Age of Heroes

Part eight of a fanfiction by Velkyn Karma

Disclaimer: I do not own, or pretend to own, Young Justice or any of its subsequent characters, plots or other ideas. That right belongs to DC, Warner Brothers, and associated parties.

"How much of me is inherited, and how much is my own creation? Questions that were once just idle musings have begun to feel strangely urgent. Am I firmly rooted to what came before? Or can I choose to deviate?"
~Warm Bodies, Issac Marion

Dick looked about to inquire further into their travels, but the door cracked open again, and Roy stepped back through. There was a basket in his hands that he dumped unceremoniously in Wally's lap, before striding back over to the wall closest to Dick, once again leaning back against it watchfully. "I picked up dinner rations," he explained flatly, as Wally, stunned, began pawing through the basket. "Most of it is for Dick," he added warningly.

"S'fine, I don't mind sharing," the youngest teen said brightly. "Not feeling all that hungry right now, anyway. Too much on my mind."

Roy did not look happy to hear that, but didn't comment on it for the moment. Instead, he said quietly, "I changed the guard shifts around tonight. I'm on duty here, in the complex itself. The closest guards are down by the gate. They are all trustworthy and are under orders to not approach unless there's an absolute emergency. We're secure."

"Great! Then we can get down to real bus—is this milk? I haven't had milk in ages," Wally interrupted himself, pulling the bottle free from the basket. Cows were hard to come by out in the wilderness after all. "And cheese? And fresh bread? Geez, Rob, you eat like a king!"

Dick's eyes widened in alarm and he glanced over at Superboy, who appeared confused at the sudden new nickname. Roy's scowl deepened and he hissed, "Wally!"

"No, it's okay guys, Supey's cool," Wally said, as he calmly tore off some of the bread for himself, and handed another big chunk to his still confused-looking traveling companion. "Part of the club."

Both Dick and Roy looked an interesting mix of skeptical and wary as they eyed Connor with new interest, and Dick mouthed slowly, Supey? Wally grinned at him, swallowed a bite of his bread, and then said, "Guess we should do some re-introductions...guys, allow me to introduce the one and only Superboy." And he gestured with a dramatic, over-the-top flourish at Connor, who gave Wally a part surprised, part exasperated look.

For a moment, neither Dick nor Roy said anything at all. They just stared at Connor, Roy with the same studying look as before, and Dick with his head cocked slightly to the side, as if trying to figure out a puzzle. Just as before, Superboy tensed under the scrutiny, although he seemed a little less uncomfortable than last time, probably because he was now familiar with the people observing him.

But after a minute Dick finally broke the silence. "I thought you looked a little familiar," he told Connor slowly, "but I get that feeling a lot these days, with all the traffic through here...I figured you just had one of those faces. But you're..."

"The details aren't right," Roy said flatly. "Similar, but not the same. You're not him."

Superboy ground his teeth so hard even Wally could hear it, and said slowly, "No, I'm not. I'm his clone." And a bit coldly, to Wally, "Why are we telling them this?"

Both Dick's and Roy's eyes widened in surprise for a moment. "That does explain a few things," Dick admitted after a moment, still studying Superboy curiously.

Roy did not appear appeased, however. "I'm still not buying it," he said bluntly. "Superman's clone? Maybe a few years ago I'd have accepted that story. Now?" He snorted, and then his eyes narrowed. "So what is it you're really here for?"

Superboy's eyes narrowed right back, and he looked ready to fight again. Wally reached over hastily and put a hand on his shoulder to keep him still, and grimaced slightly at how tense the clone's muscles felt under his hand. "Trust me on this, Roy," Wally said slowly, coming to his friend's defense. "I know it sounds really crazy post Z-day, but it's real. If you'd seen some of the things I've seen Supey here do, you'd believe me. Unless you can pick up entire cars and throw them at zeds?" Roy's look softened just a tad, eyes flickering with hesitation, and Wally pounced on it, voice serious. "He saved my life loads of times, man. Lots of times using his powers, too. You know I wouldn't lie about this. I meant what I said earlier, I trust him with my back. He's good."

