Chapter Text
Tim and Cassie are sneaking through a Cadmus facility trying to locate Lex Luthor's latest pet project.
Red Tornado had sent them out on a reconnaissance mission when he got a ping from S.T.A.R labs. Someone had broken in and stole hundreds of gallons of toxic chemical plant waste. Coincidentally S.T.A.R labs also just turned down a joint contract with Lex Crops.
“What does the guy need plant waste for again?” Cassie asked while narrowly dodging a security drone.
“He’s trying to recreate a plant from krypton. He’s hoping for something that will be able to chew through Superman's skin.”
“Geez this guy needs a hobby. That's horrifying.”
Tim makes a low noise of agreement taking a sharp left and coming up on a locked door.
“This should be where it is.” He says while pulling an advanced lock picking kit out of his utility belt.
“Shouldn’t it be guarded then? Where are the drones?”
Tim just grunts as he works the lock until he hears it click open. Cassie pushes the door open and gasps.
“That's a lot of plants Robin.”
Tim steps around her to get a good look and swears. There’s well over 300 plants lining every table, wall, and counter in the room.
“There’s no way we can confiscate all of these Rob.”
“You're right. So we're gonna take a few pictures, grab 4 plants, and get the hell out of here before someone finds us. Impulse you there?”
The comm crackles to life in his ear and Bart starts talking too fast to understand.
“Impulse. Normal people speeds bud.” Cassie interrupts with slight amusement.
“Sorry. Yeah me and Blue Beetle found the documents on the plants but we also found something else. We can’t read it because it’s written in code but it’s labeled “Subject 13” and it’s got a big red success stamped on it.”
Tim hums and starts taking as many pictures as he can get while Cassie gets the plants.
“Leave it there. Grab the ones pertaining to the plants and have Blue take a few pictures of the coded one. We’ll meet you guys at point B in 15.”
“Roger.” The comms die out.
“What do you think subject 13 is?” Cassie asked, floating down with the encased plants.
“Not sure but It’s probably got something to do with Superman. Luthor's raging hard on for the guy is all he ever thinks about.” Tim replies, taking 2 of the plants from her.
“Now lets get out of here I’m sure Impulse is reaching his stealth limit for the day.”
Cassie laughs and Tim smiles to himself.
______________________________________________________________
When they get back to Mount Justice Bart gives the documents to Red Tornado and Tim uploads all the pictures he took to the main computers database.
“There were way too many for us to grab so Wonder Girl and I grabbed 4 different ones for you to analyze.”
Red Tornadoes' mechanical voice answered him while examining one of the encased plants on the table.
“Very well done. I will hand this over to the Justice League at once, you 4 go enjoy your weekend.”
It grinds Tim's gears like no other when they do that but he doesn’t argue. He just nods his head and heads downstairs to the zeta tubes. Before he can step in Jamie flags him down.
“Hey Rob, hold up! Are we telling him about the other document?”
Oh yeah.
“No. Send me the picture and I’ll decode it later. If it’s something worth mentioning then I'll bring it to him.”
Jaime shrugs.
“Alright. You gonna stay for movie night? Bart has been begging us to watch the newest Transformers movie and Cassie might throw a fit if she has to sit through another movie with his speed talking.”
Tim's stomach drops and he starts fiddling with the end of his cape.
Bart, Cassie, Megan, and Jaime had been trying to get Tim to hang out with them outside of missions for years and Tim's either been too busy, too scared, or just not allowed to do so. They don’t even know his civilian identity and they’ve been working together for 4 years.
“I can’t. Batman needs my help in Gotham.”
Jaime lets out an annoyed but resigned sigh.
“When doesn’t he? Whatever man, just be safe yeah?”
Tim nods his head and Jaime turns away.
“You know we don’t care who you are under the mask right? You’ll still be our friend no matter what.”
And then he’s gone.
Tim takes a deep breath and steps through the zeta tube.
______________________________________________________________
When Tim appears in the cave Bruce is sitting at the Batcomputer with his new Robin.
“Robin. Good job on the reconnaissance mission today. What you and your team found was extremely helpful in locking Luthor up today.”
