kaplanwrites

[kaplanwrites]

Epilogue.

It's chill Friday evening ten years later, and EJ is probably already with Titans in Frisco, despite his promises to hang around at the gallery tonight. Kon tells himself that he doesn't feel betrayed, he was a teenager. Not for long, but enough to get it. But hell, all these years having a family, being a dad, doing a dad jokes, and still - no hot dad bod. Still, his looks don't change much.

He loves to look at how Tim acquires new web-thin lines in the corners of his eyes,  he likes Kal's fold between eyebrows,  and Batman's salt-and-pepper hair looks positively badass. Everything he gained in the last years is an inch (or ten) around his waist and slightly softened angle of the jaw,  but that's good,  too,  that means things were quiet for them,  things were calm.

It's actually one of the reasons he'll like to have his son on exhibition - with Eliah around - boyishly thin and agile - he always feels older, more comfortable, somehow bigger than he already is.

Kon sighs and drops down on the inner terrace, unlocks the glass door from the outside, and disables the security system, enters unsurprisingly empty house. He has about half an hour to get ready and get back to the gallery, and he hurries to bathroom, speed-showers and in the middle of tugging new fancy suit on, when he hears gates opening, and Tim's car pull to the front door.

Tim leaves the car in a parkway and switches Bernard from speakerphone to dynamic, his heartbeat steady and calm. Kon distractedly listens to them discuss something about a contract with STARlabs, as he fixes his cuffs and straightens his jacket. It's bespoke, and Kon's loving the shit out of this costume - charcoal wool hugs Kon's shoulders, sits on his bulky frame impeccably. He still cannot afford this kind of suit, probably never would, but by now he's absolutely okay with having Tim spoil him. They're still in the age when sugar daddy jokes seem funny, and not too close to home (as they would be in some twenty years when Kon's stupid genetics make him look too young for WayneTech CEO). Besides, his exhibition today takes place in a really fancy place and it's well worth to look expensive.

 He proceeds to make his hair look like it was artistically styled, and not like he stuck his head into the blender (as it usually tends to look) when he hears the beep of finished call behind his back, and familiar arms twine around his waist.

‘I really love how this costume turned out, but you're murdering it with converse.' Tim pointedly stares at his feet, then catches Kon's eye in the mirror.

‘Hey, I need to pass for artsy type, you know? Besides, fancy shoes would clash with horror that my haircut is.' Kon pointedly tugs on a random curl, that cheerfully bounces back into a mop on his head. ‘Sometimes I wonder if I should buzz it off again'.

Tim hums nonchalantly and does something with his hands that makes a nest on Kon's head looks… not presentable, no, but somewhat implied, fixes it with a hair spray. ‘We could bargain for fade-out, but you're not getting a buzz-cut.'

#03 #that's all folks #no it's not #but i would have to search for other snippets #and then there's a shotton of music and reference pics #and videos #but for now that's all

[kaplanwrites]

03.10. Lost in Time.

Tim awakes in the middle of the night after a weird dream. 

It’s nothing unusual to him, except his brain insists that this thing that happened right now, is brand new, and never happened with him before. 

The dream was… the dream was about the time Eli went back to him for help with Kon missing. But that was like,  a dozen of years ago already. 

Tim jumps up, kicking a comforter, and, accidentally, Kon’s hip, and tears off the bed towards his laptop. As Kon sits up with a startled ‘Whu?’, their hotel room is already alight with the opening of the first zeta tube.

---

Tim’s attention drawn by a meta in his garden. 

The security system sent him a notification not ten seconds ago, and first drones already started to follow the intruder towards him from the shore. Sensors gave Tim false positive on Kryptonian DNA for the intruder, which means - mixed blood. Hybrid, mixed-race, or, well, a clone. 

Tim isn’t really ready to meet Kon, but alternatives would mean that they’re utterly and totally fucked. It’s not like he can whip out Green K. with his baby’s sleeping 20 feet from him back in the house.

Tim gets a small lead box from the safe as a last resort, puts on most charming of Tim Wayne’s smiles and goes to meet his guest.

At first glance, Tim is sure that it is indeed Kon who finally found them, but the frame that hovers somehow awkwardly over the edge of the patio is much smaller. Had Kon time travelled when they were kids? 

‘Dad! It’s me, please don’t shoot!’ - the teen shouts as several military-grade drones zoom around him. He holds his hands aloft and visible, which Tim appreciates, but finds utterly useless, as the guy is probably able to fry him with eyes. He drops softly from air to perch on the railing circling the patio, and Tim instantly recognises the way the guy moves. He'd seen it nearly every day since he started to live in Wayne manor. 

He has a martially trained Kryptonian in his house, a teenager - which makes him much, much harder to reason with. For all intents and purposes, he’s fucked ten times sideways and has nothing to do with it, yet. “Dad?..”

'Hey,  Nana, ' the teen waves weakly at the sliding doors behind Tim’s back. He doesn't need to check to know that Sandra is watching them from behind the glass. 

'Soo… ' Teen hops to the floor, then stops awkwardly, shifts from foot to foot, clearly not knowing what to do with himself. Tim looks at him,  properly,  cataloguing small details: in unnatural blue of his eyes and prominent curl in the hair, he recognises Clark’s genes, yet the set of the shoulders and slightly softer line of the jaw is clearly Kon’s. 

'I mean, you don’t recognise me, obviously… I don't know,  I can tell you something about Pa only we know… That is, about Red, uh, I mean Superboy. Conner! About Conner Kent,  so you believe… '

Tim turns lead box several times in his pocket. He’s about to do a very stupid thing.

'Eliah?' he tries carefully. 

The kid stills completely,  then bumps bodily into Tim so fast,  he has to take couple of steps backwards after their bodies connected. The boy attaches himself to Tim like an octopus, and he has no other option really other than to put his chin on the top of the curly head and hug him back. 

'Do you want to tell me what happened?'

The kid makes a sound into Tim's collar,  something between sob and scoff,  and pulls back to look into Tim’s face. 

'You're just like him. Sorry,  I mean,  you are him, but you're also barely older than me… which means,  wow,  uh?  Can I see me?'

Tim smirks,  then rolls his eyes. 

'First time time-travelling?'

'Yeah… '

'Accidental? ' Tim gestures the teenager to sit at a patio table. Pours him a glass of fresh lemonade, that he and Sandra were going to enjoy barely half an hour ago.

