Title: The Daring Dangers

Summary: When the Justice League suspects Haley's Circus of stealing weaponry, they send Red Arrow to catch the culprits. While he is determined to complete the mission, a group of seemingly ordinary circus kids catch his attention. Could they have something to do with the mission? Or does this run far deeper than anyone imagined?

Disclaimer: I don't own Young Justice or any of its characters.

Roy tugged absently on his collar, holding back a sigh as his feet met the gravely terrain. His face held a tight smile, but his lack of composure was making it slowly working its way into a frown. Being blinded by the colors of various flags and posters was not his first choice in how to spend an evening, or any time in his life. As much as he tried to avoid the bright colors though, it was hard to miss the loser's posters showcasing the traveling circus's widespread culture and talent across various countries. Paris, Venice, Rome.. where haven't these guys been?

I guess the more important question is where they have been.

Where they have been indeed. For an international circus, they seemed to have been taking a lot of tours in cities that held government weapons. Big ones. It also just so happens those said buildings have been robbed within twenty four hours of them being there.

It had been too many times to call it a coincidence, the League had said. The bright and peppy Ringmaster Haley obviously wasn't, couldn't be, as innocent as he seemed. It also seemed like without any evidence, he was going to get away with it.

So they sent in Roy.

That's probably the part that ticked him off the most. They had known full well by saying "please let me do something important" it did not mean for him to be a custodial staff member for some kiddie circus.

He was quickly approaching seventeen and still hadn't gotten an important mission, just lame stakeouts. Oliver had taken everything good, told him he wasn't ready. He had been a side—partner for years now! He was ready for something important for god's sake!

The chance at being undercover had once been a dream for him. Pretending to be a bad guy, taking down an operation from the inside. It was important. It was cool. They'd known, of course, and with that in mind the League had made sure to dangle a metaphorical carrot in front of him. Told him he was going to be a part of this undercover mission, that it was important. He envisioned getting the bad guy to trust him and slowly taking them out from the inside. He envisioned coolness, sexy ladies, and general badassery.

Then they sent him here. To be a janitor. His whole job was to sweep up elephant poop.

He could hear Oliver laughing at him now.

"That's about it, lass. I'll get yer rake." Came a voice from beside him. Oh yeah, he was supposed to be paying attention. "Get it all?"

"Uh, okay. Sure. Got it." He said doubtfully. The Irish man, who had introduced himself sometime when Roy wasn't listening, nodded and slapped him on the back. Hard.

Roy held back a wince as the man let out a loud laugh. "Gud! I'll getcher rake and leave ya to it," the man said brightly. Roy didn't have much to say to that, so he just sighed and looked around.

Several people were passing the temporary barn. Bright costumes, mainly, with bedazzled dresses and feathers galore. Seeing that much extra made him want to gag. I thought Superman was bad, but these people put him to shame.

He got handed a rake only seconds later. The man who's name he didn't care to remember gave him a nod and walked away, leaving Roy to the mess he was supposed to clean up.

I hate you Oliver. I hate you so much.

The day came and went. He barely had time for exploring, much less seeking out answers. He was checked on regularly, mostly people just wanting to know if he was alright. It would have been nice if it wasn't so annoying.

The people here were nice. Incredibly nice. So nice it almost made him want to throw up. Surely a place- not even a circus -could be filled with so many people who's whole job was to ask him if he was okay?

Not to mention that it made him wonder how they even needed a janitor. With so many people offering to help, it seemed everyone was perfectly okay with dropping what they were doing to lend a hand.

Really, it would have been nice. Helpful, even, but he needed a minute alone to figure out a plan of getting into Haley's office. The League hadn't been very helpful with that part, so he was left to do it on his own.

"Hey my dude, need a hand? I know it's your first day—"

Roy's head snapped to the voice. He didn't know what his face displayed, but whatever it was was enough to scare the poor man off.

There goes an information source.

What he wouldn't do to throw his rake at every one of these people and indignantly storm in Hailey's office…

Stay calm, Roy. Getting fired on your first day wouldn't be a good way to investigate. He could hear Oliver saying. You'll have other days. You have a month to complete the mission.

Yeah, well, shut up. Roy shot back. He didn't care if it wasn't really Oliver, or if he couldn't hear him. Roy was tired, his back was sore, and he smelled like sweat, dirt, and things he didn't want to know about.

