Sorry if the character's a bit out of it. It's been a while since I've watched YJ.
Disclaimer: Characters belong to DC.
The day was like an unfinished painting. The greenery was just that; brilliant and vivid with near every shade of the color arching up through the thin and broken stalks. The trees, still recovering from the tragedy of the winter, were a brooding sort of a darker brown that cast out a shadow from an unseen source all the way up to the branches that broke off to desperately try at grabbing the wind.
All along the dark of the road with the near golden stripe down the middle, the regular gray of the buildings were speckled with the light cast out by the sun in rainbow reflections from where the rain had left its lingering touch. The sidewalks were chalked with pale dust from passing by kids with the intent to brighten the edges. People passing by were throbbing with the colors of their scarves and their rain boots, giggling happily and lightening the air around them.
Unlike the rest of the day though, the sky was a bland gray with nothing else but the faintest blander gray coated atop of it. It was a color-by-number taken to hand by a child too lazy to mix their colors and get creative.
Inside this painting, you had to study it good and hard to get a feel for the incredible detail it bore, there was a small café on the street corner made of burnt brick with window booths. There were two booths in the window shown in the painting that the day had to offer, but only one was occupied. This occupied booth held six teens in its seats, three on either side and facing each other, all engrossed in a heated discussion.
On the left side by the window sat a boy with red hair and soft freckles, leaning on his elbows over a big basket of nachos with his attention on his phone. Beside him was a girl with a lengthy ponytail of a bright blonde color who was calmly sipping at a porcelain mug of coffee, insisting that the 'op had gone well'. The one on the outside was a dark skinned boy with bleached hair and a frown weathered deep into it. He didn't seem to share this thought.
On the right side by the window sat a boy with black locks and a small smile, resting his head on the window with his phone in hand. On the outside was a boy with hair just a bit shorter than his own and a Superman t-shirt trying to cast the blame out on himself. The one on the middle was a freckle-faced girl with long red hair and bangs, nibbling on a pretzel and assuring the older of the two boys beside her that it wasn't his fault.
"We couldn't have known not to trust him," Artemis held the cup tight in her palms, glancing from Kaldur to Conner before taking a shallow sip.
Megan didn't really have anything to say in the manner, but she seemed to sympathize with the blonde as she tore off a small piece of her pretzel and turned it around in her fingertips.
"We're the closest thing that place had to the League, and when's the last time you've seen one of them turn to someone for help?" Conner ran his thumb over the back of the feminine hand encompassed within his own gentle grasp.
Kaldur was on the ebony's side, but he didn't agree with his word choice.
"It is not just that, Artemis. We should have figured that he was on the island in the first place, and he did not seem that afraid. No 'civvie', as you would say, would be that calm," he kept his gaze on the tabletop, fingers interlaced calmly ahead of where his green eyes were beginning to bore holes.
Dick slid his phone shut as the text sent and lifted his head, shifting a bit in his seat so he could kick his feet up beside Wally and take away some of his space, earning him a discrete kick before his feet were shoved back down. He had to swallow a smirk.
"It was a dumb call, but he was big and we kind of needed that. Arty's got a point," his shades were nudged up on his nose, "If anything, it's my call for not recognizing him. Me and Bats have been up against Bane before. I was too worried about trying to be team leader. Last time we saw him though, he left quite a bit more bloodshed in his wake."
Blue eyes flit back down to a text.
"Chin up, baby bird. –KF"
He scrunched his nose up, sticking his tongue out the redhead across from him and opening his phone up to type a response.
"Not a baby. –BW"
"It's not your fault, Robin," Megan set a small hand to her heart at even the thought, "We all have our bad days; we just goofed a little yesterday. At least no one died!"
"Sounds like something a baby would say, Grayson. –KF"
Kaldur nodded in agreement, but Conner's book didn't have a table of contents, leaving him on the wrong page.
"At least no one died?" he mocked, smiling in disdain, "The mission was a fluke! Everyone here could've been badly hurt!"
"I'm not taking crap from a ginger. –BW"
Four worried glances flit to Dick as he let out a sudden cry of pain, but no one asked a question when Wally's giggle slipped out from behind his hands.
"But no one was, Conner," Kaldur solemnly reminded him.
