Archive of Our Own ^beta

Tim was exhausted. It had been 72 days since he lost connection the Batcave. 80 since Lex enacted his Red Sun offensive. He had no idea where the rest of his team was. Cassie had told him and Bart to leave her to handle the Super clones at the Tower but that was a month ago. Bart had left him to do recon on LexCorp a week ago. Cissie had been captured just hours ago. Connor was… gone. That much Tim was sure.

The computers in his safe house had been monitoring every news source from Russia to Bialya. There had been no news on any League member since Lex made a public display of what disobedience cost under his new regime with Clark. Everything had been a blur since then. Something had pinged on Tim’s monitor over the night. A fast-moving object was caught on a cloaked satellite zipping across the Pacific Northwest United States. From what the readings said, it had flown over Tim’s hideout three times in the last hour.

Tim knew that his hideout was well hidden, he had asked Zatanna to make a cloaking spell for it just in case something like this had happened. He knew somehow the magic users had hidden themselves. If that were the case, his spell would have folded as soon as Lex’s Army brought down the Watchtower. The only thing that might have given away the location of Tim’s roost was his heartbeat. Kon had told him that Superman had memorized Bruce and Lois’s heartbeats, so he’d be able to find him anywhere in the world and that worried him.

He had been practicing breathing techniques and yoga as he hid out from the Regime, trying to keep his heart rate at a lower beat than normal. He hoped that this was enough to keep him hidden from the 250-pound bullet flying overhead every six hours. The fact that he keeps coming back to this section of forest in Washington didn’t leave Tim with a lot of confidence.

Tim had been sending out signals over every little channel he could find that couldn’t be traced back to his location. It was worrisome that no one had sent him a response. He wondered if he was the only left, statistically it was unlikely. If Lex had caught his brothers and sisters, even his father, he would have made a spectacle. Something to tell the world that he won. That he took down Superman and Batman and that he was finally the most powerful man on the planet. But he hadn’t gloated, which was like him, which meant that someone out there was still causing him problems. Enough problems that it was making him unsure of his chance of winning. And that was enough for Tim to keep scanning.

He knew that eventually his base was going to run out of supplies. When he got there, he had maybe six months left of rations and he had been doing everything to keep his physique and energy up which meant that he was quickly burning through supplies. He was going to have to risk heading into Seattle to get food.

From what he’s seen, Lex’s Army circles the globe in 6-hour shifts, there was no way of him knowing how many clones could be in a squad, but they seemed to use their superhearing to keep surveillance over the people of the world. Tim knew from what Kon’s told him about the superhearing is that its most effective over a 250 miles radius. Tim guessed that the squad was set up to cover most of the state with one squad. His best shot at getting supplies and getting out without being caught by one of those things was to leave the Roost at 3 pm, just after the army had left the region and be back before 9 pm.

Tim tapped his watch, it read 1:48 pm, which meant he didn’t have a lot of time to get his disguise ready. Bruce had taught them how to change their voice to make it a higher pitch or a lower tone so as not to tip off anyone to their identities. He knew that the only people that recognized his real voice were gone. Off the board. Somewhere he didn’t want to think about. The next part of his disguise was the colored contacts. They irritated his eyes and made them feel stiff, but the brown completely shaded his regular blue. The wigs he kept in the Roost were not as high quality as he had in the cave back in Gotham, but they would have to do. Everything wasn’t running as ideally as Tim had wanted but he was still unrecognizable in the mirror.

As Tim silently shut the door to the Roost, he pushed some tree branches back into place and hoped that they covered the treads of the blast door. The shimmering effect of Zatanna’s spell made it obvious that there was something being obscured but Tim hoped that he was the only one who could see it.

He swallowed hard as he made the long trek from his little hideout to the closest grocery store on the outskirts of Seattle. He had seen the news of how people were living under harsh scrutiny. Any little amount of dissension was met by a super clone showing up and taking them into a corrections facility. People had to line up at LexCorp approved facilities to get the amount of rations LexCorp has calculated were enough per household. All Tim had to do was break into one of these facilities, steal a couple months’ worth of supplies and break out before Lex’s army of super clones spotted him. Tim’s done more impressive feats in less time.