Eventually, dinner time came. After a quick shower, Roy found himself sitting at a table of children munching away on their dinner. They seemed to all be younger than himself.

Good, Roy. Children talk without thinking. His inner-Oliver praised. Get them talking, you maybe can find a baseline

"Hey, you a new guy?" One suddenly said, and everyone directed their attention toward Roy. All according to plan. "Haven't seen you around before. Plus, usually only we sit here."

Roy gave them a charming smile. "Yeah, I'm new. Started yesterday, but officially started today."

"Cool, dude. We're red hair buddies!" The kid said brightly. Roy couldn't help but raise an eyebrow. Quirky kid, can't be older than fifteen.

The blonde rolled her eyes, reaching over the table to smack the red head. "Ignore him. He's stupid. And you can sit here if you'd like. I'm Ar—" she stopped suddenly, eyes flying to the tall gift next to her with wide eyes. After a moment, the girl smoothly picked up where she left off. It happened so fast he would have missed it if not for his years of training. "—Diane." She smiled brightly. "The idiot is Dane."

Dane glared at her. "I'm not an idiot!" He said tightly, but seemed on edge. Within seconds, the table went from at ease to silently sending him suspicious glances. What happened? Did I say something?

"Yes you are." Said the youngest. "Call me Dan. That guy doesn't really talk, but he's Dave." Dave gave a nod of acknowledgement, but is he glaring at me? Maybe he glares at everyone… "Then there's Dean next to me, and next to Diane is Dawn." She gave a little wave, and Dean gave him an unsure smile.

"I'm Ron. Ron Green." Was it super cheesy? Yes. But to be fair, his last name was not his idea. Nor his choice. Oliver is going to be the death of me. "I'm a janitor, mostly for the animals." It took everything in him not to vomit at admitting that. The animals stunk. He still wasn't quite sure he had gotten everything off of him.

But that wasn't the point. The group seemed to be retracting into themselves the longer this conversation went on. Dan seemed to be taking the lead, though, at least trying not to be rude. "Good. Zekee was really sad after Gunther left, they had really bonded. She could use another handler."

Roy fought a wince and instead smiled. Handler my ass. I'm not here to bond with an elephant. "Yeah, she seemed pretty sweet. I was really excited to meet, uh, Zeeke." He said casually despite the fact that he didn't even know she had a name until two seconds ago. "What do you all do?" He asked casually, playing with his food on his tray. He needed to have a good relationship with these kids. He doubted they'd know anything, but maybe their parents would. Not to mention if the kids liked him, it would be easy to get the adults to.

A moment of pause overtook the group, exchanging glances like they were communicating silently. "We are an act, actually." The dark skinned boy, Dean said. "We are the ending."

Roy caught himself from gawking. A group of kids was the ending act? Jesus, the circus must be desperate. There's no way a group of kids could pull a showstopper ending. "Hey, that's cool. I'll have to see you guys in action sometime." And probably risk wanting to shoot my brains out. Yikes.

"Totally," Dan said with a smile. "You should come down to the tent tonight. We're all practicing for tomorrow's show. You could get a sneak peak!"

A sneak peak? At this lame circus? What a joke.

But, A voice he could only describe as "Oliver's lecturing voice", you could make small talk with some of the adults, learn a little more about what's going on.

I hate it when you're right.

With that in mind, Roy gave his biggest, crowd-pleasing smile. "Yeah, sounds fun."

Dinner was over quickly, and the six teens trudged back to the boy's train car to discuss the day's events.

"I don't get it," Wally said miserably, plopping into the bean bag chair. "We've had years of good luck. Now something bad is happening to us! Now!"

Dean frowned, nodding to Wally's statement. "Yes. The only question is which one of us he's here for. We all have our reasons for being a target."

Artemis crossed her arms, contemplating. "It's probably one of us four being hunted honestly. No offense Wally, but you don't have much of a reason to be tracked."

Wally shrugged at that. "None taken. I doubt my dad sent someone for me, especially since he's in jail for drugs now." Wally shivered. It was good he'd gotten out when he did. His dad was already bad with alcohol, but drugs? He couldn't even imagine it.

