chapter one - independence day

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GOTHAM CITY PARK
JULY 4th — 12:01 EDT

"what's it with these guys and targeting random people?" dick grayson asked. "i'm all down for terror but, like, at least terrorize someone who's wronged you."

bruce wayne looked disappointed at the comment.

"look at him!" dick continued, gesturing to where mister freeze was disturbing picnics and families alike. "does he really have to do that? he is turning gothamites into gothamitesicles and for what?"

"so why don't you go stop him?" bruce growled. something about being in a giant bat costume in the middle of day seemed to anger him.

dick smirked, pulling two bird-a-rangs from his utility belt and flinging them at the costumed man. they both hit his cold gun, letting the remaining civilians escape from the park. it was all in the flick of the wrist.

mister freeze glared at the bird-a-rangs before seemingly realizing that they meant trouble and looking around anxiously. it was sorta funny, in a mean way. but, then again, he had just killed (or at least really injured) a group of civilians, so the animosity probably evened out.

dick jumped out from where he and bruce were watching from, landing in front of mister freeze. he smiled sweetly at the man, pulling another bird-a-rang out.

"boy wonder? frankly, i'm underwhelmed."

dick threw the projectile between his eyes. or rather, it would've been between his eyes if it weren't for the oxygenated fishbowl that was his head. if not for the fact that it kept him alive, it also served. lady gaga would definitely wear it.

the fishbowl cracked down the centre and mister freeze shrieked. he pulled up his gun, aiming it at dick's chest. the ebony shrugged, opening his arms as wide as he could.

and yet the blast never came. this was most definitely due to bruce swooping down and punching that fishbowl hat until it came off in shards.

"you've gotta stop doing that." bruce gruffed, walking over to dick.

"doing what?"

"accepting criminal's shots."

"i could see you jumping in, b." dick rolled his eyes. "it's not like he was going to pull that trigger."

"one day someone will."

dick awkwardly looked away, landing his view on mister freeze, who was definitely choking to death from a lack of helmet. "you're gonna murder him by proxy."

"he's fine."

HALL OF JUSTICE
JULY 4th — 14:03 EDT

"how is it that the fastest men on earth are always late?" green arrow sighed, staring at the parking lot.

"it's because they're the fastest," dick explained. "they don't factor travel time in when planning and so they're always late. also, they get distracted really easily."

roy harper folded his arms crossed, imitating his mentor. "it was a rhetorical question, robin. are you a fucking dumbass?"

dick struggled to not laugh. seeing as he was in the presence of three of the most powerful people in the world and their mentees, it felt wrong. but, then again, he had pretty much known everyone since he was nine.

luckily, the spotlight was taken off him when the two people they were waiting for finally arrived. the two fastest men in the world: barry allen and his charming nephew, wally west.

wally's fire-orange hair was messy from the run and his freckles stood out marvellously against his slightly-rosy cheeks. all in all, he was so fucking pretty.

it was still hard for dick to wrap his mind around the fact that wally was his boyfriend.

"awh man," wally sighed, turning to his uncle. "i knew we would be the last ones here."

~

"welcome to the hall of justice!" green arrow announced, walking backward toward the front doors.

it would've felt more special if it wasn't for the dozens of onlookers standing only a metre away from the group. especially when they kept yelling things like, "robin's so short!" "aqualad's so hot!" and "there's flash jr! he's so cute".

"how come you get praise and i get insulted?" dick whispered to wally.

"at least they got your name right. the only time i get called kid flash is when i am physically inside central city."

dick laughed, nudging wally with his shoulder. "you didn't hold up your end of the bargain when you became a hero. you deserve it."

"i lost a bet and you wanted me to go my entire career as gingersnap?!"

"it's the right thing to do, ginge."

green arrow grinned as he held the doors open for the rest of the heroes. "welcome to the first day of the rest of your life."

well, that was fucking cheesy.

"have all four sidekicks ever been in the same place at once?" wally asked, looking around in awe.

"we're partners," dick and roy corrected him at the same time.

"sorry, i misspoke." wally said, following green arrow into the hall. "this is overwhelming."

"you're overwhelmed, freeze was underwhelmed, why isn't anyone ever just whelmed?" dick asked.

the foyer of the hall of justice answered that question. sure, dick had seen photos, but it was bigger in real life. way bigger.

the roof stretched all the way up to the heavens, windows and mosaics on every wall. in the very centre of the room was a collection of statues that rivalled christ the redeemer (Big Brazil Jesus). they were made of stone and chiseled to look like each league member.

