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The phone ringing as he waits for the other end to pick up is probably the worst sound Kon has ever heard. It rings four times, and Kon is about to hang up and start planning how to explain that it was totally just a butt dial, so sorry, when he hears that telltale click.
“Hello?” Dick’s voice is a little fuzzy through the speaker of Kon’s cell phone, and he decides to bypass the stupid thing altogether, tuning into Gotham to pick up his voice without the interference.
“Um, hi. This is Conner. Kent. Conner Kent. Do you have a few minutes to talk?” Oh man. He has got to pull it together. He’s pacing around his little house in the suburbs of Metropolis, wiping his palms against his jeans and trying to pretend his hands aren’t shaking, and now he’s babbling at Dick like an idiot. With a dire certainty, he realizes that this entire thing, everything that happens starting with this phone call and ending in hopefully the happiest day of his life, is going to be one, long most-humiliating-experience-he’s-ever-had.
“Yeah, sure, I’m just getting some breakfast. What’s up?” Kon glances at the clock. It’s quarter to two in the afternoon, but sure enough, he can hear a cereal box being shaken.
“Great. So, uh. I was hoping to get your advice on something. Um.” He stops as his brain fritzes out on him completely. There’s no doubt in his mind that this is absolutely something he wants—rather desperately, in fact—but the idea of saying the words out loud to a member of the Bat-clan makes him feel like some sort of small animal has taken up residence in his stomach and is trying to claw its way up his chest and out of his mouth. He had called Dick specifically because Dick is the most relaxed and amiable member of the family, but this is the first time Kon has talked to anyone about this, and it’s sort of absurdly terrifying.
“…Conner? You still there?”
“Yeah! Yeah, still here. So, um. I want to—well, I’m hoping to… to ask Tim to marry me, and—”
“AWWWW!” Dick cuts him off by cooing so loudly that it makes Conner wince, pulling the phone away from his ear to escape the sharp blast of staticky noise. Well, at least Dick’s probably not going to break into Bruce’s Kryptonite stash. Yet. “That’s so cute! I guess it’s about time, huh? You guys have been dating for what, three years?”
“Almost four.” Conner rubs the back of his neck; he’s been fighting with himself about this for nearly a year, and he’s finally hit a point where he knows he just has to do it. Even if Tim says no, which seems entirely possible given how cagey he can be about anything that’s not work, he still has to try. For one, he basically hasn’t been able to think about anything else for the last six months and it’s starting to get a little tired, and for another, he wants Tim to at least know how he really feels, even if it turns out that Tim isn’t interested in marriage. “I’ve been thinking about it for a while, and I thought I should talk to your family before I do anything. If he says yes, I would rather not get engaged and then be immediately murdered via beheading with a Kryptonite axe or something, you know?”
Dick makes an inelegant snorting noise and crunches on a bite of cereal. “Yeah, that’s probably a good strategy. I mean, it’s sort of a lose-lose since Timmy might kill you for talking to us behind his back, but he’ll probably make it a quick death,” he says casually, and Kon feels stomach muscles he didn't know he had clench. He hadn’t considered that possibility, but Dick has a point. “Anyway, you said you needed my advice on something?”
“Yeah, I was hoping you might have some, um. Tips or something on not completely screwing it up when I try to talk to your family?”
“You’re a nice boy, Conner,” Dick tells him. His tone is fond, and it makes Kon feel a little better. Maybe he can just get Dick in his corner now and have one less terrifying member of Tim’s family to woo later. “Why don’t I help you out? I can text everybody and get them all together for you. Just knock it all out in one go, yeah?”
“Uh,” Conner says. He stops dead in the middle of pacing his tiny living room, the horror of that prospect stunning him a little. “Are you sure that’s a good idea? I mean, there are a lot of different personalities, maybe—”
“The most impressive thing you can do is face them all down at once,” Dick informs him. “You’re right, it’s not a great idea, and you’ve got to have some serious nerve to approach it that way. That’s why they’ll respect you more if you do. You’re going to ask him to marry you, Conner. Aren’t you willing to do that much for Tim?”
