WIP excerpt for Derpsheep behind the cut; “a fake cryptid and a real romantic”.
(( chrono || non-chrono || AO3 ))
"Oh, cool," Superboy says, looking relieved. "So uh—yeah, I wasn't sure if you'd wanna do at least some of the nest, so like, I kinda went for a cross between a bowerbird and a weaver? Also maybe kinda a little bit of swan, I seriously did not know if you'd appreciate the swan approach, but they're pretty cool, their bites can literally crack human bone without counting the part where they don't, like, let go right away and there's, uh, ripping and tearing involved. Like—a lot of it, I guess, it's actually pretty fucking sick, if—anyway! I figured doing the bower thing was a good start, and I did most of the actual pendant too, but I got a bunch of stuff for you to do whatever you wanna do to finish it, or like you can just tell me how you want me to finish it, or—uh."
Superboy cuts himself off with a wince, looking—flustered, maybe, or maybe embarrassed. Tim still can't see where the nest is, aside from clearly being somewhere on the thirteenth floor.
". . . 'bowerrrrr'?" Tim asks finally, for lack of literally any better idea.
"Uh—yeah!" Superboy looks even more sheepish than last time. "Does that, uh—work for you?"
Tim has literally no idea what the hell Superboy is talking about right now, and this is an unfortunately inconvenient time to google whatever the hell a "bower" is. He thought it was some kind of fancy old medieval word for "cottage", but . . . apparently not?
". . . yesssss," Tim replies slowly, because again, there's a significant lack of literally any better ideas currently in his life. He can just figure out what the hell a "bower" is from context clues while—
"Rad!" Superboy says, immediately lighting up with obvious excitement again, then seeming to catch himself and coughing into his fist as he floats back a couple feet and visibly adjusts his posture to be less "leaning in like a flower towards the sun" and more "mostly upright, kinda". Tim, unfortunately, misses the "flower towards the sun" vibes, though not quite as much as he misses having basic dignity and self-control.
He is so gone on this guy.
This is really not a thing he knows how to be normal about. Well, like—it's actually that Superboy is not a guy that Tim knows how to be normal about, is the thing. Like—the "thing" is actually just Tim's entire lack of coping skills for getting presented with a custom-made fifty-carat heart-shaped diamond.
Who even says "rad" unironically? Who even actually, like . . . seriously, who does that?
Though admittedly Tim wears a vocoder and speaks in broken English and unholy avian shrieking as, like, a recreational after-school activity, so maybe he doesn't have room to talk there.
Probably he does not have room to talk there, yeah.
"Um . . . is it weird if I carry you in, or is that, like . . . too fast?" Superboy asks, sneaking a glance towards the building again and putting his hands behind his back again too. "I mean like, is that, y'know . . . moving too fast, or like—uh—y'know?"
Tim has a moment of what in the darkest pits of Gotham is the overwhelmingly ride-or-die teen idol superhero who's trying to ruin my life talking about?—again—and then realizes . . .
Oh god, is Superboy asking to carry him over the threshold?
Tim is not prepared for this level of intensity on a second date, no matter how gone he is on this guy. Though he also wasn't prepared for the heart-shaped diamond and catnapping one-two combo the literal first time they met, so . . .
Yeah, okay. Tim very much does not have room to talk here. Tim the opposite of has room to talk here.
". . . flyyyyy," he says, mostly in self-defense. Which is a pretty weak defense, considering, but really the only working idea he's got right now.
". . . okay, I don't know if that means me flying you or you flying yourself or—like, no offense, just the, uh, total lack of adjectives or pronouns or nouns or, uh . . ." Superboy trails off awkwardly, looking sheepish.
Tim, unfortunately, has not succeeded at self-defense. At all.
Frick.
Alright, well, this is already completely mortifying, so might as well commit, Tim guesses resignedly.
"Flyyyyyyyyyy," he repeats, then lifts an arm and fires his grapple past Superboy and across the gap between the water tower and the Ambassador, because he is just goddamn not putting up with this. Like. At all.
"You—" Superboy starts, looking back over his shoulder towards the Ambassador, but Tim does not let him finish that sentence or let himself finish any of the six different lines of thought currently running through his head. He's already lost on the self-defense bid, and already decided to commit. The rest of it's really just details.
He's not Gotham's favorite Robin, but he is one.
Tim twists his wrist and his grapple instantly retracts; rips him right off the top of the water tower in a way he's gotten very good at making look a lot less controlled and a lot less precise than it actually is and throws him across the space between the water tower and the Ambassador.
