AN: I'm Back! and it's technically still before January so I've kept my promise :) This chapter is also longer than most so I hope you enjoy it. Happy New Year! Please Review. Please Review.
Brandwein was not happy. First he loses all support for Project Expedition after Brown's little stunt, and then that kid slips through his grasp taking all his wonderful technology with him. Future Industries was losing money fast. They'd probably be bankrupt in less than a year if he didn't find a lucrative project soon. His line of cheap electronics had been made obsolete by those damn iPhones years ago. Business had been bad.
This is how Brandwein found himself on his way to a meeting with another nut-job who claimed they could build the death star or whatever other nonsense was popular now. At least Brown's invention had worked...more or less.
Walking into his office, Brandwein found it invaded by a mousey looking woman and a tall black man who was fumbling around with a sizable stack of papers nervously. Both were wearing stereotypical white lab coats and thick glasses. God, The pair was a living, breathing cliché. Suddenly, the man dropped all the papers scattering them across Brandwein's desk and floor. Brandwein sighed in annoyance. This project had better be good. The sigh must have caught the mousey woman's attention, because the next moment she was by the CEO's side shaking his hand excitedly.
"Mr. Brandwein, sir, it's an honor to meet you, sir." Her hand was cold and clammy. Brandwein made no attempt to hide the disgust on his face as he wiped his hand clean on his suit.
"Of course, Mrs..."
"Ms. Morse, Mr. Brandwein and this is my partner Dr. West."
The other man nodded in acknowledgement.
"Yes, well Ms...and Dr...I believe you stated in your earlier interview that you could build some sort of Alpha Beam..."
"Beta Beam, sir." The mousey woman corrected.
"Yes, Beta Beam, and what exactly does this Beta...uh...Beam do?"
"Oh! Well you see, according to the theory of..."
Brandwein grabbed his chair from behind his desk, where the man was still attempting to grab the last of the papers. Brandwein was staring very intently at the pictures the woman was trying to show him, but the only words reaching his brain were the ones he would have to say to get these idiots out of his office.
"...And so now we can each out to these other dimensions and observe..."
"Wait," Brandwien stopped the woman's ramblings. "Let me get this straight. You want me to believe that this device can...contact other dimensions."
"Y-yes." The woman answered as if she had just realized the impossibility of her project.
"Can this device, say, allow us to travel to these other dimensions?"
The two scientists burst into laughter, as if Brandwein had just recited the world's funniest joke. His face turned red in anger and embarrassment.
"Can we travel between these dimensions?" The other man managed through fits of laughter. "Mr. Brandwein, with this device, not only can we travel between dimensions of our choosing, but we can locate objects from any other dimensional objects in our own universe and bring them right here."
Brandwien smiled. "Well then, there is only one thing left to do. Let's talk price."
Nate watched in horror as Robin swung around on the chair gleefully next to him. More than once now the chair had almost tipped over backwards, and every time Nate had leaped from his own seat to catch the kid. He had even caught the boy attempting to do a handstand on the chair. Nate swore the kid was doing this on purpose. Once again Nate saw the chair lean backwards as its young inhabitant yelled "WEEEEEE!" with his hands stretched above his head and his palms tilted backwards slightly. Nate caught the chair, hearing the crash of his own against the floor. Looking back Nate noticed one of the legs had separated from his chair and was laying two feet away from the bar.
"That," Nate said sternly looking into the kid's eyes -or sunglasses actually- and pointing at the broken chair "Could have been you. And If you try that stunt one more time, I WILL tie you to the chair and then nail the chair to the ground."
Robin opened his mouth, and Nate braced himself for the oncoming sarcastic remark, or the kid's personal motto: "I wouldn't have fallen." Every piece of furniture in this apartment seemed to be gym equipment for this kid. Seriously, was he raised in a circus or something.
"Listen to him, Robin." Eliot appeared in the doorway. "You don't want to aggravate your injuries."
"Yes, sir."
Nate sent Eliot a grateful smile. How he got that kid to listen to him was a miracle and a mystery.
"How are Hardison and Sophie?" Eliot asked taking the seat next to Robin, and placing a firm hand on the back of the kid's chair preventing it from wobbling, and receiving an impressive glare from the teen in return.
"Nada. Brandwein hasn't shown yet." Robin answered for Nate.
