Okay, this is going to be the only (hopefully :P) Author's note that I am going to write.
I have already written one story where Richard Grayson and Wally West are straight, and, therefore, in this story neither of them are. That is your warning, I will not give another. However, it is not the main focus of this story and if you do not like this it will be easy to skip over any of these moments; they will not affect the plot.
Time skips will occur within this story-you will be told each time their is a time skip and how long it is.
At the start of this story Richard/Robin is 14 and the rest of the team are whatever ages correlate with this.
If you have any questions please feel free to ask.
And most importantly; ENJOY!
Chapter 1-Nosedive
Wally, for all his hyperactivity, knew when to be silent; right now was one of those times. He had a horrible, nauseating, foreboding feeling twisting in his gut and his instincts were screaming at him to grab his team and run-run as far and as fast as he possibly could.
When Wally usually had these feelings he would let his instincts take over; he was a smart fellow after all and wasn't so ignorant as to think instincts were a myth. He had tested it once and had ended up regretting it for a month-three people had nearly died. As such, he had learnt to always follow his instincts.
This time, however, that was not a possibility. The mission they were currently performing was far too important, and so Wally would just have to be content with being on high alert for anything that could go wrong. And make sure it didn't.
Artemis had her guard up just as high as Wally, so high in fact that she could not see the metaphorical top. Years of training under her cold-hearted father had honed her instincts to such a degree she could react as fast, if not faster than, Robin. Add on top of that her need to protect her family-the one she'd earned, grown to love and who loved her back-and her fight or flight response was buzzing.
Their current mission required the Young Justice team to infiltrate an abandoned Cadmus facility that, according to Batman, 'may or may not hold within it remnants of abandoned experiments performed on living beings'. The mission, on the record, was to collect information, but off the record the team knew that there could be living beings still trapped within the confines of the abandoned facility. The mission was, therefore, in and of itself, a search and rescue mission.
Now, technically, the team was not allowed to perform such highly advanced and dangerous missions; they were only meant to be an information gathering team, hence the 'off record' nature of their mission. The fact of the matter was that the majority of the League believed there were too many children within the team to take on such high risk missions, however, despite Batman being within this majority he also knew when you had to put aside personal feelings and do what was right; in this case sending a team trained specifically in stealth to save innocent lives that most likely could not be saved without the stealth factor. The Justice League was created to save innocent lives after all.
Batman, theoretically, could have chosen to keep the teams younger members off the mission which would have allowed him to keep his own son off the mission as well. But, this was only theoretically, and as wonderful as the theory was, in reality Batman needed his son on the mission because of the specific skills he had-most notably his ability to read 5000 words per minute and his ability to hack anything and everything. This mission would irrefutably require hacking.
Now, the team crept stealthily down a hallway fifty-three levels below the surface. This facility, hidden in the centre of New York, was much like the first Cadmus facility the 'sidekicks' had infiltrated-minus the creepy eggs growing out of the walls. Much like that facility, this facility grew creepier the deeper underground they travelled, and the deeper they travelled the more they found evidence of illegal, foul and horrific experiments. They were currently on the deepest level and as they approached the steel, vault-like door at the end, every member of the team felt a warning apprehension curling in their stomachs.
Adrenaline raced through their blood streams as the doors slid slowly open and each member dropped instinctually into a fighting-ready stance.
M'gann gasped.
"What…the hell…is this?" Artemis breathed out, the words ghosting over her almost unmoving lips.
The room before them was much like the one they had found Conner in, except, instead of a Superman clone sleeping in a tiny little pod, there were people, all with evidence of experimentation, locked into tiny little cages. Each person appeared to have some kind of gene transferred to them: in one cage were three girls each with mouse features and cowering as if they were afraid, and in another cage were seven men each with the genetic features of a rabbit. On one side of the room were tanks filled with water, and men and women sharing the traits of different kinds of fish. Spread around the room were tonnes of locked up people, all sharing the quality of having some kind of animalistic gene within their DNA that was mostly harmless.
Except one.
One cage lay with its door wide open, the lock snapped in half.
The dead bodies of scientists were scattered about, limbs missing and fear forever trapped within their dead eyes.
Blood-weeks old-stained the floor, the walls and even the ceiling and its coppery smell was strong.
