#and sure superboy looks a lot if not exactly like superman

[idekwthmuistb]

The only reason conner is called a clone instead of test tube baby is bc luthor/dc didn't want to admit that combing two men's DNA is just a normal child and is a little gay

[suzukiblu]

WIP excerpt for Jan behind the cut; the one where Kon's soulmark isn't fake. (( chrono || non-chrono ))

The mark he’s got is just a lie, and that’s all he’ll ever have. 

“Are you hurt?" Clark Kent asks, because the asshole doesn't even have the decency to be an asshole, and Superboy feels like absolute shit. “Looks like you took a few hits in there.” 

“Uh–I guess,” Superboy says, resisting the self-conscious urge to try and hide the scorch marks on his jacket. He probably should’ve tossed it in the trash too, but–he doesn’t know, really. Maybe he can figure out how to fix it or something. The glasses were definitely a loss, but . . . maybe he can fix the jacket, if he tries. 

Like he even knows how to fix anything, Christ. 

“I’m fine,” he says again, because he’s not a crappy enough superhero to be concerning a civilian, dammit. Like, sure, he’s half-fried and feels like he got hit by a truck, but that’s not something you just tell the civilians. Especially not the civilians with press passes. 

Especially not the civilians who might be Superman’s soulmate and could tell him all about how bad you’d fucked up again the next time he came over to hang out or . . . whatever, exactly, Superman and Clark Kent do together. 

They must hang out, right? If they’re actually soulmates? Like–how could they not? If Superboy had a soulmate, he’d– 

He doesn’t have a soulmate. So like–it doesn’t matter, what he’d do if he did. He woke up with a fake mark that he was stupid enough to think was a real one at first, but that’s all he’s got. Just–that’s it. Nothing else.

So it doesn’t matter, what he’d do if he had a real one.

Clark Kent opens his mouth like he’s gonna say something, and Superboy can already hear the dude telling Superman how fucking weird he is later, and probably Lois Lane already has, and he just–he doesn’t know how he’d even explain it to– 

He needs to be normal about this, he reminds himself, and then does the most un-normal thing possible and just bolts straight up into the sky. Doesn’t even–say anything, or anything. 

He’d have been a lot less normal if he’d tried to say anything, though. 

Superboy takes off at full-speed and flies across town, and doesn't really know where he's going. Just–away, definitely. He wants to be away. 

He kinda just needs to, it feels like. 

It's stupid. It doesn't matter how far away he gets from embarrassing himself or fucking up or from Superman's probably-soulmate. It's not like it changes anything. It's not like it–matters. 

No matter where he goes, his own stupid self and own stupid issues are all ending up there too. 

Superboy ends up on top of a skyscraper, not exactly hiding up it but maybe not not hiding up it. He just–that's where he ends up. He sits on the ledge, and looks down at the cars passing on the street stories and stories below, and thinks about nearly getting Lois Lane killed and embarrassing himself in front of her and Clark Kent and being, like–stupid. 

Stupid enough to think he’d have ever had a soulmark. There's clones who do get them, he knows. Like–that's a thing. 

But he was supposed to be Superman, not anyone of his own, so he should've known better than to think he'd be one of them. 

He glowers down at his boots, then rubs the arm of his stupid scorched-up jacket that he doesn't know how to fix across his nose and mouth and just . . . 

Then he hears a familiar rush of air, and his first reflexive thought is fuck.

Superboy looks up to find Superman hovering in the air, like, a lousy ten feet away. Not even ten feet away. He tries not to cringe or look as pathetic as he feels, but he's sure he looks pretty fucking pathetic anyway. His jacket’s a mess and he's a mess and he fucked up something simple again and– 

“Kid?” Superman says with a concerned frown, floating in and down a little closer. “Is everything alright?” 

“Uh,” Superboy says, and then has the very weird thought that–like, maybe Superman isn't here to tell him he needs to be more careful or try harder, maybe he's . . . maybe he just came to, like . . . check on him, or– 

He crushes down that stupid thought, because what the fuck, like he's a fucking–like he's an actual kid or something? Like he can't take care of himself? Like he's really enough of an entitled dumbass to think that Superman would waste the time on that when he's got a whole city and a whole damn planet full of people without superpowers to worry about, and Superboy’s just, like, minimally scorched because of his own stupid fuck-ups anyway? 

And like, upset, he guesses. But that's also because of his own stupid fuck-ups. 

Fuck, he really is pathetic. 

“Yeah, all good here, man,” he says, and forces the usual grin he wears when he needs to look, like–confident, or whatever. Maybe it'll even work, if Superman doesn't pay too much attention to the scorch marks or how frizzy his hair probably is. “Uh–what's up?” 

Also, like, what the fuck are you even doing here? he doesn't ask, though he's kind of wondering about it. If Superman was anywhere near Metropolis when all that shit in the bank was going down, why wasn’t he in the bank? Like, Superboy is not egotistical enough to believe that Superman would not have gotten involved in that situation, with how bad a job he’d been doing at managing it. 

Honestly, on a day like today, he would’ve appreciated the back-up.

[robinsegghead]

Danny's Daycare Part 13

[Master List]

TW for implied/referenced sexual assault of a minor!!!

Things had been going well recently- well- well enough. Miguel had been in a foul mood since Jason’s tutoring session but refused to tell Danny what had caused it but other than that, things had been fine. Santi had been spending time at Danny’s to both give his brother some space and get some himself, Dani had scheduled her first (and hopefully only) GED test, and Sam and Tucker had started packing.

Tucker said his job interview went well but he hadn’t heard back yet. That didn’t matter because where Sam went, Tucker went, so they’d begun packing up their apartment and planned to find a day Danny could help them move. Wes had been texting more too, and they’d also planned to find a day when either of them could visit the other in their town and hang out one on one.

(“We have to meet up in Metropolis so I can prove to you that my coworker Clark Kent is Superman and that I’m not crazy! Not only that- but the other Supers? Superboy the first is definitely his clone- I mean they look practically identical! I’m betting on the last one being his son, but that could be wrong- either way you have to visit because-”)

That’s why it only made sense that the universe pay Danny back. After all, if he had a good ish few days, he deserved to have a really shitty one to compensate, right?

Danny went over to the boys to make breakfast like he did most days (whether they came out of their rooms to eat before he left for work or not was up to them, but there would be food there if they did), Santiago had dragged himself to the kitchen table and started eating while talking with Danny about his plans for the day.

He wasn’t sure what had caused it but only a moment after Miguel had walked into the kitchen to silently grab food and leave (like he did most mornings- he really wasn’t a morning person) he froze, grew angry, and started shouting at Danny. Even Santi seemed caught off guard by the things he yelled. “You’re not our dad!” and “We don’t need you!” and other hurtful things were flung at Danny until the man calmly (only outwardly) stood up, and removed himself from the situation.

Danny had never had anger issues per se, but he’d had a lot of anger in his lifetime and nowhere to put it. He’d learned a long time ago that when he was angry- like angry-hurt-angry -he needed to stop, get out of the situation upsetting him, and come back to it later. So he did.

When he got to work he was still hurt and upset but he tried to push the feeling away and get some work done. Ember messaged him to let him know she wouldn’t be coming today which… she could have let him know with a little more notice but it was fine! Everything was fine! It was a Wednesday which meant Duke would be in so it would be fine.

Two parents didn’t follow the rules about dropping off sick kids (he couldn’t exactly blame them but…) and he had to call their families to come pick them up only a couple of hours after drop-off. Along with that a bunch of the, typically, well behaved kids were acting out (was it a full moon or something?) and it ended up being an incredibly exhausting morning for everybody.

Around lunch he slipped into his office for ten minutes of peace and quiet before sending a clone back out to do his job and staying to work on an overwhelming amount of paperwork he’d been neglecting. Between both of his jobs it was never ending.

It was an hour until check out, though many parents got out of work before closing time and had already picked up their kids, and they still had twelve kids between himself and Duke. There was a loud crash and shriek from the main room that didn’t sound quite harmless and Danny immediately tapped into what his clone was experiencing.

“-kids are the best for my tests after all!”

Danny’s clone was standing in front of the kids defensively, face to face with three goons and the ugliest… person? He’d ever seen. They didn’t look like a person fully, more like a-

“Scarecrow.” Duke muttered from his right where he also stood protectively in front of a group of kids. 

“Now, let’s see how this new strain works on kids.” He leered.

Fuck. Fuck that. Danny stopped looking through his clone’s eyes and stood up. He needed to do something, he needed to- He looked down. He needed to transform. After becoming the king of the Infinite Realms Danny had gotten a new transformation, sort of. It was essentially Phantom, but more regal, more royal. He hadn’t transformed into his typical Phantom form- his ghost fighting vigilante form, since the incident.

Taking a deep breath, he closed his eyes, and transformed. He only took a moment to glance at himself and note that his outfit was different, without actually being able to see what all was different, before using invisibility and intangibility and flying out of the room to deal with the fucker who dared threaten his kids.

~~~

“Demon brat! No one cares about your blood status!” Jason cut in. Despite his words, there wasn’t any real bite to them and everyone knew it. It was rare for Jason to spend any time at the manor, sometimes he came to the cave for emergencies, but that was the cave. The manor? Practically unheard of unless Alfred had specifically told Jason to be there, usually for Sunday brunch. But it was neither Sunday, nor Alfred’ request that brought Jason to the manor.

The fact that he’d randomly dropped by for dinner that night had been a surprise to everyone, but not an unwelcome one. Even Damian seemed to be less irritable than usual. Jason couldn’t figure out what had possessed him to drop by. He’d woken up a couple of hours before, did some work, made some food for the Nightingales (you couldn’t convince Jason that those boys weren’t Danny’s kids), and then he’d just…. Driven to the manor. Like it was natural. 

When Bruce had seen him chilling on a couch in the main living room, he’d gotten emotional, choking back his joy and trying not to make Jason uncomfortable by hovering. (He definitely hovered.) When Jason had mentioned he’d be joining them for dinner, the man’s eyes got misty and Jason ditched him to help Alfred in the kitchen.

Before the youngest could retort, they all got an alert on their phone. The ‘emergency’ alert that was programmed to come through even if their phones were on silent- hell, even if they were shut off, the emergency alert would come through.

Everyone scrambled for their phones, pushing away from the table and towards the study. They were all accounted for at the moment. Jason had come over for dinner, Dick was on a date, Tim and Damian had been home and eating dinner with Jason and Bruce, Steph and Cass were having a girls night with Babs, and Duke-

Duke.

He was supposed to be at work for a little while longer. Pulling up the feed on Duke’s phone and displaying it on the batcomputer, Bruce began to assess the situation while everyone began suiting up. 

Jason came back in time to see what was happening and noted that not only was Scarecrow on the screen, but Danny was standing to the left and slightly in front of Duke. Of course he was- Duke worked at Danny’s daycare after all. 

(When he’d learned Duke was working at Danny’s daycare he’d immediately grown suspicious and, after hacking into the bats computer, he found he was right to be. Tim had a whole folder on ‘Daniel Nightingale’ and everything he knew about the man which was- admittedly not a lot. Jason couldn’t really be angry (yes he could) about Tim’s hyper paranoia but it was kind of annoying.)

“Now, let’s see how well this new strain works on kids.” Scarecrow said, reaching into his pocket. 

Danny shifted slightly, gesturing behind himself until the kids who’d clung to him scrambled back towards Duke. The camera angle shifted slightly as Duke pushed more kids behind himself and inched them towards where Jason assumed they’d be safer. “Yeah, I don’t think so buddy.” The twink of a man stepped forward and Jason was reminded that this was the same twink who’d killed the Joker. One shotted him, actually.

Still, he didn’t want to take any chances and rushed to his bike.

“B, have O send the footage to my helmet.” He ordered before taking off, followed closely by Red Robin, and only a moment later, Batman and Robin.

As he zipped through the streets, he listened to what was happening. 

“Such courage! Not for long. What do you think you can do to fight fear?” Scarecrow mocked. “You’ll soon see your worst fear. You won’t be so brave then. No one can fight fear!”

“I already have. Not interested in a repeat.” Danny ground out before tackling the man to the ground. B growled over the comms as the vial of fear toxin was flung out of Scarecrow’s hands and careened to the ground.

There was no sound of impact and before Jason could glance at his screen to see what was happening, Duke’s broadcast cut out.

“Hood, ETA?” Batman growled snappily.

“Two minutes.” He responded irritably, green clouding the edges of his vision again, worse than usual. Now that he thought about it, it’d been a couple of days since he’d experienced any Pit Rage symptoms. Fuck, not the time.

In the two minutes it took to get to the Daycare, Jason couldn’t help but wonder; how the fuck did Danny always manage to get into these situations? And how would the man get himself out of it this time? (Hopefully not through murder ((even though it was kind of hot))).

~~~

“I already have. Not interested in a repeat.” Danny heard his clone say before tackling the rogue to the ground. A vial of toxic gas flew through the air and Phantom rushed to catch it. Once he’d grabbed it, he phased it into his body for safe keeping, and removed his invisibility. Clone Danny was still fighting Scarecrow but the rogue’s goons had burst through the doors only a moment later and surrounded them. 

Phantom rushed the goons, landing on the ground and matching them blow for blow. “Get the kids out of here!” He shouted at his clone, not waiting for a response before giving the fight his full attention.

Three goons jumped at him. Phantom disarmed the first one, snapping the gun in half before tossing the broken pieces to the side. The second goons opened fire, not taking care of his fellow goons and actually hitting the third guy- were these goons for real? Any bullets that should have hit him, flew straight through him, until the man had used all of his bullets. Scarecrow pulled out another vial and three things happened at once.

Red Hood crashed through one of the windows (ugh, he’d have to get that replaced, it was hard to find good window installers in this city), Phantom inhaled something sweet and minty that made him feel strange, and, distracted by the new smell and sensation, a bullet lodged in his shoulder. Oddly enough, it didn’t hurt at all.

The goon who shot him was knocked to the side by Red Hood who seemed to be fighting with a vengeance and that was when Phantom realized eight more goons had crowded into the building. Taking a risk, Phantom tapped into his clone’s senses to make sure the kids were safe, and once he knew they were, he went all out.

Punching the nearest goon firmly in the chest, they crashed into another one who stumbled. Phantom spun around, round-house kicking the goon who’d rushed him after his buddy had been knocked out. It took only a couple of minutes before Red Hood and Phantom had knocked out all but the last goon- Scarecrow had long since run.

Grabbing the last guy by the shirt, he pulled him close. Hood gave him a strange look (yes Danny was fairly sure he could read the man’s expressions through the helmet) but he ignored it. He had a message to deliver.

“I hope you’re listening carefully, because I need you to tell all of your little friends, your employer, and everyone you run across something for me. Are you listening?” He asked as if he was speaking to a child. The goon nodded and a noise behind Phantom almost made him take his focus off of his message, but he pushed it away, still feeling strangely tingly from whatever the Scarecrow had dosed him with.

“Good. You tell your boss that this daycare- that Danny Nightingale- is protected. If I catch so much as a whiff of a plot against this place or that man, I’ll hunt you and your friends down and show you just how scary I can be, got it?” His fangs, pointed ears, and bluish skin had become more prominent throughout the years and while he was certainly humanoid, he was quite alien looking. It scared people.

The goon nodded, terrified, and Phantom dropped him. The moment he hit the ground he was running. 

Phantom dusted his hands off and turned to Red Hood only to find Batman and Robin also standing behind him. “Oh, hi.” He smiled, waving awkwardly.

“Who are you?” Batman demanded.

Cocking his head to the side in consideration, Phantom tried to focus through the strange(ly good) feeling coursing through his body. “I’m Phantom. Who are you?”

It was clearly not what Batman expected him to say. Of course Phantom knew who Batman was, but he didn’t want to give the idea that he’d researched Gotham, that he was from Gotham. Hopefully this would be one of the only times he’d be needed as Phantom while living here and  they could all forget this happened.

Red Hood chuckled. “Damn Old man, losing your touch.”

“Hood.” Batman deadpanned.

“Like the Red Hood?” Phantom asked innocently.

They all looked at him oddly. He recognized Red Hood but not Batman? Once Hood nodded, Phantom took the opportunity to finally thank the man for all he’d done for his people.

“Damn, you’re even hotter in person.” He smirked.

“Huh?” Hood blue screened.

Batman tried to cut in. “Phantom-”

Phantom began floating, leaning back casually and placing his hands behind his head. “I’ve already left you speechless, huh? Listen, Hood, I’ve gotta thank you, honestly.”

“What is happening?” Robin hissed under his breath. Batman seemed just as at a loss as Robin. Even Hood didn’t seem to understand what was happening.

“Let me re-introduce myself.” Phantom smiled at the group sweetly. “I’m Phantom, King of the Infinite Realms, Defeater of Pariah Dark, and Bringer of Peace. And you, Red Hood, are known throughout the realms as the Avenger of the Dead.” He could practically hear Hood’s jaw dropping. “My people speak highly of you and I’ve always wanted an excuse to visit Gotham to thank you, formally, for all you’ve done for my people.” He’d stopped floating after citing his title and letting his kingly regalia appear but now he was bowing at the waist to the Red Hood.

“Uh- wha-”

“You’re thanking him for murder?” Robin asked, voice strained.

Straightening out, Phantom noted the discomfort in Batman’s stance. “I’m thanking him for avenging innocent people. My people.” Turning back to Hood, Phantom offered him a little card. “This is my personal summoning circle, call me if you ever want to get coffee, hot stuff.” He winked and faded into invisibility just as the police barged through the front doors, leaving behind a very confused crime lord (who he suspected was blushing) and two vigilantes.