"I have a soul. You sold me yours for some ice cream last month. –KF"
"You didn't have to kick me. –BW"
"Gonna cry about it? That's an awful… baby thing to do about it. –KF"
"Not gonna cry. –BW"
Both ebonies at the table leaned forward onto their elbows to get closer to the boy across from them with dual glares being offered. The younger of the two stole a chip from his friend's nacho basket despite the glare it earned him, nibbling at the edge with disinterest. The older of the two looked deep into his Atlantean friend's eyes with a growl down deep in his throat.
"You sure about that, baby? (; -KF"
Dick couldn't spare a glance to his phone though, a tight fist being clenched around the slender device to a point he couldn't feel his fingers past the second knuckle at the words to bubble up after Conner's growl.
"I don't know if it happened to slip your mind, but not everyone on the team's a super! We could've lost Robin and Artemis back there if something had slipped up."
Even if Artemis' boot toe would have missed nailing the Kryptonian clone in the center of his shin with all her strength, the anger-fueled throw of the napkin container definitely left the teen in the Superman shirt wincing.
"I could've birdarang'd the trigger from his hands faster than Wally could've snatched it," Dick leaned closer and snarled just barely above a breath, the blue of his irises consumed with rage above his shades after the concerned waitress had flitted back to the kitchens.
The mentioned redhead was awkwardly switching between trying to even out the dent in the flimsy metal napkin holder and typing idly into his phone, keeping his gaze averted. Megan had to use a bit of her telepathy to keep Artemis' fork on the tabletop.
"Just a second and I could've shot it from his hands!" she fought against the telepathic restraint that kept her from strangling the sixteen year old blue. "In fact, give me a second and I'll test my aim right here!"
Kaldur turned a bit, touching a sympathetic arm to the struggling blonde's arm before turning his own slight glare to the very confused clone.
"I know you learnt all you did from the G-gnomes in a lab, but surely they taught you empathy," he calmly said, drawn back a bit to keep from snapping out like a part of him wanted to do, "Just because they do not have mutations to their genetics or a different race to their blood does not make them any lesser than us; if anything, this feat would make them greater for they make up for what they lack in sheer power."
Artemis' shoulders fell flat and Megan released her hold, just as Dick slid his phone open with an inward sort of sigh that had a bit of relief running through his friend's face. The table was silent again.
"You can cry now, if you'd like. That'd be better than killing SB over there. –KF"
"I was kidding, you know. You're pretty damn strong, bird boy. Especially when you're pissed. –KF"
Glances were quietly exchanged, everyone almost afraid to break the standing silence.
"When was the last time you saw me cry? –BW"
Wally looked up from his phone with a furrowed brow, cocking his head to the side over at his shorter friend. Dick shot him a pointed glance, looking over his shades and tilting his chin down a bit closer to his chest. That tugged half of the redhead's lips down into a frown with his left shoulder, a groan silently written out in the burrow of his features. The acrobat's chest puffed up a bit, chin straightening and lips drawing tight into line like a soldier's. The argument was over. Dick had won. He always did.
"You know I really was kidding. You're the toughest little mo-fo I know. –KF"
"Wally. –BW"
"Does it really matter? –KF"
Another pointed glance shot his way and Wally sighed down into his nachos, stuffing his face to ease his frustrations.
"Last Thanksgiving, alright? –KF"
Conner glanced up from the tabletop, first to Artemis and then to Dick with an apology written stiffly out over his ice blue eyes, his lips twitching in a frown. Megan encouragingly squeezed his hand under the table.
"I uh… didn't mean it like that, guys," he clumsily muttered, rubbing his neck with his free hand and a loud huff, "I was… worried, is all."
"That recent? What over? –BW"
"Does it matter? –KF"
"Yeah. –BW"
Artemis folded her arms over her chest firmly, lips pursed without the slightest bit of forgiveness to a single molecule on her body. Kaldur tried to calm her, but she wanted nothing to do with his condolences.
"Why? –KF"
Dick stared firmly at his phone and intently clicked away while the blonde with the Rapunzel hair drummed her fingers against her arm.
"You have no reason to be worried. We're good; both trained by Leaguers, which is more than we can say for you. You were programmed, by aliens no less," she sneered, unfolding her arms to take a sip of her coffee.
"It stuck to you. It mattered. –BW"
"Seeing your best bro cry isn't exactly an every day thing, you know. –KF"
"So what was it over? –BW"
Conner echoed her, taking his hand from the Martian's hold and squinting his eyes again.
