"How other people are sometimes? The disapproving looks, the sizing me up like...like they're always comparing? Hells yeah. An' I'm his clone so I get the eye all the time. A'though Kara has the last Supergirl to be compared to right along with Kal, 'cause Linda was amazing. Shame she retired."

He tries to sit up a little straighter, wobbly, and jerks a thumb towards his chest--he's wearing a t-shirt, but that's where the S usually is.

"But what the 'S' comes with... he believes in me. He believes in her. And when someone like Kal believes in you, s'hard not to believe in yourself, too. He made it mean something, and thinks we deserve to wear it. He gave us--he gave us family. Him, the parents that raised him on Earth. I live with his paren's--even most--most of the other heroes don't know his secret ID, he's super protective of them, but he let me live there, gave me a home so I didn't keep stumblin' from place t'place."

He slurs on, "An' I... I was created to hurt him. To be...something he cared about to hurt him. He still cares anyway, knowing that. A bilogical machine s'what I am. A puppet. A robot...person. And that man--he gave me my names. All three of them. Big Blue's the freakin' Blue Fairy--first one to treat genetically-engineered Pinocchio like a real boy. Never stopped even when everyone could see the strings and wanted t'lock me away. 'For my own good,' they said, an' they were right. Ma said no, he said no, and after STAR labs fixed up my head as bes' they could, he jus' took me home and tol' me--he tol' me it wasn't my fault. He tol' me I was still good."

Kon steals the bottle and takes another long swig.

"I miss him. I miss Ma and Pa, too."