Disclaimer: I do not own the existing characters that we know and love of Young Justice, although I do take ownership over the new characters i.e. The majority of the Team's children

A/N: So the squad is really beginning to grow and take on challenges and missions – but what is in store for them next?

Chapter 18 – Max Grayson

My fingers scrabbled at the keys of the mainframe computer in the control room. With Nightstar over my shoulder, I could feel the sense of urgency. We have to find Mentalist. We had to find Kyle. Playing with the settings, I rigged the screen to detect a DNA sequence that would match his exactly. Only because I couldn't think there would be many signatures that had human, Martian and kryptonian DNA. But you never could tell.

"Max, you're heating up..." Nightstar whispered, feeling a hand on the back of my neck, tickling the hair. "Your suit will have cooling properties, you know."

"I know," I sighed. "But I just need to find Kyle first. Then I can relax."

"Starwing. Firenight."

Those words. The family codeword.

"Fine, I muttered harshly. "This system will continue the search in the meantime." I slammed the enter key, watching the bar slowly load up on the screen above us. "There."

-o-

I had to give credit where it was due. My Firewing suit had been upgraded lately to have cooling patches. Nightstar was right, it did soothe the heat in me.

On my way back to the control room, Aqualad was rushing towards me rambling about a signature being detected.

"In Al-Resha?" I gawped at the screen, zooming out to show the island of the coast. "Quick- someone get Green Canary and Angel! We need to go and get him now."

Diana went to go. "But why Max?"

"Al-Resha is a high security island, home to the millionaire tycoon, Xavier Spencer. There's no way we can just walk in and rescue Kyle."

She nodded and then darted out the room whilst I got up satellite images to draw a zone in which the signal has been registered. The buildings nearby looked incredibly illustrious and full of the latest tech.

A gentle gust of wind caught me by surprise and I turned quickly to see Stealth standing beside me, adjusting the goggles on her face. "Aqualad messaged, you think you found him, right?"

"Maybe…" I replied surreptitiously, wondering whether she knew how obvious her feelings were. "We're just waiting on Green Canary and Angel getting here to tell us what the operation is going to be."

"Wait a second – is that Xavier Spencer? He's like this amazing businessman! So Kyle's on the island of Al-Resha? Wow." Stealth nudged my chair over. "I'm sure I've seen something in the news about this… Look!"

I scanned the screen and noticed that there was a charity event that people had to buy in to attend. "Something tells me that we're going to need to scrub up in order to attend."

"I can handle that," Stealth whispered, flicking her long hair over her shoulder. "Well I don't care what Green Canary says, I am going with you guys."

"Why?"

Stealth froze up for a moment. "Because… Because Mentalist is still one of the squad so we have to look out for him, right?" A smile etched its way across her face. "Angel!" she exclaimed, rushing over to his side. "You got to let me go on the recon mission."

Angel backed away from the energetic girl. "Alright, alright. We get it. You got the hots for Mentalist," he joked playfully. "This is all on Diana. She's going to decide who stays and who goes."

Our heads all turned to Diana, who seemed overwhelmed and nervous by the sudden suggestion. "I- uh. I kind of thought that Aqualad would take over as leader of the Justice Squad… I'm not ready for this sort of responsibility."

"Everyone else thinks you are, Diana." Angel unfolded his wings. "There's no pressure. You can stay her and monitor everything through communications, but you need to choose which supers will extract Mentalist from Al-Resha or-"

The doors opened and Dad entered alongside Zatanna. Together, they looked ready for battle or a mission – I could see the fire in their eyes. Their gaze drifted to Diana, waiting for a response.

Nightwing smiled softly. "It's okay Diana, there's no right or wrong answer. Just go with those instincts."

"… Stealth and Firewing will go onto the island and infiltrate the compound. I want to be nearby, surveying from a distance… To help if needed…"

"An excellent choice." Nightwing nodded. "Firewing, Stealth and Diana – you will join myself and Zatanna in attending the event. Your identities will be handed over on the bioship. Meet in the hanger in fifteen." He paused. "Aqualad and Nightstar, see what you can dig up on Xavier Spencer. There might be something that we can use to our advantage about the island."

