Hi! I hope you guys liked the last chapter. Also, Clown and His Pipe asked if I was going to ship anyone with Tim, and I figured I'd just write this to avoid future questions about shipping. Honestly, I do not know if I'm going to pair him up with anyone. I've been thinking of some pairings, but I don't know if I'll use any of them. But, if you want a pairing, review or PM me and I'll take your pairing idea into consideration.
Disclaimer: I do not own Young Justice
Tim POV
As everyone came in for the meeting, my heart pounded louder and louder in my chest, the sound almost deafening me. "Alright. The first thing we need to talk about, is Kaldur. He is not a traitor, but in a deep cover mission. And Artemis is not dead, but working along side Kaldur." Nightwing said, letting the news sink in.
The few who didn't know, Garfield, Bumble Bee, Mal, Impulse, plus Red Hood who showed up, and if Jaime were still here, freaked out. "You mean, we mourned Artemis for nothing?!" Bumble Bee asked, furious.
"No, you didn't. It was all apart of Nightwing's plan, and he planned to tell you guys earlier. But, things got... out of hand." Artemis said, walking in with Kaldur without her charm necklace.
"Artemis!" Bumble Bee and a few others yelled as they hugged her. It almost made me feel bad that we would ruin their good mood with my news.
"That's not the only big thing I've learned today, either. Osprey." Nightwing said, motioning for me to explain after they settled down.
I swallowed thickly, all of their eyes on me. "For the ones that were on the original team, this must seem like de ja vu, but... I work with the Light. Or did, I suppose. After today I have no plan of working with them ever again." I said, watching as most were shocked, and the few like Arsenal, Artemis, M'gann, and Kaldur looked like they already knew.
"You're a traitor?!" Lagoon Boy yelled, making me close my eyes painfully.
"Relax Lagoon Boy. Osprey told me about who he worked for today, before the meeting. He even agreed to let M'gann look through his mind. Considering that 3 of the teammates that you trust now betrayed the team at one point, I think it's only fair that he at least gets to explain himself." Nightwing said, Red Hood and the others narrowing their eyes.
M'gann walked in front of me, and small smile on her lips. "I'll show the rest of the team what I find, just so I know I don't... mess up." She said, and I nodded gratefully. If something happened, at least there would be witnesses.
She put her hands on both side of my head, and I let the mental wall that Ra's taught me to build go down. There was a sharp pain in my head, and when I opened my eyes I didn't even realized were closed, I was at the circus. Haley's circus.
"This is the first memory I could find that had a reason why you joined the Light. I can't believe it goes back all the way to when you were 4." M'gann commented, the others looking slightly scared. The only ones who didn't look like they might be afraid of what they would see was Hood, who probably figured out who I was by now.
"Well, it didn't happen here. It happened in that tent, over there." I said, pointing to the center tent where I performed my last show.
I hesitated before walking in, keeping my head down so I wouldn't have to see my parents fall again. The Team followed went inside, looking confused when they saw nothing wrong. "I don't understand. This looks like fun, not some place where something bad would happen." Wonder Girl said confused.
"Me and my family, the Flying Grayson's, were acrobat performers for Haley's circus. It was supposed to be a show for everyone to have fun, and it was. Till a man named Tony Zucco showed up." I said, pointing up at the high wire act, waiting for the time where the rope started breaking.
I didn't have to wait long, because soon the rope broke, and I saw my 4 year old self being pulled up by an 8 year old version of Dick. I looked at my smaller self, instead of how the bones of my parents cracked on the ground when they land, how they looked with their body parts bent in odd angles, or how their blood slowly poured out of their bodies onto the ground.
Everyone behind me gasped, all except Dick, who just looked away with his eyes closed tightly. "Zucco sabotaged the line, making it to where my parents fell. The only reason I'm alive now is because my older brother caught me at the top." I said, looking up at the two brothers starting to cry.
I felt a cold shiver run through me as the scene changed, and it was one that happened only a few weeks after the first memory. It was a perfectly frozen memory, almost like a picture, of me being pulled away from my big brother. "Why does this looks like an orphanage?" Beast Boy asked, before the answer dawning on him.
"That's because it is. We had no other relatives we could live with, so we ended up at the Gotham orphanage. The Drakes, the people who adopted me, only wanted one charity case, so they adopted me since my parents death made the news. I haven't heard from my brother after this happened until recently, but I found out that was because something the Drake's did." I explained, hating the way the Team suddenly looked at me with pity.
The scene changed again, this time it was more of a split image. Two frozen memories shown at the same time. One was me being alone, sitting next to a window with a phone in my lap and staring down at it with a sadness only a lonely 4 year old had. The other was the first time Jack and Janet beat me, my body hand cuffed to a bed while he stood above me with a whip and Janet was forcing a needle into my arm. "Who are they? Why are they-? You were four! How could they do this to a four year old?" Artemis asked, staring at the image of the Drakes beating me with horror that everyone else had.
I noticed Nightwing clenching his fists through the corner of my eyes, and anger filtering into his face as he stared at the Drake's with hatred I expected to be directed to me when I admitted I was a traitor.