“I’ll do anything for Tim,” Kon says without hesitation, knowing full well that Dick just baited him into willingly throwing himself to the wolves. Bats. Bat-wolves.
“Good answer. By the way, have you talked to Tim? Does he know?”
“Uh, I’ve… been asking some not-so-subtle questions, but I’m not sure if he’s been paying enough attention to put it together. He’s been pretty busy lately. But I asked him a while ago if he ever wanted to get married and he got this weird look on his face and said, ‘that might be nice,’ so I think I’m in the clear?”
Dick laughs, and Conner can picture him shaking his head, the rueful smile when he says, “Yeah, that sounds like our Timmy. Well, it’s more fun if it’s a surprise anyway, as long as he doesn’t totally hate the idea.”
“Yeah, I hardly ever manage to surprise him, so it would be pretty cool to pull this one off. Plus, I figure the less time he has to overthink it, the better.”
“Hmm. Alright, well, be at the manor at four on Sunday, okay?”
“Wait, Sunday? Like, tomorrow?” Kon is absolutely sure from the way Dick chuckles that he hasn’t managed to mask the panic in his voice at all.
“The less time you have to overthink it the better, right? See you tomorrow!” He hangs up, and Kon stares mournfully at his phone for a while before retreating to the kitchen to make himself a soothing cup of tea the way Tim has advised him to so many times. It doesn’t really help, because what Dick doesn’t seem to realize is that twenty-six hours is more than enough time for him to overthink just about every aspect of the ordeal he’s about to undergo. It’s a long night.
*
He shows up five minutes early. That’s polite, right? He hovers on the manor’s impressive doorstep for just a moment too long as he tries to decide if five minutes is too early to be polite, and the door swings silently open before he can knock.
“Master Kent,” Alfred greets him, offering a polite smile as he eyes Kon. He wasn’t sure what to wear, so he had settled for throwing his leather jacket—a present from Tim that’s somewhere between good luck charm and safety blanket—over a button down and slacks. He has no idea if he’s dressed appropriately or not, but Alfred seems to pass no judgment, not offering to take his jacket as he leads Kon through the cavernous hallways of the manor.
“You can just call me Conner, you know,” he says, observing the various paintings and sculptures that dot the walls. A few of them seem to be portraits of members of the Wayne family, an assortment of blue eyes and square jaws, but most of them are tastefully understated in a way that makes Kon assume they’re probably worth millions. He pushes his glasses up his nose.
“Master Kent has arrived,” Alfred announces into a what’s probably a relatively cozy dining room by Wayne standards. He smiles at Kon as he nods him in, the expression a little warmer this time. The table is large and gorgeously constructed—Kon thinks longingly of the hours that must have been spent hand-finishing the details on it. Looking at that beautiful specimen of carpentry is much easier than looking at the people seated around it, and Kon takes an extra second to gather his courage before he glances up, smiling nervously at what are hopefully his future in-laws.
“Uh, hi. Thanks so much for having me.” Dick had told him not to bring anything, but now he wonders if that was some sort of test he failed. Or maybe it’s not the lack of a host gift that’s making him feel a little naked—maybe it’s all of those sharp, calculating, judgmental eyes locked on him. He feels like a field mouse that just walked into a nest of hawks.
“Conner!” Dick exclaims, ever cheerful, and Kon has never been more grateful for Tim’s oldest brother. He’s sitting next Bruce, Damian on his other side. Across from him is Cass, then Steph and Jason, with Barbara rounding out the pack on Damian’s other side. They’ve left the seat directly across from Bruce, at what Kon assumes would be the foot of the table, open for him. He figures that was probably deliberate.
“Please, sit down,” Bruce says, gesturing to the open seat. His expression is sort of pleasantly neutral, which instantly puts Kon on edge. “Dick told us there was something you wanted to speak to us about?”
