There was a pressing on my chest, the realization that I wasn't breathing right settling in as water spewed from my mouth. I turned over, coughing and gasping for air. We were in the gym, Artemis standing above me with her bow drawn back, facing the door.
Birdie was sat next to me, pressing the comm in his ear. "Robin to team, come in. Aqualad?"
The door burst in flame, and suddenly I was being picked up by Birdie and Artemis who dragged me forward. They set me down when we arrived in the showers, racing to turn on all the faucets. "Robin to Batcave! Override R-G-4. Cave calling Justice League HOJ/Watchtower. B 0-1 Priority Red. Comm is down, blocked. At least the water's helping."
I could hear a rumbling in the wall behind me. The water pressure building up so strongly until the heads and knobs on all the showers began spewing water. The entire room was filling up, until Birdie detonated a bomb making an opening that tossed us into the next hallway. I was slung over their shoulders again, as they ran us into the kitchen.
"We need to get lost."
"The air vent."
"Good, go."
Artemis leapt onto the counter and pried the vent cover off, while Birdie played around with the home computer. All I could do was lean on the counter, squeezing my eyes shut tightly to try to overcome some of my disorientation.
"What are you—"
"Downloading cave blueprints," he said. "Could come in—" but the sound of footsteps began to close in. "Go, go!" he whispered.
Artemis jumped into the vent, while Birdie ushered me forward quickly. He leapt in first, holding his hands out to pull me up. We tried to crawl quietly, Birdie navigating us through tons of tiny tunnels, but the streams of fire and water began to close in.
We slid down into the boiler room, not having any real idea as to where to go. Our pursuer was right on our tail, setting the boiler room on fire until the pipes were bursting. Thermometers on the heaters began to crack, and balls of flame were soaring right over our heads. I bumped the side of the goggles, trying to get the computer screen to snap back to normal, but the crack was keeping everything from being legible.
We escaped into another vent, Birdie stopping us to connect his computer to the wall. I took a minute to catch my breath, leaning against the cool steel of the tunnel. My head felt like it was on fire and the illegible computer screen inside my goggles wasn't helping. I grew drowsy, as my breath began to slow, their conversation fading out in my ears.
"Jade."
My eyes opened slowly to find Birdie holding my face, waking me up. "Jade?" His voice was a little garbled though. It sounded like we were all underwater again.
"Is she okay?" Artemis's distorted voice asked.
"I think she has a concussion."
My head fell forward limply in his hands. Maybe he was right.
"Help me get her to the library."
I felt myself being dragged through the vent, until they lowered me down into the library, carrying the majority of my weight.
"There's a secret passage behind one of these bookcases."
"Seriously? Cliché much?"
"You should see the Batcave."
I have.
They tucked me behind one of the bookcases when they heard a door open. They stood with weapons ready, while my hands rummaged through my utility belt. I searched for the syringe, holding it right in front of my face to see the color. Could be purple, which is right. Also could be blue, which is horribly wrong.
Figuring that things couldn't really get that much worse, I popped the cover off the needle and injected it into my arm. Instantly, noise flooded into my ears more clearly and my vision began to dilate.
"Artemis. Jade. Robin."
"It's Red Tornado," Artemis jumped out.
I shot up quickly, shoving her out of the way. Yes on the Red, no on the Tornado.
We resorted to climbing on top of the shelves, two bots blocking off both ends of the room.
"I thought you were KO-ed?" Birdie questioned.
I held up the empty syringe for him to see, before tossing it aside and continuing to hop from one shelf to the next. It was a sensory stimulant; not very legal, but very effective.
We leapt down as the bookcases began to topple. Birdie ran his finger across the books before he finally pulled one forward, opening a secret pathway.
"Unh, did you know Tornado had siblings?"
"No."
Artemis grabbed both of us, bringing us to a halt, "So now what? Red Tornado is one of the powerhouses of the league. How are we supposed to take down two of him?"