"That's not fair," he began to argue.
"And you saying we're inferior because we're human is?" Artemis shot him down without batting an eyelash.
"I don't remember. –KF"
"Bull. –BW"
"Really. –KF"
"You remember the first words I said to you. Knock the crap. Come on. –BW"
Wally set his phone down, rolling his eyes at Dick's comment before flicking his gaze over to Artemis.
"Hey, I'm human, in case you forgot," he scrunched his nose up a bit, running his thumb along his opposite index finger, middle and ring tapping out an incoherent beat to the tabletop. "Supes is just a bit new to the whole… racism is bad thing, I guess."
He shrugged pathetically, looking over to the ebony across from him to see the forcefully widened eyes with the furrowed brows in the, 'Really?' face he desperately despised.
"Not good?" he mouthed, cringing a bit with a twitch of his right eye.
"A bit not good," Dick mouthed back before making a show to look to the redhead's phone.
He smiled softly as the pale hands picked up the abandoned phone and began to type again, totally oblivious to Artemis' offended stare.
"Oh, so just because you guys aren't normal makes you a different race?" she ground her teeth.
Dick calmed her this time though, offering her a small calming smile.
"Kid Mouth doesn't always have his mouth and his brain connected. He just means that the G-gnomes probably stuck to essential ABC school stuff and skipped the street smarts side of the lesson plan. You know, respect the colors and love? No matter what? So what, the dude's off a step. We'll just have to help him learn. He's still barely six weeks, you know."
Of all the things the ebony could've gone with, he couldn't give an honest answer as to why he had defended the insensitivity that had sparked this whole argument in the first place. He had fully intended to beat Conner to death with the napkin holder, being quite rather touchy on the subject of heroes with and without powers. Maybe he did it because he was used to stuff like this. It wasn't exactly a new thing to him.
Usually, it was insensitive people saying they wish their parents were dead over a stupid grounding that had him firing off like a piston and ranting off about how he'd honestly stab a man in the eye socket with a dull pencil to get grounded by his parents again. There was always going to be someone insensitive, but instead of just beating it out of them, it'd be better to just teach them a more honest side of it.
"You're defending him?" Artemis backed off a bit, eyes softening in what might have been hurt.
The thirteen year old raised a hand and ran it through his black locks with a broken sort of sigh, casting his gaze aside for a second.
"I… I guess, yeah. Yelling at him's just going to leave us hoarse, and beating him to death leaves us with a corpse to hide," he let his shoulders slump and curled his legs up into the seat with him, pulling them to his chest just as his phone buzzed in his fingers.
"Leaguers all gathered, talking about Thanksgiving plans. You were soaking, so I started teasing you. I thought you were just upset because your mom got the wrong kind of gravy or the wrong kind of potatoes and I wouldn't drop it. You ended up punching me. –KF"
"Er, I meant sulking. I'd be concerned if you came in wet too though, I guess. –KF"
"If you were wet, the punch wouldn't have hurt as bad. I probby wouldn't have broken my nose. –KF"
Dick noticeably swelled before drawing his knees in incredibly close to his chest, as if he were suddenly protective of them.
"You were nice enough to pretend you had tried to faze through a wall though. –BW"
"Still sorry about that, btw. I was aiming for your shoulder when you looked down at me. –BW"
His blue eyes darted up and he caught the glint in the emerald pair across from him, focusing more on the flash of the grin to spread over the freckled cheeks.
"Forgave you a long time ago, buddy. –KF"
"More specifically with the 7lb ice cream sundae in the hospital. Best. Broken. Nose. EVER. –KF"
It was Dick's turn to grin, and like that, the whole team held a delicate grin to their lips. Conversations struck up a bit more friendly now, laughter and grins growing more now that the worst of the tension was past.
"You're not a baby anymore, I guess. –KF"
"That's good. You're still a ginger though. –BW"
"Don't make me use my superior super hero powers on you, big bird. –KF"
"I'd like to see you try. Ready for another nose bleed? –BW"
"Ready for another 20$ ice-cream sundae, more like. –KF"
It started out painful and then I just had to fluff it out. All's good now. Should I write a prequel to where the Thanksgiving thing is explained? If it sounds kind of dumb, I won't.
-F.J. III