A/N: So I put this off only a little bit. I was going to do it yesterday, but then I got to work on my own novel instead. So here's the next part of the three-shot.
Also, I'm glad two people picked up on it. Thanks go out to those two reviewers who noticed the slight change. Good readers, very good readers… Although none of you noticed that I spelled Conner wrong… It's fixed now, of course.
Disclaimer: Nope, I don't own anything.
The Last Time I Saw You
"He told us to meet everyone else here." Superboy was the first to emerge from the shadows, Miss Martian close behind him as she floated out of the darkness, new white skin sensitive to this sort of light. The blue-eyed man looked around for signs of anyone else only to see the swelling blackness quiet and still. No movement.
M'gann held herself, arms wrapped tight around her body. Coming back to Earth for an actual mission felt so strange after her two years of being gone. Her brown eyes skimmed the area only to find herself alone with Conner; not even her telepathic range could pick up signs of life other than the crickets and the other animals that scattered the landscape around the warehouse two blocks out of Robin's position that was meant to be the meeting place. "They're not coming, are they?"
Conner hated to say it, but he thought they were all on their own. His lips remained pursed and silence emanated from him. Until it came down to the last minute, he'd remain hopeful. It was all he really could do.
"At least Robin will have you and me." Her voice was chipper as ever, a smile lighting up her face even in such a gloomy situation. "He may not have much of a team left, but he's got us." The girl would never let anything get her down. Nothing would stop her from her positive thinking. Not a war. Not death. Not even being left alone.
His lips twisted a bit on one side of his face, but he wasn't going to say it.
A skidding sound echoed behind them. "Hey, sorry I'm late, used to sitting around. Getting up and going places, yeah, not my thing anymore." The ginger stood there with his suit on, the pants showing a bit of his ankles and the boots squishing his feet. The shirt was snug and still fit decently though. "So, where is everyone?" he asked as he clapped his hands together, the sound ricocheting off the metal beams and steel walls of the warehouse. "Just us three?"
M'gann nodded, her heart lifting a little bit. Maybe they could pull it off if one more person arrived. All they needed was one more body, one more hero…
"Well, while we wait and hope and pray that maybe someone else in this world wants to save Rob, how have you guys been, huh?" Wally locked his fingers behind his head and stretched out his back a little, figuring he probably should've been hitting the gym instead of sitting around on his dingy couch watching old reruns of bad cartoons. His jade eyes closed as his face turned to the rafters that lingered overhead. "I've been good. Living it up. Getting over things, getting new things."
"You quit being a hero." Superboy's words were soft, but deep; meaning laid heavy on them. The translation, roughly, turned out to be "When did you become such a nimrod? That's my job."
"Yup." Wally was pacing in circles and exhaling loudly when he got the chance, liking the sound of his own voice as it echoed back at him in full-force. "I'm living the good life now. I don't need to be a hero."
"I'm stopping a civil war," remarked Megan as she drew her senses back to herself. She still wore that big, stunning smile that Wally remembered from all those years ago. For some reason, she made him miss what he used to be. She made him miss all the friends he'd made, all the night's he'd put in, all the video games he'd wasted himself on… She made him miss Robin. Because that was what was holding the team together all along. Her and Robin.
Superboy didn't remark on what he was doing with his life. Because, quite frankly, he was doing as little as Kid Flash. Probably less, actually. Suddenly, the clone felt smaller in the world. Being less than Kid Flash… that was probably the ultimate low.
"Good to hear everyone else is doing well," came a voice from above. "I'm fine too, my life being threatened every five minutes, but it's all good." A heavy sigh and the clacking of arrows in a quiver as a shadow leaned against the open pane of a window.
Silence fell like a cold rain, ice upon everyone's skin.
"Hate me all you want, I'm fine with it." Artemis took one step off the windowsill that was her hiding place and landed softly on a metal beam only two yards below, her stance like that of a cat. "I'm used to it, actually. The whole 'you're the worse thing that's ever happened to me' thing? Yeah, completely cool with it now." Her bow hung over one shoulder as the quiver slapped at her back. Her cerulean eyes watched the other three as they lingered below in the faint rays of moonlight that filtered in through one of the only two open windows.
A green glare was fired at her. "You never returned my calls."
"Let's be honest with ourselves: did you really want me to?"
Silence. Cold rain. Ice upon skin.
"Okay, is this everyone?" asked Artemis, being the only one to break the silence as Superboy glared at her with Wally at his side, Megan lurking behind them with her face to the ground in shame. "Because we got a bird boy to save if we're all set here."
