Shayera and Roy: Red Hot Rage, Part One
"We have to do something amazing! It's on camera!" Kid Flash exclaims as if reminding his teammates yet again will change their opinions at last. He hops up and down as he speaks trying to see over the tall fence they're hiding behind.
The brightly colored hero stops jumping and reaches out to grab Red Arrow's arm as he turns to leave. The moment his fingers brush against the skin of the older teen, Kid Flash finds himself slammed against the rough bark of the tree while the prodding tip of a bow rams in between his shoulder blades.
"Don't touch me, Kid," Red Arrow snarls as he wedges the bow deeper into his friend's back.
The other redhead lets out a disgruntled gasp. "Jesus! Spe-Red, you need to calm down like now!"
Red Arrow finds his dominating position reversed as a drop kick floors him. Roy's fall is quickly met with a hold from a well-toned forearm which suddenly pushes against his neck and knocks him face first onto the muddy ground. Roy spits out blades of grass as Superboy pushes him down.
"Don't touch my friends," Conner demands without bothering to voice a threat. He almost bites Robin's head off when the younger boy attempts to calm him down by resting a hand over his bicep.
"Superboy, it's okay. Red's just in a mood. He's mad we tagged along on his badass loner gig," Robin explains with a desperate voice. "He's your friend too."
Superboy reluctantly lets go of the other hero, trusting in the judgment of his friend who has known Red Arrow longer. "We didn't tag along. We followed the same leads," Kon points out. "Just because he was here first doesn't make the case his jurisdiction."
"Technically," Wally clicks his tongue, "we're all vigilantes who lack all rights to anything."
"Not helping, bro," Robin says softly as he picks off the grass sticking to Roy's costume. Red Arrow bats his hands away.
Conner growls deeply when the oldest hero touches Robin. He locks his eyes with Roy's masked pair and starts removing the grass from Roy's costume himself without any permission. Roy only manages a short huff in disapproval but otherwise endures Superboy's grooming.
Wally returns to arguing as everyone settles down. "Guys…this is a brilliant once in a million opportunity here." KF stands behind Robin and holds him by his shoulders. "We can be awesome! Show the whole world and the League that we are part of the big time. All we have to do is," Wally lets go of Robin in order to make a mock gun with his fingers which he shoots at the fence, "make the most dramatically amazing entrance over that fence!"
Robin groans loudly and shoots Wally behind his back with two play hand guns of his own. Conner stifles a laugh. Roy growls something that sounds suspiciously like 'kids' and begins walking the long way around the park's fence.
"Well, fine. I'll come up with the plan and you," Robin targets his finger gun onto KF's insignia, "can shut up."
"What? No fair! I should pick. It's my idea in the first place," Kid Flash reasons.
Since Robin and Wally are too busy arguing back and forth, only Superboy is left to notice Red Arrow already taking action. Conner slowly drops the arms folded against his chest and, with one last glance at his bickering friends, follows Roy into the battle.
Red Arrow doesn't have super-hearing, yet he begins talking to Superboy while he is still approaching as if he hears him coming from behind.
"Clock King has three hostages hidden inside that," he points to the news van on his left, "vehicle. The other hostages are more obvious."
Kon quickly scans the plaza. Clock King stands before a cameraman, pushing his cane into the man's neck and ordering him to fix the feed so that they don't fall behind his perfect schedule.
Twelve hostages dressed in the numbers one through twelve are arranged on their backs around the gurgling fountain in the center of the park. Another hostage dressed in red is led by gun point around the circumference of the simulated clock face as if to represent a minute hand.
"That is," Superboy admits, "diffidently more obvious." Superboy crouches down next to Roy. "What's the plan?"
Red Arrow, for his part, at least attempts to hide his surprise that Superboy is willing to take his orders. He smirks smugly. "What? You're not going to make any big deal about leadership like the other kids?"
Conner shrugs. "I'm not a kid; besides, you have the most experience of the two of us."
Red Arrow nods at this assessment as he scans the hostage situation once more.
"Also," Superboy adds, "you seem to have a plan."
Roy cocks a brow. Conner wonders if such movements itch underneath his mask.
"You don't have a plan, then?" Red Arrow questions.
Conner shrugs again. "I'm here to hit things for the most part."
"Maybe I'm not the only hothead around, huh?" Roy says breezily as he stands up. "We're going to be as secretive as possible. Drama is the last thing we need in a hostage situation."
"Of course," Superboy says.
"I'll keep jamming the feed," he motions to the device which he had been planting as he crouched, "and that will distract King. Do you see anything interesting about the fountain?"
Superboy nods and glances over it once. He notices a hatch at the bottom of the rolling waters and layers of wishing coins. "There's a tunnel below. It leads to the controls underneath the staff building. What's it for?"
"The park uses it to maintain the steam jets and sprinklers for the kids to play with; We are going to use it to take the guards out."
"That sounds good to me."
Roy holds a full fist towards Conner. Conner opens his palm and Roy drops his handful of capsules.
"What," Conner rolls the pellets around in his hand, "do these do?"
