fuckyeah robin / raven

Intruder! Tower Main Entrance... Intruder!

Dick bolted upright like a Pavlovian response. Without warning, the room blazed with light, shining red, white, and yellow straight into his face. It was blindingly bright as his computer began to flash incessantly with the same alert.

Intruder! Tower Main Entrance... Intruder!

Something had tripped the Tower's silent alarm. Or maybe even someone. Dick felt an odd excitement stirring in his bones. Surely, he could take care of this one on his own. There was no need to even wake the team. If he were to be completely honest, he longed for danger and the thrill that accompanied it. It was the only thing that could make him feel alive anymore. A leader shouldn’t open himself up to constant risk. But this was different. It wasn't as if he had gone out to seek it this time. So Vic couldn't tell him he was being reckless when it had come to him directly.

Who could fault him for defending the Tower?

He molded with the shadows as he propelled forward, cutting around corners and bending behind archways. He tried not to think about what or whom he was channeling as he crept along. Sleepless nights and overwork meant that Dick had lost a little muscle mass, but he hadn't lost a step. He was silent and stealthy as ever. 

At last, he saw it: A silhouette of an intruder gliding through the west entryway to the Operations Room of the Tower. Were they trying to get in using the cover of darkness? Well, they were in for it now. Trespassing was enough of a pretense. His lip curled into a sneer as he approached deadly and dangerous. 

"Don't. Move."

The figure froze.

"You have exactly ten seconds to explain who the hell you are, and what the hell you're doing here." He paused. There was still no answer, just more dead air. "Staying silent? Bad move. Whoever you are, you better start talking—now." 

His escrima sticks cast crackling spotlights in the dark. They oscillated with blue electricity as he approached—far less cautiously than he should. The shroud leapt backward. And the umbras seemed to move with it, like a squid hovering above the ocean floor, using ink clouds of its own making for cover. Something was eerily familiar about it all. He tried to shake the feeling that he recognized the way this shadowy figure was moving.

But it couldn't be. 

He'd dreamt about it enough times. But… There was just no way.

"Fine." He widened his stance, the escrima sticks moving like electric nun-chucks. Though his body's rhythm was languid, it was seamless. Second nature. But mercy wasn’t anymore. "Don't say I didn't warn you—"

"Wait!" The hoarse voice was insistent. "It's me." The cyan pulses outlined an outstretched hand and a pale visage, widened eyes. That face... Her face. "Please, don't."

The weapons clattered to the floor with a resounding clang.

An ebony brow creased in confusion. He gazed blankly, struck dumb, as a petite girl walked into the moonbeams and electronic sea of dotted blues and greens. It was her standing in the entrance. It was her in a tiny black sweater and baggy low rise jeans. Really her, like no time had passed at all. She took a single step, letting the duffel bag slip off her shoulder to land in a noisy heap on the ground.

He fell out of his fighting stance—he was powerless against her. She had overtaken him completely without drawing her magic or a fist.

"Raven."

"Dick, I—" Her voice was barely audible. "I thought... No one would be awake—at this hour..." But he was. Dick's eyes were growing wider and wider. "Hi..."

"Raven," he repeated, dumbly. He knew nothing else but her name. Because it was her. All he could think of was the fact that it was her.

"I'm sorry I didn't call first," Raven croaked. She swallowed, blinking quickly. "Maybe I shouldn't have come... I can go—"

"You're not going anywhere." Dick's voice rumbled low and threatening. Suddenly, he rushed forward again. Then, he grabbed her. Not to apprehend her, but to hold her, to bring her into a full and tight embrace. Lifting her off the ground, cradling her to his chest. Threading his fingers through her hair. Touching her. Breathing her in as deeply as he could. "Raven, you came back." There was a river of emotions rushing and Raven was quickly swept away as the flood poured through the cracks in the dam of their bond to break free. Her legs shook until they gave out. And she closed her eyes and let him hold her and hold her up.

"You're back—you came back."

"Yes," Raven whispered. "I did—I am."

"You came back to me," Dick said, almost questioningly. He brushed the longer locks out of her eyes as he searched them. They were different. Her hair was different. 

It didn't matter. Not just this second. Not ever. Not when he'd soon be able to open her up and search her at his leisure. He registered this briefly before his mind went blank and he crushed his mouth hard into hers. She melted into him, so he could drink her up, after drinking her in.

Dick was unrestrained, claiming her lips furiously, holding her so tightly, his hands fumbling all over her body. He just needed to feel her. Make sure she was really real. Really there before him. Gods, she tasted so damn good. And she felt just like he remembered.

Perhaps a bit thinner, but he didn't care. It was her all the same.

"Dick. Dick, what are we doing—" She whispered on each erratic breath falling between their lips. 

But she knew what they were doing. And what she was doing to him. She let out a squeak of surprise as he pushed into her mouth. He hissed when her tongue pressed back against his. It was so hard and hot, their teeth clashed before they had to breathe. 

"I missed you." Her words tumbled out clumsily. Drunkenly. But she couldn't fight it. "I did."

"Gods, Raven." He grunted in approval, tucking her lip between his. Dick sighed. "I really was losing my mind. A moment ago, I thought you weren't real." Each day had been more painful than the last. "I just...missed you so much."

Acknowledgments came back uneven, overlapping, and less polished than they should have been, but enough.

"And, Cyborg—do something about that alarm."

The Tower cut to silence mid-blare, abrupt and almost jarring in its absence. A few relieved, tired exhalations drifted over the comms.

"Come on, team," Robin added, forcing his tone lighter than it felt. "The faster we move, the faster we're done."

He didn't wait for a response.

He took the stairs two at a time, boots striking metal in sharp, controlled impacts, his body moving on instinct even as something underneath it lagged half a beat behind. His mind tried to fall into its usual rhythm—floor layouts, blind spots, containment points—but it kept snagging on the same thing.

Fire alarm. Too sudden. Too loud. No warning.

His breath came a fraction too shallow, the inhale stopping just short before he forced it deeper, evening it out before it could show. He adjusted his grip on the railing, grounding himself in the solid, familiar weight of it, in the pattern of movement he knew by muscle memory alone.

Routine. This was just routine—just another Monday.

"Upper levels clear," he reported into the comm as he hit the landing, even though he'd barely crossed the threshold yet, already stepping into the hallway, already scanning. "No visible smoke." His voice didn't waver.

The corridor stretched out in front of him, quiet now, the red emergency lights still pulsing in slow intervals along the walls. Too similar. Too close to something else—something his brain tried to fill in before he shut it down. His breath came in short pants. Not now, he pushed down the rising panic. Bootsteps steady. Breathing measured. Focus forward.

"Starfire?" he prompted.

"All is clear on my end, Robin," she replied, bright even through the comm.

"Beast Boy?"

"Yeah, yeah—nothing here but my desire to go back to bed."

"Stay sharp." He reached the upper landing door and pushed through without slowing, scanning as he moved—hallway clear, lights steady, no heat signature, no smoke. Good. Keep moving. Keep it contained. Inhale. Exhale.

He pivoted toward the corridor Raven had been assigned without thinking twice.

"Raven, status," he said into the comm, already moving.

Silence. Not static. Or interference. Just—nothing.

Something in his chest tightened before he could stop it, sharp and immediate, the kind of reaction he usually caught before it surfaced. His next breath came too fast, too shallow—he cut it off, forced it back into rhythm.

"Raven," he repeated, a fraction more force behind it now.

No answer.

He picked up his pace. "Raven, respond."

Nothing.

The hallway narrowed, then widened near the observation windows—and as he rounded the corner, he stopped.

She was there.

Standing in the middle of the corridor, exactly where the space opened up, her back half-turned toward him, shoulders rigid beneath the fall of her cloak. The red emergency lights pulsed over her in slow intervals, catching in her hair, along the edge of her jaw, painting her in something that looked too close to fire.

And she wasn't moving.

Not scanning. Not reacting. Not even turning at the sound of his approach. She was just… still.

"Raven." He said her name out loud this time, sharper, closing the distance between them in three quick strides—but something in the way she held herself made him slow before he reached her.

It wasn't hesitation. It was wrong.

Her hands hung at her sides, fingers curled just slightly, tension locked into them without release. Her breathing was off—too shallow, too uneven, barely there—and even in the silence, he could hear it. Her cloak was missing.

For a split second, something in him mirrored it.

Her breathing was too fast and too sharp.

The quiet, the red light, the sudden stop in motion—it pressed in at the edges of his awareness, threatening to pull him sideways into something instinctive and unhelpful. He shut it down. Not now. Not here. Robin took control of his mind and snapped into leader mode.

