He couldn't remember the last time he had so much fun. He hadn't laughed so much in a long time. Hell, he even danced without having someone to drag him to do it. Just thinking of Kara's face when she saw him recreate some of the same moves he had seen Clark do a few weeks ago was priceless. Even as they flew back home at that moment, he was having a hard time not bursting into laughter. Not much from the day before was good; from the interview talk to the conversation with the governor, their team meeting, and training exercise. Still, it was one of the best days of his almost eight year old life.
"Are you okay?" Kara asked him flying side by side.
"Never been better, why?" he asked her as she kept staring at him as if he had lost his mind.
"I am starting to think you have a brain parasite," she said trying not to laugh.
"You can't tell me you didn't have fun. I saw you laughing," though she kept rejecting every guy that approached her. Kara had perfected the art of rejecting men without hurting their ego too much though he didn't think she needed to be so careful. Some of those guys were just happy to have her acknowledge their existence.
"I did have fun," she said with a smile before it turned upside down. "I sort of forgot all that happened when I was with them, but if they knew what I almost did…" she left the rest unsaid.
"Enough already," he said stopping and turning to look at her with a frown. "You messed up; we all do at some point so get over yourself. Besides, the world is in danger like every other month. H'Ell was nothing special," okay, maybe that was a lie but it would do her no good thinking about it.
"You are an idiot," she said flying ahead of him.
At least she didn't say a clone related insult. That had to count for something. He flew after her but soon realized she didn't want to fly with him so he let her get ahead. He sighed, his good mood almost gone. Well, he had the remaining of that Sunday morning to put some things into order. He and Superman had continued their search for whoever was giving the drugs that gave humans psychic abilities before it turned their brains to mush, check on his leads regarding N.O.W.H.E.R.E. courtesy of Red Robin. Then he got to work on the interview.
When he finally got to the apartment Kara was opening an envelope. He saw it included a ticket.
"I am late!" Kara said reading the note included before rushing into her room.
"Late for what?" he asked taking a cup from the counter to get some coffee.
"A friend of hers is going on tour, they open tonight in Gotham," Clark said from the kitchen as he drank his usual morning coffee.
"Kara has friends?" he asked for this was news to him. He knew she used to share an apartment with a musician, but she didn't think they were that close.
"Shut up Kon!" she shouted from her room before picking out of the room to glare at them, "at least unlike you two, she can speak perfect Kryptonian."
"How is that possible?" he asked when Kara disappeared back into her room.
"Magic," that one little word explained everything.
"Okay, how do I look? Actually, never mind," she said not giving them a chance before going into her room to get changed again.
"What is the name of the band?" he asked curiously as Gotham was a scene usually for darker types of music.
"Punching Fellowship," Clark said with an amused smile. "Did you have fun?"
"Sort of," he said sitting next to him and with a shrug.
"Did you meet someone?" Clark asked trying to be casual but failing miserably.
"I met a lot of people," he said before taking a sip from his coffee.
"What about… girls?" Clark asked stressing on the word.
"Oh, they were there too," he said trying not to laugh. Still, he was curious why Clark would ask him something like that. The most he got involved in that part of his life was when he used to ask him how things were going with Miss Martian in the past, but that was usually it.
"You are not going to make this easy, are you?" Clark said with a sigh before getting up to get another cup of coffee.
"Actually, I am waiting for Kara to leave," he said knowing she was listening to every word they said.
"Yes! Please spare me of your male bonding ritual!" she shouted from her room though he could hear she was also trying not to laugh.
"It's not a ritual," Clark muttered clearly out of his comfort zone.
"Okay, don't say anything or I am going to have to change again," Kara said coming out dressing in jeans, blouse and jacket for a rock concert.
"Have fun," Clark said.
"Will do," she said giving Kon one short glare before leaving.
"So?" Clark asked after he was sure Kara was no longer in hearing range.
"It was fun, but no, I didn't meet anyone I liked," besides, he could tell Kiran/Solstice was only interested on Bart and Celine/Skitter was forming a close bond to Leonid/Red Star. "Why the sudden interest?" that was the real question in the whole matter.
"I was talking to Barry about Bart; remember the incident with the puppets?" Clark said.
