ya_assemble | [LN] He flies through the air with the greatest of ease

"Yeah, well, it's, uh. Not really something to look forward to. Luthor's president again and pretty much thinks he can get away with murder, and..." He paused as he realized he was talking more because he was angry than because Nightwing really wanted the information. "I'll stop."

His gaze went a little odd and distant for a moment, like the light suddenly went off behind his eyes.

It lasted just for a moment, as if he'd forgotten Dick was there, and then the lights were back on again and he grinned and started to fly down the stairs.

"Just wait until you see the workout room. There's these weird clockwork robots and magic constructs that shift around and stuff. And platforms you can flip off of."

Yeah, he really didn't like the way that Kon just switched there. He followed, though, nodding. "Gee. I don't know why you'd go and mention those platforms. Though if there's a gym somewhere..."

He walked over, looking at the kid. Who...wasn't really much of a kid anymore. "Hey. I didn't mean that I never want to hear about what's happening back home. I'm just reeling a lot right now and I need to get myself centered better before I can take more of it in. You don't need to shut it down like that."

Kon worked his jaw for a moment, trying to figure out what to say. On the one hand, Nightwing was apparently overwhelmed by it all which meant explaining why he'd shut off for a second would just add to the pile.

On the other hand, he knew it looked weird. His head just...went away sometimes. Occasionally he found himself drifting and Cassie sometimes had to snap her fingers to draw him back out of his own head when he blinked off.

"It's not - it's -" He didn't really know how to explain.

"Some bad stuff happened," he said, his tone of voice going strange and flat all of a sudden. "Sometimes when I think about it my brain switches off for a second."

And there it went again, a troubled gaze off into the middle distance before he snapped to attention again, perkiness filling the vacuum.

"Don't worry about it. We can get into that later." He tried to make it sound like it wasn't a big deal. "I think we'll hit the sleigh room next - you should see the sleigh, it's like the mystical equivalent of a muscle car. There's even a button you can push that's like firing off some magical nitro. The thing goes at like a kajillion miles an hour. Way cooler than the Batplane."

Edited 2015-05-28 10:23 (UTC)

Eventually, Dick had every intention of getting to the bottom of that look. It worried him, seeing his friend that way. He just couldn't do it now because, contrary to popular belief, the Bats were just human. Even Dick could get overwhelmed by too much information.

"Nothing is cooler than the Batplane. Ask Tim sometime." And he managed to flash Kon a smile, even if it was a little wan. He was getting there. "I'm assuming that our physical states being somewhat amplified now is what keeps bad things from happening when it's going that fast?"

"I know how cool the Batplane is. One time Tim let Bart -" A pause as he realized what he was admitting to "- know. About it. Because he talked about how cool it was. With the Titans."

The Titans totally didn't convince Tim to sneak the Batplane out for a joyride, nope. And they definitely didn't let Bart drive. And they absolutely did not pick up Kon by running the plane into him. Just like they never ever threw any parties in the Fortress of Solitude where Batgirl was sick all over the bathroom because she was a lightweight.

"Mostly it's just magic," Kon said, balancing on the railing as they made their way downstairs, seeing how much he could walk on it without flying. He did a fairly good job of balancing without using his flight or teke, which was a bit more of a challenge for him than some, given he was so top-heavy. "Anything here that should be impossible or something? Magic. We're magic, the world's magic, all our gear is magic or tech fused with magic - I'm amazed Brainy hasn't blown a blood vessel by now, he hates when he can't explain stuff with science."

Edited 2015-05-28 11:06 (UTC)

It took a moment to remember what Kon might be alluding to, but once he did, Dick broke out in a wide grin. "Sure. Told you about it. As happens in Titans' Tower." He remembered very well what it was like, being part of the group when you were that young. And, honestly, it wasn't like the original Titans had never done anything of the sort.

The 'magic' had Dick grimacing again. "Be glad Batman isn't here. I think he might be one of the few people in the world who hates magic as much as Brainiac 5." If there had to be a Brainiac there, at least it was a good one.

"One of many, many reasons I'm glad he isn't here," Kon said dryly, before remembering that, you know, that it was rude as hell to diss other people's mentors.

But his dislike of Batman had only grown in the years since his brainwashing by Luthor. Having the people at Project: Gladiator parrot a lot of the same things Batman had said about him in the past had only made that dislike crystallize into something more concrete and solid.

Like that he was a machine. A robot. A weapon. Something that needed to be controlled. All things he'd heard out of Batman's mouth partly due to the visions of Raven's soul-self - and some of which he'd even said to his face. And while he was sure he'd gained some of Batman's respect after his death and revival, it wasn't like the guy had even apologized once.

Now that he was getting older, he wasn't as easily intimidated - or impressed - and the fact that his death had happened in no small part because most of the heroes had been occupied with Brother Eye had only added to the big heap of reasons to dislike him.

"...that was rude." You didn't diss other people's mentors lightly. "Sorry."

