Evil Has Never Loved You As I Do
Also posted at: http://community.livejournal.com/yj_anon_meme/689.html?thread=1817521#t1817521
Summary: What if the YJ team were the child soldiers/covert team of a Crime Syndicate/Justice Lords fusion.
Pairings: Wally/Everyone
Word count: 6500
Superboy is three more vertical steel columns and one coordinated explosion away from killing thousands of people.
The collapse of LuthorCorps headquarters in Metropolis should kill everyone working inside and at least a few hundred first responders and civilians who can’t get out of the blast range in time. The Lords have wanted to send Lex Luthor a message for months, and today Superboy’s going to deliver it personally.
His vision is tunneling, shrinking to the next explosive he needs to plant, to the next beam he needs to structurally weaken, or take out entirely. Robin planned it all out, took a five minute look at the building blueprints, did a few back-of-the-envelope calculations, and wrote out a little map for Superboy to memorize.
Superboy only has eyes for the next column. Everything in his way, everything that moves, he swats with enough force to snap necks.
It’s okay not to look at the faces this time; his teammates aren’t here. Robin is running interference a few buildings away, preventing the arrival of more of Luthor’s security and remotely disabling the elevators. Aqualad and Kid Flash are outside on the ground, stopping the anymore security teams from getting in and killing anyone who tries to get out. Miss Martian and Artemis are air support and sniper team, respectively, fulfilling the same job as Kaldur and Wally from above.
Superboy is inside, about to kill thousands of people, because that’s the way he wanted it to be. That’s the way it has to be.
His teammates are oddly quiet over the communicators. Normally, Wally would be cracking jokes, and Artemis would be snarking back at him.
Today, it’s very perfunctory.
“KF, swat teams at my 3.”
“M’gann, flank the north side again. A media helicopter is trying to rescue civilians from the 78th floor.”
Robin and Wally aren’t even laughing.
Superboy listens to his teammates’ breathing as he arms the last charge and radios it in. It isn’t even a lot of explosives. He’s already weakened the building structure enough that it really just needs one last explosive straw to bring the entire place tumbling down. They spend more on a week’s worth of food than it’s costing to kill every human in this 105 story building.
Superman’s going to be so proud of them.
Superboy waits by the last steel column he needs to take out. He can’t hear bullets anymore. That probably means everyone left on this floor is dead. The building itself is groaning, crumpling.
“Superboy, we’re outside the blast perimeter. Waiting on you.”
Superboy can hear people shouting in the stairwells. Barricading them was the first thing he did. Four floors away there is a day-care center. The adults are doing an admirable job of keeping the young children and toddlers calm. He can hear a building worth of screams, and prayers, and crying, and last declarations of love.
He focuses on the sounds of his teammates' distant breathing.
.
.
Superboy should have known not to go to Kid Flash with his initial doubt.
Kid Flash - Wally, he learns later - loves his job. He loves his speed and he loves the things he can do with his speed, whether that’s running up walls or cutting through people so fast and clean that by the time they realize they’re dying, he’s ten people away.
But Superboy hadn’t known that yet when he met the boys at Cadmus. It was easy in those early minutes to ignore what should have been very clear.
It’s just, even though the Genomorphs were engineered the same way he was - like family, he thinks later, alone in the dark - they weren’t humanoid. It didn’t seem so bad when Kid Flash was slicing them to pieces with the blades attached to his arms, laughing the whole time.
He was laughing - not like Robin’s laughter, equal parts madness and resignation - actual loud, wonderful laughter, like cutting the littlest Genomorphs apart was a game. Like all he ever needed was his freedom and his speed and room for a running start and the dripping, ruby blades that always seemed to be a shinning blur in the Superboy’s periphery no matter where he was looking.
The laughter was infectious, and when Superboy started pulling the Genomorphs apart with his bare hands because they had to escape, to get free, to go to Superman, Kid Flash had turned to him with delighted, wondering eyes.
" Oh " he breathed, frozen in a moment between kills, “Superman’s gonna love you.”
Between Aqualad’s quiet faith and Robin’s cool assessment, Kid Flash’s admiring words had made him feel warm and wanted.
It’s later that the warm feeling drains away. After his solar suit is stained will the blood of Genomorphs and Desmond alike, after he’s finally seen the moon, his companions notice they’ve drawn a crowd of witnesses, police and firemen Superboy thinks, public servants.
Aqualad tells the men to leave or die. He’s frowning and Robin tenses, but Wally just grins. The policemen draw guns, and his new friends move.
Superboy stands there, impervious to the flying bullets, unsure what to do, shocked as his friends' methods don’t change. Robin is still graceful, beautiful death. Aqualad is still efficient and ruthless in his kills. Kid Flash is still laughing, wild and rapturous, and Superboy wants it to stop sounding so beautiful, but it doesn’t.
After, the gunfire and the screams have come to an end, Kid Flash zooms back to him, still grinning. His face and his mask are covered in extra freckles that shine red-black in the moonlight.
“Why - Why did you kill the humans?”
Kid Flash’s head cocks, bemused but still smiling.
“Supes, we did it ‘cause it was fun. “
Superboy stares into Wally’s honest, laughing eyes and sees a malice so strong it must feel like joy to him.
.
.
Later, but not much later, the boys bring him to Superman. It’s too much standing in front of him, this legend, and Superboy forgets the actions that have led him to this. If his actions could ever be justified, he thinks, it for this. Superboy walks forward, and brings together two torn pieces of cloth to show this man the crest he has chosen as his own, that Superboy chooses as his own.
Superman’s lips curl, staring at his chest. Superboy looks down in confusion and sees that the crest is almost completely obscured by dried blood, that his hands are caked in it. He looks back to Superman in alarm.
The man is laughing. It is the third instance of real laughter Superboy has ever heard. It does not make him feel protective or warm, like the first two did. It makes him feel small.
Superman walks up to him, and Superboy realizes he is small. The man cups a giant hand around the side of his face, and Superboy can’t help but lean into it, already intoxicated by the weight of the small gesture.
“A fitting baptism,” Superman murmurs, proud, and Superboy could drown in the strength of that hand and the look in those magnanimous blue eyes.
Out of the corner of his vision, Superboy still - somehow - manages to see Robin under the cape of a dark figure. Batman, his mind supplies. Batman is stooping to the boy’s height and digging his fingers into the muscles that connect Robin’s neck and shoulder. Robin’s body is just barely trembling, and his mouth is near Batman’s ear.
When Superman learns from Batman that Superboy can’t fly, his smile disappears. When he learns that Superboy didn’t kill any humans during the night’s adventure, he frowns.
Superboy wants to make Superman smile at him again, - it hurts, that he’s not smiling anymore, but Superboy’s terrified because his hands are covered in blood, and Superman wants that blood to have come from people.
.
.
The next day, Batman explains that his friends, and now Superboy, are a covert team sent out on behalf of the Lords. Superboy is the fifth member of this team that includes the three boys he met at Cadmus, and a Martian female that had been elsewhere during his escape. His teammates show him their home in a mountain by the sea. They explain to him the types of missions they are deployed on. They are primarily an assassination squad, but are also proficient in reconnaissance and theft.
Superboy doesn’t understand, and makes his confusion clear to Aqualad, Kaldur’ahm, who seems more rational than Wally or Robin, and who he knows better than the Martian.
Aqualad brings him away from the cave, away from the beach.
He whispers as they walk along the hills behind the town, “The ocean has ears, as does our home, but I can explain it to you, if you desire.”
Superboy desires. Superboy wants to understand. He thought the purpose for which he was built was to help people, and if he’s Superman’s clone then shouldn’t Superman help people? Shouldn’t he be the greatest hero?
Kaldur gestures, his web-fingered hand encompassing both the mountain and town.
“Superboy, we live in a flawed world. Our mentors seek to be the Lords of this world, as my mentor is already lord of his domain in Atlantis. Just as my mentor has made his domain into a utopia, so do the Lords wish to make this world above more perfect.”
Superboy nods, and Kaldur continues.
“Sometimes, to do great things, sacrifices must be made. This is our function, Superboy. We do what we must to clear the way for the world that is to come. The world without sin, without pain.”
