1.

Robin was always catching the people he loved.

It was ironic, since he was one of the few people in his line of work who couldn't fly, but people were always falling in his general vicinity, and Robin was always there to catch them.

Which was why, after a reality warping monster took over Titan's Tower, he was prepared when the ground vanished beneath their feet. When Raven fell instead of flew, Robin was there with his trusty grappling hook and an arm around her waist.

Raven gripped his arm so tightly it hurt, but she didn't scream.

Together they scaled their way up the elevator chute, where their friends were waiting, ready to pull them back up.

Raven didn't immediately let go once they were on solid ground, and Robin found himself hoping she'd stay close… because with her powers AWOL and the little towerful of horrors their home had become, his friend could clearly use the comfort -

But Raven was too dignified for that. She brushed him off and shoved the fear down deeper than any elevator chute, away and out of sight.

2.

Starfire was ignoring him. She picked her way across the alien terrain, occasionally sidestepping geological formations, but never looking at him.

"Starfire, look," he pleaded. "It's not that I don't like you, it's that…"

"It is that you do not like me as a friend who is a girl."

A geyser exploded nearly underfoot, and Robin stumbled back. Thick white vapor filled the air, blocking out the sky, and making it impossible to see more than a few inches in any direction.

Robin gagged on the noxious gas. "I don't think you understand," he coughed, trying to wave away the steam and locate Starfire, and having no success in either endeavor.

His boots found a place where the rock suddenly dropped off, and he backed away from the edge, shuffling blindly through the hot, smelly cloud.

"See, on our planet, "girlfriend" means—"

"-A female with whom you have a pleasant and special association, including the sharing of enjoyable recreation and occasionally the buying of bountiful floral arrangements."

"Okay...maybe you do understand," he muttered.

" WHAT?" Starfire shouted. The smoke cleared.

Robin couldn't understand how this vast, uncrossable chasm had appeared between them… literally as well as metaphorically. Starfire looked so sad, clutching her arm and gazing at him from across the canyon. He edged closer.

"Starfire, I- Woah!" He yelped as the ground gave way beneath his feet. Behind him, he heard Starfire shriek.

All around him, the canyon walls were crumbling, boulders the size of the T-car raining down from above.

Thinking fast, Robin twisted to land on the closest boulder then pushed off, leaping from rock to rock until he skidded to a stop on a narrow rocky shelf on the canyon wall. The shelf didn't immediately buckle under his weight, but Robin threw himself onto the canyon wall anyway—just in case.

Crisis averted, Robin searched the sky for a sign of Starfire amidst the tumbling rocks.

Starfire shrieked again—from below. Startled, Robin peered over the ledge, and was shocked to see Starfire clinging to another ledge on the opposite side of the canyon, 20 feet below.

Her only handhold gave an ominous crack.

"Starfire! Fly!" He cried.

"I cannot!" She cried back.

"What?!"

The rock broke. Starfire screamed. Robin didn't hesitate to leap into the abyss after her.

He stretched his arm, reaching for her; Starfire grabbed his hand the same way he'd grabbed her outstretched hand a thousand times in battle.

(When you were a superhero, "trust fall" took on a whole new level of meaning.)

Robin pulled out his grappling hook and pointed it at the first shadowy overhand he saw. They swung through the air — being pelted by pebbles and dirt and narrowly avoiding bigger rocks the whole way — and crash landed in what turned out to be a fairly deep cave.

A boulder struck the cave entrance seconds after them, where it lodged, blocking out the sun.

They lay there on the floor, panting. In the dim light, Robin couldn't make out Starfire's face.

Robin sat up, his breathing slowly evening out. They were safe for the moment. He'd caught her… but something told him she still hadn't regained her footing.

"Starfire… what happened back there? Why couldn't you fly?

"Tameranian powers are inclined by our emotions."

Just like Raven's, Robin thought.

"So the way you feel affects your ability to fly," he paraphrased, a bad feeling coiling in his gut. "And you feel-?"

"I feel unfamiliar confusion!" Starfire burst out, flinging a few stray sparks with the force of her gestures.

"But we've faced danger before without your powers failing-"

"It is not danger that confuses me, Robin! It's you."

Robin gulped. "Me?"

"You," Starfire agreed."And me. I do not understand us."

Her hands opened beseechingly, and the vulnerability on her face made Robin nervous.

"Ever since Cyborg said the "girlfriend," things are different between us."

Robin studied the floor. "It's...just a misunderstanding. Everything's okay."

"Everything is not okay! We are not okay. I fear we will never be okay again, and you will not tell me how you feel!"

