She had known ever since she had first entered his mind, when everything mental was collapsing around him and he was chasing a ghost. Raven had flown into him, saw through his eyes, his inner demon taking the form of an outer demon, his arch nemesis, the man who was ruthless to the point of insanity.
Robin had tried so desperately not to succumb to that dark place, but Raven had known he had crossed that barrier, long ago. It had begun a long time ago, and it would never stop.
"Azarath…" she chanted, her body floating and her eyes glowing.
"Metrion…" Her black energy was starting to collect between the space of her heart and head, a knot forming in her throat.
"Zinthos…" Her soul self being propelled from her body and flying out of her, a black spiritual raven flying free within the physical world, in search of Robin's mind.
All his thoughts, all his memories, all his emotions, all his pain and trauma, all his happiness and diminishing hope. That was when she saw it all; the death of his parents, the line snapping and both of them falling all those feet down to the ground. Robin–-Dick-–hadn't been able to look away as he saw his parents plummeting towards the ground.
Raven saw it all, just as he did; felt the painful blow to her heart just as he had, tears welling up in her and a scream being torn from her throat and her legs collapsing beneath her. Her physical form, meditating in the clinical ward, didn't do all this, but Raven felt her body respond all the same.
The adoption from Bruce Wayne, and his identity of Batman. Such a powerful secret, but one she would never tell. Never let anyone know that she now knew; never brought it up in any conversation that she had. It was meant to be hidden, buried, along with the rest of the secrets Gotham's dark knight held.
His fear, his stress, the darkness within him. She had no doubt felt attracted to that, for she saw in him the same powerful thoughts and emotions that were within herself. She felt drawn to him, so freakishly close to him, as if their souls had merged instead of their minds.
When all was said and done, and Robin was alright in the head once more–-his mind clearing from the hallucinations and his self-harming having come to an end–-Raven just couldn't look at him the same way anymore. She had been inside his mind, known all his thoughts, felt all of his emotions as he had experienced them.
Days after, she knew that the blow she had felt to her heart when she watched Dick's parents die–-she felt it, a pain upon her chest that she couldn't soothe. It felt like a great weight was pressing in on her heart, crushing the breath out of her lungs, making it difficult to breathe past the lump in her throat.
This wasn't normal, Raven knew. It wasn't normal for her to be affected so powerfully by someone else's emotions. But Robin had done that to her.
Whenever she looked at him, she felt the same squeezing in her chest. The same tears welling up in her eyes, the same distress that he had felt so often in his life. She knew him better than anyone else, save for herself, and it was so powerful that she didn't know how to cope.
"Raven," Robin said, reaching out his hand towards her. He clasped her gray hand in his gloved one, and repeated her name, making her look at him. "Are you okay?" he asked.
His voice was calm and gentle, no sign of stress or distress in his tone at all. He was perfectly okay, and Raven didn't know how he could snap back so quickly. Whenever she experienced major trauma–-or even minor trauma–-it took her days, even weeks, to fully recover. And here Robin was, smiling and at peace once more.
How did he do it? she wondered.
"To be honest, no, I'm not," Raven said honestly. She couldn't lie about this; it was too overwhelming for her. She was still trying to recover from all that she had seen and felt within his mind.
"Really?" Robin said, concern in his voice and etched across his face. "What's wrong? Is there something I can do?" He paused. "Talk to me, Raven," he pleaded when Raven made no response.
Raven looked up into his masked face, wishing that she could see his eyes. Eyes were like the windows to the soul, or so was the common poem in Azarath. With a sigh, Raven reached up to his face and pulled the mask off of him. Robin didn't resist.
Raven could see now all the worry in his blue eyes. She didn't quite know how to describe his expression, but it was something akin to sorrowful sonder.
"Raven," he said again, pleading once more. He clasped both of her hands within his gloved hands, holding onto them tightly. He needed her to be okay, just as she had healed him. He kissed at her knuckles, hoping that maybe he could heal her in the same way.
