W A T C H T O W E R
November 25, 06:54 EST

Batman, Wonder Woman, and Superman stood together on one of the large extending platforms within the Watchtower, overlooking the gardens, where a flock of birds flew, chirping and squawking as they went.

Other than that, though, it was silent, before finally, Diana spoke.

"Times like these," the Amazon began solemnly. "One feels the very weight of the world upon us,"

The sound of footsteps from behind made all three Leaguers turn, to see Aquaman walking towards them from deeper inside the Watchtower.

"Everyone is here," Orin said simply, and the other three followed him into the meeting room of the Watchtower, where Flash, both Green Lanterns, Red Tornado, Captain Marvel, Captain Atom, Green Arrow, Black Canary, Martian Manhunter, Doctor Fate, and the Hawks were all waiting.

As Batman, Aquaman, Wonder Woman, and Superman walked inside the room, panels started to slide down, sealing off the room for privacy, before King Orin spoke up again.

"Our agenda is clear," the Atlantean began. "What's at stake should not be underestimated,"

"The decisions we make today will reverberate for years to come," Superman explained.

"And influence whether or not the world continues to put their trust in the Justice League," Wonder Woman added before finally, Batman spoke up.

"Please, take your seats," the Dark Knight said. "We have work to do,"

Once everyone had sat down at the large, horseshoe-shaped table in the center of the room, J'onn stood up, the first one to voice his opinion.

"Another expansion of the League could generate another escalation of hostilities from our enemies," the martian opinionated firmly. "No one needs or wants another Injustice League,"

"Point taken," Superman cut in from his spot beside J'onn. "But, the option remains to vote 'no' on all candidates. So, I nominate Icon for League membership,"

A holo-screen appeared above the table, showcasing a tall, dark-skinned man with a stern look on his face.

"Why?" Green Arrow scoffed across the table. "Because you suspect Icon might be Kryptonian? Like you did with Captain Marvel?"

"You thought I was Kryptonian?" Captain Marvel asked from where he sat next to Oliver. "Cool!"

Clark and Diana stared at the other hero for a moment before Wonder Woman gently set a hand on Superman's arm.

"Icon interests me also," she said quietly, before bringing forth another holo-screen, this one as a young woman with short hair and brown skin. "As does his protege, Rocket. Athena knows the League could use more female members,"

Dinah and Shayera both gave their agreement, while the male members of the Justice League looked fairly disconcerted.

Regardless of whether Icon and/or Rocket were considered for induction into the League, the adult heroes certainly had a lot of work ahead of them.

And they had only scratched the surface of what needed to be discussed today.

S T A R  C I T Y
November 25, 08:03 PST

Richard John Grayson was in a bad mood.

It wasn't because Batman was currently up on the Watchtower at the yearly Justice League meeting discussing God knew what, and it wasn't because Alfred, who was working on the Thanksgiving dinner for tonight, had unceremoniously kicked him out of the house so the young Boy Wonder wouldn't end up breaking anything in his boredom.

No, Dick was in a bad mood because in the thirty-six hours it had been since the Team returned from their mission protecting Rumaan Harjavti from Psimon and Queen Bee in Bialya, Reese's injury had acted up again. The bullet wound she had sustained at the Democratic Palace got a bit surly, and her right arm was currently in a sling for the next couple of weeks because of it.

And Dick blamed himself.

He should've been ready when the Bialyan commander had raised his gun. Robin's head had buzzed in the couple of seconds there were before Silverbird was shot, the danger sense that always seemed to happen now whenever one of them was in danger, but Dick hadn't been fast enough to stop it from happening.

Luckily, Reese had been able to dodge the bullet from where its original target had been her heart, and it had hit her arm instead, but still, that didn't mean that Dick felt as if he should've been the one to take the bullet for her, to shield Reese from it, to do...something.

To make himself feel better about letting Reese down by not being able to stop her from getting shot, and also to make due on Wally's pinky-promise, after Alfred had kicked him out of Wayne Manor, Dick had made the short zeta-trip to Star City.

Even though it was almost lunchtime in Gotham, on the opposite coast it was just inching past eight a.m., so instead, Dick and Reese were going out for a semi-late breakfast.

Dressed in civvies, of course. Imagine if Robin and Silverbird walked into a restaurant. The press would go mad.

Dick didn't think he was being very good company though, considering his mind was still preoccupied with thoughts about Bialya, and wondering how he'd manage to ask Reese out on an actual date.

He didn't want to be too forward with his request, because Dick knew Reese wasn't into that, but honestly, he had no idea what to do. This explained a lot of the aspects of why he hadn't asked her out sooner.

Dick was just hoping that Reese hadn't noticed how distracted he was.

"I thought Batman was supposed to be the brooding one, not you, Boy Wonder," Scratch that, of course, she had noticed, and at Reese's statement, Dick snapped his head up.

The brunette had kept her voice down because of how crowded the sidewalks were this morning, but the two of them had stuck close to each other as they walked down the street, if only so they didn't get separated.

"What?" Dick asked, still not entirely coherent, and from where she was walking on his right side, Reese lightly bumped her good shoulder against his, brown eyes looking fairly worried.

"Dick, you're pretty distracted," she said softly, and the thirteen-year-old reached up, scratching the back of his neck sheepishly.

"Sorry," he said quickly. "Guess I'm feeling a little overwhelmed," Dick couldn't stop himself from flicking his eyes over to Reese's right arm, which was securely in a sling.

When she noticed where he was looking, Reese sighed.

"Stay whelmed," she told him, earning a small smile from the Boy Wonder, regardless of how weak it was, at her use of his own word. "I'm okay,"

Reese had been repeating those two simple words for the last day-and-a-half because she knew that Dick blamed himself for what had happened, even if there really hadn't been anything he could've done to stop it.

"Yeah, I know," Dick said finally, looking down at his shoes as the two of them continued along the sidewalk. "I was just...scared,"

Scared that maybe the bullet had hit an artery and Silverbird would end up bleeding out on the floor of Harjavti's office. Scared that maybe Reese's wound would get infected. Scared that--

His morbid thoughts would've continued had Reese not grabbed his hand in hers. Star City was no Gotham in terms of weather, but it had started to get cooler the longer autumn went on, so at the moment, both of them were wearing coats and hats to fight off the creeping chill.

"Your hands are cold," Of course, that was the smoothest thing Dick could come up with to say because he was nothing if not totally enamored with the brunette next to him. He could also feel the chill from Reese's hands through his own gloves.

Meanwhile, Reese glanced to the side, her face turning a faint pink, and this time it was from something other than the cold.

"Sorry," she said quickly. "I, uh, left my mittens at home," Dick was slipping his own gloves off and onto Reese's hands before she had even finished. "Dick, no!" the younger girl protested. "Now you'll be cold,"

"Please, Rhysalin," Dick scoffed, looping his arm with Reese's and sticking his hands in his coat pockets. There. Still close to her, and his hands weren't going to freeze. "I'm from Gotham. I think I can survive a bit of wind chill,"

"The wind chill is only technically how cold you feel when outside during the winter," Reese piped up after a moment, making Dick glance down at her again. "It's not how cold you actually are,"

"There," he told her as they finally neared the destination Dick had decided on before he had managed to pick Reese up from Oliver's apartment half an hour earlier. "See? No freezing hands. I'll be fine,"

"That's not exactly how it works, Dick," Reese repeated, completely oblivious to where Dick was taking her. He had been very secretive when the two of them had left the apartment. "But, I appreciate the sentiment,"

The Boy Wonder sent her a grin, his mood much improved from before, just as he paused in front of a window display, Reese coming to a stop beside him.

"Hey," Dick spoke up after a moment, making Reese glance at him. "You want cookies and doughnuts for breakfast?"

The smile Reese sent him threatened to rival the sun, at least in Dick's opinion, and after a moment, he led her inside the small bakery, which had opened a couple of hours before, and both of them were instantly met with the smell of different sweet treats.

The bell above the door jingled as Dick and Reese walked in, and a voice from the back of the small shop called out "Be with you in a moment!".

A couple of seconds later, a tall woman with mocha-colored skin and dark hair entered the main bakery, tying the strings of an apron behind her back.

"Hi!" the woman greeted them as Dick and Reese walked up to the display cases. "I wasn't thinking we'd get any customers in today. Opening on Thanksgiving was my husband's idea, and most of the time, he has good ones, but today--" Dick and Reese glanced at each other before the woman abruptly cut herself off. "I am so sorry!" she exclaimed, waving her hands. "I didn't mean to ramble. I'm Callie Rome, the owner. What can I get you guys this morning?"

"What do you want?" Dick whispered, leaning down so he'd be able to talk in Reese's ear, and for a moment, she didn't say anything, before finally making a beeline for a display case that held rows and rows of different types of cookies.

Callie followed them from behind the counter, and Dick couldn't help but laugh at the undeniably gleeful look that overtook Reese's face as she stared at all of the different desserts. Finally, Reese's eyes landed on a tray of massive chocolate chip cookies that had to be at least six inches in diameter, and she grinned even wider.

Reese was acting like a kid in a candy store. Or, more accurately, a pre-teen vigilante inside a bakery. Dick loved it.

Dick loved her.

Seeming to interpret the look on Reese's face, Callie gave a small smile, before reaching into the display case with a pair of plastic tongs and taking two of the massive cookies out. She set them on a small plate, before turning to Dick.

"And you?" she asked, and the thirteen-year-old perused the selection for a couple of seconds before flicking his eyes over to glance at Reese. The brunette was practically vibrating already from the onset of a sugar rush, and she hadn't even eaten anything yet.

"Just a couple of frosted doughnuts, please," he answered after a moment, and Reese snapped her head up.

"Ooh!" she exclaimed, scurrying over to another display case, where trays filled with different doughnuts sat. "Can we get some crullers, too? French Cruller doughnuts are delicious!"

"Of course," Callie answered, smiling. "Those are actually one of our more popular items,"

There were a few tables and chairs set up at the front of the bakery as well, so Dick and Reese mutually decided to just eat there, instead of going outside again. Dick got a coffee--to which Reese wrinkled her nose--before paying, and then joined Reese, her doughnuts, her cookies, and his doughnuts at a table in the corner next to the front window.

Maybe it was the fact that they had both been semi-taught by Batman for the last couple of years and it was, at this point, a reflex for them to keep their guards up at all times, but Dick and Reese both sat next to each other with their backs to the wall, only starting to eat when they were sure nothing was going to happen.

It was unlikely anything would, but honestly, they could never be too careful.

That wasn't to say though, that the cookies and doughnuts weren't absolutely delicious. Now, Dick knew he and Reese had eaten delicious doughnuts before, and chocolate chip cookies had always been one of Reese's big-time food weaknesses, but these were out-of-this-world good.

The two of them didn't say much as they ate, but it wasn't an awkward silence, and instead leaned more towards companionable.

Once, after he had finished his doughnuts and went to take a sip of coffee, Reese grabbed his wrist before he was able to grab it.

"What?" he asked, and Reese smirked.

"Drink it slowly," she told him. "Remember the last time?"

For a moment, Dick had no idea what she was talking about before he remembered the time the two of them, plus the rest of the Team, minus Zatanna had worked a case from Captain Atom to clear the name of a soldier from the Vietnam War who had seemingly murdered his commanding officer.

After each following their own leads and realizing that the people originally involved with the soldier's case were all being hunted down and murdered by a high-tech samurai, the Team had met up at a diner in Metropolis to compare notes, and because, at the time, Reese had been running on less than an optimal amount of sleep, she had ordered a cup of coffee, if only to keep herself awake.

She hated coffee of any sort, and Dick knew that. Because of it, he had chugged the entire drink in less than ten seconds and as such, burnt his mouth for the next week.

"...Right," he muttered back in the present, and Reese smiled again before Dick took a sip--slowly--from his coffee.

Before they had left the apartment, Reese had grabbed her sketchbook and the messenger bag she carried it in, and after she had finished eating, she pulled it out.

Dick tried to take a peek at what she was drawing, but when he leaned over to look, Reese snapped the cover shut.

"You can't see it, yet!" she exclaimed quietly, careful not to disturb Callie or the other customers. A few more people had walked in after they had, and now the other tables at the front of the bakery all had different customers sitting at them. "It's not done!"

"Why not?" Dick asked, a bit miffed. "Pretty bird, you've shown me unfinished drawings before,"

"I know," Reese answered quietly. "But, this is your birthday present. It has to be perfect before I show you!"

"My birthday present?" Dick echoed. His fourteenth birthday was in less than a week, but honestly, with all that had gone on recently, he'd forgotten about it. As it were, realizing that what Reese was drawing was, in fact, his birthday present, that just made Dick want to see it more. "Now I really have to look at it!"

"Dick, no!" Reese exclaimed again, this time stuffing her sketchbook back in her bag. "It's a surprise. Honestly, I'm just glad I'm not right-handed. I never would've finished your present in time,"

"I am sorry about that," Dick repeated, staring down at his empty plate as Reese took a sip of her hot chocolate out of the homemade mugs that Callie used in her bakery (her husband was a potter). Dick's mug had a design of a forest on it, Reese's was colored like the night sky. "Pretty bird, if there was anything I could've done--"

"Stop," Reese cut him off before Dick could finish, and she set down her mug. "I told you, there was nothing you could do. And Dick, I'm okay. You need to stop blaming yourself. This isn't the first time I've gotten hurt on a mission,"

But, it was by far one of the worst injuries. And that was what made Dick worry.

He glanced up at Reese again, only to start laughing. The brunette sent him a look, obviously wondering what was so funny. She didn't seem to notice the small dollop of whipped cream that was on the tip of her nose.

"What?" she asked once Dick had managed to control his laughter, and he leaned forward, gently swiping the whipped cream off with his thumb.

"I think the whipped cream is trying to eat you, pretty bird," he said quietly as Reese's eyes snapped to look at his thumb.

"Why didn't you tell me it was there?" she asked, face flushing, and this made Dick smile even more.

"I just did," he retorted, and Reese gave him a look that essentially said she was decidedly not impressed.

"Funny," she deadpanned, before glancing at something over Dick's shoulder and smiling. "I think we have an audience,"

Dick twisted around in his seat to see what Reese was looking at, or rather, who she was looking at, just in time to see a hair full of dark curls duck behind a nearby booth.

"Someone shy," Dick spoke up after a moment when the small head didn't reappear. "Apparently,"

"Sit across from me," Reese said suddenly, making Dick glance over at her with a quizzical look on his face. "Trust me,"

Shrugging, the teenage Boy Wonder stood up and walked around the side of the table he and Reese were sitting at, before plopping down in a chair across from the brunette.

"What's your plan?" he asked, keeping his voice hushed, but Reese just waved her uninjured hand in front of his face, cutting off whatever Dick had been going to say next before she leaned over the table, closer to him.

"Just watch," she whispered, before sitting back again and taking out her sketchbook.

Sometimes, Reese's mind confused Dick, but there were seldom a time where her plans didn't come to fruition, so for the time being, he sat back in his chair and took out his phone, only to see that he had a multitude of unread text messages and even a couple of missed calls, all from Barbara Gordon.

Dick groaned, slumping down in his chair, and closed his eyes as Reese flicked her eyes up at him from her sketchbook pages again.

"What?" she asked quietly, and Dick straightened up again, unlocking his phone and sliding it over to Reese.

