Author's Note: This takes place after Before The Dawn. Also, Superboy knows the secret... It'll be explained later.

Disclaimer: I don't own Young Justice or any of these characters (unfortunately).

Present Day

Barbara's hand slammed down on the alarm clock snooze button mere seconds after the shrill noise began to fill the air. She rolled over in her bed and tried to ignore her conscious telling her to get up so she wasn't late, but her bed just felt so good. Barbara had never been a morning person as long as she could remember. And Babs felt like she was on Cloud 9 while laying in her warm cocoon and slowly filled with dread just thinking about having to leave her sweatpants and blankets for her cape and cowl.

Maybe just a few more minutes of sleep...

The alarm's shriek filled the air once more, resulting in the clock to receive an even harder hit that the one before that. Fine. Babs groaned as she sat up and stretched her arms over her head. She rubbed her eyes and fumbled for her glasses on the desk next to her. She glanced at the clock and resisted the urge to forget the mission and to just go back to sleep. It was 2:35 in the morning. She had only been in bed for 45 minutes. In the past few weeks Barbara was lucky to get at most two hours of sleep a night (and maybe she was even lucky enough to get a nap after missions) and the lack of sleep was taking a severe toll on her this morning. Between working with Dick disguised as Batman, team missions, and college classes, sleep was out of the question for Barbara. Before she could change her mind and go back to sleep Babs slid out of bed and dressed in a Gotham University sweatshirt and jeans.

She ran her fingers through her hair while brushing her teeth and putting in her contacts trying to look at least a little bit presentable. It didn't matter what she looked like now anyway because soon she would be at Wayne Manor and donning her Batsuit. Cursing herself for brushing her teeth before she had the chance to drink some coffee, Babs grabbed the keys to her motorcycle and walked outside into freezing cold rain.

"Perfect." She grumbled sarcastically as she squeezed her head into her helmet and started driving off to the Wayne Manor. Because Barbara's apartment was only about two miles away from Bruce Wayne's mansion and there was basically no traffic this early on a Saturday morning it didn't take Babs long to reach her destination; but that didn't affect how cold it was. Barbara typed in the code to the giant rod-iron gates and drove up to the mansion. When she braked her bike and walked up to the front door she was soaked to the bone. Alfred opened the door before Barbara even knocked and she ran inside welcoming the warmth of the house.

"Miss Gordon, one would expect a person to transport by car during weather like this." Alfred stated while taking her helmet from her.

Babs tried rubbing warmth into her arms and looked up at Alfred, "It's very hard to do that when you don't have a car, but thanks for the advice. Are Dick and Tim already in the cave?" She asked the Butler.

Alfred nodded. "You know how where to go." Babs gave a two-fingered salute to Alfred as walked off towards Bruce's study. She tried to prevent her boots from squeaking on the hardwood, but ultimately failed. You could hear her walking from Blüdhaven .

Barbara entered the study and walked over to the Grandfather clock standing at the far corner. She moved the small hand to the 10 and the big hand to the 47 mark. Barbara could hear a small click that would have gone completely unnoticed if not being listened for. With a big tug she pulled the Grandfather clock away from the wall and walked down the seemingly never-ending staircase, closing the clock behind her. The warmth from the manor didn't follow Babs down to the cave, and her soaked jeans and sweatshirt felt like ice packs against her skin. Dick and Tim, already in their Nightwing and Robin suits, looked up at Babs and greeted her.

She shivered in return.

"Why are you wet?" Dick asked stupidly.

Barbara rolled her eyes and walked over to the glass case where her Batsuit was hung up. "You know, Dick, there's this magical force called rain. It's this strange phenomenon that causes water to just fall from the sky. And when water touches things, stuff happens to get wet." She heard Tim laugh as she ducked into a dark corner and changed as quickly as possible into her suit. She practically had to peel her soaked clothes off of her.

When Barbara was out of view Dick whacked Tim on the back of the head.

"What was that for?" Tim questioned, rubbing his skull.

"For laughing." Duck replied, crossing his arms.

Tim smirked, "Well, then don't ask silly questions."

Barbara walked back over to both boys now in her suit. She felt 100x better now that she wasn't wet and the thermal layer in her suit was now keeping her warm.

"So, when do we leave?" Babs asked.

"Now; we were waiting on you slowpoke." Nightwing replied. All three of them exited the cave and zeta-tubed to the Hall of Justice.

