#ailesswhumptoberdaytwentynine

[swift-creates]

category: Gen

fandom: DC Comics (Young Justice, Batfamily)

characters and relationships: Tim Drake, clone baby, Kon haunts the narrative (Timkon isn’t explicit but. it’s a clone baby au)

warnings: almost drowning, infant whump

Summary:

@ailesswhumptober Day 29: Ownership, branding, “Everybody will know that you’re mine.”

Tim tries to clone Kon, but this time it works.

notes: I can write so many Timkon fics with this prompt list :fireElmo: Inspired by this post by @hyperblue which has haunted me from the moment I saw it please come bother me with interest about this AU or any of mine plsplspls on my knees in tears pls

—

Tim woke to the loud beeping of one of the many machines in his lab. He blinked and rubbed his eyes, frowning at his reflection in the powerless computer screen; there were sleep marks on his cheek from the sleeve of his sweater, but aside from that he barely looked like he’d rested at all. The circles under his eyes hadn’t budged, and he sighed and scrubbed his hands across his face. It wasn’t like anyone was going to see them, anyway. He rarely left his lab except to grab more snacks from Titans Tower when he ran out, his work far too important to abandon. 

Tim got up and trudged past the empty cloning chambers to look for whatever had gone wrong, picking at the plaster on his arm where he’d drawn his own blood. His tablet lay on a table across the room, and he needed to recheck the Kryptonian environment values he’d copied off the Batcomputer-

One of the chambers wasn’t empty. 

He stared at it for a second, seeing but not quite understanding. Attempt one hundred and twenty-nine successful, the green letters said cheerfully. He stepped closer slowly, as if it was an animal that would lunge and try to bite him, and gingerly placed a hand against the glass. It was near but not exactly room temperature — 99.2 degrees Fahrenheit, 37.3 degrees Celcius, to be precise, ever so slightly warmer than a regular human temperature. 

“It worked,” he said to the empty lab. The machines keeping 129 alive seemed to sigh in response, then the beeping got louder, and the infant stirred in its glowing pod. No, not just stirred. It flinched. 

Error, the screen read now in bright failure red. The small letters underneath would have told him the reason, but he didn’t read it because 129 was struggling, tiny lungs seeking desperately for air and only receiving fluid. Tim’s heart screamed, and then he realised he was screaming. 

He can’t lose him. Not again and not like this. 

One heartbeat, and he was rushing forward, smashing the glass with his bo staff and pulling the infant out of the pod. 129 coughed up liquid and was still for a terrifyingly long moment, and Tim’s heart froze in his chest. 

Then the baby took a shaky breath and let out a gloriously loud cry. Now he was wet and wailing, but he was breathing. At least he was breathing. Tim went to rub a hand across his face in relief and halted when he realised it was covered in thick fluid. “It’s okay,” he said, and realised his throat was choked with tears. 129 cried louder and kicked his little legs as Tim became painfully aware how austere and clinical his lab was, absolutely no place for a helpless infant. There was no milk ready for him, no swaddling cloths to wrap him up in. And it was so, so cold. He must be so cold. Get it together, Drake. 

There was a shirt hanging on the back of his chair, and Tim reached for it, wrapping 129 in the black fabric and holding him close. “Shhh. It’s okay. Shh, shh.” The baby’s cries lowered slightly in volume, but didn’t stop. Tim bounced him gently, folding the shirt over him to keep him warm better- 

The edge of a familiar red insignia peeked out from underneath the folds of the shirt, and Tim froze. Kon’s shirt had artificial amniotic fluid and a crying baby in it. Kon’s shirt was wet and soiled and ruined and gone and Tim can’t even protect this one last part of him can he-

Then he was sliding down the wall to the floor and realised he was the one crying now. “I’m sorry,” he gasped, to Kon and to 129 and to no one at all. “I’m s- I’m so sorry.” 129 made a soft sound in his arms, but that just made him cry harder. Tim couldn’t take care of a baby. He’d failed Kon and failed Bart and failed Bruce and it’d been barely a day and he was already failing 129. 

As if that wasn’t enough, he had the stark realisation that the child in his arms resembled old baby pictures of Tim himself a little too closely, the tiniest package of Kryptonian blue eyes in a round little face. “Everyone will know you’re mine.” This wasn’t supposed to happen. His DNA was supposed to stabilise Kon’s, not influence it. He’d given 129 the curse of being related to him, in addition to being the ghost of a dead man. 

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” He curled in around the infant and wept, surrounded by broken glass and a broken heart.