Young Justice: Brightest Day [Solstice Book Two]

Eight

"Just like that?" I asked, "Right off the bat you trust me with your ID?" I huffed. Batman was paranoid over his secret identity. Tim had barely trusted the team with that knowledge and we'd known him for years! At least, we did before he walked out with Spoiler, Arrowette, and their mentors. I'd spent at least half an hour letting Cassie all but vomit her feelings at me before she'd insisted she was composed enough to go home and get some rest. That we'd talk about it when she woke up. By the buzzing of my phone that erupted in my back pocket, "when" was now.

Nightwing, or 'Dick Grayson', Apparently, shrugged, and swung his legs over the side of the table. "Eh, I thought it'd help you trust me, and as for me trusting you, anyone who's as close to Artemis and especially to Kaldur as you are has got to be trustworthy."

A flush flared up my neck and to my cheeks as he wiggled his eyebrows at me. "You really are Batman's protege aren't you?"

"That sounds like an insult."

I gasped in mock offense, "Anyone who's friends with Artemis would never be stupid enough to insult Batman or his proteges." I fluttered my eyelashes innocently as I place a delicate hand over my heart.

"Oooo, I'm gonna tell Kal you're flirting with me."

"Shut up," I groaned, "You started it." 

He laughed.

"Anyway, what do you want? Why do you need me to trust you?"

He pretended to think. Batman's trainees never had to stop and think, they planned their next ten steps out in advance.

"I guess it depends on how badly you want to work with Artemis and Conner again."

I raised my eyebrows. "They're both retired. They're trying the civilian thing out."

"And yet when Kaldur and I went knocking on Artemis's door three years ago, she ran out the door after us."

Anger surged in my chest, down to my arm, where my tattoo flared. "If you're planning something stupid like the mission that nearly drove Kaldur over the edge-" The broom came up fast, and the bristles smacked into his chin, "I might as well blast you where you stand."

"How heroic of you," He sighed and hooped down from the table, brushing the broom aside.

"The thing about that plan that everyone seems to gloss over is that it worked. We drove off the Reach, saved the world, and came the closest we've ever been to taking down the Light!"

"And you seem to be glossing over the fact that you lied to your whole team and that Kaldur feels like he hurt everyone he ever loved- especially his parents-" I didn't bother to stop and emphasize Calvin as Kaldur's real father, not Black Manta, he was a Bat-kid, he could read between the lines, "And traumatized more people than were actually involved in the plan!"

He huffed, "You seem to be very knowledgeable about what went down, despite the fact that you weren't there."

"Maybe not," I growled, I had never felt so angry towards anyone before in my life, "But I was the one who came along to help everyone pick up the pieces after you vanished. And like you said, Kaldur and Artemis trust me, and I trust them. Do you?"

Dick Grayson's piercing blue eyes came to level with mine, arms folded across his chest. Something in the back of my head sang something or other about holding all his cards close to his chest.

"I trust them with my life."

I didn't know if I believed him, but I set aside the broom, and gestured for him to sit down, properly. I sat opposite him to drink my tea. It was cold.