![[I saw three ships]](../2005-1icon.png)
The statue outside the tower—"their" Titans, where the Founders usually stand—should have been much more obviously wrong, if they were paying proper attention. Getting their asses kicked by older versions of themselves was just unnecessary.
Tim's shoulder almost hurts.
Sitting in the Tower conference room, facing off with uneasy suspicion against their so-called future selves, he can study the situation and process the conversation in the background. At this moment Tim is pleased that Vic is their leader and thus has been doing most of the talking. It affords Tim the opportunity to concentrate on the things these people don't say.
Right now, Tim wishes sharply for Batgirl's ability to read body language, but from here he can deduce that "Animal Man" has had some sort of psychotic break, and recently. His eyes have the staccato tremor of benzodiazepines. "Wonder Woman" tilts her body cleanly away from "Superman" and it's clear there is no real affection there, although Tim thinks he might have learned that cue from Alfred's Hello! magazines about the British royal family. "Raven" is impenetrable, and he does not know Aquawoman.
To his right, Tim can hear Bart and Gar whispering with Cassie about "Batman". Gar and Cassie's tones are irritated, but Bart is nonchalant.
Tim wishes for some sort of telltale facial expression that would confirm or deny just who is wearing that cowl. The irony is painful, so he switches his observation to "Superman" and projects Kon's image forward ten years. In his mind's eye, any discrepancies are negligible and idiosyncratic. He is not simply a copy of Clark; he is leaner, with a more calculating look about his eyes. More contained, too, folding his arms across his chest for reasons other than the lack of conspicuous weaponry, and Tim finds that some part of his brain really approves of this.
He scans back up, cataloguing how the sweep and fall of hair is longer, the way the ridge of collarbone still looks surprisingly delicate in such a large man, and despite this, he's still startled to see how much this "Superman" looks like Kon when he smirks.
At Tim.
Tim has to stop himself from letting his mouth open. He darts a glance to Kon, who raises his eyebrows, which is what he does when he wants to check Tim's okay, and Tim smiles a little bit and turns back to Superman and—
—Superman is swivelling his gaze back from the center of the group. Where it was focussed on Batman. Back to Tim. With intent, and Tim does literally hear blood pounding in his ears.
After Tim had grasped the basics of forensics and criminology to a standard that Bruce considered acceptable for going on with, there had been an excruciating period of theoretical and quantum physics. This was only made bearable by the reassurance that once Heisenberg's uncertainty principle was a comfortable part of Tim's logical thinking then he could tackle Bruce's files labelled under ://miscellanea and veer into the crazy stuff like interdimensional rifts and space-time singularities.
Right now, staring out the window across an unnaturally gloomy San Francisco Bay, Tim is considering the Bat diktat on time travel and its corollary extension on future selves.
Kon is also considering the nature of time travel, though possibly in a far more intuitive way and out-loud while bounce-testing the beds, but there is something to be said for not overthinking these things. Tim's brain is really beginning to hurt.
All empirical and theoretical evidence point to alternative realities being statistically more probable than time-travel.
It's entirely possible that these are not their future selves.
Tim is considering the Reader's Digest version of this to discuss with Kon when Kon decides he wants to find Superman and talk about his… parentage. This would be an extremely bad idea if that were actually future-Kon in the tights downstairs, and Tim says so, but statistically, it's likely to be parallel-universe-Kon and anyhow, his Kon is out the door, leaving Tim alone with thoughts on quantum probabilities and—
The thing is—
The thing is that statistically he doesn't really give a shit because he's freaking the fuck out, because why the fuck would he ever want to be Batman?
Tim's had plenty of these moments in his career, the ones where his life plays back at him in staccato highlights. It happened the first time he jumped off a building. The ground really does come rushing up; it's true. Other times, other moments, when danger and madmen hurtled towards him and it happened—midbrain warred with cortex, memory versus strategy. It's never a chronological slideshow, just a jumble of images (always images: sound is too slow, language too restricting) that seem vitally important and completely incomprehensible.
He knows that everthing outside the door is potentially—dangerously—full of information about this possible future, but he can't stay in this room and wait for Kon. He can't stay still.
He takes the stairs slowly, keeping to the side, keeping to the shadow, one hand drifting on top of the rail like some sort of grounding pin.
He lets his mind spool out cause after potential cause. Counts the bitter moments and bitter months that have passed, but they don't add up. He's lost people, but so has everyone—and some have lost so much more. He still has his father, his friends, his… other family. He's some sort of bizarrely quiet nexus for everyone. Why escapes him. Maybe it's part of being Robin. Maybe it's convenience.