"How could I not? Those things were- wait, he didn't lend them to you, did he?" he said using his x-ray vision to check the apartment.
"No, he is saving them for when his kids grow up," Clark said giving him a curious look.
"I have to tell Bart so he can destroy them," he said with determination before sending his friend a quick message.
"Are they really that bad?" Clark asked baffled.
"Yes, but why were you talking about the puppets?" he asked getting a message from Bart thanking him and sure Dan and Dawn would thank him in the future.
"Well, Barry seemed unsure on how to talk to Bart about… well, you know… and he asked me how we talked about that?" Clark emphasized on the 'that.'
"Oh, you mean the chamber you locked me in to listen to Jor El's voice tell me to do all those exercises," he remembered how he had tricked him to go to the Fortress for a special training and then locked him in to listen for three days the instructions of the most factual man to have ever lived in Krypton.
"I went through it too," Clark said with a short laugh as he pushed his hair back. He bet he also didn't have good memories of those exercises.
"I begged you to let me out," he sneered as he hadn't forgiven him for that. He had literally tried to kick the door down and begged him to let him out.
"Fine, I am a monster, but the point is that we never talk about that," Clark said in a rush to get words out and looking up at the sky for help.
"Am I not mentally scarred enough?" he asked hoping he would give up.
"Not according to Bruce," Clark said with a slight roll of his eyes. Of course, Batman who had trained three Robins and was now working on the fourth would be declared the expert on kids in the League. It didn't matter that Dick could not keep a steady relationship for more than a few weeks (to start). Or that Jason seemed to share more than just friendship with Starfire… at the same time as Arsenal. Or that Tim seemed to think relationships were a waste of time unless the date entitled fighting crime together. He wondered what would become of Damian but then remembered what a pain in the ass the kid was and thought it could not be any worse.
"Great!" he said sarcastically, "so let me guess. He told you we should talk about that," he remembered how pale Nightwing used to look after Bruce talked to him about that a few years back. Tim told him Bart's reaction was much the same when he crashed at the mansion.
"Pretty much," Clark said with a shrug trying to pass it as unimportant but it was clear he saw this as important.
"That's what that training was for. I won't hurt anyone," not that he had tried with a human, and it had been some years since he took that training. He felt a shiver up his spine just thinking of retaking the training.
"It is not so much about you hurting them physically, but about forming a healthy relationship with them. You haven't seen anyone in almost two years," that actually hurt, he thought glaring at Clark.
"I just haven't met someone that interests me and I have been busy. Besides, you have been chasing the same woman for who knows how long. You are not any better," he said knowing it was a cheap shot, but he had to make him see how pointless it was for them to have that conversation.
"Rao, we are terrible at this, aren't we?" Clark said rubbing the bridge of his nose.
"I blame your genes," he said crossing his arms.
"Jor El's?" Clark asked with a half-smile.
"Definitely," he said with a short laugh as he stood up and placed his cup in the sink. "You know you don't have to do this, right?"
"I don't want you to make the same mistake I did," Clark told him and watched him as Conner picked into his jacket hanging by the door.
"I might be your clone, but I am not you. Besides, you still have time to meet the right one. Just stop chasing the same skirt. You know there are other women out there too who would be more than happy to meet you as either Clark Kent or Superman," he said before showing him the paper a woman had given Clark the night before with a name and a phone number. "Women are even willing to go old fashion with you," he said placing the little piece of paper on the table.
"I am starting to think the Titans are actually a bad influence on you," Clark said picking the piece of paper and looking at it carefully as if it had a new meaning.
"Or maybe is the other way around," he said thinking back on his years with the Team with a smug smile. The things he had learned, heard and seen even when he hadn't meant to.
Clark stared at him as if he had grown another head. Slowly, understanding started to show on his face. Even though he had a genius level intellect it took him quite a while to understand that Conner had much more life experience than he had anticipated, especially after living in a mostly teen/young adult environment for quite a few years.
"So Cat was right when she said you could probably teach her a thing or two," he said with raised eyebrows. Maybe he didn't need to protect the kid that much.
"I wouldn't go that far, and especially with her," just like Clark, he wouldn't get near that even with a ten-foot pole. Cat Grant was just the kind of woman you didn't mess with without expecting to get messed with back.
