Chapter 8 for you! I hope you're enjoying reading this as much as I am writing it!

Disclaimer: Own Young Justice? Nope, not yet. ;)


"Why won't he tell us anything?" Wally was pacing in front of the static-filled window opened on the holographic screen in the mission room. Batman had just cut off the transmission after informing the team that Robin had been safely taken to the Batcave. He had neglected to mention anything regarding his protégé's health despite the worried questions from the team.

"He could at least let us know if he's still laughing," Artemis huffed. As soon as the bio-ship had landed at the mountain Batman had swooped in and disappeared with Robin faster than they could say 'Joker venom.'

It had taken an hour for him to even answer their calls and when he did he was extremely agitated. The teens hadn't received more than two sentences from the man before he warned them to leave him alone or he'd visit the cave personally and, as he put it bluntly, "Give you each a lesson in patience that you won't forget." That had shut them up long enough for the man to end the video transmission and leave them in their current state of agitation.

"What did he mean, 'teach us a lesson'?" M'gann asked.

"You don't want to know. Trust me," Wally assured her, causing the Martian to look even more confused.

"Why did he have to take Robin to the Batcave? It would have been easier to leave him here!" Zatanna said.

"I believe Batman wished to avoid our interference in the matter," Kaldur suggested. Of all of them, he appeared to be the least on edge, but his voice betrayed his worry.

"Yeah, and he has all of his fancy gadgets there," Wally said. He had stopped pacing to stand and glare at the static-filled screen with the message Connection disabled, spread across it.

"We're still his friends, we should at least be able to know how he's doing!" Artemis growled, using her hands to emphasize her point by throwing them up above her head.

"Wasn't he shot, too?" Conner asked.

"Yeah, I tried to help as much as I could, but I wasn't really sure what to do," Zatanna admitted.

"What? Someone forgot to mention that little detail!" Artemis glared at Wally until the speedster resumed his pacing to avoid meeting her gaze.

"I was more concerned with the fact that he couldn't breathe! He's been shot loads of times and-"

"So that makes it any less important?" Artemis interrupted.

"No! I just- well he-" Wally stumbled on his words in his rush to explain his thinking at the time. He hadn't thought it wasn't important...just not as important.

"This is no time to be fighting!" Kaldur said, cutting off Wally's stuttered sentences. "The best we can do is wait for more information from Batman and hope that Robin is okay. Until then, fighting with each other will not solve anything."

Wally and Artemis remained silent but continued glaring at each other. Kaldur seemed relieved to have achieved that much and suggested that they all relax until Batman updates them on Robin's condition.

"Not that he did before," Wally grumbled as he left the mission room. He headed in the direction of his temporary room at the mountain. M'gann and Zatanna both started toward the kitchen while Conner left to find sphere. Kaldur and Artemis exchanged a brief look before the archer stalked off toward the gym to take out her frustration on a punching bag. The Atlantian sighed and started walking toward his own room, equally worried about Robin as about keeping the rest of his team calm.

M'gann and Zatanna silently agreed to make snacks for the rest of the team in an attempt to calm the tension. They worked in silence for a few minutes, the only sound being Zatanna's occasional spell. M'gann broke the quiet.

"What do you think made Robin start laughing in the warehouse?"

"Joker venom," Zatanna answered without thinking, "That's what Wally said."

"Yes, but there couldn't have been gas in the warehouse or we all would have breathed it in," M'gann insisted. Zatanna opened her mouth to answer but closed it after a few seconds of thought.

"I...don't know," she finally admitted, "Unless Sportsmaster somehow had it then I don't see how that could have happened."

"But he wouldn't be working with the Joker, would he?" the Martian girl's voice betrayed her fear despite her calm expression.

"No. They can't be working together," Zatanna sounded more confident than she felt, but she didn't want to know what would happen if Sportsmaster started working with the Joker, "Besides, Robin and Batman fought the Joker earlier today. They would have had to be working together before that and Batman would know if they were."

"I guess that makes sense..." but M'gann sounded unsure. The two cooked in silence for awhile before M'gann spoke again, "Wait, Robin did fight the Joker today, right?" Zatanna nodded, "So what if he was hit with the gas before and then breathed it in again during the fight?"

"But Robin would have told us if he had been hit with it," Zatanna countered, "There's no way he'd want to be on a mission after that."

"He didn't care about the cut on his cheek. Maybe Joker venom is just another normality for him," M'gann suggested. She shuddered at the thought of that being considered an average day for the boy.

"He still would have told us," Zatanna insisted, but her voice didn't carry the same conviction as before.

