The sun was bright across the afternoon horizon. For all that Dinah loved her job, sometimes she found it incredibly draining, in all aspects of the word. Young Justice had played such an integral role in the hero community over the years, and being part of the network that made that possible was sometimes more enlightening than she ever really needed or wanted.

Even though Nightwing now acted as both team leader and den mother, Black Canary still dropped in every once in a while for counselling sessions. It was the leagues way of keeping tabs, and Canary's way of ensuring that the children weren't growing up to be as socially stunted as some of her colleagues. (The argument has been rehashed again and again, and even though they couldn't stop the children, that didn't mean that there weren't some psychological consequences to acting as a hero.)

Since the invasion, Black Canary's drop ins had become increasingly frequent. The team was falling apart at the seams. It wasn't obvious on missions, for all that they were essentially children they had the professional aspect of a work relationship down pat, It was during training, during down time that the cracks were beginning to show.

It was only a matter of time before this seeped across.

While Nightwing was still doing bi-weekly training sessions, it was clear that across the board skill levels had stagnated. Advice was simply being ignored or outright opposed, with the team essentially cutting Nightwing from all interaction except for the absolutely necessary. Miss Martian and Superboy in particular seemed to be the worst; anger, betrayal and mistrust the obvious drivers behind rash behaviour.

None of the newer members trusted her enough for the counselling sessions to be of use in resolving the tension. But could she really blame them. When Batman had pulled a similar stunt to Nightwings during the Invasion all those years ago, the league of adults had had such similar reactions. It had taken years for trust to be rebuilt, for the team dynamic to recover.

These children, for that is what they were, were rejecting their leader. Their leader who so desperately and clearly loved them. Who had visibly and psychologically destroyed herself to keep them safe and alive whilst also managing to save all of humanity.

They were children, who saw their hate, the betrayal and the lies and the mistrust. They couldn't see the work, the pain and the sacrifice that had gone into Nightwings plan, couldn't see the motivations and intentions.

And it was destroying them from the inside out. Nightwing herself had already had so many responsibilities. When the league had first asked she had tried to refuse her role as leader, trainer, guardian. It was a short lived refusal but all the same. There was little but her own determination to love and protect keeping her there, and when this got bad enough that she thought the team would be safer without her, things were going to get messy.

Black Canary couldn't really hope that this was going to end well. It was a team of teenagers fighting criminals. Developing the maturity it took to work as a team was the whole purpose of the teams existence, but the lack of it would be its ruin.

AN: Hi, so its been awhile but I can't get this story out of my head, and I need to get rid of some angst through torturing my favourite characters. The M rating is for a reason, and there will be references to some pretty heavy themes of rape later on so if your not up for that now's a good time to click awat.

Okay so I'm going to be playing with the timeline, as well as combining different aspects of different universes canon to create the context and backstory. So this isn't going to perfectly follow cannon and whatever you read is going to be part of this AU universe. Also just to clarify this is a fem!Nightwing AU. The basic timeline is outlined here:

Rachel Grayson was adopted by Bruce Wayne at age 6, after watching her parents die etc.

She discovered he was Batman pretty quickly, but he wouldn't let her be Robin until he had trained her properly which took two years.

He finally lets her out in the field at age 8 at which point the whole getting justice for her parents through capturing Zucco happens.

At age nine about a year and two months later she meets Wally and Roy.

At age 12 Young Justice team is established and season one occurs.

At Age 13 1/2 Young Justice disbands for a while after the events of Auld Acquaintances.

At Age 14 she moves across the country and is integral in the establishment of the Teen Titans.

At Age 14 1/2 Deathstroke begins to blackmail her, which goes on for another 11 months. (The events of this time period are purposefully vague, and no one but Nightwing and Deathstroke truly know what happened)

At Age 16 1/2 Nightwing starts dating Starbolt/Koriand'r (male!Starfire). They date for approximately 2 1/2 years.

Just after turning 19 the Young Justice team is restarted and Season 2 occurs. [Kid Flash and Artemis have retired, while Aqualad has left the team to be with his villanous long-lost father Black Manta. Miss Martian, and Superboy have been offered a chance to join the Justice League, but have decided to remain with the Young Justice. New members include Beast Boy, Blue Beetle (Jaime Reyes), Robin (Tim Drake), Batgirl, Bumblebee, Lagoon Boy, Wonder Girl (Cassie Sandsmark), and Impulse (Bart Allen). ]

Endgame occurs when she is 20 1/2. Wally doesn't die, and he and Artemis return to the team part time.

The Events of the Story begin 3 months after Endgame.