Missing Link [Clone!Buck]
Since Clone!Buck lost the poll by the widest margin, but some people were really interested (looking at @ennieasys ). So I decided to post what I had so far. Idk if I'm going to move it over to ao3 yet since the actual plot is missing, but consider this the prologue!
Buck should’ve noticed something sooner.
He’d started working out once he left home. He was hitting the gym, cultivating a more active lifestyle. He surfed every morning when he was on the coast. He was moving heavy equipment in construction, breaking ground and hauling metal from one end of the yard to the other. Even as a bar back, he was easily lifting kegs to swap them out every night. In Montana he was tossing hay bales while barely breaking a sweat.
Sure he was benching around 300 easy, but that was normal. Right?
The house party was when it became obvious. He’d been getting…close? With a girl. She’d offered to take him upstairs to get even closer, and in the heat of the moment, he’d pulled the bedroom door off his hinges.
It wasn’t an impossible feat. He was sure he’d seen someone do it on YouTube, but those people had been trying. There was effort involved. Buck hadn’t even been trying and suddenly he had a door in his hands.
”Oh my god,” the girl, Eloise or something long for El, giggled, too drunk to be worried about the property damage. Buck should’ve been right there with her. He’d drunk more than her, but alcohol hadn’t been having the same effect recently. “You’re strong.”
She ran her hands over his biceps and pecs, pushing him towards the bed. Despite it being hard to focus on El-something when worrying about accidentally hurting her, he did his best to give her a good time, and then hurried out of the house before she could even think of reciprocating.
The next morning, he tried lifting the Jeep. It was difficult, but when he got the back a few feet off the ground, he decided he didn’t want to know what else he could do.
Everything Buck had learned about his powers happened against his will. After discovering his strength at the house party, he found his invulnerability after getting hit by a car, and his speed when someone tried to mug him. If there was anything else, he didn’t care. He wasn’t Superman or some meta human. He was just a guy who didn’t need anything else making him different.
He didn’t even tell Maddie. Not that a postcard would be the way to tell someone their brother was a freak. But still, if he didn’t want to know, there was no way he was going to tell someone else.
Thankfully, he wasn’t very accident prone for his first few months at the 118. There had been close calls, but anything that would require medical attention for a normal person happened when he was alone. Until he paired up with Hen.
They’d been helping a mother out of her burning house when a window broke free. He spun without thinking, taking the hit to the back to spare the woman any pain.
”Buck!” Hen shouted, rushing over to push the window away and help support the mother. “Just keep going.” She kept encouraging him their whole way out, giving him just as much of her focus as she gave the actual victim.
”I’m fine. It barely grazed me,” he tried to argue, but she was having none of it.
“A second story window just hit you in the spine. You need to get checked out.”
He knew she wasn’t going to leave it alone. He’d be the same if their places were reversed. With a deep sigh he shucked off his coat to give her access. “Just promise you won’t tell anyone.”
Carefully, she pushed up his shirt, running a hand over the unblemished skin. “How… I saw the hit…”
”I’m a meta.” It was the first time he’d ever said it aloud. He shut his eyes against whatever her reaction would be. Metas weren’t treated horribly, especially not after the Protection Act, but you never knew how someone would react.
”Oh Buck…” A gentle hand squeezed his shoulder. “They’re not going to care. We love you.”
He wanted to believe her, desperately, but he cared. It had been a little over a year and with every new thing he discovered he just felt more inhuman. His parents must’ve sensed it, known somehow that he’d be this disgrace.
“Just give me time…it’s new.”
Her gaze hardened, not harshly, but with the protective glare she got when a patient had been treated poorly in the past. She nodded. “Take your time, Buck, and if you ever need to talk, I’m here for you.”
He smiled knowing he’d never take her up on that offer.
After the tsunami, the Diaz boys were a constant presence. It was everything Buck ever wanted, people who stayed and made him feel welcome, even though he was cut off from the rest of his found family. The only problem was, they’d notice. His crushed leg was an internal injury, with the healing kept at bay by the foreign materials in his leg, but the scrapes and bumps from the pier would be visible.
It had only been two days and already he was looking better, much better than he should've been looking. Telling Hen two years ago hadn’t been his choice, but it had been nice to have someone who was in on his secret and could usher him to the side when Chim or Bobby would’ve freaked out about him.
Beyond that, he actually wanted the Diaz boys to know. They’d become family and he wanted to share this part of himself with them.
The next morning, when Eddie came to drop off Chris, he brought them both inside. He stood before them while they sat on the couch and came clean. “The only other person who knows about this is Hen, so I’m trusting you with an important secret.”
Chris nodded seriously, though he wasn’t the one Buck was worried about.
“I’m a meta. It’s how I was able to find Chris and keep hold of him.” The water had messed him up, along with getting hit in the head, but when the water first hit, without his ears they could’ve been separated for good. “It also helps me heal fast, so if I don’t look injured by tomorrow, it’s normal.”
