Ciara was still pulling on the thing, "What's the code?"

Nightwing opened his mouth to respond but only ended up coughing up blood. The fingers on Ciara's arm showed '2 5 2 1'

Ciara leaned in and whispered into Nightwing's ear. "It may be today, it may be tomorrow, but I will rip you the fuck out of my friend, alien scum." Ciara released Nightwing and hurried back into the control room and typed in the code.

"Disengaging Self Destruct sequence. Shutting down alarms and weapons... Have a night day." A picture of a chibi Nightwing popped up on the screen with a thumbs up.

She turned back to see if she could save Nightwing.

Nightwing had taken off and was no longer in sight.

Ciara took a step forward and stumbled. She looked down, "Oh... right..." She wrapped it but still ended up past out against the wall. Too much had gotten out.

By the time Ciara awoke again she was in a bed in the infirmary. Pietro was passed out in the bed next to her and it was the middle of the night a day or two later.

She sat up and stared out into the darkness, a faint light on near the door to the room. Why did everything look... She touched her face, right... Pietro must have slipped her orange sunglasses on but why was she-

A pain began to grow in her stomach as it all came back to her. Nightwing had been taken over by a little blue beetle, Reach tech and she'd done something she'd only thought of doing in theory but had never had the nerve to cut herself for water. She pulled the teal PJ sleeve down. The wound had been wrapped and by the feel of it, she had some stitches as well. It had been a stupid plan or rather a last resort option.

"I...couldn't save him.." She said, looking at the wrappings on her arm in the dim light. After a moment she turned her head, noticing movement out of the corner of her eye. A white haired man rolled onto his side. She sighed and smiled warmly as she watched him sleep.

She never once regarded confessing her feelings to him. Feelings he knew she had but decided to wait for her to admit to them... But that didn't stop him from teasing her with situations that made her blush and flee in terror. He meant the whole to her. He was able to push away her nightmares, the things that kept her awake and sooth her and love her for just being herself.

Ciara grit her teeth and pulled out the IV in her arm before slipping into the bed beside her. She stared at him as he slept and kissed his nose lightly. "Once again you look over, my Geoshian prince." She whispered, cuddling into him.

Pietro made a sleepy noise and automatically snuggled with her as she came into his bed.

She giggled girlishly as he wrapped his arms around her. She closed her eyes and fell back asleep. Rest now, kick the crap out of the reach tomorrow.

Morning came around and Pietro had apparently snuck out of bed and came back with breakfast for her.

She rubbed the sleep out of her eye, "How do you always manage to be so sneaky?" She asked, nibbling on a strawberry off of her waffles. "How long have I been out?"

"Awhile" Pietro replied, "and I've had lots of practice. Sabertooth is a light sleeper, and very grouchy if you wake him up for no reason. Same with Mystique, and Pyro-though he's a slightly heavier sleeper than the other two. Sabertooth and Mystique will wake up if you do the classic whipped cream on the hand and feather on the nose trick. Pyro won't."

"Yes but you're not cuddled up to Sabertooth to begin with, now are you?" She teased, dipping her finger into the whip cream and popping it into her mouth. After she finished she popped the question, "Is Nightwing here?"

Pietro paused, then nodded, "the team managed to track him down after you passed out. He was injured and I think that's the only reason they were able to take him in at all. He's in the holding cells."

Ciara pushed her tray aside and got up, "Is Blue Beetle here as well?" She'd asked that B.B. stay here for training but he had to take care of a few things at home. You know... make up a cover story and what not. She had no idea if he had finally been able to come or not.

Pietro nodded, a bit confused, "uh, yeah. Why? What's wrong?"

"Those tendrills on Nightwing are actually from a small blue beetle shaped device implanted on the back of his neck." She opened the door and turned to him, "Sound familiar?" She said bluntly, "I know B.B. didn't have anything to do with it but it was the Reach who put it on him... Maybe his scarab can disable the one on Nightwing... I tried pulling that thing off myself."

