(453)
"She was just a kid, Batman," Black Canary said. "Kids do stupid things."
"She's right," Superman said.
"Be that as it may," Batman said. "Nothing changes the fact that she armed a military corporation."
"Not by choice," Wonder Woman said. "You've heard the recording. She was being manipulated and threatened."
"And she should have come forward," Batman said. "She could have told anyone. Instead, she tampered with evidence to cover her tracks and led us to Brick-Top weeks after she originally found the soil."
"We don't know that she covered her tracks," Hal said. "We don't know what's in that soil."
"She still tampered with it," Batman said. "She still delayed an investigation for weeks."
Roy sat numbly in his seat, watching them bicker. The vial of soil was en route to STAR Labs in Gotham City for analysis. The USB was plugged into the supercomputer, and Roy's head was aching again.
"She still led us to them," Hawkgirl said. "She still worked to create a cure for every toxin they made. She was never against us."
"Batman," Black Canary said, her voice softening. "This is Gemma we're talking about. She cried when I cried before she even knew why."
"I'm...I'm with them on this one," John Stewart said. "Gemma was always a little...gullible. People like her are fodder for giants like PineCORP. And come on—she was a teenager."
"Red Arrow," Batman called to him at last.
Roy didn't even look up. "Huh?"
"How long have you known about this?" Batman asked.
"The whole story? A few hours," Roy said. "Bits and pieces? Since a few days after she...you know."
"Does anyone else know?"
"Otto Mason, the dealer that sold her the bunker. There's a demolition guy she was supposed to meet with to help her destroy the materials. I'm not sure if he knew anything, though."
"See? She was trying to destroy it," Wonder Woman said, crossing her arms in satisfaction. Batman's eyes had not left Roy.
"Who else?" he asked.
"She—" Roy sighed. "Lex Luthor."
"What?"
"You're kidding."
"Luthor?"
"Roy," Ollie stepped forward slowly, taking the seat next to him. "Do you have any idea how bad this looks?"
"Yeah, I know," Roy said. "I know, okay? I get it. But this is Gemma. She's stupid and gullible—you said it yourselves. She made a mistake, and by the time she figured that out it was too late to take it back. So she tried to fix it. Yeah, I'll admit—she should have told someone. But she was scared. She felt guilty. She holed herself up for months trying to fix it. She risked her life—repeatedly—trying to make it all right. She got close. She collected everything she needed to bring them down. I don't know if she was gonna come clean, but it wouldn't have mattered anymore, anyways. And might I ask exactly why we're debating her guilt here? She left us the evidence—all the evidence we need—to put Senator Kearney in prison and PineCORP in the ground. So what does it matter why she came forward or not? You might not have noticed, but she got deep fried on Asteroid Nine. Her ashes are floating somewhere in orbit—unless you plan on finding those and what? Putting them on probation?"
Roy looked around at all of them, waiting for someone to speak.
J'onn sighed. "He speaks the truth," he said. "Her guilt is no longer of importance. She was one of us and now she is no longer with us. We must respect what remains of her—her memory."
"Then the biggest problem now is this—" Black Canary said, holding up the stick of Sambanite. "And how much more of it Brick-Top has access to."
"How is it that you didn't run into any interference at that bunker?" asked Batman.
"No one else knows about it except Luthor, Mason and I. And now you."
"And you're positive of this?"
"Absolutely," Roy said. "Gem hid Otto Mason before PineCORP could find him."
"And Lex Luthor? How can you be sure he wasn't working with PineCORP from the beginning?"
"Because he hates them," Superman said. "They're his biggest competitors. Luthor's a lot of things, but he's not gonna bend over backwards and risk his reputation if he suspects PineCORP of the kind of stuff they've been up to lately. Gemma went to him before she thought to come to any of us. He must have figured out at that point that they had some kind of dirty deal going on with someone in the senate. He must have helped her out with the hope that whatever she'd find would be enough to bury them, and he'd be rid of a competitor."
"His logic is difficult to argue with," said Red Tornado.
"See? The robot agrees!" Flash said.
"What about the demolition man?" asked Batman. "Does anyone know anything about him or what she might have said?"
