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By the time Amanda Waller began sniffling around his team for recruits, Dick had already begun making plans to get Owen Mercer as far away from her and the Outsiders as possible.

Dick may not have been as smart as his mentor, but he was far from stupid. He knew, within minutes of Owen Mercer joining the Outsiders, that the arrangement wasn't going to work. Owen had too many unresolved issues with the father he'd lost - as evidenced by the matching costume Owen chose to wear even while ostensibly choosing the opposite side of the law as his father - to be subject to the kind of dirty, shady deals the Outsiders were involved in.

Dick could see the confusion that their deals were causing Owen, and that bothered him only slightly more than the relish that occasionally crossed Owen's face whenever the Outsiders had to perform a particularly ...underhanded act. Knowing as he did that Owen wanted to be the hero his father never had been worried Dick. It was one thing for Dick's team to have to cause pain to the subject they were interrogating. It was another thing altogether to enjoy causing that pain, no matter how fleeting that enjoyment might have been. That only served as a big red flag to Dick that being on his team was causing Owen more harm than good.

Dick was - and would always be - far too much of a Titan to allow that to happen.

Tossing him out on his own was out of the question. The Flash Rogues would in time take him back in. Fickle as they were, they had a tendency to group together when it suited them, and the kind of family that they offered was one the Outsiders couldn't afford to be.

Yet if Dick allowed Owen to stay, it was only a matter of time before Owen either went down the path Dick himself had flirted with the year before, or ended up in the "family" Amanda Waller was willing to give him.

There was really only one solution, and that was for Owen to join the best family Dick had ever known.

There was never any doubt in his mind that Tim would go along with it.

He just hoped that some day, Tim would be able to forgive him for asking it in the first place.

*******

Nightwing was crazy.

As far as Owen could see, that was the only reason he had sent Owen to the Teen Titans.

Or maybe Nightwing just wanted the video tapes of all the Titans kicking Owen's ass. If that was the case, the so-called "audition" to join the team would provide him plenty of footage.

Owen lost count of how many times Wonder Girl knocked him on his ass, how many times he saw his own reflection staring back at him from Ravager's blades before she knocked him on his ass, or how many times Robin had counteracted one of his weapons with a batarang.

All of which were better than the therapy session Miss Martian was trying to give him...what kind of a fucked up battle tactic was talking your enemy to death, anyway? Owen thought that maybe he should call Nightwing up - before Owen left the Titans - and suggest the green chick join the Outsiders. She'd be great for interrogation purposes. People'd start spilling their guts just so she'd shut up.

At least Owen thought so, but hey, what did he know about being an Outsider? He'd been kicked off the team and demoted to a Teen Titan, after all. Which was something he would have considered longer, if Wonder Girl hadn't taken advantage of his momentary spot of reflection as an opening to knock him on his ass. Again.

While on his ass, Robin came over and peered down at him. "You can't day dream in battle while you're on our team. That can get the rest of us killed."

Owen wasn't sure exactly what it was that Wonder Girl muttered under her breath, but he ignored her as he tried, once again, to look for any signs of approval or irritation on Robin's face.

He found none.

Well, at least Robin was consistent..

"Right. I'll keep that in mind, if and when I'm actually on on your team," Owen promised.

Not even Nightwing could look at him that blankly, completely devoid of emotion. It crawled over Owen's skin, and made him want to shake Robin until he showed some type of emotion.

"You're already on the team," Robin answered. "Welcome aboard."

***

When Dick had requested they take in Ravager, Tim hadn't initially liked it, but after the explanation Dick had given him, Tim had at least understood what Dick was thinking. Even without the drugging her father had done, Tim had understood that all the time spent with Slade Wilson had given Dick what could only be called a guilt complex when it came to all issues surrounding the Titan villain.

Especially the daughter that Dick had briefly trained.

On the other hand, Tim wasn't sure he could ever understand what Dick was thinking when he sent Owen Mercer their way.

Owen's father had killed Tim's father. How could Dick seriously expect Tim to want to be on the same team as Captain Boomerang's son?

Dick's only response had been to think of it as a mission. He hadn't needed to say more to Tim, because as every member of their family knew, no one had to like a mission in order to carry it out.