“Right. Thank you for having me,” he says, and tries not to blush when he realizes he already said that. “I did want to talk to you, about, um. About Tim. Could you stay, Alfred?” He really wishes he could talk about anything remotely related to the idea of the proposal without stumbling over his words, but apparently that’s not on the table just yet. The butler nods, though, and stands beside the door he was about to slip out so that Conner can see him over Bruce's shoulder.
“Tim?” Bruce asks. He raises his eyebrows ever so slightly, but there’s no other change in his expression. Kon suddenly gets the distinct feeling that he’s enjoying this.
“Yes, we’ve—we’ve been dating for almost four years now. You—he told you about that, right?” A wave of panic rises as he realizes he can’t remember a single time in the entirety of their relationship that either Tim or Bruce has mentioned Bruce having direct knowledge of their relationship, which is troubling on a couple of different levels. At the other end of the table, Bruce finally makes an expression—it’s one of mild amusement, and at this point, Kon will take it.
“Yes, I seem to recall a conversation several years ago in which he informed me that he was beginning a relationship with you and threatened to ‘leave and take Wayne Enterprises down with him’ if I attempted to interfere.”
“I—wow. He said that?” Kon certainly hadn’t heard anything about that conversation. It gives him a warm feeling somewhere under his ribs, and he fingers the hem of his jacket. Jason laughs loudly.
“What, seriously? Man, all this time I thought he was being a total wimp about his boyfriend, never calling him that or saying when he had a date or anything. Turns out he just sorted your shit out right up front, huh, big guy?” Bruce shoots Jason a look, but smiles a little ruefully.
“You could say that. Tim is very private, but he established his boundaries very firmly. I’ve respected them—I don’t know much about your relationship, but you seem to make Tim happy.”
That’s probably the closest to high praise Kon is ever going to get from Bruce, and he decides to take the scant courage it gives him and make the leap. “I try my best, sir. Which sort of brings me to what I came here to talk to you all about. I, um. I’m going to ask Tim to marry me, and I—I was hoping I might be able to do that with his family’s support.” Or at least buy himself time to mentally prepare for his own bloody death, he adds silently.
There's utter silence for what Kon estimates at about fifteen seconds. It's a long time. Then, abruptly, noise breaks out all around the table.
“You think yourself worthy of marrying into this family?” Damian asks, incredulous, at the same time as Jason starts laughing again.
“Wow, Tim picked a brave one,” Barbara drawls. She's smirking and looking at him in a way that makes him think she's evaluating him against some secret metric—he’s pretty sure he’s better off not knowing exactly what that metric is.
“Hell yes! It's about time, you clown!” Steph throws her hands in the air, tipping her chair over backwards with the force of her enthusiasm, and there's another round of commotion as Cass lunges to keep her from bashing her head on the floor.
“I can’t believe Tim is gonna be the first one to get married,” Jason wheezes between bouts of laughter. “We are so fucked.”
“Isn’t that sweet?” Dick demands, reaching out to shake Bruce's arm. Bruce's expression has gone scarily blank again despite Dick's prodding, and Kon looks to Alfred for strength. The old man is staring at the floor with a quiet, proud smile on his face, and Kon thinks that if Alfred is happy, then he may have just passed the single most important test of his life.
“…Conner wants the family's support. What do we think about this? One at a time, please,” Bruce says finally, quieting his kids down. Kon suspects he's just buying himself time, but he's certainly not going to call him on it.
“Strongly approve!” Steph practically shouts, shooting a hand in the air. “It’s about fucking time, you punk. How long were you gonna leave him hanging, huh?”
“Wait, what?” Conner asks, frowning at her. “Leave him hanging? Does he know?”
“Well, not as such,” Steph says, rolling her eyes. “For being one of that world's greatest detectives, he's pretty damned dense sometimes. But he told me you asked him a question about getting married like, a year ago. I've been waiting, Kent!”