Oh yeah, that was more fun than he’d imagined.

~~~

The rest of the night was long and testing and Danny just wanted to go home. The parents who’d come to pick up their kids were in a panic, everyone wanted to question Danny, and Red Hood had run off before they’d been able to talk. To be fair, the vigilante had tried to get Danny’s attention multiple times but he’d been busy making sure each parent got their kid, the police got their statement, and Duke knew he was to take the next week off to recover.

He’d spoken to Batman which was cool sort of, and after alerting the boys that he’d be home very late that night, cleaned up what he could before going on his way. Lady Fate was cruel for piling the frustrations on top of each other that day, but even she wasn’t cruel enough to keep him from his bed and a nice long night of (probably lying in bed being unable to) sleep. Right?

It’s like he was jinxing himself or something. Clockwork had to be watching and laughing right now, right?

Riding the elevator up to his apartment- yes he could fly, but he was honestly exhausted after the crash that came after whatever tingly high he’d gotten from the Scarecrow fear toxin- and he just wanted to drag himself to his apartment slowly and painstakingly before collapsing. He checked his messages on the ride up.

Miguel had texted to confirm Danny’s late arrival home tonight (literally just a thumbs up emoji, apparently he was still upset with Danny for whatever reason), Dani had texted to inform him she’d be spending the night at Jazz’s, Tucker had sent him a meme about the Gotham vigilantes, and Santiago had texted him-

His blood ran cold- well, colder than it usually was- as he read the boys message. It had come through only three minutes before.

Santi: Danny please come home

Santi: Miguel needs help

Santi: He won’t let me outta the closet

Saying fuck it, Danny turned intangible and flew through the remaining floors and landing on his floor. He was stopped in his tracks by a man leaning heavily against the boys apartment door and shouting through it.

“Get the fuck out ‘ere! You worthless good-for-nothin’ kids!” The man slurred. “Mick! Santi! Get yer sorry assess out ‘ere! You know ‘ow hard I ‘ad ta look for ya?”

Danny grabbed the man's shoulder with inhuman strength and wrenched him away from the boy's apartment, putting himself between them. “Who the fuck are you?” Danny asked, letting his anger seep out, the hallway growing colder.

The man gave Danny an unimpressed look. “This is whoya been kissin’ up to? Huh?” He shouted past Danny and towards the apartment. “How’re you payin’ ‘im, eh Mick?” His voice grew suggestive as he looked Danny up and down. “Payin’ ‘im like ya did the las’ one?”

It was growing obvious that the man was inebriated, though Danny wasn’t going to let that excuse his behavior. It also seemed, the man knew Miguel and Santi and Danny shuddered to think he might be their father. “Listen buddy.” Danny grit his teeth. “You’re trespassing. Leave, before I call the cops.”

“Ha- cops? YOU’RE holdin’ MY kids captive! I should call the cops myself!” The man stepped closer, towering over Danny and definitely believing himself to be intimidating. “‘M sure you can find some other street kids ta get you off.” He offered suggestively. “My boys’re mine. I’ll fergive ya this once fer borrowing them- I know ‘ow temptin’ they can be- ‘specially Mick. ‘e’s got a mouth on ‘im-”

That’s when Danny’s patience ran out. He didn’t realize it until his fist had met the other man's jaw, leaving him doing the towering. He didn’t remember it- not really. One moment he felt his fist connect with the man’s face and the next someone had wrapped their arms around his torso and began dragging him away from an unconscious body. Someone was crying- someone was shouting.

Someone was threatening my kid.

It was the only thought he’d remembered from during the altercation. Although, altercation implied it was two sided, by the look of the man’s completely smashed and bloody face, it had not been two sided. 

“Calm down, Danny, you’re okay, the boys are okay- the boys are okay.” The voice repeated over and over again, trapping him close to their body and taking each elbow to the face or ribs while Danny tried to get away before coming back to himself.

His heart rate had been through the roof and after coming back to awareness, Danny felt exhaustion overtaking his body. His eyelids drooped as his body sank back into whoever was holding him. Someone was still crying.

Eyes flying open, Danny sat up, prying the man’s arms off of him, and moving towards the sound of the crying.

“Danny- don’t.” 

That was when he recognized the voice and finally listened to it. 

“You need to clean up before going in there.” Hood said, gently but firmly.

Why? Why did he- his eyes landed on the hand he’d placed on the doorknob. It was covered in blood- none if it was his. Lifting his other hand, Danny found it in a similar condition and understood. He’d just beaten Miguel and Santiago’s dad within an inch of his life while both boys were on the other side of a very thin door. Sniffling from the other side of the door alerted Danny that the person who’d been crying was Miguel.

Locking his jaw, Danny nodded sharply, twice, before turning and going to his apartment without so much as looking at Hood. The sooner he cleaned the blood off his hands and changed into clean clothes, the sooner he could see if the boys were okay.

Danny didn’t like what he saw in the mirror- and not in the teenage-angst-and-insecurity kind of way, but in the face-covered-in-my-kids’-dad’s-blood kind of way. His hair was crusty with it- how hard did he hit the guy? Thinking back, he was relieved to find he didn’t use any of his ghost strength and the man would (probably ((unfortunately))) recover.

It was the fastest shower Danny had ever taken. Tearing his hands through his hair to get the blood out, scrubbing down his hands and face, he couldn’t get done quick enough. Slipping on sweatpants and an oversized hoodie he didn’t remember owning, Danny made his way into the hall. He was surprised to find it empty, lacking both Hood and the body but shrugged it off and calmly opened the apartment.

“-thing’s gonna be okay. You did the right thing, kid.” He heard Hood saying. But it wasn’t the familiar modulated voice Danny had grown accustomed to- it was the voice that’d asked him ‘how old were you?’ the voice that asked ‘you died and came back wrong?’ a voice that was calm, collected, reassuring.

“He’s not gonna be angry at me?” Came Miguel’s sniffled response.

Before Hood could answer, Danny stepped into the living room. “Are you okay?” He asked, trying to hide how frantically he’d like to be looking over the boy. He kept his distance. He’d just beaten his kids’ dad- almost to death- with only a thin door separating them. He wouldn’t be surprised if Miguel never wanted to see him again.

Even if his dad was a shitbag.

Miguel nodded, hesitantly. “I’m sorry- I shoulda told you-” The boy was clearly trying not to cry again, his entire frame was shaking and he looked tiny standing beside Hood.

Sensing that Miguel wasn’t angry at him, but rather, thought it’d be the other way around, Danny shoved past the vigilante and pulled the boy into his arms. “Oh my Ancients- you have nothing to apologize for, Miguel. Are you okay?” He pulled back, sizing the boy up. He had a quickly forming black eye and a split lip, his clothes were ruffled, but otherwise he looked physically okay.

“‘M okay.” He confirmed shakily. 

Danny felt another body press against his and found Santi pushing himself between them and burying his face in Danny’s stomach. He could feel Hood’s eyes tracking their movements, but for once, his mind barely registered the vigilante. “Are you okay, Santi?”

The boy nodded silently, wrapping his arms around Danny. “You got my texts.” He states, voice muffled by Danny’s sweatshirt.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t have been here sooner.” Danny said softly, holding Miguel close with one arm and Santi with the other.

“I shoulda told you- I knew- ‘e found somma my buddies,” Miguel sniffled, unable to meet Danny’s eyes. “‘E asked ‘em where I was an’ they warned me ‘bout it.”

Danny shook his head. “You have nothing to apologize for, Miguel.”

“I shouldn’ta said all those things this mornin’!” He cried. “I din’t mean it! Please don’ be mad at me!” The teenager buried his face in Danny’s shoulder which grew wet quickly.

A voice cut through Danny’s thoughts. “I’m going to head out, I’ve taken care of everything, text me if you need me.” Hood said calmly from the window sill. Before Danny could mention you never gave me your phone number how on this Earth would he text the vigilante the man had slipped out the window and grappled away. What did he mean he’d taken care of everything? 

Sniffling cut off that line of thinking and Danny steered the boys to the couch. “Come here.” He said, pulling both boys down after him and holding them closely, in a way he hoped was comforting. In the way Jazz always held him after a nightmare. “You’re okay, I’ve got you both. I’m not going to let anyone hurt you ever again.” He soothed, running one hand through Miguel’s hair gently and the other across Santiago’s back. 

“I’m sorry.” Miguel said between little gasps for air. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

“You didn’t do anything wrong.” Danny mumbled, continuing his gentle ministrations. “I’ve got you both.” He felt them both growing stiller and stiller. “I’m not going anywhere. I’ve got you. You’re safe.”

Prev. Next

[britcision]

Okay so I’m well aware that this is probably my own fault, but a lot of people seem to have gotten the idea that Bruce is in any way important to this story

This is not a story about Batman

This is a story about the many and varied disaster gays he has trained to commit bigger and more epic disasters than any other gay in history

So let’s fix it and get back to the second most important thing in the story! Timker (and bonus Connor)

——————

Field Trips Without Permission Slips part 1

Tucker was still firmly in his happy bubble, floating along after Tim Drake-Wayne even as they left the Bat Cave.

Connor, Kon, Superboy, he’d be there soon. Tucker wanted to make a good impression; this was Tim’s boyfriend, Tucker really wanted the guy to like him.

That way they could all be friends, and he wouldn’t worry if Tucker and Tim hung out, and talked tech, and maybe got to have a hackathon…

Because of course, even notorious ladies’ man Too Fine Foley would never make a move on a taken man. That’d just be low.

He was just trying to work out what to say when Tim got a buzz on his phone. The excitement dropped off the younger man’s face in an instant, his expression immediately shifting to worry and determination.

“Something’s come up,” he said tersely, and Tucker frowned, wondering if he was about to hear about a second rogue attack in almost as many days.

Gotham… Gotham was kinda exhausting. No offence, obviously, even he could feel the Curse lingering on the back of his tongue.

But trying to keep this city safe was like bailing a sinking boat with a sieve. No wonder they needed the best of the best.

“How can I help?” Was all he offered, trying to make himself look ready and eager.

Tim’s eyes widened as he looked up, like he was only just remembering that Tucker was actually even there at all. That yeah, he definitely could help.

Actually, it turned out he was their subject matter expert when Tim explained the problem.

“Superman just told B he can’t hear Jason’s heart anymore. I don’t suppose there’s a reason you’d know of?” He asked hopefully, and Tucker’s jaw clicked shut.

Because… yeah, he could guess exactly why Jason was now out of range of super hearing. But the bats weren’t cleared to know about Jason’s halfa nature yet, and Tucker was pretty sure Jason couldn’t transform.

It’d be a wild time for him to give it a first try if Superman was listening in. He’d have to warn Danny and Jason, though that might have to wait if they’d… gone… to the Ghost Zone.

And yeah, okay, Tucker maybe shoulda thought of that first, but in his defence Danny died on a regular basis and occasionally just to show off.

Shoulders sagging as he relaxed, Tucker blew out a long breath and grinned at Tim, relief making him lax. And yeah, sure, he didn’t know why they’d gone, but he could bullshit something if they asked.

“Oh, yeah actually… they’re probably in the Ghost Zone,” he explained with a slight shrug, because really? It wasn’t a big deal.

Some of the tension leached out of Tim’s shoulders with the presence of an immediate answer.

“The Ghost Zone? That’s the Infinite Realms, right?” Tim asked and Tucker nodded, sticking his hands in his pockets.

It was always nice to be the guy with all the answers, but having all the answers for someone like Tim Drake-Wayne? Yeah, that felt extra good.

“Yeah, same place. It’s mostly only the Ancients that call it the Infinite Realms, and Danny and Jason probably won’t bother them.”

Not unless Clockwork chose to make another visit, but that would be an Ancient going to bother Danny and Jason.

Tim nodded thoughtfully, making some quick notes on his phone.

“Any idea why, or how long they’ll be? Bruce has probably convinced himself Jason’s dead again by now,” he added dryly, sounding neither impressed nor concerned.

Well, maybe a little concerned. Tucker had kinda gotten the stage door tickets to Batman’s opinion of Danny.

Tucker shrugged again, thinking back quickly over what Jason had told him he’d told his family. He was gonna make himself a cheatsheet if (hope of hopes) hanging out with Tim became a regular thing.

Frostbite? Yeah, they probably mentioned Frostbite. No need to mention he was an Ancient, the yeti certainly never brought it up.

“They’re probably going to see Danny’s doctor. Check Jason’s ecto contamination, see how Danny’s doing away from his haunt; that’s Amity Park,” he added as Tim’s brows furrowed momentarily. “Technically halfas don’t need need one, but Danny claimed it so we dunno what leaving will do to him.”

Which made it sound way more dramatic than it actually was; even full ghosts could leave their haunt if they wanted to. Not all of them even kept haunts in the Zone.

They’d asked last year, before Danny finally took the plunge (and yeah maybe coming out of puberty was why he’d waited a couple extra years - not that he’d gotten the promised Fenton Growth Spurt).

Frostbite had just asked if they even knew where Ember’s haunt was.

News to Tucker and the gang that she’d even had one, with how much she wanted to go on tour.

Danny’s haunt would always be his place of power, but with the power Danny wielded? He never needed it anymore. Tucker was pretty sure that when he actually became king the whole Ghost Zone was gonna be Danny’s haunt.

Not cuz anyone had explicitly said so. Just interpreting a lot of the flowery bullshit around Pariah. And no one had told him no yet either.

Tim just nodded, typing a moment more before sending off a quick reply to Bruce.

He did feel a little bad tattling on Danny and Jason like that. If they’d wanted anyone to know where they were going, they coulda just said.

But they also probably hadn’t known Superman would be listening, or notice Jason’s heart disappearing. Really Tucker was doing everyone a favour; making sure no one came back to Batman in a panic attack.

He just hoped Jason would see it the same way.

And then the single hottest person Tucker had ever seen in his entire life popped his head around the door, perfectly windswept black curls pushed back with one hand.

A smile of perfectly white, perfectly even teeth flashed as gorgeous blue eyes like the heart of the ocean landed on him and Tim.

On Tim.

Tim was smiling back even before the other entered the room.

Tim’s boyfriend.

Tucker raised Ida to cover his face without even thinking, cheeks burning and really really really hoping neither white boy knew enough about dark skin to tell.

Tim’s brother Duke was Black too.

Tucker was going to fucking die.

He could not go weak kneed at just the sight of Tim’s boyfriend!

He was only vaguely aware when the walking Adonis spoke, striding quickly into the room.

“Hey, any reason I should be worried that Jason and Danny just disappeared from Gotham’s airspace?”

Ancients even his voice was perfect, rich and smooth like dark chocolate, with just a little bass that made Tucker’s heart flutter. If that voice said his name Tucker was going to fucking die.

Tucker strangled most of the whimper in his throat because he was a fucking adult goddamn it. Jumped and almost smacked himself in the face when Tim called his name from right next to him.

Loudly.

Like he’d said it a couple times already.

And the World’s Hottest Man was looking at him too, the absolute cutest worried little frown marring his perfect brows, and oh ancients just the littlest pout on soft, full lips…

Yeah, no, someone get the headstone, Tucker would just bury himself out back.

———————

Note: I’m genuinely still turning over which name our dear Superboy Prime is going by as his regular name, since it’s… about 1000% going to depend on his relationship with Clark

I cannot fucking imagine anyone but Clark gave Kon El his Kryptonian name. Just. No fucking way. (Kara could but then we’re back to Too Many Characters and tbh she has more tact than that)

So their relationship has to be good enough that Clark offered this very personal piece of himself, and Connor’s accepted it

But Connor is the name his first friends gave him

And his civilian name, so it’s not like he can whole hog the switch

Atm the Bats call him Kon in uniform as the world’s shittiest cover but we’re getting his POV next chapter and I need to know what he calls himself, so… poll!

Tag List: @welcometosasakiworld @kyrianclawraith @someonebored0100 @stealingyourbones @starkcravingmad @frostedthroughghost @akikkobara a @rainbowbunny0159 @littlefeather345 @violet-catsarelife e @serasvictoria02 @wolfjackle @blacksea21090 @secretdestinywerewolf @anime-hipster-the-amazing @undead-essence @skitscratched @blackroserelina @snoodly-boop @trickerdi @mayoota-blog @xysidhe @idkmrpianoman @little-apricot-the-writer writer @chaoticmistake e @the-legal-shipper r @bun-fish @aroranorth-west t  @demon-cat-goes-woof @perfectwastelandcreation @onyxlightdragon on @larks-and-katydids @peachesandcreamfemboy @jesus-camp-the-sequel @may-rbi @mothman-the-mothman87 @viyatrix @stargirl1331 1 @idfk-man10 @thedepressedrobin @skulld3mort-1fan n @rootsmudge @ravenshadow17 7 @cankoking @phantom-dc @mentalcarebear @magic-pincushion @redamancyardor @lyra689 @itsparadoxlacuna @alcorbearson @asphyxia778 @why-must-i-be-like-this @tkiesai @greenpyrowolf @frivolous-pastel @honeysuckletook  

For anyone wondering, the reason the tag list looks like it’s having seizures is my phone has decided that letting me scroll around is far too convenient and it’s just going to randomly jump around if I try and move the cursor

You cannot tag a bitch on tumblr mobile without scrolling to the end of their name and selecting them on the search

If you are not at the end it will autocomplete what’s left and thus *gestures vaguely* happy WIP Wednesday

[superklutzkent]

Do you have any clean timkon fic recs?

i went in search of some just for you anon

See What You Wanna See

As horrible as it sounded, the young clone of Superman had spent half his life not getting along with the world and as such, had learned to get along without it. But Tim wasn't like that. Tim needed people to function. It was the one trait Bruce wished his son hadn't inherited from him. Conner Kent could survive getting his heart broken. Tim Drake could not. And Bruce Wayne was not going to lose another son. Or, Bruce doesn't understand what Tim could possibly see in Kon. Until, of course, he does.

~~~

What's Real and What Isn't

Kon’s eyes almost glow in the dark, a luminescent blue so vivid Tim almost can’t stand looking at them, though he has a harder time trying to look away from them. “I thought you were having a nightmare or something. Your heart was beating so hard it woke me up.” Tim feels himself a flush. He can’t even sleep without bothering someone else. “Oh,” He replies, voice small. “Sorry. I’m fine, you can go back to sleep.” “You’re shaking,” Kon points out and Tim curses internally.

~~~

Think Cupid, But Aim Lower

"Well", Bruce ignored his question, "I don't exactly have a rule against dating metas" "Ok?" Tim had no idea what his dad was trying to lead up to, but he put on his best listening face. "And I mean any meta", Bruce emphasized, searching his son's face for comprehension in vain, "any meta, at all. Regardless of gender" Or, the Batfamily will make sure Tim gets his guy, even if it entails a lot of beating around the bush, dropping hints so veiled that they can be misconstrued surprisingly easily, and basically giving the bird and his clone boy a headache in the process

~~~

Hey, Sunshine

"Kiss me, Kon", he demanded. He could already hear the smile in Kon's voice when he spoke. "Whatever you want, Sunshine" Or, Kon loves giving his boyfriend nicknames and Tim wants to know the reason behind this particular term of endearment.

~~~

I'll get back to you as soon as possible

Hey, this is Superboy. I’m probably busy kicking ass and saving babes but if it’s urgent just give me a shout and I’ll… Rox, can you shut your big mouth for one second or. The effect Conner’s voice has on Tim is instant. His gasping breaths become slower and easier to control. His whole body relaxes. Or: Tim calls Conner a lot while he’s dead. He calls a few times after he comes back too.

~~~

Dinner Rush

Tim decides it's finally time to tell his family that he and Conner are dating. Madness ensues.

~~~

Blind

As much as Kon had begged Clark not to send him to school, to while about his day doing equations and learning about dead people, when he could be doing something useful (like punching bad guys), Kon had actually come to like school. Well, he didn't so much care for the classes, but it was nice to make friends who were just normal people. It was interesting to hang around people who had no idea that the unassuming Conner Kent was actually the famed hero Superboy. Kon got to take a bit of a break from being a hero and pretend to be normal for a while, which could be fun under the right circumstances.

His friends were pretty neat, as well.

~~~

Just My Luck It's You

One night as Kon was dosing off to sleep it suddenly feels like he's been suckered punch and left breathless. As he gasps for air he knows something big has just happened to Tim, his very human soulmate, and knows he needs to go and find him no matter what.

~~~

Friends Are The Family We Choose

It’s really nice to know that both of their families watch out for one another no matter who it is. Clark would do anything for any member of Bruce’s family and even know he won’t admit it, Bruce would do the exact same for his.

Or, Kon nearly runs himself down to the ground with worry after Tim gets hospitalised and the Batfam are there to make sure he actually takes care of himself.

~~~

fill in the blanks

“You?” Tim blurts. Holy shit. “You’re Kon?”

A nod. “Are you in any pain?” he asks again.