Tim kept an eye to the sky; Bruce had always taught him to never think you’re going unseen. So Tim moved as if he knew he was being tailed. He cut down every alleyway he could find, slumped behind every dumpster. He backtracked and jumped fences hoping that no one could keep track of him. He also made sure that his heartbeat never reached above 80 beats per minute. The training he received from the League and Shiva gave him an edge, but he still couldn’t relax, he couldn’t get cocky.

Tim thought the LexCorp facility was going to be heavily guarded, so he was surprised with how sparse the patrolling of the building was. He had hacked into the facilities security system when he first found out LexCorp had set up these buildings after Lex seized control of the White House, so he was familiar with the patrols and guard schedule, but something immediately felt off. He had been fed the wrong information from a system he should have had complete control over.

It was too late to change the plan now, he had been taught for five years how to move without being noticed, pass unseen, and get out without leaving a trace and he needed to rely on his instinct and his training before he lost his nerve. He needed to get this food.

In any other situation, Tim would have loved to jack into a LexCorp terminal and see what Lex had planned next but the decreased level of security on the building left Tim wondering if it would be smart for him to waste time on that. He retraced the blueprints of the building in his mind before rushing through route he had planned. He knew that it was sixteen steps from the south gate to the basement window. A short drop onto the floor followed by a crawl behind some crates and he’d be at the door to the first-floor lounge. He had set the cameras up to run a loop from earlier that day to keep his movements hidden while in the more exposed part of his mission.

Everything was going according to plan until his watch vibrated, alerting him to a fast-moving object approaching his location. Fuck, Tim thought to himself as his watched alerted him to his heart rate passing 98 beats. As he turned to hide back in the basement, he heard a loud screech and crash as the door to the warehouse was ripped off the hinges and tossed to the street outside.

A super clone was hovering right outside the warehouse looking directly at Tim. A chill ran down his spine as the being’s eyes began to glow. Tim knew that look, it was the same he’s seen a thousand times from Kon. The exact same face he was looking at right now.

He knew it wasn’t Kon. His Conner would never work with Lex in a thousand years. He watched his Kon get overtaken by the clones the day the world ended. The day his world ended.

Without saying a word, the clone let out it’s heat vision. Years of training and instincts kicked in as he leapt over the clone’s line of destruction. Something in his gut told him exactly how the clone was going to move, he jumped to his left at the exact moment the clone moved to close the gap between them. It was a move he’d seen Conner do in the field. Distract with the heat vision and then close the gap and catch the prey.

Tim had experience dodging speedsters but speed plus strength was a dangerous combination.  He knew that eventually he was going to run out of stamina or lose his balance or make a mistake and that was going to be it for him. The fact he had lasted as long as he did proved how lucky he was. And eventually the luck was going to run out.

The clone reached out and grabbed his arm and it took every ounce of Tim’s strength to yank his jacket off his body to slip out of the clone’s grasp. As the jacket was ripped away, Tim tossed out the last of his sonic blasts. They emitted a frequency that was imperceptible to humans but painful to anyone with super hearing. Conner had helped him find the frequency years ago.

The clone fell to its knees instantly, frantically trying to kick the device away but it just kept writhing on the floor. Everything in Tim was telling him to help the clone but then he remembered how Conner told him that before he broke free of Project CADMUS, he was a creature that ran entirely on instinct and orders. Tim knew that if he stopped the frequency, the thing would start trying to kill him again.

Tim rushed and grabbed one of the cases closest to him and sprinted out of the facility, hoping that the clone came alone. He had barely made it outside before his watch told him another fast-moving object was on its way to his location.

Tim’s belt was shockingly empty. Batman had told him to never let it get this empty but being on the run with limited supplies meant that he hasn’t been able to refill. If he had more of his sonic blasts, he would have been much more confident in his ability to take on another super clone, but he had to make the best of a bad situation.

He felt the boom from the super flight speed before he saw the next super clone come to a stop. All the super clones wore the same outfit. The same black and red uniform that Kon had first worn when he attacked the Teen Titans in New York after he was free from Cadmus. They all had the same crest on their chests. Clark had told them it meant hope in Kryptonian, his family shield, and Lex was perverting it. The last thing a lot of people saw was the symbol of Superman.

“Tim?” the clone asked. It was the first time any of the clones had said anything. The voice sent a shiver down Tim’s spine. Training told him not to show weakness, but longing told him.

Tim had watched Conner get taken out by a pack of his clones. The thing hovering in front of him was not his Conner. But something inside him told him this one was different. Tim moved into a defensive position, the same one that he always put up when he sparred with Superboy.