"Still, you won't go out," Clark concluded.
"Is this your way to tell me to get a life? Because two play the same game," he said with a glare.
"Not a bad idea," Clark said thinking aloud.
"Huh? Do you really want to tell you to get a life?" he asked wondering if there was another way to phrase it.
"Not that, but let's make a bet," Clark said with a smile that at first looked friendly, but Conner could see the sharp edges.
"Alright, I am intrigued, what do you have in mind?" he asked leaning forwards.
"We both most get a date by next Friday, the one that doesn't get a date has to do something the other orders them," Clark said crossing his arms smiling smugly.
"Pfff, you are kidding, right?" he said leaning back on his chair, it had to be a joke.
"Not at all," Clark said picking the phone number from the table.
"That would be cheating," he said with a slight glare.
"So, you are in?" Clark had asked before he realized it had been a trap.
"I can ask for anything?" he asked after a moment of thought.
"Is that what you are really after?" Clark asked him disappointment written on his face.
"Of course," he said with his own confident smile.
"Fine, anything but keep in mind that you could lose," Clark said before they agreed to the little game.
8888
If he wasn't half Kryptonian he was sure he would have already gained ten pounds from visiting the Bagel Palace alone, then another ten from all the takeout food he and Clark ate. They were both good cooks, but nothing bet like just ordering. He was on his fourth bagel as he wrote down some of the questions he would address on his independent project, assisted by Lois. She was on her fifth cup of coffee watching him before she pointed out to something else he could improve. She allowed him to do almost everything on his own but steered him slightly when she saw him hesitate.
"You have to ask the hard questions, not in the way that it centers on the gruesome but the real story," she told him for the tenth time when he tried to soften the wording.
"Maybe I should write about something else," the story he decided to follow was not for the weak of heart to start with.
"You are not doing that again young Kent," she told him with a glare, "you did that back with the article you were working on in Thanksgiving and tell me how long it took you to get it to me. You think the news are going to wait while you make up your mind?"
He didn't answer; instead he looked at what he had written. He knew it was a good story, but it would lead him to places he really didn't want to see. It was easy to go as Superboy, beat the bad guys and then fly away, but to look at the underbelly of things was something else. What had happened with Clark and the disappeared women was a clear sign that he would see things that would haunt his dreams for a long time.
"You okay kid?" he looked up at Lois who looked authentically concerned; she thought she had gone too far. Talk about paradoxes.
"Yeah," he said offering a stringy smile before he kept writing. He heard her sigh in relief as she kept looking over what he wrote.
"So, how is old Kent doing?" she asked failing to mask her curiosity.
"Fine," he said wondering if she had some remains from the memories that were changed, "and he is not old, actually I believe he is the same age as you."
"Men age faster, everyone knows that," she said before taking another sip of her coffee, but watching him the whole time.
"Right," he said with a smirk. He kept on working for a few more moments before adding "he told me to get a life in the morning, I told him to do the same. He really needs to get out more and I don't mean to get more food from the diner around the corner."
"Good luck with that, I believed he was a monk the first year I knew him. Never batted an eyelash at the horde of women after him," of course, that was because Clark only had eyes for her. The shocked look on her face a moment told him she had realized it right then.
"Oh, but is different this time," he didn't say more wondering if Clark would be too upset he was telling her this.
"How so?" she asked him with a raised eyebrow.
"We made a bet. We both have to find dates by Friday; the one that fails, has to do whatever the other says," he said looking at her from the corner of his eye.
"And he agreed to that?" Lois asked with raised eyebrows.
"He is the one who came up with it," he told her before he saw her frown slightly but quickly masked it with more curiosity.
"So, what are you going to ask him to do?" she asked him.
"I have no idea," he said with a shrug.
"You really can't tell me you haven't thought about it," she said with a skeptical look.
"I have, but it's really hard to think of something he would be reluctant to do. He is the kind of guy that takes punishment with so much dignity that you really don't get to enjoy it," in every scenario he could think Clark kept walking with his head held high.
"I guess I understand," she couldn't even really enjoy playing pranks on him back when they worked across each other. He usually made her feel like an immature brat when she did.
"Any suggestions?" he asked her.
