The Compass That You Gave Me

By Zee

Summary:  It's not necessary to be Superman to be a hero, but Dick has trouble getting the new kid to believe that.  PG-13, gen.

Disclaimer: So very much not mine.

Notes:  Takes place during the Death and Return of Superman storylines and spoils those storylines, but you (hopefully) don't need to be familiar with that storyline to read this. So many people audienced this, and even more listened to me whine about it, and you're all awesome, but especially Betty, Petra and Basingstoke.  Posted July 24, 2006




It's raining.  Of course it's raining; he's in Blüdhaven on a day that ends in 'y'.  Night, technically, and--

Dick shakes his head to clear it and jumps off the edge of the building, shooting out a jumper line.  He's losing his focus, letting his mind wander.  It's not new; he's felt this scattered, this lost ever since Superman died.  It's been months and the universe still doesn't seem right--Dick knows he's not the only one feeling unfocused.

Not that it excuses his sub-par performance.  He frowns at himself and lets go of the line, somersaulting and landing on his feet in a dark alley.  He wishes there were something for him to hit, but the streets have been quiet, aside from a few muggings and attempted rapes; the rain is making things miserable, apparently even for crooks.   

He hears the clanging sounds of a fight coming from an alley nearby.  He's in the air again and swinging towards it--and so much for being bored.  It's another one of those damn robot-dog-beast things that escaped from Dr. Corsica's lab last month.  He thought he'd seen the last of those, but this one is trading blows with someone wearing red tights and a leather jacket, and then he's got the someone (the kid, he's just a *kid*) by the neck, and Dick is too far away to help.  He throws a birdarang, but it bounces off the cyborg's neck harmlessly.

The kid gasps something--sounds like "heat vision"--and then Dick feels himself get thrown by a blast of *something* and he tucks and rolls to avoid doing damage to himself. 

The blast of whatever-the-hell-that-was doesn't last, and Dick springs up.  The robot.... is in pieces, and the kid is just standing there.  The blast, Dick realizes, came from *him.*

And he's wearing the S-crest. 

"Who *are* you?" Dick says, but the kid sways on his feet and passes out. 

Dick sighs and runs a hand through his hair.  Dammit.  Blüdhaven's had its share of Superman wannabes, but none of them had superpowers--and none of them were so *young.*

And now this one has passed out at Dick's feet, in the rain.  Whoever he is, he doesn't have the right to wear that crest, especially now that Clark's.... gone. 

He crouches down to get a closer look at whoever this is.  He looks even younger than Robin, and his face is muddy from faceplanting onto gravel.  He was fighting with one of those definitely-evil robot beasts, which means he's--probably--a hero.  Or at least attempting to be.

Dick can't just leave him here.


***


He dumps the kid on his couch.  He's skinny, too skinny considering that he was holding his own against that robot; wherever his strength comes from, it's not from muscle mass. 

He debates calling in sick to work.  It's close to four in the morning and he can't go off to work in a few hours with a strange metahuman on his couch.

He could just toss the kid out before he has to go off and be Officer Grayson, but--

The kid whimpers in his sleep and shivers a little bit.  Dick goes to get him an afghan and calls in sick.

He snaps a few pictures of the kid and sends them to Oracle, but she can't find a match.  He sends her some DNA samples, too, and still nothing.  It's like he just appeared out of thin air.

The kid sleeps for hours, and after talking to Babs Dick has nothing to do, so he makes breakfast.  The big kind of breakfast Alfred used to make for him when he was younger, when he and Bruce would come back from patrol late enough that it was actually early: bacon, scrambled eggs, fruit and yogurt, oatmeal, orange juice.  Coffee.  The kid is still asleep, so he makes waffles as well.

The waffles are barely done when he hears the kid begin to stir, and he heads back into the living room.  The kid is sleepily rubbing at his eyes and yawning; Dick crosses his arms and puts on his best 'I am an officer of the law' face.

"Did you sleep all right?" The kid jerks up at Dick's voice, and he looks alarmed.  Dick wonders what happened to make him so jumpy.

"Who're *you?*"

"I'm officer Dick Grayson.  I was off-duty and saw you take out that robot before you passed out.  The Blüdhaven PD doesn't have a protocol for things like this, so you're at my apartment." He raises an eyebrow.  "Now why don't you tell me who *you* are, and what you're doing in my--in Blüdhaven."

"I'm *Superman!*  Geez, can't you tell from, you know, the giant S?"  The kid actually puffs out his chest, and it would be funny if Clark was actually here, if Dick could share the joke.

"You're *not* Superman."  It comes out close to a snarl, and the kid's eyes widen.  His eyes that are really incredibly blue and too big for his own good, and--they are kind of Clark's eyes.  Not that that proves anything, of course.

"How the hell would *you* know?"  And now the kid's defenses are back up, and he's standing up, hands balled into fists at his side. 

"Well, for one thing--" Dick feels his lips twitch into a smile, he can't help it. "You're kind of scrawny to be Big Blue."

The kid scowls.  "I *am* Superman.  The folks at Cadmus just--didn't get a chance to finish."  He deflates somewhat at that, looking down at his boots.

Cadmus as in Cadmus Labs.  As in Luthor.  As in... crap.  "Get a chance to finish what?" he asks, as if he doesn't already know.

"Cloning me.  I was supposed to be--" The kid shuts his mouth with an audible click.  "I should get back to Metropolis.  You know, citizens in need, all that."

"Oh, that's right.  You can hear them from here, can't you?  With your super-hearing."  Super-hearing, Dick is willing to bet, that the kid doesn't have.

The kid actually *blushes.* It's like interrogating a twelve-year-old.  "Uh--right!  Yeah, my super-hearing.  I, uh, can totally hear this woman screaming, she's being attacked and needs my help.  Right now."

The kid turns to fly out the window, but Dick grabs his shoulder.  "Hang on there, sport.  From the looks of the scene where I found you, you got pretty slammed.  You sure you're all right to fly?"

"Of *course* I can fly!"  The kid levitates off the floor to prove it, but then his eyes roll back and he passes out in mid-air, sagging against Dick's arm. 

Dick curses under his breath.  He lays the kid gently down on the couch and gets the smelling salts. 

The kid wakes up easily enough this time, and sneezes.  "I--I just need to recharge my powers with sunlight, okay?" he says, preemptively defensive when Dick looks at him.  "And I still have to go to Metropolis.  I'm *needed.*"

He sounds as earnest as Clark ever did when talking about his responsibility to the public, and Dick feels his chest clench uncomfortably.

Dick pushes him down with a hand on his shoulder when the kid tries to get up.  "You're not going to just walk to Metropolis."

"Sure I am.  I--I'll get directions--"

Dick has to bite his lip hard to keep from smiling.  "This is the second time you've passed out on me.  Superman or not, you need to recuperate."  The kid tries to stand, but Dick pushes him back down.  "And *don't* try to stand, I don't want you fainting again.  I've got orange juice and waffles, and you're going to eat until you've got me convinced that a stiff breeze couldn't push you over.  Got it? "

The kid opens his mouth to protest, but shuts it again at Dick's glare. "Do you have maple syrup?"


***


The kid eats a lot.  Really, really a lot, and Dick ends up making more waffles.  He catches himself wondering if this is what Alfred felt like, and then he stops because that makes him feel incredibly old.

Of course, a toddler would feel old and wise next to this kid.  Dick watches him dip his bacon in syrup out of the corner of his eye.

"So, kid, you got a name?  What should I call you?"  Dick dumps another waffle onto his plate.

The kid swallows a bite that looks like it should be too big to fit in his mouth.  "I told you, I'm Superman."

Dick snorts.  "And I can't call someone who's barely hit puberty Superman, sorry.  What *else* can I call you?"

The kid just shrugs and digs into his waffle.  "I dunno.  Call me whatever you want."

Dick looks away.  "The scientists at Cadmus didn't give you a name, did they?"

The kid shrugs again like it's--like that's no big *deal,* and it makes Dick want to throttle the morally suspect jerks behind this.  "Nah.  They were sketchy, you know?  I think some of 'em were afraid of me.  That was the impression that I got from being in the tube, anyway--I ran away as soon as the Newsboys got me out of there."

And--that's alarming, because if the kid ran away, it's likely that Cadmus wants him back.  Dick makes a note to get the full story about that.  "Right.  You need a name; what did the Newsboys call you?"

The kid makes a face.  "Superboy, but I'm *not* Superboy, I'm--"

"Superman, right, you told me," Dick says dryly.  He tilts his head, studying the kid.  He looks kind of like a Jay--except, god, *no.*  He can't give him that name.

The next thing that comes to his mind is John Doe, which is almost as bad, but...  "How about Johnny?"

The kid's eyes light up.  "Johnny's cool!  I could totally be a Johnny.  Not John, though; John sounds like it should be the name of, like, someone's Dad."  He finishes off his third glass of orange juice, and Dick holds back a flinch.

"No.  Not John."  There are few people Dick has met that remind him less of his father than the boy sitting across from him.  And now that he's thinking about it, Dick almost wants to take the name back--what does this *child* have to do with Dick's family, his legacy?

But the kid is murmuring his new name under his breath, thoughtfully trying it out on his tongue.  "Johnny it is, then."


***


It takes a while to get the full story of what had happened at Cadmus out of Johnny, mostly because he seems to be fuzzy on the details, and had a tendency to spend too much time talking about how he'd 'whipped' all of the scientists trying to enslave him, and not enough time talking about things that were actually useful, like where the lab exactly was or what the scientists had said to him when he was in the tube.  He finally got something sort of coherent out of him by lunchtime, and then Johnny was hungry again.  Dick made him chicken noodle soup, because he still looked way too pale and his hands shook a little, and Dick remembers Alfred telling him that chicken noodle soup cured all ills.  Dick had believed that when he was twelve and needed something, anything, to dull the pain of his parents' death--even if it was just chicken noodle soup.  Part of him still believes it now.

While Johnny slurps down his soup, Dick goes into another room and calls Oracle, giving her all the relevant details of Johnny's story.

"I'm going to call Batman," she says.  "I think you should bring him up to the cave, let--"

"No," Dick says sharply.  "I mean--no, I think it's better if he just stays with me for a while.  He's not dangerous, but he is a little skittish, and I... don't really think he would react well to Batman poking and prodding at him."

"Nightwing--Dick, you do remember who we're dealing with, right?"  Babs' voice manages to be gentle and sharp at the same time.  "I'm sure the kid is very nice, but this is *Cadmus.*  They probably designed him to be some sort of superweapon, and who knows what he could be programmed to do?"

The thought had crossed Dick's mind.   "I know, Babs, but--trust me on this, okay?  I can handle myself, and anyway, right now he's too worn out to try anything."

Oracle is silent for a few moments.  "Dick, I know he looks like Clark, but--you know he *can't*--"

"Of course I know that," Dick snaps, then closes his eyes, forces himself to calm down.  "Really.  I'm not letting that color my judgment.  Promise."

Oracle is silent again.  "Okay," she says finally.  "We'll follow your lead on this one.  But you need to take him up to Gotham eventually."

Dick nods.  "I will.  In the meantime--keep digging for information?"

Babs snorts on the other line.  "I always do."  She hangs up.

Dick wanders out to the balcony.  The city smells clean after all the rain--even though he knows how polluted Blüdhaven's skies are, and that last night's torrent was more acid rain than anything else.  He can see most of west 'haven from here, and his skin itches with wanting to be out there again, moving.  He wishes night would get here sooner so he could.

He hears feet shuffling behind him, and turns around to see Johnny shrugging his jacket back on.  "Okay Mr., uh, Grayson, thanks for the food and all but I'm off.  Evildoers to stop, you know?"

Dick steps in front of him.  "I don't think so.  You still don't have your strength back, you don't know what powers you have and you have no control over the powers you *do* have."  Johnny flushes and opens his mouth to retort, but Dick puts up a hand to stop him. "And you're a dangerously powerful metahuman in *my* city," he says in his best Nightwing voice.  "You're not going anywhere."