"I totally forgot," he muttered as Reese scrolled through the texts that Dick hadn't realized he'd gotten. "Barbara and I have a science project due on Monday. We were supposed to work on it today in Gotham,"

"You should go," Reese said after a couple of seconds, sliding Dick's cell phone back over to him and taking another sip of her hot chocolate as Dick gave her an odd look.

"What?" he asked, thoroughly confused. "Why? I'm spending the day with you--at least until tonight--I don't think I really have to worry about some dumb lab report,"

But, Reese just gave him a look that Dick had a feeling she'd likely used on Roy once or twice before when Red Arrow had been in one of his "moods". There was also something else in Reese's eyes though if Dick really looked for it. Something that seemed almost...sad.

"Dick," the brunette repeated herself, bringing Dick back into his head before he could decipher that unknown emotion too far. "It's schoolwork. I doubt I'm more important than your project's grade,"

The thirteen-year-old hero thought that statement was highly debatable, but his phone buzzed again with another text from Barbara before he could say anything.

"Are you sure?" he asked quietly, still a bit hesitant to head back to Gotham because Dick had, in fact, been looking forward to spending the day with Reese (and maybe finally getting around to asking her on an actual date), and he didn't want to just leave.

But, Reese only gave another nod, sending Dick a smile that made him feel warm all the way to his toes. "I'm sure," she said after a moment, before nodding her head towards the door. "Go,"

To say Dick was still feeling indecisive would be an understatement, but the sound of his cell phone ringing cut off any further argument the Boy Wonder would've made.

"You don't want to keep her waiting, Dick," Reese said softly as Dick glanced down at his cell phone, seeing Barbara's Caller ID flashing on the screen. "I'll see you later,"

Sighing heavily, Dick stood up, grabbing his jacket off the back of his chair and pulling it on. He turned back to Reese, only to have the brunette kiss his cheek as she stood up from her own chair.

For a few seconds, Dick was left completely speechless, and Reese smiled at him before he finally found his voice again.

"Later?" he asked, and the brunette in front of him gave a small nod as Dick's phone began to ring again. Dick thought his ringtone was beginning to get annoying. "I promise, this project shouldn't take long,"

"This afternoon," Reese confirmed as she sat down again. "Besides, if you're not here, that means I might be able to finish your birthday present before Wednesday,"

Dick really didn't want to leave, but he had to admit that Reese did have a point when she said that he did, in fact, have to get his science project done. He just wished he didn't have to get it done today.

This time, Dick was the one to kiss Reese's cheek as he got ready to walk out of Callie's bakery, and didn't lean back right away. When he did, he glanced down at the brunette.

"I'll see you later?" he asked again, and Reese gave a small laugh, using her uninjured hand to lightly shove Dick towards the door.

"Go, you dork," she said. "I promise, I'll be fine,"

Sighing again, Dick finally turned around and walked out of the delicious-smelling bakery, only to stop and lean against the wall of a building right next to it, finally taking out his phone to answer Barbara's call.

"Yeah?" he asked, only for his red-haired friend's voice to come through his phone's speakers, and honestly? She sounded a little bit pissed.

"Dick, where have you been?" Dick winced, leaning away from his phone as Barbara's voice basically assaulted his eardrums, but she stopped her rant fairly quickly. "I've been calling you for over half an hour,"

"Sorry," Dick said quickly. "My phone was turned off. What did you need?"

"What did I need?" Barbara echoed. "Maybe my partner for our science project? I went over to your house, but Alfred said you had left. Dick, that report's due in four days, where are you?"

"Uh..." Dick trailed off for a couple of seconds, wondering what he could say without making Barbara suspicious. Though considering her dad was the police commissioner, that wasn't a lot, and after a couple of seconds of deliberation, he decided to just go with the truth, if only he tweaked it a little bit. "Star City?"

"Star?" Barbara echoed. "How'd you get all the way out there so fast? Dick, that's a nine-hour flight. Did you leave at 2 a.m. this morning?"

"Private jet," he answered simply, hoping Barbara didn't read into his half-truth too quickly. Because that's what it was. A half-truth, and thus not entirely a lie.

Wayne Tech did, in fact, own a private company jet that could fly almost as fast as the speed of sound, but that wasn't how Dick had gotten to Star City (obviously), and Barbara didn't need to know how he really got there, because as of this moment, she didn't know he was Robin.

"Well, can you have your 'private jet'--," Barbara began. "--bring you back to Gotham? Because I'd really like to get this project done,"

"Actually, Babs," Dick began after a moment, scuffing the toe of his sneaker against the sidewalk, the coldness of the brick wall he was leaning against beginning to seep through his jacket. "Can we reschedule? I mean, the project's not due until Monday, right? Why don't we just work on it over the weekend?"

"Who are you and what have you done with Dick Grayson?" Dick found himself rolling his eyes at Barbara's question but glanced over again at the entrance to the bakery. He really wanted to get back inside. "Dick, working on the project today was your idea!"

"Yeah, I know," he began. "But something came up, and I can't work on the lab report right now. Please, Babs, can we reschedule for Saturday?"

For several seconds, the other end of the line was silent, before finally, Dick heard Barbara give a sigh.

"...fine," she muttered, and Dick pumped a fist in the air, not caring who might be watching. "I guess I can do my part of the report today, and then just compare notes with you in a couple of days. But, you owe me, Grayson,"

"When do I not?" he retorted, smiling. "Thanks, Barbara. I--"

Suddenly, Dick was cut off from thanking his friend when his phone dinged and taking it away from his ear, he saw that Wally was calling.

"Sorry, Babs," he said quickly. "I gotta go. I'll see you Saturday?" Barbara agreed, and Dick hung up before answering Wally's call.

"You're an idiot, Grayson,"

For a couple of seconds, after he answered his cell phone, Dick blinked, before regaining his composure and spoke into his phone to retort Wally.

"Excuse me?" he shot back. "What's that supposed to mean?" Dick heard Wally scoff on the other end of the line before Kid Flash spoke up again.

"I mean," the redhead began. "What kind of person ditches the girl he's in love with to go to work on some stupid school project with another girl?"

Dick didn't know how Wally knew about what had just happened, but the Boy Wonder rolled his eyes and gritted his teeth, leaning against the wall again before he answered the speedster's question.

"It's not like I wanted to!" he exclaimed, trying to keep his voice down before people started to give him odd looks. "Reese said the project was more important than she was,"

"And you believed her?" Wally shot back, and Dick huffed out a breath.

"Of course not!" he exclaimed. "But, you know how she gets. She basically kicked me out!"

"Are you in Gotham?" Wally asked, and even though the speedster couldn't see him, Dick shook his head.

"Nah, I haven't left Star yet," he began. "I actually rescheduled with Barbara so we could work on the project in a couple of days instead. I was just going to head back inside the bakery when you called,"

"Bakery?" Wally echoed, sounding vaguely offended. "You mean you're having delicious and filling carbohydrate treats without me? Richard John Grayson, how dare you?"

Dick rolled his eyes again before answering Wally. "First of all," he began. "What have I said about using my full name? And, second of all, it wasn't exactly something that constituted having a third person tag along,"

"Ooh," Wally muttered, and Dick swore that at some point, his eyes were going to roll out of his head. "You mean like a date?"

"If I say yes will you stop talking?" the Boy Wonder shot back, only to elicit Wally's cackling on the other end of the call.

"I don't care what you say, Rob," the speedster added after he finally regained control and remembered how to breathe. "You and Reese are by far the cutest..."

Dick didn't catch whatever Wally was saying next because, at that moment, his back went ramrod straight against the wall of the building, and his head buzzed, the golden arrowhead growing warm from where it hung against his chest.

"Wally, I gotta go," the thirteen-year-old said quickly, adrenaline spiking, and hung up, cutting off the speedster's teasing and exuberant gushing.

Whipping around, Dick faced the entrance to the bakery, and his eyes landed on a tall man who had just pulled the door open.

At first glance, he didn't look like much. Mid-thirties, six-feet tall, buzzed hair, muscled. Dressed in a winter jacket, just like everyone else on the street right now.

But, then the guy pulled out a black ski mask, and Dick saw the gun.

➳➳➳

The minutes before the gun was pointed in her face were pretty uneventful, but then again, Reese figured that's how it always was in the moments leading up to a robbery.

Dick had just walked out, and as soon as he was gone, Reese sunk back in her chair, frowning as she stared into her mug that was half-filled with hot chocolate and now-melted marshmallows.

Reese knew that she had been the one to tell Dick to go back to Gotham to work on his science project with Barbara, but that didn't mean she felt good about it.

It also might not have been one of her smartest ideas, considering the last time Reese and Barbara Gordon had run into each other, the last time Oliver had had "business" in Gotham, the commissioner's daughter had told the brunette that she had a crush on Dick.

Why Barbara had told her, Reese had no idea, but that didn't change the fact that she knew about it. For all Reese knew, Barbara might be the girl that Dick had been talking about at Wally's party.

Pulling out her own cell phone, Reese quickly fired off a text to Wally. It was a bit difficult texting with only one hand, but she managed.

Regardless of whether or not Reese was planning on telling Dick how she felt (she still wasn't entirely sure if she was going to), Kid Flash had become her sounding board, and despite his exuberant personality and brazen actions, Wally West was a good listener.

To: Wal-Man a.ka. Wally
I need help.

Even though speedsters weren't on time for everything, Wally always texted back fairly quickly, and a few seconds later, Reese's phone dinged.

From: Wal-Man a.k.a. Wally
With what?
Cuz if it's something baddie related, u should probs call Rob

To: Wal-Man a.k.a. Wally
Dick's what I need help with.

For a few minutes afterward, the speedster didn't text back, and just when Reese was thinking she wouldn't get anything back, her phone buzzed, only this time, it wasn't a text, and Wally had called her instead.

"Hey," Reese said once she answered the phone, and she could hear Wally moving around on the other end.

"Hi," the redhead greeted her back. "What's up?" Reese shrugged her good shoulder before realizing that Wally couldn't see her, then she sighed.

"I don't know if I can do this, Wally," the brunette said quietly. "Tell Dick, I mean,"

"Why not?" Wally asked after a few seconds of silence. "Reese, you'll never know if he likes you back if you don't tell him,"

"I could," Reese retorted softly. "I could straight-up ask him if he likes me without ever telling him that I like him. Easy,"

"Would you actually do that, though?" Wally asked, and Reese sunk down in her chair again.

"...No," she admitted. "Plus, he's not even in Star City anymore. He had to leave to go back to Gotham,"

"What?" Wally sounded surprised. "Why?"

Reese shrugged again before she answered. "He and Barbara had a school project to work on,"

"And he just left?" Wally echoed, his voice raising a couple of octaves before he gave a series of angry-sounding mumblings under his breath. "That little..."

"Wally's that's not how it--" but, the soft click from her phone told Reese that Wally had already hung up, and she sighed again. So much for telling the speedster that Reese had been the one who told Dick to leave.

After a moment though, Reese stood up, taking the empty plates that had held her and Dick's breakfast and bringing them over to the small counter near the register, where Callie was standing, elbow-deep in soap suds.

"Hi!" the older woman said when she noticed Reese standing at the counter, and the dark-skinned baker leaned back, wiping her hands on a nearby towel. "Did you like your cookies?"

"I did!" Reese exclaimed, giving Callie a smile. "I know you said you were the owner, but do you bake everything yourself?"

Callie laughed and gave Reese another nod. "Fresh every morning," she answered, before a girl, maybe a few years younger than Reese herself, popped up beside Callie, nose in a book, and when Reese read the cover, she noticed it was a mythology guidebook.

Reese gave the other girl an odd glance, wondering what she was doing behind the counter, and when Callie noticed where she looking, she gave another small laugh and gently grabbed the book-focused girl's shoulder.

"Sorry," the baker said quickly. "This is my daughter, Nia. I can hardly ever get her to look up and see the world, but I think she likes fictional worlds better anyway,"

Nia was the small person that Reese had seen watching her and Dick earlier before Dick had left to go back to Gotham.

"It's not fictional, Mommy," the girl corrected her mother, glancing up. "It's history. Have you ever heard of Wonder Woman? She came straight out of 'mythology'. The Amazons were who fought Hercules thousands of years ago,"

"Heracles, actually," Reese clarified softly, and Nia turned to glance at her, her dark eyes and soft facial features clearly reminiscent of her mother. They really did look alike. "If you're talking about the Greek version, it's Heracles. Hercules was Roman,"

"Oh," Nia said quietly, but Reese gently reached over and grabbed the suddenly-despondent child's hand.

"But," the other brunette began. "You're very smart to know that about him. Most people who pay attention to Heracles's twelve labors focus more on his feats against the Hydra or Nemean Lion. Most forget about when he needed to steal Hippolyta's belt as his ninth labor; a way to make up for a crime he committed,"

The crime having been committed was the demigod killing his wife and children, but honestly, Reese didn't say that last part. Plus, even though Heracles did twelve labors, the Nemean Lion and the Lernean Hydra were only Labors #1 and #2.

Nia beamed in response to Reese's fact-dump, and Reese was glad she had cheered the younger girl up before she tilted her head.

"How old are you?" she asked Nia quietly, and the other girl set her book down on the counter before holding up both hands.

"Eight!" she exclaimed gleefully, having held up all the fingers on her right hand, but only three on her left.

"Cool," Reese answered, before holding out her left hand; her uninjured one. "My name is Reese, and I'm twelve,"

Nia smiled again before Callie spoke up, making Reese glance up at her.

"You know," the woman began, flicking her eyes down to the counter, where the mugs that Dick and Reese had used earlier were sitting. "Those mugs are actually for sale. You can buy them if you want,"

"Really?" Reese asked, smiling. She did enjoy the mugs. Callie had said earlier when Reese and Dick had first received the hot beverages, that her husband was a potter, and made all the ceramic-ware in the bakery in a workshop in the back, but she never knew that you could actually buy them.

"Really," Callie answered, as the bell above the door to the bakery jingled again. "Let me just quickly wash them, and then I'll ring them up for you,"

"That won't be happening," a rough voice said from over Reese's shoulder, and she heard Nia let out a whimper before the archer turned around, only to be met with a gun pointed straight at her face.

Reese definitely did not want to get shot twice in less than forty-eight hours, but with her right arm still injured, there wasn't much she could do.

Plus, it wasn't as if she could deck this guy with a Canary Cry in the middle of Callie's bakery without totally obliterating her secret identity.

God, Reese wished Dick were still here.

"Empty the register," As the guy holding the gun nodded roughly towards Callie, he wore a black-knit ski mask, and even though all Reese could see were his eyes, they were cold, and she knew he wouldn't hesitate to shoot someone if he didn't get what he wanted.

Callie had nudged Nia behind her, and now the eight-year-old huddled underneath the counter, clutching her book to her chest.

Reese felt her heart clench as she realized that Nia was the exact same age she had been when she lost her parents, and what kind of hero would Reese be if she allowed another young girl to lose her mother in a violent way as she did?

"What if she doesn't want to?" Reese sucked down the fear that came with having a gun pointed at your face and ignored Callie's protests against her defiance as she turned her head up and met the robber's eyes.

"Then she's gonna get a bullet to the head," he sneered, waving the gun around to instead point it at Reese again. "Like you, sweetheart, if you keep mouthing off,"

"Really?" Reese let out a laugh, grinning as she saw the robber's eyes squint behind his mask. "I get that you're, like, a bad guy or whatever, but seriously? Who tries to rob a bakery on Thanksgiving? Did your parents not give you enough cupcakes to be thankful for or something?"

