"Twenty bucks." Robin said easily.
"Hell, I'll give you fifty if you can pull this off." Artemis smirked back at him.
"Why are we betting?" Superboy asked with that confused/angry look of his.
"Because Arty here doesn't think he can do it." Wally supplied.
"Oh, and you do?" Robin accused his best friend suspiciously. Wally shrugged.
"I know not to underestimate you, yeah, but I've never actually see you fight like this…" Wally hedged.
"You're betting against me, aren't you?" Robin rolled his eyes. Wally grinned.
"Nothing personal dude. Empirical facts and what not." He smirked.
"And if we pick the wrong side?" Megan asked with a slight tilt of her head.
"Then Robin takes all our money." Artemis explained. "But if we win, we split the winnings four ways. It's about picking who you think will win, taking into account that he's going to have to beat you AND me, Superboy, and Kaldur. Without all his fancy gadgets."
"And if I say he will not beat all of us?" The Martian clarified, looking worried at this impending battle tournament.
"Then you're on our side, and WHEN we win, you'll get a fourth. If you bet." Artemis added as an afterthought with a savage grin.
"I'm with Robin." Superboy said randomly, and they all turned to stare at him.
"Really?" Wally asked in surprise.
Connor just looked blankly back at him. "Yes. Why?"
"Let him be, Wally." Kaldur chided gently.
"But- does he even have any money? He hasn't left the Mountain except for missions and when we all go out!" Wally exclaimed, then back to Connor: "And really!? Do you know something we don't?" He demanded.
"I'll spot him," Robin brushed the speedster off, "And I'm glad to have an ally, Supes. No going easy though, right?"
Connor blinked. "Why would I go easy?"
Wally face-palmed while Robin grinned. "Oh, no reason! Anyway, I better change then if we're all agreed." He said happily, taking the clothes KF had offered him, and disappearing like he normally does when in 'ninja' mode.
"You betting Kal?" Artemis demanded of their leader.
Kaldur sighed heavily. "I do not condone such behavior, but I see this as a valuable team building activity, and this "bet" seems to motivate both you and Kid Flash. For once, you are on the same side, so I will relent." He nodded unwillingly, lending his money to their collective pile on the living room coffee table.
Wally and Artemis glared at each other, seeming to realize they were in fact agreeing, but wisely held their tongues knowing they'd only scare Kal off if they did anything, and they both REALLY wanted to win this thing.
"Let's get started!" Robin's cheery voice shattered the silence right behind Wally, who jumped a foot in the air in shock.
"Note to self: gadgets do not affect ninja skills." Artemis said dryly as they turned to see their teammate in super-casual civies.
He wore a plain white t-shirt, simple gray sweat pants, and of course his domino mask. No shoes, no socks, no gloves, no belt, no cape: nothing that was his in any way. The t-shirt was KF's and the sweat pants were Artemis', because no one believed he even owned a piece of clothing that wasn't in some way rigged or tricked out to help him fight. The problem was that without the costume and the Kevlar, he was so small that KFs shirt hung quite loosely on him, and they'd needed Artemis's pants because girls' pants came with a more secure drawstring to tie them up. Even then he had to roll up the bottoms once or twice so they weren't dragging on the ground.
Everyone did a slight double take, not expecting such a drastic change on the younger boy. It wasn't like one of them putting on civies—this change made Robin look absolutely tiny, made him look eight instead of thirteen, as if that age were much better. Whatever muscle he had was veiled by the baggy shirt and pants, not even making him look lean, but skinny and helpless.
No one looked overly thrilled about fighting him anymore, Megan and Connor frowning worse out of everyone.
"You look like a child." Connor blurted out.
Robin rolled his eyes beneath his mask. "Which is why I don't fight crime in sweats. Moving on! Who wants to go first?" He said innocently, skipping back a few steps onto the fighting platform, his bare feet padding near-silently on the concrete floor.
"First for what?" A sharp voice shot from the side door, and saw Black Canary frowning at all of them.
"We are training, Ma'am." Kaldur said. Canary still looked suspicious, but less so as Kaldur spoke, knowing the Altlantian wouldn't lie to her, not when it came to a simple training exercise.
Then she caught sight of Robin.
"And what are you doing?" She demanded of him, walking over to where they stood by the platform.
"Training." Robin replied too innocently, shooting her a playful and devious grin.
"We have a bet that Robin can't beat us four without his gadgets." Artemis explained carefully, hoping they weren't doing anything wrong enough to make Canary stop them, and they all noted the rather shocked look that crossed their mentor's face at that announcement.
"Kaldur agreed to it as well because Wally and Artemis were on the same side for once." Megan said brightly, not seeming to notice the unhappy look on Canary's face.