Roy took a deep breath, and seemed to grimace a little. After a moment, though, he turned his head to the side and muttered, "Sorry, Con...Superboy. Just...can't be too careful, these days." He wasn't looking at the clone when he said it, and Wally barely kept from smirking; Roy was almost as bad as Connor was when it came to apologizing.

Superboy was glaring daggers at Roy's head, still—thank God for no heat vision, Wally thought to himself dryly—but after a moment sat back again in the couch and muttered, "It's fine. I get it."

"Well," Dick said, cutting through the tension with just a tad too much energy to be natural, "Now that that's out of the way..."

"Right," Wally said, catching the cue. "Supey, to answer your question from earlier, we're telling them this because we're all pretty much part of an exclusive club here."

Superboy still looked a little irritated at the lack of an actual answer in the answer, but after a moment his eyes widened, and Wally could tell he was putting the pieces together. "Gotham...Rob...exclusive club..." His eyes flicked to Dick, and he said flatly, "You're Robin. The Boy Wonder."

"The one and only," Dick drawled, but he was grinning at the same time.

"No wonder you're in charge here," Superboy said, dawning realization on his face. "You'd have had plenty of worst case scenario training, and all the skills to see things through."

"Sadly my training never included zombie apocalypses," Dick said, shrugging. "But hey, I was only Robin for a year before Z-day hit. Who knows, it might've been farther down the itinerary. It's been pretty useful for other stuff here, though."

Superboy smirked faintly, before his gaze swapped to Roy. "I don't have any knowledge of you," he said bluntly.

Wally winced, expecting it to start another tense argument, but Roy only shrugged. "I'm not surprised," he said. "I was only Green Arrow's partner for a couple months before Z-day hit. I used to run with him by the name Speedy. Then the age of heroes ended and it sort of became meaningless, so I gave up on the whole 'partner' thing."

"Green Arrow..." Wally could tell just by the way he said it that Superboy was scrolling through his mental databases again, but after a moment the clone nodded. "Another member of the Justice League. But Star City is on the West coast. How did you end up here?"

For a moment Roy looked pained, and his eyes had a very far-away expression, like he was looking into the past. When he spoke, though, his voice was flat and emotionless, as distant as he could possibly make it. "I was fifteen when Z-day hit. It got messy fast, and I was still new to crime fighting, so Ollie—Green Arrow—forbade me from getting too heavily involved. I tried to help anyway, but we ended up getting split up in all the mess. By the time I realized what was going on it was too late; Star City was already pretty much overrun, and the Justice League was down.

"I didn't want to give up though. I'd met Robin once, when our mentors worked together on a mission. Figured maybe since we both had some crime fighting experience and were pretty much the only ones left, we could do something before it was too late." He snorted. "Then I found him out here coming up with the craziest plan I'd ever heard...taking over Arkham and turning it into a human fortress. I figured, if this kid can pull off a miracle like that—"

"Hey!"

"—then I could at least lend him my strength to do it. So I stuck around. Been helping with security ever since...and keeping an eye on him, since he won't do it himself." Roy shot another dirty look at Dick.

"And...your mentor?" Superboy asked slowly.

"What about him?"

Superboy frowned. "Don't you want to know what happened to him? Try to keep in contact with him?"

"Ollie's smart, when he wants to be," Roy said. "He could've survived, maybe. But I'm a realist if nothing else. He's probably dead." He sounded dead too, when he said it.

Dick looked pained. "We don't know that, Roy," he said. His words were optimistic, but his voice sounded a bit strained. "He's not on my confirmed list either. And there are any number of reasons he might not have gotten in contact. There's no way for him to know you're over on the East coast. Even if he did know, if he's still on the West coast where you saw him last...that's all government and military occupied, and they weren't exactly on the League's good side when it all happened. He could just be laying low, which is why there haven't been any sightings."

