Disclaimer – I don't own Teen Titans or Young Justice. Working on my Beyond the Night series is ending up far more complex than I thought. Beyond the Night: Beyond Justice is a collection of one-shots collected together to some of the AU elements for TT and YJ for my other story which is meant to serve as an AU origin story for the Batman in Batman Beyond. Rated M because the rest of the series is M, but because of the dark themes.

Beyond the Night: Beyond Justice
Circus Freaks

Title: Circus Freaks
Genre: Angst, Drama, Suspense
Characters: Speedy, Green Arrow, Flash, Starfire, Wonder Woman
Summary: Roy dislikes what he sees at Titan Tower after the Trigon incident.
Notes: This is an AU for the Trigon incident, but Tokyo also happened before, among other things. This puts a different spin on Speedy/Red Arrow's view point in the first episode, which in this AU is pretty much the same, except for a few minor differences including a few things said, thought, and there are more clones, less gynomorphs in number probably.

The smell of smoke lingered around Jump City, a few buildings still smoldering from the fireballs launched at them by the numerous fire demons unleashed upon the parts of the city surrounding a large building shaped like a letter of the alphabet. The building in Roy's opinion was an eyesore, to say the least, but so was the destruction surrounding the tower. The sidekick of the Green Arrow followed his mentor into the building, following him up to the upper levels of the building.

"What is this place? Why did those demons attack? Why are we even here?" Roy glanced around, noticing one of the Green Lanterns at the end of the hallway. He didn't know which one it was, not that he really cared. He knew one was African American and had revealed his name, but that this was not said Lantern. He looked up from speaking to the Flash, whose eyes narrowed in annoyance at the teen.

"You ask to many questions."

Roy's jaw clenched, his fists tightening. "Adults are such a pain, thinking just because I'm seventeen that I can't handle myself. Yet everyone in the hero world knows Batman lets Robin go off on solo-missions. It's so stupid. I've been doing this almost as long as he has as well."

"However, this is what happens when a bunch of kids is left unsupervised to do vigilante work on their own." Flash folded his arms. "Yeah. We got a demon named Trigon unleashing his forces upon this world because of his half-demon daughter."

"I'm not a kid."

"This is exactly why I don't want a sidekick of my own. This Teen Titans thing is a complete mess." Flash hiked his thumbs back at a set of rooms. "We're packing their stuff up now. Actually, you are, while us adults clean up. Boxes are in each room. There are five rooms."

Roy's hands clenched. "Seriously? This is hero work? How?"

"Roy…" Green Lantern touched his shoulder

"I got it. You adults want to drive it home that us sidekicks are never going to be a part of the Justice League. Seriously…"

"Actually, I was going to say that this is about doing something that is right. Two of the kids got pretty badly hurt, and there was no telling what psychological damage was done either."

"How is that my fault?"

"Roy… better someone closer to their age packs up their things."

"Got it. Go and pack up their stuff. Be nice about it, even though these brats managed to ruin things for the rest of us sidekicks." Roy rubbed the back of his neck, the bitterness setting in deep.

"Just get the small stuff packed into boxes. Don't worry about the bigger things. The League will move those later."

He started with the room on the right side of the hall, nearest the lounge area.

He started with the room on the right side of the hall, closest to the main area. Speedy didn't want to think about what these kids were like until he saw the room.

The room, in his opinion, was childish. The room was also bright and reminded him of rainbows, sunshine, and kittens. The room made him want to gag, but he also wasn't sure how he would get the stickers off the wall and doors. His mind couldn't fathom any hero mature enough to do vigilante work without the supervision of an adult would ever do something he'd expect from a middle school student. Another shudder ran down his spine, remembering the notebooks the girls at his old middle school. "Yup. This is a nightmare. And…"

Another shudder ran down his spine, making him realize they expected him to pack up a girl's things."Seriosly, why didn't they have a female in here helping me? Oh, wait, that's right. There are no female sidekicks to do the chores. The only other sidekicks are Robin and Aqualad and Robin. And we all know why they're not here. Batman's completely fine with Boy Wonder doing solo work, and Aqualad could never, ever leave the side of his king. So not a problem at all. Not one bit. Thanks a lot."

