Bethany Ford's POV

The next day, I was still thinking about the previous events. So it turned out that Martian Manhunter and Zatara had to fix the damage that Klarion had done to my body. Also, the reason that M'gann had been crying was because she had tried to enter my mind to get me out of my dreams, but she only ended up getting overwhelmed by the realistic fire and then couldn't help me. So she started crying. I didn't get why everyone was freaking out over just a little nightmare. I mean, sure it represented that I had some doubts about my father's death, but still. It wasn't their concern. It was something I had to deal with, it was none of their business! And why were they the ones crying? I was the one getting freaking burned alive! And I still didn't find out what Superman and Batman had talked -

"Bethany!" Artemis' loud voice in my ear snapped me out of my daze. Unaware that I had woken up from my trance, she leaned even closer to my ear and yelled, "BETHA -"

"AHH! I'M AWAKE, OKAY? YOU DONT NEED TO FREAKING YELL IN MY EAR!" I shouted in her face. I noticed that about half of the cafeteria stopped what they were doing and were staring at us. Immediately, I shrunk back into my seat.

"Where were you? In LaLaLand? That's not like you, Bethany. Usually it's Rose who's eating rainbows and pooping butterflies," She jabbed finger over at Rose, who of course, didn't hear anything Artemis had said about her because she was staring off into space.

"What's all the yelling about?" A familiar voice popped up next to me.

"Nothing, Dick! Go away!" Artemis made shooing motions to him. Dick feigned being hurt, but then a smirk lit up his face.

"Is Artemis giving you a hard time?" Then he leaned in closer and stage whispered, making sure that she could hear him, "Don't worry, she's usually this annoying."

A small laugh escaped my lips at Dicks joke. Dick smiled like he won the lottery when he saw me laughing at his joke.

"RRINNGG"

I sighed. Time for more of this form of Hell that they call school.

"Come on, Bethany. Let's go to History," Dick extended a hand towards me.

"Hey! What about me? I'm in your class, too, you know," Artemis huffed.

"You are?" I joked. Dick laughed with me and we left a confused Barbara and a smiling Rose behind.

Before History class got the chance to start, Dick, Artemis, and I chatted about homework.

"I have so much homework," I said to Dick.

"Yeah, the teachers seem like they're trying to cram in all of their tests in a matter of days. It's really unthoughtful of them," Dick replied.

"I'm extremely stressed this week. Ugh," I sighed, "I'm so overwhelmed."

"Yeah, well get whelmed. We have a long way to go before the year ends," Dick murmured to himself.

My head snapped up.

Did he just say…?

"What did you just say?" I demanded. I looked dead into his eyes. There was no way…

"Oh, nothing. I was just talking to myself," Dick quickly replied, but he didn't meet my eyes. He started shifting around uncomfortably.

"Dick, did you just say 'whelmed?'" I pressed on. I scooted closer to him. Artemis wasn't even paying attention.

"Everyone says that. It's a common word," Dick replied, but he glanced away from my stare.

I would have believed him, if it weren't for the fact that there was a red blush creeping up his neck. And if he hadn't quit eye contact so quickly. And if he wasn't shifting around so uncomfortably. And if he had said it a little more confidently. But he didn't do any of these things.

But no. There was no way that Dick was… No.

"So then what happened?" Rose asked me, a smile playing on her lips. Her eyes were shining from all the laughter from earlier.

"Well, I stuck a couple of unsharpened pencils up her nose and then threw glitter in her hair. Artemis looked very decorative," I smiled at the memory. I sighed. Robin was so fun to troll with.

Rose's laugh was like bells. Her cheeks were red from all the laughter and she hadn't even gotten halfway through her painting yet. The whole room was alive with chatter because the teacher was absent today. As usual, Rose and I sat in the back corner of the room. We disregarded everyone and we chatted and laughed together like every other day.

"What did she do when she woke up? Did you and your friend Robby wake her up, or hide?" She prodded, wanting me to continue the story.

Who was Robby, again? Oh yeah. Robby, instead of Robin. Man this was getting complicated.

"Well, not exactly. My friend Robby is a technology genius. I mean, he's amazing at technology. So he set up cameras around the room and left. We timed it perfectly so that when our friend Wally came into the living room, we would send out a loud noise to wake her up," I decided to just use Wally's name.

"Then what?" She was so excited about the story. I could tell she was just waiting for the punch line.

"Well, Wally started laughing at the sight of Artemis with pencils up her nose and glitter all over her. But then Robi - I mean, Robby sent out the noise and she woke up to a laughing Wally. She got the wrong idea and let's just say that Wally had a couple bruises the following week."

"Hahaha! That's sounds exactly like Artemis!" She exclaimed while laughing.

I smiled and returned to my drawing. I really did have a nice family. I had the Team, and then I had my friends at school.

"Umm, Bethany?" Rose's soft voice floated over to me through my thoughts.

"Mmm?" I was just daydreaming while looking out the window.

"Do you wanna… I mean, do you want to…" She trailed off, unsure of what to say.