-o-

Standing at the entrance to the Xavier Spencer mansion, Lola and I were stood behind Dad and Zatanna. We were the Edenbridge family, owners of a tech company, which would hopefully give away the fact that we had lots of unusual gadgets that we might have been in possession of.

"Richard Edenbridge!" a voice called out to Dad – someone I assumed he must have known, especially seeing as they knew our aliases already. "Mr Spencer was surprised to see a new name added so late in the day. He is most intrigued by your family."

Dad nodded. "Allow me to introduce my family – my wife Zoe and our children – Lottie and Matt."

Lola giggled politely, smiling at the guests around her. "Come on Matt, let's go and explore!" She grabbed me by the arm and started to drag me into the building and through the crowd of people. "So let's find somewhere to go and look at the detector to find Kyle." Her head snapped around, looking about for somewhere that might be remotely private. "It's so busy in here though."

We squeezed our way through the crowd, ending up hidden by a tall marble sculpture of a lady and a man dancing. When I was sure that no one could see us, I sat down and opened up my little games console. It was the detector.

What?

"This doesn't make any sense," I murmured.

"What doesn't?" Lola asked, pulling on the sleeve of her dress. "Where is he?"

"I think he's somewhere in this room…"

Before we had a chance to look, the host addressed the room. "Ladies and gentlemen – this is a wondrous occasion. I am delighted to announce the engagement of my daughter to a strapping specimen, Kyle. Now their courtship may have been short, but I can tell when it is real love."

"What?!" Lola and I exclaimed when we heard the name.

Lola shook her head. "It can't be… It isn't. Can it be?" She peered through a gap in the sculpture and gasped loudly. "No."

I leaned closer, seeing Kyle holding the hand of a girl who looked about Lola's age – with dark hair and dark eyes that looked empty and emotionless. But Kyle, he seemed- different?

Dad and Zatanna were close by, standing almost too close to me. Their proximity to myself and Lola allowed us to reconvene.

Lola was all over the place. "This isn't really happening, is it? Is he really going through with this?"

Zatanna put a reassuring hand on my partner. "Don't worry about that now Lottie. Let's focus on getting him out of here. Deal with the additional events later. Come on everyone. They're going to invite us to dance."

Dance?! I looked up at Dad with wide eyes and a slightly open mouth.

"You'll be fine Matt. Just remember the footwork."

"Hi!" a bubbly girl blurted out from behind me. "Do you want to dance?"

My mouth moved, but no sounds came out. It took a nudge from Zatanna to get me to agree and be dragged onto the dance floor. She told me her name, but it was the surname that I found more distracting – Spencer. Marina. Over her shoulder, I could see Lola being coerced into dancing with some tall, athletic looking guy with broad shoulders and ear tickling sandy coloured hair. She rolled her blue eyes before watching our 'parents' approach the dance floor with some of the other couples.

Dancing with Marina was fun – she didn't seem to mind my uncertainty at first, but I used it to my advantage and played around with it. When she laughed, it made me smile.

"Come on, let's go and watch from the balcony!" Marina grabbed my hand and interlocked her fingers with mine. "I love to watch people dance – especially my brother and sister. Look, he's dancing with that pretty girl." Marina pointed and I realised immediately that she was indicating Lola. "Ace is normally really fun to be around, but when he dances… Wow… Whilst Inara is pretty moody. Even with her new boyfriend."

"Tell me about him…" I asked, leaning a hand on my cheek as I watched them dance. "This new boyfriend. Where did he come from?"

Marina edged closer to me. "Kyle appeared out of nowhere. Inara insisted that he stayed with us. He might be weird, but he's a magician."

"A magician? Really?" I tried to seem surprised, but it's hard when you're so used to humans having powers. "And suddenly they were in a romantic situation."

