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Once upon a time, a monster had proclaimed that the beginning and end of time were linked in such a way that it could only be perceived as a perpetual loop.¹
If the end was the beginning, and the beginning was the end, then what did it matter if one world ended when a new one was already fated to begin? If death meant rebirth, then why fear it? After all, wasn’t it the fear of the unknown that kept the masses in line through their worldly balms?
There was organized religion, corporate personalities to worship, superheroes in tights, cult doctrines, and of course, a steady source of drugs from every corner of the universe to help soothe the crushing agony of simply existing. If any of those mundane balms could distract a creature long enough, the end was merely a pit-stop on the long, arduous road they called life.
There would always, of course, be the haves and have-nots, but Death was supposed to be the common bond, the thing that not even the richest, most powerful creature in the universe could escape. Sure, many had tried, but it was supposed to be one thing that connected all creatures in existence. Everything from the long-suffering to the blissfully unaware were set to expire. Be they human or inhuman, be they made of clay or stone.
It should have been a source of comfort to know that there was an end to it all. It could have been, had one man not disproved that notion with the energy of a thousand yellow suns.
Once upon a time, there had been a man who’d become a monster, and once he’d accepted that he was a monster, he’d tried to remake the world in his image. When a man couldn’t accept that his tragedy was just another tragedy on a long list of endless tragedies – well, that was the problem then, wasn’t it?
When a man could no longer believe that there was an end to it all, then he had no choice but to become the nightmare, right? Hal Jordan had certainly thought so. He’d gone ahead and tried to play god. Once upon a time, his fear had accepted his rage, and coupled with his overpowering will, it hadn’t been a fun time for the rest of the universe.
Bart remembered it clearly now, after so many resurrections. It hadn’t clicked then, just how close a man could get to destroying reality just because he refused to accept his own.
But at that moment in time, Bart simply didn’t understand any of that. He simply couldn’t fathom what had driven Jordan to try and unmake and remake things in his image, even though he’d known it was wrong.
But did knowing mean understanding? Bart didn’t think so. He could see that now, after so many deaths, so many returns. Hal Jordan could have done as so many other men had done in the past. He could have put a gun in his mouth, maybe driven a stolen car off some ledge. It would have been a definite end to a broken heart that no god in the universe cared to heal.
But the Hal Jordan of so many realities ago hadn’t gone quietly into the night. He’d decided to do something about the hateful loop that was existence. He’d destroyed the rest of the good will left inside of him, and well, gotten shot by his own best friend because of it. Just because a man could do many more wrongs to correct an earlier injustice didn’t mean he should. Bart had learned that in real-time from Hal Jordan, even though the man of today, the Hal Jordan of this world, probably didn’t know that once upon a time, he’d tried to nuke the entirety of the universe just to start from scratch again.
“To be fair, nobody shot you when you were trying to rework reality,” corrected Bart’s imagination’s miniature rendition of Jenni Ognats, who sat perched on his right shoulder. “You turned to dust after giving grandpa all of your power. In a way, you died to save the universe, versus whatever Parallax had going on.”
“But you didn’t stay dead,” countered his imagination’s other copy-paste. This one was of a person who also didn’t exist in the current timeline and world Bart Allen now called home. Her Interlac, like Jenni’s, was as thrilling as it was haunting to hear after so many years.
“And when you came back,” his mother, Meloni Thawne, continued to whisper in his ear as he stared at the endless array of stars in the Kansas night sky, “you went ahead and did the same thing he did. After all, he was also trying to save the universe, wasn’t he? So what’s the difference, Sunshine?”
“Bart, dinner’s ready!” Kon called from inside the Kent family’s kitchen where Bart could smell the three pans of pot roast Martha Kent had prepared for them, even though only four people and Krypto were in attendance for dinner. Bart would be eating one pan all on his own while the rest shared the other two. Along with the fresh bread, baked macaroni and cheese, roasted vegetables fresh out of Mrs. Kent’s garden, a salad garnished with dried fruit and cheese, and three pies for dessert, Bart knew he and Kon would be going to bed plump as chickens without either of them having to worry about whether or not Bart was receiving enough nutrients before the dreadful commencement of bedtime routines.
“Coming!” Bart called as he continued staring at the stars. He knew it took five regular minutes to use the bathroom and wash his hands thoroughly before dinner. The way Kon and the Kents were bustling about, he still figured he had at least one more regular minute to mentally converse with the two mind-copies of his lost family that rested on his shoulders. Then he’d go inside and play the dutiful boyfriend.
