Disclaimer: I do not own either Young Justice or its related characters. Such are the property of CD Comics, Warner Bros. Entertainment and Cartoon Network. I'm just borrowing them for some non-profit entertainment.

Kent

Chapter One:

Conner couldn't sleep.

No, that wasn't exactly true. Conner had difficulty sleeping. Often times he would wake up in the middle of the night or early morning disoriented and confused, wondering why he was laying on his back covered in sheets of fabric rather than reclining at an obtuse angle wearing a solar suit so tight it might as well have been painted on. It took him only a few moments to remember that he was in his suit in Mount Justice rather than his pod in the bowels of Cadmus' secret laboratories. He would remind himself that he was safe and that he was free.

Repeating these facts to himself would calm the Boy of Steel, but he was never able to return to sleep. It was strange, when he was at Cadmus it seemed all he did was sleep. Laying dormant in a hibernation-like trance while his three gnomes educated him on Earth's history, science, math, psychology, culture and, of course, Superman. But since escaping from them Conner found that out of the twenty-four hours in a day, he only ever seemed to sleep for about five of them.

This was not unnatural for a human. The education he's received from the gnomes taught him that the average human needed only eight to nine hours of sleep to remain healthy but that statistics showed that most whom worked or attended school slept only six to seven hours. He was just one hour short of the low end of 'normal' for a human. The problem was, Conner wasn't human. The fact that he was a clone and not a 'real' person aside; he had been cloned from Superman whom was kryptonian –an alien. Was five hours normal for his race, or was there some flaw in his design that prevented him from gaining more than five hours REM sleep?

The knowledge of psychology he'd been programmed with told Conner that his sleep issue could easily be a symptom of a Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, or PTSD. But if that were the case, wouldn't he also present other symptoms such as flashbacks, or chronic anxiety? Whatever the reason, it didn't seem like it would go away any time soon. It had already been several months since his escape from Cadmus with the help of Wally, Kaldur and Robin and (barring exceptions for missions) it had become part of his 'standard' morning routine.

Wake-up early, usually with the sun, sometimes a little before. He would stretch, check the time, calculate how much sleep he'd actually gotten, wonder if it was healthy and then roll out of bed (careful not to step on Wolf whom had taken to sleeping on the floor by his bed).

Once on his feet, Conner's routine observed an almost military discipline. He would make his bed careful to, not only tuck the sheets under the mattress, but to also fold the corners at acute angles on the end so that the made bed looked like one perfect rectangular cuboid. Then he would shower, a quick but methodical process that took only ten minuets (never a second more). He would start with his head, washing his hair and then his face, then shoulders, chest and arms, then belly, back, posterior and genitals and finally legs and feet. The logic of it was that gravity pulled the water downwards and the water pulled the soap and dirt with it. It would have been inefficient to clean in any other order.

After the shower teeth got brushed and hair got combed. His clothes from the previous day were thrown in the laundry hamper and a fresh set was selected from his monotonous wardrobe of black Ts with the red S-shield, cargo-pants and commando boots, and donned without ceremony. Bed made, body cleaned and clothed he would exit his suit to greet the ghostly silent complex that was Mt. Justice –the former headquarters of the Justice League of America.

As he passed M'gann's room (the only other member of the Young Justice team whom actually lived at Mt. Justice) his superior hearing would pick up the faint rhythmic sound of her breathing, still wrapped in the tranquil oblivion of sleep's thrall. Some mornings he would hear her muttering in her sleep, sometimes in her own Martian tongue which he did not understand, other times in English –just words or phrases from popular American TV, occasionally her characteristic "Hello, M'gann!" and sometimes, Conner would hear his own name muttered in an affectionate or other times deep and throaty whisper.

It was mornings like that that tempted him to break his pattern. Her voice and his name set his blood on fire in a strange and unfamiliar but not by any means unpleasant way. On the contrary, Conner wanted to hear her say his name like that when she was awake and gazing into his eyes. He didn't know why, but hearing her mutter his name like he were a gasping need made him want to slip into her room and rouse her from her slumber. Though, what they would do after that he hadn't the slightest idea. In the end she would probably be cross over being woken before she was ready and he hated it when she was mad at him. Though she never stayed angry at him for very long, he still found it rather unpleasant.

And so Conner would walk past her door, ignoring her whispers and soft calls.

He would continue though the living areas of the base and through the hangar to the main hangar bay door, affectionately deemed the 'front door' by the rest of the team. The sun had usually climbed just over the horizon line that separated sea from sky by this time and Conner turned to it for a few moments to ponder it as the source of his and Superman's power and why he did not have all the same powers as his (unwilling) genetic donor when those powers all came from the same source. He tried to keep these moments of depressing introspection short of course, as thoughts of Superman only reminded him of his own deficiencies and how the man who should be his mentor could barely stand to look at him.

Batman said to give him time. 'Kryptonians, as you know are very hard headed.'

But it had been several months already. He and his team had already fulfilled several successful missions or varying types and difficulties. Hadn't that proven to Superman that he was worthy? The seasons had changed, summer had given way to fall, Conner had started school with M'gann under the alias 'Conner Kent'… Exactly how much time did Superman need?

With a heavy sigh, the Boy of Steel pushed these thoughts aside and mounted his motorcycle. Not the 'Super-Cycle', as Wally had recently re-christened Sphere. Batman had been very firm in explaining that because of the alien nature of Sphere's technology and how little they actually knew about it, he didn't want Conner taking her off base whenever the inclination struck. But since he was a head-strong and stubborn teenager and Batman couldn't breath down his neck all the time that when he did choose to throw caution (and orders) to the wind and take the sentient machine out joyriding, he at least only ever do so as 'Superboy' rather than 'Conner Kent'. A distinction that the Boy of Steel was still getting used to.

It was strange thinking of Conner and Superboy as two different people seeing as they were both him and (to the best of his well programmed knowledge) he was one person. Having two names did not make one two people, but Batman wanted him to pretend that it did. So, Conner played along (as best he could) mostly to appease Bats, but also to gain a better understanding of the odd concept that Cadmus had never thought to upload into him.

And so, on a perfectly ordinary motorcycle that was painted a bright but otherwise unremarkable shade of red the decidedly not ordinary or unremarkable Conner Kent rode out to fetch a morning paper.

…

(A/N: Not sure if I'm gonna continue this or not. I have a bad track record when it comes to actually finishing fan fictions. People tell me if you think its worth it and want more.)