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I just want to start out by saying, I wasn’t trying to kill Bernard Dowd. Killing him was NEVER my intention, just severely hurt him… For long enough to have Tim (My best friend, and love of my life.) to myself. I was going to give him a shoulder to cry on, and eventually he would be kissing the face above my shoulders. But that’s not what happened. I’ve told Tim hundreds of times how sorry I am, how I never meant for any of this to happen, but he hates me. Understandably so, I killed his boyfriend.
Even if it may not have been my intention I still did it, it’s very truly all my fault. I’ve had a crush on my best friend, Tim Drake, since I was 16, well technically 16 weeks old but we’ll get into that later. It’s a little complicated. Anyways, we met when we formed our own super hero group, wanting to stray away from our mentors. (My dad, in my case. Which totally sucked.) It was just me, Tim and Bart for a long time. Of course, others came and went, but that’s who we were at our core. Just us, together, forever. I don’t know when I realized I was in love with my best friend, I think I always was, I just didn’t realize it immediately.
It would’ve been hard not to fall in love with him, spending every waking moment with him as I did. But I loved every second of it, he was the most perfect person I’d ever met. I remember when I found out he wasn’t just Robin, when I found out his real name was Tim Drake. I had just gotten back from getting yelled at Clark (Who knows what it was that time.) and I wanted to play Mario Kart with Tim. (Though, I knew him as Robin at the time.) I knocked on his bedroom door, loud music escaping under the door. I waited for minutes after knocking, eventually I walked in.
And there he has, the strongest man I knew, curled up in a ball on the floor, crying. No, not crying. He was sobbing, I don’t think he would have any tears left to cry after that, I think he may have cried his eyes dry. That somehow wasn’t the most shocking part though. He didn’t have his mask on. I could, for the first time, see his bright blue eyes. They were filled with tears, but they were the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. He saw me, and instead of doing the usual Robin thing of freaked the hell out he surprised me. He clung to my leg and sobbed into it some more.
I couldn’t believe my best friend, and person I looked up to the most was here, like this. I could only help but wonder what the hell happened to him. After long enough he slid off of me and whimpered against the floor. “I’m so so so sorry Kon, I never should’ve let you see me like that.” And he did look truly sorry, like he had insulted me in the worst way he could possibly think of. (Which by the way, was not at all because I had been madly in love with this man for months.) I thought he was going to be okay, but then he realized. “Wait. You… you saw me. Oh my god you saw me.” He clasped his hands to his face, trying to cover it. I guess he forgot that I had just watched tears stream down that beautiful flushed face for like, 20 minutes.
He grabbed his mask, plastering it back on his face. And even though it barely stuck, thanks to the tears, he would refuse to take it off for weeks after that. I don’t think that was because of me actually seeing him without a mask, it was because I saw him as Tim Drake. He made me promise to never tell another soul, and I never did. But now I knew that I was in love with Tim Drake. And know I knew whenever I had dreams about holding Robin’s hand I was really dreaming about the adopted son of a billionaire. (That’s right, I did my homework.)
He refused to talk to me for days after that, and they were the worst days of my life. What made them even worse was Bart constantly asking me if Tim and I weren’t talking because we hooked up. After the ninth time I wanted to bash his head open with his Xbox controller. God, if Tim had heard Bart saying that I might have just bashed my own head with a controller. Because it seemed like every other person in the tower knew about my crush on him except of course, for him. It was awful, having to keep a secret that was already out. Hell I wasn’t even out.
I guess everyone already knew I was gay just based on the everything about me, but STILL. Tim didn’t, and Tim was all that really mattered. Plus, he probably wasn’t even gay, right?
I asked myself that question day in and day out for months, until one night I finally got the answer. Barry took me and the rest of the team to get shit faced drunk (Technically we were all still 17, but whatever.) and that seemed to loosen my mouth up. Me and Tim were sitting on the roof of the bar together, swinging our legs over the ledge.
We had been talking for hours, like we always did. He had never been hard for me to talk to, tonight was no different. I laced my hand in his as he rested his head on my shoulder, and I finally popped the question. “Tim, are you gay? Because you look gay, and you look at me gay, but I’ve only ever seen you with girls. I mean, there was Steph, Cassie and probably others. But it’s just the way you look at me makes me thi-“ And then he did the last thing I ever would’ve expected him to do.
He kissed me.
I heard both of our hearts, they were beating so hard I thought we might both have heart attacks right there. I was for sure gonna, if he didn’t pull me off his lips. “Does that answer your question, Super Boy?” He smiled at me with that stupid dopey grin, and I knew right then and there that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with that dork. So without another word I smashed our lips together again. It was the most magical thing every time we did it. And we did it everywhere. On top of buildings, under bridges, on the gargoyles, even on top of Wayne fucking manner. I melted into him every single time, his hands rested at the small of my back and everything was perfect.
