Chapter One: The Fall

Even though he wasn't the team leader, Robin couldn't help but survey the team every once in a while. And he had to say, they came a long way. Conner was controlling his anger better, Artemis and Wally were starting to click as both teammates and friends, M'gann was growing in confidence, and Kaldur was managing everyone well despite some initial fears of becoming leader.

Aside from all his friends, he saw growth in himself, too. As Batman's partner, he had felt a sense of superiority and false maturity. He had elevated himself too highly and believed that he would always make the right decisions in battle, just like Batman. But he had to fall from that height eventually.

It was just a typical stealth mission when it happened. The team had done plenty by now, since Batman favored sending them into locations to gather information. This one was in the middle of a rainforest in the middle of nowhere. It had recently down poured, so he and his team were chilled to the bone as they sat at their various lookout spots.

The pairs were simple: Miss M and Superboy, KF and Aqualad, and him and Artemis. Solid teams.

Now if only they had a chance to show it. Dick realized the importance of stealth missions (how could he not, with Batman as his mentor), but these guys that were in the warehouse down below were bad news. It seemed like they were developing some kind of toxin to release on local villages.

"Robin, Artemis, do you see anything from your location?" Aqualad asked through telepathic link.

"No, nothing. No movement inside or out front. The camera's still lit up, but that's it," Robin reported.

"Understood. Miss Martian?"

"Nothing here either. To be honest, it's a little suspicious."

"I agree. Let's proceed closer. Exercise caution."

"Finally, I get to stretch my legs!" Robin exclaimed aloud, though his voice was still quiet.

"Yeah, agreed." Artemis stood up beside him, reaching for her bow. "How long were we out here?"

"Only about two hours."

"Yeah, only," she muttered.

Robin only briefly glanced at Artemis before he dropped down a few feet to the next ledge. She followed him, reaching out and grasping his shoulder once when her foot slipped.

"Okay?" he mouthed as he looked over his shoulder.

"Yeah," she whispered. "It's slick."

He only nodded in response and waited for her to release his shoulder. When she was steady, he jumped down again, to the final area. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the camouflaged Miss M and Superboy next to her. Miss M's camouflage doesn't do much good if you're going to stand out in the open, Superboy, Robin mused to himself.

Still, he also knew that KF and Aqualad were getting ready to enter at the east side, for him and Artemis to work their way west, and the other duo to head into the north entrance.

Robin stayed close to the treeline, as did Artemis. He pulled out a small gun and aimed it at the camera. A small electric bullet flew and landed right next to it, shorting out the device. He walked more quickly now and counted down the moments till he opened the door. Three..two….one…

He pulled it open and stepped inside, finding a dark corner to stand in. The long hallway that stretched before him showed him that they were in an area similar to an office. That meant that they were the pair most likely to retrieve the info.

Artemis came in right behind him, closing the door behind them. He stood and listened for just a brief moment, watching for any shadows as he tried to sense someone's presence.

Still nothing. He wanted to speak over the link with everyone, but he didn't want to interrupt them if they were in a tough position. Instead, he elected to continue forward, towards the office on the right. He tread quickly and lightly, shoving open the door and stepping inside. It was empty, save for a single computer.

"What is up with this?" Artemis muttered, looking around the room as Robin pulled out a connected and hooked up the desktop with his own tiny computer.

"No clue," he confessed quietly. "Batman said this place was taking care of a major shipment tonight. There's no way we missed it, but there's no one here, either."

"At least not in this part," she agreed. "Aqualad, Robin and I are clear on the west side. Have you guys seen anything?"

"We are in a warehouse," he responded. "Shipments are in boxes and ready to go. It is a liquid pathogen, as we feared."

"There's some over on the north side too," Superboy inserted. "Same thing. Nobody guarding it and everything ready to go."

"Robin's hacking their computer right now to see what's up," Artemis said for the sake of their team. "We'll let you know when we have something."

"We'll keep searching," KF broke in. "Be careful."

Robin may have been in the middle of hacking, but that didn't mean that he didn't hear Wally just then. That could have been a warning to both of them as a team, but Dick had a feeling it was more than that. Artemis and Wally hated each other at first, but now, they tended to gravitate towards one another in their free time. It almost seemed like they cared about each other. "So, you and Wally, huh?" Robin asked as he flipped through a few files on the digital monitor that hovered over his wrist.