"She was supposed to meet with him," Roy said. "To destroy the materials. The day that we went on that mission. That's why she didn't want to go, remember? I thought it was because she was mad at me, but I guess it was because she didn't want to miss the meeting."
"Did he know the coordinates?" Batman asked. "Could he have tried to open the bunker without her?"
"She didn't trust a soul with the passcode," Roy said. "It took me weeks to figure it out. Demolition guy probably didn't even know what he was getting into. Everyone in the loop was kept on a strictly 'need to know' basis."
"This makes no sense," said Batman. "If she stole everything back, and no one got into the bunker since she first sealed it, then where did they get enough of this," he held up the Sambanite. "To launch an attack on the Watchtower?"
"I have a theory," said Kaldur quietly. Every head in the room snapped in his direction.
"Out with it," Flash said.
"It's a...far-fetched theory," Kaldur admitted.
"Now you have to say it," Ollie said.
"I—" Kaldur sighed. "You heard the recording. The Alchemist was becoming suspicious of their motivations. I can recall events she asked me to attend with her. I realize now that it was because she feared being left alone with Senator Kearney. They needed her, and that was why they kept her alive and in the dark for as long as they did. PineCORP International has adjusted to various obstacles and unfortunate 'bumps in the road', as they are called, such as the anti-toxin that we mixed into the water supplies after the Red Virus plagued Colombia. The rules have changed, but one golden truth remains the same—without the Alchemist, this entire plan is useless. Joseph Martin said it himself. It was not only her materials they were weaponizing, it was Gemma herself that was being weaponized. Without her, their entire arsenal is useless—only so many scraps of metal and rock. If the contents of the nuclear bunker are truly everything that she had created for them, and the only people who knew about the bunker clearly haven't tampered with it, then the only way I can imagine explaining how Brick-Top must have obtained the materials for his attack is that the Alchemist has not passed on to the afterlife."
Kaldur's words didn't die when he stopped speaking. They hung in the air in front of him, dancing around the room, zipping into everyone's ears and lingering for a moment before squeezing out the other as they all played with the possibility.
"That's imposs—" Ollie began.
"No, it's not," Batman said. He looked at the junior team, which had—until Kaldur spoke—been doing their best to blend into the wall. "Did you see her die on that asteroid?"
"Yeah," said Wally after a moment. "The whole thing blew up."
"But did you see her?" said Batman.
"We—no. But we didn't need to," Wally said. "She was on it, and the whole thing exploded."
"Do you think it might have been possible—in the few moments after the crash that it took for you to collect yourselves—for any form of escape?"
"Only if they had some kind of escape pod," Robin said. He paused as they all stared at him. "Did they?"
"When you've eliminated the impossible," J'onn said. "Whatever remains—however improbable—must be the truth."
"If we're going to assume that the Alchemist was not a PineCORP mole," Batman said. "And her actions support her innocence—then we're going to have to believe that the contents of the bunker are the only things she made for them. In which case, it's possible that she may have survived the explosion. If she has, then she's in Brick-Top's custody—PineCORP's custody."
"But she wouldn't make them any more weapons," M'gann said. "Not now that she knows what they're going to do with them. She wouldn't help them hurt us. She loved us."
"She wouldn't," Batman agreed. "Not willingly."
"You don't think—" Black Canary paused, biting her lip.
"If this theory is true," Batman said. "And Gemma is still alive and behind enemy lines, then we're going to have to assume that she's either willingly helping them, or otherwise very worse for wear. Either way, this—" he held the Sambanite a bit higher. "Is proof that wherever she is, she's cracked."
Once, Roy got shot in eight different places simultaneously. At first, he was completely numb to all feeling. He couldn't feel Black Canary slapping his cheek, trying to keep him conscious. He couldn't feel Red Tornado digging expertly into his wounds to extract the bullets. He couldn't feel Ollie bracing his shattered arm. He then got to wondering exactly how it was that Hollywood actors got Oscars for portraying pain from a gunshot wound because their reactions were so far from the truth. The truth, Roy had thought, was that it didn't hurt at all—not even a little bit.