'Yeah… ' the kid drinks greedily,  'I mean accidentally on purpose? Sort of. I was going to get you like a year ago,  I mean,  for you like twelve years from now…I think,  but I did something not quite… I mean it's not like I could ask Batman for help,  he'd skin me alive if he’d see me anywhere near the Motherbox,  but I really,  really needed to see you,  because Pa's missing and I think it's the same that happened to the Grandpa?' The kid pauses, then nervously gulps the rest of the glass. 'You did find Grandpa already, didn't you?'

Tim takes a moment to decipher everything the boy just babbled out, pours himself a glass, and another for Eliah. Decides to freak out from all the mind-boggling information sometime later. 

'If you mean whether I helped Bruce to return to the right time, then yes, I did. He got back a couple a months ago.' 

Tim pauses, tentatively prods the thing that worries him the most so far. Wonders whether he wants to hear it. 

'Why didn't you go to your own dad? ' the Kid tilts his head to the side, - just like Kon does,- and opens his mouth,  but Tim clears up,  'Why didn't you go to me from your own time? '

The moisture floods eerily blue eyes so suddenly, the boy - Eliah, Tim’s sure now, has to turn up his chin and to breathe for a moment so they won’t spill.  

'I did,  I did of course, but dad, you're bad…'

Tim stills,  memories of a gun at his temple flooding his thoughts.  

'You've been thirty hours in the surgery, you’ve been and unconscious for two more days, and they say…’ The boy carries on over tears, wiping his cheek and nose with a sleeve. 

‘They say they had to put you back piece by piece and that it's not clear when you'll wake up. Grandpa said he sent his best medical team in to check on you, but I didn’t wait for ‘em, because Pa’s still missing and one's looking for him. I know he’s in trouble, he wouldn't stay away if he knew you’re in the hospital, and everybody knows you’re in the hospital, it’s all over the news. Dad,’ Eliah sniffles, but looks stubbornly at Tim. ‘They think he’s dead.’ 

Tim takes a drink, cold liquid doing nothing to dissolve the lump in his throat. ‘And you think he isn’t?’

‘Yeah. It’s not the first time he’s not really died… you know…’ he frowns in his glass, ‘But it’s not cause of that I think he’s lost in time, too. And I don’t think he’s trapped, either, because, you remember that toy dog… Um, no, of course, it hasn’t happened yet. When I was six, Pa gave me  a Pluto plushie, small cute thing that looked weirdly vintage even back then. I thought he pulled it from the arcade, but afterwards, he swore he didn’t give it to me. You both always thought it I mixed something up and got plushie from one of the unkles. It had ‘EJ’ engraved on it’s collar tag, but the

*****

#03 #timkon

[kaplanwrites]

[kaplanwrites]

[kaplanwrites]

03.08.House in Hawaii

Bad Pony - Deficiency 

MUSE - The small print 

***

Kon thinks that this - whatever this ‘this’ thing is will be the end of them. 

It looks like relationships dying,  - you know,  people speak like this on TV: “the spark is gone”, or some friends start to complain that their SO didn't sleep at home. 

In the end it turns out to be simultaneously better and worse. 

You see,  he still loves Tim,  and he knows that Tim loves him too, because,  you see - Tim decided that he wants Kon all to himself,  and,  well,  if Rob decides something… But he also decided somewhere after Kon death that he needs to bear all human sufferings on his delicate shoulders. Or something like this. 

So yeah,  the thing began long time ago, when Tim told Kon that he bought a house. It was little,  and apparently, - Kon never got too deep into financial side of their household - the last project Tim scored for WT could afford it,  but still. 

Tim bought a little house in Hawaii. It went like this: 

‘You could stay in the house this time’, Tim says nonchalantly,  sipping on his smoothie.  He’ll be off to Istanbul in 3 hours, and then to who knows where on the bat-business,  and Kon will be taking EJ to surf to Honolulu. 

‘Nah,  it's no bother for Tasha to have us’ Kon shrugs, and keeps packing a small satchel with spare clothes. He’s such a mom nowadays, he has a satchel.

‘It'll be good for kid to have his own room.  And I could visit - provided decent bedroom for us’

‘So we can rent something when you finally decide to join us’ Kon zips a bag,  moves from bed to where Tim leans on wardrobe. 

‘No need to rent it.  I bought the house’. Kon stops in his tracks, and Tim watches him carefully,  cataloguing reactions. Planning phrases based on it. Grip deceivingly slack on the half-full glass.

‘You bought a house in Hawaii, so you can pop in whenever you want? You realize we fly over there like 3 times a year?‘

‘I believe that's  what I said yes,  and yes,  I know that you spend maybe two weeks yearly there.  But Eliah likes it, the ocean, and’ there’re is no pause mid-phrase, but Kon hears Tim’s heart - always - and the hitch in the constant thum barely there, but he hears it still. ‘And I remember you saying you never feel anywhere at home after Hawaii’

Kon shakes his head incredulously.

‘And you bought me a house because of it? Because I was drunk and nostalgic and you always hear only the worst?’ Kon huffs and sits back on the bed. Stares on the ringless fingers around a half-empty glass of smoothie. Fingers thin metallic band on his own.

‘Tim… you are home,  you and our son,  and I don’t need a place for it.‘

Tim keeps silent.

***

They stay at the house while at Hawaii, and EJ loves it, but Kon sleeps poorly. He’s used to thum of Tim’s heart to the point where it absence feels eerie. 

Kon stares at the ceiling with old-fashioned fan lazily turning in the heated air, thinks about home, and wonders if Tim misses his childhood house, or Wayne Manor, if he craves his own house, like the one he and Eli had in the Italy.

On the second night he tosses and turns, and finally gives in, and shoots straight up, to the thinner skies like it’ll help him to hear to his Robin. With no luck, he flies around frustrated, knowing that Tim’s suit conceals almost all sound, but trying not to fret,  trying not to give in to the urge and go and see why his husband needs to be in suite during midday.

Tim he may be underground,  or underwater, - or… Whatever. Kon trusts Tim not to die on him, although the prospect is looming daily in their line of work. They’ve spoke about it, after Tim started to do more and more of bat-related stuff, had a series of talks about Robin’s official return. He doesn’t think he will be like that, he’s - not prone to dwell much, and he has

When he finally zooms down, gently dropping speed as not to make much noise, he sees his own kid, ridiculously bundled in the comforter in 70 degree heat and thick layer of his own, duly inherited from his awesome father, TTK, sitting on the rooftop.

He lands beside him, and checks for cameras or gawkers around as an afterthought.

‘Hey,Pa...you cannot hear him from here, can you?’ EJ looks tired, but blue eyes are alert and sleepless. He never had a knack for finer senses, like Kon himself, but Kon had experience and age on his side, and EJ was spoiled with Daddy’s tech.