"They do seem pretty user-un-friendly,"
"Don't joke! They—"
"Attention, Robin. Attention, Artemis. Attention, Jade. You have exactly ten minutes to surrender or the lives of your teammates will be extinguished."
"Eight minutes."
"We can access the hanger from here... or not."
"Will you please stop saying that!" Artemis cried as the entire room was soon underwater.
Birdie ripped his cape off, shoving a re-breather in my mouth. The lack of oxygen wouldn't be very helpful for this concussion debacle. I inhaled only for a second, until Artemis panicking behind caught our attention.
I passed it to her, but it fell out when she screamed. One of the Reds had gained a hold of her foot. I grabbed her hand, shooting a grapple at the opposite wall. The rope was getting tugged by the bot that pulled Artemis, whose nails were practically digging into my wrist. Birdie swam past me, grabbing one of the many arrows floating around, lodging it into the bots head. It finally let go, and I retracted the grapple to pull the three of us away.
With the re-breather gone, I was beginning to have trouble holding my breath. We kept swimming upward, until finally we broke through the surface in the mission room.
"Look out!"
The other Red was flying overhead, launching ball after ball of fire.
"You guys okay?" Birdie asked the boys who were trapped in some sort of metal.
"Forget us. Help M'gann!"
"Aqualad. Is she?"
"She is unconscious," he strained, trapped with her in a cage of fire. "I fear she... we cannot survive much longer."
We had to go back underwater with the bot still on our tail. When we arrived at the other end of the cave, we were surrounded.
"I'm almost our of arrows," Artemis said, looking between the bots.
I pushed them back into the water before either the water of the fire could hit us. Let's not take our chances then.
We escaped, forced back into another airway.
"Six minutes."
"What do we do now?"
"We save them. That's how it works."
"Maybe that's how it's supposed to work but those robots already took out our four superpowered friends!" Artemis panicked.
"You seem distraught."
"Distraught?" she raved. "M'gann is dying! We have no powers, and I'm down to my last arrow. Of course I'm distraught!"
"Well get traught or get dead!"
He was right. The sooner this was over, the sooner I could take a tylenol or something.
"How can you be so calm?!"
"Practice. Been doing this since I was nine."
"What good is that now?" Artemis whined. "What chance do we have against unrelenting machines?"
"Oh, duh! They're machines, and one electromagnetic pulse will shut down any machine within range."
"Great. Except you better have an EMP emitting power in your utility belt because I know I don't have one in my quiver."
"I'm fresh out, but I'm betting we can make one. What do you say, KF?" he spoke over a comm. "Doable?"
"Totally doable," Wally said.
"Five minutes."
"If you had more time...
"Four minutes."
"Hey, Red Tomato! Who's your girlfriend? Red Onion?"
"Yeah, and by the way, worst death trap ever! We can escape any time we want!"
"I can vibrate my molecules out of here before your binary brains could count to two!"
"Cover me," Birdie said, grappling to the main generator. But one of the bots spotted him while he worked.
"ROBIN LOOK OUT!" Artemis cried, misfiring her last arrow. I shot up, putting my hand over her mouth, dragging her back as a wave of water took out Birdie. She struggled under my hold, but I pulled her up into the vent overhead before finally letting her go.
"What are you doing?!"
I slapped her across the face. Not hard enough to do damage, just to get her head in the right place. We can't help Birdie or anyone else if Artemis got the both of us captured too.
Artemis peered through an opening in the vent, spotting Birdie being drowned. She backed away, breathing heavily. "No," she began to cry. "No, no, no, no."
I grabbed her wrist and forced her to follow me as she continued to panic, "If we surrender," she murmured. "We die with the others, but if we find a way out... out of the cave, out of the mountain... we can get help, call in the League."
The vent came to a tunnel, sliding us into Wally's souvenir room. I dropped to the floor, Artemis tumbling in behind me.
"Three minutes."
"Who are we kidding," she murmured, "best we can do is hide. Hope the League finds us before the Reds."
