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Tonight was fun. Tonight was beyond fun. Music and dancing and beads and what he'd dubbed 'happy juice'. The world might have been spinning a little, but that didn't matter. It was still a good night. Except he still hadn't found Tim. Tim was his best friend and Kon still wasn't sure that he'd come to the party.
"Now where did I put my drink?" he muttered, twisting around to see what he'd done with his glass. He chased his tail for a minute before stumbling back over to the bar. "Jungle Juice," he ordered from whoever was passing out drinks.
He wasn't thinking much, but that was probably a good idea. He'd had so much to think about and so much to ignore. But tonight wasn't about thinking and worrying and reminiscing. Tonight was about fun. He swallowed another glass down and made his way back into the crowd. It was hot there, almost too hot, but he just closed his eyes and went with it.
Kon was weaving through the crowd in a way that set off all sorts of alarm bells in Tim's head. He broke off the conversation he was having without missing a beat and set out on an intercept course. He caught Kon's arm at the bicep and redirected him over to a wall that would support Kon's weight. "Having a good night, Kon?" he asked calmly, taking rapid measure of his friend's state.
"Tim!" Kon alternated between a smile and a frown. Tim was actually at a party and that was a good thing, but he was hiding things and that was a bad thing. "I am having an excellent night. I think I misplaced my girlfriend, though." Last he'd seen, Cassie had been off...somewhere. He couldn't remember where.
He took a breath - he knew enough to do that, now - and pushed away from the wall, eyeing the crowd again. "Come on. If the girls get dances, I want one, too." He made a face. "Not a slow one. That would just be...weird." He just wanted to spend time with his best friend.
"Cassie's fine," Tim said dryly. "She made me dance with her. That girl needs to learn to take no for an answer." He was never going to be good at this. Parties or socializing or anything. "Are you really going to make me dance again? Can't we just...take a walk or something?" He was going to have to get Kon home at some point, might as well put that idea in his head now.
"Of course she did. And Bart. And Dick if he weren't all..." Kon waved a hand that was supposed to mean Dick in full Nightwing-esque gear. "And probably other unses...insus...other people." He shook his head and grabbed Tim's hand, pulling him back into the crowd. "Dance!" He didn't want to think. If he thought, he knew there was a reason he should be glaring at Tim and he didn't want to glare at Tim. He wanted to have fun.
For a moment, Tim just watched while Kon flopped around in that uncoordinated way that really drunk people had. It was amusing to a certain extent but Tim really couldn't imagine enjoying being in that state. He folded his arms. "I don't dance. Why don't you find Cassie and dance with her? She likes dancing.
"Because I've already danced with Cassie and is it too much to ask to want to see my best friend? Since you decided to come this time. Even if you did lie to me." No. No, he wanted fun, damn it. Even Nightwing had been amusing. Even Bart. "So are you going to be a stick-in-the-mud or are you going to come with me?"
"What do you mean lied to..." He stopped. One thing that he didn't want to do was get into an argument with Kon. Arguing with drunk people never got you anywhere. Tim shook his head and lifted his hands, "All right, fine. We'll dance."
Kon was all set to tell Tim in detail just how he'd lied, but then he agreed to dance. He grinned. "Good. Because you never have enough fun anyway." He grabbed Tim's hand again and pulled him into the crowd. It was hot, almost too hot, but he'd been promised a dance with his best friend, so he wasn't going to let the heat bother him.
"I have fun," Tim protested and reflexively looked around for Nightwing who'd been brushing by him all night. One of these days, they'd have to attend an event together instead of one or the other working the whole time. He looked back at Kon and noted the flush on his skin. Yeah, they were going to have to get home pretty soon. From the look of him, all the activity was probably pushing up the intoxication level."
"You have fun when one of us makes you," Kon retorted. He relaxed again when the crowd was around them. This was his element. This was where he felt comfortable. And if Tim was here, by god, he was going to enjoy it too. "Or when you think one of us wants you to, like Cassie's party." No. No, don't think about the party. The party was bad.
Tim raised an eyebrow. "I had two whole years here before you showed up. I assure you, there was fun had even in your absence. I'm not incapable of it just because I'm naturally serious." He grinned, quite suddenly, dimples flashing, "After all, I kicked your ass in Rock Band, didn't I? That was fun."
"I never said you needed me." There was another minefield that Kon just didn't want to think about. Fun. Focus on the fun. He pointed right in Tim's face. "You were at the party because Cassie expected it. And I promise you that the next time? It won't be me getting my ass kicked. I've been practicing."
Tim smirked and ducked away from Kon's accusing finger, "Big talk. I'll believe it when I see it."
"Oh, you'll see it." Was it just him or was the room starting to spin a little? "Eventually. When I don't have you out on the dance floor." See, this is how things should be. Not hands and ribs and all that other stuff that was just confusing.
"It would definitely be sort of awkward playing from here," Tim agreed and moved in a little as Kon's movements shifted to the uncoordinated side of intoxicated. He made it look almost purposeful when Kon's next balance shift brought him into the curve of Tim's arm so he could support him, "Hey, I'm kind of tired. Can we take a walk?"
Kon blinked and blinked again and then turned his head slowly to look at Tim. "Don't think I don't know what you're doing, Robbie-boy." Why Tim wanted him to stop dancing, Kon didn't have a clue. But he apparently did and this was his way of doing it. Since just dancing would never make him tired. Tim was a superhero. That made him start chuckling, or giggling, and he pushed off to the edge of the party. "Where're we going, Robbie-boy?"
Walking with a drunk was always an interesting piece of business. Even the most coordinated person would have a difficult time not getting tripped up by the determined motions of someone who had not idea how bad off he was. Tim managed and steered Kon out to the cooler night air. "We're taking a walk for a little bit," Tim replied calmly because at this point Kon was either going to remain upright or start throwing up and either was fine so long as nothing splashed on him.
"Right, like the walk when I first got here. Kapow." Going hom, right? Kon fixed the direction of the treehouse in his head and started walking, dragging Tim along with him. "Never told him I was sorry. No Cassie at the end of this one, though. 'Sokay. No Clark or Luthor, either." He turned his head and looked at Tim. "You, though. There's you. And the--" No. No, he wasn't going to talk about that. He firmly shut his mouth.
Tim glanced over at Kon; that wasn't the first time he'd said something similar and Tim was beginning to get the distinct impression that... It had to be just his imagination. In any case, Kon was headed in the right direction--mostly--and Tim wasn't going to look a gift clone in the mouth. "You okay?"
Kon snorted, a sound which made him start coughing. He stopped to catch his breath and then stared at Tim. "That's funny coming from you." He tugged his arm away and set off on his own, determined to make it where he was going without any help. Only...where was he going again?
"It's just a simple question. We're going that way." He gestured without attempting to direct, knowing Kon would probably want to make his own decisions and not feeling quite like getting into a grappling match here and now to keep Kon on course. Though that was something made much easier considering they were the same height. He was going to be disappointed when Kon finally hit his next growth spurt.
"Better question is how're you, Robbie-boy. Oh, no, wait, wait, wait. Lemme guess. You're 'fine', right? As fine as you were when I showed up. As fine as you were before that." Kon ignored Tim and kept walking. He knew that patch of trees, thank you very much. "Absolutely nothing wrong with you, am I right? Of course I am. That's what you told me."
