Chapter Text
The diner is mostly empty, which is merciful, and the waitress is in fact unphased by the arrival of a beat-up vigilante accompanied by a nervous-looking kid in lab scrubs. Tim pretends not to recognize the trio of Two-Face goons tucked away in the back corner booth and they pretend not to recognize him right back, thank theoretically-possible-but-still-unproven God. Or maybe just, like, the entire Greek pantheon, who have been very definitively proven. Tim doesn't know exactly how bulletproof Kon is right now, but he seriously doubts the waitress and cook and scattered handful of other patrons are.
Honestly his body armor’s not exactly in the best condition of its existence either, after surviving the past seventy-six hours of interdimensional crisis situation on nothing but way too little caffeine and way too much righteous fury while simultaneously having to put up with way, way too many moments of literally even BATMAN would not have come prepared for this fucking bullshit, what the actual fucking FUCK.
You know, just while they’re on the subject and all.
Tim orders himself a very black coffee, orders Kon a hot chocolate with whipped cream, and orders both of them a plate of pancakes and scrambled eggs. Kon could probably use the protein, he figures, but he doesn’t know how well the kid’ll tolerate anything too greasy, and anyway, what kid doesn't like pancakes and scrambled eggs? And he really doesn't want to make Kon think he's taking advantage of him being "stupid" or lying to him about things, so he’s also going to have to eat something before he inadvertently reinforces those suspicions.
Which, well—frankly Tim'd eat any damn thing he had to if it'd help this poor kid trust him, up to and including speedster cooking or Dick’s . . . well, technically it counts as “cooking”.
Arguably.
From a certain point of view.
The point is, “certain point of view” or not, Tim would eat it, and then he’d go blow up this reality's LexCorp if he had to. Maybe go find a few more realities' versions too, if that was what it took to help this kid feel safe with him.
He wouldn’t exactly mind the excuse to right now, all things considered.
Kon takes his first sip of hot chocolate while they're waiting for their plates and Tim's checking his still mostly-functional police scanner just to make sure there's not an Arkham breakout or alien invasion or random flash mob going on, and nearly chokes on it.
"It's sweet," Kon blurts, his eyes wide with awe. "And warm!"
Tim really, really hates Lex Luthor.
"Yeah," he says. "Do you like it?"
He's assuming the kid does, both because he is in fact a kid and because he's Kon, who is genuinely worse than Bart about decimating the base's hot chocolate supply and also frequently steals Cassie's when she doesn't drink it fast enough, but it seems polite to ask. Kon nods, staring at him with uncomfortably big and shiny eyes.
Tim, again, hates Lex Luthor.
"It's really for me?" Kon asks, curling his hands tentatively around his mug. "I didn't even do anything for it."
Tim should've just razed that whole reality on his way out, actually.
"It's definitely for you," he says. "I thought you'd like it, and I wanted to give you something you'd like. That's all. It's a gift, not a reward."
Kon blinks those too-shiny eyes a few times as they get concerningly shinier, then ducks his head and takes another sip of the hot chocolate.
"Thank you," he mumbles into his mug.
"You're welcome," Tim says, making a mental note to buy hot chocolate in bulk for the rest of his life. Even if the absolute worst happens and he literally never sees this kid again, he’s gonna have a stock of hot chocolate on deck for him just in case. You can never be too prepared in their line of work, much less ever know what to expect, and—
. . . well, no. Not their line of work, Tim realizes.
This version of Kon isn't a superhero.
That's such a weird thought. His Kon was effectively born a superhero, but this one . . .
Tim's met a few active members of the vigilante and hero community who were this young, of course, even if it’s uncommon. Hell, Damian was active at ten. So was Jon Kent, and that's probably more relevant, considering the respective powersets involved.
But this Kon only knows being an experiment and being told that he was expected to become what Lex Luthor wanted him to be, and that's not the same thing. Not even close to it.
Tim doesn't know how to feel about that, aside from angry and sad and about seven percent closer to becoming Gun Batman. This Kon is nothing like the one he knows, though. He hasn’t shown a single trace of the bold confidence and reckless eagerness and stubborn defiance that Tim's always known Kon to have.
