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Dick hadn't liked the idea. No one had. There had been something in the air, a nasty chill, a shroud of doubt that fell over them.
It was, after all, just a place. A bunch of bricks and mortar and pillars holding up a hole in a mountain, connected by a few fancy electronics. A certain point on the Earth, much like any other point or cave. Easily replaced.
And yet.
"...are you sure?" Kaldur's voice, the normal strength in it almost strangled.
"There's no other option," Dick had heard himself say, feeling like an echo of his mentor. He wasn't sure when he'd started to sound like that - so old and dark and commanding. "It's that or..."
"If this goes wrong, someone may."
The words to refute the statement died somewhere in the back of Dick's mouth.
It had been ten hours ago, that statement. And here he is, sitting alone in that chair that was so familiar, that had seemed so much bigger back then. The huge screen dwarfing his little thirteen year old face, bright and cocky and oh-so-wonderfully ignorant.
Dick can still run his fingers over the keys and feel it, the hours he spent there, cracking mainframes, making stupid mistakes with security coding and so convinced of his own genius that it was like a drug.
He'd learned in that chair, the one that stuck if you turned it to the right, which weighed six thousand pounds if you tried to drag it across the floor, where he had once spilled Sprite on the seat and then tried to blame Wally for it. M'gann had believed him, but Kaldur had simply raised an eyebrow and said, "Try to be more careful next time."
The seat isn't sticky anymore. Dick almost wishes he had a Coke, just to spill it all over the seat again in some desperate attempt to get things back to the way they had been. .
For some reason - nostalgia, perhaps - he stands and turns in a near full circle. There are marks of them everywhere, if one only knows where to look. Stories buried in couch cushions and tucked under bathroom sinks.
Dick checks the clock. Seven minutes, thirty seconds until Kaldur is supposed to be here. And Kaldur is nothing if not punctual.
The pit in his stomach is a gap into space - a vacuum sucking him through it into nothing. Bruce has taught him not to have regrets, because regrets do not allow you to move forward.
Dick tries, really, but the pit is still there and his throat starts to become curiously tight.
He feels compelled to sit on the couch, that long sectional with popcorn stuffed between the seat cushions and the springs worn out from use. The right arm still has a rip in it, bleeding out stuffing. Somehow, no one has thought to fix it in five years.
They're all there, that day it was ripped, sitting there before him, a mirage of better days. Wally still with his gawky too large feet, Kaldur occasionally smiling, M'gann still the image of motherly innocence.
"I can't believe you dragged me out of Gotham for this," Dick watches his grinning younger self say.
"Yeah, I'm kinda shocked Daddy Bats let you out for the night," Artemis says, plopping down next to M'gann and draping her arms over the back of the couch, the picture of glamorous indifference.
"Many of us whose homes are...further away do not have anywhere to be on Friday nights," Kaldur says. Dick can't look at him too closely, because the softness in those dark eyes makes him sick. He wonders fleetingly if Kaldur even remembers how to smile, if that softness will ever come back.
"Why do we have to be anywhere," grumbles Connor. "It's just a night of the week."
"It's the night when everyone has fun," says a voice from behind the couch. Wally's voice. That makes Dick slightly sick, too.
Wally hops over the back of the sofa to sit right between Robin and the arm of the couch, as yet unripped. His enormous bowl of popcorn shifts slightly, raining a few kernels down on Dick and M'gann. Wally's Coke is barely balanced on the arm of the couch, the popcorn in his lap, when Robin's hand darts out to snag a huge handful.
"Dude, I made that for me!" Wally whines as M'gann and Artemis follow suit, claiming their own snackage.
"This is a Communist state now," says Robin, his mouth full of popcorn. "Everything belongs to the community for the greater good of the people."
"Communism," Connor begins to state robotically to contribute to the conversation, "was originally concieved as an ideology by Karl Marx in - "
"Joke, Connor," Artemis says, tossing a piece of popcorn in the air and catching it on her tongue. "Robin is joking."
"Why is this movie called 'The Matrix'?" M'gann turns the DVD case over to examine it closer. "Is it a programming tutorial?"
"Only for evil, world dominating machines," Wally responds, taking a noisy sip of his Coke.
"Why are we watching a movie about that," Kaldur says dryly. "We seem to get enough of that in our everyday lives."
"Not like this we don't," Wally responds with a knowing smile.
"You will learn, young Padawan," Robin nods in a fairly accurate imitation of Obi-Wan.
