A one-shot? I guess. I know we're not allowed to post things with song lyrics but I've gotta tell you all this was totally inspired by the song 'the trapeze swinger' by Iron & Wine. Beautiful song, made me cry.
Synopsis? Sure, why not?
Robin has his usual nightmare...the only one he has that never stops. The difference this time? There's another bird in the house there to help him with it.
The Trapeze Swinger
His eyes shot open, wide and aglow with the fear only a nightmare could elicit.
Breath ragged, he pulled himself up, leaning heavily on an elbow, one hand clutching emptily at his chest, as if to pull the air out of himself and he proceeded to scramble to a sitting position.
He shook his head...to clear it...no...to get rid of it...the never-ending nightmare.
It will kill me as it killed them, he thought and bitterness cloaked him as the one known as the Boy Wonder hunched over, hands fisted in the sheets as one scared beyond belief...or angry...or both. Over and over, ever since that day...well, it wasn't a surprise he thought about it. The murder of one's parents wasn't something to be brushed off like a speck of lint on a coat or swept under the rug like mothballs. Oh no.
Still, he'd hoped by this time he'd have gotten it buried well enough to hide from it.
Hide?
He tried to laugh, but couldn't and it occurred to him for the first time since he'd woken, drenched in sweat and shaking two minutes ago, that the dark felt too thick. Yes it was night, but he could not accept it after having the nightmare; he never had. Always he stayed awake, waited...no...craved for morning light, and when it came, and only then did he breathe right again.
It always happened like that.
The nightmare itself too, always happened the same and at this thought, Robin let out a disgusted groan and threw the sheets aside, swinging his legs over the side of his bed, ran a hand through his hair. He glanced at the clock.
4:32 in the morning?
Swell.
Maybe he would just go for some training, that might shock or jumpstart his system into concentrating on something else...anything else. An involuntary shudder traveled through his body and Robin sighed darkly. He hated that nightmare...less now for having to see his parents die, which he had accepted, more so for having to feel as it made him feel: weak…very, very human and very, very weak.
Without looking he swiped his eye mask off the table at his bedside and then went to change.
At the very least, he would not be sleeping anymore tonight.
Fine leader you make, he chided himself with an inner scowl. You'll be a mess giving orders if some idiot decides to screw with the city. And they always do. Get a spine.
This shouldn't bother you anymore.
But it did and Robin had no way to tell the voice in his head that so he settled for the idea of coffee before training to perhaps hype his way through it.
A temporary solution at best, but beggars couldn't be choosers.
Mouth set in a grim line, he exited his room and the door swooshed behind him with the trademark mechanic whirl of all the doors in the T Tower, leaving his room in complete darkness.
Like a cave.
-------------------------------------------------
Raven Roth had debated on her course of action with herself furiously...debated with her selves actually. A more or less quick trip to Nevermore, lately, seemed to prove to always intensify her conflict rather than resolve it, and this time was no exception. Of course, this might have had something to do with the fact that lately most of her trips to Nevermore centered around a certain boy blunder, but then again, maybe not.
Right.
The empath massaged the bridge of her nose lightly. She sat, cross-legged levitating in front of the common room's window, waiting. Robin's nightmare had woken her as well, their bond stronger than ever and of late, particularly sensitive, it hadn't surprised her. This wasn't the first time the death of Dick Grayson's parents had woken the amethyst eyed sorceress as well.
But it was the first time she had decided to approach him about it.
And how! She thought wryly. Very good Raven, corner him, we know he just loves that, she mused sarcastically to herself.
A mechanical whirring noise signaled his arrival in the common room and she didn't need to turn to see him to predict what he'd say to her.
"Raven?" she said at the same time as him and felt his frown burrow through her back.
"What was that for?" he asked, clearly in no mood to be teased.
"Just wanted to see if I could make you crack that arrogant smirk of yours at 4:30 in the A.M," Raven turned, mid-air, to face him. He didn't smile or anything but cocked a brow at that statement.
"That's not your style," he commented and Raven sighed.
No, it really wasn't.
She'd been grasping at straws.
Sure, deciding to approach him, to try and do no less than help him—help Robin, the boy wonder who needed no help, thank you very much—was a fine and grand enough thing to do in her head.
But now...
She didn't know what to do...what to say.
She didn't even know if there was anything that could be said.
So she unsuccessfully had tried to lighten the mood.
Strike one, for the girl in blue, she noted with a mental groan and squared her shoulders as she floated past her leader.
But that wasn't what she said.
"So?" she intoned carelessly as she began to rather fixedly make herself some herbal tea, a thing she'd gotten in the bad habit of depending on when her nerves threatened to wreak havoc on her or the tower.
