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The tropical island just off the coast of Florida was unusually noisy on a fine Sunday night. Loud explosions ruffled the palm trees’ leaves and lights from fires reflected off the surrounding water’s surface. Tiny monkeys and brightly coloured birds fluttered around, startled by all the ruckus.
Said ruckus was created by a group of teenagers, which isn’t all that surprising. The Young Justice team was just wrapping up their latest mission. The whole team of young heroes were present, minus Miss Martian who was spending time with her Uncle.
Of course, the mission ended with an explosion and their cover blown. Kaldur couldn’t say he was surprised although he had hoped that this mission would be the time where they incorporated the covert part of their covert team. He let a little bit more of that hope die as he watched Superboy punch a wall down to get them out of the facility.
The facility, nothing more than a burning building, used to be a remote StarLabs location that was doing some top-secret research or something. Robin knew more of the details. They had been sent here by Batman to guard said research. Apparently, the League had been sent an anonymous tip that this location was going to be robbed in the upcoming days. They didn’t know the who, what (Robin knew but he liked his secrets), when, or how, which didn’t leave the young team leader pleased.
Despite the frankly concerning amount of question marks surrounding this mission, they had so far done well-- excluding the currently burning lab. The team had successfully prevented the theft of the research and were currently in pursuit of the would-be thieves, hence the wall being punched up for easy access to the outdoors.
“Um dude, you know there was a door right there right?” Wally pointed out the door, with a weakly blinking exit sign above. Superboy’s only response was to shrug and stalk off, looking for the thieves who had run into the forest in search of cover.
“He’s got the right idea at least…” Robin chuckled, following Conner’s lead and disappearing into the forest.
“Robin, wait! We need a plan before splitting…. up” Kaldur realized too late that Robin was already gone, a faint cackle following his disappearance.
“I think that is the plan. Split up, cover more ground. Hey Artie! Bet I can catch more bad guys than you!” their resident speedster called, pulling his red goggles onto his eyes.
At Artemis’s comeback of “You wish, Kid Crash”, Wally ran off leaving a gust of wind behind him which blew the archer’s ponytail into her face. She huffed and spun around, walking off in the opposite direction. The Atlantean sighed and took off into the forest.
It could have only been a quarter of an hour when Aqualad spotted one of the seven thieves. He cringed as leaves crunched under his feet, causing his opponent to spin around and face him. Losing the element of surprise Kaldur took out his water bearers and formed them into twin blades to match his opponent’s own sword. Solidifying his fighting stance, Aqualad prepared for his foe to charge. Predictably he did. His skill wasn’t on par with Kaldur’s but still, he fought well. He had just knocked the thief out with his water mace when he heard the slowly fading sound of running feet. Looking around and spotting nothing, Kaldur ran in the direction of the faint.
He was reaching the end of the forest where the beach started when three figures became visible. One of them was Robin, identified by his flickering canary yellow cape. Kaldur assumed the two other dark figures were two of the thieves. Robin was hot on their tracks as they tried to get to their escape vehicle, a boat waiting by the shore.
Kaldur still had quite a bit of distance to cover by the time the thugs and by extension Robin, had reached the boat. He wasn’t worried, as soon as he reached the water it would be game over. After all, the water is his home.
The boat started with a roar and before he knew it it took off, taking the two criminals and a stowaway Robin racing into the cool night. That shouldn’t be an issue. The Boy Wonder can handle himself and if he needed backup, Kaldur was right behind him.
By the time Kaldur had started wading into the cool water, the boat was a way away, just a blurry outline now. ‘It’s fine, Robin is competent’ he thought to himself but worry nibbled at the back of his mind. Wasting no more, Kaldur was deep enough to start swimming for real and he was catching up to them quickly.
Just when he was nearing the boat, about 15 meters away, he noticed some red colouring the water not too far away. He wouldn’t have paid it any mind, thinking it was just a marine predator having dinner but again, he caught sight of canary yellow.
All thoughts of chasing the criminals left his mind as he dived deeper towards the now recognizable silhouette of Robin, sinking deeper and deeper. He increased his efforts swimming faster, because even in the dim moonlight water he could tell that was his friend and he needed help.
Grabbing Robin from under the arms, Aqualad kicked with all his might until his and Robin's head breached the surface. He shook the boy in his arms a bit as he was treaded.
“My friend? Robin?” Coming to a fast realization that Robin was unconscious, he started swimming backwards on his back, back to the little dot that was the island. He did his best to keep the boy’s head above water and his airway open.
Nearing the shore, he could see that the whole team had gathered around the beach, staring as he dragged their youngest teammate back to land.
Soon the water started to get shallower and they all waded in rushing to the pair. Conner quickly took Robin from his arms and hurried to lay him down on the sand. Kaldur tried to follow but he was forced to take a moment to catch his breath, closing his eyes.
When he looked back a couple of seconds later, Wally had already started CPR. He ran as fast as his overworked legs would take him towards the huddled group. He heard Wally humming a tune and doing the chest compressions to the beat of it. He recognized it as the “Baby Shark” melody which was an odd and even inappropriate song choice given the situation. But what did he even expect from Wally at this point.
Artemis's steady count of compressions was keeping everyone somehow calm despite their worry for their young friend.
“26,”
Wally’s hands pushed down.
“27,”
Hands pushed down.
“28,”
Pushed down.
“29,”
Down.
“30,”
Wally broke his rhythm and delivered two rescue breaths. He placed his hands on Robin’s chest and started the cycle again. The third compression was interrupted by Robin coughing up water all over the speedster’s face.
Wally, not even phased by the water on his face, gave a joyful shout of “Dude!” while turning Dick on his side in the recovery position to make sure he didn’t choke on the water he was coughing out. The team, startled by the violent coughing and the exclamation, leaned back from where they were huddling, leaving Wally the only one near the small form on the ground.
From his vantage point in the semicircle of teens, all surrounding their friend, Kaldur could only see Robin’s forehead out of his face. Kid Flash was blocking the rest of him. However he assumed Robin was attempting to speak because Wally let out a confused “Huh?” and leaned closer to hear better. The action was followed by the rest of the team but they kept their distance, not wanting to crowd the recovering bird. Robin repeated his words and whatever they were caused Kid Flash to start laughing so hard he fell down laying right next to the wheezing Robin. Whether that wheezing was from laughter as well or from difficulty breathing because of the water was unknown to Kaldur.
—
Later, back at the mountain they were giving their mission debrief to Batman and it was getting to the part where Robin got injured.
Kaldur will admit that he is a little worried how this part of the debrief would go down. Batman tended to get moody every time Robin was injured on a mission with the team.
Before Kaldur can start to delve into the trenches of explaining the situation to Batman, Wally cuts in with a proud exclamation of “I save Dick by giving him CPR!”
Everyone turned and stared at him then at Robin to see how he’d react. Batman let out a growl.
“Wow dude, you’re really calling me a dick after my traumatic experience?” He huffed in mock annoyance.
Artemis smirks, Wally winks at Robin and Batman is glaring at the speedster. Conner just looks confused and frankly, Kaldur is inclined to join in with him.
Later, Conner will tell him what Robin whispered to Wally after he woke up on the beach.
“You saved me by giving me CPR.”