"I swear to God," the robber continued, his voice rising. "I will shoot you, kid, if you don't shut up,"

Then, Reese got an idea.

A dumb idea, and one that probably her dad, Dick, Dinah, and Roy would all metaphorically kill her for, but if it meant that Callie and Nia, and all the other civilians still in the bakery made it out of this alive and in one piece, then so be it.

Time to play the 'child of a billionaire' card.

"I know where you can get more money than robbing a bakery," she piped up, and this time, she caught the criminal's full attention.

"What are you talking about?" he asked, sounding genuinely baffled, and Reese took a deep breath before tilting her head.

"Don't tell me you don't recognize me," she began, and when the criminal tilted his head, Reese made a tsking sound with her teeth. "Wow," she said. "What rock have you been living under?"

"What do you want, kid?" the bad guy snapped, as he steadied his gun-holding hand and clicked off the safety. "I'm done playin',"

"So am I,"

Reese snapped her head at the new voice, just as the front window of the bakery shattered as Dick swung in, in full Robin regalia, slamming both of his feet into the criminal's chest and throwing the taller man back against the display case and breaking the glass, causing spiderweb-like cracks to appear on the surface.

For all of five seconds, Reese and everyone else in the bakery were totally confused. Sure, she had wished that Dick were still here, but she didn't expect him to actually show up.

It seemed that the would-be Thanksgiving robber was just as discombobulated as Reese was, because once he regained his bearings after being literally thrown into a case of croissants, he tilted his head up, and gave Robin a look that was equal parts infuriated and confused.

"Robin?" he asked. "Star ain't your city. What are you doin' here? Where's the Bat?"

"I was in the neighborhood," the Boy Wonder began simply. "And Batman isn't coming," Then, Dick took his eskrima sticks out from where they were usually holstered behind his back and spinning them around for a few moments. "Now, you going to surrender on your own? Or am I going to have to make you?"

Reese had met criminals like the robber before. They usually had nothing to lose and were willing to make as many casualties as possible, if only so they would be able to save their own skins in the end.

"I'm not going back to prison," the robber muttered, before surging forward. For two seconds, Reese's breath caught in her throat, worried something was going to happen, something that hadn't already happened, but Dick was ready.

Robin brought his knee up and slammed it underneath the criminal's chin, snapping his head back before Dick spun around, using his other foot to kick the robber in the temple.

The gun went off, but fortunately, the shot went wide, thankfully not hitting Reese or anyone else, and sending the criminal and his gun sprawling in opposite directions across the floor of the bakery.

All in all, the fight was over in less than two minutes.

Once he was sure the bad guy was unconscious, Robin walked over to where the gun had slid almost halfway across the bakery, and slid the clip out, making it clatter to the ground. Then, he turned around, just as Reese let out a relieved breath, slumping back against the counter.

The other customers who had still been in the bakery when the now-unconscious gunman entered had fled when Robin had broken in, and Reese could see they were now gathered on the sidewalk outside.

She could also hear sirens in the distance, but they were getting closer, and she sighed again. Reese hated dealing with cops, Silverbird, or no.

Maybe it was a bit of a cliche since most police departments frowned upon vigilantism, but Reese was still familiar with some officers on the force from the year between when her parents had died and when Roy and Dick had found her, and they were not mutual fans.

If anything, now that Reese had been adopted by Star City's arguably richest man, there were still some at the SCPD who worried that she'd turn out to be some sort of stereotypical rich-kid "wild-child".

Oliver Queen's public reputation was less than spectacular, and the police were wary that the blond billionaire would end up passing those traits onto his daughter.

Ha, as if.

"Are you okay?" Reese glanced up again to see Robin staring at her, one hand held out, and his voice the epitome of professionalism.

Because Rhysalin Queen, Star City Princess, wasn't supposed to know Robin, the Boy Wonder of Gotham City.

Reese would've loved to explain that yes, they did in fact, know each other. Reese was even in love with him.

"I'm good," she answered after another second, and though Dick looked a bit dubious behind his domino mask, he didn't say anything more, and instead turned next to where Callie and Nia had straightened up again from where they had been crouching behind the counter.

"Are you two okay?" Robin asked them, and though Nia and her mother both looked a bit awestruck, Callie finally managed to give a small nod.

"Yes," the older woman answered. "We're okay. Thank you, Robin,"

"All in a day's work, ma'am," Dick responded, ever the gentleman, as he quickly sent Callie and her daughter a two-finger salute. "But, now, I need to be getting back to Gotham. Don't want to let the bats out of the cave,"

Even though Reese thought that semi-joke didn't really make sense, Robin turned to leave anyway but stopped when Callie held up a hand.

"Wait!" she exclaimed, before both Robin and Reese turned to look at her, Reese noticing in the back of her mind that the police sirens were getting even closer. "You can use the backdoor to avoid the pandemonium outside. It'll be quicker,"

Robin gave another nod before he walked out through the kitchen, and when Callie and Nia were distracted themselves by heading out the front, Reese grabbed her mugs, dropped some cash on the counter so Callie wouldn't think she had stolen them, and followed after her partner.

She really didn't want to deal with giving the police her witness statement right now (or ever), because inevitably, if she did, they would probably end up calling her dad, and that would be a whole other set of problems, considering Green Arrow was currently thousands of miles above the surface of the earth on the Watchtower with the rest of the Justice League.

Reese also almost forgot to grab her bag and jacket, but luckily, she was pretty adept at using only one hand to multi-task, so she wrapped the ceramic mugs in her hat before sticking them in her messenger bag and pushing the backdoor open, a chilly wind instantly blowing into her face.

Dick, still dressed in his Robin suit, was leaning against the wall of the alley behind the bakery when Reese exited it, and when she paused next to him, the Boy Wonder gave the brunette a glance from the corner of his eye.

"Please," he began after a moment. "Don't tell me you were about to play the 'child of a billionaire' card when I came in,"

Reese shrugged her good shoulder and gave Dick a sheepish smile because honestly if there was anyone who knew her mannerisms and strategies better than Green Arrow himself, it was Robin.

"Sorry?" she said finally, but Dick only shook his head, huffing out a laugh as he bent down to pick up a duffel bag that was sitting near both of their feet.

"Rhysalin," Dick murmured as he unzipped the bag, unclipping his cape and utility belt and tossing them inside. "You're insane," Then, taking out the hoodie he had been wearing earlier, Dick pulled it on over the rest of his costume. "But, you're also the most gorgeous person I know, so I guess it cancels out,"

"You guess?" Reese echoed, her face flushing at the compliment as Dick also pulled on a pair of jeans that had also been stuffed in the bottom of the duffel bag before she leaned against the wall of the alley and glanced at Dick again. "I thought you were in Gotham already,"

She saw Dick's hands still from where they had been tying his sneaker laces, and Dick set his foot down as he turned back to look at her, eyebrows scrunched together as he peeled off his mask and tossed it in his bag.

"You didn't think I'd just leave you, did you?" he asked quietly, but all Reese did was shrug again. Dick sighed, reaching up and running a hand through his hair as he leaned against the wall beside her. "I rescheduled with Barbara," he said after a moment of silence, and Reese snapped her head to the side. "We're working on the lab report on Saturday instead. I said I was going to spend the day with you, pretty bird, and I intend to do that,"

"Dick, you don't--"

"Stop," Dick's voice was stern enough that it made Reese pause in her protest, and she glanced up at him again as Dick gently cupped her cheek. "I didn't even want to work on the project today, because I wanted to spend time with you, pretty bird. I-I love you, Rhysalin,"

It was then, that specific moment, that Reese swore her heart stopped. She stared at Dick for a few seconds, trying to read him, but she couldn't detect any lie in his admission.

Dick wasn't lying.

"You do?" she whispered, just wanting to make sure, wanting to be absolutely positive that this whole thing wasn't some sort of sick joke played on her by the universe, but Dick just smiled, nodding his head.

"Yeah," he answered softly. "I do. God, Reese, I'm in love with you. I've been in love with you for--I don't even know how long,"

"But..." Reese trailed off, looking down at her hands and fiddling with her fingers. "At Wally's party, you said--"

"Rhysalin," Dick repeated her name, his hands gently cupping her face, and the brunette glanced up at him. "I was talking about you,"

"Oh," Reese murmured, face turning hot as she realized that she had totally misread the conversation she and Dick had had at Wally's birthday party. After a few seconds, she took a deep breath. "I love you too," 

For a few seconds, Reese wasn't even entirely sure that Dick had heard her, but when his grin grew even wider, she knew he had.

And then he kissed her.

It didn't last more than three seconds, and it was only Dick's lips pressed against hers, but Reese swore that fireworks went off. Maybe that was another cliche, and maybe it was even a bit stereotypical, but she didn't care.

When Dick finally leaned away, he leaned his head down so his nose brushed against hers, and Reese's eyes fluttered closed again, her senses going into hyperdrive as she focused on the fact that Dick had actually kissed her, and that she wasn't dreaming.

"The Team's going to freak," Dick whispered, and Reese let out a small laugh.

"Let them," she responded, and this time, she was the one who kissed Dick, leaning back again after a few more seconds. "Wally's going to lose his mind anyway,"

"I cannot wait to see his face," Dick chuckled before Reese snapped her head to the side. Her senses were still going a bit crazy from the initial lip-contact, but they had dulled enough that her eardrums weren't still being assaulted by every single noise in the immediate vicinity.

"Shh," she quickly hissed, and Dick snapped his mouth shut. "Listen,"

Both of them froze, and distantly, Reese noticed how one of Dick's hands had fallen to her waist, before she shut her eyes again, and reached out with her super-hearing, straining to hear whatever it was that had caught her attention in the first place.

After a moment, Reese's eyes snapped open, and she gasped. Footsteps, coming from the street, walking towards her and Dick.

And with those footsteps came voices, one of which was mixed with what sounded suspiciously like radio static.

"All units, report of a disturbance at--"

"Crap," Reese muttered, glancing towards Dick again. "Cops,"

"Let's go," Dick whispered, and the two of them bolted, rounding the corner at the other end of the alley just as two officers entered the alley. All the two cops saw as they walked further down the darkened corridor between two buildings, was a flash of dark brown hair rounding the corner.

No one else was there.

➳➳➳

Back on the Watchtower, the Justice League was still going over potential new members to induct into their ranks, and decidedly, Captain Marvel was not impressed with the most recent addition.

"Seriously?" Billy asked, tilting his head to the side as he looked towards the holo-screen that hovered above the table. "The Atom? I mean, how useful could he be at that size?"

"It's the size that makes him useful," Batman clarified from his spot next to him, and Flash instantly gave his agreement from further down the table.

"Absolutely!" Barry exclaimed, making Captain Marvel and Batman both turn and look at the speedster. "Still," Flash continued, tapping the small holo-screen in front of him. "We could always use more raw power, and Earth has a third Green Lantern. Guy Gardner,"

"No," Hal and John said in unison, turning to Barry with identical looks of resolve on their faces, surprising Flash a bit.

"But, we could really--,"

"No,"

➳➳➳

After the whole bakery debacle, Reese and Dick headed back to the apartment, and as Dick tossed the duffel bag holding his Robin suit onto the couch, Reese walked down the hallway to her bedroom, unclipping her sling as she went.

She may have needed to keep wearing the fabric sling holding her arm secure for the next couple of weeks, but that didn't mean she had to keep it on 24/7. Plus, the sling made her arm itchy.

"Hey," Reese called over her shoulder to Dick as he pressed his face into the throw pillows on the couch. "You and Bruce ever find out who stole that stuff from WayneTech?"

"No," Dick groaned into the cushion, grabbing one of the soft suede pillows and hitting himself in the face with it. "How is Batman supposed to be the World's Greatest Detective if he can't even figure out who robbed his own company?"

"What about the cameras?" Reese asked as she pulled a navy blue Star City hoodie over her head, brushing her hair out quickly before tossing her messenger bag onto her bed. "Did you check them?"

"Pretty bird, I told you," Dick continued, having followed Reese after a couple of seconds, and he now leaned in the doorway of her room. "The security system was offline for an upgrade. There are no cameras to check,"

"I know about the WayneTech cameras," Reese said quietly, crossing her arms as she walked across her room to stand in front of Dick again. "What I'm talking about is the cameras outside WayneTech. You know, traffic cams, ATMs, stuff like that,"

For all of fifteen seconds, all Dick did was blink, and Reese was beginning to think that his brain had short-circuited, when suddenly, the thirteen-year-old grinned.

"Oh, duh!" Dick exclaimed, quickly tapping at his watch, which doubled as a holo-computer when he was in civvies and pulled up a holo-screen. "Reese, you're a genius!"

"I try," the brunette said simply, before walking around Dick's shoulder so she stood next to him. "What are we looking for?"

"Okay," Dick began as his fingers flew across the glowing blue screen, managing to hack into the camera of an ATM that just so happened to be across the street from WayneTech. "The robbery happened on the 3rd, so regardless of whether or not it was an inside job, that means the thief had to get the stolen R&D tech out somehow, so if we fast-forward the feed..."

For the next couple of minutes, Reese's eyes flicked across the glowing blue screen as Dick went through the camera's footage, intaking information as she tried to look for anyone that might be suspicious enough to be the one to have robbed WayneTech, though, in Gotham, that could still be pretty much anyone.

"Wait!" she exclaimed, grabbing onto Dick's wrist about two minutes into rewatching the feed. "I saw something. Rewind it,"

As the camera footage started to go backward from where Dick had paused it at Reese's exclamation, Reese narrowed her eyes, trying to look for what she had noticed, when suddenly, she pointed at a spot on the holo-screen.

"There," she said simply, and Dick enlarged the section of the screen where the two were looking, then enhanced the image. "Wow," Reese muttered once she got a good look at their suspect. "I didn't think our would-be Batman thief would be so young,"

The person that Reese had identified couldn't be more than sixteen years old, and if Reese hadn't been a vigilante for the last three years, she likely wouldn't have noticed him at all, but she did and judging from the black stealth suit and duffel bag bulging with stolen WayneTech pieces, this was their guy.

Aside from managing to stump Batman and Robin for the last three weeks, there was also one critical mistake the thief had made.

He hadn't worn a mask. So, thanks to Dick's skills of enhancing the image gained off of the ATM, Reese was able to get a pretty good look at their thief.

He was blond, and like Reese had said earlier, probably not older than sixteen. He was on the thin side, but obviously unassuming enough to manage to rob WayneTech without getting caught.

Reese tilted her head to the side, studying the thief for a couple of seconds, before glancing at Dick, wondering slightly why he hadn't said anything about the thief yet, only for her eyes to widen.

It wasn't often that Dick got angry, the only times Reese had ever really seen him lose his temper was on Santa Prisca, before Aqualad had taken over leadership of the Team, and the few times he and Batman had gotten into arguments about something or another.

But, now...now Dick looked really angry.

He hadn't been wearing his sunglasses all morning, there really hadn't been a need to, but right now his eyes were blazing with a dark blue fire, and a muscle was ticking in his jaw.

"Dick?" Reese asked quietly, lightly grabbing onto his arm, if only to gain his attention, and judging from the way Dick jumped when Reese grabbed his arm, he hadn't been fully...there. "You okay?"

