Chapter 4: Understanding

Shayera wasn't married.

Superboy hadn't even thought it was a possibility when the thanagarian had told him otherwise, her face a violent red. In his world, her existence and her husband's had been utterly wrapped in each other. That the sight of one but not the other was just bizarre.

Superboy's knowledge of the world had been mostly downloaded by his brothers. He knew the square kilometers of Milan, who the father of romanticism was, and every detail about every war in human history. He knew every earthly language, living, dead and extinct along side many more extraterrestrial. He knew every bit of public information id the superhero community available. It had been his crutch outside the pod.

Even if he didn't see the sun or moon before. He knew them. He knew the names of things. He knew the world.

But here Superboy felt like he was standing on quicksand. This world was familiar and unfamiliar and it kept him perpetually unsteady. His knowledge useless in the face of divergences at every corner.

After a stressful night staring at a unfamiliar ceiling, Superboy lacking a laptop and his cellphone rendered useless headed down to the Hall of Justice—Metro Tower's library on the ground floor where several desktops tucked into a corner.

After starting one up, Superboy started to read.

It was barely dawn when Wally arrived at the hall for his shift. After heading straight to cafeteria for a mountain of breakfast burritos, he made his way to the monitor room, where Obsidian, Fire and Atom Smasher were already waiting. Obsidian helming the main computer with the other two surrounding him.

"Hey," he greeted, getting their attention.

They greeted him listlessly, their discomfort palpable and Wally looked behind them to see one of the screens taken up of Metro Tower's library where Superboy was currently huddled over a computer making notes. From his angle, Wally couldn't see what he was writing but the boy seemed zealous in whatever he was writing.

"We noticed he was not in his room," Fire explained, hugging herself awkwardly as she noticed. "We thought it was best we keep an eye on him."

Wally couldn't blame their paranoia; he had been down on the ground when the army of Cadmus clones had stormed the watchtower. But he had seen the army of bodies left after their battle. Hundreds of mindless copies of the Ultimen littered every room of their base. The extended league pushed to their brink to fight them off.

Leaving another Cadmus clone to his own devices obviously wouldn't put any of them at ease, child or not. Even if J'onn said he was safe. J'onn, had also given a pass to the Justice Lords and they all knew how that turned out,

Two evil multiversal travelers was a very real possibility.

Wally had for the most part been doing his best to ignore the wayward teenager after their encounter outside the daily reports the other members had written up about him. Having already had to reveal his identity to the kid, he thought it'd be better to leave Superboy to the more mature members to handle.

But none of them were here and the kid was acting weird. Taking a bite of his burrito, he said, "I'll see what going on."

Wally sped down to the library and tapped the boy on the shoulder, startling him. To his credit, he didn't jump. He just instinctively buried the papers under his arms, away from Wally's line of sight. He had changed out of the burnt remains of that black shirt Wally had seen him in on the first night in the lab. Replaced by a familiar, oversized T-shirt that Wally knew belonged to Clark. Someone must have given him Clark's spare clothing in lieu of buying him a new wardrobe for the time being. The boy practically swimming in it looked significantly younger than he didn't before.

"Hey," He greeted.

The boy mumbled a greeting back, shoving the papers in a corner.

Not a good sign.

Wally was taken aback by how much the boy looked didn't look like Clark. Wally knows as a clone, physically they were identical—age not withstanding. But all Wally could see were the differences. But Wally could never imagine Clark looking quite so awkward. The kryptonian was a people person through and through while the kid in front of him looked like he'd rather eat glass than continue speaking to speedster.

"What are you doing?" he asked, taking a seat beside him, offering a burrito as a peace offering.

Superboy took the foodstuff from him with the same amount of caution one would a bomb. His suspicion of Wally far more blatant than Wally's own. "Nothing,"

Wally pointed to the papers behind him. "That doesn't look like nothing."

Superboy stayed silent for several minutes to the point Wally started to grow concerned before he said. "Shayera said she isn't married."

