Chat names:

- Sup/TheTank - Kon
- Der - Cassie
- Imp - Bart
- Wet - Cissie
- OST/Poltergeist - Tim
- Wing-a-ding - Dick
- Hoodlum - Jason
- All_Seeing - Babs

"Yeah, long story. Point is, B.B.'s doing good. I'd offer to let you see him, but he's just a baby and we're all a little hesitant about letting outside heroes get too close to any of us. Justifiably."

Taking the opening, Superboy asked, "Because of the Fear League or because the Titans tried to return Richard to his parents?"

"Both." Tim turned his full attention to Superboy. "You talked to the others about me then?"

"No, I didn't tell anyone about you. Cadmus thinks I was too busy freeing the others to notice the break-in and if Lex knows about B.B., he didn't say anything to me. Looking up Tim, Bat, and Gotham got me plenty of results online, though."

Tim tilted his head slightly and Superboy got the impression he was rolling his eyes. "Well if we're going to talk about what we found out online, how do you like your cage in the secret lab underneath L Tower?"

Superboy groaned and tilted his head up to stare at the smoggy night sky. "I have a room in Lex's penthouse apartment! People have pictures of me hanging out on the balcony!"

"Nah, I heard those were staged as a PR campaign and to distract people from the experiments Luthor runs on you when you're not saving people."

Tim sounded fond as he spoke, but Superboy barely noticed before the words registered. He looked down to glare at the other boy, ready to argue, only for Tim to smirk in a way that said he knew what he was saying wasn't true. "Is this your way of saying Batman didn't kidnap you and the others?"

Tim shrugged and turned to look out over the city. "Depends on your definition, I guess. Do you think it counts as kidnapping if a kid comes and asks you to protect them from their awful parents?"

"You've never said anything about your parents being bad before."

"Would anyone listen if I did?"

"And you - all of you - really asked for Batman to take you?"

"Oh yeah. Hood even snuck into B's car and I practically gave the family a resume when I asked for help."

"Why would you go to him? Like, I get Richard since Batman had a good reputation when he was taken, but why did you and Jason trust him?"

Tim chuckled. "Hood didn't trust him. Wing said Hood spent his whole recovery period after Ethiopia - and a good two months after - waiting for B to indoctrinate him. He just chose B because he thought getting brainwashed into being a sidekick would be better than what Willis had planned for him.

"And I had known the stories were wrong because my parents work for the same people as the Graysons. I figured them out while… Well, it doesn't matter. I knew he was helping Wing and Hood so I knew he'd help me too."

"But -"

"SB, if you're just here to argue about B, then you're wasting both our time. Time I could be spending tracking down Hatter." He met Superboy's eyes. "Wing saved me and the others gave me a home. They care about me as more than a tool to be set aside until it can be sold off to benefit the family. Nothing you or anyone else could say will change that or make me question my family."

Superboy held his gaze for a moment before looking down at his lap. He wasn't sure what to think. Tim sounded so genuine before, and he sounded genuine now. "I didn't come to argue. I just wanted to be sure B.B. was okay."

Tim looked over at Jason for a moment before pulling something out of his belt. "Do you have a phone?"

"Of course I do." Superboy snorted and pulled his phone out of the inner pocket of his jacket.

Before he could react, Tim swiped it and plugged something into it.

"Hey!"

"One second." He tapped at the screen for a moment before unplugging the device and tossing the phone back to Superboy.

There was a new app on his main screen. The icon was a sky blue box with a yellow dot with sound waves on either side. It was labeled Wave.

"It's Batwave," Tim explained as Superboy opened the app. The screen lit up blue with a black bat silhouette outlined in red across it. Yellow bars blinked across the bat, starting at the center and moving across the wings, like a loading animation. "It's the system all our gear works on. I gave you limited access."

The bars stopped blinking and FACIAL RECOGNITION COMPLETE quickly scrolled across. The screen went gray and two tabs appeared. The first had a lime green question mark and was labeled Information Request while the second was a pair of white quotation marks and was labeled Messenger.

A black 1 appeared over the messenger with a chirp and Superboy opened the tab to see Tim had sent him a photo.