Johnny scowls at him.  "So, what, you just expect me to sit here all day, doing nothing?  Shyeah, like *that's* gonna happen."

He has a point.  If Dick tells him to just sit in the apartment while Dick goes on patrol.... well, he's a teenager.  There will at *least* be property damage.   

Dick doesn't exactly entertain many teenagers here.  Only Tim, and then they usually spend their time training or discussing Bat-stuff.  But even so--

"I have some video games. I'll bet I can beat you at Megamaster Death Rage XVII."

"Oh what<i>ev</i>er," Johnny says, even though Dick is fairly certain he can't possibly know what that is--unless the scientists picked really strange information to upload into his brain.

Dick does beat him--the first two times.  But Johnny learns eerily quick and though it hurts Dick's pride, it's kind of fun to watch him whoop and punch his fist in the air every time he kicks Dick's ass.


***


Johnny is snoring lightly on the couch when Dick leaves for patrol that night. Dick catches himself ruffling his hair before he can stop himself.

It's more of a relief than it usually is to put on the costume and get on his bike.  Not that Johnny is bad company--far from it--but hanging out with him is... draining.  It's not like hanging out with Tim (does Tim even qualify as a teenager?), and it's not something Dick is prepared for.

Dick frowns and revs the engine, tries to concentrate on the road.  Babs does have a point: he shouldn't get attached to the boy, because God only knows what Cadmus has planted inside him.  The thought of a sixteen-year-old boy being used like that isn't a pleasant one, but he knows just how possible--likely, even--it is.

He rounds the corner and--yes.  Predictably, there's a drug trade (cocaine, specifically) going down between two Blüdhaven gangs, and as he watches from the sidelines, violence breaks out.

Dick grins.

They put up a good fight.  Some of them have a fair amount of training on top of the usual mediocre thug instincts, and it's easy to lose himself in this, to relax and go with the rhythm of kicking, dodging, punching, dodging again.  He should probably be using his escrima sticks (it would be easier on his knuckles, for one thing) but using his fists and feet feels better--or at least more nostalgic.  It lets him feel like he's sixteen again, at least for a while.

He feels the man behind him raise the wrench, and twists around to disarm him, but--

There's a whoosh and a red-blue-black blur, and then the man is on the ground and Johnny is floating several feet above Dick's head, twirling the wrench in his hand and grinning.  Dick blinks.

"Dude!  You could've *told* me you were a superhero," Johnny says, and Dick groans.  He turns to deliver a vicious kick in the gut to the next man assaulting him, instead, and with Johnny helping him the fight is over far too soon.

Dick zip-strips the last gang member and turns to glare at Johnny, who is floating next to him like he has no idea just how out of place and garish he looks: a baby Superman, flinging primary colors in Dick's face amidst of all the gray dirt and grit of Blüdhaven. 

"How'd you find me?" Dick says, fighting to keep his voice even.

Johnny shrugs, and fiddles with the yellow bands on his thigh.  "I woke up and you weren't there.  Which was kinda strange, 'cuz most people *sleep* at night, you know?  And then I realized that I could fly again, so I took off, and I was just kinda flying all over when I spotted this going down."  He gestures to the unconscious gang-members.  "I didn't realize it was you first, but there was the hair and your body, and--" he squints at Dick.  "That mask totally doesn't hide that much, dude."

Dick pinches the bridge of his nose.  God<i>damn</i>it, two days ago this kid didn't even *exist* and now he knows Dick's fucking secret identity. Hopefully Johnny isn't programmed to go evil, because--Dick doesn't want to think about it.

"Okay, fine, you know my secret," he says finally.  "We're going home.  Now."

"What?"  Johnny's face *falls,* and--and it's just not fair.  "Why?  C'mon, man, I have powers and you don't, I could totally help you out--"

"No, you couldn't.  At least--not like that, and not tonight."  He heads toward his bike, and Johnny hovers beside him.

"That's not *fair.*  I totally saved your life back there-"

"--no, you didn't--"

"--and what, you think I'm just gonna sit and stay like a good little boy because you told me to?  Screw that, there's crime to fight, and--"

Dick whirls around to face him.  "I'm not going to say this a third time.  You have no idea what the extent of your powers are, you have no idea how to use them, you're two days old and you're in *my city.*  So yes, you're going to go back to the apartment and *stay* there until I figure out how to help you!"

Johnny shuts his mouth.  His eyes and the line of his jaw are still defiant, but he ducks his head and doesn't protest.

Then he notices the motorcycle.  "Oh, *dude,* that is a *sweet* ride.  Can I go with you?"

Dick gives him an incredulous look.  "You can *fly!*"

"Yeah, but dude, *motorcycle,*" Johnny says, as if that explains everything.  And--considering his age, it pretty much does.

Dick sighs.  "Yes, all right, fine.  Climb on behind me, don't distract me while I'm riding, and hold on."

Johnny's thighs are snug against Dick's ass, and he holds on dutifully as Dick speeds away.  He whoops in Dick's ear, and it *is* distracting, but Dick smiles anyway.


***


"You're not a real cop, are you?"  Johnny slurps his hot chocolate noisily, reaching out with his tongue to grab a marshmellow near the rim of his mug.  "You just said that to explain why you had me at your apartment."

Dick snorts and sips his own cocoa.  "No, I am--it's my day job." 

"Shyeah, *right!*  Why would anyone who can kick ass like *you* can want to be a boring old police officer?  You're totally messing with me."  Johnny grins at him and leans back in his chair until only two of the chair-legs are actually touching the ground.  His hair is falling over his forehead (god, he has an S-curl) and there's whipped cream from the hot chocolate on his upper lip.

"I'm not messing with you.  I can show you my badge if you need proof," Dick says. 

Johnny's eyes light up.  "You have a badge?  Dude, do you have, like, a bulletproof vest, too?  What about a gun?"

Dick winces.  The idea of letting Johnny handle a gun... no.  "Um, yeah, I do, but.... maybe I'll show those to you later, okay?"

Johnny shrugs and finishes off his hot chocolate.  "Yeah, sure, okay.  Hey, I just thought of something--"  He narrows his eyes and points a finger at Dick's chest.  "You were there when I creamed that robot dog, weren't you?  I mean--you weren't there as *you,* you were Nightwing.  You were right there before I passed out!"  Johnny stops, and gives him another suspicious look.  "You didn't knock me out, did you?"

Considering the sedatives in the cocoa Johnny just drank, the question gives Dick a twinge of guilt.  "No, I didn't.  I think you overextended yourself with whatever you did to take out that robot.  Which, I might add, is nothing I've ever seen Superman do."

"Yeah?  How would *you* know?  Not like S-man hung out in Blüdhaven all the time," Johnny snaps, rude in the way particular to teenaged boys.  It makes Dick think of Jason, and--he abandons that train of thought.

"I saw Superman in action often enough," Dick says quietly, and watches as Johnny's eyelids droop and he yawns without bothering to cover his mouth. 

"Man, I'm wiped," Johnny says through another yawn, getting up and stretching.  "I'm just gonna--yeah...."  For a second Dick is afraid that he'll pass out before reaching the couch, but he stays upright long enough to flop onto his makeshift bed, and Dick hears him snoring softly mere moments after his head hits the pillow.

Dick hadn't wanted to sedate him, not after seeing the kid faint twice, but after one look at Johnny when they'd arrived home it had been clear that the kid was bouncing off the walls and not going to go to sleep without some help.  It wouldn't have been a problem if Dick hadn't needed rest badly himself, and no way could he have slept with a hyper teenager bouncing around his apartment.

He takes Johnny's boots off and removes the ridiculous straps on his legs and hips (they look like they can't possibly be comfortable to sleep in) and make sure he's covered by the afghan.  Then he strips down to his boxers and falls into bed, mildly surprised at just how exhausted he is--he's gone without sleep for far longer stretches of time, before. 

Three hours later, the harsh buzz of his communicator wakes him.  He grabs it from the night stand and hopes he doesn't sound too groggy.  "Nightwing here."

"Dick, you need to bring Superboy to Gotham.  Now."  Oracle's voice is concerned and sharp on the other line, and Dick sits up, fully awake.

"Why?  What's going on?"

"The tests I ran on his DNA came back.  Half of his DNA *is* Superman's, but the other half--Dick, he's a clone of Lex Luthor."

Fuck.  "You're certain?  I--why would Lex want to clone *himself* and Superman?" Dick's already out of bed, grabbing his costume.

"That's what we need to find out.  Either way, you need to get the kid up here *now* so we can keep an eye on him and figure out more."

Part of him wants to argue--Johnny has already been poked and prodded in the name of science too much--but he knows it's pointless.  This could blow up in all their faces in any number of ugly ways, and the faster they find out all they possibly can about Johnny and his origins, the better.

"All right, I'm on my way.  Nightwing out." 

Dick tucks the communicator away and goes to the living room.  Johnny is curled up into a fetal position under the blanket, and appears to be drooling a little on the pillow.  Dick nudges his shoulder.

"Hey, sport.  Rise and shine.  We're gonna go on another ride."

Johnny stirs and sits up, wiping hastily at his mouth.  "Uh.  What?  What time is it?"

"5:30 am.  Come on, superheroes don't get to sleep in."  The kid gives him a sleepy glare, and Dick bites back a grin.  "Batman needs us in Gotham City."

"Batman?"  Johnny's eyes go wide, and he doesn't look sleepy anymore.  "Seriously?  Why?"

"You're Superman, aren't you?  He worked with Batman all the time."  And okay, that was mean, but it does the trick.  Johnny blushes, nods fervently and follows Dick without asking any more questions. 

It takes forty-five minutes to get to Gotham, and surprisingly, Johnny stays quiet throughout the entire ride.  Dick's not sure what thoughts are running through his head; he doesn't know how much information about Batman Cadmus implanted in Johnny's mind. 

For all he knows, Luthor programmed him to hate and mistrust Batman and the rest of the Justice League.

Dick hates thinking like that.  He hopes he doesn't have to, that they get to the bottom of this and discover that Johnny is just a normal boy who happens to have superpowers, not a cleverly disguised bomb just waiting to go off.


***


"So where's the big bad Batman?  I don't see him anywhere."  Johnny's bravado is back, and before Dick can hold him back he's exploring the cave, flying loops around the giant penny and peering at some of the more mysterious-looking computer equipment.

"Don't touch that."  Batman speaks from the shadows and Johnny jumps in midair in surprise, flying hurriedly back to land behind Dick.

"This is the clone?"  There isn't a trace of Bruce about Batman, and his face is utterly blank as he stares at Johnny.  Dick feels his heart sink further--this isn't going to go well.

"Hey! I'm not just a clone.  I'm Superman, got it?"  Johnny's voice is indignant, and Dick wants to tell him not to bother, not to try because Bruce hasn't been anything but cold and immovable since Clark's death.

"You're *not* Superman."  Batman is already turning away, and only someone who's known him for as long as Dick has could recognize the fierce lines of tension running over his shoulders, beneath his cape.  For the hundredth time, Dick wants to reach out and tell him that he *understands,* that he knows what it's like to want to shut everything off because the Clark-shaped hole in the universe is just too huge.  But he knows from experience just how useless and counterproductive that would be--Batman already *has* shut everything off.

Behind him, Dick can feel Johnny deflate.  Dick frowns and crosses his arms.  "What tests did you want to run?"

Batman ignores his question and turns back around, syringe in hand.  "Take off your clothes and lie down on that table," he says to Johnny.  "I'm going to sedate you."

"Uuuuh, *what?*  I didn't sign up for anything kinky!"  Johnny is hovering beside him, hands clenched into fists.  Dick puts a hopefully-calming hand on his shoulder.  *Damn* it, Bruce.

"He's just going to examine you and run some tests," Dick says, keeping his voice low and soothing.  "We need to find out more about who you are and where you came from."

"Why?  I *told* you who I am, I'm Superman's clone.  I told you everything.  Why don't you believe me?"  Johnny's face is angry and hurt and confused, and Dick feels like he's just kicked a puppy.