And then it all came back, and he was tied to a stretcher but he wouldn't have moved anyways because every time he did, he felt like someone was dragging him through a sea of thumbtacks. And that could sort have compared to the way he felt right then, listening to them all debate the possibility that Gemma might not have died at all. Roy tried to picture two scenarios in his mind: the first was of Gemma sitting at a table somewhere in space, having tea with Joseph Martin and Brick-Top, giggling as she handed them another spear of Sambanite. They were all smiling at each other like a cheap commercial. The second image—though it made his stomach churn—was somehow easier to process. Gemma, broken, bloody, beaten, bruised, battered on the floor. Brick-Top standing over her, accepting a stick of Sambanite from her trembling hands.
Roy didn't even know which one was worse.
(347)
"Who's that?" asked Roy as he walked into the kitchen, ushering to the young blonde male seated beside Gemma on the couch.
"Pretty Boy Floyd?" asked Wally. "David. New recruit."
Roy watched as Gemma 'aww'ed and 'ooh'ed at something in David's hand.
"What is he showing her?" Roy asked.
"His penis, probably," Wally said, taking a bite out of an apple. Roy glared at him. "Oh, wait—I forgot that's Gem, not Zatanna."
"When did he get here?"
"Few hours ago," Wally said simply. "A word of advice, dude—mark your territory. This guy is a part time model."
"Roy!" Gemma squealed excitedly, jumping up and tugging David by the hand to the kitchen. "Come and meet David! He can teleport, isn't that cool?!"
David nervously held his hand out for Roy to shake, his eyes scanning Roy up and down.
"David," Wally said, snickering behind his hand. "This is Red Arrow. He's Gem's boyfriend."
"Boyfriend..." David repeated quietly, as if playing with the words on his lips for a moment as he stared up at Roy.
"Roy's gonna be your trainer while you're here," Gemma said. "He's mean, but he's effective—I think."
"I'm your trainer, huh?" Roy asked interestedly. "This is gonna be fun." David gulped.
"What were you showing Gem?" Wally asked.
"Oh, um..." David glanced down at the book in his hand.
"His portfolio!" Gemma said excitedly. "David's a model!"
"Can I see the portfolio?" Wally asked, leaning forward.
"Oh, maybe another time—"
"I'd like to see it, too" Roy said.
"Here!" Gemma said, tugging it out of David's grip and opening it to the first page. "Look, he's been modeling for GAP since he was twelve! Isn't he cute?"
"Just adorable," Roy said, giving David a grin that showed all of his teeth.
"What a charmer!" Wally said, nodding.
"And here's his Abercrombie shots!" Gemma said excitedly, and Roy felt that the glare he was sending David ought to turn the boy into green rot.
"How long have you been modeling, David?" Roy asked him.
"Since I—was a baby," David said, squirming.
"Lucky gun," Wally said, leaning back amusedly.
"You must be a hit with the ladies," Roy said.
"Hm..." Gemma was looking through David's perfume campaigns. "Do you think maybe we could get James into modeling? He could probably do it."
"Why not?" Wally asked. "Let's go find ourselves a camera and build the kid a portfolio!"
"Where is James, anyways?" Roy asked.
"Training room," Gemma said. "Black Canary's trying to introduce him to weapons. Oh! You have to meet Zatanna!"
And she took David's hand and pulled him along. Roy stalked after them, and Wally took a bowl of candy with him as he followed them out.
"We've always told Zatanna she should be a model," Gemma was saying as she pulled David down the hall, flipping through the pictures. "You should see her. She's beautiful. Italian, you know?"
"I'm half Italian," David said timidly, sneaking a glance over his shoulder at Roy.
"Oh, are you? Because your last name sounds a little French to me."
"My dad is French," David said.
"Oh, look at that! We've got a Frenchie on our team, too! You should meet her. Hey, Roy," Gemma looked over her shoulder. "Do you think maybe we could convince Amelie to do a photo-shoot with David?"
"She hates cameras and you know it, Gem," Wally said through a mouthful of candy.
"Pity," Gemma said, turning back to David. "A waste of a perfectly camera worthy face, if you ask me. Here we have the training room. Hey Zatanna! Amelie! James! Come meet David!"
"Hello," Zatanna said, approaching David slowly. "New recruits," Roy heard her whisper under her breath to Amelie, who rolled her eyes.
"Hi," David said breathlessly.
"David is French-Italian," Gemma said, her eyes still glued to the portfolio's pages. "Do you think maybe James could do a photo-shoot like this? Cause I think sweaters might really be his thing."
