A/N: Dedicated to my dearest theeffar and the years of how our favorite losers absolutely deserve each other.

Disclaimer: Superman, Batman and associated characters are the creative property of DC Comics

Getting a Clue

The embroidering of KENT was already fraying at the corners by the time Kon received the jacket secondhand. Retro was in style so it made it a little less embarrassing to come to school smelling like mothballs. So that was good. It was easier to write off than it was to answer questions of just where he had been for the past eight months of school.

"Metropolis," as an answer seemed to satisfy the adults who remembered the last Kent who had walked through their school halls.

It did less for Kon's peers who muttered about broken homes and gangs behind him and down the halls out of earshot. Earshot for people.

Kon, or Conner Kent, was only people by half. And it was the half he struggled with the most, the half that kept him up at night.

He wondered, to himself at lunch, if it was the people half that had him picking at the loose strings around the lovingly embroidered name on his jacket. If it was the people half that gave him thoughts like how he should approach Emil McHale and explain that he heard every false word he confidently told the class at Smallville High School about Kon's stint in juvenile detention.

Clark never had to deal with those things. At least Kon was pretty sure he hadn't.

There was something unusually quiet and contemplative about Kon. Tim should know, he had been obsessively thinking about that exact moment for over a year.

After every conceivable revival, false death, and cloning thought had run its course in Tim's head, he realized that the biggest and most important parts were what happened after. The first time they were chilling in a room together. The first time they went for the Madame Guadalupe combo at Taco Whiz again. The first movie they went to talk all the way through and nearly get kicked out of the theater again.

And, of course, the first weekend at Titans Tower where they had the entertainment room late at night, reruns of Wendy the Werewolf Stalker in the background, talking about their lives and catching up again.

Tim had thought for ages about what he was going to say on each occasion. He thought he had put together every possible way Kon would talk on each occasion.

Apparently, Tim had neglected to account for morose silence.

Kon looked defeated, slumped in the couch across from the completely off television. His stare was well past the walls of Titans Tower — and perhaps that was literal, all things considering.

"Want to talk about it?" Tim asked, hopeful.

"What's there to say?" Kon asked back, regarding Tim carefully. "Are you okay?"

He flashed a smile and thumbs up. "You bet, buddy!"

Tim was not okay with this development.

Ma Kent, who was defined by her good advice if not anything else, had a simple solution for the mental funk that Kon was still wading through months after his return from death.

"Try living," she had answered, grease on her face from the tractor. She had also made him a cobbler that night to get him back in spirits.

She had made a different cobbler nearly every night that week. A different flavor for a different mood to inspire.

Kon never had the most experience with traditional families or with caregivers in general, but he felt it was worth betting the farm on the fact that Martha Kent was the best at any of those things and more. Especially on Wednesday when he came home to an after school mixed berry cobbler baked to perfection in a familiar shield-shaped pan.

"Does Clark know you're baking all of these without telling him?" Kon had asked, getting out a fork from the kitchen drawer.

"Do you think he wouldn't be here if he knew?" Ma answered with a wink. "How was today?"

"It was a Wednesday," he said, plopping the bite of cobbler into his mouth. When he received an expectant look, he quickly swallowed and popped the fork out from between his lips. "In the grand list of Wednesdays, it was one that… During all of today I…"

He battled with an appropriate explanation of how he stared at textbooks and stared at walls and stared at clocks for eight hours. But none of that seemed appropriate. Not when Ma had baked him a cobbler for his troubles.

"I'm living," he lied.

"That's all I'm asking, dear," she said, rubbing a cloth napkin against his cheek.

By Thursday afternoon and cobbler number four, Kon had died down in terms of the press at Smallville High School.

Instead, there was a case of arson that occupied the gossip instead.

In the Batcave, Tim wadded up his Taco Whiz wrapper and spun around in the computer chair. With a near-perfect arch in his throw, he aimed for the waste bin on the other layer of scaffolding.

When the wrapper hit the floor, Tim sighed and folded up over his knee. He balanced his chin on his knuckles and glared at the waste bin.

Madame Guadalupes were not the delicious chimichangas he remembered from high school.