The last thing she needed was to cause an explosion or a power failure because she couldn't keep her emotions under tab.
Of course, she'd proven better over the past two years but there was always the occasional thing that could be particularly irksome.
Boy Wonder and his nightmares?
Numbers one and two on the list.
Raven bit her lip as she heard Robin's footsteps enter the kitchen and recognized the sound of him vaulting to sit on the counter well enough, without turning around.
"So, what are you doing up so early?" he asked at last. He almost thought she didn't hear him, or was ignoring him, so long did it take her to reply. Long moments later, her cloak twitched as she faced him, leaning against the counter, tea mug in the cradle of her hands.
She sipped at it, eyes burning holes into him for no reason he could imagine.
He really just wanted to know why she was...
Robin's curious gaze darkened.
Raven's posture stiffened.
He knew.
She knew he knew.
They both knew.
"How long?" he asked. She did not answer. He leapt off the counter, advancing on her. "How long?" he yelled and her eyes widened as she reflexively set her mug down and clapped her hand over his mouth, the other on his wrist at his side.
"For a while, Richard," she whispered hoarsely as he wrestled himself from her grip.
Training had helped. Raven was much stronger physically now.
"Why didn't you say anything?" he asked, feeling exposed as he turned his back on her now, face strained with the nightmare and what it meant to have someone else see exactly what he had seen, without permission.
An invasion of the deepest, most piercing sorts.
But an unintentional one, some part of him ventured to point out.
It quieted shortly under the waves of hurt.
"Why didn't you?" Raven retorted, circling Robin and glaring up at him.
And now Robin felt anger...boiling, vicious, confused anger. What right did she have to ask him that?
"It is mine!" he retorted, voice a deathly hush.
"Not anymore!" she shot back with equal vigor.
And so they stood, face-to-face, eye-to-eye.
For a moment it seemed they might kiss.
"I wish you had said something," he whispered much softer and she could feel his breath on her eyelids as she closed them, mustering her own strength. Raven Roth was sometimes no better at confronting other peoples' emotions than her own...worse maybe.
"Robin, you were in a way, right. It is your nightmare, your past...I could not say something...I did not know what to say. I don't know what to say even now," Raven said with her own odd gentleness and noticing their closeness stepped awkwardly, abruptly away.
She thought she saw hurt flash in her leader's eyes.
But how silly.
He wore his mask of course.
"Then why now?" he inquired and now he sounded tired and the sleepless lines in his face showed mercilessly in the electric light of the kitchen. He looked so haggard...so worn.
Raven, for her part, could not bear it and with a downward motion of her hand flipped the switch for the lights down with her powers. Robin tilted his head in question.
"The dark suits us still," she answered quietly and he inquired no further. It made sense to him.
"But you didn't answer me before, why now...Raven?" he asked and she sighed.
"Tonight your pain was mine. Before I could see, feel some...tonight I saw all, felt all...I was you Robin, I swear it...I thought they were…" but she couldn't finish. It would be an insult...to their memory, to Robin's existence. She couldn't finish...she didn't want to.
But two firm hands around her wrists told her before Robin even spoke that she would finish.
"Thought 'they were' what, Raven?" he prompted, shaking her slightly—not roughly, but pointedly. She inhaled unsteadily.
"I thought they were my parents," she barely breathed it and he dropped her wrists. "Robin—" she reached out to his shoulder. He flinched away.
And in that moment, that one, horrible, heartbreaking moment, she thought she might have lost him forever—his trust, his friendship...his...love?
But no, she never had that…silly to think it.
Still, to think of the loss of everything else was enough to render her to shaking, arms pulled tightly around her as she glued her eyes to the floor.
There was no one more surprised than Raven when Robin spoke, alerting her that he hadn't left her yet. Even more surprising—and that was saying something, mind you—was what was said, though.
"I'm so sorry," Robin's voice broke and the anger, which Raven only now realized was for himself and not for her, pulsed like war drums in the air between them. Her ground-bound gaze flickered up to his back, rigid with many thoughts and one heavy nightmare.
"But you have nothing to be sorry for," she said, confused truly.
What on earth was he saying?
Had he lost his mind?
"I did not mean to...to burden you with this," he said roughly and perhaps unconsciously, his previously limp hands clenched at his sides, death grips.
Raven stared at his back, stunned. He really thought...
"Robin," she said.
And that was all she said.
For now Raven Roth knew what to do.
It was not something she had done often before, only twice in fact.
But now called for it.
And to her own amazement, as she grabbed Robins wrist and whirled him around to face her so she could pull him into a firm but yielding embrace, that now she wanted to.
She wanted to.
"Raven," he said, still stiff, still on defense...still wary.
"Some role reversal, right?" she asked, voice muffled because she had buried her face against his shoulder.