Not as strong, however, as the odour of the rotting bodies permeating the room.
And dead centre of all of this, lay one person with the genetic traits of a wolf.
He was dead too.
It was not particularly hard, however, to come to the conclusion that the traits of this animal had made the person too violent for Cadmus to control and they had not realised this until many of their own were dead. As such, the wolf-man had been able to break free and take down a great many 'white coats' before he too was killed.
It was plain for all to see that he had put up a good fight.
"This is…" Kaldur trailed off, unable to explain the horror that soaked his voice.
As if the voice had shocked him from his stupor, Robin suddenly moved. He began to walk towards a section of the room that housed medical beds and the equipment needed for the experimentation that had occurred.
There was also a large computer.
Without acknowledging the others, Robin pulled a retractable cable from the computer in his glove, attached it to the Cadmus computer and began downloading all of their files, his eyes whizzing along the screen at a mile per minute as he read what he was downloading.
The rest of the team stared at him for a few minutes, their faces blank, before Kaldur shook himself and moved to begin his own work.
As if this was their cue the rest of the team moved as well-Artemis and Wally moving to guard and the rest of the team moving to collect data.
Robin had felt disgust swelling within him at the site of the room and bile had risen in his throat involuntarily. The massive amounts of blood painted across the entire room had reminded him all too vividly of the day his parents had died. However, despite being only 14, he was also a son of Batman and could handle a gruesome scene just as well as any long-term homicide detective.
He faced off against Joker multiple times after all.
Robin's eyes scanned over the information almost as quick as Wally could and as he read his eyes widened in a mixture of horror and revulsion. What Cadmus had been doing to people…My God he thought. They were trying to build an army of blood-thirsty creatures!
Robin opened a new document, needing to read something else, and jerked very slightly backwards. His brow furrowed and he leant forward as if it would help him take in the information even faster.
Suddenly he froze.
There before him, written in bold ink and signed by the Cadmus head, was a letter pertaining to what the remaining scientists should do with the facility and its failed experiments: Use it. Use it as a trap to lure in the Justice League and capture one of their members.
"Holy crap," he said before turning his head towards his team and shouting, "It's a trap! Get out! Go!"
"Shit!" Artemis and Wally said in sync and as they turned to move back to their teammates an explosion threw them into a wall, knocking Artemis unconscious and leaving Wally in such a daze he could not tell up from down.
As the explosion rocked the room Robin turned to finish scanning the text and disconnect his cable from the computer. His eyes grew cold at what he saw and if the Cadmus personnel could have seen the fury hidden within those blue depths they would have thought twice about continuing their attack.
As it was they could not see the fury behind the mask and instead moved to finish their well thought-out plan. The smoke and ash from the explosion clouded the senses of the team and so none noticed as one Cadmus member threw some kind of chemical bomb into the room. It released some kind of vapour that immediately affected the neurological system to the point that the receiver of said drug was knocked unconscious. Within minutes all of the team, except Wally who had been away from the chemical bomb and Robin who knew what to expect and had put on a face mask, were sound asleep.
Robin growled at the sight of his friends and moved to attack, his moves swift and graceful as a bird in flight. He threw a birdarang and clipped one agent in the leg and then descended upon them with his unique but effective style of hand-to-hand combat. He managed to break one's jaw with a roundhouse kick and shatter another's knee with another kick before the overwhelming numbers of Cadmus managed to hold him down long enough to administer the same sedative in needle form.
As he felt his wings snap and his body begin to nosedive Robin only had one thought-I failed but at least now I'll be the one they take.
Wally could not comprehend the sick feeling hovering in his throat. He could not comprehend the wet and warm feeling trickling down his neck from the back of his head. And he could not comprehend as he watched through glazed eyes the fight and fall of Robin. What did register with him, however, was his little bird being carried away.
Fury and anguish rose within him but his body would not move as he tried to scream after them.
"Robin!" It came out as barely a whisper, his mind not properly connecting with his mouth.
He glanced around the room, barely moving his throbbing head, at his fallen teammates and could feel nothing but despair at his inability to do anything.
For all the adrenaline that had been coursing through his and Artemis' systems they still could not react in time to save their little bird.
Cadmus had Robin.