Specifically, throws him through Superboy's space.
Operating theory: tactile telekinesis is tactile, unlike Kryptonian flight, and therefore would have to require an anchor point to function. Therefore, Superboy shouldn't currently be any more difficult to move than the average flight-capable meta would be.
Therefore: going through Superboy's space.
Tim ends up tackling Superboy across the gap and up against the bronze-barred windows of the Ambassador more than actually carrying him, admittedly, but it does prove his theory pretty soundly.
Except halfway through that tackle Superboy throws his arms around Robin's caped and feathered shoulders in return with a startled little yelp and holds on to him, and Tim realizes—actually, Superboy might've just let him move him.
That is not a thought that helps him stick the landing.
WIP excerpt for Derpsheep behind the cut; “a fake cryptid and a real romantic”.
(( chrono || non-chrono || AO3 ))
Tim chases Superboy across the rooftops—chases his shadow and the Batman's shadow-net, as much as anything—and jumps the gaps between them over and over in quick succession. He sees Superboy flying backwards to watch him and hears him laugh in delight more than once. Gotham's shadows swoop and swing around and after his own path, though the only shadow that follows Superboy—or even show on him at all—is the Batman's net strung beneath him.
Superboy is, in fact, moon-bright and practically luminous in the sky above, which is not helping Tim maintain the strength to make it through this situation.
Superboy leads him all the way to the Diamond District—because of course it's the Diamond District—and Tim's completely out of breath by the time they get there. Which—well, Superboy probably assumes cryptid city splinters don't get winded, so he doubts the other's been bothering to pace himself for human stamina.
. . . Tim does not follow any lines of thought about what Superboy might expect from Robin in terms of stamina, or about why Superboy might take the time to come up with any "expectations" about Robin's stamina.
Jesus.
Superboy pulls ahead farther and spirals up around an isolated, shadowed water tower in the lee of one of the brightest skyscrapers in Gotham—Tim does not have the strength—and then cups his hands around his grinning mouth and calls down: "Up here, Boy Wonderful!"
He's still all lit-up and luminous and moon-bright, and his jacket and sunglasses and pins and studs and buckles all gleam like there's light coming off him more than any of the surrounding buildings.
Tim. Does. Not. Have. The. Strength.
Jesus.
He lets out a breath, then scuttles across the roof to the base of the water tower and fires Robin's grapple straight up underneath the scaffolding. It scrapes in an anchor point that's going to leave a scar like talon marks in the metal, and he hits the recoil trigger and lets it yank him up past the scaffolding as it zips back into his gauntlet. Might as well try to catch his breath here, or at least not lose any more of it on the climb.
Tim lands himself on the top bars of the scaffolding, releases the clamp of his grapple to let it fully wind back into his Robin, and looks around to—
Superboy pops down over the edge of the water tank and grins at him. Tim nearly has a heart attack.
"Hey!" Superboy greets excitedly.
". . . heyyyyy," Tim echoes awkwardly, desperately trying to to get his heart rate to settle into something reasonable. Superboy beaming at him in obvious delight in no way helps him do that, even with the other hanging upside-down. Actually, the upside-down factor adds a sort of charming weirdness on top of all the other charming weirdnesses and at this point might honestly be making things worse.
Okay, no, it's definitely making things worse.
This date is really not going well, by which Tim means that actually this date is going way too well, and the only thing that could possibly make it worse would be if someone did not conveniently try to rob a bank or blow up the police station or something distracting enough to give him an excuse to escape the unfortunate fact of how well this date actually seems to be going.
"So like, I'll move it wherever you want it, obviously, but I thought this'd be the best place to, like, make it?" Superboy explains, gesturing with both hands as he talks. "Like 'cuz it was a good place to hide it while I was making it and also 'cuz it's, you know . . . uh, the diamond one, right? The neighborhood, I mean. So I figured there was probably a lot of stuff you'd like around here?"
". . . 'maaaaake'," Tim repeats blankly. Superboy blushes that ridiculously vibrant red again, then grins sheepishly at him.
"Uh, yeah," he says, and then suddenly looks worried. "You're not the kind of bird that makes the nest, right? I thought you meant you weren't. I mean—I guess technically I thought Nightwing meant—shit. Uh—did I fuck up?"
Dammit, Tim thinks, and grimaces behind Robin's mask.