I got up, my aching mind racing for a plan, coming face to face with one of Chesh's masks. You would know what to do.
All the other kids were laughing, running through the field.
"Come on, Ace," Jade giggled back, waving me over. All the kids were permitted a day to play in the garden.
My eyes lit up, but a hand grabbed me by the shoulder, stopping me in my tracks.
Jade couldn't do anything about it, nobody could argue with her. "Sorry, Ace."
"Every girl for herself," her soothing voice sang from behind, as Jade ran off with the rest of them. Then she tossed me into the training room, the same as she did every day...
Artemis picking the mask up pulled me away from my thoughts. "I know you would understand," she thought aloud.
I nudged her to explain, though I already knew the answer.
"Met her on a mission, remember," she stammered, putting it back on its display.
I stared at nothing, and revealed, "I knew her."
Artemis's head snapped to me in shock. "You can talk?"
I gave her a "really?" expression, before turning back to Chesh's mask.
"H-how did you know her?"
"She was like family..."
"One minute."
"We have a new family now," she said firmly, plucking up the last shred of her courage.
Sure we do.
I grabbed another one of Wally's souvenirs: an arrow and handed it to her. The only thing we could do was fight or die trying. Jade would.
We came down on the elevator, my hands up in surrender while Artemis held out her bow.
"We surrender," she announced. "Stop the clock."
We inched forward slowly, one of the Reds holding their hand out for Artemis's bow.
She held it out, waiting for a moment before leaping up and kicking the Red in the face. The other turned to stop her, distracting it long enough for me to hop onto her shoulders. I held my hands out, Artemis's foot landing in them just in time for me to launch her up. She flipped in the air, launching the arrow into the EMP emitter.
Instantly the bot crumbled under my feet, falling limply to the floor. With both of them shut down, the fire around Kaldur and Megan subsided and so did the water drowning the boys below.
"Kaldur! How's M'gann?"
"She breathes. I believe she will recover. What of Robin?"
"He's breathing too," Artemis checked.
"Way to get traught," he panted.
We dragged the Reds to the floor, right underneath Sphere who was still lodged in the wall. Meanwhile, Wally and Boy Scout were still stuck in the metal from earlier. When Artemis left to get a laser to cut them free, I trailed after her.
"I can't believe we did it," she said in disbelief, before another realization settled in. "I can't believe you could talk this whole time!"
"About that," my already tired voice spoke up. I was speaking more in the past twenty-four hours than I had in the past ten years.
"I won't say anything if you won't," she said, already knowing where this was going.
"When do I ever," I sighed. It was a fair exchange: her secrecy about my silence, for my secrecy about her family. Neither of us bothered to bring it up again after that.
"Will you quit playing with that thing and cut us free already!" Wally whined.
"It's not working, genius. EMP shuts down all machines, remember?"
"All machines present at the time," Tornado flew in. "What has occurred?"
"Had a little visit from your family," Artemis shot. "Your extremely nasty family."
"I was not aware I had relations."
"Where have you been?"
"Monitor duty on the Watchtower. When it became clear cave communications were down I attempted to investigate, but your zeta tubes were also non-functional. I transported to Providence and proceeded here."
Artemis's laser suddenly turned on as Tornado flew up sucking all the air out of the room.
I fell to my knees, gasping for air.
Mount Justice
September 23, 06:34 EDT
The whole League showed up, waiting for the Reds to possibly come back all while repairing what was left of the cave. Canary was the one who woke me up, my head pounding. The anesthetic must have worn off because I threw up right in front of everybody. Since then I've been sat in the mission room with the team. Everyone was tired, but nobody slept.
I traded my goggles in for a pair of sunglasses while I tried to replace the lens. Bubs was always the one to take care of this stuff, so now I wasn't really sure what to do. I peered as closely as I could to them, trying to carefully use a screwdriver on it, but ultimately grew frustrated, doing my best to ignore my urge to chuck them across the room.
