Three years ago, a kid in our school's house burnt down and kids here are still teasing him about it. It's disgusting, I know… but… It inspired this.

Disclaimer: I don't own Young Justice or the related characters.

The smallest accent of a sigh left Dick's lips as the snickering distantly hit his ears, but he wouldn't look up from his Trigonometry homework. He just pressed his teeth a bit tighter together and drummed his eraser to his philtrum, trying to focus on number twenty so he could finish the assignment before sixth hour rolled in. Class wasn't until eighth hour for him, but he had P.E. sixth and Biology seventh, two classes he wasn't exactly eager to miss.

He would've finished it last night, but the team was called in to check on some ruckus down in Birmingham that wound up to be nothing more than a just above average robbery. By the time he had gotten home, it was a bit after midnight and he couldn't risk being tired in school. The penalties for sleeping in school weren't exactly on his list of things to get today.

When the equation worked itself out onto the paper by a contemplative pencil's path, the ebony finally managed a smile and sighed, circling his final answer and moving to the next problem. The plus signs and the x's were starting to mix and mingle and it only made his head hurt more than it needed to, urging his fingers to knot up in his black locks before he combed them back again. He always seemed to forget the different hair. It was that and the utility belt. A dozen times today he had gone to grab at his hip when someone jumped at him.

Just when he had worked out that n square root of two for the problem would have to be plugged in as six for it to make even the remotest of sense, the snickers were back and just a bit louder now.

Maybe they'll go away this time he tried to stay optimistic, pinching the bridge of his nose sharply with a huff.

If n square root of two was 6, then that would make 2n 12 square root of two, if he was thinking right. Opposite and the hypotenuse… oh, which one was that? Was that sin? No, that was… opposite hypotenuse… Yeah, that was sin.

Biting the side of his lip, he punched the numbers into his calculator with the eraser on the back of his pencil, a furrow creasing in his brow before he jotted the number down in the blank. That didn't seem right. It wasn't supposed to be a whole number, that was tangent. Or was that cos?

He groaned, hiding his face in his hands. He should've accepted Babs' help on this. It wasn't his fault he had fallen asleep. He'd like to see anyone else in that class stay awake after being drowned by a psycho female version of Red Tornado.

"Hey, Grayson, what's up?"

Dick kept his face in his hands, glaring hard at his calloused palms enough to make them light aflame in his mind, before he pulled back and forced a small smile to the three blondes standing tall behind him. The Thomsen brothers, triplets, who found misfortune the funniest thing the world ever had to offer. His biggest fans in other words.

"Hey guys," he straightened up a bit before turning back to his homework, looking at the triangle carefully. "Finishing up some trig before I smear you all in basketball today."

Hypotenuse given, 2n being ten. That made the adjacent five, or the opposite five square root of two, but he'd rather work with cos to be honest. He typed it into the calculator, smiling as he got a decimal this time. He'd have to get something right on here. As he jotted the number down, three chairs were pulled back at his table and he had unwanted company.

If I ignore them, they'll lose interest eventually. Get your head in the game he wanted to convince himself, but he felt the atmosphere go bitter before Tim, the youngest, even opened his mouth.

"That's cool. We were just talking about what we were going to do for Mother's Day. We actually wanted to know if you and your mom-," he stopped, as if he had just remembered although a cynical smile was on his lips, "Oh yeah… sorry, forgot…"

Craig, the oldest one, leaned forward on his elbows with a fake sympathetic smile.

"Well, that's alright. You and your dad can just come with us on Father's Day!" the grin to hit his cheeks was a virgin on the rocks, "Oops! Never mind then!"

Dick rolled his eyes and puffed out his cheeks in annoyance, rolling his eyes and tapping his pencil idly against his paper.

"Funny," he gave a bracketed smile, not sparing them even the slightest of a glance, "Very clever. Think of those ones yourself?"

The ebony wasn't bruised by the words; he was used to much worse by now. It was just a little sickening that some people actually found that funny. He had made it four years now without them, two years since an official breakdown related to them which was great progress according to the psychiatrist. Alfred always did exaggerate a bit though.

"No, we actually got the ideas from a circus flyer a bit back," Riley, the middle one, cupped his face with one hand and bat his eyes innocently, "We all wanted to go, but we were afraid mummy and daddy would miss the railing and fall. Then we'd all be sad little whiney orphans… and what a shame that'd be."

That one stung a little, like an unexpected slap from a person you admired, but a sharp exhale from his nose and a tight fist around his pencil kept Dick from turning and slugging each one of them. Grinding his teeth, he forced himself to calmly shut his homework into his book and he stood to his feet, hugging it to his chest and his binder to his hip with a plastic Ken doll grin.

"What a shame," he repeated with nothing but ice in his eyes, a growl in the back of his throat.

He forced himself to walk out of the library, pushing a bit of urgency into his step. Lucky for him, his height allowed him to easily bob and weave out of the crowd without being detected, all the way into the cafeteria where he slid in next to a red haired girl leaning over a History book. She looked over and offered a warm smile, slinging an arm around the fourteen year old.

"Hey, Dick. You've got your Jack Nicholson face on. Everything okay?" Babs asked worried, running a hand over his hair affectionately.

The ebony cracked open his book again and shook his head, taking a few calming breaths.

"Just the Thomsen's being jerks again, nothing new," when his friend went to console him, he held up a hand to silence her, "It's fine, really. I've heard worse. Just help me on trig; I think I'm doing it wrong. The signs are mixing up on me."

Dick bit mercilessly at his lip as he pointed out the problem he wanted her to check, peeking over his shoulder to make sure there wasn't an unwelcome splash of blonde anywhere, relaxing at the swarm of brunettes.

No biggie he assured his aching heart as he had to dig his nails into his thigh to try and cool himself down, You're okay. Everything's okay. You got your justice…

It didn't help settle the fire stirring in his stomach in the slightest.

-F.J. III