…And my dismal "Cy-fic Revolution" plays on and on…
I did Flaws – a Cyborg-centric one-shot from Robin's P.O.V – got the grand total of six reviews for it, and heard nothing else. Well, I can't make people love Cyborg; and perhaps Flaws was, admittedly, quite boring. It wasn't really about… well, anything… It was basically; blahblahblah Cyborg, blahblahblah Cyborg, Cyborg blahblahblah…
So I won't put you through that again; Robin spouting a monologue about why Cy is such a valuable member of the team.
Oh no.
I'm trying a different tack this time.
I've only ever found one other RobinxCyborg slash fic on here; it's called Learn by Icarus Was Pushed – it's six lines long and very good, although very stylized. It's probably not everyone's thing. And there's another one which I quite like called Pettins; it's not actually slash, but I think that was its original intention. It's good, but complicated to understand. It's not unlike Flaws in the way that it doesn't seem to really be about anything.
Anyway…
Share the love, people! Cyborg is awesome!
A short two-part re-write of Season Two episode Winner Take All, hence its "original" title…
Winner Take All: Pt I
It had started as a simple card game. Just the five of them; another casual day at Titans Tower. Terra, the new sixth member of their team, had not deigned to join them in their game.
So they had played.
Robin had won.
Until Cyborg had trumped him. Beaten him with that "one-in-a-million wild card that defeated all others".
Winner take all.
The Boy Wonder had not been best pleased.
And then, just as he had heatedly demanded a rematch, they had been summoned by the Master of Games to here; an alternate dimension, presumably.
More games to compete in. To win.
Robin and Cyborg had both won their matches, along with Robin's newfound friend/clone Speedy and Wildebeest. Beast Boy had lost his, and had subsequently "vanished" from the game.
The Master had promised sincerely that the losers had been returned home safely, and that had been a satisfactory enough answer for Robin. As much as he wished for Beast Boy's safety, his main goal now was winning this competition; the Tournament of Heroes. To win would be to be crowned the Champion of Champions. The greatest of all young heroes.
Stick that, Cyborg…
Those were the pleasantries that littered his mind as he slept on his back on top of the bed with which he had been provided. The rooms were little and dark, and they had each been forbidden to leave their quarters during the night. Which was ok with Robin; he was tired anyway and needed to recharge for tomorrow's victory. He was sprawled on top of the covers, fully clothed, one hand flat on his stomach; his other arm was draped across his forehead, as though he was acting Romeo and Juliet in his sleep…
"Yo, Robin! Wake up! It's me!"
Cyborg's distracted voice, raised as loud as he dared, rang through his door, rousing him from his comfortable slumber. Disgruntled, Robin sat up, rubbing at his hair and messing it up even more. Cyborg knocked at his door again and he slid off the bed and drowsily made his way over to it, opening it with a yawn. It took a second or two for him to process that Cyborg was standing there right outside his door, his voice dropped to a low frantic tone.
"Cyborg?" Robin murmured sleepily, blinking blearily at him. "It's late. And I don't think we're supposed to be out of our-"
"Can't sleep," Cyborg interrupted him. He raised his metallic forearm, the glass panel showing BUSY in crimson lettering across it. "I tried calling home to make sure Beast Boy's okay, but I can't get a signal through…"
Robin smiled sleepily again.
"We're in an alternate dimension; kind of outside your calling plan."
"Um…" Cyborg seemed floored.
"I'm sure he's fine," Robin rattled on, eager to get back to bed. "The Master said all the losers were sent home, safe and sound."
"Yeah, I know," Cyborg agreed with a nod. He looked around a little, seeming wary. "But I've just got a bad feeling. There's something weird about this game…"
Robin seemed to perk up a little at the mention of a conspiracy theory. With a flick of his green-gloved hand he neatened up his black hair and stepped out into the hallway.
"I guess it couldn't hurt to have a look around," he said decisively.
Cyborg nodded and Robin walked ahead a few steps.
And then he stopped dead, his entire body freezing up, his arms rigid at his sides.
"Hold on…" He looked over his shoulder at his team-mate, his masked eyes narrowed suspiciously. "I know what you're doing…"
Cyborg blinked in surprise, thrown.
"What am I doing?" He asked, his tone a puzzled one.
Robin turned to him fully, his expression still one of great suspicion.
"You're trying to trick me again," he accused, "like you did in the card game."
Cyborg's brow creased into a perplexed frown.
"I am?"
"Sure," Robin affirmed, his tone slightly malicious now. "We'll go "investigate", and be up all night, and find nothing. Then you'll recharge your batteries in fifteen minutes while I get no sleep."
