( 📩 → conner kent ): are you okay? [UNSENT]
( 📩 → conner kent ):i doubt you’ll even answer if i ask. i’m just worried about you. [UNSENT]
( 📩 → conner kent ): i never stopped loving you. i doubt i ever will. [UNSENT]
( 📩 → conner kent ): i need to let go. i know i do. it’s just so hard. [UNSENT]
( 📩 → conner kent ): letting you go was one of the hardest things i’ve done. [UNSENT]
[ …. ]
( 📩 → conner kent ): i saw you and krypto flying when i came into the city for work.
( 📩 → conner kent ): i hope you’re doing well.
( 📩 → cassie sandsmark): I miss you so much [unsent]
( 📩 → cassie sandsmark): we probably shouldn’t talk for a while. [unsent]
( 📩 → cassie sandsmark): If you got hurt because of me... [unsent]
( 📩 → cassie sandsmark): I don’t know what I’m even doing anymore [unsent]
( 📩 → cassie sandsmark): Tim and I... [unsent]
( 📩 → cassie sandsmark): I’m sure you’ve seen [unsent]
( 📩 → cassie sandsmark): Things are really going downhill quick, cass [unsent]
( 📩 → cassie sandsmark): I miss you. You’d know what to do. [unsent]
( 📩 → cassie sandsmark): I think I might be a wanted man? [unsent]
( 📩 → cassie sandsmark): Don’t involve yourself in any of this Cassie. I know you read the papers and I know you have those dumb news notifications on your phone but this is between me and Tim.
What: The boys are fighting! Technically over brother eye, realistically over abandonment issues.
Where: Wayne Manor
tw: death mention, blood mention, i think that’s it.
Word count: like 5500.
Kon: The air up here was thin, and it felt like he was stuck in the in between, toes dangling dangerously off the edge even as he floated miles above any surface. He had a choice to make now, as everyone did, to do the easy thing or the right thing and he cursed into the vast nothing that this was his burden to bear.
The logo mocked him from its place, shining and new, on the side of the satellite. Drake security stood in bold red in flashy, modern, stylized font against the chrome polished machine. Tim, it seemed, had spared no expense when it came to his gadgets. It was surveillance masquerading as safety, oppression disguised as the future, though, if Tim and the rest had their way this would, indeed, be the future.
It wasn't one Kon could stand for. Millions must have gone into this launch. Where could that money have gone? Schools, rehabilitation centers, food banks, shelters... the list was endless and yet...
And yet Kon still loved him. His heart ached in his chest.
He narrowed his eyes at his own reflection in the shiny surface, his jaw tightening until it became nothing but a knot under his skin and his hands curling into fists so tight that his sharpied nails came away with the faintest trace of blood that smeared almost imperceptibly against the satellite as he pressed his hands against it. The metal crumbled under his fingertips and soon he and the satellite were nothing but a glowing white hot streak in the sky. A comet made of heartbreak and fury.
Tim could play God, but his retribution would be facing the wrath of one.
He landed in a crater of his own making, the artful stonework leading to the manor rippled and cracked under the stress of his landing and the smoking lump of metal and circuitry fell from his hands with a solid thunk.
"Drake." He greeted, his voice low and dangerous. "Been busy, have you?"
Tim: He'd gone back and forth on the budget for media coverage. Bruce had already provided more than enough funding for the small company itself, and it's major projects. Bruce had also said that every movement the business made should be opposite or at the very least opposing to the night job. Hiding in plain sight, a rare but well-used tactic. In the end, Tim figured it would be better to not draw a massive crowd for the ultimately underwhelming satellite launch, and let the news figure out their own headlines. Still, the value of the craft, the tech itself, wasn't something to shrug at, not even to a trust-fund junkie like himself. It was a lot, but the ends would justify the means. In its current state, it was a glorified signal-booster, a hub for information to be encrypted and kept close to the user. With this launch, Drake could go Global.
He hadn't felt so proud of something since... Well, since he'd been right.
It had been an unusually sunny day in Gotham City, and Tim woke with the bright yellow rays streaming through thick, drawn, black-out curtains. He began going through his normal routine, a soft smile gracing his face as he wandered into the Manor's massive kitchen, alive with the smells of a famous Pennyworth Continental Breakfast and the one scent he'd zeroed in on from the moment he opened his eyes: Coffee. He'd poured himself a hearty cup, taking a swig to get the initial jolt awake, when the high-pitched alarm started to blare from the grandfather clock in the main hall, the hidden entrance to the Cave.
The Proximity alarm. But who-?
He didn't have much more time to think before the foundations of the mansion shook, the harsh crash rattling his eardrums and shaking his already sore legs. When the near-quake conditions settled, he'd made sure to look for the butler and his assurance that he was alright. Tim didn't have time, he didn't have the right energy to run and get into costume and race out the hidden exit to come on the manor with shock and awe as Red Robin. Whoever this was would have to settle for Tim Drake-Wayne. Snagging his Gotham Knights varsity from the back of his dining chair, he ran to the front door of the manor and swung it open, squinting at the bright daylight reflecting off of space-grade metal-
Blinking his eyes to adjust, the bird started with pure confusion. That... That was his logo. That was his stamp. That was his satellite.
Wide, grey eyes searched for answers, looked for a possible flaw in the near-unsalvageable parts, but found they didn't have to search long.
"... Kon?" Came the first question, slightly broken with something he couldn't quite place. "Wh-... What the hell are you doing?!"
Kon: He could hear Alfred moving around the kitchen, no doubt making a fresh pot of coffee for Tim, with his panama grown beans, each pound costing more than most spent on coffee in a year and for what? For the luxury of doing it? To keep up appearances? The manor was soaked in decadent opulence, from the high custom gates to the exotic flowers specifically cultivated to handle the bitter Gotham winters. It was sickening and the longer he stood there the more his hands trembled against his thigh.
