It hurts to look at him.
It shouldn't hurt, it should make him feel happy. The clone IS Kon, every inch of skin, every strand of hair, every cuticle and fingerprint and bone... yet it isn't.
But it could be, if Tim tries hard enough. He knows it can be.
The clone sits patiently and listens while Tim explains everything. He watches with calm interest the pictures and videos and newspaper articles Tim shows him. He listens quietly as Tim explains to him how his Kryptonian DNA has genetic tags for racial memory, so he should be able to remember the other life. But he doesn't say anything, not even when Tim says he loves him.
The muscles grow and harden the more he stays in the sunlight. His eyes grow sharper and his limbs grow longer and Tim could swear he smiles just like Kon the first time he discovers he can fly.
But it's just a trick of the light.
Tim shows the clone everything Kon used to like. The TV shows, the movies, even the Newsies soundtrack Tim couldn't stand. The clone reacts to it all with the same detached disinterest. He attends to his hygiene and daily chores exactly as Tim taught him. At night, he doesn't sleep and doesn't move from his bed, even when he hears Tim's crying through the walls.
On the fifth day Tim shows him the statue. They'd added it to the one in front of Titan Tower. The artist must have had some kind of Peter Pan complex, because the Superboy immortalized in bronze had on a very nineties Superman-alike costume under a leather jacket. Tim couldn't bear to look at the sunglasses over the impish grin, but he made the clone look. "That's you. That's who you're going to be again."
The clone reached out and touched the ankle of the statue, almost reverently. His eyes took in the up, up, and away pose. Then they flared red and the statue was pulled apart.
"Take me home now."
"Do you want something from me?" the clone asks over breakfast (Belgian waffles, Kon's favorite).
"I want you to be happy," Tim lies, pouring syrup.
"I wasn't happy... before?"
"You were dead."
It's not an answer, but the clone doesn't press the point.
"Her name was Cassie."
The words come out of the blue. Tim looks up and sees his friend standing there and feels like he might cry.
"That's right."
"Cassie Sandsmark. I can't remember her face... but I can remember how she made me feel."
And Tim feels like he's being punched in the gut over and over again, but it's a good feeling.
"You loved her."
The clone nod. "When can I see her?"
"Soon. Very soon."
On the tenth day Tim took the clone to see his father. They waited on top of the Daily Planet and Tim handed the clone a pair of eyeglasses. "Put them on."
The clone did, but with a disobedient, questioning pause that made Tim feel like it was Christmas morning.
"What. Have. You.Done?"
Superman hovered there, caught in the shadow of the globe. Tim was reminded of the times his father read Peter Pan to him, especially the description of Captain Hook plunging a hook into someone. How two red spots appeared in his eyes and lit them up horribly.
"I've brought him back!" Tim said insistently, gesturing to the clone. "I've fixed it! I've made things like they were!"
Superman landed, cape curled tightly around him. "You've made an... obscenity. A blasphemy to Connor's name. All of you Robins, you say you're never going to be Batman. I've seen Nightwing in Africa. You're all the same... what you've done is wrong."
"Don't talk about him like he isn't here! I can save him! I've saved so many others, why not him? Why not when it matters most? Why not when it's for me?" Tim shouted, then shook his head. "No. He's Kon! He's Superboy now!"
"Tim... Superboy's dead."
The clone took off his glasses. "What'd he say about me?"
"Don't listen to him, Kon," Tim insisted, ushering him away.
The clone pushed Tim aside, Kryptonian muscles easily overwhelming the youth's. "I want to hear what he's saying about me."
Superman placed a calming hand on the clone's shoulder. "Son, we can get you help. You can be... someone else, someone alive..."
The clone slapped the hand away. "How can you say that? Don't you remember? You gave me Krypto..."
"Stop the lies!" Superman yelled, shoving the clone back. "Kon-El is dead! You'll never be him!"
The clone's mouth worked silently. He looked helplessly at Tim. "You... you said he was my father. Why is he saying these things? You said he'd help me."
Tim tried to put on his best face despite it all. "He will. Just give him time. He can't see..."
"Don't listen to him." Superman walked in front of Tim, hands clenched into white knuckles. "He's trying to make you something you're not. You can't bring the past back to life."
"He's not the past. He's the future." Tim stood up. "We're the future. World's Finest. Maybe you and Bruce forgot about that, but we won't. We're going to bring things back to the way they should be. We're going to get Cassie back and Kory and Gar and Raven..."
"Now you're starting to sound like Superboy-Prime."
Superman saw the punch coming, but didn't do anything to move. He heard a sound like dry twigs snapping as Tim's fist slammed into his chin. Tim fell back, clutching his broken hand. "You were my hero," he said plaintively. "I thought you'd understand. Didn't you love him?"
"More than you could ever know..."
The clone stepped forward, concern written all over his face. "Tim? Are you alright?" His eyes went blank for a moment and his X-ray vision painted for him cracks and fractures where there should be smoothness. He whirled on Superman, confused and angry and desperate. "You hurt him. I thought you were a hero. He said you were a hero."
Superman looked sorry for a moment, then raised his head to meet the clone's eyes. "I suppose he's said a lot of things."
This punch Superman didn't see coming. The clone's touch telekinesis rushed through his knuckles as they made contact, ripping through Superman's body like an angry hurricane, wrecking havoc with his nervous system. Superman fell backwards, muscles spasming uncontrollably. The clone looked down at him.
"You're not my father."
They sat alone in the laboratory, the clone holding Tim's hand in both of his own, touch telekinesis mending the bones until they were like new.
"We were... friends, weren't we? Brothers."
Tim looked up sadly. He pulled his hand away and replaced it inside the green glove. "Yeah. We were."
"Your name was... is Tim Drake. But people also called you Robin."
A sort of rush went through Tim, like a charge of electricity. He looked the clone in the eyes as something glimmered inside them.
"There was a girl named Steph, and you lost her. And a girl made of... sand? Her name was Greta, but we called her Secret. She liked ice cream and Harrison Ford and had a crush on you."
Tim nodded, shell-shocked, crying and not caring anymore.
"Kid Flash... Impulse... he never shut up. Tania... she meant something to me. And you had a father, a real father. Jack Drake."
Tim covered his mouth with a fist, refusing to believe it, refusing to hope.
"You've lost so much... why me? Why try to bring me back?"
"Because... because I couldn't bear to lose anything else. I couldn't bear to let them cut off another limb. I couldn't hold my breath anymore."
He didn't so much lunge forward as fall in that direction, wrapping his arms around Kon's chest and breathing in deep, heaving sobs. Kon let his arms hang limply at his sides until he remembered how to hug back.
"Let's go see Cassie now," Tim said.
