It looked like some weird Van Gogh attempt at a needle made out of crystal. Kon tried to remember the name of the art style and not think about how it would be going through his eye in a moment.
"Are you sure you want to do this?" his grandfather, Jor-El, asked. "Once the procedure has begun, there is no going back."
Kon squeezed his eyes shut, took a deep breath, and opened them. "Do it."
Then the pain began.
Three months ago
The wood creaked under his feet and Kon's hearing picked up the individual splinters rubbing against each other. Bad carpentry. Which was weird, considering it was a Christian church. Kon hadn't been in one since he'd lived with the Kents and even then, they'd been Protestants. Still, he'd seen Boondock Saints (at least, one of him had), so how hard could it be to figure out?
Kon stepped into the confessional (confessery booth? No.) and sat reverently. After about thirty seconds, he tapped on the divider impatiently. After another half a minute, he knocked on it. "Hey, a little service!"
He heard footsteps shuffling outside and a priest stepped into the other side of the booth.
"What took you?"
"There is a bell, you know." The priest's voice was old and sardonic, with the kind of chained rasp that came from smoking too many cigarettes in his youth. His breath smelled like a freshly vacuumed carpet.
Kon looked up. "Oh, yeah. Sorry. Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned. It's been… a lifetime since my last confession. I don't really know what to do after that, I'm not Catholic…"
"Well, nobody's perfect."
"I've never been to a priest before… except for that one time, but he was evil and twelve and had lots of mother issues… I know there's a God... I've seen angels."
"Ah, you had a near-death experience?"
"No, I had a death experience. But lately I've been doing… a lot of bad things. And I can't seem to stop myself."
"We can always stop ourselves, my son. That's the gift of free will."
"Gift, right. I killed someone… two people. Bad… people. No one who'll be really missed. But still… how do I get that… what do I do?"
"If you truly have murdered, you must turn yourself into the police."
"No! No cops. Cops lead to… trust me, that would just make things worse. I need advice on a more… spiritual level. That's why I came here instead of to a guidance counselor. Although I don't know why I'd go to someone who ended up working as a guidance counselor for life lessons…"
"If you are truly remorseful, you must atone for your sins."
Kon smiled and nodded. "Of course! It's so obvious!" The door opened and there was a sound of rapidly receding footfalls. The priest looked through the screen to see an empty booth.
"Kids these days."
Two months ago
"You're in a sorority?"
The building in question was a big one, all brick and mortar with bars on the windows. On the porch, would-be Paris Hiltons flirted with lettermen-jacket-clad underclassmen.
Cass and Tim couldn't hear what they were saying, as the oak tree whose shade they were borrowing was far out of earshot. The trunk was thick and tall and Tim had the distinct impression it had grown up right alongside the university. Behind his head, "SB CC" was carved inside a heart-shaped outline. Tim knew that Steph couldn't have been alive to see it inscribed, but he got the sentiment.
"Why does everyone find that so hard to believe?" Cass asked exasperatedly, throwing her hands up over her head in a very Steph gesture.
"It's just so… unlike you." Tim rolled over to rest one shoulder against the tree, squeezing Cass's knee with his hand. "I mean, ex-assassin, ex-vigilante, sorority girl? One of these things is not like the other, one of these things just doesn't belong…"
"Don't joke. I've learned a lot here. About literature, history… all the things that were kept from me. Tell me, have you ever heard of a band called the Beatles?"
Tim stifled a laugh. "Yes, I've heard of the Beatles."
"They're very… 'cool.'" Cass smiled. "That means good."
This time Tim couldn't help laughing. "I know what it means. How long have you been waiting to touch base with an old friend and show us how much you've learned?"
Cass rested her head on his shoulder. "Too long. Are you any closer to finding Kon?"
Letting out a short sigh, Tim said "No. There've been some promising leads, but he pays with cash, moves around a lot, avoids patterns… can fly, so there's that. Plus, he has the mind of a Luthor, so you know how hard he is to pin down."