But the kid was willing to trust a stranger in a mask when he shouldn't have known how to trust anyone, and he shared the support and protection of his TTK with that stranger, and he tries so hard.
Even if he weren’t Kon, Tim would’ve done all this and then some for him.
“You're not hurt anywhere, are you?” he asks, and Kon peers at him over his melting whipped cream. He looks confused by the question. Tim tables processing why a kid who just left an ethically-bankrupt lab full of actively-exploding C-4 would be confused by that question until later, so he can punch a wall about it when Kon isn't around to get upset about it.
Just—later, yeah.
“Just where I usually am,” Kon answers after a moment as he flicks his eyes down to his mug again, his body language very small and voice very quiet and soft.
He is very, very different from Tim's Kon, and Tim hates thinking about what must've made him that different.
“Where's ‘usually’?” he asks, trying not to clench his jaw. He might crack his teeth if he does, at this point.
“. . . where Daddy touches me,” Kon mumbles after another moment, almost too quiet to be heard, and ducks his head in—
Fuck. That's shame, Tim recognizes in distant fury, though he's only ever seen it on his Kon when the other’d thought he was responsible for someone getting hurt or that he'd failed to help someone.
And, well . . . maybe when he'd found out about having Luthor's DNA in his build, Tim can’t help recalling now.
“Where he touches you,” he echoes very, very carefully. Kon just nods mutely, staring down into his mug.
Tim actually could've unmade this kid's entire reality down to the last atom and it wouldn't make up for this.
Fuck.
“He hurt you,” he says.
“It was important,” Kon says, not looking up. “He had to. So he could . . . take samples and run tests and . . . and so I'd . . . so I'd learn, and be . . .”
“Kid,” Tim cuts him off tightly, because he doesn't know what else to say and if he has to hear the rest of that sentence he might actually scream, which would not incline those Two-Face goons in the back to keep pretending to ignore them right now. “No one should touch you without your permission. People who do are fucking assholes.”
“. . . oh,” Kon says very, very softly, his fingers just barely tightening on his mug.
Tim should've nuked that damn reality, he thinks. Or at least driven its LexCorp's stock prices into the ground.
“What Luthor was doing to you—that wasn't okay,” he says, the words painful to get out and even just think about, but definitely necessary for Kon to hear. “That was awful, actually. He should never have hurt you like that.”
“I mean . . . he kept other people from touching me without—permission, so . . .” Kon trails off uncertainly, his shoulders hunching.
Tim hates Lex Luthor.
“Did you really not want anyone else to ever touch you? Just—not at all?” he asks, unable to help remembering how all the scientists and techs had kept back from Kon the whole time he'd watched; how no one but Luthor had ever so much as even brushed against him. They hadn't even gone into his personal space.
And Kon had looked so, so longing and so, so afraid every time that Luthor had.
Of course he had.
“N-no,” Kon stutters, ducking his head even lower and letting go of his hot chocolate to wrap his fingers around his metal ID cuff instead. “But . . .”
“But what?” Tim asks as carefully as he can, and Kon cringes.
“I wanted—I wanted it sometimes,” he says, twisting his fingers tightly around his cuff. It must be promethium or something similarly durable to survive that treatment unwarped, no matter how far along Kon’s TTK is. “Um . . . like, I wanted to hold hands or get . . . hugged, maybe, or just . . . just get my hair petted. Um—and the kissing wasn't too bad, I guess, and the other petting was . . . fine, just . . .”
Tim didn't mean it like that. He really, really didn't mean it like that.
But of course that's what Kon thinks, isn't it. He's three or four months old, and he's never been anywhere but locked up in that awful, awful lab. He doesn't know anything else.
Has he even really flown before, Tim wonders? Does he have any idea what his powers are actually like, beyond just what he's been told they’re supposed to be like?
“What do you mean, ‘other petting’?” he asks, feeling nauseous even saying the words. He hates to ask, but he has to be sure. Has to know he's not going to accidentally say anything that'll hurt Kon or make him think . . .
“Just—petting,” Kon says, and swallows roughly. He's still not looking at him. He still looks ashamed. “Da—Lex pets me, when I'm . . . when he . . .”
“Is that all he does when he touches you?” Tim asks, clinical and neutral and about ready to vomit.
