A/N I had trouble posting this. Hopefully no one noticed. If you did, humor me. *facepalm*
Superboy had knowledge. Of course, he would have preferred if he had gained that knowledge like a normal kid in a school instead of through a psychic connection with malevolent G-Gnomes. Nevertheless, Superboy usually was contented when the histories, technologies, inventions and theories the G-Gnomes had imprinted upon him helped him fit in. Based on what he knew, he could function like everyone else...usually.
Superboy thought he knew everything practically important about light-bulbs He knew about how the their creation from Davy to Edison. He knew that the U.S. government had recently mandated energy efficient CF-L's and LED's. He knew that a light-bulb, no matter what kind, was screwed into the base of a lamp with a twisting action. He knew that a lampshade then went on top.
Superboy had never been called to put this knowledge to use until today. He had been shutting the door behind him when the lights went out. Robin and Wally immediately started bickering with each other in the darkness. Wally, apparently, had destroyed all of the room's lights by messing with the small, unassuming laptop that sat on Robin's bunk.
Although Superboy didn't quite get why Robin's computer would have a destroy all light-bulbs button, he did understand how Wally had been the one to find it and hit it. Superboy, for his part, waited until the two friends had calmed down before he offered to help replace the bulbs. Robin smirked and nudged Wally in the side.
"Why thank you Supes, you're a real friend for chipping in when it isn't even your fault!" Robin exclaimed, pointlessly glaring at Wally in the pitch-black room.
"Oh, come on Rob. It was a big red button! What did you expect me to do?" Wally whined. "Next you're going to tell me that I wasn't meant to eat the sheet-cake in the freezer!"
Robin's eyes bulged and he lunged at Wally. Wally playfully ducked away and zoomed out of the room. "I'll go get us new bulbs Rob. Be right back," the speedster proclaimed on his way out. Robin barely registered the door opening and shutting.
Robin sighed and pulled a glow-stick from his bedside dresser. The neon blue light framed his face as he spoke. "So, Superboy, you ever screwed in a light-bulb before?"
"No," Superboy said. Superboy thought he could easily help replace the light-bulbs in Robin's room. He didn't mind. It was only a few bulbs.
Wally returned then with an armful of bulb packages. Sheepishly, he set his load down and walked over to Robin.
"Rob," he placed his hand on the younger boy's shoulder, "I'm sorry about breaking all the lights and I want to help you fix them. Please forgive me? Please?" he begged, pouting his lips.
Superboy rolled his eyes as Robin murmured an okay and was promptly suffocated in a bear-hug.
Opening the packages, the teen began screwing the light-bulb into the ceiling. The hard part was finding which bulbs were the right size for the ceiling fixture but after that it was a piece of cake.
The blue-eyed boy had finished all but the one bedside lamp when he noticed that Wally and Robin where still squeezing the life out of each other instead of helping. He rolled his eyes again but decided to leave them be considering the job was almost done anyways.
He pulled the lampshade away from the shattered remains of an incandescent light-bulb, set aside the shade, and screwed in one last CF-L. Suddenly, Wally let go of his raven haired boy and placed himself beside the diligent worker.
"Wanna hear a light-bulb joke?" Wally asked the clone. Superboy looked to Robin for advice. Robin mouthed 'no' and cringed.
"No," the Boy of Steel proclaimed. Wally ignored him.
"How many Kid Flashes does it take to screw in a light-bulb?" Wally prompted. Superboy frowned.
"There's only one Kid Flash, Wally," he said, not getting the point. Wally ignored him.
"None! Because I may have noticed when I went to get the light-bulbs that ALL the bulbs in Mount Justice are out and, well, it just slipped my mind, but it's getting late so I gotta run. Have fun without me!"
Superboy and Robin blinked as Wally blurred away.
Dumbfounded, Superboy picked up the discarded lampshade and placed it on top of the light-bulb.
The lampshade would not fit on right. The light-bulb's spiral shape kept looping around the metal prongs of the lampshade leaving the shade crooked to one side.
Superboy turned to Robin with a crooked smile. "Ta-da?"