How to Brother

July 18, 2018:

Owen and Bart start trying to navigate how to relate to one another now that they are aware that they are related.

Stark Towers Lab

One of the labs inside Stark Towers

Characters

NPCs: None.

Mentions: Luke Cage, Tony Stark, Red Robin, Harley Quinn

Plot:

Mood Music: [*\# None.]


Fade In…

Owen's been trying to get better at a lot of things lately. And while being sober tops that list, being a decent brother to Bart is also on that list. And so Owen takes a brief break from what he's working on in the lab at Stark's to send a text seeing if Bart wants to come grab a bite and chill. Owen's been keeping himself pretty firmly regimented to a few places so as to keep on the straight and narrow, hence ordering in food at 'work'.

*

The mess around Hell's Kitchen has been keeping him fairly busy, between lending a hand and helping deal with a sudden bout of demons, but their conversation via text, brief as it had been the other day had quite the bolstering effect. Bart had been a bit concerned about Owen and well, everything in regards since he'd seen nor heard anything from him since. It was a relief to know he was okay, and that they were still okay.

So Owen's invitation? A no-brainer, really. It should be quite unsurprising that Bart arrives perhaps not a moment or two after his text response is received. And he probably was looking for an excuse to oogle things at Stark's anyway. SO MUCH TO SEE.

*

Owen hasn't even put his phone back down on the desk when suddenly a Bart. He blinks and then lets out a low chuckle, "You'd think I'd be used to that?" But Owen's powers are not quite that extensive and it's not like he and the Flash were all that buddy-buddy in their interactions. He sets the phone down and then makes some odd hand motions. It's obvious that the black gloves he's wearing are doing something to control three floating orbs that now direct themselves to land on the table.

"Hey. Did Luke talk to you yet? The bar's almost ready to re-open. Should be a coupla weeks. I mean if.. did you, still want a job?"

Yea, Owen probably should have figured out if Luke planned on re-hiring Bart, but he's pretty sure he does. Pretty sure.

*

Bart grins, shrugging. He hopes that he hadn't accidentally set off any security alarms or something, typical it comes to mind after the fact. But it's not the first time Impulse has been over, so things should be cool, right?

The speedster's attention is captured instantly by the floating orbs as Owen seems to be manipulating them. "Cool. What're they for?" he asks, then tilts his head as Luke is brought up.

"Nope, haven't heard from him. That's great though! I should've checked in with him- stuff's been kind of crazy lately… -but yeah! I'm totally good for coming back. I mean, the place Danny set me up at is great and all, but it's more on the formal side and they're not that happy when I ask for rescheduling. Foooor obvious reasons."

*

Owen seems caught off guard over the question about the orbs. He uhms and then makes a different motion and the orbs go back up into the air. "Just some weapon system I've been working on. I had some taser gloves that a friend needed tweaked and I got to messing with the design…" He clenches one fist and electricity arcs between one of the orbs to his hand and then he releases it back to another orb. "It's a.. good project to take my mind off the bombings. And.. other stuff."

"Yea, he's been.. I mean with everything. But I'll have him call you when we have an opening date. He wants to try to get some of this Hell's Kitchen stuff to die down." He doesn't add anything more about their plans. He knows Bart's a titan, and they did mention talking to the titans but that's really not Owen's call at this point.

"Your team's been doing good work over there. Despite the ridiculous cape crackdown response. How you holdin' up with it?"

*

"Whooooa." Well, Bart sure looks impressed as he watches the electricity that sparks up and dances between orbs and glove. He manages to keep from poking experimentally at one of the orbs while it's doing that.

Other stuff? Thinking about it, Bart realizes he has no idea what all Owen's been up to all this time. He plops himself down on a stool that he drags over with his foot, hesitant to ask, easily holding off as his brother goes on about matters with Luke and the whole Hell's Kitchen fiasco.

"Mm. Yeah, I figured. But yeah, can't wait to hear from him. Don't blame him for wanting things settled though." For sure he can't be the only one either.

He smiles faintly at the praise. "We're doing what we can, anyway. I don't even know what all that other stuff was about though," he sighs, rolling his eyes. But so long as whoever they were stuck to doing their own thing and not being in the way, then Bart carried on with whatever he and the other Titans did as well. "Holding up all right. It's been a little better lately. The days right after the bombing were the worst." So many hurt. So much damage. And for what reason? It still bothered him a lot, and it shows, if briefly, on his face as his thoughts turn inward.

*

Heh. Owen can't hide the smile when the orbs actually do what he's been working with them on. With another hand motion down, he has them return to the workbench.