He was ready to call it a day and head to bed, the 5:30 blaring in red on his computer, not even noticeable in his periphery when a call came in.

Tim was tempted to leave the ringer off and head to bed. He was in great need of sleep, after all, and people were always getting onto him for it anyway.

Then he saw the name on his phone, and he nearly nosedived into the cave floor with it as he desperately attempted to answer.

"Kon!" he squeaked out.

"Oh, that was fast," Kon said, sounding bewildered.

"What's the emergency?" Tim spat out, his heart pounding with the no doubt thousands of possibilities of things that could have gone wrong, could have led to the moment where Kon was contacting him before dawn.

"Don't really know if it's an emergency yet," Kon admitted hesitantly. "Just checking to make sure that if, like, I got some rope or like things with fingerprints, I could fly by after school and run them in your guys' totally legal database, uh, thingie."

Tim arched into his chair, back stiffening. "What? Like for a case?"

"Yeah, could I?" Kon asked again, a bit more pressing.

"I'll be right there!" Tim announced, pulling the cowl of his suit back over his head and getting to his feet.

"No, seriously, don't," Kon all but ordered. "It's not an emergency. It's not anything. It's just… It's something I'm doing. Just say yes or no. I don't want to, like, run into someone else in your family's weird hole in the ground and have to explain things."

"If it's not an emergency, why did you call at five in the morning?" Tim demanded.

There was a soft snort on the other side of the phone. "Because I live on a farm."

Tim blinked owlishly at that statement. He had no idea what it meant. He never lived on a farm.

"Kent! Conner, hey!" Some of the kids from his English class were gathered near the school's stairs. It wasn't an unusual place for kids to gather, but it was strange to have them acknowledge Kon as he passed by.

Stopping, Kon held to the backpack strap over his shoulder and waited expectantly. These boys were members of the football team, which meant that they were still obsessed with that time before any of them were born when Smallville made it into the state tournament. They knew the names on every jersey still hung with reverence in the trophy case. Including Kent.

The largest of the boys, a wide-shouldered boy with a strong chin and dusty brown hair, came close to him. His jaw was set and his eyes narrowed. "I heard you were going around asking lots of questions about the Pickets' store."

Internally, Kon felt like he was very close to something important. But he remembered every detective show he'd ever seen, could remember the faint mutterings of puzzles solved by his fellow Titans. He had to keep calm, play it smart. Let things work out on their own.

"Just stuff everyone else is asking," Kon deflected easily. "I mean, it's pretty wild. A store like that catching fire out of nowhere? And cops being quiet about it? C'mon, that's not what this town's like."

The boy glances at the others and then back to Kon. "It's who you're asking questions to, Kent, that's what's weird," he said firmly. "That was my girlfriend's parent's store, and they're super upset about it. You don't need to be asking her friends dumb shit like that to upset her."

Caught off guard by the turn of events, Kon's eyebrows raised. "You're dating Kelly Picket?" He asks.

"Yeah, what of it?" He demanded.

"Nothing," Kon assured him, raising his free hand. "I just didn't know."

The football player snorted. "Everyone knows, Smallville talks, remember?"

Kon hadn't been paying much attention to his town since he got back.

Smiling, Kon nodded. "I get it, man, that was really obnoxious of me. I just am so out of sorts, being back to Smallville and feeling like everything's changed. I just wanted a handle on what was going on. I didn't mean to hurt any feelings over it."

"Nothing's changed. It's Smallville," the fellow student countered, his shoulders less tense. "Thanks, though. I appreciate it."

Heading back up the stairs, Kon felt slightly more burdened and slightly more relieved at the same time. He needed to be less callous with his approach to the mystery, that much was obvious. But it was good to know that there was one true thing — the kind of good-natured people Smallville had wasn't changing.

It made him even more determined to find out how a terrible arson like what happened to the Picket's store could happen.

Tim wasn't sure how he'd even pick where to begin with his investigation. Kon hadn't been very forthcoming in his five o'clock call.

Well, that wasn't true, he had been very clear that he didn't want Tim's direct help outside of being some side assistance. A lab tech. The same way everyone else had been treating Tim since his return to Gotham. Kid gloves and all that — something that needed to be handled gingerly and labeled fragile.