“Okay, so your real question was how long I was going to leave you hanging,” Kon assesses, grinning at her. She clucks her tongue and glares at him, not dignifying him with a response. Damian instead takes the opportunity to undignify him with a response.
“If Drake wishes to marry a—what is it that you do?” He pauses to frown at Kon in consternation, and Kon bites back a sigh.
“Carpentry. I'm a general contractor and I'm starting to work on some furniture-making.” Jason makes a noise of interest, but Damian plows ahead.
“Right. If Drake wishes to marry a peasant, that's entirely his prerogative.”
“Damian, we have had this conversation,” Dick says, clearly exasperated. “You can’t resort to bigotry every time you have an emotion that's hard to process! What's your real problem?”
Damian actually pauses for a minute, glaring silently at the table. Kon wonders if that's his thinking face. The kid must be around seventeen by now, Kon thinks. Physically, he's grown up a little—he’s taller than Tim now, although, hilariously, he still cuts a slender figure, no sign of putting on the sort of bulk his father carries despite what must be a grueling training regimen. Emotionally, Kon had thought he was doing better, even sort of getting along with Tim, but this reminds Kon a lot of when the brat was still pint-sized.
“…I am concerned about the prospect of Drake entering into a marriage contract,” Damian says finally. “I have no proof that relationships are likely to turn out well over extended periods of time, and legal contracts often make emotional matters messier. I do not wish to see Drake hurt.”
Everyone is quiet again, and then Dick hooks an arm around Damian's neck to pull him into a hug. “Wow, that was really good, Dami! I'm proud of you!” When Damian glances up, Jason nods approvingly and Cass gives two soft little claps and a smile. Damian goes back to glaring at the table even more intensely, face flushing a little—Kon is glad he doesn’t have heat vision. After a minute, all eyes turn back to him, and Kon realizes they’re waiting for some sort of response to Damian’s concerns.
“Um. I can’t make any guarantees, you know? There are a lot of ways for someone to get hurt in a relationship, and I can’t promise it’ll never happen. It hurt him a lot when I died, and that’s going to happen again someday. I’ll do everything I can to stick around for him, but… y’know. I can promise you that I would rather die again than hurt him on purpose, though. Tim deserves to be so, so happy, and I just want to be a part of that for him for as long as I can. I… I love him more than I knew I could love anyone.” He tries hard not to see the reactions to that last statement—he’s proud of his relationship with Tim, intensely so, but making that sort of confession to a group of people who land somewhere between “friendly acquaintance” and “total stranger” is pretty awkward.
Damian stares silently at him, his face doing a weird twisty thing and his mouth trembling subtly at the corners. Finally, he sits up straighter and declares, “If your intentions are honest, you may marry Drake. Should you do so, I will vow to protect your life to the best of my abilities.”
Conner blinks at him. “Oh. Wow. Um, thank you?” Damian nods and sits back in his chair. Next to him, Dick looks about ready to explode with pride, and Bruce is smiling broadly.
“Tim is happier now, with you. You should do it,” Cass says, turning back to Kon once the moment has passed. Kon smiles at her, relieved. Cass is one of Tim's relatives he's more familiar with—she’s crashed on his couch on occasion when she and Tim have had business outside of Gotham, and he's attended a few movie nights at Tim’s apartment where she had turned up. Of course, there was also that one time they went on a date as kids, which had been nice, but not really a big getting-to-know-you moment for them. Still, he likes Cass and knows Tim loves her fiercely. If she had reservations about their relationship it could have spelled trouble for the whole thing, so it's a weight off his shoulders that she doesn’t hesitate.
“Thanks, Cass. I will.”
Jason tips his chair back, surveying his family before looking askance at Kon, somehow managing to casually make very intense eye contact with him. “Yeah, I don’t really care what you do. Tim's a grown-up—if you ask him, it's his decision to make. I will kill you if you're an asshole to him, though, just on principle. I don’t tolerate people disrespecting my family.”
