Hey everyone! Thank you all so much for all the supportive and helpful reviews, as well as all the faves and story alerts! You all are too great and you seriously made my day :D And so, thanks entirely to all of your encouragement, I've already written Ch 2 :) So thank you again, and enjoy!
Disclaimer: As always, Nothing is mine but the writing.
"You guys are nuts."
"So you keep telling us, Wally." Artemis shivered in the chill night air as she hugged her arms tightly around her body.
"I'm serious. You've all either totally lost it, or you just have absolutely no freaking idea what you're about to get yourselves into."
"How hard could it be?" Superboy said in a bored voice as he walked over from the opposite side of the roof that Robin had chosen as their starting ground, "We just follow the trail of destruction until we find her. Simple."
"No, that's how we find you, Supey," Wally replied, stuffing the last of a bacon and horseradish sandwich into his mouth and licking his fingers clean. "Do you really think you could track down Batman with a basic plan like that?"
"No, but she's not Batm—OW!" Connor's retort was cut short by a sharp electric shock as Robin successfully clamped the metal armband around the Kryptonian's wrist. "I… felt that," he said quietly as he studied the bracelet, eyes wide with surprise, "I shouldn't have been able to feel that little jolt…"
Robin grinned widely at his dumbfounded friend. "These inhibitor bands are modeled after the collars they use in Belle Reve, only with a few extra adjustments. For starters, these don't shock you—"
"Yeah, right."
"—these don't shock you, unless you try to take them off by force. That little charge you felt was just the circuits linking up with your sensory and muscular systems so that it can subdue your powers."
"Oh, is that all," Superboy commented dryly.
"Not quite," Robin responded, too busy tinkering with M'gann's band to notice the sarcasm in the clone's words, "Bang, stab, or burn this thing all you want, and it still won't come off. The only way to remove it is to find either me or Batgirl, since we're the only ones who know how. If you have Batgirl remove it, obviously that means you win, but if you have me remove it, it will be considered as a forfeit." He ended his explanation with an amused snort, "Not that you'll be able to find me, either."
"What, you're not even gonna stick around to watch us struggle?"
"I never said that," the Boy Wonder replied with a smirk. He reached for another inhibitor band and clamped it around Raquel's wrist, a spark of electricity igniting at the connection.
She gave a small yelp and yanked her hand back. "Hey, watch it! Superboy, that was hardly a 'little jolt'! Are these things really necessary?"
"Yes, to ensure that you don't purposely or accidently cheat." After attaching Kaldur's band without any complaints from the electric-powered Atlantian, Robin turned his attention to Zatanna. Gently taking her hand in his, he carefully wrapped the bracelet around her slim wrist and carefully tightened it.
Zatanna blushed slightly at his ginger touch and gave him a bright smile. "Where did you get these things, anyway?"
"I made them with some of the scraps laying around the Bat Cave," Robin replied with a teasing smirk, "No biggie." With a soft click, Robin set the band in place and released her hand.
"Hers didn't zap her," Raquel mumbled as she rubbed her still tingling forearm and initiating a snicker from the non-powered Artemis.
Robin smirked mischievously and turned around. "Alright Artemis, your turn."
"What? But I don't have any powers, you know that."
"True, but you do have plenty of weapons."
The archer froze in place and quite obviously avoided looking anyone in the eye. "I left them all at home, like you told us to."
The team just stared at her in a silent consensus that she was definitely hiding some sort of compact bow somewhere.
"What? I'm serious!"
"Artemis, you never go anywhere without a weapon. You even hid one in your purse on our first date just in case I tried anything. I mean, most girls threaten their date with pepper spray, not a crossbow with poisoned arrows."
"Look! I told you I didn't bring anything, so I didn't bring anything! Just drop it."
"Wally. Strip-search her!" Robin ordered, pointing a finger in Artemis's direction.
Artemis took a hesitant step back in retreat. "W-w-w-wait, no, what are y—hey, hands off! I told you, I don't ha—AH! WALLY DON'T YOU DARE—OK OK I'LL DO IT MYSELF, JUST BACK IT UP, KID IDIOT!"
"Awww. Don't you wanna get naked in a fun way, ninja girlfriend?"
"WALLY WEST, I AM GOING TO SKIN YOU ALIVE AND BEAT YOU WITH YOUR OWN EPIDERMIS IF YOU DO NOT STOP RIGHT THERE!"
"Wow," Zatanna giggled, "I can really feel the love between them."
"Well, at least we know that their relationship isn't moving too fast," Raquel added.
"WOULD YOU ALL STOP LAUGHING AT MY PAIN AND HELP ME ALREADY!"
Robin cackled into the cold night air, but held up a hand to halt his best friend, "Alright, Walls, that's enough. I brought a metal detector and a simplified x-ray device with me for exactly this reason."
Artemis reluctantly dumped a pile of knives, crossbows and retractable kali sticks onto the roof, gaping at the younger boy. "Then why didn't you just use that to begin with!"
"Oh, this was way more entertaining."
Before the fuming archer could pounce on their youngest teammate, Kaldur stepped in between them and asked, "So all we must do is find Batgirl without using our abilities, correct?"
"Yeah, that's right. Oh oh oh. One more thing. I need all of your com-links."
Artemis just blinked at him. "What? But then how will we communicate, since we can't use Miss M's telepathic link?"