"you have access to every room in here, the training room, armoury, and even the library," green arrow continued. "this is the first step to becoming full-fledged league members."

the group walked into the library, making themselves at home. it wasn't much of a library per se, more of a sitting room. there were only a few bookshelves and the books looked like they had never been opened. the wayne library was arguably much better.

"we need to debrief on today's events - four ice villains attacking simultaneously is not a coincidence," bruce said, and the justice league members began to head out of the library.

"that's it?" roy said, making them turn back around.

"it's a first step. you've been granted access few others get," green arrow assured him.

"oh really?" roy sneered, gesturing to the window just above them, where a gallery for photographers and reporters was located. about a dozen of them were in there now, snapping photos of the altercation. "this is just a glorified backstage pass. who cares what side of the glass we're on?"

"roy, you just need to be patient," green arrow said, placing a hand on roy's shoulder (which was immediately shrugged off).

"what i need is respect. you're treating us like kids, like... like sidekicks." his tone was laced with poison. "we deserve better than this; this was supposed to be our first step onto the league. you're all just playing their game."

roy stared at the teens expectedly. dick agreed with some of his statements but, on the contrary, they were kids.

"sure, but i thought that step one was just a tour of the hq," wally said, shrugging.

"this isn't even their real headquarters!" roy yelled. "it's just a show for tourists. the real base is an orbiting satellite called the watchtower."

kaldur and wally looked shocked at the information, but dick had kind of assumed that. there was no way that this blatant tourist trap, in the very middle of washington, d.c., was where the league made their plans. that would be idiotic.

the watchtower being in space, though? he had never considered that.

bruce crossed his arms, glaring at green arrow, who shrivelled up in the presence of the batglare. "i thought we could make an exception?"

"see?" roy continued. "you're all a bunch of lying basta-"

"stand down, son," aquaman cut in.

"or what? you'll send me to my room?" roy pulled off his hat, throwing it to the ground. "i thought i was your partner, oliver. i guess not anymore."

the room was silent, ice-cold and silent. green arrow picked up roy's hat, staring at it sentimentally, but didn't even say goodbye. it was so quiet that dick thought he might suffocate until:

"i guess they're right about you three." roy didn't even bother looking at them, he just opened the door out of the room. "you're not ready."

the moment that the door closed behind roy, an alarm began blaring through the room. after a few seconds it ceased and live feed of superman appeared on a giant computer on the far wall. everyone turned their attention to him.

"superman to justice league: there's been an explosion at cadmus, it's caught on fire."

"this would be the perfect opportunity to sweep it for-" bruce started, mischievous as ever.

"zatara to justice league: the sorcerer wotan is using the amulet of aten to blot out the sun. requesting full league response."

"the local fire department has cadmus under control, all leaguers rendezvous at zatara's location. batman out," bruce said, cutting the calls with both superman and zatara. "stay here."

"what? why?" dick asked, outraged. there was no way that they were pulling this shit right after roy left.

"you're not trained to work with this team," barry explained. "there will be other missions."

"for when you're ready," aquaman added. it was so unnecessary to say and yet he still said it. at that moment, dick decided to hate him.

"we'll be back soon," bruce told dick as the leaguers made their way out of the room. "stay here."

"when we're ready?" wally scoffed. "how will we ever be 'ready' when they treat us like that?"

"my king..." kaldur said, solemnly. "i thought he trusted me."

"they don't trust us with anything! they have a secret hq in space!" wally groaned, before turning to dick quickly. "you didn't know about that, right?"

"i would've told you, kf. you know i would." dick yawned, looking up at where the photographers and journalists were packing up and leaving. "maybe we should've left with speedy."

"what was batman talking about?" kaldur asked. "about needing an excuse to look around cadmus?"

dick pursed his lips, the name sounded so familiar, but from where? "i'm not fully sure... but i can find out."

dick walked over to the absolutely massive computer with a grin. it was passcode protected, as all things should be, but that meant nothing to dick.

"what are you doing?" kaldur asked, watching as dick cracked his knuckles.

access denied

"yeah, no." dick cackled, opening the firewall's source code and reverse-engineering a back-way through. after about 30 seconds of recoding, he broke through into a wonderfully organized system of league-related files.

"holy shit," wally remarked, slightly awe-some. "how'd you do that?"

"it's the same system as the batcave."

"hacker robin so sexy."

"and swag," dick added, grinning and hoping that he wouldn't blush while reading out important documents. "okay, project cadmus is a genetics lab based here, in d.c."

"that's it?"

"yeah, that's all it says. whatever suspicions they had about this place, they only spoke about them face-to-face."

"that's ominous," kaldur said. "do you suppose we should check it out?"