Kon’s skin is sun-kissed, cheekbones dusted with a fine smattering of freckles; he is, without exaggeration, the prettiest person Tim has ever seen. “No, I’m—great,” he says, fidgeting. “Do you, uh, come here often?”

Kon raises a brow. “To the medbay?” he intones. “Definitely more often than I’d prefer.”

~~~

Say Amen, there he goes again

Tim and Kon get together. That prompts their respective families to tell them how much they love and support them.

Which is quite frankly a terrible development, if you ask Tim.

[elvesandlanterns]

Kon’s Interlude - Ghost Helpline

Warning: depictions of war, meat eating and throwing up

Konstelacio tries to leave the Watchtower as soon as she entered it. She tried. Two hours later she leaves and erases the summoning circle behind her. She hopes they never call her again as she teleports home.

She has enough energy to teleport it’s fine.

She lands on her ass and stares at the pink carpet. Ugh. Everything in her corner of the house was too fucking bright right now.

“Hello!!! I’m back!!!! … Guys? … Dad?”

Throb. throb. throb.

Bile burned its way up her throat.

Was this it ? Did they leave me? Did Uncle Dan tell them how she’d managed to fuck up without even trying?

“Bbblluubbb???”

Oh a blob ghost.

Right a blob ghost, “Hahaah I’m an idiot of course daddy wouldn’t leave me.” They wouldn’t leave me. At least not Dad and that was enough. It had to be enough.

“Bbbllubbb. Bbb. B. Blurrrb.”

“Haha right! Thanks for sending me the message! Tell dad I love him and can’t wait to see him! And Billy if Billy’s back by now make sure to give him a big soggy hug for me okay!”

“Bbblubb!!” The little slimy looking ball swished its head to hers in what was most likely meant to be a love tap but ended up little more that the creature splaying itself entirely onto her forehead. It left, Violet felt lonely.

Lonely and dumb. How could she forget her family was moving into their new house today?

It explained where everyone was, the empty fridge and missing items. Right, Dad needed this move. He needed, well Violet wasn’t sure what he needed exactly but Dandy said he did. And Violet trusted Dandy. She trusted him with this at least. It was enough.

She smelled something rotting in her nose.

It was enough.

It was enough.

It was enough.

She walked back to her room and looked around. Nobody had packed her things. Her throat burned. She’d fill a bag tomorrow and figure it out.

She laid down in her bed in her room of her dads house.

// “This is mine? Really mine? It’s too pretty. What if I break it?”

“It’s yours, it’s okay. If it breaks I’ll buy you a new one baby I am rich remember?”

“This room is mine too?”

“Yes of course.”

“What it I break it to? What if I break it on purpose.”

“I’m giving it to you, no strings attached. If breaking everything in your room makes you happy then do it. I won’t be mad, because it’s yours okay?”

“Are you mine too then, Dad? You’re mine?”

“Yes”

“What if I break you to?”

“I’ll heal.” //

Konstelacio’s breathing slowed, eyes drooping. It was more than she had ever had before. I was more than she deserved. She smiled cuddled up to her mountain of stuffed animals. It was enough.

—- —- —-

Konner, Conner, Kon-El, Superboy, clone, Kon, clone, Konny, clone, clone boy, it.

So yeah Konner got it. Kon (ha!) stelacio had a write to be upset at Constantine for calling her something she didn’t like. She had apparently asked him not to and he had. Apart of Conner hoped Constantine got cursed. That guy was an asshole.

He gets the snapping defeat of her name, the anger. Conner knew anger well. Something about her made his insides twist. Something in her voice screaming, help me help me something is wrong. He shakes his head and decides to tell Black Canary about it at therapy.

It took a lot of time, and a lot of therapy for Conner to feel okay with himself. With his looks, his voice. Being a clone left him with a lot of self doubt about everything. Where did Superman end and Conner start?

Superboy thought back on the bargaining the league had done over the cure for Vampires Fog and couldn’t help but laugh. Well it was nice to know he at least had a soul in which to barter with now.

Conner gave himself a once over in the mirror before floating out the door. Time for a date with Tim.

—- —- —-

// War was surprisingly boring. When not fighting for their lives all war mounted up to was waiting. Waiting for the next battle, waiting for a chance to wash your bloody clothes, waiting for new orders, waiting for food, waiting for resources, waiting, waiting, waiting. War was boring.

General Dan was angry today. They didn’t have food … again. Violet wasn’t allowed to go hunting and Klarion had decided to stay with her. The mix species battalion had decimated the surrounding area for food a week ago.

Klarion was use to emotional hunger, the physical ache in his stomach rendering the talkative sprite speechless.

Billy was use to physical hunger just fine, telling them stories of Faucet cities kind people with a smile but something about the lack of food had begun to make him twitchy.

Violet was use to both kinds of hunger, so it didn’t matter.

“Billy’s back!!! Violet get up! Look he brought food!”

“There you guys are! Here eat up!”

The trio sat down near their tent. It’s natural for demons to eat meet uncooked, Violet had told Billy multiple times. She didn’t want to be a bother. Half the meat was burnt, no bones and definitely no blood.

Violet ate three bowls anyway. The meat was vividly red enough to play off as blood. It was chewy and sweet and charred in a way the stuck to the back of her throat. It smelled weird and familiar. Then again all burning flesh smelled familiar.Pieces of it kept getting stuck in the back of her throat. Meat wasn’t usually sweet like this. It was juicy, the demons mouth watered as she wondered.

How did they get this? She almost couldn’t believe they had found more game in the woods. It was sweet, Violet knew a type of sweet meat. Sweet blood. Were…. Were they eating a vampire?

Klarion finish off one before looking out into the forest and grimacing.

“Billy Billy you need to eat to!!! You’re a human you need to eat.”

“Of course Vi I am don’t worry. It’s delicious! Some of my best cooking yet. Mmm yum it’s great.”

Right they couldn’t be eating a vampire, humans can’t do that. Whatever Klarion was probably couldn’t eat vampires ether.

Klarion followed Billy’s lead “Yumming and oooing” until the little demonling finished off two more bowls.

Billy stood up to wash the bowls. The air shifted allowing the girl to get a good wiff of the blood on humans pants.

“Horse blood? Are the horses okay? What happened?”

The trio had grown close to their steeds, gifts of their political party, riding them gave the kids an illusion of freedom. Combing, feeding and playing with them had helped the days go faster.

Violet got up and began to look - really look around the campsite. “Billy? Billy? Where’s Fireball? You took him with you hunting right were is he?”

A look crossed both of the boys faces, Klarion downed his tea like it was alcohol. Maybe it was.

“General Dan is bringing the horses back in few hours Vi Vi don’t worry about it.”

True to his word, General brought the horses back and Violet understood were all of the bones must have went.

Everything tasted like ash until the war was over.//

Violet woke up puking.

She wanted her dad, her dad was in Gotham.

She teleported.

[ao3feed-brucewayne]

The Day Damian and Jon made a Team not called Teen Titans

by Sehin

Sure their first team-up wasn't one for the ages. Sure Damian is not exactly known for being a people person. Sure Jon Kent is so green to the realm of Superheroes it isn't funny. Sure the timeline just got itself fixed up and a lot of parents are just happy to finally have their offspring back. So why are Robin V and Superboy II looking to form a new team which doesn't involve just kidnapping prospective members who were just de-aged allies of the current Boy Wonder's older brothers?

Come in and find out. Wonder Woman and Robin having a glaring match should be enough to convince you, shouldn't it?

Words: 2498, Chapters: 1/1, Language: English

Series: Part 14 of November 2022 One-Shots

Fandoms: DCU (Comics), Super Sons (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, Superman - All Media Types, Green Lantern - All Media Types, The Flash - All Media Types, Justice League - All Media Types

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences

Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply

Categories: Multi

Characters: Damian Wayne, Jonathan Samuel Kent, Bruce Wayne, Clark Kent, Arthur Curry (DCU), Mera (DCU), Arthur Curry Jr., Iris West, Jai West, Tai Pham, Diana (Wonder Woman), Barry Allen, J'onn J'onzz, Katar Hol, Billy Batson, Mara al Ghul, Kyle Rayner, Jessica Cruz

Relationships: Jonathan Samuel Kent & Damian Wayne, Iris West & Jai West, Arthur Curry/Mera (DCU)

Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, No Dark Crisis, Team Up, Fix-It of Sorts, Really Don't Like the Current Comics, Not Beta Read, Nice Damian Wayne, Cheerful Jon Kent, Alive Arthur Curry Jr, Damian Wayne is Bad at Feelings, but he tries, Mentioned Lian Harper, Next Generation

source https://archiveofourown.org/works/43070937

[kyberphilosopher]

Fensterln

“I can’t get up. You’re sitting on top of me.”

Warning(s): some allusions to sex, explicit-ish language, fluff, reader has a whole ‘Black Cat’ thing going on. Word Count: 3273

Notes: This is a requested work. This is a headcanoned canon version of Superboy, meaning he is no version in particular and simply the character I figure as a whole. Reader can be any gender.

“Fensterln is when you have to climb through someone’s window in order to have sex with them, without their parents knowing about it.”

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

You know, most people think that climbing up the side of a building is easy. Like it’s nothing. They see it on TV, and in the movies, and in cartoons even, and they think, “That doesn’t look so bad!” because it doesn’t. Cartoons and actors don’t have to deal with the wind whipping their hair, constantly pushing their whole body all around, the butterflies of anxiousness making their heart thump, threatening the scenario of falling to their death. It’s terrifying. It takes a lot of skill, a lot of courage, and a lot of luck. 

“Shit.”

Your right hand releases from the glass, arm slowly swinging back until it’s at your side. The same sides foot follows this pattern of rotation, until only your left fingertips and toes are stuck to the wall of the building, suctioning you to life. Below you, hundreds and hundreds of feet, is an island of grass and sand, encompassed by a large body of water. Over the tidal waves chip chopping away, there’s a distance. And in that distance, is the city, just under the inky blackness of the midnight sky. 

Jump City, it’s called. You’re not too familiar with it. Most of your time is spent in Metropolis, or Gotham. Luckily, both of those cities have plenty of skyscrapers to practice scaling. One could say that you’d perfected the art of this sort of thing. The finger pads on your suit are sophisticatedly sticky, seamlessly letting you latch onto anything with grace. Your feet are the same. 

The wind hits your face like sharp needles, amplified by the cold air and the incline. Your hair whips around wildly, also different from how it flows, softly, in the movies. The harsh breeze roars in your ears, louder than the thousands of explosions you’ve heard in your lifetime. Although dangerous, nothing beats the view. Those thousands of lights in the distance, the cars, the buildings, this building that you’re on now. Titan’s Tower is far larger and closer and more important than anything else at the moment. 

“Okay then,” you mutter, twisting your body over to the right twice more, until finally both hands and feet are connecting against the glass in a stealthy, perfect crawling position. 

You work your way up, one foot and hand at the time. You resemble that of a spider, or perhaps a cat. One, two. One, two. 

His room is on one of the top floors, if not the top floor. From the two other times that you’ve done this, you remember the number of steps, the distance, the little cracks in the glass panes to look for so you know you’re close. Even from the outside, hundreds of feet up, hanging above death tantalizingly, you know exactly where you are and where you need to be. And you know, of course, that you are close. 

Your right hand leaves the wall once more and reaches down to the belt on your hips. “Coming, my love,” you mutter as you flip open a small pouch attached. From the inside you pull out a slim switchblade, made specifically to cut through glass walls like this- designed it yourself. 

The knife springs open. In a circle big enough to fit your entire body, you trace the blade in a wide arc from up to down, left to right. Then you flip the blade back inside, place the whole thing back into the pouch on the belt, and shove your left elbow against the middle of the glass in front of you. 

It pops free immediately. The circle of wall falls forward into the room, with you not far behind.

Landing like a gymnast on your toes with your arms overhead, you are immune to the sharp pain in your femurs that comes from a sudden pressure like this. The glass pane is still intact on the floor ahead of you, which is coated with a red carpet that you recognize so well. It’s much warmer inside than it was outside, although you can still feel the night wind from behind you.

“Silent,” a voice remarks from beside you. It’s not an amused tone, really. It’s genuine and full of awe, surrounded by something casual. 

You hum as you stand before throwing a look over your shoulder. Sure enough at your back, splayed casually on a bed against the wall you just broke through, is your favorite boy toy. Dark, curly hair framing his classically handsome face, nose scrunching slightly on instinct. He’s wearing the black and red super shirt he always does, coupled with the plaid pajama bottoms you’d gotten him as a gift in spring.

You want so badly to quip something back, but you both know you can’t right now. Not when you’re so close to the door. And yeah, that’s partially Conner’s fault, if not all. Too much noise would attract the attention of his team mates, the Titans, and then something probably not that great would happen. Maybe they’d throw you out. Maybe they’d fire him. Maybe things would just get weird. It’s not as if you and Connor are an official couple, even after all this time. You could stop sneaking around to see each other at any sense of danger.

You take a step towards the bed he lays on, noting the big, bright smile that lights up Superboy’s face at the motion. “Can you fix the hole?” you whisper, just loud enough for him to hear.

Conner’s eyes go wide and the smile gets bigger.

“In the wall.”

The smile turns into an eye roll. “Yes,” he sighs, almost dramatically, pushing himself up. The boy crosses to the center of the room a few feet from you and begins picking up the perfect circle of cut window- wall while you look around the area.

You’ve snuck into Conner’s room before. Twice, in fact. It’s not clean, not horribly messy. His leather jacket is usually hanging off the dresser or door handle. Sweatshirts of different colors are littering the floor in a collective pile. It looks like a normal teenage boys room, really. It just feels very ‘Conner’.

First, he pushes the glass back into place in the wall, then he takes a few steps back. You throw him a smirk, nudging your head to encourage him to do the thing.

Conner’s eyes heat up. Little at first, as a soft yellow. Then into an all consuming scarlet that hisses out in two beams meeting in the middle between them. They move in a circle around the pane until you can’t even tell it was ever not there, and the wind you once heard no longer exists. The wall is perfectly in tact.

“Thank you, Superboy,” you tell him, tone laced overly sweet. Your hands, freezing from the cold even through the gloves of your costume, wrap around Conner’s upper arm.

“Yeah,” he tosses, back, voice low. His cheeks are turning pink.

You unhook your arms and saunter over to his mattress. As you throw yourself on and relax as you sink into the pillows, you let your eyes close. “You’re lucky I like you so much,” you tease. “Mm, do you know a lot of people who would climb up the Tower for you? I don’t.”

Upon hearing him take a single step forward, one eye pops open. “I know you missed me,” you continue.

Conner lays himself on the bed beside you, hands behind his bed with his arms bent. You turn to face him, propping your head up with your palm.

“You never answer my texts,” Conner says, Adam’s apple bobbing.

“You text me?” you smirk, watching Superboys eyes sink close as he releases a sigh of defeat.

Your left leg slips over Conner’s hips. Then you pull your whole body up and over into a straddle over him, looking down at him. He’s handsome in the way nobody can argue with, so perfect and soft and structured. When you squint, he looks like Superman. But Conner’s not Superman, he’s better. You can’t explain why, or how, but he just is.

You place your palms forward on his chest at first, then backwards, behind your back, on Conner’s thighs. Your chest puffs out at the slight change of position.

Below you, the boy bites his lower lip softly in thought for a second. “What if I got you a phone?” Conner asks you. His light eyes holding yours through thick, dark lashes. “Just so you can text me back sometimes?”

“Us?” you gasp with wide eyes. “Talking? During the daytime?”

Conner glances away. “Message received. Very funny. Forget it.”

“I’m messing with you,” you promise with a smile. “Loosen up Super-Annoy.”

“So you��ll let me get you one?” Conner pushes himself up with a snap, eyes wide with some kind of excitement.

Well… would you? You haven’t had a lot of long term partners, if any. Your time with Conner has been the longest with anyone, and he’s not even really your boyfriend. He’s just… you know… the guy you kissed on a rooftop one night. The guy who once surprised you with a cone of ice cream, again on a night time rooftop, whilst you were sitting on the side of the building to watch the city below. The guy who remembered your birthday, the guy who keeps sending you the many, many texts reminding you that you can watch your favorite show on the TV in the tower. The guy who once lied to get you to ice skate with him.

Something about Conner has been enough to keep you hooked for months and months, always coming back. Sneaking into the Tower, taking more and more trips to Jump City, keeping notes of events throughout your week to tell him about when you see him. 

How silly. Never giving the time of day to any other partner of yours, but for Conner? Conner has gotten at least eight months of it. 

“I’ll think about it,” you roll your eyes. 

“You promise?” Conner urges. 

“Yes. Jeez, I promise. I will think about letting you get me a phone that only you have the number to.”

“Please don’t laugh at me about this.”

“I’m not laughing at you.”

“It feels like it.”

“Connor,” you clasp a hand on his shoulder, pushing back laughter. “Have I ever laughed at you?”

“W- Is that- is that a serious question?” Conner’s eyebrows raise. 

“Get up,” you roll your neck. “I want to change positions.”

The boy below you shifts. For a quick moment, something pokes between your hips from underneath. Your pupils dilate in response, but by the time they finish, the movement has ceased. “Tell me about your day.”

“I want to lay down,” you say as you stretch. “I just scaled up the side of the skyscraper-”

“You love it.”

“-and it was oh, so cold. I’m tired.”

“That’s not your day.”

You just stare at him expectantly, not quite sure what it is you’re waiting for. 

“I can’t get up. You’re sitting on top of me,” Conner concedes. “You chose to be up there.”

“Prove it,” you challenge.

“Yeah, yeah,” the boy below you hisses as if annoyed. “I get it,” he says, but his arms are already snaking around your torso to pull you close and slowly pull you into a new position. 

You lay on your side, back against Conner’s broad chest. His arms stay wrapped around your middle as he curls up against you on instinct, legs quick to tangle with your own. You know he must really be interested in you if he’s not going to mention that your ‘work’ shoes are still on while in bed. 

“You’re an ass,” he mutters into your hair. 

“What was that?”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“Ha,” you chuckle once. “Douche.”

“Please tell me about your day now?” you hear Conner almost plead. “Please?”

One of your hands, your right one, rests on top of Conner’s against your stomach. “Oh, you know. The usual. I helped out a small jewelry store today, snuck into a big building, currently hiding from Nightwing- you know how it is.”

“There wasn’t much crime today. I mostly just stayed in. You know that big building you snuck into?”

“Such a douche,” you breathe.

“Jealous much?” Superboy rumbles against your ear. 

“I’m gonna tell Dick,” you tell him. “I’ll send an anonymous tip that one of the Titan’s is a big poop face.”

Conner puts his whole face in your hair. “Shiver me timbers.”

“Yeah, yeah. It’s not fair you guys get a whole building to yourselves. What are you even using half these floors for? People in Gotham are struggling.” You frown. “Well, except for Wayne. But you know what? He’s a douche too. You’d get along.”

Conner squeezes you once. Then you feel him still from behind you, not even breathing. And then-

“Move in then.”

At once, your brows furrow. “What?”

Your companion squeezes you once more. “Move in. Move in with me. In the Tower.”

Your mouth opens and closes a couple times, eyes looking around. You can’t see Conner, but you can feel him out. His eyes are closed, still inhaling the scent of you shamelessly. It’s hard for people to catch you off guard, not just like this, but at all. You just have that sarcastic, witty, sultry reputation. And for him- Super-Annoy, of all people- to just throw you off so easily?

“I’m not a Titan,” you decide on explaining, almost asking. 

“Become one, then.”

“I don’t have the money to move in. The rent must be crazy.”

“I’ll pay for you.”

“Conner,” you swallow. “This isn’t funny.”

“I’m not joking.” His head pops up. When you turn yours a little, you can look up at him, and he can look down at you. “Move into the Tower.”

Now your eyes are wide, and his are relaxed. No, Conner’s are focused, drilling into your own. “I’m... hardly Titan’s material.”

This was true. You’ve been skirting the gray line far longer than you’ve known Superboy, and he’s been super since the beginning of his creation. The first time you’d met was about ten seconds before you’d robbed a bank and sent him a wink before disappearing. 

“You just told me, not five minutes ago, that you helped a small business. Helping people is what heroes are all about. You can do this, Y/N. You are Titan’s material.”

Shit. He’s right. 

“Why not?” Conner questions. 

“I... um...”

You’ve never lived with another person before. Your family, once upon a time, sure. Not friends. Not Dick Grayson, or Kori, or Rachel fucking Roth. And certainly not Superboy- Super-Annoy. Not someone you have a ‘thing’ with. What would that mean for the two of you? And when things go terribly, terribly wrong, what then?

Gotta’ think fast. 

Your face is wiped clean, replaced by your signature smirk. “Get me a phone first. Then I’ll consider it.”

Conner doesn’t budge though. You wonder if X-Ray vision can see through lies too. “I mean it,” the boy tells you. “I want you here.”

“I have to survive the night in the building with boy prodigy and star flame.”

“Starfire.”

“Whatever. I have to do that first. There’s a reason we sneak me in, you know.”

Your free hand reaches up and cups Conner’s cheek without you telling it to. You ask your brain why, but yet, your palm doesn’t move. It feels over Conner’s cheekbones, encouraging you to look deeper into his somehow soft eyes. Your fingertips can even feel his hair, which is in need of a wash, as they get comfortable. 

“For you,” you finish the sentiment, voice now genuine- also not predicted. “Sneaking in for you.”

“I don’t want you to feel like a secret,” the boy above you whispers, pouring his entire heart into it. 

You answer with a snort. 

If anything, Conner’s the secret. If he had his way, the two of you would probably be on your honeymoon at this moment. Hell, your whole relationship and subsequent marriage would be a honeymoon. You’re the one letting him follow you around. You’re the one never giving him just what he wants. 

But then again, you’re the one who keeps coming back. Conner’s the one that never left. 

“Trust me,” you nod with a humored grin. “I don’t.”

Conner sighs and falls back down to rest behind  you. “Good.”

Besides his breathing, then there is silence. 

Really? Telling you to move in? Of course it doesn’t seem like such a big deal to him. Of course he has the solution to all the reasons why not. Your fairly certain that Conner hasn’t thought about this until mentioning it, but even then, how did he have all the answers so fast? Where would you stay? With him? Sandwiched between Conner and Wally West playing video games for the rest of your life? Dying after Donna Troy catches you accidentally stealing her lunch?

“I wasn’t going to say anything,” Conner begins, “but you should really stay the night.”

In response, you practically burst. “You hate being told what to do!” you say as you squirm in his arms. “Now you’re giving me suggestions?”

Conner sits up again so he can look down at you with a little frown. Luckily, it’s too nice of a view to be really scared of anything he could do. “Shh! You’re gonna get caught, Y/N.” Then Superboy’s eyes widen a little. “If you lived here, you wouldn’t have to be so quiet, either. You could just come through the front door.”

“Oh my God,” you squeeze your eyes closed. “Conner...”

One battle at a time. 

“Fine,” you begrudge. “I’ll stay the night.”

Conner tightens his grip around your form happily in response. “Will you need any help in the morning?”

“No. No, I got it.”

Silence. 

Say it. Say it. Say it. 

“Conner? I, uh...”

Say it. 

“I don’t have any sleeping clothes,” you lie. 

“Sleeping?” you hear the boy behind you whisper. “I didn’t think we were going to be sleeping.”

“Now who’s going to get us in trouble?” you smirk. “Seriously though. I’ve been wearing my suit all day.”

“I can get you out of it.”

“You can’t just see through it?” you question. “Don’t you have X-Ray vision?”

Conner groans. “You’re ruining it.”

You smile. Conner’s the only partner of yours you realize you’re actually happy to be around. “I think you just want us to get caught.”

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

Yayyy. Request finished. Next I have a Reverse Flash request, and then I should be good with the DC requests for now. Other than that I have some Jason Todd things, something for Damian and 2 fics for a character I haven’t written for before but are looking pretty good. I hope this satisfied the prompt that I was given in the request. Let me know anything you want or whatever. 

[britishth0t]

Hyperactive (With slight homicide)

This is my first post on Tumblr (not my first post overall as I have Wattpad, but I'll post my username here when I've added my Klarion one-shots on there unless people want it lmao

You grabbed his interest when you were hanging out with your friends near the old cinema.

He seemed intrigued at first when even Teekl became slightly amused by your hyper personality.

Klarion may or may not have stalked you for a bit because of that

Eventually, Klarion did admit you seemed fun to Teekl, and wanted to get to you know you better in person.

Both of you finally met each other when you were walking around the harbour, taking photos of the sea and the horizon even if you knew you would delete them later.

Teekl thought this would be a great time for Klarion to introduce himself to you.

She half prayed that Klarion wouldn't freak you out, and the other half wanting you to not make Klarion too annoyed.

Somehow, it went really well.... A bit too well, as you two then talked as if you had known each other for years

Lets just say, you're both extremely hyper. I mean, it's Klarion.

You being a hyperactive person and him having chaos magic while also wanting mischief? It's a perfect yet dangerous match.

Teekl rethinks her choice about you two being together, as she now has to deal with two children and not one.

This also means that the Light have to deal with another 'kid' as well, since Klarion will definitely bring you to at least one meeting.

They're a bit cautious about you on first impression, not too sure if you're using Klarion to get information about the Light

But after a while, they see how much you deal with when you're with Klarion, and figure out that no one can put up a façade for that long

Yeah, even the Light know that you're one hyper son-of-a-b*tch

I wouldn't say you're obnoxiously loud, it's just being in a Light meeting no one is really talking except you, so it's dead quiet other than that. Nevertheless, you can be extremely deafening without realising it

Klarion's magical powers gives you a lot more freedom when being with him. Like, a lot more freedom, he's a lord of Chaos, you basically have no limits.

You can now do all the crazy sh*t you've ever wanted to do with Klarion by your side, and he's more than willing to join you in whatever ideas you have

A couple of times Teekl has to warn him that you're still a mortal, so he does lay off a bit from time to time to avoid getting you seriously injured

If you do get hurt, Klarion is gunna freak tf out, trying to play it off cool but failing

All adventures go out the window if you get hurt. And if you try to get up saying "I'm fine", he'll magically trap you in your bed to rest.

Don't test him, he will do it

A lot of things may break, and it's whether or not Klarion will fix it with his powers or not after... Probably not, it's not like either of you really care

If the Young Justice team do meet you, it's because you were in a forest with Klarion, messing around while climbing from branch to branch in the trees while Klarion floated next to you

The two of you were ambushed by the team, as Zatanna had sensed Klarion's power in that area while the team were nearby

They would have saved you, but you're surprisingly very good at climbing trees for any of them to grab hold of you, something that actually made them impressed

Klarion was very unhappy, so unhappy that you had to mention about going back home to hang out there to calm him down

Couple of times you'd wander off too far that Klarion isn't able to find you and would have to teleport you to him in order to know where you are, the only big thing that does get him slightly annoyed.

^ If you can make Klarion take responsibility (other than over Teekl) and act like a parent, my respect goes to you

You two don't have any rules apart from when you're injured, although there is one thing that bugs you both

2 hyper devils + "Calm down"= Death stare with Klarion hexing whoever said that

No one is allowed to tell you guys to calm down

Klarion x homicidal hyper reader ⚠️Mentions death⚠️

You met each other like the first one, except that you seemed more wanting to go into danger and edge your friends into doing bad things than actually have fun

This time, Klarion was intrigued before Teekl

He noticed your cold yet intense gaze on everyone that was near you

Something about you was odd. Klarion knew that but he didn't know what was making you seem so odd

It's not until you become best friends that he finally realises your love for murder

While you got along with Klarion before him knowing this, wow he's ecstatic that he finally knows what seemed off with you

He tempts you into murder as well, seeing that you showed to be very refrained from not doing anything about your homicidal thoughts

Catches on very quickly how manipulative you can be with your friends, friends that Klarion now wants to be your first kills

Unsurprisingly, it doesn't take that much convincing from Klarion to make you agree to killing your soon-to-be-dead mates

He helps of course, trapping them all and giving you all sorts of weapons to use on them

It's like a holiday for both of you

You even asked Klarion at one point to make their screams quieter since they were annoying you

And after you had finishing butchering your friends, Klarion realised that he like-liked you and confessed right there

Yep, Klarion did just admit to liking you while standing in the middle of dead bodies scattered around at your feet

Soon after that, you both start doing more destruction together

Limits? F*ck no

Hell, if you asked for half of the moon to be destroyed, Klarion would snap his fingers and bam, moon gone.

One time you asked Klarion to give you powers like superman, just so you could fly and mess around in the city

It started off as just throwing cars as far as you could, not exactly caring if people were inside or not

Which then turned into full blown 'lemme jump/crash into one sky scrapper to another', looking like a monkey swinging from vines in a jungle

While the heroes didn't enjoy your hyper and destructive personality nor Klarion, the news loved you. The amount of reports you and Klarion got in the news just boosted both of your ego's

"Double trouble strikes again!" "Witch boy causes havoc with anonymous villain" "League fail to stop villains, have they met their match?" "Criminals cause devastating downfall on the city" "61 lives lost in under an hour" You felt prideful in the last one, a new record in your books

If you two ever go out to have dates, it'll 100% always end with something, mostly a building, being completely destroyed

