I do not own Young Justice.

The Daring and the Dangerous

Yes, this is another story, no I am not abandoning any of my other ones. I just had an inspiration flash and this came from it so I might as well do doing with it.

Thanks for all of the support for my others stories and I hope you all enjoy this just as much as I do.

Summary:

Richard never became Robin. Wally ran away from home. Artemis went with her sister. M'gann left Mars earlier and her uncle never found out. Conner escaped Cadmus after a fire with the help of some 'birds' . . . Several years later Bruce Wayne watches the Daring Danger's do a performance at the circus, but is there more to these teens than he suspects?

Chapter 1

Survivors

"No!"

It was a single moment; a moment that changed his life forever. One second he had been watching his mother and father fly through the air, arching gracefully like elegant birds dancing, and the next they were falling.

The rope had snapped.

"Dick," his mother's breath, almost question-like, disbelieving, slipped from her lips. In her eyes he could see that she had seen what had happened, could feel gravity gabbing hold of her in its hungry claws and dragging her downwards, but she could not comprehend it. She was a Flying Grayson. Flying Graysons did not fall.

Except this time they did.

"Mom!" Dick wasn't aware of his forward lunge as he tried to grab her hands. So close just a few more inches! He wasn't aware of the hands that grabbed him and held him back, held him back from jumping, from the edge, from death . . . from his parents.

"No . . ." A sob tore through his thin, horrified frame. Thirty feet below him a red pool spread.

It was only hours later that what had happened fully settled in as he eavesdropped on a conversation with a blanket wrapped around his shoulders and his blue eyes blank with grief.

"Is there any way that he can stay here?"

His parents, loving, laughing, joy filled and always encouraging. They couldn't be gone, they just couldn't. This had to be a nightmare. If he just held on, any moment he would wake up to his mother's singing and the smell of pancakes. It was all just a nightmare, it had to be.

"The boy? I'm afraid not, Mr. Haley. By law it is required that he live in a stable environment. He was only living in the circus in the first place because of his parents. Without them, well, it seems we don't have a choice.

Dick Grayson, last of the Flying Graysons, shuddered, his chest heaving with suppressed sobbing. His lungs tightened. He felt alone, so alone. There was no one there to comfort him, not even thinly veiled words of encouragement, only gazes of pity and sorrow for him.

His parents were dead, and now they were going to rip him away from the rest of his family.

Not far from his position another conversation caught his ear, one that made his insides freeze and his eyes to widen ever so slightly.

"The job was done?"

"Yes. No one suspects a thing."

"And the boy?"

"He'll be in our clutches by tomorrow night. They are sending him to an orphanage. From there it shouldn't be too hard to pick him up with out any questions."

"Perfect. Send me the details when we are ready to move. That boy is necessary for our operations. Don't loose him, Claw. You know the consequences if you do."

"It will be as you say."

Dick felt as if his fingers were frozen, even though they were wrapped around a warm mug of hot chocolate. While his body was completely still, his mind was rushing faster than it had ever before.

His parents fall hadn't been an accident, it was a murder, and the people who had done it planned it to get to him. Dick shuddered harder, pulling the blanked closer as he retreated into his thoughts. Why?

Why him? What did they want?

If he hadn't been here, would his parents still be alive?

No. I can't think like that. There are too many what ifs . . . what ifs will only drag me down.

Dick hunched further, his fingers begging to shake.

What would his parents want him to do? Stay in the circus for one, but that wasn't an option. Going to the orphanage was out now, too. Those men would be waiting for him if he did.

In the dark of night, exhausted, terrified, and alone, Dick made his decision, the only choice that seemed reasonable at the time.

When dawn broke the next day and the police came to pick him up, there was no little boy to find. His trailer had been mostly cleaned out, keepsakes gone as well as blankets, clothing, and food.

He had run away.

If the situation had played out a little different, if the accident had happened in Gotham instead of Central City, if a certain billionaire had seen in a little boy what he saw in himself when the boys parents died, maybe Richard Grayson's path would have led him in a different direction. But it did not. His parents died in Central City, and he ran away before anyone could get their claws into him.

In a single moment, Dick Grayson's destiny was altered forever.

0~o~0

Wally West was a good kid. He was a fast runner, top of his elementary class, and one of the happiest boys his age.

Or, at least, that is what people around him saw. None of them realized that under the laughs, the loud exclamations, the fast sprints, their lay a dark secret; a secret that he tried to cover up with long sleeves and turtlenecks, a secret that hurt him both inside and out.