"Those people in the one memory of them hurting me is the Drakes. The press always had an article about them being abusive, but that had no idea how right they were. When ever they were home, I was hurt constantly. When they left though, it was just me in the giant mansion. Occassionly a maid would show up, but besides that, no one else really cared about me being alone." I said, waiting for the memory to shift. But it didn't.
"Osprey... None of us knew. Does this still happen?" M'gann asked, not looking like she wanted to change the memory.
I licked my lip, swallowing the lump in my throat. I looked at everyone, then ended at Nightwing. He looked at me like he would get an answer, no matter what. "Janet died on a cruise to Hiate when I was 11, so she isn't around. Jack on the other hand... he was only in a coma and remarried. Dana, his wife, doesn't hurt me, but... Jack does say certain comments. And... recently... he has hit me again." I said, rubbing my shoulder.
"Can we just move on with the next memory?" I asked, glaring at the ground. One half was clean, the other was blood soaked. I never remembered there being so much blood the first time it happened, but in all fairness I was being hurt at the time.
M'gann nodded, and we moved to when I was 8, talking to Ra's, Talia, and Slade."This must be where you started with the Light." Kaldur said, making me shake my head.
"No, this is where I met the people that got me into the Light. These three villains agreed to train me so I could get revenge on the man who murdered my parents. It wasn't until 2 years later when I was 10 that I joined the Light." I said, noticing how angry I looked when I was 8. Angry and alone.
The memory switched again to show me talking to Ra's about my mission to go undercover. "This is where you got your mission, to go undercover on The Team." Superboy said, looking around the expensive throne room of Ra's Al Ghul.
"Yes." I said, nodding numbly.
"But why did you change? I mean, you weren't on the Team, then betrayed us like the others. You knew the Light before you knew us." La'gann asked curiously.
I blinked, and this time I was back at the HQ. I sighed, running my hand through my hair. "Honestly, I'm not completely sure. It's probably a mixture from something everyone on the Team. I'm still trying to figure everything out. But, from what I've figured out, it's probably because you guys were nicer to me than the Light. Impulse asked me to hang out with him, even though he barely knew me. A few of you guys have saved my lives, and I've even been offered a place to go when things get bad at home. The Light, even though I've been there longer, hasn't done anything like that." I said.
"I'm still not sure if we can trust you." Bumble Bee said, giving me an untrustworthy look.
I looked down at the ground, knowing that I couldn't do much to change her mind. "I believe we can." Kaldur said, making me bring my head up to look at him shocked by what he said.
"What makes you think that? No offense to you Osprey, it's just..." Mal said, trailing off.
"I get it. I'm not expecting to be trusted right after I said I'm a traitor." I said with a shake of my head.
"Considering that you probably knew about my mission, as well as Artemis, you could have told the Light about us. You didn't." Kaldur said, making everyone thinking about whether they should trust me.
"I think we should trust him, too." Batgirl said, shocking everyone even more than what Kaldur said.
"I thought you hated him? I heard you two fight on missions before, the conversations you two have aren't pretty." Bumble Bee asked, more shocked than the rest of us.
"Yeah, but the thing is, he saved me during a mission. Not to mention, him and Arsenal saved all of us at War World. He could have just knocked out Arsenal and handed him over to the Reach if he really was against us. Also, if he hadn't gotten you and Mal to stop fighting during said mission, we all would have been dead. As much of an annoying prick he is sometimes, he can be trusted." Batgirl said calmly.
I stared at her, like she was some other person. Because, honestly, even if we did have a fragile truce on the Reach mission, I would have thought she would be the one to hate me the most. "Well... what now?" Wonder Girl asked, looking at Nightwing.
"Obviously, we need to talk about Blue." Nightwing said, about to open his mouth to say something else.
"Actually, I think I may know how to help with that." I blurted out, looking around to see everyone else wary at me, the traitor, giving a suggestion.
"What would that be?" Red Hood asked, crossing his arms and leaning on the wall. His voice was nuetral, like he wasn't sure what to think about me yet.
"You know the cave in Bialya? The one that was found in the base for Queen Bee by Batgirl and Bumble Bee?" I asked everyone.
Everyone nodded, mostly because we all had to sit through the 10 minute long review for it. "I looked through some of the Light's records and the League's, and found some info on it. The beetle hyrogliphics you saw in the cave is there because the ancients who made it found a way to clean the beetle of any Reach contact." I said, looking at Nightwing for a reaction.
"It would make sense. After all, Blue's scarab was fine till Green messed with it, so it must have been cleaned before Blue got it." Bumble Bee said, making me look at her slightly confused. Did she really trust me so easily after her friends put in a good word for me?
"Sounds like a good plan. We might even be able to use this to put the Reach against the Light when the summit meeting comes. Both the Reach and the Light will be there, so perhaps we can mess with their alliance." Kaldur said, a smirk tugging at his lips.
"It could work. The Light doesn't really plan on working with the Reach, maybe if we were able to some how show the Reach this we could get a confession. If we recorded that confession we could use it for the League's court in Rimbor. I highly doubt a judge of any kind can turn down a confession. Not to mention, we could show Earth exactly what the Reach were planning as well." I said, wondering how we could twist the summit meeting to get the confession.
