Chapter Text
Everything starts at about twenty past one on the morning of September twenty-second.
Actually, it doesn’t. It starts later, when they piece together exactly what the Court of Owls have been up to. No, it starts when the Justice League receives the anonymous tip-off in the first place, a muffled, warped voicemail left on the twenty-four-hour hotline set up by Cyborg.
“Um, hi. I’m calling to whistle-blow about a dangerous secret project funded by… um… Lex Luthor. The address is 133 West Olson Avenue, Siegel-Schuster Scientific Research Park, Metropolis. It’s kept on floor B-4 in room 12. I think it might be a real danger to, uh, Superman and obviously that would be bad. So you should send someone to check it out. Um… as soon as possible. Bye."
No, it starts earlier, when the Gray Son Project begins. No, when Dick refuses to be the Court’s puppet. No, when the Flying Graysons fall and their favourite potential Talon gets whisked away by Bruce. No, when the Owls start that bizarre prophecy schlock in the first place.
No, for Tim, the whole thing actually starts when Dick encourages Tim to go out and have fun with his friends.
“C’mon, kiddo. Don’t want to end up like me - I can’t remember the last time I had fun with my friends,” Dick had chuckled through the tinny speakers of Tim’s cellphone.
“I thought you were living part-time at Titan’s Tower,” Tim had replied. “Didn’t you have an Uno tournament the other day?”
“Yeah, but we all play by different rules and Vic keeps coming up with obscure rules I’m sure aren’t in any version of the game,” Dick had said. “Kori nearly blasted Gar off the balcony for stacking three plus-four cards on me. Anyway, I mean real fun. Making a difference and saving the world kind of fun. The Justice League has a whole database full of anonymous tips you guys could dig through if you were looking for a nice, low-key kind of mission.”
“I’ll think about it,” Tim had replied, already opening the Justice League database.
By the time he’d ended the call a minute later, he’d found it: the perfect Young Justice mission. Just hard enough to warrant calling in his friends and just interesting enough to guarantee their involvement. Who doesn’t like messing with Lex Luthor? Plus, Superman would probably be pretty relieved if they took out a superweapon intended for him. They’d be saving the Justice League a heck of a lot of work in the future - nobody in their right mind wants another Doomsday situation.
That’s how Tim finds himself standing in an overly air-conditioned lab at twenty past one on September twenty-second.
Tim remembers the date well, because Dick had been singing a disco song when he called earlier. Earth, Wind & Fire. He remembers the time well because although the security system had been slightly tricky to bypass, the actual physical security once they got into the lab area had been pretty much non-existent. Who leaves the lights on and all the keycard access doors open in a top-secret super-weapon lab overnight?
“That’s so weird,” Cassie murmurs. “It’s, like, quarter past one in the morning. Think it’s a trap?”
“Maybe,” says Cissie. “But if it were a trap, wouldn’t it have been sprung by now?”
Tim checks his comm and pings the Bat-cave and Belfry. The results show it’s working perfectly.
“Funny kind of trap, if we’re able to contact the outside world,” Tim says.
There’s a gust of air, and Bart blurs briefly before solidifying.
“The whole floor is open like this,” Bart says, speaking a mile a minute. “I couldn’t find anybody on this floor at all. The only people I did find were the three security guards on the ground floor, and they’re all still watching Wendy the Werewolf Stalker.”
“Ugh, I forgot the new season is premiering today!” Conner groans.
“Did you check the room from the message? Twelve?” Tim asks.
“Nobody’s there,” Bart says. “Just a big box in the middle of the room.”
“A box?”
“Yeah, kind of like a casket, except it’s got charging cables. There’s not much else in there.”
When they reach room twelve, it’s pretty much as Bart described. It’s mostly bare and surprisingly cold. There’s a desk and computer in one corner, as well as a long lab bench near the far end of the room and some stainless steel storage units lining the walls. In the middle of the lab, there’s a large box sitting on the floor.
Just as Bart described, the box looks creepily like a casket, except it looks like it’s made of white plastic and there are electric cables connected to it.
“Okay, let’s see what CADMUS have been cooking up…” Tim mutters.
It won’t do much against a weapon capable of bringing down Superman, but he readies a Batarang, just in case. Beside him, Cassie readies herself for a fight and in the corner of his eye, he sees Cissie moving further away, readying an arrow.
“Don’t have to tell me twice,” Conner grins. He cracks his knuckles and lifts the lid of the creepy-looking casket-container-thing.
None of them are ready for what’s inside. Even Bart is speechless.
“Is that who I think it is?” Conner’s voice is hushed.
Inside the container is a man. A very familiar man. Dick Grayson.
Except it’s not Dick Grayson, because Tim spoke to him less than twenty minutes ago and he knows for a fact Dick is currently breaking up a dog-fighting ring in Blüdhaven’s docklands, and also? This guy just looks wrong. His skin is a weird, dull ashen-grey colour and he’s showing signs of serious dehydration.
