FIC: DC - A Bat By Any Other Name (Is Still A Bat) - Gen - PG
So way back when they solicited the Future!Titans in the present storyline I had grand ideas for what they were going to do, like *cough* fix Tim's cloning process *cough*. Obviously that's not the direction the story is going in so…
This story by itself is complete. There will be a few one shot short stories to follow.
Summary: Future Superman makes a different choice and things change.
TITLE: A Bat By Any Other Name (is still a Bat)
RATING: PG (for language)
PAIRING: Gen - with some Tim/Cassie, Conner/Tim/Cassie, Dick/Roy, Bruce/Clark hinted at
AUTHOR: Melanie
SUMMARY: Future Superman makes a different choice and things change.
DISCLAIMER: DC owns them, if I did things like Infinite Crisis wouldn't have happened.
FEEDBACK: Please?
A Bat By Any Other Name (is still a Bat)
He knew exactly where he was going.
Better yet, he knew that he wouldn't be interrupted; the others would keep their younger counterparts occupied. By the time they realized that the plans that they'd made had been modified without their knowledge it would be done.
He can't see his Tim doing this, going through the effort to reclone him. Logically he knows that he did, knows that he'd succeeded because he's around. But he can't see the Tim that looks at Cassie with longing and him with, sometimes, barely concealed hatred, doing this.
Succeeding at this.
He knows the passwords, he'd told the others that it would be easier if he was the one to do this, and since this was the way that it had all happened originally they have no reason to distrust him, so Tim had handed over the passwords to the computers that he didn't already have access to and he'd looked at his Pa's notes to figure out how to do what he needed.
They think that he's going down to Tim's hidden laboratory to fix the issues that this younger version of his Tim has been having in cloning their dead friend.
And he's going to do that, but this Kon won't remain here. He'll fix the problems, yes, but he won't advance his aging until he's the perfect double for their dead Kon, for their lost colleague.
This clone will remain an infant; he'll be allowed to be the child that he (and the dead one) had never been allowed to be.
He's found the perfect place to hide him, the perfect time to hide him in.
Not even Superman will be looking for him and he knows that Kal-El is, at the moment, consumed by finding the mysterious 3rd Kryptonian on Earth.
The others will figure out that he's not following their plan, even now Tim and Cassie are watching the clock waiting for the exact moment, (that moment in their timeline, not this one, not any longer) that he and the young clone of Kon-El, Kal-El and Lex Luthor will appear in the doorway.
That's who this child is, no longer just the clone of Kal-El and Lex, but now the clone of all three.
The infant is floating in the tank, this Tim has been distracted by Cassie, he hasn't noticed the warning signs of cellular degradation yet.
It takes a few seconds to type in the passwords that Tim had given him, another few to make the fixes in the nutrients in the tank.
It takes a minute, the longest 60 seconds of his entire life thus far (far longer then the 52 seconds that he'd spent staring at Tim and Cassie when he'd found out about their affair, they think he doesn't know) for the changes to take affect.
The baby's eyes open, blink sleepily at him through the glass before they close again.
He smiles and begins the end sequence.
The baby is about nine months, he has already shuttled the things that the parents that he's chosen for the child will need to raise a half-human, half-Kryptonian baby.
He's told them what they'll have to name him, because he has to be a Conner.
They told them they already knew that, and he doesn't know how, he's not done this before. He's changing the future and the past all in one fell swoop.
They know who the boy is, they know who his parents are.
He hadn't had to explain anything about how this is the only off-spring of Kal-El of Krypton and Lex Luthor. He'd had a story already; he'd been disappointed that he hadn't gotten to use it.
They'd already known, they'd been expecting him when he knocked on the door.
He wonders how they'll explain it, what reasoning they'll use when Conner is old enough to grow into himself and people figure out who he is.
The fluids in the tank begin to drain out and he waits until the fluid is half drained to allow the tank to separate. Pulls the boy into his arms, uncaring of the fact that the fluids are being transferred from the baby to his uniform, once his task is complete he'll cease to exist anyway.
The smell is more familiar then he'd like, full of sense memory and feelings of pain and confusion. The boy's eyes open and he makes a sound like he's undecided as to whether he's going to cry or not.
It's the right thing to do, he decides.
To give this boy the chance that none of his previous versions have ever been allowed.
Tim and Cassie will be together, he won't have to ignore the fact that Cassie has never been happy with him, that Tim regrets trying to re-clone him.
They'll be angry at first, he thinks. But once they realize that he's done this for them, that this is the best thing for them…
He wraps the boy in his cape, cradling him in his arms.
He'd wanted children, wanted a child of his own.
This boy that he holds in his arms for only as long as it takes to get them to where they're going, this boy is as close as he'll get to that now.
******************************************************************************
They're waiting, patiently, Batman thinks.
He doesn't think of himself as Tim any longer, hasn't since he turned nineteen and was successful in his attempts to bring Kon back.
The Kon they got was darker, had none of the memories of his predecessor and didn't care to claim them either.
He looks over at where Cassie is standing next to her younger version. They look the same and different, she's getting concerned as well, glancing down at her wrist and back over at the door.
"What are you looking for?" Tim asks, he's been perched in the back of the room, keeping an eye on everyone. He doesn't trust them.
"It's been too long," Cassie says and Batman nods.
Kon should have appeared in the doorway by now, arm over the shoulder of the young clone wrapped in his cape.
He taps his communicator and comes up with static, no answer, they work anywhere.
Now he's really concerned, as well as maybe a little scared.
Something that can cause Kon to not respond to him is not something that he cares to meet without Superman beside him.
He leads the way, the others following and Tim falls into step beside him when he realizes where they're going.
The door is open, and Batman walks, cautious and on alert, into the room and sees the tank in the middle of it, empty.
No Kon, no young Kon.
The room is empty, still.
"Tim?" his Cassie is beside him in a second. It takes him a second to realize that she's speaking to him and not to his younger self.
There's no signs of damage, no signs of a fight, no sign that that they were taken by force.
A sharp, shooting pain in the middle of his head and he doesn't double over like the others, but only because he's had years of handling pain and not showing it.
