July 10th, 2010 - 06:42 PST

"B-01 'Robin', has been identified. B-03 'Kid Flash', has been identified. Welcome to Mount Justice." The automated system was kindly, or, as kind as an artificially intelligent entity could be as it welcomed the boys into the hideout from the portals that acted as their impromptu entry ways into their collective headquarters. It had been the first time that they'd been back to the mountain since the formation The Team only two days prior, and for the most part...things had been slow to take, and even less eventful than they hoped. Of course, having homes of their own, they didn't necessarily need to stay within the League's former hideout in terms of living there; that was reserved for Superboy and Miss Martian as two shared a similar state of being...between homes, so to speak.

Not that either Robin or Wally were in a position to really bring it up; they'd just met the two.

There was no reason to make things awkward right out the gate.

"Just us, huh? Where's Aqualad? Thought he'd be here, too." Wally declared, looking about the entrance only to find that it was the two of them, and further in, where the hub was still dim and quiet, no one was about. The place, as far as they could tell, was still empty, but the boy wonder shook his head.

"No. Still out collecting intel about Selena, remember. We can fill him in later. Red and Canary said they'd be in when we got here, or something like that. Probably with Batman, too." He assumed, and the two walked further in, and stood about in the atrium awkwardly, making light conversation amongst themselves.

Not that anyone would have blamed them for trying to take the edge off.

Their mission the previous day, as far as they could remember, had been something of a bust.

Selena Gonzalez, a name that rung familiar in both of the teen's minds they considered what should have been an easy win...but was anything but. They didn't need to guess what they were going to be told by the three heroes when they eventually swooped in and told them off for fucking up as royally as they had. Of course they would all lose sight of the very person that they'd been out to protect in the first place, though in each of their defenses, they hadn't exactly thought that the lady would run off, and much less right into the clutches of the very villains that had been trying to murder her for several days prior to finding her. They all figured that she would do the obvious thing and actually keep close to the people that would have given her the best chance of making it out alive...though they certainly couldn't deny that there'd been a hell of a lot of chaos that she would have needed to watch out for.

It couldn't have been easy to stay out of the way of a kid that can run faster than sound, explosions, an assassin, and a washed up pirate, so the two didn't really blame her for running.

But it did make it feel all the more embittering to know that she might have had a better chance if she'd have just...stayed put.

It was impossible to know now, and thusly, it didn't matter.

They'd failed, plain and simple...and for their first mission, too? Things were not off to a good start.

"Think they'll take it easy on us? We didn't exactly know they were gonna make preventing an assassination our first real mission. Seems a little, I don't know, heavy, doesn't it?" Kid Flash asked, flashing a sheepish smile as he looked to Robin, but the former shook his head.

"Take it easy on us? Seriously? I doubt it, especially since they did tell us that we'd be doing covert things, and what could be more covert than keeping someone alive without, you know, getting her killed. Besides, there's never really a good time for a mission like that...regardless of whether it was our first or fifth, we...weren't ready. And now she's...you get the picture." The teen finished, and with a heavy sigh, Kid Flash agreed.

"Yeah...I guess you're right...still sucks though. You don't think..." Wally hesitated for a moment, appearing to try to pick his words carefully, but Robin didn't need to guess what he was going to ask. It had been on his mind all morning, the reality that such tremendous failure would be the swift end to their team before they even got the chance to find their footing. Of course, reasonably speaking, it wouldn't have been unjustified, giving the circumstances, but like Wally, he hoped very much that it wouldn't be.

"Look, let's just...wait before speculating. Get nervous about this isn't going to change anything, and I'm already overwhelmed as it is." The boy asserted, and with a sigh, Wally conceded, choosing, instead, to scan the upper walls of the hideout, paying heed to the intricate carvings of stone and metal that had been interlaced and refined by the hands of the Green Lanterns that were here just a few days ago. Some of the installations looked fairly new, giving the headquarters a refreshed look, even despite its great age. It was Wally first that decided to part from the hub, with Robin following him carefully with his eyes.

