I don't own Young Justice, or I would have already seen Season 3. Oh, and I've made a few edits to the previous chapters, but the only ones of any concern are the ones for the previous chapter.

xXx August 3, 12:28. Gotham, Dead End motel. xXx

"As much as I like meeting new people, I hate that you're making me move all this furniture around." As he was currently in the process of singlehandedly manoeuvring a sofa through a doorway, Aaron felt the complaint was well warranted.

"Oh, quit your whining already. If you get this done sooner, there's an Italian dinner in it for you." Finally getting the second arm rest through the doorway, he looked at the speaker. She was tall for a fifteen year old girl, about 5'10" and had stunningly white hair that reached down to her shoulder blades. She was also a lot broader and more muscular than most would expect one to be, and had clearly seen many things a young girl shouldn't have, given the leather eye patch over her left eye. If it weren't for laziness as she foisted the job onto him, Aaron would bet good money that she could've done this alone, let alone with the help of her brothers.

"Can't blame him, Rose. That sofa weighs like ten tonnes. Still convinced Ma hid gold bars in that sofa with how heavy the damn thing is." Coming down the hallway now, climbing the stairs with a large fridge because everything had to be a work out with him, was her much broader and even more muscular brother, barely hiding any of his muscles behind a white vest top that meant the steel dog tags stood out even more. The guy towered over him, almost reaching seven feet in height, and would've been intimidating to a human being in his situation, what with the piercing blue eyes, the strongly set jawline, and the close trimmed buzz cut of blonde hair.

As he watched this Adonis casually move heavy machine of metal through a space where no mortal man could get a secure grip to leverage their full strength, he started to get curios. Aaron wasn't sure what his parents had fed this guy to get a diet Captain America, but he wanted a taste of it asap. It was hard enough not to just tap the source directly for a taste there and then, but he could not afford that attention right now.

"If I'm carrying around secret gold, I demand compensation. I deserve at least two gold bars for my troubles." Rose didn't even look at him over the top of her magazine about some sort of celebrity drama.

"You get two Italian dinners and a standing offer to sit on this couch whenever you visit."

"Close enough for me." And with that close to the conversation, he finally managed to reach the open space and set the sofa down. "Now about those dinners, how calorie heavy can I expect it to be? I'm hoping the answer is "very", but I'll accept "quite"." Grant merely laughed and clapped him on the shoulder, not even flinching despite not moving Aaron an inch.

"With how skinny you are, you're gonna need everything you can get to avoid looking like a twig." Aaron merely responded by returning the favour, and doing his best to hide his surprise when his mildly forceful pat didn't even move Grant a millimetre. There was definitely something interesting to these siblings, something that would prove very important in time he hoped.

"Better a twig than an unsightly behemoth. Tell me Grant, where'd you get the protein for those muscles? Gobbling up small children whole?" Grant took the small glare and bitter remarks in stride, laughing at them with his new friend, dramatically putting a hand to his heart

"That ain't how I do it, scout's honour. If you were talking about messing with them though, well that's a different story." As he spoke a young blond boy in a turtleneck sweater, probably no more than 12 or 13, stepped into the room carrying a box of assorted action figures and Lego sets in one hand, and a suitcase heavily adorned with the iconography of Superman, most likely from one of the those cartoons about him.

You never really think of how much a person's image can be exploited when they are highly famous but have no legal protections on their name. Apparently, there was some legislation in the works to change how that would work, but good luck getting that past the American government. Regardless of our biological abomination's musings on copyright and exploitation, Rose was more interested in her brother.

"Look who it is, mister boy scout himself. You took a while to get up here Joe." The boy opened his mouth for a moment before closing it and looking down at the floor. Grant quickly moved to take everything from the boy to free his hands, leading to a the boy moving his hand to try and quickly "speak", small hands fumbling to convey a message that they barely knew how to say.

"Wow, calm down, what's wrong?" Aaron, who had observed dispassionately as he subtly looked through the Lego sets in barely hidden jealousy, took the opportunity to interject.

"Considering that he was either trying to something about a weird or odd man, either using the term mathematics or just plain shaking his hands, and also calling him possibly a stranger - although his thumb should be to his chin at the end – then I presume he ran into mister Kuttler." He saw their concerned looks and knew he needed to deescalate before anything happened that could draw the authorities, or worse Batman to this location.