He can feel his memories resorting themselves, he remembers Kon coming in with his young clone, the joy that he'd felt at having Kon back and then that memory is gone, snatched away from him and replaced by this one, of the pain of knowing that the future Superman had done something, that there'd obviously been plans made that had never come to fruition because they'd been changed without their knowledge, and, and…
Cassie is crying, arms over her head.
He knows fiercely, without a doubt, that they'll never see their Kon again.
That the past has changed once again and…
Nothing.
******************************************************************************
She's not on crowd control, she should be in the air, circling, making sure no one is fleeing that way.
She doesn't know what makes her look down, something in the crowd catches her eye and she can see Robin glance over at her.
She sees him and stops, a familiar face, achingly familiar and there is a sharp pain in her heart that only comes when she's thinking about Kon.
He's watching with interest, like every other bystander that is standing and gawking, he doesn't know her, she knows this because he meets her eyes and there is no sign of recognition there.
Nothing at all.
She glances away, back to where she remembers Robin being to try and get his attention and when she looks back he's gone.
******************************************************************************
He searches the output from the cameras because Cassie is prone to many things but hallucinations have not been listed among them for at least a year.
The building catty corner from where the fight had taken place is owned by a company that is owned by Wayne-corp three times removed.
"Did you find anything yet?" Cassie appears behind him and he continues hitting buttons, jogging through the footage.
He can see the beginning of the fight and he's looking for that instant where he remembers looking over and seeing Cassie staring down at the crowd, he finds it and uses the time readings to coordinate it with the rest of the footage from the other cameras.
Cassie is still behind him but he's learned to block her presence out, she doesn't distract him the way that she used to. He thinks that it might be because they both know, that on that day so many months prior, when their future versions had descended on them, something had changed.
Their Superman had disappeared; the clone that had been in the tank when Tim had checked it's readings that morning had vanished. And he'd known, even back then, that the future Kon had done something to erase himself from their timestream.
As well as all the data and samples that he needed to make another attempt at cloning Kon. He hasn't figured out a way to ask Superman and Luthor for more genetic samples without making it known what he's attempting.
"There," Cassie's hand flies out over his shoulder, pointing and he pauses the record with the quick flick of two fingers.
He leans forward and cleans the record with another jab of a finger and he can see what Cassie saw.
Can see what pulled her out of the fight, the face is familiar, he looks the same.
"Kon."
******************************************************************************
He calls Superman and he gets Batman as well.
It's two for the price of one and he gets a believer and a skeptic and they both stare at the pictures. He can never tell what Batman is thinking when he has the cowl on, but he can tell that Batman is playing the role of skeptic to Superman's believer.
"Kon," Superman whispers and Tim leans forward. Because that wasn't said by Superman, that was said by Clark.
Soft and pain-filled, Clark is touching Kon's face in the picture, like if he just tried hard enough he could touch the boy in real life through the picture.
"Where did you get these?" Batman asks.
"There was a fight down on fifth, one of the Wayne-corp subsidiaries owns a building there. Cassie saw him in the crowd, she tried to get my attention but by the time we got over there he was gone."
He doesn't tell them that he hadn't believed her, that they'd had a huge fight that had resulted in Cassie slapping him.
It had hurt.
It had stung more when he'd seen the footage and saw what she'd seen and remembered that besides him, Cassie had known Kon the best. He purposefully doesn't think of Bart, Bart is gone.
"Luthor probably has something to do with this," Batman says, he's talking to Superman, but Superman isn't listening because Clark is staring at the pictures.
"I don't think so," Tim says. He puts the think in there, but he's fairly confident that Luthor had nothing to do with this. Luthor has spies everywhere, and one of those spies had to have seen the boy like Cassie had because he's searching discreetly for a boy fitting Kon's description, just like they are.
******************************************************************************
Lois and Chris are waiting for him when he gets home. Chris happy to see him, Lois hasn't been happy to see him in months so he isn't surprised by the pinched, tight look on her face. Around her mouth.
She'd never wanted to be a mother and he has to bite his tongue to keep from reminding her that she had agreed to this. To raising Chris and only a small part of him is upset that he couldn't get her to make this agreement when Kon was still alive.
Batman pages him after they finish dinner, Clark is sitting at the table with Chris, he's tapping at his computer and Chris is working on problem sets for school.
Lois had disappeared into the bedroom right after dinner, when Clark and Chris had been doing dishes.
"I have something you need to see," is Batman's succinct comment.
Clark can detect no emotion, no way of telling if Batman has a new scar he wants to show off or if he has a criminal cornered and wants Superman's input.
He glances over at Chris and the boy is looking back at him, fingers rolling the pencil between his fingers absently.
"It's okay," he says in his young, happy voice. Clark doesn't think that Chris hasn't ever not seemed young or sounded happy.
"I won't be gone long," Clark promises.
******************************************************************************
Batman's transmission comes from his cave, but when Superman gets there, Bruce is the one waiting for him. Half in costume, the cowl gone.
There's pictures on the monitors, two of them Clark recognizes from the ones that Tim and Cassie had shown them. The others show the same boy, all at different times because he's wearing different clothes.
"What?" Clark doesn't understand.
"I went back through footage from fights that had taken place near or around Wayne-corp buildings, I found him on footage that was taken from at least two of the Titans altercations, two Outsiders, three Justice League."
"I don't get it," Clark says softly. "Why hasn't he approached one of us? He's there, he's watching us, why doesn't he…"
Bruce looks over at him.
"He may be watching us to figure out our weaknesses, to find a way for Luthor to destroy us."
"Kon wouldn't do that."
"That boy isn't Kon, that boy is a clone, a fake copy of Kon," Clark looks over, because even for Bruce that statement was surprisingly gentle. "This boy is something else; we know to look for him now. I'll send the information to the other teams and maybe we can lay a trap for him."
"We're not going to hurt him," Clark says alarmed. Kon has already been hurt enough, and even if this boy isn't Kon, Clark won't allow him to be harmed in the name of learning his secrets.
"We just want to talk to him," Bruce says.
Clark doesn't believe him.
******************************************************************************
The Outsiders catch him.
He's spotted twice more, Robin misses springing the trap that's been set for him by 45 seconds and he's still beating himself up about it when Nightwing contacts them to say they have him.
