AN: Due to flatteringly popular demand, Barriers is now a two shot. Regards go to amyanime4, TheImaginativeFox, 4 Guests, Kessy Rods, and 49478, also MarburyBlur and thorn of roses2205 if you're reading this, thanks to all of you. Seriously, thanks, you guys are amazing :)

Disclaimer: Anything that is even remotely recognizable as something that I shouldn't own, I sadly do not own.

Set during the first season or a little after.

"...heart monitor speeding up!"

"Wally, we know! You told us ten times while dragging us here!"

A dull thump sounded beside Robin "Is he gonna wake up?"

"We cannot know for sure, howev- Wally, please stand up."

Fwoosh

Crackle

"Eek!"

"Geez, Wally! You know how much M'gann hates fire!"

"This is not my fault!"

Splash "Is everyone alright?"

Grunt "We're gonna need another chair."

Robin giggled at that before finally opening his masked eyes. While eavesdropping on his teammates was fun, calling Wally out was even more so. "Third this month."

It was also fun watching his team spin to look at him, shocked and relieved. Even Superboy; Robin was sure he saw some sort of emotion in the clone.

"Robin! You're awake!" M'gann squealed, "Do you need anything? Hello, M'gann! I should've made cookies!"

Robin sniffed the air suspiciously, "Are you sure you didn't?"

"Oh my gosh, my cookies!" the Martian flew out of the room at top speed. The ebony chuckled and was about to stand up and follow her when half the team appeared over him, holding him down.

"Whoa, guys, what's the matter? I'm sure those poor pastries haven't gotten worse since I've been out. Speaking of which, how long have I been out?"

"You have been out for approximately nine hours and we do not think it would be wise for you to get up in your condition," Aqualad commanded, in full out leadership mode.

Robin scoffed, "Nine hours? How much did you guys have to sedate me for that? Did I even need a blood transfusion?"

"Uh, well, you did get a few stitches..." Wally said nervously. He knew the full extent of the injuries his best friend had received in the past and that this was nothing in comparison, but he couldn't help worrying anyway.

Which really didn't help because Robin suddenly judo flipped himself out of their grasp, did an airborne somersault and landed soundlessly on the other side of the room. He even threw them that look, the one he always gave Batman when he was forbidden to go on patrol due to injury (Wally had been there for a few of those disputes which was an experience he definitely didn't want to repeat), the unique blend of "Really?" and "I'm tougher than I look" with a fair helping of mischievous intent. Then he stalked off towards the kitchen, leaving Kaldur, Superboy, Artemis and Wally to stare after him.

Robin, on the other hand, was way less stunned senseless and kind of wishing he was. He had forgotten about that little concussion he'd gotten and in the flip it had started to seem a little less little. He could barely see when he landed, but there was no way he'd let them know that as he sent a glare towards where Wally's head was supposed to be. That kind of made it worse (hey, a batglare isn't effortless, despite what Wally says) but the proud bird walked away anyway. Now he was regretting it. He had to lean on the wall just to make forward progress, and he was sure the lights to the cave weren't this dim. Especially in the hall- ah, made it to the kitchen. He unconsciously straightened and walked forward normally, masking his limp with skills honed by years of bat tutelage.

"Oh! Robin, shouldn't you be in bed?"

"Et tu, M'gann?" Robin shook his head in mock disappointment, secretly amused by her confused expression. Apparently Shakespeare didn't come up all that much in tv sitcoms."What if I want a snack?" he snatched a cookie from the sheet before she could protest and ate it in two bites. Immediately, she brightened, forgetting all about his injuries.

"Do you like it? It's a new recipe!"

"Yeah, best yet," it was true, they weren't as salty as the last batch, "I'm sure Wally would- speak of the devil."

Wally and the rest of the group turned the corner into the kitchen and grabbed a few cookies each. Soon, they were all talking and laughing like usual, though the others kept sneaking worried glances at Robin. Glances he pointedly ignored even as Black Canary called them for training.