Dick opens his mouth to comfort him, but Batman answers before he can.  "We have no reason to trust you.  You're not the first Superman-imitator to crop up, and we need to make sure that you're not a threat.  Then there's the question of whether you're even worthy to wear that symbol."

*Dammit*, Bruce.  Dick grabs Johnny's other shoulder and squeezes.  "Ignore him.  I *do* trust you, okay?  And I'm trying to help you.  I have reason to believe that Cadmus may have sabotaged you in some way, and with Batman's help we can get to the bottom of it."

Johnny scowls at Batman over Dick's shoulder.  "Maybe I don't *want* his help."

"You don't have a choice," Batman says, and Dick entertains fantasies of punching him.

"Johnny, please," he says, forcing himself to ignore Bruce.  "I know Batman seems like kind of a jerk right now, but that's just because we're all confused by the other Supermen that have showed up."  Johnny still looks pissed, and he's not meeting Dick's eyes. 

Dick tries a different tactic.  "I need you to cooperate with me on this.  I need you to help me make sure that Cadmus can't hurt you."  Any more than it already has.

Johnny crosses his arms over his chest and scowls more, but Dick can tell he won't give them any trouble.  "All right, fine.  But no funny business!" He says the last part to Batman, and Dick manages to disguise a laugh by coughing.

Johnny makes them look away while he takes his uniform off and gets under the sheet, and Dick uses the opportunity to grab Bruce's arm and yank him to the side. 

"That kid's been through a *lot* in the past few days," Dick hisses at him.  "He's passed out on me twice, and--christ, he didn't even have a *name* when I found him!  He's skittish as hell and I don't want him running away on us, so would it kill you to be at least *civil*?"

Batman just stares at Dick with an extraordinarily blank expression.  Dick glares back, and squeezes Bruce's arm hard enough that he should feel it through the armored suit.

"Uh, so'm I just gonna lie here naked all day or what?"  Batman walks past Dick to Johnny, and Dick doesn't stop him.

"Lie still," Batman orders.  He sedates him, and Dick watches as Johnny's eyelids flutter closed.


***


"I still don't see what you're worried about," Tim says. 

"Don't you?  Tim, you *know* what Bruce has been like lately."  Dick puts the plane on auto-pilot and leans back in his seat, grabbing a sandwich from the open cooler next to his seat.  Ham and swiss--his favorite, and Alfred even cut the bread in triangles the way Dick liked it when he was eleven.

Tim snorts and finishes off his own sandwich.  "Yeah, I know.  Trust me, he hasn't been the easiest partner to work with since--um.  You know." 

Yes, Dick knows.  Idly, part of his brain wonders when it's going to stop hurting.  "Right."

"I just don't see what Batman's mood has to do with the Superman clone, that's all."

Dick shakes his his head.  "You haven't met him yet, Tim, but--trust me, the kid is nervous, jumpy and insecure.  I managed to get to him before he could get into any real trouble, but I'm worried that if Bruce is enough of an asshole to him, he'll run off and do something stupid." 

"If he's as unstable as you say, maybe it's a *good* thing he's under Batman's eye," Tim says, and Dick knows he's thinking of a certain green glowing ring in Bruce's possession.

"It's not like that," Dick protests.  Tim gives him an inscrutable look.  "He doesn't seem to be dangerous--at least not yet.  He really is a kid, you know? But if Bruce treats him like some kind of weapon--" Dick stares down at his sandwich.

Tim's inscrutable look gets more so.  "You seem to have already gotten... attached," he says, his voice careful and even.

"I'm not--" Dick scowls when Tim smirks at him.  "I'm just worried, okay?  He *is* powerful, and right now he's on our side, and I don't want Bruce to screw that up because he's feeling moody."

Tim smiles at that.  "Okay, point, but..." he shrugs.  "Bruce knows not to take it too far."

"I hope so," Dick mutters.  They're still twenty minutes away from Cadmus--at least, where Dick *thinks* Cadmus is; their intel is spotty.  Twenty minutes to try and avoid thinking about what they'll find there, twenty minutes to go over Batman's behavior in his mind and worry about how Johnny's doing.

He hasn't told Tim that he gave the kid a name yet.

"What do you think we'll find at the labs?"  Tim has pulled out his laptop, probably double-checking the information they already know about Cadmus and seeing if anything new info has magically turned up.

"I have no idea.  Luthor's mixed up in this--it could be anything."  Though nothing good.  "But the kid did give me the impression that he broke out of the tube before the scientists could 'finish' him--implant controls in him, that sort of thing.  So I don't think that Luthor succeeded in whatever he was trying to do with him."

"Umm, if you say so."  Tim looks like he wants to say more on the topic, but he turns his attention to the computer screen instead. 

Dick drums his fingers softly on the arm of his chair and tries not to fidget too obviously.  He knows why the others are suspicious of Johnny, of course; he knows that he probably should be, too.  Considering the three other powerful beings that have cropped up claiming to be Superman, it pays to be cautious right now. 

It doesn't matter.  He still doesn't want to do this, doesn't want to leave Johnny unconscious with Batman or sneak into Johnny's birthplace to search for information to incriminate him.

It should be 'innocent until proven guilty', right?  Clark had always been willing to think the best of people almost to a fault, and... he's not thinking about that.

Beside him, Tim hums a little as he types, fingers flying over the keyboard.  Dick plays with a loose thread on his uniform.


***


When Dick gets back to the Batcave, he almost gets bowled over by the blur flying past him.

"What-" 

"What the hell kind of freak are you?!" Johnny is yelling at Batman from forty feet up in the air, very naked.  Dick hears Tim make a small, choked noise behind him.

"Nightwing, if you could calm Superboy down, please."  Bruce has his back to him, putting away whatever tools he was using. 

Dick narrows his eyes.  "Batman, what did you--"

"I'll tell you what he did!"  Johnny swoops down to hover behind Dick.  "I woke up and he had some *thing* up my-"

"Dammit, Batman, I thought we agreed that you wouldn't--"

Dick can feel Batman's glare from across the room.  "I *didn't.*"

"Nasal rape!  Nostril violation!"  Johnny is on the ground now, pointing a finger accusingly at Batman.  "Do you know how much it hurts to wake up with a giant metal *thing* up your nose?!  Up my *nose*, geez, what the *hell.*  Dick, you left me with a freaking *nut!*"

"You told it your *name?*"  Suddenly Batman is standing right there, looming above Dick as much as he can and looking pissed as hell. 

Dick cringes.  "I *didn't*--"

"What *else* have you compromised?"  Bruce's face is stony and furious, and Dick feels himself flush.

"If anyone's being *compromised* here, it's me!"  Johnny says loudly, and Dick hears Tim choking on laughter behind him.

Johnny whirls around to scowl at Tim.  "Who the hell're you?"

Tim raises an eyebrow at him.  "Robin.  And you would be....?"

"Uh-- Superman," Johnny says, after a quick nervous glance at Batman.  "And.  Um.  ....I'm gonna go put my pants back on."

 Bruce pulls Dick aside before he can move to try and comfort Johnny.  "What do you think you're doing here?"  Bruce is tight-lipped and his voice is harsh, as if Dick is just another criminal--someone for Batman to intimidate and control.  Dick feels his own anger rise, and hee jerks his arm out of Batman's grip. 

"I'm trying to *help* someone who's in need of it!"  He barely remembers to whisper, and god he hopes Johnny really doesn't have super-hearing.  "You can't treat him like this, Bruce, he's--"

"He's what?"  Bruce's voice comes out a bark.  "Safe?  Real?  <i>Superman?</i>"

"I didn't say--"

"He's not *him*." 

Dick shuts his mouth.  Somewhere in the cave he can hear Johnny's voice, chattering at Tim.  Bruce isn't looking at Dick, staring at a spot on the ground instead, his jaw working.

"I know," Dick says, finally.  "And I don't trust this kid just because of a superficial likeness.  I think he could be a lot of help, if we don't scare him away."

Bruce is silent, and then he draws himself up again and Batman says, "Fine.  But he stays with you in Blüdhaven, and you don't let the media get wind of him.  Try to keep this as under wraps as possible until we know more about the situation.  And if you could do your best to avoid letting him find out any other identities, I would *appreciate* it."

Dick hates it when Batman gets sarcastic.


***


"You're *not* the boss of me."

Dick feels a headache coming on.  They're back in Blüdhaven.  Johnny is hovering above   him, his face and body language radiating pure teenaged boy belligerence.  "Johnny--please.  It's not safe in Metropolis right now, okay?  You've seen the news, you know how its been shaken up by the other men claiming to be Superman."

"Exactly!  And since I'm the *real* Superman, if I could just go there and teach them a lesson--"

"*So* not a good idea.  The Super-guys we've seen on TV all look like they're at least twice your size."  Not to mention that at least one of them seems willing to kill, which to Dick is proof enough that Clark isn't back.

Johnny pouts and flips over, floating upside down and resting a toe on the ceiling.  "I could take 'em.  Metropolis is my *home*--or it's supposed to be."  The last part is muttered, and Dick isn't sure if he's supposed to have heard it.

Dick bites his lip and tries to say this as gently as possible.  "And where do you plan on staying in Metropolis?  Are you going to go back to Cadmus?  Or just pray that the good citizens feel charitable enough to take you in?"

"I--"  Johnny blushes and doesn't meet Dick's eyes.  "I'll find someplace, okay?  I don't need you.  Or this."  His voice is still stubborn, but his shoulders have slumped. 

Dick flips and does a handstand on the couch arm so that he's balancing upside-down as well, face to face with Johnny.  "I'm sure you don't.  But I have this whole place to myself, and Blüdhaven needs a hero as much as Metropolis does, if not more.  So why pass up a good thing?"

Johnny's eyes widen as he takes in Dick's acrobatics, and then he smirks.  "Do I get to stay in *your* room?"

That comes out of left field, and Dick feels his cheeks turn red.  "Um--no.  I mean, I have a guest room..."  Johnny's grinning at him, and Dick isn't sure how much of that was a joke.  He flips off the couch and lands on his feet.

"So--that's my offer.  What do you say, Superman?"  Please say yes, Dick thinks.  Please say yes, because if you say no I have to find some other way to keep you in Blüdhaven.  Probably against your will.

Johnny flops down on the couch.  "I guess I could stay here.  Blüdhaven isn't so bad."  He brightens.  "So can I patrol with you tonight?"

Oh lord.  "*No,*" Dick says on reflex, and winces internally when Johnny's face falls.  "I mean--let's just take it slow, okay?  I think we should find out more about your powers before we hit the streets together."  And oh, god, he can't believe he just said that.  He is *not* setting himself up as a partner, he's barely ready to take on Blüdhaven by *himself*--

"Sweet!" Johnny doesn't just bounce, he levitates.  "Wanna play another round of Megamaster?"

Living with Johnny is a bit like taking a time machine journey into the past.  Every time he turns around he's met with a teenaged boy with blue eyes and black hair, leaving dirty socks on the floor and playing his music too loud and making the apartment buzz with kept-in energy.  Johnny has a way of making him feel very old and very young simultaneously, even though Dick realizes there isn't *that* much of a resemblance between Johnny and himself at that age.  It's disconcerting all the same.

And then there's the damage control.  Living with a teenager with superpowers is exactly as chaotic and dangerous as Dick had feared it would be, and it makes him wonder how the hell the Kents managed with Clark.  After all, they didn't have a billionaire benefactor that could repair the ceiling every time a super-powered kid sleep-flew into it, or buy a new kitchen table when the old one was destroyed by a stray TK blast.

Dick enacts the 'No powers in the apartment' rule  on the second day, but of course accidents still happen.

After the first week, it becomes clear that trying to make Johnny stay home while Nightwing goes out on patrol is pointless.  Johnny pretends to sleep and then follows him, and if Dick doesn't *let* him find him then there's an inexperienced metahuman wearing the S-shield flying around his city, getting into trouble and attracting too much attention.  It's better to keep him at Dick's side, even if he does make stealth jobs almost impossible at first. 

It isn't something that Dick feels good about, considering the kid's age and lack of knowledge of his own limits, but he can't spend *all* his time training him--Blüdhaven still needs looking after.  At least the kid is mostly invulnerable, which eases Dick's guilt somewhat.