Normally Tim would get a fluttery feeling at Bruce actually praising something he’s done but lately it feels like he’s doing it just to appease Tim. It might have worked if not for the demon brat that was always next to him in the suit that didn't belong to him.
Jeez I sound like Jason pre-therapy.
“Thanks. I’m gonna borrow a book from the library before I head out.”
Bruce deflates a little and Damian scowls.
“Are you sure you don’t want to stay for dinner? Alfred's making spicy rigatoni.”
Bribery. Hilarious.
“No thanks, I’ve got something I’m working on for Tornado. Maybe next time.
“Right.”
Tim makes his way up stairs, dialing a number as he goes.
“What do you want replacement.”
Jason Todd had tried killing Tim more times than he can honestly count. He’s also the only Bat-family member that Tim can talk to without wanting to put his head through a wall right now.
“Where exactly do you keep the book on alien languages?”
The library is Jason’s. Before he died he had hated when other people would go in there without asking first. When he came back there wasn’t really anything he could do about it, it had just become the family library rather than Jason's personal one. Tim knows where the book is, he cataloged the whole library before Jason came back, but he hasn’t gone in without asking since he realized who was under the hood.
“....Top self near the back.”
“Thanks. Do you need anything while I've got you?”
Do you want me to drop one of your books off?
“Two rows down. 8th book. Also pick up some milk on your way here.”
Tim smiles.
“Sure. See you in 20.”
______________________________________________________________
“Any reason you’re doing this by hand instead of running it through that massive system Oracle has set up on all our laptops?” Jason asked from his spot on the couch.
Tim had brought both the decoder and Heroes of Olympus: House of Hades as well as a bag of groceries for dinner. He was currently sitting crisscrossed on the floor with the photo from Jaime opened on his phone transferring the words on to a clean sheet of paper.
Jason had put together a lasagna and threw it in the oven before making both of them a cup of milk honey tea.
“Just felt like doing it by hand.” Tim responds vaguely without looking up.
“Uh huh. And it has nothing to do with you avoiding the manor?”
“Remind me when you last came to dinner?”
“Easy baby bird I’m just checking in.”
Tim frowns then puts his pencil down to take a sip of his tea.
“I’m fine. Pissed off at Bruce and Dick. Trying to decide how I want to tackle the Damian problem. Constantly feeling like a dick because I haven’t told my best friends in the world who I am. But fine.”
Well okay maybe he’s not fine.
“Well, one of those things is easily fixable, kid.”
“Bruce would throw a fit if I even so much as hinted at my identity to someone outside of Gotham.” Tim goes back to copying the photo.
“Bruce is a hypocrite. Besides I have it on good authority that you're very good at lying to Batman.”
Tim smirks a little.
“Yeah well, he doesn’t make it hard.”
Jason laughs.
“ I guess I’m in no position to tell you how to healthily deal with your problems but you have my number in case you just want to bitch.”
And this is why Tim came here. Jason will worry but he won’t force Tim into trying to fix whatever's wrong unless he’s directly harming himself. That and the fact that Bruce can’t track him.
“Thanks Jay. So how far have you gotten in the book?”
That set him off.
“So this bitch Eros-”
______________________________________________________________
A week later Tim is back at Mount Justice running drills when the emergency alarm goes off and Bart comes speeding in.
“Problem in Metropolis. He’s evil and looks like Superman if he was ten years younger and going through a rebellious teenage phase.”
Shit. The JLA is still out in space on that diplomatic mission.
“Who all is here?”
“Me, you and Jaime.”
“Okay, you and Jaime head to Metropolis and see if you can keep him busy, I’m gonna call Cassie and Megan to see how fast they can get there.”
“You got it Rob.”
“Impulse. Your top priority is civilian evacuation, everything else can come after.”
Bart nods and then speeds off. Tim shuts down the training simulator.
“Computer call emergency lines for Miss Martian and Wonder Girl.”
CALLING WONDER GIRL……CALLING MISS MARTIAN……
Cassie picks up first.
“Robin? What's up?”
“Emergency in Metropolis. How fast can you get there?”
“15 if I fly.”