“That’s… sort of weirdly sweet?” Kon says, tilting his head. Jason makes a thoroughly disgruntled face, and Barbara cackles at him. “Listen I’m not an angel, I can’t promise I’ll never act like a jerk or screw up. But I’ll never belittle him or try to make him feel bad or anything like that—if I ever disrespect him that way, you have my full permission to hunt me down, although Tim will most likely beat you to the punch. Literally. But he'll probably appreciate your help cleaning up the mess.”
“Good enough for now,” Jason says, shrugging. “Just understand the consequences if you ever slip up.”
“It’s really cute how you try to act like you're some tough guy worried about preserving his family’s dignity and not just a way over-protective big brother,” Barbara informs Jason, propping her head up on one hand. Jason opens his mouth and starts to snap at her, the look on his face totally indignant, but she just gives him a bored look and turns to face Kon. “Same as Jason, except instead of killing you, I'll just ruin your life. Send your nudes to your business contacts, start rumors online about your unfortunate attachment to your dog, that kind of thing. But feel free to propose—it’s nice to see Tim settling down after having such a rough time.”
“…Right. Thanks?” Kon suddenly understands why Barbara is probably the most feared member of the Bat-clan for those in the know, second only to Alfred. His hands feel clammy, and he tries not to fidget under her cool gaze.
Up the table, Dick waves his hands a little, trying to diffuse the tension. “I think it's great!” he announces, smiling encouragingly at Kon. “You’re right, Tim does deserve to be happy. I would love to see him get married, and from everything he's told me, you're a good man. I'm honestly kind of impressed you actually showed up for this. Right, Bruce?”
Bruce sits stoically, makes eye contact with Kon when he glances over at him and doesn’t drop it. Kon looks back—keeps his expression carefully calm and open so he doesn’t telegraph any challenge, but he thinks it’s probably important for Bruce to know that he's not going to be scared off of something so important. He waits patiently while Bruce… does whatever it is that Bruce does in his head.
“…How do you intend to propose?” he asks finally. It takes Kon a second to react—that was definitely not on his list of possible responses from Bruce, and he flounders for an appropriate answer.
“Oh, I—nothing big or flashy, I guess? I was kind of thinking of taking him to Hawaii?” Dick looks intrigued, but Steph and Jason share a disbelieving glance.
“What, really? You think that’s the kind of thing Tim would be into? A destination proposal?” Steph’s tone is derisive, and she crosses her arms over her chest, glaring at Kon. “You can do better than that, bud. He’s a Wayne. You’re not gonna take him anywhere that’ll impress him.”
Eyes wide, Kon shakes his head, waving his hands defensively in front of himself. “No! Not like that, I didn’t mean….” Rubbing a hand across his jaw, he takes a deep breath and exhales it slowly. This had been going a little too smoothly, he supposes. “Hawaii is the first place I ever felt like I really had a home. It’s… more of a sentimental thing? Maybe you’re right, though….”
“I think that’s a great idea!” Dick leans forward, laying a hand on the table. “Doing it somewhere meaningful is always better, and it never hurts if it’s also beautiful, right?” He glances at Steph, who looks a little contrite now.
“Yeah, if it’s sentimental I guess that’s fine. What are you gonna say to him? Have you planned it yet?” God. Kon feels himself flushing slowly, which is like blood in the water to Steph and Jason. They both lean forward, grinning, and even Damian, who’s been quiet since giving his approval, raises an eyebrow at him.
“Oh, it’s gonna be super embarrassing,” Jason crows when Kon fails to respond. He sounds delighted. “Come on, what’s the plan, lover boy?”
“I don’t—it’s kind of personal,” Kon mutters, staring at his lap and trying not to fidget. He knows the tips of his ears are red, and Steph and Jason’s gleeful laughter isn’t helping. He does actually have his speech prepared already, and there’s absolutely no way he’s ever telling any member of Tim’s family what he’s going to say, or anyone else, for that matter. Hell, he’ll be lucky if he doesn’t chicken out in front of Tim.