The sun was high in the sky, its heat bearing down on the back of his neck as he glared over purple tinted lenses. They were a new pair, not the sleek, fashion-forward sunnies Tim had gifted him for his birthday two years ago that Kon had obsessed over not breaking. He had always been so careful with them, spending an exorbitant amount of time polishing the lenses and tightening the screws. He had dropped them only once and had nearly cried at the sight of the long scratch along their lenses' surface. Tim had simply gotten him a new pair.
He was so kind sometimes. To those he loved.
It was a shame he didn't love the world the same way Kon did, not out of principle but because of the people.
But the people were nothing but bodies to them, interchangeable to Tim and to Bruce and to Clark and to Lex. Pawns in a game or hazards on the job site. They didn't care about the man with everything he owned in a shopping cart, about the woman stumbling like a ghost along the street at two A.M, arms littered with more bruises than seems possible for such pale skin stretched thin over cracked knuckles.
They were just problems, reasons why they needed to stalk the nights, why they needed to develop weapons and body armor, reasons why they needed satellites in the exosphere.
"What am I doing?" He asked, his voice tight and high with a pleading edge to it, begging without begging for Tim to understand. "What are you doing‽"
He floated out of the crater, glassy eyes lingering over Tim. He looked so normal like this. Softer. If it were any other day maybe he would be greeting him with a hug, tucking the bird's head under his chin and smiling at the lingering smell of coffee and the metallic tang he carried when he had been wrist deep in a piece of tech. Maybe they would be happy to spend the day together, snickering as they turned their phones off and left their girlfriends wondering what trouble they would get into today.
But it was not any other day, Kon had pulled Tim's hopes and dreams out of the sky on purpose and Tim had shattered Kon's entire world without ever realizing it was happening.
"Brother Eye is wrong, Tim. Can't you see that?" His jaw tightened, his mouth clamping shut as he dropped to his feet. "You don't. You really can't see what you're doing, how close you are to turning the entire world into a surveillance state at the mercy of an orphan dressed like a bat and a boy dressed like a bird."
He turned away with a scoff. All this money, all this power, all the intelligence flowing around his stupid fucking head and this is what he did. "I won't let you do this Tim. It's not right."
Tim: It was easy to forget that Tim worked with literal Gods. His scientific nature had made him near-Atheistic for years now, seeing the power that one man, even one alien could hold, almost dashing the thought of some over-seeing entity that lived in the space between spaces. The people he knew, outside of those that operated nearly strictly out of Gotham and the surrounding 'burbs, were just friends, acquaintances, people he'd met far too casually to be considered even work-related. He forgot he was living among people that could grind him into dust with a look, that could break him in half without even trying. He knew this, everyone without the blessing or curse of super-powers knew they walked among giants without any means of stopping them at full power.
This display, ripping a rocket-launched hunk of technology from a physical and very tangible orbit from their fragile atmosphere... It was terrifying.
What might even be worse is that Kon had the brains to back all that brawn. Sure, he didn't use it often (Kryptonians, the gruff voice echoed in his head, have very hard heads), but it was still in there, whenever he needed to reach back and recall implanted information. Tim had forgone the 'Lex Luthor' narrative years ago, to attribute anything Kon was to that man felt like the most horrible disservice to his friend.
Friend? Is this what friends did?
Tim's brow creased, a scowl forming slowly on a face without a mask. He set his jaw tight as he listened to the accusations, the scolding he was receiving. Clouded, frozen breaths were explicit evidence of the bird attempting to keep his cool, to try and calm the racing heart that rattled his chest. He called the emotion back to the first time he'd put on the red, yellow, and green costume; the first time he'd come face to face with the Clown Prince of Crime himself; the first second he'd burst through the doors of his Father's final home before he saw the pool of blood Jack Drake had died in; when he'd first heard the words 'Stephanie Brown is Missing'. Tim Drake felt Fear.
"Conner," the words finally came, slightly shaky from what he hoped the other would assume was the cold. "This isn't what you think. This is about keeping the world safe. Everything I've ever put into this company is to help the world from outside of a mask. No one has access to the Eye but me and the family." Let anyone try, he silently dared the world.
He just couldn't see what he saw, that this world was terrifying. Not everyone gets to die and come back, not everyone gets kidnapped and comes back. "This is for the Ra's of the world, this is so when we have another attack like Prime that we're ready with a solution, and we can take care of it." No more casualties, no more mourning, no more fear.
Tim Drake felt his hands shaking.
Kon: He was scared, and maybe that was the worst part of all of this. All this terror and all of it so misplaced. There was something so painfully human about it, an exemplification of the worst of their species. Conner had descended from the sky and his best friend’s heart had begun racing, his pupils had dilated, his breath had quickened and his lip quivered the way it did when he was a little scared of fighting, a little scared of what he would find, a little scared of dying.
Was that really what Tim thought of him? Still? Had his fight with Prime only proved to the man (a boy then, they were all just kids who were trying to fill impossibly large shoes years ago) that he was capable of feeling someone’s blood on his knuckles and keep going anyway?
His eyes flashed dangerously, a mix of unbearably hot rage and pitifully deep sorrow flowing through him as he turned away.
“No one has access to the Eye but me and the family.”
Kon moved so quickly that he was merely a blur, his face twisted in horror as he flew up to have a better view as he scanned the grounds of the manor. The cave was nigh impossible to find, but Kon had his ways, weak points where the lead was thin, a near perfect memory of looking at some early schematics that Tim had excitedly showed him one night when they were just teenagers.
He needed to find the mainframe and destroy it. It was what was right. He could feel it in every atom in his body.
