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'Mind Link'

Enjoy!


Surprisingly, it wasn't Wally that ruined things this time. It was Connor, sort of. He didn't really ruin things, per se, but there was a moment that made Robin feel a little uncomfortable. Everything at the cave had been going fine. M'gann was baking, Zatanna and Robin were doing their sort-of-flirting-but-not-flirting thing, Artemis and Wally were struggling with homework, Connor was doing moody Connor things, and everyone else was off doing heroic things.

Robin assumed that Wally was doing math, since the redhead would occasionally groan and insult his notebook. It wasn't that Wally was necessarily bad at math, but Robin had learned long ago that the teachers just didn't explain things the right way for Wally's learning style. Once he actually understood it, has fairly mediocre at it.

"So what's the Kid Wonder's hair like out of costume?" Zatanna asked, smirking at his messy locks.

"Why the sudden interest."

"Just because. You bats are pretty intense about the whole secret identity thing, I can't really imagine civilian Robin having the same hairstyle," Zatanna explained.

Robin recalled how Richelle's hair was always styled. Bangs pulled back either by a headband, or barrette, and neatly brushed and out of the way.

"A little more hevelled, a little less dis."

Zatanna's nose scrunched up adorably while she thought, and she laughed when she realized what Robin was saying.

"I bet the girls go crazy for our little bird," Wally interrupted, grinning at the two. "I mean, you'd be no Wallman, but picture it!"

"I could see that. Use a little gel, style your hair right." Zatanna nodded and pushed Robin's hair back, as if to demonstrate. M'gann, now thoroughly distracted from her cookies, squealed excitedly and flew over.

"We could give Robin a makeover!"

"That's usually just girl thing, Miss M," Robin mumbled, now feeling very self-conscious. He could feel a heavy blush creeping onto his cheeks, and his ears were probably already a bright red. He tried to squirm out of his seat, but Wally had sped over and thrown his arm around the acrobat. The speedster and magician, on either side of Robin, seemed determine to keep him routed to the spot.

"Come on, Rob. I a makeover might look good."

Robin decided that his face must have been a bright vermillion by now. On one side was someone he had a crush on, and on his other was a person he considered fairly good looking. He didn't let his mind specify who was who. It didn't help that Wally was going on about how he was good looking, and probably had a secret Gotham girlfriend he wasn't telling them about. It was no wonder Robin's heart was racing.

None of this posed a particularly large problem, besides the fact that he would be content with the Joker suddenly bursting into the room and dousing them all in laughing gas. But then Connor stepped forwards, concern written all over his face.

"Robin, are you alright?" Connor asked, silencing Wally's teasing remarks and M'gann's excited chatter.

"Yeah, I-I'm fine," Robin answered, trying to will his blush away.

"Are you sure, because your heart—" Using everything Batman had taught him, Robin lifted his feet and pushed off from the counter, tumbling backwards off his stool and slipping out of the arms holding him in place. He jumped up at Connor and slapped a hand over his mouth.

"I'm fine!" Robin repeated, fully aware that his recent actions contradicted his words. Connor raised an eyebrow, staring down at the smaller boy, while Wally suddenly burst into laughter. Everyone watched him for a few moments before Artemis suddenly fell into a fit of laughter as well. Zatanna was covering her mouth to mask her giggles, and even M'gann was smiling brightly.

"What?" Both ebony boys asked, although Superboy's voice was muffled.

"R-Rob!" Wally gasped through his laughter. "Just, you-you're—"

With those choppy, disjointed words, Robin realized what was so funny. Connor was significantly taller than him. In order to reach the Kryptonian's mouth, he'd had to jump up. This meant he was now hanging from Connor's neck, one hand clamped over his mouth, while his feet dangled a foot off the ground.

Robin frowned at Wally, chewing the inside of his cheek while he did so, before remembering that habit belonged to Richelle and stopped. He let go and dropped back down to the floor, stepping a healthy distance away from Connor, who was looking increasingly angry as the speedster continued to laugh. The others had recovered by now and were watching Wally with a combination of worried and amused expressions.

"Baywatch, you might want to run," Artemis said with a smirk. Wally took a deep breath and calmed down long enough to see Connor's expression.

"Oh." Wally's face fell. Before he could take off down the hall, Batman's voice rang through the mountain.

"Team, report to the mission room."