Which stung. Especially from Kon. But that was okay.

Because on the bullet train from Gotham to Smallville, Tim had brought his tablet, a neck pillow, and enough prophylactic antibiotics to make the trip a few days.

"Wow," Tim muttered to himself, chewing on a complimentary muffin. It was breathtaking to see crime statistics so low.

There was no doubt in Tim's mind that the case of arson which had been in the front page headlines was the suspicious case Kon was concerned about.

While Tim had initially thought he would use his ride for some rest, his mind was already firing on all cylinders. There simply had to be something of interest with the case for it to get Kon's attention.

Immediately, with a notebook in hand, Tim began diagramming out all known villains and rogues in association with Superboy, Smallville, and Superman who could have possible modus operandi to cause stores to go up in smoke.

He was certain he'd have it solved before they reached his stop.

As soon as school was out of session, Kon veered off his usual path to the Kent farm and headed toward downtown Smallville.

He imagined that Smallville was the same as most small rural towns — the town built out from the few local government offices, some places of worship, and then lined the next few streets with business and industry. Most of them closed and closing.

Between the corner and a grocery store lay the ruins of a general store owned by the Picket family for probably longer than Kon could count. He had never been to the store much — hadn't been to any of the stores much. He could fly where he needed to get what he wanted, and it had left him rather disconnected from his surroundings before he even realized it.

There was something vaguely nauseating when he thought about the damage the store's loss would do to the lives of so many people he hadn't yet gotten to know.

It made him more determined than ever to find who was responsible.

After looking around carefully, Kon assured himself that no one was inside or outside. Then he crossed the police tape himself carefully.

Even gutted from the fire, the store was claustrophobically cluttered. Shelves on top of shelves bunched up together awkwardly. Debris scattered across the scarce floor space. Electrical wires swung from the ceiling loosely.

Mindful of the fact it was still a crime scene, Kon hovered feet above anything and ventured further in until the light filtering from outside wasn't enough to illuminate his path. There, being Superboy came in handy, as he accessed his x-ray vision.

Kon wasn't sure what he was expecting, but it wasn't the visibly human skeleton of someone at the back of the store with their back to him.

Smirking, Kon cracked his knuckles. "Returning to the scene of the crime," he noted to himself before backing out of the store window he entered and quickly flying around the house. "Freeze!" He shouted, having switched into his Superboy shirt in the blink of an eye.

Tim sat cross-legged on the grass with his back to the store, looked up from the laptop he was typing on and blinked. "Huh?"

Balking, Kon nearly fell backward as he landed unevenly on the heels of his boots. "What— Tim! What the hell are you doing here!?"

"I'm, uh, helping to solve an arson. I thought," Tim answered, sounding nearly as confused as Kon.

"I don't need your help!" Kon spat out angrily.

"But I've already got clues," Tim tried to argue, getting to his feet. "And you-you called me."

"This is unbelievable!" Kon grabbed at his hair, momentarily forgetting the precious follicles. He glared at Tim before pointing at him. "Go home. I've got this, okay?"

Tilting his head, Tim pointed at the box of wires hooked up to the wall of the store. "You already figured out who cut the electricity before setting the store on fire?" He asked skeptically.

"I'm not an idiot!" Kon snapped.

"I never said you were!" Tim cried out, looking more surprised by the minute. "Can you just hold on and tell me what's going on? What did I do wrong?"

"You're not letting me have a life! That's what's wrong!" Kon growled before taking off in the air again.

Looking baffled, hurt, and a little angry himself, Tim threw up his arms and yelled, "WHAT?" in a very undignified way.

Tim knew, in the barest of realistic senses, that even if he didn't think he had done anything wrong (which he hadn't), that Kon's need for space was worthy of respect. Should be respected. He knew that even if he was confused by it.

So he did it in the only way he truly knew how and sat, waiting expectantly, at the kitchen table while Martha Kent spooned over a block of cobbler onto his plate.

"Thank you, Mrs. Kent," Tim said in earnest, picking up his fork.

"Of course, dear," she answered warmly by the kitchen window. She didn't even flinch as an unnatural gust of air whirred past the window, sending the chimes into an unsteady rhythm. "Oh, that's him."