Cyborg was aghast at the accusation.
"Say what?"
Robin raised his chin slightly in defiance – or perhaps it was just impertinence; Cyborg couldn't tell – as he continued;
"When Round Two starts, I'll be fighting fatigue, and you'll be that much closer to winning the prize."
Irritated by his competitive friend, Cyborg felt his temper rise slightly.
"No, man, for real! I'm just worried about BB…"
Robin's mouth twisted in a nasty little smirk.
"Come on," Cyborg fumed; Robin could really try his patience at times.
And that smirk was so infuriating; Cyborg really hated to see that arrogant expression on the younger boy's face. It made his entire round, pale face a smug target that Cyborg often itched to punch. And even as another guy he could admit that Robin was nice-looking, and that smirk somehow… It distorted his features, certainly, but somehow made him even…
…more handsome. In a really weird, horrible way.
Which made it all the more irritating.
Cyborg shivered and got his bearings, looking down at the younger teenager with a hard look in his single human eye.
"Winning isn't-"
"Riiiiight," Robin interrupted, beginning to back through his door. He attempted to close it in Cyborg's face – oh, how the half-robot wanted to smack him one – but Cyborg stuck his large metal-encased foot in the gap, stopping it.
Robin's expression flattened out, his smirk dropping to a tight line.
"Cyborg." He kicked slightly at Cyborg's foot, not hurting him the slightest; well, he couldn't. Cyborg was… metal… "Cyborg, I want to sleep. I'm tired."
"Your scheming little beauty nap can wait, Robin," Cyborg replied icily. "I am not trying to sabotage you, for petesakes!"
Robin snorted, looking up at him again.
"Then just accept what the Master told us," he said, his voice sounding weary now. "Beast Boy is fine, Cyborg. I bet he's on the Gamestation right now, trashing our high scores."
Cyborg's dark face creased into a frown again.
"You're probably right, but…"
"Of course I'm right." Robin leaned against the edge of his door, a sleepy smile on his face. "What do you think the Master did with him? Ate him?"
Cyborg smiled grimly.
"It wouldn't surprise me…"
"What?"
"Nothing…" Cyborg pressed a button on his forearm, studying the panel intently again. Robin watched drowsily as the word BUSY flashed up again.
Cyborg looked up at him once again.
"Look, let me try one more time," he said. "Can I try linking it up to your communicator? I might get a better feed…"
Robin groaned under his breath and rubbed at his forehead.
"Cyborg, please, can't it wait until morning?"
"No!" Cyborg was beginning to lose his temper for real now. "For god's sake, Robin, just give me your damn communicator! I wanna check on BB, and I'm also sure the girls will be worried about us. I'm sure Beast Boy wasn't too informative; he tends not to be able to verbally communicate very well when he's on the Gamestation. That's if he even got home."
Robin sighed and leaned one arm against the doorframe, propping his tired form up against it, as he went to the back of his belt with his other hand. He felt around for a bit; then sighed again, dipping his head in a show of disconcertment.
Cyborg's stomach gave an unpleasant lurch.
"Don't tell me you don't have it…"
Robin looked up, his lips pursed in irritation.
"Of course I have it," he replied snippily. "I always have it. I just forgot I took it off my belt." He leaned back away from the door, one hand still gripping the frame. "It's on the floor in there somewhere…" He gestured vaguely with his free hand. "It was digging into me," he explained, looking back at Cyborg.
"Well, could you go get it?" Cyborg asked, although it was really more of a statement.
He felt as though he was talking to a child; true, Robin was younger than him, but only by a few years. And although he certainly wasn't stupid – who was he kidding? Robin was freakin' Smart Aleck of the Year Award Winner. And several-time winner, at that – Cyborg sometimes got the feeling that the brain was shutting down under that shining crown of spiky jet black hair. As smart as he was – and Robin was very smart – the Boy Wonder could also be unbelievably slow at times too.
He was being slow on the uptake now.
"Well, I…" Robin seemed confused, leaning back into his room again. "I suppose I…" He looked at Cyborg once again, looking bewildered. "Maybe you should come in, then…"
He opened the door fully and stepped back against it, allowing Cyborg's large frame to enter. Once his friend was in the room he quickly shut the door again; paranoid now that they would be caught sneaking into each other's rooms and disqualified from the competition.
"Yikes, it's dark in here…" Cyborg flipped up his built-in torch from his left shoulder-plate.
"Yeah, that's 'cause I was asleep, Cy…" Robin shielded his eyes from the unwelcome glare of the torch as he made his way across the room in search of his discarded T-communicator.