"It is romantic, isn't it? Ace is slightly older, but very fussy. Inara has always been like that character in that old play. The one that no one wants to marry, so when Kyle seemed to play along, it happened very quickly. Dad was over the moon that he'd found someone gullible enough to agree to marry Inara."

"Oh…" I replied, realising that Kyle probably had no idea about what he had accidentally agreed to. "Marina-"

My mouth hit the floor when I noticed Lola engaging in a fast paced dance and acrobatic swings and lifts. She was like a peacock fan out her feathers. Trying to attract the right companion. Ace swooped her down, lifted her high and spun her fast. They kept in complete synchronisation with one another. Every now and again, Lola's eyes when drawn to Kyle who was more engrossed with Inara bossing him around.

"If only I could get to him," I murmured quietly.

"What did you say, Matt?" Marina was beaming at me with big brown eyes.

"I – I need to go…" I blurted out, darting down the stairs and bumping into Dad and Zatanna. "Any ideas?"

Zatanna smiled at me. "One or two… Egnahc rieht srentrap…" she whispered and I watched as Inara was torn from Kyle and Lola fell backwards through the air, caught by the genomorph project at the last moment.

The crowd gasped as Lola stiffened, inches above the ground, her chest rising and falling as she gazed up at Kyle. Kyle's eyes shone with an amber intensity that I hadn't seen before. When the orchestra continued to play, Kyle pulled Lola up and towards him. They were talking about something and it started to get pretty heated, with Lola almost trying to pull away.

"What's wrong with her?" I asked. "Isn't this what she wanted all along?"

"Maybe, but sometimes it's not that easy," Dad replied.

There was a sound of shattering glass and a string of masked assailants ran in through the broken windows and doors. I tore up the stairs, pulling Marina away from the hall in the hope that she would know where to hide, and a place I could become Firewing.

With one glance over my shoulder, I caught sight of Kyle and Lola following me, with the other Spencer teens close to them. The screams rippled around the tall building as the masked assailants stormed the building.

"Lola…" I whispered. "I think they're after GMK…"

Ace overheard my slip up. "Lola, who's Lola?"

She saved my bacon, metaphorically speaking. "Me. I'm sorry Ace – I'm not Lottie Edenbridge, I'm Lola Allen-Reyes. Here to protect you, but now is not the time. We have to get you some place safe." Lola pushed Ace up another staircase. "Go! Trust me, it'll be fine."

"Go with Ace, Marina. Lola, Kyle and I will draw them away from you."

Marina was more caring than Ace appeared. "But what if you get hurt?"

"I won't. I'll be fine." I shut the door that led to the other staircase and noticed the distance between Kyle and Lola. "God – do you guys have to behave like five year olds?"

Lola gasped, "And what do you mean by that?!"

I rolled my eyes. "Come on. Seriously? Anyone on the planet can see that you fancy him. You couldn't act on it before, because you were Ryan's girlfriend. But you aren't anymore, so you thought that would give you an opportunity to flirt with Project Geno here, but now he's engaged and all you're seeing is red, right?" I was about to turn to Kyle and lecture him, but I saw some masked men coming up the stairs towards us. "Run!" I exclaimed, leaping up onto the railing and running along it.

Lola was struggling with the straps on her shoes and couldn't quite get away in time. She would have burnt the shoes and in turn that singed her feet. "Just go!"

I couldn't. Neither could Kyle. We stopped and he swung his arms through the air and using his telekinesis to lift her up slightly and whisk her towards us. One masked man jumped on Kyle, but was quickly thrown aside with a wave of energy. Then came my turn.

"Dodge, dodge- duck, punch, dodge, kick- kick! Punch!" I called out my moves as if I were playing a video game before rolling backwards to avoid my opponent's grasp. "Smoke pellets!" I released them from my pocket and put on a small pair of goggles that allow me to see properly.