"Saved by the Bat!" Wally cheered and ran off before Connor could grab him. Robin had come to the mountain in uniform, so he didn't need to go and change. Wally, having the advantage of superspeed, was there first. Robin was a close second, and Zatanna was right behind him. Magic was just another advantage. Connor and M'gann arrive next. Connor had recently started wearing fingerless gloves with his normal t-shirt and jeans ensemble. It wasn't that big of a difference, but Robin got the feeling that he wanted there to be some difference between his hero and civilian identities. If gloves were that difference, that was fine. Artemis was last

"An altered human appeared in Providence just ten minutes ago. The police are getting calls all across the city of various sightings. At the bioships top speeds, you can be there in half an hour. I'm sure you know what to do," Batman said.

"What about Aqualad and the others?" M'gann asked.

"They're occupied. It's just you six today." Batman's tone was dismissive, meaning the debriefing was over.

"Cool, Rob's in charge!" Once again Wally sped off ahead of everybody. They followed him to the hangar, where the bioship was ready to go. Everyone took their usual seats, Batman opened the hangar doors, and they took off.

It was an unspoken agreement on the Team that, when Kaldur was unavailable, Robin would be their leader. He was still a little unsure of himself, but had recovered greatly since the failed simulation. After all, they had been using Robin's plan to subdue the League back when they were under the control of the Light. Robin was the only one of them who knew the League well enough, and knew the best ways to exploit each weakness. The success of that day, along with a lack of casualties, had done wonders for Robin's confidence. He still didn't feel ready to officially take over as leader, but he was fine with substituting when Kaldur wasn't around.

The Atlantian had hinted several times that he thought Robin was highly capable, and would be fit enough for the position in the not so distant future. But the bird was content with how things were for now.

"Approaching Providence," M'gann announced as the city came into view. Robin immediately got to work using the Watchtower's satellite signal to hack into the police force's radio and tip line. He listened closely as the bioship, in camouflage mode, lowered onto a wide rooftop. His teammates waited patiently until Robin was ready and had a plan formulated.

"There've been three recent calls about suspicious persons being sighted in the city." Robin pulled up a map of the city on his holo-glove, three bright red dots marking the location of each call. "Superboy and Artemis, you take the first call just North-West of here. M'gann and Wally, the second call was made close by, I want to search this area. Zatanna and I will investigate the location of the final call. If you find anything, let the rest of us know through the mind-link and we'll converge on that area. Got it?"

Everyone nodded, exiting the bioship, and split off into pairs. Robin didn't hesitate to run to the edge of the building and launch himself off of it. Nothing beat the feeling of the cool evening wind whipping by as he soared through the air. Zatanna was levitating close behind as they made their way to the location of the call.

When they reached the closest rooftop to their goal, Robin somersaulted across it to let the momentum bleed out and stopped on a dime at the edge, hands curled around the brick to keep him from falling.

"Wow, no wonder they call you Kid Wonderful," Zatanna said in a teasing tone as she set down beside him.

"It's Boy Wonder," Robin corrected, then shot her a sly grin. "But I am wonderful."

"I think everyone knows that."

They shared a quiet laugh before focusing on the matter at hand. It was still light out, so there were a fair amount of people out. And since it wasn't a city like Gotham, where it was practically taboo to be out past sunset, that number probably wasn't going to drop much.

"Can you cast a spell to scan the area?" Robin asked.

Beside him, Zatanna shuffled on the roof ledge and took a nervous breath. "I can try. The altered humans haven't been touched by magic, so it might not work. They're still human, and my magic isn't powerful enough to detect biological differences."

Robin nodded slowly, trying to think of a way around it. "What about emotions?"

"I think I know a spell for that. It'll take a few minutes to prep it."

"Cool. I'll take a look around the area." With that Robin jumped off the building and swung across the street. He scanned around the block, slowly increasing his radius. He paused on top of an apartment building and spoke through the mind-link.

'Has anyone found anything?'

'Nothing yet.' Artemis was the first to answer.

'We have found the sight of a disturbance, and are on alert,' M'gann said.

'Be careful,' Robin instructed. He ran across the rooftop, jumping and tumbling onto the lower roof of the neighbouring building. The one after that was considerably taller. Without breaking stride, Robin fired his grapple as far up as it could go and started to run up the wall while the line reeled in. His exhilarating moment was interrupted by Zatanna calling him over the mind link.

'Robin, I'm ready.'

'On my way.'

Robin shifted all his weight into the next step and changed direction, running along the building rather than up it. When he reach the corner, he released the grapples hook and started a free fall over the street. Robin twisted in midair to face the way he had come, fired his line again, and resumed his race across the rooftops. He reached Zatanna in a matter of minutes, having hardly broken a sweat.