“But the things we do -“ when is killing people right, Superboy wants to know.
“Are evil.” Kaldur looks at him, and his grey eyes are hard, “They are evil without apology and without argument. But they are also necessary.”
“How do we know what’s necessary?”
“My King is just. My faith in him - and the men he chooses to ally himself with - is without question. It is necessary because they say so. Have faith in Superman, as I have faith in my King.”
Superboy wants to believe in Superman. Superboy wants to believe in the world Kaldur describes for him as they walk back to the mountain. Kaldur believes, Superboy sees. But Superboy thinks of Wally’s brilliant grin and Robin’s terrible laughter and he doesn’t understand. If they do bad things, to make a world without evil,-
“Where are we, in the perfect world?”
Kaldur pauses, surprised. He places his hands on Superboy’s shoulders.
“We aren’t,” explains Kaldur gently, and his eyes are sad, but without mercy. “To be fair, I do not know what plans Flash, Martian Manhunter, and Batman have for Wally, M’gann, and Robin. I do not know what plans Superman has for you. Our teammates are perhaps too young to know this. But we are monsters, Superboy. There is no place for us in that world.”
That night, when he’s alone, Superboy tries to imagine Kaldur’s perfect world, the world Kaldur would give his soul for.
Superboy can't imagine any world without Robin, Wally, and Kaldur, let alone a perfect one.
.
.
There are humans who oppose the Lords, lawyers, politicians, a few business leaders who stir up trouble or don’t bow to their demands. When this happens, Batman sends in the kids to break their will. Sometimes that means killing, but sometimes it just means breaking every bone in someone’s hand or throwing acid onto their face, or beating a loved one with a crow bar.
Wally doesn’t like the jobs where he can’t kill; it restrains him. Aqualad is professional as ever, and whenever Superboy sees a brief far off look in the other’s eyes, he know what he’s thinking of. Miss Martian is - impassive. Robin is just good at it, the torture.
After an hour, the same person who declares that they will never be silenced, never be stopped as the team came in is rolling on the floor in pool of their own blood and vomit, begging a thirteen year old child to kill them, please, just kill them.
Superboy hates it. It makes him sick to his stomach, and he fails his team - fails Superman - by not being able to kill or torture anyone. When they get back to home base, Kaldur smiles sadly at him and Wally looks at him, frustrated and confused. Robin and the Miss Martain do not seem concerned.
That night, Wally sneaks into his room. He’s wearing pajamas with fictional superheroes on them, and he’s grinning.
“Hey, Supey,” drawls Wally, “Robin’s back in Gotham tonight. Can I sleep with you?”
Superboy doesn’t understand. But Wally had looked so disappointed in him earlier, so he nods.
Wally is on him before he completes the motion. Warm lips make a path from the hollow of his neck to his mouth and quick hands drag down his back. Wally’s tongue darts out to touch the corner of Superboy’s mouth, and Superboy opens his lips, and inhales, surprised.
Wally smells like blood.
Superboy pushes him away a little too hard, and Wally ends up on his butt in the middle of the room.
Kid Flash flits to his feet, and even in the dark of the room, Superboy can see he’s not smiling anymore. He looks - hurt.
“Is it because I’m too young? ‘Cause Speedy never thought I was too young for this.”
Superboy doesn’t know who Speedy is, but his friend looks wounded.
“You smell like blood.”
“I took a shower, man,” but Wally sighs, relieved, “You probably have super-smell or something.”
He pauses again, and his left foot beats a light tattoo into Superboy’s floor.
“Could I just sleep-sleep with you - like next to you? Robin’s gone, I think it bugs Kaldur, and M’gann’s TV shows don’t show that so she won’t do it.
Superboy nods, and Wally’s a warm weight at his left side in an instant. It’s comforting, somehow, and as Superboy drifts off he feels Wally snuggle closer and mumble.
“I wish Speedy was still here. I miss him.”
.
.
Miss Martian is just different. In some way, Superboy feels that he should be able to relate to her. They’re both aliens, they don’t quite belong to this Earth.
Nothing can relate to M'gann, Superboy eventually realizes. She smiles, like a little green girl, and sometimes she laughs like a polite young woman, but there is something behind her eyes that is empty. She smiles, sweetly at the poor soldiers she smothers. She laughs, politely, after she blows up the fighter jet, engulfing its pilots in flames.
The same way she laughs at Wally’s corny jokes, and the same way she smiles as she bakes them cookies, but there is nothing, nothing there, Superboy comes to realize.
He doesn’t go to her with his concerns, with his doubt, confident she wouldn’t understand.
Instead, she comes to him.
If you keep thinking so loudly, my uncle will hear you. You could at least lie with your face and your body like Robin and Aqualad. It would be a shame if they had to make you go away like Speedy.
Superboy doesn’t know whether he should feel grateful for the obvious attempt at concern or terrified because this is the one they send in to kill children, even Wally doesn’t like to kill children and he knows that she doesn’t actually care, probably isn’t capable of it.
She’s smiling at him, with her head tilted to the side, with her lie of a body and lie of a face and her empty eyes.
The only thing he can feel is sadness.
Is it better that way? He asks. There’s no point trying to keep her out of their minds, so he doesn’t even try.
She starts to sigh for his benefit, but realizes it’s pointless.
It’s the only way I know how to be. But I do sleep better than the others, so that’s something.
But you know what I feel, how all of us feel?
Objectively, yes. But what does red smell like? And what sound do stars make? What does silence taste like?
What is joy or pain to someone who’s hollow?
Exactly she pauses to root through his mind, Don’t tell Robin that you have objections to the job. He’ll tell Batman - he can’t help it - and Batman will see that you’re squared away for good. I don’t think you’ll enjoy it either. “Oh, I like your shirt.”
Miss Martian smiles politely and walks away.
Superman knows she can’t care for him, not really, she just can’t, but he also knows that his pity wouldn’t mean anything to her.
M’gann, I’ll just have to feel enough for the both of us.
Her laughter is like clear, empty bells.
.
.
Superboy finally learns who Speedy is, or at least was, a few weeks later, when Batman and Green Arrow introduce his replacement. Artemis is human, and though her grace falls far short of Robin’s, her ruthlessness does not. She is welcomed to the team by Aqualad, Miss Martain, Superboy, and to a lesser extent, Robin.
Kid Flash despises her. Superboy finds this surprising, as Wally usually loves anything that has a large enough capacity for destruction.
Kid Flash loathes Artemis. She finds herself tripping over feet that are only in her way for a fraction of a millisecond. She loses balance suddenly sometimes, stumbling during critical moments. She isn’t capable of seeing her saboteur, but Superboy is. Wally does everything short of deliberately trying to get her killed during missions.
Wally also starts more aggressively hitting on M’gann. Superboy doesn’t see the point to it, but Wally eventually finds success after slipping something called “That 70’s Show” into M’gann’s decades-old sitcoms. After a few seasons, she’s more than willing to spend the night with Wally.
He still doesn’t understand why they do that in his bed.
More often than not, Superboy wakes up flanked by two heads of red hair. If he wasn’t invulnerable, he’d be more worried that it's these two who want to use him as a bed warmer. As it is, he stops complaining after M’gann moves her bed into his room beside his and they stop having to sleep on top of each other.
Wally still spends some nights with Robin, which is good, because when he doesn’t, Robin falls asleep singing the same two songs over and over. Not to mention, Robin’s quiet nightmares still wake Superboy.
Superboy almost feels hurt when after a few missions, Robin warms up to Artemis in a way he never did to Superboy. Robin even convinces Wally to stop trying to kill her.
Superboy feels like he failed again. He thought Robin was just quiet and strange, but he clearly makes an effort for Artemis, and Superboy wonders what he’s doing wrong.
He still has difficulty hurting people during their missions, but he’s great at destroying property and protecting his teammates. He’d thought that might be good enough, if not for Superman, then at least for his team.
One night, Superboy’s awakened by the beds moving. It’s not uncommon, but this time, M’gann’s shifted into someone taller and larger, with auburn hair and a strong jaw. When she speaks, her voice is gruff and angry and Wally shivers underneath her.
