The Last One (young justice/robin)

36. lost

The Warworld
May 30, 03:36 UTC

I didn't feel good about leaving Rena by herself in the warehouse, but there wasn't much of a choice. She can't go to the hospital—not without us knowing who took her and whether or not they might still be looking for her.

That meant cleaning and changing her myself. It wasn't a pretty sight under all the bandages. There was a nasty slash across her abdomen, along with a neat line at the bottom of her stomach. The gash had to be the stab wound—the injury the leftover blade was behind—but the second one was an incision. It was precise and had stitching fixed all around it.

    What would Rens need a surgery for?

    The trickiest part was her fingers. Her whole left hand had to be wrapped and placed inside a splint. The right had a splint among other bandages for the two fingers that managed not to break.

    I couldn't tell whether I was sick, sad, or angry. Maybe all of the above? How could I let this happen to her?

    "Anything?"

    "No," Miss M sighed. "I'm sorry. I can't sense any of them, but the Warworld is so big, they could easily be out of range."

    "We've been flying this surface grid pattern for hours, a-and you're exhausted."

    "I'm fine. I-I can do this."

    "Of course, but there's no need to over-tax yourself so soon after your kidnapping. Besides, we're not giving up. We'll start over where the Team first disappeared. Look for a new lead."

    "All right. If you think it best."

    And that's what we did—or at least, tried to do.

    "Haven't you already scanned every inch of this place?"

    "Yeah, but I'm obviously capable of missing obvious clues. I totally should have spotted evidence of Blue Beetle's defection after Green Beetle fixed his scarab."

    "That's my fault," M'gann grabbed me. "You asked me to scan Green's mind, and I vouched for him without delving deep. I was so afraid to use my powers after what I did to Aqualad. I allowed Green Beetle and his scarab to feed me exactly what The Reach wanted us to believe. So Blue trusted Green and was turned by him. Then somehow abducted the Team. All on me."

    "Except you never would have been in that position if I had trusted you with the secret of Aqualad's deep cover mission. I put you, Iris, Aqualad, Artemis, the whole Team in unacceptable danger."

    "So this is our guilt off? I say I messed up then you say you messed up worse. Dick, we both made mistakes and we both need to get over ourselves. Save the Team, then save Blue. As a certain 13 year old was once fond of saying, 'that's just what we do,'."

    I lightened up as much as possible, scanning the room slowly. 

    "How's she doing?"

    "Eight broken fingers, malnutrition, a stab wound, and it looks like a coma... so not great."

    "And you still have no idea who took her or brought her back?"

    "None," I shook my head. "We could wait until she wakes up—whenever that is."

    "She escaped her captors with eight broken fingers," she put a hand on my shoulder again. "She'll be okay."

    A screech sounded on the other side of the door.

    Miss Martian and I readied ourselves, but a familiar whirring filled our ears. The door opened as Sphere rolled in.

    "Sphere!"