He winced and tugged at his collar.

"Uh...I'm not very good at that,"

"How then am I to know what you think about me?" Starfire pressed.

"Starfire...I think...uh...it's...awesome...the way...you shoot starbolts," he said.

"Yes? And?"

"It's, uh, also cool that you're brave and the strongest girl ever?"

Starfire was not impressed.

"I see." She turned away, resigned.

Robin's gloved hand caught her arm. "You're still my dear friend," he said earnestly. "I still want to spend time with you and go on pleasant outings."

Starfire's expression softened. "I can find joy in that."

3.

Cyborg was a very difficult person to catch, and Robin was about to do it one-handed.

He swung past Cyborg just as his cybernetic teammate reached the apex of his arc.

That made things a little easier, at least. At the apex, Cyborg had the least amount of momentum, so all Robin had to do was catch him. Too much downward momentum in a falling person, and swooping in to catch them was like making them hit the ground faster

It still felt like being punched by Cinderblock, but whatever. Robin caught him.

Their momentum just cleared the lip of an office building several stories up. They landed on the roof, next to an air vent.

"You're gonna have to start calling me Flyborg," Cyborg joked.

"You've already made that joke before," Robin shot back with a grin, shaking out his arm.

"Yeah, cuz this keeps happening. Seriously, I should look into an emergency jetpack function, or maybe rocket shoes or something..." he trailed off, obviously already drafting schematics in his head.

"Rocket boots would be epic," Robin said.

Below, Godzilla 2.0: Johnny Rancid Edition continued to rampage across downtown.

"Mind giving me a lift back down?"

4.

The little hummingbird landed in his cupped hands with a soft thwump. The green of his feathers was nearly indistinguishable from Robin's gloved hands, especially when the little bird lay so motionless.

Robin sucked in a breath, momentarily fearing the worst—birds had such fragile bones—when the hummingbird's head twitched, and it began to shift.

Robin knelt; a moment later, Beast Boy lay on the street in front of him.

"Are you okay? Any broken bones?"

Beast Boy sat up with a groan. "Nah dude, I'm just starving. I forgot how totally exhausting being a hummingbird is."

Robin grinned. "We'll get pizza after this," he promised, and leapt back into battle.

5.

Robin came to on a stone hard bench in St. Martha's Cathedral, awoken by the god-awful crick in his neck. He rotated his head gingerly, wary of broken bones, and took in the high arching columns, the brilliant stained glass, the small flames still flickering here and there on the carpet...

"Raven!"

He sprang to his feet. Raven wasn't anywhere amongst the pews, or behind the columns. Neither was Slade. Robin spotted a flung open side door and darted out of it.

There were flames in the alley too. They formed a line at the mouth of the alleyway, blocking the only exit.

Robin extended his bo staff and vaulted over the line of fire. He raced after Slade and Raven, following the trail of destruction.

Too soon, the trail went cold. It looked as though Raven had given up on throwing projectiles entirely and was focusing on flying for her life. Fear coiled in his stomach.

They were in the thick of downtown. Skyscrapers rose like the walls of a maze overhead, and below,the many tunnels and passageways of the metro, the stormwater, and the sewer systems formed a veritable labyrinth. Slade liked to take things underground...

Robin pulled out his grappling hook and headed up; Raven could fly. She would have the advantage in the air, and he had to hope she was still fighting.

Robin swung from building to building, eyes peeled for any sign of movement in the frozen landscape. He probably wouldn't have found them, if it wasn't for the low rumbling that suddenly shook the concrete beneath his feet.

Robin's eyes widened; half a mile away, two skyscrapers completely encased in dark energy lifted from their foundations and slammed into each other. Those were easily a few hundred thousand tons. Each. And Raven's powers were fueled by emotion. A second later there was an explosion.

Robin swung as fast as he could, faster than he'd ever swung before. It still felt like he was moving through water, like he was in one of his nightmares.

He landed on one of the recently relocated skyscrapers. There was a small crater where the two buildings met, and debris on the street below, but though Robin searched, the only people he saw were motionless pedestrians.

"NOOOOOOOO!"

Suddenly the world was distractingly active again, a confusing blur of motion and activity; a flock of pigeons flapped past, distant cars crept by, the wind tugged at his cape, and high above all of it, a figure toppled over the edge.

Robin's heart leapt into his throat.

He shot out a line and flung himself into the open air over 6th avenue.

Raven was limp, not even conscious that she was plummeting from a thousand feet, possibly to her-

no.