And one regular minute was eons long to a man like Bart Allen.
“You also didn’t try and sacrifice an eternity worth of living creatures,” Jenni said, as they continued to commiserate on moments passed.
“But you did break the rules when you didn’t like what you saw when you came back,” Meloni whistled.
“I’d classify your case as an exception because you did actually die,” his cousin insisted.
“Even though you didn’t stay dead,” his mother chirped.
“But that’s also not your fault because if the Speed Force wanted to, then it could have kept you like it has so many others,” said Jenni the mind-copy.
“Could it, though?” Meloni Thawne’s miniature figure posed instead.
The ghost of Jenni Ognats didn’t have a chance to counter her ghost aunt again because Bart was getting up and wiping the grass off his jeans and shirt, forcefully cutting off the conversation taking place solely inside his head. Krypto began barking for his plate. That meant Bart needed to get in and wash up, and after all of these years, he hoped he was at least a little better at pretending to be just like everyone else.
“But you’re not like everyone else,” his mother said morosely into his ear, “you’re like me. Are you ashamed, Sunshine?”
Was he? After all the years, the deaths, the resurrections – was he ashamed he still couldn’t be the way Max and Wally hoped he could be?
Bart decided to ignore the two ghost women inside his broken mind. Instead, he petted Krypto’s head and led him inside so they could eat together with the Kents as a family.
Because the truth was, it wasn’t as if Bart had the luxury of being himself anymore. Living and dying so many times had taught him the greatest lesson of existing. It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered. A man had to make things matter, and it mattered that Bart was on his best behavior in a house that was not his own.
Being the boyfriend of a man who had parents, a farmhouse, and a family dog required a certain kind of performance Bart was still learning to execute on. He couldn’t afford to fail. He was lucky it wasn’t his first time being someone’s boyfriend, but it was the first time he was Kon’s boyfriend. And Kon was his best friend.
He was also the man Bart had traded in his humanity for, courtesy of a deal he did not remember or could even fathom until a spooky blanket of darkness came to him in his nightmares wearing a pair of red glasses.
“Always the forbidden romance with us Thawnes,” Meloni sighed wistfully.
Bart ignored the little woman. There were appearances to keep up. In this new world, there were a new set of expectations in place. He wasn’t dead anymore. His family was alive. His sacrifice had mattered in the end, even though the universe had stolen his mother and cousin.
“It’s not your fault,” Jenni consoled him softly, even though he could hear the tremor in her imagined voice. “They didn’t give you any terms and conditions.”
“Not like you would have read them anyway,” Meloni pointed out.
But Bart would get to pondering on that later – right now, there was a man and his parents to impress.
“You did it because you were alone. I’m not saying there wasn’t any other way, but you did the only thing you knew how to do, and no one can judge you for that,” Jenni whispered into his ear as he lay awake next to his snoring boyfriend.
Clothed and doubled down in blankets, of course – they’d only been dating two weeks. Kon El, having shed the last vestiges of Conner Kent and whatever else had added on layers of grief in his heart, had kissed Bart Allen shortly after he and his family had escaped Brainiac’s attempt at feeding the Super Family to his new bride.
That very first night after their first kiss, while they’d slept wrapped in each other’s arms, The Great Darkness has reminded Bart of the real reason behind his resurrection. The dark crisis hadn’t begun with a man named Pariah. It had begun with him.
And since he’d realized that, he hadn’t dared to initiate anything more than kissing and hand-holding, even though he knew there would come a time when love would have to be made.
“Because that’s what lovers do,” Meloni trilled in his ear with a soft chuckle.
And Bart Allen and Kon El had been friends long before they’d become lovers. They were used to existing in each other’s nexus. They could sleep next to each other without being tempted into anything more intimate, since they’d had plenty of practice during their one million sleepovers. They could simply exist together.
But coexisting still didn’t mean that Bart could go to sleep as quickly and soundly as the man next to him. Overthinking and oversleeping were par for the course for a Speedster like him.
He just had to make sure he didn’t bother Kon’s sleep while he was at it. After all, Kon’s bed was only big enough for one crazy man.
“You need to stop pretending like you’re getting enough rest. He’ll catch on,” Jenni chastised him.
“Like last time, when you thought you could outrun him,” Meloni added.
“He did outrun him,” Jenni corrected her ghost aunt. “He just couldn’t outrun his fatigue.”