He's been hit with a tranquilizer, specially designed by Batman to subdue Superman if need be, it's like everyone has forgotten that Kon is a half-Kryptonian, because they all seemed shocked that four hours later, he's still unconscious.
Batman has been taking the time to go through the belongings that were found on the boy.
There are three devices that they can't recognize, Batman quarantines them until further tests can be done on them to determine if they're safe or not.
Superman is sitting outside the cell that they have the boy locked in, watching. Cassie is leaning against the wall doing the same thing, eyes bright. Tim can recognize the fact that she'd been crying but has managed to pull herself together, Wonder Woman being next to her probably has something to do with that.
Robin tries to keep away, but like everyone else he is drawn to the cell that Kon is in.
Batman has finally conceded that Luthor most likely had nothing to do with the Kon before them now, the fact that Luthor is still actively looking for signs of him when they've actually managed to find and contain him probably has something to do with that.
"He could be just trying to throw us off the scent," Batman says, though even he sounds like he doesn't buy that.
He's working on analyzing the three devices that they found on Kon, every few hours he shows up to remind Superman that he has a life outside of Kon.
Superman leaves and returns with Chris in tow, settles him in his quarters and returns to his vigil outside Kon's cell.
"Lois is on assignment," Clark says simply.
They're going on nine hours with no sign of Kon getting ready to wake, someone goes for food and Tim sheds Robin like so many of the others are shedding their alters and then forces himself to eat half his sandwich.
"When do you think he's going to wake up?" Cassie asks.
She's sitting next to him, back against a wall. He passes her a bag of chips and she hands over a soda.
"Soon," Tim says, then returns his attention to eavesdropping on the conversation that Bruce is having with Clark and Diana.
"Two of the devices are working copies of prototypes I'm currently working on," Bruce says. He sounds annoyed and glances over at where Kon is still out, when he wakes up Tim envisions his questions are going to lean more toward 'who supplies your gadgets?' then 'who created you?'
Someone has gone into his cell and placed a blanket over him, a pillow under his head.
Tim is split on either Clark or Cassie. He knows it wasn't him, he'd thought about it but by the time he'd convinced himself that Kon would be getting cold someone had beat him to it.
"What about the third one?" Diana asks.
"I don't know, it's a design that I'm unfamiliar with, and its construction patterns aren't showing up in my database at all," Bruce is turning the gadget over and over in his hands. "Some of the symbols etched into it are vaguely familiar, though they're not turning up any hits in our databases."
"Do you smell that?" Cassie whispers, Tim turns to look at her and then does.
A faintly sweet smell, he isn't in costume, there's no breather secreted in his street clothes, not in the Watchtower of all places and he can see the second that everyone else notices it as well and then everything freezes.
Or rather he, they freeze.
He can still see, he's still aware of his surroundings but he can't move or talk, he can't even blink and he hopes that whatever this is wears off and then wonders why intruders on the Watchtower hadn't set off the Intruder Alarm.
It just figures that this would be the moment that they've been waiting for, because Kon is beginning to stir in the cell, moving slowly and legs appear in the limited line of sight he has.
There's no costume, but the posture and stride are utterly familiar. Except it doesn't make any sense.
Though he knows, now, why the Intruder Alarm didn't go off.
Because that is Dick pressing the key code into Kon's cell to open the door, an older Dick with silver streaks in his hair is kneeling by Kon talking quietly.
"Don't move too quickly," he's saying softly, he's pulling Kon into his arms.
If he could move he would be jerking in shock, everyone else would be as well so he doesn't feel too badly about that, when Kon mumbles a faint, "'m okay dad."
"Shh, shh," Dick murmurs. He's running a gentle hand over Kon's head. "Just breathe slowly Conner."
"God I can't believe we were ever this young," Roy appears in front of Tim, peering at him then Cassie, he makes the same visual inspections of Clark and Bruce and Diana.
"Roy…" Dick sounds exasperated.
"Well really, Bruce and Diana don't even have any gray yet… though maybe they color."
"I dare you to ask one of them if they ever colored their hair, though let me know beforehand so I can make sure to record the inevitable smackdown."
Roy laughs. "I am serious though, this would had to have been, what? 15 years or so before he showed up on our doorstep with Conner in tow?"
"Something like that," Dick says absently, he's running a hand over Kon's head.
"…head hurts," Kon says softly, his eyes aren't open.
"I know," Dick soothes, Tim didn't think he could sound that gentle and soft. "Just give it a few minutes."
"Found the transporter, and his communication device," Roy appears in Tim's line of sight again, he's tucking two of the three devices that Bruce had been playing with in a pocket on his jacket. "Can't find his cloaking device, I think he turned it off. Probably how they managed to find him in the first place."
"Check Bruce, he likes to fidget with things he doesn't recognize."
Roy peels Bruce's fingers aside and smiles when he finds it. He presses two of the symbols that had puzzled Bruce and then slides it into his pocket with the others. He walks over to the cell where Dick is still sitting with Kon in his arms, kneels beside them and touches Kon's face softly. "How you feeling buddy?"
"Dad shot me with a tranq papa," Kon says in a small voice, Roy laughs softly.
"I didn't," Dick starts.
"Actually, you kind of did," Roy's voice is amused.
"Well I didn't know back then," Dick insists.
"He's not blaming you," Roy says. "Though I did tell you that you should wait just a bit longer."
"I didn't think he'd go running off into the past to see for himself, now did I."
"Except that's exactly what happened last time, he was found here and we came to bring him home and had to sit him down and explain things."
"He was eighteen when he reappeared and Conner is only seventeen, I didn't think he'd," Dick sounds so distressed. "I thought we had at least another seven months with our son before we had to send him back here to be poked and prodded and tore apart by Bruce and Clark and every other member of the Justice League that doesn't trust him. Excuse me if I'm not feeling joy and happiness about sending him to that."
"You still should have waited."
"For what? So Clark could tell him instead, or maybe you would rather Tim and Cassie had sat him down and tried to explain their convoluted relationship with him, or maybe you would rather he showed up in the same room as Conner and no explanations were necessary anymore, I would rather he hear the whole long story from one of us then one of them," Dick says with exasperation. Kon makes a noise that sounds like an objection in the back of his throat.
