101’ at all, which Tim finds to be a huge mistake everyday because it could be very useful.
What was he supposed to be talking about?
“Uhhh… no. No, I haven’t… spoken to him.”
Cassie glances over the armrest of the couch at him, pulling a disbelieving face. “Really? Never?”
And now Tim is panicking, because she’s looking at him like she knows something again, but she can’t know something… unless Tim is totally blowing it right now, and oh god Bruce is totally going to find out and he’s going to be done for. He’ll never be able to see his friends again, all because Kon thought his stupid eyes were pretty or whatever.
Tim ignores the butterflies that thought still gives him.
“Well, I dunno maybe once, but only for like vigilante reasons.” Tim tries to sound as unbothered as possible. He’s putting all this faith in Robin Training, and has been for the entirety of this conversation.
“Awh, boring. Guess Kon is going to have to find out about him all on his own.” Bart says around a mouthful of chips he’s conjured from somewhere.
Tim really, really hopes that that statement is entirely false, in every sense possible.
Kon’s contemplative look really isn’t reassuring.