-Eh yall, so as you know, I'm posting a lot this December. The posts won't be daily, because of school, but I'll get a few out per week, and the rest during winter break.-
-Also, I have a NEW BOOK! Check it our, it's a Young Justice book called 'Six Teens Walk into a Bank'. Check it out I'm really proud-
Dick and his friends were in the manor's living room, deciding where to spend their impromptu sleepover. "We can do couches if you want, but we could also grab the air mattress."
"AIR MATTRESS." Wally told him excitedly.
Dick snorted. "Course.."
The three of them set up sleeping spots while some shitty Netflix movie played in the background. "So." Wally asked suddenly as he and Artemis slid a sheet over the air mattress and checked the air. "Why're you staying here?"
She glared back defensively. "You first."
"I told you. I don't want to be at my parents'." He said, also a little defensive now.
"Me to." She said, crossing her arms.
Dick strode into the room. "Welp, Jay is a shit. He passed me in the hallway and grabbed the rest of the popcorn. He doesn't even have a microwave upstairs! He's just being a dick!"
"Man, I'm so glad I don't have siblings, I'd probably stab them." Wally exclaimed.
"One time when I was nine, my sister severed my femoral artery." Artemis said suddenly.
"OH." Wally said.
"Yeah," Artemis agreed. "Did I tell you about how my mom killed my second grade teacher?" The blonde moved on before either boy even replied. "She thought she was coming onto my dad during parent-teacher night, and the next day she was just gone."
Now that the blonde had started uncapping the tube of unresolved childhood trauma, it was infectious.
"One time, on parent-teacher night, my dad called me a little shit in front of my teacher, and I had to go into the counsellor's suit for a month during lunch for evaluation." Wally recalled. "I thought it sucked because I couldn't see my friends at recess."
They went quiet for a minute, staring emptily into the tv screen, each lost in thought. Wally covered his mouth with his palm and screwing his eyes shut. Why couldn't he every just shut up? Why was he so easily baited into sharing everything? Weren't heroes supposed to have some secrets?
Once the first tear was shed, the floodgates blew open for all three. They lay back on the mattress, letting the overwhelming stress and emotion flow over them in silence, say for sobbing and some heavy breathing.
No one knew how long they'd been lying there, crying in Dick's living room, because the next thing they remembered was the door opening. "Hey guys, actually, do you want popcorn, cause I can't-" Jason stopped. "Hey, what's this?"
"Jay, get out." Dick sat up, drying his eyes on his wrist.
Jason crossed the room, quickly shifting out of his 'jackass older brother' persona, and into one that Dick didn't see very often.
He crossed the living room quickly and helped his little brother up off the floor. He sat Dick on the couch and helped Wally (Who he also considered a brother) sit up. He reached across and stopped Artemis from rolling off the air mattress, he didn't really know what to think of her yet, she always seemed to take herself a little too seriously, but she was Dick's friend, and Roy's brat sister, so he'd take care of her too.
"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."
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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.