"Raven, come on. Let me know what's bugging you. Talk to me," he repeated.
"I…" Raven started to say, then trailed off. How did she even begin to talk about something like this? Would she say, Your memories disturbed me and I don't know how to deal with them? That would be the bluntest way to say it, but she didn't think blunt would be the best tactic here.
"I think that…I'm just…recovering…from being in your mind," she said, choosing her words carefully. Her eyes had darted down as she spoke, but once she had finished, she timidly looked back up at Robin.
There was no anger or regret in his face; only understanding.
He nodded and said, "I can see how that would happen." He paused again, kissing her knuckles and then setting both of their hands into his lap. "My memories aren't the best." He tried to chuckle, but it sounded dead, and ended somewhere near the lump in his throat.
"So what got you the most?" Robin–-Dick-–asked her. His voice was soft, like he didn't want her to answer, nor did he want to answer her either.
But it sort of felt good, to talk about this stuff and get it out into the open. He didn't know why. Perhaps, he thought, it was because of the connection between their minds. He could feel this tug of emotion, this link between Raven and he, and it had created a nearly inseparable bond between the two of them.
He knew that no matter how terrible his memories, no matter how erratic his behavior, no matter how close to breaking he got or how much turmoil his mind was in–-Raven would understand. She would understand and help him, not abandon him.
He had felt abandoned a lot in his life. First by his parents, and then by everyone else that came and went.
Robin–-Dick–-even felt abandoned by Bruce, to some extent. When he had first come to live with him, he was gone every single night and busy during the day. And then when Robin had left the Batcave–-and hadn't gone back in years–-he felt abandoned once again.
Though it was him doing the abandoning this time.
"We do need to talk," Raven said, bringing Robin back into the present. "I can feel your emotions. They aren't good; they feel a bit like oil, that has something sharp mixed into it…"
"So, tell me what you're thinking." Robin waited for her answer. "Tell me what's bothering you," Robin said, wanting her to speak. He would keep trying and trying until the burden Raven shouldered was gone–-such was his insistent ways.
"When I was in your mind, there was just so much…" she trailed off.
Robin waited.
"Do you miss them?" Raven asked. It was a stupid question, no, beyond stupid. Of course he missed them; she could sense it just as easily as she could sense a door opening. But she didn't know how else to start the conversation.
She eased into it with a stupid question, because that was just how normal conversations went.
"Who?" Robin asked.
"Your parents. I know that you miss them, but…I want you to tell me that."
Robin's head drooped, and his eyes dropped down. He focused on their intertwined hands, still in his lap, and searched his brain for the best possible answer.
"I do miss them. I miss them more than anything else in the entire world. If I think about them…" His voice started to crack. Raven slid closer to him, drawing their bodies closer in attempt to comfort him.
"I know…I know… When I was–-in there…I felt what you felt." Raven's own eyes dropped down. Why are we even talking about this? Raven wondered. But she knew that they needed to, or else this would sink down into her very core and damage her.
She was a cursed half-demon; she didn't need any more damage.
"They died…they were killed," Dick said. He sounded so emotional, so unlike himself. It was like he had shed the persona of Robin…even more so, like he had never become Robin in the first place.
"They were killed?" Raven asked, her voice soft and quiet. She only asked to keep the conversation going. Though it was as painful as salt in a fresh scar.
"Yeah. They were killed. The line was frayed, cut with a knife by…oh, it doesn't matter. The fact is the same…they're gone from this world." Dick's eyes flooded with tears, and they started spilling down his cheeks and splashing onto his lap.
Raven felt a single, wet tear fall onto the back of her hand.
"Murdered in cold blood. I could never understand how someone could do such a terrible thing. Of course, I was so young then. I had no idea how the real world worked, or how many vile people were in it."
Raven could feel his thoughts turning to Slade once more.