“Do you want to know what his last thoughts were?”
“Yes. No, no, please, just harder.”
Superboy even knows what Speedy looked like now.
.
.
Superboy realizes that the tiny, decrepit looking Dr. Destiny has them completely and undeniably outmatched somewhere between M’gann dropping unconscious at the sight of the man’s ruby amulet and the entire team realizing that they are in Artemis’ mind.
At least they’re pretty sure it’s Artemis. Arrows are being shot at them, and he doesn’t know anyone else on the team who’s fluent in an Asian language, but he thinks that each of their own subconsciouses are projecting a little too. Half-torn apart Genomorphs scurry around corners, Wally had to kill a manta ray a few minutes ago, and there are empty circus tents here and there. He’d ask Robin, but there’s a woman’s voice coming from those tents, singing.
Blackbird singing in the dead of night, take these broken wings and learn to fly . . .
Superboy decides he doesn’t want to know.
Their mission was to kill Destiny and retrieve his amulet. It’s not going well. They know Destiny’s in here with them - they can see him flitting around corners and far in the distance. He could probably have killed them all by now, but good guys, as Kid Flash would say, definitely don’t kill children.
He is, however, taking the time to tear apart their psyches, probably to incapacitate the Lord’s best covert team and to ferret out secrets about their mentors.
Destiny’s ripping through them with half-walking nightmares as they try to find him or make it out of Artemis’ head. Superboy’s got a still-unconscious M’gann cradled in one arm and is half dragging Kaldur with the other.
He has no idea anymore how long ago their leader froze, and Superboy figures Dr. Destiny stumbled on a pretty good nightmare with Kaldur. Maybe Dr. Destiny’s making him believe that all their actions, every heartless thing they’ve done is for nothing - for greed and psychosis. Maybe he’s making Kaldur think that they’ll never be able to create that perfect world. Or maybe he’s showing it to Kaldur, his world without sin, and it isn’t how he thought it would be.
Either way, they’re two teammates down. Robin and Wally seem almost unaffected, maybe because horrifying is Wally’s idea of a good time and nightmare fuel is Robin’s status quo. Superboy really doesn’t care, he’s grateful they’re at full capacity. He and Artemis definitely aren’t.
She’s bleeding fear and desperation. Superboy’s not much better - he just wants Superman to be proud of him - Superman is his father, or maker, his reason, Superman knows what’s best for him, he just needs to be strong enough, good enough to listen and obey.
What Superboy wants to understand is why her brain is attacking them, attacking all of them, even her.
“Hey, replacement,” laughs Wally, dodging arrows and knocking ones coming at Robin, Superboy, M’gann, and Kaldur away, “I’m almost impressed here. You’re brain’s pretty deadly. It’s kinda sexy.”
The walls around them in this endless labyrinth of a warehouse/castle/temple, shift, and bubble. From them grow four more Artemises, dark haired and naked.
He looks down at himself and he’s naked too - they all are, and he’s seen dreams like these on the television, but - Oh, God, how did Robin get all those scars?
.
.
He has to set down M’gann and release Kaldur when the four Artemises charge each of the still standing team members.
“I hate you,” his croons, and for someone so little, she’s shredding into him, “If I hesitated half as much as you, if I abstained like you, within a week, I’d be in the Gotham river and Green Arrow would be training someone else. I’m replaceable. ”
His friends are struggling, and Superboy can’t help them. It’s all he can do to shield M’gann and Kaldur from the attacks, even with Robin and Wally’s help. He can’t even look at Robin anymore, because the boy’s back makes him nauseous.
Artemis’ double appears to be merging physically with her, and Superboy can hear skin tearing as his Artemis tries to pull away.
“I hate you the most ,” his enemy-Artemis hisses, “It’s wasted on you, that power and strength, and no one holding you back. You’re not psychotic, or self-deluding, or broken. Why won’t you fight? You motherless monster, who do you have to protect? What helpless love one do you have to keep safe by selling your soul?”
She guts him, with a clawed hand or an arrow. He can’t look. If he looks, it’ll be real. If it’s real, he’ll die. He turns to his friends and they’re not doing much better. Kaldur is still unconscious, and M’gann is -
M’gann is rising.
M’gann is rising and she’s not alone. With her appears a very pale, thin man dressed more or less like Superboy. His hair is wild, and his eyes are like two dark stars.
He raises his hand, and their enemies disappear. He disappears for a moment, and returns with the amulet around his neck.
Even Superboy knows not to try and take anything from this man.
When the man allows them to wake up, Kaldur pulls himself together enough to clarify Miss Martain’s attempt at explanation.
“He was Morpheus of the Seven Endless. Our rescuer has the power of gods.”
The words make Superboy cold. If gods exist, then why are the things they do necessary? Why is everyone he knows so broken?
He’d rather believe Wally’s time travel and futuristic technology explanation than believe that any god would leave the world this way on purpose.
.
.
That night M’gann helps Superboy drag a still shaken Kaldur into Superboy’s room. Wally and Artemis are already there, and it seems like Wally’s more than forgiven her for taking Speedy’s place after a night spent in her head, fighting her naked, psychic projections. Or maybe one of her projections had something to say to him too.
They get rid of the bed frames and grab another mattress, until they’re sleeping on a nest of pillows and blankets. Even with all of their shared warmth, Kaldur’s still finely trembling. Whenever his grey eyes go glassy and far sighted, he starts hyperventilating, gills fluttering uselessly.
M’gann sings something in Martian, low and sweet, surprising them all with the appropriateness of the gesture. Normally her emotional offerings resemble her culinary offerings, in that they’re just off enough to be disturbing, and Wally never seems to notice.
Kaldur’s almost calmed down when Superboy hears another heartbeat in the room.
“Are you stupid or just masochistic?”
“Robin,” Wally literally starts vibrating, drawing a purr from Artemis, “Come on, Rob. It’s so warm in here. We’ve got everyone together now, and nothing will change that. Please.”
“Will you be ready when Batman tells you to kill him?”
Kaldur flinches, and grips Superboy’s hand with webbed fingers.
“Batman won’t.” Wally argues, “He’s Superman’s clone. He’s not replaceable, and he’s not incompetent, he’s just . . . squeamish.”
“He’s worse than incompetent. He’s a liability. He won’t do the job. Superman’s patience is running out, and I asked you a question. Can you kill him? Kaldur, can you?” Robin’s voice is calm, but his heart is racing. “Batman won’t let us pass the job onto Miss Martian this time. He’s tired of coddling us.”
“Can’t Batman take him in,” asks M’gann pleasantly, “like he took you in? Like he made you?”
Robin sweeps out of the room as the other bodies around Superboy erupt in a collective shiver.
Superboy barely notices. The idea of that happening to Speedy has never crossed his mind. He tries to imagine Wally laughing while he cuts Superboy apart like the Genomorphs in Cadmus.
Kaldur tries to explain to M’gann.
“Superboy would not be Superboy when Batman’s work was complete, just as Robin is not the child Batman took in five years ago.”
“There are reasons Robin can’t do deep undercover anymore,” adds Wally, “His conditioning -
“Conditioning?” asked Artemis.
“You saw his back. It’s beautiful, but it’s the tip of the iceberg. It’s made him so fucking perfect in field, but left Boy Horror a wee-bit unstable.
“You’re one to talk.”
“Ah, but Artemis, you don’t have to tie me up when you spend the night just so I don’t wake up and strangle you in your sleep. You can tie me up if you like, of course. Don’t worry Superboy, Superman wouldn’t do that.”
Superboy looks to Kaldur, M’gann, and Artemis and they don’t seem as sure.
Superboy wants to believe that Robin is lying, that Superman would never replace him, but it’s been so long since he made Superman proud.
Miss Martain sings to them again, and even with the knowledge of what happened to Speedy, Superboy can’t help but hold one of the warm bodies surrounding him and feel comforted. She stops after Kaldur, Wally, and Artemis fall asleep, drifting off herself. Superboy hears Robin singing himself to sleep down the hall.
