Avoiding Past And Future

(23)Homefront 2

They dropped down to another vent tunnel. "Hold on." Dick warned as he paused next to an access panel. Using his favorite weapon, he pried open the covering and connected his wrist computer to it. "Blocking out cave's heat and motion sens-huh." Dick fell quiet as the system didn't directly respond to his inputs.

Furiously, he typed away at the hologram to find out what was causing the issues. Data seemed to glitch out for a few seconds before it showed three signatures. Before either of them could even comment on it, it glitched again. The third signature was gone, and so were the response issues with the system. Writing it off as a concern for later, Dick continued to block out the cave from tracking them. Hopefully with that it'll make it harder for their attackers to find them too. "There, that should do it."

Artemis gave a puzzled yet somewhat annoyed look at her hacker friend. "Who even are they?"

Dick smirked at her as he started typing again. "Why don't we find out? Pulling up security footage now."

What they saw wasn't what either of them was expecting. While their friends were in view, none of the cameras got a glimpse of the attackers before they were all taken out.

"That's it. All four of them are dead. The cameras, I meant the cameras!" He quickly added when he saw the look of horror on the archer's face. "I-I'm sure the others are okay." Despite the stutter, he did his best to sound confident. More for her sake than his. "Just...give me a sec to find the fastest route to the hangar." The logical part of his head was focusing on the mission as hard as he humanly could. The other, more emotional side of him, was slipping down the same rabbit hole Artemis was going. He couldn't imagine how he would deal with any of what happened recently if he now also had to grieve the loss of his best friend. Was the universe really so cruel to give him his brother back, only to take his best friend away in the same week?

Artemis fell backwards and curled up into a ball, knees pulled tightly to her chest in self-comfort. "Yeah, they're fine." She said sarcastically with a hint of fear laced between the words. "They all got superpowers, they can handle anything." Her head fell onto her knees as she waited for Robin to say anything. Too bad for her that he was too far gone in his own head to have heard her talk.

After a few minutes, Dick finally disconnected and started leading the archer to the vent that leads directly to the library. Skillfully he pushed the cover off and carefully lowered it to avoid making sound. A quick check made it seem like the coast was clear, so the two teens jumped out and ran down the stairs to the lower level

"There's a secret passage behind one of these bookcases."

"Ugh, seriously? Cliché much?" Artemis commented in disbelief.

Dick chuckled at the remark and the fond memories that flooded his brain of all the times he got lost in the maze known as the Batcave tunnels. "You should see the Batcave." Maybe one day he could convince Batman that letting his teammates in isn't that bad of an idea. Wally came over often enough, and Kaldur definitely deserved that privilege as well with how long they've known each other already. What are the odds any of them would really betray them when push comes to shove?

With Robin in lead, the two walked past several bookcases until they were a solid end into the room. Behind them, the door suddenly slid open, warning them somebody had entered the room. Grabbing Artemis by the arm, he pulled them both behind cover in case it was their attacker. Dick's heart was racing. He was sure he turned off the sensors, how would the enemy have found them already? The air felt odd as metallic footsteps grew closer and closer to the hidden pair. Like an echo to each step, Dick could faintly hear an angry growl. Something in him told him it wasn't directed at him.