WIP excerpt for Mango Bat; obligatory sugar baby Kon.
Tim, unintentionally, ends up in the Justice Cave Thursday night. Well–Robin does, anyway. There's some hard files Bruce needs that he left here last weekend, because Bruce never tells anyone he needs anything until he is literally physically incapable of avoiding it and so he didn't know not to leave them here.
Tim didn't get into being an emotional support sidekick expecting much aside from a less-vengeful Batman out of it, obviously, but it'd still be nice to occasionally get communicated with. Like, just for the novelty factor, if nothing else.
He collects the files, and while he's double-checking that he's got them all, a cloud of beige smoke spills into the room and materializes into Suzie before he can grab his rebreather. Tim knows, factually, that Suzie is gaseous and therefore not always in an obviously human shape, but after growing up in Gotham, land of fear gas and Joker gas, there's some instincts that are a little hard to shake.
“Robin!” she says delightedly while he's calming his heart rate, flying over to him with a surprisingly excited expression. He feels a brief flash of guilt remembering that she's probably been alone most of the week. Really, Suzie isn't in an ideal living situation either, but she also doesn't have any physical needs and can't pass for a normal human and is being actively hunted by a dubiously moral government organization, so . . .
Fuck, Tim thinks.
. . . maybe he can move Suzie into Kon's future cul-de-sac later, if he gets him one in a quiet enough area. Or maybe it'll be time to burn down the world as a supervillain before that and she can just live wherever she likes. Just–she's on his to-do list now, either way. And now that he’s thinking about it, maybe Cissie would be better off with a place to live that wasn’t either a boarding school or her mother, and–
Maybe he can just buy a whole neighborhood and move everyone he knows into it. Maybe that's an option.
He'll start some soft plans and go from there, Tim figures. Once he’s got things settled with Kon, at least, since he’s the one currently in the shitty cloning lab. At least Suzie’s not in a lab anymore.
God, why is this a concern in their lives, whether or not any of them are in labs or not? Also why was he not more concerned by this sooner, all things considered?
Or, like, why don’t any of the adults in Kon’s damn life care about him in any way that is even remotely visible from an outsider perspective. Or that.
Tim’s pretty sure any relevant “caring” wouldn’t even be visible from Kon’s perspective, given the way he talks and how sure he was that Robin wouldn’t think there was anything weird or wrong or straight-up ethically appalling about him professionally risking his life for a shitty cloning lab for room and board and literally nothing else.
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Ko-fi thank-you sentences for Mango Bat; Billy adopts Conner and it actually goes pretty good!
(( chrono || non-chrono ))
His backpack’s still at the Rock of Eternity. He should go get it, probably.
He’ll just–get it later, he guesses. Later’ll be fine. His stuff’s safe at the Rock of Eternity, and it’s not like he really needs any of it right now. Batman got them so much stuff, and he’s not small enough to fit in any of his usual clothes right now anyway, so . . . so it’s not really important. He doesn’t really own anything important, anyway.
Not anymore, he means.
Obviously.
But–it’s still his stuff, even if he doesn’t need it right now. So . . .
So he doesn’t know, he guesses.
. . . he’ll just get it later.
Billy turns back to Lynn and Tawky and smiles encouragingly at Lynn. Lynn didn't talk to Tawky about the library idea, so Billy's increasingly sure he just doesn't like to talk, but that's still fine, yeah. Like–it's not a big deal or anything, he means.
As long as Lynn actually means what he says, that's all that really matters, Billy figures.
“What do you think, library or alone time?” he asks, trying to sound casual and low-pressure about it. Kids Lynn’s age don’t usually have to make so many decisions all the time, so he wants to make sure it’s not stressful for him. “Or something else?”
“. . . I don’t know,” Lynn says, looking down at Tawky in his lap. “You pick.”
. . . well, that technically is a decision, Billy figures. Like–still counts and all.
“Okay,” he says. “How about we try the library, then? It’s pretty quiet there, usually, and if you want some alone time you can go in one of the reading rooms or something.”
“. . . sure,” Lynn says, and then it occurs to Billy, abruptly–
“Did Cadmus teach you to read?” he asks. Lynn bristles defensively, and Billy represses a wince. Okay, bad question.
“I can read,” Lynn says, tightening his grip on Tawky. “And write. I know things.”
“Okay,” Billy says, still trying not to wince. Man, he didn't mean to ask anything sensitive or anything. “Um–sorry, I just wasn’t sure if they had or not. Like, if you were gonna want me to read to you or if I had to teach you or–um. Sorry.”
Lynn . . . blinks. Looks–odd, briefly.
“. . . you would’ve done that?” he asks, and sounds odd too.
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