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After the Amazo Android mission, Batman was equal parts proud and furious. He was proud of the young heroes for managing to disable the android in just a few minutes when it had taken the League several hours. And he was furious with himself that he had missed the tracking signals coming from the android parts, causing only the trucks guarded by the Team to be attacked. Walking the line between making sure the kids felt like they were actually doing meaningful work while still trying to keep them safe was proving more challenging than Batman had anticipated. At the very least, the mission had worked out some of the kinks in the Team’s structure. Back at the Cave, they had arranged themselves in a tight knit around Aqualad as he gave his report.
“The Amazo Android is in pieces again,” Kaldur’ahm said, “safely being analyzed at the two separate Star Labs. But Ivo escaped, and since he originated the tech, he’s arguably more dangerous than the android.”
“Capturing the professor will be a League priority,” Black Canary said.
“But we understand your mission encountered other complications,” Martian Manhunter said accusingly.
The Team sent glares of varying hostility towards Superboy, who at least had the sense to look a bit sheepish about his rampaging behavior during the mission. Well, they had worked out some of the kinks. But the clone had honestly made a lot of progress in a short time, and Batman was sure he would trust his teammates more in the future. Since Superman couldn’t be bothered to recognize the boy’s personal growth, Batman decided to pick up some of the slack.
“Complications come with the job,” he said. “Your ability to handle them has impressed the League.”
“The whole League?” Superboy asked quietly. The poor kid may have been built like a refrigerator, but the way he looked plaintively up at Batman reminded him more of a kicked puppy. Oh, Bruce was going to have to kick Clark’s ass, wasn’t he?
“Given time, yes,” Batman told Superboy, vaguely hoping he wasn’t lying. “Kryptonians, as you know, have very hard heads.” The boy gave him a soft smile, a stark contrast to his usual scowl. Superman would come around to Superboy. Batman would have to make sure of it.
Unfortunately, given the way Clark fled at even the slightest mention of his clone, Bruce was forced to admit that he wasn’t making much headway. At least not quickly enough to avoid the complexes Bruce could practically see forming in Superboy’s mind in real time. Clark was being a goddamn coward. Bruce could guess that the boy’s existence made him feel…violated. But Clark seriously needed to shift his anger away from Superboy and onto the real perpetrator: Cadmus. It wasn’t exactly the kid’s fault for being created by a bunch of mind-control-happy evil scientists. It might have helped if Superboy looked closer to his actual age. Clark would have a much harder time laying blame on a one-month-old baby than a walking, talking, brooding teenager.
And although Superboy had practically been born yesterday, Bruce knew that he was painfully observant. The clone had quickly noticed that Superman flinched every time he looked at him. He had also picked up on the fact that the Man of Steel took great pains to avoid being left alone with him. In response Superboy had taken to leaning against doorways whenever the hero was at the Cave, so that Superman would at least have to pass by him as he made his escape. The more Superman avoided him, the angrier Superboy got, and the more convinced Superman became that the boy was just a ticking time bomb waiting to go off.
The situation was devolving rapidly, and there were very few forces on Earth that could out-stubborn a Kryptonian. Luckily, Batman happened to know where one lived.
It was time to bring out the Big Guns.
It was a quiet night in Kansas as the Batplane touched down between cornfields. On the porch of the nearby farmhouse, he could see an older couple in rocking chairs, slowly rocking back and forth. Neither stood as Batman walked up to the house.
“Well, there haven’t been any natural disasters on the TV,” the woman said, “hostile aliens aren’t making crop circles in our fields, and we just got off the phone with our son an hour ago, so what would the Batman be doing here in Smallville?”
“Mrs. Kent,” Batman greeted. “Mr. Kent.”
“We’ve told you once, we’ve told you a thousand times,” the man chided, “it’s Martha and Jonathan .”
“But now that we’ve gotten the pleasantries out of the way, why don’t you answer my question?” Martha said. Batman sighed.
“Clark is being unusually pigheaded about something,” he said bluntly, “and I was hoping to get your help pulling his head out of his ass.”
“According to Clark, you’re usually the pigheaded one,” Jonathan chuckled.
“Usually,” Batman conceded. “But this is something we’ve been arguing about for weeks. It’s rather time-sensitive, and I can’t get him to budge.”
“Why don’t you start at the beginning?” Martha suggested, “then we’ll decide who’s being pigheaded this time.”