"Could be me too," Dick spoke up suddenly, interrupting Wally's thoughts. "I may have gone overboard with my hacking lately, could have been someone to shut me up."

"Either way," Wally said sadly, "we've all got to watch our backs now. This guy could be after any of you guys—"

"Um, guys?" It was the first time she spoke up, alerting the other five to look at her. She shook her head, lightly, looking a little uneasy. "I actually don't think he's here for us."

Dick turned around and raised an eyebrow. "What do you mean, he's not here for us? He sat at our table and asked us questions, Meg."

"I know, I know," Megan admitted. "That is strange, but here's the thing. I wasn't able to go very far into his mind without alerting him, but it seemed the secrets he was searching for were not us. Something else."

Artemis leaned against the wall, frowning intensely. "I don't get it. What could he be here for then? Ron, if that's even his name, is here to find a secret, right?" Megan nodded toward her while Artemis crossed her arms. "Unless there's some sort of buried treasure on this train, I don't know what other secret there could be."

Conner looked towards Dick, who was typing intensely away on his computer. "Have something, Dick?" Conner asked, making the boy in question look in his direction.

"I've searched every kind of web I could think of. Deep web, dark web, a few secret organizations… there's nothing involving Haley's Circus." He said critically.

Megan sighed, "maybe he's here by himself? Or maybe his secret is about himself? I don't know, I could be wrong about it all. I don't think I need to remind you all I have no formal training, just my instincts. It's very possible I'm wrong."

Conner shook his head, placing a hand on her shoulder. "I've known you for years, Megan. You're never wrong about our safety."

As the others chatted, Kaldur quietly observed, thinking. Here for a secret, here for a secret. What could it be? Haley's Circus "secret"... His eyes searched the walls, looking for clues. Various postcards, selfies of the group, and posts littered the boy's train car over adventures. They even had a few news clippings of their act being broadcasted.

Wait? News clippings?

Could it be?

"Dick?" He said softly, alerting the room of his presence once again. "Remember that news article, the one we all laughed at?"

"What? The one about the 'connection' between the circus and the thefts going on? Yeah, I do. What about it?" Dick asked, raising an eyebrow. He doesn't seriously think….

"The last theft we heard about was Gotham, yeah?" He asked with a frown. "But we haven't been looking into it since then. Where have they been lately?"

"Well let's see. Last we heard Gotham, then Central, then— holy shit."

The six of them crowded the computer, cringing when they saw the pattern. "We've been at every one of those places in the last year," Megan said worriedly. "Someone is investigating us."

"Not just someone," Dick said darkly. "The Justice League."

Roy found himself whistling along to the tune that had been playing over and over on the loudspeaker and hating himself for it. It was so freaking annoying. It was an earworm if he ever heard one, and he was about three seconds away from finding his bow and arrows and shooting the speakers down.

He deserved so much more than this.

"Damn you, Oliver!" Roy muttered under his breath. "You said I'd get to do a cool mission. This isn't cool." After another moment of self loathing, he mentally dropped this issue. This was getting him nowhere. The faster he completed the mission, the faster he could get out of here.

The big tent was indeed hard to miss, sitting right in the center of the grounds they had picked. It was also not guarded at all, so despite the fact he had no business watching them practice, slipping inside had been a breeze. It left him wondering if the League was even right about this whole thing, they barely even had security. Surely if Haley was some criminal mastermind, they'd hire some decent guys who didn't take hour long "smoke breaks"?

The bright lights blinded him for a moment, a contrast to the dimly lit grounds. They didn't keep the place well lit when performances weren't happening, something about money or whatever. He didn't particularly listen to whatever Haley was saying when he was showing him around.

It didn't matter, because whatever he was thinking stopped when his eyes refocused.

He knew he was a few minutes late to practice starting, and he also knew from the gossip that they were having the last act, or the kids, go first, but what he did not know was that he would walk into the see the most gravity-defying, most impressive, most everything stunt he's ever seen.

He watched in amazement as there was fire, throwing knives and an impressive bow and arrow show, acrobatics, and a freaking tornado light show in the center of the tent. This couldn't be the kids. He had to hear wrong. He had to. Kids can't pull these kinds of stunts!

But as the act came to a close, he found himself walking closer along with a group of other performers and saw that it was, indeed, a bunch of kids.