Cyborg shone the torch around to help him, following him slowly across the floor.
"There it is!"
"Yeah…"
Robin scooped it up off the floor and tossed it to Cyborg, who deftly caught it in one large metal hand. The half-robot wasted no time in flipping it open and rewiring it to his own built-in communication system.
Meanwhile, Robin could feel his tiredness beginning to catch up with him all over again, and he found his way back to the bed and sat down on the edge. When even that became too much effort, he flopped onto his side and curled his legs up onto the mattress too, linking his hands together comfortably at chest-level. He idly watched Cyborg attempt to make a call to Titans Tower one more time for a while, and then finally his eyes slid closed against his will and before long he was asleep once again.
With a sigh, Cyborg snapped the communicator shut and held it tight in his metal palm. The wires folded back into his arm and the glass casing snapped back into place.
"Didn't work," he said, looking up and shining his torch around again. The beam ran over Robin's curled up form on his bed and Cyborg frowned, wondering if he was asleep or not.
"Robin?"
When the boy didn't answer, Cyborg approached him, the beam narrowing the closer he got.
Yeah, Cyborg could see now that the Titans' leader was fast asleep, curled comfortably on his side, his cape fanning out behind him like wings. One heavy-booted foot was hooked neatly over the other and his gloved hands were clasped together, as though beseeching in the face of decadence even in his sleep. A crime-fighter through and through was Robin. Well, he'd been trained by the most professional costumed vigilante of all; it figured.
Cyborg himself had never met Batman; nor had he ever actually seen him in person, even in all the times he had been in Gotham City. Many believed him to be little more than an urban myth, designed to frighten criminals, like scary stories to make little kids go to bed. But Cyborg knew that Batman was real, even though he had never had any first-hand visual proof; the Dark Knight's ex-sidekick was lying asleep on the bed in front of him.
Proof enough?
And because of that, Cyborg knew where Robin got a lot of his personality traits from. That infuriating, irritating, ambitious drive to win constantly. The know-it-all attitude. The fighting expertise. The way of folding his arms, of narrowing his eyes, the smirk, the arrogance, the determinedness, the ruthlessness he sometimes showed… It all came from Batman. Robin was his sidekick; his apprentice, his protégé. Everything Robin knew had been taught to him by Batman. Of all five Titans, only Robin was the true superhero among them. The true masked vigilante. The true detective.
Only he knew what he was doing – really – and that was why the rest of them followed his lead.
Because he knew.
He had been trained by the best.
And in terms of his own field of expertise, Robin was the best.
Robin the Boy Wonder.
And he knew that too.
Cyborg sank to a crouch beside the bed, watching the small boy breathe rhythmically. Just watching him was beginning to fascinate the older teen somewhat.
Because aside from being the only one on the team who was actually a proper superhero – not a superpowered tag-along like the rest of them were – Robin was also the only one who was fully human. One hundred per cent human.
Normal.
Cyborg could barely remember what that felt like.
Cyborg had very little of his real, original body left. Only part of his face, neck and his upper arms were still that smooth, silky chocolate color; his real skin.
The others all had their real skin. But Robin fascinated him the most; he always had.
Because the others weren't normal. Beast Boy was green and slightly furry. Starfire's skin glowed with an unearthly golden tan; it was beautiful, and it suited her very much, but it wasn't normal in Cyborg's books. And Raven was… well, so pale she looked almost gray.
And then there was Robin. Normal. Human. Caucasian, where Cyborg himself was obviously much darker, but they were alike just the same.
They weren't green. Or orange. Or gray.
And the hair. Robin had shining ebony hair, fine and silky and grown into long layers that framed his pale face when he had just washed it and hadn't yet gelled it back into his trademark crown of spikes.
Cyborg had had black hair too. Once. Before his accident.
And the eyes. Blue. Cyborg's one remaining eye was clear icy blue. He had never seen Robin's eyes – always hidden behind that mask – but he knew they were blue too. Robin had told him once, one time they were just sitting talking together. It had slipped out accidentally; Cyborg had been able to tell that it was one thing Robin hadn't intended to tell him. His pale cheeks had flushed with pink and he had cleared his throat and looked away. Fidgeted with the broken birdarang that had been on the table. The conversation had drifted; they had talked of other pointless things. The T-car. Super Ninja Fury. Cyborg's latest-planned prank on poor hapless Beast Boy.
But Robin hadn't been truly comfortable again that day. Cyborg had known it; Robin felt that he had said too much.
Too much about what?