"I'd have gone with 'good' but fine will work too." Tim kept his voice purposefully neutral. There was a lot of resentment seething under Kon's tone and he wanted to make sure they were far enough out of earshot from the compound to avoid any sort of detection if this led to yelling. "Is there something the matter with me being fine?"
"Oh, I don't know." Kon kept his back to Tim. "Why don't you ask Jill and her ribs?"
Had Jill hurt her ribs again? No, he'd seen her earlier that night and she'd been in good health and good spirits. Which meant that Kon was refering to when Tim had broken them previous and Kon shouldn't have known about that. Interesting. "You're upset because I hurt Jill? I...that's fair. I was completely out of line."
"I'm upset because I didn't know anything about it." No, damn it. Good night. This was supposed to be a good night. But he'd been quiet for so long. He stopped, turned, and glared at Tim. "What happened? I missed this. What other secrets are waiting for me to stumble over them? Anything else you decided I didn't need to know like my best friend having a breakdown bad enough that he lost control enough to hurt someone he cares about?"
The idea of reliving that time, even just to tell someone else about it, made Tim want to vomit. He folded his arms instead. "I've spent two years away from you. I didn't bother to recount every event during that time. If you'd asked, I'd have told you but given that you preferred to sit and stew, there isn't much that I can do. You weren't here, it was a bad time, and now it's over."
"No, you didn't even bother to recount the important things during that time. A month after I show up and her ribs still hurt and you wonder why I didn't ask you? How long before I got there did this all happen? Would you have hid the statue if it hadn't been ten times my size? What else should I know that I don't know enough to ask questions for?" Kon took a step closer. "What else am I going to hear about from other people? Like Nita. Slapping you."
"I wasn't hiding things from you, Kon," Tim said patiently, "I debriefed you on the most important aspects of the island. I didn't necessarily think you needed a minute by minute run down of the last two years. I'm sorry if you're upset that I didn't burden you with the story but it wasn't pertinent. As for Nita," Tim tilted his head curiously, "where did you hear that?"
"Of the island. Not anyone in it. Not Bart. Not you. Aren't we supposed to be best friends?" Kon lowered his voice and hissed, "Don't you know the one secret I have worth keeping? Doesn't that mean anything? But no. I guess not." He turned on his heel and started walking. Away from Tim. Away from everything he didn't know about what had happened on the island. The trees made good push-off points in order to keep a sort of straight path to the threehouse. At least, he was pretty sure that's where he was going.
Tim sighed. Of course Kon would pick the worst possible of directions in which to stomp off indignantly. He gave chase--something that amounted to a fast walk at this point--and caught Kon's arm in a hard grip. "I didn't tell you about Nita because it was more than a year ago and I haven't thought about it since. I didn't tell you about Jill because it was...complicated. I didn't just break Jill's ribs. I would have done the same to Bart if he'd been in range. I nearly killed myself out there. It's not the kind of thing you just chat about over breakfast."
"And it's not the kind of thing I could have asked about because until Jill told me about her ribs, I didn't know anything about it! All I know is Clark and Luthor and Anatoly and Cassie and Lois and and and." Kon twisted his arm in Tim's grip, glaring at him. "Am I even your best friend anymore? Seems like I know less about you now than I did when you were just Robin. Let me go. I can find my own way back."
"You're going the wrong way." Tim said flatly, "And you don't know much about me anymore. You..." He let go, "You have had too much to drink. Let me take you home and...I'll try to make up for that. It's hard to talk about. Especially to my best friend. Especially the second time."
"Because you're not telling me!" Kon didn't bother to hide the hurt in that, but he did stop walking, keeping his back to Tim. "You know about Luthor. I told you when Bart kissed me. You were the one I went to when I cracked my head open. You don't think it's hard talking about any of that? Impossible?"
"I'm going to tell you. Let's go home and I'll tell you everything, I promise. About Jill's ribs. About Nita. About the scars on my face." He stepped forward, laid his hand on Kon's shoulder. Not too hard, just enough to be felt. "Just walk back home with me first. Please."
Kon's hand curled into a fist as he struggled not to reach up and feel the scars. "I'm not drunk," he muttered instead. "I didn't have anything to drink. Just juice." It wasn't a yes, but it wasn't a no, either.
"Yeah, I know about the juice." Non-alcoholic it wasn't. He shifted to stand a little more directly in front of Kon, hand still on his shoulder, gripping just a little tighter. "You're still going the wrong way. Treehouse is north-east of here. You're heading west. Your sense of direction always did suck."
"My sense of--" Kon inhaled a little as Tim's fingers dug in harder. He swallowed and shook his head, trying to clear all the fuzz out of it. "My sense of direction is just fine. You just like going ten different directions at once."
"I'm trying to go to the treehouse. Which is north-west." Tim nodded in the appropriate direction, watching Kon's face. It was strange still, that he could look him directly in the eye without having to tilt his head back. He really should be taking more opportunities to mock Kon about that. He made a mental note to do so.
"Who says I'm going to the treehouse?" Still, Kon adjusted his course in the way that Tim wanted him to go. If he got them lost, it would be on his head. He looked at Tim and jerked his head away a little when he noticed he was being watched. "What?"
"Nothing," Tim replied calmly, glancing up between tree branches to orient himself by the stars. "It's a nice night. I think it's going to rain later."
Kon stared at Tim, his jaw dropping open for a long minute. "Small talk? Small talk?" He wasn't even sure what to say to that, so he kept walking. He was dizzy and his stomach wasn't doing too well, but he wasn't going to say anything even if he was a little worried that he was looking more like Beast Boy than usual.
Tim shrugged. The treehouse was miles off and he wasn't going to have a serious conversation with Kon on the walk so he'd offered small talk to fill the silence. Since Kon's response indicated a lack of interest in talking, Tim simply gave up and just walked beside him, monitoring his condition but not interfering.
"You don't have to babysit me," Kon hissed after a few more minutes. "I can manage to get home just fine on my own, thanks." Maybe he could and maybe he couldn't, but he wasn't admitting anything. Especially not to Tim. Not to the guy he just wanted to go. To get out of here. To leave him alone.
"I'm not babysitting you. I want to talk to you. I have a lot I should have told you before now and I want to make it right." He looked straight ahead as he spoke, typically Tim to confess something while putting distance between himself and others at the same time.
"Only when I make you talk to me," Kon murmured to himself. Time was starting to act funny. When he wasn't actively talking or when Tim wasn't, it was like he'd hit the fast forward button. It was like he'd blinked and he'd moved farther than he would have expected. It would have been funny if it hadn't been relieving. He just wanted this over with.
The mumbled reply, some several minutes later, just made Tim sigh. At least they were nearly home, covering the distance from Compound to Treehouse at a decent pace considering the amount of weaving involved. Kon was very lucky not to have walked into more than a few trees along the path. Rather than picking a fight when it wasn't much further to go, Tim remained silent until they'd reached the base of the tree. "After you," Tim gestured at the stairs, figuring it would be easier to catch Kon if he was behind him.
The stairs were an effort, but Kon kept a grip on the sides and managed not to fall back. He refused to make that much of an idiot to himself. it was actually easier than he thought if he just kept his focus on bringing his leg up to the next step and taking each at a time. Of course, he stumbled a little when he got to the top because he expected there to be another stair where there wasn't. He turned and headed to his room, not bothering to ask Tim's suggestion about where to talk. He sat on the bed and started to fumble with the fly of his jeans.