"Me and Wally?" Artemis stuttered. "As if. He's so…" She trailed off, faining interest in the screen. Robin could have teased her more for it, but he was content just noting how hard it was for her to list off things she didn't like about Wally. That was all he needed to see her thoughts.

And anyway, the screen on front of him had some interesting info. "The potion is being financed by an unknown sponsor near Gotham," he said lowly. "Funds donated nearly three years ago for the development of this stuff."

"Does it say what it does yet?"

"Getting to it." He stared at the screen, wiping his brow as he tried to sift through the mounds of data. Most systems had some kind of organization, but this one was just piles of useless garbage. It wasn't even like there was a formula for the chemical, an engineer…anything.

"There's too much information," he said with a frown. "I can't sift through it all right now. I need more time to research it."

"We don't have time," Artemis reminded him. "This shipment's going out tonight. And if we don't find a way to stop it, then…"

"Stop."

"Wha-?"

"SHH!" Robin placed a hand on her shoulder and forced her to kneel down behind the desk. That was when she knew that he wasn't just interrupting for the sake of interrupting; he sensed a threat. She followed his gaze to the open door. Although she couldn't hear anything, she steadily drew her bow and aimed carefully. She had expected Robin to do the same, but he continued staring at the monitor over his arm. While she was partly annoyed with him for not just spelling everything out, she trusted his judgment. His age did not discount the wisdom that he obtained through years of experience and discipline.

Robin tried to sift through the information, running his own virus on it to unshuffle the material. He realized now that the system had had a safeguard to keep anyone from milling through it aimlessly. It rearranged every bit of detail to make him sit here longer and go through it.

The question was, was that just a technique to keep the information well hidden, or was it meant to waste his time. What if this was purposefully set for them to lead them into a trap-?

He suddenly gasped, closing out of the computer. "Artemis," he started. The noise he had heard was ringing clearly in his ear now: not footsteps. Ticking. Steady, slow, ticking.

"What?" she whispered right back.

Instead of answering her directly, he communicated with the whole team. "Everyone out, now!"

"Dude!" KF protested.

"It's a trap!" Robin looked over at Artemis and motioned for her to put the bow away. "It's a bomb."

And with that, she got the full message. "Bomb! Get as far away as you can!" she shouted across everyone's minds. She began to run towards the door with Robin right behind her. However, when she turned to go left, he turned to go right.

"Where are you going?!" she hollered.

"The data's incomplete! I need a sample if we're going to be able to analyze this and make a remedy."

"There's a bomb," she reiterated. "There's no time!"

"Go!" he ordered, shoving her shoulder to send her towards the door. He didn't even wait before he bolted towards the warehouse section of the building.

And while Artemis stood stunned, it was only for half a second. Robin wasn't the leader of the team, and even if he was, she wasn't going to leave him alone in a building that was rigged to blow. She darted after him to the end of the hallway, shoving the door open in time to see him run over to a crate and open it with a birdarang.

"We're clear," Miss Martian said over telepathic communication. "Aqualad?"

"We are also clear," he reported. "Robin? Artemis?"

"Robin's stubborn!" she reported angrily. "He's getting a sample."

"Robin, evacuate. That is an order!" Aqualad said.

"I got it!" Robin said, pocketing a tiny class vial in his belt. He looked over to Artemis and nodded, starting to run towards the door. She ran just as quickly as she did, especially when she saw a flashing red light out of the corner of her eye. The bomb was, of course, sitting in the corner of the room that was nearest the door.

"Robin!" she shouted, pointing at the device that was flashing more quickly now. He acknowledged her and reached into his belt. His grapple was in his hand and ready to go. When she was right beside him, he grabbed hold of her waist and shot the grapple up towards one of the rafters on the southern wall. There was a large window up there that they could escape through. It was as far away from the bomb as they could get at that moment. Artemis grabbed hold of him and felt the tug of the line rocket them towards that side of the building.

But then she felt heat wash over her, and a shockwave rock her very soul. Without looking over her shoulder, she knew that the bomb just detonated. She squeezed Robin harder and bit back a cry of fear, seeing the window just ahead. "Come on!" she shouted at no one and nothing in particular. So close…SO close…

Robin's grappling hood had stuck right into the concrete wall above the window. The bomb detonating sent waves through the entire building, making walls creak and crack wherever they were weak. And, because of Robin's hook, that portion of the wall was weak. Neither of them had the time to calculate that the wall was falling apart, and all of a sudden, the 3-foot chunk that the hook had been in started to fall.