Tim can't remember the last time he saw Dick this angry, though his hands are still gentle on Kon where he's getting to his feet and bringing Kon with him. Roy helps.
"Dick," Roy says gently. "He needed to know, I agree with that, nothing is going to change that. You know it as well as I do, things are happening in the exact order that they did the first time."
"I still don't see why we have to…"
"There's certain things that we don't have control over," Roy is saying as they maneuver slowly past them. "Bruce's skepticism and Clark and everyone else's distrust, we can't control those things. We can control how prepared Conner is to be coming to those people. They'll need him, because no one else will be able to do what needs to be done. It was only our job to raise him into the person that could handle what he needs to do."
Tim doesn't hear what Dick's response is, the door closes and he can blink and a few seconds later he can move.
Bruce huffs an angry sound and he's out the door, Clark and Diana right behind him.
They're back a few seconds later. Alone.
"They're gone."
******************************************************************************
Clark's not sure how long they're going to be waiting.
The older Dick and Roy had mentioned seven months, but with time travel involved (as it evidently was) it could be seven months their time and three days his.
"Will he like me?" Chris is asking, Clark smiles at him, strokes a hand across his hair.
"Of course he will," Clark promises.
Their Dick and Roy had seemed amused by the footage when shown it. They hadn't been as amused by Bruce trying to interrogate them on events that had not happened yet.
******************************************************************************
He appears in the Fortress of all places, Superman is there because… well he isn't sure why he's there. He'd just felt an imperative need to commune with his heritage. Chris is with him, laying on the floor to one side, more homework in front of him.
He feels the air shift and pop.
"Clark?" Chris asks, raising his head and when they turn Kon is there.
Looking uncomfortable in the jeans and black t-shirt that had been his uniform for so many years. There's a backpack over one shoulder and another bag at his feet, he looks sad and alone and Clark wonders if he feels like his parents have abandoned him because they've sent him here.
He wants to laugh, because he doesn't understand why someone thought it a smart idea for Dick Grayson and Roy Harper to raise Kon, Bruce alone must have had a coronary the first time through. Let alone what Oliver must have done.
"Hi," Chris says, he bounds to his feet, homework forgotten. "Hi, I'm Chris," he offers his hand and Kon stares at him for a long second before he accepts it.
"Hi Chris," he says softly. There's no recognition in his voice when he looks at Chris, and Clark has to wonder why, he should know all of them.
Has been raised by them, he's been a child, raised to be an adult by some of the best of them.
"Kon-El," he says, Kal-El in his voice, Superman in uniform. Clark is pleased inside to have the boy back where he belongs.
******************************************************************************
This world is a totally different place then the one he left, he knows that he's going to the Watchtower for days upon days of tests, just like he knows that Dick and Roy will be the ones to put a stop to them.
The Dick and Roy that are not yet his parents, because that hasn't happened yet.
He knows this because his dads had made a point of telling him.
He keeps reminding himself that it's only a few days, then buries everything else that he knows because he doesn't trust the psychics to just not take the information that they want.
This world is his, but it's not.
Clark doesn't act like the kindly uncle, he and Bruce aren't yet lovers and Lois and he appear to still be married.
He knows that Tim and Cassie have been waiting since they first saw him for him to come back.
He knows that Chris hasn't revealed himself for who he is yet.
He could warn them, could tell them what needs to be done. Then go home.
They told him before they sent him here, their flimsy excuses as to why they couldn't do this themselves, why it had to be him.
He knows he can't, so when Batman asks the questions he shakes his head and refuses to answer. He's been warned about sharing the things that he knows and he loves the world that he came from so he doesn't want to change that.
He endures the tests stoically. He's been through worse, when Lex Luthor figured out who he was, who Dick Grayson and Roy Harper were raising, he'd almost killed him before the Justice League and the Titans had managed to rescue him.
He'd been eight, and it was the first time that he could remember looking up and not being afraid of Batman, because Batman had held him tightly against his chest until his father had pulled him from his arms and into his own.
So they test him and he's been through versions of these tests, they're not so bad.
He just has to not think about them.
Instead he forces himself to remember happy things, when Batman is poking him with needles and holding a miniscule piece of kryptonite over him he remembers Bruce chasing him around the mansion, tickling him until he laughed so hard that he cried, he remembers him holding him on his lap and reading him a bedtime story when his dad and papa were late coming back from patrol.
When Superman asks endless questions about what he's seen, what he knows, 'don't you want to change the world for the better' he remembers Clark, who was always right on the outside of his family, holding tight to Bruce and watching him with eyes that, back then, he couldn't decipher but now knows were screaming you're mine, my family, my son, not theirs.
The others stand back, let Batman and Superman handle things with him and he sees Robin and Wonder Girl only once at the back of the room when Superman brings him to the Watchtower.
He thinks he saw himself once, Tim and Cassie had disappeared at the same time from a party and he'd been fifteen and bored and at a party with people much older then him.
He'd seen them in the garden, the three of them, arms wrapped around each other and he'd thought they'd looked peaceful until he'd heard Cassie crying, until he saw the lines of tension on Tim's face and the other one had been whispering to them.
Something he couldn't hear.
He'd never seen him again; either on purpose or accidentally… From the sadness that had been permanently etched into Tim and Cassie's faces after that, he didn't think anyone else had either.
******************************************************************************
Superman has fought Darkseid, again. Batman has fought back Ra's al Ghul, again. Everyone has fought back their fiercest foes yet things just kept continually getting darker and they keep returning. They have no clue what is going on and they think they're stuck in some version of hell.
The battles getting harder and bloodier. It's Kon that figures it out, when Clark thinks that they're all going to die Kon does it.
Clark thinks that he probably knew all along, he doesn't know what he was waiting for.
It's just five simple words that destroy the construct that Chris is, the boy screams before he vanishes and the world rights itself.
Clark is glad that Kon was the one to do it, because when he looks at Chris he sees the child that he took into his life and his home, and he doesn't think that he would have been able to.
Kon just falls to his knees and doesn't say a word.
Dick is the one that goes to him, lays an arm over his shoulder and tugs him into a hug.
"I wanted to be wrong, dad," he whispers and Clark sees one lone tear travel down his cheek for the boy that Chris should have been.