Whenever the 'kiddie' team as Klarion calls them, or the Justice League come; they're always too late to stop you two

Even if Batman claims they were so close to stopping you, he's wrong. The heroes don't even manage to get you two to notice them arriving, already going off to have some fun somewhere else

You've mentioned about wanting to kill at least one of the heroes out of spite and because you felt like it on multiple occasions

Klarion would love to snap his fingers to have every hero there for you to choose from, yet he couldn't do that because of Vandal wanting some of them alive. Especially Lex with Superboy.

You get along nicely with the Light, as they trust you enough to know that you can calm Klarion down and that you're classed as a criminal

Occasionally, you have unnerved them with the gory deaths about some of your kills, Klarion kissing your cheek out of pure happiness from hearing the defined details

Teekl doesn't really care about it as long as you get the blood off her fur if you get any on her later.

A lot of lives are lost when you two are together... Which is all the time

(Secretly, the young justice team have envied how much freedom you get when with Klarion-> This is after they have to tidy up the mess you two make)

Sorry if this isn't very good, literally made this and posted it the same day. I've loved Klarion's character for quite a long time now and saw that, although the fanfics are good, there isn't a lot of them. I'm down for requests, but right now I don't think I can do many. You can send me stuff and I'll write it down, just don't be upset if I don't post it in the next week or two. If this isn't up to your standards then srry aha, I realise I don't add much fluff and focus more on the storyline, but there's always room for improvement tho✌️

[ectonurites]

idk how to quote tags on mobile where is the conner kent essay i NEED it

ALRIGHT OKAY! here’s 5k+ words plus panels & screenshots of me comparing and contrasting the two drastically different versions of Superboy (comics vs young justice cartoon) and going over what makes them such distinctly separate characters. someday i’ll refine this a bit more its kinda just a word dump that’s been living in my brain that i wanted to actually articulate after i read through Reign of the Supermen but here we go:

--

Pretty frequently I see the question “Why is Superboy so different in the Young Justice cartoon?” float around in DC circles. I think there are two main approaches to answering this:

Why did the writers of the cartoon decide to create a very different version of Superboy?

What factors make this Superboy so different from the comic version?

For the first approach the answer is relatively straight-forward, from the start Young Justice as a cartoon was never meant to be a direct adaptation of the comics. They just used the title and a few elements so they could create their own approach to the DC universe with a focus on younger heroes. For example, Artemis Crock in their show is also COMPLETELY different from her comic counterpart, Zatanna is aged way down to be a member of the teen team, and Kaldur’ahm was created for this show (and integrated into the comics as Jackson Hyde). They were always trying to do different things than the main comics universe, so them making a different version of Conner also makes sense. Their approach to him is also very clearly influenced more by how he appeared in the Teen Titans comic run that was still coming out as Young Justice started airing (his design, and some other elements we’ll discuss along the way), as opposed to his original version from the 90′s/the Young Justice comic.

So the basic “why” is that from the start they wanted to create something unique to their universe, which they definitely did accomplish.

The much more interesting subject to dive into, though, is looking at the differences in Superboy’s story that contribute to him becoming such a different person. 

The drastic changes made to the following factors are what I view as the main source of his differences in personality/outlook/characterization:

The conditions and history of the world at the time he is introduced

The circumstances around him being introduced/leaving Cadmus

The reaction Clark has to him and how their relationship starts

The people he first interacted with & became close to, and how he interacts with the world

The timing of him finding out about his connection to Luthor

The State of the Worlds

In the comics, Superboy is first introduced in Adventures of Superman #500 by iconically saying “Don’t ever call me Superboy!” 

during a 1993 event called “Reign of the Supermen”, a follow up to the 1992 event “The Death of Superman”. Based on the title of the 1992 event, I think you can, uh, guess what one major difference in the setting here was vs. the state of the world at the time he was introduced in the cartoon. Obviously Clark didn’t stay dead forever, but Superboy first comes onto the scene as a young clone of Superman who insists he is the new Superman (one of the four characters trying to do so during the event). This is in the main DC universe in the early 90’s, which means that heroes in general, including teen heroes, aren’t a new thing! Not only has the Justice League been around for a while but so has the Teen Titans. Once Clark is alive again, Superboy goes off on his own to establish himself as an individual teen hero. 

So how is that different in the cartoon?

In the cartoon, Superboy is first introduced in the pilot episodes “Independence Day” and “Fireworks” 

on the 4th of July in (what most people consider to be) 2010. This was supposed to be the day that Robin (Dick Grayson), Speedy (Roy Harper), Kid Flash (Wally West), and Aqualad (Kaldur’ahm) would get to see the true Justice League HQ at the Hall of Justice, which... doesn’t go exactly as planned. 

In this world, superheroes are a newer thing, this is something that the creators have talked about before. At this point, while there is an established Justice League, there are no known teams of teen superheroes. Just the fact that as of season one Dick Grayson is still Robin is a pretty good indicator that this world is early in it’s time with a Batman. Now, the sidekicks aren’t a secret, as they appear very publicly in this first episode, but they are almost always seen acting with their mentors at this point. Again, there is no Teen Titans in this setting, and there never has been. 

So when they do form the first teen hero team? It is kept covert-ops. They do not publicize that they act as a superhero team, and the members who weren’t already publicly known heroes (mainly Miss Martian and Superboy) end up being pretty… unknown to a lot of the world outside the hero/villain community! Again their existence is not strictly kept a secret, but they keep the fact that there’s a team of minors who are heroes going on independent missions VERY under the radar on purpose. Thus, those who aren’t going around doing super public hero activities just don’t have nearly as much of a presence.

So to summarize:

In the comics, Superboy is immediately put in a spotlight (he befriends a reporter and is all over tv and literally trademarks the name Superman) becoming known to the world and establishes himself as a solo acting hero YEARS before joining any teams.

In the cartoon, Superboy is kept relatively out of the spotlight, immediately becomes part of a covert-ops team and doesn’t act solo very often. The well known teen heroes in this setting are sidekicks working under a mentor, and Superboy does not actually act as a sidekick.

What does this mean for Superboy?

Superboy in the comics gets to, right away, act on his own and get a taste of what being Superman is like. In the cartoon, he’s brought into the world at a time where there already is a Superman. I think back to this bit from the therapy episode, where he says:

“See, from the moment I first opened my eyes in that Cadmus pod, there’s been one thing I’ve wanted, and feared. To know what it is to be Superman.”

Comics Superboy started out getting to do that! He immediately got a shot at filling that role, and he then makes the choice to relinquish it back to the original once he’s alive again. He (begrudgingly at first) understood that it wasn’t yet his time to be Superman, and knows he’ll someday fill those shoes for real- but in the meantime being Superboy is gonna be his own thing and he’ll embrace it and make it work.

Cartoon Superboy is left in a shadow, not ever truly knowing what it’s like to fill those shoes (except in a doomsday scenario training exercise gone awry that he then just feels intense guilt over). This leaves him a lot more frustrated and lost, and I think is a major contributor to how angry this version of Superboy is compared to his much more ‘chill go with the flow’ attitude in the comics.

Cadmus

In the comics, in that same issue he’s introduced, we find out that Superboy broke out of his cloning tube prematurely and left Cadmus with the assistance of the second Newsboy Legion, who also gave him his first leather jacket, before the programming that would allow Cadmus to control him was implemented.

He quickly gets up to speed with the situation, that Clark is dead. So he comes on the scene starting to save people and saying he is Superman, or at least the clone of the original one. A major thing that does influence his character here is the fact that… this is the 90’s. He is designed around the idea of what is ‘cool’ back in 1993. (look, even his original character design sheets call him cool)

So right off the bat he’s got a stereotypical ‘cool teen guy in that era’ personality, which is often played for comedy to add a little lightness to some of the dark things happening during this event. 

Anyways, he has left Cadmus, he’s acting on his own, and he starts realizing that his powers aren’t exactly the same as Superman’s over the course of the Reign of the Supermen story.

After the main conflict is settled and Clark is fully alive and acting as Superman again, the two of them end up going back to Cadmus to find out what the exact deal is with him. I’ll go into this more in a later point, but they find out he’s not exactly a clone of Superman (or Lex- him being actually involved as a DNA donor is a retcon that happened a decade later). They agree to let someone from Cadmus (Dubbilex- the grey guy with the horns in this pic) leave Metropolis with him, as he sets out on a press tour to establish himself as Superboy now that he relinquished the trademark on the Superman name back to Clark. 

Let’s pause and look at how this is different in the cartoon.

In the cartoon, when the trio of Robin, Kid Flash, and Aqualad decide to prove themselves to their mentors they run off on their own to attend to a fire at Project Cadmus when the Justice League got called off to do something else. Upon arriving, they accidentally uncover some weird things about Cadmus, like the crazy amount of sublevels, the creatures roaming around, and the fact that it’s not on the main power grids. They eventually find Superboy, still in his cloning tube. They break him out, but then get captured themselves.

When they are then put into tubes by Cadmus personnel, they manage to convince Superboy to help free them by promising him things like getting to meet Superman, and see the moon. The group of four now working together manages to escape from the building and it topples down, where they are then greeted by the Justice League who are Not Happy.

Superman flies away shortly after, and the group of kids explain to their remaining mentors that sure, they disobeyed orders, but they accomplished something good here, and they are going to keep doing it, whether the League likes it or not. The compromise is the formation of The Team, to be covert-ops while the Justice League acts publicly, and the boys are joined by Miss Martian.

So to summarize:

In the comics, Superboy leaves Cadmus pretty independently (with some assistance) to go act on his own as a hero immediately. He returns to Cadmus later for more information, and they reveal truths to him about his existence. After he knows his truth, he goes off to continue establishing himself as a solo hero but lets Cadmus still supervise what he’s doing through Dubbilex.

In the cartoon, Superboy is rescued from Cadmus by Robin, Kid Flash, and Aqualad, without knowing pretty much anything about himself besides the fact that he is a clone of Superman, and is immediately put on the covert ops team. 

What it means for Superboy:

Comic Superboy goes to act on his own, even after he admits he’s not the real Superman anymore. Yes he’s not 100% alone in terms of ‘he’s got people (Rex, Roxy, Dubbilex, Tana) around him’, but as a hero he’s a solo act and ends up taking residence in Hawaii. In the cartoon, by joining a team right away, he’s taking on a very different style of being a hero, especially because the team itself is covert-ops. Rather than regularly saving the day all on his own much like Superman, which can help comic Superboy feel like he’s still living up to the name more, cartoon Superboy is working under the radar in a group setting, while still wanting to desperately fill those Superman shoes. 

He is overconfident in his abilities and wants to be the hero he was created to be, so him being put into this very different type of superhero situation is another major contributor to the frustration/anger. Even later on when comics Superboy is part of forming the Young Justice team, they were never a secret covert-ops team, they were always publicly known. (hell, a reporter is the one who gave them the team name Young Justice because he’d misheard Bart)

Superboy & Superman

In the comics, as we have established, Clark was dead at the time Superboy first came on the hero scene. Clark comes back to life, during a little bit of a lull in the middle of the huge conflict. He immediately accepts that Superboy is one of four who came forward to try to replace him, and one of the only two (Superboy & Steel) who genuinely only had good intentions in doing so. Clark, Steel, Supergirl, Hal Jordan, and Superboy then all work together in the big battle against the Cyborg Superman.

Once things are settled, Clark is curious about him, and where he came from and his origin, so they end up going to Cadmus together with Guardian and learning more about him, as I previously mentioned. Once it is established that Superboy is in fact a metahuman clone who was created to mimic Superman, but is not actually a clone of him, Superman still accepts him and thinks he’s earned his right to continue using the ’S’ shield and have the name of Superboy. 

They part ways so Superboy can go on his press tour, but in general they have pretty positive interactions where they mutually respect each other! Not too much later in the comics even (I forget exaaactly when this happens but it’s definitely before the 1998 Young justice comic), Superman is the first one to give Superboy a real name, “Kon-El”, something he is so happy about he literally cries.

How is this different in the cartoon? 

When the boys first escaped, and Superboy first meets the Justice League, Clark is standoffish. Other members of the league need to nudge him over to go actually talk to Superboy, and it’s not much of a conversation before he flies off and away, leaving Superboy frustrated and alone.

This… turns into the standard for almost the entire first season. Other characters constantly telling Clark that he needs to reach out and be support for the boy (like in this iconic diner scene with Bruce and Clark), but Clark consistently being too freaked out by the fact that someone made a clone of him without his knowledge to properly accept Conner. While this does over time get better, this being the immediate reaction when Superboy is brand new in the world definitely… has an impact! 

He is rejected by the person he idolizes, and feels neglected and abandoned, and definitely kinda overcompensates with ego to try to make up for it. 

So:

In the comics, Superman and Superboy work together from the start, not falling into a hero/sidekick situation but rather acknowledging each other as individual heroes with respect for one another. They grow to see each other as family much faster, and little tension between them. A crucial difference in situations, though, is that at the time these versions first meet Superboy is not actually a clone of Superman.

In the cartoon, Superman at first avoids Superboy, and does not offer guidance or mentorship or anything the boy needs. It is clear that he wants to work with Superman and be like him, since it was what he was created to do. It takes a lot of time for Clark to accept Conner in this setting, and there is a lot of tension for the first several months Conner exists. (they seem to settle this towards the end of season 1/during the gap between season 2, but it still has it’s impact on who Conner is early in his life)

What does this mean?

I feel like this is another major factor that contributes to Conner being so angry all the time in the cartoon, he feels immediately rejected by the person he’s supposed to be someday, rather than accepted by him. Again, very different from how comics Superboy got a chance to be Superman, and a chance to then work with the real deal as equals. 

Friendships, Relationships and Identity

When Superboy is freed by the second Newsboy Legion, it’s primarily out of a ‘we’re clones who are stuck here, but you need to be out there, you’re what Metropolis needs right now!’ kind of idea. The first person he actually becomes close to is a reporter named Tana Moon.

Tana and Superboy’s relationship is… bad once it actually becomes romantic due to their huge age difference (she’s around 23, he is for all intents and purposes 16), but during the Reign of the Supermen where they’re still just friends for the most part, it’s not as bad. Tana becomes the GBS correspondent who focuses on everything Superboy (at this time still insisting he is the new Superman) is doing as a hero, and they become close friends.

GBS then also brings in Rex Leech (and his daughter Roxy) to be his agent, to promote Superboy and manage things for him. Rex is exploitative as hell, but Roxy does become another really important person to Superboy. These characters along with Dubbilex are his main supporting cast at the start of his solo comic when he’s in Hawaii.

In this whole era, Superboy is pretty much a celebrity. He’s cool, he’s a superhero, and I think it’s very notable he does not have a secret Identity. For a decent chunk of time, he is always just ‘Superboy’ (until, as I mentioned earlier, Clark gives him the name Kon-El. Even so, he doesn’t adopt a regular secret identity [Conner Kent, although he actually used a different one, Carl Grummett, before that!] until he begins living with the Kents in the early 2000s). By the time he joins any teams, Kon is pretty damn confident in who he is as a hero and has a relatively good grasp on who he is in general, if anything he’s a little too confident.

Young Justice was created in the aftermath of World Without Grown Ups when the trio of Superboy, Robin (Tim Drake) and Impulse (Bart Allen) had teamed up. After they saved the day they realized they worked well together and formed their team, utilizing the old Justice League base in Mount Justice. They were eventually joined by more members, especially relevant here is Wonder Girl (Cassie Sandsmark) who Kon later dates for a portion of the Teen Titans run that these four are in after Young Justice ends. 

The four of them become close, and when Kon dies during Infinite Crisis it rips a hole in everything they had established growing up together over the past several years (Cassie joins a cult dedicated to bringing him back, Tim tries to clone a new Kon, Bart got aged up and took on the mantle of the Flash, etc) and Bart’s death that followed similarly shook the remaining Cassie and Tim. This group eventually does get to reunite, with Kon and Bart coming back during Final Crisis, solidifying how even things like death don’t keep them apart for long. It’s hard to look at the comic book versions of these four characters and imagine how they would be without their connections to each other... until you look at the YJ cartoon and see a world where they’re not even all part of the same generation, let alone a friend group.

Now in the cartoon…

The first people Conner primarily interacts with are Dick, Wally, Kaldur, and M’gann, along with the League members who interact with The Team pretty regularly, Red Tornado, Batman, and Black Canary. He’s shown to be friends with the other memebers of the team and get along with them relatively well, but in general he’s not much of a social person. 

Much like in the comics, Superboy is considered very attractive, and immediately upon their meeting, M’gann is interested in him. Very, very interested in him.

At first it definitely does seem more just like an innocent crush, but it’s later revealed to be a little more… concerning than that. As in ‘Megan subtlety influencing Superboy to become her dream boyfriend based on a TV show she likes’ concerning. Like… she literally gives him the name ‘Conner’ after the TV show character that was the boyfriend of the character she bases her human self and entire identity on. The two date and once that becomes a thing, a lot of their plot lines in the following seasons revolve around the ups and downs of their relationship.

In general in this show, Superboy doesn’t really get much of a chance to establish himself on his own terms. Within months of him leaving his cloning pod, he and M’gann start going to high school with secret identities, so he’s already having to hide who he truly is to blend in with other people, before he even knows who he truly is. 

So to compare:

In the comics, Superboy gets to figure out who he is as Superman’s Clone/Superboy very publicly, has multiple love interests and a celebrity status, and over time becomes part of a tight-knit group of friends. He doesn’t use a regular secret identity for the first several years he’s active.

In the cartoon, Superboy has one love interest with a very large impact on him, not nearly as much focus is given to his other friendships, and he immediately adopts a secret identity meaning he needs to hide who he is from the start. 

What it means:

These factors play a big difference in his attitude, particularly highlighting how extroverted his comic version is and how introverted his cartoon version is. Comic Superboy never really needed to hide who he was until years into his career, vs being told to do so early on in his life. When you get used to needing to hide things so early, that can definitely lead to being more private/disconnected from others. Also somewhat related- in the comics, when Kon is given knowledge in his cloning tube, more pop culture got included. He mentions knowing Star Wars without having seen it, and references a ton of TV and Movies, vs the cartoon version of him that seems to have been given a lot of history of the world but not the current fun stuff. It’s the difference between knowing what’s going on in the world and what’s popular, vs only knowing the past and what’s fundamental. Not knowing pop culture like this can also really contribute to feeling alienated and lead to introversion. (I just... I think about how in the comics Kon’s favorite TV show is Wendy The Werewolf Stalker, in the cartoon Conner just... watches white noise static)

Also, having a completely different set of friends with different personalities has a big effect, people are always gonna be influenced by the people they’re close to to some extent. Bumping Conner up to Dick’s generation of heroes instead of Tim’s not only gives him completely different friends, but it also puts him in this position of being one of the ‘Original Team Members’. By this I mean, a member of the first iteration of the only teen team, one of the people that younger heroes coming onto the scene and joining the team in later seasons see as an experienced and older team member to look up to (despite the fact that cartoon Conner is permanently 16- they never fixed that for him like in the comics). That just creates a different dynamic entirely, because in the comics even when the Tim/Kon/Cassie/Bart group are more experienced on their team late in the Teen Titans run, they are still always going to have heroes like Dick Grayson, Donna Troy, Wally West etc as the older generation of ‘original teen heroes’ who came before them.

Also, while I am talking mostly about in-universe reasoning here, I do wanna bring up one slightly more meta reason that might also have contributed to them choosing to go for a more ‘introverted brooding hero’ characterization with him: the fact that their version of Wally already filled the ‘flirty jokey’ archetype original Comics Kon fits into. Having two characters like that in the show from the start would definitely get... overwhelming. And at the time this show was first airing, in the comics, he was relatively devoted to Cassie and not nearly as flirty anymore anyways.

Lex Luthor / Details of Cloning

In the comics, as I have already mentioned and will now actually explain, when Superboy was first introduced he was not the clone of Superman and Lex Luthor as we know him to be today. Kon was a metahuman clone, made with the DNA of Paul Westfield who worked at Cadmus, that they genetically altered to look like Superman, and gave powers based on the energy aura they discovered to exist around Clark’s dead body. This telekinetic field gave Kon the distinct powers he had for his first decade of existence: His Tactile Telekinesis (often referred to by him as TTK)

Lex Luthor was originally not directly involved in his creation, but he was aware that it was going on as is revealed during the Reign of the Supermen arc. Kon’s TTK allowed him to mimic Superman’s flight and strength, but not all of his powers. TTK also gave him powers Superman DOESN’T have, such as his ability to dismantle machinery or mold materials he is touching into different shapes. (The reason this is called Tactile Telekinesis is because there needs to be a tactile element, he needs to be touching the things) 

It is not until 2003, a decade after Superboy was created, that writer Geoff Johns in his Teen Titans run decided to alter Superboy’s origin. He established that Lex Luthor had been the real human DNA donor and that Superman’s Kryptonian DNA was actually used in the cloning process. Around this time, Conner also begins to exhibit more of the typical Kryptonian powers, like Clark did around this age. 

This information is at first only known by Conner and Tim, because the email had actually been sent to Tim directly. The two keep it a secret as Conner was not ready to tell the rest of the team, because he fears the implications it has, and is afraid of becoming evil or being rejected. This revelation about Lex being one of his ‘parents’ DNA-wise coming years into his hero career changes a lot of things for Conner, and makes him begin to question who he is. Unfortunately, Lex does at one point take control of Conner and force him to break Tim’s arm and attack Cassie directly (as well as the rest of the team, but these two specifically are what Conner expresses the most guilt over after the fact). This era of Conner in the comics is where he’s definitely closest to his cartoon counterpart, because he’s very troubled and dealing with a lot of heavy stuff regarding himself as a person. Yet there’s still traces of who he has always been in there. I mean, if you’re only familiar with cartoon Conner, can you really imagine his final words as he’s dying after saving the world being “Isn’t it cool?”

Now, looking at the cartoon…

Conner finds out about his connection to Lex in November, only a few months after having existed outside of a cloning tube. He finds it out on his own, from Lex speaking to him directly, after Conner went back to investigate the remains of Cadmus and ended up having a fight with Match (another clone who is able to pass for Conner’s duplicate who they… their version of Match is another thing they drastically changed from the comic version but as we’ve established that’s something they like to do so I’m not gonna dwell on it).

In the cartoon, Conner’s powerset is, from the start, different from both Superman and comic Superboy. Here he has heightened senses and strength and the ability to leap really far, but he lacks actual flight and some of the other standard Kryptonian powers, and has no TTK. The cartoon explains these gaps in his powers as being due to his half human DNA, and they introduce these patches that are able to suppress his human DNA and give him temporary access to full powers. Lex uses these patches as a way to manipulate him. Much like in the comics, Lex has a code word programmed into Conner that effects him, although it isn’t quite used for the same amount of ‘total mind control’, and he doesn’t get fully brainwashed and turn against the team or anything. Instead, the code word (here “Red Sun” rather than “Aut vincere, aut mori” [Translated as “to conquer or die" / "victory or death”]) just leaves him stuck in a hypnotic trance.

So:

In the comics, Kon finds out after years of believing he was a metahuman clone who was given powers to mimic Superman, that he is actually a clone of Lex Luthor and Superman, which alters his entire perspective on himself! This causes him to become a lot more unsure and anxious about who he is, in stark contrast with how confident he was before. There are still traces of his old self within him, but this is a development in his character that influences him moving forward, making him a bit more serious but still at his core the same person he used to be.

In the cartoon, Conner finds out after months of thinking he was a clone of just Superman, that he has half human DNA and the donor was Lex Luthor. While he always had confidence in his abilities, he was still somewhat lost as a person in knowing who he really was outside of things other people have assigned to him (teammate, boyfriend, superhero, etc), and finding out this information about himself just adds to the uncertainty and frustration.

What it means:

Having this struggle be something Conner has to deal with so early in his existence is one of the most fundamental changes in my opinion. Finding out that Lex Luthor is one of your clone parents is something that will alter your entire perception of yourself and who you are! In the comics, Conner had already been confident in who he was so it shakes his world in a really big way, but in the cartoon he still didn’t know who he really was so it just adds to further confusion. 

I think that even with the more serious characterization Kon starts getting in the 2003 Teen TItans run, his history and past as the fun cool 90′s Metropolis Kid isn’t entirely forgotten, it’s still a part of who he is/was. Sure, maybe he’s sometimes even embarrassed by how he used to be, but it’s not treated as though it didn’t happen. All of his history comes together to create the character and who he is by the time he wears just a T shirt as a costume.

By skipping over the fun era of his life and jumping right into who he was when he started facing these huge changes, it creates such a completely different set of challenges for him and that contributes directly to how he’s characterized. 

Putting it all together

The ultimate point I am trying to reach in all of this is that, beyond just ‘they made a writing choice to make him different’ the environment that Superboy was brought into and the events that took place right when he came into the world greatly influenced the type of character he would become. Every time an adaptation is made of something like comics, there are going to be changes and alterations to fit the world the creators want to make. Sometimes these changes are minor and don’t actually change who a character is (an example for the YJ cartoon’s universe itself: In the tie-in comics [issue 6] it’s established in this universe that the Flying Graysons weren’t just Dick and his parents, but other family members were active parts of it too. One was an uncle also named Richard, who actually survived the fall that killed the rest of his family but was left paralyzed and thus unable to care for him. This uncle already used the nickname ‘Rick’ which is likely why Dick ended up using ‘Dick’ as a name in a modern setting even though it has fallen out of popularity as a nickname because uh, connotations. This is something that is mostly unique to their world and helps to explain some things, but it’s not like tragically losing a few more family members changed their version of Dick and his backstory that drastically. At his core, he still has many similarities to his comic self) but they’re still changes, and that’s okay. Superboy, though, is such an extreme case where they made so many changes that at his core he really does become a completely separate character. Sure he has the name and design, but I was able to write five thousand words about differences here and am struggling to come up with more similarities beyond that.

I think there still could be specks of the original Superboy buried inside cartoon Conner, and that maybe he could have been more like his original version under other circumstances. Looking at these differences and where they come from is, I think, a cool way to begin to understand what elements contribute to who each version of Conner Kent really is. I think it’s clear from how I wrote this that I prefer the comic version, but there are definitely things that are fun to look at and think about with both.

--

if u read all of this UH thanks for listenin to me ramble! sorry if this is incomprehensibe!

[liquid-luck-00]

Lantern!Marinette 2

Ao3 *** Part 1 *** Here *** Part 3