The wind roared in his ears as he plummeted, limbs together, like a throwing knife, cutting through the night. He was only a few feet away, a few inches, a few millimeters…

Robin snagged her wrist and pulled her close to him. They were still falling too fast. He thumbed the brake on the grappling gun, decelerating for as many seconds as he could before he locked it. The line snapped taught, jolting them, and they swung into a wide, low arc over 6th avenue. Robin hooked his feet under Raven's knees and pulled their legs out of reach just as an semi-truck screamed past, and then they were ascending.

Their long and harrowing plummet had given them plenty of momentum on the upswing, and Robin landed easily on a flat rooftop.

Raven was cold and limp in his arms. Her head lolled back. Her uniform had been torn to shreds, and her cloak was missing. Robin stared at her exposed neck, simultaneously trying to remember and repress what that particular body part looked like broken...

The body in his arms shifted.

Raven blinked up at him. "...Robin?"

Robin could have cried. Instead, he found himself smiling.

"Let's get you home."

+1.

The afternoon sun cast everything under the big top in a yellow and red glow.

Robin tried to juggle for what felt like the hundredth-gazillionth time. He could juggle sacks just fine, but bowling pins were proving more difficult. He had to master the pins if he ever wanted to juggle fire!

Robin had been putting a lot of thought into what his first choreographed routine would look like. He hadn't ironed out all the details, but he knew that it was going to involve him, walking the tightrope, juggling fire, while his parents did backflips overhead.

Robin made it through a couple of rounds before he slipped up and dropped one of the pins. He stooped to grab it, but it waddled away.

"Hey, wait!"

The other penguins he was holding started wiggling out of his grasp. They fell into line behind the first one.

"Where are you going?"

He followed the line of penguins to a maze of crates. There were voices coming from behind the wooden slats. He leaned closer to hear:

"I tried to warn you. You don't want my services? OK. But you're gonna wish you'd listened, old man."

Robin had leaned too far; he fell over, right onto the penguins. They squawked and flew into the air.

When the onslaught of feathers and honks cleared, Robin was face to face with the ringmaster in his purple sequin tailcoat and his signature bronze and black face visor.

"Too slow, Robin," said Slade. "Too slow by far." He pressed the big red button in his fist.

Robin looked up. The spotlights illuminated two glittering figures up on the platform, arcing gracefully into the open air. His dad hooked his knees over the bar he was swinging from, and his mom pumped her legs—with her toes pointed, always with toes pointed they'd taught him—building momentum. She flung herself off the bar, flying towards his dad's outstretched arms. In the shadows of the bigtop, a slade bot took out a massive pair of gardening shears.

SNIP

"Noooo!"

The ground disappeared from under his feet. They were all falling now, in a big, black, featureless void, all hurtling towards the unseen ground. His parents were still reaching for each other, their fingers just a little too far apart-

Robin slammed into his mattress and jolted awake.

The first thing Robin noticed was that he was in his bedroom.

The second thing Robin noticed was that someone else was in his bedroom too, shaking him awake.

The third thing he noticed was the chill of exposed tears on his cheekbones.

Robin twisted around and lunged for his domino mask on the night table.

The sheets tangled around his legs and brought him up short. He missed the edge of night stand and went hurtling unmasked face–first towards the floor—

—only to be caught at the last second by a strong pair of hands.

Robin, Boy Wonder, world-famous acrobat and expert martial artist, trained in combat by Batman himself, flailed.

"Calm down. It's just me," a familiar gravelly voice said just above his ear.

Robin stopped struggling and let Raven help him sit up.

He ducked his head, and she turned away respectfully. When she turned back to him, the mask was on..

Identifying features safely hidden, Robin groggily took stock of his surroundings.

"... what are you doing in my room?"

Raven shrank further into her cloak. "I sensed you were distressed."

Robin couldn't tell if her magical empathic abilities had given him away, or if she had simply heard him making a racket in his sleep. With Raven, both were equally plausible.

"Oh. Well, thanks for waking me up."

"You're welcome."

Raven hovered at the foot of his bed. Not literally, for once, just figuratively, just… awkwardly standing around, deciding whether to say something.

She jerked a thumb towards the door. "I'll, uh, see you in the morning."

"Wait!"

The gears in his head ground slowly into motion, still half asleep. Something was wrong, he was just too sleep-addled to figure out what it was, or how to broach the topic with Raven. Maybe it was a conversation best saved for the light of day.

"Thanks for catching me," he said lamely.

"It's about time somebody returned the favor," she quipped, completely unreadable in the pitch dark.

"Goodnight, Robin."

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