Tim leaned against the wall and crossed his arms over his chest, looking out toward the window. Now that they were back he wasn't sure what to say. How to begin. There really was a lot that had been missed in the last two years and no good way to summarize all of it.
Kon finally managed to get out of his jeans, although he left the boxers around. Never knew who was going to come in during the night to see. He looked up and was almost surprised to see Tim standing there. He rolled his eyes. "Sit down. You're making my feet hurt." He pulled himself to the very head of the bed.
Tim kicked off his own shoes at the door and walked across the room to sit at the foot of the bed. "How are you feeling?" he asked, figuring it couldn't hurt to get a status report first from Kon.
"Peachy." Kon rested his head on an arm and watched Tim. Really, he was dizzy and the time thing was still a problem, but he could deal with that. Especially if Tim was actually going to talk to him for once. He could deal with pretty much anything if Tim was going to talk to him.
Still drunk. Okay then. Might as well do this like ripping off a band-aid. Faster hurt less and the alcohol should blunt it for Kon. "After we got back from the future timeline, I went home to Gotham. And the city went to war. My school was shot up, a...girl I knew was killed," he apologized mentally to Darla again, asked her forgiveness again, "Batman, Nightwing, Batgirl and Robin ended up on the evening news. Everyone knows we're real. During the war...Spoiler was kidnapped and tortured. She died of her injuries." Or...no. She didn't. God, this was too much. Too complicated. Better stick to what he remembered. Tim sort of wished he was the one who had been drinking. "A couple weeks later, Captain Boomerang murdered my father."
Kon stared at Tim. It took another minute or two to separate pretty much everything and longer than that to have it make sense. When it all finally clicked, though, he almost wished he hadn't asked. At the same time, though, he was pissed that Tim hadn't told him sooner. This was big stuff. Really, really big stuff that he wished he'd known about before now. Spoiler. He remembered her. Last he remembered, actually, she'd been Robin until Tim came back.
"And Jill?" he asked quietly. "What happened that caused you to lose control?"
Tim's shoulders hunched in, "Spoiler's uniform. It was caught in a tree and I... there's no good explanation. I wasn't sane." Dick would have said he was grieving. Tim didn't think that most people had breaks with reality from simple grief. And yet he had. Twice now. And more again back in that life he hadn't lived but Dick had. They could come up with as many excuses as they wanted but the truth was that there was something broken in Tim. Something that couldn't be fixed, just put away and never let near the light. "Jill wanted me to come inside, out of the cold. I told her to leave and attacked her when she didn't."
"Idiot," Kon muttered, moving closer. For all that the world was spinning a little, it was surprisingly easy to put a hand on Tim's shoulder and squeeze it. He wanted to be more annoyed that Tim hadn't told him sooner and he probably would be later, but right now he couldn't think about anything other than how painful it must have been seeing that. It would have been like seeing something of Tana's out where anyone could see. "You, not her." Well, her, too, but he wasn't sure he'd be able to call her that to her face. Or to Tim's.
"Bart knew enough to get out of the way. Jill...I don't know. Trusted my control more. But I didn't have any. Dick took me back to the treehouse. I had moderate hypothermia." Tim wouldn't look at Kon. His chest was tight even though his voice was clipped and emotionless, boiling this down more to a sitrep than a confession. "Do you...have any questions about it?"
Questions. Right. Of course there were questions. Was it going to happen again? Why didn't he tell Kon? Was there anything else he didn't know? There were dozens of questions that he could have asked and didn't and wasn't that always the way? "Yeah, I have one." He squeezed Tim's shoulder. "Ever going to look at me again?"
The sudden tension in Tim's back was the closest he'd come to a visible flinch but he turned his head and looked at Kon, mouth set, eyes dry. "I didn't tell you back home either. I only told the Titans because Clark told you about it and you made me tell the team."
Kon snorted. "I wouldn't have made you tell anyone. If you told them, you wanted to tell them. The only one I make you tell things to is me." Encourage, maybe, but not force him into anything.
"It took six months," Tim said flatly. That was based on Bart's reports. Tim only remembered making the decision to never tell them.
"Yeah, well, never said you did things the easy way," Kon said under his breath. Louder, he said, "I repeat; you're an idiot. But you're my best friend which means that I'm willing to put up with a hell of a lot."
"Comforting," Tim said dryly. He took a breath, "So that's how I broke Jill's ribs."
Kon nudged Tim's stomach with his elbow. "Better be. Wouldn't do it for most people. Just annoying and short bats." He took a breath. "While you're in the sharing mood, is there anything else you think I'd want to know?" Not that Tim would want to tell him, because that was nearly nothing.
"In August I was attacked by dinosaurs and spent two weeks with a blindfold on while it healed." By comparison to the first confession, the second was practically tame. In a manner of speaking. "Bart and I fought about it afterward."
"You're trying to see how many times I can call you an idiot in one conversation, aren't you?" Kon sighed and resisted the urge to shake Tim. "Next time you try to kill yourself, make sure I come along, okay?" He ignored the reference to Bart, assuming that had been when they were dating. That was still weird.
"You wanted to know the things I hadn't told you. Most of them involve me being some type of stupid or another." Tim sighed and dragged his hand through his hair, trying to decide if he wanted to explain further or not. He'd promised to be honest, so maybe that made his decision for him, "I don't tell you things most of the time because I don't want you realize how much of a mess I am. I'd rather be the person you remember."
"I don't know what you're talking about," Kon said, only fudging the truth a little. "You've always been a neurotic secret-keeper. Remember how long it was before I actually knew your face, let alone your name?" He dropped the hand on Tim's shoulder, but slung his arm around Tim's shoulders instead. "So you're screwed up. We're all screwed up. I got a concussion because Lex Luthor was a girl. Cassie kissed me when she was a boy. I was staring at your--" Oh, shit. No. No way he was telling Tim that, even with the confessions. "Your newest Gothamite," he said after stuttering for a minute. It made no sense, but at least he hadn't said 'your hands'.
"Staring at Dinah isn't screwed up. It's inevitable. Unless you mean Dick in which case..." He gave it a moment's thought then shrugged, "same goes." There was something Kon was skipping around but Tim didn't feel like pressing the point in order to find out what. Kon would tell him eventually. Kon told him everything eventually.
Kon snorted. "Of course not Dick. He expects it. Therefore, I don't give it to him." Being perverse like that made perfect sense. To him, at least. "And Dick's not the newest. Dinah's from Gotham, right? Unless I'm wrong. I could be wrong."
"She is. I was just checking." Kon was right, Dick did expect it. So did Dinah. It wasn't much of a confession and Tim's brain wanted to find out what Kon had actually started to say. He shut that line of thought down ruthlessly and reminded himself that Kon was drunk. "Anything else you want to know?"
"Don't know what to ask, remember? What else do you think I'd want to know? I've got two years worth of stuff I've missed out on." Kon couldn't keep out the wistful note in his voice. Two years, in his frame of reference, was a lifetime.
Tim shrugged, "It's quiet here, for the most part. Two years isn't as full here as it is back home. Sometimes it seems like it's just a long dream, especially the first year."
"Well, that's what you've got me around for. I make life fun. You couldn't do without me. Even when you won't... Wait." Damn. There was something. "That first party. A few days after I got here. You wouldn't come." There was an unspoken 'I wanted you to' there, too.
"New Years?" Tim blinked, "I was working, Kon. New Year's Eve is one of the few times that it helps to have extra eyes out there. It's usually quiet here but not Halloween, New Years and several times over the summer." He knew better than to over explain, so he didn't. It sounded exactly as it should have, totally plausible.