"You are asking me?" she asked wide eyed. Was this fate finally smiling upon her?
"Yeah, you can probably come up with something ten better times better than I can," and he didn't say just because he wanted them to at least befriend, he really believed she could come up with something better than have Clark run around the block in his underwear.
"I will think about it," she said with a smirk.
888
He flew over the city looking out for any clue as for who was giving people the drugs that gave people psychic powers. He suspected since the general population had been warned of the after effects their distribution had been limited. He hoped that was the case and not something else. He and Superman had been talking about the possible causes, and one of them was that the product had been perfected and now didn't cause the same issue as before. It would be a good day in hell the day that drug got sold into warring nations. He could just imagine the bloodbaths they could cause without having to fire a single bullet.
They had looked into every possible suspect, even Luthor Corp, but they had yet to find the ones behind the heinous act. The League and the Titans had been looking into the samples they had been able to recover, but what they found made no sense, or at least not in words yet created. As far as they could tell the technology used was nonexistent. At least, not on Earth.
As he flew over the city, he also listened to anything related to N.O.W.H.E.R.E. He had found very little from the clues Red Robin had found. Mostly empty storages and buildings which he suspected had worked as bases of operations. He had yet to receive any other messages from Dr. Spencer and feared they had finally caught up with her. He really hoped that wasn't the case. From what he had learned about N.O.W.H.E.R.E. they wouldn't just kill her. It seemed they were good at manipulating others without them even realizing. For them to pull one on Lex Luthor was a sign that they were not afraid of whoever stood on their way.
When the sun started to set he went back to the apartment and got changed into everyday clothing, grabbed his recorder (a birthday gift from Clark), his notes and questions and headed out. He had thought about postponing this part of his investigation, but Lois's words reminded him that he couldn't hide the truth no matter how gritty it was sometimes. What they chose to do for a living was harsh and soul hardening, but it was for a good cause. The articles that had inspired him were excellent examples of this.
He walked down Richmond Avenue making sure to not make eye contact with the lowlifes of the area until he spotted the children's home in the corner. Outside, but not beyond the gates he spotted some teens and kids chatting on the steps as they watched the world pass them by. He stood before the group home with a tight feeling on his gut. The place was big, but it also looked like it had seen better days a long time ago. He stood by the gate wondering how he should go about this until one of the younger kids went to him.
"What you want?" the boy asked with a mouth missing some of his teeth. He couldn't be more than six or seven years old.
"Could I talk to the person in charge?" he asked trying to be as polite as possible.
"I am at charge," the kid said crossing his arms, his elbows full of scabs.
"The adult in charge," he said with a tight smile.
"The hell! I told you I am in charge!" the kid shouted before he dropped all courtesy and glared at the kid. This was hard enough without getting lip from a pint sized brat.
"That's enough Mikey," one of the older kids said approaching, "sorry man, the guard is out and we don't know when he will come back." The teen was Latin American and looked to be in his late teens.
"No one is looking after you?" he asked shocked and did he say, guard? This was an orphanage, not a jail.
"We look after each other, but what you want him for? The fatty is only good at stuffing his face," the teen told him in good humor.
He felt his eyebrow twitch. Lois had helped him to get this lead. According to her, she had arranged for an interview to talk to the Resident Aide of that group home though she wouldn't tell him more than that. She just said the rest was up to him.
"I am here to interview him," he said taking a deep breath after taking a small peek at the building. Most of the younger children were already sleeping for the exception of the little one glaring at him; the older ones were cleaning the shambled house and doing other things, but nothing dangerous. It seemed they could indeed look after each other.
"You look too young to be a reporter, school project?" the teen asked him.
"Something like that," he knew he probably thought they were the same age.
"Hmm, listen, some of us stay out later to keep a lookout. You can wait with us until he comes back," the teen said opening the gate to let him in.
"You keep lookouts?" that just didn't sound right.
"If you haven't noticed, we don't live uptown," the teen said with a smirk, "besides; you look like you work out. Those idiots will think more than once before they try anything."