"How convenient," Zatanna said. "Because she's French, and I'm Italian."
"How do you turn this thing on?" James was asking in the background, fiddling with what looked to Roy like a laser.
"James, would you stand still for a minute?" Gemma asked, placing her fingers over a photo of David to cover the head while she held the picture up to James' torso. "Hm...trench coats don't look too bad on you. Maybe sunglasses, too, while we're at it..."
"Careful with that, James," Black Canary said. "It's pretty heavy. Robin broke three toes when he dropped it once."
"So where are you from, David?" Zatanna asked.
David was blinking curiously at Amelie's scars, then he shifted his attention back to Zatanna. "I grew up in New York," he said. "For work, you know?"
"James, do you wear scarves?" Gemma asked. "Or maybe not a scarf...maybe an ascot..."
"Hey, I think I found the 'on' switch!" James said.
ZAP.
Silence.
"Gemma?" Black Canary called.
"Jesus, dude!" Zatanna yelled, hurrying over to the wall.
"Ouch," was the simple response.
"You idiot!" Roy barked at James.
"I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry—aaaaaaahhhhhhh!"
James shrieked and cowered behind the laser as Amelie held Roy back.
"What is that thing?" Gemma asked as she rose from the wall she had collided against. She winced, reaching up and rubbing her shoulder.
"Force," Black Canary said. "It expels force. Like a push."
"It's not a toy," Roy said through his teeth. David backed against the wall as James turned white. "Why does he even have it?"
"He needs to get acquainted with the arsenal," Black Canary said.
"By killing half the mountain?" Roy asked.
"It was an accident," Gemma said as she picked up the portfolio and held it to her chest.
"Are you okay?" Roy asked.
"I'll live," she said simply. James carefully laid the gun back onto the rack. "Are you done, James? Cause I was wondering how you'd look in plaid."
"I'm so sorry," James was muttering repetitively as he shrank underneath Roy's glare, passing him slowly as he followed Gemma out of the room. "I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry."
And Roy could hear the continued apologies mix with Gemma's babbling about shoes without laces and whether or not three buttons on a suit counted as classic or outdated until they faded into quiet. He turned to look at David.
"Let's hope you never pull a stunt that stupid here," Wally said, his mouth full of Godknewwhat. "Amelie might not be here to save you from Roy."
David nearly fainted.
(456)
Alive.
Alive.
Alive.
Alive.
Roy stared at the credit card suspended in the crystallized wall. He stared at the dark blue purse on his couch. He stared at the cell phone on the coffee table. He stared at everything he could see that reminded him of Gemma, and he played with the word on his tongue.
Alive.
He could imagine it now, now that he tried. He could see her walking into his apartment, tossing her bag of the day onto the couch and going to either his bedroom to wake him up from his occasional nap or to his phone to order take out or to his kitchen to cook something fatty while she bitched about Meredith or her research paper or how it was so hard to make a pink diamond or what the real world purposes of tangent lines and the sum of exterior angles in a dodecagon really were. He could see her cheeks filling with color as she babbled endlessly, and he could see her purse her lips in disappointment when she realized he was no longer listening. He could see her swatting him upside the head or picking up her bag to leave and see if that would get his attention. He could see her sneaking into his bedroom in the middle of the night with a huge grin on her face, suggesting they run away and join the circus. He could see her debating whether or not they should take Zatanna with them, because having a magician just made everything easier. He could see her curling up next to him, sitting there, talking, talking, then leaving before the sun came up and her father came to wake her for school or she was due back at Mount Justice. He could see her falling over giggling at Homer Simpson on TV, or mixing brownie batter with him, or trying on a dress to go meet Meredith's parents, or making faces as she conversed with her mother on the phone. He could see her everywhere, doing everything, because she was alive and as long as that was true, then everything is exactly what she could do.
"Roy, it's me," Ollie's voice said into his answering machine. "Just thought you should know what's going on. We're all working on this...trying to trace this thing. We've got Luthor onboard—can you believe that? It's slow progress, but it might actually work out. Hey—don't tell Ethan anything, okay?"
End.
