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“What were you like as a kid, Kaldur?” M’gann asked, her head tilted with curiosity.
The Atlantean looked a bit amused by the question. A small grin tugged at his lips as he said, “It probably wouldn’t surprise you to say that I was a serious child. I spent almost all of my time absorbed in my studies in preparation to join the Conservatory. If not for Garth and Tula, I likely would have never left the library.”
They all laughed, and Kaldur joined in. The team had transformed the lounge in the Cave into a nest of pillows, blankets, and mattresses. They all wore pajamas and had bowls of popcorn nestles precariously at intervals. M’gann was cuddled into Conner’s side, and he looked as relaxed and happy as they had ever seen him. Zatanna and Artemis had commandeered a mattress and were sitting in a tangle of limbs, giggling and throwing popcorn at each other. Robin, still wearing sunglasses, was sitting on another mattress, reclining, as a yellow and red blur surrounded him. Gradually, a fortress of pillows was building up around him as Wally worked his magic.
M’gann has requested a slumber party, having never had one before. The team had responded much more enthusiastically than she could have possibly imagined. They’d been up for hours now, with an assortment of movies playing in the background as they devoured food and talked into the early hours of the morning. Black Canary at one point had peeked in to gently encourage them to get some rest. They had politely denied her, and she knew better than to try again.
“Okay, yeah, that’s not a big surprise,” Robin agreed, rolling his eyes as another layer of pillows materialized around him.
“I bet Wally was a nerd, too,” Artemis said.
The blur paused, appearing as if out of thin air as the young speedster shamelessly wearing Flash themed pajamas. “Hey!”
“Oh, trust me, he was,” Robin said, unable to resist teasing his best friend.
“Dude, I thought you were supposed to be my friend!”
“I am, but you know it’s true.”
“Well, yeah, maybe. Still.”
“You told me you took advanced chemistry classes for fun.”
“Chemistry is awesome!”
“Your room is decorated in posters of the Flash.”
“He’s awesome too!”
“He’s your uncle.”
“I didn’t know that!”
“Boys,” Zatanna interrupted, failing to hide her smirk.
“Sorry.”
“Sorry.”
The room dissolved into giggles again. Wally groaned and tipped over, flopping onto the mattress next to Robin, who promptly whacked him with a pillow. He blurred for a moment and then he was sitting cross-legged beside his friend.
“Okay, okay, I was a science nerd,” he conceded. “But, being a nerd is what made it possible for me to be Kid Flash, so I think it was worth it.”
“You really poured chemicals onto yourself, zapped yourself with homemade lightning, and put yourself into a coma?” the sorceress asked.
He flushed. “To get superspeed! And it was a lot more scientific and purposeful than you make it sound!”
“But you really did that? That happened?”
“...Yes.”
“I told you!” Artemis declared, shoving Zatanna.
The dark-haired girl raised her hands in surrender. “Fine, fine, I believe you.”
“What, did you guys have a bet on how Wally got his powers?” Robin asked, looking between the two girls.
“Not exactly…”
“She asked me how Wally got superspeed. I told her. She didn’t believe me, so we made a bet that I didn’t make it up. So, thank you, Baywatch, for being such an idiot that you won me five bucks,” Artemis concluded with a cat-like look of satisfaction.
“It wasn’t idiotic! I did the math! It was completely safe!”
“You went into a coma.”
“Yeah, but I didn’t die.”
M’gann buried her head in Conner’s shoulder so that her friend wouldn’t see her laugh. She was only partially successful, because her shoulders were very visibly shaking. Conner, however, didn’t bother to hide his smile.
“Okay, so we determined that Kaldur was a serious nerd, Wally was a dumb nerd—”
“Hey.”
Zatanna grinned, but continued, “—and, of course, Conner was never a kid. Who’s next? What about you, Miss M? What were you like as a kid?”
M’gann sat back up, suddenly looking a bit hesitant. “Oh. I guess I was kind of...lonely. I spent most of my time watching the programs that Uncle J’onn sent.”
Conner leaned down and mumbled in her ear, just loud enough for them all to hear in the ensuing silence, “We’re all glad you’re here now.”
M’gann smiled up at him. Her expression was a little fragile, but she leaned up and pressed a kiss to Conner’s cheek. He caressed her cheek. She took a steadying breath and looked out at all of them.
“I’m glad I’m here now, too.”
Robin leaned forward, face smooth and serious. “What,” he asked M’gann in a solemn tone, “is your favorite thing about Earth?”
A grin broke out on her face, bright and luminous. Her joy was like the sun burning off the mist, dispelling the serious mode that had befallen the room. Wally huffed in amazement at how his friend knew exactly what to say to fix the mood.