"You did good, you made me so proud," Dick says and Clark knows that Kon isn't hearing the voice of someone that barely knows him, he's hearing his fathers voice praising him for doing the right thing.
******************************************************************************
This story by itself is complete. There will be a few one shot short stories to follow.
Summary: Future Superman makes a different choice and things change.
TITLE: A Bat By Any Other Name (is still a Bat)
RATING: PG (for language)
PAIRING: Gen - with some Tim/Cassie, Conner/Tim/Cassie, Dick/Roy, Bruce/Clark hinted at
AUTHOR: Melanie
SUMMARY: Future Superman makes a different choice and things change.
DISCLAIMER: DC owns them, if I did things like Infinite Crisis wouldn't have happened.
FEEDBACK: Please?
A Bat By Any Other Name (is still a Bat)
He knew exactly where he was going.
Better yet, he knew that he wouldn't be interrupted; the others would keep their younger counterparts occupied. By the time they realized that the plans that they'd made had been modified without their knowledge it would be done.
He can't see his Tim doing this, going through the effort to reclone him. Logically he knows that he did, knows that he'd succeeded because he's around. But he can't see the Tim that looks at Cassie with longing and him with, sometimes, barely concealed hatred, doing this.
Succeeding at this.
He knows the passwords, he'd told the others that it would be easier if he was the one to do this, and since this was the way that it had all happened originally they have no reason to distrust him, so Tim had handed over the passwords to the computers that he didn't already have access to and he'd looked at his Pa's notes to figure out how to do what he needed.
They think that he's going down to Tim's hidden laboratory to fix the issues that this younger version of his Tim has been having in cloning their dead friend.
And he's going to do that, but this Kon won't remain here. He'll fix the problems, yes, but he won't advance his aging until he's the perfect double for their dead Kon, for their lost colleague.
This clone will remain an infant; he'll be allowed to be the child that he (and the dead one) had never been allowed to be.
He's found the perfect place to hide him, the perfect time to hide him in.
Not even Superman will be looking for him and he knows that Kal-El is, at the moment, consumed by finding the mysterious 3rd Kryptonian on Earth.
The others will figure out that he's not following their plan, even now Tim and Cassie are watching the clock waiting for the exact moment, (that moment in their timeline, not this one, not any longer) that he and the young clone of Kon-El, Kal-El and Lex Luthor will appear in the doorway.
That's who this child is, no longer just the clone of Kal-El and Lex, but now the clone of all three.
The infant is floating in the tank, this Tim has been distracted by Cassie, he hasn't noticed the warning signs of cellular degradation yet.
It takes a few seconds to type in the passwords that Tim had given him, another few to make the fixes in the nutrients in the tank.
It takes a minute, the longest 60 seconds of his entire life thus far (far longer then the 52 seconds that he'd spent staring at Tim and Cassie when he'd found out about their affair, they think he doesn't know) for the changes to take affect.
The baby's eyes open, blink sleepily at him through the glass before they close again.
He smiles and begins the end sequence.
The baby is about nine months, he has already shuttled the things that the parents that he's chosen for the child will need to raise a half-human, half-Kryptonian baby.
He's told them what they'll have to name him, because he has to be a Conner.
They told them they already knew that, and he doesn't know how, he's not done this before. He's changing the future and the past all in one fell swoop.
They know who the boy is, they know who his parents are.
He hadn't had to explain anything about how this is the only off-spring of Kal-El of Krypton and Lex Luthor. He'd had a story already; he'd been disappointed that he hadn't gotten to use it.
They'd already known, they'd been expecting him when he knocked on the door.
He wonders how they'll explain it, what reasoning they'll use when Conner is old enough to grow into himself and people figure out who he is.
The fluids in the tank begin to drain out and he waits until the fluid is half drained to allow the tank to separate. Pulls the boy into his arms, uncaring of the fact that the fluids are being transferred from the baby to his uniform, once his task is complete he'll cease to exist anyway.
The smell is more familiar then he'd like, full of sense memory and feelings of pain and confusion. The boy's eyes open and he makes a sound like he's undecided as to whether he's going to cry or not.
It's the right thing to do, he decides.
To give this boy the chance that none of his previous versions have ever been allowed.
Tim and Cassie will be together, he won't have to ignore the fact that Cassie has never been happy with him, that Tim regrets trying to re-clone him.
They'll be angry at first, he thinks. But once they realize that he's done this for them, that this is the best thing for them…
He wraps the boy in his cape, cradling him in his arms.
He'd wanted children, wanted a child of his own.
This boy that he holds in his arms for only as long as it takes to get them to where they're going, this boy is as close as he'll get to that now.
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They're waiting, patiently, Batman thinks.
He doesn't think of himself as Tim any longer, hasn't since he turned nineteen and was successful in his attempts to bring Kon back.
The Kon they got was darker, had none of the memories of his predecessor and didn't care to claim them either.
He looks over at where Cassie is standing next to her younger version. They look the same and different, she's getting concerned as well, glancing down at her wrist and back over at the door.
"What are you looking for?" Tim asks, he's been perched in the back of the room, keeping an eye on everyone. He doesn't trust them.
"It's been too long," Cassie says and Batman nods.
Kon should have appeared in the doorway by now, arm over the shoulder of the young clone wrapped in his cape.
He taps his communicator and comes up with static, no answer, they work anywhere.
Now he's really concerned, as well as maybe a little scared.
Something that can cause Kon to not respond to him is not something that he cares to meet without Superman beside him.
He leads the way, the others following and Tim falls into step beside him when he realizes where they're going.
The door is open, and Batman walks, cautious and on alert, into the room and sees the tank in the middle of it, empty.
No Kon, no young Kon.
The room is empty, still.
"Tim?" his Cassie is beside him in a second. It takes him a second to realize that she's speaking to him and not to his younger self.
There's no signs of damage, no signs of a fight, no sign that that they were taken by force.
A sharp, shooting pain in the middle of his head and he doesn't double over like the others, but only because he's had years of handling pain and not showing it.