Canary managed to spare the speedster and the archer a surprised look before returning her frown to Robin.
"And you thought this a good idea?" She demanded.
"It is training, you know." Robin said cheerfully. "Would you like to join the bet?" He said sweetly, and his team blanched at him while Canary simply lifted one eyebrow.
"What would make you say such a thing?" She said stiffly, like she already knew the answer but didn't want to hear him confirm it.
Robin beamed knowingly. "Well… it has nothing to do with the fact that I happen to know Green Arrow tried to initiate the same thing with Batman and the League, and you were all for it before both Wonder Woman and Superman shut it down." Young Justice blanched yet again and turned to watch Canary's reaction. "You're not curious?" Robin challenged lightly.
Her lips twitched like she was about to smile, before coming to her senses and deepening he frown.
"I simply insinuated that it would be interesting to see Batman attempt this, not his young protégé." She argued.
"'Insinuating interest' implies a mild curiosity at the outcome of an event. You, however, I believe had placed a hundred and fifty against me and called Flash a 'quibbling coward' for staying out of it." Batman's deep, gravelly voice interrupted the confrontation, making everyone except Robin jump in surprise at his sudden appearance.
Canary simply sniffed, ignoring the looks the team was giving her. "I like to bet, and I was completely sure you wouldn't be able to beat Superman without the Kryptonite you stash in that belt of yours." She shrugged. "And are you implying that this is a good idea?" She demanded of her colleague.
"It was his idea." Robin grinned, and everyone but the Bats blinked, suddenly less sure than they were five minutes ago.
Batman didn't react (shocker, I know) simply nodding to his apprentice. "It would be a good training exercise for Robin, as well as the team. I have noticed they tend to shy away from him in sparring, or underestimate him in the field, and Robin has tended to fall into becoming what their perceptions of him are, and neither should be happening at this point in their career."
The team snuck glances at Robin who was looking properly abashed at Batman's criticism, but also slightly eager to get started and show them what he could really do.
"Batman, I got it when it was you against us, but Robin is still just a child: this is a futile lesson in the name of your own pride." Canary snapped.
"Hello?! I'm right here!" Robin complained, but they ignored him.
"And he was raised by me." Batman growled. "If he can't do this, then I've obviously done something wrong."
Everyone blinked in shock at that, but none so more than Robin, who was completely thrown.
This was the first time in… well, ever, that Batman had ever taken responsibility for some kind of mistake or failure on Robin's part. The older hero liked to make sure Robin knew where to place the blame, to make sure to drive him to do better and learn from past faults so they never happened again. It was how he himself gave the aura of being some infallible force: he made mistakes, but covered them up and learned well enough from them to never make it again, and he'd routinely drilled that into Robin's head. Even the things Robin did right, Batman always pointed out the flaws first, just to make sure Robin knew he wasn't perfect (and Robin knew, with his ego, that was important) and to continue to hone up on every little trait and imperfection just to make sure he could be as close to flawless as humanly possible.
Because that was just it: he was simply human.
This- Batman taking the blame himself- tripled Robin's determination to win this. The young hero recognized instantly that was what Batman had intended by it: raising the stakes to increase Robin's motivation.
Because Robin would be willing to let himself down in the name of not beating his friends to a pulp, but there was no way in hell he was going to let Batman down by doing it.
Especially now that Batman has flat out said (OUT LOUD) that if Robin couldn't do this, he'd actually been WRONG—that he'd made a MISTAKE.
Oh, it was on.
Only the bird saw Batman's slight smirk at his reaction.
"Are we late? Did it start?" Artemis and Canary sighed in unison as Green Arrow walked in the room, followed closely by half the League, all looking excited.
"This is ridiculous." Superman grumbled. "We forbid Batman from fighting us, so we make our protégés do it?" He huffed.
"And while he had the vote to stop it in the League, he and Di were the only ones against this little brawl." Green Arrow said happily, whipping out his wallet and adding to the already impressive pile on the table.
"You're impossible." Canary sighed in defeat.
"What?" Green Arrow complained. "You were all for it two days ago!" He accused, and Canary's cheeks colored and stalked off a bit, not liking being called out on her double talk.
"That was before it was Robin, and the kid decided to wear that to fight."Canary mumbled. For the first time it seemed, the older heroes in the room turned to look at the little bird at her words, and all did a double take just like Young Justice had.
"What!?" Robin demanded at their slightly less-excited looks. "They didn't trust that my clothes didn't have some sort of weapons trick in it or something." He huffed, knowing full well that was not what they were staring at, but deciding not to acknowledge it.