~~~~~~~~~~

Okay so I didn't touch Mari's parents before so here it is.

Simple explanation the magic that flows from Adana erased Mari's existence because she was so young. However those that loved her, that she loved, or who were impactful our Mari's life will remember her as a dream or imaginary friend respectively. If or when they meet her again it would be 'I know you from some where, but I don't know from where.'

In all intense and purposes Mari is a ghost.

So with that said here we go.

---

So here she was starting middle school in Coast City. It was actually not half bad. same there was nothing about the intergalactic wars, the policies that set the Green Lanterns as the Galactic Police force or any history she learned from the Blues. This actually made her dangerously behind in Earth history, but Marinette was always a quick study. Her English, math, science, and art were amazing and her physical capabilities made her a star athlete. Only downside was making friends, like seriously everyone stayed in groups of two. Add to the fact she knew little of Earth culture and customs, made it hard to interact with others outside of class work. All in all she was shy.

Whenever a villain would attack and she was able to assist she would, but she made sure she was not seen and only boosted her dad's powers while healing injuries before they could be noticed. This only lasted about a little over a year.

She knew better than to call dad when she knew that he was in a meeting with the JLA, but it was kinda hard to ignore the yellow blur running through the city causing havoc.

"What's wrong?" He answered on the second call, murmurs were heard in the background.

"There's a speedster in yellow tearing up and down the city." she responded simply.

"Can you see..."

"Crap!" was shouted on the other end "Got to go. Reverse got out." Someone yelled but she didn't recognize the voice.

"I'll go with you," dad sighed. "He is in Coast." was the last thing she heard before dad ended the call. She took that to mean she should transform and help minimize the damage and keep an eye out.

Not even 10 minutes later she saw a red blur followed by her dad's green one. (They were held up by a nosy Bat who couldn’t help himself because someone cough*Superman*cough decided to eavesdrop on the call.) She updated him, and he repeated it, to who she now recognizes as the Flash, and they got to work.