"New Years. And I was there. With you not seeing me for two years. After you hugged me. And you know very well that if you'd looked twice at Dick, he would have taken over. You didn't want to and unless you want to tell me that it was because I was there, you can just tell me the real reason." Kon dropped the arm on Tim's shoulder and looked away. "I wanted you there," he said under his breath.
"I don't like New Years," Tim said flatly, the way his voice got only when he was covering a serious hurt, "Or winter very much. That's when my dad and Steph died." It was true. It just wasn't the entire truth.The first year, he'd spent the entire winter out patrolling, barely touched ground. The next year, he'd had the Titans, had his confused and confusing relationship with Bart. It had been enough distraction from the hurt. "I can't... I can't celebrate that time of year."
"I didn't want you celebrating the time of year," Kon bit out, moving back to his position by the head of the bed. "I wanted my best friend there and instead, I had Bart kissing me." So maybe he wasn't letting it go, even after a few months. "Instead I've had to deal with everything by myself, including whatever the hell is going on with Cassie and Jill. But it's fine. I'm used to it. I never should have expected that you'd actually care."
Tim had to work to show nothing, to keep his composure. If his father's death meant nothing to Kon then the rest of the truth wouldn't be good enough either. Tim had failed his best friend. Failed him, like he'd failed Bart and Jill. Like Steph. Like his dad. "I'm going to get you some water," he said finally, "You're going to be dehydrated."
"I'll be fine," Kon said, turning away from Tim. He didn't bother to wonder why Tim thought he'd be dehydrated. He should have guessed that it didn't matter that he actually was admitting that things weren't okay. Especially because he was as bad as Tim normally was when it came to that. "Just go away." His voice was getting wobbly and he took a long breath. "I think I've had enough truth tonight." What he wanted to do was grab Tim and hold him and just know that he was there. That something in his new life was stable. He grabbed a pillow instead.
Tim moved slowly, like a sudden shift would tear him open. He was abraded raw inside and he had the rest of the night to deal with this alone. Right now, he had to be what Kon was asking for. His best friend, the relatively carefree 16 year old that he could hardly remember. He crawled up next to Kon and put his shoulder to his best friend's. "I am glad that you're here, Kon. I haven't been a very good friend recently, I know, but that's entirely on me. It's not because I'm not happy to see you. I'm just...rusty. Remember how long it took to make me into a decent friend in the first place?"
Kon couldn't help it. He turned so that he was staring at the ceiling and then moved his head just a little, so that he was barely resting his head on Tim's shoulder. Keeping him there, despite his harsh words, was a priority. He didn't really want him to go. It just hurt. "You sucked. And I'm convinced you didn't like me when I first met you. But then there was Secret." Better times.
"I didn't know what to think of you. I expected...Superman. A clone. Not a real person. You surprised me. You do that a lot." Tim had hated being surprised, being out of control. He'd been terrified that someone was going to pull back the curtain and expose him for the scrawny nerd who had no business being in a suit worn by heroes. He didn't really like it to this day but he usually felt a little more like he'd earned his place. "We had some good times, back then."
"And you were mad that it took me eight hours to fly from Hawaii to Gotham." Kon sighed. "With you and Bart and Cassie and Cissie and Reddie, well, everyone. Yeah. I was still in Hawaii doing stuff with the Ravers, until I got moved to Metropolis." Yeah, those were much better times. "And it still sucks that I missed Bart and the Batmobile. It's just not the same hearing about it second-hand." He was pretty sure he could fall asleep like this, not that Tim would let him. Or maybe he would, but he wouldn't stay.
Kon was drifting off. Tim lowered his voice a little to encourage it. "Trust me, it was more terrifying than fun. I thought Batman was going to fire me. And turn Bart into a rug." Tim leaned his head back and watched the ceiling. "I'm still not sure why he didn't."
"You were being a kid. And he's rich." He had to be rich, right? With the kind of gadets and gizmos and cars and stuff that Tim and Dick got? Had to be. He closed his eyes and moved a little more onto Tim. "I had to get to you that first day, you know. When I got here. You had to know what was going on. You were..." He let his breath out in a quiet sigh.
"I wasn't given the job to be a kid," Tim reminded Kon, though in some ways that's exactly what Robins were supposed to do. Tim had never been very good at being that kind of Robin. "I know. I'm glad I was here. It's...very difficult, when there's not anyone around that you recognize or trust. I'm glad that I was the first."
"You're safe," Kon said softly. Not 'were'. 'Are'. "Bart and Cassie are...but you're..." Bart was one of his best friends and Cassie was his girlfriend, but Tim was his best friend if he had to pick just one. Was and always would be. He yawned and squeezed his eyes shut.
What had Tim done to earn that trust? Nothing, not a damn thing in the last two and a half years. "Don't yawn, you'll make me..." he cut himself off and covered his mouth against the answering yawn. "Great. I wasn't tired five minutes ago."
Kon's lips curled up in a smug, if sleepy, smile. "You should sleep. You could probably use it." Not that Kon made any effort to actually move so that Tim could get up. He was comfortable where he was and it was nice having Tim's undivided attention for once.
"I get plenty of sleep," Tim protested but he let himself slouch a little into Kon. He could fall asleep here, honestly. Dick was out on patrol and probably would find someone else to be with for the rest of the night. It would disrupt his routine though, and that was probably not a smart idea. Something to consider. And Kon seemed to be falling asleep whether Tim was going to or not.
"You make me train before dawn. You can't get enough sleep." That was something to think about. Was he going to have to get up the next morning at the crack of dawn again? He hoped not. He wasn't sure he'd be awake that early. "Payback for skipping, I swear." Or maybe for attempting to get out of training at all.
"I meditate." That sounded a little prim but he was tired and he wasn't quite as good at controlling his inflections when he was tired. "Go to sleep, Kon. I'm not going to be able to sleep if you're still awake talking to me. My carefully cultivated paranoia would never allow it."
That made Kon open his eyes, staring at Tim's shirt. "You're staying?" he asked, trying to keep the hope out of his voice. Whatever he'd expected, it hadn't been that. He'd thought that maybe if he tricked Tim into it, he'd stay. He didn't think that Tim would just stay without any prompting.
The whispers of hope that did get through were sharp as knives; Tim did his best not to wince. "For now. I can't promise I'll stay the whole night, these clothes aren't all that comfortable for one thing, but yeah, I figured I'd stay for now. If you don't mind, I mean."
"Idiot," Kon muttered. "I'd tell you to get undressed, but you'd take it wrong." Kon carefully didn't think about that too much. Luckily, his brain was cooperating with him. "'Course I don't mind."
Tim gave a half laugh, "I promise I wouldn't. I know your girlfriend." He nudged Kon with his shoulder, "Lie down already. You keep sitting like that and you're either going to wake up with a crick in your neck or you're going to fall over on me and then I'll be forced to take drastic measures."
"Cassie would eat us both alive," Kon agreed. "And I'm comfortable." The only reasons he moved was that Tim had promised he'd stay and that it had come out as a whine. He didn't whine, which meant he had to be tired. "You make a good pillow," he said, yawned again, and stretched out on the bed.
So he'd been told, but Tim didn't share that particular observation with Kon. His best friend was persistently uncomfortable with Tim's relationships here on the island. Truth be told, Tim couldn't blame him. From the outside, they probably made very little sense. Sometimes that's what it felt like from the inside as well. "So does your actual pillow," Tim replied instead and closed his eyes again. "Good night, Kon."