"I'm dreaming," he mumbled to himself. "I've got to be dreaming."

Getting closer still, Roy was able to make out their features. They definitely weren't tense, not like they had been, instead looking relaxed and happy. Looking at the other performers, it looked like a genuine family.

What are they going to do when Haley's acts are brought to light?

It was a question he hadn't considered before. He didn't know who the kid's parents were, but it was obvious they weren't related. They'd probably get split up as the parents were forced to find jobs.

But.. it's for the better. He reminded himself. Haley is a criminal, and these guys are just innocent bystanders. These kids probably don't even know what's happening.

Still, he couldn't help but feel bad. These kids looked really close. He never really had a sibling, or even a friend, he could be like that with.

Enough stalling, Harper. Get your ass over there. Said his Oliver-voice, and Roy couldn't help but feel like it was for the best.

Putting a smile on his face, Roy walked over to the group. They had gotten away from the crowd, who was quickly moving on to the next performance, and were now talking about ideas before the next big show. "Hey guys! I saw your act, it was awesome? How do you even do that stuff?" His eyes flickered to the blonde girl, Diane, and couldn't help but smile a real smile. "That was really cool Diane. I dabble in archery, but wow. I could never do something like that. Especially so young!

In all honesty, he was really curious. These kids, all of them not older than sixteen, were far too advanced in their retrospective talents to be considered normal. Actually, they, especially the blonde archer, were a lot like him.

Only difference was that he was trained by the literal best archer in the world. There was no way they could learn to do that from a circus.

The all looked up at him, giving him smiles that he couldn't help but feel were fake. "You know, lots of practice." Dan, if he remembered correctly, said. "Just like everything else, right?"

He looked at Diane again, an eyebrow raised. Sure, maybe his acrobatics, he didn't know anything about that, but her archery? That kind of skill took years. Surely she couldn't say—

"Uh, yeah. Lots of practice." Diane muttered, looking away. "My… dad was really into it, so when he.. died I just picked it up."

Roy... couldn't believe what he was hearing. He saw her act. He told her he dabbled in archery. Surely she didn't expect him to believe she wasn't trained? That she learned by herself?

And then there was the red head, Dane, who was shifting nervously. He wasn't for sure, be he could've sworn he saw him inside the tornado. Like he was creating it. Not to mention the freaking hulk guy lifted crazy amounts of weight. He was like sixteen! He couldn't pass that off as just training, right? And the dagger throwing! That had to have been from training.

He wanted to call them out on their bullshit. He wanted to know what was actually happening. He wanted to know who trained Diane and Dean, how Dan and Dawn looked like they were flying, how Dave could lift and throw barrels that far in that air like it weighed nothing, and how Dean seemed to be running so fast he caused a tornado.

"Yeah, makes sense." He said instead, giving them a strained smile underneath the weight of his thoughts. "Sorry, I'm probably keeping you from your parents. Just wanted to let you know I liked your show."

As he watched them walk away, his mind raced with questions he couldn't ask.

Keep focused, Roy. Said not-Oliver, forcing him away from his thoughts. The kids don't matter. The weapons do. They're just a distraction.

Just a distraction. Yeah.

So why, then, did he get the feeling they were the biggest secret the circus had to offer?

Hello everyone! It's good to be back! Sorry this took so long.. I literally have no excuse besides no motivation. My brain needs a consistent schedule to do, well, anything, and the whole Corona thing threw off absolutely everything. I promise to be more consistent from now on! :)

And yeah, I know we're moving super fast. This first (official) chapter seemed to advance the plot a lot, but I promise it's part of the plan! The fact of the matter is that the whole mission thing is like... well, that's a spoiler, isn't it? You'll just have to read to find out!

Now, to answer some REVIEWS:

Glazaro: Thanks bro :) it's good to be back! I really missed writing.. and this was honestly such a fun story for me to write, even if I never got fast the first two chapters. I'm glad it's back in action.

MobkeyBoy0118: Thank you so much! Right now it's very similar to the original, but I'm taking it in a very different direction that I planned when I first released it. I hope you enjoy future chapters.

doggylove613: Thanks! To be honest I think it's a pretty original premise? I've never actually seen this particular take. I don't know, don't quote be I could be totally wrong. Anyway, thank you for your review! I do hope you enjoy the book!