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The splintered sunshine rained over Kon as he watched the sun sink into the arctic horizon. It was a sight he didn't expect to find comfort in; endless glittering ice and snow vanishing into infinity as the sky shifted from blue to yellow, streaks of wispy gray clouds raking the pastel colors. Each fading photon against his warm flesh seared into him as he drank it all in, making his blood burn.
As he watched the sun get swallowed in icy twilight he remembered everything that led up to this calm moment. One thousand years ago, he was dying - choking and sputtering on his own blood on black asphalt. Then in a blink, he was screaming with his lungs full of ice-cold air, punching Superboy Prime as hard as he could in a world of bright white snow.
He felt like dancing in the dying arctic light.
He also felt like falling to his knees and crying in the dark like a scared and troubled child, because dying wasn't anything like he thought it would be.
It was just ending. Poof. Gone.
His death wasn't even on his own terms, he was murdered, impaled by the street by a boy who - in the end - screamed help me when he was defeated by his own hubris.
Kon couldn't decide if he should feel pity for the deranged teen, apathy, or white hot rage for murdering him and taking away his right to a death that made sense to him.
Kon always assumed that his own death would be more intentional, the sacrificial pyre would be lit and he would gladly lay on it because that's what heroes did. The concept of suicide was never far from Kon's mind in the past; it was etched into his bones so deeply he once believed it was a Cadmus design. After all, he was modeled after a man who died protecting Metropolis, and Kon was intended to replace him in every possible way. Whatever Superman did, he surely could do too.
Dying included.
Life always found ways of surprising Kon, even in how it ended.
Kon took a deep breath, his lungs filling with icy air, and when he slowly released it his breath froze in a long stream of silver where it faded into oblivion. For a moment cast against the yellow twilight, it looked like a curved dragon.
Life wasn't done with him just yet.
"You can never have too many new starts, right Cassie?" he huffed to himself, a small ironic smile pulling on his cold lips. "Fuck, were you ever right."
"Kon?" reached a familiar voice from behind him; he knew who it was before he even turned around.
"What's up Bart-oof!" Bart suddenly crashed into him, tackling him into the crunchy snow and knocking the air out of him. When they landed, white powder rained over them and Kon couldn't help it, he laughed. Their howling laughter reached far to the mingling Legionnaires as they rolled in the snow, swearing and crying until finally Kon hugged Bart tight into his chest as they panted together.
"I'm back! I'm back, I'm back, I'm back," Kon repeated into Bart's hair, cheeks wet with cold tears.
Bart clutched his shirt as if he was going to turn into mist and fade away. "We're both back," he choked.
"What?!" barked Kon, leveling himself upright to his elbows, he stared demandingly at Bart. "You died too? When?! How?!"
"They didn't tell you?" Bart asked as he looked at him, yellow eyes red-rimmed.
"No! I literally woke up from a thousand-year coma two hours ago and I was punching the shit out of that asshole!" Kon's eyes frantically widened as he curled his fingers into Bart's shoulder. "Don't tell me he killed you too. If he killed you, I swear, I seriously regret not returning the favor!"
Bart quickly shook his head. "No, it wasn't him. My clone Thad came back and finished what he started two years ago," he revealed bitterly, the memories hot like summer-baked concrete. "Guess he got to do what he always wanted to, sorta," Bart added and wiped his eyes, banishing the memories and putting them in a place he'd look at later. "Whatever. It doesn't matter anymore, because we're back." Typical speedster, always moving forward even if they weren't ready, even when they were running on empty.
"So we both got bumped off by cheap knock-offs, fuck. I don't know if the universe is trying to play some cruel joke on us, or if we're just unlucky."
Bart scoffed. "Bad joke, no one laughed. I guess it was just bad luck."
"But we're alive now. So there was some good luck in the end," Kon said optimistically.
There was always something about Kon and his infernal optimism that dispelled all gloom for Bart, and it triggered a small smile to spread over his face. "Yeah. Yeah we are," he nodded softly and his smile widened, the light in his eyes returning like the sun in Spring. "I can feel it, can't you? Something's different. Something's changed!"
"Like, back home with all our friends?" Kon asked, and this time Bart's joy infected him as he smiled broadly.
"Yeah, or maybe it's just us."