It was at that moment an arrow whizzed past her ear. The only forewarning she'd had was the familiar twang! of a released shot and the two milliseconds necessary to move her head. "You killed him," hissed a voice from the shadows as the dark form of Red Arrow stepped out of the blackness.
Artemis had moved enough to hide behind a support beam. "This was why I didn't go down any further," she breathed mostly to herself. The words bounced around the nearly empty building.
"For the sake of getting to Robin faster so he doesn't freeze his little feathers off, can we hurry this up?" asked Kid Flash, antsy on his feet. He wanted to know what had happened just as much as the next guy, but there wasn't any time for this. They still had to work out a plan that could work. Then set it into motion and hope that Red Arrow wouldn't kill Artemis… That was kind of going to have to go on the backburner if at all possible.
"Guys," said the archer that hid up near the roof, "I'm sorry for what I did. I didn't want to kill Kaldur, I swear. It's a reflex. He found out-" There was a deep breath of air sucked into her lungs before she continued. "-who I am, and my first reaction was to put an arrow in his neck. I was trained by my father to kill, not save." She felt a bead of sweat racing down her forehead and then a second later, along the side of her neck. "You know who I am now, okay? And I'm here to save Robin just like the rest of you are. He knew all along that I killed him, even before the truth came out. Robin watched me kill Kaldur, okay? Can we let this go for an hour or two? Kill me later, save Boy Wonder now."
Wally was the first one to forgive, although he wouldn't say it out loud. "Come on," he instructed, snapping in Red Arrow's face. The red-haired archer had had his bow strung with an arrow barely a second after the first one had been shot. "We can deal with her on League time. Right now is Robin time."
"We're two blocks away from the coordinates he sent," Superboy began, trying to get the remnants of the first team built back together again. Some part of him felt hollow, being around all these people again. After so much solitude, this group, these friends, his team, it was all feeling so real. "The whole place is frozen over, that's what he told us."
"Not a problem now though," reminded Miss Martian, her hood pulled over her head and her eyes flitting from each member as Roy and Wally both pulled in closer to Superboy; Artemis was still hanging up in the rafters, listening. M'gann could tell that she wasn't coming down until she was sure that the other archer had put down his weapon. "Superboy's developed his heat vision. Anything that's iced can be melted."
"I'm worried about the time he's given us. In there for three days. The chances of any of them being alive right now are slim to none," said Roy, being realistic about it. "The real objective of this would be to get the Prime Minister out and take down Captain Cold before he can find Babs, if she's even alive."
"Rob's got three bullets in him," reminded Wally with a sober face. "That can't be good for the kid. He's not like us."
"Not like you guys, anyways." Artemis pushed her way into the group right between Wally and Conner. "Roy and I can take bullets and push through pretty good considering. And I know for a fact that Rob wears a lot of armor under the costume. Light stuff, not much to stop bullets, but enough that it didn't like pierce a lung or anything." She fingered the edge of her bow nervously. "His main issue would be blood loss."
A somber Roy nodded his agreement. And he hated agreeing with her almost as much as he hated the word "sidekick".
"So we've got a way to deal with the ice, save Cassie since the chances are good she'll be doing alright. Frozen solid, no big deal. Cavemen have survived it, right?" Wally was totaling up the issues on his fingers. "We could probably send Miss M in to take care of Babs. Hopefully she's not dead."
"As long as it didn't hit a serious artery, she should be fine for a few more days." Roy also fingered his bow, wondering if he shouldn't have it pointed at Artemis at all times, just for safety purposes. "Barbara's a good kid. We shouldn't have to be too worried about her."
Wally put up another finger and tapped it with his other hand. "Then we got BB, wherever the Hell he is." The redhead let his gaze stray to the ceiling before finishing his unended thought. "Odds are good that he used a small animal, a grasshopper, let's say, to get into the control room to tap Robin's tech in. And grasshoppers are susceptible to cold the way Meg's susceptible to fire. He's probably in hibernation mode or something on accident. Rigged up for the wrong body."
Superboy cleared his throat. "Tula."
"My guess is that she got captured," said Artemis to throw in her two-pence to the discussion. "I trust the girl and she's great and everything, but she's not the greatest fighter. Garth had her beat, no questions asked."
"Before he quit," spat Wally, words fierce. They lost two Aqualads in a little less than three years. Pitiful. And Garth had just walked out, the same way Conner and Roy had so long ago.
"And who's going to get Robin?" asked Megan, speaking up as the moonlight washed over her face that was now a milky white after embracing her true heritage. She was almost grateful that no one had commented on it yet.
"Captain Cold first." Superboy seemed to be taking over the leadership role of the team, something he never thought he'd ever do. He never thought he had the level head for it. "Robin second. He's about three minutes out of the actual warehouse at Kid Flash speed." Conner looked at the faces around him. "Here's how we're going to do it.