"Maybe," Roy said. He still sounded empty, like he didn't really believe it.

Wally winced in sympathy, and Superboy looked sorry he'd asked, although Wally wasn't sure if it was because he felt bad for bringing up a sore topic, or if he disliked that Roy had written off his mentor so easily. Wally could relate, in a way. It was hard, most days, to try and believe Uncle Barry was still out there alive and kicking, but he still liked having that microscopic thread of hope, and he couldn't imagine willingly snapping it like Roy had.

But things were too tense now, too unhappy, and Wally didn't like that. So he endeavored to change it. "Anyway," he interrupted, "the point is, all four of us have a sort of connection to the old heroes, which means we're all team mates too in our own weird way, y'know? We gotta look out for each other."

Superboy raised an eyebrow at this, and said slowly, "Wally, I'm a clone and these guys have both done crime-fighting in the past, but...how exactly do you, uh..."

Dick laughed. "Don't count him out just because he's only related to a hero," he said, and he genuinely sounded amused. "He's definitely earned the right to be on this team. But I guess he couldn't really tell you how we met, without spilling the secret, after all."

Superboy blinked, and looked back and forth between the two. Wally looked sheepish. "Really, that was nothing—"

"Nothing? Walls, do I need to remind you that you took down six zombies when you were twelve, just to save my life? And let's not forget, I was Robin at the time, not Dick Grayson."

"You saved him when he was acting as a hero?" Superboy asked, incredulous. "Not that I should be surprised after what you did for me, but...I thought civilians were supposed to run away why the heroes confronted the danger?"

"Oh, come on! I wasn't gonna let a ten year old get eaten alive by dead heads, no matter what he was wearing at the time," Wally said defensively. "Besides, it was Robin. I mean, what kid didn't want to be Robin at the time. Every kid looked up to the Boy Wonder!"

"Stop it, Walls, you're making me blush," Dick said, but he was still smirking. "But yeah, there was a huge attack of zombies at one of the child safety camps, which I'd been sent to at the time as well...I was told it was to protect the kids, but I know it was also to try and keep me out of the danger zones." The smile fell off his face for a moment, and he went on more seriously. "I was trying to fight off some of the zeds to give a few kids a chance to run, but more came out of nowhere. They had me down and I was as good as dead, and then this kid just comes in and starts wailing on the things with a baseball bat so hard he dented it, screaming bloody murder at the dead heads the whole time."

"You called me crazy," Wally said with a pout.

"You were. Superboy's right, normal people run away from the hot zones when their local heroes are dealing with the carnage and corpses," Dick said dryly. Then he smirked. "Not that I'm complaining. If you hadn't I'd have a much paler complexion and be craving brains right about now."

"So you saved a hero," Superboy said.

"I guess. He saved me too, though. Got me out of the thick of it and helped me escape," Wally said with a shrug. "We've been friends ever since, and help each other out all the time. I give him reports, juicy bits of intel, and tech or supplies whenever I find it for the island, and sometimes I'll do short scouting missions for him. He keeps an eye out on things for my family, keeps me updated on stuff going around the country so I can plan my trips right, and makes sure I get everything I need when I stop in here."

"I also keep him from doing stupid things, but you already witnessed that," Dick added with surprising cheer.

"Yeah, yeah, stop rubbing it in, Boy Wonder..."

Dick laughed.

"Roy helps out too," Wally added, gesturing to the self-proclaimed bodyguard. "Like you heard, he mostly does stuff here, but he's saved my butt a few times, too. He's a dead shot with a bow, I've never seen him miss. If zeds could feel fear they'd run every time they caught sight of him." Roy gave a slight nod to acknowledge the compliment, and Wally grinned. "And now that you're part of the group, Supey, they'll help you, too."