Sometimes, when Tim came home in the early hours of the morning, bruised under the armor and smelling of his own blood, mixed with thick metallic smell on his staff and sometimes knuckles, Kon was glad the kid wasn’t able to smell, or hear, for shit.

‘Yeah, kiddo. But if I’ll try enough, I could.’

‘Would Kal be able to?’ Ej scoots over, and Kon pulls him under his arm, wondering for how many years he still will be allowed to cuddle his quickly growing boy.

‘Sure, Clark would be. He’s probably listens to us gossip about him right now’

EJ scoffs, ‘Yeah, sure’, and then grins wickedly. ‘I bet Granps knows where daddy is and even will tell me if I’ll ask him. Probably if I’ll tell him that you cannot sleep without dad’s heart’.

Kon smiles at the crooked phrase and smashes kid’s face into his own side, ruffles the dark mop.

‘I’m afraid, kiddo, that Bruce will never give you any info for my sake. He probably will even make this info into blackmail, somehow’ Kon internally shudders at the thought of Damian hearing this bit of intel, ‘I really cannot fathom why you like your bat-grampa better, Clark is so much nicer’.

‘Kal is nice’, blanket burrito nestling in his side sniffs sleepily, ‘but he never allows me to do any fun’.

Kon wants to ask what sorts of fun Bruce allows him, but it seems the kid is already fast asleep.

***

Next morning,  halfway across Pacific and going steady over mach five Kon briefly chastices himself for not going to check for Tim last night.  He doesn't have time for it,  but the thought about how it all could be easier if he was beside Tim from beginning keeps coming back,  as he zooms over shore and in minutes skips over Korea westwards. 

As he closes in and drops his speed from supersonic,  he listens intently,  zooming,  circling,  and finally here it is,  pumping, adrenaline-addled, alive. 

It's a mothefucking battlefield, with trigger-happy fuckers dressed in bomb vests, with hostages herded in a corner of half-destroyed lobby,  or whatever it was before the explosion,  but Tim apparently managed to make them stop shooting,  scared them enough to target only a robin. 

They also have turrets,  Kon discovers,  after he launches himself to the stage , targets the jumpy AK-wielding asshole looking around the corner block down the street.  

The bullets in turrets are laced with green-K, he also discovers,  as he gets shoulderfull of bullets,  and the TTK stops only part of them. He doesn't allow himself to loose speed, crashes into AK-hole making him lose consciousness on the impact,  but crashes right beside. Kon'll live,  he just needs to push these three bullets out and away from his body,  and he's doing just that as he hears familiar voice - not exactly in his ear,  not  like it usually is,  but fervently whispered at him anyway. 

‘What in hell are you doing here?!’

‘What am I…’ Kon laughs,  sighs,  as bullets make their way over the nearest wall. It's no use to whisper back at Tim,  and he doesn't have neither the phone,  nor the headset which Tim can hack into to hear him. Heck,  he barely have the costume - he grabbed only the suit, with no gear at all,  for which he will be chased later. 

Tim takes his pause for what it is,  and begins quick sitrep, and yeah,  the almost all bullets here are K-laced,  so its decidedly a no-Supers business, but Kon thinks he still can be of use.  

***

#03 #timkon #oh hey that's my attempt on plot

[kaplanwrites]

03.07.FuktUp.

‘I’ve done fucked up’, - Tim flopped on the sofa, tugging on the knot his tie and opening his collar, then plopping his hand aside like it was a dead squid’s tentacle. Kon smirked at him from behind his tablet but kept on whatever he was sketching before.

‘I don’t know what was I expecting from Pamela Isely, I probably had better chances if I’d went to her in my work clothes.’ Tim pressed his heel into sofa hand rest, and pushed himself bodily into Kon’s side. ‘Then she’d probably would do it for an old acquaintance, but then again it would’ve be hard to explain what Tim Drake’s zoology project would have to do with me. Ugh,’ - his long groan dissipated into a long contented sign, as Kon pushed fingers into his hair.

‘Let me get this straight. You - Metropolis businessman, who probably met her only in your teens  - dressed in your civvies, and flew into Gotham to recruit personnel - which you’re pretty much prohibited from, - and not just anyone, but Bruce’s villain gallery superstar and, by the way, Harley’s girlfriend. Just because you needed a botanist on your project. Right?’ 

‘It sounds worse when you put it that way. I need a botanist, like, tomorrow, and she’s only one I remembered from the top of my head. And I was in Gotham to report on labs and sit through several soul-sucking board meetings, Ivy was just a side-project. Alfred says hi, by the way.’

‘So I’ve smelled from, like, lobby. EJ would go through the roof when he sees the cake.’ Kon perched the tablet on his knee, then tilted his head to check whether Tim had conked out beside him. His eyes met Tim’s, half-lidded, but alert. ‘And I’m hurt that you didn’t even considered my agricultural degree for a second’ Tim’s eyes widened incredulously.

‘Your what?!’

‘I mean. I’ve minored in farming, babe. Why do you think I was so haggard all the time when EJ was small?’

‘But you’ve got a design degree, what the hell?! You draw all the time!’ Tim propped himself up, nudged Kon’s knee to make a point.

‘I’ve got shitty landscape design degree from the community college, and first I was going to get on with a agricultural through and through, when I was choosing my trek. Which, if you remember, was before I knew you’ve cooked us a baby. When you finally returned, I needed to quickly finish my minor, transfer to Metro and major in something more suitable for life in the city.Thank god for that, to be honest, I hate chemistry.’

Tim’s usually handsome face was contorting in attempt for some emotion, which looked like he  was either having some sort of epiphany, or a stroke. 

‘You’ve transferred after the minor? From where, Kansas?’ Tim’s relaxed frame stills, his breathing becomes accurately measured.

‘Uh-huh, needed to flew in for last exams and thesis defense.’ Kon pauses, pushes his glasses on top of the unruly curly head. Familiar alien eyes looks searches for something in Tim’s face. ‘You didn’t know this,’ he not quite enquiries. Tim lowers his gaze guiltily, not trying to hide that he’s working on his breathing and heartbeat. 

‘I…’ he licks his lips and scoots back a bit, ‘I’ve never even thought to ask, really. I don’t know what I thought back then, really. Probably that you’ve charmed your way through college, being southern sweetheart you are.’ Kon bridges the space between them, settling his hand into Tim’s lap, wrap it around scarred fingers, worrying the seam of his slacks. ‘I’m sorry.’

