(no subject)

[not_the_s]

The couch, a handful of pills, and a glass of juice. Kon threw back the pills and took a large swallow of juice, thankful that he'd finally found a way to the Compound after his 'shortcut'. He closed his eyes and slumped against the couch, his mind going back to conversations he'd had the last few weeks. One in particular stood out. Dairine and why Bart was acting the way he had been. Kon hadn't had the guts to ask him. He hadn't been sure he wanted the answer. He still didn't, but after things with Luthor...

He needed things to not be weird with his best friend. He took a breath and opened his eyes, determined to go track Bart down.

Comments

[goldeneyedflash.livejournal.com]

Bart actually wasn't that hard to find, being only a few doors down in the lab. He'd been spending most of his time that he wasn't training with Robin or Nightwing there trying to help keep the not so recent rash of technically inclined people vanishing from affecting the island's pipeline for drug production.

Currently, he was taking down the latest readings on a batch of bacterial cultures and worrying about what they were going to use for substrate if the population kept growing and the lab supplies kept shrinking. He barely looked up when Kon entered, then started, looking again at his friend.

"Are you okay?"

[not_the_s]

Kon snorted. "I'm fine, Bart. My head feels like it's smacked against the rock again, but I think I'm getting used to that." Or else the drugs were kicking in and the headache was going away. He really, really hoped it was the second one. "And apparently it's supposed to go away after a little while."

[goldeneyedflash.livejournal.com]

"You'd have to ask Tim or Dick. Getting tied up and beat about the head and neck is apparently part of the Robin gig," he said, trying for a joke as he wrote down a few more numbers on the chart. "My only experience is that the bad guys turned themselves in after Impulse yakked on them at a bank robbery."

It had been a long time ago, or so it seemed. Another life. Impulse retired after he'd been shot. Kid Flash vanished into the Speed Force and never returned. And the Flash was dead and buried. "You wanted something?"

[not_the_s]

"Tim was the one I went to when I first saw...when this first happened. Who else do you think I'd go to?" Kon didn't know anyone else in the lab. He cocked his head when Bart mentioned 'Impulse'. "When you did, you mean. You might be a genius or something, but deep down somewhere, there's still the kid who broke the Batmobile."

Such a shame that he'd missed it.

[goldeneyedflash.livejournal.com]

"And the Batplane," Bart had to point out, unable to stop the grin from forming. "Though that was after when you're from. Didn't ever find out why you'd skipped that weekend. Was too busy getting chewed out over the Welcome to Smallville sign.

"And I'm no genius, I just read too much."

[not_the_s]

"You read too much and remember what you read. If that doesn't make you smart, I don't know what does." It cheered Kon a little to see Bart smiling again. He didn't smile often enough around here in Kon's opinion and that only reminded Kon of what he meant to talk to Bart about.

"I was wondering if you could show me the hot springs. I heard something about them, I think? I just don't know where they are." He grinned. "Show and join if you think you can deal with the water."

[goldeneyedflash.livejournal.com]

"It isn't the water, it's the stuff in the water!" Bart protested automatically, even as he started to tidy up the bench he'd been working at. "You would have found them that first day if you'd gone much farther. They're in the caves, not too far from the laundry room."

The suggestion was a good one, he thought as he stretched and heard his back make a crackling sound. "I guess the mold can wait."

[not_the_s]

Kon snorted. "Yes, the mold can wait. Go find me a suit and I'll meet you at the door." Oh, yes. He remembered where that door was. That day was pretty much burned into his memory. The entire, what, 36 hour day? Not a moment had been anything but memorable.

"I'll see you down there." He went ahead of Bart to pick up a suit of his own. It wasn't like he'd exactly planned on taking Bart to the hot springs, but it seemed like a good enough place to talk.

[goldeneyedflash.livejournal.com]

Bart frowned slightly at that, and finished putting the stuff away before following. There was an order to the lab, not quite the pristine neatness of Tim's work-spaces, but it stayed a certain way, and he respected that.

Stopping at the box, he grabbed pretty much the first pair of swim shorts he saw, not caring about the day-glo palm trees or anything else. "I don't come down here often enough. For a soak, I mean."