"solve their case before they do?" wally grinned. "i'm in if di- if robin's in."

"it would be poetic justice," kaldur proposed, turning toward dick.

"they certainly love justice; of course i'm in."

~

"it's definitely on fire," was the first thing out of wally's mouth when they walked into the cadmus parking lot.

dick nodded, awkwardly waving to the firefighters struggling to stop the raging inferno. they yelled something at him but, in all honestly, dick wasn't exactly sure what they had said.

"yeah," he gave them a thumbs up. "we're here to help."

wally took that to heart, running up the building toward two scientists waving hurriedly for help. just in time, too, as the moment wally got up there, the building shook with an explosion, knocking one of the men off. wally's fast refluxes caught him immediately, no sweat.

unfortunately, he fell off of the building while saving the guy, and was now dangling from a windowsill 10 metres off the ground.

"ever so smooth," dick commented.

"does he always have to run ahead?" kaldur sighed. "we need a plan."

dick agreed, but he had already made his own plan, and that plan did not invlove kaldur. the plan had two steps: 1) save his handsome boyfriend before his grip gave out and 2) dashingly blow up cadmus just to spite bruce.

dick ran over to where wally was struggling, pulling his to-go grappling hook (opposed to his stay-at-home grappling hook) out of his utility belt and shooting it at the crane-looking thing the firefighters were standing on? where they were spraying the hose from. dick didn't know the name for it. Big Fence Supreme? Machiavelli's Box?

dick flew up on the grappling hook, swinging once he neared the top, and jumping right into the window that wally was. at haly's circus people would have cheered, but the firemen just yelled at him.

"someone said there was a damsel in distress?" dick smirked, pulling wally into the building. he landed on the floor.

"you must be mr charming," wally smirked, resting his head on one hand and putting the other one on his hip.

"please, call me dick. dick charming."

wally bursted out laughing at that, pulling himself off of the floor and wrapping his hands around his boyfriend's waist. "one day we'll be on the league, right?"

"if we don't die before then."

"i'm serious."

"i am too." dick sighed, brushing wally's hair out of his face. "of course we'll be on the league. now, we should probably get to work or else kaldur's gonna be pissed." he gestured toward the few computers in the room.

not a minute later, kaldur appeared in the window, riding on his own hydrokinetic whirlpool. he climbed in, somehow perfectly dry. "appreciate the help, guys."

"i assume you got those scientists down?" dick asked, scrolling through documents and speed-reading as fast as he could. kaldur didn't reply, but dick assumed that he nodded. "you handled it! besides, we're here to investigate. i'm not a firefighter."

dick continued surfing through the files, finding one about the theory of suggestive telekinesis: proven that peaked his interest. he saved it to his hologlove for later before realizing that his friends had disappeared.

"why're the elevators still running?" wally asked, walking toward the end of the hall. "fire protocol is to turn them off, every building has to. especially a laboratory."

dick walked up to the elevator, staring at it in shock. "astounding... if this is what i think it is..."

"what?" wally asked.

dick typed a few things on his hologlove, bringing up a near-replica image of the elevator standing in front of them. "it's a sliver slip express elevator: high speeds for moving through skyscrapers."

"this building is definitely not a skyscraper." wally grinned. "time for poetic justice."

kaldur cracked open the elevator doors with his own bare hands. dick and wally watched, for it was a good show. attractive guy with big muscles flexes them for justice, what more could you want?

dick walked over to the newly-opened doors, peering down what looked like an endless drop. it was daunting, seeing a hole to nowhere. dick wanted to simultaneously jump down it and also get the fuck out of there.

"i guess that's why they need an express elevator," wally said.

dick snapped out of his endless-pit trance, shooting his grappling hook at the top of the shaft and jumping down. it was exhilarating, falling down that fast and that far in almost pitch black darkness.

and then it stopped.

"i'm... i'm at the end of my rope," dick muttered, this had never happened before. he swung himself a couple times before jumping onto the tiny, two inch ledge on the side of the shaft. the wall said sub-level 26 on it.

dick sat down, pulling out his hologlove and began looking through everything keeping them out. slowly, kaldur and wally also slid down the rope, each making their jumps onto the ledge.

"i bypassed security," dick said, grabbing wally's hand and standing up. "let's check out project cadmus."

kaldur pulled open the door to sub-level 26 and the three of them walked in. it looked rather unsupposing, just dull, grey walls and a long hallway.

wally ran off, as idiotic as that seems. perhaps he was sweeping the floor for anything—or anyone—harmful, but dick wasn't sure. he and wally didn't work together professionally very often, so this was all sort of new.