“Uh, no. But I mean—well, like, sometimes he wants me to touch him so that's, um . . . different, I guess,” Kon mumbles very, very quietly. “But I'm not very good at it so he always says I need to . . . try harder.”
Tim takes a moment to smother the seething, all-encompassing rage before it can show, just to be sure Kon won't misunderstand the reason for it. Kids blame themselves for that kind of thing, usually, especially when it's in reaction to something they've said. Especially abused kids. So Tim has to be careful, because if he makes Kon feel even the slightest bit like he's the problem here, or like it's him that he’s disgusted by . . .
No. Tim’s not letting that happen.
“You don't have to touch anyone you don't want to either,” he says as evenly as he can. “Even if they tell you to. That’s your decision. Not anyone else’s.”
“I can try harder,” Kon says nervously, twisting his grip on his cuff again and finally peering up at Tim again worriedly. “I’ll be good. I mean—better. And—and you’re really nice, I’d rather do that stuff for you than for Lex anyway. Even the stuff that . . . feels weird.”
Tim is going to fucking vomit if he’s not careful here, and Kon will definitely not understand why and assume he’s fucked up somehow; assume he’s the problem, and Tim definitely, definitely can’t let that happen.
It’s the hardest thing in the world not to let that feeling show right now, though.
“If I ever, ever try to get you to do anything like that, assume I'm either being mind-controlled or impersonated by a sadist and just fucking run, alright?” he replies evenly, digging his fingers into the crooks of his elbows underneath the fall of his cape; keeping his breathing careful and even. “Hurt me if you have to. As much as you need to. Just do whatever it takes to get away from me.”
Kon stares at him for a moment, looking lost, then hunches his shoulders and shrinks in even smaller on himself, all nervous anxiety and obvious distress. Tim finds it in himself to feel even more nauseous than he already did. He doesn’t even know if he wants to know what Kon’s thinking, but if he doesn’t figure it out, it’s not going to end well.
“. . . but . . . w-why?” Kon asks in a small voice. “You don't want—I don't get it. You don’t—like me?”
Tim doesn’t even know how to answer that, but he’s suddenly really, really empathizing with Jason’s “just kill the bastards” approach a lot more than usual.
Bruce couldn’t have proven anything if he’d shanked that other Lex Luthor with a birdarang and just not mentioned it after getting back. It’d been a whole other reality; how would he have ever known? Tim just would’ve had to make sure he’d done it where Kon couldn’t have seen and he would’ve been in the clear. He could’ve at least maimed the bastard a bit, if nothing else.
Or just fucking gelded him.
“I like you,” Tim says very, very evenly. “So I’m not going to hurt you like that. Ever.”
Kon . . . blinks, slowly, and his shoulders hunch even farther.
“Because you know I’m bad at it?” he asks, his voice so small that Tim can barely hear it. Tim wants to smash his own head in.
“Because I don’t want you hurt,” he tells him. “Or in pain, or unhappy. I want you to be safe and taken care of, and I don’t want anyone to ever touch you in any way that you don’t like.”
“I—I can like it, I—” Kon starts to stutter, visibly forcing himself to flick his eyes up and lean towards him, and Tim cuts him off because he cannot listen to the rest of that sentence right now. Just—he really just can’t.
“No,” he says as evenly as he can. “That’s not something you have to do. Ever. You don’t need to hurt yourself for anyone, no matter what.”
“. . . but you won’t like me,” Kon whispers, ducking his head and shrinking in on himself again. “You won’t . . . you’ll get a better weapon. Not an . . . abomination.”
Tim feels so much worse than he knows how to handle while waiting for pancakes in a Crime Alley diner with a kid who desperately needs him to keep it together, but he’s a Bat, and he’s used to that kind of thing. He can compartmentalize.
He’ll wait to cry over this until later, is what he means.
“I don’t like you because you’re a weapon, kid,” he says. “You’re not a weapon, for starters. And even if you were, that wouldn’t have anything to do with why I broke you out. I didn’t go into Cadmus to steal a weapon. I went in for you.”
“. . . why?” Kon asks, obviously lost for any possible reason, and Tim is definitely going to be crying over this later.