"Let me," Birdie said startling me when he dropped an ice pack on my head. He took the goggles and the screwdriver and started working on them, leaving me to ice my head.
All the lights in the cave turned back on as the computer announced, "Synching security protocols with Watchtower Mainframe."
Green Arrow set down a bowl of pretzels for us.
"Thanks but no thanks," Wally said.
"Yeah, what we want are answers about Red Tornado and his siblings," Birdie said, waving the screwdriver around, before continuing his work.
"Exactly," Wally huffed, taking the pretzels back from Green Arrow. "Leave the bowl."
A small gasp escaped my mouth as I watched him toy around with my goggles. Careful.
"I got it."
Another anxious gasp slipped out, over him doing it wrong. Careful.
"I got it," he grumbled.
"YOU KNEW!" All of us jumped at Boy Scout bounding across the room, attacking Kaldur. "That android and his maniac family nearly killed M'gann."
"Conner, what are you doing?" she flew over.
"Kaldur knew we had a traitor among us and said nothing," he grunted.
"You knew?"
"And didn't tell us?"
"I sought to protect the team from—"
"Protect us from what?" Artemis interrogated. "Knowledge that might have saved our lives."
"If we told you then how do we know the mole wouldn't be tipped off?" I argued over the psychic link.
"We?" Wally repeated.
"You told Jade and not us?" Birdie said.
"You almost died," Boy Scout told Megan.
"Uh, hello Megan, I think she knows that."
"Enough," the Bat cut us off. "With Red Tornado missing, the team will now be overseen by rotating supervisors. Captain Marvel has volunteered to take the first shift."
"I'm really looking forward to hanging with you guys."
"After I dismantle tornado, you and I are gonna—"
"Red Tornado is a member of the Justice League," the Bat cut Boy Scout off. "That makes him a League responsibility. You will leave him to us. I have another assignment for this team."
"Gotham Mayor attacked by Guerilla Gorilla?"
"Was this the only thing he could find to distract us?"
"Batman, please tell me you're not sending us on this joke of a wild ape chase."
"I never joke about the mission," he said darkly making Birdie back off in an instant.
"I've checked the sources. I've studied the patterns. Mayor Hill's encounter is only the latest in a series of incidents. Aqualad, you and your team will depart for India and check this out."
"Huh, your Team," Wally scoffed.
Northern India
September 23, 21:36 IST
"You sure you should be taking another one of those?" Birdie asked looking at the purple syringe in my hand.
I ignored his misplaced concern. I've taken much worse before, and it was just to de-concuss me for the mission; I think I'd survive it. He placed the goggles on the table in front of me while I injected the syringe in my arm. "Made some upgrades to the software. Should stop glitching out on you, and you'll have access to comms through it now."
I looked at them skeptically. Upgrades or tracking malware?
We landed in the middle of a jungle, Birdie and Artemis scanning the perimeter to give the all clear.
"Switch to stealth," Aqualad instructed. "And we'll review mission parameters."
"Parameters? We don't need no stinking parameters."
"It's recon. We know what to do."
"Kid, Robin—"
"The three of us started this team because the Justice League was keeping secrets from us!"
"Or did you forget that, like you forget to tell us about the mole?"
They ran off, and I gave Kaldur an "I got this," kind of nudge, before chasing after them. I caught up with the angry pair, following them through the dark jungle.
"How could Aqualad tell you about the mole and not us?" Wally fumed.
To be fair, he didn't exactly tell me. Arrow and I just happened to overhear the news, but I guess they wouldn't understand that.
"How could he not tell the two of us!" Birdie whined. "If anyone was to be suspect it would—"
I grabbed his shoulder harshly, making him stop. I pointed at myself offendedly. It would what? Be me?
"Guys?" Wally asked, but neither of us paid attention.
"And don't thinking helping with Red Bots counts either," he argued, standing toe to toe with me. "You only fought to save yourself. You always do."