"Raven," he tried again, lower this time, stepping into her line of sight, angling himself so he could see her face.

Her gaze didn't shift. She didn't track him. Her eyes were locked onto something that wasn't there.

Recognition hit, fast and precise. This was not a physical threat. It was internal.

Robin exhaled slowly through his nose, forcing the breath to steady, to even out, to give him something solid to work with. The edge left his voice—not because he didn't feel it, but because he chose not to let it stay.

"Raven," he said again, quieter now, controlled in a different way as he stepped closer, careful not to crowd her. "We're going to move, okay?"

No response. That was fine. He adjusted.

"Just a few steps," he added, softer, reaching out—not grabbing, not pulling—just enough to guide.

Her body resisted for a fraction of a second, then followed, stiff, unsteady.

He led her to the wall, easing her down with deliberate care, his hand steady even as he had to consciously slow his own breathing to match the pace he was asking of her.

"Okay," he murmured, lowering himself in front of her, bringing himself into her line of sight. "Good."

The alarm cut through the space again, louder here, closer to the source, vibrating through the walls and the floor. Her shoulders flinched—just barely, but it was there. He saw black energy spark at her fingertips, her eyes flashing white for the briefest second, and that was enough to snap something sharp and immediate through him.

"Cyborg," Robin bit out into the comm, the word tight, controlled only by force.

"I know, dude," Cyborg shot back. "It's Gizmo trying to break in. Give me a second."

A moment later, the noise dropped out, the flashing lights cutting with it, leaving the corridor in a sudden, almost disorienting silence.

Robin didn't waste it. He dropped into a crouch in front of her, closing the distance fully now. "Raven," he said, steady but low, like he was speaking directly into the space she was trapped in rather than the hallway around them. "You're not there. You're in the Tower—top floor, west corridor. You're with me." He reached for her hand, pale against the green of his gloves, grounding himself as much as her when he closed his fingers around it.

Still no response.

Her breathing hitched again, sharp and uneven, and her grip tightened around his so suddenly it bordered on painful. "Raven," he tried again, softer now, slowing everything down on purpose. "Focus on my voice."

The alarm screamed back to life.

Her eyes squeezed shut like she could block it out, but when they opened again, they were still gone—still locked somewhere he couldn't reach.

"Cyborg," Robin hissed, the control slipping just enough to show through. "Now."

"Working on it!"

The sound cut again, the silence returning in jagged pieces.

Robin exhaled slowly, forcing his own breathing back under control, and made a decision before hesitation could take hold. He took Raven's other hand, lifting both of them into her line of sight, anchoring her in something physical, something immediate.

Her entire body went rigid at the movement.

"Easy," he murmured immediately, not pulling away, not tightening his hold. "Just me."

He shifted closer, deliberately placing himself where she couldn't avoid him, lowering his voice even further so it settled beneath everything else instead of competing with it. "Listen to me," he said, each word spaced and intentional. "You're here. You're safe. See? There's no fire on this level."

Her breathing stuttered again as the lights flickered back to life, red washing over them in slow, pulsing intervals, and that was when he noticed it—her lips were moving.

"Raven," he said, a little firmer now, grounding without pushing. "Look at me."

Another pulse of red light followed by another sharp blare, and this time she broke. She yanked her hands out of his grip, clamping them over her ears as she folded in on herself, burying her head against her knees with a strained, desperate cry. "Stop it!"

Robin's jaw clenched, frustration flashing hot and immediate before he forced it back down. "Cyborg, private channel."

"What!" Cyborg spat. There was a moment of silence before Cyborg was back. "Look, I'm trying—"

"Raven is having a panic attack," Robin cut in, the words controlled but urgent. "We're lucky nothing in this tower is exploding right now."

There was a beat of silence, and then Cyborg's voice shifted completely. "Oh. Okay. Is she—?"

"I'm handling it," Robin said, exhaling sharply through his nose. "But every time the alarm goes off, it sets her off again."

"Got it. Look, I'm going to have to reboot everything. Just keep her steady."

"Do it." The channel cut, and Robin's focus snapped back to her immediately. "Raven," he said, gentler now, reaching for her again, lifting her head just enough so she couldn't disappear completely. His fingers settled lightly at her temples, not restraining, just anchoring. "Talk to me. Anything. Tell me what's going on in your head; tell me what you're seeing." He didn't expect her to respond, nearly giving up when he was met with silence. The pressure in his chest lessened when she finally spoke.

"It's—" she gasped, the word breaking apart as her breath hitched. "It's loud—so loud—"

"I know," he said quickly, brushing damp strands of hair back from her face without thinking about it. "I know. Cyborg's fixing it."

She shook her head hard. "No. No, that won't— they won't stop—"

"It's just the fire alarm," he tried, though he already knew that wasn't where she was. "You're okay."

"There's so much smoke," she choked out, the words catching over each other. "And—stones—they're breaking—through the walls—no—" She sucked in a sharp breath, the sound scraping on the way in.

Robin didn't interrupt her or try to correct her. Whatever she was seeing, she wasn't here, and forcing reality on her too soon would only push her further away.

"They—he's burning them," she gasped, her entire body beginning to shake now, the tremor running through her like it had nowhere to go.

And then the words came faster, spilling out in fragments, some in English, some not—temple, stone, cracking, something he couldn't translate, something about the sky, something about blood, more he couldn't translate—and Robin felt something twist tight in his chest because he didn't understand any of it. He just knew it was wrong, and that she was reliving something awful. For the umpteenth time since the team's formation six months ago, he wished he knew more about her.

"Raven," he said softly, wiping at the tears slipping from her unfocused stare, the gesture automatic, unplanned. "You're not there. You're here. With me."

"I can't—stop it," she choked, tears falling freely now, unrestrained in a way he had never seen before. "I can't—stop it. They're—all in pain."

Something sharp hit him in the chest, but he pushed it down, locked it away, because she needed him steady. "Raven," he said, firmer now, grounding again. "Look at me."

Her head shifted, just barely, but it was enough.

"You're here," he pressed, slower, deliberate. "On Earth. In Jump City. In Titan's Tower."

Her eyes dragged toward him, unfocused but closer. "They're screaming," she whispered. "I can't help them."

"They aren't screaming," he spoke steadily despite the way something in him resisted saying it. "They aren't, because you're not there anymore."

"Everything is burning—and I can feel it all—"

Robin didn't understand the place or the memory or the way she carried it like sensation instead of recollection, but he understood enough to know she was drowning in it. "Raven," he said, quieter now but more urgent, "you're here. Top floor. No fire. No collapse. No one's hurt."

Her breathing stuttered again—but it didn't spike.

"Feel this," he said, guiding her hand up, pressing it lightly against his temple. He took her other hand and placed it over his chest, leaning forward until his forehead rested gently against her chakra stone. "Sense me. This is real. I'm real. Focus on that. Stay with that."

Her fingers twitched.

Robin didn't know how he knew, but he could feel it—the shift, subtle but real, like something fragile beginning to settle back into place. "Good," he murmured, the word soft, almost instinctive. "Stay here. Feel my heart. You're doing fine."

Her head dipped slightly, not quite a nod, but no longer resisting. "They—" she tried again, weaker now, like the words were losing their hold. "They didn't—"

"It's over," he said gently, cutting in before she could fall back into it. "Whatever happened—it's over…and you're not there anymore."

Her lips parted, like she might argue, like she might correct him—but nothing came out.

"You're here," he said again, quieter now, no force behind it this time. "With me. Just breathe."

Robin felt the exact moment she began to come back to herself.

The silence had settled fully now—the alarm gone, the lights no longer flashing—so Cyborg must have finally gotten the system under control. As if on cue—

"Yo, Rob," Cyborg's voice came through a private channel. "How's Raven?"

"She's calming down."

"Keep me updated."

"Will do."

Raven's eyes finally settled on him, focus sharpening in slow, uneven increments, like she was pulling herself back piece by piece. Her brow furrowed when she realized how close he was. "R-Robin?" she said, her voice still unsteady.

"You're okay," he said, like it was already true.

"I—"

"Just breathe," he said gently. "Give your mind a second to catch up."

She nodded faintly and began matching her breaths to his.

He adjusted slightly, his thumb brushing once across the back of her knuckles in a small, grounding motion that felt more deliberate than he intended.

"That's it," he murmured. "Stay here."

