Don't Fear the Reaper

65) Woah-oh Woah! I'm Radioactive!

"No, Bart, he is not cursed," Dick said, running a hand over his masked face. This was really not how he wanted to spend his little time at the Mountain. "You don't need to know why, just that he has a strict 'no touch' rule."

Bart looked almost disappointed that their temporary guest didn't have some sort of witches curse placed on him.

M'gann stepped forward slightly, glancing quickly at the door Kaldur and Nico had disappeared through before Dick had began his explanation of what was happening to the rest of the team. "You keep just calling him 'him' or 'our guest'. Do we get to know his name? Does he even have one?"

Dick hesitated for a moment, honestly not quite sure what to say. "He... He has a name, but it is up to him whether or not you learn it. Don't try to force it out of him—it won't end well—just leave him be and try not to push."

"Why are you acting like we're babysitting your child?" Artemis said, looking at him suspiciously. She had known him too long and saw straight through his attempt to seem disconnected from the situation. "Don't tell me that Batsy is thinking about a new Robin already."

Dick rolled his eyes. "No, he's not gonna be the next Robin. He's just... We've spent the last four months working with him and building trust and... this really can't go poorly. We can't afford to restart from ground zero, but even just bringing him here was enough to set him off. We didn't really have a choice, and he knows that, but... We're kinda in over our heads here. We just really  need this to go well."

The team all looked at him in surprise, which made sense. Dick had always thought of the Team as kind of a second family, that that didn't change who he was.

Batman and Co. were always legends and not just around civilians. Among the heroes of the League and their protogetes, the Bats seemed almost mythical: a group of allegedly human heroes who had the capability to go head to head with basically any JL member and win. They existed as ideas to the others more than they were ever people. The Bats, at least to the eyes of the JL, were unflinching. They had back up plans for their back up plans. They were silent as shadows and could communicate without uttering a word. Over half of them began training before they even went through puberty, and each one that they had seen die had managed to come back to life. They were all unapologetically human, and yet half the Justice League still kinda thought they were lying about that.

To have Nightwing—the original Robin and one of the founders of the YJ team—express that they were in over their heads... it was basically unheard of.

Thankfully, Dick was saved from them staring at him in silent shock by Nico and Kaldur returning. That meant that they all instantly snapped to staring at Nico in poorly masked shock, but that quickly stopped when Nico leveled a glare at them that could have spoiled fruit.

"Are you going to be okay? " Dick asked the kid in arabic, relatively sure that no one on the team spoke the language unless using their powers to translate it, and he was completely sure that his teammates respected him enough to not do that. 

Nico turned his glare to Dick, apparently not even dignifying him with a response.

Dick let out a sigh, silently signaling to the others that they were dismissed before moving to stand across from the kid as the others filed out of the room. "It is only for a week or two. I know that you don't want to be here, but we had basically no good options-"

"That must suck. I can't imagine the suffering you are going through with your 'no good options'," Nico bit out, his eyes still sharp. "How terrible it must be for you to have no say in where you keep your pet monster for the week."

Dick frowned and bit his tongue. He really wanted to talk to Nico, to try and make him understand why they were doing this, but he knew that it wouldn't help anything. Nico knew why they were in this situation and he knew why they made the choice to bring him to the Mountain—this was just how he was dealing with the situation. 

"If you need anything, you can ask Kaldur or one of the others and they can either help or reach one of us," Dick finally landed on saying. "We'll try to stop in as much as we can, okay? "

Nico looked away from him, crossing his arms as he tapped his foot twice.

Dick forced his face to maintain a small smile despite the way his chest stung at the action. "Okay, I'll see you later. Be safe."

Nico just gave a small nod and tuned away, walking towards the hallway where Kaldur had set up his temporary room.

Dick stood there for a long moment just starting at the hallway Nico had disappeared down, trying to get himself to walk towards the Zeta Tube. He knew dinner would be starting soon and he was already well over the half hour time limit Bruce had given him due to how long his explanation ended up taking with the team.

"We will keep him safe," Kaldur said, making Dick jump slightly. "You do not need to worry."

Dick just offered him an uneasy smile, not bothering to try and mask away his anxiety in front of one of his oldest friends. "I know... I just... I feel like the second I leave, all the trust that we've worked so hard to build will just disappear." 

"Trust is the foundation to everything, so it must be forged like such: brick by brick and stone by stone until it is steady and unwavering. Trust is built on complete faith and loyalty—offering your vulnerability to someone willingly and knowing that they will not abuse it... Trust that disappears when you leave is not trust at all, it is merely resignation." Kaldur looked at him in question. "If you are worried about it disappearing, then perhaps you should ask yourself if you have truly earned his trust, or if you are simply acting as a warden to his life."

A/N: you guys are worried about me like writing this shit while on meds, but I've prewritten a good amount, I just can't edit well lol. I'm doing good and fine, I just am foggy lol. 

Vote. Comment. Tell me if you've been under anesthesia before (this was my first time and it was weird lol)