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When Bruce had given Tim this job, he thought that Batman was starting to believe in him more, to trust him to be able to hold his own against threats that they hadn’t broken down into pieces so small they would need to discover new particles to break them down any further.
Letting Tim leave Gotham and even past Bludhaven was a big step for the Bat. Tim knew that after what happened to Jason, Bruce struggled to separate from his Robins. In fact, even when Tim used to watch him with Dick, he struggled to separate. Despite Dick’s attitude and unsatisfiable anger, Bruce had always kept him close, kept him calm, and dealt with Dick in the moment. Dick was always within grabbing distance of Batman or Alfred.
Tim was moving as silently as he could on his bike, staying close to shadows the way Bruce had taught him. The rural area he found himself in didn’t lend itself to the way he had been trained to move, but there was little he could do but adapt, so he did, doing his best not to stand out.
The mission was simple, safe, and should be easy to finish in a single night. It was, in Tim’s opinion, grunt work that Batman probably just didn’t want to perform himself, and so Tim was driving over worn-out roads somewhere between where the plane had dropped him off in Central City and El Paso. He was headed to a town in the middle-of-nowhere Kansas to investigate an abnormality in shipment patterns in a building the batcomputer would call a low-priority hot-spot.
Tim wasn’t stupid; he knew this place was marked because this was the town that Superman was from. That also meant that it was probably where Superboy was from. Well, their alien origins meant that neither of them was really from anywhere, but it was where they were raised. Which probably meant Bruce gave him this mission in an attempt to push Tim to make friends his own age. It was something his acting father had recently taken an interest in, to Tim’s displeasure. He blames Dick. He needed to be better at logging his location to make it seem like his social life was more meaningful than it really was. He could always stop by a party or one of those other things his classmates hosted.
Tim didn’t dislike Superboy. Disliking him would be unprofessional. No. He just preferred to work with more reliable partners, like adults. Tim was much better at getting along with adults, as long as those adults followed his lead.
Not to say that Tim didn’t have friends. He was still friends with Stephanie despite their breakup. He had Bernard, who didn’t know he was Robin, and was maybe a bit obsessive at times, but he was still a good friend to Tim. School friends were hard to keep up with, though he still talked to people when he was at school. There were just so many more important things in Tim’s life than making friends.
He knew that many members of the ‘younger hero community’ were friends with each other. Dick had established the Titans because he was lonely, Tim assumed, and the team seemed like it was kinda still around. Impulse and Superboy are close friends. Impulse had invited Robin to go on missions with them a few times, but unless it was official business, Tim preferred not to get involved, and he was sure Batman knew that; so, he didn’t appreciate the playdate.
He saw the signs for Smallville and wished that he had just called Superboy to investigate himself, but he was already here. He turned, cruising down the dirt road as the sun began to set.
───
It did not take long for Superboy to find him. Tim was picking the lock to a door on the roof of what seemed like the only semblance of STEM in the entire town. It was a LuthorCorp building, and according to the batcomputer, it was supposed to be primitive but had recently procured a variety of equipment which seemed to be used to produce zata-radiation.
“What are you doing?” Superboy asked, lowering his obnoxious, red-lensed glasses. “I was told we were just observing.”
“You should have been told that I would be doing recon,” Robin muttered, part of him pleased he had deduced that Superboy had been told he would be there. The other part of him was still mad at Bruce for attempting to trick him.
Superboy floated down from above, hovering casually in the airspace beside where Robin was working the door. “Did Daddy Bats tell you what was up? Superman didn't say what was flagged, and with Lex, it could be anything.”
Tim filed away the use of Luther's first name as if it were anything more than a simple sign of Superboy’s abundant disrespect. “Shipments have been linked to Zata Tech,” Tim told him, not looking up as the door clicked open. He could be professional.
“Like teleportation?” Superboy asked—hopefully a rhetorical question—scratching his head dumbly as Robin nodded in response.