"Fine," the Boy Wonder answered brusquely, lightly shaking Reese's hand off his arm and walking back down the hallway towards the front door. "I'll see you later,"

"Dick, wait," Reese said quickly, grabbing onto his arm again as he went to pass by her. "Where are you going?"

"Gotham," he answered simply. "I know who stole the R&D tech,"

"So do I," Reese answered, waving one hand vaguely towards Dick's watch. "Dick, we just identified him,"

"No, Rhysalin," Dick said quickly as he turned to face her, grabbing onto Reese's shoulders so she'd look him in the eye. "I know him. He's in my class at school,"

➳➳➳

"If we're considering Blue Devil," Green Arrow began his own two-cents on the Watchtower. "Then, I nominate Red Arrow. Roy has more experience, and he's not a kid anymore. He's eighteen, a legal adult. He's ready,"

"Is he?" Aquaman echoed, giving Ollie a look from his spot beside Doctor Fate. "Red Arrow has been uncooperative and disrespectful. If we reward that behavior, what message does that send to the rest of the Team?"

"No," Superman answered simply. "Red Arrow may be eighteen, but the rest of the Team is too young. We're not inducting children into the League,"

A few seats down, Captain Marvel tugged at his collar, but for the time being, Billy didn't say anything. There was no need to jeopardize the fragile stability of no one talking about how he was only ten until now.

"That seems myopic," Fate cut in. "Aqualad has proven himself a capable leader of the Team, and I have been one with Kid Flash and Silverbird. And though the latter continues to doubt her own abilities, all three are ready,"

Green Arrow bristled in his chair further down the table as the Lord of Order finished his analysis. The last thing Oliver wanted right now was for his daughter to become one of the mainstream heroes with a target on her chest.

She was in danger often enough being the adoptive daughter of a billionaire. Ollie didn't need--or want--the entire Justice League's enemies going after her.

"And what of Zatanna?" Diana piped up.

"Absolutely not!" Fate interrupted, but Wonder Woman only smirked.

"That sounded almost protective, Doctor," the Amazon princess remarked. "At least we know Zatara is still in that Helmet somewhere,"

"Why is Doctor Fate a member?" Captain Marvel finally stood up, glancing towards the Lord of Order, eyes narrowed. "You coerced Zatara into giving up his life to you, or else lose his daughter. Not cool,"

"Should such behavior be condoned?" Red Tornado asked, but Doctor Fate remained calm.

"Zatara desires Doctor Fate remain in the League," the sorcerer said sternly, and Ollie found himself scoffing.

"Oh, please," the archer muttered, disbelieving, but Fate only crossed his arms.

"It is true," the Lord of Order continued. "Zatara's trust in Nabu is...measured. He desires the League to keep a close watch upon us,"

➳➳➳

After a quick stop to Wayne Manor to drop off his suit, Dick grabbed his motorcycle, and he and Reese were now driving along the streets of Gotham City, heading towards the home of the Hurdle family.

God, how had he been so stupid?

Dick had noticed how Frank Hurdle, the youngest Hurdle child and the thief Reese had managed to identify off of Dick's holo-screen, had been acting strangely for the last couple of weeks, but he never thought that was because Frank had been the one who had robbed WayneTech.

Frank was usually the shy one in class, never the person to speak up unless the teacher called on him, and even then he usually spoke in a whisper.

Guess that old saying was right, you really did have to watch out for the quiet ones.

"You need to quit brooding," Reese's voice sounded from just past Dick's shoulder, and the Boy Wonder sighed.

"Sorry," he said quickly as he turned onto a side street into one of the upper-class neighborhoods of the city, the same neighborhood where the Hurdles made their home, Reese's arms tightening for a moment around his waist as he turned. "I just...I don't know how I couldn't have realized that Frank was the thief,"

"You said that the two of you only share a few classes, right?" Reese asked quietly, and Dick nodded. "Then, it's not your fault. Unless you go out of your way to hang out with him, it's unlikely you would've noticed anything. It's not your fault, Dick,"

Dick didn't say anything else as he paused at a stop sign, letting his bike idle for a few moments. Finally, after glancing down at the map on the front console to make sure he and Reese were going the right way, Dick sighed again.

"You ever hear of the Hurdles before?" he asked, as the two of them passed house after house, all of them belonging to families that were both big money, and old money.

"Eliza Hurdle is the heiress of a cosmetics company, right?" Reese asked, and Dick nodded.

"Yeah, the JewelKiss brand," he answered, after giving a sparing glance down to the file he had opened on the Hurdles. "I think they have a building out in Star,"

"Yeah, it's a block or two away from Queen Industries," Reese said after a moment, giving a thoughtful hum. "But, I think their corporate headquarters is in Gotham. Weren't they a part of a big scandal a couple of years ago?"

"Yeah," Dick answered. "These environmental activists found out that the research scientists for JewelKiss were poaching this endangered species of parrot from a nature preserve in the Amazon rainforest and using the feathers in their products. PETA and ASPCA got involved, along with the FBI. Eventually, a whole bunch of makeup was recalled and the surviving birds were brought back to the preserve, causing the company to take a major revenue hit,"

"Hmph," Reese muttered as the two of them neared the Hurdle house. "Serves them right,"

"Definitely," Dick agreed, before glancing over his shoulder at Reese again. "You ever use any of their stuff?"

"Please, Boy Wonder," Reese scoffed, quirking an eyebrow through the visor of her helmet. "When have you ever known me to wear makeup? And even if I did, I wouldn't wear JewelKiss,"

"Why not?" Dick asked, and he felt Reese shrug.

"The colors are too tacky,"

"Yeah," Dick said after a moment, smiling. "You don't need makeup anyway,"

There had been one or two occasions, mostly within the last year or so, where Dick had seen Oliver's daughter with makeup on, usually at different charity functions, but even then, it was the bare minimum.

Nothing like the models in the old JewelKiss ads, who sometimes looked like they could be related to the Joker.

Plus, Dick thought Reese looked prettier without makeup on, anyway. But, that was just his opinion.

That also brought Dick back to what had happened earlier, to the kiss he and Reese had shared after Robin had taken down that would-be robber at Callie's bakery.

The young protege was absolutely ecstatic that Reese returned his feelings (he had been terrified that she wouldn't), but Dick also wished that Reese also shared those same feelings about herself.

More often than not, Reese had to be reminded that she was an amazing person, and sometimes Dick wondered who exactly it was that had made the young brunette think that she wasn't the most endearing and breathtaking person in the entire world.

Dick just wanted to talk to them.

Finally, they reached Frank's house, and Dick brought his motorcycle to a stop. The large, sprawling manor land was still up there in terms of it coming from big money, but it was also not in the same state of impeccable condition that the others in the neighborhood were.

The stone wall that encircled the property was overgrown with ivy and the iron gate that enclosed the entrance to the driveway had rusted bars.

Climbing off of her spot behind Dick on his bike, Reese took her helmet off and stowed it in the compartment on the back of the motorcycle, shaking out her hair before walking over to the dilapidated front gate and peering through the bars.

"You said JewelKiss took a major revenue hit after that parrot feather scandal?" Reese asked as Dick walked up next to her, and the Boy Wonder gave a small nod.

"Yep," he answered simply, and Reese jerked her thumb towards the rusted gate and overgrown wall.

"Well," the brunette said simply. "I think this counts as fairly major,"

Reaching forward, Dick grabbed onto one of the bars of the gate and tugged. Surprisingly, with a screech of rusting hinges, the large iron gate managed to open, though it got stuck about eighteen inches out, and no matter how hard Dick pulled, he couldn't get it to move any farther.

"Guess we'll just have to squeeze through," Reese muttered before she turned sideways and slid through the gap between the two gate doors.

Shrugging, Dick followed, and within a couple of seconds, the two of them were standing on the driveway that led to the Hurdle mansion.

Luckily, though cracked and in desperate need of repair, the driveway was paved, so Dick didn't need to worry that he was going to trip over a hidden tree root and give himself a concussion.

Of course, that's what Dick thought until, about halfway towards the house, Reese suddenly dove on top of him, knocking both of them to the ground.

Then, Dick heard a 'whooshing' sound, and when he glanced up, he saw a spear stuck in the trunk of a tree three inches from where his head had been two seconds before.

"...thanks," he said quietly, glancing up at Reese, and she sent him a smile.

"Anytime, Boy Wonder," she answered. Then, Reese went to lean back, but before she could get to her feet, Dick surged forward and kissed her again.

Yeah, he definitely wasn't going to get tired of doing that.

When the two of them finally stood up straight back on the driveway, Reese walked over to the opposite side of where she had tackled Dick to the ground, and crouched down, lightly running her fingers over the soft earth.

"What'd you find?" Dick said quietly, walking up next to her, just as Reese pulled something up from where it had been lying hidden underneath a pile of dead leaves.

"Tripwire," she said simply, and Dick's eyes widened as he studied the almost-invisible strand of fishing line. Due to the state of the driveway, he wouldn't have even noticed it if he snapped it, which was exactly what had happened. "Obviously, the Hurdles don't want any visitors,"

"We need to be careful," Dick continued as Reese stood up again. "Who knows what other nasty surprises are between here and the front door?"

And nasty surprises there were. As Dick and Reese carefully made their way towards the main Hurdle house, there was an entire arsenal of traps they encountered.

After the spear, there was a swinging log that almost knocked both of them down, iron bear traps hidden beneath a turf coating that they managed to clear by stepping very, very carefully, and even a pit of wooden spikes that Reese would've fallen into had Dick not tugged her back by the hood of her sweatshirt at the last second.

Even though the arrowhead's danger sense hadn't been able to save Reese from getting shot, Dick was immensely grateful for the buzzing that occurred at the back of his head as he and Reese neared the Hurdles' front door.

Finally, once the front of the house was actually in sight, the stifling grove of trees that Dick and Reese had been walking through for the last fifteen minutes cleared, and there was only a line of boulders between them and the front door.

Dick went to walk over, but Reese grabbed his arm before he was able to move very far, and he bit down a sigh. More traps, he realized as he saw Reese narrow her eyes as she studied the line of boulders.

Great.

"You have a smoke bomb?" Reese asked suddenly, making Dick glance at her, one eyebrow raised.

"Yeah," he answered simply, slipping one out of his utility belt from where it hung across his chest underneath his own hoodie. "Why?"

"Throw it," Reese told him, and though he was still wondering what she saw, Dick complied anyway, throwing the small ball down on the ground with enough force that it exploded, sending dark gray smoke through the air.

When Dick saw what the smoke revealed, he swore he almost turned around and went back to Wayne Manor, without ever confronting Frank about why he had been the one to rob WayneTech.

Lasers. Why did it always have to be lasers?

Thanks to Dick's smoke bomb, both he and Reese were able to see the field of moving red security lasers that stood between them and the Hurdles' front door, the final trap they had to overcome before they were able to ask Frank why exactly he had thought it'd be a good idea to rob Bruce Wayne.

"You've got to be kidding me," Dick muttered, thoroughly fed up with this whole debacle, and wanting instead to confront Frank, find the stolen WayneTech tech, and get this whole thing over with. "Talk about a disaster. Heavy on the dis,"

"I'll race you," Reese said suddenly, making Dick snap his eyes towards her, only to see the brunette grinning. He had always known that she was a bit of an adrenaline junkie, but seriously?

"Fine," He admitted after a moment, wondering when exactly it was that he found himself unable to ever be able to tell Reese 'no'. "On three?"

"On three," Reese agreed, nodding her head before she and Dick both got into ready stances and Robin started with the countdown.

"One..."

"Two..."

But, before Dick could finish by saying 'three', Reese jerked to the side, kissed him on the cheek, and did a flip, landing on an open patch of grass between two of the light-beams, and leaving the other protege effectively speechless...again.

"Oh, come on, pretty bird!" Dick exclaimed once he got control of himself, still at the beginning of the laser field, while Reese was already halfway across. "That's not fair!"

"You're losing, Boy Wonder!" she cried back at him, before executing a perfect back handspring that landed her on the grass on the far end of the laser field, out of the way of any of the lasers. "Ta-da!" Reese exclaimed, holding her hands above her head. "I win,"

Grumbling under his breath, Dick did a quick and simple gymnastics routine that got him on the other side of the laser field beside Reese in about ninety seconds, and when he straightened up again, he sent her a look.

"You cheated," he told her simply, but Reese only gave him an innocent-looking smile that would've made anyone else believe her. And honestly, if he hadn't been the one to witness it, Dick would've believed her too.

"Did I?" she echoed, brown eyes sparkling. "Didn't know you were such a sore loser, Richard,"

"I know you're calling me by my full name on purpose, Rhysalin, but it's not going to work," Dick shot back, trying desperately not to show how much Reese calling him by his full name did, in fact, affect him.

Normally, Dick hated it when people called him Richard, as evidenced when Wally had done the same thing to him earlier when he had called, but...Dick didn't mind when Reese did it.

"You're lying," the brunette told him, lightly bumping her shoulder against his. "I know you are. Dick, you literally can't lie to me,"

"I am not," Dick shot back, though judging from the way Reese quirked an eyebrow, she didn't believe him. Sighing, Dick glanced over his shoulder at the lasers that were still slowly moving through the air. "How'd you know the lasers were there anyway?"

"Rocks are fake," Reese answered simply, waving a dismissive hand back towards the line of boulders. "Plus, I saw a sensor built into one of them. And considering I couldn't see the actual lasers themselves, I assumed a smoke bomb would make moving through them easier,"

"Smart," Dick piped up, and Reese sent him a smile.

"Why, thank you, Boy Wonder," she responded, before nodding her head towards the front door. "Now, you ready to do this?"

"Please, Rhysalin," Dick scoffed, shoving his hands into the pockets of his jacket. "I've been ready since we left Star City,"

The Hurdle house was in much the same state of disrepair as the rest of the property, but the house was still habitable. The paint was peeling off the sides, and the porch was in desperate need of a skilled carpenter, but though it creaked when Dick and Reese stepped onto it, the two of them managed to get to the front door without falling through.

The front doors were made of oak, which was in surprisingly good condition, considering everything else that Dick and Reese had seen thus far, and in the center of one of the double doors was an intricately engraved brass door-knocker, in the shape of a roaring lion.

Dick grabbed the ring on the bottom of the knocker and hit it against the door a couple of times, and then he and Reese waited, but Dick's patience ran out after the first three minutes.

Finally, after a glance at his watch told Dick he and Reese had been waiting for almost eight minutes, Reese straightened up.

"Someone's coming," she hissed quietly, and Dick let out a breath.

Finally.

Twenty seconds later, someone unlocked the front doors from inside the house, before one of the massive oak doors slowly opened, only for Dick to find himself face-to-face with Frank Hurdle himself.

For a few seconds, Dick's classmate looked shocked to find the other boy standing on his front porch, but after a couple of moments, Frank's face turned resigned, and he sighed, before opening the door wider.

Obviously, he knew why they were here.

"Hey, Dick," Frank said quietly. "I assume you've come about the tech?"

"Yeah," Dick said simply, crossing his arms as he and Reese followed Frank further into the house. "It took us a few weeks to figure out who stole it. I gotta admit, you covered your tracks well. You're still dumb as hell for thinking you could rob WayneTech, but you covered your tracks,"

Dick winced as Reese suddenly jabbed her elbow against his ribs, and he lightly rubbed the spot. Yeah, he might've been being a little bit rude, but this robbery had put both his and Bruce's secret identities at risk, so he was pretty sure he was entitled to at least a little bit of pettiness.