“Because you,” he spat, “and them,” he gestured helplessly toward the manor, “you’re incorruptible, right? Not like the rest of the world, you’ve never been like them, huh?” he scoffed, “like me.” He said, more to himself than to Tim, his voice lost in the wind that whipped around him. He rubbed at his eyes harshly, ashamed at the tears he felt pooling around the heat.
Apt, for how he felt about Tim now. Tim would have found the moral behind it once upon a time, the lesson to be learned. Had he always thought he was so above them all? Was any of it just Tim being Tim or had everything simply been keeping the team together and functioning at top efficiency to protect against the next disaster.
Toy soldiers on the shelf for him to play commander with until he found a bigger, better play-set. That’s certainly how it felt now. He wondered if Cassie felt the same, if that was one of the reasons she had pulled away. Did she know that Tim would stop caring the second one of them stopped being an asset?
Conner wouldn’t have believed it a year ago but now...
“I did take care of it!” He bellowed. He did. He had died for this world, for this team, for this man. “And I didn’t need to keep the world under a microscope to do it. I refuse to allow you to take their freedom, Tim. It’s their liberty! It’s their right!” His teeth ground together, the sound of it almost enough to distract him from the churning in his gut.
“What’s next Tim? You want to take away their privacy, what about their free will? Can’t commit a murder if the implant in your brain doesn’t let you, right? That’s a small price to pay for world peace.”
Tim: Sometimes Tim forgot he was an ant. If Conner had really wanted to, he could’ve thrown the satellite into the Manor and destroyed the age-old, vine-climbed bricks. He could’ve sent Tim up to the same orbit where his tech had once sat amid the great outer Ozone layer. He could’ve had this entire city leveled faster than any of the bats in the cave could infest the skies, black out the dim stars and the cold, unforgiving moon. Tim almost wished he’d throw a punch, break his jaw, a few ribs, just so that he had something more to get mad at than something he could replace with a few extra budget cuts. It could be even more of a public project… But that’s
what Tim was afraid about.
Somehow, someway, Conner had found out. He wasn’t sure how, and he wasn’t sure exactly how much he knew, but it was enough to make a meteor in the yard.
Clenching his shaking hands into tight fists, Tim put on his harshest glare, following the flying clone into the sky, spreading his stance as if he could chase after a Super on a mission. There were frantic looks, attempting to work at a worrying speed. He wouldn’t find anything, he couldn’t. Not if he wanted to destroy the basement hub of computers where Drake sat in Central Gotham. Even if Bruce wasn’t in his near literal ivory tower, there was no mistaking anyone, or anything that got in and out of that building, even if it was faster than a speeding bullet. The fact that he hadn’t gone on a rampage, that there wasn’t a blooming bruise taking up half of his face that gave it more color than the rare ray of sunshine dared to… It was showing restraint. The restraint of someone who knew how to use their powers, who knew exactly what they could do and what they could be used for.
Conner had always been so ready to be the good guy. He was Tim’s Superman, and he was still protecting the people.
How long would that last if he was acting like this?
“It’s nothing like that!” Tim yelled into the sky, the bite finally registering in his bark. “You’re not made to be a fucking martyr, Conner!! Did you forget-...” Tim held his tongue, a million screaming thoughts all tearing each other apart, the pressure building in his chest so much that he felt if he couldn’t find what to say then he might forget how to breathe properly again. He felt the sting of tears at the corners of his eyes, and he wasn't sure if it was the heat of an anger long-burning or the smog of the city kicked up with gravel and dirt. Over and over and over again, silent mantras and monologues: I tried to bring you back, I tried to reclone you, you have no idea how much I mourned you, I’m doing this so we can finally have a fucking break, I’m doing this so we don’t have to stress ourselves out so goddamn much-
Boom-
The foundations of the mansion shook, the harsh crash rattling his eardrums and shaking his already sore legs.
“Why don’t you fucking trust me anymore?!”
Kon: Tim’s hands were trembling, out of fear, out of anger, at this point it was all the same to Kon, all just the ashes of the love that once existed, vibrant and alive, between them. Now it was just the bitter dust of a crumbling friendship, soot lost in the wind as it whipped around him, violent and almost painful against his cheek, just like his words.
“Then what is it like, Tim?” His eyebrows drew together, the exasperation the only thing stronger than the anger fueling him. Tim was so many things, so much to so many people, so much to him, but right now, all Conner could see were his faults. How closed minded he could be, his single-minded focus on his version of justice. He was like Batman, that way.
Kon wondered if the comparison would still make Tim wince like it did when they were young, or if it had become a source of pride for him, locked away in his cave, hiding from the faces of those lives he pretended to care about.
“Did I forget what, Tim?” He spat through gritted teeth. Had he forgotten the feeling of blood dripping down his temple, the busted capillaries around his eye, the broken arm, how thin the air had been as he thought of Cassie and plummeted back to Earth, knowing he wouldn’t rise from the crater he and prime would scar the surface with but content that, at the very least, it would continue to persist without him, because of him?(edited)
He could see the tears pooling in Tim’s eyes and for a second his face fell. He drifted lower, his hand tapping against his bicep before reaching out, the need to fix, to comfort, too strong to ignore. For just a moment Tim was just a kid, wrapped in red and green and yellow, domino mask in hand and a small smile on his face as his eyes lit up with trust, yes, but most of all with love.
And then he yelled. It brought Kon back the present, where Tim was nothing more and nothing less than a man too caught up in himself to see what he had become and Kon was the only roadblock between him and irrevocably damaging his own legacy.
Kon had made Tim promise once that if he were to ever stare into the void for too long, that if the Luthor inside of him was too much to ignore that he would stop him, no matter the cost. That no price was too high to stop him from becoming the villain. Now was the time for Kon to do the same for his friend. For his best friend.