It's amazing just how much Johnny flips his life around.  When he's at work, Dick finds himself thinking during dull moments about Blüdhaven high schools and which one might be best; when he's on patrol as Nightwing, there's no solitude and no silence--even when he's not talking, Johnny still seems to radiate tension and impatience and *noise.*  Dick buys groceries for two, spends far too much money on video games, and tries not to think about where all of this is going.

It's a temporary situation, while he and Oracle and Batman try to find out everything they can about Luthor and Cadmus.  So far they've been met with dead-end after dead-end.  The fact that Johnny's origins are shrouded in so much mystery and misinformation does nothing to ease Dick's fears and suspicions, and all the time he's spending with Johnny does nothing to make it easier to view him as a potential enemy. 

And then there's the business in Metropolis.   It seems like every time he picks up the newspaper he sees another article about 'Superman' (any of the three of them) and the latest criminals that have been killed in his new war against crime.  It's somewhat comforting to see that public opinion is still deeply skeptical that none of the impostors are actually Superman.  Not that it's a big comfort, considering it means that there are two new metahumans on the scene with no compunctions about taking a life, and they both appear to be at least as powerful as Clark--had been.  Batman and Oracle are working overtime to find out all they can, but Dick has his hands full with trying to keep Johnny out of trouble.

Johnny always wakes up early enough to eat breakfast with him, no matter how late they're out patrolling together.  He eats froot loops and idly kicks Dick under the table, trying to see how long he can annoy him before Dick looks up and snaps at him. 

Dick sighs, and puts down the paper.  He was reading an article about a fisherman in Alaska who claimed to see Superman swimming beneath his boat, and it's too depressing to read this early.  "Was there something you wanted, Johnny?"

Johnny squints at him.  "You don't look so hot, man.  Have you been sleeping?"

Dick frowns down at his coffee.  "Of course I have."

Johnny laughs, and Dick feels their knees bump under the table.  "What<i>ev</i>er dude, you totally never sleep, do you?  Betcha learned that from the big scary Bat."

"I get plenty of sleep."  'Plenty' is possibly overstating it, especially since Johnny came into his life, but still.

"Uh-huh.  Right.  Suuuure.  Well, you should get more rest--you can totally get cancer if you don't sleep enough."

Dick doesn't bother fighting the smile.  "How do you know that?"

Johnny hesitates, and then looks thoughtful.  The expression looks odd on his face.  "I don't really know, actually.  I... I think it might be part of the information Cadmus put in my brain."

Dick files that under creepy-things-Cadmus-did-to-Johnny in his mind, and downs his coffee.  It's still a little hot to drink, and scalds his tongue, but he's running late--he has to be at PD headquarters in fifteen minutes.  He stands and grabs his jacket. 

"Put a baddie behind bars for me," Johnny says, around a mouthful of cereal.

Dick snorts.  "Right.  And you can try to avoid blowing up the apartment while I'm gone."

"I don't know if I can manage that, boss," Johnny says, his expression faux-serious, and Dick cringes.

"Please don't call me boss.  I'd rather not feel fifty years old, thanks," he says, and Johnny just snickers.


***


Dick is riding his motorcycle back from work on a Tuesday when he sees the flash of cameras and hears paparazzi shouting questions.  The closer he gets to the commotion, the more people he sees around him with wonder on their faces, excitedly whispering and pointing and looking up in the sky.  With dread, Dick follows their gaze.

Johnny is hovering above a cloud of reporters, decked out in the full Superboy costume Dick found him in that first night, complete with the round sunglasses.  He's grinning from ear to ear, and winks at Dick when he sees him.

<i>Fuck.</i>

He keeps his head down and prays that Johnny doesn't try to acknowledge him publicly beyond that wink.  There's no reason for Officer Dick Grayson to be associated with Superboy, and Dick won't be able to give any answers if the press asks him how he knows him. 

He should have had the conversation about secret identities and the danger of exposing too many parts of yourself to the public with Johnny sooner.  He *should* have covered that on the first freaking day, and his only excuse is that there just hasn't been *time.*

Which isn't an excuse at all.  Dick should have made time, because now Johnny is grinning at the press and in five minutes Cadmus will know where he is (if they don't already), and the entire *nation* will know that another half-plausible Superman has cropped up.  And Dick can feel a headache coming on.

"Do you think the other beings claiming to be Superman are fakes?"  It's amazing how much more annoying reporters seem when Dick knows that Clark isn't among them.

Johnny smirks and puts his hands behind his head, lounging in midair.  "Oh, I dunno; they seem like all right guys, I wouldn't mind getting to know 'em, but it's tough to say right now."  He springs up and throws his arms out, the smirk turning into a grin.  "'Course--*I'm* the only one who was made with Superman's DNA to be the big man himself!" 

He's obviously been practicing that last soundbite in his head, and the paparazzi and the onlookers react favorably, smiling and cheering.  Dick feels his stomach clench.

"Well, time to go," Johnny says, cutting off another round of questions and soaring higher.  "I've got citizens to save and buildings to leap in a single bound, so I'll catch all you guys on the flip side!" 

And--heh.  That might be funny if--well, no.  It's pretty much not funny at all, except that Dick still kind of wants to laugh hysterically. 

Johnny catches his eye really *obviously,* and then he flies off.  Up, up and away, Dick thinks, and wonders if he could make the murder look like an accident.

Probably.

He shakes it off and gets back on his bike, heading away from the crowd and the excited chatter of discovery.  Johnny will definitely make headlines in Blüdhaven, and probably Metropolis; hell, he could be the biggest news item across the country.  No doubt Johnny would think that's a *good* thing.

Dick thinks about Bruce picking up the morning paper tomorrow and cringes.

"Dude, how freaking *awesome* was that?"  Johnny zooms by Dick's ear, and Dick reaches out to grab his ankle.  Johnny yelps, and for a second Dick is worried that he may have pulled a muscle or dislocated something by stopping so fast, but he doesn't look pained.

"Back to the apartment.  Now. And do it *away* from me," Dick says, not bothering to hide the growl in his voice.  Dick stares at him wide-eyed for a few moments, then nods and flies off again when Dick lets go of his ankle, flying back to the apartment from a different angle.

Dick puts his head down and takes an indirect route home, more for the need to let his temper cool than to shake off anyone who might have seen him and made connections at the press rally.  He's not--quite--that paranoid.

When he gets home, Johnny is sitting on the edge of the couch, and he's still in his Superboy costume. 

"Hey," he says.  "What did I *do?*"  And--there's nothing but plain confusion on his face.  He has no clue why Dick would have reason to be angry with him.  He's chewing on his lip, and it's not easy to *stay* angry.  Stern is the best Dick can manage.

"Johnny, I *told* you that going out during the day as Superboy was a bad idea.  I asked you *not* to--"

"Super*man,*" Johnny corrects, crossing his arms in front of him.

"Right, fine, whichever."  Dick is too tired to argue about that.  "The point is, I *knew* something like this would happen if you--oh, god.  Tell me you didn't go *looking* for press."

"No!"  Johnny says indignantly.  "They found *me*--because I saved a whole family from a fire downtown."  He gives Dick a look that's so earnest Dick knows he's faking it.  "Should I have let that family *die?*"

That logic isn't *fair.*  "No, but--"

"There were *tiny babies,* Dick."

Really unfair.  Dick bites his lip.  "The story you gave the reporters is going to be in newspapers across the nation tomorrow.  You're going to be--"

"Really?"  Johnny brightens.  "D'you think I'll make front page?"

Dick *resists* the urge to bury his face in his hands.  "Have you thought about what could happen if Cadmus finds out where you are and decides they want you back?"

Johnny's expression falters, but then he lifts his chin in defiance.  "So what?  I can take those guys--I broke out of there, didn't I?"

Dick glares.  "So you're willing to risk--never mind.  The point is, you just--you didn't *think.*  This is going to have consequences, and *you're* going to have to deal with them, and I don't know how much I'll be able to help you."

"I can take care of myself," Johnny says, his tone more vicious than Dick's ever heard him before.  "I got along *before* you decided to play babysitter, 'kay?"

For all of *two days*--he doesn't say that.  "I'm not your babysitter.  But there are *reasons* I didn't want you going public as Superman, and--"

"What reasons?"  Johnny is yelling, now.  "You don't want me out there because you don't *trust* me to be Superman, you don't--I know how you and Batman talk about me!"

"You're *not* Superman.  Half of your DNA is Lex Luthor's."  And this is nothing he meant to say, not right now or like this.

Johnny reels back.  "Half--what?  What are you saying?  That's not *right,* I'm not--"

"You are." Dick hopes that it's easiest for Johnny this way, like ripping off a bandage all at once.  "The scientists that created you wanted to create an... ally" (he does not say weapon) "for Luthor at least as much as they wanted to create the next Superman."

Johnny stares at him, and then his gaze slides down to the carpet.  "Oh."

Dick takes a breath and makes himself continue.  "We... Batman and I are looking into it.  We have suspicions that Luthor still has plans for you, no matter what innocent face he's showing the world at the moment.  That's why I'm cautious about letting you be seen in public; that's why it's not good for your face to be on the front page of the Daily Planet."

"Oh," Johnny says again, and sits back down.  Dick moves to go to him, and feels himself stopped by an invisible aura.

He frowns.  "Um..."

Johnny looks up, and the aura abruptly disappears; he blushes faintly.  "I--sorry.  I didn't mean to..."  Use his power like that.  Dick understands.

He sits next to Johnny and puts an arm around him.  "It doesn't matter.  Not to who you are.  You're just as much Superman as you were before."

Johnny laughs, and it comes out sounding slightly choked.  "Which is not a whole lot, right?" 

Dick opens his mouth to protest, but Johnny cuts him off.  "Save it.  I know I'm nothing like--like he was.  You totally knew him, didn't you?  You and Batman both did.  And he--"  Johnny swallows, and it looks like it hurts.  "I'm nothing like him."

"You're wrong," and Dick doesn't realize he means that until he says it.  But it doesn't matter; Johnny has already shrugged off Dick's arm, and now he stands and floats over to the window. 

"Whatever."  Johnny's voice sounds flat and bored, typical of any apathetic teenaged boy.  "Sorry for fucking things up so bad."

Dick isn't sure how Johnny can take him from righteous indignation to guilt in the space of one conversation. "You didn't," he says, and his voice sounds exactly as pathetic and small as he feels. 

Johnny gives him a look and floats to his room, shutting the door behind him. 


***


The next day, Dick wakes up fifty minutes earlier than he usually does.  He bought the ingredients for this last night, and he's given himself a little extra time in case the recipe is harder to make than he remembers.  He's watched Alfred do it dozens of times, and done it himself maybe twice, but that was a long time ago.  He wants it to be good.

Alfred's recipe doesn't disappoint.  The pancakes are perfectly golden, fluffy and thick, the chocolate chips melted and gooey, and he flips the last one off the griddle as Johnny walks into the kitchen with bags under his eyes.

Dick puts the plate of pancakes on the table, and Johnny's eyes widen.  "Dude.  That's--that's a lot of pancakes."

"Try not to eat them all too fast.  You'll make yourself sick."  Dick sits down across from him and drinks his coffee.

Johnny is already halfway through the first giant pancake.  "You don't want any?" he says around his mouthful.

Dick shrugs.  "I didn't make them for me," he says casually, watching Johnny for a reaction.  Johnny pauses mid-chew, then swallows.  He studies Dick for a second, then continues scarfing down pancakes.  Dick's stomach rumbles. 

Dick waits until the speed of Johnny's eating has slowed somewhat.  He has no idea how to start this conversation, beyond just--well, beyond just making Johnny pancakes.

Johnny is licking syrup and stray smears of chocolate off his fingers.

"You don't remind me of Superman in the ways you probably want."

...that was not the right way to start this conversation.  Johnny freezes mid-lick.

