Hits

Rating: PG-13
Summary: Kon's a DJ, Tim plays Dad to orphans, Kon keeps getting Connor Hawke's e-mail, and he still hasn't come up with a more mature name than Superboy. Tim and Kon, this is your life – ten years from now.
Notes: The 10 Years Later: Where Are They Now? scenario.

…when you only got one hundred years…to live.

"Ten years ago, John Ondrasik, the man behind the fame of Five For Fighting, first released his hit song 100 Years. Today is National Irony Day, so it's our nostalgic look back over the hits of yesterday, here at KROK, Gotham's own Station of Tomorrow. This is CK the DJ, bringing you all the hits, past and present, so stay tuned!" Conner 'CK' Kent, better known as Kon-El to his friends, flipped a switch on the turntable, and Firefly's cover of My Generation rocked across the radio waves.

Tugging his padded headphones down around his neck, he twirled around his chair to face the racks of CDs. A tap came on the clear plastic screening separating his sound room from the hallway. Kon jerked his gaze away from the mass of music he was sorting through and, looking through two sheets of bulletproof plastic and an empty 9x9 foot room, he saw his lover waving at him. Grinning, Kon motioned for Tim to wait in the sound room a moment, and then quickly set up the next four songs on rotation.

Opening and closing the door to the broadcast booth behind him, Kon leaned down to greet his lover with a long kiss on the lips. "What are you doing here?" he asked as he pulled back, slightly breathless. "Not that I'm complaining," he hastened to add.

Tim grinned and held up his briefcase. One wouldn't think the director of a halfway house would have to carry a briefcase, but then Tim had always done things his own way. "It was decided by the board of directors that a little more publicity for our charity ball next month wouldn't go awry."

Kon knew that the board of directors consisted of Tim Drake, CEO; Dick Grayson, Head of Security; Bart Allen, Superintendent/Recreational Director; Bernard Dowd, Accounting and Events Coordinator; and a silent partner supplying funding who was actually Oracle. It was true that KROK had one of the highest listening ratios in Metropolis, but there were other, more appropriate radio venues for the kind of advertising Tim needed. The only reason KROK got it was because Kon worked there.

There was a reason that Kon's contract had gotten renewed for ten years the previous March, and while his winning personality over the air waves was a good one, that wasn't it. Oracle knew of every single superhero in the world, and when one of them needed something advertised anywhere near Metropolis, she directed them to Kon.

Shaking his head reproachfully, Kon tsked under his breath. "Man, I'm already set for the next decade, I don't need you to keep doing stuff like this," he said, gesturing expansively to encompass the entire building.

"It isn't always about you, Kon," Tim chided, one eyebrow hiked into his hairline.

Smirking mirthfully, Kon said, "Just most of the time, huh, Tim?" He rolled his eyes. "Except when people get me confused with someone else."

"You got another email meant for Green Archer, didn't you?" Tim asked, amused.

Making a noise of disgust, Kon nodded. "One from Kyle Rayner," he said, rolling his eyes. The are-they-or-aren't-they argument over whether Green Archer and Green Lantern were lovers could be easily settled if anyone had asked Kon. But they didn't, so Kon just kept upping his ante in the betting pool and working on his plan to get the two of them to kiss publicly under the mistletoe next Christmas.

Raising a single brow, Tim half-frowned and asked, "It wasn't one of the sexually explicit ones, was it?" Kyle's emails to Connor were in turns horrifying, embarrassing, and amusing. Horrifying, because Connor Hawke wasn't nearly as vanilla as some people thought, and Kyle knew it. Embarrassing because Kyle liked to 'talk' dirty, and had no shame. And amusing because they were both apparently closet romantics, and the non-sexually explicit emails were so sweet, a person could choke on the saccharine.

Frowning mulishly, Kon said, "No. And thank fuck for that. But I'm about ready to give up and ask Oracle to list me as 'Kon-El' in the JLA database." While everyone who had a JLA email address had an address based on the traditional workplace format – first initial, middle initial, last name – Oracle had recently upgraded the system, and people could just type in the first three letters of a name and see a drop-down menu of addresses. It wouldn't have been so confusing, except that the drop-down menu listed all of the applicable addresses in the database, and not just the ones that person had in their address book. People kept clicking before they checked to make sure they had the right name.

