-uh oh! The kids are in  T R O U B L E !  Let's hope they can puppy-eyes their way out of THIS!-

"This is the room they put them in to recover. Are you children? Did the Justice League send You?" Luthor said, looking down at them. "Get a medic." He told one of the people next to him.

Dick recognized that there was a specific tone in Luthor's voice, he saw why now; One of the people behind him had a camera. It wasn't Some dinky DLSR either, it was a full shoulder-mounted camera, like Newscasters used.

"Luthor." Artemis spat drowsily. 

He leaned over her, eyes flashing with condescension. "Did The Justice League hurt you?" His voice stayed innocent enough for the cameras, but jeering enough to cut through their sleepy, vulnerable state. "Is that why you're here? You look injured, did they force you to come and 'expose' me while you're hurt?"

"Let us go!" Dick groaned.

"I'm not holding you captive, you can go." Luthor said. "Once you've seen the medic, and we know you aren't hurt. Tell me, son, did the Justice League do this to you?"

"You did this!" Wally hissed, struggling to stand up.

"I'm afraid you're not conscious yet. Our security team saw you collapse in the hallway after breaking in." He stared Wally down. "I had them move you in here to recover. You must be horribly overworked to just collapse like that."

"Medic!" The man he'd sent off returned with another in a black uniform, carrying a first aid kit. 

"Don't film us like you aren't using this to exonerate yourself." Artemis growled, shifting away as the supposed medic looked them over.

Luthor looked over his shoulder, saying in the same camera-ready voice: "put it down, they're too hurt to have a camera in their faces yet." The camera was lowered, and Luthor didn't hesitate in flashing the kids a smug look. "Once you've been looked over, you can wait for your parents to pick you up."

He turned on his heel, exiting with the two men he'd entered with. The medic staying behind bitterly and giving them a once over.

More awake, Kaldur did a nervous head count. And then another, far more nervous. Robin? Weakly testing his ankle as the pain returned. Wally? Obsessively checking in with Robin and Artemis. M'gann? Being inspected by the medic. Artemis? Threatening to break the medic's wrist for getting fresh with M'gann. Conner?

Conner?

Not present.

————————————————————————————————

No one was  overly shocked that the bioship was missing from the hanger, nor that it was located in the same luthor-owned facility that they last got defeated at. 

They weren't surprised, just disappointed.

They headed for the facility, and flash quickly located the kids, limping to varying degrees through the staff corridors, in some strange combination of an escape seize and a walk of shame.

"Oh my- Jesus! Kid! Are you okay?" He grabbed Wally. "Come on! We need to get you out of here before you get hurt!"

"Wait! We cant go!"

"Come on! You shouldn't have come! Luthor could have killed you! Do you know how worried we've been? You shouldn't Have run off! We need to get you to the med bay and look you over" Barry struggled to shut up. "Can you run? You grab Robin and Artemis, I'll take Aqualad and Ms. Martian!"

"Flash, we can't leave yet, we can't find Superboy!"

"He's probably wandering like you are."

"But I can't reach him over mind link!" M'gann protested worriedly. 

Flash considered this, and weighed the options; leave these five unattended to find Superboy, Or get 5/6 of the kids out safely in less than a minute. Torn, he chose the option that would keep his nephew the safest.

"We'll send leaguers in to find him, in the meantime we need to get you out of here uninjured. I promise we'll find Superboy."

The teens seemed to shrink in size, but Barry successfully got them out of the building in no time.

Now came the hard part for both sides.

Bats strode forwards and grabbed Robin's wrist from where he was leaning all his weight on Wally. "You shouldn't have left, you're hurt." He picked up the teen, not accepting defeat, and strode towards the batwing. "Everyone to the mountain IMMEDIATELY."

"But Superboy's still in there!" M'gann blurted.

"Martian Manhunter will find him while he returns the bioship." Aquaman weakly assured her. "But in the meantime we must return to mount justice, Aqualad?"

Kaldur shrank back and followed his king obediently, casting anxious looks back at the facility. He would rather run back and find Conner himself than survive what they were about to go through...