Okay, my next installment. They don't get caught for hooky, but they have to face a fate much worse... you'll see! ;) Anyways, after this is Sparrow's seventh birthday, and if you guys REVIEW I'll try and do more. I know the holidays get crazy, but please, please, olease, let my christmas gift be reviews! :)
And to my faithful reviewers, I would've liked Superman to get angry and totally tear the forest apart looking for them, but that would seem a little suspicious to the civillians, since this situation doesn't really merit justice league involvement. So Clark Kent writes a article criticising the school for letting them get lost instead! :)
"We are NEVER playing you-know-what again." Roy hissed between rasping breaths as he laid in the medbay with his two siblings.
"S'not our fault, Roy." Robin said as he wheezed. Sparrow just kept coughing, and Roy sighed.
"I... hate... bronchitis..." Sparrow gasped, looking pale and shaky as she leaned back against the pillows.
After their little escapade, Robin, Roy, and Sparrow had been cold-stricken.
Wally, however, was fine, but he hadn't waded through a creek or been in the sleet for three hours waiting for searches so 'find' them and make their story believable. Which was why the three were all in the watch tower medbay, unusually standoffish and grumpy.
"How are you three feeling?" Superman asked, looking at the children he viewed as nieces and nephews with concern. They'd been here for two days now, and there wasn't any drastic improvement in an of them. Still, he was particularly worried about Sparrow, who looked almost as pale as the sheets she was laying on, except for her fever-red cheeks.
"Bad." Roy said.
"Awful." Robin admitted.
Sparrow simply closed her eyes, adding to the man of steel's concern. Where was the bubbly little girl everyone loved?
"Sparrow?" he asked, sitting beside her bed and reaching out to feel her forehead. He could already feel the heat radiating off her, and while he could've easily used his thermal vision to tell what her temperature was, he knew the hand on the forehead was more comforting...
To his surprise, she crawled into his lap, leaning against is chest. "Tired..." she drew his cape around her, shivering... She shook like a leaf in Superman's arms, curling against his chest. "My Tati's in a meeting, so I guess gotta sit on your lap, uncle Clark..." she mumbled sleepily.
Superman chuckled. "Good to know I'm the second choice, at least.". Numerous members of the justice league had been dropping in, but none of them had managed to even get a smile or giggle from the tenacious trio. Still, Superman was glad the girl chose to sleep on his lap. It made him feel like he wasn't just another bothersome visitor.
"We've failed them. Taught them what to do in combat with the enemy, but never how to survive in the wilderness. We're lucky they made it out unscathed." Batman said firmly. The majority of the leaguers were assembled to talk about the latest incident involving the side-kicks.
"Both Scarlet and Roy had those nasty cuts, though." Green Arrow pointed out.
"Yes, but that's to be expected. They were found by the northern cliffs, they probably fell against some sharp rocks." Batman said. He hadn't examined the wounds closely, he'd been too busy blaming himself...
"Batman is right. We should be teaching them more than how to fight. They must learn survival." Aquaman said.
"Which is why I'm ordering the mentors take them to teach them about survival." Batman said, standing. "We'll discuss this further later." and with a sweep of his cape, he was gone.
"Where's he going?" Captain Marvel asked, looking perplexed.
"Both his children have bronchitis. Where do you think?" Hawkwoman snapped. Without the sidekicks around to give everyone a good laugh and brighten the often grim job, tensions were running high.
"He checks on them every hour." Wonder Woman confirmed.
"It's been too quiet around here with them laid up." Black Canary said, sounding morose.
"No one likes it without the sidekicks. Even I have to admit, they're funny sometimes." Green lantern (Hal Jordan) admitted.
"And to think we had none two years ago..." Martain Manhunter said.
Batman cocked an eyebrow beneath the cowl when he saw Sparrow leaning against Superman. He hadn't bothered to be stealthy, though... "Tati?" she asked, eyes opening. She smiled and leapt off Superman's lap. Batman caught her and took a seat in the chair beside Superman's, grabbing her medication off the counter.
He looked at the clock, then at Sparrow, before filling a spoon of cough syrup. She opened her mouth like a baby bird and allowing him to give her a spoonful of the rather nasty-tasting medicine, making a face before swallowing.
He grabbed a blanket off the bed, wrapping her in it, and she stopped shivering, deliciously warm... He pulled off a glove to feel her forehead. She was still running a fever... He frowned. He hated seeing her like this...
"When am I gonna get better, Tati?" she asked quietly.
"Soon." he promised, stroking her hair slightly. A moment later she was asleep.
Superman looked over at him. "How is she?"
"She'll live."
But he noticed him rub her back with his still gloveless hand, as though soothing her as she slept. He smiled slightly- it was good to know he was still always her father first, regardless of the Justice League...
Robin and Roy had nodded off as well, and he looked from each boy to the little girl curled into her father's lap, realizing these kids weren't just sidekicks- they WERE the Justice League in fifteen or twenty years.
And he vowed he'd protect them until his dying breath. Not to mention he'd already written a scathing article criticising Gotham Academy for their lack of supervision, and was determined to advocate for better supervision while in school. Superman would've made a visit, had wanted to, actually, but Batman pointed out it wasn't really a normal situation where Superman would step in, and didn't want any connections between the kids and the JLA made public. That appearance might be enough to warrant some special attention, and that was the last thing they needed right then and there. So he'd kept quiet.
But if something like this happened again, the Superintendent of Gotham might just get a late-night visitor.