"Don't worry, nothing would have happened. If I'm right that its Kuttler, your brother was scared away from the man's apartment by the excessive usage of mathematical techniques that even I find headache inducing. The bas... the fellow has the nasty habit of not closing his door and leaving just an open view into a mathematicians equivalent to serial killer writing. Complete with the unstable muttering. Probably taking another crack at those four unsolvable equations he's got left." Rose sat back with a slight glower, resolving to wait for an opportunity to avenge this slight to appear, while Grant nodded in acceptance before processing an important fact.

"Wait, you know sign language?" Rose turned an inquisitive glare on him. Apparently he didn't look like the sort who went out of their way to accommodate others, which was entirely true so he congratulated her deduction.

"I knew a guy who knew it. It's come in handy since then." She narrowed her eye at his answer, seeing something suspicious in his answer that he apparently hadn't.

"What did I tell ya Rose? With neighbor's like this guy, this'll be a good place for us." Rose merely turned away from him with a huff, keeping him firmly out of her blind spot.

He would have stuck around to keep up the banter, but could hear his landline ringing. "Yeah, good place and all that. I'll give you a tour sometime, if you ask. If you'll excuse me, I have some urgent business to attend to."

Pushing his way past the 200 lbs of beefcake that smelled far more appetising than any dinners he made that didn't include him, Aaron strode down the hall. Past the worn doors and peeled paint, and all the scars of history in the building that no amount of polish could erase.

Opening his room with a key that grew from his nail, the one Eddie left him somewhere in the clutter of trinkets he had made to keep his memories straight, he kicked the door shut behind him as he reached for the landline mobile. He cleared his throat as his throat rippled to sound sultrier and softer. That country singer he once ate, Lorene what's her name, really was worth the hours he spent puking up all that gunk from the years of substance abuse.

"Hey there dirty boy, why's a guy like you doing calling a naughty gal like me?" There was a quite but harsh mechanical scrapping as whoever had contacted him made their displeasure known.

"Is this the apartment for the Cadmus operative, Blacklight?" Aaron just sighed as he listened to the strained voice of the mysterious intellectual, his throat rippling and shifting back to normal.

"Ex Cadmus. But yes, this is he. I provide creative problem solving to any and all issues. If you could give me the details of your problem, your name, and a quote for whatever you're willing to pay before negotiations, then we can make a start on sorting this all out, Mr..."

"You will have the privilege of calling me, Red Dynamo." Despite the gravitas with which the client spoke, he remained irreverent.

"Ok then Mr Dynamo, what services can I provide for you today? Do you perhaps need a leak to be plugged? A thorn removed from your side? A source of great tension to be eased off?"

"There's a set of packages I want you to collect from a STAR Labs transport tonight. I'll send you the frequency for the tracker on the package, so you can collect them both during transit. Make sure to follow only these trackers, or you might get a fraudulent version from one of four other vans that are being watched by a member of the Justice League." Aaron whistles at that, impressed at the level of detail he was getting.

"Damn, sounds like a hell of a job. Must be a pretty important package you've ordered. Well, courier services will cost you $2 million, damages and expenses pending."

"You'll get triple that if you bring me the android by the end of this week. Find it, or you will not be a fan of the consequences." Our friendly neighbourhood abomination froze for a moment, looking in suspicion at the phone, before shrugging his shoulders

"Well, our motto is customer satisfaction guaranteed, so I'll be seeing you soon." He placed the phone back onto the receiver and cut the call, opening his laptop to check the emails. "Something tells me that this is suspicious as fuck."

Reading through the data he had received and forming a radio that he hid in his skull, he felt some vague recollections of information that belonged to him in another life. "Huh, Amazo? Yeah... I should've charged more."

xXx August 3, 21:00. Litchfield County, a road in the middle of nowhere. xXx

Going by the little information he could piece together from the scrambled memories of the future he still recalled, he had been able to determine that one of the two vans would be travelling through here. If his memory served correctly, this would be the van with Robin and Superboy, which would make it a significantly easier target for him.

He could see just cresting over the hill in the distance was the van containing his prize, and he could distantly hear two motorcycles, meaning he had gambled correctly. He stepped out from the corn field he had hidden in, and stood tall in the middle of the road, arms out as he hoped to feel the van smash into his body as the metal crunched around him. Aaron would be disappointed however, As the van rapidly braked at the sight of a teenager in a weird, bloodstained coat and very bloody bandages standing in the middle of the road.