We never actually said, “Hey we’re dating,” but I think everyone kinda just figured it out. And of course, it told Bart that he was right about the hook up think. (WHICH HE TOTALLY WAS NOT.) But for once in my life, I didn’t care. I didn’t care that the Justice League gave us weird looks, or that we weren’t supposed to hold hands when we went on patrol together, I finally didn’t care. Because if I had Tim why would I care.
I told him that one night in his room. We were on the floor listening to his CDs when I cupped his face, “Y’know, you make me not care about what anyone thinks. You’re like, the best thing that’s ever happened to me.” And he did exactly what I expected him to. He kissed me, and kissed me and kissed me. He was on top of me, Green Day still blaring on his CD player, and he just kept kissing me. He crushed my lips to wine.
It was never more than kissing, but neither of us ever wanted more than kissing, all we wanted was each other. Everything was somehow perfect, it was like things had always been like this. It was like I wasn’t grown in a test tube and he didn’t grow up without parents around. It was like we were normal teenagers that were just in love. When we were with each other we weren’t defined by our pasts, or even our futures. We were just defined by us, and our lips.
Then everything happened, everything ended. We ended.
I died, Bart died, Bruce and Steph kinda died. Everyone was gone, except Tim. I guess he kinda just went crazy, I don’t blame him though. He lost everyone he cared about, and he was once again left to the care of his batshit crazy parents. So when I came back he was different, I was different. And of course, we were, we would have been regardless of if I had died of not. Time had passed, we were different people.
People who didn’t like each other anymore.
Or at least that’s how Tim felt, I never felt like that. Tim was all I wanted. But it was okay, if he had to leave me for him to be happy then that was just how it was. Still, it hurt.
What hurt the most is when I saw Tim and Bernard together. They were together all the time, at the movies, at the park, at restaurants, at Tim’s house, everywhere. They were everywhere I was, almost like they were rubbing it in my face.
Then the arcade happened.
Then the arcade changed everything.
I don’t even know why I was there, I guess just to blow off some steam. (Those shooting games do wonders for my anger issues.) And then there they were, Tim and Bernard. The new dynamic duo. Then the worst possible thing happened, they saw me. Actually, it was Bernard who saw me. Stupid prick.
He didn’t walkup to me and punch me in the face, he didn’t even laugh at me, he asked me if I wanted to play with them. And that changed everything. I realized how much I liked Bernard, and how much I still liked Tim. I thought I was gonna be able to get over him, but now I knew I never ever would. I wanted him now and forever. It could be chalked down to a dumb childish crush, but it was so much more than that. He was the love of my life, whether he realized it or not.
Then the weirdest thing happened, I was friends with Tim again. It wasn’t the Tim I was in love with, it wasn’t the Tim that led Young Justice, it wasn’t the Tim that had a nervous breakdown when everyone who loved him died, and it certainly wasn’t the Tim who broke my heart. It was a new Tim, it was the Tim who was in love with Bernard.
All 3 of us were friends, great ones even. I was happy for the first time since me and Tim’s breakup. We went to the arcade together, we discussed Batman theories with Bernard together, (Me and Tim had always laughed so hard that we would have tears streaming down our faces by the end) we really did everything together.
Happiness was a weird thing to feel when I had no one to kiss it away, because I guess I was kinda scared of being happy, I always was. Being happy made me so very vulnerable, and Super Boy couldn’t vulnerable.
Maybe that’s what made me do it, maybe I was trying kill the happiness, not Bernard. Or maybe it was Bernard, I don’t know. I’ve thought about that night so many times in my head and I still don’t know why the hell I did it. But whatever the reason was it doesn’t matter because Tim is never going to forgive me, he doesn’t care what the reason is.
He was out of town that week, some rich kid business meeting in Loserville or something, but that’s how it started. He was gone, and I needed him, and then I did something horrible. Something that I’ll regret doing for the rest of my life.
Bernard was on the tallest building in Gotham, trying to get a better look at a scene Batman was involved in, when he fell, what a shocker. Six hundred feet in the air, and he fell. I was there in seconds, his ear splitting screams were a tiny bit attention grabbing. I was there, I caught him. But for a split second I thought about dropping him, I thought about how I could finally get Bernard out of the picture.
I could finally get Tim back.
So I dropped him.
I know. I know, I know. I hate myself for it every day. But I thought that was how I could get Tim back, I could kill his boyfriend and give him a shoulder to cry on. I don’t know why the hell I thought that would work, I don’t know why I thought Tim wouldn’t hate me for it.
Instead of clutching my arm and crying, he slapped me in the face and screamed until I was sure his vocal cords had snapped. He collapsed at some point, he was probably so exhausted… I just wanted to hold him in my arms and comfort him… But I couldn’t, I knew that. There was no chance of us EVER getting back together now, why would I do this. I killed someone just to get Tim to love me again.
I tried to help him up, but he glared at me through dark hair, covering his face. He swatted my hand away, “I hope you rot in jail, Kon.” And that was the last thing the love of my life ever said to me.
And sure, it was completely my fault. Sure, I didn’t think through it AT ALL. Sure, Tim has a right to hate me, but there’s a part of the story that no one thought about. The part I was supposed to cover up.
Bernard asked me to do it.