“Do it. We’ve got an evil Superman situation. Impulse and Blue Beetle are already on scene and I’ll be contacting Megan- actually never mind she’s right here.”
Megan had tuned in right at the end of his sentence.
“Evil Superman?”
“We’re not sure yet actually but from Impulse's explanation that’s what we were going with.”
Cassie's voice goes hard as she says
“I’ll be on scene in 5.” then she disconnects.
“I’ll be there in 2. Do you need a pick up Robin?” Megan asks.
“No, I’ll zeta there.”
She makes a noise of acknowledgement and then disconnects.
Alright. Tim thinks. Time to go see what's going on down there.
______________________________________________________________
When Tim arrives on scene he finds a lot of destruction, particularly to any building or vehicle with the superman logo on it.
“Miss Martian, what's your status?”
Megan’s voice sounds in his head.
“Currently engaged in combat with what looks to be a teenage superman in New Town. “
“Okay. I’m on my way. Impulse, Blue Beetle, Wonder Girl hows civilian evacuation?”
“We got everyone out but it’s weird Rob. I asked one of the citizens if they were okay and she said that the flying douche bag in the sky wasn’t actually hurting them.” Bart replies.
“Oh yeah. I moved a kid out of the blast radius and he told me there was no need because this guy, uh, what are we calling him?” Jaime spoke up.
“I vote for Nova because that suit makes him look like a supernova when he shoots across the sky.” Cassie says.
“Works for me. Nova had rounded all the kids up into one spot and told them that as long as they stayed right there then they’d be okay. And the crazy thing was that they were. He seemed to avoid that one spot until I had them out the way.”
“So he’s not out to hurt civilians. That still doesn’t tell us what he is actually doing. M I’ve made it to New Town. Think you can crowd him into the nearest Lexcops building?”
“Yes but please tell me you have a plan because short of frying the guys mind I have no clue how to beat him.”
“Don’t worry, he has kryptonian powers so he has to have kryptonian weaknesses too. A kryptonite net should do the trick just fine.”
“You just have a kryptonite net? Scratch that kryptonite period?” Cassie asks incredulously.
“You never know when someone is gonna try and mind control Superman.”
“Robin, I've got him in the building.”
“Okay keep him still for ten seconds.”
During their conversation Tim had scaled the side of the building across from the LexCrops tower and now had the Superman look alike in the cross hairs of his net gun. When he was sure Megan had him still, for a few seconds anyway, he fired.
The neon green net wrapped around the floating boy and sent him crashing to the ground.
“Bullseye.” he mumbles to himself.
“Good shot Rob. What do we do now?” Megan asks.
“ I’m gonna take this guy to Mount Justice and get him locked up in a power damping room, the rest of you do a final sweep of the city and make sure everyone is okay. If you find anything useful, grab or document it.”
“Yes sir.” Came the voices of his friends, some more playful than others.
When Tim gets inside the building Megan is standing over the lump on the floor examining him curiously.
“Is he conscious?” Tim questions.
Megan shakes her head.
“He passed out after a few minutes of being underneath the net.”
Tim hums.
“Can you move him with your telekinesis?”
“Yep! Do you want me to take him back to the mountain?”
“No, just drop him on the back of my bike and I’ll handle the rest. Go help everyone else."
Megan nods and floats the unconscious boy out the door. Tim does a quick scan of the building out of reflex and catches sight of a leather jacket in the corner.
“Hey Miss Martian, was the look alike over there wearing a jacket?”
“Huh, oh yeah I guess he was. Why?”
“Just asking.” Tim picks the jacket up and heads for his bike.
______________________________________________________________
Tim dumps the guy in a red sun room that's hidden deep underneath the mountain.
Batman has always been paranoid.
While he waits for him to wake up he grabs the book he borrowed from the library and his 4 pages of notes that are written in kryptonian and picks up where he left off.
The guy they currently have locked away is a clone of Superman. Tim knew that when Bart told him there was someone making trouble but he intentionally kept the information from his team for two reasons.
- He wasn’t actually sure until he laid eyes on him up close.
- He needed to study him before his friends started talking about handing him over to the Justice league.
