Hello everyone! I know this chapter is very late but further drama has happened! Okay, so Nalini's out of hospital and we're all super happy about that but then on Sunday my Mum went into labour and my Dad was out of the country on business so I stepped in to be her birthing partner, leaving my next oldest sister to look after the others. I now have another younger sister called Amoli! Welcome to the family little one! So yeah, I'm really sorry that this is late, but I seriously had such a good reason!
AvenJackel: Thanks for the compliments! I really enjoyed writing Connor looking after Robin because I just could never see it actually happening on the show! :D
Foniko: Awww I'm sorry! It was for your own good! *puts in a cushioned box and straps in* Really, it's for your own good! You really have to be more careful. (I'm glad my sister's home too, and my newborn sibling!) I'm absolutely petrified of all medical staff and hospitals, so even going inside was quite an impressive feat for me. Even if I cried... Like all the time. Hahah :')
soccernin19: Thanks a lot and thanks for reviewing!
3DPhantom: Wow, thanks! I'm pleased that you're enjoying the story and I hope you enjoy this new chapter too! This one's from the point of view of Wally and Kaldur!
Allypallycally1: Typical, Robin only gets all cuddly and cute when he's delirious. Just typical. Hahahah, I'm glad you're enjoying and thank you for the review! :D
ArkieR: Oh, the princess stage. It will never get old. Hahahah, Nalini's been in her princess stage for about two years. I'm beginning to wonder whether it'll ever end because my other sisters are all princess-lovers too. Apart from Zahra, but that may or may not be because she's 13 and insists that she's not into that stuff anymore. Hahaha my little girl's growing up! Not, I know she still loves it! :D
BlueJayRobin: Awww thank you! I'm so glad that you're enjoying the story and here's the update! Sorry that it's late but you know, I was kind of helping my mother bring life into the world... Hahah! Still, I hope you enjoy this next chapter! :)
On to the story!
The opening in the Bio-ship slammed shut immediately after Aqualad's foot cleared the exit. Hearing the cold, metallic slam he had jumped a little and turned around – his heart rate seemed to be elevated due to how close he had just come to losing his foot. He shook his head to clear away the negativity and then got up from the ground, taking Wally's outstretched hand to assist himself to his feet. One look at Wally after dusting the snow off of himself and he knew that already the cold was beginning to affect the speedster already. He was shivering. If was cold already, how exactly was he planning on staying outside for a prolonged period of time? Aqualad looked at the coat wrapped around him and told him to zip it up all the way and put the hood up.
Wally had felt the cold envelope him the moment he had left the Bio-ship, it had been a shock and his breathing rate had increased for a while before he got a little more used to it and calmed himself. But his leader had a point, his coat wasn't zipped up the whole way and he could tell that he would need the warmth later on. So without saying a single word, he took the zip up to his chin and the flipped the hood over his head before looking expectantly back at Aqualad. The Atlantean only stared back at him, and that was when Wally realised that Aqualad was only accompanying him because nobody else was fit to and Aqualad had absolutely no intention of leading the way on a mission that he didn't even approve of. So, the speedster began to walk north to Tomsk. Wally guessed that he probably wouldn't get cold as quickly as the average human as he could hopefully vibrate his molecules to warm himself up if it became necessary.
In both of the boys' minds was a problem that both Wally and Aqualad really weren't prepared for. If the android's lackeys really were in Tomsk, then what would they do? They would be easily recognisable if not for the coats, but if a fight arose then they would have to remove the coats because they were probably the most restrictive articles of clothing then either of the young heroes had ever come across. Not only that, but they knew for a fact that grenades had been sent to this town and that obviously meant that these people, innocent people, were in danger. It hurt them both to know that people were in danger and yet they were in no position to do anything about it. They two could do nothing about it alone; they would need at least another member of their team. Their best bet was to contact the Justice League and hope that they weren't too late to save both Tomsk and Robin.