"Robin nooooo . . . nessssst," he says, and Superboy looks relieved for a moment, and then snaps back to worried.
"Like—do you not do nests at all, you mean?" he asks. "You don't have to come look if it's, like—not your thing, I can, uh—I can just—make you something else, or—something?"
Tim stares blankly at him and tries to wrap his head around the fact that Superboy apparently not only made him a nest, he's willing to just . . . ditch it, because he's just assuming he doesn't like it? Like—assuming he decided not to like it without even seeing it first, even? Jesus, what kind of asshole does the guy think he is?
. . . okay, maybe Superboy's more just assuming that city spirit cryptids might get picky in the face of mediocre offerings or something. Admittedly that might be a thing, under the circumstances. So . . . yeah, basically this is what he gets for not mentioning being human yet, he guesses.
Tim definitely needs to make sure Superboy doesn't think that, because he even more definitely doesn't want to make Superboy think that he expects him to do anything else for him, much less throw out anything he's already done for him.
Tim is really, really hoping that whatever . . . nest Superboy decided to make for him is at least a relatively simple one.
Tim is also not stupid, and perfectly aware of the fact that Superboy made him a D color grade, FL clarity, excellent super ideal cut, fifty-carat, heart-shaped diamond, kidnapped Selina mid-heist like he was just picking up flowers, and also outright stalked him just to introduce himself to him.
So like . . . yeahhhhh, Tim seriously doubts that Superboy is about to show him a handful of awkwardly propped-up sticks in the corner of a random half-trashed warehouse safehouse.
WIP excerpt for Derpsheep behind the cut; “a fake cryptid and a real romantic”.
(( chrono || non-chrono ))
Or it's not that thing, and Tim is just an idiot who's stressing himself out over nothing and also really overestimating how much time and effort Superboy is putting into dating him. But given all prior evidence and literal entire diamonds . . .
Yeah, it's definitely gonna be a nest, Tim resigns his mortified self to, and claws his way up the bricks of a brownstone before leaping off it to take a turn after Superboy.
He's not that good with the grapple, and definitely not good enough to not need the grapple, but Gotham also isn't going to let a Robin lose a chase.
Lose a game, at least by her standards.
Tim leaps off a roof into a free fall and Superboy laughs brightly and follows him down, spiraling through the air around him. It's almost like flying with Nightwing, but nothing like flying with the Batman.
. . . almost nothing like flying with the Batman, Tim amends when he catches a glimpse of a shadowed net lurking in the gaps between the buildings they pass, flickering in and out over and over again. The Batman doesn’t usually follow him with a net anymore–or at least not that closely, anyway, much less on routine patrols–so he’s pretty sure it’s following Superboy. Which, well–yeah, no, it’s definitely following Superboy.
Tim’s vaguely embarrassed that he didn’t notice that sooner, considering. Though–well, he’s been distracted, under the circumstances.
He’s been very distracted, under the circumstances.
Tim fires out his grapple again and yanks himself across to the next building, and Superboy laughs delightedly and matches his pace to fly beside him upside-down, grinning over at him and apparently not concerned with any risk of smashing into that building.
Tim starts to open his mouth to say something about that, but unfortunately he’s the one who’s distracted enough that he nearly gets himself smashed against the building. Superboy does a very literal 90-degree turn straight up like he’s literally never heard of goddamn momentum or something, and Tim smacks straight into the bricks with a jarred hiss, just barely keeping himself from bruising anything.
What the fuck?
Tim stares up after Superboy, who’s stopped in mid-air two stories up and is peering back down at him. Superboy grins; waves down at him with one hand, the other tucked into the pocket of his jacket.
The pocket of his new jacket. His new studded, spiked, shiny jacket.
Tim dies of mortification, then digs his talons into the building and scuttles up the side of it after him. Superboy grins wider, then takes off over the roof and disappears out of sight. The shadow-net darts up the bricks past Tim and disappears after him.
Tim just . . . sighs, and metaphorically prays for the strength to make it through this situation.
Not literally, obviously. Literally praying isn’t usually a great idea, in Gotham.
Then he bolts up the rest of the building and leaps up over the ledge, landing on it in a crouch and then diving forward to roll across the roof. Superboy’s a couple rooftops ahead already, but that’s fine; they’re still in Gotham.
And even if he’s not her favorite Robin, he still is one.
WIP excerpt for 🦄 behind the cut; “a fake cryptid and a real romantic”.
