Behind the Mask

Chapter 4

A/N: Woohoo! New chapter! This is the shortest chapter so far, and i'm not super happy with how it turned out, but I know it's necessary, so I suffered through it. I think you will all like it, though. There's some action and Artemis, so that's always good.

I'd like to give a shout out to Fae Faythe as her stories, Who is She and Return, inspired me to write this. You should totally go read her stories; they are awesome!

Yeah, okay, anyway, thanks to all the reviewers, favoriters, alerters, etc. I have over ten reviews! Whoop! most ever! I actually have 17! Aaaaah, I'm so happy! I will now respond to reviews. anon: I'm glad you like the length of the chapters! Dextra2: glad you like it! Anonymous: You get your wish! Artemis! And don't worry, there are no Robin clones. :) c0pypa5ted3lete: Glad you like the length also! And I'm exploding inside at how great your review was! It was awesome! I feel so bubbly! And i'm honored you like my retelling of the episode. I was kinda worried i changed it too much. And yes, i am planning on putting Performance (when i got your review, i thought of the perfect spot), though not for a little while. I too thought there wasn't much back story. FudoTwin17: You should be scared! *evil grin*. JK, but thanks so much for the review! Thanks everyone for the reviews! I love it! Here's the next chapter:

Disclaimer: Honestly, are these actually required? Well, I don't own Young Justice.

Robin slowly lowered himself, his arms shaking with exertion, until they were horizontal with the ground. His grip on the rings slipped slightly, nearly sending him plummeting down. He gritted his teeth and held longer, determined not drop for fifteen seconds. He counted slowly, his breath beginning to hitch and his arms going numb with the pain. He reached seven, barely holding on, sweat cascaded down his face and the chalk on his hands had been washed away by sweat, his grip on the rings faltering. Only eight more seconds he thought. Seven, six, five - and then he fell.

Robin rolled on impact, though it still sent shooting pain up his damaged chest. The stomp he'd received from Superboy had fractured one of his ribs and bruised multiple others; and while it had been nearly three days since the episode in Cadmus and they had healed somewhat, they were still exceedingly sore. Thankfully no internal damage had been done, but when Aqualad and Kid Flash had learned what happened they'd been angry at him for not telling them sooner. Batman had been angry too. Angry that he hadn't told anyone, for, he'd said, Robin could've damaged them even more by running around; and angry because he'd been hurt. Of course, the two other sidekicks had told the Bat about the DNA extraction and whatever else they'd to Robin, and Batman had given his protégé numerous scans and tests to try to locate what had happened, but nothing had turned up. He'd finally agreed that the process had been stopped short and whatever they'd been trying to do hadn't been able to happen

Robin picked himself up off the floor, his hand going to rest on his injured ribs, taking deep breaths and trying to stop his arm muscles from shaking so hard his arms fell off. He slowly made his way to a bench, sitting down and taking a long drink from a water bottle. Batman had forbidden him from doing any strenuous activity the first two days after he'd returned, but he'd said nothing that morning so Robin took it as permission to train, albeit gently. He'd given up sparring after twisting too hard to the side and upsetting his injuries, so he'd gone instead to the rings, which were fine as long as he didn't twist too much. Though holds hurt too. Maybe training so soon wasn't a good idea, but he had nothing else to do as Batman refused to take him on patrol and was still making up his mind whether or not he'd allow the sidekick's to start a team.

When the Justice League had arrived at Cadmus, they'd not been too happy, especially Superman, learning he had a clone. Superboy had been so excited, though he didn't show, Robin could just tell, to meet the Man of Steel, but Superman had simply brushed him off with something akin to a glare. The clone had dejectedly gone back to stand by the other sidekicks, all of whom weren't too happy with the treatment he'd received. Then the League had gone on to say that they wouldn't be doing this again, blah blah blah, and then Aqualad had retorted that they would and they'd all stood dramatically while Superboy said something like, "Get on board, or get out of the way". Batman had then said he'd think about allowing them to start a team and would give the answer in three days. Then Mr. Maniac-gone-hulk had been arrested and Cadmus had been taken over by Guardian. In short, it had been a tense ride back to Gotham for a certain young hero.