-Shout out to @outsidersandBTS4life For helping my actively workshop this idea!-

-Themes of Racism-

-Sept 2022 EDIT: I can't believe I slandered this entire company like this lmao-

"Where'd you get that?"

"Hmm?"

"What happened to your eye?"

Dick brushed his hair over the developing red bruise over his eye. "Nothing."

"I don't remember you getting that last night..." Bruce wasn't letting it go. "Did it happen at school? Did you get in a fight?"

"No. it was just, well, it happened while I was with the team."

Immidiately, Bruce was suspicious. His son came home a lot, injured and gushing about what happened at the mountain. "What Happened?"

"NO, it's not like that! The team didn't hurt me!"

Bruce gripped Dick's chin, held up his face and inspected his swollen eye. "Tell me what happened."

"Well, we were in town..."

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"-And If you wanna go walking, dear, It's Delightful, It's Delicious, It's DELOVELY!" Dick was skipping ahead of the group, singing to himself.

"Hey, let's get some snacks from Dollar tree!" Wally proposed.

"Most Wally thing I've ever heard." Artemis stated. "I'm banned from the Dollar Trees in Gotham."

"Why?" M'gann asked. She'd shapeshifted her skin caucasian since they were in public.

Artemis shrugged. "I used to shoplift there as a kid and got caught once." She could tell the others were judging her. "I didn't have money for food and My parents were... not around. Now I only encourage stealing from places like Chick-fil-A and Hobby Lobby."

"Why Hobby Lobby?" Wally wondered.

"They're Homophobic!" She exclaimed. "Same with Cracker Barrel and Urban Outfitters, except they're racist too!"

"Oof." He replied. "ROB! We're going into Dollar Tree!"

Dick stopped, half a block ahead of them. "No! let's go to the Grocery store, it's better."

Artemis gestured for him to come back. "Rob, we aren't rich."

"I'll pay!" He insisted.

She rolled her eyes. "Rob, You aren't rich!"

He opened his mouth to argue, but they'd already turned into the store. He sighed heavily and began walking back to the store front.

He shoved The door open. The only people in there were a manager, an employee, and a couple busy looking women in the seasonal aisle.

He wandered a few aisles over and found his team, looking for snacks. "What're we getting?" He eyed the employee, who was pretending to reorganize shelves nearby.

"We're still deciding." Conner stated.

Wally glanced between aisles. "Let's seperate. You guys find candy," He pointed at Kaldur, Dick, and Artemis. "We'll find chips."

So, the team seperated in half and started shopping. Artemis noticed the employee followed them. She wasn't even shoplifting this time, but she felt super nervous.

"So, what'd'you want?"She asked quickly, speeding up slightly down the aisle. "Sour Patch Kids?"

"Maybe." Dick shrugged, following Artemis' line of vision. An employee was watching them, Dick assumed he was looking at something behind them and stepped aside. The employee kept watching them.

Whatever. Dick desided; an acrobat, an edgelord(Edgelady?), and a guy with gills aren't exactly inconspicuous... He turned to see what kaldur thought before basing his judgement. The team leader was forcefully ignoring the guy. He desided that if Kaldur didn't care than it must be okay.

Kaldur wasn't crazy about land-food, he still wasn't used to it. "What about these?" He held up a bag of Sweadish Fish.

Before Artemis could confirm, the employee approached briskly. "I'm sorry, I'm going to need you to put that back."

IMIDIATELY, Kaldur dropped in back. Artemis frowned. "Why?"

"I'm just doing my job, Ms." The employee, a sleazy looking thirty-year-old with a combover, held up his hands. "I'm supposed to locate potential shoplifters..."

Kaldur sighed, preparing to be searched, in his short time on land, he'd gotten Very used to this. Dick looked confused. "What? He just picked it up?" He jerked his thumb at Artemis. "She picked up a bag too."

"Listen, kid, I'm just doing my job."

Dick grit his teeth, confused and frustrated; Artemis stood up next to him, looking the same way. "So why are we suspect for stealing."

"You're fine to go miss. I just want to talk to your Friend."

"You can talk to ALL of us." Dick stated, he still didn't know what was happening, but it made him angry.

"This isn't for you, kid, I just need to search him for stolen goods."

Artemis was getting mad, she saw this A LOT, and would not let it happen to her friend. "Him is actually a person..."