"Still working it out but want to be able to deploy these to make the gloves more useful."

Owen listens as Bart opens up about the response to the bombing. It's obvious that he's at least a somewhat more caring person, at least towards Bart after the whole revelation about them being family. Or at least trying to be.

"It was nuts. It's still.. a lot." Owen tries not to let on how much it weighs on him. He doesn't really want to get into the why with Bart of all people. "But we got some good people looking into stopping the man behind it. Pretty sure Grey Goose will be hearing from someone soon about ways for you guys to get involved." Yes, he and Tony are still doing the colorful bird monikers for Tim. No, it hasn't gotten old for them.

*

"Looks like you're making good progress so far!" Bart's not much for designing techkery. He's better at breaking things, although usually only when called for. Otherwise it's mostly due to general speedster wear and tear, but gaming consoles were obviously not made to keep up with such a person's processes.

He nods wearily, as though the very subject of the bombings is enough to remind him of how draining it had been running near-mindlessly from one emergency to the next, just trying to make sure people got the help they needed. "Good to know. I mean, I figured people were looking into it." He blinks, then grins a bit at the bird nickname. "Great. I'm sure Double-R'll let us know if anything comes up."

His foot taps restlessly, his thoughts already moving ahead, or rather back as he circles around to earlier thoughts, and his grin fades a bit as he looks back at Owen. "…so how've you been? Busy and stuff? It's been a pretty long while. I thought maybe… I'd said something wrong or something. Last time we talked."

*

Owen's worn down but not quite from the same things as Bart. He did his fair share of helping the night of, and he's been doing some light snooping since, but not real heavy duty helping. No mostly he's been dealing with the fallout of his bad decisions and trying to keep himself on a better path. Part of that is keeping busy, hence his work here in the labs.

When Bart brings up how he's been though he smiles tightly and says, "Good. All things considered. I'm seeing somebody.." That's a normal response right? How do normal people talk? Owen tries to imagine normal people and can't quite picture anybody. "But no. We're golden Bart. Granted our history.. or future" heh ".. is all screwy. But we're good."

He considers leaving it there but he decides to be a little more honest. Fewer lies. It's a goal. "I told you about the weird alternate universe bit right? Like how I found out we were related. That left me with a whole other set of memories. And I should have just given it some time to settle. It was too weird the first time I tried to talk about this. That's all."

*

Bart's not the person to refer to for normal anything. Max has been trying to drill normal into him forever and it's still not something the younger speedster is big on.

"Seeing somebody? —oh! Um. Good for you?" Is that what you're supposed to say? He flashes a double thumbs up as though to pad his response. Yeah, totally not awkward. Just a normal pair of temporally displaced brothers.

"Good… I know we kinda covered that texting, but…still. Good to hear," Bart says, smiling faintly. He pauses as Owen continues, nodding carefully. "No, yeah- I get that. Kinda. I dunno if it would've made much difference to wait on it though. I'm um. Glad you wanted to talk about it anyway."

*

Alright, no that was awkward. Owen just kind of shrugs it off that he doesn't know what the right response to any of this is. But he didn't tell people about Harley and then they found out and he felt like shit about it, so he's trying at least. He also maybe likes the idea of introducing her to Bart just because it will make Robin facepalm somewhere in the distance.

"Yea, we'll have to grab a drink sometime. Or I'm sure she'll swing by the bar when it opens. Cause right.. yer.. not drinking age." The concept of teenagers not drinking is foreign to Owen, but he's pretty sure Bart doesn't, and he probably shouldn't encourage it? Probably?

"No." Owen laughs at the truth of the matter. "It really wouldna mattered. It's still all fucked up. I just think I had this weird sense that I could like fix my life knowing how my other one played out. Turns out shits complicated. Who knew?"

*

"Sure, yeah. We can do that," Bart says, shrugging. There's other stuff to drink at a bar besides alcohol! Although if he tried any he'd probably work it out of his system faster than it could affect him. He really isn't sure. But he's more curious about who Owen's calling his girlfriend. Nothing weird to suspect from that, right?

Snorting, he smirks a bit as he leans over to swat Owen on the arm. "Dude, it's complicated enough trying to work out one life. But if you're trying, then that's something, isn't it? That's better than a lot of people will even do."

*

Owen quirks a brow at the response to grabbing a drink, because he would definitely go drinking, drinking with Bart. But he also started drinking seriously when he was twelve so his gauge of appropriateness there is obviously broken.