"Alright, today we're going to be sparring in partners. Artemis and... Robin, you can start us off."

Robin moved towards the centre circle but Artemis hadn't budged, "Uh, Black Canary... I think... uh... Robin..."

"Think that Robin's what?" Robin snarled. He had only been awake for an hour or so an already his team was driving him crazy. This was nothing, couldn't they see that? Ribs were already set and the concussion headache had worn off hours ago. He had jumped off buildings and fought the Joker with far worse (granted, those were caused during the battle not before, but still!). What the first sidekick didn't understand was that the team hadn't had as much experience with injuries as he'd had. Since he'd seen and dealt with worse he believed they had, too. Unfortunately, not everyone spends every night watching Alfred stitch up Batman's latest gouge, or patrols Gotham where someone dies every week if not every night. They hadn't seen someone laugh themselves to death in person or experienced their worst fears in a hallucination. Robin thought that they, like him, simply kept the worst news to themselves. Details of the latest horrid crime weren't exactly dinner topics. Thus, he didn't understand that injuries he classified as minor to moderate they thought of as serious to severe, more than harsh enough to merit bed rest. He thought they were trying to protect him from insignificant injuries just because he was the smallest and youngest. While he was partially right, they also thought that his wounds were enough to waylay anybody. Wally, after all, had skipped out on many a session due to his broken arm. Surely Robin, with a few broken ribs, would like to sit out too.

"We don't think Robin's fit for physical training today," Superboy said, blunt as ever.

"What, 'cause of these?" the ebony yanked his tunic up slightly, revealing a series of bandages across a well-toned torso. "This is nothing! " he really thought so, too.

Aqualad stepped forward in an attempt to ease the tension, "Yes, we believe more bed rest would suit you well, my friend."

"Yeah? Well, I don't 'believe more bed rest would suit me well,'" he turned to Black Canary, "Can I at least spar with you? You know that sparring relieves stress and that's good for my psychological health..."

Appealing to her theraputic doctor side... again. The trainer smiled knowingly at the teen. He had a bat glare on, which she had to admit he'd gotten better at. She'd seen far to many of those looks to be fooled, but not being fooled didn't mean immune. Additionally, she'd also seen what being confined to a bed did to a boy who'd been flying his entire life. He got bored, then restless, then mischievous and the end results were not pretty. Especially that one time he'd gotten the silicone spray...

"Alright Robin, we'll spar."

"Yes!" the Boy Wonder bounded into the centre ring, taking a defensive stance across from his mentor.

Canary dropped into a simple attack maneuver, a high punch followed by a leg sweep. Robin easily dodged both and rolled under her arm to come up behind her with a push to her lower back, using her own weight against her to floor easily. Or at least, it would've been easy had she not expected that and twisted with a light kick to Robin's thigh. In turn, he dodged and easily leapt onto her outstretched leg, using it as a springboard to do a front flip in midair, land on her shoulders and jump onto the far side of the arena, knocking Black Canary down. He didn't stop there, though, and did a few front flips around the circle before coming to a stop in front of the team in a handstand.

"Robin, I do not believe you should be doing handstands in your condi-"

The Boy Wonder wasn't listening. He'd turned on his hands to face Black Canary accusingly, "You went easy on me!"

She smirked, "You said we had to spar. You didn't specify the difficulty, or anything for that matter."

Robin huffed and, despite his team's protests, cartwheeled out of the training room.

"Where's he going?" Artemis wondered. Wally shrugged and M'gann stared worriedly down the hallway.

"Should we follow him?"

"Let's finish training first, he's probably resting," Black Canary said. They had to finish training, especially after yesterday's brick wall fiasco. Even though she knew that Robin was currently doing anything but resting, they could check on him later.

