The distinct odor of burned plastic hung in the air at Legion HQ. It was a combination of Lightning Lad's daily practicing, and that ozone tingle in the air. It clung to everything; the polished metal furniture, the holographic mission reports flickering on the walls, even those dreadful protein bars Rokk insisted on keeping everywhere. There was however, a faint scent of Imra's perfume on top of all that. Vanilla and cool, a dash of stardust. That always got me worse than Kryptonite.
I sank onto this strange, oddly-shaped couch, staring up at the pseudo-nebula ceiling lights. I had a pounding headache, and it had nothing to do with the last attempt by Cosmic King to blow my mind. I just felt guilty. The guilt feels heavy, and all this wet and heavy gel was dropped into my stomach. Last night was nice. We were in the informal observation lounge. Saturn Girl was pressed against the safe plexi, gazing out at Titan. The rings of Saturn were leaving icy blue bars of light on her… and on me. She didn't cry out from the cool view. It was more like a sunburst.
"Hey Supes." Rokk interrupted my reverie. He came in looking like someone had just booted his dog. His small dog. Lightning Lad. My bro. My bro whose girlfriend I had just… yeah. He sort of collapsed onto the couch beside me, all hunched up and shit. He didn't even look at me, just stared at his hands, where little nervous sparks crackled in the space between his fingers. "Imra… she dumped me." He sounded hollow. Like the inside of an empty fusion reactor.
My gut did a backflip. "Dumped?" I asked, trying to sound as appalled and concerned and as unconnected to the situation as possible as I gasped, which wasn't hard to do. I had apparently been foolish to think that Imra was going to stay coupled to Rokk. "Rokk… dude… what happened?" Ashes in my mouth. It's especially crappy to play dumb when you're basically a god. What was I going to say, though? "Yeah, sorry, man. Your soulmate? She went totally psycho last night while you were having a blast at the Ballroom. My bad." Uh-uh.
He shrugged, a short, violent movement. His fists crackled with electricity. "Said… it didn't work. Couldn't feel 'the spark.' " His laughter was charged with electricity, and bitterness. "The spark. From me. That's a joke." Finally, he looked at me, his eyes red-rimmed. "Nate, we were supposed to be together, forever. You know that? Legends of the Legion. Saturn Girl and Lightning Lad. Like… destiny." He sounded dazed. Like a kid who just found out Santa isn't real, only a million times worse.
I fidgeted, and mumbled "Destiny's an asshole, sometimes." It didn't feel right, too alien. Like wearing my Kryptonian skin. There was Nathan Cornsweat, a college student who missed instant ramen and was studying for his economics mid-term, screaming at me. What the hell did you do?! It wasn't supposed to be messy. It was just... a taste. A feel. When Imra stroked me, I savored the rush of forbidden thrills running beneath her icy telepath's demeanor. A rush. Something to ward off the aching boredom of watching over the Fifth Dimension, and the abstract notions of the imaginary. With the Legion? Here? On future Earth? It was real. It was complicated, and messy, and sticky. It was alive.
Did I really watch Rokk break? That seemed too real, too intense. I did try to change that for a moment. Click my fingers and alter yesterday with my imp magic. Make it never have happened. But that seemed worse… like cheating. Like admitting I was just playing at Clark Kent in his cape and I didn't really exist here. Plus, Imra looked at me last night like I was her new destiny. She didn't look at me with cold eyes yesterday. She had them burnt out. And they'd be vaporised if I made this right with Rokk.
I plastered on a shithouse grin. "Come on, ignore fate. Forget about Imra." I goaded him. "Let's hit the gravity gym. Smoke some punching droids. Let off some steam." My fingers were buzzing with tiny nudges of imp energy, barely enough to give him a glimmer of respite from that overwhelming pain. Not enough to take it away. Enough to help him breathe. He sniffled, rubbed his nose on the back of his hand. A glimmer was enough. "Yeah? You think?"
"Know it," I replied, standing up and clapping him on the back. The uniform gave his shoulders a tighter look. "Man, you're Lightning Lad. The quickest draw in the Legion. Girls queue around the block to get a crack at you." That much was true, anyway. Rokk Krinn was a hero. A genuinely good guy. He was, when he wasn't brooding, charming and strong and good-looking. He'd bounce back. Fast. Probably a lot faster than I'd like.
He mustered a weak grin. "Maybe you're right." He stood up and stretched. The sparks his skin glowed with seemed brighter and more energetic. Less mourning and more his usual high-strung. "Thanks, Supes. Thanks." He punched my arm lightly. "I don't know what I'd do without you."
My Brainiac 5 logic circuits of "If only you knew" were clanging louder than ever. The guilt got a little more convoluted. I was Superman, beacon of hope. And he was looking to me to hold it together for him. Not the giant cockroach from space who stole his girl.
###
Two weeks later. Turns out Lightning Lad's default was "fast…" at more than just his powers. How long did he take to mentall heal? Fast enough that I didn't even notice. One minute he's drinking away his misery with synthale with me, the next? I see him in the cafeteria leaning in to make Shrinking Violet giggle. Every time he streaked past Violet, she blushed. By the third week he was making the rounds, in the starlight lounge holding hands with Phantom Girl, Tinya's ghostly form glowing with warmth. Sitting through a mission briefing and watching him charm all three of Triplicate Girl's triplets at once? That did it.
The neutron star of guilt on my chest? It sublimated on Mercury like ice. Gone. Relief? Irritation? So easy for him to upgrade? Imra's 'I didn't feel it anymore.' Maybe she was right. Whoever Rokk's next smile went to was his 'true love.' Hero prerogative.
