As I called out to my shadowy partner on my wrist communicator and conveyed Superman's message, a shapely shadow passed overhead and all the talk from the two teen heroes behind me screeched to a halt. Wonder Girl's lithe frame lifted into the breeze, and I saw her look down at the three of us boys. Her take-off from the ground was like that of an angel who suddenly floated aloft via the kiss of a breeze, so unlike, by comparison, Superman's leap into flight, an action that is more akin to a rejection on his part of the authority of Mother Earth's gravitational pull, for it has no effect on him. The sun behind her clawed at my eyes as I tried desperately for a better view of her heavenly-borne body, but I was sure I saw her wink...at me. Wow. Imagine my disappointment a moment later when I heard the whooping and cat-calls coming from behind me.
"Aw, man! Did you see that babe lookin' at me?! Holy mother-of-pearl---she loves me! Hey, doll! Down here, baaaay-beeee!" screamed Roy, laughing, jumping up and down and waving at the lovely Amazon girl as she floated above us. "You?!" Wally yelled as he smacked Speedy's red-feathered yellow cap off of his head, betraying a massive amount of long, stringy, unkempt red hair. "Get outta town!" screamed Wally, "She was looking at me!" I could only sigh to myself. Maybe she wasn't looking at me at all, but I sure wished she had been. I remember thinking that she seemed like a nice girl and she certainly was amazingly formidable in a fight. I hope I'll get to know her one of these days, but then I'd guess that every guy she ever meets must feel that way.
In a moment, the young Amazonian warrior was passed in the sky by the imposing red and blue shape of Superman, who now effortlessly cradled an unconscious Aquaman in his arms as if the Sea King weighed the same as a feather. As I looked back down the sand, I could see the slight figure of Aqualad walking into the waves, head hung low as if the world rested on his shoulders. I remember wondering if he had anyone to go home to, since it occurred to me that he was most likely an orphan, seeing as he lives with Aquaman. I thought about how far away Atlantis must be---too far for a kid to have to go the distance alone into the dark water of the bottom of the ocean. I couldn't help but think about the night I walked out of the big top into the evening darkness after I was suddenly left orphaned and alone in the world. The thought made me shudder as if hit by a sudden cold chill, as if my name were being spoken in a graveyard.
Thinking about my parents' deaths and the horrors I went through following them---being locked up in the Gotham Youth Home, a hotbed of violence and juvenile delinquency---always does me in. My only crime was being left with no living relatives, allowing the uncaring legal hand of fate, the Gotham County Child Welfare Services, to step in to remove me from the "corrupting influence" of the circus---people who loved me and wanted me---only to place me in the Home, where I was immediately and savagely victimized. The one thing that awful experience did for me was to make me more sensitive to the plight of kids who are lost, alone, abandoned or trapped within the system. There's a lot of it about, and one of these days I hope to be able to do something about it.
As I watched the boy disappear into the foamy waves, I thought about the beatings I took inside GYH and the relief I felt after a few days of getting used to my new life in my benefactor's home, and I hoped Aqualad had some place nice, cozy and safe to retreat to after the day's catastrophic events. My memories of those vulnerable days I'd lived through not long ago always bring tears to my eyes. But heroes don't cry, at least not in uniform, so I hung my head and combed the beach for clues, evidence---anything to get the hurt out of my mind. And I said a silent prayer for that kid to get home safely, wherever the heck "home" is for him.
"He shouldn't be in the Justice League of AMERICA, you know," I heard Kid Flash say to Speedy, easily loud enough to carry to other ears, maybe even Superman's, the one considered by most folks to be the "main man" of all super heroes. Superman's super hearing ability probably allows him to hear teenage girls whispering secrets to each other in the next state, a fact Wally is perfectly aware of, so this was more likely an attempt on his part to see how Roy and I felt about such an "issue" than an effort to influence JLA membership. I stopped in my tracks and turned to the two red-heads. "Who shouldn't be?" I asked. "The fish," Wally said, snobbishly, "He's NOT American. He's got a funny sort of accent...and Atlantis isn't a state." "Not yet it isn't," I snarled back, "but I'm sure if LexOil drills deep enough around that place and strikes crude, it'll suddenly be the 51st state of America. Those robots weren't attacking Atlantis, were they? Still those two people came from that far away to help save our butts. I'd say they were acting as Americans, even if they aren't. We should be praising them, not trashing them."
