Adventure Of A Lifetime

Chapter 5 - Show Me Mercy, Please

***KARA***

Barry gets to the DEO in forty-six minutes, which makes me think he's just trolling me. But what a cute troll he is. And what a great hugger and kisser too. Sure, his workout has made him stink a bit, but I'm used to that. I'm still waiting for Cisco to finally perfect that meta-strength speedster deodorant, though - aren't we all?

"So," Barry says, angling his head towards the inner sanctum. "Where's the new arrival? I'd kinda like to meet him."

"Right this way," I say with an overly formal flourish as we walk into the building. (Is it even accurate to call it a "building" when most of the place is underground? It's a cave if you want to get really technical about it.) "Kon, uh...well, Kon's a bit of a handful, I think you'll find."

"His name is Connor?" Barry asks.

"No, it's Kon. With a 'K.' Short for Kon-El."

Barry's smile brightens. "Hmm. Well, that could easily become Connor. With an 'E.' Like how Clark got his human name?"

"It wasn't really derived from his Kryptonian name or anything," I say. "And me, I was lucky my name worked just as well on Earth." I hit the elevator button, rising onto the balls of my feet while I wait for it to come. "Yeah, but you're right - what if someone outside our circles meets him? He could do with a human name. Conner. With an 'E?' Really?"

"His name's basically 'con' with a 'K,'" Barry points out. "Hope that's not meaningful in the wrong way, huh?"

"You got me there." The elevator opens at last. "Conner. Conner Danvers? Or...no, I don't know if Clark would like that."

"What, you passing himself off as a cousin of yours?"

"Or his," I laugh. "'Conner Kent,' Clark's handsome young cousin visiting from Smallville. Imagine that."

"I know your family's a superior race," Barry says as the elevator descends, "but it never ceases to amaze me how good you guys' genes are."

"Oh no," I laugh. "I think Clark's worn his glasses long enough that he actually needs them by now."

"Or he wears them to restrain his heat vision," Barry says. "Like that one dude who works with the X-Men out east. What was his name? Psycho? Psylocke? No, Psylocke's a woman..."

How is he not laughing at his own jokes? He sometimes can't hold it in, because he's that kind of dork who tries to snark it up and often fails. Unless he's in his suit, challenging what Buffy would call a "Big Bad." And not in a casual setting - in an elevator with his sweetheart, whom he probably feels the need to impress, but not the need to intimidate with razor-sharp wit. All his wit needs to do is tickle my funny bone.

Down in the depths of the DEO, Alex waits outside the door, looking in on Kon. She, or maybe Hank, has given him a plate of donuts and bagels. He's eating them slowly, but he must have had the plate in front of him for a while, because half of it's already gone.

"Hi, Barry," Alex says, taking his hand in both of hers. "Bet you didn't expect another Kryptonian to come around, did you?"

He shrugs. "Lots of stuff's happened in the last couple of days. It's just gonna escalate, I bet."

"Let's get ahead of the rising tide, then." She reaches for the intercom button on the door. "Kon? You've got a visitor."

"Is it Kara again?" he asks.

"Yeah, it's me," I say. "And my friend Barry. I told you about him, remember?"

"Only about ten times already."

I open the door and let Barry in first. Kon looks up at him and appears visibly intimidated by his height. Having kept his mask off, Barry's hair now makes him look even taller.

"This is the speedy guy?" Kon asks. "I thought you'd be bigger."

"I'm not tall enough?" Barry chuckles.

"No, you're not...beefy enough." Kon flexes one of his arms, showing the bulge of his biceps as they disappear into his sleeve.

"A speedster with muscle," Barry says. "Normally, my people are tall and trim." He sits across the table from Kon, holding out his hand (although he's long since learned the hard way that Kryptonians shake hands like steel nutcrackers.) "I'm Barry Allen. They call me the Flash." Kon shakes his hand, and he winces once or twice, but doesn't pull back. "And your name is...Conner?" He's running with that idea. I don't believe it. Kon, however, doesn't seem to have a problem with it - his only response to Barry's last question is a simple, curt nod. That doesn't surprise me, actually. In my experience, guys tend to be quick to take nicknames. The goofier the better, too. Not that the name "Conner" is goofy, but the trail of logic Barry took to come up with it, that's something else.

"I've seen pictures of a guy with your name and powers," Kon says, "but he doesn't look like you at all. He's really big and boxy, and he...well, he hasn't been seen in over ten years." He looks down, laughing sheepishly. "I thought...when Kara said I was gonna meet the Flash, I thought she meant you, 'cause I'd gone to some other world and people think that's where this other Flash went..." His voice trails off, and he mechanically reaches for another bagel on the plate. Poppyseed. That's Clark's favorite. How many poppyseed ones were there to begin with? Nobody ever eats them when they're there for the taking in the break room. I bet they were stale too, but after his long journey, Kon must have been starving. Probably still is.

"So you're from another Earth, huh?" he asks. I'd already told Barry as much, but I think he's pretending he knows as little about Kon as possible, the better to not trip his internal alarms.

Kon crushes what's left of the bagel he's been eating. "I'd rather not talk about it."

"You sure?" Barry asks. "I mean, it'd really help if we know more about where you come from, how you got here..." Kon gives him a withering look, turning the intimidation tables successfully. "Or...or, uh, we'll let you tell us on your own time. That works too." He stands up and makes his way to the door, looking like he's about to leave. "But we're at a loss here, Conner. Why...why do you wanna kill your cousin?"

What the hell? I never told Barry that. I said Kon was afraid of Clark for some unknown reason. Maybe he misinterpreted my words? That has to be it.

"I don't wanna kill my cousin." Kon looks at me meaningfully. "I don't wanna kill anyone."

"That's right." I take a seat next to him. "Nobody's gonna kill anyone."

"Nobody but Clark," Kon insists.

"Not Clark," Barry says. "Clark's a really great guy. He won't-"

"He left me," Kon says. "He left me when Krypton was destroyed." He looks down, into his faint reflection in the tabletop.

I'm about to ask who would tell him such a thing, but then I think to try a different tack. I pull out my phone and cycle through the camera roll until I find the picture I need. "Does this look like the face of a killer to you?" I ask, showing him a photo of Clark.

Kon takes a long look at the photo, then pushes it away, shaking his head. "I dunno who that guy is," he says, "but he's not the Clark I know."

"Say what?" Barry asks.

"Where I come from," Kon says, "Clark looks a little different. His hair's shorter, and he's got more...more stubble." He unconsciously rubs his own jaw with one hand. "I guess that's why I keep growing this," he says. "I mean, they tell me that as much as he hates me, I'll never stop looking up to him."

"What do you..." Then the answer dawns on me.

He looks from me to Barry with wet eyes, and his voice breaks as he says, "H-H-He's my brother."