Unlike other kids his age, Wally West's parents didn't love him. To them he was a financial burden that should never have happened. He was skinny not because of a high metabolism (though that might have helped) but because his mother sometimes refused to let him eat. He wasn't top of his class because his parents encouraged him too be, but because he didn't know another way to get attention, to get them to notice.

He didn't laugh and tell jokes because he was happy; he did it because if he didn't he knew that he might never recover from the crash.

It was a mask. Wally's mask. It was a mask that he had been wearing for his entire life.

And it was starting to crack.

Wally leaned against a pole and slide down in to the ground. It was just wide enough to hide his tiny frame as he wrapped his arms around his knees and felt wetness gather in his eyes. Persistent calls from the other children looking for him faded into background noise as his head hit the boney part of his knees.

As always, as soon as the laugher and light was gone, the darkness raced forward to grasp at him, his thoughts twisting.

Why do I even try? It's not like anyone notices, anyway.

Wally's chest tightened at the sneering voice that spoke his darkest thoughts.

Would anyone notice if I were to just . . . disappear? It would be so easy. Just a simple slice, a little bit of pain, and then it would be all over. It's not like anyone really cares.

Cold fingers slipped down to his pocket, where they fingered the sharp edge of a small razor.

Just a slice . . .

The metal glinted as it was pulled half way out of the pocket, and then stopped, the handle caught on a frayed string.

"What are you doing all the way out here?" a voice suddenly interrupted Wally's musings, making his head dart up in surprise.

"What?" he blinked as he found himself faced with a younger boy in slightly too tattered clothing, a baseball cap, and a backpack slung over one shoulder. A pare of blue eyes peering out at him with just as much sadness, and darkness, as his own.

It was almost as if he were looking into a reflection.

The boy shifted, his slightly blank eyes glancing past him to the playground with longing and yet aloofness that Wally could understand.

They could stand among the crowd, but that didn't mean they were one of them.

"Your friends were looking for you. Why don't you go with them?"

Are you like me?

The blade was slid back into his pocket before he could really consider what he was doing and he sat up straighter. For the first time he met someone who might understand.

Someone who knew what it felt like to have the darkness inside of them.

"I . . . I didn't feel like it today," Wally said, shrugging slightly as he leaned back against the pole and gestured for the boy to sit. After a moments hesitation the boy did so, shifting so that he was sitting crisscross and his feet pulled up on top of the rest of his legs in what looked like a slightly uncomfortable position. Wally didn't say anything about it, however. Everyone had their quirks.

"Why?" the boy asked back, his eyes searching.

Again, Wally hesitated. Should he tell the other? Should he really expose his biggest secret to a boy he had only just met? In fact, the boy looked at least five years younger than himself.

Could he really burden one so young?

Wally glanced away, his heart plummeting. No, he couldn't. Not yet. He wasn't ready to tell yet.

"I'm just not feeling good."

There was silence for several moments before the boy slumped in what seemed like defeat.

"I know what that feels like."

Wally twitched and blinked, "What?"

The boy shrugged and hugged his bare arms which, now that Wally was looking, had several nasty looking scares on them.

The boy glanced to the side, considering, before he nodded to himself, "It all began two years ago . . ."

The boy told him about his family. How his parents cared for him and how their entire neighborhood (he hesitated slightly before saying it, making Wally curious) was like his family. He described the horror he felt as he watched his parents be murdered (no explanation, but Wally could imagine what had happened) and how their murderer's had been after him.

He told Wally that he had run away, and that was one of the best decisions of his life.

"If I hadn't run," the boy said softly, "I wouldn't be who I am: a Survivor."

Wally wondered what that felt like.

The boy spoke of a time when the darkness held reign over his heart and mind, how he wondered if it would be better if he didn't exist. He described the plan he had made, the knife he had chosen, the time and place.

"What made you change your mind?" and the boy had changed his mind, Wally could see, but he wanted to know why.

How? How do I become a Survivor instead of a victim?

The boy smiled, small, rueful, and thankful, "I saved someone's life. There was a robbery going on in the alley and the man was about to shook a young lady for her purse. I . . . stopped him."

Determined blue met hopeful, "And at that moment, I realized that I didn't want to die. I wanted to live. I wanted to live because that meant that I could help others who might need me, who might die because I wasn't there."

Wally felt the words settle into his heart as a new voice, small but hopeful, began to beat alongside the darkness, a shield around his heart.

I want to live.

Wally's hands clenched around his backpack as tears gathered in his eyes. Behind him the bell rang, signaling that it was time to come back in.

I can help others. Just like the Superheroes. I don't need superpowers or a mask to help people, because a bright heart and understanding can save just as many.

Just like this boy.

"Thank you."

For the first time he meant it.