Edited 2015-05-28 11:37 (UTC)

The laughter that Dick had been holding back earlier came out in a snort and a half smile as Dick shook his head. "I'm pretty sure I've said worse about him."

It was more difficult when the mentor was also the father. But it wasn't like Dick didn't know Bruce's shortcomings. Had called him out on them on several occasions as well. "It's okay, Kon. Bruce can definitely be an asshole."

Tim wasn't quite as on board for Kon dissing Batman. He usually understood when Kon did it and sometimes had misgivings himself over some of Bruce's choices but he still had a bit of that whole looking-up-to-him thing.

"I know Tim looks up to him, even if he's pretty aware of his flaws and stuff but he's been nice to me like a grand total of one time and it was only because I was was strapping myself to a nuke," Kon said. "And he was rotten to me after Luthor brainwashed me. Called me a machine. You weren't there for that."

Nightwing had kind of stormed off from the Outsiders after everything had gone done, after Shift had killed Indigo.

He hadn't been there when the League showed up to help clean up the mess and taken Kon away, in shock and shaking, for tests at STAR Labs, to the Watchtower where J'onn had examined his mind and helped dismantle the infrastructure and trigger words in his subconscious.

The arguments among the League had gotten heated, loud enough that Kon had caught them in the Medbay of the Watchtower with his super-hearing. He'd heard the arguments, how some of them wanted him locked away, alone in the Fortress. Batman had been the loudest proponent for it, saying all kinds of nasty things.

"Then I go and die saving the world, come back, and does he say 'I'm sorry I called you a machine, Kon'? or 'good job saving the world, Kon, I was wrong about you, p.s. glad you're not dead'? Noooo." He added, "This little saving-the-world jaunt is better off without him. Especially when a lot of what we have to do is embrace the whimsy. So much stuff runs on hope and faith here."

"Which is why, when they wanted a Bat from our world, I got dragged in." Might be the first one. Either Tim or Stephanie would be good choices, too. Or, at least, Stephanie would have been a good choice. "Robin's always been more about hope than Batman ever was."

Dick knew Bruce's shortcomings. And would voice them more easily than Tim would, generally. Partly because he'd known Bruce so much longer. "I wouldn't hold your breath on the apology, though. It took a few years for him to apologize for forbidding me to be Robin anymore, after all." And even then, other people might not have considered it much of an apology. "But, just so you know. I'm really glad that you're alive. And not just for Tim's sake."

"If I held my breath for as long as it'd take Bats to apologize I'd be dead again," Kon said cheekily.

But the rest just made Kon flash Dick a smile as he walked down the stair-rail, carefully balancing as they made their way down.

He hadn't forgotten it, everything that'd led up to the end he hadn't known he'd come back from. Him and Nightwing making their way to the Pole, talking about Superman and Batman, Wally and Babs, Tim and Cassie. It had reminded him of everything they were fighting for. And then they and Cassie had made a three-person last stand against the apocalypse.

He remembered how much easier it'd made it. It was the worst fight of his life, they'd been outmanned and outgunned until they freed the others from the tower, but they'd held together and even though he'd died, it had made it so much easier and more peaceful knowing they were there. It had made it so much easier to die when one of the last things he'd seen through blurred vision was Cassie and Nightwing frantically throwing wreckage aside to find him.

"I'm glad I'm still alive and kicking, too." A pause. "But even if I hadn't come back..."

Despite the fear, there had been a pervasive sense of peace because he hadn't been alone. And as he'd slipped away, he'd been secure in knowing how much he'd be missed. As hard as dying had been, it would've been a whole lot harder without the two of them.

"I never really, uh, said this to future you. A lot of time had passed when I came back and -" He paused again, awkward, because he was about to make this into a Moment. "But it wasn't as long ago for you so it makes a lot more sense to say it now."

The smile brightened even more.

"Thank you for being there. I didn't know I was going to come back. And we all fought for each other - Titans together, right? If I had kicked it then, for good, everything you did and said leading up to it, seeing you and Cass tearing through the wreckage to find me - it made it easier. Less scary. I wasn't alone."

That had made it so much more peaceful.

"I guess it's me and you and Cass up against the end of the world again, huh? At least we've got practice. I'll try to go at this thing with a little less dying this time."

Edited 2015-05-31 01:07 (UTC)

"You and me both," Dick replied with a shake of his head. "Or...not dying, on my part, but I came pretty close."

A lot closer than he ever wanted to admit to, even to himself.

"But. You should know that I was proud to be there with you and Cassie. Though I definitely agree, if we're doing the world saving thing again, less dying all around is definitely a good plan." Because he didn't want to think about what might happen back home if they died here. It probably wasn't good.

"Well, here's the place to get even better at that not-dying thing," said Kon, as they reached the bottom floor, the slightly snowy recesses of the sub-basement of the Pole. It was cold enough here that the snow didn't melt but their mythy-ness made it tolerable.

