A New Beginning

Chapter 25

However he never encountered this.

"Wally! Don't ask him that! Are you stupid?" Artemis smacked said speedster in the head.

The Halfa hesitantly looked over to his older brother, who in turn pulled the boy to him. Danny allowed the movement and ended up tucked to the elder's side with Phil (they had gone and picked him up) lounging on Danny's knee.

The young heroes were in the living area of the mountain where M'gann and Conner resided sitting in a large circle on the floor in the middle of the room. They had been taking turns asking a question then going around and answering it.

The small eleven-year-old sat in between his brother and the speedster. Or he was sitting there before he was pulled from the spot and now trapped by the Boy Wonder, something Danny noticed was happening a lot more now. He had gotten used to being manhandled by Dick when he wanted to be close.

He got used to it. He still doesn't understand it. But that didn't matter because he didn't flinch or tense anymore. So improvement.

He felt an applied pressure from the arm holding him and he turned his gaze to his brother's dark glasses.

"Do you want to answer or do you want to be skipped?"

Oh right. The question. What is one of your biggest fears?

What could it hurt? "Leukophobia." He received nothing but blank stares from the others. Well, blank stares and one understanding one. He didn't offer any explanation so they turned to the only other person who seemed to know what it meant, Robin.

"Fear of the color white." The sound of understanding was almost comedic.

A long silence followed, Danny just looking between all of the older teens patiently. After what even he deemed as too long to be comfortable, Robin cleared his throat.

"Anyway, next question." He said it with a sense of finality, daring anyone to disobey. It wasn't hard to see the training from Batman. Finally M'gann smiled and perked, asking another question.

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"Is this really a good idea?" Wally eyed the Bats warily. Artemis sighed.

"Don't be a wimp."

"But you realize we agreed to hide and seek with Batman's two protégés. One of which is an actual ghost." He gestured to each of them frantically, his voice pitching high, boarding on hysterics.

"We agreed on no powers, so he's not a ghost right now. So start counting." Slumping in defeat, he began to count, everyone else running off in separate directions to hide.

Dick grabbed Danny and began to lead him down a hall to a small room. It was filled with cleaning supplies and smelled of bleach when they stepped inside. After the elder closed the door silently, he pulled a chain that turned a single light on, illuminating the room in a golden light. Danny simply stared up at his brother patiently. Dick smiled eagerly down at his little brother, face lit up with childish excitement.

"Ready to crush them all into the ground with our unimaginable skill?" Danny rolled his eyes. If the older teen saw it, he didn't say anything, instead gracefully jumping on top of a filing cabinet and using a small pen knife to cut along the seam in the ceiling tiles. Pushing on the loose tile up into the ceiling he pulled himself up into the dark, cramped area above. He hung out, looking at Danny expectantly. The boy followed the elder's lead and climbed into the roof.

The two Bats crawled through the small crawl space until they reached a one by one foot metal grate that led to the ventilation system of the mountain. Dick used his pen knife to unscrew the grate before efficiently lifting it and moving aside. Danny took the hint and moved past him and lowered his body slowly and as quietly as possible into the metal tube. Shifting aside, he let his brother through and followed him throughout the maze. It was cold, the metal and air flowing past them providing no warmth. The Halfa didn't mind, his core allowing him to tolerate lower temperatures than an average human being.

He almost ran into Dick when he suddenly stopped. After a bit more shifting, they were perched right above another grate, looking down on the rest of the team. Danny cracked a small smile as they observed the frustrated teens below.

"I told you this was a bad idea. We are never gonna find them!" Wally exclaimed, dramatically falling and sprawling his limbs on the carpeted floor. Artemis scowled at the redhead and gently kicked him in the side. The teen yelped and curled into a ball to protect his torso. Aqualad was sitting in the corner, reading and not paying attention to squabbling of his teammates. Conner and M'gann were off to the side, scanning the area for an idea of where the two Bats could have hidden.

"Has anyone checked the rafters?" The Superman clone asked. M'gann turned her head towards him and nodded while replying.

"It was the first place I checked. But they wouldn't hide there. They were trained by Batman, they would never do anything that predictable." Conner sighed and nodded his agreement. Danny looked up at his brother who had a hand covering his mouth in an attempt to silence his laughter. They locked eyes and immediately had to hold their breath to avoid making noise. The search went on for another half an hour before The zeta tubes lit up and announced the arrival of Batman and Superman. Dick reached over and held onto Danny's shoulder, eyes now sharp as he waited to see the reaction of the elder heroes. Danny tilted his head at the Boy Wonder, confused at what he was waiting for.

Wasn't it better to avoid any potential worry about another abduction?

'You really think they would worry about your wellbeing? Aww, you are so naïve, kroshka.'

Danny watched the heroes when suddenly a dark blur flew and landed on the Caped Crusader. Danny's eyes lit up and he took advantage of Robin's touch on his shoulder to turn them both intangible and pass through the metal. When they were about a foot above the ground, Danny let go of the intangibility and dropped the teen to fly to Batman. Robin screeched as he fell to the hard ground, but all present ignored him. Danny landed on the Dark Knight's shoulders, hands holding onto the ears of the man's cowl, and the small bat flew up to nest in the boy's white hair. Batman didn't hesitate at the action, instead keeping his gaze on the now attentive team of sidekicks.

"We infiltrated one of the minor GIW labs in Minnesota." The Kryptonian started, "We managed to get intel of an alliance-" a booming clap of what sounded like thunder sounded, shaking the whole mountain. Danny tightened his hands on the Bat's head, the loud noise scaring him.

"What-" the zeta tube lit up and the Flash appeared, his face panicked and the energy around him giving off a sense of frazzled urgency.

"We have a problem. You might want to look outside." The group didn't question it, simply following the suggestion and running through the compound until they reached the tourist area and out the main doors. Standing on the top of the stairs. They saw a large black and purple cloud swirling above the city with green lightning flashing occasionally in the cloud. Bright flashes of neon colors were flying through the cloud in large groups.

"Meet Pariah's Army."

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Ta da. 

I hope it wasn't too awful but I have no idea. 

For anyone who is curious, "kroshka" or Крошка, pronounced kruh-lo-shka is the Russian endearment meaning little one or baby, but in this situation, I used the former definition. I am in no way Russian, nor do I speak any Russian, but I have a few references that tell me it's correct but I am sorry if it is wrong and I am butchering the lovely language. I am not fluent in anything but English, and as always, I mean no offense if I accidentally got a foreign language wrong because it wouldn't be the first time. 

Until next time. Let me know what you think

~gbuttersnaps