Wally looked around the landscape, seeing nothing ahead of him – apart from fir trees dotted everywhere – even though he knew for a fact that Tomsk was definitely in the direction he was walking. But, just to his right he saw a black road jutting out of the snow. Perfect, he could follow that into Tomsk. The whole area was a sheet of snow, and so the road looked quite striking. What was strange about the road was the fact that there were no cars, sure there was a lot of snow but Tomsk was a city. Rain or shine, winter or summer, a city still had a lot of people wanting to get places and in a place like Siberia one had to assume that the residents were used to snow. Still, it was quite early in the morning. Wally didn't know the exact time but it was clearly still early enough for the sky to be lined with wispy clouds in front of a pink and orange curtain.
There were trees beginning to line the road that Wally had found as they walked and Kaldur found himself attracted to the beauty of the dark evergreen trees against the purity of the white snow on the ground. As he looked straight ahead of him again he saw that the city of Tomsk was beginning to appear through the fog and he breathed a sigh of relief. He had been hoping that the city wouldn't be too long of a walk otherwise his four hour time limit would be gone before he would even realise it. Kaldur was still frustrated that in order to save a dear friend he would have to steal, and he was even more concerned about why Wally seemed to comfortable with the idea. But all of those questions could be asked at a later date, they both didn't have the time to spare worrying about little things. They had decided on this course of action and Kaldur would now have to simply live with it and hope that it worked the way everyone thought it would.
"We just have to follow this road into the city now. It won't be long before we find a marketplace I bet, and then we just make it simple. Take and leave, got it?" Wally demanded. Aqualad looked at the teenager in shock before slowly nodding his head. Sometimes it really did seem as though Wally would do just about anything for Robin; he knew that their bond ran deeper than just the Young Justice team – they had known each other far longer – but he still had never assumed it was strong enough to actually make Wally sound like he might be a good leader. But he sounded so sure of himself, confidence, assertiveness, clarity: at that moment he was carrying all of the qualities necessary to be a decent leader. Kaldur knew that the moment all of this was over he would revert to his usual self and it would be as though this version of him never existed.
The boys kept their eyes glued to the ground; they didn't want to risk anyone recognising them. If this theft went wrong and they were both caught and recognised, then the repercussions of their actions would affect not only themselves and their team, but also the entirety of the Justice League. They could not get caught. They kept walking side by side for quite long time before they came across an area where there were a lot of people all walking around in the same place. It was a gathering of some sort, but that didn't matter. What mattered was that the area was densely packed and was the perfect place to commit a crime. The amount of crowded places they'd had to visit to bust someone for a crime they were committing was unreal. Densely packed areas were simply more prone to crime; it was as simple as that.
"I don't actually know how to steal." Aqualad stated nervously. He had now brought up his head and was staring around at people. His eyes were flicking back and forth and he already looked guilty and it was making him look suspicious so Wally reached up and grabbed his head, forcing it to look at him instead so that they would at least look like they were just having a friendly chat. But still, both boys quickly surveyed the people that they would soon be stealing from and Aqualad's stomach swelled with guilt and nerves already. Stealing information from villains was one thing, but stealing from innocents? That was a whole other story.
"Well, there's no time like the present to learn how! After all, we've never had to do it before." Wally responded after a brief pause. But even he didn't sound as sure as he previously had been. Mainly because he knew that he would have to be the one to do the crime because Aqualad was beginning to look slightly ill. Still, Wally looked around for someone who wouldn't notice him passing by and finally found the perfect person. It was a young woman, probably in her late twenties, who was walking around with her mobile phone sticking out of her coat pocket. It would be simple to take it and walk away. Wally poked Kaldur and then pointed at her discreetly before nodding as though trying to tell him to stay where he was.
Kaldur saw the poor woman who was about to be robbed and sighed before nodding back at Wally as though to say he could go ahead. The Atlantean held his breath as he watched Wally walk casually up to this young woman and then simply walk straight past her. He hadn't seen Wally take the phone from her so he became a little bit confused, but then when he looked a little closer at the woman's jacket he noticed that the phone was gone. Kaldur blinked hard and looked again just in case he was mistaken, but he was not. It was definitely gone and that meant that Wally had succeeded. He must have used his super speed to snatch the phone faster than anyone could see; that way even if anyone did notice the phone was gone, they couldn't peg him to it. Wally made an uncomfortably good thief.