"wait!" kaldur yelled, always the observant.

dick's jaw dropped open as a trio of beasts, larger than anything alive he had ever seen before, paraded down the hall. directly on top of where wally had stopped.

the two ran over, watching as the beasts slowly walked away. "what the hell?" wally yelled. "what the fuck. who?"

dick nodded, "i see why they keep them on sub-level 26."

"the abomination level."

dick grinned, pulling wally back to his feet. "what else do you think is down here?"

dick's question was answered almost immediately. wally had chosen a door at random, letting his boyfriend hack into it while he and kaldur gossiped about roy.

the door opened after a few seconds, revealing a giant room stocked with hundreds of blue containers. it looked like costco on drugs.

"i understand being whelmed now," dick said, staring up at the containers. in each one was... an animal?

"this actually makes a lot of sense," wally said, walking further into the room. "they're generating their own power so that they stay off the grid. they probably use 10 000 kilowatts a day to run this place. these... things must be bred for electricity."

dick watched how excited wally seemed to be at the mere science of it all. he was so cute. kaldur started going on about some myth and dick walked over to one of the several computers spread out around the room.

"they're called genomorphs," he said, scanning all the information on the species that he could. "super-strength, telepathy, razor-sharp claws? they're all living weapons."

"cadmus is creating an army," wally said, watching adamantly as dick continued to read through the file. wally could read so, so much faster than his boyfriend, but he still went at dick's pace.

"there's something else." dick pursed his lips, typing on the computer with a frown. "project kr—it's triple encrypted. i can hack into it, but it would take a while."

"stop right there!" a voice yelled from behind them.

the trio all jumped, staring at the person who'd caught them, but their composure seemed to calm when they recognized him. the man crossed his arms, "robin? aqualad and kidflash? what are you doing here?"

"hey! he got your name right!" dick muttered, laughing to himself. wally seemed less than pleased.

"guardian? what are you doing here?" wally asked, eyeing the pack of geno-things he had brought with him.

dick watched the altercation from his peripheral vision, but his main focus was downloading every lick of information on project kr and the genomorphs onto his hologlove.

"i'm head of security," guardian continued. "you're trespassing."

"you work here?" wally asked, shocked. "as if the league approves of this little weapon breeding centre."

"what? weapon breeding? what?" guardian said, sounding genuinely confused. after a couple seconds, though, his violent demeanour returned. "attack them, no mercy."

like the pavlovians they had been bred to be, the geno-guys at guardian's side immediately ran at the trio. dick threw down a smoke bomb to give wally and kaldur some cover. with the entirety of the project kr files downloaded, dick pointed his grappling hook at a nearby rafter and flew out of there.

he jumped off of the rafter, landing next to the far wall of the room. he ran down the nearest hallway, scanning the walls for anything he could use to access the security systems.

he found a panel almost immediately, plugging his hologlove in and starting to type as fast as he could. dick felt sort of bad for just leaving wally and kaldur in there to fight those guys, but they were well-trained, and it was better to have an escape than to hope that they could get rid of every single genomorph inside this place.

"way to be a team player, rob." wally appeared beside him.

"weren't you right behind me?" dick asked, unplugging his hologlove and grabbing wally's hand, pulling him down the hallway. "i got us an escape plan. where's aqualad?"

"i thought he was right behind me?"

"oh, i see." dick scoffed. "you get mad at me for doing the exact same thing that you just did to aqualad. smooth move, kf."

luckily, their argument ceased as kaldur came running toward them, full speed. an army of those purple people eaters were behind him, catching up fast.

kaldur jumped into the elevator, the doors closing right on the geno-cunts thanks to dick's awesome button-pressing skills. he was 90% sure he just squished off a few of their ligaments.

the atmosphere in the elevator was tense, but it certainly got worse when everyone realized that an army of genomorphs did not change dick's plan in the slightest.

"we are going down?" kaldur asked, gesturing to where their floor number had gone from 26 to 31 in no time.

"out is up, robin." wally groaned.

"and project kr is down, kidflash."

"this is out of control," kaldur said, rubbing his temples. "perhaps... perhaps we should contact the league."

but before the teens even considered the idea, the elevator dinged and opened to... what could only be described as meat. dick ran out of the elevator immediately, the fleshy floor squishing underneath each step.

"we're already here, it couldn't hurt to check it out." wally shrugged, following dick out.

"fork in the road," kaldur observed, walking over to where the dynamic (gay) duo was crouching behind a fleshy log. "which way?"