“Why you wanna fly, blackbird? You ain’t ever gonna fly. No place big enough for holding all the tears you’re gonna cry. ‘Cause your mamma’s name was lonely, and your daddy’s name was pain. And they call you little sorrow, ‘cause you’ll never love again. Why you wanna fly blackbird? You ain’t ever gonna fly.”
.
.
Kaldur isn’t the same after Dr. Destiny. He still leads them in the heat of battle, keeping them safe and adapting to achieve the objective, but he won’t plan anymore. Robin steps in to fill the gap.
This mission has them divided into three teams, searching through T. O. Morrow’s bases to steal three separate machines. None of the teams know what the others are searching for, and if Superboy can tell that Batman is trusting the team less and less with information, then the situation’s gone from bad to worse.
Superboy and Robin are in Denver and the windows of laboratory they’re looking through don’t block out the sounds of the storm outside. Robin takes a look around and starts gathering pieces of machinery Superboy doesn’t remember from their briefing and pulling tools from his utility belt.
Five minutes later, Robin sets down the device and slaps in a power cell.
Every light in the building - every small whirring machine - shuts down.
“You need to go away now.”
Superboy’s eyes switch instinctively to infrared. Robin’s close, close enough that Superboy can feel as well as see the heat.
Superboy wants to step away - away from the thirteen year old boy whose been an assassin since he was nine, who’s never liked him, who planned this mission, divided them into these team.
“I can help you go away for good.”
Thunder rolls in the distance, and Superboy fears a child half his size.
“Robin-”
“My name was Richard Grayson.”
Superboy pauses.
.
.
“My name was Richard Grayson, and my parents were acrobats in Haley’s Circus. Batman came to one of our shows, as his alter ego. He saw me on the trapeze. He thought I had . . . potential.
"The next time he came to the circus, we had an accident. I can’t remember their faces or their names, but I remember how my parents’ bodies looked, broken.
“Within a year, I answered only to Robin.”
Superboy doesn’t understand why he’s being told this, but Robin’s voice is firm and sure.
“Batman doesn’t know that I still know my name, but I do. I also know where the Lords keep their only boom tube.”
Superboy’s heard of the interstellar teleportation devices, but it pales in comparison to Robin’s revelation.
“I have a distraction planned. It’ll give you time to get to the tube, and I can explain to you how to program it for Apokolips. Darkseid will take you in or help you along. He’s harsh, but he has rules - good guy rules. Even if he thinks you’re a trap, he’ll give you political asylum. He also has the power to keep you away from Superman.”
“Superman-?”
“-is going to have you killed, and soon.” Robin is so close to Superboy that the distance between them feels charged. “ You’re a threat to him. You’re one of the only people who could ever truly be a threat to him, and you won’t kill for him.”
“What about you?”
“Batman won’t know what I’ve until you’re light-years away. He’ll have to punish me, for show, but weakening Superman’s theoretical power is in his long term interests. He probably won’t kill me.”
“Why can’t the whole team go?”
“You can bring try to bring Kaldur and Artemis - he’s not a true believer anymore and her mom’s probably been dead for months - but Wally won’t want to leave here, and M’gann doesn’t care.”
“What about you?”
Robin laughs his terrible little laugh.
Artemis had showed Superboy a picture once that had looked like a vase. She had to tell him what to look for before he had seen the two faces, leaning in to kiss. Robin’s laughter is like the vase and two faces. Until you listen for it, you can’t hear the sobs. Once you’ve heard them, it flickers back and forth between the two in your mind, and you can’t not.
“The first year I was deployed, I tried running away. I never got far, but it inconvenienced Batman enough to add a safety measure.”
Robin takes Superboy’s hand in his own, and brings his fingers to the base of Robin’s skull.
“There’s a remotely-detonated explosive at the top of my spinal cord.”
“But if you’re out of its range?”
“If I’m out of its range, it won’t receive the signal that tells it not to explode. If I’m out of the northern hemisphere, let alone in space, for more than three days at a time, I’m dead. I’m Batman’s, and only his.”
Superboy can’t help but curl his fingers around the back of Robin’s neck. He thinks Robin leans into it, but it’s hard to tell in the dark.
“Decide in five days, or they’ll make the decision for you. If yes, start an argument with me and call me a dick, okay?”
Robin removes the power cell from his jamming device and the power in the building comes back online, along with their communicators. They retrieve the devices and return to base.
Superboy spends the next four days with his friends. There’s a tension in the air, during and after missions. No one on the team is stupid, and even Wally is not so damaged to know that Superboy’s time is running out.
Superboy thinks about never hurting anyone ever. He thinks about saving people, saving his friends. He thinks about what Superman wants, and what he wants.
Robin is still the only one who doesn’t sleep in Superboy’s room. Superboy falls asleep to Robin singing alone in his room, and wonders how he could have not known that someone cared for him that much.
.
.
On the fifth day he goes to Robin.
“What do I have to do to prove myself to the Lords?”
Robin looks alarmed, but his voice is calm, almost dismissive.
“Superboy, you’ve known what you’ve needed to do, and it’s been months. Killing a few politicians and activists isn’t going to cut it anymore.”
“Then tell me what I need to do. Plan it all out, and I’ll do it.”
Robin’s shoulders slump forward for a second, a puppet whose strings have been cut. Then he nods.
“I think I have something that might work.”
The others, like Robin, are confused by his change of heart.
Wally looks at him like he did on that first day, like Superboy is a present just for him.
Kaldur and Artemis are interested in the plan itself, and help Robin flush out the details. They look at Superboy with new eyes, and he tries not to wonder what his sane friends see.
“Why aren’t we trying to kill Luthor, again?” asks Artemis.
“He’s working on something big, and Batman doesn’t want him touched until he’s finished.”
“What’s he working on?”
“How much do you know about the many-worlds interpretation of quantum physics?”
“Not much.”
“Then don’t worry about it. Worry about the private security force LuthorCorp contracts with.”
When they present the details of the plan to Batman, he almost smiles, approving the mission immediately. Superboy can’t look at Batman anymore without thinking of the scars on Robin’s back, and of a little boy whose name was Richard Grayson.
.
.
The building is almost collapsing under its own weight. Left alone, it might come down any second or stay up long enough to evacuate the people inside. Superboy’s friends are waiting for him.
Waiting by the last column, Superboy thinks about how he could have galaxies away by now. He thinks of growing up, becoming strong, and coming back at the head of an army. Of fighting Superman, of stopping him. Maybe some of his friends would have come. Maybe some of them would still be alive on Earth when he returned.
The building shudders above him, and the children in the day-care center start crying, and Superboy waits for something inside him to snap. He waits for some metamorphosis that will make this okay, for evil to become his good, or for him just to stop caring, but nothing comes.
He wishes that it would.
There’s only his friend’s breathing, and the building falling apart around him.
His leg snaps out, and the last column goes. Superboy throws himself through the glass windows, landing in the street, surrounded by firemen, police officers, good Samaritans, and they’re all too close, they’re all going to die.
“Clear.”
His leap takes him buildings away as the charges go off behind him, and the building topples down.
.....
They stand together on the tallest building upwind of the rubble that was LuthorCorp HQ. The dust still hasn’t cleared. It probably won’t for days.
“Anyboy want to quote the Bhagavda Gita?” quips Wally, admiring the sight of the destruction they’ve caused.
“Not especially,” adds Artemis.
“We have a report to deliver.”
They obey Kaldur, board M’gann’s bioship, and fly off to Superman.
Superboy's never seen Superman look at him like that.
He is so proud of Superboy, he gives him a name. Superboy can’t decide whether or not he wants his friends to call him Conner Kent. He doesn’t think he can hear this name without hearing the children in the day-care center scream. He decides to let them call him it.
When Superman asks him if he likes his name, indulgent and smiling, Superboy thinks of Wally’s laugh, Kaldur’s perfect world, M’gann’s hollow eyes, Artemis self-loathing dreams, and the skin of Robin’s neck under his hand. Superboy lies with his face and his body, and Superman looks at Superboy like he’s worth something.
That night Robin crawls into bed with them, and Superboy tears his Cadmus solar suit to strips, wrapping the smooth fabric around Robin’s wrists. Robin curls into his arms and his friends curl into each other and Superboy falls asleep thinking, there must be worse worlds than this.