“Be nice,” he hears Cass says, soft and chiding, and Kon glances up to see her put a hand on Steph’s arm. It stops Steph dead in her tracks, shooting Cass an apologetic look, and Jason quiets down along with her.
“Sorry,” Steph says, not sounding like she feels particularly bad about it. “You’re just easy to tease, Kent.” Kon shrugs.
“Tim tells me the same thing,” he says, smiling crookedly. Steph grins back at him, and he has a feeling that she’s made her peace with him, for now, at least.
“Ring?” Cass speaks up again, and Kon scratches the back of his neck.
“Yeah, I… don’t know about that part. I know most guys don’t, but I kind of like the idea? I wouldn’t be able to get him anything great, though, so I might just pass and try to get him a wedding band he really likes if he says yes.”
“How do you propose without a ring?” Damian sounds sort of offended, and Kon tries not to laugh. He sees Bruce gesturing at Alfred, murmuring something to him under the cover of Damian’s complaint. Kon respects Bruce’s privacy and doesn’t listen in, but damned if the butler’s pleased smile doesn’t make him curious. “Do it right or don’t do it at all, Kent.”
Kon sighs and shrugs. “Alright, well, I guess that settles that. Now I just have to find a ring. I don’t suppose you guys know anybody who would sell something that I could actually afford?”
“On a carpenter’s salary?” Damian asks skeptically, but Alfred sweeps back into the room and Bruce clears his throat. Alfred hands him something small, and Bruce places a little black box on the table in front of him.
“Conner,” he begins, and Kon feels his throat go tight and his vision start to tunnel as he realizes that he’s definitely either about to die or have a deep bonding moment with Bruce Wayne. Both options feel equally surreal. “I’ve seen Tim finally start to recover from some very deep emotional wounds since he’s been with you. He’s become more open and trusting again, and although I don’t know much about your relationship, the only times he’s ever come home upset because of you have been times when you’ve been injured. All of that indicates to me that you’re a stable, positive influence in his life. I would usually have much stronger reservations given your powers and your status in the peacekeeping community, but I can only thank you for what you’ve done for my son.”
Opening the little box, Bruce reveals a small diamond ring—the diamond in the middle is a large, pointed oval, with two smaller, although still sizeable, round diamonds set on either side. Kon gapes at him, floored.
“I would like to offer you my mother’s engagement ring to use when you propose. I can help you redesign it for Tim,” Bruce adds when Kon fails to muster any sort of response.
“That—wow, I just….” He’s not embarrassed in the slightest to have to push his glasses up and wipe at his eyes. He can see Cass and Dick exchanging smiles and Damian watching him with silent intensity, mouth twisted in a way that reveals nothing. Jason leans over to clap him on the shoulder, and Kon’s grateful smile is only a little watery. “Thank you so much, sir. That… really means a lot to me.”
“That’s why I’m giving it to you,” Bruce tells him. His smile is a thin, unfamiliar thing, but not a cold one, and a feeling almost like pride swells in Kon's chest. “And you can call me Bruce.”
“Thank you, Bruce. Really, this… it’ll make the whole thing perfect. Tim’s gonna love it.”
“What am I gonna love? And why are we eating this early?” Tim walks into the room, attempting to loosen his tie and shrug out of his suit jacket at the same time. The whole table startles, Kon almost jumping out of his skin, and Alfred sweeps the ring box smoothly off the table before Tim can see it.
“Shit, don’t you make any noise?” Jason demands, glaring at Tim. Tim stares back, expression flat.
“Batman,” is all he says, and Jason scoffs and rolls his eyes, still looking annoyed. He kicks the empty seat between himself and Kon out for Tim, though, and Alfred starts carting out platters of food as Tim slumps into the seat, reaching out to catch Kon’s hand in his and squeeze it.