"you know what i always say?" wally smirked. "always stay left." he and dick said it at the same time.

unfortunately, out of the left hallway came a lanky dude with glowing horns. was it satan? probably not! but one could never be too sure.

horny satan lifted his hand up, thereby picking up a few objects with telekinesis. he then threw these at the heroes with surprisingly good aim.

dick ducked, throwing a bird-a-rang at the guy. he totally caught it, being all 'i can control stuff with my mind' and all, but it was enough of a distraction that the three of them could run down the right hallway.

running down a squishy hallway was not fun and dick's day got even worse when the end came into view. a giant metal door was slowly shutting, turning it into a dead end.

luckily, wally, being the reincarnated einstein he was, quickly picked up a giant metal rod, wedging it between the doors. "quick!" he yelled, beckoning for them to corner themselves inside a metal room. what could go wrong?

dick hopped through the door, making a bee-line for the closest computer in sight. kaldur seemed to have kicked the metal rod out (based on the noise) and the door shut tight, locking them in.

"i disabled the door," dick announced. "i figured it would be best if they couldn't ambush us."

"we are trapped." kaldur pouted, killing the mood.

"guys?" wally asked, running a hand through his hair. "i think i found what project kr is."

dick ran over to wally, watching as he pressed a key on the computer and a light in the centre of the room turned on, pulling his attention to it. the light was coming from a giant cryogenic pod with a-

"IS THAT A CLONE?!" dick yelled, running over to the pod. "no fucking way! no fucking way."

wally seemed to share his excitement, walking over to stare up at the clone. "the atomic symbol for krypton? these guys are nerds."

dick grabbed wally's hands, holding them by his chest. "nerds who just cloned superman, walls."

"robin?" kaldur called, gesturing to the computer sitting right beside the cryogenic pod. "can you hack into this?"

dick shrugged, bypassing the security within seconds. "i can hack into anything."

"true! he's wanted by almost 100 countries for leak-"

wally's sentence was cut short by dick lobbying his own cape directly at his boyfriend. "okay, weapon designation: superboy. a clone force grown in sixteen weeks? from dna aquired from both superman and a donor."

"stolen from big s, more like it," wally said, walking over to them. he was now wearing dick's cape. it was NOT a fashion statement.

"the solar suit allows him to absorb yellow sun radiation 24/7," dick continued. "those things are genomorph gnomes: telepathic, force-feeding him an education."

"and who-knows-what else," wally said, reluctantly letting dick have his cape back. "they're making superman's son into a slave, a- a weapon."

"now is the time to contact the league," kaldur stated, pressing the communication button on is belt, but nothing happened.

"there's no service," dick muttered. "we're 52 floors underground."

the trio went silent, all staring at the clone inside the pod. they had no way to call for backup, nobody knew where they were, and an army of g-trolls were probably on their way to break them out of this room. they were slowly cascading their way onto being on a buzzfeed unsolved: true crime episode.

"it feels wrong to just leave him here," wally said, gesturing to the clone.

"i agree. set him free."

that was not the opinion that dick had figured kaldur would side with, as he was always a nut about safety. releasing an alien clone trained for war from a cryogenic chamber seemed like the least safe thing to do in this situation but yolo, right?

dick clicked a couple keys and a lot of "are you sure" buttons, and eventually the pod opened up. the dude inside looked very angry.

and in the blink of an eye he acted upon that anger, flying toward kaldur and giving him a good three punches in the face. dick's face hurt just from watching it happen.

"woah!" wally said, running over and grabbing the superboy's arm to prevent him from punching kaldur anymore. "we're on your side!"

annddddd superboy punched wally right in the chest, sending him flying across the room. he smashed into something made of glass before landing on the concrete floor.

dick clenched his fists. "you wanna hurt wally? you have to go through me," he yelled, punching superboy right in the face.

the punch distracted him enough for kaldur to kick him, sending him stumbling backward. dick then pulled out his trusty emergency taser, hoping to end this once and for all.

note to future dick: tasers do not work on kryptonians.

superboy grabbed the taser spindles with one hand, yanking them toward him and therefore yanking dick too. dick fell to the ground at the clone's feet and he had the audacity to step on his chest.

"man of steel" made a lot of sense now.

with superboy standing on his chest, dick couldn't breathe at all. it was like having someone gripping his lungs, like having a whale on top of him. it was so heavy and so hard to breathe.

"ENOUGH!" dick heard kaldur yell. or, at least, he thought he did. his vision was swimming with black dots and he couldn't be too sure of anything.

to be honest, the only thing that dick was sure of was of how tired he was.

he closed his eyes, even as his body begged him for air, and stilled. hopefully superboy would crush his ribcage while he was at it. why half-ass it when you can finish the job?

and with that final thought, dick blacked out.