"Roy, you and Artemis get to go in and take care of Batgirl. I'll melt the worst of the ice off the building so none of us are sliding around and looking ridiculous. Artemis, see if you can take care of her while Roy covers for you in the case of minions hanging around. She needs to be taken care of immediately. Knowing Batman, there should be first aid supplies in the belt. Ask her where it would be if she's still conscious.
"Wally, I'll need you to see if you can do a superspeed inferno to heat up Cassie. We'll need her help to take care of Captain Cold if she's capable. I figure you'll know how to take care of things once she's out. I want you two in charge of the main mission of taking care of the Prime Minister."
He got a little soldier salute from Wally that was accompanied by a cocky grin.
The blue eyes of the clone turned to Miss Martian. "M'gann, I want you to search for Beast Boy and Tula. Take Red Arrow with you if Artemis does not need him. I'm sure she'd be perfectly capable of taking care of Batgirl on her own."
"I usually am," said a confident Artemis, arms now folded across her chest, her cerulean gaze fixated on Superboy. For some reason, she had found it easier to look away from his abs. Ever since Wally, no buff guy had ever looked the same. All she had really wanted was that stupid ginger. But he wasn't taking her back. Not after the Kaldur incident.
"I'll try to melt as much of the building as I can to make everything easier on the rest of you. Does that sound good to everyone?" Superboy's blue stare looked at the faces around him, each one set with fierce determination. The determination that only loyal friends and teammates could wear.
"We may need you to help with Babs if we can't get her out on our own," said Roy, looking to Artemis to see her shaking her head for a moment.
"I've got flares. Fire should fix it right up."
Wally pressed a hand to his temple as his gaze found Artemis. "Is it wrong that I'm afraid of you with fire?" he asked with a slightly smug smirk on his features. Jade eyes glimmered with faint laughter. He missed the days when he had this sort of family around him… A family of friends where old jokes could never die…
"I'd be more afraid of Megan with fire," remarked Artemis before pulling her arm through her bow so the weapon was ready whenever everyone was ready to leave.
"And how are we going to get Robin?" asked Miss Martian from her position between Superboy and Red Arrow. Her fingers nervously felt at her cape, rubbing it between the pads of her fingers, the soft blue fabric almost like silk as it pressed to her back.
Ready to clear that up was Conner. "Meet up outside, let Cassie, Tula, and Beast Boy finish the mission as long as it's still an active threat. They should be able to take care of Barbara as well. If Tula and Beast Boy are incapable, Robin may have to wait a bit longer."
"Or we could call in the League," suggested Roy, his mind elsewhere with that suggestion. "All we'd have to do would be infiltrate the facility and let them take care of Cold while we-"
"No." Wally had instantly picked up on the tension that had come prickling off of Artemis. "We can take care of this ourselves. Robin called us, not the League, remember? He trusts us to get the job done because he knows they can't do it." His gaze was hard as he stared at the mask that hid Harper's eyes. "Our job, not theirs."
"He called us for a reason." Superboy's voice was solid and stony; he wasn't giving this to the League either, although it was for a completely different motive. "Robin wants us to get him and his team out of there because we were the first." His azure gaze scanned the people before him, humans and meta-humans alike. "This one's for Robin."
There was a long pause that Artemis interrupted. "Everyone ready?" She had noticed that Roy had drawn his bow just like she had and that M'gann had pulled down her hood, the shadows coming off of her face. Wally had fastened his goggles to his eyes and put his hands on his hips.
"Let's do this shit."
Wally smirked at Roy's comment.
Superboy still took up his position as leader of this. He had already orchestrated most of it. "Wally, you carry Artemis down to the facility. M'gann, you and I can fly." He put a hand on Roy. "I'll carry you down there."
"Is it bad that I always forget you can fly?" asked Wally with his satisfied smirk as he scooped Artemis up in his arms bridal style before bolting off in a burst of light. No one would've been surprised if Kid Flash had suddenly developed light speed. They all would've actually been impressed, really. Barry had said that he'd gotten to the point of moving his molecules through walls…
"Let's go," said Superboy, picking his feet up off the ground and floating like it was a natural thing to do. He offered a hand down to Roy who grabbed his wrist; Conner did the same. Megan pulled her hood back over her face, brown eyes blazing with determination.
As they took off, Megan a bit slower than Superboy, the girl said in a low voice, "Kaldur would be proud."
"I hope so."
A/N: Ah, just that pinch of Supermartian for you guys. I can't do the fluffyfluff stuff. It fries the brain… Reviews are great. Leave one. Next chapter should be up soon.
~Sky
