Written for the (paraphrased) prompt "Conner gets tired of waiting on Superman, turns evil, and the team totally understands."

Home is Where You Hang Your Heart

He takes a deep breath, and then steps into the zeta-tube. There's a bright flash, and he instinctively closes his eyes against it.

And then he's somewhere else entirely and doesn't want to open his eyes, because he's afraid of what—of whom—he might see.

The computer announces his name and he does open his eyes, does step out into the cave. There's no one there, except for how there is now because Wally comes skidding around the corner.

"Bro!" he shouts, and "Conner! Dude, where have you been it's so nice to see you!" He uses Conner's waist as a break, incidentally giving him a superspeed hug.

"I was…here and there," Conner says weakly. When Wally lets him go and steps back to look at him, he clarifies, "There, mostly."

"Yeah, no kidding," comes Robin's voice, and suddenly, there's an acrobat on his shoulder. Robin's lounging across his arm, resting his torso against Conner's head. He finds he doesn't mind. "We haven't seen you in forever, Conner."

And this right here, this is what he was dreading. "Yes, you have." And they did, kind of. They saw him last week, heeling Luthor's henchmen from a Wayne Enterprises R&D lab.

There's a hand on his unoccupied shoulder, and he turns to see Kaldur looking him over. "No," Kaldur says. "We haven't seen Conner in forever."

And he has to blink, because this is why he risked it, this is why he stepped into the beam, this is why he tosses and turns at night; missing this. And he'd been afraid, so afraid that they'd do what Superman did, and that it would drive him further into the darkness.

But Artemis steps into the hanger, and waves and yells, "There you are, you idiot!" and M'gann is right behind her, staring at him, breath caught in throat.

And he opens his mouth, wants to ask, so I'm forgiven? but he can't because that's not what he needs. He doesn't need to be forgiven; this was his choice alone and he doesn't regret it, not really. He doesn't need their forgiveness because he hasn't done anything that needs forgiving.

Megan comes flying at him, and he feels Wally take a double-quick step away from him and Robin slide down his back. He opens his arms, and catches her. She tucks her head into his shoulder, and makes an odd sighing, sobbing sound. He really, really hopes she isn't crying, because he has no idea what to do about that. Cadmus didn't teach him how to deal with crying girls.

He looks up and sees Robin mouthing, it's okay, so he says, "It's okay," though he doesn't know why. And M'gann sniffs and looks up at him, and yes, there are tears in her eyes, but her smile is a mile wide and pure joy.

"Don't disappear again," she says, and squeezes him tighter.

And he looks around at his friends, still his friends, even after all the stuff he's done for his father, and says, "I'm…sorry. I didn't know if I'd be…welcome here."

M'gann slips backwards, and Kaldur holds out his arm. Conner grasps it in warrior's—a brother's—grip of greeting. "No matter what," Kaldur says, and when Conner's eyes slip over to Artemis and Wally, Kaldur waits until his attention is on him again. "No matter what, you are always welcome here."

"It's your home, isn't it?" M'gann asks, still smiling, still trying to keep the tears from falling.

And he looks at Robin, beaming at him, and Kaldur, still grasping his forearm, and Megan with her joy and Artemis who's nodding, and Wally who's got a grin as wide as Robin's.

"Yeah," he says, and has to swallow, because for some reason, it's hard to get words out of his throat. For all he's got a house now, and a father, he still knows this fact for truth; "Yeah, this is my home."