It didn't take them long to defeat the Reverse Flash, but here is where they ran into a problem. Coast was equipped to deal with most metas but speedsters that got their power from the speed force were different, and by that they meant difficult.

"I have an idea." She piped up through to her dad’s comms.

"Come on over and share with the group." She landed not even a minute later spooking the Flash. "What's the idea."

"Am I not supposed to ask who this is?" Was asked by Flash, but he was completely ignored.

"So you know how the speed force allows speedsters to vibrate which allows them to pass trough matter, which is why transporting and containing speedsters are so difficult." She began to explain.

"Um..." Dad seemed completely lost. This was something she learned with the Blues in order to understand for when she would eventually come back to Earth.

"How do you..?" Flash seemed to look at her as if she just grew a second head and was suddenly very dangerous.

"Well if we create a double construct that infuses both frequencies of the spectrum" Marinette continued.

"It'll stop him from escaping since it would be two simultaneous frequencies working in tandem occupying the same space and speedsters can only vibrate at one at a given time." Flash caught onto her idea.

"Exactly!" she beamed.

"Alright let's try." Dad agreed once he fully understood.

They tested a small square and tightly wove several strands of energy until a swatch was big enough and tightly worn enough was created. They continued to expand it until Reverse Flash was in a bubble, which they proceeded to fly to Star City. After dropping off Reverse Flash, the actual Flash practically dragged the two lanterns to his home.

"Okay Jordan spill." Flash was now in civilian clothes, dad crossed his arms and huffed dropping his transformation and she followed suit, slightly hiding behind him.

"Hey Barry dinners just about ready." A woman came out of the other room. "Hey Hal want to join us?" she asked smiling and then spotted her. "Who's this?"

"Dinner would be lovely Iris," Dad replied smiling. "And this is Marinette," he pushed her forward and she gave a light wave and smile.

"Hello," was barely audible.

The woman, Iris, turned to Flash, Barry, "Dad and Wally should be here soon." As the words left her mouth the door opened and revealed a man and a teenager.

"Heya Auntie Iris, Uncle Barry, what's up Hal,” and he froze seeing her, "Um... Hi."

He was a blur until that, so speedster.

"Wally why don't you and Marinette get the table set." Iris suggested breaking the awkward silence between the two teens.

Wally led her to the kitchen, "I'll get the plates, can you do the table?"

"Sure." she answered and used the constructs of the ring to expand the table and bring over two more chairs.

"What?!" the plates began to fall from his hands, so she reacted since he didn’t seem to, catching them in another construct moving them over to the table. "Your a blue lantern!"

"Yeah, and you're a speedster." she shot him a smile. After that dinner was significantly less awkward, seeing as everyone knew or was a hero, and was filled with questions and lots of laughter, mainly getting to know her.

"In all seriousness you might want to keep her away from the Bat." Barry joked.

"Bats isn't getting Bluebell. Hell if today hadn't happened you wouldn't have known about her." Dad grumbled.

"Why should I stay away from a bat, I thought they were harmless to humans, or are you talking about a bat used for sports?" She was genuinely confused.

"Bats is a nickname for Batman a vigilante from Gotham. He a few years ago took in a ward." A soft ‘Oh’ was heard from her, but Barry continued "So, when are you going to introduce her to the rest of the League."

"I won’t if I can help it."

"But we knew this would happen sooner or later." she piped in.

"Yes but you've only been on Earth a year."

"You kept her from us for a year. Good job Jordan." Barry complimented.

"Year and a half actually, but better now than during something cataclysmic." she rationalized.

"That's true." Dad paused a moment before exclaiming, "I see what your doing little lady." A mock scowl on his face.

---

That was her first friendship she made. Wally would randomly come over for the week end. She found out about a month later that it was whenever he needed a breather from his teammates.

That in turn meant that she would know quite well the inner workings of the team as he knew she could keep it a secret. When in private he would use (in the beginning at least) Robin, Artemis, Aqualad, Superboy, and Miss Martian otherwise he he ended up using pokemon names to describe them while in public. He had taken it upon himself to help her understand Earth culture and that mainly revolved around playing a lot of video games,watching movies or tv, or going out to various locations. Riolu, Chikorita, Croconaw, Machamp, Ditto and of late, a new teammate called Zatanna, nicknamed Kirlia. In all honesty she heard the nicknames so often that that was how she knew his teammates. It got to the point that he would call her Togetic, so in retaliation she calls him Pikachu.