Raven exhaled, longer this time, steadier, the lingering edge of panic fading into something distant, something she could manage. "I'm… fine now," she said, though it didn't quite sound like she believed it.

"Yeah," he replied quietly. "You are."

For a moment, neither of them moved.

Then Raven became aware of it all at once—the closeness, his hands, the way her back was pressed firmly against the wall behind her, leaving nowhere to retreat even if she wanted to. "…Thank you," she said finally, more sincere than she intended.

"No problem," he said, already beginning to pull away—slowly, carefully, like he didn't want to disrupt whatever balance they had found. "Do you remember what happened?" he asked.

She hesitated, then exhaled. "The alarm went off… and I was already in a nightmare." Her voice softened slightly. "I don't think I fully woke up."

Robin nodded.

She was about to say more, but something caught her attention—subtle, almost imperceptible. His breathing.

Each inhale was measured, deliberate, like he was forcing it into rhythm rather than letting it come naturally. His chest rose just a fraction too sharply for someone who claimed everything was fine.

Her gaze lifted, studying him more closely. Robin held steady, posture composed, expression controlled—but the longer she looked, the more it showed. The tension in his jaw. The way his shoulders hadn't fully relaxed. The careful pacing of every breath.

Raven flattened her hand slightly against his chest, grounding herself in it as much as reading it.

He wasn't calm, though he was trying to be. "You're not…" she said quietly, hesitant but certain. "You're not okay."

He blinked once, caught off guard. "I'm fine," he said automatically, too quickly.

Raven didn't look away. "You're not," she repeated.

For a moment, he said nothing. Something in his expression shifted—not breaking, not unraveling, just… loosening, like he was deciding whether to let her see it.

When he spoke again, his voice was still controlled—but not as tightly. "Does it matter?"

Raven held his gaze, her hand still resting lightly against him. "I think it does," she said. Because this quiet, deliberate effort, this refusal to let his own reaction take precedence over hers wasn't something she had expected. Not from him. "You stayed," she added softly. "Even when you didn't understand. Even when you were unsteady."

Robin studied her for a moment. "I don't like them," he admitted finally.

Raven frowned slightly. "Alarms?"

"Not just alarms," he said. "Anything that hits without warning." He paused, searching. "Fireworks, for example. The kind that go off when they're not scheduled. People in Gotham are always looking for an excuse to set off fireworks. Used to drive me nuts."

Raven blinked. That was… oddly specific.

"They're loud," he continued, quieter now. "Disorienting. You don't know where it's coming from, how long it's going to last, if it's just noise—or something worse." He exhaled slowly, slowly caressing the hand resting against his chest. "I don't like not knowing."

Raven watched him carefully, something in her expression softening—not in pity, but in recognition. "You don't show it," she said.

"Show what?"

"The unsteadiness."

He shook his head slightly. "No." A beat passed. "I manage it."

Something in her chest tightened at that, because she understood it too well. She looked down at her hands, her fingers curling loosely into her palms, the echo of panic still lingering in them. She paid attention to his green-clothed fingers subtly rubbing circles into the back of her hand. "You do more than manage," she said quietly. "You were panicking too, and you still stayed in control."

"Tricks of the trade," Robin replied with a faint smirk.

"You'd think with all the meditation I do, I'd be better at controlling the panic." Her voice faltered.

"Raven—"

"I mean, I usually am," she corrected, softer now, reluctant. "I don't let it get that far." Her jaw tightened slightly. "But I wasn't… here. Not completely."

Robin didn't interrupt.

"I think I was still in the nightmare when the alarm went off," she added, the words slow, deliberate.

That explained it.

"I'm sorry," she said after a moment. "I should have handled it."

"Raven," Robin said, steady but firm, "there's nothing to apologize for. And you did handle it."

She frowned faintly. "I froze."

"And then you came back," he replied. "That counts."

She didn't argue—but the shame didn't fully leave her expression.

Robin watched her, something shifting in his gaze. Not analytical. Not strategic. Just… thoughtful. Because this wasn't something he had planned for. It wasn't something he could prepare for or study or solve from a distance.

And for the first time, he realized that had been the problem. He'd been trying to understand Raven the same way he understood everything else—through patterns, observation, controlled distance. Learning what she liked, what she avoided, where her boundaries were, and staying carefully within them.

It wasn't enough.

Because this—this wasn't something she showed. This was something she hid. If he wanted to understand her—not just work beside her, not just anticipate her—then he couldn't keep approaching her like a problem to solve. He'd have to move differently. More carefully.

He couldn't operate like a strategist mapping out terrain— but like someone standing too close to an open flame, aware that one wrong move, one careless assumption, could burn.

Robin exhaled slowly, the thought settling into something real. "…I've been doing this wrong," he admitted, almost to himself.

Raven glanced at him, confusion flickering through her exhaustion. "Doing what?"

He hesitated, then shook his head once. "Trying to understand you."

Her expression tightened immediately. "Why would you want to do that?" she asked, quieter now, but sharper. "I'm not—" She cut herself off, then forced it out anyway. "I'm not worth it. Why do want to know me?"

Robin stilled.

She was already pulling back, folding in on herself, retreating behind something familiar.

"We've been a team for six months," he said, keeping his voice even. "I want to understand know everyone."

"I'm not worth it," she repeated, more force this time, her eyes hardening as the mask snapped back into place.

"Why do you think that?" he asked, genuine, not pushing—just asking.

Raven went completely still. Then, slowly, she pushed herself to her feet. "Thank you for calming me," she said, controlled again. Distant. "I'm sorry. I just… I'll finish checking the west corridor."

And before he could respond, she turned and walked away. Robin didn't stop her. He just watched.

She moved like nothing had happened—like the last several minutes hadn't existed at all—but he knew better now. He could see it in the way she held herself, in the things she didn't say.

He'd been wrong about her. Not completely wrong—but wrong enough. If he wanted to figure out what she was hiding, he couldn't push. He couldn't corner her. He'd have to approach her the same way he'd approach anything volatile—carefully.

There were no excess words in the document, no wasted space or lingering thoughts. Every line served a purpose, each section breaking down into clear, calculated steps that moved with a kind of quiet inevitability from one phase to the next. Environmental conditions were listed first, stripped down to the essentials. Next came lighting variables, spatial constraints, proximity thresholds—each one chosen not for complexity, but for reliability. Nothing unpredictable, nothing that relied on chance. Everything had to be repeatable.

From there, it narrowed.

He listed pressure points, both literal and strategic, mapped with careful detail. Angles. Timing windows measured in seconds rather than guesses. Contingencies that accounted for deviation without ever allowing for collapse. It wasn't a plan built to fight so much as it was to deescalate. From what he'd seen so far, deescalating would be the best they could hope for…unless someone was able to successfully place a bullet between her eye sockets.

He had a list of chemicals and concoctions that could possibly work to slow her down if need be…maybe. Robin groaned. How B was able to build his own Doomsday Protocol after just a few interactions with the League, Robin did not know.

Robin's fingers hovered over the keyboard for a moment longer than necessary as he read through the final section again, not because anything needed to be corrected, but because he knew exactly what it was he was looking at. There were no gaps left, no weak points he hadn't already reinforced, no lingering uncertainties waiting to be resolved. It was complete in a way that most plans never were, distilled down to its most essential form, stripped of anything that might complicate it.

Based on all the information he knew, this plan would work.

That was the problem, though. He knew for a fact, that he didn't have all of the information. He didn't know how powerful she was, she was the hardest to read—and they didn't exactly go out of their way to socialize with one another. "Not that she'd open up to me if we did," Robin muttered.

His gaze lingered on the screen, not moving, not shifting, as the reality of that settled in the space between thought and action. There had been a point, earlier in the night, where this had still felt hypothetical, still carried the distance of something that existed only because it had to, not because it ever would. Now that distance was gone, replaced by something quieter and far more concrete, something that sat in the finality of the document in front of him.

A last resort. A line that, once crossed, wouldn't be undone.

He exhaled slowly, the breath measured, controlled as he made his decision.

His hands moved again, quick and precise, navigating to the final command without pause. The cursor blinked once, twice, before he selected it, the motion almost automatic now, plan the decision already made long before this moment had arrived.

SAVE.

The soft confirmation sound was barely audible in the quiet room, but it carried anyway, sharp enough to mark the shift from something unfinished into something set, something that now existed beyond thought or intention. The file name remained exactly where it was, unchanged, stark against the rest of the interface. He was finally finished.

Protocol: Vanilla.

