Dick briskly walks a full circle around the transportation pod, then turns around and repeats it again.
"What's taking him so long, what is it that could be more important than training sessions with Black Canary?" He angrily whispered.
He had been been repeating the same movements for several hours, failing miserably to curb his massive curiosity and worry. Batman had called Dick for an important meeting several hours ago and his curiosity was slowly eating him up. He wondered to himself he had done something wrong to warrant a meeting in place of his normal training session. Finally, he yells out in frustration, "Does anybody why I'm here!?"
"Because you need to babysit." Answers a voice behind him.
He quickly spins around with a batarang clenched in his hand and his arms raised in fists ready to attack, but quickly stops realizing that it's been only Batman and Wonder Woman. There seemed to be something wrapped in Batman's arms with his cape protectively covering it. As Batman got closer it was revealed that it was a child, a little girl to be exact and she was asleep. She looked be around 4 or 5 years old.
Wonder Woman turned to Batman and whispered, "You trained him well." He smirked but it quickly disappeared into it's usually thin, emotionless face.
He hastily put his batarang back in his yellow belt and put his arms to his side. "Robin reporting for duty." He said in a mocking, mischievous voice.
The girl in Batman's cape stirred and lazily opened one eye but closed it back.
"Your mission today is to watch your little sister. Make sure you watch her carefully. Understand?" His eyes narrowed to emphasize how importance of what he was telling his ward.
Dick did his best to hide his disappointment as Batman gently placed his little sister into his arms. The whole entire time he waited anxiously for Batman to rush in with a serious, life threatening mission, but instead he was going to be stuck babysitting.
It was like those prizes they advertise on the front of a cereal box. He would remembered as a child how he would tug Bruce's arm effortlessly, promising to do an insane amount of chores if he got the toy, only for his excitement to deflate after opening the package and staring in disbelief at a smaller, cheap version of the toy. He sighed, knowing he had fallen into the trap enough times to know what it felt like.
Wonder Woman stroked the little girl's hair and placed a quick kiss on her head. She looked up at Dick expectantly. "Take good care of her Robin." He nodded and whispered, "Yes ma'am."
She gave Dick a quick peck on the cheek and smiled. Dick silently decided to not voice his disappointment, afraid that if he did so Batman's trust in him would diminish. Besides he figured it could lead to more bigger missions for the Team.
As Batman and Wonder Woman turned to leave Dick glanced down at the little girl cradled in his arms before yelling out, "How long will you be gone?" But they had already disappeared into the zeta beam.
"Strange." He thought.
"What was that about?"
He whirled around as the rest of the team walked out from hiding and looked at Connor, who had voiced his question.
"Nothing." He said quickly and draped his cape over his little sister, but it was too late. She was already wide awake and started to yawn. "Mommy...Daddy?" she called out.
M'egan's eyes glowed green for a moment before returning back to normal. Her mouth opened in surprise."Robin, I sense someone's presence here. What's going on?"
Wally raced over to Dick and stared incredulously at the odd shape in his cape. "You guys, I think Robin is hiding something."
Upon hearing Wally's voice the little girl began to wriggle out of the cape, which prompted Dick to place her on the ground.
She grabbed Dick's hand and whispered, "Dickie who are these people?" Wally bent down on his knees and began talking super speed.
"Hi! My is Kid Flash. How are ya' doing? This is Mount Justice and-"
"Kid Flash stop your scaring her!" Artemis said as she walked over. The girl shrank back into Dick's cape as if it would protect her from the newcomers.
"Here, let a girl show you how it's done." She said while pushing him aside.
Wally frowned and made faces behind Artemis's back while peeking over her shoulder.
M'egan pulled Connor's arms and flew over to where everyone gathered. The small girl had started to warm up towards the others with Artemis talking and Wally's jokes.
Connor turned to Dick with a slight frown on his face. "Why is she here?"
Dick purposely stayed silent for a few minutes and internally sighed. He wished he could just brush it off.
"But the others want to know right? So it wouldn't hurt telling them." He thought.