The two motorcycles overtook the van and moved to stop on opposite sides of him. He looked at Robin, watching as he typed a message out while calmly smirking at him and casually asking him the relevant questions.

"Hey buddy, haven't seen you in a while. What are you doing out here?" Superboy ever the one to hate being out of the loop turned his fierce glare on Robin.

"You know this bozo?" Wow, that almost hurt his feelings. Robin however had felt worse glares and didn't even flinch.

"Yeah, he helped out in saving that CEO, Miss Gonzales. Aqualad and I thought about giving some advice to the new guy, but he vanished before we could." Turning back to the stranger he didn't realise he knew, Robin continued. "Still waiting on an answer buddy, why are you loitering in the road?"

He couldn't help but smirk behind his mask. "Waiting. For you."

"Oh? Wanted to up make sure everyone feels the aster?" Before he could answer Robin, Superboy interrupted.

"How did you find us?" Seeing that this conversation would get him nowhere, he decided to forgo politeness for efficiency.

"Tracker in the cargo." As both their eyes widened as they processed his less than benevolent intentions, he used the element of surprise and tackled Superboy off of his bike, his hands swelling to take on the shape of small boulders littered with small spikes.

He began pummelling the boy of steel, smashing him into the road as it cracked and shattered under the weight of the blows. Superboy retaliated, a wild blow catching Aaron in the chest and knocking him off and flying backwards. He got up in a roll, quickly shifting his arm into a shield as he saw the drone that had popped out of Robin's bike release a red glow from its cannon before blasting a powerful laser at him. Aaron felt the hard flesh of his arm burn away in seconds, screaming in agony he did not feel through dead nerves. His trick worked, and Robin cut the laser in his kind weakness.

An opportunity like this would not be one to waste, as his right arm slimmed into a vicious thing, adorned with dozens of cruel spikes and topped with wickedly sharp talons, before swinging at the drone, arm stretching and whipping out like unnatural elastic, cleaving through tempered steel as if it wasn't there. He looked over at Robin, watching him draw a pair of tonfa that crackled with a current stronger than the hands that wielded them. Strong enough to potentially stun him long enough for someone stronger to finish off.

"You shouldn't have stopped. Should have burned until not even ash remained." Robin simply smirked, confidence growing as Superboy walked to stand beside him, brushing rubble off to try and shrug off the bruising. His smirk widened especially as the STAR labs truck blitzed behind them, speeding down the road to try and escape the fight.

"There's two of us and the truck is going to be gone soon. We're feeling the aster while you're just getting the disaster." Superboy cracked his knuckles and spat on the ground to emphasise his glare, refusing to dignify him with a response.

"Your butchering of the English language aside, you made an incorrect assumption." Robin didn't even lose his smirk, even as he eavesdropped on the cries of the second team as a swarm of robot monkeys set on them, meaning he needed to work fast before Ivo got Amazo first. There was about a minute delay that would let him escape the M.O.N.Q.U.I bots if he did this right.

"Oh yeah, and what's that tough guy?" He felt his leg muscles swell with thick, rippling fibres as he prepared to move.

"That I cannot escape you with ease." And just like that, Aaron was cruising down the country road, 100mph and quickly gaining on his prize. The ease of his transportation compared to the distant sound of Superboy's mighty leap or Robin's rush of acceleration gave him a clear head start that he needed to use correctly. He could practically hear the bomb falling from above as he opened small vents through his back and dashed forward to barely dodge the small shockwave as the weight of a Kryptonian collided with the Earth. He smirked as he could hear Robin slamming on the brakes to avoid crashing into his teammate.

He lashed out with his whip like arm, stretching it the short distance left from the truck, blades burrowing and digging into the metal, before reeling himself over to his prey with ease. Standing on the small ledge behind the loading door, his arms shifted to his wretched claws and dug into the thin sheet, casually parting the steel and easily prying open the can to let him grab his delicious find.

