cloned | RP with Bart!

Bart shook his head, grateful for the deep breath he was able to take in once Kon moved away. "No, Kon, there aren't. And I'm not trying to be weird about this, it's just... I don't do well with change, okay?" He sighed. "The motel was baby steps, this is like jumping off the Grand Canyon with no parachute or anything. I'm just a little nervous, that's all."

"I've jumped into the Grand Canyon without a parachute," Kon said. "You know either of us could survive that. Come on, it's not that scary." He stood up and offered Bart a hand. "Sides, we're Superboy and whatever-you're-calling-yourself-now. There's nothing we can't handle."

"You're invulnerable, Kon. Of course you could manage it. I don't know if I could, though. But that's not the point!" He accepted Kon's hand, clambering to his feet. "I don't actually have a code-name now. I don't think I'm really ready to go back out superheroing. Not right now, anyway." He looked away from where Kon was standing, brushing off the dirt that didn't cling to him at all. "I can't handle it."

"Yeah, that and I can fly." Kon grinned. "You could do something. Run down the cliff and then back up. Vibrate through the ground. Make a cushion of air. I dunno." Kon picked up Bart's bag. "You'll be able to soon enough. Come on, I'll show you the house."

"Well, I was falling, I doubt I'd be able to run down... you know what? This is pointless. Whatever."

Bart politely didn't say anything when Kon took over his luggage--even though he could have managed just fine on his own--and even refrained from pointing out that he knew Kon's house already, so the grand tour wouldn't really be necessary. Then again, Bart's visit had been after it had been destroyed, so it wasn't exactly the same as it looked now. But Tim had plenty of pictures. Tim could be a pretty creepy stalker if he put his mind to it.

"You could manage," Kon insisted. "Anyway, the house has been renovated a lot while we were, uh, rebuilding it. You can have Roxy's old room."

He carried the luggage over both of their heads on one finger, partly because he could and partly because it helped focus his TTK better than a more stable position.

Bart just nodded absently, looking at the passing rooms, tactfully ignoring Kon 'working on focusing his TTK'. He had often found that ignoring his boy's more ridiculous antics usually had them stopping sooner rather than later. No audience, no fun. Or something like that.

"So... What have you been doing since you--came back?" Bart asked, only choking slightly over his words. "You were back for a while before I returned, weren't you?"

"You know, this and that," Kon said, putting the suitcases down on Bart's bed. "Mostly laying low at Clark's place, but it was getting a little cramped there. Plus, Lois scares me."

Bart sank down on the bed beside his suitcase, staring at a small spot low down on the opposite wall. "Yeah, Lois could scare anyone," he replied with a small laugh.

He scrubbed both hands through his hair, scrunching up his face in the hope that it would feel different... better. More familiar. Being a teenager still felt... wrong. He grabbed a fistful of his hair, bringing it in front of his face, peering at it accusatorily. "I need to cut my hair," he declared, apropos of nothing they had previously said. Then again, Kon was used to following his random tangents, so he didn't bother explaining.

"Don't go too short though." Kon grinned. "You'd look weird with too little hair."

Kon sat down next to him, after a moment. "You okay?" he said.

Bart shrugged. "I looked okay with short hair," he replied. But then again, his thirty/forty year-old self looked okay with short hair. He hadn't cut it for so long after he got throw into the Speed Force that he had been able to tie it back like Nightwing when he first started. It hadn't been a particularly good look for him. Any change from that would be a good change.

Bart shifted slightly, angling away from Kon as if, by presenting his back instead of his more vulnerable front, he could protect himself from whatever mental pain he was scared would come his way. "It's just--" he began, then sighed explosively, tugging his hair one last time for good measure. "This whole thing, me being so damn young... it's all wrong!" He stood up, practically flinging his arms out to the side. "I mean, look at me!" After a second, he shook his head. "Stupid. I don't look any different to you. Well, I am. This," he waved a hand in front of himself, "is all wrong. I'm not supposed to look like this! And now, not only do I look like a teenager, I get to deal with all the hormonal bullshit I had to get through first on my own and then with my sons. D'you think I really wanted things to be this way? You know, it's funny. For a few minutes when I wake up, I don't remember. I think I'm back to being fifty, old and gray, getting fat around the middle and slow, in bed with my wife, and then I realize that I'm alone. Where's Shannon? The boys don't live at home anymore, she can sleep in. And then..." he laughed bitterly. "Then I wake up, and it hits me all over again. I'm back to being a child, I will most likely never see my family again, and I'm stuck in a world where no one remembers me for me. All they see when they look at me is the immature, naive person they used to know. That Bart doesn't exist anymore, Kon. Sometimes I can fake it, but it gets so tiring. I don't want to pretend anymore." He sighed, scrubbing at his face. At least he hadn't started crying yet. He seemed to be doing that with alarming frequency lately. "I don't want to lie anymore."