Wally wasn't quite sure what she had to do with anything but humored the kid. "Nope, though I think you're a bit too young for her."

Superboy didn't smile at his joke. Wally wondered if he ever did. "She is on my world," Superboy said sullen. "Everything is weird here."

"Myself included right?"

Superboy stayed silent, offering a tacit agreement.

"So what is this?" Gesturing to the paperwork again.

"I was looking at this world's history. I'm not used to—I'm not used to not knowing things."

Wally had traveled to other worlds multiple times in his career but he had been fortunate to have his teammates at his side as they unraveled it's mysteries. Superboy, a teenage boy only a month old had been ripped away from what little familiarity he had to deal with a bunch of strangers with his friend's faces. Of course he would have to do it alone.

God, Wally felt like a tool.

Taking a seat beside the kryptonian clone, and being rewarded with Superboy scooting away slightly, Wally pushed on. "I'll have you know I was a bit of a history buff in college," he bragged. "Ask me anything and I'll give you the answer."

Superboy gave him a look of disbelief.

"Hey! I double majored I'll have you know. Go on try to stump me. I dare you."

Superboy should have known there'd be more differences than Flash's age and the league roster, but the changes still bewildered him as Flash regaled him of Justice League's adventures. Thanagar invading Earth, Cadmus was government sponsored instead of privately owned, a despot named Darkseid repeatedly trying to invade earth.

The largest change of this universe was the complete lack of the Justice Society. Wildcat being on the league should have given him a heads up but the first age of heroes had simply not happened. When he had asked who had fought the Axis in World War Two alongside the Blackhawks without Wonder Woman, Jay Garrick, Alan Scott and the rest of the society, Wally rewarded him with a strange tale of the justice league time traveling to fight the immortal Vandal Savage.

"Time travel doesn't exist," Superboy said automatically.

"Multiversal travel supposedly doesn't exist and yet here you are," Flash retorted with no bite. "I'm guessing they don't have Booster Gold on your world."

Superboy shook his head.

"I'll introduce you later."

He still wasn't sure if he was teasing him or not.

The second and far more painful change, was the status of Mars. Earth and the red planet had been in intermittent content since Martian Manhunter was stranded on earth in the sixties. But in this universe there was no Mars, no Martian, red, white or green all exterminated ages ago by a invading race known as the Imperium. Leaving all but J'onn J'onzz as their sole survivor.

With M'gann, long dead or never born in the first place. Superboy wasn't sure which was worse.

He wanted to get home as soon as possible.

"Does Green Arrow have a niece?"

Flash shrugged and Superboy's face fell. The speedster noticing his disappointment quickly added, "Well, we'll just ask him when he gets here, okay?"

Superboy nodded slightly, hoping that at least she existed in this world. Though would she be old like this Wally? There seemed to be no rhyme or reason to how old people were in this world.

Flash pushed on.

"Now that you got your questions out of the way. I have a question for you."

"What?" Superboy asked instantly suspicious.

"Well, you know my name," Wally said gesturing towards Superboy, smiling a familiar smile that hurt him. "What's yours?"

Superboy was going to tell the speedster he didn't have a name when they were interrupted by a woman's voice that Superboy didn't recognize.

"Flash, get up here. Now!"

Superboy had gone viral..

Clark rubbed his temple as every channel showed the clip of himself talking to Superboy on loop on the watchtower monitor. It had been on loop all morning as reporters speculated on his relationship with the boy. Another cousin, a brother, a son. Between his resemblance and the shredded house of el shirt, his relationship to Clark was undeniable.

But it had left the league with their pants down. Leaving the league no choice but to shut their doors and relegate Superman to base duty in a effort to do a desperate media blackout. All in a effort to not answer the troubling existence of Superboy.

The scars fo Justice Lords had barely started to heal after Luthor and Brainiac picked at it. If they announced he was another visitor from a parallel universe it would have the government suspicious for sure with a probable declaration to lock him up. If they announced he was a clone, he didn't doubt Waller's gall to claim him as Cadmus' own. Now that Galatea was out of the picture.

