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Barbara Gordon tapped her fingers slowly against her desk as she stared at the screen in front of her.
Her lips were pursed and her eyebrows knitted together as she stared at the information. It was documents about Cadmus. Barbara had made sure that when they’d last shut the program down, that, if it did start up again, then she would get notified.
And it seemed that now it had, considering the files she was trying to bypass through at the current moment. Moving her hand to her keyboard as she began to type she began to slowly work her way through the firewall.
Her nails clicker against the plastic keys on the keyboard, her breath slow and steady.
Her eyes traced quickly across the screen, soaking up a large amount of information in near seconds. The left side of her jaw continually clenched and unclenched as the minutes ticked by.
It took a bit, but she was able to eventually get through.
She moved her right hand back to her mouse and began to scroll and click.
There weren’t many too many files yet, at least not as much as she’d seen previously when everything with Superboy one happened.
By the dates on the files, Cadmus had started up again around three months ago, though the files had only just been digitised.
There were some duplicate files from previous projects, and based off of the duplicate files she came to guess that the new project was another cloning project.
But that was all she could find, as unfortunately every other single file was completely redacted.
It was redacted before it had even been put into the Cadmus database.
Which Barbara was pretty sure could only mean one of two things.
One, that Cadmus had simply decided to go back to paper, or two. That Cadmus suspected that someone would find the files and had purposefully planted the redacted ones.
Barbara let out a deep and frustrated sigh as she ran a hand through her hair.
‘Of course they’d figured out’ she found herself bitterly thinking, resisting the urge to mutter out a long string of curses.
Barbara could only expect that Luthor, and thus Cadmus had begun to be even more cautious, doing their absolute best to up security.
Her bugs had either been caught, or they were starting to suspect of their being bugs.
Which was never good, she wasn’t even sure what Luthor was thinking.
From what Tim had told her, according to Connor, Luthor had made a promise to stop using the Cadmus labs for cloning.
He was supposedly extra determined to stop after the laws against cloning had been implemented.
He apparently was tired of getting into so much legal trouble, something about lawyers being a lot of money.
As well as, surprisingly enough, that Luthor had wanted a better relationship with Connor.
It hadn’t been working, at all, but apparently he was trying.
According to Connor and news reports Lex had gone a record of three full days without bad mouthing Superman and at the last time Connor was being handed to Clark for the custody arrangements Luthor didn’t make any jabs or try to start an argument.
Though, he did apparently look like he had swallowed an extremely sour lemon warhead.
She found it funny, so did Tim and Connor.
None of them were exactly sure why Lex was doing this, but it did benefit them so no one minded.
According to Connor, it was also hilarious to see Clark become increasingly concerned and panicky about the decrease of Lex’s antagonism towards him, both as Clark Kent, and as Superman.
Though Lex had always been less antagonistic towards Clark, he used to treat Clark as a ‘poor fool’ but he got angry when Clark had taken in Connor (the story being that Superman had asked him to).
Barbara leaned back, arching her back as she reached her arms up, interlocked her fingers, and stretched. Letting out a large yawn Barbara relaxed into her wheelchair.
She’d have to continue this after she’s slept and done her job, she would keep this to herself for now.
—— ——
John let out a low groan as he shifted in the bed sheets underneath him. They were soft, like silk, and unreasonably comfortable.
The pillow that his head was pressed against was the perfect balance between soft and hard, and it was cold against the bare side of his face.
Letting out a low hum John found himself curling further into himself, finding himself glad that, despite his excessive drinking the night before, his brain wasn’t slamming into his skull.
Which… was actually suspicious now that he thought about it. And the perfectly comfortable sheets and pillows were suspicious as well.
And he was now releasing there was an intense amount of magic weaving through the air and an almost silent wind flowing through the hair.
John found himself stilling, hand relaxing before tightening around the sheets under him. His breath was catching in his throat as he tried to feel the magic, trying to tell who it was coming from and what exact type it was.
A low rumbling laugh came from behind him, John still hadn’t dared open his eyes.
“I appreciate your caution Constantine, though you do not have to be worried dear” a familiar low and rumbling voice spoke, soft but seemingly echoing through the room. John bit his lip as soon as he recognised the voice.
Eyes flickering open, he rolled partially over, until his legs faced the side but his chest and head were directed to the voice.
His eyes caught against the other’s red eyes, the look of amusement and mischief John immediately recognised. “Bloody fuckin hell mate.
Ya couldn’t just send me a note?” John drawled out, voice croaking from sleep. The man, or well, Ancient, Clockwork gave a low chuckle.
His hand lifted and brushed against John’s cheek. “Am I not allowed to see one of my favorite mortals?” he rumbled with a smirk.
“‘You have other favorites?” John snarkily snorted out, causing Clockwork to burst out in a hearty laugh.
Clockwork hummed, “Yes, well they aren’t from your universe, at least… not yet”. John immediately subconsciously clenched his jaw.
“‘This why ya’ called me here?”. Clockwork gave John another smile while he hummed, finally answering after a quick few seconds.
“Well, other than to discuss, I wanted to see you. Am I not allowed to or something my dear troublesome Constantine?”.
John huffed and Clockwork brought up his hand and booped the Laughing Magician’s nose with a clawed finger.
“Fine fine, what da ya want? Maybe if you're lucky I’ll stay a bit” John drawled out.
Clockwork’s eyes sparkled with amusement for a few seconds before turning a bit more serious.
“There is a boy, a… boy who is rather special by ghost standards” Clockwork began with the tilt of his head. “You have heard of Polaris’, yes?” Clockwork asked. John felt his eyebrows knit together and the warmth of the bed seeped away a little bit, John propping himself up on his elbows.
“This boy, he is one, he is one and he is in danger. From his parents and from his universe’s government”.
John felt himself freeze, it was like all the warmth had been sucked out of the room now.
“What?”.
“He became a Polaris after his parents created the structure of a portal to the Infinite Realms, it only worked when the boy accidentally activated the portal and got electrocuted due to some badly placed wires” Clockwork’s eyes were now staring at the wall behind John.
“The government in his universe is after him, and I fear that in every timeline, him, his two friends, and two of his family will enter the Infinite Realms and never be able to return due to the danger”.
“Due to this, due to what I have seen will happen to them if they dare to stay in the Realms I have decided to take action, even if the Observants may not be… particularly happy” Clockwork continued.
“So ya’ sendin’ them to my universe?” John asked, quirking one of his eyebrows up.
“Hm, I suppose…” Clockwork said mischievously.
John sighed and allowed himself to flop back down on the bed.
“Well, the Justice League probably ain’t gonna be happy, ‘specially the Bat” John hummed.
Clockwork chuckled, “Maybe you should surprise them then dear”.
John hummed and his eyes fluttered closed “Mhm, sure”.
John felt Clockwork’s finger brush against his cheek, the cold sending a shiver through him.
He was glad he could relax, it had been a bit since he’d seen the Ancient, and even with his slight strangeness, John did enjoy hanging out with him.
——