Author's Note: Get ready for a feels-trip...
Chapter Three
Failure
The Bio-Ship arrived back at Mount Justice on the third of July, in the middle of the day. The flight home from Qurac had been virtually silent, with only a simple recommendation to go into camouflage mode passing between Desmond and Artemis. Even Wally, the chatterbox of the Team, was silent. Facts were facts; Rumaan was dead, Sumaan would take over. Queen Bee had her foothold. They had failed.
As the three teens walked into the Mission Room, they were greeted by Aqualad. He looked somber. "I heard," he said simply. Desmond had refrained from radioing in the results of the mission, but clearly Aqualad had figured it out already. "I am sorry to hear that you could not stop Deadshot."
"I could have," Desmond muttered.
"What?"
"I could have," Desmond said again. "If I had been less careless. Deadshot was in the palace, the one place I didn't cover. I didn't think we'd need to. I specifically told KF and Artemis to cover the east and the west, and I covered south. The palace was north, and I didn't think we'd need to worry about it. But now Harjavti's dead…" Desmond looked away, and Artemis put a hand on his shoulder. He shrugged it off bitterly.
Just then, Superboy, Miss Martian and little Garfield walked in. Gar's eyes lit up when he saw Desmond, Artemis and Kid Flash, and he turned into a hummingbird and flew over. He returned to normal, a smile on his face. "Hey! You guys are back! Where were you?"
"Nowhere, Gar," tried Wally. "Just out."
"But Desmond didn't sleep in his room last night," Garfield continued, confused. "Did he stay at one of your houses?" He then, for the first time, noticed how visibly upset Desmond was. "Hey… is something wrong?"
Desmond looked at Garfield, his green eyes full of confusion, and hope that things would work out. Desmond managed a weak smile. "Yeah Gar, everything's fine," he assured the boy. "We were on patrol last night. You know, keeping the cities safe." Gar's face broke into a smile.
"Cool!" he said. He turned to M'gann. "When can I go on patrol?" She chuckled.
"Batman hasn't even said that you're on the team yet," she reminded him, with a grin. "He's coming today to assess you, remember?"
"Yeah yeah," said Garfield, waving a hand. He turned back to Desmond. "I was up all night, thinking of a hero name! What d'you think about Creature Kid?" Desmond laughed a bit, trying not to let his anger from the mission flare up.
"Not bad," he said. "But it doesn't exactly roll of the tongue. How about… Beast Boy?" Garfield looked as if he was mulling it over.
"Beast Boy…" he said again. "Pretty cool. I'll think about it." Desmond smiled, and ruffled the boy's green hair.
"Hey Gar," said Superboy. "Did I show you the hangar? There's motorcycles in there."
"Cool!" exclaimed Garfield, his eyes wide. He ran off, Superboy trailing after him. As Conner passed Desmond, he gave him a look that asked if things were okay. Des shook his head.
"So…" said M'gann, as soon as Garfield was out of the room, and out of earshot. "Where were you guys actually?"
"I sent them to Qurac," said Kaldur. "Queen Bee was… was planning to assassinate Rumaan Harjavti." M'gann's eyes went wide.
"Oh god," she said. "Did… did you three…" Desmond quickly brushed past her and Aqualad, briskly walking towards the library.
"Batman will want a report emailed to the Watchtower by tonight," he mumbled, before leaving the Mission Room, and those in it, behind.
XxXxX
It had been an hour or so. Desmond sat at one of the desks in Mount Justice's library, a laptop on the table. He had been struggling to write the mission report for some time now. He knew he'd need to get to it, but it was much harder than he'd imagined. He'd only filled out one before; last Halloween, Desmond and the others had been able to apprehend Calendar Man before he murdered the mayor of Gotham. But they had succeeded, and so the writing of the report was kind of nice. He got to make himself sound great. But this time they had failed, and it was hard to write about your own failure.
"Apprehended Crusher Crock, AKA Sportsmaster," he typed, while reading it aloud. "Offered no information. Delivered to the Quraci Guard." This part was easy; he was typing facts, the things that had happened, and were no one's fault. Then there were tough times, when Des had to type the times he'd made mistakes.
"I chose to incapacitate Sportsmaster early on in our fight," Des continued, wishing he didn't need to. "Delivered unconscious. No doubt he could have offered more information if I had taken the time to interrogate him further."
Just then, there was the sound of footsteps in the library. Desmond looked up to see Wally and Artemis walking over. He quickly shoved his face back towards the laptop, hoping they would ignore him. Instead, they walked over, and sat on either side of him.
"Des," tried Artemis. "It was one mistake. Who would've thought to guard inside the palace?"