He leaned back slightly in his chair, shoulders still squared, posture still controlled. For a long moment, he just sat there, unmoving, eyes no longer fixed on anything in particular, as if the weight of what he had done hadn't quite caught up to him yet. It was weird, coming up with a plan to immobilize the people he was meant to entrust with his life and vice versa. He didn't know how Batman did it? Then again, the whole point of this endeavor was to step out of his mentor's shadow. With that thought in mind, Robin couldn't help but wonder, Why did I create the Vanilla Protocol?

(Four years later)

The laptop gave up with a soft, defeated crackle, the screen flashing once before dissolving into a thin ribbon of smoke that curled upward in lazy, uneven spirals. The room smelled faintly of burnt circuitry, sharp and metallic. Cyborg stared at it for a moment, unmoving, one brow lifting slowly as he shifted his gaze from the dying machine to Raven, who stood a few feet away with her arms loosely folded, her expression composed in that way that usually meant something had already gone wrong. "I may have… lost my temper," she said, her voice even, almost thoughtful, as though she were reporting on someone else's mistake rather than her own.

Cyborg barked out a laugh, the sound cutting easily through the quiet. "Man, I swear, you and technology have beef on a personal level," he said, stepping forward to nudge the laptop closed with the side of his hand, as if that might somehow make it less broken. "Like, what did this one even do to you?"

Raven didn't answer right away, her gaze drifting briefly to the faint smoke still rising from the seams of the device before she looked away again. "It stopped responding," she said, which was technically true, even if it left out everything that had happened in the seconds before.

"Uh-huh," Cyborg replied, unconvinced but not pushing it, already turning toward the far side of the room where an older workstation sat tucked beneath a bank of monitors. He crouched slightly, pulling open a lower compartment with a practiced motion, and after a second of rummaging, he came back up with another laptop in hand, the casing worn at the edges but still intact. "Good thing we keep backups of everything," he added, flipping it once in his grip before setting it down on the desk in front of her.

Raven watched him, a flicker of disgusted annoyance passed through her eyes. "I still don't understand why this is necessary," she said, quieter now, though not uncertain. "Hacking, encryption, bypassing security systems—it won't matter in the long run. None of this does."

"You can't rely on your magic," Cyborg said.

"That's not what I mean," Raven mumbled.

Cyborg paused, one hand resting on the back of the chair as he looked at her, really looked at her this time, as if weighing the words rather than brushing past them. For a second, the humor slipped, replaced by something steadier, something grounded. "C'mon, Rae," he said, his tone shifting just enough to carry the edge of something more serious, "don't tell me you've already thrown in the towel?"

Raven's gaze narrowed slightly, not in anger, but in quiet resistance. "I'm not giving up," she replied. "I'm simply stating the obvious."

"And that," Cyborg said, tapping the lid of the laptop lightly before pushing it open, the screen flickering to life with a soft glow, "is exactly what quitter talk sounds like."

She didn't respond, but the faint tightening at the corner of her mouth said enough.

He stepped aside, gesturing toward the chair. "Sit," he said, not unkindly, just firm. "Try again. Slow this time. No blowing up the hardware."

Raven moved without protest, lowering herself into the seat with a kind of deliberate calm that didn't quite match the faint tension in her shoulders. The laptop hummed softly as it booted up, older software loading in layers that felt almost archaic compared to what the Tower ran now. Cyborg leaned over her shoulder for a second, pulling up a basic terminal interface, something stripped down and simple, before stepping back again. "I'll check on you in thirty," he said, already turning toward the door. "If this one starts smoking, I'm charging you for it."

"It won't," Raven replied, her voice quiet but certain.

He paused at the threshold, glancing back at her with a half-smile. "That's what you said about the last one. Have fun now!" Then he was gone, the door sliding shut behind him with a soft hiss that left the room steeped once more in that late-night stillness, broken only by the low hum of systems and the faint tap of keys as Raven began again.

For a while, it was exactly what he had asked for—slow, controlled, precise. She moved through the interface carefully this time, tracing commands instead of forcing them, letting the logic unfold step by step rather than bending it to her will. The frustration was still there, just beneath the surface, but it didn't spike, didn't flare. It settled instead, contained in the steady rhythm of her breathing and the measured movement of her hands.

It worked. Not perfectly, but…it was good enough.

Minutes passed without her noticing, the world narrowing down to lines of text and the quiet focus of problem-solving, until something shifted—a directory she hadn't opened before, nested deeper than the rest, tucked beneath layers that hadn't been part of the exercise Cyborg had given her. It wasn't unusual for systems like this to hold old files, fragments of past work left behind in corners no one bothered to clear out, but something about this one caught her attention.

It was the name. Protocol: Vanilla

She scoffed. "What is this…porn or something?"

Raven stilled, her fingers hovering just above the keyboard, the command half-formed in her mind before she even realized she was considering it. The word itself felt almost out of place here, too soft for the structure surrounding it, too simple for something buried this deliberately. She told herself it didn't matter, and that she didn't care. But she was curious. Without another thought, she opened it.

The file unfolded in clean lines, structured with a precision that felt immediately familiar, even after all this time. There was no clutter, no wasted space, no excess explanation—just a sequence of steps, organized and deliberate, moving from one point to the next with a kind of quiet inevitability.

It took her less than a second to understand what she was looking at. Her breath didn't catch, didn't falter. It simply slowed. This…was a plan. A very good plan…to neutralize her. Everything was so specific in a way that left no room for misinterpretation. Environmental variables outlined in careful detail, each one chosen with intent. Spatial limitations designed to narrow movement, to contain rather than confront. Timing windows measured down to seconds, built around patterns she knew intimately. It was all her—her habits, her reactions, the way her powers moved when they weren't fully restrained.

Raven read on, her eyes moving steadily across the screen, absorbing each line without pause.

Pressure points mapped with an accuracy that spoke of observation, of study, of time spent understanding not just what she could do, but how she did it. There were contingencies layered beneath contingencies, each one accounting for variation without ever losing the thread of the objective.

Neutralize. Deescalate. The word weren't written anywhere in the document, but nothing in these plans was fatal.

Vanilla.

Her fingers lowered slowly to the edge of the laptop, not touching the keys this time, just resting there as if grounding herself in something physical might change what she was seeing. It didn't. She kept reading.

There were timestamps embedded in the file, fragments of its creation scattered across months, years, revisions layered over revisions in a way that made it clear this hadn't been written in a single night or a moment of fear. It had been built, piece by piece, refined, adjusted, perfected. For years. It also hadn't been touched in over a year.

Raven frowned. Why'd he stop?

Raven closed the file with a single, precise movement, the screen returning to the neutral interface it had held before. Her hands remained where they were, her gaze fixed somewhere just past the screen, unfocused but not empty. There was no immediate reaction, no surge of anger or sharp spike of hurt, nothing that broke the stillness that settled over her like a second skin.

She felt…nothing. She didn't even feel betrayal. He's more perceptive than I thought. Her heart raced a little at the thought of Robin watching her so closely. I wonder what else he's noticed?

The Tower was settling into evening, the light outside dimmed just enough to blur the skyline into something softer, while inside, everything carried on with its usual quiet precision. The training floor still echoed faintly in Robin's muscles as he made his way down the corridor, the residual rhythm of movement lingering in his body, controlled and steady, the kind of exhaustion he preferred because it meant everything had gone exactly the way it was supposed to. As much as he loved training with his team, he loved his solo sessions even more. No variables. No unpredictability. Just repetition, refinement, control.

By the time he reached the kitchen, that focus had already started to unwind, easing into something looser, more automatic. The door slid open with a soft hiss, and he stepped inside, reaching up absently to pull off his gloves as he crossed the threshold.

Raven was already there. She sat at the counter, one elbow resting against the smooth surface, her posture composed in that familiar way that made her look almost untouched by the passage of time around her. There was a laptop open in front of her, its screen casting a low glow across her face, though she wasn't actively typing, her hands resting still on either side of it. The room itself was quiet, the hum of appliances low and constant, the faint scent of something sweet—vanilla and lilac—specifically her scent.

Robin slowed slightly, not stopping, just adjusting as he took her in, the stillness of her presence registering somewhere just beneath the surface of his awareness. "Didn't expect you to still be up," he said, his voice casual, easy, as he moved toward the counter, dropping his gloves beside the sink. "Figured Cyborg would've either converted you to the cult of technology by now or sworn off teaching you entirely."

There was a beat of silence…which wasn't unusual. He simply walked over to the fridge and grabbed a bottle of water.

"You named it 'Vanilla?'"

