A Bit of the Aftermath

Walking was a new kind of hell.

Each little movement sent a thrum of dull aching throughout his body. Each breath rattled in his chest.

At least nothing seemed broken. Yet.

He took another step, still being bodily held up by Artemis, as they slowly made their way around the massive heap of shambled rubble.

At that moment, there was no time for compartmentalizing the white-hot pain arcing up his leg. Or the piece of metal sticking out of it.

Though he was tempted to remove the projectile (he really did not appreciate the sensation of cold metal moving inside him, thank you very much. All in all, about a two out of ten), he had enough experience with impalement to know that was a very, very stupid idea.

Removal of the object would mean losing more blood, which would mean possibly collapsing. Which was something he really didn't want to do right now.

But there was no time for a pity fest, not when Ida and the junior Justice League had possibly been blown to bits by a bomb or pancaked by collapsed concrete.

Dick was fairly certain the rest of the team hadn't been in the ceiling's trajectory, but it'd been a split-second approximation. Who's to say he hadn't misjudged something?

Then he stopped suddenly, causing Artemis to stumble and shoot him a confused frown.

He barely registered it. A thought had just occurred to him.

Since when did he care about them? There was an odd bit of…worry fluttering fragile wings in his chest. Sure, some of it was for Ida, but the rest—

Artemis broke him out of his spiralling thoughts with a gentle nudge, "You're heavier than you look, Grayson. Mind if we get a move on?"

She'd tried to keep her voice casual, but he could hear the concern in it. The concern she was currently feeling for her team.

Concern he was also feeling for her team. What was happening? Had the explosion broken him?

Dick didn't bother answering her, but he did start to shuffle forward again.

They skirted around the precariously balanced heap in the middle of the room, rounding it much slower than he would've liked.

When the team came into view, their bright costume colours muted by grey plaster dust, he found himself echoing Artemis' relieved, breathy intake.

But he didn't see Ida. Panic quickly ate its way into his chest.

Was she dead? Had he misjudged something? Was she now lying under a chunk of concrete, slowly bleeding out—

Then Superboy turned around, revealing what his wide form had been innocently concealing; Ida, cradled effortlessly in his massive arms.

M'gann was hovering in front of the white-haired woman, checking for a concussion, green finger moving back and forth rhythmically as she asked Ida to follow it.

He was sure that Artemis felt him sag against her in sudden relief—all the pent-up pressure he'd been feeling rushing out of him—but, if she did, she didn't comment on it.

KF, as if super attuned to the archer's presence, spun around as soon as the haggard pair came into view.

"Artemis!" He zipped toward them, the resulting buffet of wind almost knocking Dick over.

Then the ginger hesitated, rocking wildly on his heels as he looked over his—friend? Girlfriend? Lover?

Though he was a detective, Dick honestly couldn't tell what there was between them.

With Miss Martian and Superboy, it'd been an easy assumption to make. With these two, on the other hand…

"Can I?" KF asked softly, and Dick abruptly realized he was likely about to witness something personal.

Oh well. He glared down at his compromised leg. It's not like he could just walk away.

Artemis nodded quickly, cheeks flooding with colour, and then Wally was practically snatching her out from under the detective.

He frantically checked her over, fingers ghosting her ribs and the base of her skull as he searched for any evidence of injury.

That, however, meant that Dick was suddenly without support, his traitorous leg collapsing beneath him like a child's house of cards.

He landed on the floor with a thud, tailbone instantly beginning to ache on impact. Blood welled up from the gash in his pant leg and he bit his tongue to keep from making a sound.

Brought down by a piece of wire. He knew exactly what Bruce would say, could practically hear the older man's familiar tone.

Pathetic.

"Oh." KF said, staring down at him perplexedly. "Are you alright?"

"Peachy." He bit out between gritted teeth, "Just peachy."

Artemis grumbled something under her breath that sounded a lot like "stupid, useless detectives", but bent down and helped him up to his feet all the same.

Wally apparently pulled some kind of face that Dick, on Artemis' opposite side, couldn't quite see.

Whatever the expression was caused the archer to make an indignant noise, her free hand flailing around until it collided with the speedster's arm, "Shut up."

"I didn't say anything." There was a smug trill to the ginger's tone.

"I hate you."

"Sure, babe."

Artemis made a growling sound and was probably about to drop Dick in favour of strangling Wally, when Kaldur wisely decided to intervene,

"Were either of you hurt?" His militaristic, straight-to-the-point voice was like a soothing bucket of ice water to Dick's frazzled mind. "Anything broken?"

