Sick Bird.

11. Restless Bird

"Someone tell me what's going on!"

"Robin's sick! Get that through your thick skull already!" Artemis yelled at the clueless redhead, flailing her arms in the air exasperatedly.

Roy turned to her with his eyes narrowed, his eyebrow twitching slightly in irritation. "I see that. I'm not stupid! You could elaborate on the definition of 'sick' here!"

Wally rested a hand on his breathless best friend's shoulder as the boy breathed into the oxygen mask. "We don't really know how, but...Batman and Black Canary said he's dying..."

Roy's eyes widened and he looked to the little bird on the bed in disbelief. "How? Did he catch a disease or something? Don't you have a cure yet? What are you guys even doing about it-"

"Roy..." The voice that interrupted the archer was soft and weak. Red Arrow met the masked eyes of Robin, who had removed the oxygen mask, despite Wally's protests at doing so.

"Please don't take this out on them..."

Roy grit his teeth and slowly clenched his fists at his sides. "It doesn't look like they're doing anything to help-"

"Well neither are you." Superboy interrupted from his place next to M'gann.

Red Arrow swiftly turned to face the kryptonian with a heated glare. "What-"

"Roy, please stop..." The hotheaded archer turned back to face the 13-year old, who was now holding a hand to his head. 'There's nothing they can do..."

"What's being done about this then?"

"Batman is already doing everything he can to figure out what's wrong with me. Nothing else can be done at the moment so please don't pick fights. All this yelling is giving me a headache."

Roy went silent and looked away, a bit of shame showing on his face, but no one else said a word.

Minutes passed before Robin sighed and tossed the white blankets off, turning and swinging his legs over the side of the bed.

Wally immediately reacted and stopped the bird, trying to push him back onto the bed. "Woah dude, where do you think you're going?"

The bird swatted the speedster's hands away and continued in his attempt to get off the bed. He successfully managed to push himself up to his feet, but felt his legs give in under him before he fell into his best friend's waiting arms. "Dude. You're not going anywhere. You're still connected to the IV drip and everything. What are you trying to do?"

The Boy Wonder tried to push himself up from Wally's cage-like arms. "I can't stay in bed all day. I wanna go watch TV or something."

Kaldur walked over and helped Wally force the bird back into bed. "You are in no condition to move, my friend."

Robin weakly pushed them away and kept trying to get up. "Please guys..."

Wally sighed and pushed his friend back down again. "Fine, I'll go get Black Canary to come disconnect you from these machines okay? Just stay put until then."

The bird gave in and laid back down as the speedster exited the room.

-=-

After Black Canary had safely disconnected Robin from the life support machinery and hammered all the instructions of caring for the little bird into the team's heads, they moved to the living room like the ill child had requested.

They were currently sitting in front of the TV in silence. Superboy and Kaldur were in chairs on either sides of the green couch, which was currently being occupied by the trio of brothers. Robin was curled up in a dark blanket, leaning against Roy's shoulder whilst staring blankly at the TV screen as Wally flipped through channels. A portable stand with an IV drip and oxygen mask was standing behind the couch. Roy had an arm wrapped around his little brother's slight frame, holding him close as he watched the screen, twitching slightly in irritation as the speedster kept surfing channels.

Artemis was seemingly getting annoyed too from where she sat at the coffee table.

M'gann was moving about in the kitchen, probably busy making cookies or something.

"Just pick a channel already!" Wally flinched and nearly dropped the remote at Artemis's sudden outburst. He quickly regained his grip on it and threw a glare her way as he settled on a sports channel. "Fine."

"KF not this channel..."

The speedster twitched and threw his hands up in exasperation. "Make up your minds already!"

"I wanna watch a comedy."

Wally growled under his breath as he picked the remote up again and changed it to a channel with a comedy movie currently showing. "Happy now?"

Robin seemed satisfied with the movie choice and settled back into the nook of Roy's arm.