He sat with the teens and the young boy on the steps. Most of the questions he had prepared for the Resident Aide he made it to them. He knew he might not be able to quote them on everything as they were still minors, but he was curious to compare those answers with those of the Resident Aide. He also learned about the kids. It seemed they had landed here from different places. Some were from Metropolis, but only very few. The rest came from all over the country. The other kids seemed to follow the teen that had let him in, his name was Francisco, but he went by Cisco. The kid had arrived at their group home some months back from Texas. The teenager wouldn't say much about himself, which made him wonder why he crossed half the nation to come here.
"Now I know where I know you from. You are going to interview the Titans, right?" Cisco said after he told him his full civilian name.
"Ehm, yeah," Conner said hoping he wouldn't make a big deal out of it. Everyone else at the college stared at him as if he was… well, a half alien.
"What are you doing here man? Shouldn't you be getting ready for that? I mean you are going to interview freaking Superboy, Kid Flash, and Blue Beetle," Cisco said with a faraway look.
"I don't want to report only on capes," he said without having to think about it.
"That's cool; just don't make us look too bad. These kids could go to a worse place if the place gets shuts down," Cisco told him.
"How so?" he asked. It wasn't horrible here, but he couldn't… no, he didn't want to imagine what could be worse.
"In the North end there is a home only for girls, and the caretakers are not nuns if you get my drift," Cisco said with tight fists.
"No, I don't," Conner snapped at him before the kids looked at him with wide eyes. Up until then he had been very calm.
"Look, I know reporters don't care much for the lives they ruin, but you seem nice enough. Let's say you drop the bomb on those bastards. Then the girls get exposed to the world and they get to live the rest of their lives with a fucking label. We have a deal with them that they can sneak here at night when the guard falls asleep and they get to stay here but have to leave in the morning. But, not all of them always make it," Cisco said lost in his memories.
"I see," he said admonishing himself for letting his temper get the better of him. "I can't promise anything, but let me help."
"What could you do?" Cisco said with a short laugh. "I mean, no offense but you don't look that much older than me."
"I am interviewing some capes, remember? And they are big on defending the rights of other kids," he said trying to rein in his temper. He didn't want to blow up the place.
"Aren't they too busy for things like this?" Cisco said with a tone of resentment.
"They will make time, or I will make sure to question them in national TV why they haven't," Conner swore he would if Red Robin didn't lend him at least one of the other Titans to help him.
"Alright, I believe you… hmm, maybe this can help," Cisco said taking his notepad and writing something on it.
Hey Blue, I could use some help from your friends. Cisco Ramon.
"You know the Blue Beetle," he said trying to recall if Blue had ever mentioned Cisco. If he came from Texas a few months ago, it wasn't hard to guess he had been involved with the taking down of La Dama.
"He is sort of the reason why I came to Metropolis, you know? To keep my head low and whatnot," Cisco said not giving anything else away.
It was shortly after that the Resident Aide came back. When he saw Conner sitting on the steps with the kids, his face turned as white as paper, and almost dropped his takeout bag. It seemed Lois informed the interview wouldn't be until the next day, the reason why he was unprepared. The man started barking order at the kids to get to bed and getting cleaned as he led Conner to his little dirty office offering apologies for the prying kids who would probably end up in jail as soon as they left the home.
"They can't be trusted, you know? No parents to teach them any better. When they get here, they are completely ruined. Little liars too, don't believe anything they said. They have this tendency to try to make themselves look innocent but it's all an act, that's why they can't get adopted. Good people know better than to believe them," the man said trying to stuff as much trash as he could on his little trash bin. Though the rest of the house was as clean as possible, the office was not which only made him believe either the man didn't let the kids in or they didn't clean it as revenge.
He didn't comment which only made the man nervous. Until he cleared a chair for him to sit, he started with his questions. He could call most of what the man said BS. Nutritional meals? He had already picked into the pantries and he was pretty sure the kids were not wrong on calling the Residential Aide a guard. The food was the same, if not worse than in jail. Only one of the five bathrooms worked, and they didn't have warm water. Two to three kids slept on the same single bed and the blankets were practically in tatters.
He had well in mind to see where the funding went to. The home received a governmental donation for every child in the home to feed, clothe and keep them clean, that plus outside donations.
"Thank you for your time," he said cutting the interview to a close suddenly.
"It's nothing young man, I hope your article can move people to help us with these kids," the man had downsized the actual amount of budget for the place, by the amount of trash around the room he could guess where it was going.