(( chrono || non-chrono ))
“Hey, Boy Wonderful!” Superboy greets excitedly and with apparent full sincerity, giving Tim a quick wave before hiding both hands behind his back. Which as a result parts the front of his new jacket a little more and stretches the S-shield tighter across his chest and reflects more of the city lights off all those shiny studs and spikes and pins and also off the lenses of his glasses and–
Tim needs a stronger word than “evaporates”, actually. What happens to something after it evaporates? Because this is definitely not a situation where he is going to be returning to a liquid form, much less a solid.
Maybe he’ll just atomize or something. Superboy can already literally atomize him anyway; he might as well do it metaphorically too.
“Suuuuuperboyyyyy,” Tim says, both incredibly grateful for the voice modulator hiding the way his voice attempts to crack and already resigned to his doom. Superboy beams down at him. He is . . . still shiny, yeah. Deliberately shiny. Deliberately shiny because he thinks Robin likes shiny.
Tim is not in any way an actual cryptid, obviously, much less in any way an actual bird, and “Robin” is but he thinks he might need to go lay down anyway. Like . . . just for a minute. Or twenty. Or . . . forever, maybe? Like, maybe just forever?
kitten, the Batman repeats, narrowing . . . something that looks like eyes at Superboy. Superboy looks a little nervous, but not in the normal way that people look nervous when the Batman is perceiving them; less “existential terror” and more “a guy showing up to pick up his prom date from their parents’ house”, which is a whole thought process to be thinking right now, Tim thinks.
“Um, hey, Mx. Batman! Is Robin ready to, uh, go hang out?” Superboy greets cheerfully, grinning nervously at him. Tim remembers the way that last time Superboy was fumbling between using “sir” or “ma’am” for the Batman, and realizes that Superboy must’ve actually gone to the trouble of looking up a gender-neutral honorific to use. Like–because Superboy is clearly still trying to make a good impression on the Batman. Because Superboy wants the Batman to approve of him, because he wants to keep seeing Robin.
Oh, this is really not good, Tim thinks in despair as his actual heart flutters this time. That information is literally just a two-second Google search away, and his heart still fluttered over Superboy putting in the effort to do it.
Tim is in so, so much trouble here. So much trouble. All the trouble. Even more trouble than that. Several new kinds of trouble previously unknown to humankind, even, which were clearly hand-delivered via Superboy’s Kryptonian side. Hand-delivered like the handmade diamond, maybe! Maybe like that!
“Robin . . . rrrrreadyyyyy,” Tim confirms, because he can’t just go throw himself off however many roofs it takes until he recovers from the entire experience that he is at this moment entirely experiencing. That’s just not socially-acceptable behavior and Superboy would definitely take it the wrong way.
. . . well, actually, since Superboy does currently think he’s a cryptid splinter of a city spirit, and specifically thinks he’s a bird cryptid . . .
It’s tempting, is all Tim is going to say about that. Just–it’s tempting, that’s all.
Very tempting.
no net, the Batman says disapprovingly, the vague approximation of eyes he’s currently wearing still narrowed, which Tim’s pretty sure is the Batman’s version of saying Superboy isn’t ready. At least not to protection-spirit standards, anyway.
“Oh, um, yeah,” Superboy says, glancing down at his own feet and the empty air beneath them. “It went away when I left Gotham last time. I kinda just figured you took it back or something?”
“Tt,” the Batman says as a few tendrils of his cape string themselves into a net beneath Superboy again, like he’s even high up enough to get hurt if he fell. Tim just tries not to get a nosebleed at the sound of the Batman’s voice and hopes Superboy won’t get a migraine or anything. Or actually fall, because net aside, after the gala incident with Superman Tim really cannot expect Superboy to handle–
Superboy cocks his head abruptly, blinking hard enough that it’s obvious even with the glasses on. He doesn’t fall.
“Shukran, nassībah,” he says. “Um–I mean . . . shukran, nassīb?”
“Afwan, sihr,” the Batman replies as if by rote, and then . . . pauses. Superboy immediately brightens, visibly perking up.
. . . well, that’s a reaction to the Batman’s voice that Tim hasn’t seen before. And also not a language he recognizes, either.
“Speeeeeak?” he asks blankly, not sure what to think of the exchange. The Batman doesn’t answer; just narrows his not-eyes a little more at Superboy and strings a few more shadows through the net underneath him. He isn’t even slightly pretending to look human, but Superboy isn’t either averting his eyes or stubbornly making a point of looking at him, which is also a reaction to the Batman that Tim has not actually seen before.