"I'm going to put them in the water system. It'll knock out everybody."
Kon tilts his head. "And I'll…"
"Go find the bomb and disarm it."
"There's a bomb?"
"Kid," Roy lightly taps the other hero's bicep, "there's always a bomb."
Kid Flash and Robin are concocting their own course of action separately from Red Arrow and Superboy.
"Wait. If I super speed away the minute hand hostage, what happens to the henchman with the gun?"
"That's what birdarangs are for," Robin says dismissively. "Just keep talking after you show your face while I hack the video feed. If we mess up his schedule he'll fall to pieces and the hostages will be fine."
"If you say so," Wally says with a shrug of his shoulders. "How much time do you think I'll have on TV?"
"Not an actual fifteen minutes of fame but it will have to do." Robin maps out the hostages and guards on his holo-display. "I'll disarm all five guards after I jump into the fountain from a grapple line."
"Why do you get the cooler entrance, man?"
"Because I'm the tactics expert here."
"Come on! You owe me for all you annoying chat-speak."
"I have perfectly eloquent chat-speak, KF."
"No way, Rob. You de-suffix words and then type the made up words without vowels! How the hell am I supposed to know that 'str' means 'aster' and not to go stir something?"
Robin rolls his eyes as he jumps off his perch on the fence.
"The complexity of my wordage must far surpass your humble mind."
"As if…do not even get me started on the squiggles man."
"Squiggles are a perfectly valid form of communication!"
"Not when you insist they mean everything! You can't have magic squiggles, Rob. Magic isn't real."
Kid Flash ducks under a branch as they make their way towards the fountain plaza.
"If you lay off my special squiggle friends then I'll let you jump in from above and knock out the guards," Robin negotiates.
"Deal," Wally says and offers a hand. They shake on it. "Then what will you do?"
"I'll get the gun and then go for Clock King," Robin explains. "What could go wrong?"
"Hey, Rob. Where did Supey and Red Arrow go?"
"They're probably bonding over their rage issues," Robin says with a laugh.
The first part of the two separate plans that go wrong is Kid Flash falling on top of the henchman with the gun as he jumps from the grapple cord. Kid Flash dog piling on the guard does solve the gun problem, but it also creates a new problem.
In his current state, one boot wrapped under a thick neck and the other sprawled against a massive arm, Wally cannot super-speed the guards away. Running, as Robin notices, requires being upright on two feet.
Robin quickly changes tactics and stops approaching Clock King from behind. The caped hero wildly tosses birdarangs at the other four guards while he leaps to a stop off his own grapple line.
Clock King whirls around from his argument with the cameraman. He spots Robin out in the open and shoots off an angry glare. "So, Robin, you've seen fit to ruin my meticulous plans?"
"Well, my plans aren't going so hot either, Clocky." Robin eyes the area desperately for a new plan of action as the other henchmen begin to awaken while Clock King closes in and Wally wrestles with a guard on the ground.
The harassed cameraman twitches nervously and chooses to comply with the orders of the villain by fixing the live feed.
Clock King suddenly is covered by a cloud of smoke as Red Arrow targets him from behind. He pushes his booted feet into the villain's back and Clock King stumbles down.
"I can't," Roy lets off an arrow at a thug, "believe you guys just jumped in without knowing the plan."
"We had a plan, Red. No one said anything about yours!" Robin rebukes as he downs another mook and ties him up. Wally, as he rubs the new shiner over his left eye, kicks one man in the face with the heel of his boot.
"We'll argue later," Roy yells, "for now, we have to run before…"
The second part that goes wrong is Roy's plan going as planned. Large jets of water and vapor blow up from the wet park plaza and squirt in the faces of Clock King, the five henchmen, fourteen hostages and three assorted heroes.
Everyone is knocked out cold by the time the cameraman bypasses Roy's jam on the feed.
Nine-million people find their broadcasts interrupted to show a live coverage of twenty-three unresponsive bodies in the park as gas and water swirls around them.
Five of those nine-million people are part of the Justice League of America.
The first part of the combined plans that works to anyone's advantage is Superboy who finds the bomb before it can blow up half of the city. Hearing the chaos of Red Arrow gasping before he passes out, Superboy is distracted in his investigation of the ticks of the Clock King's bomb.
Conner is distracted long enough to only have ten seconds left to disarm the device.
Conner glares at the three colors of cords and worries. Roy should have knocked everyone out easily and then had time to spare to move the hostages and criminals. As it stands now, he can't trust his hastily learned deactivation instructions to solve his problems.
Superboy finds the largest open field in the park and holds the bomb close as he huddles against the ground.
The bomb goes off in a roar of flame and smoke and upturned rubble.
The last glitch in their plans is Superboy passing out from the pain shortly thereafter.
A/N: Thanks to TheWickedWizardOfOZ for Roy's undramatic planning and muscles and a billion other things I've forgotten. Kudos to HarrysGirl1993 for giving me some great ship ideas. Lastly, a shout out to KKCopper for Dick's abuse of a special type of magic.