Many things had changed since Tim had first became Robin, but the fact that he never wanted to let Dick Grayson down had not. Thus, for the sake of the mission Dick had assigned him, Tim had promised his brother he'd do his best to make Owen Mercer feel welcome as a Titan.

Unfortunately, it was easy to see during the "audition" that the rest of the Teen Titans were not as interested in keeping that particular promise. Cassie in particular seemed determined to "protect" him and was willing to show Owen exactly how unwelcome she deemed him to be.

Much the same way that she had been with Rose.

If he was going to keep his promise to Dick, Tim couldn't allow that to continue.

Thus, after the audition, he took Owen on what was superficially a tour of Titans Tower. Owen listened well enough, and if he seemed more agitated than most others would have in the same circumstance, Tim was willing to be fair enough to acknowledge that most other potential members didn't enter Titans Tower with such a large amount of hostile opposition to their presence.

At the end of the tour, Tim paused outside of what should have been Kon's room only briefly before leading him in.

"Hey, why are we going into this room?" Owen asked, and Tim appreciated the nervous look Owen had the good sense to shoot the symbol on the outside of the door.

"It's as good a place as any to prove my point," Tim answered. He waited patiently for Owen to step into the room, and was proud of his efforts to block out any emotional association he had with the contents of the room.

He might have been in Titans Tower, but he needed to be a Bat now more than ever.

"What point might that be?"

"You're a Titan, so you have the right to know this now." Tim placed his hands behind his back, one hand curled around a tightly clenched fist. "The person you knew as Superboy was a genetic clone. One part of his DNA came from Superman. The other came from Lex Luthor."

Tim paused and waited for that information to sink in. "So...what, you're trying to say that Superboy and I had something in common? Because both of our fathers were scum?"

Tim would never say that. Primarily because if Lex Luthor had worn a costume, Kon would never have worn one as similar to Luthor's as the one Owen wore to his father's.

"I am trying to say that Kon's supervillain 'parentage,' if you will, always bothered him. And yet, he was one of the greatest heroes I have ever known," Tim answered truthfully. "There is no reason you can't do the same."

"Yeah, but the other part of Kon's DNA was Superman's," Owen pointed out. "I figure Superman's DNA has to override Lex Luthor's. Just like it does every time they fight."

"Perhaps," Tim allowed, with a small nod. "But he isn't the only Titan to have ... unpleasant parents. Jericho and Ravager's father has hunted Titans for years, not to mention all that he has done to other innocents. Raven's father has destroyed worlds, and nearly destroyed ours. Your father being a killer -" And Robin's voice did not waver in the least, " - Is nothing unusual for the Titans."

"I guess." Owen shrugged noncommittally, and Tim reluctantly chose Plan B.

Stepping up to Owen, he tilted his head and kissed Owen on the mouth.

Owen didn't make so much as a protest until Tim broke the kiss, which proved to Tim both that Dick was right in Owen desperately wanting to belong, and that Owen wasn't going to fight him on the proposed Plan B.

Neither fact made Tim very happy, but they would both help Tim finish the mission, which could only be viewed as a positive.

"Man...I get Nightwing wants me here, but he couldn't have asked you to do that," Owen said when the pause between them demanded one of them talk.

"He didn't," Tim agreed. Not implicitly, anyway, and that was what Owen meant. "However, a relationship between us, no matter how purely physical, will help the other Titans see you as less of a threat to me. As we saw from your audition, that is clearly needed."

More importantly, it would strengthen Owen's sense of belonging to the team. Which was what Tim had promised Dick he would do.

"That's why you brought me to Superboy's bedroom?" Owen asked. "To... have a 'welcome to the Titans fuck?'"

"Yes."

"That's - that's ..." Owen shook his head, but his eyes traveled over Tim's form. Tim had been the object of want enough times to read the same desire in Owen's eyes.

He dropped his cape to the floor.

Owen's costume followed soon after.

The nightstand next to Kon's bed held the supplies that no one had thrown away after Superboy's death. It also had a framed picture of Kon and Tim together, which Tim silently turned face down before completing his mission.

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