I turned to look at her. It was rare that Rose didn't know what to say. Usually, she had well thought out sentences.

"Yeah? Rose, just spit it out," I joked.

"Well, I was wondering if you wanted to hang out sometime," She looked really nervous and awkward.

"Umm, Rose? We always hang out. Like I'm hanging out with you right now," I replied dumbly.

"No no no," She laughed, "I mean, out of school."

Oh, shit.

"Umm, yeah," I rubbed the back of my neck. What do I say? Sorry, I live in a big cave that's nowhere near Gotham city. I'm not allowed to bring outsiders into it because it's actually a secret base for training operatives from the Justice League. I could try to sneak you in, but the Batman comes to the cave regularly, so you might get caught by The Batman. But I'm sure we can work something out, right?

I must have had some weird look on because Rose suddenly looked embarrassed.

"Oh!" Her cheeks tinged a light red, "I didn't think that you would have a problem with… Oh, sorry. I just thought -"

"No! You have the wrong idea!" I quickly recovered, "I would love to have you over, but my family is having some issues with the house, so you wouldn't be able to come to my house." Not a complete lie. Superboy did punch a hole through the wall when he got angry at Black Canary. But that's a story for a whole other time.

"Oh," she looked so relieved, "Then you can come to my house! I mean, if you want!" She quickly added.

"Of course! That sounds like a lot of fun," I smiled at her. Wow, it would be so nice to hang out with Rose out of school. I could get to know a lot about what she does outside of school, and we could talk about things without always getting interrupted by Artemis, Robin, or Barbara.

"Okay, my little muffins! We're going out to run the mile! LET'S GO, CUPCAKES!" Coach Powers yelled in our ears.

"Urg, I hate running the mile," Artemis grumbled next to me. I agreed. But at least it was the last period, so we didn't have to go to class all sweaty. When we got outside, the air was extremely humid and the sun beat down on all of us. This was going to be Hell.

"See you at the finish line," Dick stalked past us and started at the front. Thankfully, Barbara lagged behind with us.

"GO!" Coach Powers blew as hard as she possibly could into the whistle, prompting all the students to move forward like a herd.

As Artemis, Barbara, and I ran near the front, I noticed that Dick was far ahead of everyone. Now that my suspicions for Dick had been aroused, I looked closer at everything that Dick did. I noticed that he didn't really seem to be putting much effort into the run, and yet he was still the first person. I noticed that he even started to overlap the girls in the far back. Nerds like Dick shouldn't be in such top shape. Unless it was a playboy thing. Like all playboys needed to be in top shape so they could show off their abs to the press, but Dick didn't really seem like that type. In fact, he wasn't supposed to be running this fast. He was sweating a lot from the heat by the time he finished, but he didn't lay down like the others did when they were finished. He stood straight up and leaned against a tree casually. Dick had been long since finished when Artemis and I finished our mile. Barbara had lagged a little further behind. Dick wasn't even trying to catch his breath. It was like he went on five mile runs every morning and this was just his warm up. But his hair was damp with sweat, and something about his features looked familiar. But I refused to believe whatever was nagging at the back of my mind.

"Wow, Dick!" Coach Powers bellowed at us from her place at the entrance of the field, "That's a new personal record!"

"Whoopdeedoo," Artemis and I mumbled at the same time. Dick just laughed at us, oblivious to my suspicions of him. I now eyed him carefully. There's no way that he could be him. No way.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Coach Powers tell a couple of the other male students something and then she pointed at Dick. I started to get anxious for Dick, but then I saw them head towards the ice cooler. I smiled. Let them do it to Dick.

"AHHHH!" I heard Dick shriek when a huge cooler of icy water was poured all over him in congratulations.

Artemis and Barbara were laughing their heads off, while the other girls in the class were too busy fawning over Dick's toned and muscular body that was now visible through the soaked white shirt. But I wasn't doing any of those (although his abs did look very nice indeed). I was too busy looking at Dick's face and his hair. I was pretty sure my mouth was hanging open. No way.

Dick stopped laughing and looked at me.

"What's wrong, Bethany?" He looked worried and his eyebrows furrowed in concern.

I took a wary step towards him.

"No," I whispered.

"Bethany…? What's wrong?"

I slowly raised my hand up and covered his eyes with my hand. It was the splitting image of the boy that I had been training with for weeks now. The boy that I had gone on a mission with. The boy that helped me with my chemistry homework at the cave. The boy that always taunted and teased me about him being a better acrobatic than me. But he wasn't supposed to be here. He was supposed to be off with the Dark Knight. Instead, I found myself looking at that very boy.

Dick's hair was exactly the same as that boy. When I covered my hand over his eyes, I could already see the mask. Of course! It was so obvious. The jaw, the nose, the ears, and the hair were all the same.

"No," I whispered again, "Why? I don't understand," But I already knew everything.

I turned and ran back into the building to leave. I had to get out of here. There were too many secrets. Too many lies. No one was who they seemed to be anymore. I heard Dick shouting out to me to wait, but I was long gone. The same thoughts bouncing around in my head all the way back to the Cave.

Dick was Robin.