Two guards desperately tried to open fire on him, the bullets lodging deep into his skin as he broke them down and digested them. One guard was launched out of the back with a punch to the back of the head that shattered his helmet and would leave him with a concussion and minor head trauma that could easily lead to a loss of higher functions if not treated quickly. The other was left with a fist sized dent in his chest armour that all but obliterated it, and would leave him with badly fractured ribs and lung damage that would eventually lead to a complete dependence on an artificial ventilator in a few years, if that really was the taste of cigarettes in the blood coughed onto his skin. Finally left alone, as the goody two shoes behind him would have to save the guards, he pried open his prize. The torso and head of Amazo, while the other crate under it presumably held his arms.

"This was certainly almost too easy." He twisted his fingers to stretch and shift into dozens of thin tentacles, reaching into the skull and the chest with delicate precision to remove the trackers he was still hearing that annoying frequency from, crushing them to safeguard his claim.

Sealing the crates back up, he turned to see the one thing he hoped not to: an angry half Kryptonian standing between him and the exit. Yes, he could easily escape by making another exit, but he probably wouldn't be able to do so and escape with the parts.

"I don't suppose you would be amenable to a bribe?" A fierce growl to match a fierce glare. "Didn't think so, but glad to be sure."

Superboy leapt at him like a man possessed, raining blows against him as Aaron desperately guarded with his Musclemass arms, feeling the armour fracture and seal with every titanic blow that sent him reeling. He clung tightly, waiting for an opportunity, even as wild punches started to slip through and send force reeling through his form and shredding apart countless cells. Finally, he got a slim opening, punching back and sending Superboy stumbling with a blow to the throat that left him choking.

But Aaron was not done, dodging the clumsy punch meant to send him back while his opponent recovered, hardening and strengthening his knuckles and striking the solar plexus hard, before putting a hand to Superboy's face to grab him and throw him into the floor hard enough to break through it, crippling the suspension, shattering the axle, sending the truck stumbling as he calmly unravelled his back to release four strong tentacles that wrapped around the crates as he leapt from the truck. He gave a mocking wave as he moved past Robin's unicycle, as the war that raged within him ended as a spike shot out of Aaron's armoured hand that burst the tire of his bike leaving him with no choice but going to leap from it and save the driver.

Prize in hand, Aaron considered going after the legs of Amazo before deciding to instead quit while he was ahead and call it a day.

xXx August 4, 07:40. Gotham, Dead End motel. xXx

"You mean to tell me that despite the more than generous advance payment I gave you, you still failed to recover even a piece of the android!" It appeared that Red Dynamo was not taking failure well, and had gone absolutely ballistic when Aaron had opted to call him up to give the "bad news".

"Yeah, pretty much. I don't know what to tell you. Ivo's bots grabbed everything right in front of me, then the League arrived and started to fight the fully reassembled Amazo, before apparently destroying the full android before I could even get close. There was no chance I was getting anywhere near it, let alone escaping with so much as his pinky toe." Aaron heard some very load cursing and what may have been a table getting flipped over.

"I paid for quality, not incompetence. I was promised effective results, and I will get them. You will go to STAR labs and deliver me that Android or so help me I WILL HAVE YOU STRANGLED WITH YOUR OWN INTESTINES!" Aaron didn't think it would calm him down to educate his former employer about his lack of any human organs of any kind, and instead chose to escape the situation.

"Let's just say the million and a half you gave covers the damages and expenses, and leave it at that. Now if you'll excuse me, I have a personal project to start working on. So, goodbye."

"If you so much as think of cutting this call I swear to you-" Whatever was to be sworn would remain a mystery, since Aaron had more important things to do. Like looking over the partially assembled upper half of Amazo sans much of his outer shell, laying across his dining table. Wires and parts were haphazardly connected and left strewn across the mahogany they were arranged on. It almost looked like the brutal violence of an incompetent surgeon, with how meticulously he had been disassembled.

"I really wish you were the nano machines guy. Not the macho elf guy. Still, that problem can be rectified, I just need to eat a nano materials and a nano technology scientist. Then I can finally make a friend." He dug scalpel nails into the edges of the face plate and pried it off, revealing the metal skull and red eyes, along with the numerous connectors to the CPU he would need to recreate in time. Damn them for knowing better than to leave the CPU parts in the transport that would let him use them. Ah well, he could do without them. He would find another way to make a friend.

"We'll do spectacular things my new best friend to be."

xXx

Let me know what you think. Like it? Hate it? have any advice for how to do better next time? I'd appreciate any thoughts. And if you want to get in contact with me more directly, then go to this Tumblr page I finally started to use:

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