The boy smiled and stood up, brushing off his ripped pants and knees, "Your welcome."

The parted ways and Wally wasn't sure if he would ever see the boy again, but one thing was certain.

The boy had not just changed his life, he had saved it.

If I hadn't run, I wouldn't be who I am: A Survivor.

He would be a Survivor too.

That night when Rudolph West came home with anger in his eyes and alcohol on his breath, expecting to find the boy who was the cause of all their problems, he was confronted with an empty room.

Wally West had run away.

A week later Barry Allen showed up at the West Household, having just found proof that the family was related to his wife. In fact, Rudolph was her younger brother who had been kidnapped when he was a child and DNA scanning had confirmed it.

What he found was not what he expected.

If he had been a week earlier, if Wally West had not had that talk with the strange boy, he would have found his nephew close to death after attempting suicide to get away from his parents cruelty. He would have rushed the boy to the hospital and called in a full investigation that would have ended with him adopting his nephew into his family and, a few years later, gaining a sidekick in his side job.

He wasn't though, and he didn't. Wally West was already gone and, due to lots of evidence within the house itself, assumed dead.

Iris West-Allen felt her heart break as she both found and lost her family within a short amount of time.

She mourned the nephew she would never meet.

Meanwhile, a red haired boy wandered the streets, eyes blazing and determined as he searched for the boy who had changed his life. It would have been nearly impossible in a city this large if it weren't for the fact that the boy was still in the same part of town.

They met again, and this time Wally was the one to approach the other, holding out his hand, "Hi. I didn't get to introduce myself before. My name is Wally, what's yours?"

The boy smiled back, tired but sincere, and took the hand, "Call me Dick. It's good to see you again Wally."

"You too."

0~o~0

Artemis's hands trembled as she haphazardly folded her clothing and stuffed it into a light bag.

"We have to keep this family together!"

"Our family is broken. Either come with me, or stay here. That is your choice."

Wetness gathered in the corners of her eyes, which she quickly wiped away from her face. She hadn't taken up the offer, she hadn't left with her sister, but she should have. She should have but she couldn't leave her mother.

"What's wrong?" Artemis asked fearfully.

The Doctor sighed and pulled off his glasses, rubbing the bridge between his nose and brow, "I'm sorry . . ."

"No . . ."

"Your mother has cancer, near her spinal cord. If it had been caught earlier we might have been able to cut it out but . . . it has already spread. The cancer has entered stage three. She has a month."

One month. She had one month to spend with her slowly sickening mother. Her father was gone, away on a mission, and her sister had disappeared.

"Be strong, Artemis," her mother said, a pained smile stretching up her face even as her breathing became even more labored, "You know what to do. You're a survivor. Be Strong and don't give up."

Don't give up.

Even though she had known the time was approaching it was still a shock to wake up and find that her mother had passed away some time in the night, cold hand still clutched in hers.

A quick call to the hospital set the plan into motion. She hated herself for what she was about to do, but it had to be done.

She would not be put into a Home.

Packed and ready, weapons either destroyed or hidden on her person, Artemis slipped out her door and walked down the street, pausing only to glance back one last time as the ambulance pulled up to the run down apartments. She watched as they carried the limp, covered body of her mother away and the police swarmed over the scene.

Her mother had been an ex. Convict, after all.

Hidden in the shadows, Artemis went unseen but all but one.

"Are you ready to leave?"

The stiffening of her back was the only indication that Artemis had heard, then she closed her eyes to hide her tears and turned around. From the shadows further in the ally a figure, dressed in green clothing with a white, grinning mask staining the darkness, stepped forward.

"Yes."

"Then let's go . . . sister."

They both slipped into the shadows, leaving the police to wonder what had happened to the dead woman's daughter, but deeming it unimportant.

The woman had been an ex. Convict, after all. Her child would show up at some point, no doubt.

0~o~0

Well, what do you think? I know what you are all probably thinking, but I could not resist. After weeks on end of no inspiration at all this hit me like a bulldozer. I litteraly could not stop typing which is why it is so long.

In fact, my mind is still churning but I have to cut it off here as I still have a ton of homework to do and only a few hours to do it in (I hate essays sometimes).

NOTE: I am not abandoning any of my other stories. I've actually got several half chapters written, I just need to complete them when I have the time. Hidden Secrets is probably the closest to being completed, so anyone who is looking forward to that be watching. Also, Consequences is also nearly complete and just needs to be pieced together and edited.

If there are any requests for which stories I should update next send them through PM's. Thank you.

Reviews? Pretty please with an extra chapter (not in the next two weeks though, I'm near run into the ground as is) on top?

Review?