“You remember I’m not from your reality’s Gotham, right?” he asks carefully. “It made sense when I explained that?”
“You’re from Hypertime. Not the Omniverse. An alternate timeline, not an alternate dimension,” Kon says, biting the inside of his cheek; twisting his cuff around his wrist again. “The Earth 0 of your multiverse. Prime Earth. Da—Lex called it New Earth, though. He didn’t like calling another reality ‘Prime’, even one from a different multiverse.”
“That’s right,” Tim confirms, wondering what the fuck Luthor expected from this kid anyway, if he understands all that at this age. “I don’t exist in your reality. I mean—there are other Robins there, but not specifically a version of me. I was never even born there, as far as I could tell.”
“I’m sorry,” Kon says, looking upset. Tim loves this kid, and fucking hates Lex Luthor.
“A version of you was born here, though,” he tells him, and Kon—stills. “Our Cadmus made him older than yours made you. They were trying to make an adult from the start. A full-grown Superman. But the process got interrupted, and he came out physiologically sixteen instead.”
“Sixteen?” Kon bites his lip. “So he’s—a better weapon than me. Better . . . developed.”
“He’s not a weapon either,” Tim says, digging his fingers in harder underneath the fall of his cape and shaking his head, just once. “He’s my friend. I’ve known him most of his life, actually. He’s about twenty or so now, physiologically. Literally, closer to six. Had some aging issues for a while there, but they’re fixed now. His superhero name’s Supernova.”
“‘Superhero’?” Kon repeats very, very quietly, and stares at Tim with the biggest, most fragile eyes he’s ever seen on a kid who wasn’t sitting next to a dead body.
“Yes,” Tim says. “We work together. We’re on a team. He’s my best friend.”
“So . . .” Kon trails off, looking . . . fragile, still.
“So I wasn’t going to leave any version of you stuck in any place like that lab. Not for anything,” Tim says tightly, because he really doesn’t think this Kon’s capable of understanding anything along the lines of because you’re a person and you have VALUE just yet. “You’re too important to me.”
“I’m a clone,” Kon says, his eyes just barely unfocusing and his voice almost toneless. “A clone you already—already have a better version of.”
“I don’t listen to Supernova when he says that about himself compared to Superman,” Tim says. “So I’m definitely not going to listen to you saying it about yourself compared to him.”
Kon . . . blinks, very slowly, and then ducks his head with a wet little sniff. A few tears drip onto the table. Tim takes a swallow of his coffee to give the kid a moment to pull himself together. The pancakes arrive before he does, though, and the waitress takes one look at the miserable little hunch of physiological ten year-old sitting in front of her and then brings him another hot chocolate without even asking. Tim makes a mental note to tip her extra. Just—so much extra.
She put marshmallows in with the whipped cream for the new hot chocolate, Tim notices.
He might just tip her whatever her rent is, actually. He could probably figure that out. Or he’ll just high-ball the local average; whichever.
Tim eats a few bites of his eggs and keeps an eye on Kon as the other scrubs the tears off his face. He keeps hating Lex Luthor, because he can’t imagine why a kid born in a lab environment would willingly cry in front of someone else, especially after being “raised” by someone like Lex Luthor, and he can’t help suspecting the answer is something fucked-up like the bastard not discouraging it because he liked seeing it.
It’s an assumption, technically, but it seems . . . statistically plausible, as an explanation.
Tim decides to just not to let himself think about that statistical plausibility for the moment and drinks his coffee. Kon mostly stops crying, but Tim still considers going criminally insane about the last few tears that drip down his heartbroken-looking little face.
He really hopes the kid is just scared and overwhelmed and not, like . . . terrified and fucking miserable right now. That he’s crying because it’s safe to cry now, and not because of—anything else.
He really, really hopes that.
God, this hurts.
Tim should’ve ordered the kid a bigger stack of pancakes. Maybe several bigger stacks, actually. Just—no, no, he doesn’t want to overwhelm him any worse here, just—
Tim takes a careful breath, then finishes off his coffee and eats the rest of his eggs. The waitress gives him a refill without him having to ask, and said refill has the consistency of roofing tar. He’s definitely tipping her at least her rent. Maybe her rent squared. “Squared” is tempting, after the past seventy-six hours.
