It was that day. That day he realised that he had messed up. He had to tell him. He couldn't keep it to himself anymore. "Robin," said Wally. The raven haired boy looked up. "What?" He asked.
Wally struggled to breathe... through all the smoke.
"The cookies! I forgot about them!" He yelled as the fire alarm deafened them all. He used his super-speed to run to the kitchen. He kneeled down and swung the oven door open, revealing his silver tray of black, shrivelled up biscuits. "Aw man!" He wafted the smoke out his face. Robin came through the door. "Are those the chocolate chip ones?"
"They were."
Robin kicked the floor in frustration. He and Wally spent all morning making them. Wallace sighed and grabbed the tray. "Wally, NO!" Robin screamed.
The ginger yelled in pain and dropped the tray, his hand on fire. "Fuck!"
Robin grabbed an ice pack out the freezer and ran to his side, placing it on his hand. "Ahhh. Thats better." Wally exhaled in relief.
"You're mad." Robin laughed. Wally looked up at his friend. His smile faded as they made eye contact. They stayed like that for a few moments, but it wasn't awkward at all.
"What was that noise?" asked Aqualad walking in on them. He stopped when he saw them. They immediately broke contact and Robin let go of his arm. "Um W-Wally burnt the cookies."
"Don't blame it on me. You forgot too!"
Kaldur interrupted them, "Okay lets not go pointing fingers."
"I'm not pointing my finger?" said Robin, confused.
"I can't point my finger." Wally chuckled gesturing to his red hand.
Aqualad rolled his eyes and left the room.
"What was that all about?" Robin asked.
Wally shrugged his shoulders.
Later that day
It was around 11 pm and Robin and Superboy were wasting their time playing table tennis. "I'm gonna beat you this time by the way." Robin snarled for the 20th time. "You can try." Conner laughed.
He then hit the small white ball with his racket, starting the game. It bounced to Robins side who hit it back. It was neutral for a minute or two but gradually became more of a violent competition. Using his super strength, Superboy hit the ball unexpectedly fast and it bounced back quickly and striked Robin directly in the face, hard. "What the hell man!!" He dropped his racket and held his cheek. "I won."
"What! That's not fair! I demand a re match."
"No, what's done is done." He turned to face the other way, about to walk off.
"DUDE. You can't just do that!"
"Oh but I can."
Robin threw the racket at Superboy's back as jokey revenge, but he took it the wrong way. He stopped in his tracks and whipped around.
"Are you seriously getting mad over a game? Wow. You're actually a lot softer than they say you are."
Boy Wonder raised an eyebrow.
"What does that mean?"
"It means ever since your parents fell to their death, people think you would've toughened up a bit. Guess not."
Robin stood there, bewildered. He was physically shocked by what one of his supposed best friends just said. He felt like crying right there on the spot, in fact tears began forming in his eyes. Superboy noticed and his expression softened as it sunk in what he just said. "Oh my g- Robin I'm so sorry I didn't-" He tried to embrace him but Robin pushed him back. No. Nobody talks about his family like that. He blinked back the tears and scowled.
"You really should have saved up your energy. Instead of using it in a game of ping pong you should've used it to break free of that tomb you call a bedroom."
Conner's sympathetic expression took no time to fade away. He turned an angry red and his whole body started shaking with pure anger. Robin became slightly cautious as to what he had just gotten himself into. He took a few steps back in hope that he may survive whatever was about to happen. But before he could move out the way, Superboy's fist met his eye sending Robin flying across the room and his head hit the hard concrete wall, knocking him out.
Conner dusted off his hands.
"Should've paid more attention." He chuckled and walked off.
A few painful minutes went by before Robin opened his eyes. He looked around the room wondering what had happened, until he spot the table tennis table and remembered everything. He tried to get up but felt nauseous and dizzy. He grabbed onto the book shelves next him and pulled himself up, gradually into a standing position.
He felt lost and had to think for a moment before making his way drowsily to the kitchen where he found Megan preparing another batch of biscuits. She saw him walk in and said, "You two really are useless." referring to the burnt pastries in the bin.
She noticed his hand over his eye.
"What happened?"
He sighed deeply. "N-Nothing. Can you just g-get me a bag of frozen peas?"
He felt like collapsing so he kept a tight grip onto the counter.
She nodded and opened the freezer.
"We've got no peas."
"Well- just anything."
"We've got carrots, broccoli, peppers-"
"ANYTHING!"