At the swat on the arm, Owen tilts his head and looks down at his arm. Are they doing that now? Huh. Okay.

"Yea. You don't know the half lil' Flash." And it's true, but Owen would much prefer that he didn't know. At least not yet. He's disappointed enough people in the last few weeks, he really can't afford to add anymore people to that list right now.

Grabbing a tablet off the table, Owen punches the screen a few times and a holo display pops up with a food delivery site. "Now then. To business. What are we eating ridiculous amounts of?"

*

Was that too much too soon? Bart doesn't seem to pick up on that, his smile almost clueless but overall optimistic as he looks at Owen. Okay, his expression kinda wavers with being called 'lil' Flash' but it's a reminder that he's got a lot on his own plate that he tries to aspire to, and a lot of unanswered questions that are just as complicated because his family can't seem to stay in one time period.

"Eh, I dunno. I'll never say not to pizza but if you've got any better ideas I'm open to anything!"

*

"Let's do it then." Owen fires up the menu and starts adding pizzas with abandon. "Like how many do you eat? Roughly. Because I know I can pack it in when I need to speed through some sh.. stuff." What's this? Did Owen just voluntarily stop himself from cussing? Maybe Luke's swear jar wasn't quite as ineffective as they thought. But also Owen is vaguely aware of how Bart's powers affect his metabolism, based on his own. Though he's not as familiar with the extent.

"I take it Magenta Magpie is workin through the night on this bombing stuff? Pretty sure those Bats have figured out how to not sleep. And not like the 72 hour drug binge not sleep.." which Owen is more used to.

*

"That's a question no one likes to ask," Bart laughs. "Five at the least, and that should hold me over untillll…" He squints, waves a hand. "Well, I'll deal. Haven't been pushed too hard yet today, anyway."

Then he shakes his head. "Probably. I'm convinced that he either doesn't sleep at all or has learned to sleep like a fish. Either way seems possible, really." He shrugs. "Wouldn't be surprised if he's been on this case nonstop since then, but that's pretty typical Red Robin." At least they'd pried him out of the Tower the other night, if only to join him, Zatanna and Raven for a patrol to make sure no more demon portals have opened. Strange night.

*

Owen laughs at the crack about how much he eats. "No seriously, fire it up. I'm only kind of paying." Technically Oliver F. Witt is paying for this, but it's all legal. Kind of. Maybe. Owen never actually asked Emery for ground rules about the card and he has only used it once when he took out Kennis. But this seems like a good use for it.

"Sounds about right. But can't say I blame him. This wasn't some little gang war tiff in Gotham. This is 'uge."

Owen tries to figure out mentally how much food he would burn if he were to use his powers for longer time but it just makes him go a bit cross eyed. "YOu mind pickin' up? I mean.. we could get it delivered, but that's slow even for me. I assume that means it's like painful for you."

*

"Sweet. Nothing beats kinda free food. Except for free food, I guess."

Under the given circumstances, Bart can't really blame Red Robin either for wanting to get to the bottom of things. He wanted to do the same, but he doesn't have the knack for homing in on such things the way his fellow Titan does. Bart's idea of doing things is to literally look everywhere rather than narrow down options, and obviously when you weren't sure who or what you were dealing with, that makes things juuust a bit harder to do that way.

"Ugh. Worst part," Bart groans in complaint about the waiting. "Either way we gotta wait for them to be made. But yeah, I can pick up. No problem." That's practically semi-official duty for him at the Tower.

*

Owen puts in the order on the holoscreen before clearing it away. He then gestures up again and the orbs lift up, but not for anything quite so useful as before. No, Owen makes a spin motion with his finger and they encircle above his head. All that so he can pull out a cigarette and light up.

"Yea, so looks like I'm gonna have a place in the same building as the new bar. I think Luke is gonna have a place too. But you ever need a place to crash, I'd be fine you crashing there." Owen is of course thinking of himself as a teenager where he never had a stable place to stay and was just as likely to pass out drunk wherever he was versus getting 'home'. But it's the thought that counts. Right?

*

In anticipation for perhaps another cool demonstration with the electric spheres, Bart sits up to watch, his expression falling flat as Owen simply lights a cigarette. Well, that seems typical Owen.

"Oh yeah? Cool deal," he starts, blinking then at the offer to follow. "Really?" Sure, it's the thought that counts. The smile on his face shows his appreciation for it. "Awesome. It'll be something to keep in mind, then." Other than the Tower, he doesn't have a place in the city, because Manchester Alabama's just a quick jaunt for a speedster. But options are nice. Yeah.

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