Kid Flash stretched from his position, sprawled out on one of the sofas in the common area. "Shouldn't Connor be back by now? It's been what... 3 hours?"
"It's only been 2 hours, stop overexaggerating." Artemis rolled her eyes. "They probably got called back in by Red Tornado anyway, so-"
"Let's go see them!" Artemis turned her head, surprised at M'gann's exclamation. "It'll be fun, and anyway, what's the worst that could happen?"
Robin snickered. "Really, M'gann? With our luck a meteor could strike us down as we walked there, and we'd be invaded by spooky aliens."
"But that's not exactly gonna happen, is it Rob?"
"Eh, was a joke KF." Robin shrugged, standing up. "Sure, why not?"
Miss Martian smiled, happy, and the team began walking through to the roof entrance that Superboy had most likely used, unless he decided leaping over the mountain was a good plan.
Robin was the first to reach the entrance, and when he poked his head out he blinked, to double check what he was seeing. Carefully, he closed the door and turned to face his team. Aqualad was closest to him, and gave an inquiring look.
"I think they're play fighting." Robin said, slowly, placing special emphasis on the `think`.
"Play fighting?" Wally grinned. "Well, I always knew Connor was a kid at heart."
"Perhaps we should return later?" Aqualad suggested, and the team hummed in agreement, not wanting to walk in on what was either a bonding moment or an outright brawl between two superheroes.
They strolled down the corridors, at a more leisurely pace this time, and soon split off, some to their bedrooms, and others to the kitchen.
Robin, personally, had decided to go to one of the many gyms in the area, intending to make use of the gymnastics equipment for a light round of practice, but he was interrupted before he got there by Red Tornado.
The android stepped across his path, and nearly walked into him were it not for Robin jumping back just enough. Surprised, Red Tornado turned to face Robin. "Which way were you heading?"
"To the gym, why?"
"I was heading to the roof to retrieve Ninja, as I have located the Tengu. The directions were incorrect."
"What room? I'll go grab him for you."
"47-D..." Although the android was not capable of facial expressions, Robin could have sworn it would have looked curious if it could have.
Nevertheless, he had a Ninja to retrieve now, so Robin turned around, in the other direction to the gym, and headed straight for the roof for the second time in the hour. He seemed like a nice enough person, despite the weird stuff they had going on with them, so Robin was eager to get along with the strange new Hero and learn more about him in the process.
When he opened the door again, cautiously, he was surprised for the second time. No longer were the two boys brawling, but instead laid down on the rocky roof to rest. Superboy had his eyes closed, but his breathing was quick enough that he could see it from a distance, indicating that the fight had turned into a battle of endurance rather than skill- not that either of them seemed to have the latter.
The Ninja lay a scant few meters away from his team mate, slower breathing but with his eyes set to the sky, where the faintest orange rays of evening sun were stretching across the view.
Silently, Robin padded over, and shook the Ninja gently with his foot. The reaction was instant, and hilarious. First, they shot up in surprise, then they stumbled over their scarf, and tripped backwards, rolling for several metres until they dropped off a ledge. The scarf came back after a moment, hooking around a large, heavily dented, boulder, so Robin figured that the Ninja hadn't fallen to his doom, and was merely hanging just off the edge of view.
Curious, he stepped forward and looked over the edge, only to have his eyes widen in surprise. Instead of being just out of view with the scarf holding him up, he was hanging several feet off the cliff-face, the scarf loosely swinging, yet taught enough to hold his weight. He was swinging back and forth, trying to gain enough momentum to hit the cliff face, it seemed. Eventually, he swung far enough back that he hit it, and Robin almost winced. Instead of the face first crash he was expecting, the Ninja was now in a half crouch, feet and palms flat against the rock face, held on by something he couldn't see. It didn't take long after that for the Ninja to reach the top, and the saphire eyes gave him a distinctly disgruntled look over.