Robin frowned slightly, the words not quite landing at first, his mind still half-turned toward the rhythm of training, the ease of the moment before. He turned back to Raven. "Named what—" He stopped, looking at the open laptop in front of her. It wasn't a gradual realization. It didn't unfold piece by piece or leave room for confusion. It hit all at once, sharp and immediate, snapping into place with a clarity that made everything else fall away just as quickly. For a second, he didn't move. He was too busy gauging her reaction.

"How?" he asked, the word quieter now, more controlled.

Raven's gaze didn't waver as it met his without hesitation. "I destroyed another laptop," she said, as if she were recounting something minor, something inconsequential. "I guess Cyborg decided to use one of your old ones." There was no accusation in her tone, no sharpness, no trace of anger. It was just a statement of simple fact. "I found it," she added, after a moment, as if the explanation needed nothing more.

Robin exhaled slowly, the breath measured, contained, though the tension that followed it settled quickly into the line of his shoulders. He glanced away for a second, just long enough to gather himself, to push past the initial reaction before it had the chance to take shape. "It's not—" he started, then paused, adjusting the words before continuing. "It's not what you think."

Raven didn't respond immediately, her expression unchanged, her attention still fixed on him in a way that felt too steady.

"It's not about hurting you…or anyone," he stopped. "Was that the only one?"

"Yes," Raven replied.

Robin mentally exhaled before he went on, his voice firm now, grounded in something more deliberate. "It was a contingency. A last resort. It was there to protect everyone if something went wrong."

Raven listened intently. Then, after a moment, she inclined her head slightly, as if acknowledging the logic of it without fully engaging with it. "It's very thorough," she said, her tone still calm, almost clinical. "You accounted for most variables. Environmental limitations, timing windows, pressure points. I was shocked to see how much attention you paid to my powers. It would work."

Robin's jaw tightened as he analyzed her reaction.

"There are a few areas that should be improved," she continued, her gaze drifting briefly toward the laptop before returning to him. "For example, this section—"

"Stop." The word cut through the space between them, sharper than anything he had said so far, immediate and unyielding.

Raven didn't flinch. She didn't raise her voice, didn't shift her posture, didn't give any outward sign that the interruption had affected her at all. "No," she said simply.

Robin stared at her for a second, something in his expression tightening, the control he carried so easily in every other situation beginning to strain under the weight of what she was doing. Then, without another word, he moved around the counter and sat right next to her, the distance between them narrowing in a way that felt anything but comfortable.

Raven watched him settle, her gaze steady, unbroken. "For weeks," she said, her voice still quiet, still measured, "everyone has known who I am—what I really am."

Robin didn't respond, but the shift in his posture said enough.

"And since then," she continued, "no one has wanted to talk about it. Not really. Not in a way that matters."

"That's not—"

"It is," she said, not louder, just certain, her words slipping in cleanly over his before he could finish. "We avoid it. We move around it. We pretend it isn't something we need to prepare for. Suddenly, I'm IT training with Cyborg, air-sparring with Starfire, nature walks with Beast Boy—" her voice broke off as her hand lifted slightly, gesturing toward the laptop in front of her. "This is preparation," she said. "This is what we should be doing. That other stuff is a waste of time."

Robin leaned forward slightly, his expression tightening further. "We are prepared," he said, his voice controlled, though the edge beneath it was starting to show. "We've been over this—"

"You've been avoiding it," Raven corrected, her tone unchanged. "All of you."

The tension snapped, not outward, not explosive, but sharp enough to shift the air between them. "The reason no one brings it up," Robin said, his voice rising just enough to break through the careful restraint he'd been holding onto, "is because every time we do, you act like it's already over."

Raven's gaze didn't waver. "I'm preparing for the inevitable."

"You're giving up."

The words landed harder than anything else he'd said. For some reason, they hurt more coming from Robin than they did Cyborg. "No one understands what he's capable of," she said, her voice still quiet, but carrying something heavier now, something that pressed against the edges of her control. "No one here has seen it."

"Starfire has," Robin shot back immediately. "She made that pretty clear a few weeks ago. The explanations and visuals she provided were very illuminating."

Raven's expression shifted, not dramatically, but enough to register.

"Starfire's explanation was incomplete," she said. "It was what she could translate into something you would understand."

Robin's hands tightened slightly against the edge of the counter. "It was enough."

"No," Raven replied, her gaze locking onto his with a clarity that left no space for argument, "it was not."

The silence that followed stretched, thick and heavy, filled with everything neither of them had said yet. Both held the other's gaze, neither willing to back down. Then Raven spoke again, her voice steady, final. "You need to be ready to kill me."

Robin gave a chuckle of disdain at the words she had just spoken. "If you really think that's going to happen," he said, his voice controlled but edged with something sharper now, "then you haven't been paying attention."

Raven's eyes flicked away from him for the first time since he had walked into the room, and the small movement carried more irritation than anything she had shown up to this point. She exhaled slowly, the sound quiet but unmistakably weighted, as if she were already tired of explaining something she didn't think needed explanation. "I'm serious."

"So am I," Robin countered, leaning forward slightly, the insistence in his tone firming into something unyielding.

"You created this protocol before you knew who I was, when we just met—and now that you know what I was born for—you want to do nothing with it?"

"Yes."

"What's changed?"

Robin didn't answer that question. Instead, he said, "No one here is giving up on you. Not me. Not anyone on this team. I don't understand why you don't get that."

"Because I know what he does," Raven said, her voice no longer as steady as it had been. "I know what my father does to people who care about me."

Robin didn't interrupt. He merely held her gaze through his masked eyes.

"He doesn't just come for me," she went on. "He comes for them. For anyone who cares for me. He punishes them, without mercy…because he can. Do you really think a can-do attitude is going to stop him?"

"So what do you want to do, Raven?" Robin asked. "Want me to kill you? Do you really want to die?"

"Yes."

"You're lying," Robin accused.

"How do you know that?"

"Because you came to Earth, stayed when the Justice League refused to help you, helped Starfire escape her captors, and you've been saving people for the last five years. Call me crazy, but that doesn't exactly scream, 'I'm ready to die.' It sounds like someone who is ready to fight."

"If you don't incapacitate me," Raven said, "you won't survive him."

"You really think we're doomed?"

Raven paused. "I've seen too much to think otherwise."

"What was your original plan, when you came to Earth?"

"To perish while holding onto the last piece of my mother. I never counted on the Justice League helping me." She looked down. "I didn't count on running into you guys. I never thought I'd stay for this long. Every night I went to bed thinking, 'this is the night I leave.' Before I knew it, a year had gone by—then two. And now here we are. I thought—" she shook her head. "I don't know what I was thinking," she looked away from Robin.

Robin slowly reached for her hand that was resting on the counter and clasped it in his. Raven nearly jumped at the touch, surprised to feel his bare skin on hers. "You're terrified, Raven," Robin spoke softly. " I get that. But please, don't stop fighting. Don't give up. We won't stop—I won't stop fighting for you. So don't stop fighting for yourself."

Raven didn't know what to say. She just sat there and stared at him as he gingerly caressed her hand.

The silence stretched. It lingered long enough to soften the edges of the moment. Raven could feel Robin's intense stare from behind his mask. She really wanted to look away, but there was something there—between them. She couldn't break away.

Finally, Robin exhaled, the tension in his shoulders shifting as he leaned back slightly, his eyes dropping to the counter between them for a second before lifting again to the laptop. "I didn't even know that file was still there," he said, his voice quieter now, the sharpness from before dulled into something more thoughtful, more uncertain. "I could have sworn I deleted all of them."

Raven didn't respond right away. She really wanted to continue their discussion, come up with a plan to destroy her before Trigon reached Earth; but she got the sense that Robin wanted to move on. So she asked, "Why did you name it Vanilla?"

Surprise and embarrassment rolled off of Robin. Clearly, her question had caught him off guard. "What?"

"The protocol," she clarified, her tone returning to something calmer, though not entirely neutral. "Why 'Vanilla?'"

Raven didn't need her powers to sense that Robin was uncomfortable with the question, the shifting in his posture was all that she needed to see.

"It's…" he started, then stopped, clearly reconsidering, his hand lifting slightly before dropping back to the counter. "It's a stupid reason. It made logical sense to me at the time, but looking back—it's just stupid."

Raven only raised a brow.

Robin glanced away, then back again, the movement quick, almost reluctant. "Fine," he relented. "Vanilla's supposed to mean calm." His hand lifted, then dropped, like he didn't quite know what to do with it. "Baseline. Neutral. When you lose control, everything spikes—emotion, power, all of it. The protocol was designed to bring that down. To make you…" He hesitated, then finished anyway. "Vanilla."