Bart frowned, staring up at the exposed beams of the barn loft he’d moved into the day after Brainiac was booted back into the ether and Kon told his parents that he had a boyfriend now. Martha and Jonathan Kent had taken the news with ease. When Kon had clarified that Bart was also homeless and unemployed despite being a superhero, the Kents had simply asked if Bart needed any help moving into the spacious barn loft. He hadn’t, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t thankful.
And now, deeply in love, deeply bound, Kon was fast asleep in their bed while Bart stared at the ceiling. Sleep would always be an uphill battle for Bart. Dreams were aplenty, but so were nightmares.
So was time.
“You willfully broke the rules,” Meloni whispered into his ear as the clock slowly ticked away. Bart was almost done counting every notch in the exposed beams above him for the tenth time. “You know what they do to people who don’t stay in line. Look at me. I had the nerve to fall in love with Don, and because I did, I lost both of you.” Her last words came out garbled, almost as if she was a real person experiencing an insurmountable amount of grief, instead of just a specter inside Bart’s broken mind.
“Rules can change,” Jenni countered so softly, he could hear a pin drop.
“But you broke them. Out of love. You know what they do to people who love too hard, don’t you, Sunshine?”
Bart inhaled sharply as a memory came to him with razor sharp clarity. He knew too well what loving too hard could do to a man. Oliver Queen had shot his best friend with an arrow, and once upon a time, Bart had purposefully lost the most important race of his life just so his loved ones could get a chance.
They were supposed to get a real shot at life after his existence’s greatest sacrifice.
“But then they threw us all away, and you only remembered what they did to us did after you got him back,” Meloni said to him in his native tongue, the one he thought he’d lost after so long running around.
“It’s not your fault, Bart.” Jenni insisted.
Bart gritted his teeth, a flash of white hot rage coursing through his form, unbeknownst to the man snoring deeply next to him. Bart knew exactly what happened to people who broke the rules.
After all, that was why Wally had chosen to pawn him off to Max, wasn’t it? That was why Max had allowed him to share a life with him and his daughter, right? Bart had needed to be taught life’s greatest lesson. Even something as insane and feral as him needed to understand that he did not matter in the grander scheme of things. They’d trained him for years to accept that the speed he was born with was something he had to make submit to him, instead of the other way around. Rules were not meant to be broken. They were meant to keep people under control. They were meant to stop people like Hal Jordan and Bart Allen from going against the grain.
But Bart wasn’t like them. He wasn’t like Wally and Max and others who focused on controlling the self like they were their own private soldiers. Bart understood rules, but he didn’t like them.
And he’d never forget that despite all they’d taught him, both Wally and Max had turned out to be hypocrites too. One had brought his woman back from Death while the other had loved his daughter so much, that he’d stayed with her even though she hadn't needed him to.
A man could do anything for his loved ones.
“You didn’t know,” Jenni echoed in his ear.
But you should have expected it, after everything that’s happened, he heard a new voice say inside his head.
And the truth was that the real Jenni Ognats and Meloni Thawne were still lost in the omniverse because reality hadn’t kept its end of the bargain after he’d burnt to dust in the Speed Force.
The rage bubbled to the surface again, and in the darkness of the dead of night, Bart found the thing he’d been looking for every night since he’d woken up to realize the truth of his rebirth.
You’ve always known what we’re capable of, the silky smooth voice of The Great Darkness insisted.
And indeed he did. Bart knew intimately what happened to men that messed with the reality and its one million rules. It’d stolen years off Max Mercury’s life, and torn him away from the daughter he didn’t even know existed until it was too late. Now that same daughter was just as lost as Bart’s mother and cousin. For an omniverse that boasted a million different paths for even the most insignificant creature, Bart found it ironic that it didn’t deem all of Bart’s loved ones worthy of rebirth.
You know why, said the darkness wearing a pair of red-rimmed glasses.
Once upon a time, Oliver Queen had shot his best friend, but somehow, even Hal Jordan had found a way back – with his dignity intact.
If Bart hadn’t hunted Kon down to the far corners of existence, then would he have stayed lost? Swallowed by the cosmos, just a figment of a mad Speedster’s past life?
“If the lightning hadn’t brought you back to him, he would still be lost,” Jenni reminded him.
And for once, his mother didn’t say anything.
A loud snore abruptly broke Bart’s reverie. His little angels became dust and the red-rimmed glasses retreated into the sea of darkness as he turned on his side to watch Kon shift around in his sleep. The larger man scrunched his nose and felt around the bed with his eyes closed until his hand found Bart’s warmth.