Tim lifts his gaze, expression timid. 

‘Yeah,’ Kon huffs out an unhappy laugh. ‘Well, we haven’t spoken much back then, did we?’    

 There’s incredulity in his face, sad one, and Tim cannot really stop himself from crowding into his lap, hiding his face in Kon’s neck and mumbling into his shoulder, ‘No. No, we didn’t, not really.’ There’s a moment, a gap in motion when Kon’s arms don’t lock around him right away, but then tablet clicks softly on the floor, and warm arms settle around him.

They sit like this as minutes go by, both trying not to think about Kon’s series of girlfriends and about Michael. 

‘Thank God we have Alfred’s cake.’

****

#03 #timkon #oh god i forgot i wrote it and i love it

[kaplanwrites]

03.06 Morning person

All the way through late autumn and winter Kon mostly has to catch sun over the clouds, in thin and frigid air populated only by rare military aircraft, and decidedly boring. Eliah hates it over here, but it’s not worth dragging the kid west and south for miles in search for a sunny patch, water-soaked clothes crusting with ice after pushing up through the thick layer of white watery fog.

So when first greyish rays filter through the bedroom windows, blue sky clear between rare lumpy clouds, Kon’s consciousness switches on like a lamp. 

First, he wants to groan and burrow further into the warm bundle of sheets and limbs, to squeeze Tim’s wonderfully ragdoll body into his own, but to wake him up would be considered a universally dick move, as the wall clock announces that they’ve gotten to bed only a couple of hours ago. 

So he carefully extracts himself from the bed and goes to raise his son. 

As expected, EJ wakes up hilariously groggy and grumpy, hair wild and nose scrunched in a frown as he tries to put his foot through the sleeve of his spandex for several tries before realising what he’s doing. He accusingly glares at silently laughing Kon, who’s hanging in the doorway in his trainer shorts and an old Superboy t-shirt.

Eliah, unlike Kon, is strictly prohibited from flying without his costume. This rule’s based both on his genetic composition and necessity of guarding his identity - camera-jammers and all sorts of surveillance sensors built into the very seams of the suit. There was a growing threat of constant bitching about it, until Kon dragged him out to fly over the city in his jammies. The kid then froze to shivers, nearly lost his pants during admittedly well-done somersault, and needed to throw out his favourite sweatshirt due to greasy smog penetrating threadbare cotton. After that, EJ never as much as mentions going out in his civvies, but his sour looks telegraphs his discontent of having to tug it on while his father’s showing off in his old t-shirts.

They start off slow, Kon trying to start a race but quickly gives up, as Eliah manages to slouchingly drag himself through the air better than most teenagers do it walking.  As kid morosely pushes up, looking more like a human-shaped balloon, than a Kryptonian mid-flight, he manages several quick rounds over their district, and finally grows tired of this ridiculousness, snatching EJ by the shin and bodily dragging him up to the apex of their flight, hundreds of meters above the highest point of the city. 

Kid’s eyes brighten at the sight of sunrise colouring the line of water on the horizon, pastel hues bleeding slowly among the skies. He kicks his foot free, dropping a dozen of meters down, like a diver entering the pool, and then zooming up with a loud ‘Whoo!’

Kon startles from it, realising that it’s a first sound they’ve made today, both well versed in the occasional necessity of keeping quiet around a light sleeper as dad is. He starts into the air after the kid, gaining on him not as quickly as he had a couple of years ago.   

‘Did you take the phone? I’d like a reference for a painting later’ 

‘Nah, didn’t bother,’ EJ spirals around him, like a satellite, as they make their way over to the dockside. ‘It’s a good one, haven’t seen this shade for a while.’ Kon hums his agreement, half-heartedly tries to bat at the foot, as it hovers over his head and in line of his sight, misses it. 

‘Would you still paint it? I like it when you do skies.’ 

‘I was actually thinking of doing something for your father for Christmas,’ - Kon ponders, and the kid lights up. EJ knows that if it’s intended for dad, it’ll be something unusual and cool, not a lame portraits and boring abstractions pa does for the clients. 

‘Can I help?’ - Kon laughs at the eagerness in EJ’s voice.

‘I haven’t even started to plan it,’ he grins and grabs at a thin body flying right under him, then relaxes completely, dropping like a dead weight on kid’s back. Eliah yelps then scream outrageously as they start to plummet down, the sharp curve of their fall drawing them to the level of rooftops in seconds. He struggles to get rid of the weight on his back, buckling and sticking his sharp elbows into Kon’s sides but quickly realises the futility of it. He braces and slows their fall to a controlled descent, then stops it entirely, gliding horizontally between last high-rises closest to the shoreline. Kon huffs approvingly, as kid wraps the TTK around his body, so Kon’s limbs don’t hinder his manoeuvring, and glides them, paper plane-like, along waking street below. Contrasting slices of deep shadow alternates with clean morning sun every intersection, and Kon thinks about slow stroboscope, as his vision is blindsided with sun glare again and again, and again. 

‘So what would it be? Something huge, right? You’ve painted him a building for his birthday…’

‘EJ, quit nagging.’ As they edge to the corner of the last building in a line, Kon tilts his body back, overturning them and simultaneously pushing at EJ with all might of his telekinesis. EJ instinctively grabs at him with his TTK for a second, which acts as a spring, just as Kon intended, and catapults the kid up and away into the air, cartwheeling madly with an indignant squeak.

Kon hears a snort to his left and turns to see a young woman, half-stuck with a cigarette and a cup of steaming coffee out of the right-corner window. She follows Eliah’s trajectory with a grin mirroring his own, then meets his gaze and nods her greetings. 

‘Good morning, ma’am,’ Kon drawls, then hears girl’s shriek from the open window - ‘Moooooom, I cannot find my sooooooks!’  

‘Kids these days, huh?’ She grins at him wider, stubbing her cig on a windowsill and disappearing back into the apartment, just as the pair of EJ’s feet connect with Kon’s stomach, propelling them both back and down a couple of floors. 

They fly back low through the opening market to discourage pickpockets, and over the park to watch early dog-walkers shepherding their mismatched packs. As they zoom up nearing to their building, Eliah again is babbling a mile a minute switching between Kon painting the whole block, to twins’ new graphic tablet, to painting with TTK, to, unexpectedly, making of artsy cakes.  

Tim’s relatively up when they get back, which means he’s draped over the kitchen counter, wrapped in Kon’s terrycloth robe, with a laptop opened in front of him, and decidedly ignored in lieu of drowning himself in an unreasonable cup of fragrant coffee.