Raven pulled a face, though it lacked any real bite.

"I told you it was stupid," Robin muttered, quieter now.

A beat passed.

"Were you eating ice cream when you came up with it?" she asked, her tone dry, but softer than before.

He huffed out a breath. "No. I just—Look, it's not the only reason."

Raven simply looked at him expectantly.

Robin exhaled slowly, already feeling the shift, the way the moment was slipping somewhere he hadn't intended. "When we first met," he said, voice lower now, "I noticed you smelled like… lilac. And vanilla."

Raven blinked.

"And calling it 'Lilac' would've been…" He let out a short, humorless breath. "Too obvious."

Silence followed, lingering differently than before, stretching just long enough to make him aware of how close they were sitting, of how still she'd gone.

Robin narrowed his eyes slightly. "You're laughing at me."

"Not outwardly," she said, though something in her expression betrayed her.

"I was fourteen," he added quickly, like that might fix it. "Give me a break. Saying I named something after a girl with pretty eyes didn't exactly feel like a strong move at the time."

Raven stilled. "You thought I had pretty eyes?" she asked, quieter now, the words slower, more deliberate.

Robin didn't hesitate. "Of course." There was no edge to it this time. His masked gaze held hers—steady, direct, unguarded in a way it hadn't been all night. "I still do."

The words settled between them, softer than anything that had come before, but still heavier.

Raven felt the air tighten just slightly around them. Her pulse kicked, sudden and sharp, and for a second she forgot what she had been about to say. Her eyes flicked away, then back again, like she couldn't decide which was worse—looking at him or not. "I'm glad your naming skills have improved," she said, a little too quickly, the words thinner than she intended.

Robin didn't move. He merely watched her.

"I'm going to bed," Raven said finally, standing from her chair.

Before she could walk away, Robin called out, "Raven."

Raven stopped. When she turned, she was surprised to see Robin standing in front of her with barely any space between them. For a moment, neither of them spoke. Once again, he reached for her hand, fingers brushing hers first—bare skin, warm and real. The contact sent a jolt up her arm before she could stop it. She almost pulled away.

Almost.

Instead, her hand stayed where it was, caught in his, her fingers tightening just slightly in response.

"You're scared," Robin stated softly.

Raven didn't answer. She couldn't.

"But don't stop," Robin continued, his voice lower now, steadier, though something beneath it felt closer to her than it had before. "Don't decide it's over before it starts. We're not done fighting. I'm not done fighting for you." His thumb shifted slightly against her hand, a small, absent motion that felt anything but accidental. "So don't give up on yourself."

Raven stared at him, her thoughts pulling in too many directions at once. His words, his voice, the way he was still holding her like he had no intention of letting go—suddenly the room felt hot.

Robin exhaled, the tension in his shoulders easing just slightly as his gaze dipped, then lifted again toward the laptop. He pushed a few buttons. The file was deleted.

"Why did you do that?" Raven asked breathlessly.

"I don't need it," he answered without hesitation. "I trust you."

Raven felt her hand tighten reflexively before she realized what she was doing. Slowly, she pulled it back, the loss of contact immediate, noticeable in a way that lingered longer than it should have. "I hope you're right," she said.

Robin's mouth curved slightly. "See?" he said. "You said 'hope.'"

Raven shook her head, though it lacked conviction now. "It's a turn of phrase. It means nothing."

"Maybe. Maybe not," he shrugged, staring at her. Neither of them moved. Then, quieter he added, "We'll see."

He stilled immediately and waited. When she settled again, he exhaled quietly, tension easing from his shoulders in a way he hadn't expected. It wasn't fear of waking her—it was the fear of breaking the moment. He had worked, fought, and resisted like hell to get here, and he wasn't about to let it slip away too quickly.

His gaze shifted to the ceiling for a second, then back to her, something more focused settling in behind it now—something that had nothing to do with the present and everything to do with how they had gotten here.

Dick let his hand rest against her again, stilling the movement in her hair as his thoughts finally caught up to him, pulling him backward through everything that had led to this exact moment—every near-miss, every almost, every decision not to cross the line until there hadn't been one left to hold.

The lines between them had blurred long ago. He just hadn't realized it until a year ago.

(ONE YEAR AGO)

The training room had always been predictable—a place where motion followed intention and intention followed discipline, where every strike, every step, every breath existed inside a system Robin could control. It was his place of Zen and clarity, one of the few places in the Tower where he felt truly alive.

That place of calm was exactly what he leaned into now as he adjusted his stance across from Raven, careful in a way that looked like precision but felt like something else entirely. It hadn't always been like this between them—not in the beginning, when she had kept to the edges of every room and he had respected that distance without needing to think about it. Their interactions had been clipped and functional, built on necessity rather than ease. The way they sparred had mirrored their real-life relationship.

But somewhere in the years between then and now, something had shifted—so gradually it had gone unnoticed until it couldn't be ignored anymore. It wasn't until they began sparring more and more that Robin even noticed it.

First, Raven could fight. Robin didn't mean with her powers. No—she was a proficient hand-to-hand fighter. Not on his level, but not too far behind, either. Only, she hadn't shown that part of herself until after she and Robin began spending more and more time together—around year four of them being teammates.

The first time she'd gone all out had befuddled him. Actually, it had downright stunned him into silence. He could only stare, almost stupidly, as she sheepishly explained that she could, in fact, fight… she just hadn't known how to communicate that to him. And by the time she'd worked up the nerve to tell him, he'd already dedicated three months of teaching her martial arts.

Things changed after that.

They began learning each other's fighting styles. Then they began learning each other in fragments—timing in battle, patterns in speech, the quiet allowances that slowly turned into familiarity—and over time, that familiarity softened into something steadier, something that blurred the line between teammate and something not quite defined. Conversations began lasting longer than they needed to. Silences became shared instead of separate. Proximity stopped being incidental and started feeling chosen, even if neither of them had ever said so.

Now, standing across from her, he forced his focus back into the present, into the structure he could still control. He gave the usual instructions without letting his gaze linger too long, keeping his voice even and measured, as devoid of emotion as possible.

Raven didn't respond verbally. She simply shifted into position with that quiet efficiency of hers—then attacked.

He countered slower. Slower than he had ever moved in his vigilante career.

A bead of sweat had begun to roll down her chest, slipping between the line of her cleavage, and he'd been distracted.

He recovered quickly—faster than the lapse deserved—and then their rhythm began.

They were in sync. Each punch, kick, and block executed with clean, practiced precision. She adjusted her fighting style fluidly to match his, responding instead of reacting, anticipating instead of chasing.

With each blocked strike, each moment of skin-to-skin contact, Robin found himself wishing he had suggested sparring with the staff instead. He knew, for a fact, that Raven was terrible with the bo staff. It would have forced distance. It would have kept space between them instead of drawing her closer with every exchange.

Before he realized it, they were grappling—because he had mistimed a kick, and Raven had taken the opening without hesitation.

She moved in, her timing exact, her hand catching his wrist and redirecting it—not pushing him away, but pulling him in. Suddenly, proximity stopped being incidental and became constant, something threaded through every movement instead of hovering at the edges of it.

He felt her everywhere. Grappling wasn't supposed to feel like this. It was supposed to be structured—controlled through leverage and positioning. A sequence of holds and counters designed to create distance even within contact. But every time he shifted to break away, to reestablish that separation, Raven adjusted just enough to keep him there.

Her technique wasn't perfect, which was why she struggled to fully lock and force a hold—but that imperfection worked against him. It kept them in a narrow, unstable space where neither of them fully disengaged. Her shoulder pressed closer when she pivoted to counter his weight. Her grip lingered just a fraction longer than necessary when she redirected his arm.

Transitions that should have opened space folded back into closeness. Reset points disappeared before they could fully form.

Robin tried to correct it once, shifting his stance, angling his body to create a clean break. But Raven followed the movement without thinking. Or maybe she did think. Maybe it was intentional.

He didn't know.

What he did know was that he was losing control of the situation—and he was about to lose the match if he didn't stop her take.

Too late.

They hit the floor hard, momentum carrying them into a roll that should have broken cleanly into separate positions but didn't.

He kept it tight, immediately shifting to recover, turning into the motion instead of away from it, his grip adjusting at her arm, her shoulder—whatever leverage he could claim as they rolled. But every transition fed directly into the next without the usual reset, without that brief separation that allowed control to reestablish itself cleanly.