The mix-up over a mis-sent email containing the date, time, and location of a 'secret' bachelor party for a member of the JSA almost caused the wedding to be called off when the bride showed up to find her husband-to-be about to get a lap dance from one of Warriors: Las Vegas' starlets.

"You think I should try to get her to switch to a different system?" Tim asked. He'd discussed it before with Kon. With Kon, with Dick, with Cass, even with Bruce. None of them had thought it was a good idea. Kon because he was scared of her, Cass because she didn't really care as she hardly ever got any email anyway, and liked getting it, even if it was meant for other people, and Bruce because the last time he'd made a suggestion she didn't like, she'd bugged the Crays to play the hamsterdance every time he opened a file.

Dick had had his own reasons; Babs had been pregnant when she'd set up the system, and he'd been on pins and needles worrying over her and their unborn child. Even after the birth – with a surprise of twins – he didn't want to do anything to upset the balance, and anyway, with Jason and Stephanie Gordon-Grayson in their lives, the new mother didn't have the time to handle a systems overhaul anyway.

Tim, however, was Sphinx, Oracle's right-hand man, and as the twins' godfather (one of them, anyway; there were also Kon, and Roy, and Wally…) could probably convince her it was a good idea for when things got quiet over the comms.

Kon snorted. "I think Clark should have tried to come up with a different civilian name for me. Something different from everybody else's names," he stated, frustration infusing his voice. "We didn't need to add 'Conner' to the mix. Things were already messed up enough with Cassie, Cissie, and Cass. "

"Not to mention Jonathan Kent, John Henry Irons, John Stewart, John Constantine, and that Air Force guy John Sheppard that Cassie used to date," Tim added with a smirk. "And Vic Stone and Vic Sage. Diana, Donna, and Dinah. And Grace, Gar and Garth. And Anissa and Anita…"

Kon whimpered and rolled his eyes. Holding up a hand, he pleaded, "Stop. Just please…stop."

Tim chuckled, but he did as asked.

Sending out his super-hearing through the window of his cubicle, Kon heard the beginning strains of the last song on rotation; he knew he needed to wrap this up. "So, anyway, did you drop by just to fuck with my head, or was there another reason?" he asked. Every time Tim did this, he dropped by to say hello, but sometimes there was more to it.

Tim ran one hand back through his messy ear-length curls, the other tightening on the handle of his briefcase. "I know you said you might have to fill in for Jesse on the evening shift, and I wanted to know if you were still free."

Curiosity piqued, Kon answered, "Nah, he got Joey to fill in for him. What's up, man? Does Sphinx need Superboy?" If the world needed saving, his job could go hang, as far as he was concerned. Well…he'd hopefully at least be able to call in sick first, though.

And he really needed to come up with a different codename now that he was twenty-seven. Ish.

"No, no, nothing like that," Tim hastened to reassure him. "I was…well, actually I was thinking we could hang out at the center," he said bashfully.

Kon raised an eyebrow. "What, are you throwing another baby shower?" It wasn't that he didn't like parties of all kinds, even if just for the food. But there was only so much squeeing over teeny-tiny baby clothes that a man could take, and this would make the fifth baby shower he'd attended this year. Valentine's Day had just been last week.

Tim rolled his eyes. "No. Some of the kids pooled their money together and are renting the DVD extra version of the movie Serendipity. We never got to see it when it was in theaters, and I know you wanted to, so…" He shrugged, smiling ruefully.

Kon brightened. What with one citywide/worldwide/galactic/universal crisis after another this past year, they'd never gotten around to seeing the movie on the big screen, like Kon had wanted to. Kon had adored Wendy, the Werewolf Stalker from the first episode to the last. And even when that Joss guy that created the show had touted his new series as being 'cowboys in space' Kon had waited with breathless anticipation for the premiere of Phoenix. And loved it from the very first explosion.

Willow was his favorite character, he loved all the cool fight scenes, and he'd actually contemplated getting a gun (not a real one; maybe one that shot paint pellets) just so he could name it Wynonna.

Kon grinned widely and pulled Tim close for another heated kiss. "I'd love to."

Kon clocked out at five that evening, and whistled his way down in the elevator. He was so thrilled about finally seeing Serendipity that he didn't even mind that the elevator car stopped on practically every floor between his and the ground.

KROK was on the forty-second floor of the Gotham Communications building. Which just went to show that daydreaming did have its place in the workplace.

