Aquaman: You're not helping your cause here son. Stand down or -
Speedy: Or what? You'll send me to my room? And I'm not your son. [to Green Arrow] I'm not even his. I thought I was his partner.

.***.

"Hey Kid," Superboy said, moving the cookies M'gann had made to safety. He scrutinized the red-head's face for a second and put the cookies back where they had been. Wally looked like he needed them. "What happened?"

"Had a fight with Flash," The hero's protege mumbled around the cookie, avoiding the bigger teen's eyes. "I know having Superman ignore you kind of sucks, but it's not easy to be around someone who treats you like a kid."

"At least he cares about you," Superboy huffed, leaning against the counter. "At least he can look at you."

"Superman'll come around," Wally said, shrugging. "And when he does he'll be a great mentor. He hasn't known you since you were...you know. Born. With me and Rob...I don't think they'll ever let us grow up."

Superboy shrugged. He still thought having a father-figure would be better than having an idol, but his two cents wasn't what Wally needed right now. "Is that what you were fighting about?"

"He wanted me to sit out! It was Captain Cold! I can't just let him wreak havoc on my city - he was attacking my school!"

"Did Flash say why?" Superboy was doing his best Kaldur impression - basically asking himself what the Atlantian would say in this situation. Already, though, the clone had reached the point of not caring.

"Well- yeah." Wally stuffed another cookie in his mouth and rubbed the back of his neck, embarrassed, "I don't have the best balance on ice. My traction's not great. He thought I'd fall." He rubbed his arm subconsciously.

Raising an eyebrow, Superboy looked at the arm, "And did you?"

"Okay, yeah. And maybe Captain Cold got away. But it wasn't because of my traction! I was pushing Flash out of the way - his feet were about to get frozen!" Wally ate another cookie, staring at his arm. "And now my arm's broken! Again!"

"You're arm's broken?" M'gann floated into the room, distressed. "Why didn't you tell anyone?"

Wally flushed, embarrassed at being caught in this moment of weakness. "Uh...I didn't really want to complain about it while Flash was chewing me out. In front of everyone. And then I just ran back here. I kind of forgot." He shrugged, smiled for the girl who still looked worried. "It's no biggie. Speedsters heal really fast. If you bake me some more cookies I bet I'll be good to go in a couple hours." He winked and Superboy scowled, his Kaldur imitation officially at an end.

"Dude, heard you fought with Flash today." Robin said, taking the last cookie from the plate and making Wally groan and swat at him with his useless arm. He winced, tucking it back against his body, and his best friend frowned. "KF, are you hurt?"

"Give me an hour. It'll be back to normal. And how did you know about me and Flash?"

"Um...the six o'clock news?" Robin flinched as Wally shot him a death glare. "What! I'm not the one arguing my mentor in the middle of Central City!"

"Like you don't go at with Batman!" Wally said, not sure why he was shouting except that his arm hurt and his pride hurt and he knew he'd been stupid today but God, sometimes he was sure that Flash would never see him as more than a sidekick.

"Not in public!" Robin practically squeaked. Everyone in the room nodded, imagining what would happen if you argued with the Caped Crusader where the press could see.

Wally shook his head, holding his hurt arm in his good hand. "Don't bother with another batch, Megan. I'm not hungry." He brushed past Robin on the way out, his flaming hair only accentuating how pale his face was.

"Hey," Artemis and Kaldur were just outside the kitchen, "I thought I heard you. Picking more fights, Kid Mouth?"

Wally just growled, moving to push past her. Kaldur touched his shoulder, his hand cool and feather-light. "You are injured."

"Nothing a few snacks can't fix, Fearless Leader." He tried for a smile but couldn't find it and ended up shrugging again. "Anything interesting happen around here?"

"Nothing to report," Artemis sighed, crossing her arms across her chest, "As usual."

Well, that was just asking for trouble.

.***.

Barry Allen had just sat down to dinner with his wife when the phone rang. Technically, it had been ringing for the past hour but he'd ignored it. He didn't need Batman to tell him how to deal with his suddenly defiant sidekick. After Wally had run off, Flash had to track down Captain Cold and catch him solo - while being hounded by the press, who loved a good human-interest story like look at how rebellious the little heroes are getting.

He'd taken a hot shower, which he'd needed after nearly being iced by Captain Cold, and was going to have a quick dinner with Iris before giving his statement. And his phone just wouldn't stop ringing.

He glanced at the caller ID before picking up. If Superman's calling you, it's hard to ignore. "What's wrong?" If Superman's calling you, something's always wrong.

"We've been trying to call you for an hour," Superman's voice was tight and clipped. Great, something big was going down. He did not need this right now.

"Sorry, I was putting our favorite Ice King back in Arkham." He tried not to let the annoyance through in his voice. He knew that being a superhero was a full-time job.

"Have you heard from Kid Flash lately?"