Cass got a quizzical expression. "You think he could have something to do with these reports of a new Flash?"
"Naw. Kon doesn't have superspeed." Tim paused for a moment, considering something. "It's kinda like one of those eighties TV series that Stephen J. Cannell used to make. You know… well, actually you wouldn't… good guy travels from town to town doing good deeds, bad guys are after him." Tim shut his eyes and felt the bark pressing into his scalp through his tousled hair as Cass petted his chest in some weird way that made him think of how Dick and Babs used to look together before all the hurting. "I just want to help. I just want to… set things right so we can move on from this. I know things won't be the way they were before, they can't be. But they can at least be good. I mean, where was it written that things have to get progressively worse and worse? That business with the Clench, the Quake, Steph's baby, Gordon getting shot, Vesper Fairchild's murder… the gang war… Kon…" he looked up sharply at Cass. "Why can't thing just get better for once? Just one time can't things change for the better? Can't something good happen just…"
Cass kissed him. It seemed like a good idea.
One month ago
Mia Dearden never had water with her AZT pill. She always dry-swallowed it. Didn't know why. Maybe because when she did, it reminded her of washing her mouth out after a night of turning tricks. It was ironic, in a sadistic sort of way. The first Speedy was infamous for depending a drug dependency and now the new one had done exactly the same. Felt like coming home, if home wasn't a drunk man and a mother who sipped a martini while he beat her.
The knock at the door was surprising. After all, it was a deserted island. And Connor never knocked, he just seemed to sense when she was ready for him to come in and entered at his leisure. So, yeah, it was surprising.
The man who had been knocking was surprising too. He was young, not as young as her, but the ink probably hadn't dried on his social security number, as Ollie used to say. His hair was black and close-cropped. Beyond that, he wore a pair of faded jeans and an old "I Went To Poseidonis And All I Got Was This Lousy T-Shirt" top from back in the days when Atlantis was a tourist attraction, no doubt saved from a garage sale somewhere. Lowering a pair of John Lennon sunglasses, he looked at her with eyes that seemed to possess both a cold intellect and a compassionate warmth.
"Mia Dearden?" he asked in a slightly stilted tone.
"Who wants to know?"
The man paused a moment, taken aback, before his face split into a smile, as if he were privy to a joke she could never hope to understand. "Conner, I guess."
"Well, Connor, you're a lot… whiter than I remember?"
Conner glanced to the side, as if making eye contact with someone that wasn't there, then looked back at her. "My friends call me Kon. Look, I have something for you."
With that, he held out a Halliburton case. Steph took it and, offering him another suspicious glance, opened it. Inside were some vials, a pneumatic injection gun, and several sheets of paper with strange equations handwritten on them, making no particular sense.
"It's a cure," Kon explained.
"For what?"
"Dyslexia." Kon whipped off his sunglasses, irritated. "Rao, what kind of cure do you think I would give to the only superhero with AIDS?"
"This… cures AIDS?"
Kon leaned against the doorframe with an arrogance that was at once off-putting and somewhat endearing. "Well, only HIV for now, but the same principles can be extrapolated. I'd do it myself, but I'm a little bored of working on it. There are other diseases to be cured, you know." He rubbed his eyes tiredly. "Some of the writing is in Kryptonese, sorry, Professor Hamilton at STAR Labs or Superman can translate it. Look, I wish I could stay and chat, but I've been drinking a Thanagarian version of coffee and it's kinda like crack cocaine without the side effects, so I've really got to dash before I implode the Earth's core or whatever. Bye."
Kon was just going into his up, up, and away mode before Mia stopped him. "Wait. What are you going to work on next?"
"Testicular cancer. It's cancer of the balls. Gotta have my priorities in order."
Mia watched him fly away until he was just a speck on the horizon. A few minutes after that, Connor walked in.
"What'd I miss?"
Two weeks ago
"I didn't think you'd come," Kon said in the handicapped stall of the rest stop's bathroom. He'd gained some musculature since Cassie has last seen him and his skin had lost the white pallor that marked his origin as well. Not that Cassie noticed as she wrapped her arms around his waist and lifted him up, Kon's panicked face now visible over the walls.
