Leadership [Young Justice]

Five

"You're doing good, Static!" Guardian hollered across the training room. 

The younger boy looked up in surprise, which distracted him from his training fight with Lagoon Boy, which allowed La'gaan's swing aimed for his chest to hit him in the jaw.

"Virigl!" Half the team cried, running to his aid.

"Oh...my bad?" La'gaan winced as Superboy pulled Virgil to his feet, rubbing his sore jaw.

"No, no, I'm sorry, it was all my fault," Mal insisted, "I distracted Virgil and you missed your swing, La'gaan. I'm sorry."

It was the team's first training session with a new leader, and so far Mal was doing a bang-up job of it. He was so nervous about having to teach the team that he'd turned hand-to-hand combat over to Artemis to relay instruction, and Superboy was on meta-power control. Not that either of them minded. It was better for them than sitting around waiting their turn to step up against a freshman.

"You doing okay, baby?" Karen asked, rubbing spots on Mal's shoulders that he hadn't known were tense.

"Not so much," He sighed. M'gann ran over with the med-kit, quickly examining Virgil's jaw to make sure it wasn't broken.

The team was dismissed a few sparring rounds later, with Mal insisting Virgil stay out so that he didn't hit his jaw again. Even if his teammates promised to avoid hitting it, accidents were always bound to happen. 

"Do you really think I'm doing good?" Mal jumped a foot in the air, not having noticed that Virgil had stayed behind, his speech impaired by the ice pack propped up against his jaw.

"W-well, yeah, I do."

Virgil grinned as much as a kid with a broken jaw could. "Awesome! Guardian, you're the best trainer I've ever had!"

Mal's brows furrowed. "Really?" It had barely been ten hours since he accepted Barbra's proposal to be the team's new leader, how did Virgil have any proof that he was good at this?

"Well, I've never really trained with Aqualad before because I honestly thought he was kind of scary, and Batgirl just always told me to do better, but I didn't know what to do better on."

"Really?" Mal looked between Virgil and Karen, who nodded in assurance with an enigmatic smile.

"Well, I have noticed you improving. It's gradual, but it's an improvement, and that's all we can ask for."

"Yes!" Virgil pumped his fist in the air. "Wait'll Asami and the guys hear about this!"

"Hey, Virgil, are you coming?" Gar shouted from down in the lounge, "Bart's got the game already going!"

"Coming!" Virgil ran off in Beast Boy's direction.

"See big guy?" Karen said, giving Mal a big hug. "You're not such a bad leader after all."

"Thanks, Beautiful, I just wish I believed it too," Mal said. 

Karen smacked his arm, "Oh, you!"

"Recognized: Rocket, 24. Zatanna, 25. Solstice, B27. Traci 13, B28."

"Dang it! I knew we'd be late!" Zatanna ran out of the tubes before the glow of the zeta-tubes could fade away, stomping her foot and snapping her fingers. Mal was more mystified by how her heel didn't snap off her boot than any magic he'd ever seen Zatanna do.

"Hey, Zee! What's up?" Karen ran over to hug two of her best friends.

Mal quickly checked the to-do list on his tablet that Barbra was constantly adding to from her position on her hospital bed down Earth-side.

"are these our new teammates?" He asked, looking at the two girls standing on either side of Zee and Raquel.

"You bet your shiny new helmet they are," Raquel grinned. "Why don't you tell Guardian who you are, girls?"

The shorter of the two, a tan-skinned girl carrying a gnarled wooden staff stepped forward first. Her messy-long  hair barely held back by a purple headband.

"I'm Traci, I'm Zatanna's sidekick."

"Word of advice, don't mention that s-word around the team, it's a touchy subject."

Traci scrunched up her face in confusion. "What's wrong with being a sidekick?"

"That's what I said!?" Raquel exclaimed. Zatanna and Karen laughed.

"I'm Solstice," said the other girl, holding out her hand to shake. "I'm training with Rocket. I've got the light powers."

"Ironic, if you know the name of the secret villain organization we constantly lock heads with. "I'm Guardian, that's Bumblebee." 

"Nice to meet you," Solstice shook hands with Karen, and Traci shook hands too."

"Most of the team has kind of wandered off, but I'm sure you can meet some of the guys if we can get them to look up from their video games for long enough."

"You guys play video games up here? What kind of system do you have?" Traci asked, following Guardian down the hall.

"Uh, I don't know, I don't play it too often. We haven't been sharing the Watchtower with the Justice League for too long."

"Oh," Traci sounded slightly disappointed.

Karen reached the game room first. "Yo, if you boys don't look up from your game and act like gentlemen towards your two newest team members, I will unplug your game whether you've saved or not."

Five teenage boys -and Cassie- had never responded so fast. Not even Kid Flash.

Mal chuckled at the kids pigging out on the couch, still in uniform.

"Kiran!" Cassie jumped up first, running over and hugging Solstice, who was ecstatic to see her. 

"I take it you two know each other?" Rocket asked.

"Yeah, Krian's mom and dad work with my mom!" Cassie said proudly.

"Hey, Jaime," Traci grinned at Blue Beetle.

"You too?" Bart asked Jaime.

Jaime chuckled, "Yeah, she helped me save my friend's baby."

Tim, still a little distressed from earlier, nodded quietly at the two new girls, walking past and heading back to the mission room.

"I'm heading home," He told Mal.

"Okay," Mal clapped him on the shoulder. "Call if you need anything?"

Tim nodded, but he didn't look up. "Okay."

Cassie watched sadly as Tim left, but Gar was already enthralled with Traci's video game skills as their game resumed.

Rocket chuckled. "I guess we worried about nothing," she said to Zee.

"Don't worry, you two, we'll take good care of them." Karen promised.

"Don't worry," Zatanna smiled over at Traci and Kiran. "We know."