Kyle's amber eyes stood out in the smog, as two small glowing rings. Enough light for us to find Lola doubled over on the floor. He lifted her up effortlessly and rose up from the ground. A nearby door opened and he flew quickly towards it, urging me to follow. The staircase spiralled tightly and I knew they would be following us eventually so I hurried them up.

Then my ear piece began to crackle.

"Firewing, come in! Diana here, over!"

"Diana – it's good to hear your voice, we got a problem."

"I know. The Salvation have shown up. They're claiming to need Xavier Spencer's weapon, but they can't find him anywhere. I don't know what to do- Angel and Green Canary have already gone ahead to try and help so now I'm on my own and-"

"Breathe Diana," I said sharply, feeling bad for my blunt tone. "Diana, you can handle this. Lola and I have acquired Kyle. We're in a room on the upper east wing corridor. Can you find us a way out?" My heart was racing ahead of my brain and I was surprise that I was managing to keep calm. Maybe it was just my body's weird way of using the adrenaline?

"Kyle! We followed the stairs into this room. I knew you would find us!" Inara exclaimed, going to throw herself around him, but stopping when she noticed Lola in his arms. "What's going on?"

Kyle gently set Lola down on the empty and untouched bed. "She got hurt helping you and your siblings. Hopefully, she will recover soon. Then she and Max will leave us."

I pulled him to one side to have a harsh word. "Come on man, you can't stay here. You don't even know what you're doing here. There's no way you can go through with this apparent engagement to Inara Spencer. That's madness. Trust me Kyle, you don't want to do this."

Kyle put a hand on my shoulder. "You have… grown up lots…"

"A lot has happened."

"You- you still should be the kid."

"And so should you. Even if you look years older than me." I tried to show the playful side, but then an explosion ripped through the other side of the mansion causing the girls to scream.

Kyle and I nodded at each other and went to leave, but Inara was having none of it and wrapped her arms around Kyle's shoulders. "Let me go."

"No, no I won't let you go. You can't leave me."

"Inara, please. I am not your boyfriend."

"But you said-"

Lola sat up slowly from the bed, helped up by Ace who put a comforting hand around her waist. "Inara, Kyle didn't understand what he was agreeing to. He's… different. He might look like you or I, but he's just not. Believe me, I know." Lola grunted in pain, allowing Ace to help her. "I'm fine, I'm fine really."

Ace shook his head. "You have to stay here. I'll go with your friends. Stay here with Inara and Marina." He turned valiantly to me and Kyle. "Where to boys?"

"Ace, be reasonable. You don't know what you're up against," Lola protested.

"Please, Lola," Ace cupped his hands over hers. "Let me be the one to save you." He lowered her to sit down on the bed again.

I looked around the room, noticing the windows could open wide. "The roof!" I declared, throwing one of the windows open wide. "Come on Kyle. We can get you to safety with Diana and then get you out of here."

I hoisted myself up onto the roof, feeling the winds blow through my dinner jacket and ruffle the hems of my trousers.

"I can't leave," Kyle called out over the winds.

"What do you mean, you can't?"

"I promised Inara."

"Kyle," I said, putting a hand on his shoulder. "Look. We need you. The whole squad- the whole city needs you. You're too- um, special to leave on a beach island off the coast."

"But I have nothing back home."

"You do! You have the whole of the Justice Squad- no, the whole of the Justice League. If you come back, you can get to know your parents more. Enjoy life with freedom as a teenager. Go on dates with fit girls. But you can't do that here."

"Lola does not want me to come home. She said so."

"Well girls are confusing so take no notice. She's just upset."

"Because her feelings are hurt?"

"Yeah- something like that." I pulled him away, allowing for Ace to catch up to us and follow us along the top of the roof. The guests were fleeing out onto the courtyard, but through the glass ceiling, we could see some of the guests were being held to ransom.

As I dropped down from the roof to get a closer look, I realised that Dad and Zatanna weren't in the small group.

"Hey! You there- stop!"