"The old fashioned way: talking face to face." Robin struggled to keep his composure when he saw the shocked and nearly horrified looks on the others' faces. "I told you," he snickered, "The basics."
"So you expect us to search this entire city without long distance communication?"
"Yep, just like we used to do all the time. We didn't start using com-links until about three years ago, just before Wally and Kaldur became sidekicks."
"See?" Wally exclaimed, throwing his hands in the air for emphasis, "This is why I said you were nuts. I learned a long time ago that you never ever make a deal with these two. And I learned that the hard way."
"I'm starting to understand why," M'gann joked lightheartedly.
"Hey," Conner interrupted, flipping open a tiny panel on his band, "What does this button do?"
Immediately, every team member looked down at their own high-tech bracelet, and sure enough, they each discovered a small red button hidden beneath a metal flap.
"I was getting to that. That would be your forfeit button. If things get too hairy or you just get sick of searching, you can press this and I'll come running to remove the inhibitor band. However, I should warn you that you are working as a team, so if one of you quits, all of you are disqualified. If one of you finds Batgirl, you all win; if one of you gives up, you all lose. Got it?"
Artemis's jaw dropped. "What! That wasn't part of the deal!"
"We understand," Kaldur answered calmly.
"Wh—uh, no we don't!" Raquel turned to glare at the unfazable Atlantian.
"Good," he said with a curt nod, ignoring the girls' outbursts, "You have until sunrise, since that's our quitting time." He grabbed Artemis's arm and snapped a small bracelet onto her wrist, then explained, "This is your forfeit button, since you don't need an inhibitor band." Then, kneeling down, Robin scooped up the overwhelmingly large pile of weapons and turned on his heels to leave. With one last glance back at his friends, he flashed them his familiar grin and told them, "Good luck." And with that, he fell backwards straight off the edge of the roof and plummeted into the eerie darkness of Gotham's back alleys.
"Well then, guess that's my cue to skedaddle, too," yawned Wally, stretching his arms out above his head. He zipped over to Artemis and gave her a quick peck on the lips. "Well, try not to tire yourselves out too much, 'kay? Good luck!" Snapping his goggles into place, the speedster took off into the distance until the remainder of the team couldn't even make out his brightly colored figure.
"Is it just me, or does it seem like there were a whole bunch of extra rules added to this 'game' from what we agreed on yesterday?" Raquel asked, placing her hands on her hips
"Yeah, it's like they're doing everything in their power to keep us from winning," Conner agreed as he peered over the ledge where Robin had leapt from.
"That is because that is exactly what they are doing," Kaldur said simply.
The others gave him confused looks. "What do you mean?"
"Think about it. Is it not a little strange that Robin would offer a reward of complete access to his life story just minutes after he'd desperately protected those same secrets?"
"Well, now that you mention it, yeah I guess it is pretty weird. But if he really is trying to make us lose, what was the point of creating this challenge to begin with?"
"You have missed a very important point, Raquel. Robin did not create this challenge; he just took control of it and manipulated it to his advantage. If you will remember, I was the one to originally propose this idea, not him."
"That still doesn't explain why he went through with it," the girl huffed impatiently. Getting Kaldur to go straight to the point was sometimes more trouble than it was worth.
"He had no choice. Once I accepted his unintentional challenge, he had no way of keeping his secrets under wraps anymore. If he had not taken control of the situation, we could have simply located Batgirl while she was unaware of our deal. She would have had no reason to hide from fellow heroes, and we could have asked her our questions freely. In order to counter that, Robin turned this into a sort of game, one where he is the gamesmaster and we are the powerless players."
"But when he made it into a game, he also upped the ante by offering up all info on him rather than just the things Batgirl would've said," M'gann thought out loud, "Why would he risk exposing his secret identity when Batman told him not to?"
"Because he does not expect us to win," Kaldur explained patiently, "This game exists simply to curb our curiosity, as well as serve as amusement for the two of them. That is why he has taken so many precautions to hinder us, and that is also why we must be prepared to face even more along the way."
"You think we'll run into some trouble along the way?" Zatanna asked, sounding a little surprised by the notion that her boyfriend may have set up traps for them.
"Yes, perhaps even simply because Gotham is a breeding ground for crime. Without our powers and weapons, we will not be able to handle quite as much as we are used to. And that is why I suggest that we stay together, at least for now."
"Whatever, you're the boss, Kaldur," Superboy cut in definitively, "But let's hurry up and get moving before we waste anymore time."
Kaldur nodded, then studied the watch he had borrowed from Wally specifically for this purpose. "You are right, Superboy. It is precisely 10:06 right now, and that only leaves us with roughly 8 hours to search the entire city for Batgirl. It may be nearly impossible, but this is an opportunity to understand Robin on a deeper level, a level that I believe he himself is hesitant to reach, and this chance may never present itself to us again."
Zatanna took a second to ponder their leader's words. "I agree," she declared, determination overflowing from her clear blue eyes. "Let's give it all we've got."
Everyone else nodded in agreement. They were already there, no point in backing out now.
"Well then," Kaldur said, turning to scan over the never-ending horizon of rooftops that made up Gotham City, "Where shall we start?"
Well, that's all for now :) Hope you enjoyed it! Don't forget to review and fave if you did! Thank you all once again!