"Recognized: Nightwing B01, Robin B20, Batgirl B16." All three of them stepped out of the Zeta Tubes one by one. Batgirl hated the feeling of traveling through the tubes; she had never gotten used to the nauseating feeling she felt in the pit of her stomach whenever she stepped through one of them. Barbara had asked Batman once how the tubes worked and she regretted learning the answer ever since. The tubes literally pull you apart molecule by molecule and put you back together again. Babs didn't even want to think of what would happen if something went wrong while you were being put back together.

The three batkids stepped into the Hall to a very tired looking team. M'gann yawned into her hand while Beast Boy leaned onto his sister, his eyes springing open whenever they would flutter closed. L'gann sat on the floor, resting his head on M'gann's leg. Conner stood at the opposite side of the room with his arms crossed.

Nightwing looked around. "Okay, so we are still missing Wonder girl, Blue Beetle, Bumblebee, and Impulse." Nightwing looked at the clock. It was 3:25 in the morning. The whole team was directed to meet at 3:30. The team stood in silence while waiting for the remaining four members. Babs stood by Dick, who was staring at a computer monitor intently. The monitor was blank. Babs looked at Nightwing, back to the monitor, and then back at Nightwing. His eyes didn't move from the screen an inch. Batgirl had to hide a smirk on her face; Dick was totally zoned-out.

"Stop thinking so loud, Boy Wonder." She whispered, breaking his trance.

"Sorry." He replied bluntly.

Babs arched her eyebrow. Dick was usually brighter than this. Ever since Artemis' death and the total and complete destruction of Mount Justice, Dick started closing off from everyone. Even Wally. Even her.

But before she could question Dick's behavior, the zeta-tube spoke up.

"Recognized: Wonder Girl B21, Bumblebee B17, Blue Beetle B22." There was a flash of white light before each one appeared. Babs looked up at the clock. 3:27 AM.

"Where's Bart?" Blue Beetle asked after looking around the room.

"Late." Garfield said, his eyes closed.

Tim smirked, "For the fastest kid alive he always seems to be the last to show up."

"Recognized: Impulse B23."

Bart ran out of the tubes and looked up at the clock. "Ha! Not late."

3:29

"We applaud your attendance." Nightwing said, a small smile on his face. Babs looked at him with her eyes narrowed. He was smiling, but the emotion didn't reach his eyes. "Now, let's get down to business. The mission to rescue Blue Beetle, Impulse, and Beast Boy was a success." He cleared his throat. "Miss Martian even managed to..." He looked up at M'gann. "take out the main enemy." M'gann looked at the ground and put her hand over her mouth. Nightwing looked away and tried to focus on anything but Miss Martian. What?

Oh, something was definitely going on.

Nightwing continued. "The reason we are here so early is to infiltrate The Reach's ships out of the public's eyes. We know that they have now made it known to Earth that they want to communicate with us, but they obviously excluded fact that they have been testing on humans since they've gotten here. For this mission we need the ultimate stealth team. For this mission Bumblebee, Batgirl, Miss Martian, Impulse and I will be breaching the Reach's main ship. Robin, " Dick looked at Tim, "I want you to lead another team. Beast Boy, Blue Beetle, Wonder Girl and Superboy; you will all be backup if things go wrong. If we send you a signal, we need your strength to break in and get us out. Understood?"

Everyone in the room nodded.

"Good, we leave in ten." Nightwing said.

The room softly hummed with the noise of the pre-mission chatter. Barbara started to walk over to Cassie and Karen when she heard hushed whispers from another room. She was standing right by the door so she was pretty sure that she was the only one who could hear the secret conversation. Babs looked around and realized that Nightwing and Miss Martian were both not there.

Stop being so nosy, Babs. It's not your business. Nope. Not at all. Don't you dare. Babs didn't like eavesdropping on her friends, but something was up and she wanted to know what it was. She stood by the closed door and strained her ears to hear everything that was being said.

"...didn't know! Why wouldn't you tell everyone about this? Artemis... the way she looked at me..." Miss Martian's voice cracked and Barbara could hear a sniffle. She was crying? And what about Artemis? She can't really look at anyone anymore.

Nightwing sighed, "I know that you didn't know, but you need to understand that this state you're leaving your victims in is wrong. I don't know if we can fix Kaldur now, and now Artemis is on this mission alone..."