Well, except for every extremely unfortunate time that Talia al Ghul’s been in town, anyway. So that’s . . . a thing, yeah. Tim just hopes that thing is not coming from the monsterfucker tendencies, considering, though Talia al Ghul being the first person he thought of to compare the behavior to is maybe not a great sign for that.
Robin cannot actually say “please don’t Stacy’s Mom me over my undying eldritch night terror of a weird neighbor,” but Tim definitely thinks it.
WIP excerpt for derpsheep behind the cut; “a fake cryptid and a real romantic”.
(( chrono || non-chrono ))
Superboy’s only five months, four weeks, and one day old, Tim tells himself. The “time of his life” is not a particularly high bar to set.
Then he jumps off the roof because he can’t even pretend that’s convincing enough to make his stupid stomach stop doing quadruple somersaults, so at least he’s gonna blame some actual somersaults for that. He drops his grapple line out of Robin’s wings and fires it across the street, and it catches one of the gargoyles–or one of the gargoyles catches it; best efforts aside Tim’s never managed to figure it out either way–and he swings across and hits one of the lower roofs running. The Batman might not follow if they run off decisively enough, so yeah.
Might.
“Um, bye, Mx. Batman, nice to see you again!” he hears Superboy call back to the Batman, and then Superboy’s zipping through the air past him, keeping pace at roughly eye-level as Tim runs across the roof and grinning excitedly over at him. “Hey! Um, again.”
“. . . heyyyyy,” Tim says, which sounds very weird in Robin’s voice but makes Superboy light up delightedly, so like . . . is probably worth damaging the city-spirit mystique a little, he figures. “Hunnnnnt?”
“Um–sure!” Superboy says. “But um–I made you something, too? If, um, you wanna see it later?”
Tim is really not prepared for that, because he is ninety-nine point nine-nine-repeating percent certain that Superboy means he made him a nest. And if he doesn’t mean that, he definitely means he made him another diamond or something equally intimidatingly impressive. Tim, meanwhile, couldn’t even figure out if he should bring, like, freaking chocolates or something.
He is so, so bad at dating.
Also like . . . Superboy is really doing a lot more work here than he’s been doing, Tim can’t help feeling–Superboy’s the one coming to Gotham, and the one bringing presents, and the one stalking him well enough to know his usual patrol routes and literally kidnapping people for him, and, again, taught himself how to make a literally perfect diamond and then just gave it to him. The day they met! He just gave him a literally perfect diamond and also, like, Selina, if Tim wants to get technical about it!
It is very hard not to get technical about it.
So–yeah, Tim really needs to figure out something he can do for Superboy before he has to survive seeing whatever Superboy did for him. He’s already bad enough at dating as it is, he needs to, like . . . he doesn’t know, stack the deck or frontload or something.
“Laaaaater,” he agrees, then jumps across the narrow gap to the exterior of the next building, catches his talons in the brick, and then scuttles up to its fire escape and then up that to its own roof. Superboy flies up after him, still seeming excited, so . . . well, at least he doesn’t mind waiting a little to show him whatever he’s gonna ruin his brain with, Tim thinks. So that’s . . . something, yeah.
God, what is he supposed to do that Superboy would not only like but would also believe a city splinter would do for him? Like, genuinely, what are even his options here?
Crap.
Okay, maybe he should actually have talked to Dick about this.
WIP excerpt for derpsheep behind the cut; "obligatory sugar baby Kon".
(( chrono || non-chrono ))
“Huh?” Kon asks, wrinkling his nose in confusion. Cassie lunges at Bart and yanks him behind herself, presumably to hide the fact she’s clamped a hand over his mouth.
“Nothing!” she says brightly. “Absolutely nothing! Done with your texting? All good there?”
“Oh, yeah. Wasn’t a big thing or anything,” Kon says, pushing his sunglasses up into his hair with a shrug. He’s wearing metallic silver eyeliner. Just a little bit of it, but a noticeable bit of it. Like–a bit. That can be noticed. Noticeably.
. . . noticeably.
Tim’s brain is definitely not brainable again yet, yeah.
Cassie makes a strangled noise as Bart phases out of her grip with an annoyed expression that she seems oblivious to, then squints at Kon again. He and Suzie both continue to look very surprised about either what Kon’s wearing or their own reactions to what Kon’s wearing. Cissie just eyes him doubtfully, leaning forward over the table a little bit as she folds her arms on top of it.