Wally raised a suspicious eyebrow and then lowered both, glaring at me. "Have to be careful, that's all. They aren't Americans no matter what else they do. Who knows what their motivation is? Isn't Atlantis near Cuba?" Speedy began to laugh, adding, "Yeah, and since we can't make out what accent they've got, Carpman and Tunaboy could be communist spies. And, errr...Wally? Speaking of things "red," doesn't The Flash wear an awful lot of red? Errrr, and then there's your hair...?" He snickered loudly while walking away, raising his hand to his head and rotating his index finger to demonstrate the international symbol of idiocy. "He's all yours, Bird Boy, and you can HAVE him!" he called back to me. "Gimme a holler sometime and we'll pow-wow, my musical bro'; I'll bring the skins, you bring the g'it-box. That's if the big black bat'll let you come out to play," he yelled, sounding like a goofy drive-time radio DJ, which is probably from where Roy got most of his hero-patter. It seemed to me that he tried very hard to sound hip and tough, as if he were covering up something about his past, or trying to reinvent himself. Whatever it was, it seemed conscious and obvious, but I liked his cockiness from the moment I met him; it gave Roy a level of coolness a kid like me could only aspire to.
Wally, obviously a sheltered little Mid-Western dweeb suffering from rampaging xenophobia with a touch of stupid to go along, merely folds his arms and stared at me. "Mark my words, Robin, those two are weird. I'm watching them. I watch everyone."
"Ooooo....I'm shaking," I said, folding my arms in a similar threatening manner. NOKD. That's what he was doing to those aquatic heroes, in a sense; he was NOKD'ing them. I've learned all about that at the private school I attend, and it's no fun being the subject of that kind of treatment. The snickering, the sneering, and then the remark: "...he's not our kind, darling." Nah, I'm not their kind. I'm just a "circus freak" who "got lucky," like my parents' deaths made for some sort of windfall, with my safety net being Bruce Wayne's millions. Even worse, I get this treatment from Bruce's too-rich-for-their-own-good house guests too, the ones who look upon me with such mock "poor thing is out of his element" pity. It's the same thing Wally was doing, putting down Aquaman and his friend and devaluing their worth and their assistance to us based on where they are from. I've been on the receiving end of that kind of attitude a number of times since moving to Gotham City, in general, and Wayne Manor, in particular...and I hate it.
Realizing this is a useless thing to fight over, I decided to direct my attention to other things. "If you'll excuse me, I've got some REAL sleuthing to do," I growled as I turned to leave. "And, just as a tip, you really should stop getting your political views from cows and the guys they keep warm at night." I didn't care what he did or said after this; I just didn't want to be in his company, and, for his part, he seemed to feel the same about me, though I figured he'd be asking lots of questions about me to anyone who would listen to him. Somehow, I'll bet Wally really does watch everyone else. As fast as he can move, he may as well do. He's certainly got time on his side.
As I roamed the beach, a bright golden glint hit my eyes, and I ran a few feet to see what I'd found. I knew it wasn't part of one of the robots, because they were made of a chromium steel alloy and, thus, had a silver-gray finish. I dug my fingers into the sand and yanked at the sharp metal piece. A golden "A," the symbol of Aquaman. It must have been dislodged from his belt during the battle, I figured. I noted there was a tiny communicator button on the back; I assumed it to be S.T.A.R. Labs technology. I could feel a subtle vibration coming from the button as I pressed my thumb against it; it was my guess that it emits a sonar pulse signal that Aquaman could pick up on no matter where he traveled in his vast domain. I'd always wondered how the JLA got in touch with a man who lived at the bottom of the Atlantic. Clever bunch, they are.
"Robin! To the Batboat!" the gruff voice screamed to me. Yikes! I'd been so busy contemplating my find that I'd forgotten where I should have been----back at the Batboat. I heard cackling from nearby from the two yellow and red suited red-heads, who laughed loudly as I ran by. "Fly, Robin! Fly!" Speedy yelled. I considered a rude hand gesture, but the Batman was watching me as he stood there at the boat mooring, his massive arms folded across his chest as he leaned against his testosterone-powered speed bucket. He glared at me through narrowed eyes, and his down-turned mouth indicated he'd been waiting a few minutes too long for his taste. I overheard a sympathetic Speedy as he lowered his voice and said to Kid Flash something that included, "...gives me the total creeps..." I didn't have to hear the rest. There's probably no one on Earth that the Batman doesn't spook. He could make Superman blink.