Had he felt Cyborg had gained something over him? Gotten a weapon from his careless speech? Something to beat him with?
Winner take all…
Cyborg would never do that. He cared for Robin too much to want to hurt him, however much he annoyed him. Besides, his anger now at Robin had faded. Cyborg never stayed angry at anyone for very long.
And merely knowledge of Robin's eye-color was no weapon, in truth.
Robin shifted slightly; squirmed. Overwhelmed with a sudden… strange feeling… Cyborg felt the urge to touch him. To feel his warm soft skin beneath his cold steel fingers, alive with artificial nerve endings.
He fingertips brushed Robin's arm; his skin visible between the emerald sleeve of his crimson shirt, and the pointed edge of his glove. Robin squirmed again; he was a light sleeper, and could feel the touches, even if he could not comprehend them. He rolled over slightly, ending up on his stomach, his cape spreading a black sheet that obscured him from his shoulders right down to the backs of his upper thighs. One hand remained underneath him, pressing against his flat stomach, while his other moved to his forehead again, using it like a pillow as he lay face down on the mattress.
Cyborg's mouth suddenly felt very dry. Watching Robin sleep made him feel… weird… It made him want to touch him. To feel him; feel his warm skin. Feel his humanness. Cyborg had not been in another's warm embrace since like, forever…
Not that he… not that he wanted Robin like that. But he wanted to touch him even so. Like a child with a forbidden "don't-touch-that-ever" porcelain doll on a shelf. He wanted to because he knew he shouldn't. Because he couldn't.
Because it was wrong of him to think like this. Robin was another boy; he was the leader; he was asleep, so technically Cyborg was committing voyeurism – of sorts – upon him; and just… everything. Robin was not like him. Even if there was a homosexuality about it, Robin would never…
Cyborg shivered and looked miserably down at his metal hands. How could anyone – not even Robin, but anyone – ever love him? Ever want to touch him, and be touched in return? Touched by cold, metal, unfeeling hands. No, not unfeeling; artificially-feeling. Cyborg could feel things, but not… not in that same sensual way. The technology sent a message to his brain about the feel and temperature of something – just like a real nervous system – but it wasn't the same.
Not really.
Robin was so perfect in contrast to him. He would never want him; not when he could have Starfire. When he could have any girl he wanted.
Any boy he wanted, if he liked.
But he still ached to touch him.
So he dared; he hoped that Robin didn't wake up. Because he would not know how to explain. He would not know what to say, how to justify himself. He would not know how to make his friend understand.
He started at the back of his neck, just running his hand lightly down Robin's spine. Following the curve of it right between his shoulder blades and down into the dip of the small of his back. His fingers trailed over the bump of Robin's utility belt and then, before he even realized it, Cyborg had his hand on Robin's ass. He tensed, biting at his bottom lip.
Whoa. I have my hand on Robin's butt. You've either gotta be real privileged to have your hand on Robin's ass; or he's gotta be asleep, like he is now…
It was really tight. That was all Cyborg could think; mortified and annoyed at himself, but thinking it all the same. He had a really great butt. Cyborg had always suspected that, whenever he caught a green glimpse of it when Robin's cape was flying behind him the midst of a fray; but now he could feel it. Little and smooth and – whoa – really tight.
Cyborg thought of his own cold metal body and felt very depressed. No wonder the fan-girls were always swooning over Robin. No wonder they never looked at him.
He made the mistake of giving Robin a quick, almost-absent little squeeze, and Robin snapped awake. Cyborg snatched his metal hand back, red creeping up his dark face.
Okay. Bad.
Really bad…
Mwa ha ha ha ha… Ah, it's so silly… this isn't actually supposed to be serious, by the way. I mean, Robin and Cy talk seriously – it's not one whole big joke, and there is some sad "Cy-not-being-really-human-anymore" stuff in there – but the actual story itself is something of a spoof. How hilarious Season Two would have turned had they done something like this instead…
Cackle…
Another chapter whenever I finish this thing. Maybe tomorrow, maybe not… It was originally supposed to be one whole thing – literally just a one-shot – but it was getting too long, so I cut it in half and now I just need to finish it off. The "second chapter", as it were. Don't be traumatized; it's only my sick little idea of a joke… And I couldn't be bothered to proof-read it so sorry for any mistakes; I did it at two in the morning after coming back from a pirate murder mystery party which was actually much better than I thought it would be… Although why it was a pirate murder mystery is beyond me…
Anyway…
Cy-borg! Cy-borg! Cy-borg!…
(Repeat as necessary…)
- RobinRocks x