Part 3

~~~~~~~~~~

Permanent Taglist: @itsmeevie01 @miraculouspenta

Taglist: @anjuschiffer @michaelshadow7779 @maskedpainter @corporeal-terrestrial @slytherinhquinn

[suzukiblu]

NaNoWriMo day three; obligatory sugar daddy Tim/sugar baby Kon AU.

Still, Kon's been taking care of himself this long, Tim guesses, so maybe . . .

No. No, this is definitely fucked-up and a terrible idea.

But he has no idea what he should do about it. What he even could do about it.

Kon finishes a whole order of cinnamon bread and is eyeing the next one before they even get back to base. Tim doesn't say anything about it because he's apparently been living on laboratory cafeteria food all this time, but does make him carry the highly precarious stack of food in. In his defense, "precarious stacks" are basically what TTK is made for, and also it'll hopefully distract Kon from potentially feeling weird about getting paid for or eating "too much" or just whatever.

Tim is going to burn Cadmus to the ground and stock up on kryptonite and a whole lot of explosives, but he's going to do it in the least Kon-upsetting way possible. Plus his supervillain timeline is a long-term plan too, and Kon should be eating things that aren't cafeteria food right now. And also not working for and living in a shady lab. And also–

"Shit, do we have any cups left?" Kon asks, looking around with a frown.

"Top of the fridge," Tim says, both because it's his job to know as much information as possible and because he's trying to avoid stressing himself out any worse. Stress is not productive. It's not going to fix the problem. Kon doesn't even want him to fix this problem.

"Cool," Kon says, then thumps the stack of pizza boxes down on the table and goes right for the cinnamon bread again, flipping the box open as he heads off to, presumably, retrieve the cups. Tim is entirely unsurprised and has no illusions that he'll be getting any of it himself.

He arranges the pizza boxes and everything else they ordered a little more accessibly on the table, trying not to obsess over the problem of Kon's current lifestyle. He's living in a lab getting by on cafeteria food and not getting properly compensated for doing a dangerous job and doesn't know Superman has a secret identity and is never, ever anything but "Superboy" himself. He doesn't have another identity to hide inside or fall back on or just take a break in. Didn't even have a real name until just recently, and that real name isn't anything he can use outside of still being Superboy.

Tim can't imagine never being able to take off Robin, but Kon probably can't imagine ever having to take off Superboy.

Tim doesn't even know what that would feel like.

Kon comes back with the cups, tosses them on the table, and stuffs another chunk of the already half-gone cinnamon bread into his mouth. Tim is starting to doubt the quality of that cafeteria even more than he reflexively did.

He opens the Zesti and pours them both a cup, and Kon looks oddly–not surprised, exactly? But a little puzzled, almost, watching Tim fill a cup for him.

"I can pour my own drink, Rob, geez," he snorts.

"I had it open already," Tim replies with a carefully dismissive shrug, screwing the lid back on the two-liter. Kon huffs, but picks up a cup and takes a drink.

"Sure, whatever," he says. "This is so much pizza, man. Think we can get through it all or should we call in Imp for backup?"

"If we do that, we're not getting any of it," Tim points out dryly.

"Okay, good point," Kon says. "Guess that's why you're the one in charge here, Wonder Boy."

"I had to get my qualifications from somewhere," Tim says, sparing him a wry smile. Kon sniggers, then rips off another chunk of the cinnamon bread and holds the mostly-empty rest of the box out to him. Tim blinks, a little surprised, but takes the last piece. "Thanks."

Note to self: Kon really likes cinnamon. Or icing, maybe. Or both.

Actually, that thought makes Tim feel a little flustered over Kon giving him the last piece of the cinnamon bread, given how thoroughly he destroyed the rest of it. Which is stupid, since he also hogged the rest of it and could've shared way more than just the last piece, the asshole.

Tim is absolutely still flustered anyway, though.

Yeah, he has it embarrassingly bad.

Ugh.

"Sure, man," Kon says, flashing him a grin. Tim swears to himself that this bastard can never, ever know how cute that grin makes him. If Kon knew he had a crush on him, he would be absolutely insufferable about it. Insufferable and smug.

Or, possibly, uncomfortable and freaked out. Or worse, angry and hateful. But Tim would rather not assume the absolute worst of an ally who almost counts as a friend, to whatever extent he can count anyone who hasn't seen his actual face before as a friend.

Both more and less than the guys at school, probably.

Tim's not sure what that actually says about his life these days.

But Kon . . . Tim doesn't really think Kon would be an asshole about it, if he knew Tim wasn't entirely straight. He's never really said anything to give him that impression.

He'd definitely be unbearable, though, so Tim will be taking the secret of this particular inadvisable crush to his grave, please and thank you.

They both sit down at the table–well, Tim sits, Kon more sprawls, and looks unfortunately attractive doing it–and grab a couple slices apiece and then crack open the wings. Kon eats much faster than Tim, who deliberately takes his time about it. Technically, avoiding getting pizza grease and barbecue sauce on his gloves is reason enough to do that, which is what he's going to point out if Kon comments on it, but obviously he's doing it to make sure Kon gets to eat as much as he wants.

Seriously. Cafeteria food for every meal. And not from a private school or fancy company's cafeteria; from an underground cloning lab with, again, incredibly dubious ethics.

Tim really can't imagine Cadmus is all that committed to food safety and quality, given all the human rights violations they've committed in just their day-to-day operations–to say nothing of any special projects like Kon.

Maybe Tim should release all their classified files onto the internet and just let whatever happens to them as a result happen.

. . . no, no, nobody needs any random weirdos on the dark web reverse-engineering any Kryptonian DNA or anything. Which they definitely would. Hell, just the front page of Reddit and a few YouTube comments would probably be enough to do it, and then somebody'd try to actually go and produce it "just to see".

Though it's still tempting, honestly.

Extremely tempting.

"Are you going to be here next weekend?" Tim says once Kon's mauled his way through a good dozen wings and four slices of pizza with very little sign of slowing down, and Kon stuffs most of another slice into his mouth with an easy shrug. He still looks cute even with terrible table manners, Tim notes resignedly. How is that possible? Why is that even a thing?

Kon is so goddamn annoying that way.

"Probably, yeah," Kon says around a mouthful of pizza before shoving the rest of the slice into his mouth. Tim watches in vague revulsion, wondering how he still finds him cute.

Gross, definitely, but still cute all the same.

"I mean, unless Cadmus needs me for something, anyway," Kon amends as he gets himself another slice. "Sometimes there's emergencies and shit, you know how it is."

"Definitely," Tim agrees, though "and shit" doesn't really cover Gotham-level disasters, as a descriptor. Still gets the point across, so whatever. "I'll be here, barring Gotham."

"You mean barring Batman," Kon snorts, rolling his eyes, and Tim feels a very weird way about the fact that Kon doesn't have a Batman in his life. Well–doesn't have a Bruce in his life, more like.

Or a Jack Drake.

It's kind of a sad thought, to be honest, though it probably makes the vigilante work a lot easier.

"Barring Batman," Tim agrees again, smiling wryly. "You realize you have a boss too now, right?"

"I could still be Superboy if I quit Cadmus, though," Kon says, which is a valid point, if not quite the one Tim was trying to make. "No way Batman wouldn't flip shit if you kept being Robin out from under his big black cape."

"Well, historically that hasn't always gone so well," Tim says, taking a sip of his Zesti. Kon tilts his head, looking curious.

"Wait, you've actually done that before?" he asks. "Seriously?"

"There's been other Robins, you know," Tim reminds him, wry again. Kon blinks.

"More than one?" he asks. "I thought it was just you and that Nightwing dude. Who else?"

It occurs to Tim, very suddenly, that Kon not only wasn't a superhero when Jason was Robin, he didn't even exist when Jason was Robin. He wouldn't have heard anything when it happened, even in rumors, and it's not like many people talk about Jason now, even in the community. At least not anywhere that Tim's ever heard, anyway.

Admittedly, that might be survivorship bias, all things considered.

"My immediate predecessor," Tim says carefully, taking another sip. "After Nightwing and before me. He's–not active anymore."

"Dead or just maimed?" Kon assumes. Tim doesn't bother wondering why "retired" doesn't occur to him as an option.

It's Kon. Of course "retired" wouldn't occur to him.

[boldlyanxious]

Escape

Part of meet cute Mondays

Marijon series

My masterlist

Marinette made herself comfortable in the bizarre location she had been using as an escape from her now hectic life. It was not just one thing that was causing more stress than she could handle but the increasing strain of all the other little things. Before her focus had been on school and relationships with friends and family with becoming Ladybug and protecting Paris as an additional occasional responsibility. Even if there were several akuma attacks in one week Marinette could manage to refocus and make up for any shortfalls at another time.

But once she became the Guardian, all the lesser stresses seemed bigger and the responsibility felt heavier. When the battles against akumas were easily won or far between she could almost breathe easier and the burden felt lessened. But the times when the struggle took more energy and she had to hide her identity while seeking out new allies Marinette just needed a break. Even a few minutes of solitude away from the cares of Paris and miraculous misuse.

So that is what she asked for. She called on Kaalki to help her.

She spent a while looking around the first time. She found no way in or out of the structure but there were several locked rooms and a lot of statues. She wondered if perhaps it had been planned as a museum before it was locked up and abandoned. Whatever had happened it was exactly what she needed today. Her parents were already at home asleep and she was miles away from all her troubles. She quickly set herself up in the creative space where an unfinished statue and a few paintings were with a selection of art supplies.

It was definitely quite a bit later when a voice woke her. She knew she likely had a matching pressure mark on her face to the one she could see on the back of her hand. She didn't realize she had fallen asleep until she saw where she was instead of in her bedroom. She looked at the boy before her and rubbed her eyes trying to remove the confusion.

“Who are you?” the boy asked. “How did you even get in here?”

Marinette tried to force her tired brain to focus on the English. Marinette wasn’t fully fluent when awake but she was working on learning it since some of the fashion schools only taught in English. She sat herself up and looked around, noting that she was not transformed which would probably make for a far less awkward explanation.

“Hi, I’m Marinette,” she said, enunciating carefully.

The boy continued to just stare.

“I’m sorry. I will leave.” Marinette said. “I thought it was vacant.”

“I said how did you get in.” he repeated. His voice now had a bit of an edge to it.

“I didn’t do anything. I just needed to be away. I fell asleep while I was drawing.”

“So you just happened to wander into a secret base in the middle of nowhere because you needed a little ‘me time’?”

“Secret base?” Marinette looked around again. “Is that what you call your studio?”

“There is no way you could have opened the door. Who is helping you?”

“This is all a mistake.”

Marinette was backing away from him as he moved closer. She eyed her sketchbook and supplies spread out where she had been working. Her backpack was on the floor nearby. She couldn’t even grab it quickly and try to disappear and she wasn’t sure whether the kwamis were in the bag or hiding nearby. They would know to do anything to avoid revealing themselves unless there were no other options.

Before she could even try to think through other options he lunged and captured her wrists before she could react. She must still be suffering from being woken in the middle of the night. She may be known for being clumsy but she usually made up for that by having quick reflexes. He moved the chair to face away from the table that had her things and turned her around so she was sitting in it and he held her hands in one of his, tightly.

Marinette struggled and yelled at him in French and English. She kicked her legs and grunted but only managed to succeed in moving the chair. He completely ignored her while he went through her things. He flipped through her textbooks and checked her school tablet. He read her name and school off her school ID card. He even looked through her sketchbook and finally found her phone that had been under the open cover of the sketchbook.

He was quiet for a few minutes while he read through her messages. Marinette however was not quiet any of the time. She demanded he let her go and leave her things alone.

“So what is happening in Paris that you need to use such a deep cover and break in here?”

“I’m not undercover. I’m under stress. I just needed solitude.”

“Well I guess you found it. But there is no way a 15 year old human was able to get in here on her own. Who are you working with.”

“Human? You look about the same age and human. Maybe I got in the same way as you.”

“You didn’t.” he said matter of factly.

“Were you watching? You didn’t even know I was in here.”

“The key weighs half a million tons.”

“That sounds impossible.”

“For you.”

“No, I definitely think you are making it up. You are either trying to keep me talking because you need a reason to talk to me or you are waiting for reinforcements.”

“It really does weigh that much. But I do like it when you are talking. You have a cute accent. But I’m also fairly certain you are evil.”

"I'm not a villain like Hawkmoth. Besides maybe you are the evil one. You woke me up and trapped me here so you could twist all the skin off my wrists.”

He looked down at where his hand held her wrists. He wasn’t holding tight enough to bruise but her twisting and struggling had turned the skin an angry red all around. Marinette hissed as he ran his finger where it was red.

“Who is Hawkmoth?”

“The famous villain of Paris.” Marinette’s tone clearly suggested this was information he should already know. “He uses negative emotions to turn regular people into evil minions to do his dirty work.”

“Never heard of him.”

“You should get out more. So you now know everything there is to know about me. Who are you?”

“Superboy. Notice the distinctive symbol.”

“I guess. It just looks like an S. Isn’t your identity supposed to be a secret? Why aren’t you wearing a mask.”

“No one ever recognises me. Besides, I didn’t think I would need to be hidden in my own secret base. No one should be able to get in.”

“Guess I’m just special.”

“I need to know how and why.”

“Can you let me stretch for a second first? I fell asleep at a weird angle. You can block the door. You are clearly faster and stronger than me or I would have already gotten away.”

He stood up and released her but watched her carefully as she moved around and different angles to stretch and get blood flow to return. She moved about and collected all her things into her bag. She set it down and then pointed out to the main foyer.

“So are those statues out there Superman and Superwoman?”

He looked over at them considering how to explain his grandparents from another planet to the girl who had somehow magically appeared there. He turned back as she said something in French. But it wasn’t in time to see what happened. She was no longer in the room. A flicker of light disappeared barely a second later. He would definitely have to report all of this to his father after he finished the task that brought him here in the first place. He probably wouldn't be happy he allowed her to escape.

Marinette collapsed onto her bed exhausted. It was after 3 in the morning. She would have to worry about the ramifications of what had just happened later. She didn’t know what could happen having Superboy know so much information about her as a civilian. She was relatively sure he had not seen either kwami and hopefully not even the portal, but she could never have him know how she got in and out of his fortress.

Next: Detected

Tags

@technicallyburninggarden | @emjrabbitwolf | @certainmuffinbagelcalzone | @vixen-uchiha | @theymakeupfairies

I've been trying to work this one out for like 2 months. It didn't turn out anything like I was expecting. I was going for more flirting and blushing but my exhausted brain made it all slightly angry. I probably need a cookie.

[supercorpkid]

Lena Luthor is your lab partner.

Supercorp, Kara Danvers x Daughter!Reader, Lena Luthor x Daughter!Reader

Word count: 2215.

“Welcome Miss Luthor-Danvers.” Aly, the receptionist of L Corp, gives you a warm welcome.

“Hey, Aly. Can you call upstairs and let my mom know that I’m here?” You smile and she immediately does what you asked.

“She’s going to meet you here.” Aly says and you nod. You play on your phone while you wait. Lena asked you to go to L Corp after school. You don’t know exactly what she wants, but you rescheduled your training session with Nia and went there hoping she would say something about your anti-kryptonite force field prototype. Thankfully, it doesn’t take long for you to see Lena coming your way.

Every time you see your mom at work you get so impressed. She’s so well-dressed and put together. And she looks like a boss bitch with this black dress. She smiles at you and hugs you as soon as she reaches you.

“So glad you came, baby. I have a surprise for you.” Lena says and starts walking, shooting you a look for you to follow her.

“A surprise for me? It isn’t my birthday yet.” You say catching up to her.

“Not that kind of surprise.” You go into the elevator with her and she presses a button to go underground.

“I’ll be very surprised if you say that the prototype worked.” You turn to her expectantly. She promised she would test it for you, but she hasn’t given you any clue if it works yet.

“It will work, I’m sure. With a brain like yours, you can make anything.” What she really meant to say was that it didn’t work. You’re finally understanding the things your moms say between the lines.

Lena opens one door to a lab and you walk in. Everything is so new it smells like it. It’s full of equipment and there is a lot of technology you only dreamt about. It’s amazing, the best thing your eyes have ever seen.

“So?” Lena smiles at you and you look at her. “What d’you think?”

“It’s great!” You look around and everything is so perfectly placed, you can’t find anywhere to put your backpack. You also don’t want to touch anything before her. “Where can I put my bag?”

“Anywhere you’d like. It’s yours.” She says with a hand on your shoulder.

“What?”

“The lab, babygirl. It’s yours.” She repeats and you stand there with no reaction. Wait, huh? “Oh, you’re going to need this.” She gives you an access card. “And this.” And then she gives you a L Corp id, and there’s your picture and your name in it.

“Wait.” You look at your smiling face in the picture and then around. “Do I work here now?”

“No. Well, yes, but only because I needed to hire you to give you your own lab.”

“Are you serious?” She agrees with her head. “Mom, that’s so cool! Am I gonna get paid?”

“Absolutely not.” She says with a smile and you roll your eyes.

You drop your backpack close to the door and you go inside to explore the lab. There’s literally everything that you might need. That means no more going around the house and picking up remote controls and old cameras. You’re absolutely awed by the whole thing, and Lena keeps looking at you and chuckling to herself.

“Wow. Thanks mom! This is the coolest thing you’ve ever given me.” You go back to where she’s standing so you can hold her tight. “It’s the best thing anyone has ever given me.”

“Oh.” She smiles from ear to ear. “I’m glad you liked it. Do you mind telling Kara this? She’s always bragging about the necklace.”

“Well, the necklace is also pretty great.” You hold it in your hand and smile at her. “Even though you tampered it.”

“I did no such thing.” You raise an eyebrow and she shrugs. “It’s a microchip, you can take it off in your sleep if you want to. But please don’t.”

“You know I can just take off the necklace now that I know about it and like, run away, right?”

“Why would you run away?” She asks a little worried and you smile so you can ease her mind.

“I’m kidding mom, I mean, I just got my own lab!” You open your arms with the biggest smile on your face and she smiles back at you, looking genuinely happy. “Shall we get to work?”

“I thought you would never ask.” She says going to the computers to show you the results she got with the kryptonites.

Apparently, the force field held his own with the green kryptonite for a few minutes, but didn’t work with the other ones. You and Lena both work in different computers, you’re running some tests, and perfecting your calculations. At one point, you both look at each other at the same time.

“Maybe…”

“I think…”

“You first.” She points at you and you turn your computer screen so she can see it.

“Maybe the bracelet wasn’t a good idea. I’m looking at the shape and…” You start saying and Lena smiles. “What?”

“The bracelet wasn’t a good idea.” She turns her computer screen at you and it’s your turn to smile. “Guess we had the same idea.”

“Well, I do have your brain, don’t I?” You smile and Lena is also static to confirm this. “So, I was thinking, maybe in the belt?”

“That’s good. It covers more areas. It should work.” You both get up at the same time and go around the room collecting everything that you might need. Lena’s phone rings at the moment, and you pretend you can’t hear the entire conversation, and focus on the things in front of you. She hangs up the phone and looks at you. “Baby, I…”

“Yeah, meeting.” You look at her. “Don’t worry, I’ll start on the prototype and you come back whenever you can, ok?”

“Great.” She kisses your cheek and smiles. “Just don’t leave without me.”

“I won’t.” You smile back and she goes to the door. You go back to the tablet in front of you and start simulating with the new shape. Your hands go insane in it, and you’re not even using your super speed, you’re just really excited. In the corner of your eyes, you see Lena standing by the door with a smile. “Mom, don’t you have a meeting to go to?”

“Sorry, yeah I… Was just looking at my baby working.” She says and you turn your face at her. “Kara was wrong. You look just like me.”

“Ok, you two have to stop competing over this kind of stuff.” You laugh and she joins in. “And we both know I look just like momma when she was young.”

“How dare you.” Lena says with a smile still playing on her lips. She finally opens the door to leave. “You are amazing.”

“Are you saying this because I look just like you while working?”

“Obviously.” She laughs and actually leaves.

You are left all alone and you work on the anti-kryptonite belt. You try to make it look just like the one in Kara’ suit. You’re so entertained with the new project you don’t even realize Lena was gone for three hours. You also almost didn’t notice she had returned either, and you only did because you smelled food and your stomach growled.

“I brought Belly Burgers.” She puts some fries in front of you and you’re instantly filled with happiness.

“Rao, you’re the best lab partner ever!” You shove so many French fries in your mouth it’s hard to chew. Lena frowns at that, but decides to ignore it.

“How are we going?” She looks at the belt in front of you. “Oh, you already finished it?”

“Actually…” You go to the other side of the table and grab a box. “I made a few.”

You then proceed to put another four prototypes on the table. Lena’s mouth drops and she looks absolutely in shock.

“This one’s just like Supergirl’s.” You point at a golden one. “And I made a similar one but in silver for myself.” You point at it. “This one’s for Superboy.” You point to another. “And Superman.” And another.

“Wait, you made five… Who’s the last one for?” She grabs the one closer to her and looks at it. “It looks like the Superboy one.”

“Oh yeah. I’m sure Conner will break his in like, days, so I’m making him another one.” You come back to her. “But you’re back for the most important part. Let’s see if it works with the new shape and with a different calculation. You have to test it.”

“Don’t you want to do that tomorrow? It’s really late.” Lena says and you furrow your brows.

“Please tell me you’re joking. I don’t want to break in here in the middle of the night and test it myself.”

“Ok. First, you don’t have to break in.” She points at your id. “Second, I would never let you expose yourself to kryptonites, so I’m obviously joking.” You roll your eyes. “I wouldn’t be able to sleep either.”

“Ok, go on.” You push her out of your lab, but before leaving she turns back to you.

“Hey, you know it’s a very difficult project, so if it doesn’t work, don’t be discouraged.” She touches your face.

“I know. Just go, please. You’re killing me.” You say and she chuckles, actually leaving this time.

Whilst she tests your prototype, you eat the burgers she brought you. You didn’t realize you were hungry until now. Kara calls you while you wait.

“Hey kid, it’s pretty late. Where are you?”

“At work.”

“What? Kid, stop joking. Where are you?”

“I’m not joking! L Corp hired me, ok? I have my own lab, and an access card.”

“Wait! Are you serious? Your own lab? Can I visit?”

“Sure. You can even eat my leftover fries.”

“Don’t even joke about fries. I’m on my way.”

It doesn’t take long until you hear a knock on the door. It’s obviously not Lena yet, because she has her own card. You open the door and Kara walks in impressed.

“She didn’t actually give you this lab.”

“Oh, but she did.” You give her the biggest smile.

“Dammit Lena, I can’t compete with this.” She mumbles and you laugh. Kara sees her belt at the other side of the table. She doesn’t even ask about it, she just runs to it and picks it up, putting it on.

“What are you doing?” You ask holding her arm when she mentions leaving the lab.

“We have to test it!” She smiles.

“Mom is doing that for me.”

“But Lena’s not Kryptonian. The only way we can be sure is if I try.” Kara resumes walking and you keep pulling her back.

“No way, you’re not going in there! What if it doesn’t work? Momma, please. No!”

“It’s going to work.” Her voice is sure. It leaves no margin for you to think she is not very confident in you and your work. But you’re not.

“It didn’t work the last time.” You hold her tightly. “Please, please. I can’t go through that again. Please.”

“It’s ok, baby.” She holds you back and stops trying to walk. She knows what you’re talking about, so she kisses the top of your head to reassure you. “I won’t go. But I’m sure it will work. You’re the smartest person I know.”

“I heard that!” Lena says coming inside the lab and you and Kara both look at her expectantly. “When did Kara get here?”

“Who cares! What happened? Did it work?” You ask and Lena bites her lips and furrows her brows. Your face drops. “Oh, no. It didn’t.”

“I’m sorry, little one.” Kara holds tightly again, but you let go of her and go back at the table grabbing the tablet.

“It’s ok, I just have to change the capacitor, and like, maybe the solar ce-”

“Baby!” Lena makes you stop talking and you look at her. “Who said it didn’t work?”

“Your face!”

“I was joking.” Lena goes to you and hands you the prototype. “It works! Even with the Harun-El. It held up long enough.”

“It did?” You’re almost jumping when she agrees with a smile. You jump excitedly and Kara does the same. Lena is not really jumping, you don’t think she could even if she wanted, not with those shoes anyways, but she still looks impressed and so proud of you.

“You know what? You are the smartest person I know.” Lena says joining the hug and you feel like you can fly. You can’t believe it worked. You’ll be able to protect Kara, Superboy, your uncle and even yourself! This is the happiest you’ve ever been.

“Honestly, I think I should get paid.” You say after the hug.

“No.”

“Well, you should at least increase my allowance then.”

“It seems fair.” Kara adds and Lena rolls her eyes.

“I’ll consider it.” She says grabbing her things so you all can go home. You follow her to the door and grab your backpack.

“It’s totally happening.” Kara whispers in your ear and you smile. This is, honestly, the best day you had in months.

[river-bottom-nightmare]

“You need a new superhero name.” 

Damian brought it up unexpectedly, eyes still trained on the security camera he was dismantling. 

“What?” Jon was sifting through the footage, using superspeed to catch every little detail of last night, but at Damian’s voice, he paused the recording and looked up.

Damian was still digging inside the camera, having removed the back panel and a good chunk of wires, and was now sifting through the piece of tech with a pair of tweezers. Nonetheless, he continued the conversation. “A name. You’re not going to be Superboy forever, are you?”

“Um,” Jon could honestly say he’d never thought about it. He’d always been Superboy, ever since he could remember. He wasn’t one to place much thought into birthrights or heritage, not like Damian, but he also wasn’t overlooking the fact that his father was Superman. What exactly did that make him? Superboy was the obvious answer. “I don’t think I can be anything else, Damian.”

“You have an older brother who also goes by Superboy.”

Jon shrugged. “We share.”

“Still. You’re graduating high school in just a few months, Jon. Though it’s surprising to say, you’ve outgrown the title.”

Jon’s lips instantly turned upward in a smirk. “I’ve outgrown the title, huh?”

At that, Damian turned to glare at him. Pointing a finger, he said, “I will taze you. Shut up.”

