Okay, some bro/sis bonding with Roy, Dick, Wally, and Scarlet. If you want more, review! Oh, do you guys think Scarlet is becoming too much the focus or that her skills are too much? I've been trying not to make her a Mary Sue (google it if you don't know what I'm talking about) and I think she needs some more issues to keep her from being too perfect. All suggestions will be considered! Thanks again, and please review!
"Roy!" Scarlet ran over and lunged at the archer,who caught her and returned the hug.
"Hey kid." he said gruffly, ruffling her hair. Still, the corner of his mouth twitched upwards slightly- it was good to see them again.
"Hi Roy..." Dick bounced over and Roy ruffled the boy's hair. "Hey, kid."
"Guys! UncleBarrybroughtmeheretohangout!" Wally babbled almost unintelligibly, and Roy rolled his eyes. "Great. Another kid to add to the collection."
"Relax, Roy, we'll be here..." Green Arrow said, just as the alert went off.
"Terrorist situation in Star City. Looks like you'll need help, Flash." Batman said.
Green Arrow nodded. "Sorry, kid..."
"Sorry? What happened to we'll be here!?" Roy demanded, slightly panicked that Ollie was leaving him here with all these kids...
"Just use common sense, Roy. You're in charge." Ollie said, and Batman turned to his own children.
"Be good," he ordered.
They just smirked, making Roy's blood pressure rise higher, if that was possible.
"Um, I hate to butt in, but we have to go." Flash said. With that, they all rushed to the zeta tubes and were gone.
Roy walked over the computer. There had to be some leaguer here who could help him watch these kids... He checked the status. Everyone with either off-world or busy at the moment. Roy stared. "Really? Really, Ollie? I can barely take care of myself, let alone three kids..." he mumbled. He stood and felt Scarlet's small hand in his own and sighed, looking down at her and letting his face soften.
"So, what do you guys want to do?" Roy asked, wondering how to occupy three small children.
"Hey look! A fly!" Wally, as ADD as ever, pointed to a fly that was buzzing by...
"How did a fly get up in the watchtower?" Roy asked.
"He probably flew into one of he zeta tubes. Let's get it!" Dick yelled. And with that, all three children were scampering after it.
"Well that was easy..." Roy muttered, following the children who were dashing after the fly.
"Kill it, kill it!" Wally sang as Scarlet dove for it but missed.
It landed on a counter and Dick tried to slap it, but it flew off before the could happen. Wally used his super speed to try and snatch it out of the air only to fair and run into a wall.
Scarlet grabbed a spray bottle, chasing it down but ultimately tripping, and Dick came up behind it with two pot lids, crashing them like cymbals but missing. Roy watched the scene unfold, smiling slightly.
"It's escaping the main room!" Dick yelled.
"I got this!" Wally yelled. They raced after the fly, trapping it in the kitchen. It landed on a cupboard and Wally missed it.
"Darn it!" he yelled. "I got it! I got it!" Dick flew forwards, but the fly got between his fingers and escaped. Roy sniggered. Watching this was like a real Tom and Jerry cartoon. They kept at it, until finally, the fly landed beside Roy on the burner of the stainless steel stove.
Roy turned the burner on high and the surface started to heat up, the lights under it going red to show it was getting hotter...
"Wow..." The kids had gathered round by now, and the fly had not idea what hit it before it shriveled into a dry, charred ball on the burner and disintegrated.
"Cool!" Dick high-fived Wally, and they grinned at Roy. "Good idea, man."
Roy shrugged, but it felt good to have helped them...
"So, what do we do now, Roy?" Scarlet asked, looking expectant.
Roy looked at the clock, realizing they'd spent a half an hour chasing a fly...
"Why don't you go find me some marbles?" Roy asked, figuring they'd never find any.
"Sure Roy! Let's go!" Scarlet turned, dashing down the hall with Wally and Dick behind her. Roy smiled, feeling slightly guilty for tricking them that way, but it would keep them busy and out of trouble...
"You sure Superman has marbles, Dick?" Wally asked as Dick hacked into the door control of Superman's room. He didn't know the access code, but Batman had been teaching him to hack...