"Guys?"
I took a step closer, glaring at him. My fists were clenched at my sides, fighting every urge to start a fight right now. How could he have so little understanding? If he had lived a life like mine, he would do the same. I didn't have some sort of Bat or speedster to clean my conscience. It was every girl for herself.
"Would you two stop flirting for a second and look?!" Wally cut in.
We both finally turned to him to find that he was pointing up at the massive birds in the sky, swooping right at us. We ducked to the ground, running in the opposite direction. "I thought vultures only eat dead meat!"
"Yeah, these are some very proactive scavengers."
"Proactive and supersized. You thinking what I'm thinking?"
"Kobra Venom?"
I was lunging side to side to avoid the bird's sharp talons. Cobra venom? Is that some video game term I'm supposed to understand?
I kicked back and forth against two trees, slowly gaining more and more height, until I leapt up landing on one of the vultures backs. Maybe this wasn't such a good idea... The bird began to crash into multiple twigs and branches. I let go before it collided with a massive trunk, firing my grapple into another nearby tree. The grapple swung me back down to the floor, where the vulture was now laying unconscious.
There was a stinging in my arm. A tear ripped through my sleeve showing a long, fresh wound bleeding profusely. Oh great.
"Link established." Megan's voice said in my head all of a sudden.
"Should he really still be giving us orders?" Artemis questioned. "And should you really be following them?"
"Listen please—"
"Oh, good. Aqualad's voice in my head. I've so missed that," Wally rolled his eyes at us.
"Hey, Kaldur, the three of us were attacked by giant vultures. Course, since we're moles, you probably think we attacked ourselves."
"If he did, he wouldn't tell you."
"Course, he'd tell Jade," Birdie argued.
"You know what I think, Birdie?" I challenged, finally able to argue back.
"What?"
"I think you're scared that I'm better than you," I prodded his chest, glaring down at him.
"No, I'm not," he pushed my finger away.
"Really?" I pressed. "Isn't that what's bothering you so much about me joining the team? That the Bat's replacing you and I get to know about the mole first?"
"Superboy, are you online or just pouting?"
"Busy. Call back later."
"What gets me is how nonchalant he is about not telling us."
"You want him to be all chalant about it?" I threw my arms up, growing more and more irritated with this stupid team every second.
"Way chalant," Birdie argued."Extremely chalant."
"How can we be a team if he doesn't trust us with his secrets?"
"Or if Conner doesn't trust us to take care of ourselves?"
"Did he really think you or I could have been the mole?" Wally asked, pointing between himself and Birdie.
"We've known each other for years."
"Trust is a two way street," Artemis argued.
"And you know they'd hate if we kept secrets from them," Megan added.
"That's rich coming from this group!" I raved. "All we do is keep secrets from each other! Does the whole secret identities thing not ring any of your bells?"
"Enough," Kaldur said, "Captain Marvel has been captured, and we must act as a team to save him."
"Heh, under your leadership? I don't think —"
"This is not up for debate," Kaldur said, taking a tone I've never heard from him before. I could tell it shocked the other two as well. "You all chose me to lead. When the mission is over, if you wish to select a new leader, I will happily step down, but until that time, I am in command here."
We all regrouped outside of the center base.
"I'll fly over," Megan suggested.
"Negatory. The field extends like a dome over the whole compound."
"Pylons are insulated, but one good shock could cause a momentary gap."
"I see a target."
"Then be ready to hit it. Be ready, all of you."
Kaldur went up to cause the shock, creating an opening for Artemis to shut down the dome. Instantly all sorts of alarms went off, as a stampede of monkeys began racing at us.
"Remove their collars," Kaldur said.
"Sounds easy when he says it," Birdie grumbled wrestling with a monkey.
I pulled the extendable staff out, spinning it between my hands as it smacked any monkeys trying to get close to me. With a big swing, the staff struck the collar, breaking it in half before the monkey let go of Birdie.
