Chapter Text
Superman was the perfect hero. He was the strongest man alive and somehow also the most gentle. He was noble, restrained, and above all else, he was kind. Earth would always be safe under his watchful eye. As long as he stayed kind, at least.
A room full of infants and a single kind man with a gun might technically be a very safe place for an infant to be. As long as you could trust the man to remain kind, even when the babies screamed and cried and constantly needed him. Even when they were sick on him. When they shit on him. Even when they were never grateful. So long as the kind man never changed, the infants would be perfectly safe.
It was Lex Luthor’s fear of Superman changing that led to Connor’s existence, and as the scientists stuffed Conner’s mind with the information his creator believed he needed, they made sure to present him with the image of an idyllic, picture-perfect Superman. They told Conner that he was a near perfect copy of the hero. They smiled and told him “We made you in his image.” It was an immutable truth of Conner’s existence that his purpose was to strive to match that image, to fill those shoes, so that he could be ready in the event that he was ever needed. In the event that the picture-perfect Superman ever fell from the standard that he’d set.
Now, after just under two years free of his cloning pod and out from under Lex’s thumb, Conner was no closer to achieving that ideal that he’d been at the start. He knew that the instructions Lex had filled his head with were wrong, but that didn’t get him very far in figuring out what was right. He tried his best to do the right thing whenever he went out as Superboy. To do what Superman would do.
But no matter how hard Conner tried, he wasn’t right very often. Sometimes he wondered if that was thanks to Lex’s DNA—that pesky ten percent somehow condemning him to a life of never quite getting the whole helping people thing right. Mostly though, he was pretty sure his problems were uniquely him.
Conner was aware of his deficiencies. He was also aware of how dangerous it was for someone as powerful as him to have the deficiencies that he did. Recklessness, impulsivity, and stupidity paired with super strength could topple buildings. It could hurt people. It could get people killed. So Conner understood why Superman felt the need to use a firm hand with him. He really did. That didn’t make it any easier to watch the man interact with Jon, though.
Conner hadn’t spent much time around Jon until somewhat recently. In the early days of his post-pod life, Superman had wanted even less to do with Conner than he did now, and he especially hadn’t wanted him around his human wife and his squishy, non-superpowered son. Conner hadn’t really wanted to be around them either, so it had worked out.
He’d only seen Superman occasionally, usually when he’d come to Mount Justice to give Conner whatever well-deserved dressing down was due at the time. For the most part, that was how Conner preferred it. He appreciated the independence he had, even if the mountain base occasionally got so quiet and lonely that Conner was almost tempted to screw something up just so he’d have someone to talk to. The Young Justice team got together often enough that it never came to that, and all had been well—as long as he ignored his ever growing list of failures.
But the situation had changed about a year ago, after Jon’s powers started coming in. First had come super hearing, and since then so, so much more. As the kid’s abilities had grown, so had his desire to follow in his father’s footsteps, and with that desire came an increased curiosity about the heroes closer to his own age. More specifically, an increased curiosity about Young Justice. And even more specifically, an increased curiosity about the only other part kryptonian, part human person that existed: Conner. So Jon had started hanging around Mount Justice, and where Jon was, Superman was sure to follow.
When Conner first heard about Jon’s abilities expressing themself and the subsequent struggles the kid had with control, he’d cringed with sympathy, remembering his own early days out of the lab. The world had been far too loud and bright as his senses intensified. His strength and speed had been difficult to navigate, and every broken cup or counter or doorknob was another mark against him. Another bit of proof that he couldn’t control himself. That he was dangerous. They were failures, and Superman didn’t take kindly to that kind of failure. Not when it could lead to death in the field. Not when it could lead to someone innocent getting hurt. No. It was unacceptable.