“So like, were we fighting crime on the beach today or did you just decide to rebrand as Power Boy?” she asks with a dry expression, raising a skeptical eyebrow at him. Cassie gives her a murderous look and Kon–hesitates, briefly, just the slightest flicker of self-consciousness crossing the back of his eyes, and Tim’s brain figures out how to work again after all.
“Arrowette, with all due respect, you literally fight crime wearing less than that,” he reminds her wryly, pretending not to notice the hint of tension that leaves Kon’s shoulders as he says it. “And you’re not invulnerable or solar-powered.”
“Listen, this getup was not my design,” Cissie says, pointing accusingly at herself. “This is actually an improvement on my mom’s version, in fact, so don’t judge, I’m doing my best here.”
“Your best could possibly involve more body armor,” Tim mentions, perfectly neutral and objective about it. She gives him a dubious look.
“Oh, is that why the Robin suit comes in primary colors with T-shirt sleeves and no knee or elbow pads?” she asks with an unimpressed snort. Tim decides not to get into the whole “I need to look enough like an innocent kid that Batman doesn’t forget I technically and legally am one and start getting a little too vicious on the job again” thing. Seems like a bad idea and all.
She does have a point about at least the pads, admittedly. A hypocritical point, but a point. He could probably look into those.
“So is this your new costume?” Suzie asks curiously, floating over to circle Kon and peer curiously at his outfit. “Oh! You got a new earring, too! It’s cute!”
“Um–thanks,” Kon replies stiffly, still looking just barely self-conscious as he gives the sapphire stud a reflexive little tug, and then visibly puffs himself back up and shrugs again, tucking his hands into his jacket pockets. “Naw, not a new costume, just the one I was wearing today got kinda shredded and it was my last clean one, so it was this or do laundry and be, like, even later than I was already gonna be.”
Tim is perfectly aware that Kon owns much less revealing clothing than the clothing that he is currently wearing, but a) Robin is not aware of that and b) Tim Drake is neither a snitch nor ungrateful for the gifts that the world gives him.
WIP excerpt for derpsheep behind the cut; “a fake cryptid and a real romantic”.
(( chrono || non-chrono ))
. . . nest, the Batman says, which is hopefully a good sign, at least? Or at least not a bad one?
Tim is admittedly not particularly optimistic about that possibility, but still, it is a possibility. Like. Theoretically.
An unproven theory is still a theory, alright? There’s evidence there. Stuff to work with. Things to work from.
“Yeah,” he says. “We’re, you know–nesting. Which is private. Like, an us thing. Not a Bat thing.”
The Batman looks unconvinced. Tim despairs a little, then thinks–well, maybe . . .
“It’s a Robin thing, I mean,” he tries.
. . . hn, the Batman says, settling back into a dark, shadowed crouch as his eyes narrow consideringly. Tim feels a little bit more optimistic about his chances of not getting Bat-chaperoned on this date. Like–barely, but still noticeably. Like actually and genuinely and more “actually proven theory”-ly.
“You can literally ask Nightwing, Nightwing knows what I’m talking about,” Tim shamelessly lies. Dick figured out how to date around the Batman’s existence when he was still the one wearing Robin, so it’s not even that much of a lie, calling this a “Robin” thing. Jason–didn’t, obviously, but . . .
Look, Tim just wants to go on another stupid date with the weirdest monsterfucker teen idol who can make literal diamonds with his literal brain that he knows. Or that, like . . . exists, probably.
Pretty much definitely, yeah.
But like–that’s all Tim wants, okay?! He just wants to go on this stupid date and figure out how to convince Superboy that Robins don’t actually nest before the other actually does try to make him one, since clearly he will not be succeeding at making one himself. And, like, making Superboy think he needs to do that is just . . . not ideal, considering. He really does not want Superboy to think he needs to do all that work to get his attention. Superboy has his attention. His attention is had. He does not need more telekinetic diamonds about his attention.
Especially considering that Tim is not a hundred percent sure that a nest Superboy decided to make wouldn’t involve more telekinetic diamonds.
Or, uh. Just be one, given Superboy’s clear tendency to overcompensate and also really commit to said overcompensation.
. . . Tim definitely needs to make sure Superboy doesn’t think he needs to do that, yeah.
kitten, the Batman observes matter-of-factly, and Tim barely holds back from burying his face in Robin’s wings. Dammit. Just–ugh, this is about to be so embarrassing.