“Hey,” Kon says, smiling fondly. His emotions are all over the place—frazzled is an understatement, still swinging wildly between terror, disbelief, and euphoria, but it’s never hard to pay attention to Tim. He laces their fingers together under the table, leaning in to speak quietly. “Rough day?”
Tim gives him a tired smile and rolls his eyes, sliding sideways in the seat to lean against the armrest closest to Kon. “Not my best. One of our favorite projects hit a major development roadblock, and the internal auditors found some middle manager trying to embezzle, so now we get to replace him and do a full internal audit instead of just spot checks.” Kon winces.
“Yikes. Sorry to hear that. Good thing they’ve got you keeping them on track, huh?” Tim snorts a laugh and runs a hand through his hair, ruffling it in a way that never stops being adorable to Kon.
“Flatterer.”
“Is it still flattery if it’s true? Here, eat,” Kon says, dropping a quick kiss on the back of Tim’s hand before releasing it to start piling food on Tim’s plate. Tim laughs at him again, but it's a soft, warm sound, and between that and his future family's eyes all on him, watching with varying levels of glee and amusement as he fusses over Tim, he has butterflies in his stomach like it's their first date all over again. He thinks that feeling might not go away for a long, long time.
*
“Are you going to tell me where you're taking me?” Tim is edging dangerously towards annoyed, Kon can tell, and he speeds up a little more, pushing to cut the trip to Hawaii closer to five minutes than ten.
“Just trust me? I kind of wanted this to be a scenic trip, but it’s only gonna be like three more minutes.”
“Believe it or not, my fantasy of the perfect day off rarely involves being trapped immobile in your arms and hovering ten thousand feet off the ground for hours at a time.” Kon tries not to sigh. He’s still excited, Tim’s acerbic commentary doing nothing to dampen the nerves making him feel jittery and off-balance, and he knows Tim is right. He doesn’t want Tim to walk into this proposal already pissed off; he had just thought it might be a little more romantic to take some time actually getting there than to zip to your proposal and back as quickly as possible. He should have known better—Tim is nothing if not efficient.
“I know, sorry. Just one more minute, okay?” Tim leans his head back against Kon’s shoulder, which Kon chooses to interpret as acceptance.
It really is only a minute before he touches down on a small, secluded beach that he was fond of as a teen. It’s hard to get here, surrounded mostly by tropical forest and the occasional large rock, and the ocean is a stunning, untouched blue-green, clear as glass and teeming with sea life. He sets Tim on his feet and waits for him to catch his balance on the sand before reaching up to tug the blindfold off his face. Tim looks around, blinking in the late afternoon sunlight.
“A beach? Where are we?”
Reaching out, Kon takes both of Tim’s hands in his own and breathes slow and deep, steadying himself as much as he can. It really doesn’t work—his entire body is still tense and thrumming with a strange mixture of emotion that’s equal parts joy, hope, and mind-numbing terror. It’s the best and worst thing he’s ever felt, somehow better than being born and worse than facing down certain death, and he pushes himself to just start talking, speaking the words he knows by heart now.
“Hawaii. Tim, I brought you here because Hawaii is the first place I ever felt at home. I learned here what ‘home’ is about. Love, acceptance, safety. Comfort. Knowing you can be yourself no matter what. With you, I have all those things and so, so much more. You’ve made me better than I could ever have been on my own, and I’m so grateful for that. I used call Hawaii home, but… you’re my home now, Tim, and I love it more every day.” He pauses, lets go of one of Tim’s hands to reach into his back pocket. When he drops to one knee, Tim’s jaw drops with him—he’s gorgeous, his hair blowing in the breeze framing the way his eyes are shining even as his mouth falls open in disbelief.
“Conner, are you…?”