"You maniac! Offering to meet me by e-mail, of all things…"
"It worked, didn't it?" Kon asked rhetorically as he was set down. He didn't waste any time either. His mouth pressed against hers for a brief moment before he pulled back with that familiar blank look he… the Kon who'd been cloned… he got when he was using his X-ray vision. "No surveillance. Let's find someplace a bit more… romantic?"
One week, six days, twenty-three hours, and fifty-five minutes ago
Cassie had fought across space and time. She'd joined Wonder Woman on raids on Hades, helped Green Lantern fight Parademons to save innocent worlds, defeated menaces from the future with Booster Gold. But still, none of them were quite as wondrous as holding hands with the man she'd thought was dead.
"Nice weather we're having," Kon said, feeling the sun on his face.
"Nice weather we're having? We don't see each other for three months and that's all you can think to say?"
"Well, yeah. It was kinda a conversation starter."
Cassie smiled. Same old Kon. No, not the same old Kon… but close enough. "Yes, it is very nice weather. So, why'd you come back?"
Kon looked everywhere but her eyes for a few moments until a familiar song filled the air. "Ice cream! Yes! C'mon!"
Pulling her along by the wrist, Kon scrambled up to the ice cream truck, barely inching out the children eager to place an order. "Two ice cream cones," he demanded, slapping down a ten.
The ice cream man gave them their order and Kon took one drumstick in each hand, giving one to Cassie with a big, infectious smile. "You know how we've mapped the human genome?" Cassie nodded. "Well, a long time ago, the Kryptonians did the same thing with their brain chemistry. Figured out what did what, how certain processes happened… and how to duplicate them. So, I gave myself the equivalent of disassociative amnesia."
"Like… post-traumatic stress disorder?"
"Yeah. So now I can only remember… being me."
Cassie had a worried expression on her face as Kon obliviously licked at the cone. "But isn't that dangerous?"
"Extremely so. But hey, risk is our business!" Kon whooped. "You hear that? I made a Star Trek reference! Used to be I'd quote Voltaire or something, but now I'm back to normal!"
Kon's enthusiasm was contagious. Still, Cassie couldn't quite give herself over to the possibility of things finally having a happy ending. "But it's just repressed. Not gone. Right?"
The smile faded from Kon's lips. "It's like… I know every element on the Periodic Table, but I don't remember learning it. He's still inside me, but I can control it, harness it, use it for good. I have the mind of a Kryptonian, light-years advanced beyond human (no offense) and the intellect of Lex Luthor. Imagine the possibilities!"
Cassie turned away from him, wrapping her arms around herself as if to ward off some invisible threat. "I don't want to imagine that… thing inside you. I just want things to go back to the way they were!"
A hand gently massaged the back of her neck. "I know. But that's not possible. I can still do good. I can save more people as who I am now than I ever could as Superboy. My research can…"
"Research? What research?"
Just then, they walked past a man listening to the news on a boom box. "Scientists today have confirmed that the cure is real. After over a quarter of a century, the AIDS virus has been cured…"
Cassie couldn't help but notice Kon's glowing smile. "That was you!?"
"Well, I don't like to brag…"
One hour ago
"I love you."
That jolted Tim to full wakefulness. He pulled his head away from the pillow (the soft, inviting pillow) and looked over his shoulder at Cass, who was brushing her now-long hair at the vanity.
"Wha?"
"Well, I thought you'd like to know."
Pulling the sheet around him, Tim got out of bed (the warm, comfortable bed) and padded over to Cass, wincing at his reflection in the mirror. "So… is this a recent development?"
"Yes. Just now. I've had feelings for you for a while, but this was the moment we crossed the Rubicon." Cass obliquely finished tying her hair into a single long braid and began applying make-up. "I promised I'd tell you when my feelings for you changed and that time has come."
"So, uh," Tim sat down on a nearby table "what brought this on?"