‘We’ve chosen you a present!’ - Eliah chirps sunnily, as he hops onto the chair and makes a grab for a cookie on Tim’s plate. Tim half mindedly slaps the super speeding hand away, looks groggily to Kon, as he enters the kitchen. Eliah settles and frowns at the cookie, which starts to edge from the plate towards him by itself. ‘But you can’t have it before Christmas because it’s not even planned yet.’ 

Kon shrugs and pulls cereal from the cupboard. ‘EJ, quit harassing the cookie, you know you can’t have it.’ Eliah giggles as Tim catches escaping biscuit between his fore and middle finger not even looking at it. Kon drops choco-milk and a bowl in front of EJ, then circles the counter to drape thick arms around Tim’s shoulders. 

‘You’re making my kid into a morning person, I hate you,’ he grumbles, but relaxes deeper into Kon’s chest, tilts his head as Kon nuzzles his face into his neck. ‘What’s my present?’ 

Kon grins into the collar of his own robe, plants a kiss to the nearest temple. 

‘I have no idea what he’s talking about,’ he answers completely insincere, making a grab for a cookie.   

***

#favourites #03

[kaplanwrites]

03.06.Car.

  The car is an actual SUV. An old, soccer mom styled SUV, with a sliding door and a Baby chair,  and enough place to carry ten people instead of four,  and why would they need so much space? Kon grins like a madman,  squinting at the horrendous electric-blue shade of paint. 

‘She’s a babe, isn't she?‘ Kon distractedly pets the roof of the monster. ‘She also has two bicycle carriers, and a plush covering for a steering wheel’.

‘She?’

‘I am glad that you asked! ‘ Kon swivels from car’s side to grab Tims shoulder,  then gestures broadly,  imitating some fantasy flick dreamer.  ‘You see,  since its the El family’s car, we need to give it a proper name. I myself am sure “Car-El” would fit perfectly,  or the Supercar, for everyday lifesaving.’ 

Tim doesn't have much choice but to lean into hand cradling his shoulder and laugh until his chest hurts.  After all,  Kon has named his own son El-El,  and Tim went along with it,  so who is he to deprive this terrible, ugly vehicle fitting name. When he again able to breathe properly,  Kon pipes up again. 

‘I think the kid will like that,  and,  besides,  we can sometimes get Altman’s spawns to camp or hike or something,  so they would keep babysitting for us’

Tim hums his agreement and squints on the glazy shine of aggressively blue car under the bright glare of late spring sun.  It’s freshly washed,  and they can bargain for a parking place somewhere in backstreets.  

‘Anyway,  where did you get this abomination? ‘

Kon’s grin becomes impossibly wider,  and he shakes Tim a little,  before making another grand gesture, ‘I am glad you asked! “

‘Oh god’

‘So,  there was that mechanic,  who owed me after saving his little auto shop from falling giant robot on it,.. ‘

*****

#03 #silly

[kaplanwrites]

03.05.Snatched.

As Tim tries simultaneously to go through WE framework auth procedure on his laptop and make a half-decent knot on his tie, something keeps nagging him at the back of his mind.

He's about to ask Yves,  who just finished badmouthing another driver in the jam when his smartwatch buzzes. 

 >'Where r u'

Shit. Kon.

> 'OMW 2DI,  will explain'

It takes Kon all but three seconds to dial him. 

'WHAT THE HELL!' 

Tim winces, and tries to extinguish the thing before it roared in flames: 

 'I'll be back by… '

'I've been out for 10…  no, for 8 minutes! You said we have all morning to ourselves! You said you'll switch off the phone!!!  And I've bought you those horrible chocolate muffins,  you ass!!! '

'I did switch my phone off!' It's not fair,  but then again,  it's not really fair to Kon too.  'It's Yves' fault anyway,  he actually came by foot while you were out!' Said asshole frowns at him into the rearview mirror,  but keeps his mouth shut. 

'You know what? If you were Tim Wayne only,  I've would've divorce you so hard. There would've been talk shows, and I'd say everything about how bad you are on nurturing relationships,  and that you spend all your time at work, and there would've been examples, real stories, like this one, I wouldn't even need to pretend. And people would feel so sorry for me, no army of lawyers would've been able to stop me as I take the kid.' Tim lets out an exasperated sigh through his nose,  and momentarily closes the eyes,  as Kon continues 'and the flat,  obviously,  and half of DI probably,  just to be petty…'

'I'll go back as soon as we finished. '

'Hell no,  you're never finished'

'Right after the meeting?.. ' Tense pause. Kon shuffles with something that probably is a paper bag from Tim’s favourite coffeehouse. 

'I'll be home by two,  and I'll ask Steph to keep Eli till evening?' 

More silence,  and more paper shuffling. 

'I'm sorry. Please don't eat all muffins?'

Kon can do disappointed like no one except Clark, and they both probably were taught to guilt trip you to hell and back from Ma Kent herself. 

'See you by lunch then'. Kon cheerfully hangs up on him as they pull into DI's underground garage complex. As Tim opens cars door,  he hears superman tune playing on Yves' phone. 

'Each man for himself then',  he smirks to Yves outraged face and shuts the car door behind himself. 

***

#silly #favourites #03 #Yves

[kaplanwrites]

03.04.Doctor.

Minor 00, most part is 03.

Pretty early into his friendship with Robin, Kon is told the thing he considered just another weird joke:  "If the bat is broken,  bring it back to cave". He begins to realise that everyone who's somebody to bats just says it that way to evade explaining what bringing a bat to,  say,  an ER, ensues.

Which happens when he tries to bring knocked out Robin to aforementioned hospital in Gotham but turned away by panicking ET nurse who is literally screaming at him with a thick Hispanic accent ‘Take it away,  we have a truce,  take it away!!!’ while wildly waving his thick arms at Superboy. Kon is so dumbfounded,  he just backs off out of sliding doors and takes up with a still limp body on his shoulder. 

The second hospital is more welcoming, in resigned exhalations and quick glances around way. Tim's taken looked at. Or at least an effort is made, because, as Kon discovers that night, too, Robin's costume is going down way after his wearer is conked out. After firstly  spectacularly gassing down a whole room of medics and secondly shocking Kon with what he considers a crispy amount of voltage, the suit is dealt with by holding it away from everybody’s harm by TTK. Ultimately,  after facing down a ski-masked dude with a gun pointed to his cape-wrapped parcel on a way out,  Kon gives up and calls Clark to ask how to get to the Batcave. 

---

The second meaning of this adage Kon discovers years later.

