Archive of Our Own ^beta

On one quiet night riddled with leftover adrenaline of a job well done, Kara had told him about her encounter with red kryptonite. She told him all about the surge of power and how it tasted like a very sharp gulp of schnapps. Kon had laughed at her, until she shook her head and said it'd felt like being swallowed by the Sun, or becoming one with it. She said that and it sounded like words horror and thrill packed in one.

Indescribable, she said, you'd have to experience it yourself to get it. Though she didn't sound like she wanted that for him at all.

Kon will have to talk to her about it later. Once he's not burning up and shaking like a leaf.

“Can you step in?” Tim asks, and the memory of Kara's eyes that glow near red in the dark slips away to the rough pair of hands holding his forearms to help him keep balance.

Kon nods. He lifts his leg—too difficult of a task for something so simple—and steps into the cold bath. It makes him shiver even more and he tenses his muscles against it, feeling for once stupidly self-conscious in front of a person who has seen him go through worse. Tim had seen his dead body, so how does this feel more humiliating? Do the dead hold more respect, torn but with a fulfilled purpose, than the living, scared and stripped of all their strengths? 

Kon would say he rarely gets to feel this vulnerable, like a child that could be knocked over by a stronger gust of wind, except that'd be a lie. He often feels so, he just isn't right about it most of the time. Usually it's all in his head. He'd like to keep it that way; not that anyone asked.

But for once he truly does need the gentle handling. He needs Tim's help sitting down in the bathtub so he doesn't slip, or his knees give out and he falls and smashes a dent in the poor tub. He barely has enough energy to feel humiliated for it. He stopped feeling much of anything but ow, ow, ow, ouch ever since Kara dragged him out of the sea, swearing something he couldn't comprehend. He could tell it was nothing nice, and probably not directed at him, not entirely.

He doesn't remember much of their trip to the medbay aside from the panic there, the enclosed space and sterilized equipment that never meant anything good, and Tim and Kara managing to wrangle some excuse to get him out of there and back to the farm. They're good at that. They're also good at wrangling him, clearly. He wishes he could properly thank them for it, and instead he's relying on them to get through such basic things as take a goddamn shower. And Tim has drawn an actual bath, too. Probably because he can see Kon can barely stand. Also because Tim is too good to him.

They don't reprimand him for his recklessness. They all know there are sacrifices to be made, sometimes, that aren't worth questioning later. Kon would still like to be yelled at, a little, so he could justify how furious he is at himself.

Kon is not afraid of sacrifices—what is a smidge of red kryptonite against the weight of hundreds of dead bodies he'd have to carry otherwise? But he can admit he is afraid of himself. You never know what it might mutate you into, and he certainly had no clue or even an assumption, but he took a gamble and this time, it worked.

It felt nothing like the Sun to him, more like a meteor, something to that effect. A passing scream of power through his body that was dizzying, fried his nerves, did its job, then left him as quickly as it overtook him, and let him crash into the sea. Fitting.

He stretches his legs all the way they can go while still in the tub. It's a bit small for him, but he appreciates it; makes him feel contained. The cold water helps, too. It also makes him shiver more. When's the last time he felt cold?

Tim washes the salt and soot out of his hair. His long fingers dig in his scalp firmly, tugging at the curls there. It's nice, almost enough to make Kon forget about the aching all over. He tells Kon about how they wrapped it all up in the end, or how Cassie told him they did. Neither Tim nor Kara stayed long enough to see it through. Because of him. He should be thankful, though he wonders if he should be angry, too, because aren't people's lives more important than one? They all know the answer to that question. If they didn't, they would be doing any of this.

Tim must sense his turmoil. Or he just knows, because he would worry about this the same way, and heckle Kon about it. He makes sure to mention that by the time Kon crashed and burned they had everything more-or-less under control, and enough heroes on spot to take over. It's all told in a very Tim way; subtle as to not be too coddling, yet soothing in its firmness all the same.

They saved lives. Kon's quick—idiotic—thinking saved people and secured a sure tomorrow. Is that not what heroes do? Why doesn't he feel right at all? Instead his body feels like a miserable pile of hollow bones. He must look like it, too.

He can barely muster a word. His tongue, as all other muscles, feels beat to shit. “Sorry.”

“What?” Tim asks. His hands don't still. He takes all of Kon in stride; Kon ought to thank him for it, but he finds himself bitter of it for both of them. Tim didn't doubt him for a moment. He saw him taking the red pill and didn't even take a step back. Kon could have crushed him, for all either of them knew, beneath the pressure of his telekinesis. He could have crushed everyone, every thing in the vicinity. That's what the look of the last person he saw said, before he stopped noticing such little things for the surge of invisible power that possessed his body. We're all going to die, it said, and Kon couldn't even blame the woman. That had been on his mind too.

Later, in a fit of fear and despair, he'd punched Kara away as she dragged him to the warm sand. She only staggered for a second, mostly out of brief surprise, and went on like nothing happened, didn't mention it. Kon knows she won't. But he remembers. He stares down at his traitorous hands under water. Still, they think they're made for holding. Even after today.

“Y'know,” Kon gestures at himself, at his useless, heaving body that he's overworked to the bone. For a good cause, he knows, though it rather feels like he's shown a monstrous side of himself to the world that he's known exists, but didn't need to be telegraphed to the masses. “That you had to see me like that. And like this."

Tim takes his right hand and scrubs the remains of sand from underneath his nails. He speaks in a low, measured cadence that tells Kon he knows exactly how upset he is, and is trying to smooth it out. “Nothing to be sorry about. You saved the day.”

He can say whatever he wants; Kon knows Tim isn't happy he took that risk. Their first priority is to keep people safe though, and there's no time for their selfish wants.

“You were in control,” Tim goes on, because of course he'd sniff out exactly what is bothering him in no time. “Nobody got hurt. Well, not because of you anyway. Ever since you took it—”

Kon can't listen to his empty platitudes. “What if I hadn't been in control though? What if—” I get possessed again and hurt people, again, “What if I lose it? What if I go all Terminator on you?”

Tim actually scoffs at that. If he had the energy, Kon would turn to him and glare. This is serious. Take it seriously.

“You won't,” he says, with an amused certainty Kon doesn't deserve.

He glares at the tiles on the wall. “You can't know that.”

He lets Tim take his other hand. His thumbs massage the space between his fingers, and Kon lets the back of his head hit the edge of the tub with a dull thud. He feels it cave in underneath him a little bit. Goddamn. He wants to point at it and make Tim look. See? Destructive.

But Tim, as always, is unrelenting. “I can. Because I know you.”

Maybe if this was a conversation over some milkshakes with a stupid sitcom running in the background, Kon would take this. He trusts Tim's judgment, right? He'd trust him if he told him to walk into a black hole with a promise of how that would save the day. But Tim thinks too highly of him. Tim can't be prepared for what might be sitting in the crevices of him. “That doesn't mean—”

“Look,” Tim cuts him off, “if it makes you feel better, you know Cassie could kick your ass. And the Terminator's.”

Kon bits his cheek around a smile. Is it fucked up that he finds the knowledge that his best friend could knock him out if he went rogue soothing? Maybe. She wouldn't even need kryptonite to do it. And if she did, she'd know where to find it. “That's true.”

“So could Kara,” Tim adds. He uses a washcloth to rub at Kon's face, which Kon tries to do on his own but his hand is batted away. “And Clark.”

“Yeah.”

“So you're safe.”

Kon hums. “Thank you for telling me about all the people who can kick my ass.”

“Oh, I didn't even mention Wonder Woman, and—”

“Thank you, Rob.”