He really, really needed this coffee. Just—this is a very necessary application of caffeine.
Kon eats his own food in careful little bites and cries over it a couple times during the process. Tim doesn’t really know if he wants to know why, which is an increasingly recurring feeling he’s been having in regards to this kid, but suspects it’s probably because—
“It tastes good,” Kon eventually says very, very quietly, his voice still very small, and Tim does not, actually, have a word strong enough for how much he hates Lex Luthor.
“Good,” he says as evenly as he can while trying not to lose his entire goddamn mind. “I’m glad you like it.”
Kon hiccups, then squeezes his eyes shut. A few more tears leak out. He doesn’t cover his face or try to turn away.
Tim compartmentalizes. Pretends he didn’t have the thought about the idea of Luthor liking to see him cry. Pretends this is just any kid. Any victim. Any . . .
No. Tim can’t pretend this is just anyone.
This is a version of his best friend from a reality where he doesn’t exist himself, and where his best friend doesn’t have any friends at all. Has never had anything at all, except all the worst of everything his reality had to give.
This isn’t just anyone. This is his goddamn friend.
This is Kon.
So no, Tim can’t compartmentalize about this, and he isn’t about to insult either of them by pretending he ever could.
“I’m going to take you to my place after this, alright?” he says. “Just for now. You can get some sleep while I . . . take care of some things.”
Like his possible-concussion, his various cuts and abrasions, the broken ribs he’s pretty sure he has, and definitely the fact that his mouth tastes like blood and coffee, which is not an ideal combination. At all.
It’s more of an acquired taste, maybe.
. . . alright, that wasn’t even funny to him. He’s really off his game right now.
“‘Sleep’?” Kon repeats, and looks nervous. Tim feels an instinctive wave of nausea and wonders how many more times that’s going to happen when talking to this kid.
“What do you think ‘sleep’ means?” he asks as neutrally as he can.
“Se . . . sedation,” Kon says hesitantly. “For—for procedures. And . . . and . . .”
Okay, Tim reflects. So the answer was “at least once more”.
“That’s not what it means, kid,” he says, carefully even again. “I just want you to rest. Get your energy back and take care of yourself. Same as I want you to eat, and have things you like, and not get hurt.”
“. . . oh,” Kon says, his voice back to that small, small little mumble.
Tim takes his last sip of coffee, very slowly. Kon stares down at his near-empty plate. A couple more tears drip down onto it. Tim could’ve actually destroyed that entire reality down to the atomic level and it still wouldn’t have done one single thing to make up for this.
He can’t imagine what ever, ever could.
“Are you about ready to go? It’s okay if you’re not,” he says. Kon just nods mutely and pushes his near-empty plate an inch or two away; twists the “13”-stamped cuff around his wrist again.
Tim wishes that any of the awful, violent thoughts he’s had since first meeting this kid would actually do a thing to help him. Wishes anything so simple could actually do anything for him.
“Okay,” he says, then leaves cash on the table and gets up. He keeps pretending to ignore the Two-Face goons in the back, and they keep pretending to ignore him. Kon gets up too, still looking upset, and starts to lift a hand towards him before just—stopping.
Tim isn’t sure if that was a reflex or not, but . . .
“Would you mind if we held hands again?” he asks, offering his own. “I don’t want to fall again.”
Kon sniffles, then rubs the back of his cuffed wrist across his eyes.
“You’re just saying that,” he mumbles, his voice all wobbly, but he grabs Tim’s hand anyway and grips it tight.
His TTK grips him tight too.
Tim doesn’t comment, for obvious reasons. He just says, “Thank you,” and tightens his own grip just enough to match Kon’s while making sure to keep the shape of that grip as simple as possible for the kid to pull out of if he changes his mind. Kon notices that, Tim thinks. Or at least, he’s pretty sure Kon notices that.
Probably, he figures, since the kid basically velcros himself to his side after that.
This is the hardest that Tim’s ever made anyone cry before, and might be one of the hardest things he's ever done. But it's also one of the easiest, too, because he never could've done anything else.
It doesn’t matter whose damn multiverse they’re in, when his best friend needs him.