Then, Frank's eyes landed on Reese, and he tilted his head.

"Who's your girlfriend?" he asked, and despite it all, Dick felt his face flush.

Even though he and Reese had now kissed a total of three times (yes, he'd been counting), the two of them hadn't actually talked about what exactly they were. Relationship-wise, anyway.

But, even though this kind of thing usually would've made Reese blush as well, the brunette didn't even seem phased, only sticking out a hand towards Frank.

"Rhysalin Queen," she said simply, and Frank's eyes narrowed as he warily shook her hand, dropping his arm back down to the side a few seconds later.

"As in Oliver Queen?" he asked and tilted his head again when Reese nodded. "What are you doing in Gotham?"

"I owed Dick a favor," Reese explained quickly. "He wanted my help finding out who robbed his foster father's company,"

At that, Frank's own face turned red, and he rubbed the back of his neck, seeming almost sheepish, and Dick crossed his arms again.

"I'm sorry about that," he said, and from the corner of his eye, Dick saw Reese's eyes widen minutely. "It wasn't my idea,"

"Not your idea?" Dick echoed, surprised by Frank for the first time since he had opened the door. "Then whose idea was it?"

Frank glanced around the foyer where the three of them were standing for a couple of seconds, before beckoning to Dick and Reese with one hand.

"Come on," he said quietly. "We should talk somewhere else,"

Frank started down one of the adjoining corridors, but when Dick went follow him, he felt Reese gently grab his arm.

"Don't tell me there are more traps," Dick muttered, glancing down at her, but Reese only shook her head.

"No," she answered after a moment, glancing away for a moment before she looked back at him. "No, it's not that. It's just...am I your girlfriend?"

Dick blinked once before he reached up and rubbed the back of his neck. "I mean..." he trailed off. "Yeah, if y-you want to be. I think the three kisses counted towards that. No, wait--" Dick cut himself off, leaning forward and pressing his lips to Reese's for a split-second before he leaned back again. "Make that four,"

Reese gave a small laugh, glancing to the side for a moment before she reached down and grabbed Dick's hand in her own.

"I'd like that," she said quietly, before gently beginning to tug him down the same hallway that Frank had gone down a minute before. "Now, let's go find out who Frank was working for before he figures out that billionaire Bruce Wayne swings around in the middle of the night dressed as a flying mammal,"

Though that was actually exactly what Bruce did, Dick couldn't help but laugh at the mental image. But, Reese's statement also brought the young Boy Wonder back to reality, because he and Reese did need to find out who Frank had been working for before Batman's entire vigilante career was flushed down the drain.

Frank was waiting for them in what looked like a home office, and he was sitting down in a stuffed armchair when Dick and Reese walked in.

As the two of them sat down on a small couch across from Frank, a glass coffee table between the three, Frank sighed as he braced his elbows against his knees.

"As you have probably seen," Frank began after a few moments. "Despite public appearances, my family is no longer up there in terms of being part of the 'Gotham Elite'," he used quotation marks on the last two words, and Dick leaned back in his seat.

"We met your security system outside," he said simply, and Frank glanced up at him.

"Yeah," the other boy began. "That's been there for years, and my mom hasn't managed to figure out a way to shut it off. Usually, we just leave the back way,"

"What made you desperate enough to try and rob WayneTech?" Reese asked softly, and Frank shifted in his chair to look at her, one eyebrow raised.

"Isn't it obvious?" he scoffed sharply, making Dick bristle before Frank waved a hand around the room. "Money. After the whole JewelKiss scandal two years ago, all of my mother's company profit margins took a major hit, and basically, our entire fortune went 'poof'. My grades were good enough that I was able to stay at Gotham Academy on scholarship, and we've managed to keep most of it under wraps, but in the upper-crust of Gotham, it'd be easier to hide the fact that you're a superhero than the fact that one of the families has no money,"

Dick couldn't stop himself from glancing over at Reese for a split-second, only to see that she was looking at him as well, brown eyes wide as saucers. Honestly, Frank didn't know just how close to the truth he was.

And that was what they were hoping to avoid.

"You said that it was someone else's idea for you to rob WayneTech," Dick said after a moment, making Frank look at him again, and the young hero tilted his head. "Who?"

Frank gave a heavy sigh, before he glanced down at the floor, eyes staring hard at his shoes for several seconds before he finally spoke.

"He said that because I was one of your classmates--" he began. "--that no one would question me being in the building after hours. The secretary just assumed I was asking you a question about school when she gave me the visitor pass,"

"Who told you to rob WayneTech?" Dick asked again, his patience wearing thin (again), and he saw Reese glance at him out of the corner of her eye.

Again, Frank sighed, before he finally looked up, and met Dick's eyes.

"Simon Stagg," he said simply, and both Dick and Reese were struck speechless. But, even if the two of them were able to speak, Frank continued his explanation before they could. "Stagg said he'd compensate my family for the money we'd lost after the scandal if I'd be the one to break into WayneTech for him and steal some of Bruce Wayne's prototypes,"

And it just so happened that most of Bruce's prototypes, even the ones not connected to the Dark Knight, were, in fact, developed within the R&D department, so hopefully, that meant neither Frank nor Stagg had any clue that Bruce Wayne was Batman, or that Dick moonlighted as Robin.

Thank God.

Though judging from the few instances that Dick had had the displeasure (heavy on the dis) of meeting Simon Stagg, usually, whenever the older businessman came in to talk to Bruce, the young Boy Wonder had come to the conclusion that Stagg was a crooked and shrewd businessman who would stop at nothing to get what he wanted, so honestly, who knew what else Simon Stagg knew?

That did not make Dick feel any better.

"Did you deliver the tech you stole straight to Simon Stagg?" Reese asked, having gotten over her initial shock of having heard that Stagg was the one who had paid off Frank, but Dick's classmate only shook his head.

"No," he answered after a moment. "That wasn't part of our deal. Mr. Stagg told me to get the WayneTech products out of the company and then bring them down to a warehouse he owned out of a shell corporation down at the docks, where he'd pick them up himself later,"

"Which warehouse did you deliver the prototypes to?" Dick asked, realizing that if he and Reese got to the stolen prototypes before Stagg picked them up, this whole thing could be over like that.

Sighing again, Frank glanced up and leveled Dick with a steady look that told the Boy Wonder that his classmate was both apologetic for what he had done, and wanted Stagg to obviously get what was coming to him.

"Warehouse 16,"

➳➳➳

"Plastic Man," Batman said simply as a holo-screen appeared above the Justice League's meeting table, and beside him, Captain Marvel let out a chuckle, though Billy quickly covered it up with his hand.

Flash, meanwhile, was less than impressed.

"I don't know," the speedster began quickly, leaning forward in his seat and holding out a hand. "The guy's got a pretty substantial criminal record,"

This time, Captain Marvel wasn't able to control his giggles, and he burst out laughing, though he also quickly held up a hand to ward off any reprimands.

"Sorry," Billy managed to say after a few seconds, wiping a tear that had escaped out of his eye with one finger. "I'm sorry. The guy just cracks me up,"

But, instead, every other Leaguer was staring at Captain Marvel, as if they had all suddenly been reminded that, despite Superman's statement earlier that they weren't allowing children into the Justice League, the team of adult heroes, had, in fact, already inducted one.

"Maybe it's time we all talked about the elephant in the room?" Barry asked, sighing, before addressing the rest of the League. "Should Captain Marvel stay a member, now that we really only know that he's ten years old?"

"He does possess an adult body and the Wisdom of Solomon," Red Tornado spoke up, though Aquaman quickly cut him off.

"Wisdom," the Atlantean King clarified. "Does not equal maturity,"

"Hey!" Marvel exclaimed, a bit exasperated. "I'm sitting right here!"

"Then, Billy," Black Canary began softly, leaning forward in her seat. "Maybe you should leave. Until we've hashed this out,"

"No," Surprisingly, the protest came from Batman, of all people. "Captain Marvel is a member and is entitled to participate until or unless he's voted out,"

To say Billy was relieved would be an understatement, but before he could say anything, Wonder Woman interrupted.

"It's not just his age," Diana began sternly. "It's the fact that he lied about it,"

"I didn't lie," Captain Marvel told her, before glancing to the side. "...exactly. I just left out the part about being a kid,"

"A lie of omission is still a lie," Wonder Woman continued. "You kept an important secret from us. No one in the League knew the truth,"

"I knew," Again, the statement came from Batman, and Diana twisted around in her chair to glare at the Dark Knight, fists clenched above the table.

"I don't know why I'm surprised," the Amazon princess continued after a moment. "Since you indoctrinated Robin into crime-fighting at the ripe old age of nine,"

"Robin needed to help bring the man who murdered his family to justice," Batman began, though Diana still wasn't convinced.

"So he could turn out like you?" she scoffed, but Batman only gave her a steady, and slightly saddened, look.

"So that he wouldn't," Bruce corrected her before Wonder Woman rounded on Green Arrow.

"And what about you?" she snapped, and Ollie crossed his arms, scowling.

"What about me?" he echoed, voice bordering on a growl, but Diana's eyes only narrowed even more.

"Do you billionaires make it a habit of taking in orphaned children and dressing them up in bright costumes to fight crime?" Wonder Woman asked, making Green Arrow's jaw clench. "You've said it yourself before, Arrow, that your daughter's powers are unstable. Her Canary Cry is twice as strong as Dinah's own. For all we know, Reese could end up hurting someone. She could end up hurting one of us,"

"She wouldn't do that!" Oliver exclaimed, standing up from his seat so fast that it was knocked backward, and Captain Marvel, from where he sat beside the Emerald Archer, leaned back a few inches. "Not on purpose, and you know that, Diana. When Robin and Red Arrow found Reese in Star City three years ago, her powers were just starting to fully manifest, and she was scared. Reese didn't know what was happening to her, and she needed an outlet. Being Silverbird gave her that outlet. Until you have kids of your own, Princess, you do not get to tell me how to be a parent. Because you don't know what it's like,"

"Oliver," Batman cut in swiftly, and Green Arrow snapped his gaze over to the Dark Knight, eyes blazing behind his mask.

"What?" he growled, hands clenched against the table, but Batman's expression didn't change.

"Sit. Down."

Though the archer's temper was boiling like that of an overheated pot of water, the blond man complied, sitting back down in his chair (which Captain Marvel had sat upright again), and glaring at Wonder Woman from across the table.

After several minutes of angry, tense silence passed, Martian Manhunter finally stood up from his own chair and looked out at the rest of the Justice League.

"You seem to have reached a consensus that eighteen years is a suitable minimum age for joining the League," the Martian began. "Yet what of Miss Martian? Though she is a biological adolescent by Martian standards, she was born forty-eight Earth years ago,"

"So what is the deciding factor?" Red Tornado asked calmly. "Chronology or biology? Take Superboy..."

"Exactly," Dinah added. "He's less than a year old. Does he have to wait seventeen more to stand beside us?"

From across the table, and at the mention of Conner, Green Arrow saw Superman glance away, and he scowled again.

Now there, the archer decided was someone who didn't know how to be a parent.

➳➳➳

Peering over the edge of the roof across from the warehouse where Frank had said he'd delivered the stolen tech, Silverbird narrowed her eyes.

She and Robin were laying on their stomachs on the roof, having stopped back at the Manor to grab their suits, and were now waiting for the perfect opportunity to move in on Warehouse 16 and (hopefully) get the stolen WayneTech technology back before Simon Stagg discovered how to use it.

"What do you see?" Dick whispered from beside her, and Reese strained her vision a bit before she finally turned her head to glance over at her boyfriend.

Boyfriend...wow.

"Eight guards with assault weapons patrolling the perimeter," she murmured quietly, gesturing lightly with one hand. "They round the corners every five minutes, so if we time it right, I think we can get inside without them noticing us, though that also doesn't account for how many bozos are on the inside,"

"Then," Dick piped up, waving a pair of binoculars around. "We go stealth-mode. And high-tech,"

"High-tech?" Silverbird echoed. "With what? Bird-watching?"

"Ha. Ha," Robin deadpanned, before pressing a button on the side of the binoculars that made a yellow-tinted lens flip down onto the front. "No. Actually, it's these x-ray binoculars. My own invention. Uses research I made from studying how Superman uses his x-ray vision so I could create something that could help an everyday person see through walls. Pretty cool, right?"

"Definitely," Reese answered, grinning as Dick pointed the binoculars towards the warehouse and looked through them. "What do you see?"

"The crates that held the stolen tech are definitely inside," Robin answered, pulling the binoculars down from his eyes. "All the boxes that B uses for his stuff are lined with lead, both so the Boy Scout can't see through them, and so they're protected from any sort of radiation,"

"Bruce is weird," Silverbird murmured again, and Robin glanced over at her, eyebrow raised behind his mask.

"You're just now realizing this?" he asked, and Reese sent him a dry look before Dick turned back to the warehouse. "Anyway, yeah, there are clumps throughout the warehouse that these binoculars can't see-through, so I'm assuming those are the crates. We find those, make sure the tech's in there, then deliver it back to WayneTech with Simon Stagg being none the wiser. But..."

He trailed off for a moment, and that was what made Silverbird glance over at him again, one eyebrow quirked.

"What is it?" she asked, and Robin shrugged, seeming almost sheepish.

"Along with the crates," he began slowly. "I was also able to see about a dozen more guards inside the warehouse, plus the ones already outside,"

"Wow," Reese muttered, running her teeth over her bottom lip before she shrugged. "We can take them,"

"You can't be serious," Robin stared at the brunette next to him as if she had just grown a second head. "Pretty bird, normally I'd be all for it, but, right now? You're sounding like me, and it's a bit freaky,"

"Maybe it's just because I've been spending so much time with you, Boy Wonder," she retorted, and Reese was able to hear Dick hiss a breath out from between his teeth.

"The last time we went up against this many bad guys, Rhysalin," Dick began, his hands clenching around the sides of his binoculars. "You got shot,"

"Yeah," Reese admitted slowly. "But, those Bialyan soldiers also had high-tech Apokiliptan weapons, and--"

"You got shot with a handgun,"

"Are you done?" Silverbird asked suddenly, and Robin shrugged. Even he didn't know if he was. "Look," Reese cut in, waving her right arm around to show Dick that she was, in fact, okay. "Full range of motion,"

Sure, her arm twinged a little bit, but it was nothing compared to the initial pain right after the commander's gun had gone off. Plus, it felt even better, now that Reese wasn't wearing her sling. That might've been a bit counter-intuitive, but it worked.

Suddenly, much like she had done to him when the two of them had been trying to make their way to talk to Frank, Dick dove on top of Reese, rolling both of them across the roof of the warehouse where they had been laying as the sound of gunfire exploded around them, and the spot where Reese had just been laying was shredded as bullets tore through the metal sheeting that made up the roof.

As she and Robin finally rolled to a stop, Silverbird felt her shoulder hit the roof particularly hard, and she winced. Dick noticed the movement, and he gave her a look.

"Full range of motion?" he echoed, and Reese shrugged. Oops.

Then, Robin took out another smoke bomb and threw it down to the cement below, the cover added by the small gadget giving the both of them an opportunity to jump down from the roof, vault off of a dumpster, and jump right into the fray, Stagg's thugs thoroughly confused about what was going on.

Even though Reese had (unintentionally) given away the position where she and Dick had been hiding, the guards that Simon Stagg had hired were relatively low-profile, and thus, not very smart.

