Summary: Takes place in May of 2016
Disclaimer: I don't own DC
"Robin, wait!"
"Don't!"
"Get back here, you little-" Jason ignored all of the team's protests as he made a beeline for the mission objective: a fragment of the Spear of Destiny. The League had dispatched the team to secure one of the pieces while they handled the others, and with Kaldur in Atlantis, Dick was in charge. Unfortunately, they were rather short-staffed, since Wally was out of commission after a battle with the Rogues and Arty was watching over him, Tula and Garth were with Kal in Atlantis, and Kory, Connor, and Raquel were in space helping members of the League secure one of the other fragments. This meant Nightwing was alone with Zatanna, Batgirl, Wonder Girl, Miss Martian...and Robin. The initial plan was stealth, but that had gone out the window once Psimon had detected M'gann's mental signature. The team were struggling to hold back the hordes of ninjas, stuck in a tight formation, but Jason had other plans. He saw the spear fragment and was dashing straight for it. Now's my chance!
-Jason, pull back NOW!-
-No way, Golden Boy, I've almost got it-
-That's an order, Jay! We're outgunned here, we need backup!- Jason ignored Dick as he leapt for the shard, grabbing it and securing it in his belt. As he was running back, Ubu charged an Apokoliptian cannon, aiming it at him and grinning. Donna saw the attack and sped in front of him, raising her bracelets just in time to block the attack, but she was hit rather hard by the force of the blast. She was sent flying into a wall, and Dick gritted his teeth, throwing a wingding at the cannon to take it out of commision before knocking the warrior out with a rather brutal kick. Zatanna, furious at Donna's injury, charged up a spell to knock back everyone in the room, and Megan locked Psimon in a psychic duel, not holding back anything. Just like in Bialya all that time ago, Psimon was forced into a practically dead mental state, and the ninjas were quickly dealt with by the others. Normally, Dick wouldn't have taken this type of brutality towards an enemy from anyone on his team, let alone Megan. But at the moment, he was far more concerned with Donna's safety than Psimon's Barbara ran up to Donna, picking her up with help from Megan, and Dick glared at Jason, who was rubbing the back of his head sheepishly. Once they got back to the cave, Donna was hooked up to medical assistance, and thankfully she would be just fine, save for a killer headache. The girls watched over her as Dick walked out of the room to find Jason, and Zatanna, noticing him leave, followed him at a distance so he wouldn't notice her. He found Jason sulking on a couch, and the Boy Wonder got up quickly once he saw Grayson. Zee watched from a corner wall, and she was slightly scared at what would happen. The glare on Dick's face could outperform the batglare, and he was rarely ever this angry, especially at a teammate.
"What. Happened? I gave you an order. You didn't follow it. And because of your recklessness, a teammate was hurt. You should know better than that." Jason looked down, and Zatanna was shocked at how...Batman-y his voice was.
"S-sorry. I wanted to get the thing, it was the mission objecti-"
"The objective doesn't matter if you get a teammate hurt! That's what I've been trying to teach you, Jay!" Zatanna flinched at his sudden outburst, and Dick took a step back, taking a deep breath and pinching his temple. Anger wouldn't get him anywhere. "Donna's going to be fine, so you got lucky. But luck runs out, Jay. You can't keep running into danger headfirst without analyzing the situation. You have to be a team player." Jason nodded sheepishly, and Dick placed a hand on his shoulder. "Look, I get it. You're still new to this whole thing, it's only been like two months. When I first joined, I was disappearing on everyone. But you can't do that. On this team, everyone has to be in perfect sync. We can't have even a single teammate go out on their own trying to be a hero, because stuff like this happens. People get hurt, and so far we've gotten really lucky, but there's always the chance that if we mess up, one of us might not make it back home, and that's something I'm not gonna allow." Jason looked down solemnly, and Dick sighed. "I'm not mad at you, well, not anymore. It's fine, you're still learning. Look, Bats asked me to watch over you, so it's my fault this happened, not yours. I shoulda trained you more for this. You can go see Donna, just...apologize to her. And make sure this doesn't happen again." Jason nodded, and Dick ruffled his hair. "Don't worry, she's fine. And you will be, too. I'll work with you later on this stuff, you'll get better at working with others." Jason grinned a bit before nodding and walking off, and Zatanna smiled at the gesture. At times, she could forget that Dick wasn't just empathetic and caring to her, he was like that to everyone around him. It wasn't an act he kept up for her, which just made her love him that much more. He was a great older brother, just another great trait to add to his already fantastic character. Zee adored him for it. He'd be a great dad someday. Oh my fucking god, did I just-Zatanna blushed a deep red at the very notion of having kids with Dick, and she decided to walk off to go back to Donna. Hopefully, Megan wouldn't be able to read her mind. That would be so not asterous.
Dick sighed as he ran a hand through his messy raven hair. Bruce told him to keep an eye on Jason for this very reason. The kid had great potential, but he was one of the most reckless people Dick knew. If he had invulnerability or superstrength, MAYBE he could let it slide a bit more. But he was just a regular human, no magic, no invulnerability, no density shifting, no fancy belt to create force fields. He was just as vulnerable as Dick, Arty, or Bruce, and the only reason he didn't see it was because he was surrounded by people like Dick, like Bruce, who trained night and day for literal years to get to where they were now. Add to that his incredible inner rage, and the kid was blind to the risks, he was diving in recklessly with his anger at the wheel. People like us, we can't make mistakes. One screw up can lead to disaster. Dick recalled his very first mistake as Robin, going out to take on Penguin on his own and getting captured and nearly beaten to death. He shuddered at the notion of someone like Penguin, or, God forbid, the Joker, doing the same to Jason. Okay, no more mistakes. I need to push him more. He's got to get this through his head: he's not invincible. One mistake is all it would take to remind him of that, and it wouldn't be as gentle as I'm being. I've got to make more progress with him, fast. This time, he got lucky, but next time he might not.
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