Of course no one would say anything to Ethan. Because there was always the possibility—the one that Roy didn't like to think about—that Kaldur's theory was wrong, and that she wasn't alive, and that PineCORP had used another stash of weapons that Gemma hadn't known about to attack the Watchtower. But Roy liked to believe that it was true, that she was alive, because she of all people would know exactly how many weapons she created. She would know if she had everything. She wouldn't have settled for halfway fucking them over.
Alive.
(359)
"Up, sleepy head," whispered a voice in the dark.
"What?" his eyes snapped open and he reached forward, his hand automatically snaking around a neck.
"Let go of me," Gemma's voice said.
Roy reached over and switched on the light. "You have got to stop doing that," Roy said.
She shrugged. "Get up," she said, jumping off the bed.
Roy noticed that she was in her jeans. "Where are we going?" he asked.
"The kitchen," she said. She looked down at her getup. "Oh, this? Well, I couldn't go to Giant in my PJ's, now could I? They had Superman's S all over them."
"Giant?"
"I had to get frosting from somewhere, didn't I?"
"Frosting?" Roy followed her down the hall, past the living room, into the kitchen, where an enormous chocolate cake was sitting on the countertop.
"Happy birthday!" she said excitedly, bouncing up and down. "You're 19!"
"19," Roy murmured as she reached forward and hugged him. "You know it's three in the morning?"
"You were born exactly nineteen years and forty seconds ago," Gemma said, looking down at her watch.
"And how did you know that?" Roy asked.
"Ollie," she said simply.
"He's throwing me a party later," Roy said.
"I know," Gemma said. "But it'll be eight hours too late. Why? You don't like it?"
"I love it," Roy said, and she smiled again.
"Good. Sit down. I have to tell you all about what happened at Giant. There was this stoner there, and he was on a dare to get a girl's number, so he came up to me and offered me a hundred bucks to give him my number."
"Did you?"
"Nah. I gave him yours."
"Thanks," Roy said as she placed a plate of cake in front of him.
"Well, I made a hundred dollars," she said.
"And what did you blow it on?"
"That," she said, ushering to the doorway, where Roy could see what looked like six volumes of...
"What is that?"
"Encyclopedia on discovered Earthly and extra-terrestrial elements and molecules," she said simply.
"And what do you want with that?' Roy asked.
"Hal Jordan scratched his armor a few days ago," she said. "And I fixed it for him. But the patch I made was stronger than the rest of his suit, so I had to alter the whole thing. Now Black Canary thinks that I should start re-designing the weapons and suits for everyone. I already started—look, I made you new arrows!"
And Roy watched as Gemma hurried to the doorway, reaching into his coat closet and pulling out an enormous box. She carried it over to the counter with difficulty.
"Here," she said, placing it in front of him. "Happy birthday!"
Roy pulled the cover of the box, lifting an arrow to the light. It barely weighed a thing.
"What is this?" Roy asked.
"It's an arrow."
"No—I mean what's in it?"
"Oh. It's a new material. I made it myself. It's lighter, so you can carry more in your quiver. And it shoots faster. Look, don't you like your new bow?"
And Roy sat back and listened to her rant about metals and liquids and gases and smelting and everything she did to make the metal he was holding in his hands, and she ranted about how Meredith talked about her going to double major in Photography and Chemistry when she got to college, and how Meredith also believed that Gemma would greatly benefit from studying abroad and how that was all a part of the plan from the beginning because all Meredith wanted was for Gemma to be gone from sight while she populated Chicago with little Mere-Ethan munchkins and the next stop for Gemma was a ditch in Iraq with seven Dobermans and a pound of Brazilian seaweed to sustain herself with, and Roy couldn't help but cover his head and wait for her rambling to be over, but then he caught it. The end of the last sentence, though he hadn't even bothered hearing the beginning of it.
"...since you and I could possibly qualify as illegal and all and—"
"What?"
"What?"
"What did you say?"
"What did you hear?"
"What do you mean we could qualify as illegal?"
"Well...what do you think it means?" she asked, shrugging. "I'm not eighteen until January. And now you're nineteen. That's what we like to call illegal."
"What does that even have to do with anything?"