"I am sure it will," he said before leaving.
As soon as he was a block away he made a call.
"You did that on purpose," he said to his journalist mentor.
"First lesson kid. Catch them on the act. Don't tell me you didn't get some good stuff," Lois said while he could hear on the background a movie playing
"I am going to the group home for girls on the North end. The people there are running a prostitution ring," he was not going to let that go on.
"What?" he heard Lois drop something.
"One of the kids told me," he said as he walked a little faster. Some thugs were following him. He reminded himself not to use his cell in the area again, simply to keep a low profile.
"And you believed him?" Lois sounded a little skeptical.
"I am just going to check it out," a lie, but it was a benign one. She didn't need to know he was going to help the kids there. It would just make her try to get involved and he didn't want her near the danger.
"Fine, but be careful," she said before he heard her slap her forehead, "I can't believe I said that. Go get that story!"
"You got it general," he said with a short laugh before turning into an alley and then jumping to land on the roof.
"I like that," he could tell she was smiling they he hung up. He watched the confused thugs look for him before they gave up and left. He looked then at his phone and wondered what he was doing. The dream induced by the Outlaws came back to mind and he greeted his teeth.
This wasn't the time to think about that, he thought tucking away his civilian clothes in a neat bundle on the roof before hurrying to the girl's group home. In the way, he made a call to Red Robin asking him for someone to be his backup. After a quick explanation of what he was doing Red agreed.
The home of the girls was in much better state than the one in Richmond Avenue, but he knew it was just for appearances. He stuck to a nearby roof and watched the back entrance of the group home. Soon after, he was joined by Kid Flash, who was prepared with snacks for the stakeout.
"This is going to get ugly, isn't?" Kid Flash asked him after a few minutes of silence.
"They are getting ready to flee," which could only mean bad news.
"Red told me," Kid Flash said putting away his food and losing the smile, "what are we going to do with them? You don't want them exposed to the media, right?"
"I don't know, but we just can't leave them there," it would be beyond cruel to let them spend another night like that.
"Can you give me like half an hour?" Kid Flash said fidgeting.
He was about to ask for what, but he could see Bart was determined not to leave the job half done.
"Hurry," he said before the speedster was gone.
It was close to midnight when he spotted a rather luxurious car park on the back of the building, plates missing. A group of men and women stepped out at the same time as the girls started sneaking out the windows. He was impressed by how fast they removed the bars from the windows and began methodically to get away. The older ones helping, the younger to get over the fences and walls. Some of the guards snuck on them and started pulling them back inside. The girls shouted but were and fought with all the strength but they were out-powered by the grown men and women who silenced them with cloths damped in chloroform, which in actually didn't make them unconscious but merely put them in a groggy and confused state. He decided he had seen enough.
It was like all sound went off the moment he landed in the middle of the chaos. He walked up to one of the men who was holding a girl around thirteen years old. The man didn't say anything as he got the girl from him. He walked to the girls who had gathered in a bundle at the edge of the lawn. He handed the dazed girl to one of the older girls after making sure she would be okay.
As he had expected the shock only lasted so long. Being located within Metropolis meant they knew something like this might happen, so in a few seconds the men and women at charge of the place were armed to the teeth.
"This is none of your business kid!" one shouted.
"You were supposed to protect them," he said in a stern voice.
"Mind your own business alien!" another shouted.
Then the shots started. The girls behind him screamed and ducked down. He stopped the bullets in midair before they fell to the ground in a heap.
"You are going to pay for what you did," he said before he saw them flinch.
Some of them were already shaking, and stepping back. One of the men raised his gun in a panic ready to shoot at him though it was clear that would do no good. The man was holding air the next second.
"Sorry for the delay ladies," Kid Flash said dissembling the gun in a moment and dropping the pieces to the ground. A few seconds later all guns and weapons were in the same state in the lawn.
"Now," he said crossing his arms, "we can do this the bad way, or the worse way. You are going to help us find out who these people are whether you like it or not. You are going to act like everything is fine and go as usual until we say so. Understood?"
Most of them nodded.
"Did you find a place for them?" he asked Kid Flash, who was trying to cheer the girls up. He actually got a few to smile.
