Behind the Mask

Chapter 3

When Robin woke up he found himself hanging from his wrists in a tube. The life of a superhero in a nutshell. He groaned as his eyes slowly opened behind his mask, wincing as pain shot across his chest where the Superman clone had stomped on him. He hated getting stomped on. It happened way too often in his opinion. Robin glanced around, moving his head only slightly, and found he was in a room similar to one where the clone had been grown. He knew without looking that Kid Flash and Aqualad were to his left; it looked like the super-clone had taken the Atlantian down after he'd passed out. He wanted to look up at the cuffs on his wrists, but his head felt heavy and his chest still burned in pain. His bandaged arm was throbbing painfully too, probably from the stress of holding up his body. Suddenly a voice echoed- in his head?

"Wake up!" The voice sounded urgent. It was low, so Robin guessed it was probably a male. "You must wake up! Time is short, wake up!" At the last 'wake up' Robin turned to look and saw Kid Flash's eyes shoot open and Aqualad quickly assess their situation. Robin raised his head now too, and did a double take at what he saw.

Superboy stood in front of all three of them, glaring at them without so much as twitching. His vibrant blue eyes looked like they were trying to burn into the three boys in front of him, which, now that Robin thought about, they probably were. Heat vision and all. The heroes all stared at the clone, unsure what to do. Robin was still disoriented from the creepy voice that had entered, what he assumed, was all of their heads. Alien voices in his head weren't exactly something he welcomed with open arms; he had enough resident voices as it was. Kid Flash, apparently uncomfortable with the clone's gaze, (which, Robin had to ask, who wasn't?) suddenly yelled.

"Hey, stop staring! Stop it, you're creeping me out!" If Robin hadn't secretly been wishing for the clone to look away, (cause, come on, who knew when that heat vision might kick), he would have laughed at the speedster's distressed tone, but as it was, he only smiled to himself, deep down in the part of his mind that never felt fear. Or if it did, never let it get to it.

"Ugh, what do you want? Ah! Dude, didn't anyone ever teach you to that it's rude to stare?"

"Uh, KF," Robin said, an unpleasant thought coming to mind as the clone's gaze intensified. "Let's not tick of the guy that can fry us with a look." Suddenly this wasn't a laughing matter, no matter how far down in his brain the laughter resided.

Then Aqualad, always the cool-headed, negotiator type, spoke up, trying to reason with the glaring clone. "We only sought to help you."

"Yeah!" Kid Flash blurted, rather worked up. "We free you, you turn on us! Grateful much? Whatever Cadmus has been teaching you, they seem to have left out manners!"

"Kid, please," Aqualad said with hints of anger and begging. "I believe our new friend was not entirely in control of his actions."

"Neither am I when I'm hyped up on sugar, but everyone still yells at me!" Robin wasn't listening anymore. He fiddled with his glove, smirking when he managed to free his lock pick from his hidden compartment. Just one of the benefits of wearing gloves that made your arms look twice as big as they really were.

"What if I-" Robin's head shot up at the new voice. "What if I wasn't?"

"He can talk?" Everyone's favorite ketchup and mustard colored speedster, who lacked all forms of finesse, blurted out.

"Yes, he can." The clone growled, surprising the three boys even more. When the Kryptonian had been attacking them he'd seemed like a wild monster; seeing him now, acting civil, was surprising to say the least.

"It's not like I said 'it'," KF defended when both Aqualad and the Boy Wonder glared at him.

"The genomes taught you, telepathically." Aqualad stated, not really asking.