Afterwards, Tim explained that the magnetic-positronic forcefield unluckily reacted with induction wiring in his gloves and short-circuited on the wedding ring, which quickly started to burn through Tim's finger. Kon, luckily at his side at a moment, had seen the husband franticly claw at a glove and swiftly disassembled the whole thing with an angrily glowing ring in tow around Tim's hand. In contrast to his visible relief, Kon promptly started to panic at a sight of white bone and blood gushing profusely from the frayed edges of the circular wound. 

As much as he manages at the moment, Kon reasons that a) finger-related problems would be much easier to negotiate than the head trauma - especially seeing that Kon already dealt with the glove,  and b) Brooklyn is no Gotham, he rushes him to the closest hospital. 

He is right on both scores and so satisfied with the finger sewn back tightly and neatly,  that he goes along with Tim's paranoia and helps to make sure that no genetic material or fingerprints are left in the hospital. 

Which,  in a hindsight,  should've been enough of a giveaway to consequential break into the surgeons home,  shootout, and a kidnapping. And damn,  the dude didn't even see Tim's face.

Tim accedes this news with a resigned weariness, which still comes over him in such cases, and Kon is powerless to alleviate it, knowing that the mistake was all his, in both almost tearing Tim's finger off and endangering a civilians’ life. 

It sucks, really, that after years of work, the city they’ve got to consider theirs still hosts a scum who’d mutilate the surgeon’s family for an elusive chance to extort an intelligence on vigilante’s ID.

While Tim nurses his hand and arranges the bat-witness protection for the doc’s family, he tuns down and catches the asshole. If Kon’s a bit rough on him - he hears ‘harsh’ from the cops he literally drops the crook on - his family doesn’t really need to hear about it. 

---

It comes as somewhat of a surprise when Tim tells him about the Doctor they're going to visit and even take EJ to if all goes well.  

The man, although clean-shaven and straight-backed, still gives off the vague aura of shagginess the source of which Kon cannot put his finger on. He blames it on the persistent smell of the alcohol wafting throughout the house, although the man himself doesn’t appear to be drunk.

Kon thinks that he actually likes Kon for the whole of a half an hour,  which starts when he's offered a can of Zesty,  and ends when the said emptied can is neatly tucked away into a zip-bag, labelled with a sticker,  and tucked into a fridge right in front of Kon’s eyes.  

As Tim returns from the premises recon and discuss some of the security details with the Doctor,  the man seems absolutely unaffected by Kon glaring at him from behind Tim’s back,  and even goes for a handshake as a farewell.  

Kon decides he's a dick. He also decides to ask Tim why they're trusting him,  just for a case.  On the way home, he asks how Tim knows him. 

‘I served with him. I mean,  we've been with the Army together,  he's as a medic and genetic specialist,  and me.  You know.  The usual’

‘You… what?  I didn't know that.  When was it? Wait, you served?’

‘Ugh, no, no. I was around thirteen back then? Around the time the Middle East conflict was on?’ Tim briefly looks up from the road to Kon. He seems very calm about this, in contrast to the nerve-wracking occasions he tells Kon the weird stuff he’d done sporting Red Robin’s cape. 

‘Tim. Baby.’ Kon’s tone is soothing, but he feels laughter bubbling up in his throat at the absurdity of all this. ’You're telling me things that I know the meaning of, but don’t make sense.’

Tim marginally drops the speed of the car,  glances at him again, and frowns at the road like  he does when he goes through mental calculations. Kon takes his hand from the steering wheel,  and stitches their fingers together,  exhaling in recognition that it is completely possible for one of them to be drugged with a stupid juice or another batch of hallucinogens. 

‘No, listen. I point it out because sometimes you bats say things that seem normal to you, but aren’t for us normal folk’. Kon smirks and brings Tim’s hand to his lips, ‘I am talking about thirteen years old in the Middle East during the war thing.’

Tim side-eyes him some more but returns the car back to his usual vaguely dangerous and very much illegal speed. Kon hastily puts his hand back on the wheel. 

‘Yeah, it was from around the time you’ve still lived in Hawaii? Or maybe just moved to Kansas, really I was sure I would’ve told you about something like it. Anyway, the Doc was one of the smartest people in the platoon, I have no idea why he’d enlisted…’.

#03 #favourites

[kaplanwrites]

03.02.Experiments

Kon hears muffled plop, like something moist being stabbed, and hears Tim’s voice, as he enters the apartment.

‘So, this is why you don’t pull anything from the piercing wounds, see?’

Kon is momentarily afraid to enter the kitchen. He sucks it up, drops the keys into the bowl and crosses the threshold.

Tim (looking vaguely smug) holds a zip-bag pierced-through with colored pencils in front of the starry-eyed kid. It’s like a whole pack of pencils going right through the baggy, and regardless of Kon’s vague knowledge of the science behind the trick, it does look awesome.

Tim reposits the baggy over the sink, and pulls one pencil out:

‘And that is why you don’t “put it back” if you panicked and pulled it out’, - he swiftly puts the pencil back into the leak, but the “out” hole pierces the baggy in a slightly different place, and the zip-bag keeps rapidly losing water.

‘Whoa’, Eli sighs and tries to pinch the plastic around the leak. It displaces several other pencils, and the bag wetly deflates around his fingers.

Kon looks around the kitchen, and sees several burned-out heat tabs, most of EJ’s Arts & Craft set, assortment of jars from Tim’s lab table as well as several bowls and glasses from kitchen cabinets, all covered in soot, spongy masses, suspicious streaks, and one filled with something murky and purple with a string lowered into it.

‘Pa!’ EJ plops down from the chair he stood on during the demonstration, rounds Tim to hug Kon’s thighs. ‘Dad shows me all sorts of cool stuff’

Tim turns and heys him, smiles as he looks at Kon’s hand on the kid’s head. He’s still in his shirtsleeves, but it sports the coffee spot on the shoulder (and isn’t it a thing to wonder about), so apparently, Tim already decided the shirt is a casualty.

‘We’ve made a hologram, and lava monster, and invisible ink and…’ Kon put the bag of groceries on the floor, hauled the kid to his hip.

‘Spider race?’ Kon turned his head to EJ, who grinned at him and pointed at the black spot on the wall near the window.

‘Yeah, but it’s not, like, real spiders, just ink on a plastic sheet. Didja knew that you can pick up drawings from the plastic with water? You can blow it off the water then, too, or stick it to skin. Or paper I guess.’

Kon looks from the transfer-blown spider on the wall to poorly hidden in the fridge Tim, who pretends to put away the groceries.

