asterous

chapter eight

chapter eight - downtime

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MOUNT JUSTICE
AUGUST 24th — 10:31 EDT

"this better be for a mission," dick muttered, yawning. "if not, i'm going back to bed."

getting alerted at 10am to come to happy harbour during summer vacation was not on dick's "fun summer things to do" list, and yet, here he was.

"it's 10:30 in the morning." m'gann laughed, handing him two eggs, straight out of the refrigerator. "on mars, we awaken as soon as the sun shines overheads."

dick stared at the eggs, before deciding that the best course of action would be to begin juggling them. his pleasure was taken away as soon as m'gann noticed, though. she whisked the eggs away with telekinesis. it seemed like she was the one person in the entire world who didn't want to see him perform a circus act.

"my eggs!" dick sighed. "what are you making?"

"brownies!" she piped up, gesturing to the container of cocoa that was currently floating in mid-air. "artemis gave me a new recipe to try!"

dick nodded tiredly, laying his head down on the island. he enjoyed watching m'gann cook, really, just not when he was running on five hours of sleep and no food.

~

"robin? hellooooooo?"

dick sat up quickly, yawning and rubbing his eyes. m'gann was gone, instead replaced with artemis and wally standing over him, both giggling.

"what time is it?" dick asked, sliding out of his chair. he tried to resist the yawn clawing at his throat, but it just resulted in tears prickling at his eyes.

"almost eleven," wally said, rubbing dick's hair. "bats is here now. i figured that we should get you before he does."

"no more nap time." artemis chuckled, leading the three of them out of the kitchen. "though, we should stop for coffee after batman's finished his whole saving the world spiel."

dick nodded, falling into step beside wally and playfully knocking their hands together as they walked. "i don't get why he makes us get up so early. the baddies work on the schedule that works best for them, why can't we do that too?"

"it's eleven-"

"you've proven my point, wallace," dick said. "eleven is much too early."

~

"camping?" artemis scoffed, looking at her teammates with a smile of denial. "you can't be serious."

the team was standing in a semi-circle in the mission room. batman, the flash, and red tornado stood facing them, all standing with their arms crossed. it was quite menacing, well, batman and red tornado were quite menacing.

"have you ever seen me kid?" bruce asked, glaring at her. "it's a team-building exercise. mandatory."

"i understand that it should also be... fun," red tornado said. "an opportunity to bond with your fellow teammates."

dick crossed his arms, catching wally's eye and raising an eyebrow. he had never been camping before. actual camping. technically, he had slept in a tent in a forest before, but that was a circus tent. completely different. also, completely by accident.

"sounds like we're being pawned off," superboy growled at the same time that m'gann squealed, "i've never been camping before!"

"me neither." dick shrugged.