"Which brings us full circle," Dick said seriously. "What did you need my help with?"

"I need answers," Superboy murmured softly. "Wally said you might be able to help me get them."

"I've got answers for a lot of things," Dick said. "You'll have to be more specific."

"We'll have to have story time first," Wally countered. "Need to explain a few things." And in between bites as he devoured the basket of rations with his friends, he told the New Batcave residents all about his exploration of Cadmus, culminating with his discovery of Superboy isolated on the very bottom floor with seemingly no explanation as to why he'd been abandoned there. Superboy occasionally pitched in with minor details that he remembered about the facility from his waking onward, but mostly he remained quiet. Roy and Dick were silent during the retelling, and the only interruption came when Wally paused in the middle of his own story to wheedle Dick into eating a little dinner himself. Dick seemed a bit reluctant to try, but Wally at least got him nibbling on a little bit of cheese and bread, and he was not in the least bit surprised by Roy's grateful look over the youngest teen's shoulder.

When Wally finally ground to a halt sometime later, both Dick and Roy looked pensive. He glanced over at Superboy next; the clone looked tense and a little anxious, hunched forward with his elbows on his knees, staring at the floor. Wally didn't blame him, now that they were so close to potentially getting answers. He'd be nervous too if their positions were switched.

After a moment Dick said, "Cadmus...I don't remember anything about a Cadmus from before Z-day. I don't even remember seeing it in Batman's files." Wally caught the faint break in his voice at Batman's name, but just barely. "You, Roy?"

The archer shook his head. "No. Nothing. But then, most of my crime-fighting experience is West Coast."

"Fair point." Dick frowned. "I wonder if they knew anything about this place, though. Cadmus was clearly up to no good, if all the stuff you reported seeing in their notes was correct."

"I thought the same thing," Wally admitted. "Uncle Barry never would have stood for any of this stuff going down if he'd known about it. Some of the things they were doing were really twisted. And I can only assume they made all the weird monsters I kept finding in there, because they were like nothing I'd ever seen before..."

"You can bet they didn't obtain Superman's DNA legally, either," Roy added. "I doubt he gave it to them willingly. I can't even imagine how they managed it; Kryptonian invulnerability should have made taking samples impossible."

Superboy frowned at that, eyes narrowed. "Are you saying he wouldn't have approved of me?" he asked angrily, but there was a faint tremor of apprehension in his voice that Wally was pretty sure only he caught.

Dick held up his hands placatingly. "Roy's not saying that at all," he soothed. "I'm sure he would have been happy to meet you if things turned out differently. He just...probably wouldn't have approved of the, uh, less than reputable way they went about it." Superboy seemed to relax just slightly—nice going, Dick, Wally thought approvingly—and Dick asked more seriously, "Look, SB, I notice you didn't have anything to add about Cadmus other than what you and Wally found when you left. Do you remember anything else about the place?"

"No."

"We can't help you if you hide things," Roy told him bluntly.

Superboy scowled. "I'm not," he snapped back. "I don't remember anything! Nothing useful, anyway. Bits and pieces. Color. Movement. Pictures in my head, like dreams but not. Information. Lots and lots of information all the time." He shook his head. "But nothing useful."

"Okay, okay, that's fine," Dick soothed again. "Just trying to figure out what's going on here. Any clues we can get will help."

"I'm pretty sure the information bit is stuff that was downloaded into his head in some way," Wally offered helpfully. "I couldn't tell you how, but he's got whole libraries of stuff in that brain of his. It goes up until close to Z-day, but then it just kind of cuts off. When I first found him he didn't know about the apocalypse at all, and none of the implanted images or memories in his head match the way the world is today."

"Something had to have happened," Roy said. "Too quickly and too suddenly for them to react. They wouldn't have left Superboy behind if they'd been given a choice. This...Project Kr was clearly very valuable to them, if they were willing to risk obtaining Superman's DNA unwillingly and set the project at the lowest, most defensible level. And you said these other...creatures, whatever they were...didn't look like they'd been in a fight. That all points to something internal, or some sort of panic."