Only after Kon had subconsciously buried himself into Bart’s embrace did his body finally relax. He was once again snoring deeply and drooling into Bart’s t-shirt by the time The Great Darkness chuckled inside his head to remind him it was still one of the all-encompassing entities of the omniverse.
Not an old god, and certainly not a new one – but a force of nature. Like the Speed Force. Like Death and all his friends.
“I think,” Bart began, a familiar pain blooming in his chest and spreading to the far corners of his body, “I think if I hadn’t found you, I would have done something bad.” Bart finally admitted out loud to the man sleeping in his arms.
Kon responded with a loud snort that turned into another steady stream of snores.
“I’ve seen too much,” he whispered so softly that only the wind streaming through the open windows and the primordial king of darkness caught his words. “Did you know that there’s more of them? It’s not just the Speed Force. There are others like it out there. They watch us. Play with us.”
Kon’s snores mixed in with the newfound sound of thunder. When the rain came, Bart willed for his mother and cousin to come back too, to listen to him, to witness his truth that he was too afraid to admit to anyone who wasn’t dead, gone, or slumbering deeply.
“If reforming Young Justice hadn’t done the trick, I would have ripped a hole in the world,” Bart croaked as tears burned in his eyes.
Can’t keep making up stories forever, can you, boyo?
He couldn’t – not when the hot white rage of love and freedom coursed through his veins. He had a feeling that if he slit his wrists, he’d bleed white light instead of red blood.
The darkness laughed inside his head.
“I don’t think I’m me anymore, Kon,” Bart cried. “I’m sorry.”
And so, he closed his eyes and willed the primordial darkness that no light could touch to take him back – kill him again before he hurt the only man he’d ever loved.
But Bart woke up alive and having overslept once again.
“Rise and shine, sleepyhead,” Kon called from outside of the loft window, smiling warmly as he floated in the sky with Krypto the Super Dog beside him.
If Bart closed his eyes, he could pretend it was all a dream and The Great Darkness’ last gift to him.
“Oh no, you don’t,” Kon grumbled, scooping him off the bed, which was when Bart actually woke up, alert and drooling like the unemployed, oversleeping house-boyfriend that he was.
“You’ve been moping for weeks. If I don’t hustle you back to the Flash Museum today, Barry’s gonna get me.” Kon proclaimed as he carried Bart into the loft’s bath and shower. He used his tactile telekinesis to gently place Bart into the tub and shed him of his tank top and boxers. When he was naked, a TTK’d brush scrubbed him with soapy water while Kon piled his hair with shampoo.
“I know you’ve been under a lot of stress, but you can’t keep losing sleep over it.” Kon insisted, lathering the shampoo into Bart’s hair. “I know it can’t be easy working out a map of the omniverse, but Mr. Terrific is here to help, man. With you and Barry on the case, I know you’ll figure it out eventually. You always do.”
As Kon’s fingers massaged Bart’s scalp, Bart thought about the two ghosts who hadn’t shown up to wake him like they had every morning since the primordial darkness reminded him of his newfound inhumanity.
He felt Kon circle his arms around his shoulders and plant a kiss on his wet cheek. Bart didn’t realize he’d started crying.
“You’ll find them,” Kon insisted. “We have Brainiac’s tech now too. If that stupid bastard could find people in the multiverse, then so can you, and you’re so much smarter than him, Imp.”
Could he, though? Could a man who couldn’t even find his beloved, who’d had to depend on stories to make it through the day, could he find all the lost souls reality had stolen from him? Could he convince the forces of the universe to return them to him, even though he was cursed with too much knowledge about how those forces worked?
Would they shun him instead because he knew that life and death were a forever loop? That the afterlife wasn’t just bliss or pain, and that what was in the holy books and cult doctrines was just a smidgen of what was in The Void Before Existence?
After all, weren’t the men who knew the most, the most unfortunate of them all?
Bart felt a stream of warm water wash away the soap suds from his skin and hair. He sat quietly in the gentle rain until the water stopped and Kon was ruffling his hair with a towel.
“And if you can’t, then I will,” Kon grumbled.
Bart turned around sharply to face his grinning lover. Kon kissed him softly against his lips before tucking a strand of wet hair behind his ear. “What’s going on in that skull of yours, man?” Kon whispered softly. Kon’s hand snaked underneath his hair and gently scratched the back of his neck. “I can sense that your head’s about to pop like a balloon. You’re thinking too hard.”
