Remember the Pact of our Youth

TWO - If I Smile with my Teeth (i think i believe me)

STAR CITY

JULY 17, 23:13 PDT

In the following days Rebecca started getting back into the pace of working on the streets. She went on patrols in Star City. Sometimes with Dinah, sometimes alone, but Dinah – as she liked to remind her – was always a call and a couple of minutes away, instead of across the country.

The League had promised them their own team missions, their own experience. But so far, after more than a week, nothing had come up. She knew the others were starting to get restless. The boys especially. And in their itch to get the ball rolling, to do something, they had gotten it in their head to pull Speedy in. To show him that this team was worth it. That they had been right not to walk away like he had.

And so, of course, they had to butt into Rebecca's case.

It had come as a surprise to Rebecca when three days ago Roy had dropped in on her patrol and pulled her into his case. There had been some movements by the docks and Speedy had been sure one of the local Kingpins, Brick, had been behind it. They had been tracking him for two days and apart from things pertaining to the case they had barely spoken of anything else.

Rebecca knew he had been as worried as the others about her month long radio silence. But just like Aqualad was too polite to question her on such an obviously personal matter unless she first volunteered to. Or how Wally, no matter how air headed and chatty he usually was, was empathetic enough to realize what was too sensitive for him to butt into. And even Robin, who poked his nose in everything – who probably knew it all already – knew her well enough when to give her her illusion of privacy.

Roy too, knew that she would come to him if she needed to talk about it. This was just his way of checking in, of knocking on her door and letting her know he was there.

She appreciated it, even when they had spent two whole days between strained conversations and strained silence, Roy's temper bubbling just under the surface. But their case had been going perfectly, and Rebecca had been sure they would end it on a high note. Even Roy's tense shoulders and snappish commands had mellowed the longer they worked quickly and efficiently together.

That was, of course, when the unwanted cavalry had jumped in.

They had tracked Brick and his men until they had every detail in their new 'business venture' down. Gotten everything: from the hour the shipment was coming in, to the exact dock, to the type of weapons they were, etc. All they needed was to move in. The boys had showed up on their way to the docks and they spent the entire trip there jabbering to Roy about the team and the cave ever since.

Rebecca could see with every sentence the way his shoulders tensed up again, and she felt the high of the case sink into her stomach. She could not see this intervention ending well.

And so here she was, in the shadows, atop a shipping container, watching the men down in the docks move wooden crates from the recently arrived shipment to their waiting vans. With an irritated partner and three interlopers scattered around – waiting on the signal of said irritated partner.

It was in the next moment, as the men loaded up the crates into a van, that an arrow flew down between their feet. Exploding into a smoke screen that made the men cough and drop their crate. Rebecca watched as it opened up into the laser handguns Brick was stealing.

One of the guns slid to Brick's feet, and as he picked it up and pointed it at Speedy, who stood atop a metal crane, she began her sprint across the containers.

"You again!" Brick called out, his voice echoing in the empty docks.

"I'm startin' to get insulted that Green Arrow's not messin' up my operations personally!"