Young Justice / JLU crossover

Home Away from Home

Dinah reentered the watch tower, tired from her mid-afternoon nap, dragging herself to  the canteen, still half out of costume.

"Hi black canary!" Ms Martian hastened to her side. God, how was those kids always so energetic? "Are you here for league stuff again?"

"Not yet. I'm here to grab a free dinner before work." Dinah shrugged. "Aren't you guys gonna eat something?"

"We get dinner too?" The martian girl asked as if in awe, following her back to the mess hall. "I think I ate more today than all of last week!"

"You mean... three square meals?" Canary joked, grabbing a tray.

"We don't have much time to cook. I mean, we have snacks to take to school with us, and Batman gives us money to buy groceries, but most of that goes to feeding Wolf-- er-- our dog. Luckily, Robin is really nice so sometimes he brings us leftovers."

One meal a day. Two kids left unsupervised in a league base with their pet dog, eating one meal a day and working too much to cook. They were living on leftovers and risking scurvy. She'd say she was surprised, but from everything she'd heard, the other league neglected these kids pretty atrociously.

"Sheesh kid, I gotta get to work." Flash said, standing up. "Night shift."

"What do you do?"

"I'm, uh... forensic science."

"Really? That's so cool." The kid exclaimed. "Do you see a lot of bodies?"

"Uh, yeah. Sometimes." He replied. "I mostly do lab work, I'm not really a field person." Wally pat his younger self on the head, "I'll come visit tomorrow."

"Kay!" Wally kicked his legs back and forth, waving his older self off.  He started as a small body slid onto the bench beside him.

"Hey." Robin said.

"Tired of pestering batman?"

"He left for patrol." The boy shrugged. "I said I could come with, but he wouldn't let me."

"What a jerk." Wally laughed.  "Come on, I hear from M'gann that they're letting us have dinner too!"

This time, at dinner, Superboy ate. Not ravenously, but he ate, and that was something. His friends celebrated this, 

"You're sixteen, right?" Kara asked, sitting him across from them at one of the tables.

"Yes."

"So, were you were cloned sixteen years ago, or...?"

"Oh, no, I only gained consciousness 35 weeks ago, I was cloned this past year."

"So you're eight months old?"

"No! I'm sixteen." The boy insisted, a little defensively.

"...right. And you live with Red Tornado, right?"

"He's really busy, we only see him a couple times a week... it's mostly me and M'gann and the team."

"M'gann?" Kara asked.

"Hmm?" The martian kid perked up, a couple tables away. "Hello?"

"Her." Kara's cousin replied. "But if you don't see him that often, who takes care of you?"

"No one." The boy proclaimed. "We don't need anyone to look after us!"

"But I thought Canary..."

"She just trains us." Superboy explained. "We take care of ourselves."