There was a heavy plop on the porch before the front door opened and Kon began kicking off his work boots.

"Ma!" he yelled, walking through the farmhouse and coming to a complete stop at the kitchen.

Kon stared angrily at Tim. Tim forked in some cobbler to his mouth.

"Out late, that's unusual," Ma declared, rounding over to Kon and pulling at his plaid shirt until the wrinkles settled.

"I was upset so I flew to the moon and back with Krypto," Kon noted testily, looking Tim over.

"That's nice, he needed the exercise, being pent up all day like he is," Martha commented before walking toward the fridge and rummaging around. "I'll get you a plate ready in a moment, Conner."

Tim knew he was eating the cobbler too quickly but he couldn't think of anything better to do. So he shoveled more fork fulls into his mouth in a panic.

"Why can't I eat out of the tray like normal?" Kon asked, finally peeling his eyes off of Tim long enough to track Ma's movements around the kitchen.

"Because you have a friend over, Conner. Now stop it, I know you have more manners than that," Ma corrected him with a stern look over her glasses.

Kon provided no other protest, even as he sunk into the seat across from Tim and crossed his arms over his chest petulantly.

Full anxiety mode, Tim finished off even the crumbs on his plate and was beginning to thank his stars that there wasn't more to embarrassingly overfeed himself when Ma set down a piece for Kon's plate and a second for Tim's. He only barely restrained his groan.

"I have some things to do upstairs, boys, just call if you need me," Martha Kent said lightly before walking out of the most awkward kitchen in America.

Tim was already shoveling in more cobbler to avoid the foot he was aiming for his mouth.

"What're you doing here?" Kon demanded.

"Eating," Tim answered with a swallow.

"No! You know what I meant," Kon groaned, pinching his eyes. "Why didn't you go home?"

"There's something up with you and I wouldn't dream of leaving until I've gotten to the bottom of it," Tim answered truthfully. "Come on, now, you flew to Gotham before you ever knew my secret identity just to check in on me and you don't think I'm allowed to be worried about you?"

"That was different," Kon dismissed out of hand, still not looking at Tim.

"I don't think it was," Tim countered, pushing his plate of cobbler slightly further from him. He waited for Kon to finally give up and look at him, but he shook his head. Stubbornness had always run deeply through both of them. "Kon, you called me, and-"

"Oh, for crying out loud, I'm sorry I called you, okay? If I'd known it was going to give you a full meltdown I wouldn't have alright?" he growled out.

"-AND," Tim preserved to finish, "when you did, it made me realize just how little you'd talked to me about, well, anything that's been bothering you lately. And I realized how worried I was, how much I just needed to make sure you were alright or it was going to drive me crazy."

Kon grew quiet and contemplative before looking at Tim finally. There was a tinge of something deeper, something more quiet and concerned just beneath the surface. Tim didn't know what to even do with it.

"I just know I'd hate to feel like there was something important going on in my life, and I couldn't tell you about it," Tim said truthfully. "I went through… basically, the longest year of my life where I didn't have my best friend to talk to about anything. And I don't want you to feel the same way. Because I'm right here. And I'm not going anywhere."

Huffing, Kon seemed to do his level best to hold back a smirk. "Is this how you Gotham people show affection?"

"No, it's usually way more awkward," Tim admitted. "I'm trying this whole what would I do if I lived on a farm approach to things."

"How's that going for you?" Kon asked skeptically.

"Very confusingly. I didn't know that big metal thing in the barn was for pasteurizing milk," Tim admitted, looking off to the Kent barn.

"What else would it be for?" Kon asked, tilting his head.

"I don't know. I thought it was Kryptonian all these years." Tim put a hand to his chin in thought. "My mind is still blown about it."

Unable to take much more, Kon threw his head back and let out a howling laugh. Which got Tim to start chuckling at himself, too.

There were no Madame Guadalupes, but Tim was fairly certain this had been what he was looking for.

As much as he had been dreading having Tim step in and do his detective thing with the investigation, sidelining Kon all along the way, Kon had to admit that it felt good having his best friend on board. It had been an intensely long time since they had worked together, just the two of them, on anything.