Whoever he is, he’s been here way longer than twenty minutes. Judging from the way Conner’s face is twisting, there’s some equally weird stuff going on below the surface of his skin, too.
What exactly have they been doing in this lab?
“I need to call Batman,” Tim says.
Conner closes the lid quietly and Tim pulls his comm device out of his pocket. He taps out a couple lines, using a pre-arranged code that will alert the Batcomputer (and by extension Oracle, and therefore also Nightwing) instantly, then hits ‘send’. Given this is CADMUS, not-Dick is probably a clone, though there’s also the possibility that this is some kind of inter-dimensional or temporal mess.
“Coffin guy is dead,” Conner says, all traces of his earlier joviality gone. “There was a ton of hardware in him, too. I didn’t feel any kryptonite, though.”
Tim checks the readings for the modified Geiger counter on his belt.
“Yeah, I’m not picking up any either,” Tim says.
“What kind of Superman murder weapon doesn’t have kryptonite?” Cissie mutters, lowering her bow. “Isn’t that his main weakness?”
“He’s weak against magic, too,” Conner says.
“I didn’t feel any magic,” Cassie says. “And magic usually isn’t part of CADMUS’ M.O.”
There’s another gust of air.
“Still no sign of a trap,” Bart says. “I double-checked the outside, too. Everything’s the same, except that in Wendy—“
“No spoilers!” Conner hisses, and Tim’s comm unit pings: a message from Bruce. It’s short.
ETA 18 MINS
“We should see what evidence we can get before Batman gets here,” Cissie says, after Tim relays this information. “If this is a trap, it might be one for Justice League members.”
“Good thinking,” Cassie agrees. “There are a ton of computers down here, I bet there’s all kinds of information on those.”
“There’s also an office with old paper files, too. And a big whiteboard.” Bart adds. “Room 30.”
“Is there a room with a TV?” Conner asks, hopefully.
By the time Batman arrives at the lab floor, Nightwing in tow, Young Justice have collectively managed to copy the hard-drive of the computer in room twelve, find a short list of partially complete login information and contact details for the lab IT department, and several handwritten notes written on weirdly opulent cards in the lead researchers’ office. (They’ve also managed to catch the last fifteen minutes of the new Wendy episode, but Bruce doesn’t need to know about that.)
“The cards were all in code, so Impulse photographed them and put it all back,” Tim explains. "And then we uploaded them to the Justice League secure cloud and Oracle's database."
Bruce nods.
“Hrm,” he grunts, which is Worried Bruce for ‘good work’.
“Great thinking,” Dick praises. “I’ll pass the login and IT data along to Oracle, and she should be able to get us access to the system soon. I’m really impressed at how much you were able to gather in such a short space of time - you're a great team.”
Dick's words are met with murmured thanks and smiles from everybody else. Bruce side-steps Dick and wordlessly sweeps into room twelve.
“Cyborg is coming with the Titans’ jet,” Dick continues. “He’ll get you all home. Impulse, Arrowette and Wonder Girl, head on up to the roof. Oracle has control of the elevator system, so you won’t be interrupted by the security team. Superboy, we’ll need your help to move the container. Red Robin, with me.”
Spoken like a true leader, Tim thinks. Everybody goes along with his words without a fuss.
Tim follows Bruce, Dick and Conner into room twelve, where Bruce heads straight to the container and opens it. He goes completely still.
Even from this angle, Tim can see that his jaw is tense. It’s not anger, though it looks similar on Bruce's face. It’s confusion.
“See what I mean?” Tim asks.
Bruce nods, and Dick leans over the container, grimacing almost instantly.
“Okay, that’s creepy,” he says. “That’s… wow. Might be the creepiest thing I’ve ever seen.” Dick sighs. “At least they gave him pants, I guess.”
Bruce reaches into the container, lifting the dead man’s wrist.
“No pulse. He’s not breathing, either. Sensors indicate a body temperature two degrees below normal.”
“Well, that doesn’t mean much where the Court is involved,” Dick replies, with a shrug. “Did I mention this is creepy?”
“Nah, I don’t think you did,” Conner replies. His tone of voice and body language are playful, but Tim knows Conner too well: the playfulness is a thin veneer stretched over seething horror and anger. And after what Conner experienced during his ‘birth’ at another CADMUS lab, Tim can’t exactly blame him.
“Get everything disconnected and secure the lid,” Bruce orders.
It says something about the severity of the situation that nobody pushes back against the abruptness of the command or makes a wisecrack about saying please. Everybody just does it, quietly disconnecting cables and winding straps around the lid and body of the container before heading up to the roof in the elevator and loading it into the Bat-plane's cargo hold.
“Let me know what you find out,” Conner says, as everybody's getting ready to leave. “Nobody should die like that.”
“I will,” Tim promises. “I’ll keep all of you in the loop.”
The flight back to Gotham, strapped awkwardly in the backseat of the Bat-plane, is silent.