The kid's interest in this case disturbed Nate. Robin had refused to provide his plans for a "working teleporter," until Nate agreed to include him in the planning. It was a stalemate that lasted almost two days, but Nate couldn't think of another plan that both took care of Brandwein and appease Robin about his journey home. Robin had agreed not to ask to go "into the field" as he put it; so, here they were.
Nate again turned to Robin. "You do realize, this is highly illegal. This is not a game; this is not fun; and this is not something you should want to do."
Robin just smiled at him calmly. "I know."
Nate was not done. "If I ever catch you in the future doing this. I don't care what the circumstances are, I will bring you down."
Again Robin smiled. "Thank You."
"Brandwein at two 'o-clock." Eliot said alerting everyone else to the screens in front of them. Thanks to Hardison's little black box Robin had so kindly attached to Future Industry's main server, the team now had the privilege to view all the security videos at Future Industries live.
"Okay, Hardison, here's what I need you to do..." Robin started to speak.
"Are you on the com's? Where'd you get that? How'd you get the frequency?" Nate fired off his questions a mile a minute, receiving only an impish smile in return. Nate sighed; this seemed to be happening a lot lately.
Robin scanned the loft above the pub very carefully before walking out to the open floor. He was relieved to know that this team didn't live in this small apartment. The files Hardison had so graciously allowed him to peruse stated that each member had their own living arrangements, but after the first night Robin had feared that these homes were more for show than practicality. Those fears were put to rest when the last of the team (minus Nate) had bid Robin goodnight and headed off to their respective hideaways the next day.
Apparently Nate did actually live in this apartment. The con man had severe trust issues and wouldn't let Robin sleep in the guest room out of fear that he would "try another dangerous stunt and hurt yourself." Well the joke's on him. It had been child's play sneaking out of Nate's bedroom. Robin stuck his tongue out at the empty room and bent backwards into a bridge. He had to suppress a cackle as he stretched. Slowly, he walked his hands backwards until they were touching his ankles. A few of his healing injuries protested the movement, but his muscles welcomed the stretch. He wouldn't have the luxury of baby-ing his wounds in the field.
It had been so long since Robin had had a decent stretch, or workout for that matter. Thanks to Nate's overprotective streak Robin hadn't been able to do so much as a cart-wheel since he arrived. Even his spontaneous attempts at a flip or roll had been foiled by the man. Like with the chair today. Robin grumbled inwardly, I would not have fallen. I was perfectly poised for a backwards roll, Thank-you-very-much. Robin kicked his legs over his head so that he was standing again and immediately dropped down into a split. Robin had definitely become stiff due to his acrobatic negligence. If he had waited any longer to do this he may well have hurt himself.
After stretching his arms, Robin began Batman's mandatory sets of push-ups and sit-ups. There was nothing in his immediate vision that he could use for the pull-ups, so he gleefully skipped those. Nate treated him like a kid. Robin was not a kid. Kids didn't swing from rooftops chasing criminals in the middle of the night. Kids didn't go on covert missions to foreign nations looking for alien technology. Kids didn't go toe to toe with the Justice League as they were controlled by an evil society called The Light and win. Yes, Robin was young; and, yes, Robin was small, and weaker than most, and he didn't have any superpowers, and he wasn't as experienced as some of the senior heroes, but damn it, he was Robin the Boy-Wonder. That had to count for something.
Robin began to practice the flips and handsprings he had been denied the past week, sparing with imaginary partners while staying actively aware of the noise level and breakables in the room. Nate's overprotective tendencies were hurting the efforts to take down Brandwein. In the moment Robin decided to trust this team, he had five plans ready for taking down Future Industries and getting home. Four involved him actively participating. But because Nate wanted to play overprotective parent, Robin was forced to propose the least likely to succeed, where the most things could go wrong and where someone might actually get hurt. If this were to happen, Robin would have to intervene.
There was one catch to this plan. Bat's 'teleporter' was largely based off the zeta beam designs -Beta Beam? I'm about as creative as Conner when it comes to names- and so the device was not small, certainly not portable. Hardison has assured Robin the device would be built somewhere that no one could find it, but as Robin knew from experience, nothing is ever hidden. He would have to use and destroy the device before the cops started sniffing around. That meant he'd have to use it before the con was completed. That meant going into the field. Robin only hoped his disappearance wouldn't become too large of a distraction when it came time to take out Brandwein.
Robin landed his last backflip (off the back of a barstool in an attempt to thumb his nose at Nate) and quietly slipped back into the bedroom past the sleeping adult. Robin climbed into the sleeping bag on the floor (black like Batman's cape) and drifted off into sleep.