“You’re different!.” Chris beamed and grabbed at Eddie’s arm. “You’re like me and dad!”
”Dad and I,” Eddied hurried to correct. “And this is different, Buck has superpowers.”
Chris rolled his eyes. “We have superpowers too, Dad. If Buck’s telling the trust, we should too.”
The rug was pulled out from under him. He’d never pictured his confession ending like this. “You’re meta’s too?”
An unfamiliar feeling of elation and determination welled up in Buck as Chris screwed his eyes shut in concentration.
Eddie leapt to his feet, waving a hand that somehow removed the strange emotions. “Christopher, stop. We don’t do that without permission.”
Understanding dawned on him. “You’re empaths.” He smiled at his partner, remembering the one bright spot in a night he’d rather forget. “You kept me calm. When everyone was lifting the truck, you kept me from panicking.”
There was more to discuss with their secrets out in the open, but Buck did his best to project his own emotions as he told his boys, “Thank you.”
A dog driving a truck had been new. Buck thought it would be the most surprising thing to happen that day, until Mateo turned to TK and asked, “Did the dog say he was sorry?”
TK only laughed. “Nah, he was so stressed out he didn’t even realize he did it.”
Buck stared in confusion for a few moments before he figured it out. “Oh, you’re a meta too.”
”Uh yeah,” He shrugged. “It’s not really a big deal. My dad and I can talk to animals. It was just hard to hide when we got a station dog.”
”Don’t forget the thing with the bull.” Mateo chirped up. “Cap basically gave the poor guy therapy in the middle of a parking lot.”
”Well, I use my abilities every day and my team still hasn’t figured it out.” He shrugged with a forced casualness. He didn’t want TK to freak out over his friend accidentally putting him.
The friend in question hurried ahead so he could face Buck while walking. “You have powers too!”
Buck and TK shared a fond glance.
“I’ve got a few tricks up my sleeve. I haven’t done any testing,” Despite Hen’s urging, “But it’s a lot of augmentation: senses, strength, durability, speed.”
”So the car?” TK asked.
“That would’ve given me a pretty good scratch, but it wouldn’t do any real damage.” He smiled at the other two. “I still appreciate the save. The dog could’ve gotten really hurt, and if I’d taken the hit in front of everyone…”
Surprisingly, it was Mateo who nodded sagely and finished, “They’d all know.”
”Don’t worry too much. If anything happens, the 126’ll have your back.” TK reassured him.
Buck hadn’t anticipated needing that assurance, but with Bobby missing and those words filling his mind, he didn’t hesitate to refocus his eyes. He tapped into his abilities, watching as the world flipped from fire to a cool blue. The forms of his companions swarmed around the downed chopper, but there was no one inside.
“They’re not here,” he called out, and began scanning the horizon.
“How the hell do you know that?” Judd asked, coming up behind him.
With a quick glance, Buck answered, “Same way I know you’re wearing boxers with little peppers on them.”
”I believe him,” Marjan laughed, patting him on the shoulders.
Judd nodded and took back command, utterly unashamed about what had been revealed. “Alright Buckley, keep using your freaky eyes. Let’s go find our men.”
“You have x-ray vision!” Mateo was gushing as he bounced around him. “Can you fly too? You sound more like Superman than a meta human.”
Buck raised an eyebrow. “I’m not an alien. Just a meta with multiple powers.”
He hummed thoughtfully, calming down considerably. “Most metas don’t have a ton of powers, any additional abilities are usually supportive. Your augmentations, they all connect, but your senses, that’s something new, especially with the x-ray vision. It sounds more like an alien.”
”Well I’ve got two human parents, so…” He didn’t know what to say to that.
”Yeah, and you don’t look enough like any hero to be a clone like Superboy. But hey,” he tried with a smile, “At least you don’t have to worry about Kryptonite.”
The boy in the picture was him. Maddie may have claimed it was someone else, but everything about them was practically identical. The only thing that separated them was his birthmark and the date on the back.
He tried to listen to Maddie, hear her out about their brother who died when Buck was too young to know him. But Mateo’s voice kept circling his brain. Another child wasn’t a guaranteed match, look at Maddie, and he couldn’t see his parents taking that chance. His father was connected. He still remembered sitting outside the office while his father took business calls, the low voice slipping under the door, helping Buck calm down when he was supposed to be asleep.
He left her apartment, the picture still clutched in his hand, and went straight to the source. He needed an answer, no matter how badly it would hurt.
”Evan, what a pleasant surprise,” His mother greeted him with a smile. It didn’t reach her eyes. It never did when she was smiling at him.
He forced his own, just as fake. “Maddie told me about Daniel. I had a few questions, if you have time to talk.”
She nodded and stepped aside.
”Oh, Evan, we weren’t expecting you.” At least his father was warming. He could almost pass as genuine.