"Dick," she said gently, freeing a single hand and placing it upon his cheek. His anger dissolved away, replaced by a look of sorrow and regret once more. His eyes seemed to apologize, something that his mouth simply wouldn't form.
The two of them remained quiet for a long time. They sat close together, their hands intwined, looking into each other's eyes. If anyone had passed them, they would have said that it looked like the two of them were having a silent conversation.
They wouldn't have been entirely wrong.
Raven had felt Beast Boy and Cyborg approaching once, but once they had turned to corner, she lost most of her connection to them, and they were gone from her empathic powers once more.
"Do you wanna know more?" Dick asked her, after the silence had stretched on long enough. Raven nodded, "Yes."
The once comfortable silence–-a silence that both Dick and Raven loved so much–-had become uneasy between them as the minutes ticked on. They knew that the air between them needed words, and so they spoke:
"The police came, of course. Everyone had to get to the very bottom of this gruesome murder. Bruce stayed behind to help, and eventually he took me in. There were plenty of people at the circus who would have done so gladly, but none of them were in the position to support a child. Not like my parents were. So I went home with him."
Raven lifted his eyes to his own.
"You don't have to talk. I know how hard this is for you."
Dick shook his head.
"I want to talk about it. For so long I've been repressing this memory, hiding it away and pretending like it never happened. I think that hurt worst of all; trying to forget it. Now that I'm talking about it…well, yes, it hurts. Hurts like a bitch. But hey, after the words have been said…I feel…better."
Raven was happy to hear him say so.
"So…you want to tell me more?" Raven asked him.
"They were murdered," Dick repeated. "They were murdered. Murdered! And I felt responsible…" More and more tears were swelling in his eyes, until his cheeks were flooded with wetness and he was outright sobbing.
"Shhh, shhh," Raven tried to console him. She wrapped her arms around him, hugging his body to hers. She pet his hair, still trying to calm him with shushes and soothing words.
"Why do you feel responsible?" Raven asked him in between his sobs.
"Because…I saw the man that killed them!" Dick gasped out, feeling it far too hard to speak. The memories were cutting through him like a knife, and Raven was feeling the cutting, stabbing pain just as much as he was. Empath or not, his emotions were just so raw.
"I saw him. Some sketchy looking thug trying to sell insurance and then threatening that we'd all be sorry for not taking up some stupid offer of his. That stupid-ass offer by some evil, scheming, conniving…"
Dick erupted into more sobs. Raven just held him closer. He nestled into her, finding comfort in being hugged. Someone was there for him, someone who loved him, and he pressed himself against Raven as if she were the only safe place within the entire world.
"I had seen him before, earlier that day or so or something…and then I saw him leaving the tent just before the performance!"
His arms nearly crushed her, but Raven didn't care. Her pain was as mental as his; the emotions trumped all physical pain that she could have felt. Nothing was akin to this.
"I could have stopped it!" Dick couldn't hold back anymore.
He kept repeating the same thing, reliving the guilt that he had felt. The second the lines had snapped, the second he realized they were falling, the hush that fell over the crowd as they realized something was wrong. The mistake that he knew he had made tainting him, inside and out.
Raven just kept rubbing him and shushing him.
Why had she felt the need to bring this up? Why couldn't she have just suffered in silence, like she always did? She had always dealt with pain alone, with crushing emotions in solitude. No one helped her, and no one could. So why had she felt the need to talk to Dick about this? Why didn't she just keep it bottled up and then meditate it away like everything else?
Did she feel better, having talked about it? Yes.
But was it worth it to see Dick like this, broken and sobbing in her arms? No.
The guilt that Dick had slowly passed onto her, seeping into her like water seeps into a sponge. She collected all his negative energy, and her own added fuel to the fire. Until if felt like they were both drowning in sorrow and regret and pain and loss.
I should have suffered in silence, Raven told herself.
Never would she make this mistake again.
Hopefully.
"You know something, Raven?" Dick asked her.
