Who: Conner Kent and Tim Drake What: Kon finds out what's been going on with Tim When: Backdated: Early October. Afternoon Where: A Field Trip Rating/Warnings: Family Friendly Status: Complete!
Tim was growing increasingly tired of his way of life lately. The jocks had made sure to make it rather miserable for him after discovering he was tutoring most of them. Smartness was not a good thing in high school. He was learning that quick.
This trip he’d already been attacked once, and saved by a tall man with a girls name. It wasn’t about to happen a second time, and the boys from Conner’s team knew that. Once again they’d found him walking the halls alone.
“Haven’t you learned to stick with the group?” They jeered at him as they advanced. Tim’s back hit a wall behind him, and he had nowhere else to go. “We thought you were smart, shouldn’t you have learned not to wander off from before?” In reality Tim hadn’t wandered off all that far, nor did he have the energy to fight back at this point in time. He said nothing in return, and it earned him a punch in the stomach that caused him to flinch, but he didn’t kneel. He refused.
Kon always enjoyed field trips, even if they were to places he wasn’t particularly interested in, because it meant that he got out of school for a couple of hours, but still got to see his friends. On this particular field trip there had been a small group who was also on the football team with him and they had started out, sitting on the bus together, talking about the last weekend’s game and had even hung out together for awhile during the field trip, but at some point Kon had lost them and Tim, who he’d noticed was also on the field trip.
After a little while, Kon noticed that not only were his other teammates not with the group, but neither was Tim. While he thought this was odd, he didn’t automatically think that Tim could have been with them, because Kon knew that Tim wasn’t exactly in that group. Deciding to see if he could find either Tim or his teammates, Kon left the group and started walking down a hallway until he heard voices. Turning a corner, Kon saw his teammates all gathered around something and as he got closer he saw one of them throw a punch and as he got even closer, he saw that what they were gathered around was a person and that person was Tim.
“Hey! What’s going on?” Kon yelled as he reached the group.
Kon’s voice seemed to break up the group for a moment. Tim however was less than amused by it. The last thing he’d wanted to do was get Kon involved. He knew these guys were his friends and teammates. Tim was not likely to have ever bothered to say anything had he not just saw this little altercation happen. He said nothing.
One of his teammates just gave Kon a shit eating grin. “We’re just playing around. No need to get all up tight.” He gave the kid a Conner a clap on the shoulder as though nothing had happened at all.
“It’s okay.” Tim managed once he regained his bearings and was released from the group of hyenas. “I’m okay.” The group of boys seemed agreeable to the attitude, they were watching closely though.
The other boys might have been Kon’s friends and teammates, but that didn’t mean Kon wasn’t going to say something if they were picking on someone else. Kon wasn’t a bully and he didn’t tolerate bullies no matter who they were.
“Playing around doesn’t normally include cornering someone. Looked more like hunting to me.” Kon quirked a brow at the other football player as he stood his ground, not backing down. He may have only met Tim a few months ago, but Kon liked him a lot more than he had when the tutoring had first started. After all, Kon never would have passed his summer tests had it not been for Tim. Tim helped him actually understand the work. Kon liked to think that he and Tim could be friends. Then there was the fact that Kon thought Tim was kind of cute, but he certainly wasn’t going to tell anyone that.
At the sound of Tim’s voice, Kon’s blue eyes flicked away from his teammate towards him, “Dude, seriously, were they bothering you?” After seeing this, Kon wondered if Tim’s broken wrist had less to do with bumping into a wall and more to do with the guys standing in front of him.
Tim watched them begin to scatter and just released a silent breath he wasn’t aware he’d been holding. Finally he was left to his own devices for the time being. “It’s nothing I can’t handle.” It was more complicated than he liked. It wasn’t just Kon he worried about, but the school itself if he did bother to fight back. He really didn’t want to be less popular than he already was. Being a target was bad enough.
He brushed some dark hair away from his face and straightened up some. However the expression on his face was becoming more and more difficult to hide. “I’m just sick of this school. Guess they don’t approve of my feeling.” He gave him a strained expression as he gave up on standing. He slid down to sit for a moment on the marble ground.
