Disclaimer: I do not own Young Justice or any DC characters
Robin's been missing for a month now and the Justice League hasn't found any leads yet. Young Justice hasn't been doing well on missions, without their youngest teammate they've been down in the dumps. It's just that sometimes that they forget how young the boy is and now that he's gone they can see how young he really is. The team didn't realize how protective they were of Robin until he was out of their grasp and swearing that whoever took him from them would pay.
Everyone was surprised that Batman hasn't found anything yet. The Justice League tried to explain that Batman was trying the best he could to find their missing teammate, but he was just as distressed as the team. Robin was Batman's partner still and he is the son of Batman's alter ego Bruce Wayne, of course they kept that part out. But that did nothing to ease the team.
Right now the team was at the watch tower, which was a onetime thing. They had no idea why they were there but they were and so was Red Arrow, the original 7, Green Arrow, and Black Canary. They were all surrounding a table that had a C.D. disk in a case that said "Watch from the one who took the little birdie." They were just staring at it not daring to open it, as if it would take away their little Robin forever if they so much as breathe on it.
Batman, who couldn't stand not knowing stuff, finally gave in and snatched the case off the table. He walked over to a large screen and put the disk into the side. As he did this everyone watched him with wary eyes, praying that whatever was on the disk would lead them anywhere to Robin.
When an image came through everyone's faces had terror written all over them. Robin was standing up, arms in chains slightly tilted upwards. His feet were dangling in the air and Robin's chest rose and fell, quicker than he should normally breathe, so that told the 16 in the room that the boy was panting. Seeing that there were slash marks running across his chest, clearly from a sword or a dagger, and whip marks imprinted into the back of the young boy, as the scene shifted, these injuries were the cause of the boys panting.
Robin was bruised, bloody, and sweaty, and seeing him like this killed everyone in the room. Tears were running down the females faces and the males were twitching like they could feel the pain that the young boy was in just by looking at him. Just then the scene changed over to a white screen. There was applause and whistling cutting through the silence like a knife cutting through butter.
"Oh no you are too kind, stop it. Oh please you must, stop it." An amused voice came. Then the owner of the voice came into view. The Joker of course, Batman couldn't believe he didn't see this from the start. But the thing was that the Joker didn't leave anything to lead him to the Joker and usually he does. That's how things worked, so this led Batman away from the Joker. Just then another voice broke Batman out of his thoughts. "Thank you for coming to see the traveling auction. Well today's masterpiece is called The Bleeding Birdie." Joker laughed maniacally.
"Oh Batsy don't be upset that you didn't catch us. I mean I think my babies did a perfect job on knocking out the kiddie crew and taking the little birdie. It was a bonus that they didn't leave any tracks behind that'll lead you to us." Green Ivy appeared in front of the Joker.
"We have a time limit though. You have 2 days to come and purchase this magnificent piece of art. I'm afraid that, even a work of art, it might die if not purchased by a loving owner. Oh and um we don't give away the location. You have to find it and you'll have to take down the heavy security. We just want to see how far the lucky family would go for our latest project." Wotan spoke up from behind the Joker.
"Thanks for watching, now switch to channel 394 for live footage, to keep an eye on The Bleeding Birdie. From this access you can see of your too late or if another someone has already claimed the art. You may record but honestly there is no point and don't forget the time limit. Good luck to all who wish to claim the Boy Blunder and we certainly hope no one's too late to salvage this magnificent beauty." Atomic Skull's voice rang through the air and then the screen went into Superboy's favorite show but right he wanted to punch the screen and shatter it into a million pieces.
"Switch it to the channel." Batman demanded.
''Batman the kids are here." Flash warned.
"We are not kids, and need I remind you Red Arrow is technically a Justice League member." Aqua Lad snapped back at the League members. It wasn't like him to act like that and argue with elders, it's just hard being the leader of the team and Robin, who was like a little brother to Aqua Lad, gets kidnapped on his watch. It also wasn't fair that the adults in the room thought that they couldn't handle to see what Robin was going through. But maybe they were right maybe they weren't ready. But they didn't have the right to say whether or not Young Justice stayed in the room to see this. Not this time, not when their baby brother was in danger, not when Kaldur was responsible.
"Fine then Red Arrow may stay, but everyone else go and wait outside in the hall way." Superman said.
"No, we will not leave this room. I'm sorry but he's our teammate just as much as he is Batman's partner. I mean if we don't get to stay in here then I think that no one except Batman should be in here." Artemis argued back.
"It's not about whether you have the right; it's about your innocence. Being in this life of fighting crime, it's the worst thing you guys could be doing at this age and we want you to keep that purity for as long as you can." Wonder Woman said.
"You're wrong; we lost our innocence when Robin, who's like a baby brother to us, was kidnapped and tortured. He's being showed as a piece of material not as a human by those villains. He's a member of our team just as much as he is Batman's partner. Right now Batman is the only one who gets to tell the team to leave." Superboy told the adults.
"Superboy calm down we aren't trying to offend you in any way we just….. if worst comes to worst then we don't want you guys to do anything harsh. We know that you guys are already beating yourselves up because of Robin's disappearance."Black Canary tried to calm the team down.
"Only Batman gets to tell us to leave."Kid Flash said again. The adults gave up, clearly getting nowhere with the teens, and turned to Batman to save them.
"Turn the channel on now." Batman said. The members stared at Batman in shock, but he simply ignored it. Frankly he agreed with the kids. They had as much of a right just as the others in the room, if not more. Reluctantly, Martian Manhunter turned to the channel that the video had instructed him to change it to.