*then Kon threatens his family with starvation until they clean up

Kid disappears

Tim tries to, but Kon isn't having any of it

So Tim cleans and Kon cooks*

#03 #silly

[kaplanwrites]

03.01.TTK

There’s a commotion in the living room, as Dick chases Eli around the sofa, and Krypto is flying to and fro, trying to lick them both in faces. Steph loudly sings in the shower.

Kon busies himself at the counter, evidently cutting some veggies for the kid to snack on, as Tim exits their bedroom.

Cass sips her coffee, thinks about hiding her smile in a cup, but she is glad for them, and Tim needs to know it. So she turns from her coffee and tablet to smile at him and sees that weird thing.

Tim’s hair moves like it’s tugged by a whiff of wind, but Cass knows that the only open windoe is in Eliah’s room, which is impossible to bring the draft here. Then his shirt ripples: collar moves up and smoothed down, front momentarily sticks to his chest, as if being pushed by outer force. The whole of Tim’s form shifts as he walks (drags himself) into the kitchen as if he enters a body of water with a vertical surface engulfing him right on the threshold. Cass is sure that if there was a barrier, surely any of them (us) would’ve noticed it by now. 

The kid tears squealing through the gap between Tim and the freezer, the dog hot at his heels, and right as the white tail disappears in the bedroom, Dick comes crashing into Tim, socked feet slipping on the stone tiles, and uses him as a bearing point to jump into the closing door for further pursuit.

Cass considers the inch of empty air between Dick’s hand and Tim’s shoulder, as he grabbed for a purchase. 

Passes a glance to Conner.

Ah. Richard should be more careful than that.

Kon looks at Tim with lips tight and pale, jaw carefully unclenched. Knife in his hand hovering over the unfinished cucumber.

Something crashes in the bedroom and Dick sends a victorious cry, followed by Eliah’s squeaks and enthusiastic barking.

‘It’s ridiculous’ Tim unsticks himself from the fridge and sits at the counter next to Cass. Looks into his cup, as rhythmic “thump-thump-thump” of the knife on the wooden board starts again.

‘What’s that?’

Cass wonders, whether at touch he will feel like covered in a layer of “nothing” like Kon is.

‘Sencha’ Kon doesn’t sound sullen, just… patient. No, resigned. They already had this conversation, then.

‘I don’t like green tea’ Tim scrunches his nose but takes a sip.

Cass smile returns, as she locks the tablet and pushes it away. Puts her cheek on the palm, slurps her fragrant black drink. Tim side-eyes her. 

‘Well, it’s all caffeine you’re gonna have today while you’re on meds, so. It’s that or water.’

----

It takes a bit more for Steph to figure it out, although if she hadn’t tried to mess with Tim’s hood, she probably wouldn’t notice at all. 

----

(So Tim was badly injured in a brawl, something stupidly common, like he was thrown onto glass sculpture or grenade went off in glass workshop, and his costume took most of it but long and thin spike lodged itself into his side and broke off when Tim tried to get up.

Kon took note that Tim’s profusely bleeding (damn the red suit) only when Tim stumbled and the blood actually splattered on the wall and floor around him. (Bright red. This is bad.)

After that everything in Kon’s eyes went very sharp and with a dangerously hard to control hue of red. The rooks he will get later, now he had to rush Tim to the Labs, no, better to surgeon’s home, it’ll be faster. He fumbles in the communicator for the number as Tim sinks to the floor right before his eyes, and.

Tim isn’t permitted to do that.

The connection in his ear goes live. Kon describes the cut to Jim as he wraps Tim in TTK, listens carefully to musts and don’ts, as he tenderly closes the wound. Someone starts to shoot at them just as he takes off, and the red light momentarily spills out. Kon doesn’t look back and doesn’t shift his focus to cries and sizzling of burned flesh. It’s a blur of flight, then hours standing beside the cot, pulling the glass from Tim with TTK, checking, rechecking, holding the vessels closed, as Jim stitches - white, blue-lipped, but breathing - Tim together.

They both covered in blood when Jim’s finished. It says something about how this line of work screws people’s understanding of normal, when Jim pulls out another bag of blood from the fridge, along with a bottle of cold brew coffee, both tagged with a date. 

Kon cannot stop shaking, so he shakes his had on offered coffee. He doesn’t want to exercise this kind of fine work with his TTK ever again.

Tim takes the whole occasion like a champ (or workaholic, definitely like a workaholic he is), and is on feet in a week. And Kon, he can’t stop touching Tim. It’s lame, and he’s sort of ashamed of it. After years and years vigilanting, separate and together, they had their fair share of “close calls”. 

But he never had Tim opened up, sewed back together and pumped up with more blood Kon will ever be comfortable seeing again just because he was thrown into a vase…

His husband is puny. Squishy.

His husband, who hovers around him with his flimsy lead-proofed cape even at the mention of the K-word, which, well, Kon never before found amusing. What a pair they make.

Frankly, Kon does not want to deal with all of it, so he keeps his hands on Tim when he’s nearby and keeps track of him with the TTK when he’s not.

With their luck, they have house full of bats the week after the incident (‘Guys, why don’t you just go to hotel? We really don’t have room for you and your equipment’ - ‘Nah, it’s fine! I’ll sleep on a couch and girls will take studio like the last time’) and of course they will notice.

****

#unfinished #favourites #03

[kaplanwrites]

#Ponchantrain #tracklist #I cant spell apparently

[kaplanwrites]

02.14.Ponchantrain

heads up I was obsessed with that song

So, EJ is like 6-7 YO (Kon & Tim are dealing okay’ish)

and they end up in New Orleans (because some kind of investigation, or creepy decision to visit capt Boomerang funeral, of WTech exhibition whatevs, but now they have rented a car (let it be red SUV because apparently, Kon has thing for SUVs, and EJ likes color red), and neither Kon nor EJ ever been on the road trip (neither had Tim, those things he went on were mostly business trips, not road trips),

So Tim pretends to put up a fight, but after some serious puppy eyes from the kid he found himself driving interstate pointedly not-listening to Kon’s iPod, who was engrossed in his sketchbook since they arrived at Orlean.