“You’re just mad I’m a genius,” he huffed, having found his voice at last.
“And a terrible liar.”
“Right, but we’re talking about my big head right now.”
“Do I have to chase you again to get you to relax?”
“Mayyyyybe.” Bart touched Kon’s cheek and gently stroked the soft bristles of his facial hair. “But I know you’re tired, so I’ll behave. For now.”
Kon blushed hard and punched him lightly on the shoulder, which led to Bart punching him back, and then it was a punch war with no punchbuggies, which led to Kon getting soaked after Bart decided to jump on him butt naked and wet.
They only stopped when Kon was laughing so hard there was snot pouring down his face.
And Bart thought he couldn’t love a man more.
That’s why Kon could never know the truth, because if he did, then Bart knew that even though the correct choice would be to kill himself, rid the world of another multiversal anomaly, and save the universe all over again, Kon would never let it be so.
Because in this world, in this time and place, Bart wasn’t dying again – and certainly not as a sacrifice to primordial entities.
If he was going to die, he’d do it being another man’s lover.
Kon kissed him on the cheek before leaning his bulk against Bart’s as they watched Krypto play with butterflies from the Kents’ porch swing. With their bellies filled with Jonathan Kent’s hearty breakfast of flapjacks, scrambled eggs, toast, three kinds of sausage, and fresh fruit, the boys should have had zero worries in the world.
But Bart Allen worried every day, and now that he was Bart Allen more than he was anyone else, it was that much more important that his lamentations stayed inside his own head.
Because the Bart Allen that had come back to life had come back just to be Bart Allen. Not to be Impulse, the VR-trained teenager from the future. Not the Flash, who he never wanted to be in the first place. Not the Black Flash, the embodiment of Speedster death.
And certainly not the White Flash – the creator of life.
Keep telling yourself that, boyo. He heard a smooth voice say inside his head.
But Bart refused to budge. Today, and for the rest of his life, he was just going to be Bart Allen, and no one else. Even if his blood ran hot white. Even if he wasn’t really a person anymore, and something different – something holy.
He shivered at the thought, which made Kon pull a blanket over their laps before he snuggled into Bart’s side again.
And Bart thought, if their friends ever found out, then it would be Kon’s fist through his chest, and unlike Hal Jordan, Bart could never put his best friend and the love of his life in that position. He loved Kon too much to punish him with something that. If there was ever a moment where the world needed to end again, Bart would go at it alone.
“We won’t let you,” the ghost of Jenni Ognats told him before she disappeared for good.
“I’m here, Sunshine,” Meloni Thawne concurred softly, “when it’s time, we’ll do it together.” Then she, too, disappeared.
“-and after you’re done being the best boyfriend ever, you have to be the best husband ever, and then you have to be the best father ever, but at least no one will ever be a better Speedster,” Max Mercury recited sagely while the sun set in Smallville, Kansas.
“You couldn’t even be a good affair partner,” Bart deadpanned.
Kon wheeze-laughed at the stove where he was frying tilapia and grilling bacon with asparagus for dinner. Jonathan Kent snorted into his beer mug while Martha Kent stifled her laughter into her wine glass as the rest of the Super-Flash Family sat around the Kents’ kitchen table.
“Listen here, you little shit-”
“Because I can’t slip up,” Bart murmured to himself as he got ready for bed. “Cuz if I do, who’s to say it won’t all turn to dust again?”
“What dust?” Kon called from the bathroom as he began act four of his skincare routine.
Once upon a time, a man who’d become a monster had said that the beginning of time was the end of time, and truly that life was a circle, and if a man looked hard enough, he could see it all.
And Bart had seen it all. He’d seen it begin and end and start back up all over again.
“We’ll dust tomorrow,” Kon yawned as he shuffled out of the bathroom with his hair wrapped in a silk cap and his feet decked in the fluffiest slippers known to man. He snaked his arms around Bart’s waist and kissed his head full of unruly auburn hair.
“OK,” Bart said, and let his beloved lead them to bed so they could finally get some rest.
And when the time came for it end all over again, he promised himself and the universe that it wouldn’t go the way it’d gone with with Hal Jordan and Oliver Queen that day. Even if it was Bart’s fault in the end, the only one killing Bart Allen was Bart Allen.