Of course, Tim thinks, this is just one version of the future. Just one of thousands, contingent on small decisions, shaped by conscious choice and the comforting facts that:
- The universe is not entirely random.
- The future is not entirely determined.
- Human beings have free will—
Tim presses his thumb above his eyebrow, hard enough that it hurts. He's thinking about good things. He has to think about the negatives, right? What would make him want to be Batman?
He looks up as the shadows shift, and Superman is standing in front of him.
It is not so strange to see Kon in a cape. Tim feels like he's been waiting for this all his life.
Superman—Kon—he's probably going to think of him as Superman until he's convinced that this man is actually someone that Kon could be in the future, just like he's going to think of Batman as Batman until—
Except that's wrong too, because Bruce—
Except, Dick, and also Jean-Paul, and—okay. Batman is Batman and Superman is Superman and no-one in their right mind should ever put on a costume, let alone someone else's.
Tim shrugs his cape so it falls forward completely. "Superman."
"Robin." He doesn't have an "S" curl, which for some reason Tim had considered part of the Superman uniform just like the cape, but his hair is much longer than the crop that Kon wears, and he has it swept off his forehead. Physiognomy is psuedo-science, so there's no such thing as a noble brow.
"Kon is looking for you," Tim says, wondering why he's volunteering that information. It's possible that this is Kon based on that fact. (It's possible that this is Kon based on the fact that Tim feels the urge to share anything with him.) That fact and the smirk.
"And you're looking for—?"
Tim curls in his bottom lip and bites on it. It's suddenly, painfully obvious to him that he should have done proper recon on the Tower, should have tried to see if he could get into their systems from the empty jack in the bedroom. He has the pod computer in his suit, assuming it isn't fried by all the time-travelling and Wirth's Law has reached some kind of asymptote on software development.
He hates it when it's Bruce's voice that points out the obvious.
"Take me to your leader," Tim says, after a while.
Tim shivers when Superman puts his hand on Tim's back to steer him through the door. It's… it's something that Kon does. No amount of glaring makes him stop, either, and neither does waiting for Kon to go in front of him, because then it's just a forcible shoulder manouvre. The one time Tim had activated the low voltage in the appropriate cape panel Kon had looked so hurt, then he let the door swing shut on Tim's cape and they were even, like always.
Ever since they found out about Kon's genetic make-up Tim can't help himself from ascribing the small details of Kon's personality to environmental influence, Cadmus programming, Clark, or Luthor.
Superman's hand is still on his back, firm, even through the cape, and Tim can't decide if it's midwestern courtesy or Luthorian… charm.
They walk into an antechamber off the conference room and somewhere that looks like a cross between a hotel lobby and the Batcave, if only for the incongruous juxtaposition of designer armchairs and a midnight-blue abstract painting with the NEC workstation and dozens of surveillance monitors. The monitors are the only source of light.
One exit—two counting the plate-glass window.
"Three if you could get to the aircon," Batman says, turning on his heel and facing Tim, "but you'd have to account for the possiblity of lasers. And the glass is impervious to projectiles."
Tim's mouth twitches. "So is Superman."
"Sit down, Robin," Superman says, his hand on Tim's shoulder now.
Batman makes a sound. "Conner, he won't—"
Tim sits, because there are actually just as many ways to incapacitate a person from this position as from standing. He allows himself a brief glance around the room and recognizes the painting as one of Kyle Rayner's. It hangs in the Watchtower's second meeting room.
Superman leans against the window, creating the illusion that he might be about to sink into the bleak fog of the Bay. "After we got back," he says, "you reamed us all out for not having some kind of secret handshake—"
"Contingency signal," says Batman.
"—for knowing it was really ourselves."
"It's standard practice in Gotham." Tim shifts in the chair. Superman's gaze is very direct. It doesn't waver, and the rest of his face is very still. That's new as well—if that's really Kon.
"Vic doesn't lead the Teen Titans from Gotham." It's not quite a defense. Superman crosses his arms, tilts his head to the side.
The thought has been vexing Tim since the… altercation that marked their arrival. When he's internally harassing himself about operating procedures in Dick's voice he feels about twelve and utterly miserable.
"It should be standard practice, Robin." Batman's voice is not as deep as Bruce's Batman voice, nor Dick's. "A good leader would know that."
The implication hangs in the air treacherously. Tim feels a cold drip of dread in his belly and he stands up. "You shouldn't—I don't need to know."