"Artemis, it's fine." Kaldur tried to deescalate the situation, it was easier than fighting it.

"NO, It's not." She stated.

Dick was starting to understand what was happening. As Dick Grayson, he was usually accompanied by someone while out and about. The discrimination he'd expirenced was never more than micro-aggressions and things kids said at school.

For the most he was nieve to the subject since his all-white adopted family and friends never brought it up.

"Look, we aren't stealing anything. We just want food."

"Listen, kid, I don't care." Sleazeball sneered down at him. He turned to the eldest teen and ordered: "Step this way."

Kaldur tried to, but Dick threw himself in the way. As a child having one of his first exposure to blatent Racism, he was confused and furious."Why should he? He didn't steal anything!"

"He doesn't even have any pockets!" Artemis shouted.

"Kaldur is the most obviously innocent person I've ever met!" Dick stomped his foot.

Sleazeball was getting frustrated now. "I'm going to have to ask you to leave."

"For what? Not stealing?" Artemis asked.

"Guys, I'm going to have to contact the police..." Sleazeball tried to grab Kaldur's arm, as if he were resisting. Dick slapped the guy's arm out of the air.

"Don't touch him!" He shoved the employee away from him as he kept approaching.

Immidiately, Sleaveball's fist make contact with Dick's face, sending him stumbling back, shocked.

"WHAT THE FUCK?" Artemis gagged. He grabbed the guy's collar, hauling him away. "Don't Lay A Finger on them!"

Sleaveball called out that there was a 'situation'; He'd assulted a thirteen year old. But the thirteen year old wasn't white, so he surely thought he was in the right.

The real fear is that if the cops were called, the three of them could be in real trouble.

Wally came storming down the aisle towards them, Conner and M'gann on his heels. They'd heard their friends shouting and an employee calling out that there was a situation. They didn't expect their friends to be the situation.

"What's going on?" M'gann asked.

"This guys trying to throw us out!" Dick said, his voice was a little off.

"HE PUNCHED ROBIN!" Artemis Wailed, Kaldur was holding her back from the employee, who looked threatened and was obviously dialling 911.

"WHAT?" Wally forced Dick's hand off the side of his face and saw the huge red mark, rapidly growing there.

"He Did What?" Conner ordered.

"Why?" M'gann stood infront of Kaldur and the boy protectively.

"BECAUSE THEY WEREN'T INTO HIS" She threw her finger at the sleaveball. "RACISM!"

One thing came to another, and they went to the grocery store instead. They specifically left (Were thrown out) before the cops arrived. It took a lot to stop them tearing the employee and his enabler manager to bloody fillets.

"And all this happens on earth because of SKIN COLOUR?" M'gann ranted. "It's the same on mars, but here... you all look so similar!" She was confused. She'd expirienced her own racism back home, but to her, human skin colour was SO petty for people to be mad about. To a martian, all humans look basically the same anyways! Why did they start fights over such inconsequential shit?

Kaldur felt guitly that their youngest had gotten injured 'because of him'. Artemis pointed out that was internal victem blaming, and that it was sleazeball's fault from the start. Still, it was hard to stop him taking responsibility since that's literally his day job.

Wally was freaking out over Dick, still. He thought that if he'd sent Dick to get chips, and he'd stayed with the others, he could've done something. Dick said this was a white saviour complex moment, and he appologized. He was just mad that Dick got hurt.

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"So we got a bag of peanut butter MnMs, Which are SOO good, by the way, at the grocery store and hung out in the park until six 'o' clock, and then I came home!" He finished.

Bruce had gotten him ice for the growing mark. He was fuming. Some random burnout employee had been actively antagonistic to some of the kids on the team (INCLUDING HIS SON), and then punched his son in the eye, called the authorities on them, and threw them all out of the store.

"Don't worry, okay." It took a lot of control to keep his voice steady. "I promise, I'll do everything I can to bring this ...man to justice." He promised, trying not to show Dick how furious he was.

"Kaldur said his stupidity is justice enough." Dick took everything his team leader said as fact. "But... thanks. I know Hate is a strong word, but I really hate him."

Bruce set a hand on his adopted son's shoulder, the boy forced a lopsided smile. He was just too goddamn innocent and unprotected, and Bruce would do EVERYTHING in his power to ruin the life of the man who hurt him.