“Whatever you say, short stack.” Jon chuckled at Damian’s little growl. “But honestly, what else am I supposed to be? Everyone knows me as ‘Superman’s Son.’ I mean, Dad’s name is so big in the League, I don’t think I’ll ever separate myself from it.” And if he was honest, Jon didn’t know if he wanted to separate himself from it.

Damian hummed. “Not true. Look at Richard.”

“Dick? What about him?”

“Well,” Damian paused to move the tweezers to his other hand, “Richard started out as the first child hero, working under Batman. And unlike the other early proteges, he didn’t simply work as his mentor’s sidekick. He created his own legacy. And then he became Nightwing.”

“But Nightwing was already a thing,” Jon pointed out. “It’s a Kryptonian legend.”

“Yes, but there hasn’t actually been a Nightwing, has there? Even if there was one on Krypton, Richard was the first Nightwing on Earth. You wouldn’t call him a sidekick, would you?”

“What, no!” Jon’s reaction was immediate. “Nightwing’s, like, one of the most well-known guys out there. Literally everyone knows him, and literally everyone trusts him. He’s not a sidekick.”

Damian turned to smile at him. “Some would say he was. Do you understand my point?”

Jon pouted, took a deep breath and let it out. “Yeah. Yeah, I think so. I don’t know, I’m not even sure how to go about doing that.”

“Well, to start off, find a new name.” Damian hunched over the camera even more, suddenly focusing in on something.

“I guess so. You got any ideas?” At Damian’s lack of response, Jon asked again, “Damian?”

Damian straightened, holding up the tweezers. Clasped tightly between the tongs was a miniscule data chip. “Here’s the footage we’re looking for.”

Jon stared at him, eyes wide. “How did you even know that was there?”

Damian shrugged. “Simple matter of deductive reasoning.”

“Tim told you, didn’t he.”

A pause. Then, “Drake may have mentioned a while back that a certain trafficking ring was hiding the data chips inside the cameras, and that others were catching on to the trick. I simply tested out his theory.” Damian looked physically pained, and Jon laughed.

“Cool. Put it in, I’ll look through the footage.”

Damian handed the chip over, then laced his his fingers together, put his arms above his head to stretch. Jon, still holding the chip, stared at the line of Damian’s muscles. When Damian quirked an eyebrow, Jon quickly cleared his throat and took the old data chip out of the computer, replacing it with the new one. “So, any ideas?”

“For your name? A couple,” Damian said. “Of course, you need to have an idea for what you’re thinking of.”

Jon nodded absently, pressing rewind on the footage. “I’m not sure if I want to separate from the Super name entirely, though.”

“You don’t want to, or are you scared to?”

Jon snorted. “You probably know the answer to that better than I do. I think I got a name, it’s on the side of the truck.” He zoomed into the footage. “Yeah, it looks we were right. The pharmaceutical company’s related somehow. There’s that stupid gremlin looking thing again.’

“The griffin?” Damian asked, peering over his shoulder. He made a contemplative noise, brows furrowed

“Is that what that thing’s called? Looks like a half drowned bird.”

Damian laughed, and batted Jon’s hands aside. “That’s not what an actual griffin looks like. Here.” He pulled up a couple pictures on his phone.

Jon swiped through a couple pictures, eyebrows raised. “Yeah, those are a lot more impressive. What are they though?”

“Mythological creatures from a variety of different places. They have the body of a lion and the wings and head of an eagle. They’re quite majestic.”

Jon squinted his eyes at him. “You’re implying something. I know you’re implying something.”

In response, Damian nodded his head towards the phone.

“What?” Jon asked.

“Griffin! It’s a perfect name.”

Jon raised his eyebrows skeptically. “Oh yeah. Because I’m part cat and part bird. Perfect analogy.”

Damian slapped his hand lightly. “No, you moron. It doesn’t have anything to do with the eagle or the lion.”

“Then?”

“Your dual heritage.” At Jon’s uncomprehensive look, Damian sighed. “You’re half-Kryptonian, half-human. And it shows. When you fight, you’re fierce and unafraid, much like your father. At the same time, though, you’re endlessly curious and inquisitive, like your mother. God knows I’ve been on the end of that far too often.”

“Oh. That, huh. That actually makes sense.”

Damian shrugged. “I’m just saying. It would be a good homage to your roots, and you’re honoring your parents, without being too overt.”

Jon looked down at the phone again. The lion part was strong, muscled, steady. The bird’s head was curved and fierce, wings spread majestically.

 “Griffin. You know what? I kinda like it.”

OKAY SO THIS WASN’T ACTUALLY MY IDEA i read a damijon fic a while back on ao3 where the author had jon’s name as griffin and i thought that was so so cool so i wrote a thing and i tried to find it again to give them credit but i couldn’t find it!!! so if anyone knows the fic i’m talking about, or if you yourself wrote the fic, please let me know so i can link you in the thing. it really was an incredible idea.

tag list: @comicsandhoney @birdy-bat-writes @elles-shitposts-personified @subtleappreciation @yesboopityboop @dangerduckjpeg @astroherogirl

and i know you’re not actually on my tag list so sorry for bothering you with this but @iamwhelmed i thought you would appreciate this

[fishfingersandjellybabies]

Still a Little Bit Yours (Part 1) - fic

Characters: Jon Kent, Damian Wayne, bit of Tim Drake and Maya Ducard Pairing: jondami Summary: Damian broke up with him, out of the blue. It didn’t make any sense. But, as it turns out, there’s a reason why it didn’t. A/N: Damian and Jon are in their mid-twenties and no longer go by Robin or Superboy (but not really Batman or Superman either, Tim’s last line is kind of a joke.) Title, and maybe vibe of this part, is based on ‘A Little Bit Yours’ by JP Saxe.

Part One | Part Two

~~

The phone almost slipped from his fingers.

Damian…did Damian just say what he thought he said?

“…What?” He whispered near breathlessly. “W-what did you just say?”

“I said I think we should see other people.” Damian replied calmly. “It would be for the betterment of both of us.”

“Since when?” Jon snapped, anger flaring immediately, but instantly morphing into confusion and sadness. His heart breaking by the second.

They’d been together for three years. Secretly pined after each other for the two years prior to that. Had recently talked about moving in together. Had been happy.

Jon was so, so sure they’d been happy.

“Since…recently.” Damian hummed blankly. “I’ve been doing a lot of thinking.”

“And the thought of doing this in person didn’t occur to you in your fucking contemplation?” Jon snapped. “Christ, Damian, we were just talking about getting an apartment!”

“I’m sorry if I hurt you. I know this isn’t what you want.” There was a hint of regret in Damian’s voice, but not enough for Jon’s liking, so it only fueled his growing anger further. “I…I don’t know what else to say.”

“Oh, really? Three fucking years and this is all you have to say?” Jon hissed. “I know you’re emotionally constipated, Damian, but…god. This is low. Even for you.”

“I’m sorry.”

“No, you’re not!” Jon shouted. A store clerk nearby glanced at him. And that was right, he was in the grocery store. He’d…forgotten. Forgotten the whole world existed, forgot it was collapsing around him by the second, as Damian hummed those words. “Because if you were sorry, you wouldn’t have fucking done it this way in the first place!”

He heard a mother a few aisles down murmur to her children to not use language like that. That people who talked like that were pathetic.

“I…I don’t know what your game here is, Damian.” He whispered harshly.

“It’s not a game.” Damian promised. “I respect you too much to play games with you. I’m just trying to be honest.”

“But you don’t love me enough to break up with me in person, apparently.” Jon countered. He closed his eyes, wouldn’t allow the tears to fall. “I…Damian, I’m going to hang up on you right now. I…I don’t want to say something I might regret.”

“That’s fine.” Damian promised. Then again: “I’m sorry, Beloved.”

Jon scoffed and pulled the phone away from his ear. He hit the call end button so hard the screen cracked under his touch.

…Great.

He stood there a moment, trying to take deep, even breaths. But it wasn’t working real well. Each breath was trembling, and it’s like his lungs suddenly didn’t work, couldn’t hold any air.

Did he do something wrong? Did he say something? They’d fought before, all couples do. They were getting better at communication, Damian was coming out of that emotional shell the League of Assassins put him in.

They’d kissed yesterday. Jon had held him in his arms, had kissed his nose and told him how beautiful his smile was. Damian had laughed and held Jon’s face, stroking his thumb along his cheek.

And now…now they were here?

“…Honey?” Jon jumped as a hand gently touched his elbow. He spun to find an old woman in an apron matching the store’s color scheme glancing up at him. “Are you okay?”

The world around him came whooshing back. He was in the middle of the grocery store. He…he was sobbing in the middle of the grocery store. Fat, ugly tears rolling down his face as he practically crushed his phone in his hand.

“Do you need me to call someone?” The woman whispered.

“No, I…” He gently placed his shopping basket – half full of this week’s groceries – on the floor and backed away. He clumsily ran his nose along his sleeve, a trail of snot left in his wake. “I’m alright. I’m…I’m sorry.”

He turned and barely stopped himself from flying out of the store.

~~

Jon laid in bed for two days, exhausting himself racking his brain, trying to figure out what happened, what changed, what he did.

He texted Damian, almost exactly twenty-four hours after the fateful call, but the other never answered. Never answered any text Jon sent. Or any call that he drunkenly made after that. Didn’t even give him the knowledge of being left on read.

He cried a few times, threw things a few other times.

None of this made any sense.

He thought about going over to Gotham. Walking up to the manor and banging on the door until someone answered. Thought about staging a protest until Damian agreed to see him, if the door answerer wasn’t said boyfriend.

…Ex-boyfriend.

Tears welled up in his eyes every time he thought of the term.

Ex. Boyfriend.

Jon closed his eyes, buried his face in his pillow. Honestly, he thought they were going to get married. He thought they were going to be together forever. He wasn’t ready to plan a life without Damian, not yet. They were supposed to grow old together, die minutes apart like in the movies. Holding hands until the end.

He didn’t lose Damian to death, like he always thought he would. He didn’t lose Damian to space or assassins or even to grief in the potential loss of Bruce or Dick. He lost Damian because Damian…simply didn’t want him anymore.

God. They weren’t supposed to break up after three years. They weren’t supposed to part ways in their twenties. They weren’t supposed to end things for no reason.

He thought he’d gotten pretty good at reading Damian. His ticks, his quirks. What upset him, what didn’t. He thought he was an expert. The world’s leading expert in Damian Wayne.

Apparently he was fooling himself.

He sighed, pressed his face further into the fabric of his pillow. Tried to ignore the memories threatening to overflow. Of he and Damian in this bed. Kissing, cuddling, lazing. Of Jon promising Damian the whole world, and Damian countering with the whole universe instead.

He wondered if he should call Kathy. Or Maya. Hell, one of Damian’s siblings. See if Damian had talked to them, if they had seen any signs. If they knew of anything going on.

He just burrowed under his covers, and kept his eyes closed.

~~

In the end, he didn’t tell anyone about the breakup. Not even his parents. There were intergalactic wars starting and government coups commencing – they had more important things to worry about than their youngest’s love life. And judging by the fact he hadn’t heard from any of the Bats, he had a feeling Damian didn’t mention it to his family either.

Just as well. They were adults. They could handle this as just that. Adults.

So he wallowed in self-pity for a few days, but eventually forced himself up. Took a deep breath, dried his own eyes and distracted himself with continuing his life. Focused on his job, on heroing. The world kept turning, even if he and Damian weren’t together.

His heart hurt less as the days passed on. Not by much, his heart was still utterly shattered after all, but it didn’t hurt as much to inhale. Didn’t hurt as much to smile. Didn’t hurt as much to get a text or a call and it not be Damian.

Damian never answered when Jon tried to contact him. The first few days were understandable, but now the texts were housekeeping. Do you want your shirt back? I think you left Alfred’s cat treats here. I have a box of your stuff and your apartment key, if you’re in town soon, you can stop by and get it.

And still, like always, nothing. Damian was always stubborn, but now he was just being downright rude. It’d been almost a month now! Surely if someone as emotional as Jon could somewhat start to get over it, someone as stoic as Damian had probably completely forgotten about it by now!

He huffed as he watched a couple walk by the park bench he was sitting on, taking the momentary surge of frustration-induced courage to hit the call button on his (recently fixed) phone and hold it up to his ear.

They wouldn’t have to talk. This was just tying up the loose ends. Getting rid of the sentimental things. Getting rid of things that didn’t belong to him. That was all. That was all.

But the line didn’t even ring. It went straight to voicemail. And the frustration turned to hurt. Did…did Damian change his number? No, impossible. It still went to Damian’s voicemail, his phone was just off.

But Damian never turned his phone off. No hero did, and especially no one in the Wayne family. They were always on call, even when they shouldn’t be.

So, for Damian’s phone to be off…was he avoiding someone? Avoiding Jon?

He lowered his phone to his lap and stared at it. He was one of those people who put emojis in people’s contact names. Damian’s name was surrounded by the pink, growing heart, and the cat emoji that looked like Alfred.

He didn’t have the strength to take those away. Not yet.

He swallowed the lump in his throat that he didn’t realize was there, and put his phone back in his pocket.

He’ll just ship Damian his shit, then.

~~

He shouldn’t have. He really shouldn’t have. It’d make him the crazy ex. The ones Taylor Swift wrote songs about.

But at least once a day, he found himself listening. Tapping into his powers and listening for Damian’s heartbeat.

He didn’t do it often while they were together. Mostly because while together they were almost always together. Physically. So he could just reach out and hold Damian’s wrist. Put his ear to Damian’s chest. Watch the pulse as it beat along Damian’s neck.

It was a coping mechanism back then, used to calm himself. When the world got too much. When his day was bad. He could just focus on Damian’s heartbeat in any form. Drown the rest of the noise out.

Damian’s heartbeat now sounded far away, but Jon didn’t feel like pinpointing how far. It was slow and even, and that almost made him angry. Damian was calm. Damian was relaxed. Probably sitting at his easel drawing without a care in the world, while here Jon was listening for him like some kind of fucking lost puppy.

Every time he listened, it was slow and steady.

Stupid Damian, he’d think as he tuned his powers back out, furiously go back to whatever he was doing. Stupid relationships.

Relationships were overrated. Damian was overrated.

~~

“He what?!”

Maya’s shriek had Jon pulling the phone away from his ear with an amused grimace. He laughed as he switched the audio to be on speaker, and absently opened an app on his phone.

(A…dating app.)

“You didn’t know?” Jon hummed. His friend had called to ask some questions on a man she was tracking, someone who rumours said was from another planet. Kathy hadn’t known of the solar system, so she was trying the next best alien. As they talked, something about a crime scene came up, and she asked if Damian could help, if Jon could give him the phone. He had to break the news. “I thought you guys talked like…every day.”

“No way.” Maya scoffed. “Once a month, if that.” Jon could hear the frown in her voice. “And we did talk about a month ago. Maybe a bit longer. He didn’t say anything. In fact, he told me you guys were going to move in together, that he wanted me to plan a trip back to the States for a housewarming party.”

“Well…life comes at you fast, I guess.” Jon chuckled bitterly, remembering that call. He was in the room for that call, dozing in Damian’s arms, half listening to their conversation. He sneered at the choices the app was giving him. None of them were very attractive. “Because about a month ago was when he called it off.”

“Huh.” Maya mumbled. “I’m so sorry, Jon. If I’d had known that’s what he was planning, I would have beat the shit out of him. You were the best thing to ever happen to him, for gods’ sake! What the hell did he willingly throw it all away for?!”

“Your guess is as good as mine.” Jon shrugged. This potential match wore a shirt that said Joker’s Biggest Fan on it, and Jon cringed instantly. “He didn’t give a reason. Just said that it was for the betterment of both of us, and that he was sorry.”

“Fucking turd.” Maya sighed. “I’ll call him here in the next few days, and see if he’ll tell me anything.”

“Good luck.” Jon drawled. “He hasn’t answered a single text or phone call since he broke things off. And I don’t know if that’s to just me or everyone.”

“You ask one of his brothers? Which one’s friends with your brother again? Jason?”

“Tim.” Jon corrected. He hesitated on this potential match option. Just stared. It was a woman. Dark hair, tan skin, standing in a desert. She was beautiful. And she reminded him of Damian. “And I haven’t seen or talked to any of them either. No cases have taken me out to Gotham lately.”

The next match had sharp eyes, ones that said they were smarter than everyone else. Cocky. That was like Damian too.

“Eh, they’d probably cover for him anyway. They’re all a bunch of freaks like that.” She grumbled. “Are you…doing okay?”

“I’m fine.” Jon lied, and he knew Maya heard right through it. “Time heals all wounds and all that. Better every day.”

“Oh, Jon…” Maya sighed sympathetically. Jon didn’t even have it in him to be embarrassed at her pity. Not when the next person on the app was standing on a rooftop, flag tied to his neck, blowing gloriously behind him. Looking far too much like every hero persona Damian’s ever been. “Hey – I’ll be back in the States soon. And I promise, I’ll make my first stop coming to see you so we can get drunk and stuff ourselves with pizza and scream about what an asshole Damian is. Okay?”

The next match was posed in the photo in a fencing match. Damian. The next surrounded by Great Danes. Damian. The next playing a violin. Damian. The next wearing a Batman costume at a Halloween party.

Damian.

Damian. Damian. Damian.

He sighed and closed the app. Stupid.

“Yeah. That sounds like exactly what I need, Maya.”

“Great. It’s a date.” She paused a moment. “Love you, dude.”

Jon hesitated, because he hadn’t said those words since Damian. Hadn’t thought them. Hadn’t wanted to think them, not for anyone. Not for family, not for friends. Not for a single person in his life. Still left in his life.

“Love you too, Maya.”

~~

Jon wasn’t a dreamer. He didn’t know if it was his Kryptonian side, or just how he was, but he didn’t dream often. And if he did, if he remembered them, it was only flashes. Only later moments of déjà vu. Never full sequences. Never lucid.

But…this.

They were in Kansas, out in one of Pa’s fields, lying among the wheat. Damian was flat against the ground as Jon laid over him, kissing him as hard and deeply as he could. They both had their arms around the other, grips tight and unyielding. Like if one of them let go, the whole world would disappear.

He doesn’t know why, but it was a noise Damian made. A quiet moan, and his fingers digging desperately into Jon’s shoulders that snapped him out of it. Made him realize.

This wasn’t real.

He began to lean back, pulled his arms from Damian’s shoulders to steady himself. Damian shifted too, but only to hold Jon’s face, to try and chase his lips.

“No, I…” Jon stuttered, his body wanting to do just that. Dive back in and devour Damian whole. But his mind didn’t let him, forced him to continue back until he was on his knees. “We can’t.”

He got to his feet and backed up a step, half turning away. Couldn’t bear the sight of Damian lying in the dirt, shirt half open and hair disheveled, chest heaving from arousal and exertion. “…Jonathan?”

“You’re not real.” Jon almost whined, running his fingers through his hair.

“Is that so?” Damian scoffed. “Since when?”

“Since I know we haven’t been back to Kansas in like a year.” Jon sighed, turning back. “Since I just remembered you broke up with me.”

“Absurd.” Damian laughed. Jon glared down at him, watched as Damian stood, and wiped the dust from his butt. “I would never do such a thing.”

“Well…you did!” Jon spat. “And over the phone! Not even in person!”

“You’re not listening to me.” Damian scolded. He raised his sharp gaze. “I would never do such a thing.”

“…What?” Jon whispered incredulously. “I just…I just told you that you did! And I…” He snorted, shook his head. “You’re not even real. Why the hell am I even trying to argue with you?”

“Because despite what you tell those around you, you miss me.” Damian sauntered over to him with a smirk, and poked at his temple. “Now I need you to use that big brain of yours and focus on what I’m saying. What it means.”

Jon looked down sadly. Gently reached up to take Damian’s hand in his, and turned so he could kiss his palm, could hide his face against Damian’s hand.

Damian just smiled warmly, stepped closer into Jon’s space. Cupped his other hand around the side of Jon’s throat. “Please just remember.” He begged softly. “I would never do such a thing. Never.” He leaned up on his toes, and pressed their foreheads together. “Not to you, Beloved.”

Jon leaned into the gesture, and parted his lips to kiss Damian again.

But then he woke up.

He woke up in the dead of night, with tears streaming down his face, and the memory of the dream burning against his skull.

I would never do such a thing.

“But you did, Damian.” Jon sobbed, clutching his pillow, curling his knees to his chest. Because it felt like his heart was going to tumble out, all the pieces that it had shattered into were going to come spilling out onto his sheets. “You did.”

He didn’t go back to sleep.

~~

Jon let out a low growl as he stomped out of the café. That was a bust. That was a huge fucking waste of his time.

But that’s what he got for trying to jump back into the dating pool.

The girl seemed nice enough in their limited texting interaction. She was cute and not purposefully looked nothing like Damian. She was bubbly and loud, and also not purposefully acted nothing like Damian either.

(Totally not purposefully. Totally.)

But he’d just spent the last hour listening to her rant about conspiracy theories that were already disproven one hundred times over, and rave about how Lex Luthor was the best and coolest and smartest person to ever exist, because he was rich and going to get them all to Mars. She never stopped to let Jon talk. Never stopped to take a breath for herself either.

Needless to say, there’d be no second date. He’d frankly excused himself with a lie to get out of this one early.

(And she’d already texted him about how great of a time she had, and she couldn’t wait to see him again, despite still sitting in the restaurant ten feet behind him.

Jon didn’t like to ghost people – not like certain ex-boyfriends of his – but this one…he couldn’t wait to.)

So it must have been fate that he chose that moment to leave. Not a few minutes before, or decided to suffer through the rest of his rendezvous. Because as soon as he walked out of the café, he spotted one Tim Drake coming out of the building across the street.

Funnily enough, Tim spotted him at almost the exact same moment. Except instead of waving or smiling like Tim normally would, his face visibly paled and his eyes widened, like Jon was the last person on Earth he wanted to see.

Jon frowned when he saw Tim glance around, like he was looking for an escape route. “Tim!” He called before the other could do just that, glancing up and down the street before jogging quickly towards him. “Hey, wait up!”

Tim took a step backwards, like he was going to try to bolt, but in the end stayed where he was, waited for Jon to reach him. Quickly pulled his phone out and scanned the screen before pocketing it again. “Hey Jon…what, uh. What’s going on? How are you?”

“Oh…been better. But trying to stay positive.” Jon laughed knowingly. Tim didn’t react. “How’s the family?”

“Good. Busy.” Tim shrugged. “Lots of, uh…stuff to do. You know how it is.”

Jon nodded, and the two fell into an awkward silence. Tim pulled his phone out again, but quickly threw it back in his pocket.

“How’s…” And Jon didn’t want to ask, but he’d be lying if he said he wasn’t curious. Wasn’t desperate to actually know, instead of guessing and assuming. “How’s Damian?”

But to Jon’s the surprise, at the sound of Damian’s name, Tim seemed to practically deflate. He threw his hands across his face, began shaking his head. “God, Jon, I’m so sorry. I know we should have called, or kept you in the loop or something. But we didn’t want you to become a target too or get hurt, or…”

“What?” Jon cut off, gut suddenly dropping. “What are you talking about?”

Tim peeked between his fingers, eyes narrowed. “…What are you talking about?”

“I…I haven’t talked to Damian since he broke up with me.” Jon murmured. Tim’s eyes instantly widened even more in surprise. “I just…wanted to know if he was doing okay?”

“Damian broke up with you?” Tim whispered. “When?”

“Um, I don’t know a month or so ago?” Jon shrugged. “Why? Tim, what’s going on?”

“How did he break up with you?” Tim demanded, suddenly all but lunging at Jon. His eyes darted between Jon’s desperately. “Was it in person?”

“No, it was over the phone.”

“What day?” Tim asked, almost giddy now. “What day did he break up with you, exactly? What day did you get that call?”

“Uh…” Jon pulled out his phone, and went to the call feature. He scanned the list until he found the one he was looking for. The one that ruined his whole life. “The seventh.”

“What time?”

“Like three or four in the afternoon?” Jon huffed. “Tim, why is this relevant? What happened?”

“Have you talked to him since then?” Tim continued, undeterred. “In any way? Text? Call? Carrier pigeon?”

“What? No! I…I tried calling him a few times, to return his stuff and all that, but he never answered.” Tim suddenly backed away from him, running both hands through his hair, like a case was just blown wide open. For the third time, Jon asked: “Tim, what the hell is going on?”

Tim hesitated for a moment, then looked Jon dead in the eyes. “Damian’s been missing for a month.” He said plainly. “He disappeared on the morning of the seventh.”

And just like that day on the phone, it felt like the world was being swallowed into a black hole beneath him. That the universe was disappearing around him, that it wasn’t real.

He could barely breath. “…What?”

“He, Duke and Cass were on a case in France. Without warning all three of them went radio silent. When we got there, we only found Duke and Cass half dead in a vineyard. They said they were attacked by a…a shapeshifter or something, lured them in by transforming into members of the Justice League. That they saw the shapeshifter and their crew dragging Damian away, but they didn’t see where to, or even what direction.”

Jon’s head was spinning.

“We’ve been looking for him day and night ever since. And when you didn’t come looking for him…” Tim winced. “We assumed he’d told you that he would be away on a mission, potentially for a long time. So your absence didn’t concern us. In fact, like I said, we were grateful. We didn’t want you getting wrapped up in this too, and potentially hurt.”

Jon was barely listening anymore, too wrapped up in what he’d just been told. That Damian had been missing since that day. That the reason Damian’s heartbeat sounded so far away was because he was, he was somewhere in Europe. That he wasn’t answering his phone because he was being held captive.

…That it wasn’t Damian on that call.

I would never do such a thing. Never. Not to you.

“…Beloved.” He murmured. Tim instantly stopped in his ramblings.

“…What?” Tim asked.

“On the call, when he broke up with me. First, he never gave a reason, which I thought was crazy. I guess…I guess it makes sense now.” Jon said thoughtfully. “But before we hung up. He said ‘I’m sorry, Beloved.’”

“…So?”

“That’s what Damian had me as in his phone. Not my name.” Jon explained. “Why would he still call me Beloved if he was breaking up with me?”

“…He would have said your name.” Tim said, the truth dawning on him. “The kidnapper wouldn’t know that. They wouldn’t know your name. So they called you what you were listed as.”

“And recognized that I was someone important to him.” Jon finished. “But…why? Why call me just to…break up with me? Why call me at all?”

“I don’t know. We can think about it later.” Tim was instantly back in detective mode, holding out his hand. “Give me your phone.”

“Why?”

“Because we can track where that phone call came from.” Tim wiggled his fingers impatiently. With his other hand, he pulled out his own phone, typing furiously with his thumb. Jon realized that’s why he was checking it so much, that’s why he was in Metropolis at all. He was looking for clues for Damian, anywhere he could. “And that might take us to where this bastard took my brother.”

“...Need a ride to the Batcave?” Jon asked with a sheepish smile. “…The sooner we get there, the sooner we can track this fucker and find Damian.”

Tim pursed his lips in thought, clearly not thrilled at the idea of including Jon, not after they all tried so hard to keep him detached, but eventually returned the grin.

“Get us in the air, Superman.”