[not_the_s]

"See?" Kon called, already dressed in trunks that were a little shorter than the board shorts he normally wore. He was standing over by the door waiting for Bart. "You need to get out more. You're becoming as insular as Tim and I didn't even think it was possible."

He waited for the inevitable response he expected: a comment about his vocabulary.

[goldeneyedflash.livejournal.com]

"My idea of human interaction doesn't involve a telephoto lens," Bart said, dryly, not making a point on the word choice. It was true. "I just don't make friends all that easily anymore. Probably having to pretend to be grown up. I've given up on figuring out the math on how old I really am. Too many questions on what counts and what doesn't."

[not_the_s]

Idiot. Kon punched his arm. "You act more like the adult you think you should be when you don't try, you know. Like when I knew you back when. When you weren't trying, you just were." Was this why Bart was acting weird or was it something more than that? "Come on. Am I technically two? Two and a half? Sixteen? What?"

[goldeneyedflash.livejournal.com]

"Hey!" Bart said, rubbing the spot. "I think we better go with sixteen. Any younger and we'd both need guardians."

[not_the_s]

Kon smirked and hung back a little to let Bart take the lead. "Please. If I had a guardian until I actually turned sixteen people would think I was..." He did the quick mental math. "Thirty."

[goldeneyedflash.livejournal.com]

"Exactly," Bart said, not slowing all that much as he led them to the hot springs and carefully slid into the water with a soft sigh. "So, SB, why did you hunt me down instead of a flock of girls in bikinis?"

[not_the_s]

Kon groaned a little and closed his eyes when he got in the water. That was just the thing he'd needed and he congratulated himself on a great spur-of-the-moment decision. "Hmm? Oh, right. What's wrong?"

[goldeneyedflash.livejournal.com]

"What do you mean?" Bart asked, narrowing his eyes slightly as he glanced over at Kon. "If you mean my spending most of the time I'm not training in the lab, we're a little short-handed after the latest disappearances."

[not_the_s]

"No, I mean the part where you're moody and talking about quitting and then flop and suddenly kiss me." Kon's eyes were closed, but he felt like he was staring Bart down. "I'm not the only one who's noticed the moodiness. In fact, I thought I was just freaked out about the kiss until I talked to someone."

[goldeneyedflash.livejournal.com]

Bart flinched at that, not sure what he could say. It had been a dumb thing to do, that much was clear. "Forget about it. It was a stupid thing to do."

[not_the_s]

Kon made a frustrated noise and opened his eyes, glaring at Bart. "That's not the point I was focusing on, actually. Dude, what's going on with you? Really?"

[goldeneyedflash.livejournal.com]

"I'm fine, Kon. Peachy. Sore, but having extra training will do that," Bart said, evenly. "It could just be that I'm not the impulsive idiot you remember. Buried too many people for that."

[not_the_s]

"If I didn't recognize the hair, I'd have to wonder if you're really Bart Allen, you've changed that much. There's being an impulsive idiot and there's being you and as far as I can see, you're not either." Kon's jaw clenched a little. "You're acting more Tim than Tim does most days."

[goldeneyedflash.livejournal.com]

"I had to grow up, get a job, recreate my life. I lost four years in the Speed Force during the Crisis. I still don't remember most of it. Some of what I do isn't even my memories. I came back, and my whole world was turned upside down," Bart said, heat filling the words.

"If I'd stayed the same, I wouldn't have survived. Even what I did wasn't enough."

[not_the_s]

"I'm surprised you did survive," Kon muttered, "if all you did was be like this; if you just hung onto the sucky parts of your past. Even getting shot and reading an entire library worth of books didn't do this kind of thing to you. What could have possibly changed so much in the, what? Few months? You said you couldn't remember the years, so they couldn't affect you."

[goldeneyedflash.livejournal.com]

"Since we got back from the future? It's been three years, for me. If you don't want to count being in another timestream. But yes, that part does affect me. Because I remember everything. Except that. Everything. Even where the stains were in those library books," Bart said, starting to get angry. He didn't want to be, but he was sick of everyone expecting him to be the same as always.

"I had to be the Flash. Because there wasn't anyone left."