"Now where did I put my drink?" he muttered, twisting around to see what he'd done with his glass. He chased his tail for a minute before stumbling back over to the bar. "Jungle Juice," he ordered from whoever was passing out drinks.
He wasn't thinking much, but that was probably a good idea. He'd had so much to think about and so much to ignore. But tonight wasn't about thinking and worrying and reminiscing. Tonight was about fun. He swallowed another glass down and made his way back into the crowd. It was hot there, almost too hot, but he just closed his eyes and went with it.
Kon was weaving through the crowd in a way that set off all sorts of alarm bells in Tim's head. He broke off the conversation he was having without missing a beat and set out on an intercept course. He caught Kon's arm at the bicep and redirected him over to a wall that would support Kon's weight. "Having a good night, Kon?" he asked calmly, taking rapid measure of his friend's state.
"Tim!" Kon alternated between a smile and a frown. Tim was actually at a party and that was a good thing, but he was hiding things and that was a bad thing. "I am having an excellent night. I think I misplaced my girlfriend, though." Last he'd seen, Cassie had been off...somewhere. He couldn't remember where.
He took a breath - he knew enough to do that, now - and pushed away from the wall, eyeing the crowd again. "Come on. If the girls get dances, I want one, too." He made a face. "Not a slow one. That would just be...weird." He just wanted to spend time with his best friend.
"Cassie's fine," Tim said dryly. "She made me dance with her. That girl needs to learn to take no for an answer." He was never going to be good at this. Parties or socializing or anything. "Are you really going to make me dance again? Can't we just...take a walk or something?" He was going to have to get Kon home at some point, might as well put that idea in his head now.
"Of course she did. And Bart. And Dick if he weren't all..." Kon waved a hand that was supposed to mean Dick in full Nightwing-esque gear. "And probably other unses...insus...other people." He shook his head and grabbed Tim's hand, pulling him back into the crowd. "Dance!" He didn't want to think. If he thought, he knew there was a reason he should be glaring at Tim and he didn't want to glare at Tim. He wanted to have fun.
For a moment, Tim just watched while Kon flopped around in that uncoordinated way that really drunk people had. It was amusing to a certain extent but Tim really couldn't imagine enjoying being in that state. He folded his arms. "I don't dance. Why don't you find Cassie and dance with her? She likes dancing.
"Because I've already danced with Cassie and is it too much to ask to want to see my best friend? Since you decided to come this time. Even if you did lie to me." No. No, he wanted fun, damn it. Even Nightwing had been amusing. Even Bart. "So are you going to be a stick-in-the-mud or are you going to come with me?"
"What do you mean lied to..." He stopped. One thing that he didn't want to do was get into an argument with Kon. Arguing with drunk people never got you anywhere. Tim shook his head and lifted his hands, "All right, fine. We'll dance."
Kon was all set to tell Tim in detail just how he'd lied, but then he agreed to dance. He grinned. "Good. Because you never have enough fun anyway." He grabbed Tim's hand again and pulled him into the crowd. It was hot, almost too hot, but he'd been promised a dance with his best friend, so he wasn't going to let the heat bother him.
"I have fun," Tim protested and reflexively looked around for Nightwing who'd been brushing by him all night. One of these days, they'd have to attend an event together instead of one or the other working the whole time. He looked back at Kon and noted the flush on his skin. Yeah, they were going to have to get home pretty soon. From the look of him, all the activity was probably pushing up the intoxication level."
"You have fun when one of us makes you," Kon retorted. He relaxed again when the crowd was around them. This was his element. This was where he felt comfortable. And if Tim was here, by god, he was going to enjoy it too. "Or when you think one of us wants you to, like Cassie's party." No. No, don't think about the party. The party was bad.
Tim raised an eyebrow. "I had two whole years here before you showed up. I assure you, there was fun had even in your absence. I'm not incapable of it just because I'm naturally serious." He grinned, quite suddenly, dimples flashing, "After all, I kicked your ass in Rock Band, didn't I? That was fun."
"I never said you needed me." There was another minefield that Kon just didn't want to think about. Fun. Focus on the fun. He pointed right in Tim's face. "You were at the party because Cassie expected it. And I promise you that the next time? It won't be me getting my ass kicked. I've been practicing."
Tim smirked and ducked away from Kon's accusing finger, "Big talk. I'll believe it when I see it."
"Oh, you'll see it." Was it just him or was the room starting to spin a little? "Eventually. When I don't have you out on the dance floor." See, this is how things should be. Not hands and ribs and all that other stuff that was just confusing.
"It would definitely be sort of awkward playing from here," Tim agreed and moved in a little as Kon's movements shifted to the uncoordinated side of intoxicated. He made it look almost purposeful when Kon's next balance shift brought him into the curve of Tim's arm so he could support him, "Hey, I'm kind of tired. Can we take a walk?"
Kon blinked and blinked again and then turned his head slowly to look at Tim. "Don't think I don't know what you're doing, Robbie-boy." Why Tim wanted him to stop dancing, Kon didn't have a clue. But he apparently did and this was his way of doing it. Since just dancing would never make him tired. Tim was a superhero. That made him start chuckling, or giggling, and he pushed off to the edge of the party. "Where're we going, Robbie-boy?"
Walking with a drunk was always an interesting piece of business. Even the most coordinated person would have a difficult time not getting tripped up by the determined motions of someone who had not idea how bad off he was. Tim managed and steered Kon out to the cooler night air. "We're taking a walk for a little bit," Tim replied calmly because at this point Kon was either going to remain upright or start throwing up and either was fine so long as nothing splashed on him.
"Right, like the walk when I first got here. Kapow." Going hom, right? Kon fixed the direction of the treehouse in his head and started walking, dragging Tim along with him. "Never told him I was sorry. No Cassie at the end of this one, though. 'Sokay. No Clark or Luthor, either." He turned his head and looked at Tim. "You, though. There's you. And the--" No. No, he wasn't going to talk about that. He firmly shut his mouth.
Tim glanced over at Kon; that wasn't the first time he'd said something similar and Tim was beginning to get the distinct impression that... It had to be just his imagination. In any case, Kon was headed in the right direction--mostly--and Tim wasn't going to look a gift clone in the mouth. "You okay?"
Kon snorted, a sound which made him start coughing. He stopped to catch his breath and then stared at Tim. "That's funny coming from you." He tugged his arm away and set off on his own, determined to make it where he was going without any help. Only...where was he going again?
"It's just a simple question. We're going that way." He gestured without attempting to direct, knowing Kon would probably want to make his own decisions and not feeling quite like getting into a grappling match here and now to keep Kon on course. Though that was something made much easier considering they were the same height. He was going to be disappointed when Kon finally hit his next growth spurt.
"Better question is how're you, Robbie-boy. Oh, no, wait, wait, wait. Lemme guess. You're 'fine', right? As fine as you were when I showed up. As fine as you were before that." Kon ignored Tim and kept walking. He knew that patch of trees, thank you very much. "Absolutely nothing wrong with you, am I right? Of course I am. That's what you told me."
"I'd have gone with 'good' but fine will work too." Tim kept his voice purposefully neutral. There was a lot of resentment seething under Kon's tone and he wanted to make sure they were far enough out of earshot from the compound to avoid any sort of detection if this led to yelling. "Is there something the matter with me being fine?"