Batman was cradling B.B. in one arm with the hand of the other cupping the baby's cheek. He had the smallest of smiles on his face as he watched the baby sleep. At his side was a woman in a sleek black suit with a whip at her hip and a cowl with cat ears at the top. Catwoman - he presumed - had pushed up her amber goggles, but the angle hid her eyes as she held out a small red blanket and a stuffed black cat. Given the rough stone walls behind them, the three appeared to be in some sort of cavern.

"You're the only one who can access Batwave through your phone and the facial rec will kick you off if someone else tries to look at the screen," Tim explained while Superboy was looking at the picture. "And if anyone - yourself included - tries to hack into Batwave through your phone, it will automatically delete itself from your phone."

Another photo was sent. This one showed Nightwing and B.B. hanging upside down from a thin bar in what appeared to be the same cavern. Nightwing had his legs hooked over the beam and was holding B.B. by the waist below him. They were caught mid-swing with Nightwing smirking down at the baby, whose face was scrunched up with laughter.

"So there's no point in trying to use it to find B and while I'd appreciate it if you didn't tell anyone you had it, it wouldn't -" Tim cut off with a hum just as Superboy received another photo.

He looked up to see the other boy dismissing his gauntlet's holoscreen and climbing to his feet. "Duty calls. You should get going before you're spotted. If you need anything, just let me know. The offer's still there as long as you don't involve your dad."

"Superman's not my dad," Superboy huffed.

"Obviously. He's not the one taking care of you."

His face grew warm. "Lex isn't my dad either!"

Tim smirked then backflipped off the roof.

Superboy leaned forward to see him grappling down to a waiting motorcycle then turned to see Jason had disappeared. He decided to take Tim's advice and started back towards Metropolis. As he flew, he looked at the last photo.

B.B. was sitting on someone's lap, though the picture cut off at the other person's shoulders to hide their identity. Likely because they were wearing sweatpants and a t-shirt instead of a suit. The fair skin on the hands supporting B.B. and holding up a book pointed towards either Jason or Batman, though. B.B. was staring up at whoever was reading to him with wide eyes, the tail of his stuffed cat in his mouth.

He was wondering how to reply - if he even should - when he received three messages at the same time.

They weren't from Tim, though.

Hoodlum: Hurt him and :Green Circle::Pistol::Skull:

All_Seeing:If you betray Ghost's confidence, I can't guarantee Hood won't try to kill you, but I can guarantee he'll get away with it if he does

Wing-a-ding: GB trusts you so we're trusting you. Don't make us regret it :Smiling Face:

"Why is the smile the most threatening part of that?" He muttered as he sent a Got it! to all three.

Superboy stared up at the ceiling, the phone in his hand buzzing as the sidekicks (mostly Impulse) texted the group chat in a near-continuous stream.

"Lena."

She hummed, not looking up from her paperwork.

"Do I have a name?"

"What do you mean?"

"Like, Superboy's not a name, right? Do I have a name? Did Lex just put Superboy on my birth certificate?"

"You don't have a birth certificate," she said and set her pen aside. She looked him over slowly. "Where's this coming from? Wait, let me guess…"

"Tim," he said and she nodded. "He mentioned it the first time we met. I shrugged it off at the time since I didn't care, but I don't know. Maybe I kind of want a name?"

"Well, what kind of name would you want?"

"I don't know."

"Well, would you prefer a human name or kryptonian one?"

He picked his head up to look at her better. "You know kryptonian names?"

"I know a little bit. Supergirl told me some names and explained how their naming conventions worked. Like how their names are only ever one or two syllables and that females have their most prominent parent's name pinned to theirs while males only have their family name. That's why we get Kará Zor-El instead of just Kará-El."

"You talk to Supergirl? And she tells you about kryptonian stuff?"

"Sometimes. We meet up while I'm in National. We don't have Superman and Lexy's confrontational relationship."

"Could you introduce me?" he asked, sitting up. It would be nice to talk to another kryptonian, and maybe Supergirl would give him a chance if she associated him with Lena instead.

Lena frowned and looked away. "We haven't been talking recently."

He slumped back, taking the hint. "Because of me."

"No, not because of you." When he looked unconvinced, she came to sit next to him and tucked him against her so she could run her fingers through his hair. "We're fighting because she's decided to blame a child for the sins of his father and I can't keep my mouth shut about it. You didn't ask for any of this. Lex shouldn't have stolen Superman's DNA to make you, but that doesn't mean you should be treated poorly for it. You're a good kid. I see that and so do Lex and your friends. If Supergirl and Superman can't see that through their - justified - anger with Lex, then that's on them."