Kaldur had gotten off scrape free, likely due to his tough Atlantean skin. Dick remembered reading about it for hours on the batcomputer, his young eyes scanning each detail with mounting curiosity. Could its strength be replicated? What caused it? Did he ever—

He realized, too late, that he'd zoned out. Kaldur, Artemis, and Wally were staring at him like they were expecting some kind of answer.

"…What?"

"Did you hit your head?" The speedster asked skeptically, though not unkindly. "You seem kind of spacey."

"You should've seen him earlier. He was a real basket case then."

Dick turned a heated glare on Artemis, but didn't deign to answer her taunt. Instead, he turned back to Kaldur, "What were you saying?"

The Atlantean didn't look bothered about having to repeat himself. "Are you hurt?"

The response was automatic. "No."

On his left, where she was still holding him up, the archer shot him a weirdly exasperated look. "Grayson has something sticking out of his leg. And some mild shock."

He meant to only think it, but then suddenly it was spilling past his lips, "Traitor."

"I think we all have shock," KF intoned, showcasing one of his tremoring hands. "We were almost exploded. It'd be weird if we weren't shocked."

Were all heroes so dramatic? He resisted the urge to roll his eyes. "That all to say, I'm fine."

Kaldur pointedly eyed the way Dick was barely holding himself up, even with Artemis' help. But, before he could say anything, M'gann literally flew into their conversation.

"Ida doesn't have a concussion, only a few scrapes and bruises. Nothing serious."

That, at least, was good news. He didn't think he'd be able to live with himself if Ida had gotten fatally hurt.

Then the Martian turned to Dick, of all people, and gave him a soft smile. "It probably would've been much worse if you hadn't acted so quickly. You saved her life."

"Oh." The detective shuffled his good leg, not entirely sure how to answer that. Even back when he'd been in his teens, running around in neon spandex, he'd never been entirely sure how to react when sobbingly grateful people tried to talk to him. "Thank you?"

"Just take the compliment," Wally huffed out, though he was smiling too. "And thank youfor saving Artemis."

"He didn't save me," The archer protested, grip tightening around Dick's arm. "There was no 'saving'."

"You're welcome?" Dick phrased in KF's direction.

Artemis looked just about ready to slap both of them, consequences of assaulting an officer be darned.

She never got her chance. The ramshackle door abruptly flew open, nearly swinging off its rusted hinges.

Addams, looking significantly worse for wear, stood in the entrance way. His fellow hodgepodge of various analysts and officers flanked him, guns drawn and eyes wide.

"What the hell happened?" The ghoulish, slimeball of a man said in his overly nasal and pretentious voice. What was left of Dick's flagging tolerance went up in flames, Addams' very existence being the lighter.

KF surprised the detective by taking a step forward, arms crossed over his spandex clad chest. "What do you mean, 'what the hell happened'? The ceiling exploded!" He gestured at the jagged hole above them, "A bomb went off ten feet away from you guys and your only now checking in?"

Though Dick would've loved to watch him getting laid into by a junior hero, it was clear that Wally's words were only making Addams angrier. Like performing a red ribbon dance routine in front of a bull.

Maybe he really had hit his head during the explosion. That was a weirdly specific analogy.

Either way, Dick had been subjected to enough of Addams' temper tantrums to know when the man was about to pop his top. This seemed to be shaping into one such occasion.

"I leave you alone for five minutes and you blow up my crime scene!" Addams—surprise surprise—rounded on Dick, fists clenched tightly at his sides. "Were you trying to sabotage me? Wreck my new position with your fancy little hero friends?"

"I object!" Dick's mouth still hadn't caught up with his brain. It almost felt like his brief—albeit horrible—experience with truth serum. "They're not my friends."

"Hey," Artemis stood tall beside him, levelling a glare at Addams, "Grayson might suck, but you can't go pinning this on him."

"Wow. Who knew you had such a high opinion of me." There he went again. Where had his mind-to-mouth filter gone?

But Artemis wasn't done yet. In fact, it seemed like she was just getting started, "—He didn't plant the bomb in the ceiling. He certainly didn't stand outside the door and do fuc-frick all when he heard explosions inside. And he definitely didn't come in guns-a-blazing just so he could antagonize someone he's supposed to be on the same side as."

Dick found himself staring at the archer like he'd never seen her before. She was…defending him? Why? He'd purposefully tried to push them away. Purposefully antagonized them at every given opportunity.