“You guys.” They all ‘aww’ed and she blushed, then added, “And the food. The food here is...so good.”
Cue more laughter. Robin grinned, mask broken, and leaned back with a victorious expression. Wally punched his shoulder playfully.
“Who’s next?” Kaldur asked once the laughter had subdued a bit. He looked over at the girls. “Artemis?”
She groaned. “Do I have to?”
“Yes!” Zatanna, Wally, and Robin shouted in unison. The archer slumped further, grabbing a pillow and holding it over her face. Zatanna wrestled it out of her grip.
“Okay, okay! I’ll share.” She ran a hand over her hair, still pulled back in a neat Dutch braid, thanks in equal part to M’gann’s effort and Zatanna’s magic. “I don’t know. I was a pretty normal kid, I guess, when my father wasn’t being a domineering prick. Went to school, made friends, and all that. But I could never join any sports teams or whatever. I kind of wanted to, to have those experiences. My dad wouldn’t have put up with it though.”
Zatanna scooted a little closer, wrapping an arm around Artemis. The archer rested her head on her friend’s shoulder, then looked at the others. Most of them looked somewhere between sympathetic and a little mad. Robin, though. There was an understanding look in her eye that punched a little too close to home.
So she cleared her throat and sat up. “What about you, Z? What was little Zatanna like?”
“Pretty similar to how I am now, I guess,” she answered, taking the spotlight from her friend with ease. “I tended to get in trouble a lot. I liked to practice magic at school. I made a game out of not getting caught, only my control wasn’t so good. It was about fifty-fifty on whether or not I’d get away with it. I drove my father crazy.”
“Sounds about right,” Robin teased.
She raised an eyebrow. “Oh, yeah? What about you, Birdboy?”
“Huh?”
Artemis rolled her eyes. “Oh, c’mon. We’re all sharing. Except Conner.” She peeked over at him. “Sorry.” He just shrugged, not looking particularly put out. She soldiered on. “So you have to share too.”
“You do not have to tell us your name or anything you do not wish us to know,” Kaldur said before he could protest.
He tapped his fingers against his leg, then sighed. “Okay, fine. I was not a normal kid. My family used to move around a lot, and we never stayed anywhere long enough for me to make friends or go to school, so my education was largely informal. I loved my family, but I used to drive them crazy.”
“Why? What’d you do?” Conner asked, brow scrunched.
Robin grimaced. “I kind of got into a lot of fights.”
There was a beat of absolute silence.
Then Artemis sprang to her feet, upsetting a bowl of popcorn and screamed, “What?!”
“Whoa, Artie, chill out,” Wally said, wide-eyed.
“You?!” she pointed at Robin, ignoring everyone else as they alternately tried to calm her and joined in with her. “You, Batman’s protege, Mr. ‘Get-traught-or-get-dead?’ You used to get into a lot of fights?!”
“I didn’t realize that would be such a big revelation. I thought the fact that I’ve been putting on a mask to beat up criminals since I was eight would kind of clue you into that.”
“You’ve been Robin since you were eight?” Zatanna asked in amazement.
“Well, yeah. You didn’t know?”
“I mean, I knew you were the first kid hero, but I figured you’d only been doing it a little longer than Kaldur.” Which would’ve meant about two and half years. “Batman let you fight crime when you were eight?”
“I didn’t really give him a choice in the matter. I was sneaking out on my own to do it. He decided to make us partners so we could at least look out for each other in the streets.”
“Can we go back to the fact that you got into fights?” Artemis demanded, like a record stuck on loop. “Like as a kid? You just said you didn’t go to school; who the hell were you fighting?”
M’gann and Kaldur were mirroring the surprise Artemis was feeling, although they were much less vocal about it. Wally, who knew him better than anyone, seemed more interested in the details than concerned. Conner had been distracted by the arrival of Wolf, and was now devoting more of his attention to giving the mutated pet belly rubs. For some reason, Robin found that oddly reassuring. It was nice that at least one person seemed entirely unperturbed by the turn in conversation.
“Just other kids that I met. I don’t really remember,” Robin admitted.
“Why, though?”
“It doesn’t really matter anymore.”
“Were you a bully?”
“No!” he denied vehemently, nearly hitting Wally in the face when he swung his arms in emphasis. The speedster’s quick reflexes saved him from a black eye. Robin took a deep breath to calm himself. “No. I was not a bully. I’ll admit, I did start some of the fights, but not all of them by far.” He knew his team wouldn’t let him leave off there, so he continued. “In the towns and places we’d visit, my family tended to draw some bad attention because of our heritage. My parents always preached ignoring the slurs and taunting, but I was never very good at it. Kids can be as vicious as adults sometimes. I learned quick that they’d usually leave me alone if I struggled, fought back, and didn't act like a victim.”