"A very nice place by the beach, with a new wings just for them courtesy of yours truly," he said proudly.
One by one Kid Flash took the girls to a real group home in Florida. He had been searching for a safe place and gone to wake up the people at charge before explaining to them what happened. The only argument they had been regarding space which Kid Flash fixed in a few minutes.
The men and women inside who had no idea what had been happening in the yard weren't very happy when they saw Superboy step in the waiting area. Many argued they would sue him or worse. He didn't comment as he locked them up in one of the rooms and away from their mobile devices. He had the men and women who ran the place welcome every guest as usual, some noticed something was off and tried to run off, but never got far. By the time the sun started to rise and it was clear they wouldn't be going anywhere, he called the authorities.
As usual they thought it was some sort of joke, but when Kid Flash showed up at the precinct, it became clear it was serious. He knew there would be little to no proof of what those men and women did, so while they had been rounding them up he had Red Robin look into their backgrounds. If they didn't nail for this, it wasn't hard to find another reason why. After sorting even the paperwork of the girls so they would be protected, he leaned on the wall of the back alley.
"Cisco?" Kid Flash had said before he spotted the teen trying to pick into the scene behind the line the police had set.
"So, you know him too?" he asked a bit more curious about the kid.
"Yeah, he is a meta. He helped us with La Dama," Kid Flash said waving in general at the crowd who had mixed feelings about taking pictures with Superboy (aka. Phone killer) nearby. Kid Flash made eye contact with Cisco and the kid smiled and waved back.
"A meta," he wondered why he hadn't done more to help the girls.
"Yeah, he got good powers, he is just too scared to use them. He said he wanted to live a normal life, but it seems trouble keeps finding him," Kid Flash said before Cisco pulled back from the crowd.
"I see," he knew of other metas who lived in such a way. He considered it a waste, but exception of some.
"So, what now?" Kid asked him after a long yawn.
"You can go home, you got school in a few hours," and he knew even speedster needed to sleep.
"So do you," Kid said with a smirk, "see ya later Kon." And then he was gone.
He answered a few more questions for the officials before leaving. He knew he would not be getting any sleep soon and had actually decided to skip his first class of the day. He found Clark waiting for him with his laptop ready.
"It's all yours," he said setting a cup of coffee for him on the table. He took a deep breath and started typing away. Though a bit tired, he didn't stop writing until the article was completely done. The individual project could be delivered at any time during the semester and most waited until the end, but this couldn't wait.
He almost crashed into Mr. Global in his hurry to deliver the article. He needed it published while others still didn't have the same info he did. The old teacher watched him over his glasses from time to time as he read the article.
"You rush into the story like a bull, you are going to get yourself killed," the man said as he sent the article to all the news corporations that would grade it, and if they wished to, publish it.
He opened his mouth to say that it didn't matter as long as the truth got out but was stopped by the teacher raising his hand.
"Save it, I heard it from your cousin before. Also, I didn't say rushing was a bad thing; just make sure you don't get killed. Lois Lane can teach a few things about that," the man said with a wrinkled smile. "You can take over the sofa of my office if you want. Good job Mr. Kent."
He took the offer thankful and missed another class. When he woke up, it was at his phone going crazy with messages from his friends and from Lois and Clark. He rubbed his eyes as he read over them. They all had read the article, which got a lot of attention. He felt like staying in the office until everyone forgot. It wasn't a secret he didn't like being the center of attention.
"Found you!" Lori almost knocked the door off it's hinges as she slammed it open. The following ten minutes were full of questions from the upset Luthor at being left in the shadows of the whole ordeal. "I thought we were friends," she pouted.
"It just sort of happened," he said with a shrug as he finally got up and picked his backpack. Might as well get it over with.
"That does not just happen," Lori said walking next to him towards their next class.
"I was doing a slightly different story when I found about this," he said as they left the building and he started getting stares. Rao, he hoped his five minutes of fame would be over soon.
Though he was known to be somber, that didn't stop a few people from asking him questions.
"Get your story somewhere else," Lori, thankfully, scared off the most insistent ones away. "Maybe you should hire me to be your bodyguard," she said with a laugh.
At the end of the day after much questioning, and pointing he wished he had taken her on her offer.