Summary: What if the YJ team were the child soldiers/covert team of a Crime Syndicate/Justice Lords fusion.
Pairings: Wally/Everyone
Word count: 6500
Superboy is three more vertical steel columns and one coordinated explosion away from killing thousands of people.
The collapse of LuthorCorps headquarters in Metropolis should kill everyone working inside and at least a few hundred first responders and civilians who can’t get out of the blast range in time. The Lords have wanted to send Lex Luthor a message for months, and today Superboy’s going to deliver it personally.
His vision is tunneling, shrinking to the next explosive he needs to plant, to the next beam he needs to structurally weaken, or take out entirely. Robin planned it all out, took a five minute look at the building blueprints, did a few back-of-the-envelope calculations, and wrote out a little map for Superboy to memorize.
Superboy only has eyes for the next column. Everything in his way, everything that moves, he swats with enough force to snap necks.
It’s okay not to look at the faces this time; his teammates aren’t here. Robin is running interference a few buildings away, preventing the arrival of more of Luthor’s security and remotely disabling the elevators. Aqualad and Kid Flash are outside on the ground, stopping the anymore security teams from getting in and killing anyone who tries to get out. Miss Martian and Artemis are air support and sniper team, respectively, fulfilling the same job as Kaldur and Wally from above.
Superboy is inside, about to kill thousands of people, because that’s the way he wanted it to be. That’s the way it has to be.
His teammates are oddly quiet over the communicators. Normally, Wally would be cracking jokes, and Artemis would be snarking back at him.
Today, it’s very perfunctory.
“KF, swat teams at my 3.”
“M’gann, flank the north side again. A media helicopter is trying to rescue civilians from the 78th floor.”
Robin and Wally aren’t even laughing.
Superboy listens to his teammates’ breathing as he arms the last charge and radios it in. It isn’t even a lot of explosives. He’s already weakened the building structure enough that it really just needs one last explosive straw to bring the entire place tumbling down. They spend more on a week’s worth of food than it’s costing to kill every human in this 105 story building.
Superman’s going to be so proud of them.
Superboy waits by the last steel column he needs to take out. He can’t hear bullets anymore. That probably means everyone left on this floor is dead. The building itself is groaning, crumpling.
“Superboy, we’re outside the blast perimeter. Waiting on you.”
Superboy can hear people shouting in the stairwells. Barricading them was the first thing he did. Four floors away there is a day-care center. The adults are doing an admirable job of keeping the young children and toddlers calm. He can hear a building worth of screams, and prayers, and crying, and last declarations of love.
He focuses on the sounds of his teammates' distant breathing.
.
.
Superboy should have known not to go to Kid Flash with his initial doubt.
Kid Flash - Wally, he learns later - loves his job. He loves his speed and he loves the things he can do with his speed, whether that’s running up walls or cutting through people so fast and clean that by the time they realize they’re dying, he’s ten people away.
But Superboy hadn’t known that yet when he met the boys at Cadmus. It was easy in those early minutes to ignore what should have been very clear.
It’s just, even though the Genomorphs were engineered the same way he was - like family, he thinks later, alone in the dark - they weren’t humanoid. It didn’t seem so bad when Kid Flash was slicing them to pieces with the blades attached to his arms, laughing the whole time.
He was laughing - not like Robin’s laughter, equal parts madness and resignation - actual loud, wonderful laughter, like cutting the littlest Genomorphs apart was a game. Like all he ever needed was his freedom and his speed and room for a running start and the dripping, ruby blades that always seemed to be a shinning blur in the Superboy’s periphery no matter where he was looking.
The laughter was infectious, and when Superboy started pulling the Genomorphs apart with his bare hands because they had to escape, to get free, to go to Superman, Kid Flash had turned to him with delighted, wondering eyes.
" Oh " he breathed, frozen in a moment between kills, “Superman’s gonna love you.”
Between Aqualad’s quiet faith and Robin’s cool assessment, Kid Flash’s admiring words had made him feel warm and wanted.
It’s later that the warm feeling drains away. After his solar suit is stained will the blood of Genomorphs and Desmond alike, after he’s finally seen the moon, his companions notice they’ve drawn a crowd of witnesses, police and firemen Superboy thinks, public servants.
Aqualad tells the men to leave or die. He’s frowning and Robin tenses, but Wally just grins. The policemen draw guns, and his new friends move.
Superboy stands there, impervious to the flying bullets, unsure what to do, shocked as his friends' methods don’t change. Robin is still graceful, beautiful death. Aqualad is still efficient and ruthless in his kills. Kid Flash is still laughing, wild and rapturous, and Superboy wants it to stop sounding so beautiful, but it doesn’t.
After, the gunfire and the screams have come to an end, Kid Flash zooms back to him, still grinning. His face and his mask are covered in extra freckles that shine red-black in the moonlight.
“Why - Why did you kill the humans?”
Kid Flash’s head cocks, bemused but still smiling.
“Supes, we did it ‘cause it was fun. “
Superboy stares into Wally’s honest, laughing eyes and sees a malice so strong it must feel like joy to him.
.
.
Later, but not much later, the boys bring him to Superman. It’s too much standing in front of him, this legend, and Superboy forgets the actions that have led him to this. If his actions could ever be justified, he thinks, it for this. Superboy walks forward, and brings together two torn pieces of cloth to show this man the crest he has chosen as his own, that Superboy chooses as his own.
Superman’s lips curl, staring at his chest. Superboy looks down in confusion and sees that the crest is almost completely obscured by dried blood, that his hands are caked in it. He looks back to Superman in alarm.
The man is laughing. It is the third instance of real laughter Superboy has ever heard. It does not make him feel protective or warm, like the first two did. It makes him feel small.
Superman walks up to him, and Superboy realizes he is small. The man cups a giant hand around the side of his face, and Superboy can’t help but lean into it, already intoxicated by the weight of the small gesture.
“A fitting baptism,” Superman murmurs, proud, and Superboy could drown in the strength of that hand and the look in those magnanimous blue eyes.
Out of the corner of his vision, Superboy still - somehow - manages to see Robin under the cape of a dark figure. Batman, his mind supplies. Batman is stooping to the boy’s height and digging his fingers into the muscles that connect Robin’s neck and shoulder. Robin’s body is just barely trembling, and his mouth is near Batman’s ear.
When Superman learns from Batman that Superboy can’t fly, his smile disappears. When he learns that Superboy didn’t kill any humans during the night’s adventure, he frowns.
Superboy wants to make Superman smile at him again, - it hurts, that he’s not smiling anymore, but Superboy’s terrified because his hands are covered in blood, and Superman wants that blood to have come from people.
.
.
The next day, Batman explains that his friends, and now Superboy, are a covert team sent out on behalf of the Lords. Superboy is the fifth member of this team that includes the three boys he met at Cadmus, and a Martian female that had been elsewhere during his escape. His teammates show him their home in a mountain by the sea. They explain to him the types of missions they are deployed on. They are primarily an assassination squad, but are also proficient in reconnaissance and theft.
Superboy doesn’t understand, and makes his confusion clear to Aqualad, Kaldur’ahm, who seems more rational than Wally or Robin, and who he knows better than the Martian.
Aqualad brings him away from the cave, away from the beach.
He whispers as they walk along the hills behind the town, “The ocean has ears, as does our home, but I can explain it to you, if you desire.”
Superboy desires. Superboy wants to understand. He thought the purpose for which he was built was to help people, and if he’s Superman’s clone then shouldn’t Superman help people? Shouldn’t he be the greatest hero?
Kaldur gestures, his web-fingered hand encompassing both the mountain and town.
“Superboy, we live in a flawed world. Our mentors seek to be the Lords of this world, as my mentor is already lord of his domain in Atlantis. Just as my mentor has made his domain into a utopia, so do the Lords wish to make this world above more perfect.”
Superboy nods, and Kaldur continues.
“Sometimes, to do great things, sacrifices must be made. This is our function, Superboy. We do what we must to clear the way for the world that is to come. The world without sin, without pain.”
“But the things we do -“ when is killing people right, Superboy wants to know.