“Not as dumb as you look,” Tim quipped back, feeling annoyed already.
Robin made his way inside, and Superboy landed on the ground to follow him. Tim thought that was an idiotic move. If he can move silently through the air, why would he risk being heard on the ground? Robin moved down the hallway, which looked like a regular office building, and presumably it had been at some point. He wasn't sure what the major markets were in Smallville, but clearly, advanced biotechnology was not one of them. The office was run down, dirty; there was a water stain on the ceiling and a sprinkling of dust in the corners.
“This place is kind of a bummer," Superboy whispered. He was peering through the small glass window of one of the doors that lined the hall. The room closest to Robin housed an ancient copy machine, and the one beside that was a cluttered office. He squinted through the glass to read the name plate, but it was a name he didn't recognize, Jacob Holland, so he filed it away in his head for later. He heard a door close behind him, and Robin whipped around, his fingers unclipping a blade from his belt.
“Don't touch that,” he snapped at Superboy, whose hand was still resting on the handle of the door he had just practically slammed. “This is a front,” Robin chided, “they have to have a lab somewhere else in the building, meaning it's likely they also have security."
“Will you relax?” Superboy complained, rolling his eyes for good measure. “There are no cars in the parking lot, and I can't hear anyone in this dump besides you and your ragged breathing.”
Tim scoffed, turning away, but not saying anything. He took a careful breath. Of course, Superboy had listened for signs of life; that was probably why he was walking and not floating around. Tim should have assumed as much.
“Look for an elevator,” Robin ordered instead of properly responding. He walked further down the hallway, glimpsing through each window as he went.
“Who made you boss?” Superboy objected. “You look for an elevator.”
“I'm way more experienced than you, and you literally just gave the same order I did,” Robin pointed out.
Superboy gave a huff and walked past him, purposefully knocking their shoulders as he did. “Whatever,” he muttered.
Finding the elevator did not take long. Once inside, Robin prodded at the ceiling panel and climbed through it. Superboy followed him shortly after, because of-fucking-course he did.
“What are you looking at?” Superboy asked, holding back an irritating laugh as Robin examined the elevator cable, and more importantly, its braking system.
“Higher tech elevators usually have shorter, stronger clamps to brake; it's actually really interesting. A quality clamp can stop a ten-thousand-kilogram elevator moving at approximately seven meters per second at near instant speed.” Robin grinned, nearly forgetting who he was talking to until he heard Superboy actually start laughing to himself, apparently unable to hold back any longer.
“You're such a geek,” Superboy muttered, pretending to dry his eyes. Tim really didn't think it was that funny; it was a matter of life and death. When you're in an elevator plummeting at 11.18 miles to the hour, the speed at which the elevator brakes will suddenly become very important.
“First off, that would make me a nerd, not a geek. Second off,” he pointed down at the gears and box, “high-powered clamp brake.”
“What a geeky thing to say. And wouldn't memorizing high-powered elevators, or whatever you said, be easier than memorizing the brakes?” Superboy asked, his eyebrows raised.
Tim sighed, and hopefully it sounded more annoyed than dissatisfied. Nightwing was good at recognizing elevators, but to Tim, they all looked the same. Plus, any shell can have any tech inside, at least with most things; he was pretty sure that was also applicable to elevators. Tim dropped back into the elevator and examined the buttons. It was a four-story building, number ‘2’ was marked with a star, ground level.
“I have an idea,” Superboy suggested, then he hit the ‘3’ button. The elevator descended for a moment, and the doors opened. Superboy gestured for Robin to exit. He hit the ‘4’ button and followed Robin out of the elevator. It wasn't until that moment that Robin realized what he was going to do.
“Wait, don’t. They'll know you were here if you break it.”
“So I won't break it,” Superboy insisted, already carefully pulling the elevator doors open, and to his credit, he didn't break them. “Damn,” he muttered, staring down the elevator shaft.