So Conner had felt nothing but pity for Jon when he’d started hearing stories trickle in through the gossip mill that was Tim. Conner’s first few months figuring out how to keep himself in hand had been nothing short of miserable, and Superman had hardly ever even been around to discipline him at the time. Jon lived with the man. Conner wasn’t sure he’d have been able to survive that level of constant scrutiny, and he’d hoped Jon would acclimate to his abilities faster than he had. It seemed likely that he would. He was Superman’s son, after all. Conner was just a defective clone, so of course Jon would do better than he ever could.. Even so, he’d still worried for the kid. At least, he had until the first time he saw the boy and his father together.
He’d met Jon before, briefly. Occasionally the Justice League would host cross generational events for heroes and their sidekicks, and the Young Justice crew always insisted on dragging Conner along, even though he didn’t have a mentor to pair up with like the rest of them did. He’d watched a young, still fragile and mostly human Jon running happy laps around his doting father. He’d smothered his confusing, ridiculous, greedy jealousy and avoided Superman’s eyes as he was introduced by Tim. He’d offered the boy a fist bump rather than a hand shake, holding the fist out stationary to let Jon knock his knuckles against it, not wanting to risk accidentally hurting him. Jon was bright, happy, a little shy, and overall everything Conner wasn’t. He’d probably hurt the kid’s feelings a little bit with how quickly he’d brushed him off, but he’d known better than to stay near Superman for longer than he had to.
After Jon’s powers came in, they had a more official meeting at Mount Justice. Conner had heard that his team was scheduled to train with some of the League associates who were apparently on their way to earning entry into Young Justice, and it had been obvious that Jon and Superman would both be there. Conner had been a little sick to his stomach at the idea of having to watch Jon, who was still so young and small looking, train and potentially fail in front of his father. He’d never seen Superman’s consequences dealt out to someone else before, and he didn’t want to. He knew it was necessary. He knew Superman was right and he was wrong. He just hadn’t been sure he could stand seeing those harsh words and forceful, grabbing hands pointed at someone else.
He’d spent most of the training session lurking near the edges of the group and only doing exactly as he’d been asked, waiting with bated breath. Then, nearly an hour in, it happened. He’d watched, tense and nauseous as Jon lost balance mid-flight—and wasn’t that a bitter pill to swallow, that eleven year old Jon could already fly —still moving so fast he was a blur. The kid slammed the full weight of his body into M’gann, knocking her out of the air in a move so careless it made Connor’s teeth hurt. He’d been filled with the sudden impulse to break something, to draw Superman’s ire his way instead, but he’d lacked the courage to commit to the act as he’d watched the hero sprint towards his son.
Conner had braced himself for shouting, for hands that gripped so tightly that bones cracked, for eyes that glowed red with repressed heat vision to remind him that he was alive only so long as Superman allowed it. But there wasn’t any of that. Instead, Superman ran gentle hands down Jon’s body, hastily looking him over with frantic worry on his face. Instead, Conner listened to the man hurriedly asking the boy ‘ Are you okay?’ as he wiped the dirt from his clothes. Instead, Conner realized that he’d been worried for nothing.
In hindsight it made perfect sense. Of course Jon didn’t need the same handling as Conner did. Jon was a little kid growing into his abilities. They were coming on in natural, predictable stages. Jon’s mistakes weren’t as dangerous as Conner’s, because he was still young and didn’t have the responsibility of a grown hero yet. And more than that, Jon didn’t need to be reminded to be good. He just was. Conner understood. It made sense that he was treated differently. He was a clone. An unnatural being, forcibly grown to age sixteen in a matter of months, with a brain that had been fed information curated by Lex Luthor and who shared the man’s DNA. It made sense. He understood why Superman treated him differently.
But that didn’t make it any easier to watch Jon get the kind of Superman that Conner sometimes dreamed of.
It didn’t help that Jon, for reasons Conner would never understand, had become somewhat… attached to him. Superman clearly didn’t like this fact, and he glared daggers at Conner any time Jon ran over to demand they hang out, but for some reason he’d yet to put a stop to it. He just made sure to always be somewhere nearby when the two were around each other, like he thought Conner was going to lose control and rip Jon’s head off or do something equally stupid.
That was the reason that Conner had found himself in Superman’s proximity today.
