Title: I'm in Town. Can We Talk?

Author: Emjen Enla (Fanfiction)/emjen_enla (Wattpad)

Teaser: As soon as he gets the text from Nightwing, Wally knows that something has gone seriously wrong.

Rating: PG-13/T

Word count: almost 2,000

Timeline: After Young Justice S. 2 Ep. 10 "Before the Dawn"

Dominant Characters: Nightwing, Kid Flash

Pairings: Spitfire (Artemis/Kid Flash)

POV(s): Kid Flash

Warnings: spoilers for Young Justice Season 2

Notes:

-Season 2 of Young Justice is finally on Netflix and I'm out of school so I've been working my way through it. I just finished episode ten, and I couldn't stop thinking about Fanfictions involving it. I sat down at my computer at 7:00 and this happened. Yes, I should be working on a multitude of other projects, not the least of which is Somebody to Lean On, but at least I'm done and can post.

-I have an idea for another post-Before the Dawn short story involving Artemis, but I haven't decided if I'm actually going to write it or not. I guess we'll see what happens.

Disclaimer: I don't own Young Justice.

Palo Alto

April 1, 8:42 UTC

/I'm in town. Can we talk?/

That was all the text said, but it caused Wally West's world to crash down around him.

Most people would have thought there was nothing strange about that text, aside from the fact that the sender of the text was called "Nightwing." That was actually the most normal thing about the text. After all, it was a lot safer to call your best friend "Nightwing" than "Richard Grayson" because people would assume that you and your friends had an obsession with superheroes. Your best friend having the name of Bruce Wayne's eldest son was a little harder to explain.

So yes, the name was totally normal, it was the message that was terrifying for several reasons.

Firstly, Nightwing's crime fighting career usually kept him on the East Coast. Of course, no one had bothered to tell Wally where the new Team headquarters was, but Wally figured it had to be someplace where Nightwing could still make his nightly forays to Blüdhaven and Gotham with relative ease. That meant that Nightwing would have had to travel all the way across the country to be "in town."

Secondly, even if he was around, Nightwing wouldn't bother texting to say he was coming over. He'd just drop by and even if the door was locked he'd find a way to let himself in. Wally had learned this the hard way when he'd gotten out of the shower and left the bathroom wearing nothing but his boxers to find Nightwing sitting on his couch.

If Nightwing was texting to tell Wally he was coming over, that meant he had something important to talk about and he wanted Wally to be in the right frame of mind for it. Understandably, given the circumstances, Wally's first thought was that something had happened to Artemis.

I knew it, I knew it, I knew it! I knew this was a bad idea! I should have never let her do this! I knew this was going to end badly!

His first instinct was to demand over text what had happened to his girlfriend, but that would leave a trace of the plan and Nightwing was very adamant that that couldn't happen. Instead, Wally took a deep breath and with shaking fingers responded to Nightwing's text with one just as unassuming.

/sure i'm not doing anything/

He half expected Nightwing to immediately let himself in and say that he'd texted from right outside, but when he didn't arrive for five minutes Wally figured that wasn't true. He had a couple minutes to kill before Nightwing arrived and destroyed his world. Unfortunately, that was the last thing Wally wanted. He already knew what Nightwing was coming to tell him, or at least what it would entail. Artemis' cover had been blown. Kaldur had sold her out to Black Manta. Artemis was captured. Artemis was being tortured. Artemis was dead.

Wally couldn't sit still. He couldn't stop shaking. He couldn't stop a million nightmare scenarios from running through his head.

Please don't let her be dead. Please. Give me a chance to save her.

He needed to calm down, he was shaking so quickly that any second he was going to wear a hole right through the floor. He forced himself to take a deep breath and began to tidy up in an effort to distract himself.

The minutes stretched by. Six minutes, seven minutes, eight, nine. Wally felt every one like a lifetime.

Come on, Nightwing, where are you?

Ten minutes. He shut the dog in a bedroom, even though he had known Nightwing since puppyhood.

Eleven minutes. There was a knock at the door. All the impatience drained out of Wally's body and he couldn't move. He didn't really want Nightwing to show up, he realized. He didn't want to hear this terrible news. He didn't want to know what terrible fate had befallen Artemis.

Still, he couldn't leave Nightwing standing out there, not when he was actually knocking for once. As if in a dream—no, a nightmare—Wally walked across the living room and opened the door.

To his surprise the person standing outside was dressed not Nightwing, the capable and fearless leader of the Team, but as Dick Grayson, nineteen and exhausted.

Wally studied his best friend. Dick looked tired—extremely tired—like he hadn't slept in several days. His shoulders were slumped like he was carrying a heavy weight. He looked hopeless, lost and very, very young.

Dick spoke first. "Hey, Wally. Can I come in?"

Wally swallowed around the lump in this throat. "Sure," he said and stepped back to allow Dick inside.

Wally closed the door behind them and turned to look at his friend. "What happened?" he asked deciding to cut to the chase.

Dick was looking everywhere but Wally's face. "Can I sit down?" he said.

He was buying time, Wally knew it, but he nodded numbly.

Dick crossed to the couch and sat down, or more collapsed in the way that someone too tired to stay on their feet one more minute does. Wally waited for him to say what had happened, but Dick didn't say anything.

