Author Notes: This is just a little idea that came to me after reading the latest issue of the Young Justice tie-in comics, but you don't need to read the comics to understand the story. I hope you enjoy, and please review.
Disclaimer: I do not own Young Justice. It belongs to DC Comics and Cartoon Network.
Youthful Immortality
Robin's case notes:
No. That's not right.
Nightwing's case notes:
There. Better.
I'm not Robin anymore. I haven't been Robin for a while.
I was looking back through my old case notes. Stuff was so much simpler back then. Mad scientists. Evil gorillas. Giant snakes. Who would've thought that those would be the easy parts of our job.
Back then, we didn't worry about anything but homework, girls, and the occasional extremely powerful villain. (Girls and homework ranked higher on the list of things to worry about, though.)
In those days we thought we were immortal.
We didn't know how wrong we were.
It wasn't that we didn't know about death. We did. We'd seen people die. It happened all over the world, every day.
But it was never one of us.
We always made it out alive.
Death was for old people.
We were fools back then.
When we were kids, when we were teenagers, even now, we're just as likely to get killed as the big guys are. We're no safer than the Justice League.
We're not invulnerable anymore.
We never really were.
We've always had targets on our chests.
But when we got older, we suddenly realized how vulnerable we really were. We're not sheltered anymore. Now we know we can die. Any day. Any time. Any where.
It was hard when we were younger. Juggling family, friends, relationships, school, and being a superhero. The hormones didn't help, either. We thought it couldn't get any worse.
Then we grew up.
It's even harder now.
We still have to deal with our families, because we love them even when we hate them and we have to keep them safe.
And we still have to deal with friends, because when you hit rock bottom, you need someone to help you up.
And we still have to deal with relationships, because girls are crazy and that's never going to change.
Some people would say it's easier because most of us are out of school now, but those people would be wrong.
It's harder now than it ever was before because, now we know what we're up against.
We're facing the ruthless, the cruel, the heartless. We always thought that was a fact. These were villains, people you could never sympathize with. But at some point in our lives, all the hard lines of life were blurred.
Now we've learned that we're not just fighting those who are pure evil. We're fighting the abused, the misunderstood, and the unstable.
Everyone – hero or villain – has a story, a past.
There is no black and white anymore.
The whole world is gray.
And there are targets on our chests in a world full of people who want to kill us.
There's a sniper on every rooftop.
The second we walk out of our houses in the morning, we're putting ourselves in danger. Every day is a battle and we never know if we'll wake up the next morning or if we're going to live long enough to say goodbye.
Because youth isn't immortal…
And we know that all too well.