The Dark Knight and I rolled and rocked home, cushioned in the black inner sanctum of the Batboat, with him giving me the silent treatment most of the way. It wasn't really that Batman was angry with me; it had been a horrible day all around. Though Brainiac's legion had been defeated, it had been at a fearsome cost. Beyond whatever injuries Aquaman had suffered, Green Arrow had received several nasty-looking cuts and bruises for his trouble, and even the lightning-fast Flash had experienced a bad blow to the head, a hit so strong that it had flung him across the island like a rag doll. Batman hates surprises, and the robot legion had certainly been different from anything we'd come up against back home in gritty, grimy, decaying Gotham City. For all of his frigid aloofness, he didn't like seeing his friends hurt . Although his expression never varied from one end of the day to the next, the concern he had for his fallen comrades was evident to my seasoned eye. I shifted my gaze elsewhere as he bristled with my scrutiny of his features, so I busied myself rearranging controls on the onboard computer. The last thing I wanted was to have Batman's temper directed at me. As we flew through the causeway on the rocky waves along the shoreline route to the outskirts of Gotham, I hoped with all my heart that, just for once, all was peaceful and calm in my adopted hometown tonight, and that its two busiest guardians could just go home and get some rest.
"A bit late for a full course dinner, Master Richard," Alfred said as I came downstairs following my bath. I'd had sand in my hair, my boots, probably even my shorts, and soaking in soapy water while answering Jeopardy questions blaring from my bedroom TV seemed just the thing. Alfred, Bruce's trusty and spit-spot butler, gets rather fussy when his meal plans are thwarted, but after several years of Bruce's nocturnal adventures, he's learned to cope. "I have, however, prepared some light comestibles for your consumption. Your choice from the larder includes slices of Virginia ham, fresh fruit, chicken salad, digestive biscuits, Major Grey chutney, piccalilli and several aged cheeses. Be sure to eat your apple, drink your milk, wash your plate and glass and return the platter to the refrigerator when you're finished." "What about Bruce? Is that for his dinner, too?" I asked. "No, Master Bruce is presently having tea as he works downstairs on the computer. I'll be straightening up in the study if you need anything." And by the way, an impatient young man from Nebraska called you several times in rapid succession. He said something about a flash, left a number and asked you to call him. And don't be long at it; long distance bills set Master Bruce's teeth on end." With that, Alfred folded the tea cloth he held, placed it neatly on the counter and left for other parts of the manor. I ate alone in the kitchen, which isn't at all unusual in this massive, stuffy old household. Alfred does his thing, Bruce does his, and I'm left alone to do mine, except for when I'm in training...sometimes. Heroics can be a lonely life, and being the ward of a man obsessed with it only compounds the hurt.
Later, here in my bedroom, I called the number Wally had left with Alfred. Our rapid-fire conversation lasted all of ten minutes; hard to believe anyone could tell me the story of his life in that short time, but leave it to someone called Kid Flash to manage that! We agreed to get together sometime, maybe a Saturday when his mother said it was okay for him to take a day trip to somewhere close to home...which he would, of course, make up a lie about. I hated the thought of him having to lie to her, but there's no way to explain him coming to Gotham City for a few hours when the train alone would take him half a day.
A bit later, with my ears still buzzing from Speed-Talk, I curled up under the blankets and pulled the comforter over my head. Nothing on TV to keep me awake; no old movies to soothe me from the traumas of the day. Damn infomercials anyway. I sure miss late-night black and white Mae West fests, those cool ancient comedies I used to watch with my mom while we settled down in the early hours of the next day after a night of "oooo's" and "aaaahhhhs," swinging high above the awe-struck townies in the thin air at the top of the big tent. I miss Mae West, I miss the laughs, but mostly...I miss Mom. And since there was nothing else of interest on the tube and I felt like crying, I figured I might as well crash. Sleep...the great equalizer, for asleep I don't have to please anyone, jump through hoops, fly off of rooftops or pine for the good ol' days.
I could have sworn I closed one of the double French doors of my balcony, while leaving the other slightly ajar, but I was soon awakened by a sudden chill and a breeze which blew the homework papers from my desk and into the trash bin next to it. Good; it was as if I'd planned it that way. Reluctantly, I kicked off the bedcovers and threw myself out of bed. I hate to walk the cold floor in my bare feet, but if I had opened my eyes to look for my slippers I'd have never gotten back to sleep. I'm like that: once awake, I'm wide awake. Stumbling across the floor, I reached out almost instinctively when I figured I was in grasping distance of the door knobs, and I fumbled in the dark, running my fingers along the wooden moldings to find the ornate handles.