So, again, why?

"How about we start this conversation over?" Kaldur interjected into the following stunned silence, filling it with his calm inflection.

Dick, though still staring at Artemis like she was some kind of rare, tropical fish, saw that even Addams looked pacified by the man's tone.

"I believe my teammates and I were wondering why you weren't on the scene immediately," The Atlantean took a step out from the other Young Justice members, raising his hands placatingly, palms facing upward in the universal sign of we mean you no harm.

Addams signaled for his men to lower their weapons, then began to pick his way delicately across the rubble-strewn floor. He looked out of place in his pristine windbreaker and clean slacks, like something out of a cheesy mafia movie.

"I wasn't ignoring you," The man said, coming to a stop in front of Kaldur. He gave Dick a glare, like him having to explain himself was purely the detective's fault. "Someone ran from the crime scene. They'd holed themselves up, right under our noses, and bolted when forensics got too close."

"Got too close?" Dick interrupted, mind instantly whirling with possibilities. "How long ago was that?"

Addams flicked a look at one of his associates, like he himself couldn't be bothered to know the time.

"About ten or eleven minutes ago, Detective Grayson," Crooked Teeth, from earlier, answered after staring down at his watch for a moment. "About half our team took off to give chase."

"Exactly," Addams said smugly, clicking his fingers together like he had something to be proud of. "We were giving pursuit of a much more compliant witness. This one," He eyed Ida up and down with a scornful gaze, "wasn't on our minds."

"Yes." Dick struggled to keep his mounting anger off his face. "The compliant one who hid themselves on your crime scene then ran away."

KF snorted. "Very compliant. The exact definition of the word."

Addams let out a huff, plucking angrily at his mop of hair. "We didn't even know there'd been an explosion. Not until we secured the runner and brought him back."

That was some awfully convenient timing. He'd have to think about that later, after he thought about all the other pressing things he still had to think about. Like his own actual case.

Gosh. Dick was tired.

He pinched the bridge of his nose, narrowing his eyes as he attempted to focus. There were too many things buzzing in his brain right now. Too much information pinging around.

Not to mention he was still bleeding from his leg. Oh no, couldn't forget that.

Maybe he did need a vacation. He imagined himself at some beach resort; counting individual grains of sand, drowning himself in the waves. You know, normal vacay stuff.

KF's voice broke through his fantasy, "That's one excuse, but I still only trust you about as far as I could throw you."

"And he's got spaghetti arms," Artemis drawled. "So that's not very far."

The speedster grinned at Artemis like she'd just proposed marriage. "Thanks, babe."

"Anytime, hon."

Again, just what, exactly, were the details of their relationship?

"Can an ambulance" Conner's deep voice caused half the room's occupants to jump.

Most of them, even his own team, had forgotten the super was there.

"Why?" Addams, ever quick to recover, barked at the hulking clone.

Idiot. If it'd been anyone else speaking, Dick would've told them to shut up. But, since it was Addams, he almost wanted to see Conner snap the other man like a twig.

Superboy, unfortunately, didn't seem to be in a man-snapping mood. "Not even my ears can hear internal bleeding," He gestured down at the woman still cradled in his arms. "She could be dying."

Ida cringed back against Conner's chest when all eyes fixed themselves one her. "Sorry," She squeaked. "I'll be fine walking home."

"Look at that, she's perfectly fine. Right as rain." Addams gave a grudgingly impressive eyeroll. "Let the woman walk if she wants to walk, I say."

"No," Artemis bit out again, that same fire as earlier burning in her throat. "You're going to get her on an ambulance, and you're going to do it now."

He didn't look happy about it, but Addams had the good sense to hold his tongue "Call the fire department and bomb squad, too. And get my forensics team in here. You," He stabbed a finger at a few of them, "and you, secure the perimeter. We don't want any more unexpected runners."

"Yes, sir."

Only when Addams had stopped bossing his men around did he turn his attention back toward them. He frowned, upper lip pulled up in obvious disgust as he took in their dust covered costumes and various scrapes. "You guys, follow me."

(A/N): Ugh. Addams sucks. I hate him.

Sorry about the late chapter (those words will be written on my tombstone e_e)

Anywho, thank you so much for reading! And for your kind reviews last chapter, I read and love each one! They seriously encourage my writing process so much :D

Stay safe! And for everyone who's starting school/online classes, good luck!

~ASL