Disclaimer: I claim no ownership over Young Justice. I am making no profit from the writing of this work.
Written for the Bad Things Happen Bingo challenge on Tumblr for the prompt "Bedside Vigil." Find my bingo card at snowlikestardust dot tumblr dot com. This fic is crossposted on my tumblr and on Ao3 under the same username and title.
Content Warnings: There is a discussion of off-screen major character injury. The character who was injured is not the focus of this fic, and in fact does not show up, but the central characters are affected by having witnessed the injury.
Wally had run the length of the compound one-hundred-thirty-two times by the time Artemis dressed down and showered. M'gann told her about it in the time it took him to run ten more. M'gann had been the one to float Robin down to the infirmary, while the rest of them peeled off to work out frustration or wash the blood away. She'd sat here outside the infirmary since, counting Wally's turns and only able to keep track because of the vague awareness of where his mind was. She'd kept a mental eye on all of them since they'd come back, and she updated Artemis on everyone's status.
"Kaldur reported to Black Canary first. He's showering now. He put on a brave face and said Rob would be alright, but I think he was just trying to comfort me. I think he might have cried," she told her, still staring straight ahead at the infirmary door. Artemis took the seat next to her and took her hand. M'gann squeezed her hand tight enough to hurt. "Batman showed up and joined Rob. He hasn't come out yet, but Black Canary did a couple minutes ago. She went to talk to Conner."
Conner had stalked off the moment they got back; either to the training room or to watch static again, Artemis figured. Both seemed to calm him down, in their own ways. She hoped it helped.
"Have you heard anything?" Artemis asked. M'gann shook her head. The movement threw her hair around, revealing the shallow scrapes along her shoulders and neck. Artemis pulled her hair away again when it fell back and looked closer at the cuts. M'gann flinched slightly, and Artemis stilled. "This okay?"
"Yeah," M'gann whispered. She cleared her throat. "I haven't cleaned them out yet."
Artemis nodded. "Stay here." She went to the nearest bathroom, despite the infirmary being a couple feet away. She wasn't sure if she would even be allowed in, but she didn't want to enter regardless. She couldn't get Rob's body out of her head. It was bad enough in the direct aftermath. She wasn't ready to see surgery or stitches or whatever else. She wasn't ready to hear if he was going to live.
Every bathroom was stocked with a first aid kit, for minor injuries and wound upkeep. Artemis took the nearest kit and some towels and hurried back to M'gann. Her footsteps echoed uncomfortably in the hallways. She usually stepped silently, but the idea of total quiet felt unbearable.
"Here," Artemis said unnecessarily. The mind link between them never dropped, so M'gann had known where she was, but it didn't feel right not to say something. Artemis took her seat again and brushed her hair aside; M'gann pulled it back all the way and tied it up with the hairband she gave her. They sat in silence, both mentally and externally, for the next several minutes as Artemis disinfected and bandaged her friend's injuries. Did Martians even get infections like humans? Artemis had no idea. The lessons on alien biology they all took only handled basic living and first-aid.
When she finished and began to pack the first-aid supplies away, M'gann stopped her with a hand on her arm. "Are you injured at all?"
Artemis smiled at her and squeezed her hand again. "I'm alright. I only rolled my ankle a little, and I wrapped that after I showered."
M'gann nodded and looked down at her lap, tugging at her costume with her free hand. Artemis waited for her to speak. "He looked so bad."
"Yeah," Artemis said. She swallowed roughly. He had looked really bad. When she first saw him after he was hit, when he was still sprawled across the ground and no one had reached him yet—he was so still. The only movement around him was the blood oozing across the floor from around his head. She'd thought he was dead. Was surprised to find out he wasn't.
"I've never seen anything like that before," M'gann said. "There was so much blood. I didn't think humans could lose that much without—" She cut off and took a deep breath. Artemis froze as she registered the tears rolling down M'gann's cheeks.
For the first time, it sunk in that M'gann hadn't seen violence like everyone else on the team. She hadn't been a hero before the team, and her powers allowed her to take down opponents in a gentler way than any of the rest were privy to. She wasn't like Artemis, where she had to hit hard and fast for fear of the enemy getting back up and stabbing her from behind. She just… thought at them, and they passed out, and she could tell when they woke up. She didn't know what it meant to feel an enemy's blood under her fingernails, to feel their skin cave in below her fists. She didn't have to kill if she wanted to survive.
Artemis swallowed down her jealousy. She didn't know how to comfort people, and she might make things worse, but M'gann, of all people, didn't deserve to be upset. "Human head wounds bleed a lot," she said. "Like when I broke my nose last week, and it took forever to stop bleeding."
"But you at least stopped bleeding," M'gann pointed out, sounding choked. "He—he didn't wake up and the blood just kept coming and—" she broke off into a sob. She sounded like a wounded animal. Artemis had never felt so out of her depth outside a mission.
Wally, Kaldur, and M'gann were the only ones any good at comforting people. But none of their methods would work here—Wally would joke and distract, Kaldur would talk it out, and M'gann would bake until cookies stacked to the ceiling. Artemis didn't know how to make jokes that weren't Gotham-morbid or sarcasm or making fun of Wally, she wasn't any good at words, and she was even worse in the kitchen than M'gann when she first started out.
She settled for the gentlest truth she knew. "Robin has people looking after him. He has the whole Justice League waiting in the wings for him—God knows they all love him—and Batman would move mountains to keep him alive. If there's any power in the universe able to help him, he'll get it. We'll find it."
M'gann nodded but didn't reply for several moments. When she did, her voice was rough. "Earth is nothing like human television says."
Artemis closed her eyes. "No," she said and squeezed M'gann's hand tighter. "It's not."