I looked up and everyone was looking at me shocked. "What?" I asked, blinking.
"Did you just think up a plan to take down the Light, Reach, and help the Justice League?" Red Hood asked, shocked.
"Um. Not really. I've been thinking about it since yesterday but I'm not sure how we would be able to mess with the meeting enough to get it to do what we want." I said, shifting uncomfortably with the attention.
"We'll figure it out. Until then, this meeting is over." Nightwing said, a smile stretching out on his face.
Almost everyone left, all except me and Nightwing. "Think they trust me?" I asked.
"Yeah, I think they do. Listen Tim, about not seeing you when we were separated at the orphanage. I'm- oh!" Nightwing said, taking a step away from me after I kicked him in the leg. Hard.
"Don't apologize. It was the Drake's they told you a lie, and that is it. What the Drake's did wasn't your fault." I said, glaring up at him.
He seemed shocked before chuckling. "Fair enough. But, if anything happens again, you can come to me. Alfred would probably love to meet you at the Manor." Dick said, a serious look on his face. Which kind of looked weird on his face when he was always smiling, even in serious problems.
I looked down, finding the floor very interesting. "I... I might come. It's really not that bad. Jack's only said a few comments about Mom and Dad and punched me a few times. Besides, Dana is always around, and he never does that stuff in front of her." I said, stuttering slightly.
Dick frowned a little, but nodded. "Alright." Nightwing said, then suddenly, pulled me into a tight hug.
"You know, I don't remember you hugging me this much back at the circus." I said, freezing at the physical contact.
"At the circus you would follow me where ever I went like a puppy. I haven't seen you for 8 years, I think I'm entitled to my hugs." Nightwing said with a laugh.
"I did not follow you around like a puppy." I said, punching him playfully in the arm when he let me out of the hug.
"Right, you follow me around like a chipmunk right?" Nightwing asked, referring to what we called each other before the final act.
"Better than a flying squirrel, right? And it was Alvin the Chipmunk." I said with a smirk. I looked at the time on a wall clock, my smirk fading into a grim line.
"What's wrong?" Nightwing asked, confused by the sudden change.
"I have to check in with the Light. If I don't, they'll think something is up." I said, starting to walk towards the exit.
I only took a few steps when I stopped, and said, "You better not tell anyone about this."
"What?" Nightwing asked, his face turning even more confused.
I quickly hugged him, my face only coming up to his chest. "I missed you, bro." I whispered into the Kevlar of his costume before walking towards the exit again with Nightwing's laughter echoing through the building.
I zeta beamed to Gotham, grimacing when I made it to the theater. The theater felt cold as I walked in, my stomach curling up in distaste when opened my laptop to begin the meeting. Honestly, I just wanted to stop being with the Light all together, but I still had to act my part. Or else they might catch onto my plan to save Blue.
"You were almost late." Ra's observed.
"Sorry, Nightwing had a meeting to discuss what to do about Blue Beetle. It seems they only know that his armor is controlling him, but that seems to be all they know." I said, looking at the Reach Ambassador smirk on the screen. It was a good thing I could mask my feelings so good, or else they would be able to see how much I wanted to punch him in the throat. I wonder if it would have the same effect on him as it does on humans?
"Good. Anything else to report?" Savage asked.
"Yes, Red Hood has joined the Team. Though, it seems to be temporary." I said, noticing the way Ra's scowled.
"Hmmm. An annoyance we will have to deal with. Do you have anything else to report?" Ra's asked.
"No. That is all." I said, the meeting ending.
I walked out of the theater, sighing. "So, you just wanted to see how this place was doing huh?" Red Hood asked, leaning against the building's wall.
I looked at him confused, how would he know about- oh. "So your that guy I ran into last time. Jason Todd, right?" I asked, covering my confusion.
"Yup, but you better keep that a secret. Got it?" Red Hood said, glaring at me.
I rolled my eyes, walking out of the alley. "Why would I tell anyone? Besides, even if I did want to tell someone, I wouldn't. It would hurt Dick in some way, and we both know that guy doesn't take stress well." I said, shaking my head.
"Good to know." Red Hood said, sounding amused before pinning me to the theater's wall and a knife positioned at my neck.
I stood there calmly, not showing fear. Why should I? The knife wasn't digging into my skin, and if it started to, I could do numerous things to get him to stop. Of course, depending on how well he fought depended on how much he would get hurt in the process.
"Usually I don't threaten kids, but you're the exception. If you lied to us back in that meeting, and end up hurting Dick, I swear I will hunt you down and break every bone in your body." Jason said, his voice a low hiss.
"If I end up hurting Dick after finding out that it was the Drake's fault that I never saw my brother in 8 years, I'll let you." I said, looking him in the eyes.
He thought what I said over before nodding and taking the knife away from my throat. "Good. See you later, kid." Red Hood said, ruffling my hair like he didn't just threaten me with a knife at my throat and walking away.
"What is it with him and messing with my hair?" I asked, fixing it.
So, what do you guys think? Review!