"Not the worst wake up I've had, but could you try to be nicer about it next time?"
Robin shrugged. "You were the one who rolled off the cliff after tripping on your ridiculous scarf, not me."
"Leave the scarf out of this!" The words seemed heated, but the posture betrayed the humour and Robin smiled. It seemed like his initial assessment was correct.
"What's it even there for, anyway?"
"Uh..." The Ninja blinked, momentarily stumped. "It lets me grab stuff, and works like a hookshot sometimes. And it looks totally bruce!"
Robin blinked underneath his mask, filing away the strange descriptor to look up afterwards.
"Oh, hey, I almost forgot. Your bird buddy's in room 47D- No- don't run off-" Ninja paused, stopping his feet from going in the direction of the mystery room. "It's in a really weird place. I'll take you to it."
"You will? Great!"
Although the walk started off calmly enough, the Ninja quickly grew bored. It was hall after rocky hall of rocks in halls. Finally, he could take the silence no more, and burst out, "Hey, what do you get when you divide Sin(gerine) by Cos(gerine)?"
Robin almost tripped in surprise, but hurried to finish before the Ninja did. "A tangerine! Do you know why plants hate maths so much?"
"Because it gives them square roots! Oh man…" Although only his eyes were visible, Robin could tell he was grinning under the mask. "You know, math puns are a sine of a big problem."
"We can always add to it. You know what happened when the past, present, and future all walked into a bar?"
"I hear it was quite tense. Why doesn't Do like Re or Un?"
"Because they always try to start something! Dude! Where are you getting all these puns from?"
"Without the internet life has no memeing."
Robin almost gaped, and was about to come back with another pun, but realised where he was. "Here we are… 47D."
The Ninja perked up, suddenly seeming so much more innocent, and Robin gestured to the door. The Ninja gave him one last look, "Thanks." And then he was gone.
Inside the room, door safely shut behind him, Randy grinned ruefully underneath his mask, Although he wouldn't be here for long- not if he could help it- he had really enjoyed the company of Robin for the few moments he'd spent with him while fully aware.
Still, he wouldn't be able to replace Howard, no way, and now that the Eye of the Carp was almost hole again, he could seal the demon away and finally- finally have his buddy back after what, three weeks? Too long, that's for sure.
The Tengu slept on the floor, wings and tail coiled tightly around his oversized form. Randy glanced around, checking the cameras and finding them to be suitably melted hunks of plastic to be nonfunctional. The Tengu must have put up a fight at some point, or seen fit to destroy them. He'd never understand the giant bird, even when Howard was mostly the one holding the controller it still slipped through.
With his heart racing away in his chest, he walked quietly over to the bird, watching its chest rise and fall for several long moments before he finally plucked up the courage to do what he'd been trying to do ever since the stank had messed with the stone and he'd ended up on the west coast. With one last steadying breath, Randy tossed a Ninja Fireball into the air, and tossed the mask in in one fluid motion. The great bird rose with a surprised screech, before diving at him, flames pooling at its ethereal wing tips. Randy thrust the gem in front of him, and the deafening rush of wind that ensued as the demon was sucked in almost made him drop it.
The mask, reddened from the flames reformed from its ashes and drifted softly to land in his hand, but Randy was almost unaware of it. Howard was back, his small handed, short, kinda chubby best friend, was back. Blearily, the ginger rubbed his head, looking at Randy through half lidded eyes. "Randy…?"
"It's over, Howard. You're back to normal."
They met each others eyes for a long moment, before breaking into a bone crushing hug.
A.N.
It's been a long week. I'm tired. You're probably tired and annoyed at the late updated. Let's just curl up with a nice cup of hot chocolate and bemoan our life choices together, yeah? Yeah, good plan.
Almost forgot... For the most absurd, incomprehensible review the dedication is to Casey. It stuck in my mind for a few days. Loved reading them all too.
CoreHope, signing out. Till next time.