"Then don't lie," Kon said, reaching over to squeeze Bart's shoulder. "I mean, the idea of a mature Bart is weird, but I can get used to it. We all can. And we'd much prefer you to be yourself than to pretend to be someone else just to make us happy. We love you, Bart. We'll help you get through this."

Bart snorted a laugh out his nose. "Stop saying that, Jesus. Don't you have any settings other than 'sympathetic?'" He reached up and covered Kon's much larger hand with his. "It makes it so much harder to be irrationally angry with you." He sighed, squeezing Kon's fingers. "I'm sorry," he said. "I didn't mean to yell at you. It's just... this whole thing is so frustrating. I don't know what to do sometimes."

"Sure, there's ass-kicking, but you've gotta rob a bank for that." Kon smirked. "Hey, like I said, it's okay. And I know what it's like to come back from the dead. It's weird. Even if I didn't have a whole nother family in the ground where I was buried."

"Well, I think robbing a bank requires a little more energy than I'm willing to spend right about now, so I guess I'll take what I can get."

Bart laughed. "What, there are no zombie Kon-spawn lying in wait for when we aren't ready for them? Our brains aren't going to be eaten? Man, that's a bit of an anticlimax. I was almost looking forward to it."

Kon groaned. "Zombie jokes, Bart. I'd have thought better of you. I was mostly catatonic. If there are Kon-spawn, I don't know about them." He squeezed Bart's shoulder again and let go. "Hey, want some lunch? I was waiting for you to eat it." Not that Kon minded Bart being late. Well, he minded a little, but he was mostly okay about it. He understood. "Sorry, we're fresh out of brains, though."

Bart laughed and punched Kon in the opposite shoulder, for all the good it did him. "Oh, c'mon. You just set yourself up for that one. I couldn't resist." Still smiling, Bart shrugged. "Yeah, sounds good to me. Traveling always makes me hungry." Glancing down at his stomach, Bart rubbed it with one hand, smirking.

"I know. Do you like Ramen noodles?" Kon stood up and started walking towards the kitchen. "Oy, we're gonna go through so much food, won't we? I've seen your metabolism in action."

Shrugging, Bart followed. "Ramen sounds good. You know I'll eat pretty much anything." He nudged Kon's shoulder with his own. "Oh please. You were the one who was all 'Oh Bart, come stay with me!' and 'There's space at my house, Bart!' You don't get complaining privileges." After a beat he continued, albeit a little more seriously. "When I get a job, I'll help out. Buying groceries for a Speedster is never cheap."

"I'm allowed to complain! And you just have to take it cause I'm being all generous letting you stay in my home. I could kick you out anytime, you know." Kon grinned and grabbed a package. "How much do you want?"

Harrumphing, Bart just raised an eyebrow. "Sure. Like you'd ever kick me out. I'm too lovable to be set out on the street!" Coming over to peer over Kon's shoulder, Bart shrugged sheepishly. "Umm, four?"

"...I'll have to buy more of that when I get groceries too," Kon said, pulling out the five he had. "And you just watch. Only a matter of time until I remember how annoying you are, then it's back to the motel with you, Mr. Allen." He put the noodles in a pot and started the water.

Bart laughed, blithely ignoring Kon's grumbling, instead darting under his arm and removing the pot from the stove. Sometimes being short was a good thing. "Jeez, Kon. You have to boil the water before you put the noodles in!" Fixing Kon's horrendous mistake, Bart stood in front of the stove, bouncing on his toes. "Man, now I remember how much I hate cooking. It's so slow!"

Kon grinned. "Well, you'll have to wait. I tried using heat vision to cook once, and let's just say it isn't a good idea. Less said about that, the better."

Bart grinned in response, trying to bite down a snicker. "I can see that failing spectacularly." He stretched slightly, growing bored, and zipped over to the window. "Man, I love being able to see the sea. It's so... endless. Full of possibility. And death, if you slow down too much. But that's not the point."

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