"Watching you sleep. I realized I felt a profound sense of protectiveness towards you, as well as my normal desire to be with you when you were absent." Cass turned away from the mirror and looked him straight in the eye. "Then I realized I felt about you exactly as I felt about Steph when I watched her sleep." She turned back to her reflection and put on a gloss of lipstick. "So I feel that our relationship has progressed to the degree where the description 'love' would not be inaccurate."
"Not be inaccurate. Hooboy." Tim sagged against the wall. "So, does that make us boyfriend and girlfriend?"
"Unless you want to proceed straight to having kids."
That jolted Tim back to full wakefulness all over again.
Now
Walking through the busy streets on the way to work, Cass could only reflect once more on how she didn't understand Tim.
Not that she understood boys, or (thinking of Steph now) girls either, for that matter. Or human beings in general, beyond the most basic biological considerations. But Tim especially confounded her. She didn't like that. Well, that wasn't true, there were times when she loved it. But she'd built a life out of taking down concepts that most people took for granted and wrestling them into making sense for her as well. She'd trained her mind to be razor-sharp and whip-quick, just to make sure no one could confuse her unwilling ignorance for stupidity. All her teachers complimented her on being a good study and one of her friends (she had friends now) had given her the nickname "Grok" after a book that Cass couldn't understand because she wasn't at its reading level yet.
So she couldn't understand why being confronted with a declaration of love would cause Tim to just… clam up like that. She was reasonably attractive. Her body figure, if not as voluptuous as others would like, was pleasing enough to look at and, judging from her experience with lovers, also pleasing to the touch. And Tim had, from his body language, enjoyed spending time with her. So the prospect of spending more time with her, especially having sex, was a… how did the saying go? A no-brainer.
Yet Tim had made it a brainer. Most confusing.
Cass was still confused about this right up until the bus hit her. As the witnesses on the scene would later tell Tim, the last word she said was "Steph," as if she was calling out to someone, right before she lost consciousness and never regained it.
Nightwing would give anything to spare Tim the hurt he was going through right now. Break his legs, scar his face, make him relive his parents' death over and over again, but don't let his friend feel this way again. Unfortunately, none of the gods he'd met in his adventures and none of the ones he hadn't seemed likely to take him up on his offer as he snuck into the coroner's office.
Robin was still as a statue atop a file cabinet, his cape blowing slightly in the breeze from an old AC unit. The rattle of the air conditioning was the only sound between them for a long time.
"She's in there somewhere," Robin said, looking at the drawers of bodies stored there. "In one of those… things. Waiting to be cut open and filled with formaldehyde and put in the ground. In the ground, Dick. How is that fair? How does that make sense?"
"It… doesn't," Nightwing said, knowing how pathetic the words sounded even as they spilled out of his mouth. He had only seen that kind of hopelessness once before, when he had visited Barbara at the hospital after the Joker…
He had never wanted to see it again. And yet it seemed destined to come after him. He'd seen it in the mirror a year ago and now he saw it in the face of the boy he'd come to consider the brother he never had.
"She'd want you to…"
"She'd want me to what!?" Tim demanded, throwing a coffee mug into the wall. It smashed into a million pieces which chipped at the floor like hailstones. "To get on with my life? To get over it? To buck up, little soldier? I'll tell you what she'd want. She'd want to be here. With me! She'd want to be…" Tim reached up and clamped his hands over his ears, trying desperately to shut out the world and failing. "She told me she loved me and I never… I never even told her I loved her back."
"I'm sure she knew."
"I'm not." Robin hopped down from the cabinet and strode towards the door, cape flaring behind him like raven wings. "That's why I'm bringing her back."
Nightwing stepped in front of him. "No. I know what you're going through…"
"No. You. Don't." Tim paused and shook his head. "If you want to stop me, kill me."
With that, he stepped past Nightwing and into the night.