20 minutes later, Robin found himself sitting on his bed at Wayne Manor with a bag of frozen brussel sprouts covering one eye. He laid back on his bed and stretched himself out, exhausted. To be fair, it was almost 1 am. The argument between him and Conner kept replaying in his head, and the memory of his parents falling did too. He stared at his ceiling and began to cry. He tried to be quiet so nobody would hear him, but it was no use. He sulked and whimpered into his pillow until it was soaking, then felt himself drift off into the world of dreams.
He woke up the next morning still in his Robin suit since he never had time to change. He swung his legs out his bed but jumped back when he felt something wet on the ground. He looked, it was the brussel sprouts from last night. They must've fallen off him and melted overnight. He groaned and stood up, but slipped on the water and went flying backwards. "Ahh!" He fell on his spine with a thud. Great! Now his back soaked with the sprout juices.
I swear everything is just going wrong for me these days. He picked up the bag and felt all the vegetables slosh around inside. Ew! He stood up and walked to the kitchen where he found Bruce and Alfred doing their usual routine.
"Good morning Master Dick, anything I can- oh my."
He noticed the state of Robin. Bruce looked up from his newspaper and gasped.
"Dick? What happened to your eye?"
He just rolled his eyes and walked straight back out, throwing the wet bag on the table. He glanced at the clock on the way back to his room, it was only half six, he had enough time to drop by the Mountain before school. He met Bruce as Batman next to the Batmobile after getting washed and changed out of his Robin suit and into his school uniform.
"Hurry up or we can't go!" He yelled.
"IM COMING!" Dick screamed back from a few rooms away. He had lost his sunglasses that hid his identity and he'd been searching for the past 20 minutes.
"I-I can't find my glasses!"
"It doesn't matter just get here NOW."
Dick grabbed his bag and ran back to Bruce.
"I can't go in without my glasses!"
Bruce tossed Dick his Robin mask.
"Use that." Robin breathed a sigh of relief and they climbed into the Batmobile.
Batman then set off barely giving Robin enough time to fasten his seatbelt. A few minutes of silence went by before Robin looked at himself in the wing mirror. God, he looked rough. The area around his eye was all swelled and a dark shade of purple materialised it. He sat forward to get a closer look but flinched when his back almost gave way, having fallen thismorning. Batman glanced at him for half a second then re focused on his driving.
"You gonna tell me what happened?" He asked keeping his eyes on the sky. Robin groaned and replied, "For the last time, nothing happened! I fell."
"And that gave you a black eye?" He said sarcastically. Robin ignored him and continued inspecting himself in the mirror.
"Hey, don't ignore me."
Dick noticed his dark hair was looking rather flat so he used his hands to fluff it up a little. He wanted to look good for Wal- school. Obviously.
They finally arrived at Mount Justice around 5 minutes later and he had little to no time, so Robin ran in quickly.
The Young Justice members sat around the cave bored out of their minds. It was usually plain around this time, but they were surprised when the operator announced, "Recognised. Robin." Then a flash of light appeared before Dick walked in wearing his Robin mask. Wally's face lit up and he raced over to his best friend. "Robin! What are you doing here?"
He asked, smiling. The younger boy looked up at him and smiled back replying,
"I had some time before school so I came here to see what was happening."
Aqualad stood up. "Well the only thing going on here is Superboy and Megan arguing over who has a stranger backstory. So."
"Interesting." He laughed nervously. Dick looked past Kaldur and saw Superboy staring at him. He couldn't tell if he was still mad or not. He was just...staring. Wally scanned Robin's face, noticing a glimpse of reddish purple seeping from under his mask. "Robin?" He mumbled.
"Yeah?"
"Come with me." He grabbed Boy Wonder's arm and pulled him into another room, closing the door behind them.
"What is it?" Robin asked, clearly confused.
"Take off your mask."
"What? Why?"
"Just do it." He demanded, not too hard though.
Wally was the only one who knew his identity out of the whole Young and Justice League. Batman wasn't aware, and he wasn't intending on telling him.
Robin exhaled and pinched his mask, slowly peeling it off. Wally gasped when he saw the ring of purple.
"Oh fuck.." he positioned his hand near Dick's face and used his thumb to ever so gently touch the bruise. Dick winced in pain and pulled back.
"What happened?"
"It's nothing.. I just had a fight at school."
"I'm so sorry." Wally pulled him into a hug but Dick pushed him away, not wanting to damage his back even more. He didn't mean anything by it but Wallace took as an insult. He didn't say anything at first but Robin could tell he was offended. He looked down at the ground.
"I-I should really go." He whispered.
"Yeah okay." said Wally.
He turned the door knob ready to leave but Kid Flash stopped him.
"Wait." Robin looked at him. Wally held his mask up. Dick half smiled and took it. "Thanks."