Robin approached, glancing down. At the bottom was a large yellow machine that appeared to be some kind of construction vehicle. Six doors were standing along the wall of the pit, and below the doors stood a generous gap containing the beam to which the elevator was anchored.
“Looks like we caught them early,” Robin said. He glanced behind him. He should update Batman; this is clearly deeper into development than he was expecting. “We should go down there; they're probably on a different network than they are up here. It should be easy to hack their system and get a good idea of what they're up to.”
“Thank you, Superboy, you're so smart and handsome, Superboy, I am so impressed you didn't break the door,” Superboy muttered under his breath before he said at full volume, “Right behind you, Wonder Boy.” He grabbed onto Robin around the waist, making Robin flinch under the Kryptonian’s sudden grip. Superboy glanced at him, grinning, his other hand still holding the door open. “Don’t worry, I don't bite unless it’s formally requested.”
─── ⋆⋅⌔⋅⋆ ───
Superboy did not know what he was expecting when he heard Batman was sending someone to check out Lex’s old place in Smallville. He hoped that it would be Nightwing. Nightwing was so cool. That being said, he was only slightly disappointed when he spotted Robin already in the middle of breaking and entering just as the sun had set. The little freak.
Robin was cool. He was clearly very smart, and Kon knew he was good. In fact, Robin had turned Kon and Bart down like a hundred times when they had asked if he wanted to hang out and kick crime in the ass with them over the course of their hero careers. It was clear that he thought he was too good for Superboy, and something about that made Kon’s skin buzz. Robin was only human, but he thought he was better than every meta hero his age. No, it wasn't just that; Robin was better.
He flew down to the very last door, under Robin’s order, prying it open with a little more muscle than the last one required. He hoped Robin was impressed by the show of strength, though apparently he wouldn't be able to tell that this door was harder to open, maybe Kon should rip it open—did elevator doors have brakes?—so that Robin could examine its insides.
Once he opened the door, he froze in midair, gripping Robin tighter to his side as his heart dropped. The walls of the hallway stood a far too familiar, sterilized white, with a grated floor. Bioluminescent lights replaced the old fluorescents from the upstairs offices. Most people would probably agree that a villain’s dingy, cold, dirty cave-like lair was the most terrifying place one could be, but Kon had found Lex’s shiny, technologically advanced, sleek, modern buildings to be much, much worse. This entire place was starting to give Kon the creeps.
He must have hesitated a little too long because when he looked over, Robin seemed to be trying to burn a hole in the side of his head with the intense look he was giving him.
“Do you see something?” Robin asked, his head tilted slightly to the side like he was listening for whatever it was that was distracting Kon.
Right. Superboy was on a mission, with the Robin from Batman and Robin, in what could very well be a new Cadmus start-up. He couldn’t tell Robin that. He couldn’t risk that kind of strain on their relationship already. He followed Robin's lead and checked for people, even though he hadn’t heard anything upstairs. Superboy focused hard; it wasn't easy for him to hone in his super hearing.
He could hear people in their houses down the block; he could hear the silent hum of what he could probably count out to be sixty computers. He heard Robin's blood pumping, his strange, uneven breathing. Kon focused on that, on the nervous way he could hear Robin shifting against his grip, then he expanded his hearing out, looking for similar sounds. He heard it, the soft shuffle of feet, the clinking of glass, the clacking of a keyboard. A lab.
“There are three people close by,” Superboy reported, his voice even despite the nerves twisted in his stomach. He should have been able to hear them when he was upstairs. “I can't tell if any or all of them are above us, but definitely close.”
Robin nodded, his eyes fixed on Kon. Kon stared back, examining Robin's features. His skin was so smooth, like it had never tasted the summer sun. Kon wondered if Robin really only went out at night; he must have a civilian life, but then again, where would he find the time?
“You can put me down now,” Robin said after a few beats of silence, his voice flat and irritated.