My room is on the second floor with an outside balcony which overlooks the pool, so I never worry about securing the doors at night. No one would think of breaking into imposing, stately Wayne Manor---that's why there's no burglar alarm. This place screams murder mystery from the outside, so no one would try it. Besides that, just beyond the grassy property line that my doors face, there's a steep, treacherous cliff that ascends from the depths of this inlet of Gotham Bay. Only the seagulls can manage a trip from the bottom to the top.
"It is over there," I heard a light, strange voice say, the sound of which immediately sent my body into attack mode. I assumed a martial arts position and prepared to defend myself, and through squinted eyes I peered around the area of the double doors and used the moonlight to my advantage. "Come out, whoever you are!" I yelled as my eyes began to adjust to the dim light. "I am right here; can you not see me?" the lilting voice said. I detected no movement other than feeling my heart racing, but since the figure made no move toward me, I began to back up and to reach for the light fixture next to my bed. Remembering that my guitar was leaning against the headboard of my bed, I figured I could do an "El Ka-bong!" on my assailant if I needed to, so I instinctively grabbed its neck and prepared to swing it. I flicked the light on in the same pass as grabbing the guitar, and, as light flooded the room, a familiar form standing next to the French doors began to take shape. "Aqualad?!"
"Hello," he offered in a timid voice. "Do you remember me?" I loosened my grip on my guitar, leaned it against the nightstand, and straightened up. Not wanting him to think he'd gotten the drop on me, I pushed my drooping black bangs out of my eyes and shrugged my shoulders. "Of course I remember you. I...I was just startled, is all..." "Oh, because you looked as if you were going to hurt me," he said cautiously, as he scanned my room with an expression of awe. "I like your dwelling very much," he added, and I noted that he still hadn't moved an inch from the spot where he first planted himself, near the outward opening doors. "You can come in, you know. You'll catch cold standing there...and I'll get a towel for you. Alfred will kill us if he finds water all over the place." Dumb-bell! Cold? What's wrong with me?! This kid lives at the bottom of the sea! If he can survive freezing cold temperatures down there, Gotham City in the fall is a cinch.
"Towel?" The funniest expression broke out on his face as he fingered my offering, a big plush bath towel from the bathroom. "Ummmm....you dry yourself off with it," I instructed him, "...it'll take the water off of you." "Oh...and why would I want to do that?" he asked as he rubbed it against his face. Then the answer came to him without any further assistance from me. "Ahhhh...this is...very nice. Ok...I'll try..." My goodness; amazing how something I take for granted would seem so strange to someone like him. But then, what does he know of my world, I wondered. Probably way more than I know about his; that's for sure.
Politely as I could, I searched his features for whatever might give him away as an Atlantean if I didn't know him to be one. Using my best-learned detective skills, I started from the top: normal-enough looking hair, ears, nose, mouth---we're not going there eyes-wise! Pretty much the same build as me, no fins, no scales, no dorsal appendages, no gills that I could see. Nothing that would conjure up images of mermaids or creatures from the deep as seen in old horror movies. He looked harmless enough---cherubic to a fault, in fact, and, judging from the events of this afternoon, I figured him to be only vulnerable when out of water for a while, not that I'd assumed him to be a danger anyway. After all, he's on our side. Though Batman had mentioned the words "maverick," "loose cannon" and "royal pain in the...backside" in terms of Aquaman, I don't think any of that applied to this boy. He seemed to be quite the opposite.
"How the heck did you get up here?" I pondered aloud, scratching my head as I leaned through the doors to see what he might have used to climb up. He couldn't possibly have climbed the sheer, forbidding cliffs protecting Wayne Manor from the sea. Sir Edmund Hillary couldn't have managed a climb that treacherous. "I did it in a leap from the cove," he replied, not looking up at me or stopping his water blotting. "Then I did the same from your water pond onto your ledge."
"Ooooo-kay....geez, you must have legs as mighty as a grasshopper's, pal." He looked puzzled at me, but I caught him before he could even begin, "Never mind. I'll explain that some other time. There's an easier way up via the waterway through the underground caves, by the way. I'll have to show you that before your next visit. Errrr....Why did you come here---and how did you ever find me?"