After ducking into an alley and changing into his Superboy costume, Kon sped downtown, keeping an eye out for what used to be the Redbird and was now just a really souped-up car that Tim drove. He finally caught sight of it about seven blocks from the center and landed in the trees out back to change into his civilian clothes. He headed around to the front, and, seeing that his lover was carrying a pile of paper so high he could barely see over it, went to open the door for him.

As Kon pulled the door open, his eyes lingered as always on the plaque next to it: In Loving Memory of Stephanie Brown. Tim passed by him, a few sheets of loose paper flapping in the wind, and Kon used his TTK to keep the chest-high stack of folders from falling out of Tim's arms. Tim shot him a grateful look before stumbling over the crooked entranceway. Tim kept saying he'd get around to fixing it one day, but there always seemed to be something more important to do. Like help out the kids with their kids.

The Second Chance Home for Teenage Parents was Tim's baby. It was an idea dreamed up by Kon, who had been at the end of his rope one night from dealing his moody lover (it was the anniversary of Steph's death, he'd just received his GED, and he was trying to figure out what he wanted to do with his future beyond being Robin), fueled by too many late nights filling in for Superman in Metropolis while he was off with the League on some off-planetary business, and spawned from trying to solve all of Tim's problems in one fell swoop.

As grand ideas went, it was a fluke for Kon so far, but it had worked out wonderfully for Tim.

Tim had originally wanted to name the center The Stephanie Brown Home for Unwed Mothers, but there were several problems with that. One, no one knew who Stephanie Brown was, and while that didn't really matter to him, Tim didn't want Batman having to fund it because they couldn't get donations. Two, it wasn't just single mothers that needed help; there were also single fathers. Granted, very few of them as compared to mothers, but in the first month of operation they'd had three fathers move in. One was nineteen and widowed with a two-year-old son. One had a pregnant girlfriend who'd been thrown out on her own once her father found out; he didn't have any family support on his end, either. The other one was married to his high school sweetheart; both of them were foster kids, and once they turned eighteen they were on their own. Three, not all of the parents were single, just struggling to make ends meet.

Tim loved running the center even more than he loved being a superhero. Kon could relate; he loved seeing Tim happy more than he loved being a superhero.

Yeah, he was a sap. But a happy one.

And chivalry wasn't dead in Kansas, even if they were in New Jersey, so Kon held the next three doors open for his lover, and finally they were in Tim's office. His insanely cluttered, and actually messy office, which was made even less neat by the pile of papers and folders that Tim dumped on the floor (since his desk and the three chairs and the two end tables were all already full).

"The kids' homework?" Kon asked with a smirk.

Shaking his head at the bad joke, Tim said, "No, just more contracts and releases for the charity ball." He scowled. "Would you believe one of Oswald Cobblepot's companies is donating ice sculptures?"

Kon blinked. He knew that Cobblepot was really the Penguin, but the avian villain had mostly gone straight years ago. "Dude, are you kidding?"

Tim nodded and gave the mess that was his office a weary look, before shutting the door. "I wish I were. O2's going to have to research and make sure this isn't some plot by the Penguin. The center doesn't need this."

And neither did Tim, Kon knew. "You know I'll help in any way I can, man. I–"

"Countdown to Serendipity!" one of the girls shouted.

"T-minus nineteen minutes, twenty-seven seconds," another one answered.

Kon took a peek through the door with his X-Ray vision to check on everyone. Almost half of the center's teenagers were gathered around the television in the rec room, pillows on the floor, drinks and snacks on the tables. Some had baby monitors clipped to belts, two infants were nursing, one bottle-fed, and three toddlers were being ushered off to bed. All was well, for the moment, but that could change. "We should probably get out there," he said.

"In a minute," Tim said huskily.

Startled by the tone of lusty want in his lover's voice, Kon blinked away the black and white images from his retinas just as Tim pulled him down for a longer, more thorough kiss than they'd had that afternoon, and proceeded to kiss him until he couldn't see straight. Their lips crushed against each other, tongues licking deeper into moaning mouths, and teeth clicking together, causing sparks of desire to unfurl inside of Kon. By the time Tim let go of him, Kon was reeling, and he had to fly up a few inches off the floor so as to not lose his balance.

Tim looked smug, as well he should have. Kon did his best to wipe that smirk off his lover's face by kissing him senseless.

They had most of nineteen minutes, after all.

And while they may not have been at the top of anybody's chart, they were a hit with each other.

THE END