"Superman has all kinds of toys in here." Dick said, and the door slid open.
"Wow..." Wally and Dick looked around Superman's room, surprised. He had pictures of his family up on the wall and a Superman poster or two, as well as action figures of every hero in the justice league...
"He keeps his toys in the top drawer, I think." Dick said, and he and Wally were so busy trying to find marbles they didn't notice Scarlet, who'd found a dark green velvet pouch on the dresser, and opened it on the floor. Colorful marbles spilled out, and Roy started down the hallway, wondering where the kids were...
Scarlet selected a blue marble that looked like a gumball and popped it into her mouth...
Roy stared. Had Scarlet really just put a marble into her mouth? "Scarlet! Spit that out!" he yelled, but he startled her and she swallowed...
"Scarlet?" Dick and Wally turned to see Roy grab Scarlet.
"No... tell me you didn't eat it!" Roy pleaded.
Wally and Dick put two and two together and gasped.
"Scarlet! How many times have I told you not to eat things that are not foods!" Dick said.
Roy paled. "Bats is gonna kill me..."
"I thought they were candy." Scarlet squeaked, looking scared.
"What did it taste like?" Wally asked, curious.
"Not now Wally! She could die!" Roy yelled, panicking.
"I don't wanna die!" Scarlet said, starting to cry.
"I don't want you to die either..." Dick said, getting teary eyed. "Stop dying!" Wally yelled. In an instantly all three children were crying...
"Stop crying!" Roy ordered, trying to calm them down. He wasn't calm, either, but all the crying wasn't helping him think... "No one is going to die!"
They all looked up at him, sniffling. "Really?"
"Yeah, really..." Roy lied. "Everyone wait in the main room..." he said, and they all ran out, Roy quickly doing the only thing he could think of- googling the situation.
He read all he reports and relaxed. "Alright, alright, no one is going to die. You should crap it out eventually. New rule. No one eats anything without asking first." Roy said, calming down.
"Alright. We should probably go pick up the rest of Superman's marbles..."
Roy paled again. "Superman? Those were Superman's marbles?" he asked.
Dick nodded. "We knew he had marbles, so we hacked into the computer to let us into his room..."
"You hacked!?" Roy said.
"Yeah..." Dick said, looking undisturbed.
"Well what if Superman notices one of his marbles are missing!? Change into your civilian clothes, we have to go somewhere." Roy said decidedly.
Five minutes later they zetaed to Star City, walking towards the Star City Mall. Thankfully it was on the other end of town than the terrorist situation was located, so they didn't have to worry about their mentors...
"Look! A kitten!" Scarlet said, pointing in the pet shop window.
"We're not here for pets, Scarlet." Roy said, leading her away. "We're here for marbles."
"Right." Scarlet nodded, trying to look serious, and Dick took her hand.
"I want everyone to stay together..." Roy ordered as they headed towards the toy store.
"The toy store!" Wally yelled and pointed, and all the kids took off running. Roy stared. He'd just managed to loose three sidekicks in less than one minute, That had to be a new record.
"Wally! Scarlet! Dick! Where are you?" he asked, desperate. He noticed a bag of marbles and grabbed them, looking around nervously for the kids. He noticed Scarlet had climbed on top of one of the large shelves and fallen asleep, and he smiled slightly. She looked like an angel while she was asleep... Roy carefully climbed up, despite the looks a mom with a child eager to try and do the same thing he was gave him, and carried Scarlet down. She was still asleep, thumb in her mouth, looking so cute...
"One down, two to go." Roy thought, satisfied. He found Dick and Wally playing with the action figures. "Time to go you two." Roy ordered.
"Aww, but we just got here, Roy." Wally whined.
"I know. We're leaving before you can cause anymore damage." Roy said simply, paying for the marbles before heading back towards the zeta tube station. Just then a man emerged from the shadows of the alley, smiling at them.
"Kid's shouldn't be out this late, you know." he said, and Roy say the glint of a knife in his hand. He felt his rage bubble over. He could take being threatened personally, but when someone dared to threaten Wally, Dick and Scarlet, that was over the line.