"He didn't want to tell us about the cut."

"Batman wouldn't have let him-"

"What about Batman?" Wally's voice startled the girls, who had been concentrating on cooking and hadn't noticed the red head come into the kitchen.

"I thought you went to your room?" Zatanna said, trying to calm herself down and think about her and M'gann's conversation.

"I smelled food," Wally shrugged as he inspected the half-finished snacks laid out on the counter, "So what were you saying about Batman?"

"That he wouldn't have let Robin come on the mission if he had been hit with Joker venom from their fight before they came," Zatanna answered in one breath, no longer sure of her own theory.

"They've both worked through worse. And what got you thinking about that?" Wally asked with his mouth half filled with an assortment of food. M'gann grabbed a bowl of nuts from his hand as she answered.

"We were wondering why Robin started laughing in the first place. I thought that he might have had Joker venom left on his costume from before and just breathed it in again during his fight with Sportsmaster."

"He did say he didn't have time to change to a clean one before he came," Zatanna added as she began to consider the theory again.

"If it was just that his antidote would have worked on it. No, there's something different about this," Wally said, "And anyway, he would have told us if he had been hit before."

"That's what I said..." Zatanna muttered.

"Guys! Batman's got a report!" Artemis's shout jerked the three into action as they ran back to the mission room. Wally arrived first to find Artemis, Kaldur, and Conner already gathered around a video feed showing Batman and some of the Batcave behind him. The man looked worn and exhausted, but he couldn't get a word in over the team's loud questions.

Finally he gave them a glare and growled, "Enough, or I won't tell you anything," which immediately cut off their questions.

"I have discovered the chemical components of the venom that caused Robin's laughter. It is a new formula of Joker's with both immediate and delayed effects. From our earlier fight with the Joker, Robin was infected with a liquid form of the gas. The antidote only cured the immediate effects while the delayed...has started."

"Did you make a new antidote?" Wally asked when Batman paused. The man glared at him, but the speedster didn't back down. In the brief silence a loud burst of laughter came from just off screen. At once the team started demanding answers and yelling at Batman again.

The man only glared at them again before pressing a button and sending the screen into static. The talking stopped immediately but seconds later the screen turned back on and Batman's glare greeted them again.

"Don't interrupt me again," He warned. Six nods in response. "I am in the process of creating a new antidote. It should be done within the hour."

Batman's silence seemed to prompt them to ask a question, but this time only Kaldur spoke. "What of Robin's current condition?"

"He is...still laughing," Batman replied with a slight hesitation, "I managed to get the bullet out of his arm without much difficulty. Whoever bandaged it saved him a lot of blood loss and possibly more medical difficulties." Even though he didn't say it, Batman seemed to know it had been Zatanna. He gave the girl a slight nod and Zatanna took it as a thank you. She'd have to ask Robin how he understood the Bat so well without either of them saying a word. She'd only seen the silent communication a few times but the two seemed so connected it amazed her.

In the brief silence Wally spoke up with another question, "How come you haven't given Rob anaesthesia or something to knock him out?"

"I've tried, but something in the toxin is keeping him conscious. He hasn't been able to pass out but the semi-effective antidote has kept him from suffocating for the time being. I suspect that this version of the venom was designed to kill."

"Is that all?" Batman asked when no one said anything. The team exchanged glances before Kaldur answered in the affirmative. Batman nodded once and cut off the transmission.

There were a few second of silence before anyone managed to put their thoughts into words. It was Conner that managed it.

"So Robin should have died by now?"

"Yeah..." Artemis confirmed grimly, "And he would have if he hadn't had that antidote."

"Did Batman say he had taken the bullet out of his arm?" M'gann asked, deep in thought. The others nodded and she continued, "But he hasn't passed out at all. He would have been conscious through the whole thing."

"I'm sure he had painkillers or something. And it's probably nothing new..." Artemis said, but she sounded unsure.

"There is nothing we can do now but wait until Batman has completed the new antidote. We should not dwell on what we cannot help," Kaldur said, seeing where his teammates' thoughts were heading. They all nodded mutely and started wandering back to their respective places from before the transmission. Despite Kaldur's warning, all of them had the same thing on their mind.


A little break from action for a bit. More angst. Please review and tell me what you thought! If you don't post fanfics on here than you might not know this...but reviews are our sustenance. The wood to out fire. The updrafts to our birds. The Joker to our Batman. In short; they're awesome and we need them. :) (Yeah, I love the Joker. Favorite comic book villain, closely followed by the Riddler!)