”I need to know what really happened,” he started before he could lose his nerve. “You had me to get a match for Daniel. Wasn’t that a risk?”
The pretend kindness drained from both of his parents. His mother was cold as iron as she asked, “What do you mean a risk?”
”Nine months of pregnancy and I could’ve ended up having the wrong marrow. I know you had friends—“
”Just ask, Evan.”
He took a breath and closed his eyes. “Did you clone Daniel?”
”Yes,” she admitted easily. “A friend of ours worked for a subsidiary of LexCorp. They were experimenting with cloning and had progressed to human trials. It’s all very top secret, but they needed volunteers.”
”And you figured that it could save your son.” He couldn’t fault them, not for that. Their son had been dying. Buck remembered losing Chris to the waves. He’d been so desperate to have him safe in his arms again. No, he couldn’t fault them for taking every chance they had.
”You weren’t an exact clone,” Margaret continued. He didn’t know if he could call him his mother anymore. “Since they were concerned about you developing leukemia as well, they combined his DNA with another source.”
”Do you know who?”
She shook her head. “They never said, and we never asked.”
Buck nodded. “I’m sorry it didn’t work. Thank you for not giving me up or sending me back after.”
“We couldn’t.”
For one heart stopping moment, Buck expected his father to say that they loved him, that he was still their son. Or at least that they recognized the cruelty of throwing him away like he was defective.
And then Philip said. “You look just like him.”
”Thank you for being honest. It was a nice change” He stood up, eager to get out of there. “We don’t have to keep doing this. Just tell me the name of the lab and we can end this whole charade.”
Phillip opened his mouth, probably to say something else horribly misguided, but Margaret cut him off with a firm nod. They’d never actually seen him as their son, and outside of getting along for Maddie, this would give everyone a clean break.
”It was called Cadmus. Our friend was Dr. Carl Packard. We lost contact after Daniel, but he’ll have more information if you’d like.”
He nodded and left the hotel room without looking back.
“Thanks for meeting me.” A tall blonde man took the seat opposite Lois at the small coffee shop.
Evan Buckley had reached out to her via email a week prior. She’d made the decision to meet him alone when he’d asked about Cadmus. While the man himself might have objected, there was no need to get Clark involved. The young man was probably doing research for another podcast about unethical science. He looked the type.
”I was in town for a conference, and I’m always willing to foster the next generation of journalism.”
He winced, but quickly covered it with a smile. “Still, Cadmus is difficult to get information about outside of your article.”
”For good reason,” She warned. “Their work was controversial at best, and anyone attempting to replicate their results should be subjected to extreme scrutiny.”
Evan nodded. “That’s actually my main topic. Not trying to replicate anything. The most science I do is for science fair projects, but I’m looking into their controversial work, their cloning experiments. Specifically from the early 90s.”
“I might have some general information, but it sounds like you want specifics.” She had everything back in her hotel room. She’d pulled everything related to Cadmus when she got the email. It was under the best security Superman had available, but if Evan really needed it, she could get it for him.
He bit his lip and carefully scanned the shop. “A man named Dr. Carl Packard took DNA from his friends’ son. The kid had leukemia and they needed a match. Apparently, they mixed his DNA with another sample to try and avoid him developing cancer as well. My main focus is finding the donor, but anything on that experiment would be great.”
Lois didn’t need her files to know who the donor was. It was Lex before Conner. If Evan was right about the date, it would’ve likely been the first trial after Bizzaro, their first attempt at mixing human and Kryptonian DNA.
“Do you know what happened to the clone?”
Evan flinched at the last word.
She cursed internally. Kon had always hated being referred to as a clone, especially in the early days. It only changed when Bart started calling him MewTwo. If Evan knew the subject, he likely wouldn’t take too kindly to that term. She rephrased, “Sorry, the boy. With Cadmus, these stories rarely have happy endings.”
”He was given to the family for the bone marrow transplant. It didn’t work, but they kept him.”
She breathed a sigh of relief. Cadmus didn’t take the boy back. She couldn’t imagine losing a son, but losing two at one time would’ve been horrible. “That’s good.”
He shrugged, “Better than a lab, at least.”
She narrowed her eyes. Despite having never met the man before, there was something so familiar about him. The strong slope of his nose, the dimples when he smiles, and those eyes. They were blue, but so much brighter than any shade found on Earth. She recognized all of those traits, saw them everyday in her husband and son.
“Give me some time to try and dig something up on the donor.” Read: Convince her paranoid husband to talk to the poor man. But she knew of one family member who was very personable and would love to talk to someone he could relate to. “But I can put you in touch with my source. He and your friend have some things in common.”
Evan lit up. “Of course, give him my information. It’d be nice to have someone to talk to.”
From there, they moved on to less serious topics. Lois told him about her conference and asked about his job. (A firefighter likely hiding Kryptonian strength was impressive.) It wasn’t something she would do with most fans, but, as far as she was concerned, Connor was no longer her oldest.