(Untitled)

[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

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[goldeneyedflash]

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?"

[goldeneyedflash]

"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]

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]

"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]

"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]

"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."

[not_the_s]

"So, what? You brood over it this entire time? What'll it fix, Bart? What'll it change? When I got dragged into the future, I could have moped about leaving you all behind. I could have given up on ever getting back to you. But I didn't. And eventually I managed to get back to all of you."

Kon leaned forward, grabbing Bart's arm. "Tell me what moping is going to do other than make you and the rest of us miserable."

[goldeneyedflash]

Bart jerked back at that, getting to his feet to leave before he really lost it. He couldn't do this, not here, not now. "You know what the last thing I remember is before the island, Kon?" he nearly shouted. "I was dying because when Val released the Speed Force from where Inertia had tried to contain it, it didn't want me anymore, and I was too badly hurt without the accelerated healing that connection gave me. So tell me what I have, besides borrowed time."

[not_the_s]

Oh, hell no. Kon nearly jumped out of the spring, grabbing Bart again. "You have me, not dead like that statue tells me every morning. You have Cassie and Tim and Dairine and Karolina. You've got our self-appointed big brother looking out for us. If you have borrowed time, so do the rest of us."

He shook Bart a little. "But unlike certain speedsters, I'm making the most of it. You don't think I'm freaked out about things here? Do you even know how I got the bump on my head?"

He wouldn't, unless Tim had told. He hadn't even told Cassie.

[goldeneyedflash]

"Let me go," Bart said, coldly, everything draining out except the thin thread of rage. The anger that had been fueling him, keeping him moving when he didn't know what else to do. And now he couldn't run. He wasn't able to keep running, keep putting things behind him, and he was lost.

[not_the_s]

"Do you know? Of course not. Of course you don't have any idea. I ran into Luthor when the island saw fit to make you and Tim girls. It made him into one, too. He was probing me for information and he would have gotten away with it, too, if Anatoly hadn't come by."

He was sorely tempted to tell Bart about Luthor being his genetic parent, but he wasn't going to say anything when he was this upset.

"So, I have you acting more like Tim than Tim, I have Cassie who got drunk that final night before you guys switched back, there's Clark who wants nothing to do with me, Luthor who's here, Lois who doesn't remember me. Even Dick was almost reverent the first time he saw me until he started the 'big brother' routine. And god, every time I go home, there's a giant gold statue of me telling the world that I apparently died a hero."

He shook Bart again.

"Tell me I don't have just as much reason to feel sorry for myself as you do and I'll let you go."

[goldeneyedflash]

"I knew what was going to happen. Practically play by play. Grandma came, and when nothing else worked, she told me what would happen. The day. Who. All of it," Bart said, flatly, the tone of someone relating facts they aren't ready to deal with. "And I went anyway. I didn't even call for backup when I thought about it. I didn't just die, I went in there willingly. And even when I thought I'd found a way to escape fate, I couldn't do it."