“I was hoping,” Kon says softly, squeezing Tim’s hand, “that if you feel the same way, we could make a new home together. I love you. Will you marry me, Tim?” He flips the lid of the box open with his TTK, revealing the ring—it’s a simple gold band, with a line of stones set along a groove that runs through the middle. In the center is one of the round diamonds from Martha Wayne’s ring, and on either side, pairs of rubies and onyx are set in a repeating pattern, growing smaller as they recede from the central diamond. Above and below the diamond, Kon had two simple half circles with short, radiating lines engraved—a last-minute, sentimental touch.
Tim just stares at the ring for what feels like a very long time. Dread starts to creep in, the silly, butterfly sensation in his stomach curling up into something awful, something that makes Kon feel heavy and nauseous. He starts to retract the box, opening his mouth to reassure Tim that everything is okay, he doesn’t have to say yes, when Tim’s knees give out.
Collapsing to the sand, he lunges for Kon, grabbing his face in both hands and kissing him hard. Kon struggles to get an arm around Tim and keep his balance without dropping the ring, but kisses back every bit as fiercely once he steadies himself, tangling his fingers in Tim’s hair.
“Yes,” Tim gasps against his mouth, barely pulling back long enough to speak. “God, yes—always, Kon—"
It’s a long time before either of them can talk after that, between the kissing and the crying and the laughing. Kon isn’t in any hurry, though, and he smiles like nothing could ever go wrong when they finally settle down a little, foreheads tipped together as they both just breathe. Closing his eyes, Kon soaks up as much of the moment as he can, pretty sure that there’s only going to be one day of his life that’s ever happier.
“You need to find me a courthouse,” Tim whispers after a minute, a little hoarse. That gets Kon’s attention, eyes fluttering open. The look on Tim’s face is so intense it kind of shorts Kon’s brain out again for a second, making him shiver.
“What?” he asks, still trying to catch up.
“I said, you need to find me a courthouse. They won’t be open much longer, and I’m going to bed a married man tonight.”
“Uh. You—I mean, I can definitely do that, absolutely, but you don’t wanna, uh. What about your family? Our families?” Tim’s fingers brush the nape of his neck as he kisses him again, slow and lingering this time in a way that’s very convincing.
“We’ll have a big party later,” Tim assures him, smiling a sweet smile that Kon knows is deeply dangerous. “There’ll be a whole media circus, you know, we’ll have to spend months planning the stupid thing. I don’t want to wait that long.”
“Okay,” Kon agrees, still a little stunned. He stands up, helping Tim to his feet, and pauses when he realizes the ring box is still in his hand. “Oh, um—did you want to wear this?”
Tim looks down at it again, smiling softly and reaching out to pull the ring carefully out of the box. “Of course I do. This is amazing, Conner.” Kon takes it from him to slip it carefully onto his finger. It slides on smoothly and stays firmly in place—they had pulled the ring size from Alfred’s costume-making measurements, so it’s only natural that it fits like a glove.
“It’s, uh. The diamond and most of the gold in the band are from Bruce’s mom’s engagement ring,” he tells Tim quietly. “Bruce helped me get it redesigned for you.”
“This… Bruce gave you Martha’s ring?” Tim is gaping at him again, looking totally overcome by that revelation. Kon nods, brushing his finger carefully over the ring.
“He said while we were redesigning it that he wanted you to have it to remind you that you’re truly his son. I told him to keep the big diamond for whoever wants it, but he wanted me to be able to give you something special from the family. I added the red and black since they’re our colors.”
“That… wow. I have the best family.” Tim is staring down at the ring, blinking hard. Kon reaches out to brush a tear from under one eye, and Tim glances up at him, giving him a wobbly smile.
“And I guess the sun lines…?”
“You know why,” Kon whispers, smiling and leaning in to kiss him again.
“This is all perfect,” Tim murmurs as Kon scoops him up. They still have a date with a courthouse, after all. “You’re perfect.”
Kon laughs as they rise, the sun setting Tim’s eyes alight as it starts to dip below the horizon. “Only with you.”