TENEBRIS ~ Young Justice

2 ~ I'm Not A Babysitter

I had no sooner taken a diving leap onto my bed when a sudden crash shook my entire room. 

For a moment, I froze, listening carefully. My first thought was that somebody had broken into Mount Justice, and the Cave was under attack. My heart excitedly jumped in my chest; I would take any chance to get some action while on bedrest for these next two weeks. However, after I'd waited for the warning alarm to sound off, I quickly realized that there must have been another cause for the commotion. 

"Oh, come on, that was totally your fault!" A shrill whining voice suddenly erupted from the kitchen, followed by someone responding rapidly in Spanish. Balling my fist at my side, I--rather aggressively--pushed myself away from my bed and threw the bedroom door open before walking hastily to the kitchen. 

This was not the kind of action I'd been hoping for. 

"What in the--?!" I hadn't even had one second to assess the situation before I cut myself short when a raw egg landed and broke in the center of my chest. I froze, mouth open, before slowly shutting my eyes and sucking in a deep breath. My fist clenched tighter as I struggled to control my frustration and not strangle the living snot out of those two.

"Oh, no," one of them squeaked, his voice breaking. 

"Ay, dios mío," the other whispered. "You're in for it now, ese." 

"Uh, Adri-- I mean, Monarch--Miss Black Monarch, we...!" Garfield stuttered nervously. I held up a hand, and he immediately shut up.

"I just want to know what happened." I finally opened my eyes, only to find myself standing in the midst of a completely destroyed kitchen. The refrigerator was tipped onto its side, the contents spilled out all over the floor. The stove was smoking, though there was nothing inside. There were food splatters and messy ingredients all over the countertops and ceiling. As if to unironically top everything off, they'd left the kitchen faucet running to the point of nearly overflowing the basin--which was still filling with water. 

I was just in here... Five. Minutes. Ago.

"Start explaining," I said firmly, unblinking eyes shifting to the two of them. "Now."

Jaime cleared his throat, rubbing the back of his neck sheepishly.

"Uh, well, Black Monarch, we heard the alert earlier, but Nightwing told us we weren't needed for this one and to wait here for you to tell us what to do. We got bored, so Garfield and I wanted to test a theory..?" he answered, pressing his lips together tightly as he trailed off. I cocked an eyebrow, and he flinched and quickly turned to glare at Garfield, who looked back at me with an apologetic smile.

"He's not incorrect," he squeaked. "We wanted to know if eggs would explode when superheated in an oven, and we kind of got into an argument with Scarab, who said it wasn't a good idea, and then we got into an argument about whether or not to believe Scarab, and then about over how long we needed to cook them for, and--" 

"Stop!" I exclaimed, rubbing my forehead. "Stop. Just...get this place cleaned up, okay?" Garfield and Jaime both nodded and began frantically scrambling around the kitchen, barking orders at each other like two angry feral rat dogs. I briefly glanced down at my chest and brushed away the remnants of the eggshell in disgust before moving back down the hall, all the way to the boys' locker room. 

Oh, that bastard is so dead.

"Dick!" I snapped, shoving the door open. He was nowhere in sight--thankfully, neither was anyone else.