Dick tries again.  "Your smile is the same as his was.  When you're annoyed, you get the same line between your eyebrows that he did.  You put off warmth in the same kind of way that he did, if not quite as *much.*"

Johnny swallows, and his adam's apple bobs up and down.  "Yeah?"

Dick nods.  "You... you remind me of who he was out of costume.  You remind me of the man, not the hero.  That's not a bad thing," he adds hastily when Johnny's face falls. 

Dick reaches out to cover Johnny's hand with his.  He has big hands, too big for the rest of him, signifying the size of the body he'll someday grow into.  "I miss the man more than the hero," Dick says, and feels some of the tension in Johnny's body drain out.

Johnny's smile is shaky, but it's there.  "Does this mean you're not mad at me anymore?"

Dick moves his hand up to squeeze Johnny's shoulder.  "I'm *scared.*  I don't--god, I feel like the entire world has just been a giant mess since Superman died.  The JLA, the Titans--we're all trying to pick up the pieces, but it never really *works.*  And now there's you, and there's two powerful metas out there claiming to *be* Superman, except that they *can't* be because Superman never made me fear for my *health* around him."  These are possibly not the best things to be saying to *reassure* Johnny, Dick realizes belatedly.

But he can't stop talking.  "So, yeah, I'm--scared.  And I reacted badly last night, and I didn't mean to tell you about your Luthor genes like *that.*"  Johnny's body tenses horribly when Dick says 'Luthor,' and it just makes Dick squeeze his shoulder harder.  "But I'm glad you know, because now you can get past it and realize that it really, *really* doesn't have jack to do with who you are."

Johnny snorts.  "So says *you.*"  He tries to look away but Dick puts a hand on his jaw and makes Johnny face him.

"Yeah, so says me.  And you know, I'm willing to bet that I know you a hell of a lot better than whoever talked to you through a *test tube,* so maybe you should take my word for it, huh?"

Johnny meets his eyes and doesn't look away, not until Dick lets go of his face and his shoulder, slightly retreating.  Then he stares down at his pancakes, and Dick watches as his cheeks turn pink. 

"So you knew him?  Superman," Johnny clarifies, as if they could be talking about anyone else.

"Yeah, I..."  Dick laughs a little.  "He's the one that gave me this costume.  Well--not this one, exactly, but--he gave me the name Nightwing."

Johnny's eyebrows go up, and he grins.  "Really?"

Dick nods. "It's from Kryptonian folklore and legends.  Nightwing was a hero, back on Krypton."

"Wow.  So you guys were, like, buds."

Dick grins, too.  "Yeah, something like that.  He was always there for me when Batman was being a dick."

"He didn't like Batman, either?" Johnny's voice is eager, and Dick has to laugh again.

"Um--it was complicated."  They loved each other.  "They were a good team, and they were good friends.  Superman knew Batman better than--" anyone but me- "almost anyone."

Johnny goes back to staring at his pancakes.  "But Batman doesn't like me."

Dick winces.  "He took Superman's death pretty hard."

"And that's why?"

Bruce would give other reasons.  He might be right, but-- "Yeah.  That's why."


***


When Dick makes a Knights of Ni joke and Johnny just looks confused, Dick knows that something has to be done.  Granted, the joke wasn't that funny, but it's mildly horrifying that Johnny didn't even know what he was talking about.  The next day he gets off from the force, Dick makes popcorn and declares a Monty Python marathon.

The pattern of what cultural information the Cadmus scientists have and haven't given Johnny continues to mystify Dick.  Mostly because, well, there seems to be *no* pattern to it: Johnny knows more current slang than Dick does, but he hasn't heard of global warming; he knows about the Cold War and Nixon, but not about the Beatles; he knows all the words to Bob Marley songs, but doesn't recognize the name Martin Luther King, Jr.  And while they were investigating an english professor turned serial arsonist, Dick discovered that Johnny could distingish between a sonnet, a sestina and a villanelle--but he often had trouble spelling the most basic words.  He can do some fairly advanced algebra, but not long division.

It makes working with him frustrating.  Dick never knows how much knowledge he can rely on Johnny having, and Johnny can get defensive if he thinks Dick is treating him like he's dumb.  If Johnny's going to be working alongside him, even if it's just temporary, Dick wants to help him be better--wants to start repairing the holes left by Cadmus.  But it's an overwhelming task, and he doesn't know where to start.

Thus, Monty Python.  Johnny is flopped on the couch, a giant bowl of popcorn balancing on his stomach, his feet in Dick's lap.  Dick finds himself watching Johnny instead of the movie--like much of his generation, he practically has The Holy Grail memorized.  Johnny seems to be more weirded out than amused by the movie, although occasionally he laughs hard enough to upset the popcorn bowl, scattering popcorn all over the couch and the floor.

When Tim the sorcerer shows up, Johnny abruptly turns away from the screen and meets Dick's eyes.  "Dude, *what?*"

Dick starts.  He hadn't realized he'd been watching Johnny so obviously.  "Nothing," he says.  "Sorry, I was just.  Thinking."

"Yeah?"  Johnny grins and flicks popcorn at Dick's head with his TK.  "Pondering how I can possibly be so fly?"

Dick snorts.  "Thinking about the Cadmus scientists, actually.  About what information they gave you, and what you might still need to learn."  He hadn't really meant to bring this up *now,* but he supposes it's as good a time as any; they can rewind the tape and watch the killer rabbit scene later.

Johnny's grin fades, and he looks back at the screen.  "Oh."

Dick pats Johnny's ankle.  "You don't have to look like I just brought up your execution.  Why the long face?"

"It's just..." Johnny shrugs.  "I don't think Cadmus finished my--brain.  I mean, I'm not very smart, am I?  Not compared to you."

"Compared to--" Oh, lord.  "Johnny, I'm *older* than you.  And do you have any idea just how much of my life I spent training to be as good a detective as I *am?*  Uh.  Don't answer that."

Johnny frowns.  "What about Robin?  He's my age."

"Don't compare yourself to him either," Dick says quickly, and then feels guilty.  "I mean--I love the kid, but he's a special case.  He's definitely not a normal teenager.  Anyway--I wasn't thinking about how smart you are."

Johnny eyes him, a little warily.  "Yeah?  So... what?"

Dick shrugs.  "Just... thinking about what kind of information Cadmus fed into your brain.  There doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to it: They just dumped a bunch of random facts into you, from what I can tell.  I'm... not sure whether you would be more or less advanced than your peers if you were to attend high school, for instance."

Johnny snorts.  "High school?  Shyeah, whatever.  I'm so past that."

"'Past that'?  You're sixteen--biologically, anyway.  What makes you think you're above basic schooling?"

Johnny rolls his eyes, radiating adolescent boy arrogance.  "Dude, I'm *Superman,* or at least his clone.  Why would I want to spend my time in a stuffy classroom listening to old dudes when I could be out leaping tall buildings in a single bound?"

Dick frowns.  "It's necessary, Johnny.  There's still so much you need to learn, and I can't teach you all of it."

"Johnny isn't even my *name.*"

Dick stiffens.  "What?"

Johnny waves a hand expansively.  "I mean, it's not the one I was 'born' with--it's just something you came up with off the top of your head.  It's not like I was born Johnny Grayson or Johnny Smith or whatever, you know?  Not like other people.  I was born in a freaking *tube.*  How the hell am I gonna fit in with other high schoolers?"

"I wouldn't worry about that.  Finding a teenager who actually feels like he 'fits in' is pretty rare."  Although Johnny has a point; most of them weren't raised in a tube.  "I'm not saying you should start tomorrow or anything, but if you could consider it?"

"Hmph.  Maybe."  Johnny squirms.  "Dude, that tickles."

"What?  Oh."  Dick looks down and discovers that he'd been absently tapping out a rhythm on Johnny's foot.  He grins.  "You're ticklish?"

"Uuuuuh.  No."  Johnny shakes his head vigorously, realizing the danger he's stumbled upon.  "Not ticklish at all, nope--hey!"

Dick smirks and tickles the bottom of Johnny's foot again.  Johnny squeaks and jerks, spiling popcorn on the floor, but Dick doesn't relent.  Things degenerate from there.


***


The night is fairly quiet, considering.  There's been plenty of crime, but--burglaries, some gang disputes, a fire to put out.  No metas, no one with a mask or a reputation to deal with.  And Johnny is in a good mood, which makes it impossible for Dick not to smile while he's doing his job.

He feels him lurking when they finish off a group robbing the art museum.  Dick tells Johnny to keep patrolling without him and lingers, waiting.

It doesn't take long for Batman to come out of the shadows.  "You're patrolling with him now."

Dick frowns.  "Trying to keep him from coming with me was an exercise in futility.  What are you doing here?"

"I suspected that you weren't being entirely forthright about Superman's clone.  I came to see for myself."

"I've been completely forthright!" Dick says.  "I don't--what are you angry about?"

Batman stares at him with a blank expression, the cape hiding his body language.  "So far I've had to rely on your judgment, your instincts, with regards to the clone."

Dick clenches his fists.  "And?"

"I'm not certain that judgment is still reliable."

<i>Fuck</i> you.  "And why is that."

Another long look.  "Why are you allowing him to patrol with you?"

"I told you--it was stupid not to.  And this is the best and the fastest way to train him."

"You don't need to train him, you just need to keep him occupied until we find out what Luthor plans for him."

Dick scowls.  "Training him is *helpful* to both of us."

"You're coddling him. You should be using your time to research his powers, his limits--"

"I *have* been--"

"If we knew how to remove his powers, it would be more efficient to neuter him than to lose you to babysitting duty.  You've lost perspective--"

"I've gotten him to *trust* me, why can't you just--"  Dick hears a noise, and whatever else he was going to say dies in his mouth when he sees a red and blue blur take off from behind Batman, flying away. 

Batman is already turned around, batarang in hand, but it's useless; Johnny is already gone.  "Hm."

He overheard.  He-- "I have to go," Dick says, his throat dry, but before he can get to his bike there's an explosion and he's thrown back.  He lands hard, and there will be bruises tomorrow but nothing's broken.  He doesn't have to look to know that Batman was thrown as well, and is also uninjured.

The cause of the explosion is a slim, tall man dressed in black and cackling in a high-pitched voice.  He's wearing a mask, and--this is probably the reason the night's been mostly quiet till now.

"One of yours?" Batman grunts beside him, already in a fighting stance.

Dick shakes his head.  "He must be new in town."

The man calls himself Skinner, and Dick almost finds out why when Skinner's scalpel almost slices open his arm.  Dick gets away before the knife can twist and curve in his skin, but he can see the intent in the way he holds the blade, in the manic glint in his eye.

Skinner isn't a meta, he's just fast, strong, precise and utterly insane.  The bomb that blew up Dick's motorcycle doesn't fit with the scalpel M.O., and Dick makes a note to check that out later.

They take care of him reasonably quickly, although they could have worked faster and with more efficiency if Dick hadn't been distracted.  Batman doesn't say that aloud, but he doesn't need to.  Bruce has always been a master of pointed silences.

Batman finishes zip-stripping the criminal and stands up, looking at Dick. 

"You're done here," Dick says when Batman opens his mouth.  "Get back to Gotham.  I'm going to find Johnny and explain to him that you have no idea what you're talking about."

Batman presses his lips together, and Dick is expecting a wrathful reproach, but he says nothing.  There's just the swish of his cape, and then he's gone.

Dick spends the rest of the night searching for Johnny, but doesn't find him.  When he finally returns home and falls into bed, the apartment feels far too quiet.

He sleeps fitfully, through hazy dreams of a larger-than-life Superman getting slowly killed by the weight of the kryptonite S on his chest.  In his dream Dick is Robin, and he barely comes up to Superman's knees; when Superman falls, Dick is crushed beneath him.  He jerks awake before sunrise, feeling exhausted.

His cellphone rings and Babs' voice is urgent on the other end.  "Are you watching this?"

"Hang on."   Dick rubs the sleep out of his eyes. When he turns on the TV, he doesn't need to ask what Babs is referring to--it's on every channel.  An earthquake (or something: the newscasters are unclear on exactly *what* happened) has hit Coast City and its surrounding suburbs.  Almost all of central California is in ruins.