The funeral was almost pathetically small. Bruce showed up, and Barbara, and Dick in his policeman blues. But Tim was nowhere to be found. It wasn't fair, Cassie thought. It wasn't fair that someone who had helped so many people could go into the night with so little fanfare. She wanted to leap into the gravesite and throw her coffin on a funeral pyre, to fuel the flames with the lead pipes and semi-automatics of her fallen foes. And from the way Barbara kept shifting in her seat, she wanted to do the same thing.
Cassie turned away from the eulogy and saw, in the shadow of an crypt, Kon's hulking form for a minute. And then he was gone.
In a small space in Tim's room in Titan Tower (his backdoors into the security system still worked after all this time), there was a secret hiding place. Inside, a single slender green candle lay. Tim picked it up. It reminded him of a dagger. Lighting a match, he held the flame to the wick.
Cassie got home in time to see Kon lying in his favorite chair, his tie undone and his shirt unbuttoned. He looked up at her.
"I've been thinking."
Cassie set down her purse and sat down across from him. He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. "We've been… well, for a while now. And Cass dying like that. It reminded me that with this lifestyle, there's really no way to… be certain we're going to be here tomorrow. So it's best to do things today. Live in the moment. Carpe diem, you know?"
"What are you trying to say?"
"I think we should move in together. Do one of those warrior Amazon vow things, like Xena and Gabrielle had, or whatever. You know, be together."
"Are you… asking me to marry you?"
Kon backed up instantly, waving his hands. "No! No, no, no… at most, I'm asking for us to be in the holding pattern for marriage. We're still waiting for all the other 747s to land because air traffic control hasn't given us the all clear. But maybe it's time for us to take this whole thing and blow it wide open. No more running. No more hiding."
Reaching forward, Cassie took his hand in hers. "We've talked about it. It's too dangerous."
"I don't care if they know about us. I want them to know. I used to think… I used to think everyone would fear me, hate me for being different. But that was the Luthor in me talking. The Superman in me… that part says I should trust them. And that's the part of me I want to be right."
"And what does the part of you that's you say?"
"That part?" Kon smiled. "That part just says 'I love you.'"
For a place whose name meant "shivering cold," Tartarus was rather humid. There were no Cyclopes, no Sisyphus rolling a boulder up a hill for all eternity, no Tantalus with cool water up to his neck and luscious grapes above his head. There was just a table, two chairs, and a slight breeze bristling up from the depths that carried the screams of the damned of it.
Once, it would have given Tim the heebie-jeebies. Now, the only difference between it and his nightmares was that he was awake.
"How is he?" the other man asked. It wasn't the voice of a snarky trickster or a malevolent businessman. It was just as unconcerned as an old college buddy catching up with an acquaintance.
"Kon?"
"James. James Jesse. My erstwhile companion. How is he?"
"Evil. Again."
The other man smiled. He had a surprisingly beatific expression. It didn't fit well on his face, Tim thought. "Oh, goodie. I was beginning to worry that I would be deprived the pleasure of his company. So tell me, young master Drake… what can I do you for?"
Tim didn't break the other man's stare once. "I want to call off the deal."
Bart had thought of the perfect solution to the costume problem. Everyone knew the Flash kept his costume in a ring. So he kept his in a watch. A pocket watch, at that. It was pretty cool. And it also told him the time.
Bart checked it while Cassie and Kon were in-between blinks. "So, Cassie, Kon, what's all the hubbub about?"
Cassie could obviously barely contain her excitement. She was leaning against Kon and rubbing her hand up and down his arm and nuzzling her head against his. It was enough to make Bart want to yak. "Kon's decided he's going to stop running."
"That's great!" Bart cried, leaping on Kon in a tackle-hug and running the big guy around the room before he remembered he had a secret identity. "Umm… you guys didn't see that."
"It's alright Bart, your secret's safe with us," Cassie laughed.
"And did you forget I was the one who repowered you?" Kon slipped out of Bart's grasp and cracked his neck.
"So, you really think you can beat the rap on Superboy-Prime?"
Kon shrugged. "I was a little out of my mind at the time. And I've gotten a Nobel Prize in Medicine anonymously, so that's in my favor. Right now, all I need to know is if I have your support."