I sprang into action, but lost my balance trying to navigate a way around Ace and tumbled over, landing on the glass ceiling. For a moment, it held my weight. Briefly. The hairline cracks spread like wildfire and I fell through the air, bracing myself to hit the floor and break my back.

A supersonic scream pierced my eardrums and I felt the wind being knocked out of me. Green Canary was there to save the day.

"Kconk meht tuo!" Zatanna chanted, causing two masked men to crash into each other aggressively, cracking heads with one another.

"Max- brace yourself!" Green Canary grabbed my arm and threw me up into the air, caught by Angel swooping past. She screamed a gust towards us and boosted the air beneath Angel's wings, lifting up through the hole in the ceiling.

"Stop right there!" a voice called out to us. A female voice.

Angel and I turned to see a shorter masked person facing us. Holding Kyle by the back of his head. He was still and didn't fight from his position on his knees.

"Let him go!" I shouted angrily, trying to light the spark inside me that channelled my fire. "I said, let him go."

"Easy Firewing," Angel said calmly in a low tone.

The masked woman backed away slightly, taking Kyle with her.

"Kyle!" A blur of colour shot past me, but our enemy was quicker and almost anticipated the movement.

Lola careened into a nearby wall, seething through her teeth and dropping the floor.

"You think I didn't know that the Justice hall gained a new speedster? I know all about you. And I know why this one is so special." She wrenched Kyle's head up to look at the dark night sky. "Precious that you all believe he is the one to save you."

"Save us from what?" I asked. "I'm warning you not to take another step." My hands rose up in front of me.

"Or what? You'll set me on fire?"

My eyes widened behind my smoke glasses. "Exactly."

Spark, a tiny ember sprayed out towards her, catching a little bit of exposed skin at her neck. She screamed, slapping a hand to her neck and releasing Kyle.

The animalistic scream ripped through his throat, his eyes now red. "I will not be afraid." He swung his arms around him like a street dance, throwing the woman off the roof.

Lola hobbled on her feet, calling out to him, but he was in something I could only describe as beast mode. The gusts of air caught Angel's wing, throwing him back.

I put an arm on Lola's shoulder. "You can't save him, Lola!" I shouted over the noise. "Kyle has to be able to get himself out of this- you can't save him every time!"

"But Max-"

"No buts, he'll be okay..."

I didn't even believe myself.

Kyle screamed loudly, arching his back as the last ounce of energy left him. He hit the floor hard, on all fours panting heavily.

"Kyle?" we whispered, crowding him slowly.

Amber eyes. The amber eyes were back. Everything was alright.

-o-

Xavier Spencer insisted on thanking the team for helping to rid the island of Salvation. He invited us back to dinner at the beach house, which Dad declined politely and told him we had to leave.

I was stood beside Dad and noticed him watching Zatanna with a smile. "Mari said something to me. Something I've thought about a lot."

"Oh yeah?" Dad replied, turning his head to look at me.

"If you like Zatanna, I wouldn't mind..." I said bravely, avoiding eye contact. "Before I hated the idea of you being in love with someone other than Mum, but now I know I have my fire, I feel closer than ever to her. I realise that she would want you to be happy."

"Thanks Max. That means a lot, but I don't know if she and I are in the same place. Time will tell."

Lola left the beach house ahead of Kyle with her head hung down.

"Lola- wait up!" Ace called out to her. "There's something I want to ask you." He then whispered something in her ear.

At first she didn't react. "Maybe... at least keep in touch with me?" Lola squeezed Ace's shoulder. "It was nice meeting you, Ace."

"The pleasure is all mine. You are a delight, Lola, a beautiful vision."

Kyle stood on my other side. "Perhaps we should leave?"

I nodded.

Dad turned towards us. "You've decided to come back with us?"

There was a glimmer in Kyle's eyes. "The squad is my home. My family."

Thoughts from AspiringWriterGirl = I cannot express how much I love writing this story, so I hope you are enjoying reading it