"Always remember the difference between pain and fear, Robin." The rich voice echoed in his head. "Pain is palpable, tangible… fear is optional."
"What if… I'm so scared that it hurts!" He heard his younger self reply, voice full of youth and innocence that had long since vanished from his now darkened tenor.
The silence that followed reverberated ominously in his mind, the silence so loud that even the frantic thump of his heart submitted to it, before the mature voice uttered a final, parting phrase:
"You'll find out some day."
Robin was not scared. He couldn't be scared. His role as the focused one, the unrelenting one, the infallible one, the leader, allowed no room for such petty, useless emotions. Every cell in his brain was needed to focus on his goal, including the ones currently occupied with the chilling sensation that he had suppressed his entire life.
Water dripped slowly from some unseen crevice within the dank corridor he found himself in. More unnerving than the locale was the three assorted pairs of eyes, whose focus on him was steely and unbroken.
They want orders, Robin told himself. Give them orders. But his tongue found no words; his mind provided not even the faintest glint of a solution. The light that before had always been visible to him had suddenly extinguished itself, leaving him adrift in a looming tunnel.
"Hey, Rob, are you okay?" A voice shook Robin from the temporary asylum his thoughts provided him.
"Did you hear me?" Beast Boy, he identified. "I said I think we should split up. They could have taken her anywhere in here."
They. They. Robin's brain was suddenly engulfed in flames. They would pay. They would be found. They should be the ones afraid. But not even the blaze of unrefined anger could incinerate the plaguing fear that still resided within him.
"Right, right. Split up, yeah," he managed, and as if a switch had been flicked immediately commenced with a list of assignments for his teammates, who willingly made their respective ways deeper into the shadows of the desecrate warehouse.
Robin himself searched for a stairwell into the basement and, upon the discovery of one, unswervingly plunged into the thick blackness below. The basement stunk of gasoline and mold, and the air was so heavy that he considered reaching for the ventilator hidden in the lining of the boot on his left foot.
Two emergency knives. One smoke pellet. One emergency radio signaler. Two painkilling pills. He itemized the other utilities kept in his left boot as he delved through the basement. Lists always made him feel better, helped to calm his thoughts. They were concrete, surefire… tangible. Lists were like pain.
The darkness, on the other hand, was fear. Ever changing, ethereal, and unknown. Worst of all was it's consuming nature. It dominated the senses, established new, lower limits for those trapped within it. It dampened ones ability to function correctly. Yes, darkness was very similar to fear.
BANG.
A split second after hearing the uproar Robin was wrapped around one of the rafters lining the ceiling, thumb at the ready on the trigger to deploy his staff. His eyes strained to make out the root of the noise. It seemed as if part of the ceiling had given way and collapsed into the basement, bringing a small dark shape with it.
"Raven." He sighed with relief and loosed his tightened shoulders, jumping down from the support and making his way over to his teammate. "You alright?"
"Perfect." Raven stood and shrugged her cloak back up and over her face. "Cyborg made it over that same spot just fine, so I assumed it was safe for me, too. He must have weakened the beams."
As if on queue, a blue light suddenly flooded down from the fresh hole in the ceiling.
"Hey Rae! Can you hear me?" Cyborg's deep voice boomed down from the floor above.
"She's fine!" Robin replied. "I'm here too. Just keep looking up there!"
The light switched off and the pair fell silent until the thud of footsteps could no longer be heard. Robin glanced at Raven, whose wise gaze fell upon him like a bird of prey.
"I'm good at reading the emotions of others." Her words were piercing in the otherwise taciturn room. Robin turned away.
"Yeah… I know."
"It's not your fault," she continued. "These are just trivial thieves. They didn't single her out; they just wanted one of us for leverage. It could have been any of us."
"It shouldn't have been that way." Robin ran a gloved hand through his unruly black hair, and quickly added 'get haircut' to his mental 'To Do' list. "I was being careless. I barged in here thinking this would be an easy job. I didn't even try to be careful." He turned back to Raven. "My job is to keep us all safe. Starfire isn't safe. It's my fault."
Rather than rebuking, Raven fell in behind Robin, who quickly took up his search through the quarters of the basement once more.
Minutes passed in silence. Doors leading to empty rooms were opened and closed. Without any leads, the cold sensation began trickling into Robin's mind once more. Carefully executed movements became frantic, once steady hands began to shake. Despite Raven's continued presence, he began to once again feel desolate.
"Robin."
The sound of his name glanced off his back like a ball thrown at the side of a building: unnoticed. He opened another door long enough only to check its contents before slamming it closed with such force that it came off of its rusted hinges.
"Robin."
"What?!" In swirl of polymerized titanium cape a frenzied Robin came to lock eyes with Raven, who maintained her solemn complexion.
"First of all, calm down." Raven tilted her hood back and approached him. Robin watched her come near before taking a deep breath, filling his lungs with the putrid air lingering in the basement, and releasing a heavy sigh.
"I'm sorry, Raven."
"Being afraid is not a crime," she said as she placed a hand on his tensed shoulder. "I know you may have been told otherwise, but there comes a time when you have to stray from who you've been taught to be in order to find out who you really are."
"I'm not afraid," he responded defiantly. Raven shook her head.
"No, you are afraid… I know you are. I feel your fear."
"I can't be afraid. I have a mission to accomplish. Fear is a selfish, worthless emo-"
"But that's where you're wrong!" Raven cut her leader off. Robin, abashed by her uncharacteristic upsurge, fell mute. "Are you afraid of being hurt?"
"No, I just sai-"
"Are you afraid of Starfire being hurt?"
Silence.
"You're not afraid for yourself, you're afraid for us, the people who you consider yourself responsible for. You must learn the difference. Do you realize that by focusing so much on repressing your fear that you're actually becoming a detriment to this mission, and in turn jeopardizing Starfire?"
Her words cut him like a blade. A serrated one.
Raven saw the sudden pain of comprehension in his face and softened her voice again.
"There's still time. Come on."
Suddenly, the two of them heard wild footsteps around the hole Raven had fallen out of.
"Hey! HelllooooOOooo? Beast Boy to bird brains!" A green head peeked out from above the hole. "HEY! Cyborg's got a trail up here, we need you guys!"
Robin watched Beast Boy's head disappear before glancing at Raven once more. He was unable to articulately offer his thanks to her, so instead he simply inclined his head slightly before firing a line launcher up through the hole and swinging away.
Raven shook her head before following. Since when did I become a therapist?