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Bart came to a skidding stop in the middle of a Kansas wheat field. The wrong wheat field. He pushed his palms against his goggles in frustration.
Like any speedster, Bart had an incredible internal compass – he didn’t get lost.
However, unlike any speedster, Bart had just been blasted with some crazy concussive contraption, and now he could barely tell east from west.
The blast had knocked out his communications too – which was why he was trying to find Kon. He… might be having some difficulty with that. Really, how many wheat fields could there be in Kansas? At this rate, Bart would actually have to look for some kind of sign.
With a groan, Bart gave himself one more moment to lament, and dashed in his next direction.
—
He ran straight into a tree.
Not even, like, a little ash tree, or anything. It was some kind of ancient oak monster. Bart spat out some bark and tried to regain his bearings.
He could probably just give up on finding Kon now. What were the chances Kon himself had managed to recover from the blast yet? Maybe he could just try calling him.
“Kon!” Bart yelled. An acorn fell on his head, but besides that, nothing really changed. There definitely weren’t any dashing leather-jacketed supers swooping down beside him.
Kon’s super hearing must still be defunct, so. Not exactly ideal, because Bart was kinda running low on energy. The mission wasn’t supposed to go on this long – well, they probably should have expected for something to go wrong, but they didn’t, so. C’est la vie and et cetera.
Still, energy or not, Bart couldn’t exactly stay in the middle of nowhere. Even with no internal compass, it shouldn’t be that hard to find a town or something, right? Just – somewhere with a phone. He took off running again.
—
The first town Bart found – well. They didn’t really seem to like superheroes, so to speak. The second one had no cell service. The third one just straight up didn’t have any phones.
Seriously, what kind of luck was this?
Bart ran alongside the highway, hoping one of the signs would eventually be something familiar. Hey, there was a McDonald’s on that exit. Only problem was that Bart had no money and he was pretty sure they wouldn’t accept an apology instead.
His stomach kept on grumbling, and Bart wanted to grumble with it at this point. Kansas couldn’t be this big, surely. Maybe that blast had messed with him more than he’d thought.
Whatever progress he made had been… slow. And as a speedster, slow really wasn’t supposed to ever happen to him.
God, he needed something to eat. Maybe he should check if McDonald’s accepted apologies instead of cash.
—
Bart’s next stop was – unplanned was putting it nicely.
Bart lay on the tarmac for a solid three minutes before he built up enough resolve to lift his head to see the mangled remains of the old pickup truck he’d just tripped over.
“It’s not as bad as it could be,” Bart said, mostly to reassure himself, because – yeah, no, this was pretty much as bad as it could be. The truck clearly hadn’t been doing great before, but now its skeleton was showing and the paint job was unrecognisable. Bart was pretty sure the truck had been blue when he hit it. One of the wheels was swinging from a branch on a nearby tree.
Bart pushed himself to stand, then checked his surroundings. Some kind of car dump. Maybe the truck wasn’t so out of place after all?
Voices, curious, filtered in from beyond the masses of old cars.
Bart looked at the direction the voices were coming from. Then at the mangled truck. And finally, at the entrance the truck had very obviously entered from.
He ran.
—
This sprint was even shorter than the last - he’d messed up his ankle or something when he hit the truck, and his weird wobbling gait could only keep him going for so long until he inevitably crashed into something else.
“Fuck this,” Bart said, resolutely ignoring how the world spun around him.
This time, it wasn’t a tree, or a truck, but a wide bog. Usually, mud and wetlands weren’t an issue, but Bart would be the first to admit that he wasn’t running well at the moment. His feet stuck to the ground as he struggled over to the edge.
He sat on the grass for a while, picking mud out of his suit and trying to stop it from getting in his cuts from the truck.
With a sigh, he stood once again, ignoring how he swayed, and sped off.
—
“Imp!”
Bart genuinely hadn’t ever heard anything so sweet. He stumbled to a stop – though he’d admittedly not been running all that fast – and looked up into the sky to see Kon flying between clouds.
“You fixed your ears,” was the first thing Bart said as Kon landed in front of him.
“Fixed is a strong word,” Kon said with a grin. “What happened to you?”
“There are so many fields in Kansas,” Bart said in lieu of a reply. “And so many trees.”
“I take it that’s where the black eye is from,” Kon said.
“I don’t have a black eye,” Bart said, but he let Kon grab his face and tilt it every which way. “Think my ankle might be sprained though.”
Kon let go of Bart’s face to glance at his leg. “Oh, damn. Yeah, you probably shouldn’t be running on that.”
“I noticed,” Bart said dryly. “I’m so hungry.”
“Hey, we’ll get you something nice to eat soon.”
“No, like, I’m really hungry,” Bart said, and that was all the warning Kon got before he stumbled to the side and wobbled his way to sitting.
“Woah, Imp. Take it easy.” Kon shrugged off his jacket and dropped it on Bart’s shoulders. “Head between your knees,” he guided, and Bart let him rearrange him.
“‘M all muddy,” Bart protested. Kon didn’t take his jacket back, and instead pulled off Bart’s goggles.
“Never mind that,” Kon said. “Still dizzy?”
Bart hummed. Yeah, dizzy was one word for it. Mostly it felt like there was static in his head instead of a brain. Kon poked his cheek.
“Wanna try standing?”
Bart hummed again, reaching a wavering hand in Kon’s general direction. Kon counted up to three, and pulled him up gently. Which, while Bart appreciated it, his brain didn’t, and the static took over the rest of him before he’d even straightened his legs.
—
“Ungh,” Bart said as soon as he awoke.
“Welcome back,” Kon said, right beside Bart’s ear. Bart popped his head up, confused, and realised Kon was in flight. “We’re almost home now.”
If Bart was more awake, he’d probably ask if Kon meant his home, or Bart’s home, or wherever, but as it was, he accepted the answer with a hum and drifted off once more.