He can feel his memories resorting themselves, he remembers Kon coming in with his young clone, the joy that he'd felt at having Kon back and then that memory is gone, snatched away from him and replaced by this one, of the pain of knowing that the future Superman had done something, that there'd obviously been plans made that had never come to fruition because they'd been changed without their knowledge, and, and…
Cassie is crying, arms over her head.
He knows fiercely, without a doubt, that they'll never see their Kon again.
That the past has changed once again and…
Nothing.
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She's not on crowd control, she should be in the air, circling, making sure no one is fleeing that way.
She doesn't know what makes her look down, something in the crowd catches her eye and she can see Robin glance over at her.
She sees him and stops, a familiar face, achingly familiar and there is a sharp pain in her heart that only comes when she's thinking about Kon.
He's watching with interest, like every other bystander that is standing and gawking, he doesn't know her, she knows this because he meets her eyes and there is no sign of recognition there.
Nothing at all.
She glances away, back to where she remembers Robin being to try and get his attention and when she looks back he's gone.
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He searches the output from the cameras because Cassie is prone to many things but hallucinations have not been listed among them for at least a year.
The building catty corner from where the fight had taken place is owned by a company that is owned by Wayne-corp three times removed.
"Did you find anything yet?" Cassie appears behind him and he continues hitting buttons, jogging through the footage.
He can see the beginning of the fight and he's looking for that instant where he remembers looking over and seeing Cassie staring down at the crowd, he finds it and uses the time readings to coordinate it with the rest of the footage from the other cameras.
Cassie is still behind him but he's learned to block her presence out, she doesn't distract him the way that she used to. He thinks that it might be because they both know, that on that day so many months prior, when their future versions had descended on them, something had changed.
Their Superman had disappeared; the clone that had been in the tank when Tim had checked it's readings that morning had vanished. And he'd known, even back then, that the future Kon had done something to erase himself from their timestream.
As well as all the data and samples that he needed to make another attempt at cloning Kon. He hasn't figured out a way to ask Superman and Luthor for more genetic samples without making it known what he's attempting.
"There," Cassie's hand flies out over his shoulder, pointing and he pauses the record with the quick flick of two fingers.
He leans forward and cleans the record with another jab of a finger and he can see what Cassie saw.
Can see what pulled her out of the fight, the face is familiar, he looks the same.
"Kon."
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He calls Superman and he gets Batman as well.
It's two for the price of one and he gets a believer and a skeptic and they both stare at the pictures. He can never tell what Batman is thinking when he has the cowl on, but he can tell that Batman is playing the role of skeptic to Superman's believer.
"Kon," Superman whispers and Tim leans forward. Because that wasn't said by Superman, that was said by Clark.
Soft and pain-filled, Clark is touching Kon's face in the picture, like if he just tried hard enough he could touch the boy in real life through the picture.
"Where did you get these?" Batman asks.
"There was a fight down on fifth, one of the Wayne-corp subsidiaries owns a building there. Cassie saw him in the crowd, she tried to get my attention but by the time we got over there he was gone."
He doesn't tell them that he hadn't believed her, that they'd had a huge fight that had resulted in Cassie slapping him.
It had hurt.
It had stung more when he'd seen the footage and saw what she'd seen and remembered that besides him, Cassie had known Kon the best. He purposefully doesn't think of Bart, Bart is gone.
"Luthor probably has something to do with this," Batman says, he's talking to Superman, but Superman isn't listening because Clark is staring at the pictures.
"I don't think so," Tim says. He puts the think in there, but he's fairly confident that Luthor had nothing to do with this. Luthor has spies everywhere, and one of those spies had to have seen the boy like Cassie had because he's searching discreetly for a boy fitting Kon's description, just like they are.
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Lois and Chris are waiting for him when he gets home. Chris happy to see him, Lois hasn't been happy to see him in months so he isn't surprised by the pinched, tight look on her face. Around her mouth.
She'd never wanted to be a mother and he has to bite his tongue to keep from reminding her that she had agreed to this. To raising Chris and only a small part of him is upset that he couldn't get her to make this agreement when Kon was still alive.
Batman pages him after they finish dinner, Clark is sitting at the table with Chris, he's tapping at his computer and Chris is working on problem sets for school.
Lois had disappeared into the bedroom right after dinner, when Clark and Chris had been doing dishes.
"I have something you need to see," is Batman's succinct comment.
Clark can detect no emotion, no way of telling if Batman has a new scar he wants to show off or if he has a criminal cornered and wants Superman's input.
He glances over at Chris and the boy is looking back at him, fingers rolling the pencil between his fingers absently.
"It's okay," he says in his young, happy voice. Clark doesn't think that Chris hasn't ever not seemed young or sounded happy.
"I won't be gone long," Clark promises.
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Batman's transmission comes from his cave, but when Superman gets there, Bruce is the one waiting for him. Half in costume, the cowl gone.
There's pictures on the monitors, two of them Clark recognizes from the ones that Tim and Cassie had shown them. The others show the same boy, all at different times because he's wearing different clothes.
"What?" Clark doesn't understand.
"I went back through footage from fights that had taken place near or around Wayne-corp buildings, I found him on footage that was taken from at least two of the Titans altercations, two Outsiders, three Justice League."
"I don't get it," Clark says softly. "Why hasn't he approached one of us? He's there, he's watching us, why doesn't he…"
Bruce looks over at him.
"He may be watching us to figure out our weaknesses, to find a way for Luthor to destroy us."
"Kon wouldn't do that."
"That boy isn't Kon, that boy is a clone, a fake copy of Kon," Clark looks over, because even for Bruce that statement was surprisingly gentle. "This boy is something else; we know to look for him now. I'll send the information to the other teams and maybe we can lay a trap for him."
"We're not going to hurt him," Clark says alarmed. Kon has already been hurt enough, and even if this boy isn't Kon, Clark won't allow him to be harmed in the name of learning his secrets.
"We just want to talk to him," Bruce says.
Clark doesn't believe him.
******************************************************************************
The Outsiders catch him.
He's spotted twice more, Robin misses springing the trap that's been set for him by 45 seconds and he's still beating himself up about it when Nightwing contacts them to say they have him.
He's been hit with a tranquilizer, specially designed by Batman to subdue Superman if need be, it's like everyone has forgotten that Kon is a half-Kryptonian, because they all seemed shocked that four hours later, he's still unconscious.