Because that’s why he’d crawled out of the grave. Time was a circle. Life was death, and death was a moot point. Maybe it was because he was crazy and liked to hallucinate his mother and cousin, but he thought maybe that was alright too. That maybe they were still out there, and Bart could still find them again, even if riding the hot lightning of the White Flash was the only way to do it. Even if becoming life itself was the only way to remake the world in his image.
Because even though he hadn’t asked for this fate, even though he’d chosen death as his final sacrifice, this was not the end. It could not be, because Bart Allen had only just begun his journey into godhood, and no one could fault him for trying. No one could say that Bart Allen hadn’t tried to be a normal guy, with a normal girlfriend, and a normal life dedicated to superhero’ing. Bart Allen had done it all, and he’d died for it too.
But he wasn’t going to die that shamelessly ever again, and if the forces of the universe had their way, Bart Allen would never ever die ever again, and never ever let anything get in the way of the happiness of his most precious people.
There it is, he heard the darkness chuckle inside his head.
“Fuck off,” Bart grunted, watching as a stroke of white lightning lit up the farm as another storm descended on Smallville.
As you wish, it said with glee before disappearing from his thoughts for good.
And Bart knew it was the last he’d ever hear of it. It’d done its job, after all. Whatever reason the Speed Force deemed Bart worthy of rebirthing into something inhuman and eternal, The Great Darkness had held up its end of the bargain to nudge Bart into his inhumanity, his newfound godliness.
And now that Bart was back in the world of the living with his mentor, his grandfather, and his boyfriend – all he had left to do was find the rest of his friends and family. Soon, his rebirth would finally find meaning, and his transformation would be complete.
After all, crazy people tended to do the craziest things.
In another world, another timeline, an Amazo would chase Barry Allen only to realize that the reason why it couldn’t contain a Speedster who wasn’t even the fastest Speedster alive, was simply because the art of escape wasn’t a matter of ability, or even technique. To escape even the Speed Force of all entities, a Speedster simply had to have a reason to leave. And Grandpa Barry had Grandma Iris.²
And Bart Allen? He had everyone and everything that had ever brought him joy. So what if he’d found Kon because of his dormant White Flash powers? He hadn’t known then what he was really capable of. But now? Now he knew everything!
Now he was the embodiment of life and death in one lanky dude who was not a Black Flash, or a Black Racer, or one of Nekron’s little Black Lanterns.
And he wasn’t like Hal Jordan! He wasn’t stupid enough to erase an eternity’s worth of life just to restart everything his way. Bart wasn’t that selfish. The omniverse could have it’s infinite amount of earths and timelines. Bart would simply create his own world where his loved ones got to make their own choices.
A world where his mom could finally have a choice to stay with him, instead of sacrificing her happiness to remain under the control of his other grandfather. Bart grinned maniacally. Let President Thawne of some yesterworld fuck with his family now! Bart would clobber the bastard with his flashy new powers he could finally use to its full extent.
A world where he could visit his cousin anytime, even though her little group of friends were total squares for not giving him an invitation into the Legion of Super-Heroes. He’d help them too, because as petty as Bart was, he wasn’t cruel.
A world where friends, family, and every other rando Bart had ever encountered had the ability to live and build their own paths forward, because every creature had the right to live, no matter how insignificant, no matter what. Bart believed that wholeheartedly.
And if they wanted to die, it had to be their choice, not some otherworldly force’s. He’d always be grateful that the Speed Force loved him enough to support his insanity, but The Great Darkness could eat a brick. Bart didn’t work for Death and all his friends. He didn’t work for anyone but for the people he loved, and he knew deep down that, that was why he’d walked out of the Void as strong and spry as the day he’d died the fastest White Flash in existence.
“Ready?” Kon called as he reached for Bart’s hand.
“Always,” Bart grinned as took the latter’s hand. His feet lifted off the ground as Kon’s tactile telekinesis wrapped him in its glowing embrace.
“Clark said he’s throwing us a party,” Kon gushed with a blush.
“And we’ve only been dating a month!” Bart exclaimed, peppering Kon’s face with fast little kisses.
“Imagine what he’ll do when we’re six months in!”
“Is he gonna buy us a house?”
“Maybe!”
“I love marrying rich.”
And they laughed, wrapped in each other’s embrace as they flew.
Up, up, and away.
As evening descended in Metropolis, Bart kissed his lover sweet and steady.
“I love you, Bart. You know that, right?” Kon asked him as they lay together after their first official lovemaking session in one of the guest bedrooms at Steelworks Tower.
And Bart just kissed him again, prompting round two of sweet, sweet lovemaking.