Young Justice Trash

Attention Seeking

-this one gets kind of sad. Inspired by that bit in the episode downtime-

Seceral league members had reconvened in mt. Justice, partaking in an unofficial meeting of sorts. Remember when you were a kid on the playground and your parent was chatting with all the other parents nearby where you played with your friends? It felt like that.

"How long's Rob been here? I haven't seen him say a word yet." Artemis observed.

"He came in with Batman, earlier on." M'gann replied, watching her youngest teammate worriedly.

Robin was sort of hanging on at the edge of the meeting, standing on his tip toes, everyone was turned away, not acknowledging him. He reached out to touch his mentor's cape, trying to get his attention for the billionth time.

Instantly, Batman turned to him, forcibly calm, not expressing the frustration that M'gann felt coming off his in waves. He glared at his sidekick. 

"Robin. Go sit with you friends." The tone was that you may use when warning a small child.

"But-" His mentor turned away from him. He slunk back to the kitchenette, no one said anything, even Artemis didn't utter a snide remark.

Robin had his head down, he hopped onto the kitchen island. Bruce had been like that for two or three weeks. Dick had managed a couple short interactions with him in all that time. He knew his mentor was busy, but they lived in the same house and worked with each other every night. Sure,  Dick could talk to his friends, but it wasn't the same, and sometimes they were busy too. He swung his legs up beside him, angrily.

CRASH!

He quickly checked where he'd swung his legs, an empty water glass had been swept clean off the counter. He looked up at the league, his face was very scared. Batman was staring directly back at him.

"Pick that up. Now." The meeting resumed.

He dropped off the counter, picking up the pieces of glass in a tea towel. Over a minute or so, he felt less and less focus on him. Attention slipping away from him and towards the league.

In a moment of desperate irrationality, he grabbed a second glass and threw in on the floor.

This time his eyes were almost hopeful as the league turned to see what the noise was. The team turned too, surprised by his actions. He watched his adopted fathers back, willing for him to turn around.

He did.

The hope of being seen was sharply torn off Robin, replaced by terror. 

"Come here." His mentor affixed him with a glare, speaking with such an unnaturally level voice, it froze his sidekick in place. "Come. Here."

The boy finally regained movement in his lower body. He half-shuffled, half-stumbled across the room, fear rising in his chest. He was probably shaking by the time he got to the cluster of adults. Batman grabbed his arm and left, dragging Robin after him. The boy looked like he was about to cry.

Through the zetabeam, and arriving in the batcave, he let the boy fall from his grip.

"Why did you do that?" He asked calmly.

Imidiately, the thirteen-year-old began cowering, hands up as if afraid he'd be hit. "I'm sorry! I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'll pay for the glasses! It'll never happen again, I'm sorry!"

"I was asking you why you did it."

The boy's excuse sounded stupid now he had to say it ot loud. "I was lonely?" He uttered, in the smallest possible voice. "I'm sorry, you're always busy, and I-" He backed against the wall. "sorry."

Bruce sighed, pulling off his cowl and pinching between his eyes. His adopted son, who he always strove to protect, had tears streaming out from under his mask. "Are you alright?" He nodded, even though he clearly wasn't. "No you're not."

"You're always busy. I haven't even talked to you all week!" He admitted, once the floodgates were open, he lost it. "And I just sit in my room cause all my friends are doing other things, and even out on patrol, I have to guess what you want me to do because you won't even tell me! Some guy pulled a knife on me two weeks ago!" He pulled up his sleave to show a healing scare. "You barely even heard me when We got home, so I just had Alfred help me clean it up and forgot about it." He slapped his own hands over his mouth to stop the flow of confessions. He felt embarrassed to admit that he missed his adopted dad that much.

 Bruce thought about it, deliberating on what to say to his son. "Is your arm alright?" A stupid thing to say, but it was all he could think to ask. As you can imagine, a man who'd been traumatized at a young age and never gotton over it is not ideal for emotional communication with an equally traumatized child.

"It's okay." The boy shrugged, not wanting to make things more awkward.

The man had to think for a bit before continuing the conversation. There was only one way to move forwards from this; The league could wait.