“Are evil.” Kaldur looks at him, and his grey eyes are hard, “They are evil without apology and without argument. But they are also necessary.”
“How do we know what’s necessary?”
“My King is just. My faith in him - and the men he chooses to ally himself with - is without question. It is necessary because they say so. Have faith in Superman, as I have faith in my King.”
Superboy wants to believe in Superman. Superboy wants to believe in the world Kaldur describes for him as they walk back to the mountain. Kaldur believes, Superboy sees. But Superboy thinks of Wally’s brilliant grin and Robin’s terrible laughter and he doesn’t understand. If they do bad things, to make a world without evil,-
“Where are we, in the perfect world?”
Kaldur pauses, surprised. He places his hands on Superboy’s shoulders.
“We aren’t,” explains Kaldur gently, and his eyes are sad, but without mercy. “To be fair, I do not know what plans Flash, Martian Manhunter, and Batman have for Wally, M’gann, and Robin. I do not know what plans Superman has for you. Our teammates are perhaps too young to know this. But we are monsters, Superboy. There is no place for us in that world.”
That night, when he’s alone, Superboy tries to imagine Kaldur’s perfect world, the world Kaldur would give his soul for.
Superboy can't imagine any world without Robin, Wally, and Kaldur, let alone a perfect one.
.
.
There are humans who oppose the Lords, lawyers, politicians, a few business leaders who stir up trouble or don’t bow to their demands. When this happens, Batman sends in the kids to break their will. Sometimes that means killing, but sometimes it just means breaking every bone in someone’s hand or throwing acid onto their face, or beating a loved one with a crow bar.
Wally doesn’t like the jobs where he can’t kill; it restrains him. Aqualad is professional as ever, and whenever Superboy sees a brief far off look in the other’s eyes, he know what he’s thinking of. Miss Martian is - impassive. Robin is just good at it, the torture.
After an hour, the same person who declares that they will never be silenced, never be stopped as the team came in is rolling on the floor in pool of their own blood and vomit, begging a thirteen year old child to kill them, please, just kill them.
Superboy hates it. It makes him sick to his stomach, and he fails his team - fails Superman - by not being able to kill or torture anyone. When they get back to home base, Kaldur smiles sadly at him and Wally looks at him, frustrated and confused. Robin and the Miss Martain do not seem concerned.
That night, Wally sneaks into his room. He’s wearing pajamas with fictional superheroes on them, and he’s grinning.
“Hey, Supey,” drawls Wally, “Robin’s back in Gotham tonight. Can I sleep with you?”
Superboy doesn’t understand. But Wally had looked so disappointed in him earlier, so he nods.
Wally is on him before he completes the motion. Warm lips make a path from the hollow of his neck to his mouth and quick hands drag down his back. Wally’s tongue darts out to touch the corner of Superboy’s mouth, and Superboy opens his lips, and inhales, surprised.
Wally smells like blood.
Superboy pushes him away a little too hard, and Wally ends up on his butt in the middle of the room.
Kid Flash flits to his feet, and even in the dark of the room, Superboy can see he’s not smiling anymore. He looks - hurt.
“Is it because I’m too young? ‘Cause Speedy never thought I was too young for this.”
Superboy doesn’t know who Speedy is, but his friend looks wounded.
“You smell like blood.”
“I took a shower, man,” but Wally sighs, relieved, “You probably have super-smell or something.”
He pauses again, and his left foot beats a light tattoo into Superboy’s floor.
“Could I just sleep-sleep with you - like next to you? Robin’s gone, I think it bugs Kaldur, and M’gann’s TV shows don’t show that so she won’t do it.
Superboy nods, and Wally’s a warm weight at his left side in an instant. It’s comforting, somehow, and as Superboy drifts off he feels Wally snuggle closer and mumble.
“I wish Speedy was still here. I miss him.”
.
.
Miss Martian is just different. In some way, Superboy feels that he should be able to relate to her. They’re both aliens, they don’t quite belong to this Earth.
Nothing can relate to M'gann, Superboy eventually realizes. She smiles, like a little green girl, and sometimes she laughs like a polite young woman, but there is something behind her eyes that is empty. She smiles, sweetly at the poor soldiers she smothers. She laughs, politely, after she blows up the fighter jet, engulfing its pilots in flames.
The same way she laughs at Wally’s corny jokes, and the same way she smiles as she bakes them cookies, but there is nothing, nothing there, Superboy comes to realize.
He doesn’t go to her with his concerns, with his doubt, confident she wouldn’t understand.
Instead, she comes to him.
If you keep thinking so loudly, my uncle will hear you. You could at least lie with your face and your body like Robin and Aqualad. It would be a shame if they had to make you go away like Speedy.
Superboy doesn’t know whether he should feel grateful for the obvious attempt at concern or terrified because this is the one they send in to kill children, even Wally doesn’t like to kill children and he knows that she doesn’t actually care, probably isn’t capable of it.
She’s smiling at him, with her head tilted to the side, with her lie of a body and lie of a face and her empty eyes.
The only thing he can feel is sadness.
Is it better that way? He asks. There’s no point trying to keep her out of their minds, so he doesn’t even try.
She starts to sigh for his benefit, but realizes it’s pointless.
It’s the only way I know how to be. But I do sleep better than the others, so that’s something.
But you know what I feel, how all of us feel?
Objectively, yes. But what does red smell like? And what sound do stars make? What does silence taste like?
What is joy or pain to someone who’s hollow?
Exactly she pauses to root through his mind, Don’t tell Robin that you have objections to the job. He’ll tell Batman - he can’t help it - and Batman will see that you’re squared away for good. I don’t think you’ll enjoy it either. “Oh, I like your shirt.”
Miss Martian smiles politely and walks away.
Superman knows she can’t care for him, not really, she just can’t, but he also knows that his pity wouldn’t mean anything to her.
M’gann, I’ll just have to feel enough for the both of us.
Her laughter is like clear, empty bells.
.
.
Superboy finally learns who Speedy is, or at least was, a few weeks later, when Batman and Green Arrow introduce his replacement. Artemis is human, and though her grace falls far short of Robin’s, her ruthlessness does not. She is welcomed to the team by Aqualad, Miss Martain, Superboy, and to a lesser extent, Robin.
Kid Flash despises her. Superboy finds this surprising, as Wally usually loves anything that has a large enough capacity for destruction.
Kid Flash loathes Artemis. She finds herself tripping over feet that are only in her way for a fraction of a millisecond. She loses balance suddenly sometimes, stumbling during critical moments. She isn’t capable of seeing her saboteur, but Superboy is. Wally does everything short of deliberately trying to get her killed during missions.
Wally also starts more aggressively hitting on M’gann. Superboy doesn’t see the point to it, but Wally eventually finds success after slipping something called “That 70’s Show” into M’gann’s decades-old sitcoms. After a few seasons, she’s more than willing to spend the night with Wally.
He still doesn’t understand why they do that in his bed.
More often than not, Superboy wakes up flanked by two heads of red hair. If he wasn’t invulnerable, he’d be more worried that it's these two who want to use him as a bed warmer. As it is, he stops complaining after M’gann moves her bed into his room beside his and they stop having to sleep on top of each other.
Wally still spends some nights with Robin, which is good, because when he doesn’t, Robin falls asleep singing the same two songs over and over. Not to mention, Robin’s quiet nightmares still wake Superboy.
Superboy almost feels hurt when after a few missions, Robin warms up to Artemis in a way he never did to Superboy. Robin even convinces Wally to stop trying to kill her.
Superboy feels like he failed again. He thought Robin was just quiet and strange, but he clearly makes an effort for Artemis, and Superboy wonders what he’s doing wrong.
He still has difficulty hurting people during their missions, but he’s great at destroying property and protecting his teammates. He’d thought that might be good enough, if not for Superman, then at least for his team.
One night, Superboy’s awakened by the beds moving. It’s not uncommon, but this time, M’gann’s shifted into someone taller and larger, with auburn hair and a strong jaw. When she speaks, her voice is gruff and angry and Wally shivers underneath her.
“Do you want to know what his last thoughts were?”