"Agreed," Dick said with a nod, "Something happened in there, suddenly enough to halt all productions and projects. You didn't see any human corpses, so it sounds like the scientists probably ran for it, but they didn't have time to pack up the important stuff. Which leaves Superboy abandoned in a pod for four years." His eyes narrowed, and he sounded angry at the prospect, much like Wally had been when he'd first stumbled across the clone. "Honestly, you're lucky those...whatever they were, the electricity-generating creatures, were still producing even after death. Without the life support the emergency systems were providing..." He let it hang, but Wally swallowed suddenly; he hadn't even considered that possibility. The thought that Superboy might have died alone and unknown, spending his entire existence from birth to death in an induced sleep, was too horrible to dwell on.

Superboy looked frustrated. "That doesn't answer any questions for me, though," he said harshly, putting his head in his hands. "Why do I know all these things? Why did they want me to know these things? Why did they stop? Why can't I remember anything else? Why wasn't I activated when Z-day hit, if they really wanted me to replace Superman? Was that really the point of my creation at all? Why did they leave me down there to rot?" And softer, sounding just as broken as the day Superboy first realized he couldn't fly, "Why aren't I as strong as the real Superman? Why don't I have all his powers?"

Dick looked sympathetic. "I don't know," he said softly. "I'm sorry. I wish I could do more, but all I can give is speculations, without more evidence to work off of. If I was there, or had access to one of their computers—"

"Or one of their flash drives?" Wally interrupted with a grin. He drew from his pocket the little drive he'd stolen from the Cadmus computer bank in Project Kr's room, and waved it in front of Dick's nose.

The former Robin's eyes lit up with excitement at the sight of the technology. "Or one of those," he agreed. "Do you know if it's encrypted?"

"No idea," Wally admitted. "I just took it from the computer outside Supey's pod. None of the computers were working there, it was all emergency power only. I had to grab something and hope for the best. It's a long shot, but I figure if anybody can get anything out of it, it'd be you."

"You've got that right," Dick said. His eyes were sparkling now at the prospect of a challenge, and he snatched the flash drive from Wally's hand, jumping to his feet. "C'mon, let's go."

"Maybe you should rest for the night and try this in the morning," Roy said, through grit teeth.

"Are you kidding? I do all my best work at night. Always have." Dick was already bounding for the door in the back of his little cottage, drawing a key from a cord around his neck as he did so. He unlocked the door and held it open for the others, adding with a cackle, "Welcome to my lair."

Wally grinned as he stepped into the room, with a curious Connor and a muttering Roy hot on his heels. He'd only been back here once or twice, but it still never ceased to amaze him, and it definitely qualified as a 'lair.' It was dark, very dark, with only a single dimly lit shaded lamp hanging from the ceiling for light. It was nearly the size of the little studio-apartment room outside, and every inch of it was packed with flickering screens, blinking lights, cool metal and smooth plastic surfaces, and enough wires slithering between the machines to choke a dinosaur. A small corner was devoted to a pile of electronics currently not on or blinking, most of them waiting to be gutted for parts, and the room possessed only a single chair. Wally always figured it was like some crazy cross between mission control, a computer junkyard, and a gamer nerd's paradise, and it always astounded him to think that every single machine in here had basically been built from scratch from a variety of abandoned parts. Dick always came across as clever, but it was in this room, his real haven, that his genius truly showed.

"Watch your step," Dick said, for Superboy's benefit more than anything else, as he slid into the chair confidently. He tapped on the keys to the central machine as they gathered around him, adding, "No promises on what I'll be able to pull up, mind. Cadmus was clearly working with high-end technology even by pre-Z-day standards. If I was working with the real Batcave's system, I'd probably be able to crack it in seconds, but with this cobbled together system this could get really tricky. Maybe even impossible. But I'll see what I can do."