Artemis and Wally had also started to look at him now while his little sister was playing with Artemis's arrows.
"Batman wanted me to babysit." Dick causally responded ignoring the overwhelming desire to smash a smoke bomb and run away.
"Hello Megan! Of course, that's why the she's here." M'egan shouted all of a sudden.
"Well does she have a name or what?" Wally exclaimed.
"Here, let her tell you." Robin stooped down to her level and whispered in her ear. "Tell them your name."
"Emma." She said it softly. Her seafoam eyes now twinkled with curiosity and mischief instead of shyness. Her eyes stood out against her dark midnight hair.
The cooing and ahhing sound came from both of the girls while Connor just rolled his eyes.
"Well, Emma welcome to Mount Justice." Wally stretched his arms out to emphasize how big the room is.
"So Emma, are you hungry?" M'egan tried to initiate a conversation with her since she continued to hold Dick's hand tightly, although she has opened up a little.
Emma smiled shyly and said without hesitation, "Do you have chocolate chip cookies?"
"Sure!" M'egan said excitedly and made a dash towards the kitchen. "You can come with me!" M'egan said to Emma. She gestured towards her and while rest of the group followed except Dick.
"What's up with you Robin? You look less emotionless today." Wally teased.
"Emma isn't allowed to eat cookies or sugar." Dick had a worried look on his face.
"What? It's not like she going to have a sugar rush or somethin'…is she?" Wally asked.
Dick glared at him with a stern look and was about to say not-so-nice things when his heart skipped a beat when he heard a series of giggles from the kitchen.
"Oh no." He groaned. "Emma is probably bouncing off the walls now and breaking stuff, then Batman is going to kill me." He broke into a mad dash while Wally raced alongside him, of course he beat him to the room first.
When he did enter into the kitchen he saw Artemis and M'egan was giggling non-stop on the kitchen counter amongst themselves while Emma causally picked up another cookie off the plate despite her fingers already holding four in her hands and was currently putting another in her mouth. Connor looked uncomfortable being in the same room with a giggling archer and martian.
"Aw man you're sister is eating all the cookies." Wally whined.
Dick walked in the room as M'egan and Artemis were recovering from their laugh attack.
"Hi Robbie." Emma waved at him. "Want a cookie?" She offered her hand. He took it and bite into it as he playfully ruffled Emma's hair.
"So Emma what do you want to do?" M'egan rested her head lazily on her hands. Emma only shrugged until Wally jumped up with an idea.
"Hey, why don't we give Emma a tour of Mount Justice!?"
"I don't think Batman will approve-".
Nobody heard Dick because Emma began jumping up and down and squealed with delight. She had always dreamed of meeting the Justice League that she had grown to love and adore.
Grabbing Wally's hand, she tried to drag him towards the door, instead he picked her up and placed her on his shoulder while she giggled uncontrollably. And with that Wally sped away, racing ahead of the team only to leave Dick behind in disbelief and while Connor shook his head.
Eventually M'egan and Artemis went their own separate ways, chatting happily about what movie they could watch for the evening.
Dick heaved a big sigh and dragged himself to where Connor was sitting lazily on the living room couch while he flipped through channels.
Connor acknowledged his presence by giving him a small pat on the back.
"You know Wally won't replace you as her brother." He eventually placed the remote down on his lap, settling on watching an old action movie. Dick ran his finger through tufts of his ebony hair.
"It's not that, it's just… what if she gets hurt while under my protection. Some of this equipment here isn't exactly kid-proof." He said exasperated. "Or what if a crazed villain comes to Mount Justice and attacks the team, killing her in the process? Or what if-?"
"I doubt something like that will happen, but if any of those things do happen, you know that we'll do everything we can to stop it." Connor glanced at him and gave him a small smile which Dick quickly returned.
As they both stood up Wally raced into the room with a panicked expression look on his face.
"Wally what's wrong?" Dick could feel his heart starting to beat into overdrive. "Oh god, don't let it be what I think it is."
"It's Emma… she's gone missing.
More stories to come. Stay tuned!