"Well, it means I can't take you to prom. So I'll have to take Zatanna and Raquel instead, except Raquel is gonna get me in trouble cause she'll spike the punch and Zatanna's probably gonna flirt with my teachers, so I'll have to take M'gann and Artemis instead—"
"You don't even like prom," Roy said.
"I know that. I'm speaking hypothetically here."
"Why would it matter if you're not even going?"
"Because it's the current state of the union," Gemma said. "We are breaking a law. I'm not sure which law it is, but we're breaking it."
"No one on the team or the League seems to care."
"Of course they don't. We're probably not even close to the weirdest thing that they've ever seen."
"You think we're weird?"
"A little."
"Why?"
"Because I'm nice and you're not. And also you can buy cigarettes."
"And that makes us weird?"
"A little. You're nineteen and I'm getting ready for my SAT's. How is that not a little strange?"
"It's not. We're not. We're fine. Who told you we were weird?"
"No one."
"We're not. Don't call us weird. We're fine."
"If you say so, birthday boy," Gemma said, shrugging.
"What even brought this on, anyways?"
"What? Us being weird?"
"We're not weird."
"Who's Briana Dermont?" she asked abruptly, licking chocolate icing off her finger.
"What?"
She pointed her finger at the coffee table, where a business card was tossed.
"That card says Briana Dermont. Who's she?"
"A...journalist," Roy said.
"I didn't know you were doing an interview," Gemma said, shrugging as she turned back to her cake.
"I didn't think it mattered."
"It doesn't. Where'd you meet her, anyways?"
"The...press conference."
"The one about the fake training exercise?"
"Yeah."
"Oh, she must have been trying to squeeze it out of you. I told you—no one would buy it. Training exercise," she grumbled. "I could have cooked up a better excuse for Briana Dermont. When did you do the interview?"
"Last week."
"You brought her here?" Gemma asked, a brow raised.
"Nah. We talked at the Hall of Justice," Roy said.
"How come you didn't tell me? I could have had the new arrows ready by then and it could have made you look cooler."
"You were taking your midterms," Roy said.
"See? We are weird. My schooling interferes with your work. If I hadn't been at school, then you'd have had cooler arrows."
"We are not weird," Roy said.
"Did she ask if you had a girlfriend?"
"Yeah."
"And?"
"I said yeah."
"And?"
"I didn't say anymore."
"She didn't ask?"
"Nah. She knows about the whole secret identity thing."
"What a stupid reporter," Gemma said, rolling her eyes. "I'd have nagged until you were spilling your whole life story."
"Which is why you're never going to be a journalist," Roy said.
"We're weird," Gemma said. "I can't ask you what you want to be when you get out of high school because you're already out of high school. But you can ask me."
"I'm nineteen, not ninety," Roy said. "And there's no point in asking that anyways. I am exactly what I want to be."
"Exactly. I don't even get to ask."
"Do you want to ask?'
"I'd have liked having the option."
"Then maybe you should date someone younger," Roy snapped.
Gemma looked up at him. "Why would you think I want to do that?"
"Because we're so weird," Roy said.
"Yeah, but that's what makes us awesome," Gemma said. "We have to be weird or we won't be special. We won't be any different from every other loser couple you pass by on the street. I want us to be weird."
"We're weird enough," Roy said. "I'm Red Arrow and you're the Alchemist."
"That's not weird," she said. "That's not special."
"How is that not special?" Roy asked.
"Because we're surrounded by people who are exactly like us," Gemma deadpanned. "We have to be weirder." A pause while she considers her next thoughts. "Roy, do you want to sparkle?"
"No."
"I can make—"
"No."
"It's really easy to—"
"No."
"Alright, alright," Gemma said, looking back down at her cake. "This is a bad sign, you know," she said.
"What is?"
"Fighting on your birthday. What you sow on your birthday, you reap all year long."
"Are we fighting right now?"
"Well, we're not agreeing, so we're clearly disagreeing."
"We're not fighting," Roy said.
"See? We're fighting about whether or not we're fighting," Gemma said, pointing her fork at him. "It's not good for your Zen. Your whole year is gonna be a hurricane if we keep this up."
"We're not even fight—" Roy sighed. "Okay. We'll stop fighting. Okay?"
"Okay."
"Okay."
"Happy birthday."
"Thank you, Gem."
(462)
Roy swallowed another mouthful of rum and handed the bottle to Raquel.