Batman looks at him steadily. There is a slice of slight humour in the set of his mouth, and against his better judgement Tim feels calm, and his fingers stop twitching toward the promise of weaponry in his belt.
It does seem as though his better judgement has, actually, left him entirely when he steps forward and raises his left hand, considers, and strips off the gauntlet.
The scar on Batman's upper lip is paler than his own, but it is in absolutely the same position—
(The cover was a snowboarding accident, because skateboarding would have knocked out his teeth, and Freeze was actually in Aspen that time—)
—and it feels identical under the pad of Tim's thumb.
Batman waits until Tim lifts his thumb away before he curls his fingers around Tim's wrist, pushes Tim's arm away slightly. "Robin," he says, and Tim realises that's not his Batman voice at all, "is it scars that will convince you?"
Tim bites at the inside of his mouth and tries to steady his breathing to something unremarkable, but that's impossible when Batman drags Tim's hand to his face, uses Tim's hand to push back the cowl.
He is so conditioned to seeing Bruce's face that he expects it, and for a second he sees it, the broader jaw and longer nose, until he refocuses, and his own face—older, more solid, a deep scar above his left eye—is there, regarding him with a cool shade of amusement.
Tim has a thousand questions, all of which he will not ask, and all of which boil down to "How?"
"Here?" he says instead, pressing his free hand above his hipbone where there is a four inch welt, still pink and three-weeks-raw from Firefly's burn. Batman doesn't let go but mirrors the motion with Tim's hand, hoisting the (thinner, more flexible, almost glossy in its blackness) fabric of the suit aside. The skin there is uneven and discolored, and Tim snatches back his hand with a jolt, as if the burn itself was hot.
"Convinced?" asks Batman. Tim can't—he just can't think of this man as himself: the pattern of black hair and blue eyes is something that Tim always refuses to dwell on in any deep psychological sense, and right at this moment he has a moment of gratitude to Bruce for allowing him to maintain some sort of identity fiction.
He desperately wants Batman to put the cowl back on.
"Near enough for, uh, government work," Tim swallows, clenching his ungloved hand into a fist because it feels so naked, and to his left he can hear Kon chuckle, a rumbly sound that fills the room.
Batman looks over to the window. "Conner," he says, and to Tim it sounds like an entire mission plan is contained in the two syllables of Superman's name—and, and, that's the jarring thing, the most weird thing, because Kon is Kon-El, jesus—it's his Kryptonian name, something he's fiercely protective of, and Conner was only ever a disguise, and Tim just does not understand why he would give that away.
Tim turns around, or he's turned around—it's not clear at all. There's some inexorable force at work, and he blames the slow firing of his own synapses, fried out on his future-self, for not knowing immediately that Kon is using his telekinesis. It's the same as it always was, when he first met Kon and he couldn't shut the fuck up about it, couldn't quit picking Tim up and putting him someplace else with his mind… except for how it's so very different; deft, unobtrusive, intimate.
There is no real personal space either behind or in front of Tim anymore.
His training demands a danger response, but his body is not cooperative on that score because he is heavily lethargic and buzzing. It could be adrenaline, it could be sleep deprivation. His eyes are blurry, it's true. He blinks and blinks again at Kon, shivers with the ache of restraint, lets himself have one question.
"You—why are you Conner? That—it was never your real name."
Something hard and brittle changes Kon's face momentarily as he looks up past Tim to Batman, and Tim shivers again. A long moment passes until Kon says, "it was deemed… appropriate," in a kind of farmboy drawl that ends in a very direct smirk, the high-amp version of the one in the conference room.
"You know you can't learn anything here," says Batman, still behind him, but stepping back against the console when Kon shifts Tim back with the TK, again, and Tim's not trapped exactly but he's very, very conscious of proximity. And his breathing, and his utter inability to stop searching Kon's face for clues, to just step away and leave.
If Kon has developed super-hearing like Clark then Tim's attempts to calm his racing pulse are futile, but he feels he has to at least make the effort. Until Kon tips up Tim's face, his fingers under Tim's chin, and unclasps the fastening on his cape, because at that the effort becomes fairly monumental and a little pointless, and Tim sucks in a breath loudly.
He should go.
Kon's touch is light, pushing the cape back over Tim's shoulders into Batman's hands.
He should really go.
The hand on his face has too many fingers to belong to one person.
Leave, Drake, he thinks, but he closes his eyes instead and feels his mouth fall open at the slightest brush of sensation.