Clark groaned as he was woken by his ringing phone. He reached over and patted at the bedside table a few times before he found it and picked it up. Squinting at the screen, he could see the call was from his parents’ landline, and it was past 1:00 am Metropolis time. He had just talked to them earlier this evening — last night, now. What was so urgent that they were calling again so late? Clark answered the call and lifted the phone to his ear.
“Ma? Pa?” he asked, some of his Smallville drawl slipping out. “Is everything all right?”
“Clark Joseph Kent, I know we raised you better than this!”
Clark swallowed and jolted fully awake. “Ma?” he asked tentatively. He racked his brain for anything he had done recently to warrant usage of his middle name.
“Tell me you did not leave that boy in a cave in Rhode Island for a month!?” Ma Kent demanded.
“What? Which boy?” Clark asked, stalling. Batman must be behind this. He couldn’t believe Bruce had gotten his parents involved in this mess!
“Do not play dumb with me right now Clark! I mean your one-month-old clone! Our grandson!”
“He’s not your grandson,” Clark snapped. “And it’s not like he's a baby! Physically and mentally he’s about 16. And it’s not a cave, it's the League’s old headquarters at Mount Justice.”
“We know all that, and it’s beside the point.” she said firmly. “Batman told us you’ve barely even spoken to the boy since you found him.”
“He was made to kill me, Ma!” Clark exclaimed. “He said he was supposed to destroy me if I ‘turned from the light,’ whatever that means.”
“We know that, too, son,” Ma Kent said more gently. “But what his creators intended for him ain’t his fault. And it ain’t his destiny, neither. Heck,” she chuckled, “I’m not sure he could kill you at his age. At 16 you spent most of your time tripping over your own feet. I don’t think you could have taken down any superheroes.”
“He’s not like I was,” Clark insisted. “Cadmus taught him all sorts of things telepathically. Probably programmed him to deceive us and turn against us! It’s not like he’s a real—” Clark cut himself off.
“A real person?” she finished for him. “Sweetheart, brainwashed or not, that boy is absolutely a real person, and you’ve left him all on his own.”
“The League is taking care of him,” Clark said.
“I respect the Heck out of your Justice League,” Ma Kent said, “but the whole bunch of ‘em treat emotional repression like it’s an Olympic sport. Do you honestly think they’re equipped to raise a boy who only has a month of social development and spends most of his time in an underground bunker?”
“I can’t be around him,” Clark said. “Every time I see him, I’m reminded that Cadmus stole my DNA and tried to make a weapon with it!”
“They may have been shootin’ for a weapon, but they wound up making a kid,” Ma said. “One who’s probably more than a little scared right now, trying to figure out who he’s gonna be now that he’s turned his back on everything they wanted him to be. Especially since the one person who knows a little something about how hard it is to find a place in the world when you can bench press a truck and hear people’s heartbeats won’t even give him the time of day.” She sighed. “Does he even have a name, besides ‘Superboy’?”
Clark flinched. “I… no, I don’t think he does.” He hesitated. “Do you really think he’s scared? He just seems so angry all the time.”
“Ain’t a whole lot of difference between angry and scared, sometimes — except angry feels safer.”
For the first time, Clark tried to put himself in Superboy’s shoes. He tried to imagine how it would feel to be created for the sole purpose of copying and replacing someone else. He tried to imagine having a head full of telepathically conveyed knowledge, but only a few hours worth of memories, and still deciding to abandon everything he knew for a miniscule chance of becoming his own person. He tried to imagine the only person even remotely like him in the entire world avoiding him like the plague for something fundamental to his existence that he couldn’t control. He tried to imagine not even having a name, besides the one that represented the terrible purpose he had turned his back on.
“What do I do?” Clark whispered.
“Bring him ‘round for supper on Sunday,” Ma said, like it was the easiest thing in the world. “I’ve been waiting years for a grandbaby. I’m making pie.”
“I’m not his father!” Clark said, exasperated.
“Never said you were, sweetheart,” she said, “that’s got nothing to do with him being our grandson.”
“He’s dangerous,” Clark tried one last time.
“So was bringing home a little boy who fell out of the sky,” she said, “and I think that turned out all right.”
“I’ve been so lucky to have you,” Clark said. The weight of what he’d done (or rather, hadn’t done) was finally settling on his shoulders. “I really left him all alone, didn’t I? How could I do that to him?”
“You were just scared, same as him,” Ma said. “I don’t imagine you feel it much these days, being ‘faster than a speeding bullet’ and all that. Guess you forgot what being scared can do to a person.”
“I’m going to make this right,” Clark told her. When she answered, Clark could hear the smile in her voice.
“ That’s our boy.”