She paused in the hallway looking at her arm, "That thing, speaking through Nightwing. It taunted me... Hit a nerve. I didn't have any other options," She placed her hand over the wrappings and rubbed gently. "I had to try and save him...I couldn't remove it. It's grown into his body and isn't able to go without taking Nightwing along with him." Her hand tried into a fist.

Pietro stood and followed her to the door, a look of concern on his face, "Ci... you did what you had to do." he put an arm around her shoulders and kissed her forehead, "we'll figure out how to save Nightwing. He's not going anywhere."

Just as he spoke those last words, the alarms began to ring, "Prisoner escape." the automated voice resounded over the system, "Cell 3. Prisoner escape."

Ciara gave him a look, "Really? You just had to jinx it didn't you?" Sting Ray pushed her com, "Lock us down! Do not let him out of the base. Shot to stun but do NOT hold back. BB"

Red Tornado tapped away at the computer, "Now locking down base."

'Base lock-down in 3...2...1....*Zzzz*'
"Oh no you don't." Red Tornado hooked himself in.

'Base Lock complete.' The voice rang as the whole base locked itself.

"Miss Martin link us up." Aqua Lad ordered, heading upstairs from the Sub entrance.

Megan sat up in her bed, her eyes glowing, "Link established-... I can't get Miss Ray. Quick Silver are you with her?" She asked, phasing through walls trying to locate Nightwing.

"uuuhhh... sorry" Pietro winced a little, "Hey Sting Ray. Miss Martian's trying to link us up. You want in?"

"I got the surface entrance covered" Superboy informed them.

"Checking the water bay" Kid Flash stated, almost immediately followed by, "Clear."

"Everybody STOP" Robin ordered suddenly. "If he's still thinking like Nightwing... I know exactly what he'll be up to. Did anybody check to see if he got his belt back yet?"

"On it" Kid Flash took off, "Crap, yeah, it's gone."

"Everybody put on a mouth breather" Robin ordered, "Especially superboy. If you hear an explosion, ignore it, he's already moved on. Anyone with nightvision goggles, keep them on standby." even as he spoke there was an explosion that took out the generator and the lights went down, "Cover the exits. Quicksilver, Artemis and miss martian at the Zeta tube, superboy, stay at surface entrance, aqua lad, Kid Flash, Sting Ray, water entrance. He'll resort to the surface entrance last but that's where we want him to hit."

Ciara made a face which clearly meant she didn't like the idea. "No I'm good." After all the times she'd been brainwashed and controlled and manipulated by psychics, she really didn't like anyone inside her head. She only trusted Charles fully with her thoughts.

"Just relate what's being said."

Pietro blinked, ".... aaaaa lot" he replied, and then gave her quick run down of what was going on. Pietro, by now, had mastered the perfect level of super fast speech that Ciara could still understand.

"Got it. I'm on my way." She kissed his cheek, covered her lower face with a mask and headed down to the water entrance.

((Somebody's been busy :P haven't seen you online much. Or is it the internet issue?))

Pietro zipped off to his post and not a moment too soon. Nightwing was trying to take out Artemis and Miss Martian when he arrived. Pietro managed to trip him up and then apparently Nightwing didn't like the odds and he escaped with a smoke bomb.

All was quiet for a little while after that, until several explosions went off on the far side of the base and fire alarms started going off as well as a toxic air alert as something was spread through the air conditioning system. A greenish-grey fog fell across the floor but luckily everyone already had their mouth breathers in place. Still, it made it all look so eerie.

Three batarangs came flying out of the dark, each aimed to knock out the mouthbreathers out of Ciara's, Kid Flash's and Aqua Lad's mouths.

((Both :p))

What Nightwing didn't see was that Ciara had filled the air with tiny water droplets. And as his boomrangs flew through the air, the more water gathered on them till they stopped in mid-air, servel inches away from each of them, encased in a water bubble.

'You must show me how you did that. Right, no link' Aqua Lad began before gather a serpent of water around him. 'Here he comes.'