the robin & the canary; young justice

oo8: Downtime

"Pretty bird, you can't fool me," he said slowly. "Listen, I understand if you don't want to talk about it, lord knows how well Bruce is at listening to other people's problems, but I'm not Batman. I'm listening,"

"Fine," Reese conceded, setting her glass of orange juice down and sitting on the barstool next to Dick, her face looking a whole lot less giddy than when they'd been back at the park, figuring out how the golden arrowheads worked. "What do you want to know?"

"I want to know if you're okay," Dick admitted. "Rhysalin, I understand what it's like to lose your parents right in front of you. You don't need to bottle this up,"

"Did you know my mother was originally from Bulgaria?" the abrupt subject change made Dick pause, and for a moment all he was able to do was blink, before shaking his head and speaking again.

"I think you've told me maybe once before," he admitted. "Why are you asking me?"

Reese shrugged. "She immigrated to the States when she was eighteen. Before she died, my mother taught me the language, and in a way, before I learned that I was able to speak every language, I grew up speaking both English and Bulgarian. There--There was also this saying that my parents used to say to each other..."

She trailed off, and Dick had a feeling that, if he were anyone else, Reese wouldn't be telling him this right now. It was bad enough that the anniversary was tomorrow, but he suddenly felt bad for making Reese essentially relive it.

"Rhysalin, you don't have to tell me if you don't want to," he tried to reason with her, but Reese was already shaking her head.

"No, no, no," she said quickly. "I want to. And, I think I kinda have to get this off my chest. The quote was always spoken in Bulgarian, and it was this," For a moment, Reese paused, and when she spoke again there was an accent in her voice before she switched back to English. "Lyubovta e energiyata na zhivota. It means 'love is the energy of life'. In a way, after my parents died, it became my mantra,"

"You thought of it every time you thought of your family," Dick whispered, realizing the significance of the short quote, and Reese glanced at him through her thick eyelashes, nodding.

"I know it's silly," Reese whispered as she began to stand up, and Dick's eyes widened. He quickly flashed a hand out and set it on top of Reese's, stopping her before she hopped off the stool.

"No!" Dick said quickly, before realizing that his voice was maybe a bit too loud, and he quieted down a bit. "No, pretty bird, it's not. It's amazing you still have something to remember them by,"

Reese opened her mouth to say something, what Dick wasn't entirely sure, but before she could say anything, both of their commlinks, which were in their ears should they ever be needed, buzzed, just as Red Tornado's voice came through.

"Red Tornado to Robin and Silverbird. Batman has requested your presence at the cave. It seems to be urgent," After the android had hung up, Dick sighed.

"We can talk later," Reese told him, but Dick only scrunched his eyebrows together.

"You're sure?" he asked skeptically, and the brunette nodded as she made her way towards the door.

"Positive,"

M O U N T J U S T I C E
August 27, 07:58 EDT

Well, that was a complete and utter disaster, Silverbird thought as she and the rest of the team exited the Zeta tube back into Mount Justice, all of them covered head-to-toe in icky brown muck.

The seven of them had just lost spectacularly against Clayface in Gotham City, losing against the mud monster so bad Batman had to come and save them.