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The Young Justice team, to put it in a term, was odd.
It wasn’t so much the fact that they were a team solely composed of teenage superheroes, because they wouldn’t be the first by a long shot; or even the fact that they had oddball personalities, which was also par of the course for their line of work.
It was hard to put his finger on it, but they were just…different from the Justice League, Titans and even Outlaws. They were odd in a way that no one could quite explain, but was off putting anyways. They were different in a way that no one could really understand, and that had ostracized them as a unit for a while.
Dick can understand a little better, looking back now, that each member individually was estranged in weird and quietly sad ways that was easy to brush off - which made them easy to brush off. They didn’t cause waves, didn’t act openly act out, didn’t disobey orders. On paper they were the perfect team, functioned better then even the Justice League sometimes, and were closer than the Titans. The bond they had unknowingly fostered was one of solidarity, they mashed in a way that was quietly envied. But no one wanted to have beef with a bunch of teenagers, so it was just easier to look away, and pretend it wasn’t happening - especially when they had their own shit to deal with. Looking back, Dick realizes that the League probably didn’t know what to do with them, and the Titans assumed that the League had them handled, which resulted in them getting pushed to the side to deal with later, which resulted in them getting ignored all together.
Now whenever one of the members are mentioned in a footnote on a mission report - like if they mentioned them a little but not enough for anyone to dig deeper, no one would notice where the infallible Justice League fell short (they fell short on a lot of things though, and usually the sidekicks were the ones to take the damage) - he can’t help but stop and think about it. About them. How they were cut off too early, and then switches his mind track to why they had failed in the first place. There was no blow out like the Titans, nor a falling out like some of the members of the Justice League went through from time to time.
They just quietly disappeared. That was almost more tragic.
He wonders what happened to them now.
He knows what happened to Tim at least, but even back then, he never really talked about his team much; no, Tim would much rather be with his team than talk about them. And he interacted more with his team than Dick had with the Titans; he opened up more, was more trusting.
Dick wanted to be proud, but he couldn’t help but be a little jealous too. If he had just taken his head out of his ass, stopped being so angry with Bruce, that he unknowingly became like Batman, been his own self like he had been preaching, maybe the Titans wouldn’t have a wobbly relationship.
They don’t wobble so much now, they wobbled most when they were a team back then - he chalked it up to them being young, but he’s seen how Young Justice never wobbled, how they were probably the most secure things in each of their members’ lives. No one said anything or pointed out, but he’s sure they all noticed.
They brought out the best in each other, not flaying every problem open in the worst way possible. It was kind of amazing, he’s not sure about the other members but sometimes, when Dick sees Tim with his team, it’s like he’s looking at a stranger. The glimpses that he got of his little brother with his team were nothing like the quiet, observant, slightly socially awkward Robin that he was used to - he was more outspoken and goofy, let himself just be a kid as much as he knew how to be.
It makes his heart hurt, Dick is unsure weather it’s because Tim doesn’t feel comfortable around him enough to be a kid, or because Tim thought he had to be an adult in the first place. Maybe it’s because he didn’t know his brother could smile like that.
He let them call him by his name. Tim .
And that was another odd thing he noticed. On the roster, the people’s whose identities were known were listed with their code name and their full name. Looking at the roster was weird because Dick knew for a fact that none of these kids went by their full, given name. All of it was something shortened.
Tim, not Timothy.
Kon, not Kon-el.
Cassie, not Cassandra.
Bart, not Bartholmew.
Cissie, not Suzanne.
Slobo, not Lil’ Lobo.
He got it, to an extent, that all of those sounded a bit formal and stuffy, especially for the people they were assigned to, but he’s also heard them call Greta Hayes “Suzie” and even Anita was shortened to “Neets” most of the time. It made sense for teenagers not to use their full names, even now as an adult he preferred being called ‘Dick’ rather than ‘Richard’ and Wally preferred that to ‘Wallace’.
It was like a homage to their roots, but also they made it into their own. It was a statement.
But Young Justice’s entire existence seemed to be a statement. That and no one under the age of 50 should be called Bartholemew - seriously he knows it’s a family name, but come on. That’s got to be some form of child abuse.
But there was a deeper meaning to it, he suspects, whenever they were called by their full name it wasn’t a big deal; for some reason when anyone called them by their full names it was a big deal. It was another unspoken thing (which, Young Justice seemed to be. Every action, every word, every interaction between them, you had to read between the lines. Understand everything they weren’t saying to understand what they spoke. It’s not something that’s easy to decipher for anyone else but them. It was unnerving and frustrating and almost spooky. If Dick didn’t know any better, he’d think one of them had mindlink abilities; the fact that they didn’t made their weird silent understandings more unsettling) but some openly bristles or tensed up, others would just shut down slightly; the air was always a little colder, they always got a bit more defensive. That’s probably why the Justice League rarely called them anything other than their monikers.
Even their team name “Young Justice” they would say it like Young “Just Us” - spelt it that way on some mission reports too. It seemed to be a little joke, a play on words. No one thought much of it other than a childish antic.
Or at least, that’s what he used to believe, that it was just something goofy that they did because in the grand scheme of things, it was inconsequential. But he’s seen Tim, exhausted from a mission, type it out like that and turning in his report without bothering to check it over. It irritated Bruce to no end, and Dick laughed a bit at first. When it kept happening, Dick couldn’t help but feel it was another silent statement.
Thinking back on it now, Dick doesn’t think it was so childish, and even if it was played as a joke - he doesn’t think it’s as much of one as they made it seem.
“Just Us.”
It was deliberate. It was just them.
Because honestly, besides Red Tornado and Max Mercury, it was just them. No one thought much of them because they didn’t make waves. They followed orders, never outwardly disobeyed.
But that wasn’t the case. It’s not that they disobeyed, it’s that no one cared as long as the task was done, and the task was always done. Whenever they would go on missions with any other hero or team, it would be nothing like what they had expected and more often than not the other party would come out just as confused as the enemy or feeling like they were missing something. It was a repellent, that feeling of otherness, Dick wonders if it’s deliberate like a kind of weird pay back, or if that’s just how they operate - they seem to care less about what others think when they are together.
They didn’t cause problems, and cleaned up their own messes. They were easy to push aside and ignore for bigger things. That also meant that they were just ignored in general. The only thing that they could truly rely on was each other.
It was Just them.