And she didn't realize her own tears, hot against the cotton of his black t-shirt until she felt his own silent sobs wrack his body, and hers too, so close were they holding each other.
"Shhh, it's going to be fine," she whispered, even as her own tears trickled out her eyes, down her cheeks, as she drew her right hand up to run through his hair, gently, almost like a lover might.
Almost.
"I'm still so weak," he said, voice laden with disgust and Raven pulled back far enough to look him in the eye, or what she knew was his pair of eyes behind that mask.
"You are not," she shook her head. "Robin, you are our leader and for all your bad one-liners, you are a good one. We wouldn't run around following any fool in a cape, you know," she said and offered him a gift.
A soft, gentle smile crept through her features and now it was Robin's turn to pull back slightly.
Without thinking he loosed one of his hands from where it had rested on Raven's waist during their embrace, to lift it and trace her jaw delicately.
Her skin was, as he had imagined once or twice, very smooth.
His fingers brushed some of the slower tears that remained on her cheek away and he offered his own smile, a sad one.
"This is not a burden?" he asked, all skepticism.
"It is a part of what having a bond means," she answered wisely and Robin briefly remembered who it was he was dealing with.
"I just..."
"Shhh," she said and pulled him back into her arms.
This time he went willingly, melting into her hold.
And something about it felt very right.
"I bet their act was amazing," she said bravely, nervously and was relieved to not feel her leader tense again.
"It was. I'd seen it a dozen times before...before," he amended his sentence awkwardly.
There was a pause.
"The trapeze, so high in the air," Raven said gently and then, "Like a bird, right?"
"Right," Robin said and his chest was tight again with leaden sadness.
"I'm sorry, I'll stop," Raven said and began to pull away but Robin held her to him.
"No!" he exclaimed louder than he meant and felt Raven's pulse jump under his hands. He regretted his abrupt tone immediately. "What I meant is, it's...it's nice to be able to talk to...to have someone else talk...you know?" he couldn't get his words out right and he felt like a kindergartener, foolish and stupid.
"It's nice to know the world still has someone besides yourself who remembers them, right?" she asked and Robin's foolish and stupid feelings replaced themselves with surprise.
"...yes." That was all he had at the moment.
"Did you..." Raven asked, readjusting herself in the tangle of their arms.
"Yeah, I was young but a trapeze swinger has to start very early anyway," he answered and moved to accommodate Raven's own adjustments as they spoke almost idly about what had been, for too long, a very forbidden subject.
"Is it the same, I mean the grappling hook, when you're swinging through the city?" she inquired and he shook his head.
"Nah, it's completely different but...it's still nice...the rush is the same I guess," Robin admitted and Raven nodded absently.
"Robin, I always know when you have...have this," Raven said as softly as possible and Robin opened his mouth to speak but she had anticipated this. She lifted her hand to cover his mouth again. "No, you listen. I know when it happens so...so if you want to...just come to me, alright? I'll be here, you know I will." Her dark eyes exploded with the strange way the bits of dying moonlight played on them, streaming through the window and Robin nodded dumbly. She sighed at him, some of her trademark irritation shining through even now. "Well, don't just nod at me like a toy monkey, Boy Wonder. Say something," she demanded in a low voice.
"Thank you," he said after an indefinite amount of time and her irritation melted to a compassionate ease.
"Fair's fair. You helped me through my...nightmares," she paused and Robin knew she referred to the Trigon and Slade incidents. He was about to say something when Raven continued in a temperate murmur, "And besides, what are friends for?"
His heart pained him at her response and he held her tighter, better wrapping his own arms around the beautiful sorceress to make the embrace equal.
Indeed, he mused and then: maybe one day, we can be more.
"What was that?" Raven's voice broke through his thoughts and he glanced down at her as she did the opposite, glancing up at him through sooty lashes. He wondered if she knew how beautiful she was and no sooner did he wonder it but know the answer: no, she didn't.
"What was what?" he asked, confused.
"I thought I heard you say something...like 'be more' or something," she replied, confused by his confusion which cleared now.
She'd heard the last part of his thought.
Robin almost slapped his forehead and laughed.
"Nah, didn't say anything," he said and after a tentative look, pulled Raven back into his arms, an action which she obliged, glad to feel him finally more relaxed than he'd been in weeks.
Robin buried his face in the silk of her hair and repressed a sigh. She was something else. One day? Maybe sooner than he'd planned with this new development with their bond...shared thoughts?
He felt the empath—to his surprise—shift more comfortably into his arms and rest hers around him.
A slight grin Raven did not see worked its way across Robin's face.
Sooner might be better.
Just a one-shot I guess! Review if you've got a sec, thanks!
-Rei