Eleven o'clock.

Nighttime in Metropolis was always so peaceful, if villains had the decency to not attack when everyone was hitting the hay that was. The combination of the streetlights and moonlight seeped through the windows of Jon's room, hitting his empty bed and reaching as far as his feet across the floor — there he was standing as tall as he could in front of his mirror. Staring back was him in his new 'suit', the 'S' a little wonky when looked at closely but nonetheless firmly stitched.

He had on his scuffed red sneakers and the best part that he loved about the whole thing: the red cape. This was one of his dad's old capes that he had given him when he was a kid playing dress up, pretending to be his dad himself. Sure it was a little short but he couldn't even really fly anyway — and it still looked cool. At least to him.

"Okay… this is it Jon," he whispered to himself, shaky at every breath. "You either make it or break it here… no going back… this is nuts…"

After heaving in as many breaths as his lungs could take in, Jon removed his glasses and carefully laid them on the bedside table just before aiming to climb out the window through the fire escape—

Jon easily picked up footsteps coming from the room across the hall, his parents room. Diving under his bedsheets, he brought them up to his neck and firmly closed his eyes, feeling the lights flick on as he held himself completely still.

'Please don't check if I'm awake, please don't check if I'm awake…!'

Seconds felt like hours as he could feel his mother approaching him, like she knew he was going to do the one thing that she'd hate for him to do. A hand on his shoulder was almost all that it took for him to nearly squirm like a mad animal but what came next was the surprise to him. A small ruffle of his hair and a peck on cheek was all that occurred before it was just him alone in his room. For a second there, he thought it'd be all over. He didn't even get to feel the wind on his face outside.

Coast was clear. Mom in bed and from the sounds of it had already reached a deep slumber. Jon immediately threw the sheets away and jumped from his bed. He couldn't waste anymore time as Dick was probably waiting on him any minute now. Carefully lifting his window, Jon clambered onto the fire escape and made his way up to the roof, electricity pulsing through his veins. This is insane…

Jon finally reached the top of the building and just had to admire the view. It wasn't the highest of all buildings but seeing the sleeping city that was Metropolis in the moonlight was mesmerising. He couldn't believe he never did this before — it was amazing. But now he had to focus. The Daily Planet was his destination. He looked over at the edge of the roof to see how far up he was and felt dry in the throat. Using his powers in secret or on an isolated farm was alright but in the city? Now that was entirely different.

"No going back now," mumbled Jon, slowing making ground as he retreated from the edge of the building. Time to see if he could really make it to the team of protégées. Deep breath, deep deep breath. "Three, two, one…"

Jon instantly took into his stride as he burst into an instant sprint from his starting position, moving as fast as he could before just at the penultimate moment — he launched himself high, higher than he had ever attempted in his entire life. Wind rushing through his hair as he continued to soar above the buildings before plateauing in the air. Is this what it felt like to fly—?

Not really as Jon began to descend rather quickly. Flailing his arms out to gain balance, he did his best to land on that watch repair shop. Jon utterly mistimed his landing and crashed into a streetlight then rolling onto a train track. "Oww…" he groaned although it wasn't even that painful, just dizzying. He groaned even more upon seeing the completely bent streetlight hanging on as it flickered pathetically. Lucky that nobody was around otherwise this would be the longest night of his life.

Okay, he regained his balance and quickly shot up in the air again after hearing the rumbling of train incoming from afar. Clumsy, awkward and uncoordinated was pretty how you would describe Jon's traversing from building to building but… slowly was he getting the hang of it. 'Just don't overshoot the jump, Jon,' he thought to himself as he stuck a perfect landing before instantly sprinting again. He loved going super fast and just being himself. He really needed this, even if he wasn't going to fight crime.

Soon did Jon come close to the Daily Planet, halting on top of the tallest nearby it. Not even breaking a sweat, the young half Kryptonian gazed upon the giant golden globe that was further illuminated by the moon, catching its light. It almost felt like a beacon for the entire city. He remembered when he was a little kid his dad used to bring him here sometimes to surprise his mom, who always seemed like she ran the place. Jon knew almost everybody at the Planet and they knew him — he even freelanced for them for a half a day before it went under attack. Good times.

Jon shook his head and focused on getting to the roof. Man he really wished he could actually fly. Crouching down and tensing his legs, Jon burst from ground below as hard as he could, possibly even cracking the ground before taking off. There he began to ascend higher and higher, closer to the roof…

But he was starting to slow down and he didn't think — he knew he couldn't reach the roof now. Jon frantically tried to grab onto the air, hoping that his flight would just kick in but to no avail. "Oh crap, oh shit, oh—" he hollered, falling but then… he wasn't. Something was holding him as he looked down to see him stationary in the air. This wasn't what flying felt like, right?

