Young Justice: And Just Imagine The Insurance Claim

The Redbird was on fire.

To be more accurate, the crumpled metal hulk that had once been the Redbird was on fire, as it had been since it smashed into the concrete embankment. In addition, it was upside-down and had landed at the bottom of a ditch.

Not that it mattered now, but the radio had been acting up too.

Tim tried to look on the bright side. The ejector seat had worked just fine. There was no need for him to actually go through the heartache of initiating the self-destruct, because surely there was no physical evidence to link Tim Drake to Robin left in the torn mass of scorch marks his car was rapidly becoming.

And none of his teammates had contributed to the Redbird’s demise. Once, he would’ve put even money on Kon or Bart being responsible. But nope. It had happened entirely within the line of duty.

And, he supposed, Blue Snowman was soundly out of commission, with no loss of life. Aside from his car. Which Tim knew was shallow of him. But he’d spent a lot of time with the Redbird. He’d never even seen that chick with the screaming baby before…

“Aw, man, I’m really sorry about that, Rob,” Kon said, patting him on the back and thankfully remembering to use his codename when they were in the field. “I can’t imagine going up to the Batman and telling him that you totaled your car and you need a new one.”

Tim nodded glumly. It wasn’t that he thought Bruce would yell at him or anything. Bruce didn’t get mad, exactly; not with him. He didn’t punish Tim. They were partners.

But who knew how ‘unsafe’ he would think Tim was being, with the Redbird turned into a Marcel Duchamp piece? He might ground Tim. He might say Tim wasn’t allowed to go on patrol without Cass as a chaperone. He might insist on Tim redoing the driving lessons Alfred had given him, because for a guy who didn’t punish his partners, Bruce could think up some diabolical punishments.

And all for Blue Snowman. Tim knew he was a legitimate supervillain, but for God’s sake—couldn’t Solomon Grundy have been going on a rampage instead?

“I bet a Robinmobile isn’t cheap, either,” Kon continued. “I mean, I’m sure Superman will pay for it, but that’s gotta embarrass Batman, saying he needs a new—“

“Wait,” Tim cut in. “What—why would Superman be paying for a new one?”

Kon blew air through his pursed lips, looking over the Redbird’s devastation once more. “Well, it’s not like you’re going to pay for it, right?”

“No, but—“

“That leaves Batman. Guy dresses up like a bat, hangs out in a cave, refuses to seal the deal with Catwoman—not someone who’s going to pull down six figures.”

“Keep going, I’m listening,” Bart said, no sarcasm at all, before disappearing in a gout of sprayed gravel. He instantaneously returned and dumped a glass of water—an ordinary, eight ounce, 25 dollars for a box of six at Wal-Mart glass of water—on the fire formerly known as the Redbird.

“Then there’s Superman,” Kon continued. “Last Son of Krypton. Advanced alien technology. Fortress of Solitude. Crunches pieces of coal into diamonds with his bare hands. Who else would be paying for the Justice League? Halls of Justice don’t come cheap, y’know.”

“That doesn’t mean he pays for Batman’s cars!” Tim insisted.

“Maybe not the old one that was just a sedan with ears—“

“Fins!” Tim interrupted, aghast. They were aerodynamic.

“But the tank? And the jet? And the boat, like c’mon, there are lawyers who can’t afford a boat. And when they can’t work overtime because they need to stop the Joker from poisoning a reservoir? Forget about it.”

“People died when the Joker poisoned that reservoir, I wish people would stop using that as a reference,” Tim said. “Two-Face robbing the Second Gotham Bank, no one died from that…”

Kon wasn’t listening. He’d been distracted by Bart, who now returned for the twentieth time with a fresh glass of water to pour on the Redbird. “Imp, either stop that or get a bigger glass—a bucket or something—“

“I’m trying to help!” Bart protested.

“You’re just seeing if you can put out the fire with a glass of water,” Tim pointed out.

Bart crossed his arms in a snit. “Max says people should appreciate my unique outlook on life!”

“Max Mercury?” Kon asked. “The old-ass speedster who isn’t Jay Garrick or Barry Allen? Who are the old-ass speedsters people have heard of?”

“People have heard of Max Mercury!” Bart cried shrilly. “You just said his full name.”

“I’m scary-smart, though,” Kon pointed out. “I remember small, useless, pointless details, just like Rob here.”

“I remember important clues!” Tim corrected him.

“What’s the population of Peoria?”

“One hundred and eleven thousand six hundred and sixty-six.”

Kon turned to Bart, as if to commiserate on how many useless facts Tim knew, but Bart was busy pouring another glass of water on the Redbird. “Bart!” Kon didn’t even get to say something about Tim being trained by the World’s Greatest Detective, which was in his top five ways to get on Robin’s nerves.

“You can’t even put that out with water,” Tim informed Bart. “It’s a hydrogen fuel cell, it’s going to keep burning until it—“

Bart disappeared and reappeared with the frequency of a strobe light at a disco, dumping glass after glass of water onto the Redbird.

“Let him tucker himself out,” Kon advised Tim. “He could use a good night’s sleep.”

“Yeah, sure,” Tim said, before remembering that he couldn’t be in agreement with Kon because they were arguing. “But Superman doesn’t bankroll the Justice League.”

“Coal! Diamonds!”

“That would wreck the economy.”

“Superman doesn’t give a—oh, yeah, he would care about that.” Kon slumped his shoulders. “So who does pay for the Justice League? They have a space station!”