Artemis' long, thin fingers come after Wally's popcorn again, unable to resist the thick buttery aroma wafting through the cave. Dick swallows hard and swears he can still smell it, salty and yellow on his tongue.
Wally makes a noise somewhere between a shriek and a grumble.
"No more!" He yanks it away and protectively shoves a handful in his mouth.
Artemis clambers over M'gann's lap, catlike.
"Sharing is caring," she says with a smirk, and dives her hand into the bowl.
And suddenly there's a rush of air and a streak of red hair and the bowl and the speedster are halfway across the room. Wally takes a victory slurp of his Coke.
Artemis pulls her bow out of somewhere - Dick had never managed to figure out where she kept it in her jeans and t shirt - and aims it straight towards the bowl.
"That'll never hit me," the redhead says, sing-songy.
Artemis narrows her eyes and pulls the string tighter.
"Try me."
They hold there, a frozen tableau of a bizarre, teen superhero rom-com. Artemis' arrow lingers by her ear, Wally's mouth full of the sugary bubbles, his face full of that cocky smile. Robin stretches his arms back over his head like it's all for his entertainment.
M'gann creases her eyebrows, opens her mouth to say something, and closes it again without a sound.
"Guys," Kaldur finally says, exasperated. "You're going to get popcorn all over the floor."
"Then tell Ginger to share his snacks."
"Tell Blondie to get her own."
"Wow, Blondie?," Artemis retorts, pulling the string so taught Wally can see her fingers going white. "Could you be a little more creative at least?"
"Could you stop being a psycho bitch and pointing your weapons at me for a piece of popcorn?" Wally begins to move slowly back towards the couch, eyes trained on the arrow.
"Make me." Artemis takes one step until her toes are nearly touching Wally's, so close she can smell the lingering soda on his breath. He moves his hand a fraction of an inch, to rest the Coke on the arm of the couch, not taking his eyes off her.
"Wow," Robin snickers. "Can you guys just have sex already, this is getting embarrassing."
That catches Artemis off guard and the overworked string is finally set loose with a thrum. Then a loud thwack, and the arrow is impaled in the arm of the couch, just below the offending soda can, which stays ridiculously upright.
The air reverberates around the resulting silence. Kaldur gives a long sigh.
"I was aiming for the can," Artemis says meekly.
Robin begins to snicker, hiding the noise behind his hand until it grows into a full blown, trademark cackle. M'gann can't help joining in, and since M'gann is laughing Connor has to, and Connor laughing is such a rare sight that Kaldur can't help but chuckle. Artemis gives Wally one last look and they both burst into laughter, too.
Dick sits there, five years later in the echoing silence, and hears each laugh - high and breathy, low, sharp, nasal - like a symphony. All joyous, all different, all reveling in what a strange existence they lead together, and how on Earth they've managed to make it work at all.
No one's sure how long they go on like that, the six of them, but they finally manage to stop, heaving last little breaths and wiping tears from their eyes.
Artemis pulls the arrow out of the couch and bits of stuffing float upwards.
"How the hell are we going to explain this?" Robin says, sticking his finger into the sizeable rip.
"Evil Artemis clones," Wally responds, not missing a beat. "There are enough of them around here that it's totally believable."
Connor grunts and folds his arms.
"Are we watching the movie or not," he says, picking up the long forgotten case.
"Yes," M'gann replies. "I'll go make some more popcorn."
Dick's forgotten what everyone thought of the movie - it doesn't matter now, because the movie is long gone but the rip is still there.
He stands again and pats the abused sofa in a motion of both apology and gratitude.
The Cave stands around him, faithful and unassuming.
All those sunny days and burnt cookies and long nights with coffee that they drank even though they didn't like it. The smell of the sweat of teenage boys melted into spandex and the girls' vanilla deodorant and the new paint smell that never quite left the place. Murmurs of conversations between walls, rising and falling like breathing. M'gann singing California Girls in the shower. The click of the refrigerator as Wally searched through it. Connor's heavy breathing from the gym, the meticulous pew pew of the projectile firing machines, the warm hum of the stovetop. His and Wally's music wars - Metallica and Zeppelin crashing into indie techno and the newest Mumford and Sons album. The voice of the teleporter back when its life was easy, when it only had half a dozen names to remember instead of twenty.
Dick hears the muffled hum of a ship engine overhead and checks the clock again.
Right on time, as usual.
He allows himself one last sweep of his hand over the back of the couch. He stops himself just sort of saying, "I'm sorry."
Nightwing rolls his shoulders once, steels his gaze, and prepares to send another soldier to die.