"Get out of my room!"

Roy felt something hit the back of his head as someone throw something out of him. His eye twitched, suddenly realizing that someone – particularly a very high strung girl – had thrown her laundry basket at him. The bright purple item now lay on the floor, and clothes hung off him. He reached up and shuddered to realize the piece of clothing he'd grabbed was a girl's unmentionables.

"Hentai! Pervert!"

Letting go of the offending piece of cloth, he turned, expecting to see a girl of Japanese decent or even a Japanese wannabe. That would certainly have explained the room. Instead, floating in front of him was a flying girl with orange skin and green eyes. Her hair was red, tapering off towards the end color wise. She looked to be fourteen or fifteen age wise, and in his opinion, her clothes were completely inappropriate for someone her age.

"Get out of my room, you pervert!"

"I'm leaving." Roy left the room and found himself looking at Wonder Woman standing with his mentor. "So, why can't any of the others come and pack their own stuff?"

Green Arrow folded his arms, a smirk on his face. "Sorry about that. You still have…"

"Give me back my clothes, you pervert!"

"Seriously. Why can't they pack up their own things?"

"She's the only one of the Teen Titans who isn't down after that fiasco.

"Let's try the next room sport."

"Don't. Don't call me sport."

Roy headed into the room across the way, only to take a deep breath, and plug his nose. "Seriously… why I'm I being punished for these guys mistake."

The room was a mess. Dirty clothes lay everywhere, among pictures of animals and hands down the epidemy of most teenage boy's rooms, and to Roy another sign of lack of maturity. There were also weird jungle plants lying around. Reluctantly he started putting things into boxes. Green Arrow followed suit. "It's not a punishment."

"Fine, a message."

"Yes. This whole business was a message. Just, not in the way you think."

Green Arrow's sidekick sighed, mentally trying to block on the stink in his head as well as how disgusting this room looked. He would need to sanitize his entire uniform once he got home. They then headed to the next room, which was down the hall. He stopped short, taking in all of the equipment, his jaw dropping as Green Arrow looked over his shoulder. "So, I'd say this room is mostly heavy lifting?"

"I say so."

Roy shook his head, and went across the way, opening up that door with his mentor close by him. Another shudder ran down his spine, making him wonder what was the most irritable thing about this room. It was either the fact this was another room where he would find himself needing to touch a girl's things, or that it seemed like anything he might pick up may curse him. The girl for this room was goth, and the skull candy gothic vibe was the opposite kind of sickening from the rainbow candy of the other room.

"Hmm. Interesting room."

"Interesting. Half the stuff looks like it will curse me if I even touch it. It's likely the demon brat's room."

"Now, now."

"I'll take care of this room." Wonder Woman piped up. "There's still one more room, that of the leader of this little band."

Speedy took a deep breath, not liking one minute how the adults seemed to like talking down to him despite the fact he was only a year away from being eighteen. He was almost an adult. They headed into the final room, and he folded his arms across his chest. He took in the articles on the wall, along with the circus posters and memorabilia scattered around. Who the person was who led the team wasn't evident as he turned to a bulletin, his fingers tapping against his arm.

Someone on the team was a shutterbug. There was picture after picture of the team. His finger reached up, noting the fourteen to fifteen-year-old he saw before floating around in many of the pictures, flying around with some kind of strange tail coming from her hair of all things. Another was a cyborg who looked to be seventeen like him, yet he doubted this was the leader. The goth girl looked to be around twelve or thirteen, leaving the ten to the eleven-year-old green thing. No matter how he looked, there were only pictures of those four. "Wow. Circus freaks."

"Roy, that's not very nice."

"This team released a demon into the world, did they not?"

"It's a lot more complex than that. What you've heard here, it's only a small piece of the puzzle. How many times have I told you to look at the whole picture."

"Yeah, yeah. That's why I'm still just a sidekick. Great."