He looked positively excited by the challenge, genuinely happy, and Wally wasn't exactly sure if he should smile for his friend, or feel sorry for him. Dick got plenty of challenges these days, running one of the only human strongholds left in existence, but rarely did he get the intellectual challenges he probably should have had. This was a rare chance to exercise his brain, clearly something he hadn't had in a long, long time.

"If you can find anything..." Superboy murmured softly. "Anything at all. I'll be grateful."

"Just don't say you'll owe him, he'll never let you live that down," Wally warned his friend teasingly.

"Hey!" Dick smacked his friend over the chair arm, and then went back to work, inserting the flash drive and typing madly. All Wally could make out were very long and complex lines of numbers and symbols that flashed past so quickly he could barely keep up with them, and Dick's fingers were blurs over the keyboard. Then the machine beeped, and Dick fell still, studying the screen thoughtfully.

"Well?" Wally prompted.

"It's encrypted."

"Can you break it?"

"Of course I can break it," Dick said, smirking. "These Cadmus guys might've figured they were good but they were also lazy, 'least as far as their external storage was concerned. Or maybe somebody just didn't cover their tracks properly. I can crack it...but it's gonna take a while. Like, a long while, with this outdated system. We're talking hours." He cracked his neck and settled deeper into the seat, finishing with, "You guys might as well turn in for the night. You were traveling all day, you must be beat. I'll be through this by tomorrow and we'll have access to any answers that might be on here."

"Dick," Roy growled in exasperation.

"Dick's left the building, Roy," the youngest teen shot back glibly. "Robin's out of retirement for the night. No, don't give me that look, this is important and you know it." He cracked his fingers and set to work typing madly at the keyboard, almost instantly zoning into the work and ignoring the others around him.

Roy sighed, but clearly knew better; once Dick was fixated on something it was impossible to stop him until he'd seen himself through to his goal. "You may as well rest," he told the travelers. "Waiting around won't help any, and it's not all that exciting to watch him type strings of gibberish for hours at a time." He led them back out to the first room. Superboy looked reluctant to leave the computer stations, but followed after a moment once he realized that code was apparently the one language he wasn't gifted with.

"There's blankets in that chest over there," Roy told them, gesturing to the small box sitting underneath the work table, "if you want to lay any out for the floor, or on the couch. Latrine is out back if you need it. I'm on guard duty tonight, so if you need anything, feel free to ask—as long as it's not more food," he added, giving Wally an irritated look. Wally offered him a cheesy grin. Roy shook his head in exasperation, but added more softly, "Rest easy. Things are safe here, and I've got my eyes open, so there's no need to sleep light."

Wally smiled. Roy said essentially the same thing every time he visited the island. It was the archer's own rough-but-serious way of showing that he cared and understood, despite his bluntness and frequent mistrust; he always encouraged Wally to relax, and confidently offered protection. It felt good, and it felt...safe, to know somebody as competent as Roy was looking out for him. Even Superboy seemed to relax, slowly but visibly, with the promise.

"Dibs on the couch!" Wally called loudly. Superboy rolled his eyes as Wally tossed him a few blankets from the chest, but didn't argue, and after a moment started making a rough nest of blankets on the floor in one corner. "What," Wally asked teasingly, as he tossed a blanket over the couch for himself and kicked off his shoes, "no bookcase imitation tonight?" Actually Superboy hadn't tried the strange pod-stand-sleep since that one night at Cadmus, but Wally largely figured it was due to a lack of decent walls while traveling, and that he'd be right back to it for old time's sake.

But Superboy just shook his head and said dryly, "I've gotten used to sleeping on the ground like you normal people," and curled up on his blanket-nest, head pillowed on his arms.

Wally laughed, flopped down on the couch, and stretched out to make himself comfortable. He was asleep before Roy was even out the door to start his patrols, and never heard it close.