Raven moved with him—not resisting outright, not forcing distance—just staying within it, matching his adjustments in a way that kept them aligned instead of breaking apart.

Robin should have disengaged. He didn't. Even when a hold broke, he didn't use the opening to create space. He still wanted to win, but he could feel the way her grip lingered just a fraction too long, the way the match should have ended sooner than it did. He was, of course, wrong.

She readjusted masterfully, and their bodies stayed close through transitions that should have pushed them apart. It wasn't uncontrolled. And that was what made it harder to ignore—because if it had been a mistake, one of them would have corrected it by now.

Eventually, he got the upper hand and took control of the match. He shifted his weight, rolled through the last exchange with more force than necessary, turning the momentum in his favor. This time, when the position changed, he didn't leave room for it to collapse back into that same pattern.

He pinned her cleanly—controlled, one hand braced, the other securing the hold, his weight settling into place with practiced precision.

Robin ended on top, breathing heavily, sweat dripping from his hair down his neck.

It should have reset things.

It didn't.

(PRESENT)

The weight of Raven against his chest returned him to the present. Her breathing was warm and steady in a way that felt almost unreal after everything they had been through—and everything they had been before this.

His hand was still in her hair. He hadn't realized he'd stopped moving it.

For a moment, he didn't move at all, letting the contrast settle in, the difference between then and now pressing quietly at the edges of his awareness. A soft chuckle escaped his lips. A year ago, he had been on top of her in a training room, pinned in place by something he hadn't been ready to name, caught between control and something that refused to stay contained inside it. He had filed that moment away under distraction or miscalculation. What he hadn't known then was that it had simply been him drawing a line he didn't want to cross with Raven.

And he had thought keeping well-defined lines with her would be easy. She rarely spoke. She kept to herself. And he'd been an idiot at the time for thinking that was the extent of their friendship. How quickly he'd forgotten their late-night talks that turned into early-morning debates over tea versus coffee. The bond had become so second nature to him that he didn't even see it as anything special, even though it had crossed so many of the lines he had put in place.

As he resumed playing in her hair, Dick realized he had been willfully stupid for a long time. Their friendship had been deep for years. He just hadn't acknowledged it until last year.

He exhaled slowly, his thumb brushing through her hair again, more aware of the motion now, more aware of her in general in a way that felt different from anything before.

They hadn't crossed the line that day in the training room. That moment had ended the way most of their almosts had—unfinished, suspended in a space neither of them had been willing to break. But something had changed after it, something neither of them had said out loud, but neither of them had ignored either.

It had followed them.

(FOUR MONTHS AGO)

The team was gathered in the briefing room, clustered around the main display as it pulsed with data, projections, and fragmented transmissions from the Justice League. The usual noise that filled the space—side comments, light banter, the low hum of casual conversation—had been replaced with something tighter, more controlled. Even Beast Boy wasn't talking.

Apparently, a being named Darkseid was on his way to Earth.

The Justice League had reached out directly. Not through intermediaries, not through coded updates or delayed channels—direct contact. That alone was enough to put everyone on edge. They didn't know when he would reach their solar system. They didn't know what he would do once he arrived. All they knew was that Earth had landed in the despot's crosshairs.

And that meant everything was about to change.

Robin stood at the head of the display, posture straight, voice measured as he relayed what little information they had. His tone didn't shift, didn't crack, didn't betray the weight of what they were facing—but his mind was already moving ahead, calculating outcomes, scenarios, contingencies that didn't have enough data to be fully formed.

Still, even as he spoke, even as he directed the flow of the briefing, part of his attention drifted.

To her.

He tried not to notice how on edge Raven was. He told himself it wasn't relevant to the mission. That her composure—or lack of it—wouldn't affect her performance in the field. That she would do what she always did: adapt, endure, push through.

But he knew her past with them.

And more than that, he could feel it. Their bond wasn't something he fully understood, but it was there, and it was saying she was on alert. It carried a sharp edge of tension he couldn't ignore no matter how hard he tried to stay focused on the task at hand.

Once he finished speaking. Superman took over. Feigning distraction, like he needed to grab files or cross-check something on the display, Robin stepped away from the center of the room and moved toward the edge—toward her.

He stopped beside her. Close enough to matter, but not close enough to draw attention.

Raven stood exactly as she always did in situations like this—hood up, cloak wrapped tightly around her body, posture closed off in a way that made her presence feel smaller than it actually was. To anyone else, she might have looked composed.

To him, she looked like she was holding herself together.

Her arms were folded beneath the fabric, shoulders just slightly drawn inward, the tension subtle but unmistakable once you knew how to look for it.

He didn't think about it. Didn't weigh the decision or calculate the risk. Robin reached out and let his fingers brush against her elbow.

The contact was brief, light, and easy. It was intentional all the same, silently portraying the message he needed it to. I'm here.

Raven's posture shifted almost immediately. He felt her tension through the bond ease. Her shoulders lowered a fraction, and her stance settled into something more stable and grounded

Robin withdrew his hand just as quietly, stepping back into position like nothing had happened, his focus returning to the display as if he had never left it.

Across the room, Cyborg caught his eye for half a second and gave him a knowing smirk. Robin ignored it.

Eventually, the meeting was called to a close. The tension in the room shifted again, loosening just slightly as the formal structure of the briefing dissolved into movement. Footsteps receded. Conversations picked up in uneven fragments as several Titans talked about how surreal it was to be working side-by-side with the Justice League, about how big this was, how unprecedented.

Robin remained where he was, reviewing data he already knew by heart. He didn't need to look up to know Raven hadn't moved.

The room emptied gradually until the noise faded completely, leaving behind a quiet that felt heavier than the one before the briefing had started. "Will you be okay?" His voice sounded louder than he intended in the empty space.

Raven reacted instantly. Clearly, she hadn't expected anyone else to still be there—he could see it in the almost startled movement as her gaze snapped up to meet his. For a second, she just stared at him. "I thought I was alone," she said, her voice quieter now as she reached up and pushed her hood back.

Robin didn't respond right away. He stepped closer instead.

"I'm fine," she said quickly, taking a small step back as if the movement had been instinctive. "I just… wasn't expecting a call from the Justice League."

"Yeah," he replied, his voice even. "I only found out from Batman about thirty minutes before the briefing."

Raven nodded once, too quickly.

"I'm sorry, I couldn't tell you," he apologized sincerely.

"It's fine," she added, almost immediately, like she was trying to get ahead of something he hadn't said yet. "I know there are some things you can't share. I understand that."

Robin opened his mouth to respond, but nothing came out. She wasn't wrong, and that made it worse.

"I'm gonna go," Raven said, backing away another step, her composure already rebuilding itself, the distance returning just as quickly as it had slipped. "I'll be meditating… somewhere." The faint smile she gave him didn't quite reach her eyes. And then she was gone, her form dissolving into the floor as if she had never been there at all.

The room felt bigger without her.

Robin stayed where he was, his gaze fixed on the spot she had disappeared from, her words replaying in his mind with a clarity he couldn't shake.

"I know there are some things you can't share."

A sharp, unfamiliar pain twisted in his chest. Secrets had always been part of who he was. Part of how he operated. They were necessary. But they were also isolating and heavy in a way he had learned to ignore.

Until now.

Now, he wanted to share them. Not with the team. Well, a little with the team. They were his family. But he really wanted to share them with her. All of them, every single one.

The thought settled in quietly, but it didn't leave.

He exhaled slowly, forcing himself to look back at the display, to ground himself in something concrete, something controlled. But for the first time that wasn't enough. This wasn't a problem he could solve with strategy. And he had no idea what to do with that.

Dick didn't know Raven could house such desires. Before Garth, he'd never seen Raven unabashedly wanting before. Not for the last box of chamomile teabags on the shelf at the market, let alone another being. And for someone to bring that out of her... Someone that wasn't him. Well, it still made his blood boil just on principle. Even if the only wide blue expanse her nude body now graced were her sheets.

"It doesn't matter," Dick growled. He was done stewing over the past; he intended to make full use of the present. He was sure in his haste he wasn't making much sense tonight, but that didn't stop him. "I don't want anyone flirting with you and I don't want you flirting with anyone else either."

"Why is that?" Raven teased.

He wasn't sure she was taking it seriously, but he couldn't help it. "I don't want you to," Dick repeated. "And I don't think you want to."

"That's presumptuous of you," She quipped. "There was something about the way he filled out a black and blue unitard that sent me completely off the rails..." Raven was driving him mad. He was certain she was enjoying herself more than a little.