And they fell along with it.

*…*…*…*…*…*

Outside the warehouse, the other four members of the team stared in horror as the fire overtook the building. Wally thought that one of them shouted for Robin and for Artemis, but he couldn't recognize the horrified voice. Maybe it was his own.

He lifted his arms to shield his face from the light and heat, not noticing any rubble coming in their general direction. They made it far enough away that they were safe, but their friends…

"…I don't sense Robin and Artemis in the telepathic communication," Miss Martian voiced after the initial horror halted and the building stood mostly steady.

Rob and Artemis being disconnected could mean two things; either they were unconscious, or they were dead.

Wally raced towards the building, hearing Aqualad shout after him. However, he also heard Superboy launch himself from the hill they were on and jump down to the building. Kaldur and M'gann stayed behind. They were both weak to fire, so they wouldn't be able to do anything to help any of them. If he and Conner failed with this, then four members of the team would be dead.

Conner landed at the door right before him and shoved his shoulder through it, stumbling inside into the fire. Wally didn't lose any momentum with the door and skidded to a halt right in the middle of the room. What he saw was horrifying; the bomb was obviously in the southwest corner, and when it hit, it seriously compromised the interior of the building. All the crates that had the drug in them were on fire as well, conduits for the rest of the building to catch and eventually crash down.

I know Dick, Wally thought to himself. He'd see the bomb. He'd get as far away from it as possible, which means… He looked over to the opposite wall, seeing part of the wall collapsed and a long line of metal rope spread across the floor. His eyes darted over the line and he followed it to the source: the boy and girl lying underneath one of the fallen rafters.

"Superboy!" Wally shouted, darting over to the two. He grabbed hold of the rafter and tried to lift it, only for it to creak slightly and remain stationary. He wasn't strong enough to save them by himself!

Of course, Conner immediately recognized what was wrong and hurried over. Robin was lying underneath Artemis, one of his hands seemingly resting on the small of her back. When they were falling, he had obviously kept her on top of him and used his body to break the fall. His tiny, fragile, body.

Superboy lifted the rafters and yelled at Wally to get his attention. "Grab 'em!" KF immediately reached in and pulled both of them out at once, releasing them from the rafters that had kept them trapped before. His instinct was to scream at them, to ask them if they were okay. But their closed eyes and labored breathing told him that they were far from okay.

KF reached down and picked up the person closest to him: Robin. After placing the rafters back on the ground and hearing the ominous groaning of the building, Conner grabbed Artemis. "Careful!" Wally snapped, looking at the unconscious archer.

"I know! Go!"

Wally could have sped out, and he probably should have, but he ran at a more regular pace so that he and Conner were together. If he saw anything coming, he'd be able to react faster to knock Conner and Artemis out of the way. Never mind that if the building collapsed on them, the four of them would all die.

Fortunately, for once, nothing went wrong. He and Conner and their unconscious comrades made it out of the building and back up the hill to M'gann and Kaldur before anything bad happened. In fact, it was only after they boarded the bioship ten minutes later that they saw another fireball completely overtake the building and the witnessed the structure fall.

Well, at least four of them witnessed it from the sky. The other two were lying in the med bay, unconscious and unaware of how worried their teammates were.

*…*…*…*…*…*

Author: I put the author's note here at the end, because let's face it-no one ever seems to read them at the start of the chapter. I've been a fan of Young Justice for only about a year, and I just can't get enough of it—especially not enough of my favorite character, Robin. So, I've been working on this story for months and decided it's finally time to start releasing chapters. I have 9 chapters done (over half my planned story), so that means I'll be posting it very regularly while I keep writing the remaining chapter. The story doesn't have a beta reader, since I'm always too eager to just post the chapters.

And now to get to your questions (if anyone is still reading this far): When's the next chapter going to be posted? The answer is, a few days, possibly. I want to stay as far ahead as possible so that we don't have any extended periods of no chapters being posted. If you want chapters to be posted faster, be sure to leave reviews—those always inspire me to write more.

Anddddd that's the end of my author note. Hope you enjoyed the chapter and look forward to the next one!

Peanut