Batman has been taking the time to go through the belongings that were found on the boy.
There are three devices that they can't recognize, Batman quarantines them until further tests can be done on them to determine if they're safe or not.
Superman is sitting outside the cell that they have the boy locked in, watching. Cassie is leaning against the wall doing the same thing, eyes bright. Tim can recognize the fact that she'd been crying but has managed to pull herself together, Wonder Woman being next to her probably has something to do with that.
Robin tries to keep away, but like everyone else he is drawn to the cell that Kon is in.
Batman has finally conceded that Luthor most likely had nothing to do with the Kon before them now, the fact that Luthor is still actively looking for signs of him when they've actually managed to find and contain him probably has something to do with that.
"He could be just trying to throw us off the scent," Batman says, though even he sounds like he doesn't buy that.
He's working on analyzing the three devices that they found on Kon, every few hours he shows up to remind Superman that he has a life outside of Kon.
Superman leaves and returns with Chris in tow, settles him in his quarters and returns to his vigil outside Kon's cell.
"Lois is on assignment," Clark says simply.
They're going on nine hours with no sign of Kon getting ready to wake, someone goes for food and Tim sheds Robin like so many of the others are shedding their alters and then forces himself to eat half his sandwich.
"When do you think he's going to wake up?" Cassie asks.
She's sitting next to him, back against a wall. He passes her a bag of chips and she hands over a soda.
"Soon," Tim says, then returns his attention to eavesdropping on the conversation that Bruce is having with Clark and Diana.
"Two of the devices are working copies of prototypes I'm currently working on," Bruce says. He sounds annoyed and glances over at where Kon is still out, when he wakes up Tim envisions his questions are going to lean more toward 'who supplies your gadgets?' then 'who created you?'
Someone has gone into his cell and placed a blanket over him, a pillow under his head.
Tim is split on either Clark or Cassie. He knows it wasn't him, he'd thought about it but by the time he'd convinced himself that Kon would be getting cold someone had beat him to it.
"What about the third one?" Diana asks.
"I don't know, it's a design that I'm unfamiliar with, and its construction patterns aren't showing up in my database at all," Bruce is turning the gadget over and over in his hands. "Some of the symbols etched into it are vaguely familiar, though they're not turning up any hits in our databases."
"Do you smell that?" Cassie whispers, Tim turns to look at her and then does.
A faintly sweet smell, he isn't in costume, there's no breather secreted in his street clothes, not in the Watchtower of all places and he can see the second that everyone else notices it as well and then everything freezes.
Or rather he, they freeze.
He can still see, he's still aware of his surroundings but he can't move or talk, he can't even blink and he hopes that whatever this is wears off and then wonders why intruders on the Watchtower hadn't set off the Intruder Alarm.
It just figures that this would be the moment that they've been waiting for, because Kon is beginning to stir in the cell, moving slowly and legs appear in the limited line of sight he has.
There's no costume, but the posture and stride are utterly familiar. Except it doesn't make any sense.
Though he knows, now, why the Intruder Alarm didn't go off.
Because that is Dick pressing the key code into Kon's cell to open the door, an older Dick with silver streaks in his hair is kneeling by Kon talking quietly.
"Don't move too quickly," he's saying softly, he's pulling Kon into his arms.
If he could move he would be jerking in shock, everyone else would be as well so he doesn't feel too badly about that, when Kon mumbles a faint, "'m okay dad."
"Shh, shh," Dick murmurs. He's running a gentle hand over Kon's head. "Just breathe slowly Conner."
"God I can't believe we were ever this young," Roy appears in front of Tim, peering at him then Cassie, he makes the same visual inspections of Clark and Bruce and Diana.
"Roy…" Dick sounds exasperated.
"Well really, Bruce and Diana don't even have any gray yet… though maybe they color."
"I dare you to ask one of them if they ever colored their hair, though let me know beforehand so I can make sure to record the inevitable smackdown."
Roy laughs. "I am serious though, this would had to have been, what? 15 years or so before he showed up on our doorstep with Conner in tow?"
"Something like that," Dick says absently, he's running a hand over Kon's head.
"…head hurts," Kon says softly, his eyes aren't open.
"I know," Dick soothes, Tim didn't think he could sound that gentle and soft. "Just give it a few minutes."
"Found the transporter, and his communication device," Roy appears in Tim's line of sight again, he's tucking two of the three devices that Bruce had been playing with in a pocket on his jacket. "Can't find his cloaking device, I think he turned it off. Probably how they managed to find him in the first place."
"Check Bruce, he likes to fidget with things he doesn't recognize."
Roy peels Bruce's fingers aside and smiles when he finds it. He presses two of the symbols that had puzzled Bruce and then slides it into his pocket with the others. He walks over to the cell where Dick is still sitting with Kon in his arms, kneels beside them and touches Kon's face softly. "How you feeling buddy?"
"Dad shot me with a tranq papa," Kon says in a small voice, Roy laughs softly.
"I didn't," Dick starts.
"Actually, you kind of did," Roy's voice is amused.
"Well I didn't know back then," Dick insists.
"He's not blaming you," Roy says. "Though I did tell you that you should wait just a bit longer."
"I didn't think he'd go running off into the past to see for himself, now did I."
"Except that's exactly what happened last time, he was found here and we came to bring him home and had to sit him down and explain things."
"He was eighteen when he reappeared and Conner is only seventeen, I didn't think he'd," Dick sounds so distressed. "I thought we had at least another seven months with our son before we had to send him back here to be poked and prodded and tore apart by Bruce and Clark and every other member of the Justice League that doesn't trust him. Excuse me if I'm not feeling joy and happiness about sending him to that."
"You still should have waited."
"For what? So Clark could tell him instead, or maybe you would rather Tim and Cassie had sat him down and tried to explain their convoluted relationship with him, or maybe you would rather he showed up in the same room as Conner and no explanations were necessary anymore, I would rather he hear the whole long story from one of us then one of them," Dick says with exasperation. Kon makes a noise that sounds like an objection in the back of his throat.
Tim can't remember the last time he saw Dick this angry, though his hands are still gentle on Kon where he's getting to his feet and bringing Kon with him. Roy helps.