Probably since Kon's death, really.

There was an element of organized chaos to Tim as he cleared off the work desk in Kon's bedroom and began laying out the newspaper articles from the last few days, an insurance estimate, and a legal pad with direct subjects Kon had been making.

Tim stood up, hand on his mouth, nodding to himself. "Yeah, okay," he said. "That's coming together."

Kon squinted at Tim skeptically. "Is it?"

Snorting, Tim batted away at Kon's shoulder. "Ye of little faith." Without taking his eyes away from the legal pad, Tim began rearranging a few of the documents. "Uh-huh…"

Although his mind had been consumed with the case for days by that point, Kon couldn't help but take a deep breath and watch the focus that fell over Tim. It was reminding Kon just what Tim looked like in his true element.

Once upon a time, Kon could have spent hours just hovering in the corner, letting Tim get into the zone and work through puzzles. It was the type of thinking and thoughtfulness that had never been natural or easy for Kon. He loved it. Wished he could be more like it.

And the last few days had truly shown that Kon didn't have those same capabilities.

"Sorry, I guess some of this I should've been getting on my own before now," Kon apologized, voice little more than a murmur.

"You did get some of this on your own, goof," Tim reminded him without looking up. He tapped on the legal pad and the newspapers. "I wouldn't be able to put this together right now without them." He ripped his gaze from the desk, at last, meeting Kon's expression with a soft and endearing smile. "We make a good team like that."

"Yeah," Kon responded, feeling slightly breathless. "We do."

"Doctor Mid-Nite solves arson cases now?"

Tim, having never lived on a farm, was woefully unprepared for how small the police department was, the fact that it was a one-floor building, or that the sheriff was going to be wearing those hats when they came into the office.

It would have been nice if the department had met him halfway and known a little less about big city superheroes like the JSA roster, too.

"I'm not Doctor Mid-Nite, I'm Red Robin," Tim corrected him evenly. It really shouldn't have bothered him that much by that point in his superhero career, but there they were. Arguing superhero names. "I work with Batman."

"Oh," the sheriff said, pulling on his rather impressive gray mustache. "I was always more of a Superman fan."

Kon looked like he was the cat that caught the canary.

The sheriff's look hardened as he took to looking through the files Kon and Tim had provided him. He then glanced suspiciously at Tim. "Why does Batman care about an arson investigation in Smallville? Isn't that out of his jurisdiction?"

Just as Tim's throat was feeling a little dry, Kon smoothly came forward to assist the sheriff with the file. "Batman isn't interested, but my partner and I are. Because we don't want bad things happening in Smallville. It's the kind of town that deserves to shine brighter than all that sorta stuff."

Seemingly more comfortable in Kon's proximity, the sheriff's shoulders drop back into place and he nods confidently. "I sure am pleased to hear that thought from you, Superboy. It means a lot." He looks at the files and shakes his head. "But this isn't all that unique, even to Smallville I'm afraid. We were already heading down this path."

Confused, Tim tilted his head. "For real?"

"Sure," the sheriff continued, "insurance fraud is always a real problem. Economy's hard in Smallville when there's a slow season. Hell, the county fair made less than expected. Little shop like this? A kiddo about to graduate and needing college to be paid for… Well, people like that get desperate. It might seem strange to city folk like you two, but there's something very human, very… well, Smallville about this."

Everything he said checked out, and Tim even found himself nodding along. Until he looked over and saw Kon looking like he was about to get sick.

Tim opened his mouth to say something, but Kon coughed and flew up close to the ceiling.

"Thank you for meeting with us, sir, it's appreciated," Kon blurted out before taking off out the door.

"Superboy?" Tim asked out loud, blinking in surprise.

He hit the road sign with part of his strength - a small fraction, really - and it went flying into the nearest cornfield. His breath is uneven, his nerves shattered.

Kon stood at the crossroad with his shoulders trembling, his head lowered as he glared literal holes into the ground with his heat vision. Things Clark would never do because Clark was more human than the half-Kryptonian ever dreamed of being.

The sound of a motorcycle pulling up behind him didn't make Kon flinch because the heartbeat riding on it was the most familiar sound in the world.

