Six Teens Walk into a Bank (a young justice fanfiction)

Uh Oh

Conner kicked the door shut and M'gann locked it, but they already saw the blood. A bullet straight through the hostages shoulder.  Panic and chaos filled the room. 

"Everyone stay down and stay put!" Artemis ordered, tearing at her hair. 

Conner laid the man down in the lobby. The other teammates came running in. Wally dropped his phone, and M'gann looked like she was going to vomit.

"First aid kit! Hurry!" Wally yelled Dropping to his knees by the man. 

"There's one in the office!" Robin shouted. 

"Everyone remain calm!" Kaldur reminded,  Helping M'gann to her feet.

The phone behind the counter rang and Artemis stormed over. "What was that?" She yelled. "That was a hostage! And your guys shot 'im!"

"You're guy had a weapon, we had to fire."

"No you didn't!" She yelled. "Now we've got a dying hostage and we aren't sending anyone else out yet!" She slammed the phone down, then took it off the receiver so they couldn't call. "Kid, update!"

"Bleeding! Bad!" Wally inspected the man's shoulder wound. It was on his left side, and frighteningly close to his heart. "Disinfectant, asap! and some sort of tarp! It's going to be messy..."

"First aid kit!" Dick slid the kit across to them. Wally forced it open and began removing tools.

"Do you know what you're doing?" Conner asked.

"NO! A guy just got shot, do you?"

"Yeah, stop the bleeding."

"Oh, thanks captain insight! Help me then!" Wally barked, and the two of them got to work.

Tired of storming back-and-forth, unable to help, Artemis turning on her heel and jogged casually into the nearest washroom, the men's, yanking off her sunglasses and splashing water in her face. "Ugh. Wow." She said, staring herself in the mirror.

"Holding up a bank in Salem County." Dick sighed, he was leaning against the wall of the bathroom, also hiding. "Zatanna will be so jealous."

"Hey Zat, guess where we were? In the place where twenty witches were tortured to death a long time ago. Aren't you sad that as a witch, you weren't there?" Artemis sighed. "Also, yes, Wally still thinks your craft is just a bunch of slight-of-hand. Like that dumb kid's magic set in the lobby."

"Okay, maybe she wouldn't be so upset..." Robin admitted. "But this is certainly new to most of us?

"Stop trying to be optimistic, a man got shot." Artemis said, tightening her ponytail out of her face and brushing fly-aways from her face.

"Yeah." Dick went quiet. "We've searched almost everyone, but no one seems to have it. How long can you stall our friends out there?"

"Not as long as we need." She replied. "How's the retnal scanner going?"

"I was just about to ask Kid Flash for help with it. It's not easy trying to detect movement in rods and cones with just office supplies." He groaned. "Do you think we could search everyone again?"

"Nothing in their bags or pockets." Artemis grimaced. "And I am NOT ordering an internal cavity search on men or women."

"You wouldn't have to." Dick replied. "The TB-H is heat sensitive in this form, if it had prolonged exposure to internal body heat, built up pressure would have snapped the vile and someone would already be coughing up blood."

"So like Kid Flash said... We keep the air conditioning on to buy us time until we can get it in the hydrogen cooler."

"Exactly." Dick replied.

"With the AC where it is, assuming the vile is in a pocket, how long will it take to pop."

Dick swallowed grimly. "About an hour maybe? Ask the science one."

Artemis nodded, scared. "I'm going to turn up the AC." 

"There's a mini fridge in the breakroom. As soon as possible, help Supes of KF hook up the cooling agents with the ventilation."

"And you?"

"I need to turn a counterfeit bill scanner into a laser eye scanner." Dick reported, pushing out the bathroom door. "OH! I need a cell phone. Unlimited coverage. The fancier the better. Pry the back off with a quarter and bring it through."

"Rodger that." Artemis strode into the lobby. "How is it?" 

"We can't stitch here." Conner reported. "Not ideal but we're making due with rubbing alcohol and water-non-soluble superglue."

"Like in the civil war." Wally muttered.

"Keep gluing, Red." Artemis looked over their collection of confiscated cell phones. All eight of them. Eight?  Maybe the elderly lady hadn't given up a cell, but Artemis remembered exactly nine. She began searching through the newer phones. That one with the group photo would work well.

But the phone wasn't there. Artemis replayed the past few minutes in her head... M'gann escorted the pregnant teller through the lobby, she stumbled against the counter....

"What's wrong?" Kaldur asked, seeing the look on her face.

"Dolly stole a phone back." she uttered. "When she left, she took her phone back! Probably showing the cops the photos the got... Ugh That's- so smart." She grunted. "Her release may have bought us time, but now they know what we look like."

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Kaldur emerged with the last hostage, an older man, two headed to Artemis. "We've searched them all."

"What is it?" Artemis asked pathetically, she was so stressed. Leading the team was awful, and this was just one mission.

"...None of the hostages have the vile on them."

"...None?" The blonde uttered.

Kaldur shook his head. "We can't find the vile anywhere."

Artemis stared at the barricaded door. "So, we're holding up a bank, with nine hostages, and they don't have it?" She sank against the door. "Oh."

"Hey, do you think..." M'gann started.  "Well, if the police have that picture of us, who else do you think has access to it?"

"What do you mean?" Kaldur asked.

"Well, I always see live reports on big robberies on the news, sometimes from all across the country, and they show pictures and live footage and stuff like that..." The girl explained.

"And bank robbery by six teenagers would surely make some major news network!" Wally finished, wiping blood off his hands. "And if so, who has seen it?"