To say Wally was unfocused would be an understatement. The assignment was to watch the drug deal go down, identify sellers, buyers, drugs, and then leave. Apparently, the team was also supposed to let the drugs get out on the streets, which completely confused Wally. Probably the rest of the team as well, but he hadn't asked them.
Wally stared down at the dock, watching the purchasing gang wander around. They stayed in mostly the center in a group, but a few of the more adventurous thugs were wandering around, inspecting the containers and crates surrounding the little clearing. All of them were armed with guns. All of them looked hassled.
Well, maybe hassled wasn't really the right word. It was more like a mix of irritated, stressed, anxious, fearful, and maybe-
"Doesn't matter," Wally ground out bitterly, walking back to his ledge.
For this particular mission, Miss Martian was on "lookout" duty. The camouflaged bioship was patrolling the harbor, and she would make contact with her teammates the instant she noticed the ship with the drugs approaching.
The rest of the team had taken a side of the meeting place. Kaldur had north, with his back to the water; Artemis had the south side, currently at the back of the thugs; Superboy had taken the west lookout point, which thus left Wally on the east side. All of them had been armed with cameras to record the meeting.
Cameras served a dual purpose. Reason number one: videos could be run through a facial recognition software program, which would then identify everyone at the scene in a matter of minutes. Fifteen minutes, and every single suspect would be named and processed. Easy. Reason number two: court evidence. The word of the Justice League held a lot of weight, of course, but with a paid off jury or judge, verbal evidence could be ignored. With physical, video evidence of a crime, nobody could claim innocence.
The instructions given by Kaldur had been to zoom in on any faces facing in whatever direction they were in. If nobody could be seen, or you had a bad viewpoint, you could move around and take the handheld device with you.
So of course, the first thing Wally had done was run off to go find something to use to prop the camera up with. It's not that he was being lazy, but right now, he couldn't focus on some stupid stakeout mission. His best friend was missing. For four days.
Not only was Robin missing, but he'd been kidnapped by the most evil, unstable psychopath in the nation. No, scratch that- the world.
Plus, as had been privately described to him by Dick, Joker had a "creepy, unnatural" obsession with Robin. And honestly, Dick was afraid of him. The Joker scared him.
Wally knew that. Heck, Dick had told him that. The night before the failed mission, in fact. Dick had known the Joker was coming. Coming for him. He should have stayed behind him, but he couldn't let Batman know he was scared.
"Dude, maybe you should sit this one out. We are going to Gotham, and you said yesterday that the Joker-"
"KF, I'm not staying behind just because Joker's on the other side of the city. Bats said he knew right where Joker was." Robin looked down at his feet, disapproving glare gone. "Besides, I… I don't want him to know. Batman's not scared of anything, and I'd be… A failure if I let him know I was. I'd be weak, and then he'd make me stay at home even more often than he already does."
Dick sighed and brought his gaze up to meet Wally's again, grinning. If Wally hadn't been his best friend, it would have almost seemed like a real smile. "Besides, somebody's gotta watch your sorry butt, Wall-man. Really, what's the worst that could happen?"
"The worst that could happen is you get kidnapped by some creepy dude that's out to get you," Wally mumbled, sure to keep his distance from the camera so his words weren't picked up.
Robin's absence was eating away at the speedster. Usually, Robin would just randomly pop up with a joke over the mind link, some corny pun or something. But right now, there was a tense silence in Wally's head. Everyone was missing the youngest member's presence. No one would comment on it.
Maybe, like Wally, they were all in denial.
Maybe, like Wally, they were all pretending that Robin was just on "Gotham business" with Batman.
But that was all a lie.
I see the ship, came Miss Martian's voice suddenly. It's coming in pretty quickly. Should pull up in about a minute.
Acknowledged. Team, be ready.
Wally almost rolled his eyes, but went to cross his arms instead. Yeah sure, whatever. Be ready for what?
Then he saw it. Movement, out of the very corner of his eye. It was behind him, in a place where no one else would be able to see. A figure, silhouetted for just a second, vanished behind another row of crates.
The weird thing was, though, that it seemed almost… familiar. Inexplicably familiar, yet highly suspicious.
Three other people were covering the drug deal. No one was covering the escaping shadow.
That was about to change.
Wally pulled his goggles down over his face, glad for the camo setting on his suit. It was better to not be a canary yellow target in Gotham. Without a second look at the incoming drug dealers, he took off after the shady figure.
Five seconds later, he found himself in another crate-formed alley, with the silhouette at the opposing end.
"Don't move," he growled, still coming up with a good threat as to why not.
The figure turned around in the shadows, slowly walking back towards the meager light provided by some sort of street lamp up above.
"This is perfect!" Wally recognized that voice. His eyes widened and he took a step back. "I can't believe my luck!" The figure gave a menacing giggle. Only one person in the world could do that.
The Joker stepped into the light patch, an unnaturally wide grin stretched across his sickly white skin.
Wally scowled and took a determined step forward, hands balled into fists. "You bastard!" he hissed.
"Wonderful to see you again too, Flash Boy!" Joker beamed at him, eyes glinting maliciously.
"Kid. Flash." He bit out.
The clown waved a hand as if brushing the correction away. "Potayto, Potahto. How have you been?" He took a step forwards, and Kid Flash took an instinctive one back. "You look pale. Have you been stressed lately?" He burst into peals of laughter, doubling over.
"Where is Robin!?" he snarled. As if his temper and nerves weren't high enough from his friend's kidnapping, he had to run into the giggly, unhelpful, button-pushing kidnapper. "What the hell have you done to him!?"
Wiping away invisible tears of mirth, the Joker straightened up. "Temper, temper. I don't think Flashie would be too pleased with that dirty mouth of yours."
With a cry of anger, Wally ran at the villain, slugging him hard across the face. Joker fell to the ground, clutching his cheek. Kid Flash shook out his now stinging hand, feeling a burning satisfaction crawl across his gut. The momentary release of angry was quickly replaced by a flare of fury as the Joker started laughing. Laughing.
"You must be awfully easy to tick off," the psychopath stated conversationally after his giggles subsided. "Even Robbie doesn't fight back that much." Wally barely managed to suppress the urge to lunge at the man now pulling himself up off the ground. "Of course, he can't really right now… He can't really do much of anything right now. He cries like a little girl though. Pathetic, weak, and scared…"
Words couldn't even describe the anger and fear rolling through Wally like a hurricane. Curses and threats ran through his mind, and surely over the mental link. He was sure someone in his head was shouting, but none of that mattered right now. Nearly screaming with fury, Wally charged the cackling madman.
Before he could get within pummeling distance, something solid crashed into the side of his head, sending him flying off his feet. Wally hit the nearest metal storage container with a clang, collapsing to the ground with his head reeling. Pain exploded across his right temple, heavily outweighing the throbbing on his entire left side from where he'd hit the metal.
He looked up, vision swimming and diving dangerously. Somebody else had joined the Joker, holding a massive, misshapen… something.
Blinking futilely to clear the dizziness, Wally decided it was a worthless effort, and let his heavy, pounding head hit the ground.
"Did… get him… puddin'?"
Kid…. –swer me…
"… course you… pumpkin… hit…"
Wall… -spond… are you?
"You… my plan… Robin…"
With a quiet groan of pain, Wally let everything spin away, leaving nothing but enveloping, painless dark.