He raised a brow.

"Where...are you going? They said to wait in the hub until they got back." He reminded the other, watching as the younger speedster stopped, giving Robin an sly look.

"I mean, true, but don't you wanna get a look around. I mean, it is going to be our hideout, or, I mean, it is, technically, but like - you get it. Come on; I'll just run us back when we hear the door open, easy-peasy. But it's gonna be so boring just standing around like statues waiting for them to get back. What can it hurt?" The former asked, and for a moment, Robin considered it.

It wouldn't...technically be against the rules if they just went to peak around a bit and came right back, and if there anything about him that he knew well enough, it was that he loved technicalities and loopholes.

It was breaking a rule if no one knew they had in the first place.

"Well, I mean...I guess that's true if you ignore the very real possibility of them checking the cameras in here...so it's just a good thing that I can disable those, too. Not that I'm condoning the suggestion, but you're right; standing around usually is pretty boring." He joked, and with a tap of his wrist, small icons of himself grinned with mischief upon the screen, marking the successful override of the primary security of the headquarters. However, it was only a temporary override, so they wouldn't have long to mess around...but they would have long enough to get a good look about the place before they needed to get back. A small timer phased onto the screen, counting down from fifteen minutes and Robin pointed to it in kind.

"Fifteen minutes should be enough...plus, it's going to have to be. That's all we've got." He told the speedster, and Wally grinned.

"Great, that's all we'll need. Now - " Doubling back, Robin yelped as he was swept off of his feet and taken into Kid Flash's arm like an unwilling luggage, and he struggled slightly in his grip.

"W-what? Hey, let me go, I can - " But he wouldn't get the chance to finish before he was carried off down a hallway, and the two were off to explore.

-(Same time)-

"K-Kon...Kon..." He could hear someone...familiar, their voice light, labored, as if breathing heavily above him, a strange smell filling his nose. He had enough of a mind to wonder what it was, but not enough of it remained that he could open his eyes. Instead, he could only lie there, lax and rendered a ragdoll for whatever was happening right before him, and it continued as someone, something, drew closer, its breath beating upon his face in steaming hot sprays of heat and saliva as it pressed against his mouth. The teen didn't move, but his thoughts lurched at the feeling, the invasion, of something ringed and long, slithering around his virgin cavity with hapless desperation he could taste. At that same moment, he felt a strange inhuman hand caress him...almost in the same way that she had.

That same way that -

Superboy felt the hand travel lower onto his stomach, and all the same, to his private area, where savage grips palmed the thin fabric of his pants and briefs as if trying to bring to life his softened flesh. There was certainly a tenderness to it, however, it was undercut by a distinct animalism that he couldn't understand as it only grew bolder. Their "kiss" didn't end, only deepening as that voyeuristic hand disobeyed his boundaries and invaded his clothes, and he felt, for the first time, another's touch to what should have been his alone.

What...what's going on...,His mind quivered with strain, the thought...slow and exhausting, but his body seemed eager to react, and he felt his own flesh tent against his briefs and sweatpants, even when he felt the urge to pull away, yet sickeningly still, he reacted, or his cock had, throbbing from the contact that it had never before received. The kissing, the touching, went on for several minutes more before the hand was removed, and he was sickened by the sudden yearning for that touch despite his clear disgust with the idea of it. He shouldn't have...felt pleased, despite the shame that riddled his body in response that the mysterious presence. He wasn't happy, but his member dripped, pulsing warmly beneath his clothes, only to be met with cold isolation.

No...I...stop it. Don't...don't touch me - ,His thoughts froze when something laid upon his chest softly, gently, soaking his clothes through with a strange fluid he couldn't name. He could feel the creature moving, a rapid pace that sound slick, disgustingly wet, and horribly close to him as their breaths cam out in pants. He wanted, in some sick way, to open his eyes and give a name, a vision, to whatever it was that he was paying silent witness to, yet even more than that, something in him felt glad that his eyes were closed. He didn't want to see whatever was happening, he wanted to think, abandoning that morbid curiosity that permeated his dreaming world and kept his body slack and limp. The pace of the creature only seemed to be matched by intensifying sounds, echoes of bliss he'd never heard before.