For his brother.
“Because you no longer deserve it.”
He flew forward, grabbing Tim by the robe and bringing him to his eye level. “Disable the program, Tim. Or-or you’ll be just like the rest of them, and I will stop you.”
Tim: It always happened in a blur. Dealing with the super-powered. In the back of his mind, Tim knew that the idea of super-powers was really just taking the human as a baseline, when it… Really wasn’t the case. He’d grown up in the cape seeing Dick, seeing Bruce, interact with their respective teammates and friends with the same causal nature as he’d seen in sappy teen flicks. He didn’t know that same friendship until Young Justice was pushed together from their mentors getting sick of them not having the same connections to each other that they had. They were there to help each other, no matter the cause, through thick and thin. So what the fuck was Conner doing now? How was this supposed to help? Tim’s fear-filled brain tried to surface any sort of logical thought, something he could ask without sounding like an asshole, something that wouldn’t reveal how much he really knew about the hero’s happenings (or, at the very least, his assumptions. Coordinates can only do so much).
“This is me trying to protect everyone! Even you guys! If… What the hell am I supposed to do if you’re gone?” Tim needed his own superpowers. That’s where the Eye was coming in. The data stream had been slow, a patch-work beta of a program that worked. Catching Metas and Mutants and Aliens and Gods in the act, monitoring their development, identifying how they could be accessed, assisted, apprehended. There would be no more Primes, no more Inertias, no more Ra’s al Ghouls.
The memories flooded back to him like he was living the last moments of his life. He watched with silent awe as the other drifted closer mid-air, something as beautiful and dangerous as the snowy ash of radiation fallout. Had they been just a few years younger, Tim might’ve flinched, anticipating something friendly with force, or maybe even a lecture on a different topic. He might’ve seen the utter seriousness in those eyes as he went on a self-destructive bender to save the world. He might’ve been able to see something he wished he would’ve noticed a little bit earlier, something he might’ve seen just now.
Just before he exploded.
Just before the powder keg burst into flame.
Trust was broken on both sides, sealed by Tim being lifted up into the air, and the hard pounding against his ribs threatened to give him a heart attack. He could pass out, he could let the overexertion on his central organ take him for the next few hours, something to show just how fragile he was against someone like Conner, an example of why he needed that satellite in the sky. But his brain wouldn’t let him, it would only bring the same pressure against his skull, threatening to burst with the pain that made him squeeze his eyes, wishing this was all some strange, vivid nightmare brought on by the last half-drank cup of coffee of the night. There’s no way his Superboy would act like this, threaten him with God knows what he did to the aforementioned them.
“Then do it.” His voice shook almost with a sob, unable to hold the tight seriousness it once had. He could only bank on the hope that his friend hadn’t fallen too far, that there was still some semblance of his clone boy in that thick skull. And right now, that hope really felt more like the caffeine-induced nightmare he wanted this to be. “Treat me like the villain. Maybe this time you'll get out alive.”
Kon: His chest heaved; his leather jacket still dewy from the remnants of ice from high in the atmosphere slowly melting. He felt unimaginably heavy, his arms, his eyelids, his heart, all of them felt tethered to the ground, pulling him down, down, down, and yet he continued to float, his fingers aching as they curled further around the cotton of Tm’s shirt, the terrycloth of his robe.
“This isn’t protection,” he shot back, angry and miserable, the words feeling like acid on his tongue, “it’s control.”
The fact that Tim couldn’t see that was heartbreaking. He had dangled helplessly in the atmosphere for hours before this, his hand skirting along the side of the satellite and hoping that once his palm ran over the paint it would change from Drake to anything else. Luthor corp, maybe, or LordTech. Anything, anyone, but his friend.
His Tim. His Robin.
But that hadn’t been the case. He had been forced to come to terms with their divergence and now it was time for Tim to do the same. There would be no more Bats flying in to apprehend petty criminals while those who destroyed the planet went on making their millions, no more broken bones and traumatic brain injuries, no more hospital bills to push these people further into debt, further into crime, further into suffering. No more watchful eye, laying in wait for someone to do the wrong thing, meet the wrong person, plan the wrong act, think the wrong thoughts.
Not on Conner’s watch. He wouldn’t allow the people of this city to live in paranoid apprehension while a coffee-addled man with delusions of grandeur stayed hidden away in a cave while his machines watch and learn and intimidate and prey.
His eyes flashed, a split second of white-hot heat the likes of which he had never felt before and then dimmed, leaving only disappointed green eyes in their wake, the hurt they held palpable in the air around the two men. He floated down slowly, setting Tim onto his feat with an almost gentle care before he let out a long-suffering sigh. This wasn’t protection, or guilt, or fear. It was cruelty, Kon could feel it in the way that Tim’s words rolled off his tongue, poisoned by whatever bitterness had overtaken him.
“Goodnight, Tim.” He spoke, soft. He reeled back his arm and flew away before the man could hit the ground.
Tim: It had all happened in a matter of seconds. Everyone says that’s all it takes: a few seconds to see your life flashing before your eyes before you’re gone. Tim had plenty of moments that could’ve been considered his last, enough to recall that it might be a bit too scary to mention out loud. But this time, the inky blackness of doom had curled around his mind tighter than ever before. His expression had tried to make up for it by glaring harder, by daring the alien clone to do what he must’ve come here to do. His defenses were up, mounted, and ready to be thrown through the planet like some kind of missile. It was the first time he started to see his memories play out, rapid fire, when the world slowed on heavy breaths and racing pulses. Between memories of late night pictures of a curly-haired Robin, between bricks to the face and bloody boomerangs, he saw that same leather jacket. It had been newer, less battered and bruised, he thought he remembered it stiffer. There was a winning smile that had bothered him for some reason, a cocky attitude to boot that had the sore memories of ground teeth and budding migraines. He remembered the small embers in his stomach watching all of those eyes’ attention on someone else, remembered late nights trying to clone the same dna with 97… 98… 99 failures. He remembered lost hope and incomplete promises. .
