History Main / WaitHere

* ''Series/TheTwilightZone1959'': In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E76StillValley Still Valley]]", a Confederate scout named Sgt. Joseph Paradine gives orders to his partner Dauger:

* ''Series/{{Castle}}'': At every crime scene early in the series, Detective Beckett orders Castle to wait in the car... and he ''never fails'' to get mixed up in the final confrontation of the perp. Subverted in "Home is Where the Heart Stops," when he actually ''does'' wait in the car... and the perp lands on his windshield and drags him out anyway.

* ''Series/{{CSINY}}'' 'Point of No Return' has Mac tell Danny to wait by the car while they go in on a bust because Danny forgot his bullet-proof vest. Danny waits, but when the suspect runs out and into another area, Danny follows him anyway and ends up trying to survive a shooting match.

* ''Film/{{Constantine}}''

* ''Series/{{CSINY}}'' 'Point of No Return' has Mac tell Danny to wait by the car while they go in on a bust because Danny forgot his vest. Danny waits, but when the suspect runs out and into another area, Danny follows him anyway and ends up trying to survive a shooting match.

-->'''Jimmy:''' [[ExactWords Technically, I did]] ''[[ExactWords not]]'' [[ExactWords leave the car.]]

* On ''Series/SupermanAndLois'' this gets Subverted and to an extent Lampshaded. When investigating a drug processing facility with her father Sam and her (superpowered) teenage son Jordan, Lois Lane, legendary DistressedDamsel, demands that Jordan wait in the car while she and her father check out the place. They get captured quickly and are tied up by the criminals. This leads to a discussion about knots and Sam asking Lois how many times she has been tied up that she knows so much about it. When the crooks are about to execute them both, Lois caves in and calls out to Jordan. Who comes into the warehouse and promptly beats down two superpowered thugs.

* As shown above in the page image, during The Subspace Emissary in ''VideoGame/SuperSmashBros'', [[VideoGame/MetalGear Snake]] is very clear to [[Franchise/TheLegendOfZelda Zelda]] and [[Franchise/SuperMarioBros Peach]]. They don't actually listen to him, but do manage to make themselves quite useful. Peach manages to recruit Fox, and they both help out in the fight against Duon, after which Peach adds yet ''another'' useful member into the team: Mr. Game & Watch.

* ''Film/SkyCaptainAndTheWorldOfTomorrow''. Sky Captain tells Poly Perkins to "stay here" when he goes after the person who mortally wounded Dr. Jennings, and tells the group he's with (including Polly) to "wait here" when he's about to confront the robots guarding Dr. Totenkopf's lair. In each case Polly obeys him, which is a surprise because of how assertive and independent she is.

* ComicBook/LoisLane is, of course, the queen of this trope in every incarnation she's appeared in. ComicBook/JimmyOlsen ties a close second.
* In the original Gold Key ''ComicBook/MagnusRobotFighter'', Leeja Clane would, on the fairly uncommon times Magnus told her to stay out of harms way, do exactly that. Until something happened that Magnus needed to be urgently told about. Then Leeja would try to find him and only then be caught by the villain. Unlike ''Star Trek'', nobody in North Am thought of personal, portable communications.

Often parodied if the character being told to wait is incapacited and thus unable to do anything ''other'' than wait. See HeroHarassesHelpers for when the hero rudely rejects the help of other characters to fight with him. See MostDefinitelyNotAccompanyingUs when a junior character wants to come along but is told off (which rarely works). Not to be confused with FineYouCanJustWaitHereAlone.

* ''Film/TheMask''. Stanley Ipkiss does this to his dog Milo before going to confront Dorian Tyrell. Of course Milo disobeys, follows him and saves the day.

* In ''Film/GreenLantern'', Hal Jordan tells [[LoveInterests Carol Ferris]] to "Stay here" as he goes off to fight [[BigBad Parallax]]. Considering that the two of them have just witnessed Parallax [[YouHaveFailedMe brutally murder his own minion]], Carol readily agrees. But after Hal immediately gets himself into trouble, Carol saves the day.

* In the first chapter of ''Manga/SpyXFamily'', Twilight tells Anya to stay in the apartment while he goes to meet his informant. She tries tagging along, but he thwarts her every attempt to follow him (including sneaking through the ceiling vents), eventually moving a heavy cabinet in front of the door to keep her from opening it. While he's gone, Anya manages to get into Twilight's spy gear and accidentally sends a message to the enemy government, which tracks it. Twilight comes back to find Ostanian goons have kidnapped Anya and are waiting to ambush him.