Sick Bird.

9. Phone Call

Wally anxiously paced up and down in front of the infirmary, nervously biting his lip whilst glancing at the door every few seconds. The rest of the team sat silently in chairs against the wall as they watched the speedster. Artemis could swear he was starting to vibrate. "Stop that, Baywatch. You're gonna make a hole in the floor sooner or later."

The anxious speedster simply ignored the blonde archer's remark and kept pacing to his heart's content.

Aqualad sighed slightly. "Kid, this will not help-"

He didn't get to finish his sentence when the ginger spun around to face him. "Well if you didn't hear, Black Canary just told us that Rob was dying before Batman chased us all out of the room without an explanation. So what am I supposed to do? Sit around and do nothing like you guys? You don't even look worried!"

"Kid." Aqualad said firmly. "You know we are all concerned for Robin's health."

Wally opened his mouth to retort again, but froze in place when he heard a door opening behind him. Batman stepped aside just as the anxious speedster turned and rushed into the room, brushing past the vigilante without care.

The Dark Knight didn't spare a glance at the team as he exited the room and turned, walking down the hall towards the Zeta tubes with a small tube full of a thick looking red liquid, which in this case was most likely Robin's blood.

The team of sidekicks took the vigilante's silence as an 'okay' to see the bird. They quickly filed into the infirmary.

Wally was already next to the Boy Wonder's bed when they came in. Robin however, didn't seem to acknowledge their presences. The little bird was sitting upright in the bed, leaning back against the stacked pillows behind him with the pure white blanket pulled up to his stomach. He was staring straight ahead, though his masked eyes seemed unseeing.

Wally slowly lifted a hand and placed it on his best friend's shoulder. "You okay, dude?" He asked, worry evident in his voice.

Robin slowly turned his head to look at the speedster and nodded stiffly. He then blinked a few times and shook his head as if snapping out of trance.

The bird sighed as he sunk back into the pillows behind him. "For someone who's just been told that they're gonna die sooner or later, I'm just...peachy."

"Robin..." Came M'gann's soft voice from where she was holding onto Superboy's arm at the foot of the bed.

The ill sidekick shifted his gaze to look at her from behind the whites of his domino mask. "Yeah, Miss M?"

A slight frown formed on the martian's face as she spoke,"What exactly is happening to you?"

The little bird heaved a bit of a sigh and took a deep breath, blowing the air out of his nose afterwards as he looked back up at the ceiling,"They don't know. Batman's taken a sample of my blood to go analyze at the batcave, but apparently this bug or whatever I have has proven so far that it can somehow mess with my heart and lungs, so I'm guessing the test results aren't gonna come back as the normal flu or cold." The masked 13-year old said in an overly calm voice that did nothing to betray how he was really feeling at the moment.

Wally's grip on his best friend's shoulder tightened slightly. "Black Canary said your heart's slowing down..."

Robin turned his head to look at the heartmonitor next to the bed, his eyes following the somewhat alarmingly inactive line.

Every time the line jumped, it wasn't as high as it was supposed to be with any normal, healthy person. The beep that sounded every time the line jumped wasn't steady, nor was it loud.

"Yeah..." Was the bedridden bird's only response as he turned his head back to stare at the ceiling again.

Wally bit his lip and took out his phone, clicking on the orange icon at the bottom of the screen before scrolling down the list of numbers. "We need to tell Roy about this." He said as his finger hovered over the 'call' button next to the ginger-haired archer's number.

Robin's eyes widened and he immediately tried to grab the speedster's phone. "No!"

It was too late. Wally's finger pressed down on the green phone icon when he pulled the device out of the masked bird's reach.

They froze when they heard the phone starting to dail Red Arrow's number.

The Boy Wonder tried desperately to reach for his best friend's phone. "Hang up! Hang u-"

"Hello?"

He immediately went quiet when a certain, hot-headed archer's voice rung through the mobile device's speaker.

"Hello? Wally? You there? This better not be a prank call."

The room was silent and nobody said a word as they exchanged nervous glances.

The archer on the other side of the line seemed to get slightly impatient. "Wally are you going to say something or did you just call to waste my time?"

The ginger-haired speedster opened his mouth to say something, but a frightening batglare from Robin kept him quiet.

There was silence in the room for yet another moment, until...

"...that's it. I'm coming to the mountain." Then the call went dead.

Only a minute passed before the computer announced a certain archer's arrival and Robin visibly paled.