milliways_bar | (no subject)

(no subject)

After Bart -- Thad, really, but Tim didn't know that -- had left, Tim had been left alone in the corner booth. He was trying to maintain a semblance of normality. He had...work to do. And he didn't feel like going back to the Tower to do it, since he knew Kon was there doing his homework.

He needed to calm down. To...think logically.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Kon reachs out and grabs Tim's arm. "But you're staying." He says firmly.

Tim tried to shake his arm free from Kon's grip, but of course, the other boy had always been stronger than him.

"Let. Go," he said in an icy voice.

"...you're mad at me." Kon's eyes widen with this realization. "Why are you mad at me?".

He doesn't let go yet.

"I'm not mad at you," Tim said, looking away from Kon. And in a way, it was true. He wasn't mad at this Kon. He was mad at the Kon that would say something like Tim couldn't play his part because he didn't have any powers.

"Then what -are- you mad at?" Because he was obviously mad at something. And this meant that Kon was going to have to be a little more careful, because otherwise he was likely to get his head bit off and chewed.

"It's...just drop it, Kon." This time, Tim sounded wry instead of angry. He really didn't want to be having this conversation, and it showed. "It's not something you should worry about."

"And yet here I am, worrying."

"It's stupid. I shouldn't even be worrying about it," Tim said, rubbing the bridge of his nose with his freehand. It seemed that he was finally beginning to talk.

Yet, even though Tim was starting to talk, Kon still wasn't going to let go; at least not yet. He didn't want to risk Tim deciding to suddenly -bolt- or something.

"Why not?"

"It's...it's something Bart said. About the future. And I told you that things that Bart saw happen in the future might not happen, so I should really be taking my own advice."

But apparently, this really shook Tim up.

...Yeah. Bart and Kon? They were going to be having a talk. Because while the speedster's habit of spilling the future had been just a little annoying, now it was a -lot- annoying. He had to learn to reign it in a little.

"What did he say?" Kon asks quietly.

Should he really tell Kon? He didn't want to upset the other boy, after all. And there was the risk that he might offend him.

But...that would mean that he would have to talk about how Bart told him his father was dead. And that was somewhere Tim wasn't going to go. Just...no. Never. The mere thought of it sent chill up his spines.

Still, he had to say something. It was clear that Kon wasn't going to let go of him until he told him. And though Tim knew several ways that he could escape, he didn't want to hurt Kon.

"He...told me that we weren't doing so well in the future." That was a vague way of putting it, but it wasn't a complete lie.

"Told you who wasn't doing well?" 'We' was a general term. It could mean a lot of things.

"Our friendship," Tim said shortly, not looking at Kon. Or maybe it wasn't going well already? He shoved that thought out of his mind. It had to be the paranoia talking.

"What?" Kon looks surprised, and then stubbornly resistant. "I'm sure he's wrong."

"Well, it's pretty clear that you don't have confidence in me anymore." Which was just...something he had thought about only in private before. He had always been the one on the team without powers, but he had always gotten along well without any. But what if that changed one day?

"-What-?" Kon looks at Tim as if he's grown a sceond head. "How is -that- clear?"

He has no idea where Tim's getting this. No idea at all.

"Bart said..." Tim paused for a moment, taking a breath. No, he wasn't going to be emotional. It was merely a possibility, not a fact. "...that you complained in the future about how I couldn't pull my weight because I didn't have any powers."

Tim wasn't going to mention that it was right after his father had supposedly died, though.

"...then Bart was lying." Kon says firmly. "I don't care if it's the future, I -know- I wouldn't say that."

"But it's not like Bart to tell a lie like that, Kon." That was the scary part. Their friend could joke around with them, but never like that.

"And it's like me to say something like that?" Kon sounds a little hurt. "Yeah, it's not like him, but he's been acting kinda weird lately, hasn't he?"

"It's...just..." What if Kon had seen him as a failure because he couldn't even protect his own father? He didn't even want to consider that possibility, ever. It was hard enough to deal with the prospect of his father's death and Kon's words without connecting them together.

"And...what do you mean weird?" Tim hadn't been around Bart lately, after all.

"I don't know. Just... weird." Kon couldn't place his finger on anything specific, it was just... a feeling.

"And it's just what?"

"I haven't really spent much time with Bart lately, to be truthful." So he didn't really have anything to work with.

"Just..." No, he shouldn't go there. The mere thought made him sick. "Nothing. Nevermind."

"No." Kon says firmly. "Tell me."