The Batpoint Paradox

Holy Super-boyfriend Batman

*Tim
After disconnecting my comm I sat down on the small unfamiliar sofa in my temporary new home and put my head in my hands. Without the distraction of my brothers banter I couldn't help but dwell on the one detail that I'd failed to share with them. I wasn't just a civilian college student living in San-Francisco, no, I was a civilian college student living in San-Francisco with my boyfriend. Apparently of several years, which was concerning because as of that morning I had lived in Gotham, with nothing and no one, let alone a serious boyfriend. Even so, just that in and of itself would've only been at most, mildly concerning, no more than a minor hitch in our world saving plans, no the thing that made this a catastrophically huge issue wasn't how I magically acquired a boyfriend, it was who my magically acquired boyfriend was. In a deeply ironic cosmic joke my serious long term boyfriend was none other than the man I'd called my best friend for the better part of the last decade, whom I had zero romantic history with. Good god I was dating Superboy...
I was dating Kon, I wasn't sure who to blame for this cosmic fuckery but when I found out there would be hell to pay. Oh and it got even better because as far as I could tell, in this reality I had no idea that my boyfriend was a superhero, the note on my fridge told me he'd forgotten to mention his dinner plans with Mal and Karen, but upon smelling bullshit and hacking the tower, I discovered that he was actually on a mission with Superman...in space. Okay so Kon was clearly full of shit, kind of offensive but not nearly as bad as the fact that I was apparently stupid in this reality.Did the person who did this to reality also decide to lobotomize me while they were at it? This is embarrassing on quite possible the highest level there was, Jason and Damien could never know, I would never hear the end of it, and those asshats didn't deserve the ungodly amount of joy this would undoubtable bring them. I ran a hand through my already messy hair as I wondered how the hell this was my life. After allowing myself a few moments to stress about the situation, I pushed my anxiety down, poured myself a to-go cup of coffee and left a note of my own on the fridge saying some college friends had invited me to a game night and I'd probably be home late. Clearly we had a super healthy relationship, clearly we're better as friends where he's honest and I'm not an imbecile. I grumbled the whole way to the zeta tube and glared at my coffee cup so hard that it'd be ask if I was the Kryptonian. I spent the whole time I was hacking the zeta tube trying to come up with a plan to avoid my new half alien bed mate, unfortunately or maybe for the state of my mental capacity, it took me no time at all to hack the zeta. I sighed and stepped through composing my poker face as I entered the coordinates for the city I was collecting the demon spawn at.

Upon reaching Jason's safe-house with Damien in tow, I proceeded to ignore my brothers as I went into full research mode while they bickered in the background, well Jay and Dami bickered, so like usual Dick was playing the mediator/den mother. Several hours later I had pieced together most of our lives in the new reality and had started creating comprehensive files on all the big players I believed could have played a part in causing the unholy mess we were stuck in, how they could have gone about doing it and why. The why was the most important clue, it's what would lead us to the culprit, when solving a crime Batman had drilled into me from the very get go of my detective training, the most important question is always, who benefits?
Of course in a case like ours means and opportunity had to have also played big parts, and the more I thought about it the more I was convinced that more than one villain had a hand in it. However at first glance Lex Luthor appeared to be the most likely culprit, a theory I shared with my brothers.
"So in this reality Lex Luthor is president, he has a clean record, a wildly successful business currently being run by his sister Lena, and most surprising, has excellent relations with the JLA, even Superman and Superboy. Apparently Kon is still a Cadmus clone, with both of their DNA, but I can't find any ties between Luthor and Cadmus here. So I think our fist course of action should be to break into LexCorp, even if he says Lena is running it I doubt that's entirely true, my guess is any illegal activity, projects, experiments, or whatever he would have used to create this reality if he is indeed our culprit, would be housed there." I explained as I pulled up blueprints of the main building.
"So, looks like we're going to Metropolis boys, ready to take the fight to that smug bald bastard?"

Dick burst out in giggles at my statement,

"Damn Timmy, Luther piss in your cheerios or something? We do even know for sure that it was him."

I huffed and went back hacking the LutherCorp blueprints, no way was I telling him why I cared so much, I'd sooner arm wrestle Cassie or give Steph my cellphone password.

"Hey I'm with Timbers, culprit or not I'm always down for a chance to stick it to Lex, thinking about the guy always makes me want to shower, total slime that guy."

I shot Jason an appreciative smile before diving back into my planning, unfortunately missing the devious smirk on the brat's face.

"You know Drake you should probably be nicer when talking about Luther, I can't imagine that the clone would take too Kindly to you badmouthing one of fathers."

I'd been halfway through a sip of my coffee when Damien's words registered and as a result ended up spewing perfectly good coffee all over my moniters, not that I really even noticed, too busy whirling around in my chair to face the smug teenager.

"What did you just say?" I gritted out through clenched teeth.

To my extreme relief Damien was looking at me with an expression that bordered somewhere between confused and constipated.

"Are you feeling ill Drake? I was merely reminding you of how the clone you're so fond of being half, how'd you phrase it...oh yeah, half 'smug bald bastard' if you cannot find the humor my, what do call It Jason?" He turned towards the man so Jason could chime in with the phrase.

"Sick burn, ha, gotta give you credit kid, not bad, anything that can make replacement spit his precious coffee all over his beloved technology is a win in my book."

I scowled at both go them, and also at Dick for good measure, I could always tell when he was stifling laughter, internally though I was letting out a massive sight of relief, they were clueless, thank god.

I quickly turned my attention back to my computer, doing my best to wipe off all the spit and coffee, ugh I'd have to get the demon brat for that one later, first though we had an undoubtably correct business practice to burglarize.