Dick grabs his uniform.  "Do we know what this is?  It looks like--"

"Heat vision, yeah.  The cyborg Superman is saying that it was that other one, the Last Son of Krypton.  Watch the screen, Nightwing."  And sure enough, when Dick glances back at the TV, the cyborg is telling a story of how he struggled with the Son of Krypton, trying to stop him, but he failed and the other Superman fled.

Dick frowns.  "How much do you trust his story?"

"About as much as I believe he's actually Superman.  Unfortunately, he already has the JLA--including Batman--on a wild goose chase, going after the Son of Krypton in space."

"Wonderful."  Dick grabs his escrima sticks and his mask.  "I need to find Johnny.  He's still missing from last night--"

"--and you need to find him fast."  Barbara's voice is suddenly urgent, and Dick looks back at the screen. 

"--and the president has called on the new, young Superman to investigate this crisis!" A newscaster reports.  "He will be accompanied by a GBS crew and the cyborg Superman..."

Dick's heart thumps in his chest.  "No.  No *way.*  It isn't safe--"

"Sending Superboy off to deal with this is the mother of all bad ideas, yes.  And if he's still sore from your fight last night--"

"He might be irrational enough to fly off to meet the cyborg without talking to me first.  I know."  Dick switches from the cell phone to the comm in his mask and takes the familiar route up to the roof.  He can search Blüdhaven better from the air than he can on his bike.  "Oracle, help me out here."

"I'm checking all my cameras in Blüdhaven.  My system there isn't very expansive yet, but..."

"But?"  Dick throws a line out and heads east, toward the areas of town he and Johnny haven't spent much time in--if Johnny is feeling resentful about him, he won't want to go anywhere that he associates with Dick.

He hears Oracle sigh over the line.  In the robotic voice it sounds... odd.  "False alarm.  I've got nothing.  You do realize, with his powers he could have flown anywhere by now, right?"

Dick flips and lands on a jutting window ledge.  "He doesn't have much stamina, and he can't fly anywhere near the speeds of Superman."

"Still--I doubt that he's still in Blüdhaven.  I'll check some contacts throughout the country, see if anyone's spotted him."

"I'll keep searching the city," Dick says, but it feels hollow.  Once he knows for sure that Johnny isn't in the city he can get the Titans jet and expand the search, but if Johnny hasn't stayed within the city limits, he *really* doesn't want to be found. 

Searching Blüdhaven proves fruitless, and when Oracle's voice crackles in his ear he's already heading back to his apartment, to get his bike and head to Titans Tower.  "Please tell me you've found him."

"I have, but it isn't good.  He's on the news beside the cyborg Superman, getting interviewed by GBS reporters."

"Fuck.  He's in Coast City?"  Dick lands and runs for his motorcycle, hopping on and taking off.

"Yes.  And he--oh god--"

"What?  What happened?  Babs--"

"I don't know, the signal from GBS just went out completely.  GBS is trying to cover it up, but something obviously happened in Coast City to cause that blackout."  Oracle's voice sounds tense, rushed.  Dick urges the bike faster, breaking speed limits as he speeds down the highway.

When he gets to Titans Tower, there's more news.  Johnny and the cyborg are on every channel again, the cyborg claiming that they fought the Last Son of Krypton once again, and the news crew following them were, sadly, casualties.

Dick doesn't need Oracle to tell him that the TV broadcasts are bullshit.  That's... that's *not* Johnny, even though it's close enough for anyone but someone who's been living with the kid to be oblivious.  He lets Oracle work on deciphering the cyborg's fake broadcasts and urges the jet faster over the midwest. 

He can tell how close he is to Coast City by how much smoke is in the air.  It makes his stomach churn, and he has to use meditation techniques Bruce taught him to keep his mind distracted from gruesome images of Johnny, beaten bloody (or worse) by a rogue Superman or by *whatever* did this to California.

When he gets far enough in that all he can see is smoke, he loses contact with Oracle.  Too many chemicals in the air, too much ionization--Dick doesn't have time to find the problem and fix it, so he flies on, switching to infra-red vision in the jet's view-finder to see a little better.

Then he yells and pulls up, as a gigantic, hulking structure seems to appear out of thin air.  He narrowly avoids crashing the jet against its walls, his heart beating loudly and too fast in his chest.  This isn't some half-destroyed building, a remnant of Coast City; this is something that's just been built, and as the smoke clears Dick can see more buildings just like it, rising half-finished out of the rubble.

So much for this destruction being caused by an earthquake.  Dick circles over and around the building, and lands far enough away to avoid detection.  He straps on a respirator and heads out.

There's no obvious entrance; for a bizarre moment, he thinks of the Wizard of Oz, wishing there was a giant gateway with an army of monkeys marching through that he could sneak in with.  He shakes his head and finds a vent, sliding in and following it until he finds an empty room, dropping soundlessly down from the ceiling.

Footsteps in the hallway.  Dick presses himself against the wall and listens.

It's the cyborg Superman, which is both sickening and unsurprising.  He's speaking to someone in an alien language, but Dick catches the name 'Superboy' several times along with other phrases, and it seems like they're holding him captive... somewhere.  The control room, if he can find it. 

Now that he knows who built it, he can see how the cyborg's lair resembles a twisted parody of the Fortress of Solitude.  Everything is made of the same bright, unearthly metal, and many of the hallways and rooms that Dick moves through have skylights, displaying the ruined horror of what used to be Coast City.  Dick tries not to look up.

He reaches the room Johnny is being held captive in, and feels his throat go dry.  Dick had assumed that the cyborg hadn't taken Johnny willingly, but Johnny looks like he lost badly.  His face looks like raw meat; there's a deep cut on his forehead still bleeding sluggishly.  His costume is torn up and Dick can see more ugly cuts in the exposed flesh, plus gravel in a deep wound on his shoulder.  Considering what Dick knows of Johnny's invulnerability and ability to heal, he probably looks much better now than he did immediately after the fight.  It makes Dick slightly queasy.

Dick pushes the anger and nausea aside and creeps up to him.  Johnny appears to be dozing lightly, but he jerks awake when Dick puts a hand over his mouth.  Dick presses his own finger against his lips in a shushing gesture, and Dick takes his  hand away. 

"How are you doing, kid?" he says, keeping his voice low.

"That cyborg guy isn't Superman!"  Johnny's voice is too loud, a stage whisper.  "He killed the Kryptonian guy, he's the one who took out Coast City--Dick, he's going to <i>destroy the world--</i>"

"Shh, it's okay, you can tell me later.  Right now I have to get you out of here."  And they need to do it fast: Dick doubts he managed to evade all of the security in this place.   He frowns at the steel bars running over Johnny's shoulders, entrapping him.  He can't see a traditional locking mechanism; getting Johnny out of this is going to be difficult.

"I don't know if we *can* stop him!"  Johnny's voice is getting louder, tinged with hysteria.  "I--I thought I could take him, but I'm only even alive because he *let* me live and this guy just *can't* be Superman--"

The blast throws Dick backwards and he barely manages to twist and land so that he doesn't break anything when he hits the floor.  When his vision clears he sees Johnny surrounded by the wreckage of his restraints, looking pale and confused.  <i>Deja Vu</i>, Dick thinks dazedly.

"Um.  Wow.  I so did not mean to do that," Johnny says.  He sounds like he's not sure if he should be impressed or scared.

Dick grabs his shoulder when Johnny gets even paler and sways a little.  "My guess is your emotional state fuelled your powers.  We'll explore it later; right now we need to get out of here."

"Right, yeah."  Johnny sounds breathless, and suddenly he's flinging his arms around Dick's neck, and Dick stumbles backwards a bit.

"I'm such a fucking idiot," he says to Dick's neck.  "I'm so so sorry for going with the evil guy, I'm so *stupid*--"

Dick hugs him back quickly.  "Apologize later.  We need to leave, now."

Johnny's laugh is a little forced and sounds a little wet, and when Dick reaches up to pet his head, his hair is matted with blood.  Dick rests his hand on the back of Johnny's neck to keep from clenching it into a fist.

He hears a sound from the hallway, and--he can't dwell on any of this right now.  He pulls away, looking Johnny in the eye.  "Can you fly?  Because as lovely as this place is..."

"Totally."  Johnny stretches, and tiny pieces of metal left from his restraints fall off him.  "Yeah, I think I'm good, just let me--"

Dick hears another noise, and throws himself sideways on instinct as the airspace where he was gets blasted.  Beside him, Johnny is yelling, and Dick twists around to see robots filing into the room, already firing their weapons.  So much for escaping undetected.

"Superboy--" Dick puts an arm around Johnny's waist and Johnny gets the picture, shooting into the air.  But he's not quite fast enough--Dick feels hot pain shoot through his leg, and his vision blurs. 

When he comes to, he's on the floor of the jet and Johnny is kneeling over him, babbling what sounds like variations of "Oh god Dick oh fuck oh god".  The pain is tremendous, and it's no small effort to force himself to focus and sit up as much as he can. 

There's a wide second-degree burn running down the side of his thigh; Dick can smell burning hair and the plastic from his costume, making him queasy.  He's lucky: the shot only grazed him--if it had hit its mark, he wouldn't *have* a leg.

The floor of the jet starts to vibrate, and Dick realizes Johnny is panicking.  He grips his arm.  "Johnny, calm down.  I'm fine, it's only a second-degree burn." 

Johnny throws his arms around Dick's shoulders.  "Only?  <i>Jesus!</i>"

Dick hugs him back carefully, hissing as a fresh wave of pain hits him.  "We need to get out of here," he says, pushing Johnny gently off of him.  "Help me get to the pilot's seat."

"But your leg--"

"I'll deal.  The important thing is to get *out* of here before they catch up with us again."

Johnny's eyes are wide with fear and concern, but he swallows and nods, picking Dick up carefully and maneuvering him into the pilot's seat.   His thigh barely brushes the side of the chair, making his eyesight go blurry with pain for a few seconds.  He shakes it off and grips the controls, and if the take-off is shaky, well, at least they're in the air.  He sets it to auto-pilot and leans back, squeezing his eyes shut and focusing on his breathing. 

"Oh, god."  Johnny's voice sounds choked off and wet beside him, and his hand is on Dick's shoulder, petting him and shaking slightly.  Dick grabs his hand and squeezes.  "I'm sorry, Dick, I'm so--"

"Don't dwell on that," Dick says, as gently as he can.  He glances down at the leg.  "There should be a first-aid kit under the passenger seat, with pain killers.  If you could--"

Johnny already has the kit open and the ibuprofen in hand.  Dick smiles.  "Great.  Thanks."  He swallows three pills and Johnny is still right there, practically vibrating with concern and the need to help.  He follows instructions well, cutting the remains of Dick's costume away from the burn (his tights didn't get fused to the skin, thankfully) and grabbing a Titans' water bottle to pour water on it. 

"This is all my fault," he says miserably.  "I *knew* that going with the cyborg guy could be bad, and now you're *hurt* and like, *half* of California is dead and he's going to take over the world and it's all my fault--"

"You sound like a broken record," Dick says, interrupting.  "We discovered his plan, didn't we?  And we'll stop him."  He squeezes Johnny's shoulder.  "You got us out of there.  I knew what risks I was taking when I went in after you."

"But you wouldn't have *had* to if it weren't for me.  I--I can't believe how *stupid*--"

Dick puts a hand over Johnny's mouth.  "We all do stupid stuff when we're just starting out.  Angst about it *after* we save the world."


***


Dick sways on his feet, and squeezes Johnny's wrist.  His leg is still throbbing with pain, and he knows he should get himself to a hospital at some point.

At some point, when someone *else* claiming to be Clark isn't standing in front of him, dripping wet and staring at them like the very fact of his existence doesn't warp the universe. 

His costume is black.  His costume is black, and he's staring right at Lois as if the rest of the world has just dropped away.

"We're sorry, but how do we know for sure that you are who you claim to be?"  Lois's voice is shaky, but clear.