In one swift move Roy handed Scarlet to Dick, ducking the man's knife and giving him a good uppercut to the jaw, grabbing his wrist and squeezing until he dropped the knife, clocking him again on the face before slamming him into the wall and letting him slump to being unconscious.
"Do not mess with my family." Roy hissed, before he dusted himself off. He turned t see Scarlet, Dick, and Wally all staring at him, wide eyed.
Roy looked at his watch. Eight at night already, They had to get back to the watchtower, now.
"Come on, you guys." he motioned to them, and they all squeezed into the phone booth and zetaed back to the watch tower.
As soon as they were there, Roy had them all sit on the couch in the main room. "Wally, Scarlet, you two stay put Dick, I need you to hack into Superman's room again." Roy ordered. He then inserted the blue marble back into Superman's pouch and placed it on the dresser before he had Dick shut the door.
"Alright, one problem solved." Roy said, sighing in relief.
"Roy, I'm hungry." Dick said, and Roy realized it had been two hours since their mentors left them. He also realized he was hungry, too.
"What do you guys want to eat?" Roy asked Scarlet and Wally, who were, surprisingly, still sitting on the couch where he'd left them.
Scarlet thought for a minute. "Grilled cheese!" she said, grinning.
"Yeah, grilled cheese!" Wally and Dick agreed.
Roy smiled slightly. "Grilled cheese it is. How many sandwiches each?"
"One," Scarlet said. "Two." Dick said.
"Seven." Wally said, and Roy stared.
"He's got a fast meta-metab-meta-metabolif-metabolifm..." Scarlet said, botching the word because of her tiredness.
"I get it kid, don't hurt yourself." Roy said, seeing the obvious difficulty she was having with the word.
Roy gave Wally the first sandwich, since he had a fast metabolism, and Scarlet the next, since Dick seemed to be the most patient of the three. The fourth sandwich ignited as Roy was busy pouring chocolate milk while it was cooking, and he panicked.
"Someone get the fire extinguisher!" Roy yelled, holding the flaming frying pan.
"I got it!" Wally yelled, using his speed but forgetting to stop and running into the wall.
Luckily there was an airlock in the kitchen.
"Everyone hold onto something!" Dick yelled, hitting the button. The flaming mass that had once been a grilled cheese was sucked out into space, and the four children all clung desperately to something. Dick slammed the button again and the airlock closed.
Dick grinned. "No oxygen in space. No oxygen means no fire."
"Nice. Try something a little less dangerous next time, though." Roy said, smoothing his now messy hair back and getting to work making more grilled cheese.
"Can we watch TV?" Scarlet asked, looking too adorable to refuse as Roy made himself a few grilled cheeses.
"Sure. Oh, and Dick, I need you to hack into the league systems again, delete all the security cam footage of what we did today." Roy said as he followed them into the main room and flopped on the couch.
"Already done." Dick said, grinning. Bit he'd saved one copy of the footage for himself, since he had a feeling they'd laugh about this someday.
The leaguers got back at one am, all anxious as to how there proteges had fared. The situation in Star had been a hard fought battle, and had taken even longer to clean up... Leaving Roy with small children for one hour during the daytime was alright, maybe, but leaving him with three small children for six hours during the night was another thing completely.
"Roy?" Ollie called, anxious, though he'd never admit it.
"Found them." Flash called, and Batman and Green Arrow raced int the main room to find all four children curled up on the couch, in front of the TV, which was still on, playing an infomercial about the Shark team mop... Scarlet had crawled onto Roy' lap, and the normally tough redhead looked considerably less hard-core with a six year old in his arms. Dick was leaning against Roy from one side, and Wally from the other...
"They look so precious..." Flash whispered, pulling out a camera and snapping a picture.
Batman simply grunted, not wanting to agree but fighting off a smile at the concentrated adorableness before him.
"See, I told you they'd be fine. Roy even made dinner." Green Arrow said, pointing to the bread crusts and plates strewn across the floor.
"I guess we've found some people Roy actually likes, then." Flash said. "Good to know he's trustworthy..."
And that first time all together was the first of many incidents.