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They each woke up with a start, breathing heavily as they collected themselves and it slowly registered that none of them were dead. The surrounding heroes gave explanations to their respective mentees, it was a simulation, everyone is okay. Emotion was the fastest thing to come out of this, anger, fear, relief. Some of the adults each tried to soothe a teen, understanding words or truthful answers, while Black Canary, Green Lantern, and Batman discussed the data that they had gathered on the side. Kaldur’ahm couldn’t help but shoot an angry glare at Batman, even Superman had come to comfort Conner, although awkwardly. The Bat had no sense of empathy, he couldn’t even be bothered to check on his own sidekick. Kaldur took a few deep breaths before politely excusing himself from Aquaman’s presence. He walked over to the younger hero, who was sitting still, legs hanging off the side of the cot and hands pressed hard into them. Robin hadn’t looked up.
“Robin?” Kaldur asked, voice soft and gentle so that he didn’t startle the kid, which would be entirely impossible in any other circumstance. Robin looked up at Kaldur, clearly trying his best not to start crying, which hurt Kaldur to think about. He pulled a stool over and sat in front of his friend.
“I’m sorry…” Robin mumbled, gripping the fabric of his pants as he averted eye contact from Kaldur. The elder of the two placed a hand on the younger’s shoulder and gave him a small smile.
“You did notion wrong,”
“But I-“
“You only did what you had been trained to do,” Kaldur cut off Robin’s protest, “Use this as a learning experience, not as a reason to doubt yourself. You did as well as you could in the situation, we will work on how to do better next time, together.” Kaldur explained, and it was what broke the dam. Robin started crying, silently, as Kaldur reached forward to hug him. They were all shaken up from the experience, but the comfort of others helped. Slowly, starting with Conner as he tried to get out of the awkward conversation with Superman, the others in the Team gathered around the cot for one big group hug. None of them had ever seen Robin cry, but none of them were put off by it. The Team settled into each others’ comfort and before anyone knew it, they were all crying.