Things had been better between Conner and Superman for months at this point. Conner didn’t screw up nearly as often as he used to, and he’d finally learned not to put himself in the man’s path out of some idiotic, misguided hope for connection or understanding. He’d learned to toe the line and keep his head down, and as a result, Superman hadn’t needed to reprimand him in quite some time. Of course, that didn’t mean there wasn’t still tension, though Jon seemed completely oblivious to it.
Or at least, he had. He was probably aware of it now. Conner was pretty sure the kid must have picked up on it around ten seconds ago, when Superman had thrown him through a wall.
Conner was laying on his back in the wreckage, still stunned from the impact. His ears were ringing, muffling the sound of what had to be shouting on the other side of the room. He gave himself a brief moment to catch his breath, hoping that the words being thrown weren’t directed at him, because if they were, he was completely missing them.
It had all happened so fast. Jon had apparently been gifted a dagger by Robin, and he’d been showing it off to Conner while they waited for Tim and the aforementioned Robin to arrive for their regularly scheduled training session at Mount Justice. The kid had been demonstrating the tricks he’d learned, proudly peacocking as he tossed and caught the blade, ignoring Conner’s insistence that he be careful. He’d laughed at the words, rolling his eyes and chirping a mischievous ‘ Come on, Conner! I’m basically impervious already —’ when his words had been cut off by a pained cry as the knife landed sharp side down in his hand. Conner had moved without thinking, racing closer and pulling the blade from the kid’s grip to get a look at the damage.
Conner was relatively sure he could guess what had happened next. Superman had probably come racing in at the sound—seen Jon bleeding and in pain and Conner up against him with a blade in his hand—and assumed the worst. Conner wished he didn’t blame the man for that. He wished the fact that Superman had responded to this sight by rushing forward in a burst of wind, pushing Conner away by slamming his hand into the center of his chest so hard that he’d gone flying wasn’t understandable in that context. He wished he knew what it would take to finally earn the benefit of the doubt, even just once.
He pushed himself up off of his back with a groan, plaster and bits of wood falling off of him with a clatter. As he tried to get his bearings, he could hear Superman’s voice coming into focus, frustration obvious in his tone. “See? He’s perfectly fine, Jon.”
Conner wasn’t sure perfectly fine was how he’d describe his current condition. He was going to be bruised to hell and back, that was for sure. He also suspected one of his ribs might be fractured, but he couldn’t really tell. He’d probably be healed up by next morning, though, so that was close enough to perfectly fine.
“No, he’s not! ” he heard Jon shout, apparently not agreeing with his father’s assessment, followed by the sound of rapid footsteps approaching him. Conner looked up to see the kid rushing towards him, looking more worried than probably anybody ever had on his behalf.
Conner brought a hand up to his temple, trying to rub the growing headache away, and slowly staggered to his feet, shooting Jon what he hoped was a reassuring smile as the boy skidded to a stop within arms reach of him. “I’m fine kiddo, promise. You don’t gotta worry about me.”
He tried not to tense when he heard the sound of Superman’s slowly approaching footsteps. “More to the point,” the man interjected coldly. “When I leave my son with you, I’m trusting that you are capable of supervising him acceptably, so do you want to explain to me why I had to come in here and find him with his hand sliced open?”
Conner’s body instinctively slid into a position that had been ingrained in him from the moment he’d first opened his eyes, small and coughing up fluid as the scientists pulled him out of the pod for his first growth check. Back straight. Hands clasped together behind him. Feet shoulder width apart. Toes forward. Head up. Eyes cast down. He kept his breathing as steady as he could as he replied in a flat and even tone. “I have no excuses. I should have been faster. I should have realized what would happen and caught the knife before Jon was hurt. I apologize.” He knew better than to say that he should have stopped him from playing with the blade in the first place. Superman had previously established that Conner wasn’t to tell his son what he could or couldn’t do.
He heard Jon gasp quietly beside him and felt the boy’s hand—the one that wasn’t still sluggishly bleeding—tentatively come up to rest on his arm. “What are you talking about?!” he cried. “Dad, stop it! He’s hurt.”