Meanwhile, Robin had quit cartwheeling in favour of limping towards the kitchen with only one thought in mind. He had to prove to Black Canary and the team that he was strong enough to go on as normal. The physical activity had taken more out of him than he wanted to admit. He had to-

Robin tripped and abruptly crashed to the ground, rolling to silence the impact while mouthing a bunch of expletives. He never tripped. For the briefest moment, he thought of doing something like lying down and taking a nap.

No. Batman doesn't takes naps. You're not taking a nap. You need to prove yourself.

It was more than proving it to his team now. He'd noticed all those looks they'd been giving him and tripping was proving them horribly right. He was weak. They'd all gone through the same thing, so why was he so damaged when they were perfectly fine? It wasn't fair! If he'd been standing and, y'know, not in a lot more pain than he should be, he probably would've punched another wall. Why did he always have to be the one who got hurt the most, just because he was human and smaller than the others? He had the most experience, learned all sorts of languages, codes, martial arts, hacking skills, medical train- and was now starting to sound like Superboy. Great, now he had ego problems.

Like you didn't already.

Robin sighed and dragged himself up the wall, staggering the last few feet to the kitchen where he grabbed an ice pack and held it against his throbbing ribs. Indolently, he gazed around the kitchen, taking in burnt cookie remains on the table then all the clean cooking equipment (even if M'gann wasn't the best cook she always cleaned up after herself). A slow smirk grew on his features.

He still had to prove himself, after all.

Training had gone well until delicious smells decided to rudely waft through the vents. To make matters worse, they'd been in a very important lesson about covertness at the time, a topic Black Canary knew the team could greatly benefit from considering almost all their missions. They couldn't just drop everything to go see exactly what smelled like beautiful buttered bread with melted sugar and who knew what else. She just barely managed to keep an excitedly vibrating Wally from running off, and the rest of the class was zoning out anyway. Finally, when even Canary was salivating and Wally had set his fourth chair on fire (really, they had to break him out of that excited/nervous/bored/just-cause-he-felt-like-it habit), did she let them go. Predictably, they all sped straight to the kitchen.

"I was wondering when you guys'd get here," Robin smirked behind his rack of cookies. If you could call perfection such as that something as benign as "cookie". On the pristine sheet lay dozens of toasty browned swirls of fluffy, buttery dough. To top it off, a light sprinkling of powdered sugar and a crisp walnut. You could smell the distinct tang of lemon zest and nutmeg amongst the warm, home baked softness.

It left the entire team blissfully stunned.

Robin picked a cookie "Well? What are you waiting for?" he took a bite.

Wally whooped and dived towards the sheet, leaving the rest of the team to laugh and follow. Soon, just as they had in the morning, the team was laughing and talking around a cookie sheet.

"Robin, we never knew you could bake on this caliber, it is a wonderful surprise."

"Thanks Kaldur, it's really not that big of a deal."

"Robin, these are amazing! Can you teach me the recipe?"

"Sure, M'gann, no problem," Robin laughed, though he couldn't keep the slightest hint of sadness out of his voice. Thankfully, M'gann was too caught up to notice. No way was he going to tell her it was his mom's recipe, the cookies she'd always made for the holidays. Mary Grayson would stockpile ingredients for months in their tiny trailer just so she could make a few extra batches when Christmas rolled around. However good these were, they would only ever be pale imitations of hers. Originally, Robin was making cookies because it was one of the many ideas he hadn't tried yet to get Batman to let him out on patrol when he'd gotten hurt, much like the situation he was in now. Early on, he'd learned that had he made anything for Bruce they'd fall way short of Alfred's cooking skills, so he'd jumped at the chance to show off for his team. How the sugar cookies he'd planned on turned into something so sentimental he had no idea, but he didn't mind. They were still really good cookies.