"It wasn't just one mistake, Artemis!" Desmond said. He showed her the report so far. "Look at this. I've written up to apprehending your dad. I've found six mistakes already, and none of them are even the major one. I messed this mission up so bad, it's a wonder we even made it to the press conference."
"Desmond, dude, don't be so hard on yourself," said Wally, putting a hand on his shoulder. "Everyone makes mistakes. Kaldur does all the time. And does he mope around?"
"Sometimes," Desmond answered. Wally turned slightly red.
"Okay, bad example," he admitted. "But you get what I mean. Mistakes happen to everyone. You don't need to beat yourself up so badly."
"Wally," Desmond said, exasperated. "A man died. A country is about to be controlled by Queen Bee, who's in league with Luthor, my dad, and who knows who else. Yeah, I kind of need to beat myself up over this one." Wally and Artemis exchanged an uncertain look, and then got up to leave, sensing they wouldn't be able to talk Desmond out of this funk.
"See you later then," Wally said quietly. He walked off.
"If you need to talk," said Artemis. "I'm here, okay?" She gave him a quick kiss on the cheek, and then followed Wally out of the library.
XxXxX
Desmond had decided to take a break from the report. He knew that if he stayed in that library all day, being all self-deprecating in that paper, he would go nuts. He needed to blow off some steam. Whenever he needed to relieve stress, there were a few good ways to do it. Recently, with his developing abilities of flight, he had taken to flying around above Happy Harbor. There was something so invigorating and calming about the open sky, and it never failed to lift his spirits. Today, however, was not the day for that.
He could always watch TV in the living room, with Wally and Conner. But he wasn't in the mood to laugh right now, or to talk to any of his friends. He needed solitude. He wished he could spend some time in Superman's Fortress, but knew it would never happen.
That left two options; a swim in the pool, or working out in the gym. And since he had a feeling that Garfield would be more interested in swimming around as a fish than working out, he headed to the gym. The last thing Desmond needed was to be around the kid right now; the woman that had caused Gar's mother's death had just gained even more power, and it was all Des' fault.
Desmond was relieved when the gym was empty. He pulled a large punching bag into the middle of the room, and cleared away some benches and loose weights, so he had space. He gave it a few jabs, and then a right hook. He gave the bag an uppercut, and then drove his knee into it's side. When using the bag (or most exercise equipment, for that matter) Des didn't raise his density. He wanted to be as strong as he could on a normal level, in case he was in a situation where he couldn't use his powers. Robin often said that he felt lucky that he had no powers; if one's abilities were to suddenly stop working, they would be in a lot of trouble. Desmond wondered what Robin was up to at that moment.
Probably not off ruining some mission, he thought to himself. Kaldur was right about Robin; he should be the leader in Kaldur's absence, not me. He continued to pummel the large grey bag for a while, until he heard the door slowly slide open. Sighing, Desmond looked to see who it was. Conner walked in, a weary look on his face.
"Hey Des," he said, sounding unsure. "How are you?" Desmond didn't look at him, and instead moved his gaze back towards the bag.
"Like Aqualad didn't tell you," Desmond said bitterly. Conner walked over, and held the bag, which Des continued to punch.
"No, he didn't," said Conner. "Me and M'gann asked, but he'd told me that it wasn't his place to say what had happened. Only the leader got to do that." Desmond's eyes widened in surprise. That was very considerate of Kaldur. But Desmond couldn't keep secrets from his best friend, so with a sigh, he explained.
"Harjavti's dead," he said solemnly. "And it's all my fault." Desmond stopped punching the bag. He slowly trudged over to a weight bench, and sat on it, his head hung. Conner walked over, and sat beside him.
"Look…" he said. "I wasn't there, so I'm not sure what happened. But what I am sure of is that you aren't the reason Harjavti's dead. Queen Bee is."
"If I hadn't been leader, we could've stopped Deadshot, the assassin," Des mused. "I'm sure of it."
"If you hadn't been leader," Conner said. "Then there wouldn't have been any mission at all. Desmond, listen. Aqualad picked the person to lead this team that he felt was best suited for the job. It wasn't me. It wasn't M'gann. It wasn't Artemis, Wally, or himself. It was you. And you did the best you could."
"Just wasn't good enough," Desmond muttered. "Maybe Kaldur's not the best judge of character, if he picked me to be the leader, huh?"
"Stop," said Superboy, standing up, and looking at Desmond crossly. "Listen to yourself. You're brooding and moping about like some kind of drama queen. You need to knock it off. Face the facts; you were leader, and you messed up. But that doesn't mean you can't be a good leader, it just means the mission was more than you could handle. Stop dumping on yourself, and move on." He briskly walked away.