So, as the six guards who had originally investigated the newly-arrived smoke cloud stumbled around confused, Robin and Silverbird moved like wraiths, taking down the thugs one by one with a surprising amount of stealth, despite the fact that the guards now knew they were here.

As the smoke cloud began to clear, and Reese hit one guard in the face with his own gun, her head suddenly buzzed, which then led to her vision splitting once more.

Along with watching through Robin's eyes as the Boy Wonder landed a solid right hook to a thug's jaw, Reese was also able to see Dick through her own eyes on the other side of the smoke cloud, which also meant she was able to see one of Stagg's men sneaking up behind Robin, quiet enough that Dick wouldn't have been able to notice him on his own.

But, due to the magic that was the arrowheads given to Reese by Kent Nelson, and the fact that Silverbird was literally watching his back, Robin was warned of the impending attack before it happened, and he ducked, pivoting on his foot and swinging his opposite leg out at the guard just as the thug raised his gun, and Dick was able to both knock the other guy to the ground and knock him out before the gun went off.

Reese flipped another one of Stagg's men over her shoulder, before glancing around and realizing that, somehow, in the adrenaline rush that always seemed to erupt within her when she did anything relating to fighting evil, Silverbird hadn't even noticed that she and Robin had managed to take down every one of the guards that had been patrolling the perimeter outside the warehouse.

Of course, that also meant that there was still a dozen more of Stagg's hired muscle guarding the crates inside the warehouse, but for the time being, Reese was too hyped up on her adrenaline giddiness to care.

"And you were worried about our odds," Silverbird spoke up, glancing towards Robin as Dick finished tying up the groaning guards, the Boy Wonder sending his girlfriend a grin as he walked over to her.

"I never said I was worried," he tried to justify. "Just that usually, it takes more time, and more people, to defeat bozos like this,"

"Way to downplay the accomplishment, Robin," Reese muttered, turning around again to face the main warehouse, and as she noticed movement come from inside, the brunette assumed Dick shrugged from behind her.

"I'm not downplaying anything," the Boy Wonder continued quietly as he and Silverbird crept closer to the warehouse. "I actually thought it was pretty cool. I'm just stating a fact that usually, it'd take more than two people to take down that many guards,"

"Yeah, well--" Reese began, noticing an open window on the upper level that she and Dick would be able to enter in order to get into the warehouse. "--those guys were pretty dumb,"

"You think we had an advantage?" Robin whispered as he shot his grappler up into the air, so it locked onto a support beam on the roof of the warehouse.

"In terms of higher IQs?" Silverbird asked as Dick wrapped an arm around her waist and allowed his grappling line to pull both of them up to brace themselves on one side of the open window. "Definitely."

As Reese poked her head around the side of the window, she quickly flicked her eyes around the parts of the warehouse she could see.

The WayneTech crate were definitely inside, Silverbird could see a few of them stacked in a pile on top of a table on the ground floor, the technology being guarded by four thugs who were at least twice as muscular as the ones who had been guarding the perimeter.

"Still think we can take them?" Robin whispered in her ear, and Reese gave him a dry look over her shoulder.

"Do we have a choice?" she asked him finally, and Dick shrugged before Silverbird hopped down onto a ledge that lay underneath the window, balancing on her toes so she wouldn't fall off the three-inch-wide opening.

Shuffling to the side, Reese moved so Dick would be able to stand next to her, and the two of them peered over the windowsill into the warehouse.

"We don't have to take them all down with brute force," Robin suddenly hissed out of the side of the mouth, only for him and Silverbird to duck down when a guard passed by the window they were crouching in front of. "I have a better idea,"

"Like what?" Reese whispered back, flicking her eyes over the edge of the sill again before she turned back to Dick, only to see him slip something out of his utility belt.

"Trust me," he said quickly, before leaping through the window and landing silently on the upper walkway, Reese following him inside a second later.

The guard who had just passed by the window was walking with his back to them, and Robin took him out swiftly, hitting the guard on the back of his neck, striking the trigger point, and making the guard fall to the floor, though Dick managed to catch him before he made a loud 'crash'.

Hearing footsteps coming from behind them, Silverbird grabbed Robin and dragged him behind another pile of crates that was nearby, signaling Dick to be quiet just as another guard rounded the corner of the upper walkway.

Reese waited until the guard was a bit closer before she shot her arrow, and the arrow turned into a bola as it flew through the air, the wire wrapping around the guard and slamming him into the wall with enough force that he was knocked out.

"All clear?" Dick whispered after a couple more seconds, and after a moment to glance around, Reese nodded. "Good," Robin gave a solid nod before he reached into his utility belt again and pulled out two rebreathers, one of which he handed to Silverbird, and after a moment, she took it, giving Dick a dubious raised eyebrow.

"We planning on flooding the place?" she asked, but Dick just shook his head, sticking the rebreather in his mouth and standing up, walking over to the railing and staring down at the gathered guards.

Reese had no idea what Dick was planning, his ideas frequently confused her, but she followed him anyway, walking up to stand beside Robin as he stood at the railing, taking the rebreather out of his mouth and letting out one of his signature cackles.

The ten conscious guards that were milling about on the ground floor whipped around at the sudden noise, their faces bearing identical expressions of shock mixed with anger and confusion as they saw the two proteges standing above them.

"Don't you know it's wrong to steal from people?" Robin piped up, and just as the guards all pointed the guns at him and Silverbird, Dick reached into his utility belt again and took out what looked like one of his smoke bombs, holding it over the edge of the railing before he let go, and allowed the small ball to drop to the ground.

Green-tinted smoke billowed out when the smoke bomb exploded, and Reese followed Dick again as he stuck his rebreather back into his mouth and ran across the walkway, both of them avoiding the bullets shooting their way as Stagg's men fired their guns wildly through the warehouse.

Silverbird's eyes began to water as she and Robin bolted down a flight of stairs onto the ground floor of the warehouse, and Reese suddenly realized what Dick had thrown down into the fray, and why they were wearing their rebreathers.

Knockout gas.

Quick, effective, and as Silverbird leaped over the fallen form of one of the guards, very stealthy when wanting to get a mission over with quickly.

By the time the gas dissipated, the rest of the guards were unconscious, and Dick not-so-gently shoved one off of the table he had collapsed onto.

"You start looking through the crates," Robin piped up, glancing over his shoulder at Silverbird as she stepped carefully around each of the unconscious guards. "I'll bring these guys outside, tie them up with the others, and call GCPD to come and pick them up. No doubt they all have records,"

Reese nodded, and Dick grabbed a thug's shirt collar in each of his hands and began dragging them outside. It looked like slow work, but Dick managed, and as he went back and forth from the inside and outside of the warehouse, Reese walked along the side, trying to find something that would allow her to open the crates.

Finally, Silverbird found a crowbar leaning against a box in a corner, and she picked it up, walking back over to the crates just as Robin walked back into the warehouse from delivering the last thug outside.

"I'm going to call Batman," Dick spoke up after a moment, waving his hand in the air. "I'll tell him we found the stolen tech, and that Stagg was the one behind it,"

Reese tilted her head to the side, hair shifting over her shoulder. "Isn't Batman still on the Watchtower?" she asked, and Dick shrugged.

"Probably," he admitted. "But, I figured he'd want to know about this now, instead of us telling him about it later,"

Silverbird just shrugged in agreement again as she walked over to the first crate, and Robin pulled up his holo-computer, placing his call to Batman.

But, as the metal bar cracked against the wooden planks of the crate's lid, and Reese tossed it off, her eyes widened as she saw what was inside.

Or rather, what wasn't inside.

The crate was empty.

➳➳➳

"No other ideas?" Superman asked at the end of the meeting as he, Batman, and Wonder Woman stood in front of the rest of the Justice League. When no one said anything, Clark continued. "Then here are our candidates for new or continued League membership,"

Batman opened his mouth, but before he could say anything, the Watchtower's own holo-computer beeped, before a screen popped up, Robin's face showing up on it.

In the background, Green Arrow was able to see Reese, dressed as Silverbird, walking around whatever warehouse she and Dick were currently inside, fiddling with...something.

The archer supposed he should be feeling protective that Silverbird was--likely--alone with Robin wherever it was that they were, but he couldn't find it in himself to be.

No one would ever be good enough for Reese, but Oliver supposed that Dick Grayson...he came pretty close.

"Hope we're not interrupting?" Robin asked after a moment, and the adult Leaguers, getting over the shock about whatever it was that the Boy Wonder was calling about, all turned towards Batman, who sighed for a moment before straightening up again to look at his protege.

"No," the Dark Knight answered simply. "What is it, Robin?"

"Uh..." Dick trailed off for a moment, glancing over his shoulder at Reese before he turned back to face his screen. "Silverbird and I figured out who robbed WayneTech,"

"Somebody robbed WayneTech?" Oliver exclaimed, glancing towards Bruce, but the only indication at all that Batman was phased was the slightest clenching of his jaw.

"Who?" Bruce asked finally, and Robin seemed to hesitate for a moment before he answered, though why that was, Oliver wasn't sure.

"Simon Stagg," Dick said after a second of contemplation, running his free hand through his hair before he continued. "He paid someone off to steal the actual technology, but then he stashed the stolen tech in a warehouse at the docks--which is where Silverbird and I are now--and then he was going to come by and pick it up later,"

"The tech's all there?" Batman asked, and Robin shrugged.

"Reese is checking now," he explained, but just then, Reese's own voice came from off-camera. Dick turned towards her, but whatever it was that Oliver's adopted daughter had said, it wasn't good, because Robin's mask lenses widened to the point they were almost full circles, and he gave a glance back towards his holo-screen. "Uh...just a second," he said quickly before the camera angle changed as if Dick was now holding his arm above his head.

"The crates are empty," Reese spoke again, and this time, everyone turned towards Batman, whose jaw, at this point, had clenched to the point that Green Arrow was sure his teeth would end up cracking.

"What do you mean, they're empty?" Robin asked, and Oliver wasn't sure if Dick had forgotten to turn his holo-computer off or not. He also heard his daughter scoff from off-screen, and the blond man was pretty sure that Reese was giving Dick one of her "looks".

"I mean--," she began. "I've checked almost every WayneTech crate that was in this plate, and the tech's not here. Stagg must've already come and picked it up himself,"

"You said you checked almost all of them?" Batman spoke up, and Robin moved his arm again so both he and Silverbird were now in view of his holo-screen. "What's in the ones you haven't?"

"Well," Reese began. "I only have one crate left, but...I don't know, I get a bad feeling off of it,"

"Open it," Bruce said gruffly, and Oliver saw both Reese and Dick's eyes widen, and they glanced at each other for a moment before turning back to look at the holoscreen.

"But--" Silverbird started, but Batman cut her off.

"Open it," he repeated, and Reese sighed, before picking up a crowbar and bracing the curved edge underneath the lip of the crate's lid.

The wood paneling of the crate cracked as Silverbird pushed the handle of the crowbar down, and once there was an opening big enough, she tore the crate's top off and peered inside.

Green Arrow was able to see the exact moment his daughter's entire body tense, and the holo-screen's camera angle shook for a moment as if Robin had tensed up as well.

"Uh-oh," the two proteges said in unison, and Oliver tensed up himself at the ominous undertones.

"What do you mean uh-oh?" he echoed. "What's going on?"

"Uh..." Silverbird was the one who spoke, and Ollie was sure he wasn't the only one who heard her voice tremble as she ran a hand through her hair. "So, Simon Stagg already got the prototypes," she rushed out hurriedly. "And he kind of...left something behind,"

"Like what?" Batman asked grimly, and Robin tilted his holo-computer down so the Justice League would be able to see inside the crate, and when they did, everyone caught their breath for a few seconds.

Wrapped in what looked like four bundles of C-4, the bomb sat nestled in the sawdust that acted as a cushion for whatever had been in the crate previously, and a red light sat blinking above the timer.

A timer...that was currently counting down from ten.

"Get out of there!" Batman shouted, and both Dick and Reese bolted, Robin's holo-computer feed shaking as the beeping in the crate got louder.

Then, there was a loud and resounding 'boom', a cloud of fire erupted from the crate, and the feed cut out.

For several seconds after aboard the Watchtower, the Justice League was dead-silent, before Green Arrow rounded on Batman, his entire body trembling.

"You told Reese to open that crate," Oliver growled, hands clenched so hard around the edge of the table that his fingers were close to breaking. "You knew she had a bad feeling about it, but you made her and Robin open it anyway. You just killed my daughter!"

To his credit, Bruce looked shaken. Everybody looked shaken, both at what had just happened and at Green Arrow's outburst.

"Arrow," Batman began slowly, and if anyone had been listening (everyone was), they would've heard the way the Dark Knight's voice shook. "I--"

"It was your city, Batman," Oliver continued, stalking forward until he was close enough to Bruce that he was able to shove the vigilante backward, to which Batman didn't fight. "Your company. You should've figured out Stagg was behind this weeks ago! But you didn't. Instead, Silverbird and Robin figured it out, and knowing the two of them, they wanted to get to the bottom of this and find the tech themselves, to prove themselves to you. This isn't Stagg's fault, Batman,"  Green Arrow growled, using one finger to jab at the bat emblem splayed across the Dark Knight's chest. "It's yours,"

"Arrow," Oliver heard J'onn's voice come from behind him. The archer heard the Martian's voice, but he didn't process it, too wrapped up in his rage and grief to say anything in response. 

Instead, the blond man just stood in front of one of his oldest friends, eyes glaring at Bruce Wayne hard enough that, if looks could kill, Batman would be dead a dozen times over.

"Ollie," This time, Dinah spoke, and her voice was what snapped Oliver from his rant, and he turned to Black Canary, in time to see his girlfriend point towards the open center of the room where the holo-screens popped up, her blue eyes wide.

When Green Arrow turned around to see what Dinah was looking at, his breath caught in his throat.

Sometime between when the bomb had gone off in Gotham and now, a new holo-screen popped up. One that showcased both Robin and Silverbird sitting there...alive and blinking at the Justice League like a pair of curious owls as smoke billowed around in the background behind them.

"Uh..." Dick trailed off, and Oliver realized that he and Reese had probably just witnessed his temper blow up at Batman. Great. "Hi?"

➳➳➳

Reese and Dick managed to get out of the warehouse a second before the bomb went off, and Robin pulled Silverbird behind the corner of a nearby shipping container, both of them ducking down as the warehouse where Stagg had kept the empty WayneTech crates exploded.

Silverbird was able to feel the heat from the explosion as the bomb went off, and she clapped her hands over her ears as a loud 'boom' sounded...a really, really loud 'boom'.

Somewhere in the commotion, Robin had accidentally turned off his holo-computer, and as he and Reese crouched behind the shipping container, Dick began to fiddle with his glove, trying to re-establish the connection with the Justice League.

Who knew what their mentors were thinking right now?

Robin flicked his eyes over to Silverbird as he worked, and his eyes widened as he saw Reese crouching beside him, eyes scrunched shut behind her mask and hands pressed over her ears.

Crap. 

The sound of the bomb going off was loud enough for Dick, and he was sure his ears would be ringing for a day or two, but even though he and Reese were far enough away from the blast zone now that they wouldn't be physically hurt, the 'boom' would've been at least a dozen times worse for Reese with her super-hearing.

Reaching forward, Robin set a hand on Silverbird's shoulder, and Reese jolted, her head snapping to the side almost ninety degrees as she turned to look at him.