Zatanna was sitting cross legged a safe distance away from the edge of the building. Her eyes were closed and her mouth twisted in concentration. Robin scuffed his boots along the stones to signal his arrival without disturbing her. Zatanna gave the barest of nods and stood up. Her eyes glowed when she opened them and she cast her hands out.

"Wohs su ohw yeht era," Zatanna chanted. A single pulse of spread from her palm, cascading over the streets. Robin felt a flash of heat as it passed through him. Moments later, columns of light stretched above the buildings. Within them were thin, twisting tendrils of colour. They varied in hue, shade, and opacity. The columns drifted across the sky as the person they belonged to moved on the streets below.

Robin looked up to see a similar column stretching above his head. At its center were two thick tendrils, one turquoise, and the other purple. Surrounding those were smaller strings of red, yellow, and blues. Robin caught Zatanna staring at his column of light as well.

"Um, Zee?"

She blinked and shook her head, then smiled sheepishly. "I don't think that was quite the right spell."

"Oh. Do you know the right one?" Robin's eyes drifted upwards once again. He felt like there was something important about the turquoise and purple.

"Yeah. Just a second." Zatanna thrust both hands out this time and chanted once again. "Wohs su who yeht leef!"

There was another pulse of light, and the columns flickered until only the thinner tendrils remained, but the colours had changed slightly. Robin lifted a hand, wondering if he could touch the bright red swirls above him. A moment later he remembered the mission, and refocused.

They scanned the skies, searching for a sign of their altered human. A few streets away there was a cluster of grey lights, and at the centre was an ever darker red.

"Over there. Light grey, it's fear. And dark red is anger," Zatanna explained. As they headed off in that direction, the lights faded, but not before Robin once again glimpsed the red over him.

"And bright red?"

"Excitement."

Robin grinned. "Asterous."

They reached the location where the clustered lights had been. The street below seemed empty and oddly quiet. Robin's eyes narrowed and he scanned the store fronts. He caught sight of a bank the same time that a gun went off.

"Come on!" Robin called and climbed down the side of the building. He sprinted across the road towards the bank and ducked below the window. Robin peered inside and saw a large man standing in the middle of the room. He wasn't an altered human, but he was angry and he had a gun. There were a few bank employees, who had probably been staying late, cowering behind the glass that separated the tellers and customers.

Without hesitation Robin darted through the door and tackled the man. The criminal yelled in surprise and outrage as he was shoved aside and swung his gun around. Robin grabbed the man's arm, struggling to aim the gun away, when it went off. Robin's fist lashed out against the man's knee and the criminal yelled in pain.

"Dnid mih!" Zatanna shouted as she entered the bank. Ropes appeared out of nowhere and snaked around the criminal, binding his arms to his sides. Robin kicked the man's hand, knocked the gun away, and went to check on the bank staff. None of them were injured, and the police had already been alerted to the situation via a panic button under one of the desks.

"Robin, are you okay?" Zatanna asked.

"Totally whelmed, why?"

"Your leg."

He looked down to see a rip in the black fabric. When the gun went off, the bullet had grazed him. Naturally in one of the few spots where his Kevlar was either thinnest, or nonexistent. He hadn't even felt it, and it was hardly worth his attention. Robin pulled a spare bandage from his utility belt, slapped it over the wound, and grinned at Zatanna.

"There, good as new. We should be going, the police will be here soon, and we have a target to find."

Zatanna nodded, giving Robin's leg one last worried glance, and they left the scene. They were about to head back up to the rooftops when Artemis contacted them.

'Guys, we've found him!'


Sorry to leave you on that bit of a cliffhanger. I'm off to Iceland in a couple days, so I won't be able to post or write until I get back. You can expect the next chapter to be around July 9th, but I'll try to make it sooner if I can.

Shadowswithouthope: I like to think that, considering how long they've been friends. That Barbara would know Dixie well enough to be able to hear when something is wrong. And I was hoping you guys would enjoy that :) considering Barbara's work as Oracle in the comics and her own detective side, I always pictured that she would bug her father about his cases

Pixie07: I'm actually using Alfred's canon daughter, Julie Remarque, but mostly just her name and appearance. I haven't decided if she'll appear again, because it was mostly just to add a little something to Alfred's character. Barbara Gordon would still be Batgirl if I was bringing in that hero persona to the story, but chances are I won't be doing that either

Cynder2013: Dixie actually didn't check because she wasn't really worried about anyone watching, since the public knows that she can still do acrobatics. She mostly just checked as an afterthought and because, you know, her skirt was falling down.

I have a poll on my page about which story I should write/post next. Please vote!

'See' you next time!