5. Chapter 5 (1/2)

soaring free

a young justice fanfiction

hey everyone! sorry it's been a while, i had finals and holidays and writers block and the stomach flu... yeah... exciting month. and, remind me to never wrote jason again. he just does not flow nearly as well as tim.

in other news, i finally caved and got a tumblr. hit me up at savoirfairesuperhero, y'all!

also, i recently got hooked on voltron: legendary defender. highly suggest that everyone watches it. pidge is my mini-me.

without further adieu...

disclaimer: i do not own young justice.

not thirty seconds after the words leave his mouth, an explosion rocks the night, orange flames proving a hellish background to the fear now frozen in damian's veins.

initially, when hood and i separated from the robins, everything was just peachy.

given the normal batfamily luck, i should've known it wouldn't last. i mean, let's face it, i just got returned to my actual age and one of us has literally come back from the dead before. we have the worst luck on the face of the planet.

ducking out of the air vents, we had taken down a group of baddies three or four rooms away from our target. hood and i had a rapport that was completely unique, and our battle banter reflected it.

i punch out one baddie to my right and note with a smile that hood has yet to take out the guns holstered at various locations around his body.

moving on to the next group of rather reluctant henchmen, i call out to hood, "hanging in there all right, little

other?"

he literally stops in the middle of his own group to just look at me for a second before kicking out with his right leg. "who are you calling little, shorty?"

i chuckle and move on to the next group.

we move in tandem, effectively and efficiently taking out every baddie that comes at us. there's no real need for us to talk, but our back-and-forth seems to strike no little amount of fear into the hearts of the henchmen, so we continue chattering.

"hey hood, you seen the most recent captain america?"

"wing, now is not the time to get into iron man vs. cap."

"hey hood, you remember those animated x-men shows we watched when we were kiss."

"nightwing, when those were airing, i didn't have consistent access to tv."

"oh yeah. well how about-"

he sounds exasperated. "no, i did not watch the return of gilmore girls, i have not seen agents of shield, i have not seen the phantom of the opera live yet, and i have not watched the latest episode of my little pony!" he accentuates his last statement by punching out the last baddie in his group. shaking out his hand, he shakes his head at me in disappointment. "still can't believe you're a

ony, dude."

i roll my eyes at him from my position on the floor, tying up my own henchmen. "don't blame me, blame the kid. i started watching them with rob when he was little and then just never stopped." i stand up and

ush of my hands. "that's pretty normal for parents, you know. you'll be on the couch watching bob the builder and suddenly realize that the kid went to bed two episodes ago, and you just never changed the chanel."

hood snorts. a sudden clattering of metal on concrete drawdown our attention and we both casually whirl around to see one last frightened bad guy shaking in his boots, gun forgotten at his feet. apparently my awesome parenting skills have scared him stiff.

hood and i exchange glances. shrugging, he takes four steps forward and clocks the guy out with a single punch. as i pull more zip ties out to tie him up, i call to hood, "you know, i'm still gonna drag to see phantom live."

he chuckles. "looking forward to it, wing."

we continue on through the next two rooms in a similar fashion. ("hey, have you-" "yes, i have seen the piano guys latest video, and before you ask, no, i don't feel a need to know how they got a piano there.") the henchmen fall easily before us, some occasionally even dropping their weapons and turning tail.

finally, we have moved enough that our banter has slowed, to the point where we are just angrily punching bad guys in the face.

i glance nervously at hood. one henchman had managed to get in a lucky and knock out the comms in his helmet, so he had ditched it, blown it up, and made due with a normal earpiece and his fall back domino mask. he was in a particularly foul mood because of it.

"where are all these idiots coming from?" he yells. i pray that manages to refrain from pulling out a pistol.

i only huff and focus on my own group, though i agree with him. for a simple scarecrow operation, this amount of baddies is unprecedented. scarecrow never has some many busy bodies on hand.

a flash of orange glints out of the corner of my eye, nearly causing me to miss a step. no...

there is only one man i can think of who would be wearing orange in an area like this.

in one great twisting turn, i take out my group and yell to hood, "change of plans! proceed on and take down scarecrow. i've got to look into something!"

i leave before he can react, though his cussing keeps me company over the comms.

normally, i would have told him to watch his language, but anytime this man is involved, he takes priority over anything else.

i fly around corners, in some cases quite literally. though occasionally some thug crosses into my path, they are gone before they register that i am there. my prey knows my skills to the point where i see only a flash of orange as i round each corner, nothing more, nothing less.

my comm buzzes. "wing! get your butt back here!" expletives are still spewing across the line as i reach up and turn it off.

my quarry leads me on a wild chase, across the width of the building, up and down airdu ducts, scaling fire escapes and leaping rafters.

as

eathing becomes slightly more difficult, something changes, and instinctively i know that soon, the chase will be over.

i plunge through one final doorway before finding myself in an isolated cellar. directly in front of me is a man that i dread meeting.