Where had this Conner come from? It felt like there was something missing, some kind of clue or motive that he hadn’t caught in time. What wasn’t he getting? The Brother Eye program was for everybody, for everyone that felt unsafe on this planet. He was going to help the helpless find peace at night, to let them know that the deities that walked among them were just as human as they were. The clone was banking on hope, as he had for far too long, that goodness was inherent in every living being. Tim might’ve thought the same thing once upon a time, when they were both laughing over the same dumb joke, when they could pull out a practiced combo attack after the 50th run in the training room. It was something that had weaned over time, over the mourning, the loss, the suffering he’d witnessed and been subjected to. He wasn’t like Conner, he wasn’t like any of his teammates: He was utterly and miserably human. He had no choice but to adapt to ensure his survival, the survival of his loved ones. He wasn’t going to let Stephanie fear for either of their lives yet again, though the current situation was a moment of hyper-hypocrisy. Ice-blue eyes squinted again, the hints of a snarl on his cheeks. Tim felt himself slipping further into the darkness, fading out the edges of his vision, sinking into the farthest recesses of his mind. From those same memories came flickers of brightness, a soft glow among the despair that choked his throat. Late nights talking nonsense, staying weeks at a time together to keep their Team running. The utter relief at seeing him alive, celebrating a slight bit too late because he had other shit to get through his system first. Crying on his shoulder when too many left. Stealing a discarded shirt to see if he would notice and still keeping it folded among the others. It was those moments of warmth that felt ice cold now, the betrayal severing any kind of care those moments might’ve held. The heat… The warmth… .
What the fuck was going on with his eyes?! The shock had him blinking, nausea settling in his stomach, a momentary blackout having him thinking for a moment that his heart might’ve already stopped beating. He wasn’t breathing, he wasn’t moving. Not even when he felt his feet touch the ground again. He had been… Soft. There wasn’t anything visibly scarring or bruising, and it felt… Like more Betrayal. Watching the Super take off into the dark Gotham sky felt like another unfulfilled promise, and he felt scorching, angry tears start to prick at the corners of his red-hot glare. A whirlwind of emotions (emotions he only within the past year found he could feel again without being ashamed, without acting like a bat) pushed back against the black coils that threatened to take him over before, a confusion over what to feel mixing in with the harsh scratching inside his skull. Undercutting it all was a need to get the satellite back into the sky, running through blueprints of something more stealthy to hide from prying eyes, recalling any Lead suppliers he can possibly call. Shaky legs had him slumping against the old wooden doors, gripping at the polished handles for stability as he took a gasping sob of a breath. Conner was wrong about him, he was wrong about the Eye. This was the next step, and he just couldn’t see it because he was already high enough to be at the top of the proverbial food chain. He couldn’t see it because he nearly turned him to ash at that moment. A low whisper entered the silent cacophony, freezing his hands and the heart that dropped to his churning stomach. .
Since when did Conner have heat vision? A slow gulp had a slow hand turning the doorknob, turning his ghostly pale and tear-tracked face to a similarly pallor butler. The words didn’t come quick, or easy, but the bird managed to choke out a line he’d used on characters that had seemed far worse just before that night, a personal oath and manifesto that lit another fire in his heart: No longer warm and comforting, but harsh and scalding, working it’s way onto his tongue as he finally spoke. “He won’t get away with this.”
(✉️ ➡️ kon air): couple weeks at the most?
(✉️ ➡️ kon air): [UNSENT] is he okay?
(✉️ ➡️ kon air): i guess i’ll have to drag him out then
(✉️ ➡️ kon air): scared that you’re going to get yourself into trouble you can’t get out of. scared you’re going to get /hurt,/ one way or another
(✉️ ➡️ kon air): [UNSENT] is it so hard to understand that people /care/ about you?
(✉️ ➡️ kon air): you know i’m here if you need to talk, right?
(✉️ ➡️ kon air): [UNSENT] i know i’m not a very good-
(✉️ ➡️ kon air): [UNSENT] i’m really trying but i don’t know how to-
(✉️ ➡️ kon air): madripoor. absolute shithole. kind of felt like home. like, serious gotham/bludhaven vibes
[📱to Dickolas ] Lol well good luck with that.
[📱to Dickolas ] Nothing except Steph seems to be important enough for him to even cast a second glance at these days but y’know how it is
[📱to Dickolas ] Yeah well that’s because she doesn’t bother to listen to me. She thinks... idk actually that I’m going off the deep end ig. Pretty cringe imo.
[📱to Dickolas ] yeah, I know.
[📱to Dickolas ] I’m fine, really.
[📱to Dickolas ] Gross dude I thought you came to your senses and fucked off to Italy or something cool.
Nia chuckled and looked down at his costume. “Right, of course.” It was still strange to see him without the crest on his chest, the big ‘S’ that proclaimed the Supers to the world, and so she hadn’t realised at first that he was in costume. It was sad really. Nia decided not to mention it, not wanting to spoil the mood before they’d even really begun talking.
She took the poster he offered, smoothing it out and reading carefully. Suddenly the reasons for the visit became a lot clearer. Although there wasn’t exactly a lot to read on the flyer, Nia took her time. People were trying. It was hearing the bitter tone in Kon’s voice that made her look up again, catching the way his jaw tightened. “Yeah, of course,” she said, stepping back quickly to let him enter.
“I am,” she added. “Interested in this, I mean.” She didn’t know if she was the only one–she hoped not but perhaps Kon was right. Everyone else had been so busy, distracted. She didn’t blame them, she knew they cared. “So are you going to this?”