"Oh, I don't know." Kon kept his back to Tim. "Why don't you ask Jill and her ribs?"
Had Jill hurt her ribs again? No, he'd seen her earlier that night and she'd been in good health and good spirits. Which meant that Kon was refering to when Tim had broken them previous and Kon shouldn't have known about that. Interesting. "You're upset because I hurt Jill? I...that's fair. I was completely out of line."
"I'm upset because I didn't know anything about it." No, damn it. Good night. This was supposed to be a good night. But he'd been quiet for so long. He stopped, turned, and glared at Tim. "What happened? I missed this. What other secrets are waiting for me to stumble over them? Anything else you decided I didn't need to know like my best friend having a breakdown bad enough that he lost control enough to hurt someone he cares about?"
The idea of reliving that time, even just to tell someone else about it, made Tim want to vomit. He folded his arms instead. "I've spent two years away from you. I didn't bother to recount every event during that time. If you'd asked, I'd have told you but given that you preferred to sit and stew, there isn't much that I can do. You weren't here, it was a bad time, and now it's over."
"No, you didn't even bother to recount the important things during that time. A month after I show up and her ribs still hurt and you wonder why I didn't ask you? How long before I got there did this all happen? Would you have hid the statue if it hadn't been ten times my size? What else should I know that I don't know enough to ask questions for?" Kon took a step closer. "What else am I going to hear about from other people? Like Nita. Slapping you."
"I wasn't hiding things from you, Kon," Tim said patiently, "I debriefed you on the most important aspects of the island. I didn't necessarily think you needed a minute by minute run down of the last two years. I'm sorry if you're upset that I didn't burden you with the story but it wasn't pertinent. As for Nita," Tim tilted his head curiously, "where did you hear that?"
"Of the island. Not anyone in it. Not Bart. Not you. Aren't we supposed to be best friends?" Kon lowered his voice and hissed, "Don't you know the one secret I have worth keeping? Doesn't that mean anything? But no. I guess not." He turned on his heel and started walking. Away from Tim. Away from everything he didn't know about what had happened on the island. The trees made good push-off points in order to keep a sort of straight path to the threehouse. At least, he was pretty sure that's where he was going.
Tim sighed. Of course Kon would pick the worst possible of directions in which to stomp off indignantly. He gave chase--something that amounted to a fast walk at this point--and caught Kon's arm in a hard grip. "I didn't tell you about Nita because it was more than a year ago and I haven't thought about it since. I didn't tell you about Jill because it was...complicated. I didn't just break Jill's ribs. I would have done the same to Bart if he'd been in range. I nearly killed myself out there. It's not the kind of thing you just chat about over breakfast."
"And it's not the kind of thing I could have asked about because until Jill told me about her ribs, I didn't know anything about it! All I know is Clark and Luthor and Anatoly and Cassie and Lois and and and." Kon twisted his arm in Tim's grip, glaring at him. "Am I even your best friend anymore? Seems like I know less about you now than I did when you were just Robin. Let me go. I can find my own way back."
"You're going the wrong way." Tim said flatly, "And you don't know much about me anymore. You..." He let go, "You have had too much to drink. Let me take you home and...I'll try to make up for that. It's hard to talk about. Especially to my best friend. Especially the second time."
"Because you're not telling me!" Kon didn't bother to hide the hurt in that, but he did stop walking, keeping his back to Tim. "You know about Luthor. I told you when Bart kissed me. You were the one I went to when I cracked my head open. You don't think it's hard talking about any of that? Impossible?"
"I'm going to tell you. Let's go home and I'll tell you everything, I promise. About Jill's ribs. About Nita. About the scars on my face." He stepped forward, laid his hand on Kon's shoulder. Not too hard, just enough to be felt. "Just walk back home with me first. Please."
Kon's hand curled into a fist as he struggled not to reach up and feel the scars. "I'm not drunk," he muttered instead. "I didn't have anything to drink. Just juice." It wasn't a yes, but it wasn't a no, either.
"Yeah, I know about the juice." Non-alcoholic it wasn't. He shifted to stand a little more directly in front of Kon, hand still on his shoulder, gripping just a little tighter. "You're still going the wrong way. Treehouse is north-east of here. You're heading west. Your sense of direction always did suck."
"My sense of--" Kon inhaled a little as Tim's fingers dug in harder. He swallowed and shook his head, trying to clear all the fuzz out of it. "My sense of direction is just fine. You just like going ten different directions at once."
"I'm trying to go to the treehouse. Which is north-west." Tim nodded in the appropriate direction, watching Kon's face. It was strange still, that he could look him directly in the eye without having to tilt his head back. He really should be taking more opportunities to mock Kon about that. He made a mental note to do so.
"Who says I'm going to the treehouse?" Still, Kon adjusted his course in the way that Tim wanted him to go. If he got them lost, it would be on his head. He looked at Tim and jerked his head away a little when he noticed he was being watched. "What?"
"Nothing," Tim replied calmly, glancing up between tree branches to orient himself by the stars. "It's a nice night. I think it's going to rain later."
Kon stared at Tim, his jaw dropping open for a long minute. "Small talk? Small talk?" He wasn't even sure what to say to that, so he kept walking. He was dizzy and his stomach wasn't doing too well, but he wasn't going to say anything even if he was a little worried that he was looking more like Beast Boy than usual.
Tim shrugged. The treehouse was miles off and he wasn't going to have a serious conversation with Kon on the walk so he'd offered small talk to fill the silence. Since Kon's response indicated a lack of interest in talking, Tim simply gave up and just walked beside him, monitoring his condition but not interfering.
"You don't have to babysit me," Kon hissed after a few more minutes. "I can manage to get home just fine on my own, thanks." Maybe he could and maybe he couldn't, but he wasn't admitting anything. Especially not to Tim. Not to the guy he just wanted to go. To get out of here. To leave him alone.
"I'm not babysitting you. I want to talk to you. I have a lot I should have told you before now and I want to make it right." He looked straight ahead as he spoke, typically Tim to confess something while putting distance between himself and others at the same time.
"Only when I make you talk to me," Kon murmured to himself. Time was starting to act funny. When he wasn't actively talking or when Tim wasn't, it was like he'd hit the fast forward button. It was like he'd blinked and he'd moved farther than he would have expected. It would have been funny if it hadn't been relieving. He just wanted this over with.
The mumbled reply, some several minutes later, just made Tim sigh. At least they were nearly home, covering the distance from Compound to Treehouse at a decent pace considering the amount of weaving involved. Kon was very lucky not to have walked into more than a few trees along the path. Rather than picking a fight when it wasn't much further to go, Tim remained silent until they'd reached the base of the tree. "After you," Tim gestured at the stairs, figuring it would be easier to catch Kon if he was behind him.
The stairs were an effort, but Kon kept a grip on the sides and managed not to fall back. He refused to make that much of an idiot to himself. it was actually easier than he thought if he just kept his focus on bringing his leg up to the next step and taking each at a time. Of course, he stumbled a little when he got to the top because he expected there to be another stair where there wasn't. He turned and headed to his room, not bothering to ask Tim's suggestion about where to talk. He sat on the bed and started to fumble with the fly of his jeans.
Tim leaned against the wall and crossed his arms over his chest, looking out toward the window. Now that they were back he wasn't sure what to say. How to begin. There really was a lot that had been missed in the last two years and no good way to summarize all of it.