"Dick," Roy says gently. "He needed to know, I agree with that, nothing is going to change that. You know it as well as I do, things are happening in the exact order that they did the first time."
"I still don't see why we have to…"
"There's certain things that we don't have control over," Roy is saying as they maneuver slowly past them. "Bruce's skepticism and Clark and everyone else's distrust, we can't control those things. We can control how prepared Conner is to be coming to those people. They'll need him, because no one else will be able to do what needs to be done. It was only our job to raise him into the person that could handle what he needs to do."
Tim doesn't hear what Dick's response is, the door closes and he can blink and a few seconds later he can move.
Bruce huffs an angry sound and he's out the door, Clark and Diana right behind him.
They're back a few seconds later. Alone.
"They're gone."
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Clark's not sure how long they're going to be waiting.
The older Dick and Roy had mentioned seven months, but with time travel involved (as it evidently was) it could be seven months their time and three days his.
"Will he like me?" Chris is asking, Clark smiles at him, strokes a hand across his hair.
"Of course he will," Clark promises.
Their Dick and Roy had seemed amused by the footage when shown it. They hadn't been as amused by Bruce trying to interrogate them on events that had not happened yet.
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He appears in the Fortress of all places, Superman is there because… well he isn't sure why he's there. He'd just felt an imperative need to commune with his heritage. Chris is with him, laying on the floor to one side, more homework in front of him.
He feels the air shift and pop.
"Clark?" Chris asks, raising his head and when they turn Kon is there.
Looking uncomfortable in the jeans and black t-shirt that had been his uniform for so many years. There's a backpack over one shoulder and another bag at his feet, he looks sad and alone and Clark wonders if he feels like his parents have abandoned him because they've sent him here.
He wants to laugh, because he doesn't understand why someone thought it a smart idea for Dick Grayson and Roy Harper to raise Kon, Bruce alone must have had a coronary the first time through. Let alone what Oliver must have done.
"Hi," Chris says, he bounds to his feet, homework forgotten. "Hi, I'm Chris," he offers his hand and Kon stares at him for a long second before he accepts it.
"Hi Chris," he says softly. There's no recognition in his voice when he looks at Chris, and Clark has to wonder why, he should know all of them.
Has been raised by them, he's been a child, raised to be an adult by some of the best of them.
"Kon-El," he says, Kal-El in his voice, Superman in uniform. Clark is pleased inside to have the boy back where he belongs.
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This world is a totally different place then the one he left, he knows that he's going to the Watchtower for days upon days of tests, just like he knows that Dick and Roy will be the ones to put a stop to them.
The Dick and Roy that are not yet his parents, because that hasn't happened yet.
He knows this because his dads had made a point of telling him.
He keeps reminding himself that it's only a few days, then buries everything else that he knows because he doesn't trust the psychics to just not take the information that they want.
This world is his, but it's not.
Clark doesn't act like the kindly uncle, he and Bruce aren't yet lovers and Lois and he appear to still be married.
He knows that Tim and Cassie have been waiting since they first saw him for him to come back.
He knows that Chris hasn't revealed himself for who he is yet.
He could warn them, could tell them what needs to be done. Then go home.
They told him before they sent him here, their flimsy excuses as to why they couldn't do this themselves, why it had to be him.
He knows he can't, so when Batman asks the questions he shakes his head and refuses to answer. He's been warned about sharing the things that he knows and he loves the world that he came from so he doesn't want to change that.
He endures the tests stoically. He's been through worse, when Lex Luthor figured out who he was, who Dick Grayson and Roy Harper were raising, he'd almost killed him before the Justice League and the Titans had managed to rescue him.
He'd been eight, and it was the first time that he could remember looking up and not being afraid of Batman, because Batman had held him tightly against his chest until his father had pulled him from his arms and into his own.
So they test him and he's been through versions of these tests, they're not so bad.
He just has to not think about them.
Instead he forces himself to remember happy things, when Batman is poking him with needles and holding a miniscule piece of kryptonite over him he remembers Bruce chasing him around the mansion, tickling him until he laughed so hard that he cried, he remembers him holding him on his lap and reading him a bedtime story when his dad and papa were late coming back from patrol.
When Superman asks endless questions about what he's seen, what he knows, 'don't you want to change the world for the better' he remembers Clark, who was always right on the outside of his family, holding tight to Bruce and watching him with eyes that, back then, he couldn't decipher but now knows were screaming you're mine, my family, my son, not theirs.
The others stand back, let Batman and Superman handle things with him and he sees Robin and Wonder Girl only once at the back of the room when Superman brings him to the Watchtower.
He thinks he saw himself once, Tim and Cassie had disappeared at the same time from a party and he'd been fifteen and bored and at a party with people much older then him.
He'd seen them in the garden, the three of them, arms wrapped around each other and he'd thought they'd looked peaceful until he'd heard Cassie crying, until he saw the lines of tension on Tim's face and the other one had been whispering to them.
Something he couldn't hear.
He'd never seen him again; either on purpose or accidentally… From the sadness that had been permanently etched into Tim and Cassie's faces after that, he didn't think anyone else had either.
******************************************************************************
Superman has fought Darkseid, again. Batman has fought back Ra's al Ghul, again. Everyone has fought back their fiercest foes yet things just kept continually getting darker and they keep returning. They have no clue what is going on and they think they're stuck in some version of hell.
The battles getting harder and bloodier. It's Kon that figures it out, when Clark thinks that they're all going to die Kon does it.
Clark thinks that he probably knew all along, he doesn't know what he was waiting for.
It's just five simple words that destroy the construct that Chris is, the boy screams before he vanishes and the world rights itself.
Clark is glad that Kon was the one to do it, because when he looks at Chris he sees the child that he took into his life and his home, and he doesn't think that he would have been able to.
Kon just falls to his knees and doesn't say a word.
Dick is the one that goes to him, lays an arm over his shoulder and tugs him into a hug.
"I wanted to be wrong, dad," he whispers and Clark sees one lone tear travel down his cheek for the boy that Chris should have been.
"You did good, you made me so proud," Dick says and Clark knows that Kon isn't hearing the voice of someone that barely knows him, he's hearing his fathers voice praising him for doing the right thing.
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