“Yes. No, no, please, just harder.”
Superboy even knows what Speedy looked like now.
.
.
Superboy realizes that the tiny, decrepit looking Dr. Destiny has them completely and undeniably outmatched somewhere between M’gann dropping unconscious at the sight of the man’s ruby amulet and the entire team realizing that they are in Artemis’ mind.
At least they’re pretty sure it’s Artemis. Arrows are being shot at them, and he doesn’t know anyone else on the team who’s fluent in an Asian language, but he thinks that each of their own subconsciouses are projecting a little too. Half-torn apart Genomorphs scurry around corners, Wally had to kill a manta ray a few minutes ago, and there are empty circus tents here and there. He’d ask Robin, but there’s a woman’s voice coming from those tents, singing.
Blackbird singing in the dead of night, take these broken wings and learn to fly . . .
Superboy decides he doesn’t want to know.
Their mission was to kill Destiny and retrieve his amulet. It’s not going well. They know Destiny’s in here with them - they can see him flitting around corners and far in the distance. He could probably have killed them all by now, but good guys, as Kid Flash would say, definitely don’t kill children.
He is, however, taking the time to tear apart their psyches, probably to incapacitate the Lord’s best covert team and to ferret out secrets about their mentors.
Destiny’s ripping through them with half-walking nightmares as they try to find him or make it out of Artemis’ head. Superboy’s got a still-unconscious M’gann cradled in one arm and is half dragging Kaldur with the other.
He has no idea anymore how long ago their leader froze, and Superboy figures Dr. Destiny stumbled on a pretty good nightmare with Kaldur. Maybe Dr. Destiny’s making him believe that all their actions, every heartless thing they’ve done is for nothing - for greed and psychosis. Maybe he’s making Kaldur think that they’ll never be able to create that perfect world. Or maybe he’s showing it to Kaldur, his world without sin, and it isn’t how he thought it would be.
Either way, they’re two teammates down. Robin and Wally seem almost unaffected, maybe because horrifying is Wally’s idea of a good time and nightmare fuel is Robin’s status quo. Superboy really doesn’t care, he’s grateful they’re at full capacity. He and Artemis definitely aren’t.
She’s bleeding fear and desperation. Superboy’s not much better - he just wants Superman to be proud of him - Superman is his father, or maker, his reason, Superman knows what’s best for him, he just needs to be strong enough, good enough to listen and obey.
What Superboy wants to understand is why her brain is attacking them, attacking all of them, even her.
“Hey, replacement,” laughs Wally, dodging arrows and knocking ones coming at Robin, Superboy, M’gann, and Kaldur away, “I’m almost impressed here. You’re brain’s pretty deadly. It’s kinda sexy.”
The walls around them in this endless labyrinth of a warehouse/castle/temple, shift, and bubble. From them grow four more Artemises, dark haired and naked.
He looks down at himself and he’s naked too - they all are, and he’s seen dreams like these on the television, but - Oh, God, how did Robin get all those scars?
.
.
He has to set down M’gann and release Kaldur when the four Artemises charge each of the still standing team members.
“I hate you,” his croons, and for someone so little, she’s shredding into him, “If I hesitated half as much as you, if I abstained like you, within a week, I’d be in the Gotham river and Green Arrow would be training someone else. I’m replaceable. ”
His friends are struggling, and Superboy can’t help them. It’s all he can do to shield M’gann and Kaldur from the attacks, even with Robin and Wally’s help. He can’t even look at Robin anymore, because the boy’s back makes him nauseous.
Artemis’ double appears to be merging physically with her, and Superboy can hear skin tearing as his Artemis tries to pull away.
“I hate you the most ,” his enemy-Artemis hisses, “It’s wasted on you, that power and strength, and no one holding you back. You’re not psychotic, or self-deluding, or broken. Why won’t you fight? You motherless monster, who do you have to protect? What helpless love one do you have to keep safe by selling your soul?”
She guts him, with a clawed hand or an arrow. He can’t look. If he looks, it’ll be real. If it’s real, he’ll die. He turns to his friends and they’re not doing much better. Kaldur is still unconscious, and M’gann is -
M’gann is rising.
M’gann is rising and she’s not alone. With her appears a very pale, thin man dressed more or less like Superboy. His hair is wild, and his eyes are like two dark stars.
He raises his hand, and their enemies disappear. He disappears for a moment, and returns with the amulet around his neck.
Even Superboy knows not to try and take anything from this man.
When the man allows them to wake up, Kaldur pulls himself together enough to clarify Miss Martain’s attempt at explanation.
“He was Morpheus of the Seven Endless. Our rescuer has the power of gods.”
The words make Superboy cold. If gods exist, then why are the things they do necessary? Why is everyone he knows so broken?
He’d rather believe Wally’s time travel and futuristic technology explanation than believe that any god would leave the world this way on purpose.
.
.
That night M’gann helps Superboy drag a still shaken Kaldur into Superboy’s room. Wally and Artemis are already there, and it seems like Wally’s more than forgiven her for taking Speedy’s place after a night spent in her head, fighting her naked, psychic projections. Or maybe one of her projections had something to say to him too.
They get rid of the bed frames and grab another mattress, until they’re sleeping on a nest of pillows and blankets. Even with all of their shared warmth, Kaldur’s still finely trembling. Whenever his grey eyes go glassy and far sighted, he starts hyperventilating, gills fluttering uselessly.
M’gann sings something in Martian, low and sweet, surprising them all with the appropriateness of the gesture. Normally her emotional offerings resemble her culinary offerings, in that they’re just off enough to be disturbing, and Wally never seems to notice.
Kaldur’s almost calmed down when Superboy hears another heartbeat in the room.
“Are you stupid or just masochistic?”
“Robin,” Wally literally starts vibrating, drawing a purr from Artemis, “Come on, Rob. It’s so warm in here. We’ve got everyone together now, and nothing will change that. Please.”
“Will you be ready when Batman tells you to kill him?”
Kaldur flinches, and grips Superboy’s hand with webbed fingers.
“Batman won’t.” Wally argues, “He’s Superman’s clone. He’s not replaceable, and he’s not incompetent, he’s just . . . squeamish.”
“He’s worse than incompetent. He’s a liability. He won’t do the job. Superman’s patience is running out, and I asked you a question. Can you kill him? Kaldur, can you?” Robin’s voice is calm, but his heart is racing. “Batman won’t let us pass the job onto Miss Martian this time. He’s tired of coddling us.”
“Can’t Batman take him in,” asks M’gann pleasantly, “like he took you in? Like he made you?”
Robin sweeps out of the room as the other bodies around Superboy erupt in a collective shiver.
Superboy barely notices. The idea of that happening to Speedy has never crossed his mind. He tries to imagine Wally laughing while he cuts Superboy apart like the Genomorphs in Cadmus.
Kaldur tries to explain to M’gann.
“Superboy would not be Superboy when Batman’s work was complete, just as Robin is not the child Batman took in five years ago.”
“There are reasons Robin can’t do deep undercover anymore,” adds Wally, “His conditioning -
“Conditioning?” asked Artemis.
“You saw his back. It’s beautiful, but it’s the tip of the iceberg. It’s made him so fucking perfect in field, but left Boy Horror a wee-bit unstable.
“You’re one to talk.”
“Ah, but Artemis, you don’t have to tie me up when you spend the night just so I don’t wake up and strangle you in your sleep. You can tie me up if you like, of course. Don’t worry Superboy, Superman wouldn’t do that.”
Superboy looks to Kaldur, M’gann, and Artemis and they don’t seem as sure.
Superboy wants to believe that Robin is lying, that Superman would never replace him, but it’s been so long since he made Superman proud.
Miss Martain sings to them again, and even with the knowledge of what happened to Speedy, Superboy can’t help but hold one of the warm bodies surrounding him and feel comforted. She stops after Kaldur, Wally, and Artemis fall asleep, drifting off herself. Superboy hears Robin singing himself to sleep down the hall.
“Why you wanna fly, blackbird? You ain’t ever gonna fly. No place big enough for holding all the tears you’re gonna cry. ‘Cause your mamma’s name was lonely, and your daddy’s name was pain. And they call you little sorrow, ‘cause you’ll never love again. Why you wanna fly blackbird? You ain’t ever gonna fly.”