Kon finally managed to get out of his jeans, although he left the boxers around. Never knew who was going to come in during the night to see. He looked up and was almost surprised to see Tim standing there. He rolled his eyes. "Sit down. You're making my feet hurt." He pulled himself to the very head of the bed.
Tim kicked off his own shoes at the door and walked across the room to sit at the foot of the bed. "How are you feeling?" he asked, figuring it couldn't hurt to get a status report first from Kon.
"Peachy." Kon rested his head on an arm and watched Tim. Really, he was dizzy and the time thing was still a problem, but he could deal with that. Especially if Tim was actually going to talk to him for once. He could deal with pretty much anything if Tim was going to talk to him.
Still drunk. Okay then. Might as well do this like ripping off a band-aid. Faster hurt less and the alcohol should blunt it for Kon. "After we got back from the future timeline, I went home to Gotham. And the city went to war. My school was shot up, a...girl I knew was killed," he apologized mentally to Darla again, asked her forgiveness again, "Batman, Nightwing, Batgirl and Robin ended up on the evening news. Everyone knows we're real. During the war...Spoiler was kidnapped and tortured. She died of her injuries." Or...no. She didn't. God, this was too much. Too complicated. Better stick to what he remembered. Tim sort of wished he was the one who had been drinking. "A couple weeks later, Captain Boomerang murdered my father."
Kon stared at Tim. It took another minute or two to separate pretty much everything and longer than that to have it make sense. When it all finally clicked, though, he almost wished he hadn't asked. At the same time, though, he was pissed that Tim hadn't told him sooner. This was big stuff. Really, really big stuff that he wished he'd known about before now. Spoiler. He remembered her. Last he remembered, actually, she'd been Robin until Tim came back.
"And Jill?" he asked quietly. "What happened that caused you to lose control?"
Tim's shoulders hunched in, "Spoiler's uniform. It was caught in a tree and I... there's no good explanation. I wasn't sane." Dick would have said he was grieving. Tim didn't think that most people had breaks with reality from simple grief. And yet he had. Twice now. And more again back in that life he hadn't lived but Dick had. They could come up with as many excuses as they wanted but the truth was that there was something broken in Tim. Something that couldn't be fixed, just put away and never let near the light. "Jill wanted me to come inside, out of the cold. I told her to leave and attacked her when she didn't."
"Idiot," Kon muttered, moving closer. For all that the world was spinning a little, it was surprisingly easy to put a hand on Tim's shoulder and squeeze it. He wanted to be more annoyed that Tim hadn't told him sooner and he probably would be later, but right now he couldn't think about anything other than how painful it must have been seeing that. It would have been like seeing something of Tana's out where anyone could see. "You, not her." Well, her, too, but he wasn't sure he'd be able to call her that to her face. Or to Tim's.
"Bart knew enough to get out of the way. Jill...I don't know. Trusted my control more. But I didn't have any. Dick took me back to the treehouse. I had moderate hypothermia." Tim wouldn't look at Kon. His chest was tight even though his voice was clipped and emotionless, boiling this down more to a sitrep than a confession. "Do you...have any questions about it?"
Questions. Right. Of course there were questions. Was it going to happen again? Why didn't he tell Kon? Was there anything else he didn't know? There were dozens of questions that he could have asked and didn't and wasn't that always the way? "Yeah, I have one." He squeezed Tim's shoulder. "Ever going to look at me again?"
The sudden tension in Tim's back was the closest he'd come to a visible flinch but he turned his head and looked at Kon, mouth set, eyes dry. "I didn't tell you back home either. I only told the Titans because Clark told you about it and you made me tell the team."
Kon snorted. "I wouldn't have made you tell anyone. If you told them, you wanted to tell them. The only one I make you tell things to is me." Encourage, maybe, but not force him into anything.
"It took six months," Tim said flatly. That was based on Bart's reports. Tim only remembered making the decision to never tell them.
"Yeah, well, never said you did things the easy way," Kon said under his breath. Louder, he said, "I repeat; you're an idiot. But you're my best friend which means that I'm willing to put up with a hell of a lot."
"Comforting," Tim said dryly. He took a breath, "So that's how I broke Jill's ribs."
Kon nudged Tim's stomach with his elbow. "Better be. Wouldn't do it for most people. Just annoying and short bats." He took a breath. "While you're in the sharing mood, is there anything else you think I'd want to know?" Not that Tim would want to tell him, because that was nearly nothing.
"In August I was attacked by dinosaurs and spent two weeks with a blindfold on while it healed." By comparison to the first confession, the second was practically tame. In a manner of speaking. "Bart and I fought about it afterward."
"You're trying to see how many times I can call you an idiot in one conversation, aren't you?" Kon sighed and resisted the urge to shake Tim. "Next time you try to kill yourself, make sure I come along, okay?" He ignored the reference to Bart, assuming that had been when they were dating. That was still weird.
"You wanted to know the things I hadn't told you. Most of them involve me being some type of stupid or another." Tim sighed and dragged his hand through his hair, trying to decide if he wanted to explain further or not. He'd promised to be honest, so maybe that made his decision for him, "I don't tell you things most of the time because I don't want you realize how much of a mess I am. I'd rather be the person you remember."
"I don't know what you're talking about," Kon said, only fudging the truth a little. "You've always been a neurotic secret-keeper. Remember how long it was before I actually knew your face, let alone your name?" He dropped the hand on Tim's shoulder, but slung his arm around Tim's shoulders instead. "So you're screwed up. We're all screwed up. I got a concussion because Lex Luthor was a girl. Cassie kissed me when she was a boy. I was staring at your--" Oh, shit. No. No way he was telling Tim that, even with the confessions. "Your newest Gothamite," he said after stuttering for a minute. It made no sense, but at least he hadn't said 'your hands'.
"Staring at Dinah isn't screwed up. It's inevitable. Unless you mean Dick in which case..." He gave it a moment's thought then shrugged, "same goes." There was something Kon was skipping around but Tim didn't feel like pressing the point in order to find out what. Kon would tell him eventually. Kon told him everything eventually.
Kon snorted. "Of course not Dick. He expects it. Therefore, I don't give it to him." Being perverse like that made perfect sense. To him, at least. "And Dick's not the newest. Dinah's from Gotham, right? Unless I'm wrong. I could be wrong."
"She is. I was just checking." Kon was right, Dick did expect it. So did Dinah. It wasn't much of a confession and Tim's brain wanted to find out what Kon had actually started to say. He shut that line of thought down ruthlessly and reminded himself that Kon was drunk. "Anything else you want to know?"
"Don't know what to ask, remember? What else do you think I'd want to know? I've got two years worth of stuff I've missed out on." Kon couldn't keep out the wistful note in his voice. Two years, in his frame of reference, was a lifetime.
Tim shrugged, "It's quiet here, for the most part. Two years isn't as full here as it is back home. Sometimes it seems like it's just a long dream, especially the first year."
"Well, that's what you've got me around for. I make life fun. You couldn't do without me. Even when you won't... Wait." Damn. There was something. "That first party. A few days after I got here. You wouldn't come." There was an unspoken 'I wanted you to' there, too.
"New Years?" Tim blinked, "I was working, Kon. New Year's Eve is one of the few times that it helps to have extra eyes out there. It's usually quiet here but not Halloween, New Years and several times over the summer." He knew better than to over explain, so he didn't. It sounded exactly as it should have, totally plausible.