"Are you okay?" Dick asked quietly, and when Reese blinked, something in his stomach dropped. "Rhysalin," he repeated, a little bit louder. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah," Silverbird murmured after a moment, finally taking her hands away from her ears and turning to look at him better. "Yeah, I'm okay,"

"Are you sure?" Robin asked, tilting his head around so he'd be able to see Reese's ears. Moving some of her hair out of the way, Dick peered at his girlfriend's ears.

They weren't bleeding, which was a good sign, and there were no signs of inflammation either. There was always the possibility, and likely scenario, that Reese's eardrums had been damaged by the sound of the bomb exploding, but for now, Robin couldn't see any immediate signs of damage, in either of Reese's ears, so he counted that as a plus.

"Stagg already moved the tech," Reese stated the obvious after a few minutes as she and Dick sat on the ground against the shipping container, their backs pressed against the metal exterior. "He probably left that bomb behind to take care of whoever came looking for it,"

"Yep," Robin agreed, still fiddling with his holo-glove before he glanced back at Silverbird. "You think Frank knew about the bomb?"

But, Reese only shook her head.

"No," she answered simply. "When we questioned him about the tech, he was genuinely apologetic. He felt guilt for robbing WayneTech in the first place, I don't think he'd be one to tip off Simon Stagg that we were coming. Plus, he doesn't know who we are. Superhero-wise, anyway,"

"Yeah," Dick admitted before he finally managed to re-establish his video feed on the Watchtower,  his holo-screen enlarging so he and Reese would be able to see better.

And what they saw was weird. Not entirely uncommon, but just weird.

Green Arrow, Reese's dad, was standing nose-to-nose with Batman, and to say Oliver Queen looked angry would be a gross understatement.

"It's not Stagg's fault, Batman," Ollie was saying, his finger jabbing at the bat symbol on Bruce's chest. "It's yours,"

Dick and Reese both glanced at each other, the two slightly wondering what their mentors and father figures were arguing about when suddenly, Captain Marvel gasped.

"Look!" he exclaimed, pointing towards the holo-screen that had undoubtedly shown up above the League's meeting table when Robin had called, and the Justice League, except for Batman and Green Arrow, turned towards the holo-screen, eyes wide.

The older heroes' reaction was...odd to say the least, but when Martian Manhunter tried to get Arrow's attention, it didn't work. Only Dinah was able to snap Oliver out of his tirade, and when the Emerald Archer turned towards the screen, his face paled, as if he had just seen a ghost.

"Uh..." Dick trailed off as he and Reese blinked at the holo-screen, before holding his free hand up in a timid wave. "Hi?"

"You're alive?" Green Arrow exclaimed, and from the corner of his eye, Robin saw Silverbird scrunch her eyebrows together.

"Did you think we weren't?" Reese asked, and as Oliver scrambled to say something, Dick thought he looked like a gasping fish.

"When the warehouse exploded," Superman began slowly. "The feed cut out. We thought something had happened. We thought..."

Clark trailed off, but Dick and Reese were able to catch the gist of what the Kryptonian hero was saying. The Justice League looked like someone had just died because they had actually thought that the both of them were dead.

"Yeah, that was my fault," Robin said quickly, rubbing the back of his neck with his free hand. "Silverbird and I ducked behind a shipping container to avoid the blast and I fell on my glove. Sorry,"

"It's alright," Batman said simply, and Dick and Reese glanced at each other again. Was it just them, or did Batman's voice just tremble? Batman's voice never trembled. Maybe the League really had thought they had died. "We're all just glad you're okay,"

"Wait," Robin snapped his head up as a thought suddenly occurred to him, and he glanced towards Silverbird. "If, uh...you-know-who, wasn't the one who tipped off Stagg that we were heading to the warehouse, who did?"

Reese stared at him blankly for a few seconds, wondering who the hell it was that he was that Dick was talking about before her eyes widened.

Even though Frank Hurdle had been the one to physically rob WayneTech, he wasn't the brains behind the operation, the bomb itself was proof enough of that, and Dick didn't want to throw his classmate under the metaphorical bus like that, especially considering the stress his family was under already.

"Have you told anybody else about what the two of you are doing?" Oliver asked, and Dick and Reese turned back to Robin's holo-screen. "It could be someone else you've talked to,"

"We haven't told anybody," Silverbird said. "The two of us didn't even discover who had really stolen the WayneTech technology until earlier this morning,"

"What if we were followed?" Dick asked quietly, glancing towards Reese, and she shrugged.

"Maybe," the brunette began. "Did you notice anyone following us earlier, though?"

Dick shook his head. "No," he answered honestly. "But, they might've covered their tracks. Maybe--"

He was abruptly cut off as Reese slapped her hand over his mouth, and when Robin flicked his eyes over to his girlfriend to see what exactly her deal was, Silverbird held one finger to her mouth, signaling him to be quiet.

Blasted eardrums or not, Reese's hearing was still more honed and enhanced than a regular human's, and whatever it was, she must've heard something.

"Call you later," Dick said quickly to the Justice League, before he hung up, shrinking his holo-screen down again and standing up, following after Reese as she stalked slowly along the side of the stacked up shipping containers between them, and the path that led out of the docks.

The two of them peered around the corner of one of the shipping containers, in time to see a black sedan park in the aisle a few rows across from where Robin and Silverbird were standing.

A bit suspicious, a car like that parking down at the docks in the middle of the day, but then again, this was Gotham, so who knew what was going on?

All four doors of the sedan opened, and four people stepped out. Three of them were men, but the driver of the car was a woman; tall, with light blonde hair tied back into a neat bun on top of her head.

"No way..." Dick murmured from behind Reese's shoulder, and she glanced back at him.

"What is it?" she asked, and Robin nodded his head towards the woman.

"That's Frank Hurdle's mom," he muttered, and Silverbird's eyes widened. "That's Eliza Hurdle,"

"What's she doing here?" Reese asked, but all Dick could do was shrug.

"Maybe Frank was lying?" he asked, but when Reese sent him a deadpan look, he backtracked. "Well, I don't think he was, but maybe his mom's in on it too? From what I read up about her before we talked to Frank, she was the one who suffered the most after that whole parrot scandal,"

"Well, yeah, of course, she did," Silverbrid retorted. "It was her company that took the hit,"

"No, pretty bird, you don't understand," Robin responded as the two of them carefully began to slip through the shipping containers, following the path that Eliza and her goons had taken. "Eliza Hurdle's family came from old, old money. She doesn't know anything less than the upper-class life,"

"So what happened after the JewelKiss scandal?" Reese asked as she peered around the corner of one shipping container, before turning down that way, Dick following after her.

"She lost it," he explained, remembering what he had read about Eliza Hurdle. It had taken a bit of backdoor-hacking, but he wasn't called the Boy Wonder for nothing. "Eliza couldn't seem to fathom a life where she wasn't part of the upper crust, and from what few articles I could find about it, it looks like she had some sort of nervous breakdown. Even spent a few months in Arkham,"

"Spending time in Arkham would make anyone go crazy," Reese muttered, before jerking to a stop between two aisles of shipping containers, spinning around and pressing her back to the metal, Dick following her lead a moment later.

Just then, voices reached Robin's ears, and he froze, even trying to regulate his breathing so his breaths wouldn't be too loud.

"We searched the wreckage, ma'am," a male voice said, and Dick assumed it had to be one of the goons that had come with Eliza. "There aren't any bodies,"

"What?" Eliza Hurdle's voice was shrill, like nails and a chalkboard, and it grated on Robin's ears as he and Silverbird continued to listen. "Even Batman himself wouldn't have been able to detect the device in time to escape from the blast of that bomb. How did two sidekicks survive?"

Aside from the fact that he and Reese weren't sidekicks (they were proteges, get it right, Eliza), what really caught Dick's attention was the fact that aside from the bomb being too smart (allegedly) for even Batman, the whole "unable to be detected" thing also made Robin perk up.

"What should we do, ma'am?" another of the thugs asked, and Dick heard Eliza hiss a breath out. Considering the woman and her goons were standing eight feet away, Robin was slightly impressed that he and Silverbird hadn't been discovered yet.

"Get the other guards," Eliza said finally, her voice sounding resigned. "Mr. Stagg still needs to figure out how to use Wayne's prototypes, and if those two bird-brains really did survive the bomb, they'll no doubt be going to corporate headquarters next, considering that's where Stagg brought the prototypes after he picked them up from here. My son thought he was giving his family a better life. My son is weak,"

Regardless of whether he was a thief or not, Dick still felt bad for Frank, and he almost rounded the corner to confront Eliza about the things she was saying about her own son, but Reese clamped her hand around his wrist before the Boy Wonder could move, shaking her head at him.

Even though she didn't say anything, Robin had to admit that the brunette did, in fact, have a point. Likely, both Eliza and the thugs she had brought along were armed, and even though the two of them had managed to defeat almost two dozen guards on their own earlier, that was under the cover of stealth, somewhat, and right now? They were vastly outnumbered.

Plus, they had just found out where the WayneTech prototypes actually were, rather than just walking into a trap like they had done here at the docks earlier.

Stagg Industries corporate headquarters. 

Easy-peasy.

➳➳➳

It was not easy-peasy.

Well, getting into Stagg Industries, that was easy. The building's security force and security measures were so severely lacking, Dick and Reese were able to bypass them easily.

What was not the easy part was, even though Reese and Dick were inside the Stagg Industries building, and they both knew the stolen WayneTech prototypes were here, they still had no idea where exactly to look.

So where were they, currently?

In the vent system. Again. Honestly, Reese was pretty sure she'd end up getting claustrophobic from how much time she was spending in air vents recently.

Deciding it would probably be easier to get around the crowded building (because Simon Stagg did not, in fact, give his employees Thanksgiving off, unlike Bruce Wayne) in civvies rather than their suits, the two of them had changed back into civilian clothes before entering the vents after they had left the docks.

Now, they were somewhere between the seventh and eighth floors, and Dick, from where he was crawling in front of Reese, suddenly spoke up as he pulled up the building schematics on his holo-watch.

"Okay," the Boy Wonder began, holding out his arm so Reese would be able to see the blueprints, and pointing to a particular spot with his other hand. "We're here. Now, Stagg Industries is no WayneTech in terms of secret research departments--"

Reese couldn't help it; she had to laugh at that, and Dick flashed her a grin over his shoulder before continuing.

"--but, as best I can figure; if Simon Stagg was going to hide stolen high-end prototype technology anywhere in this building, he'd hide it here,"

When Reese saw where her boyfriend was pointing, she quirked an eyebrow, tilted her head, and sent Dick a confused look as she studied the building holographic blueprints.

"The laundry room?" she echoed, her voice echoing slightly in the vent, and both her and Dick froze for a moment before Reese spoke again, her voice a few octaves lower than it had been. "Why would Stagg hide stolen prototypes in a laundry room? Better question, why does this building have a laundry room?"

"It's not actually a laundry room," Dick began as he and Reese started to crawl again, with Dick following the building's schematics as he figured out which way the two of them would need to go. "I'm pretty sure Stagg's 'laundry room' is really code for his own personal R&D secret department. I'll know more once we actually get there. We're close though, so it shouldn't take long,"

Suddenly, Reese's head buzzed, and she lurched forward, locking her hands around Dick's ankle just as the bottom of the vent he had been crawling through broke off, falling who knows how many feet down into a vertical chute, the metal grate clanging against the sides of the chute as it went.

Dick locked his fingers onto the edge of the vent across from the new hole, and he stretched, only just managing to scramble up onto the opposite side, though his feet scraped against the side of the vent for a few seconds before he made it to the other side, turning around to face Reese once he was stable.

"If my schematics are right," Dick began again, glancing at his holo-screen once before flicking his dark blue eyes back up to Reese. "The laundry room is at the bottom of this chute,"

"You can't be serious," Reese muttered, peering over the edge of the vent into the chute once, but scooted back a moment later, clenching her eyes shut and locking her own fingers around the edge of the vent in a white-knuckled grip. 

The chute was at least--from what Reese could see of it--seventy feet long, and considering there weren't a lot of lights in the vent system, the chute slid into shadows the deeper it went.

"Pretty bird," Dick said, his gaze turning sympathetic. "It's the only way to get down there without being detected,"

To say Reese was still dubious would be an understatement, but considering she didn't really have any other options, she opened her eyes again and looked (carefully) down the chute.

Taking a deep breath, Reese glanced up, only to see Dick stick the base of his grappler against the side of the chute, holding his free hand out to her a moment later.

"Rhysalin, I promise," he told her. "I won't let you fall,"

Slowly, Reese put her hand in his, and slowly, Dick braced himself against the side of the chute, shifted his free arm so it was wrapped around Reese's waist instead, and let go of the grappler's release, allowing the grappling line to begin to lower the two of them down the chute.

At this point, Reese was basically hanging off Dick like a koala, her legs locked around his waist and her arms looped around his neck, though she wasn't holding on hard enough that she'd choke him. 

All Reese cared about at the moment was Dick's hand on his grappler. If he let go for any reason, they'd fall, and go down the chute how many feet to the bottom, likely ending up going 'splat'. And Reese, very much, did not want to go 'splat'.

"You okay?" Dick whispered after a few seconds, and Reese shook her head, eyes shut. Regardless of whether or not it was pitch-black inside the vent chute, she still knew that there was a long, long way until they got to the bottom.

She really, really didn't like heights.

"No," she murmured finally, opening her eyes a sliver and Reese heard Dick sigh, his shoulders tensing.

"I'm sorry," he told her. "If there was any other way to get to the tech--"

"It's okay," Reese muttered. It wasn't. "Not your fault,"

Reese was 80% sure that Dick didn't believe her, but he didn't say anything else. Finally, after about ten minutes of the two of them slowly descending down the chute, Reese opened her eyes a little bit further when she noticed a light appear below Dick's feet.

Her boyfriend, apparently, noticed it as well, because he glanced downward. A second later, Dick let a little slack go into his grappling line, and he and Reese started to descend a little faster.

Not too fast, because if Dick did that Reese would probably kill him, but fast enough that the two of them landed with a thud on either side of a metal grate in a horizontal vent at the bottom of the chute, the grate looking down into a brightly lit room, a room that Reese assumed was probably the 'laundry room'.

But, to say she was relieved that the chute had ended would be an understatement. 

Once Dick had retracted his grappling line, the base almost hitting him in the head when it fell down the chute, he and Reese peered through the metal grate.

Directly underneath them looked to be a cart full of fluffy towels, and Reese began to think that maybe this really was a laundry room. But, regardless, she and Dick still needed to check it out. Because, if the stolen tech wasn't here, where else could it be?

So, after Dick had made sure that there wasn't anyone in the room (a fact that was slightly surprising), he hooked his fingers between the slats on the grate and lifted it up into the vent, setting it behind him.

Then, he and Reese stared down at the cart, before, after a couple of seconds, Dick glanced up at the brunette in front of him.

"Ladies first?" he asked, and Reese sent him a deadpan look.

"The gap's big enough for both of us," she told him. "We go together,"

Considering the vent wasn't tall enough for either of them to stand completely straight, Dick and Reese both moved into crouching positions, before simultaneously jumping down into the cart of towels.

A cart of towels that, as Reese slammed her diaphragm into something very, very hard, was decidedly not only filled with towels. She heard Dick let out a grunt as he landed next to her, and considering the vent was a good eight feet above the cart, neither of their landings had been painless.