It’s actually

[okay, so if I wouldn't finish it now: they listen to Ludo’s Lake Ponchartrain, they get in rainstorm, so Tim decides to get them to the diner; EJ takes chicken, and when dads decide to have crawfish (because lake Ponchartrain, duh) he nag and pouts until they crack him - Tim remembers Ludo’s song playing in car - about dudes, who was eaten by lake for eating crawfish - and then storm fucks up electricity, and EJ suddenly almost in Tim’s lap. Kon laughs good-heartedly, and Tim tries to reason with EJ - Eliah’s pa is one of the most invincible people in the world, and Eliah himself surely can defend them all - he is incredibly strong, so he should be brave also

And EJ whines that there are goons, and then there is Darkseid, and then there is black magick and voodoo, and he’s up to fight of firsts and seconds any time, but he would prefer to never deal with the third. And while Tim’s kind of AWW’ing, Kon says that then EJ’s dad is the smartest man he knows, and he will surely figure something to save us all.

Then the lights go up

And storm subsides

But they all eat chicken nevertheless]

#Ponchantrain #02 #headspace

[kaplanwrites]

02.13.Dating

Before that, before the wedding.

I was cooking a batch of rice and chicken breast for a workweek and thought that Tim probably lived on that diet at some point.

--

‘Hey, hon!’ Tim Wayne bends to his boyfriend, kisses him lightly, perfunctorily, as if they do it every time they see each other. It still blows Kon’s mind, this mundanity, the fact that he’s allowed to have his proverbial paws on Timothy Wayne, but he manages to keep a straight face (the pinch between his eyebrows probably manages to look like annoyance).

‘Hey there. I’ve got you chicken breast with’...

Tim stops halfway to his seat across the table, hisses into Kon’s startled face: ‘I don’t eat chicken!’

‘Since when?’ Kon starts to grin, intimately acquainted with breast grotto that their freezer was at one point. Tim looks pointedly at him, and he suddenly remembers last month press release, in which Yves(Bernard?), cross at Tim for saddling him with the kid for two whole nights, painted a vivid picture of no-meat no-leather eco-friendly Timothy Wayne.

‘Oh,’ Kon cringes, as Tim discreetly looks around the banquet hall, disappointed frown betrayed by the mischievous glint in the eye.   

‘Wanna make it to the societe page?’ he breathes, knowing Kon’s super-hearing will catch words even over people gossiping around.

‘You mean make a scene out of me forgetting you’re vegan now?!’ Kon articulates silently, hoping that he’s bewildered look can be attributed for being caught forgetting his paramour’s eating habits.

‘We could leave early and fool around in car’, and Kon knows exactly how this lewd, lewd arch of eyebrow looks mocking to an outsider. He tries to keep a straight face, and instead of the feral grin he gives Tim an eye-roll and says louder that it’s strictly necessary:

‘What’s the difference, man? The bird is as dumb as any fish anyway!’ - and pleased to hear at least two more gasps made at the same time as Tim’s.

#silly #timkon #02

[kaplanwrites]

02.12. Style

*******

What if Tim actually has some sick sense оf style?  

Like his clothes in 90s run is now seem to be quite a mess, but I think it was a kinda-sorta peak of teenagers’ style then?

Marcus To made Tim persona quite bland - which is in accord with his mildly depressive state during the run (but show me another teenager who can actually pull off the burgundy dress shirt,  honestly) 

But Marcus also (all hail) made his Red Robin costume the sleekest thing and the old theatre lair-thing? Meaningful AND stylish.

So my headcanon is Tim Wayne would've once upon a time open his civilian closet (and walk out if it) and see it is a huge bland mess.

Don't all of us do that sometimes, huh.

And then he would go on some massive online shopping spree (or, even better, just swarm his assistant- or Tam - with screenshots from fashion shoots and photos of ad panels (sometimes made from angles no-one who actually walks or rides on the ground level will be able to make) with apt sizes and measurements) to be ordered and delivered.

And in the long run... you know those sleek devilish CEO villains in movies who dress so sharp it is probably will draw blood? Yeah, I think Tim would find out that his wardrobe should be like that. Because even if you've weathered vigilante covered with scars and able to cripple a roomful of people using a tie and a stapler, all the "big players" in the meeting

room are seeing him as a college nerd who's playing with daddy's laboratories. On meetings and in the boardroom a luxurious watch, a fine tie and a bespoke matter. 

So he aims to look dangerous as a Tim Wayne.

But daddy Tim Drake is a separate issue. 

Ever since his relationships with Conner began to smoothen out and three of them begun to go out together with the kid, Tim Drake's wardrobe began to inconspicuously align with Kon's. Hence, sneakers, comfortable joggers, oversized hoodies and sweaters and baseball hats. Blackout or mirror sunglasses - hipster style, not the sport type. Sometimes he borrows Kon's sweaters (actually it’s because they’re Martha's sweaters, but let's give Kon a chance to take comfort in his Neanderthal urges). He probably looks half his size and age in 'em, but they're comfy, tough to spoil and free to acquire - all you need to do is to mention apple pie in EJ's earshot, and by the weekend Kon & their son would be returning home loaded with food and knitted goods). 

(Kon paints Ma during their stay on farm one summer. When he presents one of the drafts of her, she loves it - it's an easy candid of her, knitting, and Tim also loves it so much, he ready to fight for it. Kon laughs at him. 

He also paints Ma & Pa with a pitchfork Wood's style, only with Martha mischievously smirking, and John's being smooched in the face by Crypto)

also, Joker totally wears Clown Chrono from Russian watch master Mr Chaykin)

#headspace #meta'ish #02

[kaplanwrites]

02.12. Halloween.

‘Oh my GOD he’s adorable’ - Steph, dressed in something semi-victorian, cooed at first sight of Ellie in a simile of a Batman costume, quickly hugging Tim, who was sporting cheap Halloween Superman’s mantle - ‘And you are absolutely gorgeous. First, you wearing his colors, now - his costume?’

‘Harharhar’ - Tim winced, then glanced towards Dick, who repeatedly folded and unfolded EJ’s cape, making it resemble bat’s wings. The kid looked totally unamused, clutching one hand in Tim’s red cape, and trying to peek between them deeper into the manor.

‘Speaking of which, Clark and Kon are gonna be late, it’s something with League again.’

‘Yeah, don’t worry, Bruce called when you were landing, they’ll be sooner than expected’ - Dick shrugged, picking kid’s backpack, and ushering Tim upstairs, while Ellie was distracted by Alfred’s appearance (or by the fact, that Alfred carried a plate of Halloween-themed cookies)

okay here i cannot understand how to put in Bruce coming back along with Clark and Kon, and Ellie shrieking ‘Grandpa’ and rocketing himself onto Batman, absolutely ignoring his other Grandfather and Papa, and how Kon would wear Robin’s costume, to utter horror of Tim and amusement of everybody else, and how Clark would go so-so pouty because he obviously was not the cool gramps  

but

yeah

#unfinished #02 #headspace