Since arriving in this world, Ian had always kept one rule from his personal DC Universe survival guide firmly in mind.
Stay away from Gotham.
Nothing good ever came from getting involved with it.
"Even a dog wouldn't drink this. Aunt Kara, you can have it."
He pulled the straw out of the cola after taking a sip, stuck it back in upside down, and shoved it straight back into Kara's hand. Kara's brows were already twisted so tightly they almost hooked together, and her expression remained impossible to describe.
She just stared at him.
Crunch. Crunch.
Food always tasted better when someone else had bought it. Ian glanced down into the bag again and saw there were still a few pieces left. The hair at his forehead shifted slightly, revealing smooth, pale skin with a healthy flush.
Yes, pale with a rosy tint.
Distinctive, even.
"There's... a bullet in your forehead."
Kara still had not finished processing what Ian had called her, but as she stared at him, she finally noticed what was wrong.
Really, she should have noticed it much earlier.
It was just that before now, all of Kara's attention had been on Ian's face.
But once she actually focused, good lord, the handsome little punk had a large-caliber bullet lodged right in the middle of his forehead.
"A bullet? Don't be ridiculous."
"No way. I run too fast. Those security guards definitely couldn't have hit me."
Ian kept wolfing down fried chicken. His now-starving body was finally starting to feel fed.
What a clumsy aunt.
Trying to interrupt him while he was eating.
Terrible. Truly terrible.
"Does your head hurt?"
Kara's eye twitched, her expression turning even stranger.
"Nope."
Ian shook his head. While Kara was still frozen in shock, he took full advantage and kept eating, one bite after another, even demonstrating a method of chewing the chicken bones together with the meat and swallowing them whole.
"..."
Kara really had not paid any attention to how quickly her food was disappearing.
She was just staring at Ian's forehead.
Finally,
Supergirl could not hold back any longer and quietly reached out with a hand as fast as lightning.
Her speed was truly incredible. Before Ian, who was busy devouring food, even had time to react, she had already plucked the metal slug from his forehead with two fingers.
"I really think you should feel pain. That would be the normal reaction."
Kara still suspected this might be some kind of prank, but after glancing around and finding no camera, she hesitated for a moment before handing the flattened bullet over to him.
"Huh?!"
Ian froze in shock and stopped eating.
At first Kara thought he was finally going to panic, maybe even roll his eyes and faint on the spot from fright.
Instead,
"This is fake. Just your hallucination, Aunt Kara. You definitely ate poisonous mushrooms this morning."
Ian stuffed the bullet into his pocket and immediately chose the classic strategy of pretending that if he did not see it, then it had never happened.
"??????"
Kara bent down and picked up the slug again after it slipped right back out through the hole in Ian's torn pocket.
Seeing that, Ian sighed.
"All right, you win. You've seen through the sad truth that I'm kind of pathetic."
He remembered now that when he had gotten farther away, he really had glanced back at those guards.
Who would have thought there was actually a sharpshooter hidden among the guys making barely enough to survive.
American competition really was terrifying.
"This seriously isn't some kind of prank?"
Kara still wore that indescribable expression.
She suspected Ian was carrying some special hidden camera that even her enhanced vision could not detect. Honestly, that explanation still sounded more reasonable than meeting someone who had taken a large-caliber round to the forehead and was acting this casual about it.
"No prank. Just biology. Iron forehead technique definitely counts as science at least a little. My forehead really is tougher than the top of my skull."
Ian stuffed the last piece of chicken into his mouth.
His completely unhinged point of focus nearly broke Kara on the spot.
Seriously.
Was that really the reaction of a normal person?
"If you like attracting attention, I can recommend my psychiatrist to you. Don't misunderstand. I just think everyone in society is under a lot of pressure these days."
Kara really could not hold back anymore, though she still maintained a decent level of basic tact. The moment she asked that question, Ian said nothing. He simply and efficiently produced the doctor's written diagnosis.
"I've actually stopped wearing a fake mask lately, and I already feel like I'm almost cured."
Ian spoke with total sincerity, but he received no reply.
"..."
"..."
It became one of those wordless moments where both sides had nothing to say.
In the strange silence, the only sound was Ian continuing to eat all of Kara's food. The fried chicken was gone, but there were still fries. One bite, two bites, three, four, giant mouthfuls.
A premium fast-food meal worth over a hundred dollars vanished straight into Ian.
"Ian Kent?"
Staring at the name on Ian's medical slip, Kara, whose nerves were usually pretty dull, suddenly widened her eyes. It was as though she had finally realized why he kept calling her Aunt Kara.
Someone getting shot in the head and still bouncing around like nothing happened suddenly felt a lot more reasonable.
To be fair, when Kara had escaped Krypton, her pod had been caught in the explosion and thrown into the relative time stasis of the Phantom Zone. By the time she finally arrived on Earth at the age of thirteen, her little cousin had already become Earth's superhero.
An adult superhero, at that.
And just like that, the older cousin had somehow become the younger one.
After Clark rescued her from the pod, he entrusted her to the kind Danvers family, and she had spent all these years living in National City.
As for Clark's family... well, Kara remembered attending Clark's wedding, and she had heard later that he ended up with three lively, adorable kids.
It was not that she and Clark were distant. In fact, Kara felt that she and her now-grown little cousin stayed in touch pretty often.
She just had not really spent time with his family.
There was a reason for that, and that reason...
Just then, Kara, who had been looking perfectly normal, suddenly clutched her head. She bent forward with a muffled groan, as if struck by a sudden headache.
"Aunt Kara, what's wrong?"
Ian immediately reached out to support the slightly taller older relative. Her arm was surprisingly soft, with no obvious muscle at all. Kryptonian biology truly was one of the great miracles of the universe.
"Don't call me Aunt Kara. I'm not that much older than you."
Kara straightened up a moment later as if nothing had happened, apparently having already put the episode behind her.
"Okay, Aunt Kara."
Ian nodded.
His eyes were full of confusion.
Something felt off.
He just could not tell what it was.
"..."
Faced with Ian's total refusal to learn, Kara could only console herself with the thought that Clark had raised him well and taught him to be respectful.
She was just about to sigh,
when her movement stopped.
Even her blonde hair froze in midair.
The color around them began to drain away. The off-white walls, the dark gray hallway, the brown floor, all of it began to wash out like paint diluted in water, peeling layer after layer until only pale outlines remained.
Ian's nose caught a familiar trace of perfume.
"Boss lady."
He turned and saw that familiar figure, and so he had no choice but to put on the fake smile he hated most.
The woman wearing Tessa's face again leaned against the wall in a black dress.
Her eyes were sharp.
Her expression carried a hint of dissatisfaction.
Ian's heart immediately dropped.
(End of Chapter)
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