It almost sounded...like growls.

After what felt like an eternity, the creature shook violently over him, making the bed scream with strain as everything went horribly...perfectly...still.

It persisted for a long moment, the beings breaths calming significantly as they moved again, and, with a soft pressure upon his stomach, he felt its hand rest upon him, but it felt...wet. Soaking wet. Enough that his grey fabric sagged from the unnamed liquid.

Superboy was beyond confused...even a little scared as the creature didn't move.

After a minute, though, they shifted slightly, reaching up and up before he smelled and felt in the same breath something touch his lips. It was more than damp, pressing against his mouth with earnest care as a strange stench filled his nostrils, and he was sure, just as easily, that something about it was strange as his lips were breached. A fire of alarm rang in his head at the taste, at the touch, of what he was sure were...finger. Fingers in his mouth, scraping around the cavity and running against his tongue as if...teasing him.

The taste was...sweet. Almost disgustingly so.

In a strange way, he wanted to throw up.

But he couldn't.

He just laid there until it was finished.

Until she was finished.

Until M'gann waaasssSSSsssSsss -

...

...

His eyes snapped open, and he though he was almost sure that it was first time they had today, he somehow felt...at a loss. He remembered a scenario just like this one, a familiar thirst undercut, this time, by a sticky sweetness that made his throat feel even drier...somehow. Rubbing his eyes, his hands were shaking, trembling palms struggling, in no uncertain terms, to rub what didn't feel at all like sleep from his eyes, but instead, a steep exhaustion he'd never once felt before. It was still dark outside (though marginally less so as it was becoming brighter now), but it didn't stop from his eyes struggling to adjust to the relatively low light, as if he'd just opened them during the midday. They stung with equal fatigue and heaviness that didn't feel...right.

But he had to worry about then that.

His shirt was soaked through, stinking of a mess of something that he couldn't name, but lifting it to smell, his mind flashed with a memory, quick and violent and fleeting in the shadow of his thoughts.

Something was moving there, quick and desperate as the panting continued -

He jolted at the sound of M'gann's voice, her sweet tones already too familiar to him in ways he...couldn't describe, but realizing who it was, that sudden tension didn't ease, but confusion set in. What was she doing in his room? And more than that: how had he missed her there in the first place?

"Hey, sleepy head. Feeling better?" She asked him, sitting up from the bed and mirror the rubbing of her eyes as she seemed to have just awoken herself. Her hair was slightly disheveled, and he could see why, seeing as she'd since pulled up a chair and had been leaning onto the bed to sleep, presumably to be in here with him...though he couldn't for the life of him recall why. His memory was at best a blur, a fuzzy mess of barely associated words and images that the harder he tried to grasp them...the more they escaped his hold. Holding his head, a sharp pang of pain shot through his head, and it told him to stop trying to do it...at least, for now. Something was clearly amiss, but he couldn't begin to guess, and even worse, he couldn't even answer what he should have been feeling better from. There was a vague taste of bile that remained on his tongue, he thought, that wasn't like the sappy sweetness that dried upon his lips and tongue.

Clicking his mouth, he didn't smile, but instead, rubbed his head, shrugging.

"I mean, I guess. But...everything feels kind of...weird..." He admitted, laying his hand at his side as he considered her face. She looked...the same as she had before, her red hair and matching red eyes heavy with slumber that gave back only notes of concern. But he wasn't lying: something felt odd...off, but not in a way he could describe. Patting his shirt again, he tried grin, but his face, his throat, hurt.

That was odd, too.

But he didn't mention it.

"Oh? I wonder why...I mean, you did get a little sick earlier, but that's just because you drank and ate too much." She told him, and the teen thought about her words.