Superman sighed heavily, and Conner could see him dragging a hand down his face in his periphery. “Jon, Conner isn’t the same as you. He’s a clone of me. He has all the same abilities that I did when I was sixteen. He’s impervious. He’s fine. ”
The words were so surprising that Conner couldn’t help but look up at the man’s face, making eye contact for a brief moment, before his gaze was pulled away by the sound of Jon’s voice, shrill and outraged. “ What?! I—Are you stupid? ”
Conner flinched at the words, instinctively bracing for consequences as Superman furrowed his brow. “ Excuse me?”
But Jon didn’t back down, taking a step forward, placing himself slightly in front of Conner as he clenched his fists and glared back up at his father. “How do you not know what powers Conner has? Don’t you assign his team missions? He isn’t impervious! He never had been and you just threw him through a wall, Dad!”
Superman looked to Conner in disbelief. “No. No, you’re impervious. I know you are.” He sounded like he believed it, too.
Conner didn’t really like disagreeing with Superman when he could avoid it, but he also definitely knew better than to lie to the man. His stomach twisted and he could feel the blood draining from his face as he forced out his reply. “I—uh. No, sir. I’m sorry. I’m not.” He tried to ignore the steadily increasing throbbing in his chest.
Superman shook his head, his expression shifting to something Conner didn’t recognize. “No, but— No, but I didn’t—” The man stuttered and tripped over his words, and Conner was frozen, unsure of what he was meant to do and really starting to wish Superman and Jon would just leave so he could get some ice and maybe lay down for a little while. Then Superman’s eyes went wide and took a sudden step forward. “ Shit, are you—”
Conner regretted his involuntary step backwards the moment it happened. It froze Superman in place, the man’s words cutting off and his hand stopping in midair, having just begun to reach out towards Conner for a purpose he couldn’t even begin to guess, and he decided suddenly that he wanted to be done with the interaction. He’d fucked up. He’d been disciplined. He should be allowed to go lick his wounds in private now. “I’m gonna go, um, patch myself up, if that’s, uh— If that’s okay, sir?”
He hadn’t meant to ask permission, but as the words had started coming out, Superman’s expression had started to go pinched, and he hadn’t been able to stop the habitual softening of his statement. “Yeah,” Superman breathed, still frozen in place. “Yeah, of course.”
Conner nodded and quickly sidestepped both Jon and Superman, making his way out of the wreckage of the wall, already thinking what a pain that was going to be to fix as he walked as quickly as he could back towards the hall leading to his room. There was only silence behind him as he made his retreat, though he heard the faintest hint of a conversation starting up just as he slipped into his soundproofed room. He closed his door, cutting off the noise before he could be tempted to eavesdrop.
He’d fully intended to pull out his first aid kit and make sure he was all taken care of once he’d reached his bedroom, but now that he was actually alone, he felt all of his energy evaporating. Before he knew it he was laying on his stomach on the floor, his face pressed against the cool linoleum. Once there, he promised himself he would get up after just five minutes of rest.
Some amount of time that was definitely more than five minutes later, Conner woke up to the sound of hesitant knocking at his door. For a moment, he froze in place, worried it might be Superman, having come to lecture him more about letting Jon get hurt when Conner hadn’t even had the proper time to feel bad about that on his own yet. Then he’d realized that the knocking was far too gentle to be Superman, which meant it was probably Jon.
His suspicions were proven correct when he opened the door. Jon was standing on the other side, his face pinched with worry. “Hey, Conner,” he greeted softly. “I’m sorry to come bug you. I just wanted to make sure you were okay, after… Well. I just wanted to come check on you before me and my dad go.”
Conner slapped an easy grin on his face and leaned against the doorframe, making himself into the very picture of nonchalant ease. “Of course I’m alright, kiddo. No need to worry about me. How about you, though? How’s your hand doing?” He looked down to find it wrapped in a strip of white gauze and a burst of guilt flared up in his chest.