And the league had hurt Superboy enough so far, they could handle the black eye in a effort to keep him safe.

Lex hadn't joined the fray. The pardon in his hands too hot to meddle openly. But Clark had a sneaking suspicion that a few more passionate pundits demanding Superboy's identity has been bought by him in another effort to embarrass the league.

Lois had sent several anxious texts but even with the sudden reveal of his identity bringing them together. The oddity of a alternate universe clone seemed too much to bare on their new relationship to vocalize at this time.

Speaking of Superboy, it had been close to three days since Clark had seen him last. Hoping to give him space from his last traumatic encounter with the boy to recover before he tried to talk to him again. The other leaguers such as Canary and Shayera giving him updates when they could, leaving Clark to piece the boy together through assorted reports.

The boy was only a month old. Objectively, Clark knew that as a clone, Superboy would be young. But it was a very different experience knowing he was only alive a matter of weeks and already experienced in battle when he didn't even know what a waffle tasted like. Clark had waited until Kara was a adult before he let her fight beside him regularly for her on safety and others. And she had all of his abilities compared to the younger boy still going through growing pains.

Was the other Superman and that world in such dire straights he needed a half powered newborn to fight beside him? Clark doubted it from what little they gleamed from Superboy. Their worlds seemed close enough for Superboy to confuse it as his own. So Either this other Superman was irresponsible or naive. Either of which didn't make the other Superman look particularly good.

Clark was distracted from his reverie as the doors behind him slid open. Clark looked to see Batman glowering at him, folder in hand.

"Bad day?" He asked lightly.

"I took a sample from Superboy when I was patching him up." Batman said grimly, slapping the folder onto Clark's chest for him to take. "I analyzed it. There were problems."

"Problems?" Clark repeated, as he thought of all the terrible scenarios those words could mean. Memories of the fate of Longshadow who wasted away quietly in a hospital bed over a matter of days fresh in his mind alongside Bizarro's instability. Both nightmarish scenarios to happen to a young child. So despite his super speed, he read each word on the screens slowly and patiently in order to not miss anything before stumbling onto the problem. "He can't age?"

Batman nodded. "He's more stable than the rest of the clones by leaps and bounds. As far as I can tell he doesn't need to fear clone degradation like Bizarro and the Ultimen. But whatever method they used to forcibly grew him had a catch. Sixteen seemed to the furthest they could do. As he is currently, he'll look that way forever."

"Is there anything we can do?" The league had wronged Superboy. Fixing this would be a great olive branch as a apology.

Batman spoke his next words very carefully. "Well, last I remember there's exactly one person who managed to have a stable clone age into adulthood."

"Hamilton." Clark said, frowning widely. His last encounter with the man was in the basement levels of Cadmus, trying to interrogate the Question. The traitor who violated his cousin and cloned her had disappeared into the aether after Cadmus' relocation. STAR Labs finding a new director in Ted Kord.

"We'll need his notes on how he made Galatea to even have any chance of curing Superboy's problem. I've already put Question on the case whose more than eager to find Cadmus' new home base."

"Is there anything I can do?"

Bruce shook his head.

"I said there were problems," Bruce said in that voice he used when he felt Clark was being particularly slow. "While I was analyzing him. I did a DNA test."

"And he's my clone. What did you expect?"

"He's not exactly." Batman corrected. "Only fifty percent of your DNA was used to create him."

"So he's my—the other Superman's son," Clark had already accepted the future that he was the last son of krypton. So the possibility of human-kryptonian hybrids was earth shattering.

"And the other?" He doubted anyone who would clone him would choose a ordinary human. So Lois was out of the picture. Was it Diana? Dinah? It'd explain his closeness to her.

"It's Lex."

This chapter has been very awkward. Rewrote it a dozen times and while I'm not quite happy with it. I'm pushing on.

Next time Clark and Conner reunite.