More Reverse Batfam Trash

Sidekick SadBoy Hour

"What happened?"

"Nothing." Dick said. 

"No, it seems like somethin happened."

"It's fine, Jay." Wally sniffled. "just tired."

"Yeah, its just the stress hitting, we're fine." Dick assured his brother.

"yeah no, I'm getting you three some water, actually-" Jason grabbed his phone and recorded a voice memo: "Tim get your ass down to the living room and bring three glasses of water." He sent it off. "Seriously. What happened?"

"It's fine." Wally told him, voice cracking a little.

"Wally, I've been babysitting you since you were twelve." Jason said firmly. "Can you tell me?" He asked Artemis, but she didn't respond, lying face-down on the air mattress.

She hated this. Her first time staying at the manor and it could not go worse! Bruce Wayne's  eldest son and butler watched her like hawks, as though expecting her to loot the place, and despite knowing her as a vigilante, Bruce almost seemed to agree with them. And now she and her two friends were in tears, and she didn't even know why.

"Seriously, Jay, I don't even know. It just started." Dick was saying, drying his eyes again. "It's no big deal."

Jason brushed his little brother's hair back. He had a clue what was going on: three kids can only last so many late nights with the weight of the apparent world on their shoulders, before breaking. And that's not even counting school, homework, family issues, friends, recreational stuff, childhood trauma... 

"You're in a spiral, probably have been for a few weeks." Jason told them, giving Wally a firm grip on the shoulder. "Only worry, this happens a lot to us poor souls who start crimefighting in infancy. Trust me." He grabbed Dick's shoulder too, since he was starting to wilt a little.

"Jay?" Tim shouldered in the door.

"Tim, do you have the waters?"

"No, I-"

"DID YOU EVEN PLAY THE MESSAGE?"

"What's going on down here?" Tim asked.

Jason let go to gesture around the kids. "They've all been stress-spiralling and crashed simultaneously."

"Simultaneously? Oh geez." Tim joined his brother by the three sniffling teenagers. "Well what do we do?"

"I dunno! what do you do during an emotional crisis?" Jason asked

Tim took out his phone, sighing. "Do you think the Doordash guy will pick up extra stuff if I tip him?"

"He will if you mention that he's delivering to Wayne manor."

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Damian crept downstairs, he'd heard a lot of movement, and a movie playing, but a suspicious lack of  laughter and obnoxious chatting. 

He didn't trust this suspicious silence, especially with Green Arrow's new sidekick, the Crock girl, in the manor. He knew she was on his brother's little sidekick team as well, but he didn't get why she was allowed to spontaneously stay the night at the manor when they barely knew her!

He followed most of the noise to the bathroom near the livingroom. The door was open, so he slid closer, listening in. He heard crying. Why crying? It sounded like a girl, Artemis Crock probably, but there was someone else crying too, and Jason's voice saying "do you want gloves?"

"I don't care." The blonde  girl sniffled.

Damian peaked around the corner and saw a scene unfolding, which looked straight of a renaissance painting:

The blonde girl was hunched over the bathtub, rubbing what looked like pink dye into her hair, Wally west was slumped against the wall, eating straight from a tub of rocky road ice cream, while Richard was perched on top of the sink, hugging his arms. all three were crying.

"Here, gloves." Tim tried to hand them to the girl.

"It doesn't matter." She responded. "My pussy-grabbers are already stained...."

"I hate this." Wally sobbed into his icecream. "I want to stop everything!"

Jason turned to him. "Don't stop eating that ice cream, Wally west! You eat until you're as fat as you are unlovable."

Wally sniffled a little. "That'll take forever."

"What's going on here?" Damian lent in the doorway. Artemis, who wasn't familiar with Damian's sneaking, started and nearly fell into the dye-splattered bathtub, but luckily Tim caught her.

"They're having a night." The second oldest Wayne brother told him. "They've been hanging on for a while.

Damian actually felt a little sympathy towards the three, He had experienced what had been informally dubbed 'sidekick-syndrome' longer than any one else. "There are energy drinks in the pantry." He reported. "Would those help."
Wally gave a teary nod. Dickjust reached over from the sink and grabbed his brother's arm, squeezing it for support. Damian lifted him off the counter and set him down on the floor. "Do you want to come?"

"Yeah." Dick hugged his brother's arm for support and walked with hi from the room.