"I came because you called me, only I thought it was Arthur...the one you call Aquaman...calling me. I am just as surprised to see you as you are to see me. Where is he, then?" He looked around my room, the enigma of it all written on his face. I didn't know what he was talking about; how could I have..."I....I didn't call you. How could I?...oh no!"
Then I remembered! The "A!" "Oh no----was it this thing?" Reaching for my tunic and belt dangling from the back of my desk chair, I pulled the golden icon with its mini-transmitter out of one of the compartments on my belt. "When I touched the button on the back, maybe I set it off. Is that it? I sure didn't hear anything." "I'd be puzzled if you did!" he giggled, taking the icon in hand. "It's not at a pitch your ears would recognize, but I could hear it plainly, even many leagues away from your shores. I did think it was strange, though, because I normally can sense things about Arthur, even from a long way away, and that feeling did not come with the distress signal. Maybe that was because I am already worried about him."
"That's pretty deep, kiddo," I grinned at him. He and his mentor must have an amazing friendship; they must be the type to complete each other's sentences. "Sorry to drag you all the way up here to Bristol on a wild goose chase, Aqualad. But maybe I can make it up to you by getting some information on how Aquaman is doing. I can hack into S.T.A.R. Lab files anytime I want to and..."
Before I had even finished the sentence, I knew I'd lost him, so there was no need to complete it. No worry; he'd understand it later as I'd show him how to navigate the system to do some covert sleuthing. Some days I just love my work, and hacking my way into lab files is one of my favorite challenges. Hey, it keeps me off the streets...
"I don't sense him to be in danger of death, but I am worried for him," mused Aqualad quietly. "Sense? I thought he was only a telepath where fish are concerned." I had to ask; see, I thought I knew everything about the Justice Leaguers. Batman studies them all and keeps files on them, and I learn a lot leaning over his shoulder as he types away. He hates it when there's an unsolved mystery or any sort of unknown quantity, and the normally tight-lipped Aquaman poses a bit of a conundrum to the great detective.
"This has nothing to do with telepathy," Aqualad said, stopping his towel blotting to take a look at me. I noticed that each time he had done this, his eyes purposely never met mine, but stopped just below or to the side of mine, his thick, kohl-black eyelashes acting as concealers. "I share a sort of link to him, and I always seem to know when he is in pain or in danger. It is a type of .... well, extra-sense."
"It must be interesting to live with a man who can talk to sea creatures, though I can't figure what a flounder would have to say to anyone," I giggled, thinking myself quite clever for a moment as I flung my body back onto my bed. My humor was lost on my guest. "Most of those creatures have ancient souls; they know much about the rhythm of life from learning to survive in the seas from generation to generation, and these stories they impart to Arthur. And then....some of them just babble. Well...a great many of them do."
"Must make for some great tales, then, huh?" Fish tales, mostly, I'd figure, like how they got away from fisherman. I tried not to laugh at the thought; he wouldn't understand the humor in my play on words, and I wouldn't want to insult him in any way.
"Arthur...errr, Aquaman...tells wonderful tales of the sea and her struggles with man." I smiled broadly at this remark, which piqued Aqualad's interest; as an eyebrow raised, he boldly searched my face for an answer. "You laugh? You believe we of the seas have nothing of value to say?" "Oh no--not at all!" I corrected him. "I guess it's just that we on land always view it the other way 'round---you know, like in the documentaries, like 'man and his attempts at conquering the sea, harnessing her power' and all..."
"But in the end, she must win, Robin" came his thoughtful reply. "For if she loses the battle, then all is lost---for your kind and mine." And, of course, he's right.
Finished with dabbing at beads of water on his body, Aqualad fumbled with the towel, unsure as to what its function is after having served its purpose. "I'll take that," I offered, lifting the towel from his hands and depositing it where I usually leave such things...in a heap on the floor. Alfred would take care of it sooner or later, delivering the same sermon he does each time he enters my junked-up room: the one about neatness, about cleanliness being next to godliness and all. I usually do my own laundry when he lets me get to it first, so I don't see what the big deal is. If Alfred had his way, no one would ever dirty anything, and what fun would that be? Sometimes he can be a cranky old pain; it must come with the accent. But he's the closest thing I've had to a father since I lost mine, so I try very hard to please him...in moderation, of course. I am new at being a teenager, after all.