“Sorry,” he muttered, snapping his eyes away from the other boy, and feeling his face heat up slightly.
He lowered them both down and let Robin escape his grasp. Robin dropped to the floor gracefully, making no sound despite the metal grate. It reminded Superboy of one of those cute little barn cats Ma and Pa had on the farm to protect the grains.
“I need a computer,” Robin told him again matter-of-factly. “I can likely hack the entire system from there, then we're out. No extra investigating. No separating. We need to know what we’re dealing with”
“Whatever it is, I’m sure I could handle it,” Superboy dismissed confidently, flying after Robin as he slinked down the hallway.
“Just follow my lead,” Robin insisted, and who was Kon to refuse.
The first few rooms they passed seemed empty, and the entire place was painfully unfinished. That was not the part that confused Superboy the most. There was one fact that was scratching at the back of his mind, making him question everything: why would Lex want to set this place up for operation, particularly illegal operation, when he knew this was where Superman was from? Or, more importantly, when he knows that this is where Superboy lives?
“There.” Robin pointed up ahead where a large silver gate stood open, the control panel on the wall hanging out of its socket. “A computer.”
“This feels like a trap,” Superboy whispered to Robin as he peered through the large open door, which led to a room that could have been a replica of his room inside Project Kr, except there was no pod. It had the same circle of desks and computers standing off to the side, all focused on the center of the room. The same vent panel in the back wall. Fortunately, Robin did not go inside.
“I just need approximately thirteen minutes. Then we leave.” Robin knelt in front of the door panel, pulling a cord out of a pocket in his belt. Superboy stood behind him, staring into the room against his better judgment.
Memories pulled unwelcome at his mind. He could never quite remember what it was like in his room at Cadmus, just lights, needles, and the soft drip of fluid, the hum of machinery. It was when he wasn’t in this room that he remembered. He had so many memories. Images of him strapped down, the feeling of kryptonite, flashes of fear and stress, electrical shock, wires attached to his brain.
The place was quiet for the first ten minutes of whatever it was Robin was doing, but Superboy remained on edge. There was no command panel on the inside, which meant that the door was made to keep people in. He looked around, listening for people. The fear that someone was going to show up and push them inside was eating away at his mind.
He heard the faint sound of footsteps growing louder, and he glanced back at Robin. “We are gonna have company in about two minutes,” he informed him, nudging Robin closer to the wall. If one of them was getting locked up, it sure as hell was going to be Superboy.
“I need four,” Robin said, looking up for a second, his eyebrow creased under his mask. Superboy couldn't imagine what Robin expected him to do about that. Did he want him to walk up to these possible supervillains and say... what? ‘Hey guys, before you capture, clone, and kill us, can you stand still for four more minutes? My friend needs a sec, and we would prefer a bit of a running start.’ Okay, so maybe he could imagine it. That was a stupid saying anyway.
Superboy peered down the corridor, considering for a moment anything that might actually buy them some time. He spotted a fire alarm at the end of the hall, but if he went and pulled it, he was sure to be seen. Superboy wasn't really known for his recon ability, but he really didn't want to have to fight these people. The thing he remembered most about Cadmus was always Eve. He knew that she wasn't evil. She was just a scientist whose egoism was taken advantage of by Lex. These people were probably also just scientists, but that didn't mean he wasn't going to hit back if it came to that.
Superman had told Kon not to enter the building. He told Kon they were just observing, looking to see if anything strange was going on. Superboy heard the people, just down the hall and around the corner from where he and Robin were hidden against the wall. He hoped Superman had been trying to protect him.
There were three of them, two women and a man, from what Kon could tell, and they were talking. He listened intently, trying to make out what they were saying beyond the sound of his own blood rushing in his head.
“I don't know how he expects you to be able to do that,” one of the two women was saying, her voice high-pitched and clearly annoyed.
“We're supposed to get a big pay raise, though. I can't complain about that,” the other woman responded, sounding distracted, like she was barely paying attention.