Suddenly, Jon was yanked up as he had to see why he wasn't headfirst into the sidewalk — a figure in red and black had a firm gloved grip on his arm with the other holding a grapple gun that hauled the both of them onto the roof. The other person stuck their landing nonchalantly — Jon did not — and chortled. Jon knew that chortle anywhere.

"Huh, didn't think you could jump that high — or even jump at all. Can't you fly?"

Jon picked himself up and brushed his cape, also checking that nothing tore on his suit as he retorted, "You know I can't fly, Dick — I mean, Robin. Ah man, the knee part ripped…"

Jon looked up to see his friend Dick Grayson, no longer clad in a school uniform but a suit of some sorts, red vest that had the iconic 'R', a black cape with black everywhere else including black gloves, a domino mask and his trusty utility belt that Jon had seen in action plenty of times (well Dick wasn't allowed to let him use it at all). Dick — or now he should call him Robin — simply shrugged and patted Jon on the back.

"I respect the balls on you, kid. You took the hit and now you'll reap the rewards — hopefully anyway." Robin ignored Jon's frown and brought up a hologram that appeared from his glove. He indicated Jon to come over as he began to explain, "Since you've never been on a mission of any kind before, I'll cut you some slack if you don't get it the first time. But you need to get it, got it?"

Jon nodded. Calm face, extremely nervous heart.

Robin typed on what was a holographic keyboard and said, "You know who the Riddler is, right? He's been on the down-low for almost a year now but has been trying to make a resurgence here in Metropolis. Now I don't know exactly why but it's possible that he's trying to rebuild some sort of weapon from a site called Cadmus."

"That's Lex Luthor's lab branch or something in D.C. right? Barbara and I passed it by when we went on Independence Day."

"That's the one — see, you're getting up to speed. We, being the other young 'sidekicks' had a little mission of our own which saw it mostly destroyed but —" Robin swiped left and displayed a slight hazy image of what looked to be a hooded man leading several masked individuals that were armed surrounding a large contraption.

Jon looked at it confusingly and asked what that thing was to which Robin replied with, "I'm not too sure but my hunch is telling me that it probably got something to do with the clones that Cadmus developed."

"Cadmus makes clones… hmm…" Jon hummed to himself, holding his chin. Curiosity was very much peaked. "Have you actually seen any clones?"

Robin scratched his head with a wry smile, replying a little meekly, "Uhh, yeah — you didn't know? Cadmus were trying to make Superman clones. We even got one of them on the team."

"What?! No way! I-I — this is so crazy, I can't even —" but Jon couldn't finish his reaction to such a baffling revelation as Robin put his finger up and continued with his briefing. "This machine might could be one of the source of the clones but it's in the hands of the Riddler. I mean, don't get me wrong, Riddler is dangerously smart but not Lex Luthor smart. We could be looking at an invasion of demented clones that weren't made properly on god knows what scale. Uh, you okay?"

Jon was taken aback and still. This was big, like really big. Here he thought that they were gonna go around and stop a mugging here and there, maybe even chase a runaway car but stopping an invasion of — from what he took — Riddler zombie clones from possibly taking over the city and maybe more? Maybe he should've listened to his second thoughts.

"Uh, Dick? Are you sure that I can d-do this," stammered Jon, locking his fingers together behind his back. "This seems a bit too far out there for a noob like me. If we mess up — if I mess up then couldn't a lot of people like… die?"

Robin shook his head and looked over the edge of the building — the view here was even better than the one back home. "Look, I didn't and don't think you deserved to come with us on Independence Day, Jon. You didn't do anything to earn coming in the team at all."

"What are you saying—" Jon began angrily.

"But you can earn it, right here," Robin continued without a care. "This is your chance, dude. I know that you can do this otherwise I would've said no and been done with it. You've gotten this far so why back out now?"

Jon was silent and dropped his head a little but brought it up when he felt Robin place his hand on his shoulder. A smile of confidence that Jon wished he could produce was so infectious to the point where he couldn't resist the smile on his own face. Yeah, he did get this far and there was never going to be a better chance than this. If he wanted this more than ever, then he had to. It was amazing what Robin was capable of: he could probably convince Mr Lombard to be extra less flirty with his mom whenever they saw each other at the store (eww).

Brimming with confidence (that he hoped he could hang onto all night), Jon lifted his fist out for Robin as he declared, "Alright, let's go stop this Riddler clone army!"

Robin fist bumped him back, also grinning cheekily. "Okay, Jonny! We're gonna make you the new kid on the block — just follow my lead and everything will be fine. Ready?"

"Always."

"Cool," said Robin calmly before hoping onto the edge of the building rail and jumping off into the Metropolis night sky, gliding off into the distance. All that Jon could do was blink profusely before getting his head back in the game. He could do this — he will do this, he had to. No going back now… Taking one more leap did Jon launch himself following Robin's trail, the two sons of great heroes finally teaming up for the first time suited up.

'No going back now…'