And thus, my problem grew. I had nuclear missiles masquerading as my girlfriends, and Rokk was out collecting phone numbers (or whatever the equivalent is).
Saturn Girl. Imra. It was still a secret. Still intense. Our "dates" were clandestine: a telepathic caress in the middle of a council session, a brushing of hands under the table; a hot, gasping quickie in an empty storage room when the power went out, her mind open and greedy against mine, her smooth flesh sizzling against my Kryptonian warmth. The thrill of it was still there. It was greater, tempered with the danger of discovery. And to her, my Fifth-Dimensional strangeness was intriguing… different. Naughty. She liked to live dangerously.
Except that there was Kara. Supergirl. Whatever she was. My time-travel-crime partner. My last secret before the Legion. We broke the boundaries of the 21st century together, invigorated by the excitement of escaping the past, Metropolis, and the tedium of super-cousinship. We weren't supposed to be anything more. But I had to have "real" again. Even though it was "wrong" it made me need it more. Cousins! (Well, technically, but still) squared, Forbidden Fruit.
It took more than a Mxyzptlk to separate us; it was a constant effort. Superman is polite and brave and a little alien; I had to be careful around Imra.
With Kara? Nathan could be me. The boy who loathed calculus and could still feel cheap pizza. She didn't get the language from the man who sometimes forgot himself. The awkward, selfish, homesick trickster in a Superman costume was the me that Kara knew. She knew the burden I ran from, the Fifth Dimension. She knew I wasn't Clark. She saw the cracks. And still she stayed.
It was only a matter of time. Kara needed her past. Her friends. Her life. Truthfully, being in the future meant we were always trying to evade Superboy Prime detection systems and Legionnaires who'd discover my secrets.
We were just a few feet from the central time bubble hub of the Legion. In the antiseptic glow of the chamber, Kara was radiant, her blue eyes and golden hair shining. She whispered my real name, a stolen affection, "It's been… crazy, Nathan." She wove her fingers in mine. potent. "But we have to go back. Before we get caught for changing a dozen minor historical footnotes."
"Yeah," I told her, pulling her close. She didn't smell of cold star-vanilla like Imra -- sunlight and Kryptonian ozone. "Going back to the mundane 21st century." I didn't sound very convincing. I had a blast here. Complicated, guilty, and confusing. Real.
Imra appeared without sound just inside the door, near the room's control panel. Her face was serene, perfect, Legion Leader. But her eyes were on me. The faint, intimate mental touch danced across my brain: "Remember, Titan's rings."
I pushed aside Imra as Kara approached the shimmering time portal, the chroniton field buzzing. My hand was under Imra's Legion uniform faster than even Kara could see. For just a second. Beneath the fabric of the uniform, I cradled the warm, downy globe of her tit. She actually gasped. I glimpsed a burst of absolute, shocked lust before she slapped up her mental shields. She didn't glare at me. It was a promise. Dark promise, sexual promise.
Then I felt Kara pulling my hand. "Slowpoke, come on!" Then we stepped through the shining veil. As in a dream, we left the future behind us.
My place in Metropolis always smells stale. There's a languor of dust motes hanging in the glare of the late afternoon sun as it breaks through the partially lowered shades, and Chinese food boxes… routine. I'd barely managed to cinch my belt as I stood in front of the couch when Batman loomed in the entranceway. He didn't exactly knock. He more sort of materialized. Like a very large, sulky bat.
"Three weeks." He growled. The voice was like rocks being dragged across rocks. His cowl eyes were pits of disapproval. "Temporal anomaly. Of an unspecified nature. To an indeterminate point in the future. With Supergirl." He didn't ask. He simply stated. As if he had witnessed the entire soap opera himself.
I made a big show of being nonchalant while I relaxed into my chair. "Bats, it was reconnaissance… potential threats. Stuff from the Legion. You know." I smiled and tried not to let him intimidate me.
"Don't play dumb with me," he growled, fully entering the room. The door shut noiselessly behind him. "Time is fragile, Clark. There are consequences for your actions." The name was used like a lash. "It's not League procedure to go sight-seeing."
"Tourism?" I mocked, standing and scowling at him. "We saved Titan from Starfinger's heist. We saved the Negation Zone from a chronal cascade failure!" OK, maybe I broke a timestream anchor during a… special moment with Imra that caused a cascade failure. A technicality.
"Consequences of your 'aid' exist," Batman retorted, his frosty anger palpable. "Consequences are what we have to prevent. Cornsweat, there are people who could die." He knew... or at least had suspicions. My imp hackles rose. He wasn't just talking about time. He was talking about Lightning Lad. Talking about Imra. Talking about the trail of wreckage I'd left. He didn't understand the particulars, but he could see the rest of the ripple effect. "In the future, keep this in mind. There are real stakes. Not a game."
He didn't wait for an answer... just turned and disappeared into the shadows of the hall. Gone. But his words pressed upon me heavier than Kryptonian manacles and rested in the musty air. Consequences. Timelines, he'd said... duty... responsibility. But all I could hear was Kara's guiding hand pulling me back, Imra's sudden intake of breath and Rokk's anguished cry. What I'd done. Again, what I'd thought was reality was reduced to dust in my mouth.
But just for a moment. The lights of the city twinkled outside my window, and even the Dark Knight could not keep Metropolis in the dark for long. Sirens wailed somewhere off in the distance. I could smell hotdogs from the vendors and gasoline. It was all so wonderfully… mundane. The greatest thrill for Nathan Cornsweat, the mischievous cosmic trickster playing at Superman? Even the mundane was a thrill when compared to the 31st century.