Tim finally made eye contact with the thing in the sky and his stomach dropped. This clone was in worse condition than the others. Its left hand was in a brace and its right eye was bandaged. None of the other super clones ever showed signs of degradation but this one.

Stop, Tim screamed at himself. This is not Conner. Conner is dead. You watched him fall taking on a group of ten clones. But something about the soft way this clone looked at him made him wonder.

“Stop running,” the thing that looked like his friend said, “you have nowhere else to go. Tim.” And the way it said his name made his heart break. It said it was the way Kon had after training for hours at the Tower, the way Kon had said it after Tim and the rest of the group brought him back from Gemworld. The clone said it in a way that only his clone boy had said it.

When Tim made no motion to surrender, the clone closed the distance in the blink of an eye. The air instantly felt heavy, and Tim wondered if it was the clone using some sort of telekinesis ability on him. None of the other clones had shown any sort of acumen with that ability but Bruce always told him to expect the unexpected.

“C’mon,” the clone said as it raised its hand to his cheek. Tim flinched and tried to get out of the clone’s reach, but he couldn’t bring his body to move when it touched his cheek. It touched him in the soft way only Kon would, and it set Tim’s body on fire. “Babe. It’s me.”

Tim didn’t want to believe it. If this was his Conner than that meant they never actually removed the programming that Lex left in his brain. He had been a sleeper agent the entire time and Tim mourned him for the last two months.

Tim slapped the clone’s hand away before tossing a round of blast bombs at the clone. “You’re not him.” Tim growled as he watched the smoke clear, it was the first time Tim used his voice in a while, so it came out incredibly raspy.

“Tim,” the clone pleaded. Something in its eyes told him that it was trying to appeal to Tim’s emotions, but he was doing his best to steel himself. “You know it’s me. Deep down.” But this time its words were accompanied by a slap that sent Tim teetering backwards. Even if the clone didn’t want to hurt him, Tim still left his cheekbone break.

He needed to get out of there before more clones showed up or this one decided to stop playing with him. The slap had also busted his lip, and Tim could taste his own blood in his mouth. “Nice try,” Tim laughed, trying to put on a display of bravado, “my Conner wouldn’t fly into an obvious trap.”

The look of panic that flashed across the clone’s face was enough of a window for Tim to toss a flash bang at the clone. As it scanned the area with its x-ray vision and super hearing, it left itself open for the full stunning effect of the flash bang. Tim counted down, he usually had five seconds before a Kryptonian came back to they’re senses.

Five

Tim immediately rushed back into the building where the original clone was still dealing with the sonic blast. As he fled, he did his best to get his heart rate back under control.

Four

Tim hopped through a window that got destroyed by his earlier adventure. He could see the woods from that point. All he had to do was reach the tree line and then he could go back to hiding.

Three

The trees were getting closer to him, and his legs were burning from running. The facility and the two clones were behind him, but he knew they were both disoriented.

Two

Tim ducked behind the first tree he deemed big enough. He tried to muffle his breathing by breathing through his hand. If he knew the way clones worked, and he definitely did, they would be focused on trying to find a moving target as long as Tim kept his heartbeat slow and made no movement, the clones would overlook him.

One

He heard the sonic boom of the clone taking off, felt the impact of it pushing off the ground and watched as it scanned the area, flying erratically as it tried to find which direction Tim ran in. Tim watched as it began flying in circles, using its supervision and hearing to try to catch a hint of Tim.

The thing with Kryptonians is that they’re so used to having the high ground, they don’t ever think they’re being outsmarted. Its why Bruce was always able to get away from Clark without him knowing. Its why Tim was sure he was going to get away from the clone.

He waited three hours under that tree before making a single movement. He had to be sure that the clones had left the area before trying anything. The entire time, under the tree, Tim asked himself, are you sure it’s not him?

The clone knew about them, that was certain. It was something that Tim had been apprehensive about telling the group. He had been known for jumping into relationships without thinking and he wanted to be sure that what he and Kon had was real before bringing the group in.

It had the same injuries that Tim saw Kon get before he left him for dead. It was something Tim wasn’t proud of, but he needed to prioritize the rest of the team. He had thought that if Kon made it out, he would meet him somewhere, but that reunion never came. His Conner never came back.