"You never stop wanting this," his own voice murmurs just before Kon kisses him properly and Tim's knees actually buckle with the searing rush of serotonin. He tries to breathe as Kon kisses him, shifting him to new angles, tilting Tim's face to his own and licking at the corners of his mouth until it feels like an electric shock when his tongue brushes skin.
When Kon lets him go Tim actually hiccups to breathe.
He's alarmingly okay with being steadied by Batman's hands around his forearms, pulling him back flush against armor that doesn't feel like anything Tim has actual experience with, and that makes it a little better, a little more foreign. "I sh—I should—I—" is all he can manage of the necessary I should get the fuck out of here, but oh fuck, Kon knows every catch and trap in this Robin suit, releases them all, belt clattering to the floor and Tim feels like his body loses its boundaries, his muscles untensing from the constraint of the kevlar, softer everywhere except for where he's so, so hard. He bites down on the inside of his cheek to stifle a groan when Kon settles the indents of his palms on Tim's hips, biting against his skin with long fingers and pressing them down almost, not quite, painfully enough.
"Then you shouldn't have—" Kon says, invisible force tilting Tim's head to the side, brushing a lock of hair off his nape so slowly that Tim wants to scream, it's so agonizing, "—left your room," and then Kon's mouth is hard and wet on the soft carotid thrumming in Tim's neck and he needs to be steadied again. He clutches behind himself, grasping hard at the big muscles in Batman's thighs so he can stay upright while Kon's hands drag down off his hips and push Tim's shorts and tights and everything out of the way and. Oh. Oh, fuck:
"Watch," Batman says, and slides his grip down to Tim's wrists, pushing them hard against his thighs while Kon shoves Tim right up against Batman's chest, his head thunking back against shoulder and the slick material of Batman's cape, and Tim watches while Kon—so fucking gracefully, how is that even possible—folds himself onto his knees before Tim.
Down in front of him, and Kon slips his hands into the bend of Tim's knees, circling and pressing into soft skin that is dangerously sensitive and makes Tim whimper without hope of stopping the stupid sounds he's making.
"Watch," Batman says again, but when Tim looks down and sees Kon framed by the fall of his cape, eyelashes spilling dark shadows around a gaze that is almost a sneer, and strong hands pushing Tim's thigh's apart, Tim squeezes his eyes shut hard; his cock jerks and he shoves his hips forward helplessly, because he wants, so very badly.
Kon leans closer, scrapes fingernails up the back of Tim's thighs, but he's not close enough. "Ask for it, Robin."
Oh, fuck. Tim can't—he can't even think—Kon's breath is warm on his dick and he's right there, his mouth, and he tries, tries to stutter out, "—Kon—"
"I said ask." Kon's fingers dig into Tim's ass and he stretches up on his tiptoes, riding it.
"Y—your mouth, Conner," Batman says—jesus, it is actually his own voice under there, catching on the words, and Tim has no time to think about the absolute mindfuck he's just been subjected to before he whines, high and embarrassing, as Kon tongues the head of his cock before canting Tim's hips forward and sucking him in.
It's so—god, so good, so tight and heavy in his balls and the wet heat of Kon's fucking amazing mouth around his dick and everything is so focussed in the center of his belly—the muscles in his ass are spasming with some sort of involuntary rhythm and he jerks his hips forward with it, his head pressing back hard against Batman's shoulder and every breath loudly inhaled, air hitting the back of his throat because his jaw is lax and open, working mindlessly in time with the movement of his body while Kon lets Tim fuck his mouth.
"This is what it's like to be spoiled," Batman says against Tim's cheek, and Tim is too far gone to register anything but sensation where there is a kiss against his temple and the humid hot-cold of quickening breath, which is—it's better not to be disturbed about how good that feels, so he focusses hazily on the tightening pull and rush of blood to his cock, away from his brain and his limbs, all of which are useless and meaningless as Kon blows him and pushes Tim's thigh up, hooks it over Batman's thigh without ever taking his hands from Tim's ass, and then there's fingers between his legs and he is—he is heat and liquid and coming, spasming hard at the feel of his own body-warm come on the head of his dick before Kon—jesus fuck—swallows, and it's too much.
When he opens his eyes again Kon is wiping a thumb across his mouth and looking at Batman with a smile that is all Luthor.
On balance, Tim thinks, it won't actually bother him too much if there's memory alteration in his immediate future.
It just bothers him that he thinks of it before he sees the look pass between them.
When he opens his eyes once more, Kon—his Kon, wide-eyed—is bursting into the room, frantic. "We have to go. Now."
Tim blinks, and follows.
![[fin]](../2005-1banner.png)