He climbed through the window easily, brushing off his jacket as he looked around her apartment. It was strange to think that they had known each other for what, years now? And yet he had never been inside her apartment. Maybe he had isolated himself more than he thought over these last few months, over the last year even. The thought made him deflate, just a little bit. He had just been so caught up in his own stuff, and yes that stuff had led to him helping people in ways he had never dreamed of before but he had obviously neglected his friends in the process but he would fix that, he was fixing that.
“I thought you would be.” He turned to grin brightly at her. This would be good, it had to be. “Of course,” he nodded emphatically, his hands moving to cross over his chest as he shifted his weight from one foot to the other unsurely, “I know the organizers, so, plus I kind of promised that Superboy would offer up some protection, just in case.” He shrugged, biting at his lip. “Don’t worry though, I didn’t come to get dreamer to make an appearance. I just,” he sighed, “It’s been kind of hard to get the family to come to these things, which I get, it’s not like Superman can just show up to a rally and not end up on the news and it’s not like Jonathan Kent would have any reason to even know about this but, it’s important, right?”
(✉️ ➡️ kon air): well, i’m glad to hear that
(✉️ ➡️ kon air): [UNSENT] you /what?/
(✉️ ➡️ kon air): no, actually, i hadn’t heard that from steph or tim.
(✉️ ➡️ kon air): [UNSENT] did you
(✉️ ➡️ kon air): [UNSENT] are you seriously fighting stephanie? throwing her around? what the /fuck,/ conner?
(✉️ ➡️ kon air): kara doesn’t think you’re a disappointment. she’s just worried
(✉️ ➡️ kon air): i think a lot of people are
(✉️ ➡️ kon air): well, if you’re planning a takeover, mind giving me australia? i’ve always liked kangaroos
(✉️ ➡️ kon air): [UNSENT] i wish you’d just
(✉️ ➡️ kon air): [UNSENT] going back to the steph thing, what the fuck are you
(✉️ ➡️ kon air): just. are you okay?
[📱to Dickolas ] Well how long’ve you been in town for?
[📱to Dickolas ] Tim’s holed himself in the cave for like the last three months so honestly it would be more shocking if you had heard it from him.
[📱to Dickolas ] Scared that I’m not doing what she wants me to. Sounds like disappointment with extra steps.
[📱to Dickolas ] I think I’ve already promised Australia to Bart but if you want to fight Jon for New Zealand I could probably swing it.
There was some part of Clark that regretted staying away from the world for so long after Doomsday appeared. At the time, he didn’t have too much of a choice, being whisked away to the Fortress to spend months attempting to heal, stolen away from the public eye, letting his own duplicate take care of what he couldn’t. He never expected others to battle for the same spot, the same title of Superman. He never expected Lex Luthor to bank on the tragedy. He never expected he would think of the result as one of his sons.
Clark regretted not staying closer to his half-clone. At first, he’d been slightly apprehensive. What good could come out of a CADMUS experiment gone independent, a forced marriage of Human and Kryptonian genetics, a rehash of the Bizarro incidents? Seeing him work, the Superboy, gave him more hope than he’d initially thought possible. This wasn’t just a puppet purely for Luthor, he was his own organism, his own person. Needless to say, it brought a lot of his more questionable decisions regarding his alien relatives to light, taught him a lesson or two about how to deal with these things should they come up again in the future.
He only hoped he could to the same for Conner, Kon-El.
It took a while to track him down. The City, the World, was a big place, even for someone who traversed galaxies. It was even bigger when you were finding a needle in a haystack, one super in a crowd of billions. “Still rocking the jacket look. I dig it, super retro,” He started, a smile gracing his face, head tilted just slightly as he approached. “… That’s not the lingo these days, is it? Gosh, it changes so darn much, they need to make a class for modern linguistics.”
Sometimes it was difficult for Conner to reconcile the pain and the hatred and the anger he felt toward Clark with the kind man he knew him to be. He looked into the mirror so often and found himself looking at the face of his... father, one of the few differences between them being the cold, green eyes he had inherited from Mr.Clean himself. He used to hate it so much that he would avoid reflective surfaces, grimace at himself in the reflections of skyscrapers as he flew, frown and scowl just to make himself feel like they were different. He shaved his hair, pierced his ears, his lip, his eyebrow, cradled himself in leather and studs, anything so that he wouldn’t see Clark in the mirror and be reminded of the anger in his eyes the first time they had met. How small and useless and terrified he had felt as his dad turned him away with harsh words, or at least, he thought that was what had happened. His memories were hazy, hard to put together and he knew, from files Tim had found in hidden Cadmus servers years ago, that some of his memories were simply implanted there by Lex to hurt him, to make it easier for him to kill Superman were he to ever rise from the grave.
Lex was twisted like that. Sometimes Kon felt that same need for control, for vindication, to hurt others the way he had been hurt. That scared him but who could he talk to about that, when the symbol that usually adorned his chest and was stitched into his jacket was supposed to represent hope, yes, but above that, goodness?
He sighed. He felt so alone these days, so far from Jon even as he slept in the bedroom across the hall, so separated from his team, if he could even call them that anymore, so out of touch with the man he had wanted to be. He found himself thinking about Clark a lot these days, trying to parse through what memories were real and which ones were fake and wondering if the man would be proud of who he was, deep down.
He was scared to know the answer.
“Kara’s whole Leave It to Beaver vibe I get but didn’t you grow up here?” Kal asked, his tone so harsh that he immediately felt a pang of guilt and regret. A familiar feeling when it came to interacting with Clark. “I mean- yeah, I guess.” He rubbed at his arm, the traces of where the bright red thread had once pushed through to adorn it with the El crest still raised, even if the thread was gone. “It’s probably best that there’s not. No one needs you running around saying ‘lit’ and ‘based’ every time you make a daring save. Leave that to Jon.” He grinned, his head ducking. “What are you doing here, anyway?”
