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Parents and Children, chapter 3

Robin and Oracle were trying to track down the origins of A-36's parts. Superman and the Martian Manhunter were scanning the abduction site for evidence. Superboy and Nightwing were looking at the photos of Match's capture.

"Are you sure that I'm not in the way?" Kon asked. "I feel like I'm here just because I'm his family. I'm not sure I'm contributing anything."

"You're here because you have a perfect memory," Nightwing said. "We'll be looking at all the evidence, but because you can recall things faster than I can, you may notice something before I do."

"You really think so?"

"Yeah, I do. I also know that there's no way to keep you away from this."

"I just want to find him and make sure he's okay."

"We'll find him. I promise."

Match was looking a little worse for the wear when Luthor came to see him on the second day of his captivity.

"I imagine that you're probably more receptive to the thought of working for me," Luthor said.

Match looked at him. "You'd imagine incorrectly."

"The alien hasn't shown you any loyalty, why should you show him any?"

"If you're going to lie to me, why don't you use a plausible one?"

"The adult clone made him distrust you. I kept track of his flight patterns; I know he deviated from his regular ones during that time. He was keeping an eye on you."

"Oh, that. Are you sure he wasn't rescuing kittens out of trees? That's the sort of thing he does."

Luthor laughed. "I didn't expect to see such cynicism in you. That's quite impressive."

"Do you mind if I ask you something?"

"Go ahead. I'm feeling generous."

"Have you really fallen so low that you can't even hire good torturers? Their techniques are sloppy and they use archaic equipment. I hope you got a good rate for them."

Luthor's face contorted with rage, and he slapped Match across the face. "We'll see if you find them as amusing after they're done today."

"What about this?" Kon asked, pointing at a paper.

Nightwing looked at it. It was a report of an abandoned vehicle that was the same make and model of the car used to kidnap Match.

"We don't have anything to link it to the one at the scene," he replied. "It might be the right one, but it might not be. Without any evidence, we can't follow every lead at this point."

Kon's shoulders slumped. "And there's no license plate on the report. You're right, there's nothing to link them."

"Unless...Oracle can you zoom in and clean up the image of one of those satellite photos?"

"You know I can," Oracle responded. "What part do you want to see?"

"The left dashboard. The VIN should be there."

"What's a VIN?" Superboy asked.

"It's the vehicle identification number. Each car has a unique one."

"I'm sending over the magnification now," Oracle said. "How does it compare to the one in the report?"

Kon looked at the photo and then at the report, before smiling. "They're the same."

Nightwing smiled as well. "Okay, we've got confirmation that it's connected. We can plot a path from the abduction site to the abandoned vehicle and see what's along the route."

"From that, we can see if there's any place that looks like they likely stopped, right?"

"Exactly. That will help us trace their route."

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Author's note: Kon-El is certainly not dumb, but he's also aware that he doesn't have the investigative background that the others have, hence his worry that he's in the way.

Any and all comments welcome!