He'd gotten sick? Earlier? He thought back to that strange sense of deja vu and felt validated, realizing quickly that he had been awake some time that morning...only to have gone back to sleep? Since when did he do that?

"I did? When?" He asked, and she smiled, shrugging.

"I mean, I don't know. I was kind of early, so I didn't get to look at the time, but it's fine now, I think." She answered curtly, elaborating no further. He considered her for a moment longer, before sighing, casting the thought away. It probably didn't matter too much, anyway, he thought, rubbing the back of his neck, but he did want to know why she was here...in his room...this early in the morning. He wasn't complaining about the company (he thought that maybe she was...pretty, though he hadn't exactly had much of a reference as far as girls went beside Canary and Wonder Woman, and that would be kind of weird), but her presence, for some reason, unsettled him.

He couldn't say why precisely...only that it did.

Something on her face changed ever so slightly for a second before flipping back to her calm expression, quickly enough that Superboy didn't consciously catch it...though subconsciously, he filed it away, storing it in the back of his mind.

"So, uh...what are you doing here? How long have you been - " Before he could finish, she beamed, answering him.

"Here? Oh, just a little while, I think. I found you in the kitchen and helped you to your room, remember. Or...maybe not. You were kind of, you know, out of it. I'm just glad I was there." She offered up as a response, but his mind fought against it. He...wasn't sure what he remembered but...he could have sworn that...someone else was there, were they? The image of that face or those faces was terribly out of focus, too much so to make an argument against her, he was assured enough to ask, scratching his head as he wondered aloud.

"But...I remember - " Then it was there again.

That building pressure that made him stop in his tracks. In his subconscious, he felt something bud like wild, vile fauna that ensnared his thoughts and gave him pause.

He could feel something on his arm, gentle hands, he thought it felt like...as someone...was smiling up to whispered to him in his mind, sweet little words that made him hurt...something that he couldn't get out of his mind.

Friends...don't...tell.

It repeated it again.

Friends...don't...tell.

Over and over and over again until it filled every thought.

Friends don't tell. Friends don't tell. FRIENDS DON'T TELL -

"Hey. You okay?" She, M'gann, asked, and she laid her hands upon his arm.

Just like that person had, but he couldn't make out their face, he could see who they were, he couldn't -

"Uh, y-yeah. I'm...fine." He answered, moving his arm away, a subtle nausea filling him, though he chocked it up to what she said, the fact that he'd eaten too much, though something in him very much was not convinced, but he suppressed his doubt, and instead, moved to swing his legs over the side of the bed, avoiding her eyes as he did so. He noticed, out of the corner of his eye, her hand wavering there for a moment more before she put it in her lap, and grin, though it was surely weaker this time.

"Okay. I just wanted to be sure." She exclaimed, and he nodded, still not looking at her.

For some reason...he didn't want to.

That...he couldn't explain.

Clearing his throat and hopefully clearing their awkward silence, he came to a stand, noting the subtle wobbliness that had etched itself strangely deep into his muscles. It made it difficult, at first, for him to maintain his balance, but after a moment and some honest, concerted effort, he was able to hold himself upright, though the wave of nausea that washed over him for a brief moment before settling again didn't help. Swallowing, he spent a moment righting himself before turning towards the door, minding very much the odd sense of...dirtiness that he felt. It was as if he were...dirtier than usual, though he couldn't fathom why he would feel like that.

He'd taken a shower every morning and every night since they'd gotten there, though, he thought, he was...uncharacteristically sweaty; perhaps that was why he felt like this? Whatever the reason, it was clear to him that he needed to clean up, brush his teeth...anything to make this feeling go away.

"I'm gonna hop in the shower, so, uh..." He started, eying the door within the room that led to his personal bathroom. Thankfully, just about every suite here had one, or rather, each repurposed room did. It wasn't a secret that the hideout wasn't really built to act as a house, but it could adjusted, and it had been, thanks to the Lanterns. She followed his line of sight and noted the implication of his words, nodding fervently.