The other man leaned back in his chair. "I warned you, didn't I? When we made the deal. You get your precious Superboy's soul back…"
"And I give up something I love." Tim seethed with anger. "I never agreed to let someone die!"
"In my experience, humans have a tendency to get past anything less."
"I want her back."
"It's good to want things."
At that point in time, Tim desperately wanted nothing more than to wipe that smug smirk off the other man's face. But he forced his fist to relax into a palm. "You always brag about your satisfied customers. Well, I'm not satisfied. I want a refund."
The other man chuckled. "A refund? You mean, I take back Kon-El's now-blackened soul and you get back Miss Cain?"
Tim couldn't force the words out, so he just nodded.
"Selling out one friend to save another. My, my. I have a feeling you'll go far."
"Shut up and get it over with."
The other man's smile widened. "Done."
"So, what, you want me as a character witness?" Bart asked. Kon nodded. "Cool! It'll be just like Perry Mason!"
Cassie gave Kon a questioning look before Kon waved her off. "I think having you in my corner will mean a lot. As long as people know I'm the original…" Kon coughed sharply.
"Honey?" Cassie reached over to take Kon's shoulder. "You alright?"
"Fine. Just feeling a little green around the gills." Kon's arm jerked spastically and the water glass he was holding slipped through his fingers and shattered on the floor. Kon stood up, grabbing his wayward arm in his other hand to try and restrain it as it twitched. "I haven't felt this bad since I watched that Ronald Reagan movie," he mumbled before falling forward through the coffee table.
Cassie was out of her seat even before Bart was, kneeling at Kon's side as he gasped like a fish out of water, his complexion turning gray. She turned him over, the broken glass cutting into his shirt and breaking against his skin. As soon as she saw his face, her hand went to her mouth. Blood was seeping out of his eyes.
"It's bad," Kon told her before a full-body spasm caused him to arch upwards, a broken scream mewling in his throat. As quickly as it began he was down again, his foot kicking out randomly.
Bart was just standing there, half out of his chair, paralyzed, until Cassie looked up at him. "Get a doctor!"
Kon just made a sound like something was caught in his throat, looking up at Cassie like he desperately wanted to get her attention. Cassie ignored him. If he couldn't say goodbye, he couldn't leave. It was as simple as that.
"Hmm. That's interesting."
Tim looked up from burying his face in his hands. "What's interesting?"
"He's resisting me."
Tim smiled despite himself. Leave it to Kon to find a way to fight even... this.
"No doctors," Kon croaked, sitting up. He wiped off his face, smearing the blood on his cheeks. "Just an allergic reaction."
Cassie punched him in the face. "Don't you ever scare me like that again!"
"There are rules," the other man sighed. "Even for one such as me. Suffice to say that young Mister Kent has taken actions to put himself… out of my reach."
"Why!?" Tim demanded, sick of it all. "Why Cass and not him?"
"A life is easy to take, a soul quite another thing. When Miss Cain gave herself over to you, by the terms of the contract you gave her over to me. No such… arrangement can deliver Mister Kent. I'm sorry, son. All deals are final."
Tim sat up, throwing the table over. "Then I want a new deal!"
"A new deal?" The other man chuckled good-naturedly. "My dear boy, you have nothing to offer."
Sitting back down, Tim gritted his teeth. He wiped at his mouth with his hand, mind working double-time. "There must be something you want."
The other man made a big show of thinking it over, looking up and down and finally smiling grandly. "There is one thing I could use from a man of your talents. One of my children has wandered from the flock."
"An escape?"
"Most embarrassing. You send him back into my warm embrace and I'll restore Miss Cain to you."
Tim considered it and he knew Bruce would disown him just for thinking about it. But the more he thought about it, the more sense it made. In the final analysis, a villain's life for Cassandra's was no question at all.
"What's his name?"
The other man leaned forward, revealing the dark patches where a human being would have eyes. "Jason Todd."