He nodded, leaning into her.

"Come on, let's forget about them and think about your name. Were you thinking human, kryptonian, or a mix?"

"A mix?"

"Yeah, something like, hm… My grandfather's name was Conall. You could go by that, which would make you Kon-El."

"I don't think Superman will like me taking his family name," he scoffed.

"If Superman wants a say in your life, he can petition for custody," she tisked, making him laugh.

He looked up with a cautious smile. "You'd be okay with me using your grandfather's name?"

"Of course. That's why I suggested it."

"Thanks."

"Anytime." She ruffled his hair, then went back to her work.

He focused back on his phone, opening two different group chats to send the same message.

Sup:My name's Conall, or Kon

Der:Cool!

Imp: We're unlocking the secret backstory! :Star Eyes::Star Eyes::Star Eyes::Star Eyes::Star Eyes:

Wet: Nice :Red Heart:

TheTank: My name's Conall, or Kon

Wing-a-ding: Congrats :Party Face::Party Popper::Party Popper::Party Popper:

Poltergeist:Happy for you, Kon!

Hoodlum:Subtle middle finger to the big guy? I like it

All_Seeing:Congratulations!

"Sorry, that was Speedy," Arrowette said as she dropped onto the couch. "Guess Arrow's got some League mission so she wanted to know if I wanted to stay at Titans Tower this weekend with her so I can avoid my mom. I think she wants me to join the Titans."

"Are you going to?" Kon asked as he blasted Wonder Girl's character off the racetrack and took second place.

He promptly fell face first when she kicked him off the couch in retaliation, saying, "Joining the Titans would be kind of cool. Flash wanted you to join too, didn't he, Imp?"

"Mhm," The speedster hummed, glancing between the tv where he was maintaining first place and the phone he was scrolling through. "He hasn't asked me to join, but he did ask if I wanted to go on the next mission he's on to see if I'd like to work with the Titans. I think he wanted me to stay in Central longer, but the thing with Cadmus spooked him."

"If we all joined we could be on the same team and go on missions together all the time."

"Because that worked out so well with Cadmus," Kon chuckled, floating away from the demigoddess and dodging the bomb she threw his way in-game.

She stuck her tongue out at him. Or, more accurately, at the screen since she didn't look away from it. "It was going fine before you got involved, and you'd be on our side this time."

Kon frowned as he sped over the finish line. The excuse he'd given Tim about why he could keep sneaking into Gotham to hang out was that he wasn't a Titan so he technically wasn't banned. If he did join the Titans, would the Bats make him stop coming? Would the Titans be able to find out and make him stop coming? Or worse, would they try to use him against the Bats?

It had been a few months since his first visit to Gotham, but he still didn't know how to feel about Batman.

His record seemed spotless aside from the legality of being a vigilante and the three kidnappings (two, technically, since Nightwing took Tim, but everyone seemed to blame Batman for that anyways), but the three were adamant that they'd gone of their own free will and that they could leave whenever they wanted, which Oracle backed up. Lena, the only one he'd confided in, said to take everything they said with a grain of salt, but she wasn't entirely convinced either.

While she had nothing on Sheila Haywood or the mysterious Court of Owls Tim talked about, she had turned up enough through Lex's other dealings to know Willis Todd wasn't as clean as most thought. Then there was the freedom Batman seemed to give his captives. Nightwing had been allowed to travel across the country alone and stay there with an entire team of heroes while Tim had been allowed to make friends with someone who could spirit him away in a literal blink of an eye. Nightwing had worked almost exclusively out of Blüdhaven for years, only coming back for Arkham breakouts or similarly dangerous events. Red Hood had been setting himself up as the protector of the Narrows since shortly after Tim's introduction and mostly ran solo nowadays. Tim was also starting to set up a similar situation in Burnside for himself and had been getting more solo runs over the past year, though he still mostly worked at Batman's side.

There was also the vigilante Huntress. She'd started out in Gotham and still worked there from time to time, yet never clashed with the Bats. Arrowette said she'd overheard Black Canary (who worked with Huntress and a few other female heroes on their own team) telling Green Arrow that Huntress had brokered and accord with the Bats through Oracle to stay out of each other's way, but that didn't explain why she'd been spotted working individually with Tim, Nightwing, and Red Hood sans Batman.