Jon held it up and wrinkled his nose at it, rolling his eyes in irritation. “It’s nothing. It’ll literally be healed before we get home.”
Conner nodded, relieved it wasn’t any worse. “Glad to hear it. And did you say you were leaving soon? I thought you had training with Robin today.”
Jon flushed and looked down at his feet. “We, uh. We decided to cancel after…” He trailed off, unable to finish the thought.
“Oh,” Conner saved him from having to put it to words. “Yeah, that makes sense.” He grimaced, shame mixing with the guilt he already felt about the kid’s hand. “Sorry I ruined your hangout little dude.”
Jon’s head shot up and he looked at Conner with staunch confusion. “What? What are you talking about? You didn’t ruin anything. My dad ruined it. He threw you through the wall, Conner!” The kid was practically red in the face with what could only be anger on his behalf.
He suddenly realized that Jon probably hadn’t ever seen his dad like that before. He’d never seen the way Conner needed to be taught, and it had probably been upsetting. His face softened and he knelt down to be on Jon’s level. “Hey, try not to give your dad too hard a time about that, okay?” As he spoke, Jon’s face went even redder, and he could see the kid preparing to interrupt him with what would almost certainly be more anger at his father. Conner silenced him with a hand held up between them. “I know that it probably looked like a scary overreaction, but you gotta remember, your dad walked in on you bleeding and me holding a knife. I mean, the blade was even pointed at you, little dude. He just wanted to keep you safe, so cut him some slack, alright?”
Jon was looking at Conner like he was speaking a foreign language, or like he’d grown a second head, so he wasn’t quite sure he’d managed to convince him. But even so, the boy nodded slowly. “Yeah, sure... I’ll think about it,” he agreed, his brow still furrowed. There was a bit of an awkward pause before he seemed to come to some kind of conclusion. “Alright, I’m going to head out, I guess.”
Conner nodded and stood back up to his full height. “Alright! It was great seeing you, even if things ended on a less than stellar note. I’ll see you next time you swing by.”
Jon gave him a strange smile in reply. “Yeah, I’ll see you soon, Conner.” Then he turned on his heel, heading off down the hallway at a light jog.
Conner shut the door before turning to lean back against it with a sigh, letting himself slide down to sit on the floor. His day hadn’t gone how he’d hoped it would. Not by a long shot. He took a moment to rest his head on his knees and just breathe, before he forced himself back into motion.
He stood up, peeling his shirt off and standing in front of the full length mirror that hung near his dresser, looking over his shoulder to evaluate the bruising already turning a deep yellowish purple on his back and around his ribs. A quick assessment confirmed that he probably hadn’t broken anything. There was at worst a small fracture in one of the ribs on his left side, and that would probably be healed by morning as long as he didn’t do anything stupid. He took a moment to be begrudgingly grateful to Cadmus for putting so much medical knowledge in his head as he redressed, and made his way out of his room and back towards the common area, keeping an ear out for any signs to indicate Jon and Superman might still be around.
When silence confirmed he was alone, he let out a relieved sigh and began dragging trash bags and cleaning supplies from the closet in the hall, hauling it all into the common space, towards the remnants of the wall. He stood back with his hands on his hips, surveying the damage. A Conner sized hole had been left in the back wall of the living room, exposing the conference room on the other side of it. A mess of drywall and dust and wood was littered all over the surrounding floor.
He was half tempted to take a nap before dealing with the mess, but this wasn’t the first time one of his screw-ups had left him with something to clean up. He knew by now that if he put it off, it would only get harder to do. And he definitely knew better than to act like a spoiled child who expected others to clean up after him.
He quickly pulled out his phone and snapped a picture of the wreck to send to Red Tornado, asking the robot to please add whatever supplies would be necessary to repair the hole to his next grocery pickup. Conner hoped he’d be able to figure out the repairs without too much trouble, but there wasn’t any point in worrying about that yet.
With that completed, Conner took a deep breath, boxed up the little voice in his head that was starting to whisper this isn’t fair, rolled up his sleeves, and got to work.