"Oh, right! Right, right, sorry. I'll be...going now? Not unless, you know..." She started, playing with her hair as she turned away. Superboy raised a brow, unsure of what she meant.

"Know...what?" He asked, and quickly, her faces bloomed green and she stood up quickly.

"You know...you were sick and everything. You don't need help...getting your clothes and stuff? You know? Friends helping friends?" The young martian asked shyly, and the idea was...more than peculiar. He was more than capable of getting his own stuff; he'd spent long enough having people do stuff for him, and being with friends wasn't going to change that. If anything, what he really needed right now was some time to think and get himself together, so really, he just wanted her to leave.

"Um...thanks, but...I can do it myse - " His thoughts froze as something else came to mind.

It couldn't hurt, right? Just...letting her choose something for me, right? Could save me the trip around the room looking for stuff...,His mind negotiated, but the teen shook his head.

What...what was he thinking? That was almost the exact opposite of what he wanted to do. Why would he think that -

"Here, let me get your stuff. I'll just give it to you in the bathroom, okay?" She offered without waiting to see if he would agree. She turned from him and went over to the far wall parallel to his bed, a set of dressers lying beneath the television he was afforded, and as if she'd been the one to fold and pack all of the items herself, she had no issue locating each garment. Almost with scary accuracy even he couldn't boast.

Turning back to face him, her cheeks were puffed out with impatient, all the while, he noticed, she was handling one of his pairs of underwear, the picture of it more than strange as she shooed him away to the bathroom.

"Well? Get in there!" She exclaimed playfully, turning back to the drawers to continue compiling his clothes, and though he had intentions to argue (he still wasn't terribly fond of people telling him what to do), he felt compelled to...listen, though his body still refused to move.

He bit back at her.

"You know I don't need you to do this, right? I can do this sort of thing myself." He responded, walking up to her and taking his underwear from her hands, eying her quietly but crossly as his silence conveyed the message. It was fine if they wanted to be friends, but the greater part of his life had been lived for him, and he hadn't been liberated to live the same life under the guise of having "friends".

That wasn't what he needed.

M'gann watched as he took the rest of the clothes that she'd selected and placed them back into the drawers, he stepped aside a bit and gestured to the door.

"Now, could you please go? I would like to get ready..." Staring her down, he leaned forward a bit, making no effort to mind his tone as he spoke, "...alone." He requested, and with a hollowed chuckle, she stood up, nodding.

He missed it again.

That flash of anger, that raw, untamed animal just beneath the surface.

But she laid it to rest, choosing instead to clasp her hands together, smiling...just as she always had.

"R-right. Sorry, was just trying to help, Kon." She told him, and with a flicker of red as her burning locks whisked by, the sound of his name triggered something deep in him, buried and cold.

Something...raw. Ugly, as a voice, too familiar to call it a coincidence, came to mind. It called his name, cried his name softly as it breathed against his face.

It was moving. Jerking. Touching...touchinghim-

He jumped at the sound of his clicking door as M'gann left, leaving him standing where he'd directed her to his door. He noticed, too, that his breath was coming in short pants, the teen reaching up to grasp his chest as he tried to will himself to be calm, but it was harder than he thought it would be to do so. There was a sort of aching that fell over him in the moments to follow, a pulsing headache throbbing, throbbing, at the front of his head as the thought - the memory - faded from his mind.

What...was that? What the fuck is going on with me today?!,He thought with frustration and exhaustion, and in a flurry of movement, he gathered whatever clothes his hands touched first as he wasn't particularly concerned with having them match.

He just wanted to get clean. He just wanted to clear his mind.

He just...wanted to forget whatever happened.

He didn't want to think about any of it.

Taking his clothes into his arms, he stopped for a moment and looked at the bed. His eyes hung there for a heavy, quiet moment before he blinked, and touching the pad to open the door, he stepped inside, leaving those memories behind him the best that he could.