"I can't help but feel like they totally meant to leave me here," Roy said.
"You guys really think she's out there?" M'gann asked.
"If she is," Zatanna said, boredly hitting random keys on the computer. "Then she's got a hell of a lot of shit to take from me."
"Amen," Artemis raised her hand.
"Why do you think she didn't tell us?" M'gann asked. "I mean—I get why she didn't tell the League, but she could at least have told us."
"Because you probably wouldn't have told her," Raquel said. "Come on—what would any of us have done?"
"It was only a theory," Kaldur said. "Please—do not allow false hope to control you. I fear it may disappoint."
"If it does, I know exactly who to castrate," Zatanna said, shooting him a look. She sighed. "You know, when I first met her, I didn't like her right away."
"Hear, hear," Roy said, gulping down more rum.
"I mean—I didn't hate her, I just didn't like her. All the change, you know? A new member and all. But I guess it's not really possible to hate her. She was as shallow as pigeon shit. How do you hate someone that's such a total idiot?" Zatanna giggled quietly, though at a memory or at herself, Roy could not say. "I guess the rest just changed naturally." And she gave a wistful sigh, looking as thoughtful as Roy had ever seen her. "All I'm saying is that if after all this trouble, she's actually dead, I'm gonna kill her again."
"You think they beat her up?" Wally asked, earning himself a smack upside the head from Artemis. "I have to ask! Someone was gonna eventually!"
Of course, no one had an answer to that just yet, because they all knew that there had to be only one way that she would have agreed to arm Brick-Top in the first place.
Roy washed the thoughts away with another gulp of rum.
"What are we doing here?" asked Robin. "We should be out there—with them!"
"You heard Batman," Raquel said. "We stay put until there's been a breach."
Roy didn't like the idea.
"Okay," Hal had crossed his arms as John typed away on the supercomputer. "We did a check with every single Green Lantern we've been able to get a hold of this past week. When Asteroid Nine exploded, it obviously set off about a million alarms. We've got intel saying that at least three asteroids of that size have been within or near the Earth's orbit since then."
"How do we know that they will be within the Earth's orbit?" J'ann had asked.
"Because Joseph Martin would want to be able to keep tabs on the operation," Batman had said. "He'd need to keep his new asteroid close so he could go back and forth without anyone noticing."
"Of the three asteroids, two have strange activity that sent Lantern scanners off," Hal had continued. "Of the two, one appears to have been within range of the Watchtower the day it was attacked, and hasn't been seen in orbit since."
"That's the new base, then?"
"It would appear so."
"But how long until it circulates and comes back into orbit?"
"That's the problem. We have absolutely no clue."
"And we can't afford to just sit here and wait for another attack. And herein lies the problem."
"We'll need to station teams in orbit to keep an eye out. If they come back into range, then we'll have about five or six hours head start," Batman said.
"Sounds like a plan," Flash said, leaning forward.
"The Team will stay here to monitor," Bruce said. "The rest of us will split into groups of three."
And that was how Roy ended up sitting in the Briefing Room with a bottle of rum in his hand.
"Look at that!" Zatanna said with mock enthusiasm as she pointed at the screen. "No activity," she deadpanned.
"Dude, you think they might have gone in without us?" Wally asked. "You think they might have found it and bugged the computer so we wouldn't know?"
"My hacks aren't picking up any interference," Robin said, looking down at his arm.
"You think they're screwing us?" Artemis asked.
"They could have," Kaldur said. "It would explain why they chose to leave Roy with us."
"They chose to leave Roy because he's drunk," Zatanna said. "Which—if you ask me—is another way of saying 'fuck you, you're too tangled up in this shit as it is'."
"I only got drunk when they left me," Roy said, downing another sip. "And either way—I really don't think they'd have left me behind if they had any reason to think they'd find her. They wouldn't leave any of us behind. Because then we'd boycott them, and you know how much they hate using the Hall of Justice."
"Why do they hate it so much?" asked Raquel. "It's not even that bad."
"Because it's the accepted place to work," Robin said. "And you know how much they hate following rules."
"That's it," Zatanna said. "Pass the rum."
Roy closed the bottle tightly before rolling it gently to Zatanna's chair. She popped it open and took a huge swig just as the zeta tube glowed.
