Hurts Like Heaven

Chapter 1 - Can't Let Go

***CONNER***

I'm sick as a fucking dog.

My brain is a fucking mess.

So thank whatever fucking God is up there (Rao, Zeus, whatever you wanna call them) I've got friends ready to rescue me.

Which friends, I can't say for sure, not 100%. Maybe 50% that Barry is one of them - who else would be able to vibrate-punch his way through the floor of this truck's rattling cargo hold?

I look down at the buzzing dark red blur tearing through the metal, then up at the be-suited soldier-types who've got their guns on me. "Hey a-holes, ready to let me go or what?" They don't respond, but that's probably because they're also looking up at the sword cutting through the roof. "Oh no, don't shoot it, it's just gonna-" They shoot it. "Ricochet." It bounces off the walls and off my arm as well, but not without cutting my skin and drawing blood.

Shit.

I'm supposed to be able to resist bullets as a Kryptonian on Earth, but then again my yellow sun exposure has been relatively low my whole life. I'm as much of a living solar panel as Kara or Clark, but I've been mostly kept in an environment where I can't fully power up, and even after a day or two with Kara, Barry, etc., I haven't been able to absorb nearly enough sunlight. I'm perpetually starved for it.

So my healing factor isn't anywhere near as strong as it should be, especially not with the lingering effects of kryptonite still wreaking havoc on me.

But hey, at least I can pluck the bloody bullets off my arms and toss them aside, and slowly but surely, the shallow cuts they've left start to heal.

Thankfully, I'm not a Daxamite. Luthor's told me about that species - very similar to Kryptonians, but their kryptonite is lead. The slightest touch, even if not in bullet form, could kill them. Now if these bullets had had kryptonite in them, I'd be a hell of a lot more worried.

But I'm an eighteen-year-old guy. Which makes me about the equivalent of fifteen for a human, especially in terms of physical age. And psychological. I'm too ridiculously risk-prone at the best of times.

Like how I look up at my captors, brandishing the bloody bullet, pointing at my heart, and saying, "You missed, cocksucker."

"Uh..." Maybe this one's a real guy under his armor, and not a robot, because he looks oddly hesitant to shoot me right there.

A fact of which I can take advantage, even in my weakened state, by raising my hands, clawing my fingers, and yelling "BOO!" until he almost backs into Diana's sword. (I'm assuming it's Diana's, but who else do I know with steel that cool?) I pay the price when he shoots again, and his bullet hits me in the left arm, just a couple of inches away from where the first bullet wound is still very slowly healing.

Worth it.

Diana's actually the first to get in - her sword is a little more useful as a cutting tool than Barry's hand. She tears a hole in the roof, and the guards fire a couple of shots through it, but they bounce off the sword and hit their armor instead. When they pause to reload their clips - they must have used up some bullets earlier - Diana jumps in and sticks the landing. "Conner? You okay?" she asks out of the corner of her mouth.

"I'm good," I say in a hazy voice.

She nods once, then turns to the guards, holding up her sword. They bristle at the sight, as if expecting her to run them through. Given that she just destroyed those speakers playing that ungodly Taylor Swift mind-fuckery, I wouldn't be surprised if she needed to work off a little remaining aggression,. "Boys?" She twitches her sword, making them jump. "You're lucky this is made of Themysciran steel. Were it made of any lesser-quality metal, your bullets might have broken it...and then I would have broken you. But nowhere near as much as if you'd broken this boy."

"Haha, really?"

Diana exchanges glances with me as if to say, "See this dunderhead?" Turning back to the guard - and shifting her feet away from the place where Barry's still working to make his own hole to get in from below - she says, "Conner is blood brothers with the man I love. I care for him too. If you wanna hurt him, you'll just have to go through me." She clenches her free fist. "And trust me, you don't wanna go through me."

I stagger to my feet, allowing Barry more room to complete his hole.

As for Diana, she raises her fist just in time to stop a bullet with her wristguard. "You're not serious," she says, shaking her head. "Haven't I warned you enough times now?"

Barry finally pokes his head in. "Conner? You there?"

"Uh-huh." I look down and see him holding on tightly to the metal railing on the side of the truck.

"Jump," he orders me. "I got you, all right?"

"Uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh..." I crouch over the hole and grab his hand, then he pulls me out and under the back of the truck in less than a second. Soon, we find ourselves on the side of the road, right next to a storm drain. I crawl over to it, dry-heaving, but no food comes up. Yet. I keep expecting to puke my guts out any second now, though.

"It's all right." Barry takes a knee next to me, his hand on my shoulder. "You're all right. We're gonna get you home, okay?"

I look up at him. "Yeah. Get me to Alex and her iPod. I need some of that good stuff again. 'Got a feeling and I can't let go.'"

"Yeah." He hugs me. "Good choice, bro."

Diana runs up to us, having just jumped out of the truck, which retreats way off into the distance. "We should run," she says. "Before they sound the alarm to their driver."

"Right." Barry takes my hand and Diana's and runs us back to the stadium, where Kara awaits us. She grabs me in another hug - is it possible to be totally hugged out? Nah, not when it's Barry and Kara doing the hugging.

"Dammit, where's Clark?" she asks after she lets go of me. A second or two later, she says, "No, no, I'm not talking about you. I mean...I'm talking about Clark 2."

I jump up. "You mean the one from this world?" I look around and see a blue and red blur in the distance. "Is that him? Over there? Does he not realize there's kryptonite in that truck?"

"Guess not." Kara and Barry prepare to take off. Despite all their objections - and Diana's as well - I join them, running straight back towards the belly of the beast.