He rubbed his arms, not wanting to thank me, until he pulled out two batarangs all of sudden. They hit two monkeys that were sneaking up being me, and now I was the one refusing to show any gratitude.
I've been watching them remove collars for an hour now. I was sat on the bioship hangar, wearily clicking my heels while I waited.
"Look I need to know," Birdie stopped Kaldur. "Why did you keep the mole intel a secret?"
"The source of the tip was Sportsmaster."
"What? You can't trust him," Artemis said. I mean sure, she would know better than anyone, right?
"I do not. It seemed possible, even likely that he was attempting to divide the team with false information."
"And given how this mission went, he nearly succeeded, but you had to consider it might be true."
"Yes, as leader, I did. In which case, I did not wish to alert the traitor."
"Hate to say it, but makes sense," Birdie sighed.
I threw my hands up. Oh sure, but when I pointed that out hours ago nobody bothered to listen.
"I am still prepared to step down."
"All in favor of keeping Aqualad as leader?" Wally asked, but I got up, stalking into the bioship already.
I snuck into the bioship's medlab, gathering up a needle, some thread, and disinfectant to clean myself off. Every movement I made was ridden with my anger. I poured it all over my arm haphazardly, biting my lip to distract from the burning. I tossed the disinfectant away, threading the needle, before trying to sew the cut close at an awkward angle.
My teeth grit in pain as I sewed the gash shut. My eyes were tearing but not from the stitch. I was fed up. I hated this team, I hated these missions, and I can't even see the one person I'm dealing with all this for. I can't say I want to go home, I don't have one. I can't say I want things to go back to the way they were, because I don't. I can't say or do anything. There's nothing I want to do. I fight fights I don't care about, I go to school because I have nothing better to do, and I'm on this team to protect a sister who's grown to hate me.
A single tear ran down my cheek, before I swiped it away quickly.
I didn't make a sound when she hit me across the face with the wooden pole, but hot tears began to stream down my cheeks from the pain and embarrassment.
"You are a champion," she said firmly. "Champions. Don't. Cry. Get up!" she ordered, grabbing me by the hair, as tears flowed down my face. "Stop crying!" she hit me again.
"Do you want help?"
I snapped away from my thoughts, my tears ceasing immediately. Birdie was watching me, I'm not sure for how long.
I shook my head, resuming the stitching that wasn't going very well. It was crooked and spaced out oddly from the difficult angle.
He didn't say anything for a moment. "I'm sorry... for saying you'd be the mole."
I rolled my eyes, not keen on being friendly with the Bird all of a sudden. I was too busy stitching myself to notice him approaching me. He took the needle from my hand, forcing me to stop. "Please just let me do it."
With an exhausted sigh I surrendered, letting him slide the spare computer on my wrist while he finished the stitches.
"Talk to me," he begged.
I slid my wrist under my opposite hand, careful not to move my arm as my fingers typed while he did the stitches.
Why should I?
"I don't want us to feel like we're enemies," he said glancing between the computer screen and the stitching.
Aren't we?
"Not if you tell me why Batman recruited you."
I could spill the news right now; reveal my grand history of my sister and the Shadows — it's not like Birdie didn't have my trust, if I could even bring myself to trust people, but I shouldn't for two reasons. (1) The people after us were very relentless. Sharing this information means turning more people into obstacles that our pursuers wouldn't hesitate to torture or kill. It wasn't a fair burden to dole out. (2) The same reasoning, except every person I tell becomes another source of information for them. Both ways it doesn't work out. The Bat and I knew and that was enough for now. Best to keep people at a far distance, otherwise they'll just get hurt.
Nowhere to go.
"Where were you before?"
Is that important?
"Kinda."
Where were you? I typed changing the subject.
"What do you mean?"
Before the big bad Bat.
He didn't answer my question. I'm not even sure if he was allowed to. He ignored me, threading the needle through my skin again, when I inhaled sharply.