With the head for details of someone trained by the World’s Greatest Detective, Tim realized that the only thing worse than reporting the Redbird’s destruction would be telling Bruce that Superboy had also figured out his secret identity. “I don’t know… Aquaman, probably. He is a king.”

“Isn’t he deposed or something half the time? Who pays for the JLA then?”

“I remember he was a teenager once!” Bart said, reappearing. “In San Diego!”

“People with Justice League money definitely wouldn’t be in San Diego,” Kon said sagely.

“Wonder Woman, then. She is a goddess.”

“So what? Banks don’t care what religion you are. That’s separation of church and state.”

Bart paused momentarily to catch his breath. “Wally won the lottery.”

“Who’s Wally?” Kon asked.

“The Flash,” Tim told him.

Kon grew wide-eyed. “You can’t just tell me the Flash’s secret identity!” He clapped his hands over his ears. “Don’t tell me anymore! Don’t even tell me his last name! There aren’t a lot of Wallys in the world as it is! Except maybe in Australia.” He took his hands off his ears. “Is the Flash Australian?”

“No,” Tim told him.

“Why’d you tell me that!?” Kon cried. “I had plausible deniability! I know so much about the Flash’s secret now! There’s a whole continent that I am definite the Flash is not from.”

“I thought Australia was a country,” Bart said. He crouched low into a starting line position. “Lemme check—“

He took off before Tim could call him back. With a sigh, Tim turned to Kon. “The Flash doesn’t have a secret identity. Everyone knows he’s Wally West.”

Kon sighed in relief before running an exasperated hand through his hair. “I didn’t know that.”

“You don’t pay attention.”

“No, it’s that no one tells me anything.”

“You called my car the Robinmobile. It’s not called that. It’s the Redbird.”

“You didn’t tell me that,” Kon replied.

Bart reappeared with a full glass of water. “I thought it was called the R-Car.” He threw the water onto the Redbird. “It rhymes. Oh, and Australia is a country. That was Australian water I just threw. It goes around the toilet the other way if you flush it.”

“Why would you flush water down the toilet?” Kon asked him.

“After you drink it and, y’know… have to flush,” Bart said. “Oh, I wash my hands afterwards.”

Kon guffawed. “Bet that took Max some doing.”

“I like being clean!” Bart insisted. “Also, in the future, there’s this really bad plague that you don’t get if you wash your hands with soap and hot water…”

“Shyeah, right,” Kon snorted. “Where’d that plague get started, Gotham?”

“We had a plague one time,” Tim groused.

“Hey, was I doing something with the flaming wreckage of your car?” Bart asked.

“Roasting marshmallows,” Kon told him.

“Oh, right.” Bart disappeared.

“That wasn’t funny,” Tim said to Kon.

“What wasn’t funny about it?”

Bart reappeared, holding handfuls of marshmallows over the Redbird’s funeral pyre. As the marshmallows started melting, he tossed them from palm to palm, juggling them in an attempt to keep from singeing his fingers.

Tim shot Kon a smug look.

“That’s still a little funny,” Kon said.

“Impulse, go get some sticks if you want to roast marshmallows!” Tim ordered.

“Righto! Hold these!” And Bart tossed several flaming marshmallows to Tim.

Tim, with cat-like reflexes, shielded himself with his cape.

The cape made the noble sacrifice of protecting Tim from molten marshmallow fluff.

Kon winced. “Imagine telling Superman that you need a new car and a new cape.”

Tim thrust his cape back down in a huff. “Mr. Freeze! Mr. Freeze has henchmen, powered armor, a freeze-ray… you think Superman pays his bills?”

“Freeze robs banks,” Kon pointed out. “Does Batman rob banks?” A gleam entered his eyes. “Does Batman rob evil banks? That would be badass.”

“Batman doesn’t rob banks,” Tim said with emphasis.

“Yeah. That sounds like it’d be up Catwoman’s alley, so they could probably hook up if they simpatico on bank robbing.” A slow grin spread across Kon’s features. “Say… you think Catwoman would be open to taking on a young, virile partner—one that’s down with robbing evil banks?”

“What banks aren’t evil?” Bart asked, returning with enough branches to build a campfire. “Where are my marshmallows?”

“Check my cape,” Tim sniped at him.

“You got cape germs all over my marshmallows? Are you trying to start a plague?”

“Don’t be too hard on him,” Kon said condescendingly. “He’s just a human, from Jersey. You’re from the future. I’m a member of an advanced alien race.” Folding his arms, Kon leaned smugly against the nearest surface. “We’ve just got to remember that once, generations ago, our people weren’t so very different from the Robster.”

“You’re leaning on the Redbird,” Tim informed him.

“The what now?” Kon replied, before realizing: “Ahh! AHHH! Rob, your stupid Robinmobile set me on fire!”

Bart blipped out of, and back into, existence before dumping a glass of water onto Kon’s flaming jacket. “Why did that feel so satisfying?” he wondered.

Kon took off his doused jacket to cast a mournful look at the burn mark on the S-shield. “My S… my S…”

“I hear there’s creams for that,” Tim quipped.

“This isn’t funny! Not that many people get to wear the S! Even Power Girl doesn’t have one!”

“Yeah, but there are like fourteen Supergirls,” Tim pointed out. “So it’s gotta even out…”

“I know it’s not as big as her boobs, but I think Peej has a fine S,” Bart said.