Reese twisted onto her back as she caught her breath, the wind knocked completely out of her, and after a couple of seconds where she literally couldn't breathe, Reese let out a wheezing sigh, sitting up on whatever it was that she had landed on and turning her head to where Dick was lying on his stomach next to her a foot away.

"Ow," he muttered, coughing a bit before he sat back on his heels, glancing over at her. "You okay?"

"Fine," Reese said after a moment, rubbing her side before she quirked an eyebrow. "You?"

"Feeling whelmed," Dick grinned, before he started to dig through the towels, trying to find whatever it was that he and Reese had landed on, his grin growing wider as he saw what was underneath the top layer of towels. "Yes!"

Reese scooted over to see what had gotten Dick so excited, and when she saw what her boyfriend was looking at, Reese grew a smile herself.

Underneath the top layer of towels sat a pile of small boxes, each stamped with a light-gray stylized 'W'. 

The WayneTech logo.

Finally, they had found the stolen prototypes. Even if it was totally by accident, Reese was honestly just glad she and Dick hadn't broken any of them when they'd, quite literally, fallen on top of them.

But, before either of them could move, Reese froze as, from outside the surprisingly large laundry room, she heard something. That something being footsteps.

"Hide," she hissed quickly, and Dick stared at her, eyes wide.

"Where?" he retorted. The footsteps were getting closer, and Reese realized that she and Dick really didn't have a lot of time. 

And if they were discovered here, two foster/adoptive kids of billionaires sitting on top of stolen technology inside Stagg Industries's laundry room? To say that they would have a lot of explaining to do would be a gross understatement.

"The cart," Reese whispered as she saw several shadows appear through the laundry room's door's window. "We can hide under the towels,"

For once, Reese was glad of her small size. If Wally was with them, even though the speedster wasn't particularly tall, he wouldn't have been able to fold himself in such a way that he wouldn't be noticeable. Reese and Dick, on the other hand, with the combination of their small size and general flexibility, were both able to shimmy down further into the cart just as Reese heard the door open, and Dick pulled several towels over them so they were out of sight just as voices reached them.

"Any word from Eliza?" a male voice asked, and when Reese glanced over at Dick, he mouthed one word to her.

'Stagg.'

"No sir," another voice said, and Reese assumed it was one of Simon Stagg's employees. "She and the guys are still searching the docks for those two sidekicks,"

Reese, despite the potentially perilous situation, couldn't stop herself from rolling her eyes, and after a glance at Dick, she saw him looking fairly annoyed himself.

"She needs to find them," Stagg hissed again, and suddenly, the towels above Reese's head shifted as someone began to move them out of the way.

She opened her mouth, but Dick covered it with his hand before Reese could make a sound, tugging her back until she was pressed against him, and both birds froze for several seconds as the towels continued to move.

But, just as light from the overheads began to leak through the other towels still covering the cart and stolen prototypes, the towels stopped moving, and Reese heard Dick let out a breath from behind her as Stagg spoke up again.

"We've managed to get away with this theft for almost a month, and Batman was none the wiser. What did two children figure out that the Dark Knight himself couldn't?"

It was silent for a couple of seconds before the employee spoke again, sounding remarkably meek and soft-spoken.

"I, uh, I don't know sir," the employee said quietly, and Stagg snapped at them.

"Send everyone!" he exclaimed. "Those two need to be found before this entire operation goes up in smoke!"

"Y-Yes, sir," the employee stammered out, and then Reese heard a scurrying sound, and she assumed the employee had just exited the room, leaving Stagg alone.

The older businessman was muttering to himself, quiet enough that even Reese wasn't even able to hear or understand what he was saying, but she wasn't sure she'd even hear what he was saying normally, not over the sound of her and Dick's heartbeats, or the blood that was currently rushing through Reese's head.

Now that Stagg was alone, there was even a higher chance of her and Dick getting caught, so Reese was pretty sure both of them were holding their breath.

Suddenly, from behind her, Reese felt Dick shift, before both of his arms were held out in front of her, and Dick pulled up a holo-screen from his glove, holding it in front of Reese and setting his chin on her shoulder so they'd both be able to see it. 

The slight blue glow was pretty bright in the small, dark, bubble-like alcove that Dick and Reese had made for themselves underneath the towels, but hopefully, it wasn't bright enough that Stagg found them.

Reese recognized the holo-screen that Dick had pulled up as the schematics of the Stagg Industries building that he had been using earlier while they were in the vents.

With his right hand, Dick silently pointed to a spot on the blueprints, where two small dots sat, and Reese assumed that was the two of them. Then, he moved his index finger to another spot a little way over, and in morse code, tapped out 'exit' on Reese's knee.

Okay, that was good. They were pretty close to the outside, ironically, and all they had to do now was get the prototypes out of Stagg Industries and back to WayneTech before they were caught, by Eliza, Stagg himself, or anyone else.

No pressure.

Finally, Reese heard Stagg walk out of the laundry room, still muttering to himself, and once she was absolutely sure that he was gone, Reese stood up and climbed out of the cart, Dick following a second later.

"What's your plan?" Reese whispered after they had both stretched their legs after being curled up in a cart for the last fifteen minutes, and as he cracked his back, Dick pulled up his holo-screen again, this time of a map of Gotham City.

"Okay," he began, pointing to various spots on the map. "There's a zeta tube just across the street from this building. We get to the tube, zeta to the Batcave, then tell Batman that we actually found the real prototypes, instead of an ambush, like at the docks,"

"What do we have to do to get out of here?" Reese asked, her voice hushed. "You heard Stagg, Dick. He's sending all of his goons or whatever out to look for us. No doubt they'll be swarming the hallways. And we'll be ambushed again if we take an elevator,"

"Ah, but you forget, pretty bird," Dick said, holding a finger in the air. "His guards are looking for the two sidekicks who got away from his blown-up warehouse, i.e. Robin and Silverbird. Who they're not looking for, is Dick Grayson and Rhysalin Queen,"

➳➳➳

Reese poked her head around a corner, and when she was sure that the coast was clear, signaled to Dick behind her back.

Getting the cart full of prototypes out of the laundry room was surprisingly easy. And so far, as the two of them crept down the hallway towards the side exit that Dick had indicated earlier on his holo-screen, they hadn't seen anybody who looked to be hunting their alter-egos.

Of course, Reese said so far, because just as the door with a red 'exit' sign glowing above it was in sight, she heard an exclamation from behind, and both Reese and Dick whipped around, to see four people (two men, two women), all staring at them and pointing.

"Hey!" One of the women shouted. "What do you kids think you're doing?"

As Reese shared a swift glance with Dick, a look that conveyed that, mutually, they each weren't going to tell any of Stagg's employees what they were up to, both birds bolted down the hallway, and with another sparing look over her shoulder, Reese winced as she saw the four employees begin to give chase.

Her eyes landed on a fire alarm, that was a few feet away, and as she ran past it, Reese pulled down the handle, the siren beginning to blare through the building as office doors all along the hallway burst open as people began to rush through the corridors to the exit, fortunately blocking off Dick and Reese from their pursuers.

"Nice!" Dick shouted to her over the screaming siren, and even though her ears were ringing from the noise, Reese sent him a smile.

But, as the two of them finally got to the door, Dick and Reese ran into a problem. A very, very big problem.

The cart wouldn't fit. No matter how much the two of them pushed, the cart of prototypes was just too wide, and the people chasing them were getting closer.

"Get in the cart!" Dick shouted suddenly, and Reese whipped her head around to look at him.

"What?" she asked, but Dick had already grabbed onto the edge of the cart.

"Trust me!" he said, and though Reese still had no idea what he was planning, she leaped in the cart, and turned around in time to see Dick back up.

For a split-second moment, Reese thought that Dick was going to stay behind, sacrifice himself or something like that, but he didn't. Instead, the Boy Wonder took a deep breath, before he ran, slamming his shoulder into the side of the cart hard enough that it burst out the doorway, and just as it cleared the threshold, he leaped in beside Reese.

The people that had been chasing them reached the doorway just as the cart exited it, and one of the men kicked the cart, jolting it, but luckily, it didn't stop. If anything, the cart started to go faster.

The Stagg Industries employees that had gathered on the sidewalk after Reese had given them all an impulsive and impromptu fire drill dove out of the way as the cart careened out the door and Reese thought she and Dick may have jumped the gun a little bit, as instead of slowing to a stop once they were outside the building, the cart jumped the curb onto the crowded Gotham street.

"Tell me this wasn't part of the plan!" Reese cried out as cars and other vehicles swerved around the wildly moving cart, and she felt Dick clamp his hand down over hers.

"Nope!" he shouted back, and somehow, through some miracle, they weren't hit by a car. Instead, the cart jumped the curb again on the other side of the street into an alleyway between two buildings, and Reese saw that they were heading straight towards a dumpster at the end of the alley.

"Please tell me that's the zeta tube!" Reese shouted again because she did not want to end up landing in a dumpster (ew) but this time, Dick didn't answer her. At least, not directly.

Instead, he whipped around to look over his shoulder, and when Reese turned to look as well, she saw that their pursuers were now trying to weave between the askew cars that were gathered on the street after Reese and Dick had first blown through them.

She was also pretty sure they might have caused a minor car accident, judging from the two civilians yelling at each other. Oops.

"Override!" Dick shouted, turning back around as the dumpster got closer. "RG-04!"

The dumpster was suddenly lowered into the ground, and the telltale yellowish glow of a zeta tube showed up instead.

Recognized Robin B-0-1, Silverbird B-0-3

Just as they made it into the Batcave, the still-speeding cart slammed into the rail that encircled the small platform in front of the cave's tube, and both Dick and Reese went flying.

They were thrown clean out of the cart, sprawling on the stone floor of the Batcave among boxes of the WayneTech prototypes that had been tossed from the cart as well, and for a few seconds, Reese and Dick just lay there on their backs, stunned.

Reese was the one who started to laugh first, and a moment later, Dick joined her. 

Today, this weird, amazing, odd day, had gone absolutely insane. So much had happened, and in Star City time, it was just barely inching past lunchtime.

"Should we see if Alfred has any food?" Dick asked a few minutes later once the giggles had finally subsided, and Reese gave a short laugh again, sitting up from her spot on the floor.

"You think he'd actually give us anything?" she asked, but Dick just waved a hand, stifling a yawn. "I thought he kicked you out of the house this morning,"

"Psh," he scoffed as he and Reese started to walk up the stairs towards Wayne Manor, Reese covering her own yawn with a hand as they went. "That was just so I didn't end up burning down the house while he was making dinner. He probably has some turkey-shaped cookies or something if we ask nicely,"

"Today was weird," Reese muttered as she and Dick exited the grandfather clock and stepped into the manor, but she paused when Dick stopped in front of her.

"It wasn't all bad though, was it?" he asked, blue eyes twinkling, and Reese smiled before leaned forward and kissed him again (kiss number five!).

"No," she said softly a moment later. "It wasn't all bad,"

Dick grinned before he grabbed Reese's hand in his and led her out of the room where the grandfather clock was located and towards the kitchen.

The house smelled absolutely amazing, and as they entered the kitchen, both birds saw Alfred leaning down and pulling what looked like a pie out of the oven.

"Hey, Alfred," Dick piped up a moment later, and the British butler turned towards them as he set the pie down on a nearby cooling rack.

"Master Dick, Miss Reese," he greeted them. Dick was still the only person who ever called Reese by her full name. "Whatever brings you here?"

"Well," Dick began as he and Reese sat on separate stools in front of the counter where a whole smorgasbord of food sat, waiting for dinner later that evening. "I live here. And two: we were wondering if you had any snacks,"

"As a matter of fact," Alfred started, turning around for a moment and grabbing a plate of cookies that were indeed shaped like gobble-birds. "I do,"

When the butler turned back around though to where Dick and Reese were sitting, he stopped speaking and gave a smile.

The young Boy Wonder had leaned his head against his arm on the counter, out of the way of any of the food dishes, and was fast asleep. The brunette next to him had leaned her head against his shoulder and had fallen to dreamland as well.

Alfred set the platter of cookies down onto the opposite counter and smiled again. He didn't know what the two young heroes had gotten up to today, but whatever it was, they were fully exhausted from it.

But, the British butler didn't wake either of the two as he turned back to continue making dinner. Regardless, and considering the sleep schedule in this house, he was sure both of them could use a much-needed rest.

➳➳➳

The sun was beginning to set when Bruce Wayne, Oliver Queen, and Dinah Lance entered Wayne Manor after the Justice League's meeting concluded, and as the three older heroes walked into the main house, Oliver having gotten a call from Alfred earlier that afternoon saying that Reese was here, Dinah suddenly drove her elbow into the blond archer's ribs.

"Ow!" he exclaimed, wincing as he rubbed the spot. "What?"

But, Dinah didn't say anything. Instead, she just jerked her head in front of Ollie, towards where Bruce was walking silently.

Oliver winced, as he remembered the big blow-out he'd had at Batman earlier that day. Now that he knew that Reese wasn't really dead, he felt a bit bad for blowing up at the Dark Knight as he had, but really, he didn't know how to begin to apologize to the other vigilante.

"Uh, Bruce?" he said finally, and the other man let out an acknowledging hum. "I'm, uh, sorry..." Oliver managed to force the word out. "For earlier. After the warehouse exploded. I didn't mean to say those things to you,"

"You did," Bruce retorted simply, glancing over his shoulder as the three paused in an adjoining hallway. "Your reaction was perfectly valid, given the fact that you thought your adoptive daughter was dead. I felt the same way,"

"You didn't show it," Oliver observed, tilting his head, but Bruce only glanced at the archer over his shoulder, giving a small smirk.

"I have better control over my emotions than you," he muttered, and Ollie nodded, before realizing what the Gothamite had said.

"Hey!" he exclaimed, and Oliver heard Dinah let out a laugh from beside him, before Alfred stepped into the hallway, joining them.

"I would advise you all to refrain from being too loud," the British butler began, before gesturing for them to follow with one hand. "Come and see,"

All three of the Justice Leaguers were fairly confused, even though Bruce hid it the most. Regardless, they all followed Alfred into Wayne Manor's kitchen, where they were met with a sight that wasn't all too uncommon, considering.

Dick and Reese were leaning against each other on the counter, fast asleep, and judging from what Alfred told them next, they'd both been asleep for hours.

"What did they do today?" Oliver whispered, and Bruce crossed his arms over his sweater.

"Judging from the mess of WayneTech prototypes in the Batcave and the crushed laundry cart," the Dark Knight began. "And the call Batman got from GCPD about an 'anonymous' tip saying Simon Stagg was the one behind the robbery..."

"They were detectives," Dinah said quietly, and as the three stared down at their sleeping proteges, they all grinned.

Even Bruce cracked a small smile.

Detectives indeed.

-----

Hello, yes, this chapter is over 25,000 words, and I am NOT sorry.

Anyways, AHHH it finally happened! Dick and Reese kissed and honestly, I was not planning on them kissing the way they did, but I hope you liked it! I wrote that first kiss while listening to Reflection by Christina Aguilera (which is actually in my Disalyn Spotify playlist), and it's a song I think describes Reese's personality pretty well.

Next Up: Insecurity
(I'm also putting Dick's birthday party, which originally was in the Invasion tie-in comics as a flashback, in this chapter too because it takes place a few days before the episode. It'll make the chapter longer, but honestly, who even cares?)

~Matia~