If what Damian had heard was correct, Conner Kent’s methods were straying further and further away from the Boy Scout in Blue’s. There was a video floating around the internet of a paramedic throwing one hell of a punch, and Damian would recognize that look of anger anywhere. It wasn’t hard, he’d seen it in the mirror. He’d seen it on the rare occasions he’d run into Young Justice, in Tim’s backdrop, looking for all the world like he was just trying to fit into someplace and there was just nowhere he fit quite yet.
It was just an observation, Damian didn’t have any ties. Conner simply stood out against the array of primary colors that were the Supers, and Damian noticed. It didn’t look like he cared one way or the other if the lot of them agreed with his methods, and that stood in such stark contrast with Damian moulding himself into something his father would approve of – justice, not vengeance, justice not–
But that was beside the point. Damian found Conner not to check up on him (no, no not because Jon cared about him; not because they weren’t so different, really), but rather because he couldn’t resist a well-aimed barb.
“I’ll let you guess if I’m talking about the crest or your medic’s uniform.”
Kon had found a home here, in a dingy dive bar in one of the worst parts of the Bronx. It was one that wasn’t easily spotted if you didn’t know what to look for, but that was a feature and not a bug to its patrons. All of them were rejects and Kon knew that each of them understood what it was to be different, even to be the only, which wasn’t something many others could lay claim to.
Not that anyone would want to, even if they could.
He was allowed there and these days it was one of the few places he felt normal. Accepted, even, due to his work within the alien communities both in New York and outside of it. They had seen what he had done they appreciated it which was a new but certainly a welcome change from Kon’s norm. He glanced around as he waited for his drink and nodded at the regulars he recognized. Every single one of them was trying to escape and sometimes Kon wished he could do the same without the nagging voice in the back of his head that sometimes sounded like Clark and sometimes sounded like Lex saying that he was designed to do more than just wallow in self-pity and anger.
Both options terrified him equally, not that he would ever tell anyone about that. The only person he knew would listen was Jon and... Jon looked at Clark with stars in his eyes and Kon had caused enough disappointment without adding this on as well.
“Are you even old enough to be in a bar?” Kon asked, his eyes rolling lazily at the familiar voice. He would never say so but he had more in common than he was comfortable admitting to with the demon. He even held a little, tiny, almost microscopic soft spot for him. “I guess I shouldn’t be surprised you know,” he sighed, “it was a good punch though, wasn’t it? Knocked him straight on his ass. I think he’s got a broken nose now.” He shrugged. It had only been pure luck and Lockwood’s unimaginably large sense of pride that had stopped him from being charged with battery. “Did Jon send you after me?”
( 📩 → conner kent ): i can stop by and leave it with jon, if you want.
( 📩 → conner kent ): if you don’t want to see me. i don’t know if i should see you either though… [UNSENT]
( 📩 → conner kent ): or we can meet up. it’s whatever you want.
( 📩 → conner kent ): seriously cassandra? god i’m an idiot [UNSENT]
( 📩 → conner kent ): okay. thank you.
[ …. ]
( 📩 → conner kent ): what do you mean you /heard/ i’m in genosha?
( 📩 → conner kent ): you literally came to see me during the city black out.
( 📩 → conner kent ): you sought ME out and suddenly want to act like it didn’t happen? what the fuck [UNSENT]
( 📩 → conner kent ): or are you embarrassed you needed me? [UNSENT]
(✉ → Little Dove🕊️💖 ): It’s up to you, Cassie. I’m not about to try and tell you what to do.
(✉ → Little Dove🕊️💖 ): That never worked, even when you didn’t hate me [unsent]
(✉ → Little Dove🕊️💖 ): yeah...
[...]
(✉ → Little Dove🕊️💖 ): what?
[...]
(✉ → Little Dove🕊️💖 ): oh, Jon said there was another me wandering around during the blackout.
(✉ → Little Dove🕊️💖 ): Not really sure what that was all about but it’s gone now i guess.
(✉ → Little Dove🕊️💖 ): I was in AZ the entire time.
(✉ → Little Dove🕊️💖 ): Did it- [unsent]
(✉ → Little Dove🕊️💖 ): Was I- [unsent]
(✉ → Little Dove🕊️💖 ): I didn’t like... do anything to you, right? [unsent]
( 📩 → conner kent ): just some of his toys, one of his leashes. i think that sweater i got him that he only wears because he endured me
( 📩 → conner kent ): i miss him [UNSENT]
( 📩 → conner kent ): i miss you. [UNSENT]
( 📩 → conner kent ): oh if you don’t want it i’ll keep it
( 📩 → conner kent ): if you don’t mind
( 📩 → conner kent ): is this giving you false hope? i don’t even know i just… i want a piece of you still. [UNSENT]
(✉ → Little Dove🕊️💖 ): Oh, yeah I guess he needs that stuff. I was wondering where his bunny was. He’s been whining for you it.
(✉ → Little Dove🕊️💖 ): I don’t need it.
(✉ → Little Dove🕊️💖 ): I have others
(✉ → Little Dove🕊️💖 ): like the one you bought me on our trip to San Diego but ended up wearing the entire trip [unsent]
(✉ → Little Dove🕊️💖 ): keep it.
(✉ → Little Dove🕊️💖 ): wouldn’t be the only thing of mine you’ve kept... [unsent]
[...]
(✉ → Little Dove🕊️💖 ): heard you’re in Genosha.
(✉ → Little Dove🕊️💖 ): how are you settling in over there? [unsent]
(✉️ ➡️ kon air): [UNSENT] what the hell is going on with you?