"Maybe both?" Kon mused as a feeling that was between dread and euphoria churned in his belly and his chest. "I know I feel different. I'm not sure how really, but I'm changed. For better or worse, I haven't decided, but I'm not the same as I was. I can't go back to who I used to be from here."
Those yellow eyes were on Kon again, searing him with a loyalty and love he hadn't noticed before. "No matter how you've changed, you'll always be Kon to me. My friend. Nothing's gonna change that. For better or worse. Even when you were dead you were my friend," Bart revealed unashamedly, then his eyes turned glassy, but no tears fell this time. "I missed you."
'What happens when you die, a lot, you're just not around to experience it' was a phrase that was stuck in Kon's mind from a book Cadmus had downloaded in his brain. He never once thought about it when he was alive, but here in the snow, clinging to one of his closest friends, it held more meaning for him than Peter Pan ever did.
In the end, having that final journey Peter Pan claimed would be a great adventure wasn't much of one after all. Not for him anyway. It was everyone he left behind that had to continue on the adventure, but with one person short.
"Thanks Bart. When I died, everything just ended, I don't remember any sort of afterlife - it's like trying to remember a dream for me." The churning feeling in his chest pulled on his heart again and Kon shifted so he was looking into Bart's golden eyes with all the loyalty and love he felt he forgot to show when he was alive. "But I think if there was one, I missed you too. It couldn't be that great of a Heaven without you there, y'know, and everyone else from back home."
Neither noticed that they were now laying in darkness because all they could see was each other as they laid bare without words everything the other already knew.
Then Bart's lips twitched into a small smile. "They do say Heaven is a place on Earth."
Kon laughed. "That's a song, Bart."
"Oh."
"But I get what you mean, Imp," Kon sighed, and another set of song lyrics picked at his heart like guitar strings as he laid in the ice with Bart on his chest. You're the closest to Heaven that I'll ever be.
"Imp. You haven't called me that in over a year," Bart said, and it brought Kon immediately away from his thoughts.
"Shit! You're right. I don't know why I said that. It just slipped out. Sorry."
"Don't apologize," Bart insisted, pulling himself off of Kon's warm chest, and they both instantly felt colder. Kneeling on his knees, Bart scratched the back of his head as he looked contemplative. "I actually - you know, I think you're right about us changing. Some things are clearer now. This whole Kid Flash thing, I don't know if that was ever me, and I don't want to be someone that I'm not anymore."
Kon lifted himself to his knees, and the snow bit them through his jeans. "Are you saying you want to go back to being Impulse?"
Bart shrugged even though he knew the answer already in his hot heart kindled with lightning. "Maybe. I know for a fact Impulse was all me, unlike when I was…" Flash. The memories flooded him all at once and they choked and blinded him with regret and fury and he waved them away. "Ugh. Grife, you missed out on a lot." Bart felt the gentle touch of Kon's hand on his yellow shoulder and the murmur of his TTK through his suit. If Bart could, he would have sunk into him again, but instead, he remained planted on his cold knees.
Kon was smiling again, despite everything, he was smiling at him. "Well, I got all the time in the world now for you to catch me up on everything I missed."
That stupid smile and Kon's eyes the color of a sunlit wave pulled Bart out of his sluggish dark thoughts and forced him into a brilliant gallop, full steam ahead to a bright future. "Pizza and movie night?"
Kon didn't hesitate. "Farm, Tower, or Jay's basement?"
"Tower. Pizza Shack or Domingos?" Bart could smell the pizza already.
"Pft. You know it's Pizza Shack or nothing."
They both shared the same look, eyes glittering with knowing, and then they beamed at the exact same time with enthusiasm that would match a bombastic commercial from the '90s; "Supreme with extra cheese, extra pepperoni, no mushrooms and absolutely no pineapple!" When they finished, they hooted and laughed and shoved each other playfully, and it was as if nothing had changed after all for a little while.
"If you two are done having your post-resurrection bonding ceremony, we're ready to go!" snapped the Brainiac 5 that was not their Brainiac 5, but the one that was Clark's age. They barely acknowledged him beyond a half-hearted wave as they sighed contentedly.
"I guess we're going home soon," Bart finally stood up and offered Kon his hand.
Kon looked up at Bart, he was wreathed in a bright purple and blue aurora, and thousands of stars glittered around him. Grinning wider than he ever did before, Kon grabbed his hand. "Yeah, yeah. We're going home."