Tattoos

"Hey, we should all get tattoos"

It was this terrible idea that lead the very underaged kids to a tattoo parlor. The sleezy shop was pitch black on the inside but the teenagers were too excited to notice the glaring warning signs. Of course, the more reasonable ones looked around in concerned but nothing was going to make these teenagers change their minds. No even when the needle snapped when trying to enter Conner's and Kaduar's skin. Not even when the tattoo healed and disappeared from Wally's are soon as it entered. Not even when M'gann, excited to try out her tattoo, change skin colours and it completely disappeared. Not even when Artemis' tattoo artist flirted with her the whole time while Wally was standing right next to her, fuming. In the end of the disappointing trip Dick tiringly flashed his credit card and a smile, his and Artemis' being the only tattoos that actually worked, hers being in a different colour than planned and his misspelt.

Years later the now adults were out at lunch having a catch up, joking about the past, pulling up every embarrassing memory. Smiling Dick went to past Connor the jug of water and his sleeve pulled up a bit to reveal a familiar print.

"Man, you didn't cover that up?" Wally laughed as Artemis smirked and pulled her hair away for her neck to reveal a similar text.

"Only around Bruce," Dick cackled, "He still doesn't know about its existence. We were young, dumb and excited to be adults and it won't happen again."

Connor snorted at the last part, "I wish it could've happened. Kind of tired of plain skin."

M'gann nodded with enthusiasm and Dick slyly looked up, "Well actually…"

Only minutes later the old team was up at the Watchtower in the lab room.

"It annoyed me so I worked out if it was even possible to tattoo your skin. Kaduar, you were obvious, you already have tattoos but non-magical ones were a bit of work. I finally located a poison that would scarred your skin enough to hold poison. With Connor you actually have to brand rather than tattoo. How do I know this? A very drunk Superman betting against a very sober Batman. With M'gann it the same matter of scarring your skin enough that when you shapeshift it is still a prodominant feature. Wally however was simply a matter of going over the tattoo lines again and again to reopen the wound fast enough that the ink breaches the skin before you heal it."

The others were gobsmacked about the amount of thought that would've gone into the research but Dick just stood there proudly with a tattoo gun in his hand.

"So who is first?" He asked.

After a very painful and long period of time the team were all able to proudly show off their new tattoos. With "Not Sidekicks" in memory of the original team branded, tattooed or scarred on them. With Artemis and Dick retouching theirs and Batman shaking his head watching from monitor duty, the team took a proud picture displaying their new tattoos in their suits. Framed and hung, it is now a favorite photo by many of the Justice League (better than Flash dressed up as Cher). It wasn't a day later when Dick was woken up in the middle of the night by an expected call from Connor,

"Wait, what do you mean by a very drunk Superman and a very sober Batman!"