It had been awhile since Conner's anger had flared up. When the two friends had first met, Conner had been a bit of a loose cannon. Nowadays his temper had evened out some, but he had just shown Desmond that he still had a bit of anger inside. Desmond sighed, stood up, and returned to punching the bag.
XxXxX
The day had dragged on, and it was night at last. Desmond was back in the library, and nearly completed with his mission report. He read the words as he typed them. "Perimeter scan… not sufficient…" he wrote. "Palace interior... not covered… adequately." He sat back in his chair, and ran fingers through his hair. He rubbed his face, feeling more tired than he had in a long while. Just a few sentences more, and he could go to sleep. Just a few sentences more, and he could try and put all of this behind him.
But what if he couldn't? He had watched the leader of a country get murdered. The assassin had been able to outmaneuver him. It was his fault. Was it even possible to move past something like that?
He heard the door to the library open, and he groaned inwardly. Another teammate coming to try and cheer him up. Who would it be this time? M'gann, with a plate full of her amazing chocolate cookies? Zatana, with happy anecdotes that Robin had told her at some point? Kaldur'ahm, with his wise words on being a leader and looking past mistakes and all that?
But it was none of them. It was Batman.
Desmond's tired eyes sprang open in surprise. He stood at attention to greet the Dark Knight. He always felt odd whenever he met Batman (or most Leaguers, actually) while he was wearing civilian clothes, while Batman wore his usual dark attire. But no matter, Batman was here to discuss something.
"Hello Desmond," he said, in his gruff yet quiet voice. "Aqualad told me about your mission to Qurac." Desmond's face fell.
"Yeah," he said glumly. "The report will be sent to the Watchtower by the morning, so no need to—"
"Never mind that," he said quickly, cutting Des off. "I've heard how it went from Artemis and Kid Flash." Desmond crossed his arms.
"You probably didn't hear all of it," he said, realizing his friends had most likely left out some crucial information. "You probably didn't hear how royally I messed up the mission. How it was my fault that Deadshot was able to assassinate Harjavti."
"Actually, I did," said Batman. "They tried to keep it from me, but I knew they were hiding something. It came out when I pressed them a bit more. I need to speak with you about your… attitude."
"If you're here to tell me to suck it up, you don't need to bother. Superboy took care of it."
"Well, that's not why I'm here," Batman clarified. "I just want to tell you this; it's a dangerous game we play, Desmond. Being heroes has its risks. You can do a lot of good, yes, but sometimes all the good in the world isn't enough to stop the evil. People get hurt. People die. No one is invincible. Rumaan Harjavti wasn't. I'm not. You're not. Kaldur's not. Like I said, people die. We can only hope it's no one on the side of good. Yesterday it was. Next time it might be as well. Everyone's at risk, even us heroes. Frankly, we won't all be around forever. Kaldur may not always be here to lead, and if he is not, then you need to be." Desmond averted his gaze.
"Here's what I'm trying to say," Batman continued. "Failure is a natural part of life, and even more so when you do what we do. As a leader, you can't dwell on all your mistakes. You need to accept them, and move on, or else you'll never be able to be a sturdy leader ever again. Do you understand?" Desmond looked up, took a breath, and nodded. "Good," said Batman. "Then I'll be off." He began to walk out of the library, leaving Desmond with a head full of thoughts and emotions.
But before Batman departed, Desmond called after him. "Batman, wait!" he said. The Dark Knight stopped where he was, but didn't turn around. "I know you didn't come here just to talk to me. You came to decide if Garfield can join the team, right?" He saw Batman nod. "Well? What did you decide?"
"Garfield Logan is not permitted to join Young Justice," Batman said. "He is too young."
"But Robin—"
"When Robin started out, he was under my constant surveillance. He had to wait four years before we formed this team." He then turned back to Desmond. "However, Garfield will be permitted to stay at Mount Justice. He may participate in training exercises with the rest of the team. We will be keeping a close eye on his powers and abilities, and when we deem fit… he may join the team." And with that, Batman left Desmond alone in the library.
So Desmond had to get all introspective and bummed out. But, like, a dude died. An important dude. He felt pretty crummy about it. Anyway, I'm sorry to tell you this, but it'll probably be a while till the next update. But hey, you know what's a great way to show you want more? Reviews! I'm serious though, constructive criticism would be amazing. Or, you know, compliments. Those are pretty nice too. I loved reading how much you guys loved 'A New Addition' and I hope to get that feeling again with this story. So, um... bye.
(Oh, also, buy Young Justice: Legacy. Could help get the show back.)