"Shit. Put that thing away," Artemis hissed as Zatanna coughed up a mouthful of rum, rapidly closing the bottle and hiding it behind her back.
"Any luck?" called Superboy to the arrivals.
"None," said Black Canary, stepping into view. "What are you still doing up?"
"We're waiting on a red flag," Zatanna said. "So we can swoop into action and save our friend."
"You all know that it might not—" Black Canary sighed. "Alright," she said. "Just...don't stay up too late."
"Hear you, Mom," Artemis said as Black Canary walked away. Before she turned the corner, Roy thought he heard her sniffle.
(367)
"Are you okay?" Roy asked.
Gemma looked up at him and smiled. "Fine," she said, though it sounded to Roy like a bold-faced lie.
"Look," he said, taking the seat next to her. "This guy's not gonna get a shot at releasing the strain. We'll get him, Gem."
"What if we don't?" she asked. "What if this lead is a dead end?"
"Then we find another. We'll get him. Him and the strain."
Gemma sighed, wiping at her forehead with the back of her hand. Her sleeve sparkled in the moonlight.
"Explain it again," Black Canary said. "Just...slower, if you don't mind. What happened?"
"Weeeee caaaaame insiiiiiide," Wally said with deliberate slowness that made Black Canary roll her eyes. "Aaaaand heeeee waaaas waaiitiinnnng."
"Without the attitude."
"The place was empty," Robin said, gesturing to the storage house at large. "There wasn't anything here. Nothing except an angry Brick-Top and a thousand machine guns."
"Dude," Conner said, sitting up with more than a little difficulty. "I think I might actually have broken something. This guy was made of steel."
"He's called Brick-Top for a reason," Batman said. "Coming in here half-cocked was not a smooth move."
"Well, you weren't answering!" Artemis yelled from her corner where Red Tornado was addressing what looked like a mile-long gash in her arm.
"At least now we got a good look at his face," Black Canary said to Batman. "Gemma, what you got there?"
"It looks..." Gemma was staring at the ground, scratching at it with her forefinger. "...like...soil? Or...maybe...dirt? I don't know. I think it's a footprint."
"Whoa," Ollie said as he walked into the storage room to see them all coated in blood or bruises or both. "What happened to the other guy?"
"He got away," Wally said simply. Roy leaned against the wall, feeling the ghost of a bruise beginning to form.
"Can we take this back?" Gemma asked, holding up a vial. "I think we should take another look at it."
"It's dirt on the floor, Gem," Wally said.
"Dirt on the concrete floor," Gemma corrected. "And it doesn't feel like it's...right. Not from here. Maybe...maybe if we run a test on it, we could find out where it came from?"
"She may be right," Kaldur said, taking the vial from her and pocketing it. "We'll have it analyzed."
"What about my leg?" asked Zatanna from the far back. "Who's gonna analyze that?"
"I'll do it!" Wally said, jumping to his feet and wincing as he pulled an already pulled muscle.
"Easy, tiger," Black Canary said. "I'll do it."
"Perhaps the Alchemist ought to return to the Mountain immediately," Red Tornado said. "She may need to begin creating more of the anti-toxin soon."
"Red Tornado is right," Batman said. "Robin, you and Alchemist head back to the Mountain. Ollie, take them back. I'll stay here and prepare the report."
"Let's go, kids," Ollie said. Gemma took Robin's hand helped him limp out of the storage room. Batman sighed.
"Did you at least land one good kick in his nuts?" Black Canary asked.
"Roy hit his ass with an arrow," Wally said, stifling laughter. "An exploding arrow."
"Did it explode?"
"Yeah, but it had soared past him by the time it did. Don't worry. I'm confident that Roy charred at least one ass-cheek."
"I certainly hope I did," Roy said, rubbing at a muscle in his arm that was cramping painfully. "For all the souvenirs he just gave us."
"And for last time," Black Canary added. She wiped at a cut on his cheek. "Is Gem okay?" she asked him quietly.
"She's freaked he might try to use the Virus strain," Roy said, shrugging. "You saw how much she hated being sealed in STAR."
Black Canary nodded understandingly as Wally called her over to assess a mysterious wound he managed to sustain where his legs met.