He opened a massive door there to show Dick the training room, in all it's magic, muteable glory. It was much warmer in there, set at a nice temperature for working out that wasn't too hot and wasn't too cold.

"It's nice and flexible. The platforms can do a lot of things, the robots can do it a lot of things, you can set the floor to whatever level of padded you want - or don't want. The magic can also do things like simulate laser beams and stuff. You can mess with the settings over there." He pointed over to a panel with a lot of bottoms and magical holographic screens. "And - most importantly for people like me and Cass - whenever something gets wrecked it just magically rebuilds itself."

Edited 2015-06-02 05:34 (UTC)

"That part, I'm probably not going to have to worry about too much." Though Dick was already looking at things with an interested expression. "Yeah. I think I like this. Too bad we can't take this back to our world. It could be useful in Titans Tower or for the Out..." He paused, then cleared his throat. "The Outsiders."

Yeah, that wasn't one of his shining moments, was it? "Actually, the worry I have at the moment is that I'm going to run out of my usual items." The stuff he kept in his boots and gloves. Because he didn't wear a belt any more.

"The yetis can take care of that. They can make just about anything. The toy thing is just because they like helping Santa make the kids happy."

Although...

"Speaking of the usual things from home, there's, uh, somebody here you should probably know about."

This was gonna be awkward.

Dick turned to look at Kon, raising an eyebrow. "Oh? Somebody else here other than us and Cassie?"

Okay, probably a lot of other people, but he more meant from their world. Because that's what Kon was talking about. "I'm taking it somebody I'm not likely to be too thrilled about."

It left a pretty short list. Mostly the mentors of early Titans or some of the 'heroes' that fell a little more to the 'anti' side of things. "It's not Ollie, is it?"

"Well, there's a couple other people here from home. Two of 'em will be handy to have: Brainiac 5 and Invisible Kid from the Legion."

Tim had probably told Nightwing about the Titans' little jaunt to the future and how Kon had spent six months there.

"Buuut the other one is Harley Quinn."

It wasn't like Dick didn't know a lot of Harley's history. After all, she was incredibly intelligent, had been one hell of a psychologist. Probably still was, really. It wasn't her fault that she'd fallen under the spell of the Joker, after all.

The stuff she'd done afterward, yes, still very much her fault and something to take responsibility for. But...

Dick took a moment, then reached up and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Tell me that she's here on her own?" Just because she was the only other one at the North Pole, but he wanted to know if the Joker was around, somewhere.

"You-Know-Who hasn't shown up, thank God, but given Kuk's tendency to yank villains, he's someone we might have to look out for."

Kon paused.

"She's been through something pretty heavy, though, 'Wing. Apparently, before all this, she got kidnapped to some alternate dimension where she was forced to fight in these gladiatorial death matches that she kept getting revived from. A few other people here were pulled from that same universe, too - like Brainiac 5 and Invisible Kid. So they were able to vouch. And it was...bad. Real bad."

It sounded horrible.

"She's...a little more with it. Apparently, she kicked Joker to the curb before getting pulled there, and is trying to never get pulled back into that. She's taken a liking to the good we do here, talks about caring if the people she mentored in that universe survived..."

All good signs.

"Who the hell knows if she can stay on the straight and narrow - I told her I was appointing myself her unofficial parole officer while she was here, to keep her out of trouble, but I think she's got a better chance of sticking with it this time than she's ever had, maybe. More than any of the other times she's tried, anyway."

He paused.

"I think I got through to her a little bit on the evil ex front. Told her if Joker showed up, I'd try to help her not get sucked into that again, since, you know, Knockout. I get it. That seemed to hit some notes with her, someone on our side of it knowing what it's like to get suckered in by a psycho like that."

It took a few minutes for Dick to figure out how he felt about it. It wasn't that he didn't really believe Kon. But Harley'd tried to go straight before and as soon as Joker was on the scene, it didn't seem to change anything.

Finally, though, he tilted his head in acceptance. "I'll do what I can as well, you know. I mean, I don't know exactly what it's like, but I've had a few experiences. And it's better for everybody if she never has to deal with him again."

Dick didn't talk about Tarantula for a reason. And it didn't entirely apply here, either, but it gave him enough of an idea to want to be able to help.

"She's still pretty crazy go nuts but she seems to be pretty sold on the bringing joy to people thing and we've been trying to guide her penchant for chaos towards raining it down on the bad guys."

And it actually was pretty effective.

"And when we really need her to listen, Nova, the big guy in charge, somehow manages to get her to. Speaking of which, you ought to meet him. He's a superhero from the other world - the one that merged with ours."

A pause.

"Well, from a version of it anyway. In his universe, his world never merged with ours. Guy's a triple threat. I got briefed on him once, he's basically like a cosmic, even-more-overpowered version of Kal. When he's fully powered, he could blow up a planet by sneezing the wrong way and all the crazy space people that don't listen to anybody else listen to him."

[LN] He flies through the air with the greatest of ease

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