But, Garth. That...that...

That nautical knockoff.

"A black and blue unitard?"

"Yep." Raven folded her arms.

"Something as ubiquitous as black and blue spandex is really all it takes to get under your cloak?"

"And a head of impossibly black hair—probably product enhanced. A winning, photo-op ready smile. Throw in a box of brooding, a forkful of familial issues, and a splash of almost unreasonable moral obligations..." She shrugged and for once he couldn't tell where the sarcasm ended and she began.

But it was her cauldron and Raven's recipe was to be imbibed at her leisure.

"You make us all sound like action figures," Dick scoffed in mock outrage. 

"It could start to sound that way, yes," she said casually. "But when you boil it down..." She shrugged as if her point was made.

"Is that all we are to you, Raven? Is that all I am?"

"If the painted on briefs fit." She stifled a snort. "Or bat briefs in your case."

He couldn't tell if she was serious or not, or just toying with him. But he liked it. He wanted to prove himself to her. He was better. He was the original black-haired, blue-unitarded man in her life, after all.

"Raven, I don't know what you're trying to do to me, but I have to admit it's working."

"Oh? Do you like being told you're a product?" Her lips parted wider than needed on the last syllable, so he could just make out her tongue touching the roof of her mouth. And Dick shivered at the memory of what that tongue could do.

He snatched her hand and steered it to his chest, particularly glad he'd spent more time on upper-body this morning. "What else do you think I am?" No longer guided by his own, her touch trickled down to his abs. "Tell me."

"I think, you're..." But with her fingers on his impeccably toned stomach, she was finding it hard to say anything at all. "You're so full of hot air, it's a wonder you need a grappling hook. You could probably just glide over to the next rooftop."

"You think so?" he mused. "Well, I happen to crave an extended session with a rather gifted healer." He bit his lip at the double entendre. "One with a very soothing touch, who's extremely easy on the eyes." Dick's blue gaze shifted over her figure. "Maybe I might have to try it one of these days, see if I stick the landing."

"Pity," she swallowed. "I guess then the Titan's Most Charming Smile Award will go to someone more deserving this year. At long last."

A wide smirk spread across his face. "This smile?" He chuckled. Dick's fingers feathered her wrist and with a swift singular motion, he tugged her closer so he could speak low in her ear. "How about I prove to you once and for all that it's good for something?"

At first, Raven approached it the way she approached all things—with quiet observation, small, almost unnoticeable questions threaded into otherwise ordinary conversation, each one designed to test the edges of his composure without drawing attention to what she was doing. He gave precise answers. When she pressed harder, when she asked directly, he answered effortlessly. One day, she flat out asked him if he knew that he and Starfire had broken up. He gave her the most peculiarly adorable look and asked if she was okay.

She tried to share her concerns with Cyborg and even Beast Boy. They were, of course, no help. It was driving her mad. They had no idea what she was talking about; at times, she felt as though she were the one trapped in some alternate dimension. She considered confronting Starfire herself, but then the alien had already left for Tamaran, slipping away in the middle of the night without warning.

It was, admittedly, comforting to see someone behaving normally after a breakup.

Still… why did she leave like that? And why hasn't she contacted me?

Shaking her head, Raven returned her attention to Robin, only to realize he was watching her just as closely as she had been watching him—and he wasn't even bothering to hide it. There were other things ever since the breakup that had confused Raven, too: the way his voice seemed to shift when he said her name, the way certain silences between them lingered just a moment too long to be accidental, the way he seemed to always stand and sit a tad bit closer to her than usual.

When he approached her about the Gotham mission, she had jumped at the chance for something resembling normalcy. Only, there had been no real Gotham mission. Some wannabe succubus had been entrapping rich bachelors, but Raven was certain Batman could have handled it himself. She had found the culprit in less than a day. What she had not expected was for her leader to suggest a long, unnecessary cross-country drive back to Jump City.

And now she was sitting in the passenger seat, blatantly staring at him as he navigated the increasingly slick roads, the unease from earlier settling into something sharper. By the time the storm rolled in, swallowing the highway in sheets of relentless rain and forcing him to pull off with a quiet curse under his breath, her patience with Robin's inexplicable calm had already worn thin. When he suggested they stay the night at a motel, she very nearly lost control of her powers.

The town they found themselves in was little more than a scattering of lights and empty buildings. Thankfully, they were able to find an inn at the edge of it.

The inn offered a single room with no alternatives and no real choice but to take it. The situation itself was familiar—the kind of inconvenience they had both navigated countless times before—but something about it felt different now, not because of the storm or the isolation, but because of the tension that had been building long before they ever left the road. Raven didn't have any proof, but judging from the mischievous glint in his eye, she knew this was part of Richard's plan. She didn't know what that plan was, but…this inn was part of it.

Raven set her things down with controlled precision, removing her outer layer and folding it over the back of a chair, all of her movements deliberate in a way that suggested restraint rather than ease, while Dick lingered near the door for a moment before moving further inside, as though he were giving her the space she had not asked for but clearly needed. She was shivering, wet, and confused.

For a while, neither of them said anything, and the quiet might have held if not for the fact that it was already too full of everything they had not been saying for weeks. When Raven finally turned to him, there was nothing subtle left in her expression, no careful distance to soften the edge of what she had been holding back. "I can't take this anymore," she said, her voice steady but carrying something sharper beneath it, something that had been building long before this moment. "I'm losing my mind. You are literally driving me crazy."

Richard, rather than look surprised, looked amused, which only made the irritation tighten further in her chest. "You've been overly tense for the last several weeks, keeping everyone on edge—but I'm driving you crazy?"

"I—yes," Raven looked at him incredulously.

He raised a brow and quirked his lips. "Please, explain."

"You and Starfire broke up three months ago."

"Yes," he nodded, entirely too calm.

"You and Starfire broke up three months ago after nearly a five-year relationship."

"Well… we've known each other for five years. We were together for two and a half," he corrected blithely.

"See?" Raven snapped. "That's exactly what I mean."

His blue eyes flashed with humor. "I still don't know what you mean."

"You broke up with Starfire," she said, more pointed now, "and you're fine."

"Yes," he said again, as if that should settle it. Then, after a beat, he added lightly, "You know there's a bedroom, right? I can take the couch."

"Richard, why are you fine?"

"I feel like you and I have had this conversation at least once a day over the last several months."

"You're not acting normal."

"Define normal," he replied, his tone light.

"This," she continued, gesturing faintly between them, between the room, between everything that had led them here. "You and Starfire ended things weeks ago, and you're acting like it didn't matter at all."

Something in his expression shifted then, not dramatically, but enough that she caught it. Still, the emotion he portrayed was not one she would associate with someone who'd just ended a relationship.

"That's not what's happening," he said, more quietly now, though there was no defensiveness in it, only a kind of grounded certainty that did not match the dismissal she had expected.

"Then what is happening?" she pressed, the words coming faster now, sharper, the frustration no longer contained. "Because from where I'm standing, it looks like you just… moved on. Like it was easy. Like she was easy to walk away from."

The accusation settled between them, heavier than anything she had said before. For a moment, the only sound in the room was the steady hum of the air conditioner and the distant, unrelenting rain against the windows.

Richard held her gaze without flinching, without retreating, and when he spoke again, there was nothing evasive left in his voice. "I cared about her," he said, each word deliberate, measured, grounded in something real. "I still do. What we had mattered. It wasn't nothing."

Raven's expression did not soften. "You don't seem affected at all. You don't seem…"

"I don't seem…?"

"Brokenhearted."

"Oh. Why would I be brokenhearted?" he asked genuinely.

"Because you broke up with someone you were in love with," Raven answered.

"Was I in love with her?" he asked.

"I…" Raven stopped. The words landed harder than she expected, not because of what they meant on their own, but because of what they implied. She did not respond; she only held his stare as her mind raced to come up with anything.

"I'm going to change and dry off," Richard said, breaking the silence. "And when I get back, we can further discuss how brokenhearted I should be."

The hints he had been dropping, the way he had been looking at her, the deliberate nature of this trip—how he had brought her here under a pretense she had seen through almost immediately—all of it began to align into something she could no longer dismiss as coincidence or misinterpretation.

She tracked his movement toward the door, her focus narrowing. "What is going on?" she asked.

Richard stopped. He turned back to her, studying her for a moment before giving her that same disarming, endearing smile. "Get some rest, Raven," he said. "We have an early day tomorrow."

(link leads to rest of the story)