(✉️ ➡️ kon air): [UNSENT] are you okay?
(✉️ ➡️ kon air): guess i’m back in town just in time for you to split, huh?
(✉️ ➡️ kon air): [UNSENT] kara’s worried about you, did you know that?
(✉️ ➡️ kon air): is everything all right? getting a lot of different stories here
[📱to Dickolas ] Well I’m back now so... good timing ig.
[📱to Dickolas ] of course. No one ever just messages me because we’re friends. idk what I expected. [unsent]
[📱to Dickolas ] Oh let me guess... Steph told you I threw her around like a ragdoll for no reason, Tim’s told you that I’m seconds away from going full Luthor, and Kara thinks I’m the family disappointment just like Clark does.
[📱to Dickolas ] Everything is totally true. I’m planning my global takeover as we speak. 🙄
[📱to I Think He Knows Superboy ] I heard leather jacket Superboy is back in town!
[📱to I Think He Knows Superboy ] what are the chances I could get his autograph?
[📱to I Think He Knows Superboy ] or the name of his barber?
[📱to I Think He Knows Superboy ] how does he even cut his hair….
[📱to Kitty Pryde ] Probably pretty high I guess? Honestly the other superboy seems more the type but it doesn’t hurt to ask?
[📱to Kitty Pryde ] A demi-god does it for him.
[📱to Kitty Pryde ] Or used to...
[📱to Kitty Pryde ] Now he’s going to have to use laser vision.
[📱to Kitty Pryde ] Which totally sucks. Kara always gives me a dorky haircut and I’m scared Jon’ll snap and give me a buzzcut and then I’ll look like Lex and- [unsent]
Nia had had… a rough year. A year that didn’t seem to stop throwing things at her, one after the other, and testing how many times she could get back up. Always one more. It had to always be one. more. time. Otherwise, she couldn’t survive. But some things… They made her angry. They made her scared. Nia had grown up in a town where aliens and humans had lived peacefully, knowingly, side by side. She’d never hidden any part of herself until she’d moved away from home. And it had been fine, keeping parts of herself hidden. She was still proud, still knew herself. But that anger and that fear didn’t just go away. And after seeing the angry version of herself walking around, ever since she’d been brought back into Nia, it felt like it had all been unsettled.
When Conner had mentioned the attacks on alien communities, ones like the one she knew so well, it had gripped her. She hadn’t been able to let go of that feeling, of needing to do more. Nia had plenty of problems with Erik Lehnsherr–especially after what he had done to Kara–but she trusted Kon. And she wanted to know more. She was thinking about it, absently watching the news, when she heard a knock at her window and jumped. An attacker wouldn’t knock, she knew, but after her apartment had been broken into already, it was hard to feel completely safe there.
But when she heard a familiar voice, Nia flipped the tv off and hurried over to the window, sliding it open. “Hi. Um, did you want to come in? I do still have a front door, you know.”
“I know,” he laughed, his shoulders rising in a lazy shrug as he fought off the smirk that threatened to overtake his features, “but what’s the fun in that? Besides, I’m in costume.” He gestured down to his red clad legs, even if it was still strange for his chest to be devoid of its usual crest. It had been months since the destruction of Manhattan’s bridge and yet... the old costume, the old patch that used to be stitched onto this very jacket, they were both tucked away in his closet. He took the out to look at them sometimes but where he used to feel betrayal and anger now he only felt unflinching guilt. The same guilt he felt anytime he saw twin streaks of deep red and royal blue shooting across the sky.
“I do want to come in though. I thought we could talk, maybe.” He reached into his pocket, pulling out a weathered flyer and handing it to her, the admittedly ugly comic sans printed on it reading ‘Non-violent direct action! AAW! Reclaim the day! Reclaim the night!’ He couldn’t blame the organizers for their lack of graphic design expertise though, it was difficult to get them made when all you had was Word and printed when you had to print ten at a time at various libraries across the city as to not draw attention.
“I figured you’d be interested. Honestly, you kind of seem like the only one who is.” He said, bitterness coloring his tone as his jaw tightened. “Anyway, yeah, can I come in?”
( 📩 → kon 💘 conner kent ): are you okay? will you even respond to this? [UNSENT]
( 📩 → conner kent ): i don’t even think i should send texts to you. i’m sure this just makes it hurt all the worse. [UNSENT]
( 📩 → conner kent ): i just want to make sure you’re okay [UNSENT]
( 📩 → conner kent ): i do love you. i did it because i love you, but i have to try to love myself too. [UNSENT]
( 📩 → conner kent ): i have some of krypto’s things.
( 📩 → conner kent ): do you want them back?
( 📩 → conner kent ): i have one of your hoodies too. please don’t take it i can give it back if you want too
Kon wiped the sweat from his brow as he landed on Nia’s fire escape, his eyes trailing up toward the sky for a moment as he took a deep breath. He wasn’t sure why he had come here, of all places, first. He missed Krypto, missed Jon, hell, he even missed Kara so much that he would kill for a hug from any of them right now. He winced at the figure of speech, his hands curling into tight fists that pressed against his thighs. Maybe he had come here because it was one of the few friendships he hadn’t drove into the ground yet, or maybe because even through text he could feel her manic energy at the mention of Star City, either way he was here, biting his lip and staring at her window.
He only hesitated for a moment more before he shook his head and knocked on her window, crossing his arms firmly over his chest as he waited for her to open up. He could hear her shuffling around inside and the spike of fear emanating from her at the sound made his heart clench in his chest. She had it hard, in so many ways.
“Nia, it’s me,” He said, “Uh, Conner? I just- I mean, I’m back from my trip and I figured that- oh hi.” He said, his eyes widening as the window slid open.
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