"Wow," Tim said, kicking the stand down as he leans over his bike's handlebar. His gaze was out into the cornfield. "I'm sure it deserved it."

"I've been living here for years," Kon informed Tim. "Smallville's been my home longer than Metropolis or Hawaii or Happy Harbor or San Francisco."

Tim looks at him, reaching up and pulling off the cowl of his suit with one swoop and unleashing a mess of too-long hair. He looks confused, reserved, and sympathetic all at once. "The numbers add up," he said like he was following Kon's thought process at all.

And how could he? How could anyone follow what Kon was going through?

"I haven't built up anything with anyone in those places," Kon glowered. "And I don't even understand humans. I'm supposed to be one, at least by half, and yet when I try to live the best life, something like a life here in Smallville, I learn that people aren't anything like I thought they were after all."

They lapsed into silence for a long moment. Kon thought it was because there was nothing left to be said.

"People suck," Tim provided unhelpfully. "But that's crap that you haven't built a life. So what? You aren't connecting at school. I dropped out of school! It wasn't part of my plan. There's other things."

Kon looked up and squinted at Tim. "Are you advocating for people to not do school?"

"I have always advocated for people to not do school," Tim laughed, putting a hand to his chest. "Are you kidding? Do you know how many boarding schools I got kicked out of or moved around to? I'm a complete mess."

"School's not bad," Kon countered. "You just need to find the right environment." He paused then tilted back on his heels like he was smacked with his realization. "Oh."

"You don't have to be Superman," Tim said simply. "Take the lessons from him that work. But you're not him. And you're not Lex. You're not Superboy-Prime. You're none of them. You're," Tim gestured to Kon's everything, "you're Kon."

"Kon died," Kon reminded him darkly. "I died and when I came back, I realized that for all the bolstering and lamenting, I really hadn't changed the world for better or worse. And I can't help but think… maybe that's because I didn't even really know what the world was before I was in it. I didn't know how to really live as a part of it. I didn't connect with people before."

Tim pulled a genuinely pained expression. He hesitated before throwing his leg over his bike and walking over to Kon. His hand trembled at his side slightly before reaching over and grasping onto Kon's shoulder. "Sure you did," he said. "Bart, Cassie, Anita, Cissie, Greta, Traya-"

Looking into Tim's face, Kon felt like he was looking at him for the first time in all of the months since he had been back. It was tired and broken a little, like the Tim he tracked down in Paris at the start. But there was something new there, something peaceful that Kon hadn't seen at the Tower or in Gotham.

A Tim who seemed to have something again.

"You, too," Kon said, unable to resist his tender smile. "I've been a crappy friend for the last few weeks, huh?"

"Eh, high school hormones," Tim joked, rolling his shoulders with a shrug. "Besides, if your best friend doesn't help you through those kinds of snags, what kind of friend is he?"

"I don't know many friends who would do that," Kon admitted, tilting forward. "It's not a friend thing to do at all."

For a detective, Tim was completely taken off guard by what Kon felt was the most natural move in the world. A surge forward, clashing lips to lips. Tim went rigid and let out a throaty noise of surprise. It relaxed, though, as Tim's body melted into the movement and he grabbed firmer onto Kon's shirt.

They kept like that, pushing closer into each other until finally coming up for air.

"Wow," Kon said, a laugh in his throat.

"Okay," Tim laughed back, looking almost bashfully at Kon. "Slightly better than gossiping over Madame Guadalupes."

"We can get those later," Kon answered back, not wanting to miss out on a second test run of whatever they were doing next.

Tim was happy with himself, with his choices, as he sat in the booth of a Taco Whiz two towns over from Smallville. His hair was still a mess from a combination of cowlhead and being carried at Mach speeds through the air.

He spared a thought to the idea that maybe Kon began cutting his hair shorter to avoid the mess, but immediately decided it was a mystery for him to solve at another time.

Kon sat down with a stack of Madame Guadalupes on a tray between them and Tim was more than ready to spend hours, if not weeks, days, and lives with the most important person in his world. Eating greasy bad tacos and sharing their worlds.

Just the way it was meant to be.