"New Years. And I was there. With you not seeing me for two years. After you hugged me. And you know very well that if you'd looked twice at Dick, he would have taken over. You didn't want to and unless you want to tell me that it was because I was there, you can just tell me the real reason." Kon dropped the arm on Tim's shoulder and looked away. "I wanted you there," he said under his breath.
"I don't like New Years," Tim said flatly, the way his voice got only when he was covering a serious hurt, "Or winter very much. That's when my dad and Steph died." It was true. It just wasn't the entire truth.The first year, he'd spent the entire winter out patrolling, barely touched ground. The next year, he'd had the Titans, had his confused and confusing relationship with Bart. It had been enough distraction from the hurt. "I can't... I can't celebrate that time of year."
"I didn't want you celebrating the time of year," Kon bit out, moving back to his position by the head of the bed. "I wanted my best friend there and instead, I had Bart kissing me." So maybe he wasn't letting it go, even after a few months. "Instead I've had to deal with everything by myself, including whatever the hell is going on with Cassie and Jill. But it's fine. I'm used to it. I never should have expected that you'd actually care."
Tim had to work to show nothing, to keep his composure. If his father's death meant nothing to Kon then the rest of the truth wouldn't be good enough either. Tim had failed his best friend. Failed him, like he'd failed Bart and Jill. Like Steph. Like his dad. "I'm going to get you some water," he said finally, "You're going to be dehydrated."
"I'll be fine," Kon said, turning away from Tim. He didn't bother to wonder why Tim thought he'd be dehydrated. He should have guessed that it didn't matter that he actually was admitting that things weren't okay. Especially because he was as bad as Tim normally was when it came to that. "Just go away." His voice was getting wobbly and he took a long breath. "I think I've had enough truth tonight." What he wanted to do was grab Tim and hold him and just know that he was there. That something in his new life was stable. He grabbed a pillow instead.
Tim moved slowly, like a sudden shift would tear him open. He was abraded raw inside and he had the rest of the night to deal with this alone. Right now, he had to be what Kon was asking for. His best friend, the relatively carefree 16 year old that he could hardly remember. He crawled up next to Kon and put his shoulder to his best friend's. "I am glad that you're here, Kon. I haven't been a very good friend recently, I know, but that's entirely on me. It's not because I'm not happy to see you. I'm just...rusty. Remember how long it took to make me into a decent friend in the first place?"
Kon couldn't help it. He turned so that he was staring at the ceiling and then moved his head just a little, so that he was barely resting his head on Tim's shoulder. Keeping him there, despite his harsh words, was a priority. He didn't really want him to go. It just hurt. "You sucked. And I'm convinced you didn't like me when I first met you. But then there was Secret." Better times.
"I didn't know what to think of you. I expected...Superman. A clone. Not a real person. You surprised me. You do that a lot." Tim had hated being surprised, being out of control. He'd been terrified that someone was going to pull back the curtain and expose him for the scrawny nerd who had no business being in a suit worn by heroes. He didn't really like it to this day but he usually felt a little more like he'd earned his place. "We had some good times, back then."
"And you were mad that it took me eight hours to fly from Hawaii to Gotham." Kon sighed. "With you and Bart and Cassie and Cissie and Reddie, well, everyone. Yeah. I was still in Hawaii doing stuff with the Ravers, until I got moved to Metropolis." Yeah, those were much better times. "And it still sucks that I missed Bart and the Batmobile. It's just not the same hearing about it second-hand." He was pretty sure he could fall asleep like this, not that Tim would let him. Or maybe he would, but he wouldn't stay.
Kon was drifting off. Tim lowered his voice a little to encourage it. "Trust me, it was more terrifying than fun. I thought Batman was going to fire me. And turn Bart into a rug." Tim leaned his head back and watched the ceiling. "I'm still not sure why he didn't."
"You were being a kid. And he's rich." He had to be rich, right? With the kind of gadets and gizmos and cars and stuff that Tim and Dick got? Had to be. He closed his eyes and moved a little more onto Tim. "I had to get to you that first day, you know. When I got here. You had to know what was going on. You were..." He let his breath out in a quiet sigh.
"I wasn't given the job to be a kid," Tim reminded Kon, though in some ways that's exactly what Robins were supposed to do. Tim had never been very good at being that kind of Robin. "I know. I'm glad I was here. It's...very difficult, when there's not anyone around that you recognize or trust. I'm glad that I was the first."
"You're safe," Kon said softly. Not 'were'. 'Are'. "Bart and Cassie are...but you're..." Bart was one of his best friends and Cassie was his girlfriend, but Tim was his best friend if he had to pick just one. Was and always would be. He yawned and squeezed his eyes shut.
What had Tim done to earn that trust? Nothing, not a damn thing in the last two and a half years. "Don't yawn, you'll make me..." he cut himself off and covered his mouth against the answering yawn. "Great. I wasn't tired five minutes ago."
Kon's lips curled up in a smug, if sleepy, smile. "You should sleep. You could probably use it." Not that Kon made any effort to actually move so that Tim could get up. He was comfortable where he was and it was nice having Tim's undivided attention for once.
"I get plenty of sleep," Tim protested but he let himself slouch a little into Kon. He could fall asleep here, honestly. Dick was out on patrol and probably would find someone else to be with for the rest of the night. It would disrupt his routine though, and that was probably not a smart idea. Something to consider. And Kon seemed to be falling asleep whether Tim was going to or not.
"You make me train before dawn. You can't get enough sleep." That was something to think about. Was he going to have to get up the next morning at the crack of dawn again? He hoped not. He wasn't sure he'd be awake that early. "Payback for skipping, I swear." Or maybe for attempting to get out of training at all.
"I meditate." That sounded a little prim but he was tired and he wasn't quite as good at controlling his inflections when he was tired. "Go to sleep, Kon. I'm not going to be able to sleep if you're still awake talking to me. My carefully cultivated paranoia would never allow it."
That made Kon open his eyes, staring at Tim's shirt. "You're staying?" he asked, trying to keep the hope out of his voice. Whatever he'd expected, it hadn't been that. He'd thought that maybe if he tricked Tim into it, he'd stay. He didn't think that Tim would just stay without any prompting.
The whispers of hope that did get through were sharp as knives; Tim did his best not to wince. "For now. I can't promise I'll stay the whole night, these clothes aren't all that comfortable for one thing, but yeah, I figured I'd stay for now. If you don't mind, I mean."
"Idiot," Kon muttered. "I'd tell you to get undressed, but you'd take it wrong." Kon carefully didn't think about that too much. Luckily, his brain was cooperating with him. "'Course I don't mind."
Tim gave a half laugh, "I promise I wouldn't. I know your girlfriend." He nudged Kon with his shoulder, "Lie down already. You keep sitting like that and you're either going to wake up with a crick in your neck or you're going to fall over on me and then I'll be forced to take drastic measures."
"Cassie would eat us both alive," Kon agreed. "And I'm comfortable." The only reasons he moved was that Tim had promised he'd stay and that it had come out as a whine. He didn't whine, which meant he had to be tired. "You make a good pillow," he said, yawned again, and stretched out on the bed.
So he'd been told, but Tim didn't share that particular observation with Kon. His best friend was persistently uncomfortable with Tim's relationships here on the island. Truth be told, Tim couldn't blame him. From the outside, they probably made very little sense. Sometimes that's what it felt like from the inside as well. "So does your actual pillow," Tim replied instead and closed his eyes again. "Good night, Kon."