Afternoon came and went in a blur of cookies and teammates. After many games of ping pong, Dutch Blitz and one ill-fated game of Uno, evening was gone too. With Bruce having been forced to a business meeting far from Gotham and Mount Justice, his partner had been predetermined to stay at the cave for the night even before he got hurt. Artemis, Wally and Aqualad were staying too, their families had heard of Robin staying and decided it would be a good team-building experience for everyone to stay over. The team seemed to have forgotten all about the brick wall incident, for which Robin was grateful, especially since his ribs had stubbornly refused to let Robin himself do so. He was also very determined to keep up with his teammates, even after a violent pillow fight and a very intense game of truth or dare. Cooking ten sheets of cookies to compensate for Wally's appetite hadn't helped matters; he was exhausted, barely staying conscious for their movie marathon. His ribs felt horrible again, and he wouldn't have been surprised if he'd pulled a few stitches during the pillow fight.

"Hey Rob, pass the remote," Wally asked, staring at the tv. Robin looked at the remote. The remote glared back challengingly, a few steps away.

Just a few steps, c'mon Grayson. Don't give out now!

Robin got up, walked to the remote, bent to pick it up and promptly collapsed.

"Remote? C'mon Rob... Rob?" Wally finally glanced over at his friend, voice rising in alarm. It was enough to break M'gann and Conner out of their flirting session, Kaldur out of the sleep he hoped nobody had saw and Artemis out of her brooding. For the second time in 48 hours, Wally dashed to his fallen friends side.

"What did you do this time, Baywatch?"

"Nothing, he just collapsed! Robin, buddy, answer me!"

The injured bird moaned in response, fluttering back to consciousness. His head felt like a bag of muddy water full of rocks, which meant he was hurt. Badly. Again.

Oops.

"Yeah, m'fine KF..." he muttered.

Artemis snorted, "Yeah, cause people totally just collapse when they try to pick up a remote."

"Hello M'gann! He's hurt, h-he... and we completely forgot!" M'gann gasped.

Aqualad knelt next to Kid Flash to support Robin's head as they gently lifted him onto the couch the team was crowding around.

"Robin, why didn't you say anything?" Aqualad said. He felt extremely guilty for forgetting the condition of his teammate and friend.

"I... ugh... didn't want you guys to t-think I was weak..." Robin slurred, "Needed to p-prove myself... not weak... not a lia-liability..."

"We would never think of you as such, you know that, right?"

"You guys were treating me like... nngh... I couldn't h-handle myself... s'not fair, I get so hurt when you don't have a scratch... then you act like I'm about to d-die..."

"Why did you push yourself to such lengths? The cartwheeling, the cookies, staying alert all evening?"

"Heh... 't worked, didn't it?"

Aqualad sighed in resignation, glancing up towards his teammates worriedly annoyed faces. Below him, their stubborn little Boy Wonder's eyes were glazed even though his features were slightly amused.

"Robin, you are more than worthy to be a member in this team. Even though we might be protective sometimes, it's because we cannot afford to lose you."

Wally interjected, "See, Rob? You're my best friend, dude. We just wanted to make sure you healed 'cause your injuries were really severe."

The team nodded in earnest, though they all looked a little guilty, especially Superboy. They never knew he'd go to such lengths to avert their expectations.

"Promise you will never do this again," Kaldur said.

Robin chuckled, "If you promise... never to... b-baby me again..."

"We promise," Aqualad responded after briefly checking with his teammates

Robin smiled as his eyes finally slid closed, mumbling, "Y-y'know... maybe bed rest w-wouldn't be such a... such a b-bad idea after all."

AN: Yay! Two shot, complete. Thanks for reading! I hope it lived up to expectations *crosses fingers*. I thought it would be interesting to see a way the Robin didn't understand his team since I see tons of fics about how the team doesn't understand him. Also, if you want to know, the cookies are Romanian Holiday Cookies. I've never had them, but there's a nice recipe online. I know it's a tad too fluffy at the end but... oh well. Reviews would be very nice if it isn't too inconvenient, please.

Anyways, pretty sure that's all for now. Have a good week!

Thank you,

-Nightwriter222