The silence dragged on. Wally tried to be patient, but he couldn't. Every second of this wasted another second that he could be using to rescue Artemis if she was still alive.

"What happened, Dick?" he demanded.

Dick shook his head, he still wouldn't look at Wally.

"You can't honestly expect me to believe that you came all this way and bothered to text me to tell me you were coming to just sit on my couch." Wally burst out. "Tell me what happened to Artemis!"

Now Dick did look up at him. "Nothing. Artemis is fine. Her cover is still intact. She's as safe as she can be, all things considered."

The tight knot of fear in Wally's chest unwound. He heaved a sigh of relief. Artemis was alright, she was going to come back to him. Everything was going to be fine.

There was only one problem…

"If you didn't come here to tell me that something happened to Artemis what did you come here for?" He asked.

Dick looked away again biting his lip, his hands twisted in his lap. The knot began to tie itself again, for Dick—for Nightwing—to be this worked up something terrible must have happened.

Wally stepped around the coffee table and sat down on its surface. He put a hand on his best friend's knee. "Come on, Dick. What happened?"

Dick took a deep breath and lifted his head to stare at some point over Wally's shoulder. "I have it from a very reliable source that Kaldur was actually on our side and not the Light's."

Wally's fingers tightened convulsively around Dick's knee. He'd been doing his best not to think about Kaldur since the destruction of Mount Justice. He understood that double agents sometimes had to make tough choices to preserve their cover, but he thought that blowing up Mount Justice when Dick and Conner were still inside was a little extreme. How did they know that Kaldur wasn't playing both sides?

"How good is this source?" he asked unable to keep his doubts completely out of his voice.

Dick sighed and bowed his head again. "It's M'gann."

What? That didn't make any sense. "What do you mean?"

"M'gann knows about the mission," Dick said.

"You told her?" Wally's voice came out far more accusing than he'd intended, but Wally didn't really care. If Nightwing could tell other members of the Team, then why couldn't Wally tell Artemis' mother that her daughter was still alive? "I thought you said we couldn't tell anyone."

Dick lifted his head sharply to look Wally in the face. "I didn't tell her."

"Then how did she…" Wally trailed off because the explanation that suddenly dawned on him was too terrible to be put to words. He silently begged Dick to say he was wrong.

Dick's eyes flickered to the wall, Wally's heart sunk. "We were trying to rescue La'gaan, Jaime, Gar and Bart from the Light's Partner. They're called the Reach. I assume you've seen them on TV?"

Wally nodded. "I take it they're bad news?"

"Very," Dick agreed then went on. "The actual rescue went fairly smoothly aside from a run-in with this member of the Reach who wears a black version of Jaime's armor, but we can talk about that later. Anyway, while we were escaping M'gann and Gar ran into Kaldur," Dick stopped to breathe. "M'gann wanted revenge on Kaldur for 'killing' Artemis so she attacked him mentally and…" Dick trailed off, but Wally could fill in the blanks

"No…" he breathed. "That's…that's…That just can't happen! Are you sure?"

Dick nodded slowly. "M'gann says she's positive she emptied his mind. I asked Gar—discreetly, of course—he agrees. Artemis hasn't been in contact yet, but I'll confirm with her as soon as possible."

"He's…" Wally didn't want to say it, he didn't even want to think it. "He's…catatonic."

Dick stared at the far corner of the room. "Yes."

Wally jumped to his feet. "There must be a way to reverse it. There has to be! He has to get better!

"No one's ever recovered from that, Wally," Dick said. "Well, no one except for Psimon and he hardly counts." Dick took a deep breath. "Kaldur's gone, Wally."

Wally couldn't believe it. Kaldur was one of the original members of the Team, he'd been their first leader. He'd been with them through thick and thin, good and bad. He hadn't even flinched at the idea of feinting betrayal to get close to the Light's mysterious Partner. He'd been nothing but loyal and brave and how had the Team repaid him? With hatred and slurs and suspicion and an eventual mind extraction. Wally now hated himself for his mistrust of Kaldur.

He sunk down onto the couch next to Dick. They sat in silence for what felt like an eternity, each lost in their own thoughts.

"Conner was right," Wally finally said. "M'gann's out of control. Completely, totally, dangerously out of control. This mind erasing stuff needs to stop."

"I think she realizes that now," Dick said. "That's probably the only plus to this whole lousy situation."

They lapsed back into silence.

"What do we do now?" Wally asked because he wasn't sure, and Dick was Team leader so he was supposed to know.

"Well, Artemis' cover is still holding," Dick said, but he didn't sound certain at all. Wally was reminded that Dick was only nineteen and didn't have any more answers than Wally did. "We're going to have to hope that Black Manta cares enough for Kaldur to keep him around. We'll destroy the Light and the Reach, extract Artemis and Kaldur. Then…" Dick trailed off.

"Then?" Wally repeated.

Dick drew himself up, throwing his shoulders back and sitting up straight. "Then we'll find a way to restore his mind, even if it takes us the rest of our lives. Kaldur's more than our teammate, he's our friend and we're not going to leave him like that," All traces of doubt were gone from Dick now, and Wally felt his own confidence soar as well.

"You're right," he said. "We're going to find a way to fix this. Anything else is unacceptable."

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Emjen