Side effects

Forgive

He wished Wally was his assigned partner, But he understood Black Canarys Decision.

Artemis and Wally had been acting like a divorced couple all week,
Conner was still upset with Aqualad for leaving the team and sacrificing himself.
He knew M'gann was mad at him for something as well, but she wouldn't tell him why..actually, she wouldn't tell him anything.

M'gann had been adding details and notes to mission reports without a single word to Robin for the past two hours.

So Robin continued to update the security files without comment, though he was finding it hard to stay awake watching loading screens all night. He cleared his throat which sounded louder then he intended due to the long silence  causing M'gann to jump

" Sorry, ugh..Do you want anything from the kicthen?"

"No thank You."

"okay, I'll be back.."

Robin took a deep breath as the doors to the mission room closed behind him,  he was beginning to regret this all-nighter. He stifled a yawn as he approached the living room, as he began realizing how late it was. But luckily he had experience staying up all night on patrols, though patrols were usually more interesting than watching loading screens. He found some coffee at the counter and poured himself a cup checking his wrist computer to monitor the upgrades before taking a sip and nearly spitting it all back out.

"ehhk! What is this?"

a breeze rushed in front of him as Wally appeared  "Dude is that my coffee?"

"This is definitely Not coffee." Robin protested while grabbing  a bottle of water to flush the awful taste from his mouth

"Well it's more like triple-double espresso."

"How can you stand the taste?"

"I mean It's no Starbucks but it is the only way I can get  a caffeine buzz so I Manage, besides after a while you get used to it."

"I think I'll make my own"

"Probably for the best. A few sips of this would probably make your heart explode."

He grabbed the extra coffee pot and started filling it with water "Hows the training room?"

"Why do you think I'm out here? She's driving me Crazy!"

"At least she talks to you. M'gann won't say a word. it's quieter than the batcave in there"

"Dude I wish Artemis would give me the silent treatment. All she does is talk about how I do everything wrong, or she hates how I joke about everything, ugh.  I'd pay you fifty bucks to trade partners"

"Uh-huh.."

"I'm serious! That girl is driving me insane."

Robin added the water to the machine "If you say so KF."

"Look.." Wally lowed his voice "I figured this out and I think we have to show Aqualad we made up  before the meetup at three if we want to switch partners."

"You think?"  Robin asked

"Why else would we meet up at all hours?" Wally questioned as he grabbed some chips from the pantry.

"I don't know..Make sure  we weren't sleeping on the job  and  that Artimis didn't kill you?"

"pfft, in her dreams."

" Okay, if that is the case Then how am I supposed to apologize to M'gann for if she won't tell...."

They quickly stopped the conversation as Conner appeared around the corner and nodded 

"Oh..hey ugh Is there still coffee?"

"There will be in a few minutes," Robin answered while pulling out extra mugs.

"You know He could probably handle my triple-double."

Conner tilted his head  "What's that?" 

"You don't want it. believe me."   Robin quickly added

Conner shrugged and stood by the counter.

They waited in silence until the coffee was finished before grabbing cups and heading back to their stations.
M'gann was still typing reports so Robin started more updates while trying to think of what to say. Batman never trained him for this.
As another hour of silence passed, he realized he only had twenty minutes before the meetup. .

he cleared his throat again. "Hey, so did I do something to offend you?"

She looked over at him without comment

"Just, you've barely said a word to me all week, ever since the ugh.." He trailed off

"The exercise."

"right.."

she sighed and closed her eyes. "I don't wish to discuss it."

" oh okay.." Robin returned to his screen in defeat.

a few seconds passed before she turned to face him "you..you sacrificed all of us."

Robin twitched "what?"

"You became team leader and your first action was to send Conner out as bait  while deceiving the rest of us that everyone was still alive."
Her voice grew louder as she begain to speak faster  "Telling me he would be transported to the ship with them, when You knew he'd  die..Just like the rest of us did."

Robin dropped his coffee.  Glass shattered the floor below him but he barely noticed.

She blamed him for killing everyone. Just like he did, He had.
he knew the ship wasn't transporting people. But he also knew no one would do what was needed if they didn't have hope,
he did what Batman would have..  Is this what Batman had to live with? all this guilt? Somehow hearing her say it..knowing they all blamed him..made it all the worse.

M'gann cocked her head "Robin.. I'm sorry, I shouldn't have..Are you okay?"

"Your right. It was my fault." he lowed his gaze to the glass surrounding him

She sighed "It wasn't.. It wasn't all your fault."

"No it was. I was so determined to finish the mission..to do what batman would have, I did whatever it took to finish it.  but the price..
losing the rest of the team…was far to high. Believe me I realize that... And I'm sorry."

he heard glass crunching as M'gann appeared beside him and placed a hand on his shoulder.

"Hey.. I forgive you, I'm sorry as well, I think I was just looking for someone else to blame.. "

Robin looked up to see her give a small concerned smile

"And You shouldn't blame yourself, The mission was built for failure..we all failed, me most of all for taking control over the exercise in the first place."

"But that was your subconcise taking over, You didn't know what you were doing, It doesn't count."

"Technically the entire mission was a sub concise experience so if that's the case  then nothing  else does either."

"I guess."

Megan used her telekinesis to pick up  some of the glass before adding

"..Maybe  the real lesson from that training exercise was learning how to forgive yourself."

Robin nodded "Yeah, I'm starting to think it was."

they spent the rest of the time cleaning the coffee and glass from the floor before heading back to the living room for the team reports.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Sorry the chapters are so long,

Thanks for reading this far!

Don't forget to comment or vote
and follow to be alerted when the next chapter is posted.

Stay Whelmed...