According to Impulse, Martian Manhunter had also stood up for Batman when he and the League first clashed and he and Miss Martian had stayed out of any Bat discussions ever since Nightwing left the Titans, citing a conflict of interests. Lena thought it was likely the martians had already known Nightwing was Richard Grayson and had kept it from the League, which meant they might know more than they're letting on.

The whole thing was a confusing mess so he and Lena had decided the best thing to do would be to wait and see. He'd just keep an eye out for anything that didn't add up while trying to be an honest friend that the younger Bats could go to when/if they needed him.

Which wasn't hard.

Tim was probably his best friend. They texted all the time, played video games online when they were both free, and hung out whenever they got a chance. Red Hood was fun in the crass, show you how to shoot a gun and blow stuff up with you kind of way (if anyone asked, the guns never left their holsters and they'd been learning how to disarm a bomb when something went wrong). He hadn't met Nightwing in person, but they texted. Most of it was trading memes and funny videos, but Nightwing also liked to check in with Kon and see how he was doing. He got the impression the vigilante was keeping an eye on him in the same way he was looking out for them, but he wasn't going to be a hypocrite and say something. The Bats had thankfully kept any opinions they had on Lex to themselves (excluding Tim calling him Kon's dad), unlike Arrowette, Impulse, and Wonder Girl.

Since he couldn't bring up any of that, Kon offered another reason for him not being able to join the Titans. "You think Lex would allow that?"

"Who cares what he thinks?" Wonder Girl said, rolling her eyes and grabbing her drink off the table.

"I do."

Her face scrunched up, but his phone went off before she could say anything.

He pulled it out to see Tim had sent him a photo. He opened Batwave and smiled as he saw that the younger Bats had made good on their threats to drag Batman with the "teenage angst diaries" Tim had found the morning before during a bout of insomnia-fueled reorganization.

Red Hood was at the center of the shot and posed dramatically with one outstretched hand holding up a journal while the other rested against his chest. Batman was in the background in front of a large computer, arms crossed and staring at the ceiling with a dead expression. Tim was next to him in the computer chair, curled up from the force of his laughter. Nightwing was closer to the camera, but off to the side. He was sitting on a table next to his girlfriend (Kon didn't know her name, only that she was a civilian who happened to know who they were because of circumstances). He couldn't see either of their faces since hers was blurred out and Nightwing's was buried in her shoulder, but he assumed they were laughing as well.

Suddenly the screen went dark and he looked up to see Wonder Girl looking over his shoulder.

"Sorry," she said, pulling away. "Just curious what got you so distracted all of a sudden."

"I bet it's T," Arrowette said, winking at him.

T was Kon's way of explaining away anything that had to do with Tim. It had started when he'd said he'd had plans with "someone I met while on the job" so he couldn't meet up with them. Somehow the three had assumed that meant T was a girl. He'd gone along with it since he figured it'd make it even harder for them to guess he was talking about Tim. Unfortunately, they'd also come to the conclusion Kon and T were dating. He'd denied it, but Arrowette wasn't convinced.

"Stop it," he growled, shoving his phone back into his pocket.

She winked again.

"You know, even if we all did join the Titans and managed to get on the same team, that doesn't mean we'd all be on the same missions all the time. They assign mission groups on a case by case basis," Impulse said, tossing his phone and controller aside in favor of a bag of chips.

"That sucks," Wonder Girl groaned. "Why can't we just have our own team?"

Kon frowned and shrugged. "Can't we?"

The others shared a look.

Don't mind me, just adding an accent to Kara to create at least a vocal difference between her Kryptonian name and her secret identity. Especially since it just seems weird for her name to be a human name.

The Fear League, Fear League Day, and the Fear League incident are the names Gothamites gave to what happened when the minor Leaguers got gassed. Everyone outside Gotham hates the term since they feel like it places all the blame on the Leaguers when they were victims too and had only been there to help Gotham. From Gotham's perspective, though, the Leaguers had rushed into the city without notifying any authorities (who could have warned them about Scarecrow), without any protective gear (which was really just a gas mask, which most Gothamites carry at that point), and without doing any research on the city and it's villains (which, again, would have told them to be careful) so they feel the Leaguers do hold some responsibility for what happened.