He still didn't make eye contact, but he was trying. He was focusing on the space between her neck and collarbone, and he darted his eyes up once before returning them to her neck.
"What?" Raven asked softly. She still held onto him, and she squeezed onto his hands even harder, fearing what he might say. "You can tell me."
"I hate the man that killed my parents even more than I hate Slade."
Raven shouldn't have been surprised by that information, but still, hearing it aloud; to hear Dick admit something like that. It was something she wasn't prepared for. Her emotions showed on her face, and Dick didn't notice.
But Raven could understand.
Even after everything Slade had done, after every crime he had committed, and all the lives he had ruined and all his schemes to destroy the city; he had never killed anyone they had loved. They suspected Slade might have murdered many people in the past, but so far their records showed nothing of it.
"I understand," Raven told him.
That seemed to make Dick feel better. The anguish on his face seemed to relax into something gentler, but Raven could still feel the anguish of his emotions; the sharp edges of his soul turning in on himself and cutting at his heart.
Dick took a deep breath.
He held it for a moment before releasing it. His eyes drifted closed as he did so, and Raven relaxed her grip on his hand. Tears were still in his eyes, the wet streaks drying on his cheeks.
"Is that what you wanted to know?" Dick asked her. Raven could sense an edge in his voice. One that she wouldn't have noticed had she not been an empath.
"I…I don't think so. Dick, you're memories affected me so much after I was inside of your mind…I can only imagine what you…" She trailed off, not knowing what to say.
Her words were coming out all wrong. She wasn't the best at stating what she was feeling, and she hardly ever showed her emotions, but she was normally better than this.
Her tongue felt twisted…everything felt twisted.
"I'm sorry," Raven mumbled.
Now, Dick embraced her, pulling her into his arms and pressing his body up against hers. Raven didn't resist, but she didn't wrap her arms around him or embrace him like he did her.
Why had I bothered to talk about this? the voice in her head asked her once more. Because it was eating away at you, and it would have a lasting negative effect on you, should you have let it stay buried. The answer came immediately.
Raven knew what she needed then; she needed Dick to validate her. Validate her feelings and thoughts. She had gone through trauma; not as he had, but she had still endured pain and heartache just as powerful as he had.
She needed him to validate her now.
Raven wrapped her arms around Dick, so that he wouldn't pull away when she whispered the first words: "Your mind was not an easy place to be."
She felt Dick straining, trying to pull away from her so that he could look her in the face, but Raven held tight to him.
"It was traumatizing for me as well. You need to know that."
Now, she released him.
There was only pity in his eyes. Raven felt a bubble of anger start to rise in her chest, because she hated it when people pitied her. But she pushed it back down, easily subduing it, like she expertly did with all of her emotions that threatened her balance and peace of mind.
"I'm sorry," he said to her.
Raven needed more than that. She rubbed his hand; wouldn't that goad him to speak more?
"You're right. There is a lot wrong with me…"
"Your mind," Raven corrected, but then felt she shouldn't have said that.
Peoples' minds were pretty much their entire being, even in the flesh shell of their body. She had said the same thing, admitted something she knew would hurt him.
But hadn't she been hurting him all this time?
Dick suddenly figured out what she wanted, and said to her, "I know what you went through–-in me–-was bad for you. I feel for you. But it will pass." Was that enough to console her? Dick wondered.
Judging by the look on her face, he thought, No.
"I know you're feeling bad, and your most likely in a mess right now. I know you're going through a rough time right now. I'll try to help however I can." That did console her.
Relief graced both of their faces.
"Dick," Raven said, after a long silence.
"Hmm?" he asked.
"Tell me something good about your parents."
Raven hoped her request wasn't crossing any boundaries. Even without looking at him, she felt the texture of his emotions sliding into her skin and into her veins. He was a bit shocked, a bit off-put, but then a sad acceptance washed over him.
"They loved animals," Dick said awkwardly.