Wally walked back over to where Kaldur was waiting and then grabbed his arm to turn him around. The two of them both then began to walk back down the road that they had entered on and started to make their way back to the Bio-ship. They didn't stop to call anyone just yet; it would waste their time in getting back to the ship. They only had an hour of their assigned time left before everyone began to take matters into their own hands. Kaldur seemed to have something on his mind, but Wally knew that it probably related back to the breach in morals that he had just witnessed. Sure, Wally felt guilty about it, but it wasn't like he stole the phone just because he could. He actually really needed it. It was desperation that had driven him to it.
"You know, something you said back there made me think." Kaldur voiced. Wally turned his head to face Kaldur as he walked and raised an eyebrow to the other teen. He thought he might just know where this was going and if it was going where he thought it was: now wasn't really the time to get into it. Kaldur took the speedster's silence as his cue and continued, "You said that we'd never had to steal before. Which is right, we haven't in this context anyway. We've never stolen from the innocent. But you said we've never had to. It makes you wonder, doesn't it?"
"What do you mean?" Wally asked, giving his leader a little bit more attention than he had originally intended to, it seemed that this was going where he had thought. Kaldur seemed to be thinking about it for a moment, so Wally took the liberty of using the time to calculate how long they had to get back to the Bio-ship. About fifty minutes now – that was do-able, right? It didn't seem to matter much now, even after their time was up, the Team would probably use up some more figuring out what to do and they probably would move for another ten minutes or maybe a quarter of an hour so they definitely had plenty of time to make it back. There was nothing to worry about.
"What I mean is, I wonder how many people only steal or commit any crime because they are simply desperate and are trying to protect someone that they love. Much like we are right now. Except, we step in to stop them. I wonder how many lives we have ruined just simply by doing what we believed to be right." Aqualad finished. Wally didn't respond for a while. This was the kind of question that every hero had to ask themselves sooner or later and it seemed that Aqualad was choosing now in the middle of a crisis to ask that question. It was an awkward one to get around; sometimes that question was better left unanswered because the answer was quite upsetting to think about.
"Listen Kaldur, the truth is that desperation is the reason behind most crime. Desperation is a scary motivator, and everyone has someone or something that they want to protect." Wally said wisely. Kaldur seemed to think about this response for a moment before Wally grabbed his attention again, "You need to understand that and ask yourself whether you can go into a mission knowing that fact and still keep doing what you believe to be right." Kaldur nodded and began to think about what had been said. He was unsure whether he really could deal with knowing that and stopping people anyway. He had time to think on it anyway, there was no pressing need to come up with an answer to his own question just yet. Little did they know that although they had gotten out of this crime unscathed, there was someone watching them from a distance.
The Superman android had wondered why those two boys seemed to remind him of something. He had watched them enter the marketplace and supposed that they were probably just a part of the crime syndicate that he had been providing grenades to. But no, it was something else. He had been thinking on it for a long time before he finally realised that had super powers when he saw that kid take a phone out of a woman's pocket faster than the human eye could track. Then he saw a dash of red and yellow poking out from under his coat – he must have been a sidekick to the Flash. His creator had warned him of these people's interference with their plans and so they had to be eradicated.
"Don't deliver those grenades," the android ordered. Two of his mechanical monkey lackeys looked at him emotionlessly before their programming recognised the order and they dropped the crate of grenades to the ground before looking up at the android again for further orders. The young heroes had to be destroyed, and what better way to destroy them than with the grenades that they were probably trying to stop? The best part was that the boys hadn't even seemed to notice the shady-looking suspicious gentlemen awaiting their grenade order just a few feet away from them. Clearly they were off their game; they must have been pretty distracted not to see. The Superman android smiled maliciously and looked out to where he could still see the boys making their way back to wherever they had come from and said, "I have somewhere better to put them."
Thanks for reading everyone and once again I'm sorry for the delay. I'll try and get back on track, but there's a huge chance that I'm going to be busy helping my Mum and Dad out with the new baby!
Thanks for reading and please leave a review if you have the time ;)
(Also, if you spot any mistakes, you know what to do!)
Varishi x