Kon looked down at Robin. They needed three more minutes. Three minutes and Kon would pull the fire alarm, or maybe he would just grab Robin and run.
“Yeah, but you're an astrophysicist, and I am a geologist. I don't know why he thinks we can create substances from nothing,” the man grumbled.
One of them stopped in their tracks, causing the other two to falter. “I can,” the second woman said incredulously, now fully present in the conversation. “We all have biochemical backgrounds. Cameron is an expert in exoplanetology, and you are supposed to be a world leader in extraplanetary substance. I know I can do this. Should I not have chosen you to assist me, Dr. Erikson?”
Kon made a special note of the scientist’s names in his mind. He would tell Robin about it later.
“No, no, you chose correctly. I just mean the lab is almost empty,” the man quickly corrected. “It is clearly not ready, so why are we here already?”
“I just wish we had a sample,” the first woman lamented. “This would be so easy if we could just reverse engineer the molecular structures.”
“You think that would be easy?” The man sputtered. The second woman must have been making an expression that matched his outburst because the first woman laughed and started telling them about the ease of pattern matching and subtle changes in structure over time, while the man interjected, offering comparison as a much better tool
It didn't matter; Kon was barely listening. They were making something—or someone—and they needed a sample. Superboy’s heart was hammering so hard in his chest, he would be surprised if Robin couldn't hear it. How embarrassing.
The scientists started walking again at the exact moment Robin looked up at him and whispered, “Got it.”
Superboy didn't wait; he grabbed Robin’s arm and pulled him up. “They're around that corner.” Kon pointed. “Think you can hit the alarm with one of your fancy boomerangs?”
Robin gave him a sly smile and touched his belt before faltering. “They'll be able to track it back to Batman. Just go, you're faster than them.”
Kon didn't need to be told twice before speeding off quickly, as the air would allow him to move in silence. He wrapped his TTK around Robin as he did, almost forgetting to slide the elevator door shut behind them as they hurried out.
───
Superboy dropped Robin near his bike, which he had parked in the tree line at the edge of the parking lot.
“Do you think they saw us? I'm so glad we're out of there. That could have been hell,” Superboy mumbled quietly as he peered through the trees, trying to catch a glimpse of anything. Fortunately, there was no sign of scientists following after them, or a random appearance of Lex Luthor, which Kon was thankful for.
“Dude, why are you so scared? I thought you were a superhero?” Robin asked, smacking Superboy in the shoulder to get his attention.
The words stung more than Kon had expected. He was just being cautious, even as the thought entered his mind, Kon knew it was stupid. Superboy was never careful; maybe he was changing. Superman must have known. He must have realized that this was going to be the new Project Cadmus, which was why he didn't want Kon to go inside.
“I am a superhero,” he snapped back, his voice much harsher than Robin’s had been. He turned to face Robin. “You went off script! I didn't want to fight helpless lab attendants to save your reckless ass. And why are you asking me if I am a superhero? You don't even have powers!”
Robin’s eyes widened for a split second behind the white lenses of his mask, then he steeled himself, gritting his teeth and glaring at Superboy, standing up to his full height, which was still at least two inches shorter than Kon was.
“I may not have powers, but I am still better at this than you are,” Robin argued. “Were you just gonna wait outside until someone came out to let you know what they were up to? No, really, what did you think this was?”
“Why did you even come out here? You have never shown up when I needed you before,” Superboy grumbled, turning away from Robin. “We don't need your help.”
“Evidently you do,” Robin spat, before the sound of his engine overtook Superboy’s senses.
“Fuck you,” Superboy grumbled before, launching himself into the air and flying back toward Ma and Pa’s farm. He didn't look back to see Robin’s bike speeding down the street, but the sound still made his chest hurt.
Robin was right; he had been scared, and he should have just explained, but how do you explain to a human being that you, a copy of an all-powerful godlike alien, are scared of being trapped in a room?