"What?" Babs whispered to herself. This was not making any sense at all. She looked around the room to check if anyone else was hearing this. Even Superboy seemed to not be paying attention and with his hearing she thought that he would be questioning everything alongside her. But instead he just stood there, a scowl on his face, looking at his feet. Barbara heard M'gann sniffle again and saw Conner's face tighten just a bit.

He can hear this.

Batgirl abandoned the secret conversation and walked across the room to Superboy. He looked up at her and raised his eyebrow. She and Conner never really conversed much. Yeah, they had gone on missions with each other and trained together, but they never talked unless it was about business. So Babs walking up to him was totally taboo.

"What do you know?" Batgirl whispered. She locked eyes with Conner and put her hands on her hips.

"I don't know what you're talking about." Superboy said, peering around the room to see if anyone was listening. No one was.

Barbara had to stifle a snort. "Oh please, I'm Batgirl for God's sakes. I know when someone is lying to me. And you are lying. I know you can hear what they are saying in the other room." Babs cracked her knuckles. "There are secrets being kept. And I hate it when people keep secrets from me."

Conner just shook his head. He looked down and then back up at Babs as Dick and M'gann walked back into the room.

"Okay team, let's go." Nightwing stated. Batgirl sighed and walked away from Conner without another word. Everyone began to load onto the Bioship and buckled themselves into their seats. M'gann sat in the main seat and began flying the ship with a blank look on her face, her eyes slightly red. The trip to the Reach's ship was about half an hour long and Babs didn't know whether she should push the questions out of her mind and focus on the mission, or whether she should question Dick until his ears bleed.

She decided to go with the first choice. She needed to focus on the mission and there were too many people to overhear anyway. Superboy glanced at her from across the ship, but looked away when she noticed him. So there was something M'gann, Superboy, and Nightwing knew. Who else was in on whatever they were hiding?

Seven hours later and the mission went off without a hitch. It almost seemed too easy to have gotten the information that Nightwing needed and to have not been discovered by the Reach. But Babs was way too tired to question anything right now. Seven hours of a stealth mission and running only on 45 minutes of sleep had Batgirl totally and completely beat. She was so tired in fact, that she forgot to interrogate Dick when she, him, and Tim returned to Wayne Manor. Babs just fell asleep on a leather chair in the Batcave still in her suit.

"Babs..." Dick shook her arm. "Come on, Babs. At least go to a spare bed upstairs."

Barbara rubbed her eyes and looked up at him. "I... need to talk to you." She mumbled, still half asleep.

Dick arched his eyebrow, "I think that can wait. C'mon." He lifted her out of the chair and helped her up the stairs and to a bed. Babs rubbed her eyes as Dick pulled a pair of sweats and a t-shirt out of a dresser. She looked around and realized they were in his old room.

"Your clothes are still wet. That's what you get when you leave them in a ball on the floor." He handed her the spare clothes and left the room while she changed. She was still tired as all hell, but she was going to find out what Dick was hiding from her.

"You can come back in, Pixie Boots." Dick walked back into the room and rolled his eyes. He was still in his Nightwing suit, but his domino mask wasn't on. He smirked and sat on the bed next to her.

"That mission went well." Dick said, looking out the window. It was about 10:30 in the morning still, so it was still bright outside considering the rain clouds hovering in the sky.

Babs nodded. She didn't know how to confront Dick about what she had heard. The last time she remembered him ever keeping a secret from her was when she didn't know he was Robin. Since then, they had always told each other everything; even pointless stuff that neither of them would give a damn about. That was their friendship, both of them were open books to the other. Dick had been acting strange for a while, but Babs just blamed it on extra stress. With Batman millions of light-years away , Artemis -dead?- and Mount Justice completely blown to shit; it wasn't surprising that Dick felt that he had a lot on his plate. This morning was the first mission since Aqualad had been taken out and Dick seemed severely on edge the whole time. And with the whole secret conversation... Babs couldn't even think straight.

"Is there something you want to... tell me?" Barbara asked, biting her bottom lip.

Dick looked at her confused. "... No?"

She looked at her feet. Oh, okay. "Nothing? Nothing about the whole situation with Artemis and Aqualad?"

Dick just shook his head, but she saw something flash in his eyes, "You're tired and talking crazy, Babs, get some sleep here. I'm going to go down to the cave and try to decode some of this intel we got from The Reach." He squeezed her hand and left her in the room alone.

He had just lied straight to her face.

"What the hell?" Babs remembered saying before she laid down and fell into the deepest sleep she had had in a week.