"Does it hurt?"
No. I made that sound for fun.
"Just tell me if it hurts," he said exhaustedly.
My eyes kept stealing glances at him while he worked. This was so weird. Nobody's ever been like this to me: offering to stitch my wounds, caring if something hurt. In a way — a way that I would never ever admit out loud — I admired Birdie so much. The way his heart was so good that he could be affectionate, even with the people he hated. I could never be good the way he and Bubs are.
I typed slowly for a moment, wondering if this question was better left unsaid.
Do you hate me?
"You frustrate the heck out of me," he chuckled, but I waited for a proper answer. "No, I don't."
Why are you so upset I'm on the team?
"Because I like to feel in control of things that are mine. I'm a detective, I should know all the facts, everything that's going on," he sighed, surprising me with honest he was being. "I never know what to expect when you're around and I don't like it."
I'm yours? I smirked.
"I-I meant the team," he corrected quickly.
I liked watching him get so flustered around me. Bubs was right — there was something exciting about Birdie to me, something I couldn't gauge. He was this masked person that took care of me and I didn't want him to stop. I constantly found myself wanting to bother him.
I don't just fight for myself, I pointed out.
He tied the stitch. "Then who do you fight for?"
People I care about.
"Don't take this the wrong way, but you don't seem to have a lot of those."
I don't.
"Then who managed to make it on this exclusive list of yours?" he said, wrapping my arm in bandages.
Though it made my stitches ache, I brushed his hand away, letting the bandages dangle. I didn't type any response, or have some clever comeback in my head. I just wanted him to look at me. I wanted his attention, without having to cause a fight for once. He was close enough, already standing between my legs from working on the stitches, but I wanted him closer.
I wondered if this was wrong. If I was misjudging someone's love again. But it didn't feel like Birdie wanted anything from me, and the way I found myself feeling about him wasn't the same as before.
I slowly lifted my good arm until it was holding the back of his neck, drawing him in slowly. His hands fell next to my legs, propping himself up on the med-bench as our noses began to touch.
"Jade, don't," he whispered, but I ignored him anyway. I closed the rest of the distance between us letting our lips interlock. He felt uncomfortable at first, but slowly Birdie adjusted. He picked up a rhythm for how his lips moved against mine, when to pull away and when to dive back in. After the first few initial seconds, it actually felt... really good, like we were inevitably meant to do this. His hands moved from the bench, snaking up my sides in a way that made my stomach form a knot. Instinctively my hand moved up from his neck to his hair, letting the dark, messy locks ruffle between my fingers. I wondered if he was enjoying this as much as I was, but when my legs wrapped around his, pushing him closer, he moaned into my lips, and it felt euphoric.
In the past two years we'd never actually kissed before. We'd gotten close hundreds of times, before one of us calls it off. Other times I just liked to kiss his neck and other parts of his body to rile him up, but never on the lips. I always thought a kiss like that was too intimate for it to just be playful. Or maybe I was scared I'd like it just as much as I was liking it right now.
His hands continued their journey upwards, finding their place, cupping my jaw. I enjoyed how every movement of his was gentle, there was no force. I didn't feel like my body was being used, but at the same time he made it feel appreciated and cared for. He kissed me harder for a few moments, before pulling away and letting his forehead rest against mine as we caught out breath.
He muttered a quiet, "Isn't this a bad idea?"
My fingers continued playing gently with his hair and I shook my head. That seemed to be all the convincing he needed as he leaned back in, wasting no time to make my mouth his again. I let myself melt into him, my hands sliding down from his jaw as they grew weaker, finding their place against his chest. My legs held him tightly still, wanting him closer to me if that was even possible. I didn't want him to stop.
"There you guys— woah!"
"Jade!"
We broke apart instantly, hands being pulled back to our persons, and my legs dropping immediately so he could back away. We were both breathing heavy, staring at the floor so we wouldn't have to look Wally and Artemis in the eyes and explain what we were just doing.