When it became clear that Kon wasn’t going to leave and let his teammates get back to whatever they had been doing with Tim, they started to disperse, probably to find the rest of the class. Once they were gone and Tim had sat down on the ground, Kon followed suit, settling down beside the other teenager, “Is it all cause of those guys?” When Kon had first met Tim, he had know Tim didn’t really want to be tutoring him, mostly cause of Kon’s attitude towards it, but now he wondered if he’d felt that way about the school then too or if it was all because of those other jocks.
Tim wanted to lie and say no, but he was far too tired to lie anymore. ‘Yeah.” He’d been lying about it for a while now. Ever since he started tutoring really. He was quiet for a while, not sure what else to say. “This guy I met earlier said a car might shut them up. “ He said with a shrug. He really didn’t know what else to do about it. “Fighting back will only get me in more trouble than I care to deal with. “
“Tell me that you’re not thinking about bribing them? Giving them something won’t make them stop; they’ll just try to get more stuff.” Not everyone on the football team was bad and that showed, because Kon had only seen a select few gathered around Tim when he’d shown up, “And you don’t have to fight back either. There’s always a way around this.” However, even as Kon said it, he felt the urge to fight those guys himself for messing with Tim. “They can’t keep getting away with this.”
Tim frowned. “No. I mean me getting a car. Apparently cars make people stop doing this stuff.” No, it wasn’t the entire time. It was just the same group of guys every time. Most of the team just left him be which was fortunate on his end. He had enough trouble with the ones who didn’t. He didn’t need to add on the rest. “So what are we supposed to do then?” He asked him a little grumpily. If it was such an easy answer, do enlighten him.
“Oh. Right. Okay, that makes more sense, but I still don’t get how you having a car would stop them from messing with you.” Kon frowned slightly as he watched Tim, trying to come up with some way for Tim to get out of this whole mess, “Have you tried standing up to them? Or thought about learning self defense? I know you don’t really care for sports, but being able to stand up to them might discourage them from continuing to mess with you. They won’t think you’re weaker than them and they’ll stop.” Wasn’t that how bullying worked? The bullies picked on the people they thought were weaker than them?
“I don’t know..apparently popularity makes it stop. In theory.” He shrugged some and gave Kon a bored look at the mention of self defense. “I know how to fight, somehow..but that isn’t what I want to do. I just don’t know how to fix this..In theory that’s how it should work..” But did it always? Did he really want to risk it not working? Nope..”I was hoping there was another way, but I’m tired of dealing with this.”
Kon wasn’t so sure about that, “It’s not guaranteed.” All Kon could imagine was, Tim getting a car and instead of his teammates leaving him alone, they would make him drive them around and Kon didn’t want that, “I’m not saying fight them. Just, stand up to them. Show them they can’t push you around.” He wondered if it was possible to maybe set them up so that they got caught bullying Tim. He was pretty sure their school had a zero tolerance policy when it came to that.
Tim just shrugged. “I don’t know then.” And without realizing it he leaned against the other boy. He’d been dealing with this for a while now and frankly was exhausted. He began to wonder how much stupidity humanity could really have. Apparently it was a lot. “Looks like the tour is moving on..” He said as he after a while turned his head around the corner to look at the group move into another room. “I’ll rejoin you in a bit. Just need to go use the bathroom.”
As Tim leaned against him, Kon felt his cheeks heat up slightly and was glad that Tim wasn’t looking at him. Ever since Tim had started tutoring him, Kon had had a bit of a crush on Tim, “Yeah, we probably shouldn’t get too far from the group. You can stick with me though, if you want. They won’t mess with you then.” Getting to his feet, Kon extended his arm out to Tim if he wanted help getting up.
Tim dealt with the jocks possibly the wrong way, but he was tired of trying anymore. It showed when he leaned against kon. He felt exhausted and defeated by leaving on Kon almost felt nice. He was warm and comforting and everything Tim hadn’t expected. Maybe he had been harsh on him from the start without real reason. He was kinder than Tim had thought he'd be. For a moment Tim nearly refused the help, but then decided against it. He accepted the hand up. Everybody needed help sometimes. "I'll try. I've just never been so bored. " He flashed him a grin at that statement.