The notes he’s been able to translate so far suggest that despite being half of Superman, only half, Tim hasn’t yet figured out who the other half is, the clone has a completely different personality. He’d just gotten through a second page of notes when he hears groaning coming from the cell.
Tim puts his notes away and walks through the door leading him to the hallway. When he gets in view of the glass a very agitated “Nova” , as his teammates dubbed him, turns to face him.
“You. Where am I.”
“I can’t tell you that. You got a name I can use? My friends have been calling you Nova but I'd rather not.”
Nova squints at him and the scowls. “You locked me in a red sun cell didn’t you? I can’t feel my powers.”
Tim raises an eyebrow and grabs a chair from the corner. He’s probably not getting that name.
“Observant. Considering the powers you displayed I thought it was a safe bet.”
Nova scowls harder before he smooths his face into something more chill and unreadable.
“Alright. So now that you’ve got me what do you want? Because I sure as hell ain't telling you shit.”
“Oh that's fine. I know most of what I need to know anyway. A clone of Superman created by Cadmus. The only thing I can’t figure out is why but I don’t really need you for that. No you’re here, Nova, because you smashed everything in New Town with Superman's face and logo on it. That one I do need you to explain.”
Nova is watching him with a mix of curiosity and trepidation now. He leans against a wall and crosses his arms.
“Well A. Superman is a hypocrite-”
Tim snorts. He can’t help it. Nova raises an eyebrow at him and his mouth twitches for just a moment.
“And B. To send a message.”
“A message?”
“Yeah bird boy, a message. Superman won’t be around much longer.”
Tim bristles and before he can ask what the hell that means his communicator lets him know that his team has made it back. Tim narrows his eyes at Nova before getting up.
“I’ll be back. Don’t move.”
Nova smirks.
“Where am I gonna go Robin? You have me locked down tight don’t you?”
The way he says it makes Tim reluctant to leave but he can hear Bart calling for him so he goes upstairs anyway.
When he gets up stairs he finds Batman, Wonder Woman, Flash, and Superman standing at the meeting table with his teammates.
Damn.
Before Batman can even ask, Tim starts the debrief.
“The emergency alarm went off for Metropolis and you all were still an hour away from being back in orbit so I sent Impulse, Blue Beetle, and Wonder Girl to evacuate the citizens while Miss Martian and I apprehend the culprit who is currently in a red sun room down stairs. I had the others do a final sweep of the city while I attempted to interrogate him.”
“Attempted?” Batman grunts out.
Tim shrugs.
“He wasn’t very forthcoming. The only thing he said when I asked about his motives was it was a message and that Superman wouldn’t be around much longer.”
The whole room tenses and Cassie clears her throat.
“Speaking of, are we just gonna ignore the fact that he looks exactly like Superman?”
Batman grunts again but it's Wonder Woman who speaks this time.
“You all did very well today. However, considering the situation we believe it is best for us to take him. Rest assured this is not to undermine the hard work you all have done. You reacted quickly and worked together better than we most likely would have.”
At Wonder Woman's reassuring words and kind gaze Tim lets the defensive posture he’s taken fall away. He sighs and turns back to the stairs.
“He’s down here.”
As he and everyone else are descending the stairs he weighs his options. Eventually he’ll have to tell them about the clone thing. If nothing else Jaime will get suspicious that he hasn’t brought up the papers from last week. For now though he has some time. Probably 2 days before Bruce starts asking questions.
When they reach the cell Tim balks.
“That slimy little-”
“Robin.”
Tim shuts up. Nova had picked the lock. He picked the fucking lock.
“I didn’t check him before I brought him in here. I didn’t think I needed to.” Tim grits out. Not only had he not checked him but he’d probably given the lock pick to him, considering that the only clothing Supernova was wearing that had pockets was his jacket, which Tim had intentionally put in the cell with him.
“Look he left something on the table” Bart says before zipping away and back in less than a second. “Uh- it’s for you Rob.”
Tim narrows his eyes and takes the paper. He almost rips it to shreds right there.
Thanks for the conversation, It was fun! Can’t wait till we cross paths again Robin.
Sincerely Yours,
Nova ;)