Superboy drops down out of the cloudy–well, smoggy–night sky a second later, stopping about ten or twelve feet in the air above them. He’s wearing different sunglasses and a different jacket tonight; the glasses are mirrored and the jacket’s got studs and spikes and pins on it and does really, uh . . . does interesting things to Superboy’s shoulders. And waist. And . . .
The studs and spikes and pins are all very shiny, Tim realizes belatedly as he registers the effect of the city lights reflecting off them; the sunglasses’s frames and mirrored lenses are shiny too.
And Superboy thinks Robin likes shiny things.
So like–Superboy definitely deliberately dressed up for this date.
Tim gently simmers into a doomed puddle of hormones inside Robin’s feathers, and Superboy grins down at him all bright and pretty and shiny, and then actually Tim just evaporates right out of Robin entirely, actually. Like just completely and totally. Like–just completely, yeah. Just . . . very much totally and completely.
Oh no, Tim thinks in absolute dread as his face goes hot behind Robin’s mask and his stomach not only fills up with butterflies, it turns into an entire butterfly sanctuary. Oh no, he is not going to be normal about literally anything that happens tonight, is he.
WIP excerpt for derpsheep behind the cut; “a fake cryptid and a real romantic”.
(( chrono || non-chrono ))
Tim is having a terrible night, by which he means the Batman is currently looming over him like a creepy eldritch nightmare of a gargoyle while he’s trying to go meet Superboy for the patrol/hunting-date they scheduled and the Batman is not at all taking the “go away, I have a date” hint.
Said “hint” for the record, was Tim explicitly saying the words, “go away, I have a date”. The Batman apparently thought that meant Calendar Man was causing trouble, though, so now Tim’s being Bat-stalked and has the Batman in his shadow, which is just really, really embarrassing in this situation. Like getting dropped off for a date by your weird neighbor who used to babysit you sometimes or something, he doesn’t know.
Definitely embarrassing, yeah. Just–way too many kinds of embarrassing. He bets Superman isn’t dropping Superboy off right now.
Ugh.
“Look, I promise, this is not a ‘Bat’ thing,” he says. “In no way whatsoever is this in fact a Bat thing.”
leaving Gotham? the Batman asks.
“No,” Tim says with a sigh, because he knows the Batman’s answer to them not leaving Gotham is gonna be–
Bat thing, the Batman says, inexorable and inarguable as a snapped grapple and the force of gravity.
Tim suffers.
“It’s just a date, B,” he says in exasperation. “I don’t follow you to go see Catwoman or Talia al Ghul, do I?”
you do, the Batman says.
. . . dammit, Tim thinks. The Batman wasn’t supposed to notice that.
“Okay but Superboy is not a criminal who’s trying to use me to case a place for a thematic jewel heist!” he protests, puffing up Robin’s feathers indignantly. Most of the time the Batman understands Robin’s body language better than anything, really, and Tim has to admit there is something sort of satisfying about being able to flare up to twice his size when he’s irritated. At least on some level, anyway. “Or an assassin who might wanna feed me to her evil dad’s weird magic pit!”
not feed, the Batman says. awaken.
“That answer is no less creepy and unnerving than the last four times, I hope you know,” Tim tells him. “Not in the least because you’ve never clarified if the League is trying to awaken something in you or something in the pit.”
“Tt,” the Batman says, which is honestly even more creepy and unnerving, given how rarely he actually makes actual noises. Or, like–correction: makes actual noises that sound, like–human, almost. The screeching and wailing and screaming is all pretty standard, but human noises . . . yeah, no.
Tim already doesn’t like to talk to the Batman when he’s in his “human” aspect as it is. He isn’t some self-absorbed socialite or smarmy politician or shallow asshole with no genuine interest in other people, is the thing; when the Batman actually uses his voice, Tim can hear what that voice actually sounds like.
As far as Tim knows, when it comes to humans, literally only Dick’s ever been able to stand the actual sound of the Batman’s voice. Jason apparently just, like–could grit his teeth through it, or hide behind Pennyworth. Tim, personally, forgets he has teeth, when he can actually hear the sound of the Batman’s voice. He doesn’t even know what Selina hears, but he does know she does most of the talking when she and the Batman are out together. And he still feels bad for Superman, after the sister-city gala incident with Metropolis.
Definitely he still feels bad for Superman after that.