Raven waited for him to say more. Waited and waited. She wanted to hear more than that, but if Dick wanted to say nothing more, she would accept that. She would do what everyone had to do sometime in their life: she would deal with it.
"Anything more?" came her timid, quiet voice.
Dick thought.
"They actually named the baby elephants at the circus," he said. His voice wasn't wavering, but it was low. His mind was far off, lost in thought, so it was if his body wasn't fully here in the present. His voice was coming from some far off place in the past.
"And later on, when I could talk, I got to name some of the elephants. It was my mom who taught me not to be scared of them."
He paused, thinking of more good memories about them.
"I took my first steps on solid ground, but after I had mastered walking, dad put me up on a tightrope. I fell, a lot, and I would cry each and every time. But he would pick me up, kiss me and my bruises, and tell me to try again. I kept trying, because he always smiled and told me how good I was. I got the hang of it, eventually."
Raven's hand rested on his shoulder. Dick stared down at the ground; a blank canvas for his eyes so that his mind could roam. All the way back to those years.
"My mom would cook with the clowns. The clowns were scary to me, but once they took off their clothes and makeup, they were nice. I liked them when they were people and not clowns. When I told mom about this, she gave me a pat on the shoulder and said that she was scared of clowns too.
"I was the youngest performer in the circus. Both mom and dad had waited so long for me to do anything, because they were so scared I'd fall and break my neck or something…kinda ironic…"
Dick turned back to Raven, meeting her eyes with a challenge. A challenge that was for her to handle what he was about to tell her, if she could handle all that he had lost and felt. He challenged her to listen, and see through his eyes and feel his heart one more time.
"Do you know how high up they were when they fell?"
Raven shook her head, no.
"Seventy feet. More or less. All eyes were on them, the spotlight focused on them, and those spotlights followed them all the way down. All the way down to the ground. There were spotlights on my parents' dead bodies, and all the crowd watched them with gasps and horror."
Raven said nothing, so Dick continued.
"Seventy feet! Seventy fucking feet! They landed on their heads, broke their spines instantly!" He was yelling now.
"Stop!" Raven told him, clasping a hand over his mouth so that he would say no more. His words were hurting her, but they were hurting him more. She couldn't stand to watch him torture himself, for that was what he was doing.
He was a masochist; always wanting to rub salt into his wounds and then sweat through it. So many times it had been evident; in the way he fought, in his obsessiveness, in his determination to the point where it broke him.
And now this.
"Please, Dick. I know, I know. Stop doing this to yourself," Raven whispered.
Fire burned in his eyes, then quickly died. His anger replaced by sadness, and then Raven watched as even that disappeared. Replaced by an emptiness. For that was all that was left of him.
Raven didn't feel pity for him, because Raven was used to that nothingness herself. If she could feel like nothing, then he could too. It was that simple. It had to be. They had both hit rock bottom, and then in their quest to further their pain, started digging lower.
So let us be nothing together, Raven thought. We have a bond, a powerful bordering on terrifying bond. We'll both make it out of this…if we want to.
"Do you feel better now?" Dick asked.
"Do you?" Raven asked.
Dick thought about it for a moment, then made move to answer. He was going to answer honestly, sincerely, when he changed his mind. He huffed out the words he was about to say.
Then, "I asked you first."
"Dick," Raven said. Her expression hardened, only by a little bit. Letting him know this wasn't a game she was going to place.
Things felt beyond words right now-words of any kind of any language. There was nothing left to do or say. When their eyes met, they exchanged everything that they wanted the other to know. It was if Raven was within Dick's mind once more, filing through his memory and seeing through his eyes and matching his heartbeat and breath once more.
That was the only thing that felt nice.
Standing up, Dick said, "I'm going to bed now. Don't care if it's early." He left his mask on the ground.
"Would you like some company?" Raven asked him. She didn't really want to be alone right now.
Dick didn't want to be alone either. "Yes. I would like some company."
Raven followed him away.