He frowned down at him knuckles, remembering when his hands had been smaller, covered in calluses and chalk, and bloody. His cousin John had always been the one to wrap and clean his hands after he’d gotten into a fight. John had been the one who taught him how to stand up for himself. Dick remembered how jealous he’d been, because John never got into brawls. John always let the insults slide off him, but Dick had never been able to master that cool calm. If someone had called him gypsy trash, his vision would go red and he’d pummel the racist. If someone insulted the circus or his family in front of him, it’d be even worse.
“That sounds awful,” M’gann whispered, eyes big and sad.
He forced a grin on his face. “Nah. I had a pretty good life. Those were just the bumps. Anyways, I could handle myself.”
Which was true. His gymnastic talent had made him stronger and more resilient than most boys his age, and he’d had his family to love and support him. There were also jerks and bullies, but Dick never let them consume his life.
Artemis raised an eyebrow at him. “Any other shocking revelations you want to drop on us while you’re being oddly open about your mysterious past?”
“Nah. I can tell you about my stint in juvie another time.” He grinned and tossed a handful of popcorn in his mouth.
Zatanna rolled her eyes. “Ha ha, Robin, how funny.” He raised an eyebrow. Her eyes widened. “No.” he tilted his head and she went pale. “No. You were making a joke. You cannot seriously tell me that you were in juvie.”
“For real?” Conner asked, looking up from Wolf.
“Yep.”
“You have a criminal record?” Artemis asked, massaging her temple as if the drama was catching up with her.
He shook his head. Six identical looks of confusion were directed towards him.
“Rob, my bro, my best friend,” Wally said, staring at him, almost pleadingly. “Please explain.”
“I didn’t commit a crime or anything. I did, however, have to spend a month in juvie once.” He scowled. “It sucked.”
“Was this for a mission or something?” Conner asked.
“No. And I can’t tell you guys anymore about that.”
He couldn’t tell them how he ended up in juvie because the courts in Gotham are so racist that they’d taken a look at him, a Romani kid, declared that all the orphanages were full and shipped him off to juvie instead. Because then he’d have to tell them that his parents were dead. Wally knew, and he thought a few of them might suspect, but he didn’t feel like confirming it tonight. That would open up a whole other can of worms.
Artemis groaned and tossed a pillow at him. He caught it and added it to the fort. “Of course you can’t! One day, Boy Wonder, you are going to have a lot of explaining to do. I’m going to start keeping a list.”
“Well, don’t hold your breath.” He looked around the room at his team, who still looked stunned. “Oh, come on, me being in juvie temporarily cannot be the worst secret in this room.”
“Uh, dude, I grew up in Keystone City, Kansas,” Wally reminded him. “It was about as boring as it could be. No big secrets here.”
Conner shrugged. “You guys know literally everything about me.”
Kaldur shrugged, an innocent look on his face. Robin bit back a groan. Of course his friends didn’t have deep, dark secrets like him. They were all heroes, and yeah, they had rough patches, but they openly told each other about them. Artemis had told them all about growing up as Sportsmaster’s daughter, M’gann was shy about her life on Mars, but they all knew that she’d been treated as a pariah for being a White Martian.
Robin threw his hands up. “Okay, fine, maybe me being in juvie is the worst secret.”
“No kidding.”
“Well, fine. I think that’s enough soul-sharing for one night.” He knocked over the pillow fort, ignoring Wally’s indignant cry of protest, and cleared a space to lay down. “I’m going to sleep.”
“I think this is the first time I’ve ever seen you go to sleep voluntarily,” Kaldur remarked dryly.
He flopped back. “Yeah, well, the stakeout in Gotham last night went long. I haven’t slept in...about forty hours. So, yeah, I’m going to sleep.”
“Dude! What the hell!”
“Why didn’t you tell us?”
Robin sighed. “Calm down. Forty hours is hardly the longest any of us have gone without sleep.”
None of them had a good counter to that. The League did their best to not overwork the team, but in some situations it was inevitable. They were all well acquainted with long nights. Robin, undoubtedly, stayed up the most often, as he frequently left training with the team to then go patrol Gotham with his mentor. Despite that, he always seemed perfectly well-rested and energetic.
“I think we should all go to sleep,” Zatanna suggested.
They all murmured their agreement, shooting looks at Robin. His chest was already rising and falling in a steady rhythm. Everyone turned to Conner, who dipped his head, confirming that Robin was asleep. They were then especially careful about rustling about as they all burrowed down into their makeshift beds. M’gann used her telekinesis to turn off the TV, and a peaceful silence filled the room.
It wasn’t long before all seven teenagers (and Wolf) were asleep, sprawled around the lounge and tangled with each other.