"Which is a fair suspicion." Batman noted calmly, and Robin had to press his lips tightly together to keep from grinning at the trueness of that statement.
"I'll be fine." He insisted, doing a graceful backwards flip from a stand still and twisting mid-air so that when he hit the ground he was running lightly to the training ring. Once there he did another flip and landed precisely at the starting point, giving them all a wide-eyes look. "Coming?" He challenged.
Canary groaned while everyone else just gave in and moved to either get in line to fight, or watch.
"Me first!" Wally cried, flashing to the position in front of Robin, who smiled widely at him.
"Great! I can warm up!" He chirped.
"Shut it!" KF rolled his eyes, putting his goggles down.
"This is a bad idea." Canary grumbled.
"Really? Why?" Hawkgirl asked, honestly not seeing the problem with having their younger counterparts fight each other. GL only put a hand on her shoulder, and no one bothered to answer her.
The computer voice spoke up: "Kid Flash… Robin… training session: freestyle combat… ready… begin."
And with that KF disappeared, shooting forward and aiming a blow at Robin's ankles to swipe them out from under the acrobat. Robin simply wasn't fast enough to stop the speedster, but he had seen it coming from a mile away and let it go, using the momentum of falling to catch himself in a handstand and whip around his legs and hit the red head under the chin with the heel of his foot. Wally—who'd been expecting Robin to keep falling once tripped—had halted for a moment too soon and caught it square on, getting knocked onto his back.
"Robin… point 1." The computer said robotically.
"Dude!" KF cried, abruptly on his feet again while Robin gracefully came up from his handstand and swept the hair out of his eyes.
"Yes, KF?" He smirked politely at him.
Wally glared. "Nothing." He huffed.
Robin grinned. "Didn't think so."
"Ready… begin."
This time Wally waited and stared down his younger opponent, carefully watching his bare feet as the acrobat lightly and carefully stepped in a casual circle. They both knew Wally had to strike first—Robin was far too smart to try and hit him with a hand-to-hand strike, knowing he'd never land a hit that way and only open himself up for a hit in return. Wally had thought it'd be easy, striking first against a supposedly defenseless opponent, going in and out fast before he could react, and getting three easy points. Without the intense protection of his usually Kevlar suit, even Wally's comparatively gentle hits— at that speed— should be enough to incapacitate him.
But this was Robin they were talking about.
He actually had to think…
Again, he went for the ankles, but this time switched it up to change at the last moment and go for the stomach. Again, Robin wasn't fast enough to stop it, and just let it happen.
The stomach hit was surprising, but not nearly as shocking as KF suddenly finding he couldn't let go of the boy as the acrobat wrapped himself around the speedster's arm, and suddenly he was air-born.
Robin didn't flip him too high in the air, knowing he could easily right himself with that amount of time, but Wally definitely felt the floor as it connect with his knees when he could only half-right himself. He barely saw the kick coming, but he managed to catch it before it made contact with his face again, and instinctively flipped the acrobat in return.
He didn't have the little bird's control though, simply getting him away as hard as he could like he'd do for any random thug trying to kick him, so Robin went flying—literally.
The onlookers gasped in stress as Robin hit the side wall about ten feet up, his back hitting square on with a smack, but they breathed easy again as he landed on his feet, smirking in amusement at KF.
"Nice control dude." He commented.
KF rolled his eyes. "Nice kick," He shot right back. "Do you have something against my face or what?" He grumbled.
"It really is quite offense you know." Robin cackled, lurching forward even as he spoke, and in KF's distraction the speedster almost fell for it and got hit.
"Ha- no." He scoffed, zooming back to give himself a safe distance, before analyzing the scene and shooting forward again.
He caught Robin around the middle—marveling for just a tiny bit at how small he was, and how it was next to nothing to pick him up—and whipped around in a tight, super fast circle, releasing the boy at the peak of the arch and sending him flying at the wall again. This time, Robin landed in a crouch perpendicular to the stone wall, and pushed off with hard, coming straight back at Wally.
Wally zipped out of the way, but not in time for Robin to twist himself mid-air and have KF run at super-speed right into his knee.
"Robin…point 2… Robin… winner."
KF groaned, clutching his profusely bleeding nose. "Sheriuthly, wud du yuh hab againtht muh fath?" KF said through his broken nose as Robin gave him a hand in getting up.
Robin only chuckled as Flash was suddenly there and helping KF set it straight again before it healed wrong. With a sickening crack the older speedster snapped it back into place and the younger boy yelped slightly.
"You'll thank me in a couple minutes when it stops hurting and your nose it still straight." Flash grinned at his nephew, clapping him on the back as KF trudged out of the ring.