Work Text:
Live Like You Were Dying
Superboy had died. But Kon hadn't.
Superboy Prime hadn't been the only other Superboy to come to that dimension. Another version of Kon, older, harder, sadder, had come. He'd been the one to rescue Kon, send him via boom tube to the Fortress of Solitude, switch places with him in the fight alongside Nightwing, and then defeat Superboy Prime.
He'd been the one to die. But Kon had lived.
For that...Tim could never repay him.
The information that the A.I. in the Fortress of Solitude had on the other Superboy - only what he had provided - indicated that he had come from a universe where Tim Drake had been the second Robin, and the one killed by the Joker.
There'd been a note left in the Fortress, on a piece of notebook paper. It was written in a code Tim had never seen before, but it only took him half an hour to work out that the first Bat-code he'd invented had been combined with Pig-Kryptonian to make it.
It said only, I couldn't live without him. I didn't want you to have to try.
Tim didn't think he would have been strong enough to search out a world where he could do so much good before...before he gave up on life. He'd lost so many people in his life; he didn't know what he'd do if he lost Kon, too.
He had lost Superboy, in a way. But if there was any justice in the great cosmos, if whatever Powers that looked after superheroes had any mercy whatsoever, the other Superboy was with his Robin now. And they were happy.
The other Kon had a hero's funeral. In attendance was practically every superhero on the planet, all come to pay their respects to the boy, the man, who had saved everyone.
Tim prayed his thanks to whichever God looked out for lost Robins that the man in that coffin wasn't his Kon. He didn't know what he would have done if Kon had died.
Now he wouldn't have to find out.
That one night between them, on the Kent farm, wouldn't have been enough to sustain him for the rest of his life. No matter how magical it had been, they'd had to fall in love and say goodbye all at once, something no one should ever have to do. Tim had no idea what the future held in store for them, but the outlook was brighter than it would have been, and Tim was looking forward to finding out.
He was going to spend the rest of his life living, because tomorrow...tomorrow might be the day he died. And he had a lot he wanted to do before that happened.
A lot he wanted to do...with Kon.
Kon had always been there for Tim, just like he'd always been there for Kon. And he would continue to be there, even if...even if things didn't last forever for them. Tim thought they would, however. It could have just been false hope brought about by relief and romance...but Tim didn't think so.
There was no place far enough away for Kon to go, that Tim wouldn't still love him. Not even death.
Everyone who lived was dying anyway. It was only a matter of time...time that Tim had now, thanks to that other Kon. Tim could never repay him. So he did what he could.
Despite not being robotic, the statue Tim commissioned was some of Hiro's best work, honoring a man that had saved so much and so many.