.
.
Kaldur isn’t the same after Dr. Destiny. He still leads them in the heat of battle, keeping them safe and adapting to achieve the objective, but he won’t plan anymore. Robin steps in to fill the gap.
This mission has them divided into three teams, searching through T. O. Morrow’s bases to steal three separate machines. None of the teams know what the others are searching for, and if Superboy can tell that Batman is trusting the team less and less with information, then the situation’s gone from bad to worse.
Superboy and Robin are in Denver and the windows of laboratory they’re looking through don’t block out the sounds of the storm outside. Robin takes a look around and starts gathering pieces of machinery Superboy doesn’t remember from their briefing and pulling tools from his utility belt.
Five minutes later, Robin sets down the device and slaps in a power cell.
Every light in the building - every small whirring machine - shuts down.
“You need to go away now.”
Superboy’s eyes switch instinctively to infrared. Robin’s close, close enough that Superboy can feel as well as see the heat.
Superboy wants to step away - away from the thirteen year old boy whose been an assassin since he was nine, who’s never liked him, who planned this mission, divided them into these team.
“I can help you go away for good.”
Thunder rolls in the distance, and Superboy fears a child half his size.
“Robin-”
“My name was Richard Grayson.”
Superboy pauses.
.
.
“My name was Richard Grayson, and my parents were acrobats in Haley’s Circus. Batman came to one of our shows, as his alter ego. He saw me on the trapeze. He thought I had . . . potential.
"The next time he came to the circus, we had an accident. I can’t remember their faces or their names, but I remember how my parents’ bodies looked, broken.
“Within a year, I answered only to Robin.”
Superboy doesn’t understand why he’s being told this, but Robin’s voice is firm and sure.
“Batman doesn’t know that I still know my name, but I do. I also know where the Lords keep their only boom tube.”
Superboy’s heard of the interstellar teleportation devices, but it pales in comparison to Robin’s revelation.
“I have a distraction planned. It’ll give you time to get to the tube, and I can explain to you how to program it for Apokolips. Darkseid will take you in or help you along. He’s harsh, but he has rules - good guy rules. Even if he thinks you’re a trap, he’ll give you political asylum. He also has the power to keep you away from Superman.”
“Superman-?”
“-is going to have you killed, and soon.” Robin is so close to Superboy that the distance between them feels charged. “ You’re a threat to him. You’re one of the only people who could ever truly be a threat to him, and you won’t kill for him.”
“What about you?”
“Batman won’t know what I’ve until you’re light-years away. He’ll have to punish me, for show, but weakening Superman’s theoretical power is in his long term interests. He probably won’t kill me.”
“Why can’t the whole team go?”
“You can bring try to bring Kaldur and Artemis - he’s not a true believer anymore and her mom’s probably been dead for months - but Wally won’t want to leave here, and M’gann doesn’t care.”
“What about you?”
Robin laughs his terrible little laugh.
Artemis had showed Superboy a picture once that had looked like a vase. She had to tell him what to look for before he had seen the two faces, leaning in to kiss. Robin’s laughter is like the vase and two faces. Until you listen for it, you can’t hear the sobs. Once you’ve heard them, it flickers back and forth between the two in your mind, and you can’t not.
“The first year I was deployed, I tried running away. I never got far, but it inconvenienced Batman enough to add a safety measure.”
Robin takes Superboy’s hand in his own, and brings his fingers to the base of Robin’s skull.
“There’s a remotely-detonated explosive at the top of my spinal cord.”
“But if you’re out of its range?”
“If I’m out of its range, it won’t receive the signal that tells it not to explode. If I’m out of the northern hemisphere, let alone in space, for more than three days at a time, I’m dead. I’m Batman’s, and only his.”
Superboy can’t help but curl his fingers around the back of Robin’s neck. He thinks Robin leans into it, but it’s hard to tell in the dark.
“Decide in five days, or they’ll make the decision for you. If yes, start an argument with me and call me a dick, okay?”
Robin removes the power cell from his jamming device and the power in the building comes back online, along with their communicators. They retrieve the devices and return to base.
Superboy spends the next four days with his friends. There’s a tension in the air, during and after missions. No one on the team is stupid, and even Wally is not so damaged to know that Superboy’s time is running out.
Superboy thinks about never hurting anyone ever. He thinks about saving people, saving his friends. He thinks about what Superman wants, and what he wants.
Robin is still the only one who doesn’t sleep in Superboy’s room. Superboy falls asleep to Robin singing alone in his room, and wonders how he could have not known that someone cared for him that much.
.
.
On the fifth day he goes to Robin.
“What do I have to do to prove myself to the Lords?”
Robin looks alarmed, but his voice is calm, almost dismissive.
“Superboy, you’ve known what you’ve needed to do, and it’s been months. Killing a few politicians and activists isn’t going to cut it anymore.”
“Then tell me what I need to do. Plan it all out, and I’ll do it.”
Robin’s shoulders slump forward for a second, a puppet whose strings have been cut. Then he nods.
“I think I have something that might work.”
The others, like Robin, are confused by his change of heart.
Wally looks at him like he did on that first day, like Superboy is a present just for him.
Kaldur and Artemis are interested in the plan itself, and help Robin flush out the details. They look at Superboy with new eyes, and he tries not to wonder what his sane friends see.
“Why aren’t we trying to kill Luthor, again?” asks Artemis.
“He’s working on something big, and Batman doesn’t want him touched until he’s finished.”
“What’s he working on?”
“How much do you know about the many-worlds interpretation of quantum physics?”
“Not much.”
“Then don’t worry about it. Worry about the private security force LuthorCorp contracts with.”
When they present the details of the plan to Batman, he almost smiles, approving the mission immediately. Superboy can’t look at Batman anymore without thinking of the scars on Robin’s back, and of a little boy whose name was Richard Grayson.
.
.
The building is almost collapsing under its own weight. Left alone, it might come down any second or stay up long enough to evacuate the people inside. Superboy’s friends are waiting for him.
Waiting by the last column, Superboy thinks about how he could have galaxies away by now. He thinks of growing up, becoming strong, and coming back at the head of an army. Of fighting Superman, of stopping him. Maybe some of his friends would have come. Maybe some of them would still be alive on Earth when he returned.
The building shudders above him, and the children in the day-care center start crying, and Superboy waits for something inside him to snap. He waits for some metamorphosis that will make this okay, for evil to become his good, or for him just to stop caring, but nothing comes.
He wishes that it would.
There’s only his friend’s breathing, and the building falling apart around him.
His leg snaps out, and the last column goes. Superboy throws himself through the glass windows, landing in the street, surrounded by firemen, police officers, good Samaritans, and they’re all too close, they’re all going to die.
“Clear.”
His leap takes him buildings away as the charges go off behind him, and the building topples down.
.....
They stand together on the tallest building upwind of the rubble that was LuthorCorp HQ. The dust still hasn’t cleared. It probably won’t for days.
“Anyboy want to quote the Bhagavda Gita?” quips Wally, admiring the sight of the destruction they’ve caused.
“Not especially,” adds Artemis.
“We have a report to deliver.”
They obey Kaldur, board M’gann’s bioship, and fly off to Superman.
Superboy's never seen Superman look at him like that.
He is so proud of Superboy, he gives him a name. Superboy can’t decide whether or not he wants his friends to call him Conner Kent. He doesn’t think he can hear this name without hearing the children in the day-care center scream. He decides to let them call him it.
When Superman asks him if he likes his name, indulgent and smiling, Superboy thinks of Wally’s laugh, Kaldur’s perfect world, M’gann’s hollow eyes, Artemis self-loathing dreams, and the skin of Robin’s neck under his hand. Superboy lies with his face and his body, and Superman looks at Superboy like he’s worth something.
That night Robin crawls into bed with them, and Superboy tears his Cadmus solar suit to strips, wrapping the smooth fabric around Robin’s wrists. Robin curls into his arms and his friends curl into each other and Superboy falls asleep thinking, there must be worse worlds than this.