"Not since our very public argument," Flash said, hackles raising in preparation for parenting advice from the man who wouldn't take responsibility for his own clone.

"Barry!" Iris ran out of the living room, her eyes wide, and Flash looked between her and the phone he was holding in his hand.

"Tell me what happened," he said, voice hard. "Tell me right now."

.***.

"How could this happen?" Flash said, not even waiting for the zeta tube to finish recognizing him before he zoomed over to Batman.

Mount Justice was a mess - everything in it almost totally destroyed, from the kitchen to the computers. To one side, Aquaman was with his apprentice in the pool of water that had flooded the bottom have of the cave. The younger Atlantian's eyes were closed, which wasn't surprising - whole chunks of his skin were missing. Martian Manhunter was sitting with his niece, who was crying and couldn't seem to change her shape out of the one she was currently in - a green girl with ten arms. Green Arrow had a hand on Artemis's shoulder. The young archer had a whiplash on her cheek and her eyes were cloudy, but she was standing.

And three young heroes were noticeably, eerily absent.

Batman turned to him, and it would take someone who'd known him for years - like Flash - to see that behind his cowl he was panicked. Robin was gone, too. "I don't know. There's no way they should have gotten in. Not without tripping the sensors."

"It was Luthor all right," Superman said, landing next to Batman. "His hands are all over this."

"It was shape-shifters," Artemis said, the young archer stepping forward out of Green Arrow's reach. "We thought they were you. Then Batman - the fake Batman - he got up to us and Robin kind of ran to him and Batman hit him. I've never seen Robin go down that hard. And they had your powers - the one that looked like Flash was fast, and Superman...well, he was more like Superboy. He never actually flew, I don't think. But by the time we realized it wasn't you they'd already surrounded us." She kind of choked then, and another voice spoke behind her.

"M'gann was taken out first. Slammed against the wall by Captain Marvell - or the one who looked like him - after being disoriented by Black Canary." Aqualad was gasping hard, leaning against Aquaman.

"We need to get you to Atlantis," The King of the Seas said, trying to pull Kaldur to the door, but the younger man shook his head vehemently.

"I...as team leader...need to give a full report. Kid Flash had been fighting Flash. They were a blur. No one could see them. But then he was knocked down and -" He moaned a little, eyes fluttering closed.

"His arm was already broken," Artemis said hollowly, and Flash felt a sinking in his chest. How had he not noticed that? But he'd been too angry, too worried back in Central City, when he'd rounded on Wally for pushing him out of harm's way. Kid had been holding his arm awkwardly, and he should have known...should have seen.

Artemis continued, "He couldn't do hand-to-hand. He could only run. So I took out Flash - sorry." She apologized to the real Flash, confused. "But he ran out of the cave. By then Kaldur had been overwhelmed by Aquaman and Red Tornado. The last thing I saw was Kid Flash going to help Robin." She looked at the members of the Justice League. "We were surprised. We thought it was just Batman coming to give us an assignment. Then you - they - kept coming." She glanced at Batman then looked away quickly.

Flash took a step forward, unsure how to help this. The Team had just fought their mentors. They'd been hurt by them. "It wasn't us."

"We thought it was a training exercise." Aqualad looked up at his King, and Aquaman looked back at him sadly. "I didn't understand..."

"It wasn't us." Flash said, again, his heart pounding. Because from Wally's point of view, he'd just had an argument with his mentor (his mentor who didn't even notice he'd broken a bone) and then gotten beat up by him.

Artemis pressed close to Green Arrow. "We didn't know if it was you or...something else. M'gann was out first, so she couldn't read your...their...minds. But if it was mind control...we didn't want to hurt you."

Batman sighed, a sound so out of character that everyone looked at him. The detective was gazing at the mess that had been Mount Justice, his hands curling into fists at his sides. "Where is Robin?"

"And Superboy." That was M'gann, floating over to them with the correct number of arms in place. "And Kid Flash."

Flash turned to Superman, who was looking at M'gann, a shocked expression plastered across his face. "How'dyouknowthisisLuthor?"

Everyone stared at him, and Flash forced himself to calm down, to stop vibrating. He worked hard to make his words come out at a normal speed, though each second not searching for Wally was killing him. "How did you know that Lex Luthor is behind this."

Superman was still looking at M'gann, who was crying silently now. He slowly turned to Flash, half-glanced at Batman, and pulled a piece of paper from...somewhere.

"He left a note."

.***.

why young justice? we've been obsessed with superheroes since we were kids - dc and marvel. special favorites are the x-men and blue beetle. we just caught onto this show this summer - a friend in italy with us has the whole thing, and we've been watching it every night. this is a good fandom to geek out on.

about this story: basically, a lot of mentor/sidekick drama wrapped up into a semi-plot about lex luthor, who, honestly, we know best from smallville, so bear with us. hope y'all enjoy. if you do, leave a review.