"Lois, I--"  Clark glances around, as if he's remembering that the rest of them are still there.  His gaze lingers on Johnny.  "Can we discuss this somewhere private?"

Lois stiffens, and the man in the metal suit--Steel?--moves to stand in front of her, protectively.  "If you think we'll let you just--"

"I don't mind talking with him privately, and I can handle myself."  Lois steps forward, and Dick can't read the look in her eyes.  "Superman--or whoever you are--shall we?"  The new man claiming to be Superman follows her, and Dick thinks for a moment about bugging their conversation, but--just because it's something Bruce would do doesn't make it right.  And he trusts Lois to be--well, to be as objective as any of them can possibly be.

He can feel Johnny shifting impatiently next to him.  "We don't have *time* to worry about whether that random guy is Superman!" he bursts out.  "Have you guys forgotten that Coast City is just *gone,* and that the other pretender is, you know, <i>totally planning to kill us all?</i>"

"We haven't forgotten, Kid," Steel says, sounding amused.  "It's just that if this guy really is Superman, he can help."

Dick feels Johnny bristle more next to him.  "You heard what he said: he couldn't even get here without that robot suit!  How much help could he *be?* "

"If he is who he *says* he is, that won't matter."  Steel is frowning now.

"What?  Why--"

"We need any kind of help we can get, Superboy," Dick says.  He squeezes Johnny's wrist again and lets go.  "Especially considering that the JLA is unreachable."

Johnny crosses his arms over his chest and mutters.  If they had time, Dick would talk to him, find out what has him so weirdly on edge, but--

"Let's go."  Johnny jumps when Clark appears behind him, and it's one more thing to make Dick uneasy: Clark was never big on sneaking up behind people, and he never did it very well.

Dick frowns and catches Lois's eye.  She looks pale, and she's staring at Clark as if--well, as if she's seen a ghost.  But she swallows and nods at Dick: she thinks this is really him. 

Dick feels dizzy again, and grits his teeth when another spike of pain from his leg hits him.    "--if you're coming, great; if not, no problem," he hears Superman say, and he and Steel are in the air.  Dick grabs Johnny's shoulder before he can take off.

"Are you insane?  That *thing* nearly killed you the last time you went up against it, and you're still *hurt*--"

Johnny gives him a tight smile.  "You said it yourself; they need all the help they can get.  I gotta do this, Dick."

And before Dick can think of a counter-argument, Johnny brushes away his hand and shoots into the sky, flying to catch up with Steel and Superman.  *Dammit.*

Lois's hand is on his arm.  "Nightwing--god, what the hell happened to your leg?"

"I'm fine.  I'll--I'll be fine."  He needs to call Babs, needs her to find some way to contact Batman, the League--

"Bullshit," Lois says firmly.  "I'm taking you to a hospital."

Dick knows better than to argue.


***


"Sir, I really don't recommend--"

"Save it, doctor."  Dick tests his weight on the burned leg.  It still hurts, but this is as good as it's going to get.  Batman had taught him the right meditation and hypnosis techniques to ignore this kind of pain before he'd taught him how to throw a punch.

Dr. Burke presses his lips together, not quite frowning.  "Fine.  I can't stop you from walking out of here, Mr. Nightwing, but you're in for a lot of pain if you're thinking of doing anything with that leg besides propping it up."

Dick grins.  "Thanks, doc.  But I'll survive."

"That's what they all say."  Lois is leaning against the doorjamb, eyeing the bandage on Dick's leg.  "I'm guessing you want to head back up to Engine City, help take out that maniac robot wearing Superman's face."

Dr.  Burke raises a questioning eyebrow at Lois, but when she narrows her eyes at him he backs out of the room.  Lois shuts the door behind him. 

"Yeah," Dick says.  "I was going to take the jet--"

"You're taking me with you.  I've already checked, no airlines are flying anywhere near where I want to go--not even the Planet's helicopters are willing."

Dick frowns.  "Lois, you're a civilian, it's not safe--"

"I refuse to be lectured on safety by someone who was fighting crime before he hit puberty," Lois snaps.  "You know me better than to try and persuade me otherwise, and you know the kind of story I can print about you if you refuse."

Dick does; Lois doesn't know his identity, but she can still drag up dirt on Nightwing if she chooses to.  He's seen the kind of story she can write about Batman when he pisses her off.

Not that that justifies taking a civilian into the kind of fight Dick guesses is going on at Engine City.  Dick's going to have to ditch her somehow, and then hope that she isn't mad enough to castrate him when all this is over.  "Okay, let's go--I don't want to waste any more time."

Dick's bike is parked outside the hospital, and while he's ridden with civilians enough times that this isn't a completely new experience--it's still a little strange.  Lois's fingernails dig into his ribs as he zips through traffic.

When her cell phone rings, she actually answers it, almost making Dick swerve when she elbows him getting her phone out.

"What?" She snaps.  "Perry, now is not the time to--holy shit.  Holy--stop the bike, Nightwing!  <i>Pull the fuck over!</i>"

Dick screeches to a halt.  "Lois, what the hell?"

Lois is already scrambling to her feet and pulling her helmet off.  She's staring up at the sky, the cell phone dropping from her hand; Dick follows her line of sight, and sees... a dot.  A fast-moving dot, growing in size and hurtling towards Metropolis.

Lois whips out a pair of binoculars from who knows where.  "Oh, holy--" she whispers, shoving the binoculars into Dick's hand when she's done with them.  Dick looks through, and the dot--

Is a fucking *missile* hurtling right at the city.  A really *huge* missile, and Dick flashes back to Johnny babbling about the cyborg's plan to destroy Metropolis.  He gawks, and there's another dot on the missile that he can almost make out, and--and Lois almost pokes him in the eye, wrestling the binoculars back.

"Holy *shit!*" she says, and he takes advantage of her confusion to grab the binoculars back.  "Is that?  I think it's--"

"It's Superboy," he says, staring.  Because--because it is, because that's *Johnny* clinging to the side of a fucking *bomb,* and what the *hell?*

He lets Lois yank the binoculars back.  "What is he even--oh my god, is he--he's trying to stop it!"

Dick's heart races.  "Wha--how?!"

"Got *me.*  Jesus christ, the fate of the city is in the hands of a teenager."

"He can do it," Dick says, his throat dry.  "His telekinesis, he'll do--something--"

Lois gives him an incredulous look.  "I'll bet you forty bucks that he can't."

Dick stares.  "That's crazy.  If you win, we all die."

"Exactly."  Lois smirks.  "So if we don't die, I'm buying you dinner."

Dick vaguely registers Superman's fiancé hitting on him, but the dot is getting larger. The air is beginning to roar; Dick can barely hear Lois yelling into her cell phone next to him.  He thinks about getting to the jet, or trying again to contact the League, but there's no time: all he can do is stare up at the sky and hope that Lois doesn't win that bet.

"What do you *mean* Tana Moon is covering this story?  She's not even capable--well, god dammit, if she's closest tell me what she's *seeing*--would I be *asking* you if I had access to live TV?!" 

Dick feels his heart jump in his throat and grabs Lois's wrist.  They don't need Tana Moon to see what's happening: the missile is turning away from the city and out towards the harbor, Johnny did it--

The bomb explodes above Metropolis in a blast big enough to block out the sun.  Dick grabs Lois on instinct, shielding her and getting temporarily blinded himself by the flash.  When the spots clear from his eyes, the sky is empty again.

"Superboy," Dick says dumbly.  "Johnny..."

Lois's hand is on his shoulder, steadying.  "He--um.  The kid was your friend, wasn't he?" she says, her voice awkward.  "I'm sorry, Nightwing."

"No, he did.  He had to. He--"  Pain in his right leg flares up again, and Lois moves like she wants to support him, but Dick steps away.

"If he fell from the bomb, he'll land near the harbor or in the ocean," he says.  "Judging from his position holding it up before the explosion, he would have been propelled northeast."

Lois studies him for a moment, then nods.  "I'll call the coastguard, they'll start sweeping the bay," she says, already dialing.  "I assume that you'll take the ground-level search?"

"There's no time for me to get the jet and search from the air--he's probably hurt."  Dick is already back on his motorcycle.  "Lois--thanks."

Lois rolls her eyes.  "This isn't something you need to thank me for.  Now go find your superboy."

Dick is on his way to the harbor when he spots the giant furrow dug into the ground of the city dump--telltale sign of a crash-landing. Dick is ditching the bike and running before the thought finishes crossing his mind, and he *knew* it, knew Johnny can't be dead *couldn't* die--

When he gets close enough he sees a gloved hand rise shakily out of the hole in the ground; Dick grabs Johnny's hand, hauling him the rest of the way out.  Johnny smells of garbage and dirt and what Dick can only assume is residue from the explosion--come to think of it, touching Johnny could be slightly toxic at the moment. 

Dick hugs him close, laughing helplessly as Johnny goes "oof" against Dick's chest. 

"You *idiot,*"  Dick says into Johnny's hair.  "You had to catch a ride back on a freaking *bomb?*"

Johnny squirms, and Dick realizes he's squeezing too hard, enough to constrict oxygen flow.  He pulls back, keeping his hands on Johnny's shoulders.  Johnny gives him a shaky smile.  "Hey, faster than Delta, right?"

His voice sounds rough, exhausted, and there are more fresh cuts on his face and Dick is squeezing him too hard again.  He lets go, but grabs him again when Johnny wobbles. 

"Let's get you to a hospital," Dick says, brushing a piece of trash off Johnny's shoulder.

"No, 'sokay," Johnny says, grabbing Dick's wrist in what looks like an attempt to shake him off, but he ends up clinging.  "'m good, need to go back, help Superman 'n Steel--"

"Like *hell,*" Dick says.  "You can barely walk, let alone fly!"

"Can too!"  Johnny pushes Dick's hand away this time and takes off, managing to get a few feet into the air before he faints, faceplanting on the ground.

Dick checks his vitals, and Johnny's pulse is even.  He'll be fine, but he needs a hospital badly.  Dick heaves him over his shoulder and makes his way quickly back to his bike.

He radios Lois.  "He's alive and I'm getting him to a hospital.  Any word from Superman?"  Just saying that name without skepticism feels--uncomfortable, unwise.  Dick shakes off the feeling; he can deal with it later.  They'll all have to.

He hears Lois take in a sharp breath and knows that the same kind of thoughts are running through her mind--probably amplified.  "No. Not yet.  Did the kid say anything about what happened?"

"No.  He passed out, and we're *not* going to wake him up to get information," Dick says sharply.

He hears Lois mutter something under her breath.  "He's pretty beat up?"

"Yeah.  I told you, I'm taking him to a hospital.  Nightwing out."

He props Johnny up in front of him, carefully wrapping an arm around his torso.  He can feel Johnny bleeding sluggishly on him, and he knows that underneath the remains of his costume the kid is probably one giant bruise.

But he is alive.  He's alive, and he stopped a bomb by himself.  Dick squeezes him gently and takes off, riding to the hospital as fast as he dares.


***


Dick frowns at the glass window.  Johnny is fast asleep on the other side, resting up from his ordeal.  According to the doctors, none of his injuries are serious to someone who's half-Kryptonian; even the broken ribs will heal in, at most, a week.  All the same, they've asked to keep him overnight, which Dick has no problem with.  It will give him a chance to figure out just what, exactly, he and Johnny are going to do now.

"Explain to me again who this cyborg was," Dick says, glancing at Superman.  He can't stand to look at him for very long; Superman looks like Clark again, solid and red and blue and *real.*  Dick can't look at him without feeling thirteen again, that awe that came over him the first time Superman smiled at him and took him flying.

Clark gives him a tight smile and adjusts his cape.  He looks like he's not quite used to the costume, which--makes sense.  "He used to be a man--an astronaut--named Hank Henshaw.  He was exposed to radiation and went mad, merging with machinary.  I had to exile him from Earth, and... well, I don't know much about his time in space, but he came back with the power to take over my identity and build the monstrosity you saw in the place of Coast City."  Clark presses his lips together.  "I'm not entirely certain that he's dead, but he won't be a problem anymore.  At least..."  Clark's eyes darken.  "Not one I can't handle."

Dick nods.  "I see.  Are you--"  'Are you all right' seems like the stupidest question in the universe, and Dick bites his tongue.  Judging from the amusement in Clark's eyes, he heard it anyway.

"I'm alive.  And I'm... still getting used to that."  He glances at Johnny's sleeping form.  "A lot of things have changed while I was away."

Johnny makes Clark uncomfortable, which is most likely a massive understatement.  He's been tactful about it so far, but it's easy enough to imagine what he must be thinking: Johnny comes from Cadmus--from Luthor.  If Dick had the history with them that Clark does, it might be hard to see Johnny as anything but a threat. 

"You'll notice that he has a full head of hair, and doesn't seem to be planning world domination," Dick says dryly when Clark starts to frown. 

Clark starts, looking guilty.  "I--of course he isn't.  I wasn't thinking--"

Dick steps closer, squeezes his arm.  "It would be... understandable.  If you were."  If not admirable.

Clark gives him a look, and once again Dick gets the feeling that he heard everything Dick *didn't* say.  "You've spent the most time with him.  I trust your judgment.  Not to mention that he saved my city, almost killing himself in the process."

"There is that." 

Clark heaves a sigh and looks back at Johnny again.  "I don't have any ill will towards him.  He's just... unexpected.  I--do you know that the papers are now calling him Superboy?"  He laughs, a little helplessly.  "I used to mock Batman for not being able to work well with others, but the idea of having a sidekick--er, partner--of my own, it's...."

Dick bites his lip and lets go of Clark's arm.  "It's what?"

"Unexpected," Clark finishes, flushing.  "Not something I've ever considered before. Especially with someone...." 

"He's a *good* kid," Dick says, feeling oddly protective.

"I know.  And--honestly, the stumbling block is not *Luthor's* DNA, it's... it's mine."

Dick raises an eyebrow.  "He doesn't think of himself as your son."

Clark frowns again.  "I know.  That doesn't change the fact that 50% of his DNA is mine.  I bear some responsibility for him.  Not to mention that he wears the Superman crest and, I assume, is going to continue to wear it."  Clark blows out a breath and runs a hand through his hair.  It makes him look oddly boyish. "Do you think he'd like living in Metropolis?  Or maybe Smallville..."

Dick bites his lip and thinks of the mess in Johnny's room, back in their apartment.  "Not Smallville.  I think... I think he'd like Metropolis fine.  He wasn't particularly attached to Blüdhaven."

Clark gives him a sharp look at that, but nods.  "And Supergirl is here, as well as Steel.  He could learn from them, as well, not just me.  He'd be welcome here if he wanted to stay.

Dick barks out a laugh.  "Of course he'll want to.  You're *Superman*--do you know how much he wants to *be* you?"

The corner of Clark's mouth twitches in almost a smile.  "I have some idea, yes, considering he's been calling himself Superman since he broke out of Cadmus." 

Someone who didn't know Clark so well might miss the resentment there, and Dick gives him an incredulous look.  "Superman--"

"Lois has already beaten me up for thinking I could be replaced," Clark says, giving him a rueful look.  "Forgive the thought, considering its truth."

Dick glowers.  "Don't be an idiot."

Clark laughs.  "Okay."

Dick punches him in the shoulder, carefully--he doesn't want a broken hand.  "Have you been to see Batman yet?"

"Mm.  Not yet.  I'm not looking forward to the litany of tests he'll inevitably put me through to ensure that I am who I say I am."

"Consider it his way of showing he cares," Dick says earnestly, and Clark snickers.

"I should be going.  Lois and I, well..."

"No need to explain," Dick says hastily.  "Should I call you when he wakes up?"

"Could you?  We didn't get a chance to talk, before."  Clark bites his lip.  "I suppose I should... start preparing for his stay, as well.  Does he have a civilian identity, beyond the name you gave him?"

Dick looks at the ground.  "No."

"Hmm.  I suppose we can take care of that later."  Clark abruptly claps him on the shoulder, smiling, and then he's gone.

Dick gets a cup of coffee from the vending machine down the hall, sits down next to Johnny's bed, and downs his codeine.  It would be best to take care of the pain in his leg through focus and meditation and avoid the way medication could affect his mind, but Dick is too worn out.  And the coffee--he doesn't want to sleep, not yet.

Johnny's face is clean, and the bruises are beginning to darken.  There's a bandage wrapped around his forehead; the doctors would have given him stitches, but their needles couldn't pierce his skin.  He looks sound asleep, and it will probably be at least a couple of hours before he wakes up.

Dick can wait.  He sips his coffee and settles back, getting as comfortable as he can in the guest chair.  He's grabbed a few magazines, and though reading them is barely more interesting than watching paint dry, it helps the hours pass.

It's almost dawn when Johnny stirs, his eyes fluttering open and his head tilting to the side to look at Dick.

Dick smiles, putting down the magazine.  "Hey, kid."

Johnny blinks at him, sluggishly, and pushes himself up.  "How long've I been out?  Did we get that Henshaw guy?  I should--"

Dick puts a hand on Johnny's shoulder, gently pushing him back down on the bed.  "We got him.  It's over.  Calm down."

Johnny blows out a breath and lets his head fall back against the pillow.  "So Superman won?"

"Yup.  And *you* saved Metropolis."

Johnny grins at him, crookedly--his lip is still swollen.  "I did, didn't I?  That's kinda cool."

"Kinda, yeah."  Dick squeezes his shoulder.

"And that Superman, he's the real deal, isn't he?  I mean--I didn't know him, before.  But--he seemed, you know..."  Johnny frowns, apparently at a loss for words.

"I know.  He's the real Superman--he's even got his old powers and costume back now.  I don't really understand how he came back, but... it's him." 

"Huh."  Dick can't read the expression on Johnny's face, and he doesn't say anything else--just stares out the window. 

He needs to call Clark, Dick realizes with a twinge of guilt.  Clark will want to congratulate Johnny and talk to him about moving to Metropolis, and Dick should just--go back to Blüdhaven. 

"I'm going to call Superman now, I know he wanted to talk to you--if.... you don't mind," Dick adds, when Johnny tenses hard under his hand.

Johnny gives him a tight smile and sits further up.  "'Course I don't mind.  Just--what does he want to talk to me about?"

Dick hesitates.  He should let Clark say this, but-- "He wants to invite you to stay in Metropolis.  With him."

Johnny stares at him.  "Seriously? You mean--he wants to train me and stuff?" 

Dick swallows.  "That's something you'd have to ask him, but I think he wants... I think he would, yes."

Johnny chews on his lip; Dick still can't read his expression.  A nurse comes in to check on him and Dick takes the opportunity to leave, ruffling Johnny's hair as he goes out.

He calls Clark and goes to get another cup of coffee from the vending machine, only to discover he doesn't have enough change.  He leans against the wall, watching doctors and nurses wheeling other patients around.  Several official-looking people eye the bandage on his leg critically, but no one drags him off to poke at him more.

He should probably stay out here for a while--give Clark and Johnny some privacy.  If he really wants to know what they're talking about, well, he's fairly certain that Oracle has the room bugged.

He'll need to go back to Blüdhaven and get Johnny's things.  Maybe he can help Johnny move in, to wherever Clark wants him staying.  Maybe--

Dick thunks his head back against the wall.  This is stupid.  How can he be afraid of losing Johnny--Johnny was never his, to begin with.  Johnny is Superboy, and his stay with Dick was always going to be just temporary, and. 

It doesn't *matter* that Dick is the one who gave him his name.  He's where he belongs now.  He is.

Blüdhaven had never seemed particularly drab or lonely before Johnny came along.  Sure, it hadn't yet begun to feel like home and of course it *was* something of a cesspool, but.  Dick had resigned himself to that.

But Johnny--his very existence seems to cast the whole city in a different light.  Suddenly it *had* felt like home, and Dick hadn't felt quite so exhausted after patrol every night.  It's not something Dick has felt since he was Batman's partner, and it's not something he thought he could have again.

He scrubs his hands over his face.  It's not fair to ask Johnny to stay with him, not to mention how huge the responsibility of looking after him and *training* him in the long term would be.  Bruce would not advise it.

Dick finds himself walking back to Johnny's room and pushing the door open. 

"--don't need a baby-sitter," Johnny is saying angrily, his face set in a stubborn expression. 

"I don't think you do!  I just--"  Clark turns around when he notices Dick's presence, and flushes red.  "Ah, Nightwing." 

Dick raises an eyebrow.  "Hey, guys.  What's up?"

Johnny folds his arms across his chest.  "He just wants me to be in Metropolis so he can keep an eye on me.  I'm not a *baby*--"

"You're a month old," Clark says, exasperated.

"--and Dick told me you wanted me to be your partner!" 

"I really didn't," Dick says hastily when Clark turns to look at him.

"This bites," Johnny says, throwing back the covers and getting to his feet.  Dick bites his lip against a snicker, because he's still in the pink and white patterned hospital gown.  "Dick, can we go back to Blüdhaven now?"

The snicker dies in his throat.  "You--you want to come back with me?"

"Well, yeah.  I mean, if--if you wanted me to, I guess."  Johnny looks suddenly insecure and lost, and Dick finds himself reaching out to touch him and squeeze his shoulder.

"Of course I do."  The words are out of his mouth before he can think of him, and Clark--Clark is looking at him very intently.  "Uh--Johnny, why don't you get dressed.  Superman and I will wait out in the hall."

"You do realize you've just committed yourself to raising a teenager," Clark says once they're out of earshot.

"I--oh god.  Clark, I'm--"

"Don't apologize."  Clark smiles at him.  "I am sorry that Superboy feels so--resentful, but... you seem to want the job more than I do.  You're attached.  Am I right?"

Dick swallows hard, and doesn't, *doesn't* think of how he's going to explain this to Batman.  "Yes."

"Really, this will give me more opportunities to visit you," Clark says cheerfully.  "I'm sure that will delight Batman."

Dick cringes.  "I'm sure."

"I should go."  Clark glances at the hospital room. "I remember how long my tempers could last when I was that age--it would probably be best if I waited a few days before trying to talk to him."  Clark's hand is warm on his shoulder.  "Good luck."

Dick feels dizzy.  And then Johnny is there, poking his arm. 

"Dude.  Let's *go.*  You still have that jet, right?"


***


"They're on Gonzalez' turf," Johnny says slowly, eyes fixed on the drug deal going down below them.  "So if violence breaks out, it's probably going to come from--Marks?"

"That's right," Dick says, giving him a small smile.  "Although it's when, not if: this whole situation is a powderkeg waiting to blow." 

Johnny nods, his face serious.  "Right, okay."  The new mask does a decent enough job of concealing the emotions on his face, but his voice is still almost painfully earnest.  Dick hides a bigger grin.

Really, he's proud: they've been staking this deal out for seventy-five minutes, and Johnny has barely even fidgeted.  Dick hadn't expected him to be this patient. 

Dick has a feeling that Johnny's recent seriousness is mostly a consequence of the guilt he feels about the burn on Dick's leg, no matter how many times Dick tries to convince him that it wasn't his fault.  Dick makes a mental note to do something about that, because even if it *does* make Johnny less hyper, Dick doesn't want him to get hung up on it.

Of course, it's not as if Johnny has been *that* sober, Dick thinks as Johnny sighs loudly and rests his chin on his fist.  "Can we go kick their butts yet?"

"No.  We're waiting for Marks to make his move.  We'll learn more about the dynamics of the group and what to expect from all sides this way."

"And by 'we' you mean 'you,' because I'm not learning anything," Johnny says petulantly, but he stills, staring down at the shady figures muttering in the street below them.

Dick lightly punches his shoulder.  "Don't sulk.  Do you wanna try that TTK move you showed me earlier on these guys?"

Johnny brightens, sitting up straight.  "Sweet!"

Below, Gonzalez' belligerent voice gets louder, and he reaches into his jacket for a firearm.  Dick nudges Johnny and stands up.  "Come on, Superboy." 

Johnny whoops and takes off.  Dick grins, and follows.